Tevye the Dairyman & Motl the Cantor's Son

by Sholem Aleichem

  My daughter spoke to me, blushing even redder than before: “Papa, give us a mazel tov.”

  “Mazel tov to you,” I said, “may you have good luck. What’s this all about? Did you find a treasure in the woods? Or were you rescued from great danger?”

  “Give us a mazel tov,” Fefferl said. “We’re engaged.”

  “What do you mean, you’re engaged?”

  “We’re engaged,” he said. “Don’t you know what engaged means? It means I will be her husband and she will be my wife.” Fefferl looked me straight in the eyes.

  I looked him straight back in his eyes. “When was the contract signed? And why wasn’t I invited to the celebration? I imagine I would be somewhat involved as an in-law, don’t you think?”

  You can understand that while I was talking, worms were gnawing at my innards. But I said nothing. Tevye is not a woman. Tevye likes to hear everything out to the end. I said to them, “I don’t quite understand—a match without a matchmaker, without an engagement party?”

  “Why do we need a matchmaker?” Fefferl said. “We have long been engaged.”

  “Is that so? God’s miracles! Why then,” I said, “didn’t you say anything till now?”

  “Why should we shout it out? We wouldn’t have told you about it now except that we soon will be separated, and so we decided to get married first.”

  That really hurt. As it is written in the Psalms: The waters have risen unto my soul—cut right to the bone! Well, it was bad enough that they were engaged—he wants her, she wants him. But to get married? What kind of gibberish was that?

  My future son-in-law realized I was confused and said, “You understand, Reb Tevye, this is what is happening: I am leaving here.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Very soon.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “That,” he said, “I cannot tell you. It’s a secret.”

  Do you hear that? It’s a secret! How do you like that? Along comes a Fefferl, a puny, dark, homely fellow, makes himself out to be a bridegroom, and wants to put up the wedding canopy, but he’s about to go away and won’t say where to! Isn’t that enough to make a person explode?

  “Oh well,” I said to him, “a secret is a secret. Everything you do is a secret. But just explain something to me: you are an honorable person and are steeped in justice from top to bottom. How can you,” I said, “come here and suddenly take away Tevye’s daughter and then abandon her? Is that what you call honor? Justice? I’m just lucky you didn’t rob me or set my house on fire!”

  “Papa!” Hodl cried out. “You have no idea how relieved we are that we told you our secret. A stone has been lifted from my heart. Come here, and let’s kiss.” And not thinking about it too long, both of them embraced me, she from one side, he from the other, and they began kissing and hugging me as well as each other. It was like a play on the stage, I tell you.

  “That’s enough kissing,” I said. “It’s time to talk about practical matters.”

  “What practical matters?” they said.

  “About the dowry,” I said, “clothes, wedding expenses, this, that, and the other.”

  “We don’t need anything,” they said.

  “Then what do you need?”

  “All we need is the wedding ceremony.” Have you ever heard of anything like that?

  In short—I won’t bore you—but there was nothing I could do about it. They had a wedding, if you can call that a wedding! It certainly wasn’t the sort of wedding that befits Tevye. It was a very quiet wedding, God help us. Besides, I had my wife to deal with. She kept demanding to know why it had to be done in such haste. Try to explain to a woman what that rush was all about! Don’t you think I had to invent a story, a marvelous, wondrous story about an inheritance, a rich aunt from Yehupetz—anything so she would leave me in peace.

  And sure enough, a few hours after that wonderful wedding I hitched up the horse and wagon, and the three of us got in, and off we went to the Boiberik train station. As I rode along with my young couple, I glanced at them from the corner of my eye. What a great God we have, and how cleverly He runs His world! I thought. What strange souls, wild creatures He has created! Here was this brand-new married couple: he was going away, who knew whereto, while she remained here without so much as a tear, not even for appearance’s sake! But I am not a woman. Tevye has time, watches, bites his tongue, and waits to see what will happen.

