An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [365]
“But did he? Would he? Oh, no! For by that time a change had come over the dreams and the affections of Clyde Griffiths. He had had time to discover that the name of Griffiths in Lycurgus was one that would open the doors of Lycurgus exclusive circles—that the man who was no one in Kansas City or Chicago—was very much of a person here, and that it would bring him in contact with girls of education and means, girls who moved far from the sphere to which Roberta Alden belonged. Not only that, but he had found one girl to whom, because of her beauty, wealth, position, he had become enormously attached and beside her the little farm and factory girl in the pathetically shabby and secret room to which he had assigned her, looked poor indeed—good enough to betray but not good enough to marry. And he would not.” Here he paused, but only for a moment, then went on:
“But at no point have I been able to find the least modification or cessation of any of these social activities on his part which so entranced him. On the contrary, from January to July fifth last, and after—yes, even after she was finally compelled to say to him that unless he could take her away and marry her, she would have to appeal to the sense of justice in the community in which they moved, and after she was cold and dead under the waters of Big Bittern—dances, lawn fetes, automobile parties, dinners, gay trips to Twelfth Lake and Bear Lake, and without a thought, seemingly, that her great moral and social need should modify his conduct in any way.”
And here he paused and gazed in the direction of Belknap and Jephson, who in turn, were not sufficiently disturbed or concerned to do more than smile, first at him and then at each other, although Clyde, terrorized by the force and the vehemence of it all, was chiefly concerned to note how much of exaggeration and unfairness was in all this.
But even as he was thinking so, Mason was continuing with: “But by this time, gentlemen, as I have indicated, Roberta Alden had become insistent that Griffiths make her his wife. And this he promised to do. Yet, as all the evidence here will show, he never intended to do anything of the kind. On the contrary, when her condition became such that he could no longer endure her pleas or the danger which her presence in Lycurgus unquestionably spelled for him, he induced her to go home to her father’s house, with the suggestion, apparently, that she prepare herself by making some necessary clothes, against the day when he would come for her and remove her to some distant city where they would not be known, yet where as his wife she could honorably bring their child into the world. And according to her letters to him, as I will show, that was to have been in three weeks from the time she departed for her home in Biltz. But did he come for her as he had promised? No, he never did.
“Eventually, and solely because there was no other way out, he permitted her to come to him—on July sixth last—exactly two days before her death. But not before—but wait!— In the meantime, or from June fifth to July sixth, he allowed her to brood in that little, lonely farmhouse on the outskirts of Biltz in Mimico County, with the neighbors coming in to watch and help her make some clothes, which even then she did not dare announce as her bridal trousseau. And she suspected and feared that this defendant would fail her. For daily, and sometimes twice daily, she wrote him, telling him of her fears and asking him to assure her by letter or word in some form that he would come and take her away.
“But did he even do that? Never by letter! NEVER! Oh, no, gentlemen, oh, no! On the contrary some telephone messages—things that could not be so easily traced or understood. And these so few and brief that she herself complained bitterly of his lack of interest and consideration for her at this time. So much so that at the end of five weeks, growing desperate, she wrote” (and here Mason picked from a collection of letters on the table behind him a particular letter, and read): “‘This is to tell you that unless I hear from you either by telephone or letter before noon Friday, I will come to Lycurgus and the world will know how you have treated me.