Tevye the Dairyman & Motl the Cantor's Son

by Sholem Aleichem

  He fled in the middle of the night. And where to? To America. Do you remember how his son Cross-Eyed Henich laughed at me for going to America? Now he’s wandering the streets. He runs away when he catches sight of me. To this day he can’t bring himself to speak to me. My friend Mendl says he’s got to blacken Henich’s other eye. He hates when somebody acts superior or is conceited.

  E.

  Best of all, Menashe the doctor and his wife are also here. I’m sure you remember their garden full of berries, pears, grapes, and fruit. That has all gone up in smoke and fire. The pogromchiks burned their house down together with the garden, destroyed it all right down to the ground. You wouldn’t recognize the two of them. They’ve both turned gray and old. He pushes a pushcart with apples and oranges, and she peddles Wissotzky’s tea. “God help us,” my mother says with tears in her eyes, “that it had to come to this.”

  “Serves them right!” says my brother Elyahu, and I agree with him. Serves them both right! She was a witch, begrudging a poor man a rotten apple that fell from the tree. She thinks I forgot that incident when they caught me picking apples from her garden. I’ll remember it as long as I live!

  F.

  During the time we were making our way through country after country, at home the pogrom was destroying the shops and burning down the homes of our Kasrilevka Jews. Most likely the old house we sold to Zili the tailor was also burned down—Zili is now here too, still working as a tailor. The difference is that there he was his own boss and here in America he works for someone else. Off and on he works as an apprentice pants presser, or he operates a sewing machine. He says he earns his seven or eight dollars a week, which would not be enough for him to manage on. His three girls bring in three times as much as he does making shirts.

  G .

  Except for our friend Pinni’s family, most of Kasrilevka is now in America, and most likely the rest are getting ready to come as well. Pinni’s father Hersh-Leib the mechanic and his uncle Shneur the watchmaker write to Pinni that they would have left long ago but didn’t have the means. They ask Pinni to send them ship tickets. We’re saving every penny, and when we collect a few dollars to put down a deposit, we’ll send them the tickets. With God’s help, they’ll certainly pay us back, because they’re not coming with unskilled hands. Hersh-Leib the mechanic writes that he has invented a new kind of stove that requires much less wood, hardly any at all. How can this be? That’s his secret. And Shneur the watchmaker has invented a clock whose wonders all of America will come running to see. What kind of clock is it? Just listen to what they write Pinni from home.

  H .

  The clock itself is an ordinary wall clock with an ordinary face. But if you look closely at the face, you’ll see drawn on it the sun, the moon, and twelve stars. During the day you’ll see the sun, and at night, the moon and stars. That’s not all—just wait. Every time the clock chimes twelve, a little door opens right in front of your eyes, and out comes an officer with a sword followed by twelve soldier-musicians. The officer waves a sword, and the twelve soldiers play a march and then disappear. The door shuts, and it’s over! Don’t you think someone can make a lot of money with this kind of clock in America? Pinni’s uncle has spent many years working on this clock. It was almost ready, but during the pogrom it was broken to bits. But it doesn’t matter. The secret of the clock remains in his head, and when he gets to America, it will be, as they say here, all right.

  I.

  And how we’re making a living, I still haven’t said. I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

  XII

  WE’RE MAKING A LIVING

  A .

  My brother Elyahu is the first one to start making a living. And whom does he have to thank? My mother. Every Shabbes she prays at the Kasrilevka synagogue, where she meets people. She became acquainted with the president’s wife, a fine woman who is fond of my mother because my mother always knows on what page in the prayer book the cantor is singing. Bruche says the local women don’t know anything about praying. She says the only reason they go to shul at all is to show off their diamonds. “Begging your pardon, but they are fat cows,” she says, “and don’t know a cross from an aleph. All they do is stuff their mouths and gossip.” My mother interrupts her, “My dear daughter, this too is gossip.” Bruche justifies herself by saying she is permitted because she is saying this to her own family, not to strangers. But let’s get back to the president’s wife and her husband.

  B .

  Have you ever heard of the Hebrew National Sausage Company? They sell Jewish kosher sausages, dried stuffed derma, roasted tongue, and smoked meats. On every corner of the city they have stores where people come to buy kosher sausages. If you’re hungry and have time, you order hot little sausages right out of the pot, and you eat them with horseradish or mustard, whichever you prefer. If you aren’t short of money, you can order another portion. I and my friend Mendl once put away three portions and felt we could eat another two, but we ran out of money. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about.

  C .

  What I wanted to tell you about is that the president of our synagogue is one of the owners of the Hebrew National Sausage Company. With the help of the president’s wife, my mother succeeded in having my brother Elyahu hired as a salesman for the company. And not just as a salesman but as a waiter as well. If a customer comes in and orders hot little sausages, he is to serve them. At first my brother balked at doing it. How could a young man already boasting a beard, the son of Peysi the cantor and the son-in-law of Yoneh the baker, become a servant? Our friend Pinni confronted him. “What do you mean? Do you think you are in the accursed Kasrilevka? You’re in America! In America, men as good as you, a Carnegie, a Rockefeller, a Vanderbilt, peddled newspapers, sold matches, and shined shoes on the street! Read the history of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and other greats, and you’ll see that Peysi the cantor’s son is good enough to serve sausages.”

