Tevye the Dairyman & Motl the Cantor's Son

by Sholem Aleichem

  But what does God do? He puts a thought into Lazer-Wolf’s head that he should take my daughter Tzeitl without a dowry. For that I say again and again, I praise Thee for Thou hast answered me—I thank you, dear God, for looking down on Tevye and coming to his aid so that he might have a bit of gratification from his child. May I visit her, if I live to see it, and find her a well-to-do mistress of her home with everything she needs, chests full of linens, cupboards full of Passover shmaltz and preserves, coops full of chickens, ducks, and geese.

  Suddenly my horse went tearing down the hill, and before I could see where I was, I was lying on the ground with all the empty pots and jugs and the wagon on top of me! With a great effort I crawled out and stood up, battered and bruised, and let out my bitter heart on the horse: “May you sink into the earth! Who asked you, shlimazel, to show off and go galloping downhill? You almost killed me, you Satan!” I gave it to him for all he was worth. My boy seemed to understand what he had done and bowed his head in shame. Still cursing, I righted the wagon, gathered the pots and jugs, and we continued on our way. It was not a good sign, though, and I feared that something bad had happened at home.

  And so it was. I drove on for a verst or two, when not far from home I saw in the middle of the road coming toward me a figure in the shape of a woman. I drove closer and saw it was—Tzeitl! I don’t know why, but I felt a pang in my heart when I saw her. I sprang down from the wagon. “Tzeitl, is that you? What are you doing here?”

  And didn’t she fall on my neck sobbing! “God be with you,” I said, “my daughter, why are you crying?”

  “Oy,” she said, “Papa, Papa!” and her face was drenched in tears. My heart sank, and I imagined the worst.

  “What is it, daughter?” I said. “Tell me what has happened to you.” I embraced her, patted her, and kissed her.

  “Papa, Papa, dear, beloved father,” she wailed. “Have pity on me, on my youth!” She dissolved in tears, unable to speak another word.

  Woe is me, I was thinking. I was preparing myself for the worst! What evil spirit had taken me to Boiberik?

  “Why do you cry?” I said to her, stroking her head. “Little silly, why do you cry? Never mind,” I said. “If you say no, it’s no. No one will force you, God forbid. We only meant it for the best, for your own good,” I said. “But if that’s not what your heart tells you, what can we do? Most likely,” I said, “it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “Thank you, Papa,” she said, “long life to you.” And she fell on my neck and again kissed me and wept, the tears gushing.

  “But enough crying,” I said. “All is vanity—even eating kreplach can be tiresome. Climb into the wagon, and let’s go home. Your mother will begin to think who knows what!”

  Well, we seated ourselves in the wagon, and I began to calm her down with whatever came to mind. I told her we had meant no harm. God knew the truth, that we wanted only to spare our child from need. “Ay, it seems God does not want that,” I said. “It’s not meant to be, my daughter, that you marry without a dowry, that you have riches and all the comforts of life with a fine household, and that we have joy in our old age after all our hard work, day and night, harnessed to a wagon, without a happy moment, only suffering, poverty, squalor, only bad, bad luck in every way!”

  “Oy, Papa,” she said, again weeping, “I’ll hire myself out to haul rocks, dig ditches!”

  “Why are you still crying, silly girl?” I said. “Am I complaining? Am I blaming you? It’s just that whenever I feel miserable and wretched, I pour my heart out to the ruler of the universe about the way he deals with me. He is a merciful Father. He has pity on me, but He also turns against me, may I not be punished for these words. I try to reason with Him as with a father, but you might as well cry out to the heavens! But most likely,” I said, “that’s the way it has to be. He is high above, and we are here below, forever bound to the earth on which we lie, so we must say that He is right and that His judgment is just.

  “But think about it another way. Am I not a great fool? Why am I crying out? Why am I making such a fuss? Who am I,” I said, “to confront Him with my foolish reasoning and try to give Him advice on how to run His little world? I’m no more than a worm crawling on the earth whom the slightest little breeze, if God so wills it, will destroy in the wink of an eye. If He says so, that’s the way it has to be. What good are complaints? Forty days,” I said, “it is written in our holy books that forty days before the child is created in the mother’s womb, an angel comes and cries: ‘Let Tevye’s daughter take this one or that one, and you, Lazer-Wolf, be so kind as to go somewhere else to find someone fit for you. She is waiting for you.’ And you, Tzeitl,” I said, “may God send you your intended, but the right one, and the sooner the better, amen, may it be so. Let’s hope your mother doesn’t take out after me—I know what I’ll get from her!”

