The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine

by Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine Isaac Babel

  The nurse has harnessed her horse, tied a sack with oats to its muzzle, packed her bag, and ridden off. Her pitiful, thin dress flutters in the wind, and her frozen red toes show through the holes of her tattered shoes. It is raining. The exhausted horses can barely lift their hooves from the terrible, sucking, viscous Volhynian mud. The damp penetrates to the bone. The nurse has neither cloak nor coat. The men are singing a bawdy song. The nurse quietly hums her own song—about dying for the Revolution, about better days to come. A few men begin singing along with her, and our song, our unceasing call to freedom, spills out into the rainy autumnal dusk.

  In the evening—the attack. Shells burst with soft, sinister booms, machine guns rattle faster and faster with feverish dread.

  Beneath the most horrifying crossfire, the nurse bandages the wounded with disdainful calm, dragging them away from the battle on her shoulders.

  The attack ends. The agonizing advance continues. Night, rain. The soldiers are darkly silent, only the heated whisper of the nurse, comforting the wounded, can be heard. An hour later, the same picture as before—a dark, dirty hut in which the platoon has settled down, and in the corner, by the light of a pitiable dwindling candle, the nurse keeps bandaging, bandaging, bandaging. . . .

  Foul curses hang heavily in the air. The nurse, at times unable to restrain herself, snaps back, and the men laugh at her. Nobody helps her, nobody puts straw down for her to sleep on, nobody fluffs up her pillow.

  These are our heroic nurses! Lift your hats and bow to them! Soldiers and commanders, honor your nurses! It is high time we distinguished between the camp girls who shame our army and the martyred nurses who ennoble it.

  VI

  1920 Diary

  On June 3, 1920, the day on which the first entry of the 1920 Diary occurs (thefirst fifty-four pages of the diary are missing and believed lost), Isaac Babel was twenty-five years old soon to be twenty-six. He had already made a name for himself as a promising writer and journalist and had, as a war correspondent, joined the Sixth Cavalry Division, commanded by the charismatic Timoshenko (Pavlichenko, in the Red Cavalry stories), who was later to become a Marshal of the Soviet Union and Commissar of Defense.

  The diary that Babel kept during his months with the Red Cavalry was a writer’s diary. Babel noted quick impressions that he intended subsequently to develop as motifs and plot lines for the Red Cavalry stories: c>Describe the soldiers and women, fat, fed, sleepy”; “Describe the bazaar, the baskets of cherries”; “Describe what a horseman feels: exhaustion, the horse won’t go on, the ride is long, no strength, the burned steppe; loneliness, no one there to help you, endless versts.” At times the impressions appear in strings of telegraphic clauses that served Babel as a form of private shorthand, but when Babel is particularly taken by a scene or situation, he slips into the rich and controlled style that would mark the Red Cavalry stories.

  The Red Cavalry stories that grew out of this diary shocked the world with their unforgiving depictions of the desperation and atrocities of the cavalrymen. Particularly daring was the way in which Babel depicted real people, their ranks and names unchanged, in realistic, savage, unflattering circumstances. In this diary, which was not intended for publication, Babel could afford even greater candor. The Red Cavalry stories reveal that the heroic cavalry was made up of wild and ruthless Cossacks who had a skewed notion of Communist doctrine. They were clearly not the glorious harbingers of World Revolution that Soviet propaganda would have liked them to be. This contradiction might be suggested by the stories, but the 1920 Diary states it in the clearest of terms. Babel asks, “What kind of men are our Cossacks? Many-layered: rag-looting, bravado, professionalism, revolutionary ideals, savage cruelty. We are the vanguard', but of what?”

  The 1920 Diary, by virtue of its privacy, is Babel’s most sincere personal written testimony. His persona, so elusive in his fictional prose, is very clear in this private writing. We see his firm Socialist convictions, his sensitivity, his horror of the marauding ways of his Cossack companions, his ambiguous fascination with “the West and chivalrous Poland'” his equivocal stance toward Judaism, with feelings that fluctuate between distaste and tenderness toward the Volhynian Jews, “the former (Ukrainian) Yids.”

  It is relatively late in the diary that Babel’s optimism about the Soviet Union’s chances of winning this war begins to fade. In the final entries, as Babel and his colleagues return to Russia on the fleeing propaganda train in mid-September of 1920, the war has been lost, the Soviet Union dfeated.

  Within days, the Red Cavalry was to go into reserve. Babel had chronicled its last great campaign.

