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."
She would have thrown herself at his feet but he prevented her. "No, not that," he murmured. "I will not urge any more. As God wills."
A few minutes later he was again with Sendlingen. "She knows all," he told him, "except your name and station. She does not desire your visit--she--dreads the excitement."
He stopped short and looked anxiously at his friend; he feared another sudden outburst of despair.
But it did not come. Sendlingen certainly started as in pain, but then he drew himself up to his full height. "You are concealing the truth from me," he said. "She does not wish to see her mother's betrayer. I did not think of it before, but I read it at once in your looks of alarm. That is bad, very bad--but stop me, it cannot. Where the stranger has tried in vain the father will succeed. My heart tells me so."
He called for his hat and stick and leaning on Berger's arm, went down the steps. In the street he loosed his hold: the energy of his soul had given his body new strength. With a firm step he walked to the prison door, and the quiver in his voice was scarcely perceptible as he gave the warder the order to open Victorine Lippert's cell.
The official obeyed. The prisoner hardly looked up when she heard the bolts rattle yet another time. The warder felt himself in duty bound to call her attention to the importance of the visit she was about to receive. "His Lordship, the Chief Justice, Baron Sendlingen!" he whispered to her. "Inspection of the Cells. Stand up." He stepped back respectfully to admit Sendlingen and locked the door after him.
The two were alone. Victorine had risen as she had been told: once only did she cast a transient and nonchalant look at the tall figure before her, then she remained standing with bowed head. Similar inspections had frequently taken place before; in each case the functionary had briefly asked whether the prisoner wished anything or had any complaint to make. This question she was waiting for now in order to reply as briefly in the negative; she wanted nothing more.
But he was silent, and as she looked up surprised--"Merciful God!" she cried, and reeled back on to her couch, covering her face with her trembling hands.
She knew who this man was at once, at the first glance. How she had recognised him with such lightning speed, she could not determine, even later when she thought the matter over. It was half dark in the cell, she had not properly seen his features and expression. Perhaps it was his attitude which betrayed him. With bowed head, his hands listlessly hanging by his sides, he stood there like a criminal before his judge.
At her exclamation, he looked up and came nearer. "Victorine," he murmured. She did not understand him, so low was his stifled articulation. "My child!" he then cried aloud and darted towards her. She rose to her feet and stretched out her hands as if to repel him, gazing at him all the while with widely opened eyes. And again she did not know what it was that suddenly penetrated and moved her heart. Was it because his face seemed familiar to her, mysteriously familiar, as if she had seen it ever since she could think?... Yes, it was so! For what unknown to herself, had overpowered her, was the likeness to her own face. Or was it perhaps the silent misery of his face, the beseeching look of his eyes? She felt the bitter animosity to which she had despairingly clung, the one feeling of which she would not be robbed, suddenly melt away.
"I cannot," she still faltered, but in the same breath she lifted up her arms. "Father!" she cried and threw herself on his breast.
He caught her in his arms and covered her head and face with tears and kisses. Then he drew her upon his knees and laid her head on his breast. Thus they sat and neither spoke a word; only their tears flowed on and on.
Half an hour might have passed since Sendlingen entered his daughter's cell: to Berger, who was pacing up and down outside as sentry, it seemed an eternity. The warder, too, was struck by the proceeding. This zealous, but very loquacious official, whom Berger had known for many years, approached him with a confidential smile. "There must--naturally enough--be something strange going on in there," he said as he pointed with a smirk towards the cell. "Something very strange."
Berger at first stared at the man as much disconcerted as if he had said that he knew the secret. "What do you mean by that," he then said roughly. "Your opinions are not wanted."
The warder looked at him amazed. "Well, such as we--naturally enough--are at least entitled to our thoughts," he replied. "There has been a run upon this cell since yesterday as if it contained a princess! First the doctor. Father Rohn and you, Herr Berger--and now his Lordship the Chief Justice, and all in little more than an hour's time. That doesn't occur every day, and I know the reason for it."
Berger forced himself to smile. "Of course you do, because you're such a smart fellow, Höbinger! What is the reason of it?"
