What are you getting so worked up about, you stubborn madman? I reproached myself. Why are you carrying on? Go, you brute, turn the wagon around and make it up with her! She is your child, not anyone else’s! And all sorts of strange thoughts came to my mind: What did it mean to be a Jew, and what did it mean to be a non-Jew? And why did God create Jews and non-Jews, and why were they so set apart from one another, unable to get along, as if one had been created by God and the other not? To my regret, not being as learned as others in books and religious texts, I could not find an answer to these questions.
To drive away my thoughts, I began to chant the evening prayer, the ashrei: Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house, and they shall continue to praise Thee. And I was chanting the mincha out loud and singing as God had commanded. But praying and chanting were of no use when my heart was singing another tune: “Cha-va! Cha-va! Cha-va!” And the louder I chanted the ashrei, the louder I sang “Chava,” and the more I wanted to forget her, the clearer she stood before my eyes. Over and over I imagined her voice calling to me: “Hear me out, Papa, Papa!” I covered my ears so as not to hear her and shut my eyes so as not to see her as I recited the Eighteen Benedictions. I couldn’t hear my own praying until I beat my breast and I chanted, For we have sinned, ashamnu, but I didn’t know how I had sinned. All I knew was that my life was in turmoil, and I was in turmoil.
I told no one of my seeing Chava, and I spoke to no one of her, and I asked no one about her, although I knew quite well where she was and where he was and what they were doing. But they could croak before I’d let anyone know. My enemies would never live to see me complain. That’s the kind of person Tevye is!
Are all men like that, or am I the only crazy one? For instance, it sometimes happens — you won’t laugh at me? I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me — it sometimes happens that I put on my Shabbes caftan and go to the railway station, planning to get on a train to them, where I know they live. I go up to the ticket window and ask for a ticket. He asks, “Where to?” I tell him, “To Yehupetz.” He says, “There’s no such place.” I say, “That’s not my fault,” and I turn around and go home. I take off the Shabbes caftan and get back to work, to the little dairy and the horse and wagon. As it is written, Man goeth forth unto his work and unto his labor—the tailor to the shears and the cobbler to the last.
Aha, you are laughing at me? What did I tell you? I even know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, That Tevye is really a big imbecile!
And as we say on Shabbes, it’s time to call it a day. Be well and strong and write me letters. But for God’s sake, don’t forget what I asked of you. I mean, don’t make a book out of this, and if it should happen that you do, write like it’s someone else, not me. Forget about me. As it says in the Bible: And he was forgotten—no more Tevye the dairyman!
SHPRINTZE
WRITTEN IN 1907.
I owe you a big, hearty sholem aleichem, Pani Sholem Aleichem, you and your children! It’s been a good long time since we’ve seen each other! My, my, how much water has flowed under the bridge since then, how many troubles both of us and all of Israel have endured in these years — a Kishinev, a constitutzia, more pogroms, more sorrows and disasters — ach, Father of the Universe, God in Heaven! I am simply amazed, forgive me for saying so, but you haven’t changed so much as a hair, kayn eyn horeh, kayn eyn horeh! But look at me: Behold! I am like unto a man of seventy—and I am not yet sixty and see how white Tevye has become! There’s a saying about the heartaches one has from children, and who has had as many heartaches from children as I have? A new catastrophe befell me with my daughter Shprintze, and it outdoes all the other troubles I’ve told you about. But look at me! I am still alive as if nothing had happened. As it is written: Against thy own will, thou livest—even though you fall apart and this song comes to your lips: what worth is life, what worth the world, without luck, without money?
In short, how does the verse go: The Holy One, Blessed be He, wishes to bestow favor—God wanted to do something for His Jews, and so a misfortune befell us, a disaster, a constitutzia! Ay, a constitutzia! Suddenly our rich people panicked and stampeded out of Yehupetz, heading abroad, supposedly to the spas to take the waters, to the mineral baths to calm their nerves — pure nonsense. As soon as they fled Yehupetz, Boiberik, with its fresh air, its pine woods, and its dachas, was in deep trouble. As we say in the morning prayers: Blessed be He who hath mercy upon the earth. What happened to Boiberik? Our mighty God sees to it that His poor people have to struggle on this earth, and so we had quite a summer — ay ay ay! People poured into Boiberik in droves from Odessa, from Rostov, Katerineslav, Mohliv, and Kishenev — thousands of rich folks! Apparently the constitutzia came down harder on them than on us in Yehupetz. That’s why they kept running here. Why were those rich folks running here? Why were our rich folks running there? It has become a custom among us, blessed be His name, that when there is a rumor of a pogrom, Jews run from one city to another, as it says in the verse: And they journeyed and they encamped and they encamped and they journeyed—which means: you come to me, and I’ll go to you.
Meanwhile Boiberik became terribly crowded, packed with men, women, and children. And since children like to eat and they need milk, where do you get milk if not from Tevye? I can tell you, Tevye became all the rage. Wherever you went it was Reb Tevye and again Tevye! Reb Tevye, come here! No, Reb Tevye, come to me! If God wills it, who am I to say no?
And it came to pass—here’s what happened. It was just before Shevuos, and I was delivering dairy to one of my customers, a wealthy young widow from Katerineslav who had arrived in Boiberik for the summer with her son Ahronchik. Naturally I was the first person she became acquainted with in Boiberik.
“You were recommended,” the widow said, “for having the best dairy.”
“How can it be otherwise?” I said to her. “Not for nothing did King Solomon say that a good name is heard like a shofar everywhere, and if you want,” I said, “I will tell you what the commentaries have to say about it.” But she interrupted me and told me she was a widow and was not learned in those matters, didn’t know one commentary from another. The most important thing was for the butter to be fresh and the cheese tasty. Nu, can you talk to a woman?
From then on I came around to the Katerineslaver widow twice a week, every Monday and Thursday, like clockwork, and delivered her small order of dairy without ever asking whether or not she needed it. I became quite friendly with her and naturally looked around at the way she lived, peeked into the kitchen, and a few times said what I thought. The first time, of course, the maid gave me a scolding and told me to stop poking around in other people’s pots. The second time they listened to what I had to say, and the third time the widow asked for my opinion, because she realized who Tevye was. The long and the short of it was that she confided in me her problem, her pain, her sorrow — Ahronchik! This young man of twenty was interested only in horses, bicycles, and fishing, and beyond that he cared for nothing — not for business or for making money. His father had left him a fine inheritance, almost a million, but he didn’t bother to look after it! All he knew, she said, was to spend money with a free hand! “Where is the boy?” I asked. “Just let me at him. I’ll have a talk with him about morals, quote a few verses, and read him a midrash.”