Babel chief of the stockpile summary. “Cavalry. Other retellings and reviews for the reader's diary

Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel

"Cavalry"

My first goose

Correspondent of the newspaper "Red cavalry" Lyutov (narrator and lyrical hero) finds himself in the ranks of the First Cavalry Army, headed by S. Budyonny. The First Horse, fighting with the Poles, makes a march through Western Ukraine and Galicia. Among the cavalrymen Lyutov is a stranger. A bespectacled man, an intellectual, a Jew, he feels condescending, mocking, and even hostile attitude towards himself on the part of the fighters. “You are from kinderbalms ... and glasses on your nose. What a lousy one! They send you, without asking, but here they cut you for glasses, "says the chief of six, Savitsky, when he comes to him with a paper on assignment to the division headquarters. Here, at the front, horses, passions, blood, tears and death. They are not used to standing on ceremony here and live for one day. Making fun of the literate who has arrived, the Cossacks throw out his chest, and Lyutov pitifully crawls on the ground, collecting the scattered manuscripts. In the end, hungry, he demands that the mistress feed him. Without waiting for a response, he pushes her in the chest, takes someone else's saber and kills the goose staggering around the yard, and then orders the hostess to fry it. Now the Cossacks no longer taunt him, they invite him to eat with them. Now he is almost like his own, and only his heart, stained with murder, "creaked and flowed" in his sleep.

Death of Dolgushov

Even after fighting and having seen enough of death, Lyutov still remains a "soft" intellectual. Once he sees after the battle the telephone operator Dolgushov sitting near the road. He is mortally wounded and asks to finish him off. “You have to put a patron on me,” he says. - If the gentry rushes in, they will make a mockery. Turning away his shirt, Dolgushov shows the wound. His stomach is ripped out, his guts are crawling to his knees and his heartbeats are visible. However, Lyutov is unable to commit murder. He drives off to the side, pointing at Dolgushov to the galloping platoon officer Afonka Bide. Dolgushov and Afonka talk briefly about something, the wounded man hands his documents to the Cossack, then Afonka shoots Dolgushov in the mouth. He is seething with anger at the compassionate Lyutov, so in the heat of the moment he is ready to shoot him too. “Go away! - he says to him, turning pale. - I will kill! You, bespectacled, regret our brother, like a cat to a mouse ... "

Biography of Pavlichenka, Matvey Rodionich

Lyutov envies the firmness and decisiveness of the fighters, who, like him, do not experience, as it seems to him, false sentimentality. He wants to be his own. He tries to understand the "truth" of the cavalrymen, including the "truth" of their cruelty. Here is the red general talking about how he paid off with his former master Nikitinsky, who had herded pigs before the revolution. The master pestered his wife Nastya, and now Matvey, having become a red commander, came to his estate to avenge the offense. He does not shoot him right away, even though he asks for it, but in front of Nikitinsky's crazy wife, he tramples on him for an hour or more, and thus, according to him, he knows life in full. He says: "By shooting a person ... you can only get rid of: shooting is a pardon for him, but you can't get to your soul with shooting, where a person has it and how it is shown."

Salt

Konarmeets Balmashev in a letter to the newspaper's editorial office describes the incident that happened to him on the train moving to Berdichev. At one of the stations, the fighters let a woman with a breastfeeding child into their heating room, allegedly going on a date with her husband. However, on the way, Balmashev begins to doubt the honesty of this woman, he approaches her, tears off the diapers from the child and discovers under them "a good puddle of salt." Balmashev makes a fiery accusatory speech and throws the bagwife down a slope on the way. Seeing her unharmed, he removes the "faithful screw" from the wall and kills the woman, washing "this shame from the face of the laboring land and the republic."

Letter

The boy Vasily Kurdyukov writes a letter to his mother, in which he asks to send him something to eat and tells about the brothers who are fighting, like him, for the Reds. One of them, Fyodor, who was taken prisoner, was killed by a White Guard father, a company commander at Denikin's, "a guard under the old regime." He cut his son before dark, "saying - a skin, a red dog, a son of a bitch and so on", "until brother Fyodor Timofeich was over." And after a while, the dad himself, who was trying to hide by repainting his beard, falls into the hands of another son, Stepan, and he, having sent little brother Vasya from the yard, in turn ends dad.

Clothespins

The young Kuban citizen Prishchepa, who fled from the whites, killed their parents in revenge. The property was plundered by neighbors. When the whites were driven out, Prishchepa returned to his native village. He takes the cart and goes home to collect his gramophones, jugs for kvass and towels embroidered by his mother. In those huts where he finds the things of his mother or father, Prishchepa leaves pinned up old women, dogs hanged over a well, icons soiled with droppings. Having put the collected things in their places, he locks himself in his father's house and drinks, cries, sings and chops tables with a sword for two days. On the third night, the flame burns over his hut. The clothespin takes the cow out of the stall and kills it. Then he mounts his horse, throws a lock of his hair into the fire and disappears.

Squadron Trunov

Squadron Trunov is looking for officers among the Polish prisoners. He pulls out an officer's cap from a pile of clothes, which were deliberately discarded by the Poles, and puts it on the head of a captive old man who claims that he is not an officer. The cap fits him, and Trunov stabs the prisoner. Immediately, a marauder cavalry officer Andryushka Vosmiletov approaches the dying man and pulls off his pants. Taking two more uniforms, he goes to the wagon train, but the indignant Trunov orders him to leave the junk, shoots at Andryushka, but misses. A little later, together with Vosmiletov, he engages in battle with American airplanes, trying to shoot them down with a machine gun, and both die in this battle.

The story of one horse

Passion reigns supreme in Babel's artistic world. For a cavalryman, "a horse is a friend ... A horse is a father ...". Chief Savitsky took away the white stallion from the commander of the first squadron, and since then Khlebnikov has been eager for revenge, waiting in the wings. When Savitsky is removed, he writes to the army headquarters a petition for the return of his horse. Having received a positive resolution, Khlebnikov goes to the disgraced Savitsky and demands that the horse be returned to him, but the former divisional commander, threatening with a revolver, decisively refuses. Khlebnikov again seeks justice from the chief of staff, but he drives him away from himself. As a result, Khlebnikov writes a statement in which he expresses his grudge against The communist party, which cannot return "his blood", and a week later is demobilized as an invalid with six wounds.

Afonka Bida

When a beloved horse is killed near Afonka Bida, the frustrated cavalryman disappears for a long time, and only a formidable murmur in the villages points to the evil and predatory trail of Afonka's robbery, getting a horse for himself. Only when the division enters Berestechko does Afonka finally appear on a tall stallion. Instead of the left eye on his charred face, there is a monstrous pink swelling. The heat of a freeman has not yet cooled down in him, and he is destroying everything around him.

Pan Apolek

The icons of the Novograd church have their own history - "the history of an unheard-of war between the powerful body of the Catholic Church, on the one hand, and the careless godmother, on the other", a war that lasted three decades. These icons were painted by the foolish artist Pan Apolek, who, with his art, made ordinary people into saints. He, who presented a diploma of graduation from the Munich Academy and his paintings on the themes of Scripture (“burning purple robes, the glitter of emerald fields and flowery veils thrown over the plains of Palestine”), was entrusted by the Novograd priest with painting the new church. Imagine the surprise of the eminent citizens invited by the priest when they recognize in the Apostle Paul on the painted walls of the church the lame cross of Janek, and in Mary Magdalene - the Jewish girl Elka, the daughter of unknown parents and the mother of many children under the fence. The artist, invited to the place of Apolek, does not dare to gloss over Elka and the lame Janek. The narrator meets Pan Apolek in the kitchen of the house of the runaway priest, and he offers to make his portrait for fifty marks under the guise of Blessed Francis. He also tells him the blasphemous story of the marriage of Jesus and the little girl Deborah, who gave birth to his first child.

