Adventures of ahimsa follower - 2

 Part one →

(...)

George Brush had already become a legend of terror in the town, and by two o’clock the courtroom was filled with spectators sitting in a church-going silence. When Brush entered and took his place the silence became even more profound; the room held its breath. Brush’s lips were pressed tightly together and he was paler than usual, but he looked about him with an unabashed glance. Judge Carberry had been for thirty-five years the best-known citizen in town, but when he entered all eyes rested upon him as though for the first time. He looked about him wearily, blew his nose, and sat down. He was a bald old man with small black eyes and a pointed nose set in a myriad of wrinkles that read kindliness, disillusion, and boredom. He was vexed by the unaccustomed throng and today pushed even farther than usual his habitual contempt for the procedure of the law. He grunted a few instructions to the clerk, who began to expedite matters furiously. While the charges were being read he artfully adjusted the screen of books—a vast bulwark of Blackstone—behind which it was his custom to read during sessions. He was hurrying through George Eliot and looked forward to a review ofWaverly in the spring.“. . . attempted kidnapping,” mumbled the clerk “. . . aiding and abetting larceny . . . pleads not guilty . . . undertakes his own defense . . .”

Mr. Warren was called. “Wa-all, I got this here phone call from Mrs. Robinson that there was this hold-up goin’ on over to Mrs. Efrim’s store; so I . . .”

The judge stole a paragraph or two ofAdam Bede, then raised his head. “Both these charges against the same person?” he asked, dryly.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Same day?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

The judge let his eyes fall on Brush in a cool, contemptuous glance. Brush returned his gaze without flinching. There was a silence. Brush raised his hand. “May I speak, Your Honor?” he asked.

For a moment it seemed as though the judge had not heard him. “What do you wish to say?”

“Your Honor, I think you ought to know there is no case here at all.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, it’s all a misunderstanding. And if you’ll let me tell my account of it right now we can all be out of the court building in fifteen minutes. Also, Your Honor, I can explain the case of Mr. Burkin, who you’re going to see after me, and that’s just a misunderstanding, too.”

“Have you ever been brought before a court before?”

“No, Your Honor.” Then he added, with some difficulty. “But I’ve been arrested before.”

“Oh, you have?”

“Yes, but they were misunderstandings, too. I was let go in an hour.”

“Would you feel able to tell the court what you were arrested for, and where?”

“I’d be glad to, Your Honor.”

“We should be glad to hear it.”

“The first time was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I was arrested for riding in a Jim Crow car. I believe in the equality of races, Your Honor, in the brotherhood of man, and I rode in the Jim Crow car to show that I believed it. They arrested me. The second time—”

Judge Carberry stopped him with a gesture of the hand. The judge looked slowly and a little dazedly over the spell-bound audience, then turned toward the court stenographer as though to make sure that this testimony was being recorded. He then looked at the tops of the windows as though he were debating as to whether he should issue orders for new sashes. Finally his gaze returned to Brush. He blew his nose and said, politely, “Kindly continue.”

“The second time was about a month ago in Armina, Oklahoma. I was drawing out my savings from a savings-bank and I told the president of the bank that in my opinion savings-banks are practically immoral. They arrested me for that.”

“Had you any reason to think that the bank was unsound?”

“I didn’t mean that, Your Honor. I meant that all banks like that are due to fear and breed fear in the people. It’s a theory of mine and it takes quite a while to explain.”

“I see,” said the judge. “Your ideas aren’t the same as most people’s, are they?”

“No,” said Brush. “I didn’t put myself through college for four years and go through a difficult religious conversion in order to have the same ideas as other people have.”

Again the judge allowed his astonished gaze to wander about the room. He saw Mrs. Efrim, sitting in the midst of her six children, all dressed in their best clothes and staring up at him with awe-struck eyes. He saw the Grubers and Rhoda May scrubbed to startling pinkness and wearing a starched white party dress. “You may be seated,” he said to Brush, then mumbling a few words to the clerk, he left the room. He went to the telephone and called up his wife. He talked slowly with many pauses and with an affected indifference.

