Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son

“Listen to me,” he said, “that’s the point I’m making! When, Reb Tevye, will you have another chance to put in a hundred and take out, God willing, so much that you will have enough to marry off your daughter and then some?” And in the next three hours he gave me a song and dance about how he had made from one ruble three and from three ten. “First of all,” he said, “you take a hundred, and you tell them to buy ten shares” or whatever he called them. “You wait a few days till they go up. You send a telegram and tell them to sell, and for that money you buy twice as many. Then you start all over again and again send off a telegram, until finally from the hundred you have two; from the two, four; and from the four, eight; from the eight, sixteen — wonder of wonders! There are,” he said, “in Yehupetz those who were not too long ago going around without shoes, were nobodies, servants, porters. Today they have their own houses made of stone surrounded by high walls. Their wives complain about their indigestion and go abroad for a cure, while they ride around Yehupetz on rubber wheels and pretend not to know anyone!”

To make a long story short — why should I carry on? — I developed a yearning, and it was no laughing matter. Who could tell? I asked myself. Maybe he was a heaven-sent messenger. I was hearing that ordinary people get lucky in Yehupetz, so why should I have been worse than they? He didn’t strike me as a liar, making up tall tales out of his head. And what if things did turn around as he had said, and Tevye could become a bit of a mensch in his old age? How long could a person struggle and slave day after day, again and again the horse and wagon, again cheese and butter? It’s time, Tevye, I said to myself, for you to rest, to become a respectable man among respectable men, to step into the synagogue once in a while and look into a Jewish book. Why should I not? Was I afraid that it wouldn’t work out, that the bread would fall butter side down? I could argue the other way around.

I asked my old lady, “What do you say? How do you like his plan, Golde?”

“What can I say about it? I know Menachem-Mendl isn’t someone who would cheat you,” she said. “He isn’t, God forbid, from a family of tailors or shoemakers! He has a fine father, and his grandfather was very brilliant, studied Torah day and night, even when he went blind. And Grandma Tzeitl, may she rest in peace, was also not a common sort.”

“What has all this got to do with the business we’re talking about? What do your Grandma Tzeitl, who baked lekach, and your grandfather have to do with it?” A woman remains a woman. Not for nothing did King Solomon travel all over the world without finding a single woman with a brain in her head.

And so it was decided that we would become partners. I would put up the money, and Menachem-Mendl the brains, and whatever God granted us we would share fifty-fifty. “Believe me, Reb Tevye,” he said, “with God’s help you will do well with me, really well, and I will make lots of money for you.”

“Amen, the same to you,” I said. “From your mouth into God’s ear. But I must ask you, how does that cat get across the river? I am here, you are there. Money,” I said, “is a very delicate material, you understand. Don’t be offended — I’m not trying to criticize you, God forbid. It’s simply, as Abraham our Father said, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. It’s better to be warned than to weep.”

“Ach!” he said to me. “Maybe you think we should put it down in writing? With great pleasure!”

“Wait,” I said, “let’s look at it another way. What difference will that make? If you want to ruin me, what good will a piece of paper do? It’s not the piece of paper that pays, it’s the person, and if I am already hanging by one foot, I might as well hang by both.”

“You can believe me, Reb Tevye,” he said. “I swear to you, let God punish me if I cheat you. I will honestly share everything with you, right down the middle — for me a hundred, for you a hundred, for me two hundred, for you two hundred, for me three hundred, for you three hundred, for me four hundred, for you four hundred, for me a thousand, for you a thousand.”

To make a long story short, I took out my few rubles and counted them over three times with trembling hands. I called over my wife as a witness and once more made it clear to Menachem-Mendl that this was money I sweated blood for. I gave it to him, sewed it into his bosom pocket so no one could steal it, and arranged with him that no later than a week from Saturday he would write me a letter with every detail. We parted like the best of friends and kissed affectionately, as is usual between relatives. Standing by myself after he left, lively thoughts and daydreams raced through my head, such sweet dreams that I wanted them never to end, to go on forever. I imagined we lived right in the middle of town in a mansion covered with a tin roof, with stables and rooms and pantries full of good things. My wife Golde, a regular lady, keys in hand, goes from room to room, in charge of the household. She’s not to be recognized, I tell you. She has a different face, the face of a rich man’s wife, with a double chin and pearls around her neck. She’s all puffed up and curses the servants. My children are all wearing their Shabbes clothes, no longer needing to do chores. The courtyard is packed with chickens, geese, and ducks. Indoors it is well lit, a fire burns in the stove, supper is cooking, and the samovar is boiling as if possessed! At the head of the table sits the head of the household, Tevye himself, in a frock coat and yarmulke. Around him sit the most prominent Jews in town, flattering him: Pardon me, Reb Tevye, no offense, Reb Tevye—“Ay,” I say out loud, “so this is what money can do for you!”

“What are you talking about?” my Golde asks.

“Nothing,” I reply. “My mind’s just wandered — thoughts, dreams — forget about it. Tell me, Golde my love, do you know what your relative Menachem-Mendl does for a living?”

“May all my nightmares fall on my enemies’ heads! Do you mean to tell me you sat up all day and night with him talking and talking, and you are asking me what he does for a living? You two just made a deal,” she said, “didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, “we made a deal, but what we made I don’t really understand, even if you took my head off! There’s nothing about it I can grab hold of. But that has nothing to do with it. Don’t worry, my wife, my heart tells me it’s all right. God willing, I imagine we will make money, and a lot of it. Say amen and go cook supper!”

In short, a week passed, and two and three — no letter from my partner! I was going out of my mind, walking around in a daze, not knowing what to think. He couldn’t have just forgotten to write, I thought. He knew very well that we were waiting to hear from him. Then I began to wonder what I could do to him if he were to skim off the cream and tell me we hadn’t earned anything. Would I call him a liar? I told myself it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible. I’d treated the man like one of my own, been ready to take on his troubles. How could he play a trick like that on me?! And then I thought, The profit be damned. Deliverance will come from the Lord . May God at least keep the principal intact! A cold chill ran through my body. Old fool! I said to myself. You made your bed, now lie in it, you ass! How much better it would have been to buy a pair of horses for my hundred rubles, the kind my ancestors never had, and to trade the wagon in for a carriage with springs.

“Tevye, why don’t you think of something?” my wife said.

“What do you mean?” My head was splitting from thinking, and she was asking me to think!