The train moved on, resounding with song. Only Piotr Niewiadomski kept a straight face. It turned out that he was a vin triste type. Once again he stood by the iron bar, in the company of the wagon’s older men who had not been affected by the wine. But the pagan god Dionysius had his way; Piotr was reconciled with the railway.
Suddenly, Telesfor Zwarycz, a man from Widynów, remarked that such loud singing and dancing was inappropriate when they were supposed to be in mourning for the Holy Father:
“The Pope of Rome is still warm, they haven’t laid him in his coffin yet.”
Indeed, the Pope was not yet lying in his coffin. Not in the first one, made of cypress wood, nor in the second one, a lead casket, nor in the third and last one, made of elm. The people of Rome were still viewing his catafalque in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.
Of all Zwarycz’s arguments, what most appealed to the Hutsuls’ conscience was this:
“What will these Calvinists think of Greek Catholics carousing when the Pope has just died?”
“Calvinists? What Calvinists?”
Apart from the Jews, no one in the wagon had heard that some Hungarians subscribe to the doctrine of Calvin. Telesfor Zwarycz was of the opinion that there were no Catholics at all in Hungary. They were all heretics, worse than Lutherans. Piotr was not inclined to believe this, somehow. Heretics, yet St Stephen is their patron saint? Can a saint be a heretic?
Matters of religion were debated at length. In the end, Piotr allowed himself to be convinced that Hungarians are not Catholics at all. Secretly, he was even pleased about it when he finally realized why in this accursed country Emperor Franz Joseph is only a king. At the same time, the mystery of the leaning cross on the crown of St Stephen was solved for him. Wherever the Christian faith falters, the cross leans over. All his fellow Hutsuls felt very proud to have not one but two reasons to feel superior to the Hungarians. Firstly, as soldiers of the Emperor, and secondly as true Catholics. Naturally, everyone fell silent and everyone was saddened when the Pope died. And once again the Church of Rome had vanquished the pagan deities—wine, song and dance.
For some time now, ever since they had left Máramaros-Sziget, a companion had latched on to the train, not leaving it for several hours. This was the river Tisza. It ran alongside the train, as though to win a bet on who would be first. Hour by hour it became wider and its roar grew louder. But the landscape had not changed much since the previous day. The Hungarian Carpathians were very similar to the Galician. Only the style of the buildings on the hillsides and in the valleys had changed. The wooden cottages and huts had long since disappeared, long gone were the little wooden churches with their triple layered roofs reminiscent of Chinese pagodas or sailing ships with three masts. This was what temples inhabited by the true God looked like. Temples of the false God were stonebuilt, white-washed, and had plain or red galvanized roofs. Most of them had slender clock-towers. There were many walls in this country, lending the villages a very urban appearance. Telesfor Zwarycz exaggerated grossly, however. Not all Hungarians were Calvinists, and in any case there were none here in the land of the Slovaks. The train had not yet reached the Calvinist districts. But the Hutsuls, educated by Zwarycz, had already formed their own opinion about the Hungarian churches. They considered them all to be nests of heresy.
In spite of that, they did like the Hungarian countryside. As a child, Piotr had always taken an interest in any new scenery. Why should he hide the fact? This was not just the longest but also the most beautiful journey he had ever undertaken. And if he had not been aware that he was going to war, he would have enjoyed it very much. In peacetime he would never have travelled so far. What interest could he have in Hungary? What surprised him most about the journey was that, while being ever closer to the war, he was continually moving away from it. What could be the explanation for that? The Hungarian land was extremely quiet; the war zones lay somewhere beyond it, hundreds of kilometres away. Here, deep peace reigned. Everything had an air of prosperity and security; this carefree land was not shaken by artillery barrages, nor did it anticipate the coming of the Muscovites. Ordinary passenger trains were running, nobody was guarding the bridges, and the railway crossing guards stood by their booths, wearing the same caps that Piotr used to wear. But, of course, he was going to war.
The mountains came to an end. The train sped alongside the broad river Tisza, and when the latter was suddenly lost in the steppe the train came to a stop at Beregszász station, as if it had lost its power along with the river.
No, there is no justice in the world. When they resumed their journey, they found the vast steppe quite charming. These Calvinists have such a beautiful land, while the Catholics were close to snuffing it on their hillsides, which could yield for them at best a little rye and miserable oats. Oh, and maize in the valleys. And the cattle the wretched Hungarians had? Those pigs! Even the Hungarians’ worst enemies, contemplating the countless masses of cattle on the steppe, had to admit, objectively, that they had never seen cattle like this. The horns of the oxen were perhaps a metre in length. But why do the shepherds in these parts go around in skirts like women?
Already on the last slopes of the Carpathians vast plantations of some unknown species of beans had been seen. Then, where the steppe began, the beans disappeared. They spent half a day traversing the steppe with the hot sun beating down (Piotr wondered whether the end of the world had not occurred here too the day before), and suddenly the beans reappeared. More and more of them kept coming, climbing up higher and higher poles.
“How is it that these Hungarians wolf down so many beans?”
“It’s vines, not beans,” explained one of the Jews. He kept scribbling and sketching in his notebook, calculating—it seemed—the annual income from these vineyards.
They travelled on and on among vineyards along the river Bodrog. On and on. All of those who had shaved before setting off to war had heavy stubble by now. They had grown weary of this unending journey. The passing milestones were bringing them closer to the war and the elapsed miles felt like years. On a long journey, time is sometimes measured in spatial terms. Some people were deluded into thinking that the war would end once the journey was over. They would arrive at their post, and the sergeant would say, “Go home. You are not needed now. The Emperor thanks you. We are at peace.”
The men, dazed by a great rush of impressions, were experiencing their second night on Hungarian soil… Time and space had knocked the stuffing out of them. They were subdued, resigned to their fate. So they fell asleep, but this lasted for two hours at most. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, they were exposed to broad daylight. The opposite of a solar eclipse. Bright daylight amidst the dark night. They were awakened by a powerful jolting as the entire train staggered and regained its balance, swaying as it swung over the points, again and again. They passed an entire encampment of wagons waiting in countless sidings. A deafening medley of sound: clanking iron, bells and whistles. Slowly, very slowly, they pulled into a colossal shed of glass and iron resembling the nave of a massive church. The vault of the glass domed roof was supported by arched iron girders. A great hubbub filled this remarkable church of the railways, where a dozen locomotives prayed fervently, emitting columns of smoke and incense in steam. Suspended at various heights, huge opal glass apples shone as brightly as daylight. They were the source of that brilliance. Large illuminated clocks showed the sacred railway time.