by Fritz Leiber
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t guessed? Well, it is rather amusing from one viewpoint Your friend is not only in jail; he’s in love!”
“Nils? Nonsense! Besides, if he were in love he would wish to live, not die!”
“That is the amusing part. He is willing to die, because of the love.”
“Some woman refused him, you mean?”
“No; the girl is not even aware of his feeling toward her. She would, I think, be shocked at the very thought. He has only spoken with her twice in his life. But from the first moment that he saw her face he has loved her. He has sat in the courtroom and watched her while the lawyers fought over his life, and to his peculiar nature—rather an amusingly peculiar nature, from our viewpoint—merely watching her so has seemed a privilege beyond price. He is willing to die, not for you, but to buy her happiness.”
“Who is this girl?” I asked hoarsely, and speaking aloud as I still sometimes did with him.
“You should know.”
“Nils Berquist—in love—with Roberta?” I said slowly. “But that’s absurd! You are lying!”
“No. Every day, as you know, she was in that audience beyond the rail. For your sake. Because she knew how you cared for this man Berquist. She herself has a shrinking horror of the ‘red-handed murderer,’ but her devotion to you has served our purpose well. That first mere glimpse he had of her on the street—the hour at dinner in your house—these impressions might have somewhat paled in the stress of confronting so disgraceful a form of death. But in the courtroom he watched her face for hours every day, and each day bound our dear poet and dreamer tighter.”
“But—”
“He measures her love for you by his own for her. As you are still his friend, uncondemned and worthy, he will buy your life for her.”
“He loves her—and would have her marry a murderer?”
“He believes as you have told him, and truly enough, that you were thrown off balance by some influence connected with Alicia and did not know what you were doing. But it is rather amusing, as I said. He loves the girl for the goodness and purity of her beauty, and for her newly born sadness. You have tired of her for the same reasons, and plan to break the engagement. But he needn’t know that, eh?”
“Liar! I shall marry Roberta.”
“When? Never! No, you are entirely right She is not the wife for you. With my help you can easily attract a better. I know at least one woman among your mother’s friends who is already devoted to you, and who has means to make not only you but your whole family happy and comfortable. I mean the blond widow, who owns the big house next to your old home. What is her name? Marcia Baird. Yes; she is the woman I refer to. Oh, I know she’s over thirty, but think what she could give you. As for the girl, she knows your circumstances. Her love is selfish, or she would have released you before this.”
“You are lying, as you have lied in the past.”
“What have I said that proved untrue?”
“You have lied from the first. There was poor old Van. You said that his father would forgive him, and he didn’t”
“Be fair. You misquote. I said that Van would not be ruined. With the enthusiastic despair of youth, he played hobo for a while. Then he went to work at the one thing he understood. He is a very industrious mechanic now in a motor-car factory, with good chances of a foreman-ship, and—except for grease—living cleaner than he ever did before. He was going the straight-down road, but his sacrifice for you pulled him up. You will hear from him shortly. He doesn’t bear any grudge.”
“But Nils, you promised to be my ally; to use your power as an influence to help.”
“I kept the promise. Has the least slur of suspicion fallen upon you? Is not everyone your friend? Is there a man or woman living who hates or despises you? Are you not shielded and sheltered by the mantle of love, as I foretold?”
“But you promised that Nils would be acquitted.”
“Not acquitted. I said released. For such a spirit as his, this world is a prison. In real life, such as you and I prize, there is no contentment for him. Death will release him to that higher sphere where the idealist finds perfection, and the dreamer his dreams. Believe me, Nils Berquist could never be happy on earth. In speeding his departure, we are really his benefactors—you and I.”
The face beamed as though in serene joy for the good we had done together; but I hid my head in my arms, groaning for the shame of us both.
June 9 was coming. June 9.
CHAPTER XX.
TWO LETTERS.
June 5.
