This Side of Paradise F. Scott Fitzgerald (mini ebook reader .txt) š
- Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Outside. Well, then, prove it by coming here and hooking me.
Mrs. Connage goes.
AlecRosalind hasnāt changed a bit.
CeceliaIn a lower tone. Sheās awfully spoiled.
AlecSheāll meet her match tonight.
CeceliaWhoā āMr. Amory Blaine?
Alec nods.
CeceliaWell, Rosalind has still to meet the man she canāt outdistance. Honestly, Alec, she treats men terribly. She abuses them and cuts them and breaks dates with them and yawns in their facesā āand they come back for more.
AlecThey love it.
CeceliaThey hate it. Sheās aā āsheās a sort of vampire, I thinkā āand she can make girls do what she wants usuallyā āonly she hates girls.
AlecPersonality runs in our family.
CeceliaResignedly. I guess it ran out before it got to me.
AlecDoes Rosalind behave herself?
CeceliaNot particularly well. Oh, sheās averageā āsmokes sometimes, drinks punch, frequently kissedā āOh, yesā ācommon knowledgeā āone of the effects of the war, you know.
Emerges Mrs. Connage.
Mrs. ConnageRosalindās almost finished so I can go down and meet your friend.
Alec and his mother go out.
RosalindOutside. Oh, motherā ā
CeceliaMotherās gone down.
And now Rosalind enters. Rosalind isā āutterly Rosalind. She is one of those girls who need never make the slightest effort to have men fall in love with them. Two types of men seldom do: dull men are usually afraid of her cleverness and intellectual men are usually afraid of her beauty. All others are hers by natural prerogative.
If Rosalind could be spoiled the process would have been complete by this time, and as a matter of fact, her disposition is not all it should be; she wants what she wants when she wants it and she is prone to make everyone around her pretty miserable when she doesnāt get itā ābut in the true sense she is not spoiled. Her fresh enthusiasm, her will to grow and learn, her endless faith in the inexhaustibility of romance, her courage and fundamental honestyā āthese things are not spoiled.
There are long periods when she cordially loathes her whole family. She is quite unprincipled; her philosophy is carpe diem for herself and laissez-faire for others. She loves shocking stories: she has that coarse streak that usually goes with natures that are both fine and big. She wants people to like her, but if they do not it never worries her or changes her.
She is by no means a model character.
The education of all beautiful women is the knowledge of men. Rosalind had been disappointed in man after man as individuals, but she had great faith in man as a sex. Women she detested. They represented qualities that she felt and despised in herselfā āincipient meanness, conceit, cowardice, and petty dishonesty. She once told a roomful of her motherās friends that the only excuse for women was the necessity for a disturbing element among men. She danced exceptionally well, drew cleverly but hastily, and had a startling facility with words, which she used only in love-letters.
But all criticism of Rosalind ends in her beauty. There was that shade of glorious yellow hair, the desire to imitate which supports the dye industry. There was the eternal kissable mouth, small, slightly sensual, and utterly disturbing. There were gray eyes and an unimpeachable skin with two spots of vanishing color. She was slender and athletic, without underdevelopment, and it was a delight to watch her move about a room, walk along a street, swing a golf club, or turn a ācartwheel.ā
A last qualificationā āher vivid, instant personality escaped that conscious, theatrical quality that Amory had found in Isabelle. Monsignor Darcy would have been quite up a tree whether to call her a personality or a personage. She was perhaps the delicious, inexpressible, once-in-a-century blend.
On the night of her debut she is, for all her strange, stray wisdom, quite like a happy little girl. Her motherās maid has just done her hair, but she has decided impatiently that she can do a better job herself. She is too nervous just now to stay in one place. To that we owe her presence in this littered room. She is going to speak. Isabelleās alto tones had been like a violin, but if you could hear Rosalind, you would say her voice was musical as a waterfall.
RosalindHonestly, there are only two costumes in the world that I really enjoy being inā āCombing her hair at the dressing-table. Oneās a hoop skirt with pantaloons; the otherās a one-piece bathing-suit. Iām quite charming in both of them.
CeceliaGlad youāre coming out?
RosalindYes; arenāt you?
CeceliaCynically. Youāre glad so you can get married and live on Long Island with the fast younger married set. You want life to be a chain of flirtation with a man for every link.
RosalindWant it to be one! You mean Iāve found it one.
CeceliaHa!
RosalindCecelia, darling, you donāt know what a trial it is to beā ālike me. Iāve got to keep my face like steel in the street to keep men from winking at me. If I laugh hard from a front row in the theatre, the comedian plays to me for the rest of the evening. If I drop my voice, my eyes, my handkerchief at a dance, my partner calls me up on the phone every day for a week.
CeceliaIt must be an awful strain.
RosalindThe unfortunate part is that the only men who interest me at all are the totally ineligible ones. Nowā āif I were poor Iād go on the stage.
CeceliaYes, you might as well get paid for the amount of acting you do.
RosalindSometimes when Iāve felt particularly radiant Iāve thought, why should this be wasted on one man?
CeceliaOften when youāre particularly sulky, Iāve wondered why it should all be wasted on just one family. Getting up. I think Iāll go down and meet
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