Kitabı oku: «The Chief Justice: A Novel», sayfa 6

Franz rushed to meet him. "You know nothing of him?"

"Be quiet, man. We will look for him together."

"No, separately!" He seized Berger's arm and grasped it convulsively. "You by the river-side and I up here. There is not a moment to lose."

Berger asked no more questions but hurried down the broad, inclined street that led to the river. Here, in Cross Street, where most of the pleasure-resorts were, there were still signs of life; he had repeatedly to get out of the way of drunken men who passed along bawling; poor forlorn looking girls brushed past him. In one of the quieter streets he noticed a moving light coming nearer and nearer: it was a large lantern in the hand of a servant who was carefully lighting the gentleman who followed him.

Berger recognised the features of the little, wizened creature who, in spite of the awful weather was contentedly tripping along, with satisfaction in every lineament, under the shelter of a mighty umbrella; it was the Deputy Chief-Justice, Herr von Werner. He would have passed by without a word, but Werner recognised him and called to him.

"Eh! eh! it's Dr. Berger!" he snickered. "Out so late! Hee, hee! I seem to be meeting all the important people! First-hee! hee! the Lord Chief Justice and now-"

"Have you seen him?"

"Why yes. You are surprised? So was I! Just as I stepped out of my son-in-law's house, he passed by. I called after him because I wanted to tell him the news. For you may congratulate me, Dr. Berger. Certainly, you annoyed me this morning, you annoyed me very much I but in my joy I will forgive you! My first grandson, a splendid boy, and how he can cry!"

"Where did you see him? When?"

"Eh! goodness me, what is the matter with you? It was scarcely five minutes ago, he was going-only fancy-towards Wurst Street. You seem upset! And he wouldn't listen to me! Why, what is the matter?"

Berger made no reply. Without a word of farewell, he rushed precipitately down the street out of which Werner had come and turned to the right into a narrow, dirty slum which led by a steep incline to the river.

This was Wurst Street, the poorest district of the town, the haunt of porters, boatmen and raftsmen; alongside the narrow quay in which the street ended, lay their craft; the corner building next the river was the public house which they frequented. A light still glimmered behind its small window-panes and, as Berger hurried by, the sound of rough song and laughter greeted his ears.

He did not stop till he came right up to the river's edge. Its waters were swollen by the autumn rains; swift and tumultuous they coursed along its broad bed, perceptible to the ear only, not to the eye, so fearfully dark was the night. Berger could not even distinguish the wooden foot-bridge that here crossed the river, until he was close up to it.

Hesitatingly he stepped upon the shaky structure. The bridge was scarcely two foot broad, its balustrade was rotten and the footway slippery. Over on the other side a solitary light, a lantern, was struggling against wind and fog; its reflection swayed uncertainly on the soaking bridge; when it suddenly flared up in the wind, its flickering, red light revealed for a moment the angry, swollen flood.

Berger stood still irresolutely; the place was so desolate, so uncanny; should he stay any longer? Then suddenly a low cry escaped him and he darted forward a step. The lantern opposite had just flared up and by its reflection he had seen a man approach the bridge and step upon it. It seemed to Berger as if this were Sendlingen, but he did not know for certain, as the lantern was again giving only the faintest glimmer.

The man approached nearer, slowly, and with uncertain step, groping for the balustrade as he came. Once more the lantern flared up-there was the long Inverness, the gray hat-Berger doubted no longer.

"Victor!"

He would have shouted at the top of his voice, but the word passed over his lips huskily, almost inaudibly: he would have darted forward … but could only take one solitary step more, so greatly had the weirdness of the situation overpowered him.

Sendlingen did not perceive him: he stopped scarcely ten paces from his friend and bent over the balustrade. Resting on both arms, there he stood, staring at the wild and turbulent water.

Thus passed a few seconds.

Again the lantern flickered up, for a moment only it gave a clear light. Sendlingen had suddenly raised himself and Berger saw, or thought he saw, that the unfortunate man was now only resting with one hand on the railing, that his body was lifted up…

"Victor!"

In two bounds, in two seconds, he was beside him, had seized him, clasped him in his arms.

"George!"

Awful, thrilling was the cry-a cry for help? – or a cry of baffled rage?

