Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

by Sholem Aleichem

  “He meant every word of it, too. Listen to what happened. A few days later our rich friend Yoyl Tashker was taking the train to the Tulchin fair. His neighbor Kompanyevitch was aboard too, as were a whole lot of Jews from Tolchin and Uman. There wasn’t a seat to be had, and everyone was talking at the top of his voice as usual—everyone, that is, except for Yoyl Tashker, who sat in a corner as usual too, reading a religious book. What did he have to talk about, after all, with any of those Jews? And especially with that degenerate Kompanyevitch, whom he couldn’t even stand the sight of. And just as though to get his goat, don’t you know, Kompanyevitch had gone and sat right across from him and was giving him the silent stare! Great God Almighty, Reb Yoyl kept thinking, who will rescue me from this pig eater? To move to the second-class car was a sinful waste of good money, but to have to keep looking at the nude chin of an assassin who had the very Devil in his eyes was hardly a more tolerable prospect … Only just then, don’t you know, the prayed-for miracle occurred: whom did God make board the train at the very next station if not someone Tashker knew—in fact, none other than our good friend Froyke-Sheygetz! The sight of Froyke made Tashker feel like a new man; at last there was someone to have a word with. ‘Where to?’ he asked Froyke. ‘Where to?’ Froyke asked him. And so they began to chat. About what? About everything under the sun—until they arrived at a topic that was close to Yoyl Tashker’s heart: the sorry state of today’s youth. Worthless young men, shameless young women—what could the world be coming to? Froyke-Sheygetz was in perfect agreement; in fact, he even chipped in with a story of his own about a newlywed from Uman who had run away from her husband to take up with a Russian officer. Then he told another about a bridegroom who had married two different women in two different cities, and still another about a youngster who, when struck by his father for refusing to put on his tefillin, had put up his fists and fought back. ‘What, hit his own father?!’ That caused an uproar in the car. Everyone was aghast—and no one more than Yoyl Tashker. ‘What did I tell you? My very word! It’s sheer anarchy. Jewish children won’t even pray any more! They won’t even put on their tefillin …’

  “ ‘Tefillin are one thing,’ suddenly said Kompanyevitch, who hadn’t let out a peep all this time. ‘You can take them or leave them, it’s not them I’m concerned about. But a tallis koton is something else. It’s simply beyond me why young people won’t wear it any more! After all, you can’t deny that tefillin are a nuisance. You have to put them on, you have to take them off … but a simple fringed undershirt such as the Bible tells us to wear—who could possibly object to it?’

  “Those words were spoken by our infidel in such a calm, deliberate, assured tone of voice that Tashker, don’t you know, couldn’t have been more thunderstruck if the train had suddenly turned upside down or been hit by lightning. ‘I better have my ears examined!’ he thought. ‘The Messiah must have come! Would you listen to the pork lover talk about tallis kotons? Tallis kotons!!!’ And out loud to Froyke he exclaimed, ‘What do you say to this sheep in wolf’s clothing, eh? Did you hear what he said about tallis kotons?’

  “ ‘But what’s wrong with it?’ asked Froyke, as innocent as a lamb himself. ‘Isn’t Mr. Kompanyevitch a Jew like you and me?’

  “That was already too much for our Tashker. In the first place, since when was it Mr. Kompanyevitch? And in the second place, since when was Kompanyevitch a Jew? ‘A Jew? Don’t make me laugh! A Jew who puts the samovar up on the Sabbath? Who serves a seven-course meal on Tisha b’Av? Who doesn’t even kosher his dishes for Passover? That’s who’s talking tallis kotons?’

  “ ‘But why not?’ persisted Froyke, still the picture of innocence. ‘What does the one thing have to do with the other, Reb Yoyl? If you ask me, a Jew like Kompanyevitch can do everything you say and still wear a tallis koton himself.’

  “ ‘What?!!’ cried our Tashker at the top of his voice. ‘That beardless wonder? That degenerate? That living affront to man and God?’

