Forest of the Hanged

by Liviu Rebreanu

  “Kill me! Kill me!”

  His gesture and outburst caused amazement and indignation. The colonel sprang to his feet with flashing eyes, and banged with his fist on the table, while Apostol fell back in his chair in a heap, breathing heavily, his face the colour of slaked lime, his red-filmed gaze glued to the white cross.

  Quietness was soon restored in the room and everybody regained his former grave composure. The incident was discussed for a few minutes, then the proceedings—which had been disturbed for a moment by the writhings of a human soul—went on. Apostol sat on his chair, quiet and motionless. In his ears buzzed words and phrases which did not interest him at all, for the cross on the table was pouring balm into his soul.

  Then all at once the president called out sternly:

  “Has the accused anything more to say?”

  Bologa heard and understood the question; but he made no movement, as if the matter did not concern him at all.

  “The discussions being ended, the court will now deliberate!” said the colonel angrily.

  The president made a sign, and the sergeant-major approached Apostol.

  “Is it over?” he asked, starting up from his chair so violently that the sergeant-major was alarmed. “Yes? Is it over?”

  He bowed low to the court and went out hurriedly, briskly.

  VII

  “Well, sir, that’s over too! Now you’ll feel easier!” said the sergeant-major with a mysterious smile, when they had reached the little room. “There is your luncheon waiting; it has probably got cold.”

  Apostol looked hard at him and wanted to ask him something, but before he had framed the question in his mind the sergeant-major had gone.

  “What was it the sergeant-major said?” thought Bologa, left alone. “Perhaps he knows something. He has been long at this job and has seen many cases.”

  When he realized what hope was connected with that thought, he put it away from him, mumbling:

  “What nonsense! Just fancy what nonsense I am thinking now …”

  He threw his helmet on the bed and gave a short, dry, hollow laugh, rubbing his chest with the palms of his hands, as if he were trying to stop the throbbing of his heart. In doing this he heard in the pocket of his tunic the rustle of paper, and stopped suddenly.

  “Now, let’s see mother’s letter and understand it.”

  Doamna Bologa wrote just unimportant things about Parva, about people he knew and people he didn’t know. That Palagiesu went about boasting that Apostol had apologized to him, that Marta constantly came to see her and still considered herself his fiancée, that Domsa still called her cuscra,1 that she had made lots of good things for the Easter festivities, but that they would probably remain untouched, as she was alone and depressed, for she had dreamed a very horrid dream about him on Good Friday, and had had a special Mass said on Easter Sunday that the good God should protect him from danger.

  “Poor mother!” thought Apostol with a sickly smile. “If she only knew in what danger I am now! When she’ll hear the news! She must hear it from me, so that she may at least know that it was she who soothed my heart during my last hours on earth, as she did during my first hours!”

  He drew the stool to the table and while he ate some of the food, that had got quite cold by now, he read the letter several times over, stopping each time at the horrid dream and trying to guess what his mother could have dreamt about him.

  When the sergeant-major arrived with a soldier to clear away, Apostol asked for paper and ink. A few minutes later the white sheet of paper on the table laughed up at him like a gleam of hope, but he was no longer in a hurry to write. He paced backwards and forwards, his hands behind his back, his thoughts in a whirl. Every time his eyes fell on the paper the thought flashed through his mind that he had always, before entering into action, when he had felt the fear of death in his soul, sat down and written long letters to his mother, bidding her farewell. He always wrote then in fear and anxiety, and yet while he wrote he always read hope in between the saddened words. Love of life was then stronger than fear of death. Then, after the danger was past, he would read over his “testament” and smile happily as he tore up into shreds the sheets covered with gloomy thoughts. How many such “testaments” he had torn up! But now he had to write a definitive testament. Now at any moment the prosecutor might come to read out a few paragraphs to him, informing him that at such and such an hour he would die without fail, without the tiniest hope of escape. And exactly at the fixed time a few men would force his young soul to part from his body for ever, at a fixed hour—now when he would have written the letter he would know for certain that the hands which had written it would never tear it up and his eyes would not see it again, because to-morrow at this time his body would be buried in the ground or would be hanging somewhere, and his mind, that realized all these things now, would to-morrow no longer give birth to a single thought, for it would be nothing but a small heap of dead brain covered with clotted blood.

