Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

by Sholem Aleichem

  When I had finished my rounds, I started back with my empty cans. Once I was in the forest I let go of my horse’s reins and let him amble along and munch on some grass while I sat there thinking of one thing and another: of life and death, and of this world and the next, and of what both were all about, and so on and so forth—all to keep my mind off Chava. Yet as though to spite me, my thoughts kept coming back to her. I couldn’t stop picturing her, as tall, fresh, and lovely as a young willow, or else as a tiny baby, a sick little rag doll of a thing, a teeny chick that I could hold in one hand with its head against my shoulder. What is it you want, Chavaleh? Something to suck on? A bit of milk to drink? … For a moment I forgot what she had done, and then I missed her terribly. As soon as I remembered, though, the blood rushed to my head and I began to rage like the Devil at her, and at Chvedka, and at the whole world, and at myself for not being able to forget her. Why couldn’t I get her out of my mind, tear her from my heart? It’s not as if she didn’t deserve it! Was it for this I had been such a good Jew all my life, had bled myself white and raised seven daughters—for them to break away in the end like the leaves that fall from a tree and are carried off by the wind? Why, just think of it: here a tree grows in the forest, and here along comes a woodsman with an axe and begins to hack off its branches one by one … what good is the tree without its branches? Far better, woodsman, for you to chop it down all at once and have done with it! Who needs a branchless tree sticking up in the middle of the forest?

  There I was arguing with myself when suddenly I noticed that my horse had come to a halt. Red light! What could it be? I looked ahead … Chava! The same Chava as always, not a hair more or less of her … why, even her dress was the same. My first thought was to climb down and grab her in my arms, but right away I thought again. What sort of woman are you, Tevye? I asked myself—and I jerked the reins to the right and cried, “Giddyap there, you moron!” Well, no sooner did my horse veer to the right than Chava ran in front of it again, gesturing as if to say that she had something to tell me. I could feel my heart split in two, my arms and legs wouldn’t obey me … in a second I knew I would jump right out of the wagon … Just then, though, I got a grip on myself and jerked the reins back to the left. Back to the left runs Chava, a wild look in her eyes, her face the color of death … What do I do now, I wondered, hold my ground or full speed ahead? Before I could make up my mind she grabbed the horse by its bridle and cried, “Papa! May I hope to die if you drive away now! Oh, Papa, Papa, I beg you, at least listen to me first …”

  Oho, I thought, so you think you can make me knuckle under? Well, guess again, my darling! If that’s your idea of your father, it just shows how little you know him … And I began to whip my horse for all he was worth. He lunged forward, all right, though he kept looking back and pointing his ears at her. “Giddyap!” I cried again. “Al tistakeyl bakankan—keep your eyes on the road, you smart aleck!…” Do you think I didn’t want to turn around too and take one last look at my daughter? But Tevye is no woman, Tevye puts Satan behind him …

  Well, I won’t bore you with more details. Why waste your time? I can only say that if I have any sins to account for after my death, I’m already paid up for them in advance more than all the torments of hell; just ask me and I’ll tell you a few things … All the way home I kept imagining that my Chava was running after me and screaming, “Oh, Papa, Papa …” Tevye, I said to myself, enough is enough! What harm would it do to stop for a minute and listen? Maybe she really has something important to say to you. Maybe she’s sorry and wants to come home. Maybe her life with him is such hell that she needs your help to run away … I thought of a thousand such maybes, I pictured her again as a child, the words kerakheym ov al bonim kept running through my head—could there be anywhere a child so bad that a father still couldn’t love it? What torture to think that I was the only exception … why, a monster like me wasn’t fit to walk the earth! “What are you doing, you crazy old loon?” I asked myself. “Why are you making such a production of this? Stop playing the tyrant, turn your wagon around, and make up with her! She’s your own child, after all, not some street waif …”

  I tell you, I had even weirder thoughts than that in the forest. What did being a Jew or not a Jew matter? Why did God have to create both? And if He did, why put such walls between them, so that neither would look at the other even though both were His creatures? It grieved me that I wasn’t a more learned man, because surely there were answers to be found in the holy books …

