An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [452]
“Good-by, Cutrone!” It was a hoarse, shaky voice from some near-by cell—Clyde could not tell which. “Go to a better world than this.” And then other voices: “Goodby, Cutrone. God keep you— even though you can’t talk English.”
The procession had passed. That door was shut. He was in there now. They were strapping him in, no doubt. Asking him what more he had to say—he who was no longer quite right in his mind. Now the straps must be fastened on, surely. The cap pulled down. In a moment, a moment, surely—
And then, although Clyde did not know or notice at the moment—a sudden dimming of the lights in this room—as well as over the prison—an idiotic or thoughtless result of having one electric system to supply the death voltage and the incandescence of this and all other rooms. And instantly a voice calling:
“There she goes. That’s one. Well, it’s all over with him.”
And a second voice: “Yes, he’s topped off, poor devil.”
And then after the lapse of a minute perhaps, a second dimming lasting for thirty seconds—and finally a third dimming.
“There—sure—that’s the end now.”
“Yes. He knows what’s on the other side now.”
Thereafter silence—a deadly hush with later some murmured prayers here and there. But with Clyde cold and with a kind of shaking ague. He dared not think—let alone cry. So that’s how it was. They drew the curtains. And then—and then. He was gone now. Those three dimmings of the lights. Sure, those were the flashes. And after all those nights at prayer. Those moanings! Those beatings of his head! And only a minute ago he had been alive— walking by there. But now dead. And some day he—he!—how could he be sure that he would not? How could he?
He shook and shook, lying on his couch, face down. The keepers came and ran up the curtains—as sure and secure in their lives apparently as though there was no death in the world. And afterwards he could hear them talking—not to him so much—he had proved too reticent thus far—but to some of the others.
Poor Pasquale. This whole business of the death penalty was all wrong. The warden thought so. So did they. He was working to have it abolished.
But that man! His prayers! And now he was gone. His cell over there was empty and another man would be put in it—to go too, later. Some one—many—like Cutrone, like himself—had been in this one—on this pallet. He sat up—moved to the chair. But he—they— had sat on that—too. He stood up—only to sink down on the pallet again. “God! God! God! God!” he now exclaimed to himself—but not aloud—and yet not unlike that other man who had so terrorized him on the night of his arrival here and who was still here. But he would go too. And all of these others—and himself maybe—unless— unless.
He had seen his first man die.
Chapter 31
In the meantime, however, Asa’s condition had remained serious, and it was four entire months before it was possible for him to sit up again or for Mrs. Griffiths to dream of resuming her lecturing scheme. But by that time, public interest in her and her son’s fate was considerably reduced. No Denver paper was interested to finance her return for anything she could do for them. And as for the public in the vicinity of the crime, it remembered Mrs. Griffiths and her son most clearly, and in so far as she was concerned, sympathetically—but only, on the other hand, to think of him as one who probably was guilty and in that case, being properly punished for his crime—that it would be as well if an appeal were not taken—or—if it were—that it be refused. These guilty criminals with their interminable appeals!
And with Clyde where he was, more and more executions—although