Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

by Sholem Aleichem

  Tsaytl came out of the other room, all red-eyed and runny-nosed. Aha, I thought, she’s been weeping like an old woman at a funeral again! I tell you, it’s no joke with these females; tears are cheap with them, they cry before you even know it. “You little ninny!” I said to her. “What are you crying for this time? Can’t you see how foolish you’re being? Why, just think of Mendel Beilis …”

  She wouldn’t listen to me, though. “Papa,” she said, “you don’t even know why I’m crying.”

  “Of course I do,” I said. “How could I not know? You’re crying for the house. You were born here, you grew up here—it’s upsetting. Believe me, even if I weren’t Tevye, even if I were someone else, I would still kiss these bare walls and empty shelves, I would get down on my knees and kiss the ground! It hurts me to part with every nook and cranny as much as it hurts you, you silly thing, you. Why, just look at that cat sitting like an orphan over the stove. It’s only a dumb animal, it can’t talk—but how can you help feeling sorry for it, being left all alone without a master …”

  “Papa,” she says. “There’s someone you should be feeling even sorrier for.”

  “Why, who’s that?” I say.

  “It’s the one person,” says my Tsaytl, “who’ll be left behind like a stone by the roadside when we’re gone.”

  I had no idea who she meant. “What person?” I asked. “What stone? What are you yattering about?”

  “Papa,” she said, “I’m not yattering. I’m talking about our Chava.”

  I swear to you, hearing that name was like being dowsed with boiling water or clubbed on the head! I turned to my daughter in a fury and said, “What the devil does Chava have to do with this? I thought I told you that I never wanted to hear her mentioned again!”

  Do you think that fazed her? Not my Tsaytl! Tevye’s daughters are no pushovers. “Papa,” she says, “instead of being so angry, why don’t you think of what you yourself have always told us about human beings loving and pitying each other as a father does his own child?”

  Did you ever hear anything like it? That made me see so red that I really blew my top. “You’re talking to me about pity?” I said. “Where was her pity for me when I groveled like a dog before that damn priest and all but kissed his feet, with her sitting, I’ll bet, right in the next room and hearing every word? Where was her pity when her poor mama, God rest her, lay here dead on the floor? Where was she then? Where was she all the nights I couldn’t sleep because of her? Why, it makes me sick to this day just to think of what she did to us, of who she threw us over for … When, I ask you, did she ever pity us?”

  I was in such a blind rage that I couldn’t say another word—but don’t think that scared Tevye’s daughter! “But you’ve always told us, Papa,” says my Tsaytl, “that even God must forgive a person who’s honestly sorry for what he’s done.”

  “Sorry?” I say. “It’s too late for that! Once the branch tears itself from the tree, that’s the end of it. Let the fallen leaf rot where it fell. I don’t want to hear another word—ad kan oymrim beshabbes hagodol. ”

  Well, when she saw she was getting nowhere, because there’s no outarguing Tevye, she threw herself at my feet and began kissing my hand. “Papa,” she said, “I’ll die if you turn her away again, like you did that time in the forest when you practically drove your horse over her and rode off …”

  “What are you doing to me?” I said. “Why are you sucking my blood like this? Why are you torturing me?”

  She wouldn’t give up, though. She just kept clinging to my hand. “I’ll die right here and now,” she says, “if you don’t forgive her! She’s your daughter as much as I am!”

  “But what do you want from me?” I say. “She’s not my daughter anymore. She died long ago.”

