The Chief Justice Part 10

In two bounds, in two seconds, he was beside him, had seized him, clasped him in his arms.

"George!"

Awful, thrilling was the cry--a cry for help?--or a cry of baffled rage?

Then Berger felt this convulsive body suddenly grow stiff and heavy--he was holding an unconscious burden in his arms.

CHAPTER VII.

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 Fraulein 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 G.o.d, he is still sleeping," whispered Fraulein 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d. 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."

"G.o.d 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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d. 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, n.o.body--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."