Karl Emil Franzos

“ Sendlingen had hardly finished dressing, when the sound of music and the shouts of the crowd, announced the approach of the procession. He was obliged to yield to his friend's pressure and go out on the balcony. There was a red glimmer from the direction of the river, and like a giant fire-serpent, the procession wound its way through the crowd. It stopped before the hotel, the torch-bearers formed themselves in line in the broad street. Unceasingly, endlessly, like the roar of wild waves, resounded the cheers.
Berger's eyes sparkled. "This is a moment which few men live to see," he said. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is my duty to protect Justice without respect of persons; I confirmed the sentence of death not because I knew nothing of her father, and supposed him a man of poor origin, but because she was guilty, by her own confession and the Judges' verdict. Shall I pardon her now because she is the daughter of an influential man of rank, because she is your daughter? Is her guilt any the less for this, will this bring her child to life again? Can you expect this of me, you, who are yourself a Judge, bound by oath to judge both high and low with the same measure? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sendlingen was silent; the Minister, too, at first could find no words. White as a ghost, he paced up and down the room. "But there can be no question of such a thing!" he cried at length. "For thousands of reasons! We are not barbarians!"
"It can be and must be! I claim my right!"
"But just consider!" cried the Minister, wringing his hands. "It would be the most fearful blow that the dignity of Justice could receive. A former Chief-Justice as a criminal in the dock! A man like you! Besides you deserve no punishment! ”

“ 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!" ”

“ When Berger returned at nightfall, Franz said to him in the lobby: "Thank God, we are going to Vienna after all!" and Sendlingen himself corroborated this. "I have already received an answer; the audience is granted for the nineteenth. I have struggled severely with myself," he then added, and continued half aloud, in an unsteady voice, as if he were talking to himself; "I am a greater coward than I thought. However fixed my resolve was, my courage failed me--and so I must go to Vienna." ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Sendlingen vehemently interposed. "A father may not think of himself when his child's welfare is concerned. The voice of nature speaks thus in the breast of every man, even the roughest, and should it be silent in me?"
"My poor friend," said Berger, "in your heart, too, it has surely spoken loud enough. And yet, so far, you have not hesitated for a moment to fulfil your duty as a judge when it came into conflict with your inclination. You would not preside at the trial, you would not conduct the examination. The struggle is entering on a new phase, you cannot act differently now." ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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? ”

“ I cannot help these poor people--besides Werner himself will hardly be able to find them guilty. And the cases are not parallel; I should have broken my oath if I had presided at the trial: I do not break it if I obey the Minister's command."
"That is true," retorted Berger. "But I can only say: Seek some other consolation, Victor,--this is unworthy of you! For you have always been, like me, of the opinion that it is every man's duty to protect the right, and prevent wrong, so long as there is breath in his body! ”

“ I sought out the prison keys, and for some hours was firmly resolved to release my daughter. But then my sense of duty--perhaps more strictly speaking my egoism--conquered. For I said to myself that I, constituted as I was, could not commit this crime without some day making atonement for it. I knew quite well even then, that an hour would come in my life, like the present, and I could not find it in my heart to end as a criminal. But my conscience cried: 'Then your child will die!' and so suicide seemed to me the only thing left. I was resolved to kill myself ”

“ Sendlingen made no reply; the recollection of that most fatal night of his existence and the solemn question of the poor fellow, had deeply moved him. "You must have experienced something, Novyrok," he said at length, "that has shaken your Faith."
"Something, my Lord? Alas, everything!--Alas, my whole life! I don't believe there are many people to whom the world is a happy place, but such men as I should never have been born at all. ”

“ He talked for a long time of the excellencies of the work, but Berger hardly heard him, and was silent and absent-minded for the rest of the evening. When Moldenhauer retired to his cabin for the night, Berger still remained on deck; he was fascinated, he said, by this wondrous spectacle of the night.
And indeed the aspect of the scene was strange enough and not without its charm. The moon-light lay in a faint glimmer on the stream that here, having almost poured forth its endless waters, was slowly flowing with a gentle murmur towards its grave, the vast sandy plain of the sea. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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! ”

“ Certainly Victorine might have now suffered enough to have been granted freedom, and the opportunity of new life, and no less certainly would Sendlingen, honourable and loving justice in the extreme, carry in his conscience through life, the punishment for his crime--but Justice had been outraged, and this sacred thing would never receive the expiation that was its due. "A wrong should not be expiated by a crime!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Minister rose and offered his hand with the friendliest smile. "Welcome to Vienna," he cried. "I hope that you are completely recovered, and are coming to me to offer your services to the State once more."
"No, your Excellency," replied Sendlingen. "Forgive me, if I cannot take your hand. I will spare you having to regret it in the next instant. For I do not come to offer you my services as Judge, but to deliver myself into the hands of Justice. I am a criminal and desire to undergo the punishment due to me."
The Minister turned pale and drew back: "The man is mad," he thought. ”

“ Sendlingen's noble heart was contracted with pity, whenever he heard such utterances. And these men he was to convict of high treason! No! not an instant longer than was absolutely necessary should they remain away from their families and trades.
On the Feast of the Epiphany Sendlingen was sitting in his Chambers examining a raftsman, an elderly man of herculean build with a heavy, sullen face, covered with long straggling, iron-grey hair; Johannes Novyrok was his name. The police had indicated him as particularly dangerous, but he did not prove to be worse than the rest. ”

“ 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. ”