Hold up Amory Thats too darned gloomy How about yourself
Im in a superior class You are too Were philosophers
Im not
Sure you are Youve got a darn good head on you But Amory knew that nothing in the abstract, no theory or generality ever moved Rahill until he stubbed his toe upon the concrete minutiae of it
Havent insisted Rahill I let people impose on me here and dont get anything out of it Im the prey of my friends damn it—do their lessons get em out of trouble pay em stupid summer visits and always entertain their kid sisters keep my temper when they get selfish and then they think they pay me back by voting for me and telling me Im the big man of St Regiss I want to get where everybody does their own work and I can tell people where to go Im tired of being nice to every poor fish in school
Youre not a slicker said Amory suddenly
A what
A slicker
What the devils that
Well its something that—that—theres a lot of them Youre not one and neither am I though I am more than you are
Who is one What makes you one
Amory considered
Why—why I suppose that the sign of it is when a fellow slicks his hair back with water
Like Carstairs
Yes—sure Hes a slicker
They spent two evenings getting an exact definition The slicker was goodlooking or cleanlooking he had brains social brains that is and he used all means on the broad path of honesty to get ahead be popular admired and never in trouble He dressed well was particularly neat in appearance and derived his name from the fact that his hair was inevitably worn short soaked in water or tonic parted in the middle and slicked back as the current of fashion dictated The slickers of that year had adopted tortoiseshell spectacles as badges of their slickerhood and this made them so easy to recognize that Amory and Rahill never missed one The slicker seemed distributed through school always a little wiser and shrewder than his contemporaries managing some team or other and keeping his cleverness carefully concealed
Amory found the slicker a most valuable classification until his junior year in college when the outline became so blurred and indeterminate that it had to be subdivided many times and became only a quality Amorys secret ideal had all the slicker qualifications but in addition courage and tremendous brains and talents—also Amory conceded him a bizarre streak that was quite irreconcilable to the slicker proper
This was a first real break from the hypocrisy of school tradition The slicker was a definite element of success differing intrinsically from the prep school big man
THE SLICKER
1 Clever sense of social values
2 Dresses well Pretends that dress is superficial—but knows that it isnt
3 Goes into such activities as he can shine in
4 Gets to college and is in a worldly way successful
5 Hair slicked
THE BIG MAN
1 Inclined to stupidity and unconscious of social values
2 Thinks dress is superficial and is inclined to be
careless about it
3 Goes out for everything from a sense of duty
4 Gets to college and has a problematical future Feels lost
without his circle and always says that school days were
happiest after all Goes back to school and makes speeches
about what St Regiss boys are doing
5 Hair not slicked
Amory had decided definitely on Princeton even though he would be the only boy entering that year from St Regis Yale had a romance and glamour from the tales of Minneapolis and St Regis men who had been tapped for Skull and Bones but Princeton drew him most with its atmosphere of bright colors and its alluring reputation as the pleasantest country club in America Dwarfed by the menacing college exams Amorys school days drifted into the past Years afterward when he went back to St Regis he seemed to have forgotten the successes of sixthform year and to be able to picture himself only as the unadjustable boy who had hurried down corridors jeered at by his rabid contemporaries mad with common sense
CHAPTER 2 Spires and Gargoyles
At first Amory noticed only the wealth of sunshine creeping across the long green swards dancing on the leaded windowpanes and swimming around the tops of spires and towers and battlemented walls Gradually he realized that he was really walking up University Place selfconscious about his suitcase developing a new tendency to glare straight ahead when he passed any one Several times he could have sworn that men turned to look at him critically He wondered vaguely if there was something the matter with his clothes and wished he had shaved that morning on the train He felt unnecessarily stiff and awkward among these whiteflannelled bareheaded youths who must be juniors and seniors judging from the savoir faire with which they strolled
He found that 12 University Place was a large dilapidated mansion at present apparently uninhabited though he knew it housed usually a dozen freshmen After a hurried skirmish with his landlady he sallied out on a tour of exploration but he had gone scarcely a block when he became horribly conscious that he must be the only man in town who was wearing a hat He returned hurriedly to 12 University left his derby and emerging bareheaded loitered down Nassau Street stopping to investigate a display of athletic photographs in a store window including a large one of Allenby the football captain and next attracted by the sign Jigger Shop over a confectionary window This sounded familiar so he sauntered in and took a seat on a high stool
Chocolate sundae he told a colored person
Double chocolate jiggah Anything else
Why—yes
Bacon bun
Why—yes
He munched four of these finding them of pleasing savor and then consumed another doublechocolate jigger before ease descended upon him After a cursory inspection of the pillowcases leather pennants and Gibson Girls that lined the walls he left and continued along Nassau Street with his hands in his pockets Gradually he was learning to distinguish between upper classmen and entering men even though the freshman cap would not appear until the following Monday Those who were too obviously too nervously at home were freshmen for as each train brought a new contingent it was immediately absorbed into the hatless whiteshod bookladen throng whose function seemed to be to drift endlessly up and down the street emitting great clouds of smoke from brandnew pipes By afternoon Amory realized that now the newest arrivals were taking him for an upper classman and he tried conscientiously to look both pleasantly blasé and casually critical which was as near as he could analyze the prevalent facial expression
At five oclock he felt the need of hearing his own voice so he retreated to his house to see if any one else had arrived Having climbed the rickety stairs he scrutinized his room resignedly concluding that it was hopeless to attempt any more inspired decoration than class banners and tiger pictures There was a tap at the door
Come in
A slim face with gray eyes and a humorous smile appeared in the doorway
Got a hammer
No—sorry Maybe Mrs Twelve or whatever she goes by has one
The stranger advanced into the room
You an inmate of this asylum
Amory nodded
Awful barn for the rent we pay
Amory had to agree that it was
I thought of the campus he said but they say theres so few freshmen that theyre lost Have to sit around and study for something to do
The grayeyed man decided to introduce himself
My names Holiday
Blaines my name
They shook hands with the fashionable low swoop Amory grinned
Whered you prep
Andover—where did you
St Regiss
Oh did you I had a cousin there
They discussed the cousin thoroughly and then Holiday announced that he was to meet his brother for dinner at six
Come along and have a bite with us
All right
At the Kenilworth Amory met Burne Holiday—he of the gray eyes was Kerry—and during a limpid meal of thin soup and anaemic vegetables they stared at the other freshmen who sat either in small groups looking very ill at ease or in large groups seeming very much at home
I hear Commons is pretty bad said Amory
Thats the rumor But youve got to eat there—or pay anyways
Crime
Imposition
Oh at Princeton youve got to swallow everything the first year Its like a damned prep school
Amory agreed
Lot of pep though he insisted I wouldnt have gone to Yale for a million
Me either
You going out for anything inquired Amory of the elder brother
Not me—Burne here is going out for the Prince—the Daily Princetonian you know
Yes I know
You going out for anything
Why—yes Im going to take a whack at freshman football
Play at St Regiss
Some admitted Amory depreciatingly but Im getting so damned thin
Youre not thin
Well I used to be stocky last fall
Oh
After supper they attended the movies where Amory was fascinated by the glib comments of a man in front of him as well as by the wild yelling and shouting
Yoho
Oh honeybaby—youre so big and strong but oh so gentle
Clinch
Oh Clinch
Kiss her kiss at lady quick
Ohhh—
A group began whistling By the Sea and the audience took it up noisily This was followed by an indistinguishable song that included much stamping and then by an endless incoherent dirge
Ohhhhh
She works in a Jam Factoree
And—thatmaybeallright
But you cantfoolme
For I know—DAMN—WELL
That she DONTmakejamallnight
Ohhhh
As they pushed out giving and receiving curious impersonal glances Amory decided that he liked the movies wanted to enjoy them as the row of upper classmen in front had enjoyed them with their arms along the backs of the seats their comments Gaelic and caustic their attitude a mixture of critical wit and tolerant amusement
Want a sundae—I mean a jigger asked Kerry
Sure
They suppered heavily and then still sauntering eased back to 12
Wonderful night
Its a whiz
You men going to unpack
Guess so Come on Burne
Amory decided to sit for a while on the front steps so he bade them good night
The great tapestries of trees had darkened to ghosts back at the last edge of twilight The early moon had drenched the arches with pale blue and weaving over the night in and out of the gossamer rifts of moon swept a song a song with more than a hint of sadness infinitely transient infinitely regretful
He remembered that an alumnus of the nineties had told him of one of Booth Tarkingtons amusements standing in midcampus in the small hours and singing tenor songs to the stars arousing mingled emotions in the couched undergraduates according to the sentiment of their moods
Now far down the shadowy line of University Place a whiteclad phalanx broke the gloom and marching figures whiteshirted whitetrousered swung rhythmically up the street with linked arms and heads thrown back
Going back—going back
Going—back—to—Nassau—Hall
Going back—going back—
To the—Best—Old—Place—of—All
Going back—going back
From all—this—earthly—ball
Well—clear—the—track—as—we—go—back—
Going—back—to—Nassau—Hall
Amory closed his eyes as the ghostly procession drew near The song soared so high that all dropped out except the tenors who bore the melody triumphantly past the dangerpoint and relinquished it to the fantastic chorus Then Amory opened his eyes half afraid that sight would spoil the rich illusion of harmony
He sighed eagerly There at the head of the white platoon marched Allenby the football captain slim and defiant as if aware that this year the hopes of the college rested on him that his hundredandsixty pounds were expected to dodge to victory through the heavy blue and crimson lines
Fascinated Amory watched each rank of linked arms as it came abreast the faces indistinct above the polo shirts the voices blent in a paean of triumph—and then the procession passed through shadowy Campbell Arch and the voices grew fainter as it wound eastward over the campus
The minutes passed and Amory sat there very quietly He regretted the rule that would forbid freshmen to be outdoors after curfew for he wanted to ramble through the shadowy scented lanes where Witherspoon brooded like a dark mother over Whig and Clio her Attic children where the black Gothic snake of Little curled down to Cuyler and Patton these in turn flinging the mystery out over the placid slope rolling to the lake
Princeton of the daytime filtered slowly into his consciousness—West and Reunion redolent of the sixties Seventynine Hall brickred and arrogant Upper and Lower Pyne aristocratic Elizabethan ladies not quite content to live among shopkeepers and topping all climbing with clear blue aspiration the great dreaming spires of Holder and Cleveland towers
From the first he loved Princeton—its lazy beauty its halfgrasped significance the wild moonlight revel of the rushes the handsome prosperous biggame crowds and under it all the air of struggle that pervaded his class From the day when wildeyed and exhausted the jerseyed freshmen sat in the gymnasium and elected some one from Hill School class president a Lawrenceville celebrity vicepresident a hockey star from St Pauls secretary up until the end of sophomore year it never ceased that breathless social system that worship seldom named never really admitted of the bogey Big Man
First it was schools and Amory alone from St Regis watched the crowds form and widen and form again St Pauls Hill Pomfret eating at certain tacitly reserved tables in Commons dressing in their own corners of the gymnasium and drawing unconsciously about them a barrier of the slightly less important but socially ambitious to protect them from the friendly rather puzzled highschool element From the moment he realized this Amory resented social barriers as artificial distinctions made by the strong to bolster up their weak retainers and keep out the almost strong
Having decided to be one of the gods of the class, he reported for freshman football practice but in the second week playing quarterback already paragraphed in corners of the Princetonian he wrenched his knee seriously enough to put him out for the rest of the season This forced him to retire and consider the situation
12 Univee housed a dozen miscellaneous questionmarks There were three or four inconspicuous and quite startled boys from Lawrenceville two amateur wild men from a New York private school Kerry Holiday christened them the plebeian drunks a Jewish youth also from New York and as compensation for Amory the two Holidays to whom he took an instant fancy
The Holidays were rumored twins but really the darkhaired one Kerry was a year older than his blond brother Burne Kerry was tall with humorous gray eyes and a sudden attractive smile he became at once the mentor of the house reaper of ears that grew too high censor of conceit vendor of rare satirical humor Amory spread the table of their future friendship with all his ideas of what college should and did mean Kerry not inclined as yet to take things seriously chided him gently for being curious at this inopportune time about the intricacies of the social system but liked him and was both interested and amused
Burne fairhaired silent and intent appeared in the house only as a busy apparition gliding in quietly at night and off again in the early morning to get up his work in the library—he was out for the Princetonian competing furiously against forty others for the coveted first place In December he came down with diphtheria and some one else won the competition but returning to college in February he dauntlessly went after the prize again Necessarily Amorys acquaintance with him was in the way of threeminute chats walking to and from lectures so he failed to penetrate Burnes one absorbing interest and find what lay beneath it
Amory was far from contented He missed the place he had won at St Regis the being known and admired yet Princeton stimulated him and there were many things ahead calculated to arouse the Machiavelli latent in him could he but insert a wedge The upperclass clubs concerning which he had pumped a reluctant graduate during the previous summer excited his curiosity Ivy detached and breathlessly aristocratic Cottage an impressive mélange of brilliant adventurers and welldressed philanderers Tiger Inn broadshouldered and athletic vitalized by an honest elaboration of prepschool standards Cap and Gown antialcoholic faintly religious and politically powerful flamboyant Colonial literary Quadrangle and the dozen others varying in age and position
Anything which brought an under classman into too glaring a light was labelled with the damning brand of running it out The movies thrived on caustic comments but the men who made them were generally running it out talking of clubs was running it out standing for anything very strongly as for instance drinking parties or teetotalling was running it out in short being personally conspicuous was not tolerated and the influential man was the noncommittal man until at club elections in sophomore year every one should be sewed up in some bag for the rest of his college career
Amory found that writing for the Nassau Literary Magazine would get him nothing but that being on the board of the Daily Princetonian would get any one a good deal His vague desire to do immortal acting with the English Dramatic Association faded out when he found that the most ingenious brains and talents were concentrated upon the Triangle Club a musical comedy organization that every year took a great Christmas trip In the meanwhile feeling strangely alone and restless in Commons with new desires and ambitions stirring in his mind he let the first term go by between an envy of the embryo successes and a puzzled fretting with Kerry as to why they were not accepted immediately among the elite of the class.
Many afternoons they lounged in the windows of 12 Univee and watched the class pass to and from Commons noting satellites already attaching themselves to the more prominent watching the lonely grind with his hurried step and downcast eye envying the happy security of the big school groups
Were the damned middle class thats what he complained to Kerry one day as he lay stretched out on the sofa consuming a family of Fatimas with contemplative precision
Well why not We came to Princeton so we could feel that way toward the small colleges—have it on em more selfconfidence dress better cut a swathe—
Oh it isnt that I mind the glittering caste system admitted Amory I like having a bunch of hot cats on top but gosh Kerry Ive got to be one of them
But just now Amory youre only a sweaty bourgeois
Amory lay for a moment without speaking
I wont be—long he said finally But I hate to get anywhere by working for it Ill show the marks dont you know
Honorable scars Kerry craned his neck suddenly at the street Theres Langueduc if you want to see what he looks like—and Humbird just behind
Amory rose dynamically and sought the windows
Oh he said scrutinizing these worthies Humbird looks like a knockout but this Langueduc—hes the rugged type isnt he I distrust that sort All diamonds look big in the rough
Well said Kerry as the excitement subsided youre a literary genius Its up to you
I wonder—Amory paused—if I could be I honestly think so sometimes That sounds like the devil and I wouldnt say it to anybody except you
Well—go ahead Let your hair grow and write poems like this guy DInvilliers in the Lit
Amory reached lazily at a pile of magazines on the table
Read his latest effort
Never miss em Theyre rare
Amory glanced through the issue
Hello he said in surprise hes a freshman isnt he
Yeah
Listen to this My God
A serving lady speaks
Black velvet trails its folds over the day
White tapers prisoned in their silver frames
Wave their thin flames like shadows in the wind
Pia Pompia come—come away—
Now what the devil does that mean
Its a pantry scene
Her toes are stiffened like a storks in flight
Shes laid upon her bed on the white sheets
Her hands pressed on her smooth bust like a saint
Bella Cunizza come into the light
My gosh Kerry what in hell is it all about I swear I dont get him at all and Im a literary bird myself
Its pretty tricky said Kerry only youve got to think of hearses and stale milk when you read it That isnt as pash as some of them
Amory tossed the magazine on the table
Well he sighed I sure am up in the air I know Im not a regular fellow yet I loathe anybody else that isnt I cant decide whether to cultivate my mind and be a great dramatist or to thumb my nose at the Golden Treasury and be a Princeton slicker
Why decide suggested Kerry Better drift like me Im going to sail into prominence on Burnes coattails
I cant drift—I want to be interested I want to pull strings even for somebody else or be Princetonian chairman or Triangle president I want to be admired Kerry
Youre thinking too much about yourself
Amory sat up at this
No Im thinking about you too Weve got to get out and mix around the class right now when its fun to be a snob Id like to bring a sardine to the prom in June for instance but I wouldnt do it unless I could be damn debonaire about it—introduce her to all the prize parlorsnakes and the football captain and all that simple stuff
Amory said Kerry impatiently youre just going around in a circle If you want to be prominent get out and try for something if you dont just take it easy He yawned Come on lets let the smoke drift off Well go down and watch football practice
Amory gradually accepted this point of view decided that next fall would inaugurate his career and relinquished himself to watching Kerry extract joy from 12 Univee
They filled the Jewish youths bed with lemon pie they put out the gas all over the house every night by blowing into the jet in Amorys room to the bewilderment of Mrs Twelve and the local plumber they set up the effects of the plebeian drunks—pictures books and furniture—in the bathroom to the confusion of the pair who hazily discovered the transposition on their return from a Trenton spree they were disappointed beyond measure when the plebeian drunks decided to take it as a joke they played reddog and twentyone and jackpot from dinner to dawn and on the occasion of one mans birthday persuaded him to buy sufficient champagne for a hilarious celebration The donor of the party having remained sober Kerry and Amory accidentally dropped him down two flights of stairs and called shamefaced and penitent at the infirmary all the following week
Say who are all these women demanded Kerry one day protesting at the size of Amorys mail Ive been looking at the postmarks lately—Farmington and Dobbs and Westover and Dana Hall—whats the idea
Amory grinned
All from the Twin Cities He named them off Theres Marylyn De Witt—shes pretty got a car of her own and thats damn convenient theres Sally Weatherby—shes getting too fat theres Myra St Claire shes an old flame easy to kiss if you like it—
What line do you throw em demanded Kerry Ive tried everything and the mad wags arent even afraid of me
Youre the nice boy type suggested Amory
Thats just it Mother always feels the girl is safe if shes with me Honestly its annoying If I start to hold somebodys hand they laugh at me and let me just as if it wasnt part of them As soon as I get hold of a hand they sort of disconnect it from the rest of them
Sulk suggested Amory Tell em youre wild and have em reform you—go home furious—come back in half an hour—startle em
Kerry shook his head
No chance I wrote a St Timothy girl a really loving letter last year In one place I got rattled and said My God how I love you She took a nail scissors clipped out the My God and showed the rest of the letter all over school Doesnt work at all Im just good old Kerry and all that rot
Amory smiled and tried to picture himself as good old Amory He failed completely
February dripped snow and rain the cyclonic freshman midyears passed and life in 12 Univee continued interesting if not purposeful Once a day Amory indulged in a club sandwich cornflakes and Julienne potatoes at Joes accompanied usually by Kerry or Alec Connage The latter was a quiet rather aloof slicker from Hotchkiss who lived next door and shared the same enforced singleness as Amory due to the fact that his entire class had gone to Yale Joes was unaesthetic and faintly unsanitary but a limitless charge account could be opened there a convenience that Amory appreciated His father had been experimenting with mining stocks and in consequence his allowance while liberal was not at all what he had expected
Joes had the additional advantage of seclusion from curious upperclass eyes so at four each afternoon Amory accompanied by friend or book went up to experiment with his digestion One day in March finding that all the tables were occupied he slipped into a chair opposite a freshman who bent intently over a book at the last table They nodded briefly For twenty minutes Amory sat consuming bacon buns and reading Mrs Warrens Profession he had discovered Shaw quite by accident while browsing in the library during midyears the other freshman also intent on his volume meanwhile did away with a trio of chocolate malted milks
By and by Amorys eyes wandered curiously to his fellowlunchers book He spelled out the name and title upside down—Marpessa by Stephen Phillips This meant nothing to him his metrical education having been confined to such Sunday classics as Come into the Garden Maude and what morsels of Shakespeare and Milton had been recently forced upon him
Moved to address his visavis he simulated interest in his book for a moment and then exclaimed aloud as if involuntarily
Ha Great stuff
The other freshman looked up and Amory registered artificial embarrassment
Are you referring to your bacon buns His cracked kindly voice went well with the large spectacles and the impression of a voluminous keenness that he gave
No Amory answered I was referring to Bernard Shaw He turned the book around in explanation
Ive never read any Shaw Ive always meant to The boy paused and then continued Did you ever read Stephen Phillips or do you like poetry
Yes indeed Amory affirmed eagerly Ive never read much of Phillips though He had never heard of any Phillips except the late David Graham
Its pretty fair I think Of course hes a Victorian They sallied into a discussion of poetry in the course of which they introduced themselves and Amorys companion proved to be none other than that awful highbrow Thomas Parke DInvilliers who signed the passionate lovepoems in the Lit He was perhaps nineteen with stooped shoulders pale blue eyes and as Amory could tell from his general appearance without much conception of social competition and such phenomena of absorbing interest Still he liked books and it seemed forever since Amory had met any one who did if only that St Pauls crowd at the next table would not mistake him for a bird too he would enjoy the encounter tremendously They didnt seem to be noticing so he let himself go discussed books by the dozens—books he had read read about books he had never heard of rattling off lists of titles with the facility of a Brentanos clerk DInvilliers was partially taken in and wholly delighted In a goodnatured way he had almost decided that Princeton was one part deadly Philistines and one part deadly grinds and to find a person who could mention Keats without stammering yet evidently washed his hands was rather a treat
Ever read any Oscar Wilde he asked
No Who wrote it
Its a man—dont you know
Oh surely A faint chord was struck in Amorys memory Wasnt the comic opera Patience written about him
Yes thats the fella Ive just finished a book of his The Picture of Dorian Gray and I certainly wish youd read it Youd like it You can borrow it if you want to
Why Id like it a lot—thanks
Dont you want to come up to the room Ive got a few other books
Amory hesitated glanced at the St Pauls group—one of them was the magnificent exquisite Humbird—and he considered how determinate the addition of this friend would be He never got to the stage of making them and getting rid of them—he was not hard enough for that—so he measured Thomas Parke DInvilliers undoubted attractions and value against the menace of cold eyes behind tortoiserimmed spectacles that he fancied glared from the next table
Yes Ill go
So he found Dorian Gray and the Mystic and Somber Dolores and the Belle Dame sans Merci for a month was keen on naught else The world became pale and interesting and he tried hard to look at Princeton through the satiated eyes of Oscar Wilde and Swinburne—or Fingal OFlaherty and Algernon Charles as he called them in precieuse jest He read enormously every night—Shaw Chesterton Barrie Pinero Yeats Synge Ernest Dowson Arthur Symons Keats Sudermann Robert Hugh Benson the Savoy Operas—just a heterogeneous mixture for he suddenly discovered that he had read nothing for years
Tom DInvilliers became at first an occasion rather than a friend Amory saw him about once a week and together they gilded the ceiling of Toms room and decorated the walls with imitation tapestry bought at an auction tall candlesticks and figured curtains Amory liked him for being clever and literary without effeminacy or affectation In fact Amory did most of the strutting and tried painfully to make every remark an epigram than which if one is content with ostensible epigrams there are many feats harder 12 Univee was amused Kerry read Dorian Gray and simulated Lord Henry following Amory about addressing him as Dorian and pretending to encourage in him wicked fancies and attenuated tendencies to ennui When he carried it into Commons to the amazement of the others at table Amory became furiously embarrassed and after that made epigrams only before DInvilliers or a convenient mirror
One day Tom and Amory tried reciting their own and Lord Dunsanys poems to the music of Kerrys graphophone
Chant cried Tom Dont recite Chant
Amory who was performing looked annoyed and claimed that he needed a record with less piano in it Kerry thereupon rolled on the floor in stifled laughter
Put on Hearts and Flowers he howled Oh my Lord Im going to cast a kitten
Shut off the damn graphophone Amory cried rather red in the face Im not giving an exhibition
In the meanwhile Amory delicately kept trying to awaken a sense of the social system in DInvilliers for he knew that this poet was really more conventional than he and needed merely watered hair a smaller range of conversation and a darker brown hat to become quite regular But the liturgy of Livingstone collars and dark ties fell on heedless ears in fact DInvilliers faintly resented his efforts so Amory confined himself to calls once a week and brought him occasionally to 12 Univee This caused mild titters among the other freshmen who called them Doctor Johnson and Boswell
Alec Connage another frequent visitor liked him in a vague way but was afraid of him as a highbrow Kerry who saw through his poetic patter to the solid almost respectable depths within was immensely amused and would have him recite poetry by the hour while he lay with closed eyes on Amorys sofa and listened
Asleep or waking is it for her neck
Kissed over close wears yet a purple speck
Wherein the pained blood falters and goes out
Soft and stung softly—fairer for a fleck
Thats good Kerry would say softly It pleases the elder Holiday Thats a great poet I guess Tom delighted at an audience would ramble through the Poems and Ballades until Kerry and Amory knew them almost as well as he
Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools and slow clouds sailed harmoniously above the willows May came too soon and suddenly unable to bear walls he wandered the campus at all hours through starlight and rain
A DAMP SYMBOLIC INTERLUDE
The night mist fell From the moon it rolled clustered about the spires and towers and then settled below them so that the dreaming peaks were still in lofty aspiration toward the sky Figures that dotted the day like ants now brushed along as shadowy ghosts in and out of the foreground The Gothic halls and cloisters were infinitely more mysterious as they loomed suddenly out of the darkness outlined each by myriad faint squares of yellow light Indefinitely from somewhere a bell boomed the quarterhour and Amory pausing by the sundial stretched himself out full length on the damp grass The cool bathed his eyes and slowed the flight of time—time that had crept so insidiously through the lazy April afternoons seemed so intangible in the long spring twilights Evening after evening the senior singing had drifted over the campus in melancholy beauty and through the shell of his undergraduate consciousness had broken a deep and reverent devotion to the gray walls and Gothic peaks and all they symbolized as warehouses of dead ages
The tower that in view of his window sprang upward grew into a spire yearning higher until its uppermost tip was half invisible against the morning skies gave him the first sense of the transiency and unimportance of the campus figures except as holders of the apostolic succession He liked knowing that Gothic architecture with its upward trend was peculiarly appropriate to universities and the idea became personal to him The silent stretches of green the quiet halls with an occasional lateburning scholastic light held his imagination in a strong grasp and the chastity of the spire became a symbol of this perception
Damn it all he whispered aloud wetting his hands in the damp and running them through his hair Next year I work Yet he knew that where now the spirit of spires and towers made him dreamily acquiescent it would then overawe him Where now he realized only his own inconsequence effort would make him aware of his own impotency and insufficiency
The college dreamed on—awake He felt a nervous excitement that might have been the very throb of its slow heart It was a stream where he was to throw a stone whose faint ripple would be vanishing almost as it left his hand As yet he had given nothing he had taken nothing
A belated freshman his oilskin slicker rasping loudly slushed along the soft path A voice from somewhere called the inevitable formula Stick out your head below an unseen window A hundred little sounds of the current drifting on under the fog pressed in finally on his consciousness
Oh God he cried suddenly and started at the sound of his voice in the stillness The rain dripped on A minute longer he lay without moving his hands clinched Then he sprang to his feet and gave his clothes a tentative pat
Im very damn wet he said aloud to the sundial
HISTORICAL
The war began in the summer following his freshman year Beyond a sporting interest in the German dash for Paris the whole affair failed either to thrill or interest him With the attitude he might have held toward an amusing melodrama he hoped it would be long and bloody If it had not continued he would have felt like an irate ticketholder at a prizefight where the principals refused to mix it up
That was his total reaction
HAHA HORTENSE
All right ponies
Shake it up
Hey ponies—how about easing up on that crap game and shaking a mean hip
Hey ponies
The coach fumed helplessly the Triangle Club president glowering with anxiety varied between furious bursts of authority and fits of temperamental lassitude when he sat spiritless and wondered how the devil the show was ever going on tour by Christmas
All right Well take the pirate song
The ponies took last drags at their cigarettes and slumped into place the leading lady rushed into the foreground setting his hands and feet in an atmospheric mince and as the coach clapped and stamped and tumped and dadad they hashed out a dance
A great seething anthill was the Triangle Club It gave a musical comedy every year travelling with cast chorus orchestra and scenery all through Christmas vacation The play and music were the work of undergraduates and the club itself was the most influential of institutions over three hundred men competing for it every year
Amory after an easy victory in the first sophomore Princetonian competition stepped into a vacancy of the cast as Boiling Oil a Pirate Lieutenant Every night for the last week they had rehearsed HaHa Hortense in the Casino from two in the afternoon until eight in the morning sustained by dark and powerful coffee and sleeping in lectures through the interim A rare scene the Casino A big barnlike auditorium dotted with boys as girls boys as pirates boys as babies the scenery in course of being violently set up the spotlight man rehearsing by throwing weird shafts into angry eyes over all the constant tuning of the orchestra or the cheerful tumptytump of a Triangle tune The boy who writes the lyrics stands in the corner biting a pencil with twenty minutes to think of an encore the business manager argues with the secretary as to how much money can be spent on those damn milkmaid costumes the old graduate president in ninetyeight perches on a box and thinks how much simpler it was in his day
How a Triangle show ever got off was a mystery but it was a riotous mystery anyway whether or not one did enough service to wear a little gold Triangle on his watchchain HaHa Hortense was written over six times and had the names of nine collaborators on the programme All Triangle shows started by being something different—not just a regular musical comedy but when the several authors the president the coach and the faculty committee finished with it there remained just the old reliable Triangle show with the old reliable jokes and the star comedian who got expelled or sick or something just before the trip and the darkwhiskered man in the ponyballet who absolutely wont shave twice a day doggone it
There was one brilliant place in HaHa Hortense It is a Princeton tradition that whenever a Yale man who is a member of the widely advertised Skull and Bones hears the sacred name mentioned he must leave the room It is also a tradition that the members are invariably successful in later life amassing fortunes or votes or coupons or whatever they choose to amass Therefore at each performance of HaHa Hortense halfadozen seats were kept from sale and occupied by six of the worstlooking vagabonds that could be hired from the streets further touched up by the Triangle makeup man At the moment in the show where Firebrand the Pirate Chief pointed at his black flag and said I am a Yale graduate—note my Skull and Bones—at this very moment the six vagabonds were instructed to rise conspicuously and leave the theatre with looks of deep melancholy and an injured dignity It was claimed though never proved that on one occasion the hired Elis were swelled by one of the real thing
