TEMPTATIONS
A BOOK OF SHORT STORIES

TEMPTATIONS
A BOOK OF SHORT STORIES
BY
DAVID PINSKI
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM
THE YIDDISH BY
DR. ISAAC GOLDBERG

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1

Copyright in U.S.A.; 1919, by Brentano’s

First published in Great Britain 1921

CONTENTS

PAGE
Introduction[vii]
Beruriah[3]
The Temptations of Rabbi Akiba[83]
Johanan the High Priest[101]
Zerubbabel[131]
Drabkin: a Novelette of Proletarian Life[169]
The Black Cat[255]
A Tale of a Hungry Man[277]
In the Storm[313]

INTRODUCTION

The same traits that distinguish David Pinski as a playwright characterise him also as a writer of short fiction. The noted Yiddish author is concerned chiefly with the probing of the human soul,—not that intangible and inconsequential theme of so many vapourings, dubbed mystic and symbolistic by the literary labellers,—but the hidden mainspring that initiates, and often guides, our actions. Pinski seeks to penetrate into the secret of human motive. It is not enough for him to depict the deed; he would plumb, if possible, the genetic impulse. That is why, if he must be classified, one places him among the psychological realists. He is at his best faithful to both the inner and the outer life.