by Theodore Dreiser 38 страница

window was open:

"Hey, sonny, get me a plug of tobacco, will you?"

Cowperwood, who had looked up, shocked and disturbed by the man's

disheveled appearance, had called back, quite without stopping to think:

"Naw, I can't."

"Look out you don't get locked up yourself sometime, you little runt,"

the man had replied, savagely, only half recovered from his debauch of

the day before.

He had not thought of this particular scene in years, but now suddenly

it came back to him. Here he was on his way to be locked up in this

dull, somber prison, and it was snowing, and he was being cut out of

human affairs as much as it was possible for him to be cut out.

No friends were permitted to accompany him beyond the outer gate--not

even Steger for the time being, though he might visit him later in

the day. This was an inviolable rule. Zanders being known to the

gate-keeper, and bearing his commitment paper, was admitted at once. The

others turned solemnly away. They bade a gloomy if affectionate farewell

to Cowperwood, who, on his part, attempted to give it all an air of

inconsequence--as, in part and even here, it had for him.

"Well, good-by for the present," he said, shaking hands. "I'll be all

right and I'll get out soon. Wait and see. Tell Lillian not to worry."

He stepped inside, and the gate clanked solemnly behind him. Zanders led

the way through a dark, somber hall, wide and high-ceiled, to a farther

gate, where a second gateman, trifling with a large key, unlocked a

barred door at his bidding. Once inside the prison yard, Zanders turned

to the left into a small office, presenting his prisoner before a small,

chest-high desk, where stood a prison officer in uniform of blue.

The latter, the receiving overseer of the prison--a thin, practical,

executive-looking person with narrow gray eyes and light hair, took the

paper which the sheriff's deputy handed him and read it. This was his

authority for receiving Cowperwood. In his turn he handed Zanders a

slip, showing that he had so received the prisoner; and then Zanders

left, receiving gratefully the tip which Cowperwood pressed in his hand.

"Well, good-by, Mr. Cowperwood," he said, with a peculiar twist of his

detective-like head. "I'm sorry. I hope you won't find it so bad here."

He wanted to impress the receiving overseer with his familiarity with

this distinguished prisoner, and Cowperwood, true to his policy of

make-believe, shook hands with him cordially.

"I'm much obliged to you for your courtesy, Mr. Zanders," he said, then

turned to his new master with the air of a man who is determined to make

a good impression. He was now in the hands of petty officials, he knew,

who could modify or increase his comfort at will. He wanted to impress

this man with his utter willingness to comply and obey--his sense of

respect for his authority--without in any way demeaning himself. He

was depressed but efficient, even here in the clutch of that eventual

machine of the law, the State penitentiary, which he had been struggling

so hard to evade.

The receiving overseer, Roger Kendall, though thin and clerical, was

a rather capable man, as prison officials go--shrewd, not particularly

well educated, not over-intelligent naturally, not over-industrious,

but sufficiently energetic to hold his position. He knew something about

convicts--considerable--for he had been dealing with them for nearly

twenty-six years. His attitude toward them was cold, cynical, critical.

He did not permit any of them to come into personal contact with

him, but he saw to it that underlings in his presence carried out the

requirements of the law.

When Cowperwood entered, dressed in his very good clothing--a dark

gray-blue twill suit of pure wool, a light, well-made gray overcoat, a

black derby hat of the latest shape, his shoes new and of good leather,

his tie of the best silk, heavy and conservatively colored, his hair and

mustache showing the attention of an intelligent barber, and his hands

well manicured--the receiving overseer saw at once that he was in the

presence of some one of superior intelligence and force, such a man as

the fortune of his trade rarely brought into his net.

Cowperwood stood in the middle of the room without apparently looking at

any one or anything, though he saw all. "Convict number 3633," Kendall

called to a clerk, handing him at the same time a yellow slip of paper

on which was written Cowperwood's full name and his record number,

counting from the beginning of the penitentiary itself.

The underling, a convict, took it and entered it in a book, reserving

the slip at the same time for the penitentiary "runner" or "trusty," who

would eventually take Cowperwood to the "manners" gallery.

"You will have to take off your clothes and take a bath," said Kendall

to Cowperwood, eyeing him curiously. "I don't suppose you need one, but

it's the rule."

