“But without the benefits of civilization, would you yourself be able to rail against them?” asked Klapka with a smile.
“Then I would not feel the need to scorn them, and I should most certainly be happier!” shouted Apostol obstinately. “Your civilization raises nothing but doubts in the poor human soul, but is incapable of giving a single answer! Every ‘conquest’ of civilization has knocked off a bit of man’s happiness until there is nothing left in the soul but a mass of ruins. Instead of faith it has substituted formulæ. It would like to define even God Himself by a formula, and then it would rub its hands and say gleefully: ‘Here you are, I have conquered God also!’ It has taken to pieces and explained the divine music which is life, so that to-day the poor ‘civilized’ man no longer knows whither to turn, disgusted with his own being. I am sick of civilization, captain! Ten thousand years of civilization are not so precious as one single moment of spiritual contentment!”
Klapka listened to him more and more perplexed. He stroked his little beard impatiently, thinking to interrupt him and to tell him that he had come over here for something else.
“Dear Bologa, I …” tried Klapka.
But Apostol, hurriedly, as if he were afraid of losing the thread or as if what he wanted to say weighed on his soul and he wished to ease it with all possible haste, continued:
“Just a moment, captain! Let me bury civilization in my heart for good! It has spoilt my life and has tortured me unceasingly for twenty years. It was civilization which made me guide my life by ‘conceptions’ and formulæ and principles. As, soon as life wiped out my foolish constructions I built up new ones more foolish still, and I prided myself that I—with a capital ‘I’—had succeeded in arranging my fate and had got the better of life and God! I have had to touch the very depths before I succeeded in escaping from the claws of fallacies, before I succeeded in finding my own self again, my soul athirst for God and happiness!”
“Yes, yes, man needs a spiritual prop,” murmured the captain.
“That’s it,” Bologa said insistently, as if the other’s assent had fortified him. “It’s true, isn’t it? A prop, captain! Faith—great, implicit, blind faith. Faith is God, captain!”
And then, as if he were suddenly ashamed of his exuberance, he stared a minute at Klapka and in a totally different voice said:
“I go on talking, talking, and … Don’t mind me! My heart is full. Do please help yourself!” he added, smiling and pointing to the plates on the table. “My fiancée made them. Her name is Ilona. Sit down! Why do you stand?”
Both sat down. Klapka took a bite of pasca and munching said:
“I remember the time you came over to see me at the front. Do you remember, when there was the Rumanian officer incident? How upset you were. I thought you were angry with me because I did not wax enthusiastic over your plans of desertion. Do you remember? You left in a rage.”
“Yes … in a rage,” said Apostol, nodding.
“You were lucky to fall ill,” continued the captain, swallowing the yolk of a hard-boiled egg. “I don’t know why I had and still have a presentiment that they would catch you if you tried to go over to the other side.… I don’t know why. For this reason I am always worrying about you. Perhaps it is mere superstition. Anyway, you must have been born under a lucky star, Bologa! Firstly, because you have escaped from the front—here one would not even guess there was a war on.…”
“It’s true, it does seem as if there were no war on,” assented Bologa with a contented smile. “I feel like an old Civil Servant or like a tramway horse! All day long with the same registers and the same ammunition sheets. I note, control, add. A real office machine! It’s true! I no longer think about the war or about anything. In reality happiness narrows one’s outlook dreadfully, don’t you think so?”
“Perhaps. In any case, at the front you don’t get a chance of forgetting where you are,” said Klapka, sighing and lowering his eyes, in which a very worried look had appeared. “For the last ten days we’ve been in a state of excitement and great preparations, and we get orders upon orders, enough to give you cold shivers. What is about to happen God knows—whether we are about to attack or to be attacked. I went to headquarters to-day, in fact, that’s where I come from now. They are all dumb and grave and shrug their shoulders, curse them! And everywhere an extraordinary watchfulness, the more so because within the last few days men have begun to desert to the enemy at the further ends—the Rumanians especially. I heard that last night about five infantrymen did a bunk, so you can imagine the state of things out there!”
Klapka looked at Apostol searchingly, as if he would like to discover what impression the news made on him. Apostol, however, listened quietly, and in his eyes there was nothing but pity and sadness. The captain continued with more confidence:
“And here with the civilians. You’d think the general had gone mad. I saw, going through Faget, three men hanging in a little wood by the road-side. It reminded me of the Forest of the Hanged. Even my horse took fright and broke into a mad gallop. Now, on the way back, I did not come by the highroad but came along the railway line, so as not to see that horrible sight. And the court martial has only begun its activities! Just as I left I heard that four more peasants had been condemned. The trial lasted one hour, and in one hour four men are condemned to be hanged!”
The captain was silent, as if he were waiting for something. Bologa’s eyes, drowned in tears, stared at him long, fixedly, tensely.
“But I also heard at headquarters,” said Klapka after a pause, his face somewhat brighter, “that they were going to take away all Rumanian soldiers from the front and were sending them somewhere else. I don’t know if this applies to officers also. If it is so, you will be able to breathe more quietly! That’s why you must keep quiet, Bologa,” he added with sudden warmth. “Be thankful that you are here, and trust to your luck. I told you once before that luck is our saviour.”
