FICTION FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Text Courtesy of www.gutenberg.org
Editor’s Note:
This short story led off the last collection [1919] of O.Henry’s works and was
titled “Rolling Stones,”the latter was the title of an O.Henry literary
publication in Austin, Texas founded in 1895.
This was the last work of
O. Henry. The Cosmopolitan Magazine had ordered it from him and, after his
death, the unfinished manuscript was found in his room, on his dusty desk. The
story as it here appears was published in the Cosmopolitan for September 1910.
Murray dreamed a dream.
Both psychology
and science grope when they would explain to us the strange adventures of our
immaterial selves when wandering in the realm of "Death's twin brother,
Sleep." This story will not attempt to be illuminative; it is no more than
a record of Murray's dream. One of the most puzzling phases of that strange
waking sleep is that dreams which seem to cover months or even years may take
place within a few seconds or minutes.
Murray was
waiting in his cell in the ward of the condemned. An electric arc light in the
ceiling of the corridor shone brightly upon his table. On a sheet of white
paper an ant crawled wildly here and there as Murray blocked its way with an
envelope. The electrocution was set for eight o'clock in the evening. Murray
smiled at the antics of the wisest of insects.
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Last photo of O.Henry by W. M. Vanderwayde, 1909 |
THE AUTHOR: William Sydney
Porter [1862-1910], known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer. O.
Henry's short stories are known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization,
and clever twist endings.
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There were seven other condemned men in
the chamber. Since he had been there Murray had seen three taken out to their
fate; one gone mad and fighting like a wolf caught in a trap; one, no less mad,
offering up a sanctimonious lip-service to Heaven; the third, a weakling,
collapsed and strapped to a board. He wondered with what credit to himself his
own heart, foot, and face would meet his punishment; for this was his evening.
He thought it must be nearly eight o'clock.
Opposite his own
in the two rows of cells was the cage of Bonifacio, the Sicilian slayer of his
betrothed and of two officers who came to arrest him. With him Murray had
played checkers many a long hour, each calling his move to his unseen opponent
across the corridor.
Bonifacio's
great booming voice with its indestructible singing quality called out:
"Eh,
Meestro Murray; how you feel—all-a right—yes?"
"All right,
Bonifacio," said Murray steadily, as he allowed the ant to crawl upon the
envelope and then dumped it gently on the stone floor.
"Dat's
good-a, Meestro Murray. Men like us, we must-a die like-a men. My time come
nex'-a week. All-a right. Remember, Meestro Murray, I beat-a you dat las' game
of de check. Maybe we play again some-a time. I don'-a know. Maybe we have to
call-a de move damn-a loud to play de check where dey goin' send us."
Bonifacio's
hardened philosophy, followed closely by his deafening, musical peal of
laughter, warmed rather than chilled Murray's numbed heart. Yet, Bonifacio had
until next week to live.
The
cell-dwellers heard the familiar, loud click of the steel bolts as the door at
the end of the corridor was opened. Three men came to Murray's cell and
unlocked it. Two were prison guards; the other was "Len"—no; that was
in the old days; now the Reverend Leonard Winston, a friend and neighbor from
their barefoot days.
"I got them
to let me take the prison chaplain's place," he said, as he gave Murray's
hand one short, strong grip. In his left hand he held a small Bible, with his
forefinger marking a page.
Murray smiled
slightly and arranged two or three books and some penholders orderly on his
small table. He would have spoken, but no appropriate words seemed to present
themselves to his mind.
The prisoners
had christened this cellhouse, eighty feet long, twenty-eight feet wide, Limbo
Lane. The regular guard of Limbo Lane, an immense, rough, kindly man, drew a
pint bottle of whiskey from his pocket and offered it to Murray, saying:
"It's the
regular thing, you know. All has it who feel like they need a bracer. No danger
of it becoming a habit with 'em, you see."
Murray drank
deep into the bottle.
"That's the
boy!" said the guard. "Just a little nerve tonic, and everything goes
smooth as silk."
They stepped
into the corridor, and each one of the doomed seven knew. Limbo Lane is a world
on the outside of the world; but it had learned, when deprived of one or more
of the five senses, to make another sense supply the deficiency. Each one knew
that it was nearly eight, and that Murray was to go to the chair at eight.
There is also in the many Limbo Lanes an aristocracy of crime. The man who
kills in the open, who beats his enemy or pursuer down, flushed by the
primitive emotions and the ardor of combat, holds in contempt the human rat,
the spider, and the snake.
So, of the seven
condemned only three called their farewells to Murray as he marched down the
corridor between the two guards—Bonifacio, Marvin, who had killed a guard while
trying to escape from the prison, and Bassett, the train-robber, who was driven
to it because the express-messenger wouldn't raise his hands when ordered to do
so. The remaining four smoldered, silent, in their cells, no doubt feeling
their social ostracism in Limbo Lane society more keenly than they did the
memory of their less picturesque offences against the law.
Murray wondered
at his own calmness and nearly indifference. In the execution room were about
twenty men, a congregation made up of prison officers, newspaper reporters, and
lookers-on who had succeeded
Editor’s Note:
Here, in the very middle of a sentence, the hand of Death interrupted the
telling of O. Henry's last story. He had planned to make this story different
from his others, the beginning of a new series in a style he had not previously
attempted. "I want to show the public," he said, "that I can
write something new—new for me, I mean—a story without slang, a straightforward
dramatic plot treated in a way that will come nearer my idea of real
story-writing."
Before starting to write the present
story, he outlined briefly how he intended to develop it: Murray, the criminal
accused and convicted of the brutal murder of his sweetheart—a murder prompted
by jealous rage—at first faces the death penalty, calm, and, to all outward
appearances, indifferent to his fate.
As he nears the electric chair he is
overcome by a revulsion of feeling. He is left dazed, stupefied, stunned. The
entire scene in the death-chamber—the witnesses, the spectators, the
preparations for execution—become unreal to him. The thought flashes through
his brain that a terrible mistake is being made. Why is he being strapped to
the chair? What has he done? What crime has he committed? In the few moments
while the straps are being adjusted a vision comes to him.
He dreams a dream. He sees a little
country cottage, bright, sun-lit, nestling in a bower of flowers. A woman is
there, and a little child. He speaks with them and finds that they are his
wife, his child—and the cottage their home. So, after all, it is a mistake.
Some one has frightfully, irretrievably blundered. The accusation, the trial,
the conviction, the sentence to death in the electric chair—all a dream.
He takes his wife in his arms and kisses
the child. Yes, here is happiness. It was a dream. Then—at a sign from the
prison warden the fatal current is turned on.
Murray had dreamed the wrong dream.
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