WITH this brief sketch of Sholom Asch the man, I shall turn to a
consideration of a few of his most important works. As Sir Walter
Raleigh, the eminent English critic, has said, the best way to form a
judgment of an author is to quote his good passages. Accordingly I
have been as liberal as space would allow in my insertion of
translated passages. The most recent works, mentioned in the early
part of this essay, I shall not treat, as it was impossible for me to
procure them at the time of writing. I shall take up each work
individually before making generalizations.
* * * * *
_DIE Jüngsten_ is a novel by Asch in which he tries to portray the
character and the influences at work on the younger generation of Jews
in Russia. The plot can be simply set forth. The younger generation is
represented by five characters of three social classes. Mery Lipskaja
is the daughter of a well-to-do Jewish manufacturer--in other words,
she is of the middle or bourgeois class. She has completed her
_gymnasium_ (high-school) education and has absorbed the prevalent
ideas about women and emancipation, and a desire for higher education,
for a broader life, for St. Petersburg. Kowalski is an artist. He,
like Mery, is not interested in the class struggle; all that vitally
concerns him is his art and "living." David and Rahel Lazarus are the
children of a physician who is giving his life to the people of the
"Grube" or ghetto. They have grown up among the suppressed and
impoverished Jews and they are filled with the spirit of the
revolution; David actively and Rahel passively. Mischa, the cousin of
Mery, is a member of the middle class. He has become aware of the
conditions in the Grube and his struggle lies between his middle class
environmental influence, which includes his love for Mery, and his
desire to join the revolution.
At the beginning of the novel Mery has just returned from the
_gymnasium_. She is oppressed and dissatisfied with her provincial
surroundings and longs to go to the university at St. Petersburg.
Mischa, in love with Mery, has also just completed work at the
_gymnasium_, and they plan to go to St. Petersburg together. The
artist Kowalski now comes to the little south Russian village and soon
Mery is in love with him. Mischa is much distressed and suffers
greatly. Kowalski leaves, promising to meet Mery at St. Petersburg.
The second part of the novel opens with Mischa and Mery in St.
Petersburg. The climate does not agree with Mery and Mischa arranges
that they go to a Finnish village. Here they grow very dear to each
other and Mischa is about to propose when Kowalski melodramatically
appears. Kowalski and Mery now give expression to their love. Mischa
returns to St. Petersburg but cannot pursue his studies because the
revolutionary disturbances have closed the university. Kowalski and
Mery return to St. Petersburg soon after and are admitted to the
bohemian life there. Kowalski meanwhile has become famous. The lovers
gradually grow apart and when the revolution breaks out Mery returns
to her home for safety, leaving Kowalski never to see him again.
Mischa has returned home also. After a massacre of the Jews in the
Grube in which Rahel, the sister of David, is outraged, he sees that
in marrying her lies his only means of becoming one of the Jews whom
he was so desirous of helping. So despite the fact that he still loves
Mery and she is now willing to be his wife, he marries Rahel. Mery
after a period of restlessness in the little town returns to St.
Petersburg to join the bohemian group there.
* * * * *
THE outstanding excellence of the novel lies in its characterization.
The characters live before us and we see the workings of their minds
and emotions with remarkable clarity. The mental struggles of Mischa
between his love for Mery and his desire to help the oppressed Jews,
always inhibited by inherited powerlessness to act; the carefree,
art-centered, egotistical Kowalski; the adolescent romanticism and
sympathetic insight of Mery; the cynically idealistic and
self-sacrificing Dr. Lazarus--these constitute the real substance and
artistic worth of the book. The pictures of contemporary Russian
Jewish life are of marked interest, especially to the western reader.
The following passages are descriptive of the Grube or ghetto and
characterize the condition of the poorer Jews in the towns throughout
Russia:
"The sun seldom shone into the valley. Old people lost
their vision early and the percentage of child
mortality was enormous. But even those who remained
alive under these conditions were weak, sick, half
crippled people; impoverished figures with crooked
legs, large heads and weak arms crept through the
streets.
"And in spite of everything the inhabitants never left
their grave (Grube) and made no attempt to find a
better, more healthy home. A sort of sick love bound
them to their unfortunate homes, and like a curse it
rested on each who was born in the valley--that he
could not free himself from it and that until the end
of his days he must eke out his sad existence there."
After the massacre Mischa walks through the Grube:
"The murmur of prayers re-echoed to his ears. From the
little windows of the synagogue came the soft gleam of
candles. He entered. Deep as in a cellar, as miserable
and abandoned as themselves, lay the little house of
prayer of the wretched inhabitants of the Grube. The
walls were bare. The Ark of the Covenant was hung with
only a piece of coarse linen. In front of the broken
'altar' stood an old man in a torn prayer shawl and
prayed before the small penny candles. The room was
full of worshippers, all inhabitants of the Grube.
Their prayer was a groaning, and sighing, and
screaming, out of tormented hearts. It rose up to the
low ceiling and hung over them all like a heavy black
cloud."
And then Mischa knew his people:
"He felt his strength to bear everything; sorrow and
misery and persecution. He saw his people doing the
work of servants through the centuries, from the
farthest past to the present day. He saw the bare
walls of the synagogue, the wretched Ark of the
Covenant, he heard the sad melody of their prayers
which grew to despairing screams. . . . He had the
feeling that he was with his people in a large ship.
For eternities this ship was on a voyage of searching.
It landed at harbors always new and strange: Egypt,
Palestine, Babylon, Arabia, Spain, at Turkey, at
Holland and Russia. And to-day is also a test day for
the Jews. And also this day will end, and many, many,
but the ship will always sail on, will carry them all
to new harbors into the farthest future."
* * * * *
BEFORE leaving _Die Jüngsten_, 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 plot. The characters are all poor; fishmongers,
children of the Ghetto, a Jewish farmer, two mothers, an old married
couple. A few typical plots follow.
"Ein Eilbotte" is really a prose poem describing a sunrise, a storm,
and the reappearing sun--more properly perhaps a series of paintings,
of symphonic word canvases. Let me translate the opening passages:
"Behind the town ruin which stands on a small hill
like a national monument, flaming and fiery rises the
red of the morning and floods with its glow the gray
clouds that hang in the horizon. It brings a son of
the sun into the world. The day tears itself from the
lap of the mother Night.
"In the little town life is beginning to stir. Here
and there one sees a peasant wagon on which the dew
drops of the night are still hanging. Here and there a
Jew, eyes heavy with sleep. The show windows and house
doors are for the most part locked. For many of the
inhabitants the day has not yet begun. . . . This day
shall be like yesterday, like to-morrow."
A storm rushes over the woods. The storm comes like a
mighty giant that wishes to swallow the world or it
seems as though God himself were spreading out His
black mantle: "The end of the world! Neither heaven
nor earth, neither beginning nor end! Black, ominous,
dull, empty. . . . Suddenly Heaven opens for a
second. . . . A blinding light has torn the clouds.
Stabbed by a flaming dagger the giant dies--a confused
moaning fills the air. It rains." But the storm passes.
"The Heaven is clear and blue as if nothing had happened.
The air is clearer and purer, the earth washed clean
by the water."
* * * * *
"DIE Mutter." It is in a little Hebrew school in a small town in
Russia. The rabbi has gone to say the evening prayer, leaving the
small boys to study. Instead they begin to talk of various subjects.
Mothers are discussed and each boy praised his most highly. One pale
little chap with large eyes says, "My mother also . . ." and then stops.
One of the boys laughs uncontrolledly and then there is an
embarrassing silence. The teacher returns. The little Josek, however,
cannot keep his attention on the book:
"The 'crazy Trajna' stands life-like before him. Out
there at the well she stands. . . . He sees her
plainly. . . . All too well he knows that dirty
sun-burned face plowed through by a thousand wrinkles,
those great blood-shot eyes with the swollen, sore
lids. . . .
"He remembers her, yes, he remembers. . . . He was
still a little boy then, when the teacher carried him
to school in his arms. He cried then and hung tightly
with both hands to the apron of his mother.
"Mother! . . . this woman his mother?"
