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The Chief Justice: A Novel

by Karl Emil Franzos · English · Gutenberg #36854 · 396,962 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Chief Justice: A Novel

Author: Karl Emil Franzos

Editor: Edmund Gosse

Translator: Miles Corbet


        
Release date: July 25, 2011 [eBook #36854]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36854

Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHIEF JUSTICE: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive







Transcriber's Notes:
   1. Page scan source:
      http://www.archive.org/details/chiefjusticenove00franiala

   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].




Heinemann's International Library.




                             EDITOR'S NOTE.


There is nothing in which the Anglo-Saxon world differs more from the
world of the Continent of Europe than in its fiction. English readers
are accustomed to satisfy their curiosity with English novels, and it
is rarely indeed that we turn aside to learn something of the interior
life of those other countries the exterior scenery of which is often so
familiar to us. We climb the Alps, but are content to know nothing of
the pastoral romances of Switzerland. We steam in and out of the
picturesque fjords of Norway, but never guess what deep speculation
into life and morals is made by the novelists of that sparsely peopled
but richly endowed nation. We stroll across the courts of the Alhambra,
we are listlessly rowed upon Venetian canals and Lombard lakes, we
hasten by night through the roaring factories of Belgium; but we never
pause to inquire whether there is now flourishing a Spanish, an
Italian, a Flemish school of fiction. Of Russian novels we have lately
been taught to become partly aware, but we do not ask ourselves whether
Poland may not possess a Dostoieffsky and Portugal a Tolstoi.

Yet, as a matter of fact, there is no European country that has
not, within the last half-century, felt the dew of revival on the
threshing-floor of its worn-out schools of romance. Everywhere there
has been shown by young men, endowed with a talent for narrative, a
vigorous determination to devote themselves to a vivid and sympathetic
interpretation of nature and of man. In almost every language, too,
this movement has tended to display itself more and more in the
direction of what is reported and less of what is created. Fancy has
seemed to these young novelists a poorer thing than observation; the
world of dreams fainter than the world of men. They have not been
occupied mainly with what might be or what should be, but with what is,
and, in spite of all their shortcomings, they have combined to produce
a series of pictures of existing society in each of their several
countries such as cannot fail to form an archive of documents
invaluable to futurity.

But to us they should be still more valuable. To travel in a foreign
country is but to touch its surface. Under the guidance of a novelist
of genius we penetrate to the secrets of a nation, and talk the very
language of its citizens. We may go to Normandy summer after summer and
know less of the manner of life that proceeds under those gnarled
orchards of apple-blossom than we learn from one tale of Guy de
Maupassant's. The present series is intended to be a guide to the inner
geography of Europe. It presents to our readers a series of spiritual
Baedekers and Murrays. It will endeavour to keep pace with every truly
characteristic and vigorous expression of the novelist's art in each of
the principal European countries, presenting what is quite new if it is
also good, side by side with what is old, if it has not hitherto been
presented to our public. That will be selected which gives with most
freshness and variety the different aspects of continental feeling, the
only limits of selection being that a book shall be, on the one hand,
amusing, and, on the other, wholesome.

One difficulty which must be frankly faced is that of subject. Life is
now treated in fiction by every race but our own with singular candour.
The novelists of the Lutheran North are not more fully emancipated from
prejudice in this respect than the novelists of the Catholic South.
Everywhere in Europe a novel is looked upon now as an impersonal work,
from which the writer, as a mere observer, stands aloof, neither
blaming nor applauding. Continental fiction has learned to exclude, in
the main, from among the subjects of its attention, all but those facts
which are of common experience, and thus the novelists have determined
to disdain nothing and to repudiate nothing which is common to
humanity; much is freely discussed, even in the novels of Holland and
of Denmark, which our race is apt to treat with a much more gingerly
discretion. It is not difficult, however, we believe--it is certainly
not impossible--to discard all which may justly give offence, and yet
to offer to an English public as many of the masterpieces of European
fiction as we can ever hope to see included in this library. It will be
the endeavour of the editor to search on all hands and in all languages
for such books as combine the greatest literary value with the most
curious and amusing qualities of manner and matter.

                                                     EDMUND GOSSE.






                           THE CHIEF JUSTICE






                                  THE

                             Chief Justice

                                A NOVEL



                                   BY

                              EMIL FRANZOS



                       TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

                                   BY

                              MILES CORBET




                                 LONDON

                           WILLIAM HEINEMANN

                                  1890

                        [_All rights reserved_]






                             INTRODUCTION.


The remote Austrian province of Galicia has, in our generation,
produced two of the most original of modern novelists, Leopold von
Sacher-Masoch and Karl Emil Franzos. The latter, who is the author of
the volume here presented to English readers, was born on the 25th of
October 1848, just over the frontier, in a ranger's house in the midst
of one of the vast forests of Russian Podolia. His father, a Polish
Jew, was the district doctor of the town of Czorskow, in Galicia, where
the boy received his first lessons in literature from his German
mother. In 1858 Franzos was sent, on the death of his father, to the
German College at Czernowitz; at the age of fourteen, according to the
published accounts of his life, he was left entirely to his own
resources, and gained a precarious livelihood by teaching. After
various attempts at making a path for himself in science and in law,
and finding that his being a Jew stood in the way of a professional
career, he turned, as so many German Israelites have done before and
since, to journalism, first in Vienna, then at Pesth, then in Vienna
again, where he still continues to reside.

In 1876 Franzos published his first book, two volumes entitled _Aus
Halb-Asia_ ("From Semi-Asia"), a series of ethnological studies on the
peoples of Galicia, Bukowina, South Russia, and Roumania, whom he
described as in a twilight of semi-barbaric darkness, not wholly in the
sunshine of Europe. This was followed in 1878 by _Vom Don zur Donau_
("From the Don to the Danube"), a similar series of studies in
ethnography. Meanwhile, in _Die Juden von Barnow_ ("The Jews of
Barnow"), 1877, he had published his first collection of tales drawn
from his early experience. He followed it in 1879 by _Junge Liebe_
("Young Love"), two short stories, "Brown Rosa" and "Brandenegg's
Cousins," extremely romantic in character, and written in an elaborate
and somewhat extravagant style. These volumes achieved a great and
instant success.

The succeeding novels of Franzos have been numerous, and unequal in
value. _Moschko von Parma_, 1880, was a pathetic study of the
vicissitudes of a young Jewish soldier in the wars. In the same year
Franzos published _Die Hexe_ ("The Witch"). The best known of his
writings in this country is _Ein Kampf um's Recht_ ("A Battle for the
Right"), 1882, which was published in English, with an Introduction by
Mr. George MacDonald, and attracted the favourable, and even
enthusiastic, notice of Mr. Gladstone. _Der Praesident_, which is here
translated, appeared in Germany in 1884.

                                                     EDMUND GOSSE.




                           THE CHIEF JUSTICE.




                               CHAPTER I.


In the Higher Court of Bolosch, an important Germano-Slavonic town of
northern Austria, there sat as Chief Justice some thirty years ago, one
of the bravest and best of those men on whom true justice might
hopefully rely in that sorely tried land.

Charles Victor, Baron von Sendlingen, as he may be called in this
record of his fate, was the last descendant of a very ancient and
meritorious race which could trace its origin to a collateral branch of
the Franconian Emperors, and which had once upon a time possessed rich
lands and mines on the shores of the Woerther See: now indeed by reason
of an adverse fate and the love of splendour of some of its scions,
there had gradually come to be nothing left of all this save a series
of high sounding titles. But the decline of fame and influence had not
kept pace with the loss of lands and wealth; the Sendlingens had
entered the service of the Hapsburgs and in the last two hundred years
had given the Austrian Hereditary Dominions not only several brave
generals, but an almost unbroken line of administrators and guardians
of Justice. And so, although they were entirely dependent on their
slender official salaries, they were reckoned with good reason among
the first families of the Empire, and a Sendlingen might from his
cradle count upon the office of Chief Justice of one of the Higher
Courts. Even unkind envy, to say nothing of honest report, was obliged
to admit that these hereditary patricians of Justice had always shown
themselves worthy of their sacred office, and just as they regularly
inherited certain physical characteristics--great stature, bright eyes
and coal-black curly hair--so also gifted intellects, iron industry and
a sense of duty which often enough bordered on self-denial, were always
theirs. "The majesty of the Law is the most sacred majesty on earth."
Thus spake the first of this family who had entered the service of the
Imperial Courts of Justice, the Baron Victor Amadeus, Chief Judge of
the Vienna Senate, in answer to an irregular demand of Ferdinand the
Catholic, and his descendants held fast to the maxim in good days and
evil, even in those worst days when Themis threatened, in this country
also, to sink to the level of the venal mistress of Princes. The
greatest of the Hapsburgs, Joseph II., knew how to value this at its
right worth, and although he much disliked hereditary offices, he on
this account appointed the Baron Charles Victor, in spite of his youth,
as his father's successor in one of the most important offices of the
State.

This was the grandfather of that Sendlingen whose story is to be told
here, a powerful man of unusual strength of will who had again raised
the reputation of the family to a most flourishing condition. But
although everything went so well with him, the dearest wish of his
heart was not to be realized: he was not to transmit office and
reputation to his son. This son, Franz Victor, our hero's father, had
to pass his life wretchedly in an insignificant position, the only one
among the Sendlingens who went to his grave in mature years, unrenowned
and indeed despised.

This fate had not overtaken him through lack of ability or industry. He
too proved himself a true son of this admirable race; gifted,
persevering, thorough, devoted heart and soul to his studies and his
official duties. But a youthful escapade had embroiled him in the
beginning of his career with father and relations: a girl of the lower
orders, the daughter of the concierge at the Courts where his father
presided, had become dear to him and in a moment of passion he had
betrayed her. When the girl could no longer conceal the consequences of
her fault, she went and threw herself at the feet of the Chief Justice
imploring him to protect her from her parent's wrath. The old man could
hardly contain his agony of indignation, but he summoned his son and
having heard from his lips the truth of the accusation, he resolved the
matter by saying: "The wedding will take place next Sunday. A
Sendlingen may be thoughtless, he must never be a scoundrel." They were
married without show and in complete secresy, and at once started for a
little spot in the Tyrolean mountains whither Baron von Sendlingen had
caused his son and heir to be transferred.

This event made a tremendous sensation. For the first time a Sendlingen
had married out of his rank, the daughter of a menial too, and
constrained to it by his father! People hardly knew how to decide which
of the two, father or son, had sinned most against the dignity of the
family; similar affairs were usually settled by the nobles of the land
in all secresy and without leaving a stain on their genealogical tree.
Even Kaiser Franz, although his opinions about morality were so rigid,
once signified something of the kind to the honourable old judge, but
he received the same answer as was given to his son. The embittered old
man was indeed equally steadfast in maintaining a complete severance of
the bonds between him and his only son; the letters which every mail
from the Tyrol brought, were left unopened, and even in his last
illness he would not suffer the outcast to be recalled.

After the death of the Judge, his son came to be completely forgotten:
only occasionally his aristocratic relations used to recount with a
shrug of the shoulders, that they had again been obliged to return a
letter of this insolent fellow to the place where it came from.
Nevertheless they learnt the contents of these letters from a
good-natured old aunt: they told of the death of his first child, then
of the birth of a boy whom he had called after his grandfather, and
while he obstinately kept silence about the happiness or unhappiness of
his marriage, he more and more urgently begged for deliverance from the
God-forsaken corner of the globe in which he languished and for
promotion to a worthier post.

Although the only person who read these letters was, with all her pity,
unable to help him, he never grew weary of writing. The tone of his
letters became year by year more bitter and despairing, and whereas he
had at first asked for special favours, he now fiercely demanded the
cessation of these hostile intrigues. Perhaps the embittered man was
unjust to his relations in making this reproach,--they seemed in no
way to concern themselves about him whether to his interest or his
injury--, but he really was badly treated, and leaving out the
influence of his name, he was not even able to obtain what he might
have expected according to the regulations of the service. An excellent
judge of exemplary industry, he was forced to continue for years in
this Tyrolean wilderness until at length, one day, he was promoted to a
judgeship on the Klagenfurth Circuit. But he was not long able to enjoy
his improved position: bitter repentance and the struggle with
wretchedness had prematurely undermined his strength. He died, soon
after his wife, and his last concern on earth was an imploring prayer
to his relations to adopt his boy.

This prayer would perhaps not have been necessary to secure the orphan
that sympathy which his much-to-be-pitied father had in vain sought to
obtain for himself. Charles Victor, now fourteen years of age, was
carried off in a sort of triumph and brought to Vienna: even the
Emperor gratefully remembered the faithful services which this noble
house had for centuries rendered to his throne, and he caused its last
surviving male to be educated at his expense in the Academy of Maria
Theresa.

The beautiful, slender boy won the sympathies of his natural guardians
by his mere appearance, the serious expression peculiar to his family
and his surprising resemblance to his grandfather; excellent gifts, a
quiet, steady love of work and a self-contained, manly sweetness of
disposition, made him dear to both his masters and his comrades. He was
the best scholar at the Academy, and he justified the hopes which he
had aroused by the brilliant success of his legal studies. But his
eagerness to obtain a knowledge of the world and to see foreign
countries was equally great, and the modest fortune left him by his
grandfather made the fulfilment of these desires possible. When, being
of age, he returned to Austria and entered on his legal duties, it
needed no particular insight to prophesy a rapid advancement in his
career.

In fact after a brief term of office as judge-advocate in the Eastern
provinces, he was transferred to Bohemia, and shortly afterwards
married a beautiful, proud girl who had been much sought after, a
daughter of one of the most important Counts of the Empire. Nobody was
surprised that the lucky man had also this good luck, but the marriage
remained childless. This only served to unite the stately pair more
closely to one another, and this wedded love and the judge's triumphs
on the Bench and in the world of letters, sufficed to fully occupy his
life. His treatises on criminal law were among the best of the kind,
and the practical nature of his judgments obtained for him the
reputation of one of the most thorough and sagacious judges of Austria.
And so it was more owing to his services than to the influence attached
to the name and associations of this remarkable man, that he succeeded
in scaling by leaps and bounds that ladder of advancement on the lowest
rung of which, his unfortunate father had remained in life-long
torture. As early as in his fortieth year he had obtained the important
and honourable position of Chief Justice of Bolosch.

The stormy times in which he lived served as a good test of his
character and abilities. The fierce flames of 1848 had been
extinguished and from the ruins rose the exhalation of countless
political trials. Those were sad days, making the strongest demands on
the independence of a Judge, and many an honest but weak man became the
compliant servant of the Authorities. The Chief Justice von Sendlingen,
a member of the oldest nobility, bound to the Imperial House by ties of
personal gratitude, related by marriage to the leaders of the reaction,
was nevertheless not one of the weak and cowardly judges; just as in
that stormy year he had boldly confessed his loyalty to the Emperor, so
now he showed that Justice was not to be abased to an instrument of
political revenge. This boldness was indeed not without danger; his
brother-in-law stormed, his wife was in tears; first warnings, then
threats, rained in upon him, but he kept his course unmoved, acting as
his sense of justice bade him. If those in authority did not actually
interfere with him, he owed this entirely to his past services, which
had made him almost indispensable. The methods of administering justice
were constantly changed, juries were empanelled and then dismissed, the
regulations of the Courts were repeatedly altered: everywhere there
were cases in arrear, and confusion and uncertainty.

The Bolosch Circuit was one of the few exceptions. The Chief Justice
remained unmolested by the ministry, and the citizens honoured him as
the embodiment of Justice, and lawyers as the ornament of their
profession.

