Sara
Don’t stay long—everything is on the stove. Supper will soon be ready.
Cantor
[Goes to table, gets book]. That’s fine, Sara.... I will wear the one you gave me and we’ll save the others! [Kisses mazuzah and goes.]
[Sara listens, to be sure she hears his steps as he goes. Then she takes the letter from her bosom and kisses it. She reaches for a vase on a high shelf. From this vase she brings out a packet of letters bound with a ribbon. She unties the ribbon, places this last letter with the rest, ties it again and replaces the vase on the top shelf. As she is doing this a hand-organ is heard out in the street. It gradually gets louder. Sara moves to the sideboard, gets some pennies out of a glass, wraps the pennies in a piece of newspaper and raises the window. She throws the pennies out. The hand-organ stops, doubtless as its owner picks up the pennies, and then starts playing again. Sara goes into the kitchen. The stage is empty, with no sound but the gradually diminishing music of the hand-organ. There is a knock on the door, another knock, and then Jack enters. He is short, slender, dark. He is fashionably dressed in a well-fitting gray suit, a straw hat rakishly on his head. He carries a large pig-skin English bag and a stick. An engaging combination of wistfulness and impudence is a note of his personality as he looks about him carefully and, seeing no one, pauses, back to audience, to study the living room in the house from which he ran away five years ago. Then he crosses to the settee, where he rests his hand-bag. He places his hat and stick in a corner, moves over to the mirror and straightens his tie. As he turns, Sara enters from the kitchen. There is a dead silence as mother and son face each other. Then, thrilled, they suddenly meet in the middle of the room in one another’s arms. The following dialogue comes swiftly, quiveringly, tearful in its gladness.]
Jack
Mama! Mama! [He kisses her.]
Sara
Jakie, Jakie! My baby! My darling!
Jack