"Thank you," replied Cowperwood, pleased that his personality was

counting for something even here. "Whatever the rules are, I want to

obey."

When he started to take off his coat, however, Kendall put up his hand

delayingly and tapped a bell. There now issued from an adjoining room

an assistant, a prison servitor, a weird-looking specimen of the genus

"trusty." He was a small, dark, lopsided individual, one leg being

slightly shorter, and therefore one shoulder lower, than the other. He

was hollow-chested, squint-eyed, and rather shambling, but spry enough

withal. He was dressed in a thin, poorly made, baggy suit of striped

jeans, the prison stripes of the place, showing a soft roll-collar shirt

underneath, and wearing a large, wide-striped cap, peculiarly offensive

in its size and shape to Cowperwood. He could not help thinking how

uncanny the man's squint eyes looked under its straight outstanding

visor. The trusty had a silly, sycophantic manner of raising one hand

in salute. He was a professional "second-story man," "up" for ten years,

but by dint of good behavior he had attained to the honor of working

about this office without the degrading hood customary for prisoners to

wear over the cap. For this he was properly grateful. He now considered

his superior with nervous dog-like eyes, and looked at Cowperwood with a

certain cunning appreciation of his lot and a show of initial mistrust.

One prisoner is as good as another to the average convict; as a matter

of fact, it is their only consolation in their degradation that all who

come here are no better than they. The world may have misused them; but

they misuse their confreres in their thoughts. The "holier than thou"

attitude, intentional or otherwise, is quite the last and most deadly

offense within prison walls. This particular "trusty" could no more

understand Cowperwood than could a fly the motions of a fly-wheel; but

with the cocky superiority of the underling of the world he did not

hesitate to think that he could. A crook was a crook to him--Cowperwood

no less than the shabbiest pickpocket. His one feeling was that he would

like to demean him, to pull him down to his own level.

"You will have to take everything you have out of your pockets," Kendall

now informed Cowperwood. Ordinarily he would have said, "Search the

prisoner."

Cowperwood stepped forward and laid out a purse with twenty-five dollars

in it, a pen-knife, a lead-pencil, a small note-book, and a little

ivory elephant which Aileen had given him once, "for luck," and which

he treasured solely because she gave it to him. Kendall looked at

the latter curiously. "Now you can go on," he said to the "trusty,"

referring to the undressing and bathing process which was to follow.

"This way," said the latter, addressing Cowperwood, and preceding him

into an adjoining room, where three closets held three old-fashioned,

iron-bodied, wooden-top bath-tubs, with their attendant shelves for

rough crash towels, yellow soap, and the like, and hooks for clothes.

"Get in there," said the trusty, whose name was Thomas Kuby, pointing to

one of the tubs.

Cowperwood realized that this was the beginning of petty official

supervision; but he deemed it wise to appear friendly even here.

"I see," he said. "I will."

"That's right," replied the attendant, somewhat placated. "What did you

bring?"

Cowperwood looked at him quizzically. He did not understand. The prison

attendant realized that this man did not know the lingo of the place.

"What did you bring?" he repeated. "How many years did you get?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Cowperwood, comprehendingly. "I understand. Four and

three months."

He decided to humor the man. It would probably be better so.

"What for?" inquired Kuby, familiarly.

Cowperwood's blood chilled slightly. "Larceny," he said.

"Yuh got off easy," commented Kuby. "I'm up for ten. A rube judge did

that to me."

Kuby had never heard of Cowperwood's crime. He would not have understood

its subtleties if he had. Cowperwood did not want to talk to this

man; he did not know how. He wished he would go away; but that was not

likely. He wanted to be put in his cell and let alone.

"That's too bad," he answered; and the convict realized clearly that

this man was really not one of them, or he would not have said anything

like that. Kuby went to the two hydrants opening into the bath-tub and

turned them on. Cowperwood had been undressing the while, and now stood

naked, but not ashamed, in front of this eighth-rate intelligence.

"Don't forget to wash your head, too," said Kuby, and went away.

Cowperwood stood there while the water ran, meditating on his fate. It

was strange how life had dealt with him of late--so severely. Unlike

most men in his position, he was not suffering from a consciousness

of evil. He did not think he was evil. As he saw it, he was merely

unfortunate. To think that he should be actually in this great, silent

penitentiary, a convict, waiting here beside this cheap iron bathtub,

not very sweet or hygienic to contemplate, with this crackbrained

criminal to watch over him!

