Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

by Sholem Aleichem

  “Well might you ask: and what of it? Whose business was it if a Jew from Sobolivke stood looking at a locomotive or not? Let him look till the cows come home! It just happened to happen, however, that among the passengers that day was a Russian priest from Golovonyevsk, which is, don’t you know, a small town not far from Heysen. And having nothing to do either, he too was walking up and down the same platform with his hands behind his back until he reached the same locomotive. ‘Hey, Yudko!’ he said to the Jew. ‘What are you looking at?’

  “ ‘Since when am I Yudko to you?’ the Jew retorted angrily. ‘My name isn’t Yudko. It’s Berko.’

  “ ‘Let it be Berko,’ said the priest. ‘Tell me, Berko, what are you looking at?’

  “ ‘I’m looking,’ said the Jew without taking his eye off the locomotive, ‘at one of God’s wonders. It’s amazing how a ridiculous little thing like turning one throttle this way and another throttle that way can make such a huge engine go.’

  “ ‘What makes you think that turning one throttle this way and another throttle that way will make it go?’ asked the priest.

  “ ‘If I didn’t know it would, I wouldn’t have said so,’ said the Jew.

  “ ‘Why, you wouldn’t even know how to eat a noodle pudding!’ said the priest.

  “That got the Jew’s dander up so (the Sobolivkan Jews think a lot of themselves) that he said to the priest, ‘All right, Father. Suppose you kindly climb aboard with me and let me give you some pointers on how a locomotive runs.’

  “Well, by now the priest was pretty damn hot under the collar himself. The idea of that little Jew giving him pointers on anything! And so he said good and loud, ‘Go ahead, climb aboard, Hirshko!’

  “ ‘I told you my name isn’t Hirshko,’ said the Jew. ‘It’s Berko!’

  “ ‘Fine,’ said the priest, ‘Berko. Up you go, Berko!’

  “ ‘What do you mean up I go?’ said the Jew. ‘Why me first? Up you go, Father!’

  “ ‘It’s you who’s giving the pointers,’ said the furious priest. ‘Go ahead!’

  “In short, one word led to another, don’t you know, and they both climbed aboard the locomotive, where the Jew from Sobolivke began to give the priest driving lessons. He gave one throttle a little twist this way and another throttle a little twist that way, and before they knew it, they were astonished to see that the locomotive was moving and they were off to the races …

  “I do believe, though, that now is the time to wish them both a pleasant journey and ask ourselves a basic question: exactly who was this Jew from Sobolivke who had the strength of character to board an unhitched locomotive—and with a priest, at that?

  “Berl Vinegar—that was the Jew’s name. Why Berl Vinegar? Because, don’t you know, he makes vinegar, the best money can buy hereabouts. He learned the business from his father, but he himself—I have this directly from Berl—invented a machine that turns out a superior product. If he wanted to, he told me, he could corner the market in three whole provinces. You know what, though? He says he’s got time, he’s no get-rich-quicknik. That’s our vinegar maker. He never studied a day in his life, but there’s nothing he doesn’t know and no machine he can’t take apart. Where did he learn it all? Well, it’s no secret that making vinegar has to do with making spirits, and spirits are distilled in a distillery—and a distillery, he told me, has machinery just like a train engine: both work on hot air, so what’s the big difference between them? The principle of the thing—Berl used both hands to explain it—is boiling water: you boil the water in a boiler, he says, and when the boiling water’s boiled, it turns a shaft, and the shaft, he says, turns the wheels however you want; if you want them to go forwards you turn a gizmo to the right, and if you want them to go backwards you turn a gizmo to the left. Why, it couldn’t be simpler, he says!… And now that I’ve introduced you to Berl Vinegar and answered a few questions you may have had about him, suppose we get back to our catastrophe.

  “I hardly need to tell you what pandemonium broke out among the passengers in Sobolivke station when they saw the uncoupled locomotive mysteriously take off on its own. That’s something you should have no trouble picturing. And the horrified train crew? At first, don’t you know, they tried chasing the locomotive. Pretty soon, however, they gave up, because just to show them who was boss, that engine suddenly put on a mad burst of speed. Since the day the Slowpoke made its debut in our parts, no one ever saw it go so fast. The crew came back without it, conferred with the policeman and the stationmaster, drew up a report, and sent out a telegram to all the other stations that said:

  “ ‘Runaway locomotive stop take all necessary precautions stop confirm at once.’

