Part 16

‘_My_ childhood,’ corrected the judge. ‘I wouldn’t presume to intrude on yours.’ He looked pleasantly across the table. ‘I only presume on my age, as you said--that, and a certain feeling for what I believe is called the art of narration. Quite a remarkable art; I admit I practise it very badly. But that doesn’t matter so long as I hold your attention. And what old Melchior Van Zandt said to me is worthy of your attention.

‘I’d been on the bench just about a month when it happened. I was older than you are, and I’d tried quite a number of cases. But, nevertheless, I was developing that splendid sense of power you spoke of so feelingly just a moment ago. There was a little lawyer who came into my court in those days--he’s dead now--who was rather like Kardos, and he irritated me the way Kardos irritates you. I remember one morning when I had a full list, he came bustling into the courtroom with a great cloud of witnesses behind him and that air of his, of terrible absurd importance, which, in view of his hopeless incompetence, always annoyed me intensely. Well, his case was reached that afternoon and when I called it, he came fussing up to the bar with his greasy frock-coat buttoned about him and began to splutter at me, the way he always did. He had a high squeaky voice, and his words seemed to come out in bunches, as if he blew them out from the back of his mouth. “Mr. Stover,” I said,--the very sight of him made me angry,--“as far as I can gather from what you say, you want to butcher another case for us this afternoon.” Then I looked around and waited for the laugh.

‘Of course it came. It always does when the judge makes a joke. I grinned down at Stover and he wrinkled his forehead, then gave me a sallow little smile. “As long as your Honor’s made a shambles out of the court, I suppose I might as well begin,” he said.’ The judge shook his head. ‘Pretty good, wasn’t it?’ he laughed. ‘He didn’t leave me much to say! After Court old Melchior came stumping into my chambers swinging his big green bag at his side like a Hercules-club. “Avery!” he grunted. “You deserved what you got this afternoon.” He put his bag down on the table. “I didn’t think little Stover had it in him. Remember!” He shook his head at me--he had hair like the mane of an old gray lion. “The bench is the coward’s castle, my boy. You’re safe, and the other man isn’t.” Then he picked up his bag and stumped out.’

The judge sighed, smoothed his hair thoughtfully, passed his hand over his cheek. ‘It all seems so very long ago,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid in recalling the facts I may have been just a little vague. I only hope that I haven’t bored you.’ He paused, then settled back in his chair, touched the tips of his fingers together. ‘And, now, what did you want to discuss with me?’

‘Nothing,’ Judge Rodenbaugh answered. He rose with a hesitant awkwardness, his face turned away. ‘I’ve heard that story about the shambles before. Unfortunately for the truth of your autobiography it’s never been connected with you.’

‘Indeed?’ said Judge Avery brightly. ‘I must have made it my own then. It’s not a bad story, though, is it?’

‘No,’ said the judge. He walked to the doorway. ‘Walrath!’ he called. ‘Ask Mr. Kardos to step over, will you?’ He turned sharply about. ‘I’ve listened to you; now I’ll ask you to wait until Kardos comes and then listen to me!’

‘Certainly,’ said Judge Avery.

III

‘Mr. Mercer’s here,’ said Walrath. ‘Mr. Kardos is on his way over. Do you want Mr. Mercer to come in?’

‘No, I’ll talk to him in the courtroom.’ The judge rose from his chair and plunged through the doorway, the curtains dropping with a swift flap behind him. His voice reached the chamber the next moment, subdued to a low murmur from beyond the bench.