“Oh, Emma,” he said, looking down his nose and scratching his cheek. “. . . euh . . . euh . . . better get your sewing and come down to the courthouse.”

“What do you mean, Darwin?”

“Well . . . well . . . you might be interested in something that’s going on here.”

“Now, Darwin, if it’s something improper, you know I don’t like such things.”

The judge slowly passed his tongue over his front teeth. “No . . . oh, no . . . perfectly proper.”

“Well, what is it, Darwin?”

“. . . there’s a type here . . . little out of the ordinary. Better come down. Bring your sewing.”

“Now, Darwin, I won’t have you tormenting some poor prisoner. I know you. I know you and I won’t have it.”

The judge’s shoulders shook. “Prisoner’s tormenting me, Emma . . . seems like. We’re putting on a little show today. Call up Fred and see if he’s free. You can bring Lucile, too.”

Fred Hart had been mayor of Ozarksville for twenty years. Lucile was his wife. The Harts and the Carberrys had played bridge together three nights a week for a longer time than that.

“Well, if I come down I want you to behave, Darwin. I’ve told you a thousand times I don’t like you when you’re sarcastic.”

The judge returned to the bench. He gave the prisoner an awe-inspiring glance. He saw to it that the court marked time until the arrival of his wife. Mr. Gruber was sworn in and told his story of indignant virtue . . . only and treasured child. He dwelt upon the peekyuliar behavior of the accused, his pretense of being unable to speak. The whole court could see for itself that the accused could speak as well as anyone else. Brush raised his hand, but the judge sharply ordered him to lower it. Gruber droned on and the judge caught half a chapter ofAdam Bede. Mrs. Gruber was called and gave a flighty, incoherent account of the affair. At last the judge saw his wife and the Harts slipping into the last row of seats. He put a book mark into his volume and laid it to one side. Mrs. Gruber was dismissed and Brush was called upon.“What’s your business, young man, and what are you doing in Ozarksville?”

“I travel for Caulkins and Company, publishers of textbooks for school and college. I came to town to call on Superintendent MacPherson.”

“I see. Have you ever had an impediment in your speech?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Did you have laryngitis yesterday?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Can you explain why you pretended to be incapable of speech yesterday?”

“Yes, Your Honor, easily.”

“I should like to hear it.”

“Your Honor,” began Brush, “I am very interested in Gandhi.”

The judge laid down his pencil sharply and said, in a loud voice: “Young man, you will please give me the answers to my questions and nothing else.”

Brush squared his shoulders. “I am, Your Honor. It’s the only way I can answer them. I . . . I’ve been studying Gandhi’s ideas lately and—”

Judge Carberry threw an ecstatic glance at his wife, then drawing his hand down his face he roared: “Stop that! Stop it right now! I will not be made a fool of in my own courtroom. Young man, this is no time for desultory conversation. Do you realize that you’re standing here under two very serious charges? Do you?”

“Yes,” said Brush, his jaws set.

The judge lowered his eyes and said, more quietly: “Now continue and let’s have no nonsense.”

Brush remained silent. There was a long pause.

The judge looked up. “Do you wish to add contempt of court to your other charges? Do you—Very well. Young man, perhaps you do not understand your position here. You have been charged with two offenses, either of which might send you to state prison for a very long time. You have been in Ozarksville for a little less than two days and already you have drawn across it a trail—a trail, I say—of suspicion and confusion such as it has not seen in fifteen years. And yet you conduct yourself before mefrivolously, yes,frivolously in open court.”

Brush turned even paler, but remained firm. “I’m not afraid of anything or anybody, Your Honor,” he said. “All I want to do is to tell the truth, and you keep misunderstanding me.”

“Well, begin again, then. And if you bring up the name of Gandhi again I shall put you in jail for a few days, where you can cool off.”

Brush wiped his forehead. “The reason I didn’t talk to anybody yesterday until four o’clock was that I had taken a vow of silence,” he said.

The judge suddenly grasped the connection. When he reappeared, still panting, from behind his barrier of books, he glanced at his wife. Mrs. Carberry shook her fist at him.

“I see. Go on,” he said.

