Six weeks had elapsed since the dispatch of the appeal: Christmas was
at the door. The days had come and gone quickly without bringing any
fresh storm, any fresh danger, but certainly without dispelling even
one of the clouds that hung threateningly over the heads of these two
much-to-be-commiserated beings.
Berger was with Sendlingen daily, and daily his questioning look
received the same answer; a mute shake of the head--the decision had
not yet arrived. The Supreme Court had had the papers connected with
the trial brought under its notice; beyond the announcement of this
self-evident fact, not a line had come from Vienna. This silence was
certainly no good sign, but it did not necessarily follow that it was a
bad one. To be sure the lawyer examining the case, unless, from the
first, he attributed no importance whatever to Berger's statements,
should have demanded more detailed information from the Court at
Bolosch, and all the more because Baron Dernegg's dissentient vote was
recorded in the papers. Still, perhaps this silence was simply to be
explained by the fact that he had not had an opportunity of going into
the case.
Berger held fast to this consoling explanation, or at least pretended
to do so, when the subject came up in conversation, which was seldom
enough; he did not like to begin it, and Sendlingen equally avoided it.
It almost seemed to Berger as if his unhappy friend welcomed the delay
in the decision, as if he gladly dragged on in a torture of uncertainty
from day to day--anything so as not to look the dread horror in the
face. And indeed Sendlingen every morning sighed with relief, when the
moment of horrid suspense had gone by, when he had looked through the
Vienna mail and found nothing. But this did not arise from the motive
which Berger supposed, but from a better feeling. Sendlingen rejoiced
in every hour of respite that gave his poor child more time to gather
strength of soul and body.
The shattered health of Victorine mended visibly, day by day. The
deathly pallor disappeared, her weakness lessened, the look of her eyes
was clearer and steadier. The doctor observed it with glad astonishment
and no little pride; he ascribed the improvement to his remedies, to
the better nourishment and care which on his representations had been
allotted her. When he boasted of it to his friend, Father Rohn, the
good priest met him with as bantering a smile as his kind heart would
allow; he knew better. If this poor child was blossoming again, the
merit was entirely his. Had not the doctor himself said that she could
only be saved by a change in her frame of mind? And had not this change
really set in even more visibly than her physical improvement?
A new spirit had entered into Victorine. She no longer sat gazing in
melancholy brooding, she no longer yearned for death, and when the
priest sought to nourish in her the hope of pardon--in the sincerest
conviction, for he looked upon the confirmation of the death-sentence
as an impossibility--she nodded to him, touched and grateful. She
seemed, now, to understand him when he told her that the repentance of
a sinner and his after life of good works, were more pleasing to the
good God above than his death. And when he once more led the
conversation to the man who, in spite of everything, was her father and
perhaps at this moment was suffering the bitterest anguish on her
account, when he begged her not to harden her heart against the
unknown, he had the happiness of hearing her say with fervour in her
looks and voice: "I have forgiven him from the bottom of my heart. The
thought of him has completely restored me! Perhaps God will grant me to
be a good daughter to him some day!" So the words of comfort and the
exhortations of the good priest had really not been in vain.
The true state of the case nobody even suspected; the secret was
stringently kept. No doubt it struck many people and gave occasion to a
variety of gossip, that Fraeulein Brigitta visited the condemned
prisoner almost daily, and the Chief Justice almost weekly, but a
sufficient explanation was sought and found. Good-natured and
inoffensive people thought that Victorine Lippert was a creature so
much to be pitied, that these two noble characters were only following
their natural instincts in according her a special pity; the malevolent
adopted the crafty Hoebinger's view, and talked of "favouritism"; the
aristocratic betrayer and his mother the Countess, they said, had after
all an uneasy conscience as to whether they had not behaved too harshly
to the poor creature, and the representations they had made to their
fellow-aristocrat, Baron von Sendlingen, had not been in vain.
Certainly this report could only be maintained in uninitiated circles;
anyone who was intimately acquainted with the aristocratic society of
the province knew well enough, that the Countess Riesner-Graskowitz was
assuredly the last person in the world to experience a single movement
of pity for the condemned girl.
Be that as it might, Sendlingen behaved in this case as he had all his
life behaved in any professional matter: humanely and kindly, but
strictly according to the law and without over-stepping his duty by a
hair's breadth. The better attention, the separate cell in the
Infirmary, would certainly have been allotted to any one else about
whom the doctor had made the same representations. When Father Rohn,
moved by his sense of compassion, sought to obtain some insignificant
favour that went beyond these lines--it had reference to some
absolutely trifling regulation of the house--the Governor of the gaol
was ready to grant it, but the Chief Justice rigidly set his face
against the demand.