Then Berger felt this convulsive body suddenly grow stiff and heavy-he was holding an unconscious burden in his arms.

CHAPTER VII

Shortly after there was such vigorous knocking at the windows of the little river-side inn that the panes were broken. The landlord and his customers rushed out into the street, cursing. But they ceased when they saw the scared looking figure with its singular burden; silently they helped to bring the prostrate form into the house. The landlord had recognized the features; he whispered the news to the others, and so great was the love and reverence that attached to this name, that the rough, half-drunken fellows stood about in the bare inn-parlor, as orderly and reverent as if they were in Church.

The body lay motionless on the bench which they had fetched; a feather, held to the lips, scarcely moved, so feebly did the breath come and go. The one remedy in the poor place, the brandy with which his breast and pulses were moistened, proved useless; not till the parish doctor, whom a raftsman hurriedly fetched, had applied his essences, did the unconscious man begin to breathe more deeply and at length open his eyes. But his look was fixed and weird; the white lips muttered confused words. Then the deep red eyelids closed again; they showed, as did the tear-stains on his cheeks, how bitterly the poor wretch had been weeping in his aimless wanderings.

"We must get him home at once," said the Doctor. "There is brain fever coming on."

Berger sent to the hospital for a litter; it was soon on the spot; the sick man was carefully laid on it. The bearers stepped away rapidly; the doctor and Berger walked alongside. When they reached the market-place they came across Franz. "Dead?" he screamed; but when he heard the contrary, he said not another word, but hurried on ahead.

In this way Fräulein Brigitta was informed; she behaved more calmly than Berger could have believed. The bed was all ready; the Doctor attached to the Courts was soon on the spot. He was of the same opinion as his colleague. "A mortal sickness," he told Berger, "the fever is increasing, his consciousness is entirely clouded. Perhaps it is owing to overwork at the Inquiry in Vienna?" he added. "He may have caught a severe cold on the top of it."

The parish doctor departed, Franz was obliged to go to the chemist's; Berger and the resident doctor remained alone with the invalid. The barrister had a severe struggle with himself; should he tell the doctor the whole truth? To any unsuspecting person, Sendlingen's demeanor must have seemed like the paroxysm of a fever, but he knew better! Certainly the sufferer was physically ailing, but it was not under the weight of empty fancies that he was gently sobbing, or burying his anguish-stricken face in the pillow; the excess of his suffering, the terror of his lonely wanderings had completely broken down his strength; all mastery of self had vanished; he showed himself as he was; in a torment of helplessness. And that which seemed to the doctor the most convincing proof of a mind unhinged Berger understood only too well; as for instance when Sendlingen beckoned to him, and beseechingly whispered, as if filled with the deepest shame: "Go, George, can't you understand that I can no longer bear your looks?"

After this Berger went out and sank into a chair in the lobby, and the gruesome scene rose before him again; the lonely bridge lit by the flickering lantern; the roaring current beneath him … "Oh, what misery!" he groaned, and for the first time for many years, for the first time perhaps, since his boyhood, he broke out into sobs, even though his eyes remained dry.

A rapid footstep disturbed him. It was Franz returning with the medicine. Berger told him to send the doctor to him at once.

"Doctor," he said, "you shall know the truth as far as I am at liberty to tell it." A misfortune, he told him, had befallen Sendlingen, a misfortune great enough to crush the strongest man. "Your art," he concluded, "cannot heal the soul, I know. But you can give my poor friend what he most of all needs; sleep! Otherwise his torture will wear out both body and soul."

The doctor asked no questions; for a long while he looked silently on the ground. Then he said, briefly: "Good! Fortunately I have the necessary means with me."

He went back to the sick-room. Ten minutes later, he opened the door and made Berger come in. Sendlingen was in a deep sleep; and it must have been dreamless, for his features had smoothed themselves again.

"How long will this sleep last?" asked Berger.

"Perhaps till mid-day to-morrow," replied the doctor, "perhaps longer, since the body is so exhausted. At least, we shall know to-morrow whether there is a serious illness in store. But even if there is not, if it is only the torture of the mind that returns, it will be bad enough. Very bad, in fact. Do you know no remedy for it?"

