Forest of the Hanged

  But Apostol’s peace of mind did not last long. That night he had retired to his room immediately after supper in order to avoid any further discussions with Doamna Bologa, and as soon as he was alone he was beset by all kinds of doubts. He now became conscious that all day long his most secret thoughts had wandered far away, over there, as if in search of support. He wondered whether, if Ilona had not been in his heart, he would have been in so great a hurry to return Marta her ring. He had not been indignant, because Marta had come accompanied by a strange man, but because she had come with a Hungarian and had spoken Hungarian. So it was not because he was jealous that he had given her up, but because he loved the other one. If this were so his indignation against the Hungarian and the Hungarian language had been a farce. What was more, the farce had begun before that—it had begun when he had not regretted in the least that his illness had for the second time prevented him from going over to the Rumanians. He had felt far more upset at leaving there to come home, as if the axis of his life had been left behind there, in Lunca. And even the future no longer interested him, except vaguely. Although in a month’s time he would have to go back there to the Rumanian front, he no longer seemed to be horrified at the idea, as if he no longer cared. Did this mean, then, that love was the cause of all the agitations and joys of mankind? And yet the love for woman could not satisfy the soul; it was only transitory and spasmodic. Not so long since he had believed that all heaven and earth and all the secrets of the universe were hidden in a glance of Marta’s. For love of her he would have committed any folly, made any sacrifice. He would have died happy if she had asked him to, and it had been the wish in her eyes that had been the deciding factor, in overcoming his reluctance to joining the war. His love for her was still a living thing when the eyes of the man hanged in Zirin—in whose death he had had a hand by uttering that very decided “Yes”—had bored through into his heart, and yet it had not been able to soothe his agitations until he had discovered a new belief.

  “The soul needs constant food,” Apostol said to himself, walking up and down his bedroom, still dressed, not daring to go to bed for fear of his thoughts. “But it is vain to seek that food outside in the world of the senses. Only the heart can find it, either in some secret place of its own or else in some new world beyond the reach of mortal eyes and ears.”

  Doubts gnawed at his brain all night. When he put out the lamp, the dawn was breaking between the white curtains. He again felt guilty with regard to Marta and fell asleep planning how to repair the wrong he had done her.

  But the scandalmongering of the little town made him change his mind. It began the very next day. At each meal Doamna Bologa served up all the things she had heard: that So-and-so had said that and that, that everybody blamed him, and rightly, she was bound to say, for a man had no business to make a fool of a poor, silly little girl; that the Hungarian lieutenant intended to demand an explanation.… Apostol listened to all this news quietly, and even smilingly, appearing indifferent and firm. But in his soul he revolted. How dared all these strangers mix themselves in a business which concerned only the two of them, Marta and him?

  A few days later, Doamna Bologa sat down to dinner with eyes red with weeping and looking so anxious that Apostol felt upset, and, feeling instinctively that it meant something serious, he omitted to ask her why she had been crying, so that Doamna Bologa was compelled to tell him unasked that she had heard from several sources that danger threatened him, that the whole of Parva was saying that he had shamed Marta simply because she had spoken Hungarian, and that such a thing was bound to have serious consequences—the Lord alone knew how serious! Merely from imagining the consequences, Doamna Bologa burst into loud weeping. To quieten her, Apostol said:

  “Do you mean to say, mother, that you think I haven’t the right to ask my fiancé to speak Rumanian with me? You really work yourself up for nothing! With regard to my heart and my thoughts, I am, and mean to remain, my own master as long as I live!”

