An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [360]
And the clerk, immediately drawing out of the box a second slip of paper, and then calling: “Dudley Sheerline!” Whereupon, a thin, tall man of between thirty-eight and forty, neatly dressed and somewhat meticulous and cautious in his manner, approached and took his place in the box. And Mason once more began to question him as he had the other.
In the meantime, Clyde, in spite of both Belknap’s and Jephson’s preliminary precautions, was already feeling stiff and chill and bloodless. For, decidedly, as he could feel, this audience was inimical. And amid this closely pressing throng, as he now thought, with an additional chill, there must be the father and mother, perhaps also the sisters and brothers, of Roberta, and all looking at him, and hoping with all their hearts, as the newspapers during the weeks past informed him, that he would be made to suffer for this.
And again, all those people of Lycurgus and Twelfth Lake, no one of whom had troubled to communicate with him in any way, assuming him to be absolutely guilty, of course—were any of those here? Jill or Gertrude or Tracy Trumbull, for instance? Or Wynette Phant or her brother? She had been at that camp at Bear Lake the day he was arrested. His mind ran over all the social personages whom he had encountered during the last year and who would now see him as he was—poor and commonplace and deserted, and on trial for such a crime as this. And after all his bluffing about his rich connections here and in the west. For now, of course, they would believe him as terrible as his original plot, without knowing or caring about his side of the story—his moods and fears—that predicament that he was in with Roberta—his love for Sondra and all that she had meant to him. They wouldn’t understand that, and he was not going to be allowed to tell anything in regard to it, even if he were so minded.
And yet, because of the advice of Belknap and Jephson, he must sit up and smile, or at least look pleasant and meet the gaze of every one boldly and directly. And in consequence, turning, and for the moment feeling absolutely transfixed. For there—God, what a resemblance!—to the left of him on one of those wall benches, was a woman or girl who appeared to be the living image of Roberta! It was that sister of hers—Emily—of whom she had often spoken—but oh, what a shock! His heart almost stopped. It might even be Roberta! And transfixing him with what ghostly, and yet real, and savage and accusing eyes! And next to her another girl, looking something like her, too—and next to her that old man, Roberta’s father—that wrinkled old man whom he had encountered that day he had called at his farm door for information, now looking at him almost savagely, a gray and weary look that said so plainly: “You murderer! You murderer!” And beside him a mild and small and ill-looking woman of about fifty, veiled and very shrunken and sunken-eyed, who, at his glance dropped her own eyes and turned away, as if stricken with a great pain, not hate. Her mother—no doubt of it. Oh, what a situation was this! How unthinkably miserable! His heart fluttered. His hands trembled.
So now to stay himself, he looked down, first at the hands of Belknap and Jephson on the table before him, since each was toying with a pencil poised above the pad of paper before them, as they gazed at Mason and whoever was in the jury box before him—a foolish-looking fat man now. What a difference between Jephson’s and Belknap’s hands—the latter so short and soft and white, the former’s so long and brown and knotty and bony. And Belknap’s pleasant and agreeable manner here in court—his voice—”I think I will ask the juror to step down”—as opposed to Mason’s revolver-like “Excused!” or Jephson’s slow and yet powerful, though whispered, “Better let him go, Alvin. Nothing in him for us.” And then all at once Jephson saying to him: “Sit up! Sit up! Look around! Don