Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“Well, I took my Paysi in hand and watched him like a hawk to make sure he didn’t pull any more stunts. And, with God’s help, he shaped up and even agreed to be engaged — not to any great world-beater, it’s true, but still, to a girl from a decent family, with a good reputation, with money for a dowry, with … with … with what a man like me had coming to him at last! I was in seventh heaven. All’s well that ends well, eh? Be patient, there’s still more.

“One day I came home from the store to have a bite of lunch. I washed up, I sat down to eat, I said the Lord’s blessing, I looked up from the table — no Paysi! The first thought to cross my mind was that he’d bolted again. ‘Where’s Paysi?’ I asked my wife. ‘I have no idea,’ she says. As soon as I finished eating I ran back into town; I looked here, I looked there, I looked everywhere — he was gone without a trace. Right away I sent a message to our cousin Moyshe-Meir to ask what was doing with Rayzl. Back came a letter with the news that she’d left his house the day before, saying she was going to visit her mother’s grave in town. Was I fit to be tied! I took it all out on my wife again, because she was to blame for everything: the girl, after all, was her niece. And that’s not the half of it, either!

“I ran to the police, I spent a fortune on telegrams, on search parties — not a clue, there wasn’t a sign of them. I ranted, I raved, I had a fit — it didn’t do a bit of good. Take my word for it, in the three weeks that followed I damn near went berserk! Suddenly a letter arrived: mazel tov, all was well; with God’s help they were married, there wasn’t a thing I could do. Did you ever?! Would I kindly call off my dogs, they wrote, all they asked was to be left alone; they had loved each other since childhood, and now, thank God, they had all their hearts desired. I tell you, I never!.. How did they intend to make a living? We shouldn’t worry about them: he was preparing for his entrance exams in medicine, and she was studying to be a midwife. Did you ever?! Meanwhile, both were doing private tutoring and earning, with God’s help, up to fifteen rubles a month; the rent cost them six and a half, food was eight more, and as for the rest — God was great … I tell you, I never! Well, well, I thought, when you’re starving to death and come crawling to me on all fours, we’ll see who’s boss then! ‘I hope you see now,’ I said to my wife, ‘what a bad seed she is. From a bum like her father, from a card fiend like that, what else could you expect?’ … That wasn’t all I said, either — I was just waiting for a word of her back talk. ‘Since you like to faint whenever I mention your dear brother-in-law,’ I said, ‘how come you’re not doing it now?’ … Did you ever hear a stone talk? That’s how she answered me. ‘Do you think I don’t know,’ I said, ‘that you’re in cahoots with them, that you’re the brains behind this whole thing?’ … Not a peep out of her — as quiet as a mouse, she was. Well, what could she have said when she knew damn well I was right? She could see what a state I was in. What, besides being good, had I done to deserve all this? And that’s not the half of it, either!

“I suppose you think that’s the end of the story. Wait, now comes the best part.

“In short, a year went by. They wrote us now and then, but never a word about money. Suddenly they sent us good news — a son had been born and we were invited to the circumcision. ‘Congratulations,’ I said to my wife. ‘It’s an occasion to be proud of! No doubt they’ll name the boy after your dear brother-in-law.’ She didn’t answer me; she just turned white as a sheet, put on her coat, and stalked out of the house. She’ll be back soon enough, I thought; so I waited an hour, and then another, and another — it was already evening, it was the middle of the night, and still no wife in sight. A fine state of affairs it was turning out to be!.. Wouldn’t you know it, she had gone off to them, and ever since then — it’s been nearly two years — she hasn’t been back and hasn’t given any sign of coming back. Have you ever heard anything like it? At first I waited for a letter from her, but when I saw none was coming, I sat down and wrote her myself. ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ I asked. ‘Do you have any idea what the whole world is saying about us?’ Back came the answer that her place was with her children — did you ever?! — and that her little grandchild (whose name, by the way, was Hirshele, after my brother) meant more to her than ten whole worlds. In fact, you could search ten whole worlds, she wrote, and never find another child like him. And at the bottom she wished me health and happiness — without her. I tell you, I never!

“Well, I wrote her again, and still another time, and let her know in plain language that she wasn’t going to get a penny out of me. Back came the answer that she didn’t need my money … did you ever?! In that case, I wrote, I was disinheriting her and cutting her off without a cent till hell froze over. Back came the answer that she couldn’t care less … I tell you, I never! Her life with the children, she wrote, lacked nothing, it should only always be as good, because Paysi was already in medical school and Rayzl was working as a midwife; in fact, they were earning seventy rubles a month — did you ever?! If I wanted to cut her off, she wrote, I could do it whenever I wished, I could even will my money to the Church. I tell you, I never! And at the bottom she wrote that I was out of my mind. The whole world, she said, was making a laughingstock of me. ‘You would think it a tragedy,’ she wrote, ‘that your brother’s son has married my sister’s daughter. If you don’t like it, you old fool, you can lump it!’ Did you ever?! ‘Why, if you could only see little Hirshele,’ she wrote, ‘pointing to his grandfather’s picture on the wall and saying “gra’papa,” you’d give yourself a swift kick in the pants!’ I tell you, I never! That’s how she writes to me. And that isn’t the half of it, either!

“What do you say, does a man need nerves of steel or doesn’t he? Do you think it doesn’t stick in my craw to come home to an empty house with only the four walls to talk to? It makes a man wonder; I ask you, who am I living for? Why has this happened to me? For what do I deserve an old age like this? For being good? For being such a big soft touch?… You’ll have to excuse me, but when I begin to talk about it I get such a lump in my throat that I can’t go on anymore …

“Oy, it doesn’t pay to be good. Do you hear me? It doesn’t pay!”

(1903)

“May God not punish me for saying this,” I heard a Jew behind me tell some passengers, “but our Jews, our Jews, do you hear me, are an amo pezizo . Do you know what that means in plain Yiddish? It means they’re safe to eat a noodle pudding with, to sit next to in the synagogue, and to be buried beside in the graveyard — but as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“You’d like to know what I have against Jews and why I’m running them down? But if you’d been through with them what I have and had done to you what I’ve had, you’d be running amuck in the streets!.. Well, forget it; I’m not one to go around bearing grudges. With me it’s a principle to let the other man have his way, oylom keminhogoy , as it says. What does that mean in plain Yiddish? It means that I’ll leave it to God to settle accounts with them — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“Listen to this. I wouldn’t wish it on you, but I happen to come from a nice little town by the name of Boheslav, one of those places of which it’s said, sow a bushel and you’ll reap a peck. In fact, if there’s anyone you really want to punish, don’t send him to Siberia, that’s nothing; send him to us in Boheslav, and make him a storekeeper, and give him enough credit to run up a nice debt, and see to it he has a fire that burns him out of house and home, and have all the Jews in town go around saying that he personally gave the match a scratch, because he wanted … but you can guess for yourselves what a Boheslav Jew is capable of thinking, and of saying, and even of writing to the right places — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..