The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine
Page 44
Lepin is dirty, dim-witted, touchy, incomprehensible.
Handsome Bazkunov’s long, endless tale, a father, Nizhny-Novgorod, head of a chemistry department, Red Army, prisoner under Denikin, the biography of a Russian youth, his father a merchant, an inventor, dealt with Moscow restaurants. Chatted with him during the whole trip. We are heading for Milatin, plums along the road. In St[ary] Milatin there is a church, the priest’s house, the priest lives in a luxurious house, unforgettable, he keeps squeezing my hand, sets off to bury a dead Pole, sits down with us, asks whether our commander is a good man, a typical Jesuitical face, shaven, gray eyes dart around—a pleasure to behold—a crying Polish woman, his niece, begging that her heifer be returned to her, tears and a coquettish smile, all very Polish. Mustn’t forget the house, knickknacks, pleasant darkness, Jesuitical, Catholic culture, clean women, and the most aromatic and agitated Pater; opposite him a monastery. I want to stay here. We wait for the order for where we are to stay—in Stary Milatin or in Novy Milatin. Night. Panic. Some transport carts, the Poles have broken through somewhere, pandemonium on the road, three rows of transport carts,
I’m in the Milatin schoolhouse, two beautiful old maids, it’s frightening how much they remind me of the Shapiro sisters from Nikolayev, two quiet, educated Galician women, patriots, their own culture, bedroom, possibly curlers, in thundering, war-torn Milatin, outside these walls transport carts, cannons, fatherly commanders telling tales of their heroic feats, clouds of orange dust, the monastery is enveloped by them. The sisters offer me cigarettes, they breathe in my words of how everything will be marvelous—it’s like balm, they have blossomed out, and we speak elegantly about culture.
A knock at the door. The commandant wants me. A fright. We ride over to Novy Milatin. N. Milatin. With the military commissar in the almshouse, some sort of town house, sheds, night, vaults, the priests maid, dark, dirty, myriads of flies, tiredness beyond compare, the tiredness of the front.
Daybreak, we depart, the railroad has to be breached (this all takes place on August 17), the Brody-Lvov railroad.
My first battle, I saw the attack, they gather in the bushes, the brigade commanders ride up to Apanasenko—careful Kniga,10 allysly-ness, rides up, talks up a storm, they point to the hills, there beneath the forest, there over the hollow, they’ve spotted the enemy, the regiments ride to attack, sabers in the sun, pale commanders, Apanasenko’s hard legs, hurrah.
What happened? A field, dust, the staff in the plains, Apanasenko curses in a frenzy, brigade commander—destroy those bastards, f—ing bandits.
The mood before the battle, hunger, heat, they gallop in attack, nurses.
A thunder of hurrahs, the Poles are crushed, we ride out onto the battlefield, a little Pole with polished nails is rubbing his pink, sparsely haired head, answers evasively, prevaricating, hemming and hawing, well, yes, Sheko,^ roused and pale, answer, who are you—I’m, he ducks the question, a sort of ensign, we ride off, they take him, a good-looking fellow behind him loads his gun, I shout—“Yakov Vasilevich [Sheko]!” He acts like he didn’t hear, rides on, a shot, the little Pole in
his underwear falls on his face and twitches. Life is disgusting, murderers, its unbearable, baseness and crime.
They are rounding up the prisoners, undressing them, a strange picture—they undress incredibly fast, shake their heads, all this in the sun, mild embarrassment, all the command personnel is there, embarrassment, but who cares, so cover your eyes. I will never forget that “sort of” ensign who was treacherously murdered.
Ahead—terrible things. We crossed the railroad tracks by Zadvurdze. The Poles are fighting their way along the railroad tracks to Lvov. An attack in the evening at the farm. Carnage. The military commissar and I ride along the tracks, begging the men not to butcher the prisoners, Apanasenko* washes his hands of it. Sheko s tongue ran away with him: “Butcher them all!” It played a horrifying role. I didnt look into their faces, they impaled them, shot them, corpses covered with bodies, one they undress, another they shoot, moans, yells, wheezing, our squadron led the attack, Apanasenko stands to the side, the squadron has dressed up, Matusevichs horse was killed, his face frightening, dirty, he is running, looking for a horse. This is hell. How we bring freedom—terrible. They search a farm, men are dragged out, Apanasenko: Dont waste bullets, butcher them. Apanasenko always says—butcher the nurse, butcher the Poles.
