Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/forright00suttgoog
FOR THE RIGHT
FOR THE RIGHT
BY
KARL EMIL FRANZOS
GIVEN IN ENGLISH
By JULIE SUTTER
With a Preface
By GEORGE MACDONALD, LLD.
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1888
PREFACE.
Not having even been asked to do so, I write this preface from
admiration of the book. The translation I have not yet seen, but
knowing previous work by the same hand, have confidence in it.
How much the story is founded on fact I cannot tell; a substratum of
fact there must be. To know that such a man once lived as is
represented in it, might well wake a new feeling of both strength and
obligation: here is one who, with absolutely no help from what is
commonly meant by _education_, lived heroically. But be the tale as
much a product of the imagination as the wildest romance, it remains a
significant fact that the generation has produced a man capable of such
an ideal.
For the more evident tendency of art has for some time been to an
infinite degeneracy. The cry of "Art for art's sake," as a protest
against the pursuit of art for the sake of money or fame, one can
recognize in its half wisdom, knowing the right cry to be, "Art for
truth's sake!" But when certain writers tell us that the true aim of
the author of fiction is to give the people what they want, namely, a
reflection, as in a mirror, of themselves--a mirror not such as will
show them to themselves as they are, but as they seem to each other,
some of us feel that we stand on the verge of an abyss of falsehood.
The people--in whose favour they seem to live and move and have their
being--desire, they say, no admixture of further object, nothing to
indicate they ought not to be what they are, or show them what they
ought to be: they acknowledge no relations with the ideal, only with
that which is--themselves, namely, and what they think and do. Such
writers do not understand that nothing does or can exist except the
ideal; nor is their art-philosophy other than "procuress to the lords
of hell." Whoever has an ideal and is making no struggle toward it, is
sinking into the outer darkness. The ideal is the end, and must be the
object of life. Attained, or but truly conceived, we must think of it
as the indispensable.
It is, then, a great fact of the age that, such low ends being
advocated, and men everywhere insisting on a miserable origin and
miserable prospects for humanity, there should yet appear in it a man
with artistic conception of a lofty ideal, and such artistic expression
of the same as makes it to us not conceivable only, but humanly
credible. For an ideal that is impossible is no ideal; it is a fancy,
no imagination. Our author keeps his narrative entirely consistent with
human nature--not, indeed, human nature as degraded, disjointed, and
unworthy, neither human nature as ideally perfect, but human nature as
reaching after the perfection of doing the duty that is plainly
perceived. In none of its details is the story unlikely. We may doubt
if such a man as Taras ever lived; but alas for him who has no hope
that such a man will ever be!
The reader must not suppose I would have everything the man did
regarded as _right_. On the contrary, the man becomes bitterly aware of
his errors--errors of knowledge, however, of judgment and of belief, be
it understood--not of conduct as required by that belief, knowledge,
and judgment. His head is at a loss rather than in fault; heart and
will are pure. A good man may do the most mistaken things with such
conviction of their rectitude as to be even bound to do them. How far
he might be to blame for not knowing or judging better, God only could
tell. If he could not have known better or judged better, he may have
to bear some of the consequences of his mistakes, but he will not have
to bear any blame; while his doing of what he believed to be right will
result in his both being and knowing what is right. The rare thing is
not the man who knows what is right, but the man who actually, with all
the power in him, with his very being, sets himself to _do_ that right
thing, however unpleasant or painful, irksome or heartrending to him.
Such a man, and such only, is a hero.
At the same time, the deepest instruction lies in the very mistakes of
the man. The purity of his motive and object confessed, not merely were
the means he took to reach his end beyond his administration, but the
end itself was imperfect. There are multitudes who imagine they hate
injustice when they but hate injury to themselves. They will boil with
rage at that, but hear of wrong even to a friend with much equanimity.
How many would not rather do a small wrong than endure a great one! Do
such men love justice? No man is a lover of justice who would not
rather endure the greatest wrong than commit the least. Here we have a
man who, to revenge no wrong done to himself, but out of pure reverence
for justice, feeling bound in his very being to do what in him lies for
justice, gives up everything, wife even and children, and openly
defying the emperor, betakes himself an outlaw to the hills, to serve
that Justice whose ministers have forsaken her. He will do with what
power he has, the thing so many fancy they would do if they had the
power they have not--put down injustice with the strong hand. There is
a place for this in the order of things; but were the judges of the
earth absolutely righteous, the world would never thus be cleansed of
injustice. The justest judge will do more for the coming of the kingdom
of righteousness by being himself a true man, than by innumerable
righteous judgments. The first and longest step a man can take toward
redress of all wrong, is _to be righteous_, not in the avenging of
wrong, but in the doing of the right thing, in the working of
righteousness. He who could have put down evil with the strong hand had
he so pleased, was he who less than any cared to do so. He saw that men
might be kept from injustice and be not a whit the more just, or the
more ready to do justice when the hand was withdrawn. What alone he
thought worth his labour was that a man should love justice as he loved
it, and be ready to die for it as he himself died. This man in his
ignorance set out to do the thing his Master had declined to do; his
end itself was inadequate.
