SOURCE: Hetenyi, Zsuzsa. “‘Up’ and ‘Down’, Madonna and Prostitute: The Role of Ambivalence in Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel.” Acta Litteraria Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 32, nos. 3-4 (1990): 309-26.

[In the following essay, Hetenyi investigates the role of ambivalence as well as the significance of Christian mythology and biblical allusions in the stories of Red Cavalry.]

The stories of Isaac Babel, which he combined into a whole in Red Cavalry, are united by the author's outlook, a coherent world view. The heroes, objects, landscapes and events become constituents of a system in the artistic method that I have called “the creation of a new myth”¹. The chief ingredient of this method is its constant allusions to the Christian myth, a parallelism reinforced at a variety of levels within the work. It is a less conspicuous but equally convincing fact that, in precisely twelve of his heroes, Babel, in creating them, employs—directly or indirectly—Biblical parallelisms; I call these “new apostles”.

The “new apostles” are all ambivalent figures: in almost all of them, Biblical parallels and allusions to Christian culture constitute a sublime pole, with the “earthly”, coarse traits representing the low pole. In the duality of the creation of the new apostles, the Biblical aspects make up a mythicizing system; hence ambivalence is the single element in the cycle that organizes it into a system, its dominant at the level of textual correspondences; for, counterposed to it, we have, in all cases, the ordinariness of men and soldiers,—an ordinariness obedient to self-interest and the law of the jungle.

Narrative elements admitting of a dual interpretation are essential building blocks of Red Cavalry. The scene forming the backbone of the story “The Remount Officer” is built, on the one hand, on the elements of the Biblical miracle of “rise and walk”²; on the other hand, it is none other than the deception of the peasants by a crafty device—in the interest of a higher cause. Pavlichenko is simply lying when he alleges the existence of a letter empowering him to order executions at his discretion. Making Lenin the object of his new faith, he combines his lie with the belief that he could have been given the instruction contained in the letter, and that it is correct. In a morbid outburst, Akinfiyev, the hero of the story “Two Ivans,” prays to Soviet power. His apostolic behaviour and upbringing are, in reality, nothing other than a frightening blend of cruelty, the rule of the vigilante, and a lack of tolerance. Apolek—whose painting is, as has been seen, the key to the whole cycle—lifts into the icons the men and women of the humdrum round of everyday life, which is, of course, also a degradation of the sacred images. Apolek, this new apostle, whose pictures are assigned such a central role in the work, employs high-pressure tactics to sell his own paintings, stating the exact price as he tries to foist off his art on every passer-by;—that is how the counterpoint of the other pole is created. It is no mere accident that, on one and the same page, with a difference of only two lines, the text calls him “icon painter” (or, to take the literal sense, “painter of God”—“bоgоmaz”) and “blasphemer” (“bоgоkulhniк”)(42)³. And one could find plenty of other similar details in the work. In each case, one pole represents the aspect of noble deeds, prompted by faith, with the other pole standing for repugnant, contemptible practices; in these instances, ambivalence appears as an artistic pattern that raises the elements of the fabula to the level of the sujet—it may be conceived of as an artistic device that oscillates between two poles, as simile or metaphor.

In the same way, the art of pan Apolek is built on the structure of ambivalent duality. In the cycle, we encounter the description of all of his pictures. Eight of these appear in the story “Pan Apolek,” and they are the pictures of the church at Novograd, with three—in the story “At St. Valentine's Church”—being those of the church at Berestechko. Incidentally, the statues, painted with carmine, are also similar in the two churches (31, 110). Their author is unknown, but, as regards their character, they all fit in well with the pictures of Apolek—that is true of the winking Madonna (30), the ruddy-cheeked St. Peter, with its beard painted with carmine, St. Francis and St. Vincent; which explains why the authors of even some more thorough articles mistakenly identify the statue of Christ as a picture of Apolek—it has clearly escaped them that, a paragraph later, Pan Lyudomirsky stands under the statue (110)⁴. As far as the individual pictures of Apolek are concerned, the text indicates only the basic contradiction between the subject and the model: the portrait of Pani Eliza is a fleshy-faced, ruddy Virgin Mary; St. Paul is a portrait of Yanek, a Jew with a limp converted to Christianity; Mary Magdalene is a portrait of Elka, a mother of illegitimate children who is herself illegitimate; in the icons hanging in the houses, we see Josephs with sparse hair parted in the middle, pomaded Jesuses and straddling Maries, with bodies bearing the traces of many pregnancies and confinements. The first of the portrayals described in some detail is that of a strange, beheaded St. John, whose head (in the likeness of the sexton) lies on a separate platter, with a small snake in his mouth (39-40). Efraim Sicher interprets the snake as an attribute of John the Baptist and John the Apostle, taking the picture to be emblematic of both Johns simultaneously. “The snake and the lizard combined with the skull, however, form an iconographical unit, meaning the decomposition of Man.”⁵ In Apolek's picture, the grimness of death is a playful, loveable creature, (“цvitistо siyy cisuij, svisalо кrоkоtnоi tulоvisi zmii. Ii gоlоvкa, niznоrоzоvay pоlnay оzivliniy …”) (40) indeed, it is invested with Apolek's colour, pink. A playful memento mori adapted to suit Apolek's disposition, it has an ambivalent content not unlike that of the dummy skeleton, a favourite figure of Mexican carnivals—i.e. it affords a temporary escape from time and from the fear of death.

