Your husband,
Menakhem-Mendl
P.S. If you write, do it care of Boiberik, since Jews can’t stay nights in Yehupetz. I spend my days in the Kreshchatik Square market and come back to Boiberik every evening. All the investors live there in dachas and sit around playing cards. (Men and women together — that’s the custom.) The next morning they head for Yehupetz and so do I.
Yours, etc.
To my dear, learned, & illustrious husband Menakhem-Mendl, may your light shine!
First, we’re all well, thank God. I hope to hear no worse from you.
Second, my dear husband, my enemies should have as much strength to go on living as I have to write you this short note. I can hardly get around on my legs and may need an operation. At least that’s what the new doctor says. He should catch all ten of Pharaoh’s plagues! The man thinks he’ll get rich from me. Would you like to know what the trouble is? My blood has bad corpsicles from all the heartache you’ve given me. Who ever heard of such a thing? I send you money to come home to Kasrilevke and you run off with it to Yehupetz! A good-for-nothing like you deserves to be buried alive. You’ve blown your nose all over your face, that’s what my mother would say…. A bonified business! Stockings & bands! And here I was thinking that, after his lordship’s precious Lumdums had gone down the drain, he would give me the pleasure of coming home less dead than alive. But what does my angel of a breadwinner do? He dreams a new dream: Yehupetz. May a black desert swallow it! A Jew like you, selling stockings in the market square! You know what you can do with a business like that! I read your letter, dear husband, and I thought: God in heaven! Either you’ve gone clear out of your mind or else I have. You’re speaking Chinese. Petersburg …Pottyboils …portfolderols …a haunt might be talking from your throat. By day it’s Yehupetz and by night it’s Boiberik, men and women together! What’s going on there? Who do you think you are? Make up your mind! If you don’t want me any more, come home to the rabbi and get a divorce, because if I’m going to be an abandoned wife with a house full of brats, I’d rather you vanished from the face of the earth in America like Yosl Leib-Arons and I never had to hear from you again. My enemies should be as sick as I am! It’s my rotten luck that I’m laid up with my aches and pains and can’t come after you, because I’d take the first coach from Kasrilevke and drag you home by the scruff of your neck. It’s as my mother says, though: if you don’t have a hand, don’t expect to give anyone the finger…. But don’t hold my harsh words against me. It’s just my bad corpsicles. I’ll get over them. A match, says my mother, flares up fast and goes out quickly. I am, from the bottom of my heart,
Your truly faithful wife,
Sheyne-Sheyndl
To my dear, esteemed, & virtuous wife Sheyne-Sheyndl, may you have a long life!
Firstly, rest assured that I am, praise God, in the best of health. God grant that we hear from each other only good and pleasing news, amen.
Secondly, stocks & bonds are not what you think. They come from Petersburg. Putivil, Transport, Volga, Maltzev, etc., are manufacturers. They deal in rolling and floating stock — that is, railroads and 100-ruble shares that go for 300. That’s because of the dividends. The more dividends, the more they’re worth. But since nobody knows how many there’ll be, you buy blind. That’s called a bull market; all the Jews are cashing in on it and so am I. You would not believe, my dear wife, how small-time investors have become millionaires! They live in huge dachas, travel to Europinian spas, drape their women in silks and satins, speak French, play the piano, eat jam, and drink jewlips all day long. Their children have governors and ride icicles. A ruble means nothing to them. They live high and the sky is the limit. And it’s all from stocks & bonds!
