Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

by Sholem Aleichem

  “Ask me anything but that,” she says. “Better yet, don’t ask me anything. Just pray that there’ll be some good news soon …”

  “Amen,” I say. “I only hope God’s listening. My enemies should worry about their health as much as I’m beginning to worry about the little game that you and your friends are playing …”

  “The trouble is, you don’t understand,” she says.

  “What’s to understand?” I say. “I’d like to think I understand harder things.”

  “It’s not something you can grasp with just your head,” she says. “You have to feel it—you have to feel it with all your heart!”

  And on she went, my Hodl, her face flushed and her eyes burning as she talked. What a mistake it was to go and have such daughters! Whatever craziness they fall for, it’s head and heart and body and soul and life and limb all together …

  Well, let me tell you, a week went by, and then another, and still another, and another, and another—eyn koyl ve’eyn kosef, there’s not a letter, not a single word. That’s the last of Peppercorn, I thought, looking at my Hodl. There wasn’t a drop of blood in her poor cheeks. All the time she did her best to keep busy about the house, because nothing else helped take her mind off him—yet couldn’t she have said something, couldn’t she at least have mentioned his name? No, not one syllable: you’d think that such a fellow as Peppercorn was a pure figment of my imagination …

  One day when I came home, though, I could see that my Hodl had been crying; her eyes were swollen with tears. I asked around and was told that not long before, a character with long hair had been in the house and spoken to her in private. Oho, I said to myself, that must be our fine friend who goes about with his shirt hanging out and tells his rich parents to jump in the lake! And without thinking twice I called my Hodl out to the yard and put it straight to her. “Tell me,” I asked her, “have you heard from him?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And where,” I ask, “is your true love?”

  “He’s far away,” she says.

  “And what,” I ask, “might he be doing there?”

  “He’s doing time,” she says.

  “Time?”

  “Time.”

  “But where?” I ask. “For what?”

  Hodl didn’t answer. She looked straight at me and said nothing.

  “Just explain one thing to me, Daughter,” I said. “I don’t need you to tell me that he’s not doing time for horse theft. And if he isn’t a thief and he isn’t a swindler, what good deeds has he been put away for?”

  Eyn Esther magedes—mum’s the word! Well, I thought, if you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to; he’s your bit of bad luck, not mine; may the Lord have mercy on him!… My heart didn’t ache any less, though. After all, she was my daughter. You know what it says in the prayer book: kerakheym ov al bonim—a father can’t help being a father …

  In short, the summer passed, the High Holy Days came and went, and it was already Hoshana Rabbah, the last day of Sukkos. It’s my habit on holidays to give myself and my horse a breather, just like it says in the Bible: atoh—you yourself; veshorkho—and your wife; vekhamorkho—and your horse too … Besides, there’s nothing to do then in Boiberik anyway; as soon as Rosh Hashanah comes along, all the dacha owners take off like a pack of hungry mice and Boiberik turns into a ghost town. It’s a good time to stay home and relax a bit on the front stoop. In fact, it’s my favorite season. Each day is a gift. The sun’s not as hot as an oven anymore and has a mildness about it that makes being out-of-doors a pleasure. The leaves are still green, the pine trees give off a good tarry smell, and the whole forest is looking its best, as if it were God’s own sukkah, a tabernacle for God. It’s there that He must celebrate the holiday, not in the city, where there’s such a commotion of people running about to earn their next meal and thinking only of money, of how to make more and more of it … And at night you might think you were in Paradise, the sky such a deep blue and the stars twinkling, sparkling, winking on and off at you like eyes; sometimes one shoots through the air as fast as an arrow, leaving behind a green trail—that’s a sign that someone’s luck has run out. Every Jew has his star … why, the whole sky is Jewish … I hope it’s not mine that just fell, I prayed, suddenly thinking of Hodl. Lately she’d seemed cheerier, livelier, more her old self again. Someone had brought her a letter, no doubt from her jailbird. I would have given the world to know what was in it, but I was blamed if I was going to ask. If she wasn’t talking, neither was I; I’d show her how to button up a lip. No, Tevye was no woman; Tevye could wait …

  Well, no sooner had I thought of my Hodl than she appeared by my side. She sat down next to me on the stoop, looked around, and said in a low voice, “Papa, are you listening? I have to tell you something. I’m saying goodbye to you tonight … forever.”