He stepped into the tub and washed himself briskly with the biting

yellow soap, drying himself on one of the rough, only partially bleached

towels. He looked for his underwear, but there was none. At this point

the attendant looked in again. "Out here," he said, inconsiderately.

Cowperwood followed, naked. He was led through the receiving overseer's

office into a room, where were scales, implements of measurement, a

record-book, etc. The attendant who stood guard at the door now came

over, and the clerk who sat in a corner automatically took down a

record-blank. Kendall surveyed Cowperwood's decidedly graceful figure,

already inclining to a slight thickening around the waist, and approved

of it as superior to that of most who came here. His skin, as he

particularly noted, was especially white.

"Step on the scale," said the attendant, brusquely.

Cowperwood did so, The former adjusted the weights and scanned the

record carefully.

"Weight, one hundred and seventy-five," he called. "Now step over here."

He indicated a spot in the side wall where was fastened in a thin

slat--which ran from the floor to about seven and one half feet above,

perpendicularly--a small movable wooden indicator, which, when a man was

standing under it, could be pressed down on his head. At the side of

the slat were the total inches of height, laid off in halves, quarters,

eighths, and so on, and to the right a length measurement for the arm.

Cowperwood understood what was wanted and stepped under the indicator,

standing quite straight.

"Feet level, back to the wall," urged the attendant. "So. Height, five

feet nine and ten-sixteenths," he called. The clerk in the corner noted

it. He now produced a tape-measure and began measuring Cowperwood's

arms, legs, chest, waist, hips, etc. He called out the color of his

eyes, his hair, his mustache, and, looking into his mouth, exclaimed,

"Teeth, all sound."

After Cowperwood had once more given his address, age, profession,

whether he knew any trade, etc.--which he did not--he was allowed

to return to the bathroom, and put on the clothing which the prison

provided for him--first the rough, prickly underwear, then the cheap

soft roll-collar, white-cotton shirt, then the thick bluish-gray cotton

socks of a quality such as he had never worn in his life, and over these

a pair of indescribable rough-leather clogs, which felt to his feet as

though they were made of wood or iron--oily and heavy. He then drew on

the shapeless, baggy trousers with their telltale stripes, and over his

arms and chest the loose-cut shapeless coat and waistcoat. He felt and

knew of course that he looked very strange, wretched. And as he stepped

out into the overseer's room again he experienced a peculiar sense of

depression, a gone feeling which before this had not assailed him and

which now he did his best to conceal. This, then, was what society did

to the criminal, he thought to himself. It took him and tore away from

his body and his life the habiliments of his proper state and left him

these. He felt sad and grim, and, try as he would--he could not help

showing it for a moment. It was always his business and his intention

to conceal his real feelings, but now it was not quite possible. He felt

degraded, impossible, in these clothes, and he knew that he looked

it. Nevertheless, he did his best to pull himself together and look

unconcerned, willing, obedient, considerate of those above him. After

all, he said to himself, it was all a play of sorts, a dream even, if

one chose to view it so, a miasma even, from which, in the course of

time and with a little luck one might emerge safely enough. He hoped so.

It could not last. He was only acting a strange, unfamiliar part on the

stage, this stage of life that he knew so well.

Kendall did not waste any time looking at him, however. He merely said

to his assistant, "See if you can find a cap for him," and the latter,

going to a closet containing numbered shelves, took down a cap--a

high-crowned, straight-visored, shabby, striped affair which Cowperwood

was asked to try on. It fitted well enough, slipping down close over his

ears, and he thought that now his indignities must be about complete.

What could be added? There could be no more of these disconcerting

accoutrements. But he was mistaken. "Now, Kuby, you take him to Mr.

Chapin," said Kendall.

Kuby understood. He went back into the wash-room and produced what

Cowperwood had heard of but never before seen--a blue-and-white-striped

cotton bag about half the length of an ordinary pillow-case and half

again as wide, which Kuby now unfolded and shook out as he came toward

him. It was a custom. The use of this hood, dating from the earliest

days of the prison, was intended to prevent a sense of location and

direction and thereby obviate any attempt to escape. Thereafter during

all his stay he was not supposed to walk with or talk to or see another

prisoner--not even to converse with his superiors, unless addressed. It

was a grim theory, and yet one definitely enforced here, although as he

was to learn later even this could be modified here.