"Well with you, Dr. Berger, I can--naturally enough--talk about the matter," replied the warder flattered, "although you are the prisoner's counsel and a friend of the Chief Justice. But in 1848 you made great speeches and were always on the side of the people; you will not betray me, Dr. Berger. Well--naturally enough--it is the old story: there is no such thing as equality in this world! If she, in there, were a servant-girl who had been led astray by a servant-man, not a soul would trouble their heads about her! But she is an educated person, and what is the principal thing--her seducer is a Count--that alters matters. Of course she had to be condemned--naturally enough--because the law requires it, but afterwards every care is taken of her, and if she were to get off with a slight punishment I, for one, shouldn't be surprised. Of course the Governor says that that's nonsense; if it were a case of favouritism he says, Herr von Werner would have behaved differently to her; the Vice Chief Justice, he says, has a very keen scent for favouritism; you, Höbinger, he says--naturally enough--are an ass! But I know what I know, and since his Lordship has taken the trouble to come, not in a general inspection, but on a special visit that is lasting longer than anything that has ever been heard or dreamt of, I am quite convinced that it is not I, but on the contrary, the Governor...."
But the crafty fellow did not allow this disrespect to his superior to pass his lips, but contented himself by triumphantly concluding: "Naturally enough--is it not, Dr. Berger?"
Berger thought it best to give no definite answer. If this chatter-box were to confide his suspicions to the other prison officials, it would at least be the most harmless interpretation and therefore he only said: "You think too much, Höbinger. That has often proved dangerous to many men."
Another half hour had gone by and Berger's anxiety and impatience reached the highest pitch. He was uncertain whether to put a favourable or an unfavourable interpretation upon this long stay of Sendlingen's, and even if he had succeeded in touching his child's heart, yet any further talk in this place and under these conditions was a danger. How great a danger, Berger was soon to see plainly enough.
The artful Höbinger was slinking about near the cell more and more restlessly. Only Berger's presence kept him from listening at the key-hole, or from opening the little peep-hole at the door, through which, unobserved by the prisoner, he could see the inside of every cell.
The desire was getting stronger and stronger; his fingers itched to press the spring that would open it. At last, just as Berger had turned his back, he succumbed to his curiosity; the little wooden door flew open noiselessly--he was going to fix his eyes in the opening....
At that moment Berger happened to turn round. "What are you doing there?" he cried in such a way that the man started and stepped back. In a second Berger was beside him, had seized his arms and flung him aside. "What impertinence!" he cried.
The warder was trembling in every limb. "For God's sake," he begged, "don't ruin me. I only wanted to see whether--whether his Lordship was all right."
"That's a lie!" cried Berger with intentional loudness. "You have dared----"
He did not require to finish the sentence; his object was attained: Sendlingen opened the door and came out of the cell. His face bore once more its wonted expression of kindly repose; he seemed to have recovered complete mastery of himself.
"You can lock up again," he said to the warder. He seemed to understand what had just passed for he asked no questions.
Still Höbinger thought it necessary to excuse himself. "My Lord," he stammered, "I only wanted to do my duty. It sometimes happens that--that criminals become infuriated and attack the visitors."
"Does that poor creature in here strike you as being dangerous?" asked Sendlingen. It seemed to Berger almost unnatural that he could put forth the effort to say this, nay more, that he could at the same time force a smile.
"My Lord----"
"Never mind, Höbinger! You were perhaps a little inquisitive, but that shall be overlooked in consideration of your former good conduct. Besides, prisoners are allowed no secrets, at all events after their sentence." Turning to Berger he continued: "She must be taken to the Infirmary this afternoon, it is a necessity. Have you anything else to do here? No? Well, come back with me."
It all sounded so calm, so business-like--Berger could hardly contain his astonishment. He would never have believed his friend capable of such strength and especially after such a night--after such an interview! "I admire your strength of nerve," cried he when they got out into the street. "That was a fearful moment."
"Indeed it was!" agreed Sendlingen, his voice trembling for the first time. "If the fellow had cast one single look through the peep-hole, we should have both been lost! Fancy Höbinger, the warder, seeing the Chief Justice with a criminal in his arms!"
"Ah then, it came to that?"
"Should I otherwise be so calm? I am calm because I have now an object again, because I see a way of doing my duty. Oh, George, how right you were: happy indeed am I that I live and can pay my debt."
"What do you think of doing?"
"First of all the most important thing: to preserve her life, to prepare her for life. As I just said, she shall be allotted a cell in the Infirmary and have a patient's diet. I may do this without dereliction of duty: I should have to take such measures with anyone else if I knew the circumstances as accurately as I do in this case."
