For the Right. Karl Emil Franzos

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      The boy turned and looked; the old man had sunk to his knee, a picture of suffering, and the boy did pity him, coming back accordingly. "What is it?" he said, "what can I do for you?" At which Waleri, bursting upon him, caught him exultingly. "Have I got you?" he shrieked, clutching his hair and treating him mercilessly.

      "For heaven's sake," cried Taras, "spare me!" But pity there was none with the old wretch; beside himself with hatred, he held the boy with one arm, ill-using him with the other wherever his fist could fall. Taras struggled vainly for awhile, but with a wrench of despair he got free at last. He escaped. Waleri ran after him for a step or two. The geese were wild with terror, and one of the creatures had got between the man's feet; he fell heavily, knocking his head against the stone by the cross. The boy heard a piercing cry; he saw that his enemy was on the ground, but not till he had reached the further end of the common did he turn once more to look back. The old man lay motionless by the stone, the geese pressed about him, stretching their necks with a noisy cackle. He felt tolerably safe now from his enemy, for even if it were but another trick of his meanness he could scarcely overtake him at that distance; but as he stood and gazed a wild fear fell upon the boy, his heart beating violently.

      "He is dead!" The thought flashed through him as a shock of lightning, and he felt dragged back to the scene helplessly. He retraced his steps towards the cross, and stood still within ten yards or so. A cry burst from him of pure horror--he saw the blood trickling over the upturned face. He pressed together his lips, and went close--slowly, tremblingly--quite close. The man was evidently unconscious, his face corpse-like and fearful to look at; there was a deep cut on the forehead, and the purple blood flowed copiously over the distorted face, trickling to the ground.

      The boy stood still with labouring breath, as though spellbound. Horror and disgust, joy, scorn, revenge, and yet again compassion, went through him, the good rising uppermost in the great conflict that shook his soul. He thought of his mother, and bending down to the water he bathed the forehead of the unconscious man. The blood kept flowing. He tore off the sleeve of his shirt, and, making a bandage, pressed it upon the wound. Walen groaned, but did not open his eyes. "He is dying!" thought Taras, but strove as best he could to stop the bleeding, crying for help at the same time with all his might.

      A young peasant, the son-in-law of the village judge, riding by at some distance, heard his calling--the wind lengthening out the sound. He came dashing up, and what he saw might well fill him with surprise. "And you, Taras--you trying to save him!" he cried, when the boy had told his story simply and truthfully. It was more than he could understand. But he turned to the sufferer, sending Taras to the village for assistance. The boy returned with the judge himself, together with Waleri's son and some of his servants.

      They took up the wounded man and carried him to his home, the judge looking at the boy repeatedly with unfeigned wonder. "Taras," he said at last, "I think if He whom they call the Christ were alive, He would just be proud of you, I do indeed! That is to say, we are told He is alive, and I daresay He will repay you for this!" At which the boy blushed crimson, remembering what a struggle it had cost him; he did not deserve any praise, he thought.

      But from this hour the people thought well of him in the village; all were anxious to show their approval, and those that had spoken kindly of him before were quite proud of their discriminating wisdom. Waleri recovered, continuing to hate him; but this utter ingratitude made others the more anxious to befriend him. The judge especially, henceforth, stood by the lad, giving him a place as under-servant on his own farm; and, he being looked upon as the chief authority of the village, his example told naturally. But of far more consequence than these things was the influence of that occurrence upon the inner growth of the boy. So far, he had simply believed his mother, that one must deserve kindness by being good; now he knew it by his own experience. "Yes," he said to himself, "justice is the foundation of things;" and more than ever he tried to fulfil his every duty to the utmost. But the golden opinions he gathered were his gain in a double sense; for there is no greater help toward well-doing than the knowledge that one is believed in, and all the clearer grew that fair creed within him which his mother had taught him concerning the world and its retribution. What at first had been only a sort of childish self-interest, grew to be the very backbone of his character: he could not but try and be good, just, and helpful. It could be said of him, without a shade of flattery, that no servant-lad ever had been so well behaved as he; and when his mother died, the fifteen-year-old youth had as many comforters and friends as there were people in the village. The stain on his birth even grew to be cause of praise. "Why, look you," the judge would say, "this boy is really no proper child at all; anyhow he is quite unfathered, and could be as rascally as he pleased, for there's none to cast it up to him. I might give him a box on the ear at times, but that could not make up for a father's thrashing. And, in the face of all this, this Taras is just the best boy in the village. He will be a great man one of these days, I tell you! My prophecies always come true--you will find out what stuff he is made of before you have done with him, and then please remember I said so."

      And the time came when the young man gave evidence of the stuff within him, but that which brought it out was a sore trial to the brave-hearted youth. He was barely eighteen, and had come to be a ploughman on the judge's farm, when one day the Imperial constables brought an old soldier into the village, Hritzko Stankiewicz by name, a wretched creature with a worn-out body and a rotten soul. Begging and stealing, he had found his way from Italy to Galicia, where the police had picked him up, and now he was being delivered over to his own parish of Ridowa. It wad Taras's father. The judge, in well-meant pity, was for concealing this from the young man, but the latter had heard the name often enough from his mother, and he went at once to the gaol where the vagabond had been located. The wretched man quaked when his son stood before him, and fearing he had come to take vengeance for his mother, the miserable coward took refuge in denial, insulting the woman he had ruined in her grave. Pale as death, and trembling, Taras went out from him, and for several days he went about the village mute and like one demented.

      The following Sunday after church the men of the parish gathered beneath the linden tree in front of the village inn, after the usage of times immemorial, the day's question being what had best be done with the returned vagabond. "It seems plain," said the judge, "that we cannot keep the thieving beggar in our midst. Let us send him to Lemberg, paying for his maintenance. He won't like it; but it is a great deal more than he has deserved. It is the best device, I warrant." The men agreed. "It is," they cried, lifting their right hand in token of assent.

      At this moment Taras stepped forth. His face was ghastly, as though he had risen from a sickbed. "Ye men," he cried, with choked voice, folding his hands, "pity me; listen to me!" But tears drowned what further he had to say, and he sank to his knees.

      "Don't, don't!" they all cried, full of compassion, "you need not mind, we all know what a good fellow you are."

      But Taras shook his head, and with a great effort stood upright among them. "I have to mind," he cried, "and in my mother's behalf I am here, speaking because she no longer can speak! He is my father though he denies it! Only him she trusted, because he was her affianced lover, and never another! If I were silent in this matter, it might be thought of her that after all she was a bad woman, and her son does not know his own father. Therefore, I say, listen to me: I do know! and as my mother's son I take it upon me to provide for my father. Do not put him into the workhouse, he cannot work. And if I take care of him, he will not be a burden to the village. For God's sake, then, have pity on me--and leave him here!"

      There was a long pause of silence, and then the judge said, addressing the men: "We should be worse than hard-hearted if we refused him. But we will not be gainers thereby; the parish shall pay for Hritzko what it would cost us did we send him to Lemberg. It shall be as this good son desires; and God's blessing be upon him!"

      For eight years after, the miserable wretch lived in the village. It was a time of continued suffering for Taras. Every joy of youth he renounced, striving day and night СКАЧАТЬ