Judge Avery put down the Report, smiled quietly, and smoothed his upper lip. On the whole, he had done a good job. Rodenbaugh had wriggled, to be sure, but he had held the knife firm, cut to the proper depth. Surprising how his imagination had gone on; he never remembered letting it wander so far before unaccompanied by facts. Reading the _Electra_ last night must have been responsible for Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. He laughed, tapped the end of his tortoise-shell spectacles on the table, then drew a deep breath, his fingers slowly turning his thin gold watchchain. After all, had his story done Rodenbaugh any good? Human nature was a strangely resilient substance, inevitably coming back to the same shape, no matter how hard you squeezed it. And what business had he--or any one else--to squeeze it? That was what these damned reformers were always doing; blowing their moral ideas under every one’s skin like so many flies! He walked to the window, gazed down at the automobiles moving through the dust-gold street like platoons of black glittering beetles. Maybe he had been a little magisterial in his attitude toward Rodenbaugh, exercised the prerogative of age in a high-handed manner. Still--he shook his head--the boy deserved it!

The murmuring in the courtroom ceased and Rodenbaugh’s step sounded on the marble. As the curtains swung to behind him, Walrath appeared. ‘Mr. Kardos is here, Judge,’ he said.

‘Send him in.’ Rodenbaugh turned away, thrust his hands in his pockets, and sat down facing the table. He did not look up; in the silence that followed, the situation seemed to Judge Avery just a little absurd. Then some one paused at the doorway, moved the curtains timidly to one side. ‘Come in!’ said Judge Rodenbaugh, a note of exasperation in his voice.

Kardos seemed to stumble into the room. As he bowed, it occurred to the judge in a sudden whimsical flash that his round staring eyes were exactly like the black buttons on his yellow shoes. He suppressed a smile, and inclined his head. ‘Sit down,’ said Judge Rodenbaugh, nodding at the chair in front of the table.

Kardos seated himself, then reached over, placed his green hat on the table. It looked curiously jaunty on the dark polished surface, arching above the reflection at its side with an air of draggled impudence: the judge wondered whether Rodenbaugh appreciated it, and what in the devil he was going to do with Kardos anyway, now he had him. He leaned back, gazed at the pair with vague amusement. Where in God’s name did the young men get those coats! There was something skirted and dashing about Mr. Kardos’s apparel--for such a little man!

‘Kardos!’ Judge Rodenbaugh looked in his direction with a slow downward glance. ‘I want to apologize to you.’ He lifted his eyes, stared at him with smoldering hostility. ‘I had no business to say what I did in court this afternoon.’

‘Yes, sir!’ Kardos nodded his head with a violent eagerness. ‘I’m sure I accept your Honor’s apology. I’m sure your Honor’s very generous to make me any apology at all!’ He spread out his hands and smiled at the judge, a watchful look on his dark flat face.

‘No?’ Rodenbaugh frowned. ‘I owe it to you. I’ll admit’--his lip quivered with contempt--‘you gave me provocation. But’--he thrust his chin down on his collar--‘I owe it to you?’

‘That’s very kind,’ said Kardos glibly. He leaned forward with an air of confidence. ‘You see, Judge, I was asking the questions all right. Yes I was.’ His low forehead wrinkled in a thick triangular crease just above his nose. ‘I think maybe your Honor don’t understand the way I work.’ He placed a stubby forefinger on his palm. ‘You see, Judge, I sort of feel around and ease off the witness’s mind until he can tell me what I want, you know, just letting him loose and giving him a chance to think, and then new things come up and you get something maybe you overlooked when you came to court. So I just suggest’--he lifted a hand--‘an idea, maybe, here and there--something that comes to me, maybe, on the spot. Of course I know your Honor thinks it takes up time, but’--he cocked his head to one side--‘I get splendid results!’

‘You do, eh! I wish I saw some of them in my court!’ Judge Rodenbaugh’s little eyes gleamed balefully.

‘Your Honor hasn’t heard me try many cases,’ Kardos said. His smile was almost benevolent in its assurance. ‘Where I live I get most of the business now of that kind.’

‘You do, eh?’ The judge grunted. ‘That doesn’t speak well for your neighborhood! From the way you talk you sound to me very much like a fool! Why don’t you prepare your cases instead of trying them by mental telepathy?’

Kardos laughed. To Judge Avery, watching his face, he didn’t seem at all disconcerted. ‘Your Honor has a forceful way of putting things,’ he said. ‘If your Honor will permit me to say so, I don’t think your Honor quite understands what I mean.’