We spend the night in Zadvurdze, bad quarters, I’m with Sheko, good food, ceaseless skirmishes, Im living a soldiers life, completely worn out, we are waiting in the forest, nothing to eat all day, Sheko’s carriage arrives, brings something, I’m often at the observation point, the work of the batteries, the clearings, hollows, the machine guns are mowing, the Poles are mainly defending themselves with airplanes, they are becoming a menace, describe the air attacks, the faraway and seemingly slow hammering of the machine guns, panic in the transport carts, its harrowing, they are incessantly gliding over us, we hide from them. A new use of aviation, I think of Mosher, Captain Fauntleroy in Lvov, our wanderings from one brigade to the next, Kniga only likes bypass maneuvers, Kolesnikov^ frontal attacks, I ride with Sheko on reconnaissance, endless forests, deadly danger, on the hills, bullets are buzzing all around before the attack, the pitiful face of Sukhorukov
*The commander of the Sixth Cavalry Division.
t Actually Nikolai Petrovich Kolesov, commander of the Third Brigade.
with his saber, I tag along behind the staff, we await reports, but they advancing, doing bypass maneuvers.
The battle for Barshchovitse. After a day of fluctuations, Polish columns manage in the evening to break through to Lvov. When Apanasenko saw this, he went mad, he is shaking, the brigades are going full force even though they are dealing with a retreating enemy, and the brigades stretch out in endless ribbons, three cavalry brigades are hurled into the attack, Apanasenko is triumphant, snorts, sends out Litovchenko as the new commander of the Third Brigade to replace Kolesnikov, who’s been wounded, you see them, there they are, go finish them off, they re running. He meddles in the artillery action, interferes with the orders of the battery commanders, feverish, they were hoping to repeat what had happened at Zadvurdze, but it wasnt to be. Swamps on one side, ruinous fire on the other. March to Ostrov, the Sixth Cavalry Division is supposed to take Lvov from the southeast.
Gigantic losses among the command personnel: Korotchayev, heavily wounded, his adjutant, a Jew, was killed, the commander of the Thirty-fourth Regiment wounded, all the commissars of the Thirty-first Regiment out of action, all the chiefs of staff wounded, above all Budyonnys commanders.
The wounded crawl onto tachankas. This is how we re going to take Lvov, the reports to the army commander are written in the grass, brigades gallop, orders in the night, again forests, bullets buzz, artillery fire chases us from one place to another, miserable fear of airplanes, get down off your horse, a bomb’s about to explode, there’s a revolting sensation in your mouth. Nothing to feed the horses with.
I see now what a horse means to a Cossack and a cavalryman.
Unhorsed cavalrymen on the hot dusty roads, their saddles in their arms, they sleep like corpses on other men’s carts, horses are rotting all around, all that’s talked about is horses, the customs of barter, the excitement, horses are martyrs, horses are sufferers—their saga, I myself have been gripped by this feeling, every march is an agony for the horse.
Apanasenko’s visits to Budyonny with his retinue. Budyonny and Voroshilov at a farm, they sit at a table. Apanasenko’s report, standing at attention. The failure of the special regiment: they had planned an attack on Lvov, set out, the special regiment’s sentry post was, as always, asleep, it was taken down, the Poles rolled their machine guns within a
hundred paces, rounded up the horses, wounded half the regiment.
The Day of the Transfiguration of Our Savior Jesus Christ—19 August—in Barshchovitse, a butchered, but still breathing, village, peace, a meadow, a flock of geese (we deal
t with them later—Sidorenko or Yegor chopped up the geese on a block with their sabers), we eat boiled goose. That day, white as they were, they beautified the village, on the green meadows the villagers, festive but feeble, spectral, barely able to crawl out of their hovels, silent, strange, dazed, and completely cowed.
There is something quiet and oppressive about this holiday.
The Uniate priest in Barshchovitse. A ruined, defiled garden, Budyonny’s headquarters had been here, and smashed, smoked-out beehives, this is a terrible, barbaric custom—I remember the broken frames, thousands of bees buzzing and fighting by the destroyed hives, their panicking swarms.
The priest explains to me the difference between the Uniate and the Russian Orthodox faith. Sheptitsky is a tall man, he wears a canvas cassock. A plump man, a dark, chubby face, shaved cheeks, sparkling little eyes with a sty.
