An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

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