‘No, and you don’t yourself. How could you when you think round and round like a mule tied up in a field!’ The judge grinned, shot a glance at Judge Avery. ‘What you need, Kardos, is direction, straightness of mental line. I’m afraid your mind’s built on a circular pattern.’

‘Wheels?’ said Kardos.

‘Within wheels,’ Rodenbaugh answered. ‘In my opinion you’re not fit to appear before any sensible jury. You ought to practise trying cases on a phonograph in the privacy of your home. You could encumber the record then all you liked.’ He looked at Judge Avery again.

Kardos caught the glance and a little grin touched the corners of his lips. He gazed at Judge Rodenbaugh with sharp, motionless eyes. ‘Your Honor says very smart things,’ he observed, in a tone of impersonal appreciation. ‘I suppose that’s the reason we all like to try in your Honor’s court.’

‘What?’

‘I suppose that’s the reason we all like to bring our cases before your Honor.’

‘You do, eh! Well, I don’t know about that!’ The viciousness faded from the judge’s voice, and he stretched out his legs and looked tolerantly at Kardos. ‘My tongue may be just a little bit quick, but you fellows need it sometimes.’

‘That’s true, Judge!’ Kardos nodded his head. ‘Your Honor always gives us what we deserve. And besides, Judge,’--the motionless lustre of his eyes seemed to break into tiny points,--‘we like a little amusement in the courtroom.’

‘Yes?’ The judge thrust out his lower lip. ‘Well, you furnish it all right.’

‘And so does your Honor.’

‘I do, eh?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Kardos seemed cautiously to expand, to relax in a posture of intimate friendliness. He glanced over his shoulder at Judge Avery, then surveyed Rodenbaugh with an unruffled face. ‘I hear that everywhere, Judge.’

‘Indeed!’ The judge’s mouth widened, and he smoothed his chin. ‘Well, I do the best I can for you, Kardos. In your case it’s never hard.’ He crossed his knees, sank farther back in his chair. ‘You fellows fumble so with your facts,’ he observed contentedly. ‘And I think you must get your law from the _Evening Telegram_.’

‘Your Honor feels that way because of your Honor’s superior mind. That’s another reason we all like to try in your Honor’s court. Your Honor gets things done.’ Kardos sighed wistfully. ‘Your Honor’s court is not like the other courts.’

‘No?’

‘No, sir!’ Kardos repeated with emphasis. ‘I remember I said, when your Honor was appointed, there’s a young man, if your Honor will forgive the word, that’s going to stir things up on the bench. It’s the kind of thing we need, and I said so, Judge, right down in my ward in public, and in private conversations. He’s a young man that knows the law, and knows how to handle a courtroom, I said. He’s got a heavy hand and a sharp tongue, and that’s what a judge needs more than anything else.’

‘You think so, do you?’ Rodenbaugh lifted his chin, arched his eyebrows amiably, and his lower lip relaxed.

For an instant Judge Avery surveyed him, then he turned away, gazed out at the pigeons, softly rustling their wings in the square of orange light. He was very tired; if they didn’t stop in a minute he was going to get up and go home.

‘Yes, I do, Judge Rodenbaugh! That’s what I think.’ Kardos’s chair creaked and Judge Avery could hear the scratch of his sleeve on the table. ‘And I says to them, Judge,’--he heard Kardos’s voice rise with a lingering sinuous accent,--‘I says to them, Judge, there’s a man that ought to go higher!’

‘Indeed!’ The word echoed through the chamber, hopeful, faintly ironic, foolish.

‘Yes, I did, Judge Rodenbaugh! That’s exactly what I said. There’s a man that ought to go higher. He’s only just begun his career, Judge Rodenbaugh has. And I’m telling you, Judge,’--Kardos hitched his chair closer,--‘what I says goes, in my ward, with a lot of my own people!’

‘Hm!’ A look of doubt crossed Judge Rodenbaugh’s face, and his fingers moved restlessly on the table.