When Berger heard of this trivial incident, a heavy burden which he had
been silently carrying for weeks, without daring to seek for certainty
in a conversation on the subject, was rolled from his heart. He had put
an interpretation on the mysterious words that Sendlingen had uttered
the day after the trial, which had filled him with the profoundest
sorrow,--more than that with terror. Now he saw his mistake: a man who
so strictly obeyed his conscience in small matters where there was no
fear of discovery, would assuredly in any greater conflict between
inclination and duty, hold fast unrelentingly to justice and honour.
He was soon to be strengthened in this view.
It was three days before Christmas-day when he once more entered his
friend's chambers. He found him buried in the perusal of letters which,
however, he now pushed from him.
"The mail from Vienna is not in yet," he said, "the train must have got
blocked in the snow. But I have letters from Pfalicz. The Chief Justice
of the Higher Court there, to whose position I am to succeed, asks
whether it would not be possible for me to release him soon after the
New Year, instead of at the end of February, as the Minister of Justice
arranged. He is unwell, and ought to go South as soon as possible."
"Great Heavens!" cried Berger. "Why, we have forgotten all about that."
And indeed those stormy days and the succeeding weeks of silent,
anxious suffering had hardly allowed him to think of Sendlingen's
impending promotion and departure.
"I have not," replied Sendlingen, gloomily. "The thought that I had to
go, has often enough weighed me down more heavily than all my other
burdens. How gladly I would stay here now, even if they degraded me
to--to the post of Governor of the prison! But I have now no option. I
have definitely accepted the position at Pfalicz and I must enter upon
it."
"And do you really think of departing at the New Year?"
"No, that would be beyond my duty. I should be glad to oblige the
invalid, but as you know, I cannot. I shall stay till the end of
February; the decision must have come by that time."
He again bent over a document that lay before him. Berger too, was
silent, he went to the window and stared out into the grey dusk; it
seemed as if the snow-storm would never cease.
There was a knock at the door; a clerk of the Court of Record entered.
"From the Supreme Court," he announced, laying a packet with a large
seal on the table. "It has just arrived. Personally addressed to your
lordship."
The clerk departed; Berger approached the table. When he saw how
excited Sendlingen was, how long he remained gazing at the letter, he
shook his head. "That cannot be the decision," he said. "It would
not be addressed to you. It is some indifferent matter, a question of
discipline, a pension."
Sendlingen nodded and broke the seal. But at the first glance a deathly
pallor overspread his face, and the paper in his hands trembled so
violently that he had to lay it on the table in order to read it to the
end. "Read for yourself," he then muttered.
Berger glanced through the paper; he too felt his heart beat
impetuously as he did so. It was certainly not the decision, only a
brief charge, but its contents were almost equivalent to it.
The lawyers examining the appeal had, as Berger hoped, been struck by
Baron Dernegg's dissentient vote and the motives for this. Dernegg was
not of the opinion of his brother judges that this was a case of
premeditated murder, maliciously planned months beforehand, but a deed
done suddenly, in a paroxysm of despair, nay, most probably in a moment
when the girl was not accountable for her actions. Against this more
clement view, there certainly were the depositions of the Countess, and
Victorine's attempts to conceal her condition. But on the other hand,
her only _confidante_, the servant-girl, had deposed at the preliminary
inquiry that Victorine had only made these attempts by her advice and
with her help, and, moreover, with the sole object of staying in the
house until the young Count should come to her aid. This testimony,
however, she had withdrawn at the trial. Berger had chiefly based his
appeal to nullify the trial, on the fact that the witness, in spite of
this contradiction, had been put on her oath, and to the examining
lawyer, also, this seemed a point of decisive importance. The Chief
Justice was, therefore, commissioned to completely elucidate it by a
fresh examination of the witness. Probably the charge had been directed
to him personally because, as it stated, neither Herr von Werner nor
any of the other judges who had been in favour of putting her on oath,
could very well be entrusted with the inquiry. But if Sendlingen were
actually too busy with other matters to conduct the examination, he
might hand it over to the third Judge, Herr von Hoche.
"What will you do?" asked Berger. "The matter is of the gravest
importance. That the girl gave false evidence at the trial, that this
was her return for being taken back into the Countess' service, we know
for a certainty. The only question is whether we can convict her of it.
An energetic Judge could without doubt do so, but will old Hoche, now
over seventy, succeed? He is a good man, but his years weigh heavily
upon him, he is dragging himself through his duties till the date of
his retirement--four weeks hence--I fancy as best he can. And therefore
once again--what will you do, Victor?"