  D .

  But here our friend Pinni has antagonized my mother. It doesn’t bother her that he is spouting the names of Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt, but when he mentions George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the same breath as my father—this she resents. She says she doesn’t know who Washington and Lincoln were. It could be they were very fine gentlemen and good Jews, but she doesn’t want her husband’s name dragged to America. Let him rest in paradise as a good intercessor for her and for us and for all of Israel.

  “Amen!” I say, and receive a slap from my brother Elyahu for being sassy.

  E .

  In short, my brother Elyahu has a job and is making a living. He sells sausages and serves them at tables and receives five dollars a week and meals twice a day, which is worth something. He meets new people every day, among the finest in New York, who come to shop for meat. We hope that my brother will rise higher and higher, because he is well thought of by the owners and respected by the customers, who enjoy being served by a refined person, not someone who was born only to be a waiter. My brother has but one fault—he has a beard. If he didn’t have the beard, he would really be all right, but out of spite his beard in America has grown wider and longer, more in the width than in the length. Pinni says he should, as they say in America, “fix it,” as Pinni himself has done.

  He dropped into a barbershop, sat himself down on a chair, threw back his head, and never said a word, because at the time he didn’t know any English. The barber came over and grabbed his nose, as Pinni tells it, lathered up his whole face, and drew a razor over it no more than twice. He told him to get up. When Pinni caught sight of himself in the mirror, he didn’t recognize himself. Not a trace of a beard or a mustache remained on his face. It was smooth as a noodle-board. His reflection was smiling back at him. Oh my, what he received from Teibl! Poor thing, she fainted twice and became sick from aggravation and shame. That was the first time. Now she’s gotten used to it. Her Pinni shaves his whole face every week and looks like a real American. He speaks English and chews
gum, but he doesn’t swallow it anymore. If only he could see to it that his shirt collar was buttoned, his tie in place, and both trouser legs even, he would be a real gentleman, a sport.

  F.

  Pinni could make a living if his mind weren’t always preoccupied with the big plans that they call “business” here. He keeps changing jobs. To his credit, he isn’t ashamed to do any kind of work at all. He’ll do whatever you ask him, so long as he can make a dollar. Sweeping the street is fine with him. Shoveling coal is fine with him. Peddling newspapers is certainly fine with him. America, he says, is a free country, and only stealing is a shame. That’s why everyone works here and no one steals. Only the Italians steal. A native-born American, he says, will not steal even if gold is lying in front of him on the ground. An American will never trick you or tell you a lie. That’s what Pinni believes. He even made up a song about America. I don’t remember all of it. I can say a few lines of it by heart. Here’s how it begins:

  America is a land made for the greenhorn.

  It makes no difference where you were born.

  Just make a living and you’ll be all right

  In your neighbor’s and in God’s sight.

  The land is huge,

  Endless and rough.

  Here you don’t just talk to talk

  And you better not try to bluff.

  Then it goes on and finishes up with this rhyme:

  America is a land where justice loudly rings,

  A land of presidents and never of kings.

  G .

  Do you think our women aren’t making a living too? Bruche and Teibl are both working making neckties. And whom do they have to thank? Again they have my mother to thank, and again it is because she goes to shul every Shabbes. She met an allrightnichkeh, the wife of a kind of wealthy man in America that they call an allrightnik . This wife was once a servant girl, please don’t mention it, in Kasrilevka working for our Reb Yossi, the rich man. Her name is Kreindl. Kreindl has quite a story to tell, which I can relate in a few words.

  H.

  In our Kasrilevka we had a butcher named Meilach, who had a son named Nechemia. This Nechemia fell in love with Kreindl and wanted to marry her, but he had no money. One day Meilach the butcher gave him money to go to the market to buy a cow. Nechemia took the money and ran off with Kreindl to America. He was lucky and became an allrightnik and Kreindl became an allrightnichkeh . Now they have a necktie factory. One time Kreindl had a yahrtzeit for her mother. She went to shul and fell into a conversation with my mother and told her who she was. When my mother told her my father was Peysi the cantor, she drew closer to my mother and promised to help us in any way possible. My mother said we didn’t need any help. All she asked for was work for her children. One word led to another. The allrightnichkeh managed to get her husband to hire Bruche and Teibl in his factory. For a few weeks they had to go to Broadway to work in the factory, and then my mother worked it out to have them take work home and not have to sit all day in the shop.

  I .

  But the job didn’t last long. They were “busy” as long as the season lasted, but when “slack time” set in, our women had no work. But we didn’t take it to heart, because “God is a father—with one hand He punishes, with the other He heals,” says my mother. I can’t understand this logic. Why does God have to punish and then heal? I believe He shouldn’t punish, and then He wouldn’t have to heal. My mother replies, “God sends us a cure for the curse.”

