PAPPELMEISTER I haf alvays mein umbrella. _Was?_ Ha! Ha! Ha! VERA [_Murmuring_] Isn't he a darling? Isn't he----? PAPPELMEISTER [_Pausing suddenly_] But ve never settled de salary. DAVID Salary! [_He looks dazedly from one to the other._] For the honour of playing in your orchestra! PAPPELMEISTER Shylock!!... Never mind--ve settle de pound of flesh to-morrow. _Lebe wohl!_ [_Exit, the door closes._] VERA [_Suddenly miserable_] How selfish of you, David! DAVID Selfish, Vera? VERA Yes--not to think of your salary. It looks as if you didn't really love me. DAVID Not love you? I don't understand. VERA [_Half in tears_] Just when I was so happy to think that now we shall be able to marry. DAVID Shall we? Marry? On my salary as first violin? VERA Not if you don't want to. DAVID Sweetheart! Can it be true? How do you know? VERA [_Smiling_] _I'm_ not a Jew. I asked. DAVID My guardian angel! [_Embracing her. He sits down, she lovingly at his feet._] VERA [_Looking up at him_] Then you _do_ care? DAVID What a question! VERA And you don't think wholly of your music and forget me? DAVID Why, you are behind all I write and play! VERA [_With jealous passion_] Behind? But I want to be before! I want you to love me first, before everything. DAVID I do put you before everything. VERA You are sure? And nothing shall part us? DAVID Not all the seven seas could part you and me. VERA And you won't grow tired of me--not even when you are world-famous----? DAVID [_A shade petulant_] Sweetheart, considering I should owe it all to you---- VERA [_Drawing his head down to her breast_] Oh, David! David! Don't be angry with poor little Vera if she doubts, if she wants to feel quite sure. You see father has talked so terribly, and after all I was brought up in the Greek Church, and we oughtn't to cause all this suffering unless---- DAVID Those who love us _must_ suffer, and _we_ must suffer in their suffering. It is live things, not dead metals, that are being melted in the Crucible. VERA Still, we ought to soften the suffering as much as---- DAVID Yes, but only Time can heal it. VERA [_With transition to happiness_] But father seems half-reconciled already! Dear little father, if only he were not so narrow about Holy Russia! DAVID If only _my_ folks were not so narrow about Holy Judea! But the ideals of the fathers shall not be foisted on the children. Each generation must live and die for its own dream. VERA Yes, David, yes. You are the prophet of the living present. I am so happy. [_She looks up wistfully._] You are happy, too? DAVID I am dazed--I cannot realise that all our troubles have melted away--it is so sudden. VERA You, David? Who always see everything in such rosy colours? Now that the whole horizon is one great splendid rose, you almost seem as if gazing out toward a blackness---- DAVID We Jews are cheerful in gloom, mistrustful in joy. It is our tragic history----