Life and Fate Read Along, Part 1 Chapter 28

This post, covering Part 1, Chapter 28, is part of The Slavic Literature Pod’s chapter a day read along of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate. Learn more about our project here.

Saratov did not greet Lyudmila the way she had imagined. After a drunken man runs into her and starts cursing at her, she observes a man in a Red Army hat, presumably blinded from battle and just released from the hospital struggling to find his way on the train.

When he tries to ask a nearby woman for help, “The woman swore at him and pushed him away. He lost his balance and sat down on the pavement,” (p. 141). Lyudmila does not witness small acts of indifference or inaction, but rather purposeful violence towards someone recently injured defending the country.