"I don't know," he murmured. "Leave me alone. I must think it out by
myself. Forgive me! my conscience alone can decide in such a matter.
Good-bye till this evening, George."
Berger departed; his heart was as heavy as ever it had been. In the
first ebullition of feeling, moved by his pity for these two beings, he
had wished to compel his friend to undertake the inquiry, but now he
had scruples. Was not the position the same as on the day of the trial?
And if he then approved of his friend's resolution not to preside,
could he now urge him to undertake a similar task? Certainly the
conflict was now more acute, more painfully accentuated, but was
Sendlingen's duty as a Judge any the less on that account? Again the
thought rose in Berger's mind which a few weeks ago had comforted him
and lifted him above the misery of the moment: that there was a
solution of these complications, a great, a liberating solution--there
must be, just because this man was what he was! But even now he did not
know how to find this solution; one thing only was clear to him: if
Sendlingen undertook the inquiry and thus saved his child, it would be
an act for which there would be all manner of excuses but it would
assuredly not be that great, saving act of which he dreamt! And yet if
Hoche in his weakness ruined the case and did not bring the truth to
light, if she perhaps had to die now that she had begun to hope again,
now that she had waked to a new life ... Berger closed his eyes as if
to shut out the terrible picture that obtruded itself upon him, and yet
it rose again and again.
At dusk, just as he was starting to his friend's, Fraeulein Brigitta
called to see him.
"I am to tell you," she began, "that his Lordship wants you to postpone
your visit until to-morrow. But it is not on that account that I have
come, but because I am oppressed with anxiety. Has the decision
arrived? He is as much upset again as he was on the day of the trial."
Berger comforted her as well as he could. "It is only a momentary
excitement," he assured her, "and will soon pass."
"I only thought so because he is behaving just as he did then. It
is a singular thing; he has been rummaging for those keys again. You
know,--the one that opens the little door in the court-yard wall. I
came in just in the nick of time to see him take it out of his
writing-table drawer. And just as before, it seemed to annoy him to be
surprised in the act.--Isn't that strange?"
"Very strange!" he replied. But he added hastily: "It must have been a
mere chance."
"Certainly, it can only have been a coincidence," he thought after
Brigitta had gone, "it would be madness to impute such a thing to him,
to him who was horrified at the idea of conducting the trial and
equally at the thought of conducting this examination. And yet when he
first seized upon that key, the idea must certainly have taken a
momentary possession of him, and that it should have returned to him
to-day, to-day of all days."
As he was the next day walking along the corridor that led to
Sendlingen's chambers, he met Mr. Justice Hoche. The hoary old man,
supporting himself with difficulty by the aid of a stick, was looking
very testy.
"Only think," he grumbled, "what an odious task the Chief Justice has
just laid upon me. It will interest you, you were Counsel for the
defence in the case." And he told him of the charge at great length.
"Well, what do you say to that? Isn't it odious?"
"It is a very serious undertaking!" said Berger. "The matter is one of
the greatest importance."
"Yes, and just for that reason," grumbled the old man, almost
whimpering. "I do not want to undertake any such responsibility, now,
when merely thinking gives me a head-ache. I suffer a great deal from
head-aches, Dr. Berger. And it is such a ticklish undertaking! For you
see either the maid-servant told the truth at the trial, in which case
this fresh examination is superfluous, or she lied and _ergo_ was
guilty of perjury and _ergo_ is a very tricky female! And how am I ever
to get to the bottom of a tricky female, Dr. Berger?"
"Did you tell the Chief Justice this?" asked Berger.
"Oh, of course! For half an hour I was telling him about my condition
and how I always get a head-ache now if I have to think. But he stuck
to his point, 'you will have to undertake the matter: you must exert
yourself!' Good Heavens! what power of exertion has one left at
seventy years of age! Well, good morning, dear Dr. Berger! But it's
odious--most odious!"
Berger looked after the old man as he painfully hobbled along: "And in
such hands," he thought, "rests the fate of my two friends."
Under the weight of this thought, he had not the courage to face
Sendlingen. He turned and went home in a melancholy mood.
When the next day towards noon, he was turning homewards after a trial
at which he had been the defending barrister, he again met Mr. Justice
Hoche, who was just leaving the building, in the portico of the Courts.
The old gentleman was manifestly in a high state of contentment.
"Well," asked Berger, "is the witness here already? Have you begun the
examination?"
"Begun? I have ended it!" chuckled the old man.
"And _re bene gesta_ one is entitled to rest. I shall let the law take
care of itself to-day and go home. I haven't even got a head-ache over
it; certainly it didn't require any great effort of thought--I soon got
at the truth."