The advance on Lvov. The batteries are drawing nearer and nearer. A rather unsuccessful skirmish by Ostrov, but still the Poles withdraw. Information on Lvovs defenses—schoolmasters, women, adolescents. Apanasenko will butcher them—he hates the intelligentsia, with him its deep-rooted, he wants an aristocracy on his own terms, a muzhik and Cossack state.
August 21, a week of battle has passed, our units are four versts outside Lvov.
An order: the whole Red Cavalry is being put under the command of the Western Front.* They are moving us north to Lublin. There will be an attack there. They are withdrawing the army, now four versts from the town, even though it took so much time for them to get there. The Fourteenth Army will replace us. What is this? Madness, or the impossibility of a town being taken by the cavalry? I will remember the forty-five-verst ride from Barshchovitse to Adamy for the rest of my life. I on my little piebald horse, Sheko^ in his carriage, heat and dust,
the dust of the Apocalypse, stifling clouds, endless lines of transport carts, all the brigades are on the move, clouds of dust from which there is no escape, one is afraid of suffocating, shouting all around, movement, I ride with a squadron over fields, we lose Sheko, the most horrendous part of it begins, the ride on my little horse which cant keep up, we ride endlessly and always at a trot, I am completely exhausted, the squadron wants to overtake the transport carts, we overtake them, I am afraid of being left behind, my horse is drifting along like a bit of fluff, to the point of inertia, all the brigades are on the move, all the artillery, they Ve each left one regiment behind as a covering force, and these regiments are to reunite with the division at the onset of darkness. In the night we ride through silent, dead Busk. What is special about Galician towns? The mixture of the dirty, ponderous East (Byzantium and the Jews) with the beer-drinking German West. Fifteen km. from Busk. I cant hold out anymore. I change my horse. It turns out that there is no covering on the saddle. Riding is torture. I keep constantly changing position. A rest stop in Kozlov. A dark hut, bread with milk. A peasant, a warm and pleasant person, was a prisoner of war in Odessa, I lie on the bench, mustn’t fall asleep, I’m wearing another man’s service jacket, the horses in the dark, it’s stuffy in the hut, children on the floor. We arrived in Adamy at four in the morning. Sheko is asleep. I leave my horse somewhere, there is hay, and I lie down to sleep.
August 21, 1920. Adamy
Frightened Ruthenians. Sun. Nice. I’m ill. Rest. The whole day in the threshing shed. I sleep, feel better toward evening, my head pounds, aches. I’m billeted with Sheko. Yegor, the chief of staff’s lackey. We eat well. How we get our food. Vorobyov took over the Second Squadron. The soldiers are pleased. In Poland, where we are heading, there’s no need to hold back—with the Galicians, who are completely innocent, we had to be more careful. I’m resting, I’m not in the saddle.
Conversation with Artillery Division Commander Maksimov, our army is out to make some money, what we have is not revolution but an uprising of renegade Cossacks.
They are simply an instrument the party is not above using.
Two Odessans, Manuilov and Boguslavsky,* operational air force military commissar, Paris, London, a handsome Jew, a big talker, articles in a European magazine, the divisional chief of staffs adjutant, Jews in the Red Cavalry, I tell them whats what. Wearing a service jacket, the excesses of the Odessan bourgeoisie, painful news from Odessa. They’re being smothered there. What about my father? Have they really taken everything away from him? I have to give some thought to the situation back home.
I’m turning into a sponger.
Apanasenko has written a letter to the officers of the Polish army: You bandits, stop fighting, surrender, you Pans, or we will butcher you all!
Apanasenko’s letter to the Don headquarters, to Stavropol, there they are making things difficult for our fighters, for the Sons of the Revolution, we are heroes, we have no fear, we will march ahead.
A description of the squadron’s rest, they steal hens, the squealing of pigs, agents, musical flourishes on the town square. They wash clothes, thresh oats, come galloping with sheaves. The horses, wiggling their ears, eat oats. The horse is everything. Horse names: Stepan, Misha, Little Brother, Old Girl. Your horse is your savior, you are aware of it every moment, even if you might beat it inhumanly. No one takes care of my horse. They barely take care of it.
August 22, 1920. Adamy
Manuilov, the divisional chief of staff’s adjutant, has a stomachache. I’m not surprised. Served with Muravyov,^ in the Cheka, something to do with military investigation, a bourgeois, women, Paris, air force, something to do with his reputation, and he’s a Communist. Boguslavsky, the secretary, frightened, sits silently and eats.
A peaceful day. We march on northward.
