Secondly, my woodland has turned out to be a wilderness. There wasn’t a tree in it, let alone a forest or a river. It was all one big waste of time, a lot of worn shoe leather! I now see, my dear wife, that lumber is not for me. I’m not made for dealing with liars. They’ll sell you castles in the air and stick you six feet in the ground.
What am I doing now? I’m in a new business — sugar mills. That’s something you can’t beat nowadays. Jews are buying sugar mills and the agents are cleaning up. There’s a fellow from Belaya Tserkov who goes every week to Radomishl, sells the Jews there two or three mills, and is back home in time for the Sabbath with 10 or 15,000 rubles in his wallet! What more could you want? Ordinary servants, ex — household help, are dealing in mills. They walk around with gold watches, speak German, send their wives to the best spas, take pills for their livers, and carry on like bluebloods! In a word, sugar mills are the only game in Yehupetz. The whole world is into them and so am I.
You must be wondering how I became involved with a business about which I didn’t know a blessed thing, even though it’s quite elementary. Listen to how God works. A while back I stopped going to Semadenni’s (and not, as you call him, Sima-Dina — he’s a man, not a woman, and a nasty one!). It wasn’t because we had quarreled but because I was tired of all that coffee and pastry. Besides, I had run out of money. And so I hung out in the street like the other Jews and one thing led to another until I met a mill agent, a fine fellow who knows the business inside out. There’s no one in sugar, he says, not even Brodsky, in whose home he doesn’t come and go. “Where,” he asks me, “do you come from?” “From Kasrilevke,” I say. “That is, I’m originally from Yampol and I’m registered in Mazepevke, but I have a wife in Kasrilevke and do business in Yehupetz.” “So tell me,” he asks, “this Kasrilevke of yours — is it a town or a village?” “A town?” I say. “Kasrilevke is a regular city.” “And a Jew can live there?” he asks. Honestly, what a question! “And a river,” he asks, “do you have a river?” “Do we have a river!” I say. “The Shtinkeylo flows right through the place.” “And a railroad?” he asks. “How far is the nearest railroad?” “The nearest railroad,” I say, “is no more than seventy versts off. But tell me, what makes you ask?” “First,” he says, “give me your hand and promise to keep this a secret. I tell you, Reb Menakhem-Mendl, we’re about to make a barrel of money! I just had an idea that comes to a man once in a hundred years. You see, everyone is out to buy a sugar mill these days but there aren’t any mills left. Those Radomishl Jews have bought them all and no one is selling. The latest thing is to build them from scratch — and since Jews are barred from the villages, everyone is looking for a town. You can see for yourself,” he says, “that God created Kasrilevke to have a sugar mill — and as I live and breathe, I have the man to build it, an investor with half a million rubles. The problem is finding a site. Do you know anyone in Kasrilevke who can tell us if there’s enough beets and room for a mill?” “Do I?” I say. “You bet I do! My whole family lives there — my wife, my children, and my in-laws. I’ll write at once. You’ll have a thoroughly thorough answer in a jiffy!”
And so, my dear wife, please talk to old Azriel and Moyshe the redhead, since they pal around with Russian gentry. Find out how many beets we can count on and what they’ll cost and write me back at once, because it’s urgent. We can make a tidy sum from this, a good 10 or 15,000. But being 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 my fondest greetings to everyone.
Your husband,
Menakhem-Mendl
P.S. I asked my new partner who his investor is and was told it was a Jew from Radomishl. He’s all fired up to make the deal because the Radomishl Jews are big on sugar mills. He’s even willing to buy an old windmill, he says, as long as it has a chimney that works. I pray to God it’s as good as it sounds and we’ll make some money from it, even though there are quite a few partners — it’s beginning to look like close to a dozen. But I hope this is the real thing at last. You know I put no stock in get-rich-quick schemes.
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 must have read your song-and-dance a dozen times and I still don’t know what you want. Is there room in Kasrilevke? There’s enough room in our new cemetery alone to bury half of Yehupetz. And what is this river you talk about? I hope you and your partners have more luck than we have water in our river. By Passover time we’re drinking tadpoles and in summer it’s as grassy as a lawn. Let your Yehupetz bluebeards take a sip of it in the month of Tammuz and they’ll need their liver pills indeed.
No, Mendl, let their livers rot in Yehupetz and we’ll get along without their sugar mills here. “Passover cleaning,” my mother says, “comes and goes, but the house remains the same house.” Get all that claptrap out of your head. You’ll sell as many mills as you’ve sold forests, country property, Yehupetz real estate, and sugar. I promise you that your partners will clean you out before you know it, because you were born a sucker and a sucker you’ll always be. I wish you all the best,
Your truly faithful wife,
Sheyne-Sheyndl
One more thing, Mendl. What’s this we hear about registering in Yehupetz to go to the Land of Israel? A forty-kopeck subscription, we’re told, will get you there. What’s the lowdown? Here in Kasrilevke it’s all anyone talks about. The young folk sit up discussing it all night at Yosl Moyshe-Yosi’s. In short, things are going from bad to worse. But if you want peace and quiet, my mother says, you should look for it in the grave …
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. God grant that we hear from each other only good and pleasing news, amen.
Secondly, sugar mills are in a slump. It’s sellers only. Money is so dear and sugar is so cheap that you can’t give the stuff away. The business is kaput. The millers are fighting to stay alive. The investors are gone, the agents are out of work, and so am I.
I suppose you think I’m in a bad way. Never fear, my dear wife. God’s in His heaven and Yehupetz is still around, too. You can trust me to land on my feet. In fact, I have reason to believe that I’m about to hit the jackpot, since my latest line promises a return of 100,000 to one. I’m talking ten million rubles, maybe more — the sky is the limit! That’s because gold, they say, will soon hit record highs. Well, then, I ask you: what about silver? What about iron? What about copper, tin, quicksilver? I’m not even talking coal and precious stones. There are tracts of land sitting on fortunes — why, you can pick up a gold mine, I’m told, for as little as three-million-five. They’re practically free! They’re just a bit far away. They’re beyond the Uropal Mountains and it takes three weeks to reach them because there aren’t any trains.
Whom can I interest in such a proposition? Brodsky, of course! The problem is getting to see him. To begin with, he has a doorman with gold buttons who looks you up and down: let him see a frayed coat and you’ll never cross the threshold. And if you’re lucky enough to get past the doorman, you can cool your heels on the stairs for hours, hoping to be let into Brodsky’s office, only to see him fly by like the wind to his carriage just as your turn is next. Go do something about it! It’s only polite to come back and try again the next day …and the next day the same thing happens. You have to hand it to him: he’s a busy man!