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.]
VERA [In a low sob]
DAVID
When I came to myself, with a curious aching in my left shoulder, I saw lying beside me a strange shapeless Something....
[David points weirdly to the floor, and Vera, hunched forwards, gazes stonily at it, as if seeing the horror.]
By the crimson doll in what seemed a hand I knew it must be little Miriam. The doll was a dream of beauty and perfection beside the mutilated mass which was all that remained of my sister, of my mother, of greedy little Solomon— Oh! You Christians can only see that rosy splendour on the horizon of happiness. And the Jew didn't see rosily enough for you, ha! ha! ha! the Jew who gropes in one great crimson mist.
[He breaks down in spasmodic, ironic, long-drawn, terrible laughter.]
VERA [Trying vainly to tranquillise him]