by Franz Werfel
"This teacher here . . . I've worked and worked at him . . . for years. . . . I've pumped the blood of scholars and poets into him. . . . I used to think . . . because he was intelligent . . . that he had the makings of a human angel in him. . . . But I was wrong. . . . No one, who isn't, can ever become it. . . . I used to say: 'He doesn't always think of dung.' . . . But this teacher is far, far below the poor people who only think of dung. . . . That's enough of him. . . . As to my guest, Maris . . . I haven't told anyone, so far . . . he promised me to do all he could for us in Beirut. . . with the consuls. . . ."
Krikor was too weak to go on speaking. Oskanian pounced on him.
"And where did he get his passports? You believe any empty talk, but not the plainest facts."
The mukhtars seemed at last to have seen the light. Yes, where did he get his passports?
Pastor Aram sprang to his feet: "That's enough, Oskanian! Stop this intolerable fooling! We've wasted our time, and nobody's said one sensible word. And in three days we shan't have anything more to eat."
The somber schoolteacher was swept away in his aimless malice. It was as though, in this one hour, he were being forced to throw up all the bile which suppressed rage and slights had for years accumulated. He even came out with the kind of gossip which the most daring matrons ventured to whisper only with their heads together: "Aha! even the pastor? Well, of course he can't do anything else, since his sister has been living so close to Bagradian . . ."
Aram wanted to fling himself on Oskanian, but was pulled back by strong arms. Old Tomasian, red as a turkeycock, shouted and brandished his stick.
But Ter Haigasun was quicker than the two Tomasians. He gripped the teacher's collarless shirt. "I've given you time, Oskanian, to prove what needs proving. Now we all know who spreads the poison which I've felt for a long time in people's minds. They chose you as a leader because you happen to be a schoolmaster. Well, now I send you back to them, and I mean to let them know the truth about you. And, listen to me! I exclude you from all further sittings."
Hrand Oskanian howled that that meant nothing to him. He'd come there that morning fully intending to clear out of this collection of gossiping old men, whom the people itself would send packing today or tomorrow, as they deserved. But, for all his quick splutter of words, the once so silent teacher did not get to the end of what he was saying, since it was not a full minute before Ter Haigasun had sent him spinning, with a powerful kick behind, and locked the door on him. A sly quiet remained. The mukhtars winked at one another. There was a certain danger in the dictatorial methods of Ter Haigasun, who at any minute might do the same to one or another of them. But a chosen leader ought only to be deposed by the whole assembly, and not by any of its members, not even the highest. And, while the spectre of hopeless famine came in giant strides nearer and nearer the Town Enclosure with every minute, Thomas Kebussyan cleared his throat, wagged his hairless head, and raised what might have been described as a constitutional protest against the mishandling of an elected member of the Council. For the first time a clear opposition began to form. Apart from the mukhtars, it was composed of some of the younger teachers and one of the village priests who disliked Ter Haigasun. The two Tomasians, still hot with anger and embarrassment, remained undecided. But all the rest, beginning with Ter Haigasun, had, without knowing or wanting to do so, become the Bagradian party. Already the day's discussion had centered round Gabriel instead of round the great catastrophe. When Ter Haigasun gruffly closed all further discussion of him, to come at last to the question of how to obtain supplies, it was already too late. The sinister noise outside, on the altar square, demanded the Council's immediate intervention.
Hrand Oskanian was only a weak man. In any western community he would simply have been described as an "intellectual"; that is to say, a mediocre, book-learned individual, who does not feed himself by manual labour, and whose soul vacillates, since, finding no place in the raw conflict of powers, it devours itself, avid for power and acknowledgment. So that, in other circumstances, Hrand Oskanian's case might, for all its grotesque absurdity, have been harmless. Here on the Damlayik it had to be reckoned with. Hrand Oskanian stood entirely alone. And yet he was in touch with a certain world, an obscure, unexplored world, which today, for the first time, was destined to attract attention. The teacher had in a sense been appointed government commissar over this world. In that role his very status as "intellectual" was enough in itself to make him fail. His failure was not only due to Kilikian. The Russian, though the uncrowned king of the deserters, was silent and walked by himself. He might always be at the center of an event; but he himself was as inanimate as a saint on the top of a column, took as little interest as a ghost. But apart from Kilikian, in these twenty-three days on Musa Dagh more than eighty other deserters had by degrees collected on the Damlayik, and the word "deserter," it was well known, covered in many cases a murkier origin.
Hrand Oskanian, therefore, was the one representative of authority on the South Bastion. He aped Bagradian, in that he slept with these deserters, and strove to share their whole life. It was by no means easy for him to do it. The dwarf's puny body had to keep stretching itself continually to try to come even with these toughs. He was forced, day in day out, to pretend to be "a devil of a fellow," live always beyond his real courage and strength. Next to the wound inflicted by Juliette Bagradian, this company, which now he kept, was perhaps the second deciding reason for the little teacher's strange development, of which his "revolutionary" behavior in the Council had been no more than a sample. He was very proud indeed of having had the quarrel. He had begun to describe himself as "revolutionary."