  “Everyone fell silent and stared at Kompanyevitch. Kompanyevitch, however, said nothing. Nor, for that matter, did Froyke-Sheygetz. All at once, though, he jumped to his feet like a man throwing caution to the wind and declared, ‘You know what, Reb Yoyl? It’s my considered opinion that the Jewish soul runs deeper than you think. If a Jew cares about tallis kotons, he must be wearing one himself. I’ll bet you a hundred rubles that Kompanyevitch is, the loser to donate the money to the Drozhne relief fund. Just say the word, and I’ll ask him to do us the big favor of opening his shirt and jacket and showing us what’s underneath them!’

  “ ‘Bravo!’ cried everyone, breaking into such a clamor that the whole car was hopping with excitement. Kompanyevitch alone went on sitting there without a word, as if none of this concerned him in the least. You might have thought that someone else was being talked about. And our good friend Yoyl Tashker? The poor devil was as bathed in sweat as if he were turning on a slow spit. Never in his whole life had he wagered so much as a ruble on anything—and here he was being asked to risk a hundred! And suppose—no, it was too horrible even to think of—just suppose that the scoundrel was wearing a tallis koton, after all?… On second thought, though, Reb Yoyl reflected, ‘Come, now: Kompanyevitch? That renegade? I’ll be hanged if it’s possible’—and, screwing up his courage, he reached into his coat, took out a hundred rubles, and handed them to the two trustworthy Jews who had meanwhile been appointed as seconds. They, in turn, requested of Kompanyevitch that he undress. Who? Me? Not on your life! ‘What do you take me for?’ he asked. ‘A schoolboy? A vaudeville performer? Since when does a grown man strip naked in broad daylight in front of a crowd of Jews?’

  “Kompanyevitch’s protests were music to Yoyl Tashker’s ears. ‘So!’ he said to Froyke, his face lighting up. ‘Who’s right? You can’t fool me! Why, the thought of a Jew like that with a tallis koton … what a laugh!’

  “Things weren’t looking any too good. Everyone turned to Kompanyevitch. ‘How can you do this to us! One way or another, what do you have to lose? Just think of it: a hundred rubles for the Drozhne relief fund!’

  “ ‘A hundred rubles for the relief fund!’ echoed Yoyl Tashker, doing his best not to look at his neighbor.

  “ ‘Think of the poor Jews, men, women, and children, without a roof over their heads!’

  “ ‘Without a roof, just imagine!’ echoed Tashker.

  “ ‘Where’s the God in your heart?’ Kompanyevitch was asked.

  “ ‘Where’s the God?’ Tashker wanted to know.

  “Well, it wasn’t easy, but in the end Kompanyevitch was persuaded to remove his jacket, take off his vest, and unbutton his shirt. Didn’t I tell you he was a character? Under his shirt was a tallis koton, all right—and not just an ordinary tallis koton either, but a big, fancy, superkosher one with a blue border all around it and a double set of fringes that would have done a rabbi proud. It was a tallis koton to end all tallis kotons, let me tell you! Leave it to a rascal like Froyke-Sheygetz! True, he lost Yoyl Tashker’s business then and there. Froyke hasn’t dared show his face to Tashker ever since. But he did raise a hundred rubles for the Drozhne relief fund—and from whom? From a rich scrooge of a Jew who never gave a penny’s worth of charity in his life, not even a crust of dry bread! Doesn’t someone like that deserve a good whipping? I mean someone like Froyke, of course …”

  (1910)

  A GAME OF SIXTY-SIX

  The following, which I heard on the train from a dignified gentleman of about sixty whom I took to be a commercial traveler like myself, is related here word for word, as has lately been my habit.

  “You know, if you always had to pass the time traveling by making conversation with a fellow passenger, you could go out of your mind.

  “In the first place, you never know who you’re getting involved with. There are some people who not only like to talk, they like it so much that they give you a headache—and there are others you can’t get a word out of. But not a single word! It’s anyone’s gues
s why you can’t. Maybe they’re in a bad mood. Maybe they have an upset stomach, or an attack of gall bladder, or a toothache. Maybe they’re even running away from some private hell at home—a house full of brats, a shrew of a wife, problems with the neighbors, a business that can’t pay its debts. Whoever knows what goes on inside another person?

