An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser (librera reader txt) 📗

“Yes, we know all about that. But doesn’t it occur to you that it takes a pretty cool head after so much panic in the water to stop at a moment like that and take such a precaution as that⁠—burying that tripod? How was it that you could think so well of that and not think anything about the boat a few moments before?”

“Well⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠…”

“You didn’t want her to live, in spite of your alleged change of heart! Isn’t that it?” yelled Mason. “Isn’t that the black, sad truth? She was drowning, as you wanted her to drown, and you just let her drown! Isn’t that so?”

He was fairly trembling as he shouted this, and Clyde, the actual boat before him and Roberta’s eyes and cries as she sank coming back to him with all their pathetic and horrible force, now shrank and cowered in his seat⁠—the closeness of Mason’s interpretation of what had really happened terrifying him. For never, even to Jephson and Belknap, had he admitted that when Roberta was in the water he had not wished to save her. Changelessly and secretively he insisted he had wanted to but that it had all happened so quickly, and he was so dazed and frightened by her cries and movements, that he had not been able to do anything before she was gone.

“I⁠ ⁠… I wanted to save her,” he mumbled, his face quite gray, “but⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… as I said, I was dazed⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠…”

“Don’t you know that you’re lying!” shouted Mason, leaning still closer, his stout arms aloft, his disfigured face glowering and scowling like some avenging nemesis or fury of gargoyle design⁠—“that you deliberately and with cold-hearted cunning allowed that poor, tortured girl to die there when you might have rescued her as easily as you could have swum fifty of those five hundred feet you did swim in order to save yourself?” For by now he was convinced that he knew just how Clyde had actually slain Roberta, something in his manner and mood convincing him, and he was determined to drag it out of him if he could. And although Belknap was instantly on his feet with a protest that his client was being unfairly prejudiced in the eyes of the jury and that he was really entitled to⁠—and now demanded⁠—a mistrial⁠—which complaint Justice Oberwaltzer eventually overruled⁠—still Clyde had time to reply, but most meekly and feebly: “No! No! I didn’t. I wanted to save her if I could.” Yet his whole manner, as each and every juror noted, was that of one who was not really telling the truth, who was really all of the mental and moral coward that Belknap had insisted he was⁠—but worse yet, really guilty of Roberta’s death. For after all, asked each juror of himself as he listened, why couldn’t he have saved her if he was strong enough to swim to shore afterwards⁠—or at least have swum to and secured the boat and helped her to take hold of it?

“She only weighed a hundred pounds, didn’t she?” went on Mason feverishly.

“Yes, I think so.”

“And you⁠—what did you weigh at the time?”

“About a hundred and forty,” replied Clyde.

“And a hundred and forty pound man,” sneered Mason, turning to the jury, “is afraid to go near a weak, sick, hundred-pound little girl who is drowning, for fear she will cling to him and drag him under! And a perfectly good boat, strong enough to hold three or four up, within fifteen or twenty feet! How’s that?”

And to emphasize it and let it sink in, he now paused, and took from his pocket a large white handkerchief, and after wiping his neck and face and wrists⁠—since they were quite damp from his emotional and physical efforts⁠—turned to Burton Burleigh and called: “You might as well have this boat taken out of here, Burton. We’re not going to need it for a little while anyhow.” And forthwith the four deputies carried it out.

And then, having recovered his poise, he once more turned to Clyde and began with: “Griffiths, you knew the color and feel of Roberta Alden’s hair pretty well, didn’t you? You were intimate enough with her, weren’t you?”

“I know the color of it or I think I do,” replied Clyde wincing⁠—an anguished chill at the thought of it affecting him almost observably.

“And the feel of it, too, didn’t you?” persisted Mason. “In those very loving days of yours before Miss X came along⁠—you must have touched it often enough.”

“I don’t know whether I did or not,” replied Clyde, catching a glance from Jephson.

“Well, roughly. You must know whether it was coarse or fine⁠—silky or coarse. You know that, don’t you?”

“It was silky, yes.”

“Well, here’s a lock of it,” he now added more to torture Clyde than anything else⁠—to wear him down nervously⁠—and going to his table where was an envelope and from it extracting a long lock of light brown hair. “Don’t that look like her hair?” And now he shoved it forward at Clyde who shocked and troubled withdrew from it as from some unclean or dangerous thing⁠—yet a moment after sought to recover himself⁠—the watchful eyes of the jury having noted all. “Oh, don’t be afraid,” persisted Mason, sardonically. “It’s only your dead love’s hair.”

And shocked by the comment⁠—and noting the curious eyes of the jury, Clyde took it in his hand. “That looks and feels like her hair, doesn’t it?” went on Mason.

“Well, it looks like it anyhow,” returned Clyde shakily.

“And now here,” continued Mason, stepping quickly to the table and returning with the camera in which between the lid and the taking mechanism were caught the two threads of Roberta’s hair put there by Burleigh, and then holding it out to him. “Just take this camera. It’s yours even though you did swear that it wasn’t⁠—and look at those two hairs there. See them?” And he poked the camera at Clyde as though he might strike him with