Changeling, and Other Stories

by Donn Byrne

"Why does n't Donegan do something? Why? Why? Why does n't he put up a fight at least?"

But Donegan drowsed on. Only when the prisoner in the dock threw him a swift look of appeal, as she did occasionally when some damning point was raised, did he drop the granite mask. Now and then her face would blanch under the tan, and her mouth quiver. And then would come a miracle in Donegan. Those harsh bulldog features would relax, the glinting eyes open, and over the hated face would play the smile of—oh, forty years ago—when he was just an innocent, likable Irish boy, and not a great jurist, whom communion with the sinister qualities of the law, and battles for life and liberty, and knowledge of strange strata in the minds of men, which is good for none to know, had transformed into a dark angel with a protective and flaming sword.

But the smile did n't reassure the public.

"Yes, he 's smiling. He 's confident, all right. But why does n't he do something?"

Had the people in the court-room read of this trial in their homes—read the bare facts, the testimony of witnesses, there was not one who would have wasted a second thought on Anna Janssen. Perhaps in the hearts of one or two there would have lingered the feeling that it was not right she should be strapped horribly in the chair. But that would have been chivalry, not justice. One and all would have said: "That is what the death penalty is for—to remove from human contact one who has no right to God's sunshine, and who has arrogated to her vile and puny self the right of the Creator, the disposal of human life. Muffle her up. Hustle her away. Throw on the current and hide her in quicklime. Life is not for such as she!"

But between the woman whom the witnesses had drawn in black, sinister colors and the lady in the dock there was a continent of difference. True, she was the same height, the same figure, but for a healthy development of years. True, such marks of identification as Anna Janssen the chorus girl had, might be noted on the body of her who was a prisoner at the bar.

But the body of Anna Janssen the chorus girl was soft and white and made for sinister loving, while that of the woman in the dock was healthy and hard and tanned, after the fashion of Eve, whom the Lord God made in the garden. And Anna Janssen's had swayed alluringly with provocative sophistication, while the carriage of this woman was erect and of great dignity. And the eyes of the chorus girl had been full of evil knowledge and unhealthy flame, but this woman's had wistfulness and a strange mystery.

And in the heart of every one there rose a cry: "This is not the same woman. This is a good woman!"

There is a theory of an old medical school whose name—not that it matters—I regret to have forgotten. And it is this: that every seven years the human body changes. We have not the same bones, nor the same skin, the same muscles at thirty-five that we had at twenty-eight. They are worn out and are eliminated, and new tissue takes their place. It may be wrong, but it is a very taking theory. It explains to us how the track athlete of some years ago becomes the paunchy, bald-headed, repulsive man of to-day. It explains how the well-fed man of the world may turn into a harsh-faced monk. It explains to us how the soft, succubine chorus girl of a dozen years before became the splendid amazon that Anna Janssen is to-day.

And yet this may be wrong about the body. But about the mind (and there you have the inner person) there is one thing certain, not a theory but a fact—that people change completely. Like a child's slate, the mind is, on which a thousand things are written. The young take so much for granted; the old know. And gallantly they write this for a fact, that for a falsehood. But day by day they live and learn, as the old saw goes. And simple equations become quadratic. And the writing on the slate is altered month by month, as new factors of life are realized. All is a correction, a readjustment.