“The driver pulled into Heysen station, climbed out of the engine full of prunes, and headed straight for the buffet as usual. ‘Just a minute, old man,’ he was asked. ‘Where’s the rest of the train?’ ‘What rest of the train?’ he said. ‘Do you mean to say you didn’t notice,’ he was asked, ‘that your engine wasn’t pulling any cars?’ That driver, he just stared at them and said: ‘What do I care about cars? That’s the crew’s job.’ ‘But where’s the crew?’ he was asked. ‘How should I know?’ he answered. ‘The conductor whistles that he’s ready, I whistle back that I am too, and off I go. I don’t have eyes in the back of my head to see what’s following behind me …’ So he said, the driver — there was nothing wrong with his logic. In a word, it was pointless to argue: the Slowpoke had arrived without its passengers like a wedding without its band …
“As we found out later, that train was carrying a merry gang of young bucks, the pick of the crop, each man jack of them, and in full battle gear too, with clubs, and tar, and what-have-you. They were in a gay old mood, don’t you know, and the vodka flowed like water, and when they reached their last station, that is to say, Krishtopovka, they had themselves such a blast that the whole train crew got drunk too, the conductor and the stoker and even the policeman — in consequence of which, one little detail was forgotten: to hitch up the locomotive again. And so, right on schedule, the driver took off in it for Heysen while the rest of the Slowpoke, don’t you know, remained standing on the tracks in Krishtopovka! Better yet, nobody — neither the roughnecks, nor the other passengers, nor even the train crew — noticed what had happened. They were all so busy emptying glasses and killing bottles that the first they knew about it was when the station-master happened to look out the window and see the cars standing by themselves. Did he raise Cain! And when the rest of the station found out, all hell broke loose: the pogromchiks blamed the train crew, and the train crew blamed the pogromchiks, and they went at it hot and heavy until they realized that there was nothing to do but shoulder their legs and tote them all the way to Heysen. What other choice did they have? And that’s exactly what they did: they rallied round the flag and hotfooted it to Heysen, where they arrived safe and sound, don’t you know, singing and yahooing for God and country. Shall I tell you something, though? They got there a little too late. The streets were already patrolled by mounted Cossacks from Tulchin, who clearly had the whip hand — and I do mean whips! It didn’t take those hooligans half an hour to clear out of town down to the last man. They vanished, don’t you know, like a pack of hungry mice, or like snow on a hot summer’s day …
“Well now, suppose you tell me: shouldn’t our Slowpoke be plated with gold, or at least written up in the papers?”
(1909)
THE TALLIS KOTON
“Speaking of the Drozhne fire — would you like to hear a good one about how a skinflint of a Jew, a rich man who would sooner have parted with his life than with a penny’s worth of charity, was made to cough up a hundred rubles for the relief fund?”
The question was put to me one morning by my merchant friend from Heysen, who had finished his breakfast, lit up a cigarette, and extended one to me too. The story he proposed to tell appeared to amuse him greatly, because he burst right out laughing as though he had thought of the funniest thing. In fact, he laughed so hard that I was afraid he would choke. If you don’t let a man get it out of his system all at once, though, he’ll just laugh his way through everything. And so I waited for him to collect himself, let out a few last wheezes, and begin.
“I’ve already described a few local characters for you. Now let me tell you about another. His name is Yoyl Tashker and he’s certainly nothing to look at. You wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for him. A short little, thin little, prim little man with a wisp of a beard, and a walk — why, he scoots down the street as though the Devil himself were after him! And yet he’s a wealthy Jew, don’t you know. Did I say wealthy? The man is a millionaire! That is, I’ve never counted his money. He may really have a million and he may not have half that much. Believe me, though, whatever he has is more than he deserves, because the man is the world’s biggest tightwad. It’s easier to squeeze water from a stone than it is to squeeze a cent out of him. There’s not a beggar in town he ever gave a crumb of bread to. In fact, if someone you’ve given a handout grumbles about the small size of it, the stock answer in Heysen is, ‘Why don’t you try Yoyl Tashker, I’ll bet he’s good for more!’ That’s the kind of rich Jew he is. Please don’t get the impression, though, that the man is a cheat, or a lowlife, or a boor. Far from it. He comes from a good family, he’s an educated fellow, and he couldn’t be any more honest. He goes by the rules in everything and only asks to be left alone: you keep to your side of the fence and I’ll keep to mine … do you get the picture? He’s a moneylender by profession, but he also owns houses and does business with our local gentry. And he’s a fiend for work, don’t you know, twenty-four hours a day; always traveling, always on the go, never eating or sleeping … and quite alone in the world too, without kith or kin, he won’t even hire an assistant. That is, he has children somewhere, but — I’ll be blamed if I know the reason why — he’s cut off every one of them. I’ve heard it said that they’re in America. After the death of his first wife, he simply went and drove them all out. And they say she died of hunger, too! Well, I suppose that’s just gossip … although who knows if there isn’t some truth in it, because the fact is that his second wife didn’t last two weeks with him either. Would you like to know why he divorced her? It was on account of a glass of milk. I swear, as I’m a Jew! He caught her with it one day and said, ‘One way or another, that does it! If you’re drinking milk for your health because you’re consumptive, a fat lot I need you around here. And if you’re drinking it just for the fun of it, the sooner I get rid of a spendthrift like you, the better.’
“I will say one thing for Yoyl Tashker, though (no one is ever all bad): he’s as pious as the day is long. Why, such piety could scare the pants off a preacher! I’m the last person to object to religion in a man: if that’s how he wants to live his life, who am I to tell him otherwise? But that’s not enough for Tashker. No, he wants the whole world to be as religious as he is, he thinks he’s God’s legal executor: a Jew going hatless is a personal insult, a married woman’s hair makes him see red, parents sending a child to a Russian school can expect to catch hell from him, and so on and so forth …
“Well, as fate would have it, this Yoyl Tashker has a tenant living next door to him, a notary public who is not exactly a paragon of devoutness: he goes about shaven and bareheaded, smokes on the Sabbath, and doesn’t miss many other tricks, either. Kompanyevitch is the name: a big, tall, slightly stoop-shouldered, baggy-cheeked fellow with the Devil in his eyes — but a quiet one, don’t you know, the kind that doesn’t flaunt his debauchery. He earns more at the card table than he does at his notary’s desk, and his place is a hangout for all our fine youngsters who enjoy a good game of triumph, a snack of pork sausage, and other such similar pleasures … Well, it’s as I was saying: if you happen to have a neighbor who’s no candidate for sainthood, why let him get under your skin? I’m referring to Yoyl Tashker, of course. This Kompanyevitch wasn’t proposing to his daughter, so why get all worked up over him? But no, it drove Tashker up the wall. How could Kompanyevitch dare put up his samovar on the Sabbath? Where did he get off serving a seven-course meal on a fast day like Tisha b’Av? Who did he think he was, not koshering his dishes for Passover? And so on and so forth: he poured fire and brimstone on him, he called him every name in the book, he went about telling the whole world, ‘Did you ever hear of such nerve in your life? The man pretends to be a Jew and makes tea on the Sabbath like a goy!’ … When Kompanyevitch heard that, don’t you know, he made sure to put up two samovars the next time. Our Yoyl nearly had a heart attack. What a card! He only had to terminate the lease in order to solve the whole problem, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Of all his tenants, he said, only the notary paid his rent on time. Can you beat that?