Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

by Sholem Aleichem

  The man’s beaming face clouded over for a second, but no more. A moment later the sun came back out, the clouds vanished, and he was as radiant as before. The smile once more on his lips and the sparkle back in his eyes, he went on with his story:

  “Well now, where were we? Yes. And so I made up my mind to run over to Kashevarevke, to Itzikl Borodenko—that’s the rich Jew I was telling you about. Naturally, I didn’t set out empty-handed just like that. I took a letter with me from our rabbi, I did. (Our rabbi in Kodny is known all over.) A lovely letter it was, too: ‘Inasmuch as God in His beneficence has enabled you to bring home a professor in your hour of need, and inasmuch as our Alter’s son, may you be spared such sorrow, is all but on his deathbed, may your heart be so moved to pity him that you will trouble yourself to prevail upon the aforementioned professor to pay a call on the sick boy for a quarter of an hour between trains on his way home, which must pass close to Kodny. May the Lord requite you …’ and so on and so forth. A lovely letter.”

  Suddenly there was a blast of the whistle, our train came to a halt, and my queerly dressed Jew leaped up and exclaimed:

  “Eh, another station! I’d better have a look at the first-class car to see how my professor is doing. I’ll tell you the rest when I get back.”

  He returned beaming more brightly than ever. If I weren’t afraid of sounding sacrilegious, I would say he was in a state of divine grace. He leaned forward toward my ear and said to me in a whisper, as if he were afraid of waking someone:

  “He’s sleeping, my professor. God grant he sleeps soundly, so that his mind will be clear when we reach Kodny … Only where was I? Oh, yes, in Kashevarevke.

  “I arrived in Kashevarevke, that is, went straight to the man’s home, and rang the doorbell once, twice, three times. Out comes a fellow without a hair on his chin and with two blubber lips that he keeps licking like a cat and says to me in Goyish, ‘Chto nada?’ ‘I should say there is,’ I said to him—and in Yiddish, mind you. ‘If there weren’t, why drag myself here all the way from Kodny?’

  “He listened to that, still licking his chops, shook his head, and said, ‘We can’t let you in now, because the professor’s here.’ ‘But that’s just it,’ I said. ‘It’s because the professor is here that I’m here too.’ ‘What does someone like you want with a professor?’ he asks. That was all I needed, to have to tell him the whole sob story! So I gave him our rabbi’s letter and I said, ‘It’s kind of you to take the time to chat with me when you’re in there and I’m out here in the rain, but please take this document and deliver it straight to the master of the house.’ He took it, he did, and left me standing on the outside side of the door, still waiting to be asked in. I waited half an hour. I waited an hour. I waited two hours. It was pouring cats and dogs and there I was, totally out in the cold. I tell you, it was beginning to annoy me—though not so much for my sake as for our rabbi’s. After all, that letter wasn’t written by someone who was born yesterday. (Our rabbi in Kodny is known all over!) Well, I gave that bellpull a few good yanks. Out comes Blubber Lips again, this time looking fit to kill. ‘The nerve of a Jew,’ he says, ‘to ring like that!’ ‘The nerve of a Jew,’ I say, ‘to let a Jew stand two hours in the rain!’ With which I made as if to step inside—wham, bang, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if he didn’t slam the door in my face! What was I supposed to do now? It wasn’t exactly a cheerful situation. To go home with nothing to show for it would not have been very nice. In the first place, it would have looked bad: I happen to be something of a respected citizen in Kodny, far from a no-account, in any case … And besides, it broke my heart to think of my poor son …