  Doamna Bologa, without even wiping away her tears, answered:

  “My goodness, how can you talk like that, boy! Don’t forget that there is a war on and that no one is master of anything any longer. Death and fear are masters to-day over all men, my darling. You are cleverer than I and must understand this better. Now is not the time to show our hearts to our enemies or we shall fare like the poor protopop. For Palagiesu is always on the look-out to do someone an ill turn or get people into trouble. You, like your father—may his sins be forgiven him—always look straight ahead, but in war-time people must just get along as best they can. Until the danger is past, we must howl with the wolves, otherwise they’ll eat us. Everybody does this, and we must do as others do, my darling. Don’t get angry because I teach you and advise you, for I am your mother, and only my heart knows what it suffers from anxiety on your account. All the men say that what you are doing is not right because you are an officer, and it is possible you may have great unpleasantness on account of such thoughtless daring. Even the manager of the Parvana, and he has always been a staunch Rumanian, told me to my face to tell you to keep quiet. He was a good friend of your poor father, but to-day he just looks to his bank and keeps mum, just as all the others do, here and everywhere else.”

  Listening to his mother’s words, Apostol’s thoughts travelled back over the ten days he had now spent at home, discovering suddenly many things that he had passed over without noticing. He had walked about the town every day for an hour or two, and he had met almost everyone he knew. All had seemed to him changed and frightened, although he had merely exchanged banalities with them. Now he understood the constraint and panic in their manner, now he realized that they had all fought shy of him because he had objected to Marta speaking Hungarian. He looked down at his empty plate as if he could not endure his mother’s gaze. From that moment all her words fixed themselves in his heart like thorns and stayed there embedded in bitter anguish. Then when his mother’s voice fell silent, he whispered, so low that it seemed as if he were afraid of awakening someone:

  “I’m sorry, mother, that I came home at all!”

  That whisper fell on Doamna Bologa like a blow from a cudgel. For a long while now, even going back to the time when Apostol, instead of going in for the Church, had gone to Budapest, she had suspected that the light of her eyes, the prop of her old age, no longer loved her as he had once done. He seemed cold to her, reserved, and his unbelief especially had frightened her. And now he had actually told her that he was sorry that he had come home, so estranged had he become! She burst into such endless sobs that Apostol only succeeded with the greatest difficulty in quietening her.

  Nevertheless, after this Apostol felt a stranger in Parva. He sat whole hours on the cerdac in the sun, drinking in the blue ether in which his thoughts wandered. Sometimes his eyes tried to rest by gazing at the cross on the church-tower, made dazzling by the sun’s rays. But immediately his soul felt caught in the grip of a strange remorse, and longing only for peace, he hastened to turn his gaze away, panic-stricken. It lingered longer round the stone monument on his father’s grave. He knew the inscription off by heart, and yet every time he looked at it he tried to spell it out, for while he did this he always remembered the straight, unswerving path that the older man had followed. He also had longed passionately to follow a straight path. But in vain. Between his heart and his mind there was a wall against which all his efforts broke helplessly. When he thought he had knocked it down, he discovered with anguish that it was still there, no matter how hard he tried to deceive himself.

  Then one afternoon, just as he was about to settle down on the balcony, in walked Palagiesu, whom he had met only once, on the first day of his return, and with whom he had barely exchanged a few words in the marketplace. A grey film had grown over their pre-war friendship. As a matter of fact, since he had become a notary, Palagiesu had by degrees taken up a challenging attitude even towards the older inhabitants of the place. Son of a peasant in Nasaud, poor and humble wh
ile at school, he had kotowed and cringed until he had succeeded in his aim and had become the right hand of the Hungarian szolgabiro,1 who at the outbreak of war had used his influence to keep him there, although the notary was perfectly fit, except that when he walked he turned his feet out too much and threw out his legs from the knees downwards, like a horse on parade. His heavily jawed face seemed to glory in the huge moustache which hid a very large mouth with loose lips and wide teeth showing gaps between them. His long, black hair, always uncombed, hung over his deeply furrowed forehead and almost covered his ears. The most striking thing about him was his amazing self-confidence.

  For a fortnight Palagiesu had postponed the interview with Bologa. He would have preferred to meet him somewhere accidentally to acquit himself of the task he had undertaken at the suggestion of the szolgabiro. Although he was some three years older than Bologa, he still felt for him an instinctive respect which dated from the time when they had discussed philosophical problems together, which he, poor attorney’s clerk, did not understand any too well and which therefore impressed him deeply.

  “As you don’t seem to worry any longer about your friends, you see, the friends come to you!” said Palagiesu, entering the room with a smile that laid bare his gums.

  Apostol looked at him open-mouthed. The visit was so unexpected that it deprived him of his composure and he forgot to ask Palagiesu to take a seat. The notary, however, took hold of both his hands, shook them heartily, and then sat down, unbidden, quite as if he were at home.

  “How … What brings you to our house?” stammered Apostol, still standing and continuing to look at him in surprise.

  “Does it seem so strange to you that the friend of your childhood and boyhood should call on you?” asked Palagiesu, with a cunning look which lit in Apostol’s heart a spark of hate. “My word! But you have changed a mighty lot, brother. In the last three years you have changed so much that I can hardly recognize you!”

  The notary’s self-confidence transformed Apostol’s surprise into a sharp impatience.

  “What is it you want, Alexandru? Out with it, what do you want?” he burst out, his eyes glassy.

  “I?” answered Palagiesu, running his hand through his hair and pushing it off his forehead. “What do I want? Nothing—well, practically nothing! Firstly, I want to see you, and, secondly, to have a chat with you! I must say I expected a better reception!”

  “Forgive me, Alexandru, please!” murmured Bologa, suddenly softened. “If you only knew the torments which I have gone through since I have been home!”

  “Whose fault is it, Apostol?” asked the notary in a different voice. “Do you think I don’t know? I? Do you think the slightest thing takes place here without my knowledge? That is why you must make amends, Apostol! Without doubt you must make amends in the interest of all.”

  The change of tone and the notary’s words again confused Bologa, who stopped expectantly to listen.

  “By my devotion, by my work, I have created here, in this town, an atmosphere of patriotism which is absolutely necessary, both in time of war and in peace-time,” continued Palagiesu, staring at him scrutinizingly as if he challenged him to contradict what he was saying. “Then you fall into our midst like a lump of rock into a peaceful lake and disturb us. You’ve given them an excuse for arguing, for approving and disapproving—in short, for disorder, and again disorder. An officer coming from the front cannot take up the attitude you have without demoralizing some and egging on others—you understand, don’t you, what this means? Not the things you say, but the things you leave unsaid are the harmful and mischievous ones!”

  “Is that what you said when you caused Protopop Groza to be interned?” broke in Apostol, speaking with barely moving lips and without unclenching his teeth.

  “The punishing of crime has no need of justification, because punishment is the natural consequence of crime,” retorted the lawyer more sharply. “In any case, I never justify my actions, because before I act I always consider carefully. I, for instance, would never break my engagement with a girl simply because she talked Hungarian, Apostol!”

  “Really, you wouldn’t?” quoth Bologa with white lips and feverish eyes.

  “Really, I wouldn’t!” repeated Palagiesu energetically, rising to his feet in order to dominate him more completely. “That is why it is your duty to repair what you have spoilt through your thoughtlessness. We are friends, and I advise you as a friend to …”

  The notary had walked round his chair and was resting his right hand on the back of it. His hair had again fallen over his forehead and a lock hung over his left eyebrow, ready to cover up his eye at any moment. When he talked the skin on his jaws stretched and the bristles of two days’ growth rose and fell. Apostol Bologa, however, could only see his mouth, and especially his lower lip, slightly swollen so that its looseness was not so apparent. The notary’s voice sounded triumphant and self-confident and seemed to distribute in turns slaps, reprimands, and praise.

