A commission is the trader’s percentage. A more painless way to make a kopeck has yet to be devised. Just yesterday I earned 50 rubles — so help the two of us if I know what it was for. I also sold 300 tons of sugar as easily as smoking a cigar. That is, the sugar wasn’t mine, but I got into the act, which was good for 50 more. With God’s help, I’ll be back on my feet in half a year, because money is everything in Yehupetz. A man is trash without it. No one cares where you come from. You can be any joker in the deck as long as you have cash. But being 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 my fond greetings to your parents and the children, each and every one of them.
Your husband,
Menakhem-Mendl
P.S. Please write me all the news, and if there’s been rain, and how the beet crop is doing, and whether there are field pests. I need to know as soon as possible!
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, I’m writing you, my sweetheart, to wish a cruel death to all my enemies. You fiend, you murderer, you wicked man! As if you didn’t know your wife was lying on her deathbed after being operated on by our wonderful doctor for her corpsicles, may they be poison in the blood of your Yehupetz ladies! I can hardly stand on my feet and your children have come down with every illness there is — their teeth, their throats, their stomachs, the whooping cough, diphtheria, all kinds of horrors I could wish on more deserving people. And you sit in Yehupetz without a word! There’s no excuse. If you’re dead, the least you could do is let me know, and if you’re alive, all the more reason to write.
But go argue with an imbecile! “A drunk grows sober before a fool grows wise,” says my mother, more health to her. Just imagine what we’ve come to when Boruch-Hirsh and Leah-Dvosi’s Sheyne-Sheyndl has to have a trader for a husband! But I suppose it’s worth being anything to live in Yehupetz — a bagel vendor, a dog trainer, even a trader. You write that you’ve made fifty rubles in your fine new business and hope to make as much each day. As if every day were payday! Have you forgotten your Odessa Lumdums, and your Pottyboils and your Lilyfoots, and all your golden opportunities that are ashes in my mouth? Your eyes, you dunce, will fall from your head fifty times before you see fifty rubles again! I don’t believe one bit in your Yehupetz windfalls, which start with a bang and end with a lot of hot air.
And as for your having your wits about you, permit me my doubts. What are you asking about rain for? Did you expect it to snow in midsummer? And what does a man like you care about beets? Now is the time for sorrel borscht. There won’t be beets before autumn. We have enough pests in the form of bedbugs without your becoming one too. Isn’t there enough to occupy you in Yehupetz, with all the sugar and rubles coming your way?
But it’s as my mother, bless her, says: When a madman breaks a window, it’s never his own…. Listen to me, Mendclass="underline" put aside your foolishness, and if you still have those fifty rubles, come on home. If you don’t, I’ll send you carfare. Keep in mind that you have a wife and little children who await you every day. It’s time I stopped being the talk of the town and my cheeks no longer burned with shame.
I am, from the bottom of my heart,
Your truly faithful wife,
Sheyne-Sheyndl
If people interested you half as much as beets, I suppose you’d ask about them. But what’s it to you if my mother has broken off my little sister’s engagement? I suppose you think it was over money. Well, money had nothing to do with it. It started when my sister’s fiancé came for a Sabbath meal. He and my mother began to quarrel, and his father being a butcher, she said you can’t expect veal from an ox. One thing led to another and the blamed fellow went home and tore up the engagement contract. It’s the third time poor Nekhameh-Breindl hasn’t made it to her own wedding.
To my wise, esteemed, & virtuous wife Sheyne-Sheyndl, may you have a long life!
Firstly, rest assured that I am, praise God, in the best of health. May God grant that we hear from each other only good and pleasing news, amen.
Secondly, you misconstrued what I wrote. My having given up investing for commodities is no reason to worry, because it’s all for the best. I’m not the only trader in Yehupetz. We have, I don’t mind telling you, a whole slew of them. There are sugar traders, and bond traders, and wheat traders, and money traders, and property traders, and lumber traders, and diamond traders, and manufacturing traders, and freight traders, and whatever else your heart desires. Nothing gets done without a trader — in fact without two, since someone with a seller needs someone with a buyer. Moreover, it’s not uncommon for a few more traders to come along for the ride. They split the commission, and if they can’t agree on it, they either ask an outsider to decide or resort to the tried-and-true Odessa method of pugilistic arbitration.
Now you know what a trader is. And the biggest traders of all are the sugar traders, since all the sugar passes through their hands. They’re rich as the devil, ride around in carriages, live in dachas in Boiberik, play cards all day long, and have courtasins and conquerbines. In a word, commodities are the best business because you needn’t invest a cent. It’s all off the top. If you and I strike a deal, the two of us make a pretty penny, and if we don’t, it’s off to bed for us both without our supper. Of course, you’re quite right: 50 rubles don’t come along every day. In fact, my first transaction was my last one and the 50 smackers didn’t last long, since I have so many debts that I don’t even own the hairs on my head. In the end I was left with a bit of change that I gave to charity and I’m now out of pocket again.
Never mind, though! With God’s help I hope to have a business going soon, at which time I’ll send you a money order. And regarding your question about rain, it’s really quite simple. Sugar, as you know, is made from beets, and beets can’t grow without rain. If God is good it will be a rainless summer and pests will eat all the beets. That means there’ll be no sugar, or rather, sugar will be worth its weight in gold. The speculators will make a killing, the traders will get their commissions, and so will I. But as I’m busy and 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 the children my greetings, each and every one of them.
Your husband,
Menakhem-Mendl
P.S. As for your sister, if she isn’t engaged again, I have just the man for her. He’s a rare find, a Yehupetzer and still a bachelor, although not as young as all that. In fact he’s a graybeard and getting on in years. I can’t say he’s rich, either. But he has a good job — that is, he’s in sugar. It’s the perfect match, in my opinion, because he’s a very quiet fellow. If the notion takes your fancy, send me a telegram or post card and I’ll come out with him.
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, may all the bad dreams I dreamed last night, and the night before that, and every night of the year before that, come true for my enemies. Happy times are here again! If it doesn’t rain there won’t be beets, and if there are no beets there won’t be sugar, and if there is no sugar you may actually make some money. Talk about skinning the bear before it’s shot! Suppose I tell you, Mendl, that it has been raining cats and dogs, and that beets are growing like nobody’s business, and that there isn’t a pest in sight besides bedbugs and cockroaches. What would you say to that? I swear to God, I knew all along that nothing would remain of those fifty blasted rubles. Why remember you have a wife who may live to see you again when you can give all you have to charity? A year’s worth of heartburn I would have given! A fine lot of charity you’d get if ever you went knocking on Yehupetz’s doors. “Families,” says my mother, “have brothers. Pockets don’t.”