by Marie Nizet
A roll-call of the dorobantzi regiment was effected immediately; two men were absent! Colonel Leganescu, to whom the duty fell, organized a rigorous enquiry, whose results established that, in addition to the ignominious punishment they had suffered, the two soldiers were still subject to imprisonment, which would last until the superior authorities ordered the unfortunates to be set at liberty. The place of their incarceration could not be ascertained.
This serious incident had the effect of enlivening the animosity that the Rumanians had nurtured towards their allies since the beginning of the campaign. The grievances of the Moldo-Walachians were certainly serious; they had not been spared humiliations of any sort. The Russians’ ill-will manifested itself on the least pretext, and questions of precedence were invariably resolved in their favor; they had given the nickname “tin soldiers” to those whose military valor would save them a month later!
Several Rumanian officers from the same regiment as the injured parties challenged Russian officers to duels, and the clashes of swords and pistols behind the fortifications lasted more than three days.
In a solemn meeting that took place in Leganescu’s quarters, it was decided that a demand for reparation would be addressed to Archduke Nicolas. General Cerneanu attempted to obtain an audience. Leganescu composed the request with typical Rumanian brio, which is better suited to a dash of eloquence than a simple Colonel’s report, and the secretary Zaharios, who had recovered the use of his legs, inscribed the names of Aurelio Comanescu and Ioan Isacescu in his finest handwriting.
Cerneanu, having received the letter granting him an audience, presented himself at the Russians’ general headquarters, not without having made several cuts in Leganescu’s manuscript. In various passages, the latter, attentive to legitimate indignation, had neglected the principles of courtly politeness that one must employ in addressing Archdukes.
The interview did not last long. From the moment that the Russians received a Rumanian officer, all ceremonial formulas were suppressed; a Cossack shoved–for want of a better word–Cerneanu into a low-ceilinged room, which served an antechamber, and after half an hour’s wait, the General was introduced into the Archduke’s apartment.
The Archduke’s apartment bore a strong resemblance to those of the corrupt Aga of whom mention has been made. There were a great many objets d’art, and luxurious furnishings of exceedingly various provenance, assembled in haste. All these broken beautiful things gave such a strong impression of being elements of booty that the sight of them only gave rise to thoughts of sacked towns.
Not far from a table, on which were set a few pamphlets on strategy, the petty apparatus of a smoker and a glass of water, Nicolas Nicolaevich was lounging in an armchair that had belonged to an English businessman resident in Nicopolis. The Prince did not appear to be more than 45 years old; an expression of calm hauteur, which impressed all those who came in contact with him, was spread upon his features, which were much more regular than those of the Tsar and Archdukes Constantin and Michael. He was listening to the monotonous voice of a blond and rosy-cheeked aide-de-camp, who was reading an article from the Golos.45 The reading did not seem to interest His Highness very greatly; he was yawning with Muscovite off-handedness.
“Enough, Xenianine, enough!” said the Prince, on perceiving the General’s epaulettes. Xenianine fell silent and got up to leave; a sign from the Archduke immediately re-nailed him to his seat.
“What is it, Monsieur?” Nicolas said, raising his head slightly towards Cerneanu, in the dry tone he used to address everyone except his older brothers.
The General bowed, respectfully, but without any servility. His gesture displeased the Archduke, who thought the old man’s dignified behavior irreverent.
Cerneanu explained, in a few words, the purpose hat had brought him to the Archduke’s headquarters. The Prince interrupted him with a slight gesture of impatience.
“I know, I know, Monsieur,” he said, putting out his hand. “Is that your report? Give it to me.”
In the Russian army, the knout replaced or forestalled the reports that the Prince hated. The Archduke riffled through Leganescu’s voluminous screed and his eyebrows slowly came together; he was annoyed.
“Well, Monsieur,” he said, passing the report to Xenianine, “what is there to complain about? The two men are guilty. One, according to his own admission, abandoned the post that had been entrusted to him by one of your own officers. The other spoke words injurious to Prince Liatoukine–who, by only having a restricted number of strokes administered, has shown himself to be very lenient.”
