III

In the afternoon Apostol Bologa went off to the General Ammunition Depot to have a talk with the commander, who lived beyond the railway station in a tumble-down hut so as to be near the depot, which had been excavated in the side of a hill. There he ran into Lieutenant Gross.

“What are you doing here, old fellow?” asked Apostol, crossing himself¹ and pressing his hand warmly.

“I have been working here with a small detachment for the last four days,” answered the sapper, also delighted to meet him.

The commander was out and Bologa decided to wait for him, especially as Gross was there to keep him company. After a few questions and answers the lieutenant said all at once:

“Don’t think, Bologa, that I have forgotten that reproach of yours—you remember, in the general’s courtyard at Zirin!”

“What reproach?” asked Apostol, puzzled.

“What! You don’t remember?” continued Gross almost mockingly. “Oh, well, of course, at that time all you could think of and fear was the Rumanian front, so perhaps you didn’t even realize what you were saying! But I haven’t forgotten, my friend! And look you, that reproach of yours is still stuck here in my soul like a nail! And you were wrong! For seven months I have ruminated over your words and I have been waiting to give you the answer. You practically told me that I was a coward because I said one thing and acted another.”

“Oh yes …” murmured Bologa, ashamed. “Yes … that is to say, not exactly a coward.… In fine, at that time I felt such bitterness in my heart, my dear chap, that …”

“I am a coward and a hypocrite, I acknowledge!” hissed Gross, seemingly infuriated by his comrade’s diffidence. “Because the time hasn’t come yet! But when the time comes I shall be thorough, Bologa, don’t worry! Now I receive the orders, grind my teeth, and execute them. I don’t complain and I pity no one, but I collect the drops of hatred for the day which will come without fail, which is coming nearer! Here frankness in any form meets with bullets. So that my cowardice is a weapon of war and of defence. We must carry on until our sun shall rise, we must carry on and live if we want that sun to rise!”

Bologa was taken aback at the hatred which flamed in the lieutenant’s eyes and said sadly:

“You’ll never be happy, Gross, because your heart is full of hatred!”

“I don’t need happiness—but I need revenge! Happiness is the shield of cowardice, whereas revenge …”

“Is also a form of happiness,” smiled Bologa, interrupting him.

“Of course, if that’s what you mean by happiness,” said Gross angrily. “I suppose when you are thirsty happiness is a glass of water!”

“Happiness is always love,” said Apostol Bologa in a changed voice, looking at him a little reproachfully.

“And love is God,” added Gross, laughing ironically. “Yes, yes, we know all about it! The beginning and the end is God, because we have no idea whence we came or whither we go, so we substitute for the darkness a big, empty word.”

“Once you feel God in your soul you no longer ask to have either the past or the future explained,” Bologa went on quietly. “When you really believe you have risen above life!”

“What’s the matter, Bologa? Have you gone crazy?” abruptly asked the other man, looking at him very seriously.

“No past or future knowledge will ever be able to stifle the voice of God in the soul of man!” continued Apostol with humble fervour. “Everywhere doubts assail one; only in God can one find conciliation without doubts! If God is not in one’s soul one is for ever puzzling over the purpose of life and never can one be certain what is right or what is wrong, for what was right to-day will be wrong to-morrow. The minute that God would abandon man definitely, without hope, the world would become an immense machine without controller, condemned to go on creaking endlessly to no purpose. In such a world life would be such cruel torture that no living creature could endure. It would, indeed, mean the end of the world.”

Gross stared at him, at first with smiling contempt, then with amazement, and, finally, he exclaimed, deeply indignant:

“For thousands of years man has been beating his breast and imploring the bounty of the God of Love, and every year more and more so! Because love is the dowry of the timorous and the helpless. The Christian martyrs died praising rather too loudly that God of Love. The victory of Christianity has been won by meekness, humility, and cowardice, that is why it has installed upon earth the reign of untruth, of hypocrisy, and of unfairness. The God of Love has murdered more men than all the other gods put together!”

