The Chief Justice Part 2

"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 doc.u.ments, 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? n.o.body knows my relations.h.i.+p to her and she herself has no suspicion. I am ent.i.tled 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, hoa.r.s.e voice. "The world does not know your relations.h.i.+p, but you know it! What you intend is a crime, it is against justice and law!"

"Oh my G.o.d!" 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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.

"Here I am," quickly answered Sendlingen rising.

"In the dark?" asked old Werner with astonishment. "I thought perhaps you had forgotten the appointment--it is five o'clock and the members of the Committee of Discipline are waiting for us. Has your indisposition perhaps returned?"

"No! I was merely sitting in deep thought and forgot to light the candles. Come, I am quite ready."

"Will you allow me a question?" asked Werner, stepping forward as far as the light which streamed in from the corridor. "In fact it is a request. The clerk told me that you had been asking to see the doc.u.ments relating to to-morrow's trial. Would you perhaps like to preside at it?"

Sendlingen did not answer at once. "I am not posted up in the matter,"

he at length said with uncertain voice.

"The case is very simple and a glance at the deed of accusation would sufficiently inform you. In fact I took the liberty of asking this question in order to have the doc.u.ments fetched at once from Herr Berger. I myself--hm, my daughter, the wife of the finance counsellor, is in fact expecting, as I just learn, tomorrow for the first time--hm,--a happy event. It is natural that I should none the less be at the disposal of the Court, but--hm,--trusting to your official goodnature----"

Sendlingen had supported himself firmly against the back of the chair.

His pulses leapt and his voice trembled as he answered:

"I will take the case."

Then both the men started for the Court. When they came out into the full light of the corridor, Werner looked anxiously at his chief. "But indeed you are still very white!" he cried. "And your face has quite a strange expression. You appear to be seriously unwell, and I have just asked you----"

"It is nothing!" interrupted Sendlingen impatiently. "Whom does our present transaction relate to?"

"You will be sorry to hear of it," was the answer, "I know that you too had the best opinion of the young man. It relates to Herb.i.+.c.h, an a.s.sistant at the Board of Trade office: he has unfortunately been guilty of a gross misuse of his official position."

"Oh--in what way?"

"Money matters," answered Werner cursorily, and he beckoned to a messenger and sent him to Berger's.

They then entered the Court where the three eldest Judges were already waiting for them. The Chief Justice opened the sitting and called for a report of the case to be read.

It was different from what one would have expected from Werner's intimation: Herb.i.+.c.h had not become a criminal through greed of gain.

His mother, an old widow, had, on his advice, lent her slender fortune which was to have served as her only daughter's dowry, to a friend of his, a young merchant of excellent reputation. Without any one suspecting it, this honourable man had through necessity gradually become bankrupt, and when Herb.i.+.c.h one morning entered his office at the Board of Trade, he found the manager of a factory there who, to his alarm, demanded a decree summoning a meeting of his friend's creditors.

Instead of fulfilling this in accordance with the duties of his office, he hurried to the merchant and induced him by piteous prayers to return the loan on the spot. Not till then did he go back to the office and draw up the necessary doc.u.ment. By the inquiries of other creditors whose fractional share had been diminished by this, the matter came to light. Herb.i.+.c.h was suspended, though left at liberty. There was no permanent loss to the creditors, as the sister had in the meantime returned the whole of the amount to the administrator of the estate.

The report recommended that the full severity of the law should take effect, and that the young man should not only be deprived of his position, but should forthwith be handed over to justice.

Sendlingen had listened to the lengthy report motionless. Only once had he risen, to arrange the lampshade so that his face remained in complete shadow. Then he asked whether the committee would examine the accused. It was in no way bound to do so, though ent.i.tled to, and therefore Herb.i.+.c.h had been instructed to hold himself in waiting at the Court at the hour of the inquiry.