  In a word, to take my mind off it all I began to chant the ashrey—that is, to say the afternoon prayer like any other good Jew. What use was it to pray out loud, though, when everything inside me was crying Cha-va? The louder I prayed, the more it sounded like Cha-va, and the harder I tried not to think of her, the more clearly I saw her and heard her begging me, “Papa, Papa, please …” I stopped my ears, I shut my eyes, and I said the shimenesre, beating my breast in the confessional without knowing for what sins … My life is a shambles and there’s no one I can even talk to about it. I never told a living soul about meeting Chava in the forest or anything else about her, though I know exactly where she and he are living and even what they’re doing there. Just let anyone try to worm it out of me, though! My enemies won’t live to see the day that I complain. That’s the sort of man Tevye is …

  Still, I’d give a great deal to know if everyone is like me or if I’m the only madman of my kind. Once, for example … but do you promise not to laugh at me? Because I’m afraid you’ll laugh … Well, once I put on my best clothes and went to the station in order to take the train there—I mean, to where he and she live. I stepped up to the window and asked for a ticket. “Where to?” says the ticket seller. “To Yehupetz,” I say. “Yehupetz?” he says. “I never heard of such a place.” “Well, it’s no fault of mine if you haven’t,” I say—and I turn right around, walk home again, take off my best clothes, and go back to work, to my little dairy business with its horse and wagon. How does the saying go? Ish lefo’aloy ve’odom le’avoydosoy—the tailor to his needle and the shoemaker to his bench …

  Ah, you’re laughing at me anyhow? What did I tell you! I even know just what you’re thinking: you’re thinking what a screwball Tevye is … If you ask me, then, ad kan oymrim beshabbes hagodol—it’s time to call it quits for the day. Be healthy and well, and drop me a line now and then. For God’s sake, though, remember what I told you: you’re not to breathe a word about any of this, or put it in any of your books! And if you absolutely must write about it, write that it happened to somebody else, not to me. As it says in the Bible, vayishkokheyhu—me, Tevye the Dairyman, please forget …

  (1905)

  SHPRINTZE

  Why, Pan Sholem Aleichem, what a pleasure to run into you! I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age. My oh my, the water that’s flowed under the bridge since we last met! What you and I and Jews everywhere haven’t been through these past years: pogroms in Kishinev, riots, troubles, the new Constantution—dear Lord, it doesn’t stop … Don’t take it wrong, but I’m surprised to see you haven’t changed a bit, there’s still not a gray hair on you! I only wish you could say the same of me. Harey ani keven shivim shonoh—I haven’t even turned sixty, and just look how old and gray I am. It’s no laughing matter what we go through with our children, and who has less to laugh about than me? The latest nightmare with my daughter Shprintze is worse than anything that came before—yet here I am, still alive and kicking, as if nothing had happened at all. Be’al korkhekho atoh khai—how does that little song go?

  What do I care if the weather is sunny

  When I’m all out of luck and all out of money …

  In a word, rotsoh hakodoysh borukh hu lezakoys—God wanted to do us Jews a favor and so He sent us a new catastrophe, a Constantution. Believe me, that’s all we needed! You should see what a panic the rich Yehupetz Jews are in, how they’re all running abroad—that is, to the baths in Germany to take care of their nerves, their stomach
s, their livers, their whoosywhatsis … And what with everyone leaving Yehupetz, you’d think, wouldn’t you, that all the fresh air and green trees and dachas of Boiberik couldn’t keep it from going to the dogs. You know what the good news is, though? That there’s a borukh merakheym al ha’orets, a merciful God up above Who looks after us poor country folk and makes sure we keep our noses to the grindstone. Have we ever had a summer season here! They’ve come flocking to Boiberik from Odessa, from Rostov, from Yekaterinoslav, from Mogilev, from Kishinev—thousands of them, Jews filthy with money! It seems that the Constantution is even worse where they are, because they haven’t stopped heading in this direction. But why, you ask, are they all running here? For the same reason, I tell you, that we’re all running there! It’s an old Jewish custom to pick up and go elsewhere at the first mention of a pogrom. How does the Bible put it? Vayisu vayakhanu, vayakhanu vayisu—or in plain language, if you come hide in my house, I’d better go hide in yours … Which is why Boiberik, I want you to know, has become a real metropolis, bursting with men, women, and children. Now children, mind you, like to eat; to eat you need cheese, cream, and butter; and where do you get such stuff if not from Tevye? Like it or not, Tevye’s all the fashion nowadays. It’s “Tevye, come here,” and “Tevye, go there,” and Tevye, Tevye, Tevye all day long. If that’s how God wants it, who are you and I to object?

  Well, vayehi hayoym—once upon a time not very long ago, I brought some produce to a new customer, a wealthy young widow from Yekaterinoslav who had come to Boiberik for the summer with her son, a fellow named Ahronchik. Needless to say, her first acquaintance in all of Boiberik was me. “You’ve been recommended,” she says, “as being the best dairyman around.” “And why shouldn’t I have been?” I answer. “It’s no coincidence that King Solomon said a good reputation is louder than a trumpet. If you have a minute to spare, I even have a nice little midrash …” But she didn’t, because she was, she told me, a widow, and such things were not her cup of tea. In fact, she wouldn’t know what to do with a midrash if I were to put one on her plate; all she wanted was good cheese and fresh butter. Just try having a serious talk with a woman …

  In short, I began coming around to that widow from Yekaterinoslav twice a week, every Monday and Thursday like clockwork, without her having to order in advance. It got so that I was practically one of the household; I poked around in it a bit, saw how things were done there, and even gave a bit of advice. The first time I did that, I got a good chewing out from the servant: who did I think I was, sticking my nose into other people’s business? The second time I was listened to, and the third time the widow actually asked my opinion about something, having seen by now who Tevye was. The long and short of it was that one day she approached me with her greatest problem: Ahronchik! Although he was, she said, over twenty years old, all he cared about was horses, fishing, and bicycles, apart from which nothing mattered to him. He didn’t have the slightest interest in business or making money, or even in managing the handsome estate he had inherited from his father, which was worth a good million rubles. His one pleasure was to spend it, and liberally at that.

  “Tell me,” I said, “where is the young man now? If you let me have a few words with him, I might talk to him a bit, set him straight with a verse from the Bible, maybe even with a midrash …”

  “If I know my son,” she laughed, “a horse will get you further than a midrash.”

  We were still talking about him when—speaking of the Devil!—in walks Ahronchik himself, a tall, handsome, ruddy-faced young man with a broad sash around his waist, a pocket watch tucked into it, and sleeves rolled up past his elbows.

  “Where have you been?” asks his mother.

  “Out fishing in the skiff,” he says.

  “Can’t you think of anything better to do?” I say. “Why, back in Yekaterinoslav they’re Constantutioning the pants off of you, and all you can do is catch fish?”

  I glanced at my widow—she turned as red as a beet and every other color of the rainbow. She must have been sure that her son would grab me by the collar and give me the heave-ho in a hurry. Which just goes to show how wrong she was. There’s no way to scare Tevye. When I have something to say, I say it.

  Well, when the young fellow heard that, he stepped back a bit, put his hands behind his back, looked me up and down from head to foot, let out a funny sort of whistle, and suddenly began to laugh so hard that the two of us were afraid he had gone mad before our eyes. Shall I tell you something, though? From then on he and I were the best of friends. And I must say that the better I knew him, the better I liked him, even if he was a bit of a windbag, the worst sort of spendthrift, and a little thick between the ears. For instance, let him pass a beggar in the street, and he’d stick a hand into his pocket and fork up a fistful of change without even bothering to count it! Did you ever hear of such a thing? Once I saw him take a brand-new jacket off his back and give it away to a perfect stranger—I ask you, how dumb can you get …? I felt good and sorry for his mother, believe me. She kept asking me what she should do and begging me to take him in hand. Well, I didn’t say no to that. Why refuse her a favor when it didn’t cost me a red cent? So from time to time I sat down with him and told him a story, fed him a parable, slipped him a verse from the Bible, even let him have a midrash or two, as only Tevye can do. I swear, he actually liked it and wanted to know if I talked like that at home. “I’d sure like to visit you there, Reb Tevye,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “anyone wanting to visit Tevye only has to get to Tevye’s village. Between your horses and your bicycles you can certainly make it, and in a pinch you’re a big enough boy to use your own legs. Just cut through the forest and you’re there.”

