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._]

VERA [_With agonised cry_]
David!

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 h