Tevye the Dairyman & Motl the Cantor's Son

by Sholem Aleichem

  Well, about my second daughter, Hodl, I don’t need to tell you, you know about her. I lost her—she’s gone forever! Only God knows if my eyes will ever look upon her, unless it’s in the world to come, may it be in a hundred twenty years. To this day, when I talk about Hodl, I cannot calm myself, it’s the end of me! I should forget her, you say? How can you forget a living person, especially a child like Hodl? You should see the letters she writes me; they would make your heart melt. She says things are going very well for them. He is in prison, and she is earning money. She takes in laundry, reads books, and sees him every week. She hopes things will calm down between us, she says. One day the sun will rise and it will be light, and he, along with many others like himself, will be set free, and then they will get down to the real business of turning the world on its head. Nu? How do you like that? Good? Ha! What does the Master of the Universe decide to do? He is, after all, as you say, a merciful and compassionate God. He says to me: “Wait, Tevye, I will make it so you forget all your past troubles!”

  And so it was—just listen. I would not tell this to anyone else because the pain is great and the shame is even greater! But as it is written: Shall I hide from Abraham?—do I have any secrets from you? Whatever I live through, I tell you. What then is the problem? I ask but one thing of you: let it remain between us. I tell you again, the pain is great, but the shame, the shame is even greater!

  In a word, as it is written in the chapter: The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to grant merit—God wanted to do Tevye a favor, and so He blessed him with seven daughters, all pretty, gifted, healthy, and clever, I tell you, like slender young pine trees! Oy, how I wish they were ugly and bad-tempered. It might have been better for them and healthier for me. What is the good, I ask you, of having a good horse if it stays in its stall? What is the good of having pretty daughters if you are stuck with them in the middle of nowhere? We hardly see a living person except Ivan Poperilo, the Gentile mayor of the town; the writer Chvedka Galagan, a tall Gentile boy with thick hair and high boots; and the priest, may his name be eradicated. I cannot bear to hear his name. Not because I am a Jew and he a priest—on the contrary, we’ve been on friendly terms for many years, not that we would invite each other for celebrations or holidays. It’s just that if we meet, we say good morning, have a good year, what’s new.

  I avoid long discussions with this priest because right away we get into the whole business of your God and our God. I cut him off with a proverb and tell him we have a fitting commentary. Then he cuts me off and says he knows the commentaries as well as I do and perhaps better, and then he begins to recite from memory from our Bible, pronouncing it just like a Christian: “Bereshit bara alokim”—every time, every time the same. So I interrupt him and tell him we have a midrash. “A midrash,” he says, “is the same as Talmud,” and he dislikes Talmud because Talmud is, he says, “nothing but a swindle.” I get very angry and pour out whatever comes out of my mouth. Do you think that bothers him? Not at all. He looks at me and laughs as he smooths his beard. I tell you, there is nothing worse in the world than when you insult someone, make mud out of him, and he doesn’t say a word. Your blood is boiling, and he is sitting and smiling! At that time I didn’t understand that little smile, but now I know what it meant.

  One evening before nightfall I came home and encountered the writer Chvedka standing outside with my Chava, my third daughter, the one after Hodl. Seeing me, the young man spun around, tipped his hat, and left. I asked Chava, “What is Chvedka doing here?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “We were just talking.”

  “What business do you have with Chvedka?”

  “We’ve known each other a long time.”

  “Mazel tov to you for that friendship! A fine friend, Chvedka!”

  “Do you know him? Do you know who he is?”

  “Who he is, I don’t know, I haven’t seen his family tree,” I said. “But he must have a great line. His father had to be a shepherd, or a janitor, or just a plain drunkard.”

  “What his father was I don’t know and don’t want to know, because to me all people are equal. But he is not an ordinary person, of that I am sure,” she said.

  “Well then, what sort of person is he? Let’s hear.”

  “If I told you,” she said, “you wouldn’t understand. Chvedka is a second Gorky.”

  “A second Gorky? Who then was the first Gorky?”

  “Gorky,” she said, “is almost the most important man in the world.”

  “Where does he live,” I said, “this sage of yours? What is his occupation, and what words of wisdom has he uttered lately?”

  “Gorky is a famous author, a person who writes books, and a dear, rare, honest person who comes from simple people. He never studied anywhere but is self-taught. Here is his portrait.” She removed a small photograph from her pocket.

  “So this is your sage Reb Gorky?” I said. “I could swear I’ve seen him somewhere, either at the train station carrying sacks or in the woods hauling logs.”

  “Is it a fault in your eyes,” she said, “that a person works with his hands? Don’t you yourself work? And don’t we work?”

  “Yes, yes, you’re right. We have a special verse in the Bible: For thou shall eat the labor of thy hands—if you don’t work, you won’t eat. But still and all, I don’t understand what Chvedka is doing here. I would be happier,” I said, “if you knew him from a distance. You mustn’t forget whence you come and whither you go—who you are and who he is.”

  “God created all people equal,” she said to me.

  “Yes, yes, God created Adam in His own image,” I said. “But you mustn’t forget that everyone must seek his own, as it says, To every man as he is able.”

