en_, I cannot refrain from translating two
passages concerning Kowalski--the first his longing for the open
country after his long stay in St. Petersburg, and the other his
remarks on clouds:

"St. Petersburg had become sickening to him. For
loneliness he longed, for solitude. Solitude, with his
brush behind the mountains, in the deep woods. To see
every day sun, mountains, and water! The water that
pushes blocks of ice before it, and to see the cloud
shadows which camp on the wide snow fields. To live
again in the little room with his comrade the
Lithuanian peasant with whom he studied in the
academy! To have no money. To eat bread; much good
black bread with honey which his comrade's father
would send from the village. For whole days to wander
about and paint clouds!"

Mery discovers him at work, and looking at his painting he says:

"Everything is clouds--the warmth that I feel, the
warmth-- . . . and do you see the pride that such a
cloud has, the pride, the formality? 'The cloud is no
small thing,' my fat professor used to say. It is no
small thing to paint a cloud, for then one must feel
eternity. As lovingly as a girl's body must one model
a cloud. And warmth and pride must come to expression.
To paint a cloud means to step into Heaven, into the
middle of Heaven and to see a new world which we do
not know here at all. Such a nobody as I wishes to
paint a cloud, a Heaven--wishes to have seen God and
create Him anew with his little art! That is an
impudence, isn't it?

"There you see what I have painted. It is nothing--it
is worthless--something is lacking." He looked
amusedly at the picture. "Love is lacking. So it is as
my professor with the fat belly loved to say, 'To
paint a real cloud one must love.' Yes, yes, to be
able to create something good one must be in love
or--do you know what? Or to feel a great sin in one's
soul. Yes, yes, with a burning sin in one's heart one
can create big things. When one has entirely
fallen. . . ."

* * * * *

_BILDER aus dem Ghetto_ is a series of sketches dealing with Jewish
life. Many Jewish characters are pictured in dramatic situations but
with very little