An American Tragedy (68 page)

You know that, I suppose. At any rate, I, for one, am heartily opposed to this sort of thing from every point of view. The only excuse I have ever been able to see for it is when the life of the mother, for instance, depends upon such an operation. Not otherwise. And in such cases the medical profession is in accord. But in this instance I’m sure the situation isn’t one which warrants anything like that. You seem to me to be a strong, healthy girl. Motherhood should hold no serious consequences for you. And as for money reasons, don’t you really think now that if you just go ahead and have this baby, you and your husband would find means of getting along? You say your husband is an electrician?”

“Yes,” replied Roberta, nervously, not a little overawed and subdued by his solemn moralizing.

“Well, now, there you are,” he went on. “That’s not such an unprofitable profession. At least all electricians charge enough. And when you consider, as you must, how serious a thing you are thinking of doing, that you are actually planning to destroy a young life that has as good a right to its existence as you have to yours . . .” he paused in order to let the substance of what he was saying sink in—“well, then, I think you might feel called upon to stop and consider—both you and your husband. Besides,” he added, in a diplomatic and more fatherly and even intriguing tone of voice, “I think that once you have it it will more than make up to you both for whatever little hardship its coming will bring you. Tell me,” he added curiously at this point, “does your husband know of this? Or is this just some plan of yours to save him and yourself from too much hardship?” He almost beamed cheerfully as, fancying he had captured Roberta in some purely nervous and feminine economy as well as dread, he decided that if so he could easily extract her from her present mood. And she, sensing his present drift and feeling that one lie more or less could neither help nor harm her, replied quickly: “He knows.”

“Well, then,” he went on, slightly reduced by the fact that his surmise was incorrect, but none the less resolved to dissuade her and him, too: “I think you two should really consider very seriously before you go further in this manner. I know when young people first face a situation like this they always look on the darker side of it, but it doesn’t always work out that way. I know my wife and I did with our first child. But we got along. And if you will only stop now and talk it over, you’ll see it in a different light, I’m sure. And then you won’t have your conscience to deal with afterwards, either.” He ceased, feeling reasonably sure that he had dispelled the fear, as well as the determination that had brought Roberta to him—that, being a sensible, ordinary wife, she would now desist of course—think nothing more of her plan and leave.

But instead of either acquiescing cheerfully or rising to go, as he though she might, she gave him a wide-eyed terrified look and then as instantly burst into tears. For the total effect of his address had been to first revive more clearly than ever the normal social or conventional aspect of the situation which all along she was attempting to shut out from her thoughts and which, under ordinary circumstances, assuming that she was really married, was exactly the attitude she would have taken. But now the realization that her problem was not to be solved at all, by this man at least, caused her to be seized with what might best be described as morbid panic.

Suddenly beginning to open and shut her fingers and at the same time beating her knees, while her face contorted itself with pain and terror, she exclaimed; “But you don’t understand, doctor, you don’t understand! I
have
to get out of this in some way! I have to. It isn’t like I told you at all. I’m not married. I haven’t any husband at all. But, oh, you don’t know what this means to me. My family! My father! My mother! I can’t tell you. But I must get out of it. I must! I must! Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know! I must! I must!” She began to rock backward and forward, at the same time swaying from side to side as in a trance.

And Glenn, surprised and startled by this sudden demonstration as well as emotionally affected, and yet at the same time advised thereby that his original surmise had been correct, and hence that Roberta had been lying, as well as that if he wished to keep himself out of this he must now assume a firm and even heartless attitude, asked solemnly: “You are not married, you say?”

For answer now Roberta merely shook her head negatively and continued to cry. And at last gathering the full import of her situation, Dr. Glenn got up, his face a study of troubled and yet conservative caution and sympathy. But without saying anything at first he merely looked at her as she wept. Later he added; “Well, well, this is too bad. I’m sorry.” But fearing to commit himself in any way, he merely paused, adding after a time soothingly and dubiously; “You mustn’t cry. That won’t help you any.” He then paused again, still determined not to have anything to do with this case. Yet a bit curious as to the true nature of the story he finally asked: “Well, then where is the young man who is the cause of your trouble? Is he here?”

