An American Tragedy

by Theodore Dreiser

  “I see. But, Clyde, among other bits of testimony here, there was that letter found in Miss Alden’s coat pocket—the one written on Grass Lake Inn stationery and addressed to her mother, in which she told her that she was about to be married. Had you already told her up there at Grass Lake that morning that you were going to marry her for sure?”

  “No, sir. Not exactly, but I did say on getting up that day that it was the deciding day for us and that she was going to be able to decide for herself whether she wanted me to marry her or not.”

  “Oh, I see. So that’s it,” smiled Jephson, as though greatly relieved. (And Mason and Newcomb and Burleigh and State Senator Redmond all listening with the profoundest attention, now exclaimed, sotto voce and almost in unison: “Of all the bunk!”)

  “Well, now we come to the trip itself. You have heard the testimony here and the dark motive and plotting that has been attributed to every move in connection with it. Now I want you to tell it in your own way. It has been testified here that you took both bags—yours and hers—up there with you but that you left hers at Gun Lodge when you got there and took your own out on the lake in that boat with you. Now just why did you do that? Please speak so that all of the jurymen can hear you.”

  “Well, the reason for that was,” and here once more his throat became so dry that he could scarcely speak, “we didn’t know whether we could get any lunch at Big Bittern, so we decided to take some things along with us from Grass Lake. Her bag was packed full of things, but there was room in mine. Besides, it had my camera with the tripod outside. So I decided to leave hers and take mine.”

  “You decided?”

  “Well, I asked her what she thought and she said she thought that was best.”

  “Where was it you asked her that?”

  “On the train coming down.”

  “And did you know then that you were coming back to Gun Lodge after going out on the lake?”

  “Yes, sir, I did. We had to. There was no other road. They told us that at Grass Lake.”

  “And in riding over to Big Bittern—do you recall the testimony of the driver who drove you over—that you were ‘very nervous’ and that you asked him whether there were many people over that day?”

  “I recall it, yes, sir, but I wasn’t nervous at all. I may have asked about the people, but I can’t see anything wrong with that. It seems to me that any one might ask that.”

  “And so it seems to me,” echoed Jephson. “Then what happened after you registered at Big Bittern Inn and got into that boat and went out on the lake with Miss Alden? Were you or she especially preoccupied or nervous or in any state different from that of any ordinary person who goes out on a lake to row? Were you particularly happy or particularly gloomy, or what?”

  “Well, I don’t think I was especially gloomy—no, sir. I was thinking of all I was going to tell her, of course, and of what was before me either way she decided. I wasn’t exactly gay, I guess, but I thought it would be all right whichever way things went. I had decided that I was willing to marry her.”

  “And how about her? Was she quite cheerful?”

  “Well—yes, sir. She seemed to feel much happier for some reason.”

  “And what did you talk about?”

  “Oh, about the lake first—how beautiful it was and where we would have our lunch when we were ready for it. And then we rowed along the west shore looking for water lilies. She was so happy that I hated to bring up anything just then, and so we just kept on rowing until about two, when we stopped for lunch.”

  “Just where was that? Just get up and trace on the map with that pointer there just where you did go and how long you stopped and for what.”

  And so Clyde, pointer in hand and standing before the large map of the lake and region which particularly concerned this tragedy, now tracing in detail the long row along the shore, a group of trees, which, after having lunch, they had rowed to see—a beautiful bed of water lilies which they had lingered over—each point at which they had stopped, until reaching Moon Cove at about five in the afternoon, they had been so entranced by its beauty that they had merely sat and gazed, as he said. Afterwards, in order that he might take some pictures, they had gone ashore in the woods nearby—he all the while preparing himself to tell Roberta of Miss X and ask her for her final decision. And then having left the bag on shore for a few moments while they rowed out and took some snapshots in the boat, they had drifted in the calm of the water and the stillness and beauty until finally he had gathered sufficient courage to tell her what was in his heart. And at first, as he now said, Roberta seemed greatly startled and depressed and began crying a little, saying that perhaps it was best for her not to live any longer—she felt so miserable. But, afterwards, when he had impressed on her the fact that he was really sorry and perfectly willing to make amends, she had suddenly changed and begun to grow more cheerful, and then of a sudden, in a burst of tenderness and gratefulness—he could not say exactly—she had jumped up and tried to come to him. Her arms were outstretched and she moved as if to throw herself at his feet or into his lap. But just then, her foot, or her dress, had caught and she had stumbled. And he—camera in hand—(a last minute decision or legal precaution on the part of Jephson)—had risen instinctively to try to catch her and stop her fall. Perhaps—he would not be able to say here—her face or hand had struck the camera. At any rate, the next moment, before he quite understood how it all happened, and without time for thought or action on his part or hers, both were in the water and the boat, which had overturned, seemed to have struck Roberta, for she seemed to be stunned.

  “I called to her to try to get to the boat—it was moving away—to take hold of it, but she didn’t seem to hear me or understand what I meant. I was afraid to go too near her at first because she was striking out in every direction—and before I could swim ten strokes forward her head had gone down once and come up and then gone down again for a second time. By then the boat had floated all of thirty or forty feet away and I knew that I couldn’t get her into that. And then I decided that if I wanted to save myself I had better swim ashore.”