  “Well, God is great, as they say. Just then I took a look and what did I see but a droshky pulled by four horses draw up right at the door. I went over to ask the coachman whose it was, and he said it was Borodenko’s, come to take the professor to the train. In that case, I thought, things are beginning to look up. Way up, in fact! Before I knew it the door of the house opened and there he was—I mean the professor: an elderly little man, but with a face … what can I tell you? An angel, an angel from heaven! After him came the rich Jew, Itzikl Borodenko, as bareheaded as the day he was born, and lastly Blubber Lips himself carrying the professor’s satchel. You should have seen that man worth maybe over a million, God help me, with his two google eyes and his hands in the pockets of an ordinary coat just like we wear in Kodny! God in heaven, I thought, is this who You give the millions to? Go argue with God, though!… Well, Borodenko saw me standing there, gave me a googly look, and said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘It’s like this,’ I said. ‘I’ve brought you a letter from our rabbi, I have.’ ‘What rabbi is that?’ he asks. Would you believe it? He didn’t even know what rabbi I meant! ‘From the Rabbi of Kodny,’ I said. ‘That’s where I’m from, it is. I’ve come from Kodny,’ I said, ‘to ask the professor,’ I said, ‘if he would be kind enough to see my son,’ I said, ‘for a quarter of an hour between trains. I wouldn’t wish it on you,’ I said, ‘but I have a son who’s practically at death’s door.’ That’s exactly what I said to him, I’m not making up a single word of it. What was my line of reasoning? My line of reasoning was, here the man’s had a tragedy, his daughter took poison, who knows but it touched a heartstring somewhere that will make him pity a poor father like me. Would you like to know what kind of pity he had? He didn’t say a blessed word to me; he just googled Blubber Lips as if to say, ‘How about getting rid of this pest of a Jew for me, eh?’ Meanwhile my professor had taken a seat in the droshky with his satchel. In another minute I could kiss him goodbye. What was I to do? I saw I had better act fast. It’s now or never, I thought; whatever will be will be, but the child must be saved—and so I got up all my nerve and whoops! flung myself at the horses’ feet … What can I tell you? That I enjoyed those nags breathing down on me? I can’t say I did. I can’t even tell you how long I went on lying there or if I went on lying there at all. Maybe I didn’t. All I know is that in less time than it’s taken me to tell you all this, the old professor was standing over me and saying, ‘Chto takoye, golubchik?’ He told me to speak up and not be afraid. So I picked myself off the ground and told him everything, with Borodenko standing right there and looking at me cross-eyed. Speaking Russian, you know, is not my strong suit—but God gave me strength and the words came by themselves. I bared my heart to him, I didn’t keep a thing back. ‘It’s like this, Professor,’ I said. ‘Maybe you were sent by Providence to make me a gift of my child, the one and only son left out of six that were born to me, may he live to a ripe old age. If money is the problem, I can let you have twenty-five rubles—that is, please don’t think that they’re mine, because wherever would I get so much cash from? They’re my wife’s, she put them aside to buy stock for her store the next time she went to town. But you can have them,’ I said, ‘all twenty-five of them. My wife’s store can go to the Devil as long as you save the boy’s life!’ And I began to open my coat to take out the twenty-five rubles. ‘Nichevo!’ he says, that little old professor, laying a hand on my arm and helping me into the droshky—may I live to see my son as healthy as every word I say to you is true! I ask you: is an Itzikl Borodenko worth the little finger of a man like that? Why, he would have watched me die in cold blood, he would have! God Almighty came to the rescue in the nick of time, but just suppose that He hadn’t … What do you say to that, eh?”

  There was a bustle of passengers in the car and my Jew all but ran to the conductor.

  “Kodny?”

  “Kodny.”

  “Well, be well, and have a good trip, and don’t tell a soul who I’m with. I don’t want anyone in Kodny to know that I’ve got a professor. They’ll all come running if they do!”

  And with those last, confidential words to me, he was gone.

  A few minutes later, though, while the train was still at a standstill, I caught a glimpse through the window of a rickety buggy and a pair of careworn, ragged gray horses. In the buggy sat a little old man with a
gray beard and youthful red cheeks. Across from him, half in and half out of the vehicle, as though hanging from it by a thread, sat my strange Jew. He was rocking back and forth, his face beaming, his eyes glued so hard to the professor that they were all but popping from their sockets.

  It’s a pity I’m not a photographer and don’t travel with a camera. It would have been a great thing to have taken that Jew’s picture. Let the world see what a happy man looks like—the happiest man in all Kodny.

  (1909)

  BARANOVICH STATION

  This time there were no more than a few dozen of us Jews, and we sat in the third-class car in comparative comfort. That is, whoever had found a seat had one; the other passengers stood leaning against the walls of the compartments and joined in the conversation from there. And what lively conversation it was! As usual, everyone was talking at once. It was early in the day. We had all had a good night’s sleep, said our morning prayers, grabbed a bite more or less to eat, and even managed to light up a few cigarettes, and we were all in the mood to talk—very much so, in fact. About what? About anything and everything. Everyone tried to think of some fresh, juicy item that would make all the others sit up and listen, but no one was able to hold the stage for long. The subject changed every minute. No sooner did it light on the recent harvest—that is, the wheat and oats crop—than it shifted, don’t ask me why, to the war with Japan, while after barely five minutes of fighting the Japanese, we moved on to the Revolution of 1905. From the Revolution we passed to the Constitution, and from the Constitution it was but a short step to the pogroms, the massacres of Jews, the new anti-Semitic legislation, the expulsion from the villages, the mass flight to America, and all the other trials and tribulations that you hear about these fine days: bankruptcies, expropriations, military emergencies, executions, starvation, cholera, Purishkevich, Azef …

  “A-z-ef!”

  The name of that secret police spy who had informed on so many revolutionaries only needed to be mentioned for the whole car to be thrown into a turmoil: Azef, and more Azef, and still more Azef, and Azef once again.

  “Mind you, you’ll excuse me for saying so, but you’re all a lot of cattle, you are! What’s so special about Ashev? What bunkum! The whole world’s up in arms about him, but who the Devil is he? A young punk, a no-good bum, a nobody, a stool pigeon, a nothing, a big fat zero! If you’d like, I can tell you a story about a stool pigeon, and a hometown boy from Kaminka at that, who makes Ashev look pale by comparison!”

  These words were uttered by one of the standees who loomed over us from his place against a wall. I glanced up to have a look at him and saw a generously proportioned individual with a good silk cap on his head, twinkling eyes, a rosy, freckled face, and no front teeth. That is, his two front incisors were missing, which was apparently why he whistled when he spoke, so that “Azef” came out sounding like “Ashev.”