My dear Clayton :
Mother has told me of your talk with her. I am glad to learn that your views coincide with my own, as I have felt for some time that it would be best for me to release you from our engagement. Your ring and some gifts I return by the messenger who carries this. I am leaving shortly on a visit to friends of mother’s in the South, so we shall not meet again soon. Wishing you the best of fortune in all ways, I remain
Very truly yours,
ROBERTA ELLSWORTH WHITINGFIELD.
* * * *
June 5.
My Own Dearest—Here and Hereafter:
Mother didn’t understand as I do. She made me write the letter that goes with this. She is very proud, and that you should be the one who wished to break our engagement shamed her. She even believed a silly gossip that you have been paying court to Mrs. Marcia Baird on the sly! I had to laugh a little. Imagine it! If I could picture you as disloyal, I could never, I’m sure, picture you making love to that poor, dear, sentimental, rich Mrs. Baird, who is old enough to be the mother of us both. Well, maybe not quite that, but awfully old. Thirty-five, anyway.
But mother half believed it, and to please her I wrote that cold, hard letter that goes with this.
I’m not proud a bit, dearest. I have to tell you that I understand. You are burdened to the breaking-point; but it is I who you wish to free, not yourself. Dearest, I don’t want that kind of freedom. Love is sacrifice. Don’t you know that I could wait for you a lifetime, if needs be? Mother says you never truly loved me, or you would not let me go. I know better. We are each other’s only, you and I. I measure your love for me by mine for you, and, if it’s years or a lifetime, be sure that I shall wait.
You have suffered so over this terrible tragedy of your friend that I can’t bear you to have even a little pain from doubt of me.
It seems dreadful that I should leave you on the very day before—before June 9. But mother has bought the tickets and made all the arrangements, so I must go. I won’t hurt you by saying a word against your friend; but, oh, my dearest, don’t quite break that heart I love over a tragedy that, after all, isn’t yours. You have been to him all that a friend could be. True—loyal—self-sacrificing. You could not have done or suffered more if he had been your brother. That’s one reason I am sure of you, dearest. No man who could be so loyal to friendship will ever forget his love.
I promised mother not to see you again, but nothing was said about letters! I’ll send you an address later. Clay, darling, goodbye till you are free to take me.
Remember—years or a lifetime!
Your own dearest always, here and hereafter,
BERT.
* * * *
(Extract from Evening Bulletin)
June 8.
…Truck collides with taxi on Thirty-Second Street. Mrs. Roberta Whitingfield victim of fatal accident…Early this morning a heavy truck, loaded with baggage, skidded across a bit of wet asphalt on Thirty-Second Street above Broad, and collided with the rear of a taxicab traveling in the same direction. The taxi was hurled against the curb…One of the occupants uninjured…daughter, Miss Roberta Whitingfield, taken to St. Clement’s Hospital…death ensued shortly afterward…Miss Whitingfield said to h
ave been the fiancée of Clayton S. Barbour, a witness in the famous Moore murder trial, and who has since vainly exerted himself to obtain a pardon for the murderer, Berquist…If the victim of this morning’s accident is really Mr. Barbour’s betrothed wife, there is a tragic coincidence here for him. No one has ever questioned his devoted and disinterested friendship for the socialist murderer, Berquist. His friend dies tomorrow. Has his sweetheart died today?
CHAPTER XXI.
ANOTHER CONVERSION.
“Clay! Lad, you’re the one person on earth whom I wished to see!”
“You’ve changed your mind, Nils? You’ll let me tell them the truth?”
“Hush! Speak lower, and be careful. How long have we to talk?”
“Twenty minutes. I wrung a pass at last from Clemens. Thought I could never have persuaded him. You know what a time I had over the last one, and now—so close to the day! Unheard of, the warden said; but I had the pass. They searched me and let me in. If I’d failed it might have been better for you, Nils!”
“Why?”