“Yes, luck and God,” stammered Apostol, perturbed, closing his eyes and allowing two thin trickles of tears to roll down his pallid cheeks and to drop on to his chest, making two salt stains on the pockets of his tunic. “Now I no longer desire anything; now God looks after me and guides me. As God wills so will I do, for all my hopes are centred in God … only in God.”
Klapka stood up gaily in a burst of joy and embraced him, exclaiming:
“Well, then, I can confess that that was the only reason I blew in, Bologa! I knew you were mad, and I was mortally afraid that you would fall into the trap. If you knew how glad I am you would embrace me! The Lord be praised! Henceforth I need not trouble each time I see men arrested on the front.”
Apostol Bologa, deeply moved, kissed him on both cheeks.
That same evening the order arrived that Petre was to report to regimental headquarters within twenty-four hours; in his place the regiment would put another soldier at Lieutenant Bologa’s service. When Petre heard this he begged Apostol not to let him go, and all night long he spent reading The Dream of Our Lord’s Mother and reciting prayers. But the next day he had to go. Because Apostol was very much cut up, Ilona assured him that he no longer needed an orderly now that he had her to look after him and that she was ready to follow him anywhere, even to the front.
In the afternoon the gravedigger returned, heartbroken, and instead of telling them what he had seen, he kept mumbling tearfully:
“Now there are seven … seven … seven …”
1 It is the custom to crack red eggs with guests at Easter.
VIII
Apostol Bologa kept on telling himself that the greatest misfortune that could now befall him would be separation from Ilona. It seemed to him that his life had begun somewhere a long way back, but only since he had known Ilona had it become bright like a little room full of sun and joy. A simple, delirious, childish happiness had settled down in his heart. He worked hard and conscientiously in the office, and the time passed quickly because at the end of his day’s work Ilona was waitin
g for him. They loved one another and made plans for the future. Apostol would describe to her how he would teach her lots of things, how he would dress her more finely than any lady, and how she would be the most beautiful woman in the world. Ilona, naturally, listened spellbound, agreed to everything, but kept on asking him to swear to her that he loved her and that never would he, even out of the corner of his eye, look at any other woman.
Thursday afternoon, exactly at four, Apostol stopped working in the office and went across to Ilona to tell her that he had decided that they should be married at Parva in great style, with musicians and all, and that Popa Boteanu should officiate. He hadn’t quite finished speaking when they heard in the bumpy lane the sound of a motorcar approaching at great speed. Bologa, surprised, went to the window and saw the car stop abruptly before the house. He looked at Ilona questioningly. In her eyes, over the joy of a minute ago, there was a look of fear.
“Go quickly, it’s you they want!” she whispered, hanging on his arm.
Apostol, perplexed, went out to the door leading into the house. A sergeant-major, tall, lanky, with a thin ashen face, no moustache, and dark whiskers, was just entering the gate. His face seemed familiar to Apostol, but he could not remember where he had seen him before.
“Urgent orders from His Excellency!” reported the sergeant-major, saluting respectfully. He spoke softly, yet his tone was peremptory and almost impertinent.
He held out an envelope. Bologa looked first at the envelope, then at the sergeant-major, and still wondering where he had seen the man before asked:
“You are waiting for an answer?”
“Yes, sir, the answer is very urgent!” said the sergeant-major, even more peremptorily but saluting again.
While he slit open the envelope Apostol could not help asking:
“I have seen you before, sergeant-major. Where are you on duty?”
“At the court room of the division,” answered the sergeant-major with an ugly smile.
“Oh?” murmured the lieutenant, still perplexed, feeling sure that he had seen him elsewhere … somewhere … and it annoyed him that he could not remember just now where.
He glanced at the official letter signed by the adjutant. He was invited to report himself immediately to the divisional commanding officer to receive orders.
“Very well,” said Bologa quietly, “I’ll come tomorrow morning, for to-day it is already late, and by the time I reached there His Excellency …”
“The car is at your disposal, sir,” interrupted the sergeant-major insistently. “In fact, I was ordered to …”
“Oh well, if that’s the case, all right! Just wait a little,” answered Apostol, put out merely because he would have to leave Ilona.
He went into the office, told them that he was going to headquarters, then he went across to his room, where Ilona was waiting for him trembling, her eyes wet and an ugly fear at her heart.
“Why do they want you?” she whispered very low, as if the whole room had been full of spying enemies.
“Oh, goodness knows for what piffle!” mumbled Apostol indifferently, getting ready to go.
Then when he had put on his helmet he went up to her, now also feeling upset and weighed down by a sudden dark foreboding. But he tried to hide his uneasiness and muttered:
“Ilona … au revoir! Don’t worry. And tell your father … I mean … why, of course, he is in Faget … of course, I’ll tell him myself. Don’t worry, little one, don’t worry!”
“Have a care over there!” murmured Ilona pleadingly and afraid, her cheeks wet with tears. “May God help you!”
“Amen!” whispered Apostol, crossing himself.
