THERE ARE chance meetings with strangers that can easily turn the human soul upside down. While recalling our acquaintance now, I would even ascribe it to some sort of presentiment. I do not believe in love at first sight. However, when I think of the ordeal that this meeting had brought upon me, I understand that perhaps I had been dimly conscious of the fundamental falsity in myself and my convictions even back then. Truthfully, back then I did not know that this presentiment might be the promise of a future crisis and of my future resurrection.
There are chance meetings with a particular sort of lovers, the ones who are always ready to fly at one another, and yet cannot separate. This is exactly how our affair turned out to be: sudden and muddled. While the noose has not tighten around my neck, and as long as my feet are still on the ground, I will continue recalling this pale face. His eyes—though generally taken for black— were of a maple syrup color, and although they ever appeared so indifferent and tired, there have always been a scared and wistful look in them. I do not know if he was raging at his stupidity, as he had raged at the grotesque blunders that had later brought him to madness.
My conscience stays clean. A horrible action, that I have risked in the attack of anger and panic, spared me from the unimaginable burden of first love. It is only in that I recognize my criminality, only in the fact that I had not done it earlier.
***
HOWEVER, my story began long before our acquaintance. I was arrested on the 5th of July, 1920. There had been little difficulty in my trial. I adhered exactly, clearly to my statement, and did not confuse nor misrepresent the facts, nor soften them in my own interest. This fell in with the most recent fashionable 'Slave theory' (which I shall describe in its proper place), so often applied in our days in criminal cases. Finally the court admitted that it was possible that the crime could only have been committed by instinct.
On the 1st of September I was sentenced to death penalty, on condition of the fact that the penalty would happen only after a year. The time had been given so I could use the opportunity and be sold into lifelong slavery; some elements in the case did much to soften the sentence.
Now it was August 31st, 1921.
I was standing at the auction podium. My heart was beating violently, and my brain was in a turmoil. The monthly auction took place on the main square of Charleston. The heat that day was stifling, and there was a sickening smell of fresh paint and stale oil from the newly painted planks. A loud din, the sound of wheels, yelling and clattering were merging into a single cacophony. A crowd of men were thronging round the podium; some were sitting on the steps, others on the pavement, others were standing talking. The auctioneer was walking around them. His face, fleshy and pink as a peach, was twitching in obvious irritation. I stood right next to the throng of women, who were talking in husky voices. They were bold, with big eyes and swollen lips. There were women of forty, but some were not more than seventeen. Everyone on the square, except for maybe auctioneers, were criminals.
Prison put me through hell: the terrible impossible gulf laid between me and all the rest of prisoners. I was amazed to see how they all loved and prized life. It seemed to me that they loved and valued it more in prison than in freedom.
Not only they did not share my way of looking at things, but thought of me as a madman. Every time, after going through another painful, unimaginably humiliating battery, I would entertain a hope of being beaten to death.
I was neglecting food, practically starving myself, only not to be sold. I did not desire that, deciding that I shall not follow the letter of the law any longer.
After a year spent in prison, I didn't have a choice: as a punishment for the "unpardonable crimes" against the American government, the hanging awaited me on the 1st of September. I was standing still, covered by baggy linen, with my hands tied firmly. Loaded gentlemen (sometimes accompanied by wives) were pacing the square with their noses turned up. From time to time, they would stop by the auctioneer to ask a question.
I stood all by myself; The second week in prison, my turn came to be sold with my gang. The quarrelling happened. Everyone was sold, except for me.
Sometimes the curious gentlemen would approach me, from pure interest, and ask why did I look like a stray dog. I was extremely skinny, not particularly tall, all strewn with freckles, befrizzled and beaten up. I didn't have to answer: the auctioneer would immediately satisfy the customers' curiosity: "That one is no good. He's crazy".
I tried to hang myself a couple of times, and I regret to say that I did not achieve anything. Objecteless life, and in the future a continual suffering—that was all that lay before me. And what comfort was it to know that in a month I would only be twenty-one? What had I to live for? To live in order to exist? Why, I had been ready a thousand times before to give up existence for the sake of an idea, for a fantasy. Perhaps it was just because of the strength of my convictions that I had thought myself a man to whom it was more permissible to commit a crime than to others. I was comforted by the thought that everything was going to be over by the end of the auction. I would prefer to end my life as a slave of God, rather then the slave of a human.
However, this triumph ended when a man approached me. I could barely recognize the face: it was a gentleman of a stiff and portly appearance, no longer young. He was not particularly good looking: dark hair, sharp black eyes, a goatee. The gentleman seemed vaguely familiar to me. The auctioneer came to the podium shortly after.
"No bets, you say?" inquired the gentleman, eyeing me.
"No, Mr. Stevens," answered the auctioneer, a bit out of breath. "That one is way to skinny. Moreover, he is ill..."
"Stevens," I thought. "So that's how it is. Eugene Stevens".
Evidently Stevens was a familiar figure here: a slave owner, who came out of nowhere and rose up from the dirt. His story, in veiled words, had appeared in every newspaper. It was too dainty a bit of gossip not to spread about at once like wild fire. However, I had come across his face only once: on a newspaper page.
