Bachmatiuk chose a solution that satisfied both the deity and himself. Since it was not clear whether this was a case of insubordination or not, it was better to accept that it was not. So Bachmatiuk did not arrest Łeś and he did not even order him to give a report on the left flank. However, he had to do something with him. So, in a silence pregnant with the dread of the day of judgement, a silence that could not be drowned out by the clatter of the two “healthy” machine guns, he came so close to Łeś that the glittering peak of his cap struck him in the neck. As if his neck was struck by the blade of a guillotine. He was, however, shorter than Łeś, so he had to look up in order to meet his gaze. He found the bloodshot pupil of the Hutsul and saw there a readiness to murder. They looked at one another with deadly intensity. Bachmatiuk looked away from the bloodshot eye as if he was withdrawing a bloodstained bayonet. He closed his eyes, but there was a sea of blood even in those closed eyes. He did not open his eyes, but his cold breath, soured by alcohol and tobacco, wafted onto Łeś’s neck:
“My son, I’ll let out your soul!”
Then he leapt away from Łeś like a hangman from his victim. He gave a shrill whistle. Officers and NCOs followed his example and the whole company broke off the exercise.
In the third company there was no swine who would rush to report Łeś, so as soon as Lieutenant Lewicki ordered a half-hour break, Łeś Nedochodiuk went with the others to a place in the open field where there was a lone oasis of shrubs—wild roses and blackberries, and there he relieved his full bladder. Although Bachmatiuk had portended the letting out of Łeś’s soul so quietly that only those closest to him, Piotr Niewiadomski for example, had heard him, mortal fear overcame everyone. They all felt they had a soul too, for here was someone who could let it out, if only for a day, an hour, a moment. Everyone also sensed that Bachmatiuk’s prediction was not just a threat that would lead to the familiar punishments. They knew something they had never experienced before would happen that day. A sixth sense told these defenceless people that their comrade Łeś Nedochodiuk’s soul would shortly depart from his body, flying from his mouth and his nose, his immortal soul for whose redemption he had prayed from a book with gilt edges.
Piotr Niewiadomski sensed the presence of the devil. He could have sworn that he saw the devil evaporating from the barrel of the Schwarzlose machine gun and forcing himself into the soul of a Hutsul who was unwilling to expose himself in front of others.
None of the witnesses of the incident had the courage to approach Łeś, let alone speak to him. Łeś was already taboo. An invisible chalk circle had been drawn round his body. No living person dared to cross this borderline between life and death. But Łeś Nedochodiuk walked among his comrades, who fell silent at the sight of him, like a king who had just been excommunicated by the church. The faithful are supposed to shun even an excommunicated king. So the disciples of Imperial and Royal Discipline avoided Łeś, while at the same time admiring him for daring to challenge the deity, endangering his soul in an unequal battle. Some were rash enough to mutter about the incident, fearing to speak of it out loud. They tried to guess what Bachmatiuk would do now, and by means of what punishment he would expel Łeś’s soul. Meanwhile Bachmatiuk, like Łeś, stood to one side, smoking a cigarette. He was probably wondering the same thing as the men.
He did not devise anything special. The sanctions he had at his disposal were rather mild. Bachmatiuk had no right to impose disciplinary punishments. Only the company commander could impose detention or solitary confinement, while szpanga (clapping in irons, cuffing the left arm to the right leg and the right hand to the left leg) and Anbinden (tying hands behind the back and binding to the post) were the exclusive privilege of the commanding officer.
However, even within his limited powers, Bachmatiuk had enough ways of letting out Łeś’s soul.
And he did let it out.
Nobody could tell exactly how it happened.
Most of his countrymen supposed that Corporal Reszytyło, whom Bachmatiuk had instructed to carry out punishment exercises with Łeś, tortured him to unconsciousness with constant sit-ups, “frog leaps”, running, falling and getting up again in full marching gear, all while holding a Mannlicher. Łeś collapsed from exhaustion, they said, although he was such a strapping fellow. Or maybe he suffered a sudden haemorrhage. Some saw him fall on the second day of his punishment exercises, dropping the weapon and failing to get up after repeated commands to do so.
“He’s malingering,” said Bachmatiuk when Corporal Reszytyło reported it. But Lieutenant Lewicki was disturbed. He drew his sabre and applied the blade to the lips of the man who had fainted, and when he had convinced himself that he was breathing, ordered stretcher bearers to carry the unconscious “malingerer” to the sick-bay.
