The Smart Set/Volume 51/Issue 3/Jocasta's Romance

by Julian Hawthorne

 

JOCASTA'S ROMANCE

 

By Julian Hawthorne

 

PHILIP was a half-breed Indian, his mother the daughter of a famous chief, his father a French-Canadian; he was serving the second year of a life sentence for murder in a Federal penitentiary.

He was now twenty-six; more than six feet, broad shouldered, light-footed, two hundred pounds of solid manhood; black hair, brilliant, commanding eyes, a winning smile.

His cell-mate was a bank clerk named Passavant, a man of forty, quiet and kindly. The two liked each other, and Philip told Passavant this story:

“I was fond of a girl on the reservation; the agent, Steve Maddox, meddled with her. One morning they found Steve with my knife through his heart, and said I did it. Well, I saw it done. A fellow had come down the trail from the mines, and he and Steve played poker for nuggets; Steve passed a card; the other fellow saw it, and grabbed my knife, which I'd just laid on the corner of the table after cutting my bit of plug, and killed him. Then he jumped on his pony, and that's the last I saw of him. Of course they said I did it. The judge was for hanging, but they commuted me to life. Maybe that fellow will own up some day.”

“But,” he added, with his frank smile, “if he hadn't done it, likely I might have; I had it in for Steve!”

Phil had petitioned Congress, written to the President, and friends were working for him—one friend in particular! Probably his appeals still lie in dusty pigeon-holes at the Department. This would not be written if Phil were alive. But documents could not convey the impression of the flesh-and-blood Phil—his noble bearing, the flash of his eyes, the music of his utterance; and neither the Department nor the President ever saw or heard him.

Passavant inclined to believe his story, partly because of its improbability: it would have been so easy to invent a more plausible one. Other convicts who knew him knew also what courts and prisons are, and none of them believed that, innocent or not, Phil would ever get out; but they jollied him along; and hope, especially in lifers, dies hard. A human soul can hardly believe that any punishment can really be life-long. Only a firm heart or a cruel one could disturb this fool's paradise, and even prison guards have been known to foster the delusion.

On the wall of Phil's cell was a cabinet photograph of a young woman in festal attire: her face and figure were very beautiful, but the photograph seemed old and battered. Prisoners are not usually indulged with such privileges; but lifers are sometimes excepted.

From time to time, in intimate moods, Passavant heard the story of this photograph; Philip imparted it in his deep whisper, and also allowed his mate to read a bundle of letters from the photograph's original.

When, at his trial, life and death had hung in the balance for him, this beautiful woman, unknown to and unseen of him, had sat breathless and in tears in the courtroom. A year after his conviction she had written him her first letter, telling him this.

Passavant found her letters singularly impressive. They showed insight and imagination, and something else, which Passavant understood only after Phil had told him that she was a great prima donna. That accounted for a touch in the letters which only the gift of art in a nature can supply. It justified too a fervor and independence of thought, an indifference to conventions, proper to a woman of noble lineage who had conquered the world by her own genius.

She was of foreign and patrician birth. Phil was a prince among his own people. She had personal knowledge of his heroic physical aspect. Perhaps a woman of her breed and race would not have been dismayed even had she believed him guilty; she would not flinch from bloodshed in a fair quarrel. But Phil had assured her as well as others of his innocence, and she had never questioned it.

The Indian nature, dealing with elemental passions, has a likeness to that of the ancient peoples of the Old World. The mutual attraction between these two persons was prompt and explicit, and was not affected by the fact that their letters must be censored by the prison authorities.

Her name was Jocasta Cenci. The Beatrice of history was her ancestor. Her letters told of her Roman birth; she had the title of Contessa, and an independent fortune, but art had called her from society to the stage.

There were more than twenty of her letters. It is not unusual for a sentimental girl, or for a woman of the world, tired of ordinary affairs, to seek novelty in a love intrigue with a convicted murderer. Even a great prima donna may seek in the depths for something missed on the heights. But this adventure of Jocasta's with the Indian proved as strange as her name.

Passavant noticed something odd about her handwriting; legible it was, but uneven, with an occasional tremulousness, such as strong emotion might produce. It suggested sex and temperament; but there was also a perplexing quality—a secret suggestion.

Only later did Passavant understand what that meant.

She had been the first of the two to speak of love.

“I have known men great and famous who loved and asked me,” she wrote; “but I did not care. You are the man himself, as in the beginning, not made smooth and fine. You and I alike come to each other out of the darkness and terror. I freed myself by art and beauty: but they were not enough—why?—I saw you, and knew! I had wanted love! I have said it—I love you—I think you love me! To love is to be free. My love shall take you out of prison. We will be happy forever!”

Of Phil's first letters to the Contessa we know nothing; they were written for him by a former cell-mate, an amiable forger. But those dictated to Passavant have been preserved; and the amanuensis seems to have contrived to express in them something of the wild and powerful nature of Phil himself. In one of the last of these letters the subject of Phil's innocence is again touched upon, and the appalling wrong of keeping an innocent man behind the bars. It seems to have been intended that this letter should be the basis of another petition for pardon, to be presented by Jocasta herself. But, on the day after it was mailed, occurred the episode which threw all such plans into chaos.

