The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (summer beach reads .txt) đ
- Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
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âHa! I might as well be living with mama.â
âWhat a thing to say to me!â
A standing policeman swerved into view, was hastily passed.
âSee him?â demanded Anthony.
âOh, you drive me crazy! He didnât arrest us, did he?â
âWhen he does itâll be too late,â countered Anthony brilliantly.
Her reply was scornful, almost injured.
âWhy, this old thing wonât go over thirty-five.â
âIt isnât old.â
âIt is in spirit.â
That afternoon the car joined the laundry-bags and Gloriaâs appetite as one of the trinity of contention. He warned her of railroad tracks; he pointed out approaching automobiles; finally he insisted on taking the wheel and a furious, insulted Gloria sat silently beside him between the towns of Larchmont and Rye.
But it was due to this furious silence of hers that the gray house materialized from its abstraction, for just beyond Rye he surrendered gloomily to it and re-relinquished the wheel. Mutely he beseeched her and Gloria, instantly cheered, vowed to be more careful. But because a discourteous street-car persisted callously in remaining upon its track Gloria ducked down a side-streetâand thereafter that afternoon was never able to find her way back to the Post Road. The street they finally mistook for it lost its Post-Road aspect when it had gone five miles from Cos Cob. Its macadam became gravel, then dirtâmoreover, it narrowed and developed a border of maple trees, through which filtered the weltering sun, making its endless experiments with shadow designs upon the long grass.
âWeâre lost now,â complained Anthony.
âRead that sign!â
âMariettaâFive Miles. Whatâs Marietta?â
âNever heard of it, but letâs go on. We canât turn here and thereâs probably a detour back to the Post Road.â
The way became scarred with deepening ruts and insidious shoulders of stone. Three farmhouses faced them momentarily, slid by. A town sprang up in a cluster of dull roofs around a white tall steeple.
Then Gloria, hesitating between two approaches, and making her choice too late, drove over a fire-hydrant and ripped the transmission violently from the car.
It was dark when the real-estate agent of Marietta showed them the gray house. They came upon it just west of the village, where it rested against a sky that was a warm blue cloak buttoned with tiny stars. The gray house had been there when women who kept cats were probably witches, when Paul Revere made false teeth in Boston preparatory to arousing the great commercial people, when our ancestors were gloriously deserting Washington in droves. Since those days the house had been bolstered up in a feeble corner, considerably repartitioned and newly plastered inside, amplified by a kitchen and added to by a side-porchâbut, save for where some jovial oaf had roofed the new kitchen with red tin, Colonial it defiantly remained.
âHow did you happen to come to Marietta?â demanded the real-estate agent in a tone that was first cousin to suspicion. He was showing them through four spacious and airy bedrooms.
âWe broke down,â explained Gloria. âI drove over a fire-hydrant and we had ourselves towed to the garage and then we saw your sign.â
The man nodded, unable to follow such a sally of spontaneity. There was something subtly immoral in doing anything without several monthsâ consideration.
They signed a lease that night and, in the agentâs car, returned jubilantly to the somnolent and dilapidated Marietta Inn, which was too broken for even the chance immoralities and consequent gaieties of a country road-house. Half the night they lay awake planning the things they were to do there. Anthony was going to work at an astounding pace on his history and thus ingratiate himself with his cynical grandfatherâŠ. When the car was repaired they would explore the country and join the nearest âreally niceâ club, where Gloria would play golf âor somethingâ while Anthony wrote. This, of course, was Anthonyâs ideaâGloria was sure she wanted but to read and dream and be fed tomato sandwiches and lemonades by some angelic servant still in a shadowy hinterland. Between paragraphs Anthony would come and kiss her as she lay indolently in the hammockâŠ. The hammock! a host of new dreams in tune to its imagined rhythm, while the wind stirred it and waves of sun undulated over the shadows of blown wheat, or the dusty road freckled and darkened with quiet summer rainâŠ.
And guestsâhere they had a long argument, both of them trying to be extraordinarily mature and far-sighted. Anthony claimed that they would need people at least every other week-end âas a sort of change.â This provoked an involved and extremely sentimental conversation as to whether Anthony did not consider Gloria change enough. Though he assured her that he did, she insisted upon doubting himâŠ. Eventually the conversation assumed its eternal monotone: âWhat then? Oh, whatâll we do then?â
âWell, weâll have a dog,â suggested Anthony.
âI donât want one. I want a kitty.â She went thoroughly and with great enthusiasm into the history, habits, and tastes of a cat she had once possessed. Anthony considered that it must have been a horrible character with neither personal magnetism nor a loyal heart.
Later they slept, to wake an hour before dawn with the gray house dancing in phantom glory before their dazzled eyes.
THE SOUL OF GLORIAFor that autumn the gray house welcomed them with a rush of sentiment that falsified its cynical old age. True, there were the laundry-bags, there was Gloriaâs appetite, there was Anthonyâs tendency to brood and his imaginative ânervousness,â but there were intervals also of an unhoped-for serenity. Close together on the porch they would wait for the moon to stream across the silver acres of farmland, jump a thick wood and tumble waves of radiance at their feet. In such a moonlight Gloriaâs face was of a pervading, reminiscent white, and with a modicum of effort they would slip off the blinders of custom and each would find in the other almost the quintessential romance of the vanished June.
