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

darkest hour, standing up before Justice Oberwaltzer and listening first to a brief recital of his charge and trial (which was pronounced by Oberwaltzer to have been fair and impartial), then to the customary: “Have you any cause which shows why the judgment of death should not now be pronounced against you according to law?”⁠—to which and to the astonishment of his mother and the auditors (if not Jephson, who had advised and urged him so to do), Clyde now in a clear and firm voice replied:

“I am innocent of the crime as charged in the indictment. I never killed Roberta Alden and therefore I think this sentence should not be passed.”

And then staring straight before him conscious only of the look of admiration and love turned on him by his mother. For had not her son now declared himself, here at this fatal moment, before all these people? And his word here, if not in that jail, would be true, would it not? Then her son was not guilty. He was not. He was not. Praised be the name of the Lord in the highest. And deciding to make a great point of this in her dispatch⁠—so as to get it in all the papers, and in her lecture afterwards.

However, Oberwaltzer, without the faintest sign of surprise or perturbation, now continued: “Is there anything else you care to say?”

“No,” replied Clyde, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Clyde Griffiths,” then concluded Oberwaltzer, “the judgment of the Court is that you, Clyde Griffiths, for the murder in the first degree of one, Roberta Alden, whereof you are convicted, be, and you are hereby sentenced to the punishment of death; and it is ordered that, within ten days after this day’s session of Court, the Sheriff of this county of Cataraqui deliver you, together with the warrant of this Court, to the Agent and Warden of the State Prison of the State of New York at Auburn, where you shall be kept in solitary confinement until the week beginning Monday the 28th day of January, 19⁠—, and, upon some day within the week so appointed, the said Agent and Warden of the State Prison of the State of New York at Auburn is commended to do execution upon you, Clyde Griffiths, in the mode and manner prescribed by the laws of the State of New York.”

And that done, a smile from Mrs. Griffiths to her boy and an answering smile from Clyde to her. For since he had announced that he was not guilty⁠—here⁠—her spirit had risen in the face of this sentence. He was really innocent⁠—he must be, since he had declared it here. And Clyde because of her smile saying to himself, his mother believed in him now. She had not been swayed by all the evidence against him. And this faith, mistaken or not, was now so sustaining⁠—so needed. What he had just said was true as he now saw it. He had not struck Roberta. That was true. And therefore he was not guilty. Yet Kraut and Slack were once more seizing him and escorting him to the cell.

Immediately thereafter his mother seating herself at a press table proceeded to explain to contiguous press representatives now curiously gathering about her: “You mustn’t think too badly of me, you gentlemen of the papers. I don’t know much about this but it is the only way I could think of to be with my boy. I couldn’t have come otherwise.” And then one lanky correspondent stepping up to say: “Don’t worry, mother. Is there any way I can help you? Want me to straighten out what you want to say? I’ll be glad to.” And then sitting down beside her and proceeding to help her arrange her impressions in the form in which he assumed her Denver paper might like them. And others as well offering to do anything they could⁠—and all greatly moved.

Two days later, the proper commitment papers having been prepared and his mother notified of the change but not permitted to accompany him, Clyde was removed to Auburn, the Western penitentiary of the State of New York, where in the “death house” or “Murderers’ Row,” as it was called⁠—as gloomy and torturesome an inferno as one could imagine any human compelled to endure⁠—a combination of some twenty-two cells on two separate levels⁠—he was to be restrained until ordered retried or executed.

Yet as he traveled from Bridgeburg to this place, impressive crowds at every station⁠—young and old⁠—men, women and children⁠—all seeking a glimpse of the astonishingly youthly slayer. And girls and women, under the guise of kindly interest, but which, at best, spelled little more than a desire to achieve a facile intimacy with this daring and romantic, if unfortunate figure, throwing him a flower here and there and calling to him gayly and loudly as the train moved out from one station or another:

“Hello, Clyde! Hope to see you soon again. Don’t stay too long down there.”

“If you take an appeal, you’re sure to be acquitted. We hope so, anyhow.”

And with Clyde not a little astonished and later even heartened by this seemingly favorable discrepancy between the attitude of the crowds in Bridgeburg and this sudden, morbid, feverish and even hectic curiosity here, bowing and smiling and even waving with his hand. Yet thinking, none the less, “I am on the way to the death house and they can be so friendly. It is a wonder they dare.” And with Kraut and Sissel, his guards, because of the distinction and notoriety of being both his captors and jailors, as well also because of these unusual attentions from passengers on the train and individuals in these throngs without being themselves flattered and ennobled.

But after this one brief colorful flight in the open since his arrest, past these waiting throngs and over winter sunlit fields and hills of snow that reminded him of Lycurgus, Sondra, Roberta, and all that he had so kaleidoscopically and fatally known in the twenty months just past,