  And once there, as he now narrated, it suddenly occurred to him how peculiar and suspicious were all the circumstances surrounding his present position. He suddenly realized, as he now said, how bad the whole thing looked from the beginning. The false registering. The fact his bag was there—hers not. Besides, to return now meant that he would have to explain and it would become generally known—and everything connected with his life would go—Miss X, his work, his social position—all—whereas, if he said nothing (and here it was, and for the first time, as he now swore, that this thought occurred to him), it might be assumed that he too had drowned. In view of this fact and that any physical help he might now give her would not restore her to life, and that acknowledgment would mean only trouble for him and shame for her, he decided to say nothing. And so, to remove all traces, he had taken off his clothes and wrung them out and wrapped them for packing as best he could. Next, having left the tripod on shore with his bag, he decided to hide that, and did. His first straw hat, the one without the lining (but about which absent lining he now declared he knew nothing), had been lost with the overturning of the boat, and so now he had put on the extra one he had with him, although he also had a cap which he might have worn. (He usually carried an extra hat on a trip because so often, it seemed, something happened to one.) Then he had ventured to walk south through the woods toward a railroad which he thought cut through the woods in that direction. He had not known of any automobile road through there then, and as for making for the Cranstons’ so directly, he confessed quite simply that he would naturally have gone there. They were his friends and he wanted to get off somewhere where he could think about this terrible thing that had descended upon him so suddenly out of a clear sky.

  And then having testified to so much—and no more appearing to occur either to Jephson or himself—the former after a pause now turned and said, most distinctl
y and yet somehow quietly:

  “Now, Clyde, you have taken a solemn oath before this jury, this judge, all these people here, and above all your God, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You realize what that means, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “You swear before God that you did not strike Roberta Alden in that boat?”

  “I swear. I did not.”

  “Or throw her into the lake?”

  “I swear it. I did not.”

  “Or willfully or willingly in any way attempt to upset that boat or in any other fashion bring about the death that she suffered?”

  “I swear it!” cried Clyde, emphatically and emotionally.

  “You swear that it was an accident—unpremeditated and undesigned by you?”

  “I do,” lied Clyde, who felt that in fighting for his life he was telling a part of the truth, for that accident was unpremeditated and undesigned. It had not been as he had planned and he could swear to that.

  And then Jephson, running one of his large strong hands over his face and looking blandly and nonchalantly around upon the court and jury, the while he compressed his thin lips into a long and meaningful line, announced: “The prosecution may take the witness.”

  Chapter 25

  THE mood of Mason throughout the entire direct examination was that of a restless harrier anxious to be off at the heels of its prey—of a foxhound within the last leap of its kill. A keen and surging desire to shatter this testimony, to show it to be from start to finish the tissue of lies that in part at least it was, now animated him. And no sooner had Jephson concluded than he leaped up and confronted Clyde, who, seeing him blazing with this desire to undo him, felt as though he was about to be physically attacked.

  “Griffiths, you had that camera in your hand at the time she came toward you in the boat?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “She stumbled and fell and you accidentally struck her with it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t suppose in your truthful and honest way you remember telling me there in the woods on the shore of Big Bittern that you never had a camera?”

  “Yes, sir—I remember that.”

  “And that was a lie, of course?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And told with all the fervor and force that you are now telling this other lie?”

  “I’m not lying. I’ve explained why I said that.”

  “You’ve explained why you said that! You’ve explained why you said that! And because you lied there you expect to be believed here, do you?”

  Belknap rose to object, but Jephson pulled him down.

  “Well, this is the truth, just the same.”

  “And no power under heaven could make you tell another lie here, of course—not a strong desire to save yourself from the electric chair?”

  Clyde blanched and quivered slightly; he blinked his red, tired eyelids. “Well, I might, maybe, but not under oath, I don’t think.”

  “You don’t think! Oh, I see. Lie all you want whatever you are—and at any time—and under any circumstances—except when you’re on trial for murder!”

  “No, sir. It isn’t that. But what I just said is so.”

  “And you swear on the Bible, do you, that you experienced a change of heart?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That Miss Alden was very sad and that was what moved you to experience this change of heart?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s how it was.”

  “Well, now, Griffiths, when she was up there in the country and waiting for you—she wrote you all those letters there, did she not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You received one on an average of every two days, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you knew she was lonely and miserable there, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir—but then I’ve explained——”

  “Oh, you’ve explained! You 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 this 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 up 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 testifie
d 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 turned from him.

  “And now, Griffiths,” went on Mason, “just you show Mr. Newcomb here now Miss Alden arose and came toward you. Direct him.”

  And then Clyde, feeling weak and false and hated, arising again and in a nervous and angular way—the eerie strangeness of all this affecting him to the point of unbelievable awkwardness—attempting to show Newcomb just how Roberta had gotten up and half walked and half crawled, then had stumbled and fallen. And after that, with the camera in his hand, attempting to show as nearly as he could recall, how unconsciously his arm had shot out and he had struck Roberta, he scarcely knowing where—on the chin and cheek maybe, he was not sure, but not intentionally, of course, and not with sufficient force really to injure her, he thought at the time. But just here a long wrangle between Belknap and Mason as to the competency of such testimony since Clyde declared that he could not remember clearly—but Oberwaltzer finally allowing the testimony on the ground that it would show, relatively, whether a light or heavy push or blow was required in order to upset any one who might be “lightly” or “loosely” posed.