The Chief Justice Part 25

"Welcome to Vienna," he cried. "I hope that you are completely recovered, and are coming to me to offer your services to the State once more."

"No, your Excellency," replied Sendlingen. "Forgive me, if I cannot take your hand. I will spare you having to regret it in the next instant. For I do not come to offer you my services as Judge, but to deliver myself into the hands of Justice. I am a criminal and desire to undergo the punishment due to me."

The Minister turned pale and drew back: "The man is mad," he thought.

The thought must have been legible in his face, for Sendlingen continued:

"Do not be afraid, I am in my senses. I have indeed abused my office in a fashion so monstrous, that perhaps nothing like it has ever happened before. I released from prison, by means of official keys, a condemned woman, who was to have been executed the next day, and suggested, furthered, and carried out her flight to a foreign country. Her name was Victorine Lippert: the crime was done on the night of 21-22 February, 1853."

"I remember the case," muttered the Minister. "She escaped in the most mysterious way. But you! Why should you have done this?"

"A father saved his child: Victorine is my natural daughter."

The Minister wiped the sweat from his forehead. "This is a frightful business." He once more searchingly looked at his uncomfortable visitor. "He certainly seems to be in his senses," he thought.

"Allow me to tell you how every thing came about?"

The Minister nodded and pointed to a chair.

Sendlingen remained standing. He began to narrate. Clearly and quietly, in a hollow, monotonous voice, he told of his relations with Herminie Lippert, then how he had made the discovery in the lists of the Criminal Court, and of his struggles whether he should preside at the trial or not.

"I had the strength to refuse," he continued. "My sense of duty conquered. Sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced. It was--and perhaps you will believe me although you hear it at such a moment, from such a man--it was a judicial murder, such as could have been decreed by a Court of Justice alone. And therefore my first thought was: against this wrong, wrong alone can help. I sought out the prison keys, and for some hours was firmly resolved to release my daughter. But then my sense of duty--perhaps more strictly speaking my egoism--conquered. For I said to myself that I, const.i.tuted as I was, could not commit this crime without some day making atonement for it. I knew quite well even then, that an hour would come in my life, like the present, and I could not find it in my heart to end as a criminal. But my conscience cried: 'Then your child will die!' and so suicide seemed to me the only thing left. I was resolved to kill myself; whether I could not bring myself to it at the last moment, whether a chance saved me--I do not know: there is a veil cast over that hour that I have never since been able to pierce. I survived, I saw my daughter, and recovered my clearness of mind; the voice of nature had conquered. I now knew that it was highly probable that there was no means that could save us both, that the question was whether I should perish, or she, and I no longer doubted that it must be I. I was resolved to liberate her, and then to expiate my crime; but until extreme necessity compelled, I wanted to act according to law and justice. That I did so, my conduct proves when the Supreme Court ordered a fresh examination of the chief witness.

Everything depended upon that; I made over this inquiry also to another--who a.s.suredly did not bring the truth to light. The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence of death; it was p.r.o.nounced upon me, not upon my child; that extreme necessity had now arrived, I now knew that I must become a criminal, and only waited for the result of the Counsel's pet.i.tion for pardon, because the preparations for the act required time, and because I first wanted to save some men unjustly accused of political offences."

"I remember, the workmen," said the Minister. He still seemed dazed, it cost him an effort to follow the unhappy man's train of thought. "One thing only I do not understand," he slowly said, pa.s.sing his hand over his forehead. "Why did you not discover yourself to me, or why did you not appeal to the Emperor for pardon?"

"For two reasons," replied Sendlingen. "I have all my life striven to execute Justice without respect of persons. It was ever a tormenting thought to me that the Aristocrat, the Plutocrat, often receives where the law alone should decide, favours that would never fall to the lot of the poor and humble. And therefore it was painful to me to lay claim to such a favour for myself."

"You are indeed a man of rare sense of justice," cried the Minister.

"And that such a fate should have, befallen you....."

He paused.

"Is tragic indeed," supplemented Sendlingen, his lips trembling.

"Certainly it is---- But I will not make, myself out better than I am; there was another reason why I hesitated to appeal to the Emperor. What would have been the result, your Excellency? Commutation to penal servitude for life, or for twenty years. The mere announcement of this punishment would have so profoundly affected this weakly, broken-down girl, that she would scarcely have survived it, and if she had--a complete pardon could not have been attained for ten, for eight, in the most favourable case for five years, and she would not have lived to see it. I was persuaded of that, quite firmly persuaded, still," his voice became lower, "I too was only a human being. When I received the confirmation of the death-sentence by the Emperor, cowardice and selfishness got the better of me, I journeyed to Vienna--it was the 18th February."

"The date of the attempt!" cried the Minister. "What a frightful coincidence! Thus does fate sport with the children of men."