  “It’s easy to imagine the panic this telegram sowed all up and down the line. To begin with, nobody understood it. What was runaway locomotive supposed to mean? How could a locomotive run away? And secondly, what kind of precautions was anyone supposed to take? What precautions could be taken besides sending out more telegrams? And so the cables began to fly in every possible direction. The wires hummed as if possessed. Every station contacted every other, and the grim tidings spread so far and wide, don’t you know, that the whole district was plunged into mourning. In Heysen, for example, our Jews were already quoting casualty counts of how many passengers had been killed. What a horrible way to have to die! And when? On Hoshana Rabbah, just when the Book of Life is being shut for the year! Who can fathom the ways of Providence …?

  “Well, it was all anyone talked about in Heysen and the villages around. I can’t begin to describe to you the mental anguish we all went through. And yet what was that compared to the anguish of the unlucky passengers in Sobolivke station, who were stranded like shepherdless sheep without a locomotive to take them anywhere! What on earth were they supposed to do? It was Hoshana Rabbah, the next day was Simkhes Toyroh, the merriest day of the year—where were they going to be for it? Did anyone seriously expect them to spend it in such a jerkwater? Some fine holiday that would be!… The passengers gathered in a corner to discuss their own and the runaway’s plight. Who knew what might happen to the schlimazel? It was no joke, an engine like that going for a joyride by itself. And sooner or later it was bound to run into another engine pulling a train from the opposite direction, that is, from Heysen to Sobolivke via Zatkevitz! What would happen to the poor devils aboard? Imaginations ran wild over the horrible collision with all its gory details. It was as vivid as if it had already happened: the overturned cars, the twisted wheels, the mangled bodies, the mutilated limbs, the blood-spattered remains of suitcases … at which point another telegram arrived. From Zatkevitz. What did it say? It said:

  “Locomotive just passed through Zatkevitz at top speed with two passengers stop one looks a Jew the other a priest stop both waved stop destination unknown stop locomotive headed for Heysen.

  “That’s when the real shindig started. What could be the meaning of it? A Jew and a priest in a runaway locomotive? Where were they running away to? And why? And who could the Jew be?… A few more minutes passed, two and two were put together, and word went around that the Jew was from Sobolivke. Who? Do you know him? Do I?! Berl Vinegar! How did everyone know it was Berl? But the fact is that they did. Several Sobolivkans even swore they had seen him standing by the locomotive with a priest, explaining something with his hands. Only what could he have been explaining? What was a vinegar maker doing with a priest by a locomotive?… The debate grew so heated that pretty soon it spilled over into the town itself, into Sobolivke, don’t you know—and although the town was not far from the station, the story kept growing by such leaps and bounds with each new arrival from there, everyone adding some new touch of his own, that the version reaching Berl’s home was so gruesome that Berl’s wife must have fainted a good ten times before a doctor could be brought. And simultaneously, don’t you know, Jews from Sobolivke began descending on the station like falling stars and raising such a rumpus that the stationmaster had to order the policeman to clear them a
ll out of there—which means that it’s time for us to go somewhere else too … Suppose, then, that we return to our Jew and our priest in their runaway engine and have a look at what they’re up to.

  “Having a look at a runaway engine is easier said than done, though. Who’s to say what went on in it? All we can do is take Berl Vinegar’s word. Granted, his account is full of such wonders that even if only half of it were true, it would be more than enough; still, if I know Berl as I think I do, it’s not like him to exaggerate.

  “According to Berl, then, his mind went blank when the locomotive pulled out of the station. It wasn’t the fright, he says, it was simply not understanding why the engine didn’t obey him. Logically speaking, it should have come to a stop with the second turn of the throttle, whereas in actual fact it only picked up more speed. You would have thought that ten thousand devils were pushing it from behind! It was traveling at such a clip that the telegraph poles were dancing like gnats before his eyes, and he felt dizzy and weak all over … After a while, though, when he came to his senses, he recalled that a locomotive had a brake. There were indeed—he drew them for me in the air—two brakes: a hand brake and an air brake, which was a kind of wheel that, when given a good turn, did something to the crankshaft, or maybe it was the connecting rod, and brought the engine to a halt. How in the world could it have slipped his mind? And so he took hold of the wheel and was just about to turn it hard to the right when—don’t think another hand didn’t grab his own. ‘Stop!’ Who was it? It was the priest, don’t you know, white as a sheet and barely able to talk. ‘What are you doing now?’ he asked Berl, trembling like a leaf.

  “ ‘Nothing,’ said Berl. ‘I’m just putting on the brake.’

  “ ‘God help you,’ said the priest, ‘if you so much as touch another thing! You better listen to me or I’ll take you by the collar and throw you out of here so fast that you’ll forget your name was ever Moshko!’

