A PROPHECY
At the end of the afternoon, a few days later, a fierce battle was being
waged in the basement room that was the Aldrich home, when a knock made
David lower his defensive fists.
"Ah, don't stop, pard," Tom begged of his cornered enemy. "Let 'em
pound. It's just somebody else kickin' about de heat."
"We'll only stop a second. Ask what they want, and say I'll attend to it
at once."
Tom, grumbling fiercely, opened the door. "What's de matter?" he
demanded. "Ain't you got no heat?"
But it was not an angry tenant who stepped in from the darkness of the
hall. It was Helen Chambers. She was flushed, and excitement quivered in
her eyes. She looked from one pillow-fisted belligerent to the other,
and said, smiling tremulously:
"I had thought there was no heat, but after looking at you I've decided
there's plenty. Is this the way you always receive complainants?"
Tom glanced guiltily at David, then darted behind Helen and through the
door. David gazed at her, loose-jawed. Suddenly he remembered his
shirt-sleeves.
"I beg your pardon," he said, and in his bewilderment he tried to
thrust his huge fists into his coat.
"Perhaps you can do that"--again the tremulous smile--"but I really
don't think you can."
"I should take the gloves off, of course," he stammered. He frantically
unlaced them, slipped into his coat, and then looked at her, throbbing
with wonderment as to why she had come.
She did not leave him in an instant's doubt. She stepped toward him with
outstretched hand, her smile gone, on her face eager, appealing
earnestness.
"I have come to ask your forgiveness," she said with her old, direct
simplicity. "I believed that you and the boy were--pardon me!--were
stealing together; that you were letting yourself slip downward. This
afternoon the boy came to me at St. Christopher's and told me the real
story. I could hardly wait till I was free so that I could hurry to you
and ask you to forgive me."
"Forgive you!" David said slowly.
"Forgive me for my unjust judgment," she went on, a quaver in her voice.
"I judged from mere appearance, mere guess-work. I was cold--horrid. I
am ashamed. Forgive me."
Her never-expected coming, her never-expected words, rendered him for
the moment speechless. He could only gaze into her fresh face, so full
of earnestness, of appeal.
"You do not forgive me?" she asked.
David thrilled at the tremulous note in her voice. "I have nothing to
forgive. You could not help judging as you did."
Her deep brown eyes, looking straight into his face, continued the
appeal.
"I forgive you," he said in a low voice.
"Thank you," she said simply; and she pressed his hand.
"And I came for something else," she went on, "I came to assure you of
my friendship, if it can mean anything to you--to tell you how much I
admire your brave and bitter upward struggle. I'd be so happy if there
was some way I could help you, and if you'd let me."
"You want to help me!" was all he could say.
"Yes. Won't you let me--please!"
He throbbed with exultation. "Then you believe I am now honest!"
"You have proved that you are--proved it by the way you have resisted
temptation during these four terrible months."
His eyes suddenly sank from hers to the floor. Her words had brought
back New Year's eve. She had come to him with friendship because she was
certain of his unfallen determination to make his new life an honest
life. If she knew of that night in Allen's house, would she be giving
him this praise, this offer?
The temptation to say nothing rose, but he could not requite frankness
and sincerity such as hers with the lie of silence--he could not accept
her friendship under false pretenses. He looked up and gazed at her
steadily.
"I am innocent where you thought me guilty, but"--he paused; the truth
was hard--"but I am guilty where you think me innocent."
She paled. "What do you mean?" she asked in a fearing voice.
"I have not resisted temptation."
He saw that his words had hurt her, and there was a flash of wonder that
a lapse of his should give her pain. An appeal, full of colour, of
feeling, that would justify himself to her was rising to his lips, but
before it passed them he suddenly felt himself so much the wronged that
his confession came forth an abrupt outline of his acts, spoken with no
shame.
"I had been starved, rebuffed, for over three months. I grew desperate.
Temptation came. I yielded. I entered a house--entered it to steal. But
I did not steal. I could not. I came away with nothing."
He paused. His guilt was out. He awaited her judgment, fearful of her
condemnation, with resentment ready for it if it came.
"Is that all!" she cried.
Vast relief quivered through him. "You mean then that--" He hesitated.
"That you have been fiercely tempted, but you are not guilty."
"You see it so!"
"Yes. Had you conquered temptation on the outer side of the door, you
would certainly have been guiltless. Since you conquered temptation on
the inner side of the door, I cannot see that those few more steps are
the difference between guilt and innocence."
They were both silent a moment.
"But don't you want to tell me something about yourself--about your
plans?" she asked.
The friendship in her voice, in her frank face, warmed him through.
"Certainly," he said. "But there's very little to tell."
He now became aware that all the while they had been standing. "Pardon
my rudeness," he said, and set a chair for her beside the table, and
himself took a chair opposite her.
"There is little to tell," he repeated. "I am what you see--the janitor
of this house." As he spoke the word "janitor" it flashed upon him that
there had been a time when, in his wild visions, he had thought of
winning this woman to be his wife. He flushed.
