Excerpt from 'The Complete Works of Isaac Babel'

book.jpgThe Complete Works of Isaac Babel

By Isaac Babel
Translated by Peter Constantine
Edited by Nathalie Babel

W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

Copyright © 2002 Nathalie Babel.
Translation copyright © 2002 Peter Constantine.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-393-04846-2



Chapter One Contents

 

Introduction by Cynthia Ozick.......................................13
Editor's Preface....................................................19
Translator's Foreword...............................................29
Acknowledgments.....................................................35
I. Early Stories....................................................41
    OLD SHLOYME.....................................................43
    AT GRANDMOTHER'S................................................47
    ELYA ISAAKOVICH AND MARGARITA PROKOFIEVNA.......................53
    MAMA, RIMMA, AND ALLA...........................................57
    THE PUBLIC LIBRARY..............................................67
    NINE............................................................71
    ODESSA..........................................................75
    THE AROMA OF ODESSA.............................................80
    INSPIRATION.....................................................83
    DOUDOU..........................................................86
    SHABOS-NAKHAMU..................................................88
    ON THE FIELD OF HONOR...........................................95
        ON THE FIELD OF HONOR.......................................95
        THE DESERTER................................................97
        PAPA MARESCOT'S FAMILY......................................99
        THE QUAKER.................................................101
    THE SIN OF JESUS...............................................104
    AN EVENING WITH THE EMPRESS
    CHINK..........................................................112
    A TALE ABOUT A WOMAN...........................................114
    THE BATHROOM WINDOW............................................117
    BAGRAT-OGLY AND THE EYES OF HIS BULL...........................119
    LINE AND COLOR.................................................121
    YOU MISSED THE BOAT, CAPTAIN!..................................124
    THE END OF ST. HYPATIUS........................................126
II. The Odessa Stories.............................................129
    THE KING.......................................................133
    JUSTICE IN PARENTHESES.........................................140
    HOW THINGS WERE DONE IN ODESSA.................................146
    LYUBKA THE COSSACK.............................................155
    THE FATHER.....................................................161
    FROIM GRACH....................................................170
    THE END OF THE ALMSHOUSE.......................................176
    SUNSET.........................................................185
III. The Red Cavalry Stories.......................................197
    CROSSING THE RIVER ZBRUCZ......................................203
    THE CHURCH IN NOVOGRAD.........................................205
    A LETTER.......................................................208
    THE RESERVE CAVALRY COMMANDER..................................213
    PAN APOLEK.....................................................216
    ITALIAN SUN....................................................223
    GEDALI.........................................................227
    MY FIRST GOOSE.................................................230
    THE RABBI......................................................234
    THE ROAD TO BRODY..............................................237
    THE TACHANKA THEORY............................................239
    DOLGUSHOV'S DEATH..............................................242
    THE COMMANDER OF THE SECOND BRIGADE............................246
    SASHKA CHRIST..................................................248
    THE LIFE OF MATVEY RODIONOVICH PAVLICHENKO.....................253
    THE CEMETERY IN KOZIN..........................................259
    PRISHCHEPA.....................................................260
    THE STORY OF A HORSE...........................................262
    KONKIN.........................................................266
    BERESTECHKO....................................................270
    SALT...........................................................273
    EVENING........................................................277
    AFONKA BIDA....................................................280
    AT SAINT VALENTINE'S...........................................286
    SQUADRON COMMANDER TRUNOV......................................290
    IVAN AND IVAN..................................................297
    THE CONTINUATION OF THE STORY OF A HORSE.......................304
    THE WIDOW......................................................306
    ZAMOSC.........................................................311
    TREASON........................................................315
    CZESNIKI.......................................................320
    AFTER THE BATTLE...............................................324
    THE SONG.......................................................328
    THE RABBI'S SON................................................331
IV. The Red Cavalry Cycle: Additional Stories......................335
    MAKHNO'S BOYS..................................................337
    A HARDWORKING WOMAN............................................339
    GRISHCHUK......................................................342
    ARGAMAK........................................................344
    THE KISS.......................................................350
    AND THEN THERE WERE NINE.......................................356
    AND THEN THERE WERE TEN........................................360
    A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.........................................362