  “ ‘It’s not Moshko, it’s Berko,’ said Berl, and tried to explain the principle of the air brake. It didn’t do a bit of good, though, because that priest was pretty far gone. ‘I don’t want to hear about any brake,’ he said. ‘The only brake that interests me is seeing you break your neck, you little bastard! What did I do to deserve you turning up in my life?’

  “ ‘Father,’ said Berl, ‘do you think you value your life more than I value my life?’

  “ ‘Your life?’ said the irate priest. ‘Who gives a damn for the life of a dog like you?’

  “Well, that got Berl’s goat so it wasn’t even funny, and he gave that priest a piece of his mind. ‘In the first place,’ he said, ‘even a dog has feelings. Our religion forbids us to be cruel to it, because it too is a living creature.’ Secondly, said Berl, he wanted to ask the priest something. ‘What makes you think that my blood is any less red in God’s eyes than yours? Aren’t we all descended from Adam? And won’t we all be buried in the same earth in the end?’ That was number two. And there was something else that Berl told him too. ‘Just look at the difference, Father, between you and me. I’m doing my best to stop this locomotive, because I’m trying to save us both, and all you can think of is throwing me out of it—in other words, of murdering your fellow man!’

  “He went on laying into him, Berl did, giving that priest such hell that the Father almost had a stroke. He was still going strong, he says, when what did they see go by but Zatkevitz station with its stationmaster and its policeman. They both began waving their hands, but no one seemed to understand them, and there was unfortunately no choice but to head on for Heysen. By now, Berl says, the priest had calmed down a bit, but he still wouldn’t let him touch the brake. ‘Listen, Liebko,’ he said. ‘I have a proposal to make to you.’

  “ ‘My name isn’t Liebko,’ said Berl. ‘It’s Berko.’

  “ ‘Then Berko,’ said the priest. ‘Tell me, Berko, what do you say to the two of us making a jump for it?’

  “ ‘What for?’ asked Berl. ‘So that the two of us can be killed?’

  “ ‘We’ll be killed anyway,’ said the priest.

  “ ‘What makes you so sure?’ Berl challenged him. ‘There’s no guarantee of that. If God has something else in mind for us—ai, ai, ai, you’d be surprised at the things He can do.’

  “ ‘Such as what?’ asked the priest.

  “ ‘I’ll tell you such as what, Father,’ said Berl. ‘We Jews have a day today called Hoshana Rabbah. That’s the day on which the fate of every one of us is sealed in the Book of Life for the year—and not only who lives and who dies, but who dies what sort of death. Think of it this way, then: if it’s God will that I die, there’s nothing I can do about it—what difference does it make to me if it’s in a locomotive, or jumping out of it, or getting hit by a thunderbolt? Do you think I can’t slip and break my back in the street if that’s what God’s put me down for? On the other hand, though, if I’m down for another year of life, why kill myself trying to jump?’

  “What can I tell you? According to Berl Vinegar of Sobolivke, who swears to the truth of his story with so many oaths that you’d have to believe him even if he weren’t a jew, he can’t remember the exact order of things, but as they neared Heysen and saw its big factory chimney in the distance, the locomotive began to go slower and slower until it was going so slow that it decided to stop altogether. What had happened to it? Apparently, says Berl, it had no more coal—and when an engine has no more coal, he says, the water stops boiling, it runs out of steam, and kaput! It’s the same, he says, as it is with a man if he doesn’t get anything to eat … And you can be sure he said to that priest right then and there: ‘Well, Father, what did I tell you? If God hadn’t written me down for another year of life, who knows how much steam this locomotive might still have and where we might be in it right now?’

  “Those were Berl’s very words—and the priest, don’t you know, just stood there staring at the ground. It was only later, says Berl, when it was time to say goodbye, that the priest stuck out his hand and said to him, ‘All the best, Itzko.’

  “ ‘My name,’ said Berl, ‘isn’t Itzko. It’s Berko.’

  “ ‘All right,’ said the priest, ‘Berko. You know something, Berko? I never would have guessed that you were such a—’

  “But Berl never heard the rest of it, he says, because the priest hitched up the skirts of his gown and began wending his way home to Golovonyevsk, while he, Berl, walked into town to visit his friends in Heysen. And in Heysen, don’t you know, he celebrated the holiday, and thanked God for his deliverance, and told the story of the runaway engine at least a thousand times from A to Z, each time with more miraculous details. All of us insisted on hosting Berl Vinegar in our own homes and hearing about the Miracle of Hoshana Rabbah straight from the horse’s mouth, and a merry Simkhes Toyroh was had by all. In fact, we never had a merrier!”

