The Chief Justice: A Novel

"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."

CHAPTER X

Christmas was past, New Year had come, the year 1853, one of the most melancholy that the Austrian Empire had ever known. The atmosphere was more charged than ever, coercion more and more severe, the confederacy between the authorities of Church and State closer and closer. Melancholy reports alarmed the minds of peaceful citizens: the Italian Provinces were in a state of ferment, a conspiracy was discovered in Hungary, and a secret league of the Slavs at Prague. How strong or how weak these occult endeavours against the authority and peace of the state might be, no one knew. One thing only was manifest: the severity with which they were treated; and perhaps in this severity lay the greatest danger of all. It was the old sad story that so often repeats itself in the life of nations, and was then appearing in a new shape; tyranny had called forth a counter-tyranny and this, in its turn, a fresh tyranny. The police had much to do everywhere, and in some districts the Courts of Justice too.

One of the greatest of the political investigations had, since Christmas 1852, devolved upon the Court at Bolosch. The middle classes of this manufacturing town were exclusively Germans, the working-classes principally Slavs. It was among these latter that the police believed they had discovered the traces of a highly treasonable movement. About thirty workmen were arrested and handed over to Justice. Sendlingen, assisted by Dernegg, personally conducted the investigation. He had made the same selection in all the political arrangements of the last few years, although he knew that any other would have been more acceptable to the authorities. Certainly neither he nor Dernegg were Liberals-much less Radicals-who sympathised with Revolution and Revolutionaries. On the contrary both these aristocrats had thoroughly conservative inclinations, at all events in that good sense of the word which was then and is now so little understood in Austria, and is so seldom given practical effect. They were, moreover, entirely honourable and independent judges. But there was a prejudice in those days against men of unyielding character, especially in the case of political trials. There was an opinion that "pedantry" was out of place where the interests of the state were at stake. Sendlingen, on the other hand, was convinced that a political investigation should not be conducted differently from any other, and it was precisely in this inquisition into the conduct of the workmen that he manifested the greatest zeal, but at the same time the most complete impartiality.

Divers reasons had determined him to devote all his energy to the case. The diversion of his thoughts from his own misery did him good: the ceaseless work deadened the painful suspense in which he was awaiting the decision from Vienna. Moreover his knowledge of men and things had predisposed him to believe that these poor rough fellows had not so much deserved punishment as pity, and after a few days he was convinced of the justice of this supposition.

These raftsmen and weavers and smiths who were all utterly ignorant, who had never been inside a school, who scarcely knew a prayer save the Lord's Prayer, who dragged on existence in cheerless wretchedness, were perhaps more justified in their mute impeachment of the body politic, than deserving of the accusations brought against them. They did not go to confession, they often sang songs that had stuck in their minds since 1848, and some of them had, in public houses and factories, delivered speeches on the injustice of the economy of the world and state as it was reflected in their unhappy brains. This was all; and this did not make them enemies of the State or of the Emperor. On the contrary, the record of their examination nearly always testified the opinion: "the only misfortune was that the young Emperor knew nothing of their condition, otherwise he would help them." 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.

"Why don't you go to confession?" asked Sendlingen finally when all the other grounds of suspicion had been discussed.

"Excuse me, my Lord," respectfully answered the man in Czech. "But do you go?"

Sendlingen looked embarrassed and was about to sharply reprove him for his impertinent question, but a look at the man's face disarmed him. There was neither impertinence nor insolence written there, but rather a painful look of anxiety and yearning that strangely affected Sendlingen. "Why?" he asked.

