Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories (18 page)

You can see that I tried to make light of it, though my heart was weeping inside me. But Tevye is no woman; Tevye kept a stiff upper lip. And she, my Hodl, was not to be outdone by me. She answered whatever I said point by point, quietly, calmly, intelligently. Say what you will about them, Tevye’s daughters can talk!… Her voice shook dully, and even with my eyes shut, I felt that I could see her, that I could see my Hodl’s face that was as pale and worn as the moon … Should I have thrown myself on her, had a fit, begged her not to go? But I could see it was a lost cause. Damn them all, every one of those daughters of mine—when they fall for someone, they do it hook, line, and sinker!

In a word, we sat on the stoop all night long. Much of the time we said nothing, and even our talk was in bits and snatches. Sometimes I listened to Hodl, and sometimes she listened to me. I asked her one thing: whoever heard of a girl marrying a boy for the sole purpose of following him to the North Pole? I tried using reason to convince her how unreasonable it was, and she tried using reason to convince me that reason had nothing to do with it. Finally, I told her the story of the duckling that was hatched by a hen; as soon as it could stand on its feet it toddled down to the water and swam away, while its poor mother just stood there and squawked. “What, Hodl, my darling, do you have to say about that?” I asked. “What is there to say?” she said. “Of course, I feel sorry for the hen; but just because the hen squawks, is the duckling never to swim?” … Now, is that an answer or isn’t it? I tell you, Tevye’s daughters don’t mince words!

Meanwhile time was going by. The dawn began to break. Inside the house my wife was grumbling. She had let us know more than once that it was time we called it a night—and now, seeing all the good it had done, she stuck her head out the window and bawled with her usual tact, “Tevye! What in God’s name do you think you’re doing out there?”

“Ssshhh, don’t make so much noise, Golde,” I said.
“
Lomoh rogshu
, says the Bible—have you forgotten that it’s Hoshana Rabbah? On the night of Hoshana Rabbah one isn’t supposed to sleep, because it’s then that
the Book of Life is shut for the year … And
now listen, Golde: please put up the samovar and let’s have tea, because I’m taking Hodl to the station.” And right on the spot I made up another whopper about Hodl having to go to Yehupetz, and from there to somewhere else, on account of Peppercorn’s inheritance; in fact, she might very well have to spend the winter there, and maybe even the summer, and possibly the winter after that—which was why she needed a few things for the trip, such as linens, a dress, some pillows and pillowcases, and whatever else a young lady had to have …

Those were my orders—the last of which was that there better not be any tears, not when the whole world was celebrating Hoshana Rabbah. “No crying allowed on a holiday!” I said, “It’s written in the Talmud, black on white.” It could have been written in solid gold for all anyone listened to me. Cry they did, and when the time came to part, such a wailing broke out as you never heard in all your life. Everyone was shrieking: my wife, my daughters, my Hodl, and most of all, my eldest, Tsaytl, who spent the holiday at our place with her Motl. The two sisters hugged each other so hard that we could barely tear them apart …

I alone stayed strong as steel—that is, I steeled myself, though I was about as calm as a boiling kettle inside. But do you think I let anyone see it? Not on your life! Tevye is no woman … Hodl and I didn’t say a word all the way to Boiberik, and only when we were nearly at the station did I ask her one last time to tell me what her Peppercorn had done. “It’s got to be something!” I said.

She flared up at that; her husband, she swore, was as clean as the driven snow. “Why,” she said, “he’s a person who never thinks of his own self! His whole life is for others, for the good of the world—and especially for the workers, for the workingman …”

Maybe some day I’ll meet the genius who can explain to me what that means. “You say he cares so much about the world?” I said. “Well, maybe you can tell me why, if he and the world are such great friends, it doesn’t care more about him … But give him my best wishes, and tell your Alexander the Great that I’m counting on his honor, because he is the very soul of it, isn’t he, to see to it that my daughter isn’t ruined and that she drops her old father a line now and then …”

I was still in the middle of the sentence when she hugged me and burst into tears. “We’d better say goodbye now,” she said. “Be well, Papa. God knows when we’ll see each other again …”

That did it! I couldn’t keep it in a second longer. You see, just then I thought of my Hodl when I held her as a baby in my arms … she was just a tiny thing then … and I held her in these arms … please forgive me, Pan, if … if I … just like a woman … but I want you to know what a Hodl I have! You should see the letters that she writes me … she’s God’s own Hodl, Hodl is … and she’s with me right here all the time … deep, deep down … there’s just no way to put it into words …

You know what, Pan Sholem Aleichem? Let’s talk about something more cheerful. Have you heard any news of the cholera in Odessa?

