Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

by Sholem Aleichem

  Vans I hed a kendy store, business it vas bed,

  Along came a friend of mine, vat you tink he said?

  “I hear you got a kendy store vat you don’t vant no more;

  Take a metch, give a skretch, no more kendy store!”

  And so “to make borey me’oyrey ho’eysh” became “to give the match a scratch”—not an ideal solution perhaps, but certainly a passable one. One does the best one can. Sometimes it’s a matter of luck.

  I have been translating fiction for many years, but from Hebrew, not from Yiddish, and this volume is the first full-scale Yiddish translation I have attempted. I wish, therefore, to express my deepest thanks to the editor of this series, Ruth Wisse, both for trusting and encouraging me to undertake this translation and for going over it with a fine-tooth comb. She was the safety net above which I felt free to be as acrobatic as I liked, knowing I would always be caught if I fell. This book is hers too.

  I also wish to thank Michael Stern of Washington, D.C., for kindly letting me use an unpublished paper tracing the sources of Tevye’s Hebrew quotations, thus sparing me much arduous spadework; and my sister, Miriam Halkin Och, of Haifa University Library, for her generous help in obtaining bibliographical materials.

  HILLEL HALKIN

  Zichron Ya’akov, Israel 1986

  *This fragment, which was given the tongue-twisting Hebrew name of Vekhalaklakoys, after the verse in Psalms 35:6, Yehi darkom khoyshekh vekhalaklakoys, “Let their path be dark and slippery,” was written in 1914, the same year as “Lekh-Lekho,” but not published until two years later. Though it seems to have been begun as a genuine sequel to “Lekh-Lekho,” that is, as a ninth episode of Tevye, it is less than a third of the average length of the other stories, repeats much of the material in Chapter 8 without adding anything essentially new, and has a rather tired quality that contrasts with the sparkle of the rest of the book. Still, one cannot call it unfinished; on the contrary, it contains precisely the “finale” that Chapter 8 lacks. In the absence of explanatory biographical material, of which there appears to be none, one can only speculate what this fragment represents. My own guess is as follows: while Sholem Aleichem indeed intended to write a full-length sequel to “Lekh-Lekho” and began it immediately after finishing the latter, he soon, whether because of failing health or because he realized that the book had reached its natural conclusion and had nowhere else to go, gave it up—though not before hastening to write a proper end for it, his main concern being that Tevye should have one. Unhappy with the results, however, he refrained from publishing this, possibly hoping to revise and expand it; yet ultimately, seeing this was not to be, he consented to its publication in the days before his death. Subsequently, in all the Yiddish editions of Tevye printed after Sholem Aleichem’s death, the Vekhalaklakoys fragment has appeared as its last chapter.

  As the translator of Tevye, I was in a dilemma. On the one hand, Vekhalaklakoys was published by Sholem Aleichem himself in his lifetime, and without it Tevye has no real end; yet on the other hand, apart from its last page, not only does it add nothing to the remainder of the work, it qualitatively detracts from it. What was one to do? In the end I decided to follow the example of Frances Butwin’s 1948 English translation of Tevye and to omit most of the fragment some six pages of Yiddish text in all, retaining only the final coda, which I spliced on to the end of “Lekh-Lekho,” adding several lines of my own to make the transition smoother. Though taking such a liberty in translating a classic of world literature may seem presumptuous to some readers, I would like to think that Sholem Aleichem might have welcomed it. Besides always being open to criticism of his work, frequently revising it as a result, he encouraged his Russian and Hebrew translators, whom he personally helped and advised, to be extremely free in their renditions. Anyone comparing his Yiddish with the Hebrew translations by his son-in-law Y. D. Berkovits, for example, and especially with Berkovits’ translation of Tevye, in which Sholem Aleichem was an active collaborator, will be struck by the enormous differences between them. (Berkovits himself omitted the Vekhalaklahoys fragment entirely in his complete Hebrew edition of the novel, which he ended with “Lekh-Lekho,” but this was apparently his own decision, made after Sholem Aleichem’s death.) There will no doubt come a time for variorum editions of Tevye in which the full text of Vekhalaklakoys can appear alongside whatever ending the translator cares to give the book.