"None!" answered the honest lawyer, feebly. They parted without a word in the deepest distress.

By earliest dawn, when the bells of the Cathedral rang forth for the first time, Berger was back again in his friend's lobby. "Thank God, he is still sleeping," whispered Fräulein Brigitta. "The worse has past, hasn't it?"

"We will hope so," he replied, constrainedly. For a long time he stood at the window and stared out into the court-yard; involuntarily his gaze fixed itself on the little door in the wall which was so small and low that he had never noticed it before; now he observed it for the first time.

Then he roused himself and went to the other part of the building to see his unfortunate client. "How is Victorine Lippert?" he asked of the Governor who happened to be at the door.

"Poor thing!" he said, with a shrug of the shoulders. "It will soon be all over with her, and that will be the best thing for her."

"Has she been suddenly taken ill?"

"No, Dr. Berger, she is just the same as before, but the doctor does not think she will last much longer. 'Snuffed out like a candle,' he says. If she had any sort of hope to which her poor soul might cling; but as it is … Herr von Werner had sent him to her to see what punishment she could bear for yesterday's scene in Court, but the doctor said to him afterward: 'It would be sheer barbarity! Let her die in peace!' But Herr von Werner was of opinion that he could not pass over the offence without some punishment, and that she would survive one day of the dark cell; he only relented when Father Rohn interceded for her. The priest was with her yesterday at two o'clock, and has made her peace with God. Do you still intend to appeal? Well, as you think best. But it will be labor in vain, Dr. Berger! She will die before you receive the decision."

"God forbid!" cried Berger.

The Governor shook his head. "She would be free in that case," he said. "Why should you wish her to live? What do you hope to attain? Commutation to penal servitude for life, or imprisonment for twenty years! Does that strike you as being better? I don't think so; in my profession it is impossible to believe it, Dr. Berger. Well, as you think best! If you want to speak to Victorine Lippert, the warder shall take you round."

The Governor departed; Berger stood looking after him a long while. Then he stepped out into the prison yard and paced up and down; he felt the need of quieting himself before going into her cell. "That would be frightful," he thought. "And yet, perhaps, the man is right, perhaps it would really be best for her-and for him!" He tried to shake off the thought, but it returned. "And it would mean the end of this fearful complication, a sad, a pitiable end-but still an end!" But then he checked himself. "No, it would be no end, because it would be no solution. In misery he would drag out his whole existence; in remorse; in despair! No, on the contrary, her death might be the worst blow that could befal him! But what is to be done to prevent it? It would be possible to get her ordered better food, a lighter cell, and more exercise in the open. But all that would be no use if she is really as bad as the doctor thinks! She will die-O God! she will die before the decision of the Supreme Court arrives."

More perplexed and despairing than before, he now repaired to her cell. The warder unlocked it and he entered.

Victorine was reclining on her couch, her head pressed against the wall. At his entrance, she tried to rise, but he prevented her. "How are you?" he asked. "Better, I hope?"

"Yes," she answered softly, "and all will soon be well with me."

He knew what she meant and alas! it was only too plainly visible that this hope at least was not fallacious. Paler than she had latterly been it was almost impossible that she should become, but more haggard Berger certainly thought her; her whole bearing was more broken down and feeble. "She is right," he thought, but he forced himself and made every endeavour to appear more confident than he really was.

"I am glad of that!" He tried to say it in the most unconstrained manner in the world, but could only blurt it out in a suppressed tone of voice. "I hope-"

She looked at him, and, in the face of this look of immeasurable grief, of longing for death, the like of which he had never seen in any human eyes, the words died on his lips. It seemed to him unworthy any longer to keep up the pretence of not understanding her. "My poor child," he murmured, taking her hand, "I know. I know. But you are still young, why will you cease to hope? I have drawn up the appeal, I shall lodge it to-day-I am sure you will be pardoned."

"That would be frightful!" she said in a low tone. "I begged you so earnestly to leave it alone. But I am not angry with you. You have done it because your pity constrained you, perhaps, too, your conscience and sense of justice-and to me it is all one! My life at all events, is only a matter of weeks: I shall never leave this cell alive! Thank Heaven! since yesterday afternoon this has become a certainty!"

"The doctor told you? Oh, that was not right of him."

