Being Chapter 7 from Part 3 of "The Armed Forces" by Jan C. Zločin. Ostuda Press, Brünn, 1942. Now in the public domain. This excerpt translated from the German by the Targu Mures Historical Society.
Suum cuique
The Mures Valley stood in flames, and from the Flame a voice:
“What have you done, Ingo? What have you done? What have you done to the valley of peace? Oh, Ingo … What has the valley done to you?”
It was a grand vision. Fires rose from the Mare Gramada, rose as from hell itself. And from the darkest forest Ingo Schweitzer watched. He stood there now as a refugee, as a stranger and strange man – a wanderer lost, a child forgotten, a being otherworldly. To these other worlds his mind now traveled, but his eyes remained fixed on the unfolding inferno, to those cleansing waves of pure, bright power – of dark, red death.
So many chains bind us to the Earth. Fettered in struggle, imprisoned by responsibility or limited by joys (always fleeting). Pushed to some familial bosom, trampled under tradition. These were the chains Ingo would to break; these were the structures he now submitted to a fiery end. He had escaped them before, fleeing his father and city and country, but had grown much too involved in local politics and affairs since acquiring the Mures estate. His roots reached into Romanian soil, nourished him, but also fixed him firmly. “Free me, eternal flame, cut deeply, lacerate my mind!”
The Flame now spoke to Ingo as if in lullaby, sweet and civil, and the wild fire within him subsided:
Gutaniowi hailag,
gutaniowi hailag,
gutaniowi hailag,
Kurimjacove hailag
This was not the submission to wildness, a beastly surrender, that Ingo had intended when he lit his torch some hours before. Could violence bring peace? Could misery, pain and war be the key to his identity and the redeemer of his dying Queen, Europa? There was so much to learn, now, from barren, ashen fields, sprouting knowledge, nourished by hate.
Targu Mures Historical Society 