  June 3, 1920. Zhitomir

  Morning in the train,* came here to get my tunic and boots. I sleep

  * The Polit-otdel train, equipped with a printing press and radio station, sent to the front for the ideological education of the troops.

  with Zhukov,Topolnik,* its dirty, in the morning the sun shines in my eyes, railroad car dirt. Lanky Zhukov, voracious Topolnik, the whole editorial crew unbelievably dirty people.

  Bad tea in borrowed mess tins. Letters home, packages off to Yugrosta,^ interview with Poliak, operation to seize Novograd, discipline is weakening in the Polish army, Polish White Guard literature, packets of cigarette paper, matches, former (Ukrainian) Yids, commissars—the whole thing stupid, malicious, feeble, talentless, and surprisingly unconvincing. Mikhailov copying out Polish articles word for Word.

  The trains kitchen, fat soldiers with flushed faces, gray souls, stifling heat in the kitchen, kasha, noon, sweat, fat-legged washerwomen, apathetic women—printing presses—describe the soldiers and women, fat, fed, sleepy.

  Love in the kitchen.

  Off to Zhitomir after lunch. A town that is white, not sleepy, yet battered and silent. I look for traces of Polish culture. Women well dressed, white stockings. The Catholic Church.

  Bathe at Nuski in the Teterev, a horrible little river, old Jews in the bathing boxes with long, emaciated legs covered with gray hairs. Young Jews. Women are washing clothes in the Teterev. A family, beautiful woman, husband holds the child.

  The bazaar in Zhitomir, old cobbler, bluing, chalk, laces.

  The synagogue buildings, old architecture—how all this touches my soul.

  Watch crystal, 1,200 rubles. Market. A small Jewish philosopher. An indescribable store: Dickens, brooms, and golden slippers. His philosophy: they all say they’re fighting for truth yet they all plunder. If only one government at least were good! Wonderful words, his scant beard, we talk, tea and three apple turnovers—750 rubles. An interesting old woman, malicious, practical, unhurried. How greedy for money they all are. Describe the bazaar, the baskets of cherries, the inside of a tavern. A conversation with a Russian woman who came over to borrow a tub. Sweat, watery tea, I’m sinking my teeth into life again, farewell to you, dead men.

  * Babels colleagues, reporters for the Krasny Kavalerist {The Red Cavalryman).

  ^ The Ukrainian division of ROSTA, the Soviet news service agency from 1918 to 1935.

  Podolsky, the son-in-law, a half-starved intellectual, something about trade unions and service with Budyonny,1 I, needless to say, am Russian, my mother a Jewess, what for?

  The Zhitomir pogrom carried out by the Poles, and then, of course, by the Cossacks.

  After our vanguard units appeared, the Poles entered the town for three days, Jewish pogrom, cut off beards, they always do, rounded up forty-five Jews in the market, took them to the slaughterhouses, torture, they cut out tongues, wailing over the whole town square. They torched six houses, the Konyukhovsky house, I went to take a look, those who tried to save them were machine-gunned down, they butchered the janitor into whose arms a mother had thrown an infant out of a burning window, the priest put a ladder against the back wall, and so they managed to escape.

  The Sabbath is drawing to a close, we leave the father-in-law and go to the tsaddik. Didn’t get his name. A stunning picture for me, though the decline and decadence are p
lain to see. Even the tsaddik— his broad-shouldered, gaunt body. His son, a refined boy in a long overcoat, I can see petit bourgeois but spacious rooms. Everything nice and proper, his wife a typical Jewess, one could even call her of the modern type.

  The faces of the old Jews.

  Conversations in the corner about rising prices.

  I cant find the right page in the prayer book. Podolsky shows me.

  Instead of candles—an oil lamp.

  I am happy, large faces, hooked noses, black, gray-streaked beards, I have many thoughts, farewell to you, dead men. The face of the tsad-diky a nickel-rimmed pince-nez.

  “Where are you from, young man?”

  “From Odessa.”

  “How is life there?”

  “People are alive.”

  “Here its terrible.”

  A short conversation.

  I leave shattered.

  Podolsky, pale and sad, gives me his address, a marvelous evening. I walk, think about everything, quiet, strange streets. Kondratyev with a dark-haired Jewess, the poor commandant with his tall sheepskin hat, he doesn’t succeed.

  And then nightfall, the train, painted Communist slogans (the contrast with what I saw at the old Jews’).