Nor was the man himself adequate to the end. The very means he
possessed he was unable to control; and wrong followed as terrible as
unavoidable. Vengeance must be left with the Most High; for the
administration of punishment, to be just, demands not merely an
unselfishness perfect as God's, but an insight and knowledge equal to
his. Besides all this, to administer justice a man must have power
beyond his own, and must, therefore, largely depend on others, while
yet he can with no certainty determine who are fit for his purpose and
who are not. In brief, the justest man cannot but fail in executing
justice. He may be pure, but his work will not.
One thing I must beg of the reader--not to come to a conclusion before
he has come to the end; not to imagine that now or now he may condemn,
but to wait until the drama is played out.
It was indeed a bold undertaking when our author chose for his hero a
man who could not read or write, who had no special inclination, no
personal aptitude for social or public affairs, and would present him
attempting the noblest impossibility, from a divine sense of wrong done
to others than himself, and duty owed by him to all men and to God--a
duty become his because he alone was left to do it.
I have seldom, if ever, read a work of fiction that moved me with so
much admiration.
The failures of some will be found eternities beyond the successes of
others.
George Mac Donald.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. To the Front.
II. The Stuff he was Made of.
III. The Right Wronged.
IV. Taking up the Battle.
V. The Wrong Victorious.
VI. Appealing unto Caesar.
VII. Put not your Trust in Princes.
VIII. Despair.
IX. The Passion of Justice.
X. To the Mountains.
XI. Outlawed.
XII. Flourishing like a Bay-Tree.
XIII. The Banner Unfurled.
XIV. Gathering Strength.
XV. An Eye for an Eye.
XVI. The Avenger to the Rescue.
XVII. Signs of Failure.
XVIII. The Approaching Doom
XIX. For the Right--In the Wrong.
XX. The Banner Soiled.
XXI. "Vengeance is Mine".
XXII. Paying the Penalty.
FOR THE RIGHT.
CHAPTER I.
TO THE FRONT.
Let the reader's imagination carry him eastward. Let him suppose he
were travelling at railway speed between Lemberg and Czernowitz, in a
south-easterly direction, towards the sedgy shores of the river Pruth
and the beech forests of the Bukowina, and the scenery to his left will
appear changeless. His eye for miles will rest on a boundless plain, of
which the seasons can influence the colouring only, but never a feature
of the landscape. White and dazzling in the winter, it rises to
something of a yellow brightness in the summer, wearing a neutral tint
both in the autumn and spring. But on his right-hand each turn of the
wheel will disclose a new picture to his eyes. He is fast approaching
the towering heights of the Carpathians. Mere phantoms at first, they
assume shape and substance like gathering clouds on the horizon, the
mountain chain with deepening contours advancing through the violet and
purple vapours of distance. And if the traveller now were able to fix
his gaze a while on the monotonous plain, with its grey cottages, its
poverty-stricken fields, and dreary heathlands, his would be a grand
surprise in turning once more to the right. The heights have closed
in--giants they, proud and solemn in fir-clad majesty. The wind,
sweeping along the mountain-sides, is laden with the odours of
pinewood; the air is filled with the roar of cataracts dashing through
the gullies and foaming along the rocky channel by the side of the
railway cutting; and athwart the narrow bands of azure, which seem the
bluer for the deep-rent glens beneath, may be seen wheeling the
bloodthirsty kite of the Carpathians. The very heart of the mountain
chain, silent and beautiful, lies open to view. A moment only, and it
will have vanished. The railroad, starting off in a sharp curve to the
east, leaves nothing to the beholder but to the right and to the left
the self-same monotonous plain. A sudden bend of the lawless Pruth had
rendered it necessary for the line to cut the landscape at the very
point where mountain and plain stand facing each other--abrupt and
unblending--like hatred and love in the heart of man.
The spot in question--half-way between Colomea, the hill-crowned
capital of the district, and Zablotow, a poor Jewish townlet of the
plain--is within the parish boundary of Zulawce, a village not,
however, visible from the railway, its cottages, a couple of miles
beyond, covering an eastern slope of the magnificent mountain range.
