The Chief Justice. Karl Emil FranzosЧитать онлайн книгу.
unconscious. Beside her lay her dead, her murdered child."
Sendlingen groaned and buried his face in his hands.
"Her fate moves you?" asked Berger. "It is certainly piteous enough! The men brought her to the village and informed the police at Golotz. The preliminary examination took place the next day. It could only establish that the child had been strangled; it was impossible to take the depositions of the murderess: she was in the wildest delirium, and the prison-doctor expected her to die. But Fate," Berger rose and his voice trembled--"Fate was not so merciful. She recovered, and was sent first to Golotz and then brought here. She admitted that in the solitude of that dreadful night, overcome by her pains, forsaken of God and man, she formed the resolve to kill herself and the child--when and how she did the deed she could not say. I am persuaded that this is no lie, and I believe her affirmation that it was only unconsciousness that prevented her suicide. Doesn't that appear probable to you too?"
Sendlingen did not answer. "Probable," he at length muttered, "highly probable!"
Berger nodded. "Thus much," he continued, "is recorded in the judicial documents, and as all this is certainly enough to arouse sympathy, I went to see her as soon as the defence was allotted to me. Since that I have learnt more. I have learnt that a true and noble nature has been wrecked by the baseness of man. She must have been not only fascinatingly beautiful, but a character of unusual depth and purity. One can still see it, just as fragments of china enable us to guess the former beauty of a work of art. For this vessel is broken in pieces, and her one prayer to me was: not to hinder the sentence of death! … But I cannot grant this prayer," he concluded. "She must not die, were it only for Justice's sake! And a load is taken off my heart to think that a human being is to preside at the trial to-morrow, and not a rhetoric machine!"
He had spoken with increasing warmth, and with a conviction of spirit which this quiet, and indeed temperate man, seldom evinced.
His own emotion prevented him from noticing how peculiar was his friend's demeanour. Sendlingen sat there for a while motionless, his face still covered with his hands, and when he at length let them fall, he bowed his head so low that his forehead rested on the edge of the writing-table. In this position he at last blurted forth:
"I cannot preside to-morrow."
"Why not?" asked Berger in astonishment. "Are you really ill?" And as he gently raised his friend's head and looked into his worn face he cried out anxiously: "Why of course--you are in a fever."
Sendlingen shook his head. "I am quite well, George! But even if it cost me my life, I would not hand over this girl to the tender mercies of others, if only I dared. But I dare not!"
"You dare not!"
"The law forbids it!"
"The law? You are raving!"
"No! no!" cried the unhappy man springing up. "I would that I were either mad or dead, but such is not my good fortune! The law forbids it, for a father----"
"Victor!"
"Everything tallies, everything! The mother's name--the place--the year of birth--and her name is Victorine."
"Oh my God! She is your----"
"My daughter," cried the unfortunate wretch in piercing tones and then quite broke down.
Berger stood still for an instant as if paralysed by pity and amazement! Then he hurried to his friend, raised him and placed him in his arm-chair. "Keep calm!" he murmured. "Oh! it is frightful! … Take courage! … The poor child!" He was himself as if crushed by the weight of this terrible discovery.
Breathing heavily, Sendlingen lay there, his breast heaving convulsively; then he began to sob gently; far more piteously than words or tears, did these despairing, painfully subdued groans betray how exceedingly he suffered. Berger stood before him helplessly; he could think of no fitting words of comfort, and he knew that whatever he could say would be said in vain.
The door was suddenly opened loudly and noisily; old Franz had heard the bitter lamenting and could no longer rest in the lobby. "My Lord!" he screamed, darting to the sufferer. "My dear good master."
"Begone!" Sendlingen raised himself hastily. "Go, Franz--I beg!" he repeated, more gently.
But Franz did not budge. "We are in pain," he muttered, "and Fräulein Brigitta may not come in and I am sent away! What else is Franz in the world for?" He did not go until Berger by entreaties and gentle force pushed him out of the door.
Sendlingen nodded gratefully to his friend.
"Sit here," he said, pointing to a chair near his own. "Closer still--so! You must know all, if only for her sake! You shall have no shred of doubt as to whom you are defending to-morrow, and perhaps you may discover the expedient for which I have racked my brain in vain. And indeed I desire it on my own account. Since the moment I discovered it I feel as if I had lost everything. Everything--even myself! You are one of the most upright men I know; you shall judge me, George, and in the same way that you will defend this poor girl, with your noble heart and clear head. Perhaps you will decide that some other course is opened to me beside----"
He stopped and cast a timid glance at a small neat case that lay on his writing-table. Berger knew that it contained a revolver.
"Victor!" he cried angrily and almost revolted.
"Oh, if you knew what I suffer! But you are right, it would be contemptible. I dare not think of myself. I dare not slink out of the world. I have a duty to my child. I have neglected it long enough,--I must hold on now and pay my debt. Ah! how I felt only this morning, and now everything lies around me shivered to atoms. Forgive me, my poor brain can still form no clear thought! But--I will--I must. Listen, I will tell you, as if you were the Eternal Judge Himself, how everything came about."
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