(1904)

CHAVA

H
oydu lashem ki toyv
—whatever God does is for the best. That is, it had better be, because try changing it if you don’t like it! I was once like that myself; I stuck my nose into this, into that, until I realized I was wasting my time, threw up my hands, and said, Tevye, what a big fool you are! You’re not going to remake the world … The good Lord gave us
tsa’ar gidul bonim
, which means in plain language that you can’t stop loving your children just because they’re nothing but trouble. If my daughter Tsaytl, for example, went and fell for a tailor named Motl Komzoyl, was that any reason to be upset? True, he’s a simple soul, the fine points of being a Jew are beyond him, he can’t read the small print at all-but what of it? You can’t expect the whole world to have a higher education. He’s still an honest fellow who works hard to support his family. He and Tsaytl—you should see what a whiz she is around the house!—have a home full of little brats already, touch wood, and are dying from sheer happiness. Ask her about it and she’ll tell you that life couldn’t be better. In fact, there’s only one slight problem, which is that her children are starving …

Ad kan hakofoh alef
—that’s daughter number one. And as for number two, I mean Hodl, I hardly need tell you about her. You
already know the whole story. She’s lost and gone forever, Hodl is; God knows if I’ll ever set eyes on her again this side of the world to come … Just talking about her gives me the shakes, I feel my world has come to an end. You say I should forget her? But how do you forget a living, breathing human being—and especially a child like Hodl? You should see the letters she sends me, it’s enough to melt a heart of ice! They’re doing very well there, she writes; that is, he’s doing time and she’s doing wash. She takes in laundry, reads books, sees him once a week, and hopes, so she says, that one glorious day her Peppercorn and his friends will be pardoned and sent home; then, she promises, they’ll really get down to business and turn the world upside down with its feet in the air and its head six feet in the ground. A charming prospect, eh?… So what does the good Lord do? He’s an
eyl rakhum vekhanun
, a merciful God, and He says to me, “Just you wait, Tevye. When you see what I have up my sleeve this time, you’ll forget every trouble you ever had …” And don’t think that isn’t just what happened! I wouldn’t tell anyone but you about it, because the shame is even worse than the sorrow, but
hamekhaseh ani mey’Avrohom
—do you and I have any secrets between us? Why, I don’t keep a thing from you! There’s just one request I have, though—that this stay between the two of us, because I’ll say it again: as bad as the heartache has been, the disgrace is far worse.

In a word,
rotsoh hakodoysh borukh hu lezakoys
, God wanted to do Tevye such a big favor that He went and gave him seven daughters—and not just ordinary daughters either, but bright, pretty, gifted, healthy, hardworking ones, fresh as daisies, every one of them! Let me tell you, I’d have been better off if they all were as ugly as sin … You can take the best of horses—what will it amount to if it’s kept in a stable all day long? And it’s the same with good-looking daughters if you raise them among peasants in a hole like this, where there’s not a living soul to talk to apart from the village elder Anton Paparilo, the village scribe Chvedka Galagan, and the village priest, damn his soul, whose name I can’t even stand to mention—and not because I’m a Jew and he’s a priest, either. On the contrary, we’ve known each other for ages. I don’t mean that we ever slapped each other’s backs or danced at each other’s weddings, but we said hello whenever we met and stopped to chat a bit about the latest news. I tried avoiding long discussions with him, though, because they always ended up with the same
rigamarole about my God, and his God, and how his God had it over mine. Of course, I couldn’t let it pass without quoting some verse from the Bible, and he couldn’t let that pass without insisting he knew our Scriptures better than I did and even reciting a few lines of them in a Hebrew that sounded like a Frenchman talking Greek. It was the same blessed routine every time—and when I couldn’t let
that
pass without putting him in his place with a
midrash, he’d say, “Look here, your Middyrush is from your Tallymud, and your Tallymud is a lot of hokum,” which got my goat so that I gave him a good piece of my mind off the top of it … Do you think that fazed him, though? Not one bit! He just looked at me, combed his beard with his fingers, and laughed right in my face. I tell you, there’s nothing more aggravating than being laughed at by someone you’ve just finished throwing the book at. The hotter under the collar I’d get, the more he’d stand there and grin at me. Well, if I didn’t understand what he thought was funny then, I’m sorry to say I do now …

In short, I came home one evening to find Chvedka the scribe, a tall young goy with high boots and a big shock of hair, standing outside and talking to my third daughter, Chava. As soon as he saw me he about-faced, tipped his hat, and took off.

“What was Chvedka doing here?” I asked Chava.

“Nothing,” she says.

“What do you mean, nothing?” I ask.

“We were just talking,” she says.

“Since when are you and he on such talking terms?” I ask.

“Oh,” she says, “we’ve known each other for a while.”

“Congratulations!” I say. “You’ve found yourself a fine friend.”

“Do you know him, then?” she says. “Do you know who he is?”

“Not exactly,” I say, “because I haven’t read up on his family tree yet, but that doesn’t keep me from seeing what a blue blood he is. In fact, if his father isn’t a drunk, he may even be a swineherd or a handyman.”

Do you know what my Chava says to me? “I have no idea who his father is. I’m only interested in individuals. And Chvedka is no ordinary person, that I’m sure of.”

“Well, then,” I say, “what sort of person is he? Perhaps you could enlighten me.”

“Even if I told you,” she says, “you wouldn’t understand. Chvedka is a second
Gorky.”

“A second Gorky?” I say. “And who, pray tell, was the first?”

“Gorky,” she says, “is only just about the most important man alive.”

“Is he?” I say. “And just where does he live, this Mr. Important of yours? What’s his act and what makes him such a big deal?”

“Gorky,” she says, “is a literary figure, a famous author. That means he writes books. He’s a rare, dear soul, even if he comes from a simple home and never had a day’s schooling in his life. Whatever he knows, he taught himself. Here, this is his picture …”

And she takes out a little photograph from her pocket and shows it to me.

“This tsaddik is your Rabbi Gorky?” I say, “I could swear I’ve seen him somewhere before. You can search me, though, if I remember whether he was toting sacks at the train station or hauling logs in the forest …”

“And is it so shameful,” says my Chava, “for a man to work with his own two hands? Whose hands do you work with? Whose hands do we all?”