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

My brother Elyahu’s hat looks like it belongs on his head. His sidelocks are now shaved clean off. He’s put on a white shirt with a hard collar and turned-up ends. His expensive new white and red tie has green and blue polka dots! The shiny, squeaky boots he bought have very high heels so he’ll look taller. But they’ll do him no good — he’s still too short. But he is not as short as his bride is large and tall, built more like a man. Her face is ruddy and pockmarked. Her voice sounds like a man’s. I’m speaking of Yoneh the baker’s daughter. Her name is Bruche.

It’s a pleasure to see the couple under the wedding canopy, but I don’t have that much time to look at them. I’m busy. I have to look at the musicians, and not so much at the musicians as at their instruments, especially the contrabass and the kettledrum — two beautiful instruments! The problem is, I can’t get close enough to try them. Right away the musicians slap my hand or twist my ear. They go out of their minds if you so much as touch their instrument with the tip of a finger! They’re afraid you might break it! Ah, if my mother were a good mother, she’d let me become a musician, but that’s not what she wants for me. Not because she’s bad but because the world won’t allow Peysi the cantor’s son to be a musician. Neither a musician nor a workingman. They’ve already discussed what’s to become of me more than once — my mother, my brother Elyahu, our neighbor Pessi, and her husband Moishe the bookbinder. Moishe wants to take me on and teach me his trade, but Pessi won’t allow it. She says that Peysi the cantor, may he rest in peace, did not deserve to have his son become a workingman.

I get off track and forget about the wedding. Long after the ceremony, people are getting ready to eat. The women and the young girls are dancing a quadrille. I move into the middle with my stiff trousers. The dancers pick me up and toss me from one to the other like a ball.

“Who is this pain in the neck?” one says. “Some shlimazel !” says another.

Pessi sees this and shouts in a voice already hoarse, “Are you crazy or out of your minds, or sick in the head? This is the groom’s little brother!”

Aha! That hits home. They set me down at the table on the bride’s side. And do you know who they seat me next to? If you had eighteen heads, you could not guess! They seat me with the bride’s little sister, Yoneh the baker’s younger daughter, whose name is Alteh. She’s only a year older than I am, and she wears two braids tied together with ribbons like a braided bagel. Alteh and I eat from one plate not far from the newlyweds. My brother Elyahu signals with a look that I should sit like a mensch, use a fork, chew my food, and blow my nose. I tell you, I’m not enjoying this meal. I hate being looked at. On top of all that, just my luck, here comes our neighbor Pessi.

“May you have a long life!” she shouts to my mother. “Just look over here! Why shouldn’t there be another wedding? A match made in heaven!”

At this, Yoneh the baker appears, dressed in his holiday best, and he and Pessi decide that Alteh and I will one day be bride and groom. He laughs with only half a mouth, which means his upper lip is laughing and his lower one is crying. The whole crowd turns its attention to us. Alteh and I look down under the table and choke with laughter. In order not to explode, I hold my nose and blow up like a balloon. In a second the balloon will burst, and there will be the devil to pay. Luckily the musicians strike up a lively tune, a vollach . The crowd quiets down. I raise my head and see my mother in her queer yellow dress and silk head scarf. She is doing what she always does — crying! Do you think she will ever stop crying?

A.

My mother gives me the news that I have a job. Not, God forbid, with a tradesman — her enemies, she says, will not live to see Peysi the cantor’s son become a tradesman. My job, she says, is an easy, good-paying job. By day I will still go to school, but at night I will sleep at old man Luria’s. He is a very rich man, she says, but also very sick. He is well enough to eat and drink, but he can’t sleep at night. His eyes never shut. His children are afraid to leave him alone at night. They want someone to be with him, but leaving him with an elderly person isn’t proper. They decide a child would be fine, like having a kitten.

My mother adds, “They’re offering five rubles a week and supper every evening after school — a full meal, fit for a rich man. The crumbs from their table would feed all of us. Go, my child, to cheder, and at night you’ll come home first, and I’ll take you there myself. You won’t have any work to do, but you’ll have a good supper and a good bed to sleep in, plus five rubles a week. I’ll be able to make you some clothes and buy you boots.”

It sounds good. Why does she have to cry? But she can’t do otherwise, my mother. She must cry!

B.

In the meantime I am going to Talmud Torah, but I’m not learning a thing. There isn’t even a seat for me. So I help the rebbetzin around the house and play with the cat. The rebbetzin’ s work isn’t hard. I sweep the floors, help carry in wood, and do errands — it’s nothing, it’s not really work. I do everything but learn. Playing with the cat is more fun than learning. A cat, they say, is dirty. But that’s a lie — a cat is a clean animal. A cat, they say, is mischievous. It’s a lie — a cat is a devoted animal. A dog likes to flatter by wagging its tail. A cat grooms itself, and if you pet its head, it closes its eyes and purrs. I love a cat. But talk to my friends, and they’ll tell you a thousand stories about what’s wrong with cats. If you hold a cat, you have to wash your hands. If you hold a cat, it ruins your memory. What else will they come up with? Let a cat come near them, and they’ll kick it in its side. I can’t stand how they kick cats. They laugh at me — they have no compassion for poor living creatures. I’m talking about the children who go to Talmud Torah with me. They’re fiends. They laugh at me. They call me “stiff pants” and my mother “the weeper,” because she’s always crying.

“There goes your weeping mother!” they say to me. She’s come to pick me up from cheder and take me to my good-paying job.

C.

On the way my mother bemoans her bitter and grief-stricken life. God gave her two children, but she’s a lonely widow. My brother Elyahu, kayn eyn horeh, has married very well, in fact stumbled onto a gold mine. But his father-in-law is a boor — a baker, after all. What can you expect from a baker?

So my mother laments as we arrive at old man Luria’s. My mother says his place is like a royal palace. I’d love to live in a royal palace.

We enter the kitchen, my mother and I. It isn’t too shabby. The stove is white and sparkling. The utensils shine, everything shines. They ask us to sit. A woman enters, elegantly dressed. She talks with my mother and points to me. My mother nods in agreement and wipes her lips but won’t sit down. I do sit. My mother leaves and tells me to behave like a mensch. As she says it, she gets in a good cry and wipes her eyes. Tomorrow she’ll come for me and take me to cheder.

They feed me broth and challah (imagine, challah during the week!) and meat — lots of meat! After I finish eating, they tell me to go up, but I don’t know where “up” is. A cook named Chanah, a dark-haired woman with a long nose, leads me up a flight of carpeted stairs, which are a treat for my bare feet. It isn’t night yet, but the lamps are already burning, endless lamps. The walls are decorated with knickknacks and pictures. The chairs are covered with leather, and the ceiling is painted like in a synagogue, but even more beautifully. They lead me into a large room, so large that if I were by myself, I’d run from one wall to the other, or I’d lie down and roll on the satin carpet. It must be wonderful for rolling around on. Sleeping on it probably isn’t too bad either.