"Do not blame him!" she begged. "It was an act of humanity. If he had only told me to relieve me of the fear of the hangman, he should be commended, not reproved. But it happened differently; at first he did not want to tell me the truth, it was evident from what he was saying, and when the truth had once slipped out, he could no longer deny it. He was exhorting me to hope, to cling to life, he spoke to me as you do, 'for otherwise' he said, 'you are lost! My medicines cannot give you vital energy!' His pity moved him to dwell on this more and more pointedly and decidedly. 'If you do not rouse yourself,' he said at last, 'you will be your own executioner.' He was frightened at what he had said almost before he had finished, and still more when I thanked him as for the greatest kindness he could have done me. He only left me to send Father Rohn. He came too, but-"

She sighed deeply and stopped.

"He surely didn't torture you with bigoted speeches?" asked Berger. "I know him. Father Rohn is a worthy man who knows life; he is a human being …"

"Of course! But just because he is no hypocrite he could say nothing that would really comfort me for this life. At most for that other life, which perhaps-no certainly!" she said hurriedly. "So many people believe in it, good earnest men who have seen and suffered much misfortune, how should a simple girl dare to doubt it? Certainly, Dr. Berger, when I think of my own life and my mother's life, it is not easy to believe in an all-just, all-merciful God. But I do believe in Him-yes! though so good a man as Father Rohn could only say: amends will be made up there. Only the way he said it fully convinced me! But, after all, he could only give me hope in death, not hope for life."

"Certainly against his will," cried Berger. "You did not want to understand him."

"Yes, Dr. Berger, I did want to understand him and understood him-in everything-excepting only one thing," she added hesitatingly. "But that was not in my power-I could not! And whatever trouble he took it was in vain."

"And what was this one thing?"

"He asked me if there was no one I was attached to, who loved me, to whom my life or death mattered? No, I answered, nobody-and then he asked-but why touch upon the hateful subject! let us leave it alone, Dr. Berger."

"No," cried Berger, white with emotion, "I implore you, let us talk about it. He asked you whether you did not know your father."

She nodded; a faint red overspread her pale cheeks.

"And you answered?"

"What I have told you: that I did not know him, that if he were living I should not love and reverence him as my father, but hate and despise him as the wretch who ruined my mother!" She had half raised herself, and had spoken with a strength and energy that Berger had not believed possible. Now she sank back on her couch.

He sighed deeply. "And you adhered to that," he began again, "whatever Father Rohn might say? He told you that on the threshold of-that in your situation one should not hate, but forgive, that whoever hopes for God's mercy must not himself condemn unmercifully!"

"Yes," she replied, "he said so, if perhaps in gentler words. For he seemed to feel that I did not require to depend on God's mercy, but only on His justice."

"Forgive me!" muttered Berger. "For I know your fate and know you. But just because I know your affectionate nature and your need of affection-" He stopped. "Gently," he thought, "I must be cautious." "Don't consider me unfeeling," he then continued, "if I dwell upon this matter, however painful it may be to you. Just this one thing: does it follow that this man must be a wretch? Were there not perhaps fatal circumstances that bound him against his will and prevented him doing his duty to your poor mother?"

"No," she answered. "I know there were not!"

"You know there were not?" murmured Berger in the greatest consternation. "But do you know him?"

"Yes. I know his heart, his character, and that is enough. What does it matter to me what his name is, or his station? Whether he is living or dead? To me he has never lived! I know him from my mother's judgment, and that she, the gentlest of women, could not judge otherwise, proves his unworthiness. Only one single time did she speak to me of him, when I was old enough to ask and to be told why people sometimes spoke of us with a shrug of the shoulders. 'If he had been thoughtless and weak,' she said to me, 'I could have forgiven him. But I have never known a man who viewed life more earnestly and intelligently: none who was so strong and brave and resolute as he. It was only from boundless selfishness, after mature, cold-blooded calculation that he delivered me to dishonor, because I was an obstacle in his career.' You see he was more pitiless than the man whom I trusted."

"No," cried Berger in the greatest excitement. "You do him injustice!"

"Injustice! How do you know that? Do you know him?"

He turned away and was silent. "No," he then murmured, "how should I know him?"