‘And I’m telling you, Judge,’--Kardos paused, then rose with an air of authority,--‘I don’t think you’ve realized what I could do for you. No, you haven’t.’ He shook his head with an impudent cunning. ‘I speak for my own people in my ward. I can do a lot, I can. And Judge,’--his voice seemed to creep through the silence,--‘I could use an appointment now and then, when they come your way.’

For an instant no one spoke. Judge Avery could feel the silence about him expand, grow tense with unuttered meaning. He waited, a little smile on his lips. Then Rodenbaugh sprang from his chair, his fist beating against the table. ‘Get out!’ he fairly bellowed. He stretched out his arm. ‘Get out, I say!’

Kardos turned, seemed to leap through the doorway.

‘My God!’ The judge stumbled against a chair, picked it up with both of his hands. ‘Avery! Did you ever hear anything like that in your life?’ ‘Never before today,’ said Judge Avery.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Copyright, 1924, by The Atlantic Monthly Company. Copyright, 1926, by Walter Gilkyson.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE FREE?[11]

By MANUEL KOMROFF

(From _The Atlantic Monthly_)

After the usual breakfast he was taken downstairs, given a bath, a fresh suit of civil clothes, and brought to the office. Here he was presented with several documents and a five-dollar bill.

The warden got up from his desk, ‘I see by your papers, Joe, that you have been here twelve years. Well, you have been a good prisoner; good-bye and good luck to you.’ They shook hands.

He was led through the yard to the gate. The moment had come. He stepped through. Again they shook hands before the gate was closed behind him and locked--locking him free.

He carried his hat in his hand as he started along the road and down the hill. He was confronted by a fresh, bracing breeze and a most bewildering sense of vastness--a vastness bathed in light. His eyes blinked, and his steps were short and hesitating.

On top of the high gray wall a guard, rifle in hand, walked in the same direction. ‘Good-bye, Joe,’ he shouted. ‘How does it feel to be free?’

* * * * *

How does it feel to be free? To be confined, bottled-up, held in check, restricted, controlled--and suddenly turned loose upon a dizzy world!

A gray mist has surrounded it all. Imagine yourself completely enveloped as though your life had been becalmed by a fog. A fog through which it is difficult to see. Only overhead can you see a tiny circular opening through which the bright sky shines like a sparkling jewel. Soon you discover that the mist has hardened about you. The fog has encased you completely, except for that far-away opening overhead. You examine the walls and find that they are composed of long narrow ribbons of gray celluloid hung from what appears to be a small hoop in the sky. No--you have more space than that. Your walls are round, but you have ten feet from side to side. And every side is alike. From the sky to the ground your life is encased in a celluloid tube made of cold gray ribbons, and you are unable to see what is outside of yourself.

But when you examine the walls closer you find that the strips are made entirely of little squares, and each square has a queer design. You had not noticed them at first, but everywhere you look and as far up as you can see you find the little squares. Then on examining them closer you discover that each square is a separate little picture in which you yourself appear! Each square a frozen moment of your life. Each picture a tiny recollection dimmed and made gray by that rapid piling-up--that multiplication called the Past.

Frozen memories in miniature. As though the ribbons were discarded cinematographic records--records of your discarded past--complete and shameless.

There are different scenes of long ago; some are comforting and some are horrid. At some you tarry, but others you are happy not to see at all. Those high up are hard to see, though some seem clear and fairly distinct. You make vague guesses at what they are, and some you are sure you recognize. It is like a game. The forgotten past hangs over you as high as you can see, and a circle of light comes through from the sky.

The whole thing is quite natural, and at first you see nothing very strange about the affair; a little odd, perhaps, or maybe like a dream; but it does not seem very startling until suddenly you discover that the sequence is wrong. Why should it be wrong? Why do the scenes not follow one another as they happened? Why is this thing all helter-skelter?