The Archduke imparted powerful shaking movements to the English businessman’s armchair as the sentences fell from his lips like pebbles on a zinc plate–but the arguments that he thought worthy did not appear forceful to the Rumanian General, who resumed calmly: “I will point out to Your Highness that the sentinel Comanescu was relieved by Prince Liatoukine himself, and that Corporal Isacescu was forced to rescue his comrade from the ill-treatment to which Russian officers were subjecting him before the very eyes, and with the approval, of the aforesaid Prince Liatoukine.”
Cerneanu’s logic was a sovereign irritant. Nicolas Nicolaevich understood that he was dealing with someone cleverer than he, and that, if the discussion continued much longer, his adversary would undoubtedly win a victory. In order to avoid a conclusion insupportable by his personal vanity, His Highness took the course of raising the pitch of his voice and becoming violently angry.
“Those are details, Monsieur!” he cried. “Details that are of no importance to us! There was wrongdoing, as I hope you will certainly admit; in consequence, there must be punishment!”
The armchair creaked and water from the glass sprayed the wall–but archducal extravagance did not have the power to move Cerneanu, who went on calmly: “The dishonorable nature of the punishment, however...”
The Archduke leapt to his feet.
“This is a joke, Monsieur,” he said, setting off to stride across the entire length of the room. “The dishonorable nature of the punishment!” he repeated, sarcastically. “Should your compatriots have been awarded the Cross of St George, perhaps?” he shouted, striking his spurs against the floor-tiles in his fury.
The General, who had not been invited to sit down, endured the Archduke’s sarcasm with remarkable coolness. “Among my people,” he said, gravely, “the officers have too much self-respect to venture to raise their hands against their inferiors.”
Nicolas Nicolaevich sank back into his armchair with a burst of bitter laughter. “Among your people, Monsieur–your people! My opinion is that your people tend to forget what they are!”
The armchair swiveled around. In response to a gesture from the Archduke, who was disposed to light a cigar, Xenianine’s nasal voice sounded again, in the midst of a profound silence, to observe in Russian that the enemy was attacking within the town.
Cerneanu sensed that he was reddening to the hairline under the insult inflicted upon him, and his hand, tremulous with indignation, let the velvet door-curtain fall behind him.
The entire Rumanian camp assembled in front of the old General. On seeing their faces, full of anxious impatience, Cerneanu shook his head sadly.
“Oh, men!” he said, with an accent whose bitterness was indescribable. “What are we doing on this side of the Danube?”
A fortnight after that characteristic scene, a company of Cossacks returned the two heroes of this deplorable adventure–which was on the point of causing an abrupt breach in the amicable relationship between Alexander II and Charles I–to their company.
Relia Comanescu, dazed and dejected, was slumped on his friend’s arm. His badly-scarred wounds were causing him to suffer cruelly and he fainted in front of General Cerneanu, who was his cousin in the British sense–which is the same as the Rumanian sense.
Ioan Isacescu, on the other hand–whose robust constitution rendered him less sensitive to physical suffering–was marching proudly, with a smil
e that was almost joyful. A Cossack observed that he had taken his 50 strokes of the knout cheerfully. He seemed to have undergone a complete transformation; he had the inspired expression of a visionary or a martyr, and his eyes were, so to speak, fixed on something inside himself.
Mitica marched straight towards him, while he slid his fingers over the horny hilt of Old Mani’s dagger. “For Liatoukine!” he said. Then, half-drawing the khanjar suspended from his belt, he murmured: “For Mariora!”
VIII. Saint Alexander’s Day
Eventually, time always soothes the sharp pains that translate into plaints and sobs, but mute pains are beyond its beneficent scope.
Ioan no longer mentioned Mariora’s name.
The dorobantzi and the caletzi were encamped around Pleven. They met ambushes at every step and were perpetually involved in skirmishes, but these multiple dangers were no match for Ioan’s ardent boldness. He took up the most perilous positions and often embarked on scouting missions behind the Turkish lines in the middle of the night, at the risk of being killed or taken prisoner.
