The Melting-Pot Part 5

VERA I beg your pardon---- [_She smiles._]

There, _I_ am begging of _you_. Sit down, please.

MENDEL [_Walking away to piano_]

I ought not to have burdened you with our troubles--you are too young.

VERA [_Pathetically_]

I young? If you only knew how old I am!

MENDEL You?

VERA I left my youth in Russia--eternities ago.

MENDEL You know our Russia!

[_He goes over to her and sits down._]

VERA Can't you see I'm a Russian, too?

[_With a faint tremulous smile_]

I might even have been a Siberian had I stayed. But I escaped from my gaolers.

MENDEL You were a Revolutionist!

VERA Who can live in Russia and not be? So you see trouble and I are not such strangers.

MENDEL Who would have thought it to look at you? Siberia, gaolers, revolutions!

[_Rising_]

What terrible things life holds!

VERA Yes, even in free America.

[_FRAU QUIXANO'S sobbing grows slightly louder._]

MENDEL That Settlement work must be full of tragedies.

VERA Sometimes one sees nothing but the tragedy of things.

[_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 [_p.r.i.c.king 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 pa.s.sing 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--G.o.d 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!