  “Amazing!” she said. “You have a quotation for everything! Maybe you can find one about how people separated themselves into Jews and Gentiles, into masters and slaves, into landowners and beggars?”

  “Now, now! I think you’ve gone too far, my daughter!” And I gave her to understand that the world had been that way since the Creation.

  “Why should the world be like that?” she asked me.

  “Because that’s the way God created it.”

  “Why did He create it like that?”

  “Eh! If we begin asking questions, why this and why that, it’s a story without an end!” I said.

  “That’s why God gave us reason, so we could ask questions.”

  “We have a custom that when a hen begins to crow like a rooster, you should take it immediately to the slaughterer. As we say in the prayers: He giveth the rooster knowledge to discern the dawn from the night.”

  “Haven’t you two prattled enough?” my Golde called from the house. “The borscht is on the table for an hour, and he’s chanting prayers!”

  “Another voice heard from!” I said. “Not for nothing did our sages say, The fool has seven traits—a woman has nine yards of talk. We are talking about serious matters, and along she comes with her dairy borscht!”

  “The dairy borscht,” she said, “is as important as all your serious talk.”

  “Mazel tov! We have here a new philosopher, fresh from the oven!” I said. “As if I didn’t have enough enlightened daughters, now Tevye’s wife has also started to spread her wings and fly!”

  “If that’s the case,” she said, “drop dead!” How’s that for a fine dinner invitation to a hungry man?

  So let us leave the princess and get to the prince, meaning the priest, may his name be blotted out! One evening I was coming home with the empty milk cans rattling around, and I met him in his iron carriage. He was driving his horses by himself, his combed beard blowing in the wind. And he was the last person I wanted to meet.

  “Good evening!” he called to me. “Didn’t you recognize me?”

  “It’s a sign you’ll get rich soon.” I doffed my hat and hurried on.

  “Stay awhile, Tevel, what’s the hurry?
I need to say a few words to you.”

  “So long as they are good words, all right, and if not,” I said, “let it wait for another time.”

  “What do you mean, ‘for another time’?”

  “ ‘Another time’ to me means when the Messiah comes.”

  “The Messiah,” he said, “has already come.”

  “So I’ve heard from you, more than once,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me, little father, something new?”

  “That’s what I wanted to do. I want to have a talk with you about your daughter.”

  My heart started pounding. What did he have to do with my daughter?

  “My daughters are, God forbid, not the kind who need someone to talk for them. They can speak for themselves.”

  “But this is the sort of thing,” he said, “that she herself cannot speak about. Someone else must speak for her because it is a very important matter concerning her future.”

  “What concern is my daughter’s future to you?” I said. “As long as we are discussing my child’s future, am I not my child’s father till a hundred and twenty?”

  “Indeed, you are your child’s father,” he said, “but you are blind to what she is doing. She is moving into another world, and you do not understand her, or you don’t want to understand her.”

  “Whether I don’t understand her,” I said, “or don’t want to understand her, that’s something else again. We can discuss it a bit. But what does that have to do with you, little father?”

  “It has quite a bit to do with me,” he said, “because she is now in my custody.”

  “What do you mean, she’s in your custody?”

  “It means she is now in my care.” He looked me straight in the eyes and stroked his fine old beard.

  I sprang back. “My child is under your care? By what right?” I was about to lose my temper.

  “Now don’t get excited, Tevel!” he replied rather coldly, with a little smile. “We can discuss this calmly. You know I’m not your enemy, God forbid, even though you are a Jew. You know that I admire Jews and that my heart aches because of their obstinacy, their stubborn refusal to accept the fact that we mean everything only for their own good.”

  “Do not speak to me about my own good, little father,” I said. “Every word you say now is a drop of poison, a bullet in my heart. If you are as good a friend of mine as you say, I will ask you but one favor—leave my daughter alone.”

  “You are a foolish man,” he said. “Nothing bad will happen to your daughter. Something good now lies ahead of her. She is taking a bridegroom—and what a bridegroom.”

  “Amen!” I laughed ironically, but in my heart a hellish fire was burning. “And who, may I have the honor of asking, is the bridegroom. Am I permitted to know that?”

  “You surely know him,” he said. “He is a very gallant young man, very honest and well educated, though self-taught. He is deeply in love with your daughter and wants to marry her, but he cannot because he is not a Jew.”

  Chvedka! I thought, the blood rushing to my head. I broke into a cold sweat and could barely hold myself together. But to let him see that—no, he would not live to see the day! I grabbed the horse’s reins, gave them a snap, and fled without a goodbye.

  When I arrived home—ay ay ay, the house was in turmoil! The children were in bed crying into their pillows, and my Golde looked more dead than alive. I searched for Chava. Where was she? No Chava! I did not want to ask where she was. I did not need to ask, God help me! I felt like a tortured sinner suffering in his grave. A fiery rage was burning in me, toward whom I did not know. I wanted to find something with which to whip myself, but instead I yelled at the children and let out my bitter heart at my wife.