Stevens raised his eyebrows.
"So he has pox? Or maybe typhus?"
The auctioneer shook his head.
"No, sir. You see, he is... a madman. Any slave 'round here would be much smarter than him. He is to be executed tomorrow: too unsellable."
Stevens fell into musing.
"If I had it my way," continued the auctioneer. "I would hang fools like him with my own hands."
Stevens started examining me. I frowned.
"What is it with him?" I thought, "Is he really searching for pox?"
"Well, I do not share that attitude. Write down my name," said Stevens suddenly.
I was startled, naturally, but the really surprising thing was that he had not said that before. Something in his leisurely movements and the confidence in his voice suggested that Stevens has made this decision almost instantly.
"For him? Wait..."
"Oui. Write down my name."
I was aghast and terror-stricken; the auctioneer was simply astonished. He clenched his teeth and pulled the notebook out of his breast pocket.
"As you wish. What is the bid?"
Stevens glanced at me, beckoned the man closer and whispered something in his ear. The auctioneer widened his eyes, looked around and mumbled:
"You must have not understood... Any single bid should not exceed five hundred dollars... "
"Let it be four hundred and ninety nine, then," said Stevens in the cheekiest voice.
"Pardon?!' I could not keep up the character. Both men gazed at me simultaneously.
"I didn't give you the permission to talk," hissed the auctioneer.
There was a darkness before my eyes. I would be surprised if the bid turned out to be half, even third of what it was. This gentleman, however, has bid the highest possible price and, in fact, has tried to bid even higher... The auctioneer would always talk me down, excluding any possibility of the selling. Perhaps some of my father's enemies were stuffing his pockets with dirty money. Feeling his power to the full, he ended by not putting himself out for anyone, calling me 'a leper' and 'ill'. Possibly on purpose, indeed, he used to beat me hard enough to leave bruises.
The bidder smiled and turned to go away. I stood there until the end of the auction — with a load on my heart and blank, immovable despair in my soul.
THE AUCTION ended at two o'clock. All the sold slaves fell into loud rejoicing. Happy laughter filled the square, and I alone—in gloomy and earnest reflection— did not make a sound, waiting for someone to pick me up from the auction house.
"This is truly embarrassing", I mused. "What have I done to deserve such punishment? A year spent in captivity, and why? To be sold one day before the execution? Unfair! And if my owner had been of unalloyed gold, and not such a parvenu, I would never have consented to become a slave! For myself, to save my life, I would never..."
"Although I tried to put on a most indifferent look, still my face must have expressed all the sadness I felt. No more batteries, no more squabbles and quarrels. My life was about to get much worse. Being a son of a wealthy slave-owner, I knew all about dark, vile things that masters did to their servants. The public and the police did not care about such atrocities.
HOW THE DOCUMENTS were signed, and how I was taken from the square I do not remember. it was as though a fog had fallen upon me, and my mind had been clouded at times. I can only remember that all the sold slaves were herded into some wooden shed, ordered to strip, and then sprayed with soapy water. They gave us fresh clothing.
Someone tied my hands and led me outside, where a silver automobile was already waiting for us. Stevens stood in front of it, his elbows on the hood and a hat in his hands. He was in a good humour, at least he was smiling very gaily and good-humouredly. I tried to believe that the power he had over me meant nothing. Then, to make assurance doubly sure, I resolved to behave as if he did not exist.
The entire ride to the train station was spent in a constrained silence. A new-found owner kept slapping himself indecisively on the knee of his seaweed-colored trousers.
"I am Eugene Stevens. I believe I have reason to hope that my name is not wholly unknown to you?' said he, breaking the silence. I did not bother to look at him.
"And you have not yet told me your name".
I signed heavily. Stevens started tapping his foot impatiently. Silence.
"The car is not mine," continued he. "I am from New-York... Is there anybody who would ship a car from state to state? I would not. Entre nous soit dit, I could not choose between the good old Fiat and Rolls Royce..."
Having no knowledge about automobiles, I was more annoyed than interested. I hadn't been standing in the stifling heat for the entire day in order to discuss such nonsense. Stevens had not uttered a word since then. It seemed to me that he grew more confused as we got closer to the train station. I was a terrible conversationalist.
"So, your eloquence and talkativeness were a mere rumor all along?" asked he, when we finally got on the train.
"It is very possible," I mumbled.
Stevens smirked and relapsed into reading a newspaper. After a while he offered me a cigar, and, when the offer was silently rejected, started smoking himself. Clouds of tobacco filled the coupé.
"So that's how it is" he mumbled thoughtfully. "Just a hog-wash. But really, it is very impolite..."
"Leave me be."
"I saved you from death."
"No, you bought me. Freedom, peace, soul even, all, all are brought, like on the animal market. You better end me, Stevens, but kindly in due form and don't play with me."
Then I added:
"Nothing can be worse than the life of a slave."
Stevens answered with a long, questioning, yet not very surprised look.
"Unbelievable. It is hard to make you speak, but when you do..."
"Laws of this country are imbecilic. Just for the record."
Stevens smirked at my words and flipped a newspaper page.