Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

Well, one can’t stop being a Jew in this world: it was time for the evening prayer. (Not that the evening was about to go anywhere, but a Jew prays when he must, not when he wants to.) Some fine prayer it turned out to be! Right in the middle of the shimenesre , the eighteen benedictions, a devil gets into my crazy horse and he decides to go for a pleasure jaunt. I had to run after the wagon and grab the reins while shouting “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” at the top of my voice — and to make matters worse I’d really felt like praying for a change, for once in my life I was sure it would make me feel better …

In a word, there I was running behind the wagon and singing the shimenesre like a cantor in a synagogue. Mekhalkeyl khayim, bekhesed , Who provideth life with His bounty — it better be all of life, do You hear me?… Umekayeym emunosoy lisheyney of or , Who keep-eth faith with them who slumber in earth — who slumber in earth? With my troubles I was six feet underground already! And to think of those rich Yehupetz Jews sitting all summer long in their dachas in Boiberik, eating and drinking and swimming in luxury! Master of the Universe, what have I done to deserve all this? Am I or am I not a Jew like any other? Help!.. Re’ey-no be’onyeynu , See us in our affliction — take a good look at us poor folk slaving away and do something about it, because if You don’t, just who do You think will?… Refo’eynu veneyrofey , Heal our wounds and make us whole — please concentrate on the healing because the wounds we already have … Boreykh oleynu , Bless the fruits of this year — kindly arrange a good harvest of corn, wheat, and barley, although what good it will do me is more than I can say: does it make any difference to my horse, I ask You, if the oats I can’t afford to buy him are expensive or cheap?

But God doesn’t tell a man what He thinks, and a Jew had better believe that He knows what He’s up to. Velamalshinim al tehi tikvoh , May the slanderers have no hope — those are all the big shots who say there is no God: what wouldn’t I give to see the look on their faces when they line up for Judgment Day! They’ll pay with back interest for everything they’ve done, because God has a long memory, one doesn’t play around with Him. No, what He wants is for us to be good, to beseech and cry out to Him … Ov harakhamon , Merciful, loving Father!.. Shma koyleynu —You better listen to what we tell You!.. Khus verakheym oleynu —pay a little attention to my wife and children, the poor things are hungry!.. Retsey —take decent care of Your people again, as once You did long ago in the days of our Temple, when the priests and the Levites sacrificed before You …

All of a sudden — whoaaa! My horse stopped short in his tracks. I rushed through what was left of the prayer, opened my eyes, and looked around me. Two weird figures, dressed for a masquerade, were approaching from the forest. “Robbers!” I thought at first, then caught myself. Tevye, I said, what an idiot you are! Do you mean to tell me that after traveling through this forest by day and by night for so many years, today is the day for robbers? And bravely smacking my horse on the rear as though it were no affair of mine, I cried, “Giddyap!”

“Hey, a fellow Jew!” one of the two terrors called out to me in a woman’s voice, waving a scarf at me. “Don’t run away, mister. Wait a second. We won’t do you any harm.”

It’s a ghost for sure! I told myself. But a moment later I thought, what kind of monkey business is this, Tevye? Since when are you so afraid of ghouls and goblins? So I pulled up my horse and took a good look at the two. They really did look like women. One was older and had a silk kerchief on her head, while the other was young and wore a wig. Both were beet-red and sweating buckets.

“Well, well, well, good evening,” I said to them as loudly as I could to show that I wasn’t a bit afraid. “How can I be of service to you? If you’re looking to buy something, I’m afraid I’m all out of stock, unless I can interest you in some fine hunger pangs, a week’s supply of heartache, or a head full of scrambled brains. Anyone for some chilblains, assorted aches and pains, worries to turn your hair gray?”

“Calm down, calm down,” they said to me. “Just listen to him run on! Say a good word to a Jew and you get a mouthful of bad ones in return. We don’t want to buy anything. We only wanted to ask whether you happened to know the way to Boiberik.”

“The way to Boiberik?” I did my best to laugh. “You might as well ask whether I know my name is Tevye.”

“You say your name is Tevye?” they said. “We’re very pleased to meet you, Reb Tevye. We wish you’d explain to us, though, what the joke is all about. We’re strangers around here; we come from Yehupetz and have a summer place in Boiberik. The two of us went out this morning for a little walk, and we’ve been going around in circles ever since without finding our way out of these woods. A little while ago we heard someone singing. At first we thought, who knows, maybe it’s a highwayman. But as soon as we came closer and saw that you were, thank goodness, a Jew, you can imagine how much better we felt. Do you follow us?”

“A highwayman?” I said. “That’s a good one! Did you ever hear the story of the Jewish highwayman who fell on somebody in the forest and begged him for a pinch of snuff? If you’d like, I’d be only too glad to tell it to you.”

“The story,” they say, “can wait. We’d rather you showed us the way to Boiberik first.”

“The way to Boiberik?” I say. “You’re standing on it right now. This is the way to Boiberik whether you want to go to Boiberik or not.”

“But if this is the way to Boiberik,” they say, “why didn’t you say it was the way to Boiberik before?”

“I didn’t say it was the way to Boiberik,” I say, “because you didn’t ask me if it was the way to Boiberik.”

“Well,” they say, “if it is the way to Boiberik, would you possibly happen to know by any chance just how long a way to Boiberik it is?”

“To Boiberik,” I say, “it’s not a long way at all. Only a few miles. About two or three. Maybe four. Unless it’s five.”

“Five miles?” screamed both women at once, wringing their hands and all but bursting into tears. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying? Only five miles!”

“Well,” I said, “what would you like me to do about it? If it were up to me, I’d make it a little shorter. But there are worse fates than yours, let me tell you. How would you like to be stuck in a wagon creeping up a muddy hill with the Sabbath only an hour away? The rain whips straight in your face, your hands are numb, your heart is too weak to beat another stroke, and suddenly … bang! Your front axle’s gone and snapped.”

“You’re talking like a half-wit,” said one of the two women. “I swear, you’re off your trolley. What are you telling us fairy tales from the Arabian Nights for? We haven’t the strength to take another step. Except for a cup of coffee with a butter roll for breakfast, we haven’t had a bite of food all day — and you expect us to stand here listening to your stories?”

“That,” I said, “is a different story. How does the saying go? It’s no fun dancing on an empty stomach. And you don’t have to tell me what hunger tastes like; that’s something I happen to know. Why, it’s not at all unlikely that I haven’t seen a cup of coffee and a butter roll for over a year …” The words weren’t out of my mouth when I saw a cup of hot coffee with cream and a fresh butter roll right before my eyes, not to mention what else was on the table. You dummy, I said to myself, a person might think you were raised on coffee and rolls! I suppose plain bread and herring would make you sick? But just to spite me, my imagination kept insisting on coffee and rolls. I could smell the coffee, I could taste the roll on my tongue — my God, how fresh, how delicious it was …