[Looking toward the window] The snow is getting thicker. How pitilessly it falls-like fate.
MENDEL [Following her gaze]
Yes, icy and inexorable.
[The faint sobbing of FRAU QUIXANO over her book, which has been
heard throughout the scene as a sort of musical accompaniment,
has combined to work it up to a mood of intense sadness,
intensified by the growing dusk, so that as the two now gaze at
the falling snow, the atmosphere seems overbrooded with
melancholy. There is a moment or two without dialogue, given over
to the sobbing of FRAU QUIXANO, the roar of the wind shaking the
windows, the quick falling of the snow. Suddenly a happy voice
singing "My Country 'tis of Thee" is heard from without.]
FRAU QUIXANO [Pricking up her ears, joyously]
Do ist Dovidel!
MENDEL
That's David!
[He springs up.]
VERA [Murmurs in relief]
Ah!
[The whole atmosphere is changed to one of joyous expectation,
DAVID is seen and heard passing the left window, still singing
the national hymn, but it breaks off abruptly as he throws open
the door and appears on the threshold, a buoyant snow-covered
figure in a cloak and a broad-brimmed hat, carrying a violin
case. He is a sunny, handsome youth of the finest Russo-Jewish
type. He speaks with a slight German accent.]
DAVID
Isn't it a beautiful world, uncle?
[He closes the inner door.] Snow, the divine white snow--
[Perceiving the visitor with amaze] Miss Revendal here!
[He removes his hat and looks at her with boyish reverence and
wonder.]
VERA [Smiling]
Don't look so surprised-I haven't fallen from heaven like the snow. Take off your wet things.
DAVID
Oh, it's nothing; it's dry snow.
[He lays down his violin case and brushes off the snow from his
cloak, which MENDEL takes from him and hangs on the rack, all
without interrupting the dialogue.] If I had only known you were waiting--
VERA
I am glad you didn't-I wouldn't have had those poor little cripples cheated out of a moment of your music.
DAVID
Uncle has told you? Ah, it was bully! You should have seen the cripples waltzing with their crutches!
[He has moved toward the old woman, and while he holds one hand
to the blaze now pats her cheek with the other in greeting, to
which she responds with a loving smile ere she settles
contentedly to slumber over her book.] Es war grossartig, Granny. Even the paralysed danced.
MENDEL
Don't exaggerate, David.
DAVID
Exaggerate, uncle! Why, if they hadn't the use of their legs, their arms danced on the counterpane; if their arms couldn't dance, their hands danced from the wrist; and if their hands couldn't dance, they danced with their fingers; and if their fingers couldn't dance, their heads danced; and if their heads were paralysed, why, their eyes danced-God never curses so utterly but you've something left to dance with!
[He moves toward his desk.]
VERA [Infected with his gaiety]
You'll tell us next the beds danced.
DAVID
So they did-they shook their legs like mad!
VERA
Oh, why wasn't I there?
[His eyes meet hers at the thought of her presence.]
DAVID
Dear little cripples, I felt as if I could play them all straight again with the love and joy jumping out of this old fiddle.
[He lays his hand caressingly on the violin.]
MENDEL [Gloomily]
But in reality you left them as crooked as ever.
DAVID
No, I didn't.
[He caresses the back of his uncle's head in affectionate
rebuke.] I couldn't play their bones straight, but I played their brains straight. And hunch-brains are worse than hunch-backs....
[Suddenly perceiving his letter on the desk] A letter for me!
[He takes it with boyish eagerness, then hesitates to open it.]
VERA [Smiling]
Oh, you may open it!
DAVID [Wistfully]
May I?
VERA [Smiling]
Yes, and quick-or it'll be Shabbos!
[DAVID looks up at her in wonder.]
MENDEL [Smiling]
You read your letter!
DAVID [Opens it eagerly, then smiles broadly with pleasure. ]
Oh, Miss Revendal! Isn't that great! To play again at your Settlement. I am getting famous.
VERA
But we can't offer you a fee.
MENDEL [Quickly sotto voce to VERA]
Thank you!
DAVID
A fee! I'd pay a fee to see all those happy immigrants you gather together-Dutchmen and Greeks, Poles and Norwegians, Welsh and Armenians. If you only had Jews, it would be as good as going to Ellis Island.
VERA [Smiling]
What a strange taste! Who on earth wants to go to Ellis Island?
DAVID
Oh, I love going to Ellis Island to watch the ships coming in from Europe, and to think that all those weary, sea-tossed wanderers are feeling what I felt when America first stretched out her great mother-hand to me!
VERA [Softly]
Were you very happy?
DAVID
It was heaven. You must remember that all my life I had heard of America-everybody in our town had friends there or was going there or got money orders from there. The earliest game I played at was selling off my toy furniture and setting up in America. All my life America was waiting, beckoning, shining-the place where God would wipe away tears from off all faces.
[He ends in a half-sob.]
MENDEL [Rises, as in terror]
Now, now, David, don't get excited.
[Approaches him.]
DAVID
To think that the same great torch of liberty which threw its light across all the broad seas and lands into my little garret in Russia, is shining also for all those other weeping millions of Europe, shining wherever men hunger and are oppressed--
MENDEL [Soothingly]
Yes, yes, David.
[Laying hand on his shoulder] Now sit down and--
DAVID [Unheeding]
Shining over the starving villages of Italy and Ireland, over the swarming stony cities of Poland and Galicia, over the ruined farms of Roumania, over the shambles of Russia--
MENDEL [Pleadingly]
David!
DAVID
Oh, Miss Revendal, when I look at our Statue of Liberty, I just seem to hear the voice of America crying: "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest-rest--"
[He is now almost sobbing.]
MENDEL
Don't talk any more-you know it is bad for you.