"Indeed?--and what is the truth?"
"H'm! I don't suppose it will be particularly agreeable to you,"
laughed the old Judge, leaning confidentially on Berger's arm. "Though
for the matter of that you may be quite indifferent about it: you have
done your duty, your appeal was certainly splendidly drawn up, but what
further interest can you have in this person? For she is a thoroughly
good-for-nothing person, and that's why she is dying so young! What
stories that servant-girl has told me about her, stories, my dear
doctor, that an old barrack-wall would have blushed to hear. She was
hardly seventeen years old when she came to the Countess', but already
had a dozen intrigues on her record, and what things she told her
_confidante_ about them, and which were repeated to me to-day--why, it
is a regular Decameron, my dear doctor, or more properly speaking:
Boccaccio in comparison is a chaste Carthusian."
Berger violently drew his arm out of the old man's. "That's a lie!" he
said between his teeth. "A scandalous calumny!"
The old Judge looked at him, quite put out of countenance. "Why, what
an idea," he cried. "If it were not so, this servant-girl would be a
tricky female."
"So she is."
"She is not! Oh, I know human nature. On the contrary, she is
good-natured and stupid. No one could tell lies with such assurance,
after having just been solemnly admonished to speak the truth. It is
all incontestably true; all her adventures: and how from the first she
had hatched a regular plot to corrupt the young Count. The crafty young
person calculated in this way: if our _liaison_ has consequences, I
shall perhaps inveigle the young man into a marriage, and if I don't
succeed I shall kill the child and look out for another place!"
"But just consider this one fact," cried Berger. "If this had actually
been Victorine Lippert's plan she would certainly have reflected: if I
can't force a marriage, I shall at least get a handsome maintenance!
and in that case she would not have killed her child, but carefully
have preserved its life."
The old Judge meditatively laid his finger on his nose. "Look here, Dr.
Berger," he said importantly, "that is a very reasonable objection. But
it has been adduced already, not by me, to tell the truth, but by my
assistant, a very wise young man. But the witness was able to give a
perfectly satisfactory explanation on the subject. To be sure, she only
did so after repeated questions and in a hesitating and uncertain
manner--the good, kind-hearted girl could with difficulty bring herself
to add still more to the criminal's load, but at length she had to
speak out. Thus we almost accidentally extracted a very important
detail that proved to be of great importance in determining the case.
It is a truly frightful story. Only fancy, this mere girl, this
Victorine Lippert, has always had a sort of thirst for the murder of
little children. She repeatedly said to the girl long before the deed,
before the young Count came to the Castle at all: 'Strange! but
whenever I see a little child, I always feel my hands twitching to
strangle it.' Frightful--isn't it. Dr. Berger?"
"Frightful indeed!" cried Berger, "if you have believed this
poorly-contrived story of the wretched, perjured woman--poorly-contrived,
and invented in the necessity of the moment so as to meet the objection
of your assistant, so as not to be caught in her net of lies, so as to
render the Countess another considerable service."
"Really, you will not listen to reason," said the old man, now
seriously annoyed. "I feel my head-ache coming on again. Do you mean to
say that you accuse the Countess of conniving at perjury! A lady of the
highest aristocracy! Excuse me, Dr. Berger--that is going too far! You
are a liberal, a radical, I know, but that doesn't make every Countess
a criminal. But if this is really your opinion of the witness, take out
a summons for perjury at once!"
"It may come to that," replied Berger.
The old man shook his head. "Spare yourself the trouble," he said
good-naturedly, "it will prove ineffectual, but you may certainly get
yourself into great difficulties. Why expose yourself, for the sake of
such an abandoned creature, to an action for libel on the part of the
Countess and her servant? How abandoned she is, you have no suspicion!
I have, thank Heaven, concealed the worst of all from you, and you
shall not learn it at my hands. You may read for yourself in the
minutes. I do not wish to make a scene in the street. I was so enjoying
this fine afternoon, and you have quite spoilt my good humour. Well,
good-bye. Dr. Berger, I will forgive you. You have allowed yourself to
be carried away by your pity, but you are bestowing it upon an unworthy
creature! The witness gave me the impression of being absolutely
trustworthy, and I have stated so in the minutes! I considered myself
bound in conscience to do so."
"Then you have a human life on your conscience!" Berger blurted out. He
had not meant to say anything so harsh, but the words escaped him
involuntarily.
The old man started and clasped his hands. His face twitched, and
bright tears stood in his eyes.
