Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“Well, now I had, with God’s blessing, a son as well. I say I had a son because I actually adopted him and took out all the official papers. And a gifted boy he was, too — why, gifted isn’t the word for him! Of course, he was my nephew, it goes without saying that I’m prejudiced; take it from me, though, you won’t find another youngster like Paysi, I won’t say in the world, but certainly in our town, and in any other town in the district, and up and down the whole province, and maybe in a few more. You just name it. Reading? The tops! Writing? The tops! Arithmetic? The tops! How about French, you say? The boy spoke it like a Frenchman! How about music? You should have heard him play the violin! And good-looking … and with a way of putting things … and a personality … and … and … I tell you, gifted isn’t the word! And when you add the fact that I was ready to give him a wedding gift of a few thousand rubles, since he was my brother’s child and mine by adoption, that is, practically my own natural-born son, in other words, far from a nobody … you’d think he could have had his pick of brides, wouldn’t you? You can bet that he was offered the best, the finest matches available — and you can bet I didn’t jump at any of them. Why should I? You don’t give away a young man like that every day. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“In short, I began getting offers from all over the world: from Kamenets, and from Yelisavet, and from Gomel, and from Lubin, and all the way from Mogilev, and from Berdichev, and Kaminka, and even Brody. They were throwing cash at my feet: ten thousand, twelve thousand, fifteen thousand, eighteen thousand — I didn’t know where to look first! But then I thought it over and decided: why go to the ends of the earth for someone you don’t even know? Better, as they say, the cobbler next door than a rabbi far away. And in fact there was a rich Jew in our town with an only daughter he was prepared to settle quite a few thousands on, a lovely girl too, she was … and the man was all for it … why shouldn’t we call it a deal, could anyone tell me that? And especially since both matchmakers in town were working on it day and night, running back and forth between the two of us until their tongues were hanging out, because they were in a hurry, you understand, they had daughters of their own to marry off, and not such spring chickens at that. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“Well, it was agreed that the two families should get together. Things aren’t what they used to be, though. Once, matches were made behind a child’s back; you came home from shaking hands with your in-laws, you wished the bride or groom a mazel tov, and that was that. But today it’s the fashion to talk to the children first; they even expect to be introduced and decide if they like each other. You’re not allowed to tell them anything — they’re supposed to make up their own minds. Well, and why not? So I took the lad aside and said to him, ‘Tell me, Paysikins, what do you think of So-and-So’s daughter?’ He turned as red as a beet and didn’t say a word. Aha, I thought, silence is golden; no news is good news, as they say. Why else would he have blushed like that? It could only be because he was too embarrassed to talk. And so it was decided that one evening the same week we would first pay a call on the bride’s family and then have them over to our place. What else remained to be done? Only to bake a honey cake and make dinner as usual. Except that wasn’t the half of it, either!

“The day came, and no sooner had I risen that morning than I was handed a letter. By who? By a coachman who brought it. I took it, I opened it, I started to read it — and I saw black before my eyes! What did it say? Listen and I’ll tell you. It was from my Paysi, who asked me not to be angry that he and Rayzele — did you ever?! — had eloped without letting us know. I shouldn’t try to look for them, he wrote, because they were already far away. I tell you, I never! Once they were married, he wrote, they would, God willing, come home again … What do you say to a friendly note like that, eh? And I’m not even talking about my wife, who passed out three times, because the scandal was really hers: Rayzl, after all, was her niece, not mine. ‘Well,’ I said to her, ‘how do you like the bitch your sister whelped now?’ I took it all out on her, I gave it to her for all she was worth. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“You can imagine for yourself what a white-hot rage I was in. Just the thought of having taken in a strange girl as a poor, hungry orphan, of having done all I could to make her happy, only to have her go make an ass of my own brother’s son! I ranted, I raved, I had a fit, I damn near went berserk. On second thought, though, I said to myself, ‘What good does it do to lose your temper? Is stamping your feet going to help any? Why don’t you think of something constructive, some way to catch them in time?’ … My first move was to go to the police; I slipped them a modest retainer and informed them that a niece of mine who was living in my house had stolen some valuables and run off God knows where with my adopted son. Then I laid out some more money and sent telegrams left and right, to every town and village in the area. Sure enough, with God’s help they were caught. Where? In a little town not far from us. Bravo!

“When the good news reached me that they had been nabbed, I went with the police to the town they were found in. I won’t bother to tell you how I felt on the way — worried isn’t the word for it! My greatest fear was, who knows, perhaps they already were married — in which case, as they say, the horse had been stolen before the barn door was locked … But God was with me: the wedding hadn’t taken place yet. It’s just that now there was a new problem: since I had told the police that I was robbed, the two of them were being held in jail. Jail — a bad business! I raised the rafters, I went about telling them that the real thief was my niece and that he, my adopted son, was innocent — but when I finally talked them into releasing my Paysi, what do you think he said? ‘If one of us is a thief, so is the other!’ Did you ever?! It was she, the little bitch, who put him up to it. What a tart!.. I ask you, does it pay to be good? Who in his right mind would have pity on an orphan? Where’s the percentage in it? I tell you, it cost me a year of my life before I could free them both and take them back with me, because he wouldn’t budge unless she was let out too. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“Naturally, I forbade her to set foot in our house again. I paid a cousin of ours, a country bumpkin named Moyshe-Meir, to put her up in his village, and my Paysi came back home to live with us. I gave him a talking to, I did. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said to him, ‘here I’ve taken you and adopted you as my own son, I’ve put aside a couple of thousand for your wedding gift — how could you spring such a scandal on me?’ ‘What scandal?’ he said. ‘She’s your niece, I’m your nephew — we’re cut from the exact same cloth.’ ‘But how,’ I asked, ‘can you even compare yourself to her? Your father was my brother, and a man of character too, while hers, may he forgive me, was nothing but a bum, a lousy card fiend!’ … Just then I glanced at my wife — she’s about to pass out again. Did she let out a squawk: I mustn’t dare say a bad word about her sister’s husband — the two of them were in the other world now, we should let them rest there in peace! Did you ever?! ‘That still, may he forgive me, doesn’t make him any less of a degenerate,’ I said. That did it: she went out like a light! What has the world come to when a man is such a stranger in his own home that he can’t open his mouth any more? And that’s not the half of it, either!