PAPPELMEISTER [Puzzled, to MENDEL]
Meshuggah! Vat means meshuggah? Crazy?
MENDEL [Half-smiling]
You've struck it. She says David doesn't know enough to go in out of the rain.
[General laughter.]
DAVID [Rising]
But it's stopped raining, Herr Pappelmeister. You don't want your umbrella.
[General laughter.]
PAPPELMEISTER
So.
[Shuts it down.]
MENDEL
Herein, Mutter.
[He pushes FRAU QUIXANO'S somewhat shrinking form into the
elevator. KATHLEEN follows, then MENDEL.] Herr Pappelmeister, we are all your grateful servants.
[PAPPELMEISTER bows; the gates close, the elevator descends.]
DAVID
And you won't think me ungrateful for running away-you know my thanks are too deep to be spoken.
PAPPELMEISTER
And zo are my congratulations!
DAVID
Then, don't speak them, please.
PAPPELMEISTER
But you must come and speak to all de people in America who undershtand music.
DAVID [Half-smiling]
To your four connoisseurs?
[Seriously] Oh, please! I really could not meet strangers, especially musical vampires.
PAPPELMEISTER [Half-startled, half-angry]
Vampires? Oh, come!
DAVID
Voluptuaries, then-rich, idle æsthetes to whom art and life have no connection, parasites who suck our music--
PAPPELMEISTER [Laughs good-naturedly]
Ha! Ha! Ha! Vait till you hear vat dey say.
DAVID
I will wait as long as you like.
PAPPELMEISTER
Den I like to tell you now.
[He roars with mischievous laughter.] Ha! Ha! Ha! De first vampire says it is a great vork, but poorly performed.
DAVID [Indignant]
Oh!
PAPPELMEISTER
De second vampire says it is a poor vork, but greatly performed.
DAVID [Disappointed]
Oh!
PAPPELMEISTER
De dird vampire says it is a great vork greatly performed.
DAVID [Complacently]
Ah!
PAPPELMEISTER
And de fourz vampire says it is a poor vork poorly performed.
DAVID [Angry and disappointed]
Oh!
[Then smiling] You see you have to go by the people after all.
PAPPELMEISTER [Shakes head, smiling]
Nein. Ven critics disagree-I agree mit mineself. Ha! Ha! Ha!
[He slaps DAVID on the back.] A great vork dat vill be even better performed next time! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ten dousand congratulations.
[He seizes DAVID'S hand and grips it heartily.]
DAVID
Don't! You hurt me.
PAPPELMEISTER [Dropping DAVID'S hand,-misunderstanding]
Pardon! I forgot your vound.
DAVID
No-no-what does my wound matter? That never stung half so much as these clappings and congratulations.
PAPPELMEISTER [Puzzled but solicitous]
I knew your nerves vould be all shnapping like fiddle-shtrings. Oh, you cheniuses!
[Smiling.] You like neider de clappings nor de criticisms,-was?
DAVID
They are equally-irrelevant. One has to wrestle with one's own art, one's own soul, alone!
PAPPELMEISTER [Patting him soothingly]
I am glad I did not let you blay in Part Two.
DAVID
Dear Herr Pappelmeister! Don't think I don't appreciate all your kindnesses-you are almost a father to me.
PAPPELMEISTER
And you disobey me like a son. Ha! Ha! Ha! Vell, I vill make your excuses to de-vampires. Ha! Ha! Also, David.
[He lays his hand again affectionately on DAVID'S right
shoulder.] Lebe wohl! I must go down to my popular classics.
[Gloomily] Truly a going down! Was?
DAVID [Smiling]
Oh, it isn't such a descent as all that. Uncle said you ought to have given them comic opera.
PAPPELMEISTER [Shuddering convulsively]
Comic opera.... Ouf!
[He goes toward the elevator and rings the bell. Then he turns
to DAVID.] Vat vas dat vord, David?
DAVID
What word?