  Apart from this fragment, I have departed (as did Berkovits) from the standard Yiddish text of Tevye in one other place. When the first episode of the book, “Tevye Strikes It Rich,” was published in 1894, it was accompanied by a brief preface, purporting to be a letter written by Tevye to Sholem Aleichem, the literary purpose of which was to introduce Tevye to the reader. Though this preface was later republished as part of the novel as a whole, it was clearly written for “Tevye Strikes It Rich” alone, makes no reference to any of the stories that come after it, and cannot possibly be construed as applying to them. I have therefore omitted it.

  *Tevye’s Hebrew is transliterated here, as it is throughout, according to the Ashkenazic pronunciation of Eastern Europe, which is quite different from the way Hebrew is pronounced in Israel and by most Jews today.

  TEVYE STRIKES IT RICH

  If you’re meant to strike it rich, Pan Sholem Aleichem, you may as well stay home with your slippers on, because good luck will find you there too. The more it blows the better it goes, as King David says in his Psalms—and believe me, neither brains nor brawn has anything to do with it. And vice versa: if it’s not in the cards you can run back and forth till you’re blue in the face, it will do as much good as last winter’s snow. How does the saying go? Flogging a dead horse won’t make it run any faster. A man slaves, works himself to the bone, is ready to lie down and die—it shouldn’t happen to the worst enemy of the Jews. Suddenly, don’t ask me how or why, it rains gold on him from all sides. In a word, revakh vehatsoloh ya’amoyd layehudim, just like it says in the Bible! That’s too long a verse to translate, but the general gist of it is that as long as a Jew lives and breathes in this world and hasn’t more than one leg in the grave, he musn’t lose faith. Take it from my own experience—that is, from how the good Lord helped set me up in my present line of business. After all, if I sell butter and cheese and such stuff, do you think that’s because my grandmother’s grandmother was a milkman? But if I’m going to tell you the whole story, it’s worth hearing from beginning to end. If you don’t mind, then, I’ll sit myself down here beside you and let my horse chew on some grass. He’s only human too, don’t you think, or why else would God have made him a horse?

  Well, to make a long story short, it happened early one summer, around Shavuos time. But why should I lie to you? It might have been a week or two before Shavuos too, unless it was several weeks after. What I’m trying to tell you is that it took place exactly a dog’s age ago, nine or ten years to the day, if not a bit more or less. I was the same man then that I am now, only not at all like me; that is, I was Tevye then too, but not the Tevye you’re looking at. How does the saying go? It’s still the same lady, she’s just not so shady. Meaning that in those days—it should never happen to you!—I was such a miserable beggar that rags were too good for me. Believe me, I’m no millionaire today either. If from now until autumn the two of us earned a tenth of what it would take to make me half as rich as Brodsky, we wouldn’t be doing half badly. Still, compared to what I was then, I’ve become a real tycoon. I’ve got my own horse and wagon; I’ve got two cows that give milk, bless them, and a third cow waiting to calve; forgive me for boasting, but we’re swimming in cheese, cream, and butter. Not that we don’t work for it, mind you; you won’t find any slackers at my place. My wife milks the cows; the girls carry the cans and churn butter; and I, as you see, go to the market every morning and from there to all the summer dachas in Boiberik. I stop to chat with this person, with that one; there isn’t a rich Jew I don’t know there. When you talk with such people, you know, you beg
in to feel that you’re someone yourself and not such a one-armed tailor any more. And I’m not even talking about Sabbaths. On Sabbaths, I tell you, I’m king, I have all the time in the world. Why, I can even pick up a Jewish book then if I want: the Bible, Psalms, Rashi, Targum, Perek, you name it … I tell you, if you could only see me then, you’d say, “He’s really some fine fellow, that Tevye!”

