The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (102 page)

BISHONKOV [Throws down another card.]: That’s it! You’re out!

FILIP: Not so fast!

EVSTIGNEVICH: So they lead him out there and take aim. He is standing by the fence, and suddenly it’s as if he’d been snatched up from

the earth, his hands still tied! It was as if God Almighty whisked him away. He jumped over the watde fence and off he scampered! They fired, but it was night, darkness everywhere, and he was running and dodging, so he got away.

FILIP \Puts down Ms cards.]: What a hero!

EVSTIGNEVICH: A real hero! A great horseman. I knew him as well as I know you. He was on the run for half a year before they finally caught him.

FILIP: So they finished him off?

EVSTIGNEVICH: They did. It’s unfair, if you ask me. When a man manages to crawl out of the grave after coming face-to-face with his maker, it goes against the grain to kill him.

FILIP: No one gives a damn nowadays.

EVSTIGNEVICH: Its unfair, if you ask me. Its the law in every country in the world: if a firing squad misses you, then fortune has smiled on you and they set you free.

FILIP: Not here they dont! Give them half a chance and they’ll finish you off.

BISHONKOV: Yeah, give them half a chance—

LUDMILA: Turn on the light!

[DIMSHITS switches it on.]

LUDMILA: I am leaving. [She turns around\ looks at DIMSHITS, and bursts out laughing.] Don’t pout. Come here. You have to understand—I must get used to you first.

DIMSHITS: I’m not a boot one has to get used to.

LUDMILA: I will admit that you have awakened within me feelings of warmth toward you. But these feelings need time to develop. Maria is about to come back on leave, and you will meet her. Nothing in our family is ever done without her. . . . Papa is well disposed toward you, but, as you yourself saw, he is helpless. . . . And then, there is much that still remains unresolved. Your wife, for instance.

DIMSHITS: What’s my wife got to do with all this?

LUDMILA: I am aware that Jews are attached to their children.

DIMSHITS: What are you bringing that up for?

LUDMILA: And that is why for the time being you must sit next to me quietly, and be patient.

DIMSHITS: Since the day the Jews began waiting for the Messiah, they have been patient. Have another glass.

LUDMILA: IVe already had too much.

DIMSHITS: They brought me this wine from a battleship. The grand duke had a case on board.. ..

LUDMILA: How do you manage to get all these things?

DIMSHITS: I can get stuff where no one else can. Drink up.

LUDMILA: Gladly—that is, if you sit there nice and quiet.

DIMSHITS: Is this some synagogue, for me to sit nice and quiet or something?

LUDMILA: I must say, this frock coat you are wearing is the kind I imagine one would wear to a synagogue. Frock coats, Isaac, darling, are worn by headmasters at graduation ceremonies, and by merchants at memorial dinners.

DIMSHITS: Til stop wearing frock coats.

LUDMILA: And then those tickets. Never buy front-row tickets. It’s the mark of a social climber, a parvenu.

DIMSHITS: I am a social climber.

LUDMILA: But you have an inner nobility, and that makes all the difference. However, your name is unfitting. When we put our announcement in the papers, the Izvestia, for instance . . . you could, you know, change Isaac to Alexei. Do you like Alexei?

DIMSHITS: I like it. [He turns out the light again, and throws himself on LUDMILA.]

EVSTIGNEVICH: The two of them are at it.

FILIP [Listens.]: It looks like she’s finally . . .

BISHONKOV: I like Ludmila Nikolayevna best of all. She treats you like a person, which is more than I can say for some of those other hags around here . . . She even remembers my name.

[VISKOVSKY enters the room, stands behind EVSTIGNEVICH s back, and watches the cards being played^]

LUDMILA [Tearingfree.]: Call me a cab!

DIMSHITS: Yeah, right away! Like I got nothing better to do!

LUDMILA: Call me a cab this minute!

DIMSHITS: Its thirty below zero outside—you wouldn’t send a rabid dog out in such weather.

LUDMILA: All my clothes are torn! How can I show myself at home like this?

DIMSHITS: You made your bed, now lie in it!

LUDMILA: How vulgar! You’re knocking on the wrong door.

DIMSHITS: Just my luck.

LUDMILA: I told you I have a toothache, an unbearable toothache!

DIMSHITS: That’s apples and oranges. What’s teeth got to do with things?

LUDMILA: Will you find me some drops for my toothache? I am suffer-ing!

[DIMSHITS exits. He bumps into VISKOVSKY in the adjacent room.\

VISKOVSKY: Congratulations.

DIMSHITS: Her teeth’s hurting her.

VISKOVSKY: That can happen.

DIMSHITS: What can happen is that they don’t hurt.

VISKOVSKY: It’s all an act, Isaac Markovich. It’s definitely all an act.