You should see Kreshchatik Square. It’s mobbed with Jews. And why shouldn’t it be? We’re chased out of the brokerages and kept off the streets, and as we need to know the latest, it’s sheer bedlam. But I mean bedlam! Today a new issue of Putivil 187’s arrived from Petersburg. Well, who doesn’t want new Putivils? And since Maltzevs, so they say, closed at 1,350, who can resist Maltzevs? Shares are up every day. On my Putivils alone, praise God, I could clear a few hundred rubles. But you can flog me before I’ll sell them. In fact, I’m planning to buy 150 more, 5 Maltzevs, and a couple of Volgas — and some Transports too, if all goes well, because the word from Petersburg is, buy Transports for all you’re worth! The whole world is holding them: Jews, housewives, doctors, teachers, servants, tradesmen — who doesn’t have Transports? When two Jews meet, the first question is: “How are Transports today?” Walk into a restaurant and the owner’s wife asks: “What’s the latest on Transports?” Go buy a box of matches and the grocer has to know if Transports are up or down. In a word, there’s money to be made here. Everyone is investing, growing, getting rich, and so am I. But because I’m in a hurry, I’ll be brief. God willing, I’ll write more in my next letter. Meanwhile, may He grant you health and success. Give everyone my very fondest greetings.
Your husband,
Menakhem-Mendl
P.S. Regarding my nights in Boiberik, I’ve already explained that Yehupetz is off limits without a residence card. As soon as I balance my portfoliage, I’ll see about getting one and becoming a Yehupetzer. Meanwhile it’s best to lay low, for which there’s no better place than Boiberik. It’s full of dachas. The Jews who live in them commute to Yehupetz and so do I. Is everything clear now?
Yours etc.
To my dear, learned, & illustrious husband Menakhem-Mendl, may your light shine!
First, we’re all well, thank God. I hope to hear no worse from you.
Second, we’ve had good and bad luck. Our Moyshe-Hirshele swallowed a kopeck! It was a Friday and I had just returned from the market with a Sabbath fish, a nice, fresh one, still flopping. I step into the house — the boy is crying his head off. He didn’t even stop when I gave him a good smack and then another. Well, I began to scream myself: “You brainless little brat! What’s the matter? You should only have my troubles! Here, here’s a kopeck to play with. I wish it were a bellyache!” It got me down so I hardly could speak.
A few minutes later I remember the kopeck. “Moyshe-Hirshele,” I say, “where’s the kopeck?” “Topet go ’way,” he says, pointing at his mouth. Oh my God, I think: don’t tell me he’s swallowed it! I look in his mouth — it’s not there. I thought I would die. “Moyshe-Hershenyu! My darling! I’d give my life for you! What have you done with that kopeck?” I rocked him, I spanked him, I pinched him black-and-blue, but all he does is keep crying: “Go ’way!” To make a long story short, I took him to the doctor. The doctor told me to feed him potatoes. For two straight days I fed that poor child nothing but potatoes, potatoes, and more potatoes, without even a drop of milk or water. I didn’t think he’d pull through. And then on the third day I pick up a pillow while cleaning and what do you think I find? The kopeck! Those doctors wouldn’t know beans if they saw them.
But after the last straw, there’s always more, as my mother says. Here I am, up to my ears with his lordship’s children, with the doctors, with haunts and hobgoblins in my own home, and Mr. Goldfingers couldn’t care less. He’s off to Odessa, to Yehupetz, to Boiberik! How is that? He’s made a great discovery: stockings & bands! Transports! Portfolderols! He only has to shut and open his eyes and he’s a millionaire! The worst illness, says my mother, is gullibillness. You’re a fool to think your big words impress me. Shares, shmares! I’d rather own a rotten egg. No one ever made money by counting on his fingers. You know what my mother says: invest a fever and you’ll earn consumption. Mark my words, Mendl, all your overnight Yehupetz tycoons will soon by the grace of God be the same beggars they were before. I have as much faith in your Transports and your Shmaltzevs as I had in your Lumdums. Why, I’d sooner believe in black magic than in your portfolderols. I tell you, if a mad dog ate my heart it would go crazy! When I think there are wives in this world who are listened to by their husbands and will know the reason why if they aren’t while I have to treat his lordship with kid gloves because God forbid he should hear a cross word from me! How I’d love once and for all to give you a piece of my mind instead of pretending to smile! “A pinch in the cheek,” my mother says, “makes it rosy.” But what’s a poor woman to do? Burn quietly like a candle, I suppose. Or else be consumed by bad corpsicles. The worst enemies of the Jews should have them in my place! Or better yet, your Yehupetz hot shots. I am, from the bottom of my heart,