XXX
Archie had lived in the death-chamber at the penitentiary for nine months. Three times had the day of his death been fixed; the first time, by Glassford for the fourteenth of May, the second time by the Appellate Court for the twenty-first of October. Then, the third time the seven justices of the Supreme Court, sitting in their black and solemn gowns, sustained the lower court, and set the day anew, this time for the twenty-third of November. Then came the race to the Pardon Board; where Marriott and Eades again fought over Archie's life. The Pardon Board refused to recommend clemency. But one hope remained–the governor. It was now the twenty-second of November–one day more. Archie waited that long afternoon in the death-chamber, while Marriott at the state house pleaded with the governor for a commutation of his sentence to imprisonment for life.
Already the prison authorities had begun the arrangements. That afternoon Archie had heard them testing the electric chair; he had listened to the thrumming of its current; twice, thrice, half a dozen times, they had turned it on. Then Jimmy Ball had come in, peered an instant, without a word, then shambled away, his stick hooked over his arm. It was very still in the death-chamber that afternoon. The eight other men confined there, like Archie, spent their days in reviving hope within their breasts; like him, they had experienced the sensation of having the day of their death fixed, and then lived to see it postponed, changed, postponed and fixed again. They had known the long suspense, the alternate rise and fall of hope, as in the courts the state had wrangled with their lawyers for their lives. Not once had Burns, the negro, twanged his guitar. Lowrie, who was writing a history of his wasted life, had allowed his labor to languish, and sat now moodily gazing at the pieces of paper he had covered with his illiterate writing. Old man Stewart, who had strangled his young wife in a jealous rage, lay on his iron cot, his long white beard spread on his breast, strangely suggestive of the appearance he soon would present in death. Kulaski, the Slav, who had slain a saloon-keeper for selling beer to his son, and never repented, was moody and morose; Belden and Waller had consented to an intermission of their quarrelsome argument about religion. The intermission had the effect of a deference to Archie; the argument was not to be resumed until after Archie's death, when he might, indeed, be supposed to have solved the problem they constantly debated, and to have no further interest in it. Pritchard, the poisoner, a quiet fellow, and Muller had ceased their interminable game of cribbage, the cards lay scattered on the table, the little pins stuck in the board where they had left them, to resume their count another time. The gloom of Archie's nearing fate hung over these men, yet none of them was thinking of Archie; each was thinking of an evening which would be to him as this evening was to Archie, unless–there was always that word "unless"; it made their hearts leap painfully.
Just outside the iron grating which separated from the antechamber the great apartment where they existed in the hope of living again, Beck, the guard, sat in his well-worn splint-bottomed chair. He had tilted it against the wall, and, with his head thrown back, seemed to slumber. His coarse mouth was open, his purple nose, thrown thus into prominence, was grotesque, his filthy waistcoat rose and stretched and fell as his flabby paunch inflated with his breathing. Beside the hot stove, just where the last shaft of the sun, falling through the barred window, could fall on her, a black cat, fat and sleek, that haunted the chamber with her uncanny feline presence, stretched herself, and yawned, curling her delicate tongue.
When Archie entered the death-chamber, there had been eleven men in it. But the number had decreased. He could remember distinctly each separate exit. One by one they had gone out, never to return. There was Mike Thomas; he would remember the horror of that to the end of his life, as, with the human habit, he expressed it to Marriott, insensible of the grim irony of the phrase in that place of deliberate death, where, after all, life persisted on its own terms and with its common phrases and symbols. The newspapers had called it a harrowing scene; the inmates of the death-chamber had whispered about it, calling it a bungle, and the affair had magnified and distorted itself to their imaginations, and they had dwelt on it with a covert morbidity. The newspapers next day were denied them, but they knew that it had required three shocks–they could count them by the thrumming of the currents, each time the prison had shaken with the howl of the awakened convicts in the cell-house. Bill Arnold, the negro who had killed a real estate agent, had been the most concerned; his day was but a week after Thomas's. The strain had been too much for Arnold; he had collapsed, raved like a maniac, then sobbed, fallen on his knees and yammered a prayer to Jimmy Ball, as if the deputy warden were a god. They had dragged him out, still on his knees, moaning "God be merciful; God be merciful."
They had missed Arnold. He was a jolly negro, who could sing and tell stories, and do buck-and-wing dancing, and, when Ball was away, and the guard's back turned, give perfect imitations of them both. They missed him out of their life in that chamber, or rather out of their death. It seemed strange to think that one minute he was among them, full of warm pulsing life and strength–and that the next, he should be dead. They missed him, as men miss a fellow with whom they have eaten and slept for months.
