The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine
Page 95
Young backs, young heads, curly forelocks.
“WHILE YOU HERE—YOU ..
A slice of raisin cake.
The rickshaw coolie falls and crawls on all fours, he crawls right up to Zhivtsov. Zhivtsovs face. His eyes move, his inspiration seeks an escape, his inspiration has to break free, and it manages to break free.
“. . . AND THIS IS WHY I DECLARE THE MOBILIZATION OF
ALL VOLUNTARY MEMBERS OF THE LENINIST KOMSOMOL
FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION. ALL
VOLUNTEERS RAISE THEIR HANDS!”
The hands of the Komsomols fly into the air.
Sasha Panyutin lifts his crippled hand.
In the sky, against a fiery cloud, Panyutins hand with a chopped-off finger.
Komsomol member Varya, who had been tying sheaves, heartily kisses the woman next to her.
The horse has torn its hoof away from the blacksmith.
The gypsy jumps onto the shod horse and rides off.
A festive, swaying forest of raised hands is closing in on Zhivtsov.
The Komsomols look as solemn as if they are about to take an oath.
While Zhivtsov . . . Zhivtsov realizes that he has managed to pull off an unusual, completely unexpected feat.
Somewhat perplexed, up to his waist in hay, he shrinks back from the exultant comrades who are closing in on him.
The gypsy rides wildly through the village streets. Two old women carrying buckets on yokes come toward him. One old woman is large, the other small.
“WAR!”
the gypsy shouts to them, and rides on.
The small old woman is drenched from head to toe by water from her large companions bucket.
Clouds of dust behind the galloping gypsy.
(Parttfbur
Night in Povarenshino. A strange and significant night. Flames flicker in the windows.
Smoke rises from all the chimneys and spreads into the starry sky.
The meadow. Flowers sway beneath the moon. The gypsy rides through the flowers on his horse.
The flowers beneath the horses hooves.
A campfire rises toward the sky.
Around the campfire in a clearing in the forest, a gypsy camp.
An old man, illuminated by the flames of the fire, is telling the young people a tale of great horse thieves and great singers.
The village cemetery. Crosses bathed in moonlight.
Yeryoma is hurriedly digging.
The horses mouth is foaming.
The gypsy rushes toward the campfire.
Circling around and around on his foaming horse, he shouts:
“war!”
The face of an old gypsy woman looks out from inside a covered wagon facing the campfire.
The reflection of a new moon ripples in a puddle of rainwater in the forest near the camp.
On the floor, mountains of worn-out village shoes that need mending.
A dim oil lamp lights the cobbler s hovel.
He and his daughter, a girl of about ten, are working feverishly.
An old mans hand and a childs hand are alternately hammering shoe soles with all their might.
Somebodys hand darts in the window and throws three more gigantic pairs of shoes onto the pile.
The girl, waxed threads in her mouth, turns her serious, absorbed face toward us':
Flames flicker in the houses.
A map of China lit by wavering candlelight.
A large finger moves over the map.
Cherevkov, Teryosha, and one other “volunteer” are leaning over the map.
Cherevkov is running his finger over the map. He explains the following strategic plan:
“WE WILL HEAD RIGHT ON TO PEKING THROUGH SZECHUAN....”
Teryosha is leaning toward a more careful strategy:
“NO! WE NEED TO GO AROUND THE DAMN PLACE!”
Old Mrs. Cherevkov, in tears, is packing pies into a bag. Cherevkov, trying to console his mother, takes her in his arms and starts dancing with her:
“AH, MAMA! WE’LL GET SOMETHING GOING HERE!”
The old woman dances, laughs, cries.
The face of the village sorceress.
Inside a rich mans cottage.
The sorceress pours a brew made of flies into glasses, and hands them to the horrified young men.
“DRINK THIS WITH A PRAYER.... LORD WILLING, YOU WILL VOMIT IT OUT TOMORROW ... AND YOU WON’T GO TO NO WAR!”
The sorceress, a mistress of her trade, spits in all four directions and whispers a spell.
A young man, crazed with fear, paces about frantically, crosses himself, and drinks.
Cherevkov is still dancing with his crying and laughing mother. “AH, MAMA! WE’LL GET SOMETHING GOING HERE!”
