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

“Reb Tevye, you are, pardon me, really old-fashioned. You don’t know people, Reb Tevye, and you don’t know me!”

“On one side of a scale, put gold. On the other, Tzeitl. Do you hear, Reb Lazer-Wolf, even if you had thousands,” I said, “you still aren’t worth the sole of her foot!”

“Believe me, Reb Tevye, you are a big fool, even though you’re older than I am!”

We carried on this way for quite a while, louder and louder and getting tipsier and tipsier. When I arrived home, it was late, and my legs felt like lead. My wife, may she be well, saw I was drunk and gave me a proper welcome.

“ Sha, don’t be angry, Golde!” I said to her cheerily, and I actually felt like dancing. “Don’t yell at me, my soul. We have a mazel tov coming!”

“ Mazel tov? A mazel tov for selling that poor milk cow to Lazer-Wolf?”

“Worse than that!” I said.

“You traded her for another?” she said. “You tricked that poor Lazer-Wolf? A pity on him.”

“Even worse!” I said.

“Enough! Speak!” she said. “Look how I have to pry out every word!”

“Mazel tov to you, Golde,” I said again. “ Mazel tov to both of us. Our Tzeitl is a bride!”

“Now I know you’re really in your cups,” she said. “You’re talking out of your head! You must have had quite a few glassfuls.”

“I did have a few with Lazer-Wolf, and some punch,” I said, “but I still have all my wits about me. I want you to know, my darling Golde, that our Tzeitl has been blessed with good fortune and is engaged to marry no one else but Lazer-Wolf!” And I told her the whole story from beginning to end, how and what and when and about everything we talked about, not leaving out a word.

“Do you want to hear something, Tevye?” my wife said to me. “May God be with me wherever I go, but my heart told me that when Lazer-Wolf called for you, it was not for nothing. But what could he want? I was afraid to think of it. Maybe, God forbid, it would come to nothing. Thank you, dear God,” she said, “thank you, dearest, benevolent Father. May she have good luck, may it be all for the best. May she grow old with him in honor and respect, not like his first wife, Frume-Sarah, may I not suffer her fate. She did not have too happy a life with him. She was, please forgive me, an embittered woman, couldn’t get along with anyone, not at all like our Tzeitl, may God grant her many years. Thank you, thank you, dear God! Nu, Tevye,” she said. “What did I tell you, you dummy? Does a person have to worry? If it’s meant to be,” she said, “it will come right to your doorstep.”

“For sure,” I said, “there’s a particular passage about that—”

“Don’t bother me now with passages,” she said. “We have to start getting ready for the wedding. First of all, we have to make out a list for Lazer-Wolf of what Tzeitl needs to have for the wedding, starting with linens. She doesn’t have enough underthings, or even so much as a pair of stockings. And,” she said, “dresses — a silk one for the wedding ceremony and a woolen one for winter, another for summer, and housedresses, and petticoats, and cloaks. I want her to have two of them: one cape with a cat-fur hood for weekdays, and another good one with ruffles for Shabbes. And she needs little boots with straps and buttons, a corset, gloves, handkerchiefs, a parasol, and all the things a girl has to have nowadays.”

“How come, Golde, my sweetheart,” I said, “you know about all these fancy things?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” she said. “Haven’t I been out in the world? And haven’t I seen in Kasrilevka how the fine people dress? Leave it to me, ” she said, “and I’ll do the talking with him. Lazer-Wolf, you can be sure, is a wealthy man and will not like others to talk about him. If you must eat pig, at least let the fat run down your beard.”

That’s how we spent the rest of the night, talking almost till dawn. “It’s time to pack up the bit of cheese and butter, my wife,” I said to her, “and let me start out for Boiberik. True, everything is wonderful and good all around, but the business,” I said, “cannot be laid aside. As it is written in the Psalms: The heavens are the Lord’s —but life down here must go on.”

And while it was still dark, I hitched up my horse and wagon and was off to Boiberik. I arrived at the market and — aha! Can you keep a secret from Jews? The word was out. I was getting mazel tovs from all sides: “ Mazel tov to you, Reb Tevye. When is the wedding?”

“May you all have luck as well,” I said. “It’s as they say: ‘Even before you can enjoy your own good luck, the whole world wants to join in.’ ”

“Nonsense,” they said. “You can’t get away with it, Reb Tevye. You must buy us all a drink. After all, what a lucky break — you’ve stumbled on a gold mine.”

“The gold runs out,” I said, “and leaves a deep hole behind. But still,” I said, “you can’t be selfish and exclude your friends. As soon as I finish my Yehupetz deliveries, we will have a glass of whiskey and a bite to eat, live it up, and to hell with it. Rejoice and be glad.” Celebrate, you beggars! I said to myself.

And so, as quickly as always, I finished my rounds, and together, as it is supposed to be, my good friends and I had a few drinks, wished one another well, and I rode home in my wagon, lively and happy, if a bit tipsy. As I rode along in the woods on a lovely summer day, the aroma of the pines quickened the soul, and the sun beat down; the trees on either side of the road softened it with their shadows. I leaned back like a count and eased up on the reins. “Go on by yourself, my boy,” I said to my horse. “You know the way by now.” I sang a little tune. My heart was full. I was in a holiday mood. But for some reason I was singing bits from the High Holidays service.

I looked up toward the heavens, but my thoughts were a confused tangle here on earth. The heavens are the Lord’s, but the Earth He hath given to the children of Adam —so they would fight like cats for the honor of being called up to recite the opening and closing prayers for the Torah reading, and for the honor of mourning at the grave. The dead cannot praise God —they can’t appreciate that you must praise Him for the favors He does for you, while we, the living, the poor and destitute, when we have one good day, we thank and praise Him. I love my God because when He hears my voice and my entreaties He bends His ear to me, even as the sorrows of death doth encompass me. I am besieged on all sides with suffering, with sorrows, with afflictions. Here a cow suddenly drops dead in midday, here I am suddenly visited by a shlimazel of a relative, this Menachem-Mendl from Yehupetz, who cheats me out of my last bit of life, and I am thinking the world has come to an end. All men deceiveth —there is no honesty on earth.

But what does God do? He puts a thought into Lazer-Wolf’s head that he should take my daughter Tzeitl without a dowry. For that I say again and again, I praise Thee for Thou hast answered me —I thank you, dear God, for looking down on Tevye and coming to his aid so that he might have a bit of gratification from his child. May I visit her, if I live to see it, and find her a well-to-do mistress of her home with everything she needs, chests full of linens, cupboards full of Passover shmaltz and preserves, coops full of chickens, ducks, and geese.

Suddenly my horse went tearing down the hill, and before I could see where I was, I was lying on the ground with all the empty pots and jugs and the wagon on top of me! With a great effort I crawled out and stood up, battered and bruised, and let out my bitter heart on the horse: “May you sink into the earth! Who asked you, shlimazel, to show off and go galloping downhill? You almost killed me, you Satan!” I gave it to him for all he was worth. My boy seemed to understand what he had done and bowed his head in shame. Still cursing, I righted the wagon, gathered the pots and jugs, and we continued on our way. It was not a good sign, though, and I feared that something bad had happened at home.