The thatched dwellings are as poor as anywhere in that part of Galicia,
not even the church or the manor house commanding any attention. But
all the more charming is the neighbourhood. Approaching the village
from the Pruth, you reach its first outlying cottages without the
effort of climbing, but by the time you have ascended to the
farthermost dwellings you have a splendid lowland landscape at your
feet--spreading fields of gold, verdant woods and heath-covered tracts,
skirted by the Pruth as with a broad silver ribbon, the glittering
rivulet of the Czerniawa winding between. And your eye will carry you
farther still, to the natural horizon, northward. But the eastern view
is altogether different, and incomparably bewitching, the gloriously
wooded hill-country of the Bukowina rising gradually, terrace upon
terrace, from the deep-sunk valley of the Czeremosz. Indeed, this
prospect, as seen from the village, is wondrously grand, a succession
of gigantic steps, as it were, leading from earth toward heaven, the
highest mountain-tops melting away in the ethereal blue. To the west
and south the view is bounded by the "Welyki Lys," a gigantic mountain
forest which separates Galicia from Hungary--dark and dreary, and
unutterably monotonous. Nowhere in the lower Carpathians is there a
spot to equal Zulawce for Nature's variety, looking upon the village as
a centre.
But this is not all for which the place is noteworthy. Life there, on
the whole, is regulated after the ways of the lowlands; but the people
themselves approach the Huzul type--a peculiar race, inhabiting the
mountains, and which, on account of the common language, is generally
classed with the Ruthens, but being of a different origin and of
different conditions of life is distinct from them, as in appearance so
in habit and in character. The Huzul is a hybrid, uniting the Slavonic
blood of the Ruthen with the Mongolian blood of the Uzen, his speech
betraying the former while his name testifies to the latter; so also
does the defiant dauntlessness of his bearing, hidden beneath an
appearance of proud restraint, but apt to burst out suddenly, like a
hot spring through the covering snow. The Ruthens of the lowlands, on
the contrary, are purely Slavonic; industrious therefore, enduring and
very patient, not easily roused, but once the fire is kindled it will
go on burning with a steady glow. These virtues, however, have sad
vices for a reverse--a bluntness which is both dull and coarse, and an
abject humility, bending the neck of the conquered man even lower than
need be. An unfair load of hardships may be pleaded in their excuse.
The Ruthen for centuries bore the chains of serfdom, and these broken
he continued the subject of some Polish nobleman, no law protecting his
body, still less his goods, no mental culture reaching him whose soul
received the barest crumbs of spiritual teaching. In this respect
things, to be sure, went as ill with the Huzuls, but for the rest
theirs was a life of liberty on the mountains, acknowledging no
nobleman and no officer of the crown. Poorly enough they lived in the
forest wilds, their sheep yielding milk and cheese, the barren soil a
few oats for scarcely eatable bread, while meat was within reach of him
only who would stake his own life in killing a bear. To this day there
are glens where no money has ever been seen; for which reason it has
never been thought worth while to levy taxes, the great lords remaining
in the lowlands where the soil was fruitful and he who tilled it a
slave. "Within those mountains there are but bears to be found and a
wild people called Uzels," thus wrote a German explorer in the
seventeenth century. He might have written it yesterday, for with the
bear only does the Huzul share the sovereignty of the mountains, and
his very freedom is no better than the liberty of the bear--yet liberty
it is! Thus the difference between the Ruthens of the uplands and the
Ruthens of the plain is immense, and scarcely to be bridged over--free
huntsmen up yonder, yoke-bearing bondmen below.
"No falcon can lived caged, no Huzul in bondage," says the proverb. The
village of Zulawce appeared to give the lie to this saying, but only at
first sight. The people there tilled the soil; they went to church,
paid tithes, and yielded forced labour; but for the rest they were
Huzuls, and cousins-german to the bear-hunters of the Welyki Lys. They
never forgot that they were _men_; they chose to govern themselves, and
did not hesitate to meet injustice with a bullet or a blow of the axe.
The lord of the manor, old Count Henryk Borecki, knew this well enough,
and though he might groan he never attempted to treat the peasants of
Zulawce as he would treat the churls on his lowland property. Not that
he was a gracious lord, but he was prudent; and being a passionate
huntsman himself, he loved to spend the season on that borderland of
the great forest, which led to many a scuffle, but open rupture there
was none while he lived.
