Forest of the Hanged

by Liviu Rebreanu

  At last he could not bear the light any longer and put out the lamp. He walked up and down a little while longer, but his restlessness would not leave him. Dressed as he was, he lay down on his bed. The darkness and the stillness soothed him. The throbs of his heart sounded to him like stifled gasps. To beguile the time he began to count, but before he had even reached ten he lost count.

  An eternity passed. Then suddenly he heard voices in the street. He started to get up, but on second thoughts stayed as he was. “I ought to have waited for her outside,” he said to himself with frantic despair in his soul. Just then footsteps sounded in the courtyard. He recognized them as being hers, although he had never realized that he knew her footsteps. They entered the lobby, slowed down, and finally stopped hesitatingly. Apostol could hear the hesitation, and again he heard clearly the throbbing of his own heart. Then the handle of the door turned noiselessly, the door was opened just as noiselessly, and only wide enough to allow her to slip in. Again Apostol felt like leaping off the bed and again he remained as if glued to the spot, trying to quieten the beating of his heart and trembling lest he should frighten the girl. “Why does she not close the door?” he thought, filled with a new despair. But even as the thought flashed through his mind he heard the bolt being shot home, and joy flooded his being.

  Ilona stood stock still for about two minutes near the door. In the lobby other footsteps now sounded, heavy, dragging. Bologa and Ilona both shuddered as if they had expected a castigatory foe to appear. Soon the noise in the lobby ceased. “It must have been Petre,” thought Apostol, relieved, and he heard immediately the rustle of a skirt drawing nearer. The girl stopped by the bed, uncertain and tremulous. Apostol could hear her breath coming in gasps. He could no longer control himself. He stretched out his arm, and his fingers touched her breasts straining against the velvet bodice. Ilona gave a smothered cry.

  “Ilona, my little wild dove!” whispered Bologa hoarsely, taking her cold hand and trying to rise.

  “I am afraid.… I am afraid.… Forgive me!” murmured the girl, trying to push him away with a sudden new power of resistance. But even as she spoke she felt her strength ooze away, and, bending over him, she murmured passionately:

  “I don’t care … let him kill me!”

  Her foot slipped on the floor, and with a moan she fell limply on the bed at Apostol’s side.

  V

  The next day Apostol Bologa felt as after a shameful drinking-bout. He was as disgusted with himself as if he had committed a crime. He went into the office very early, found pretexts to scold the two men, and even Petre, but work he could not. He went out of doors, trying to run away from his remorse.

  “I came into her life like a whirlwind, I turned it upside-down, and I thought only of myself!” he kept repeating disgustedly to himself, striding from one place to another.

  And then he came face to face with Ilona’s smile, happy, submissive, radiant with love and trust.

  “You are not sorry, Ilona?” he asked her uncertainly.

  “No!” answered the girl firmly.

  “You trust me, Ilona?” he continued, trembling.

  “Yes!” she answered passionately.

  In her face there was pure happiness, unperturbed by thoughts, careless of the world, triumphant and alluring. Looking deeply into her eyes Bologa could see the whole of her warm, simple, wild heart, and in this warmth his anxiety melted slowly away. He understood that Ilona was worth all the mysteries of the world, and for the space of a second or less it seemed to him that the universe had been converted into nothingness and he was left alone with her standing before the face of God.

  “But I must go now,” said the girl, “for I have a lot to do. I must dye1 the eggs, make cozonac2 and the pascal.3 It’s the Resurrection to-morrow, don’t forget!”

  She lingered a minute or two longer, as if her heart were reluctant to leave Apostol. Then she ran off into the house, laughing.

  And through the open office window Bologa heard distinctly the voice of the sergeant saying:

  “It seems to me that our lieutenant has cast his eyes on the grave-digger’s daughter.”

  “Well, one must own that he has good taste,” replied the corporal, chuckling.

  Apostol scowled at the window, but almost immediately his face cleared as if he had found the key of wisdom, and he muttered:

  “It’s rather early, still … it must be done!”

  He went on without casting another backward glance and did not stop until he had reached Popa Boteanu’s gate. At the far end of the courtyard, by the stable door, the popa, hatless, his back to the street, was talking to someone. Apostol opened the gate. The creaking of the hinges made Boteanu look round at once. The sun flooded his face with light. He called out something towards the stable and made rapidly for the gate. When he recognized Bologa, he began to smile cheerfully, as if he had not met him since they had sat on the same bench together at school, “as he should have smiled a month ago”, thought Apostol instinctively.

  “Apostol! Apostol! So you’ve come to see us again? What kind wind blows you hither?” said the priest delightedly.

  Bologa pressed his hand, encouraged by his cheerfulness, and mumbling some indistinct words.

  “How cold he was then, and how friendly he is now,” he was thinking, amazed at the change in the priest.

  “Come along, Apostol, into our peasant verandah!” proceeded Boteanu, putting an arm round his shoulders and leading him towards the little front garden.

  Now the whole aspect of the parochial house seemed more friendly. On the cerdac there was a table covered with a white cloth and three chairs were set round it. Round the pillars and the railings a wild vine twined its green leaves.

