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PARTISAN REVIEW
"Come here, you!"
The old man didn't answer, he stood as if the command could
not have referred to him. I felt nervous for him. "Step forward,
sir, step forward...." I whispered to him. He laid his hand on
my head lightly pulled me towards him, and stroked my cheek, and
I fancied I saw a tear stream down his pale face.
"Come here, Jew!" the hero repeated. And .as Rabbi Mel–
lakh still did not answer, he thumped the table:
"Come here, you witch-doctor, or I'll tear your beard off!
And a bloody fine beard you've got, too, ha ha ha! ... Ha ha ha!"
He laughed boisterously; how he did enjoy laughing....
A
glass in his left hand, a revolver in his right, he guffawed lengthily,
with ohs! and with ahs! infecting his companions with his affable
mood. Spell-bound and frightened, I stared at them. How they
did laugh, if you only could have heard them. Never before had
I realised to such a pitch how "laughter disarms." They were so
unself-conscious, so care-free, great rough sun-tanned children,
innocent even in their cruelty;-or perhaps throw-backs to a stone
age primitiveness, when men merely laughed as they killed. Since
to laugh seemed to them as natural a function as to kill-it came
instinctively-just like eating, drinking, swearing.
At the leader's feet, Kolenko still bled and moaned, rocking
his great captive body. The men went on drinking the vodka; the
stale sickly fumes dulled their brains and soured the air. You
would have thought you were in a brewery.... Mingled with their
laughter, a sentence would now and then emerge, incoherent, more
often than not it was some ridiculous boast, forgiveable for its
colossal inanity. One of them began to sing, in a muted voice, a
voice that was not too unpleasant, an old song about love and
prayer, and he wound up with an oath destined for some real or
imaginary Michka. Another recruit took up the song, the same
tune, but louder, the bottle in his shaking hand, his voice hoarse
with vodka and bestiality. Like the first singer, he ended it with a
'ow curse. Haggard, he gazed at the bottle, and suddenly he
yelled, he yelled as a wolf yells, the whole burden of his lungs
concentrated in his vocal cords. Bloods4ot eyes, yellow teeth
gleaming in parted lips, to me he seemed like a malevolent djinn
clamouring for the destruction of the world.
The effort made him lose his balance. He oscillated, upright,
as a stricken tree totters on its axis before falling. Legs wide apart,