Respected throughout the whole Empire, he was in his immediate circle
the object of almost idolatrous love. And certainly the personal
characteristics of this stately and serious man with his almost
youthful beauty, were enough to justify this feeling. He was gentle but
determined; dignified but affectionate: faithful in the extreme to
duty, and yet no stickler for forms.

When his wife died suddenly in 1850, the sympathetic love and
veneration of all were manifested in the most touching manner. He felt
the loss keenly, but only his best friend, Dr. George Berger, learnt
how deep was the wound. This Dr. Berger was one of the most respected
barristers of the town, and in spite of the difference of their
political convictions--Berger was a Radical--he enjoyed an almost
fraternal intimacy with Sendlingen. This faithful friend did what he
could for the lonely Judge; and his best helper in the work of sympathy
was his sense of duty which forbade a weak surrender to sorrow. He
gradually became quiet and composed again, and some premature grey
hairs at the temples alone showed how exceedingly he had suffered.

In the midst of the regular work of his profession--it was in May,
1850--he was surprised by a laconic command from the Minister of
Justice ordering him forthwith to surrender the conduct of his Court to
the Judge next him in position, von Werner, and to be in Vienna within
three days. This news caused general amazement; the reactionary party
was growing stronger, and it was thought that this sudden call might
mean the commencement of an inquiry into the conduct of this true but
independent Judge. He himself was prepared for the worst, but his
friend Berger took a more hopeful view; rudeness, he said, had become
the fashion again in Vienna, and perhaps something good was in store
for him.

This supposition proved correct; the Minister wished the assistance of
the learned specialist in drawing up a new Statute for the
administration of Justice. The Commission of Inquiry, originally called
for two months, continued its deliberations till the autumn. It was not
till the beginning of November that Sendlingen started for home, having
received as a mark of the Minister's gratitude the nomination as Chief
Justice of the Higher Court at Pfalicz, a post which he was to enter
upon in four months.

This was a brilliant and unexampled appointment for one of his years,
but the thought of leaving the much-loved circle of his labours made
him sorrowful. And this feeling was increased when the citizens
testified by a public reception at the station, how greatly they were
rejoiced at his return. His lonely dwelling too had been decorated by a
friendly hand, as also the Courts of Justice. He found it difficult to
announce his departure in answer to the speech of welcome delivered by
his Deputy. And indeed his announcement was received with exclamations
of regret and amazement, and it was only by degrees that his auditors
sufficiently recovered themselves to congratulate their beloved chief.

Only one of them did so with a really happy heart, his Deputy, von
Werner, an old, industrious if not very gifted official, who now
likewise saw a certain hope of promotion. With a pleased smile, the
little weazened man followed Sendlingen into his chambers in order to
give him an account of the judicial proceedings of the last six months.
Herr von Werner was a sworn enemy of all oral reports, and had
therefore not only prepared two beautifully drawn-up lists of the civil
and criminal trials, but had written a memorial which he now read out
by way of introduction.

Sendlingen listened patiently to this lengthy document. But when Werner
was going to take up the lists with the same intention, the Chief
Justice with a pleasant smile anticipated him.

"We will look through them together," he said, and began with the
criminal list. It contained the name, age and calling of the accused,
the date of their gaol-delivery, their crime, as well as the present
position of the trial.

"There are more arrears than I expected," he said with some surprise.

"But the number of crimes has unfortunately greatly increased,"
objected Herr von Werner, zealously. "Especially the cases of
child-murder."

"You are right." Sendlingen glanced through the columns specifying the
crimes and then remained plunged in deep thought.

"The number is nearly double," he resumed. "And it is not only here,
but in the whole Empire, that this horrible phenomenon is evident! The
Minister of Justice complained of it to me with much concern."

"But what else could one expect?" cried old Werner. "This accursed
Revolution has undermined all discipline, morals and religion! And then
the leniency with which these inhuman women are treated--why it is
years since the death-sentence has been carried out in a case of
child-murder."

"That will unfortunately soon be changed," answered Sendlingen in a
troubled tone. "The Minister of Justice thinks as you do, and would
like an immediate example to be made. It is unfortunate, I repeat, and
not only because, from principle, I am an opponent of the theory of
deterring by fear. Of all social evils this can least of all be cured
by the hangman. And if it is so rank nowadays, I do not think the
reason is to be found where you and His Excellency seek it, but in the
sudden impoverishment, the uncertainty of circumstances and the
brutality which, everywhere and always, follow upon a great war. The
true physicians are the political economist, the priest and the
schoolmaster!... Or have you ever perhaps known of a case among
educated people?"

"Oh certainly!" answered Herr von Werner importantly. "I have, as it
happens, to preside to-morrow,--that is to say unless you will take the
case--at the conclusion of a trial against a criminal of that class; at
least she must be well-educated as she was governess in the house of a
Countess. See here--Case No. 19 on the list." He pointed with his
finger to the place.

Then a dreadful thing happened. Hardly had Sendlingen glanced at the
name which Werner indicated, than he uttered a hollow choking cry, a
cry of deadly anguish. His face was livid, his features were distorted
by an expression of unutterable terror, his eyes started out of their
sockets and stared in a sort of fascination at the list before him.

"Great Heavens!" cried Werner, himself much alarmed, as he seized his
chief's hand. "What is the matter with you? Do you know this girl?"

Sendlingen made no reply. He closed his eyes, rested both arms on the
table and tried to rise. But his limbs refused to support him, and he
sank down in his chair like one in a faint.

"Water! Help!" cried Werner, making for the bell.

A movement of Sendlingen's stopped him. "It is nothing," he gasped with
white lips and parched throat. "An attack of my heart disease. It has
lately--become--much worse."

"Oh!" cried Werner with genuine sympathy. "I never even suspected this
before. Everybody thought you were in the best of health. What do the
doctors say?"

Again there was no answer. Breathing with difficulty, livid, his head
sunk on his breast, his eyes closed, Sendlingen lay back in his chair.
And when he raised his eyelids Werner met such a hopeless, despairing
look, that the old gentleman involuntarily started back.

"May I," he began timidly, "call a doctor----"

"No!" Sendlingen's refusal was almost angry. Again he attempted to rise
and this time he succeeded.

"Thank you," he said feebly. "I must have frightened you. I am better
now and shall soon be quite well."

"But you are going home?"
"Why should I? I will rest in this comfortable chair for half an hour
and then, my dear colleague, I shall be quite at your service again."

The old gentleman departed but not without hesitation: even he was
really attached to Sendlingen. The other officials also received the
news of this attack with genuine regret, especially as Werner several
times repeated in his important manner:

"Any external cause is quite out of the question, gentlemen, quite out
of the question. We were just quietly talking about judicial matters.
Ah, heart disease is treacherous, gentlemen, very treacherous."

Hardly had the door closed, when Sendlingen sank down in his chair,
drew the lists towards him and again stared at that particular spot
with a look on his face as if his sentence of death was written there.

The entry read thus: "Victorine Lippert. Born 25th January 1834 at
Radautz in the Bukowina. Governess. Child-murder. Transferred here from
the District Court at Goelotz on the 17th June 1852. Confessed. Trial to
be concluded 8th November 1852."

The column headed "sentence" was still empty.

"Death!" he muttered. "Death!" he repeated, loud and shrill, and a
shudder ran through his every fibre.

He sank back and hid his face which had suddenly become wasted.

"O my God!" he groaned. "I dare not let her die--her blood would cry
out against me, against me only."

And he drew the paper towards him again and stared at the entry,
piteously and beseechingly, as though he expected a miracle from
Heaven, as though the letters must change beneath the intensity of his
gaze.

The mid-day bells of the neighbouring cathedral aroused him from his
gloomy brooding. He rose, smoothed his disarranged hair, forced on his
accustomed look of quiet, and betook himself to Werner's room.

"You see," he said. "I have kept my word and am all right again. Are
there any pressing matters to be rid of?"

"Only one," answered Werner. "The Committee of Discipline has waited
your return, as it did not wish to decide an important case without
you."

"Good, summon the Committee for five o'clock today."

He now went the round of the other offices, answered the anxious
inquiries with the assurance that he was quite well again, and then
went down a long corridor to his own quarters which were in another
wing of the large building.

His step was still elastic, his face pale but almost cheerful. Not
until he had given his servant orders to admit nobody, not even his
friend Berger, and until he had bolted his study-door, did he sink down
and then give himself up, without restraint, to the fury of a wild,
despairing agony.




                              CHAPTER II.


For an hour or more the unhappy man lay groaning, and writhing like a
worm under the intensity of his wretchedness. Then he rose and with
unsteady gait went to his secretaire, and began to rummage in the
secret drawers of the old-fashioned piece of furniture.

"I no longer remember where it is," he muttered to himself. "It is long
since I thought of the old story--but God has not forgotten it."

At length he discovered what he was looking for: a small packet of
letters grown yellow with time. As he unloosed the string which tied
them, a small watercolour portrait in a narrow silver frame fell out:
it depicted the gentle, sweet features of a young, fair, grey-eyed
girl. His eyes grew moist as he looked at it, and bitter tears suddenly
coursed down his cheeks.

He then unfolded the papers and began to read: they were long letters,
except the last but one which filled no more than two small sheets.
This he read with the greatest attention of all, read and re-read it
with ever-increasing emotion. "And I could resist such words!" he
murmured. "Oh wretched man that I am."

Then he opened the last of the letters. "You evidently did not yourself
expect that I would take your gift," he read out in an undertone. And
then: "I do not curse you; on the contrary, I ardently hope that you
may at least not have given me up in vain."

He folded the letters and tied them up. Then he undid them again and
buried himself once more in their melancholy contents.

A knock at the door interrupted him: his housekeeper announced that
dinner was ready. This housekeeper was an honest, elderly spinster,
Fraeulein Brigitta, whom he usually treated with the greatest
consideration. To-day he only answered her with a curt, impatient,
"Presently!" and he vouchsafed no lengthier reply to her question how
he was.

But then he remembered some one else. "I must not fall ill," he said.
"I must keep up my strength. I shall need it all!" And after he had
locked up the letters, he went to the dining-room.

He forced himself to take two or three spoonfuls of soup, and hastily
emptied a glass of old Rhine-wine. His man-servant, Franz, likewise a
faithful old soul, replenished it, but hesitatingly and with averted
countenance.

"Where is Fraeulein Brigitta?" asked Sendlingen.

"Crying!" growled the old man. "Hasn't got used to the new state of
things! Nor have I! Nice conduct, my lord! We arrive in the morning
ill, we say nothing to an old and faithful servant, we go straight into
the Courts. There we fall down several times; we send for no doctor,
but writhe alone in pain like a wounded stag." The faithful old
fellow's eyes were wet.

"I am quite well again, Franz," said Sendlingen re-assuringly.

"We were groaning!" said the old man in a tone of the bitterest
reproach. "And since when have we declined to admit Herr Berger?"

"Has he been here?"

"Yes, on most important business, and would not believe that we
ourselves had ordered him to be turned away.... And now we are eating
nothing," he continued vehemently, as Sendlingen pushed his plate from
him and rose. "My Lord, what does this mean! We look as if we had seen
a ghost!"

"No, only an old grumbler!" He intended this for an airy pleasantry but
its success was poor. "Do not be too angry with me."

Then he returned to his chambers. "The old fellow is right," he
thought. "It was a ghost, a very ancient ghost, and its name is
Nemesis!" His eyes fell on the large calendar on the door: "7th
November 1852" he read aloud. "A day like every other--and yet ..."

Then he passed his hand over his brow as if trying to recall who he
was, and rang the bell.

"Get me," he said to the clerk who entered, "the documents relating to
the next three criminal trials."

He stepped to the window and awaited the clerk's return with apparent
calm. He had not long to wait; the clerk entered and laid two goodly
bundles of papers on the table.

"I have to inform you, my lord," said the clerk standing at attention
(he had been a soldier), "that only the papers relating to the trials
of the 9th and 10th November are in the Court-house. Those for
tomorrow's trial of Victorine Lippert for child-murder are still in the
hands of Counsel for the accused, Dr. George Berger."

Sendlingen started. "Did the accused choose her Counsel?"

"No, my lord, she refused any defence because she is, so to speak, a
poor despairing creature who would prefer to die. Herr von Werner
therefore, ex-officio, allotted her Dr. Kraushoffer as Counsel, and,
when he became ill, Dr. Berger. Dr. Kraushoffer was only taken ill the
day before yesterday and therefore Dr. Berger has been allowed to keep
the papers till tomorrow morning early. Does your Lordship desire that
I should ask him for them?"

"No. That will do."

He went back to the niche by the window. "A poor creature who would
prefer to die!" he said slowly and gloomily. Frightful images thronged
into his mind, but the poor worn brain could no longer grasp any clear
idea. He began to pace up and down his room rapidly, almost staggering
as he went.

"Night! night!" he groaned: he felt as if he were wandering aimlessly
in pitchy darkness, while every pulsation of lost time might involve
the sacrifice of a human life. Then his face brightened again, it
seemed a good omen that Berger was defending the girl: he knew his
friend to be the most conscientious barrister on the circuit. "And if I
were to tell him fully what she is to me--" But he left the sentence
unfinished and shook his head.

"I could not get the words out," he murmured looking round quite
scared, "not even to him!"

"And why should I?" he then thought. "Berger will in any case, from his
own love of justice, do all that is in his power."

But what result was to be expected? The old judges, unaccustomed to
speeches, regarded the concluding proceedings rather as a formality,
and decided on their verdict from the documents, whatever Counsel might
say. It depended entirely on their opinion and what Werner thought of
the crime he had explained a few hours ago! And even if before that he
had been of another opinion, now that he knew the opinion of the
Minister of Justice.... "Fool that I am," said Sendlingen between his
teeth, "it was I who told him!" Again he looked half-maddened by his
anguish and wandered about the room wringing his hands.

Suddenly he stopped. His face grew more livid, his brows contracted in
a dark frown, his lips were tightly pressed together. A new idea had
apparently occurred to him, a dark uncanny inspiration, against which
he was struggling but which returned again and again, and took
possession of him. "That would be salvation," he muttered. "If
to-morrow's sentence is only for a short term of imprisonment, the
higher Court would never increase it to a sentence of death!"

He paced slowly to the window, his head bowed as if the weight of that
thought lay upon his neck like a material burden, and stared out into
the street. The early shades of the autumn evening were falling; on the
other side of a window in a building opposite, a young woman entered
with a lamp for her husband. She placed it on his work-table, and
lightly touched his hair with her lips. Sendlingen saw it plainly, he
could distinguish every piece of furniture in the room and also the
features of the couple, and as he knew them, he involuntarily whispered
their names. But his brain unceasingly continued to spin that dark web,
and at times his thoughts escaped him in a low whisper.

"What is there to prevent me? Nobody knows my relationship to her and
she herself has no suspicion. I am entitled to it, and it would arouse
no suspicion. Certainly it would be difficult, it would be a horrible
time, but how much depends on me!"

"Wretch!" he suddenly cried, in a hard, hoarse voice. "The world does
not know your relationship, but you know it! What you intend is a
crime, it is against justice and law!"

"Oh my God!" he groaned: "Help me! Enlighten my poor brain! Would it
not be the lesser crime if I were to save her by dishonourable means,
than if I were to stand by with folded arms and see her delivered to
the hangman! Can this be against Thy will, Thou who art a God of love
and mercy? Can my honour be more sacred than her life?"

He sank back and buried his face in his hands. "But it does not concern
my honour alone," he said. "It would be a crime against Justice,
against the most sacred thing on earth! O my God, have mercy upon me!"

