The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine
Page 40
We arrive at the headquarters. Leshniov. The little town half destroyed. The Russians have fouled up the place pretty badly. A Catholic church, a Uniate church, a synagogue, beautiful buildings, miserable life, a few spectral Jews, a revolting landlady, a Galician woman, flies and dirt, a lanky, shy blockhead, second-grade Slavs. Convey the spirit of destroyed Leshniov, its enfeeblement and its depressing, semi-foreign dirt.
I sleep in the threshing shed. A battle is raging at Brody and at the Tsurovitse crossing. Leaflets about Soviet Galicia. Pastors. Night in Leshniov. How unimaginably sad this all is, and these pitiful Galicians gone wild, and the destroyed synagogues, and trickles of life against a backdrop of horrifying events, of which only reflections come through to us.
July 26, 1920. Leshniov
The Ukraine in flames. Wrangel^ has not been annihilated. Makhno26 is launching raids in the districts of Ekaterinoslav and Poltava. New gangs have appeared, a rebellion near Kherson. Why are they rebelling? Is the Communist jacket too short for them?
Whats going on in Odessa? Longing.
Much work, I’m remembering the past. This morning Brody was taken, again the surrounded enemy managed to get out, a sharp order from Budyonny, we’ve let them get away four times now, we are able to shake them loose but we don’t have the strength to hold them.
A meeting in Kozin, Budyonny’s speech: We’ve stopped all maneuvering, from now on frontal attacks, we are losing contact with the enemy, no reconnaissance, no defense, the division commanders shew no initiative, lifeless operations.
I talk with Jews, for the first time uninteresting Jews. Nearby, the destroyed synagogue, a red-haired man from Brody, some countrymen of mine from Odessa.
I move in with a legless Jew, affluence, cleanliness, quiet, marvelous coffee, clean children, the father lost both legs on the Italian Front, new house, they’re still building, the wife has an eye for profit but is decent, polite, a small shady room, I recover from the Galicians.
I am distressed, I must think things through: Galicia, the World War, and my own fate.
Life in our division. About Bakhturov,27 about our division commander, the Cossacks, the marauding, the vanguard’s vanguard. I don’t belong.
In the evening panic: the enemy pushed us back out of Churovitse, they were a verst and a half away from Leshniov. The division commander went galloping off and came galloping back. And our wanderings begin again, another night without sleep, transport carts, enigmatic Grishchuk, the horses walk quietly; cursing, forests, stars, we stop somewhere. Brody at dawn, all this is horrifying: barbed wire everywhere, burned-out chimneys, a bloodless city, drab houses, word has it there are goods to be had, our men won’t hold back, there were factories here, a Russian military cemetery, and, judging by the nameless lonely crosses on the graves, these were Russian soldiers.
The road is completely white, cut-down forests, everything disfigured, Galicians on the road, Austrian uniforms, barefoot with pipes in their mouths, what is in their faces, what mystery of insignificance, commonplaceness, submissiveness.
Radzivillov is worse than Brody, barbed wire on poles, pretty buildings, dawn, pitiful figures, fruit trees plucked bare, bedraggled, yawning Jews, destroyed roads, defiled crucifixes, sterile earth, shattered
Catholic churches, where are their priests, smugglers used to be here, and I can see how life used to be.
Khotin. July 27, 1920
After Radzivillov—endless villages, horsemen charging on, difficult after a sleepless night.
Khotin is the same village where we had been under fire. My quarters are horrifying: abject poverty, bathhouse, flies, an unruffled, gentle, well-built muzhik, a crafty woman, she won t give a thing, I get some lard, potatoes. They live absurdly, wild, the dingy room and the myriad flies, the terrible food, and they dont strive for anything better—and the greed, and the repulsive, immutable way their dwelling is set up, and the hides reeking in the sun, the limitless dirt, exasperate me.
There was a landowner here—Sveshnikov—the factory is destroyed, his manor is destroyed, the majestic skeleton of the factory, a red brick-building, cobbled paths, now no trace of them, the muzhiks indifferent.
Artillery supplies are lagging, Im immersing myself in headquarters work: the vile work of murder. What is to Communisms credit: at least it doesn’t advocate animosity toward the enemy, only toward Polish soldiers.
Prisoners were brought in, a Red Army fighter wounded a perfectly healthy man with two gunshots for no reason whatsoever. The Pole doubles over, moans, they put a pillow under his head.
Zinoviev was killed, a young Communist in red trousers, a rattle in his throat and blue eyelids.
Astonishing rumors are going around—on the 30th, discussions for an armistice will begin.
Night in a reeking hole they call a yard. I can t sleep, its late, I go over to the headquarters, the situation with the crossings is not all that good.
Late night, red flag, silence, Red Army fighters thirsting for women.
July 28, 1920. Khotin
The skirmish for the crossing at Churovitse. The Second Brigade is bleeding to death in Budyonny’s presence. The whole infantry battalion is wounded, almost completely destroyed. The Poles are in old reinforced trenches. Our men weren’t successful. Is the Poles’ resistance growing stronger?
There is no sign of slackening due to the prospect of peace.
I’m staying in a poor hut where a son with a big head plays the violin. I terrorize the mistress of the house, she won’t give me anything. Grishchuk, sullen as a stone, does not take good care of the horses, it turns out he was schooled by hunger.
A ruined estate, Sveshnikov the landowner, the majestic, destroyed distillery (the symbol of the Russian landed gentry?), when the alcohol was handed out all the fighters drank themselves into a stupor.
I am exasperated, I can’t contain my indignation: the dirt, the apathy, the hopelessness of Russian life are unbearable, the Revolution will do some good work here.
The mistress of the house hides the pigs and the cow, talks fast, sugary, and with impotent hatred, is lazy, and I have the impression she is running their household into the ground, her husband believes in a strong government, is charming, gentle, passive, resembles Stroyev.
The village is boring, living here is dreadful. I’m immersing myself in headquarters work. Describe the day, the reverberations of the battle raging only a few versts away from us, the orderlies, Lepin’s28 hand is swollen.
The Red Army fighters sleep with the women.
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 mil
itary 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 Karlovich31 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?