"You'll have to put this on," Kuby said, and opened it in such a way

that it could be put over Cowperwood's head.

Cowperwood understood. He had heard of it in some way, in times past. He

was a little shocked--looked at it first with a touch of real surprise,

but a moment after lifted his hands and helped pull it down.

"Never mind," cautioned the guard, "put your hands down. I'll get it

over."

Cowperwood dropped his arms. When it was fully on, it came to about his

chest, giving him little means of seeing anything. He felt very strange,

very humiliated, very downcast. This simple thing of a blue-and-white

striped bag over his head almost cost him his sense of self-possession.

Why could not they have spared him this last indignity, he thought?

"This way," said his attendant, and he was led out to where he could not

say.

"If you hold it out in front you can see to walk," said his guide; and

Cowperwood pulled it out, thus being able to discern his feet and a

portion of the floor below. He was thus conducted--seeing nothing in his

transit--down a short walk, then through a long corridor, then through a

room of uniformed guards, and finally up a narrow flight of iron steps,

leading to the overseer's office on the second floor of one of the

two-tier blocks. There, he heard the voice of Kuby saying: "Mr. Chapin,

here's another prisoner for you from Mr. Kendall."

"I'll be there in a minute," came a peculiarly pleasant voice from the

distance. Presently a big, heavy hand closed about his arm, and he was

conducted still further.

"You hain't got far to go now," the voice said, "and then I'll take

that bag off," and Cowperwood felt for some reason a sense of sympathy,

perhaps--as though he would choke. The further steps were not many.

A cell door was reached and unlocked by the inserting of a great iron

key. It was swung open, and the same big hand guided him through. A

moment later the bag was pulled easily from his head, and he saw that he

was in a narrow, whitewashed cell, rather dim, windowless, but lighted

from the top by a small skylight of frosted glass three and one half

feet long by four inches wide. For a night light there was a tin-bodied

lamp swinging from a hook near the middle of one of the side walls. A

rough iron cot, furnished with a straw mattress and two pairs of dark

blue, probably unwashed blankets, stood in one corner. There was a

hydrant and small sink in another. A small shelf occupied the wall

opposite the bed. A plain wooden chair with a homely round back stood at

the foot of the bed, and a fairly serviceable broom was standing in one

corner. There was an iron stool or pot for excreta, giving, as he could

see, into a large drain-pipe which ran along the inside wall, and which

was obviously flushed by buckets of water being poured into it. Rats

and other vermin infested this, and it gave off an unpleasant odor which

filled the cell. The floor was of stone. Cowperwood's clear-seeing

eyes took it all in at a glance. He noted the hard cell door, which was

barred and cross-barred with great round rods of steel, and fastened

with a thick, highly polished lock. He saw also that beyond this was a

heavy wooden door, which could shut him in even more completely than the

iron one. There was no chance for any clear, purifying sunlight here.

Cleanliness depended entirely on whitewash, soap and water and sweeping,

which in turn depended on the prisoners themselves.

He also took in Chapin, the homely, good-natured, cell overseer whom he

now saw for the first time--a large, heavy, lumbering man, rather dusty

and misshapen-looking, whose uniform did not fit him well, and whose

manner of standing made him look as though he would much prefer to sit

down. He was obviously bulky, but not strong, and his kindly face was

covered with a short growth of grayish-brown whiskers. His hair was cut

badly and stuck out in odd strings or wisps from underneath his big cap.

Nevertheless, Cowperwood was not at all unfavorably impressed--quite the

contrary--and he felt at once that this man might be more considerate of

him than the others had been. He hoped so, anyhow. He did not know that

he was in the presence of the overseer of the "manners squad," who would

have him in charge for two weeks only, instructing him in the rules of

the prison, and that he was only one of twenty-six, all told, who were

in Chapin's care.

That worthy, by way of easy introduction, now went over to the bed

and seated himself on it. He pointed to the hard wooden chair, which

Cowperwood drew out and sat on.