"But you will not be able to visit her too often in the Infirmary," objected Berger.
"Certainly not," replied Sendlingen. "I see that the danger is too great, and I told her so. Yes, you were right in that too: it is no secondary consideration whether our relationship remains undiscovered or not. I cannot understand how it was that I did not see this before: why, as I now see,everythingdepends upon that. And I see things clearly now; this interview has worked a miracle in me, George--it has rent the veil before my eyes, it has dispelled the mist in my brain. I know I can see Victorine but seldom. On the other hand Brigitta will be with her daily: for she is a member of the 'Women's Society,' and it will strike nobody if she specially devotes herself to my poor child."
"It will not strike others, but will she not herself guess the truth?"
"Why, she shall know all! I will tell her this very day. She is entirely devoted to me, brave and sterling, the best of women. Besides I have no choice. Intercourse with a good, sensible woman is of the most urgent necessity to my poor dear. But I have not resolved on this step simply for that reason. I shall need this faithful soul later on as well."
"I understand--after the term of imprisonment is at an end."
Sendlingen stood still and looked at his friend; it was the old look full of wretchedness and despair. "Yes!" he said unsteadily. "Certainly, I had hardly thought of that. I do not indulge any extravagant hopes: I am prepared for anything, even for the worst. And just in this event Brigitta's help would be more than ever indispensable to me."
"If the worst were to happen?" asked Bergen "How am I to understand that?"
Sendlingen made no reply. Not until Berger repeated the question did he say, slowly and feebly: "Such things should not be talked about, not with anyone, not even with a best friend, not even with one's self. Such a thing is not even dwelt upon in thought; it is done when it has to be done."
His look was fixed as he spoke, like a man gazing into a far distance or down into a deep abyss. Then his face became calm and resolved again. "One thing more," he said. "You have finished drawing up the appeal? May I read it? Forgive me, of course I have every confidence in you. But see! so much depends upon it for me, perhaps something might occur to me that would be of importance!"
"What need of asking?" interrupted Berger. "It would be doing me a service. We will go through the document together this very day."
When he called on his friend in the evening with this object, Fräulein Brigitta came out to see him. The old lady's eyes were red with crying, but her face was, as it were, lit up with a strong and noble emotion.
"I have already visited her," she whispered to Berger. "Oh believe me, she is an angel, a thousand times purer than are many who plume themselves or their virtue. I bade her be of good cheer, and then I told her much about his Lordship--who knows better how, who knows him better? She listened to me peacefully, crying quietly all the time and I had to cry too--. But all will come right; I am quite sure of it. If the God above us were to let these two creatures perish,thesetwo----"
Her voice broke with deep emotion. Berger silently pressed her hand and entered the study.
He found his friend calm and collected. Sendlingen no longer complained; no word, no look, betrayed the burden that oppressed his soul. He dispatched his business with Berger conscientiously and thoroughly, and as dispassionately as if it were a Law examination paper. More than that--when he came to a place where Berger, in the exaltation of the moment, had chosen too strong an expression, he always stopped him: "That won't do: we must find calmer and more temperate words!" And usually it was he too who found these calmer and more temperate words.
Down to the last word he maintained this clearness, this almost unnatural calm. Not until Berger had folded his paper and was putting it in his pocket did the consciousness of his misery seem to return. Involuntarily he stretched forth his hand towards the paper.
"You want to refer to something again?" asked Berger.
"No!" His hand dropped listlessly. "Besides it is all labour in vain. My lot is cast."
"Your lot?" cried Berger. "However much you may be bound up with the fate of your child, you must not say that!"
"Mylot,onlymy lot!"
Berger observed the same peculiar look and tone he had before noticed when Sendlingen said that such things should not be spoken of even to one's self.... But this time Berger wanted to force him to an explanation. "You talk in riddles," he began; but he got no further, for, with a decision that made any further questions impossible, Sendlingen interrupted him:
"May I be spared the hour when you learn to know this riddle! Even you can have no better wish than this for me! Why vainly sound the lowest depths? Good night, George, and thanks a thousand, thousand times!"
Six weeks had elapsed since the dispatch of the appeal: Christmas was at the door. The days had come and gone quickly without bringing any fresh storm, any fresh danger, but certainly without dispelling even one of the clouds that hung threateningly over the heads of these two much-to-be-commiserated beings.
Berger was with Sendlingen daily, and daily his questioning look received the same answer; a mute shake of the head--the decision had not yet arrived. The Supreme Court had had the papers connected with the trial brought under its notice; beyond the announcement of this self-evident fact, not a line had come from Vienna. This silence was certainly no good sign, but it did not necessarily follow that it was a bad one. To be sure the lawyer examining the case, unless, from the first, he attributed no importance whatever to Berger's statements, should have demanded more detailed information from the Court at Bolosch, and all the more because Baron Dernegg's dissentient vote was recorded in the papers. Still, perhaps this silence was simply to be explained by the fact that he had not had an opportunity of going into the case.
Berger held fast to this consoling explanation, or at least pretended to do so, when the subject came up in conversation, which was seldom enough; he did not like to begin it, and Sendlingen equally avoided it. It almost seemed to Berger as if his unhappy friend welcomed the delay in the decision, as if he gladly dragged on in a torture of uncertainty from day to day--anything so as not to look the dread horror in the face. And indeed Sendlingen every morning sighed with relief, when the moment of horrid suspense had gone by, when he had looked through the Vienna mail and found nothing. But this did not arise from the motive which Berger supposed, but from a better feeling. Sendlingen rejoiced in every hour of respite that gave his poor child more time to gather strength of soul and body.
The shattered health of Victorine mended visibly, day by day. The deathly pallor disappeared, her weakness lessened, the look of her eyes was clearer and steadier. The doctor observed it with glad astonishment and no little pride; he ascribed the improvement to his remedies, to the better nourishment and care which on his representations had been allotted her. When he boasted of it to his friend, Father Rohn, the good priest met him with as bantering a smile as his kind heart would allow; he knew better. If this poor child was blossoming again, the merit was entirely his. Had not the doctor himself said that she could only be saved by a change in her frame of mind? And had not this change really set in even more visibly than her physical improvement?
A new spirit had entered into Victorine. She no longer sat gazing in melancholy brooding, she no longer yearned for death, and when the priest sought to nourish in her the hope of pardon--in the sincerest conviction, for he looked upon the confirmation of the death-sentence as an impossibility--she nodded to him, touched and grateful. She seemed, now, to understand him when he told her that the repentance of a sinner and his after life of good works, were more pleasing to the good God above than his death. And when he once more led the conversation to the man who, in spite of everything, was her father and perhaps at this moment was suffering the bitterest anguish on her account, when he begged her not to harden her heart against the unknown, he had the happiness of hearing her say with fervour in her looks and voice: "I have forgiven him from the bottom of my heart. The thought of him has completely restored me! Perhaps God will grant me to be a good daughter to him some day!" So the words of comfort and the exhortations of the good priest had really not been in vain.
The true state of the case nobody even suspected; the secret was stringently kept. No doubt it struck many people and gave occasion to a variety of gossip, that Fräulein Brigitta visited the condemned prisoner almost daily, and the Chief Justice almost weekly, but a sufficient explanation was sought and found. Good-natured and inoffensive people thought that Victorine Lippert was a creature so much to be pitied, that these two noble characters were only following their natural instincts in according her a special pity; the malevolent adopted the crafty Höbinger's view, and talked of "favouritism"; the aristocratic betrayer and his mother the Countess, they said, had after all an uneasy conscience as to whether they had not behaved too harshly to the poor creature, and the representations they had made to their fellow-aristocrat, Baron von Sendlingen, had not been in vain. Certainly this report could only be maintained in uninitiated circles; anyone who was intimately acquainted with the aristocratic society of the province knew well enough, that the Countess Riesner-Graskowitz was assuredly the last person in the world to experience a single movement of pity for the condemned girl.
Be that as it might, Sendlingen behaved in this case as he had all his life behaved in any professional matter: humanely and kindly, but strictly according to the law and without over-stepping his duty by a hair's breadth. The better attention, the separate cell in the Infirmary, would certainly have been allotted to any one else about whom the doctor had made the same representations. When Father Rohn, moved by his sense of compassion, sought to obtain some insignificant favour that went beyond these lines--it had reference to some absolutely trifling regulation of the house--the Governor of the gaol was ready to grant it, but the Chief Justice rigidly set his face against the demand.