His superiors held that courage in great esteem; it brought them valuable information about the lie of the land, the hazards of the terrain and the enemy positions; his peers compared him to Codrean,46 and invariably spoke of him with admiration. Sometimes he came back from his solitary expeditions laughing silently, as had become his habit, his rifle reeking of burnt powder even though no Muslim had been seen in the vicinity.
“Isacescu knows well enough why he laughs!” the soldiers said, nodding their heads in a particular way.
He had a singular manner of fighting. In mid-battle, he would suddenly pause, his finger poised on the trigger of his rifle, his eyes fixed on some point on the horizon. The memory of Mariora would return to his heart; he saw her as a little girl, running through the maize with her blonde hair in disorder; he heard her voice, her infantile voice, saying “Ionitza meù” and he listened. Then the hammer would fall, with a dry click, and a man would fall in the distance. Russian or Turk? How could anyone tell?
His words were as bizarre as his actions. In one forward engagement, the barrel of his revolver ran into the breast of an Ottoman. “Why should I kill this man, who has never done me any harm?” he said, aloud–and, without even seeing the pitiful tears running down the poor Turk’s cheeks, he lifted up his weapon, took aim, and fired–and a Cossack slid from his horse.
Isacescu burst out laughing.
“Ah, the hazards of battle! I am the hazards of battle!”
He ran around the battlefields without fear of bashi-bazouks and Cossack marauders, a muffled lantern in his hands, examining and handling every cadaver.
“What are you looking for, comrade?” someone said to him.
“I’m looking for someone I’d rather find standing up,” he replied.
One day, in the heat of battle, he had an impulse to flee, to return to Rumania. He took a few steps backwards, then came back to face the Turkish gunfire. He captured one of their flags–but heroes who have 50 lashes on their record are given no medals.
General Cerneanu, to whom the Tsar had sent a prodigious number of Crosses of St George, regretted not having the power to award one to the brave dorobantz; by way of compensation, he gave him a handshake, less banal than the Muscovite decoration.
Mitica pounded his own cross repeatedly, and when it was no more than a slug of metal, he threw it in the river Vid, crying: “I don’t want their filthy gold!”
Cerneanu saw the gesture and heard Miticas’s exclamation, but he did nothing about it; soldiers and officers alike hated the Russians.
On the morning of September 11, the old General, who was the idol of the Rumanian army, brought his troops together and addressed this short speech to them:
“Men, there’s a black dot yonder, hidden in the mist; it’s called the Gravitza Redoubt. We have to take it. We’ll have shellbursts above our heads, bayonets in front of us, powder beneath our feet–the redoubt is mined–and behind us, Archduke Nicolas. It seems that today is the Tsar’s birthday. It’s a matter of regaling His Majesty with a fine spectacle. I must see you all killed rather than retreat–that’s the Imperial order. Believe your old friend–we’re doomed! It’s not pleasant to have to tell you that, but you’ve seen others do it and you’ll die stoically in the breach, like the sons of Rumania that you are. Put your affairs in order immediately, and if you have any money, deposit it at headquarters; it’ll be sent to your relatives. Can I count on you?”
“We’ll follow you, General,” the unanimous voices of the soldiers replied. On every face, though, the enthusiasm of the warrior was replaced by the bleak resignation of the condemned.
Relia, however, was devastated. He was fearful and timid, as the majority of children are whose mothers do not love them. Death terrified him, just as darkness did. His heart was tender, accessible to common sentiment; he had understood that devotion is a rare plant, which often grows better in plebeian hearts than in those the boyars call well-born. This poor, essentially inoffensive, creature felt that without Ioan Isacescu, he was nothing but a leaf thrown into the course of a torrent, and he had devoted to his savior a friendship and idolization that manifested themselves in complete submission and eternal protestations of childish affection.
“Brother!” he cried, hurling himself into Ioan’s arms. “We’ll be massacred.”
“Yes,” Ioan said, impassively.