  She spoke in such a whisper that I could barely hear her, and she gave me the strangest look—such a look, I tell you, as I’ll never forget for as long as I live. The first thing to flash through my mind was that she was going to drown herself … Why did I think of drowning? Because there was once an incident not far from here in which a Jewish girl fell in love with a Russian peasant boy, and, not being able to marry him … but I’ve already told you the end. The mother took it so hard that she fell ill and died, and the father let his business go bankrupt. Only the peasant boy got over it; he found himself another and married her instead. As for the girl, she went down to the river and threw herself in …

  “What do you mean, you’re saying goodbye forever?” I asked, staring down at the ground to hide my face, which must have looked like a dead man’s.

  “I mean,” she said, “that I’m going away early in the morning. We’ll never see each other again … ever.”

  That cheered me up a bit. Thank God for small comforts, I thought. Things could have been worse—though to tell you the truth, they conceivably could have been better …

  “And just where,” I inquired, “are you going, if it’s not too much of me to ask?”

  “I’m going to join him,” she said.

  “You are?” I said. “And where is he?”

  “Right now he’s still in prison,” she said. “But soon he’s being sent to Siberia.”

  “And so you’re going to say goodbye to him?” I asked, playing innocent.

  “No,” she says. “I’m going with him.”

  “Where?” I say. “What’s the name of the nearest town?”

  “We don’t know the exact place yet,” she says. “But it’s awfully far away. Just getting there alive isn’t easy.”

  She said that, did my Hodl, with great pride, as if she and her Peppercorn had done something so grand that they deserved a medal with half a pound of gold in it. I ask you, what’s a father to do with such a child? He either scolds her, you say, or spanks her, or gives her an earful she’ll remember. But Tevye is no woman; it happens to be my opinion that anger is the worst sin in the book. And so I answered as usual with a verse from Scripture. “I see, Hodl,” I told her, “that you take the Bible seriously when it says, al keyn ya’azoyv ish es oviv ve’es imoy, therefore a child shall leave its father and its mother … For Peppercorn’s sake you’re throwing your papa and your mama to the dogs and going God only knows where, to some far wilderness across the trackless sea where even Alexander the Great nearly drowned the time he was shipwrecked on a desert island inhabited by cannibals … And don’t think I’m making that up either, because I read every word in a book …”

  You can see that I tried to make light of it, though my heart was weeping inside me. But Tevye is no woman; Tevye kept a stiff upper lip. And she, my Hodl, was not to be outdone by me. She answered whatever I said point by point, quietly, calmly, intelligently. Say what you will about them, Tevye’s daughters can talk!… Her voice shook dully, and even with my eyes shut, I felt that I could see her, that I could see my Hodl’s face that was as pale and worn as the moon … Should I have thrown myself on her
, had a fit, begged her not to go? But I could see it was a lost cause. Damn them all, every one of those daughters of mine—when they fall for someone, they do it hook, line, and sinker!

  In a word, we sat on the stoop all night long. Much of the time we said nothing, and even our talk was in bits and snatches. Sometimes I listened to Hodl, and sometimes she listened to me. I asked her one thing: whoever heard of a girl marrying a boy for the sole purpose of following him to the North Pole? I tried using reason to convince her how unreasonable it was, and she tried using reason to convince me that reason had nothing to do with it. Finally, I told her the story of the duckling that was hatched by a hen; as soon as it could stand on its feet it toddled down to the water and swam away, while its poor mother just stood there and squawked. “What, Hodl, my darling, do you have to say about that?” I asked. “What is there to say?” she said. “Of course, I feel sorry for the hen; but just because the hen squawks, is the duckling never to swim?” … Now, is that an answer or isn’t it? I tell you, Tevye’s daughters don’t mince words!

