For the Right

by Karl Emil Franzos

"Yes, he is here," said old Froïm, sorrowfully, in answer to Nashko's inquiry, "and I think he is seriously ill. I do not know what that young woman may have told him," he added under his breath, "but it must have been something very awful; for he fainted right out, and when I had managed to bring him to again, he just said: 'I must go my way to the gallows now,' and never another word has crossed his lips. I have tried to rouse him, but he is like a stone, staring blankly; it could not be worse if he had buried wife and child. I have spoken to him, I have implored him, but not a sign is to be got from him. Will you try it?--he may yield to your words."

Nashko told his companions what the old Jew had said, and they all agreed. "Try and rouse him," they said, "tell him that to us he is as noble and just as before. How should he, how should we, in God's eyes, be guilty of this blackguard Karol's wickedness!"

Nashko took heart and entered the little room, where Froïm had prepared a couch for the stricken hetman, but he was unable to deliver the men's message. For no sooner had he closed the door than Taras turned to him, saying huskily, but firmly: "Please leave me to myself till to-morrow morning; I must think it over; not for my own sake, for I know what I have to do, but for yours--I would like to counsel each of you for the best I can hardly collect my thoughts as yet, it is as though I had been struck with lightning. Let me come to myself first. I daresay Froïm will find a night's lodging for you; and to-morrow--yes, to-morrow morning when the day has risen, I will see you." Taras seemed fully determined, and Nashko could but yield.

The following day early, when the men had gathered in the great empty bar-room, Taras came among them. They had not seen him for a space of four-and-twenty hours, but the havoc wrought in his appearance seemed the work of years. He was fearfully altered, looking like an old man now, overcome with life's distress.

"Dear friends," he said, speaking very calmly and kindly, "I pray you listen to me, but do not try to turn me from my firm resolve. I release you one and all from the fealty you have sworn to me. I am your leader no longer. Please God, this will be the last time that you will see me; I have prayed to Him earnestly to let my life and the yielding up of its every hope be sufficient atonement. Yes, I have pleaded with Him in mercy to let your ways be far from mine; for the path I have to tread will now take me to Colomea, to prison, and thence to the final doom."

A cry of horror interrupted him. "For God's sake," they cried, "what is it that has come to you?"

"Not thus, if you love me," he said, gently, warding them off. "I have followed the voice of my own heart so far, let me follow it still. That voice has deceived me hitherto, leading me to misery and crime; it is speaking well this day for the first time! Yet, be very sure, I was not wrong in saying that the plain will of God required Right and Justice to be upheld in this world; not wrong in accusing those of their shortcomings whose sacred duty it is to see that justice rules here below, but who do not carry out this duty to its fullest, holiest meaning. My mistake was this, that I fancied this unfulfilled duty could by the will of God devolve upon me or any other individual man. To be sure I who sacrificed all earthly happiness at the shrine of justice, who became a murderer in blind love of the right, and now go to the gallows--I most not be unjust, not even against myself, and therefore I say it was a natural mistake. For what more natural than to argue: Since they will not guard the right whose bounden duty it is, I will do so, who am strong at heart and pure of purpose! But, nevertheless, it was a grievous mistake. I see it now. I still believe in that grand, holy ladder of His making which is intended to join earth to heaven; but plainly it is not His will, even if some of its steps at times be rotten, that any single man should take upon himself to make up in his own poor strength for any failings in that glorious institution for working out the divine will. It were proud, sinful presumption in any man, and I have done evil in His sight, not merely in disregarding what mischief must accrue if others followed my example, but chiefly on account of the awful delusion that I was above erring, and that my judgments must needs be just! And how did I come to imagine this? Because I chose to believe that the Almighty must keep me from foiling--me, His servant, the righteous, justice-loving Taras. It was just my pride! The magistrates, the courts, might err, but I never! And yet how great is the danger if the carrying out of justice be vested in any individual man!--the work I have undertaken could not but end like this! I believed I was doing right, and I have been utterly confounded. The Baron of Borsowka was a righteous man, and I, who presumed to judge him, have been his murderer."

"But that was not your fault; you were deceived by Karol!" they cried.

"I was," replied Taras; "yet the guilt rests with me for not examining into the charge more carefully. Why did I refuse his urgent request to send for witnesses to the village? I am his murderer. I, and no one else; and since I have judged falsely in his case, how can I be sure that I have not done so in others? But, be that as it may, I am an assassin, and it behoves me to expiate my crime, submitting to those whom God has called to judge any evildoer in the land. I am going to Colomea to give myself up."

Vainly they strove to turn him from his resolve. He kept repeating: "I follow the voice within, and it has begun to speak truth." With heavy hearts they perceived it was utterly useless to plead with him, and listened to his last farewell. He enjoined them to separate at once and to begin a new life each for himself in different parts of the country. He had a word of sympathy, of advice for each. "Forty florins are still in my possession," he added, producing the sum; "it is all I have left of the money contributed by honest peasants towards my work. Take it and divide it fairly. Let it be the same with the proceeds of your arms and horses."