They played through vacation to the fashionable of eight cities Amory liked Louisville and Memphis best these knew how to meet strangers furnished extraordinary punch and flaunted an astonishing array of feminine beauty Chicago he approved for a certain verve that transcended its loud accent—however it was a Yale town and as the Yale Glee Club was expected in a week the Triangle received only divided homage In Baltimore Princeton was at home and every one fell in love There was a proper consumption of strong waters all along the line one man invariably went on the stage highly stimulated claiming that his particular interpretation of the part required it There were three private cars however no one slept except in the third car which was called the animal car and where were herded the spectacled windjammers of the orchestra Everything was so hurried that there was no time to be bored but when they arrived in Philadelphia with vacation nearly over there was rest in getting out of the heavy atmosphere of flowers and greasepaint and the ponies took off their corsets with abdominal pains and sighs of relief
When the disbanding came Amory set out post haste for Minneapolis for Sally Weatherbys cousin Isabelle Borge was coming to spend the winter in Minneapolis while her parents went abroad He remembered Isabelle only as a little girl with whom he had played sometimes when he first went to Minneapolis She had gone to Baltimore to live—but since then she had developed a past
Amory was in full stride confident nervous and jubilant Scurrying back to Minneapolis to see a girl he had known as a child seemed the interesting and romantic thing to do so without compunction he wired his mother not to expect him sat in the train and thought about himself for thirtysix hours
PETTING
On the Triangle trip Amory had come into constant contact with that great current American phenomenon the petting party
None of the Victorian mothers—and most of the mothers were Victorian—had any idea how casually their daughters were accustomed to be kissed Servantgirls are that way says Mrs HustonCarmelite to her popular daughter They are kissed first and proposed to afterward
But the Popular Daughter becomes engaged every six months between sixteen and twentytwo when she arranges a match with young Hambell of Cambell Hambell who fatuously considers himself her first love and between engagements the P D she is selected by the cutin system at dances which favors the survival of the fittest has other sentimental last kisses in the moonlight or the firelight or the outer darkness
Amory saw girls doing things that even in his memory would have been impossible eating threeoclock afterdance suppers in impossible cafes talking of every side of life with an air half of earnestness half of mockery yet with a furtive excitement that Amory considered stood for a real moral letdown But he never realized how widespread it was until he saw the cities between New York and Chicago as one vast juvenile intrigue
Afternoon at the Plaza with winter twilight hovering outside and faint drums downstairs they strut and fret in the lobby taking another cocktail scrupulously attired and waiting Then the swinging doors revolve and three bundles of fur mince in The theatre comes afterward then a table at the Midnight Frolic—of course mother will be along there but she will serve only to make things more secretive and brilliant as she sits in solitary state at the deserted table and thinks such entertainments as this are not half so bad as they are painted only rather wearying But the P D is in love again it was odd wasnt it—that though there was so much room left in the taxi the P D and the boy from Williams were somehow crowded out and had to go in a separate car Odd Didnt you notice how flushed the P D was when she arrived just seven minutes late But the P D gets away with it
The belle had become the flirt the flirt had become the baby vamp The belle had five or six callers every afternoon If the P D by some strange accident has two it is made pretty uncomfortable for the one who hasnt a date with her The belle was surrounded by a dozen men in the intermissions between dances Try to find the P D between dances just try to find her
The same girl deep in an atmosphere of jungle music and the questioning of moral codes Amory found it rather fascinating to feel that any popular girl he met before eight he might quite possibly kiss before twelve
Why on earth are we here he asked the girl with the green combs one night as they sat in some ones limousine outside the Country Club in Louisville
I dont know Im just full of the devil
Lets be frank—well never see each other again I wanted to come out here with you because I thought you were the bestlooking girl in sight You really dont care whether you ever see me again do you
No—but is this your line for every girl What have I done to deserve it
And you didnt feel tired dancing or want a cigarette or any of the things you said You just wanted to be—
Oh lets go in she interrupted if you want to analyze Lets not talk about it
When the handknit sleeveless jerseys were stylish Amory in a burst of inspiration named them petting shirts The name travelled from coast to coast on the lips of parlorsnakes and P Ds
DESCRIPTIVE
Amory was now eighteen years old just under six feet tall and exceptionally but not conventionally handsome He had rather a young face the ingenuousness of which was marred by the penetrating green eyes fringed with long dark eyelashes He lacked somehow that intense animal magnetism that so often accompanies beauty in men or women his personality seemed rather a mental thing and it was not in his power to turn it on and off like a waterfaucet But people never forgot his face
ISABELLE
She paused at the top of the staircase The sensations attributed to divers on springboards leading ladies on opening nights and lumpy husky young men on the day of the Big Game crowded through her She should have descended to a burst of drums or a discordant blend of themes from Thais and Carmen She had never been so curious about her appearance she had never been so satisfied with it She had been sixteen years old for six months
Isabelle called her cousin Sally from the doorway of the dressingroom
Im ready She caught a slight lump of nervousness in her throat
I had to send back to the house for another pair of slippers Itll be just a minute
Isabelle started toward the dressingroom for a last peek in the mirror but something decided her to stand there and gaze down the broad stairs of the Minnehaha Club They curved tantalizingly and she could catch just a glimpse of two pairs of masculine feet in the hall below Pumpshod in uniform black they gave no hint of identity but she wondered eagerly if one pair were attached to Amory Blaine This young man not as yet encountered had nevertheless taken up a considerable part of her day—the first day of her arrival Coming up in the machine from the station Sally had volunteered amid a rain of question comment revelation and exaggeration
You remember Amory Blaine of course Well hes simply mad to see you again Hes stayed over a day from college and hes coming tonight Hes heard so much about you—says he remembers your eyes
This had pleased Isabelle It put them on equal terms although she was quite capable of staging her own romances with or without advance advertising But following her happy tremble of anticipation came a sinking sensation that made her ask
How do you mean hes heard about me What sort of things
Sally smiled She felt rather in the capacity of a showman with her more exotic cousin
He knows youre—youre considered beautiful and all that—she paused—and I guess he knows youve been kissed
At this Isabelles little fist had clinched suddenly under the fur robe She was accustomed to be thus followed by her desperate past and it never failed to rouse in her the same feeling of resentment yet—in a strange town it was an advantageous reputation She was a Speed was she Well—let them find out
Out of the window Isabelle watched the snow glide by in the frosty morning It was ever so much colder here than in Baltimore she had not remembered the glass of the side door was iced the windows were shirred with snow in the corners Her mind played still with one subject Did he dress like that boy there who walked calmly down a bustling business street in moccasins and wintercarnival costume How very Western Of course he wasnt that way he went to Princeton was a sophomore or something Really she had no distinct idea of him An ancient snapshot she had preserved in an old kodak book had impressed her by the big eyes which he had probably grown up to by now However in the last month when her winter visit to Sally had been decided on he had assumed the proportions of a worthy adversary Children most astute of matchmakers plot their campaigns quickly and Sally had played a clever correspondence sonata to Isabelles excitable temperament Isabelle had been for some time capable of very strong if very transient emotions
They drew up at a spreading whitestone building set back from the snowy street Mrs Weatherby greeted her warmly and her various younger cousins were produced from the corners where they skulked politely Isabelle met them tactfully At her best she allied all with whom she came in contact—except older girls and some women All the impressions she made were conscious The halfdozen girls she renewed acquaintance with that morning were all rather impressed and as much by her direct personality as by her reputation Amory Blaine was an open subject Evidently a bit light of love neither popular nor unpopular—every girl there seemed to have had an affair with him at some time or other but no one volunteered any really useful information He was going to fall for her Sally had published that information to her young set and they were retailing it back to Sally as fast as they set eyes on Isabelle Isabelle resolved secretly that she would if necessary force herself to like him—she owed it to Sally Suppose she were terribly disappointed Sally had painted him in such glowing colors—he was goodlooking sort of distinguished when he wants to be had a line and was properly inconstant In fact he summed up all the romance that her age and environment led her to desire She wondered if those were his dancingshoes that foxtrotted tentatively around the soft rug below
All impressions and in fact all ideas were extremely kaleidoscopic to Isabelle She had that curious mixture of the social and the artistic temperaments found often in two classes society women and actresses Her education or rather her sophistication had been absorbed from the boys who had dangled on her favor her tact was instinctive and her capacity for loveaffairs was limited only by the number of the susceptible within telephone distance Flirt smiled from her large blackbrown eyes and shone through her intense physical magnetism
So she waited at the head of the stairs that evening while slippers were fetched Just as she was growing impatient Sally came out of the dressingroom beaming with her accustomed good nature and high spirits and together they descended to the floor below while the shifting searchlight of Isabelles mind flashed on two ideas she was glad she had high color tonight and she wondered if he danced well
Downstairs in the clubs great room she was surrounded for a moment by the girls she had met in the afternoon then she heard Sallys voice repeating a cycle of names and found herself bowing to a sextet of black and white terribly stiff vaguely familiar figures The name Blaine figured somewhere but at first she could not place him A very confused very juvenile moment of awkward backings and bumpings followed and every one found himself talking to the person he least desired to Isabelle manoeuvred herself and Froggy Parker freshman at Harvard with whom she had once played hopscotch to a seat on the stairs A humorous reference to the past was all she needed The things Isabelle could do socially with one idea were remarkable First she repeated it rapturously in an enthusiastic contralto with a soupcon of Southern accent then she held it off at a distance and smiled at it—her wonderful smile then she delivered it in variations and played a sort of mental catch with it all this in the nominal form of dialogue Froggy was fascinated and quite unconscious that this was being done not for him but for the green eyes that glistened under the shining carefully watered hair a little to her left for Isabelle had discovered Amory As an actress even in the fullest flush of her own conscious magnetism gets a deep impression of most of the people in the front row so Isabelle sized up her antagonist First he had auburn hair and from her feeling of disappointment she knew that she had expected him to be dark and of garteradvertisement slenderness For the rest a faint flush and a straight romantic profile the effect set off by a closefitting dress suit and a silk ruffled shirt of the kind that women still delight to see men wear but men were just beginning to get tired of
During this inspection Amory was quietly watching
Dont you think so she said suddenly turning to him innocenteyed
There was a stir and Sally led the way over to their table Amory struggled to Isabelles side and whispered
Youre my dinner partner you know Were all coached for each other
Isabelle gasped—this was rather right in line But really she felt as if a good speech had been taken from the star and given to a minor character She mustnt lose the leadership a bit The dinnertable glittered with laughter at the confusion of getting places and then curious eyes were turned on her sitting near the head She was enjoying this immensely and Froggy Parker was so engrossed with the added sparkle of her rising color that he forgot to pull out Sallys chair and fell into a dim confusion Amory was on the other side full of confidence and vanity gazing at her in open admiration He began directly and so did Froggy
Ive heard a lot about you since you wore braids—
Wasnt it funny this afternoon—
Both stopped Isabelle turned to Amory shyly Her face was always enough answer for any one but she decided to speak
How—from whom
From everybody—for all the years since youve been away She blushed appropriately On her right Froggy was hors de combat already although he hadnt quite realized it
Ill tell you what I remembered about you all these years Amory continued She leaned slightly toward him and looked modestly at the celery before her Froggy sighed—he knew Amory and the situations that Amory seemed born to handle He turned to Sally and asked her if she was going away to school next year Amory opened with grapeshot
Ive got an adjective that just fits you This was one of his favorite starts—he seldom had a word in mind but it was a curiosity provoker and he could always produce something complimentary if he got in a tight corner
Oh—what Isabelles face was a study in enraptured curiosity
Amory shook his head
I dont know you very well yet
Will you tell me—afterward she half whispered
He nodded
Well sit out
Isabelle nodded
Did any one ever tell you you have keen eyes she said
Amory attempted to make them look even keener He fancied but he was not sure that her foot had just touched his under the table But it might possibly have been only the table leg It was so hard to tell Still it thrilled him He wondered quickly if there would be any difficulty in securing the little den upstairs
BABES IN THE WOODS
Isabelle and Amory were distinctly not innocent nor were they particularly brazen Moreover amateur standing had very little value in the game they were playing a game that would presumably be her principal study for years to come She had begun as he had with good looks and an excitable temperament and the rest was the result of accessible popular novels and dressingroom conversation culled from a slightly older set Isabelle had walked with an artificial gait at nine and a half and when her eyes wide and starry proclaimed the ingenue most Amory was proportionately less deceived He waited for the mask to drop off but at the same time he did not question her right to wear it She on her part was not impressed by his studied air of blasé sophistication She had lived in a larger city and had slightly an advantage in range But she accepted his pose—it was one of the dozen little conventions of this kind of affair He was aware that he was getting this particular favor now because she had been coached he knew that he stood for merely the best game in sight and that he would have to improve his opportunity before he lost his advantage So they proceeded with an infinite guile that would have horrified her parents
After the dinner the dance began smoothly Smoothly—boys cut in on Isabelle every few feet and then squabbled in the corners with You might let me get more than an inch and She didnt like it either—she told me so next time I cut in It was true—she told every one so and gave every hand a parting pressure that said You know that your dances are making my evening
But time passed two hours of it and the less subtle beaux had better learned to focus their pseudopassionate glances elsewhere for eleven oclock found Isabelle and Amory sitting on the couch in the little den off the readingroom upstairs She was conscious that they were a handsome pair and seemed to belong distinctively in this seclusion while lesser lights fluttered and chattered downstairs
Boys who passed the door looked in enviously—girls who passed only laughed and frowned and grew wise within themselves
They had now reached a very definite stage They had traded accounts of their progress since they had met last and she had listened to much she had heard before He was a sophomore was on the Princetonian board hoped to be chairman in senior year He learned that some of the boys she went with in Baltimore were terrible speeds and came to dances in states of artificial stimulation most of them were twenty or so and drove alluring red Stutzes A good half seemed to have already flunked out of various schools and colleges but some of them bore athletic names that made him look at her admiringly As a matter of fact, Isabelles closer acquaintance with the universities was just commencing She had bowing acquaintance with a lot of young men who thought she was a pretty kid—worth keeping an eye on But Isabelle strung the names into a fabrication of gayety that would have dazzled a Viennese nobleman Such is the power of young contralto voices on sinkdown sofas
He asked her if she thought he was conceited She said there was a difference between conceit and selfconfidence She adored selfconfidence in men
Is Froggy a good friend of yours she asked
Rather—why
Hes a bum dancer
Amory laughed
He dances as if the girl were on his back instead of in his arms
She appreciated this
Youre awfully good at sizing people up
Amory denied this painfully However he sized up several people for her Then they talked about hands
Youve got awfully nice hands she said They look as if you played the piano Do you
I have said they had reached a very definite stage—nay more a very critical stage Amory had stayed over a day to see her and his train left at twelveeighteen that night His trunk and suitcase awaited him at the station his watch was beginning to hang heavy in his pocket
Isabelle he said suddenly I want to tell you something They had been talking lightly about that funny look in her eyes and Isabelle knew from the change in his manner what was coming—indeed she had been wondering how soon it would come Amory reached above their heads and turned out the electric light so that they were in the dark except for the red glow that fell through the door from the readingroom lamps Then he began
I dont know whether or not you know what you—what Im going to say Lordy Isabelle—this sounds like a line but it isnt
I know said Isabelle softly
Maybe well never meet again like this—I have darned hard luck sometimes He was leaning away from her on the other arm of the lounge but she could see his eyes plainly in the dark
Youll meet me again—silly There was just the slightest emphasis on the last word—so that it became almost a term of endearment He continued a bit huskily
Ive fallen for a lot of people—girls—and I guess you have too—boys I mean but honestly you— he broke off suddenly and leaned forward chin on his hands Oh whats the use—youll go your way and I suppose Ill go mine
Silence for a moment Isabelle was quite stirred she wound her handkerchief into a tight ball and by the faint light that streamed over her dropped it deliberately on the floor Their hands touched for an instant but neither spoke Silences were becoming more frequent and more delicious Outside another stray couple had come up and were experimenting on the piano in the next room After the usual preliminary of chopsticks one of them started Babes in the Woods and a light tenor carried the words into the den
Give me your hand
Ill understand
Were off to slumberland
Isabelle hummed it softly and trembled as she felt Amorys hand close over hers
Isabelle he whispered You know Im mad about you You do give a darn about me
Yes
How much do you care—do you like any one better
No He could scarcely hear her although he bent so near that he felt her breath against his cheek
Isabelle Im going back to college for six long months and why shouldnt we—if I could only just have one thing to remember you by—
Close the door Her voice had just stirred so that he half wondered whether she had spoken at all As he swung the door softly shut the music seemed quivering just outside
Moonlight is bright
Kiss me good night
What a wonderful song she thought—everything was wonderful tonight most of all this romantic scene in the den with their hands clinging and the inevitable looming charmingly close The future vista of her life seemed an unending succession of scenes like this under moonlight and pale starlight and in the backs of warm limousines and in low cosy roadsters stopped under sheltering trees—only the boy might change and this one was so nice He took her hand softly With a sudden movement he turned it and holding it to his lips kissed the palm
Isabelle His whisper blended in the music and they seemed to float nearer together Her breath came faster Cant I kiss you Isabelle—Isabelle Lips half parted she turned her head to him in the dark Suddenly the ring of voices the sound of running footsteps surged toward them Quick as a flash Amory reached up and turned on the light and when the door opened and three boys the wrathy and dancecraving Froggy among them rushed in he was turning over the magazines on the table while she sat without moving serene and unembarrassed and even greeted them with a welcoming smile But her heart was beating wildly and she felt somehow as if she had been deprived
It was evidently over There was a clamor for a dance there was a glance that passed between them—on his side despair on hers regret and then the evening went on with the reassured beaux and the eternal cutting in
At quarter to twelve Amory shook hands with her gravely in the midst of a small crowd assembled to wish him goodspeed For an instant he lost his poise and she felt a bit rattled when a satirical voice from a concealed wit cried
Take her outside Amory As he took her hand he pressed it a little and she returned the pressure as she had done to twenty hands that evening—that was all
At two oclock back at the Weatherbys Sally asked her if she and Amory had had a time in the den Isabelle turned to her quietly In her eyes was the light of the idealist the inviolate dreamer of Joanlike dreams
No she answered I dont do that sort of thing any more he asked me to but I said no
As she crept in bed she wondered what hed say in his special delivery tomorrow He had such a goodlooking mouth—would she ever—
Fourteen angels were watching oer them sang Sally sleepily from the next room
Damn muttered Isabelle punching the pillow into a luxurious lump and exploring the cold sheets cautiously Damn
CARNIVAL
Amory by way of the Princetonian had arrived The minor snobs finely balanced thermometers of success warmed to him as the club elections grew nigh and he and Tom were visited by groups of upper classmen who arrived awkwardly balanced on the edge of the furniture and talked of all subjects except the one of absorbing interest Amory was amused at the intent eyes upon him and in case the visitors represented some club in which he was not interested took great pleasure in shocking them with unorthodox remarks
Oh let me see— he said one night to a flabbergasted delegation what club do you represent
With visitors from Ivy and Cottage and Tiger Inn he played the nice unspoilt ingenuous boy very much at ease and quite unaware of the object of the call
When the fatal morning arrived early in March and the campus became a document in hysteria he slid smoothly into Cottage with Alec Connage and watched his suddenly neurotic class with much wonder
There were fickle groups that jumped from club to club there were friends of two or three days who announced tearfully and wildly that they must join the same club nothing should separate them there were snarling disclosures of longhidden grudges as the Suddenly Prominent remembered snubs of freshman year Unknown men were elevated into importance when they received certain coveted bids others who were considered all set found that they had made unexpected enemies felt themselves stranded and deserted talked wildly of leaving college
In his own crowd Amory saw men kept out for wearing green hats for being a damn tailors dummy for having too much pull in heaven for getting drunk one night not like a gentleman by God or for unfathomable secret reasons known to no one but the wielders of the black balls
This orgy of sociability culminated in a gigantic party at the Nassau Inn where punch was dispensed from immense bowls and the whole downstairs became a delirious circulating shouting pattern of faces and voices
Hi Dibby—gratulations
Goo boy Tom you got a good bunch in Cap
Say Kerry—
Oh Kerry—I hear you went Tiger with all the weightlifters Well I didnt go Cottage—the parlorsnakes delight
They say Overton fainted when he got his Ivy bid—Did he sign up the first day—oh no Tore over to MurrayDodge on a bicycle—afraid it was a mistake
Howd you get into Cap—you old roue
Gratulations
Gratulations yourself Hear you got a good crowd
When the bar closed the party broke up into groups and streamed singing over the snowclad campus in a weird delusion that snobbishness and strain were over at last and that they could do what they pleased for the next two years
Long afterward Amory thought of sophomore spring as the happiest time of his life His ideas were in tune with life as he found it he wanted no more than to drift and dream and enjoy a dozen newfound friendships through the April afternoons
Alec Connage came into his room one morning and woke him up into the sunshine and peculiar glory of Campbell Hall shining in the window
Wake up Original Sin and scrape yourself together Be in front of Renwicks in half an hour Somebodys got a car He took the bureau cover and carefully deposited it with its load of small articles upon the bed
Whered you get the car demanded Amory cynically
Sacred trust but dont be a critical goopher or you cant go
I think Ill sleep Amory said calmly resettling himself and reaching beside the bed for a cigarette
Sleep
Why not Ive got a class at eleventhirty
You damned gloom Of course if you dont want to go to the coast—
With a bound Amory was out of bed scattering the bureau covers burden on the floor The coast he hadnt seen it for years since he and his mother were on their pilgrimage
Whos going he demanded as he wriggled into his B V Ds
Oh Dick Humbird and Kerry Holiday and Jesse Ferrenby and—oh about five or six Speed it up kid
In ten minutes Amory was devouring cornflakes in Renwicks and at ninethirty they bowled happily out of town headed for the sands of Deal Beach
You see said Kerry the car belongs down there In fact it was stolen from Asbury Park by persons unknown who deserted it in Princeton and left for the West Heartless Humbird here got permission from the city council to deliver it
Anybody got any money suggested Ferrenby turning around from the front seat
There was an emphatic negative chorus
That makes it interesting
Money—whats money We can sell the car
Charge him salvage or something
Howre we going to get food asked Amory
Honestly answered Kerry eying him reprovingly do you doubt Kerrys ability for three short days Some people have lived on nothing for years at a time Read the Boy Scout Monthly
Three days Amory mused and Ive got classes
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
Its a long walk back
Amory youre running it out if I may coin a new phrase
Hadnt 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 winters 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—
Whats the matter Amory Amorys thinking about poetry about the pretty birds and flowers I can see it in his eye
No Im not he lied Im 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 mustnt 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 havent seen it for eight years Oh gentlefolk stop the car
What an odd child remarked Alec
I do believe hes 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 any one had told him then that these things were banalities he would have gaped in wonder
Now well get lunch ordered Kerry wandering up with the crowd Come on Amory tear yourself away and get practical
Well 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 diningroom 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
Whats the bill
Some one scanned it
Eight twentyfive
Rotten overcharge Well 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 dumfounded that he stood motionless and expressionless while they walked out
Wont he send after us
No said Kerry for a minute hell think were the proprietors sons or something then hell look at the check again and call the manager and in the meantime—
They left the car at Asbury and streetcard 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 per cent on the total cost something about the appearance and savoirfaire of the crowd made the thing go and they were not pursued
You see Amory were Marxian Socialists explained Kerry We dont believe in property and were putting it to the great test
Night will descend Amory suggested
Watch and put your trust in Holiday
They became jovial about fivethirty 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 halfwitted 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 wellbuilt—black curly hair straight features and rather a dark skin Everything he said sounded intangibly appropriate He possessed infinite courage an averagely good mind and a sense of honor with a clear charm and noblesse oblige that varied it from righteousness He could dissipate without going to pieces and even his most bohemian adventures never seemed running it out People dressed like him tried to talk as he did Amory decided that he probably held the world back but he wouldnt have changed him
He differed from the healthy type that was essentially middle class—he never seemed to perspire Some people couldnt be familiar with a chauffeur without having it returned Humbird could have lunched at Sherrys with a colored man yet people would have somehow known that it was all right He was not a snob though he knew only half his class His friends ranged from the highest to the lowest but it was impossible to cultivate him Servants worshipped him and treated him like a god He seemed the eternal example of what the upper class tries to be
Hes like those pictures in the Illustrated London News of the English officers who have been killed Amory had said to Alec Well Alec had answered if you want to know the shocking truth his father was a grocery clerk who made a fortune in Tacoma real estate and came to New York ten years ago
Amory had felt a curious sinking sensation
This present type of party was made possible by the surging together of the class after club elections—as if to make a last desperate attempt to know itself to keep together to fight off the tightening spirit of the clubs It was a letdown from the conventional heights they had all walked so rigidly
After supper they saw Kaluka to the boardwalk and then strolled back along the beach to Asbury The evening sea was a new sensation for all its color and mellow age was gone and it seemed the bleak waste that made the Norse sagas sad Amory thought of Kiplings
Beaches of Lukanon before the sealers came
It was still a music though infinitely sorrowful
Ten oclock found them penniless They had suppered greatly on their last eleven cents and singing strolled up through the casinos and lighted arches on the boardwalk stopping to listen approvingly to all band concerts In one place Kerry took up a collection for the French War Orphans which netted a dollar and twenty cents and with this they bought some brandy in case they caught cold in the night They finished the day in a movingpicture show and went into solemn systematic roars of laughter at an ancient comedy to the startled annoyance of the rest of the audience Their entrance was distinctly strategic for each man as he entered pointed reproachfully at the one just behind him Sloane bringing up the rear disclaimed all knowledge and responsibility as soon as the others were scattered inside then as the irate tickettaker rushed in he followed nonchalantly
They reassembled later by the Casino and made arrangements for the night Kerry wormed permission from the watchman to sleep on the platform and having collected a huge pile of rugs from the booths to serve as mattresses and blankets they talked until midnight and then fell into a dreamless sleep though Amory tried hard to stay awake and watch that marvellous moon settle on the sea
So they progressed for two happy days up and down the shore by streetcar or machine or by shoeleather on the crowded boardwalk sometimes eating with the wealthy more frequently dining frugally at the expense of an unsuspecting restaurateur They had their photos taken eight poses in a quickdevelopment store Kerry insisted on grouping them as a varsity football team and then as a tough gang from the East Side with their coats inside out and himself sitting in the middle on a cardboard moon The photographer probably has them yet—at least they never called for them The weather was perfect and again they slept outside and again Amory fell unwillingly asleep
Sunday broke stolid and respectable and even the sea seemed to mumble and complain so they returned to Princeton via the Fords of transient farmers and broke up with colds in their heads but otherwise none the worse for wandering
Even more than in the year before Amory neglected his work not deliberately but lazily and through a multitude of other interests Coordinate geometry and the melancholy hexameters of Corneille and Racine held forth small allurements and even psychology which he had eagerly awaited proved to be a dull subject full of muscular reactions and biological phrases rather than the study of personality and influence That was a noon class and it always sent him dozing Having found that subjective and objective sir answered most of the questions he used the phrase on all occasions and it became the class joke when on a query being levelled at him he was nudged awake by Ferrenby or Sloane to gasp it out
Mostly there were parties—to Orange or the Shore more rarely to New York and Philadelphia though one night they marshalled fourteen waitresses out of Childs and took them to ride down Fifth Avenue on top of an auto bus They all cut more classes than were allowed which meant an additional course the following year but spring was too rare to let anything interfere with their colorful ramblings In May Amory was elected to the Sophomore Prom Committee and when after a long evenings discussion with Alec they made out a tentative list of class probabilities for the senior council they placed themselves among the surest The senior council was composed presumably of the eighteen most representative seniors and in view of Alecs football managership and Amorys chance of nosing out Burne Holiday as Princetonian chairman they seemed fairly justified in this presumption Oddly enough they both placed DInvilliers as among the possibilities a guess that a year before the class would have gaped at
All through the spring Amory had kept up an intermittent correspondence with Isabelle Borge punctuated by violent squabbles and chiefly enlivened by his attempts to find new words for love He discovered Isabelle to be discreetly and aggravatingly unsentimental in letters but he hoped against hope that she would prove not too exotic a bloom to fit the large spaces of spring as she had fitted the den in the Minnehaha Club During May he wrote thirtypage documents almost nightly and sent them to her in bulky envelopes exteriorly labelled Part I and Part II
Oh Alec I believe Im tired of college he said sadly as they walked the dusk together
I think I am too in a way
All Id like would be a little home in the country some warm country and a wife and just enough to do to keep from rotting
Me too
Id like to quit
What does your girl say
Oh Amory gasped in horror She wouldnt think of marrying that is not now I mean the future you know
My girl would Im engaged
Are you really
Yes Dont say a word to anybody please but I am I may not come back next year
But youre only twenty Give up college
Why Amory you were saying a minute ago—
Yes Amory interrupted but I was just wishing I wouldnt think of leaving college Its just that I feel so sad these wonderful nights I sort of feel theyre never coming again and Im not really getting all I could out of them I wish my girl lived here But marry—not a chance Especially as father says the money isnt forthcoming as it used to be
What a waste these nights are agreed Alec