  And so we came home. I unhitched the horse and sat down on the grass near the house to try to figure out how to tell my wife a Thousand and One Nights tale in order to avoid trouble. It was evening, and the sun was setting, a lovely time of summer. The frogs were croaking in the distance while the horse, his legs hobbled, was nibbling grass. The cows, having just come in from the pasture with the herd, were standing in their stalls waiting to be milked. The delicious aroma of grass filled the air all around—a paradise! I sat and drank it all in as I was thinking how cleverly the Creator of the universe had made His little world so that every creature, from a man to a cow, forgive the comparison, should earn its keep—nothing comes free! If you, cow, want to eat, then you must give milk, provide a livelihood for a man with a wife and little children! You, horse, do you want to chew? Then run back and forth day in and day out with pots to Boiberik! And the same goes for you, O man. Do you want a crust of bread? Then go toil, milk the cows, carry the jugs, churn butter, make cheese, harness the horse, and drag yourself every morning to the Boiberik dachas, bow and scrape to the Yehupetz rich folks, smile for them, charm each one, and be sure they are satisfied and that their pride hasn’t been hurt!

  Ah, but the question from the Haggadah still remains: Wherefore is this night different? Where was it written that Tevye had to labor for them, to wake up so early that God Himself was still asleep? Why? Was it so the rich folks could have a fresh piece of cheese and butter in time for their coffee? Where was it written that I had to break my back for some thin soup and a loaf of barley bread while the Yehupetz tycoons rested their bones in their dachas, didn’t have to lift a finger, and ate only roasted duck and hot knishes, blintzes, and varnishkes? Was I not as much a person as they were? Wouldn’t it be just if Tevye could stay just one summer in a dacha? Ay, but then where would people get their cheese and butter? Who would milk the cows? The Yehupetz aristocrats? I laughed at that insane thought. There is a saying: “If God were to listen to fools, the world would look altogether different.”

  “Good evening, Reb Tevye!” someone called me. I turned around and looked—a familiar face. It was Motl Komzoil, a young tailor from Anatevka.

  “And to you,” I said. “Look who’s here! Sit, Motl, on God’s earth. What brings you here?”

  “What brings me here? My feet,” he said, and sat down beside me on the grass, all the time looking toward where my daughters were working with the pots and jugs. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you for a long time, Reb Tevye,” he said, “but I haven’t had the time. As soon as I finish one piece of work, I have to start another. Nowadays I work for myself as a tailor. There is, thank God, plenty of work—all the tailors have as much work as they can handle. It’s a continuous summer of weddings: Berl Fonfatch is marrying off a daughter, Yenkl Sheygetz is marrying off a daughter, Mendl Zaika is marrying off a daughter, Yenkl Piskatch is marrying off a daughter. Moishe Gorgel is marrying off a daughter.

  Meyer Kropeve is marrying off a daughter. Chayim Loshek is marrying off a daughter, and even Trihubeche the widow is marrying off a daughter!”

  “Everyone is marrying off daughters,” I said
. “But I’m not at that point yet. Perhaps I’m not worthy in God’s eyes.”

  “No, you are mistaken, Reb Tevye,” he said, looking toward where the girls were. “If you wanted, you would also be marrying off a daughter. It depends on you.”

  “Really?” I said. “In what way Perhaps you have a match for my Tzeitl?”

  “A perfect fit!” he said.

  “Is it at least the right match?” I was thinking that it would be funny if he meant Lazer-Wolf the butcher.

  “Like a glove!” he answered in tailor-talk, still looking toward the girls.

  “Where is your match from? Do I know him? If he smells of a butcher shop,” I said, “I don’t want to hear of it!”

  “God forbid! He doesn’t begin to smell of a butcher shop. You know him, Reb Tevye, very well!”

  “Is it really a good match?”

  “It’s made to measure! It’s custom made, one-of-a-kind, cut and sewn to order!”

  “Who is it, this match?” I asked.

  “Who is it?” His eyes always looked toward the girls. “The match is, please understand me, Reb Tevye, I myself.”

