Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“Of course,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me that. But what makes you think I have such big sums in mind? Let me have a hundred rubles and in a couple of days I’ll turn them into two hundred for you, into three hundred, into six hundred, into seven. In fact, I’ll make it an even thousand.”

“That may very well be,” I said. “All things are possible. But do you know when they are? When there’s a hundred in the first place. When there isn’t, it’s begapoy yovoy uvegapoy yeytsey . Do you know what Rashi has to say about that? That if you invest a fever, you’ll get consumption for your profit.”

“Come, come,” he says to me. “A hundred rubles, Reb Tevye, you’re sure to find. With your business, your reputation, touch wood …”

“What’s my reputation got to do with it?” I ask. “A reputation is a wonderful thing to have, but would you like to know something? It’s all I do have, because Brodsky has all the rest. If you must know exactly, it may be that I could squeeze together somewhere in the neighborhood of roughly more or less a hundred rubles, but I can also think of a hundred different ways to make them disappear again, the first of which is marrying off my eldest daughter …”

“But that’s just it!” he says. “Listen to me! When will you have another opportunity, Reb Tevye, to invest a hundred rubles and wind up, God willing, with enough money to marry off every one of your daughters and still have plenty to spare?” And for the next three hours he’s off on another serenade about how he can turn one ruble into three and three into ten. “The first thing you do,” he says, “is take your hundred and buy ten whatchumacallits with it.” (That wasn’t his word, I just don’t remember what he called them.) “You wait a few days for them to go up, and then you send off a telegram with an order to sell and buy twice as much. Then you wait a few more days and send a telegram again. Before you know it, your hundred’s worth two, your two hundred four, your four hundred eight, and your eight a thousand and six. It’s the damnedest thing! Why, I know people who just the other day were shop clerks in Yehupetz without a pair of shoes on their feet; today they live in mansions with walls to keep out beggars and travel to the baths in Germany whenever their wives get a stomachache. They ride around town in rubber-wheeled droshkies — why, they don’t even know you anymore!”

Well, so as not to make a short story long, he gave me such an itch to be rich that it wasn’t any laughing matter. Why look a gift horse in the mouth? I told myself. Maybe he’s really meant to be your good angel. What makes you think you’re any worse than those shop clerks in Yehupetz who are living on easy street? He’s certainly not lying, because he could never make up such fairy tales in a million years … It just may be, I thought, that Tevye’s lucky number has come up at last and he’s finally going to be somebody in his old age. How long does a man have to go on working himself to the bone — day and night, horse and wagon, cheese and butter, over and over again? It’s high time, Tevye, for you to relax a bit, to drop in on a synagogue and read a book now and then like any respectable Jew. What are you so afraid of? That nothing will come of it? That you’ll be fleeced like a lamb? That your bread, as they say, will fall with the butter side down? But what’s to keep it from falling with the butter side up? “Golde,” I asked the old lady, “what do you think? How does our cousin’s plan strike you?”

“What should I think?” she said. “I know that Menachem Mendl isn’t some fly-by-night who’s out to put one over on you. He doesn’t come from a family of fishmongers. His father was a fine Jew, and his grandfather was such a crackerjack that he kept right on studying Torah even after he went blind. Even his Grandmother Tsaytl, may she rest in peace, was no ordinary woman …”

“I’m talking Purim costumes and you’re talking Hanukkah candles!” I said. “What do his Grandmother Tsaytl and her honey cakes have to do with it? Next you’ll be telling me about her saint of a grandfather who died with a bottle in his arms! Once a woman, always a woman, I tell you. It’s no coincidence that King Solomon traveled the whole world and couldn’t find a single female with all her marbles in her head!”

In a word, we decided to go halves: I would invest the money and Menachem Mendl the brains, and we would split what God gave us down the middle. “Believe me, Reb Tevye,” he said to me, “I’ll be fair and square with you. With God’s help, you’ll soon be in clover.”

“Amen,” I said, “the same to you. May your mouth be up against His ears. There’s one thing that still isn’t clear to me, though: how do we get the cat across the river? I’m here, you’re there, and money, as you know, is a highly perishable substance. Don’t take offense, I’m not trying to outfox you, God forbid. It’s just that Father Abraham knew what he was talking about when he said, hazoyrim bedimoh berinoh yiktsoyru —better twice warned than once burned.”

“Oh,” he says to me, “you mean we should put it down in writing. With the greatest of pleasure.”

“Not at all,” I say. “What good would that do? If you want to ruin me, a piece of paper won’t stop you. Lav akhboroh ganvo —it’s not the signature that counts, it’s the man that signs. If I’m going to hang by one foot, I may as well hang by two.”

“Leave it to me, Reb Tevye,” he says. “I swear by all that’s holy — may God strike me down if I try any monkey business! I wouldn’t even dream of such a thing. This is strictly an aboveboard operation. God willing, we’ll split the take between us, half and half, fifty-fifty, a hundred for me, a hundred for you, two hundred for me, two hundred for you, three hundred for me, three hundred for you, four hundred for me, four hundred for you, a thousand for me, a thousand for you …”

In a word, I took out my money, counted it three times with a trembling hand, called my wife to be a witness, explained to him once more how I had sweated blood for it, and handed it over to him, making sure to sew it into his breast pocket so that no one could steal it on the way. Then I made him promise to write me every detail by the end of the following week and said goodbye to him like the best of friends, even kissing him on the cheek as cousins do.

Once he was gone and we were alone again, I began having such wonderful thoughts and sweet dreams that I could have wished they’d go on forever. I imagined ourselves living in the middle of town, in a huge house with a real tin roof, and lots of wings, and all kinds of rooms and alcoves and pantries filled with good things, and my wife Golde, a regular lady now, walking from room to room with a key ring in her hand — why, she looked so different, so high-and-mighty with her pearls and double chin, that I hardly recognized her! And the airs she put on, and the way she swore at the servants! My kids waltzed around in their Sabbath best without lifting a finger, while geese, chickens, and ducks cackled in the yard. The house was all lit up; a fire glowed in the fireplace; supper was cooking on the stove, and the kettle whistled like a horse thief. Only, who’s that sitting in a house frock and skullcap at the dining table, surrounded by the most prominent Jews in Yehupetz, all begging for his attention? Why, I do believe it’s Tevye! “Begging your pardon, Reb Tevye …” “No offense meant, Reb Tevye …” “That would be most kind of you, Reb Tevye …”

“Damn it all!” I said, snapping out of it. “The Devil take every last ruble on earth!”

“Who are you sending to the Devil?” asked my Golde.