“That vow of silence,” continued Brush, “was in imitation of a certain leader in India. Soon after two o’clock I went out for a walk. I saw that girl sitting on the steps of her house. She had a sign around her neck that said ‘I am a liar.’ ”

“What?” asked the judge.

“ ‘I am a liar.’ ”

When this confusion was cleared up, everyone took a deep breath and the judge took a drink of water. He asked, “What was your purpose in approaching the child?”

“I didn’t think that was any way to punish a child. I think lying’s a bad thing, but I don’t think that’s the way to punish a child that does lying.”

“I see. Are you a father, may I ask?”

Brush was silent a moment. “No,” he said, in a low voice. “I don’t think I am.”

“Ibeg your pardon?” asked the judge, learning forward.

“Not that I know of,” said Brush.

Judge Carberry shuffled the papers on his desk. “Well, we won’t go into that now,” he said. He then asked, loudly, “Is this little girl in court?”

Rhoda May was led to the witness stand. She was given laborious instructions about the oath and the Bible, but she entered into the proceedings with perfect assurance and unbounded enjoyment.

“Will you tell us what happened, Rhoda?” asked the judge.

Rhoda May turned and faced the audience. She kept her eyes proudly fixed on her mother’s face. For a moment she turned back to the judge. “My name’s Rhoda May,” she said. “I was sitting at my house and that man came up the walk to my house and I knew he was a bad man right away.”

“Why were you sitting on the steps, Rhoda May?”

“Because I’d been bad.”

“Yes, and what did this man do?”

“He said for me to go away to a bad place, and I said no, because I love papa and mamma best.”

“He asked you to go away with him?”

“Yes, but I didn’t go, because I love papa and mamma best.”

“Rhoda May, be careful. You must tell the truth. Did hesay this with his mouth, or did he write it down?”

“He wrote it down, Judge Car-Berry. But I knew he was a bad man kidnapper right off. He looked at me likethis and then I gave him a good kick. I gave him a good kick. And he began to run away and I ran after him and gave him another good kick in the face, and—”

“Mr. Gruber!” roared the judge.

“Yes, Judge Carberry.”

“Take your daughter home. We will now proceed to the second charge.”

A shocked silence ensued while the Grubers with lowered heads passed down the aisle.

The judge then said in a courteous tone: “Mrs. Efrim, will you be so good as to give us an account of the events that took place in your store yesterday afternoon?”

Mrs. Efrim, rustling in a voluminous black silk dress, edged her way past her children’s knees and took her place on the stand. The judge paid her a deference that touched on gallantry. Her hand was scarcely lowered from the oath when she broke out:

“Judge Carberry, I can’t tell you how terrible I feel to be in court this way. I’ve lived in this town forty years—my husband and I, may his soul be at rest!—without ever coming in this building, beyond paying our taxes in the basement, Judge Carberry.”

“But, Mrs. Efrim, there’s no reflection on yourself. I assure you—”

“You can say what you like, Judge Carberry,” she said, hugging her elbows woefully, “and it’s very kind of you, but it don’t change the facts.”

“Now, now, Mrs. Efrim,” said the judge, leaning forward, “The Court considers it an honor that you should be kind enough to appear here today. Yourself and my friend Nathan Efrim have been among the most respected citizens in this town for many years and the Court holds it a privilege to have you among us today.”

Mrs. Efrim cast a mighty glance at her six openmouthed children and started to tell her story.

“Really, Judge Carberry . . . Your Honor . . . I have no charges to make against that young man. I guess he’s just different from the rest of us, that’s all. Even to this minute I don’t know what happened. At first I thought he was a nice young man.” Here she looked at him a moment. “I don’t know what to think, Your Honor.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Efrim, will you simply tell us what took place.”

“Well, he came in. I was sitting by the window, knitting, when he came in . . . and he hadn’t been there two minutes when it seemed like he began—I don’t know how else to say it, Your Honor—he beganwinding himself into my confidence.”“You don’t say?”

“I don’t know what else I can say. Your Honor, Judge Carberry. There’s nothing he didn’t do. He tried to give me an apple; he threaded me needles—”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He threaded me three-four needles. He asked me my children’s names. He . . . he bought a doll. Yes, sir. He asked me to eat an apple and he said himself he hadn’t eaten a thing for twenty-four hours. And then he . . . and then he got me to show him where my money was hid.”