II

The prisoners were forming in line in the yard, previous to marching to their several duties. In front of Phil stood little red-headed Dan Lyons, an irascible but warm-hearted Irishman. On this morning he had had a breakfast particularly vile; the hash not only smelt bad, but had a beetle in it. Dan was at odds with the universe. Phil, in a vein of teasing humor, took this untoward moment to whisper to him something especially exasperating.

Dan turned like a hornet, and before Phil could parry, stung him with several sharp blows in the face—and Dan, who had been in the ring, could hit hard. Phil's lip bled: he straightened up, and Dan, still wroth, made another rush at him.

Phil was taking the thing as a joke: he stooped suddenly and caught his advancing adversary by both ankles, swung him as one swings the hammer for the throw, and the next moment Dan was flying through the air, to land head first in the middle of Turpin, the fat guard, surliest and best-hated officer in the penitentiary. Turpin was knocked flat, Dan was partly stunned, and there lay both of them on the gravel.

Turpin, suffering in the solar plexus, sat up, and seeing Dan, hit him on the head with his club.

Then up stalked the Indian and said, “I threw him—you better hit me!”

Turpin rose with a grunt, and the two looked at each other.

There was a sparkle in Phil's eye that might have made one doubt his explanation of the murder charge against him.

Turpin, though a big man himself, and with the whole power of the United States behind him, saw the sparkle, and knew that if he made a move, Phil would kill him.

He gave a jerk with his head at last and forced a sneer.

“Go on to the Deputy's office,” he said, pointing with his club.

The office was in the basement of the Isolation Building close by.

Phil smiled, turned leisurely, and walked across the sunlit space to the office door, Turpin following. They entered and were seen no more.

This was in July. At dinner that day the rumor circulated that Phil had been sent to the dark hole for one hundred days.

One hundred days!

The “dark holes” are underground cells in a corridor from which all light and as much air as possible are excluded. Occupants are chained to the door-posts with arms spread wide apart and above the head; at night one arm is loosed, and they can sink down to the floor; there is no cot, and the floor, of compacted filth, is alive with beetles. The daily menu is one thin slice of prison bread and a mug of water: as a favor, sometimes three. If troublesome, the man is clubbed or otherwise assaulted; the guards are given carte blanche as to that. Three days in the dark hole is regarded as severe punishment; anything more than a month is often fatal. The arms and legs become paralyzed, the body is covered with sores and greatly emaciated; frequently the “patient” goes insane.

One hundred days for Phil! He was young and strong and full of spirit; but nobody expected ever again to see him alive. When it became known that his cell was the one through which the big hot-water pipe runs, and that Turpin was keeping it full-on every night, his funeral was looked for inside a week.

Upward of a hundred degrees in a stifling stench like that!

The mere thought of it made his fellow convicts turn white about the gills and cast their eyes down.

Of course there was no more writing or receiving letters.

III

After one hundred days, the young athlete, who had been light on his feet as a stag, was carried out of the dark hole by two men. One would have sufficed, for he weighed not over ninety pounds. His arms and legs were helpless; his body was a mass of foul sores. His head had a constant tremor.

Turpin ordered him under the cold shower.

He fainted under the operation.

One of the men muttered the phrase used in the prison to indicate discipline: “He's had the fear of God put in his heart all right!”

Turpin grinned.

“I learned him he can't assault an officer in this penitentiary and get away with it,” he remarked. “Take him upstairs now and let the Warden have a look at him.”

The Warden and the Doctor were chatting at the door of the front office.

“What's that? Oh, that Indian!” said the Warden.

He took a throat pastille, and contemplated the unconscious body, with his hands in his pockets.

“Is he dead, Doc?”

The Doctor, a handsome young man, neatly dressed, was examining his manicured finger nails.

He glanced at the culprit.

“He may hang on a few days yet; but you better let the carpenter make a box for him—he'll be ready this week. Take him to the hospital.”

“What would be your diagnosis?” inquired the Warden.

“I guess acute indigestion will cover it,” replied the other; and the two entered the office, smiling.

Passavant was admitted to see him next morning. A long skeleton lay on the white cot, a sheet over him to the neck. Dark, wrinkled skin covered the head; the closed eyes were sunk deep in the sockets. His wrists were bandaged.

“The flesh is off 'em to the bone,” explained the nurse, a red-headed little fellow, in the white suit of his office.

Passavant looked at him; it was Dan Lyons!

“They had to give me the job,” he said. “If they hadn't, I'd 'ave croaked Turpin, God rot his soul! Phil an' me was only havin' our bit of fun, an' that tub o' grease must block my way slidin' to first base! An' now—look at that!”

He waved an arm toward the cot, tried to wink at Passavant, but broke down, and turned aside, rubbing the back of his fist over his eyes.

By and by Phil partly opened his eyes, but waited for strength to speak.

Passavant bent down his ear to his mouth. His visage had no voluntary expression, but the shadow of the horror was visible upon it. He spoke at last in a dull murmur with pauses between.

