[_There is a pause of hesitation, filled up by the Cathedral
music from "Faust" surging up softly from below._]

VERA [_Slowly_]
I will kiss you as we Russians kiss at Easter--the three kisses of
peace.
[_She kisses him three times on the mouth as in ritual
solemnity._]

DAVID [_Very calmly_]
Easter was the date of the massacre--see! I am at peace.

VERA
God grant it endure!
[_They stand quietly hand in hand._]
Look! How beautiful the sunset is after the storm!
[_DAVID turns. The sunset, which has begun to grow beautiful just
after VERA'S entrance, has now reached its most magnificent
moment; below there are narrow lines of saffron and pale gold,
but above the whole sky is one glory of burning flame._]

DAVID [_Prophetically exalted by the spectacle_]
It is the fires of God round His Crucible.
[_He drops her hand and points downward._]
There she lies, the great Melting Pot--listen! Can't you hear the
roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth
[_He points east_]
--the harbour where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the
world to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a
seething! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian,--black and
yellow----

VERA [_Softly, nestling to him_]
Jew and Gentile----

DAVID
Yes, East and West, and North and South, the palm and the pine, the
pole and the equator, the crescent and the cross--how the great
Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall they
all unite to build the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God. Ah, Vera,
what is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem where all nations and races come
to worship and look back, compared with the glory of America, where all
races and nations come to labour and look forward!
[_He raises his hands in benediction over the shining city._]
Peace, peace, to all ye unborn millions, fated to fill this giant
continent--the God of our _children_ give you Peace.
[_An instant's solemn pause. The sunset is swiftly fading, and
the vast panorama is suffused with a more restful twilight, to
which the many-gleaming lights of the town add the tender poetry
of the night. Far back, like a lonely, guiding star, twinkles
over the darkening water the torch of the Statue of Liberty. From
below comes up the softened sound of voices and instruments
joining in "My Country, 'tis of Thee." The curtain falls