  “Sit down, Apostol, please!” exclaimed the popa, rubbing his hands with pleasure. “Sit here.… It is very pleasant out here. And the good wife will bring us coffee and milk such as you have never tasted, even in Pest! Excuse me just a second, Apostol, only a second!”

  Apostol sat down while Constantin Boteanu hurried towards the house to tell his good lady that a guest had arrived. The cerdac basked in the gentle warmth of the morning sun. On the table two or three flies surrounded a brown coffee spot.

  “Last time I was angry with you, Father,” said Apostol to the priest, who was returning cheerily. “I was so depressed and embittered that day, and you would not understand me, nor even say a kindly word!”

  The reproach in Bologa’s voice brought a momentary shadow to the priest’s face, as if he had reminded him of something painful. He answered gently with lowered eyes:

  “You were very much overwrought, Apostol, and I had only just got back. When man suffers he is more selfish and is deaf to the sufferings of his fellow-creatures. Only death reconciles us really with the world and with God!”

  “Does not love?” asked Apostol quickly, almost dreadingly.

  “The great, true love is in God only.”

  Suddenly from the house came the sound of children wailing and crying. In the street a detachment of soldiers was passing on its way to the front, the men tired, depressed, with heads bent down like cattle being led to the slaughter. But on the cerdac the brightness of the sun glowed like the smile of a pretty girl.

  “These little children can never keep still,” murmured Boteanu in a different voice. “And the poor wife must needs scold them all the blessed day.”

  Apostol smiled. The priest, now cheerful again, continued: “I heard you had gone home on leave, Apostol. That was why I had caught no glimpse of you. O God! At least the war did not touch that spot!”

  “I remember how studious you were of yore in Nasaud, Constantin,” said Bologa, as if he were afraid of forgetting something, “and I wonder how you have managed to get used to this place, away from the world, without books, without people of your own class? You must find life very difficult?”

  Popa Boteanu flushed, but into his eyes came a radiant humility which diffused all round him waves of trust and s
ympathy. He answered without hesitation and with a serene smile:

  “It was a stiff, arduous fight, Apostol. But God helped me and opened my heart and gave me consolation. For there is life everywhere, in a grain of sand as in the soul of man. And everywhere men need pity—to give and to receive. Books are good things, too, but only life can bring you near to God! As long as you live amongst books and on them it seems to you that all wisdom is contained therein. Then when you go out into the world you feel your soul is sad and has nothing to uphold it, even though you may have digested the contents of all the libraries in the world. That’s what happened to me, and I endured terrible torment and thought I would never find peace anywhere. Then, gradually, in the midst of nature the torrent of life caught me up and carried me along through suffering and bitterness, without my knowing whither. And so the hour came when I awoke to find my soul full of understanding! I felt the power and glory and goodness of God in my heart, and in this feeling all mysteries were revealed to me, Apostol! Since then I no longer need books, but only God. Also God is nearer the ordinary man who lives in the world, amidst the hurly-burly of life—much nearer! Faith runs away from books and can only dwell in the hearts of those who long for it passionately!”

  Apostol Bologa stammered with burning cheeks:

  “Father, I feel your words in my heart! I feel them, Father!”

  The priest shook his head and said, still smiling:

  “Philosophers of all men find it hardest to realize the truth of God because they seek God with their weak, mortal mind and not with a trusting and all-comprehending heart! When man forgets his divine origin and rummages in the mire in order to discover the purpose of God’s mysteries, how can the soul rise and gather wisdom and contentment?”

  The priest’s question floated a little while in the sun’s rays, then trailed off into a long silence. Apostol stared at the ground, weighed down by a terrible depression. Popa Constantin stood a short distance away from him, his face in the path of the light. All at once Apostol Bologa looked up at him with eyes full of pain and longing.

  “Constantin,” murmured Apostol in a voice so hollow that it seemed to come from the depth of his soul, “all my life I have battled with God! Do you hear? I have struggled every minute of my life, seeking Him, adoring Him, and cursing Him! I have always felt I needed God, and God has tortured me terribly! I have had moments when I have felt God in my heart and I have not been able to keep Him there! Why was I not able to keep Him, Father? Why did He not drive away all doubts so that they should never return? And because these moments have been inexpressibly blissful and peaceful I have gone on without resting—cursing, and seeking everywhere. That struggle shackles me and I am terrified lest it should never end, not even in the world to come.”

  Apostol’s stricken eyes, swimming in tears, waited as if they were expecting supreme salvation from the man standing there.

  “Believe, Apostol, and God will descend into your heart when the hour will strike and will abide with you through all eternity,” said the priest in a voice full of hope and encouragement.

  Bologa, as if in truth the voice had dropped a wonderful balm into his soul, continued more quickly, his eyes still fixed on the priest’s face:

  “I want to believe. And sometimes I feel as pure and receptive as a chalice. But I implore in vain, I hammer in vain at all the doors, no one answers me! I believe, I believe, Father! All the fibres of my being long for faith even when uncertainties and doubts rend me! I have fought with the temptations of hate and I have driven them from my soul. I am ready to humble and debase myself, to put ashes on my head in order to win one atom of implicit faith.”

  He was silent for a while, and then went on in a different voice:

  “I am always walking between two abysses, Constantin! Always, always! An abyss outside and an abyss within my soul. And at every false step I find myself looking down into the chasms—at every false step. More than once I have realized that man cannot travel on the road of life without a trusty guide, and yet I have continually tried to do so! But the path of life is full of cross-roads, and at every cross-road I was forced to stop and reflect, and never once did I hit on the right road, and I had to go back, and then I did not even manage to find the road on which I had come.”

  “I also have carried your cross, Apostol, and when my despair was at its bitterest God sent me enduring faith to lean on and saved me!” The priest uttered the words like an annunciation. He moved to Apostol’s side. “Only perfect faith can save man, either here or in the world to come. Faith is the living bridge over the chasms between the tormented soul and the world full of enigmas, and more especially between man and God. And you, too, can only find the trusty guide you seek in perfect faith, for only faith can encourage at every step and tell you at every moment how to reconcile your soul!”

  Apostol Bologa, with head bowed down, listened to the priest’s words as to a benediction. And when Constantin was silent he also said nothing more, as if a perfect guide had in truth descended into his soul.

  Just then the priest’s wife came out on the cerdac carrying a little basket of rusks, and behind her followed an old maidservant, walking very carefully in order not to spill any of the contents of the full cups set on a flower-painted tray.

  “Put it down there gently!” whispered the priest’s wife after she had given Bologa a timid smile.

  “I don’t think you have met my wife before, have you, Apostol?” the priest asked with pride. “Here you are; look at her, and tell me if you have ever seen such a sweet little doe!”

  “My goodness, Constantin, aren’t you ashamed to talk like that?” said the wife, blushing to the tip of her nose and signing to the servant to go.

  The priest’s wife was plump, glowing with health, with chubby cheeks and very kind, light-green eyes. Apostol kissed her hand, mumbling a few words.

  “You must excuse us and our primitive ways,” added the lady, still blushing and arranging the table, “for this is the country, and we are at war. Time was when we were better off, but while the popa was interned the Austrian soldiers reduced us to poverty.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s all very nice, little doe,” said Boteanu, caressing her affectionately. “And Apostol is not a stranger. Eh, eh, you were in the cradle when he and I were making things hum in Nasaud!”

  The lady waited until they had settled down, taking care to tell them that she herself had mixed the coffee but that they were to be sure to help themselves to more sugar or black coffee if it wasn’t to their taste. Then she excused herself, blushing anew, for a thin wailing had again broken out in the house, and went away, smiling very bashfully.

  “A woman in a thousand, Apostol!” the priest began immediately in a voice warm with affection. “She has been the joy of my life. I met her at a church dance in Gherla, blessed be that dance! As a matter of fact, she is the daughter of my predecessor here. He died the year we were married. My mother-in-law lives here with us. You cannot imagine what it means to have a wife who loves you really, even to sacrificing herself endlessly. My wife is such a woman, Apostol! Some day, when I shall tell you all our sufferings, you’ll understand why I love her with my whole heart and soul. And, mind you, she is a well-educated girl; she studied four years in Blaj.…”

  Apostol interrupted him abruptly and, holding his eyes with his own, said:

  “You love her much—as much as you love God?”

  Boteanu was taken aback for a moment, his coffee spoon arrested in its stirring. Then he answered firmly, almost solemnly:

  “Yes, much—as much as I love God! Love is one and indivisible, exactly like faith. My heart embraces in the same love both God and the companion of my life and the mother of my children! By means of true love the coalescent souls approach nearer to the throne of the Almighty.”

  The light which flamed in Apostol’s eyes was so bright that Popa Constantin could hardly restrain his wonder.

  1 A big dish of red and other coloured hard-boiled eg
gs is a special feature of the Easter festivities.

  2 Plaited brioche.

  3 A special cake made at Easter.

  VI

  Apostol Bologa went back to his office, his heart at ease, and settled down to his work with the deliberation of a man who had arranged his life in every detail; only from time to time he glanced out of the window as if he were waiting for someone, but without anxiety, as if he knew for certain that the one he was waiting for would turn up in time.

  Towards eleven o’clock the grave-digger Vidor, carrying a bundle in his hand, came in at the gate, looking very downcast. Then Apostol stood up, and with fingers which trembled slightly laid down his pen on the ink-stand. The office door was open, and soon the grave-digger was standing in the doorway. He wished Bologa good day, as was his wont. Bologa answered his greeting and then, without waiting for the old man’s usual questions about peace, he added:

  “I would like to speak to you about something—something very important.… Now, at once.”

  The grave-digger, wondering, made as if to enter the office, but Apostol stopped him.

  “Over there … in my room … I’ll be over in a minute.”

  “Yes? Very well,” answered Vidor, looking perplexedly at the two non-coms. as if he were trying to find a clue on their faces. “Very well, I’ll just go and hand my bundle to the lassie and I’ll come back.”