by Theodore Dreiser 37 страница

former associate, but he could see that Stener was diffident and

ashamed. So he let the situation pass without look or word of any kind.

After some three-quarters of an hour of dreary waiting the door leading

into the courtroom proper opened and a bailiff stepped in.

"All prisoners up for sentence," he called.

There were six, all told, including Cowperwood and Stener. Two of them

were confederate housebreakers who had been caught red-handed at their

midnight task.

Another prisoner was no more and no less than a plain horse-thief, a

young man of twenty-six, who had been convicted by a jury of stealing

a grocer's horse and selling it. The last man was a negro, a tall,

shambling, illiterate, nebulous-minded black, who had walked off with

an apparently discarded section of lead pipe which he had found in a

lumber-yard. His idea was to sell or trade it for a drink. He really

did not belong in this court at all; but, having been caught by an

undersized American watchman charged with the care of the property, and

having at first refused to plead guilty, not quite understanding what

was to be done with him, he had been perforce bound over to this court

for trial. Afterward he had changed his mind and admitted his guilt, so

he now had to come before Judge Payderson for sentence or dismissal.

The lower court before which he had originally been brought had lost

jurisdiction by binding him over to to higher court for trial.

Eddie Zanders, in his self-appointed position as guide and mentor to

Cowperwood, had confided nearly all of this data to him as he stood

waiting.

The courtroom was crowded. It was very humiliating to Cowperwood to have

to file in this way along the side aisle with these others, followed by

Stener, well dressed but sickly looking and disconsolate.

The negro, Charles Ackerman, was the first on the list.

"How is it this man comes before me?" asked Payderson, peevishly, when

he noted the value of the property Ackerman was supposed to have stolen.

"Your honor," the assistant district attorney explained, promptly,

"this man was before a lower court and refused, because he was drunk,

or something, to plead guilty. The lower court, because the complainant

would not forego the charge, was compelled to bind him over to this

court for trial. Since then he has changed his mind and has admitted

his guilt to the district attorney. He would not be brought before you

except we have no alternative. He has to be brought here now in order to

clear the calendar."

Judge Payderson stared quizzically at the negro, who, obviously not very

much disturbed by this examination, was leaning comfortably on the gate

or bar before which the average criminal stood erect and terrified.

He had been before police-court magistrates before on one charge and

another--drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and the like--but his whole

attitude was one of shambling, lackadaisical, amusing innocence.

"Well, Ackerman," inquired his honor, severely, "did you or did you not

steal this piece of lead pipe as charged here--four dollars and eighty

cents' worth?"

"Yassah, I did," he began. "I tell you how it was, jedge. I was a-comin'

along past dat lumber-yard one Saturday afternoon, and I hadn't been

wuckin', an' I saw dat piece o' pipe thoo de fence, lyin' inside, and I

jes' reached thoo with a piece o' boad I found dey and pulled it over

to me an' tuck it. An' aftahwahd dis Mistah Watchman man"--he waved his

hand oratorically toward the witness-chair, where, in case the judge

might wish to ask him some questions, the complainant had taken his

stand--"come around tuh where I live an' accused me of done takin' it."

"But you did take it, didn't you?"

"Yassah, I done tuck it."

"What did you do with it?"

"I traded it foh twenty-five cents."

"You mean you sold it," corrected his honor.

"Yassah, I done sold it."

"Well, don't you know it's wrong to do anything like that? Didn't you

know when you reached through that fence and pulled that pipe over to

you that you were stealing? Didn't you?"

"Yassah, I knowed it was wrong," replied Ackerman, sheepishly. "I didn'

think 'twuz stealin' like zackly, but I done knowed it was wrong. I done

knowed I oughtn' take it, I guess."

"Of course you did. Of course you did. That's just it. You knew you were

stealing, and still you took it. Has the man to whom this negro sold

the lead pipe been apprehended yet?" the judge inquired sharply of the

district attorney. "He should be, for he's more guilty than this negro,

a receiver of stolen goods."

"Yes, sir," replied the assistant. "His case is before Judge Yawger."

"Quite right. It should be," replied Payderson, severely. "This matter

of receiving stolen property is one of the worst offenses, in my

judgment."