"Yes, I know. But you have other plans--other ambitions."
"A week ago my ambition was to find work that would keep me alive," he
returned, smiling. "I have just attained that ambition. I have hardly
had time to dream new dreams."
"But you will dream them again," she said confidently.
"I had them when--when I came back, and I suppose they will return."
"Yes. Go on!"
He had thought, in his most hopeful moments, that some day she might
regard him with a distant friendliness, but he had never expected such
an interest as was shown in her eager, peremptory tone. "There were two
dreams. One was this: I wondered, if I were honest, if I worked hard, if
I were of service to those about me, could I, after several years, win
back the respect of the world, or its semi-respect? You know the world
is so thoughtless, so careless, so slow to forgive. And I wondered if
perhaps, after several years, I could win back the respect of some of my
old friends?"
"I was sure that was one dream, one plan," she said, quietly. "For
myself----" She gave him her hand.
"Thank you!" he said, his voice low and threaded with a quaver.
"And though the world is thoughtless, and slow to forgive, and though
the struggle will be hard, I'm certain that you are going to succeed."
Her rich voice was filled with quiet belief. "And the other dream?"
"It's presumptuous in me to speak of the other dream, for to work for
its fulfilment would require all the things I've lost and many things I
never had--a fair name, influence, some money, a personality, ability of
the right sort. Besides, the dream is vague, unshaped--only a dream. It
is not new, and it is not even my own dream. Thousands have dreamt it,
and many are striving to turn it into a fact, a condition. Yes, it would
be presumptuous for me to speak of it."
"But I'd like very much to hear about it--if you don't mind."
"Even though it will sound absurd from me? Well, if you wish me to."
He paused a moment to gather his thoughts. "One thing the last four
months have taught me," he began, "is that the discharged criminal has
little chance ever to be anything but a criminal. Many come out
hardened; perhaps the prison hardened them--I've seen many a young
fellow, who had his good points when he entered, hardened to
irreclaimable criminality by prison associates and prison methods. These
have no desire to live useful lives. Some come out with moderately
strong resolutions to live honestly, and some come out with a fierce
determination. If these last two classes could find work a large
proportion of them would develop into useful men. But instead of a world
willing to stretch to them a helping hand, what do they find? They find
a world that refuses them the slightest chance.
"What can they do? They persist as long as their resolution lasts. If it
is weak, they may give up in a few days. Then, since the upward road is
closed against them, they turn into the road that is always open, always
calling--the road of their old ways, of their old friends. They are
lost.
"A week ago I was all bitterness, all rebellion, against the world for
its uncaring destruction of these men. I said the world pushed these men
back into crime, destroyed them, because it feared to risk its
worshipped dollars. I feel bitter still, but I think I can see the
world's excuse. The world says, 'For any vacancy there are usually at
least two applicants; I choose the better, and let the other go.' It is
a natural rule. So long as man thinks first of his own interest that
rule will stand. Against such a rule that closes the road of honesty,
what chance does the discharged convict have? None!--absolutely none!
"Since the world will not receive back the thief, since there is no
saving the thief once he has become a thief, the only chance whatever
for him is to save him before he has turned to thievery--while he is a
child.
"Have you ever thought, Miss Chambers, how saving we are of all material
things, and what squanders, oh, what criminal squanderers! we are of
human lives? How far more rapidly the handling of iron, and hogs, and
cotton, has developed than the handling of men! The pig comes out meat
and soap and buttons and what not, and the same rigid economy is
observed with all other materials. Nothing is too small, too poor, to be
saved. It is all too precious!
"There is no waste! But can we say the same about the far more important
business of producing citizens? Look at the men in our prisons. Wasted
material. Had they been treated, when they were the raw material of
childhood, with even a part of the intelligence and care that is devoted
to turning the pig into use, into profit, they would have been
manufactured into good citizens. And these men in prisons are but a
fraction of the great human waste. Think of the uncaught criminals, of
the stunted children, of the human wreckage floating about the city, of
the women who live by their shame!--all wasted human material. And all
the time more children are growing up to take the places of these when
they are gone. Why, if any business man should run his factory as we
conduct our business of producing citizens, he'd be bankrupt in a year!
"This waste _can_ be saved. I do not mean the men now in prison, nor the
women in the street, nor those on whom ill conditions have fastened
disease--though even they need not be wholly lost. I mean their
successors, the growing children. If the production of citizens were a
business run for profit--which in a sense it is, for each good citizen
is worth thousands of dollars to the country--and were placed in the
hands of a modern business man, then you would see! Had he been packer,
steel manufacturer, goldsmith, not a bristle, not an ounce of steel, not
the infinitesimal filings of gold, escaped him. Do you think that he
would let millions of human beings, worth, to put a sordid money value
upon their heads, ten thousand dollars apiece, be wasted? Never! He
would find the great business leak and stop it. He would save all.