While he lay there in the dark irresolute, his body a prey to fever,
his soul torn by worse paroxysms, he heard first of all a gentle, then
a louder knocking at the door. At length it was opened.

"My Lord!" said a loud voice: it was Herr von Werner.

"Here I am," quickly answered Sendlingen rising.

"In the dark?" asked old Werner with astonishment. "I thought perhaps
you had forgotten the appointment--it is five o'clock and the members
of the Committee of Discipline are waiting for us. Has your
indisposition perhaps returned?"

"No! I was merely sitting in deep thought and forgot to light the
candles. Come, I am quite ready."

"Will you allow me a question?" asked Werner, stepping forward as far
as the light which streamed in from the corridor. "In fact it is a
request. The clerk told me that you had been asking to see the
documents relating to to-morrow's trial. Would you perhaps like to
preside at it?"

Sendlingen did not answer at once. "I am not posted up in the matter,"
he at length said with uncertain voice.

"The case is very simple and a glance at the deed of accusation would
sufficiently inform you. In fact I took the liberty of asking this
question in order to have the documents fetched at once from Herr
Berger. I myself--hm, my daughter, the wife of the finance counsellor,
is in fact expecting, as I just learn, tomorrow for the first
time--hm,--a happy event. It is natural that I should none the less be
at the disposal of the Court, but--hm,--trusting to your official
goodnature----"

Sendlingen had supported himself firmly against the back of the chair.
His pulses leapt and his voice trembled as he answered:

"I will take the case."

Then both the men started for the Court. When they came out into the
full light of the corridor, Werner looked anxiously at his chief. "But
indeed you are still very white!" he cried. "And your face has quite a
strange expression. You appear to be seriously unwell, and I have just
asked you----"

"It is nothing!" interrupted Sendlingen impatiently. "Whom does our
present transaction relate to?"

"You will be sorry to hear of it," was the answer, "I know that you too
had the best opinion of the young man. It relates to Herbich, an
assistant at the Board of Trade office: he has unfortunately been
guilty of a gross misuse of his official position."

"Oh--in what way?"

"Money matters," answered Werner cursorily, and he beckoned to a
messenger and sent him to Berger's.

They then entered the Court where the three eldest Judges were already
waiting for them. The Chief Justice opened the sitting and called for a
report of the case to be read.

It was different from what one would have expected from Werner's
intimation: Herbich had not become a criminal through greed of gain.
His mother, an old widow, had, on his advice, lent her slender fortune
which was to have served as her only daughter's dowry, to a friend of
his, a young merchant of excellent reputation. Without any one
suspecting it, this honourable man had through necessity gradually
become bankrupt, and when Herbich one morning entered his office at the
Board of Trade, he found the manager of a factory there who, to his
alarm, demanded a decree summoning a meeting of his friend's creditors.
Instead of fulfilling this in accordance with the duties of his office,
he hurried to the merchant and induced him by piteous prayers to return
the loan on the spot. Not till then did he go back to the office and
draw up the necessary document. By the inquiries of other creditors
whose fractional share had been diminished by this, the matter came to
light. Herbich was suspended, though left at liberty. There was no
permanent loss to the creditors, as the sister had in the meantime
returned the whole of the amount to the administrator of the estate.
The report recommended that the full severity of the law should take
effect, and that the young man should not only be deprived of his
position, but should forthwith be handed over to justice.

Sendlingen had listened to the lengthy report motionless. Only once had
he risen, to arrange the lampshade so that his face remained in
complete shadow. Then he asked whether the committee would examine the
accused. It was in no way bound to do so, though entitled to, and
therefore Herbich had been instructed to hold himself in waiting at the
Court at the hour of the inquiry.

The conductor of the inquiry was opposed to any examination. Not so
Baron Dernegg, one of the Judges, a comfortable looking man with a
broad, kindly face. It seemed to him, he explained, that the
examination was a necessity, as in this way alone could the motives of
the act be brought fully to light. The Committee was equally divided on
the subject: the casting vote therefore lay with Sendlingen. He
hesitated a long while, but at length said with a choking voice: "It
seems to me, too, that it would be humane and just to hear the
unfortunate man."

Herbich entered. His white, grief-worn face flushed crimson as he saw
the Judges, and his gait was so unsteady that Baron Dernegg
compassionately motioned him to sit down. The trembling wretch
supported himself on the back of a chair as he began laboriously, and
almost stutteringly, to reply to the Chief Justice's question as to
what he had to say in his defence.

He told of his intimate friendship with the merchant and how it was
entirely his own doing that the loan had been made. When he came to
speak of his offence his voice failed him until at length he blurted
out almost sobbing: "No words can express how I felt then!... My sister
had recently been betrothed to an officer. The money was to have served
as the guarantee required by the war-office; if it was lost the wedding
could not take place and the life's happiness of the poor girl would
have been destroyed. I did not think of the criminality of what I was
doing. I only followed the voice of my heart which cried out: 'Your
sister must not be made unhappy through your fault!' My friend's
resistance first made me conscious of what I had begun to do! I sought
to reassure him and myself by sophisms, pointing out how insignificant
the sum was compared with his other debts, and that any other creditor
would have taken advantage of making the discovery at the last moment.
I seemed to have convinced him, but, as for myself, I went away with
the consciousness of being a criminal."

He stopped, but as he continued his voice grew stronger and more
composed.

"A criminal certainly! But my conscience tells me that of two crimes I
chose the lesser. But to no purpose: the thing came out; my sister
sacrificed her money and her happiness. I look upon my act now as I did
then. Happy is the man who is spared a conflict between two duties,
whose heart is not rent, whose honour destroyed, as mine has been; but
if he were visited as I was, he would act as I acted if he were a man
at all! And now I await your verdict, for what I have left to say,
namely what I once was, you know as well as I do!"

A deep silence followed these words. It was for Sendlingen to break it
either by another question or by dismissing the accused. He, however,
was staring silently into space like one lost to his surroundings. At
length he murmured: "You may go."

The discussion among the Judges then began and was hotly carried on, as
two opposite views were sharply outlined. Baron Dernegg and the fourth
Judge were in favour of simple dismissal without any further
punishment, while the promoter, supported by Werner, was in favour of
his original proposition. The matter had become generally known, he
contended, and therefore the dignity of Justice demanded a conspicuous
satisfaction for the outraged law.

The decision again rested with Sendlingen, but it seemed difficult for
him to pronounce it. "It is desirable, gentlemen," he said, "that your
verdict should be unanimous. Perhaps you will agree more easily in an
informal discussion. I raise the formal sitting for a few minutes."

But he himself took no part in their discussion, but stepped to the
window. He pressed his burning forehead against the cool glass: his
face again wore that expression of torturing uncertainty. But gradually
his features grew composed and assumed a look of quiet resolve. When
Werner approached and informed him that both parties still adhered
obstinately to their own opinion, he stepped back to the table and said
in a loud, calm voice:

"I cast my vote for the opinion of Baron Dernegg. The dignity of
Justice does not, in my opinion, require to be vindicated only by
excessive severity; dismissal from office and ruin for life are surely
sufficient punishment for a fatal _error_."

Werner in spite of his boundless respect for superiors, could not
suppress a movement of surprise.

Sendlingen noticed it. "An error!" he repeated emphatically. "Whoever
can put himself in the place of this unfortunate man, whoever can
comprehend the struggles of his soul, must see that, according to his
own ideas, he had indeed to choose between two crimes. His error was to
consider that the lesser crime which in reality was the greater. I have
never been a blind partisan of the maxim: 'Fiat justitia et pereat
mundus,'--but I certainly do consider it a sacred matter that every
Judge should act according to law and duty, even if he should break his
heart in doing so! However, I repeat, it was an error, and therefore it
seems to me that the milder of the two opinions enforces sufficient
atonement."

Then he went up to Werner. "Forgive me," he said, "if I withdraw my
promise in regard to tomorrow's trial. I am really not well enough to
preside."

"Oh! please--hm!--well if it must be so."

"It must be so," said Sendlingen, kindly but resolutely. "Good evening,
gentlemen."




                             CHAPTER III.


Sendlingen went to his own quarters; his old manservant let him in and
followed him with anxious looks into his study.

"You may go, Franz!" he said shortly and sharply. "I am not at home to
anybody."

"And should Dr. Berger?"

"Berger?" He shook his head decidedly. Then he seemed to remember some
one else. "I will see him," he said, drawing a deep breath.

The old man went out hesitatingly: Sendlingen was alone. But after a
few minutes the voice of his friend was audible in the lobby, and
Berger entered with a formidable bundle of documents under his arm.

"Well, how goes it now?" cried the portly man, still standing in the
doorway. "Better, certainly, as you are going to preside to-morrow.
Here are the papers."

He laid the bundle on the table and grasped Sendlingen's outstretched
hand. "A mill-stone was rolled from my neck when the messenger came. In
the first place, I knew you were better again, and secondly the chief
object of my visit at noon to-day was attained without my own
intervention."

"Did you come on that account?"

"Yes, Victor,--and not merely to greet you." The advocate's broad, open
face grew very serious. "I wanted to draw your attention to to-morrow's
trial, not only from motives of pity for the unfortunate girl, but also
in the interests of Justice. Old Werner, who gets more and more
impressed with the idea that he is combating the Revolution in every
case of child-murder, is not the right Judge for this girl. 'There are
cases,' once wrote an authority on criminal law, 'where a sentence of
death accords with the letter of the law, but almost amounts to
judicial murder.' I hope you will let this authority weigh with you,
though you yourself are he. Now then, if Werner is put in a position
to-morrow to carry out the practice to which he has accustomed himself
in the last few weeks, we shall have one of these frightful cases."

Sendlingen made no reply. His limbs seemed to grow rigid and the
beating of his heart threatened to stop. "How--how does the case
stand?" he at length blurted out hoarsely and with great effort.

"Your voice is hoarse," remarked Berger innocently. "You must have
caught cold on the journey. Well, as to the case." He settled himself
comfortably in his chair. "It is only one of the usual, sad stories,
but it moved me profoundly after I had seen and spoken to the poor
wretch. Victorine Lippert is herself an illegitimate child and has
never found out who her father was; even after her mother's death no
hint of it was found among her possessions. As she was born in Radautz,
a small town in the Bukowina, and as her mother was governess in the
house of a Boyar, it is probable that she was seduced by one of these
half-savages or perhaps even a victim to violence. I incline to the
latter belief, because Hermine Lippert's subsequent mode of life and
touching care for her child, are against the surmise that she was of
thoughtless disposition. She settled in a small town in Styria and made
a scanty living by music lessons. Forced by necessity, she hazarded the
pious fraud of passing as a widow,--otherwise she and her child must
have starved. After eight years a mere chance disclosed the deception
and put an end to her life in the town. She was obliged to leave, but
obtained a situation as companion to a kind-hearted lady in Buda-Pesth,
and being now no longer able to keep her little daughter with her, she
had her brought up at a school in Gratz. Mother and child saw one
another only once a year, but kept up a most affectionate
correspondence. Victorine was diligent in her studies, grave and
accomplished beyond her years, and justified the hope that she would
one day earn a livelihood by her abilities. This sad necessity came
soon enough. She lost her mother when she was barely fifteen: the
Hungarian lady paid her school fees for a short time, and then the
orphan had to help herself. Her excellent testimonials procured
her the post of governess in the family of the widowed Countess
Riesner-Graskowitz at Graskowitz near Golotz. She had the charge of two
small nieces of the Countess and was patient in her duties, in spite of
the hardness of a harsh and utterly avaricious woman. In June of last
year, her only son, Count Henry, came home for a lengthy visit."

Sendlingen sighed deeply and raised his hand.

"You divine the rest?" asked Berger. "And indeed it is not difficult to
do so! The young man had just concluded his initiation into the
diplomatic service at our Embassy in Paris, and was to have gone
on to Munich in September as attache. Naturally he felt bored in the
lonely castle, and just as naturally he sought to banish his boredom
by trying to seduce the wondrously beautiful, girlish governess.
He heaped upon her letters full of glowing protestations--I mean to
read some specimens to-morrow, and amongst them a valid promise of
marriage--and the girl of seventeen was easily fooled. She liked the
handsome, well-dressed fellow, believed in his love as a divine
revelation and trusted in his oaths. You will spare me details, I
fancy; this sort of thing has often happened."

"Often happened!" repeated Sendlingen mechanically, passing his hand
over his eyes and forehead.

"Well to be brief! When the noble Count Henry saw that the girl was
going to become a mother before she herself had any suspicion of it, he
determined to entirely avoid any unpleasantness with his formidable
mother, and had himself sent to St. Petersburg. Meantime a good-natured
servant girl had explained her condition to the poor wretch and had
faithfully comforted her in her boundless anguish of mind, and helped
her to avoid discovery. Her piteous prayers to her lover remained
unanswered. At length there came a letter--and this, too, I shall read
to-morrow--in which the scoundrel forbade any further molestation and
even threatened the law. And now picture the girl's despair when,
almost at the same time, the countess discovered her secret,--whether
by chance or by a letter of the brave count, is still uncertain.
Certainly less from moral indignation than from fear of the expense,
this noble lady was now guilty of the shocking brutality of having the
poor creature driven out into the night by the men-servants of the
house! It was a dark, cold, wet night in April: shaken with fever and
weary to death, the poor wretch dragged herself towards the nearest
village. She did not reach it; halfway, in a wood, some peasants from
Graskowitz found her the next morning, unconscious. Beside her lay her
dead, her murdered child."

Sendlingen groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"Her fate moves you?" asked Berger. "It is certainly piteous enough!
The men brought her to the village and informed the police at Golotz.
The preliminary examination took place the next day. It could only
establish that the child had been strangled; it was impossible to take
the depositions of the murderess: she was in the wildest delirium, and
the prison-doctor expected her to die. But Fate," Berger rose and his
voice trembled--"Fate was not so merciful. She recovered, and was sent
first to Golotz and then brought here. She admitted that in the
solitude of that dreadful night, overcome by her pains, forsaken of God
and man, she formed the resolve to kill herself and the child--when and
how she did the deed she could not say. I am persuaded that this is no
lie, and I believe her affirmation that it was only unconsciousness
that prevented her suicide. Doesn't that appear probable to you too?"

Sendlingen did not answer. "Probable," he at length muttered, "highly
probable!"

Berger nodded. "Thus much," he continued, "is recorded in the judicial
documents, and as all this is certainly enough to arouse sympathy, I
went to see her as soon as the defence was allotted to me. Since that I
have learnt more. I have learnt that a true and noble nature has been
wrecked by the baseness of man. She must have been not only
fascinatingly beautiful, but a character of unusual depth and purity.
One can still see it, just as fragments of china enable us to guess the
former beauty of a work of art. For this vessel is broken in pieces,
and her one prayer to me was: not to hinder the sentence of death!...
But I cannot grant this prayer," he concluded. "She must not die, were
it only for Justice's sake! And a load is taken off my heart to think
that a human being is to preside at the trial to-morrow, and not a
rhetoric machine!"

He had spoken with increasing warmth, and with a conviction of spirit
which this quiet, and indeed temperate man, seldom evinced.

His own emotion prevented him from noticing how peculiar was his
friend's demeanour. Sendlingen sat there for a while motionless, his
face still covered with his hands, and when he at length let them fall,
he bowed his head so low that his forehead rested on the edge of the
writing-table. In this position he at last blurted forth:

"I cannot preside to-morrow."

"Why not?" asked Berger in astonishment. "Are you really ill?" And as
he gently raised his friend's head and looked into his worn face he
cried out anxiously: "Why of course--you are in a fever."

Sendlingen shook his head. "I am quite well, George! But even if it
cost me my life, I would not hand over this girl to the tender mercies
of others, if only I dared. But I dare not!"