V. The Red Cavalryman: Articles....................................363
    WHAT WE NEED IS MORE MEN LIKE TRUNOV!..........................365
    THE KNIGHTS OF CIVILIZATION....................................367
    DISPATCH OFFICE, SHAPE UP!.....................................369
    MURDERERS WHO HAVE YET TO BE CLUBBED TO DEATH..................371
    HER DAY........................................................374
VI. 1920 Diary.....................................................377
VII. Sketches for the Red Cavalry Stories..........................473
VIII. Reports from Petersburg, 1918................................485
    FIRST AID......................................................487
    HORSES.........................................................490
    PREMATURE BABIES...............................................493
    THE DEAD.......................................................495
    THE PALACE OF MOTHERHOOD.......................................498
    EVACUEES.......................................................501
    MOSAIC.........................................................503
    QUITE AN INSTITUTION!..........................................506
    THE GEORGIAN, THE KERENSKY RUBLES, AND THE GENERAL'S
    DAUGHTER (A MODERN TALE).......................................509
    THE BLIND......................................................514
    THE EVENING....................................................518
    I WAS STANDING AT THE BACK.....................................521
    A BEAST CAN'T TALK.............................................524
    FINNS..........................................................527
    A NEW LIFE.....................................................530
    AN INCIDENT ON THE NEVSKY PROSPEKT.............................534
    THE MOST HOLY PATRIARCH........................................536
    AT THE STATION: A SKETCH FROM LIFE.............................539
    ON PALACE SQUARE...............................................541
    THE CONCERT IN KATERINENSTADT..................................543
IX. Reports from Georgia, 1922-1924................................547
    AT THE WORKERS' RETREAT........................................549
    KAMO AND SHAUMIAN..............................................552
    WITHOUT A HOMELAND.............................................556
    MUSLIM SEMINARIES AND SOVIET SCHOOLS...........................559
    TOBACCO........................................................563
    GAGRY..........................................................567
    IN CHAKVA......................................................569
    RENOVATIONS AND REFURBISHMENT..................................573
    PARIS AND JULIET...............................................576
X. Reports from France, 1935.......................................579
    THE CITY OF LIGHT..............................................581
    FRENCH SCHOOLS.................................................584
    TOWN AND COUNTRY...............................................586
    COURT OF JUSTICE AND PARLIAMENT................................588
    THE POPULAR FRONT..............................................590
    THE POWER OF MONEY.............................................592
    THE RED BELT...................................................595
XI. Stories, 1925-1938.............................................599
    THE STORY OF MY DOVECOTE.......................................601
    FIRST LOVE.....................................................612
    KARL-YANKEL....................................................619
    THE AWAKENING..................................................628
    IN THE BASEMENT................................................635
    GAPA GUZHVA....................................................644
    KOLYVUSHKA.....................................................652
    THE ROAD.......................................................659
    THE IVAN AND MARIA.............................................667
    GUY DE MAUPASSANT..............................................679
    PETROLEUM......................................................687
    DANTE STREET...................................................693
    DI GRASSO......................................................699
    SULAK..........................................................703
    THE TRIAL......................................................706
    MY FIRST FEE...................................................709
XII. Variations and Manuscripts....................................719
    ROAMING STARS: A MOVIE TALE....................................721
    A STORY........................................................729
    INFORMATION....................................................732
    THREE IN THE AFTERNOON.........................................736
    THE JEWESS.....................................................740
XIII. Plays........................................................753
    SUNSET.........................................................755
    MARIA..........................................................800
XIV. Screenplays...................................................843
    ROAMING STARS..................................................845
    BENYA KRIK.....................................................896
    THE CHINESE MILL (AN ATTEMPTED MOBILIZATION)...................941
    NUMBER 4 STARAYA SQUARE........................................969
    TWO SCENES FROM THE FORGING OF STEEL..........................1016
        THE GERMANS IN THE UKRAINE................................1016
        IN PETLYURA'S PRISON......................................1022
Afterword: A Personal Memoir by Nathalie Babel....................1025
Isaac Emmanuelovich Babel: A Chronology by Gregory Freidin........1052
Notes.............................................................1059
Maps:
    Babel's Russia..................................................18
    Babel's Odessa..............................................130-31
    Volhynia, 1920..............................................198-99