Gedali

Lyutov sees old Jews trading at the yellow walls of an ancient synagogue, and with sadness recalls Jewish life, now dilapidated by the war, recalls his childhood and his grandfather stroking the yellow beard of the volume of the Jewish sage Ibn Ezra. Walking through the bazaar, he sees death - mute locks on trays. He walks into the antiquities shop of the old Jew, Gedali, where there is everything: from gilded shoes and ship ropes to a broken saucepan and a dead butterfly. Gedali walks, rubbing white hands, among his treasures and laments the brutality of the revolution, which rob, shoot and kill. Gedali dreams of "a sweet revolution", of an "International of good people". The narrator, however, convinced him that the International is "eaten with gunpowder ... and seasoned with the best blood." But when he asks where he can get a Jewish biscuit and a Jewish glass of tea, Gedali contritely replies that until recently it could have been done in a nearby tavern, but now “they don’t eat there, they cry there…”.

Rabbi

Lyutov regrets this life swept away by the revolution, trying with great difficulty to preserve himself, he participates in the Saturday evening meal led by the wise Rabbi Motale Bratslavsky, whose rebellious son Ilya "with the face of Spinoza, with the mighty forehead of Spinoza" is also here. Ilya, like the narrator, fights in the Red Army, and soon he is destined to die. The rabbi encourages the guest to rejoice that he is alive and not dead, but Lyutov is relieved to go to the station, where the First Horse propaganda train is stationed, where the radiance of hundreds of lights, the magical shine of the radio station, the stubborn running of cars in the printing house and an unfinished article in the newspaper await him. Red cavalryman ".

Essays

In civil wars, the eternal law of being is violated - "Do not shed the blood of your neighbor" (based on the stories of I. Babel) The greatness and horror of the civil war in the stories of I. Babel. Heroes of the Civil War to the book "Cavalry" The depiction of the horrors of war in the book of I. E. Babel "Cavalry" The problem of violence and humanism in Russian literature of the 20th century Review of Babel's story "Salt" Review of I. Babel's story "Salt" A man in the fire of revolution (based on the novels by A. Fadeev "The Defeat" and I. Babel "Cavalry") "I do not want and cannot believe that evil was the normal state of people ..." (Based on Babel's book "Cavalry") Characteristics of the image of Dyakov An essay about all the stories of Babel's "Cavalry" About I. Babel's novel "Cavalry"

This work is a collection of stories that are united by the theme - the civil war. The creation was based on the author's diary entries, which he kept when he served in the First Cavalry Army under the command of S. Budenov.

My first goose

Here is the story of Lyutov. Who worked in the newspaper "Red Cavalry", but goes to serve in the first horse. She is fighting with the Poles, so she is moving through Galicia and Western Ukraine. It also describes military life, all its hardships. People live only in the present, they do not make plans for the future. The Cossacks mock him, but the hostess does not want to feed him. But when he is hungry to such an extent that he can no longer tolerate, he demands food from her. But he goes out into the yard, takes sabers and hacks down a goose. He ordered him to cook it, after which the Cossacks stopped laughing at him.

Death of Dolgushov

This story is about a telephone operator. Once Lyutov came across an early colleague, but he asked to kill him. But Lyutov cannot kill him. Then he asked Afonka to come to the dying man. First Dolgushov and Afonka are talking, then Afonka kills the soldier. Then he rushes at Lyutov and accuses him of this.

Biography of Pavlichenka, Matvey Rodionich

It tells about Lyutov's torments. He wants to be his own, wants to understand how to do it, so he listens attentively to every detail of the general's story about how he defeated Barin Nikitsky. The owner constantly pestered Matvey's wife and becoming a Red Army soldier, he decided to take revenge on him. He shot him, and his wife saw it. But the general says that he did not punish him, but acted mercifully.

Salt

This story describes the fate of the Red Army. Lyutov receives a letter from Balmashev, who in it says that the soldiers met a woman with a child. And they took them with them, but over time doubts arose. Then Balmashev opens the diapers and sees there a bag of salt. One of the soldiers, in a rage, began to accuse her, and then completely threw her out of the train. But she survived, and then Balmashev shot her.

Letter

This story is dedicated to the boy Vasily Kurdyukov, who decided to write a letter to his mother. He asks her to send him food and tells about the brothers. But one of the brothers named Fyodor is captured. His own father kills him. He wants to hide, but Stepan, his other son, kills his father.

Clothespins

Here we will talk about the Kuban citizen Prishchep. He was fleeing from whites who shot his parents. But when the enemies were driven out of his native village, he returns. But his hut was robbed, and he collects his property from neighbors, and in return hangs their dogs, stains the icons with chicken droppings. After he has collected everything, he drinks for several days, sings songs. Then his house catches fire, and he took the cow out of the barn, killed her, and then drove away.

The story of one horse

Once Savitsky took the stallion from Khlebnikov, who commanded the first squadron. Khlebnikov was offended at him, but when Savitsky was fired, he asked to return the white stallion to him, and went to Savitsky. But he did not want to give. Then he went to the new commander of the headquarters, but he kicked him out. And Khlebnikov wrote a statement that the party was not able to return his property, after which he was demobilized, as he was wounded.

Pan Apolek

It tells about the bogomaz Apolek, who was commissioned to paint the Novgorod church. He showed his diploma and work, so he was entrusted. But when he finished, everyone was just at a loss, because ordinary people were guessed in the saints. They kicked him out and accepted another painter. Then Lyutov meets him and Apolek offers to paint his portrait for fabulous money. In addition, he tells a story about Jesus, namely about his wedding to a rootless girl.

Gedali

Lyutov met Jews who were selling something near the synagogue. He remembers being Jews. He goes to the bazaar, and there all the stalls are closed, except for one, the Gedali shop. It has everything you need. They argue for a while about the revolution, then Lyutov asked if it was possible to buy Jewish food, to which Gedali replied that once it was sold nearby neighbors, but now there are only tears.

Rabbi

Lyutov stops at one of the houses. The head of the family is Rabbi Motale Bratslavsky. He has a son, Ilya, who looks like Spinoza, who serves for the Red Army. But in the house there is sadness and sorrow. Although the head of the family calls them to joy, because they are alive. In the morning he left this house and went to the station, where the train of the First Horse was already standing, an unfinished newspaper.

The book is completely and completely imbued with patriotism, the reality of life. Here the author shows both spiritual blindness and the search for truth. Heroes are both tragic and funny, the main thing is always to remain human no matter what.

Read the summary of Isaac Babel's Cavalry

In this collection of stories, Babel, on behalf of her hero-journalist, tells about the terrible events of the civil war.

Jewish journalist Lyutov was sent to the ranks, respectively, of the cavalry army, which is led by Budyonny himself. The fighters do not accept the journalist right away ... He is too different from these brave, optimistic, ordinary people. He is subtle and weak, a creative pacifist who is absolutely not adapted to the difficult conditions of the front. Even his glasses are laughing.