The South Bastion was distant and solitary: as far removed as the sun from the altar square, and therewith from the spirit of order and leadership. The people showed a distinct dislike of having to go there. Whereas, for instance, between the North Saddle and the Town Enclosure there was always a vivacious coming and going, at most one or two inquisitive people ever strayed to the rocks of the South Bastion. This was not fully explained by the long way, or the fact that these deserters had no families in camp. Now and then Bagradian would send a surprise inspection. To his relief, it had never much to report. It was clear enough: these deserters might consider themselves lucky to have been allowed into the camp, where they were fed, instead of having to live like dogs. But nobody either knew, or cared to ask, how loyal they really felt to this people, or willing to sacrifice on behalf of it. The South Bastion was a world in itself. It lived a life into which nobody inquired. It undertook, in payment for regular food, to defend that sector; and that was all. Yet the deserters, too, in keeping their unspecified contract, had so far scarcely troubled about the camp -- the enclosure, the altar square, the Council -- and very seldom let themselves be seen in the places where most people congregated. This, the morning of the catastrophe, was perhaps the first time they had invaded it in any considerable numbers. They had come quite aimlessly. The instinct "there's something up" had driven them there, the eternal instinct of their kind towards confusion, the breakdown of social order; towards a void, which at the same time seems a novelty.
There had often before been crowds on the altar square, meetings in which some daily occurrence had been discussed with great excitement. But today it presented a different picture from the most excited of previous gatherings. And now the beggars mingled their drabness with all the rest. Even the schoolboys, run wild since the last battle, as noisy as a flock of famished sparrows, as wild as any pack of young wolves, swarmed in, lifting up shrill voices.
In the general confusion and alarm it was not the poorest class which set the tone. Not the poor peasants, the farmhands, the day laborers, but a certain middling sort of "small proprietor." These "small men" behaved like lunatics, flung up their caps, tore at their hair, flourished wild arms and danced about in sheer desperation. This despair was less that of approaching famine; it was for what they considered their personal loss. They kept screaming that "their
" property had been filched -- their last! Anyone listening to their grief would have got the impression that the Turks had looted hundreds of thousands of sheep. Each of these small proprietors worked out his loss at fantastic figures. It was the same symptom of decline as Oskanian's spy-fever. Ever-increasing unreason was taking insidious hold of these people's minds.
At first the very poor, dazed by the shock, kept heavy silence. And they asked anxiously what the leaders thought. It was small proprietors who spread the excitement among the crowd. It was with these the mukhtars had to contend, whom Ter Haigasun had sent out to eat this broth of theirs. They, as the Council's executives, were in closest touch with the mass of the people.
But they scarcely managed to swallow the first spoonful of it. Almost before they could say anything, they were being shoved and punched, this way and that, all over the square. All their attempts to excuse themselves were lost in angry shouts of "You're the only responsible ones! You're responsible!" A pious lie might perhaps have eased the situation -- the hint, for instance, that still, in spite of this misfortune, there were enough secret stores to hand -- might have re-established the old insouciance, since on Musa Dagh a few days seemed an eternity. None of the elders was inspired with the saving thought of holding up this unhoped-for "something" to the crowd, to pacify it, at least for the time being. But Thomas Kebussyan, usually a canny man, who only now lost his head, used, under Oskanian's influence, the worst, most damaging method of attempting to turn off popular wrath. He threw the word "betrayal" among the people. In normally prosperous times the people has a sound enough instinct to judge the truth, and a very healthy fund of scepticism. Nor had most of these ever taken Oskanian very seriously. But now the mukhtars set his foot on the ladder of politics. His career was launched. The mass, which, in normal times, displays such devastating scepticism at any suggestion of rhetoric, becomes its prey at moments of catastrophe. And then the vaguest words, expressing the least concrete notions, take the strangest effect. The word "betrayal" was one of these. In only very few of the villagers did it evoke any clear concept of an actual happening. But it served to release every hostile instinct and give it direction, although not, to be sure, the direction the mukhtars would have liked. The leaders, all these notables and "bosses," had quietly arranged to sacrifice "the people," and that merely to save themselves. And it was their fault that the communes had moved on to Musa Dagh, and so exposed themselves to massacre. Pastor Harutiun Nokhudian had been the only real "friend of the people." He and his flock, now that the convoy had arrived there, were living in the east, in poor but quite peaceful circumstances. Shouts of derision and hatred of the Council bespattered the government hut like a hailstorm, and kept increasing. The men of the South Bastion elbowed their way all over the crowds, and seemed to view all this confusion as a kind of bear-fight which, though it amused, in no way concerned them. But, wherever they might be, effervescence rose, like an aerated bubble in a drink.
Those attempts to mollify, undertaken now by Aram Tomasian, also miscarried. That miserable attempt to catch fish, which had yielded so little, was the pastor's set idea, his mania. Everyone knew what results it had yielded so far. Tomasian's attempts to hearten earned, first, laughter, and then, malicious scorn, and, since he refused to stop talking, they silenced him. Everyone knew what had come of all that, so far! Someone in the crowd must have given the impulse. It had been divided up into aimlessly clustered knots, but now it formed into a mass and crowded on to the government hut. Soon not only fists, but spades and crowbars, were being brandished. The men who guarded it turned pale and pointed their rifles indecisively -- with a captured Turkish bayonet fixed on each.
Inside the hut, apart from the sick apothecary, there remained only Bedros Hekim, Chaush Nurhan, and the priest. Ter Haigasun was aware that, now, after the mukhtars' and Tomasian's defeat, it would be the end of all authority unless he could manage to re-establish it. He did not doubt for an instant that he could do so. His eyes, which as a rule expressed so strange a mixture of observant shyness and cold decision, became tinged with black. He crossed the threshold, thrust aside the men of the guard, and went straight into the middle of the crowd, as though he could not see them, as though they were air. Nor had his attitude anything in the least constrained or anxious in it. He moved, as his habit was, with his head bent a little forwards, his secluded, rather chilly hands hidden in his cassock sleeves. Every step the silent Ter Haigasun took was left free before him. Sheer curiosity -- what's he after? what's he going to do? dispelled any other feelings. So, at a measured pace, he reached the altar, on the lowest step of which he turned, not vehemently, but almost as though he were settling down. This forced the crowd -- all God-fearing Armenian men and women -- to turn their eyes towards the holy table, from which sparkled the great silver crucifix, the tabernacle, chalice, and many lamps. Sunbeams fingered their way through the screen of beech leaves set up behind it. Nor did Ter Haigasun need to raise his voice, since sudden curiosity created deep quiet around him.
"A great misfortune has occurred" -- he said it without any pained solemnity, almost indifferently -- "and you inveigh against it, and want to be told who are guilty of it, as though that were any use at all. Before we set up this camp, you chose men to lead you, who now, for thirty-one days, have sacrificed themselves on your behalf without having slept the whole of one night. You know as well as I do that no other men among you are as well qualified to be your leaders. I quite understand that you should be dissatisfied with our present life. I am myself! But you chose perfectly freely to come up here and live on the Damlayik, instead of going, for instance, on the convoy, with Pastor Nokhudian. If you regret that now -- listen carefully, please -- you can change your decision as freely as you took it in the first place. There's a way. . . ."
The speaker paused for half a second, but his dry tone remained as before; he continued: "We have an alternative. You, as you stand here now, form a majority. But I'll also send for the men from the trenches. . . . Let's surrender to the Turks! I'm perfectly willing if you'll give me the power to do so, to go down straight away, to Yoghonoluk, in your name. Hands up, at once -- anyone who wants me to do so."
In disdainful silence Ter Haigasun let two full minutes elapse. The quiet remained as dense as ever, not a hand stirred. Then he climbed to the top step of the altar, and now his angry voice beat across the square.
"I see that not one of you wants to surrender. . . . Well then, in that case, you must realize that order and discipline must be kept. There must be perfect quiet! Quiet, you hear, even if we've no more to eat than our fingernails. There's only one form of treachery here, and its name is disorder -- undisciplined behavior! Whoever betrays us in that way will be punished as a traitor, be sure of that! Well, now, it's high time you went back to work! We'll do our best for you. Meanwhile, everything as usual."
It was the method used with unruly children; at this moment it proved the only right one. Not a word of protest, no heckling, not another reproach, though Ter Haigasun's speech had not changed anything. Even the brawlers and agitators held their tongues; they were disconcerted. This alternative -- discipline or surrender -- worked like a cold douche on these roused emotions.
Since Ter Haigasun's speech had dissipated the great revolt, it was easy enough now to clear the altar square. The people, in noisy groups, went back to work, and everyday life seemed to begin again in spite of this horror. The guard blocked the mouths of the "streets," so that no further demonstrations might trouble the counsels of the leaders, who at last would have to leave their strife and face the merciless reality.
Ter Haigasun still stood looking down, across the empty square, from the altar steps. Might it not be as well to form a very strong police force, strong enough to quell, with bloodshed, the slightest unrest? But the priest dismissed the thought with a weary gesture. What good did it do to spread terror? With every day of real famine, order would vanish of itself. The Turks had no need to attack again, to make an end.
Yet that same day saw a most surprising event, which, in all their torturing up and down of hope and despair, raised their courage again for a short while. This incident might, not unjustly, have been called a miracle, even though the miracle proved ineffective.
Immediately after Stephan's death the doctor had released his wife from all her other nursing duties and sent her off to look after Juliette. It was a great sacrifice on the part of Bedros Hekim, since the indefatigable Antaram had had sole charge of the hospital hut and the isolation-wood. But it was for Iskuhi's sake that the good Altouni had so decided. Iskuhi was worn out by long sick-nursing; she had become the shadow of a shade. What a force of resistance she must have had in her, not to have taken infection from her patient, in spite of constant, close proximity -- or at least not so far! The new nurse lived in the sick-hut, whereas Iskuhi moved to the one Hovsannah had relinquished.
