The Strange Story of Rab Ráby

by Mór Jókai

And the broth revived the wretched prisoner, half-starved and frozen as he was, with new life, and he eagerly swallowed it. He was conscious of a feeling of anger against himself for thus being so ready to accept alleviation for his miserable body, that so little emulated his strong, unconquered soul. One thing alone lightened the memories of his sufferings, and that was the voice that had cheered his loneliness with its encouraging whisper. And lulled by the unaccustomed warmth, he sank into a comforting slumber, and at his awakening, only had his bandaged limbs to remind him of his irons. Yet the remembrance that it was to Petray, of all people, that he owed this amelioration of his misery, stung him as with a lash.

But just then the door opened, and in walked his enemy himself. He came up to Ráby's couch and asked the prisoner how he had slept, and whether he felt better. But the captive answered these hypocritical enquiries by never so much as a word.

"You have to thank me for this change, you know," pursued Petray, "for I have been chosen as your advocate when you appeal against your sentence."

"What?" cried Ráby, in his excitement springing up, in spite of his weakness, from the couch. "You to be my defender! You who are already gravely impeached in the indictment I have formulated! Why such a false position is impossible; it is you who must stand at the bar. Do you mean to say you, who are my worst enemy, are entrusted with my defence?"

Petray smiled. He knew well enough he had a sick man to deal with, who was physically incapable of attacking him.

"Now you see how unjust it makes you, this misunderstanding. You shall know that the accused must have a counsel when he is confronted by the indictment. There are two of us, myself and the lieutenant, who have to take your case in hand; which do you prefer, him or me?"

"Neither," cried Ráby indignantly. "I am my own counsel, and I know how to defend myself, and do not need any of your help."

"My dear friend, be reasonable; see how unjust this is," said Petray in a wheedling voice. "You think I would defend you badly. But it is because I want to prevent you running your head against a wall that I am doing this. Listen, I'll read you the points of your defence."

And Petray proceeded to read the document in which he had set forth Ráby's case with such cunning adroitness, that black appeared white in his representations, and white wholly black. Such a web of sophistries, in fact, had he woven, that it had been difficult for a hearer to disentangle the truth. In it all the guilt was laid at the door of the dead "pope," and Ráby appeared as a too confiding victim of his wiles and misrepresentations. It was a tissue of false statements, yet Ráby listened to the end.

Then he said indignantly: "So you really believe I need all that for my justification, do you, that the guiltless are to be blamed and the criminal cleared, in order that the truth be made manifest; that I withdraw the impeachment already made against you, that I allow peaceable and harmless peasants to be attainted as rebels; that I disavow the responsibility of redressing their grievances, and that for this, a dead yet innocent man be blamed, and his memory be defamed. No such defence for me, thank you!"