For the Right

by Karl Emil Franzos

"Hold your tongue, you villain!" burst from a hundred voices; and when Simeon added, indignantly, "Be off, wretch that you are!" the echo went round, "Be off!" The worthy hero grew pale, continuing, however, to smile and to twist his moustache, that finest of moustaches in all Pokutia. But ere long his smile forsook him, for he beheld a little armed band that had pressed up to the speaker, endeavouring now, with cries of resentment, to make their way to him. There were six of them--Hritzko and Giorgi Pomenko, the sons of Simeon; Sefko and Jemilian, Taras's men; Wassilj Soklewicz, and with him a stranger--that same Lazarko Rodakowicz, whom Taras had admitted to his own followers, although he had come to him from Green Giorgi, the outlaw. They were in a towering rage, and evidently bent on punishing the corporal.

Constantino trembled visibly, offering not the slightest resistance when two of his comrades--like him, on furlough--took hold, one of his right arm and one of his left, to drag him away towards the inn. The people made room, but the words which fell from their lips were anything but complimentary. "You cur!" cried the men, "you heartless scoundrel, how dare you insult that man in his sorrow? ... Cannot you see that he has resolved upon an awful thing, even his own death? ... And besides this, are you not one of ourselves, you beggar? Do you not know that respect is due to the general meeting?"

The crestfallen warrior saw fit to hold his peace, making what haste he could towards the safety of the inn. Not till he had gained the threshold did he find courage to bethink himself of some witty remark, but it shrank back within his own soul on his entering the parlour; he stood still, abashed.

They had laid down the wife of Taras on one of the broad wooden benches of the deserted place. The heart-broken woman was a sight to move any man; some of the women were striving to comfort her, especially the good little popadja and a kindhearted Jewess, the innkeeper's wife. Poor Anusia had recovered from her swoon; she lay with wide-open eyes, moving her lips, and burying her hands wildly in the black masses of her hair, which hung about the death-like face. But her mind seemed wandering, she gazed absently; and no words--a moaning only fell from her lips, rising to a smothered cry at times, and dying away. The women who tended her felt their blood run cold with the pity of it--no impassioned speech, no flood of tears, could have moved them like that stifled cry, as of a wild creature in an agony of pain. Once only she found the power of words when the corporal had just entered the room--"Away, whitecoat!" she cried.

But the next moment she raised herself on the bench, clasping her hands and holding them out to him with piteous entreaty: "No--stop--hear me! Make him a prisoner--don't let him go--for the merciful Christ's sake, make him a prisoner!"

She sought to gain her feet, but the women held her back gently: "She is going out of her mind!" they whispered, awe-struck, making signs to the corporal to be gone. He was only too glad to obey, quaking with horror, and retreating to the open air. Silence had fallen without, and the crowd once more prepared to listen to the haggard, grief-maddened man, who had once been the gentlest and most peace-loving of them all, and whose wife could but entreat his meanest enemy now to hold him back from lawless deeds....

"To come to the point," Taras was saying, "the most painful part of it all--how did I come to be a curse to you, to myself, to all in this place? It is the consequence of an awful mistake; yet it was not my belief itself that was at fault, nor my trust in you, but my confidence in others!

"To this day it is my deepest, holiest conviction, and I will maintain it with my dying breath, that this world is founded on justice. To each of us, I hold, God has given a duty to perform, but we have our rights also, which others must not infringe. This indeed is the staff which the Almighty has given us to enable us to bear up under our load. For a burden each one has to carry. And for this reason no one shall dare to touch his neighbour's staff, or to add unrighteously to his load. For He that dwelleth above has ordered all things wisely, adjusting the burden of each man, and weighing it in the scales of His equity. The man who dares to interfere with this highest justice, sins against God's rule upon earth, and he shall not do so with impunity. But the Almighty does not visit every deed of wrong with His own arm; for He will not have us look upon justice, or atonement for its violation, as on something supernatural, but as on a thing essential to this life of ours, like the air we breathe. For this reason He has portioned out the earth into countries, calling a man to the rulership of each, to be judge in His stead, to protect the well-doer and to punish the evil-doer. This God-appointed man--it is the Emperor with us--has a great burden laid on him by the Almighty, but also a stronger staff to uphold him than any of ours, the Imperial power. Yet the most powerful man is but human, and even an emperor has but two eyes to see; and, like the poorest of his subjects, he can only be in one place at a time. So he, again, follows the divine example, portioning out his great empire into districts, appointing a man in each to be judge in his stead, and investing him for that purpose with some of his power--for since he is to bear part of the Emperor's burden, it is but fair he should have part of the Emperor's staff to strengthen him. These men are the magistrates; and in their turn they follow out the example of their master, the Emperor, and the higher example of Him above--they see that every parish is administered by its own judge, yielding to him part of their power to guard the right. In like manner every village judge behaves to the heads of families. I look upon it as a glorious ladder, replete with comfort, uniting earth with heaven, and bringing us poor sinful men nearer to Him who made us. I say it is glorious, because the proudest intellect could not add anything to its perfect goodness; and I say it is replete with comfort, because the very lowest step of this ladder is under the same law as the highest. For no matter whether I be a shepherd or a king, he who wrongs me is committing equal sin, and it is the duty of those to whom God has entrusted the power to protect the shepherd as though he were a king. My duty is to do what is right, and not suffer any wrong silently, but to report it to those whom God has appointed to protect me. All further responsibility must rest with them!

"Such being to this day my holiest conviction, I am unable to swerve from my former opinion concerning you. You appeared to me like wild beasts, your love of avenging yourselves filled me with horror until I perceived whence it came; it was because you had not yet been taught to wean yourselves from the ways of your ancestors, who, descending from the mountains, settled here. They did well to look upon their firelocks as the best argument in maintaining their rights. For God will have the right respected, and the ladder I have spoken of is subservient to it; but where the influence of that ladder cannot make itself felt, as in the far-off mountain districts, the power of watching over his own right must return to the individual man. God Himself must have so willed it, otherwise He would not have peopled those outlying haunts. But you, who are within reach of the law, continued to act as though God had never made the provision I have spoken of! It filled me with horror unspeakable; and if your lesser shortcomings had power to rouse that pride of mine, how much more so this offence!...

"Many of you will remember my wedding-day, and how I was laughed at for being so serious; but I was not sad, only full of thought. I knew that I was about to enter upon an entirely new life, a life beset with the most difficult duties. For when I stood before the altar I not only married the girl I loved, but, if I may so express it, I married this village; and not only to her, but to you also, ay, and to Justice herself, I promised with a sacred oath to be faithful unto death. No words of mine could ever express what I felt on that day, how my thoughts from my own newly-granted happiness would roam away to a solemn future. For I knew that all my life in this place would be a falsehood if I did not strive with might and main to bring you to accept that will of God for yourselves also.... On my wedding-day! such a terrible taskmaster was that pride of mine!...