But Amory sighed and made use of the nights He had a snapshot of Isabelle enshrined in an old watch and at eight almost every night he would turn off all the lights except the desk lamp and sitting by the open windows with the picture before him write her rapturous letters
Oh its so hard to write you what I really feel when I
think about you so much youve gotten to mean to me a dream that
I cant put on paper any more Your last letter came and it was
wonderful I read it over about six times especially the last
part but I do wish sometimes youd be more frank and tell me
what you really do think of me yet your last letter was too good
to be true and I can hardly wait until June Be sure and be able
to come to the prom Itll be fine I think and I want to bring
you just at the end of a wonderful year I often think over what
you said on that night and wonder how much you meant If it were
anyone but you—but you see I thought you were fickle the first
time I saw you and you are so popular and everthing that I cant
imagine you really liking me best
Oh Isabelle dear—its a wonderful night Somebody is playing
Love Moon on a mandolin far across the campus and the music
seems to bring you into the window Now hes playing Goodby
Boys Im Through and how well it suits me For I am through
with everything I have decided never to take a cocktail again
and I know Ill never again fall in love—I couldnt—youve been
too much a part of my days and nights to ever let me think of
another girl I meet them all the time and they dont interest me
Im not pretending to be blasé because its not that Its just
that Im in love Oh dearest Isabelle somehow I cant call you
just Isabelle and Im afraid Ill come out with the dearest
before your family this June youve got to come to the prom
and then Ill come up to your house for a day and everythingll be
perfect
And so on in an eternal monotone that seemed to both of them infinitely charming infinitely new
June came and the days grew so hot and lazy that they could not worry even about exams but spent dreamy evenings on the court of Cottage talking of long subjects until the sweep of country toward Stony Brook became a blue haze and the lilacs were white around tenniscourts and words gave way to silent cigarettes Then down deserted Prospect and along McCosh with song everywhere around them up to the hot joviality of Nassau Street
Tom DInvilliers and Amory walked late in those days A gambling fever swept through the sophomore class and they bent over the bones till three oclock many a sultry night After one session they came out of Sloanes room to find the dew fallen and the stars old in the sky
Lets borrow bicycles and take a ride Amory suggested
All right Im not a bit tired and this is almost the last night of the year really because the prom stuff starts Monday
They found two unlocked bicycles in Holder Court and rode out about halfpast three along the Lawrenceville Road
What are you going to do this summer Amory
Dont ask me—same old things I suppose A month or two in Lake Geneva—Im counting on you to be there in July you know—then therell be Minneapolis and that means hundreds of summer hops parlorsnaking getting bored—But oh Tom he added suddenly hasnt this year been slick
No declared Tom emphatically a new Tom clothed by Brooks shod by Franks Ive won this game but I feel as if I never want to play another Youre all right—youre a rubber ball and somehow it suits you but Im sick of adapting myself to the local snobbishness of this corner of the world I want to go where people arent barred because of the color of their neckties and the roll of their coats
You cant Tom argued Amory as they rolled along through the scattering night wherever you go now youll always unconsciously apply these standards of having it or lacking it For better or worse weve stamped you youre a Princeton type
Well then complained Tom his cracked voice rising plaintively why do I have to come back at all Ive learned all that Princeton has to offer Two years more of mere pedantry and lying around a club arent going to help Theyre just going to disorganize me conventionalize me completely Even now Im so spineless that I wonder how I get away with it
Oh but youre missing the real point Tom Amory interrupted Youve just had your eyes opened to the snobbishness of the world in a rather abrupt manner Princeton invariably gives the thoughtful man a social sense
You consider you taught me that dont you he asked quizzically eying Amory in the half dark
Amory laughed quietly
Didnt I
Sometimes he said slowly I think youre my bad angel I might have been a pretty fair poet
Come on thats rather hard You chose to come to an Eastern college Either your eyes were opened to the mean scrambling quality of people or youd have gone through blind and youd hate to have done that—been like Marty Kaye
Yes he agreed youre right I wouldnt have liked it Still its hard to be made a cynic at twenty
I was born one Amory murmured Im a cynical idealist He paused and wondered if that meant anything
They reached the sleeping school of Lawrenceville and turned to ride back
Its good this ride isnt it Tom said presently
Yes its a good finish its knockout everythings good tonight Oh for a hot languorous summer and Isabelle
Oh you and your Isabelle Ill bet shes a simple one lets say some poetry
So Amory declaimed The Ode to a Nightingale to the bushes they passed
Ill never be a poet said Amory as he finished Im not enough of a sensualist really there are only a few obvious things that I notice as primarily beautiful women spring evenings music at night the sea I dont catch the subtle things like silversnarling trumpets I may turn out an intellectual but Ill never write anything but mediocre poetry
They rode into Princeton as the sun was making colored maps of the sky behind the graduate school and hurried to the refreshment of a shower that would have to serve in place of sleep By noon the brightcostumed alumni crowded the streets with their bands and choruses and in the tents there was great reunion under the orangeandblack banners that curled and strained in the wind Amory looked long at one house which bore the legend Sixtynine There a few grayhaired men sat and talked quietly while the classes swept by in panorama of life
UNDER THE ARCLIGHT
Then tragedys emerald eyes glared suddenly at Amory over the edge of June On the night after his ride to Lawrenceville a crowd sallied to New York in quest of adventure and started back to Princeton about twelve oclock in two machines It had been a gay party and different stages of sobriety were represented Amory was in the car behind they had taken the wrong road and lost the way and so were hurrying to catch up
It was a clear night and the exhilaration of the road went to Amorys head He had the ghost of two stanzas of a poem forming in his mind
So the gray car crept nightward in the dark and there was no life
stirred as it went by As the still ocean paths before the
shark in starred and glittering waterways beautyhigh the
moonswathed trees divided pair on pair while flapping
nightbirds cried across the air
A moment by an inn of lamps and shades a yellow inn under a
yellow moon—then silence where crescendo laughter fades the
car swung out again to the winds of June mellowed the shadows
where the distance grew then crushed the yellow shadows into
blue
They jolted to a stop and Amory peered up startled A woman was standing beside the road talking to Alec at the wheel Afterward he remembered the harpy effect that her old kimono gave her and the cracked hollowness of her voice as she spoke
You Princeton boys
Yes
Well theres one of you killed here and two others about dead
My God
Look She pointed and they gazed in horror Under the full light of a roadside arclight lay a form face downward in a widening circle of blood
They sprang from the car Amory thought of the back of that head—that hair—that hair and then they turned the form over
Its Dick—Dick Humbird
Oh Christ
Feel his heart
Then the insistent voice of the old crone in a sort of croaking triumph
Hes quite dead all right The car turned over Two of the men that werent hurt just carried the others in but this ones no use
Amory rushed into the house and the rest followed with a limp mass that they laid on the sofa in the shoddy little front parlor Sloane with his shoulder punctured was on another lounge He was half delirious and kept calling something about a chemistry lecture at 810
I dont know what happened said Ferrenby in a strained voice Dick was driving and he wouldnt give up the wheel we told him hed been drinking too much—then there was this damn curve—oh my God He threw himself face downward on the floor and broke into dry sobs
The doctor had arrived and Amory went over to the couch where some one handed him a sheet to put over the body With a sudden hardness he raised one of the hands and let it fall back inertly The brow was cold but the face not expressionless He looked at the shoelaces—Dick had tied them that morning He had tied them—and now he was this heavy white mass All that remained of the charm and personality of the Dick Humbird he had known—oh it was all so horrible and unaristocratic and close to the earth All tragedy has that strain of the grotesque and squalid—so useless futile the way animals die Amory was reminded of a cat that had lain horribly mangled in some alley of his childhood
Some one go to Princeton with Ferrenby
Amory stepped outside the door and shivered slightly at the late night wind—a wind that stirred a broken fender on the mass of bent metal to a plaintive tinny sound
CRESCENDO
Next day by a merciful chance passed in a whirl When Amory was by himself his thoughts zigzagged inevitably to the picture of that red mouth yawning incongruously in the white face but with a determined effort he piled present excitement upon the memory of it and shut it coldly away from his mind
Isabelle and her mother drove into town at four and they rode up smiling Prospect Avenue through the gay crowd to have tea at Cottage The clubs had their annual dinners that night so at seven he loaned her to a freshman and arranged to meet her in the gymnasium at eleven when the upper classmen were admitted to the freshman dance She was all he had expected and he was happy and eager to make that night the centre of every dream At nine the upper classes stood in front of the clubs as the freshman torchlight parade rioted past and Amory wondered if the dresssuited groups against the dark stately backgrounds and under the flare of the torches made the night as brilliant to the staring cheering freshmen as it had been to him the year before
The next day was another whirl They lunched in a gay party of six in a private diningroom at the club while Isabelle and Amory looked at each other tenderly over the fried chicken and knew that their love was to be eternal They danced away the prom until five and the stags cut in on Isabelle with joyous abandon which grew more and more enthusiastic as the hour grew late and their wines stored in overcoat pockets in the coat room made old weariness wait until another day The stag line is a most homogeneous mass of men It fairly sways with a single soul A darkhaired beauty dances by and there is a halfgasping sound as the ripple surges forward and some one sleeker than the rest darts out and cuts in Then when the sixfoot girl brought by Kaye in your class and to whom he has been trying to introduce you all evening gallops by the line surges back and the groups face about and become intent on far corners of the hall for Kaye anxious and perspiring appears elbowing through the crowd in search of familiar faces
I say old man Ive got an awfully nice—
Sorry Kaye but Im set for this one Ive got to cut in on a fella
Well the next one
What—ah—er—I swear Ive got to go cut in—look me up when shes got a dance free
It delighted Amory when Isabelle suggested that they leave for a while and drive around in her car For a delicious hour that passed too soon they glided the silent roads about Princeton and talked from the surface of their hearts in shy excitement Amory felt strangely ingenuous and made no attempt to kiss her
Next day they rode up through the Jersey country had luncheon in New York and in the afternoon went to see a problem play at which Isabelle wept all through the second act rather to Amorys embarrassment—though it filled him with tenderness to watch her He was tempted to lean over and kiss away her tears and she slipped her hand into his under cover of darkness to be pressed softly
Then at six they arrived at the Borges summer place on Long Island and Amory rushed upstairs to change into a dinner coat As he put in his studs he realized that he was enjoying life as he would probably never enjoy it again Everything was hallowed by the haze of his own youth He had arrived abreast of the best in his generation at Princeton He was in love and his love was returned Turning on all the lights he looked at himself in the mirror trying to find in his own face the qualities that made him see clearer than the great crowd of people that made him decide firmly and able to influence and follow his own will There was little in his life now that he would have changed Oxford might have been a bigger field
Silently he admired himself How conveniently well he looked and how well a dinner coat became him He stepped into the hall and then waited at the top of the stairs for he heard footsteps coming It was Isabelle and from the top of her shining hair to her little golden slippers she had never seemed so beautiful
Isabelle he cried half involuntarily and held out his arms As in the storybooks she ran into them and on that halfminute as their lips first touched rested the high point of vanity the crest of his young egotism
CHAPTER 3 The Egotist Considers
Ouch Let me go
He dropped his arms to his sides
Whats the matter
Your shirt stud—it hurt me—look She was looking down at her neck where a little blue spot about the size of a pea marred its pallor
Oh Isabelle he reproached himself Im a goopher Really Im sorry—I shouldnt have held you so close
She looked up impatiently
Oh Amory of course you couldnt help it and it didnt hurt much but what are we going to do about it
Do about it he asked Oh—that spot itll disappear in a second
It isnt she said after a moment of concentrated gazing its still there—and it looks like Old Nick—oh Amory whatll we do Its just the height of your shoulder
Massage it he suggested repressing the faintest inclination to laugh
She rubbed it delicately with the tips of her fingers and then a tear gathered in the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek
Oh Amory she said despairingly lifting up a most pathetic face Ill just make my whole neck flame if I rub it Whatll I do
A quotation sailed into his head and he couldnt resist repeating it aloud
All the perfumes of Arabia will not whiten this little hand
She looked up and the sparkle of the tear in her eye was like ice
Youre not very sympathetic
Amory mistook her meaning
Isabelle darling I think itll—
Dont touch me she cried Havent I enough on my mind and you stand there and laugh
Then he slipped again
Well it is funny Isabelle and we were talking the other day about a sense of humor being—
She was looking at him with something that was not a smile rather the faint mirthless echo of a smile in the corners of her mouth
Oh shut up she cried suddenly and fled down the hallway toward her room Amory stood there covered with remorseful confusion
Damn
When Isabelle reappeared she had thrown a light wrap about her shoulders and they descended the stairs in a silence that endured through dinner
Isabelle he began rather testily as they arranged themselves in the car bound for a dance at the Greenwich Country Club youre angry and Ill be too in a minute Lets kiss and make up
Isabelle considered glumly
I hate to be laughed at she said finally
I wont laugh any more Im not laughing now am I
You did
Oh dont be so darned feminine
Her lips curled slightly
Ill be anything I want
Amory kept his temper with difficulty He became aware that he had not an ounce of real affection for Isabelle but her coldness piqued him He wanted to kiss her kiss her a lot because then he knew he could leave in the morning and not care On the contrary if he didnt kiss her it would worry him It would interfere vaguely with his idea of himself as a conqueror It wasnt dignified to come off second best pleading with a doughty warrior like Isabelle
Perhaps she suspected this At any rate Amory watched the night that should have been the consummation of romance glide by with great moths overhead and the heavy fragrance of roadside gardens but without those broken words those little sighs
Afterward they suppered on ginger ale and devils food in the pantry and Amory announced a decision
Im leaving early in the morning
Why
Why not he countered
Theres no need
However Im going
Well if you insist on being ridiculous—
Oh dont put it that way he objected
—just because I wont let you kiss me Do you think—
Now Isabelle he interrupted you know its not that—even suppose it is Weve reached the stage where we either ought to kiss—or—or—nothing It isnt as if you were refusing on moral grounds
She hesitated
I really dont know what to think about you she began in a feeble perverse attempt at conciliation Youre so funny
How
Well I thought you had a lot of self-confidence and all that remember you told me the other day that you could do anything you wanted or get anything you wanted
Amory flushed He had told her a lot of things
Yes
Well you didnt seem to feel so selfconfident tonight Maybe youre just plain conceited
No Im not he hesitated At Princeton—
Oh you and Princeton Youd think that was the world the way you talk Perhaps you can write better than anybody else on your old Princetonian maybe the freshmen do think youre important—
You dont understand—
Yes I do she interrupted I do because youre always talking about yourself and I used to like it now I dont
Have I tonight
Thats just the point insisted Isabelle You got all upset tonight You just sat and watched my eyes Besides I have to think all the time Im talking to you—youre so critical
I make you think do I Amory repeated with a touch of vanity
Youre a nervous strain—this emphatically—and when you analyze every little emotion and instinct I just dont have em
I know Amory admitted her point and shook his head helplessly
Lets go She stood up
He rose abstractedly and they walked to the foot of the stairs
What train can I get
Theres one about 911 if you really must go
Yes Ive got to go really Good night
Good night
They were at the head of the stairs and as Amory turned into his room he thought he caught just the faintest cloud of discontent in her face He lay awake in the darkness and wondered how much he cared—how much of his sudden unhappiness was hurt vanity—whether he was after all temperamentally unfitted for romance
When he awoke it was with a glad flood of consciousness. The early wind stirred the chintz curtains at the windows and he was idly puzzled not to be in his room at Princeton with his school football picture over the bureau and the Triangle Club on the wall opposite Then the grandfathers clock in the hall outside struck eight and the memory of the night before came to him He was out of bed dressing like the wind he must get out of the house before he saw Isabelle What had seemed a melancholy happening now seemed a tiresome anticlimax He was dressed at half past so he sat down by the window felt that the sinews of his heart were twisted somewhat more than he had thought What an ironic mockery the morning seemed—bright and sunny and full of the smell of the garden hearing Mrs Borges voice in the sunparlor below he wondered where was Isabelle
There was a knock at the door
The car will be around at ten minutes of nine sir
He returned to his contemplation of the outdoors and began repeating over and over mechanically a verse from Browning which he had once quoted to Isabelle in a letter
Each life unfulfilled you see
It hangs still patchy and scrappy
We have not sighed deep laughed free
Starved feasted despaired—been happy
But his life would not be unfulfilled He took a sombre satisfaction in thinking that perhaps all along she had been nothing except what he had read into her that this was her high point that no one else would ever make her think Yet that was what she had objected to in him and Amory was suddenly tired of thinking thinking
Damn her he said bitterly shes spoiled my year
THE SUPERMAN GROWS CARELESS
On a dusty day in September Amory arrived in Princeton and joined the sweltering crowd of conditioned men who thronged the streets It seemed a stupid way to commence his upperclass years to spend four hours a morning in the stuffy room of a tutoring school imbibing the infinite boredom of conic sections Mr Rooney pander to the dull conducted the class and smoked innumerable Pall Malls as he drew diagrams and worked equations from six in the morning until midnight
Now Langueduc if I used that formula where would my A point be
Langueduc lazily shifts his sixfootthree of football material and tries to concentrate
Oh—ah—Im damned if I know Mr Rooney
Oh why of course of course you cant use that formula Thats what I wanted you to say
Why sure of course
Do you see why
You bet—I suppose so
If you dont see tell me Im here to show you
Well Mr Rooney if you dont mind I wish youd go over that again
Gladly Now heres A
The room was a study in stupidity—two huge stands for paper Mr Rooney in his shirtsleeves in front of them and slouched around on chairs a dozen men Fred Sloane the pitcher who absolutely had to get eligible Slim Langueduc who would beat Yale this fall if only he could master a poor fifty per cent McDowell gay young sophomore who thought it was quite a sporting thing to be tutoring here with all these prominent athletes
Those poor birds who havent a cent to tutor and have to study during the term are the ones I pity he announced to Amory one day with a flaccid camaraderie in the droop of the cigarette from his pale lips I should think it would be such a bore theres so much else to do in New York during the term. I suppose they dont know what they miss anyhow There was such an air of you and I about Mr McDowell that Amory very nearly pushed him out of the open window when he said this Next February his mother would wonder why he didnt make a club and increase his allowance simple little nut
Through the smoke and the air of solemn dense earnestness that filled the room would come the inevitable helpless cry
I dont get it Repeat that Mr Rooney Most of them were so stupid or careless that they wouldnt admit when they didnt understand and Amory was of the latter He found it impossible to study conic sections something in their calm and tantalizing respectability breathing defiantly through Mr Rooneys fetid parlors distorted their equations into insoluble anagrams He made a last nights effort with the proverbial wet towel and then blissfully took the exam wondering unhappily why all the color and ambition of the spring before had faded out Somehow with the defection of Isabelle the idea of undergraduate success had loosed its grasp on his imagination and he contemplated a possible failure to pass off his condition with equanimity even though it would arbitrarily mean his removal from the Princetonian board and the slaughter of his chances for the Senior Council
There was always his luck
He yawned scribbled his honor pledge on the cover and sauntered from the room
If you dont pass it said the newly arrived Alec as they sat on the windowseat of Amorys room and mused upon a scheme of wall decoration youre the worlds worst goopher Your stock will go down like an elevator at the club and on the campus
Oh hell I know it Why rub it in
Cause you deserve it Anybody thatd risk what you were in line for ought to be ineligible for Princetonian chairman
Oh drop the subject Amory protested Watch and wait and shut up I dont want every one at the club asking me about it as if I were a prize potato being fattened for a vegetable show One evening a week later Amory stopped below his own window on the way to Renwicks and seeing a light called up
Oh Tom any mail
Alecs head appeared against the yellow square of light
Yes your results here
His heart clamored violently
What is it blue or pink
Dont know Better come up
He walked into the room and straight over to the table and then suddenly noticed that there were other people in the room
Lo Kerry He was most polite Ah men of Princeton They seemed to be mostly friends so he picked up the envelope marked Registrars Office and weighed it nervously
We have here quite a slip of paper
Open it Amory
Just to be dramatic Ill let you know that if its blue my name is withdrawn from the editorial board of the Prince and my short career is over
He paused and then saw for the first time Ferrenbys eyes wearing a hungry look and watching him eagerly Amory returned the gaze pointedly
Watch my face gentlemen for the primitive emotions
He tore it open and held the slip up to the light
Well
Pink or blue
Say what it is
Were all ears Amory
Smile or swear—or something
There was a pause a small crowd of seconds swept by then he looked again and another crowd went on into time
Blue as the sky gentlemen
AFTERMATH
What Amory did that year from early September to late in the spring was so purposeless and inconsecutive that it seems scarcely worth recording He was of course immediately sorry for what he had lost His philosophy of success had tumbled down upon him and he looked for the reasons
Your own laziness said Alec later
No—something deeper than that Ive begun to feel that I was meant to lose this chance
Theyre rather off you at the club you know every man that doesnt come through makes our crowd just so much weaker
I hate that point of view
Of course with a little effort you could still stage a comeback
No—Im through—as far as ever being a power in college is concerned
But Amory honestly what makes me the angriest isnt the fact that you wont be chairman of the Prince and on the Senior Council but just that you didnt get down and pass that exam
Not me said Amory slowly Im mad at the concrete thing My own idleness was quite in accord with my system but the luck broke
Your system broke you mean
Maybe
Well what are you going to do Get a better one quick or just bum around for two more years as a hasbeen
I dont know yet
Oh Amory buck up
Maybe
Amorys point of view though dangerous was not far from the true one If his reactions to his environment could be tabulated the chart would have appeared like this beginning with his earliest years
1 The fundamental Amory
2 Amory plus Beatrice
3 Amory plus Beatrice plus Minneapolis
Then St Regis had pulled him to pieces and started him over again
4 Amory plus St Regis
5 Amory plus St Regis plus Princeton
That had been his nearest approach to success through conformity The fundamental Amory idle imaginative rebellious had been nearly snowed under He had conformed he had succeeded but as his imagination was neither satisfied nor grasped by his own success he had listlessly halfaccidentally chucked the whole thing and become again
6 The fundamental Amory
FINANCIAL
His father died quietly and inconspicuously at Thanksgiving The incongruity of death with either the beauties of Lake Geneva or with his mothers dignified reticent attitude diverted him and he looked at the funeral with an amused tolerance He decided that burial was after all preferable to cremation and he smiled at his old boyhood choice slow oxidation in the top of a tree The day after the ceremony he was amusing himself in the great library by sinking back on a couch in graceful mortuary attitudes trying to determine whether he would when his day came be found with his arms crossed piously over his chest Monsignor Darcy had once advocated this posture as being the most distinguished or with his hands clasped behind his head a more pagan and Byronic attitude
What interested him much more than the final departure of his father from things mundane was a tricornered conversation between Beatrice Mr Barton of Barton and Krogman their lawyers and himself that took place several days after the funeral For the first time he came into actual cognizance of the family finances and realized what a tidy fortune had once been under his fathers management He took a ledger labelled 1906 and ran through it rather carefully The total expenditure that year had come to something over one hundred and ten thousand dollars Forty thousand of this had been Beatrices own income and there had been no attempt to account for it it was all under the heading Drafts checks and letters of credit forwarded to Beatrice Blaine The dispersal of the rest was rather minutely itemized the taxes and improvements on the Lake Geneva estate had come to almost nine thousand dollars the general upkeep including Beatrices electric and a French car bought that year was over thirtyfive thousand dollars The rest was fully taken care of and there were invariably items which failed to balance on the right side of the ledger
In the volume for 1912 Amory was shocked to discover the decrease in the number of bond holdings and the great drop in the income In the case of Beatrices money this was not so pronounced but it was obvious that his father had devoted the previous year to several unfortunate gambles in oil Very little of the oil had been burned but Stephen Blaine had been rather badly singed The next year and the next and the next showed similar decreases and Beatrice had for the first time begun using her own money for keeping up the house Yet her doctors bill for 1913 had been over nine thousand dollars
About the exact state of things Mr Barton was quite vague and confused There had been recent investments the outcome of which was for the present problematical and he had an idea there were further speculations and exchanges concerning which he had not been consulted
It was not for several months that Beatrice wrote Amory the full situation The entire residue of the Blaine and OHara fortunes consisted of the place at Lake Geneva and approximately a half million dollars invested now in fairly conservative sixpercent holdings In fact Beatrice wrote that she was putting the money into railroad and streetcar bonds as fast as she could conveniently transfer it
I am quite sure she wrote to Amory that if there is one
thing we can be positive of it is that people will not stay in
one place This Ford person has certainly made the most of that
idea So I am instructing Mr Barton to specialize on such things
as Northern Pacific and these Rapid Transit Companies as they
call the streetcars I shall never forgive myself for not buying
Bethlehem Steel Ive heard the most fascinating stories You
must go into finance Amory Im sure you would revel in it
You start as a messenger or a teller I believe and from that you
go up—almost indefinitely Im sure if I were a man Id love the
handling of money it has become quite a senile passion with me
Before I get any farther I want to discuss something A Mrs Bispam
an overcordial little lady whom I met at a tea the other day
told me that her son he is at Yale wrote her that all the
boys there wore their summer underwear all during the winter
and also went about with their heads wet and in low shoes on the
coldest days Now Amory I dont know whether that is a fad at
Princeton too but I dont want you to be so foolish It not only
inclines a young man to pneumonia and infantile paralysis but to
all forms of lung trouble to which you are particularly
inclined You cannot experiment with your health I have found
that out I will not make myself ridiculous as some mothers no
doubt do by insisting that you wear overshoes though I remember
one Christmas you wore them around constantly without a single
buckle latched making such a curious swishing sound and you
refused to buckle them because it was not the thing to do The
very next Christmas you would not wear even rubbers though I
begged you You are nearly twenty years old now dear and I
cant be with you constantly to find whether you are doing the
sensible thing
This has been a very practical letter I warned you in my last
that the lack of money to do the things one wants to makes one
quite prosy and domestic but there is still plenty for
everything if we are not too extravagant Take care of yourself
my dear boy and do try to write at least once a week because I
imagine all sorts of horrible things if I dont hear from you
Affectionately MOTHER
FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE TERM PERSONAGE
Monsignor Darcy invited Amory up to the Stuart palace on the Hudson for a week at Christmas and they had enormous conversations around the open fire Monsignor was growing a trifle stouter and his personality had expanded even with that and Amory felt both rest and security in sinking into a squat cushioned chair and joining him in the middleaged sanity of a cigar
Ive felt like leaving college Monsignor
Why
All my careers gone up in smoke you think its petty and all that but—
Not at all petty I think its most important I want to hear the whole thing Everything youve been doing since I saw you last
Amory talked he went thoroughly into the destruction of his egotistic highways and in a halfhour the listless quality had left his voice
What would you do if you left college asked Monsignor
Dont know Id like to travel but of course this tiresome war prevents that Anyways mother would hate not having me graduate Im just at sea Kerry Holiday wants me to go over with him and join the Lafayette Esquadrille
You know you wouldnt like to go
Sometimes I would—tonight Id go in a second
Well youd have to be very much more tired of life than I think you are I know you
Im afraid you do agreed Amory reluctantly It just seemed an easy way out of everything—when I think of another useless draggy year
Yes I know but to tell you the truth Im not worried about you you seem to me to be progressing perfectly naturally
No Amory objected Ive lost half my personality in a year
Not a bit of it scoffed Monsignor Youve lost a great amount of vanity and thats all
Lordy I feel anyway as if Id gone through another fifth form at St Regiss
No Monsignor shook his head That was a misfortune this has been a good thing Whatever worth while comes to you wont be through the channels you were searching last year
What could be more unprofitable than my present lack of pep
Perhaps in itself... but youre developing This has given you time to think and youre casting off a lot of your old luggage about success and the superman and all People like us cant adopt whole theories as you did If we can do the next thing and have an hour a day to think in we can accomplish marvels but as far as any highhanded scheme of blind dominance is concerned—wed just make asses of ourselves
But Monsignor I cant do the next thing
Amory between you and me I have only just learned to do it myself I can do the one hundred things beyond the next thing but I stub my toe on that just as you stubbed your toe on mathematics this fall
Why do we have to do the next thing It never seems the sort of thing I should do
We have to do it because were not personalities but personages
Thats a good line—what do you mean
A personality is what you thought you were what this Kerry and Sloane you tell me of evidently are Personality is a physical matter almost entirely it lowers the people it acts on—Ive seen it vanish in a long sickness But while a personality is active it overrides the next thing Now a personage on the other hand gathers He is never thought of apart from what hes done Hes a bar on which a thousand things have been hung—glittering things sometimes as ours are but he uses those things with a cold mentality back of them
And several of my most glittering possessions had fallen off when I needed them Amory continued the simile eagerly
Yes thats it when you feel that your garnered prestige and talents and all that are hung out you need never bother about anybody you can cope with them without difficulty
But on the other hand if I havent my possessions Im helpless
Absolutely
Thats certainly an idea
Now youve a clean start—a start Kerry or Sloane can constitutionally never have You brushed three or four ornaments down and in a fit of pique knocked off the rest of them The thing now is to collect some new ones and the farther you look ahead in the collecting the better But remember do the next thing
How clear you can make things
So they talked often about themselves sometimes of philosophy and religion and life as respectively a game or a mystery The priest seemed to guess Amorys thoughts before they were clear in his own head so closely related were their minds in form and groove
Why do I make lists Amory asked him one night Lists of all sorts of things
Because youre a mediaevalist Monsignor answered We both are Its the passion for classifying and finding a type
Its a desire to get something definite
Its the nucleus of scholastic philosophy
I was beginning to think I was growing eccentric till I came up here It was a pose I guess
Dont worry about that for you not posing may be the biggest pose of all Pose—
Yes
But do the next thing
After Amory returned to college he received several letters from Monsignor which gave him more egotistic food for consumption
I am afraid that I gave you too much assurance of your inevitable
safety and you must remember that I did that through faith in
your springs of effort not in the silly conviction that you will
arrive without struggle Some nuances of character you will have
to take for granted in yourself though you must be careful in
confessing them to others You are unsentimental almost incapable
of affection astute without being cunning and vain without being
proud
Dont let yourself feel worthless often through life you will
really be at your worst when you seem to think best of yourself
and dont worry about losing your personality as you persist
in calling it at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning
at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of
the moon and when you are my age you will give out as I do
the genial golden warmth of 4 PM
If you write me letters please let them be natural ones Your