“Why, Mrs. Efrim, I never heard such a story in my life.”

“Well, it was funny, Your Honor. There’s nothing he didn’t do, but I must say I liked him until he began acting queer when the hold-up man came in.”

“Will you tell us about that, please?”

Mrs. Efrim, however, was unable to tell it. From her confused narrative Judge Carberry received the impression that there were three or more hold-ups, a storm, broken window panes, and some very curious exchanges of money. He thanked her elaborately, however, and she resumed her place among her children, who scarcely so much as dared to look at her sideways, after her excursion into the important world. Mrs. Robinson was called. Her testimony was to the effect that there was no hold-up man with a handkerchief about his face—no one beyond the accused standing in the middle of the store with a revolver in his hand terrorizing Mrs. Efrim. This testimony was confirmed by Mr. Warren.

Finally Brush was called.

“Young man, did you obtain from Mrs. Efrim the secret of the hiding-places of her money?”

“Yes. She . . .”

“Did you tell the hold-up man where her money was hid?”

“Yes, Your Honor, but I meant to pay her back.”

“Did you take the gun yourself and hold up Mrs. Efrim?”

“Yes, but I never meant—”

“Don’t tell me what you meant or what you didn’t mean. All I want is the facts, and the facts speak for themselves, don’t they? Did you allow the hold-up man to escape when you knew the deputy sheriff was coming?”

Brush was silent.

“Are you going to answer that question?”

Brush continued looking stonily before him. The judge waited. Finally he began speaking in a low, penetrating voice:

“You’ve gone into another vow of silence, I suppose? And no wonder! Thereis nothing to say. The facts speak for themselves. You were going to tell me this is all a misunderstanding. You were sure we were going to be out of this courtroom in a quarter of an hour. . . . Put your hand down! . . . You wound your way into Mrs. Efrim’s confidence, did you? You threaded needles for her! You even went so far as to buy a doll, did you? No wonder you found out where she had hidden her money.”

Here the judge was so overcome with pleasure at his own wit that he descended behind the barrier of books and had a fit of coughing. When he emerged he discovered that Brush was descending the steps into the auditorium and apparently intended to leave the building.

“Where are you goingnow?” shouted the judge.

“I won’t be talked to like that, Judge Carberry,” said Brush.

“You’re under arrest; Officer, restrain that man.”

Brush said, “You won’t let me speak!”

“Come back here. You’re under arrest. So you’ve changed your mind? Now you want to talk, do you?—Where are you going?”

“Oh, I’m going to the jail, all right. I’d rather sit in jail and make rope than be treated like you’re treating me, Judge Carberry. You haven’t heard my explanations yet.”

At this moment, to the great excitement of the already dazzled audience, Mrs. Carberry, very red in the face, advanced down the aisle of the auditorium.

“Darwin, you behave yourself,” she said. Then turning to Brush, she added: “Young man, don’t you mind what he says. You tell your story. That’s just his way. He doesn’t mean it. You go back and tell your story.”

“Order! Order!” cried the judge. “Go back to your seat, ma’am, and leave the running of this court to me. . . . Now, Mr. Brush, I’ll give you another chance.” But the judge could not resist the addition of one further embellishment to his afternoon, and called after his retreating wife: “Ma’am, if you attend properly to the running of your home, I shall try to attend to the running of my court.” Whereupon he disappeared behind the bulwark of his Blackstones, from which he presently appeared, much shaken, wiping his eyes. “Mr. Brush,” he said, grandly, “have you an explanation for your astonishing conduct yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes, sir, I have.”

“We are ready to hear it. And kindly remember you are under oath. . . . One minute!” He took a deep drink of water, mopped his face, and bade the stenographer look sharp.

Brush gave a clear and detailed account of the events in Mrs. Efrim’s store. When he had finished, the judge sat in silence a moment, looking at his wife. He took off his glasses, breathed on them, and slowly polished them. The audience followed his movements in silence. He then turned to Mrs. Efrim:

“Mrs. Efrim, have you anything to add or correct in that story?”