Chapter One


Early Stories


When the twenty-one-year-old Isaac Babel arrived in St. Petersburg in 1916, he found the city in wild but stimulating upheaval. It was still the capital of Russia and the center of Russian literature and art, where the foremost writers of the day lived and published. But the city was shaken by World War I. The Imperial government was losing control, and calls for change, which were to lead to the Revolution and Civil War, were in the air. Perhaps most important for a young writer was that the Czarist censorship was crumbling, which meant that daring new subjects could be treated in new ways, a characteristic that was to stay with Babel throughout his writing career. His first published story, "Old Shloyme" (1913), dealt with the subversive subject of Jews forced by officially sanctioned anti-Semitism to renounce their religion. In the story, a young Jew gives in to the pressure to Russianize himself, "to leave his people for a new God," while the old Jew, though never interested in religion or tradition, cannot bring himself to give them up. In the subsequent stories, Babel touches on other taboo subjects: Jewish men mixing with Christian women, prostitution, teenage pregnancy, and abortion.

    These early stories also reveal Babel's growing interest in using language in new and unusual ways. He has a young woman offer herself to her lover, "and the lanky follow wallowed in businesslike bliss." Odessa matrons, "plump with idleness and naively corseted are passionately squeezed behind bushes by fervent students of medicine or law." Babel describes the Czarina as "a small woman with a tightly powdered face, a consummate schemer with an indefatigable passion for power." In a forest scene, "green leaves bent toward one another, caressed each other with their flat hands." We also see the recurring motifs of sun and sunset, which are to play an important role in Babel's later writing.

    Babel's piquant brand of realism soon caught the eye of Maxim Gorky, who was to be the single most influential literary figure in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s, and who was particularly instrumental in helping young Soviet writers. Gorky published Babel's stories "Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofievna," and "Mama, Rimma, and Alla" in 1916 in his literary magazine Letopis, which marked the beginning of Gorky's mentoring of Babel's career. This mentoring was to last until Gorky's death exactly twenty years later.


* * *


OLD SHLOYME


Although our town is small, its inhabitants few in number, and although Shloyme had not left this town once in sixty years, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single person who was able to tell you exactly who Shloyme was or what he was all about. The reason for this, plain and simple, is that he was forgotten, the way you forget an unnecessary thing that doesn't jump out and grab you. Old Shloyme was precisely that kind of thing. He was eighty-six years old. His eyes were watery. His face—his small, dirty, wrinkled face—was overgrown with a yellowish beard that had never been combed, and his head was covered with a thick, tangled mane. Shloyme almost never washed, seldom changed his clothes, and gave off a foul stench. His son and daughter-in-law, with whom he lived, had stopped bothering about him—they kept him in a warm corner and forgot about him. His warm corner and his food were all that Shloyme had left, and it seemed that this was all he needed. For him, warming his old broken bones and eating a nice, fat, juicy piece of meat were the purest bliss. He was the first to come to the table, and greedily watched every bite with unflinching eyes, convulsively cramming food into his mouth with his long bony fingers, and he ate, ate, ate till they refused to give him any more, even a tiny little piece. Watching Shloyme eat was disgusting: his whole puny body quivered, his fingers covered with grease, his face so pitiful, filled with the dread that someone might harm him, that he might be forgotten. Sometimes his daughter-in-law would play a little trick on Shloyme. She would serve the food, and then act as if she had overlooked him. The old man would begin to get agitated, look around helplessly, and try to smile with his twisted, toothless mouth. He wanted to show that food was not important to him, that he could perfectly well make do without it, but there was so much pleading in the depths of his eyes, in the crease of his mouth, in his outstretched, imploring arms, and his smile, wrenched with such difficulty, was so pitiful, that all jokes were dropped, and Shloyme received his portion.

    And thus he lived in his corner—he ate and slept, and in the summer he also lay baking in the sun. It seemed that he had long ago lost all ability to comprehend anything. Neither his son's business nor household matters interested him. He looked blankly at everything that took place around him, and the only fear that would flutter up in him was that his grandson might catch on that he had hidden a dried-up piece of honey cake under his pillow. Nobody ever spoke to Shloyme, asked his advice about anything, or asked him for help. And Shloyme was quite happy, until one day his son came over to him after dinner and shouted loudly into his ear, "Papa, they're going to evict us from here! Are you listening? Evict us, kick us out!" His son's voice was shaking, his face twisted as if he were in pain. Shloyme slowly raised his faded eyes, looked around, vaguely comprehending something, wrapped himself tighter in his greasy frock coat, didn't say a word, and shuffled off to sleep.