  I could not settle down, so I went outside to the horse’s stall to feed him—and found him with one leg twisted around a block of wood. I took a stick and beat him with it. “May you fall dead, shlimazel of mine!” I shouted. “You won’t get as much as one oat from me! Trouble, if that’s what you want, I can give you plenty, along with anguish, heartache, grief, and suffering!”

  But even as I was yelling at the horse, I realized it was a poor innocent creature—what did I have against him? So I spread some chopped-up straw before him and promised that on Shabbes, God willing, he would have more to eat.

  I went back into the house and lay down in a state of misery, my head splitting with contemplating what this all meant. What is my trespass? What is my sin?—how had I, Tevye, sinned more than anyone else, that I had been punished more than all other Jews? Oy, God in heaven, God in heaven! What are we and what is our life?—who am I that You always have me in mind? You never forget about me when it comes to disaster, catastrophe, or affliction!

  Thinking all this, lying as if on hot coals, I heard my pitiful wife groan. It tore at my heart. “Golde, are you asleep?”

  “No. What is it?”

  “We are as good as dead,” I said. “Do you have any ideas about what we can do?”

  “You are asking me,” she said, “what we can do? So it has come to this? A child gets up in the morning, healthy and strong. She gets dressed, hugs and kisses me—and begins weeping without saying why. I thought, God forbid, she had lost her mind! ‘What is it, daughter?’ I asked her. She said only that she would go out for a while to the cows. Then she vanished. I waited an hour, I waited two, I waited three—where was Chava? Chava was gone! I called to the children to run over to the priest’s.”

  “How did you know she was at the priest’s?”

  “How did I know?” she said. “Woe is me. Do you think I don’t have eyes or that I am not her mother?”

  “If you have eyes and you are her mother, why did you keep quiet and not tell me?”

  “I should tell you? When are you at home?” she said. “And if I tell you something, do you listen to me? No, right away you answer with a commentary or a quote. You stuff my head with biblical quotes and think you’ve solved every problem.”

  While Golde was saying this, she was crying in the dark. She has a point, I thought, but what does a woman understand? My heart ached for her, and I could not bear to hear her groaning and weeping.

  I said to her, “Golde, you are angry because I have a commentary on everything. But I must answer you with another one. It is written, Like as a father pitieth his children—a father loves his child. Why isn’t it written, Like as a mother pitieth her children? Because a mother is not a father. A father can talk to a child in a different way. You’ll see. Tomorrow morning, God willing, I’ll go see her.”

  “Let’s hope,” she said, “you can see her, and him too. He’s not a bad person, even though he is a priest—he does have compassion for people. You’ll beg him, fall at his feet. Maybe he’ll take pity on us.”

  “Who—the priest, cursed be his name? You expect me to bow down to the priest? Are you crazy or just out of your mind? Do not open your mouth to the devil! My enemies will not live to see that day!”

  “Ach! See what I mean? You’re starting in again!”

  “What, did you think I’d let myself be pushed around by a woman? I should live by your female reasoning?”

  And with such conversations the night passed for us. At last came the first crow of the rooster. I got up, said my prayers, took my whip, and went directly to the priest’s house. A woman is truly a woman, but where else could I go? Should I bury myself alive?

  To make a long story short, his dogs welcomed me with a fine good morning by preparing to ruin my caftan and taste my Jewish calves to see if they were good enough for their dogs’ teeth. Luckily I had brought along my whip and gave them to understand the quote Not a dog shall bark—a dog should have something to bark about. Hearing their barking and my shouting, the priest and his wife ran out, shooed off the happy throng, and invited me into the house. They received me as a guest and offered tea. I said the samovar wasn’t necessary, I had something to say to him, between the two of us. The priest understood and signaled to his wife to kindly shut the d
oor behind her. I came to the point without any fanfare, asking him, first of all, if he believed in God. Then I asked him whether he knew how it felt to separate a father from a beloved child. Also I asked him what in his opinion was right and what was wrong, and what he would think of a person who stole into someone’s house and wrecked it.

  Naturally he was confused by all my questions. “Tevel, you are an intelligent person—why do you ask so many questions at a time and expect me to answer them all at once? Be patient, and I will answer them all, the first one first and the last one last.”

  “No,” I said to him, “you will never answer them, little father. Do you know why? Because I already know all your answers. Just tell me this: is there any hope I will get my child back?”

  He sat up. “What do you mean, back? Nothing bad, God forbid, will happen to your daughter. On the contrary!”

  “I know, I know you want to make her happy! I am not speaking of that,” I said. “I want to know where my child is and if I can see her.”

  “Everything yes,” he said, “but not that.”

  “At least you are being frank,” I said, “speaking the truth as it really is! Farewell, and may God repay you in equal measure and twice as much!”

  I came home and found my Golde curled up like a black ball of yarn in bed, having no more tears to shed. “Get up, my wife. Take off your shoes and let us sit shiva, as God commanded. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away—we are neither the first nor the last. Let us imagine,” I said, “that we never had a Chava, or let us imagine that, like Hodl, she left for the ends of the earth, and who knows if we shall ever see her again. God is compassionate and good and knows what He is doing!”