last that dissertation on architecture was perfectly awful—
so highbrow that I picture you living in an intellectual and
emotional vacuum and beware of trying to classify people too
definitely into types you will find that all through their youth
they will persist annoyingly in jumping from class to class and
by pasting a supercilious label on every one you meet you are
merely packing a Jackinthebox that will spring up and leer at
you when you begin to come into really antagonistic contact with
the world An idealization of some such a man as Leonardo da
Vinci would be a more valuable beacon to you at present
You are bound to go up and down just as I did in my youth but
do keep your clarity of mind and if fools or sages dare to
criticise dont blame yourself too much
You say that convention is all that really keeps you straight in
this woman proposition but its more than that Amory its
the fear that what you begin you cant stop you would run amuck
and I know whereof I speak its that halfmiraculous sixth sense
by which you detect evil its the halfrealized fear of God in
your heart
Whatever your metier proves to be—religion architecture
literature—Im sure you would be much safer anchored to the
Church but I wont risk my influence by arguing with you even
though I am secretly sure that the black chasm of Romanism
yawns beneath you Do write me soon
With affectionate regards THAYER DARCY
Even Amorys reading paled during this period he delved further into the misty side streets of literature Huysmans Walter Pater Theophile Gautier and the racier sections of Rabelais Boccaccio Petronius and Suetonius One week through general curiosity he inspected the private libraries of his classmates and found Sloanes as typical as any sets of Kipling O Henry John Fox Jr and Richard Harding Davis What Every MiddleAged Woman Ought to Know The Spell of the Yukon a gift copy of James Whitcomb Riley an assortment of battered annotated schoolbooks and finally to his surprise one of his own late discoveries the collected poems of Rupert Brooke
Together with Tom DInvilliers he sought among the lights of Princeton for some one who might found the Great American Poetic Tradition
The undergraduate body itself was rather more interesting that year than had been the entirely Philistine Princeton of two years before Things had livened surprisingly though at the sacrifice of much of the spontaneous charm of freshman year In the old Princeton they would never have discovered Tanaduke Wylie Tanaduke was a sophomore with tremendous ears and a way of saying The earth swirls down through the ominous moons of preconsidered generations that made them vaguely wonder why it did not sound quite clear but never question that it was the utterance of a supersoul At least so Tom and Amory took him They told him in all earnestness that he had a mind like Shelleys and featured his ultrafree free verse and prose poetry in the Nassau Literary Magazine But Tanadukes genius absorbed the many colors of the age and he took to the Bohemian life to their great disappointment He talked of Greenwich Village now instead of noonswirled moons and met winter muses unacademic and cloistered by Fortysecond Street and Broadway instead of the Shelleyan dreamchildren with whom he had regaled their expectant appreciation So they surrendered Tanaduke to the futurists deciding that he and his flaming ties would do better there Tom gave him the final advice that he should stop writing for two years and read the complete works of Alexander Pope four times but on Amorys suggestion that Pope for Tanaduke was like footease for stomach trouble they withdrew in laughter and called it a coins toss whether this genius was too big or too petty for them
Amory rather scornfully avoided the popular professors who dispensed easy epigrams and thimblefuls of Chartreuse to groups of admirers every night He was disappointed too at the air of general uncertainty on every subject that seemed linked with the pedantic temperament his opinions took shape in a miniature satire called In a LectureRoom which he persuaded Tom to print in the Nassau Lit
Goodmorning Fool
Three times a week
You hold us helpless while you speak
Teasing our thirsty souls with the
Sleek yeas of your philosophy
Well here we are your hundred sheep
Tune up play on pour forth we sleep
You are a student so they say
You hammered out the other day
A syllabus from what we know
Of some forgotten folio
Youd sniffled through an eras must
Filling your nostrils up with dust
And then arising from your knees
Published in one gigantic sneeze
But heres a neighbor on my right
An Eager Ass considered bright
Asker of questions How hell stand
With earnest air and fidgy hand
After this hour telling you
He sat all night and burrowed through
Your book Oh youll be coy and he
Will simulate precosity
And pedants both youll smile and smirk
And leer and hasten back to work
Twas this day week sir you returned
A theme of mine from which I learned
Through various comment on the side
Which you had scrawled that I defied
The highest rules of criticism
For cheap and careless witticism
Are you quite sure that this could be
And
Shaw is no authority
But Eager Ass with what hes sent
Plays havoc with your best per cent
Still—still I meet you here and there
When Shakespeares played you hold a chair
And some defunct motheaten star
Enchants the mental prig you are
A radical comes down and shocks
The atheistic orthodox
Youre representing Common Sense
Mouth open in the audience
And sometimes even chapel lures
That conscious tolerance of yours
That broad and beaming view of truth
Including Kant and General Booth
And so from shock to shock you live
A hollow pale affirmative
The hours up and roused from rest
One hundred children of the blest
Cheat you a word or two with feet
That down the noisy aisleways beat
Forget on narrowminded earth
The Mighty Yawn that gave you birth
In April Kerry Holiday left college and sailed for France to enroll in the Lafayette Esquadrille Amorys envy and admiration of this step was drowned in an experience of his own to which he never succeeded in giving an appropriate value but which nevertheless haunted him for three years afterward
THE DEVIL
Healys they left at twelve and taxied to Bistolarys There were Axia Marlowe and Phoebe Column from the Summer Garden show Fred Sloane and Amory The evening was so very young that they felt ridiculous with surplus energy and burst into the cafe like Dionysian revellers
Table for four in the middle of the floor yelled Phoebe Hurry old dear tell em were here
Tell em to play Admiration shouted Sloane You two order Phoebe and I are going to shake a wicked calf and they sailed off in the muddled crowd Axia and Amory acquaintances of an hour jostled behind a waiter to a table at a point of vantage there they took seats and watched
Theres Findle Margotson from New Haven she cried above the uproar Lo Findle Whooee
Oh Axia he shouted in salutation Cmon over to our table No Amory whispered
Cant do it Findle Im with somebody else Call me up tomorrow about one oclock
Findle a nondescript manaboutBistys answered incoherently and turned back to the brilliant blonde whom he was endeavoring to steer around the room
Theres a natural damn fool commented Amory
Oh hes all right Heres the old jitney waiter If you ask me I want a double Daiquiri
Make it four
The crowd whirled and changed and shifted They were mostly from the colleges with a scattering of the male refuse of Broadway and women of two types the higher of which was the chorus girl On the whole it was a typical crowd and their party as typical as any About threefourths of the whole business was for effect and therefore harmless ended at the door of the cafe soon enough for the fiveoclock train back to Yale or Princeton about onefourth continued on into the dimmer hours and gathered strange dust from strange places Their party was scheduled to be one of the harmless kind Fred Sloane and Phoebe Column were old friends Axia and Amory new ones But strange things are prepared even in the dead of night and the unusual which lurks least in the cafe home of the prosaic and inevitable was preparing to spoil for him the waning romance of Broadway The way it took was so inexpressibly terrible so unbelievable that afterward he never thought of it as experience; but it was a scene from a misty tragedy played far behind the veil and that it meant something definite he knew
About one oclock they moved to Maxims and two found them in Devinieres Sloane had been drinking consecutively and was in a state of unsteady exhilaration but Amory was quite tiresomely sober they had run across none of those ancient corrupt buyers of champagne who usually assisted their New York parties They were just through dancing and were making their way back to their chairs when Amory became aware that some one at a nearby table was looking at him He turned and glanced casually a middleaged man dressed in a brown sack suit it was sitting a little apart at a table by himself and watching their party intently At Amorys glance he smiled faintly Amory turned to Fred who was just sitting down
Whos that pale fool watching us he complained indignantly
Where cried Sloane Well have him thrown out He rose to his feet and swayed back and forth clinging to his chair Where is he
Axia and Phoebe suddenly leaned and whispered to each other across the table and before Amory realized it they found themselves on their way to the door
Where now
Up to the flat suggested Phoebe Weve got brandy and fizz—and everythings slow down here tonight
Amory considered quickly He hadnt been drinking and decided that if he took no more it would be reasonably discreet for him to trot along in the party In fact it would be perhaps the thing to do in order to keep an eye on Sloane who was not in a state to do his own thinking So he took Axias arm and piling intimately into a taxicab they drove out over the hundreds and drew up at a tall whitestone apartmenthouse Never would he forget that street It was a broad street lined on both sides with just such tall whitestone buildings dotted with dark windows they stretched along as far as the eye could see flooded with a bright moonlight that gave them a calcium pallor He imagined each one to have an elevator and a colored hallboy and a keyrack each one to be eight stories high and full of three and four room suites He was rather glad to walk into the cheeriness of Phoebes livingroom and sink onto a sofa while the girls went rummaging for food
Phoebes great stuff confided Sloane sotto voce
Im only going to stay half an hour Amory said sternly He wondered if it sounded priggish
Hell y say protested Sloane Were here now—dont les rush
I dont like this place Amory said sulkily and I dont want any food
Phoebe reappeared with sandwiches brandy bottle siphon and four glasses
Amory pour em out she said and well drink to Fred Sloane who has a rare distinguished edge
Yes said Axia coming in and Amory I like Amory She sat down beside him and laid her yellow head on his shoulder
Ill pour said Sloane you use siphon Phoebe
They filled the tray with glasses
Ready here she goes
Amory hesitated glass in hand
There was a minute while temptation crept over him like a warm wind and his imagination turned to fire and he took the glass from Phoebes hand That was all for at the second that his decision came he looked up and saw ten yards from him the man who had been in the cafe and with his jump of astonishment the glass fell from his uplifted hand There the man half sat half leaned against a pile of pillows on the corner divan His face was cast in the same yellow wax as in the cafe neither the dull pasty color of a dead man—rather a sort of virile pallor—nor unhealthy youd have called it but like a strong man whod worked in a mine or done night shifts in a damp climate Amory looked him over carefully and later he could have drawn him after a fashion down to the merest details His mouth was the kind that is called frank and he had steady gray eyes that moved slowly from one to the other of their group with just the shade of a questioning expression Amory noticed his hands they werent fine at all but they had versatility and a tenuous strength they were nervous hands that sat lightly along the cushions and moved constantly with little jerky openings and closings Then suddenly Amory perceived the feet and with a rush of blood to the head he realized he was afraid The feet were all wrong with a sort of wrongness that he felt rather than knew It was like weakness in a good woman or blood on satin one of those terrible incongruities that shake little things in the back of the brain He wore no shoes but instead a sort of half moccasin pointed though like the shoes they wore in the fourteenth century and with the little ends curling up They were a darkish brown and his toes seemed to fill them to the end They were unutterably terrible
He must have said something or looked something for Axias voice came out of the void with a strange goodness
Well look at Amory Poor old Amorys sick—old head going round
Look at that man cried Amory pointing toward the corner divan
You mean that purple zebra shrieked Axia facetiously Oooee Amorys got a purple zebra watching him
Sloane laughed vacantly
Ole zebra gotcha Amory
There was a silence The man regarded Amory quizzically Then the human voices fell faintly on his ear
Thought you werent drinking remarked Axia sardonically but her voice was good to hear the whole divan that held the man was alive alive like heat waves over asphalt like wriggling worms
Come back Come back Axias arm fell on his Amory dear you arent going Amory He was halfway to the door
Come on Amory stick th us
Sick are you
Sit down a second
Take some water
Take a little brandy
The elevator was close and the colored boy was half asleep paled to a livid bronze Axias beseeching voice floated down the shaft Those feet those feet
As they settled to the lower floor the feet came into view in the sickly electric light of the paved hall
IN THE ALLEY
Down the long street came the moon and Amory turned his back on it and walked Ten fifteen steps away sounded the footsteps They were like a slow dripping with just the slightest insistence in their fall Amorys shadow lay perhaps ten feet ahead of him and soft shoes was presumably that far behind With the instinct of a child Amory edged in under the blue darkness of the white buildings cleaving the moonlight for haggard seconds once bursting into a slow run with clumsy stumblings After that he stopped suddenly he must keep hold he thought His lips were dry and he licked them
If he met any one good—were there any good people left in the world or did they all live in white apartmenthouses now Was every one followed in the moonlight But if he met some one good whod know what he meant and hear this damned scuffle then the scuffling grew suddenly nearer and a black cloud settled over the moon When again the pale sheen skimmed the cornices it was almost beside him and Amory thought he heard a quiet breathing Suddenly he realized that the footsteps were not behind had never been behind they were ahead and he was not eluding but following following He began to run blindly his heart knocking heavily his hands clinched Far ahead a black dot showed itself resolved slowly into a human shape But Amory was beyond that now he turned off the street and darted into an alley narrow and dark and smelling of old rottenness He twisted down a long sinuous blackness where the moonlight was shut away except for tiny glints and patches then suddenly sank panting into a corner by a fence exhausted The steps ahead stopped and he could hear them shift slightly with a continuous motion like waves around a dock
He put his face in his hands and covered eyes and ears as well as he could During all this time it never occurred to him that he was delirious or drunk He had a sense of reality such as material things could never give him His intellectual content seemed to submit passively to it and it fitted like a glove everything that had ever preceded it in his life It did not muddle him It was like a problem whose answer he knew on paper yet whose solution he was unable to grasp He was far beyond horror He had sunk through the thin surface of that now moved in a region where the feet and the fear of white walls were real living things things he must accept Only far inside his soul a little fire leaped and cried that something was pulling him down trying to get him inside a door and slam it behind him After that door was slammed there would be only footfalls and white buildings in the moonlight and perhaps he would be one of the footfalls
During the five or ten minutes he waited in the shadow of the fence there was somehow this fire that was as near as he could name it afterward He remembered calling aloud
I want some one stupid Oh send some one stupid This to the black fence opposite him in whose shadows the footsteps shuffled shuffled He supposed stupid and good had become somehow intermingled through previous association When he called thus it was not an act of will at all—will had turned him away from the moving figure in the street it was almost instinct that called just the pile on pile of inherent tradition or some wild prayer from way over the night Then something clanged like a low gong struck at a distance and before his eyes a face flashed over the two feet a face pale and distorted with a sort of infinite evil that twisted it like flame in the wind but he knew for the half instant that the gong tanged and hummed that it was the face of Dick Humbird
Minutes later he sprang to his feet realizing dimly that there was no more sound and that he was alone in the graying alley It was cold and he started on a steady run for the light that showed the street at the other end
AT THE WINDOW
It was late morning when he woke and found the telephone beside his bed in the hotel tolling frantically and remembered that he had left word to be called at eleven Sloane was snoring heavily his clothes in a pile by his bed They dressed and ate breakfast in silence and then sauntered out to get some air Amorys mind was working slowly trying to assimilate what had happened and separate from the chaotic imagery that stacked his memory the bare shreds of truth If the morning had been cold and gray he could have grasped the reins of the past in an instant but it was one of those days that New York gets sometimes in May when the air on Fifth Avenue is a soft light wine How much or how little Sloane remembered Amory did not care to know he apparently had none of the nervous tension that was gripping Amory and forcing his mind back and forth like a shrieking saw
Then Broadway broke upon them and with the babel of noise and the painted faces a sudden sickness rushed over Amory
For Gods sake lets go back Lets get off of this—this place
Sloane looked at him in amazement
What do you mean
This street its ghastly Come on lets get back to the Avenue
Do you mean to say said Sloane stolidly that cause you had some sort of indigestion that made you act like a maniac last night youre never coming on Broadway again
Simultaneously Amory classed him with the crowd and he seemed no longer Sloane of the debonair humor and the happy personality but only one of the evil faces that whirled along the turbid stream
Man he shouted so loud that the people on the corner turned and followed them with their eyes its filthy and if you cant see it youre filthy too
I cant help it said Sloane doggedly Whats the matter with you Old remorse getting you Youd be in a fine state if youd gone through with our little party
Im going Fred said Amory slowly His knees were shaking under him and he knew that if he stayed another minute on this street he would keel over where he stood Ill be at the Vanderbilt for lunch And he strode rapidly off and turned over to Fifth Avenue Back at the hotel he felt better but as he walked into the barbershop intending to get a head massage the smell of the powders and tonics brought back Axias sidelong suggestive smile and he left hurriedly In the doorway of his room a sudden blackness flowed around him like a divided river
When he came to himself he knew that several hours had passed He pitched onto the bed and rolled over on his face with a deadly fear that he was going mad He wanted people people some one sane and stupid and good He lay for he knew not how long without moving He could feel the little hot veins on his forehead standing out and his terror had hardened on him like plaster He felt he was passing up again through the thin crust of horror and now only could he distinguish the shadowy twilight he was leaving He must have fallen asleep again for when he next recollected himself he had paid the hotel bill and was stepping into a taxi at the door It was raining torrents
On the train for Princeton he saw no one he knew only a crowd of faggedlooking Philadelphians The presence of a painted woman across the aisle filled him with a fresh burst of sickness and he changed to another car tried to concentrate on an article in a popular magazine He found himself reading the same paragraphs over and over so he abandoned this attempt and leaning over wearily pressed his hot forehead against the damp windowpane The car a smoker was hot and stuffy with most of the smells of the states alien population he opened a window and shivered against the cloud of fog that drifted in over him The two hours ride were like days and he nearly cried aloud with joy when the towers of Princeton loomed up beside him and the yellow squares of light filtered through the blue rain
Tom was standing in the centre of the room pensively relighting a cigarstub Amory fancied he looked rather relieved on seeing him
Had a hell of a dream about you last night came in the cracked voice through the cigar smoke I had an idea you were in some trouble
Dont tell me about it Amory almost shrieked Dont say a word Im tired and pepped out
Tom looked at him queerly and then sank into a chair and opened his Italian notebook Amory threw his coat and hat on the floor loosened his collar and took a Wells novel at random from the shelf Wells is sane he thought and if he wont do Ill read Rupert Brooke
Half an hour passed Outside the wind came up and Amory started as the wet branches moved and clawed with their fingernails at the windowpane Tom was deep in his work and inside the room only the occasional scratch of a match or the rustle of leather as they shifted in their chairs broke the stillness Then like a zigzag of lightning came the change Amory sat bolt upright frozen cold in his chair Tom was looking at him with his mouth drooping eyes fixed
God help us Amory cried
Oh my heavens shouted Tom look behind Quick as a flash Amory whirled around He saw nothing but the dark windowpane Its gone now came Toms voice after a second in a still terror Something was looking at you
Trembling violently Amory dropped into his chair again
Ive got to tell you he said Ive had one hell of an experience I think Ive—Ive seen the devil or—something like him What face did you just see—or no he added quickly dont tell me
And he gave Tom the story It was midnight when he finished and after that with all lights burning two sleepy shivering boys read to each other from The New Machiavelli until dawn came up out of Witherspoon Hall and the Princetonian fell against the door and the May birds hailed the sun on last nights rain
CHAPTER 4 Narcissus Off Duty
During Princetons transition period that is during Amorys last two years there while he saw it change and broaden and live up to its Gothic beauty by better means than night parades certain individuals arrived who stirred it to its plethoric depths Some of them had been freshmen and wild freshmen with Amory some were in the class below and it was in the beginning of his last year and around small tables at the Nassau Inn that they began questioning aloud the institutions that Amory and countless others before him had questioned so long in secret First and partly by accident they struck on certain books a definite type of biographical novel that Amory christened quest books In the quest book the hero set off in life armed with the best weapons and avowedly intending to use them as such weapons are usually used to push their possessors ahead as selfishly and blindly as possible but the heroes of the quest books discovered that there might be a more magnificent use for them None Other Gods Sinister Street and The Research Magnificent were examples of such books it was the latter of these three that gripped Burne Holiday and made him wonder in the beginning of senior year how much it was worth while being a diplomatic autocrat around his club on Prospect Avenue and basking in the high lights of class office It was distinctly through the channels of aristocracy that Burne found his way Amory through Kerry had had a vague drifting acquaintance with him but not until January of senior year did their friendship commence
Heard the latest said Tom coming in late one drizzly evening with that triumphant air he always wore after a successful conversational bout
No Somebody flunked out Or another ship sunk
Worse than that About onethird of the junior class are going to resign from their clubs
What
Actual fact
Why
Spirit of reform and all that Burne Holiday is behind it The club presidents are holding a meeting tonight to see if they can find a joint means of combating it
Well whats the idea of the thing
Oh clubs injurious to Princeton democracy cost a lot draw social lines take time the regular line you get sometimes from disappointed sophomores Woodrow thought they should be abolished and all that
But this is the real thing
Absolutely I think itll go through
For Petes sake tell me more about it
Well began Tom it seems that the idea developed simultaneously in several heads I was talking to Burne awhile ago and he claims that its a logical result if an intelligent person thinks long enough about the social system They had a discussion crowd and the point of abolishing the clubs was brought up by some one—everybody there leaped at it—it had been in each ones mind more or less and it just needed a spark to bring it out
Fine I swear I think itll be most entertaining How do they feel up at Cap and Gown
Wild of course Every ones been sitting and arguing and swearing and getting mad and getting sentimental and getting brutal Its the same at all the clubs Ive been the rounds They get one of the radicals in the corner and fire questions at him
How do the radicals stand up
Oh moderately well Burnes a damn good talker and so obviously sincere that you cant get anywhere with him Its so evident that resigning from his club means so much more to him than preventing it does to us that I felt futile when I argued finally took a position that was brilliantly neutral In fact I believe Burne thought for a while that hed converted me
And you say almost a third of the junior class are going to resign
Call it a fourth and be safe
Lord—whod have thought it possible
There was a brisk knock at the door and Burne himself came in Hello Amory—hello Tom
Amory rose
Evening Burne Dont mind if I seem to rush Im going to Renwicks
Burne turned to him quickly
You probably know what I want to talk to Tom about and it isnt a bit private I wish youd stay
Id be glad to Amory sat down again and as Burne perched on a table and launched into argument with Tom he looked at this revolutionary more carefully than he ever had before Broadbrowed and strongchinned with a fineness in the honest gray eyes that were like Kerrys Burne was a man who gave an immediate impression of bigness and security—stubborn that was evident but his stubbornness wore no stolidity and when he had talked for five minutes Amory knew that this keen enthusiasm had in it no quality of dilettantism
The intense power Amory felt later in Burne Holiday differed from the admiration he had had for Humbird This time it began as purely a mental interest With other men of whom he had thought as primarily firstclass he had been attracted first by their personalities and in Burne he missed that immediate magnetism to which he usually swore allegiance But that night Amory was struck by Burnes intense earnestness a quality he was accustomed to associate only with the dread stupidity and by the great enthusiasm that struck dead chords in his heart Burne stood vaguely for a land Amory hoped he was drifting toward—and it was almost time that land was in sight Tom and Amory and Alec had reached an impasse never did they seem to have new experiences in common for Tom and Alec had been as blindly busy with their committees and boards as Amory had been blindly idling and the things they had for dissection—college contemporary personality and the like—they had hashed and rehashed for many a frugal conversational meal
That night they discussed the clubs until twelve and in the main they agreed with Burne To the roommates it did not seem such a vital subject as it had in the two years before but the logic of Burnes objections to the social system dovetailed so completely with everything they had thought that they questioned rather than argued and envied the sanity that enabled this man to stand out so against all traditions
Then Amory branched off and found that Burne was deep in other things as well Economics had interested him and he was turning socialist Pacifism played in the back of his mind and he read The Masses and Lyoff Tolstoi faithfully
How about religion Amory asked him
Dont know Im in a muddle about a lot of things—Ive just discovered that Ive a mind and Im starting to read
Read what
Everything I have to pick and choose of course but mostly things to make me think Im reading the four gospels now and the Varieties of Religious Experience
What chiefly started you
Wells I guess and Tolstoi and a man named Edward Carpenter Ive been reading for over a year now—on a few lines on what I consider the essential lines
Poetry
Well frankly not what you call poetry or for your reasons—you two write of course and look at things differently Whitman is the man that attracts me
Whitman
Yes hes a definite ethical force
Well Im ashamed to say that Im a blank on the subject of Whitman How about you Tom
Tom nodded sheepishly
Well continued Burne you may strike a few poems that are tiresome but I mean the mass of his work Hes tremendous—like Tolstoi They both look things in the face and somehow different as they are stand for somewhat the same things
You have me stumped Burne Amory admitted Ive read Anna Karenina and the Kreutzer Sonata of course but Tolstoi is mostly in the original Russian as far as Im concerned
Hes the greatest man in hundreds of years cried Burne enthusiastically Did you ever see a picture of that shaggy old head of his
They talked until three from biology to organized religion and when Amory crept shivering into bed it was with his mind aglow with ideas and a sense of shock that some one else had discovered the path he might have followed Burne Holiday was so evidently developing—and Amory had considered that he was doing the same He had fallen into a deep cynicism over what had crossed his path plotted the imperfectability of man and read Shaw and Chesterton enough to keep his mind from the edges of decadence—now suddenly all his mental processes of the last year and a half seemed stale and futile—a petty consummation of himself and like a sombre background lay that incident of the spring before that filled half his nights with a dreary terror and made him unable to pray He was not even a Catholic yet that was the only ghost of a code that he had the gaudy ritualistic paradoxical Catholicism whose prophet was Chesterton whose claqueurs were such reformed rakes of literature as Huysmans and Bourget whose American sponsor was Ralph Adams Cram with his adulation of thirteenthcentury cathedrals—a Catholicism which Amory found convenient and readymade without priest or sacraments or sacrifice
He could not sleep so he turned on his readinglamp and taking down the Kreutzer Sonata searched it carefully for the germs of Burnes enthusiasm Being Burne was suddenly so much realler than being clever Yet he sighed here were other possible clay feet
He thought back through two years of Burne as a hurried nervous freshman quite submerged in his brothers personality Then he remembered an incident of sophomore year in which Burne had been suspected of the leading role
Dean Hollister had been heard by a large group arguing with a taxidriver who had driven him from the junction In the course of the altercation the dean remarked that he might as well buy the taxicab He paid and walked off but next morning he entered his private office to find the taxicab itself in the space usually occupied by his desk bearing a sign which read Property of Dean Hollister Bought and Paid for It took two expert mechanics half a day to dissemble it into its minutest parts and remove it which only goes to prove the rare energy of sophomore humor under efficient leadership
Then again that very fall Burne had caused a sensation A certain Phyllis Styles an intercollegiate promtrotter had failed to get her yearly invitation to the HarvardPrinceton game
Jesse Ferrenby had brought her to a smaller game a few weeks before and had pressed Burne into service—to the ruination of the latters misogyny
Are you coming to the Harvard game Burne had asked indiscreetly merely to make conversation
If you ask me cried Phyllis quickly
Of course I do said Burne feebly He was unversed in the arts of Phyllis and was sure that this was merely a vapid form of kidding Before an hour had passed he knew that he was indeed involved Phyllis had pinned him down and served him up informed him the train she was arriving by and depressed him thoroughly Aside from loathing Phyllis he had particularly wanted to stag that game and entertain some Harvard friends
Shell see he informed a delegation who arrived in his room to josh him This will be the last game she ever persuades any young innocent to take her to
But Burne—why did you invite her if you didnt want her
Burne you know youre secretly mad about her—thats the real trouble
What can you do Burne What can you do against Phyllis
But Burne only shook his head and muttered threats which consisted largely of the phrase Shell see shell see
The blithesome Phyllis bore her twentyfive summers gayly from the train but on the platform a ghastly sight met her eyes There were Burne and Fred Sloane arrayed to the last dot like the lurid figures on college posters They had bought flaring suits with huge pegtop trousers and gigantic padded shoulders On their heads were rakish college hats pinned up in front and sporting bright orangeandblack bands while from their celluloid collars blossomed flaming orange ties They wore black armbands with orange Ps and carried canes flying Princeton pennants the effect completed by socks and peeping handkerchiefs in the same color motifs On a clanking chain they led a large angry tomcat painted to represent a tiger
A good half of the station crowd was already staring at them torn between horrified pity and riotous mirth and as Phyllis with her svelte jaw dropping approached the pair bent over and emitted a college cheer in loud farcarrying voices thoughtfully adding the name Phyllis to the end She was vociferously greeted and escorted enthusiastically across the campus followed by half a hundred village urchins—to the stifled laughter of hundreds of alumni and visitors half of whom had no idea that this was a practical joke but thought that Burne and Fred were two varsity sports showing their girl a collegiate time
Phylliss feelings as she was paraded by the Harvard and Princeton stands where sat dozens of her former devotees can be imagined She tried to walk a little ahead she tried to walk a little behind—but they stayed close that there should be no doubt whom she was with talking in loud voices of their friends on the football team until she could almost hear her acquaintances whispering
Phyllis Styles must be awfully hard up to have to come with those two
That had been Burne dynamically humorous fundamentally serious From that root had blossomed the energy that he was now trying to orient with progress
So the weeks passed and March came and the clay feet that Amory looked for failed to appear About a hundred juniors and seniors resigned from their clubs in a final fury of righteousness and the clubs in helplessness turned upon Burne their finest weapon ridicule Every one who knew him liked him—but what he stood for and he began to stand for more all the time came under the lash of many tongues until a frailer man than he would have been snowed under
Dont you mind losing prestige asked Amory one night They had taken to exchanging calls several times a week
Of course I dont Whats prestige at best
Some people say that youre just a rather original politician
He roared with laughter
Thats what Fred Sloane told me today I suppose I have it coming
One afternoon they dipped into a subject that had interested Amory for a long time—the matter of the bearing of physical attributes on a mans makeup Burne had gone into the biology of this and then
Of course health counts—a healthy man has twice the chance of being good he said
I dont agree with you—I dont believe in muscular Christianity
I do—I believe Christ had great physical vigor
Oh no Amory protested He worked too hard for that I imagine that when he died he was a brokendown man—and the great saints havent been strong
Half of them have
Well even granting that I dont think health has anything to do with goodness of course its valuable to a great saint to be able to stand enormous strains but this fad of popular preachers rising on their toes in simulated virility bellowing that calisthenics will save the world—no Burne I cant go that
Well lets waive it—we wont get anywhere and besides I havent quite made up my mind about it myself Now heres something I do know—personal appearance has a lot to do with it
Coloring Amory asked eagerly
Yes
