Apostol swayed as if he had received a slap on the face. An ungovernable anger sent the blood into his cheeks and then died away in a wave of disgust. His thin lips trembled as he answered:
“Hatred blinds you, Gross, and gives you these delusions!”
“Now you hate me, Bologa,” replied the lieutenant with a satisfied smile. “But if you were sincere with yourself it would be meet for you to thank me for understanding your great secret. I don’t know if others will be as understanding as I am, Bologa! I don’t get angry that you speak to me here of Love and God and that at home you egg on the poor wretches there to revolt—not against war itself, but against the Hungarians. At most I shall be sorry for you when the general …”
“Did the general tell you that I had … ?” asked Apostol incredulously.
“The general has no conversation with me except with regard to the service. But he did say this one day at mess to the adjutant—your friend …”
“The adjutant told me this morning on the telephone that he knew nothing!” objected Bologa rather anxiously.
Gross shrugged contemptuously, turning his back on Bologa, who, more and more perturbed, would have liked details but did not dare to ask him for them. After a while the sapper faced him again and went on quietly, stroking his clipped goatee:
“Besides, my dear fellow, I should insult you if I were to take your religious metamorphosis seriously, because I consider real believers either fools or charlatans! As you are neither a fool nor a charlatan, I should have to take it that you are crazy, like Cervenco. And, as a matter of fact, Cervenco, through this love for love’s sake, is nearer to me than any of the others. He loves mankind so much that in reality he hates everybody, convinced that he, only, is a true man. I saw him yesterday and I was touched. He is here in hospital with a bullet in his lungs. You should see with what passion he suffers! As if he were the saviour who wished to redeem the sins of all mankind for a second time. And Doctor Meyer believes that in ten days at most the poor saviour must die!”
Apostol Bologa felt very tired all at once. He made no answer and, rising, looked about him as if he did not see Gross at all, and wondered how he had come to be there. Then he said low, in a whisper, as if to himself:
“The captain is evidently not coming yet. I can wait no longer—I must go.”
He walked to the open door. On the threshold he remembered Gross, who was staring after him disdainfully. He turned back, held out his hand without a word, and went out into the spring sunshine. From behind came the mocking voice of the other man:
“Good luck, Bologa, and a pleasant journey!”
“Why is he wishing me a pleasant journey?” Bologa asked himself while he was threading his way in and out among the railway trucks in the station, as if Gross’s words had only just penetrated to his brain. And without attempting to find an answer to this question, a new question flashed into his mind: “Suppose he is right?”
Now he knew that this question in another form, and more especially that which lay behind it, had been lurking in his mind yesterday, when he had first caught sight of Ilona waiting for him at the station. His soul swayed as if driven by contrary winds, and more doubts and yet more surged and battled in his mind. He came out into the station lane and suddenly found himself face to face with Ilona. The moment his eyes rested on her all his thoughts were scattered as if driven away by an irresistible force and there was only gladness left in his heart.
“Where are you going to along here, Ilona?” he asked tenderly, as if he wished to pour out his whole soul in words which otherwise meant nothing. “Where have you been hiding that I haven’t had a glimpse of you since last night?”
“I am afraid of you,” murmured the girl, lowering her eyes and avoiding him.
“Artful one! Artful one!” reproved Apostol, delighted at her answer. “However, I did see you a little while ago, through the office window. You were coming back from somewhere and you were angry and it made you look very pretty.”
Ilona had gone past him without saying another word, and accelerating her pace, was soon out of sight. Bologa stood still and watched her go with flaming eyes. He was just about to continue his way when from the same bend round which Ilona had disappeared a great wagon, heavily laden with ammunition cases, lumbered into sight. Sitting next to the driver Apostol recognized Lieutenant Varga. When the wagon had caught him up Varga stopped it, but did not get down. They exchanged a few words and questions, scrutinizing one another curiously the while. Finally, Varga said jestingly but nevertheless with a searching look:
“I have been waiting for you, Bologa, to arrest you! But obviously you’ve changed your mind?”
Apostol felt the other’s eyes bore into his heart. He smiled uneasily and answered in a similar jesting tone, but unable to conceal a slight trembling of the lips:
“Oh! So you haven’t forgotten that conversation? Well, but do you think that it’s too late now?”
“I don’t know. That’s for you to know!” answered Varga, immediately becoming serious.
“Is that so? But hang it all, old chap, the front is large, why should I just choose your way?” continued Bologa with the same set smile.
“Of course, undoubtedly.… Still, I expected you. I don’t quite know why.… I just thought you would …” averred the Hussar lieutenant with a strange flicker in his eyes. “All right, let them go!” he added, turning to the driver. Then, holding out his hand to Bologa, he said: “Au revoir! I’ll go on waiting for you, Bologa; you may be sure I’ll be waiting for you.”
The wagon started off with a grinding noise in which Varga’s last words were swallowed up. Apostol Bologa followed in the wake of the wagon, the set smile still on his face as if there was still something he wanted to say to the hussar.