  J.

  What’s she talking about? You’ll soon hear. But let’s rest awhile now so I can have the strength to go on with the story.

  XIII

  THE CURE FOR THE CURSE

  A.

  I promised to tell you what my mother meant by saying, “God sends us a cure for the curse.” This is the story.

  My brother Elyahu became tired of working at the Hebrew National Sausage Company. It wasn’t the job for him. Don’t forget, my brother Elyahu is Peysi the cantor’s son. He’s a refined young man and has a fine singing voice. He knows how to chant from the pulpit. How does it look for such a young man to be serving little sausages at tables? The serving itself would perhaps not have mattered, but there are all kinds of people to serve. A polite person comes in and asks for a portion of sausages, sits down, eats the sausages, pays, and goodbye.

  B .

  But others are not so polite. Sometimes a crude person comes along, a boor who stirs things up. The sausages aren’t hot enough. There’s no mustard. And if he speaks, he doesn’t ask courteously, “If you please, may I have another portion?” No, he whistles or snaps his fingers and bellows, “Say, waiter! Give me another portion!” My brother Elyahu isn’t used to being spoken to like this. He resents it and doesn’t respond to a boor. The boor gets furious and bellows even louder, “Say, professor! Come here!” Then my brother Elyahu replies, “Since when amI a professor to you?” The customer gets even more furious and begins shouting. The boss hears him and goes over to my brother. “What’s the matter with you?” he asks. My brother Elyahu doesn’t answer him. “Why don’t you answer when someone asks you something?” he asks.

  My brother Elyahu says to him, “Ask me like a human being and then I’ll answer you.” The boss says, “What do you mean, like a human being?” My brother Elyahu replies, “A human being speaks politely.” The boss again asks, “And if I don’t speak politely, am I some kind of a monkey?” My brother Elyahu answers, “It’s possible.”

  “If that’s the case,” the boss responds, “you’re getting the sack, which means tomorrow you can stay home.”

  C .

  “I’d rather live on a piece of bread for three days than sell sausages,” says my brother Elyahu. Our friend Pinni does not agree with him. Pinni believes America is a free country and in America anything goes. And if you contradict him, he starts right in with his millionaires: Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller.

  “How do you know these people?” my brother Elyahu asks him.

  “How do I know what goes on in the Russian palace?” Pinni answers.

  “Well yes, how do you know?”

  “If you read as many novels as I do, maybe you would know too,” Pinni replies.

  D.

  Pinni is referring to the novels he reads at Moishe the bookbinder’s pushcart. They are printed in bad Yiddish and are thick and heavy, heavier than my mother’s Yiddish version of the Torah. Moishe lends them out and makes a living out of it, because maybe a hundred people can read one book. Mostly women read them. Women love romance novels. My sister-in-law Bruche reads them aloud every Shabbes afternoon, one after the other. My mother and Teibl love to hear her read. My mother falls asleep immediately, but Teibl listens and sighs. Sometimes she cries. She has a soft heart. If it weren’t Shabbes and if it were permitted, I’d draw with pencil and paper Bruche reading, my mother sleeping, and Teibl crying.

  But I’m getting off the subject. We still don’t know how God sends a cure for a curse.

  E .

  First—about the curse. It surely is a curse that a young man like my brother Elyahu is unemployed. He can’t do what our friend Pinni does. In wintertime Pinni takes a shovel and cleans the streets of snow. My brother Elyahu says he would shovel the snow, but not out in the street.

  “Did you expect them to bring the snow into your home?” Pinni exclaims.

  It burns my brother Elyahu up that Pinni is so cheerful. “I suppose it makes you feel good to make jokes?” he says.

  “Sure I feel good when I remind myself I’m in America, not in pogrom-land.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful!” says my brother Elyahu, and with a heavy heart he goes off to the Kasrilevka shul. And that’s where the cure comes for the curse. How? Listen to this nice story.

  F.

  I believe I once told you about the summer when we were living in London Whitechapel. At that time, as I said, a terrible pogrom and fire broke out in our beloved Kasrilevka. What they could steal, they stole. What they could sma
sh, they smashed. The rest they lit a match to and burned down. Never mind the poor. Except for a few pillows, they had nothing to lose. They thanked God that they’d come out of it alive. Some were beaten, and some died of the beatings. Poor infants were torn apart by hooligans, and many more died of hunger. We aren’t talking of them, but of those who just yesterday were wealthy and who now are paupers, beggars, without a shirt on their backs, without a crust of bread. When you think about those once-rich people—so says our family—a shudder runs down your spine! Why doesn’t a shudder run down our spine when we think about the poor people and their poor babies? This I cannot understand, nor can my friend Mendl. He says the Kasrilevka Jews have this inclination that when a poor man dies of hunger, it’s nothing to feel bad about. But when a rich man becomes a pauper—they can’t get over it!