"Well, now you're here, hain't yuh?" he asked, and answered himself

quite genially, for he was an unlettered man, generously disposed, of

long experience with criminals, and inclined to deal kindly with kindly

temperament and a form of religious belief--Quakerism--had inclined him

to be merciful, and yet his official duties, as Cowperwood later found

out, seemed to have led him to the conclusion that most criminals

were innately bad. Like Kendall, he regarded them as weaklings and

ne'er-do-wells with evil streaks in them, and in the main he was not

mistaken. Yet he could not help being what he was, a fatherly, kindly

old man, having faith in those shibboleths of the weak and inexperienced

mentally--human justice and human decency.

"Yes, I'm here, Mr. Chapin," Cowperwood replied, simply, remembering his

name from the attendant, and flattering the keeper by the use of it.

To old Chapin the situation was more or less puzzling. This was the

famous Frank A. Cowperwood whom he had read about, the noted banker and

treasury-looter. He and his co-partner in crime, Stener, were destined

to serve, as he had read, comparatively long terms here. Five hundred

thousand dollars was a large sum of money in those days, much more

than five million would have been forty years later. He was awed by the

thought of what had become of it--how Cowperwood managed to do all

the things the papers had said he had done. He had a little formula of

questions which he usually went through with each new prisoner--asking

him if he was sorry now for the crime he had committed, if he meant to

do better with a new chance, if his father and mother were alive,

etc.; and by the manner in which they answered these questions--simply,

regretfully, defiantly, or otherwise--he judged whether they were being

adequately punished or not. Yet he could not talk to Cowperwood as

he now saw or as he would to the average second-story burglar,

store-looter, pickpocket, and plain cheap thief and swindler. And yet he

scarcely knew how else to talk.

"Well, now," he went on, "I don't suppose you ever thought you'd get to

a place like this, did you, Mr. Cowperwood?"

"I never did," replied Frank, simply. "I wouldn't have believed it a few

months ago, Mr. Chapin. I don't think I deserve to be here now, though

of course there is no use of my telling you that."

He saw that old Chapin wanted to moralize a little, and he was only too

glad to fall in with his mood. He would soon be alone with no one to

talk to perhaps, and if a sympathetic understanding could be reached

with this man now, so much the better. Any port in a storm; any straw to

a drowning man.

"Well, no doubt all of us makes mistakes," continued Mr. Chapin,

superiorly, with an amusing faith in his own value as a moral guide and

reformer. "We can't just always tell how the plans we think so fine are

coming out, can we? You're here now, an' I suppose you're sorry certain

things didn't come out just as you thought; but if you had a chance I

don't suppose you'd try to do just as you did before, now would yuh?"

"No, Mr. Chapin, I wouldn't, exactly," said Cowperwood, truly enough,

"though I believed I was right in everything I did. I don't think legal

justice has really been done me."

"Well, that's the way," continued Chapin, meditatively, scratching his

grizzled head and looking genially about. "Sometimes, as I allers says

to some of these here young fellers that comes in here, we don't know as

much as we thinks we does. We forget that others are just as smart as we

are, and that there are allers people that are watchin' us all the time.

These here courts and jails and detectives--they're here all the time,

and they get us. I gad"--Chapin's moral version of "by God"--"they do,

if we don't behave."

"Yes," Cowperwood replied, "that's true enough, Mr. Chapin."

"Well," continued the old man after a time, after he had made a few more

solemn, owl-like, and yet well-intentioned remarks, "now here's your

bed, and there's your chair, and there's your wash-stand, and there's

your water-closet. Now keep 'em all clean and use 'em right." (You would

have thought he was making Cowperwood a present of a fortune.) "You're

the one's got to make up your bed every mornin' and keep your floor

swept and your toilet flushed and your cell clean. There hain't anybody

here'll do that for yuh. You want to do all them things the first thing

in the mornin' when you get up, and afterward you'll get sumpin' to eat,

about six-thirty. You're supposed to get up at five-thirty."

"Yes, Mr. Chapin," Cowperwood said, politely. "You can depend on me to

do all those things promptly."

"There hain't so much more," added Chapin. "You're supposed to wash

yourself all over once a week an' I'll give you a clean towel for that.

Next you gotta wash this floor up every Friday mornin'." Cowperwood

winced at that. "You kin have hot water for that if you want it. I'll

have one of the runners bring it to you. An' as for your friends and

relations"--he got up and shook himself like a big Newfoundland dog.

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