  “I know what you’ll tell me: if I don’t feel like talking, why don’t I read a newspaper, or take a look at a book? Ah, newspapers: if only they were the same on the road as they are at home! At home I have my regular paper, I’m as used to it, you might say, as I am to my own slippers. It may be that your slippers are newer than mine. In fact, mine are not only old, they’re so worn-out that they look, you should excuse the comparison, like a pair of cold blintzes. Still, they have one advantage over yours—namely, that they happen to be mine …

  “Well, a newspaper, for all the difference between them, is just like a slipper. I have a neighbor back home who lives on the same floor of the same building as I do, in fact, right next door to me. He gets a paper delivered, and so do I. It’s just not the same one. One day I said to him, ‘What’s the point of the two of us getting two different papers? Why not go halves with me in mine, and we’ll share one paper between us.’ ‘Why not indeed?’ he says. ‘It’s a fine idea. Only why not go halves with me in mine?’ ‘Because your paper,’ I say, ‘is a rag. Mine is a newspaper.’ ‘Who says my paper is a rag?’ he says. ‘It so happens to be the other way around.’ ‘Since when are you such a big expert on newspapers?’ I say. ‘Since when are you?’ he says. ‘Eh!’ I say, ‘I never realized what an impossible Jew you were. What’s the point of even talking toyou?’ …

  “In short, he kept getting his newspaper, I kept getting mine, and time went by. Until one day—it was during the cholera epidemic in Odessa (my neighbor and I both do business there)—a funny thing happened. We both went downstairs to meet the delivery boy, both got our newspapers, and were both reading them on our way back up, he his paper and I mine. What’s the first thing you read in a newspaper? The news bulletins, of course. So I looked at the first item from Odessa and it said, ‘Yesterday there were 230 new cases of cholera and 160 deaths. General Tolmachov summoned all the Jewish synagogue sextons to his residence,’ etcetera … Well, I could do without Tolmachov and the synagogue sextons. You couldn’t even call that news; if he didn’t find some new way of hassling Jews every day, his name wouldn’t be Tolmachov. What interested me was the cholera. And so I said to my neighbor (he was practically walking down the corridor on my toes—that’s how crude he is!), ‘What do you say about Odessa, eh? Cholera again!’

  “ ‘It can’t be,’ he says to me.

  “That riled me. What did he mean, it couldn’t be? So I took my newspaper and read the bulletin from Odessa out loud to him. ‘Yesterday there were 230 new cases of cholera and 160 deaths. General Tolmachov summoned all the Jewish synagogue sextons to his residence,’ etcetera. ‘We’ll see about that in a minute,’ he says and sticks his nose back in his newspaper. That riled me even more. ‘What do you think,’ I said, ‘that your paper has different news from my paper?’

  “ ‘You never know,’ he mumbled.

  “ ‘Are you trying to tell me,’ I said, getting still madder, ‘that your paper writes about a different Odessa, and about a different Tolmachov, and about a different cholera than mine does?’

  “He didn’t even answer me. He just went right on searching that paper of his for news of the cholera from Odessa. Now go try making conversation with a primitive like that!

  “No, sir. There’s a better way than that to kill time on a train, and that’s with a good game of cards. I mean with a game of sixty-six.

  “In general, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that cards are the Devil’s own invention—but on a long train ride they’re a godsend. The time simply flies when you get a game going. Of course, it has to be with the right people. If it isn’t, God save you from the mess you’re liable to get yourself into! You have to make sure you don’t fall in with a bunch of card sharks who can play you for a sucker and take you for all you’re worth. It’s not all that easy to tell one of them from an honest man. In fact, most of those fellows make believe they’re poor innocent saps themselves. They’ll pretend to be more dead than alive, or moan and groan over each bad hand—but it’s all just an act to get you into the game. And even then they’ll let you win a few times … until little by little your luck turns bad and you begin to lose. That’s when they’ve got you where they want you. Believe me, before you’ve seen the last of them you’ll have gambled away your gold watch, and the chain that goes with it, and anything else of value you may have. Even after you realize that you’ve been had by pros, you’ll go right on playing like a sheep that can’t take its head out of the wolf’s mouth. Oh, I know them, I do! And I’ve paid dearly for the privilege … Why, I could tell you no end of stories! When you travel like I do, you get to hear them all.