“If I’d failed, I had meant to confess immediately—”
“Hush, I say! The others there seem inattentive enough, but you can’t gauge how closely they are listening. A prison is more than a prison. I’ve leaned that. It’s a mass of devilish traps set to crush the very soul out of a man and violate its secrecy.”
“Nils, you have suffered so much”
“Don’t go so white, lad. It was good of you to come and see me again.”
“Nils!”
“I mean it. Don’t you think I understand what this means to you? Have I no imagination? Can’t I put myself in your place? Why, the last time you came it nearly broke my heart to remind you of your duty! But we are men, you and I. When men love they are willing to make their sacrifice.”
“You would not do this for me alone? It is all for Roberta?”
“Can you ask? Why, clear friend, I would never damn you to a lifetime of remorse for a lesser reason. My part is nothing. To die is nothing. We all die. If you could exchange with me, I might not survive you a day—an hour. There are so many doors out beside the one I pass through tomorrow. What’s death? No, boy, it is your part that is hard. And I thanked God when I saw your face, because I wished to say a word or so that might make it easier.”
“You are the noblest friend a man ever had. But I came to tell you that—that—have you seen the afternoon papers?”
“No, nor any papers for a week. I’m done with this world and the news of it. I hadn’t supposed, though, that they would devote their precious columns to real gloatings over me till tomorrow. Clay, take my advice and don’t read the papers of June 9.”
“You—haven’t seen—today’s?”
“I say, no! Why? Any special gloatings in them?”
“There is—Nils, you must let me stop this while there is time. I shall go to the Governor—”
“No! No—no—no, and no again! Clay, have I passed through months of hell to see my reward snatched away at the last instant? There! You see, I make it plain that I’m selfish! To keep her happiness inviolate—to buy happiness for her at the mere price of death—why that’s a joy that I never believed God would judge me worthy of!”
“You believe in God and his justice? You?”
“Most solemnly—most earnestly—as I never knew Him nor His justice before, Clayton, lad. Why, I’m happy! Do I seem so tragically sad to you?”
“No. But you seem different from any living man. You look like—I have seen the picture of a man with that light on his face.”
“So?”
“He was nailed to a cross. Nils, I am afraid!”
“I said your part was hardest. Hush! The others are listening. We’ve been speaking too loudly. Our time is almost gone, and I haven’t even begun what I wished to say. Quick! Make me two promises. You’re the friend I have loved, Clay. I’d stake anything on your word. First, I am buying your life with all that I have to give. So it’s mine, isn’t it?”
“You—you know!”
“Yes. Straighten up, boy. They are watching us. Your life, then, which is mine, I will and bequeath to—her. And you will never forget. That’s a premise?”
“Y-yes. My God, Nils, I can’t stand this! I have a thing to tell you—”
“Hush! Second, never by word nor look, never, if you can help it, by a thought in her presence, will you betray our secret. A promise?”
“Nils—no—yes! I promise.”
“And you will—”
“Is that the guard coming?”
“I fear so. Our last talk is over. Clay. Don’t care too much. Wait—just a minute more, guard. What, five? They are good to me, these last days. Listen, Clay:
“You are the only man in the world to whom I would tell this. This morning—a wonderful dream came to me. I had lain awake all night thinking, and I was tired. After breakfast I lay down again. I lay there on my cot, asleep, but I believed, waking. And she came and stood by my head. You know that time when we met at dinner in your house, she didn’t like me very well. And afterward, in the courtroom, as time passed and they proved their case, she—before the end she dreaded to even look toward me.
“Don’t protest. It’s true. But in this dream that was so much more real than reality she stood there and smiled, Clay—at me! She laid her hand on my forehead. There was a faint light around her. And she leaned and kissed me—on the lips. Waking, I still felt the touch of her lips. So real—real! If she were not living, I would have sworn that her spirit had come to me. And friendly—loving.
“Don’t look so, Clay! I shouldn’t have told you—oh, surely you don’t grudge me that kindliness from her—in a dream? There, I knew you too well to think it! All right, guard, he’s coming.
