Do you remember that my youngest daughter Beilke struck it rich when she landed Podhotsur, the big-shot contractor who made a fortune from the war? He’d returned to Yehupetz lugging back sacks full of money and fell in love with my daughter because he wanted a beautiful bride. And he sent Ephraim the matchmaker to me, cursed be his name, who made the match. Podhotsur proposed on bended knee and took her poor as she was, showered her from head to toe with gifts, jewels, gold, and diamonds. Sounds good, eh? Well, from all that good luck nothing is left, but nothing, nothing but mud. God protect us, because if God so wills it, the wheel turns, and everything falls upside down. As we say in the Halleclass="underline" first it’s He who raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and before you know it, it’s gone and He angrily looketh down low upon heaven and upon the earth. God loves to toy with human beings, how He loves it! He has toyed with Tevye time and time again—ascending and descending—first up, then down!
That is how it was with my contractor, Podhotsur. Do you remember his mansion in Yehupetz with the thirteen servants, the mirrors and the clocks and the fancy ornaments? Piff-poff! I talked to Beilke, begged her to make sure he bought the house and registered it in her name. Well, they heard me as much as Haman heard the Purim noisemakers — what does a father know? A father knows nothing! What do you think happened? You would wish it on your worst enemy. In the end, besides losing everything, Podhotsur went bankrupt, had to sell all he had — the mirrors and clocks and his wife’s jewelry. He had to flee his creditors at great risk to himself and become a fugitive, may it not happen to any Jew, and escape to where the beloved Holy Shabbes goes west — to America. That’s where unhappy souls go, and that’s where Beilke and Podhotsur also went.
At first it was terribly difficult for them. Whatever little money they had was eaten up, and when they had no food left, the poor things had to take work, backbreaking labor, like the Jews in Egypt. Now she writes that it’s not so bad, praise God. They have jobs in a stocking factory and are “making a living.” That’s what they call it in America. In our language it’s called “scraping for a piece of bread.” But they feel lucky; they are just the two of them, with no children to feed. And so it is for the best!
Nu, I ask you, shouldn’t an evil spirit possess that Ephraim the matchmaker for making that fine match he finagled me into and for the mire he led me into? Would it have been so awful for her to have married a workingman, as Tzeitl did, or a teacher, as Hodl did? Ay, those two weren’t so lucky either. One is a young widow, and the other is in exile God knows where. But that is all God’s doing — how can a man be prepared for that? To tell the truth, my wife Golde, God rest her soul, was the wisest one of all, if only because she saw what was going on around her, said goodbye to this foolish world, and left it. Tell me yourself — rather than suffering because of daughters, as Tevye has, is it not a thousand times better to lie in the ground and bake bagels? How did our rabbis say: Regardless of thy will thou livest — man does not take his fate into his own hands, and if he does he gets his knuckles rapped.
Let us, as you say in your books, leave the hero and get back to the heroine. Where were we? Yes, at the passage in Get Thee Gone. But before we get to that, I beg you to be so kind as to stop for a while at the section about the Amalekites in the Book of Exodus. Since the world began, it has always been the custom to study Get Thee Gone first and then Exodus. But with me it is the other way around — first study the Amalekites and then Get Thee Gone. I was taught a real lesson from that book. You might want to hear this — it might come in handy someday.
Long ago, right after the Japanese war, during the struggle over the constitution, all kinds of salvations and consolations were being visited on the Jews, first in the big cities, afterward in the small towns. But they never reached me, and I thought they never would. Why not? That’s easy to answer: after living for so many years among Gentiles, real peasants, I was on friendly terms with everyone in the village. Uncle Tevel was held in the highest esteem! Did you need advice? Go to Uncle Tevel. Did you need a cure for the fever? Go to Tevel’ye. How’s about a little loan? Also go to Uncle Tevel. Did I need to worry about such things as pogroms, when the peasants had told me many times that I had nothing to fear? They wouldn’t allow it! And so it was — but listen to this.
One day I arrived home from Boiberik. I was still going strong at the time, doing very well, selling dairy, cheese, butter, and vegetables. I unhitched the horse and tossed him some hay and oats. As I was about to wash up before eating, I suddenly noticed a crowd of goyim, the entire village, outside my door, including the elders, from Ivan Poperilo the mayor down to the last goy, Trochim the shepherd. All of them looked very strange to me, all dressed up in their holiday best. At first my heart thudded: what kind of holiday was this, all of a sudden? They hadn’t come to study Torah with me! But I pulled myself together: Nonsense, Tevye! You should be ashamed of yourself. All these years you’ve lived here as a Jew in peace and tranquillity among so many Gentiles, and no one has ever touched so much as a hair on your head.
So I went out and greeted them with a hearty sholem aleichem. “Welcome,” I said. “What are you doing here, my dear neighbors? What good news do you bring?”
The mayor, Ivan Poperilo, stepped forward and said without any preliminaries, “We have come here, Tevel, to beat you up.”
What do you say to that? What more did they have in mind? But show them my feelings — never! On the contrary! Tevye is not a little boy. So I said to them cheerfully, “Mazel tov to you, but why did it take you so long to get around to it? In other places they’ve almost forgotten about beatings!”
Then Ivan Poperilo the mayor said, rather seriously, “You must understand, Tevel, that we have been arguing over whether we should beat you up or not. Since everywhere else people are getting beaten up, why should we let you get away without it? So the village council has decided we should beat you up. But we don’t know what else to do with you, Tevel. Should we knock out your windows and rip up your feather beds and pillows, or should we burn down your house and barn?”
Now that really began to upset me. My guests leaned on their tall staffs and whispered to one another, looking as if they meant business. If they did, I thought, then as we say in the Psalms, The flood waters are rising up to my very soul. Tevye, you are in deep trouble! Eh, with the Angel of Death you don’t play games — I had to say something to them.