These men in the state shambles were there, the law had said, for murder. But this was only in a sense true. One was there, for instance, because his lawyer had made a mistake; he had not kept accurate account of his peremptory challenges; he thought he had exhausted but fifteen, whereas he had exhausted sixteen; that is, all of them, and so had been unable to remove from the jury a man whom he had irritated and offended by his persistent questioning; he had been quite sarcastic, intending to challenge the man peremptorily in a few moments. Another man was there because the judge before whom he was tried, having quarreled with his wife one morning, was out of humor all that day, and had ridiculed his lawyer, not in words, but by sneers and curlings of his lip, which could not be preserved in the record. Another–Pritchard, to be exact–was there, first, because he had been a chemist; secondly, because he, like the judge, had had a quarrel with his wife; thirdly, because his wife had died suddenly, and traces of cyanide of potassium had been found in her stomach–at least three of the four doctors who had conducted the post-mortem examination had said the traces were of cyanide of potassium–and fourthly, because a small vial was discovered in the room in which were also traces of cyanide of potassium; at least, three chemists declared the traces were those of cyanide of potassium. And all of them were there for some such reason as this, and all of them, with the possible exception of Pritchard, had taken human life. And yet each one had felt, and still felt, that the circumstances under which he had killed were such as to warrant killing; such, indeed, as to make it at the moment seem imperative and necessary, just as the State felt that in killing these men, circumstances had arisen which made it justifiable, imperative and necessary to kill.
Though Archie waited in suspense, the afternoon was short, short even beyond the shortness of November, and at five o'clock Marriott came. He lingered just outside the entrance to the chamber in the little room that was fitted up somehow like a chapel, the room in which the death chair was placed. The guard brought Archie out, and he leaned carelessly against the rail that surrounded the chair, mysterious and sinister under its draping of black oil-cloth. The rail railed off the little platform on which the chair was placed just as a chancel-rail rails off an altar, possibly because so many people regarded the chair in the same sacred light that they regarded an altar, and spoke of it as if its rite were quite as saving and sacerdotal. But Archie leaned against the rail calmly, negligently, and it made Marriott's flesh creep to see him thus unmoved and practical. He did not speak, but he looked his last question out of his blue eyes.
"The governor hasn't decided yet," Marriott said. "I've spent the afternoon with him. I've labored with him–God!" he suddenly paused and sighed in utter weariness at the recollection of the long hours in which he had clung to the governor–"I'm to see him again at eight o'clock at the executive mansion. He's to give me a final answer then."
"At eight o'clock?" The words slipped from Archie's lips as softly as his breath.
"This evening," said Marriott, dreading now the thought of fixity of time. He looked at Archie; and it was almost more than he could endure. Archie's eyes were fastened on him; his gaze seemed to cling to him in final desperation.
"Oh, in the name of God," Archie suddenly whispered, leaning toward him, his face directly in his, "do something, Mr. Marriott! something! something! I can't, I can't die to-night! If it's only a little more time–just another day–but not to-night! Not to-night! Do something, Mr. Marriott; something!"
Marriott seized Archie's hand. It was cold and wet. He wrung it as hard as he could. There were no words for such a moment as this. Words but mocked.
He saw Archie's chest heave, and the cords tighten in his swelling neck. Marriott could only look at him–this boy, for whom he had come to have an affection–so young, so strong, with the great gloom of death prematurely, unnecessarily, in his face!
But the face cleared suddenly,–Archie still could think, and he remembered–he remembered Curly, and Mason and old Dillon, and Gibbs, he recalled the only ideals he knew–like all of us, he could live up only to such ideals as he had–he remembered that he must be game. He straightened, Marriott saw the fine and supple play of the muscles of his chest, its white skin revealed through his open shirt.
"So long, Mr. Marriott," said Archie, and then turned and went back into the death-chamber.
