Authority Figures in Babel's Red Cavalry

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The Remount Officer, p. 54 - 55: (line 1) “You’re insulting the mount,” replied Dyakov with profound conviction. As good as blaspheming, that’s what you’re doing, my lad.” And he swung his well-proportioned athlete’s body skilfully out of the saddle. Straightening his perfect legs, caught at the knee with a small strap, he went with circus agility over to the moribund animal. (line 5) It fixed wide, deep eyes on Dyakov and licked from his ruddy palm a sort of imperceptible injunction. Immediately the exhausted beast felt a dexterous strength flowing from the bald and vigorous Romeo in the prime of life. Straightening its head and slithering on its staggering legs at the impatient and imperious flicking of the whip on its belly, the jade got up, slowly and warily. (line 9) Then we saw a delicate wrist in a wide, flowing sleeve patting the dirty mane, and perceived how the whip cracked whining against the bloodstained flanks. Her whole body trembling, the jade stood on her legs, her doglike eyes, filled with love and fear, never for an instant leaving Dyakov’s face. (line 13) “That means she’s a mount,” said Dyakov to the peasants, adding gently: “And you were complaining, old friend.” Throwing the bridle to his orderly, the Remound officer took four steps at a bound and, swinging his opera cloak, disappeared into the Staff building. This passage from “The Remount Officer,” one of the short stories in Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry, highlights problems of identity by ridiculing figures of authority and fooling around with pronoun usage. This story also shows where religion’s true place is according to the Revolution. It ends on the bittersweet note that regardless of the revolution’s absurdities (which Babel references through sequenced contradictions), the population still obeys a proper mixture of brute force and theatrics - just as the mount in question

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