"You _dare_ not!"

"The law forbids it!"

"The law? You are raving!"

"No! no!" cried the unhappy man springing up. "I would that I were
either mad or dead, but such is not my good fortune! The law forbids
it, for a father----"

"Victor!"

"Everything tallies, everything! The mother's name--the place--the year
of birth--and her name is Victorine."

"Oh my God! She is your----"

"My daughter," cried the unfortunate wretch in piercing tones and then
quite broke down.

Berger stood still for an instant as if paralysed by pity and
amazement! Then he hurried to his friend, raised him and placed him in
his arm-chair. "Keep calm!" he murmured. "Oh! it is frightful!... Take
courage!... The poor child!" He was himself as if crushed by the weight
of this terrible discovery.

Breathing heavily, Sendlingen lay there, his breast heaving
convulsively; then he began to sob gently; far more piteously than
words or tears, did these despairing, painfully subdued groans betray
how exceedingly he suffered. Berger stood before him helplessly; he
could think of no fitting words of comfort, and he knew that whatever
he could say would be said in vain.

The door was suddenly opened loudly and noisily; old Franz had heard
the bitter lamenting and could no longer rest in the lobby. "My Lord!"
he screamed, darting to the sufferer. "My dear good master."

"Begone!" Sendlingen raised himself hastily. "Go, Franz--I beg!" he
repeated, more gently.

But Franz did not budge. "We are in pain," he muttered, "and Fraeulein
Brigitta may not come in and I am sent away! What else is Franz in the
world for?" He did not go until Berger by entreaties and gentle force
pushed him out of the door.

Sendlingen nodded gratefully to his friend.

"Sit here," he said, pointing to a chair near his own. "Closer
still--so! You must know all, if only for her sake! You shall have no
shred of doubt as to whom you are defending to-morrow, and perhaps you
may discover the expedient for which I have racked my brain in vain.
And indeed I desire it on my own account. Since the moment I discovered
it I feel as if I had lost everything. Everything--even myself! You are
one of the most upright men I know; you shall judge me, George, and in
the same way that you will defend this poor girl, with your noble heart
and clear head. Perhaps you will decide that some other course is
opened to me beside----"

He stopped and cast a timid glance at a small neat case that lay on his
writing-table. Berger knew that it contained a revolver.

"Victor!" he cried angrily and almost revolted.

"Oh, if you knew what I suffer! But you are right, it would be
contemptible. I dare not think of myself. I dare not slink out of the
world. I have a duty to my child. I have neglected it long enough,--I
must hold on now and pay my debt. Ah! how I felt only this morning, and
now everything lies around me shivered to atoms. Forgive me, my poor
brain can still form no clear thought! But--I will--I must. Listen, I
will tell you, as if you were the Eternal Judge Himself, how everything
came about."




                              CHAPTER IV.


After a pause he began: "I must first of all speak of myself and what I
was like in those days. You have only known me for ten years: of my
parents, of my childhood, you know scarcely anything. Mine was a
frightful childhood, more full of venom and misery than a man can often
have been condemned to endure. My parents' marriage--it was hell upon
earth, George! In our profession we get to know many fearful things,
but I have hardly since come across anything like it. How they came to
be married, you know,--all the world knows. I am convinced that they
never loved one another; her beauty pleased his senses, and his
condescension may have flattered her. No matter! from the moment that
they were indissolubly bound, they hated one another. It is difficult
to decide with whom the fault began; perhaps it lay first of all at my
father's door. Perhaps the common, low-born woman would have been
grateful to him for having made her a Baroness and raised her to a
higher rank in life, if only he had vouchsafed her a little patience
and love. But he could not do that, he hated her as the cause of his
misfortune, and she repaid him ten-fold in insult and abuse, and in
holding him up, humbled enough already, to the derision and gossip of
the little town.

"Betwixt these two people I grew up. I should have soon got to know the
terms they were on even if they had striven anxiously to conceal them,
but that they did not do. Or rather: he attempted to do so, and that
was quite sufficient reason for her to drag me designedly into their
quarrels, for she knew that this was a weapon wherewith to wound him
deeply. And when she saw that he idolized me as any poor wretch does
the last hope and joy that fate has left him, she hated me. On that
account and on that account alone, she knew that every scolding, every
blow, she gave me, cut him to the quick. No wonder that I hated and
feared her, as much as I loved and honoured my father.

"What he had done I already accurately knew by the time I was a boy of
six: he had married out of his rank and a Sendlingen might not do that!
For doing so his father had disowned him, for doing so he had to go
through life in trouble and misery, in a paltry hole and corner where
the people mocked at his misfortune. My mother was our curse!--Oh, how
I hated her for this, how by every fresh ill-usage at her hands, my
heart was more and more filled with bitter rancour.

"You shudder, George?" he said stopping in his story. "This glimpse
into a child's soul makes you tremble? Well--it is the truth, and you
shall hear everything that happened.

"If I did not become wicked, I have to thank my father for it. I was
diligent because it gave him pleasure. I was kind and attentive to
people because he commanded it. He was often ill; what would have
become of me if I had lost him then and grown up under my mother's
scourge, I dare not think. I was spared this greatest evil: his
protecting hand continued to be stretched out over me, and when we
moved to Klagenfurth he began to live again. The intercourse with
educated people revived him and he was once more full of hope and
endeavour. My mother now began to be ill and a few months after our
arrival she died. We neither of us rejoiced at her death, but what we
felt as we stood by her open coffin was a sort of silent horror.

"And now came more happy days, but they did not last long. Mental
torture had destroyed my father's vitality, and the rough
mountain-climate had injured his lungs. The mild air of the plain
seemed to restore him for a time, but then the treacherous disease
broke out in all its virulence. He did not deceive himself about his
condition, but he tried to confirm me in hope and succeeded in doing
so. When, after a melancholy winter, in the first days of spring, his
cough was easier and his cheeks took colour, I, like a thoughtless boy,
shouted for joy,--he however knew that it was the bloom of death.

"And he acted accordingly. One May morning--I had just completed my
fourteenth year--he came to my bed-side very early and told me to dress
myself with all speed. 'We are going for an excursion,' he said. There
was a carriage at the door. We drove through the slumbering town and
towards the Woerther-see. It was a lovely morning, and my father was so
affectionate--it seemed to me the happiest hour I had ever had! When we
got to Maria Woerth, the carriage turned off from the lake-side and we
proceeded towards the Tauer Mountains through a rocky valley, until we
stopped at the foot of a hill crowned with a ruin. Slowly we climbed up
the weed-grown path; every step cost the poor invalid effort and pain,
but when I tried to dissuade him he only shook his head. 'It must be
so!' he said, with a peculiarly earnest look. At length we reached the
top. Of the old building, little remained standing except the outer
walls and an arched gateway. 'Look up yonder,' he said, solemnly. 'Do
you recognize that coat of arms?' It consisted of two swords and a St.
Andrew's cross with stars in the field."

"Your arms?" asked Berger.

Sendlingen nodded. "They were the ruins of Sendlingen Castle, once our
chief possession on Austrian soil. My father told me this, and began to
recount old stories, how our ancestor was a cousin of Kaiser Conrad and
had been a potentate of the Empire, holding lands in Franconia and
Suabia, and how his grandson, a friend of one of the Hapsburgs, had
come to Carinthia and there won fresh glory for the old arms. It was a
beautiful and affecting moment,--at our feet the wild, lonely
landscape, dreamily beautiful in the blue atmosphere of a spring day,
no sound around us save the gentle murmur of the wind in the wild
elder-trees, and with all this the tones of his earnest, enthusiastic
voice. My father had never before spoken as he did then, and while he
spoke, there rose before my eyes with palpable clearness the long line
of honourable nobles who had all gloriously borne first the sword and
then the ermine, and the more familiar their age and their names
became, the higher beat my heart, the prouder were my thoughts and
every thought was a vow to follow in their footsteps.

"My father may have guessed what was passing in my heart, he drew me
tenderly to him, and as he told me of his own father, the first judge
and nobleman of the land, tears started from his eyes. 'He was the last
Sendlingen worthy of the name,' he concluded, 'the last!'

"'Father,' I sobbed, 'whatever I can and may do will be done, but you
too will now have a better fate.'

"'I!' he broke in, 'I have lived miserably and shall die miserably! But
I will not complain of my fate, if it serves as a warning to you.
Listen to me, Victor, my life may be reckoned by weeks, perhaps by
days, but if I know my cousins aright, they will not let you stand
alone after my death. They will not forget that you are a Sendlingen,
so long as you don't forget it yourself. And in order that you may
continue mindful of it, I have brought you hither before I die! Unhappy
children mature early; you have been in spite of all my love, a very
unhappy child, Victor, and you have long since known exactly why my
life went to pieces. Swear to me to keep this in mind and that you will
be strict and honourable in your conduct, as a Sendlingen is in duty
bound to be.'

"'I swear it!' I exclaimed amid my tears.

"'One thing more!' he continued, 'I must tell you, although you are
still a boy, but I have short time to stay and better now than not at
all! It is with regard to women. You will resist my temptations, I am
sure. But if you meet a woman who is noble and good but yet not of your
own rank, and if your heart is drawn to her, imperiously, irresistibly,
so that it seems as if it would burst and break within your breast
unless you win her, then fly from her, for no blessing can come of it
but only curses for you both. Curses and remorse, Victor--believe your
father who knows the world as it is.... Swear to me that you will never
marry out of your rank!'

"'I swear it!' I repeated.

"'Well and good,' he said solemnly. 'Now I have fulfilled my duty and
am ready ... let us go, Victor.'

"He was going to rise, but he had taxed his wasted lungs beyond their
strength: he sank back and a stream of blood gushed from his lips. It
was a frightful moment. There I stood, paralysed with fear, helpless,
senseless, beside the bleeding man--and when I called for help, there
was not a soul to hear me in that deep solitude. I had to look on while
the blood gushed forth until my father utterly broke down. I thought he
was dead but he had only fainted. A shepherd heard the cry with which I
threw myself down beside him, he fetched the driver, they got us into
the carriage and then to Klagenfurth. Two days later my poor father
died."

He stopped and closed his eyes, then drew a deep breath and continued:

"You know what became of me afterwards. My dying father was not
deceived in his confidence: the innocent boy, the last of the
Sendlingens, was suddenly overwhelmed with favours and kindness. It was
strange how this affected me, neither moving me, nor exalting, nor
humbling me. Whatever kindness was done me, I received as my just due;
it was not done to me, but to my race in requital for their services,
and I had to make a return by showing myself worthy of that race. All
my actions were rooted in this pride of family: seldom surely has a
descendant of princes been more mightily possessed of it. If I strove
with almost superhuman effort to fulfil all the hopes that were set on
me at school, if I pitilessly suppressed every evil or low stirring of
the heart, I owe it to this pride in my family: the Sendlingen had
always been strong in knowledge, strict to themselves, just and good to
others,--_must_ I not be the same? And if duty at times seemed too
hard, my father's bitter fate rose before me like a terrifying
spectre, and his white face of suffering was there as a pathetic
admonition--both spurring me onward. But the same instinct too
preserved me from all exultation now that praise and honour were
flowing in upon me; it might be a merit for ordinary men to distinguish
themselves, with a Sendlingen it was a duty!

"And so I continued all those years, first at school, then at the
University, moderate, but a good companion, serious but not averse to
innocent pleasures. I had a liking for the arts, I was foremost in the
ball-room and in the Students' Reunions,--in one thing only I kept out
of the run of pleasure: I had never had a love-affair. My father's
warning terrified me, and so did that old saying: 'A Sendlingen can
never be a scoundrel!' And however much travelling changed my views in
the next few years, in this one thing I continued true to myself.
Certainly this cost me no great struggle. Many a girl whom I had met in
the society I frequented appeared lovable enough, but I had not fallen
in love with any, much less with a girl not of my own rank, of whom I
hardly knew even one.

"So I passed in this respect as an exemplary young man, too exemplary,
some thought, and perhaps not without reason. But whoever had taken me
at the time I entered upon my legal career, for an unfeeling calculator
with a list of the competitors to be outstripped at all costs, in the
place where other people carry a palpitating heart, would have done me
a great injustice. I was ambitious, I strove for special promotion, not
by shifts and wiles, but by special merit. And as to my heart,--oh!
George, how soon I was to know what heart-ache was, and bliss and
intoxication, and love and damnation!"

He rose, opened his writing-table, and felt for the secret drawer. But
he did not open it; he shook his head and withdrew his hand. "It would
be of no use," he murmured, and remained for awhile silently brooding.

"That was in the beginning of your career?" said Berger, to recall him.

"Yes," he answered. "It was more than twenty years ago, in the winter
of 1832. I had just finished my year of probation at Lemburg under the
eyes of the nearest and most affectionate of my relations, Count
Warnberg, who was second in position among the judges there. He was an
uncle, husband of my father's only sister. He had evinced the most
cruel hardness to his brother-in-law, to me he became a second father.
At his suggestion and in accordance with my own wish, I was promoted to
be criminal Judge in the district of Suczawa. The post was considered
one of the worst in the circuit, both my uncle and I thought it the
best thing for me, because it was possible here within a very short
time, to give conclusive proof of my ability. Such opportunities,
however, were more abundant than the most zealous could desire: in
those days there prevailed in the southern border-lands of the
Bukowina, such a state of things as now exists only in the Balkan
Provinces or in Albania. It was perhaps the most wretched post in the
whole Empire, and in all other respects exceptionally difficult. The
ancient town, once the capital of the Moldavian Princes, was at
that time a mere confusion of crumbling ruins and poverty-stricken
mud-cabins crowded with dirty, half-brutalized Roumanians, Jews and
Armenians. Moreover my only colleague in the place was the civil judge,
a ruined man, whom I had never seen sober. My only alternative
therefore was either to live like an anchorite, or to go about among
the aristocracy of the neighborhood.

"When I got to know these noble Boyars, the most educated of them ten
times more ignorant, the most refined ten times more coarse, the most
civilized ten times more unbridled than the most ignorant, the coarsest
and the most unbridled squireen of the West, I had no difficulty in
choosing: I buried myself in my books and papers. But man is a
gregarious animal--and I was so young and spoiled, and so much in need
of distraction from the comfortless impressions of the day, that I grew
weary after a few weeks and began to accept invitations. The
entertainments were always the same: first there was inordinate eating,
then inordinate drinking, and then they played hazard till all hours.
As I remained sober and never touched a card, I was soon voted a
wearisome, insupportable bore. Even the ladies were of this opinion,
for I neither made pretty speeches, nor would I understand the looks
with which they sometimes favoured me. That I none the less received
daily invitations was not to be wondered at; a real live Baron of the
Empire was, whatever he might be, a rare ornament for their 'salons,'
and to many of these worthy noblemen it seemed desirable in any case to
be on a good footing with the Criminal Judge.

"One of them had particular reason for this, Alexander von Mirescul, a
Roumanianised Greek; his property lay close to the Moldavian frontier
and passed for the head-quarters of the trade in tobacco smuggling. He
was not to be found out, and when I saw him for the first time, I
realized that that would be a difficult business; the little man with
his yellow, unctuous face seemed as if he consisted not of flesh and
bone, but of condensed oil. It was in his voice and manner. He was
manifestly much better educated and better mannered than the rest, as
he was also much more cunning and contemptible. I did not get rid of
this first impression for a long while, but at length he managed to get
me into his house; I gradually became more favourable to him as he was,
in one respect at least, an agreeable exception; he was a tolerably
educated man, his daughters were being brought up by a German governess
and he had a library of German books which he really read. I had such a
longing for the atmosphere of an educated household that one evening I
went to see him.

