"Josek casts a confused glance at the urchins. He draws himself together, tears himself from the embrace of his mother with a quick movement and runs away. He does not even think of the cap which remains in her hand.
"Even from a distance he hears the calls, 'Hurrah! Hurrah! The crazy one dances with her son!'"
"DER Wunderrabbi." He is a very stupid shepherd boy. He will not learn his Hebrew lessons nor prayers. When in the fields he often feels near to God—and whistles. He is taken to the synagogue on a holiday. His parents are ashamed of him. He cannot repeat the prayers from the prayerbook, yet he feels a great desire to praise God. To the consternation of his parents he walks to the altar, and placing two fingers in his mouth he voices his praise in a loud, shrill whistle.
"All stand as though struck by lightning. Who dared to whistle in this holy place? The father 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 Jüdisch 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.