THE DEATH OF DOLGUSHOV

by Isaac Babel
(1924)
(Complete Translated Text) 


The curtains of battle were moving toward the city. At noon, Korochaev, in a black cloak, the disgraced commander of the fourth division, fighting alone and seeking out death, flew past us. On the run he shouted to me:

"Our communications links are broken! Radziwillow and Brody are in flames!"

And he galloped off, fluttering, all black, with eyes like coal.

On the plain, flat as a board, the brigades were repositioning themselves. The sun was rolling along in the crimson dust. The wounded, in ditches, were snacking. Nurses were lying on the grass and singing quietly. Afonka's scouts were roaming the field, searching out the dead and uniforms. Afonka passed by within two feet of me. Without turning his head he said:

"They smacked us right in the face. Ain't no doubt about it. They're thinking of changing the divisional commander. The soldiers don't trust him."

The Poles came up to the forest three versts from us and set up their machine guns nearby. Bullets whine and scream. Their lament grows unendurably. Bullets wound the earth and dig into it, trembling with impatience. Vytyagaichenko, commander of the regiment, snoring in the sunshine, cried out in his sleep and woke up. He got on his horse and rode off to the lead squadron. His face was crumpled, in red streaks after his uncomfortable sleep, and his pockets were full of plums.

"Son of a bitch," he said angrily and spit a seed out of his mouth. "What a hell of a mess. Timoshka, pull out the flag!"

"Shall we get going?" asked Timoshenko, taking the staff out of the stirrup and unfurling the banner, which had a star on it and some wording about the Third International.

"We'll see what's up there," Vytyagaichenko said. Then he suddenly let out a wild yell: "Girls, to your horses! Squadron commanders, get your men together!"

The buglers sounded the alarm. The squadrons lined up in a column. A wounded soldier crawled up out of a ditch and, covering his face with the palm of his hand, said to Vytyagaichenko, "Taras Grigorevich, I'm a delegate. It looks like we're going to be left behind."

"Defend yourselves," Vytyagaichenko mumbled and reared his horse up on its hind legs.

"We kind of have the idea, Taras Grigorevich, that we won't be able to defend ourselves," the wounded man called after him.

"Don't whine," Vytyagaichenko retorted. "It's not like I'm gonna abandon you." And he gave the order to get ready.

Just then, the whining, womanish voice of my friend Afonka Bida rang out. "Don't go racing off, Taras Grigorevich. We've got six versts to cover. How you gonna fight if the horses are worn out? We'll make it in plenty of time."

"At a walk!", commanded Vytaygaichenko, not raising his eyes.

The regiment set off.

"If I'm right about the Divisional Commander," whispered Afonka, holding back, "if they replace him, things will start moving. Period."

Tears flowed from his eyes. I stopped by Afonka in amazement. He spun around like a top, grabbed his cap, started to wheeze, let out a whoop, and galloped off.

Grishchuk with his idiotic tachanka cart and I stayed behind until evening, wandering around between the walls of fire. Divisional headquarters had disappeared. Other units wouldn't take us in. The regiments entered Brody, and were beaten back by a counterattack. We went up to the city cemetery. A Polish scout jumped up from behind a grave and, shouldering his rifle, began to shoot at us. Grishchuk turned around. His tachanka squealed with all four wheels.

"Grishchuk!", I shouted through the whistling and the wind.

"What nonsense," he answered sadly.

"It's the end of us," I exclaimed, seized by a fatal panic. "It's the end of us!"

"Why do women go through all the trouble?' he answered even sadder. "Why all the proposals and marriages, and having fun at the weddings?"

A pink tail shined in the sky, then faded away. The Milky Way emerged through the stars.

"It makes me laugh," said Grishchuk sorrowfully and pointed his whip at a man sitting on the side of the road. "It makes me laugh that women go to all that trouble."

The man sitting on the road was Dolgushov, the telephone operator. Spreading out his legs, he stared at us.

"I'm done for, you see?" said Dolgushov as we approached. "We see", answered Grishchuk, stopping the horses.

"You'll have to waste a cartridge on me," said Dolgushov.

He sat leaning against a tree. His boots were sticking out in different directions. Without lowering his eyes from my gaze, he carefully pulled back his shirt. His stomach had been ripped open, his intestines were hanging on his knees, and you could see the beating of his heart.

"The Poles'll show up and have their fun. Here are my documents. Write my mother and tell her what happened."

"No," I answered and spurred on my horse.

Dolgushov laided his blue palms on the ground at looked at them distrustfully..

"You're running away?" he muttered, sliding down. "You're running, you louse."

Sweat crawled down along my body. Machine guns tapped out faster and faster with hysterical insistence. Framed in the nimbus of the sunset, Afonka Bida galloped up to us.

"We're really giving it to them," he shouted out happily. What's all the hub-bub here?"

I pointed out Dolgushov to him and rode away.

They spoke briefly. I didn't hear their words. Dolgushov held his papers out to the platoon commander. Afonka hid the papers in his boot and shot Dolgushov in the mouth.

"Afonka," I said, riding up to the Cossack with a pitiful smile, "I just couldn't".

"Go away," he said, growing pale. "I'll kill you. You guys in glasses have as much pity for our boys as a cat does for a mouse." And he cocked his rifle.

I rode away at a walk, not turning around, feeling cold and death at my back.

"Bona," Grishchuk shouted out behind me, "stop fooling around." And he grabbed Afonka by the arm.

"The goddamn lackey," shouted Afonka, "He's not gonna get off that easy."

Grishchuk caught up with me at the turn in the road. Afonka wasn't there. He had ridden off in the opposite direction.

"You see, Grishchuk," I said, "today I lost my Afonka, my best friend."

Grishchuk pulled a shriveled apple out from underneath his seat.

"Eat," he told me. "Please, eat." 

THE END