When he reached the hospital he felt he must see Cervenco, that Cervenco was the only one who could divulge to him the secret of real peace and give him a remedy against all the tortures of the soul. The improvised hospital in the school building had two wards with about thirty beds. In a corner of the ward facing the street lay Captain Cervenco.
A boy doctor with ashen cheeks explained to Bologa, before taking him to Cervenco, that the latter had been there a fortnight with a ricochetted bullet in the chest. The bullet had broken two ribs, and losing its velocity had become lodged in the left lung, near the heart, so that it was impossible for them to reach it.
“The patient finds it terribly painful, and unless some unexpected happy change takes place it will almost certainly provoke a fatal haemorrhage. Of course we hope … with the help of God … but you understand, the sick man must be treated with great gentleness, and especially is he forbidden to speak. He suffers intense pain and …”
Apostol Bologa approached Cervenco’s bed on tiptoe. The captain, very pale, lay on his back with his eyes fixed on the raftered ceiling. His cheeks were dry, the shiny skin, stretched tight on the bones, was so white that the brown beard resting on the stone-coloured coverlet seemed black. In his eyes burnt a light with flickers of pain, exaltation, and humility which seemed like secre breathings of his soul.
Bologa stopped about three paces from the bed, but the sick man did not turn his gaze towards him; he seemed to hear nothing that was going on in this world. Not until Bologa uttered his name did Cervenco’s eyes answer with a glimmer of joy.
Then Apostol sat down at the foot of the bed and made a few remarks that needed no reply. The sick man’s eyes and lips smiled at him so gently and with such kindness that Apostol’s heart began to tremble violently, fearfully, like a frightened bird experiencing at the same time a poignant remorse and a deep trust. Bologa sat there by the sick man for nearly an hour without uttering a word, drinking in the messages in his eyes more and more thirstily, as if he were trying to gather to himself a huge reserve of strength. He could not have explained what he felt during those moments, but his soul rejoiced, as if permeated by an infinite mystery.
When he got up to go he could see
Cervenco’s lips move soundlessly. Nevertheless, he understood what he had said, and in answer bent down and kissed him on both cheeks. The sick man’s eyes accompanied him to the door and beyond, through the walls of the ward right into the street.
1 Rumanians always cross themselves to indicate surprise at some unexpected event.
IV
Towards evening the gravedigger, Vidor, returned home from the town where he had been with his brother-in-law, and immediately wanted to know from Bologa what prospects of peace there were, for over here there were again rumours of pending battles.
“We shall be the last to hear of peace,” Apostol told him, “because peace is arranged by those who have not known war!”
That same evening on leaving the office and going into his room he found Ilona there, who, without shyness and almost defiantly, said to him:
“I have been waiting for you to tell you that I am not angry but I am ashamed.”
Apostol took her in his arms and she hid her face on his breast.
“Ilona, Ilona!” murmured Apostol, straining her madly to him and seeking her mouth.
But the girl freed herself abruptly and ran out as if she were afraid of something. A few minutes later Petre came in to light the lamp.
The next two days Apostol Bologa spent in a fearful state of agitation. His work in the office was torture to him. His mind was empty of any thoughts but those that referred to Ilona, and his heart and the whole of his being longed for her all the time with desperate passion. Every five minutes he crossed over into the other room, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of her. Several times he tried to think of Cervenco, of God, of the love of mankind. But he simply could not; besides, he felt that by trying to do this he was insulting her. He would have liked to speak of nothing but Ilona all day long, and it was all he could do to refrain from asking even the non-coms. in his office what they thought of the “landlord’s daughter”. With Petre, however, he could talk more freely. He pumped him as to what “the little lassie” was doing now, where did she sleep, how did she spend her time? The most commonplace details seemed to him enchanting. The gravedigger no longer bored him; he invited him to chat with him, and found special delight in hearing tales of “my lassie’s” childhood.
On the other hand, Ilona no longer hid herself, and saw to it that there should be plenty of work for her to do about the house so that he should constantly see her or come across her. However, she avoided entering the “officer’s room”, not so much because she was afraid of her father catching her there, but rather because she feared that if Apostol found her there again it might well happen that she would not be able to escape so easily from his arms. In these two days she only crossed his threshold twice, and both times Apostol felt that she was there, rushed across to his room and did not let her go until he had kissed her with such passion that she almost lost her head. In fact, the second time the orderly caught them.
On the third day, after sunset, the gravedigger told the lieutenant that he was going to Faget, where he would stay until Saturday afternoon, for he had a bit of maize ground over there and wanted to plough it with his brother-in-law’s plough and oxen, and so be done with the working of his land and feel easy over the Easter holidays. Bologa had forgotten that it was Holy Week, although his mother had reminded him of it even as his train was leaving. He asked the gravedigger one or two questions about the holidays, but all the time he was thinking that Ilona would be left at home alone. After the gravedigger had disappeared, Apostol, happy, set out to look for Ilona, but he could not find her. Then he waited for her. In vain. A tormenting sadness filled him at the sudden thought that the girl would probably sleep at some neighbour’s or some relative’s house. At supper, however, Petre told him casually that the “lassie” had locked herself in the little room at the back and she hadn’t even stirred from it, as if she were frozen stiff with fear of “the Lord knew what!”