  When he uttered those words, I leaped up as if scalded, as did he, and we stood facing each other like two bristling roosters. “Are you crazy?” I said. “Or are you just out of your mind? You are the matchmaker and the bridegroom? Will you be playing the music too at your own wedding? I’ve never heard of such a thing—a young man arranging a match for himself!”

  “Are you saying, Reb Tevye, that I’m crazy?” he said. “May our enemies be as crazy. I am, you may believe me, in my right mind. No one has to be crazy to want to marry your Tzeitl. The proof is that Lazer-Wolf, the richest man in our town, wants to marry her without any conditions. Do you think it’s a secret? The whole town knows about it! You surprise me when you’re shocked that I am my own matchmaker,” he said. “You are, after all, Reb Tevye, a man who doesn’t need things spelled out for him. But what good is talking? This is the way it is: I and your daughter Tzeitl pledged to marry over a year ago.”

  Had someone plunged a knife into my heart, it would have been less painful than those words. First of all, where did he, Motl, a tailor, come off wanting to be Tevye’s son-in-law? And second of all, what kind of talk is that, pledging to marry? Nu, and where did I come in? “Don’t I have a little something to say about my child,” I said, “or don’t you ask anymore?”

  “God forbid,” he said. “That’s why, when I heard Lazer-Wolf was asking to marry your daughter, whom I have loved for over a year, I came to talk it over with you.”

  “All I know is,” I said, “Tevye has a daughter Tzeitl, and your name is Motl Komzoil, and you are just a tailor. What do you have against her? Why do you hate her?”

  “No, that’s not the way it is at all,” he said. “It’s quite the other way around. I love your daughter, and your daughter loves me, and it’s been over a year since we gave each other our pledge to marry. Several times I wanted to discuss it with you, and I kept putting it off until I had saved up some money for a sewing machine and was able to get some proper clothes for myself. Nowadays every young man has two suits and several shirts.”

  “I don’t want to listen to this childish nonsense,” I said to him. “What will you do after the wedding, pawn your teeth for food? Or are you going to support her by sewing shirts?”

  “Ah, I am surprised that you, Reb Tevye, would speak that way,” he said. “When you got married, I imagine you didn’t have a mansion yet. Nevertheless you can see for yourself. The whole world manages, and I will manage too. Now more business is coming my way.”

  To make a long story short—why should I bore you?—he convinced me. Why should we fool ourselves? How do all Jewish children get married? In our walk of life, if we were to worry about how young people could make it, none of us would ever have married. But one thing still stuck in my craw that I could not understand, no matter what. They made a pledge to marry? What was our world coming to? A young man met a girl and said to her, “Let’s pledge to marry.” That was not done!

  But Motl standing there, his head bowed like a sinner, looked so earnest, so guileless that I reconsidered. Let’s look at it another way. What was holding me back, and why was I lording it over him? Did I have such a great lineage myself—Reb Tzotzele’s grandson? Would I be giving my daughter a huge dowry and trousseau, for God’s sake? True, Motl Komzoil was a tailor, but he was a fine young man, a hard worker who would support a wife, and besides, he was an honest man too, so what did I have against him?

  Tevye, I said to myself, stop your foolish arguing and say yes. As it is written: I have pardoned according to Thy word—may you have lots of luck! Yes, but what would I do about my wife? I would get it in the neck from her. How could I make her accept this decision?

  “Do you know what, Motl?” I said to my soon-to-be son-in-law. “You go home, and I’ll take care of everything here. I’ll talk it over with this one, with that one, as it says in the Megillah: And the drinking was according to the custom—one must do everything properly. And God willing, tomorrow, if you don’t change your mind, we will meet.”

  “Change my mind?” he cried. “I, change my mind? May I not live to leave this spot, may I turn into a stone or a bone if I do!”

  “Why do you swear oaths?” I said to him. “I believe you without swearing. Go home,” I said, “and goodnight, and may you dream pleasant dreams.”

  I too went to bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. My head was splitting thinking up one plan and then another, and then I came up with just the right one. What was the plan? Listen, and I’ll tell you what a brainstorm Tevye had!

  It was the middle of the night, everyone was sound asleep, this one was snoring, that one was whistling. I suddenly sat up and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Help! Help! Help!” Naturally the entire household awoke, first of all Golde.