Thats what Tom and I figured Amory agreed We took the yearbooks for the last ten years and looked at the pictures of the senior council I know you dont think much of that august body but it does represent success here in a general way Well I suppose only about thirtyfive per cent of every class here are blonds are really light—yet twothirds of every senior council are light We looked at pictures of ten years of them mind you that means that out of every fifteen lighthaired men in the senior class one is on the senior council and of the darkhaired men its only one in fifty
Its true Burne agreed The lighthaired man is a higher type generally speaking I worked the thing out with the Presidents of the United States once and found that way over half of them were lighthaired—yet think of the preponderant number of brunettes in the race
People unconsciously admit it said Amory Youll notice a blond person is expected to talk If a blond girl doesnt talk we call her a doll if a lighthaired man is silent hes considered stupid Yet the world is full of dark silent men and languorous brunettes who havent a brain in their heads but somehow are never accused of the dearth
And the large mouth and broad chin and rather big nose undoubtedly make the superior face
Im not so sure Amory was all for classical features
Oh yes—Ill show you and Burne pulled out of his desk a photographic collection of heavily bearded shaggy celebrities—Tolstoi Whitman Carpenter and others
Arent they wonderful
Amory tried politely to appreciate them and gave up laughingly
Burne I think theyre the ugliestlooking crowd I ever came across They look like an old mans home
Oh Amory look at that forehead on Emerson look at Tolstois eyes His tone was reproachful
Amory shook his head
No Call them remarkablelooking or anything you want—but ugly they certainly are
Unabashed Burne ran his hand lovingly across the spacious foreheads and piling up the pictures put them back in his desk
Walking at night was one of his favorite pursuits and one night he persuaded Amory to accompany him
I hate the dark Amory objected I didnt use to—except when I was particularly imaginative but now I really do—Im a regular fool about it
Thats useless you know
Quite possibly
Well go east Burne suggested and down that string of roads through the woods
Doesnt sound very appealing to me admitted Amory reluctantly but lets go
They set off at a good gait and for an hour swung along in a brisk argument until the lights of Princeton were luminous white blots behind them
Any person with any imagination is bound to be afraid said Burne earnestly And this very walking at night is one of the things I was afraid about Im going to tell you why I can walk anywhere now and not be afraid
Go on Amory urged eagerly They were striding toward the woods Burnes nervous enthusiastic voice warming to his subject
I used to come out here alone at night oh three months ago and I always stopped at that crossroad we just passed There were the woods looming up ahead just as they do now there were dogs howling and the shadows and no human sound Of course I peopled the woods with everything ghastly just like you do dont you
I do Amory admitted
Well I began analyzing it—my imagination persisted in sticking horrors into the dark—so I stuck my imagination into the dark instead and let it look out at me—I let it play stray dog or escaped convict or ghost and then saw myself coming along the road That made it all right—as it always makes everything all right to project yourself completely into anothers place I knew that if I were the dog or the convict or the ghost I wouldnt be a menace to Burne Holiday any more than he was a menace to me Then I thought of my watch Id better go back and leave it and then essay the woods No I decided its better on the whole that I should lose a watch than that I should turn back—and I did go into them—not only followed the road through them but walked into them until I wasnt frightened any more—did it until one night I sat down and dozed off in there then I knew I was through being afraid of the dark
Lordy Amory breathed I couldnt have done that Id have come out halfway and the first time an automobile passed and made the dark thicker when its lamps disappeared Id have come in
Well Burne said suddenly after a few moments silence were halfway through lets turn back
On the return he launched into a discussion of will
Its the whole thing he asserted Its the one dividing line between good and evil Ive never met a man who led a rotten life and didnt have a weak will
How about great criminals
Theyre usually insane If not theyre weak There is no such thing as a strong sane criminal
Burne I disagree with you altogether how about the superman
Well
Hes evil I think yet hes strong and sane
Ive never met him Ill bet though that hes stupid or insane
Ive met him over and over and hes neither Thats why I think youre wrong
Im sure Im not—and so I dont believe in imprisonment except for the insane
On this point Amory could not agree It seemed to him that life and history were rife with the strong criminal keen but often selfdeluding in politics and business one found him and among the old statesmen and kings and generals but Burne never agreed and their courses began to split on that point
Burne was drawing farther and farther away from the world about him He resigned the vicepresidency of the senior class and took to reading and walking as almost his only pursuits He voluntarily attended graduate lectures in philosophy and biology and sat in all of them with a rather pathetically intent look in his eyes as if waiting for something the lecturer would never quite come to Sometimes Amory would see him squirm in his seat and his face would light up he was on fire to debate a point
He grew more abstracted on the street and was even accused of becoming a snob but Amory knew it was nothing of the sort and once when Burne passed him four feet off absolutely unseeingly his mind a thousand miles away Amory almost choked with the romantic joy of watching him Burne seemed to be climbing heights where others would be forever unable to get a foothold
I tell you Amory declared to Tom hes the first contemporary Ive ever met whom Ill admit is my superior in mental capacity
Its a bad time to admit it—people are beginning to think hes odd
Hes way over their heads—you know you think so yourself when you talk to him—Good Lord Tom you used to stand out against people Success has completely conventionalized you
Tom grew rather annoyed
Whats he trying to do—be excessively holy
No not like anybody youve ever seen Never enters the Philadelphian Society He has no faith in that rot He doesnt believe that public swimmingpools and a kind word in time will right the wrongs of the world moreover he takes a drink whenever he feels like it
He certainly is getting in wrong
Have you talked to him lately
No
Then you havent any conception of him
The argument ended nowhere but Amory noticed more than ever how the sentiment toward Burne had changed on the campus
Its odd Amory said to Tom one night when they had grown more amicable on the subject that the people who violently disapprove of Burnes radicalism are distinctly the Pharisee class—I mean theyre the besteducated men in college—the editors of the papers like yourself and Ferrenby the younger professors The illiterate athletes like Langueduc think hes getting eccentric but they just say Good old Burne has got some queer ideas in his head and pass on—the Pharisee class—Gee they ridicule him unmercifully
The next morning he met Burne hurrying along McCosh walk after a recitation
Whither bound Tsar
Over to the Prince office to see Ferrenby he waved a copy of the mornings Princetonian at Amory He wrote this editorial
Going to flay him alive
No—but hes got me all balled up Either Ive misjudged him or hes suddenly become the worlds worst radical
Burne hurried on and it was several days before Amory heard an account of the ensuing conversation Burne had come into the editors sanctum displaying the paper cheerfully
Hello Jesse
Hello there Savonarola
I just read your editorial
Good boy—didnt know you stooped that low
Jesse you startled me
How so
Arent you afraid the faculty'll get after you if you pull this irreligious stuff
What
Like this morning
What the devil—that editorial was on the coaching system
Yes but that quotation—
Jesse sat up
What quotation
You know He who is not with me is against me
Well—what about it
Jesse was puzzled but not alarmed
Well you say here—let me see Burne opened the paper and read He who is not with me is against me as that gentleman said who was notoriously capable of only coarse distinctions and puerile generalities
What of it Ferrenby began to look alarmed Oliver Cromwell said it didnt he or was it Washington or one of the saints Good Lord Ive forgotten
Burne roared with laughter
Oh Jesse oh good kind Jesse
Who said it for Petes sake
Well said Burne recovering his voice St Matthew attributes it to Christ
My God cried Jesse and collapsed backward into the wastebasket
AMORY WRITES A POEM
The weeks tore by Amory wandered occasionally to New York on the chance of finding a new shining green autobus that its stickofcandy glamour might penetrate his disposition One day he ventured into a stockcompany revival of a play whose name was faintly familiar The curtain rose—he watched casually as a girl entered A few phrases rang in his ear and touched a faint chord of memory Where— When—
Then he seemed to hear a voice whispering beside him a very soft vibrant voice Oh Im such a poor little fool do tell me when I do wrong
The solution came in a flash and he had a quick glad memory of Isabelle
He found a blank space on his programme and began to scribble rapidly
Here in the figured dark I watch once more
There with the curtain roll the years away
Two years of years—there was an idle day
Of ours when happy endings didnt bore
Our unfermented souls I could adore
Your eager face beside me wideeyed gay
Smiling a repertoire while the poor play
Reached me as a faint ripple reaches shore
Yawning and wondering an evening through
I watch alone and chatterings of course
Spoil the one scene which somehow did have charms
You wept a bit and I grew sad for you
Right here Where Mr X defends divorce
And WhatsHerName falls fainting in his arms
STILL CALM
Ghosts are such dumb things said Alec theyre slowwitted I can always outguess a ghost
How asked Tom
Well it depends where Take a bedroom for example. If you use any discretion a ghost can never get you in a bedroom
Go on spose you think theres maybe a ghost in your bedroom—what measures do you take on getting home at night demanded Amory interested
Take a stick answered Alec with ponderous reverence one about the length of a broomhandle Now the first thing to do is to get the room cleared—to do this you rush with your eyes closed into your study and turn on the lights—next approaching the closet carefully run the stick in the door three or four times Then if nothing happens you can look in Always always run the stick in viciously first—never look first
Of course thats the ancient Celtic school said Tom gravely
Yes—but they usually pray first Anyway you use this method to clear the closets and also for behind all doors—
And the bed Amory suggested
Oh Amory no cried Alec in horror That isnt the way—the bed requires different tactics—let the bed alone as you value your reason—if there is a ghost in the room and thats only about a third of the time it is almost always under the bed
Well Amory began
Alec waved him into silence
Of course you never look You stand in the middle of the floor and before he knows what youre going to do make a sudden leap for the bed—never walk near the bed to a ghost your ankle is your most vulnerable part—once in bed youre safe he may lie around under the bed all night but youre safe as daylight If you still have doubts pull the blanket over your head
All thats very interesting Tom
Isnt it Alec beamed proudly All my own too—the Sir Oliver Lodge of the new world
Amory was enjoying college immensely again The sense of going forward in a direct determined line had come back youth was stirring and shaking out a few new feathers He had even stored enough surplus energy to sally into a new pose
Whats the idea of all this distracted stuff Amory asked Alec one day and then as Amory pretended to be cramped over his book in a daze Oh dont try to act Burne the mystic to me
Amory looked up innocently
What
What mimicked Alec Are you trying to read yourself into a rhapsody with—lets see the book
He snatched it regarded it derisively
Well said Amory a little stiffly
The Life of St Teresa read Alec aloud Oh my gosh
Say Alec
What
Does it bother you
Does what bother me
My acting dazed and all that
Why no—of course it doesnt bother me
Well then dont spoil it If I enjoy going around telling people guilelessly that I think Im a genius let me do it
Youre getting a reputation for being eccentric said Alec laughing if thats what you mean
Amory finally prevailed and Alec agreed to accept his face value in the presence of others if he was allowed rest periods when they were alone so Amory ran it out at a great rate bringing the most eccentric characters to dinner wildeyed grad students preceptors with strange theories of God and government to the cynical amazement of the supercilious Cottage Club
As February became slashed by sun and moved cheerfully into March Amory went several times to spend weekends with Monsignor once he took Burne with great success for he took equal pride and delight in displaying them to each other Monsignor took him several times to see Thornton Hancock and once or twice to the house of a Mrs Lawrence a type of Romehaunting American whom Amory liked immediately
Then one day came a letter from Monsignor which appended an interesting P S
Do you know it ran that your third cousin Clara Page
widowed six months and very poor is living in Philadelphia
I dont think youve ever met her but I wish as a favor to me
youd go to see her To my mind shes rather a remarkable woman
and just about your age
Amory sighed and decided to go as a favor
CLARA
She was immemorial Amory wasnt good enough for Clara Clara of ripply golden hair but then no man was Her goodness was above the prosy morals of the husbandseeker apart from the dull literature of female virtue
Sorrow lay lightly around her and when Amory found her in Philadelphia he thought her steely blue eyes held only happiness a latent strength a realism was brought to its fullest development by the facts that she was compelled to face She was alone in the world with two small children little money and worst of all a host of friends He saw her that winter in Philadelphia entertaining a houseful of men for an evening when he knew she had not a servant in the house except the little colored girl guarding the babies overhead He saw one of the greatest libertines in that city a man who was habitually drunk and notorious at home and abroad sitting opposite her for an evening discussing girls boardingschools with a sort of innocent excitement What a twist Clara had to her mind She could make fascinating and almost brilliant conversation out of the thinnest air that ever floated through a drawingroom
The idea that the girl was povertystricken had appealed to Amorys sense of situation He arrived in Philadelphia expecting to be told that 921 Ark Street was in a miserable lane of hovels He was even disappointed when it proved to be nothing of the sort It was an old house that had been in her husbands family for years An elderly aunt who objected to having it sold had put ten years taxes with a lawyer and pranced off to Honolulu leaving Clara to struggle with the heatingproblem as best she could So no wildhaired woman with a hungry baby at her breast and a sad Amelialike look greeted him Instead Amory would have thought from his reception that she had not a care in the world
A calm virility and a dreamy humor marked contrasts to her levelheadedness—into these moods she slipped sometimes as a refuge She could do the most prosy things though she was wise enough never to stultify herself with such household arts as knitting and embroidery yet immediately afterward pick up a book and let her imagination rove as a formless cloud with the wind Deepest of all in her personality was the golden radiance that she diffused around her As an open fire in a dark room throws romance and pathos into the quiet faces at its edge so she cast her lights and shadows around the rooms that held her until she made of her prosy old uncle a man of quaint and meditative charm metamorphosed the stray telegraph boy into a Pucklike creature of delightful originality At first this quality of hers somehow irritated Amory He considered his own uniqueness sufficient and it rather embarrassed him when she tried to read new interests into him for the benefit of what other adorers were present He felt as if a polite but insistent stagemanager were attempting to make him give a new interpretation of a part he had conned for years
But Clara talking Clara telling a slender tale of a hatpin and an inebriated man and herself People tried afterward to repeat her anecdotes but for the life of them they could make them sound like nothing whatever They gave her a sort of innocent attention and the best smiles many of them had smiled for long there were few tears in Clara but people smiled mistyeyed at her
Very occasionally Amory stayed for little halfhours after the rest of the court had gone and they would have bread and jam and tea late in the afternoon or maplesugar lunches as she called them at night
You are remarkable arent you Amory was becoming trite from where he perched in the centre of the diningroom table one six oclock
Not a bit she answered She was searching out napkins in the sideboard Im really most humdrum and commonplace One of those people who have no interest in anything but their children
Tell that to somebody else scoffed Amory You know youre perfectly effulgent He asked her the one thing that he knew might embarrass her It was the remark that the first bore made to Adam
Tell me about yourself And she gave the answer that Adam must have given
Theres nothing to tell
But eventually Adam probably told the bore all the things he thought about at night when the locusts sang in the sandy grass and he must have remarked patronizingly how different he was from Eve forgetting how different she was from him at any rate Clara told Amory much about herself that evening She had had a harried life from sixteen on and her education had stopped sharply with her leisure Browsing in her library Amory found a tattered gray book out of which fell a yellow sheet that he impudently opened It was a poem that she had written at school about a gray convent wall on a gray day and a girl with her cloak blown by the wind sitting atop of it and thinking about the manycolored world As a rule such sentiment bored him but this was done with so much simplicity and atmosphere that it brought a picture of Clara to his mind of Clara on such a cool gray day with her keen blue eyes staring out trying to see her tragedies come marching over the gardens outside He envied that poem How he would have loved to have come along and seen her on the wall and talked nonsense or romance to her perched above him in the air He began to be frightfully jealous of everything about Clara of her past of her babies of the men and women who flocked to drink deep of her cool kindness and rest their tired minds as at an absorbing play
Nobody seems to bore you he objected
About half the world do she admitted but I think thats a pretty good average dont you and she turned to find something in Browning that bore on the subject She was the only person he ever met who could look up passages and quotations to show him in the middle of the conversation and yet not be irritating to distraction She did it constantly with such a serious enthusiasm that he grew fond of watching her golden hair bent over a book brow wrinkled ever so little at hunting her sentence
Through early March he took to going to Philadelphia for weekends Almost always there was some one else there and she seemed not anxious to see him alone for many occasions presented themselves when a word from her would have given him another delicious halfhour of adoration But he fell gradually in love and began to speculate wildly on marriage Though this design flowed through his brain even to his lips still he knew afterward that the desire had not been deeply rooted Once he dreamt that it had come true and woke up in a cold panic for in his dream she had been a silly flaxen Clara with the gold gone out of her hair and platitudes falling insipidly from her changeling tongue But she was the first fine woman he ever knew and one of the few good people who ever interested him She made her goodness such an asset Amory had decided that most good people either dragged theirs after them as a liability or else distorted it to artificial geniality and of course there were the everpresent prig and Pharisee—but Amory never included them as being among the saved
ST CECILIA
Over her gray and velvet dress
Under her molten beaten hair
Color of rose in mock distress
Flushes and fades and makes her fair
Fills the air from her to him
With light and languor and little sighs
Just so subtly he scarcely knows
Laughing lightning color of rose
Do you like me
Of course I do said Clara seriously
Why
Well we have some qualities in common Things that are spontaneous in each of us—or were originally
Youre implying that I havent used myself very well
Clara hesitated
Well I cant judge A man of course has to go through a lot more and Ive been sheltered
Oh dont stall please Clara Amory interrupted but do talk about me a little wont you
Surely Id adore to She didnt smile
Thats sweet of you First answer some questions Am I painfully conceited
Well—no you have tremendous vanity but itll amuse the people who notice its preponderance
I see
Youre really humble at heart You sink to the third hell of depression when you think youve been slighted In fact you havent much selfrespect
Centre of target twice Clara How do you do it You never let me say a word
Of course not—I can never judge a man while hes talking But Im not through the reason you have so little real selfconfidence even though you gravely announce to the occasional philistine that you think youre a genius is that youve attributed all sorts of atrocious faults to yourself and are trying to live up to them For instance youre always saying that you are a slave to highballs
But I am potentially
And you say youre a weak character that youve no will
Not a bit of will—Im a slave to my emotions to my likes to my hatred of boredom to most of my desires—
You are not She brought one little fist down onto the other Youre a slave a bound helpless slave to one thing in the world your imagination
You certainly interest me If this isnt boring you go on
I notice that when you want to stay over an extra day from college you go about it in a sure way You never decide at first while the merits of going or staying are fairly clear in your mind You let your imagination shinny on the side of your desires for a few hours and then you decide Naturally your imagination after a little freedom thinks up a million reasons why you should stay so your decision when it comes isnt true Its biassed
Yes objected Amory but isnt it lack of willpower to let my imagination shinny on the wrong side
My dear boy theres your big mistake This has nothing to do with willpower thats a crazy useless word anyway you lack judgment—the judgment to decide at once when you know your imagination will play you false given half a chance
Well Ill be darned exclaimed Amory in surprise thats the last thing I expected
Clara didnt gloat She changed the subject immediately But she had started him thinking and he believed she was partly right He felt like a factoryowner who after accusing a clerk of dishonesty finds that his own son in the office is changing the books once a week His poor mistreated will that he had been holding up to the scorn of himself and his friends stood before him innocent and his judgment walked off to prison with the unconfinable imp imagination dancing in mocking glee beside him Claras was the only advice he ever asked without dictating the answer himself—except perhaps in his talks with Monsignor Darcy
How he loved to do any sort of thing with Clara Shopping with her was a rare epicurean dream In every store where she had ever traded she was whispered about as the beautiful Mrs Page
Ill bet she wont stay single long
Well dont scream it out She aint lookin for no advice
Aint she beautiful
Enter a floorwalker—silence till he moves forward smirking
Society person aint she
Yeah but poor now I guess so they say
Gee girls aint she some kid
And Clara beamed on all alike Amory believed that tradespeople gave her discounts sometimes to her knowledge and sometimes without it He knew she dressed very well had always the best of everything in the house and was inevitably waited upon by the head floorwalker at the very least
Sometimes they would go to church together on Sunday and he would walk beside her and revel in her cheeks moist from the soft water in the new air She was very devout always had been and God knows what heights she attained and what strength she drew down to herself when she knelt and bent her golden hair into the stainedglass light
St Cecelia he cried aloud one day quite involuntarily and the people turned and peered and the priest paused in his sermon and Clara and Amory turned to fiery red
That was the last Sunday they had for he spoiled it all that night He couldnt help it
They were walking through the March twilight where it was as warm as June and the joy of youth filled his soul so that he felt he must speak
I think he said and his voice trembled that if I lost faith in you Id lose faith in God
She looked at him with such a startled face that he asked her the matter
Nothing she said slowly only this five men have said that to me before and it frightens me
Oh Clara is that your fate
She did not answer
I suppose love to you is— he began
She turned like a flash
I have never been in love
They walked along and he realized slowly how much she had told him never in love She seemed suddenly a daughter of light alone His entity dropped out of her plane and he longed only to touch her dress with almost the realization that Joseph must have had of Marys eternal significance But quite mechanically he heard himself saying
And I love you—any latent greatness that Ive got is oh I cant talk but Clara if I come back in two years in a position to marry you—
She shook her head
No she said Id never marry again Ive got my two children and I want myself for them I like you—I like all clever men you more than any—but you know me well enough to know that Id never marry a clever man— She broke off suddenly
Amory
What
Youre not in love with me You never wanted to marry me did you
It was the twilight he said wonderingly I didnt feel as though I were speaking aloud But I love you—or adore you—or worship you—
There you go—running through your catalogue of emotions in five seconds
He smiled unwillingly
Dont make me out such a lightweight Clara you are depressing sometimes
Youre not a lightweight of all things she said intently taking his arm and opening wide her eyes—he could see their kindliness in the fading dusk A lightweight is an eternal nay
Theres so much spring in the air—theres so much lazy sweetness in your heart
She dropped his arm
Youre all fine now and I feel glorious Give me a cigarette Youve never seen me smoke have you Well I do about once a month
And then that wonderful girl and Amory raced to the corner like two mad children gone wild with paleblue twilight
Im going to the country for tomorrow she announced as she stood panting safe beyond the flare of the corner lamppost These days are too magnificent to miss though perhaps I feel them more in the city
Oh Clara Amory said what a devil you could have been if the Lord had just bent your soul a little the other way
Maybe she answered but I think not Im never really wild and never have been That little outburst was pure spring
And you are too said he
They were walking along now
No—youre wrong again how can a person of your own selfreputed brains be so constantly wrong about me Im the opposite of everything spring ever stood for Its unfortunate if I happen to look like what pleased some soppy old Greek sculptor but I assure you that if it werent for my face Id be a quiet nun in the convent without—then she broke into a run and her raised voice floated back to him as he followed—my precious babies which I must go back and see
She was the only girl he ever knew with whom he could understand how another man might be preferred Often Amory met wives whom he had known as debutantes and looking intently at them imagined that he found something in their faces which said
Oh if I could only have gotten you Oh the enormous conceit of the man
But that night seemed a night of stars and singing and Claras bright soul still gleamed on the ways they had trod
Golden golden is the air— he chanted to the little pools of water Golden is the air golden notes from golden mandolins golden frets of golden violins fair oh wearily fair Skeins from braided basket mortals may not hold oh what young extravagant God who would know or ask it who could give such gold
AMORY IS RESENTFUL
Slowly and inevitably yet with a sudden surge at the last while Amory talked and dreamed war rolled swiftly up the beach and washed the sands where Princeton played Every night the gymnasium echoed as platoon after platoon swept over the floor and shuffled out the basketball markings When Amory went to Washington the next weekend he caught some of the spirit of crisis which changed to repulsion in the Pullman car coming back for the berths across from him were occupied by stinking aliens—Greeks he guessed or Russians He thought how much easier patriotism had been to a homogeneous race how much easier it would have been to fight as the Colonies fought or as the Confederacy fought And he did no sleeping that night but listened to the aliens guffaw and snore while they filled the car with the heavy scent of latest America
In Princeton every one bantered in public and told themselves privately that their deaths at least would be heroic The literary students read Rupert Brooke passionately the loungelizards worried over whether the government would permit the Englishcut uniform for officers a few of the hopelessly lazy wrote to the obscure branches of the War Department seeking an easy commission and a soft berth
Then after a week Amory saw Burne and knew at once that argument would be futile—Burne had come out as a pacifist The socialist magazines a great smattering of Tolstoi and his own intense longing for a cause that would bring out whatever strength lay in him had finally decided him to preach peace as a subjective ideal
When the German army entered Belgium he began if the inhabitants had gone peaceably about their business the German army would have been disorganized in—
I know Amory interrupted Ive heard it all But Im not going to talk propaganda with you Theres a chance that youre right—but even so were hundreds of years before the time when nonresistance can touch us as a reality
But Amory listen—
Burne wed just argue—
Very well
Just one thing—I dont ask you to think of your family or friends because I know they dont count a picayune with you beside your sense of duty—but Burne how do you know that the magazines you read and the societies you join and these idealists you meet arent just plain German
Some of them are of course
How do you know they arent all proGerman—just a lot of weak ones—with GermanJewish names
Thats the chance of course he said slowly How much or how little Im taking this stand because of propaganda Ive heard I dont know naturally I think that its my most innermost conviction—it seems a path spread before me just now
Amorys heart sank
But think of the cheapness of it—no ones really going to martyr you for being a pacifist—its just going to throw you in with the worst—
I doubt it he interrupted
Well it all smells of Bohemian New York to me
I know what you mean and thats why Im not sure Ill agitate
Youre one man Burne—going to talk to people who wont listen—with all Gods given you
Thats what Stephen must have thought many years ago But he preached his sermon and they killed him He probably thought as he was dying what a waste it all was But you see Ive always felt that Stephens death was the thing that occurred to Paul on the road to Damascus and sent him to preach the word of Christ all over the world
Go on
Thats all—this is my particular duty Even if right now Im just a pawn—just sacrificed God Amory—you dont think I like the Germans
Well I cant say anything else—I get to the end of all the logic about nonresistance and there like an excluded middle stands the huge spectre of man as he is and always will be And this spectre stands right beside the one logical necessity of Tolstois and the other logical necessity of Nietzsches— Amory broke off suddenly When are you going
Im going next week
Ill see you of course
As he walked away it seemed to Amory that the look in his face bore a great resemblance to that in Kerrys when he had said goodby under Blair Arch two years before Amory wondered unhappily why he could never go into anything with the primal honesty of those two
Burnes a fanatic he said to Tom and hes dead wrong and Im inclined to think just an unconscious pawn in the hands of anarchistic publishers and Germanpaid rag wavers—but he haunts me—just leaving everything worth while—
Burne left in a quietly dramatic manner a week later He sold all his possessions and came down to the room to say goodby with a battered old bicycle on which he intended to ride to his home in Pennsylvania
Peter the Hermit bidding farewell to Cardinal Richelieu suggested Alec who was lounging in the windowseat as Burne and Amory shook hands
But Amory was not in a mood for that and as he saw Burnes long legs propel his ridiculous bicycle out of sight beyond Alexander Hall he knew he was going to have a bad week Not that he doubted the war—Germany stood for everything repugnant to him for materialism and the direction of tremendous licentious force it was just that Burnes face stayed in his memory and he was sick of the hysteria he was beginning to hear
What on earth is the use of suddenly running down Goethe he declared to Alec and Tom Why write books to prove he started the war—or that that stupid overestimated Schiller is a demon in disguise
Have you ever read anything of theirs asked Tom shrewdly
No Amory admitted
Neither have I he said laughing
People will shout said Alec quietly but Goethes on his same old shelf in the library—to bore any one that wants to read him
Amory subsided and the subject dropped
What are you going to do Amory
Infantry or aviation I cant make up my mind—I hate mechanics but then of course aviations the thing for me—
I feel as Amory does said Tom Infantry or aviation—aviation sounds like the romantic side of the war of course—like cavalry used to be you know but like Amory I dont know a horsepower from a pistonrod
Somehow Amorys dissatisfaction with his lack of enthusiasm culminated in an attempt to put the blame for the whole war on the ancestors of his generation all the people who cheered for Germany in 1870 All the materialists rampant all the idolizers of German science and efficiency So he sat one day in an English lecture and heard Locksley Hall quoted and fell into a brown study with contempt for Tennyson and all he stood for—for he took him as a representative of the Victorians
Victorians Victorians who never learned to weep
Who sowed the bitter harvest that your children go to reap—
scribbled Amory in his notebook The lecturer was saying something about Tennysons solidity and fifty heads were bent to take notes Amory turned over to a fresh page and began scrawling again
They shuddered when they found what Mr Darwin was about
They shuddered when the waltz came in and Newman hurried out—
But the waltz came in much earlier he crossed that out
And entitled A Song in the Time of Order came the professors voice droning far away Time of Order—Good Lord Everything crammed in the box and the Victorians sitting on the lid smiling serenely With Browning in his Italian villa crying bravely Alls for the best Amory scribbled again
You knelt up in the temple and he bent to hear you pray
You thanked him for your glorious gains—reproached him for
Cathay
Why could he never get more than a couplet at a time Now he needed something to rhyme with
You would keep Him straight with science tho He had gone wrong
before
Well anyway
You met your children in your home—Ive fixed it up you cried
Took your fifty years of Europe and then virtuously—died
That was to a great extent Tennysons idea came the lecturers voice Swinburnes Song in the Time of Order might well have been Tennysons title He idealized order against chaos against waste
At last Amory had it He turned over another page and scrawled vigorously for the twenty minutes that was left of the hour Then he walked up to the desk and deposited a page torn out of his notebook
Heres a poem to the Victorians sir he said coldly
The professor picked it up curiously while Amory backed rapidly through the door
Here is what he had written
Songs in the time of order
You left for us to sing
Proofs with excluded middles
Answers to life in rhyme
Keys of the prison warder
And ancient bells to ring
Time was the end of riddles
We were the end of time
Here were domestic oceans
And a sky that we might reach
Guns and a guarded border
Gantlets—but not to fling
Thousands of old emotions
And a platitude for each
Songs in the time of order—
And tongues that we might sing
THE END OF MANY THINGS
Early April slipped by in a haze—a haze of long evenings on the club veranda with the graphophone playing Poor Butterfly inside for Poor Butterfly had been the song of that last year The war seemed scarcely to touch them and it might have been one of the senior springs of the past except for the drilling every other afternoon yet Amory realized poignantly that this was the last spring under the old regime
