VI

His heart throbbed within him and his brain seethed. He stood still a minute, staring after Klapka, then he threw himself into the chair facing the map, clinging to the compass as if his salvation depended on it. But even his fingers obeyed him no longer. Within his soul and all around him there was an anguish in which his whole life was being engulfed.

He rested his head on his hands and stared at the lines, dots and angles marked on the map. They seemed to him cabalistic signs, and he wondered how he had managed to understand them up till to-day. And simultaneously a question sprang up in his mind: what was he doing here? Then round this question answers grouped themselves, explanations, more questions and more answers, which in proportion as they became more numerous became more unsatisfactory because none of them opened out a way to salvation.

“How ridiculous I was with my conception of life!” he thought all at once. “How was it that I did not realize that a stupid formula could never cope with life.”

Now, looking back, it seemed to him that all his life had been as empty as a paper bag. He was ashamed of his past way of living, and he recalled with sad regret the times when Life had tried to draw him into her current and he had stupidly resisted, anxiously stifling his instinctive inclinations. Even his present struggles with their desperate attempts to overcome his heart’s bidding …

“Sir, I have brought your dinner,” said the orderly suddenly, speaking from behind Bologa’s chair, where he had halted with his tray. Apostol, hearing the Rumanian tongue, sprang to his feet as if he had received a heavy blow on the head.

“All right, all right, Petre,” he stuttered, startled, shaking on his feet, and he threw himself on his bed so that the orderly should not notice his perturbation.

The orderly set the table, watching Bologa out of the comer of his eye. He saw that he was depressed and, wishing to sympathize with him, he asked humbly:

“Have you had bad news from home, sir?”

“What news, you ass?” vociferated Bologa furiously, sitting up. “What business is it of yours? You think of nothing but home, you damned fool—home!”

The soldier stiffened where he stood, facing the lieutenant red with fury. He was a man of over thirty, tall, broad- shouldered, with hands like spades, bony cheeks, and wonderfully gentle eyes in which burnt piety and resignation. Apostol had had him as orderly for about seven months, and Petre looked after him with a canine devotion, happy that Apostol had taken him from the firing line. Besides, he had been specially recommended in a letter from Doamna Bologa, for he also came from Parva, had known the “young gentleman” in his cradle, and had five children waiting for him at home.

Meeting the orderly’s eyes, the lieutenant’s fury melted in a wave of shame. He understood that it had been a sudden hearing of Rumanian which had driven him beside himself because it had come as a rebuke to his reproach-laden thoughts. He was sorry that he had lost his temper, and this regret gave him a feeling of self-satisfaction and nobility. He got up, took three steps towards the entrance of the dug-out, turned back, and said sadly and frankly, as if he were speaking to an old friend:

“I am depressed, Petre, and I don’t know what is the matter with me.… O God, this war!”

He shivered with apprehension. It was the first time he had ever complained of the war. Until now even the sufferings of war had seemed natural to him, and he had looked upon those who complained as cowards.

The soldier, calm with the sombre light of resignation in his eyes, answered gravely:

“God’s punishment, sir, for the sins of men.”

“But what if it be not the sinners but the sinned against who suffer the punishment?” persisted Bologa.

“God holds the scales evenly,” answered Petre with profound faith. “Death is no punishment. Life is a punishment. And it is only by means of the body’s pain and anguish that the soul’s salvation is attained.”

Apostol sat down to eat. He had long been aware of his orderly’s deep faith and he had heard him utter these very words dozens of times before. Petre, who even at home was famed for his piety, had, as a result of war conditions, become a religious fatalist. Besides, as he was the only Rumanian in the regiment, he was the only one with whom Bologa spoke his native tongue. The soldier went on babbling about suffering and about God, and Bologa, while he ate, listened to him and thought to himself that never before had he listened to the fellow with so much affection. Presently he interrupted him and turned the conversation to Parva and to the folk at home. Petre sighed and filled the dug-out with all sorts of remembrances which moved them both equally. Apostol felt his heart swell, felt its passionate throbbing, and felt the throbbing turn into a song of victory. An immense tenderness filled his soul. Greatly moved, he turned his eyes on Petre, seeing embodied in him all Parva and all those who spoke the Rumanian tongue. He felt inclined to embrace him and to kneel at his feet and ask his pardon. Finally, unable to control himself any longer, he breathed happily:

“Petre, Petre, my brother, my hope.…”

The soldier was silent for a while, perplexed. Then he shook his head and said calmly and resignedly:

“O Lord, help us …