MENDEL
Don't be cynical. You know your dearest wish was to melt these simple souls with your music. And now——
DAVID
Now I have only made my own stony.
MENDEL
You are right. You are stone all over—ever since you came back home to us. Turned into a pillar of salt, mother says—like Lot's wife.
DAVID
That was the punishment for looking backward. Ah, uncle, there's more sense in that old Bible than the Rabbis suspect. Perhaps that is the secret of our people's paralysis—we are always looking backward.
[He drops hopelessly into an iron garden-chair behind him.]
MENDEL [Stopping him before he touches the seat]