  I took a liking to the fellow right away. I liked the broad girth of him, the way he talked, even the names he called us. In fact, I like such Jews so much that I’m actually jealous of them.

  Having been unexpectedly branded as cattle by the Jew from Kaminka, the whole car was as dumbfounded for a moment as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over everyone’s head. It didn’t take long, however, for the passengers to recover, exchange a few glances, and say to the Kaminka Jew:

  “You want to be asked to tell us a story? All right, we’re asking! Tell us what happened in Kaminka, we’re curious. Only, what are you standing for? Why don’t you have a seat? There aren’t any, you say? Jews! Shove over a bit! Make room, please.”

  Whereupon all of us, though we were already squeezed tightly together, squeezed together even more to make room for the Kaminka Jew. He sat himself broadly down, spreading out his knees like a godfather at a circumcision when the baby is placed in his lap, pushed back the cap on his head, rolled up his sleeves, and commenced in his broad manner of speaking:

  “Listen well, my dear friends, because what I’m about to tell you, I want you to know, is not some opera or fairy tale. It’s a true story, mind you, that took place right in Kaminka. My own father, God rest him, told it to me himself, and he heard it more than once from his father. I’ve heard it said that the whole thing was even written down in an old chronicle that was burned long ago. You can laugh all you like, but I tell you it’s a crime it was, because it had some fine stories in it—a sight better than what’s printed in your magazines and storybooks these days.

  “In a nutshell, it happened in the reign of Nikolai the First, back in the days of the gauntlet. But what are you smiling at? Do you know what the gauntlet meant? The gauntlet meant getting flogged while you ran it. You still don’t know what it was? In that case, I’d better spell it out for you. Just imagine, then: two rows of soldiers with iron maces stand facing each other, and you go for a little stroll between them some twenty times or more, and in your birthday suit, mind you, while they do what the rabbi did in the schoolroom when you weren’t paying attention to your lessons … Do you know what running the gauntlet is now? Then we’re ready to begin.

  “Once upon a time it so happened that the governor—Vassilchikov it was, I believe—ordered a Jew named Kivke to run the gauntlet. Exactly who this Kivke was, or what he had done, are details I can’t tell you. Some say he was no great shakes, just a tavern keeper, and an old sourpuss of a bachelor at that. One Sunday, though, when he was chatting with some Russians in his tavern, God put it into his head to argue religion with them: your God, our God … until one thing led to another and the village elder and the constable were brought and charges of blasphemy drawn up. All he had to do, that barman, was give them a barrel of vodka and the whole thing would have been forgotten. But on top of everything else, he was stubborn: no, he says, Kivke takes nothing back! What must he have thought? He must have thought he’d be slapped with a three-ruble fine and business would go on as usual. Who could have guessed that he’d be made to run the gauntlet because of a few foolish words? In short, they took the old boy and threw him into the cooler until an honor guard could give him twenty-five good whacks of the mace, as God in His wisdom had decreed.

  “Well, I hardly need to tell you what went on in Kaminka once the story got out. And when did the bad news break? At night—and not only at night, but on a Friday night too. The next morning, when everyone came to the synagogue for Sabbath services, the place was in an uproar. ‘Kivke’s in the clink!’ … ‘He’s been given the gauntlet!’ … ‘The gauntlet? How come? What for?’ … ‘For nothing. For a few words’ … ‘He’s been framed!’ … ‘What kind of framed? He’s a Jew with a mouth that’s too big for him!’ … ‘It can be eighteen sizes too big, but the gauntlet? How can they do that to him?’… ‘Since when do Jews run the gauntlet? And a local Kaminka Jew yet!’ …

  “All day long the Jews of Kaminka stewed as if in a pot. On Saturday night, as soon as the Sabbath was over, they ran crying to my grandfather—Reb Nissl Shapiro was his name. ‘Why don’t you say something, Reb Nissl? How can you allow a Jew, and a Kaminkan no less, to be flogged?’

  “You must be wondering why they all ran to my grandfather. I don’t mean to boast, mind you, but I have to tell you that my grandfather, may his soul dwell in Paradise, was the richest, most important, most cultured, most highly thought-of Jew in town, and a very brainy man with high connections. When he heard what the trouble was, he paced up and down the floor a few times (when he was thinking, my father told me, he always liked to pace back and forth), then stood still and announced: ‘Children, go home! No one will be hurt. God willing, it will turn out all right; here in Kaminka, the Lord be praised, we’ve never had a Jew flogged yet, and with His help we never will.’

  “Those were my grandfather’s very words, God bless him, and it was common knowledge in town that whatever Reb Nissl Shapiro said was as good as done. He just didn’t like being badgered about how he intended to do it. When a Jew is rich and has connections, you understand, and he’s as brainy
as my grandfather, you learn to tread lightly with him. And you know what? It turned out exactly as he said it would. What did? Listen and I’ll tell you.”

  Seeing that the whole car was waiting with baited breath to hear what happened next, the Jew from Kaminka paused, took out a large tobacco pouch from his pocket, and slowly rolled himself a cigarette. So important had he become that several passengers jumped up to offer him a light. Having taken a few puffs, he resumed his story with fresh vigor: