You will ask how I came to be eavesdropping, in the first place.
The answer is, I was not.
The man who confessed to these several crimes (call him John
Doe) spoke into my right ear on a crowded subway train,
while the man whom he addressed (call him Richard Roe)
stood at my left.
Thus, I stood between them, and they talked, or sometimes
shouted, quite literally straight through me.
How could I help but overhear?
Perhaps I might have gone away to some other strap. But the
aisles were full.
Besides, I felt, for some reason, curious.
“I do not deny my guilt,” said John Doe. “My own, first, and
after that my guilty knowledge of still further guilt.
I have counterfeited often, and successfully.
I have been guilty of ignorance and talking with assurance. Of
intolerable wisdom and keeping silent.
Through carelessness, or cowardice, I have shortened the lives
of better men. And the name for that is murder.
All my life I have been a receiver of stolen goods.”
“Personally, I always mind my own business,” said Richard Roe.
“Sensible people don’t get into those scrapes.”
I was not the only one who overheard this confession.
Several businessmen, bound for home, and housewives and me
chanics, were within easy earshot.
A policeman sitting in front of us did not lift his eyes, at the
mention of murder, from his paper.
Why should I be the one to report these crimes?
You will understand why this letter to your paper is anonymous.
I will sign it: “Public Spirited Citizen” and hope that it
cannot be traced.
But all the evidence, if there is any clamor for it, can be sub
stantiated.
I have heard the same confession many times since, in different
places.
And now that I think of it, I had heard it many times before.
“Guilt,” said John, “is always and everywhere nothing less than
guilt.
I have always, at all times, been a willing accomplice of the
crass and the crude.
I have overheard, daily, the smallest details of conspiracies against
the human race, vast in their ultimate scope, and conspired,
daily, to launch my own
You have heard of innocent men who died in the chair. It was
my avarice that threw the switch.
I helped, and I do not deny it, to nail that guy to the cross,
and continue to help.
Look into my eyes, you can see the guilt.
Look at my face, my hair, my very clothing, you will see guilt
written plainly everywhere,
Guilt of the flesh. Of the soul. Of eating, when others do
not. Of breathing and laughing and sleeping.
I am guilty of what? Of guilt, just guilt. Guilty of guilt, that
is all, and enough.”
Richard Roe looked at his wristwatch and said: “We’ll be twenty
minutes late.
After dinner we might take in a show.”
Now, who will bring John Doe to justice, for his great crimes?
I do not, personally, wish to be involved. Such nakedness of
the soul belongs in some other province, probably the exe
cutioner’s.
And who will bring the blunt and upright Richard Roe to the
accuser’s stand, where he belongs?
Or will he deny and deny his partnership?
I have done my duty, as a public spirited citizen, in any case.
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