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

mean your lawyers have explained it for you! Didn’t they coach you day after day in that jail over there as to how you were to answer when the time came?”

“No, sir, they didn’t!” replied Clyde, defiantly, catching Jephson’s eye at this moment.

“Well, then when I asked you up there at Bear Lake how it was that his girl met her death⁠—why didn’t you tell me then and save all this trouble and suspicion and investigation? Don’t you think the public would have listened more kindly and believingly there than it will now after you’ve taken five long months to think it all out with the help of two lawyers?”

“But I didn’t think it out with any lawyers,” persisted Clyde, still looking at Jephson, who was supporting him with all his mental strength. “I’ve just explained why I did that.”

“You’ve explained! You’ve explained!” roared Mason, almost beside himself with the knowledge that this false explanation was sufficient of a shield or barrier for Clyde to hide behind whenever he found himself being too hard pressed⁠—the little rat! And so now he fairly quivered with baffled rage as he proceeded.

“And before you went up⁠—while she was writing them to you⁠—you considered them sad, didn’t you?”

“Why, yes, sir. That is”⁠—he hesitated incautiously⁠—“some parts of them anyhow.”

“Oh, I see⁠—only some parts of them now. I thought you just said you considered them sad.”

“Well, I do.”

“And did.”

“Yes, sir⁠—and did.” But Clyde’s eyes were beginning to wander nervously in the direction of Jephson, who was fixing him as with a beam of light.

“Remember her writing you this?” And here Mason picked up and opened one of the letters and began reading: “Clyde⁠—I shall certainly die, dear, if you don’t come. I am so much alone. I am nearly crazy now. I wish I could go away and never return or trouble you any more. But if you would only telephone me, even so much as once every other day, since you won’t write. And when I need you and a word of encouragement so.” Mason’s voice was mellow. It was sad. One could feel, as he spoke, the wave of passing pity that was moving as sound and color not only through him but through every spectator in the high, narrow courtroom. “Does that seem at all sad to you?”

“Yes, sir, it does.”

“Did it then?”

“Yes, sir, it did.”

“You knew it was sincere, didn’t you?” snarled Mason.

“Yes, sir. I did.”

“Then why didn’t a little of that pity that you claim moved you so deeply out there in the center of Big Bittern move you down there in Lycurgus to pick up the telephone there in Mrs. Peyton’s house where you were and reassure that lonely girl by so much as a word that you were coming? Was it because your pity for her then wasn’t as great as it was after she wrote you that threatening letter? Or was it because you had a plot and you were afraid that too much telephoning to her might attract attention? How was it that you had so much pity all of a sudden up at Big Bittern, but none at all down there at Lycurgus? Is it something you can turn on and off like a faucet?”

“I never said I had none at all,” replied Clyde, defiantly, having just received an eye-flash from Jephson.

“Well, you left her to wait until she had to threaten you because of her own terror and misery.”

“Well, I’ve admitted that I didn’t treat her right.”

“Ha, ha! Right! Right! And because of that admission and in face of all the other testimony we’ve had here, your own included, you expect to walk out of here a free man, do you?”

Belknap was not to be restrained any longer. His objection came⁠—and with bitter vehemence he addressed the judge: “This is infamous, your Honor. Is the district attorney to be allowed to make a speech with every question?”

“I heard no objection,” countered the court. “The district attorney will frame his questions properly.”

Mason took the rebuke lightly and turned again to Clyde. “In that boat there in the center of Big Bittern you have testified that you had in your hand that camera that you once denied owning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And she was in the stern of the boat?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring in that boat, will you, Burton?” he called to Burleigh at this point, and forthwith four deputies from the district attorney’s office retired through a west door behind the judge’s rostrum and soon returned carrying the identical boat in which Clyde and Roberta had sat, and put it down before the jury. And as they did so Clyde chilled and stared. The identical boat! He blinked and quivered as the audience stirred, stared and strained, an audible wave of curiosity and interest passing over the entire room. And then Mason, taking the camera and shaking it up and down, exclaimed: “Well, here you are now, Griffiths! The camera you never owned. Step down here into this boat and take this camera here and show the jury just where you sat, and where Miss Alden sat. And exactly, if you can, how and where it was that you struck Miss Alden and where and about how she fell.”

“Object!” declared Belknap.

A long and wearisome legal argument, finally terminating in the judge allowing this type of testimony to be continued for a while at least. And at the conclusion of it, Clyde declaring: “I didn’t intentionally strike her with it though”⁠—to which Mason replied: “Yes, we heard you testify that way”⁠—then Clyde stepping down and after being directed here and there finally stepping into the boat at the middle seat and seating himself while three men held it straight.

“And now, Newcomb⁠—I want you to come here and sit wherever Miss Alden was supposed to sit and take any position which he describes as having been taken by her.”

“Yes, sir,” said Newcomb, coming forward and seating himself while Clyde vainly sought to catch Jephson’s eye but could not since his own back was partially