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

So let us leave the princess and get to the prince, meaning the priest, may his name be blotted out! One evening I was coming home with the empty milk cans rattling around, and I met him in his iron carriage. He was driving his horses by himself, his combed beard blowing in the wind. And he was the last person I wanted to meet.

“Good evening!” he called to me. “Didn’t you recognize me?”

“It’s a sign you’ll get rich soon.” I doffed my hat and hurried on.

“Stay awhile, Tevel, what’s the hurry? I need to say a few words to you.”

“So long as they are good words, all right, and if not,” I said, “let it wait for another time.”

“What do you mean, ‘for another time’?”

“ ‘Another time’ to me means when the Messiah comes.”

“The Messiah,” he said, “has already come.”

“So I’ve heard from you, more than once,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me, little father, something new?”

“That’s what I wanted to do. I want to have a talk with you about your daughter.”

My heart started pounding. What did he have to do with my daughter?

“My daughters are, God forbid, not the kind who need someone to talk for them. They can speak for themselves.”

“But this is the sort of thing,” he said, “that she herself cannot speak about. Someone else must speak for her because it is a very important matter concerning her future.”

“What concern is my daughter’s future to you?” I said. “As long as we are discussing my child’s future, am I not my child’s father till a hundred and twenty?”

“Indeed, you are your child’s father,” he said, “but you are blind to what she is doing. She is moving into another world, and you do not understand her, or you don’t want to understand her.”

“Whether I don’t understand her,” I said, “or don’t want to understand her, that’s something else again. We can discuss it a bit. But what does that have to do with you, little father?”

“It has quite a bit to do with me,” he said, “because she is now in my custody.”

“What do you mean, she’s in your custody?”

“It means she is now in my care.” He looked me straight in the eyes and stroked his fine old beard.

I sprang back. “My child is under your care? By what right?” I was about to lose my temper.

“Now don’t get excited, Tevel!” he replied rather coldly, with a little smile. “We can discuss this calmly. You know I’m not your enemy, God forbid, even though you are a Jew. You know that I admire Jews and that my heart aches because of their obstinacy, their stubborn refusal to accept the fact that we mean everything only for their own good.”

“Do not speak to me about my own good, little father,” I said. “Every word you say now is a drop of poison, a bullet in my heart. If you are as good a friend of mine as you say, I will ask you but one favor — leave my daughter alone.”

“You are a foolish man,” he said. “Nothing bad will happen to your daughter. Something good now lies ahead of her. She is taking a bridegroom — and what a bridegroom.”

“Amen!” I laughed ironically, but in my heart a hellish fire was burning. “And who, may I have the honor of asking, is the bridegroom. Am I permitted to know that?”

“You surely know him,” he said. “He is a very gallant young man, very honest and well educated, though self-taught. He is deeply in love with your daughter and wants to marry her, but he cannot because he is not a Jew.”

Chvedka! I thought, the blood rushing to my head. I broke into a cold sweat and could barely hold myself together. But to let him see that — no, he would not live to see the day! I grabbed the horse’s reins, gave them a snap, and fled without a goodbye.

When I arrived home — ay ay ay, the house was in turmoil! The children were in bed crying into their pillows, and my Golde looked more dead than alive. I searched for Chava. Where was she? No Chava! I did not want to ask where she was. I did not need to ask, God help me! I felt like a tortured sinner suffering in his grave. A fiery rage was burning in me, toward whom I did not know. I wanted to find something with which to whip myself, but instead I yelled at the children and let out my bitter heart at my wife.

I could not settle down, so I went outside to the horse’s stall to feed him — and found him with one leg twisted around a block of wood. I took a stick and beat him with it. “May you fall dead, shlimazel of mine!” I shouted. “You won’t get as much as one oat from me! Trouble, if that’s what you want, I can give you plenty, along with anguish, heartache, grief, and suffering!”

But even as I was yelling at the horse, I realized it was a poor innocent creature — what did I have against him? So I spread some chopped-up straw before him and promised that on Shabbes, God willing, he would have more to eat.

I went back into the house and lay down in a state of misery, my head splitting with contemplating what this all meant. What is my trespass? What is my sin? — how had I, Tevye, sinned more than anyone else, that I had been punished more than all other Jews? Oy, God in heaven, God in heaven! What are we and what is our life? — who am I that You always have me in mind? You never forget about me when it comes to disaster, catastrophe, or affliction!

Thinking all this, lying as if on hot coals, I heard my pitiful wife groan. It tore at my heart. “Golde, are you asleep?”

“No. What is it?”

“We are as good as dead,” I said. “Do you have any ideas about what we can do?”

“You are asking me,” she said, “what we can do? So it has come to this? A child gets up in the morning, healthy and strong. She gets dressed, hugs and kisses me — and begins weeping without saying why. I thought, God forbid, she had lost her mind! ‘What is it, daughter?’ I asked her. She said only that she would go out for a while to the cows. Then she vanished. I waited an hour, I waited two, I waited three — where was Chava? Chava was gone! I called to the children to run over to the priest’s.”

“How did you know she was at the priest’s?”

“How did I know?” she said. “Woe is me. Do you think I don’t have eyes or that I am not her mother?”

“If you have eyes and you are her mother, why did you keep quiet and not tell me?”

“I should tell you? When are you at home?” she said. “And if I tell you something, do you listen to me? No, right away you answer with a commentary or a quote. You stuff my head with biblical quotes and think you’ve solved every problem.”

While Golde was saying this, she was crying in the dark. She has a point, I thought, but what does a woman understand? My heart ached for her, and I could not bear to hear her groaning and weeping.

I said to her, “Golde, you are angry because I have a commentary on everything. But I must answer you with another one. It is written, Like as a father pitieth his children —a father loves his child. Why isn’t it written, Like as a mother pitieth her children ? Because a mother is not a father. A father can talk to a child in a different way. You’ll see. Tomorrow morning, God willing, I’ll go see her.”

“Let’s hope,” she said, “you can see her, and him too. He’s not a bad person, even though he is a priest — he does have compassion for people. You’ll beg him, fall at his feet. Maybe he’ll take pity on us.”

“Who — the priest, cursed be his name? You expect me to bow down to the priest? Are you crazy or just out of your mind ? Do not open your mouth to the devil! My enemies will not live to see that day!”

“Ach! See what I mean? You’re starting in again!”