The Melting-Pot - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
PAPPELMEISTER No, but de Christian had--he get de same--I mean salary, ha! ha! ha! not children. Den he can be independent--vedder de fool-public like his American symphony or not--_nicht wahr?_
VERA You _are_ good to us---- [_Hastily correcting herself_]
to Mr. Quixano.
PAPPELMEISTER [_Smiling_]
And aldough you cannot broduce him, I broduce his symphony. _Was?_
VERA Oh, Herr Pappelmeister! You are an angel.
PAPPELMEISTER _Nein, nein, mein liebes Kind!_ I fear I haf not de correct shape for an angel.
[_He laughs heartily. A knock at the door from the hall._]
VERA [_Merrily_]
_Now_ I clap my hands.
[_She claps._]
Come!
[_The door opens._]
Behold him!
[_She makes a conjurer's gesture. DAVID, bare-headed, carrying his fiddle, opens the door, and stands staring in amazement at PAPPELMEISTER._]
DAVID I thought you asked me to meet your father.
PAPPELMEISTER She is a magician. She has changed us.
[_He waves his umbrella._]
Hey presto, _was_? Ha! Ha! Ha!
[_He goes to DAVID, and shakes hands._]
_Und wie geht's?_ I hear you've left home.
DAVID Yes, but I've such a bully cabin----
PAPPELMEISTER [_Alarmed_]
You are sailing avay?
VERA [_Laughing_]
No, no--that's only his way of describing his two-dollar-a-month garret.
DAVID Yes--my state-room on the top deck!
VERA [_Smiling_]
Six foot square.
DAVID But three other pa.s.sengers aren't squeezed in, and it never pitches and tosses. It's heavenly.
PAPPELMEISTER [_Smiling_]
And from heaven you flew down to blay in dat beer-hall. _Was?_ [_DAVID looks surprised._]
_I_ heard you.
DAVID You! What on earth did you go _there_ for?
PAPPELMEISTER Vat on earth does one go to a beer-hall for? Ha! Ha! Ha! For vawter! Ha!
Ha! Ha! Ven I hear you blay, I d.i.n.k mit myself--if my blans succeed and I get Carnegie Hall for Sat.u.r.day Symphony Concerts, dat boy shall be one of my first violins. _Was?_ [_He slaps DAVID on the left shoulder._]
DAVID [_Overwhelmed, ecstatic, yet wincing a little at the slap on his wound._]
Be one of your first---- [_Remembering_]
Oh, but it is impossible.
VERA [_Alarmed_]
Mr. Quixano! You must not refuse.
DAVID But does Herr Pappelmeister know about the wound in my shoulder?
PAPPELMEISTER [_Agitated_]
You haf been vounded?
DAVID Only a legacy from Russia--but it twinges in some weathers.
PAPPELMEISTER And de pain ubsets your blaying?
DAVID Not so much the pain--it's all the dreadful memories--
VERA [_Alarmed_]
Don't talk of them.
DAVID I _must_ explain to Herr Pappelmeister--it wouldn't be fair. Even now [_Shuddering_]
there comes up before me the bleeding body of my mother, the cold, fiendish face of the Russian officer, supervising the slaughter----
VERA Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+
DAVID [_Hysterically_]
Oh, that butcher's face--there it is--hovering in the air, that narrow, fanatical forehead, that----
PAPPELMEISTER [_Brings down his umbrella with a bang_]
_Schluss!_ No man ever dared break down under me. My baton will beat avay all dese faces and fancies. Out with your violin!
[_He taps his umbrella imperiously on the table._]
_Keinen Mut verlieren!_ [_DAVID takes out his violin from its case and puts it to his shoulder, PAPPELMEISTER keeping up a hypnotic torrent of encouraging German cries._]
_Also! Fertig! Anfangen!_ [_He raises and waves his umbrella like a baton._]
Von, dwo, dree, four----
DAVID [_With a great sigh of relief_]
Thanks, thanks--they are gone already.
PAPPELMEISTER Ha! Ha! Ha! You see. And ven ve blay your American symphony----
DAVID [_Dazed_]
You will play my American symphony?
VERA [_Disappointed_]
Don't you jump for joy?