The boy is writhing on the floor . . .
... his face is contorted with spasms, there is foam on his lips.
A snow-white model of the Volkhovstroi Power Station, carved by the inspired chisel of Sasha Panyutin. Through the mica window of the model electric power station, the flame of a one-kopeck candle.
The heads of Zhivtsov and Panyutin, seen through the window of the electric power station.
In Zhivtsovs room. A dilapidated bunk, a bookcase filled with books, a briefcase, dried ears of wheat. The only good thing in the room is the splendid Volkhovstroi model and the shelves of books.
The bookcase is filled with the collected works of Lenin.
The spines of numerous Lenin books.
With Zhivtsov is Sasha Panyutin, who is very much aware that something momentous but dubious has taken place.
“THIS TIME YOU’VE REALLY STARTED SOMETHING, EGOR!”
Panyutin says, looking around glumly.
His eyes fall on a three-legged chair.
Sighing, he takes the chair, examines it, and starts working.
Zhivtsov himself is aware that he has started something. He paces about the room, deep in thought.
Panyutin is fixing the chair. He sighs.
“YOU’VE REALLY MESSED THINGS UP, EGOR!”
The village fool is sounding the alarm in the belfry.
The band of gypsies, lamps flickering in their covered wagons, cross the river.
The abandoned gypsy camp. Pegs stuck in the ground, manure, the smoldering embers of the campfire.
In the cemetery Yeryoma is digging with all his might.
Zhivtsovs abundant, inexhaustible hair. He runs his pensive, irresolute fingers through it.
“EGOR, YOU’VE REALLY MESSED THINGS UP!”
Panyutin says, engrossed in repairing the chair.
The spines of the Lenin books.
Zhivtsov walks hesitantly to the bookcase, takes a book, opens it.
The title page. A picture of Lenin, squinting, sly.
Zhivtsovs head leaning over Lenin’s picture. He tosses his abundant hair out of the way.
In a shed, furrowed with moonlight—tiny, tipsy Gerasim Cherevkov. He is looking through the harnesses for a strap.
Cherevkovs tiny, tattered father bursts into his sons hut. He rushes at his giant of a son, brandishing his strap.
TM GOING TO WHIP YOU THIS VERY MINUTE FOR THIS
MESS YOU MADE!”
The young giant carefully sits his old father on a bench and hands him a pie.
Without letting go of the strap, the little old muzhik resentfully starts eating, but is somewhat delighted, as this is such an unusual situation.
A slow leafing-through of the Lenin book.
Light falls on Panyutins humorous5 face.
“WHEN THE SECRETARY OF A VILLAGE KOMSOMOL UNIT
DECREES A GENERAL MOBILIZATION—WHAT CHOICE
DOES ONE HAVE?”
Panyutin says.
Cherevkovs bewildered fingers running through his hair.
Lenins sly, squinting face.
A slow leafing-through of the book.
Zhivtsov s face above the turning pages.
Panyutin, humming a tune, attaches the fourth leg to
the chair.
A page turns, stays. Here a quote from Lenin should appear that bears relation to the unusual situation in Povarenshino.
Quote.
Cherevkov s decrepit grandfather lies huddled in sheepskins on the sleeping bench in Cherevkovs hut. He also demands some pies. His grandson gives him some.
A quote from Lenin.
Zhivtsovs brightening face.
The grandfather lying on the bench is chewing the pies. Peas fall onto the sheepskin.
Yeryoma’s horse is wandering about the village, knocking on windows, looking for its master.
A window opens, and a voice shouts:
“YERYOMA ISN’T HERE! BEAT IT!”
And the horse trots on.
Yeryoma has dug up something long from the grave, wrapped in a bast mat.
He is very pleased. He wipes his sweat away with his arm.
The horse, his bony friend, approaches him, dragging its shaft behind it. The horse has finally found him.
The horse looks at its master with reproachful eyes, as if to say: “Really, Yeryoma, you re out of your mind! Totally unreliable!”
The horse grabs him by the collar with its teeth and tugs at him.
“I’M COMING, I’M COMING!”
Yeryoma mumbles, ashamed.