  And still the paper gleamed white on the table, as if there were still some hope somewhere. Apostol Bologa unearthed remembrances of novels and tales he had read in which, at the supreme moment, a messenger on a galloping horse arrived bringing a pardon and life. This cheered him for a few minutes, and then he exclaimed angrily:

  “I’ll die for certain in … in how many hours?”

  And then terror gripped him, more and more fiercely and wildly, turning his blood to ice. And while this terror was upon him his mind tried to drive it away by telling him that death had to come to everyone, that this life was not worth anything, for had not he himself cast it away believing in the life to come, where his redeemed soul would be united unto God. But all the inventions of his mind tumbled down like castles built with playing-cards—only horror remained defiant, dominating, whispering into his soul one single word before which everything fell: Death. He felt like weeping, but could not. He looked at the time. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

  “And they haven’t yet told me what my sentence is! Why doesn’t the prosecutor come? At least I’d know for certain. But come to think of it, why should I know?”

  The certainty would probably increase the tortures of terror. Better so. Any delay was a respite—even from suffering. Besides, the delay might mean something favourable. Why should not the court have grasped that he was innocent? Perhaps it would have been better if he had spoken, testified. But why should words be needed when his past spoke for him, if only through the four medals for valour? In such cases the court’s duty was to send the imbecile prosecutor packing and to acquit unanimously; or at least by a majority of votes. The colonel had taken his part that time in the presence of the general. Gross could not vote for condemnation, then there would surely be someone else of the president’s opinion—behold, the majority! That, then, was the meaning of the delay!

  The sheet of notepaper under a dirty, rusty inkstand still gleamed white. Apostol, feeling cheered, went to the table, sat down on the stool, took up the penholder, and tried the nib. His fingers trembled frightfully, and he could not form a single clear thought.

  “Later … there is still time!” he said to himself after a while quietly, and again began to walk backwards and forwards.

  After a quarter of an hour he stopped dead near the foot of the bed, every drop of blood drained from his face, his eyes fixed on the door, in which the key was turned with a more grinding noise than usual.

  “Now I shall know!” darted through his brain like a tongue of fire, and he almost felt the cells of his brain being destroyed.

  It was the sergeant-major with a soldier carrying the supper tray.

  “Have you finished writing?” he asked, without looking at Bologa.

  “No, no, I haven’t even beg …” said Apostol, all of a sudden very agitated, adding quickly with eyes starting out of their sockets: “Is there so great a hurry as all that? Has the sentence been decided, has … ?”

  “Of course the sentence has long since bee
n decided,” answered the sergeant-major slowly, with an odd ring in his voice. “They are merely waiting for sanction from the top—from general headquarters. Such are the regulations for officers … But it won’t be very much longer now.… No—no.… The answer is due to arrive any minute, for in war-time and in cases like this things move quickly. In war-time things happen quickly.”

  Apostol Bologa could see that this man knew his fate, he longed to question him but had not the courage. The soldier went out on tiptoe, as if he were in a house of mourning. Then the sergeant-major said in a lower voice:

  “The little lass is weeping and carrying on fit to break her heart, poor soul! But I can’t, sir. Please forgive me and don’t be angry! I would have allowed her to come, as I did yesterday, but the captain keeps on hanging round the courtyard, and if we should be caught … God forbid it should happen! I’ll light your lamp when the lad will come to fetch away the plates, for it isn’t quite dark yet.”

  The sergeant-major’s voice lingered in Apostol’s soul like a source of luminous hope … even after the door had closed behind him. His heart beat with renewed strength. He was sorry he had not sent a kind message to Ilona, but consoled himself with the hope that perhaps very soon he would be able to give her his messages in person.

