ANDREY PLATONOV
573
"How do you know? That's as may be," said the soldier who was lis–
tening to
him.
"That's how it will be," said Gershanovich. "The Fascists are careful
with
death; they're tight-fisted, they make one death do for seven men–
it was me who thought up that little saving for them-and now they'll try
to make it go even further. The Germans have grown poor."
At the time we did not understand what Gershanovich meant. "Let
him
ramble on," we thought.
Soon afterwards four partisans got through to us. They turned out to
have known Gershanovich for a long time, as a member of partisan brigade
N, and they told us that Gershanovich was a very wise man and the most
skilled partisan in his brigade. His family had indeed been shot near
Borisov, five hundred souls had been shot at the same time, so there would
be fewer mouths to feed and fewer Jews.
"And death hasn't taken
him
once, though he's ready enough," said
one of the new partisans. "And one can understand why: Osip Yevseich is
no fool, and he needs a death as smart as he is, but the fascists make a lot
of noise when they fight, and they shoot like fools. They're no great dan–
ger. .. .In Minsk Osip Yevseich got a bullet in the head-and at close
range-but it didn't get right inside; he stopped it with his mind."
We said
this
was not possible.
"It
is," said the partisan.
"It
depends how you fight. If you're a skilled
fighter, it's possible."
To prove
this,
he felt the back of Gershanovich's head with
his
fingers;
then we felt the same place ourselves: beneath his hair lay a dent in the
skull from a deep wound.
Mter he had lived wi th us a bi t longer, and eaten some good food,
Gershanovich became more rational and less strange-looking, and then he
once again went far behind the enemy lines, together with four partisans.
He wanted to pass a second time along the path where death had failed to
conquer
him,
and where he himself had achieved only a partial victory, and
then to return to us straight away.
Armed, and wearing a Belorussian coat and bast shoes, Gershanovich
went off at night into the thick of the enemy, in order to destroy them and
to visit his dead children.
Mter making his way to Minsk along partisan paths, Gershanovich
left his companions and again, as on his first journey, came out into the
outskirts of the town in the half-light. He walked alone in quiet con–
sciousness, understanding the world around him as a sad fairy tale or as
a dream that might pass him by forever. He was already used to the
absence of people, to the deathly ruins behind the German lines and to
