Whether because the colonel’s anger failed him, like the excessive passion of a lover when he finally holds the object of his desires in his arms, or because Tildy’s calm and correct demeanor, his inviolable “English” composure made it impossible to be blasted—in any event, the private conversation did not transpire as dramatically as would have been expected. On the contrary: Turturiuk’s ire first changed into a sullen paternal grumbling, then into a whiny tone weakly cloaked in coarseness.
To be sure, he did try to begin things with a look that he considered so ferocious a tiger would have crawled away and hid, but which Tildy withstood with an unruffled calm that had not a hint of disdain or disregard — nothing but cool and earnest patience. So the colonel’s furious stare turned more and more inward, as if that somehow helped him collect his very scattered thoughts, and swelled into a blank, animal-like gawking that was completely devoid of ideas and imagination, like the remote look of a constipated man following an explosive exertion.
Thanks to his great gift for storytelling, Herr Tarangolian was able give us a vivid recreation of events, and Uncle Sergei didn’t spare his own humorous commentaries, so even though we found the incident extremely upsetting, because it concerned our secret idol, the retelling gained something daringly amusing, something fantastic — an inconsistency that placed great demands on our ability to bear the psychological tension, and certainly did nothing to strengthen our character.
I will never forget how masterfully the prefect was able to reproduce Turturiuk’s expression, his bloodshot, alcohol-ridden eyes, the befuddled rage rising and dissipating into silliness, the pitiful attempt to remobilize its momentum, and, finally, his complete bewilderment, and the vague realization dawning on him that he had been doomed to lose the match from the very beginning.
Because ultimately the colonel had been forced to break off his lion-taming stare, and since he had evidently lost the connection to the events, he simply stared ahead and sighed. Then he looked at Tildy once again, and, shaking his head, said in his deepest, smokiest, most soldierly bass voice: “Tildy — you! You, Tildy, an officer, a gentleman, a man of decency and reason, a man of form and breeding, an educated man — by all Christendom’s holy …” At this point Herr Tarangolian substituted the rest of Turturiuk’s expression with a wave of the hand, in consideration of the ladies present. “You, Tildy, a major in one of the most renowned regiments of this country, which you have the honor of serving with your arms — you are bringing disgrace on your flag, disgrace on your comrades, on me, your commander, your fatherly superior, your oldest and only friend — you are disgracing me because you are disgracing yourself! You, whom I have fostered like a relative, defended against resentment and suspicion, you who have grown close to my heart like a mother’s weakest child — by the seven church bells of …” Herr Tarangolian made another gesture that unleashed a torrent of laughter from Uncle Sergei. “You, Tildy, a serious man, go and make a fool and a buffoon of yourself in front of all the whoresons of the city, the layabouts and loafers, the procurers and drunks, the sodomites and flaneurs — you hit one of them in my home during a celebration in my honor, and you let another one entangle you in a quarrel and then you send two of your comrades-in-arms, two respectable young people who don’t know any better, who don’t dare contradict you — you send them to take part in your disgrace — in the disgrace of all of us! And what have we become because of you? Laughable. Or did you expect that this whoreson hack, this gigolo, this little piece of snot and filth would accept your challenge and duel with you? All you could have expected was that he would laugh in your face and mock you. Shame and disgrace, that’s what you could have expected. And not just your shame and your disgrace, but the shame and disgrace of all your comrades, the entire regiment, the shame and disgrace of your colonel and superior officer, who has been like a father to you, who has taught you by his own example, who has led you and protected you! … Or have you forgotten, Tildy, that you were once our enemy? That you once shot at men who are now your comrades? That you killed many of them? If you have forgotten that, then very good, I commend you. But others haven’t forgotten that you used to be with the Austrians. The ones who are just lurking in wait ready to pounce on me because I protected and promoted you, now they will have their opportunity. For forty-five years I have been carrying this uniform honorably just so that you can come along, you Austrian, and throw filth on it, and make a clown and a buffoon out of me! So that the idlers on the street can pull each other by the sleeve and say: Look there goes the colonel of the regiment whose officers break out into fisticuffs at his house and who want to have duels with us for no reason at all! Because what did he do to you, this gigolo? He told you that he knows your sister-in-law. That everyone knows her. He wasn’t telling you anything but the truth. So you want to challenge a man to a duel because he tells you the truth, is that right? You want to play the knight to defend her honor, Herr Major? For your sister-in-law, when every rascal off the street knows that she’s a harlot, and can prove it, too! Do you want to hear it from everyone, Herr Major Tildy, that your sister-in-law is a whore? All right, then hear it: your sister-in-law is a whore. There, now you’ve heard it, Herr Major! But that’s not the end of the world, do you understand, you German fool, on the contrary: the world will go on like clockwork, because it’s the pure truth that was said there, by all the … sacraments of the devil, the pure truth, and speaking the truth is doing a work that is pleasing to God. You want to shoot a man because he’s doing work that is pleasing to God? Fine, Herr Major, so you can duel with me. I am screaming the truth into your face. More than that: I’m going to open this window here and shout out the truth, so that every bastard of a recruit can hear it. And if you want to, Herr Major, then you can have a shooting match with me! Your sister-in-law, do you hear, is a whore!”
Naturally Herr Tarangolian substituted a hand gesture for this particular expression as well. But the colonel did not, and before he could catch his breath after this denouement and continue his speech in a more dignified flow, possibly bringing it to a more conciliatory ending, Tildy had turned on his heel and left the room. One hour later, two men appeared as Tildy’s seconds and delivered the major’s challenge to Colonel Turturiuk.
Tildy had been downright crafty, as Herr Tarangolian assured us, in his choice of seconds. One was a major whose career on the general staff had been ruined by Turturiuk; the other was a lieutenant colonel who had his eye on succeeding Turturiuk as regimental commander. With that, the case became bitterly earnest.
Because it wasn’t acceptable for an officer to deliver a direct challenge to his immediate superior, an honor court was convened, but this did not reach a verdict. Of course Tildy was temporarily dismissed from service, and it was clear that his career as an officer was over.
Uncle Sergei discoursed on the affair with cheerful expertise. He considered it a truly tragic conflict of two ethical principles: honor and obedience.
“Permit me to raise an objection,” Herr Tarangolian replied. “Fundamentally you are correct. But with Tildy the matter is different: he should have gone out of his way to prevent the misunderstanding that his challenge was over the wounded honor of his sister-in-law. He could have demanded satisfaction from Năstase for, let us say, a more than insinuating remark about his wife. But not because the man had defamed his sister-in-law. Anyone who knows Colonel Turturiuk — and I appreciate his human, or I might say all-too-human, traits, but one should not overestimate his intellectual capacities on their account — should have expected him to miss this subtle difference in a chain of smug provocations. Tildy, too, should have been prepared for that. His otherwise superior calm, his model self-discipline, should have withstood the — admittedly harsh — test of Turturiuk’s loutish behavior, for the clarity of the case.”