The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
to Washington; for in America under the new paragraph added to the
Constitution in 1889, second trials are not State affairs, but national,
and must be tried by the most august body in the land--the Supreme Court
of the United States. The justices were therefore summoned to sit in
Chicago. The session was held day before yesterday, and was opened with
the usual impressive formalities, the nine judges appearing in their
black robes, and the new chief justice (Lemaitre) presiding. In opening
the case the chief justice said:
'It is my opinion that this matter is quite simple. The prisoner at
the bar was charged with murdering the man Szczepanik; he was tried for
murdering the man Szczepanik; he was fairly tried and justly condemned
and sentenced to death for murdering the man Szczepanik. It turns out
that the man Szczepanik was not murdered at all. By the decision of the
French courts in the Dreyfus matter, it is established beyond cavil
or question that the decisions of courts are permanent and cannot be
revised. We are obliged to respect and adopt this precedent. It is upon
precedents that the enduring edifice of jurisprudence is reared. The
prisoner at the bar has been fairly and righteously condemned to death
for the murder of the man Szczepanik, and, in my opinion, there is but
one course to pursue in the matter: he must be hanged.'
Mr. Justice Crawford said:
'But, your Excellency, he was pardoned on the scaffold for that.'
'The pardon is not valid, and cannot stand, because he was pardoned
for killing Szczepanik, a man whom he had not killed. A man cannot
be pardoned for a crime which he has not committed; it would be an
absurdity.'
'But, your Excellency, he did kill a man.'
'That is an extraneous detail; we have nothing to do with it. The court
cannot take up this crime until the prisoner has expiated the other
one.'
Mr. Justice Halleck said:
'If we order his execution, your Excellency, we shall bring about a
miscarriage of justice, for the governor will pardon him again.'
'He will not have the power. He cannot pardon a man for a crime which he
has not committed. As I observed before, it would be an absurdity.'
After a consultation, Mr. Justice Wadsworth said:
'Several of us have arrived at the conclusion, your Excellency, that it
would be an error to hang the prisoner for killing Szczepanik, instead
of for killing the other man, since it is proven that he did not kill
Szczepanik.'
'On the contrary, it is proven that he did kill Szczepanik. By the
French precedent, it is plain that we must abide by the finding of the
court.'
'But Szczepanik is still alive.'
'So is Dreyfus.'
In the end it was found impossible to ignore or get around the French
precedent. There could be but one result: Clayton was delivered over for
the execution. It made an immense excitement; the State rose as one man
and clamored for Clayton's pardon and retrial. The governor issued the
pardon, but the Supreme Court was in duty bound to annul it, and did so,
and poor Clayton was hanged yesterday. The city is draped in black, and,
indeed, the like may be said of the State. All America is vocal with
scorn of 'French justice,' and of the malignant little soldiers who
invented it and inflicted it upon the other Christian lands.
(1) Pronounced (approximately) Shepannik.
ABOUT PLAY-ACTING
I
I have a project to suggest. But first I will write a chapter of
introduction.
I have just been witnessing a remarkable play, here at the Burg Theatre
in Vienna. I do not know of any play that much resembles it. In fact,
it is such a departure from the common laws of the drama that the name
'play' doesn't seem to fit it quite snugly. However, whatever else it
may be, it is in any case a great and stately metaphysical poem, and
deeply fascinating. 'Deeply fascinating' is the right term: for the
audience sat four hours and five minutes without thrice breaking
into applause, except at the close of each act; sat rapt and
silent--fascinated. This piece is 'The Master of Palmyra.' It is twenty
years old; yet I doubt if you have ever heard of it. It is by Wilbrandt,
and is his masterpiece and the work which is to make his name permanent
in German literature. It has never been played anywhere except in Berlin
and in the great Burg Theatre in Vienna. Yet whenever it is put on the
stage it packs the house, and the free list is suspended. I know people
who have seem it ten times; they know the most of it by heart; they do
not tire of it; and they say they shall still be quite willing to go and
sit under its spell whenever they get the opportunity.
There is a dash of metempsychosis in it--and it is the strength of the
piece. The play gave me the sense of the passage of a dimly connected
procession of dream-pictures. The scene of it is Palmyra in Roman times.
It covers a wide stretch of time--I don't know how many years--and in
the course of it the chief actress is reincarnated several times: four
times she is a more or less young woman, and once she is a lad. In
the first act she is Zoe--a Christian girl who has wandered across the
desert from Damascus to try to Christianise the Zeus-worshipping pagans
of Palmyra. In this character she is wholly spiritual, a religious
enthusiast, a devotee who covets martyrdom--and gets it.
After many years she appears in the second act as Phoebe, a graceful and
beautiful young light-o'-love from Rome, whose soul is all for the
shows and luxuries and delights of this life--a dainty and capricious
feather-head, a creature of shower and sunshine, a spoiled child, but
a charming one. In the third act, after an interval of many years, she
reappears as Persida, mother of a daughter who is in the fresh bloom of
youth. She is now a sort of combination of her two earlier selves: in
religious loyalty and subjection she is Zoe: in triviality of character
and shallowness of judgement--together with a touch of vanity in
dress--she is Phoebe.