“The ring she gave me—is in the joint of my cot—give it back to her. She'd never have married me—I'd have had to tell her—I did kill him! Took him by the hair and cut his throat open. I said, 'You belong in Hell'—and there I sent him.”

He closed his eyes; but there was more to come.

“She did care for me—that's why I fooled her. I wanted her to be happy thinking I was all right. But mind this!” He was silent a long time, and when he again spoke it was with an emphasis which seemed to burn up the last of life in him. “You—tell her—the truth! I won't be pitied. She'll mind less if she knows!”

“I'll tell her, Phil,” said Passavant.

The guard came up and motioned him to leave. “This ain't no confessional!” he observed.

Passavant went out, and Phil was buried in the prison cemetery next morning.

IV

Passavant finished his term six months later; and as soon as he could, he called at the Countess Jocasta's address. She had left town for the winter. The following summer he found her at a seaside place. She lived in a private villa overlooking the sea.

Passavant, mingling in the parade of well-dressed people, who had nothing to do but amuse themselves, and breathe free air, marvelled that, in the same world there could exist that place of steel and stone to turn men into cowed and tortured slaves. Radiant blue and flashing white came tumbling in the ocean. Phil's body lay in a red-clay hole under the prison wall.

The Contessa was not quite ready when he was announced. Presently, however, a very old lady came into the room. Her distinguished manner convinced Passavant that she must be the Contessa's mother. Her voice was low and broken, and her Italian accent made it difficult for Passavant to understand her at first.

But she interested him, and he could imagine that she might have been beautiful a generation or two ago. To have a daughter so young as the Contessa, implied that she must have married late in life.

But did she know of her daughter's romance? It might alarm her to get news of it from an ex-convict!

She bent her old eyes upon Passavant, and said, “You are perhaps he that wrote the letters for Filippo?”

Jocasta had always called him by the Italian name in her letters. So the mother must know of the affair.

Passavant bowed.

“He is dead—Filippo?” she asked, with a quaver in her voice.

“Yes, Madame. I have something from him to deliver to your daughter. If it is not convenient for her to see me now, I can call later.”

“My daughter!” Her face assumed a strange expression.

At last she added, “I have no daughter!”

“I beg pardon,” said Passavant, perplexed. “I had supposed—I came here to speak with the Contessa Jocasta. There seems to be some mistake—”

She rose infirmly, but with a stately bearing, and faced him. The pose, and some remote suggestion in the aspect of her withered features recalled, almost grotesquely, the face and attitude of the lovely photograph.

“I am the Contessa Jocasta Cenci!”

Assuredly these words came from her lips; but they could not at once make their way into Passavant's mind; they seemed to stand in the air between them. After she had uttered them, she dropped back into her chair, in visible agitation.

Passavant tried confusedly to readjust facts rooted in his understanding.

“You wrote letters to my friend Phil in the penitentiary?—and that photograph!”

She had recovered her self possession.

“I comprehend your surprise, Sir. I wrote believing no explanation would ever be needed. He was a life prisoner—my own life would end before his—we would never meet. But I had no thought of meeting his messenger!”

“But the letters expressed hope of his pardon!”

She made a gesture. “I did not have that hope! I knew his case—it was impossible! Had I believed he would ever be free, I would never have written to him. Filippo was guilty of that murder!”

She said this with a lift of the head, as if her lover's crime added to her pride in him.

Passavant began to see light in this dark matter. “You deceived him because—” But he could not put it in words.

“It was a good lie, Sir. We loved, and were happy in that. In my soul I am not old; he, in prison, would never know that my body is old; to him I would be always young and fair—as, in my heart, I am! A beautiful romance—nothing could destroy it! Had we met in this world—even had I been young—it would have been less beautiful! Misunderstandings; troubles—nothing in this world is perfect! But our souls, that are immortal, spoke to each other and comprehended each other. Our souls will meet and be happy. Things important in this world—that a man kills his enemy—that a woman lives to be eighty years old—these are nothing to the soul! God was good to us, and kept us apart. You understand?”

She gave him a smile—sphinx-like, or senile!

“Love—the romance—that is the great thing!” she continued. “The happiness of other lovers is in meeting; ours was in separation; he in his prison of stone, I in my prison of years; he with his picture of my youth, I with my memory of his smile in the face of his fate! He is dead—I am to die: do you think we shall not meet and recognize each other? Our letters were seeds planted here to bloom hereafter. Was it not well to plant them?”

Passavant was inclined to think it was, but he kept silence.

He gave her the ring, which she kissed and slipped on her finger.

“He lied to you, as you did to him—if such things are lies,” said Passavant. “He wished me to make his confession to you.”

“His nature is noble: I did not need assurance of that,” she replied, with a proud inclination of the head.

Passavant took his leave.

A month later he read in the papers that the Contessa Jocasta Cenci, a singer who, sixty years before, had delighted two hemispheres, had died of heart failure.

But Passavant did not believe that the real heart of Jocasta ever failed her; and he liked to think that it was beating beside her Filippo's.