When Berger heard of this trivial incident, a heavy burden which he had been silently carrying for weeks, without daring to seek for certainty in a conversation on the subject, was rolled from his heart. He had put an interpretation on the mysterious words that Sendlingen had uttered the day after the trial, which had filled him with the profoundest sorrow,--more than that with terror. Now he saw his mistake: a man who so strictly obeyed his conscience in small matters where there was no fear of discovery, would assuredly in any greater conflict between inclination and duty, hold fast unrelentingly to justice and honour.
He was soon to be strengthened in this view.
It was three days before Christmas-day when he once more entered his friend's chambers. He found him buried in the perusal of letters which, however, he now pushed from him.
"The mail from Vienna is not in yet," he said, "the train must have got blocked in the snow. But I have letters from Pfalicz. The Chief Justice of the Higher Court there, to whose position I am to succeed, asks whether it would not be possible for me to release him soon after the New Year, instead of at the end of February, as the Minister of Justice arranged. He is unwell, and ought to go South as soon as possible."
"Great Heavens!" cried Berger. "Why, we have forgotten all about that." And indeed those stormy days and the succeeding weeks of silent, anxious suffering had hardly allowed him to think of Sendlingen's impending promotion and departure.
"I have not," replied Sendlingen, gloomily. "The thought that I had to go, has often enough weighed me down more heavily than all my other burdens. How gladly I would stay here now, even if they degraded me to--to the post of Governor of the prison! But I have now no option. I have definitely accepted the position at Pfalicz and I must enter upon it."
"And do you really think of departing at the New Year?"
"No, that would be beyond my duty. I should be glad to oblige the invalid, but as you know, I cannot. I shall stay till the end of February; the decision must have come by that time."
He again bent over a document that lay before him. Berger too, was silent, he went to the window and stared out into the grey dusk; it seemed as if the snow-storm would never cease.
There was a knock at the door; a clerk of the Court of Record entered. "From the Supreme Court," he announced, laying a packet with a large seal on the table. "It has just arrived. Personally addressed to your lordship."
The clerk departed; Berger approached the table. When he saw how excited Sendlingen was, how long he remained gazing at the letter, he shook his head. "That cannot be the decision," he said. "It would not be addressed to you. It is some indifferent matter, a question of discipline, a pension."
Sendlingen nodded and broke the seal. But at the first glance a deathly pallor overspread his face, and the paper in his hands trembled so violently that he had to lay it on the table in order to read it to the end. "Read for yourself," he then muttered.
Berger glanced through the paper; he too felt his heart beat impetuously as he did so. It was certainly not the decision, only a brief charge, but its contents were almost equivalent to it.
The lawyers examining the appeal had, as Berger hoped, been struck by Baron Dernegg's dissentient vote and the motives for this. Dernegg was not of the opinion of his brother judges that this was a case of premeditated murder, maliciously planned months beforehand, but a deed done suddenly, in a paroxysm of despair, nay, most probably in a moment when the girl was not accountable for her actions. Against this more clement view, there certainly were the depositions of the Countess, and Victorine's attempts to conceal her condition. But on the other hand, her onlyconfidante, the servant-girl, had deposed at the preliminary inquiry that Victorine had only made these attempts by her advice and with her help, and, moreover, with the sole object of staying in the house until the young Count should come to her aid. This testimony, however, she had withdrawn at the trial. Berger had chiefly based his appeal to nullify the trial, on the fact that the witness, in spite of this contradiction, had been put on her oath, and to the examining lawyer, also, this seemed a point of decisive importance. The Chief Justice was, therefore, commissioned to completely elucidate it by a fresh examination of the witness. Probably the charge had been directed to him personally because, as it stated, neither Herr von Werner nor any of the other judges who had been in favour of putting her on oath, could very well be entrusted with the inquiry. But if Sendlingen were actually too busy with other matters to conduct the examination, he might hand it over to the third Judge, Herr von Hoche.
"What will you do?" asked Berger. "The matter is of the gravest importance. That the girl gave false evidence at the trial, that this was her return for being taken back into the Countess' service, we know for a certainty. The only question is whether we can convict her of it. An energetic Judge could without doubt do so, but will old Hoche, now over seventy, succeed? He is a good man, but his years weigh heavily upon him, he is dragging himself through his duties till the date of his retirement--four weeks hence--I fancy as best he can. And therefore once again--what will you do, Victor?"
"I don't know," he murmured. "Leave me alone. I must think it out by myself. Forgive me! my conscience alone can decide in such a matter. Good-bye till this evening, George."
Berger departed; his heart was as heavy as ever it had been. In the first ebullition of feeling, moved by his pity for these two beings, he had wished to compel his friend to undertake the inquiry, but now he had scruples. Was not the position the same as on the day of the trial? And if he then approved of his friend's resolution not to preside, could he now urge him to undertake a similar task? Certainly the conflict was now more acute, more painfully accentuated, but was Sendlingen's duty as a Judge any the less on that account? Again the thought rose in Berger's mind which a few weeks ago had comforted him and lifted him above the misery of the moment: that there was a solution of these complications, a great, a liberating solution--there must be, just because this man was what he was! But even now he did not know how to find this solution; one thing only was clear to him: if Sendlingen undertook the inquiry and thus saved his child, it would be an act for which there would be all manner of excuses but it would assuredly not be that great, saving act of which he dreamt! And yet if Hoche in his weakness ruined the case and did not bring the truth to light, if she perhaps had to die now that she had begun to hope again, now that she had waked to a new life ... Berger closed his eyes as if to shut out the terrible picture that obtruded itself upon him, and yet it rose again and again.
At dusk, just as he was starting to his friend's, Fräulein Brigitta called to see him.
"I am to tell you," she began, "that his Lordship wants you to postpone your visit until to-morrow. But it is not on that account that I have come, but because I am oppressed with anxiety. Has the decision arrived? He is as much upset again as he was on the day of the trial."
Berger comforted her as well as he could. "It is only a momentary excitement," he assured her, "and will soon pass."
"I only thought so because he is behaving just as he did then. It is a singular thing; he has been rummaging for those keys again. You know,--the one that opens the little door in the court-yard wall. I came in just in the nick of time to see him take it out of his writing-table drawer. And just as before, it seemed to annoy him to be surprised in the act.--Isn't that strange?"
"Very strange!" he replied. But he added hastily: "It must have been a mere chance."
"Certainly, it can only have been a coincidence," he thought after Brigitta had gone, "it would be madness to impute such a thing to him, to him who was horrified at the idea of conducting the trial and equally at the thought of conducting this examination. And yet when he first seized upon that key, the idea must certainly have taken a momentary possession of him, and that it should have returned to him to-day, to-day of all days."
As he was the next day walking along the corridor that led to Sendlingen's chambers, he met Mr. Justice Hoche. The hoary old man, supporting himself with difficulty by the aid of a stick, was looking very testy.
"Only think," he grumbled, "what an odious task the Chief Justice has just laid upon me. It will interest you, you were Counsel for the defence in the case." And he told him of the charge at great length. "Well, what do you say to that? Isn't it odious?"
"It is a very serious undertaking!" said Berger. "The matter is one of the greatest importance."
"Yes, and just for that reason," grumbled the old man, almost whimpering. "I do not want to undertake any such responsibility, now, when merely thinking gives me a head-ache. I suffer a great deal from head-aches, Dr. Berger. And it is such a ticklish undertaking! For you see either the maid-servant told the truth at the trial, in which case this fresh examination is superfluous, or she lied andergowas guilty of perjury andergois a very tricky female! And how am I ever to get to the bottom of a tricky female, Dr. Berger?"
"Did you tell the Chief Justice this?" asked Berger.
"Oh, of course! For half an hour I was telling him about my condition and how I always get a head-ache now if I have to think. But he stuck to his point, 'you will have to undertake the matter: you must exert yourself!' Good Heavens! what power of exertion has one left at seventy years of age! Well, good morning, dear Dr. Berger! But it's odious--most odious!"
Berger looked after the old man as he painfully hobbled along: "And in such hands," he thought, "rests the fate of my two friends."
Under the weight of this thought, he had not the courage to face Sendlingen. He turned and went home in a melancholy mood.
When the next day towards noon, he was turning homewards after a trial at which he had been the defending barrister, he again met Mr. Justice Hoche, who was just leaving the building, in the portico of the Courts. The old gentleman was manifestly in a high state of contentment.
"Well," asked Berger, "is the witness here already? Have you begun the examination?"
"Begun? I have ended it!" chuckled the old man.
"Andre bene gestaone is entitled to rest. I shall let the law take care of itself to-day and go home. I haven't even got a head-ache over it; certainly it didn't require any great effort of thought--I soon got at the truth."
"Indeed?--and what is the truth?"
"H'm! I don't suppose it will be particularly agreeable to you," laughed the old Judge, leaning confidentially on Berger's arm. "Though for the matter of that you may be quite indifferent about it: you have done your duty, your appeal was certainly splendidly drawn up, but what further interest can you have in this person? For she is a thoroughly good-for-nothing person, and that's why she is dying so young! What stories that servant-girl has told me about her, stories, my dear doctor, that an old barrack-wall would have blushed to hear. She was hardly seventeen years old when she came to the Countess', but already had a dozen intrigues on her record, and what things she told herconfidanteabout them, and which were repeated to me to-day--why, it is a regular Decameron, my dear doctor, or more properly speaking: Boccaccio in comparison is a chaste Carthusian."
Berger violently drew his arm out of the old man's. "That's a lie!" he said between his teeth. "A scandalous calumny!"
The old Judge looked at him, quite put out of countenance. "Why, what an idea," he cried. "If it were not so, this servant-girl would be a tricky female."
"So she is."
"She is not! Oh, I know human nature. On the contrary, she is good-natured and stupid. No one could tell lies with such assurance, after having just been solemnly admonished to speak the truth. It is all incontestably true; all her adventures: and how from the first she had hatched a regular plot to corrupt the young Count. The crafty young person calculated in this way: if ourliaisonhas consequences, I shall perhaps inveigle the young man into a marriage, and if I don't succeed I shall kill the child and look out for another place!"
"But just consider this one fact," cried Berger. "If this had actually been Victorine Lippert's plan she would certainly have reflected: if I can't force a marriage, I shall at least get a handsome maintenance! and in that case she would not have killed her child, but carefully have preserved its life."
The old Judge meditatively laid his finger on his nose. "Look here, Dr. Berger," he said importantly, "that is a very reasonable objection. But it has been adduced already, not by me, to tell the truth, but by my assistant, a very wise young man. But the witness was able to give a perfectly satisfactory explanation on the subject. To be sure, she only did so after repeated questions and in a hesitating and uncertain manner--the good, kind-hearted girl could with difficulty bring herself to add still more to the criminal's load, but at length she had to speak out. Thus we almost accidentally extracted a very important detail that proved to be of great importance in determining the case. It is a truly frightful story. Only fancy, this mere girl, this Victorine Lippert, has always had a sort of thirst for the murder of little children. She repeatedly said to the girl long before the deed, before the young Count came to the Castle at all: 'Strange! but whenever I see a little child, I always feel my hands twitching to strangle it.' Frightful--isn't it. Dr. Berger?"
"Frightful indeed!" cried Berger, "if you have believed this poorly-contrived story of the wretched, perjured woman--poorly-contrived, and invented in the necessity of the moment so as to meet the objection of your assistant, so as not to be caught in her net of lies, so as to render the Countess another considerable service."
"Really, you will not listen to reason," said the old man, now seriously annoyed. "I feel my head-ache coming on again. Do you mean to say that you accuse the Countess of conniving at perjury! A lady of the highest aristocracy! Excuse me, Dr. Berger--that is going too far! You are a liberal, a radical, I know, but that doesn't make every Countess a criminal. But if this is really your opinion of the witness, take out a summons for perjury at once!"
"It may come to that," replied Berger.
The old man shook his head. "Spare yourself the trouble," he said good-naturedly, "it will prove ineffectual, but you may certainly get yourself into great difficulties. Why expose yourself, for the sake of such an abandoned creature, to an action for libel on the part of the Countess and her servant? How abandoned she is, you have no suspicion! I have, thank Heaven, concealed the worst of all from you, and you shall not learn it at my hands. You may read for yourself in the minutes. I do not wish to make a scene in the street. I was so enjoying this fine afternoon, and you have quite spoilt my good humour. Well, good-bye. Dr. Berger, I will forgive you. You have allowed yourself to be carried away by your pity, but you are bestowing it upon an unworthy creature! The witness gave me the impression of being absolutely trustworthy, and I have stated so in the minutes! I considered myself bound in conscience to do so."
"Then you have a human life on your conscience!" Berger blurted out. He had not meant to say anything so harsh, but the words escaped him involuntarily.