"Then why do you dissent from me with such conviction? Oh, I understand," she went on bitterly, "you, even you, don't think my mother's words trustworthy, and simply because she allowed herself to be deluded by a wretch!"

"No, indeed!" returned Berger, trying to compose himself, "for I know how noble, how true and good your mother was, I know it from her letters. The remark escaped me unawares. But you are right. Let us drop this subject."

Then he asked her if she would like to have some books. She answered in the negative and he left the cell.

"Sendlingen must never see her!" he thought when he was back in the street. "If he were to enter her cell he would betray himself and then learn what she thinks of him! It would utterly crush him. That, at least, he shall be spared."

But the next few minutes were to show him that he had been planning impossibilities. As he passed the Chief Justice's residence, an upstairs window opened; he heard his name called loud and anxiously. It was Fräulein Brigitta. "Quickly," cried she, beckoning him to come up.

He hurried up the stairs, she rushed to meet him. "Heaven has sent you to us," she cried, weeping and wringing her hands. "How fortunate that I accidentally saw you passing. We were at our wits' end? He insists on going out. Franz is to dress him. We do not know what has excited him so. Father Rohn has been to see him, but he talked so quietly with him that we breathed again indeed. It is manifestly a sudden attack of fever, but we cannot use force to him."

Berger hurried to the bedroom. Sendlingen was reclining in an arm-chair, Franz was attending to him. At his friend's entrance he coloured, and held up his hand deprecatingly. "They have fetched you," he cried impatiently. "It is useless! I am not going to be prevented!"

Berger signed to Franz to leave the room. Not until the door was closed behind him did he approach the sick man, and take his hand, and look searchingly into his face. It reassured him to see that, though his eyes were dim, they no longer looked wild and restless as they did a few hours ago.

"You are going to her?" he asked. "That must not be."

"I must!" cried Sendlingen despairingly. "It is the one thought to which I cling to avoid madness. When I awoke-I was so perplexed and desolate, I felt my misery returning-then I heard Rohn's voice in the next room. They were going to send him away: I was still asleep, they said, – but I made him come in, because I wanted to hear some other voice than that of my conscience, and because I was afraid of myself. I did not dream that he was bringing me a staff by which I could raise myself again."

"You asked him about her?"

"No, by the merest chance he began to tell me of his talk with her yesterday, and how she was wasting away because there was no one on earth for whose sake she could or would rouse herself. Oh, what I felt! Despair shook my heart more deeply than ever, and yet I could have thanked him on my knees for these good tidings. Now my life has an object again, and I know why Fate has allowed me to survive this day."

Berger was silent-should he, dared he, tell the truth? "Think it over a while," he begged. "If you were to betray yourself to the officials-"

"I shall not do so. And if I did, how could that trouble me? Don't you see that a man in my situation cannot think of himself or any such secondary consideration?"

"That would be no secondary consideration. And could you save her by such a step? The situation remains as it was!"

"Are you cruel enough to remind me of that?" cried Sendlingen. "But, thank God! I am clear enough to give you the right answer instead of allowing myself to be oppressed by misery. Now listen; I shall do what I can! From the hangman, from the prison, I may not be able to save my child, but perhaps I can save her from despair, from wasting away. I shall say to her: live for your father, as your father lives for you! Perhaps this thought will affect her as it has affected me; it has saved me from the worst. Another night like last night, George!" He stopped and a shudder ran through his body. "Such a night shall not come again! I do not know what is to be done later on, but my immediate duty is clear. I have been fighting against the instinct that drew me to her, as against a suggestion of madness; I now see that it was leading me aright."

He laid his hand on the bell to summon Franz. Berger prevented him, "Wait another hour," he implored. "I will not try to hinder you any more; I see that it would be useless, perhaps unjust. But let me speak to her first. Humour me in this one thing only. You agreed to do so yesterday."

"So be it!" said Sendlingen. "But you must promise not to keep me waiting a minute longer than is absolutely necessary."

Berger promised and took his leave. He was not a religious man in the popular sense of the word, and yet as he again rang the prison bell, he felt as if he must pray that his words would be of effect as a man only can pray for a favour for himself.

The warder was astonished when he again asked admission to the cell, and Victorine looked at him with surprise.