"This evening influenced years of my life, or rather, as I have learnt
to-day, my whole life. I am no liar, George, and no fanciful dreamer,
it is the literal truth: I loved this girl from the first instant that
I beheld her."

Berger looked up in astonishment.

"From the first instant," Sendlingen repeated, and he struggled with
all speed through his next words.

"I entered, Mirescul welcomed me: my eye swept over black and grey
heads, over well-known, sharp-featured, olive-faces. Only one was
unknown to me: the face of an exquisitely beautiful girl encircled by
heavy, silver-blond, plaited hair. Her slender, supple figure was
turned away from me, I could only see her profile; it was not quite
regular, the forehead was too high, the chin too peculiarly prominent;
I saw all that, and yet I seemed as if I had never seen a girl more
beautiful and my heart began to beat passionately. I had to tear my
looks away, and talk to the lady of the house, but then I stared again,
as if possessed, at the beautiful, white unknown who stood shyly in a
corner gazing out into the night. 'Our governess, Fraeulein Lippert,'
said Frau von Mirescul, quietly smiling as she followed the direction
of my looks.

"'I know,' I answered nervously, almost impatiently; I had guessed that
at once. Frau von Mirescul looked at me with astonishment, but I had
risen and hurried over to the lonely girl: one of the most insolent of
the company, the little bald Popowicz, had approached her. I was,
afraid that he might wound her by some insulting speech. How should
this poor, pale, timorous child defend herself alone against such a
man? He had leant over her and was whispering something with his
insolent smile, but the next instant he started back as if hurled
against the wall by an invisible hand, and yet it was only a look of
those gentle, veiled, grey eyes, now fixed in such a cold, hard stare
that I trembled as they rested on me. But they remained fixed upon me
and suddenly became again so pathetically anxious and helpless.

"At length I was beside her: I no longer required to defend her from
the elderly scamp, he had disappeared. I could only offer her my hand
and ask: 'Did that brute insult you?' But she took my hand and held it
tight as if she must otherwise have fallen, her eyelids closed in an
effort to keep back her tears. 'Thank you,' she stammered. 'You are a
German, are you not Baron Sendlingen? I guessed as much when you came
in! Oh if you knew!'

"But I do know all, I know what she suffers in this 'salon,' and now we
begin to talk of our life among these people and our conversation flows
on as if it had been interrupted yesterday. We hardly need words: I
understand every sigh that comes from those small lips at other times
so tightly closed, she, every glance that I cast upon the assembly. But
my glances are only fugitive for I prefer looking straight into that
beautiful face so sweetly and gently attractive, although the mouth and
chin speak of such firm determination. She often changes colour, but it
is more wonderful that I am at times suddenly crippled by the same
embarrassment, while at the next moment I feel as if my heart has at
length reached home after years and years,--perhaps a life-time's
sojourn in a chill strange land.

"An hour or more passed thus. We did not notice it; we did not suspect
how much our demeanour surprised the others until Mirescul approached
and asked me to take his wife in to supper. We went in; Hermine was not
there. 'Fraeulein Hermine usually retires even earlier,' remarked Frau
von Mirescul with the same smile as before. I understood her, and with
difficulty suppressed a bitter reply: naturally this girl of inferior
rank, whose father had only been a schoolmaster, was unworthy of the
society of cattle-merchants, horse-dealers and slave-drivers whose
fathers had been ennobled by Kaiser Franz!

"After supper I took my leave. Mirescul hoped to see me soon again and
I eagerly promised: 'As soon as possible.' And while I drove home
through the snow-lit winter's night, I kept repeating these words, for
how was I henceforth to live without seeing her?"

"After the first evening?" said Berger, shaking his head. "That was
like a disease!"

"It was like a fatality!" cried Sendlingen. "And how is it to be
explained? I do not know! I wanted at first to show you her likeness,
but I have not done so, for however beautiful she may have been, her
beauty does not unsolve the riddle. I had met girls equally beautiful,
equally full of character before, without taking fire. Was it because I
met her in surroundings which threw into sharpest relief all that was
most charming in her, because I was lonelier than I had ever been
before, because I at once knew that she shared my feelings? Then
besides, I had not as a young fellow lived at high pressure. I had not
squandered my heart's power of loving; the later the passion of love
entered my life, the stronger, the deeper would be its hold upon me.

"Reasons like these may perhaps satisfy you; me they do not. He who has
himself not experienced a miracle, but learns of it on the report of
another, will gladly enough accept a natural explanation; but to him
whose senses it has blinded, whose heart it has convulsed, to him it
remains a miracle, because it is the only possible conception of the
strange, overmastering feelings of such a moment. When I think of those
days and how she and I felt--no words can tell, no subtlest speculation
explain it. Look at it as you may, I will content myself by simply
narrating the facts.

"And it is a fact that from that evening I was completely
metamorphosed. For two days I forced myself to do my regular duties, on
the third I went to Oronesti, to Mirescul's. The fellow was too cunning
to betray his astonishment, he brimmed over with pleasure and suggested
a drive in sleighs, and as the big sleigh was broken we had to go in
couples in small ones, I with Hermine. This arrangement was evident
enough, but how could I show surprise at what made me so blessed? Even
Hermine was only startled for a moment and then, like me, gave herself
up unreservedly to her feelings.

"And so it was in all our intercourse in the next two weeks. We talked
a great deal and between whiles there were long silences; perhaps these
blissful moments of speechlessness were precisely the most beautiful.
During those days I scarcely touched her hand: we did not kiss one
another, we did not speak of our hearts: the simple consciousness of
our love was enough. It was not the presence of others that kept us
within these bounds; we were much alone; Mirescul took care of that."

"And did that never occur to you?" asked Berger.

"Yes, at times, but in a way that may be highly significant of the
spell under which my soul and senses laboured at the time. A man in a
mesmeric trance distinctly feels the prick of a needle in his arm; he
knows that he is being hurt; but he has lost his sense of pain. In some
such way I looked upon Mirescul's friendliness as an insult and a
danger, but my whole being was so filled with fantastic, feverish bliss
that no sensation of pain could have penetrated my consciousness."

"And did you never think what would come of this?"

"No, I could swear to it, never! I speculated as little about my love,
as the first man about his life: he was on the earth to breathe and to
be happy; of death he knew nothing. And she was just the same; I know
it from her letters later, at that time we did not write. And so we
lived on, in a dream, in exaltation, without a thought of the morrow."

"It must have been a cruel awakening," said Berger.

"Frightful, it was frightful!" He spoke with difficulty, and his looks
were veiled. "Immediately, in the twinkling of an eye, happiness was
succeeded by misery, the most intoxicating happiness by the most
lamentable, hideous misery.... One stormy night in March I had had to
stay at Mirescul's because my horses were taken ill, very likely
through the food which Mirescul had given them.... I was given a room
next to Hermine's.

"On the next day but one--I was in my office at the time--the customs
superintendent of the neighbouring border district entered the room. He
was a sturdy, honourable greybeard, who had once been a Captain in the
army. 'We have caught the rascal at last,' he announced. 'He has
suddenly forgotten his usual caution. We took him to-night in the act
of unloading 100 bales of tobacco at his warehouses. Here he is!'

"Mirescul entered, ushered in by two of the frontier guards.

"'My dear friend!' he cried. 'I have come to complain of an unheard-of
act of violence!'

"I stared at him, speechless; had he not the right to call me his
friend,--how often had I not called him friend in the last few weeks.

"'Send these men away.' I was dumb. The superintendent looked at me in
amazement. I nodded silently, he shrugged his shoulders and left the
room with his officials. 'The long and the short of it is,' said
Mirescul, 'that my arrest was a misunderstanding: the officials can be
let off with a caution!'

"'The matter must first be inquired into,' I answered at length.

"'Among friends one's word is enough.'

"'Duty comes before friendship.'

"'Then you take a different view of it from what I do,' he answered
coming still closer to me. 'It would have been my duty to protect the
honour of a respectable girl living in my house as a member of the
family. It would now be my duty to drive your mistress in disgrace and
dishonour from my doors. I sacrifice this duty to my friendship!'

"Ah, how the words cut me! I can feel it yet, but I cannot yet describe
it. He went, and I was alone with my wild remorse and helpless misery."

Sendlingen rose and walked up and down excitedly. Then he stood still
in front of his friend.

"That was the heaviest hour of my life, George--excepting the present.
A man may perhaps feel as helpless who is suddenly struck blind. The
worst torture of all was doubt in my beloved; the hideous suspicion
that she might have been a conscious tool in the hands of this villain.
And even when I stifled this thought, what abominations there were
besides! I should act disgracefully if for her sake I neglected my
duty, disgracefully if I heartlessly abandoned her to the vengeance of
this man! She had a claim upon me--could I make her my wife? My
oath to my dying father bound me, and still more, even though I did
not like to admit it, my ambition, my whole existence as it had been
until I knew her. My father's fate--my future ruined--may a man fight
against himself in this way? Still--'A Sendlingen can never be a
scoundrel'--and how altogether differently this saying affected me
compared to my father! He had only an offence to expiate, I had a
sacred duty to fulfil: he perhaps had only to reproach himself with
thoughtlessness--but I with dishonour.

"And did I really love her? It is incomprehensible to me now how I
could ever have questioned it, how I could ever have had those hideous
doubts: perhaps my nature was unconsciously revenging herself for the
strange, overpowering compulsion laid on her in the last few weeks,
perhaps since everything, even the ugliest things, had appeared
beautiful and harmonious in my dream, perhaps it was natural, now that
my heart had been so rudely shaken, that even the most beautiful things
should appear ugly. Perhaps--for who knows himself and his own heart?

"Enough! this is how I felt on that day and on the night of that day.
Oh! how I writhed and suffered! But when at last the faint red light of
early morning peeped in at my window, I was resolved. I would do my
duty as a judge and a man of honour: I would have Mirescul imprisoned,
I would make Hermine my wife. I no longer had doubts about her or my
love, but even if it had not been so, my conscience compelled me to act
thus and not otherwise, without regard to the hopes of my life.

"I went to my chambers almost before it was day, had the clerk roused
from bed and dictated the record of the superintendent's information
and a citation to the latter. Then I wrote a few lines to Hermine,
begging her to leave Mirescul's house at once and to come to me. 'Trust
in God and me,' I concluded. This letter I sent with my carriage to
Oronesti; two hours later I myself intended to set out to the place
with gendarmes to search the house and arrest Mirescul. But a few
minutes after my coachman had left the court, the Jewish waiter from
the hotel of the little town brought me a letter from my dear one. 'I
have been here since midnight and am expecting you.' The lady looked
very unwell, added the messenger compassionately, and was no doubt ill.

"I hastened to her. When she came towards me in the little room with
tottering steps, my heart stood still from pity and fear; shame,
remorse and despair--what ravages in her fresh beauty had they not
caused in this short space? I opened my arms and with a cry she sank on
my breast. 'God is merciful,' she sobbed. 'You do not despise me
because I have loved you more than myself: so I will not complain.'

"Then she told me how Mirescul--she had kept her room for the two last
days for it seemed to her as if she could never look anyone in the face
again--had compelled her to grant him an interview yesterday evening.
He requested her to write begging me to take no steps against him,
otherwise he would expose and ruin us both. 'Oh, how hateful it was!'
she cried out, with a shudder. 'It seemed to me as if I should never
survive the ignominy of that hour. But I composed myself; whatever was
to become of me, you should not break your oath as Judge. I told him
that I would not write the letter, that I would leave his house at
once, and when he showed signs of detaining me by force, I threatened
to kill myself that night. Then he let me go,--and now do you decide my
fate: is it to be life or death!'

"'You shall live, my wife,' I swore, 'you shall live for me.'

"'I believe you,' said she, 'but it is difficult. Oh! can perfect
happiness ever come from what has been so hideously disfigured!'

"I comforted her as well as I could, for my heart gave utterance to the
same piteous question.

"Then we took counsel about the future; she could not remain in
Suczawa: we could see what vulgar gossip there would be even without
this. So we resolved that she should go to the nearest large town, to
Czernowitz, and wait there till our speedy marriage. With that we
parted: it was to have been a separation for weeks and it proved to be
for a lifetime: I never saw the unhappy girl again.

"How did it come about that I broke my oath? There is no justification
for it, at best but an explanation. I do not want to defend myself
before you any more than I have done: I am only confessing to you as I
would to a priest if I were a believer in the Church.

"A stroke of fate struck me in that hour of my growth, I might have
overcome it but now came its pricks and stabs. When I left Hermine to
return to my chambers, I met the customs superintendent. I greeted him.
'Have you received my citation?' I asked. He looked at me
contemptuously and passed on without answering. 'What does this mean?'
cried I angrily, catching hold of his arm.

"'It means,' he replied, shaking himself loose, 'that in future I shall
only speak to you, even on official matters, when my duty obliges me.
That, for a time, is no longer necessary. You released Mirescul
yesterday, you did not record my depositions. Both were contrary to
your duty: I have advised my superiors in the matter and await their
commands.'

"He passed on; I remained rooted to the spot a long while like one
struck down; the honourable man was quite right!

"But I roused myself; now at least I would neglect my duty no longer.
Scarcely, however, had I got back to my chambers, when my colleague,
the Civil-Judge entered; he was as usual not quite sober, but it was
early in the day and he had sufficient control of his tongue to insult
me roundly. 'So you are really going to Oronesti,' he began. 'I should
advise you not, the man[oe]uvre is too patent. After twenty-four hours
nothing will be found, as we set about searching the house just to show
our good intentions--eh?'

"'I don't require to be taught by you,' I cried flaring up.

"'Oh, but, perhaps you do, though!' he replied. 'I might for instance
teach you something about the danger of little German blondes. But--as
you like--I wish you every success!'

"Smarting under these sensations, I drove to Oronesti. Mirescul met me
in the most brazen-faced way; he protested against such inroads
undertaken from motives of personal revenge. And he added this further
protest to his formal deposition; he would submit to examination at the
hands of any Judge but me who had yesterday testified that the
accusation was a mistake and promised to punish the customs officials,
and to-day suddenly appeared on the scene with gendarmes. Between
yesterday and to-day nothing had happened except that he had turned my
mistress out of his house, and surely this act of domestic propriety
could not establish his guilt as a smuggler. You know, George, that I
was obliged to take down his protest--but with what sensations!

"The search brought to light nothing suspicious; the servants, carters,
and peasants whom I examined had all been evidently well-drilled
beforehand. I had to have Mirescul arrested: were there not the bales
of tobacco which the superintendent had seized? Not having the ordinary
means of transit at night, he had had them temporarily stored in one of
the parish buildings at Oronesti under the care of two officials. I now
had them brought at once to the town.

"When I got back to my chambers in the evening and thought over the
events of this accursed day, and read over the depositions in which my
honour and my bride's honour were dragged in the mire, I had not a
single consolation left except perhaps this solitary one, that my
neglect would not hinder the course of justice, for the smuggled wares
would clearly prove the wretch's guilt.

"But even this comfort was to be denied me. The next morning Mirescul's
solicitor called on me and demanded an immediate examination of the
bales: his client, he said, maintained that they did not contain
smuggled tobacco from Moldavia, but leaf tobacco of the country grown
by himself and other planters, and which he was about to prepare for
the state factories. The request was quite legitimate; I at once
summoned the customs superintendent as being an expert; the old man
appeared, gruffly made over the documents to my keeping and accompanied
us to the cellars of the Court house where the confiscated goods had
been stored. When his eye fell on them he started back indignantly,
pale with anger: 'Scandalous!' he cried, 'unheard of! These bales are
much smaller--they have been changed!'

