Wednesday, April 6, 2022

ONL 1899 - Most of Scene 3 - First Draft

(inside a barn with chickens, cows, and sheep) 

Reuven: You're so fertummelt Levi. 

Levi: But you don't understand how vivid they are. They have to be real! They're as real as you right here!

Reuven: Are the emesdikker real or are they falshen real. 

Levi: Well it's not real the way you and I are, it's like you can see them completely, but you can also see through them.

Reuven: So your mind is falling for your own schvindle?

Levi: It's not a schvindle. 

Reuven: What do you know from schvindles?...

Levi: I know what these malakhim tell me!

Reuven: And what do they tell?

Levi: You obviously wouldn't believe them. 

Reuven: No I wouldn't, but I want to hear them anyway. 

Levi: That this will be the Great Age of our people. That we will all be destroyed, and then we will all be saved.

Reuven: You mean like the coming of Moshiach?

Levi: Ikh veyst nit, they haven't said. I just know that we're about to live through the most important time in thousands of years. 

(five seconds)

Reuven: Feh!

Levi: That's what they said!

Reuven: Levi I'm getting worried. Has anyone ever told you you have a Lokhen Kop?

Levi: You asked so I'm telling you!

Reuven: Just don't you dare tell Tateh this. You used to be such a mensch but you're getting really weird. If he finds out you're meshuggeh it would break his heart. 

(Butchers wife calls from outside the barn)

Butcher's wife: Stop shtupping kibbitzing and get back tzu arbeit!

Both of them: We're working!

Butcher's wife: You're schrecking so much I can hear it from the bodroom! Why's the door to the lull open! Why do the koos not have milk yet! You've only sheared three of the sheep! My husband must be paying you to kibbitz! 

Reuven: Froi Wolf your husband is paying us to do our job right. 

Butcher's wife: What's right about not milkhing der coos by eleven o'clock?!

Reuven: Look at how clean the chickens are. You could eat them now. 

Butcher's wife: Well then stop kibbitzing and get to the coos! Isn't work supposed to set you free! 

Reuven: (joking around) Froi Sarah, when has work ever set anybody free? Especially around here!

Butcher's wife: I dunno, it's a shprikhvort around here. You musta heard it. 

Reuven: Oh we've heard it from our Tateh. 

Levi: Many millions of times we've heard it. 

Reuven: That saying's gotten more people in trouble than Khmielnitsky. 

Levi: Sha! Don't mention his name!

Reuven: Who? The biggest merderer in Jewish history? He's been dead for two and a half centuries, he won't bother us again. 

Levi: Don't ever mention his name! 

Reuven: What, the evil eye again? 

Levi: Do you really wanna tempt it?

Reuven: Wasn't the biggest merderer in Yid history Hadrian. 

Levi: Reuven! (spits three times) Do you have any idea how bad it is to mention their names on the day Maneh's giving birth?

Butcher's wife: Today's the day your Mameh's giving birth! Mazel Tov! Reuven, come inside later I'll send you aheym with a present. 

Reuven: Oh... a... sheynem dank Froi Wolf. 

Butcher's wife: Please though, remember to feed the lamb all that bread. Today's Rosh Hodesh Kislev isn't it?

Levi: That's tomorrow. 

Butcher's wife: Well then we're not slaughtering it for another three and a half weeks, until Rebbe Zilbershtayn to eat on the eighth night of Hanukkah. He's gonna love it! 

Reuven: I'm sure he is Froi Wolf. 

Butcher's wife: You wouldn't believe what that Rebbitzin's done with the Rebbe's heuse. Oy, she's such a balleboos who's always so angry at the Rebbe. 

Reuven: That's what I heard. 

Butcher's wife: I'll tell you more gossip when you come in later. 

Reuven: Em... I'll be sure to Froi Wolf. 

Butcher's wife: Zay gezunt till then?

(she goes back inside) 

Levi: Does she have a... zakh for you? 

Reuven: I dunno... if she does maybe we'll get paid more. 

Levi: She's a khazer. 

Reuven: Levi! Don't talk about the boss's wife like that! Who's tempting the evil eye now?

Levi: I'm just saying, she's a really big and demanding woman. Just be careful. 

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