PAPPELMEISTER [Groping for it]
Mega-megasshu....
DAVID [Puzzled]
Megasshu?
[The elevator comes up; the gates open.]
PAPPELMEISTER
Megusshah! You know.
[He taps his forehead with his umbrella.]
DAVID
Ah, meshuggah!
PAPPELMEISTER [Joyously]
Ja, meshuggah!
[He gives a great roar of laughter.] Ha! Ha! Ha!
[He waves umbrella at DAVID.] Well, don't be ... meshuggah.
[He steps into the elevator.] Ha! Ha! Ha!
[The gates close, and it descends with his laughter.]
DAVID [After a pause]
Perhaps I am ... meshuggah.
[He walks up and down moodily, approaches the parapet at back.] Dropping down is indeed natural.
[He looks over.] How it tugs and drags at one!
[He moves back resolutely and shakes his head.] That would be even a greater descent than Pappelmeister's to comic opera. One must fly upward-somehow.
[He drops on the chair that MENDEL dried. A faint music steals
up and makes an accompaniment to all the rest of the scene. ] Ah! the popular classics!
[His head sinks on a little table. The elevator comes up again,
but he does not raise his head. VERA, pale and sad, steps out and
walks gently over to him; stands looking at him with maternal
pity; then decides not to disturb him and is stealing away when
suddenly he looks up and perceives her and springs to his feet
with a dazed glad cry.] Vera!
VERA [Turns, speaks with grave dignity]
Miss Andrews has charged me to convey to you the heart-felt thanks and congratulations of the Settlement.
DAVID [Frozen]
Miss Andrews is very kind.... I trust you are well.
VERA
Thank you, Mr. Quixano. Very well and very busy. So you'll excuse me.
[She turns to go.]
DAVID
Certainly.... How are your folks?
VERA [Turns her head]
They are gone back to Russia. And yours?
DAVID
You just saw them all.
VERA [Confused]
Yes-yes-of course-I forgot! Good-bye, Mr. Quixano.
DAVID
Good-bye, Miss Revendal.
[He drops back on the chair. VERA walks to the elevator, then
just before ringing turns again.]
VERA
I shouldn't advise you to sit here in the damp.
DAVID
My uncle dried the chair.
[Bitterly] Curious how every one is concerned about my body and no one about my soul.
VERA
Because your soul is so much stronger than your body. Why, think! It has just lifted a thousand people far higher than this roof-garden.
DAVID
Please don't you congratulate me, too! That would be too ironical.
VERA [Agitated, coming nearer]
Irony, Mr. Quixano? Please, please, do not imagine there is any irony in my congratulations.
DAVID
The irony is in all the congratulations. How can I endure them when I know what a terrible failure I have made!
VERA
Failure! Because the critics are all divided? That is the surest proof of success. You have produced something real and new.
DAVID
I am not thinking of Pappelmeister's connoisseurs-I am the only connoisseur
, the only one who knows. And every bar of my music cried "Failure! Failure!" It shrieked from the violins, blared from the trombones, thundered from the drums. It was written on all the faces--
VERA [Vehemently, coming still nearer]
Oh, no! no! I watched the faces-those faces of toil and sorrow, those faces from many lands. They were fired by your vision of their coming brotherhood, lulled by your dream of their land of rest. And I could see that you were right in speaking to the people. In some strange, beautiful, way the inner meaning of your music stole into all those simple souls--
DAVID [Springing up]
And my soul? What of my soul? False to its own music, its own mission, its own dream. That is what I mean by failure, Vera. I preached of God's Crucible, this great new continent that could melt up all race-differences and vendettas, that could purge and re-create, and God tried me with his supremest test. He gave me a heritage from the Old World, hate and vengeance and blood, and said, "Cast it all into my Crucible." And I said, "Even thy Crucible cannot melt this hate, cannot drink up this blood." And so I sat crooning over the dead past, gloating over the old blood-stains-I, the apostle of America, the prophet of the God of our children. Oh-how my music mocked me! And you-so fearless, so high above fate-how you must despise me!