He then turned his attention to Ackerman again. "Now, look here,

Ackerman," he exclaimed, irritated at having to bother with such a

pretty case, "I want to say something to you, and I want you to pay

strict attention to me. Straighten up, there! Don't lean on that gate!

You are in the presence of the law now." Ackerman had sprawled himself

comfortably down on his elbows as he would have if he had been leaning

over a back-fence gate talking to some one, but he immediately drew

himself straight, still grinning foolishly and apologetically, when he

heard this. "You are not so dull but that you can understand what I am

going to say to you. The offense you have committed--stealing a piece

of lead pipe--is a crime. Do you hear me? A criminal offense--one that I

could punish you very severely for. I could send you to the penitentiary

for one year if I chose--the law says I may--one year at hard labor for

stealing a piece of lead pipe. Now, if you have any sense you will pay

strict attention to what I am going to tell you. I am not going to send

you to the penitentiary right now. I'm going to wait a little while. I

am going to sentence you to one year in the penitentiary--one year.

Do you understand?" Ackerman blanched a little and licked his lips

nervously. "And then I am going to suspend that sentence--hold it over

your head, so that if you are ever caught taking anything else you will

be punished for this offense and the next one also at one and the same

time. Do you understand that? Do you know what I mean? Tell me. Do you?"

"Yessah! I does, sir," replied the negro. "You'se gwine to let me go

now--tha's it."

The audience grinned, and his honor made a wry face to prevent his own

grim grin.

"I'm going to let you go only so long as you don't steal anything else,"

he thundered. "The moment you steal anything else, back you come to this

court, and then you go to the penitentiary for a year and whatever

more time you deserve. Do you understand that? Now, I want you to

walk straight out of this court and behave yourself. Don't ever steal

anything. Get something to do! Don't steal, do you hear? Don't touch

anything that doesn't belong to you! Don't come back here! If you do,

I'll send you to the penitentiary, sure."

"Yassah! No, sah, I won't," replied Ackerman, nervously. "I won't take

nothin' more that don't belong tuh me."

He shuffled away, after a moment, urged along by the guiding hand of a

bailiff, and was put safely outside the court, amid a mixture of smiles

and laughter over his simplicity and Payderson's undue severity of

manner. But the next case was called and soon engrossed the interest of

the audience.

It was that of the two housebreakers whom Cowperwood had been and was

still studying with much curiosity. In all his life before he had never

witnessed a sentencing scene of any kind. He had never been in police

or criminal courts of any kind--rarely in any of the civil ones. He

was glad to see the negro go, and gave Payderson credit for having some

sense and sympathy--more than he had expected.

He wondered now whether by any chance Aileen was here. He had objected

to her coming, but she might have done so. She was, as a matter of fact,

in the extreme rear, pocketed in a crowd near the door, heavily veiled,

but present. She had not been able to resist the desire to know quickly

and surely her beloved's fate--to be near him in his hour of real

suffering, as she thought. She was greatly angered at seeing him brought

in with a line of ordinary criminals and made to wait in this, to her,

shameful public manner, but she could not help admiring all the more the

dignity and superiority of his presence even here. He was not even pale,

as she saw, just the same firm, calm soul she had always known him to

be. If he could only see her now; if he would only look so she could

lift her veil and smile! He didn't, though; he wouldn't. He didn't want

to see her here. But she would tell him all about it when she saw him

again just the same.

The two burglars were quickly disposed of by the judge, with a sentence

of one year each, and they were led away, uncertain, and apparently not

knowing what to think of their crime or their future.

When it came to Cowperwood's turn to be called, his honor himself

stiffened and straightened up, for this was a different type of man and

could not be handled in the usual manner. He knew exactly what he

was going to say. When one of Mollenhauer's agents, a close friend of

Butler's, had suggested that five years for both Cowperwood and Stener

would be about right, he knew exactly what to do. "Frank Algernon

Cowperwood," called the clerk.

Cowperwood stepped briskly forward, sorry for himself, ashamed of his

position in a way, but showing it neither in look nor manner. Payderson

eyed him as he had the others.

"Name?" asked the bailiff, for the benefit of the court stenographer.