The next day seemed to him all wrong. He didn’t catch a single glimpse of Ilona. In the evening he met her in the lobby. She was all dressed up. On her head she had tied a grass-green kerchief, her bosom was caught tightly in a red velvet bodice. There was no one in the office, but in the other room Petre was moving about, muttering prayers. Apostol, who was just coming out of the office, caught her trying to slip out quietly. He could have shouted with joy, and yet he seemed turned to stone and stood looking at her with eyes at once passionate and frightened. She also stopped, terrified, and swayed slightly as she stood. A few moments passed thus, the silence broken only by the orderly’s prayers issuing from the officer’s room.
Then Bologa whispered with a new light in his eyes:
“Why are you hiding from me, Ilona?”
The girl, as if she had not understood the question, turned white and answered immediately the other question which trembled in his eyes.
“Let me be.… I have to go to church.… It’s Good Friday.… And after tomorrow it’s Easter Sunday.”
Apostol saw only her lips, he did not hear her voice. Then his eyes fell on her breasts, which seemed ready to burst the velvet bodice which oppressed them. The blood flew to his face. He caught her hand and whispered with such ardour that the girl shielded her face:
“Ilona! I shall wait for you after church.”
Because she was silent Apostol went on still more passionately, looking down with burning eyes into her frightened ones:
“You must come, Ilona, you must.… After church without fail.… I shall wait for you.…”
Ilona shuddered and tried to pass. He barred the way, waiting for her answer before he allowed her to go. Their breasts touched and Apostol gathered her into his arms and kissed her long, as if he wished to absorb her whole soul. The girl, her arms limp, kept murmuring almost desperately:
“Lord … Lord … forgive me!”
“You must come, Ilona.… Ilona!” stammered Bologa as he freed her, and watched her leave the dark lobby with faltering footsteps.
Apostol Bologa remained a few minutes in the lobby, dazed, uncertain whether it had really been Ilona, or whether his hungry imagination had played him a trick. Her kiss burnt his lips, and so riotous was the happiness in his heart that he began to shout unknowingly, as if he were trying to shout down an inner voice that was perturbing him:
“Petre! Petre!”
The orderly appeared in the doorway thinking that something had happened. Apostol, recovering himself, looked gaily at Petre for a moment and then said—for something to say:
“What are you doing, Petre? Is supper ready? I am hungry, Petre, and I feel so happy, so …”
The soldier answered gravely, as if his master’s gaiety shocked him:
“I have prepared everything, sir, so that I can go to church afterwards.”
“All right, all right, Petre. Go wherever you like!” shouted Apostol, barely preventing himself from embracing him, so delirious was the joy in his heart.
He did not go into his room, but hurried out of doors, as if he wished to announce his happiness to the earth and sky. The coolness of the evening calmed him. He turned back. When he had reached the house again an idea occurred to him: Why shouldn’t he go to church also? He decided he would go, but the next minute he thought he had better not, as the crowd there would prevent him from finding Ilona; he might also miss her at the end of the service, and by the time he got back she might …
In the street one or two people passed from time to time on their way to church. In his room the lamp was lit, and through the window, the little white curtains of which were not drawn, he could see the bed with the bedclothes turned down.
“But suppose she doesn’t come?” whispered his mind suddenly. And immediately all the joy departed from him.
A cold shudder shook him. He entered the courtyard feeling miserable—a live coal in his heart. Petre had gone. He was all alone in the house. On the table a cold supper was laid out. He did not go near it. He took a book from the shelf above his bed and sat down with it to pass a
way the time and distract his thoughts. But the letters were all blurred, seemed to run away, and became all jumbled together. And his heart was full of obscure admonitions.
“If she doesn’t come it will mean that she doesn’t love me, and then …”
The last word remained suspended in his brain.… Then … then … He knew that this love drew him away from all his creeds and aspirations, and yet he felt that without it his heart would perish and life itself would lose its purpose and the world be turned into a wilderness. Not for one moment did he wonder where his love for Ilona would lead him, as he used to wonder about the future a little while ago, when he had loved Marta and he had thought she would be his wife. Now he could think of nothing but that he wanted Ilona with all his heart and soul. The fear that Ilona might not come penetrated right to the marrow of his bones. The book shook in his hands, and the light of the lamp began to get on his nerves. He threw down the volume on the little chest and started to walk backwards and forwards more and more rapidly, as if he wished to hasten the passage of time and bring nearer the decisive moment.
Forest of the Hanged Page 20