"'How is it possible?'

"'You know that better than I do,' he answered grimly.

"The bales were opened; they really contained tobacco in the leaf. My
brain whirled. After I had with difficulty composed myself, I examined
the two officials who had watched the goods at Oronesti; the exchange
could only have been effected there; the men protested their innocence;
they had done their duty to the best of their ability; certainly this
was the third night which they had kept watch although the
Superintendent, before hurrying to the town, had promised to release
them within a few hours. This too I had to take down; the proof namely
that my hesitation in doing my duty had not been without harm. And now
my conscience forbade me to arrest Mirescul, although by not doing so,
I only made my case worse.

"So things stood when two days later an official from Czernowitz
circuit arrived in Suczawa to inquire into the case. You know him
George; he was a relation of yours, Matthias Berger, an honest,
conscientious man. 'Grave accusations have been made against you,' he
explained, 'by Mirescul's solicitor, by the Civil Judge and by the
Customs Superintendent, But they contradict each other: I still firmly
believe in your innocence: tell me the whole truth.'

"But that I could not do: I could not be the means of dragging my
bride's name into legal documents, even if I were otherwise to be
utterly ruined. So in answer to the questions why I had delayed
twenty-four hours, I could only answer that an overwhelming private
matter had deprived me of the physical strength to attend to my duties.
With regard to Hermine, I refused to answer any questions. Berger shook
his head sadly; he was sorry for me, but he could not help me. He must
suspend me from my functions while the inquiry lasted and appoint a
substitute from Czernowitz: moreover he exacted an oath from me not to
leave the place without permission of the Court. Mirescul was let out
on bail.

"A fortnight went by. It clings to my memory like an eternity of grief
and misery. I have told you what I strove for and hoped for, you will
be able to judge how I suffered. Four weeks before I was one of the
most rising officers of the State: now I was a prisoner on parole,
oppressed by the scorn and spite of men, held up to the ignominy of all
eyes. I dared hope nothing from my relations, least of all from my
uncle, Count Warnberg: I knew that he would not save me so that I might
marry a governess about whom--Mirescul and his friends took care of
that--there were the ugliest reports in circulation. And you will
consider it human, conceivable, that every letter of Hermine's was a
stab in my heart.

"She wrote daily. When she spoke of her feelings during our brief span
of joy, it seemed to me as if she depicted my own innermost
experiences. This at least gave me the consolation of knowing that I
was not tied to an unworthy woman: but the bonds were none the less
galling and cut into the heart of my life. Only rarely, very gently,
and therefore with a twofold pathos, did she complain of her fate; but
her grief on my account was wild and passionate; she had heard of my
plight but not through me. I sought to comfort her as well as I might;
but ah me! there was no word of release or deliverance: how could I
have broached it, how have claimed it from her?

"One day there came her usual letter; it was written with a visibly
trembling hand. My uncle had been to see her; he was hurrying from
Lemberg in great anxiety to see me, and had stopped at Czernowitz to
treat with her of the price for which she would release me. In every
line there was the deepest pathos; she had shown him the door.

"'He will implore you to leave me,' she concluded; 'act as your
conscience bids you. And I will tell you something that I refused to
tell Count Warnberg; he asked me whether I had another, a more sacred
claim upon you. I don't know, Victor, but as I understand our bond in
which I live and suffer, that does not affect it; if you will not make
me your wife for my own sake, neither could regard for the mother of
your child be binding on you!'

"Two hours after I received this letter, my uncle arrived. I was
terrified at the sight of him, his face was so dark, and hard, and
strange. My father had once said to me shortly before his death: 'Take
care never to turn that iron hand against you; it would crush you as it
has crushed me.' I had never before understood these words, indeed I
had completely forgotten them, but now they came back to me and I
understood them before my uncle opened his mouth.

"'Tell your story,' he began, and his voice sounded to me as if I had
never heard it before. 'Tell the whole truth. This at least I expect of
you. You surely don't wish to sink lower than--than another member of
your family. A Sendlingen has at all events never lied! Now tell your
story.'

"I obeyed: he was told what you have just been told, though no doubt it
sounded different; confused, passionate and scarcely intelligible. But
he understood it; he had no single question to ask after I had
finished.

"'The same story as before,' he said, 'but uglier, much uglier. The
father only sullied his coat of arms, the son his judge's honour as
well.'

"I fired up. I tried to defend myself, he would not allow it. 'Tirades
serve no good purpose,' he said, coldly. 'You wish to convince me that
you were not in criminal collusion with Mirescul? I have never thought
so. That he is really guilty and can be convicted in spite of your
neglect of duty? I have been through the papers and have just
cross-examined the customs superintendent. The police are already on
the way to re-arrest him; he will be put in prison. But your fault will
be none the less in consequence; if there is no lasting stigma on the
administration of justice, there is upon your honour. Your conduct in
this man's house, your hesitation,--it would be bad for you if you had
to suffer what you have merited! According to justice and the laws,
your fate is sealed; it is only a question whether you will prove
yourself worthy of pardon and pity!'

"'In anything that you may ask,' I answered, 'except only in one thing:
Hermine is to be my wife. A Sendlingen can never be a scoundrel.'

"He drew himself up to his full height and stepped close up to me. 'Now
listen to me, Victor, I will be brief and explicit. Whether you stain
your honour by marrying this girl, or whether you do so by not marrying
her, the all-just God above us knows. We, His creatures, can only judge
according to our knowledge and conscience, and in my judgment, the girl
is unworthy of you. In this matter there is your conviction against my
conviction. But what I do know better than you is, that this marriage
would load you with ignominy before the whole world! You will perhaps
answer: better the contempt of others than self-contempt, but that is
not the question. If you marry this girl, I am as sure as I am of my
existence, that you will soon be ashamed of it, not only before others
but in your own heart. For pure happiness could not come of such a
beginning--it is impossible. The gossip of the world, the ruin of your
hopes, would poison your mind and hers,--you would be wretched yourself
and make her wretched, and would at length become bad and miserable.
The man who forgets his duty to himself and to the world for a matter
of weeks and then recovers himself, is worthy of commiseration and
help; but he who is guilty of a moral suicide deserves no pity. And
therefore listen to me and choose. If you marry this girl your
subsequent fate is indifferent to me; you will very likely be stripped
of your office; or in the most favourable event, transferred, by way of
punishment, to some out of the way place where your father's fate may
be repeated in you. If you give her up you may still be saved, for
yourself, for our family and for the State: then I will do for you,
what my conscience would allow me to do for any subordinate of whose
sincere repentance I was convinced, and I will intercede for the
Emperor's pardon as if you were my own son. To-morrow I return to
Lemberg, whether alone or with you--you must decide by to-morrow.' He
went."

Sendlingen paused. "How I struggled with myself," he began again, but
his voice failed him, until at length he gasped forth with hollow voice
and trembling lips: "Oh! what a night it was! The next morning I wrote
a farewell letter to Hermine, and started with Count Warnberg to
Lemberg."

Then there followed a long silence. At length Berger asked: "You did
not know that she bore your child in her bosom?"

"No, I know it to-day for the first time. In that last letter of mine I
had offered her a maintenance: she declined it at once. Then I left
that part of the country. A few months later I inquired after her; I
could only learn that she had disappeared without leaving a trace. And
then I forgot her, I considered that all was blotted out and washed
away like writing from a slate, and rarely, very rarely, in the dusk,
or in a sleepless night, did the strange reminiscence recur to me. But
Fate keeps a good reckoning--O George! I would I were dead!"

"No, no!" said Berger with gentle reproof. He was deeply moved, his
eyes glistened with tears, but he constrained himself to be composed.
"Thank God, you are alive and willing, and I trust able to pay your
debt. How great this debt may be--or how slight--I will not determine.
Only one thing I do know: you are, in spite of all, worthy of the love
and esteem of men, even of the best men, of better men than I am. When
I think of it all; your life up to that event and what it has been
since, what you have made of your life for yourself and others, then
indeed it overcomes me and I feel as if I had never known a fate among
the children of men more worthy of the purest pity. This is no mere sad
fate, it is a tragic one. Against the burden of such a fate, no parade
of sophistry, no petty concealments or prevarications will be of avail.
You say it is against your feelings to preside at to-morrow's trial?"

"Yes," replied Sendlingen. "It seems to me both cowardly and
dishonourable; cowardly, to sacrifice the law instead of myself,
dishonourable to break my Judge's oath! But I shrink from doing so for
another reason; an offence should not be expiated by an injustice; I
dread the all-just Fates."

"I cannot gainsay you," said Berger rising. "But in this one thing we
are agreed. Let us wait for the verdict, and then we will consider what
your duty is. It is long past midnight, the trial will begin in seven
hours. I will try and get some sleep. I shall need all my strength
to-morrow. Follow my example, Victor, perhaps sleep may be merciful to
you."

He seized his friend's hands and held them affectionately in his; his
feelings again threatened to overcome him and he hastily left the room
with a choking farewell on his lips.

Sendlingen was alone. After brooding awhile, he again went to the
secret drawer of his writing-table. At this moment the old servant
entered. "We will go to bed now," he said. "We will do it out of pity
for ourselves, and Fraeulein Brigitta, and me!"

His look and tone were so beseeching that Sendlingen could not refuse
him. He suffered himself to be undressed, put out the lamp, and closed
his eyes. But sleep refused to visit his burning lids.




                               CHAPTER V.


When the grey morning appeared, he could no longer endure to lie
quietly in his bed while his soul was tormented with unrest, he got up,
dressed himself, left his room and went out of doors.

It was a damp, cold, horrid autumn morning: the fog clung to the houses
and to the uneven pavement of the old town: a heavy, yellow vapor, the
smoke of a factory chimney kept sinking down lower and lower. The
lonely wanderer met few people, those who recognized him greeted him
respectfully, he did not often acknowledge the greeting and when he
did, it was unconsciously. Most of them looked after him in utter
astonishment; what could have brought the Chief Justice so early out of
doors? It seemed at times as if he were looking for something he had
lost; he would walk along slowly for a stretch with his looks fixed on
the ground, then he would stop and go back the same way. And how broken
down, how weary he looked today!--as if he had suddenly become an old
man, the people thought.

Freezing with cold, while his pulses beat at fever-speed, he thus
wandered for a long while aimlessly through the desolate streets, first
this way, then that, until the morning bells of the Cathedral sounded
in his ears. He stood still and listened as if he had never heard their
mighty sound before; they appeared to vibrate in his heart; his
features changed and grew gentler as he listened; a ray of tender
longing gleamed in his white face, and, as if drawn by invisible cords,
he hurried faster and faster towards the Cathedral. But when he stood
before its open door and looked into the dark space, lit only by a dim
light, the sanctuary lamp before the high-altar, he hesitated; he shook
his head and sighed deeply, and his features again resumed their
gloomy, painful look.

He looked up at the Cathedral clock, the hands were pointing to seven.
"An hour more," he murmured and went over towards the Court-House. It
was a huge, straggling, rectangular building, standing on its own
ground. In front were the Chief Justice's residence and the offices; at
the back the criminal prison.

He turned towards his own quarters. He had just set his foot on the
steps, when a new idea seemed to occur to him. He hesitated. "I must,"
he hissed between his teeth and he clenched his hands till the nails
ran painfully into the flesh; "I must, if only for a minute."

He stepped back into the street, went around the building and up to the
door at the back. It was locked; there was a sentinel in front of it.
He rang the bell, a warder opened the door and seeing the Chief Justice
respectfully pulled off his hat.

"Fetch the Governor," muttered Sendlingen, so indistinctly that the man
hardly understood him. But he hurried away and the Governor of the
prison appeared. He was visibly much astonished. "Does your Lordship
wish to make an inspection?" he asked.

"No, only in one or two particular cases."

"Which are they, my lord?"

But the unhappy man felt that his strength was leaving him. "Later on,"
he muttered, groping for the handle of the door so as to support
himself. "Another time."

The Governor hastened towards him. "Your Lordship is ill again--just as
you were yesterday--we are all much concerned! May I accompany you back
to your residence? The nearest way is through the prison-yard, if you
choose."

He opened a door and they stepped out into the prison-yard; it was
separated by a wall from the front building; the only means of
communication was an unostentatious little door in the bare, high,
slippery wall. It seemed to be seldom used; the Governor was a long
time finding the key on his bunch and when at length it opened, the
lock and hinges creaked loudly.

"Thank you," said Sendlingen. "I have never observed this means of
communication before."

"Your predecessor had it made," answered the Governor, "so that he
might inspect the prison without being announced. The key must be in
your possession."

"Very likely," answered Sendlingen, and he went back to his residence.

Franz placed his breakfast before him. "There'll be a nice ending to
this," he growled. "We are dangerously ill and yet we trapse about the
streets in all weathers. Dr. Berger, too, is surprised at our new
ways."

"Has he been here already?"

"He was here a few minutes ago, but will be back at eight.... But now
we have got to drink our tea." He did not budge till the cup had been
emptied.

With growing impatience Sendlingen looked at the clock. "He can have
nothing fresh to say," he thought. "He must guess my intention and want
to hinder me. He will not succeed."

But he did succeed. As he entered, Sendlingen had just taken up his hat
and stick.

"You are going to the trial?" began his faithful friend almost roughly,
"You must not, Victor, I implore you. I forbid you. What will the
judges think if you are too ill to preside, and yet well enough to be
present with no apparent object. But the main thing is not to torment
yourself, it is unmanly. Do not lessen your strength, you may require
it."

He wrested his hat from him and forced him into an armchair.

"My restlessness will kill me if I stay here," muttered Sendlingen.

"You would not be better in there, but worse. I shall come back to you
at once; I think, I fear, it will not last long. Don't buoy yourself up
with any hopes, Victor. Before a jury, I could get her acquitted, with
other judges, at a different time, we might have expected a short term
of imprisonment ... but now----"

"Death!" Like a shriek the words escaped from his stifled breast.

"But she may not, she will not die!" continued Berger. "I will set my
face against it as long as there is breath in my body, nay, I would
have done so even if she had not been your daughter. God bless you,
Victor."

Berger gathered up his bundle of papers and proceeded along the
corridor and up some stairs, until he found himself outside the court
where the trial was to take place. Even here a hum of noise reached
him, for the court was densely crowded with spectators. As far as he
could see by the glimmer of grey morning light that broke its difficult
way in by the round windows, it was a well-dressed audience in which
ladies preponderated. "Naturally," he muttered contemptuously.

For a few seconds eye-glasses and opera-glasses were directed upon him,
to be then again immediately turned on the accused. But her face could
not be seen; she was cowering in a state of collapse on her wooden
seat, her forehead resting on the ledge of the dock; her left arm was
spread out in front of her, her right hung listlessly by her side.
Public curiosity had nothing to sate itself on but the shudders
that at times convulsed her poor body; one of the long plaits of her
coal-black, wavy hair had escaped from beneath the kerchief on her head
and hung down low, almost to the ground, touching the muddy boots of
the soldier who did duty as sentinel close beside her.

Berger stepped to his place behind her; she did not notice him until he
gently touched her icy cold hand. "Be brave, my poor child," he
whispered.

She started up in terror. "Ah!" went from every mouth in Court: now at
length they could see her face. Berger drew himself up to his full
height; his eyes blazed with anger as he stepped between her and the
crowd.

"Oh, what crowds of people!" murmured the poor girl. Her cheeks and
forehead glowed in a fever-heat of shame: but the colour soon went and
her grief-worn face was white again; the look of her eyes was weary and
faint. "To think that one should have to suffer so much before dying."