    From that day on Shloyme began noticing that something strange was going on in the house. His son was crestfallen, wasn't taking care of his business, and at times would burst into tears and look furtively at his chewing father. His grandson stopped going to high school. His daughter-in-law yelled shrilly, wrung her hands, pressed her son close to her, and cried bitterly and profusely.

    Shloyme now had an occupation, he watched and tried to comprehend. Muffled thoughts stirred in his long-torpid brain. "They're being kicked out of here!" Shloyme knew why they were being kicked out. "But Shloyme can't leave! He's eighty-six years old! He wants to stay warm! It's cold outside, damp .... No! Shloyme isn't going anywhere! He has nowhere to go, nowhere!" Shloyme hid in his corner and wanted to clasp the rickety wooden bed in his arms, caress the stove, the sweet, warm stove that was as old as he was. "He grew up here, spent his poor, bleak life here, and wants his old bones to be buried in the small local cemetery!" At moments when such thoughts came to him, Shloyme became unnaturally animated, walked up to his son, wanted to talk to him with passion and at great length, to give him advice on a couple of things, but... it had been such a long time since he had spoken to anyone, or given anyone advice. And the words froze in his toothless mouth, his raised arm dropped weakly. Shloyme, all huddled up as if ashamed at his outburst, sullenly went back to his corner and listened to what his son was saying to his daughter-in-law. His hearing was bad, but with fear and dread he sensed something terrifying. At such moments his son felt the heavy crazed look of the old man, who was being driven insane, focused on him. The old man's two small eyes with their accursed probing, seemed incessantly to sense something, to question something. On one occasion words were said too loudly--it had slipped the daughter-in-law's mind that Shloyme was still alive. And right after her words were spoken, there was a quiet, almost smothered wail. It was old Shloyme. With tottering steps, dirty and disheveled, he slowly hobbled over to his son, grabbed his hands, caressed them, kissed them, and, not taking his inflamed eyes off his son, shook his head several times, and for the first time in many, many years, tears flowed from his eyes. He didn't say anything. With difficulty he got up from his knees, his bony hand wiping away the tears; for some reason he shook the dust off his frock coat and shuffled back to his corner, to where the warm stove stood. Shloyme wanted to warm himself. He felt cold.

    From that time on, Shloyme thought of nothing else. He knew one thing for certain: his son wanted to leave his people for a new God. The old, forgotten faith was kindled within him. Shloyme had never been religious, had rarely ever prayed, and in his younger days had even had the reputation of being godless. But to leave, to leave one's God completely and forever, the God of an oppressed and suffering people--that he could not understand. Thoughts rolled heavily inside his head, he comprehended things with difficult, but these words remained unchanged, hard, and terrible before him: "This mustn't happen, it mustn't!" And when Shloyme realized that disaster was inevitable, that his son couldn't hold out, he said to himself, "Shloyme, old Shloyme! What are you going to do now?" The old man looked around helplessly, mournfully puckered his lips like a child, and wanted to burst into the bitter tears of an old man. But there were no relieving tears. And then, at the moment his heart began aching, when his mind grasped the boundlessness of the disaster, it was then that Shloyme looked at his warm corner one last time and decided that no one was going to kick him out of here, they would never kick him out. "They will not let old Shloyme eat the dried-up piece of honey cake lying under his pillow! So what! Shloyme will tell God how he was wronged! After all, there is a God, God will take him in!" Shloyme was sure of this.

    In the middle of the night, trembling with cold, he got up from his bed. Quietly, so as not to wake anyone, he lit a small kerosene lamp. Slowly, with an old man's groaning and shivering, he started pulling on his dirty clothes. Then he took the stool and the rope he had prepared the night before, and, tottering with weakness, steadying himself on the walls, went out into the street. Suddenly it was so cold. His whole body shivered. Shloyme quickly fastened the rope onto a hook, stood up next to the door, put the stool in place, clambered up onto it, wound the rope around his thin, quivering neck, kicked away the stool with his last strength, managing with his dimming eyes to glance at the town he had not left once in sixty years, and hung.

    There was a strong wind, and soon old Shloyme's frail body began swaying before the door of his house in which he had left his warm stove and the greasy Torah of his forefathers.

 


Excerpted from The Complete Works of Isaac Babel by Isaac Babel. Copyright © 2002 by Nathalie Babel. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

 


BACK TO TOP