Still too overcome by shame and despair to speak, Roberta merely shook her head negatively.

“But, he knows that you’re in trouble, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” replied Roberta faintly.

“And he won’t marry you?”

“He’s gone away.”

“Oh, I see. The young scamp! And don’t you know where he’s gone?”

“No,” lied Roberta, weakly.

“How long has it been since he left you?”

“About a week now.” Once more she lied.

“And you don’t know where he is?”

“No.”

“How long has it been since you were sick?”

“Over two weeks now,” sobbed Roberta.

“And before that you have always been regular?”

“Yes.”

“Well, in the first place,” his tone was more comfortable and pleasant than before—he seemed to be snatching at a plausible excuse for extricating himself from a case which promised little other than danger and difficulty, “this may not be as serious as you think. I know you’re probably very much frightened, but it’s not unusual for women to miss a period. At any rate, without an examination it wouldn’t be possible to be sure, and even if you were, the most advisable thing would be to wait another two weeks. You may find then that there is nothing wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if you did. You seem to be oversensitive and nervous and that sometimes brings about delays of this kind—mere nervousness. At any rate, if you’ll take my advice, whatever you do, you’ll not do anything now but just go home and wait until you’re really sure. For even if anything were to be done, it wouldn’t be advisable for you to do anything before then.”

“But I’ve already taken some pills and they haven’t helped me,” pleaded Roberta.

“What were they?” asked Glenn interestedly, and, after he had learned, merely commented: “Oh, those. Well, they wouldn’t be likely to be of any real service to you, if you were pregnant. But I still suggest that you wait, and if you find you pass your second period, then it will be time enough to act, although I earnestly advise you, even then, to do nothing if you can help it, because I consider it wrong to interfere with nature in this way. It would be much better, if you would arrange to have the child and take care of it. Then you wouldn’t have the additional sin of destroying a life upon your conscience.”

He was very grave and felt very righteous as he said this. But Roberta, faced by terrors which he did not appear to be able to grasp, merely exclaimed, and as dramatically as before: “But I can’t do that, doctor, I tell you! I can’t. I can’t! You don’t understand. Oh, I don’t know what I shall do unless I find some way out of this. I don’t! I don’t! I don’t!”

She shook her head and clenched her fingers and rocked to and fro while Glenn, impressed by her own terrors, the pity of the folly which, as he saw it, had led her to this dreadful pass, yet professionally alienated by a type of case that spelled nothing but difficulty for him stood determinedly before her and added: “As I told you before, Miss—” (he paused) “Howard, if that is your name, I am seriously opposed to operations of this kind, just as I am to the folly that brings girls and young men to the point where they seem to think they are necessary. A physician may not interfere in a case of this kind unless he is willing to spend ten years in prison, and I think that law is fair enough. Not that I don’t realize how painful your present situation appears to you. But there are always those who are willing to help a girl in your state, providing she doesn’t wish to do something which is morally and legally wrong. And so the very best advice I can give you now is that you do nothing at all now or at any time. Better go home and see your parents and confess. It will be much better—much better, I assure you. Not nearly as hard as you think or as wicked as this other way. Don’t forget there is a life there—a human—if it is really as you think. A human life which you are seeking to end and that I cannot help you to do. I really cannot. There may be doctors—I know there are—men here and there who take their professional ethics a little less seriously than I do; but I cannot let myself become one of them. I am sorry—very.

“So now the best I can say is—go home to your parents and tell them. It may look hard now but you are going to feel better about it in the long run. If it will make you or them feel any better about it, let them come and talk to me. I will try and make them see that this is not the worst thing in the world, either. But as for doing what you want—I am very, very sorry, but I cannot. My conscience will not permit me.”

