An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

what was now known as the Old Death House (where at

present only visitors to the inmates of the new Death House

were received), and at the other into the execution room in

which stood the electric chair. Two of the cells on the lower

passage—those at the junction of the narrower passage—

faced the execution-room door. The two opposite these, on

the corresponding corners, faced the passage that gave

into the Old Death House or what now by a large stretch of

the imagination, could be called the condemned men’s

reception room, where twice weekly an immediate relative

or a lawyer might be met. But no others.

In the Old Death House (or present reception room), the

cells still there, and an integral part of this reception plan,

were all in a row and on one side only of a corridor, thus

preventing prying inspection by one inmate of another, and

with a wire screen in front as well as green shades which

might be drawn in front of each cell. For, in an older day,

whenever a new convict arrived or departed, or took his

daily walk, or went for his bath, or was led eventually

through the little iron door to the west where formerly was

the execution chamber, these shades were drawn. He was

not supposed to be seen by his associates. Yet the old

death house, because of this very courtesy and privacy,

although intense solitude, was later deemed inhuman and

hence this newer and better death house, as the thoughtful

and condescending authorities saw it, was devised.

In this, to be sure, were no such small and gloomy cells as

those which characterized the old, for there the ceiling was

low and the sanitary arrangements wretched, whereas in

the new one the ceiling was high, the rooms and corridors

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brightly lighted and in every instance no less than eight by

ten feet in size. But by contrast with the older room, they

had the enormous disadvantage of the unscreened if not

uncurtained cell doors.

Besides, by housing all together in two such tiers as were

here, it placed upon each convict the compulsion of

enduring all the horrors of all the vicious, morbid or

completely collapsed and despairing temperaments about

him. No true privacy of any kind. By day—a blaze of light

pouring through an over-arching skylight high above the

walls. By night—glistening incandescents of large size and

power which flooded each nook and cranny of the various

cells. No privacy, no games other than cards and checkers

—the only ones playable without releasing the prisoners

from their cells. Books, newspapers, to be sure, for all who

could read or enjoy them under the circumstances. And

visits—mornings and afternoons, as a rule, from a priest,

and less regularly from a rabbi and a Protestant minister,

each offering his sympathies or services to such as would

accept them.

But the curse of the place was not because of these

advantages, such as they were, but in spite of them—this

unremitted contact, as any one could see, with minds now

terrorized and discolored by the thought of an approaching

death that was so near for many that it was as an icy hand

upon the brow or shoulder. And none—whatever the

bravado—capable of enduring it without mental or physical

deterioration in some form. The glooms—the strains—the

indefinable terrors and despairs that blew like winds or

breaths about this place and depressed or terrorized all by

turns! They were manifest at the most unexpected

moments, by curses, sighs, tears even, calls for a song—for

God’s sake!—or the most unintended and unexpected yells

or groans.

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Worse yet, and productive of perhaps the most grinding

and destroying of all the miseries here—the transverse

passage leading between the old death house on the one

hand and the execution-chamber on the other. For this from

time to time—alas, how frequently—was the scene or stage

for at least a part of the tragedy that was here so regularly

enacted—the final business of execution.

For through this passage, on his last day, a man was

transferred from his better cell in the new building, where he

might have been incarcerated for so much as a year or two,

to one of the older ones in the old death house, in order

that he might spend his last hours in solitude, although

compelled at the final moment, none-the-less (the death

march), to retrace his steps along this narrower cross

passage—and where all might see—into the execution

chamber at the other end of it.

Also at any time, in going to visit a lawyer or relative

brought into the old death house for this purpose, it was

necessary to pass along the middle passage to this smaller

one and so into the old death house, there to be housed in

a cell, fronted by a wire screen two feet distant, between

which and the cell proper a guard must sit while a prisoner

and his guest (wife, son, mother, daughter, brother, lawyer)

should converse—the guard hearing all. No handclasps, no

kisses, no friendly touches of any kind—not even an

intimate word that a listening guard might not hear. And

when the fatal hour for any one had at last arrived, every

prisoner—if sinister or simple, sensitive or of rugged texture

—was actually if not intentionally compelled to hear if not

witness the final preparations—the removal of the

condemned man to one of the cells of the older death

house, the final and perhaps weeping visit of a mother, son,

daughter, father.

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No thought in either the planning or the practice of all this of

the unnecessary and unfair torture for those who were

brought here, not to be promptly executed, by any means,

but rather to be held until the higher courts should have

passed upon the merits of their cases—an appeal.

At first, of course, Clyde sensed little if anything of all this.

In so far as his first day was concerned, he had but tasted

the veriest spoonful of it all. And to lighten or darken his

burden his mother came at noon the very next day. Not

having been permitted to accompany him, she had waited

over for a final conference with Belknap and Jephson, as

well as to write in full her personal impressions in

connection with her son’s departure—(Those nervously

searing impressions!) And although anxious to find a room

somewhere near the penitentiary, she hurried first to the

office of the penitentiary immediately upon her arrival at

Auburn and, after presenting an order from Justice

Oberwaltzer as well as a solicitous letter from Belknap and

Jephson urging the courtesy of a private interview with

Clyde to begin with at least, she was permitted to see her

son in a room entirely apart from the old death house. For

already the warden himself had been reading of her

activities and sacrifices and was interested in seeing not

only her but Clyde also.

But so shaken was she by Clyde’s so sudden and

amazingly changed appearance here that she could

scarcely speak upon his entrance, even in recognition of

him, so blanched and gray were his cheeks and so

shadowy and strained his eyes. His head clipped that way!

This uniform! And in this dreadful place of iron gates and

locks and long passages with uniformed guards at every

turn!

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For a moment she winced and trembled, quite faint under

the strain, although previous to this she had entered many

a jail and larger prison—in Kansas City, Chicago, Denver—

and delivered tracts and exhortations and proffered her

services in connection with anything she might do. But this

—this! Her own son! Her broad, strong bosom began to

heave. She looked, and then turned her heavy, broad back

to hide her face for the nonce. Her lips and chin quivered.

She began to fumble in the small bag she carried for her

handkerchief at the same time that she was muttering to

herself: “My God—why hast Thou forsaken me?” But even

as she did so there came the thought—no, no, he must not

see her so. What a way was this to do—and by her tears

weaken him. And yet despite her great strength she could

not now cease at once but cried on.

And Clyde seeing this, and despite his previous

determination to bear up and say some comforting and

heartening word to his mother, now began:

“But you mustn’t, Ma. Gee, you mustn’t cry. I know it’s hard

on you. But I’ll be all right. Sure I will. It isn’t as bad as I

thought.” Yet inwardly saying: “Oh, God how bad!”

And Mrs. Griffiths adding aloud: “My poor boy! My beloved

son! But we mustn’t give way. No. No. ‘Behold I will deliver

thee out of the snares of the wicked.’ God has not deserted

either of us. And He will not—that I know. ‘He leadeth me