At that moment Bologa felt clearly that his audacity was vain and useless, and he hesitated. Beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. To gain time and to regain his composure he coughed and bent his head. Then, his self-confidence reasserting itself, he fixed his eyes resolutely on the general’s face and said, speaking rapidly and jerkily:
“Excellency, I know—I have heard—that in a few days’ time our division is leaving here to go somewhere else, to another front.…”
“Quite correct,” answered the general wonderingly as he saw that Bologa faltered.
“Then, Excellency,” continued the lieutenant abruptly, as if the interruption had given him renewed courage, “then I would ask you to allow me to stay behind here.… Or, if this is not possible, to send me to the Italian front.…”
The general stared at him perplexedly and twirled his moustache nervously. Then he said:
“Very well. Although I am sorry to lose you. An excellent officer, brave … But as you are so keen on this … However, I think that here would be better than in Italy.…”
“I don’t mind going there, Excellency. I was at Doberdo for a few months, and on the whole I should prefer it.…”
Bologa’s face was now lit up with joy and hope. He could no longer control his emotion. He sighed deeply with relief.
“Very well, very well,” repeated the general thoughtfully. “Though I don’t understand why you should not want to come with us. My division has a holy mission in Ardeal! A great mission. Yes! The enemy has stolen our country’s soil. There the Wallachians …”
Suddenly General Karg stopped short as if a ray of light had entered his brain. He again took a few steps backwards and glued his gaze on Bologa, trying to read his innermost thoughts. For several seconds there reigned a grave-like silence in the room, while outside could be heard the grinding of cart wheels and the noisy chirping of the sparrows in a tree under the office window. Apostol unconsciously closed his eyes to protect himself from the general’s scrutiny.
“You are a Rumanian?” the latter jerked out abruptly, his voice almost hoarse.
“Yes, Excellency,” answered the lieutenant quickly.
“Rumanian!” repeated the general, surprised and irritated, in a tone as if expecting a denial.
“Rumanian!” repeated Bologa more firmly, drawing himself up and puffing out his chest slightly.
“Yes, very well, of course …” stammered Karg presently, suspicious and scrutinizing. “Yes, certainly.… But then your request surprises me … very much.… It would seem to me that you differentiate between the enemies of your country?”
Apostol Bologa met the flashing eyes of the general with a calmness which made him marvel at himself. He felt determined and unshaken, as he always did when violently attacked. Now he wished obstinately to convince the enemy, though he realized very well that his efforts would be fruitless. He found himself talking calmly, without the slightest trace of emotion or hesitation; he might have been arguing with a friendly comrade.
“Excellency, for twenty-seven months I have fought in such a way that I can look anyone in the face unashamed. I have never shirked my duty. My whole heart and soul was in my work. To-day, however, I find myself in a morally impossible situation.”
The general shuddered as if a sword had been thrust into his breast. His eyes flashed and glinted like steel. He rushed at Bologa with raised and bent arm, ready to knock him down, roaring:
“What is that? Morally impossible situation? What sort of talk is that? How dare you? I know nothing of such nonsense, which is intended purely and simply to conceal the cowardliness of men without patriotic feelings. I know nothing about it, do you understand? I don’t want to know anything about it!”
Apostol tried to protest, but the general cut him short, purple with fury.
“I don’t allow you to speak, do you understand? Each word of yours deserves a shot! The thoughts concealed behind your words are criminal! Do you understand? Criminal! Oh … oh …! So that’s what your bravery amounts to? Behold what sort of a person I’ve recommended for the Gold Medal! A fine thing! Gold Medal! Shots—not medals!”
He glared at him with dislike and contempt and then abruptly turned his back on him, smothering an oath between his teeth and tugging at his moustache with his right hand, a small, plump hand, laden with rings, like the hand of a woman.
