An American Tragedy III

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY III

a kind of shaking ague. He dared not think – let alone cry. So that’s how it was. They drew the curtains. And then – and then. He was gone now. Those three dimmings of the lights. Sure, those were the flashes. And after all those nights at prayer. Those moanings! Those beatings of his head! And only a minute ago he had been alive – walking by there. But now dead. And some day he – he! – how could he be sure that he would not? How could he?

He shook and shook, lying on his couch, face down. The keepers came and ran up the curtains – as sure and secure in their lives apparently as though there was no death in the world. And afterwards he could hear them talking – not to him so much – he had proved too reticent thus far – but to some of the others.

Poor Pasquale. This whole business of the death penalty was all wrong. The warden thought so. So did they. He was working to have it abolished.

But that man! His prayers! And now he was gone. His cell over there was empty and another man would be put in it – to go too, later. Some one – many – like Cutrone, like himself – had been in this one – on this pallet. He sat up – moved to the chair. But he – they – had sat on that – too. He stood up – only to sink down on the pallet again. “God! God! God! God!” he now exclaimed to himself – but not aloud – and yet not unlike that other man who had so terrorized him on the night of his arrival here and who was still here. But he would go too. And all of these others – and himself maybe – unless – unless.

He had seen his first man die.

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In the meantime, however, Asa’s condition had remained serious, and it was four entire months before it was possible for him to sit up again or for Mrs. Griffiths to dream of resuming her lecturing scheme. But by that time, public interest in her and her son’s fate was considerably reduced. No Denver paper was interested to finance her return for anything she could do for them. And as for the public in the vicinity of the crime, it remembered Mrs. Griffiths and her son most clearly, and in so far as she was concerned, sympathetically – but only, on the other hand, to think of him as one who probably was guilty and in that case, being properly punished for his crime – that it would be as well if an appeal were not taken – or – if it were – that it be refused. These guilty criminals with their interminable appeals!

And with Clyde where he was, more and more executions – although as he found – and to his invariable horror, no one ever became used to such things there; farmhand Mowrer for the slaying of his former employer; officer Riordan for the slaying of his wife – and a fine upstanding officer too but a minute before his death; and afterwards, within the month, the going of the Chinaman, who seemed, for some reason, to endure a long time (and without a word in parting to any one – although it was well known that he spoke a few words

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of English). And after him Larry Donahue, the overseas soldier – with a grand call – just before the door closed behind: “Good-by boys. Good luck.”

And after him again – but, oh – that was so hard; so much closer to Clyde – so depleting to his strength to think of bearing this deadly life here without – Miller Nicholson – no less. For after five months in which they had been able to walk and talk and call to each other from time to time from their cells and Nicholson had begun to advise him as to books to read – as well as one important point in connection with his own case – on appeal – or in the event of any second trial, i.e. – that the admission of Roberta’s letters as evidence, as they stood, at least, be desperately fought on the ground that the emotional force of them was detrimental in the case of any jury anywhere, to a calm unbiased consideration of the material facts presented by them – and that instead of the letters being admitted as they stood they should be digested for the facts alone and that digest – and that only offered to the jury. “If your lawyers can get the Court of Appeals to agree to the soundness of that you will win your case sure.”

And Clyde at once, after inducing a personal visit on the part of Jephson, laying this suggestion before him and hearing him say that it was sound and that he and Belknap would assuredly incorporate it in their appeal.

Yet not so long after that the guard, after locking his door on returning from the courtyard whispered, with a nod in the direction of Nicholson’s cell, “His next. Did he tell you? Within three days.”

And at once Clyde shriveling – the news playing upon him as an icy and congealing breath. For he had just come from

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the courtyard with him where they had walked and talked of another man who had just been brought in – a Hungarian of Utica who was convicted of burning his paramour – in a furnace – then confessing it – a huge, rough, dark, ignorant man with a face like a gargoyle. And Nicholson saying he was more animal than man, he was sure. Yet no word about himself. And in THREE DAYS! And he could walk and talk as though there was nothing to happen, although, according to the guard, he had been notified the night before.

