Youth Without God

by Odon Von Horvath

  “The youth of to-day,” he explained, “bears no traces of brutalization. Thanks to a high standard of health, our youngsters have a strong sense of devotion to duty and they place their country before themselves. This murder is a solitary and deeply regrettable example of retrogression to the worst days of liberalism.”

  The bell rang; break was over, and the teacher had to go back to his class and his task of building up his young material into worthy patriots. It is indeed something to be thankful for that this murder case represents only an exceptionally rare outbreak of criminal individualism.

  An interview with the sergeant was printed below mine. There was a picture of him too, as he might have looked thirty years ago, the conceited fool.

  What had he to say?

  I then spent a few minutes with the Military Instruction Chief—or, in short, the I.C. He greeted me with the greatest courtesy and in his bearing I was aware of the vigour of an old soldier who has never let himself grow stale. In his view, the tragedy is due to a lack of discipline. He had a few words to say about the condition of the corpse when it was found. He had been through the whole of the last war and had never seen such a grisly wound. “As an old soldier, I’m all for peace,” he said in conclusion of this revelatory interview.

  I also saw the President of the Society for the Prevention of Neglect and Cruelty to Children, Mrs. K, who is the wife of a master chimney-sweep. She bitterly deplored the case. For days, she stated, she has been troubled by disturbing dreams. In her opinion, it is high time that better schools of correction were established, in view of the social need for them.

  I turned over the page. Who was this? I was right. It was the baker, N, the murdered boy’s father. His wife’s picture was there too. Mrs. Elizabeth N, née S——.

  “I will readily answer your questions,” said the baker to me. “Incorruptible justice will elicit whether our poor Otto fell victim to the unpardonable negligence of those in charge of him. I am thinking of the teacher in this connection—the thought of the I.C. does not enter my head. Justitia Fundamentum Regnorum. The teachers in our schools should be subjected to a severe examination: they form a body which still swarms with corrupt enemies to the State’s interests.”

  “Otto was my son,” said Mrs. N. “Now I have only my husband. But little Otto and I are still in spiritual contact with each other. I belong to a spiritualist circle.”

  On another page I found the following:

  The boy-murderer’s mother occupies a small, three-roomed apartment. She is the widow of a University professor, who died about ten years ago. Professor Z was a noted physiologist. His study of the reaction of the nerves during amputations excited much comment, even beyond the bounds of the medical profession. Some twenty years ago he was for a period the target of an attack by a society of anti-vivisectionists. Mrs. Z would make no comment on the case. “Gentlemen,” she said, “you must see how upset I am.” A lady of middle height, she was in mourning.

  In a third paper I encountered the Counsel for the Defence. I had already spoken to him two or three times and I knew that he was putting heart and soul into the case: as a young lawyer, with his way to make, he was well aware of what it meant to him.

  He was in the limelight. Here was a long interview.

  “In this sensational case of murder, gentlemen,” he began, “the defence is clearly in a precarious position. What we have to fight is not only the prosecution, but also the accused, whom we are supposed to defend.”

  “In what way?”

  “The accused, gentlemen, has confessed to a criminal attack on the dead boy. I want you to realize particularly that manslaughter, and not murder, is involved. But in spite of the confession we have had from the young person, I am profoundly convinced that he is not responsible for this deed. To my mind, he is shielding another party.”

  “You don’t wish to assert, Doctor—that the crime was committed by some one else?”

  “But, gentlemen, that is exactly what I do assert. And further—quite apart from what my intuition tells me, an intuition sharpened by the practice of criminal law—I have certain very definite grounds for my assertion. The boy Z was not the culprit. Consider the motive for a moment. Here we have a schoolboy killing his class-mate, because the latter read his diary. But what did this diary contain? Little else besides an account of the affair with this wanton girl. He is shielding the girl, and he writes thoughtlessly, ‘Whoever touches this diary shall die.’ Yes, I know, everything looks unfavourable—and yet not quite everything, gentlemen! Apart from the fact that his confession, in every way, sounds a certain note of chivalry—quite apart from that, isn’t it rather remarkable that he hasn’t said a word about the actual deed? Not a word! And why will he tell us nothing? He says he cannot remember! I think otherwise. He had not the remotest idea as to where, when, or how this poor class-mate was done to death—that’s why he couldn’t remember! All he knows is that the instrument used was a stone. We show him the stone—and still he can’t recall anything! Gentlemen, he is shielding another party!”

  “But his torn coat—and the scratches on his hands?”

  “Admittedly, he encountered N by the cliffs and they had a fight—that much he has described to us in detail! But did he, afterwards, follow him stealthily and hit him from behind with a stone? Oh, no! It was another who raised that stone: a girl.”

  “The girl already implicated?”

  “Yes, she dominated him, she still dominates him. He is under her spell. Gentlemen, we are going to call in psychiatrists.”

  “Will the girl be called as a witness?”