When he had departed, matters grew worse. His son, Count George, never
troubled the people with his presence, for he lived in Paris. He was a
famous cavalier, devoting himself to the rising generation, so far as
it was of the feminine gender, and given to dancing at Mabille. His
far-off estates he only bore in mind when his purse was low; for which
reason, indeed, he thought of them as often and as anxiously as any
pattern landlord, keeping up a lively correspondence with his stewards
in Podolia--money they must send him, or dismissed his service they
should be. These unfortunate "mandatars" had a hard time of it; but
they did their best, fleecing the peasants to the utmost, and keeping
their stewardships. Now, the mandatar of Zulawce also, Mr. Severin
Gonta, for all that can be told to the contrary, might have wished to
adopt this plan; but having lived for twenty years in the village, and
knowing the people and their knock-down propensities, he preferred
having recourse to the cutting of my lord's timber instead, sending the
proceeds to Paris. Count George, however, in the pursuit of his noble
passions, enlarged his friendships, admitting even usurers to the
benefit of his private acquaintance.
Thus it came about that Mr. Severin one day received the youthful
landlord's ultimatum: "Send me another thousand florins a year, or go
to the devil." Mr. Severin was soon resolved. He knew he had cut the
timber till never a tree remained, and he preferred his bodily safety
to the stewardship he held. So he quitted his post, being succeeded by
the young Count's private secretary, a certain Mr. Wenceslas Hajek.
Mr. Wenceslas at the time--it was in the year of Grace 1835--was a
young man of eight-and-twenty, with an experience far beyond his years.
A Bohemian by birth, he soon rose to the dignity of an imperial
detective, and in recognition of his peculiar talents was sent to Italy
as a spy. He had acquired a knowledge of French, and was known to have
committed a daring robbery upon a privy councillor of Milan, for which
achievement he was not, like an ordinary mortal, sent to prison as a
thief, but to Paris on a secret mission for Prince Metternich. He duly
reported to his government; but his was a sympathetic temperament, and,
pitying the refugees, he failed not to report to them as well. For a
while he flourished, receiving pay from both sides; but being found out
he was dismissed ignominiously. Thereupon he took a distaste for
politics, establishing a private agency for nondescript transactions,
the least doubtful of which were the arrangements he brought about
between spendthrift nobles and their friends who lent upon usury. In
this capacity he came to be introduced to Count George, who found him
simply invaluable, appointing him his private secretary before long.
Now, Mr. Wenceslas might thus have lived happily ever after, had his
natural disposition not again played him the fool. He loved money, and
took of his master's what he could. Count George was helpless, since
the rascal knew his every secret; it was plain he could not dismiss
him, but he promoted him to the stewardship of Zulawce. "I don't care
how much of a blackguard he is, so long as he forwards my revenues,"
this distinguished nobleman thought within himself, continuing his
pursuits in Paris.
It was in the month of May, 1835, that Wenceslas Hajek made his entry
at Zulawce. He had scarcely an eye for the vernal splendour of the
grand scenery which surrounded him; but he certainly felt impressed on
seeing the peasantry on horseback ready to receive him into their
village. It was with a queer look of surprise that he gazed upon those
giant figures with their piercing eagle eyes. They were clothed in
their best, wearing brown woollen riding-coats, dark red breeches,
black sandals, and high felt hats with waving plumes, sitting their
small spirited steeds as though they had grown together with them.
Among mountaineers the Huzuls are the only equestrian people, and none
of their Slavonic neighbours go armed, as they do, with the gun slung
behind them, the pistol in the belt, and the battle-axe to hand. Mr.
Wenceslas knew he trembled when these well-accoutred peasants
approached his vehicle. He had intended to treat them to his most
gracious smile, and smile he did, but it cost him an effort ending in a
grin.
Only one of the peasants bared his head--an old man, white-haired and
of commanding stature, who lifted a proud face to the newcomer. He had
pulled up by the carriage door, and his clear, undaunted eyes examined
the features of the steward. That was Stephen Woronka, the village
judge. "Newly-appointed mandatar," he said, "you are sent by our lord;
therefore we greet you. You come from afar, and we are not known to
you; therefore, I say, we men of Zulawce do our duty by the Count,
expecting him to do the same by us. Neither more nor less! We greet
you."
Mr. Hajek understood the import, for a Slavonic dialect had been the
language of his childhood, and on the long journey through Galicia he
had had opportunity to pickup some of the country's speech. But, more
than the words, it was the spirit which impressed him, and he framed
his answer accordingly. "I shall be just," he said; "neither more nor
less! I greet you."
The old judge waved his hat, and "Urrahah!" cried the peasants, the
shrill; crisp sound rising from two hundred throats. They discharged
their pistols, and once more an exultant "Urrahah!" filled the air. It
sounded like a war cry; but peacefully they turned their horses' heads,
and, together with the travelling carriage, proceeded to the village
inn.