Outside, in the twilight that was filling the quadrangle, Marriott passed along, the gloom of the place he had left filling his soul. The trusty who had conducted him to the death-chamber paced in silence by his side. He passed the great tree, gaunt and bare and black now, the tree under which he had seen that summer day these doomed men take their exercise, with the Sunday-school scholars standing by and gazing on with curious covert glances and perverted thoughts. He wished that time had paused on that day–he had had hope then; this thing as to Archie, it then had seemed, simply could not be; it might, he had felt, very well be as to those other doomed men; indeed, it seemed certain and irrevocable; but as to Archie, no, it could not be. And yet, here it was, the night before the day–and but one more hope between them and the end. He hastened on, anxious to get out of the place. Any moment the whistle might blow and he would have to wait until the men had come from their work; the gates could not be unlocked at that time, or until the men were locked again in their cells. They were passing the chapel, and suddenly he heard music–the playing of a piano. He stopped and listened. He heard the deep bass notes of Grieg's Ode to the Spring, played now with a pathos he had never known before.
"What's that?" he asked the trusty.
"That playing? That's young Ernsthauser. He's a swell piano player."
"May we look in?"
"Sure."
They entered, and stood just inside the door. A young German, in the gray convict garb, was seated at a piano, his delicate hands straying over the keys. One gas-jet burned in the wall above the piano, shedding its faint circle of light around the pianist, glistening on the dark panels of the instrument, lighting the pale face of the boy–he was but a boy–and then losing itself in the great darkness that hung thick and soft and heavy in the vast auditorium. Marriott looked and listened in silence; tears came to his eyes, a vast pity welled within him, and he knew that never again would he hear the Ode without experiencing the pity and the pain of this day. He wished, indeed, that he had not heard it. The musician played on, rapt and alone, unconscious of their presence.
"Tell me about that fellow," said Marriott, as they stole away.
"Oh, he was a musician outside. The warden lets him play. The warden likes music. I've seen him cry when Ernsthauser plays. He plays for visitors, and he picks up, they say, a good bit of money every day. The visitors, except the Sunday-schools, give him tips."
"How long is he in for?"
"Life."
The word fell like a blow on Marriott. Life! What paradoxes were in this place! What perverted meanings–if there were any meanings left in the world. This one word life, in one part of the prison meant life indeed; now it meant death. Was there any difference in the words, after all–life and death? Life in death; death in life? With Archie it was death in life, with this musician, life in death–no, it was the other way. But was it? Marriott could not decide. The words meant nothing, after all.
The delay in the chapel kept Marriott in the prison for half an hour. He would not watch the convicts march again to their cells; he did not wish to hear the clanging of the gong nor the thud of the bolts that locked them in for the night.
The warden, a ruddy and rotund man, spoke pleasantly to him and asked him into his office. The warden sat in a big swivel chair before his roll-top desk, and, while Marriott waited, locked in now like the rest, they chatted. It was incomprehensible to Marriott that this man could chat casually and even laugh, when he knew that he must stay up that night to do such a deed as the law required of him. The consciousness, indeed, must have lain on the warden, try as he might not to show it, for, presently, the warden himself, as if he could not help it, referred to the event.
"How's Archie taking it?" he asked.
Marriott might have replied conventionally, or politely, that he was taking it well, but he somehow resented this man's casual and contained manner. And so, looking him in the eyes, and meaning to punish him, he said:
"He's trying to appear game, but he's taking it hard."
"Hard, eh?"
"Yes, hard." Marriott looked at him sternly. "Tell me," he emboldened himself to ask, "how can you do it?"
The warden's face became suddenly hard.
"Do it? Bah! I could switch it into all of them fellows in there–like that!" He snapped his fat fingers in the air with a startling, suggestive electric sound. And for a moment afterward his upper lip curled with a cruelty that appalled Marriott. He looked at this man, this executioner, who seemed to be encompassed all at once with a kind of subtle, evil fascination. Marriott looked at his face–then in some way at the finger and thumb which, a moment before, had snapped their indifference in the air. And he started, for suddenly he recalled that Doctor Tyler Tilson had declared, in the profound scientific treatise he had written for the Post, that Archie had the spatulate finger-tips and the stubbed finger-nails that were among the stigmata of the homicide, and Marriott saw that the fingers of the warden were spatulate, their nails were broad and stubbed, imbedded in the flesh. And this man liked music–cried when the life-man played!
"Won't you stop and have dinner with me?" the warden asked. "You can stay for the execution, too, if you wish."
"No, thank you," said Marriott hurriedly. The thought of sitting down to dine with this man on this evening was abhorrent, loathsome to him. He might have sat down and eaten with Archie and his companions, or with those convicts whose distant shuffling feet he heard; he could have eaten their bread, wet and salt with their tears, but he could not eat with this man. And yet, sensitively, he could not let this man detect his loathing.