This is the great protest against the superman said Amory
I suppose so Alec agreed
Hes absolutely irreconcilable with any Utopia As long as he occurs theres trouble and all the latent evil that makes a crowd list and sway when he talks
And of course all that he is is a gifted man without a moral sense
Thats all I think the worst thing to contemplate is this—its all happened before how soon will it happen again Fifty years after Waterloo Napoleon was as much a hero to English school children as Wellington How do we know our grandchildren wont idolize Von Hindenburg the same way
What brings it about
Time damn it and the historian If we could only learn to look on evil as evil whether its clothed in filth or monotony or magnificence
God Havent we raked the universe over the coals for four years
Then the night came that was to be the last Tom and Amory bound in the morning for different trainingcamps paced the shadowy walks as usual and seemed still to see around them the faces of the men they knew
The grass is full of ghosts tonight
The whole campus is alive with them
They paused by Little and watched the moon rise to make silver of the slate roof of Dodd and blue the rustling trees
You know whispered Tom what we feel now is the sense of all the gorgeous youth that has rioted through here in two hundred years
A last burst of singing flooded up from Blair Arch—broken voices for some long parting
And what we leave here is more than this class its the whole heritage of youth Were just one generation—were breaking all the links that seemed to bind us here to topbooted and highstocked generations Weve walked arm and arm with Burr and LightHorse Harry Lee through half these deepblue nights
Thats what they are Tom tangented off deep blue—a bit of color would spoil them make them exotic Spires against a sky thats a promise of dawn and blue light on the slate roofs—it hurts rather—
Goodby Aaron Burr Amory called toward deserted Nassau Hall you and I knew strange corners of life
His voice echoed in the stillness
The torches are out whispered Tom Ah Messalina the long shadows are building minarets on the stadium—
For an instant the voices of freshman year surged around them and then they looked at each other with faint tears in their eyes
Damn
Damn
The last light fades and drifts across the land—the low long land the sunny land of spires the ghosts of evening tune again their lyres and wander singing in a plaintive band down the long corridors of trees pale fires echo the night from tower top to tower Oh sleep that dreams and dream that never tires press from the petals of the lotus flower something of this to keep the essence of an hour
No more to wait the twilight of the moon in this sequestered vale of star and spire for one eternal morning of desire passes to time and earthy afternoon Here Heraclitus did you find in fire and shifting things the prophecy you hurled down the dead years this midnight my desire will see shadowed among the embers furled in flame the splendor and the sadness of the world
INTERLUDE
May 1917February 1919
A letter dated January 1918 written by Monsignor Darcy to Amory who is a second lieutenant in the 171st Infantry Port of Embarkation Camp Mills Long Island
MY DEAR BOY
All you need tell me of yourself is that you still are for the rest I merely search back in a restive memory a thermometer that records only fevers and match you with what I was at your age But men will chatter and you and I will still shout our futilities to each other across the stage until the last silly curtain falls plump upon our bobbing heads But you are starting the spluttering magiclantern show of life with much the same array of slides as I had so I need to write you if only to shriek the colossal stupidity of people
This is the end of one thing for better or worse you will never again be quite the Amory Blaine that I knew never again will we meet as we have met because your generation is growing hard much harder than mine ever grew nourished as they were on the stuff of the nineties
Amory lately I reread Aeschylus and there in the divine irony of the Agamemnon I find the only answer to this bitter age—all the world tumbled about our ears and the closest parallel ages back in that hopeless resignation There are times when I think of the men out there as Roman legionaries miles from their corrupt city stemming back the hordes hordes a little more menacing after all than the corrupt city another blind blow at the race furies that we passed with ovations years ago over whose corpses we bleated triumphantly all through the Victorian era
And afterward an outandout materialistic world—and the Catholic Church I wonder where youll fit in Of one thing Im sure—Celtic youll live and Celtic youll die so if you dont use heaven as a continual referendum for your ideas youll find earth a continual recall to your ambitions
Amory Ive discovered suddenly that Im an old man Like all old men Ive had dreams sometimes and Im going to tell you of them Ive enjoyed imagining that you were my son that perhaps when I was young I went into a state of coma and begat you and when I came to had no recollection of it its the paternal instinct Amory—celibacy goes deeper than the flesh
Sometimes I think that the explanation of our deep resemblance is some common ancestor and I find that the only blood that the Darcys and the OHaras have in common is that of the ODonahues Stephen was his name I think
When the lightning strikes one of us it strikes both you had hardly arrived at the port of embarkation when I got my papers to start for Rome and I am waiting every moment to be told where to take ship Even before you get this letter I shall be on the ocean then will come your turn You went to war as a gentleman should just as you went to school and college because it was the thing to do Its better to leave the blustering and tremuloheroism to the middle classes they do it so much better
Do you remember that weekend last March when you brought Burne Holiday from Princeton to see me What a magnificent boy he is It gave me a frightful shock afterward when you wrote that he thought me splendid how could he be so deceived Splendid is the one thing that neither you nor I are We are many other things—were extraordinary were clever we could be said I suppose to be brilliant We can attract people we can make atmosphere we can almost lose our Celtic souls in Celtic subtleties we can almost always have our own way but splendid—rather not
I am going to Rome with a wonderful dossier and letters of introduction that cover every capital in Europe and there will be no small stir when I get there How I wish you were with me This sounds like a rather cynical paragraph not at all the sort of thing that a middleaged clergyman should write to a youth about to depart for the war the only excuse is that the middleaged clergyman is talking to himself There are deep things in us and you know what they are as well as I do We have great faith though yours at present is uncrystallized we have a terrible honesty that all our sophistry cannot destroy and above all a childlike simplicity that keeps us from ever being really malicious
I have written a keen for you which follows I am sorry your cheeks are not up to the description I have written of them but you will smoke and read all night—
At any rate here it is
A Lament for a Foster Son and He going to the War Against the King of Foreign
Ochone
He is gone from me the son of my mind
And he in his golden youth like Angus Oge
Angus of the bright birds
And his mind strong and subtle like the mind of Cuchulin on
Muirtheme
Awirra sthrue
His brow is as white as the milk of the cows of Maeve
And his cheeks like the cherries of the tree
And it bending down to Mary and she feeding the Son of God
Aveelia Vrone
His hair is like the golden collar of the Kings at Tara
And his eyes like the four gray seas of Erin
And they swept with the mists of rain
Mavrone go Gudyo
He to be in the joyful and red battle
Amongst the chieftains and they doing great deeds of valor
His life to go from him
It is the chords of my own soul would be loosed
A Vich Deelish
My heart is in the heart of my son
And my life is in his life surely
A man can be twice young
In the life of his sons only
Jia du Vaha Alanav
May the Son of God be above him and beneath him before him and
behind him
May the King of the elements cast a mist over the eyes of the
King of Foreign
May the Queen of the Graces lead him by the hand the way he can
go through the midst of his enemies and they not seeing him
May Patrick of the Gael and Collumb of the Churches and the five
thousand Saints of Erin be better than a shield to him
And he got into the fight
Och Ochone
Amory—Amory—I feel somehow that this is all one or both of us is not going to last out this war Ive been trying to tell you how much this reincarnation of myself in you has meant in the last few years curiously alike we are curiously unlike Goodby dear boy and God be with you THAYER DARCY
EMBARKING AT NIGHT
Amory moved forward on the deck until he found a stool under an electric light He searched in his pocket for notebook and pencil and then began to write slowly laboriously
We leave tonight
Silent we filled the still deserted street
A column of dim gray
And ghosts rose startled at the muffled beat
Along the moonless way
The shadowy shipyards echoed to the feet
That turned from night and day
And so we linger on the windless decks
See on the spectre shore
Shades of a thousand days poor grayribbed wrecks
Oh shall we then deplore
Those futile years
See how the sea is white
The clouds have broken and the heavens burn
To hollow highways paved with gravelled light
The churning of the waves about the stern
Rises to one voluminous nocturne
We leave tonight
A letter from Amory headed Brest March 11th 1919 to Lieutenant T P DInvilliers Camp Gordon Ga
DEAR BAUDELAIRE—
We meet in Manhattan on the 30th of this very mo we then proceed to take a very sporty apartment you and I and Alec who is at me elbow as I write I dont know what Im going to do but I have a vague dream of going into politics Why is it that the pick of the young Englishmen from Oxford and Cambridge go into politics and in the U S A we leave it to the muckers—raised in the ward educated in the assembly and sent to Congress fatpaunched bundles of corruption devoid of both ideas and ideals as the debaters used to say Even forty years ago we had good men in politics but we we are brought up to pile up a million and show what we are made of Sometimes I wish Id been an Englishman American life is so damned dumb and stupid and healthy
Since poor Beatrice died Ill probably have a little money but very darn little I can forgive mother almost everything except the fact that in a sudden burst of religiosity toward the end she left half of what remained to be spent in stainedglass windows and seminary endowments Mr Barton my lawyer writes me that my thousands are mostly in street railways and that the said Street RR s are losing money because of the fivecent fares Imagine a salary list that gives 350 a month to a man that cant read and write—yet I believe in it even though Ive seen what was once a sizable fortune melt away between speculation extravagance the democratic administration and the income tax—modern thats me all over Mabel
At any rate well have really knockout rooms—you can get a job on some fashion magazine and Alec can go into the Zinc Company or whatever it is that his people own—hes looking over my shoulder and he says its a brass company but I dont think it matters much do you Theres probably as much corruption in zincmade money as brassmade money As for the wellknown Amory he would write immortal literature if he were sure enough about anything to risk telling any one else about it There is no more dangerous gift to posterity than a few cleverly turned platitudes
Tom why dont you become a Catholic Of course to be a good one youd have to give up those violent intrigues you used to tell me about but youd write better poetry if you were linked up to tall golden candlesticks and long even chants and even if the American priests are rather burgeois as Beatrice used to say still you need only go to the sporty churches and Ill introduce you to Monsignor Darcy who really is a wonder
Kerrys death was a blow so was Jesses to a certain extent And I have a great curiosity to know what queer corner of the world has swallowed Burne Do you suppose hes in prison under some false name I confess that the war instead of making me orthodox which is the correct reaction has made me a passionate agnostic The Catholic Church has had its wings clipped so often lately that its part was timidly negligible and they havent any good writers any more Im sick of Chesterton
Ive only discovered one soldier who passed through the muchadvertised spiritual crisis like this fellow Donald Hankey and the one I knew was already studying for the ministry so he was ripe for it I honestly think thats all pretty much rot though it seemed to give sentimental comfort to those at home and may make fathers and mothers appreciate their children This crisisinspired religion is rather valueless and fleeting at best I think four men have discovered Paris to one that discovered God
But us—you and me and Alec—oh well get a Jap butler and dress for dinner and have wine on the table and lead a contemplative emotionless life until we decide to use machineguns with the property owners—or throw bombs with the Bolshevik God Tom I hope something happens Im restless as the devil and have a horror of getting fat or falling in love and growing domestic
The place at Lake Geneva is now for rent but when I land Im going West to see Mr Barton and get some details Write me care of the Blackstone Chicago
Sever dear Boswell
SAMUEL JOHNSON
BOOK TWO—The Education of a Personage
CHAPTER 1 The Debutante
The time is February The place is a large dainty bedroom in the Connage house on Sixtyeighth Street New York A girls room pink walls and curtains and a pink bedspread on a creamcolored bed Pink and cream are the motifs of the room but the only article of furniture in full view is a luxurious dressingtable with a glass top and a threesided mirror On the walls there is an expensive print of Cherry Ripe a few polite dogs by Landseer and the King of the Black Isles by Maxfield Parrish
Great disorder consisting of the following items 1 seven or eight empty cardboard boxes with tissuepaper tongues hanging panting from their mouths 2 an assortment of street dresses mingled with their sisters of the evening all upon the table all evidently new 3 a roll of tulle which has lost its dignity and wound itself tortuously around everything in sight and 4 upon the two small chairs a collection of lingerie that beggars description One would enjoy seeing the bill called forth by the finery displayed and one is possessed by a desire to see the princess for whose benefit—Look Theres some one Disappointment This is only a maid hunting for something—she lifts a heap from a chair—Not there another heap the dressingtable the chiffonier drawers She brings to light several beautiful chemises and an amazing pajama but this does not satisfy her—she goes out
An indistinguishable mumble from the next room
Now we are getting warm This is Alecs mother Mrs Connage ample dignified rouged to the dowager point and quite worn out Her lips move significantly as she looks for IT Her search is less thorough than the maids but there is a touch of fury in it that quite makes up for its sketchiness She stumbles on the tulle and her damn is quite audible She retires emptyhanded
More chatter outside and a girls voice a very spoiled voice says Of all the stupid people—
After a pause a third seeker enters not she of the spoiled voice but a younger edition This is Cecelia Connage sixteen pretty shrewd and constitutionally goodhumored She is dressed for the evening in a gown the obvious simplicity of which probably bores her She goes to the nearest pile selects a small pink garment and holds it up appraisingly
CECELIA Pink
ROSALIND Outside Yes
CECELIA Very snappy
ROSALIND Yes
CECELIA Ive got it
She sees herself in the mirror of the dressingtable and commences to shimmy enthusiastically
ROSALIND Outside What are you doing—trying it on
CECELIA ceases and goes out carrying the garment at the right shoulder
From the other door enters ALEC CONNAGE He looks around quickly and in a huge voice shouts Mama There is a chorus of protest from next door and encouraged he starts toward it but is repelled by another chorus
ALEC So thats where you all are Amory Blaine is here
CECELIA Quickly Take him downstairs
ALEC Oh he is downstairs
MRS CONNAGE Well you can show him where his room is Tell him Im sorry that I cant meet him now
ALEC Hes heard a lot about you all I wish youd hurry Fathers telling him all about the war and hes restless Hes sort of temperamental
This last suffices to draw CECELIA into the room
CECELIA Seating herself high upon lingerie How do you mean—temperamental You used to say that about him in letters
ALEC Oh he writes stuff
CECELIA Does he play the piano
ALEC Dont think so
CECELIA Speculatively Drink
ALEC Yes—nothing queer about him
CECELIA Money
ALEC Good Lord—ask him he used to have a lot and hes got some income now
MRS CONNAGE appears
MRS CONNAGE Alec of course were glad to have any friend of yours—
ALEC You certainly ought to meet Amory
MRS CONNAGE Of course I want to But I think its so childish of you to leave a perfectly good home to go and live with two other boys in some impossible apartment I hope it isnt in order that you can all drink as much as you want She pauses Hell be a little neglected tonight This is Rosalinds week you see When a girl comes out she needs all the attention
ROSALIND Outside Well then prove it by coming here and hooking me
MRS CONNAGE goes
ALEC Rosalind hasnt changed a bit
CECELIA In a lower tone Shes awfully spoiled
ALEC Shell meet her match tonight
CECELIA Who—Mr Amory Blaine
ALEC nods
CECELIA Well Rosalind has still to meet the man she cant outdistance Honestly Alec she treats men terribly She abuses them and cuts them and breaks dates with them and yawns in their faces—and they come back for more
ALEC They love it
CECELIA They hate it Shes a—shes a sort of vampire I think—and she can make girls do what she wants usually—only she hates girls
ALEC Personality runs in our family
CECELIA Resignedly I guess it ran out before it got to me
ALEC Does Rosalind behave herself
CECELIA Not particularly well Oh shes average—smokes sometimes drinks punch frequently kissed—Oh yes—common knowledge—one of the effects of the war you know
Emerges MRS CONNAGE
MRS CONNAGE Rosalinds almost finished so I can go down and meet your friend
ALEC and his mother go out
ROSALIND Outside Oh mother—
CECELIA Mothers gone down
And now ROSALIND enters ROSALIND is—utterly 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 every one around her pretty miserable when she doesnt get it—but 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 honesty—these 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 herself—incipient meanness conceit cowardice and petty dishonesty She once told a roomful of her mothers 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 loveletters
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 cartwheel
A last qualification—her 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 onceinacentury blend
On the night of her debut she is for all her strange stray wisdom quite like a happy little girl Her mothers 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 ISABELLES alto tones had been like a violin but if you could hear ROSALIND you would say her voice was musical as a waterfall
ROSALIND Honestly there are only two costumes in the world that I really enjoy being in—Combing her hair at the dressingtable Ones a hoop skirt with pantaloons the others a onepiece bathingsuit Im quite charming in both of them
CECELIA Glad youre coming out
ROSALIND Yes arent you
CECELIA Cynically Youre 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
ROSALIND Want it to be one You mean Ive found it one
CECELIA Ha
ROSALIND Cecelia darling you dont know what a trial it is to be—like me Ive 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
CECELIA It must be an awful strain
ROSALIND The unfortunate part is that the only men who interest me at all are the totally ineligible ones Now—if I were poor Id go on the stage
CECELIA Yes you might as well get paid for the amount of acting you do
ROSALIND Sometimes when Ive felt particularly radiant Ive thought why should this be wasted on one man
CECELIA Often when youre particularly sulky Ive wondered why it should all be wasted on just one family Getting up I think Ill go down and meet Mr Amory Blaine I like temperamental men
ROSALIND There arent any Men dont know how to be really angry or really happy—and the ones that do go to pieces
CECELIA Well Im glad I dont have all your worries Im engaged
ROSALIND With a scornful smile Engaged Why you little lunatic If mother heard you talking like that shed send you off to boardingschool where you belong
CECELIA You wont tell her though because I know things I could tell—and youre too selfish
ROSALIND A little annoyed Run along little girl Who are you engaged to the iceman the man that keeps the candystore
CECELIA Cheap wit—goodby darling Ill see you later
ROSALIND Oh be sure and do that—youre such a help
Exit CECELIA ROSALIND finished her hair and rises humming She goes up to the mirror and starts to dance in front of it on the soft carpet She watches not her feet but her eyes—never casually but always intently even when she smiles The door suddenly opens and then slams behind AMORY very cool and handsome as usual He melts into instant confusion
HE Oh Im sorry I thought—
SHE Smiling radiantly Oh youre Amory Blaine arent you
HE Regarding her closely And youre Rosalind
SHE Im going to call you Amory—oh come in—its all right—motherll be right in—under her breath unfortunately
HE Gazing around This is sort of a new wrinkle for me
SHE This is No Mans Land
HE This is where you—you—pause
SHE Yes—all those things She crosses to the bureau See heres my rouge—eye pencils
HE I didnt know you were that way
SHE What did you expect
HE I thought youd be sort of—sort of—sexless you know swim and play golf
SHE Oh I do—but not in business hours
HE Business
SHE Six to two—strictly
HE Id like to have some stock in the corporation
SHE Oh its not a corporation—its just Rosalind Unlimited Fiftyone shares name goodwill and everything goes at 25000 a year
HE Disapprovingly Sort of a chilly proposition
SHE Well Amory you dont mind—do you When I meet a man that doesnt bore me to death after two weeks perhaps itll be different
HE Odd you have the same point of view on men that I have on women
SHE Im not really feminine you know—in my mind
HE Interested Go on
SHE No you—you go on—youve made me talk about myself Thats against the rules
HE Rules
SHE My own rules—but you—Oh Amory I hear youre brilliant The family expects so much of you
HE How encouraging
SHE Alec said youd taught him to think Did you I didnt believe any one could
HE No Im really quite dull
He evidently doesnt intend this to be taken seriously
SHE Liar
HE Im—Im religious—Im literary Ive—Ive even written poems
SHE Vers libre—splendid She declaims
The trees are green
The birds are singing in the trees
The girl sips her poison
The bird flies away the girl dies
HE Laughing No not that kind
SHE Suddenly I like you
HE Dont
SHE Modest too—
HE Im afraid of you Im always afraid of a girl—until Ive kissed her
SHE Emphatically My dear boy the war is over
HE So Ill always be afraid of you
SHE Rather sadly I suppose you will
A slight hesitation on both their parts
HE After due consideration Listen This is a frightful thing to ask
SHE Knowing whats coming After five minutes
HE But will you—kiss me Or are you afraid
SHE Im never afraid—but your reasons are so poor
HE Rosalind I really want to kiss you
SHE So do I
They kiss—definitely and thoroughly
HE After a breathless second Well is your curiosity satisfied
SHE Is yours
HE No its only aroused
He looks it
SHE Dreamily Ive kissed dozens of men I suppose Ill kiss dozens more
HE Abstractedly Yes I suppose you could—like that
SHE Most people like the way I kiss
HE Remembering himself Good Lord yes Kiss me once more Rosalind
SHE No—my curiosity is generally satisfied at one
HE Discouraged Is that a rule
SHE I make rules to fit the cases.
HE You and I are somewhat alike—except that Im years older in experience.
SHE How old are you
HE Almost twentythree You
SHE Nineteen—just
HE I suppose youre the product of a fashionable school
SHE No—Im fairly raw material I was expelled from Spence—Ive forgotten why
HE Whats your general trend
SHE Oh Im bright quite selfish emotional when aroused fond of admiration—
HE Suddenly I dont want to fall in love with you—
SHE Raising her eyebrows Nobody asked you to
HE Continuing coldly But I probably will I love your mouth
SHE Hush Please dont fall in love with my mouth—hair eyes shoulders slippers—but not my mouth Everybody falls in love with my mouth
HE Its quite beautiful
SHE Its too small
HE No it isnt—lets see
He kisses her again with the same thoroughness
SHE Rather moved Say something sweet
HE Frightened Lord help me
SHE Drawing away Well dont—if its so hard
HE Shall we pretend So soon
SHE We havent the same standards of time as other people
HE Already its—other people
SHE Lets pretend
HE No—I cant—its sentiment
SHE Youre not sentimental
HE No Im romantic—a sentimental person thinks things will last—a romantic person hopes against hope that they wont Sentiment is emotional
SHE And youre not With her eyes halfclosed You probably flatter yourself that thats a superior attitude
HE Well—Rosalind Rosalind dont argue—kiss me again
SHE Quite chilly now No—I have no desire to kiss you
HE Openly taken aback You wanted to kiss me a minute ago
SHE This is now
HE Id better go
SHE I suppose so
He goes toward the door
SHE Oh
He turns
SHE Laughing Score—Home Team One hundred—Opponents Zero
He starts back
SHE Quickly Rain—no game
He goes out
She goes quietly to the chiffonier takes out a cigarettecase and hides it in the side drawer of a desk Her mother enters notebook in hand
MRS CONNAGE Good—Ive been wanting to speak to you alone before we go downstairs
ROSALIND Heavens you frighten me
MRS CONNAGE Rosalind youve been a very expensive proposition
ROSALIND Resignedly Yes
MRS CONNAGE And you know your father hasnt what he once had
ROSALIND Making a wry face Oh please dont talk about money
MRS CONNAGE You cant do anything without it This is our last year in this house—and unless things change Cecelia wont have the advantages youve had
ROSALIND Impatiently Well—what is it
MRS CONNAGE So I ask you to please mind me in several things Ive put down in my notebook The first one is dont disappear with young men There may be a time when its valuable but at present I want you on the dancefloor where I can find you There are certain men I want to have you meet and I dont like finding you in some corner of the conservatory exchanging silliness with any one—or listening to it
ROSALIND Sarcastically Yes listening to it is better
MRS CONNAGE And dont waste a lot of time with the college set—little boys nineteen and twenty years old I dont mind a prom or a football game but staying away from advantageous parties to eat in little cafes downtown with Tom Dick and Harry—
ROSALIND Offering her code which is in its way quite as high as her mothers Mother its done—you cant run everything now the way you did in the early nineties
MRS CONNAGE Paying no attention There are several bachelor friends of your fathers that I want you to meet tonight—youngish men
ROSALIND Nodding wisely About fortyfive
MRS CONNAGE Sharply Why not
ROSALIND Oh quite all right—they know life and are so adorably tired looking shakes her head—but they will dance
MRS CONNAGE I havent met Mr Blaine—but I dont think youll care for him He doesnt sound like a moneymaker
ROSALIND Mother I never think about money
MRS CONNAGE You never keep it long enough to think about it
ROSALIND Sighs Yes I suppose some day Ill marry a ton of it—out of sheer boredom
MRS CONNAGE Referring to notebook I had a wire from Hartford Dawson Ryder is coming up Now theres a young man I like and hes floating in money It seems to me that since you seem tired of Howard Gillespie you might give Mr Ryder some encouragement This is the third time hes been up in a month
ROSALIND How did you know I was tired of Howard Gillespie
MRS CONNAGE The poor boy looks so miserable every time he comes
ROSALIND That was one of those romantic prebattle affairs Theyre all wrong
MRS CONNAGE Her say said At any rate make us proud of you tonight
ROSALIND Dont you think Im beautiful
MRS CONNAGE You know you are
From downstairs is heard the moan of a violin being tuned the roll of a drum MRS CONNAGE turns quickly to her daughter
MRS CONNAGE Come
ROSALIND One minute
Her mother leaves ROSALIND goes to the glass where she gazes at herself with great satisfaction She kisses her hand and touches her mirrored mouth with it Then she turns out the lights and leaves the room Silence for a moment A few chords from the piano the discreet patter of faint drums the rustle of new silk all blend on the staircase outside and drift in through the partly opened door Bundled figures pass in the lighted hall The laughter heard below becomes doubled and multiplied Then some one comes in closes the door and switches on the lights It is CECELIA She goes to the chiffonier looks in the drawers hesitates—then to the desk whence she takes the cigarettecase and extracts one She lights it and then puffing and blowing walks toward the mirror
CECELIA In tremendously sophisticated accents Oh yes coming out is such a farce nowadays you know One really plays around so much before one is seventeen that its positively anticlimax Shaking hands with a visionary middleaged nobleman Yes your grace—I blieve Ive heard my sister speak of you Have a puff—theyre very good Theyre—theyre Coronas You dont smoke What a pity The king doesnt allow it I suppose Yes Ill dance
So she dances around the room to a tune from downstairs her arms outstretched to an imaginary partner the cigarette waving in her hand
SEVERAL HOURS LATER
The corner of a den downstairs filled by a very comfortable leather lounge A small light is on each side above and in the middle over the couch hangs a painting of a very old very dignified gentleman period 1860 Outside the music is heard in a foxtrot
ROSALIND is seated on the lounge and on her left is HOWARD GILLESPIE a vapid youth of about twentyfour He is obviously very unhappy and she is quite bored
GILLESPIE Feebly What do you mean Ive changed I feel the same toward you
ROSALIND But you dont look the same to me
GILLESPIE Three weeks ago you used to say that you liked me because I was so blasé so indifferent—I still am
ROSALIND But not about me I used to like you because you had brown eyes and thin legs
GILLESPIE Helplessly Theyre still thin and brown Youre a vampire thats all
ROSALIND The only thing I know about vamping is whats on the piano score What confuses men is that Im perfectly natural I used to think you were never jealous Now you follow me with your eyes wherever I go
GILLESPIE I love you
ROSALIND Coldly I know it
GILLESPIE And you havent kissed me for two weeks I had an idea that after a girl was kissed she was—was—won
ROSALIND Those days are over I have to be won all over again every time you see me
GILLESPIE Are you serious
ROSALIND About as usual There used to be two kinds of kisses First when girls were kissed and deserted second when they were engaged Now theres a third kind where the man is kissed and deserted If Mr Jones of the nineties bragged hed kissed a girl every one knew he was through with her If Mr Jones of 1919 brags the same every one knows its because he cant kiss her any more Given a decent start any girl can beat a man nowadays
GILLESPIE Then why do you play with men
ROSALIND Leaning forward confidentially For that first moment when hes interested There is a moment—Oh just before the first kiss a whispered word—something that makes it worth while
GILLESPIE And then
ROSALIND Then after that you make him talk about himself Pretty soon he thinks of nothing but being alone with you—he sulks he wont fight he doesnt want to play—Victory
Enter DAWSON RYDER twentysix handsome wealthy faithful to his own a bore perhaps but steady and sure of success
RYDER I believe this is my dance Rosalind
ROSALIND Well Dawson so you recognize me Now I know I havent got too much paint on Mr Ryder this is Mr Gillespie
They shake hands and GILLESPIE leaves tremendously downcast
RYDER Your party is certainly a success
ROSALIND Is it—I havent seen it lately Im weary—Do you mind sitting out a minute
RYDER Mind—Im delighted You know I loathe this rushing idea See a girl yesterday today tomorrow
ROSALIND Dawson
RYDER What
ROSALIND I wonder if you know you love me
RYDER Startled What—Oh—you know youre remarkable
ROSALIND Because you know Im an awful proposition Any one who marries me will have his hands full Im mean—mighty mean
RYDER Oh I wouldnt say that
ROSALIND Oh yes I am—especially to the people nearest to me She rises Come lets go Ive changed my mind and I want to dance Mother is probably having a fit
Exeunt Enter ALEC and CECELIA
CECELIA Just my luck to get my own brother for an intermission
ALEC Gloomily Ill go if you want me to
CECELIA Good heavens no—with whom would I begin the next dance Sighs Theres no color in a dance since the French officers went back
ALEC Thoughtfully I dont want Amory to fall in love with Rosalind
CECELIA Why I had an idea that that was just what you did want
ALEC I did but since seeing these girls—I dont know Im awfully attached to Amory Hes sensitive and I dont want him to break his heart over somebody who doesnt care about him
CECELIA Hes very good looking
ALEC Still thoughtfully She wont marry him but a girl doesnt have to marry a man to break his heart
CECELIA What does it I wish I knew the secret
ALEC Why you coldblooded little kitty Its lucky for some that the Lord gave you a pug nose
Enter MRS CONNAGE
MRS CONNAGE Where on earth is Rosalind
ALEC Brilliantly Of course youve come to the best people to find out Shed naturally be with us
MRS CONNAGE Her father has marshalled eight bachelor millionaires to meet her
ALEC You might form a squad and march through the halls
MRS CONNAGE Im perfectly serious—for all I know she may be at the Cocoanut Grove with some football player on the night of her debut You look left and Ill—
ALEC Flippantly Hadnt you better send the butler through the cellar
MRS CONNAGE Perfectly serious Oh you dont think shed be there
CECELIA Hes only joking mother
ALEC Mother had a picture of her tapping a keg of beer with some high hurdler
MRS CONNAGE Lets look right away
They go out ROSALIND comes in with GILLESPIE
GILLESPIE Rosalind—Once more I ask you Dont you care a blessed thing about me
AMORY walks in briskly
AMORY My dance
ROSALIND Mr Gillespie this is Mr Blaine
GILLESPIE Ive met Mr Blaine From Lake Geneva arent you
AMORY Yes
GILLESPIE Desperately Ive been there Its in the—the Middle West isnt it
AMORY Spicily Approximately But I always felt that Id rather be provincial hottamale than soup without seasoning
GILLESPIE What
AMORY Oh no offense
GILLESPIE bows and leaves
ROSALIND Hes too much people
AMORY I was in love with a people once
ROSALIND So
AMORY Oh yes—her name was Isabelle—nothing at all to her except what I read into her
ROSALIND What happened
AMORY Finally I convinced her that she was smarter than I was—then she threw me over Said I was critical and impractical you know
ROSALIND What do you mean impractical
AMORY Oh—drive a car but cant change a tire
ROSALIND What are you going to do
AMORY Cant say—run for President write—
ROSALIND Greenwich Village
AMORY Good heavens no—I said write—not drink
ROSALIND I like business men Clever men are usually so homely
AMORY I feel as if Id known you for ages
ROSALIND Oh are you going to commence the pyramid story
AMORY No—I was going to make it French I was Louis XIV and you were one of my—my—Changing his tone Suppose—we fell in love
ROSALIND Ive suggested pretending
AMORY If we did it would be very big
ROSALIND Why
AMORY Because selfish people are in a way terribly capable of great loves
ROSALIND Turning her lips up Pretend
Very deliberately they kiss
AMORY I cant say sweet things But you are beautiful
ROSALIND Not that
AMORY What then
ROSALIND Sadly Oh nothing—only I want sentiment real sentiment—and I never find it
AMORY I never find anything else in the world—and I loathe it
ROSALIND Its so hard to find a male to gratify ones artistic taste
Some one has opened a door and the music of a waltz surges into the room ROSALIND rises
ROSALIND Listen theyre playing Kiss Me Again
He looks at her
AMORY Well
ROSALIND Well
AMORY Softly—the battle lost I love you
ROSALIND I love you—now
They kiss
AMORY Oh God what have I done
ROSALIND Nothing Oh dont talk Kiss me again
AMORY I dont know why or how but I love you—from the moment I saw you
ROSALIND Me too—I—I—oh tonights tonight
Her brother strolls in starts and then in a loud voice says Oh excuse me and goes
ROSALIND Her lips scarcely stirring Dont let me go—I dont care who knows what I do
AMORY Say it
ROSALIND I love you—now They part Oh—I am very youthful thank God—and rather beautiful thank God—and happy thank God thank God—She pauses and then in an odd burst of prophecy adds Poor Amory
He kisses her again
KISMET
Within two weeks Amory and Rosalind were deeply and passionately in love The critical qualities which had spoiled for each of them a dozen romances were dulled by the great wave of emotion that washed over them
It may be an insane loveaffair she told her anxious mother but its not inane
The wave swept Amory into an advertising agency early in March where he alternated between astonishing bursts of rather exceptional work and wild dreams of becoming suddenly rich and touring Italy with Rosalind