After a lapse of years she appears in the fourth act as Nymphas,
a beautiful boy, in whose character the previous incarnations are
engagingly mixed.
And after another stretch of years all these heredities are joined in
the Zenobia of the fifth act--a person of gravity, dignity, sweetness,
with a heart filled with compassion for all who suffer, and a hand
prompt to put into practical form the heart's benignant impulses.
There are a number of curious and interesting features in this piece.
For instance, its hero, Appelles, young, handsome, vigorous, in the
first act, remains so all through the long flight of years covered by
the five acts. Other men, young in the first act, are touched with gray
in the second, are old and racked with infirmities in the third; in the
fourth, all but one are gone to their long home, and this one is a blind
and helpless hulk of ninety or a hundred years. It indicates that the
stretch of time covered by the piece is seventy years or more. The
scenery undergoes decay, too--the decay of age assisted and perfected by
a conflagration. The fine new temples and palaces of the second act
are by-and-by a wreck of crumbled walls and prostrate columns,
mouldy, grass-grown, and desolate; but their former selves are still
recognisable in their ruins. The ageing men and the ageing scenery
together convey a profound illusion of that long lapse of time: they
make you live it yourself! You leave the theatre with the weight of a
century upon you.
Another strong effect: Death, in person, walks about the stage in every
act. So far as I could make out, he was supposably not visible to any
excepting two persons--the one he came for and Appelles. He used various
costumes: but there was always more black about them than any other
tint; and so they were always sombre. Also they were always deeply
impressive and, indeed, awe-inspiring. The face was not subjected to
changes, but remained the same first and last--a ghastly white. To me
he was always welcome, he seemed so real--the actual Death, not a
play-acting artificiality. He was of a solemn and stately carriage; and
he had a deep voice, and used it with a noble dignity. Wherever there
was a turmoil of merry-making or fighting or feasting or chaffing or
quarreling, or a gilded pageant, or other manifestation of our
trivial and fleeting life, into it drifted that black figure with the
corpse-face, and looked its fateful look and passed on; leaving its
victim shuddering and smitten. And always its coming made the fussy
human pack seem infinitely pitiful and shabby, and hardly worth the
attention of either saving or damning.
In the beginning of the first act the young girl Zoe appears by some
great rocks in the desert, and sits down exhausted, to rest. Presently
arrive a pauper couple stricken with age and infirmities; and they begin
to mumble and pray to the Spirit of Life, who is said to inhabit that
spot. The Spirit of Life appears; also Death--uninvited. They are
(supposably) invisible. Death, tall, black-robed, corpse-faced, stands
motionless and waits. The aged couple pray to the Spirit of Life for a
means to prop up their existence and continue it. Their prayer fails.
The Spirit of Life prophesies Zoe's martyrdom; it will take place before
night. Soon Appelles arrives, young and vigorous and full of enthusiasm:
he has led a host against the Persians and won the battle; he is the pet
of fortune, rich, honoured, believed, 'Master of Palmyra'. He has heard
that whoever stretches himself out on one of those rocks there and asks
for a deathless life can have his wish. He laughs at the tradition, but
wants to make the trial anyway. The invisible Spirit of Life warns him!
'Life without end can be regret without end.' But he persists: let him
keep his youth, his strength, and his mental faculties unimpaired, and
he will take all the risks. He has his desire.
From this time forth, act after act, the troubles and sorrows and
misfortunes and humiliations of life beat upon him without pity or
respite; but he will not give up, he will not confess his mistake.
Whenever he meets Death he still furiously defies him--but Death
patiently waits. He, the healer of sorrows, is man's best friend: the
recognition of this will come. As the years drag on, and on, and on, the
friends of the Master's youth grow old; and one by one they totter
to the grave: he goes on with his proud fight, and will not yield. At
length he is wholly alone in the world; all his friends are dead; last
of all, his darling of darlings, his son, the lad Nymphas, who dies in
his arms. His pride is broken now; and he would welcome Death, if Death
would come, if Death would hear his prayers and give him peace. The
closing act is fine and pathetic. Appelles meets Zenobia, the helper of
all who suffer, and tells her his story, which moves her pity. By common
report she is endowed with more than earthly powers; and since he
cannot have the boon of death, he appeals to her to drown his memory
in forgetfulness of his griefs--forgetfulness 'which is death's
equivalent'. She says (roughly translated), in an exaltation of
compassion:
'Come to me!
Kneel; and may the power be granted me
To cool the fires of this poor tortured brain,
And bring it peace and healing.'
He kneels. From her hand, which she lays upon his head, a mysterious
influence steals through him; and he sinks into a dreamy tranquility.
'Oh, if I could but so drift
Through this soft twilight into the night of peace,
Never to wake again!
(_Raising his hand, as if in benediction_.)
O mother earth, farewell!
Gracious thou were to me. Farewell!
Appelles goes to rest.'
Death appears behind him and encloses the uplifted hand in his. Appelles
shudders, wearily and slowly turns, and recognises his life-long