An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (i can read book club .TXT) 📕

prove,” he went on, “it was no more than four months after his arrival in Lycurgus that this dead girl came to work for the defendant in the department of which he was the head. And it was not more than two months after that before he had induced her to move from the respectable and religious home which she had chosen in Lycurgus, to one concerning which she knew nothing and the principal advantage of which, as he saw it, was that it offered secrecy and seclusion and freedom from observation for that vile purpose which already he entertained in regard to her.

“There was a rule of the Griffiths Company, as we will later show in this trial, which explains much⁠—and that was that no superior officer or head of any department was permitted to have anything to do with any girls working under him, or for the factory, in or out of the factory. It was not conducive to either the morals or the honor of those working for this great company, and they would not allow it. And shortly after coming there, this man had been instructed as to that rule. But did that deter him? Did the so recent and favorable consideration of his uncle in any way deter him? Not in the least. Secrecy! Secrecy! From the very beginning! Seduction! Seduction! The secret and intended and immoral and illegal and socially unwarranted and condemned use of her body outside the regenerative and ennobling pale of matrimony!

“That was his purpose, gentlemen! But was it generally known by anyone in Lycurgus or elsewhere that such a relationship as this existed between him and Roberta Alden? Not a soul! Not a soul!, as far as I have been able to ascertain, was ever so much as partially aware of this relationship until after this girl was dead. Not a soul! Think of that!

“Gentlemen of the jury,” and here his voice took on an almost reverential tone, “Roberta Alden loved this defendant with all the strength of her soul. She loved him with that love which is the crowning mystery of the human brain and the human heart, that transcends in its strength and its weakness all fear of shame or punishment from even the immortal throne above. She was a true and human and decent and kindly girl⁠—a passionate and loving girl. And she loved as only a generous and trusting and self-sacrificing soul can love. And loving so, in the end she gave to him all that any woman can give the man she loves.

“Friends, this thing has happened millions of times in this world of ours, and it will happen millions and millions of times in the days to come. It is not new and it will never be old.

“But in January or February last, this girl, who is now dead in her grave, was compelled to come to this defendant, Clyde Griffiths, and tell him that she was about to become a mother. We shall prove to you that then and later she begged him to go away with her and make her his wife.

“But did he? Would he? Oh, no! For by that time a change had come over the dreams and the affections of Clyde Griffiths. He had had time to discover that the name of Griffiths in Lycurgus was one that would open the doors of Lycurgus exclusive circles⁠—that the man who was no one in Kansas City or Chicago⁠—was very much of a person here, and that it would bring him in contact with girls of education and means, girls who moved far from the sphere to which Roberta Alden belonged. Not only that, but he had found one girl to whom, because of her beauty, wealth, position, he had become enormously attached and beside her the little farm and factory girl in the pathetically shabby and secret room to which he had assigned her, looked poor indeed⁠—good enough to betray but not good enough to marry. And he would not.” Here he paused, but only for a moment, then went on:

“But at no point have I been able to find the least modification or cessation of any of these social activities on his part which so entranced him. On the contrary, from January to July fifth last, and after⁠—yes, even after she was finally compelled to say to him that unless he could take her away and marry her, she would have to appeal to the sense of justice in the community in which they moved, and after she was cold and dead under the waters of Big Bittern⁠—dances, lawn fêtes, automobile parties, dinners, gay trips to Twelfth Lake and Bear Lake, and without a thought, seemingly, that her great moral and social need should modify his conduct in any way.”

And here he paused and gazed in the direction of Belknap and Jephson, who in turn, were not sufficiently disturbed or concerned to do more than smile, first at him and then at each other, although Clyde, terrorized by the force and the vehemence of it all, was chiefly concerned to note how much of exaggeration and unfairness was in all this.

But even as he was thinking so, Mason was continuing with: “But by this time, gentlemen, as I have indicated, Roberta Alden had become insistent that Griffiths make her his wife. And this he promised to do. Yet, as all the evidence here will show, he never intended to do anything of the kind. On the contrary, when her condition became such that he could no longer endure her pleas or the danger which her presence in Lycurgus unquestionably spelled for him, he induced her to go home to her father’s house, with the suggestion, apparently, that she prepare herself by making some necessary clothes, against the day when he would come for her and remove her to some distant city where they would not be known, yet where as his wife she could honorably bring their child into