  At the station several young fellows, good Kasrileukes with worn-down boots, came to say goodbye to my fly-by-night. One of them was dressed like a Russian peasant, forgive me, with his shirt over his trousers. They were whispering together quietly. Look out, Tevye, I was thinking. You may have gotten mixed up with a band of horse thieves, pickpockets, housebreakers, or counterfeiters!

  On the way home from Boiberik with my Hodl, I could not restrain myself and spoke openly to her of my suspicions. She burst out laughing and assured me that they were honest, decent men whose lives were dedicated to helping others, without any concern for their own welfare. “The one with the shirt,” she said, “is the son of a rich man. He rejected his wealthy parents in Yehupetz and refuses to accept a groschen from them.”

  “How about that! God’s wonders!” I said. “Quite a fine boy. If God would add to the shirt he was wearing over his trousers and his long hair a harmonica or a dog to follow him, he would really be quite a sight!” I tried to settle the score with her, as well as with him, by letting out my bitter heart at her—poor thing. And her response? Nothing! And Esther spoke not—she pretended not to understand what I was saying. I talked about Fefferl, and she talked about the well-being of the community, the workers, and other such things. “What do I care,” I said, “about the well-being of your community and your workers if you keep it all a secret? There is a proverb: Where there are secrets, there is thievery. So tell me straight out—where did Fefferl go, and why?”

  “I’ll tell you anything,” she said, “but not that. Better not to ask. Believe me,” she said, “in time you will know everything. God willing, you will soon hear much good news!”

  “Amen, let us hope so,” I said. “From your lips to God’s ears! May our enemies,” I said, “have as much good health as I understand what is happening with you and what this game is about!”

  “That,” she said, “is the trouble. You won’t understand.”

  “Tell me, is it so complicated? It seems to me that with God’s help, I understand far more complicated things.”

  “It’s not something you can understand with your mind alone. This is something you must feel, feel with your heart,” Hodl said to me, her face shining and her eyes glowing. These daughters of mine, I tell you, when they get involved in something, it is with body and soul and heart!

  I can tell you, a week and two and three and four and five and six and seven passed, and there was neither voice nor money—no letter, no news. “Fefferl is gone!” I said, and glanced at my Hodl. Her poor face was drained of color. She kept doing small chores around the house, trying to forget her great sorrow, but never once did she mention his name, as if Fefferl had never existed!

  But one day I came home and found my Hodl walking around with eyes swollen from weeping. Not long before a shlimazel with long hair had come and taken her aside and had whispered something to her. Aha! I thought, it was that young fellow who rejected his parents and who wore his shirt over his trousers. So now I called my Hodl out into the yard and confronted her: “You must tell me, daughter, do you have news from him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he, your husband?”

  “He is far away,” she said.

  “What is he doing?”

  “He’s in prison!”

  “He’s in prison?”

  “He’s in prison.”

  “Where is he in prison? Why is he in prison?”

  She looked me straight in the eyes and remained silent.

  “Tell me, my daughter, I assume it is not for theft.
I don’t understand. If he isn’t a thief or a swindler, why is he in prison, for what good reason?”

  She was silent. And Esther spoke not. She said not a word.

  “If you don’t want to speak,” I said, “you don’t have to. He’s your headache, not mine. Serves him right!” But inside my heart was breaking for her. I am, after all, a father, as they say in the prayers: Like as a father pitieth his children—a father remains a father.

  Well, it was the evening of Hoshana Raba, the last day of Succos. On holidays it’s a custom of mine to rest, and my horse also rests, as it says in the Torah: Neither thou nor thine ox nor thine ass—you and your wife and your horse. Also at that time of year in Boiberik there was almost nothing to do. One blow of the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur and off they all ran, the dachniks, like mice during a famine, and Boiberik was emptied out. At those times I like to sit on my stoop in front of my house. For me it’s the best time of the year. The days are rare gifts. The sun isn’t as hot as an oven but warms you gently, delightfully. The woods are still green, the pines give off their pungent tar aroma, and the woods look like they’re dressed for the holidays, like God’s succah. Right here, I thought, is where God celebrates Succos, not in town where it is noisy with people running around, panting for breath, chasing after a crust of bread, and all you hear is money, money, money!