  To get to the point, though … where were we? Oh, yes: in those days, with God’s help, I was poor as a devil. No Jew should starve as I did! Not counting suppers, my wife and kids went hungry three times a day. I worked like a dog dragging logs by the wagonful from the forest to the train station for—I’m embarrassed even to tell you—half a ruble a day … and not even every day, either. You try feeding a house full of little mouths on that, to say nothing of a horse who’s moved in with you and can’t be put off with some verse from the Bible, because he expects to eat and no buts! So what does the good Lord do? I tell you, it’s not for nothing that they say He’s a zon umefarneys lakoyl, that He runs this world of His with more brains than you or I could. He sees me eating my heart out for a slice of bread and says, “Now, Tevye, are you really trying to tell me that the world has come to an end? Eh, what a damn fool you are! In no time I’m going to show you what God can do when He wants. About face, march!” As we say on Yom Kippur, mi yorum umi yishofeyl—leave it to Him to decide who goes on foot and who gets to ride. The main thing is confidence. A Jew must never, never give up hope. How does he go on hoping, you ask, when he’s already died a thousand deaths? But that’s the whole point of being a Jew in this world! What does it say in the prayer book? Atoh bekhartonu! We’re God’s chosen people; it’s no wonder the whole world envies us … You don’t know what I’m talking about? Why, I’m talking about myself, about the miracle God helped me to. Be patient and you’ll hear all about it.

  Vayehi hayoym, as the Bible says: one fine summer day in the middle of the night, I’m driving home through the forest after having dumped my load of logs. I feel like my head is in the ground, there’s a black desert growing in my heart; it’s all my poor horse can do to drag his feet along behind him. “It serves you right, you schlimazel,” I say to him, “for belonging to someone like me! If you’re going to insist on being Tevye’s horse, it’s time you knew what it tastes like to fast the whole length of a summer’s day.” It was so quiet you could hear every crack of the whip whistle through the woods. The sun began to set; the day was done for. The shadows of the trees were as long as the exile of the Jews. And with the darkness a terrible feeling crept into my heart. All sorts of thoughts ran in and out of my head. The faces of long-dead people passed before me. And when I thought of coming home—God help me! The little house would be pitch-dark. My naked, barefoot kids would peek out to see if their schlemiel of a father hadn’t brought them some bread, maybe even a freshly baked roll. And my old lady would grumble like a good Jewish mother: “A lot he needed children—and seven of them at that! God punish me for saying so, but my mistake was not to have taken them all and thrown them into the river.” How do you think it made me feel to hear her say such things? A man is only flesh and blood, after all; you can’t fill a stomach with words. No, a stomach needs herring to fill it; herring won’t go down without tea; tea can’t be drunk without sugar; and sugar, my friend, costs a fortune. And my wife! “My guts,” says my wife, “can do without bread in the morning, but without a glass of tea I’m a stretcher case. That baby’s sucked the glue from my bones all night long!”

  Well, one can’t stop being a Jew in this world: it was time for the evening prayer. (Not that the evening was about to go anywhere, but a Jew prays when he must, not when he wants to.) Some fine prayer it turned out to be! Right in the middle of the shimenesre, the eighteen benedictions, a devil gets into my crazy horse and he decides to go for a pleasure jaunt. I had to run after the wagon and grab the reins while shouting “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” at the top of my voice—and to make matters worse I’d really felt like praying for a change, for once in my life I was sure it would make me feel better …