"Frank Algernon Cowperwood."

"Residence?"

"1937 Girard Avenue."

"Occupation?"

"Banker and broker."

Steger stood close beside him, very dignified, very forceful, ready to

make a final statement for the benefit of the court and the public when

the time should come. Aileen, from her position in the crowd near the

door, was for the first time in her life biting her fingers nervously

and there were great beads of perspiration on her brow. Cowperwood's

father was tense with excitement and his two brothers looked quickly

away, doing their best to hide their fear and sorrow.

"Ever convicted before?"

"Never," replied Steger for Cowperwood, quietly.

"Frank Algernon Cowperwood," called the clerk, in his nasal, singsong

way, coming forward, "have you anything to say why judgment should not

now be pronounced upon you? If so, speak."

Cowperwood started to say no, but Steger put up his hand.

"If the court pleases, my client, Mr. Cowperwood, the prisoner at the

bar, is neither guilty in his own estimation, nor in that of two-fifths

of the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court--the court of last resort in

this State," he exclaimed, loudly and clearly, so that all might hear.

One of the interested listeners and spectators at this point was Edward

Malia Butler, who had just stepped in from another courtroom where he

had been talking to a judge. An obsequious court attendant had warned

him that Cowperwood was about to be sentenced. He had really come here

this morning in order not to miss this sentence, but he cloaked his

motive under the guise of another errand. He did not know that Aileen

was there, nor did he see her.

"As he himself testified at the time of his trial," went on Steger, "and

as the evidence clearly showed, he was never more than an agent for the

gentleman whose offense was subsequently adjudicated by this court;

and as an agent he still maintains, and two-fifths of the State Supreme

Court agree with him, that he was strictly within his rights and

privileges in not having deposited the sixty thousand dollars' worth of

city loan certificates at the time, and in the manner which the people,

acting through the district attorney, complained that he should have. My

client is a man of rare financial ability. By the various letters which

have been submitted to your honor in his behalf, you will see that he

commands the respect and the sympathy of a large majority of the

most forceful and eminent men in his particular world. He is a man of

distinguished social standing and of notable achievements. Only the

most unheralded and the unkindest thrust of fortune has brought him

here before you today--a fire and its consequent panic which involved a

financial property of the most thorough and stable character. In spite

of the verdict of the jury and the decision of three-fifths of the State

Supreme Court, I maintain that my client is not an embezzler, that he

has not committed larceny, that he should never have been convicted,

and that he should not now be punished for something of which he is not

guilty.

"I trust that your honor will not misunderstand me or my motives when I

point out in this situation that what I have said is true. I do not wish

to cast any reflection on the integrity of the court, nor of any court,

nor of any of the processes of law. But I do condemn and deplore the

untoward chain of events which has built up a seeming situation,

not easily understood by the lay mind, and which has brought my

distinguished client within the purview of the law. I think it is but

fair that this should be finally and publicly stated here and now. I

ask that your honor be lenient, and that if you cannot conscientiously

dismiss this charge you will at least see that the facts, as I have

indicated them, are given due weight in the measure of the punishment

inflicted."

Steger stepped back and Judge Payderson nodded, as much as to say he had

heard all the distinguished lawyer had to say, and would give it such

consideration as it deserved--no more. Then he turned to Cowperwood,

and, summoning all his judicial dignity to his aid, he began:

"Frank Algernon Cowperwood, you have been convicted by a jury of your

own selection of the offense of larceny. The motion for a new trial,

made in your behalf by your learned counsel, has been carefully

considered and overruled, the majority of the court being entirely

satisfied with the propriety of the conviction, both upon the law and

the evidence. Your offense was one of more than usual gravity, the more

so that the large amount of money which you obtained belonged to the

city. And it was aggravated by the fact that you had in addition thereto

unlawfully used and converted to your own use several hundred thousand

dollars of the loan and money of the city. For such an offense

the maximum punishment affixed by the law is singularly merciful.

Nevertheless, the facts in connection with your hitherto distinguished

position, the circumstances under which your failure was brought about,

and the appeals of your numerous friends and financial associates, will

be given due consideration by this court. It is not unmindful of any

important fact in your career." Payderson paused as if in doubt,

though he knew very well how he was about to proceed. He knew what his

superiors expected of him.