"You will not die!" He spoke slowly, distinctly, as one speaks to a
deaf person. "You will live, and after you have satisfied the justice
of men, you will begin life over again. And when you do friendship and
love will not be wanting to you." While he was saying this, and at the
same time looking her full in the face, her resemblance to his friend
almost overpowered him. She was like her father in the colour of her
hair and eyes, in her mouth and her forehead.

"Love and care are waiting for you!" he continued with growing warmth.
"This I can swear. Do you hear? I swear that it is so! As regards the
trial, I can only give you this advice: tell, as you have hitherto
done, the whole truth. Bear up as well as you can; oppose every lie,
every unjust accusation."

She had heard him without stirring, without a sign of agreement or
dissent. It was doubtful whether she had understood him. But he had not
time to repeat his admonition; the Crown-advocate and the five Judges
had entered with Werner at their head. If Berger had hitherto cherished
any hope, it must have vanished now; two of the other Judges were among
the sternest on the bench; the fourth never listened and then always
chimed in with the majority; it was but a slender consolation to Berger
when he finally saw the wise and humane Baron Dernegg take his place
beside the judges.

Werner opened the proceedings and the deed of accusation was then read
out by the Secretary of the Court. Its compiler--a young, fashionably
dressed junior Crown-advocate of an old aristocratic family, who had
only been in the profession a short time,--listened to the recital of
his composition with visible satisfaction. And indeed his
representation of the matter was very effective.

According to him the Countess Riesner-Graskowitz was one of the noblest
women who ever lived, the Accused one of the most abandoned. A helpless
orphan, called by unexampled generosity to fill a post which neither
her years nor abilities had fitted her for, she had requited this
kindness by entangling the young Count Henry in her wiles in order to
force him into a marriage. After he had disentangled himself from these
unworthy bonds, and after Victorine Lippert knew her condition, instead
of repentantly confiding in her noble protectress, she had exhausted
all the arts of crafty dissembling in order not to be found out. And
when at length she was, as a most just punishment, suddenly dismissed
from the castle, she in cold blood murdered her child so as to be free
from the consequences of her fault. In his opinion, the Accused's
pretended unconsciousness was a manifest fable, and the crime a
premeditated one, as her conduct at the castle sufficiently proved. Her
character was not against the assumption, she was plainly corrupted at
an early age, being the daughter of a woman of loose character.

"It is a lie! a scandalous lie!"

Like a cry from the deepest recesses of the heart, these words suddenly
vibrated through the Court with piercing clearness.

It was the Accused who had spoken. She had listened to the greatest
part of the document without a sound, without the slightest change of
countenance, as if she were deaf. Only once at the place where it spoke
of "manifest fable" she had gently and imperceptibly shaken her head;
it was the first intimation Berger had that she was listening and
understood the accusation. But now, hardly had the libel on her dead
mother been read, when she rose to her feet and uttered those words so
suddenly that Berger was not less motionless and dumfounded than the
rest.

And then broke forth the hubbub; such an interruption, and in such
language, had never before occurred in Court. The spectators had risen
and were talking excitedly; the crown-advocate stood there helplessly;
even Herr von Werner had to clear his throat repeatedly before he could
ejaculate "Silence!"

But the command was superfluous for hardly had the poor girl uttered
the words, when she fell back upon her seat, from thence to the ground,
and was now lying in a faint on the boards.

She was carried out; it was noticed by many and caused much scandal,
that the counsel for the Accused lifted the lifeless body and helped
carry it, instead of leaving this to the warders.

The proceedings had to be interrupted. It was another half hour before
the Accused appeared in Court again, leaning on Berger's arm, her
features set like those of an animated corpse. There was a satirical
murmur in the crowd, and Werner, too, reflected whether he should not,
there and then, reprove the Counsel for unseemly behaviour. And this
determined him to be all the severer in the reprimand which he
addressed to the Accused on account of her unheard of impertinence. She
should not escape her just punishment, the nature and extent of which
he would determine by the opinion of the prison-doctor.

Then the reading of the deed of accusation was finished; the
examination began. There was a murmur of eager expectation among the
spectators; their curiosity was briefly but abundantly satisfied. To
the question whether she pleaded guilty, Victorine Lippert answered
quietly but with a steadier voice than one would have supposed her
capable of:

"Yes!... What I know about my deed, I have already told in evidence. I
deserve death, I wish to die. It is a matter of indifference to one
about to die what men may think of her; God knows the truth. He knows
that much, yes most, of what has just been read here, is incorrect. I
do not contest it, but one thing I swear in the face of death, and may
God have no mercy on me in my last hour if I lie; my mother was noble
and good; no mother can ever have been better and no wife more pure.
She trusted an unworthy wretch, and he must have been worse than ever
any man was, if he could forsake her--but she was good. I implore you,
read her testimonials, her letters to me--I beseech you, I conjure you,
just a few of these letters.-For myself I have nothing to ask--"

Her voice broke, her strength again seemed to forsake her and she sank
down on her seat.

There was a deep silence after she had ended: in her words, in her
voice, there must have been something that the hearts of those present
could not shut out; even the crown-advocate looked embarrassed. Herr
von Werner alone was so resolutely armed to meet the Hydra of the
social Revolution, which he was bent on combating in this forlorn
creature, as to be above all pity. He would certainly have begun a
wearisome examination and have spared the poor creature no single
detail, but his daughter was expecting a happy event to-day, and Baron
Sendlingen had, notwithstanding, not had sufficient professional
consideration to take over the conduct of this trial, and the half
hour's faint of the Accused had already unduly prolonged the
proceedings--so he determined to cut the matter as short as was
compatible with his position. The accused had just again unreservedly
repeated her confession; further questions, he explained, would be
superfluous.

The examination of the witnesses could be proceeded with at once. This
also was quickly got through. There were the peasants, who had found
Victorine and her lifeless child on the morrow of the deed, and the
prison doctor, none of whom could advance any fresh or material fact.

The only witness of importance to the Accused was the servant-girl who
had helped her in her last few months at the castle. The girl had been
shortly after dismissed from the Countess' service, and in the
preliminary inquiry, she had confirmed all Victorine's statements; if
she to-day remained firm to her previous declarations, the accusation
of premeditated murder would be severely shaken. To Berger's alarm she
now evasively answered that her memory was weak,--she had in the
meantime gone into service at Graskowitz again. In spite of this and of
the protest of the defence, she was sworn: Berger announced his
intention of appealing for a nullification of the trial.

Then the depositions of the Countess and her son were read; the Court
had declined to subp[oe]na them. The Countess had not spared time or
trouble in depicting the murderess in all her abandonment; but the
depositions which Count Henry had made at his embassy, were brief
enough: as far as he recollected he had made the girl no promise of
marriage, and indeed there was no reason for doing so. Berger demanded,
as proof to the contrary, that the letters which had been taken from
the Accused and put with the other papers, should he read aloud; this
the Court also declined because they did not affect the question of her
guilt.

Then followed the speeches for and against. The Crown-Advocate was
brief enough: the trial, he contended, had established the correctness
of the charge. If ever at all, then in the present case, should the
full rigour of the law be enforced. By her protestation that she had
received a most careful bringing up from a most excellent mother, she
had herself cut from under her feet the only ground for mitigation. All
the more energetically and fully did Berger plead for the utmost
possible leniency; his knowledge of law, his intellect and his
oratorical gifts had perhaps never before been so brilliantly
displayed. When he had finished, the people in Court broke out into
tumultuous applause.

The Judges retired to consider their verdict. They were not long
absent; in twenty minutes they again appeared in Court. Werner
pronounced sentence: death by hanging. The qualification of "unanimous"
was wanting. Baron Dernegg had been opposed to it.

There was much excitement among the spectators. Berger, although not
unprepared for the sentence, could with difficulty calm himself
sufficiently to announce that every form of appeal would be resorted
to. The Accused had closed her eyes for a moment and her limbs trembled
like aspen-leaves, but she was able to rise by herself to follow the
warders.

"Thank you," she said pressing Berger's hands. "But the appeal----"

"Will be lodged by me," he said hastily interrupting her. "I shall come
and see you about it to-day."

He hurried away down the stairs. But when he got into the long corridor
that led to Sendlingen's quarters, he relaxed his pace and at length
stood still. "This is a difficult business," he murmured and he stepped
to a window, opened it and eagerly drank in the cool autumn air as if
to strengthen himself.

When a few minutes after he found himself in Sendlingen's lobby, he met
Baron Dernegg coming out of his friend's study.

"Too late!" he thought with alarm. "And he has had to hear it from some
one else."

The usually comfortable-looking Judge was much excited. "You are no
doubt coming on the same errand, Dr. Berger," he began. "I felt myself
in duty bound to let the Chief Justice know about this sentence without
delay. The way in which he received it showed me once more what a
splendid man he is, the pattern of a Judge, the embodiment of Justice!
I assure you, he almost fainted, this--hm!--questionable sentence
affected him like a personal misfortune. Please do not excite him any
more about it and talk of something else first."

"Certainly," muttered Berger as he walked into the study.

Sendlingen lay back in his arm-chair, both hands pressed to his face.
His friend approached him without a word; it was a long, sad silence.
"Victor," he said at last, gently touching his shoulder, "we knew it
would be so!"

Sendlingen let his hands fall. "And does that comfort me?" he cried
wildly. And then he bowed his head still lower. "Tell me all!" he
murmured.

Berger then began to narrate everything. One thing only he omitted: how
Victorine had spoken of her mother's betrayer. "This very day," he
concluded, "I shall lodge a nullity appeal with the Supreme Court.
Perhaps it will consider the reasons weighty enough to order a new
trial; in any case when it examines the question, it will alter the
sentence."

"In any case?" cried Sendlingen bitterly.

"We cannot but expect as much from the sense of justice of our highest
Judges. Perhaps the chief witness's suspicious weakness of memory may
prove a lucky thing for us. If she had stuck by her former depositions,
or if the Court had not put her on her oath, then a simple appeal to
the Supreme Court would alone have been possible. Now, the case is more
striking and more sensational."

"And therefore all the worse!" interrupted Sendlingen. "Woe to him for
whom in these days the voice of the people makes itself heard; to the
gentry in Vienna it is worse than the voice of the devil. Besides, just
now, according to the opinion of the Minister of Justice, the world is
to be rid of child-murder by the offices of the hangman! And this is
the first case in educated circles, a much talked of case,--what a
magnificent opportunity of striking terror!"

"You take too black a view of the matter, Victor."

"Perhaps!--and therefore an unjust view! But how can a man in my
position be just and reasonable. Oh, George, I am so desolate and
perplexed! What shall I do; merciful Heaven, what shall I do?"

"First of all--wait!" answered Berger. "The decision of the Supreme
Court will be known in a comparatively short time, at latest in two
months!"

"Wait--only two months!" Sendlingen wrung his hands. "Though what do I
care for myself! But she--two months in the fear of death! To sit thus
in a lonely cell without light or air, or consolation,--behind her
unutterable misery, before her death----. Oh, she must either go mad or
die!"

"I shall often be with her, and Father Rohn, too, I hope. And then,
too," he added, half-heartedly, "one or other of the ladies of the
Women's Society for Befriending Female Criminals. Certainly these
comforters are not worth much."

"They are worth nothing," cried Sendlingen vehemently. "Oh, how
they will torture the poor girl with their unctuous virtue and
self-satisfied piety! I have to tolerate these tormentors, the Minister
of Justice insists on it, but at least they shall not enter this cell,
I will not allow it--or at least, only the single one among them who is
any good, my old Brigitta----"

"Your housekeeper?" asked Berger, in perplexity and consternation.
"That must not be! She might guess the truth. The girl!" he hesitated
again--"is like you, very like you Victor--and anyone who sees you so
often and knows you so well as Brigitta----"

"What does that matter?" Sendlingen rose. "She is discreet, and if she
were not--what does it matter, I repeat. Do you suppose that I never
mean to enter that cell?"

"You! Impossible!"

"I shall and I must! I will humour you in everything except in this one
thing!"

"But under what pretext? Have you ever visited and repeatedly visited
other condemned criminals?"

"What does that matter to me? A father must stand by his child!"

"And will you tell other people so?"

"Not until I am obliged; but then without a moment's hesitation. She,
however, must be told at once, in fact this very day."

"You must not do that, Victor. Spare the poor girl this sudden
revelation."

"Then prepare her beforehand! But to-morrow it must be!"

Berger was helpless; he knew what Victorine would say to her father if
she suddenly encountered him.

"Give her a little more time!" he begged, "Out of pity for her
shattered nerves and agitated mind, which will not bear any immediate
shock."

This was a request that Sendlingen could not refuse.

"Very well, I will wait," he promised. "But you will not wish to
prevent me from seeing her to-morrow. I have in any case to inspect the
prison. But I promise you: I will not betray myself and the governor of
the jail shall accompany me."




                              CHAPTER VI.


Weighed down by sorrow, Berger proceeded homewards. To the solitary
bachelor Sendlingen was more than a friend, he was a dearly loved
brother. He was struck to the heart, as by a personal affliction, with
compassion for this fate, this terrible fate, so suddenly and
destructively breaking in upon a beneficent life, like a desolating
flood.

Would this flood ever subside again and the soil bring forth flowers
and fruit? The strong man's looks darkened as he thought of the future:
worse than the evil itself seemed to him the manner in which it
affected his friend. Alas! how changed and desolated was this splendid
soul, how hopeless and helpless this brave heart! And it was just their
last interview, that sudden flight from the most melancholy
helplessness to the heights of an almost heroic resolve, that gave
Berger the greatest uneasiness.

"And it will not last!" he reflected with much concern. "Most certainly
it will not! Perhaps even now, five minutes after, he is again lying
back in his arm chair, broken down, without another thought, another
feeling, save that of his misery! And could anything else be expected?
That was not the energetic resolve of a clear, courageous soul, but the
diseased, visionary effort of feverishly excited nerves! Again he does
not know whether he will see her or what he ought to do.... And do I
know, would any one know in the presence of such a fate?"

Had he deserved this fate?

"No!" cried Berger to himself. "No!" he passionately repeated as he
paced up and down his study, trying to frame the wording of the appeal.
Clumsy and uncouth, blind and cruel, seemed to him the power that had
ordered things as they had come about. It seemed no better than some
rude elemental force. "He can no more help it," he muttered, "than the
fields can help a flood breaking in upon them."

But he could not long maintain this view, comforting as it was to him,
much as he strove to harbour it. "He has done wrong," he thought, "and
retribution is only the severer because delayed." Other cases in his
experience occurred to him: long concealed wrongs and sins that had
afterwards come into the light of day, doubly frightful. "And such
offences increase by the interest accruing until they are paid," he was
obliged to think. From the moment that he heard his friend's story, all
the facts it brought to light seemed to him like the diabolical sport
of chance; but now he no longer thought it chance but in everything saw
necessity, and he was overcome by the same idea to which he had given
voice at the conclusion of his friend's narration, namely that this was
no mere sad fate, but a tragic one.

It was a singular idea, compounded of fear and reverence. When Berger
reflected how one act dovetailed into another, how link fitted into
link in the chain of cause and effect, how all these people could not
have acted otherwise than they were obliged to act, how guilt had of
necessity supervened, and now retribution, the strong man shuddered
from head to foot: he had to bow his head before that pitiless,
all-just power for which he knew no name ... But was it really
all-just? If all these people, if Sendlingen and Victorine had not
acted otherwise than their nature and circumstances commanded, why had
they to suffer for it so frightfully? And why was there no end to this
suffering, a great, a liberating, a redeeming end?

