This Side of Paradise F. Scott Fitzgerald (mini ebook reader .txt) 📖

“One of the days is the Sabbath.”

“Just the same, I can only cut six more classes, with over a month and a half to go.”

“Throw him out!”

“It’s a long walk back.”

“Amory, you’re running it out, if I may coin a new phrase.”

“Hadn’t you better get some dope on yourself, Amory?”

Amory subsided resignedly and drooped into a contemplation of the scenery. Swinburne seemed to fit in somehow.

“Oh, winter’s rains and ruins are over,
And all the seasons of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover,
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

“The full streams feed on flower of⁠—”

“What’s the matter, Amory? Amory’s thinking about poetry, about the pretty birds and flowers. I can see it in his eye.”

“No, I’m not,” he lied. “I’m thinking about the Princetonian. I ought to make up tonight; but I can telephone back, I suppose.”

“Oh,” said Kerry respectfully, “these important men⁠—”

Amory flushed and it seemed to him that Ferrenby, a defeated competitor, winced a little. Of course, Kerry was only kidding, but he really mustn’t mention the Princetonian.

It was a halcyon day, and as they neared the shore and the salt breezes scurried by, he began to picture the ocean and long, level stretches of sand and red roofs over blue sea. Then they hurried through the little town and it all flashed upon his consciousness to a mighty paean of emotion.⁠ ⁠…

“Oh, good Lord! Look at it!” he cried.

“What?”

“Let me out, quick⁠—I haven’t seen it for eight years! Oh, gentlefolk, stop the car!”

“What an odd child!” remarked Alec.

“I do believe he’s a bit eccentric.”

The car was obligingly drawn up at a curb, and Amory ran for the boardwalk. First, he realized that the sea was blue and that there was an enormous quantity of it, and that it roared and roared⁠—really all the banalities about the ocean that one could realize, but if anyone had told him then that these things were banalities, he would have gaped in wonder.

“Now we’ll get lunch,” ordered Kerry, wandering up with the crowd. “Come on, Amory, tear yourself away and get practical.”

“We’ll try the best hotel first,” he went on, “and thence and so forth.”

They strolled along the boardwalk to the most imposing hostelry in sight, and, entering the dining-room, scattered about a table.

“Eight Bronxes,” commanded Alec, “and a club sandwich and Juliennes. The food for one. Hand the rest around.”

Amory ate little, having seized a chair where he could watch the sea and feel the rock of it. When luncheon was over they sat and smoked quietly.

“What’s the bill?”

Someone scanned it.

“Eight twenty-five.”

“Rotten overcharge. We’ll give them two dollars and one for the waiter. Kerry, collect the small change.”

The waiter approached, and Kerry gravely handed him a dollar, tossed two dollars on the check, and turned away. They sauntered leisurely toward the door, pursued in a moment by the suspicious Ganymede.

“Some mistake, sir.”

Kerry took the bill and examined it critically.

“No mistake!” he said, shaking his head gravely, and, tearing it into four pieces, he handed the scraps to the waiter, who was so dumbfounded that he stood motionless and expressionless while they walked out.

“Won’t he send after us?”

“No,” said Kerry; “for a minute he’ll think we’re the proprietor’s sons or something; then he’ll look at the check again and call the manager, and in the meantime⁠—”

They left the car at Asbury and streetcar’d to Allenhurst, where they investigated the crowded pavilions for beauty. At four there were refreshments in a lunchroom, and this time they paid an even smaller percent on the total cost; something about the appearance and savoir-faire of the crowd made the thing go, and they were not pursued.

“You see, Amory, we’re Marxian Socialists,” explained Kerry. “We don’t believe in property and we’re putting it to the great test.”

“Night will descend,” Amory suggested.

“Watch, and put your trust in Holiday.”

They became jovial about five-thirty and, linking arms, strolled up and down the boardwalk in a row, chanting a monotonous ditty about the sad sea waves. Then Kerry saw a face in the crowd that attracted him and, rushing off, reappeared in a moment with one of the homeliest girls Amory had ever set eyes on. Her pale mouth extended from ear to ear, her teeth projected in a solid wedge, and she had little, squinty eyes that peeped ingratiatingly over the side sweep of her nose. Kerry presented them formally.

“Name of Kaluka, Hawaiian queen! Let me present Messrs. Connage, Sloane, Humbird, Ferrenby, and Blaine.”

The girl bobbed courtesies all around. Poor creature; Amory supposed she had never before been noticed in her life⁠—possibly she was half-witted. While she accompanied them (Kerry had invited her to supper) she said nothing which could discountenance such a belief.

“She prefers her native dishes,” said Alec gravely to the waiter, “but any coarse food will do.”

All through supper he addressed her in the most respectful language, while Kerry made idiotic love to her on the other side, and she giggled and grinned. Amory was content to sit and watch the byplay, thinking what a light touch Kerry had, and how he could transform the barest incident into a thing of curve and contour. They all seemed to have the spirit of it more or less, and it was a relaxation to be with them. Amory usually liked men individually, yet feared them in crowds unless the crowd was around him. He wondered how much each one contributed to the party, for there was somewhat of a spiritual tax levied. Alec and Kerry were the life of it, but not quite the centre. Somehow the quiet Humbird, and Sloane, with his impatient superciliousness, were the centre.

Dick Humbird had, ever since freshman year, seemed to Amory a perfect type of aristocrat. He was slender but well-built⁠—black curly hair, straight features, and rather a dark skin. Everything he said sounded intangibly appropriate. He possessed infinite courage, an averagely good