But from despair and simply from hunger Lyutov "goes berserk", he himself kills a goose. This act impressed the fighters, they began to relate better to this "scribe".

The terrible events of the war pass before the journalist's eyes: the suffering of people, devastation, hunger, disease ... In such conditions, one can live only for one day. As a result, the journalist accepts everything as it is.

Fratricidal war is rich in cases when relatives meet on the battlefield in different armies. And often they do not just kill, but deliberately torture. Lyutov tries to understand this cruelty. Sometimes it is necessary, as, for example, in one of the stories, when you need to finish off a wounded man.

Everyone suffers: some are outraged by the icons, some - by the fact that there is no longer anything to be baptized. This is the story of "Pan Apolek", whose hero draws his neighbors as saints.

One of the stories in the collection is in the form of a letter from a young man who asks his mother to send him food. Several stories are devoted to the main thing for the soldiers of the cavalry - horses.

There is a story about a woman who went in the same lineup with the soldiers, because she has a baby in her arms. However, it turned out that the package contains salt! The deceiver was killed.

In several stories, Lyutov compares his happy childhood with the war. He would also like a "kind international", but now he realized that cruelty is inevitable.

These stories teach how unpoetic life can be, but how important it is to preserve the human appearance and not judge others.

Picture or drawing Babel - Cavalry

Babel, "Konarmiya": a summary

"Cavalry" is a collection of short stories that began to be published in 1926. The work is united by a common theme - the civil war of the early 20th century. The author's diary entries during the service in which S. Budyonny commanded served as the basis for writing.

"My first goose"

The collection "Cavalry" opens with just this story. The main lyrical hero and narrator Lyutov, who works for the newspaper "Red Cavalry", falls into the ranks of the 1st Cavalry Army under the command of Budyonny. The 1st Horse is at war with the Poles, therefore it passes through Galicia and Western Ukraine. Next comes the image of military life, where there is only blood, death and tears. They live here one day.

Cossacks mock and mock the intellectual Lyutov. And the hostess refuses to feed him. When he was starving to the point of impossibility, he came to her and demanded to feed himself. And then he went out into the yard, took a saber and hacked to death a goose. Then he ordered the hostess to cook it. Only after that the Cossacks began to consider Lyutov almost their own and stopped ridiculing.

"Death of Dolgushov"

The collection of stories by Isaac Babel continues the story of the telephone operator Dolgushov. Somehow Lyutov stumbles upon a mortally wounded colleague, who asks for pity to finish him off. but the main character unable to kill even to ease the fate. Therefore, he asks Afonka to approach the dying man. Dolgushov and the new assistant are talking about something, and then Afonka shoots him in the head. The Red Army soldier, who has just killed a comrade, rushes at Lyutov in anger and accuses him of unnecessary pity, from which there is only harm.

"Biography of Pavlichenka, Matvey Rodionich"

She pays a lot of attention to her main character Babel ("Cavalry"). The summary again tells about the emotional anxieties of Lyutov, who secretly envies the decisiveness and firmness of the Cossacks. His main desire is to become his own among them. Therefore, he seeks to understand them, attentively listens to the general's story about how he dealt with the master Nikitsky, whom he had served before the revolution. The owner often pestered Matthew's wife, therefore, as soon as he became a Red Army soldier, he decided to avenge his insult. But Matvey did not shoot Nikitsky, but trampled on him in front of his wife. The general himself says that the shooting is mercy and pardon, not punishment.

"Salt"

Reveals the fate of ordinary Red Army soldiers in his work Babel. "Cavalry" (the summary confirms this) is a kind of illustration of post-revolutionary reality. So, Lyutov receives a letter from the cavalry officer Balmashev, who tells about the incident on the train. At one of the stations, the soldiers picked up a woman with a child and let them into their carriage. However, gradually doubts began to creep in among them. Therefore, Balmashev tears off the diapers, but instead of the child he discovers a bag of salt. The Red Army man becomes furious, attacks the woman with an accusatory speech, and then throws her out of the train. Despite the fall, the woman remained intact. Then Balmashev grabbed a weapon and shot her, believing that in this way he washed away the shame from the working people.

"Letter"

Isaac Babel portrays not only adult fighters, but also children. "Cavalry" is a collection in which there is a work dedicated to the boy Vasily Kurdyukov, who is writing a letter to his mother. In the message, he asks to send some food and tell how the brothers are doing, fighting for the Reds. It immediately turns out that Fyodor, one of the brothers, was captured and killed by his own father, who was fighting on the side of the whites. He commanded Denikin's company, and he killed his son for a long time, cutting off the skin piece by piece. After some time, the White Guard himself was forced to hide, repainting his beard for this. However, his other son Stepan found his father and finished him off.

"Prishepa"

The next story is dedicated to the young Kuban citizen Prishchepa Isaac Babel ("Cavalry" tells about this). The hero had to escape from the whites who killed his parents. When the enemies were driven out of the village, Prishchepa returned, but the neighbors managed to plunder all the property. Then he takes the cart and goes through the courtyards to look for his goods. In those huts in which he managed to find things belonging to his parents, Prishchepa leaves the hanged dogs and old women over the wells and icons soiled with droppings.

When everything has been collected, he puts things in their former places and locks himself in the house. Here he drinks unrestrainedly for two days, chops tables with a sword and sings songs. And on the third night, a flame engulfs his house. Clothespipe goes to the barn, takes out the cow left over from the parents, and kills. After that, he mounts his horse and drives off wherever his eyes would look.

"The Story of a Horse"

This work continues Babel's stories "Cavalry". For a cavalry officer, the horse is the most important thing, he is a friend, and a comrade, and a brother, and a father. Once the divisional commander Savitsky took the white horse from the commander of the first squadron, Khlebnikov. Since then, Khlebnikov harbored a grudge and waited for an opportunity for revenge. And as soon as Savitsky lost his position, he wrote a petition for the stallion to be returned to him. Having received a positive answer, Khlebnikov went to Savitsky, who refused to give up the horse. Then the commander goes to the new chief of staff, but he drives him away. Then Khlebnikov sits down and writes a statement that he is offended by the Communist Party, which is unable to return his property. After that, he is demobilized, since he has 6 wounds and is considered disabled.

"Pan Apolek"

The church theme of Babel's works is also touched upon. "Cavalry" tells the story of the bogomaz Apolek, who was entrusted with painting the Novgorod church in the new church. The artist presented a diploma and several of his works, so the priest accepted his candidacy without question. However, when the job was handed over, employers greatly resented it. The fact is that the artist made ordinary people into saints. So, in the image of the Apostle Paul, the face of the lame Janek was guessed, and Mary Magdalene was very similar to Elka, a Jewish girl, the mother of a considerable number of children under the fence. Apolek was driven out, and another bogomaz was hired to replace him. However, he did not dare to paint over the creation of others' hands.

Lyutov, a double of Babel from the Cavalry, met the disgraced artist in the house of a runaway priest. At the first meeting, Pan Apolek attached to make him a portrait in the image of Blessed Francis for only 50 marks. In addition, the artist told the blasphemous story of how Jesus married a rootless girl, Deborah, who gave birth to a son from him.