"What have I done to you?" he moaned. "Why do you say such a horrible
thing? Why do you upset me? I have always considered you a good man,
and now you behave like this to me!"
Berger stepped up to him and offered his hand. "Forgive me," he said,
"your intention is good and pure, I know. And just for that reason I
implore you to reflect well before you let the minutes go out of your
hands."
"That is already done. I have just handed them to the Chief Justice."
"And what did he say?"
"Nothing, what should he say? Certainly he too seemed to be put out
about something, for when I was about to enter on a brief discourse, he
dismissed me a little abruptly."
"But it is open to you to demand the minutes back, and examine the
witness again. Keep a sterner eye upon her, and the contradictions in
which she gets involved will certainly become evident to you. At her
first examination she could only say the best things of Victorine
Lippert, at the trial she had lost her memory, and now of a sudden
nothing is too bad."
"Oh, you barristers!" cried the Judge. "How you twist everything! The
kind-hearted creature wanted to save Victorine Lippert and pity moved
her to lie at first: she has just openly and repentantly confessed that
she did. But at the trial, before the Crucifix, before the Judges, her
courage left her. She was silent, because like a good and chaste girl,
she could not bring herself to speak before a crowd of people of all
those repulsive details. You see, everything is explained. You are
talking in vain."
"In vain!" Berger sighed profoundly. "Good-bye," he said turning to go.
But after he had gone a few steps, Hoche called after him. The old
man's eyes were full of tears. "You are angry with me?" he said.
"No."
"Well, you have no reason to be angry, though I have--but I forgive
you. By what you said you might easily have made me unhappy if the case
had not been so clear. Certainly I am upset now. To-morrow is Christmas
Eve; my children and grand-children will come and bring me presents,
and I shall give them presents, and I shall think all the time: Hoche,
what a frightful thing if you were a murderer! You will take back your
words, won't you? I am no murderer, am I?"
Berger looked at the childish old man. "O tragicomedy of life!" he
thought, but added aloud:
"No, Herr Hoche, you are no murderer."
In the evening he went to see Sendlingen and look over the minutes
which he too had the right of disputing. He would have been
disconsolate enough if he had not already known their contents; as it
was the extraordinary tone of the document cheered him a little. The
'wise young man' was perhaps himself an author, or at least had
certainly read a great many cheap novels; the style in which he had
reproduced the servant girl's imaginations was, in the worst sense of
the word "fine!" How this lessened the danger of the contents was shown
especially, by that worst fact of all which Hoche could not bring
himself to pronounce, and which was of such monstrous baseness that the
faith of even the most vapid of judges must have been shaken in all the
rest.
"That is quite harmless," said Berger. "More than that, these monstrous
lies are just the one bit of luck in all our misfortunes."
"Certainly!" Sendlingen agreed. "But we must not count too much upon
them. The examining judge may not believe everything, but he will
certainly not discredit everything. It could not be expected after
Hoche's enthusiastic advocacy of the witness' credibility."
"And yet these minutes must be sent off. Would it not be possible to
hand over the inquiry to some one else?"
"Impossible, or I would have done so yesterday. Either I or Hoche--the
charge of the Supreme Court is clear enough! And _I_ could not do it!
It seemed to me mean and cowardly, treacherous and paltry, to break my
Judge's oath, trusting to the silence of the three people who beside me
know the secret, trusting moreover never to have to undergo punishment
for my offence. To this consideration it seemed to me that every other
must give way."
Berger was silent. "Would it not be possible to take out a summons for
perjury?" he resumed.
"No," cried Sendlingen, "it would be an utterly useless delay! Success
in the present position of things is not to be hoped for."
Berger bowed his head.
"Then Justice will suffer once again," he said in deep distress. "I
will not reproach you. When I put myself in your place--I cannot trust
myself to say that I should have done the same. I only presume I
should, but this one thing I do know, that in accordance with your
whole nature you have acted rightly. Still, ever since the moment that
I spoke to Hoche, I cannot silence a tormenting question. Ought
fidelity to the Law be stronger than fidelity to Justice? You would not
undertake the inquiry because a father may not take part in an
examination conducted against his child, but were you justified in
handing it over to a man who was no longer in a condition to find out
the truth, to fulfil his duty? Has not justice suffered at your hands
by your respect for the law, that justice, I mean, which speaks aloud
in the heart of every man?"
Sendlingen was staring gloomily at the floor. Then he raised his eyes
and looked his friend full in the face. The expression of his
countenance, the tone of his voice became almost solemn.
"I have fought out for myself an answer to this question. I may not
tell you what it is; but one thing I can solemnly swear: this outraged
justice to which you refer will receive the expiation which is its
due."