The Melting-Pot Part 32

Miss Revendal? How should _she_ know?

MENDEL [_Sullenly_]

She seems to understand your crazy ways.

DAVID [_Pa.s.sing 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. n.o.body 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.

MENDEL It _is_ melting a little if you can smile. Do you know, David, I haven't seen you smile since that _Purim_ afternoon?

DAVID You haven't worn a false nose since, uncle.

[_He laughs bitterly._]

Ha! Ha! Ha! Fancy masquerading in America because twenty-five centuries ago the Jews escaped a _pogrom_ in Persia. Two thousand five hundred years ago! Aren't we uncanny?

[_He drops into the wiped chair._]

MENDEL [_Angrily_]

Better you should leave us altogether than mock at us. I thought it was your Jewish heart that drove you back home to us; but if you are still hankering after Miss Revendal----

DAVID [_Pained_]

Uncle!

MENDEL I'd rather see you marry her than go about like this. You couldn't make the house any gloomier.

DAVID Go back to the concert, please. They have quieted down.

MENDEL [_Hesitating_]

And you?

DAVID Oh, I'm not playing in the popular after-pieces. Pappelmeister guessed I'd be broken up with the stress of my own symphony--he has violins enough.

MENDEL Then you don't want to carry this about.

[_Taking the violin from DAVID'S arms._]

DAVID [_Clinging to it_]

Don't rob me of my music--it's all I have.

MENDEL You'll spoil it in the wet. I'll take it home.

DAVID No---- [_He suddenly catches sight of two figures entering from the left--FRAU QUIXANO and KATHLEEN clad in their best, and wearing tiny American flags in honour of Independence Day. KATHLEEN escorts the old lady, with the air of a guardian angel, on her slow, tottering course toward DAVID. FRAU QUIXANO is puffing and panting after the many stairs. DAVID jumps up in surprise, releases the violin-case to MENDEL._]

They at my symphony!

MENDEL Mother _would_ come--even though, being _Shabbos_, she had to walk.

DAVID But wasn't she shocked at my playing on the Sabbath?

MENDEL No--that's the curious part of it. She said that even as a boy you played your fiddle on _Shabbos_, and that if the Lord has stood it all these years, He must consider you an exception.

DAVID You see! She's more sensible than you thought. I daresay whatever I were to do she'd consider me an exception.

MENDEL [_In sullen acquiescence_]

I suppose geniuses _are_.

KATHLEEN [_Reaching them; panting with admiration and breathlessness_]

Oh, Mr. David! it was like midnight ma.s.s! But the misthress was ashleep.

DAVID Asleep!

[_Laughs half-merrily, half-sadly._]

Ha! Ha! Ha!

FRAU QUIXANO [_Panting and laughing in response_]

He! He! He! _Dovidel lacht widder._ He! He! He!

[_She touches his arm affectionately, but feeling his wet coat, utters a cry of horror._]

_Du bist na.s.s!_

DAVID _Es ist gor nicht_, Granny--my clothes are thick.

[_She fusses over him, wiping him down with her gloved hand._]

MENDEL But what brought you up here, Kathleen?