Bologa remained serene, unmoved, persisting in the idea that he must convince him. The fury of the general did him good and gave him courage. When he thought that the latter had calmed down a little, he said again, in the same clear voice:
“I asked a favour of your Excellency in the belief that you would kindly try to understand my spiritual state. That is why I have taken the liberty of speaking to you as man to man.”
The general, who had paused by the window, cursing and muttering, turned sharply on the lieutenant and answered with more restraint:
“I do not listen to such requests, nor do I hold conversation with such people! Do you understand ? As it is, I have talked too much with you! You ingrate!”
He did not hold out his hand this time, but looked him up and down with disgust, and then sat down at the table and began turning over some of the papers on it. Bologa saluted and went out quietly, confidently, as if after an intensely pleasant interview. The general stared after him, shook his head, surveyed attentively the closed door, and suddenly, again filled with rage, banged his fist violently on the spread-out map. Just then the adjutant sidled into the office, alarmed and filled with curiosity.
“Note down Lieutenant Bologa,” mumbled General Karg, addressing the amazed adjutant. “He is dangerous and … It wouldn’t surprise me to hear some fine day that he had deserted to the enemy. What men! What an army!”
The adjutant bowed, put some documents on the table and made haste to disappear on tiptoe, without noise, for fear the general should unload his fury on his own head.
In the middle of the courtyard Apostol Bologa gazed around him as if this were the first time he had been there in his life. The enclosure was large, with a wooden paling on the street side. The new plank door which had been let into it was now open. There were a few carts in a file at the back, near the stables, and the motorcar in which he had come stood there abandoned, its doors gaping. The stone house, roofed with old tiles and as immense as a barracks, was pitted with shrapnel dating from the period when the war had passed over the village and when a shell had actually exploded in the little front garden, tearing from its roots the twin of the tree in which a pair of noisy sparrows were now quarrelling. The sky had cleared and filled the atmosphere with a blue more tender than usual. The sun smiled in the west, yellow and frail as the face of a gay old man, and the light of it kissed the earth like a beneficent dew, diffusing joy and awakening hope everywhere.
Apostol stood a while with his eyes turned towards the sun, drinking in thirstily the smiling light. He felt relieved, as if he had just eased by a spell of passionate weeping a long-standing ache. His thoughts no longer oppressed him but bent docilely to his will, and had he wished he could have strung them nicely, like glass beads, on a thread.
He left the courtyard. In the street, opposite the mess-room, he saw a lorry loaded with equipment, ready to leave for the front. He jumped on. He wanted to get back as soon as possible to his battery. He was in a hurry.…
X
He reached the division in the evening and went to report that he was back. He found Klapka alone in the large dug-out. He was writing home. The captain gave him a long look, then shook both his hands and said warmly:
“Now I can congratulate you too, old fellow, with my whole heart!”
“It’s true, you are the only one who has not congratulated me so far,” answered Bologa with a bitter smile. “For my bravery!”
“For your bravery in telling the general what you told him!” interrupted Klapka with a shudder.
“What! You’ve been told the news already?” Apostol asked wonderingly.
“Officially?”
“Your bearing, your pride, your calm told me!” exclaimed the captain with a curious exultance. “There is no need for you to tell me what has happened! Your eyes tell me everything, everything! Oh, if only I could be a man like you! If we were all like that in one hour the chains would be broken!”
As with all cowards, the courage and energy of others excited Klapka. He asked Bologa to give him an account from beginning to end of the scene with the general, interrupting him often with boisterous applause. Then, when Apostol had finished, he asked him with excited curiosity:
“Well, and now what do you think of doing?”
Bologa’s eyes gleamed bright. He did not answer immediately, and then said quietly, as if he were merely mentioning an everyday occurrence:
“Now?—To-night I am deserting to the Russians!”
Klapka, not expecting such an answer, gaped at him for a minute, then he looked round, terrified lest someone had heard the lieutenant’s words and so might possibly get him into trouble for not reporting what he knew to the authorities.