"Gedali"

Lyutov encounters a group of old Jews who are selling something near the yellowed walls of the synagogue. The hero begins to remember with sadness the Jewish way of life, which has now been destroyed by the war. He also recalls his childhood, his grandfather, who stroked numerous volumes of the sage of the Jews Ibn Ezra. Lyutov goes to the bazaar and sees the stalls closed with locks, which he associates with death.

Then the hero catches the eye of the shop of the ancient Jew Gedali. You can find anything here, from gilded shoes to broken pots. The owner himself rubs his white hands, walks along the counters and complains about the horrors of the revolution: everywhere they suffer, kill and rob. Gedali would like another revolution, which he calls an "international of good people." However, Lyutov does not agree with him, he claims that the International is inseparable from rivers of blood and gunpowder shots.

The hero then asks where he can find Jewish food. Gedali says that earlier it could be done in the neighborhood, but now they only cry, not eat.

"Rabbi"

Lyutov stopped in one of the houses for the night. In the evening, the whole family sits down at the table, headed by Rabbi Motale Bratslavsky. His son Ilya is also sitting here, with a face similar to Spinoza. He fights on the side of the Red Army. Despondency reigns in this house and death is near, although the rabbi himself calls on everyone to rejoice that they are still alive.

With incredible relief, Lyutov leaves this house. He goes to the station, where the First Horse train is already there, and the unfinished newspaper "Red Cavalier" is waiting there.

Analysis

Created an indissoluble artistic unity of all the stories of Babel ("Cavalry"). The analysis of the works emphasizes this feature, since a certain plot-forming connection is revealed. Moreover, the author himself forbade changing the places of the stories when the collection was republished, which also emphasizes the importance of their location.

Combined the cycle and one composition Babel. "Cavalry" (analysis allows us to be convinced of this) is an inextricable epic-lyrical story about the times of the Civil War. It combines both naturalistic descriptions of military reality and romantic pathos. There is no author's position in the stories, which allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. And the images of the hero-narrator and the author are so intricately intertwined that they create the impression of the presence of several points of view.

Cavalry: heroes

Kirill Vasilievich Lyutov is the central character of the entire collection. He acts as a narrator and as an unwitting participant in some of the events described. Moreover, he is a double of Babel from the Cavalry. Kirill Lyutov - this was the literary pseudonym of the author himself when he worked

Lyutov is a Jew who was abandoned by his wife, he graduated from St. Petersburg University, his intelligence prevents him from intermarrying with the Cossacks. For the fighters, he is a stranger and only causes condescension on their part. In fact, he is an intellectual who is trying to reconcile humanistic principles with the realities of the revolutionary era.

Pan Apolek is an icon painter and an old monk. He is an atheist and a sinner who blasphemously treated the painting of a church in Novgorod. In addition, he is the bearer of a huge store of distorted biblical stories, where saints are portrayed as subject to human vices.

Gedali is the owner of a shop of antiquities in Zhitomir, a blind Jew with a philosophical character. He seems to be ready to accept the revolution, but he does not like that it is accompanied by violence and blood. Therefore, for him there is no difference between counter-revolution and revolution - both bring only death.

Cavalry is a very frank and merciless book. The reader finds himself in the usual harsh military reality, in which spiritual blindness and truth-seeking, tragic and funny, cruelty and heroism are intertwined.

Current page: 1 (total of the book has 10 pages)

Isaac Babel
CONARMY

Crossing the Zbruch

The chief of the six reported that Novograd-Volynsk was taken at dawn today. The headquarters set out from Krapivno, and our train with a noisy rearguard stretched along the highway from Brest to Warsaw and built on the bones of men by Nicholas the First.

Fields of purple poppies bloom around us, the midday wind plays in the yellowing rye, virgin buckwheat rises on the horizon like the wall of a distant monastery. Quiet Volhynia bends, Volhynia leaves us in the pearl mist of birch groves, it crawls into flowery hills and with weakened hands gets tangled in thickets of hops. The orange sun rolls across the sky like a severed head, a gentle light shines in the gorges of clouds, the standards of the sunset blow over our heads. The smell of yesterday's blood and dead horses drips into the evening chill. The blackened Zbruch makes noise and twirls the foamy knots of its rapids. The bridges have been destroyed and we are wading across the river. The majestic moon lies on the waves. Horses sink into the water up to their backs, sonorous streams oozing between hundreds of horse legs. Someone drowns and loudly denigrates the Mother of God. The river is dotted with black squares of carts, it is full of hum, whistle and song, thundering over the moon snakes and shining pits.

Late at night we arrive in Novograd. I find a pregnant woman in my allotted apartment and two red-haired Jews with slender necks; the third sleeps, covered with his head and leaning against the wall. I find torn up wardrobes in the room allotted to me, scraps of women's fur coats on the floor, human feces and shards of secret dishes used by Jews once a year - at Easter.

“Take it away,” I say to the woman. - How dirty you live, owners ...

Two Jews are removed from their seats. They jump on felt soles and remove debris from the floor, they jump in silence, like a monkey, like the Japanese in a circus, their necks swell and twist. They put the unbroken feather bed on the floor, and I lie down against the wall, next to the third Jew who has fallen asleep. Shy poverty closes over my bed.

Everything is killed by silence, and only the moon, clasping its round, shining, carefree head with its blue arms, wanders under the window.

I stretch my stiff legs, I lie on a ripped feather bed and fall asleep. I dream of the chief of the sixth division. He chases the brigade commander on a heavy stallion and thrust two bullets into his eyes. Bullets pierce the brigade commander's head, and both his eyes fall to the ground. "Why did you turn the brigade?" - shouts Savitsky to the wounded, having commanded six, - and then I wake up, because a pregnant woman fumbles her fingers over my face.

- Pan, - she says to me, - you scream from sleep and you rush. I will make a bed for you in another corner, because you are pushing my dad ...

She lifts her thin legs and round belly from the floor and removes the blanket from the sleeping person. The dead old man lies there, lying on his back. His throat is ripped out, his face is cut in half, the blue blood lies in his beard like a piece of lead.

“Pan,” the Jewess says and shakes the feather bed, “the Poles cut him, and he prayed to them: kill me in the black yard so that my daughter would not see me die. But they did what they needed - he ended up in this room and thought about me ... And now I want to know, ”the woman suddenly said with terrible strength,“ I want to know where else on earth you will find such a father, like my father ...

Church in Novograd

Yesterday I went to report to the military commissar who was staying at the house of a fugitive priest. Madame Eliza, the Jesuit's housekeeper, met me in the kitchen. She gave me amber tea with biscuits. Her biscuits smelled like a crucifix. Evil juice was enclosed in them and the fragrant fury of the Vatican.

Near the house in the church bells were ringing, turned on by a mad bell ringer. It was an evening full of July stars. Pani Eliza, shaking attentive gray hair, poured cookies on me, I enjoyed the food of the Jesuits.

An old Polish woman called me "Pan", gray old men with ossified ears stood at attention at the threshold, and somewhere in the snake gloom the monk's cassock was wriggling. Pater fled, but he left an assistant - Pan Romuald.

A nasty eunuch with the body of a giant, Romuald called us "comrades." He traced the map with a yellow finger, indicating the circles of the Polish defeat. Seized with hoarse delight, he recounted the wounds of his homeland. Let the meek oblivion swallow up the memory of Romuald, who betrayed us without regret and was shot in passing. But that evening his narrow cassock moved around all the curtains, fiercely chalked all the roads and grinned at everyone who wanted to drink vodka. That evening, the shadow of a monk followed me relentlessly. He would have become a bishop - Pan Romuald, if he had not been a spy.

