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

“Where is your match from? Do I know him? If he smells of a butcher shop,” I said, “I don’t want to hear of it!”

“God forbid! He doesn’t begin to smell of a butcher shop. You know him, Reb Tevye, very well!”

“Is it really a good match?”

“It’s made to measure! It’s custom made, one-of-a-kind, cut and sewn to order!”

“Who is it, this match?” I asked.

“Who is it?” His eyes always looked toward the girls. “The match is, please understand me, Reb Tevye, I myself.”

When he uttered those words, I leaped up as if scalded, as did he, and we stood facing each other like two bristling roosters. “Are you crazy?” I said. “Or are you just out of your mind? You are the matchmaker and the bridegroom? Will you be playing the music too at your own wedding? I’ve never heard of such a thing — a young man arranging a match for himself!”

“Are you saying, Reb Tevye, that I’m crazy?” he said. “May our enemies be as crazy. I am, you may believe me, in my right mind. No one has to be crazy to want to marry your Tzeitl. The proof is that Lazer-Wolf, the richest man in our town, wants to marry her without any conditions. Do you think it’s a secret? The whole town knows about it! You surprise me when you’re shocked that I am my own matchmaker,” he said. “You are, after all, Reb Tevye, a man who doesn’t need things spelled out for him. But what good is talking? This is the way it is: I and your daughter Tzeitl pledged to marry over a year ago.”

Had someone plunged a knife into my heart, it would have been less painful than those words. First of all, where did he, Motl, a tailor, come off wanting to be Tevye’s son-in-law? And second of all, what kind of talk is that, pledging to marry? Nu, and where did I come in? “Don’t I have a little something to say about my child,” I said, “or don’t you ask anymore?”

“God forbid,” he said. “That’s why, when I heard Lazer-Wolf was asking to marry your daughter, whom I have loved for over a year, I came to talk it over with you.”

“All I know is,” I said, “Tevye has a daughter Tzeitl, and your name is Motl Komzoil, and you are just a tailor. What do you have against her? Why do you hate her?”

“No, that’s not the way it is at all,” he said. “It’s quite the other way around. I love your daughter, and your daughter loves me, and it’s been over a year since we gave each other our pledge to marry. Several times I wanted to discuss it with you, and I kept putting it off until I had saved up some money for a sewing machine and was able to get some proper clothes for myself. Nowadays every young man has two suits and several shirts.”

“I don’t want to listen to this childish nonsense,” I said to him. “What will you do after the wedding, pawn your teeth for food? Or are you going to support her by sewing shirts?”

“Ah, I am surprised that you, Reb Tevye, would speak that way,” he said. “When you got married, I imagine you didn’t have a mansion yet. Nevertheless you can see for yourself. The whole world manages, and I will manage too. Now more business is coming my way.”

To make a long story short — why should I bore you? — he convinced me. Why should we fool ourselves? How do all Jewish children get married? In our walk of life, if we were to worry about how young people could make it, none of us would ever have married. But one thing still stuck in my craw that I could not understand, no matter what. They made a pledge to marry? What was our world coming to? A young man met a girl and said to her, “Let’s pledge to marry.” That was not done!

But Motl standing there, his head bowed like a sinner, looked so earnest, so guileless that I reconsidered. Let’s look at it another way. What was holding me back, and why was I lording it over him? Did I have such a great lineage myself — Reb Tzotzele’s grandson? Would I be giving my daughter a huge dowry and trousseau, for God’s sake? True, Motl Komzoil was a tailor, but he was a fine young man, a hard worker who would support a wife, and besides, he was an honest man too, so what did I have against him?

Tevye, I said to myself, stop your foolish arguing and say yes. As it is written: I have pardoned according to Thy word —may you have lots of luck! Yes, but what would I do about my wife? I would get it in the neck from her. How could I make her accept this decision?

“Do you know what, Motl?” I said to my soon-to-be son-in-law. “You go home, and I’ll take care of everything here. I’ll talk it over with this one, with that one, as it says in the Megillah: And the drinking was according to the custom —one must do everything properly. And God willing, tomorrow, if you don’t change your mind, we will meet.”

“Change my mind?” he cried. “I, change my mind? May I not live to leave this spot, may I turn into a stone or a bone if I do!”

“Why do you swear oaths?” I said to him. “I believe you without swearing. Go home,” I said, “and goodnight, and may you dream pleasant dreams.”

I too went to bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. My head was splitting thinking up one plan and then another, and then I came up with just the right one. What was the plan? Listen, and I’ll tell you what a brainstorm Tevye had!

It was the middle of the night, everyone was sound asleep, this one was snoring, that one was whistling. I suddenly sat up and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Help! Help! Help!” Naturally the entire household awoke, first of all Golde.

“God be with you, Tevye,” she said, and shook me. “Wake up! What’s the matter with you? Why are you screaming like that?”

I opened my eyes, looked all around, and said with a shaking voice: “Where is she?”

“Where is who? Who are you looking for?”

“Frume-Sarah,” I said. “Frume-Sarah, Lazer-Wolf’s wife, was standing right here.”

“You must have a fever,” my wife said to me. “God be with you, Tevye! Frume-Sarah, Lazer-Wolf’s wife, may she be far from us, is no longer in this world.”

“I know she died,” I said, “but she was just right here by my bed talking to me. She grabbed me by the throat and tried to strangle me!”

“God be with you, Tevye, what are you babbling about?” she said. “You must have had a bad dream. Spit three times and tell me what you dreamed and I’ll tell you what it meant.”

“Long life to you, Golde, for waking me up,” I said to her, “or else I would have died of fright right on the spot. Give me a drink of water and I’ll tell you my dream, but I warn you, Golde, don’t be scared, and don’t start thinking who knows what because in our holy books it says that only three parts of a dream can come true and the rest means nothing, absolutely nothing at all. First of all,” I said, “I dreamed we were having a celebration. I don’t know if it was an engagement party or a wedding. There were a lot of people, men and women, the rabbi and the slaughterer, even musicians. Then the door opened, and in came your Grandma Tzeitl, God rest her soul.”

When my wife heard “Grandma Tzeitl,” she turned pale as a ghost. “How did she look and what was she wearing?”

“How did she look?” I said. “May my enemies have such a face — as yellow as wax. And she was dressed, as you would expect, in white shrouds. ‘Mazel tov!’ Grandma Tzeitl said to me. ‘I am so happy that you’ve chosen for your Tzeitl, my namesake, such a fine, upstanding bridegroom. He is named Motl Komzoil, after my father, Mordecai, and even though he’s a tailor, still he’s a very honest boy.’ ”

“How did we get mixed up with a tailor?” cried Golde. “In our family we have teachers, cantors, beadles, cemetery officials, and just plain poor people. But not, God forbid, any tailors or cobblers.”