VERA Father, I will be calm. I will speak without passion or blindness. I will tell David the truth. I was never absolutely sure of my love for him--perhaps that was why I doubted his love for me--often after our enchanted moments there would come a nameless uneasiness, some vague instinct, relic of the long centuries of Jew-loathing, some strange shrinking from his Christless creed----
BARON [_With an exultant cry_] Ah! She is a Revendal.
VERA But now---- [_She rises and walks firmly toward DAVID_] now, David, I come to you, and I say in the words of Ruth, thy people shall be my people and thy God my God! [_She stretches out her hands to DAVID._]
BARON You shameless----! [_He stops as he perceives DAVID remains impassive._]
DAVID [_In low, icy tones_] You cannot come to me. There is a river of blood between us.
VERA Were it seven seas, our love must cross them.
DAVID Easy words to you. You never saw that red flood bearing the mangled breasts of women and the spattered brains of babes and sucklings. Oh! [_He covers his eyes with his hands. The BARON turns away in gloomy impotence. At last DAVID begins to speak quietly, almost dreamily._] It was your Easter, and the air was full of holy bells and the streets of holy processions--priests in black and girls in white and waving palms and crucifixes, and everybody exchanging Easter eggs and kissing one another three times on the mouth in token of peace and goodwill, and even the Jew-boy felt the spirit of love brooding over the earth, though he did not then know that this Christ, whom holy chants proclaimed re-risen, was born in the form of a brother Jew. And what added to the peace and holy joy was that our own Passover was shining before us. My mother had already made the raisin wine, and my greedy little brother Solomon had sipped it on the sly that very morning. We were all at home--all except my father--he was away in the little Synagogue at which he was cantor. Ah, such a voice he had--a voice of tears and thunder--when he prayed it was like a wounded soul beating at the gates of Heaven--but he sang even more beautifully in the ritual of home, and how we were looking forward to his hymns at the Passover table---- [_He breaks down. The BARON has gradually turned round under the spell of DAVID'S story and now listens hypnotised._] I was playing my cracked little fiddle. Little Miriam was making her doll dance to it. Ah, that decrepit old china doll--the only one the poor child had ever had--I can see it now--one eye, no nose, half an arm. We were all laughing to see it caper to my music.... My father flies in through the door, desperately clasping to his breast the Holy Scroll. We cry out to him to explain, and then we see that in that beloved mouth of song there is no longer a tongue--only blood. He tries to bar the door--a mob breaks in--we dash out through the back into the street. There are the soldiers--and the Face---- [_VERA'S eyes involuntarily seek the face of her father, who shrinks away as their eyes meet._]