I drank rum with him, the breath of an unprecedented way gleamed under the ruins of the priest's house, and his insinuating temptations weakened me. Oh crucifixes, tiny as the courtesan's talismans, parchment of papal bulls and an atlas of women's letters, decayed in blue silk vests! ..

I can see you from here, an unfaithful monk in a lilac cassock, the swelling of your hands, your soul, tender and merciless like the soul of a cat, I see the wounds of your god, oozing seed, fragrant poison, intoxicating virgins.

We drank rum, waiting for the military commissar, but he still did not return from the headquarters. Romuald fell in the corner and fell asleep. He sleeps and trembles, and outside the window in the garden, under the black passion of the sky, an alley shimmers. Thirsty roses sway in the darkness. Green lightning glows in the domes. A stripped corpse is lying under a slope. And the moonlight streams down the dead legs sticking apart.

Here is Poland, here is the haughty grief of the Commonwealth! A violent newcomer, I am throwing a lousy mattress in the church left by a clergyman, I put folios under my head, in which hosanna is printed to the clearly noble and blessed Chief of the Pansta, Joseph Pilsudski.

Hordes of beggars are rolling on your ancient cities, O Poland, the song about the unity of all slaves thunders over them, and woe to you. Rzeczpospolita, woe to you, prince Radziwill, and to you, prince Sapega, who got up for an hour! ..

All my military commissar is absent. I am looking for him in the headquarters, in the garden, in the church. The gates of the church are open, I enter, and two silver skulls flare up on the lid of the broken coffin towards me. Frightened, I rush down into the dungeon. An oak staircase leads from there to the altar. And I see a lot of lights running in height, right next to the dome. I see the military commissar, the head of a special department and the Cossacks with candles in their hands. They respond to my weak cry and lead me out of the basement.

The skulls, which turned out to be the carvings of the church hearse, do not frighten me anymore, and together we continue the search, because this was a search begun after piles of military uniforms were found in the priest's apartment.

Glittering with the embroidered horse muzzles of our cuffs, whispering and clattering spurs, we whirl around the echoing building with a floating wax in our hands. Our Lady, studded with precious stones, follow our path with pink pupils like mice, flames beat in our fingers, and square shadows writhe on the statues of St. Peter, St. Francis, St. Vincent, on their ruddy cheeks and curly beards painted with carmine.

We are spinning and searching. Bone buttons jump under our fingers, icons cut in half move apart, opening dungeons into caves blooming with mold. This temple is ancient and full of mystery. It hides secret passages, niches and doors that swing silently in its glossy walls.

Oh, stupid priest who hung the bras of his parishioners on the nails of the savior. Behind the royal doors we found a suitcase with gold coins, a morocco bag with credit cards and cases of Parisian jewelers with emerald rings.

And then we counted the money in the military commissar's room. Pillars of gold, carpets of money, gusty wind blowing on the flame of candles, crow's madness in the eyes of Mrs. Eliza, the thunderous laughter of Romuald and the endless roar of bells turned on by Pan Robatsky, the distraught bell ringer.

- Away, - I said to myself, - away from these winking Madonnas, deceived by the soldiers ...

Letter

Here is a letter to my homeland, dictated to me by the boy of our expedition, Kurdyukov. It does not deserve to be forgotten. I rewrote it without embellishing it, and I am transmitting it verbatim, in accordance with the truth.

“Dear mother Evdokia Fyodorovna. In the first lines of this letter, I hasten to inform you that, thanks to the Lord, I am alive and well, which I wish to hear from you the same. And also I bow down to you from a white face to damp earth ... "

(There follows a list of relatives, godparents, godfathers. Let's omit that. Let's move on to the second paragraph.)

“Dear mother Evdokia Fedorovna Kurdyukova. I hasten to write to you that I am in the red Cavalry Army of Comrade Budyonny, and also here is your godfather Nikon Vasilich, who is currently a red hero. They took me to their place, on the expedition of the Political Department, where we deliver literature and newspapers to positions - Moskovskie Izvestia CEC, Moskovskaya Pravda and the merciless newspaper Red Cavalryman, which every soldier in the front line wants to read, and after that he chops the vile nobility, and I live under Nikon Vasilich very splendidly.

Dear mother Evdokia Fyodorovna. Send what you can from your power-ability. I ask you to stab a pockmarked hog and send me a parcel to the Political Department of Comrade Budyonny, to receive Vasily Kurdyukov. Every day I go to rest without eating and without any clothes, so it is hefty cold. Write me a letter for my Styopa, whether he is alive or not, I ask you to inspect him and write to me for him - is he still spotted or has stopped, as well as about scabies in his front legs, have they shod him or not? I ask you, my dear mother Evdokia Fyodorovna, without fail wash his front legs with soap, which I left behind the images, and if father has destroyed the soap, buy it in Krasnodar, and God will not leave you. I can also describe to you that this country is very poor here, peasants with their horses are buried from our red eagles in the forests, wheat, apparently, is not enough and it is terribly small, we laugh at it. The owners sow rye and the same oats. The hops grow on sticks here, so it comes out very neatly; moonshine is driven from it.

In the second lines of this letter, I hasten to describe to you for papa that they chopped down Fyodor Timofeich Kurdyukov's brother a year ago. Our red brigade of Comrade Pavlichenka was advancing on the city of Rostov when treason took place in our ranks. And daddy was at that time with Denikin for the company commander. The people who saw them said that they wore medals on themselves, as under the old regime. And on the occasion of that betrayal, all of us were taken prisoner and brother Fyodor Timofeich caught the eye of the father. And papa began to cut Fyodor, saying - a skin, a red dog, a son of a bitch, and so on, and they cut him up until dark, until brother Fyodor Timofeich was over. Then I wrote a letter to you about how your Fedya is lying without a cross. But daddy pissed me off with a letter and said: you are mother's children, you are a mother's root, a bitch, I have grown belly and will grow belly, my life is lost, I will exhaust my seed for the truth, and in different ways. I accepted suffering from them as the Savior Jesus Christ. Only soon after, I ran away from my father and nailed myself to my part of Comrade Pavlichenka. And our brigade was ordered to go to the city of Voronezh to replenish, and we received replenishment there, as well as horses, bags, revolvers, and everything that belonged to us. For Voronezh, I can describe to you, my dear mother Evdokia Fedorovna, that this is a very magnificent town, it will be more than Krasnodar, the people in it are very beautiful, the river is capable of bathing. They gave us two pounds of bread a day, half a pound of meat and sugar was appropriate, so they got up and drank sweet tea, had the same supper and forgot about hunger, and at lunchtime I went to my brother Semyon Timofeich for pancakes or goose and then kicked to rest. At that time, Semyon Timofeich, for his despair, the whole regiment wanted to have for the commander and such an order came out from Comrade Budyonny, and he received two horses, a reference dress, a cart for junk separately and the Order of the Red Banner, and I was considered a brother. What kind of a neighbor will start to bully you - then Semyon Timofeich can completely slaughter him. Then we began to drive General Denikin, slaughtered thousands of them and drove into the Black Sea, but daddy was nowhere to be seen, and Semyon Timofeich was looking for them in all positions, because they missed their brother Fedya very much. But only, dear mother, as you know for dad and for his stubborn character, so what he did - impudently dyed his beard from red to black and was in the city of Maykop, in free clothes, so that none of the residents knew that he there is the most that neither is the guard in the old regime. But only the truth - she will show herself that your godfather Nikon Vasilich accidentally saw him in the house of a resident and wrote a letter to Semyon Timofeich. We got on our horses and ran two hundred miles - me, brother Senka and the willing guys from the village.