  “She did not!” says Tsaytl. “She did not die and she is your daughter as much as ever, because the minute she heard we had to leave, she made up her mind to come with us. Whatever happens to us, she said to me, will happen to her too—if we’re homeless, so will she be—and the proof of it, Papa, is, that’s her bundle right there on the floor …”

  She said it all in one breath, did my Tsaytl, pointed to a bundle tied with a red kerchief, and, before I could get in a word edgewise, threw open the door to the other room and called out—I swear to God she did, as I’m sitting here before you!—“Chava!…”

  What can I tell you, my dear friend? It was just like in one of your books. Out of the other room she came, my daughter Chava, as unspoiled and beautiful as ever—a little more careworn perhaps, a little less bright-eyed, but with her head held high, like a queen. For a minute she just stared at me, the same as I did at her. Then she held out her hands, though all she could say was a single whispered word:

  “Pa-pa …”

  Please don’t think any worse of me for having tears in my eyes now. If you suppose I shed any then, though, or was the least bit sentimental, you have another guess coming. Of course, what I felt like inside was something else. You’re a father of children yourself, and you know as well as I do that no matter what a child may have done, when it stands there looking right through you and says “Papa” … well, go be a hero and tell it to disappear! Still, the blood went to my head when I thought of the fine trick my Chava had played on us … and of that Chvedka Galagan, may he roast … and that damn priest … and all my grief … and my poor dead Golde … You tell me: how, how can you ever forget such a thing? And yet on the other hand, how can you not? A child is a child … kerakheym ov al bonim … when God Himself is an eyl erekh apoyim, a long-suffering Lord, how can a man harden his heart? And especially since she was sorry for all she had done and wanted only to return to her father and her God …

  What do you say, Pan Sholem Aleichem? You’re a Jew who writes books and gives the whole world advice—what should Tevye have done? Taken her in his arms, hugged her and kissed her, and told her, as we say on Yom Kippur, solakhti kidvorekho—come to me, you’re my own flesh and blood? Or turned a deaf ear as I did once before and said, lekh-lekho—get lost and stay lost! Put yourself in Tevye’s place and tell me honestly, in plain language, what you would have done …

  Well, if you can’t answer that right off the bat, you’re welcome to think about it, but meanwhile I have to be off, because my grandchildren are getting impatient. Just look at them looking at their grandpa! I want you to know that grandchildren are a thousand times more precious and lovable than children. Bonim uvney vonim, your own children’s children—that’s nothing to sneeze at, you know! Be well, then, and don’t hold it against me if I’ve run on a little too long—it will give you something to write about. If God has no objections, I’m sure we’ll meet again someday …

  What did you say? I didn’t finish the story of the Amalekites? I never told you if they smashed my windows? Well, as a matter of fact they didn’t, because it was decided to leave that up to me. “They’re your windows, Tevel,” said Ivan Paparilo, “and you might as well smash them yourself. As long as those damn officials can see there’s been a pogrom … And now, bring out the samovar and let’s all have tea. And if you’d be so kind as to donate half a bucket of vodka to the village, we’ll all drink to your health, because you’re a clever Jew and a man of God, you are …”

  I ask you, Pan Sholem Aleichem, you’re a person who writes books—is Tevye right or not when he says that there’s a great God above and that a man must never lose heart while he lives? And that’s especially true of a Jew, and most especially of a Jew who knows a Hebrew letter when he sees one … No, you can rack your brains and be as clever as you like—there’s no getting around the fact that we Jews are the best and smartest people. Mi ke’amkho yisro’eyl goy ekhod, as the Prophet says—how can you even compare a goy and a Jew? Anyone can be a goy, but a Jew must be born one. Ashrekho yisro’eyl—it’s a lucky thing I was, then, because otherwise how would I ever know what it’s like to be homeless and wander all over the world without resting my head on the same pillow two nights
running? You see, ever since I was given that lesson in Lekh-Lekho, I’ve been on the go; there hasn’t been a place I could point to and say. “Tevye, we’re here; now sit down and relax.” But Tevye asks no questions; if he’s told to keep moving, he does. Today, Pan Sholem Aleichem, we met on the train, but tomorrow may find us in Yehupetz, and next year in Odessa, or in Warsaw, or maybe even in America … unless, that is, the Almighty looks down on us and says, “Guess what, children! I’ve decided to send you my Messiah!” I don’t even care if He does it just to spite us, as long as He’s quick about it, that old God of ours! And in the meantime, be well and have a good trip. Say hello for me to all our Jews and tell them wherever they are, not to worry: the old God of Israel still lives!…

  (1914, 1916)

  TO THE READER

  I do a lot of traveling. You’ll find me on the road nearly eleven months of the year. Generally I go by train; most often third class; and almost always to towns and villages where there are Jews, since my business doesn’t take me to places Jews are barred from.