However, many Hutsuls, among them Reserve Militiaman Piotr Niewiadomski, were convinced that Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk had accomplices from another world. She-devils had come for the soul of Łeś, of whom it was known, and not only in Dzembronia by the Dzembronia River, that he had sinned and sinned as an adulterer. And now the same devils that had incited Łeś to commit this sin out there in the remote Hutsul land—and Łeś committed adultery not only with the wives of strangers, but also with his brother Ostap’s wife, that beautiful Armenian from Kuty, Kajetanna—those same devils suddenly turned into guards and avengers of the flouted sixth commandment. The cursed she-devils took advantage of the fact that there was a war on, that their patron Arch-Judas (one should spit at the very mention of his name) had stolen the whole fifth commandment from God and sold it to the Emperors. Because it was only thanks to this that Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk was able to drive out Łeś’s soul. And the she-devils had come to take it off to hell.
On the third day, Łeś Nedochodiuk was lying in the sickbay, behind a Chinese screen, fighting for his life. The sick-bay consisted of only one room with ten beds. Not all were occupied. When it became clear that Łeś’s condition was hopeless and that not even the leeches bought at a pharmacy in town by medical orderly and garrison barber Glück were any help, Regimental Doctor Badian ordered a Chinese screen to be brought from his quarters in Andrásfalva. He wanted to spare others, mostly patients with mild ailments, the sight of the dying man. True, this happened in the army and during the war, and perhaps it was time to familiarize the soldiers with death. But Dr Max Badian, the regimental doctor in reserve, preferred to shield the dying patient with a screen, since it was otherwise impossible to isolate him. However, since in such a sad situation neither Łeś’s healthy comrades nor the sick ones who came to enquire about his health were amused by the comical figures of Chinese men with long drooping moustaches and locks of hair on shaved heads painted on the screen, Dr Badian had the screen covered with a sheet.
There was another, more serious, reason why Dr Badian shielded the dying Łeś with this screen.
Łeś Nedochodiuk felt that he was dying. He was not afraid of death, but he was afraid of hell. He requested a candle and a priest. There was no candle at the garrison. There was neither a Greek priest nor a Roman Catholic one. The regimental chaplains of both confessions were in the field, that is, at the division headquarters. It had been correctly agreed at the Department of Pastoral Functions of Christian Faiths of the Imperial and Royal Ministry of War at the Stubenring in Vienna that care of the souls of soldiers is needed first and foremost where the soldiers are constantly in danger of death, and therefore on the front line, not in the safe garrisons. Especially when they had been evacuated from the home garrisons presently occupied by the Muscovites. So our people, at least for now (since the Stubenring promised to send a Greek-Catholic priest later), were deprived of their own pastors and pastoral sustenance. Not entirely, however. Every Sunday and on every church holiday Catholics marched to the garrison church in Andrásfalva, where the parish rector of the church and the military chaplain simultaneously celebrated mass in Latin, only the
sermon being given in Hungarian. Regimental Doctor Badian, like so many physicians in those days, was an atheist. If he believed in anything at all, it was just the laws of nature. The development of natural sciences was supposed to guarantee mankind a bright future. This belief was slightly undermined by the war, which Dr Badian considered a senseless anachronism. He saw in it only the last convulsions of the dying world of irrational, and therefore false, ideas. However, as a true liberal, he respected all religions. He understood that even in the army Christian mortals should not be deprived of the sacraments in the face of death.
So he went to the garrison commander with a proposal to bring a Honvéd chaplain to the dying soldier. It was the first fatal accident at this garrison, and Lieutenant-Colonel Leithuber responded favourably to the doctor’s initiative. But, personally, he did not want to call the chaplain of the unpopular Honvéds. So Dr Badian dealt with this. He drove to the city in the garrison commander’s carriage and found the priest not in the barracks but at the rectory of the garrison church. Father Dr Géza Szákaly, a chaplain with the rank of captain, immediately agreed to Dr Badian’s proposal. However, scarcely had he (in German) expressed his agreement to prepare Łeś for his death than he came up against a brick wall. The wall of the Tower of Babel. It was supposed to bring people closer to heaven and therefore to God, but the result of this undertaking was the opposite; it was fatal. The Tower of Babel had distanced people not only from God, but from one another. They ceased to understand one another. So Father Géza Szákaly hesitated. He spoke only Hungarian and German. How could he undertake confession for a man who does not know these languages? Łeś Nedochodiuk spoke only Hutsul dialect, and a little Polish. Dr Badian, wishing to help the priest out of such an embarrassing situation, proposed confession with the help of an interpreter. Father Szákaly, surprised rather than shocked by this unheard-of proposition, seeing the good will of a doctor unfamiliar with rituals, explained to him that confession through an interpreter was impossible. It would be a violation of the seal of the confessional. After a long struggle with his own conscience, however, he acknowledged that mercy is more valuable than knowledge of foreign languages. In any case, God, in whose name he, a modest priest, was to receive the confession of a dying Hutsul in an unfamiliar language, certainly knows all languages. Ukrainian too. After all, the Merciful Almighty punished only human pride with the confusion of tongues, not Himself. Therefore, the confession requested by the poor sinner in the 10th Infantry Regiment of King N would be valid despite the language difficulties. So Father Szákaly decided to go to him. Dr Badian wanted to take the priest back with him, but he declined. He had to prepare first, for such important functions as taking the confession of a dying man, holy communion and final anointing. He promised to follow soon. He only asked for a table at the bedside, covered with a white cloth, two candles and a few balls of cotton wool. The crucifix he would bring himself.