And what did we see in the city of Maykop? We saw that the rear did not sympathize with the front in any way and there was treason everywhere and full of Jews, as under the old regime. And Semyon Timofeich in the city of Maikop fought great with the Jews, who did not let their father out of them and put him in prison under lock and key, saying - the order came not to cut the prisoners, we will judge him ourselves, do not be angry, he will get his. But only Semyon Timofeich took his own and proved that he was the commander of the regiment and had all the Orders of the Red Banner from Comrade Budyonny, and threatened to chop down everyone who argued for his father’s personality and did not give it away, and the guys from the village also threatened. But only Semyon Timofeich got his daddy, and they began to weave daddy and lined up all the fighters in the yard, as they belong to the military order. And then Senka splashed daddy Timofey Rodionichu water on his beard, and paint flowed from his beard. And Senka asked Timofey Rodionich:

- Is it good for you, papa, in my hands?

- No, - said the father, - it's bad for me.

Then Senka asked:

- And Fedya, when you cut him, was it good in your hands?

- No, - said the father, - it was bad for Fedya.

Then Senka asked:

- Did you think, papa, that it would be bad for you too?

“No,” said my father, “I didn’t think that it would be bad for me.

Then Senka turned to the people and said:

- And I think that if I get caught by yours, then there will be no mercy for me. And now, daddy, we are going to finish you ...

And Timofey Rodionitch conceived impudently scolding Senka on mother and in the Mother of God and hitting Senka in the face, and Semyon Timofeich sent me out of the yard, so I cannot, dear mother Evdokia Fyodorovna, describe to you how dad ended up, because I was sent from the yard.

After that, we got a parking lot in the city in Novorossiysk. For this city, you can tell that behind it there is no more land, but only water. The Black Sea, and we stayed there until May, when we went to the Polish front and beat the gentry how much in vain ...

I remain your dear son Vasily Timofeich Kurdyukov. Mother, look to Styopka, and God will not leave you. "

Here is Kurdyukov's letter, not altered in a single word. When I had finished, he took the written sheet and hid it in his bosom, on his naked body.

- Kurdyukov, - I asked the boy, - did you have an evil father?

“My father was a dog,” he answered grimly.

- And the mother is better?

- The mother is suitable. If you wish, this is our surname ...

He handed me a broken photograph. It depicted Timofey Kurdyukov, a broad-shouldered guard in a uniform cap and a combed beard, motionless, high-cheekbone, with a sparkling gaze of colorless and meaningless eyes. Beside him, in a bamboo armchair, sat a tiny peasant woman in a loose sweater, with stunted light and shy features. And against the wall, against this miserable provincial photographic background, with flowers and doves, stood two guys - monstrously huge, stupid, broad-faced, big-eyed, frozen, as if for a study, two Kurdyukov brothers - Fyodor and Semyon.

Chief of the stockpile

There is a groan in the village. The cavalry poisons bread and changes horses. In return for the stuck nags, the cavalry take the working cattle. There is no one to scold. There is no army without a horse.

But the peasants are not better off from this consciousness. The peasants are crowding incessantly outside the headquarters building.

They drag the resting ones on the ropes, sliding from the weakness of the beds. Deprived of their breadwinners, the peasants, feeling within themselves a surge of bitter courage and knowing that the courage will not be long enough, rush without any hope to punish the authorities, God and their pitiful lot.

Chief of Staff J. in full form standing on the porch. Covering his sore eyelids, he listens with visible attention to men's complaints. But his attention is nothing more than a reception. Like any well-trained and overworked worker, he knows how to completely stop brain work in empty moments of existence. In these few moments of blissful nonsense, our chief of staff shakes up a worn-out car.

So this time with the men.

To the soothing accompaniment of their incoherent and desperate hum, J. watches from the sidelines that soft crush in the brain that foreshadows the purity and energy of thought. Having waited for the necessary interruption, he grabs the last tear of a man, snaps back in command and goes to his headquarters to work.

This time there was no need to snap back. Dyakov, a former circus athlete, and now the head of the stock of horses, a red-skinned, gray-haired man, in a black cloak and with silver stripes along red trousers, rode a fiery Anglo Arab to the porch.

- Honest bitches abbess blessing! - he shouted, pulling the horse down on the quarry, and at the same instant a shabby horse, one of the exchanged by the Cossacks, fell under his stirrup.

- Look, comrade chief, - the man yelled, slapping his pants, - there is what your brother gives to our brother ... Have you seen what they give? Manage her ...

- And for this horse, - Dyakov began separately and weightily then, - for this horse, dear friend, you have every right to receive fifteen thousand rubles in the horse stock, and if this horse were more cheerful, then in eftym case you would receive , a welcome friend, twenty thousand rubles in stock. But, however, the fact that the horse fell is not a hvakt. If a horse has fallen and rises, then it is a horse; if, on the contrary, he does not rise, then it is not a horse. But, by the way, this reference filly will rise for me ...

- Oh, my God, you are my all-merciful mother! - the man waved his hands. - Where can she, an orphan, rise ... She, an orphan, will die ...

“You offend the horse, godfather,” Dyakov replied with deep conviction, “you’re just blaspheming, godfather,” and he deftly removed his stately athlete's body from the saddle. Spreading his beautiful legs, grabbed at the knees by a strap, lush and dexterous, as on stage, he moved towards the dying animal. It gazed sadly at Dyakov with its steep, deep eye, licked some invisible command from his crimson palm, and immediately the exhausted horse felt the skillful strength emanating from this gray-haired, blooming and brave Romeo. Wiggling her muzzle and sliding her breaking legs, feeling the impatient and imperious tickling of the whip under her belly, nagging slowly, carefully stood on her feet. And so we all saw how a thin brush in a fluttering sleeve patted the dirty mane and the whip with a groan clung to the bleeding sides. Trembling with all her body, the nag stood on her feet and did not take her dog's, fearful, falling in love eyes from Dyakov.

- It means that the horse, - said Dyakov to the peasant and added softly: - and you were stinging, a welcome friend ...

Throwing the reins to the orderly, the chief of the troop reserve took four steps at a stroke and, throwing up an opera cloak, disappeared into the headquarters building.

Pan Apolek

The lovely and wise life of Pan Apolek hit me in the head like old wine. In Novograd-Volynsk, in a hastily crumpled city, among the twisted ruins, fate threw a gospel hidden from the world at my feet. Surrounded by the innocent radiance of halos, I then made a vow to follow the example of Pan Apolek. And the sweetness of dreamy malice, bitter contempt for the dogs and pigs of humanity, the fire of silent and delightful revenge - I sacrificed them to a new vow.

In the apartment of the fled Novograd priest an icon hung high on the wall. It bore the inscription: "Death of the Baptist." Without hesitation, I recognized in John the image of a man I had once seen.