  My goodness, the things one sees traveling! It’s a pity I’m not a writer. And yet come to think of it, what makes me say I’m not? What’s a writer, after all? Anyone can be one, and especially in a hodgepodge like our Yiddish. What’s the big fuss about? You pick up a pen and you write!

  Come to think of it again, though, writing is not for everyone. We should all stick to what we work at for a living, that’s my opinion, because each of us has to make one. And if you don’t work at anything, that’s work too.

  Still, since we travelers often spend whole days on end sitting and looking out the window until we want to bang our heads against the wall, one day I had an idea: I went and bought myself a pencil and a notebook and began jotting down everything I saw and heard on my trips. I don’t mean to boast, but you can see for yourself that I’ve gathered quite a lot of material. Why, it might take you a whole year just to read it all. What, I wondered, should I do with it? It would be a crime to throw it away. Why not, I thought, publish it in a newspaper or a book? God knows that worse stuff gets into print.

  And so I sat down and sorted out my goods, throwing out whatever wasn’t up to scratch and keeping only the very best quality, which I divided up into stories—story number one, story number two, and so on, giving each a proper name to make it more professional. I have no idea if I’ll turn a profit on this venture or end up losing my shirt. Quite frankly, I’ll be happy to break even.

  But whatever possessed me, you ask, to invest in such a business in the first place? For the life of me, I can’t tell you the answer. Maybe it was a ridiculous thing to do, but there’s no going back on it now. I did take one precaution, though, and that’s against the critics, because I’ve kept my real name a secret. They can try guessing it till they burst! Let them criticize, let them laugh at me, let them climb the walls all they want—it will bother me as much as a catcall on Purim bothers Haman. After all, I’m no scribbler, no ten-o’clock-scholar begging for a job—I’m a commercial traveler and I pay my own way!

  COMPETITORS

  Always, right in the middle of the worst pandemonium, when Jews are pushing to get in and out and fighting for each seat as though it were in the front row of the synagogue, there the two of them are: him and her.

  He’s squat, dark, unkempt, with a cataract in one eye. She’s redheaded, gaunt, and pockmarked. Both are dressed in old rags, both have patches on their shoes, and both are carrying the same thing: a basket. His basket is full of braided rolls, hard-boiled eggs, oranges, and bottled seltzer water. Her basket is full of braided rolls, hard-boiled eggs, oranges, and bottled seltzer water too.

  Sometimes he turns up with bags of red or black cherries and green grapes sour as vinegar. Then she also turns up with red or black cherries and green grapes sour as vinegar.

  Both always appear together, fight to get through the same door of the same car, and give the same sales spiel, though with different manners of speaking. His is liquid, as though his tongue were melting in his mouth. Hers is lisping, as though her tongue kept getting in her way.

  Maybe you think they undersell one another, vie for customers, war over prices? Not a chance! They charge the same amount for everything. The competition between them consists solely of seeing who can make you feel sorrier for whom. Both beg you to have pity on their five orphaned children (his five are motherless, hers have no father) while looking you right in the eye; both shove their goods in your face; and both talk such a blue streak at you that you end up buying something whether you meant to or not.

  The trouble is that all their wheedling and whining leaves you confused. Whose customer should you be, his or hers? Because if you think you can get around it by buying from each, they quickly disabuse you of the notion. “Look here, mister,” they tell you, “you either buy from one or the other. You can’t dance at two weddings at once!”

  Worse yet, try to be fair and take turns, once him and once her, and you’ll get it from them both. “What’s the matter, mister,” she’ll say, “don’t you like my dress today?” Or else he says to you, “Mister! Just last week you bought from me. Do you mean to tell me my goods poisoned you?”

