published in various journals. Owing to circumstances, another and later book—"Aus Halb-Asien"—was the first to come out; for this youthful work was not published as a whole until 1876. I mention this, although it is visible from internal evidence, to explain my choice of subjects. The preface to that edition gives a further account of this, and from it I make the following quotations:

"When I took up my pen four years ago, I strongly felt the necessity of making my work as artistic as possible. I wished to write stories, and strove to give them poetic value. For this very reason, it seemed necessary that I should describe the kind of life with which I was best acquainted. This was essentially the case with regard to that of the Podolian Jews. I therefore became the historian of the Podolian Ghetto, and it was my great desire to give these stories an artistic form; but not at the cost of truth. I have never permitted my love of the beautiful to lead me into the sin of falsifying the facts and conditions of life, and am confident that I have described this strange and outlandish mode of existence precisely as it appeared to me. If in my first published volume my efforts to portray men and manners needed the assistance of my powers as a novelist, so in this book my knowledge of men and manners has to help me in my labors as a novelist. Sometimes the one side of my character takes the upper hand, and sometimes the other; but still they are at bottom inseparable, and it has always been my endeavor to describe facts artistically. However the novelist may be judged, the portrayer of men and manners demands that his words should be believed.

"This request is not superfluous, for it is a very strange mode of life to which I am about to introduce the reader. The influences and counter-influences that affect it are only touched upon in this book. Had I given a full account of them in an introduction, the introduction would, in all likelihood have been longer than the book. I have therefore refrained from doing it, and believe that I was right in making this decision. For I have kept before my eyes, while penning these stories, that I am writing for a Western reader. If he will only trust to my love of truth, and regard the separate stories in combination with each other, he will gain a clear idea of the kind of life I describe without any further particulars. I would repeat one sentence, the truth of which is shown in my first book: 'Every country has the Jews that it deserves'—and it is not the fault of the Polish Jews that they are less civilized than their brethren in the faith in England, Germany, and France. At least, it is not entirely their fault.

"No one can do more than his nature permits. This book is to a certain extent polemical, and the stories are written with an object. I do not deny that this is the case, and do not think it requires any excuse. Still I have never allowed myself to sin against truth in the pursuit of this object. I do not make the Polish Jews out to be either better or worse than they really are. These stories are not written for the purpose of holding up the Eastern Jews to obloquy or admiration, but with the object of throwing as much light as I could in dark places."

The second edition, published in 1877, only differed from the first in a few alterations made in the language; but the third edition (from which this translation is taken) is not only enlarged, but is also changed in several important particulars. I examined each story carefully, and strove to bring all into a distinct connection with each other, thus giving a clear idea of Polish Judaism regarded as a whole. For this reason new tales were introduced: they describe Jewish customs that had been at first passed over in silence, but which were necessary for the proper appreciation of the subject.

This work has been translated into all European languages, as well as into Hebrew; and now I have the pleasure of being able to lay it before the English public, by whom I hope it will receive as kind a reception as it has been given elsewhere. I hope so less for my own sake than in the interest of the unfortunate people whose life it describes.

Karl Emil Franzos.

Vienna.

THE SHYLOCK OF BARNOW.

(1873.)

The Jew's great white house stands exactly opposite the old gray monastery of the Dominicans, and close to the public road that leads from Lemberg to Skala, passing through the gloomy little town of Barnow on the way. The people born in the small dirty houses of the Ghetto grow up with a feeling of the deepest respect and admiration for this house and its owner, old Moses Freudenthal. Both house and man are the pride of Barnow; and both in their own way justify this pride.

To describe the house in the first place. It really seems to be conscious of its own grandeur as it stands there proud and stately in all the dignity of white-washed cleanliness, the long windows of the first floor bright and shining, and the painted shutters of the shop-windows coming down to the very ground at either side of the great folding-doors which stand invitingly open. For it is a house of entertainment, and the nobles of the country-side know how to take advantage of its superior attractions when they come to town on magisterial business, or attend the weekly market. It is also patronized by the cavalry officers who are stationed in the villages in the neighborhood, whenever the boredom of country quarters drives them into town. Besides this, the house is let in suites of apartments, and the greatest of the magnates of Barnow, such as the district judge and the doctor, live there. But it would be difficult to give a list of all the house contains, the ground-floor is so crowded. In one room is a lottery agency, then come the offices of a company for insuring cattle, men, and corn; and again, a drapery establishment, a grocer's shop, a room in which gentlemen may drink their wine, and another where the poor man can enjoy his glass of brandy-and-water. But then, the lottery agent, the agent of the insurance company, the draper, the grocer, and the innkeeper are one and all—Moses Freudenthal.

But the tall stern-looking old man to whom the house belongs is even more worthy of notice than it and all it contains. His family has been the grandest in the town as long as people can remember, and to him belongs of right the chief place in the synagogue. His father had been appointed head of the session on the death of his grandfather, and when his father died he was chosen as his successor without a dissentient voice, and by the unsolicited vote of the whole congregation. He is regarded as one of the most pious and honorable men in the Jewish community. Added to this is his wealth—his enormous wealth!

His co-religionists regard him as a millionaire, and they are right. For he not only possesses the big white house and all that is in it, but he has every reason to look upon several of the estates in the neighborhood as more really belonging to him than to the Polish nobles who live on them. And then Komorowka is his also. This beautiful place fell into his hands when little Count Smólski and his lovely wife Aurora lost it by their extravagance after a very few years' possession. Komorowka is indeed a lovely place. No wonder that when the time came for Count Smólski to leave his old home, he was in such utter despair that he sought to forget his woes in the worst fit of drunkenness of his whole life.

Would you be much surprised if you were now told that Moses Freudenthal was not only the richest and proudest, but also the most envied, man in Barnow?

But this he is not. Ask the poorest man in the Jewish town—the teacher of the law, who, with his six children, often suffers from the pangs of hunger, or the water-carriers, who groan under the heavy pails they bear from morning to night from the town-well—ask these men whether they would