"No!" cried an inward voice of his deeply agitated soul, "there must be
such a glorious solution. It cannot be our destiny to be dragged into
sin by blind powers which we cannot in any way control, like puppets by
the cords in a showman's hands, and then again, when it pleases those
powers, into still greater sins, or into an atonement a thousand times
greater than the sin itself, and so, on and on, until death snaps the
cords. No! that cannot be our destiny, and if it were, then we should
be greater than this Fate, greater, juster, more reasonable! There must
be in Sendlingen's case also, a solution bringing freedom, there
_must_--and in his case precisely most of all! It would have been an
extraordinary fate, no matter whom it had overtaken, but had it
befallen a commonplace man, it would never have grown to such a
crushing tragedy. A scoundrel would have lied to himself: 'She is not
my daughter, her mother was a woman of loose character,' and he would
have repeated this so often that he would have come to believe it. And
if remorse had eventually supervened, he would have buried it in the
confessional or in the bottle.

"Another man, no scoundrel,--on the contrary! a man of honour of the
sort whose name is Legion,--would not have hesitated for a moment to
preside in Court in order to obtain by his authority as Chief Justice,
the mildest possible sentence. Then he would have been assiduous in
ameliorating the lot of the prisoner by special privileges, and after
she had been set at liberty, he would have bought her, somewhere at a
distance, a little millinery business or a husband, and every time he
thought of the matter, he would have said with emotion: 'What a good
fellow you are!' This has only become a tragic fate because it has
struck one of the most upright, most sensitive and noble of men, and
because this is so, there must come from that most noble and upright
heart a solution, an act of liberation bursting these iron bonds! There
must be a means of escape by which he and his poor child and Justice
herself will have their due! There _must_ be--simply because he is what
he is!"

There was a gleam of light in Berger's usually placid, contented face,
the reflection of the thought that filled his soul and raised him above
the misery of the moment. Notwithstanding, his looks became serious and
gloomy again.

"But what is this solution?" he asked, continuing his over-wrought
reflections. "And how shall this broken-down, sick man, weary with his
tortures, find it? And I--I know of none, perhaps no one save himself
can find it. 'Against the burden of such a fate, no parade of sophistry
will be of any avail,' I said to him yesterday. But can small
expedients be of any use? Will it be a solution if I succeed with my
appeal, if the sentence of death is commuted to penal servitude for
life or for twenty years? Can this lessen the burden of the fate?--for
her, for him?"

"What to do?" he suddenly exclaimed aloud. He wrung his hands and
stared before him.

Suddenly there was a curious twitching about his mouth, and his eyes
gleamed with an almost weird light. "No, no!" he muttered vehemently,
"how can such a thought even occur to me. I feel it, I am myself
becoming ill and unstrung!"

He bounded up with a heavy stamp and hastily passed his hand over his
forehead, as though the thought which had just passed through his brain
stood written there and must be swiftly wiped away. But that thought
returned again and again and would not be scared away, that enticing
but fearful thought; how she might be forcibly liberated from prison
and carried off to new life and happiness in a distant country?

"Madness!" he muttered and added in thought: "He would rather die and
let her die, than give his consent to this or set his hand to such a
deed! He whose conscience would not allow him to preside at the trial!
And if in his perplexity and despair he were to go so far, I should
have to bar the way and stop him even if it cost me my life.... What
was it he said yesterday: 'An offence should not be expiated by an
injustice!' and will he attempt it by another offence. 'Cowardly and
dishonourable!' yes, that it would be, and not that great deed of which
I dream; greater and more just than Fate itself."

He seized the notes which he had made from the papers connected with
the trial, and forced himself to read them through deliberately, to
weigh them again point by point. This expedient helped him: that
horrible thought did not return, but a new thought rose, bringing
comfort in its train and took shape: "When a great act cannot be
achieved, we should not on that account omit even the smallest thing
that can possibly be done. I will set my energies against the sentence
of death, because it is the most frightful thing that could happen!"

And now he recovered courage and eagerness for work.

He sat at his writing table hour after hour, marshalling his reasons
and objections into a solid phalanx which in the fervour of the moment
seemed to him as if they must sweep away every obstacle, even
prejudice, even ill-will. He had bolted himself in, nobody was to
disturb him, he only interrupted himself for a few minutes to snatch a
hasty meal. Then he worked away until the last sentence stood on the
paper.

For the first time he now looked at the clock; it was pointing to ten.
It was too late to visit the poor prisoner, and he was grieved that he
had not kept his promise. If she was perhaps secretly nourishing the
hope of being saved, she would now be doubly despairing. But it could
not now be helped and he resolved to make good his remissness early the
next morning. Sendlingen, however, he would go and see. "Perhaps he is
in want of me," he thought. "I should be much surprised if he were not
now more helpless than ever."

He made his way through the wet, cold, foggy autumn night; things he
had never dreamt of were in store for him.

When he pulled the bell, the door was at once opened: Fraeulein Brigitta
stood before him. The candlestick in her hand trembled: the plump,
well-nourished face of the worthy lady was so full of anguish that
Berger started. "What has happened?" he cried.

"Nothing!" she answered. "Nothing at all! It is only that I am so
silly." But her hand was trembling so much that she had to put down her
candle and the tears streamed down her cheeks as she continued with an
effort: "He went out--and has not come back--and so I thought--but I am
so silly."

"So it seems," Berger roughly exclaimed, trying to encourage both her
and himself, but a sudden anguish so choked his utterance that what he
next said sounded almost unintelligible. "May he not pay a visit to a
friend and stay to supper there? Is he so much under your thumb that he
must give you previous notice of his intention? He is at Baron
Dernegg's I suppose."

"No," she sobbed. "He is not there, and Franz has already looked for
him in vain in all the places where he might be. He was twice at your
house, but your servant would not admit him. And now the old man is
scouring the streets. He will not find him!" she suddenly screamed,
burying her face in her hands.

"Nonsense!" cried Berger almost angrily. He forced the trembling woman
into a chair, sat down beside her and took her hand. "Let us talk like
reasonable beings," he said, "like men, Fraeulein Brigitta. When did he
go out?"

"Seven hours ago, just after his dinner, which he hardly touched; it
must have been about four o'clock. And how he has been behaving ... and
especially since mid-day yesterday.... Dr. Berger," she cried
imploringly, clasping her hands, "what happened yesterday in Chambers?
When he came back from Vienna he was still calm and cheerful. It must
be here and yesterday that some misfortune struck him. I thought at
first that it was illness, but I know better now: it is a misfortune, a
great misfortune! Dr. Berger, for Christ's sake, tell me what it is!"

She would have sunk down at his feet, if he had not hastily prevented
her. "Be reasonable!" he urged, "It is an illness, Fraeulein
Brigitta,--the heart, the nerves."

She shook her head vigorously. "I guess what it is." She pointed in the
direction of the jail. "Something has happened in the prison over there
that is a matter of life and death to him."

He started. "Why do you suppose that?"

"Because he behaved so strangely--just listen to this." But she had
first the difficult task of calming herself before she could proceed.
"Well, when I went into his room to-day to tell him dinner was ready,
he was standing in front of his writing-table rummaging in all the
drawers. 'What are you looking for, my Lord?' I asked. 'Nothing,' he
muttered and he sent me away, saying he was just coming. Twenty minutes
later I ventured to go back again; he was still searching. 'Have you
ever,' he now himself asked, 'heard of any keys that my predecessor is
said to have handed over?' 'Yes,' I replied, 'the keys of the
residence.' 'No, others, and among them the key of the door which----'
He checked himself suddenly and turned away as though he had already
said too much. 'What door?' I asked in utter astonishment. He muttered
something unintelligible and then roughly told me the soup could wait.
It cuts me to the heart. Dear Heaven, how wretched he looks, and I am
not accustomed to be spoken to by him in that way; but what does that
matter? I went and spoke to Franz. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'he means the
keys that are in the top drawer of his business table.' So we went and
looked and there, sure enough, was a bunch of keys--quite rusty, Dr.
Berger."

"Go on, to the point," said Berger impatiently.

"Well, I took them to him; as I said, a whole bunch with a written
label on each. He looked through them with trembling hands. Dr. Berger,
and at last his face lit up. 'That's the one!' he muttered and took the
key off the bunch and put it in his breast pocket. Then he turned round
and when he saw me--great Heaven! what eyes he had--wicked, frightened
eyes. 'Are you still here?' he said flaring up into a rage. 'What do
you want playing the spy here?' Yes, Dr. Berger, he said 'playing the
spy'--and he has known me for fifteen years."

"He is ill you see!" said Berger soothingly. "But go on!"

"Then he sat down to dinner and there he behaved very strangely. God
forgive me ... Usually he only drinks one glass of Rhine-wine--you know
the sort--to-day he gulped down three glasses one after another, took a
few spoonfuls of soup and then went back to his room. And then I said:
Franz, I said--but you won't want to hear that. Dr. Berger. But what
follows you must hear; it's very strange--God help us! only too
strange."

"Well?"

"After about ten minutes or so, I heard his step in the lobby; the door
slammed; well, he had gone out. 'By all that's sacred!' thinks I in
great trouble of mind. Then Franz came in quite upset. 'Fraeulein!' he
whispered, 'he's going up and down in the court outside!' 'Impossible!'
said I, 'what does he want there?' We went to the bedroom window that
looks down into the court and there, sure enough, is his Lordship! He
was going--or rather he was creeping along by the wall that separates
our court from the prison yard. It was drizzling at the time and it was
no longer quite light, but I could see his face plainly: it was the
face of a man who doesn't know what to do--ah me! worse still--the face
of a man who doesn't know what he's doing. And he behaved like it, Dr.
Berger! He stopped in front of the little door in the wall, looked
anxiously up at the windows to see if anyone was watching him--but the
clerks and officials had all gone, we were the only people who saw
him--he pulled out that key from his breast pocket and tried to unlock
the door. For a long time he couldn't succeed, but at last the door
opened. However, he only shut it again quickly and locked it. Then he
began anxiously to pace up and down again. It was just as if he had
only wanted to try whether the key would open the door. What do you
think of that?"

"The door through which one can get from here into the prison?" Berger
spoke slowly, in a muffled tone, as if he were speaking to himself.
Then he continued in the same tone: "Oh, how frightful that would be!
This soul in the mire, this splendid soul!--Go on!" he then muttered as
he saw that the housekeeper was looking at him in amazement.

"Well, then he went quickly back through the hall into the street and
on towards the square. Franz crept after him at a distance. He seemed
at first as if he wanted to go to your house, then he came back here,
but to the other door, on the prison side. There he stood, close up to
it, for a long time, a quarter of an hour Franz says, and then went to
the left down Cross Street and then--what do you think, Dr. Berger?"

"Back the same way," said Berger slowly, "and again stood for a long
time in front of the prison."

"How can you know that?" asked the old lady in astonishment.

Berger's answer was a strange one. "I can see it!" he said. And indeed,
with the eyes of his soul, Berger could see his unhappy friend
wandering about in the misty darkness, dragged hither and thither, by
whirling, conflicting thoughts. "Perhaps he is at this moment standing
there again!" He had not meant to say this, but the thought had
involuntarily given itself voice.

"What now!" Fraeulein Brigitta crossed herself. "We will go and see at
once! Come! Oh, that would be a good thing! I will just go and fetch my
shawl. But you see I was right. This trouble is connected with the
prison; some injustice has been done, and he feels it nearly because he
is such a just judge."

"Because he is such a just judge," repeated Berger, mechanically,
without thinking of what he was saying, for while he spoke those words
he was saying to himself: "He has gone mad!"

Then, however, he shook off the spell of this horror that threatened to
cripple both soul and body. "You stay at home," he said in a tone of
command. "I will find him and bring him back, you may rely upon that.
One thing more, where did Franz leave him?"

"Ah, he was too simple! When his Lordship came into the square for the
third time, Franz went up to him and begged him to come home. Upon that
he became very angry and sent Franz off with the strongest language.
But he called after him that he was going to Baron Dernegg's, only as I
said, he has not been there, and----"

"Keep up your spirits, Fraeulein Brigitta! I shall be back soon." He
went down the steps, "Keep up your spirits!" he called back to her once
more; she was standing at the top of the steps holding the candle at
arm's length before her.

Berger stepped into the street and walked swiftly round the building to
the prison door. He himself was in need of the exhortation he had
given: he felt as if in the next moment he might see something
frightful.

But there was nothing to be seen when he at length reached the place
and approached the door, nothing save the muddy slippery ground, the
trickling, mouldy walls, the iron-work of the door shining in the
wet--nothing else, so far as the red, smoky light of the two lanterns
above the door could show through the fog and rain. And there was
nothing to be heard save the low pattering of the rain-drops on the
soft earth or, when a sudden gust of the east-wind blew, the creaking
of some loosened rafter and a whirring, long-drawn, complaining sound
that came from the bare trees on the ramparts when they writhed and
bent beneath its icy breath.

"Victor!"

There was a movement in the sentry box by the door; the poor, frozen
Venetian soldier of the Dom Miguel regiment who had sheltered himself
inside as well as he could from the rain and cold, poked out his heavy
sleepy head so that the shine of his wet leather shako was visible for
an instant. He muttered an oath and wrapped himself the closer in his
damp overcoat.

Berger sighed deeply. A minute before he was sure he had seen the poor
madman standing motionless in the desolate night, his eyes rigidly
fixed upon the door that separated him from his daughter, and now that
he was spared the sight, he could take no comfort, for a far worse
foreboding convulsed his brain.

Hesitatingly he returned to the front part of the building and,
increasing his pace, he went down the street towards the market-place,
aimlessly, but always swifter, as if he had to go where chance led him,
so as to arrive in time to stop some frightful deed.

The streets were deserted, nothing but the wind roamed through the
drenching solitude, nothing but the voices of the night greeted his
ear; that ceaseless murmur and rustle and stir, which, drowned by the
noise of the day, moves in the dark stillness, as though dead and dumb
things had now first found a voice to reach the sense of men.

He often had to stop; it seemed to him as if he heard the piteous
groaning of a sick man, or the half stifled cry for help of one
wounded. But it was nothing; the wind had shaken some rotting roof, or
somewhere in the far distance a watch-dog had given a short, sharp
bark. The lonely wanderer held his breath in order to hear better,
looked also perhaps into some dark corner and then hurried on.

He reached the market place. Here he came upon human beings again, the
sentries before the principal guard-house, and as he passed the column
commemorative of the cholera in the middle of the square, there was the
night-watchman who had pitched upon a dry sleeping place in one of the
niches of the irregular monument. Berger stopped irresolutely; should
he wake him up and question him?

Another form at this moment emerged from a neighbouring street; a man
who with bowed head and halting pace glided along by the houses: was
this not Franz? Berger could not yet, by the light of the meagre lamps,
accurately distinguish him in the all-pervading fog. But the man came
nearer and nearer; he was behaving peculiarly; he was looking into
every door-way, and when he came to the "Sign of the Arbour," a very
ancient shop full of recesses, he went into each of these recesses, so
that a spectator saw him alternately appearing and disappearing. When
he at length reappeared just under a lamp Berger recognised him; it was
really the old servant. "Like a faithful dog seeking his master," he
said to himself as he hurried towards him.

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 Fraeulein 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 Fraeulein 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 Fraeulein 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.




                             CHAPTER VIII.


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, Hoebinger! 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, Hoebinger, 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, Hoebinger. 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 Hoebinger 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 Hoebinger 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, Hoebinger! 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 Hoebinger, 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, _everything_ depends 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, Fraeulein
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, _these_
two----"

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!"

"_My_ lot, _only_ my 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!"




                              CHAPTER IX.


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 loo

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