The Chief Justice: A Novel

The entry read thus: "Victorine Lippert. Born 25th January 1834 at Radautz in the Bukowina. Governess. Child-murder. Transferred here from the District Court at Gölotz on the 17th June 1852. Confessed. Trial to be concluded 8th November 1852."

The column headed "sentence" was still empty.

"Death!" he muttered. "Death!" he repeated, loud and shrill, and a shudder ran through his every fibre.

He sank back and hid his face which had suddenly become wasted.

"O my God!" he groaned. "I dare not let her die-her blood would cry out against me, against me only."

And he drew the paper towards him again and stared at the entry, piteously and beseechingly, as though he expected a miracle from Heaven, as though the letters must change beneath the intensity of his gaze.

The mid-day bells of the neighbouring cathedral aroused him from his gloomy brooding. He rose, smoothed his disarranged hair, forced on his accustomed look of quiet, and betook himself to Werner's room.

"You see," he said. "I have kept my word and am all right again. Are there any pressing matters to be rid of?"

"Only one," answered Werner. "The Committee of Discipline has waited your return, as it did not wish to decide an important case without you."

"Good, summon the Committee for five o'clock today."

He now went the round of the other offices, answered the anxious inquiries with the assurance that he was quite well again, and then went down a long corridor to his own quarters which were in another wing of the large building.

His step was still elastic, his face pale but almost cheerful. Not until he had given his servant orders to admit nobody, not even his friend Berger, and until he had bolted his study-door, did he sink down and then give himself up, without restraint, to the fury of a wild, despairing agony.

CHAPTER II

For an hour or more the unhappy man lay groaning, and writhing like a worm under the intensity of his wretchedness. Then he rose and with unsteady gait went to his secretaire, and began to rummage in the secret drawers of the old-fashioned piece of furniture.

"I no longer remember where it is," he muttered to himself. "It is long since I thought of the old story-but God has not forgotten it."

At length he discovered what he was looking for: a small packet of letters grown yellow with time. As he unloosed the string which tied them, a small watercolour portrait in a narrow silver frame fell out: it depicted the gentle, sweet features of a young, fair, grey-eyed girl. His eyes grew moist as he looked at it, and bitter tears suddenly coursed down his cheeks.

He then unfolded the papers and began to read: they were long letters, except the last but one which filled no more than two small sheets. This he read with the greatest attention of all, read and re-read it with ever-increasing emotion. "And I could resist such words!" he murmured. "Oh wretched man that I am."

Then he opened the last of the letters. "You evidently did not yourself expect that I would take your gift," he read out in an undertone. And then: "I do not curse you; on the contrary, I ardently hope that you may at least not have given me up in vain."

He folded the letters and tied them up. Then he undid them again and buried himself once more in their melancholy contents.

A knock at the door interrupted him: his housekeeper announced that dinner was ready. This housekeeper was an honest, elderly spinster, Fräulein Brigitta, whom he usually treated with the greatest consideration. To-day he only answered her with a curt, impatient, "Presently!" and he vouchsafed no lengthier reply to her question how he was.

But then he remembered some one else. "I must not fall ill," he said. "I must keep up my strength. I shall need it all!" And after he had locked up the letters, he went to the dining-room.

He forced himself to take two or three spoonfuls of soup, and hastily emptied a glass of old Rhine-wine. His man-servant, Franz, likewise a faithful old soul, replenished it, but hesitatingly and with averted countenance.

"Where is Fräulein Brigitta?" asked Sendlingen.

"Crying!" growled the old man. "Hasn't got used to the new state of things! Nor have I! Nice conduct, my lord! We arrive in the morning ill, we say nothing to an old and faithful servant, we go straight into the Courts. There we fall down several times; we send for no doctor, but writhe alone in pain like a wounded stag." The faithful old fellow's eyes were wet.

"I am quite well again, Franz," said Sendlingen re-assuringly.

"We were groaning!" said the old man in a tone of the bitterest reproach. "And since when have we declined to admit Herr Berger?"

"Has he been here?"

"Yes, on most important business, and would not believe that we ourselves had ordered him to be turned away… And now we are eating nothing," he continued vehemently, as Sendlingen pushed his plate from him and rose. "My Lord, what does this mean! We look as if we had seen a ghost!"

"No, only an old grumbler!" He intended this for an airy pleasantry but its success was poor. "Do not be too angry with me."

Then he returned to his chambers. "The old fellow is right," he thought. "It was a ghost, a very ancient ghost, and its name is Nemesis!" His eyes fell on the large calendar on the door: "7th November 1852" he read aloud. "A day like every other-and yet …"

Then he passed his hand over his brow as if trying to recall who he was, and rang the bell.

"Get me," he said to the clerk who entered, "the documents relating to the next three criminal trials."

He stepped to the window and awaited the clerk's return with apparent calm. He had not long to wait; the clerk entered and laid two goodly bundles of papers on the table.

"I have to inform you, my lord," said the clerk standing at attention (he had been a soldier), "that only the papers relating to the trials of the 9th and 10th November are in the Court-house. Those for tomorrow's trial of Victorine Lippert for child-murder are still in the hands of Counsel for the accused, Dr. George Berger."

Sendlingen started. "Did the accused choose her Counsel?"

"No, my lord, she refused any defence because she is, so to speak, a poor despairing creature who would prefer to die. Herr von Werner therefore, ex-officio, allotted her Dr. Kraushoffer as Counsel, and, when he became ill, Dr. Berger. Dr. Kraushoffer was only taken ill the day before yesterday and therefore Dr. Berger has been allowed to keep the papers till tomorrow morning early. Does your Lordship desire that I should ask him for them?"

"No. That will do."

He went back to the niche by the window. "A poor creature who would prefer to die!" he said slowly and gloomily. Frightful images thronged into his mind, but the poor worn brain could no longer grasp any clear idea. He began to pace up and down his room rapidly, almost staggering as he went.

"Night! night!" he groaned: he felt as if he were wandering aimlessly in pitchy darkness, while every pulsation of lost time might involve the sacrifice of a human life. Then his face brightened again, it seemed a good omen that Berger was defending the girl: he knew his friend to be the most conscientious barrister on the circuit. "And if I were to tell him fully what she is to me-" But he left the sentence unfinished and shook his head.

"I could not get the words out," he murmured looking round quite scared, "not even to him!"

"And why should I?" he then thought. "Berger will in any case, from his own love of justice, do all that is in his power."

But what result was to be expected? The old judges, unaccustomed to speeches, regarded the concluding proceedings rather as a formality, and decided on their verdict from the documents, whatever Counsel might say. It depended entirely on their opinion and what Werner thought of the crime he had explained a few hours ago! And even if before that he had been of another opinion, now that he knew the opinion of the Minister of Justice… "Fool that I am," said Sendlingen between his teeth, "it was I who told him!" Again he looked half-maddened by his anguish and wandered about the room wringing his hands.

Suddenly he stopped. His face grew more livid, his brows contracted in a dark frown, his lips were tightly pressed together. A new idea had apparently occurred to him, a dark uncanny inspiration, against which he was struggling but which returned again and again, and took possession of him. "That would be salvation," he muttered. "If to-morrow's sentence is only for a short term of imprisonment, the higher Court would never increase it to a sentence of death!"

He paced slowly to the window, his head bowed as if the weight of that thought lay upon his neck like a material burden, and stared out into the street. The early shades of the autumn evening were falling; on the other side of a window in a building opposite, a young woman entered with a lamp for her husband. She placed it on his work-table, and lightly touched his hair with her lips. Sendlingen saw it plainly, he could distinguish every piece of furniture in the room and also the features of the couple, and as he knew them, he involuntarily whispered their names. But his brain unceasingly continued to spin that dark web, and at times his thoughts escaped him in a low whisper.

"What is there to prevent me? Nobody knows my relationship to her and she herself has no suspicion. I am entitled to it, and it would arouse no suspicion. Certainly it would be difficult, it would be a horrible time, but how much depends on me!"

"Wretch!" he suddenly cried, in a hard, hoarse voice. "The world does not know your relationship, but you know it! What you intend is a crime, it is against justice and law!"

"Oh my God!" he groaned: "Help me! Enlighten my poor brain! Would it not be the lesser crime if I were to save her by dishonourable means, than if I were to stand by with folded arms and see her delivered to the hangman! Can this be against Thy will, Thou who art a God of love and mercy? Can my honour be more sacred than her life?"

He sank back and buried his face in his hands. "But it does not concern my honour alone," he said. "It would be a crime against Justice, against the most sacred thing on earth! O my God, have mercy upon me!"

While he lay there in the dark irresolute, his body a prey to fever, his soul torn by worse paroxysms, he heard first of all a gentle, then a louder knocking at the door. At length it was opened.

"My Lord!" said a loud voice: it was Herr von Werner.