  “For instance, there’s the one about the cashier who was traveling with his boss’s money—and a nice little bundle it was. He ran into some sharpies, lost the whole caboodle, and nearly jumped out of the train window …

  “Or else I could tell you about the young man from Warsaw who was coming back from his father-in-law’s with his dowry. He was relieved of the entire amount and passed out right on the train …

  “And then there’s the case of the student from Chernigov who was on his way home for the holidays with the few hard-earned rubles he had made tutoring over the summer vacation. The money wasn’t for himself either, but for an old mother and a sick sister, the poor things, who were counting on every penny of it …

  “You can see for yourself that each of these sad stories begins and ends the same way—and no one knows it better than I do. Believe you me, I won’t fall for it a second time! Once was more than enough. Why, I can spot one of those birds a mile away now. And I have a strict rule besides: no card games with strangers! I wouldn’t sit down to play with you if you offered me the world … except, that is, for a little two-hand game of sixty-six. Sixty-six—now that’s a different story entirely! What danger is there, I ask you, in a friendly game of sixty-six? And especially if the cards are my own—what’s to be afraid of? You see, I never travel without my own pack of cards. Just as a good Jew takes his tallis and tefillin with him everywhere, so I always have my cards.

  “To tell you the truth, I like a good game of sixty-six. It’s a Jewish game, your sixty-six is. I don’t know about you, but I like to play it the old way, with marriages worth twenty and forty. If I’ve won a trick, I can exchange the nine of trumps for the deck trump, and if I haven’t, I can’t. Fair enough, no? That’s how we Jews play it everywhere, at home and on the road. I may not look the type, but if I get into a game of sixty-six while I’m traveling I can go on playing nonstop, day and night. The one thing I don’t like are the kibitzers. God forgive me for speaking frankly, but we Jews are a revolting people. It’s practically impossible to play a game of sixty-six with a crowd of Jews around. Before you know it, they’re standing all over you and telling you what card to play and whether to trump or not. You can’t get rid of them, they stick to you like flies! I’ve tried saying everything, but nothing makes them go away. ‘Look here, my friend, when I want your advice I’ll ask for it.’ Or, ‘Hey, Mr. Buttinski, why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself?’ Or, ‘Would you mind not using me as a leaning post? If there’s anything worse than bad manners, it’s bad breath.’ You might as well talk to the wall!

  “Once, you know, a kibitzer got me into such trouble that I was lucky to get out of it again. I can’t resist telling you about it.

  “It happened one winter. On the train, of course. The car was packed with people and as hot as a Turkish bath. There were as many Jews as stars in the sky, far more than there were seats—why, you couldn’t stick a needle between them! And it was then of all times that who should turn up but the perfect partner for a game of sixty-six—a quiet, sim
ple Jew, it so happened, but one every bit as wild for it as I am. We looked for a place to put the cards—there wasn’t a square inch available. So what does the good Lord do? Face-down on the bench right across from us is a monk in a sheepskin coat, having himself a snooze. As a matter of fact, he’s snoring away so merrily that you can hear him all over the car. I looked at my partner, my partner looked at me—there was no need for words. A big, fat, broad-bottomed monk with a nice, soft sheepskin on him … what better table for a game of sixty-six could you ask for? Without wasting any time, we laid the cards on his you-know-what and began to play.

  “If I remember correctly, spades were trump. I had the king, queen, and jack, the ace of clubs, the king of diamonds, and … but what was my sixth card? I’ve forgotten whether it was the nine or ten of hearts. I think it was the nine. Or could it have been the ten, after all? Well, it makes no difference. In short, I had a dream hand: forty points before a card was played, with a chance for three game-points. The only question was, what would my partner lead with? If he was a nice enough Jew to lead with a club, he’d make me a happy man. And don’t think that isn’t what he did! He thought and thought (good Lord, I wondered, how long can you think about a card?) and finally came out with none other than the ten of clubs. I could have kissed him for it! But when I play sixty-six, you know, it’s not like me to get excited the way some people do. Easy does it. What’s the rush? On the contrary, I like to have a bit of fun. And so I pulled my ear, made a face—why not? Let my partner have the short-lived pleasure of thinking I’m in a fix … How was I to know that a Jew was standing behind me and looking at my hand—he should stand on his head until his eyes fall out! Seeing as how I was taking my time, he reached over my shoulder, grabbed the ace of clubs, threw it on top of the ten, gave the deck of cards a whack right on the fat monk’s bottom, and shouted: