is about to
grasp the boy and lead him out, the people clench
their fists threateningly. But the rabbi turns from
his place at the east of the synagogue and asks in a
loud voice, 'Where is the saint? Where is the
miracle-worker who destroyed the evil forces hanging
above us, who bored through heaven that our prayers
might easily penetrate the black clouds to the throne
of God?'

"There is no sign of the miracle-worker. He has
slipped out of the house of prayer and with his shoes
and stockings over his shoulder is running as fast as
he can toward the village."

* * * * *

"EIN Juedisch Kind." She is about to be married but will not comply
with the Talmudic law requiring married women to cut off their hair
and wear wigs. She loves her hair and will not part with it. She is
married. Weeks go by and her husband is ostracised. He and his wife
have become more and more estranged and they speak to each other
hardly at all. One day he comes home and with loving words induces her
to let him cut off her black braids.

"When Chanele awoke the next morning, she looked at
herself in the mirror that hung opposite her bed.
Terror seized her and she thought that she had become
mad and that she lay in the hospital. On the table
near her bed lay the dead braids. The soul that had
lived in these braids when they were on her head was
dead, and they reminded her of death . . . She hid her
face in both her hands and heart-breaking sobs filled
the quiet room."

And there are other "Wortbilder" which I shall not treat. This book of
sketches shows Asch at his very best. For the form--one without plot
dealing with character and nature description--is decidedly fitted to
the elemental, passion-laden flow of his style. It is a great wonder
to me that these gems of artistic word portraiture have not yet been
translated into English. In my opinion they rank equal in worth with
the similar work of Daudet, Maupassant, Tchekoff and Turgenieff.

* * * * *

_DAS Staedtchen_ is also a book of sketches. In this, however, the
different high points--the Sabbath eve, the holidays, the marriage
ceremony and others in Russian Jewish village life, are treated.
Character is not emphasized, although one man appears through all