O insane cavalry! Picking blueberries on horseback.
Bearing lances with red and white pennants. Squadrons of melancholy, squadrons
of tradition. Picture-book charges. Racing across the fields before Lodz
and Kutno. At Modlin substituting for the fortress. Oh, so brilliantly
galloping! Always waiting for the sunset. Both foreground and background
must be right before the cavalry can attack, for battles were made to be
picturesque and death to be painted, poised in mid-gallop, then falling,
nibbling blueberries, the dog roses crackle and break, providing the itch
without which the cavalry will not jump. There are the Uhlans, they've
got the itch again, amid haystacks - another picture for you - wheeling
their horses, they gather round a man, his name in Spain is Don Quixote,
but here he is Pan Kichot, a pure-blooded Pole, a noble, mournful figure,
who has taught his Uhlans to kiss ladies' hands on horseback, ah, with
what aplomb they will kiss the hand of death, as though death were a lady;
but first they gather, with sunset behind them - for color and romance
are their reserves - and ahead of them the German tanks, stallions from
the studs of Krupps von Bohlen und Halbach, no nobler steeds in all the
world. But Pan Kichot, the eccentric knight in love with death, lowers
his lance with the red-and-white pennant and calls on his men to kiss the
lady's hand. The storks clatter white and red on rooftops, and the sunset
spits out pits like cherries, as he cries to his cavalry: "Ye noble Poles
on horseback, these are no steel tanks, they are mere windmills or sheep,
I summon you to kiss the lady's hand".
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