Life and Fate Read Along, Part 2 Chapter 23

This post, covering Part 2, Chapter 23 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.

At the start of the bombardment that had pinned Klimov and Polyakov into seeking shelter, the narrator tells us that a bomb also hit Byerozkin’s command post. It killed Vanya, one of their pilots, and trapped Byerozkin and Dyrkin under a heap of rubble.

Dyrkin bemoans that “I’m in command of a dead battalion. And Vanya’s dead. Our Vanya’s dead,” (p. 439). Vanya, now deprived of life, laid dead in a mixture of blood and machine oil.