For the Right

by Karl Emil Franzos

"I do believe in Him," said Taras, solemnly, "and I believe that He is all just, but that He brought me into this village, and that all this bitter grief has come upon me by His will, I do not believe. For if He guided every step and action of ours, if our fate were all His doing, no wrong could be done on earth. Nor does He, and we are not mere puppets in His hand!"

"Puppets! what an expression!" cried the pope, rather perplexed and therefore doubly vehement. "Nay, we are His children!"

Taras nodded. "His children, yes," he said; "if we may use an earthly simile to describe our relation to Him, that is the word. But what does it mean? we owe to our natural parents life and the training they give us; beyond this they cannot influence us; and so some of us are good, some are bad, some are happy, and some unhappy, whereas every one surely would be good and happy if the will of our parents could bring it about. And it seems to me we stand in a similar relation to Him above. He has made this world and the men that live therein, revealing to them His will: 'Be righteous!' He does give us a training by the very fact that the circumstances of our birth and childhood are as He wills them. But what we make of it, and what steps we take in life, that plainly is our doing. I own that we cannot go to the right or to the left in unbiassed liberty, for we choose according to our nature, following our heart and mind, such as they have become."

"I do not seem to understand," owned the pope, hesitatingly; "but it would appear you believe in a blind sort of predestined fate, like any old crone of the village."

"No," cried Taras, sharply. "Let me try and explain. During the years of my happiness, when blessings were about me, full and rich, like the summer sun ripening the harvest, with no shadowing cloud overhead, I did believe the goodness of God had thus ordered my day, and in my heart I thanked him. But when darkness overtook me with sorrow unspeakable, I grew sore at heart and hopeless as the lonely wanderer in the storm-tossed wilderness, seeking for shelter in the driving snow, and not a star to guide him in the night; before him and behind no voice but that of howling wolves.... No, said I, this is not the will of God; it is fate! Let me go the way that is destined--happiness and blessings were to be, and the misery is to be, and the end is not mine to choose! Of what avail that I should strive thus wearily, seeking the path in darkness and battling to escape the wolves, since it is destined that either I be victorious, or fall their helpless prey? It was foolish, nay, maddening, while I thought so, but now I see differently: Nothing is predestined, our fate is here and here"--he pointed to his head and heart--"our virtues and vices are our guides in life, and besides this there is but one guidance to those that will listen to it, that all-encompassing will of God--'Thou child of man, act righteously!' That is it."

"This is not a faith I can hold," said the pope, "but I am glad, at least, that you do not believe either in a blind fate or in mere chance. For my part," he added, solemnly, "I shall always believe in the overruling of a Divine Providence that numbers the very hairs of our head."

"That faith has been taken from me," replied Taras. "His heaping sorrow upon sorrow on me could be compensated for in the world to come; but I see the right trampled under foot, and the wrong victorious, and this cannot be by the dispensation of God. No; it is just the outcome of the folly or the wickedness of man. As to chance, I certainly believe in it--who could live on this earth for well-nigh forty years and deny it, having eyes to see! There surely is such a thing as chance. Have you forgotten what I told you as to my coming hither, or do you think it was God's special providence to let that Sunday morning be fine? Did He order His sun to shine, merely that a poor man, Taras Barabola, should become head servant of Iwan Woronka's at Zulawce, and not of that priest to whom I might have gone? Is it not sheer presumption to suggest as much? I say, there is a chance, but it does not make a plaything of us, we rather play with it, making it subservient to our destiny. The bright sunshine that Sunday morning certainly brought me hither; but do you think it made me the husband of Anusia, or brought about my becoming the people's judge? Do I owe to that sunshine the good that has come to me since, and the great load of evil? Surely not, that was all my own doing, and nothing else. Chance, then, is nothing; but what we make of it can be little or much."

He drew himself up, looking proudly at the pope. "And this," he cried, "must explain my every act hitherto, and my future actions. If I could believe that Providence has mapped out my fate, I would follow blindly. Could I believe in chance or destiny, I should abide quietly what further they will make of me. But I believe no such thing--I hold that every man must follow the voice within, ay, the voice of God speaking to him in the highest law: 'Be righteous! Do no wrong, and permit no wrong!' And these two commandments, equally sacred, I will obey while life is mine!"

He turned abruptly and went away.

Christmas had come. It is not a day of the children in the Carpathians; they have no presents given them, and the Christmas-tree is unknown; the one thing marking it out from other days being a certain dish of millet, poppy seed and honey, with mead as a beverage. In Taras's family, too, the day hitherto had thus been kept; but now he sent one of his men to Zablotow, ordering him to get various little presents for his own children and those of Father Leo. "It is a way they have at Vienna," he said to his wife; "it seems a pleasant custom. And I would wish that the children should remember this Christmas Day."