An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [438]
Clyde, now as always overawed and thrown back on himself by that uncompromising and shameless honesty which he had never been able quite to comprehend in her, announced, with all the firmness that he could muster—yet with a secret quavering chill in his heart— that he had sworn to the truth. He had not done those things with which he had been charged. He had not. But, alas, as she now said to herself, on observing him, what was that about his eyes—a faint flicker perhaps. He was not so sure—as self-convinced and definite as she had hoped—as she had prayed he would be. No, no, there was something in his manner, his words, as he spoke—a faint recessive intonation, a sense of something troubled, dubious, perhaps, which quite froze her now.
He was not positive enough. And so he might have plotted, in part at least, as she had feared at first, when she had first heard of this—might have even struck her on that lone, secret lake!—who could tell? (the searing, destroying power of such a thought as that). And that in the face of all his testimony to the contrary.
But “Jehovah, jirah, Thou wilt not require of a mother, in her own and her son’s darkest hour, that she doubt him,—make sure his death through her own lack of faith? Oh, no—Thou wilt not. O Lamb of God, Thou wilt not!” She turned; she bruised under her heel the scaly head of this dark suspicion—as terrifying to her as his guilt was to him. “O Absalom, my Absalom!” Come, come, we will not entertain such a thought. God himself would not urge it upon a mother. Was he not here—her son—before her, declaring firmly that he had not done this thing. She must believe—she would believe him utterly. She would—and did—whatever fiend of doubt might still remain locked in the lowest dungeon of her miserable heart. Come, come, the public should know how she felt. She and her son would find a way. He must believe and pray. Did he have a Bible? Did he read it? And Clyde having been long since provided with a Bible by a prison worker, assured her that he had and did read it.
But now she must go first to see his lawyers, next to file her dispatch, after which she would return. But once out on the street being immediately set upon by several reporters and eagerly questioned as to the meaning of her presence here. Did she believe in her son’s innocence? Did she or did she not think that he had had a fair trial? Why had she not come on before? And Mrs. Griffiths, in her direct and earnest and motherly way, taking them into her confidence and telling how as well as why she came to be here, also why she had not come before.
But now that she was here she hoped to stay. The Lord would provide the means for the salvation of her son, of whose innocence she was convinced. Would they not ask God to help her? Would they not pray for her success? And with the several reporters not a little moved and impressed, assuring her that they would, of course, and thereafter describing her to the world at large as she was—middle-aged, homely, religious, determined, sincere and earnest and with a moving faith in the innocence of her boy.
But the Griffiths of Lycurgus, on hearing this, resenting her coming as one more blow. And Clyde, in his cell, on reading of it later, somewhat shocked by the gross publicity now attending everything in connection with him, yet, because of his mother’s presence, resigned and after a time almost happy. Whatever her faults or defects, after all she was his mother, wasn’t she? And she had come to his aid. Let the public think what it would. Was he not in the shadow of death and she at least had not deserted him. And with this, her suddenly manifested skill in connecting herself in this way with a Denver paper, to praise her for.
She had never done anything like this before. And who knew but that possibly, and even in the face of her dire poverty now, she might still be able to solve this