“Clay, goodbye! May your sacrifice measure your happiness, as God knows it does mine. When you think of me, let it be only as a friend—always—forever—here and hereafter! Goodbye!”
CHAPTER XXII.
THE REWARD.
I walked into a dusty-green triangle of turfed and gravel-walked space, smitten with hot, yellow light from the west, where the June sun sank slowly down a clear, light-blue sky. Behind me across a narrow street rose the stark, gray wall beyond which a certain man would never pass into the sunshine again.
He in the shadow; I in the sun.
But sunlight was yellow, glaring, terrible. In the prison I had longed for it. The shadow had seemed bad then. Now I learned how worse than bad was sunlight.
There were three rusty iron benches set in the triangle, and they were all empty. No one wished to sit here. There would be always the risk that some sneak and murderer might come walking out of that prison across the way; walking out, leaving his friend and his honor and his God behind him forever.
So I walked into the little triangle and sat down on one of the empty benches.
I had with me two papers. I had meant—I think I had meant to show at least one of them to Nils. When I went to the prison I had not known whether Nils would have read or been told a certain piece of news. If he had not already learned, it was in my despairing mind to tell him and let him decide what we should do.
I had found him ignorant and left him so.
Sitting there on the empty bench in the hot, free, terrible sunshine, I drew one of the papers from my pocket. I wished to see if this were true; if a certain quarter-column of cheap, blurred print did really exist, and if it conveyed exactly the information I had read there.
Yes, the thing was. The slanting sun beat so hot on the paper that it seemed to burn my hands. I sat on an iron bench in a dusty triangle of green. I had come out of the place where Nils Berquist awaited death, I held a folded newspaper in my hands, and I was beyond question a damned soul. All these things were facts—real.
My eye
s followed the print.
“Miss Roberta Whitingfield—death ensued shortly afterward—said to have been the fiancée of Clayton S. Barbour—who has since vainly exerted himself to obtain a pardon for the murderer, Berquist. No one has ever questioned his devoted and disinterested friendship for the socialist murderer, Berquist. His friend dies tomorrow. Has his sweetheart died today?”
I was better informed than the reporter. Not my sweetheart, but my former sweetheart had died today. My victim, not my friend, would die tomorrow.
The second paper that I carried was not printed, but written. Taking it out, I tore it up very carefully into tiny bits of pieces. Just as I had destroyed Nils’s letter, sent me by the bribed guard at the station-house, and also the quaint, strange letter of Alicia Moore.
The pieces I tossed into the air. They fell on the hot, dry grass like snowflakes, and lay still. There wasn’t even a breath of wind to carry or scatter them. And the words they had borne I couldn’t very well tear up, nor forget.
“We are each other’s only, you and I. No man who could be so loyal to friendship will ever forget his love. Your own dearest always, here and hereafter.”
“No,” I said aloud very thoughtfully. “Not always. Not—beyond the border. She came to him in a dream, so real—real! And kissed him. Well, they must see clearer, over there. Nils will see clearer tomorrow.”
“But, thank God,” said a pleasant, silent voice, “for the blindness of living men!”
“Are you never going to leave me?” I asked dully.
“Never,” the face replied. “You are mine and I am yours. You settled that a few minutes ago in the prison. You clinched it irrevocably with the destruction of her letter. But don’t be downhearted. I’ve an idea we shall get on excellently together.”
“Go!” I said, but without hope that the face would obey me. Nor did he.
“You would find yourself very lonely if I should go. There will never again be any other comrade for you than myself. And yet I can promise you many friends and lovers. Berquist is not the last idealist alive on earth, nor was she who died the last woman who could love. But you and I understand one another. True comradeship requires understanding, and such as Nils Berquist and the girl, though they offer us their devotion, can never give understanding to you and me. This, when you think of it, is fortunate.”