  (1909)

  THE WEDDING THAT CAME WITHOUT ITS BAND

  “I do believe I promised to tell you about another of our Slowpoke’s miracles, thanks to which, don’t you know, we were saved from a horrible fate. If you’d like to hear about it, why don’t you stretch out on this seat and I’ll lie down on that one. That way we’ll both be more comfortable.”

  So said my friend, the merchant from Heysen, as we were traveling one day on the narrow-gauge train called the Slowpoke Express. And since this time too we were all by ourselves in the car, which was rather hot, we took off our jackets, unbuttoned our vests, and made ourselves right at home. I let him tell his story in his jovial, unhurried manner, making a few mental notes as he did so that I could write it down later in his own words.

  “Once upon a time … it happened a while ago, back in the days of the Constitution, when we Jews were getting the glad hand. Actually, though, we in Heysen were never afraid of a pogrom. Shall I tell you why not? For the simple reason that there was no one to do the job. Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that if you looked hard enough, you couldn’t have found a few public-spirited citizens who wou
ld have welcomed the chance to dust off a Jew or two, that is, to break all our bones—the proof of it being, don’t you know, that when the glad tidings began to arrive from other places, some of our local patriots dashed off a secret message to whoever they thought it might concern: seeing as how, they wrote, it was time to stand up and be counted in Heysen too, where there was a dearth of volunteers, could they please be sent reinforcements in a hurry … And don’t you know that twenty-four hours hadn’t gone by when word reached us Jews, and again in strictest secrecy, that the reinforcements were already on their way. Where were they coming from? From Zhmerinka, and from Kazatin, and from Razdyelne, and from Popelne, and from a few-other places that were equally famous for their roughnecks. How, you ask, did we get wind of such a top secret? The answer, don’t you know, is that we had a hidden agent, a fellow called Noyach Tonkonog. Who was this Tonkonog? I’ll try to describe him for you, because being a traveler in these parts, you may run into him some day.

  “Noyach Tonkonog is a Jew who grew more up than out. And since God gave him a pair of long legs, he learned to put them to good use. He’s always on the run and hardly ever at home. He’s got a thousand irons in the fire, most of them not his own. His own business, that is, is a printshop. And because it’s the only one in Heysen, he rubs elbows with government officials, and with our local gentry, and with all kinds of people in high places.

  “It was Noyach who broke the good news to us. That is, he personally spread it around town by whispering in everyone’s ear, ‘This is strictly for your private consumption, because I’d never tell anyone else …’ Before long the word had traveled like wildfire that hooligans were being brought in to attack the Jews. We even knew the exact hour of the attack and the direction it would come from—it was all planned like a military operation. Well, there was great gloom in Heysen, don’t you know! And it was the poor who panicked the most. That’s not what you’d normally expect, is it? After all, it makes more sense for a rich Jew to be scared to death of such a thing, because he’s liable to be cleaned out of house and home. If you own nothing to begin with, on the other hand, why worry? What’s there to lose? Still, you should have seen them drop everything, grab their children, and run pell-mell for cover … Just where, you ask, does a Jew hide in Heysen? Either in the cellar of a friendly Russian, or in the attic of the town notary, or wherever the owner puts you in his factory. And in fact, everyone managed to find a place. There was only one Jew who didn’t bother, and you’re looking at him right now. I’m not trying to boast, mind you, but you’ll see if you think about it that I had logic on my side. In the first place, what good does it do to be afraid of a pogrom? You either live through it or you don’t … And secondly, even assuming that I’m no braver than the next man, and that, when push comes to shove, I’d like to be someplace safe myself, where, I ask you, is safe? Whose word do I have that, in all the excitement, the same friendly Russian, or town notary, or factory owner isn’t going to … do you follow me? And besides, how can you just go and abandon a whole town? It’s no trick to skedaddle—the whole point is to stay and do something!… Of course, you may object, that’s easy to say, but what exactly can a Jew do? Well, I’ll tell you what: a Jew can find a string to pull. I suppose there’s someone with the right sort of influence where you come from, too. In Heysen he’s called Nachman Kassoy, a contractor with a round beard, a silk vest, and a big house all his own. And because he builds roads, he was on good terms with the prefect of the district, who even used to have him over for tea. This prefect, don’t you know, was quite a decent goy. In fact, he was a prince of a goy! Why do I say that? Because he had his price, if you paid it through Nachman Kassoy. That is, he was perfectly willing to accept gifts from anyone (why be rude, after all?), but he liked getting them from Nachman best of all. There’s something about a contractor, don’t you know …