Town of Kobrin

Kobrin → Outstanding persons

We left Brest to the town of Kobrin. With us sir Gronsky went on the rumpled and scratched Forde. Brest burned. Blew up serf forts. The sky rose behind us a pink smoke. About Brest we picked up two children who lost mother. They stood on the edge of the road, having nestled to each other, – the little boy in a fragmentary gymnasia overcoat and the thin girl of years of twelve.

The boy pulled a peak-cap peak on eyes to hide tears. The girl strong held the boy both hands by shoulders. We put them on a fursemolina and covered with old overcoats. There was a steady prickly rain. By the evening we entered the town of Kobrin. The earth, black as coal, it was stirred in swill by the receding army. Slanting houses with the pulled-down rotten roofs went to dirt on the thresholds. Horses neighed in the dark, lamps mutno shone, the loosened wheels clanked, and the rain flew down from roofs noisy streams.

In Kobrin we saw how we took away from the town of the Jewish Saint, so-called "tsadik". Gronsky told us that in the Western region and Poland there are several such tsadik. They live always on small places. To tsadika there come from all country hundreds of people behind any everyday councils. At the expense of these visitors the population of places is fed.

Near the wooden flat house the crowd of uncombed women sighed. Doors had a closed closed sleigh harnessed by the four of lean horses. I never before saw such ancient closed sleighs. Right there, having dismounted, dragoons smoked. It, appears, there was an escort for protection of a tsadik on the way. Suddenly the crowd cried, rushed to doors. The doors were opened, and the huge high Jew with the face which grew with a black bristle took out on hands as baby, absolutely dried white-bearded old man who is wrapped up in a blue wadded blanket.

For tsadiky old women in talmas and pale young men in kartuzika and long frock coats hurried. Tsadik was laid in a closed sleigh, there mudflows of the old woman and young man, vakhmistr ordered: "In a saddle!" – dragoons sat down on horses, and the closed sleigh started on dirt, shaking and squeaking. The crowd of women ran behind it.

– You know, – Gronsky told, – that he tsadik all life does not leave the house? And he is fed from a spoon. My word upon it! Jac Boga to kokha! In Kobrin we occupied an old crude synagogue under a billeting. Only one person sat in it in the dark and muttered not prayers, not damnations. We lit lamps and saw the elderly Jew with sad derisive eyes.

– Oh-oh-oh! – he told us. – What fun you with yourself brought for poor people, dear soldiers. We gloomy were silent. Hospital attendants dragged an iron leaf from the yard, we made on it fire and put a kettle – to boil tea. Children silently sat at fire. Gronsky entered a synagogue, creaking marching belts, and told:

– My friends, unharness two-wheeled carts. To hell! I will not move till the dawn anywhere. The army prt through the town. It will erase us in powder. Feed with something these children. He long looked at children, and the flame of a fire shone in its light pupils. Then he started talking to the girl in Polish. She answered it is slightly heard, without raising eyes.

– When all this comes to an end? – unexpectedly Gronsky asked. – When take by the throat those who stirred up this bloody trouble?
Gronsky swore. All were silent. Then there was an old Jew. He approached Gronsky, bowed to it and asked:

– The sir expensive, you, hour, do not know to which of us there is an interest from such misfortune?

– Not to me and not you, old man! – Gronsky answered. – Not to these children and not these people.

Sparks flew behind windows, it there passed by a synagogue mobile kitchens.

– Go to coppers, – Gronsky told. – Go all! Get soup.

We went to marching coppers. The boy went with us. The hospital attendant Spolokh strong held him by a hand. The hungry crowd of refugees was torn to coppers. It was constrained by soldiers. Torches rushed about and lit, appear, only one eyes – the prominent glass eyes of people seeing nothing except the open smoking coppers. Here the crowd was still neistovy, than in Vyshnitsakh.