  Meanwhile time was going by. The dawn began to break. Inside the house my wife was grumbling. She had let us know more than once that it was time we called it a night—and now, seeing all the good it had done, she stuck her head out the window and bawled with her usual tact, “Tevye! What in God’s name do you think you’re doing out there?”

  “Ssshhh, don’t make so much noise, Golde,” I said. “Lomoh rogshu, says the Bible—have you forgotten that it’s Hoshana Rabbah? On the night of Hoshana Rabbah one isn’t supposed to sleep, because it’s then that the Book of Life is shut for the year … And now listen, Golde: please put up the samovar and let’s have tea, because I’m taking Hodl to the station.” And right on the spot I made up another whopper about Hodl having to go to Yehupetz, and from there to somewhere else, on account of Peppercorn’s inheritance; in fact, she might very well have to spend the winter there, and maybe even the summer, and possibly the winter after that—which was why she needed a few things for the trip, such as linens, a dress, some pillows and pillowcases, and whatever else a young lady had to have …

  Those were my orders—the last of which was that there better not be any tears, not when the whole world was celebrating Hoshana Rabbah. “No crying allowed on a holiday!” I said, “It’s written in the Talmud, black on white.” It could have been written in solid gold for all anyone listened to me. Cry they did, and when the time came to part, such a wailing broke out as you never heard in all your life. Everyone was shrieking: my wife, my daughters, my Hodl, and most of all, my eldest, Tsaytl, who spent the holiday at our place with her Motl. The two sisters hugged each other so hard that we could barely tear them apart …

  I alone stayed strong as steel—that is, I steeled myself, though I was about as calm as a boiling kettle inside. But do you think I let anyone see it? Not on your life! Tevye is no woman … Hodl and I didn’t say a word all the way to Boiberik, and only when we were nearly at the station did I ask her one last time to tell me what her Peppercorn had done. “It’s got to be something!” I said.

  She flared up at that; her husband, she swore, was as clean as the driven snow. “Why,” she said, “he’s a person who never thinks of his own self! His whole life is for others, for the good of the world—and especially for the workers, for the workingman …”

  Maybe some day I’ll meet the genius who can explain to me what that means. “You say he cares so much about the world?” I said. “Well, maybe you can tell me why, if he and the world are such great friends, it doesn’t care more about him … But give him my best wishes, and tell your Alexander the Great that I’m counting on his honor, because he is the very soul of it, isn’t he, to see to it that my daughter isn’t ruined and that she drops her old father a line now and then …”

  I was still in the middle of the sentence when she hugged me and burst into tears. “We’d better say goodbye now,” she said. “Be well, Papa. God knows when we’ll see each other again …”

  That did it! I couldn’t keep it in a second longer. You see, just then I thought of my Hodl when I held her as a baby in my arms … she was just a tiny thing then … and I held her in these arms … please forgive me, Pan, if … if I … just like a woman … but I want you to know what a Hodl I have! You should see the letters that she writes me … she’s God’s own Hodl, Hodl is … and she’s with me right here all the time … deep, deep down … there’s just no way to put it into words …

  You know what, Pan Sholem Aleichem? Let’s talk about something more cheerful. Have you heard any news of the cholera in Odessa?

  (1904)

  CHAVA

  Hoydu lashem ki toyv—whatever God does is for the best. That is, it had better be, because try changing it if you don’t like it! I was once like that myself; I stuck my nose into this, into that, until I realized I was wasting my time, threw up my hands, and said, Tevye, what a big fool you are! You’re not going to remake the world … The good Lord gave us tsa’ar gidul bonim, which means in plain language that you can’t stop loving your children just because they’re nothing but trouble. If my daughter Tsaytl, for example, went and fell for a tailor named Motl Komzoyl, was that any reason to be upset? True, he’s a simple soul, the fine points of being a Jew are beyond him, he can’t read the small print at all-but what of it? You can’t expect the whole world to have a higher education. He’s still an honest fellow who works hard to support his family. He and Tsaytl—you should see what a whiz she is around the house!—have a home full of little brats already, touch wood, and are dying from sheer happiness. Ask her about it and she’ll tell you that life couldn’t be better. In fact, there’s only one slight problem, which is that her children are starving …

