For the Right. Karl Emil Franzos
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how this lamb of the lowlands should have got the better of every bear among us up here. But you will be the worse for it one of these days, you will see!"
The judge spoke truth; it was a marvellous influence which the young stranger had acquired in the village, and well-nigh incredible considering the people he had to deal with. But if a miracle it was, it had come about by means of the rarest of charms, by the spell emanating from a heart, the wondrous honesty of which was equalled only by its wondrous strength--a heart which had but grown in goodness and true courage because its lot had been cast amid sorrows which would have brought most men to ruin or despair.
Taras Barabola was born at Ridowa, a village near Barnow, the son of a poor servant girl whose lover had been carried off as a recruit and remained in the army, preferring the gay life of a soldier to hard labour at home. Amid the hot tears of affliction the deserted mother brought up her child, and not only trouble, but shame, stood by his cradle. For the Podolian peasant does not judge lightly of the erring one, and his sense of wrong can be such that Mercy herself would plead with him in vain. It was long before the unhappy girl found shelter for pity's sake, and little Taras, from his earliest days, had to suffer for no other reason but that his father was a scoundrel. It appeared to be meritorious with the people of Ridowa to scold and buffet the frightened child, as though that were indeed a means of proving their own respectability and combating the growth of sin. None but themselves would have been to blame if, by such treatment of the boy, they had reared a criminal in him, to be the disgrace and scourge of the village. But it was not so with Taras, because amid all his trouble a rare good fortune had been given him. The poor servant girl that bore him was possessed of a heroic spirit. And when the little boy followed his mother to church, she standing humbly in the porch, whilst he, childlike, would steal forward till the sexton flung him back as though his very breath defiled the sacred precincts; or when attempting to join other children in their play about the streets he was kicked away like a rabid dog, and nothing seemed left but to take his grief to the one heart beating for him in a cruel world;--that heart would grew strong in the suffering woman, lending her words so generous, so wise, that one could have believed in inspiration were not a mother's love in itself grand enough to be the fount of things noble and true. Many a one in her position would have bewailed her child--would have taught him to lay the blame upon others, sowing the seeds of cowardliness and revenge. But she--well, she did cry; no child ever was more bitterly wept over; but this is what she said: "Taras, grow up good! Do not hate them because of their unkindness, for it is deserved! Nay, my child, if you suffer, it is because your father and I have wronged them; they think ill of you for fear you should become what we were! Yet you are but a child, knowing neither good nor evil, and all they can say against you is that you are the child of your parents; that is why they ill-treat you! But one day you will show them what you are yourself, and they will then treat you accordingly, after your own deserts! And, therefore, oh, my child, do not repay them with evil: be good and do the right, and they will love you!"
Thus she wept, thus she entreated him, and, young as he was, her words were engraven on his brain and sunk deep into his soul. It was not in vain that, in order to save her child, she had staked the one thing left to her in life--the love of that child. Her own great love for him was her safeguard that his hatred for others, which she strove against, should not fall back upon her, who owned herself guilty, and for whom she said he suffered. Taras continued to love his mother; and when he inquired what it could have been whereby she had wronged all the righteous people, and she told him he was too young to understand, he was satisfied. But her words lived in his heart, laying the foundation of a marvellous development of character, teaching him, at an age when other children think but of eating and playing, that he must believe the world to be just, and that his own act must be the umpire of reward or punishment to follow. Thus he suffered ill-will without bitterness, but also, knowing he had not himself deserved it, without humiliation; and when, having reached his tenth year, he was chosen to be the gooseherd of the village--not, indeed, with the goodwill of all, but simply because no other serviceable lad had offered--he burned with a desire to gain for himself commendation and approval. And he did gain it, because he worked for it bravely, but also because of a fearful experience which happened to him about a twelvemonth later, shaking his young soul to its inmost depth.
It was an autumnal morning; he had driven forth his geese with the grey dawn as usual. They fed on a lonely common; a cross stood there by the side of a pond, but not a cottage within hail, and the foot-path which traversed it was rarely used. The boy had his favourite seat on a stone by the water, at the foot of the cross; he was sitting there now contentedly eating some of the bread which his mother had given him, and whistling between whiles on a reed-pipe he had made for himself.
He was startled by a heavy footfall, and, turning, grew pale, for he that approached him was a spiteful, wicked old man, Waleri Kostarenko by name, one of the worst of those who delighted in bullying him. "You are but a cur!" he would call out when the lad passed his farm, and more than once he had set his dogs at him. And one day, finding him at play with his own grandchildren, he beat him so mercilessly that the little fellow could scarcely limp home for bruises. Nor was it any regard for morality he could plead in wretched excuse. Taras's mother had been a servant on his farm, and had been proof against his wiles, so he was the first to cry shame when trouble overtook her, and like a fiend he delighted in ill-using her child. Taras got out of his way whenever he could, and on the present occasion took to his sturdy little legs, as though pursued by the caitiff's dogs. It was not merely the loneliness of the place which made it advisable to seek refuge in flight, but the fact that the old man, as the boy had seen in spite of his terror, was in a worse condition than usual. There had been a merry-making the day before in a neighbouring village, and his unsteady feet showed plainly that the power of drink was upon him.
"Is it you, little toad?" he roared, "I'll catch you!" But the boy was too fleet for him, and he knew pursuit was vain. "Lord's sake," he cried, suddenly, "I have sprained my foot! Taras, for pity's sake, help me to yon stone!"
The boy turned and looked; the old man had sunk to his knee, a picture of suffering, and the boy did pity him, coming back accordingly. "What is it?" he said, "what can I do for you?" At which Waleri, bursting upon him, caught him exultingly. "Have I got you?" he shrieked, clutching his hair and treating him mercilessly.
"For heaven's sake," cried Taras, "spare me!" But pity there was none with the old wretch; beside himself with hatred, he held the boy with one arm, ill-using him with the other wherever his fist could fall. Taras struggled vainly for awhile, but with a wrench of despair he got free at last. He escaped. Waleri ran after him for a step or two. The geese were wild with terror, and one of the creatures had got between the man's feet; he fell heavily, knocking his head against the stone by the cross. The boy heard a piercing cry; he saw that his enemy was on the ground, but not till he had reached the further end of the common did he turn once more to look back. The old man lay motionless by the stone, the geese pressed about him, stretching their necks with a noisy cackle. He felt tolerably safe now from his enemy, for even if it were but another trick of his meanness he could scarcely overtake him at that distance; but as he stood and gazed a wild fear fell upon the boy, his heart beating violently.
"He is dead!" The thought flashed through him as a shock of lightning, and he felt dragged back to the scene helplessly. He retraced his steps towards the cross, and stood still within ten yards or so. A cry burst from him of pure horror--he saw the blood trickling over the upturned face. He pressed together his lips, and went close--slowly, tremblingly--quite close. The man was evidently unconscious, his face corpse-like and fearful to look at; there was a deep cut on the forehead, and the purple blood flowed copiously over the distorted face, trickling to the ground.
The boy stood still with labouring breath, as though spellbound. Horror and disgust, joy, scorn, revenge, and yet again compassion, went through him, the good rising uppermost in the great conflict that shook his soul. He thought of his mother, and bending down to the water he bathed the forehead of the unconscious man. The blood kept flowing. He tore off the sleeve of his shirt, and, making a bandage, pressed it upon the wound. Walen groaned, but did not open his eyes. "He is dying!" thought Taras, but strove as best he could to stop the bleeding, crying for help at the same time with all his might.
A young peasant, the son-in-law of the village judge, riding