I think it could be also Babel's will to cut it. May be not -- as well. I suppose the spacialists know the details.

How interesting, Igor. I knew Soviets obviously censored entire literary works, like Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, but didn't know they surgically censored parts of works. This particular example strikes me as odd because as Raskolnik points out there's plenty of other disturbing events in the story, as well,though I can see how Soviet censors might applaud the strangely cheery ending.

I was really surprised to see the episode in the translation of The Journey which I know very well in Russian. I've asked some people and it became clear that the episode with the 'muzhik' was in the version of 1932 and after that it was deleted from Soviet editions of Babel and wasn't restored later. So most of Russian readers have no idea of it being in the story. The episode appeared only in 2003-2004 editions or so.

This is one of the reasons I'm not a particular fan of Babel. It's too much shock-narrative for me. He seems to have written this ending with a twisted grin, as if even he doesn't understand what's wrong with his antagonist. A writer should know his antagonist.

Indeed, the shift in tone to optimism, rather unusual in Babel, in my experience, caught me by surprise. Here's how Constantine translates it: "Within a single day I had everyting : clothes, food, work, and conrades true in friendship and death, the likes of which you will not find anywhere in the world, except in our country. That is how, thirteen years ago, a wonderful life filled with thought and joy began for me."
Wow, all this in a country where Jews are arbitrarily castrated and tossed from trains? Perhaps I'm missing some irony here? I read it quickly late at night, so another round is in order.

Are you referring to the lightness of it? How he "joins the ranks" and life becomes rosy?

Just finished the story (titled "The Road" in Constantine translation, but oddly missing altogether from my copy of Morison translation), and I see what you mean by the incidental nature of the event, which of course is what makes it such true Babel moment. I'm still trying to digest the final line, which caught me by surprise. I'll need to reread a few more times.

To be honest, that scene is a glancing blow in the plot of "The Journey." It does stand out to us post-freudian readers as somehow more cruel in its emasculation and perversion, but I wonder if Babel considered it any more horrific that any other crime in "The Journey." The scene does point out the muzhik's resentment for asserted Jewish virility.

Thanks, Raskonik! I am eager to read an unknown Babel story but loath to witness such a terrible violence on the page. That's what Babel does to his readers, eh.

Horrifying scene. "You wouldn't touch tref," said the telegraphist, "so eat something kosher."

It's from "The Journey," one of Babel's autobiographical stories. It's indeed in Red Calvary and probably every other collection.

http://books.google.com/books?id=OPZGLuk...

In a recent review of Frederick Seidel poems (NYRB 7.16.09), the reviewer mentions a poem with the following reference to an Isaac Babel story: "Like the young bride in the Babel story / Forced to eat her husband's penis."

Anyone know title of this story? Is it from Red Cavalry collection? (the incident of bizarre violence would suggest so) I've read lots of Babel's stories, but never came across this one.