  Ad kan hakofoh alef—that’s daughter number one. And as for number two, I mean Hodl, I hardly need tell you about her. You already know the whole story. She’s lost and gone forever, Hodl is; God knows if I’ll ever set eyes on her again this side of the world to come … Just talking about her gives me the shakes, I feel my world has come to an end. You say I should forget her? But how do you forget a living, breathing human being—and especially a child like Hodl? You should see the letters she sends me, it’s enough to melt a heart of ice! They’re doing very well there, she writes; that is, he’s doing time and she’s doing wash. She takes in laundry, reads books, sees him once a week, and hopes, so she says, that one glorious day her Peppercorn and his friends will be pardoned and sent home; then, she promises, they’ll really get down to business and turn the world upside down with its feet in the air and its head six feet in the ground. A charming prospect, eh?… So what does the good Lord do? He’s an eyl rakhum vekhanun, a merciful God, and He says to me, “Just you wait, Tevye. When you see what I have up my sleeve this time, you’ll forget every trouble you ever had …” And don’t think that isn’t just what happened! I wouldn’t tell anyone but you about it, because the shame is even worse than the sorrow, but hamekhaseh ani mey’Avrohom—do you and I have any secrets between us? Why, I don’t keep a thing from you! There’s just one request I have, though—that this stay between the two of us, because I’ll say it again: as bad as the heartache has been, the disgrace is far worse.

  In a word, rotsoh hakodoysh borukh hu lezakoys, God wanted to do Tevye such a big favor that He went and gave him seven daughters—and not just ordinary daughters either, but bright, pretty, gifted, healthy, hardworking ones, fresh as daisies, every one of them! Let me tell you, I’d have been better off if they all were as ugly as sin … You can take the best of horses—what will it amount to if it’s kept in a stable all day long? And it’s the same with good-looking daughters if you raise them among peasants in a hole like this, where there’s not a living soul to talk to apart from the village elder Anton Paparilo, the village scribe Chvedka Galagan, and the village priest, damn his soul, whose name I can’t even stand to mention—and not because I’m a Jew and he’s a priest, either. On the contrary, we’ve known each other for ages. I d
on’t mean that we ever slapped each other’s backs or danced at each other’s weddings, but we said hello whenever we met and stopped to chat a bit about the latest news. I tried avoiding long discussions with him, though, because they always ended up with the same rigamarole about my God, and his God, and how his God had it over mine. Of course, I couldn’t let it pass without quoting some verse from the Bible, and he couldn’t let that pass without insisting he knew our Scriptures better than I did and even reciting a few lines of them in a Hebrew that sounded like a Frenchman talking Greek. It was the same blessed routine every time—and when I couldn’t let that pass without putting him in his place with a midrash, he’d say, “Look here, your Middyrush is from your Tallymud, and your Tallymud is a lot of hokum,” which got my goat so that I gave him a good piece of my mind off the top of it … Do you think that fazed him, though? Not one bit! He just looked at me, combed his beard with his fingers, and laughed right in my face. I tell you, there’s nothing more aggravating than being laughed at by someone you’ve just finished throwing the book at. The hotter under the collar I’d get, the more he’d stand there and grin at me. Well, if I didn’t understand what he thought was funny then, I’m sorry to say I do now …

  In short, I came home one evening to find Chvedka the scribe, a tall young goy with high boots and a big shock of hair, standing outside and talking to my third daughter, Chava. As soon as he saw me he about-faced, tipped his hat, and took off.

  “What was Chvedka doing here?” I asked Chava.

  “Nothing,” she says.