Judith Trachtenberg: A Novel

by Karl Emil Franzos

With the air of a man of injured honor, he stepped up to the judge and handed in his resignation. "The investigation will establish my innocence, but I will not remain after these insulting suspicions. I owe this to my dignity, the dignity of my position and of my colleagues, who have acted with the same zeal. I can affirm this with confidence, for I know their manner of conducting business," and he named a number of officials, each of whom had a worse reputation than the other.

The judge listened. A tremendous scandal was threatened. He commenced the inquiry, but reported this at Lemberg. The government reflected, the scamp was out of harm's way, and it mattered little to the state whether he got a pension or some years' imprisonment; besides, the cost would be the same, for he would be certain to drag a number of companions down with him, and his patron was still alive. So the investigation was stopped after two months, and Herr von Wroblewski was pensioned off.

The result was unsatisfactory to all parties, but chiefly to Raphael. Though displaced from office, the magistrate had escaped his well-earned punishment, "because he sinned mostly against Jews," thought Raphael, and the reflection made him more bitter than ever.

On the other hand, after Wroblewski was over his first annoyance, he was well satisfied with his lot. The dignitaries of the town and the nobles in the neighborhood were cold towards him, it is true; but a little philosophy made that endurable, especially when there were always some amiable people to be met who would appreciate his and his wife's social talents. He was free from the tiresome duties of office, and could stand the reduction in pay, since a brief note to the count was always effectual in producing any sum, he chose to ask for.

Agenor never wrote. In all this time Wroblewski had not received a line from him, and consequently knew as little as others where the lovers were staying. The bailiff, Herr Michael Stiegle, a silent, grumpy Swabian, forwarded the letters punctually, and brought the replies in a form which delighted the heart of the ex-magistrate more than the tenderest epistle could have done.

True, Herr Stiegle made sour faces; and when Herr von Wroblewski, after he had been turned out by Raphael, desired a wing of the castle to be prepared for him, the bailiff threatened even to be rude. But a letter from the count caused him to carry out this wish too. In short, Wroblewski lived as pleasantly as formerly, and much more free from care.

The letters from Russia did not disturb his equanimity, and the more threatening they became the more amusement they afforded. "What fools try to be scamps nowadays!" he said, contemptuously. "Such a stupid fellow, and yet he wishes to be a scamp!"

What did Ignatius Tondka want? Of the three hundred gulden the count promised him monthly, he received one hundred, a sum upon which he could live very comfortably in Mohilev. It was impertinent for him to demand the entire amount and to recall Agenor's promise. "The count refuses to give more," Wroblewski had written repeatedly. "He knows you. You would not dare to betray him, or to return to Austria, for your own sake."

The impudent fellow, however, was not content with this, but kept on writing. "I will ruin you both, though I perish myself." It was too comical!

So the days sped by, pleasant days of leisure for the former official; and as neither the Rittmeister nor the prior belonged to those narrow-minded men who had given them the cut because of the court of inquiry and its results, Lady Anna was also content.