And the next day the same – walking and talking as though nothing had happened – looking up at the sky and breathing the air. Yet Clyde, his companion, too sick and feverish – too awed and terrified from merely thinking on it all night to be able to say much of anything as he walked but thinking: “And he can walk here. And be so calm. What sort of a man is this?” and feeling enormously overawed and weakened.

The following morning Nicholson did not appear – but remained in his cell destroying many letters he had received from many places. And near noon, calling to Clyde who was two cells removed from him on the other side: “I’m sending you something to remember me by.” But not a word as to his going.

And then the guard bringing two books – Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian Nights. That night Nicholson’s removal from his cell – and the next morning before dawn the curtains; the same procession passing through, which was by now an old story to Clyde. But somehow this was so different – so intimate – so cruel. And as he passed, calling: “God bless you all. I hope you have good luck and get out.” And then that terrible stillness that followed the passing of each man.

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And Clyde thereafter – lonely – terribly so. Now there was no one here – no one – in whom he was interested. He could only sit and read – and think – or pretend to be interested in what these others said, for he could not really be interested in what they said. His was a mind that, freed from the miseries that had now befallen him, was naturally more drawn to romance than to reality. Where he read at all he preferred the light, romantic novel that pictured some such world as he would have liked to share, to anything that even approximated the hard reality of the world without, let alone this. Now what was going to become of him eventually? So alone was he! Only letters from his mother, brother and sisters. And Asa getting no better, and his mother not able to return as yet – things were so difficult there in Denver. She was seeking a religious school in which to teach somewhere – while nursing Asa. But she was asking the Rev. Duncan McMillan, a young minister whom she had encountered in Syracuse, in the course of her work there, to come and see him. He was so spiritual and so kindly. And she was sure, if he would but come, that Clyde would find him a helpful and a strong support in these, his dark and weary hours when she could no longer be with him herself.

For while Mrs. Griffiths was first canvassing the churches and ministers of this section for aid for her son, and getting very little from any quarter, she had met the Rev. Duncan McMillan in Syracuse, where he was conducting an independent, non-sectarian church. He was a young, and like herself or Asa, unordained minister or evangelist of, however, far stronger and more effective temperament religiously. At the time Mrs. Griffiths appeared on the scene, he had already read much

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concerning Clyde and Roberta – and was fairly well satisfied that, by the verdict arrived at, justice had probably been done. However, because of her great sorrow and troubled search for aid he was greatly moved.

He, himself, was a devoted son. And possessing a highly poetic and emotional though so far repressed or sublimated sex nature, he was one who, out of many in this northern region, had been touched and stirred by the crime of which Clyde was presumed to be guilty. Those highly emotional and tortured letters of Roberta’s! Her seemingly sad life at Lycurgus and Biltz! How often he had thought of those before ever he had encountered Mrs. Griffiths. The simple and worthy virtues which Roberta and her family had seemingly represented in that romantic, pretty country world from which they had derived. Unquestionably Clyde was guilty. And yet here, suddenly, Mrs. Griffiths, very lorn and miserable and maintaining her son’s innocence. At the same time there was Clyde in his cell doomed to die. Was it possible that by any strange freak or circumstance – a legal mistake had been made and Clyde was not as guilty as he appeared?

The temperament of McMillan was exceptional – tense, exotic. A present hour St. Bernard, Savonarola, St. Simeon, Peter the Hermit. Thinking of life, thought, all forms and social structures as the word, the expression, the breath of God. No less. Yet room for the Devil and his anger – the expelled Lucifer – going to and fro in the earth. Yet, thinking on the Beatitudes, on the Sermon on the Mount, on St. John and his direct seeing and interpretation of Christ and God. “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth.” A strange, strong, tense, confused, merciful and too,

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after his fashion beautiful soul; sorrowing with misery yearning toward an impossible justice.

