Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“What do you mean, you’re saying goodbye forever?” I asked, staring down at the ground to hide my face, which must have looked like a dead man’s.

“I mean,” she said, “that I’m going away early in the morning. We’ll never see each other again … ever.”

That cheered me up a bit. Thank God for small comforts, I thought. Things could have been worse — though to tell you the truth, they conceivably could have been better …

“And just where,” I inquired, “are you going, if it’s not too much of me to ask?”

“I’m going to join him,” she said.

“You are?” I said. “And where is he?”

“Right now he’s still in prison,” she said. “But soon he’s being sent to Siberia.”

“And so you’re going to say goodbye to him?” I asked, playing innocent.

“No,” she says. “I’m going with him.”

“Where?” I say. “What’s the name of the nearest town?”

“We don’t know the exact place yet,” she says. “But it’s awfully far away. Just getting there alive isn’t easy.”

She said that, did my Hodl, with great pride, as if she and her Peppercorn had done something so grand that they deserved a medal with half a pound of gold in it. I ask you, what’s a father to do with such a child? He either scolds her, you say, or spanks her, or gives her an earful she’ll remember. But Tevye is no woman; it happens to be my opinion that anger is the worst sin in the book. And so I answered as usual with a verse from Scripture. “I see, Hodl,” I told her, “that you take the Bible seriously when it says, al keyn ya’azoyv ish es oviv ve’es imoy , therefore a child shall leave its father and its mother … For Peppercorn’s sake you’re throwing your papa and your mama to the dogs and going God only knows where, to some far wilderness across the trackless sea where even Alexander the Great nearly drowned the time he was shipwrecked on a desert island inhabited by cannibals … And don’t think I’m making that up either, because I read every word in a book …”

You can see that I tried to make light of it, though my heart was weeping inside me. But Tevye is no woman; Tevye kept a stiff upper lip. And she, my Hodl, was not to be outdone by me. She answered whatever I said point by point, quietly, calmly, intelligently. Say what you will about them, Tevye’s daughters can talk!.. Her voice shook dully, and even with my eyes shut, I felt that I could see her, that I could see my Hodl’s face that was as pale and worn as the moon … Should I have thrown myself on her, had a fit, begged her not to go? But I could see it was a lost cause. Damn them all, every one of those daughters of mine — when they fall for someone, they do it hook, line, and sinker!

In a word, we sat on the stoop all night long. Much of the time we said nothing, and even our talk was in bits and snatches. Sometimes I listened to Hodl, and sometimes she listened to me. I asked her one thing: whoever heard of a girl marrying a boy for the sole purpose of following him to the North Pole? I tried using reason to convince her how unreasonable it was, and she tried using reason to convince me that reason had nothing to do with it. Finally, I told her the story of the duckling that was hatched by a hen; as soon as it could stand on its feet it toddled down to the water and swam away, while its poor mother just stood there and squawked. “What, Hodl, my darling, do you have to say about that?” I asked. “What is there to say?” she said. “Of course, I feel sorry for the hen; but just because the hen squawks, is the duckling never to swim?” … Now, is that an answer or isn’t it? I tell you, Tevye’s daughters don’t mince words!

Meanwhile time was going by. The dawn began to break. Inside the house my wife was grumbling. She had let us know more than once that it was time we called it a night — and now, seeing all the good it had done, she stuck her head out the window and bawled with her usual tact, “Tevye! What in God’s name do you think you’re doing out there?”

“Ssshhh, don’t make so much noise, Golde,” I said. “Lomoh rogshu , says the Bible — have you forgotten that it’s Hoshana Rabbah? On the night of Hoshana Rabbah one isn’t supposed to sleep, because it’s then that the Book of Life is shut for the year … And now listen, Golde: please put up the samovar and let’s have tea, because I’m taking Hodl to the station.” And right on the spot I made up another whopper about Hodl having to go to Yehupetz, and from there to somewhere else, on account of Peppercorn’s inheritance; in fact, she might very well have to spend the winter there, and maybe even the summer, and possibly the winter after that — which was why she needed a few things for the trip, such as linens, a dress, some pillows and pillowcases, and whatever else a young lady had to have …

Those were my orders — the last of which was that there better not be any tears, not when the whole world was celebrating Hoshana Rabbah. “No crying allowed on a holiday!” I said, “It’s written in the Talmud, black on white.” It could have been written in solid gold for all anyone listened to me. Cry they did, and when the time came to part, such a wailing broke out as you never heard in all your life. Everyone was shrieking: my wife, my daughters, my Hodl, and most of all, my eldest, Tsaytl, who spent the holiday at our place with her Motl. The two sisters hugged each other so hard that we could barely tear them apart …

I alone stayed strong as steel — that is, I steeled myself, though I was about as calm as a boiling kettle inside. But do you think I let anyone see it? Not on your life! Tevye is no woman … Hodl and I didn’t say a word all the way to Boiberik, and only when we were nearly at the station did I ask her one last time to tell me what her Peppercorn had done. “It’s got to be something!” I said.

She flared up at that; her husband, she swore, was as clean as the driven snow. “Why,” she said, “he’s a person who never thinks of his own self! His whole life is for others, for the good of the world — and especially for the workers, for the workingman …”

Maybe some day I’ll meet the genius who can explain to me what that means. “You say he cares so much about the world?” I said. “Well, maybe you can tell me why, if he and the world are such great friends, it doesn’t care more about him … But give him my best wishes, and tell your Alexander the Great that I’m counting on his honor, because he is the very soul of it, isn’t he, to see to it that my daughter isn’t ruined and that she drops her old father a line now and then …”

I was still in the middle of the sentence when she hugged me and burst into tears. “We’d better say goodbye now,” she said. “Be well, Papa. God knows when we’ll see each other again …”

That did it! I couldn’t keep it in a second longer. You see, just then I thought of my Hodl when I held her as a baby in my arms … she was just a tiny thing then … and I held her in these arms … please forgive me, Pan, if … if I … just like a woman … but I want you to know what a Hodl I have! You should see the letters that she writes me … she’s God’s own Hodl, Hodl is … and she’s with me right here all the time … deep, deep down … there’s just no way to put it into words …

You know what, Pan Sholem Aleichem? Let’s talk about something more cheerful. Have you heard any news of the cholera in Odessa?

(1904)

Hoydu lashem ki toyv —whatever God does is for the best. That is, it had better be, because try changing it if you don’t like it! I was once like that myself; I stuck my nose into this, into that, until I realized I was wasting my time, threw up my hands, and said, Tevye, what a big fool you are! You’re not going to remake the world … The good Lord gave us tsa’ar gidul bonim , which means in plain language that you can’t stop loving your children just because they’re nothing but trouble. If my daughter Tsaytl, for example, went and fell for a tailor named Motl Komzoyl, was that any reason to be upset? True, he’s a simple soul, the fine points of being a Jew are beyond him, he can’t read the small print at all-but what of it? You can’t expect the whole world to have a higher education. He’s still an honest fellow who works hard to support his family. He and Tsaytl — you should see what a whiz she is around the house! — have a home full of little brats already, touch wood, and are dying from sheer happiness. Ask her about it and she’ll tell you that life couldn’t be better. In fact, there’s only one slight problem, which is that her children are starving …