“I have some poison. Do you want some? It’ll be quick, and we’ll suffer less.”
“Yes.”
Relia handed him a little packet full of white powder, which he had taken from his belt.
Ioan tipped it all out into a water-filled ditch.
“What! What are you doing?”
“My duty. It’s our last day–let’s not be cowards.”
“Oh–but the Turks will do terrible things to us.”
“No worse than others have done to us.”
“I’m frightened, brother. You won’t leave me, will you?”
Ioan remembered that those same words had once been spoken to him by Mariora. “No,” he said.
Relia sighed. “Oh, you’re lucky to have courage. I’m afraid of the crows, brother!”
“When the crows arrive, the pain is ended.”
“I don’t want to be buried here,” the child groaned. “I want to go back to my own land–Rumanian ground! Who will take me back to Rumanian ground?”
“Me.”
“You?” cried Relia, with an incredulous smile.
“If you die, I’ll carry your body to headquarters, and you’ll be able to sleep in your native soil.”
“Oh, is that true, Ioan? You’ll do that! And me–what shall I do for you, useless creature that I am?”
“When I’m dead, you’ll take my large dagger with the horn handle, and you’ll search out Liatoukine.”
Cerneanu gave the order to sound the call to arms.
Mitica, who had been helping to carry the wounded into the wooden huts that served as temporary hospitals, buckled his belt hurriedly and seized his rifle. A feeble voice close at hand murmured the word “Frate!”–the Rumanian word for brother, so sweet to the heart of a Rumanian far from home. Very surprised to hear a Walachian word from the mouth of a Turkish soldier, Mitica drew nearer.
“Brother,” the wounded man repeated, lifting himself painfully on to his elbow, “are you from the Rumanian land?” The Rumanian land, in the strict sense, is Walachia.
“I’m from Bucharest,” Mitica replied.
A sudden joy illuminated the dying man’s disfigured features. “From Bucharest?” Letting his head fall back on the cartridge-box that served him as a pillow, he sighed: “Bucharest is so magnificent!”
“I’m from the neighborhood of Baniassa.”
“Baniassa! Do you know old Mozaïs, Aleca and Zamfira, then?”
“Do I know Zamfira?” Mitica exclaimed. “If I ever get back there, I’m going to marry Zamfira!”
The
Muslim’s dull eyes recovered a little of their sparkle. He studied Mitica attentively, saying: “I’ve never seen you before.”
“That’s not surprising, comrade!”
Blood was running freely from the dying man’s breast; his fingers were designing vague symbols in the air. “Well,” he said in a scarcely intelligible voice, “will you go to old Mozaïs...and...tell him...that...”
“Your name–quickly, what’s your name?” Mitica said, insistently, feeling the unknown man’s hand growing cold in his own.
“I’m... I’m...” His lips kept moving, but he could not articulate another syllable.
He died, taking his secret with him.
Mitica remained beside the body, pensively, for a few moments. He lowered the mysterious Osmanli’s eyelids and wrapped him in a dirty linen sheet; then, very thoughtful and annoyed with himself, he hastened to rejoin his regiment.
The dorobantzi set forth into the mud and the mist. The mud was thick, and made their march difficult; the fog was dense, and penetrated their clothing. Their mouths were shut. Their eyes were aflame. Did the Russian Emperor’s dreams show him what was in those men’s eyes?
Sometimes, a murmur ran through the ranks; a few ironic voices would cry “It’s Saint Alexander’s day!” and then everyone would fall silent.
They advanced in this manner for about an hour. Gravitza could not be far away; the noise of the cannonade was not so dull; the first projectiles were cleaving the damp-sodden air. The daylight was merely a grey twilight. The soldiers advanced at hazard.
Where was Gravitza? To the right or the left? No one knew.
“This is the beginning, men!” cried General Cerneanu. “Hold fast, and remember...”
“That it’s Saint Alexander’s Day?”
“No! That you’re Rumanians!”
A violent fusillade burst forth; an atrocious clamor became audible.
“What’s that, General?”