g and understood everything. His complexion was that of a
ruddy boy, yet his large handsome features had the sensitiveness which
classed him unmistakably as an artist.

He was talking in Yiddish. His voice was soft and his sentences
followed each other in musical cadence and beauty.

* * * * *

"YES," Asch was saying, "he was the best Jew I ever met. I always
think of him as 'The Light of Damascus.' I was in Damascus last year.
The most beautiful city in the world! The houses on the winding
streets are centuries old. The people seem older than the houses. For
hours I stood in the market-place watching the camels and the asses
pass by. Some had the dust of the desert on their feet and some had
mud and dirt. Each went slowly on its way with its turbaned rider
sitting still as a figure of stone on its back.

"Through the kindness of a friend we entered a house on one of the
strange streets. Like most of the old houses its front was plain and
unattractive. We went through a court and on to a balcony overlooking
an enclosed garden. Such a garden I had never seen! It seemed a
picture transported from the 'Thousand and One Nights.' In the center
was a fountain of extraordinary workmanship, so inlaid with gems that
after the water had gushed out it seemed to splash down again in a
shower of ruby and amethyst. About the fountain were palms and fig
trees. The flowers were more wondrous than the jewelled water or the
many-colored mosaics of the walls and arches.

"On the grass sat a grey-bearded Mohammedan. He smoked his hookah in
silence. Suddenly we heard voices. Three young women came from the
house and bathed in the fountain. Their lord and husband sat stoically
and smoked. They laughed and played in the splashing waters. And as I
watched this old man and these beautiful women, I thought myself back
in the ancient Damascus, in the city that I had thought was dead for a
thousand years.

* * * * *

"THAT evening I was walking in the city. Suddenly I saw a light before
me. To my surprise it was an electric bulb--the only one in Damascus.
It was fastened to the head of a donkey and illuminated a painted
advertisement attached to his back. By following the wires I found
they led to a large wholesale warehouse. It hurt me to find this
electric light in Damascus. I was still more hurt when I found that
the man who had installed it was a Jew, a Russian Jew who had c