"And how save? I am a believer in heredity, yes; but I believe far more
in the influence of surroundings. Let a child be cradled in the gutter
and nursed by wickedness; let wickedness be its bedfellow, playfellow,
workfellow, its teacher, its friend--and what do you get? The prisons
tell you. Let the same child grow up surrounded by decency, and you have
a decent child and later a decent man. Could the thousands and thousands
of children who are developing towards criminality, towards profligacy,
towards a stunted maturity, be set amid good conditions, the leak would
be stopped, or almost--the great human waste would be brought to an end.
They would be saved to themselves, and saved to their country.
"Nothing of all this is new to you, Miss Chambers. I have said so much
because I wanted to make clear what has become my great dream--the great
dream of so many. I should like to do my little part towards rousing the
negligent, indifferent world to the awfulness of this waste--towards
making it as economical of its people as it is of its pigs and its
pig-iron. That is my dream."
He had begun quietly, but as his thought mastered him his face had
flushed, his eyes had glowed, and he had stood up and his words had
come out with all the passion of his soul. Helen's eyes had not for an
instant shifted from his; her's too were aglow, and glow was in her
cheeks.
For several moments after he had stopped she gazed at him with something
that was very like awe; then she said, barely above a whisper: "You are
going to do it!"
"No, no," David returned quickly, bitterly. "I have merely builded out
of words the shape of an impossible dream. Look at what I dream; and
then look at me, a janitor!--look at my record!"
"You are going to do it!" she repeated, her voice vibrant with belief.
"The dream is not impossible. You are doing something towards its
fulfilment now--the boy, you know. You are going to grow above your
record, and above this position--far above! You are going to grow into
great things. What you have been saying has been to me a prophecy of
that."
He grew warmer and warmer under her words--under the gaze of her brown
eyes glowing into his--under the disclosure made by her left hand, on
which he had seen there was no engagement ring. Her praise, her
sympathy, her belief, thrilled him; and his purpose, set free in words,
had given him courage, had lifted him up. As from a swift, dizzy growth,
he felt strong, big.
A burning impulse swept into him to tell her his innocence. For a moment
his innocence trembled on his lips. But the old compelling reasons for
silence rushed forward and joined battle with the desire of his love.
His hands clenched, his body tightened, he stared at her tensely.
At length he drew a deep breath, swallowed with difficulty. "May the
prophecy come true!" his dry lips said.
"It will!"
She studied him thoughtfully for a minute or more. "Something has been
occurring to me and I'd like to talk to you about it." She rose. "But I
must be going. Won't you walk with me to the car, and let me talk on the
way?"
A minute later they were in the street, from which the day had all but
faded and into which the shop-windows and above them the tier on tier of
home-windows, were stretching their meagre substitute. David's blood was
leaping through him, and in him were the lightness and the
all-conquering strength of youth. The crisp winter air that thrust its
sting into many of the stream of home-coming workers, tinglingly pricked
him with the joy of living.
"Have you thought again of writing?" she asked.
"About as much as a man who has leaped from a house-top to try his
wings, thinks again of flying."
"I am speaking seriously. If the impulse to write should return, would
you have time for writing?"
"I think I could manage three or four hours a day."
"Then why not try?"
"The ground where one alights is so hard, Miss Chambers!"
"But perhaps you did not soar the other time because you had over-worn
your wings. Perhaps they have grown strong and developed during their
rest. Many of us used to believe they would carry you far up. Why not
try? You have nothing to lose. And if you succeed--then the dream you
have told me of will begin to come true."
For several paces David was silent. "I, too, have thought of this. As
you say, there is nothing to lose. I shall try."
"Why not take an idea in the field of your dream?" she pursued eagerly.
"Why not write a story illustrating how the criminal is to be
saved?--say, the story of a boy amid evil surroundings that urged him
toward a criminal life; the boy to come under good influence, and to
develop into a splendid citizen."
"That may be just the idea," said David.
They discussed the suggestion warmly the remainder of their walk to the
car. A little farther on, as they were coming out upon the Bowery, the
Mayor of Avenue A swayed into view. Astonishment leaped into his pink
face when he saw who David's companion was. His silk hat performed a
wide arc, and David had a sense that backward glances over the Mayor's
shoulders were following them.
"And you really believe in me?" David asked, as Helen's car drew to a
stop.
"I do--and I believe all the other things I have said." She gave the
answer with a steady look into his eyes and with a firm pressure of her
hand.
"I hope you'll not be disappointed!" he breathed fiercely, exultantly.
He retreated to the sidewalk and standing there, the clanging of the
elevated trains beating his ears, he watched the slow passage of her
car through the press of jostling, vituperating trucks, volleying over
the cobble-stones, till it disappeared beyond Cooper Union. Then he
turned away, and strode the streets--chin up, shoulders back, eyes
straightforward--powered with such a hope, such a determination to do,
as he had not known since his first post-college days. Perhaps he would
conquer the future. He would try.
Yes ... he _would_ conquer it!