  I have not yet talked about the nights of Hoshana Raba. They are like paradise. The sky is dark blue, and the stars twinkle, shimmer, shine, and blink like human eyes. And sometimes a star shoots through the sky like an arrow, leaving behind a momentary green trail. It is a falling star—someone’s luck has fallen. As many stars as there are, that is how many Jewish fates there are. May it not be my bad luck, I thought, and Hodl came to mind. In the last few days she seemed to revive, to become livelier—her face changed. Someone had brought her a letter from him, her shlimazel. I really wanted to know what he was writing, but I didn’t want to ask. If she wouldn’t talk, I wouldn’t talk. Sha! Tevye is not a woman. Tevye has time.

  As I was thinking about Hodl, along she came. She sat down next to me on the stoop, looked to all sides, and said to me quietly: “Listen to me, Papa. I have something to tell you. I must say goodbye to you now—forever.”

  She said it so quietly, I could barely hear her. I will never forget the way she looked at me. I thought she meant she was going to drown herself. Why? Recently, may it not happen to anyone, a girl living not far from us fell in love with a village Gentile, and because of him—well, you know what happened. On account of that her mother became sick and died, and her father let his business go and became a pauper. The village Gentile thought it over and decided to go off with someone else. The girl then went to the river, threw herself in, and drowned herself.

  “What do you mean?” I said. “You are saying goodbye to me forever?” And I looked down so she would not see my stricken face.

  “It means,” she said, “I am going away tomorrow, very early, and we will never see each other . . . never again.”

  Ah, she was not thinking of harming herself—my heart was eased. It could have been worse, but it could also have been better. “Whereto,” I said, “if I may have the honor of knowing?”

  “I am going to him.”

  “To him? Where is he now?”

  “For the time being,” she said, “he is in prison, but soon they will be sending him away.”

  “Are you going to say goodbye to him?” I was playing dumb.

  “No, I am going to follow him there.”

  “There? Where is that? What do they call the place?”

  “We don’t know exactly what it’s called, but it’s far away, terribly far, and the way is dangerous.”

  She seemed to be speaking with pride, as if he had done some great deed for which he deserved a medal made from a pound of iron! What could I say? Most fathers would have scolded her, slapped her, punished her, or they would have imagined all the worst that could happen to her. But Tevye is not a woman. I am of the opinion that anger is the work of the devil. And so I replied as usual with a commentary: “I see, my daughter, that you have made your decision. As it says in the Holy Torah, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother. Because of Fefferl you are abandoning your parents and going off to a place you don’t know, somewhere—as I once read in a storybook—over a desert beyond the frozen sea, where Alexander of Macedonia sailed and was lost on a distant island among wild savages.”

  I said it half-jokingly, half in anger, as my heart was breaking. But Tevye is not a woman, Tevye kept it inside himself.

  Nor did Hodl lose her dignity. She answered every question I asked, quietly, unhurriedly, thoughtfully. Tevye’s daughters know how to speak.

  And though my head was bowed and my eyes were lowered, I could see Hodl—her face was like the moon, pale and round, and her voice was muted, trembling. Should I throw my arms around her, beg her, plead with her not to leave? But it would be useless. Those daughters of mine—when they fall in love, it’s with body and soul and heart and life itself!

  As you can imagine, we sat on the stoop quite a while, almost through the night, more silent than speaking, and when we spoke, it was almost like not speaking—no more than a word here, a word there. I asked her, whoever heard of a girl getting married to a boy for the sake of following him to the ends of the earth?

  And she answered me: “With him it doesn’t matter. I will go anywhere with him, even to the ends of the earth.” I tried to explain with logic, as usual, how foolish that was. Then she explained to me with her logic that I will never understand. So I told her a parable about a hen that hatched ducklings. As soon as the ducklings were able to stand on their legs, they jumped into the water and swam away, while the poor hen stood there clucking. “What do you say to that, my dear daughter?”

