An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

—and later Jephson or Belknap, maybe. God!

But worse—there, in that cell directly opposite him, a sallow

and emaciated and sinister-looking Chinaman in a suit

exactly like his own, who had come to the bars of his door

and was looking at him out of inscrutable slant eyes, but as

immediately turning and scratching himself—vermin,

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maybe, as Clyde immediately feared. There had been

bedbugs at Bridgeburg.

A Chinese murderer. For was not this the death house? But

as good as himself here. And with a garb like his own.

Thank God visitors were probably not many. He had heard

from his mother that scarcely any were allowed—that only

she and Belknap and Jephson and any minister he chose

might come once a week. But now these hard, white-

painted walls brightly lighted by wide unobstructed skylights

by day and as he could see—by incandescent lamps in the

hall without at night—yet all so different from Bridgeburg,—

so much more bright or harsh illuminatively. For there, the

jail being old, the walls were a gray-brown, and not very

clean—the cells larger, the furnishings more numerous—a

table with a cloth on it at times, books, papers, a chess-

and checker-board—whereas here—here was nothing,

these hard narrow walls—the iron bars rising to a heavy

solid ceiling above—and that very, very heavy iron door

which yet—like the one at Bridgeburg, had a small hole

through which food would be passed, of course.

But just then a voice from somewhere:

“Hey! we got a new one wid us, fellers! Ground tier, second

cell, east.” And then a second voice: “You don’t say. Wot’s

he like?” And a third: “Wot’s yer name, new man? Don’t be

scared. You ain’t no worse off than the rest of us.” And then

the first voice, answering number two: “Kinda tall and

skinny. A kid. Looks a little like mamma’s boy, but not bad

at dat. Hey, you! Tell us your name!”

And Clyde, amazed and dumb and pondering. For how was

one to take such an introduction as this? What to say—

what to do? Should he be friendly with these men? Yet, his

instinct for tact prompting him even here to reply, most

courteously and promptly: “Clyde Griffiths.” And one of the

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first voices continuing: “Oh, sure! We know who you are.

Welcome, Griffiths. We ain’t as bad as we sound. We been

readin’ a lot about you, up dere in Bridgeburg. We thought

you’d be along pretty soon now.” And another voice: “You

don’t want to be too down. It ain’t so worse here. At least de

place is all right—a roof over your head, as dey say.” And

then a laugh from somewhere.

But Clyde, too horrified and sickened for words, was sadly

gazing at the walls and door, then over at the Chinaman,

who, silent at his door, was once more gazing at him.

Horrible! Horrible! And they talked to each other like that,

and to a stranger among them so familiarly. No thought for

his wretchedness, his strangeness, his timidity—the horror

he must be suffering. But why should a murderer seem

timid to any one, perhaps, or miserable? Worst of all they

had been speculating here as to how long it would be

before he would be along which meant that everything

concerning him was known here. Would they nag—or bully

—or make trouble for one unless one did just as they

wished? If Sondra, or any one of all the people he had

known, should see or even dream of him as he was here

now … God!—And his own mother was coming to-morrow.

And then an hour later, now evening, a tall, cadaverous

guard in a more pleasing uniform, putting an iron tray with

food on it through that hole in the door. Food! And for him

here. And that sallow, rickety Chinaman over the way

taking his. Whom had he murdered? How? And then the

savage scraping of iron trays in the various cells! Sounds

that reminded him more of hungry animals being fed than

men. And some of these men were actually talking as they

ate and scraped. It sickened him.

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“Gee! It’s a wonder them guys in the mush gallery couldn’t

think of somepin else besides cold beans and fried

potatoes and coffee.”

“The coffee to-night … oh, boy! … Now in the jail at Buffalo

—though …”

“Oh, cut it out,” came from another corner. “We’ve heard

enough about the jail at Buffalo and your swell chow. You

don’t show any afternoon tea appetite around here, I notice.”

“Just the same,” continued the first voice, “as I look back

on’t now, it musta been pretty good. Dat’s a way it seems,

anyhow, now.”

“Oh, Rafferty, do let up,” called still another.

And then, presumably “Rafferty” once more, who said:

“Now, I’ll just take a little siesta after dis—and den I’ll call

me chauffeur and go for a little spin. De air to-night must be

fine.”

Then from still another hoarse voice: “Oh, you with your

sick imagination. Say, I’d give me life for a smoker. And den

a good game of cards.”

“Do they play cards here?” thought Clyde.

“I suppose since Rosenstein was defeated for mayor here

he won’t play.”

“Won’t he, though?” This presumably from Rosenstein.

To Clyde’s left, in the cell next to him, a voice, to a passing

guard, low and yet distinctly audible: “Psst! Any word from

Albany yet?”

“No word, Herman.”

“And no letter, I suppose.”

“No letter.”

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The voice was very strained, very tense, very miserable,

and after this, silence.

A moment later, from another cell farther off, a voice from

the lowest hell to which a soul can descend—complete and

unutterable despair—“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my

God!”

And then from the tier above another voice: “Oh, Jesus! Is

that farmer going to begin again? I can’t stand it Guard!

Guard! Can’t you get some dope for that guy?”

Once more the voice from the lowest: “Oh, my God! Oh, my

God! Oh, my God!”

Clyde was up, his fingers clinched. His nerves were as taut

as cords about to snap. A murderer! And about to die,

perhaps. Or grieving over some terrible thing like his own

fate. Moaning—as he in spirit at least had so often moaned

there in Bridgeburg. Crying like that! Godl And there must

be others!

And day after day and night after night more of this, no

doubt, until, maybe—who could tell—unless. But, oh, no!

Oh, no! Not himself—not that—not his day. Oh, no. A whole

year must elapse before that could possibly happen—or so

Jephson had said. Maybe two. But, at that—! … in two

years!!! He found himself stricken with an ague because of

the thought that even in so brief a time as two years….

That other room! It was in here somewhere too. This room

was connected with it. He knew that. There was a door. It

led to that chair. That chair.

And then the voice again, as before, “Oh, my God! Oh, my

God!”

He sank to his couch and covered his ears with his hands.

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Chapter 29

THE“death house” in this particular prison was one of those

crass erections and maintenances of human

insensitiveness and stupidity principally for which no one

primarily was really responsible. Indeed, its total plan and

procedure were the results of a series of primary legislative

enactments, followed by decisions and compulsions as

devised by the temperaments and seeming necessities of

various wardens, until at last—by degrees and without

anything worthy of the name of thinking on any one’s part—

there had been gathered and was now being enforced all

that could possibly be imagined in the way of unnecessary

and really unauthorized cruelty or stupid and destructive

torture. And to the end that a man, once condemned by a

jury, would be compelled to suffer not alone the death for

which his sentence called, but a thousand others before

that. For the very room by its arrangement, as well as the

rules governing the lives and actions of the inmates, was

sufficient to bring about this torture, willy-nilly.

It was a room thirty by fifty feet, of stone and concrete and

steel, and surmounted some thirty feet from the floor by a

skylight. Presumably an improvement over an older and

worse death house, with which it was still connected by a

door, it was divided lengthwise by a broad passage, along

which, on the ground floor, were twelve cells, six on a side

and eight by ten each and facing each other. And above

again a second tier of what were known as balcony cells—

five on a side.

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There was, however, at the center of this main passage—

and dividing these lower cells equally as to number—a

second and narrower passage, which at one end gave into