that the interview was ended. Mrs. Griffiths, violently
shaken and deeply depressed by the peculiar silence and
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evasion of McMillan at the crucial moment of this interview
when the Governor had asked such an all important and
direct question as to the guilt of her son, was still unable to
say a word more. But now what? Which way? To whom to
turn? God, and God only. She and Clyde must find in their
Creator the solace for his failure and death in this world.
And as she was thinking and still weeping, the Reverend
McMillan approached and gently led her from the room.
When she was gone the Governor finally turned to his
secretary:
“Never in my life have I faced a sadder duty. It will always
be with me.” He turned and gazed out upon a snowy
February landscape.
And after this but two more weeks of life for Clyde, during
which time, and because of his ultimate decision conveyed
to him first by McMillan, but in company with his mother,
from whose face Clyde could read all, even before McMillan
spoke, and from whom he heard all once more as to his
need of refuge and peace in God, his Savior, he now
walked up and down his cell, unable to rest for any length
of time anywhere. For, because of this final completely
convincing sensation, that very soon he was to die, he felt
the need, even now of retracing his unhappy life. His youth.
Kansas City. Chicago. Lycurgus. Roberta and Sondra. How
swiftly they and all that was connected with them passed in
review. The few, brief, bright intense moments. His desire
for more—more—that intense desire he had felt there in
Lycurgus after Sondra came and now this, this! And now
even this was ending—this—this—— Why, he had scarcely
lived at all as yet—and these last two years so miserably
between these crushing walls. And of this life but fourteen,
thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight of the filtering and
now feverish days left. They were going—going. But life—
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life—how was one to do without that—the beauty of the
days—of the sun and rain—of work love, energy, desire.
Oh, he really did not want to die. He did not. Why say to
him so constantly as his mother and the Reverend McMillan
now did to resolve all his care in divine mercy and think only
of God, when now, now, was all? And yet the Reverend
McMillan insisting that only in Christ and the hereafter was
real peace. Oh, yes—but just the same, before the
Governor might he not have said—might he not have said
that he was not guilty—or at least not entirely guilty—if only
he had seen it that way—that time—and then—then—why
then the Governor might have commuted his sentence to
life imprisonment—might he not? For he had asked his
mother what the Reverend McMillan had said to the
Governor—(yet without saying to her that he had ever
confessed all to him), and she had replied that he had told
him how sincerely he had humbled himself before the Lord
—but not that he was not guilty. And Clyde, feeling how
strange it was that the Reverend McMillan could not
conscientiously bring himself to do more than that for him.
How sad. How hopeless. Would no one ever understand—
or give him credit for his human—if all too human and
perhaps wrong hungers—yet from which so many others—
along with himself suffered?
But worse yet, if anything, Mrs. Griffiths, because of what
the Reverend McMillan had said—or failed to say, in
answer to the final question asked by Governor Waltham—
and although subsequently in answer to an inquiry of her
own, he had repeated the statement, she was staggered by
the thought that perhaps, after all, Clyde was as guilty as at
first she had feared. And because of that asking at one
point:
“Clyde, if there is anything you have not confessed, you
must confess it before you go.”
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“I have confessed everything to God and to Mr. McMillan,
Mother. Isn’t that enough?”
“No, Clyde. You have told the world that you are innocent.
But if you are not you must say so.”
“But if my conscience tells me that I am right, is not that
enough?”
“No, not if God’s word says differently, Clyde,” replied Mrs.
Griffiths nervously—and with great inward spiritual torture.
But he chose to say nothing further at that time. How could
he discuss with his mother or the world the strange
shadings which in his confession and subsequent talks with
the Reverend McMillan he had not been able to solve. It
was not to be done.
And because of that refusal on her son’s part to confide in
her, Mrs. Griffiths, tortured, not only spiritually but
personally. Her own son—and so near death and not willing
to say what already apparently he had said to Mr. McMillan.
Would not God ever be done with this testing her? And yet
on account of what McMillan had already said,—that he
considered Clyde, whatever his past sins, contrite and
clean before the Lord—a youth truly ready to meet his
Maker—she was prone to rest. The Lord was great! He was
merciful. In His bosom was peace. What was death—what
life—to one whose heart and mind were at peace with Him?
It was nothing. A few years (how very few) and she and Asa
and after them, his brothers and sisters, would come to join
him—and all his miseries here would be forgotten. But
without peace in the Lord—the full and beautiful realization
of His presence, love, care and mercy … ! She was
tremulous at moments now in her spiritual exaltation—no
longer quite normal—as Clyde could see and feel. But also
by her prayers and anxiety as to his spiritual welfare, he
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was also able to see how little, really, she had ever
understood of his true moods and aspirations. He had
longed for so much there in Kansas City and he had had so
little. Things—just things—had seemed very important to
him—and he had so resented being taken out on the street
as he had been, before all the other boys and girls, many of
whom had all the things that he so craved, and when he
would have been glad to have been anywhere else in the
world than out there—on the street! That mission life that to
his mother was so wonderful, yet, to him, so dreary! But
was it wrong for him to feel so? Had it been? Would the
Lord resent it now? And, maybe, she was right as to her
thoughts about him. Unquestionably he would have been
better off if he had followed her advice. But how strange it
was, that to his own mother, and even now in these closing
hours, when above all things he craved sympathy—but
more than sympathy, true and deep understanding—even
now—and as much as she loved and sympathized with,
and was seeking to aid him with all her strength in her stern
and self-sacrificing way,—still he could not turn to her now
and tell her, his own mother, just how it all happened. It was
as though there was an unsurmountable wall or
impenetrable barrier between them, built by the lack of
understanding—for it was just that. She would never
understand his craving for ease and luxury, for beauty, for
love—his particular kind of love that went with show,
pleasure, wealth, position, his eager and immutable
aspirations and desires. She could not understand these
things. She would look on all of it as sin—evil, selfishness.
And in connection with all the fatal steps involving Roberta
and Sondra, as adultery—unchastity—murder, even. And
she would and did expect him to be terribly sorry and wholly
repentant, when, even now, and for all he had said to the
Reverend McMillan and to her, he could not feel so—not
wholly so—although great was his desire now to take
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refuge in God, but better yet, if it were only possible, in her
own understanding and sympathetic heart. If it were only
possible.
Lord, it was all so terrible! He was so alone, even in these
last few and elusive hours (the swift passing of the days),
with his mother and also the Reverend McMillan here with
him, but neither understanding.
But, apart from all this and much worse, he was locked up
here and they would not let him go. There was a system—a
horrible routine system—as long since he had come to feel
it to be so. It was iron. It moved automatically like a
machine without the aid or the hearts of men. These
guards! They with their letters, their inquiries, their pleasant
and yet really hollow words, their trips to do little favors, or
to take the men in and out of the yard or to their baths—
they were iron, too—mere machines, automatons, pushing