“No, Judge Carberry. Everything he said really happened.”

“Well, now at least we have an idea of what this is all about. Now, Mr. Brush, can you explain to the court your reasons for giving Mrs. Efrim’s money to the hold-up man?”

“Yes . . . it’s all based on a theory of mine. I mean on two theories of mine.”

“What!”

“Yes, and a lot of it I owe to Gandhi.”

“There’s Gandhi again!” said the judge, resignedly.

“It’s all based onahimsa, Your Honor, but before I get toahimsa I have to tell you what I think about money.”

So Brush told the court about voluntary poverty.

“And do you live by voluntary poverty?” asked the judge.

“Yes, Your Honor. And the point of that is this: apoor person—even if he’s a millionaire—is a person whose head’s always full of anxious thoughts about money; and a rich person is a person whose head’s not full of anxious thoughts about money.”

“Thank you, Mr. Brush,” said the judge, dryly, “I’m sure we’re all the better today for that thought.”

“And the poorest persons in the world, therefore are beggars and robbers. Now you’ll see what I mean when I say that a robber is a beggar that doesn’t know he’s a beggar.”

“And now, Mr. Brush, I’m going to ask you what good it does to give your money away to these robber-beggars of yours?”

“It’s easy to see that. When you give money to a robber you do two things: you show him that he’s really a beggar at heart, and you make a certain strong impression on his mind that—”

“Yes, you do. You give him the impression that you’re a coward or fool.”

Brush smiled and shook his head. “I think I can explain this idea in another way. It’s my favorite idea in the world and I’ve spent a lot of time on it. Your Honor, I’m a pacifist. If they put me in a battle I wouldn’t shoot anybody. Now suppose that I was in a shell-hole and I met an enemy who was about to shoot me, and suppose I tore the gun out of his hands. Naturally he’d expect me to shoot him, but of course I wouldn’t. That would make an impression on his mind, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Well, and if I pointed out some hidden money to a burglar that was trying to steal some money from me, that would make an impression on his mind, too.”

“Yes, it would: I say again they’d think you were a fool.”

“Judge, that might be what they’d call it, but at the back of their minds they would be taught something.”

“Have you finished?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“So you gave forty or fifty dollars to a burglar in order to make an impression on his mind?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose that the man in the shell-hole shot you. What becomes of your lesson to him then?”

“Well, Judge,ahimsa would have been in my mind. That’s Gandhi’s word for it, Your Honor. And if somebody hasahimsa in his mind, I believe it has a chance of jumping from mind to mind.”“What becomes ofahimsa, Mr. Brush, if you suddenly come upon a man who’s attacking your sister?”

“Yes, I’ve heard that before. Everybody brings up that argument about your sister being attacked, and I get angry about it. What if a thousand sisters were attacked. Let them be attacked. If the attackers are met withahimsa the attackers will learn about it. That’s the way the idea will spread. Somebody’s sisters—millions of them—are being attacked all the time, and things aren’t getting any better; so it’s time to try a new way to cure it. Let some of your sisters be attacked. Before the new idea can jump around the world from one person’s mind to another’s there will have to be a lot of people attacked.”

“I see. I see. And you want us to go about releasing murderers and thieves, on the chance that this impression is made on their minds. Do you advise the Department of Justice to collect as many thieves as possible and give them each a hundred-dollar bill? Is that it?”

“Well, look how things are now in your system. People go on committing crimes, and the government goes on committing crimes to punish them.”

“Oh, it does!”

“Yes, sir. It’s a crime to kill, and the government does that, and it’s a crime to lock somebody up in a room for years on end, and the government does that by the thousands. The government commits thousands of crimes in a year. And every crime makes more crimes. The only way out of this mess of crimes is to try this other way.”

The judge was silent, stroking his face. The silence was filled by the anxious scribbling of the stenographer and the sounds of automobile horns from the street. He glanced at the audience which sat watching him with fallen jaw.

“And where did you get that idea?” he asked.

“It’s mine and Tolstoi’s.”