"No," he said, "I must get back to my hotel–" and the thought of the hotel, with its light and its life, filled him with instant longing. "I have another appointment with the governor this evening."
"Oh, he won't do anything," said the warden.
The words depressed Marriott, and he hurried away with them persistently ringing in his ears, glad at least to get away from the great pile that hid so much sorrow and misery and shame from the world, and now sat black against the gathering night, under the shadow of a mighty wing.
At eight o'clock that evening Archie was sitting on the edge of his cot, smoking one of the Russian cigarettes Marriott had brought him in the afternoon. The pungent and unusual odor filled the death-chamber, and the other waiting men (who nevertheless did not have to die that night) sniffed, some suspiciously, some with the air of connoisseurs.
"Ha!" said Pritchard, turning his pale face slowly about, "imported, eh?"
Then Archie passed them around, though somewhat reluctantly. Marriott had brought him several boxes of these cigarettes, and Archie knew they were the kind Marriott smoked himself. He was generous enough; this brotherhood of doomed men held all things in common, like the early Christians, sharing their little luxuries, but Archie felt that it was useless to waste such cigarettes on men who would be alive to-morrow; especially when it was doubtful if there would be enough for himself.
The warden had sent him a supper which was borne in with the effect of being the last and highest excellence to which the culinary art could attain. If there was anything, Ball reported the warden as having said, that was then in market, and was not there he'd like to know what it was. The generosity of the warden had not been limited to Archie; the others were treated to a like repast; there was turkey for all. Archie had not eaten much; he had made an effort and smiled and thanked the warden when he strolled in afterward for his meed of praise. Archie found the cigarettes sufficient. He sat there almost without moving, smoking them one after another, end to end, lighting a fresh one from the cork-tipped stub of the one he was about to fling away. He sat and smoked, his eyes blinked in his white face, and his brows contracted as he tried to think. He was not, of course, at any time, capable of sustained or logical thought, and now his thoughts were merely a muddle of impressions, a curiosity as to whether he would win or lose, as if he were gambling, and all this in the midst of a mighty wonder, vast, immeasurable, profound, that was expanding slowly in his soul.
How many times had he waited as he was waiting now, for word from Marriott? May fourteenth, October twenty-first, November twenty-third. What day was this? Oh, yes, the twenty-second. What time was it now? … Kouka?–Kouka was dead; yes, dead. That was good … And he himself must die … Die? What was that? … May fourteenth, October twenty-first, November twenty-third. He had already died three times. No, he had died many more times than that; during the trial he had died again and again, by day, by night. Here in the death-chamber he had died; here on this very cot. Sometimes during the day, when they were all strangely merry, when Bill Arnold was doing a song and dance, when they had all forgotten, suddenly, in an instant, it would come over him, and he would die–die there, amidst them all, with the sun streaming in the window–die with a smile and a joke, perhaps while speaking to one of them; they would not know he was dying. And in the night he died often, nearly every night, suddenly he would find himself awake, staring into the darkness; then he would remember it all, and he would die, live over that death again, as it were. All about him the others would be snoring, or groaning, muttering or cursing, like drunkards in their sleep. Perhaps they were dying, too. Now, he must die again. And he had already died a thousand deaths. Kouka had died, too, but only once....
