Asher's parents began to get so worried about him they sent him to a doctor after doctor. His parents treated his artistic ability as if it was a disease. When Asher returns to school, he does something unthinkable. He draws a picture of the Rebbe in the Chumash. Except the picture was not a nice drawing instead it was a picture of the Rebbe, with a mean and ugly face. "I had drawn the face in thick black ink. It was a bearded face, dark-eyed, dark-haired, vaguely menacing. On top of the face, I had drawn a head of dark hair covered by an ordinary dark hat... The Rebbe looked evil, the Rebbe looked threatening, the Rebbe looking out at me from the Chumash seemed to hurt me. That was the expression he had worn when he had told my father to go to Vienna."(119-120). This picture Asher had drawn with no idea what he was doing. As if, art and drawing for Asher was second nature. Asher had drawn the Rebbe with a look, an evil look as if he was going to hurt him. Asher is talking about the look that the Rebbe had when he told his father to move to Vienna. After this news, Asher hated the Rebbe. Asher did not want to go to Vienna. This is why Asher defiled the picture of the Rebbe in the book.

Asher is asked to visit the mashpia, or principal of the school. During the would discussion at the mashpia's office, Asher is staring out the window behind the mashpia and is fantasizing about his street and what it looks like, as if it were crying. "The mashpia as saying something, but I did not want to listen to him any more. It's raining in sharp diagonals to the verticals and horizontals of the window. Look at those slashing diagonals. The mashpia was saying something about Vienna but I would not listen. The darkness was gone from the street and I could see the trees beneath the lashing rain."(130) Asher is not interested in anything other than art. Even when he is supposed to be paying attention to a higher being Asher finds himself staring off into the unknown looking at verticals and horizontals and art.

Before Asher leaves the mashpia's office he is asked to draw pictures of anything in a book for the mashpia. First Asher draws pictures of people and his mother. Once he stops drawing he realizes that he never draws his father in any of the pictures. Asher is so lost in the world that he leaves and goes to the museum instead. He comes home very late and upsets his mother, talking about Moses and statues.