  The hammering of the presses, our own electrical generator, our own newspapers, a movie is being shown, the train flashes, rumbles, fat-faced soldiers stand in line for the washerwomen (for two days).

  June 4, 1920. Zhitomir

  Morning—packages off to Yugrosta, report on the Zhitomir pogrom, home, to Oreshnikov, to Narbut.

  I’m reading Hamsun.2 Sobelman tells me his novel’s plot.

  A new story of Job, an old man who has lived centuries, his students carried him off to feign a resurrection, a glutted foreigner, the Russian Revolution.

  Schulz, what’s most important, voluptuousness, Communism, how we are filching apples from the masters, Schulz is chatting away, his bald patch, apples hidden under his shirt, Communism, a Dostoyevskyan figure, there is something interesting there, must give it some thought, that inexhaustible overindulgence of his, Schulz in the streets of Berdichev.

  Khelemskaya, she’s had pleurisy, diarrhea, has turned yellow, dirty overcoat, applesauce. What’re you doing here, Khelemskaya? You’ve got to get married, a husband, an engineer in a technical office, abortion or first child, that was what your life has been about, your mother, you took a bath once a week, your romance, Khelemskaya, that’s how you should live, and you’ll adapt to the Revolution.

  The opening of a Communist club in the editorial office. That’s the proletariat for you: incredibly feeble Jews and Jewesses from the underground. March forward, you pitiful, terrible tribe! Then describe the concert, women singing Ukrainian songs.

  Bathing in the Teterev. Kiperman, and how we search for food.

  What kind of man is Kiperman? What a fool I am, he never paid me back. He sways like a reed, he has a large nose, and he is nervous, possibly insane, yet he managed to trick me, the way he puts off repaying me, runs the club. Describe his trousers, nose, and unruffled speech, torture in prison, Kiperman is a terrible person.

  Night on the boulevard. The hunt for women. Four streets, four stages: acquaintance, conversation, awakening of desire, gratification of desire. The Teterev below, an old medical orderly who says that the commissars have everything, wine too, but he is nice about it.

  Me and the Ukrainian editors.

  Guzhin, whom Khelemskaya complained about today, they re looking for something better. Im tired. And suddenly loneliness, life flows before me, but what is its significance?

  June 5, 1920. Zhitomir

  Received boots, tunic on the train. Going to Novograd at sunrise. The automobile is a Thornicroft. Everything seized from Denikin. Sunrise in the monastery yard or the schoolyard. Slept in the automobile. Arrived in Novograd at 11. Travel farther in another Thornicroft. Detour bridge. The town is livelier, the ruins appear normal. I take my suitcase. The staff left for Korets. One of the Jewesses gave birth, in a hospital, of course. A gangly hook-nosed man asks me for a job, runs behind me with my suitcase. He promised to come again tomorrow. Novograd is Zvyagel.

  A man from the supplies division in a white sheepskin hat, a Jew, and stoop-shouldered Morgan are on the truck. We wait for Morgan, hes at the pharmacy, our little friend has the clap. The automobile has come from Fastov. Two fat drivers. Were flying, a true Russian driver, all our insides thoroughly shook up. The rye is ripening, orderlies gallop by, miserable, enormous, dusty trucks, half-naked, plump, light-blond Polish boys, prisoners, Polish noses.

  Korets: describe, the Jews outside the large house, a yeshiva bokher3 in spectacles, what are they talking about, these old men with their yellow beards, stoop-shouldered merchants, feeble, lonely. I want to stay,

  but the telephone operators roll up the wires. Of course the staff has left. We pick apples and cherries. Moved on at a wild pace. Then the driver, red sash, eats bread with his motor-oil-stained fingers. Six versts short of our goal the magneto floods with oil. Repairs beneath the scorching sun, sweat and drivers. I get there on a hay cart (I forgot: Artillery Inspector Timoshenko (?) [sic] is inspecting the cannons in Korets. Our generals.) Evening. Night. The park in Hoshcha. Zotov4 and the staff rush on, transport carts go galloping by, the staff left for Rovno, damn it, what bad luck. The Jews, I decide to stay at Duvid Ucheniks, the soldiers try to talk me out of it, the Jews beg me to stay. I wash myself, bliss, many Jews. Are Ucheniks brothers twins? The wounded want to meet me. Healthy bastards, just flesh wounds on their legs, they get about on their own. Real tea, I eat supper. Ucheniks children, a small but shrewd girl with squinting eyes, a shivering six-year-old girl, a fat wife with gold teeth. They sit around me, theres anxiety in the air. Uchenik tells me the Poles were out plundering, then others raided, whooping and hollering, they carried off everything, his wife’s things.

