The Chief Justice: A Novel

by Karl Emil Franzos

The proceedings had to be interrupted. It was another half hour before the Accused appeared in Court again, leaning on Berger's arm, her features set like those of an animated corpse. There was a satirical murmur in the crowd, and Werner, too, reflected whether he should not, there and then, reprove the Counsel for unseemly behaviour. And this determined him to be all the severer in the reprimand which he addressed to the Accused on account of her unheard of impertinence. She should not escape her just punishment, the nature and extent of which he would determine by the opinion of the prison-doctor.

Then the reading of the deed of accusation was finished; the examination began. There was a murmur of eager expectation among the spectators; their curiosity was briefly but abundantly satisfied. To the question whether she pleaded guilty, Victorine Lippert answered quietly but with a steadier voice than one would have supposed her capable of:

"Yes!... What I know about my deed, I have already told in evidence. I deserve death, I wish to die. It is a matter of indifference to one about to die what men may think of her; God knows the truth. He knows that much, yes most, of what has just been read here, is incorrect. I do not contest it, but one thing I swear in the face of death, and may God have no mercy on me in my last hour if I lie; my mother was noble and good; no mother can ever have been better and no wife more pure. She trusted an unworthy wretch, and he must have been worse than ever any man was, if he could forsake her--but she was good. I implore you, read her testimonials, her letters to me--I beseech you, I conjure you, just a few of these letters.-For myself I have nothing to ask--"

Her voice broke, her strength again seemed to forsake her and she sank down on her seat.

There was a deep silence after she had ended: in her words, in her voice, there must have been something that the hearts of those present could not shut out; even the crown-advocate looked embarrassed. Herr von Werner alone was so resolutely armed to meet the Hydra of the social Revolution, which he was bent on combating in this forlorn creature, as to be above all pity. He would certainly have begun a wearisome examination and have spared the poor creature no single detail, but his daughter was expecting a happy event to-day, and Baron Sendlingen had, notwithstanding, not had sufficient professional consideration to take over the conduct of this trial, and the half hour's faint of the Accused had already unduly prolonged the proceedings--so he determined to cut the matter as short as was compatible with his position. The accused had just again unreservedly repeated her confession; further questions, he explained, would be superfluous.

The examination of the witnesses could be proceeded with at once. This also was quickly got through. There were the peasants, who had found Victorine and her lifeless child on the morrow of the deed, and the prison doctor, none of whom could advance any fresh or material fact.

The only witness of importance to the Accused was the servant-girl who had helped her in her last few months at the castle. The girl had been shortly after dismissed from the Countess' service, and in the preliminary inquiry, she had confirmed all Victorine's statements; if she to-day remained firm to her previous declarations, the accusation of premeditated murder would be severely shaken. To Berger's alarm she now evasively answered that her memory was weak,--she had in the meantime gone into service at Graskowitz again. In spite of this and of the protest of the defence, she was sworn: Berger announced his intention of appealing for a nullification of the trial.

Then the depositions of the Countess and her son were read; the Court had declined to subpœna them. The Countess had not spared time or trouble in depicting the murderess in all her abandonment; but the depositions which Count Henry had made at his embassy, were brief enough: as far as he recollected he had made the girl no promise of marriage, and indeed there was no reason for doing so. Berger demanded, as proof to the contrary, that the letters which had been taken from the Accused and put with the other papers, should he read aloud; this the Court also declined because they did not affect the question of her guilt.

Then followed the speeches for and against. The Crown-Advocate was brief enough: the trial, he contended, had established the correctness of the charge. If ever at all, then in the present case, should the full rigour of the law be enforced. By her protestation that she had received a most careful bringing up from a most excellent mother, she had herself cut from under her feet the only ground for mitigation. All the more energetically and fully did Berger plead for the utmost possible leniency; his knowledge of law, his intellect and his oratorical gifts had perhaps never before been so brilliantly displayed. When he had finished, the people in Court broke out into tumultuous applause.

The Judges retired to consider their verdict. They were not long absent; in twenty minutes they again appeared in Court. Werner pronounced sentence: death by hanging. The qualification of "unanimous" was wanting. Baron Dernegg had been opposed to it.