Joseph Roth - Tarabas

And most of the worshippers left the scene of grace. Soldiers in uniform and peasants with lashes, sticks, and sickles in their hands drove the dark flock of Jews through the dimly lighted street. They broke into each one of the little houses, putting out the lamps and candles and commanding the Jews to relight them, because they knew that they were forbidden by their law to kindle fire on the Sabbath.

Many of the peasants took the burning candles out of their stands, hid the stands under their coats, and amused themselves with holding the candles to every inflammable stuff in reach. Thus very soon curtains and table-cloths and sheets were all in flames.

The Jewish children set up a pitiable wailing; the Jewish women tore their hair and called upon their men-folk by their names, the sound of which seemed to the tormentors silly and contemptible, and made them laugh until the tears came. Not a few mimicked the crying of the children and the women. An insane tumult rose into the night. A few of the captive Jews made a childish attempt to hide themselves in the familiar houses. But they were quickly caught and beaten.

“Where is your inn-keeper Kristianpoller?” this and that voice would roar at intervals.

Immeasurable though the din had now become, that fearful question reached the ears of everyone, despite the general chaos. And as now the Jews, together with their wives and children, in a wild chorus, and calling on every holy thing to bear them witness, began, one and all, to swear that they did not know where their brother Kristianpoller was, the cruel questions fell thicker and faster.

“All right, we’ll make you!” cried someone in the crowd. It was one of the soldiers, a gigantic fellow with broad shoulders and a tiny head that seemed to be no bigger than a nut, a puny fruit upon a mighty tree. He pushed the crowd aside, strode forward, and stood before a young Jewish woman, whose dark and comely face, with the innocent hazel eyes wide with terror beneath the shimmering white silken kerchief, may have attracted him from afar and aroused in him both love and hate. Fear paralysed her. She did not even try to move away.

“This is his wife! Here’s the blackguard Kristianpoller’s wife!” shouted the soldier.

An unspeakable, inhuman lust inflamed his tiny, pallid, hairless face. He raised a short wooden club and brought it down upon the Jewess’s head. It felled her instantly. Everyone cried out. Blood showed upon the kerchief’s shimmering white. And as though the sight of the red blood, the first of that day’s shedding, had lent clear meaning and direction to their vague and smouldering fury, now in the others, too, awoke an invincible desire to strike, to trample underfoot. Red veils of blood already hung before their eyes, streaming red veils like bloody waterfalls. They struck at random, each with whatever he chanced to have in his hand, and their blows fell on the men, the women, and the children, even on inanimate objects within range.

Kontsev, arriving from the barracks with a small platoon, could see at once that he could not cope with the trouble in the town. He sent word post-haste back to Colonel Tarabas, meanwhile addressing the crowd in various languages, shouting alternate threats and reassurance to them above the great commotion. The peasants and the soldiers were, however, too far gone in their delirium to understand or to be sobered by his words. They merely felt obscurely that some force of order was moving their way, inimical therefore, and set themselves to oppose it energetically. The implements with which they had just been laying about them they now employed as missiles against Kontsev and his troop. Kontsev feared to risk giving a decisive command without his colonel’s leave. He decided, therefore, to retreat for the time being, distributing his men on either side of the street to guard such houses as had so far escaped attack. Nor did the crowd attempt to advance. With all the greater violence they turned back on the Jews around them, and on the captives in their midst. Here and there blue flames went up from the interior of the houses, and through doors and windows came screams and wailing. Kontsev waited impatiently. Colonel Tarabas must come any moment now.

But only Kontsev’s messenger came back. He reported that all the officers both in the mess and in their sleeping-quarters were in a state of almost complete inanimation, and that not even the mighty Colonel Tarabas differed, at that moment, from the rest. On the contrary, his condition was, if anything, worse. For as the cook and the soldiers on duty in the mess had told him, there had been a fight in the late afternoon. Old Major Kisilaika, the one whom they had found in charge of the station when they first arrived, left over from the old days and in no mind since to resign, had called across the room to Colonel Tarabas that the kind of reckless drinking which went on there was a thing unknown in the old Russian army. Out of this remark a fracas had arisen. Tarabas had invited all the dissatisfied to leave the new army on the spot. There-upon the officers had started fighting, Tarabas as well. And then there had been a surprising reconciliation all round, the result of which had been a fresh outbreak of the desire to drink until they could hold no more.

Sergeant-Major Kontsev decided to gather his small platoon together and tackle the mob of peasants with fixed bayonets. He was not yet aware that there were soldiers in the crowd. Some of these still had the pistols with them which they had fired at Ramzin’s drawings. They hated Kontsev. They had not forgotten one iota of what he had done to them. They recognized him by his voice, and with Ramzin’s encouragement decided that their moment of revenge was come. They pushed the peasants out of their way and placed themselves in the forefront of the mob. As Kontsev gave the command to advance, Ramzin shot, and the deserters followed suit. Three of Kontsev’s men went down. He realized the danger, but it was too late. Before he could cry “Fire!” to his troops, Ramzin and the deserters had pushed forward and discharged the remainder of their ammunition, to the triumphant yells of the drunken peasants.

Three or four oil-lanterns only lit the street, but now from time to time, ever more frequently, thin tongues of flame shot out from the Jews’ houses, casting a feeble, intermittent shine into the darkness where a short and fierce hand-to-hand encounter now began. Old soldier that he was, Sergeant-Major Kontsev clearly foresaw the outcome of this fight. He knew that his small troop was no match for that infuriated mob. Shame and grief filled him at the thought of the inglorious end awaiting him in this inglorious brawl, him, than whom the mighty Russian army had had no more intrepid soldier. Many another soldier, honourable foes both Austrian and German, he had killed with his honourable soldier’s hands. He had come to this place partly because he had not known where else to go, but partly, too, out of devotion to his master and colonel, Tarabas. What was this new little country to Kontsev? What in the devil’s name were the Koropta Jews to him? — Ah, what an end for an old soldier who had fought in the great war! All these thoughts coursed with great rapidity through grand old Kontsev’s mind while his well-trained soldier’s conscience, like a separate brain — his real one — dictated all the measures to him which this most hideous situation called for. A pistol in his left hand, and in his right the great curved sabre, with the yelling peasants and the deserters, his mortal enemies, all round him, the courageous Kontsev shot and thrust on every side at once. He towered over the besetting horde by his whole powerful and massive head. In every region of his body he felt pain; blow upon blow hailed down upon him. Suddenly he felt something pierce his throat. Dense clouds now hung before his blood-shot eyes, but he could just distinguish Ramzin, with an ordinary peasant’s jack-knife in his upraised hand.