He paused and gazed at her sympathetically, yet with a determined and concluded look in his eye. And Roberta, dumbfounded by this sudden termination of all her hopes in connection with him and realizing at last that not only had she been misled by Clyde’s information in regard to this doctor, but that her technical as well as emotional plea had failed, now walked unsteadily to the door, the terrors of the future crowding thick upon her. And once outside in the dark, after the doctor had most courteously and ruefully closed the door behind her, she paused to lean against a tree that was there—her nervous and physical strength all but failing her. He had refused to help her. He had refused to help her. And now what?

THE first effect of the doctor’s decision was to shock and terrify them both—Roberta and Clyde—beyond measure. For apparently now here was illegitimacy and disgrace for Roberta. Exposure and destruction for Clyde. And this had been their one solution seemingly. Then, by degrees, for Clyde at least, there was a slight lifting of the heavy pall. Perhaps, after all, as the doctor had suggested—and once she had recovered her senses sufficiently to talk, she had told him—the end had not been reached. There was the bare possibility, as suggested by the druggist, Short and the doctor, that she might be mistaken. And this, while not producing a happy reaction in her, had the unsatisfactory result of inducing in Clyde a lethargy based more than anything else on the ever-haunting fear of inability to cope with this situation as well as the certainty of social exposure in case he did not which caused him, instead of struggling all the more desperately, to defer further immediate action. For, such was his nature that, although he realized clearly the probably tragic consequences if he did not act, still it was so hard to think to whom else to apply to without danger to himself. To think that the doctor had “turned her down,” as he phrased it, and that Short’s advice should have been worth as little as that!

But apart from nervous thoughts as to whom to turn to next, no particular individual occurred to him before the two weeks were gone, or after. It was so hard to just ask anywhere. One just couldn’t do it. Besides, of whom could he ask now? Of whom? These things took time, didn’t they? Yet in the meantime, the days going by, both he and Roberta had ample time to consider what, if any, steps they must take—the one in regard to the other—in case no medical or surgical solution was found. For Roberta, while urging and urging, if not so much by works as by expression and mood at her work, was determined that she must not be left to fight this out alone—she could not be. On the other hand, as she could see, Clyde did nothing. For apart from what he had already attempted to do, he was absolutely at a loss how to proceed. He had no intimates and in consequence he could only think of presenting the problem as an imaginary one to one individual and another here or there in the hope of extracting some helpful information. At the same time, and as impractical and evasive as it may seem, there was the call of that diverting world of which Sondra was a part, evenings and Sundays, when, in spite of Roberta’s wretched state and mood, he was called to go here and there, and did, because in so doing he was actually relieving his own mind of the dread specter of disaster that was almost constantly before it. If only he could get her out of this! If only he could. But how, without money, intimates, a more familiar understanding of the medical or if not that exactly, then the sub rosa world of sexual free-masonry which some at times—the bell-hops of the Green-Davidson, for instance, seemed to understand. He had written to Ratterer, of course, but there had been no answer, since Ratterer had removed to Florida and as yet Clyde’s letter had not reached him. And locally all those he knew best were either connected with the factory or society—individuals on the one hand too inexperienced or dangerous, or on the other hand, too remote and dangerous, since he was not sufficiently intimate with any of them as yet to command their true confidence and secrecy.

At the same time he must do something—he could not just rest and drift. Assuredly Roberta could not long permit him to do that—faced as she was by exposure. And so from time to time he actually racked himself—seized upon straws and what would have been looked upon by most as forlorn chances. Thus, for instance, an associate foreman, chancing to reminisce one day concerning a certain girl in his department who had “gotten in trouble” and had been compelled to leave, he had been given the opportunity to inquire what he thought such a girl did in case she could not afford or did not want to have a child. But this particular foreman, being as uninformed as himself, merely observed that she probably had to see a doctor if she knew one or “go through with it”—which left Clyde, exactly where he was. On another occasion, in connection with a conversation in a barber shop, relating to a local case reported in
The Star
where a girl was suing a local ne’er-do-well for breach of promise, the remark was made that she would “never have sued that guy, you bet, unless she had to.” Whereupon Clyde seized the opportunity to remark hopefully, “But wouldn’t you think that she could find some way of getting out of trouble without marrying a fellow she didn’t like?”