  “Of course. Shortly after the crime, she was arrested in one of the caves. She and her gang have been in custody for some time now. Yes, we shall hear what Eve has to say—perhaps to-morrow.”

  “How long do you think the trial will last?”

  “I consider it likely to last two or three days. Few witnesses will be called, but, as I have said, I have to face a sharp contest with the accused. I intend to fight it through to the end. The boy Z will receive a sentence for aiding and abetting theft—nothing more.”

  Nothing more.

  No one has brought God into it.

  23. THE TRIAL

  AT THE DOORS OF THE COURT STOOD A CROWD three hundred strong—the doors were closed, but all still sought admission: the passes had been exhausted weeks before. A good many wires had been pulled to obtain them, but the control now was very strict.

  The corridors were full. Everybody had come for a glimpse of Z, and fashionable women were in the forefront. To these blasé and sensual creatures, the disaster afforded the fervour of sensual pleasure undiminished by fears of pregnancy to follow. The catastrophe of others was their bedmate. It engendered an artificial sympathy in which they took their delicate delight.

  The Press gallery was thronged.

  The witnesses were N’s parents, Z’s mother, the sergeant, the boy R who had shared the tent with Z and N, the two woodsmen who had discovered the body, the policemen and other officials. And of course, myself—and Eve.

  But she was not present yet. She would be brought in later.

  Counsel for the Prosecution and Counsel for the Defence were going through their notes. While Eve remained solitary in her cell, waiting.

  The accused was brought in by a policeman.

  He had changed little. His face was paler and his eyes blinked, as if the light were too strong. His hair was neatly brushed.

  In the dock, he looked as if he were sitting at his desk in school. All eyes were on him. He looked up shyly, and caught sight of his mother.

  What did he feel that impelled him to stare at her like that? In answer, his mother scarcely glanced back—or was that only my mistaken impression? She was so heavily veiled. Folds of black lace—that was all I could see.

  The sergeant nodded to me and asked if I’d read his interview in the papers.

  “Yes,” I answered. The baker N heard my voice with hatred in his face.
/>   He would like to strike me dead—with one of his stale rolls, perhaps.

  24. A VEIL

  EVERY ONE ROSE AS THE PRESIDENT OF THE Juvenile Court marched up the room. He sat down to open the case.

  A nice old grandpa, he looked.

  The indictment was read. Z was accused not of manslaughter but murder—murder with malice aforethought.

  Grandpa nodded, as if to say, “Oh, these children!” Then he turned to the dock. Z rose.

  He gave his name and age in a clear, unstrained voice. He was asked to give an account of his life, and to speak freely. With a furtive glance towards his mother, he began.

  He had been brought up in the same way as most children. His parents had not been over strict. His father had died a long time ago. He was an only child.

  His mother touched her veiled eyes with her handkerchief as her son quietly went on to tell the court of his early ambitions. He wanted to be a great inventor. But he didn’t want to invent mere “gadgets” like a new zipp-fastener.

  “That sounds very sensible,” agreed the President. “But what if you’d found you couldn’t invent anything?”

  “Then I’d have been a pilot. In the air-mail service. An overseas pilot, that’s what I’d have liked best.”

  Flying to the negroes? My thoughts still sped involuntarily towards them.

  And as Z went on speaking of his lost career, the time drew nearer and nearer—soon he would be approaching the day when God came.

  He gave us a picture of life in the camp, with the shooting and marching, the hoisting of the colours. He mentioned the sergeant, and he mentioned me: and here he said a strange thing.

  “Our teacher’s opinions often seemed to me very childish ones.”

  The President was astonished.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was always telling us how things should be in this world, and not how they really are.”

  The President looked very gravely down at Z. Did he feel that the accused’s recital was beginning to touch upon a sphere which the radio ruled? Where the urge for decency is relegated to the scrap-heap while man grovels in the dust before the brutality of things as they exist? Yes, that was his fear—for he took the first opportunity that came to leave this dubious subject for a higher and more nebulous one.

  “Do you believe in God?” he asked.

  “Yes,” answered Z, without a pause.

  “And you know the fifth commandment?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you sorry for what you have done?”

  The room was very still.

  “Yes,” said Z, “very sorry.”

  But his sorrow did not ring true.

  The President blew his nose.

  Z was now coming to the day of the murder; the details, which every one knew by heart, were gone over once more.

  “We marched off very early that morning,” Z explained for the hundredth time. “And soon we spread out over the bushes to advance on a chain of hills held by an imaginary enemy. Near the caves I ran up against N. We were on one of the rocky parts. I was mad with him because he broke open my box, though he denied it—”

  “Stop!” ordered the President. “Your teacher made a statement to the local magistrate to the effect that you told him that N had admitted to breaking open the box.”

  “I only said that, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “So that nobody should start suspecting me when it came out.”

  “Aha! Go on.”

  “We started to fight, N and I, and he almost threw me down off the rocks. I saw red. I sprang back and threw the stone at him.”

  “You were still on the rock?”

  “No—”

  “Where, then?”