"If your case points no other moral," he went on, after a moment, toying

with the briefs, "it will at least teach the lesson much needed at the

present time, that the treasury of the city is not to be invaded

and plundered with impunity under the thin disguise of a business

transaction, and that there is still a power in the law to vindicate

itself and to protect the public.

"The sentence of the court," he added, solemnly, the while Cowperwood

gazed unmoved, "is, therefore, that you pay a fine of five thousand

dollars to the commonwealth for the use of the county, that you pay the

costs of prosecution, and that you undergo imprisonment in the

State Penitentiary for the Eastern District by separate or solitary

confinement at labor for a period of four years and three months, and

that you stand committed until this sentence is complied with."

Cowperwood's father, on hearing this, bowed his head to hide his tears.

Aileen bit her lower lip and clenched her hands to keep down her rage

and disappointment and tears. Four years and three months! That would

make a terrible gap in his life and hers. Still, she could wait. It was

better than eight or ten years, as she had feared it might be. Perhaps

now, once this was really over and he was in prison, the Governor would

pardon him.

The judge now moved to pick up the papers in connection with Stener's

case, satisfied that he had given the financiers no chance to say he had

not given due heed to their plea in Cowperwood's behalf and yet certain

that the politicians would be pleased that he had so nearly given

Cowperwood the maximum while appearing to have heeded the pleas for

mercy. Cowperwood saw through the trick at once, but it did not disturb

him. It struck him as rather weak and contemptible. A bailiff came

forward and started to hurry him away.

"Allow the prisoner to remain for a moment," called the judge.

The name, of George W. Stener had been called by the clerk and

Cowperwood did not quite understand why he was being detained, but he

soon learned. It was that he might hear the opinion of the court in

connection with his copartner in crime. The latter's record was taken.

Roger O'Mara, the Irish political lawyer who had been his counsel all

through his troubles, stood near him, but had nothing to say beyond

asking the judge to consider Stener's previously honorable career.

"George W. Stener," said his honor, while the audience, including

Cowperwood, listened attentively. "The motion for a new trial as well as

an arrest of judgment in your case having been overruled, it remains

for the court to impose such sentence as the nature of your offense

requires. I do not desire to add to the pain of your position by any

extended remarks of my own; but I cannot let the occasion pass without

expressing my emphatic condemnation of your offense. The misapplication

of public money has become the great crime of the age. If not promptly

and firmly checked, it will ultimately destroy our institutions. When

a republic becomes honeycombed with corruption its vitality is gone. It

must crumble upon the first pressure.

"In my opinion, the public is much to blame for your offense and others

of a similar character. Heretofore, official fraud has been regarded

with too much indifference. What we need is a higher and purer political

morality--a state of public opinion which would make the improper use of

public money a thing to be execrated. It was the lack of this which made

your offense possible. Beyond that I see nothing of extenuation in your

case." Judge Payderson paused for emphasis. He was coming to his finest

flight, and he wanted it to sink in.

"The people had confided to you the care of their money," he went on,

solemnly. "It was a high, a sacred trust. You should have guarded the

door of the treasury even as the cherubim protected the Garden of Eden,

and should have turned the flaming sword of impeccable honesty

against every one who approached it improperly. Your position as the

representative of a great community warranted that.

"In view of all the facts in your case the court can do no less than

impose a major penalty. The seventy-fourth section of the Criminal

Procedure Act provides that no convict shall be sentenced by the court

of this commonwealth to either of the penitentiaries thereof, for

any term which shall expire between the fifteenth of November and the

fifteenth day of February of any year, and this provision requires me to

abate three months from the maximum of time which I would affix in your

case--namely, five years. The sentence of the court is, therefore, that

you pay a fine of five thousand dollars to the commonwealth for the use

of the county"--Payderson knew well enough that Stener could never pay

that sum--"and that you undergo imprisonment in the State Penitentiary

for the Eastern District, by separate and solitary confinement at

labor, for the period of four years and nine months, and that you stand

committed until this sentence is complied with." He laid down the briefs

and rubbed his chin reflectively while both Cowperwood and Stener were

hurried out. Butler was the first to leave after the sentence--quite

satisfied. Seeing that all was over so far as she was concerned, Aileen

stole quickly out; and after her, in a few moments, Cowperwood's father

and brothers. They were to await him outside and go with him to the

penitentiary. The remaining members of the family were at home eagerly

awaiting intelligence of the morning's work, and Joseph Cowperwood was

at once despatched to tell them.