They were together constantly for lunch for dinner and nearly every evening—always in a sort of breathless hush as if they feared that any minute the spell would break and drop them out of this paradise of rose and flame But the spell became a trance seemed to increase from day to day they began to talk of marrying in July—in June All life was transmitted into terms of their love all experience all desires all ambitions were nullified—their senses of humor crawled into corners to sleep their former loveaffairs seemed faintly laughable and scarcely regretted juvenalia
For the second time in his life Amory had had a complete bouleversement and was hurrying into line with his generation
A LITTLE INTERLUDE
Amory wandered slowly up the avenue and thought of the night as inevitably his—the pageantry and carnival of rich dusk and dim streets it seemed that he had closed the book of fading harmonies at last and stepped into the sensuous vibrant walks of life Everywhere these countless lights this promise of a night of streets and singing—he moved in a halfdream through the crowd as if expecting to meet Rosalind hurrying toward him with eager feet from every corner How the unforgettable faces of dusk would blend to her the myriad footsteps a thousand overtures would blend to her footsteps and there would be more drunkenness than wine in the softness of her eyes on his Even his dreams now were faint violins drifting like summer sounds upon the summer air
The room was in darkness except for the faint glow of Toms cigarette where he lounged by the open window As the door shut behind him Amory stood a moment with his back against it
Hello Benvenuto Blaine How went the advertising business today
Amory sprawled on a couch
I loathed it as usual The momentary vision of the bustling agency was displaced quickly by another picture
My God Shes wonderful
Tom sighed
I cant tell you repeated Amory just how wonderful she is I dont want you to know I dont want any one to know
Another sigh came from the window—quite a resigned sigh
Shes life and hope and happiness my whole world now
He felt the quiver of a tear on his eyelid
Oh Golly Tom
BITTER SWEET
Sit like we do she whispered
He sat in the big chair and held out his arms so that she could nestle inside them
I knew youd come tonight she said softly like summer just when I needed you most darling darling
His lips moved lazily over her face
You taste so good he sighed
How do you mean lover
Oh just sweet just sweet he held her closer
Amory she whispered when youre ready for me Ill marry you
We wont have much at first
Dont she cried It hurts when you reproach yourself for what you cant give me Ive got your precious self—and thats enough for me
Tell me
You know dont you Oh you know
Yes but I want to hear you say it
I love you Amory with all my heart
Always will you
All my life—Oh Amory—
What
I want to belong to you I want your people to be my people I want to have your babies
But I havent any people
Dont laugh at me Amory Just kiss me
Ill do what you want he said
No Ill do what you want Were you—not me Oh youre so much a part so much all of me
He closed his eyes
Im so happy that Im frightened Wouldnt it be awful if this was—was the high point
She looked at him dreamily
Beauty and love pass I know Oh theres sadness too I suppose all great happiness is a little sad Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses—
Beauty means the agony of sacrifice and the end of agony
And Amory were beautiful I know Im sure God loves us—
He loves you Youre his most precious possession
Im not his Im yours Amory I belong to you For the first time I regret all the other kisses now I know how much a kiss can mean
Then they would smoke and he would tell her about his day at the office—and where they might live Sometimes when he was particularly loquacious she went to sleep in his arms but he loved that Rosalind—all Rosalinds—as he had never in the world loved any one else Intangibly fleeting unrememberable hours
AQUATIC INCIDENT
One day Amory and Howard Gillespie meeting by accident downtown took lunch together and Amory heard a story that delighted him Gillespie after several cocktails was in a talkative mood he began by telling Amory that he was sure Rosalind was slightly eccentric
He had gone with her on a swimming party up in Westchester County and some one mentioned that Annette Kellerman had been there one day on a visit and had dived from the top of a rickety thirtyfoot summerhouse Immediately Rosalind insisted that Howard should climb up with her to see what it looked like
A minute later as he sat and dangled his feet on the edge a form shot by him Rosalind her arms spread in a beautiful swan dive had sailed through the air into the clear water
Of course I had to go after that—and I nearly killed myself I thought I was pretty good to even try it Nobody else in the party tried it Well afterward Rosalind had the nerve to ask me why I stooped over when I dove It didnt make it any easier she said it just took all the courage out of it I ask you what can a man do with a girl like that Unnecessary I call it
Gillespie failed to understand why Amory was smiling delightedly all through lunch He thought perhaps he was one of these hollow optimists
FIVE WEEKS LATER
Again the library of the Connage house ROSALIND is alone sitting on the lounge staring very moodily and unhappily at nothing She has changed perceptibly—she is a trifle thinner for one thing the light in her eyes is not so bright she looks easily a year older
Her mother comes in muffled in an operacloak She takes in ROSALIND with a nervous glance
MRS CONNAGE Who is coming tonight
ROSALIND fails to hear her at least takes no notice
MRS CONNAGE Alec is coming up to take me to this Barrie play Et tu Brutus She perceives that she is talking to herself Rosalind I asked you who is coming tonight
ROSALIND Starting Oh—what—oh—Amory—
MRS CONNAGE Sarcastically You have so many admirers lately that I couldnt imagine which one ROSALIND doesnt answer Dawson Ryder is more patient than I thought hed be You havent given him an evening this week
ROSALIND With a very weary expression that is quite new to her face Mother—please—
MRS CONNAGE Oh I wont interfere Youve already wasted over two months on a theoretical genius who hasnt a penny to his name but go ahead waste your life on him I wont interfere
ROSALIND As if repeating a tiresome lesson You know he has a little income—and you know hes earning thirtyfive dollars a week in advertising—
MRS CONNAGE And it wouldnt buy your clothes She pauses but ROSALIND makes no reply I have your best interests at heart when I tell you not to take a step youll spend your days regretting Its not as if your father could help you Things have been hard for him lately and hes an old man Youd be dependent absolutely on a dreamer a nice wellborn boy but a dreamer—merely clever She implies that this quality in itself is rather vicious
ROSALIND For heavens sake mother—
A maid appears announces Mr Blaine who follows immediately AMORYS friends have been telling him for ten days that he looks like the wrath of God and he does As a matter of fact he has not been able to eat a mouthful in the last thirtysix hours
AMORY Good evening Mrs Connage
MRS CONNAGE Not unkindly Good evening Amory
AMORY and ROSALIND exchange glances—and ALEC comes in ALECS attitude throughout has been neutral He believes in his heart that the marriage would make AMORY mediocre and ROSALIND miserable but he feels a great sympathy for both of them
ALEC Hi Amory
AMORY Hi Alec Tom said hed meet you at the theatre
ALEC Yeah just saw him Hows the advertising today Write some brilliant copy
AMORY Oh its about the same I got a raise—Every one looks at him rather eagerly—of two dollars a week General collapse
MRS CONNAGE Come Alec I hear the car
A good night rather chilly in sections After MRS CONNAGE and ALEC go out there is a pause ROSALIND still stares moodily at the fireplace AMORY goes to her and puts his arm around her
AMORY Darling girl
They kiss Another pause and then she seizes his hand covers it with kisses and holds it to her breast
ROSALIND Sadly I love your hands more than anything I see them often when youre away from me—so tired I know every line of them Dear hands
Their eyes meet for a second and then she begins to cry—a tearless sobbing
AMORY Rosalind
ROSALIND Oh were so darned pitiful
AMORY Rosalind
ROSALIND Oh I want to die
AMORY Rosalind another night of this and Ill go to pieces Youve been this way four days now Youve got to be more encouraging or I cant work or eat or sleep He looks around helplessly as if searching for new words to clothe an old shopworn phrase Well have to make a start I like having to make a start together His forced hopefulness fades as he sees her unresponsive Whats the matter He gets up suddenly and starts to pace the floor Its Dawson Ryder thats what it is Hes been working on your nerves Youve been with him every afternoon for a week People come and tell me theyve seen you together and I have to smile and nod and pretend it hasnt the slightest significance for me And you wont tell me anything as it develops
ROSALIND Amory if you dont sit down Ill scream
AMORY Sitting down suddenly beside her Oh Lord
ROSALIND Taking his hand gently You know I love you dont you
AMORY Yes
ROSALIND You know Ill always love you—
AMORY Dont talk that way you frighten me It sounds as if we werent going to have each other She cries a little and rising from the couch goes to the armchair Ive felt all afternoon that things were worse I nearly went wild down at the office—couldnt write a line Tell me everything
ROSALIND Theres nothing to tell I say Im just nervous
AMORY Rosalind youre playing with the idea of marrying Dawson Ryder
ROSALIND After a pause Hes been asking me to all day
AMORY Well hes got his nerve
ROSALIND After another pause I like him
AMORY Dont say that It hurts me
ROSALIND Dont be a silly idiot You know youre the only man Ive ever loved ever will love
AMORY Quickly Rosalind lets get married—next week
ROSALIND We cant
AMORY Why not
ROSALIND Oh we cant Id be your squaw—in some horrible place
AMORY Well have two hundred and seventyfive dollars a month all told
ROSALIND Darling I dont even do my own hair usually
AMORY Ill do it for you
ROSALIND Between a laugh and a sob Thanks
AMORY Rosalind you cant be thinking of marrying some one else Tell me You leave me in the dark I can help you fight it out if youll only tell me
ROSALIND Its just—us Were pitiful thats all The very qualities I love you for are the ones that will always make you a failure
AMORY Grimly Go on
ROSALIND Oh—it is Dawson Ryder Hes so reliable I almost feel that hed be a—a background
AMORY You dont love him
ROSALIND I know but I respect him and hes a good man and a strong one
AMORY Grudgingly Yes—hes that
ROSALIND Well—heres one little thing There was a little poor boy we met in Rye Tuesday afternoon—and oh Dawson took him on his lap and talked to him and promised him an Indian suit—and next day he remembered and bought it—and oh it was so sweet and I couldnt help thinking hed be so nice to—to our children—take care of them—and I wouldnt have to worry
AMORY In despair Rosalind Rosalind
ROSALIND With a faint roguishness Dont look so consciously suffering
AMORY What power we have of hurting each other
ROSALIND Commencing to sob again Its been so perfect—you and I So like a dream that Id longed for and never thought Id find The first real unselfishness Ive ever felt in my life And I cant see it fade out in a colorless atmosphere
AMORY It wont—it wont
ROSALIND Id rather keep it as a beautiful memory—tucked away in my heart
AMORY Yes women can do that—but not men Id remember always not the beauty of it while it lasted but just the bitterness the long bitterness
ROSALIND Dont
AMORY All the years never to see you never to kiss you just a gate shut and barred—you dont dare be my wife
ROSALIND No—no—Im taking the hardest course the strongest course Marrying you would be a failure and I never fail—if you dont stop walking up and down Ill scream
Again he sinks despairingly onto the lounge
AMORY Come over here and kiss me
ROSALIND No
AMORY Dont you want to kiss me
ROSALIND Tonight I want you to love me calmly and coolly
AMORY The beginning of the end
ROSALIND With a burst of insight Amory youre young Im young People excuse us now for our poses and vanities for treating people like Sancho and yet getting away with it They excuse us now But youve got a lot of knocks coming to you—
AMORY And youre afraid to take them with me
ROSALIND No not that There was a poem I read somewhere—youll say Ella Wheeler Wilcox and laugh—but listen
For this is wisdom—to love and live
To take what fate or the gods may give
To ask no question to make no prayer
To kiss the lips and caress the hair
Speed passions ebb as we greet its flow
To have and to hold and in time—let go
AMORY But we havent had
ROSALIND Amory Im yours—you know it There have been times in the last month Id have been completely yours if youd said so But I cant marry you and ruin both our lives
AMORY Weve got to take our chance for happiness
ROSALIND Dawson says Id learn to love him
AMORY with his head sunk in his hands does not move The life seems suddenly gone out of him
ROSALIND Lover Lover I cant do with you and I cant imagine life without you
AMORY Rosalind were on each others nerves Its just that were both highstrung and this week—
His voice is curiously old She crosses to him and taking his face in her hands kisses him
ROSALIND I cant Amory I cant be shut away from the trees and flowers cooped up in a little flat waiting for you Youd hate me in a narrow atmosphere Id make you hate me
Again she is blinded by sudden uncontrolled tears
AMORY Rosalind—
ROSALIND Oh darling go—Dont make it harder I cant stand it—
AMORY His face drawn his voice strained Do you know what youre saying Do you mean forever
There is a difference somehow in the quality of their suffering
ROSALIND Cant you see—
AMORY Im afraid I cant if you love me Youre afraid of taking two years knocks with me
ROSALIND I wouldnt be the Rosalind you love
AMORY A little hysterically I cant give you up I cant thats all Ive got to have you
ROSALIND A hard note in her voice Youre being a baby now
AMORY Wildly I dont care Youre spoiling our lives
ROSALIND Im doing the wise thing the only thing
AMORY Are you going to marry Dawson Ryder
ROSALIND Oh dont ask me You know Im old in some ways—in others—well Im just a little girl I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness—and I dread responsibility I dont want to think about pots and kitchens and brooms I want to worry whether my legs will get slick and brown when I swim in the summer
AMORY And you love me
ROSALIND Thats just why it has to end Drifting hurts too much We cant have any more scenes like this
She draws his ring from her finger and hands it to him Their eyes blind again with tears
AMORY His lips against her wet cheek Dont Keep it please—oh dont break my heart
She presses the ring softly into his hand
ROSALIND Brokenly Youd better go
AMORY Goodby—
She looks at him once more with infinite longing infinite sadness
ROSALIND Dont ever forget me Amory—
AMORY Goodby—
He goes to the door fumbles for the knob finds it—she sees him throw back his head—and he is gone Gone—she half starts from the lounge and then sinks forward on her face into the pillows
ROSALIND Oh God I want to die After a moment she rises and with her eyes closed feels her way to the door Then she turns and looks once more at the room Here they had sat and dreamed that tray she had so often filled with matches for him that shade that they had discreetly lowered one long Sunday afternoon Mistyeyed she stands and remembers she speaks aloud Oh Amory what have I done to you
And deep under the aching sadness that will pass in time Rosalind feels that she has lost something she knows not what she knows not why
CHAPTER 2 Experiments in Convalescence
The Knickerbocker Bar beamed upon by Maxfield Parrishs jovial colorful Old King Cole was well crowded Amory stopped in the entrance and looked at his wristwatch he wanted particularly to know the time for something in his mind that catalogued and classified liked to chip things off cleanly Later it would satisfy him in a vague way to be able to think that thing ended at exactly twenty minutes after eight on Thursday June 10 1919 This was allowing for the walk from her house—a walk concerning which he had afterward not the faintest recollection
He was in rather grotesque condition two days of worry and nervousness of sleepless nights of untouched meals culminating in the emotional crisis and Rosalinds abrupt decision—the strain of it had drugged the foreground of his mind into a merciful coma As he fumbled clumsily with the olives at the freelunch table a man approached and spoke to him and the olives dropped from his nervous hands
Well Amory
It was some one he had known at Princeton he had no idea of the name
Hello old boy— he heard himself saying
Names Jim Wilson—youve forgotten
Sure you bet Jim I remember
Going to reunion
You know Simultaneously he realized that he was not going to reunion
Get overseas
Amory nodded his eyes staring oddly Stepping back to let some one pass he knocked the dish of olives to a crash on the floor
Too bad he muttered Have a drink
Wilson ponderously diplomatic reached over and slapped him on the back
Youve had plenty old boy
Amory eyed him dumbly until Wilson grew embarrassed under the scrutiny
Plenty hell said Amory finally I havent had a drink today
Wilson looked incredulous
Have a drink or not cried Amory rudely
Together they sought the bar
Rye high
Ill just take a Bronx
Wilson had another Amory had several more They decided to sit down At ten oclock Wilson was displaced by Carling class of 15 Amory his head spinning gorgeously layer upon layer of soft satisfaction setting over the bruised spots of his spirit was discoursing volubly on the war
S a mental wase he insisted with owllike wisdom Two years my life spent inalleshual vacuity Los idealism got be physcal anmal he shook his fist expressively at Old King Cole got be Prussian bout evthing women specially Use be straight bout women college Now dongivadam He expressed his lack of principle by sweeping a seltzer bottle with a broad gesture to noisy extinction on the floor but this did not interrupt his speech Seek pleasure where find it for tomorrow die Ats philosphy for me now on
Carling yawned but Amory waxing brilliant continued
Use wonder bout things—people satisfied compromise fifyfify atttude on life Now don wonder don wonder— He became so emphatic in impressing on Carling the fact that he didnt wonder that he lost the thread of his discourse and concluded by announcing to the bar at large that he was a physcal anmal
What are you celebrating Amory
Amory leaned forward confidentially
Celbrating blowmylife Great moment blow my life Cant tell you bout it—
He heard Carling addressing a remark to the bartender
Give him a bromoseltzer
Amory shook his head indignantly
None that stuff
But listen Amory youre making yourself sick Youre white as a ghost
Amory considered the question He tried to look at himself in the mirror but even by squinting up one eye could only see as far as the row of bottles behind the bar
Like somn solid We go get some—some salad
He settled his coat with an attempt at nonchalance but letting go of the bar was too much for him and he slumped against a chair
Well go over to Shanleys suggested Carling offering an elbow
With this assistance Amory managed to get his legs in motion enough to propel him across Fortysecond Street
Shanleys was very dim He was conscious that he was talking in a loud voice very succinctly and convincingly he thought about a desire to crush people under his heel He consumed three club sandwiches devouring each as though it were no larger than a chocolatedrop Then Rosalind began popping into his mind again and he found his lips forming her name over and over Next he was sleepy and he had a hazy listless sense of people in dress suits probably waiters gathering around the table
He was in a room and Carling was saying something about a knot in his shoelace
Nemmine he managed to articulate drowsily Sleep in em
STILL ALCOHOLIC
He awoke laughing and his eyes lazily roamed his surroundings evidently a bedroom and bath in a good hotel His head was whirring and picture after picture was forming and blurring and melting before his eyes but beyond the desire to laugh he had no entirely conscious reaction He reached for the phone beside his bed
Hello—what hotel is this—
Knickerbocker All right send up two rye highballs—
He lay for a moment and wondered idly whether theyd send up a bottle or just two of those little glass containers Then with an effort he struggled out of bed and ambled into the bathroom
When he emerged rubbing himself lazily with a towel he found the bar boy with the drinks and had a sudden desire to kid him On reflection he decided that this would be undignified so he waved him away
As the new alcohol tumbled into his stomach and warmed him the isolated pictures began slowly to form a cinema reel of the day before Again he saw Rosalind curled weeping among the pillows again he felt her tears against his cheek Her words began ringing in his ears Dont ever forget me Amory—dont ever forget me—
Hell he faltered aloud and then he choked and collapsed on the bed in a shaken spasm of grief After a minute he opened his eyes and regarded the ceiling
Damned fool he exclaimed in disgust and with a voluminous sigh rose and approached the bottle After another glass he gave way loosely to the luxury of tears Purposely he called up into his mind little incidents of the vanished spring phrased to himself emotions that would make him react even more strongly to sorrow
We were so happy he intoned dramatically so very happy Then he gave way again and knelt beside the bed his head halfburied in the pillow
My own girl—my own—Oh—
He clinched his teeth so that the tears streamed in a flood from his eyes
Oh my baby girl all I had all I wanted Oh my girl come back come back I need you need you were so pitiful just misery we brought each other Shell be shut away from me I cant see her I cant be her friend Its got to be that way—its got to be—
And then again
Weve been so happy so very happy
He rose to his feet and threw himself on the bed in an ecstasy of sentiment and then lay exhausted while he realized slowly that he had been very drunk the night before and that his head was spinning again wildly He laughed rose and crossed again to Lethe
At noon he ran into a crowd in the Biltmore bar and the riot began again He had a vague recollection afterward of discussing French poetry with a British officer who was introduced to him as Captain Corn of his Majestys Foot and he remembered attempting to recite Clair de Lune at luncheon then he slept in a big soft chair until almost five oclock when another crowd found and woke him there followed an alcoholic dressing of several temperaments for the ordeal of dinner They selected theatre tickets at Tysons for a play that had a fourdrink programme—a play with two monotonous voices with turbid gloomy scenes and lighting effects that were hard to follow when his eyes behaved so amazingly He imagined afterward that it must have been The Jest
Then the Cocoanut Grove where Amory slept again on a little balcony outside Out in Shanleys Yonkers he became almost logical and by a careful control of the number of highballs he drank grew quite lucid and garrulous He found that the party consisted of five men two of whom he knew slightly he became righteous about paying his share of the expense and insisted in a loud voice on arranging everything then and there to the amusement of the tables around him
Some one mentioned that a famous cabaret star was at the next table so Amory rose and approaching gallantly introduced himself this involved him in an argument first with her escort and then with the headwaiter—Amorys attitude being a lofty and exaggerated courtesy he consented after being confronted with irrefutable logic to being led back to his own table
Decided to commit suicide he announced suddenly
When Next year
Now Tomorrow morning Going to take a room at the Commodore get into a hot bath and open a vein
Hes getting morbid
You need another rye old boy
Well all talk it over tomorrow
But Amory was not to be dissuaded from argument at least
Did you ever get that way he demanded confidentially fortaccio
Sure
Often
My chronic state
This provoked discussion One man said that he got so depressed sometimes that he seriously considered it Another agreed that there was nothing to live for Captain Corn who had somehow rejoined the party said that in his opinion it was when ones health was bad that one felt that way most Amorys suggestion was that they should each order a Bronx mix broken glass in it and drink it off To his relief no one applauded the idea so having finished his highball he balanced his chin in his hand and his elbow on the table—a most delicate scarcely noticeable sleeping position he assured himself—and went into a deep stupor
He was awakened by a woman clinging to him a pretty woman with brown disarranged hair and dark blue eyes
Take me home she cried
Hello said Amory blinking
I like you she announced tenderly
I like you too
He noticed that there was a noisy man in the background and that one of his party was arguing with him
Fella I was withs a damn fool confided the blueeyed woman I hate him I want to go home with you
You drunk queried Amory with intense wisdom
She nodded coyly
Go home with him he advised gravely He brought you
At this point the noisy man in the background broke away from his detainers and approached
Say he said fiercely I brought this girl out here and youre butting in
Amory regarded him coldly while the girl clung to him closer
You let go that girl cried the noisy man
Amory tried to make his eyes threatening
You go to hell he directed finally and turned his attention to the girl
Love first sight he suggested
I love you she breathed and nestled close to him She did have beautiful eyes
Some one leaned over and spoke in Amorys ear
Thats just Margaret Diamond Shes drunk and this fellow here brought her Better let her go
Let him take care of her then shouted Amory furiously Im no W Y C. A. worker am I—am I
Let her go
Its her hanging on damn it Let her hang
The crowd around the table thickened For an instant a brawl threatened but a sleek waiter bent back Margaret Diamonds fingers until she released her hold on Amory whereupon she slapped the waiter furiously in the face and flung her arms about her raging original escort
Oh Lord cried Amory
Lets go
Come on the taxis are getting scarce
Check waiter
Cmon Amory Your romance is over
Amory laughed
You dont know how true you spoke No idea Ats the whole trouble
AMORY ON THE LABOR QUESTION
Two mornings later he knocked at the presidents door at Bascome and Barlows advertising agency
Come in
Amory entered unsteadily
Morning Mr Barlow
Mr Barlow brought his glasses to the inspection and set his mouth slightly ajar that he might better listen
Well Mr Blaine We havent seen you for several days
No said Amory Im quitting
Well—well—this is—
I dont like it here
Im sorry I thought our relations had been quite—ah—pleasant You seemed to be a hard worker—a little inclined perhaps to write fancy copy—
I just got tired of it interrupted Amory rudely It didnt matter a damn to me whether Harebells flour was any better than any one elses In fact I never ate any of it So I got tired of telling people about it—oh I know Ive been drinking—
Mr Barlows face steeled by several ingots of expression
You asked for a position—
Amory waved him to silence
And I think I was rottenly underpaid Thirtyfive dollars a week—less than a good carpenter
You had just started Youd never worked before said Mr Barlow coolly
But it took about ten thousand dollars to educate me where I could write your darned stuff for you Anyway as far as length of service goes youve got stenographers here youve paid fifteen a week for five years
Im not going to argue with you sir said Mr Barlow rising
Neither am I I just wanted to tell you Im quitting
They stood for a moment looking at each other impassively and then Amory turned and left the office
A LITTLE LULL
Four days after that he returned at last to the apartment Tom was engaged on a book review for The New Democracy on the staff of which he was employed They regarded each other for a moment in silence
Well
Well
Good Lord Amory whered you get the black eye—and the jaw
Amory laughed
Thats a mere nothing
He peeled off his coat and bared his shoulders
Look here
Tom emitted a low whistle
What hit you
Amory laughed again
Oh a lot of people I got beaten up Fact He slowly replaced his shirt It was bound to come sooner or later and I wouldnt have missed it for anything
Who was it
Well there were some waiters and a couple of sailors and a few stray pedestrians I guess Its the strangest feeling You ought to get beaten up just for the experience of it You fall down after a while and everybody sort of slashes in at you before you hit the ground—then they kick you
Tom lighted a cigarette
I spent a day chasing you all over town Amory But you always kept a little ahead of me Id say youve been on some party
Amory tumbled into a chair and asked for a cigarette
You sober now asked Tom quizzically
Pretty sober Why
Well Alec has left His family had been after him to go home and live so he—
A spasm of pain shook Amory
Too bad
Yes it is too bad Well have to get some one else if were going to stay here The rents going up
Sure Get anybody Ill leave it to you Tom
Amory walked into his bedroom The first thing that met his glance was a photograph of Rosalind that he had intended to have framed propped up against a mirror on his dresser He looked at it unmoved After the vivid mental pictures of her that were his portion at present the portrait was curiously unreal He went back into the study
Got a cardboard box
No answered Tom puzzled Why should I have Oh yes—there may be one in Alecs room
Eventually Amory found what he was looking for and returning to his dresser opened a drawer full of letters notes part of a chain two little handkerchiefs and some snapshots As he transferred them carefully to the box his mind wandered to some place in a book where the hero after preserving for a year a cake of his lost loves soap finally washed his hands with it He laughed and began to hum After youve gone ceased abruptly
The string broke twice and then he managed to secure it dropped the package into the bottom of his trunk and having slammed the lid returned to the study
Going out Toms voice held an undertone of anxiety
Uhhuh
Where
Couldnt say old keed
Lets have dinner together
Sorry I told Sukey Brett Id eat with him
Oh
Byby
Amory crossed the street and had a highball then he walked to Washington Square and found a top seat on a bus He disembarked at Fortythird Street and strolled to the Biltmore bar
Hi Amory
Whatll you have
Yoho Waiter
TEMPERATURE NORMAL
The advent of prohibition with the thirstyfirst put a sudden stop to the submerging of Amorys sorrows and when he awoke one morning to find that the old bartobar days were over he had neither remorse for the past three weeks nor regret that their repetition was impossible He had taken the most violent if the weakest method to shield himself from the stabs of memory and while it was not a course he would have prescribed for others he found in the end that it had done its business he was over the first flush of pain
Dont misunderstand Amory had loved Rosalind as he would never love another living person She had taken the first flush of his youth and brought from his unplumbed depths tenderness that had surprised him gentleness and unselfishness that he had never given to another creature He had later loveaffairs but of a different sort in those he went back to that perhaps more typical frame of mind in which the girl became the mirror of a mood in him Rosalind had drawn out what was more than passionate admiration he had a deep undying affection for Rosalind
But there had been near the end so much dramatic tragedy culminating in the arabesque nightmare of his three weeks spree that he was emotionally worn out The people and surroundings that he remembered as being cool or delicately artificial seemed to promise him a refuge He wrote a cynical story which featured his fathers funeral and despatched it to a magazine receiving in return a check for sixty dollars and a request for more of the same tone This tickled his vanity but inspired him to no further effort
He read enormously He was puzzled and depressed by A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man intensely interested by Joan and Peter and The Undying Fire and rather surprised by his discovery through a critic named Mencken of several excellent American novels Vandover and the Brute The Damnation of Theron Ware and Jennie Gerhardt Mackenzie Chesterton Galsworthy Bennett had sunk in his appreciation from sagacious lifesaturated geniuses to merely diverting contemporaries Shaws aloof clarity and brilliant consistency and the gloriously intoxicated efforts of H G Wells to fit the key of romantic symmetry into the elusive lock of truth alone won his rapt attention
He wanted to see Monsignor Darcy to whom he had written when he landed but he had not heard from him besides he knew that a visit to Monsignor would entail the story of Rosalind and the thought of repeating it turned him cold with horror
In his search for cool people he remembered Mrs Lawrence a very intelligent very dignified lady a convert to the church and a great devotee of Monsignors
He called her on the phone one day Yes she remembered him perfectly no Monsignor wasnt in town was in Boston she thought hed promised to come to dinner when he returned Couldnt Amory take luncheon with her
I thought Id better catch up Mrs Lawrence he said rather ambiguously when he arrived
Monsignor was here just last week said Mrs Lawrence regretfully He was very anxious to see you but hed left your address at home
Did he think Id plunged into Bolshevism asked Amory interested
Oh hes having a frightful time
Why
About the Irish Republic He thinks it lacks dignity
So
He went to Boston when the Irish President arrived and he was greatly distressed because the receiving committee when they rode in an automobile would put their arms around the President
I dont blame him
Well what impressed you more than anything while you were in the army You look a great deal older
Thats from another more disastrous battle he answered smiling in spite of himself But the army—let me see—well I discovered that physical courage depends to a great extent on the physical shape a man is in I found that I was as brave as the next man—it used to worry me before
What else
Well the idea that men can stand anything if they get used to it and the fact that I got a high mark in the psychological examination
Mrs Lawrence laughed Amory was finding it a great relief to be in this cool house on Riverside Drive away from more condensed New York and the sense of people expelling great quantities of breath into a little space Mrs Lawrence reminded him vaguely of Beatrice not in temperament but in her perfect grace and dignity The house its furnishings the manner in which dinner was served were in immense contrast to what he had met in the great places on Long Island where the servants were so obtrusive that they had positively to be bumped out of the way or even in the houses of more conservative Union Club families He wondered if this air of symmetrical restraint this grace which he felt was continental was distilled through Mrs Lawrences New England ancestry or acquired in long residence in Italy and Spain
Two glasses of sauterne at luncheon loosened his tongue and he talked with what he felt was something of his old charm of religion and literature and the menacing phenomena of the social order Mrs Lawrence was ostensibly pleased with him and her interest was especially in his mind he wanted people to like his mind again—after a while it might be such a nice place in which to live
Monsignor Darcy still thinks that youre his reincarnation that your faith will eventually clarify
Perhaps he assented Im rather pagan at present Its just that religion doesnt seem to have the slightest bearing on life at my age
When he left her house he walked down Riverside Drive with a feeling of satisfaction It was amusing to discuss again such subjects as this young poet Stephen Vincent Benet or the Irish Republic Between the rancid accusations of Edward Carson and Justice Cohalan he had completely tired of the Irish question yet there had been a time when his own Celtic traits were pillars of his personal philosophy
There seemed suddenly to be much left in life if only this revival of old interests did not mean that he was backing away from it again—backing away from life itself
RESTLESSNESS
Im tres old and tres bored Tom said Amory one day stretching himself at ease in the comfortable windowseat He always felt most natural in a recumbent position
You used to be entertaining before you started to write he continued Now you save any idea that you think would do to print
Existence had settled back to an ambitionless normality They had decided that with economy they could still afford the apartment which Tom with the domesticity of an elderly cat had grown fond of The old English hunting prints on the wall were Toms and the large tapestry by courtesy a relic of decadent days in college and the great profusion of orphaned candlesticks and the carved Louis XV chair in which no one could sit more than a minute without acute spinal disorders—Tom claimed that this was because one was sitting in the lap of Montespans wraith—at any rate it was Toms furniture that decided them to stay
They went out very little to an occasional play or to dinner at the Ritz or the Princeton Club With prohibition the great rendezvous had received their death wounds no longer could one wander to the Biltmore bar at twelve or five and find congenial spirits and both Tom and Amory had outgrown the passion for dancing with midWestern or New Jersey debbies at the ClubdeVingt surnamed the Club de Gink or the Plaza Rose Room—besides even that required several cocktails to come down to the intellectual level of the women present as Amory had once put it to a horrified matron