  “Who knows?” he thought more cheerfully. “Only God knows what the hour may bring.”

  He looked hopefully at the window with the brown cross. The twilight was furtively putting up the shutters of night.

  1 Name given to a woman related by marriage.

  VIII

  After midnight Apostol Bologa, utterly exhausted, stretched himself on the bed. An intense stillness surrounded him, as if the whole world had fallen into a sleep of death. The yellow light from the ceiling shone in his eyes and made them smart. He dozed.

  All at once he woke up. Footsteps sounded suddenly outside on the stairs and in the corridor. He leapt into the middle of the little room and remained transfixed there with shrinking heart, murmuring with white lips:

  “O Lord, my God … My God …”

  The door opened wide, violently, and banged against the wall. Out of the darkness appeared the military prosecutor, holding a sheet of paper in his right hand. He wore field dress, and the eyes under the steel helmet looked lifeless. Behind him followed the sergeant-major, also wearing his helmet, and carrying something on his left arm and in his hand. He looked nervous, as if he expected the prosecutor to turn on him at any moment. In the darkness beyond the door many heads seemed to writhe with terrified eyes, like apparitions in a tragic ballet.

  In the centre, motionless, his long hair slightly dishevelled, Apostol flashed quick glances without moving his eyes in their sockets, at the prosecutor’s face, at the sheet in his hand, at the sergeant-major’s helmet. And all the time millions of thoughts surged up and died in his brain as if all the atoms of the grey matter had caught fire and were burning with blazing flames.

  The prosecutor approached the table, on which the white notepaper still gleamed white, held the sheet under the rays of the lamp, and without introduction began to read carefully, in a clear voice, turning his eyes on Bologa after words on which he laid special emphasis, as if they had been underlined. Apostol listened and kept his eyes on the prosecutor’s red, wide, dry lips, over which he passed the tip of a pink tongue now and again. He understood clearly “in the name of the Emperor”, “the attempted but unsuccessful crimes of treason and desertion to the enemy”, “degradation and dismissal from the Army”, “death by hanging”.

  “The sentence will be carried out immediately!” ended the prosecutor, folding the sheet and stealing a furtive glance at Bologa’s face.

  “Immediately … immediately,” repeated Apostol very calmly, thinking: “But at what time? Why doesn’t he mention the hour?”

  Then he caught a movement of the prosecutor’s and saw that the sergeant-major was approaching him so humbly that he seemed a stranger who in some way or other had strayed into this place by mistake.

  “In accordance with the sentence—degradation—the military tunic—civilian garb must be worn.” The prosecutor had begun to speak sternly, but Bologa’s eyes fixed on him put him out of countenance, and he ended up pleadingly. Apostol did not understand, but without understanding he was slowly unbuttoning his tunic. He took off his collar and put it on the table over the rusty inkstand; then he slipped out of his coat, folded it with great care, laid it on the bed, and smoothed it out twice with the palms of his hands. His shirt was damp with sweat and bunched up at the back between the striped braces. He pulled it down and lifted up the braces, which had slipped from his shoulders. Then while he waited expectantly, he caught the prosecutor’s eyes looking nervously at his long white neck, with the swollen arteries. He turned to the sergeant-major, who was holding out something towards him, and he noticed that the man was also staring at his neck. He became uneasy, and wondered why they were both staring at his neck.

  “The coat and hat are from the burgomaster,” stammered the trembling sergeant-major, holding them out with a rapid movement, as if he no longer dared to keep them.

  Apostol took the coat and put it on quickly, shivering with cold, but he made no motion to take the hat. The sergeant-major, in a hurry to be done with the business, laid it down gently on the table over the collar, and so covered up entirely the white gleaming sheet of note-paper.