And so the emotions of the boy are set forth in memories telling us of
his mother before she was insane and now, when she is known to all
the village as the "crazy Trajna." The time when he found her insane
is described. It was raining and he was hurrying home from school.
Suddenly he sees his mother near his father's house:
"There at the corner she stands. . . . Trembling for cold
she seeks protection under any roof. . . . The boy stands
as rooted to the ground, without turning his gaze from
her. The water flows in streams from his coat. She has
turned her glassy eyes on him. Slowly as though
following some inner force she comes closer to him. He
is not able to move from the spot; something
unspeakable gleams in those glassy eyes. . . .
"Now he feels in her the mother. . . . His heart beats as
though to break. Always closer to him she comes. A hot
wave of blood flows through all his limbs and rises to
his head. He trembles as in fever.
"Suddenly all fear leaves him. He assumes a waiting
position and looks directly into her eyes.
"Now she stands close before him. She looks at him.
Away! These eyes! this look! He wishes to fall weeping
into her arms. . . . To weep, yes, to weep . . . to weep
and to kiss.
"He is in the impulse to carry out his purpose when
she suddenly takes his hand. With a quick push he
tears himself from her embrace and runs away as
rapidly as he can.
"It seems as though she ran after him with
outstretched arms and blowing hair, always faster and
faster, always grasping more heavily. It seemed to him
as though he heard her terrible voice, hoarse with
weariness, calling 'Joselle,' 'Joselle' . . ."
The father has taken a new wife and the "crazy Trajna" is no longer a
member of the household but is driven about the streets. And as he
leaves the schoolroom this evening, Josek is consumed with indignation
and sorrow and resolves not to flee from his mother the next time he
meets her. On his way home he meets her. The tears flow from her eyes;
when she embraces him he again runs away. But that evening he steals a
plate of meat from his home and brings it to her. That night he does
not sleep. The next noon, coming home from school he sees Trajna
standing near the well surrounded by street urchins:
"One pulls her bonnet from her head. Another jerks at
her apron. A third tears the prayer book from her
hand. Some boys cry loudly,
"'Hurrah! The crazy one, the crazy one!'
"She looks at her son in surprise. Josek can stand it
no longer; he goes to his mother and with his fists
drives away the urchins that torment her.
"They have run away. Without saying a word Josek
reaches out both his hands. His face is deathly pale.
His eyes gleam with fever. The boys laugh. . . . Their
loud calls press themselves to his ears. . . . Another
moment and the hands of his mother reach around him as
in a cramp.
"The 'crazy one' hugs him, kisses him, now laughing,
now crying. Suddenly she clutches him and begins to
dance with him. 'Hurrah! Hurrah! The crazy one is
dancing with her son!'
"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.
* * * * *
_DAS Städtchen_ 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 the
sketches. The book does not come up to _Die Bilder aus dem Ghetto_.
Asch is essentially a dramatist. In his sketches, in his novels and in
his stories, the dramatic point of view is not lost. His plays
consequently always move, are always full of action and tense
situation. The same elemental strength and purity of emotion that is
found in his prose is always present in his dramas. In the concluding
part of this essay, I shall touch upon five of his plays in the order
of their importance.
EDITORS' NOTE--_The third and concluding part of Mr.
Shostac's prize essay, dealing with Shalom Asch as a
Dramatist, will appear in the next issue._
_THOSE of us in England who know how much harshness
and injustice the Jews have had to suffer will join in
your hopes that after the war some means may be found
of permanently ameliorating their lot. You may feel
the more sure of our sympathy in this because, as you
know, England is the European country in which, since
Oliver Cromwell sanctioned their return nearly three
centuries ago, the Jews have been best treated, being
freely admitted to all posts of power and honor, and
not exposed to any sort of social disparagement. They
have held places in our Cabinets and been among the
most eminent lawyers and judges. Such a one was Sir
George Jessel, the famous Master of the Rolls. We have
no more patriotic citizens, nor more generous
benefactors to works of charity and to public purposes
supported by private liberality. With those members of
the race who have suffered injustice or violence in
other countries, there has always been a warm sympathy
in Great Britain._--_Viscount Bryce, in a Letter to The
Menorah Journal._
=Liberalism and the Jews=