“Ach!” he said to me. “Maybe you think we should put it down in writing? With great pleasure!”
“Wait,” I said, “let’s look at it another way. What difference will that make? If you want to ruin me, what good will a piece of paper do? It’s not the piece of paper that pays, it’s the person, and if I am already hanging by one foot, I might as well hang by both.”
“You can believe me, Reb Tevye,” he said. “I swear to you, let God punish me if I cheat you. I will honestly share everything with you, right down the middle — for me a hundred, for you a hundred, for me two hundred, for you two hundred, for me three hundred, for you three hundred, for me four hundred, for you four hundred, for me a thousand, for you a thousand.”
To make a long story short, I took out my few rubles and counted them over three times with trembling hands. I called over my wife as a witness and once more made it clear to Menachem-Mendl that this was money I sweated blood for. I gave it to him, sewed it into his bosom pocket so no one could steal it, and arranged with him that no later than a week from Saturday he would write me a letter with every detail. We parted like the best of friends and kissed affectionately, as is usual between relatives. Standing by myself after he left, lively thoughts and daydreams raced through my head, such sweet dreams that I wanted them never to end, to go on forever. I imagined we lived right in the middle of town in a mansion covered with a tin roof, with stables and rooms and pantries full of good things. My wife Golde, a regular lady, keys in hand, goes from room to room, in charge of the household. She’s not to be recognized, I tell you. She has a different face, the face of a rich man’s wife, with a double chin and pearls around her neck. She’s all puffed up and curses the servants. My children are all wearing their Shabbes clothes, no longer needing to do chores. The courtyard is packed with chickens, geese, and ducks. Indoors it is well lit, a fire burns in the stove, supper is cooking, and the samovar is boiling as if possessed! At the head of the table sits the head of the household, Tevye himself, in a frock coat and yarmulke. Around him sit the most prominent Jews in town, flattering him: Pardon me, Reb Tevye, no offense, Reb Tevye—“Ay,” I say out loud, “so this is what money can do for you!”
“What are you talking about?” my Golde asks.
“Nothing,” I reply. “My mind’s just wandered — thoughts, dreams — forget about it. Tell me, Golde my love, do you know what your relative Menachem-Mendl does for a living?”
“May all my nightmares fall on my enemies’ heads! Do you mean to tell me you sat up all day and night with him talking and talking, and you are asking me what he does for a living? You two just made a deal,” she said, “didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “we made a deal, but what we made I don’t really understand, even if you took my head off! There’s nothing about it I can grab hold of. But that has nothing to do with it. Don’t worry, my wife, my heart tells me it’s all right. God willing, I imagine we will make money, and a lot of it. Say amen and go cook supper!”
In short, a week passed, and two and three — no letter from my partner! I was going out of my mind, walking around in a daze, not knowing what to think. He couldn’t have just forgotten to write, I thought. He knew very well that we were waiting to hear from him. Then I began to wonder what I could do to him if he were to skim off the cream and tell me we hadn’t earned anything. Would I call him a liar? I told myself it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible. I’d treated the man like one of my own, been ready to take on his troubles. How could he play a trick like that on me?! And then I thought, The profit be damned. Deliverance will come from the Lord. May God at least keep the principal intact! A cold chill ran through my body. Old fool! I said to myself. You made your bed, now lie in it, you ass! How much better it would have been to buy a pair of horses for my hundred rubles, the kind my ancestors never had, and to trade the wagon in for a carriage with springs.
“Tevye, why don’t you think of something?” my wife said.
“What do you mean?” My head was splitting from thinking, and she was asking me to think!
“Something must have happened to him on the way home,” she said. “Maybe thieves attacked him and robbed him blind. Or maybe he fell sick, God forbid, or may my mouth not say it, he may be dead.”
“What will you think of next, my dear soul?” I said. “Robbers!” Still, you could never tell what might happen to a man while traveling. “Why do you always think the worst?” I asked Golde.
“He has that kind of family. His mother,” she said, “may she protect us before God, died not long ago, still young. He had three sisters, may our fate be different from theirs. One died young, another did marry but caught a cold in the bath and died, and the third went out of her mind after her first childbirth, struggled and struggled and finally died.”
“You live and you die. We will all die,” I said to Golde. “A carpenter lives, and in the end he still dies. And how is any man different from a carpenter?”
And so it was decided that I would go to Yehupetz. In the meantime the dairy business had grown a bit. We had a nice little shop in which we sold cheese, butter, and sour cream, first-class merchandise. My wife harnessed the horse and wagon, and as Rashi says: And so they journeyed forth. On to Yehupetz! As I was riding along, melancholy and downcast, as you might imagine, with a bitter heart, alone in the woods, all kinds of fears and thoughts beset me. It would be a fine thing, I thought, if, once I got there and asked about my man, I was told, “Menachem-Mendl? Oh ho, he’s really made it big, has the world by the tail, owns his own house, rides in a carriage. He’s not to be recognized!”
In my imagination I pulled myself together and then courageously took myself straight to his house. A servant would receive me rudely at the door with an elbow in the ribs. “Don’t push yourself in that way, Uncle,” he’d snarl. “Around here you don’t push.” “But I’m a relative,” I’d say. “Menachem-Mendl is my wife’s second cousin once removed.” “Congratulations!” he’d say. “Happy to make your acquaintance, but you still must wait here at the door. It won’t do you any harm.” He was hinting to have his palm greased. Well, grease the wheel, and you’ll ride. I was taken up to see my cousin right away.
“Good morning to you, Reb Menachem-Mendl!” I said in my imagination. But he made no speech or utterance. He did not recognize me! “What do you want?” I imagined him asking me. I almost fainted. “What is this, Pani,” I’d say. “You don’t know your own relative? I’m Tevye!” “Ah?” he’d say. “Tevye? That’s a familiar name.” “Familiar?” I’d say. “Maybe my wife’s blintzes are familiar! Do you remember her knishes, her knaidlach, her blintzes?”
Then I imagined that the very opposite happened. I would go in, and he’d greet me with a broad “Sholem aleichem.” A guest! A guest! “Sit, Reb Tevye,” he’d say. “How are you, how is your wife? I’ve been expecting you. I want to settle accounts with you.” And he’d fill my hat with money. “This,” he’d say, “is the earnings, and the principal remains the same. Whatever we earn, we will divide in half, fifty-fifty, half for me, half for you. For me a hundred, for you a hundred, for me two hundred, for you two hundred, for me three hundred, for you three hundred, for me four hundred, for you four hundred.”
I dozed off as my imaginary relative was speaking and didn’t notice that my horse had wandered off the path and somehow hooked the wagon onto a tree branch. Seeing stars, I felt as if I had been kicked from behind. Everything turns out for the best, I said to myself. Thank God an axle didn’t break.