  “God be with you, Tevye,” she said, and shook me. “Wake up! What’s the matter with you? Why are you screaming like that?”

  I opened my eyes, looked all around, and said with a shaking voice: “Where is she?”

  “Where is who? Who are you looking for?”

  “Frume-Sarah,” I said. “Frume-Sarah, Lazer-Wolf’s wife, was standing right here.”

  “You must have a fever,” my wife said to me. “God be with you, Tevye! Frume-Sarah, Lazer-Wolf’s wife, may she be far from us, is no longer in this world.”

  “I know she died,” I said, “but she was just right here by my bed talking to me. She grabbed me by the throat and tried to strangle me!”

  “God be with you, Tevye, what are you babbling about?” she said. “You must have had a bad dream. Spit three times and tell me what you dreamed and I’ll tell you what it meant.”

  “Long life to you, Golde, for waking me up,” I said to her, “or else I would have died of fright right on the spot. Give me a drink of water and I’ll tell you my dream, but I warn you, Golde, don’t be scared, and don’t start thinking who knows what because in our holy books it says that only three parts of a dream can come true and the rest means nothing, absolutely nothing at all. First of all,” I said, “I dreamed we were having a celebration. I don’t know if it was an engagement party or a wedding. There were a lot of people, men and women, the rabbi and the slaughterer, even musicians. Then the door opened, and in came your Grandma Tzeitl, God rest her soul.”

  When my wife heard “Grandma Tzeitl,” she turned pale as a ghost. “How did she look and what was she wearing?”

  “How did she look?” I said. “May my enemies have such a face—as yellow as wax. And she was dressed, as you would expect, in white shrouds. ‘Mazel tov!’ Grandma Tzeitl said to me. ‘I am so happy that you’ve chosen for your Tzeitl, my namesake, such a fine, upstanding bridegroom. He is named Motl Komzoil, after my father, Mordecai, and even though he’s a tailor, still he’s a very honest boy.’ ”

  “How did we get mixed up with a tailor?” cried Golde. “In our family we have teachers, ca
ntors, beadles, cemetery officials, and just plain poor people. But not, God forbid, any tailors or cobblers.”

  “Don’t interrupt me, Golde,” I said to her. “Maybe your Grandma Tzeitl knows better than you. When I heard such a mazel tov from Grandma Tzeitl, I said to her: ‘Why are you saying, Bubbe’nyu, that Tzeitl’s betrothed is called Motl and he’s a tailor? You mean his name is Lazer-Wolf and he’s a butcher.’

  “ ‘No,’ Grandma said again, ‘no, Tevye, your Tzeitl’s betrothed is called Motl. He is a tailor, and with him, God willing, she will grow old in wealth and in honor.’

  “ ‘But Bubbe’nyu,’ I said to her again, ‘what shall we do with Lazer-Wolf? After all, just yesterday I gave him my word!’ As I spoke those words, I looked up, and Grandma Tzeitl was gone! In her place stood Frume-Sarah, Lazer-Wolf’s wife, and she said to me these words:

  “ ‘Reb Tevye! I always thought of you as an honest man, a man of learning. How then can you do this to me, let your daughter take my place, live in my house, carry my keys, wear my clothes, my jewels, my pearls?’

  “ ‘It’s not my fault,’ I said to her. ‘Your Lazer-Wolf wanted it that way.’

  “ ‘Lazer-Wolf?’ she said. ‘Lazer-Wolf will come to a terrible end. And your poor Tzeitl, a pity on her, Reb Tevye, she will not live with him for more than three weeks. And when the three weeks are up, I will come to her by night and take her by the throat, like this. . . .’ And with those words Frume-Sarah grabbed me by the throat and began to choke me so hard that if you hadn’t woken me up, I would by now be far, far from here!”

  “Tfu! Tfu! Tfu!” my wife said, and spit three times three. “May that dream fall into the river, may it sink into the earth, may it crawl over roofs, may it lie in the forest, but may it not harm us or our children! May that butcher be visited by such a dark, angry dream! May it fill his head and paralyze his arms and legs! He isn’t worth Motl Komzoil’s littlest fingernail, even though he is a tailor, because if he was named after my Uncle Mordecai, he is certainly not a tailor by birth, and if Grandma, may she rest in peace, took the trouble to come here from the Other World to give us a mazel tov, then we must say it is all for the best and could not be better. Amen selah!”