VERA
I? Ah no!
DAVID
You must. You do. Your words still sting. Were it seven seas between us, you said, our love must cross them. And I-I who had prated of seven seas--
VERA
Not seas of blood-I spoke selfishly, thoughtlessly. I had not realised that crimson flood. Now I see it day and night. O God!
[She shudders and covers her eyes.]
DAVID
There lies my failure-to have brought it to your eyes, instead of blotting it from my own.
VERA
No man could have blotted it out.
DAVID
Yes-by faith in the Crucible. From the blood of battlefields spring daisies and buttercups. In the divine chemistry the very garbage turns to roses. But in the supreme moment my faith was found wanting. You came to me-and I thrust you away.
VERA
I ought not to have come to you.... I ought not to have come to you to-day. We must not meet again.
DAVID
Ah, you cannot forgive me!
VERA
Forgive? It is I that should go down on my knees for my father's sin.
[She is half-sinking to her knees. He stops her by a gesture and
a cry.]
DAVID
No! The sins of the fathers shall not be visited on the children.
VERA
My brain follows you, but not my heart. It is heavy with the sense of unpaid debts-debts that can only cry for forgiveness.
DAVID
You owe me nothing--
VERA
But my father, my people, my country....
[She breaks down. Recovers herself.] My only consolation is, you need nothing.
DAVID [Dazed]
I-need-nothing?
VERA
Nothing but your music ... your dreams.
DAVID
And your love? Do I not need that?
VERA [Shaking her head sadly]
No.
DAVID
You say that because I have forfeited it.
VERA
It is my only consolation, I tell you, that you do not need me. In our happiest moments a suspicion of this truth used to lacerate me. But now it is my one comfort in the doom that divides us. See how you stand up here above the world, alone and self-sufficient. No woman could ever have more than the second place in your life.
DAVID
But you have the first place, Vera!
VERA [Shakes her head again]
No-I no longer even desire it. I have gotten over that womanly weakness.
DAVID
You torture me. What do you mean?
VERA
What can be simpler? I used to be jealous of your music, your prophetic visions. I wanted to come first-before them all! Now, dear David, I only pray that they may fill your life to the brim.
DAVID
But they cannot.
VERA
They will-have faith in yourself, in your mission-good-bye.
DAVID [Dazed]
You love me and you leave me?
VERA
What else can I do? Shall the shadow of Kishineff hang over all your years to come? Shall I kiss you and leave blood upon your lips, cling to you and be pushed away by all those cold, dead hands?
DAVID [Taking both her hands]
Yes, cling to me, despite them all, cling to me till all these ghosts are exorcised, cling to me till our love triumphs over death. Kiss me, kiss me now.
VERA [Resisting, drawing back]
I dare not! It will make you remember.
DAVID
It will make me forget. Kiss me.
[There is a pause of hesitation, filled up by the Cathedral
music from "Faust" surging up softly from below.]
VERA [Slowly]
I will kiss you as we Russians kiss at Easter-the three kisses of peace.
[She kisses him three times on the mouth as in ritual
solemnity.]
DAVID [Very calmly]
Easter was the date of the massacre-see! I am at peace.
VERA
God grant it endure!
[They stand quietly hand in hand.] Look! How beautiful the sunset is after the storm!
[DAVID turns. The sunset, which has begun to grow beautiful just
after VERA'S entrance, has now reached its most magnificent
moment; below there are narrow lines of saffron and pale gold,
but above the whole sky is one glory of burning flame.]
DAVID [Prophetically exalted by the spectacle]
It is the fires of God round His Crucible.
[He drops her hand and points downward.] There she lies, the great Melting Pot-listen! Can't you hear the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth
[He points east] -the harbour where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seething! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian,-black and yellow--
VERA [Softly, nestling to him]
Jew and Gentile--
DAVID
Yes, East and West, and North and South, the palm and the pine, the pole and the equator, the crescent and the cross-how the great Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall they all unite to build the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God. Ah, Vera, what is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem where all nations and races come to worship and look back, compared with the glory of America, where all races and nations come to labour and look forward!
[He raises his hands in benediction over the shining city. ] Peace, peace, to all ye unborn millions, fated to fill this giant continent-the God of our children give you Peace.
[An instant's solemn pause. The sunset is swiftly fading, and
the vast panorama is suffused with a more restful twilight, to
which the many-gleaming lights of the town add the tender poetry
of the night. Far back, like a lonely, guiding star, twinkles
over the darkening water the torch of the Statue of Liberty. From
below comes up the softened sound of voices and instruments
joining in "My Country, 'tis of Thee." The curtain falls
slowly.]
APPENDIX A
THE MELTING POT IN ACTION
ALIENS ADMITTED TO THE UNITED STATES IN THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30TH, 1913
African (black) 9,734
Armenian 9,554
Bohemian and Moravian 11,852
Bulgarian, Servian, Montenegrin 10,083
Chinese 3,487
Croatian and Slavonian 44,754
Cuban 6,121
Dalmatian, Bosnian, Herzegovinian 4,775
> Dutch and Flemish 18,746
East Indian 233
English 100,062
Finnish 14,920
French 26,509
German 101,764
Greek 40,933
Hebrew 105,826
Irish 48,103
Italian (north) 54,171
Italian (south) 264,348
Japanese 11,672
Korean 74
Lithuanian 25,529
Magyar 33,561
Mexican 15,495
Pacific Islander 27
Polish 185,207
Portuguese 14,631
Roumanian 14,780
Russian 58,380
Ruthenian (Russniak) 39,405
Scandinavian 51,650
Scotch 31,434
Slovak 29,094
Spanish 15,017
Spanish-American 3,409
Syrian 10,019
Turkish 2,132
Welsh 3,922
West Indian (except Cuban) 2,302
Other peoples 3,512
----
Total 1,427,227
APPENDIX B
THE POGROM
(I) A RUSSIAN ON ITS REASONS
[From The Nation, November 15, 1913]
It is now over thirty years since the crew of the sinking ship of Russian absolutism first tried this unworthy weapon to save their failing cause. This was when Plehve organised an anti-Semitic agitation and Jewish pogroms in 1883 in South Russia, where the Jews formed almost the only merchant class in the villages, and where the ignorant peasants, together with some crafty Russian tradesmen, had a natural grudge against them. The result was that the prevailing discontent of the masses was diverted against the Jews. A large public meeting of protest was organised at that time in the London Mansion House, the Lord Mayor taking the chair. English public opinion rightly appreciated the value of this criminal method of using Jews as scapegoats for political purposes. Now we see merely a further, and let us hope a final, development of the same tactics. They have been used on many occasions since 1883. One of the largest Jewish pogroms of the latest series in Kishineff in 1903 has been clearly traced to the same experienced hand of Plehve, when the passive attitude of the local administration and the military was explained by the presence in the town of a mysterious colonel of the Imperial Gendarmerie who arrived with secret orders and a large supply of pogrom literature from St. Petersburg, and who organised the scum of the town population for the purpose of looting and killing Jews.
The repulsive stories of further pogroms all over the country immediately after the issue of the constitutional manifesto of October 17, 1905, are fresh in the memory of the civilised world. At that time anti-Semitic doctrine was openly preached, not only against Jews, but against the whole constitutional and revolutionary upheaval. Pogroms against both were organised under the same pretext of saving the Tsar, the orthodoxy, and the Fatherland. Local police and military officials had secret orders to abstain from interference with the looting and murdering of Jews or "their hirelings." Processions of peaceful citizens and children were trampled down by the Cossack horses, and the Cossacks received formal thanks from high quarters for their excellent exploits....
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