the Tsar. The People——
VERA
But you could have stopped them.
BARON
Who can stop a flood? I did my duty. A soldier's duty is not so pretty as a musician's.
VERA
But you could have stopped them.
BARON [Losing all patience]
Silence! You talk like an ignorant girl, blinded by passion. The pogrom is a holy crusade. Are we Russians the first people to crush down the Jew? No—from the dawn of history the nations have had to stamp upon him—the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans——
DAVID