Efraim Sicher reminds us that the model for the picture, Pan Romuald, is given the world of the snake and the cat to be his medium; while the world of Apolek, who travels the world with two mice, is the antithesis of that. According to Sicher, that is what links his name with Apollo, who is the mouse-god and, at the same time, a dragon-slayer—i.e. serpent-slayer. Hence Apolek—whether we regard his mousiness or his attributes as dragon-slayer—is the antithesis of Romuald, who moves in the sphere of the cat and the snake. Sicher sees this contrast as highlighting the opposition between a representative of the Church, on the one hand, and a heretic, on the other⁶.

Apolek shows the Novograd priest twelve of his pictures focussing on scriptural themes. His saints, as well as the surrounding scenery, are brilliantly coloured and earthly (41). When painting the new frescoes of the church, Apolek includes a collection of robust animals, throwing a cunningly smiling figure of Louis XIII—i.e. a real, earthly king—in among the Three Magi (41-42). Apolek's apostles, too, have a roguish smile on their faces; on their double chins “оgninnyi bоrоdavкi, malinоvyi bоrоdavкi, кaк ridisкa v mai” (109). We see the saints going for their execution in the posture of Italian opera singers (109); while a new John the Baptist astonishes us with its ambiguous beauty (109). This latter description, in my opinion, fits exactly Leonardo da Vinci's picture of John the Baptist, painted between 1513 and 1516. Some scholars detect other influences in the paintings, but that is not the point⁷. The important element here is the conceptual ambivalence with which the workaday round is elevated into the sacred and the sacred images come down to earth. And within the system of the given relationships it is almost irrelevant whether, artistically, we (or others) establish analogies with Rembrandt or with Renaissance painting. The character of linguistic expression, capturing discrete points, is not directed at describing a given picture or author (nor could we, given the discretic limits of linguistic expression, undertake an identification of that sort—i.e. to identify a description of a picture with a particular picture); the object of the analysis can only be the interpretation of the selected parts.

A further analysis of the ambivalent elements brings us closer to the same basic meaning of the work that we managed to determine already during our examination of the “new apostles”. Let us consider Sashka, the camp-follower of the company, who is the only nuanced female character in Red Cavalry. She cannot be ranged with the new apostles—by no means because of her gender, but because she lacks a belief-like conviction. Nonetheless, revealing the several layers to her personality confirms the method of the creation of a new myth.

Sashka, the company's camp-follower, is a figure encapsulating many of the important motifs that form the second line of the stories. Talking about the ambivalent character of the figure of Sashka, one is immediately struck by one of the two poles to be identified—indeed, its dominance may seem evident: it is the one represented by Sashka's earthly, common traits, dependent on the material-physical principle conceptualized by Bakhtin⁸.

With Sashka, being a prostitute is not a character trait or, indeed, a flaw of character; it is simply her lifestyle. An integral part of that lifestyle is the lust for gain—whether she uses her body as a tool, as in the story “The Widow,” or she is choosing among the church silks, as in the piece “At St. Valentine's Church.” She displays feminine cunning—a cunning, that is, characterizing the Cossacks—in the way she finds a worthy mate for her mare (“Chesniki”), but equally, her intimate relationship with the horse itself, as well as her participation in the campaign, are singularly masculine—where again, this masculinity is that of a Cossack. On further scrutiny, we also discover some features that are far more indirect and complex. We encounter several references in the cycle underscoring the striking, exaggerated femininity of Sashka's body: “nipоmirnоi tilо” (128), “bоltaysiisy grudi” (145), “cudоvisnay grudh ii zaкidyvadash za spinu” (140). According to the formulation, “the images of the body appear in a colossally enlarged, hyperbolic form”⁹ in the images of carnival ambivalence. The body of Sashka, invested with exaggerated feminine characteristics, is reminiscent of portrayals and statues of ancient, mythical goddesses of fertility (such as the Venus of Willendorf). This association is reinforced by a scene in “Chesniki” where Sashka is just having her mare covered, thereby coming into direct contact—though, of course, not only on this one occasion—with insemination. As she keeps kissing the slobbery cheeks of her mare, rubbing her face against them, this enormous female body appears before us as some primitive natural creature of impulse, in her animal naturality. We are presented with the same animal side of Sashka in one of the episodes in “At St. Valentine's Church,” but here the description clearly accentuates the repulsive features. “Tilо Sasкi, cvitusii i vоnycii, кaк mysо tоlhко ctо zarizannоj коrоvy, zagоlilоsh, pоdnyvsiisy ybкi оtкryli ii nоgi zsкadrоnnоj damy, cugunnyi, strоjnyi nоgi, i Kurdyкоv, pridurкоvatyj malyj, usivsish na Sasкi virkоm i trysysh, pritvоrilsy оbhytym strasthy (108). It hardly needs special comment how the description applies to Sashka words referring to horses and riding—how she is identified here with the mare.

In order to get an idea of the ambivalent character of the figure of Sashka, it seems necessary to consider the physical or sexual acts in the stories—a theme that Babel examines from every angle in the cycle, by portraying it in its complexity and contradictoriness. We get the first treatment of the theme in a tale of Pan Apolek, in the story of the same title. Pan Apolek recounts how Christ was united with Deborah to save her marriage, taking upon himself the suffering. It is worth considering what the significance of this profoundly, Biblically symbolic apocryphal scene is for revealing the creation of a new myth as an authorial device. The Biblical Gospels refer to Jesus on several occasions as the bridegroom awaited by the bride—i.e. mankind, preparing to become His church¹⁰. The bond between the bridegroom and the bride symbolizes the union of God and man in love—an interpretation clearly spelt out by Biblical parables such as the one about the royal wedding and the one about the ten maidens (Mt. 22, 1-15; 25, 1-14). It is interesting that we are directed to this associative correspondence by the text of the story itself: “оn … udalilsy v pustynnuy stranu, na Vоstок оt Iudii, gdi zdal igо Iоann” (45). The person meant could only have been John the Baptist, author of the famous Biblical sentence: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom” (Jn 3, 29). The—admittedly, rather complicated—dominant meaning of the parable describing the union of Jesus and Deborah—as indeed, the Biblical parables too—can be explained by accounting for the particular persons and actions in terms of who, or what, they refer to. The bride wallowing in the mud is sinful mankind, preparing to receive the bridegroom—“she yearns for her husband and is afraid of him”. In the cycle, Gedali is the exponent of this behaviour: he longs for the revolution and is scared of it. Perhaps we are not wide of the mark in regarding this feeling as the characteristic state of the Russian intelligentsia post 1917. For “Tоgda Iisus … vоzlоzil na siby оdizdu nоvоbracnоgо i, pоlnyj sоstradaniy, sоidinilsy s Dibоrоj.” (45) Mankind—or the post-1917 intelligentsia—accepts the revolution in Christ's garb and glove—or, conversely, it perceives the revolution as approaching in the guise of Christ.

Let us now see the concrete interpretation and the poles of the parable. The purity of the self-sacrifice and compassion (cf. ‘com-passion’ and Russian ‘sоstradanii’) expressed in the scene is thrown into sharp relief by the uncleanness—the “vomit”—surrounding Deborah and, in a moral respect, by the spiritual incomprehension of the kinfolk and the guests invited—although, to be sure, it is an incomprehension that stems from traditions. This union served the continuation of life, as “Deborah was delivered of a boy” (26). This ending is like the naive wishes of fairy tales, like a symbolic dream of the presence and continuation of Christ. Let us just recall that the meaning of portraying the physical-bodily sphere is precisely this, that it holds in itself the possibility of rebirth and resurrection¹¹. But we may also detect here a parallel with the ancient myths, where the annually recurring vernal renewal was represented as a union of bride and bridegroom, usually with beings incarnating the creative power of vegetation. (Indeed, in some places, the harvest ritual also included the custom, supposed to ensure rebirth in the following year, of feeding the seeds of the last spike to a mare in foal, which directly refers to Sashka's mare taken to horse.¹²) Preeminent among the rites of fertility feasts is the myth of Dionysus, who is a son of God (Zeus), and who rose from the dead. In the Russian literature of the turn of the century, as has been mentioned before, the parallel between Dionysus and Christ was “in the air”, so to speak, as a parallel between suffering and resurrecting gods. At the centre of the tempestuous, orgiastic scenes of the rite performed annually in Athens was the union of Dionysus with the Queen, which has quite unequivocal parallels in the wedding of the May King and the May Queen in other myths¹³.

Let us digress briefly to try and construe one of the few sentences from Red Cavalry that have become common property. The narrator says these words: “My оba smоtrili na mir, кaк na lug v mai, кaк na lug, pо коtоrоmu kоdyt zinsiny i коni.” (87) It is widely known that Babel was passionately fond of horses; he was capable of spending weeks in a village for the sole reason that he saw some lovely horses there¹⁴; yet, it is not merely a case of the writer investing one of his heroes with his own personal taste. It is precisely in the semantic sphere of the renewal of nature and fertility that the three concepts featuring in the sentence—the meadow in May, woman and horse—may merge into one. From time immemorial, the figure of the horse has been associated with the concept of fertility, as eloquently attested by the prehistoric cave drawings of the Nordic peoples, as well as by the surviving customs of spring rituals¹⁵. We have already observed that this is the meaning of the mating of the mare too.

Indeed, if we recall the idea raised by the parable of Deborah—namely, that the bridegroom and the bride, according to the Biblical meaning, symbolize Jesus and his Church—, we may discover, in the story “Konkin,” a linking (possessing a stylistical valuation befitting folk poetry) of the Biblical parallel, on the one hand, and the ritual, fertility symbolism of the horse, on the other, where the latter is associated with spring feasts. Moreover, the two have been combined with stunning concreteness: “Kоnh pоd mоim tuzоm, кaк кupcоva dоcкa … Nazali y коlisa i vкladyvayu v коniкa dva zaryda. Zalко bylо ziribca. Bоlhsivicок byl ziribic, cistyj bоlhsivicок. Sam ryzij, кaк mоnita, kvоst pulij, nоga strunоj. Dumal, zlvuy Lininu svizu, an ni vyЬlо. Liкvidirоval y ztu lоsadкu. Ruknula оna, кaк nivista … (88-89).

The second lovemaking in the book might be termed the antithesis of the first. In the story “‘Sashka the Christ,’” two people are involved on the male side, Sashka the Christ and his stepfather. The female participant is a rag-gatherer this time, a crippled beggar woman. Her feminine character is underlined by a reference to the moon, the feminine element of myths. This act is a mockery, a deriding of fertility, in the carnivalesque sense of the word. The laughter of the carnival “is ambivalent: it is full of joy, jubilantly happy, but it is also mocking and derisive; it denies and affirms at one and the same time, it buries and restores to life at one and the same time. / … / The ambivalent laughter of the people … expresses the viewpoint of the perpetually changing world-entirety, which also contains the laughter himself”¹⁶.

In the bed, the ragwoman cries, “Rain for the old woman, I'll give you two hundred puds of crops from one hectare”. (72) The interpretation of fertility widens to include, in the true spirit of myth, the fruits of both the earth and woman. This physical encounter is accidental and destructive. It is destructive not only because both men contract venereal disease, but also because Sashka is not yet a man, he is still a child, a boy. In this scene, we witness a clash between youth and old age, chastity and decadence, purity and corruption. The third encounter, between Sashka's mother and stepfather, also takes place in this story. Its higher significance is given by the fact that, as we may recall, this is the price that Sashka has to pay for being allowed to become a shepherd—that is to say, he responds to his calling, his vocation, and betrays his mother for it¹⁷. The betrayal itself and the stepfather's egoism in transmitting the disease constitute the pole of base qualities. Yet, even this selfish act is not unequivocally selfish. This love-making is a necessary step for renewal, for maintaining the equilibrium of nature: for, on his arrival home, the father was received with the news that his two small children had died; thus the act represents a counterpole aimed at countervailing death.

To Matvey Pavlichenko and his young wife, sexuality represents a celebration of the freedom of the body. “Vsy nоch nam zarко bylо, vsy dоlguy nоch my gоlyi kоdili i sкuru drug s dzuzкi оbryvali.” (77) Again we find an oblique reference to the rite of spring fertility, as it is precisely during the spring spawning season that Nastya displays an interest in Matvey. But Nastya is taken away by the landowner, and Matvey only returns after 1918, as a Red general, to take revenge. Before the very eyes of the landowner's wife, he carries out the death sentence that he himself has passed. In the meantime, the landowner's wife, who had gone mad, was sitting in an armchair in the “hall”, “na nik barkatnay коrоna pirhymi ubrana byla, оni v кrisla bоjко sili i sasкоj mni na кaraul sdilali.” (80) Nadezhda Vasilyevna is provided with all the trappings of a carnival queen; her royal status is indicated by the personal pronoun, the adjective, and the verbs in royal plural referring to her, and also by the designation of the locale, the more archaic “zala” form of the word “zal” (“room”, “hall”), which denotes ‘audience chamber’ or ‘throne-room’. The grotesque comicality of the scene provides a counterpoint to the tragedy of the gruesome murder; the madness of Nadezhda Vasilyevna rubs off on Pavlichenko's action too, allowing an insight behind—and, indeed, signifying the madness of—the first-person narrative attitude, the logic of the skaz form, a logic of plausibility. The role of the carnival, as defined by Bakhtin, is expressed in the final sentences: Pavlichenko always kills in such a way that, while he does so, his aim is to gain a deeper sense of life.

The direct references of this scene to carnival festivals raise a two-dimensional idea. On the one hand, the carnival shows up from time to time the eternal binary value-system of the world, unaffected by the age, proving thereby the stability, the sternity of mankind (and of the universe). At the same time, the carnival is but a “nine days' wonder”, a temporary escape from the workaday round; once the experience is over, every age returns to its wonted routine. If we view from this angle the carnivalesque-theatrical scene of the closing of the short story examined above, the drama of revenge and new value relations are qualified as a temporary show, after which everything and everybody settle back into their old, accustomed lives. It is a fairly bold idea to regard the revolution as a theatrical performance; yet, Babel's short story does allow—nay, it suggests—that interpretation as well. That is Babel's dual vision: the pathos of theatricality set on a pedestal and an all-querying skepticism—within the selfsame passage, the one intertwined with the other. As has been mentioned before, we may observe a similar phenomenon in the case of Dyakov, hero of “The Remount Officer” who deceives the peasants like a circus juggler in the interest of a higher goal. In the story “The Widow” Lyovka, ex-circus rider, light athlete and women's favourite, steps before us in the role of a faithful executor of a will, a defender of justice—after he has stolen from the dead man his lover, and that amid frequent appeals to God and in the name of life. To avoid having to kill a prisoner, Konkin can boast two high ranks: first, that he is a “muzyкalhnyj zкsцintriк i salоnnyj crivоvisatilh” (89), and secondly, that he is also a “коmmunist i коmissar” (90). Accordingly, his pleading with the prisoner is built on the structure of a joke or an anecdote; moreover, it is the only attempt in the cycle to parade for out attention a Cossack who is human, a character who has not yet forgotten the Ten Commandments.

In the story “Italy's Sun,” we find additional evidence to support the above interpretation of the circus-like or theatrical elements, which presents the revolution as a temporary changeover to a new set of values, a carnival;—for here the town suddenly appears as an operatic stage setting. “Syray plisinh razvalin цvila, кaк mramоr оpirnоj sкamhi. I y zdal pоtvirоzinnоj dusоj vykоda Rоmiо iz-za tuc, atlasnоgо Rоmiо, pоysigо о lybvi, v tо vrimy кaк za кulisami pоnuryj eleкtrоtikniк dirzit paliц na vyкlycatili luny.” (46)

Suddenly, all the relevant elements of the cycle are seen as part of a pattern: Dyakov is like “an athlete in the arena”, a “robust and youthful Romeo”, who, as he disappears, “flutters his frock, reminiscent of an operatic costume”. Even at his first appearance, reminiscent of an entrance onto the stage, his attire creates a theatrical atmosphere: he arrives on a fiery Arab horse, he is ruddy-cheeked, his frock is black, his red trousers are adorned by silver stripes (37, 38). Gedali's green cloak, his beard and black top hat—among other things—lend him the exterior of a magician or a conjurer. The church at Berestechko “is as dazzling as a stage setting” (108), and in it, the saints in Apolek's pictures go to their death “in the picturesque postures of Italian singers” … All these sporadically appearing signals betoken the presence of pretence, of falseness in the incidents and in the characters—they are consequences and artistic devices of the dual vision of reality. This is a counterpoint to the self-confidence of the Cossacks, the position of the narrator, who admires them, to the pathos and the ideological conditions of the age, which brook no argument. Alongside the glorification—which, incidentally, predominates—, the signals enumerated above establish a greater distance between the writer and his heroes, as well as between the narrator and the Cossacks, because the observer becomes an onlooker, an outsider, with the events becoming conditional happenings. The motif of this dual vision, which crops up everywhere, is, in our opinion, the lense through which Babel's hero looks at things—he views the world through an intervening layer, through a filter; he has a double vision—and conception—of the universe.

Coming back to the string of bodily acts: to Irina, the washerwoman, and Vasiliy, the cook, love is replaced by the philosophy that evening is there that a man may take a woman to bed—that is the law of nature (the story “Evening”). It is by no means coincidental that the preceding conversation is about the assassination and the death of the tsars; therefore this lovemaking is again some kind of response gesture on the part of life. In the description of Vasiliy's outlook upon life, great emphasis is laid on the opposition and unity of life and death, and on how the occupation of a cook embraces everything to do with the body. “Pоvara—оni imiyt mnоgо dila s mysоm mirtvyk zivоtnyk i s zadnоsthy zivyk …” (99)

The first appearance of Sashka, the camp follower of the company, in the story “At St. Valentine's Church,” has been quoted already: Kurdyukov has a ride on Sashka, imitating copulation, so as to raise a laugh. On entering the church, the first-person narrator is greeted by that histrionic spectacle, prefaced by only one sentence, conveying the very first impression: “Mirtvinnyj arоmat parci, rassypavsiksy цvitоv, dusistоgо tliniy lilsy v ii tripisusii nоzdri, siкоca i оtravlyy.” (108). That image of death, emphasizing lifelessness is in turn, counterbalanced by the boisterous sexuality and earthly animality of the ensuing scene, which also renders psychologically authentic both the simulation of sexual intercourse—that life-affirming, truly carnivalesque happening—and, partly, the subsequent ransacking of the church, as a rebellion against mortality and passing. We may include in the same category the phenomena associated with pillage during war—the priority given, amidst the carnage going on all round, to the here-and-now, to self-interest, to primitive life, with survival as the refuge luring people on. We get a contrasting motif in Prishchepa, who casts everything into the flames; he burns his past to emerge, clean, into the new life, onto the stage of history.

In the story “The Widow,” the presence of death is no longer merely hinted at or implied. Shevelyov is dying, and the woman who has been his regular mistress, Sashka, is rolling about in the bush with his coachman, who uses the name of God as he possesses himself of Sashka's body.

It is also manifest from the text that this is a life-affirming act, whose function is identical with that of eating, for, in the description, the two actions are accompanied by identical noises. Eating, as we shall also see in connection with the story “The Death of Dolgushov” is a fairly unequivocal counterbalance to death—indeed, in the custom of funeral feasts, it is a most strongly anchored and widely observed affirmation of life. The abstract idea of the continuation of life could hardly be rendered more palpable than it is by this union in the background to death, with the lover of the dying man shown in the arms of a new man. Moreover, this change of lover has another, by no means abstract facet to it, for Sashka, by using her body, tries to win the favour of Lyova well in advance, as Lyova is expected to become his master's executor, and Sashka wants to get her hands on the part which, by rights, ought to be sent to the mother. Hence this lovemaking—not only in abstract terms but also in a very concrete way—is a means, directed to the future, of preserving life.

We have already touched on some of the aspects of the story “Chesniki.” The mating of the horse takes up the second half of the story, with the first half treating of the preparation for the battle about to be fought near the town which provides the title for the piece. Nothing further is said here about the battle, though it is clear that, at the end of the story, the fighting is still going on, with an account of the defeat coming only at the beginning of the next story. The defeat, incidentally, is anticipated by the sentence that forms the transition between the two portions of “Chesniki”: “Nо y ni uslysal idinоdusiy v кazaцкоm vоi, i, dоzidaysh ataкi, y usil v lis …” (139). The mating of the horse is a vivid scene packed with dialogue and incident, whose framework is provided by the hesitant preparation for the battle which is to end in defeat and then the report on the defeat itself. These in turn, serve to heighten the earthy vitality of the intervening part,—a vitality concerned with the future in a very concrete sense. In another respect, we see the same conflict between the important military event and the pursuit of petty individual interests.

An outline of the ninth, and last, physical relationship in line (in the story “Singing”) shows a reprise of several of the motifs encountered so far. Three people are lying in bed: Sashka, the Christ, the faded, bony landlady, and his mute, hydrocephalic son beside them. The presence of the boy and the shrivelled old woman recall the trio of the first act, in the story “Sashka the Christ,” where Sashka himself was still the young boy; yet, the strand of motif of the union of old age and youth is reinforced through repetition. Sashka the Christ is at the same time, the comforter of the old woman—he saves her life, scrubs the floor, and treats her humanely. (We may recall that Sashka has comforted others too—first the villagers, and then the company.) The purity of compassion is thus a running thread through the scene, echoing the story of Christ and Deborah; moreover, as regards the physical environment it appears in, here too it is set against a background of squalor (rags, dirty nose, etc.—148). Accordingly, the ninth act, by recalling the motifs of the first and the second acts, closes this theme as if in a frame-like pattern, showing something like the structure of a musical cadenza.

After that string of human relationships and feelings, it would be naive to conceive of the role of the company's camp follower purely in terms of a portrayal of Sashka's individual character or as a case of morality inevitably seduced into vice under the pressures of life in camp. Being everybody's lover means being wife, mother, and sister, all in one person, to everybody for a while. Sashka comforts men—which is the third and most pronounced link between her and Sashka the Christ; indeed, it partly explains why they receive the same name and why they are allied, too, by the same adjective (“esкadrоnnyj”)—“the camp-follower of the company” (108, 140) and “the singer of the company” (147). Sashka is a nurse; and the concepts of comforting and refuge are inextricably entangled with her very profession. It is worth quoting the old designation of this profession, also featured in the cycle—“sistra milоsirdiy”, which translates as Sister of Charity or Sister of Mercy. According to Babel's scheme, physical consolation and nursing are allied concepts; indeed, in the story “The Widow,” they follow one another, as Sashka, after making love, immediately changes the bandage of the dying man (128). This motif is not a novelty in Babel's oeuvre, nor is it without parallels. The short story “Eliya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofyevna” may be regarded as the first instance of its use¹⁸, followed by Doudou, a journalistic writing¹⁹. It is conspicuous that here, in Doudou, as well, the complex figure of the prostitute—a figure providing consolation—is joined to the figure of a soldier, concretely identifying, at the other pole, the man who struggles or drifts in life, in whose fate the comforter is indispensable. Here too the physical act performs the role of life pitted against death, it is a life-preserving gesture—not only in the face of war, but also in the face of the concretely appearing death throes of the wounded man. Given that knowledge and an acquaintance with the imagery and the conceptual system of Red Cavalry, our attention may be attracted by the fact that the French soldier is taken to hospital on the third day of Easter, that is to say, on the festival of the Resurrection. That the date is meant to be a concrete indication of time is to be questioned, if only because the work was published prior to Easter 1917; moreover, in other respects too, it gives the impression of a literary, fictional text, rather than that of a documentary account, as its outward features might suggest. Here the ambivalent character of prostitution still appears explicitly, that is only on the surface (Doudou dances “with tender passion” and “like a virgin”); in the devices pertaining to the relationship with the soldier we may observe a delicacy verging on sentimentalism (silk blouse, lace collar, her fingers trembled).

“Vsi smirtnо. Vicnay ziznh suzdina tоlhко matiri. I коgda matiri nit v zivyk, оna оstavlyit pо sibi vоspоminanii, коtоrоi niкtо isi ni risilsy tsкvirnith. Pоmyth о matiri pltait v nas sоstradanii, кaк окian, bizmirnyj окian pitait riкi, rassiкayusii vsildnnuy … (57). These words of Gedali, the introduction to the story “The Rabbi,” are about the eternal force that is the sustainer and perpetuator of life—i.e. motherhood. Christ Sashka and the Rabbi's son subordinated their filial love to their vocation, a motif familiar from the Bible as well. The figure of Kurdyukov's mother, as dimly perceived through the story “The Letter,” is one that persists in the memory; in the photo: “кrоkоtnay кristhynкa … s caklymi svitlymi i zastincivymi cirtami liцa” (36) with three rugged men at her side, two of whom are dead, the members of the family having slaughtered each other from opposing sides of the political divide. In the story “Salt,” we may observe an inversion of motherhood, or rather, an abuse of the respect for motherhood. Two consecutive pieces of the cycle, “The Widow” and “Zamostye,” are the culmination of this theme. In a Freudian dream that Lyutov has, loneliness and the desire for tenderness call up a female figure dressed in festive attire. “Ona vynula grudh iz cirnyk кruziv коrsaza i iоnisla ii mni s оstоrоznоsthy, кaк коrmiliцa pisu. Ona prilоzila svоy grudh к mоij.” (130) This is a complex image of consolation: wife, lover, and mother combined in one person. In his dream, Lyutov is attended on his journey to death by this female figure, and it is she who says a prayer over him. Motherhood and childhood, life and death are intertwined, as has been seen, too, in the figure of Sashka the prostitute.

It is interesting to note that the joining of these opposite poles is a constant theme in the background of the works—in such a way that, counterposed to the deaths and the carnage of the Civil War, we get, from time to time, brief, symbolic appearances—either built into, or as the case may be independent of the plot—of pregnant women signifying that life goes on and there will be new lives (“Crossing the Zbruch,” “The Sun of Italy,” “The Rabbi”). Bakhtin mentions the small terra cotta figures of Kerch, which carry a similar meaning; they portray laughing, pregnant old women, with a deeply mythical symbolism²⁰. Apart from the motifs mentioned so far, associated with Sashka, fertility, as contrasted with the storms of history, receives emphasis elsewhere too—for instance, in a letter in the story “Berestechko.” Dated exactly a hundred years before the year 1920, the time stated in a few places in the story cycle, the letter, written in French—which serves to heighten the rhetorical effect—mentions together the death of Napoleon and the birth of a child. The motif of pregnant women also raises a Biblical parallel, where in describing the time of the end, there is the ever-recurring idea—“Alas for those who are with child and for those who give suck in those days!” (e.g. Lk 21:23). This role of motherhood, as a sustaining force, and of woman ensuring the continuance of the world is evident in Babel's early works as well. In “The Palace of Mothers” and “The Premature Infants,” Babel expresses his views on the subject almost in the form of a political precept, explaining the sustaining eternal force of the carnival philosophy: “But the earth keeps turning. People die and people are born.”²¹ Babel's articles—right from Doudou on—were undoubtedly instrumental in the formulation of Gorky's views, which the latter expounded in the same organ scarcely two months later; these, however, show a striking affinity with the hidden meaning of Pan Apolek's picture, the picture of the apostles rocking Jesus: “Zinsina v mоim pridstavlinii prizdi vsigо—math, kоty by Φizicisкi оna byla divusкоj …”; “… i y vsim sirdцim, vsij dusоj kоcu, ctоby vy sкоrii ulybalish ulybкоy Bоgоmatiri, prizimay к grudi svоij nоvоrоzdinnоgо cilоviкa Rоssii!”; “Rоssdy suzоrоznо bhitsy v strasnyk muкak rоdоv,—vy kоtiti, ctоby sкоrii rоdilоsh nоvоi, priкrasnоi, dоbrоi, кrasivоi, cilоvicisкоi?”

The spectacle of Dolgushov dying and the “exultation of destruction” bring a cry to Grishchuk's lips, projecting the senselessness of death onto the birth of life: “Zacim baby trudaytsy? … Zacim svatanny, vincanny, zacim кumy na svadhbi gulyyt?” (67) The doubly violent death of Dolgushov—for first he is mortally wounded and then he is put out of his misery by a shot from Afonka Bida—and Lyutov's bitterness over the loss of his friend, Afonka Bida, are relieved by a closing which, bringing a change in both tone and subject, offers a characteristic counterpoint—namely, eating, that most palpable, ancient and eternal, consoling confirmation of the sustaining of life.

Thus Sashka unites within her the elements of Lyutov's dream: she uses her femininity to comfort the Cossacks, and, as a nurse, she attends them on their journey to death, right to the very end. Shevelyov died. “Pavliк,—sкazala оna.—Iisus Kristоs mоj,—lig la na mirtviцa bокоm, priкryv igо svоim nipоmirnym tilоm.” (128) That image, worthy of Apolek's brush, is nothing other than an image of motherhood compressed into the Pietà, the prostitute exalted into a Madonna; while her enormous body suggests heathen and ancient mythical overtones. In conformance with the inner law of the cycle, Sashka appears as mother not just at an abstract and symbolic level, but also in the most grossly materialistic sense of the word, as when she looks upon the property that Shevelyov has bequeathed to his mother as her own. In the final analysis, we may see how, in the light of this Biblical image, the aspects listed above are connected with the figure of the Madonna, as the source of life and the epitome of all that is feminine, with the giver of solace and joy, the silent and sadly resigned observer of death (the act of dying).

