Kiss me!
DAVID
I should feel the blood on my lips.
VERA
My love shall wipe it out.
DAVID
Love! Christian love!
[He unwinds her clinging arms; she sinks prostrate on the floor
as he rises.] For this I gave up my people-darkened the home that sheltered me-there was always a still, small voice at my heart calling me back, but I heeded nothing-only the voice of the butcher's daughter.
[Brokenly] Let me go home, let me go home.
[He looks lingeringly at VERA'S prostrate form, but overcoming
the instinct to touch and comfort her, begins tottering with
uncertain pauses toward the door leading to the hall.]
BARON [Extending his arms in relief and longing]
And here is your home, Vera!
[He raises her gradually from the floor; she is dazed, but
suddenly she becomes conscious of whose arms she is in, and
utters a cry of repulsion.]
VERA
Those arms reeking from that crimson river!
[She falls back.]
BARON [Sullenly]
Don't echo that babble. You came to these arms often enough when they were fresh from the battlefield.
VERA
But not from the shambles! You heard what he called you. Not soldier-butcher! Oh, I dared to dream of happiness after my nightmare of Siberia, but you-you--
[She breaks down for the first time in hysterical sobs. ]
BARON [Brokenly]
Vera! Little Vera! Don't cry! You stab me!
VERA
You thought you were ordering your soldiers to fire at the Jews, but it was my heart they pierced.
[She sobs on.]
BARON
... And my own.... But we will comfort each other. I will go to the Tsar myself-with my forehead to the earth-to beg for your pardon!... Come, put your wet face to little father's....
VERA [Violently pushing his face away]
I hate you! I curse the day I was born your daughter!
[She staggers toward the door leading to the interior. At the
same moment DAVID, who has reached the door leading to the hall,
now feeling subconsciously that VERA is going and that his last
reason for lingering on is removed, turns the door-handle. The
click attracts the BARON'S attention, he veers round.]
BARON [To DAVID]
Halt!
[DAVID turns mechanically. VERA drifts out through her door,
leaving the two men face to face. The BARON beckons to DAVID, who
as if hypnotised moves nearer. The BARON whips out his pistol,
slowly crosses to DAVID, who stands as if awaiting his fate. The
BARON hands the pistol to DAVID.] You were right!
[He steps back swiftly with a touch of stern heroism into the
attitude of the culprit at a military execution, awaiting the
bullet.] Shoot me!
DAVID [Takes the pistol mechanically, looks long and pensively at it as
with a sense of its irrelevance. Gradually his arm droops and lets
the pistol fall on the table, and there his hand touches a string
of his violin, which yields a little note. Thus reminded of it, he
picks up the violin, and as his fingers draw out the broken string
he murmurs] I must get a new string.
[He resumes his dragging march toward the door, repeating
maunderingly] I must get a new string.
[The curtain falls.]
Act IV
Saturday, July 4, evening. The Roof-Garden of the Settlement
House, showing a beautiful, far-stretching panorama of New York,
with its irregular sky-buildings on the left, and the harbour
with its Statue of Liberty on the right. Everything is wet and
gleaming after rain. Parapet at the back. Elevator on the right.
Entrance from the stairs on the left. In the sky hang heavy
clouds through which thin, golden lines of sunset are just
beginning to labour. DAVID is discovered on a bench, hugging his
violin-case to his breast, gazing moodily at the sky. A muffled
sound of applause comes up from below and continues with varying
intensity through the early part of the scene. Through it comes
the noise of the elevator ascending. MENDEL steps out and hurries
forward.
MENDEL
Come down, David! Don't you hear them shouting for you?
[He passes his hand over the wet bench.] Good heavens! You will get rheumatic fever!
DAVID
Why have you followed me?
MENDEL
Get up-everything is still damp.
DAVID [Rising, gloomily]
Yes, there's a damper over everything.
MENDEL
Nonsense-the rain hasn't damped your triumph in the least. In fact, the more delicate effects wouldn't have gone so well in the open air. Listen!
DAVID
Let them shout. Who told you I was up here?
MENDEL
Miss Revendal, of course.
DAVID [Agitated]
Miss Revendal? How should she know?
MENDEL [Sullenly]
She seems to understand your crazy ways.
DAVID [Passing his hand over his eyes]
Ah, you never understood me, uncle.... How did she look? Was she pale?
MENDEL
Never mind about Miss Revendal. Pappelmeister wants you-the people insist on seeing you. Nobody can quiet them.
DAVID
They saw me all through the symphony in my place in the orchestra.
MENDEL
They didn't know you were the composer as well as the first violin. Now Miss Revendal has told them.
[Louder applause.] There! Eleven minutes it has gone on-like for an office-seeker. You must come and show yourself.
DAVID
I won't-I'm not an office-seeker. Leave me to my misery.
MENDEL
Your misery? With all this glory and greatness opening before you? Wait till you're my age--
[Shouts of "QUIXANO!"] You hear! What is to be done with them?
DAVID
Send somebody on the platform to remind them this is the interval for refreshments!
MENDEL
Don't be cynical. You know your dearest wish was to melt these simple souls with your music. And now--
DAVID
Now I have only made my own stony.
MENDEL
You are right. You are stone all over-ever since you came back home to us. Turned into a pillar of salt, mother says-like Lot's wife.
DAVID
That was the punishment for looking backward. Ah, uncle, there's more sense in that old Bible than the Rabbis suspect. Perhaps that is the secret of our people's paralysis-we are always looking backward.
[He drops hopelessly into an iron garden-chair behind him. ]
MENDEL [Stopping him before he touches the seat]
Take care-it's sopping wet. You don't look backward enough.
[He takes out his handkerchief and begins drying the chair. ]
DAVID [Faintly smiling]
I thought you wanted the salt to melt.