"So I thought at first!" replied Sendlingen. "But then I saw that that coincidence had not decided my fate: it was sealed from the first. By my whole character and by all that had happened. In this sense there is a Fate, in this sense what happens in the world _must_ happen, and my fate is only a proof of what takes place in millions of cases. I returned to Bolosch and liberated my daughter. How I succeeded, I am prepared to tell my Judges so far as my own share in the act is concerned. I had no accomplice among the prison officials. Your Excellency will believe me, although I can only call to witness my own word, the word of honour of a criminal!"

"I believe you," said the Minister. "You took the girl abroad?"

"Yes, and sought to make good my neglect. Fate was gracious to me, my daughter is cared for. And I may now do that which I was from the first resolved to do, although I did not know when the day would be vouchsafed me to dare it--I may present myself to you, the supreme guardian of Justice in this land, and say: 'Deliver me to my Judges!'"

Sendlingen was silent; the Minister, too, at first could find no words.

White as a ghost, he paced up and down the room. "But there can be no question of such a thing!" he cried at length. "For thousands of reasons! We are not barbarians!"

"It can be and must be! I claim my right!"

"But just consider!" cried the Minister, wringing his hands. "It would be the most fearful blow that the dignity of Justice could receive. A former Chief-Justice as a criminal in the dock! A man like you! Besides you deserve no punishment! When I consider what you have suffered, how all this has come about--good G.o.d, I should be a monster if I were not moved, if I did not say: if this man were perhaps really a criminal, he has already atoned for it a thousand times over."

"Then you refuse me justice?"

"It would be injustice! Go in peace, my Lord, and return to your daughter."

"I cannot. I could not endure the pangs of my conscience! If you refuse to punish me, I shall openly accuse myself!"

"Great Heavens! this only was wanting!" The Minister drew nearer to him. "I beseech you, let these things rest in peace! Do not bring upon that office of which you were so long an ornament, the worst blemish that could befal it. And your act would have still worse consequences: it would undermine the authority of the State. Consider the times in which we live--the Revolution is smouldering under its ashes."

"I cannot help it, your Excellency. Do your duty voluntarily, and do not oblige me to compel you to it."

The Minister looked at him: in his face there was the quiet of immovable resolve. "A fanatic," he thought, "what shall I do with him?"

He walked about the room in a state of irresolution.

"My Lord," he then began, "you would oblige the State to take defensive measures. Accuse yourself openly by a pamphlet published abroad, and I would give out that you were mad. I should be believed, you need not doubt."

"I do doubt it," replied Sendlingen. "I should take care that there was no room left for any question as to my sanity. Once more, and for the last time, I ask your Excellency, to what Court am I to surrender myself?"

Again the Minister for a long while paced helplessly up and down. At length a saving thought seemed to occur to him.

"Be it so," he said. "Do what you cannot help doing; we, on the other hand, will do what our duty commands. You naturally want to conceal where your daughter is now living?"

Sendlingen turned still paler and made no reply.

"But we shall endeavor to find out, even if it should cost thousands, and if we should have to employ all the police in the world. We shall find your daughter and demand her extradition. There is no state that would refuse to deliver a legally condemned murderess! You must decide, my Lord, whether this is to happen."

Sendlingen's face had grown deadly pale--a fit of shuddering shook his limbs. There was a long silence in the room, it endured perhaps five minutes. At length Sendlingen muttered:

"I submit to your Excellency's will. May G.o.d forgive you what you have just done to me."

The Minister gave a sigh of relief. "I will take that on my conscience," he said. "I restore the father to his child. Farewell, my Lord."

Sendlingen did not take the proffered hand, he bowed silently and departed.

Two days later Dr. George Berger received a letter of Sendlingen's, dated from Trieste. It briefly informed his friend of the purport of his interview with the Minister of Justice, and concluded as follows:

"It is denied me to expiate my crime: it is impossible to me, a criminal, to go unpunished through life; so I am going to meet death.

When you read this, all will be over. Break the news to my daughter, who has already set out on her journey, as gently as possible; hide the truth from her, I shall help you by the manner in which I am doing the deed. And do not forget Franz, he is waiting for me at Cologne; I was only able to get quit of him under a pretext.

"Farewell, thou good and faithful friend, and do not condemn me. You once said to me: there must be a solution of these complications, a liberating solution. I do not know if there was any other, any better than that which has come to pa.s.s. For see, my child has received her just due, and so too has Justice: with a higher price than that of his life, n.o.body can atone for a crime. And I--I have seen my child's happiness, I have honourably paid all my debts, and now I shall find peace forever--I too have received my due!... And now I may hope for your respect again!

"Farewell! and thanks a thousand times!

"Victor."

Berger, deeply moved, had just finished reading this letter, when his clerk entered with the morning paper in his hand.