Smile — Perele Damme, divorcee w/ 10,000, seeking educated businessman.
Talne — R. Avremele Fayntig. Widower, Bible-quoting Hasid, seeks widow with business.
Tomeshpol—5 first-time brides, 3 presentable, 2 ugly as sin, seeking doctor w/ furnished apt. or lawyer w/ Yehupetz practice, correspondences mailed.
Tsarytin — rich widower, wholesale fishmonger living in Astrakhan, standard commission +2 first-series lottery tickets. Have asked for 25 R’s for mailing costs and/or stamps.
Vinitse — Khayyim Hekht. Solid income, own droshky, net worth 10,000, plays market like fiddle.
Yampeli — Moyshe-Nisl & Beile-Leah Kimbek. Parvenus, hot for respectable match, will double all offers, prompt payment of commission on wedding night+ tip.
Zhitomir — Shloymi Zalman Todotayke, Esq. 2 never-weds, both attractive, youngest slightly pockmarked, piano, German, French, seek educated men, no need for independent income.
Well, there I was in the carriage with Lebelski’s list, reading it over and over and thinking: God Almighty, how many ways You have made for Jews to make a living! Matchmaking, for example. What could be finer, better, easier, more respectable? What does it take, after all? Nothing but a bit of common sense and enough brains to see who goes with who. Take Avritch, for example. There’s an attractive girl there with 4,000 looking for a young man with a diploma — and Balti has an educated Zionite with a degree in accounting and in need of cash. Anyone can see they’re made for each other. And Talne has a widower seeking a widow with a business — let him get together with Basya Flekl in Khmelnik, who doesn’t mind a poor scholar. Are you with me, my dear wife? If I went into matchmaking, I’d do it my own way. First I’d write every matchmaker in the world. Then I’d draw up a master list and get to work — at first on paper, of course — matching columns. And I’d have partners all over, one in each town, and go fifty-fifty with each. I might even open a central office in Yehupetz or Odessa with clerks to write letters and send telegrams. And I’d be the brains behind it, all the right combinations would be mine!
You can imagine the thoughts that were flying through my head …and who the deuce should sit next to me just then but the hairiest old man you ever saw. He was carrying a bag and puffing like a goose and had the strangest way of talking, all friendly-like but most odd. “Young man,” he says, “is it conceivable that you might possibly make allowances for an old fellow like myself by troubling yourself to move over a bit, so that,” says he, “a Jew like me might have the pleasure of your company?” “Why not?” I say, making room. “Gladly. Where are you from?” “You mean my whences and wherefores?” he replies. “I’m from Koretz. My name is Osher and I’m known as Reb Osher the Matchmaker. With God’s help I have been,” he says, “for quite a while now, that is, believe it or not, for nearly forty years, a matchmaker.” “You don’t say!” I say. “That makes two of us!” “If I rightly follow you,” he says, “it might not be unreasonable to deduce from your learned remarks that you are a matchmaker yourself. In that case, we’re brothers. Howdy-do!” So he says, sticking out a fat, white, hairy hand for me to shake and asking most politely: “And what, if I may have the pleasure of knowing it, did you say your name was?” “It’s Menakhem-Mendl,” I say. “That,” says he, “sounds familiar. I believe I’ve heard it before, although I can’t quite place it. Listen here, Reb Menakhem-Mendclass="underline" I have a proposal to make. Seeing as how the tedium of travel is great, and the Almighty has providentially brought the two of us together, would it not be advisable, inasmuch as we now find ourselves under one roof, so to speak, to put our time to constructive use?” “Well, now,” I say, “what use might that be?” “What would you say,” says he, “to some excellent wine in a shabby bottle?” “Well now,” I say, “what wine and what bottle are those?” “Lend an ear,” says Reb Osher, “and I will parse the matter for you thoroughly. The matter,” he says, “is this. I have in Yarmilinitz a superb piece of goods, the genuine article! Reb Itzikl Tashratz is his name. The man is up to his ears in pedigree. And his wife has even more. The problem is that he wants cash up front. Whatever he gives the young couple to start life with, he wants twice as much from the other side.” “Why” I say, “I’ll be hanged if I don’t have just the thing for you!” And I pull out Leybe Lebelski’s list, show him Yampeli, and say: “Here’s just what you’re looking for. Read it for yourself. ‘Moyshe-Nisl Kimbek, parvenu’—that’s new money. ‘Hot for respectable match’—he’ll do anything. ‘Will double all offers’—he’ll pay twice as much as the other side. Exactly what your man wants!”
Well, Reb Osher thinks it over, sees where Moyshe-Nisl Kimbek promises prompt payment of the commission plus tip, rises from his seat, grabs my hand, and says: “Congratulations, Reb Menakhem-Mendl! We’re in business! If I’m not mistaken,” he says, “I happened to notice that you have in that basket of yours some egg cookies, a package of tea and sugar, and a few other provisions. I don’t suppose it would do any harm to have a snack now. Once we reach Khvostov, God willing, you can look for hot water, because I see you also have a samovar. We’ll have tea at the station, where I have reason to believe it will be possible to purchase some 114-proof vodka. With that in hand,” says he, “we’ll drink a toast on the way to my Yarmilinitz bluebloods and your Yampeli parvenus. This is indeed an auspicious occasion.” “Amen to that!” I say. “May your words go straight to God’s ears. But it’s not quite as simple as all that …” Well, he interrupts me, the matchmaker does, and says: “Hear me out, Reb Menakhem-Mendl! You have yet to learn whom you’re dealing with. I’m not wet behind the ears. I am the internationally famous matchmaker Reb Osher and I am responsible, God be praised, for more marriages in my life than I have hairs on my head. We should both,” says he, “have a ruble for every couple I have seen married and divorced and married a second time and divorced again. One look at your list is all I need to match ’em up. Your Moyshe-Nisl,” he says, “will do just fine. I can smell a rat there for sure. Why else,” he says, “would he be so desperate for a match and fall all over himself to tip us? Oh, there’s a worm here, my friend — a very wormy apple indeed!” “What, then,” I ask, “shall we do?” “What we shall do,” he says, “is very simple. We shall go our separate ways at once. I,” he says, “to Yarmilinitz and my Reb Itzikl Tashratz, and you to Yampeli and your Moyshe-Nisl Kimbek. We have our work cut out for us. Yours will be to squeeze all you can from your wormy apple and mine will be to hold my Tashratz to his word. A Jew selling pedigree can drive a hard bargain.”
And so you see, my dear wife, how what began as a joke, a mere lark, turned into a serious venture. Between one thing and another we reached Khvostov, where we had tea and a bite to eat and sat down to talk in earnest. To tell the truth, I was beginning to feel a little queasy. Since when was I a matchmaker? And what was I doing with another man’s lists? You might even say I had stolen them. How was it any different from finding a wallet with someone’s money? And yet on the other hand, why blow it up out of all proportion? If anything came of it in the end, Lebelski and I would split the take. I wasn’t a stick-up man robbing strangers.
In a word, I overcame my doubts and we parted, Reb Osher for Yarmilinitz and I for Yampeli. As soon as I arrived there, we had decided, I would poke around to find out what made Moyshe-Nisl Kimbek so eager for a match. If he and his family made a good impression, I would cable Yarmilinitz to arrange a meeting. Let the boy and girl hit it off and we could break out the champagne! “The main thing, Reb Menakhem-Mendl,” says Reb Osher, “is not to stint on telegrams. In matchmaking, you should know, telegrams are half the battle. Parents go wild over them.”