– Start-up - and - ah! – desperately someone shouted. The crowd rushed. It tore off the boy from Spolokh. The boy stumbled and fell under legs to hundreds of people who rushed to coppers. He did not manage even to cry. Men snatched bowls each other out of hands. Women hasty put in a mouth to the chest turned blue children pieces of the gray steamed-out pork. We with Spolokh rushed to the boy, but the crowd flung away us. I could not shout. A spasm squeezed to me a throat. I snatched out the revolver and discharged it in air. The crowd was distributed. The boy lay in dirt. The tear still flew down from his dead pale cheek. We lifted it and incurred in a synagogue.

– Well, – Spolokh told and hard swore, – well and those tears will be cast! Let's only us take though small force. We brought the boy in a synagogue and put on an overcoat. The girl saw it and got up. It shivered so strongly that it was heard as her teeth knock.

– Mother! – she said in low tones and moved back to a door. – My mother! – she shouted and ran out on the street. Wagon trains rattled.

– Mother! – desperately she called behind windows.

We stood in catalepsy until Gronsky shouted:

– Return it! More likely, the devil would pobrat all of you!

Romanin and hospital attendants ran out on the street. I rushed behind them too. The girl was not anywhere. I untied the horse, jumped on him and crashed into a thick of wagon trains. I whipped a lash of sweaty obozny horses, clearing away myself the road. I jumped on sidewalks, came back, stopped soldiers and asked them whether they saw the girl in a gray coat, but I was not even answered.

On suburbs hovels burned. Glow shook in pools and strengthened confusion of two-wheeled carts, tools, horses, carts – all ugly confusion of night retreat. I returned to a synagogue. The girl was not. The boy lay on an overcoat, having nestled a pale cheek on wet cloth and as though slept. Was nobody in a crude and dark synagogue. Fire went out, and only one elderly Jew sat about the boy and muttered not prayers, not damnations.

– Where ours? – I asked it.

– I know? – he answered and sighed. – Everyone wants some hot soup.

He kept silent.

– The sir, – he said to me in low tones and distinctly, – I am a shornik. My name is Iosif Shifrin. I am not able to tell what at me lies on heart. Sir! We, Jews, know from the prophets as God is able to revenge the person. Where it, that God? Why it did not burn fire, did not pull out an eye at those who thought up such misfortune?

– That God, God! – I told roughly. – You speak as the silly person.

The old man sadly grinned.

– Listen, – he told and touched me for an overcoat sleeve. – Listen you, the educated and clever person. He kept silent again. Glow was motionless in dusty windows of a synagogue.

– Here I sat here and thought. I do not know as well as you who is guilty of everything. I did not study even in a heder. But I yet not absolutely blind and something see. I ask you, the sir: who will revenge? Who will pay expensive bill here for this little person? Or all of you such kind that you will regret and forgive those who presented us such good gift – this war. My God mine when, at last, people gather also will do for themselves the real life!

He raised hands to a ceiling of a synagogue and stridently cried, having closed eyes and rocking:

– I do not see who will revenge for us! Where the person that will wipe tears of these beggars and will milk to mothers that children did not suck an empty breast! Where the one who will sow on this earth corn for hungry? Where the one who will take away gold from the rich and will distribute it to poor people? Yes all who soil hands of the person with blood who robs beggars will be damned until the end of the earth! Yes they will have neither children, nor grandsons! Let their seed will decay and own saliva will kill them as poison. Let air will become for them sulfur, and water the boiling pitch. Let blood of the child will poison a piece of rich bread, and let they will choke with that piece and will die in tortures as the crushed dogs.

The old man shouted, having raised hands. It shook them, squeezed them in fists. Its voice rattled and filled all synagogue. To me it became terrible. I left, leaned against a wall of a synagogue and lit. It was drizzling, and the darkness adjoined to the earth more and more densely. It as if purposely left me confidentially with thoughts of war. One was clear for me: it is necessary to put it an end what it costed. It is necessary to direct all efforts and all blood of the heart for that justice and the world triumphed at last over the scolded and poor earth.

K. G. Paustovsky "Town of Kobrin" from the autobiographical story "Uneasy Youth".

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