An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [368]
Chapter 21
And then witnesses, witnesses, witnesses—to the number of one hundred and twenty-seven. And their testimony, particularly that of the doctors, three guides, the woman who heard Roberta’s last cry, all repeatedly objected to by Jephson and Belknap, for upon such weakness and demonstrable error as they could point out depended the plausibility of Clyde’s daring defense. And all of this carrying the case well into November, and after Mason had been overwhelmingly elected to the judgeship which he had so craved. And because of the very vigor and strife of the trial, the general public from coast to coast taking more and more interest. And obviously, as the days passed and the newspaper writers at the trial saw it, Clyde was guilty. Yet he, because of the repeated commands of Jephson, facing each witness who assailed him with calm and even daring.
“Your name?”
“Titus Alden.”
“You are the father of Roberta Alden?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, Mr. Alden, just tell the jury how and under what circumstances it was that your daughter Roberta happened to go to Lycurgus.”
“Objected to. Irrelevant, immaterial, incompetent,” snapped Belknap.
“I’ll connect it up,” put in Mason, looking up at the judge, who ruled that Titus might answer subject to a motion to strike out his testimony if not “connected up.”
“She went there to get work,” replied Titus.
“And why did she go there to get work?”
Again objection, and the old man allowed to proceed after the legal formalities had again been complied with.
“Well, the farm we have over there near Biltz hasn’t ever paid so very well, and it’s been necessary for the children to help out and Bobbie being the oldest—”
“Move to strike out!” “Strike it out.”
“‘Bobbie’ was the pet name you gave your daughter Roberta, was it?”
“Objected to,” etc., etc. “Exception.”
“Yes, sir. ‘Bobbie’ was what we sometimes called her around there— just Bobbie.”
And Clyde listening intently and enduring without flinching the stern and accusing stare of this brooding Priam of the farm, wondering at the revelation of his former sweetheart’s pet name. He had nicknamed her “Bert”; she had never told him that at home she was called “Bobbie.”
And amid a fusillade of objections and arguments and rulings, Alden continuing, under the leading of Mason, to recite how she had decided to go to Lycurgus, after receipt of a letter from Grace Marr, and stop with Mr. and Mrs. Newton. And after securing work with the Griffiths Company, how little the family had seen of her until June fifth last, when she had returned to the farm for a rest and in order to make some clothes.
“No announcement of any plans for marriage?”
“None.”
But she had written a number of long letters—to whom he did not know at the time. And she had been depressed and sick. Twice he had seen her crying, although he said nothing, knowing that she did not want to be noticed. There had been a few telephone calls from Lycurgus, the last on July fourth or fifth, the day before she left, he was quite sure.
“And what did she have with her when she left?”
“Her bag and her little trunk.”
“And would you recognize the bag that she carried, if you saw it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is this the bag?” (A deputy assistant district attorney carrying forward a bag and placing it on a small stand.)
And Alden, after looking at it and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, announcing: “Yes, sir.”
And then most dramatically, as Mason intended in connection with every point in this trial, a deputy assistant carrying in a small trunk, and Titus Alden and his wife and daughters and sons all crying at the sight of it. And after being identified by him as Roberta’s, the bag and then the trunk were opened in turn. And the dresses made by Roberta, some underclothing, shoes, hats, the toilet set given her by Clyde, pictures of her mother and father and sister and brothers, an old family cookbook, some spoons and forks and knives and salt and pepper sets