He went up to her. "Listen to me," he begged. "I have hitherto wished to conceal the truth from you, with the best intentions, but still it was not right. For falsehood kills and truth saves, always and everywhere-I ought to have remembered that. Well then; I know your father; he is my best friend, a man so noble and good, so upright and full of heart, as are few men on this poor earth."

She rose. "If that were so my mother would have lied," she cried. "Can I believe you rather than my mother? Can you expect that of me?"

"No," he replied. "Your mother judged him quite correctly. He did not betray her through thoughtlessness, nor forsake her through weakness. But much less still from cold-blooded calculation. No external constraint weighed upon him but an internal, – the constraint of education, of his convictions, of his views of the world and men, in short, of his whole being, so that he could hardly have acted differently. With all this there was such a fatal, peculiar concatenation of external circumstances, that it would have needed a giant soul not to have succumbed. We are all of us but men. I would not trust anyone I know, not even myself, to have been stronger than he was! Not one, Victorine! Will you believe me?"

"My mother judged otherwise!" she replied. "And will you perhaps also attempt to justify the fact that he never concerned himself about his child?"

"He knew nothing of you," cried Berger. "He did not dream that he had a child in the world! And one thing I can assure you: if he had accidentally heard that you were alive, he would not have rested until he had drawn you to his heart, he would have sheltered you in his arms, in his house, from the battle with misery and the wickedness of men. Not only his heart would have dictated this, but the absence of children by his marriage, and his sense of justice: so as to make good through you what he could no longer make good to your poor mother. If you could only imagine how he suffers! – You must surely be able to feel for him: a noble man, who suddenly learns that his offence is ten times greater than he had thought or dreamt; that he has a child in the world against whom also he has transgressed, and who learns all this at a moment when he can make no reparation-in such a moment-can you grasp this, Victorine?"

Her face remained unmoved. "What shall I say?" she exclaimed gloomily. "If he really suffers, the punishment is only just. What did my mother not suffer on his account! And I!"

"But can we ascribe all the blame to him?" he cried. "All, Victorine?"

"Perhaps," she answered. "But if not all, then the most, so much that I will certainly believe you in one thing; if he is a human being at all, then he should now be suffering all the tortures of remorse. Still, as great as my sorrow, his cannot be! And is my guilt greater than his? And has he, too, to expiate it with honour and life?"

"Quite possibly!" he cried. "Perhaps with his life, seeing that he cannot, situated as he now is, expiate it with his honour. Oh, if you knew all! If you knew what an unprecedented combination of circumstances has heightened the sense of his guilt, has increased his sorrow to infinite proportions. And you shall know all."

"I will not hear it," she cried with a swift movement of repulsion, "I do not care, I may not care about it. I will not be robbed of my feelings against this man. I will not! His punishment is just-let us drop the subject."

"Just! still this talk about just! You are young but you have experienced enough of life, you have suffered enough, to know how far this justice will bring us. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth-shall this pitiless web of guilt and expiation continue to spin itself everlastingly from generation to generation? Can't you understand that this life would be unendurable if a high-minded deed, a noble victory over self, did not at times rend the web? You should understand this, poor child, you more than anyone. Do such a deed, forgive this unhappy man!"

"Did he send you to me on this mission?"

"No. I will be truthful in the smallest detail: I myself wrested from him permission to prepare you for his coming. I wished to spare you and him the emotions of a melancholy contest. For he does not even suspect what you think of him."

"He does not suspect it?" she cried. "He thinks that the balance is struck, if he graces a fallen, a condemned creature with a visit! Oh, and this man is noble and sensitive!"

"You are unjust to him in that, too," protested Berger. "And in that most of all. That he who can usually read the hearts of men like a book, has not thought of this most obvious and natural thing, shows best of all how greatly his misery has distracted and desolated him. He only wants one thing: to come to you, to console you, to console himself in you."

"I will not see him, you must prevent it."

"I cannot. I have tried in vain. He will come; his reason, perhaps his life, depend upon the way you may receive him."

"Do not burden me with such responsibilities," she sobbed despairingly. "I cannot forgive him. But I desire nobody's death, I do not wish him to die. Tell him what you like, even that I forgive him, but keep him away, I implore you."