The young clerk was much astonished when Sendlingen actually made a sign to him to withdraw.
"Thank you," said the raftsman after the door was shut "Well, how I know of your trouble? In the first place one can read it in your face, and secondly I saw you one stormy night--it may be eight weeks ago--wandering about the streets by yourself. You went down to the river; I was watchman on a raft at the time and I saw you plainly. There were tears running down your cheeks, but even if your eyes had been dry--well no one goes roaming alone and at random on such a night, unless he is in great trouble."
Sendlingen bowed his head lower over the papers before him. Novyrok continued:
"An hour later, your friend brought you into our inn whither I had come in the meanwhile after my mate had relieved me of the watch. You were unconscious. I helped to carry you and take you home.... I don't tell you this in the hope that you may punish me less than I deserve, but just that I may say to you: you too, my Lord, know what suffering is--do you find the thought of God comforting, and what do you think of confession?"
Sendlingen made no reply; the recollection of that most fatal night of his existence and the solemn question of the poor fellow, had deeply moved him. "You must have experienced something, Novyrok," he said at length, "that has shaken your Faith."
"Something, my Lord? Alas, everything!--Alas, my whole life! I don't believe there are many people to whom the world is a happy place, but such men as I should never have been born at all. I have never known father or mother, I came into the world in a foundling hospital on a Sylvester's Eve some fifty years ago--the exact date I don't know--and that's why they called me 'Novyrok' (New-Year). I had to suffer a great deal because of my birth; it is beyond all belief how I was knocked about as a boy and youth among strangers--even a dog knows its mother but I did not. And therefore one thing very soon became clear to me: many disgraceful things happen on this earth, but the most disgraceful thing of all is to bring children into the world in this way. Don't you think so, my Lord?"
Sendlingen did not answer.
"And I acted accordingly," continued Novyrok, "and had no love-affair, though I had to put great restraint upon myself. I don't know whether virtue is easy to rich people; to the poor it is very bitter. It was not until I became steersman of a raft and was earning four gulden a week that I married an honest girl, a laundress, and she bore me a daughter. That was a bright time, my Lord, but it didn't last long. My wife began to get sickly and couldn't any longer earn any thing; we got into want, although I honestly did my utmost and often, after the raft was brought to, I chopped wood or stacked coal all night through when I got the chance. Well, however poorly we had to live, we did manage to live; things didn't get really bad till she died. My mates advised me then to give the care of my child to other people--and go as a raftsman to foreign parts, on a big river, the Elbe or the Danube: 'Wages,' they said, 'are twice as much there and you, as an able raftsman, can't help getting on.' But I hadn't got it in my heart to leave my little daughter. Besides I was anxious about her; to be sure she was only just thirteen, and a good, honest child, but she promised to be very nice-looking. If you go away, I said to myself, you may perhaps stay away for many years, and there are plenty of men in this world without a conscience, and temptation is great! So I stayed, and so as not to be separated from her even for a week, I gave up being a raftsman and became a workman at a foundry. But I was awkward at the work, the wages were pitiful, and though my daughter, poor darling, stitched her eyes out of her head, we were more often hungry than full. I frequently complained, not to her, but to others, and cursed my wretched existence--I was a fool! for I was happy in those days; I did my duty to my child."
Novyrok paused. Sendlingen sighed deeply. "And then?" he asked.
"Then, my Lord," continued the raftsman, "then came the dark hour, when I yielded to my folly and selfishness. Maybe I am too hard on myself in saying this, for I thought more of my child's welfare than my own, and many people thought what I did reasonable. But otherwise I must accuse Him above, and before I do that I would rather accuse myself. But I will tell you what happened in a few words. A former mate of mine who was working at the salt shipping trade on the Traun, persuaded me to go with him, just for one summer, and the high wages tempted me. My girl was sixteen at that time; she was like a rose, my Lord, to look at. But before I went I told her my story, where I was born and who my mother very likely was, and I said to her: 'Live honestly, my girl, or when I come back in the autumn I will strike you dead, and then jump into the deepest part of the river.' She cried and swore to me she'd be good. But when I came back in the autumn----"