The Governor

    I'm home at last. How long were you asleep?
    I startled you. The time? It's midnight past.
    Put on your slippers and your robe, my dear,
    And make some coffee for me - what a night!
    Yes, tell you? I shall tell you everything.
    I must tell someone, and a wife should know
    The workings of a governor's mind - no one
    Could guess what turned the scale to save this man
    Who would have died to-morrow, but for me.
    That's fine. This coffee helps me. As I said
    This night has been a trial. Well, you know
    I told these lawyers they could come at eight,
    And so they came. A seasoned lawyer one,
    The other young and radical, both full
    Of sentiment of some sort. And there you sit,
    And do not say a word of disapproval.
    You smile, which means you sun yourself within
    The power I have, and yet do you approve?
    This man committed brutal murder, did
    A nameless horror; now he's saved from death.
    The father and the mother of the girl,
    The neighborhood, perhaps, in which she lived
    Will roar against me, think that I was bought,
    Or used by someone I'm indebted to
    In politics. Oh no! It's really funny,
    Since it is simpler than such things as these.
    And no one, saving you, shall know the secret.
    For there I sat and didn't say a word
    To indicate, betray my thought; not when
    The thing came out that moved me. Let them read
    The doctor's affidavits, that this man
    Was crazy when he killed the girl, and read
    The transcript of the evidence on the trial.
    They read and talked. At last the younger lawyer,
    For sometime still, kept silent by the other,
    Pops out with something, reads an affidavit,
    As foreign to the matter as a story
    Of melodrama color on the screen,
    Which still contained a sentence that went home;
    I felt my mind turn like a turn-table,
    And click as when the switchman kicks the tongue
    Of steel into the slot that holds the table.
    And from my mind the engine, that's the problem,
    Puffed, puffed and moved away, out on the track,
    And disappeared upon its business. How
    Is that for metaphor? Your coffee, dear,
    Stirs up my fancy. But to tell the rest,
    If my face changed expression, or my eye
    Betrayed my thought, then I have no control
    Of outward seeming. For they argued on
    An hour or so thereafter. And I asked
    Re-reading of the transcript where this man
    Told of his maniac passion, of the night
    He killed the girl, the doctors' testimony
    I had re-read, and let these lawyers think
    My interest centered there, and my decision
    Was based upon such matters, and at last
    The penalty commuted. When in truth
    I tell you I had let the fellow hang
    For all of this, except that I took fire
    Because of something in this affidavit
    Irrelevant to the issue, reaching me
    In something only relevant to me.
    O, well, all life is such. Our great decisions
    Flame out of sparks, where roaring fires before,
    Not touching our combustibles wholly failed
    To flame or light us.

    Now the secret hear.
    Do you remember all the books I read
    Two years ago upon heredity,
    Foot-notes to evolution, the dynamics
    Of living matter? Well, it wasn't that
    That made me save this fellow. There you smile
    For knowing how and when I got these books,
    Who woke my interest in them. Never mind,
    You don't know yet my reasons.

    But I'll tell you:
    And let you see a governor's mind at work.
    When this young lawyer in this affidavit
    Read to a certain place my mind strayed off
    And lived a time past, you were present too.
    It was that morning when I passed my crisis,
    Had just dodged death, could scarcely speak, too weak
    To lift a hand to feed myself, but needed
    Vital replenishment of strength, and then
    I got it in a bowl of oyster soup,
    Rich cream at that. And as I live, my dear,
    As this young lawyer read, I felt myself
    In bed as I lay then, re-lived the weakness,
    Could see the spoon that carried to my mouth
    The appetizing soup, imagined there
    The feelings I had then of getting fingers
    Upon the rail of life again, how faint,
    But with such clear degrees. Could see the hand
    That held the spoon, the eyes that looked at me
    In triumph for the victory of my strength,
    Which battled, almost lost the prize of life.
    It all came over me when this lawyer read:
    Elenor Murray lately come from France
    Found dead beside the river, was the cousin
    Of this Fred Taylor, and had planned to come
    To see the governor, death prevented her -
    Suppose it had?

    That affidavit, doubtless
    Was read to me to move me for the fact
    This man was kindred to a woman who
    Served in the war, this lawyer was that cheap!
    And isn't it as cheap to think that I
    Could be persuaded by the circumstance
    That Elenor Murray, she who nursed me once,
    Was cousin to this fellow, if this lawyer
    Knew this, and did he know it? I don't know.
    Had Elenor Murray lived she would have come
    To ask her cousin's life - I know her heart.
    And at the last, I think this was the thing:
    I thought I'd do exactly what I'd do
    If she had lived and asked me, disregard
    Her death, and act as if she lived, repay
    Her dead hands, which in life had saved my life.

    Now, dear, your eyes have tears - I know - believe me,
    I had no romance with this Elenor Murray.
    Good Lord, it's one o'clock, I must to bed....

    You get my story Merival? Do you think,
    A softness in the heart went to the brain
    And softened that? Well now I stress two things:
    I can't endure defeat, nor bear to see
    An ardent spirit thwarted. What I've achieved
    Has been through will that would not bend, and so
    To see that in another wins my love,
    And my support. Now take this Elenor Murray
    She had a will like mine, she worked her way
    As I have done. And just to hear that she
    Had planned to see me, ask for clemency
    For this condemned degenerate, made me say
    Shall I let death defeat her? Take the breach
    And make her death no matter in my course?
    For as I live if she had come to me
    I had done that I did. And why was that?
    No romance! Never that! Yet human love
    As friend can keep for friend in this our life
    I felt for Elenor Murray - and for this:
    It was her will that would not take defeat,
    Devotion to her work, and in my case
    This depth of friendship welling in her heart
    For human beings, that I shared in - there
    Gave tireless healing to her nursing hands
    And saved my life. And for a life a life.
    This criminal will live some years, we'll say,
    Were better dead. All right. He'll cost the state
    Say twenty thousand dollars. What is that
    Contrasted with the cost to me, if I
    Had let him hang? There is a bank account,
    Economies in the realm of thought to watch.
    And don't you think the souls - let's call them souls -
    Of these avenging, law abiding folk,
    These souls of the community all in all
    Will be improved for hearing that I did
    A human thing, and profit more therefrom
    Than though that sense of balance in their souls
    Struck for the thought of crime avenged, the law
    Fulfilled and vindicated? Yes, it's true.
    And Merival spoke up and said: "It's true,
    I understand your story, and I'm glad.
    It's like you and I'll tell my jury first,
    And they will scatter it, what moved in you
    And how this Elenor Murray saved a life."

    *        *        *        *        *

    The talk of waste in human life was constant
    As Coroner Merival took evidence
    At Elenor Murray's inquest. Everyone
    Could think of waste in some one's life as well
    As in his own.
    John Scofield knew the girl,
    Had worked for Arthur Fouche, her grandfather,
    And knew what course his life took, how his fortune
    Was wasted, dwindled down.

    Remembering
    A talk he heard between this Elenor Murray
    And Arthur Fouche, her grandfather, he spoke
    To Coroner Merival on the street one day: