The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (51 page)

A story: How a Polish regiment had laid down its weapons four times, but then each time began defending itself again as we hacked them down.

Evening, quiet, a discussion with Matyazh, he is boundlessly lazy, indolent, snot-nosed, and somehow pleasantly, affectionately lustful. The terrible truth is that all the soldiers have syphilis. Matyazh is almost cured (with practically no treatment). He had syphilis, got treatment for two weeks, he and a fellow countryman were to pay ten silver kopecks in Stavropol, his fellow countryman died, Misha had it many times, Senechka and Gerasya have syphilis, and they all go with women, and back home they have brides. The soldier’s curse. Russia’s curse—it’s horrifying. They swallow ground crystal, at times they drink

either carbolic acid or crushed glass. All our fighters: velvet caps, rapes, Cossack forelocks, battle, Revolution, and syphilis. The whole of Galicia is infected.

A letter to Zhenya,
²⁹
I long for her and home.

Must keep an eye on the Osobotdel^ and the Revolutionary Tribunal.
³⁰

Will there really be peace talks on the 30th?

An order from Budyonny. WeVe let the enemy escape a fourth time, we had completely surrounded them at Brody.

Describe Matyazh, Misha. The muzhiks, I want to fathom them. We have the power to maneuver, to surround the Poles, but, when it comes down to it, our grip is weak, they can break free, Budyonny is furious, reprimands the division commander. Write the biographies of the division commander, the military commissar, Kniga,^ and so on.

July 29, 1920. Leshniov

In the morning we set out for Leshniov. Again the same landlord as before, black-bearded, legless Froim. During my absence he was robbed of four thousand guldens, they took his boots. His wife, a smooth-tongued bitch, is colder to me, now that she has realized she cant make any money off me, how greedy they are. I talk with her in German. Bad weather begins.

Froim has lame children, there are many of them, I cant tell them apart, he has hidden his cow and his horse.

Galicia is unbearably gloomy, destroyed churches and crucifixes, overcast low-hanging sky, the battered, worthless, insignificant population. Pitiful, inured to the slaughter and the soldiers and the disarray, matronly Russian women in tears, the torn-up roads, stunted crops, no sun, Catholic priests with wide-brimmed hats, without churches. An oppressive anguish emanates from all who are struggling to survive.

Are the Slavs the manure of history?

The day passes full of anxiety. The Poles broke through the Fourteenth Divisions position to the right of where we are, they’ve again occupied Berestechko. No information whatsoever, quite a quadrille, they are moving behind our rear lines.

The mood at headquarters. Konstantin Karlovich
³¹
is silent. The clerks, that band of gorged, impudent, venereal ruffians, are worried. After a hard, monotonous day, a rainy night, mud—Im wearing low shoes. And now a really powerful rain is setting in, the real victor.

We trudge through the mud, a fine, penetrating rain.

Cannon and machine gun fire closer and closer. I have an unbearable urge to sleep. There’s nothing to feed the horses with. I have a new coachman: a Pole, Gowinski, tall, adept, talkative, bustling, and, needless to say, impudent.

Grishchuk is going home, at times he explodes—‘Tm worn out”— he did not manage to learn German because his master had been a severe man, all they did was quarrel, but they never talked.

It also turns out he had starved for seven months, and I didn’t give him enough food.

The Pole: completely barefoot, with haggard lips, blue eyes. Talkative and happy-go-lucky, a defector, he disgusts me.

An insurmountable urge to sleep. It’s dangerous to sleep. I lie there fully clothed. Froim’s two legs are standing on a chair next to me. A little lamp is shining, his black beard, the children are lying on the floor.

I get up ten times—Gowinski and Grishchuk are asleep—anger. I fall asleep around four o’clock, a knock at the door: we must go. Panic, the enemy is right outside the shtetl, machine gun fire, the Poles are getting nearer. Pandemonium. They can’t bring the horses out, they break down the gates, Grishchuk with his repulsive despair, there’s four of us, the horses haven’t been fed, we have to go get the nurse, Grishchuk and Gowinski want to leave her behind, I yell in a voice not my own—the nurse? I’m furious, the nurse is foolish, pretty. We fly up the high road to Brody, I rock and sleep. It’s cold, penetrating wind and rain. We have to keep an eye on the horses, the harness is unreliable, the Pole is singing, I’m shivering with cold, the nurse is chattering away

foolishly. I rock and sleep. A new sensation: I cant keep my eyelids open. Describe the inexpressible urge to sleep.

Again we are fleeing from the Pole. There you have it: the cavalry war. I wake up, we have stopped in front of some white buildings. A village? No, Brody.

July 30, 1920. Brody

A gloomy dawn. I’ve had enough of that nurse. We dropped Grishchuk off somewhere. I wish him good luck.

Where do we go from here?Tiredness is stifling me. Its six o’clock in the morning. We end up with some Galician. The wife is lying on the floor with a newborn baby. He is a quiet little old man, children are lying with his naked wife, there are three or four of them.

There’s some other woman there too. Dust soaked down with rain. The cellar. A crucifix. A painting of the Holy Virgin. The Uniates are really neither one thing nor the other. A strong Catholic influence. Bliss—it is warm, some kind of hot stench from the children, from the women. Silence and dejection. The nurse is sleeping, but I cant, bedbugs. There is no hay, I yell at Gowinski. The landlord doesn’t have any bread, milk.

The town is destroyed, looted. A town of great interest. Polish culture. An old, rich, distinctive, Jewish population. The terrible bazaars, the dwarves in long coats, long coats and peyts> ancient old men. Shkolnaya Street, nine synagogues, everything half destroyed, I take a look at the new synagogue, the architecture [one word illegible, the kondesh/kodesh], the shamas, a bearded, talkative Jew: If only there were peace, then we’d have trade. He talks about the Cossacks’ looting of the town, of the humiliations inflicted by the Poles. A wonderful synagogue, how lucky we are that we at least have some old stones. This is a Jewish town, this is Galicia, describe. Trenches, destroyed factories, the Bristol, waitresses, “Western European” culture, and how greedily we hurl ourselves onto it. Pitiful mirrors, pale Austrian Jews—the owners. And the stories: there had been American dollars here, oranges, cloth.

The high road, barbed wire, cut-down forests, and dejection, boundless dejection. There’s nothing to eat, there’s nothing to hope for,

war, everyones as bad as the next, as strange as the next, hostile, wild, life had been quiet and, most important, full of tradition.

Budyonny fighters in the streets. In the shops nothing but lemon fizz, and also the barbershops have opened. At the bazaar the shrews are only selling carrots, constant rain, ceaseless, penetrating, smothering. Unbearable sorrow, the people and their souls have been killed.

At the headquarters: red trousers, self-assuredness, little souls puffing themselves up, a horde of young people, Jews also among them, they are at the personal disposal of the army commander and are in charge of food.

Mustn’t forget Brody and the pitiful figures, and the barbershop, and the Jews from the world beyond, and the Cossacks in the streets.

It’s a disaster with Gowinski, there’s absolutely no fodder for the horses. The Odessan hotel Galpernia, there is hunger in town, nothing to eat, good tea in the evening, I comfort my landlord, pale and panicky as a mouse. Gowinski found some Poles, he took their army caps, someone helped Gowinski. He is unbearable, doesn’t feed the horses, is wandering about somewhere, is constantly jabbering away, can’t get his hands on anything, is frightened they might arrest him, and they’ve already tried to arrest him, they came to me.

Night in the hotel, next door a married couple and their conversation, and words and [blacked out] coming from the woman’s lips. Oh, you Russians, how disgustingly you spend your nights, and what voices your women have now! I listen with bated breath and feel despondent.

A terrible night in tortured Brody. Must be on the alert. I haul hay for the horses at night. At the headquarters. I can sleep, the enemy is advancing. I went back to my billet, slept deeply with a deadened heart, Gowinski wakes me.

July 31, 1920. Brody, Leshniov

In the morning before we leave, my tachanka is waiting on Zolotaya Street, an hour in a bookstore, a German store. All marvelous uncut books, albums, the West, here it is, the West and chivalrous Poland, a chrestomathy, a history of all the Boleslaws,
³²
and for some reason this seems to me so beautiful: Poland, glittering garments draped over a decrepit body. I rummage like a madman, leaf through books, it is dark, then a horde pours in and rampant pillaging of office supplies begins, repulsive young men from the War Spoils Commission with a supermilitary air. I tear myself away from the bookstore in despair.

Chrestomathies, Tetmajer,
³³
new translations, a heap of new Polish national literature, textbooks.

