The Chief Justice Part 9

"Then he sat down to dinner and there he behaved very strangely. G.o.d forgive me ... Usually he only drinks one gla.s.s of Rhine-wine--you know the sort--to-day he gulped down three gla.s.ses one after another, took a few spoonfuls of soup and then went back to his room. And then I said: Franz, I said--but you won't want to hear that. Dr. Berger. But what follows you must hear; it's very strange--G.o.d help us! only too strange."

"Well?"

"After about ten minutes or so, I heard his step in the lobby; the door slammed; well, he had gone out. 'By all that's sacred!' thinks I in great trouble of mind. Then Franz came in quite upset. 'Fraulein!' he whispered, 'he's going up and down in the court outside!' 'Impossible!'

said I, 'what does he want there?' We went to the bedroom window that looks down into the court and there, sure enough, is his Lordship! He was going--or rather he was creeping along by the wall that separates our court from the prison yard. It was drizzling at the time and it was no longer quite light, but I could see his face plainly: it was the face of a man who doesn't know what to do--ah me! worse still--the face of a man who doesn't know what he's doing. And he behaved like it, Dr.

Berger! He stopped in front of the little door in the wall, looked anxiously up at the windows to see if anyone was watching him--but the clerks and officials had all gone, we were the only people who saw him--he pulled out that key from his breast pocket and tried to unlock the door. For a long time he couldn't succeed, but at last the door opened. However, he only shut it again quickly and locked it. Then he began anxiously to pace up and down again. It was just as if he had only wanted to try whether the key would open the door. What do you think of that?"

"The door through which one can get from here into the prison?" Berger spoke slowly, in a m.u.f.fled tone, as if he were speaking to himself.

Then he continued in the same tone: "Oh, how frightful that would be!

This soul in the mire, this splendid soul!--Go on!" he then muttered as he saw that the housekeeper was looking at him in amazement.

"Well, then he went quickly back through the hall into the street and on towards the square. Franz crept after him at a distance. He seemed at first as if he wanted to go to your house, then he came back here, but to the other door, on the prison side. There he stood, close up to it, for a long time, a quarter of an hour Franz says, and then went to the left down Cross Street and then--what do you think, Dr. Berger?"

"Back the same way," said Berger slowly, "and again stood for a long time in front of the prison."

"How can you know that?" asked the old lady in astonishment.

Berger's answer was a strange one. "I can see it!" he said. And indeed, with the eyes of his soul, Berger could see his unhappy friend wandering about in the misty darkness, dragged hither and thither, by whirling, conflicting thoughts. "Perhaps he is at this moment standing there again!" He had not meant to say this, but the thought had involuntarily given itself voice.

"What now!" Fraulein Brigitta crossed herself. "We will go and see at once! Come! Oh, that would be a good thing! I will just go and fetch my shawl. But you see I was right. This trouble is connected with the prison; some injustice has been done, and he feels it nearly because he is such a just judge."

"Because he is such a just judge," repeated Berger, mechanically, without thinking of what he was saying, for while he spoke those words he was saying to himself: "He has gone mad!"

Then, however, he shook off the spell of this horror that threatened to cripple both soul and body. "You stay at home," he said in a tone of command. "I will find him and bring him back, you may rely upon that.

One thing more, where did Franz leave him?"

"Ah, he was too simple! When his Lordship came into the square for the third time, Franz went up to him and begged him to come home. Upon that he became very angry and sent Franz off with the strongest language.

But he called after him that he was going to Baron Dernegg's, only as I said, he has not been there, and----"

"Keep up your spirits, Fraulein Brigitta! I shall be back soon." He went down the steps, "Keep up your spirits!" he called back to her once more; she was standing at the top of the steps holding the candle at arm's length before her.

Berger stepped into the street and walked swiftly round the building to the prison door. He himself was in need of the exhortation he had given: he felt as if in the next moment he might see something frightful.

But there was nothing to be seen when he at length reached the place and approached the door, nothing save the muddy slippery ground, the trickling, mouldy walls, the iron-work of the door shining in the wet--nothing else, so far as the red, smoky light of the two lanterns above the door could show through the fog and rain. And there was nothing to be heard save the low pattering of the rain-drops on the soft earth or, when a sudden gust of the east-wind blew, the creaking of some loosened rafter and a whirring, long-drawn, complaining sound that came from the bare trees on the ramparts when they writhed and bent beneath its icy breath.

"Victor!"

There was a movement in the sentry box by the door; the poor, frozen Venetian soldier of the Dom Miguel regiment who had sheltered himself inside as well as he could from the rain and cold, poked out his heavy sleepy head so that the shine of his wet leather shako was visible for an instant. He muttered an oath and wrapped himself the closer in his damp overcoat.

Berger sighed deeply. A minute before he was sure he had seen the poor madman standing motionless in the desolate night, his eyes rigidly fixed upon the door that separated him from his daughter, and now that he was spared the sight, he could take no comfort, for a far worse foreboding convulsed his brain.

Hesitatingly he returned to the front part of the building and, increasing his pace, he went down the street towards the market-place, aimlessly, but always swifter, as if he had to go where chance led him, so as to arrive in time to stop some frightful deed.

The streets were deserted, nothing but the wind roamed through the drenching solitude, nothing but the voices of the night greeted his ear; that ceaseless murmur and rustle and stir, which, drowned by the noise of the day, moves in the dark stillness, as though dead and dumb things had now first found a voice to reach the sense of men.