  The girl: Aren’t you a Jew? Uchenik sits watching me eat, the girl sits shivering on his lap. “She is frightened, the cellar and the shooting and your people.” I tell them everything will be fine, what the Revolution means, I talk profusely. “Things are bad, we’re going to be plundered, don’t go to bed.”

  Night, a lantern in front of the window, a Hebrew grammar, my soul aches, my hair is clean, clean is my sorrow. Sweating from the tea. As backup: Tsukerman with a rifle. A radio-telegrapher. Soldiers in the yard, they chase everyone off to sleep, they chuckle. I eavesdrop on them, they hear something: Halt, who goes there? We’ll mow you down!

  The hunt for the woman prisoner. Stars, night over the shtetl. A tall Cossack with an earring and a cap with a white top. They had arrested mad Stasova, a mattress, she beckoned with her finger: Let’s go, I’ll let you have some, I can keep it working all night writhing, hopping, not running away! The soldiers chase everyone off to sleep. They eat supper—fried eggs, tea, stew—indescribable coarseness, sprawled all over the table, Mistress, more! Uchenik in front of his house, he’s on sentry duty, what a laugh, “Go off to sleep!” “I’m guarding my house!” A terrible situation with the fugitive madwoman. If they catch her, they,ll kill her.

  I cant sleep. I meddled, now they say everything’s lost.

  A difficult night, an idiot with a piglet’s body—the radio-telegrapher. Dirty nails and refined manners. Discussion about the Jewish question. A wounded man in a black shirt, a milksop and lout, the old Jews are running, the women have been sent off. Nobody is asleep. Some girls or other on the porch, some soldier asleep on the sofa.

  I write in my diary. There is a lamp. The park in front of the window, transport carts roll by. No ones going off to sleep. An automobile has arrived. Morgan is looking for a priest, I take him to the Jews.

  Goryn, Jews and old women on the porches. Hoshcha has been ransacked, Hoshcha is clean, Hoshcha is silent. A clean job. In a whisper: Everythings been taken and they dont even weep, they re experts. The Horyn, a network of lakes and tributaries, evening light, here the battle for Rovno took place. Discussions with
Jews, my people, they think I’m Russian, and my soul opens up to them. We sit on the high embankment. Peace and soft sighs behind me. I leave to defend Uchenik. I told them my mother is a Jewess, the story, Belaya Tserkov, the rabbi.

  June 6, 1920. Rovno

  Slept anxiously, just a few hours. I wake up, sun, flies, a good bed, pink Jewish pillows, feathers. The soldiers are banging their crutches. Again: Mistress, we want more! Roasted meat, sugar from a cut-glass chalice, they sit sprawled out, their forelocks5 hanging down, dressed in riding gear, red trousers, sheepskin hats, leg stumps swinging boisterously. The women have brick-red faces, they run around, none of them slept. Duvid Uchenik is pale, in a vest. He tells me, Don’t leave as long as they’re still here. A cart comes by to pick them up. Sun, the cart is waiting across from the park, they’re gone. Salvation.

  The automobile arrived yesterday evening. At 1 P.M. we leave

  Hoshcha for Rovno. The River Horyn is sparkling in the sun. I go for a morning walk. It turns out the mistress of the house hadnt spent the night at home. The maid and her friends were sitting with the soldiers who wanted to rape her, all night till dawn the maid kept feeding them apples, quiet conversations: WeVe had enough of war, want to get married, go to sleep. The cross-eyed girl became talkative, Duvid puts on his vest, his tallith, prays solemnly, offers thanks, flour in the kitchen, dough is being kneaded, they re getting things under way, the maid is a fat, barefoot, thick-legged Jewess with soft breasts, tidying up, talking endlessly. The landlady’s speech—what she wants is for everything to end well. The house comes to life.

  I travel to Rovno in the Thornicroft. Two fallen horses. Smashed bridges, the automobile on wooden planks, everything creaks, endless line of transport carts, traffic jam, cursing, describe the transport carts in front of the broken bridge at noon, horsemen, trucks, two-wheelers with ammunition. Our truck drives with crazed speed, even though it is completely falling to pieces, dust.