Father Szákaly’s arrival caused a sensation in the garrison. The sight of the old priest in a white surplice, worn over a long black coat—neither frock-coat nor uniform—was extraordinary. On both sleeves there were three gold straps. The purple stole did not cover the officer’s stiff collar. He wore an officer’s cap when off duty, but he was now bare-headed. The priest was accompanied by a moustachioed Honvéd, also wearing a surplice, bearing a lit lantern. But without a bell.
It was late afternoon and the garrison was completing its military activities and the men, although they were hungry, were not hurrying to the mess. Curiosity prevailed over hunger. Almost everyone in the square before the command post crossed themselves and kneeled; and those who did not kneel removed their caps and stood to attention.
Although the Regulations contained a “Kneel to pray” command, Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk considered that in the army kneeling only makes sense when an infantry division is firing in two rows. The first row kneels, and the second, behind them, fires in a standing position. So he removed his cap, but stepped back inside the gateway and went upstairs to his room.
The priest, carrying a white chequered pouch containing the viaticum was conducted to the sick-bay by the adjutant, Lieutenant Baron Hammerling. Dr Badian discreetly retreated to his office adjoining the sick-bay. He had previously instructed Glück to prepare several balls of cotton wool. Father Szákaly sat down on the patient’s bed behind the Chinese screen. He made the sign of the cross over Łeś and heard his confession, of which he did not understand a word. And Łeś kept beating his breast and confessing in such a loud voice that Father Szákaly gestured to him to speak quietly, because he could be heard by other patients. Indeed, they heard him continually crying out “Forgive me! Forgive me!” and they could hear how frequently the words “brother, brother’s wife” occurred in the confession… Łeś continued to beat his chest. He did so with such force that the priest wondered how the dying man could summon up such strength. Evidently, the merciful God himself gave him the strength to help cleanse the soul of its sins. They must have been dire sins, since Łeś Nedochodiuk took so long to confess. The priest thought these sins were resisting, that they were unwilling to emerge from Łeś’s soul. Łeś was suffering like a woman in difficult childbirth. Father Szákaly, observing how painful it was for the dying Hutsul to “give birth” to his sins, sought to assist him. Forgetting that the repentant man did not understand Hungarian, he whispered something in his ear in that language and the dialogue proceeded for a few moments in this fashion, yet another consequence of the unfortunate attempted construction described in the Old Testament.
Exhausted by this extraordinary confession, Father Szákaly recognized that enough was enough, that the repentant man had already cleansed his soul of the sins that oppressed him. But he did not stem the flow of incomprehensible words and Łeś’s voice weakened, his words turning to an incomprehensible mumbling. The confessor seemed to notice an expression of relief on Łeś’s face, which was covered with perspiration, and he gave him a sign that it was enough. The evidence of his repentance was all too visible. In view of that, Father Szákaly lit the candles on the table and began preparing Łeś’s soul for the Particular Judgement Court and the Last Judgment. First he forgave him all his sins in a language that neither Łeś nor his countrymen, nor Father Szákaly’s Honvéds understood. It was incomprehensible even to some of the officers, especially the professional ones trained in military academies. Dr Badian alone would have understood it, if he had been present:
Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis tuis, perducat te ad vitam aeternam. Amen.
Then Father Szákaly administered Holy Communion to Łeś and with cotton balls dipped in holy oil he anointed his eyelids, nostrils, lips, palms, loins and the outside of the arches of his feet.
Reserve Militiaman Łeś Nedochodiuk could now die in peace.
As to whether it was for the Emperor or just for himself alone, so far history remains silent.
About the Author
JÓZEF WITTLIN was born in 1896 and served in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War. His experiences inspired him to write The Salt of the Earth. Published in 1935 to great success, it received the Polish National Academy Prize, won Wittlin a nomination for the Nobel Prize, and has since been translated into 14 languages. Wittlin was also a translator and poet, penning numerous essays such as ‘My Lwów’, included in City of Lions, also published by Pushkin Press. With the outbreak of the Second World War he fled to France and then to New York, where he died in 1976.
Copyright
Pushkin Press
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First published as Sól ziemi in Warsaw, 1935
© 1937 Verlag Allert de Lange, Amsterdam. Translated from the Polish by I. Bermann, revised by Marianne Seeger
© 1969 S Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main
English translation © Patrick John Corness 2018
First translated into English by Pauline de Chary and published in New York by Sheridan House, 1941
This translation first published by Pushkin Press in 2018
This book has been published with the support of the © POLAND Translation Program
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ISBN 13: 978–1–78227–471–1
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