While the judge spelled out the name for the stenographer, Brush drew from his pocket a little blue pamphlet,Sayings of Leo Tolstoi, and passed it up.

“Have you any other sources upon your person, Mr. Brush?”

Whereupon Brush began to draw similar little pamphlets from all his pockets. They were gravely passed up to the bench—Epictetus,Thoughts from Edmund Burke, Sayings of Great Statesmen, Sayings of Great Philosophers, Stories from Famous After-Dinner Speakers. The judge passed the books to the stenographer. He then collected himself and said, dryly:

“Well, it’s all sort of poetical and sentimental, Mr. Brush; but it’s all very unlike the facts of life. And it seems to be based upon a profound misunderstanding of the criminal’s mind.”

“I don’t know what you mean by the criminal’s mind, Your Honor. All I mean is, a criminal is a human being who thinks that the whole universe hates him. I think that awful things must go on in your mind when you think that the whole universe hates you. And the certain impression that we try to make on their minds is the impression that they are not hated.”

Again the judge paused. Then he said, “And you expect the United States to—”

Brush interrupted him: “Judge Carberry, people like me, who believe inahimsa—it’s not our business to worry as to whether other people do or not. It’s our business to do it ourselves and to take every chance, like this, to talk about it to other people. It’s the truth and so it’ll spread about the world of its own accord.”

“Mrs. Efrim, do you feel that this explains what this young man did with your money?”

Mrs. Efrim rose hesitantly. “Judge Carberry . . . I guess he means what he says.”

“Court is dismissed,” said the judge.

The clerk said, quickly: “There’s this other man, Your Honor—Burkin, charged with—”

“Court is dismissed,” repeated the judge.

The clerk was required to repeat the announcement a number of times in addition, for the audience remained motionless in its seats, unwilling to quit so bewildering a display, but finally the Carberrys and the Harts took Brush in the mayor’s car to the jail to call on Burkin.

“Let me explain about Burkin,” said Brush. “He’s a—”

“No. Wait ’til we get there,” said the judge.

Burkin sat in his cell, rereadingKing Lear. He was brought into the office.

“What’s it all about?” asked the judge.

Burkin was pale and contemptuous. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand. Go and give me your twenty days. I’ve got some letters to write.”

The judge was silent, listening to him gravely.

Burkin continued: “Only leave me Little Rollo here. Big kidnapper and hold-up man. Big public enemy.—The law’s a farce and you know it.”

“Come on,” said the judge. “What is it? Looking in windows?”

Burkin began to tremble and snap his fingers with excitement. “I tell you you wouldn’t understand. Go tell the goddam mayor there never was anybody in Ozarksville who ever understood anything and there never will be.”

Brush was suffering acutely. “Let me explain?” he asked, in a whisper.

“All right, Brush. What’s the matter with your friend?”

Brush explained.

The judge turned to Burkin. “Even I can understand that, Burkin,” be said. “Gentlemen, would you rather have your supper here in the jail or would you rather find it somewhere else? Have either of you got a car?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t want to hurry you, gentlemen, but it would be less embarrassing for us if you decided to eat in some other town.”

The prisoners gathered their things together and went down the hall.

Judge Carberry put his hand on Brush’s shoulder and stopped him. Brush stood still and looked at the ground. The judge spoke with effort:

“Well, boy . . . I’m an old fool, you know . . . in the routine, in the routine. . . . Go slow; go slow. See what I mean? I don’t like to think of you getting into any unnecessary trouble. . . . The human race is pretty stupid, . . . Doesn’t do any good to insult ’m. Go gradual. See what I mean?”

“No,” said Brush, looking up quickly, puzzled.

“Most people don’t like ideas. Well,” he added, clearing his throat, “if you do get into any trouble, send me a telegram, see? Let me see what I can do.”

Brush didn’t understand any of this. “I don’t know what you mean by trouble,” he said. “But thanks a lot, Judge.”

They shook hands and Brush climbed into the car beside Burkin. Burkin bent over the wheel with a black expression on his face, but Brush waved back at the judge, the mayor and the warden and disappeared down the street.

From: Heaven's My Destination 

Thorton Wilder