  A silence followed in which panic-stricken eyes trembled. At last the prosecutor, steadying his voice a little, spoke, but he became confused, and stammered:

  “If there is anything you wish for … I … we … in accordance with the regulations, any wish at the moment of …”

  Apostol gave him a long, straight, compelling look and then abruptly turned his back on him, as if he had just remembered that on the bed there was something. The prosecutor made a movement of curiosity, as if to see what he would do, but he remembered himself in time and made a dignified exit, followed by the sergeant-major, who pulled the door to gently without locking it.

  Used to the sound of the key turning in the lock, Apostol looked round bewildered and whispered:

  “I wonder why they haven’t locked the door and fastened the padlock? Is it perhaps …”

  From all the corners of his mind dozens of answers rushed forward with enchanting news. Perhaps now that he was dressed in civilian clothes all he had to do was to put his hand on the door handle and to go away … far away … to live. Perhaps the sentinel was no longer there either. Perhaps outside Ilona and Klapka and Boteanu were waiting for him.

  But even while he was imagining these wonderful things, the door reopened and on the threshold stood Constantin Boteanu, tall, thin, with the stole on his breast, a book under his arm, and a crucifix in his hand. He hovered there a moment mild, uncertain; then he entered, closed the door, and went straight up to Apostol, intoning in a deep voice:

  “In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, now and for evermore.”

  For a second Apostol believed that through a divine miracle his hopes were about to be fulfilled. Crushed by suffering, he fell to his knees, kissed the crucifix passionately, and hiding his face in the folds of the stole burst into loud, stifled weeping. His breast heaved from the violent thumping of his wounded heart, in which the blood raced round madly. The tears streamed on the golden flowers of the stole, which smelt of incense, like the waters of a river which has burst its banks through a violent storm. In between his heaving moans the gentle, consoling voice of the priest percolated timidly into his soul, and gradually from the simple, unprofessional words he uttered there formed in Bologa’s soul a calm like a pall of crape, diaphanous, yet sufficiently thick to blacken and turn aside all worldly temptations and vanities.

  When he regained his composure and looked up, Apostol’s face was as white as the driven snow; although his eyes were red with dark rims under them, a calm light shone in them. He saw thick beads of perspiration clinging to Boteanu’s temple, when the lat
ter sat down on the stool by the table. Bologa had lost his hope of just now in a divine miracle, and fearing lest the phantoms he had fought for hours should reappear, he dragged himself on his knees to the priest’s feet.

  “I rushed over,” spoke Boteanu faintly, wiping his forehead with a large handkerchief, “for in Lunca no one knew what had happened to you. And then last night Vidor’s girl, your betrothed, came to me and begged me to come quickly and bless you. Ah me, the human heart! Ilona had come of her own accord. The gentlemen here had decided to send you a military chaplain, in truth also a servant of God. We all begged the captain to have pity and to let me come instead …”

  “Father!” Apostol suddenly burst out anxiously, “I wanted to write to my mother, and look, there is the paper untouched. I could not—because … Let her know, Constantin, afterwards—after I’ll be—after … Tell her how I … She is to look after my betrothed— she is to care for her. For the two of them have sown love in my heart—and out of their love I built up my faith, my guiding faith, and … and …”

  He hid his face in the stole, in the faint clinging smell of incense, murmuring disconnected words. The priest stroked his damp hair murmuring:

  “In the midst of life’s temptations you remained your father’s son, Apostol! You did not forget his teachings, but carried them ever in your fiery blood. Do you remember how he used to tell us, every time he came over to Nasaud, sternly and solemnly, as if he had been speaking to grown-up men, ‘Never forget that you are Rumanians!’ The storms of life sway the human soul, but they cannot eradicate from it imperishable roots! Pleasing in the sight of the Lord God is he who willingly sacrifices himself for the race of his fathers and for their faith for ever and ever!”

  “For the race of his fathers,” whispered Apostol, burying his face in the smell of incense and forgetting the words immediately, as if his mind could no longer hold anything for long.