  Apostol, his face as pale as a corpse and his eyes like pin-points, skirted the table and approached Palagiesu. He was biting his lips and muttering in a choked voice as if he were trying to keep in his hot breath:

  “You … you …”

  He stopped within two steps of the notary and then, with lightning speed, he shot out his fist and caught him a terrific blow on the mouth, whispering like one demented:

  “You … you … you scoundrel, scoundrel …”

  The notary swayed as if struck by a thunderbolt. The blow was so unexpected that it dazed him completely. Blood ran down his chin from the broken lip. For a second he stood gaping at Bologa with his mouth open.

  “Get out, scoundrel, get out!” panted Bologa, looking round in search of something.

  The hollow voice roused Palagiesu from his dazed condition and made him understand what Bologa was searching for. On a small table he saw a revolver from which dangled a yellow strap. He turned quickly, opened the door and went out, muttering unconsciously:

  “All right, all right, all right ‥”

  In the hall he took his hat off the peg and saw Rodovica cowering there. The door behind him was banged to with such violence that the walls of the house shook.

  1 Sheriff.

  X

  Doamna Bologa, who had been out, learnt towards evening from Rodovica that something had happened and that the notary had left the house with blood running down his chin. Although she was eaten up with curiosity, she did not dare to question Apostol, but nursed her anxiety in secret, and she and the maid shed many secret tears, convinced that “the thick-lipped one”—for so had Palagiesu been nicknamed long ago—would not rest until he had harmed the young master. Apostol had gone out for a walk, but had avoided the market-place and had walked right up to the far end of the town. He came back in time for supper, feeling cheerful, and joked with Rodovica, reminding her of the fight they had once had when they were children on the banks of the Someş. The girl lost her head, laughed, tried to move more quickly and dropped the dirty plates on the floor near Doamna Bologa, smashing them to smithereens. Not to spoil Apostol’s good humour, the mistress controlled herself and held back the scolding words which hovered on her lips, hoping secretly that Apostol would tell her all about his interview with the notary. Apostol was very gentle to her all the evening and stayed up gossiping till late, but he talked only of the past, dwelling especially on the “vision” he had had in the church, to his mother’s great joy. She told him all over again all the details of that “divine miracle”, finding also the opportunity of saying casually that “the more people learnt, the farther away from God they seemed to go”, to which Apostol retorted jokingly:

  “But, mother dear, God also goes out of fashion, like everything else!”

  The words so horrified Doamna Bologa that she crossed herself three times before answering gravely, in a voice trembling with wounded religious fervour:

  “God is ever new in the soul of man, my darling. Only when one has
lost the true faith can one talk like that of things sacred. But to lose God means to lose the peace of one’s soul, and then the soul tortures itself and perishes without prop in the vicissitudes of life—it gropes about in the dark exactly like a small child that would go out alone into the great world at dead of night.”

  Even as Apostol had uttered his joke he realized that it would hurt his mother’s feelings and he had regretted it, but it was too late, the words had been uttered. Her answer sounded to him like a smothered voice from his own soul and terrified him. He quickly caught hold of her hand across the table, caressed and kissed it, murmuring shamefacedly:

  “Forgive me!”

  Doamna Bologa, surprised at his repentance, also felt abashed, stammered a few indistinct words until she had regained her composure, and then went on telling stories of his childhood. But the spell was broken; she could not re-establish contact and avoided his questioning eyes, which agitated her and seemed to reproach her. At last she broke off in the middle of a sentence and said abruptly, very tenderly, with a strange smile in her soft eyes:

  “That is why you are restless and wear yourself out, my darling, that is the reason.”

  He, who seemed to have been waiting for these words, as if he had known what they would be, answered with great relief in his voice, smiling also:

  “When I think how much I have suffered and endured in my short life, it seems to me that I have lived long enough and that to-morrow I could die without a qualm! Some people live years and years and yet when they close their eyes they can say that they have not lived at all, for they have been mere birds of passage through life or lookers-on who did not understand the meaning of life. On the other hand, Fate drives others into the most terrible maelstroms and forces them to endure all the tortures of life, every one of them, and they never find true rest and peace down here.”