I avoid long discussions with this priest because right away we get into the whole business of your God and our God. I cut him off with a proverb and tell him we have a fitting commentary. Then he cuts me off and says he knows the commentaries as well as I do and perhaps better, and then he begins to recite from memory from our Bible, pronouncing it just like a Christian: “Bereshit bara alokim”—every time, every time the same. So I interrupt him and tell him we have a midrash. “A midrash,” he says, “is the same as Talmud,” and he dislikes Talmud because Talmud is, he says, “nothing but a swindle.” I get very angry and pour out whatever comes out of my mouth. Do you think that bothers him? Not at all. He looks at me and laughs as he smooths his beard. I tell you, there is nothing worse in the world than when you insult someone, make mud out of him, and he doesn’t say a word. Your blood is boiling, and he is sitting and smiling! At that time I didn’t understand that little smile, but now I know what it meant.
One evening before nightfall I came home and encountered the writer Chvedka standing outside with my Chava, my third daughter, the one after Hodl. Seeing me, the young man spun around, tipped his hat, and left. I asked Chava, “What is Chvedka doing here?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“We were just talking.”
“What business do you have with Chvedka?”
“We’ve known each other a long time.”
“Mazel tov to you for that friendship! A fine friend, Chvedka!”
“Do you know him? Do you know who he is?”
“Who he is, I don’t know, I haven’t seen his family tree,” I said. “But he must have a great line. His father had to be a shepherd, or a janitor, or just a plain drunkard.”
“What his father was I don’t know and don’t want to know, because to me all people are equal. But he is not an ordinary person, of that I am sure,” she said.
“Well then, what sort of person is he? Let’s hear.”
“If I told you,” she said, “you wouldn’t understand. Chvedka is a second Gorky.”
“A second Gorky? Who then was the first Gorky?”
“Gorky,” she said, “is almost the most important man in the world.”
“Where does he live,” I said, “this sage of yours? What is his occupation, and what words of wisdom has he uttered lately?”
“Gorky is a famous author, a person who writes books, and a dear, rare, honest person who comes from simple people. He never studied anywhere but is self-taught. Here is his portrait.” She removed a small photograph from her pocket.
“So this is your sage Reb Gorky?” I said. “I could swear I’ve seen him somewhere, either at the train station carrying sacks or in the woods hauling logs.”
“Is it a fault in your eyes,” she said, “that a person works with his hands? Don’t you yourself work? And don’t we work?”
“Yes, yes, you’re right. We have a special verse in the Bible: For thou shall eat the labor of thy hands—if you don’t work, you won’t eat. But still and all, I don’t understand what Chvedka is doing here. I would be happier,” I said, “if you knew him from a distance. You mustn’t forget whence you come and whither you go—who you are and who he is.”
“God created all people equal,” she said to me.
“Yes, yes, God created Adam in His own image,” I said. “But you mustn’t forget that everyone must seek his own, as it says, To every man as he is able.”
“Amazing!” she said. “You have a quotation for everything! Maybe you can find one about how people separated themselves into Jews and Gentiles, into masters and slaves, into landowners and beggars?”
“Now, now! I think you’ve gone too far, my daughter!” And I gave her to understand that the world had been that way since the Creation.
“Why should the world be like that?” she asked me.
“Because that’s the way God created it.”
“Why did He create it like that?”
“Eh! If we begin asking questions, why this and why that, it’s a story without an end!” I said.
“That’s why God gave us reason, so we could ask questions.”
“We have a custom that when a hen begins to crow like a rooster, you should take it immediately to the slaughterer. As we say in the prayers: He giveth the rooster knowledge to discern the dawn from the night.”
“Haven’t you two prattled enough?” my Golde called from the house. “The borscht is on the table for an hour, and he’s chanting prayers!”
“Another voice heard from!” I said. “Not for nothing did our sages say, The fool has seven traits—a woman has nine yards of talk. We are talking about serious matters, and along she comes with her dairy borscht!”
“The dairy borscht,” she said, “is as important as all your serious talk.”
“Mazel tov! We have here a new philosopher, fresh from the oven!” I said. “As if I didn’t have enough enlightened daughters, now Tevye’s wife has also started to spread her wings and fly!”
“If that’s the case,” she said, “drop dead!” How’s that for a fine dinner invitation to a hungry man?
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.”