  If you harbor humanitarian sentiments, moreover, and start preaching to them that each is a human being who has to eat—in a word, that they should live and let live, as the English like to say—they’ll answer you right back, and not in English either, but in a simple Yiddish that may sound a wee bit cryptic though it’s really quite understandable: “Brother! You can’t ride one ass to two fairs!”

  You see how it is, my dear friends. There’s no pleasing everyone. It’s hopeless even to try, and the more you play the peacemaker, the less peaceful things become. That’s something I know from experience. In fact, I could tell you a good one about how once I was foolish enough to butt in on a married couple in order to make up between them—the outcome of which was that I took it on the chin from my own wife! I don’t want to digress, though. True, it happens even in business that you sometimes put aside one thing to talk about all kinds of others, in fact, about everything under the sun; but we had better get back to our story.

  One rainy day in autumn when the sky was weeping buckets and a black pall hung over everything, the station was crawling with people. Passengers kept piling in and out, all of them hurrying, all of them jostling, and most of all, of course, our Jews. Everyone was climbing over everyone with suitcases and packages and bundles made of bedclothes. And the noise, the sheer commotion—what a racket! Just then, in the midst of all this bedlam, there they were: him and her, both loaded down with edibles as usual. As usual, too, both hurled themselves through the same door of the train at once. Only then … goodness me, what had happened? Suddenly both baskets were on the ground and all the rolls and eggs and oranges and seltzer bottles were rolling about in the mud to an uproar of shouts, shrieks, tears, and curses mingled with the laughter of the conductors and the din of the passengers. A bell rang, the train whistled, and in another minute we were off.

  There was a babble of voices in the car. Our fellow Israelites were giving their tongues an airing, everyone gabbling together like women in a synagogue or geese in the marketplace. So many different conversations were going on all at once that one could only make out snatches of each.

  “What a massacre of rolls!”

  “What a pogrom of eggs!”

  “What did he have against those oranges?”

  “Why ask? A goy is a goy!”

  “How much would you say all that food was worth?”

  “It serves them right! It’s time they stopped getting on everyone’s nerves.”

  “But what do you want from them? A Jew has to make a living.”

  “Ha ha, that’s a good one!” said a thick bass voice. “What Jews don’t call making a living!”

  “What’s wrong with how Jews make a living?” piped a squeaky voice. “Do you have any better ways to make one? Why don’t you tell us about them!”
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  “I wasn’t talking to you, young fellow!” the bass voice thundered.

  “You weren’t? But I’m talking to you. Do you have any better ways to make a living?… Well, why don’t you say something? Speak up!”

  “Will somebody please tell me what this young man wants from me?”

  “What do I want from you? You don’t like how Jews make a living, so I’m asking you to tell us a better way. Let’s hear it!”

  “Just look how he’s leeched on to me!”

  “Shhh, all of you! Stop talking about it. Here she comes.”

  “Who?”

  “The basket woman.”

  “Where? Where is our beauty queen?”

  “Right over there!”

  Pockmarked and redheaded, her eyes puffy with tears, she struggled through the passengers looking for a place until she finally sat down on her overturned basket, hid her face in her tattered shawl, and resumed crying silently into it.

  An odd hush came over the car. Everyone stopped talking. No one let out a peep. Except, that is, for one person, who called out in a heavy bass voice:

  “Jews! Why so quiet?”

  “What’s there to shout about?” someone asked.

  “Let’s pass the hat around!”

  So help me! And do you know who the kind heart was? None other than the same character who had laughed at how Jews make a living, a queer-looking fellow with a queer-looking flat, glossy-brimmed cap and blue-tinted glasses that hid his eyes completely: there simply were none to be seen above his fat, fleshy bulb of a nose. Without further ado he took the cap from his head, threw a few silver coins into it, and went from one passenger to another, booming in his bass voice: