This Side of Paradise F. Scott Fitzgerald (mini ebook reader .txt) đ
- Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
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It was not so bad where there were only men or else only women; it was when they were vilely herded that it all seemed so rotten. It was some shame that women gave off at having men see them tired and poorâ âit was some disgust that men had for women who were tired and poor. It was dirtier than any battlefield he had seen, harder to contemplate than any actual hardship moulded of mire and sweat and danger, it was an atmosphere wherein birth and marriage and death were loathsome, secret things.
He remembered one day in the subway when a delivery boy had brought in a great funeral wreath of fresh flowers, how the smell of it had suddenly cleared the air and given everyone in the car a momentary glow.
âI detest poor people,â thought Amory suddenly. âI hate them for being poor. Poverty may have been beautiful once, but itâs rotten now. Itâs the ugliest thing in the world. Itâs essentially cleaner to be corrupt and rich than it is to be innocent and poor.â He seemed to see again a figure whose significance had once impressed himâ âa well-dressed young man gazing from a club window on Fifth Avenue and saying something to his companion with a look of utter disgust. Probably, thought Amory, what he said was: âMy God! Arenât people horrible!â
Never before in his life had Amory considered poor people. He thought cynically how completely he was lacking in all human sympathy. O. Henry had found in these people romance, pathos, love, hateâ âAmory saw only coarseness, physical filth, and stupidity. He made no self-accusations: never any more did he reproach himself for feelings that were natural and sincere. He accepted all his reactions as a part of him, unchangeable, unmoral. This problem of poverty transformed, magnified, attached to some grander, more dignified attitude might some day even be his problem; at present it roused only his profound distaste.
He walked over to Fifth Avenue, dodging the blind, black menace of umbrellas, and standing in front of Delmonicoâs hailed an autobus. Buttoning his coat closely around him he climbed to the roof, where he rode in solitary state through the thin, persistent rain, stung into alertness by the cool moisture perpetually reborn on his cheek. Somewhere in his mind a conversation began, rather resumed its place in his attention. It was composed not of two voices, but of one, which acted alike as questioner and answerer:
Question.â âWellâ âwhatâs the situation?
Answer.â âThat I have about twenty-four dollars to my name.
Q.â âYou have the Lake Geneva estate.
A.â âBut I intend to keep it.
Q.â âCan you live?
A.â âI canât imagine not being able to. People make money in books and Iâve found that I can always do the things that people do in books. Really they are the only things I can do.
Q.â âBe definite.
A.â âI donât know what Iâll doâ ânor have I much curiosity. Tomorrow Iâm going to leave New York for good. Itâs a bad town unless youâre on top of it.
Q.â âDo you want a lot of money?
A.â âNo. I am merely afraid of being poor.
Q.â âVery afraid?
A.â âJust passively afraid.
Q.â âWhere are you drifting?
A.â âDonât ask me!
Q.â âDonât you care?
A.â âRather. I donât want to commit moral suicide.
Q.â âHave you no interests left?
A.â âNone. Iâve no more virtue to lose. Just as a cooling pot gives off heat, so all through youth and adolescence we give off calories of virtue. Thatâs whatâs called ingenuousness.
Q.â âAn interesting idea.
A.â âThatâs why a âgood man going wrongâ attracts people. They stand around and literally warm themselves at the calories of virtue he gives off. Sarah makes an unsophisticated remark and the faces simper in delightâ ââHow innocent the poor child is!â Theyâre warming themselves at her virtue. But Sarah sees the simper and never makes that remark again. Only she feels a little colder after that.
Q.â âAll your calories gone?
A.â âAll of them. Iâm beginning to warm myself at other peopleâs virtue.
Q.â âAre you corrupt?
A.â âI think so. Iâm not sure. Iâm not sure about good and evil at all any more.
Q.â âIs that a bad sign in itself?
A.â âNot necessarily.
Q.â âWhat would be the test of corruption?
A.â âBecoming really insincereâ âcalling myself ânot such a bad fellow,â thinking I regretted my lost youth when I only envy the delights of losing it. Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They donât. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesnât want to repeat her girlhoodâ âshe wants to repeat her honeymoon. I donât want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.
Q.â âWhere are you drifting?
This dialogue merged grotesquely into his mindâs most familiar stateâ âa grotesque blending of desires, worries, exterior impressions and physical reactions.
One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Streetâ âor One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Street.â ââ ⊠Two and three look alikeâ âno, not much. Seat dampâ ââ ⊠are clothes absorbing wetness from seat, or seat absorbing dryness from clothes?â ââ ⊠Sitting on wet substance gave appendicitis, so Froggy Parkerâs mother said. Well, heâd had itâ âIâll sue the steamboat company, Beatrice said, and my uncle has a quarter interestâ âdid Beatrice go to heaven?â ââ ⊠probably notâ âHe represented Beatriceâs immortality, also love-affairs of numerous dead men who surely had never thought of himâ ââ ⊠if it wasnât appendicitis, influenza maybe. What? One Hundred and Twentieth Street? That must have been One Hundred and Twelfth back there. One O Two instead of One Two Seven. Rosalind not like Beatrice, Eleanor like Beatrice, only wilder and brainier. Apartments along here expensiveâ âprobably hundred and fifty a monthâ âmaybe two hundred. Uncle had only paid hundred a month for whole great big house in Minneapolis. Questionâ âwere the stairs on the left or right as you came in? Anyway, in 12 Univee they were straight back and to the left. What a dirty riverâ âwant to go down there and see
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