The headquarters are in Stanislavchik or Koziuzkov. The nurse served with the Cheka, very Russian, tender and shattered beauty. She lived with all the commissars, thats my impression, and suddenly: her album from the Kostroma Gymnasium, the schoolmistresses, idealistic hearts, the Romanoff boarding school, Aunt Manya, skating.

Again Leshniov and my old landlord, terrible dirt, the thin veneer of hospitality and respect for the Russians. Despite my kindness there is an air of unfriendliness emanating from these ruined people.

The horses, there’s nothing to feed them with, they are growing thin, the tachanka is falling apart because of stupid little things, I hate Gowinski, he is such a happy-go-lucky, gluttonous walking disaster. They’re no longer giving me any coffee.

The enemy has circumvented us, pushed us back from the river crossings, ominous rumors about a breach of the Fourteenth Division’s lines, orderlies gallop off. Toward evening—Grzhimalovka (north of Churovitse). A destroyed village, we got oats, ceaseless rain, my shoes can’t make the shortcut to headquarters, a torturing journey, the front line is moving closer to us, I drank some marvelous tea, boiling hot, at first the mistress of the house pretended to be ill, the village has continually been within the range of the battles to secure the crossing. Darkness, anxiety, the Pole is stirring.

Toward evening the division commander came, a marvelous figure of a man, gloves, always out in the front lines, night at the headquarters, Konstantin Karlovich’s work.

August 1, 1920. Grzhimalovka, Leshniov

God, it’s August, soon we shall die, man’s brutality is indestructible. The situation is getting worse at the front. Gunfire right outside the village. They are forcing us back from the crossing. Everyones left, a few staff people have remained, my tachanka is standing by the headquarters, I am listening to the sounds of battle, for some reason I feel good, there are only a few of us, no transport carts, no administrative staff, its peaceful, simple,Timoshenkos* tremendous sangfroid. Kniga is impassive, Timoshenko—if he doesn’t kick them out I’ll shoot him, tell him that from me!—and yet he smiles. In front of us the road bloated by rain, machine guns flare up here and there, the invisible presence of the enemy in this gray and airy sky. The enemy has advanced all the way to the village. We are losing the crossing over the Styr. How many times have we headed back to ill-fated Leshniov?

The division commander is off to the First Brigade. It is terrible in Leshniov, we are stopping for two hours, the administrative staff is fleeing, the enemy wall is rising all around.

The battle near Leshniov. Our infantry is in the trenches, this is amazing: barefoot, semi-idiotic Volhynian fellows—the Russian village, and they are actually fighting the Poles, the Pans^ who oppressed them. Not enough weapons, the cartridges don’t fit, the boys are moping about in the stifling hot trenches, they are moved from one clearing to another. A hut by the clearing, an obliging Galician makes some tea for me, the horses are standing in a little hollow.

I went over to a battery, precise, unhurried, technical work.

Under machine gun fire, bullets shriek, a dreadful sensation, we creep along through the trenches, some Red Army fighter is panicking, and, of course, we are surrounded. Gowinski had gone to the road, wanted to dump the horses, then drove off, I found him at the clearing, my tachanka destroyed, peripeteia, I look for somewhere to sit, the machine-gunners push me away, they are bandaging a wounded young man, his leg is up in the air, he is howling, a friend whose horse was killed is with him, we strap the tachanka together, we drive off, the tachanka is screeching, won’t turn. I have the feeling that Gowinski will be the death of me, that’s fate, his bare stomach, the holes in his shoes, his Jewish nose, and the endless excuses. I move to Mikhail Karlovich’s
³⁴
cart, what a relief,

I doze, its evening, my soul is shaken, transport carts, we come to a halt on the road to Bielavtsy, then go along a road bordered by the forest, evening, cool, high road, sunset, we are rolling toward the front lines, we bring Konstantin Karlovich [Zholnarkevich] some meat.

I am greedy and pitiful. The units in the forest have left, typical picture, the squadron, Bakhturov
³⁵
is reading a report on the Third International, about how people from all over the world came together, a nurses white kerchief is flashing through the trees, what is she doing here? We drive back, what kind of man is Mikhail Karlovich? Gowinski’s run off, no horses. Night, I sleep in the cart next to Mikhail Karlovich. We’re outside Bielavtsy.

Describe the people, the air.

The day has passed, I saw death, white roads, horses between trees, sunrise and sunset. The main thing: Budyonny fighters, horses, troop movements, and war, through the wheat fields walk solemn, barefoot, spectral Galicians.