FILIP: The toothache is an invention of hers, Isaac Markovich, and not a real toothache at all.

LUDMILA [Fixes her hair in front of the mirror; Singing a song, she walks about the room, regal\ cheerful, flushed,.]

“My sweetheart is a man who is tall and brash,

My sweetheart is a man both gentle and cruel,

He thrashes and whips me with a silken lash ...”

DIMSHITS: I’m not a boy—a lot of time has passed since I last was a boy!

VISKOVSKY: Yessir!

LUDMILA [Picks up the telephone.]: 3-75-02. Papa, darling, is that you?

. . . I’m very well. . . . Nadia Johanson was at the theater with her husband. Isaac Markovich and I are having dinner. . . . You must see Spessivtseva, she’s far better than Pavlova!... Did you take your medicine? You must go to bed.... No, your daughter knows exact-

ly what she is doing. . . . Katya, darling, is that you? ... I am following your instructions, ma chere. Le manege continue, j'ai mal aux dents ce soir.
⁴
[She walks about the room, singing, and patting her hair into place.\

DIMSHITS: She shouldn’t be surprised if Im not home next time she comes around!

VISKOVSKY: Well, its up to you, after all.

DIMSHITS: Because, though I don’t mind other people asking about my wife and children, I won’t take that sort of thing from her! VISKOVSKY: Yessir!

DIMSHITS: For your information, these people don’t deserve to tie my wife’s shoelace! Not even her shoelace!

Scene Four

In VISKOVSKY room. He is wearing riding breeches and boots, but no jacket. His shirt collar is undone. There are bottles on the table—there has been much drinking KRAVCHENKO, a tiny, flushed man in a military uniform, is lounging on the sofa with MADAME DORA, a gaunt woman dressed in black wearing large dangling earrings and with a Spanish comb in her hair.

VISKOVSKY: Just for one deal, that’s all, Yasha!

T was possessed by one power alone,

A single passion, a passion that consumes

KRAVCHENKO: How much d’you need?

VISKOVSKY: Ten thousand pounds sterling. For one deal. You ever seen sterling pounds, Yasha?

KRAVCHENKO: All that cash just for thread?

VISKOVSKY: Forget the thread! We’re talking diamonds. Three carat, blue water diamonds, clean, no sand. That’s all they take in Paris.

KRAVCHENKO: There’s none like that left here.

VISKOVSKY: There’s diamonds in every house. You just have to know how to get at them. The Rimsky-Korsakovs have them, the

Shakhovskys have them. No, there’s still enough diamonds in imperial St. Petersburg!

KRAVCHENKO: You’ll never make a Red merchant.

VISKOVSKY: Just you wait and see. My father used to trade—he traded estates against horses.... The horse guards may surrender, but they do not die.

KRAVCHENKO: Go and bring in Ludmila Nikolayevna. She’s at the end of her rope in the corridor.

VISKOVSKY: I will arrive in Paris like a count.

KRAVCHENKO: Where the hell did Dimshits disappear to?

VISKOVSKY: He’s hanging out in the outhouse, or playing cards with Shapiro and the Finn. \He opens the door.\ Hey, miss, come warm yourself at our fire. \He goes out into the corridor.:]

DORA [Kisses KRAVCHENKO5 hands.]: My sunshine! My everything!

[VISKOVSKY enters with LUDMILA, who is wearing herfur coat.]

LUDMILA: This is beyond comprehension. We had an agreement.

VISKOVSKY: And an agreement is more precious than money.

LUDMILA: We agreed that I would be here at eight. It’s quarter to ten now . . . and he didn’t even leave me a key . . . where could he be?

VISKOVSKY: A bit of speculating and he’ll be back.

LUDMILA: Be that as it may, these people are no gentlemen.

VISKOVSKY: Have a vodka, sweetheart.

LUDMILA: Yes, I will have one, I’m frozen through . . . still, all this is simply beyond comprehension!

VISKOVSKY: Allow me, Ludmila Nikolayevna, to introduce you to Madame Dora, a citizen of the republic of France—Liberty Egal-ite, Fraternite. Among her other good qualities, she is also the owner of a foreign passport.

LUDMILA [Extends her hand.]: Mukovnina.

VISKOVSKY: You know Yasha Kravchenko. He was an ensign in the Czar’s army, now he’s a Red Artillerist. He’s with the ten-inch gun detachment at Kronstadt, and you can turn those guns every which way.

KRAVCHENKO: Viskovsky has been on a roll all evening.

VISKOVSKY: Every which way! Who knows what can happen, Yasha.

They might ask you to blow up the street you were born on, and you would blow it up, or to blast an orphanage to bits, and you’d say, “A two-zero-eight fuse!” and blast that orphanage to bits. Thats what you’d do, Yasha, as long as they let you live your life, strum your guitar, and sleep with thin women. You’re fat but you like them thin. You’ll do anything, and if they tell you to renounce your mother three times, you would renounce her three times. But that’s not the point, Yasha! The point is they will want more: they won’t let you drink vodka with the people you like, they’ll make you read boring books, and the songs they’ll teach you will be boring too! Then you’ll be mad, my dear Red Artillerist! You’ll be furious, your eyes will start rolling! Then two citizens will come visiting: “Let’s go, Comrade Kravchenko.” “Should I take any personal effects with me, or not?” you’ll ask them. “No, you needn’t take any personal effects with you. It’ll be a quick interrogation, over in a minute.” And that will be the end of you, my dear Red Artillerist. It’ll cost them four kopecks. It’s been calculated that a Colt bullet costs four kopecks and not a centime more.”

DORA [In broken Russian.]: Jacques, take me to home.

VISKOVSKY: To your health, Yasha! To victorious France, Madame Dora!

LUDMILA [Her glass has already been topped up a few times.]: I’ll quickly go see if he’s back yet.

VISKOVSKY: A bit of speculating and he’ll be back. Hey, Countess, did you think up that trick with the teeth yourself?

LUDMILA: Yes, I did . . . good, wasn’t it? [She laughs.] I had no choice. Those Jews don’t know how to respect a woman they want to be close to.

VISKOVSKY: When I look at you, Ludmila, I think of a little tomtit. Let’s have a drink, my little tomtit!

LUDMILA: Are you trying to corner me? You’ve put something in this vodka, Viskovsky, haven’t you?

VISKOVSKY: My little tomtit. All the strength of the Mukovnins went to Maria. All you were left with was a row of delicate teeth.

LUDMILA: That’s cheap, Viskovsky.

VISKOVSKY: And I don’t like your small breasts. A woman’s breasts should be beautiful, large, helpless, like those of a ewe.

KRAVCHENKO: We’ll be going, Viskovsky.

VISKOVSKY: No, youre not. . . . Why dont you marry me, my little tomtit?

LUDMILA: No, Td be better off marrying Dimshits. I know exactly how things would turn out if I married you: you’d be drunk the first day, have a hangover the second, then you’d go off to God knows where, and then you’d end up shooting yourself. No, I think I’ll stick to Dimshits.

KRAVCHENKO: We want to go, Viskovsky. Please!

VISKOVSKY: You’re not going anywhere! A toast! A toast to all women! \To DORA.] This here is Ludmila . . . her sister’s name is Maria.

KRAVCHENKO: I think Maria Nikolayevna has joined the army.

LUDMILA: She’s at the Polish border right now.

VISKOVSKY: At the front! At the front, Kravchenko! TheyVe got a waiter for a division commander.

LUDMILA: That is not true, Viskovsky! He’s a metalworker.

VISKOVSKY: The waiter’s name is Akim. Let’s have a drink in honor of women, Madame Dora! Women love ensigns, waiters, petty officials, Chinamen. ... A woman’s business is love—the police will sort out what’s what. [He raises his glass. \ To all sweet women, wonderful women, who love us, even if only for an hour! Not even an hour, if you think about it. A veil of gossamer. Then the gossamer is torn. . . . Her sister is called Maria. . . . Imagine, Yasha, that you fall in love with the Czarina. “You’re scum!” the Czarina says. “Go away!”

LUDMILA [Laughs.]: That sounds just like Maria.

VISKOVSKY: “You’re scum! Go away!” She spurned the horse guardsman and decided to go to Furshtadskaya Street, 16, apartment 4.

LUDMILA: Don’t you dare, Viskovsky!

VISKOVSKY: Let’s drink to the Kronstadt Artillery, Yasha! . . . That’s when she decided to go to Furshtadskaya Street. Maria Nikolayevna went out in a gray tailored dress suit. She had bought some violets by Troitsky Bridge, and pinned them to the lapel of her jacket... The prince—the one who plays the cello—the prince got his bachelor pad all nice and tidy, crammed his dirty clothes under the sideboard, put all the dirty dishes on a top shelf.... Then coffee and petit fours were served at Furshtadskaya Street. They drank their coffee. She had brought violets and spring with her, and

curled her legs up on the sofa. He took a shawl, covered those strong, tender legs, and was met by a dazzling smile—a heartening, humble, sad, but still encouraging smile ... she embraced his graying head. . . . “Prince! What is the matter, my Prince?” And his voice issued like that of a Papal choirboy. “Passe, rien ne vaplus.”
⁵

LUDMILA: Youre such a bastard!

VISKOVSKY: Imagine, Yasha, right before your eyes the Czarina is