For the Right. Karl Emil Franzos
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I must give them a sermon to-day, I must, indeed!' 'Little Father,' I said, severely, 'you had better not attempt it; you know it is beyond you now, and the people will only laugh at you; don't you remember how it was five years ago?' 'I do,' he said, ruefully, 'but I shall do better to-day.' There was no convincing him, he locked himself into his study, and through the door I could hear him at his sermon--pacing his floor I mean--vigorously, till the bells began ringing for service. I went to church, not a little anxious, you will believe me, and when he mounted his pulpit, as he had threatened, I said to myself: 'You'll stick fast, little father, and be sorry that you ever went up.' But not he--well you were there yourselves, and you know how beautifully he got through it, never once blowing his nose or scratching his ears--the beautifullest sermon ever spoken, though I say it, and moving all the parish to tears! I walked home proudly to look after his dinner, poor man, and said to myself he should have as many glasses now as he liked. But what was my surprise on going to his room presently, to find him weeping there, shedding the biggest tears. I ever saw. 'Ah, Praxenia,' he sobbed, 'to think of the Lord's goodness in giving me this day. I have not deserved it, miserable old tippler that I am!' What was I to answer? I got his dinner ready, putting his bottle beside it; and he sat down at my bidding, but never a morsel he touched, his eyes looking brighter and queerer than ever. 'Have a drop, little father.' I said, 'I'm afraid you are faint-like.' 'No,' he said, sharply, pushing the bottle from him. Then I knew that something was wrong. And all the rest of the day, till late in the evening, he kept walking about his room, muttering the beautifullest words--preparing his sermon, he said, when I asked him. Not till late at night could I get a spoonful of soup down his throat, making him take to his bed--no great battle, for although he is hardly more than sixty, he is just a child for weakness when the schnaps is out of him. 'Now you must go to sleep,' I said, sternly. But not he! He folded his hands, lying still, with his shining eyes, muttering at times. He is going to die, I tell you!"
The men were endeavouring to dissuade her from this mournful view, but were less certain of their own opinion when they stood by the bedside. The poor pope's appearance had changed alarmingly since yesterday. The face was worn and white, the wrinkles had deepened, and there was a strange light in his eyes.
But he knew Taras. "Ah--is it you?" he murmured. … "'And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.' … The bells are ringing. … I must preach to the people. … What is it you want?"
"I came to ask you to read a letter to me, but I am afraid you are not well, and it is rather a closely-written epistle."
"Epistle? yes," returned the pope, catching at the word. "The first of the Corinthians. … 'Though I speak with the tongues of angels, and have not charity … believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. … Charity never faileth.' … " And on he wandered.
The men saw it was hopeless, and left him. "It is strange," said Simeon; "our pope never spoke such edifying words while he had his wits about him. It does seem alarming."
But Taras's thoughts ran on a different track. He started. "I must go to Colomea," he said. "There could not be much in a mere letter, after all. I must see the lawyer myself as soon as possible."
He appeared so fully determined that his friends could but listen in silence, and even Anusia saw he must have his way, though she demurred. "It were far better to leave the thing alone," she said. "If you are bent on making a sacrifice for the parish, give them the field we bought two years ago, it will make up for their loss, and it were better than losing everything through the lawyers."
"You are the best of wives," he said, "but you do not understand. It is not merely about the field which is lost: but my fate, and yours, and the children's is at stake."
"What is this you are saying?" she cried, alarmed; but he had touched his horse, and the sledge was flying along the road towards the district town.
He entered the outer office of Starkowski's the following day, but no sooner had Mr. Stupka caught sight of him than he flew from his chair, disappearing in an inner chamber with the startled cry: "Heaven help us! a ghost … the dead judge!"
But the attorney came forth undaunted. "I am pleased to see you," he said, shaking hands. "I felt pretty sure my clerk had been exaggerating in reporting you dead. I suppose it was the painful disappointment which stunned you?"
"More than this," said Taras, "it was the bitter consciousness that this verdict must change all the future current of my life, unless, indeed, it can be annulled. I have come to find out whether this is possible. Maybe your letter said something about it--I cannot read."
"No, the letter was only to tell you the costs," explained Dr. Starkowski, "one hundred and twelve florins. But there is no hurry whatever, you may pay me at your convenience. I had nothing further to tell you, for I never advise carrying a suit into a higher court unless there be some hope of a successful----"
"Sir," interrupted Taras, speaking slowly, and his voice was hollow, "think well before you tell me--you do not know how much there is at stake."
The man's manner, and still more his distorted face, staggered the lawyer. "Of course, I may be mistaken," he said; "but the examination of the witnesses, from which I hoped everything, has proved a bad business for us, and yet it appears the commissioner tried every conscientious means for arriving at----"
"Conscientious means!" cried Taras; but conquering his rising anger he described the scene which had taken place outside the village inn, Kapronski not so much as putting up his horses; and how the peasants had their own shrewd guesses how much had been paid by the mandatar to every rascal who had forsworn himself. "Sir, I hope you will help me in this trouble!" he said, in conclusion.
These simple words, breathing their own truth and sadness, went further with the lawyer than the most urgent entreaty. He had followed the legal profession for many a year, but the sense of the utter sacredness of his calling had perhaps never been so strong with him, nor his desire to see justice done more earnest, than at this present moment when that peasant had told him his tale. He promised to forward an appeal to the higher court at once. "There is yet another way we could try," he said; "you could inform against the perjurers. But if we failed in bringing the charge home to them, you would be in danger of imprisonment for libel yourself. I do not like to risk that, so we had better try the appeal."
"Do what seems best to you," said Taras. "I trust you implicitly. But what a world is this if a man can be put into prison for making known the truth! Is not truth the foundation of justice? Can the world continue, if falsehood and wrong carry the day?"
The lawyer no doubt could have given an answer to this question--a sad, painful answer--but somehow he felt he had better be silent. He contented himself with assuring this man, who seemed a very child in the ways of the world, that he would not fail in his most faithful endeavour, and set about the matter at once, moved by a feeling he scarcely could analyse. The appeal was on its way to the upper court at Lemberg before Taras and his servant had reached their upland home.
They were nearing the Pruth in the evening of the following day when the sound of bells came floating towards them, and a red glow appeared through the dusk where the ground sloped away in the direction of Prinkowce. "Something on fire!" cried the man, pulling up the horses.
Taras peered through the twilight, and, bowing his head, he crossed himself piously. "Drive on," he said; "it is the torches at the cemetery. They are burying the pope."
And it was so. Father Martin had died that morning, and they were laying him to his rest already, as they are wont in the mountains. There was no great show of mourning, poor Praxenia's sorrow, perhaps, being the only honest sadness evoked. "Ah!" she kept sobbing, "if it were not for that sermon, he might be here to conduct his own funeral! It is the sermon he died of, and not old age, as the apothecary said." But the peasants had their own idea concerning the cause of his death. "It is the wretched schnaps Avrumko has introduced," they said. "If the rascal gave us unwatered stuff, we might live a hundred years, like our fathers before us."
Slight as the feeling of mourning was, it ye sufficed to turn the people's thoughts into a different channel, the loss of the pope thus acting as a palliative to the loss of the