The old man started and clasped his hands. His face twitched, and bright tears stood in his eyes.
"What have I done to you?" he moaned. "Why do you say such a horrible thing? Why do you upset me? I have always considered you a good man, and now you behave like this to me!"
Berger stepped up to him and offered his hand. "Forgive me," he said, "your intention is good and pure, I know. And just for that reason I implore you to reflect well before you let the minutes go out of your hands."
"That is already done. I have just handed them to the Chief Justice."
"And what did he say?"
"Nothing, what should he say? Certainly he too seemed to be put out about something, for when I was about to enter on a brief discourse, he dismissed me a little abruptly."
"But it is open to you to demand the minutes back, and examine the witness again. Keep a sterner eye upon her, and the contradictions in which she gets involved will certainly become evident to you. At her first examination she could only say the best things of Victorine Lippert, at the trial she had lost her memory, and now of a sudden nothing is too bad."
"Oh, you barristers!" cried the Judge. "How you twist everything! The kind-hearted creature wanted to save Victorine Lippert and pity moved her to lie at first: she has just openly and repentantly confessed that she did. But at the trial, before the Crucifix, before the Judges, her courage left her. She was silent, because like a good and chaste girl, she could not bring herself to speak before a crowd of people of all those repulsive details. You see, everything is explained. You are talking in vain."
"In vain!" Berger sighed profoundly. "Good-bye," he said turning to go.
But after he had gone a few steps, Hoche called after him. The old man's eyes were full of tears. "You are angry with me?" he said.
"No."
"Well, you have no reason to be angry, though I have--but I forgive you. By what you said you might easily have made me unhappy if the case had not been so clear. Certainly I am upset now. To-morrow is Christmas Eve; my children and grand-children will come and bring me presents, and I shall give them presents, and I shall think all the time: Hoche, what a frightful thing if you were a murderer! You will take back your words, won't you? I am no murderer, am I?"
Berger looked at the childish old man. "O tragicomedy of life!" he thought, but added aloud:
"No, Herr Hoche, you are no murderer."
In the evening he went to see Sendlingen and look over the minutes which he too had the right of disputing. He would have been disconsolate enough if he had not already known their contents; as it was the extraordinary tone of the document cheered him a little. The 'wise young man' was perhaps himself an author, or at least had certainly read a great many cheap novels; the style in which he had reproduced the servant girl's imaginations was, in the worst sense of the word "fine!" How this lessened the danger of the contents was shown especially, by that worst fact of all which Hoche could not bring himself to pronounce, and which was of such monstrous baseness that the faith of even the most vapid of judges must have been shaken in all the rest.
"That is quite harmless," said Berger. "More than that, these monstrous lies are just the one bit of luck in all our misfortunes."
"Certainly!" Sendlingen agreed. "But we must not count too much upon them. The examining judge may not believe everything, but he will certainly not discredit everything. It could not be expected after Hoche's enthusiastic advocacy of the witness' credibility."
"And yet these minutes must be sent off. Would it not be possible to hand over the inquiry to some one else?"
"Impossible, or I would have done so yesterday. Either I or Hoche--the charge of the Supreme Court is clear enough! AndIcould not do it! It seemed to me mean and cowardly, treacherous and paltry, to break my Judge's oath, trusting to the silence of the three people who beside me know the secret, trusting moreover never to have to undergo punishment for my offence. To this consideration it seemed to me that every other must give way."
Berger was silent. "Would it not be possible to take out a summons for perjury?" he resumed.
"No," cried Sendlingen, "it would be an utterly useless delay! Success in the present position of things is not to be hoped for."
Berger bowed his head.
"Then Justice will suffer once again," he said in deep distress. "I will not reproach you. When I put myself in your place--I cannot trust myself to say that I should have done the same. I only presume I should, but this one thing I do know, that in accordance with your whole nature you have acted rightly. Still, ever since the moment that I spoke to Hoche, I cannot silence a tormenting question. Ought fidelity to the Law be stronger than fidelity to Justice? You would not undertake the inquiry because a father may not take part in an examination conducted against his child, but were you justified in handing it over to a man who was no longer in a condition to find out the truth, to fulfil his duty? Has not justice suffered at your hands by your respect for the law, that justice, I mean, which speaks aloud in the heart of every man?"