There, on an open space beneath a mighty linden tree, the rest of the
people stood waiting--old folk and lads, women and children--all
wearing their Sunday best. When the carriage had stopped, and Mr.
Hajek, still smiling, had alighted, he was met by the village priest,
or pope, with a bow. The Reverend Martin Sustenkowicz was loyally
inclined, and anxious to express his feelings in a proper speech, but
somehow his intention often was beyond him; and in the present
instance, attempting his salutation with unsteady feet, he bowed lower
than he meant to, and speech there was none. Hajek took the will for
the deed, and turned to an aged woman who offered bread and salt. He
affably swallowed a mouthful, and thereupon ordered the innkeeper,
Avrumko, in a stage whisper, to tap two casks of his schnaps.
He fully believed thereby to please the people, and was not a little
surprised at the judge's deprecating gesture. "With your leave, new
mandatar, we decline it," said the latter. "It may be all very well in
the lowlands, but not with us. We men of Zulawce do not object to
schnaps, but only when we have paid for it ourselves!"
There was something akin to scorn in the mandatar's face, though he
smiled again, saying: "But my good people, I am here to represent Count
George, your gracious lord. Is not he your little father? and you are
the children who may well receive his bounty."
The old judge shook his head. "It may be so in the lowlands," he
repeated, "but we are no children, with your leave, and the Count is
nowise our father. We are peasants, and he is lord of the manor; we
expect justice, and will do our duty, that is all!"
"But my good judge, Mr. Stephen----"
"Begging your pardon," interrupted the latter yet again. "This also is
of the lowlands, where they 'Mister' one another. I am plain Stephen[1]
up here. And how should you know that I am good? We would rather not be
beholden to you. We will drink the Count's health, paying for it
ourselves."
He beckoned to the innkeeper; great cans full of the beverage were
brought speedily, and the people sitting or standing about were nowise
loth to fall to. Hajek felt posed, but once more he recovered himself,
and went about among the villagers, smiling right and left. But the
more he smiled, the darker he grew within. He really began to feel
afraid of these proud, gaunt creatures, with their undaunted eyes. And
he did _not_ like the look of their arms. Why, every one of these
'subjects,' as the Galician peasant in those days was styled in
official language, carried a small arsenal on his body.
"Why do you go about with pistols?" he inquired of the judge.
"We like it, and may require it," was the curt reply.
"Require it!" said the mandatar, with the smile of innocence. "Why,
what for?"
"You may find that out for yourself some day," said old Stephen, and
turned away.
Hajek shivered, but overcame the feeling, passing a benevolent look
over the assembly. They were engaged with their schnaps now and heeded
him not. One of them only--a tall, lean fellow with shaggy red
hair--stared at him with an expression of unmitigated dislike.
The mandatar went up to him, inquiring mildly, "Who are you, my
friend?"
"The devil may be your friend," retorted the man grimly. "I am Schymko
Trudak--'Red Schymko;' but what is that to you?"
"Well, am I not one of yourselves now?" returned Hajek still anxious to
conciliate. But he began to see it was no easy matter, and he cast a
disconcerted look about him.
His eye alighted on a man who carried no arms, and otherwise appeared
of a different stamp. Tall and powerful like the rest of them, his
expression was gentle; he was fair-haired, and his eyes were blue. He
wore a white fur coat with gay-coloured broidered facings, a black fur
cap, and high boots--the holiday garb of the Podolian peasant. Hajek
went up to him. The man took off his cap and bowed.
"What is your name?"
"Taras Barabola."
"Do you live in this village?"
"Yes, sir."
"Not in service, surely?"
"No!" and as modestly as though he were but a farm labourer, the young
peasant added: "I own the largest farm but one of the place."
"But you are from the lowlands?"
"Yes; I came from Ridowa."
"Then what made you settle here?"
"I--I--loved--I mean, I married into the farm," he said with a blush.
"Do you approve of these people?"
The young man reddened again, but replied: "They are different from
those we are used to in the plain, but not therefore bad."
"I wish they were more like you!" said the mandatar fervently, and
passed on. He would, indeed, have liked them to be different; more
humble, and not carrying arms for possible requirements--more like this
Taras in short!
And presently, looking from the window of his comfortable room in the
manor house, he examined with a queer smile the thickness of its walls.
"A stout building," he muttered; "who knows what it may be good for?
Still, this were but poor comfort if things came to the worst. As for
playing the hero, I have never done it; but the son of my mother is no
fool! I must act warily, I see; but I'll teach these blockheads what a
'subject' is, and I shall take care of myself!"