I’m billeted with Sheko. I can’t do anything. I’m tired, battered. I sleep and eat. How we eat. The system. The provisions depot men and the foragers wont give us anything. The arrival of the Red Army fighters in the village, they search through everything, cook, all night the stoves sputter, the household daughters suffer, the squealing of pigs, they come to the military commissar with receipts. The pitiful Galicians.
The saga of how we eat. We eat well: pigs, hens, geese.
Those who dont take part are “rag-looters” and “wimp.”
August 23/24, 1920. Viktov
Ride on to Vitkov in a cart. System of using civilian carts, poor civilians, they are harassed for two, three weeks, are let go, given a pass, are snatched up by other soldiers, are harassed again. An episode: where we are billeted a boy comes back from the transport carts. Night. His mothers joy.
We march into the Krasnostav-Lublin district. WeVe overtaken the army, which is four versts from Lvov. The cavalry did not manage to take it.
The road to Vitkov. Sun. Galician roads, endless transport carts, factory horses, ravaged Galicia, Jews in shtetls, somewhere an unscathed farm, Czech we imagine, we attack the unripe apples, the beehives.
More details about the beehives another time.
On the road, in the cart, I think, I mourn the fate of the Revolution.
The shtetl is unusual, rebuilt on a single plan after its destruction, little white houses, tall wooden roofs, sadness.
We are billeted with the divisional chief of staff’s aides, Manuilov knows nothing about staff work, the hassles of trying to get horses, no one will give us any, we ride on the civilians’ carts, Boguslavsky wears lilac-colored drawers, a great success with the girls in Odessa.
The soldiers ask for a theatrical show. They’re fed His Orderly Let Him Down.
The divisional chief of staff’s night: where’s the Thirty-third Regiment, where did the Second Brigade go, telephone, orders from army headquarters to the brigade commander, 1, 2, 3!
The orderlies on duty. The setup of the squadrons—Matusevich and Vorobyov,* a former commandant, an unalterably cheerful and, from what I can see, a foolish man.
The divisional chief of staff’s night: the division commander wants to see you.
August 25, 1920. Sokal
Finally, a town. We ride through the shtetl ofTartakuv, Jews, ruins, cleanl
iness of a Jewish kind, the Jewish race, little stores.
I am still ill, I’ve still not gotten back on my feet after the battles outside Lvov. What stuffy air these shtetls have. The infantry had been in Sokal, the town is untouched, the divisional chief of staff is billeted with some Jews. Books, I saw books. I’m billeted with a Galician woman, a rich one at that, we eat well, chicken in sour cream.
I ride on my horse to the center of town, it’s clean, pretty buildings, everything soiled by war, remnants of cleanliness and originality.
The Revolutionary Committee. Requisitions and confiscation. Interesting: they dont touch the peasantry, all the land has been left at its disposal. The peasantry is left alone.
The declarations of the Revolutionary Committee.
My landlords son—a Zionist and ein ausgesprochenerNationalist^ Normal Jewish life, they look to Vienna, to Berlin, the nephew, a young man, is studying philosophy, wants to go to the university. We eat butter and chocolate. Sweets.
Friction between Manuilov and the divisional chief of staff.11 Sheko tells him to go to—
“I have my pride,” they wont give him a billet, no horse, there’s the cavalry for you, this isn’t a holiday resort. Books—polnische, Juden
In the evening, the division commander in his new jacket, well fed, wearing his multicolored trousers, red-faced and dim-witted, out to have some fun, music at night, the rain disperses us. It is raining, the tormenting Galician rain, it pours and pours, endlessly, hopelessly.
What are our soldiers up to in this town? Dark rumors.
Boguslavsky has betrayed Manuilov. Boguslavsky is a slave.
August 26, 1920. Sokal
A look around town with the young Zionist. The synagogues: the Hasidic one is a staggering sight, it recalls three hundred years ago, pale, handsome boys with peyes, the synagogue as it was two hundred years ago, the selfsame figures in long coats, rocking, waving their hands, howling. This is the Orthodox party, they support the Rabbi of Belz, the famous Rabbi of Belz, who’s made off to Vienna. The moderates support the Rabbi of Husyatin. Their synagogue. The beauty of the altar made by some artisan, the magnificence of the greenish chandeliers, the worm-eaten little tables, the Belz synagogue—a vision of ancient times. The Jews ask me to use my influence so they wont be ruined, they’re being robbed of food and goods.