Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“If you have eyes and you’re a mother,” I say, “what made you keep so quiet? Why didn’t you say something to me?”

“What could I have said?” she says. “You’re never home. And even if I had said it, would you have heard it? All you ever do when you’re told anything is spout some verse from the Bible. You Bible a person half to death and think you’ve solved the problem.”

That’s just what she said, my Golde, as she lay there crying in the dark … and I thought, in a way she’s right, because what can a woman really know? It broke my heart to hear her sighing and snuffling away, though, so I said, “Look here, Golde. You’re angry at me for always quoting the Bible, but I have to quote it one more time. It says kerakheym?v al bonim —as a father loves his own child. Why doesn’t it also say kerakheym eym al bonim —as a mother loves her own child, too? Because a mother isn’t a father. A father speaks to his children differently. Just you wait: tomorrow, God willing, I’m going to have a talk with her.”

“If only you would!” she says. “And with him too. He’s not a bad sort for a priest. He has human feelings. If you throw yourself at his feet, he may pity you.”

“What?” I say. “I should go down on my knees before a priest? Are you crazy or are you crazy? Al tiftakh peh lasoton —just suppose my enemies got wind of it …”

“What did I tell you?” she says. “There you go again!”

We spent the whole night talking like that. As soon as the cock crowed, I rose and said my prayers, took down my whip from the wall, and drove straight to the priest’s. A woman may be only a woman, but where else should I have gone — to hell in a bucket?

In short, I drove into his yard and had a fine good morning said to me by his dogs, who set about straightening my caftan for me and sniffing my Jewish feet to see if they were edible. It’s a good thing I had my whip with me to remind them that Scripture says, “And against the Children of Israel not a dog stuck out its tongue” … The racket we made brought the priest and his wife running from their house. It was all they could do to break up the party and get me safely indoors, where they received me like an honored guest and put the samovar up for tea. But tea, I told them, could wait; first I had something to talk to the priest about. He didn’t have to guess what that was; with a wink he signaled his wife to leave the room — and as soon as the door shut behind her, I came straight to the point without shilly-shallying. The first thing I wanted to know was, did he or did he not believe in God? Next I asked him, did he have any idea what it felt like for a father to be parted from a child he loved? Then I insisted on his telling me where he drew the line between right and wrong. And finally, I demanded to know, with no ifs or buts, what he thought of a man who barged uninvited into another man’s house and turned it upside down — the benches, the tables, the beds, everything …

You can be sure he wasn’t prepared for all that. “Tevel,” he said, “how does a clever fellow like you expect to ask so many questions at once and get answers to them all in one breath? Be patient and I’ll deal with each one of them.”

“Oh no you won’t, Father dear,” I said. “You won’t deal with any of them. And do you know why not? Because I already know all your answers by heart. I want you to tell me one thing: is there or is there not any chance of my getting my daughter back?”

“But what are you saying?” he says. “Your daughter isn’t going anywhere. And nothing bad will happen to her. Far from it!”

“Yes,” I say. “I already know all that. You have only her good in mind. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I want to know where my daughter is and whether I can get to see her.”

“Ask me anything but that,” he says to me.

“That’s spoken like a man at last,” I say, “short and sweet! You should only be well, Father — and may God pay you back with lots of interest for what you’ve done.”

I came home to find my Golde in bed, cried dry and curled up like a ball of black yarn. “Get up, woman,” I said to her. “Take off your shoes and let’s begin the seven days of mourning as we’re supposed to. Hashem nosan vehashem lokakh , the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away — we’re not the first and we won’t be the last. Let’s just pretend there was never any Chava to begin with, or that she’s gone off like Hodl to the far ends of the earth where we’ll never see her again … God is merciful, He knows what He’s doing …”

Though I meant every word of it, I had a lump like a bone in my throat. Mind you, Tevye is no woman; Tevye doesn’t break down and cry. Still, that’s easier said than done when you have to live with the shame of it … and just try not breaking down yourself when you’ve lost your own daughter, and a jewel like Chava at that, who always had a special place in my and her mother’s heart, more than any of her sisters. Don’t ask me why that was. Maybe it had to do with her being a sickly child who came down with every illness in the book; why, the times we sat up all night with her, trying to snatch her from the very jaws of death, watching her fight for her life like a trampled little bird — but if God only wills it, He can even resurrect you from the grave, and loy omus ki ekhyeh , if your number hasn’t come up yet, there’s no reason to say die … And maybe it also had to do with her always having been such a good, dependable child who loved her parents body and soul. How then, you ask, could she have gone and done such a thing? Well, to begin with, it was just our rotten luck; I don’t know about you, but I believe in fate. And then too, someone must have put a hex on her. You can laugh all you want at me, but (though I’m not such a yokel as to believe in haunts, spooks, ghosts, and all that hocus-pocus) witchcraft, I tell you, is a fact — because how do you explain all this if it isn’t? And when you hear what happened next, you’ll be as sure of it as I am …

In a word, our rabbis meant it when they said, be’al korkhekho atoh khai —a man must never say the jig is up with him. There’s no wound in the world that time doesn’t heal and no misfortune that can’t be gotten over. I don’t mean to say you forget such things, but what good does it do to remember them? And odom kiveheymoh nidmeh —if you want to eat, you can’t stop slaving like a donkey. We took ourselves in hand, my wife, my girls, and I, went back to work, and oylom keminhogoy noyheyg —life went its merry way. I made it clear to them all that I never wanted to hear of Chava again. There simply was no such person.

And then one day, having built up a fresh stock of merchandise, I set out for my customers in Boiberik. I received a hero’s welcome when I got there. “What’s new with a Jew, Reb Tevye? Where have you been all this time?” “What should be new?” I said. “The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m still the same sap I always was. A cow just died on me, that’s all.”

Well, everyone had to know, of course, which cow it was, and what it had cost, and how many cows I had left. “What is it with you, Reb Tevye,” they asked, “that all the miracles happen to you?” They laughed and made a big joke of it, the way rich people do with us poor devils, especially if they’ve just had a good meal, and are feeling full and cozy, and the sun is shining outside, and it’s time for a little snooze. Not that Tevye begrudges anyone a bit of fun at his expense. Why, they can croak, every last one of them, before they’ll know what I’m feeling!..

When I had finished my rounds, I started back with my empty cans. Once I was in the forest I let go of my horse’s reins and let him amble along and munch on some grass while I sat there thinking of one thing and another: of life and death, and of this world and the next, and of what both were all about, and so on and so forth — all to keep my mind off Chava. Yet as though to spite me, my thoughts kept coming back to her. I couldn’t stop picturing her, as tall, fresh, and lovely as a young willow, or else as a tiny baby, a sick little rag doll of a thing, a teeny chick that I could hold in one hand with its head against my shoulder. What is it you want, Chavaleh? Something to suck on? A bit of milk to drink? … For a moment I forgot what she had done, and then I missed her terribly. As soon as I remembered, though, the blood rushed to my head and I began to rage like the Devil at her, and at Chvedka, and at the whole world, and at myself for not being able to forget her. Why couldn’t I get her out of my mind, tear her from my heart? It’s not as if she didn’t deserve it! Was it for this I had been such a good Jew all my life, had bled myself white and raised seven daughters — for them to break away in the end like the leaves that fall from a tree and are carried off by the wind? Why, just think of it: here a tree grows in the forest, and here along comes a woodsman with an axe and begins to hack off its branches one by one … what good is the tree without its branches? Far better, woodsman, for you to chop it down all at once and have done with it! Who needs a branchless tree sticking up in the middle of the forest?