Judith Trachtenberg: A Novel

by Karl Emil Franzos

But this could not explain the mystery which had taken possession of his heart. "Perhaps," he sometimes thought, "it is only pity, or horror of the fate towards which I am leading her, if I continue so weak."

This fate seemed gloomy enough to him. "She is not a girl who would accommodate herself to the position of a kept mistress, or would be shrewd enough to save her reputation by marriage with another man." Through the anxious nights he thought, with horror, "She cannot survive it! You will be her murderer!" With feverish pulses he paced up and down his bedroom till, quite worn out, he sank again into his chair. But the voice of his conscience kept repeating, through the stillness of the night, "Her murderer! if your weakness is not overcome."

Could he give her up? It seemed impossible; more impossible than ever, now when every nerve of his body tingled with feverish, almost painful desire. Could he make her his wife? "Rather die!" he said to himself; and, as he sat there brooding over it, there seemed but one thing equal to the disgrace of placing Judith Trachtenberg's name in the line of his pedigree, and that was the committing a base action.

The dawn found him absorbed in these confused, antagonistic ideas. He had his horse saddled, and galloped away across the heath, without rest, without aim; then dropped the reins, and, as he rode slowly back over the plain, from which the morning mists were rising, he became more composed in body and mind. He had viewed things too gloomily in the silence of this painful night, and he tried to strengthen himself in this opinion by a thousand subterfuges. But there was one idea that he could not coax himself to tolerate--that of a nobleman taking to his arms a girl of inferior birth, and she, after years of separation, meeting with a new love and a husband.

Still, though Agenor could not make her his wife, he could make this proud, beautiful creature the companion of his life; and was this such a disgraceful position that she would reject it with scorn? She would not, if she loved him as the old chroniclers said Esther did the king. He would be perfectly frank, and tell her she could count on his love and fidelity, but not on his hand. He resolved upon this as he rode home across the glowing heather. He would neither commit a crime against her nor violate his conscience; and should she tear herself away from him, he must find strength to endure it. If any one doubts the possibility of renunciation, let him go to the moorlands in autumn to learn it.

With a pacified conscience and filled with good resolves, he reached home. As he entered the courtyard he frowned angrily. The magistrate's britzska stood before the door. His interviews with this man were growing more and more painful; each time Wroblewski became more insolent and more familiar, and, in his present frame of mind, nothing could be more unpleasant than a meeting with his "faithful aid."

He met his unwelcome guest in the breakfast-room. "You see," shouted the latter, "I make myself quite at home; I have even ordered Jan to put a plate for me."

Agenor nodded, sat down, and invited him by a wave of the hand to help himself. "And to what am I indebted for this pleasure?" he asked, abruptly.

"You don't appear to consider it much of a pleasure," the official said, playfully, filling his plate. "And wrongly, too! You really ought to be satisfied with me, or do you fancy you would have secured a meeting in the park without my assistance?"

"Don't speak in such a tone," said the young man. "So you know of that already."