An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

She has had trouble enough, and I couldn’t break her

heart like that. No, if I go away and come back some

time, either married or dead—it doesn’t make so much

difference now—she will never know, and I will not

have caused her any pain, and that means so much

more than life itself to me. So good-by, Clyde, until I do

meet you, as you telephoned. And forgive me all the

trouble that I have caused you.

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“Your sorrowful,

“ROBERTA.”

And at points in the reading, Mason himself crying, and at

their conclusion turning, weary and yet triumphant, a most

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complete and indestructible case, as he saw it, having been

presented, and exclaiming: “The People rest.” And at that

moment, Mrs. Alden, in court with her husband and Emily,

and overwrought, not only by the long strain of the trial but

this particular evidence, uttering a whimpering yet clear cry

and then falling forward in a faint. And Clyde, in his own

overwrought condition, hearing her cry and seeing her fall,

jumping up—the restraining hand of Jephson instantly upon

him, while bailiffs and others assisted her and Titus who

was beside her from the courtroom. And the audience

almost, if not quite, as moved and incensed against Clyde

by that development as though, then and there, he had

committed some additional crime.

But then, that excitement having passed and it being quite

dark, and the hands of the court clock pointing to five, and

all the court weary, Justice Oberwaltzer signifying his

intention of adjourning for the night.

And at once all the newspaper men and feature writers and

artists rising and whispering to each other that on the

morrow the defense would start, and wondering as to who

and where the witnesses were, also whether Clyde would

be permitted to go on the stand in his own defense in the

face of this amazing mass of evidence against him

orWhether his lawyers would content themselves with

some specious argument as to mental and moral weakness

which might end in prison for life—not less.

And Clyde, hissed and cursed as he left the court,

wondering if on the morrow, and as they had planned this

long time since, he would have the courage to rise and go

on the stand—wondering if there was not some way, in

case no one was looking (he was not handcuffed as he

went to and from the jail) maybe to-morrow night when all

were rising, the crowds moving and these deputies coming

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toward him—if—well, if he could only run, or walk easily

and quietly and yet, quickly and seemingly unintentionally,

to that stair and then down and out—to—well—to wherever

it went—that small side door to the main stairs which before

this he had seen from the jail! If he could only get to some

woods somewhere, and then walk and walk, or run and run,

maybe, without stopping, and without eating, for days

maybe, until, well, until he had gotten away—anywhere. It

was a chance, of course. He might be shot, or tracked with

dogs and men, but still it was a chance, wasn’t it?

For this way he had no chance at all. No one anywhere,

after all this, was going to believe him not guilty. And he did

not want to die that way. No, no, not that way!

And so another miserable, black and weary night. And then

another miserable gray and wintry morning.

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Chapter 23

BY eight o’clock the next morning the great city papers were

on the stands with the sprawling headlines, which informed

every one in no uncertain terms:

PROSECUTION IN GRIFFITHS’ CASE CLOSES

WITH IMPRESSIVE DELUGE OF TESTIMONY.

MOTIVE AS WELL AS METHOD HAMMERED

HOME.

DESTRUCTIVE MARKS ON FACE AND HEAD

SHOWN TO CORRESPOND WITH ONE SIDE

OF CAMERA.

MOTHER OF DEAD GIRL FAINTS AT CLOSE

OF DRAMATIC READING OF HER LETTERS.

And the architectonic way in which Mason had built his

case, together with his striking and dramatic presentation of

it, was sufficient to stir in Belknap and Jephson, as well as

Clyde, the momentary conviction that they had been

completely routed—that by no conceivable device could

they possibly convince this jury now that Clyde was not a

quadruple-dyed villain.

And all congratulating Mason on the masterly way he had

presented his case. And Clyde, greatly reduced and

saddened by the realization that his mother would be

reading all that had transpired the day before. He must ask

Jephson to please wire her so that she would not believe it.

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And Frank and Julia and Esta. And no doubt Sondra

reading all this, too, to-day, yet through all these days, all

these black nights, not one word! A reference now and then

in the papers to a Miss X but at no time a single correct

picture of her. That was what a family with money could do

for you. And on this very day his defense would begin and

he would have to go forward as the only witness of any

import. Yet asking himself, how could he?The crowd. Its

temper. The nervous strain of its unbelief and hatred by

now. And after Belknap was through with him, then Mason.

It was all right for Belknap and Jephson. They were in no

danger of being tortured, as he was certain of being

tortured.

Yet in the face of all this, and after an hour spent with

Jephson and Belknap in his cell, finding himself back in the

courtroom, under the persistent gaze of this nondescript

jury and the tensely interested audience. And now Belknap

rising before the jury and after solemnly contemplating each

one of them, beginning:

“Gentlemen—somewhat over three weeks ago you were

told by the district attorney that because of the evidence he

was about to present he would insist that you jurors must

find the prisoner at the bar guilty of the crime of which he

stands indicted. It has been a long and tedious procedure

since then. The foolish and inexperienced, yet in every case

innocent and unintentional, acts of a boy of fifteen or

sixteen have been gone into before you gentlemen as

though they were the deeds of a hardened criminal, and

plainly with the intention of prejudicing you against this

defendant, who, with the exception of one misinterpreted

accident in Kansas City—the most brutally and savagely

misinterpreted accident it has ever been my professional

misfortune to encounter—can be said to have lived as

clean and energetic and blameless and innocent a life as

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any boy of his years anywhere. You have heard him called

a man—a bearded man—a criminal and a crime-soaked

product of the darkest vomiting of Hell. And yet he is but

twenty-one. And there he sits. And I venture to say that if by

some magic of the spoken word I could at this moment strip

from your eye the substance of all the cruel thoughts and

emotions which have been attributed to him by a clamorous

and mistaken and I might say (if I had not been warned not

to do so), politically biased prosecution, you could no more

see him in the light that you do than you could rise out of

that box and fly through those windows.

“Gentlemen of the jury, I have no doubt that you, as well as

the district attorney and even the audience, have wondered

how under the downpour of such linked and at times almost

venomous testimony, I or my colleague or this defendant

could have remained as calm and collected as we

have.” (And here he waved with grave ceremoniousness in

the direction of his partner, who was still waiting his own

hour.) “Yet, as you have seen, we have not only maintained

but enjoyed the serenity of those who not only feel but know

that they have the right and just end of any legal contest.

You recall, of course, the words of the Avon bard—‘Thrice

armed is he who hath his quarrel just.’

“In fact, we know, as the prosecution in this case

unfortunately does not, the peculiarly strange and

unexpected circumstances by which this dramatic and most

unfortunate death came about. And before we are through

you shall see for yourselves. In the meantime, let me tell

you, gentlemen, that since this case opened I have

believed that even apart from the light we propose to throw

on this disheartening tragedy, you gentlemen are not at all

sure that a brutal or bestial crime can be laid upon the

shoulders of this defendant. You cannot be! For after all,

love is love, and the ways of passion and the destroying

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emotion of love in either sex are not those of the ordinary

criminal. Only remember, we were once all boys. And those

of you who are grown women were girls, and know well—

oh, how very well—the fevers and aches of youth that have