Sashka, the everybody's woman raised to become Madonna, is the mirror image and counterpart of Sashka the Christ. Juxtaposed to each other, the camp-follower of the company and the singer of the company also raise the idea that “Sashka the Christ” is, above all a comforter of the soul, while Sashka is primarily a comforter of the body. Both of them ambivalent figures in themselves, the relationship they bear to each other is that of the female and male manifestation, respectively, of one and the same meaning—the Madonna and the Saviour of the Christian myth. The figure of Sashka is characterized by the binary connections of masculinity and femininity, animality and humanity, body and mind, love and death.

“Sasкa-svytitilh, u bоgоrоdiцy siΦilis zakvatil”—is how Sashka the Christ is mocked by his father (72). That is the paradox personified by Sashka, the heroine of the cycle—she is the Blessed Virgin (see the Pietà image) from whom one can contract syphilis. We find a prefiguration or representation of her in one of Apolek's pictures at the end of the story “The Church at Novograd,” where the narrator runs away from the “ogling Madonnas”.

We have seen, then, that ambivalence—ambivalence, that is, as defined by Bakhtin, which is a vehicle of eternal renewal, and which gains its ultimate meaning in the continuity of life and death—is, as a fundamental perspective, a running thread through the whole cycle.²² The appearance of ambivalence is, at the same time, a product and a carrier of Babel's dual vision, and in that dual quality it may be regarded as the dominant of the cycle. In Babel, the meaning of ambivalence is manifold: firstly, it suggests that history invariably manifests itself at once in the sublime and in the crassly ordinary; secondly, it raises the intricate unity and interdependence of the eternal and the ephemeral meanings; and thirdly, it illuminates the secret of the writer's method—the view that, in the mythical enstaging of the events of the Civil War, the history of mankind can be regarded as an endless sequence of repetitions, or rather of renewals.

Notes

1. Hetényi, Zsuzsa: Bibliai motívumok Babel “Lovashadsereg”-ében. (The Biblical Motifs in Babel's “Red Cavalry”.) Filológiai Közlöny, Nos 1-4, 1985. Kitini, Zuza: Biblijsкii mоtivy v “Kоnarmii” I.Babily.

2. In the description of the miracle, the emphatic role of the gaze, the eyes, as well as the power of inner strength nourished by faith, echoes Acts 3:4-10 from the Bible. Dyakov says to the doubting peasant: “But you are blaspheming against God, my friend.” According to the Bible, doubting the miracles is “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” (Mt 12:31; Mk 3:29+ Lk 12:10).

3. The page numbers following the quotations refer to the following edition: I. Babilh: Izbrannоi. Mоsкva 1966.

4. Sicher, E.: The Road to a Red Calvary. SEER Vol. 60, No. 4. October 1982. 535.

5. Bergström: Disguised Symbolism in “Madonna” Pictures and Still Life. Art Bulletin New York, 1955. 346.

6. See note 4, 533.

7. The names of Murillo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Malevich are mentioned, as well as naive painting and the Polish Baroque. See note 4, and Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, Band 10, 1982. 253-271.

8. Baktin, M.: Tvоrcistvо Φransua Rabli i narоdnay кulhtura sridniviкоvhy i rinissansa. Mоsкva 1965. 23, 24.

9. Ibid. 23.

10. See Mt 9:15; Mk 2:19; Jn 3:29; 2Cor 11:2.

11. Bakhtin, 26.

12. Frazer, J. G.: The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion. London³, 1920-1923. IV/1, 250-252, 266; V/1. 27-30.

13. Ibid. II/97 and sqq.; V/1. 199-202.

14. Ivanоva, Tamara: Mоi sоvriminniкi, кaкimi y ik znala. Mоsкva 1984. 293-294.

15. Frazer V/1, 292-294, and Broby-Johansen, R.: Oldnordiske stenbilleder (Gyldendals Ugleborger).

16. Bakhtin, 16.

17. The mother yields in importance to the calling: that is the Bible's system of values. See Mt 12:48-49; Mk 3:33; Lk 8:19 sqq.; Jn 2:4.

18. Litоpish, nоybrh 1916 gоda.

19. Svоbоdnyi mysli, 13 marta 1917 gоda.

20. Bakhtin 31.

21. Gоrhкij, M.: Nisvоivriminnyi mysli. Paris, 1971. 233, 235, 238. Novaya Zhizhn No. 100. May 13, 1918. It was in “Novaya Zhizhn” that Babel published his short-story-like journalistic pieces about daily life under the revolutionary régime.

22. Bakhtin, 15 and Baktin, M.: Prоblimy pоetiкi Dоstоivsкоgо. Mоsкva 1972. 304.