  In a word, there I was running behind the wagon and singing the shimenesre like a cantor in a synagogue. Mekhalkeyl khayim, bekhesed, Who provideth life with His bounty—it better be all of life, do You hear me?… Umekayeym emunosoy lisheyney of or, Who keep-eth faith with them who slumber in earth—who slumber in earth? With my troubles I was six feet underground already! And to think of those rich Yehupetz Jews sitting all summer long in their dachas in Boiberik, eating and drinking and swimming in luxury! Master of the Universe, what have I done to deserve all this? Am I or am I not a Jew like any other? Help!… Re’ey-no be’onyeynu, See us in our affliction—take a good look at us poor folk slaving away and do something about it, because if You don’t, just who do You think will?… Refo’eynu veneyrofey, Heal our wounds and make us whole—please concentrate on the healing because the wounds we already have … Boreykh oleynu, Bless the fruits of this year—kindly arrange a good harvest of corn, wheat, and barley, although what good it will do me is more than I can say: does it make any difference to my horse, I ask You, if the oats I can’t afford to buy him are expensive or cheap?

  But God doesn’t tell a man what He thinks, and a Jew had better believe that He knows what He’s up to. Velamalshinim al tehi tikvoh, May the slanderers have no hope—those are all the big shots who say there is no God: what wouldn’t I give to see the look on their faces when they line up for Judgment Day! They’ll pay with back interest for everything they’ve done, because God has a long memory, one doesn’t play around with Him. No, what He wants is for us to be good, to beseech and cry out to Him … Ov harakhamon, Merciful, loving Father!… Shma koyleynu—You better listen to what we tell You!… Khus verakheym oleynu—pay a little attention to my wife and children, the poor things are hungry!… Retsey—take decent care of Your people again, as once You did long ago in the days of our Temple, when the priests and the Levites sacrificed before You …

  All of a sudden—whoaaa! My horse stopped short in his tracks. I rushed through what was left of the prayer, opened my eyes, and looked around me. Two weird figures, dressed for a masquerade, were approaching from the forest. “Robbers!” I thought at first, then caught myself. Tevye, I said, what an idiot you are! Do you mean to tell me that after traveling through this forest by day and by night for so many years, today is the day for robbers? And bravely smacking my horse on the rear as though it were no affair of mine, I cried, “Giddyap!”

  “Hey, a fellow Jew!” one of the two terrors called out to me in a woman’s voice, waving a scarf at me. “Don’t run away, mister. Wait a second. We won’t do you any harm.”

  It’s a ghost for sure! I told myself. But a moment later I thought, what kind of monkey business is this, Tevye? Since when are you so afraid of ghouls and goblins? So I pulled up my horse and took a good look at the two. They really did look like women. One was older and had a silk kerchief on her head, while the other was young and wore a wig. Both were beet-red and sweating buckets.

  “Well, well, well, good evening,” I said to them as loudly as I could to show that I wasn’t a bit afraid. “How can I be of service to you? If you’re looking to buy something, I’m afraid I’m all out of stock, unless I can interest you in some fine hunger pangs, a week’s supply of heartache, or a head full of scrambled brains. Anyone for some chilblains, assorted aches and pains, worries to turn your hair gray?”

  “Calm down, calm down,” they said to me. “Just listen to him run on! Say a good word to a Jew and you get a mouthful of bad ones in return. We don’t want to buy anything. We only wanted to ask whether you happened to know the way to Boiberik.”

  “The way to Boiberik?” I did my best to laugh. “You might as well ask whether I know my name is Tevye.”

  “You say your name is Tevye?” they said. “We’re very pleased to meet you, Reb Tevye. We wish you’d explain to us, though, what the joke is all about. We’re strangers around here; we come from Y
ehupetz and have a summer place in Boiberik. The two of us went out this morning for a little walk, and we’ve been going around in circles ever since without finding our way out of these woods. A little while ago we heard someone singing. At first we thought, who knows, maybe it’s a highwayman. But as soon as we came closer and saw that you were, thank goodness, a Jew, you can imagine how much better we felt. Do you follow us?”

  “A highwayman?” I said. “That’s a good one! Did you ever hear the story of the Jewish highwayman who fell on somebody in the forest and begged him for a pinch of snuff? If you’d like, I’d be only too glad to tell it to you.”