An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [390]
And again:
“Oh, Clyde, Clyde, life is so different to-day to what it was last year. Think—then we were going to Crum and those other lakes over near Fonda and Gloversville and Little Falls, but now—now. Only just now some boy and girl friends of Tom’s and Emily’s came by to get them to go after strawberries, and when I saw them go and knew I couldn’t, and that I couldn’t be like that any more ever, I cried and cried, ever so long.”
And finally:
“I have been bidding good-by to some places to-day. There are so many nooks, dear, and all of them so dear to me. I have lived here all my life, you know. First, there was the springhouse with its great masses of green moss, and in passing it I said good-by to it, for I won’t be coming to it soon again—maybe never. And then the old apple tree where we had our playhouse years ago—Emily and Tom and Gifford and I. Then the ‘Believe,’ a cute little house in the orchard where we sometimes played.
“Oh, Clyde, you can’t realize what all this means to me, I feel as though I shall never see my home again after I leave here this time. And mamma, poor dear mamma, how I do love her and how sorry I am to have deceived her so. She is never cross and she always helps me so much. Sometimes I think if I could tell her, but I can’t. She has had trouble enough, and I couldn’t break her heart like that. No, if I go away and come back some time, either married or dead—it doesn’t make so much difference now—she will never know, and I will not have caused her any pain, and that means so much more than life itself to me. So good-by, Clyde, until I do meet you, as you telephoned. And forgive me all the trouble that I have caused you.
“Your sorrowful,
“ROBERTA.”
And at points in the reading, Mason himself crying, and at their conclusion turning, weary and yet triumphant, a most complete and indestructible case, as he saw it, having been presented, and exclaiming: “The People rest.” And at that moment, Mrs. Alden, in court with her husband and Emily, and overwrought, not only by the long strain of the trial but this particular evidence, uttering a whimpering yet clear cry and then falling forward in a faint. And Clyde, in his own overwrought condition, hearing her cry and seeing her fall, jumping up—the restraining hand of Jephson instantly upon him, while bailiffs and others assisted her and Titus who was beside her from the courtroom. And the audience almost, if not quite, as moved and incensed against Clyde by that development as though, then and there, he had committed some additional crime.
But then, that excitement having passed and it being quite dark, and the hands of the court clock pointing to five, and all the court weary, Justice Oberwaltzer signifying his intention of adjourning for the night.
And at once all the newspaper men and feature writers and artists rising and whispering to each other that on the morrow the defense would start, and wondering as to who and where the witnesses were, also whether Clyde would be permitted to go on the stand in his own defense in the face of this amazing mass of evidence against him, or whether his lawyers would content themselves with some specious argument as to mental and moral weakness which might end in prison for life—not less.
And Clyde, hissed and cursed as he left the court, wondering if on the morrow, and as they had planned this long time since, he would have the courage to rise and go on the stand—wondering if there was not some way, in case no one was looking (he was not handcuffed as he went to and from the jail) maybe tomorrow night when all were rising, the crowds moving and these deputies