  “What can I say? It’s certainly a pity for the hen. But because the hen stood there clucking, is that a reason the ducklings shouldn’t swim?”

  Do you appreciate those words? Tevye’s daughter spoke to the point.

  Meanwhile time wasn’t standing still. Day was breaking, and my wife was stirring in the house. Several times she sent someone out to us, to say it was time for bed, but it did no good. So she stuck her head out of the window and said to me, with her usual fine blessing, “Tevye, what are you still doing out there?”

  “Be quiet, Golde,” I said. “As it says in the Psalms: Why do the heathens rage!—you’ve forgotten that it’s Hoshana Raba today? That’s the day when our fates are decided and the verdict is sealed. So you must stay up. Listen to me, Golde,” I said, “please go and light the samovar, and let us have tea while I hitch up the wagon. I am going with Hodl to the train.”

  And once again I manufactured for her a lie, saying that Hodl was going off to Yehupetz, and from there somewhere else, on account of you-know-who’s inheritance. “And it’s possible,” I said, “she’ll remain there all winter and perhaps over winter and summer and another winter. And so we have to give her provisions—some linens, a dress, a pair of pillows, pillowcases, a little of this and that.”

  That’s what I ordered Golde to do, and I insisted Hodl and her sisters were not to cry. It was Hoshana Raba. “On this day,” I said, “you’re not allowed to cry. The law definitely prohibits it!” But they paid no attention to the law and did cry, and when it came time to say goodbye, they were all wailing—the mother, the children, and even Hodl herself. And my eldest daughter Tzeitl was also there—she comes to us for the holidays with her Motl Komzoil. Both sisters clasped each other closely—they could hardly be separated.

  I alone was like steel and iron. That’s easy to say, steel and iron. Inside I was more like a boiling samovar, but for anyone to see it—feh! Tevye is not a woman.

  All the way to Boiberik we were silent, but when we were approaching the train station, I asked her once and for all to tell me what Fefferl had done. “Everything has to have a reason.”

  She swore that he was innocent. “He never c
ares about himself. Everything he does is for the sake of others, for the sake of humanity, especially for those who toil with their hands, the workers.” Now be a sage and try to figure that out!

  “So he worries about humanity. Why then,” I said, “doesn’t humanity worry about him if he is such a wonderful person? Please give him my regards, your Alexander of Macedonia. Tell him that I am relying on him as an honorable man not to mistreat my daughter and to make sure she writes an occasional letter to an old father.”

  And as I spoke, didn’t she suddenly throw her arms around my neck and start to cry? “Let us say goodbye,” she said. “Be well, Papa. God only knows when we shall see each other again.”

  Well, that was too much for me. I could no longer control myself. I remembered this same Hodl when she was still a baby and I held her in my arms . . . in my arms . . .

  Forgive me, Pani, for acting like a woman. I must tell you what sort of daughter Hodl is! You should see the letters she writes. She is a gift from God! She is right here . . . right here . . . deep, deep . . . I cannot begin to say it . . .

  Do you know what, Pani Sholem Aleichem? Let’s better speak of something happier. What do you hear about the cholera in Odessa?

  CHAVA

  WRITTEN IN 1906.

  Give thanks unto the Lord for He is good. Whatever He ordains is for the best. It has to be for the best, because just try being wiser and making it better! I thought I would be clever, twisting the meaning of the commentaries this way and that, but it made no difference whatsoever. I took my hand away from my heart and said to myself, Tevye, you’re a fool! You can’t change the world. The One Above gave us the great sorrows of child-raising, which means: when children cause you grief, you must count it as love. As an example, take my eldest daughter, Tzeitl, who fell in love with the tailor Motl Komzoil. I have nothing against him. True, he’s a simple soul, doesn’t understand any of the fine points in a text, can’t master the small print. But what can I do? Not everyone can be learned! Still and all, he is an honest person and works hard. They already have a full house of little ones, you should see, kayn eyn horeh, while they both struggle to survive in honor and dignity. When you talk to Tzeitl, she says that she is happy as can be, it couldn’t be better, but there is not enough food. There you have daughter number one.