  “When is a good time to come?” he says.

  “You can find me at home any Sabbath or holiday,” I say. “But wait, I have an idea! The Friday after next is Shavuos. If you’d like to take a walk over to my place then, my wife will serve you such blintzes fit for princes as lo blintzu avoyseynu bemitsrayim!”

  “Just what does that mean?” he asks. “I’m not too strong on chapter-and-verse, you know.”

  “I certainly do,” I say. “But if you’d had the schooling I did, you’d know enough to be the rabbi’s wife.”

  He laughed at that and said, “All right, then, you’ve got yourself a guest. On the first day of Shavuos, Reb Tevye, I’ll be over with three friends of mine for blintzes—and they better be hot!”

  “Hotter than hellfire,” I promised. “Why, they’ll be jumping right out of the frying pan at you!”

  Well, as soon as I came home that day I whistled up my wife and said to her, “Golde, we’re having guests for Shavuos!”

  “Mazel tov,” she says. “Who are they?”

  “I’ll tell you everything in good time,” I say. “Just make sure you have enough eggs, because butter and cheese, thank God, are no problem. You’ll be making blintzes for four extra mouths—but such mouths, you should know, that understand as much about eating as they don’t understand about the Bible.”

  “I might have guessed it,” she says. “You’ve been to Hunger-land again and found some new slob of a Hungarian.”

  “Golde,” I said, “you’re nothing but a big cow yourself. First of all, even if we did treat some poor hungry devil to blintzes on Shavuos, what harm would it do? And second of all, you may as well know, my most Esteemed, Honored, and Beloved Wife, that one of our guests will be the widow’s son, that Ahronchik I’ve been telling you about.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so in the first place?” she says.

  What money doesn’t do to some people! Even my Golde becomes a different woman as soon as she gets a whiff of it. But that’s the world we live in—what can you or I do about it? As it says in the prayer book, kesef vezohov ma’asey yedey odom—money can dig a man’s grave faster than a shovel.

  In short, Shavuos time came around. I don’t have to tell you how green and bright and warm and beautiful our villag
e is then! Your richest Jew in town should only have such a blue sky above him, such a green forest all around, such a good smell of pine trees, such a carpet of grass that the cows smile at you when they chew it as if to say, “Just keep us rolling in clover and we’ll keep you swimming in milk …” No, say what you will, I wouldn’t swap places with you in town if you promised me the best job in the world. Can you also promise me such a sky there? Hashomayim shomayim ladoynai—why, in the village the sky is God’s own! You can crane your neck in town till it breaks, what do you manage to see? Walls, roofs, chimneys, but never a single tree! And if by some miracle one grows there, you have to tend it like a sick child …

  In a word, our guests couldn’t get over our village when they came to visit on Shavuos. They arrived riding horses, all four of them—and I do mean horses! Why, the nag that Ahronchik alone was sitting on was such a thoroughbred that you couldn’t have bought it for three hundred rubles.

  “Welcome, my friends,” I said to them. “I see no one bothered to tell you that a Jew doesn’t ride on Shavuos. Well, we won’t let that spoil the holiday. Tevye’s no saint himself, and if you’re whipped for it in the world to come, it won’t be any skin off my back … Golde! Put up the blintzes and have the girls carry out the table and put it on the grass—our house isn’t such a museum piece that we have to show it off to visitors … Shprintze! Teibl! Beilke! Where are you all? Let’s get cracking …”

  I stood there giving orders and pretty soon out of the house came the table, benches, a tablecloth, plates, spoons, forks, and saltshakers, and right on the heels of it all, my Golde with the blintzes—and such piping-hot, mouth-watering, straight-from-the-frying-pan, sweeter-than-manna-tasting blintzes they were that our guests couldn’t stop eating or praising them …