Mrs. Griffiths in her talks with him had maintained that he was to remember that Roberta was not wholly guiltless. Had she not sinned with her son? And how was he to exculpate her entirely? A great legal mistake. Her son was being most unjustly executed – and by the pitiful but none-the-less romantic and poetic letters of this girl which should never have been poured forth upon a jury of men at all. They were, as she now maintained, incapable of judging justly or fairly where anything sad in connection with a romantic and pretty girl was concerned. She had found that to be true in her mission work.

And this idea now appealed to the Rev. Duncan as important and very likely true. And perhaps, as she now contended, if only some powerful and righteous emissary of God would visit Clyde and through the force of his faith and God’s word make him see – which she was sure he did not yet, and which she in her troubled state, and because she was his mother, could not make him – the blackness and terror of his sin with Roberta as it related to his immortal soul here and hereafter – then in gratitude to, reverence and faith in God, would be washed away, all his iniquity, would it not? For irrespective of whether he had committed the crime now charged against him or not – and she was convinced that he had not – was he not, nevertheless, in the shadow of the electric chair – in danger at any time through death (even before a decision should be reached) of being called before his maker – and with the deadly sin of adultery, to say nothing of all his lies and false conduct, not only in connection with Roberta but that other girl there in Lycurgus, upon him? And by conversion and con-

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trition should he not be purged of this? If only his soul were saved – she and he too would be at peace in this world.

And after a first and later a second pleading letter from Mrs. Griffiths, in which, after she had arrived at Denver, she set forth Clyde’s loneliness and need of counsel and aid, the Rev. Duncan setting forth for Auburn. And once there – having made it clear to the warden what his true purpose was – the spiritual salvation of Clyde’s soul, for his own, as well as his mother and God’s sake, he was at once admitted to the death house and to Clyde’s presence – the very door of his cell, where he paused and looked through, observing Clyde lying most wretchedly on his cot trying to read. And then McMillan outlining his tall, thin figure against the bars and without introduction of any kind, beginning, his head bowed in prayer:

“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.”

“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”

“For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”

“Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight, that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest and be clear when Thou judgest.”

“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

“Behold, Thou desireth truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom.”

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

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“Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.”

“Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.”

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

“Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy holy spirit away from me.”

“Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit.”

“Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways; and sinners will be converted unto Thee.”

“Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Thy righteousness.”

“O Lord, open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise.”

“For Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it; Thou delightest not in burnt offering.”

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.”

He paused – but only after he had intoned, and in a most sonorous and really beautiful voice the entire 51st Psalm. And then looking up, because Clyde, much astonished, had first sat up and then risen – and curiously enticed by the clean and youthful and vigorous if pale figure had approached nearer the cell door, he now added:

“I bring you, Clyde, the mercy and the salvation of your God. He has called on me and I have come. He has sent me that I may say unto you though your sins be as scarlet, they

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shall be white – like snow. Though they be red, like crimson, they shall be as wool. Come now, let us reason together with the Lord.”

He paused and stared at Clyde tenderly. A warm, youthful, half smile, half romantic, played about his lips. He liked the youth and refinement of Clyde, who, on his part was plainly taken by this exceptional figure. Another religionist, of course. But the Protestant chaplain who was here was nothing like this man – neither so arresting nor attractive.

“Duncan McMillan is my name,” he said, “and I come from the work of the Lord in Syracuse. He has sent me – just as he sent your mother to me. She has told me all that she believes. I have read all that you have said. And I know why you are here. But it is to bring you spiritual joy and gladness that I am here.”

And he suddenly quoted from Psalms 13:2, “‘How shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart, daily.’ That is from Psalms 13:2. And here is another thing that now comes to me as something that I should say to you. It is from the Bible, too – the Tenth Psalm: ‘He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved, for I shall never be in adversity.’ But you are in adversity, you see. We all are, who live in sin. And here is another thing that comes to me, just now to say. It is from Psalm 10:11: ‘He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten. He hideth His face.’ And I am told to say to you that He does not hide His face. Rather I am told to quote this to you from the Eighteenth Psalm: ‘They prevented me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.’

“‘He delivered me from my strong enemy.

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