I remember: between the straight and light walls there was a spider-web silence of a summer morning. At the foot of the picture, a direct ray was laid by the sun. Glittering dust swarmed in it. The long figure of John was descending straight at me from the blue depths of the niche. A black cloak hung solemnly from this unforgiving body, hideously thin. Drops of blood glistened in the round clasps of his cloak. John's head was cut obliquely from the stripped neck. She was lying on an earthenware dish, gripped firmly by the warrior's yellow thumbs. The dead man's face seemed familiar to me. The foreshadowing of the mystery touched me. On an earthenware dish lay a dead head, copied from Pan Romuald, the assistant to the fled priest. From his grinning mouth, the tiny body of a snake hung down with flamboyant scales. Her head, pale pink, full of animation, powerfully set off the deep background of the cloak.

I marveled at the painter's art, his gloomy invention. The more surprising it seemed to me the next day the red-cheeked Mother of God hanging over the matrimonial bed of Mrs Eliza, the old priest's housekeeper. Both canvases were printed with one brush. The fleshy face of the Mother of God was a portrait of Mrs Eliza. And then I came close to solving the Novograd icons. The clue led to the kitchen to Mrs. Eliza, where the shadows of old servile Poland gathered in fragrant evenings, with the holy fool at the head. But was Pan Apolek a holy fool, who inhabited suburban villages with angels and made Janek the lame cross?

He came here with the blind Gottfried thirty years ago on an invisible summer day. Friends - Apolek and Gottfried - approached Shmerel's tavern, which stands on the Rovno highway, two versts from the city limits. In his right hand Apolek had a box of paints, with his left he was leading a blind accordion player. The singing step of their German boots, bound with nails, sounded calm and hopeful. A canary scarf hung from Apolek's slender neck, three chocolate feathers swayed on the blind man's Tyrolean hat.

In the tavern on the windowsill, the newcomers laid out paints and a harmonica. The artist unwound his scarf, endless like the ribbon of a fairground magician. Then he went out into the yard, stripped naked and poured cold water on his pink, narrow, frail body. Schmerel's wife brought the guests raisin vodka and a bowl of zraza. Satisfied, Gottfried put harmony on his sharp knees. He sighed, threw back his head, and wiggled his thin fingers. The sounds of Heidelberg songs filled the walls of the Jewish shank. Apolek sang along to the blind man in a rattling voice. All this looked as if an organ had been brought to Shmerel from the Church of St. Indegilda and muses in colorful cotton scarves and shod German shoes sat side by side on the organ.

The guests sang until sunset, then they packed the harmonica and paints into canvas bags, and Pan Apolek, with a low bow, handed a sheet of paper to Brayna, the innkeeper's wife.

“Dear Madam Brian,” he said, “accept this portrait of yours from a wandering artist baptized with the Christian name Apollinaris, as a sign of our servile gratitude, as evidence of your luxurious hospitality. If the god Jesus prolongs my days and strengthens my art, I will return to paint this portrait. Pearls will fit your hair, and on your chest we will add an emerald necklace ...

On a small sheet of paper, in a red pencil, a pencil as red and soft as clay, was the laughing face of Mrs. Bryna, circled in copper curls.

- My money! - Shmerel cried, seeing the portrait of his wife. He grabbed a stick and set off in pursuit of the guests. But on the way, Schmerel recalled Apolek's pink body, flooded with water, and the sun on his courtyard, and the quiet ringing of a harmonica. The innkeeper was embarrassed in spirit and, putting down his stick, returned home.

The next morning, Apolek presented the Novograd priest with a diploma from the Munich Academy and laid out in front of him twelve paintings on themes from Scripture. These paintings were painted in oil on thin plates of cypress wood. Pater saw on his desk burning purple robes, the glitter of emerald fields and the flowery veils thrown over the plains of Palestine.

The Saints of Pan Apolek, this whole set of jubilant and rustic elders, gray-bearded, red-faced, was squeezed into the streams of silk and mighty evenings.

On the same day, Pan Apolek received an order to paint a new church. And behind Benedictine, the father told the artist.

- Santa Maria, - he said, - welcome Pan Apollinaris, from what wonderful regions your so joyful grace descended to us? ..

Apolek worked with zeal, and after a month new temple was full of the bleating of herds, the dusty gold of sunsets and fawn cow's breasts. The frayed-skinned buffaloes pulled in the harness, the pink-faced dogs ran ahead of the flock, and obese babies swayed in cradles suspended from the straight trunks of palm trees. The brown rags of the Franciscans surrounded the cradle. The crowd of the Magi was cut with gleaming bald patches and wrinkles as bloody as wounds. In the crowd of the Magi, the old woman's face of Leo XIII gleamed like a fox grin, and the Novograd priest himself, fingering the carved Chinese rosary with one hand, blessed the free newborn Jesus with the other.

For five months Apolek crawled, encased in his wooden seat, along the walls, along the dome and in the choir.

“You have a fondness for familiar faces, welcome Pan Apolek,” the priest said once, recognizing himself in one of the Magi and Pan Romuald in the severed head of John. He smiled, old father, and sent a glass of cognac to the artist working under the dome.

Then Apolek finished the Last Supper and the stoning of Mary of Magdala. One Sunday he opened the painted walls. Eminent citizens, invited by the priest, recognized in the Apostle Paul Janek, the lame cross, and in Mary Magdalene, the Jewish girl Elka, the daughter of unknown parents and the mother of many children who were taken away. Eminent citizens ordered to close the blasphemous images. The priest launched threats against the blasphemer. But Apolek did not close the painted walls.

Thus began an unheard-of war between the powerful body of the Catholic Church, on the one hand, and the carefree godmother, on the other. It lasted three decades. Chance almost elevated the meek reveler to the founding of a new heresy. And then he would be the most intricate and ridiculous fighter of all that the evasive and rebellious history of the Roman Church knew, a fighter who walked around the earth in blissful drunkenness with two white mice in his bosom and a set of the finest tassels in his pocket.

- Fifteen zlotys for the Mother of God, twenty-five zlotys for the holy family and fifty zlotys for the last supper with the image of all the relatives of the customer. The enemy of the customer can be depicted in the image of Judas Iscariot, and for this an extra ten zlotys is added, - so Apolek announced to the surrounding peasants, after he was expelled from the temple under construction.

He knew no shortage of orders. And when a year later, prompted by the ecstatic messages of the Novograd priest, a commission arrived from the bishop in Zhitomir, it found these monstrous family portraits, sacrilegious, naive and picturesque, in the most seedy and fetid huts. Josephs with a gray head combed in two, pomaded Jesus, multiparous village Mary with knees set apart - these icons hung in red corners, surrounded by wreaths of paper flowers.

- He made you a saint during your lifetime! - exclaimed the vicar Dubensky and Novokonstantinovsky, responding to the crowd defending Apolek. “He has surrounded you with the ineffable paraphernalia of the shrine, you who have fallen into the sin of disobedience three times, secret distillers, ruthless creditors, counterfeit scales makers and sellers of the innocence of their own daughters!

- Your priesthood, - said then to the vicar the bent-footed Vitold, the buyer of stolen goods and the cemetery watchman, - in what does the most merciful Pan God see the truth, who will tell the dark people about this? And isn't there more truth in the paintings of Pan Apolek, who has pleased our pride, than in your words, full of blasphemy and lordly anger?

Exclamations from the crowd sent the vicar to flight. The state of mind in the suburbs threatened the safety of church ministers. The artist, invited to the place of Apolek, did not dare to gloss over Elka and the lame Janek. They can be seen even now in the side chapel of the Novograd church: Janek the Apostle Paul, a fearful lame man with a ragged black beard, a village renegade, and her, a whore from Magdala, frail and insane, with a dancing body and sunken cheeks.

