Ghetto Tragedies

The steely eyes of the hunchback watched the contest anxiously. Suddenly a change came over the wildly working face--it fell back chill and rigid on the pillow, the eyes closed....

"You had not succeeded. You had not had your experience, my son, my dearest Paul. But now your work is over, or rather your true work begins. Freed from the detestable routine o...

"I had a lucky escape, God be thanked," Srul wrote. "For when I arrived in New York I had only fifty-one roubles in my pocket. Now it seems that these rich Americans are so afra...

Very soon a frost-bitten old man I remembered coming across in the cemetery on the mountain-slope, where he was sweeping the fallen leaves from a tomb, and singing like the grav...

_Monday Afternoon._--No, it was not Paul. Only Nicholas Alexandrovitch. He had heard in the village that I was making preparations for a journey, and came to inquire about it, a...

Again they looked at one another, and the relief in their eyes brought heart-sinking into mine. Yes, it was true. Bethulah was in the glow of a great surrender; she was still ti...

When I at last ventured to say casually to Yarchi that Ben David's daughter seemed to be kept strictly to the house, the ribald grin I had feared distorted his malicious mouth.

The drunkard appeared moved. "Get up, Rivkoly," he said, with a tremour in his tones. "To see thee one would think thou wast sitting _Shivah_ over my corpse." He put out his han...

"Sit down, sit down, father," said Rachael kindly, though she retained the arm-chair,--and there was a general air of relief at her voice. But the old embarrassment returned as...

Yes, Paul was right. As Paul always is. Brought up, I think wisely, to believe in my comparative poverty, he has become manlier for not having a crutch to lean upon. Was it not...

"Who else wud I be manin'? The Holy Mother I'd be for prayin' to meself; but as ye're a Jewess, I dursn't tell ye to do that. But the Pope, he's a gintleman, an' so he is, an' s...

"The rain has ceased, brethren," huskily whispered the hunchback, for his words seemed to stick in his throat. "Come outside and I will tell you how to enjoy this world, for wor...

Salvina was not sorry to have her mother's silent lachrymosity thus interpreted. But she regretted that her helpless parent had not expressed her satisfaction with gossip when t...

But now a curious difficulty arose. The Maggid knew from correspondence with Jerusalem Rabbis that a Russian subject would have great difficulty in slipping in at Jaffa or Beyro...

Once indeed when Salvina had seriously projected Paris in the interest of her French, there had been a quarrel on the subject. There were many quarrels on many subjects, but it...

She utilized the time in preparing her sewing. She was making a night-dress with dozens and dozens of tiny tucks at the breast, all run by hand, and she was putting into the fin...

Sugarman was incensed. "Me in a wicked business! Why, I know more Talmud than anybody in London, and can be called up the Law as _Morenu_! You'll say marrying is wicked, next. B...

Drooping wearily on his mother's arm, but wrought up to joyous anticipation, Brum had an undoubting sense of the patient crowd around him waiting, as in his old hospital days, f...

The sun was already strong, the train packed, and Salvina stood so jammed in that she could scarcely hold her grammar open, and the irregular verbs danced before her eyes even m...

In all that long quest of the canopy, Leah had never come so near fainting as now. The horror of Ellis Island was nothing to this. That scene resurged, and Tsirrele's fresh beau...

"Come here," and Noah unrolled a great map. "See, how nobly it is situated in the Niagara River, near the world-famed Falls, which will supply water-power for our machinery. It...

Some ten years ago the Frankfort Ghetto had been verbally abolished by a civilized archduke, caught up in the wave of Napoleonic toleration. Peloni had shared in the exultation...

While the little monument was building, and the men were coming to and fro in boats, Peloni made friends with the Indians, the smoke-wreaths of whose lodges hovered across the r...

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But Mr. Brill was abstractedly studying the stone, and the mason moved off delicately. Mrs. Brill tried to spell out a few of the words, but, as there was no one to reprimand he...

"I feared so," he said, turning them away. "When she came into my house, I--I dared not go to see thee--that was why I did not come, though I always meant to, Sarah, my life. I...