Is it possible to gambol on your suffering?

The administration was gradually loosening its control over our schoolyard activities. Ciprian Stoica’s father, the director of the normal school in Deva, approached the speaker. He had brought Cipi’s violin—so his classmates called him—knowing his son’s talent and hoping permission could be granted. With a relatively short sentence ahead, one or two years, he wanted Ciprian to practise so as not to lose his skill.

This prompted the headmistress, Spirea Dumitrescu, to admit the young violinist to the school. Another Ciprian now played his pain in prison: a violin virtuoso at just seventeen. Often, in the evenings, he would perform Porumbescu’s ballad in his room, drawing tears and applause from the children around him.

One day, perhaps in a moment of relaxation—or simply for entertainment—he played the conga, a popular tune at the time. The children, forgetting themselves, found themselves humming along to the rhythm. At the back, Ionică Puscaș—now the scientist Dr. Ioan Puscaș—thin as a reed, barely half-broken, with sky-blue eyes, wearing the small shorn cap that remained from the horrors of his torture in the Securitate cellars of Cluj at the age of fifteen—lifted his feet in time with the music. David’s words came to mind: “God, forgive the sins of my youth.”

I had just entered the room. I smiled at their innocence, their youthful revelry. Yet I felt compelled to remind them of their condition: Watch and pray, for you know neither the day nor the hour of the Master’s coming, and each one in what he finds him doing. Because I cared for Ionică, I whispered to him in a half-scolding voice:

– Is it possible, Ionică, you, child of a Moț, to gambol on your suffering?

Ionica blushed as blond as he was, broke away from the chain of light incantation, and, slightly confused, withdrew with his head bowed until the moment passed. I knew that this event would remain with him for the rest of his life as an act of awakening. As the Holy Fathers warn, one must never forget that the Devil does not sleep, and worldly indulgences are a subtle temptation to divert attention from the calling to bear witness to the Supreme Truth—even at the cost of one’s life—before men and angels alike.

Some might remark: “How well the students thrived at Târgușor—music, dance, and so on.” But this was a fleeting moment, not a permanent condition.

Two lessons emerge from this: first, people like the headmistress, neither cold nor hot, could seem good in exceptional circumstances, but under orders to exterminate those beneath them, they would obey. It is better to confront an outspoken opponent than a covertly perverse one.

Second, these children did not make moments of relaxation a goal or a lifestyle. They understood that the temptation to ignore reality was a cunning spirit’s subtle attempt to divert them from their mission. Most of them went on to make tremendous sacrifices, whether in prison or in the dungeon of freedom.

(Virgil Maxim – Hymn for the Cross Carried)