One night while her head lay upon his heart and their cigarettes glowed in swerving buttons of light through the dome of darkness over the bed, she spoke for the first time and fragmentarily of the men who had hung for brief moments on her beauty.
âDo you ever think of them?â he asked her.
âOnly occasionallyâwhen something happens that recalls a particular man.â
âWhat do you rememberâtheir kisses?â
âAll sorts of thingsâŠ. Men are different with women.â
âDifferent in what way?â
âOh, entirelyâand quite inexpressibly. Men who had the most firmly rooted reputation for being this way or that would sometimes be surprisingly inconsistent with me. Brutal men were tender, negligible men were astonishingly loyal and lovable, and, often, honorable men took attitudes that were anything but honorable.â
âFor instance?â
âWell, there was a boy named Percy Wolcott from Cornell who was quite a hero in college, a great athlete, and saved a lot of people from a fire or something like that. But I soon found he was stupid in a rather dangerous way.â
âWhat way?â
âIt seems he had some naïżœve conception of a woman âfit to be his wife,â a particular conception that I used to run into a lot and that always drove me wild. He demanded a girl whoâd never been kissed and who liked to sew and sit home and pay tribute to his self-esteem. And Iâll bet a hat if heâs gotten an idiot to sit and be stupid with him heâs tearing out on the side with some much speedier lady.â
âIâd be sorry for his wife.â
âI wouldnât. Think what an ass sheâd be not to realize it before she married him. Heâs the sort whose idea of honoring and respecting a woman would be never to give her any excitement. With the best intentions, he was deep in the dark ages.â
âWhat was his attitude toward you?â
âIâm coming to that. As I told youâor did I tell you?âhe was mighty good-looking: big brown honest eyes and one of those smiles that guarantee the heart behind it is twenty-karat gold. Being young and credulous, I thought he had some discretion, so I kissed him fervently one night when we were riding around after a dance at the Homestead at Hot Springs. It had been a wonderful week, I rememberâwith the most luscious trees spread like green lather, sort of, all over the valley and a mist rising out of them on October mornings like bonfires lit to turn them brownââ
âHow about your friend with the ideals?â interrupted Anthony.
âIt seems that when he kissed me he began to think that perhaps he could get away with a little more, that I neednât be ârespectedâ like this Beatrice Fairfax glad-girl of his imagination.â
âWhatâd he do?â
âNot much. I pushed him off a sixteen-foot embankment before he was well started.â
âHurt him?â inquired Anthony with a laugh.
âBroke his arm and sprained his ankle. He told the story all over Hot Springs, and when his arm healed a man named Barley who liked me fought him and broke it over again. Oh, it was all an awful mess. He threatened to sue Barley, and Barleyâhe was from Georgiaâwas seen buying a gun in town. But before that mama had dragged me North again, much against my will, so I never did find out all that happenedâthough I saw Barley once in the Vanderbilt lobby.â
Anthony laughed long and loud.
âWhat a career! I suppose I ought to be furious because youâve kissed so many men. Iâm not, though.â
At this she sat up in bed.
âItâs funny, but Iâm so sure that those kisses left no mark on meâno taint of promiscuity, I meanâeven though a man once told me in all seriousness that he hated to think Iâd been a public drinking glass.â
âHe had his nerve.â
âI just laughed and told him to think of me rather as a loving-cup that goes from hand to hand but should be valued none the less.â
âSomehow it doesnât bother meâon the other hand it would, of course, if youâd done any more than kiss them. But I believe youâre absolutely incapable of jealousy except as hurt vanity. Why donât you care what Iâve done? Wouldnât you prefer it if Iâd been absolutely innocent?â
âItâs all in the impression it might have made on you. My kisses were because the man was good-looking, or because there was a slick moon, or even because Iâve felt vaguely sentimental and a little stirred. But thatâs allâitâs had utterly no effect on me. But youâd remember and let memories haunt you and worry you.â
âHavenât you ever kissed any one like youâve kissed me?â
âNo,â she answered simply. âAs Iâve told you, men have triedâoh, lots of things. Any pretty girl has that experienceâŠ. You see,â she resumed, âit doesnât matter to me how many women youâve stayed with in the past, so long as it was merely a physical satisfaction, but I donât believe I could endure the idea of your ever having lived with another woman for a protracted period or even having wanted to marry some possible girl. Itâs different somehow. Thereâd be all the little intimacies rememberedâand theyâd dull that freshness that after all is the most precious part of love.â
Rapturously he pulled her down beside him on the pillow.
âOh, my darling,â he whispered, âas if I remembered anything but your dear kisses.â
Then Gloria, in a very mild voice:
âAnthony, did I hear anybody say they were thirsty?â
Anthony laughed abruptly and with a sheepish and amused grin got out of bed.
âWith just a little piece of ice in the water,â she added. âDo you suppose I could have that?â
Gloria used the adjective âlittleâ whenever she asked a favorâit made the favor sound less arduous. But Anthony laughed againâwhether she wanted a
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