What was that? Marriott? His heart stopped. But, no, it was not Marriott. There was still hope; there was always hope so long as Marriott did not come. It was only the old Lutheran preacher, Mr. Hoerr. He came to pray with him? This was strange, thought Archie. Why should he pray now? What difference could that make? Prayers could not save him; he had tried that, sometimes at night, as well as he could, imploring, pleading, holding on with his whole soul, until he was exhausted; but it did no good; no one, or nothing heard. The only thing that could do any good now was the governor.... Still, he was glad it was not Marriott. He had, suddenly, begun to dread the coming of Marriott.... But this preacher? Well, he could pray if he wanted to, it seemed to please him, to be a part somehow of the whole ceremony they were going through. Yet he might pray if it gave him any pleasure. He had read of their praying, always; but Mr. Hoerr must not expect him to stop smoking cigarettes while he prayed. Archie lighted a fresh cigarette hurriedly, inhaled the smoke, filling his lungs in every cell.... The preacher had asked him if he was reconciled, if he were ready to meet his God. Archie did not reply. He stared at the preacher, the smoke streaming from his lips, from his nostrils. Ready to meet his God? What a strange thing to ask! He was not ready, no; he had not asked to meet his God, yet. There was no use in asking such a question; if they were uncertain about it, or had any question, or feared any danger they could settle it by just a word–a word from the governor. Then he would not have to meet his God.... Where was his God anyhow? He had no God.... These sky-pilots were strange fellows! He never knew what to say to them.... "The blood of Jesus." … Oh, yes, he had heard that, too.... Was he being game? What would the papers say? Would the old Market Place gang talk about it? And Mason, and Dillon, and Gibbs? And Curly, too? They might as well; doubtless they would. They settled whomever they pleased.... Out at Nussbaum's saloon in the old days.... His mother, and Jakie and little Katie playing in the back yard, their yellow heads bobbing in the sunshine.... And Gusta! Poor Gusta! Whatever became of that chump of a Peltzer? He ought to have fixed him.... The old man's rheumatic leg.... And that case of his against the railroad.... John O'Brien–rattler.... What was the word for leg? Oh, yes, gimp.... Well, he had made a mess of it.... If they would only hang him, instead.... Why couldn't they? That would be so much easier. He was used to thinking of that; so many men had gone through that. But this new way, there was so much fuss about it.... Bill Arnold.... What if? … Ugh.... How cold it was! Had some one opened the window?…
Yes, he was the fall guy, all right, all right.... A black, intolerable gloom, dread wastes like a desert. Thirst raged in his throat.... It was dry and sanded.... How rank the cigarette tasted! … Why did the others huddle there in the back of the cage, their faces black, ugly, brutal? Were they plotting? They might slip up on him, from behind. He turned quickly.... Well, they would get theirs, too.... One day in the wilderness of Samar when their company had been detailed to–the flag–how green the woods were; the rushes–
His father hated him, too, yes, ever since.... Eades–Eades had done this. God! What a cold proposition Eades was! … One day when he was a little kid, just as they came from school in the afternoon.... The rifle range, and the captain smiling as he pinned his sharp-shooter's medal on.... Where was his medal now? He meant to ask the warden to have it pinned on his breast after–He must attend to that, and not forget it. He had spoken to Beck about it and Beck had promised, but Beck never did anything he said he would.... If, now, those bars were not there, he could choke Beck, take his gun–
His mind suddenly became clear. With a yearning that was ineffable, intolerable, he longed for some power to stay this thing–if he could only try it all over again, he would do better now! His mind had become clear, incandescent; he had a swift flashing conception of purity, faith, virtue–but before he could grasp the conception it had gone. He was crying, his mother, he remembered–but now he could not see her face, he could see the shape of her head, her hair, her throat, but not her face. He could, however, see her hands quite distinctly. They were large, and brown, and wrinkled, and the fingers were curved so that they were almost always closed.... But this was not being game; he needn't say dying game just yet.
Was that Marriott? No, the warden. He had brought him something. He was thrusting it through the bars. A bottle! Archie seized it, pressed it to his lips. Whisky! He drank long and long. Ah! That was better! That did him good! That beat prayers, or tears, or solitaire, or even wishing on the black cat. That made him warm, comfortable. There was hope now. Marriott would bring that governor around! Marriott was a hell of a smart fellow, even if he had lost his case. Perhaps, if he had had Frisby,–Frisby was smart, too, and had a pull. He drank again. That was better yet. What would it matter if the governor refused? It wouldn't matter at all; it was all right. This stuff made him feel game. How much was there in the bottle? … Ah, the cigarettes tasted better, too, now…
Marriott? No, not this time. Well, that was good. It was the barber come to "top" him.
The barber shaved bare a little round spot on Archie's head, exposing a bluish-white disk of scalp in the midst of his yellow locks. And then, kneeling with his scissors, he slit each leg of Archie's trousers to the knee. Then the warden drew a paper out of his pocket and began to read.
Archie could not hear what he read. After the barber began shaving his head, he fell into a stupor, and sat there, his eyes staring straight before him, his mouth agape, a cigarette clinging to his lower lip and dangling toward his chin. He looked like a young tonsured priest suddenly become imbecile.
When they finished, he still sat there. Some one was taking off his shoes. Then there was a step. He looked up, as one returning from a dream. He saw some one standing just within the door of the antechamber. Marriott? No, it was not Marriott. It was the governor's messenger.
Without in the cell-house the long corridors had been laid deep in yellow sawdust, so that the fall of the feet of the midnight guests might not awaken the convicts who slept so heavily, on the narrow bunks in their cells, after their dreadful day of toil.