The day had now become cloudy, lowery, and it looked as if there might

be snow. Eddie Zanders, who had been given all the papers in the case,

announced that there was no need to return to the county jail. In

consequence the five of them--Zanders, Steger, Cowperwood, his father,

and Edward--got into a street-car which ran to within a few blocks of

the prison. Within half an hour they were at the gates of the Eastern

Penitentiary.

Chapter LIII

The Eastern District Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, standing at Fairmount

Avenue and Twenty-first Street in Philadelphia, where Cowperwood was

now to serve his sentence of four years and three months, was a large,

gray-stone structure, solemn and momentous in its mien, not at all

unlike the palace of Sforzas at Milan, although not so distinguished.

It stretched its gray length for several blocks along four different

streets, and looked as lonely and forbidding as a prison should. The

wall which inclosed its great area extending over ten acres and gave it

so much of its solemn dignity was thirty-five feet high and some seven

feet thick. The prison proper, which was not visible from the outside,

consisted of seven arms or corridors, ranged octopus-like around a

central room or court, and occupying in their sprawling length about

two-thirds of the yard inclosed within the walls, so that there was but

little space for the charm of lawn or sward. The corridors, forty-two

feet wide from outer wall to outer wall, were one hundred and eighty

feet in length, and in four instances two stories high, and extended

in their long reach in every direction. There were no windows in the

corridors, only narrow slits of skylights, three and one-half feet long

by perhaps eight inches wide, let in the roof; and the ground-floor

cells were accompanied in some instances by a small yard ten by

sixteen--the same size as the cells proper--which was surrounded by a

high brick wall in every instance. The cells and floors and roofs were

made of stone, and the corridors, which were only ten feet wide between

the cells, and in the case of the single-story portion only fifteen

feet high, were paved with stone. If you stood in the central room, or

rotunda, and looked down the long stretches which departed from you

in every direction, you had a sense of narrowness and confinement

not compatible with their length. The iron doors, with their outer

accompaniment of solid wooden ones, the latter used at times to shut the

prisoner from all sight and sound, were grim and unpleasing to behold.

The halls were light enough, being whitewashed frequently and set with

the narrow skylights, which were closed with frosted glass in winter;

but they were, as are all such matter-of-fact arrangements for

incarceration, bare--wearisome to look upon. Life enough there was in

all conscience, seeing that there were four hundred prisoners here at

that time, and that nearly every cell was occupied; but it was a life of

which no one individual was essentially aware as a spectacle. He was of

it; but he was not. Some of the prisoners, after long service, were used

as "trusties" or "runners," as they were locally called; but not many.

There was a bakery, a machine-shop, a carpenter-shop, a store-room,

a flour-mill, and a series of gardens, or truck patches; but the

manipulation of these did not require the services of a large number.

The prison proper dated from 1822, and it had grown, wing by wing, until

its present considerable size had been reached. Its population consisted

of individuals of all degrees of intelligence and crime, from murderers

to minor practitioners of larceny. It had what was known as the

"Pennsylvania System" of regulation for its inmates, which was nothing

more nor less than solitary confinement for all concerned--a life of

absolute silence and separate labor in separate cells.

Barring his comparatively recent experience in the county jail, which

after all was far from typical, Cowperwood had never been in a prison in

his life. Once, when a boy, in one of his perambulations through several

of the surrounding towns, he had passed a village "lock-up," as the

town prisons were then called--a small, square, gray building with long

iron-barred windows, and he had seen, at one of these rather depressing

apertures on the second floor, a none too prepossessing drunkard or town

ne'er-do-well who looked down on him with bleary eyes, unkempt hair, and

a sodden, waxy, pallid face, and called--for it was summer and the jail

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