“Have you gone mad, man?” he whispered, his voice shaking with fear. “Don’t say such childish things or we shall both find ourselves hanging from some tree like two rotten stumps!”
Apostol Bologa smiled, his white teeth glinting between his thin lips.
“A month ago, nay, even three days ago, I wouldn’t have dared to think of desertion. I would have been the first to look down on myself with contempt. Because until to-day I was a different person. When I look back, it seems to me as if I had carried in me the life of a stranger. I have always imagined the soul as a treasure-house with many chambers, some full of treasures, others empty. Many men—most, in fact—live all their life in the little empty chambers, which are always open, because the others are locked with great padlocks and the keys thereof are hidden in the fire of suffering. The emptiness and darkness scared me. That was why I strove to find the keys of my treasure-house. But even treasures are deceptive. As soon as you have discovered one you begin to crave for the ones that are hidden away more deeply. It may be that death alone can reveal to your eyes the most valuable one, nevertheless you hanker after it with a miser’s greed. As likely as not that longing will prove empty. But without it life would be valueless and would not differ in the very slightest from the life of an insect. To-day I feel that I have discovered a new treasure, and that I must protect it no matter what sacrifice it entails!”
“What treasures? What treasures?” interrupted Klapka impatiently. “This is just hysterical nonsense, friend! Words, Bologa, and neurotic dreams! What is real is the war with death on its arm! Put away these figments of the brain, my dear fellow; they only complicate and embitter life, which is already sufficiently damnable!”
“Sir, if you are really my friend, I beg you do not give me another word of advice!” said Apostol nervily; then he added more quietly: “Please don’t! Do you think I found it easy to shed my past like a dirty garment and to stand naked, exposed to the storm? Do you think that I did not try to make myself believe that I was dressed, even after I had felt the lashing of the cold wind and rain? Now no one in the world can make me throw away my new and warm garments and make me go back to shiver in my discarded rags. You see, don’t you? … Please … and … Perhaps the exchanging of troops may begin tomorrow night, which means there is no more time to be lost. I would run the risk of being compelled to accompany you to Ardeal! And that is impossible!”
“I hear what you say and yet I cannot believe that you are speaking seriously,” murmured Klapka, now uneasy. “It is obvious that you are either out of your mind or else that you are anxious to die by the halter. But don’t you understand, man, that especially after your interview with the general you’ll be shadowed at every step, and that you’ll be caught in the very act of …”
“That is just why I must go to-night!” put in Bologa firmly.
“Then the halter is calling you,” whispered the captain desperately, fingering his throat as if he were trying to put away an imaginary rope. Then, after a pause, he added with a shudder of fear: “In any case, I don’t wish to know anything about it, nothing at all. I wash my hands of it.”
Apostol Bologa rose quietly and made for the entrance. Klapka barred the way and said commandingly:
“You are to remain here! I’ll prevent you! I am your superior officer and I’ll stop you by force!”
“Perhaps you’d like to denounce me?” Bologa asked bitterly, looking hard at him. “Mind you, I’ll shoot myself if …”
Filled with powerless fury, Klapka began to pummel his own head with his fists, stuttering: “He is mad! He has gone mad! What am I to do with the madman? O Lord, O Lord, what shall I do?”
Apostol drew nearer to him and said, much moved:
“Perhaps I do not even deserve that you should worry over me, sir. I am ungrateful not to listen to you, but now say good-bye to me and embrace me!”
The captain, who had abruptly quietened down, looked long at him, his fat face distorted with grief. Then he kissed him on both cheeks, sobbing aloud and mumbling fearfully, yet with rapturous emotion:
“Good-bye, dear friend, good-bye!” And he embraced him again until, having calmed his emotion somewhat, he managed to say pleadingly:
“Perhaps you’ll still change your mind? Promise me at least to think it over again; I beg you to, I implore you! It would be terrible for you to fall into their hands … to … to … ghastly!”
“Good-bye!” answered Bologa, as if he had not heard what he said, going out quickly.
Outside it was darkening. In the west the trail of the setting sun still brightened the pale sky. Bologa set off rapidly towards his battery, when all at once he heard the voice of Klapka, sharp and angry:
“Telephone operator! Telephone operator! Where is the telephone operator!”
Bologa understood and smiled. The captain wished to protect himself in case of any suspicion of complicity.
XI
The battlefield, deserted and silent, wavered in the evening mist. The steppe stretched limitless, flat as a sheet of packing-paper, dotted with stumps of trees set wide apart, leafless and mutilated by shells. The positions stood out like sombre lines, crooked and capricious, without beginning or end.
Close to the battery Bologa paused, seeking in the zigzag of trenches the foremost observation post where he had been the night before. When he believed he had found it, his thoughts wandered farther; they slipped under the barbed wire, along the five hundred and eighty-three metres to the border of the Russian trenches, where they remained without guide.
“A new life begins there, and a new world,” he said to himself with clutching neart.
In the dug-out he found waiting for him the second-lieutenant who had taken his place and who was eager to know what had happened to him and how the general had congratulated him. To escape his questions Bologa, with assumed gaiety, pitched him a tale and quickly changed the conversation. He said, uneasily, that they would have to keep their eyes open so as not to be caught by a sudden attack in view of the change of division. The second-lieutenant, to show that he was well up in strategical previsions, declared gravely that, as a matter of fact, he quite expected a surprise attack if the enemy had got wind of the intended change. In the end it was arranged that the second-lieutenant should keep a look-out at the chief observation post until two o’clock, when Bologa would go to relieve him.
Left alone, Bologa sat down to write a few words to his mother and to Marta, to let them know somehow, by covert words, that he could no longer stay here and that soon he would send them better news. But before he had put down a single syllable on the paper he thought better of it—any knowledge they had might be the cause of unpleasantness for them. Better they should know nothing. So instead of writing he fell to studying the map of the front with feverish attention, to tracing lines with his finger in order to discover a short, safe road. Petre found him thus occupied when he brought him
his supper.
“Do you know, I am so hungry to-night that I could almost eat you!” Bologa cried laughingly, and thought to himself he must, in truth, make a good meal, because who knew what awaited him over there.
Immediately after he had eaten he lay down to rest, after having ordered Petre to awaken him without fail at one o’clock in the morning. He wanted to get a few hours’ rest because who knew when and where he would get his next rest?
Petre awoke him at the fixed time, and Apostol arose, spry and cheerful. In a few minutes he was ready to start. He looked round the silent dug-out, wondering which of his belongings he should take with him. He hesitated a little, and finally took nothing. The only thing he might need was his revolver, to save him from the Forest of the Hanged. As he went towards the exit he heard Petre’s usual good-bye: “May the Lord help you, sir!” He half thought of shaking hands with him, but decided to go on without stopping or answering.
The night felt damp. There was promise of rain and wind in the air. Bologa was glad, and turned a friendly eye on the cloudy sky. If it rained, he thought, it would, of course, be all the better.
Passing near Captain Cervenco’s dug-out and having another half-hour to spare, he stepped in to ask him how he was getting on. The captain was reading the Bible with tears streaming from his eyes as if he were trying to live down a great sorrow.
“What is it? What has happened?” Apostol asked in amazement. “What are you grieving for? Are you in trouble? Have you had bad news from home?”
“I am a tree without roots,” Cervenco said bitterly, with a despairing look. “Bologa, do you hear, to-night the Russians will attack us!”
Bologa turned pale as if he had received a slap in the face. A little while ago he, too, had talked of a possible attack, but merely to avoid embarrassing questions and to have a pretext for going to the observation post. An attack would upset all his plans.
“Impossible.… We’ve had no information,” he mumbled confusedly. “Whyever should they especially pitch on to-night?”
Forest of the Hanged Page 9