Then he gathered her into his arms and kissed her, whispering in her ear as if it had been an endearment:
“Don’t worry, my bride …”
The sergeant-major was standing in the middle of the courtyard, resting on one leg with hand on hip, his eyes closed as if he were afraid of the sunlight. Seeing him thus, Apostol Bologa remembered abruptly that he had seen him in Zirin at Svoboda’s execution, giving instructions behind the gallows to the short, dark corporal who had been compelled to act as executioner. Apostol shook himself as if he were shaking off a loathsome beetle, and entered the car without another glance at the man. Only when the car started did he look back. Ilona was standing at the gate—her mouth was smiling but her eyes were weeping.
On the level highroad the car flew. Bologa stared straight ahead, seeing in one and the same glance the backs of the chauffeur and sergeant-major, the bonnet of the car and the dark, snake-like ribbon of road which ran towards and disappeared under the whirling wheels. His thoughts flew now forwards, now backwards, without break, like a flock of birds that have lost their way. Why did the general want him? Perhaps it had to do with Palagiesu’s denouncement.… But then, why just now? And Ilona.… She had stood at the gate as if she were bidding him farewell for ever. Why did she bid him farewell?
The highroad ran through a wood of fir-trees. Just before they were through the wood Apostol heard a voice which scattered all his thoughts. He saw that the sergeant-major’s face, now split across by a grin, was turned in his direction.
“Sir, we are just coming to the place where the spies have been hanged,” he said, his strange grin remaining fixed, just as if he had not even moved his jaws in speaking. “It’s worth while your having a look at them; you’ll see they still hang there like …”
The car bumped over a hole and cut short the sergeant-major’s words. Bologa, staring at the man, said nothing, but stretched his neck forward a little as if he wished to see better.
“There is still one more bend,” added the sergeant-major, with pride in his voice.
“Two, two!” yelled the chauffeur without looking round.
“That’s right, yes, it is two!” said the sergeant-major, rather crest-fallen, still staring at the lieutenant as if waiting for him to say something.
The sergeant-major’s voice got on Bologa’s nerves. He looked quickly away from the man’s face and fixed his gaze straight ahead of him. His whole soul shrank in an anguished suspense. When they arrived at the second bend there suddenly flashed through his mind the name Klapka had used and which seemed to cling to his mind as closely as a loop round a button: The Forest of the Hanged.… And immediately the suspense became a horror, studded with thousands of thorns all pricking at his heart with increasing violence.
The bend was left behind. The highroad descended into a large hollow, all meadows and fields. In the middle of the hollow, like a tuft of hair on a bald head, a dark wood stained the greenness.
The car hardly seemed to touch the ground.
The sergeant-major looked round quickly, convinced that the lieutenant would order them to slow down. Apostol had eyes for nothing but the grey ribbon of the road and the trees in the wood.
The car took but a few moments to swallow the four hundred metres which was the length of the wood, and yet it seemed to Bologa that it had taken an eternity, so clearly had he seen everything. There were four on the right-hand side, each one on a separate tree, all bareheaded, the bodies swinging only slightly as if from the wind caused by the speed of the passing car. The two outside ones—right on the margin of the wood—had their backs to the road and wore opinci1 on their feet. The one in the middle, who was wearing heavy boots covered with mud, stared out with eyes as black as the fir cones in the road, and from his swollen, purple face he put out his tongue at the passers-by. On the left hung three others, facing the road which ran on the right, indifferent and motionless, as if the tops of their heads had been glued to the branch above. Two were strung up on an old alder-tree, while the third dangled from a smaller tree and from so thin a branch that it made you wonder that it did not break. His hands were tied behind his back and his body was short and frail as a child’s; his whole face was brown as if it had been smeared over with clay. On the same tree and at the same height there was another thicker branch, as yet untenanted.
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Apostol Bologa had seen them all so clearly that he could have told you how many buttons each man had on his dirty and ragged clothing. And nevertheless in his eyes these seven multiplied incessantly and the wood became transformed gradually into a limitless forest, cut through by a road without end. And from each tree of this limitless forest, all along the unending highroad that ran through it, it seemed to him that other men were hanging and still others, all with their eyes fixed on him, asking him to justify himself.
The car was now rushing alongside the railway line on the right side of the highroad, straight and level as a ruler. The wood could no longer even be seen. In front, about two kilometres ahead, gleamed the spire of the church in Faget, and a little nearer could be distinguished the reddish roof of the station, which was actually on the border of the village. Apostol stared straight ahead, but in his eyes danced the hanging men, nothing but hanging men, more and more numerous and more and more reproachful. And then in their midst appeared again the face of the sergeant-major, with the nasty smile which showed all his yellow teeth and a black gap in his lower jaw, and the nerve-racking voice, now trying to be ingratiating, again broke on his ear:
“The two sentries you saw are there only during the day-time so that the ravens should not get at them, for there are lots of ravens hereabouts—lots. At night we withdraw them, for of course the ravens do not hunt in the dark. At first the order was they were to hang only three days, but later His Excellency, in view of the numerous cases occurring, decreed that all hanged should remain there until further orders.”
Forest of the Hanged Page 23