The fight against the priest lasted three decades. Then the Cossack flood expelled the old monk from his stone and odorous nest, and Apolek - about the vicissitudes of fate! - settled in the kitchen of Mrs. Eliza. And so I, an instant guest, drink the wine of his conversation in the evenings.

Conversations - about what? About the romantic times of the gentry, about the rage of female fanaticism, about the artist Luca del Rabbio and about the family of a carpenter from Bethlehem.

- I have to tell the scribe ... - Apolek mysteriously informs me before dinner.

- Yes, - I answer, - yes, Apolek, I am listening to you ...

But the church attendant, Pan Robatsky, stern and gray, bony and eared, sits too close to us. He hangs before us the faded canvases of silence and hostility.

- I have to tell Pan, - whispers Apolek and takes me aside, - that Jesus, the son of Mary, was married to Deborah, a Jerusalem girl of an ordinary family ...

- Oh, ten man! - shouts Pan Robatsky in despair. - Ten man will not die on his bed ... That man will be beaten to death ...

It pleases me. Ignited by the beginning of the Apolek story, I walk around the kitchen and wait for the cherished hour. And outside the window the night stands like a black column. Outside the window, a lively and dark garden froze. The road to the church flows like a milky and shining stream under the moon. The ground is lined with gloomy radiance, necklaces of luminous fruits hung from the bushes. The scent of lilies is as pure and strong as alcohol. This fresh poison bites into the greasy, turbulent breath of the stove and kills the tarry stuffiness of the spruce scattered around the kitchen.

Apolek in a pink bow and worn pink trousers swarms in his corner like a kind and graceful animal. His table is smeared with glue and paints. The old man works in small and frequent movements, the quietest melodic beat comes from his corner. Old Gottfried knocks it out with his trembling fingers. The blind man sits motionless in the yellow and oily gleam of the lamp. Bowing his bald forehead, he listens to the endless music of his blindness and the muttering of Apolek, his eternal friend.

“… And what the priests and the Evangelist Mark and the Evangelist Matthew say to Pan, is not the truth… But the truth can be revealed to Pan Clerk, to whom for fifty marks I am ready to make a portrait under the guise of Blessed Francis against the backdrop of greenery and sky. That was a very simple saint, Pan Francis. And if the scribe has a bride in Russia ... Women love Blessed Francis, although not all women, sir ...

Thus began the story of the marriage of Jesus and Deborah in a corner that smelled of spruce. This girl had a groom, according to Apolek. Her fiancé was a young Israeli who traded in elephant tusks. But Deborah's wedding night ended in bewilderment and tears. The woman was seized with fear when she saw her husband approaching her bed. Hiccups inflated her throat. She regurgitated everything she ate at the wedding meal. Shame fell on Deborah, on her father, on her mother, and on her entire family. The groom left her, mocking, and called all the guests. Then Jesus, seeing the vexation of a woman who longed for her husband and feared him, put on the clothes of the newlywed and, full of compassion, united with Deborah, who was lying in vomit. Then she went out to the guests, noisily triumphant, like a woman who is proud of her fall. And only Jesus stood aside. A deadly sweat appeared on his body, a bee of sorrow bit him in the heart. Unnoticed, he left the banquet hall and withdrew to a desert country, east of Judea, where John was waiting for him. And Deborah's firstborn was born ...

The chief of the six reported that Novograd-Volynsk was taken at dawn today. The headquarters set out from Krapivno, and our train with a noisy rearguard stretched along the highway, along the unfading highway that runs from Brest to Warsaw and was built on the bones of men by Nikolai the first.

Late at night we arrive in Novograd. I find a pregnant woman in my allotted apartment and two red-haired Jews with slender necks; the third is already asleep, covered with his head and leaning against the wall. I find torn up wardrobes in the room allotted to me, scraps of women's fur coats on the floor, human feces and shards of secret dishes used by Jews once a year - at Easter.

“Take it away,” I say to the woman. - How dirty you live, owners ...

Two Jews are removed from their seats. They jump on felt soles and remove debris from the floor, they jump in silence, like a monkey, like the Japanese in a circus, their necks swell and twist. They put a feather bed on me, and I lie down against the wall, next to the third Jew who has fallen asleep. Fearful poverty immediately closes over my bed.

Everything is killed by silence, and only the moon, clasping its round, shining, carefree head with its blue arms, wanders under the window.

- Pan, - she says to me, - you scream from sleep and you rush. I will make a bed for you in another corner, because you are pushing my dad ...

“Pan,” the Jewess says and shakes the feather bed, “the Poles cut him, and he prayed to them: kill me in the black yard so that my daughter would not see me die. But they did what was more convenient for them - he ended up in this room and thought of me. And now I want to know, ”the woman suddenly said with terrible strength,“ I want to know where else in the whole earth you will find such a father as my father ...

Novograd-Volynsk, July 1920

Church in Novograd

I drank rum with him, the breath of an unprecedented way gleamed under the ruins of the priest's house, and his insinuating temptations weakened me. Oh, crucifixes, tiny as the talismans of a courtesan, parchment of papal bulls and an atlas of women's letters, decayed in blue silk vests! ..

I see you from here, unfaithful monk, in a lilac robe, the swelling of your hands, your soul, tender and merciless, like the soul of a cat, I see the wounds of your god, oozing seed, fragrant poison, intoxicating virgins.

Here is Poland, here is the haughty grief of the Commonwealth! A violent newcomer, I scatter a lousy mattress in the church left by a clergyman, I put folios under my head, in which hosanna is printed to the clearly noble and blessed Chief of the Pansta, Joseph of Pilsudski.

Hordes of beggars are rolling on your ancient cities, oh, Poland, the song about the unity of all slaves thunders over them, and woe to you, Rzeczpospolita, woe to you, Prince Radziwill, and to you, Prince Sapega, who have risen for an hour! ..

We are spinning and searching. Bone buttons jump under our fingers, icons cut in half move apart, opening dungeons into caves blooming with mold. This temple is ancient and full of secrets. It hides secret passages, niches and doors that swing silently in its glossy walls.

“Away,” I said to myself, “away from these winking Madonnas, deceived by the soldiers” ...

"Cavalry"

My first goose

Death of Dolgushov

Biography of Pavlichenka, Matvey Rodionich

Salt

Letter

Clothespins

Squadron Trunov

The story of one horse

Afonka Bida

Pan Apolek

Gedali

Rabbi

Essays

My first goose

Death of Dolgushov

Biography of Pavlichenka, Matvey Rodionich

Salt

Letter

Clothespins

The story of one horse

Pan Apolek

Gedali

Rabbi

Read the summary of Isaac Babel's Cavalry

Picture or drawing Babel - Cavalry

Other retellings and reviews for the reader's diary

Babel, "Konarmiya": a summary

"My first goose"

"Death of Dolgushov"

"Biography of Pavlichenka, Matvey Rodionich"

"Salt"

"Letter"

"Prishepa"

"The Story of a Horse"

"Pan Apolek"

"Gedali"

"Rabbi"

Analysis

Cavalry: heroes

Isaac Babel CONARMY

Crossing the Zbruch

Church in Novograd

Letter

Chief of the stockpile

Pan Apolek

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Isaac Babel
CONARMY