"Because I might be able to regulate my conduct by yours," replied the raftsman. "You see, my Lord, I differ from my brethren. People such as we, they think, have no time to sin, much less to confess. The God there used to be, must surely be dead, they say, otherwise there would be more justice in the world; and if he is still alive, he knows well enough that anyhow we have got hell on this earth and will not suffer us to be racked and roasted by devils in the next world. But I have never agreed with such sentiments; they strike me as being silly and when my mates say: rich people have a good time of it, let them go to confession, – why, its arrant nonsense. For I don't believe that any one on earth has a good time of it, not even the rich, but that everybody has their trouble and torment. And therefore I should very much like to hear what a wise and good man, who must understand these things much better than I do, has to say to it all. It might meet my case. And I happen to have particular confidence in you. In the first place because you're better and wiser than most men, so at least says every one in the town, and this can't be either hypocrisy or flattery, because they say so behind your back. But I further want to hear your opinion, because I know for certain that you have an aching heart and plenty of trouble."

"How do you know that?"

Novyrok glanced at the short-hand clerk sitting near Sendlingen and who was manifestly highly tickled at the simplicity of this ignorant workman. "I could only tell you," he said shyly, "if you were to send that young man out of the room. It is no secret, but such fledglings don't understand life yet."

The young clerk was much astonished when Sendlingen actually made a sign to him to withdraw.

"Thank you," said the raftsman after the door was shut "Well, how I know of your trouble? In the first place one can read it in your face, and secondly I saw you one stormy night-it may be eight weeks ago-wandering about the streets by yourself. You went down to the river; I was watchman on a raft at the time and I saw you plainly. There were tears running down your cheeks, but even if your eyes had been dry-well no one goes roaming alone and at random on such a night, unless he is in great trouble."

Sendlingen bowed his head lower over the papers before him. Novyrok continued:

"An hour later, your friend brought you into our inn whither I had come in the meanwhile after my mate had relieved me of the watch. You were unconscious. I helped to carry you and take you home… I don't tell you this in the hope that you may punish me less than I deserve, but just that I may say to you: you too, my Lord, know what suffering is-do you find the thought of God comforting, and what do you think of confession?"

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. I have never known father or mother, I came into the world in a foundling hospital on a Sylvester's Eve some fifty years ago-the exact date I don't know-and that's why they called me 'Novyrok' (New-Year). I had to suffer a great deal because of my birth; it is beyond all belief how I was knocked about as a boy and youth among strangers-even a dog knows its mother but I did not. And therefore one thing very soon became clear to me: many disgraceful things happen on this earth, but the most disgraceful thing of all is to bring children into the world in this way. Don't you think so, my Lord?"

Sendlingen did not answer.

"And I acted accordingly," continued Novyrok, "and had no love-affair, though I had to put great restraint upon myself. I don't know whether virtue is easy to rich people; to the poor it is very bitter. It was not until I became steersman of a raft and was earning four gulden a week that I married an honest girl, a laundress, and she bore me a daughter. That was a bright time, my Lord, but it didn't last long. My wife began to get sickly and couldn't any longer earn any thing; we got into want, although I honestly did my utmost and often, after the raft was brought to, I chopped wood or stacked coal all night through when I got the chance. Well, however poorly we had to live, we did manage to live; things didn't get really bad till she died. My mates advised me then to give the care of my child to other people-and go as a raftsman to foreign parts, on a big river, the Elbe or the Danube: 'Wages,' they said, 'are twice as much there and you, as an able raftsman, can't help getting on.' But I hadn't got it in my heart to leave my little daughter. Besides I was anxious about her; to be sure she was only just thirteen, and a good, honest child, but she promised to be very nice-looking. If you go away, I said to myself, you may perhaps stay away for many years, and there are plenty of men in this world without a conscience, and temptation is great! So I stayed, and so as not to be separated from her even for a week, I gave up being a raftsman and became a workman at a foundry. But I was awkward at the work, the wages were pitiful, and though my daughter, poor darling, stitched her eyes out of her head, we were more often hungry than full. I frequently complained, not to her, but to others, and cursed my wretched existence-I was a fool! for I was happy in those days; I did my duty to my child."

Novyrok paused. Sendlingen sighed deeply. "And then?" he asked.