The conductor of the inquiry was opposed to any examination. Not so Baron Dernegg, one of the Judges, a comfortable looking man with a broad, kindly face. It seemed to him, he explained, that the examination was a necessity, as in this way alone could the motives of the act be brought fully to light. The Committee was equally divided on the subject: the casting vote therefore lay with Sendlingen. He hesitated a long while, but at length said with a choking voice: "It seems to me, too, that it would be humane and just to hear the unfortunate man."

Herb.i.+.c.h entered. His white, grief-worn face flushed crimson as he saw the Judges, and his gait was so unsteady that Baron Dernegg compa.s.sionately motioned him to sit down. The trembling wretch supported himself on the back of a chair as he began laboriously, and almost stutteringly, to reply to the Chief Justice's question as to what he had to say in his defence.

He told of his intimate friends.h.i.+p with the merchant and how it was entirely his own doing that the loan had been made. When he came to speak of his offence his voice failed him until at length he blurted out almost sobbing: "No words can express how I felt then!... My sister had recently been betrothed to an officer. The money was to have served as the guarantee required by the war-office; if it was lost the wedding could not take place and the life's happiness of the poor girl would have been destroyed. I did not think of the criminality of what I was doing. I only followed the voice of my heart which cried out: 'Your sister must not be made unhappy through your fault!' My friend's resistance first made me conscious of what I had begun to do! I sought to rea.s.sure him and myself by sophisms, pointing out how insignificant the sum was compared with his other debts, and that any other creditor would have taken advantage of making the discovery at the last moment.

I seemed to have convinced him, but, as for myself, I went away with the consciousness of being a criminal."

He stopped, but as he continued his voice grew stronger and more composed.

"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!"

A deep silence followed these words. It was for Sendlingen to break it either by another question or by dismissing the accused. He, however, was staring silently into s.p.a.ce like one lost to his surroundings. At length he murmured: "You may go."

The discussion among the Judges then began and was hotly carried on, as two opposite views were sharply outlined. Baron Dernegg and the fourth Judge were in favour of simple dismissal without any further punishment, while the promoter, supported by Werner, was in favour of his original proposition. The matter had become generally known, he contended, and therefore the dignity of Justice demanded a conspicuous satisfaction for the outraged law.

The decision again rested with Sendlingen, but it seemed difficult for him to p.r.o.nounce it. "It is desirable, gentlemen," he said, "that your verdict should be unanimous. Perhaps you will agree more easily in an informal discussion. I raise the formal sitting for a few minutes."

But he himself took no part in their discussion, but stepped to the window. He pressed his burning forehead against the cool gla.s.s: his face again wore that expression of torturing uncertainty. But gradually his features grew composed and a.s.sumed a look of quiet resolve. When Werner approached and informed him that both parties still adhered obstinately to their own opinion, he stepped back to the table and said in a loud, calm voice:

"I cast my vote for the opinion of Baron Dernegg. The dignity of Justice does not, in my opinion, require to be vindicated only by excessive severity; dismissal from office and ruin for life are surely sufficient punishment for a fatal _error_."

Werner in spite of his boundless respect for superiors, could not suppress a movement of surprise.

Sendlingen noticed it. "An error!" he repeated emphatically. "Whoever can put himself in the place of this unfortunate man, whoever can comprehend the struggles of his soul, must see that, according to his own ideas, he had indeed to choose between two crimes. His error was to consider that the lesser crime which in reality was the greater. I have never been a blind partisan of the maxim: 'Fiat just.i.tia et pereat mundus,'--but I certainly do consider it a sacred matter that every Judge should act according to law and duty, even if he should break his heart in doing so! However, I repeat, it was an error, and therefore it seems to me that the milder of the two opinions enforces sufficient atonement."

Then he went up to Werner. "Forgive me," he said, "if I withdraw my promise in regard to tomorrow's trial. I am really not well enough to preside."

"Oh! please--hm!--well if it must be so."

"It must be so," said Sendlingen, kindly but resolutely. "Good evening, gentlemen."

CHAPTER III.

Sendlingen went to his own quarters; his old manservant let him in and followed him with anxious looks into his study.