by Pete Ayrton
And do you know what it was like? Not like a frightening foreboding, but rather like an unexpected stroke of good luck! I was surprised at first that I should be the only one to hear its ringing. Then I thought the sound would disappear again. But it didn’t disappear. It came ever closer, and though still far away, it grew proportionally louder. Cautiously I looked at the other faces, but no one else was aware of its approach. And at that moment when I became convinced that I alone heard that subtle singing, something rose up out of me to meet it: a ray of life, equally infinite to that death ray descending from above. I’m not making this up, I’m trying to put it as plainly as I can. I believe I’ve held to a sober physical description so far, though I know of course that to a certain extent it’s like in a dream where it seems as though you’re speaking clearly, while the words come out all garbled.
It lasted a long time, during which I alone heard the sound coming closer. It was a shrill, singing, solitary, high-pitched tone, like the ringing rim of a glass, but there was something unreal about it. You’ve never heard anything like it before, I said to myself. And this tone was directed at me; I stood in communion with it and had not the least little doubt that something decisive was about to happen to me. I had no thoughts of the kind that are supposed to come at death’s door, but all my thoughts were rather focused on the future; I can only say that I was certain that in the next second I would feel God’s proximity close up to my body – which, after all, is saying quite a bit for someone who hasn’t believed in God since the age of eight.
Meanwhile, the sound from above became ever more tangible; it swelled and loomed dangerously close. I asked myself several times whether I should warn the others; but let it strike me or another, I wouldn’t say a word! Maybe there was a devilish vanity in this illusion that high above the battlefield a voice sang just for me. Maybe God is nothing more than the vain illusion of us poor beggars who puff ourselves up in the pinch and brag of rich relations up above. I don’t know. But the fact remains that the sky soon started ringing for the others too; I noticed traces of uneasiness flash across their faces, and I tell you – not one of them let a word slip either! I looked again at those faces: fellows, for whom nothing would have been more unlikely than to think such thoughts, stood there, without knowing it, like a group of disciples waiting for a message from on high. And suddenly the singing became an earthly sound, ten, a hundred feet above us and it died. He – it – was here. Right here in our midst, but closer to me, something that had gone silent and been swallowed up by the earth, had exploded into an unreal hush.
My heart beat quickly and quietly; I couldn’t have lost consciousness for even a second; not the least fraction of a second was missing from my life. But then I noticed everyone staring at me. I hadn’t budged an inch but my body had been violently thrust to the side, having executed a deep, one hundred-and-eighty degree bow. I felt as though I were just waking from a trance, and had no idea how long I’d been unconscious. No one spoke to me at first; then, finally, someone said: ‘An aerial dart!’ And everyone tried to find it, but it was buried deep in the ground. At that instant a hot rush of gratitude swept through me, and I believe that my whole body turned red. And if at that very moment someone had said that God had entered my body, I wouldn’t have laughed. But I wouldn’t have believed it either – not even that a splinter of His being was in me. And yet whenever I think back to that incident, I feel an overwhelming desire to experience something like it again even more vividly!
One of the greatest German-language writers of his time, Robert Musil was born in Klagenfurt in Austria-Hungary in 1880 and died in Geneva in 1942, in flight from the Third Reich. From 1930 onwards, Musil worked on his masterpiece The Man without Qualities, which remained unfinished at his death. This piece was included in his Posthumous Papers of a Living Author, published in 1936 and banned by the Nazis in 1939. Musil was always searching for a way in his writing to fuse the imaginative and the philosophical. Writing about the Posthumous Papers, Musil worried that
To publish nothing but little tales and observations amidst a thundering, groaning world, to speak of incidentals when there are so many vital issues: to vent one’s anger at phenomena that lie far off the beaten track: this may doubtless appear as weakness to some.
In fact, what he achieves in The Blackbird is something very special – to make universal his personal experiences of the war in the South Tyrol. In the face of death, he has a near-religious epiphany. All Musil’s writings reflect his attempt to find a literary form to express the cataclysmic events of the first half of the 20th century that marked the lives of millions including his own.
LIVIU REBREANU
TO THE ROMANIAN FRONT
from The Forest of the Hanged
translated by A. V. Wise
FOR SEVERAL NIGHTS the search-light did not appear. Apostol Bologa, on the look-out at the observation post in the infantry trenches, waited for it with strained expectancy, bent on satisfying Klapka. In the stillness of the nights, broken only at rare intervals by stray rifle shots, he had plenty of leisure to weigh, as was his custom, his new creed, for he was convinced that nothing but that which could endure keen scrutiny of the mind was worthy to dwell eternally in the soul of man. And he rejoiced, feeling his spiritual regeneration, no matter how he viewed it, send a warm glow through his heart, whereas his old ‘conception’, for which he had risked his life for twenty-seven months, had always been as unkind to him as a stepmother. He now told himself that life acted only through the heart, and that without the heart the brain would be nothing but a mass of dead cells. But he was ashamed to think that it had required two years of war for him to reach the point from which he had started, against the advice of Doamna Bologa, of the Protopop, and of everyone else except Marta. Round his neck he wore a locket which contained a mesh of blond hair and the picture of a charming little head. She had given him these when he had been home on leave and had whispered to him: ‘My hero!’ She also called him that in her letters.
‘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 maneater, 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 da
y. 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 Romanian front.’
As he was uttering the last word he remembered that the lieutenant was a Romanian, 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 Rom…’ 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. Tomorrow or after tomorrow 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 Ro…’
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 Romanian? You can imagin
e 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.
