still struggling to keep him upright. The German fired a second shot. Galya Yakimenko fell to the ground.
Semyon Mikheich could never remember how it was that he had come to be holding a heavy cudgel. For the first time in his life he was in the grip of a terrible rage, a rage that was burning away the humiliations of the previous months, a rage that he felt both on his own behalf and on behalf of others—on behalf of thousands and thousands of old men, children, young girls, and women, a rage on behalf of the earth herself, abused as she had been by the enemy. He raised the cudgel high above his head and advanced on the German. Tall and majestic, with snow-white curls, this old beekeeper was the living embodiment of the Great Patriotic War.
“Halt!” shouted the German, raising his submachine gun high into the air. But the old man smashed down his cudgel.
Just then a group of Red Army soldiers appeared. Leading them was a man in a black sheepskin coat, with a grenade in his hand. It was Prokofy, the chairman of the collective farm. What he saw was a terrifying picture: dead bodies lying outside a hut, a German lying beside a doorway and—brilliantly lit by the flames—the quiet beekeeper, cudgel in hand.
Lozovenka Village, Kharkov Province, 1942
The Old Teacher *
1.
During the last few years, Boris Isaakovich Rosenthal had left the house only on warm still days. When it rained, or if there was fog or a heavy frost, his head would spin. Doctor Weintraub believed that the vertigo was caused by sclerosis; he prescribed a small glass of milk with fifteen drops of iodine before meals.
On warm days Rosenthal would go out into the yard. He did not take philosophy books with him: the noise of the children, and the women’s laughter and cursing, were entertainment enough. He would sit on the bench near the well with a small volume of Chekhov. Resting the open book on his knees, he would keep looking at one and the same page, half closing his eyes and smiling a dreamy smile like that of a blind man listening to the noise of life. He was not reading, but he was so used to having a book with him that he felt it necessary to stroke the rough binding and to check with his trembling fingers the thickness of the pages. The women sitting nearby would say, “Look—the teacher’s fallen asleep,” and go on talking about women’s matters as if he were not there. But he was not asleep. He was breathing in the smell of onions and sunflower-seed oil and enjoying the warmth of the sun-warmed stone; he was listening to the old women’s conversations about their sons- and daughters-in-law, and he was also aware of the ruthless, frenzied excitement of the little boys at their games. Sometimes the heavy wet sheets on the clotheslines would flap in the wind like sails, spraying fine drops of water onto his face. Once again, for a moment, he was a young student—sailing across the sea in a small boat.
He loved books—and books were not a barrier between him and life. His God was Life. And he learned about this God—a living, earthly, sinful God—by reading historians and philosophers, by reading the works of both greater and lesser writers. All of them, as best they could, celebrated, justified, blamed, and cursed Man on this splendid earth.
Sitting there in the yard, he could hear the children’s shrill voices:
“Quick, butterfly overhead—fire!”
“Got her! Finish her off with stones!”
Rosenthal was not horrified by this cruelty—he had known it all through his eighty-two years of life and he was not afraid of it.
Then six-year-old Katya, the daughter of Weissman, the lieutenant who had been killed, came up to him in her torn dress, shuffling along in galoshes that were falling off her dirty, scratched little feet. Offering him a cold, sour pancake, she said, “Eat, teacher!”
He took the pancake and began to eat it, looking at the little girl’s thin face. As he ate, there was a sudden hush in the yard.
Semyon Mikheich could never remember how it was that he had come to be holding a heavy cudgel. For the first time in his life he was in the grip of a terrible rage, a rage that was burning away the humiliations of the previous months, a rage that he felt both on his own behalf and on behalf of others—on behalf of thousands and thousands of old men, children, young girls, and women, a rage on behalf of the earth herself, abused as she had been by the enemy. He raised the cudgel high above his head and advanced on the German. Tall and majestic, with snow-white curls, this old beekeeper was the living embodiment of the Great Patriotic War.
“Halt!” shouted the German, raising his submachine gun high into the air. But the old man smashed down his cudgel.
Just then a group of Red Army soldiers appeared. Leading them was a man in a black sheepskin coat, with a grenade in his hand. It was Prokofy, the chairman of the collective farm. What he saw was a terrifying picture: dead bodies lying outside a hut, a German lying beside a doorway and—brilliantly lit by the flames—the quiet beekeeper, cudgel in hand.
Lozovenka Village, Kharkov Province, 1942
The Old Teacher *
1.
During the last few years, Boris Isaakovich Rosenthal had left the house only on warm still days. When it rained, or if there was fog or a heavy frost, his head would spin. Doctor Weintraub believed that the vertigo was caused by sclerosis; he prescribed a small glass of milk with fifteen drops of iodine before meals.
On warm days Rosenthal would go out into the yard. He did not take philosophy books with him: the noise of the children, and the women’s laughter and cursing, were entertainment enough. He would sit on the bench near the well with a small volume of Chekhov. Resting the open book on his knees, he would keep looking at one and the same page, half closing his eyes and smiling a dreamy smile like that of a blind man listening to the noise of life. He was not reading, but he was so used to having a book with him that he felt it necessary to stroke the rough binding and to check with his trembling fingers the thickness of the pages. The women sitting nearby would say, “Look—the teacher’s fallen asleep,” and go on talking about women’s matters as if he were not there. But he was not asleep. He was breathing in the smell of onions and sunflower-seed oil and enjoying the warmth of the sun-warmed stone; he was listening to the old women’s conversations about their sons- and daughters-in-law, and he was also aware of the ruthless, frenzied excitement of the little boys at their games. Sometimes the heavy wet sheets on the clotheslines would flap in the wind like sails, spraying fine drops of water onto his face. Once again, for a moment, he was a young student—sailing across the sea in a small boat.
He loved books—and books were not a barrier between him and life. His God was Life. And he learned about this God—a living, earthly, sinful God—by reading historians and philosophers, by reading the works of both greater and lesser writers. All of them, as best they could, celebrated, justified, blamed, and cursed Man on this splendid earth.
Sitting there in the yard, he could hear the children’s shrill voices:
“Quick, butterfly overhead—fire!”
“Got her! Finish her off with stones!”
Rosenthal was not horrified by this cruelty—he had known it all through his eighty-two years of life and he was not afraid of it.
Then six-year-old Katya, the daughter of Weissman, the lieutenant who had been killed, came up to him in her torn dress, shuffling along in galoshes that were falling off her dirty, scratched little feet. Offering him a cold, sour pancake, she said, “Eat, teacher!”
He took the pancake and began to eat it, looking at the little girl’s thin face. As he ate, there was a sudden hush in the yard.
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