Forest of the Hanged

by Liviu Rebreanu

  “It’s all Marta’s fault,” he tried to tell himself secretly as an excuse in face of his rebuking conscience. But he pulled himself up and put away such cowardice. “Marta never urged me by a single word to enlist. It was only my wretched jealousy which counted on the uniform and the glamour to win over her frivolousness. So that I alone am to blame, and I must face my conscience.”

  The past seemed dead to him, and he took care not to dig it up again. He was more preoccupied with the future, which dawned for him like a dazzling morn after a stormy night. He did not yet perceive it clearly, but the fog which veiled it from his sight had rosy tints. His heart was full of comfort.

  “From to-day a new life begins!” he kept on thinking joyfully. “At last I have found the right road. Gone are hesitations and doubts! Henceforth, forward!”

  A wild desire to live filled his breast. In the morning, when he came away from the observation post, he stretched himself on his plank bed and quickly fell asleep and dreamt of happiness.

  Late one afternoon he again met Klapka by the battery. Bologa, remembering how worried the captain had been that last night, was surprised to see him serene and smiling, with a look of almost challenging equanimity in his eyes. After they had inspected together guns and men, they went down into the command post, where a candle-end was burning.

  “I’ve had no luck, sir,” said Apostol hesitatingly. “It didn’t appear …”

  “What?” asked Klapka. “Oh, yes … the … oh, well, let that search-light go to the devil, Bologa!” he added indifferently.

  The lieutenant kept a worried silence, staring into the captain’s eyes, in which, only a few days ago, he had seen reflected the Forest of the Hanged. But Klapka proceeded serenely:

  “A man with a troubled conscience takes fright at every shadow. That’s what I did, too, with regard to our colonel. I took him for a man-eater, whereas he is a very decent fellow. Ah! of course, I haven’t told you! He has been to my dug-out every day, about four times a day. You can imagine in what a blue funk I was. I felt sure he wanted to make an end of me. Finally, yesterday, out of sheer fright, I told him straight out why I had been transferred over here, vowing, of course, that I was innocent, that … He listened to me and at last, without the least hint of censure, you understand, he said: ‘Yes, I know, that’s the way misfortunes befall mankind.’ And that was all! Then we talked about Vienna, about musical comedies, about Americans—in short, chatted like comrades! In fact, I even think that he has taken rather a liking to me, for this morning he came again to inspect—a so-called inspection. Instead, he gave me a definite proof of trust. A decided proof! In absolute confidence he told me a great official secret. So that henceforth I have no fear, my mind is at rest …”

  The captain’s high spirits and serenity annoyed Bologa. Censoriously he interrupted him.

  “Of what importance is an official secret to us? Trust and suspicion are equally troublesome!”

  “No, no!” exclaimed the captain with warmth. “Do not let us exaggerate. There are decent people everywhere, in every race. Why exaggerate? Well, the colonel is a man who cares nothing for his rank, we must acknowledge that! Besides, the secret does affect us also, because there is some talk of changing the division. There is a tired-out division on its way from Italy to take our place.”

  “And are we to go back to the Italian front?” asked Bologa.

  “No, not to the Italian front,” answered Klapka quickly, with some pride. “To the Rumanian front.”

  As he was uttering the last word he remembered that the lieutenant was a Rumanian, but it was too late to do anything but utter the word in a lower key. Bologa paled, and as if he had not caught the words, repeated mechanically:

  “To the Rum …” Something seemed to clutch at his throat and he could get no further. He remained with his mouth open, staring idiotically at the captain, who, realizing how imprudent he had been, was murmuring inanely:

  “Forgive me, friend. I had forgotten that you … I am a …”

  But Apostol’s brain was only just beginning to grasp the meaning of the words which had given him so sharp and poignant a shock, as if he had received a dagger-thrust. He leapt to his feet and walked backwards and forwards, wringing his hands and whispering desperately:

  “Impossible, impossible, impossible! …”

  Klapka, nonplussed, tried to console him by saying, without conviction:

  “Calm yourself, Bologa; what the hell … When all is said and done one cannot live without compromise, without sacrifices and …”

  Suddenly Apostol Bologa stopped in front of him, his face white, his eyes dull, and the captain’s words dried in his throat.

  “Anything else, anything else, but this—this cannot be,” burst from Bologa in burning tones. “That would be … a … a …”

  The walls of the dug-out turned his efforts to find a word into a long-drawn-out echo, which made Klapka seize him by the arm and bid him speak lower. And Apostol, as if he had understood, became embarrassed, dropped his eyes, and ended in a mutter:

  “A … a … crime …”

  “So it is, but what are we to do?” said the captain in a smothered voice, his eyes fixed on the entrance. “I understand and share your perturbation, but you others have at least the consolation of knowing that there are kinsmen in the other camp fighting for your salvation, whereas we can hope for nothing from anywhere! For us, the only means of proving our patriotism is to die on the gallows!”

  Bologa, overcome, had dropped into a chair. Klapka, thinking that he had calmed down, went on speaking with more confidence.

  “War is, in any circumstances, a colossal crime, but a still greater crime is the Austrian war. When people of the same blood take up arms, whether they are in the right or not, they all know that success will be for the good of the race and consequently each man can die with the conviction that he has sacrificed himself for the good cause of all. But in our case cruel masters have sent their slaves to die whilst strengthening their chains! Well then? In the midst of this turmoil of crime what can the small crime like the one that is crushing your soul matter? Who cares here about our souls?”

  “Which means that …?” Bologa, who had begun to listen, queried impatiently.

  “That you are to go where we shall all go,” said Klapka gravely, with painful resignation. “That you are to go and do what we shall all do, and that you are to seal hermetically all the inlets to your soul until peace comes or until the world will be destroyed, or until your turn to die will come and put an end to all your torment!”

  Apostol started and answered protestingly:

  “But if I don’t want to die? I don’t want to, I no longer want to! Now I want to live, I no longer want to die!”

  Klapka was silent for a moment, and then said with a smile that tried to hide his embarrassment:

  “I know I am hardly the person to talk to you of death. Through fear of death or love of life—perhaps it is the same thing—I am a coward.… Yes, yes, I acknowledge and confess that I am capable of swallowing any shame, any humiliation. Nevertheless, I have told myself many a time, yes, even as I am I have said to myself that the dead are happiest, because they at least have finished with suffering. I like you, Bologa, and had I not found you here I should not have had so much confidence in myself. But you see, even we, whose souls have been drawn so close together by our common suffering, even we must share our anguish in a foreign tongue! How, then, can we help envying those that are dead, Bologa?”

  The lieutenant was no longer listening to his words. Klapka’s calm increased his agitation. And all of a sudden he asked with a glimmer of hope in his eyes:

  “Do you think that it is a certainty?”

  The captain, after a slight hesitation, answered resolutely, as if he wished to cure him by drastic means:

  “Unfortunately there is no doubt about it, my dear fellow. The other division has already left Italy. To-morrow or after to-morrow it will arrive. In a week’s time it
will have taken our place, and a few days later we shall be in Ardeal, on the Ru …”

  Bologa’s eyes scorched him. He broke off abruptly and lowered his eyes, staring at his muddy boots and nervously jerking his knees, while Apostol walked up and down like a caged wolf, breathing heavily, his temples burning. Two minutes later, with a new determination, the lieutenant again halted in front of Klapka.

  “Sir, I beg of you … I implore you, save me … You can save me.… I cannot go to that front.…”

  Klapka raised his eyes and looked at him. He did not understand what Bologa wanted him to do. The latter continued frenziedly:

  “A means of salvation must be found! Transfer me to a regiment which is staying here; or send me back to Italy, wherever you like, only not there! I’ll fight as I have fought until to-day, I swear I will! I’ll … I have three medals for bravery; all three won with … But there I cannot go! There I feel sure that I shall die.… And I don’t want to die! I must live!”

  He fell on the bed, his face in his hands, convulsed by sobs. The captain was deeply moved and felt that if he tried to speak he, too, would weep. In the dark dug-out Apostol’s sobs made the air heavy, and the smoky light on the table threw uneasy shadows on the walls. Presently, when the lieutenant’s sobs had ceased, Klapka said:

  “Do you feel better now? Well, then, we can talk as man to man and soldier to soldier! The truth is that in war-time one must not think, one must just fight…, Anyway, that’s what a general said in a speech at headquarters the other day. But this thing we must consider very carefully and without hurry, otherwise … If you stop to think you will see that I am powerless. I cannot propose anything because I am stigmatized: a Czech—that is to say, a traitor.… It was for people like us that the idea of putting machine-guns behind the lines was invented, so that they should sharpen our desire for glory in case there should be any hesitation. If I dared to suggest your name for transfer we should both be suspected immediately—immediately! A Czech with a record like mine to take the part of a Rumanian? You can imagine the to-do there would be, the … Only the general could save you, if he were human and had a heart. But do you really think that out here there are people that are human? Do you really believe that …?”

  Bologa, who had sat up and was listening surlily, clung to one word and exclaimed:

  “I’ll go and see the general!”

  Klapka became cold with fear, as if the general himself had caught him plotting, and said in a whisper:

  “Calm yourself, Bologa! Please! Don’t you know General Karg? Why, he has been your C.O. for nearly a year—Karg! A dog, a … He would be quite capable of court-martialling you straight away instead of giving you any answer at all …”

  “Consequently I am to leave without even trying to protect myself or to prevent a crime?” burst out Apostol again, but this time furiously and grinding his teeth.

  “Listen to my advice, friend,” answered the captain quietly. “I am older than you and have suffered much during my life. War has no other philosophy but luck. Trust to luck! Death has whistled in your ears in all keys during the last two years, and yet luck has protected you. Perhaps Fate loves you! Don’t rub her up the wrong way, don’t tempt her.… Leave her alone.”

  “How certain I am that a terrible danger is awaiting me over there!” murmured Bologa, shuddering and feeling all at once fearfully depressed. “Never have I had so strong a presentiment.”

  “To-day there are dangers everywhere,” said Klapka, keeping a tight hold on himself. “In the air, at the front, at home, in the whole world. The earth itself, it seems to me, is passing through a danger zone. What can we do? Luck is every man’s shield, that’s a fact! Take my advice.… You’ll see, before long you’ll tell me I was right. But without passion, without haste! Calmly, calmly!”

  He rose slowly, put on his helmet, ready to go.

  “Rather than go there, I’ll desert to the Russians!” then came in a whisper from Bologa, as he looked straightly at the captain.

  “That’s easily said,” answered Klapka calmly, as if he had been waiting for these very words from the lieutenant. “But if you don’t succeed you know what awaits you! Only the other day I told you the tale of those three. They also spoke as you are doing—even more boldly. And yet, to-day they are probably still in the Forest of the Hanged to terrify others!”

  “I don’t worry about that,” said Bologa confidently. “If I am caught I’ll shoot myself and finish quickly! No matter what happens, I won’t die by the rope, I promise you!”

  “They also promised me that, friend, but circumstances proved stronger than their resolution. That’s why I bid you take care, don’t play with Fate! There are thousands, nay, tens of thousands in your position, and Fate looks after them as she thinks fit.”

  Klapka pressed his hand warmly, and the next minute Apostol Bologa found himself alone, rooted to the spot, with eyes staring into vacancy, haunted by apparitions. When he came out of his trance he felt so weak that he threw himself on the bed. On the table, in the improvised candlestick, the light began to flicker quickly, grew less bright, and suddenly went out. The darkness startled Bologa, but his feverish lips whispered bravely:

  “It is impossible! It must not happen!”

  VIII

  “Have you heard the news, Petre?” said Apostol the next day to his orderly, who was squatting in a corner, reading with ardour and religious fervour The Dream of the Mother of God. “In a week’s time, or at the most in two weeks’ time, we are going home, to Ardeal.”

  “The Lord be praised!” answered the soldier, his face shining with joy, and he began to cross himself. “At last the Lord and the Blessed Mother have granted it! Most of them have had a week now and again, some even more; only we seem to be treated as if we had the plague.”

  Bologa’s smile on seeing the man’s joy was almost malignant, and he continued mockingly:

  “What! Did you think we were going there to amuse ourselves? Put that out of your mind, my lad! We are going there to fight, to fight the Rumanians.…”

  “My God, sir!” exclaimed Petre, starting up. “God forbid that such a thing should happen!” he added, crossing himself several times. “O Lord, protect us and do not abandon us! What sinfulness, sir! And shall not God strike them dead?”

  The orderly’s consternation was balm to his wound.

  “If a simple man like that revolts, then what must I do?” Bologa said to himself, looking gratefully at Petre. And then immediately came the thought: “Surely, then, the general will also understand?”

  Since the night before the thought of the general had pursued him, and he tried continually to strengthen his resolution. He told himself that he had thought it all out carefully, that he had seen all the probabilities and that—Klapka was wrong. Besides, Klapka was a coward who saw executioners and hangmen everywhere. Whereas he, Apostol Bologa, with three proofs of bravery on his breast … Advice had always annoyed him, but now Klapka’s advice infuriated him. Resignation seemed to him a brute-like attitude, unworthy of a man. He felt that to make no attempt to-day would be as great a crime as had been his joining the Army.

  The thought that he might have to go there stuck in his mind like an enemy bayonet. He would have to tear it out or life for him would be impossible. The more so because in the light of to-day’s fears the memories of the past besieged him like sinister threats.

  His hope in the general of the division dispersed his fears. That also proved Klapka wrong. He made up his mind to go to headquarters and explain the situation to him, to petition him and to assure him most solemnly that he would do his duty anywhere else but there. He wanted to go at once, to get it over more quickly and set his mind at rest. He put up his hand to take down the receiver in order to phone through and ask when the C.O. could see him. At the last minute, however, he refrained. How could he ask the general to transfer him when no one as yet was supposed to know of the intended change? He would be asked how he knew, who had told him. It wou
ld be a dirty trick to betray Klapka; it would be …

  “Well, I’ll have to wait for the present,” he said to himself, “at least until the news of the proposed change has become known unofficially. I must act with care and dignity!”

  He grew calmer. Three days went by. There was no whisper of a rumour that the division was being transferred. Nor did Klapka come again. It seemed as if he dreaded meeting Bologa, who, growing more and more hopeful, had begun to think that perhaps the order had been countermanded. His heart throbbed with a pleasant emotion. And because he felt happy he wrote a long and hopeful letter to his mother, two whole pages of which were devoted to the condemnation of Palagiesu’s action with regard to Protopop Groza. He also wrote a passionate letter to Marta, telling her that his love was as strong as ever, in spite of all his suffering, and that he could hardly wait for the hour when he would be able to take her in his arms.

  Another serene day passed. Then the second-lieutenant of the battery told him that he had heard from an infantryman that in four days at latest the whole division was being sent to the Rumanian front. Bologa turned pale, but he asked for particulars. The second-lieutenant then said, further, that the infantry officers had been told the news in confidence three days ago and the advance troops of the exchange division had actually arrived in Zirin.

  That night the search-light reappeared in the next sector. Bologa, at the command post, with the telephone receiver at his ear, listened to the indications from the observation post. The guns boomed harshly, hoarsely, the earth shook, and from the roof of the dug-out, from between the heavy beams, thin trickles of sand oozed.