You try to select and arrange, but the task is enormous. Here and there and everywhere are pictures that you have not included and some that you would like to--if you could only cut them away with a penknife. Yes, cut little toy-windows so you could see clearly outside--the outside world--the real world that at present you can see only by looking through your own experiences, and see dimmed by the shadows of past images. But you have no knife that could sever. And it would not help.

Oh, how tired you are of it all! How dreary, how oppressing, how monotonous! Days are gray and nights are gray. You are tired of yourself--the constant repetition of yourself. If you could only run away. But the cylinder is light, airy, and nimble. It rotates as you run. You are imprisoned in this strange thing called life--life dreary and gray--surrounded by cameos and smudges of black.

The sequence is wrong. You try to escape. The walls are pliable, and with pressure could yield. You wedge a hand through, and another; you work a foot through, making still another opening, but at no time can you manage to get your body through. Then, too, where would you go? You give it up; and in time you are resigned and engage in that restful play of thinking back and of looking out at the real world through the lightly tinted squares.

You see the world--the real world that is made of kisses and snow. Of fire, milk, dreams, straw, water, tobacco, and children. You watch the real world that is built solidly of things that do not last--built firmly of vital sparks that cannot endure.

Every now and then you discover a new square or two added to your walls. Something that happened only yesterday; but what was in its place before you are unable to tell, try hard as you may.

In a year many different pictures have presented themselves. In three years a fair number are new; in six, three-quarters are added pictures; but in twelve hardly any of the old remain and these seem greatly dimmed. A comforting dimness. Time makes all things restful.

In the outside world you can see children playing. They are playing with matches, lighting old brooms and paper, and running across the fields with trailing flames and shooting sparks. They had never done this before.

You watch closely. They are putting fire to the whole business! Suddenly a flash, a puff of smoke, a blaze of light, and there you stand on a hill confronted by real colors and a free, bracing breeze. In the distance the frightened children are running and you hear one whimper, ‘I did not know it could burn.’

Everything is sky and land. You are surrounded by a vastness bathed in light.

You blink at the glamour of it all, as with hesitating steps you wander down the road to--The station is a mile away. Here a train comes from somewhere and can take you to--exactly where you do not know, but it can take you there. You must go!

That is how it feels to be free.

* * * * *

At the station Joe changed his five-dollar bill to buy a ticket and a plug of chewing-tobacco. The train carried him home--to the city of his former life.

Here the streets are paved with stone. Square next to square, with hardly a crack between. Cruelly mortised by man for the benefit and convenience of his fellow men. Long lines cemented together so that mud and dirt are not tracked about--tracked into the little pigeonholes called homes.

Joe reached home all right. His wife had been dead a number of years and his children had all grown up and married. Old memories were quite dim. He hardly knew them, and they certainly did not recognize him; but it was all very pleasant.

In the evening they all had supper together--that is, after the babies had been put to bed in one room. The table was dressed as in a movie, the room was bright with lights, and everything was merry.

A steaming chicken was brought on and the oldest son stood up, removed his coat, and rolled up his cuffs before carving. ‘Now, dad, I’m going to cut for you this-here leg, first and second joint,’ and, pointing the knife at him, ‘also a good big chunk of the white meat. Mollie, dish the gravy.’

They spoke about the comic strips in the illustrated newspapers, about recent screen-dramas, about dance records for the phonograph, about everything that amused them. The checkered past was carefully avoided. They were all quite intelligent and they said they understood.

Joe had a nice home. He could stay about the house and just ‘rest up.’ The children had seen all kinds of reunions in the movies, and would do their best to make him happy. They gave him a room to himself, a warm pair of carpet slippers, a pipe with a yellow stem and fancy gold band, a pair of cotton-flannel pajamas, razor blades, and everything that a male mortal needs for comfort.

But Joe spent a most uncomfortable night. The large meal did not agree with him and kept him awake. The rushing light of morn came blaring into the room. He looked about. Small photographs hung on the walls. There were scenes of Niagara Falls, Yellowstone Park, and of big trees in California. Little gray squares dotted the walls--views that Joe had never experienced.