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

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, Mr. Alden, just tell the jury how and under what circumstances it was that your daughter Roberta happened to go to Lycurgus.”

“Objected to. Irrelevant, immaterial, incompetent,” snapped Belknap.

“I’ll connect it up,” put in Mason, looking up at the judge, who ruled that Titus might answer subject to a motion to strike out his testimony if not “connected up.”

“She went there to get work,” replied Titus.

“And why did she go there to get work?”

Again objection, and the old man allowed to proceed after the legal formalities had again been complied with.

“Well, the farm we have over there near Biltz hasn’t ever paid so very well, and it’s been necessary for the children to help out and Bobbie being the oldest⁠—”

“Move to strike out!”

“Strike it out.”

“ ‘Bobbie’ was the pet name you gave your daughter Roberta, was it?”

“Objected to,” etc., etc. “Exception.”

“Yes, sir. ‘Bobbie’ was what we sometimes called her around there⁠—just Bobbie.”

And Clyde listening intently and enduring without flinching the stern and accusing stare of this brooding Priam of the farm, wondering at the revelation of his former sweetheart’s pet name. He had nicknamed her “Bert”; she had never told him that at home she was called “Bobbie.”

And amid a fusillade of objections and arguments and rulings, Alden continuing, under the leading of Mason, to recite how she had decided to go to Lycurgus, after receipt of a letter from Grace Marr, and stop with Mr. and Mrs. Newton. And after securing work with the Griffiths Company, how little the family had seen of her until June fifth last, when she had returned to the farm for a rest and in order to make some clothes.

“No announcement of any plans for marriage?”

“None.”

But she had written a number of long letters⁠—to whom he did not know at the time. And she had been depressed and sick. Twice he had seen her crying, although he said nothing, knowing that she did not want to be noticed. There had been a few telephone calls from Lycurgus, the last on July fourth or fifth, the day before she left, he was quite sure.

“And what did she have with her when she left?”

“Her bag and her little trunk.”

“And would you recognize the bag that she carried, if you saw it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is this the bag?” (A deputy assistant district attorney carrying forward a bag and placing it on a small stand.)

And Alden, after looking at it and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, announcing: “Yes, sir.”

And then most dramatically, as Mason intended in connection with every point in this trial, a deputy assistant carrying in a small trunk, and Titus Alden and his wife and daughters and sons all crying at the sight of it. And after being identified by him as Roberta’s, the bag and then the trunk were opened in turn. And the dresses made by Roberta, some underclothing, shoes, hats, the toilet set given her by Clyde, pictures of her mother and father and sister and brothers, an old family cookbook, some spoons and forks and knives and salt and pepper sets⁠—all given her by her grandmother and treasured by her for her married life⁠—held up and identified in turn.

All this over Belknap’s objection, and on Mason’s promise to “connect it up,” which, however, he was unable to do, and the evidence was accordingly ordered “struck out.” But its pathetic significance by that time deeply impressed on the minds and hearts of the jurymen. And Belknap’s criticism of Mason’s tactics merely resulting in that gentleman bellowing, in an infuriated manner: “Who’s conducting this prosecution, anyhow?” To which Belknap replied: “The Republican candidate for county judge in this county, I believe!”⁠—thus evoking a wave of laughter which caused Mason to fairly shout: “Your Honor, I protest! This is an unethical and illegal attempt to inject into this case a political issue which has nothing to do with it. It is slyly and maliciously intended to convey to this jury that because I am the Republican nominee for judge of the county, it is impossible for me to properly and fairly conduct the prosecution of this case. And I now demand an apology, and will have it before I proceed one step further in this case.”

Whereupon Justice Oberwaltzer, feeling that a very serious breach of court etiquette had occurred, proceeded to summon Belknap and Mason before him, and after listening to placid and polite interpretations of what was meant, and what was not meant, finally ordered, on pain of contempt, that neither of them again refer to the political situation in any way.

Nevertheless, Belknap and Jephson congratulating themselves that in this fashion their mood in regard to Mason’s candidacy and his use of this case to further it had effectively gotten before the jury and the court.

But more and more witnesses!

Grace Marr now taking the stand, and in a glib and voluble outpouring describing how and where she had first met Roberta⁠—how pure and clean and religious a girl she was, but how after meeting Clyde on Crum Lake a great change had come over her. She was more secretive and evasive and given to furnishing all sorts of false excuses for new and strange adventures⁠—as, for instance, going out nights and staying late, and claiming to be places over Saturday and Sunday where she wasn’t⁠—until finally, because of criticism which she, Grace Marr, had ventured to make, she had suddenly left, without giving any address. But there was a man, and that man was Clyde Griffiths. For having followed Roberta to her room one evening in September or October of the year before, she had observed her and Clyde in the distance, near the Gilpin home. They were standing under some trees and he had his arm around her.

And thereafter Belknap, at Jephson’s suggestion, taking her and by the slyest type of questioning, trying to discover whether, before coming to Lycurgus, Roberta was as religious and conventional as Miss Marr would have it. But Miss Marr, faded and irritable, insisting that up