“Love has never murdered, Gross,” put in Apostol serenely. “It is only mankind who kills in the name of love. But when the true domination of love will be here …”

“My dear fellow,” interrupted Gross excitedly, “the domination of true love can never come, because it would be an absurdity. Once man became convinced that beyond this, our earthly life, there awaited him after death a new happy life, then yes, in truth, our purpose of life would be at an end. Why should I go on living here if, with the help of a bullet, I can reach in one second the Kingdom of Happiness? He who honestly believes in an after-life and still tarries here is an imbecile, my dear chap!”

“He who really believes is one with God, both here and over there,” answered Bologa. “If God is everywhere there is no need for one to rush to Him by forcing the bolts of death!”

“Yes, yes, that’s how you all talk for the last two thousand years!” muttered the sapper, again contemptuous. “Always love in your mouth and the sword in your hand! Always hypocrisy. But not the occasional and temporal hypocrisy of the fighter, but dogmatized hypocrisy, which has become instinctive and unconscious.”

Walking to and fro in the little narrow room, Gross cast a furtive glance at Bologa now and again, as if he were wondering whether to unveil to him all his thoughts. Finally, he stopped, his mind made up. His small eyes flashed and his voice had a new, passionate ring and strange inflections.

“Love has gone bankrupt, so has meekness and humbleness. Man now wants to be proud and masterful and selfish, to fight and to overcome his enemies, whoever and wherever they be. That is why we must sweep away the ruins from the soul of man and make ready for the coming of the new God, who asks for neither adoration nor abasement! Until to-day we were ashamed of the hatred in our soul, although hatred is own sister to love. Until to-day we have kept it hidden and squashed as if it were some poor little Cinderella or some remnant of animalism. From to-day onward we ought to give it the place of honour in human life, because men no longer want to die but to live. When you die fighting, death is redeemed, and if you win through fighting, victory is all the sweeter. Frankness, even if it be brutal, must take the place of hypocrisy! Nothing but hatred can destroy the falseness that poisons the world!”

Apostol Bologa, bewildered, almost frightened by the lieutenant’ outburst, stammered:

“Well, Gross, I thought you were a socialist and that …”

“And that under my label there was concealed another kind of hypocrisy?” said Gross, taking the words out of his mouth and speaking in a harsh, unpleasant voice. “The great merit of Socialism in the history of mankind is just that it has the audacity to preach hatred frankly, to divide men into two camps which shall hate one another for ever and aye! While the various forms of Christianity butcher mankind in the name of love, we declare without hypocrisy that we hate those who are in power and those who lie, that we mean to fight against them without mercy until we exterminate them. You others talk of love and God, but only so that behind this shield you may follow more easily other unconfessed aims! You, yourself, are a living example, that is why I have studied you closely ever since I have known you. For me you are an interesting case, Bologa. Don’t get angry, please! You, at the bottom of your heart, are a great Rumanian Chauvinist—now don’t protest, for it is as I say! Circumstances have thrown you into the war as they did others and your Chauvinism has been compelled to put on in turn various masks in order to escape from peril. You became a hero and distinguished yourself by words and deeds until the war or Fate, or the devil, wishing to make sport of you, sent you suddenly to face your Rumanians. I shall never forget your despair when I met you in the general’s courtyard on the Russian front. Your poor Chauvinism was torturing you, was clawing at your heart and searching for something! You would have murdered joyfully a thousand Russians or Italians to save yourself from shooting at your own people. To kill here would seem a crime to you, whereas elsewhere—anywhere else—you wouldn’t mind, or you’d consider it a deed of bravery. And now you have unearthed Love and God, behind which your Chauvinism can go on thriving quietly until a good opportunity will arise for you to run away! And all this in the name of Love, Bologa! Can’t you see that it is … it is horrible? Not your Chauvinism, but the hypocrisy, probably unconscious, in which it hides.”

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.