Zhivtsov closes the book and slowly looks up again, his face lit with a sudden, happy thought that will settle everything. The model of the Volkhovstroi Power Station. Zhivtsov s face through the mica window. Panyutin sets down the chair, which stands soundly on its four legs. The four legs of the chair.
The new moon ripples in a puddle of rainwater among the flowers. In front of the paling sky, the chimneys of Povarenshino are smoking.
The sky. Sunrise.
A cock flies up onto a fence, crows.
The cocks claw with its spur.
A bast shoe with a spur.
Teryosha, wearing the bast shoe with the spur, is walking along the road.
In front of Teryoshas herd walks a new shepherd—he is old, sooty, and dirty.
An endless chain of carts is crossing the river.
The river seethes, glitters, flows between the wheels.
On one of the carts in the water, young peasant men and women. The girls’ ribbons flutter in the wind.
Flowers float in the river.
Three singing youths, their arms over each others shoulders, are on their way to “report for duty” at the gathering point. They are covered with weapons and accordions. On the edge of the horizon, crowds of peasants are flowing along the winding roads.
The young men are growing in number. There are now five.
They knock on the rich mans window.
“COME ALONG, MAX! WE HAVE TO REPORT FOR DUTY!”
In a locked chamber, stretched out on the floor, the son of a kulak. His deathly, contorted face.
The young men walk on, there are now seven of them.
There is a sign on a closed wine store:
“Because of civil war in China, the sale of Russian vodka is banned for three days.”
In front of the sign the blissfully drunk, disheveled heads of Cherevkov s father and grandfather.
“HEY, YOU, RUSSIA! YOU GREAT POWER, YOU! O RUSSIA, YOU GREAT POWER, YOU!”
The Cherevkovs dance wildly.
Crowds of people are streaming from the hills. A mass migration of the peoples of Povarenshino.
In the crowd, two giant peasants resembling each other, surely brothers.
“WOULD YOU GIVE ALL THIS BACK TO THE LANDOWNERS?”
one of them says, pointing at. . .
... the vast and beautiful expanse of Russia stretching before them.
“WE WILL NOT GIVE IT BACK!”
the other one answers.
Four strong feet strutting in bast shoes.
Cherevkovs old mother gives him a cross. The boy is ashamed—it is hard to turn it down, but there is no point in taking it.
“SEE YOU DONT HARM THE CHINESE.... JUST BRING BACK A PACKET OF TEA WITH YOU—THAT’LL BE ENOUGH!”
the old woman says to her son.
The young man surreptitiously slips the cross into his boot.
The road is filled with singing young men, their arms around each others shoulders.
There are no longer seven, but fifteen.
Flowers float on the river. Fadeout.
Egor, covered in every conceivable badge, holding his briefcase, a fiir hat on his head, is solemnly marching to the mill—the gathering point.
He is followed by an incalculably large army of men marching in orderly rows.
Among them are Komsomols carrying a banner, hunting rifles, and accordions.
Among them are also the bearded village infantry, marching in bast shoes, entangled with howling women, squawking infants, barking dogs.
Among them is also the cavalry: five mounted forest wardens with German helmets, remnants of the Great War.
Zhivtsov climbs onto a mound and lifts his arm majestically.
The troops fall silent.
All eyes are trained on Egor, the commander in chief.
Yeryoma, panting, pushes his way through the troops. He is holding in his arms the item wrapped in a bast mat that he dug up from the cemetery. With a sweeping gesture, he places it in front of Zhivtsov and unwraps it—it turns out to be a machine gun.
“I’VE KEPT IT FOR EIGHT YEARS—I SACRIFICE IT TO THE SOVIET STATE!”
Yeryoma says, his ecstatic words gushing out of him.
The troops present their arms.
The gypsy is galloping through the streets of a backwater town.
THE CHIEF OF POLICE OF THE DISTRICT OF “N,” BUSY FERVENTLY BUILDING THE PEACEFUL SOCIALIST FUTURE.
The courtyard of the towns police station.
The chief of police, in striped military pants and with galoshes on his bare feet, is shearing a sheep.
The gypsy gallops into the courtyard.
