The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (summer beach reads .txt) đ
- Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
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âGloria, why, weâre going on to another room. And two other little beds. Weâre going to be together all our lives.â
Words flooded from her in a low husky voice.
âBut it wonât beâlike our two bedsâever again. Everywhere we go and move on and change, somethingâs lostâsomethingâs left behind. You canât ever quite repeat anything, and Iâve been so yours, hereââ
He held her passionately near, discerning far beyond any criticism of her sentiment, a wise grasping of the minute, if only an indulgence of her desire to cryâGloria the idler, caresser of her own dreams, extracting poignancy from the memorable things of life and youth.
Later in the afternoon when he returned from the station with the tickets he found her asleep on one of the beds, her arm curled about a black object which he could not at first identify. Coming closer he found it was one of his shoes, not a particularly new one, nor clean one, but her face, tear-stained, was pressed against it, and he understood her ancient and most honorable message. There was almost ecstasy in waking her and seeing her smile at him, shy but well aware of her own nicety of imagination.
With no appraisal of the worth or dross of these two things, it seemed to Anthony that they lay somewhere near the heart of love.
THE GRAY HOUSEIt is in the twenties that the actual momentum of life begins to slacken, and it is a simple soul indeed to whom as many things are significant and meaningful at thirty as at ten years before. At thirty an organ-grinder is a more or less moth-eaten man who grinds an organâand once he was an organ-grinder! The unmistakable stigma of humanity touches all those impersonal and beautiful things that only youth ever grasps in their impersonal glory. A brilliant ball, gay with light romantic laughter, wears through its own silks and satins to show the bare framework of a man-made thingâoh, that eternal hand!âa play, most tragic and most divine, becomes merely a succession of speeches, sweated over by the eternal plagiarist in the clammy hours and acted by men subject to cramps, cowardice, and manly sentiment.
And this time with Gloria and Anthony, this first year of marriage, and the gray house caught them in that stage when the organ-grinder was slowly undergoing his inevitable metamorphosis. She was twenty-three; he was twenty-six.
The gray house was, at first, of sheerly pastoral intent. They lived impatiently in Anthonyâs apartment for the first fortnight after the return from California, in a stifled atmosphere of open trunks, too many callers, and the eternal laundry-bags. They discussed with their friends the stupendous problem of their future. Dick and Maury would sit with them agreeing solemnly, almost thoughtfully, as Anthony ran through his list of what they âoughtâ to do, and where they âoughtâ to live.
âIâd like to take Gloria abroad,â he complained, âexcept for this damn warâand next to that Iâd sort of like to have a place in the country, somewhere near New York, of course, where I could writeâor whatever I decide to do.â
Gloria laughed.
âIsnât he cute?â she required of Maury. ââWhatever he decides to do!â But what am I going to do if he works? Maury, will you take me around if Anthony works?â
âAnyway, Iâm not going to work yet,â said Anthony quickly.
It was vaguely understood between them that on some misty day he would enter a sort of glorified diplomatic service and be envied by princes and prime ministers for his beautiful wife.
âWell,â said Gloria helplessly, âIâm sure I donât know. We talk and talk and never get anywhere, and we ask all our friends and they just answer the way we want âem to. I wish somebodyâd take care of us.â
âWhy donât you go out toâout to Greenwich or something?â suggested Richard Caramel.
âIâd like that,â said Gloria, brightening. âDo you think we could get a house there?â
Dick shrugged his shoulders and Maury laughed.
âYou two amuse me,â he said. âOf all the unpractical people! As soon as a place is mentioned you expect us to pull great piles of photographs out of our pockets showing the different styles of architecture available in bungalows.â
âThatâs just what I donât want,â wailed Gloria, âa hot stuffy bungalow, with a lot of babies next door and their father cutting the grass in his shirt sleevesââ
âFor Heavenâs sake, Gloria,â interrupted Maury, ânobody wants to lock you up in a bungalow. Who in Godâs name brought bungalows into the conversation? But youâll never get a place anywhere unless you go out and hunt for it.â
âGo where? You say âgo out and hunt for it,â but where?â
With dignity Maury waved his hand paw-like about the room.
âOut anywhere. Out in the country. Thereâre lots of places.â
âThanks.â
âLook here!â Richard Caramel brought his yellow eye rakishly into play. âThe trouble with you two is that youâre all disorganized. Do you know anything about New York State? Shut up, Anthony, Iâm talking to Gloria.â
âWell,â she admitted finally, âIâve been to two or three house parties in Portchester and around in Connecticutâbut, of course, that isnât in New York State, is it? And neither is Morristown,â she finished with drowsy irrelevance.
There was a shout of laughter.
âOh, Lord!â cried Dick, âneither is Morristown!â No, and neither is Santa Barbara, Gloria. Now listen. To begin with, unless you have a fortune thereâs no use considering any place like Newport or Southhampton or Tuxedo. Theyâre out of the question.â
They all agreed to this solemnly.
âAnd personally I hate New Jersey. Then, of course, thereâs upper New York, above Tuxedo.â
âToo cold,â said Gloria briefly. âI was there once in an automobile.â
âWell, it seems to me thereâre a lot of towns like Rye between New York and Greenwich where you could buy a little gray house of someââ
Gloria leaped at the phrase triumphantly. For the first time since their return East she knew what she wanted.
âOh, yes!â she cried. âOh, yes! thatâs it: a little gray house with sort of white around and a whole lot of swamp maples just as brown and gold as an October picture in a gallery. Where can we find one?â
âUnfortunately, Iâve mislaid my list of little gray houses with swamp maples around themâbut Iâll try to find it. Meanwhile you take a piece of paper and write down the names of seven possible towns. And every day this week you take a trip to one of those towns.â
âOh, gosh!â protested Gloria, collapsing mentally, âwhy wonât you do it for us? I hate trains.â
âWell, hire a car, andââ
Gloria yawned.
âIâm tired of discussing it. Seems to me all we do is talk about where to live.â
âMy exquisite wife wearies of thought,â remarked Anthony ironically. âShe must have a tomato sandwich to stimulate her jaded nerves. Letâs go out to tea.â
As the unfortunate upshot of this conversation, they took Dickâs advice literally, and two days later went out to Rye, where they wandered around with an irritated real estate agent, like bewildered babes in the wood. They were shown houses at a hundred a month which closely adjoined other houses at a hundred a month; they were shown isolated houses to which they invariably took violent dislikes, though they submitted weakly to the agentâs desire that they âlook at that stoveâsome stove!â and to a great shaking of doorposts and tapping of walls, intended evidently to show that the house would not immediately collapse, no matter how convincingly it gave that impression. They gazed through windows into interiors furnished either âcommerciallyâ with slab-like chairs and unyielding settees, or âhome-likeâ with the melancholy bric-ïżœ-brac of other summersâcrossed tennis rackets, fit-form couches, and depressing Gibson girls. With a feeling of guilt they looked at a few really nice houses, aloof, dignified, and coolâat three hundred a month. They went away from Rye thanking the real estate agent very much indeed.
On the crowded train back to New York the seat behind was occupied by a super-respirating Latin whose last few meals had obviously been composed entirely of garlic. They reached the apartment gratefully, almost hysterically, and Gloria rushed for a hot bath in the reproachless bathroom. So far as the question of a future abode was concerned both of them were incapacitated for a week.
The matter eventually worked itself out with unhoped-for romance. Anthony ran into the living room one afternoon fairly radiating âthe idea.â
âIâve got it,â he was exclaiming as though he had just caught a mouse. âWeâll get a car.â
âGee whiz! Havenât we got troubles enough taking care of ourselves?â
âGive me a second to explain, canât you? just letâs leave our stuff with Dick and just pile a couple of suitcases in our car, the one weâre going to buyâweâll have to have one in the country anywayâand just start out in the direction of New Haven. You see, as we get out of commuting distance from New York, the rentsâll get cheaper, and as soon as we find a house we want weâll just settle down.â
By his frequent and soothing interpolation of the word âjustâ he aroused her lethargic enthusiasm. Strutting violently about the room, he simulated a dynamic and irresistible efficiency. âWeâll buy a car to-morrow.â
Life, limping after imaginationâs ten-league boots, saw them out of town a week later in a cheap but sparkling new roadster, saw them through the chaotic unintelligible Bronx, then over a wide murky district which alternated cheerless blue-green wastes with suburbs of tremendous and sordid activity. They left New York at eleven and it was well past a hot and beatific noon when they moved rakishly through Pelham.
âThese arenât towns,â said Gloria scornfully, âthese are just city blocks plumped down coldly into waste acres. I imagine all the men here have their mustaches stained from drinking their coffee too quickly in the morning.â
âAnd play pinochle on the commuting trains.â
âWhatâs pinochle?â
âDonât be so literal. How should I know? But it sounds as though they ought to play it.â
âI like it. It sounds as if it were something where you sort of cracked your knuckles or somethingâŠ. Let me drive.â
Anthony looked at her suspiciously.
âYou swear youâre a good driver?â
âSince I was fourteen.â
He stopped the car cautiously at the side of the road and they changed seats. Then with a horrible grinding noise the car was put in gear, Gloria adding an accompaniment of laughter which seemed to Anthony disquieting and in the worst possible taste.
âHere we go!â she yelled. âWhoo-oop!â
Their heads snapped back like marionettes on a single wire as the car leaped ahead and curved retchingly about a standing milk-wagon, whose driver stood up on his seat and bellowed after them. In the immemorial tradition of the road Anthony retorted with a few brief epigrams as to the grossness of the milk-delivering profession. He cut his remarks short, however, and turned to Gloria with the growing conviction that he had made a grave mistake in relinquishing control and that Gloria was a driver of many eccentricities and of infinite carelessness.
âRemember now!â he warned her nervously, âthe man said we oughtnât to go over twenty miles an hour for the first five thousand miles.â
She nodded briefly, but evidently intending to accomplish the prohibitive distance as quickly as possible, slightly increased her speed. A moment later he made another attempt.
âSee that sign? Do you want to get us pinched?â
âOh, for Heavenâs sake,â cried Gloria in exasperation, âyou always exaggerate things so!â
âWell, I donât want to get arrested.â
âWhoâs arresting you? Youâre so persistentâjust like you were about my cough medicine last night.â
âIt
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