Письмо (The Letter). Исаак Бабель

rtain misspellings and grammatical errors are deliberate to reflect the original text.]

      Here is a letter home to the motherland, dictated to me by a boy in our expedition, Kurdyukov. It does not deserve to be forgotten. I have copied it without embellishment, and I give it here word for word, as befits the truth.

      «My dearest mama Yevdokiya Fedorovna. In the first lines of this letter I hasten to inform you that, thank the Lord, I be alive and well, which I hope to hear also from you. Also, I bow most deeply to you from my fair face to the damp earth…»

      (A list of relatives, godfathers, and godmothers follows. We will omit this. Let us move on to the second paragraph.)

      «My dearest mama Yevdokiya Fedorovna Kurdyukova. I hasten to write you that I am presently in the Red Cavalry Army of Comrade Budenny, and here also is your son’s godfather Nikon Vasilyich, who is at the present time a Red Hero. They took me in at the PolitDepartment service, where we deliver literature to the frontlines, and newspapers – Moscow Izvestiya of the CEC[1], Moscow Pravda, and our dear, merciless newspaper the Red Cavalryman, which every soldier on the frontlines desires to read, following which he hacks up the villainous szlachta[2] with a heroic spirit, and I live with Nikon Vasilyich most splendidly.

      My dearest mama Yevdokiya Fedorovna. Send me what you can, according to your means-and-abilities. I asks you to slaughter the spotted pig and fashion me a parcel to the PolitDepartment of Comrade Budenny, recipient Vasiliy Kurdyukov. Every night I lie to rest without eating and without clothing of any kind, so that it is cold, even. Write me as regarding my Styopa, whether he is alive or not, and I asks you to look after him and write me regarding him – whether his legs still interfere or not, and also regarding the mange on the front legs, has he been shoed or not? I asks you, my dearest mama Yevdokiya Fedorovna, to wash his front legs uncessantly with the soap I left behind the icons, and if Papasha[3] has consumed the soap, then buy some in Krasnodar, and God will take care of you. I can furthermore describe to you that the land here’s all poor, the men take their horses and hide in the woods from our red eagles. There is little wheat, it seems, and it is awfully small in size, we laugh from it. The locals are planting rye and likewise oats. Hops grow on poles here, which works out very proper; they go into moonshine.