“WAR!”
he yells, and, turning around and around with his horse, informs the stunned chief of the developing military deployment in the neighboring district against the warmongers occupying Shanghai.
Zhivtsov by the mill on top of a mound.
Yeryoma is caressing the machine gun.
Zhivtsov raises his arm:
“CITIZEN VOLUNTEERS! LAST NIGHT I CONFERRED WITH THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. . . . OUR CHINESE BROTHERS ARE MANAGING WELL ENOUGH ON THEIR
OWN THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE
U.S.S.R. ADVISES US PLAIN AND SIMPLE TO TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN CURRENT AFFAIRS—SUCH AS THE HUNDRED-PERCENT FIX-UP OF THE MILL.”
Teryoshas dog yawns, wags its tail, leaves.
Yeryoma, deeply disappointed, moves his eyes from . . .
. . . the machine gun to Zhivtsov . . .
. . . from Zhivtsov to the machine gun.
A group of brightening old womens faces.
A row of Komsomol faces, their expressions: at first dumbfounded, then grinning.
“HE TRICKED US ... THE POCKMARKED DEVIL!”
In his shed, Panyutin is working with his tools: shovels, axes, saws, sacks of sand.
Teryosha, delighted, takes the spurs off his bast shoes and puts them in his pocket.
“HE TRICKED US ... IVANICH!”
Varya shouts at Teryosha:
“WHAT’RE YOU KEEPING THOSE FOR? THROW THEM OUT!”
Teryosha answers:
“THEY MAY COME IN HANDY...
A spur makes Teryoshas pocket protrude.
Cherevkov rushes to his mother.
“TAKE IT BACK, MAMA!”
He gives the old woman the cross—he has finally managed to get rid of it.
Yeryoma, indignant, in the company of drunken Gerasim Cherevkov, is dragging off the machine gun.
“I ABSOLUTELY MUST DEFEAT SOMEONE TODAY!”
Yeryoma yells.
CURRENT AFFAIRS OF THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE U.S.S.R.
An open shed next to the mill. The Ko
msomols are sorting out the tools: shovels, axes, saws, wheelbarrows.
Mounted policemen are riding along the road behind their chief. A half-shorn sheep.
Yeryoma and Gerasim Cherevkov are sitting at the bottom of the ditch.
They are trying out the machine gun.
The bullets hit the sheer walls of the ditch.
CURRENT AFFAIRS OF THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE U.S.S.R.
Shovels swinging up.
Arms swinging up.
Shovels swinging up.
Arms swinging up.
Tumbling soil.
The efficient work of the Komsomols by the millrace.
The spur has pierced Teryosha s pocket and is sticking out.
A pile of discarded accordions.
A pile of discarded weapons.
Shovels swinging up.
Arms swinging up.
Work at the mill—columns of dust—hammering.
Among the columns of dust, a frenzied Zhivtsov.
A thin stream of water is trickling into the dirty pond.
With adroit maneuvers, the police surround the ditch in which Yeryoma was shooting.
The police officers are crawling on their stomachs, pointing their rifles.
In the ditch, Yeryoma and his companion are in deep sleep in each others arms, the machine gun between them.
The police officers, pointing their rifles, reach the edge of the ditch.
They throw themselves on Yeryoma, who is fast asleep.
Yeryoma, buried under a pile of fluttering police officers.
“HURRAH!”
shouts Yeryoma, waking up, not realizing what is happening.
CURRENT AFFAIRS OF THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE U.S.S.R.
Cherevkov is nailing new planks to the dilapidated mill wheel.
The millrace is constantly growing, sacks of sand fall into the water.
The work inside the mill.
An agitated owl. . .
. . . flies away from its dark shelter.
The muzzle of a rifle—a shot.
A stream, formerly flowing to the side, now flows into the pond.
An increasingly powerful stream flows into the pond.
Rotten planks, heaps of rags, and all kinds of garbage from the village float up to the surface—clean water appears.
Yeryomas horse stands above the stream, waits, and, when the dirty water has receded, starts drinking.
The water has risen—the pond is full.
Zhivtsov lifts the barrier.
Sparkling water flows onto the mill wheel, which is covered with a mix of old and new planks. The wheel comes alive, moves, turns.