He often had to stop; it seemed to him as if he heard the piteous groaning of a sick man, or the half stifled cry for help of one wounded. But it was nothing; the wind had shaken some rotting roof, or somewhere in the far distance a watch-dog had given a short, sharp bark. The lonely wanderer held his breath in order to hear better, looked also perhaps into some dark corner and then hurried on.

He reached the market place. Here he came upon human beings again, the sentries before the princ.i.p.al guard-house, and as he pa.s.sed the column commemorative of the cholera in the middle of the square, there was the night-watchman who had pitched upon a dry sleeping place in one of the niches of the irregular monument. Berger stopped irresolutely; should he wake him up and question him?

Another form at this moment emerged from a neighbouring street; a man who with bowed head and halting pace glided along by the houses: was this not Franz? Berger could not yet, by the light of the meagre lamps, accurately distinguish him in the all-pervading fog. But the man came nearer and nearer; he was behaving peculiarly; he was looking into every door-way, and when he came to the "Sign of the Arbour," a very ancient shop full of recesses, he went into each of these recesses, so that a spectator saw him alternately appearing and disappearing. When he at length reappeared just under a lamp Berger recognised him; it was really the old servant. "Like a faithful dog seeking his master," he said to himself as he hurried towards him.

Franz rushed to meet him. "You know nothing of him?"

"Be quiet, man. We will look for him together."

"No, separately!" He seized Berger's arm and grasped it convulsively.

"You by the river-side and I up here. There is not a moment to lose."

Berger asked no more questions but hurried down the broad, inclined street that led to the river. Here, in Cross Street, where most of the pleasure-resorts were, there were still signs of life; he had repeatedly to get out of the way of drunken men who pa.s.sed along bawling; poor forlorn looking girls brushed past him. In one of the quieter streets he noticed a moving light coming nearer and nearer: it was a large lantern in the hand of a servant who was carefully lighting the gentleman who followed him.

Berger recognised the features of the little, wizened creature who, in spite of the awful weather was contentedly tripping along, with satisfaction in every lineament, under the shelter of a mighty umbrella; it was the Deputy Chief-Justice, Herr von Werner. He would have pa.s.sed by without a word, but Werner recognised him and called to him.

"Eh! eh! it's Dr. Berger!" he snickered. "Out so late! Hee, hee! I seem to be meeting all the important people! First--hee! hee! the Lord Chief Justice and now----"

"Have you seen him?"

"Why yes. You are surprised? So was I! Just as I stepped out of my son-in-law's house, he pa.s.sed by. I called after him because I wanted to tell him the news. For you may congratulate me, Dr. Berger.

Certainly, you annoyed me this morning, you annoyed me very much I but in my joy I will forgive you! My first grandson, a splendid boy, and how he can cry!"

"Where did you see him? When?"

"Eh! goodness me, what is the matter with you? It was scarcely five minutes ago, he was going--only fancy--towards Wurst Street. You seem upset! And he wouldn't listen to me! Why, what is the matter?"

Berger made no reply. Without a word of farewell, he rushed precipitately down the street out of which Werner had come and turned to the right into a narrow, dirty slum which led by a steep incline to the river.

This was Wurst Street, the poorest district of the town, the haunt of porters, boatmen and raftsmen; alongside the narrow quay in which the street ended, lay their craft; the corner building next the river was the public house which they frequented. A light still glimmered behind its small window-panes and, as Berger hurried by, the sound of rough song and laughter greeted his ears.

He did not stop till he came right up to the river's edge. Its waters were swollen by the autumn rains; swift and tumultuous they coursed along its broad bed, perceptible to the ear only, not to the eye, so fearfully dark was the night. Berger could not even distinguish the wooden foot-bridge that here crossed the river, until he was close up to it.

Hesitatingly he stepped upon the shaky structure. The bridge was scarcely two foot broad, its bal.u.s.trade was rotten and the footway slippery. Over on the other side a solitary light, a lantern, was struggling against wind and fog; its reflection swayed uncertainly on the soaking bridge; when it suddenly flared up in the wind, its flickering, red light revealed for a moment the angry, swollen flood.

Berger stood still irresolutely; the place was so desolate, so uncanny; should he stay any longer? Then suddenly a low cry escaped him and he darted forward a step. The lantern opposite had just flared up and by its reflection he had seen a man approach the bridge and step upon it.

It seemed to Berger as if this were Sendlingen, but he did not know for certain, as the lantern was again giving only the faintest glimmer.

The man approached nearer, slowly, and with uncertain step, groping for the bal.u.s.trade as he came. Once more the lantern flared up--there was the long Inverness, the gray hat--Berger doubted no longer.

"Victor!"

He would have shouted at the top of his voice, but the word pa.s.sed over his lips huskily, almost inaudibly: he would have darted forward ...

but could only take one solitary step more, so greatly had the weirdness of the situation overpowered him.

Sendlingen did not perceive him: he stopped scarcely ten paces from his friend and bent over the bal.u.s.trade. Resting on both arms, there he stood, staring at the wild and turbulent water.

Thus pa.s.sed a few seconds.

Again the lantern flickered up, for a moment only it gave a clear light. Sendlingen had suddenly raised himself and Berger saw, or thought he saw, that the unfortunate man was now only resting with one hand on the railing, that his body was lifted up....

"Victor!"