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.