  “I’ve—forgotten.”

  He smiled. It seemed impossible to drag anything further from him. He didn’t remember.

  “Well, where does your memory pick up again?” was the President’s next question.

  “I went back to the camp and wrote in my diary that I’d had a fight with N.”

  “Yes, that is the last entry. But you left that closing sentence unfinished.”

  “The teacher interrupted me.”

  “What did he wish to see you for?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Well, no doubt he’ll tell us.”

  On the table in the court-room lay the diary, a pencil, and a compass. And a stone.

  The President inquired whether Z recognized the stone. “Yes.” He nodded.

  “And to whom does the pencil belong—and this compass?”

  “They don’t belong to me.”

  “They belonged to poor N,” said the President, glancing at his notes. “No—wait—only the pencil belonged to N. Why didn’t you say that the compass belonged to you?”

  Z blushed.

  “I forgot,” he murmured.

  Z’s counsel rose.

  “Perhaps the compass really doesn’t belong to him, your honour.”

  “What do you imply by that?”

  “I wish to imply that this fatal compass, which wasn’t N’s property, might not have been Z’s either, but might have belonged to a third person. Would your honour be so good as to ask the accused if there was not actually a third person on the scene?”

  He sat down again. Z threw him a baleful look.

  “There was no third person there,” he said firmly.

  The defence sprang up at that.

  “How is it that he remembers that fact so definitely when he has quite forgotten how, when, and where the crime took place?”

  The prosecuting lawyer too had now got to his feet. His tone was full of irony.

  “Apparently my learned friend wishes to infer that it was not the accused who committed the murder, but a Mysterious Unknown—”

  “Isn’t there”—the defence turned to him—“isn’t there a certain wanton girl, the leader of a robber band, to be considered? Even supposing there is no further element, she can hardly be labelled a Mysterious Unknown.”

  “It wasn’t the girl. She’s been sufficiently questioned, in all conscience. We shall hear what the magistrate who examined her has to say. Let alone the fact that the accused made a very plain confession—and the fact that he made it without delay speaks somewhat in his favour. The attempt on the part of the defence to make it appear that the girl committed the crime, and that the accused is shielding her, is on the verge of being fantastic.”

  “The case isn’t finished yet,” smiled the defence. He turned to Z.

  “I see there is an entry in your diary which reads, ‘She took a stone and threw it at me—and if it had hit me, I shouldn’t be here now.’ ”

  Z quietly met his gaze. Then, with a negative gesture:

  “I was exaggerating. It was only a small stone.”

  Suddenly a tremor shook him.

  “Don’t defend me, sir. I want to be punished for what I’ve done.”

  “And what about your mother?” cried his counsel. “Have you thought of your mother, and what she’s suffering? You aren’t aware of the harm you’re doing.”

  Z lowered his head.

  Then—searchingly, almost—he glanced at his mother.

  She was the object of every eye. But none could pierce those heavy veils.

  25. HIS DWELLING

  BEFORE THE WITNESSES WERE CALLED, THE court adjourned for lunch.

  It was midday. Slowly the court-room emptied. The accused was led away. Defending and prosecuting counsel exchanged glances equally confident of victory.

  I went out for a stroll in the gardens surrounding the Law Courts.

  A dreary day, dank and cold.

  Leaves falling—yes, it was autumn now.

  Turning a corner, I stopped short. For a moment. Then I went on.

  On one of the benches sat a still figure. Z’s mother.

  I noticed that she was a woman of medium height.

  My automatic greeting was not returned.


  She did not seem to see me.

  She seemed far away.

  The time is past now when I believed there was no God.

  To-day I believe in Him. I can still see Him as I saw Him in the camp, when He spoke to little R and gazed at Z.

  His eyes must be piercing, cruel, and cold, very cold. No. He is not a good God.

  Why does He let Z’s mother sit there like that? What has she done? Can the guilt of her son’s crime be laid at her feet? Why does He condemn the mother, if He damns the son? No, it is not just …

  I felt in my pockets for my cigarettes.

  Silly of me, I must have left them at home.

  I left the gardens and went in search of a tobacconist’s.

  I found one in a side street. A tiny shop kept by a very old couple. It took a long time for the old man to open the packet and for his wife to count out ten cigarettes. They got in each other’s way, but took it all with a kindly good humour.

  The old woman gave me too little change, and when I brought it smilingly to her notice, she cried out in alarm:

  “God preserve us!”

  If God preserves you, I thought, then you are indeed secure.

  She had no more small change and went across to the butcher’s to get some.

  I stayed behind with the old man and lit a cigarette.

  He asked whether I were from the Law Courts. Most of his customers were legal gentlemen. And he began to talk about the murder trial: it was a strange and most interesting case, this, for you could clearly see the hand of God at work in it.

  I looked up quickly.

  The hand of God?

  “Yes,” he went on, “for every one connected with the case seems to be guilty. Even the witnesses, the sergeant, the teacher—and the parents too!”