Amory had lately received several alarming letters from Mr Barton—the Lake Geneva house was too large to be easily rented the best rent obtainable at present would serve this year to little more than pay for the taxes and necessary improvements in fact the lawyer suggested that the whole property was simply a white elephant on Amorys hands Nevertheless even though it might not yield a cent for the next three years Amory decided with a vague sentimentality that for the present at any rate he would not sell the house
This particular day on which he announced his ennui to Tom had been quite typical He had risen at noon lunched with Mrs Lawrence and then ridden abstractedly homeward atop one of his beloved buses
Why shouldnt you be bored yawned Tom Isnt that the conventional frame of mind for the young man of your age and condition
Yes said Amory speculatively but Im more than bored I am restless
Love and war did for you
Well Amory considered Im not sure that the war itself had any great effect on either you or me—but it certainly ruined the old backgrounds sort of killed individualism out of our generation
Tom looked up in surprise
Yes it did insisted Amory Im not sure it didnt kill it out of the whole world Oh Lord what a pleasure it used to be to dream I might be a really great dictator or writer or religious or political leader—and now even a Leonardo da Vinci or Lorenzo de Medici couldnt be a real oldfashioned bolt in the world Life is too huge and complex The world is so overgrown that it cant lift its own fingers and I was planning to be such an important finger—
I dont agree with you Tom interrupted There never were men placed in such egotistic positions since—oh since the French Revolution
Amory disagreed violently
Youre mistaking this period when every nut is an individualist for a period of individualism Wilson has only been powerful when he has represented hes had to compromise over and over again Just as soon as Trotsky and Lenin take a definite consistent stand theyll become merely twominute figures like Kerensky Even Foch hasnt half the significance of Stonewall Jackson War used to be the most individualistic pursuit of man and yet the popular heroes of the war had neither authority nor responsibility Guynemer and Sergeant York How could a schoolboy make a hero of Pershing A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big
Then you dont think there will be any more permanent world heroes
Yes—in history—not in life Carlyle would have difficulty getting material for a new chapter on The Hero as a Big Man
Go on Im a good listener today
People try so hard to believe in leaders now pitifully hard But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt a Tolstoi a Wood a Shaw a Nietzsche than the crosscurrents of criticism wash him away My Lord no man can stand prominence these days Its the surest path to obscurity People get sick of hearing the same name over and over
Then you blame it on the press
Absolutely Look at you youre on The New Democracy considered the most brilliant weekly in the country read by the men who do things and all that Whats your business Why to be as clever as interesting and as brilliantly cynical as possible about every man doctrine book or policy that is assigned you to deal with The more strong lights the more spiritual scandal you can throw on the matter the more money they pay you the more the people buy the issue You Tom dInvilliers a blighted Shelley changing shifting clever unscrupulous represent the critical consciousness of the race—Oh dont protest I know the stuff I used to write book reviews in college I considered it rare sport to refer to the latest honest conscientious effort to propound a theory or a remedy as a welcome addition to our light summer reading Come on now admit it
Tom laughed and Amory continued triumphantly
We want to believe Young students try to believe in older authors constituents try to believe in their Congressmen countries try to believe in their statesmen but they cant Too many voices too much scattered illogical illconsidered criticism Its worse in the case of newspapers Any rich unprogressive old party with that particularly grasping acquisitive form of mentality known as financial genius can own a paper that is the intellectual meat and drink of thousands of tired hurried men men too involved in the business of modern living to swallow anything but predigested food For two cents the voter buys his politics prejudices and philosophy A year later there is a new political ring or a change in the papers ownership consequence more confusion more contradiction a sudden inrush of new ideas their tempering their distillation the reaction against them—
He paused only to get his breath
And that is why I have sworn not to put pen to paper until my ideas either clarify or depart entirely I have quite enough sins on my soul without putting dangerous shallow epigrams into peoples heads I might cause a poor inoffensive capitalist to have a vulgar liaison with a bomb or get some innocent little Bolshevik tangled up with a machinegun bullet—
Tom was growing restless under this lampooning of his connection with The New Democracy
Whats all this got to do with your being bored
Amory considered that it had much to do with it
Howll I fit in he demanded What am I for To propagate the race According to the American novels we are led to believe that the healthy American boy from nineteen to twentyfive is an entirely sexless animal As a matter of fact, the healthier he is the less thats true The only alternative to letting it get you is some violent interest Well the war is over I believe too much in the responsibilities of authorship to write just now and business well business speaks for itself. It has no connection with anything in the world that Ive ever been interested in except a slim utilitarian connection with economics What Id see of it lost in a clerkship for the next and best ten years of my life would have the intellectual content of an industrial movie
Try fiction suggested Tom
Trouble is I get distracted when I start to write stories—get afraid Im doing it instead of living—get thinking maybe life is waiting for me in the Japanese gardens at the Ritz or at Atlantic City or on the lower East Side
Anyway he continued I havent the vital urge I wanted to be a regular human being but the girl couldnt see it that way
Youll find another
God Banish the thought Why dont you tell me that if the girl had been worth having shed have waited for you No sir the girl really worth having wont wait for anybody If I thought thered be another Id lose my remaining faith in human nature Maybe Ill play—but Rosalind was the only girl in the wide world that could have held me
Well yawned Tom Ive played confidant a good hour by the clock Still Im glad to see youre beginning to have violent views again on something
I am agreed Amory reluctantly Yet when I see a happy family it makes me sick at my stomach—
Happy families try to make people feel that way said Tom cynically
TOM THE CENSOR
There were days when Amory listened These were when Tom wreathed in smoke indulged in the slaughter of American literature Words failed him
Fifty thousand dollars a year he would cry My God Look at them look at them—Edna Ferber Gouverneur Morris Fanny Hurst Mary Roberts Rinehart—not producing among em one story or novel that will last ten years This man Cobb—I dont tink hes either clever or amusing—and whats more I dont think very many people do except the editors Hes just groggy with advertising And—oh Harold Bell Wright oh Zane Grey—
They try
No they dont even try Some of them can write but they wont sit down and do one honest novel Most of them cant write Ill admit I believe Rupert Hughes tries to give a real comprehensive picture of American life but his style and perspective are barbarous Ernest Poole and Dorothy Canfield try but theyre hindered by their absolute lack of any sense of humor but at least they crowd their work instead of spreading it thin Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it
Is that double entente
Dont slow me up Now theres a few of em that seem to have some cultural background some intelligence and a good deal of literary felicity but they just simply wont write honestly theyd all claim there was no public for good stuff Then why the devil is it that Wells Conrad Galsworthy Shaw Bennett and the rest depend on America for over half their sales
How does little Tommy like the poets
Tom was overcome He dropped his arms until they swung loosely beside the chair and emitted faint grunts
Im writing a satire on em now calling it Boston Bards and Hearst Reviewers
Lets hear it said Amory eagerly
Ive only got the last few lines done
Thats very modern Lets hear em if theyre funny
Tom produced a folded paper from his pocket and read aloud pausing at intervals so that Amory could see that it was free verse
So
Walter Arensberg
Alfred Kreymborg
Carl Sandburg
Louis Untermeyer
Eunice Tietjens
Clara Shanafelt
James Oppenheim
Maxwell Bodenheim
Richard Glaenzer
Scharmel Iris
Conrad Aiken
I place your names here
So that you may live
If only as names
Sinuous mauvecolored names
In the Juvenalia
Of my collected editions
Amory roared
You win the iron pansy Ill buy you a meal on the arrogance of the last two lines
Amory did not entirely agree with Toms sweeping damnation of American novelists and poets He enjoyed both Vachel Lindsay and Booth Tarkington and admired the conscientious if slender artistry of Edgar Lee Masters
What I hate is this idiotic drivel about I am God—I am man—I ride the winds—I look through the smoke—I am the life sense
Its ghastly
And I wish American novelists would give up trying to make business romantically interesting Nobody wants to read about it unless its crooked business If it was an entertaining subject theyd buy the life of James J Hill and not one of these long office tragedies that harp along on the significance of smoke—
And gloom said Tom Thats another favorite though Ill admit the Russians have the monopoly Our specialty is stories about little girls who break their spines and get adopted by grouchy old men because they smile so much Youd think we were a race of cheerful cripples and that the common end of the Russian peasant was suicide—
Six oclock said Amory glancing at his wristwatch Ill buy you a grea big dinner on the strength of the Juvenalia of your collected editions
LOOKING BACKWARD
July sweltered out with a last hot week and Amory in another surge of unrest realized that it was just five months since he and Rosalind had met Yet it was already hard for him to visualize the heartwhole boy who had stepped off the transport passionately desiring the adventure of life One night while the heat overpowering and enervating poured into the windows of his room he struggled for several hours in a vague effort to immortalize the poignancy of that time
The February streets windwashed by night blow full of strange
halfintermittent damps bearing on wasted walks in shining sight
wet snow plashed into gleams under the lamps like golden oil
from some divine machine in an hour of thaw and stars
Strange damps—full of the eyes of many men crowded with life
borne in upon a lull Oh I was young for I could turn
again to you most finite and most beautiful and taste the stuff
of halfremembered dreams sweet and new on your mouth
There was a tanging in the midnight air—silence was dead and
sound not yet awoken—Life cracked like ice—one brilliant note
and there radiant and pale you stood and spring had broken
The icicles were short upon the roofs and the changeling city
swooned
Our thoughts were frosty mist along the eaves our two ghosts
kissed high on the long mazed wires—eerie halflaughter echoes
here and leaves only a fatuous sigh for young desires regret has
followed after things she loved leaving the great husk
ANOTHER ENDING
In midAugust came a letter from Monsignor Darcy who had evidently just stumbled on his address
MY DEAR BOY—
Your last letter was quite enough to make me worry about you It was not a bit like yourself Reading between the lines I should imagine that your engagement to this girl is making you rather unhappy and I see you have lost all the feeling of romance that you had before the war You make a great mistake if you think you can be romantic without religion Sometimes I think that with both of us the secret of success when we find it is the mystical element in us: something flows into us that enlarges our personalities and when it ebbs out our personalities shrink I should call your last two letters rather shrivelled Beware of losing yourself in the personality of another being man or woman
His Eminence Cardinal ONeill and the Bishop of Boston are staying with me at present so it is hard for me to get a moment to write but I wish you would come up here later if only for a weekend I go to Washington this week
What I shall do in the future is hanging in the balance Absolutely between ourselves I should not be surprised to see the red hat of a cardinal descend upon my unworthy head within the next eight months In any event I should like to have a house in New York or Washington where you could drop in for weekends
Amory Im very glad were both alive this war could easily have been the end of a brilliant family But in regard to matrimony you are now at the most dangerous period of your life You might marry in haste and repent at leisure but I think you wont From what you write me about the present calamitous state of your finances what you want is naturally impossible However if I judge you by the means I usually choose I should say that there will be something of an emotional crisis within the next year
Do write me I feel annoyingly out of date on you
With greatest affection
THAYER DARCY
Within a week after the receipt of this letter their little household fell precipitously to pieces The immediate cause was the serious and probably chronic illness of Toms mother So they stored the furniture gave instructions to sublet and shook hands gloomily in the Pennsylvania Station Amory and Tom seemed always to be saying goodby
Feeling very much alone Amory yielded to an impulse and set off southward intending to join Monsignor in Washington They missed connections by two hours and deciding to spend a few days with an ancient remembered uncle Amory journeyed up through the luxuriant fields of Maryland into Ramilly County But instead of two days his stay lasted from midAugust nearly through September for in Maryland he met Eleanor
CHAPTER 3 Young Irony
For years afterward when Amory thought of Eleanor he seemed still to hear the wind sobbing around him and sending little chills into the places beside his heart The night when they rode up the slope and watched the cold moon float through the clouds he lost a further part of him that nothing could restore and when he lost it he lost also the power of regretting it Eleanor was say the last time that evil crept close to Amory under the mask of beauty the last weird mystery that held him with wild fascination and pounded his soul to flakes
With her his imagination ran riot and that is why they rode to the highest hill and watched an evil moon ride high for they knew then that they could see the devil in each other But Eleanor—did Amory dream her Afterward their ghosts played yet both of them hoped from their souls never to meet Was it the infinite sadness of her eyes that drew him or the mirror of himself that he found in the gorgeous clarity of her mind She will have no other adventure like Amory and if she reads this she will say
And Amory will have no other adventure like me
Nor will she sigh any more than he would sigh
Eleanor tried to put it on paper once
The fading things we only know
Well have forgotten
Put away
Desires that melted with the snow
And dreams begotten
This today
The sudden dawns we laughed to greet
That all could see that none could share
Will be but dawns and if we meet
We shall not care
Dear not one tear will rise for this
A little while hence
No regret
Will stir for a remembered kiss—
Not even silence
When weve met
Will give old ghosts a waste to roam
Or stir the surface of the sea
If gray shapes drift beneath the foam
We shall not see
They quarrelled dangerously because Amory maintained that sea and see couldnt possibly be used as a rhyme And then Eleanor had part of another verse that she couldnt find a beginning for
But wisdom passes still the years
Will feed us wisdom Age will go
Back to the old—
For all our tears
We shall not know
Eleanor hated Maryland passionately She belonged to the oldest of the old families of Ramilly County and lived in a big gloomy house with her grandfather She had been born and brought up in France I see I am starting wrong Let me begin again
Amory was bored as he usually was in the country He used to go for far walks by himself—and wander along reciting Ulalume to the cornfields and congratulating Poe for drinking himself to death in that atmosphere of smiling complacency One afternoon he had strolled for several miles along a road that was new to him and then through a wood on bad advice from a colored woman losing himself entirely A passing storm decided to break out and to his great impatience the sky grew black as pitch and the rain began to splatter down through the trees become suddenly furtive and ghostly Thunder rolled with menacing crashes up the valley and scattered through the woods in intermittent batteries He stumbled blindly on hunting for a way out and finally through webs of twisted branches caught sight of a rift in the trees where the unbroken lightning showed open country He rushed to the edge of the woods and then hesitated whether or not to cross the fields and try to reach the shelter of the little house marked by a light far down the valley It was only half past five but he could see scarcely ten steps before him except when the lightning made everything vivid and grotesque for great sweeps around
Suddenly a strange sound fell on his ears It was a song in a low husky voice a girls voice and whoever was singing was very close to him A year before he might have laughed or trembled but in his restless mood he only stood and listened while the words sank into his consciousness
Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De lautomne
Blessent mon coeur
Dune langueur
Monotone
The lightning split the sky but the song went on without a quaver The girl was evidently in the field and the voice seemed to come vaguely from a haystack about twenty feet in front of him
Then it ceased ceased and began again in a weird chant that soared and hung and fell and blended with the rain
Tout suffocant
Et bleme quand
Sonne lheure
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure
Who the devil is there in Ramilly County muttered Amory aloud who would deliver Verlaine in an extemporaneous tune to a soaking haystack
Somebodys there cried the voice unalarmed Who are you—Manfred St Christopher or Queen Victoria
Im Don Juan Amory shouted on impulse raising his voice above the noise of the rain and the wind
A delighted shriek came from the haystack
I know who you are—youre the blond boy that likes Ulalume—I recognize your voice
How do I get up he cried from the foot of the haystack whither he had arrived dripping wet A head appeared over the edge—it was so dark that Amory could just make out a patch of damp hair and two eyes that gleamed like a cats
Run back came the voice and jump and Ill catch your hand—no not there—on the other side
He followed directions and as he sprawled up the side kneedeep in hay a small white hand reached out gripped his and helped him onto the top
Here you are Juan cried she of the damp hair Do you mind if I drop the Don
Youve got a thumb like mine he exclaimed
And youre holding my hand which is dangerous without seeing my face He dropped it quickly
As if in answer to his prayers came a flash of lightning and he looked eagerly at her who stood beside him on the soggy haystack ten feet above the ground But she had covered her face and he saw nothing but a slender figure dark damp bobbed hair and the small white hands with the thumbs that bent back like his
Sit down she suggested politely as the dark closed in on them If youll sit opposite me in this hollow you can have half of the raincoat which I was using as a waterproof tent until you so rudely interrupted me
I was asked Amory said joyfully you asked me—you know you did
Don Juan always manages that she said laughing but I shant call you that any more because youve got reddish hair Instead you can recite Ulalume and Ill be Psyche your soul
Amory flushed happily invisible under the curtain of wind and rain They were sitting opposite each other in a slight hollow in the hay with the raincoat spread over most of them and the rain doing for the rest Amory was trying desperately to see Psyche but the lightning refused to flash again and he waited impatiently Good Lord supposing she wasnt beautiful—supposing she was forty and pedantic—heavens Suppose only suppose she was mad But he knew the last was unworthy Here had Providence sent a girl to amuse him just as it sent Benvenuto Cellini men to murder and he was wondering if she was mad just because she exactly filled his mood
Im not she said
Not what
Not mad I didnt think you were mad when I first saw you so it isnt fair that you should think so of me
How on earth—
As long as they knew each other Eleanor and Amory could be on a subject and stop talking with the definite thought of it in their heads yet ten minutes later speak aloud and find that their minds had followed the same channels and led them each to a parallel idea an idea that others would have found absolutely unconnected with the first
Tell me he demanded leaning forward eagerly how do you know about Ulalume—how did you know the color of my hair Whats your name What were you doing here Tell me all at once
Suddenly the lightning flashed in with a leap of overreaching light and he saw Eleanor and looked for the first time into those eyes of hers Oh she was magnificent—pale skin the color of marble in starlight slender brows and eyes that glittered green as emeralds in the blinding glare She was a witch of perhaps nineteen he judged alert and dreamy and with the telltale white line over her upper lip that was a weakness and a delight He sank back with a gasp against the wall of hay
Now youve seen me she said calmly and I suppose youre about to say that my green eyes are burning into your brain
What color is your hair he asked intently Its bobbed isnt it
Yes its bobbed I dont know what color it is she answered musing so many men have asked me Its medium I suppose—No one ever looks long at my hair Ive got beautiful eyes though havent I I dont care what you say I have beautiful eyes
Answer my question Madeline
Dont remember them all—besides my name isnt Madeline its Eleanor
I might have guessed it You look like Eleanor—you have that Eleanor look You know what I mean
There was a silence as they listened to the rain
Its going down my neck fellow lunatic she offered finally
Answer my questions
Well—name of Savage Eleanor live in big old house mile down road nearest living relation to be notified grandfather—Ramilly Savage height five feet four inches number on watchcase 3077 W nose delicate aquiline temperament uncanny—
And me Amory interrupted where did you see me
Oh youre one of those men she answered haughtily must lug old self into conversation Well my boy I was behind a hedge sunning myself one day last week and along comes a man saying in a pleasant conceited way of talking
And now when the night was senescent
says he
And the star dials pointed to morn
At the end of the path a liquescent
says he
And nebulous lustre was born
So I poked my eyes up over the hedge but you had started to run for some unknown reason and so I saw but the back of your beautiful head Oh says I theres a man for whom many of us might sigh and I continued in my best Irish—
All right Amory interrupted Now go back to yourself
Well I will Im one of those people who go through the world giving other people thrills but getting few myself except those I read into men on such nights as these I have the social courage to go on the stage but not the energy I havent the patience to write books and I never met a man Id marry However Im only eighteen
The storm was dying down softly and only the wind kept up its ghostly surge and made the stack lean and gravely settle from side to side Amory was in a trance He felt that every moment was precious He had never met a girl like this before—she would never seem quite the same again He didnt at all feel like a character in a play the appropriate feeling in an unconventional situation—instead he had a sense of coming home
I have just made a great decision said Eleanor after another pause and that is why Im here to answer another of your questions I have just decided that I dont believe in immortality
Really how banal
Frightfully so she answered but depressing with a stale sickly depression nevertheless I came out here to get wet—like a wet hen wet hens always have great clarity of mind she concluded
Go on Amory said politely
Well—Im not afraid of the dark so I put on my slicker and rubber boots and came out You see I was always afraid before to say I didnt believe in God—because the lightning might strike me—but here I am and it hasnt of course but the main point is that this time I wasnt any more afraid of it than I had been when I was a Christian Scientist like I was last year So now I know Im a materialist and I was fraternizing with the hay when you came out and stood by the woods scared to death
Why you little wretch— cried Amory indignantly Scared of what
Yourself she shouted and he jumped She clapped her hands and laughed See—see Conscience—kill it like me Eleanor Savage materiologist—no jumping no starting come early—
But I have to have a soul he objected I cant be rational—and I wont be molecular
She leaned toward him her burning eyes never leaving his own and whispered with a sort of romantic finality
I thought so Juan I feared so—youre sentimental Youre not like me Im a romantic little materialist
Im not sentimental—Im as romantic as you are The idea you know is that the sentimental person thinks things will last—the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they wont This was an ancient distinction of Amorys
Epigrams Im going home she said sadly Lets get off the haystack and walk to the crossroads
They slowly descended from their perch She would not let him help her down and motioning him away arrived in a graceful lump in the soft mud where she sat for an instant laughing at herself Then she jumped to her feet and slipped her hand into his and they tiptoed across the fields jumping and swinging from dry spot to dry spot A transcendent delight seemed to sparkle in every pool of water for the moon had risen and the storm had scurried away into western Maryland When Eleanors arm touched his he felt his hands grow cold with deadly fear lest he should lose the shadow brush with which his imagination was painting wonders of her He watched her from the corners of his eyes as ever he did when he walked with her—she was a feast and a folly and he wished it had been his destiny to sit forever on a haystack and see life through her green eyes His paganism soared that night and when she faded out like a gray ghost down the road a deep singing came out of the fields and filled his way homeward All night the summer moths flitted in and out of Amorys window all night large looming sounds swayed in mystic revery through the silver grain—and he lay awake in the clear darkness
SEPTEMBER
Amory selected a blade of grass and nibbled at it scientifically
I never fall in love in August or September he proffered
When then
Christmas or Easter Im a liturgist
Easter She turned up her nose Huh Spring in corsets
Easter would bore spring wouldnt she Easter has her hair braided wears a tailored suit
Bind on thy sandals oh thou most fleet
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet—
quoted Eleanor softly and then added I suppose Halloween is a better day for autumn than Thanksgiving
Much better—and Christmas eve does very well for winter but summer
Summer has no day she said We cant possibly have a summer love So many people have tried that the names become proverbial Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April Its a sad season of life without growth It has no day
Fourth of July Amory suggested facetiously
Dont be funny she said raking him with her eyes
Well what could fulfil the promise of spring
She thought a moment
Oh I suppose heaven would if there was one she said finally a sort of pagan heaven—you ought to be a materialist she continued irrelevantly
Why
Because you look a good deal like the pictures of Rupert Brooke
To some extent Amory tried to play Rupert Brooke as long as he knew Eleanor What he said his attitude toward life toward her toward himself were all reflexes of the dead Englishmans literary moods Often she sat in the grass a lazy wind playing with her short hair her voice husky as she ran up and down the scale from Grantchester to Waikiki There was something most passionate in Eleanors reading aloud They seemed nearer not only mentally but physically when they read than when she was in his arms and this was often for they fell half into love almost from the first Yet was Amory capable of love now He could as always run through the emotions in a half hour but even while they revelled in their imaginations he knew that neither of them could care as he had cared once before—I suppose that was why they turned to Brooke and Swinburne and Shelley Their chance was to make everything fine and finished and rich and imaginative they must bend tiny golden tentacles from his imagination to hers that would take the place of the great deep love that was never so near yet never so much of a dream
One poem they read over and over Swinburnes Triumph of Time and four lines of it rang in his memory afterward on warm nights when he saw the fireflies among dusky tree trunks and heard the low drone of many frogs Then Eleanor seemed to come out of the night and stand by him and he heard her throaty voice with its tone of a fleecyheaded drum repeating
Is it worth a tear is it worth an hour
To think of things that are well outworn
Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower
The dream foregone and the deed foreborne
They were formally introduced two days later and his aunt told him her history The Ramillys were two old Mr Ramilly and his granddaughter Eleanor She had lived in France with a restless mother whom Amory imagined to have been very like his own on whose death she had come to America to live in Maryland She had gone to Baltimore first to stay with a bachelor uncle and there she insisted on being a debutante at the age of seventeen She had a wild winter and arrived in the country in March having quarrelled frantically with all her Baltimore relatives and shocked them into fiery protest A rather fast crowd had come out who drank cocktails in limousines and were promiscuously condescending and patronizing toward older people and Eleanor with an esprit that hinted strongly of the boulevards led many innocents still redolent of St Timothys and Farmington into paths of Bohemian naughtiness When the story came to her uncle a forgetful cavalier of a more hypocritical era there was a scene from which Eleanor emerged subdued but rebellious and indignant to seek haven with her grandfather who hovered in the country on the near side of senility Thats as far as her story went she told him the rest herself but that was later
Often they swam and as Amory floated lazily in the water he shut his mind to all thoughts except those of hazy soapbubble lands where the sun splattered through winddrunk trees How could any one possibly think or worry or do anything except splash and dive and loll there on the edge of time while the flower months failed Let the days move over—sadness and memory and pain recurred outside and here once more before he went on to meet them he wanted to drift and be young
There were days when Amory resented that life had changed from an even progress along a road stretching ever in sight with the scenery merging and blending into a succession of quick unrelated scenes—two years of sweat and blood that sudden absurd instinct for paternity that Rosalind had stirred the halfsensual halfneurotic quality of this autumn with Eleanor He felt that it would take all time more than he could ever spare to glue these strange cumbersome pictures into the scrapbook of his life It was all like a banquet where he sat for this halfhour of his youth and tried to enjoy brilliant epicurean courses
Dimly he promised himself a time where all should be welded together For months it seemed that he had alternated between being borne along a stream of love or fascination or left in an eddy and in the eddies he had not desired to think rather to be picked up on a waves top and swept along again
The despairing dying autumn and our love—how well they harmonize said Eleanor sadly one day as they lay dripping by the water
The Indian summer of our hearts— he ceased
Tell me she said finally was she light or dark
Light
Was she more beautiful than I am
I dont know said Amory shortly
One night they walked while the moon rose and poured a great burden of glory over the garden until it seemed fairyland with Amory and Eleanor dim phantasmal shapes expressing eternal beauty in curious elfin love moods Then they turned out of the moonlight into the trellised darkness of a vinehung pagoda where there were scents so plaintive as to be nearly musical
Light a match she whispered I want to see you
Scratch Flare
The night and the scarred trees were like scenery in a play and to be there with Eleanor shadowy and unreal seemed somehow oddly familiar Amory thought how it was only the past that ever seemed strange and unbelievable The match went out
Its black as pitch
Were just voices now murmured Eleanor little lonesome voices Light another
That was my last match
Suddenly he caught her in his arms
You are mine—you know youre mine he cried wildly the moonlight twisted in through the vines and listened the fireflies hung upon their whispers as if to win his glance from the glory of their eyes
THE END OF SUMMER
No wind is stirring in the grass not one wind stirs the water in the hidden pools as glass fronts the full moon and so inters the golden token in its icy mass chanted Eleanor to the trees that skeletoned the body of the night Isnt it ghostly here If you can hold your horses feet up lets cut through the woods and find the hidden pools
Its after one and youll get the devil he objected and I dont know enough about horses to put one away in the pitch dark
Shut up you old fool she whispered irrelevantly and leaning over she patted him lazily with her ridingcrop You can leave your old plug in our stable and Ill send him over tomorrow
But my uncle has got to drive me to the station with this old plug at seven oclock
Dont be a spoilsport—remember you have a tendency toward wavering that prevents you from being the entire light of my life
Amory drew his horse up close beside and leaning toward her grasped her hand
Say I am—quick or Ill pull you over and make you ride behind me
She looked up and smiled and shook her head excitedly
Oh do—or rather dont Why are all the exciting things so uncomfortable like fighting and exploring and skiing in Canada By the way were going to ride up Harpers Hill I think that comes in our programme about five oclock
You little devil Amory growled Youre going to make me stay up all night and sleep in the train like an immigrant all day tomorrow going back to New York
Hush some ones coming along the road—lets go Whooeeoop And with a shout that probably gave the belated traveller a series of shivers she turned her horse into the woods and Amory followed slowly as he had followed her all day for three weeks
The summer was over but he had spent the days in watching Eleanor a graceful facile Manfred build herself intellectual and imaginative pyramids while she revelled in the artificialities of the temperamental teens and they wrote poetry at the dinnertable
When Vanity kissed Vanity a hundred happy Junes ago he
pondered oer her breathlessly and that all men might ever
know he rhymed her eyes with life and death
Thru Time Ill save my love he said yet Beauty
vanished with his breath and with her lovers she was dead
—Ever his wit and not her eyes ever his art and not her hair
Whod learn a trick in rhyme be wise and pause before his
sonnet there So all my words however true might sing
you to a thousandth June and no one ever know that you were
Beauty for an afternoon
So he wrote one day when he pondered how coldly we thought of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets and how little we remembered her as the great man wanted her remembered For what Shakespeare must have desired to have been able to write with such divine despair was that the lady should live and now we have no real interest in her The irony of it is that if he had cared more for the poem than for the lady the sonnet would be only obvious imitative rhetoric and no one would ever have read it after twenty years
This was the last night Amory ever saw Eleanor He was leaving in the morning and they had agreed to take a long farewell trot by the cold moonlight She wanted to talk she said—perhaps the last time in her life that she could be rational she meant pose with comfort So they had turned into the woods and rode for half an hour with scarcely a word except when she whispered Damn at a bothersome branch—whispered it as no other girl was ever able to whisper it Then they started up Harpers Hill walking their tired horses
Good Lord Its quiet here whispered Eleanor much more lonesome than the woods
I hate woods Amory said shuddering Any kind of foliage or underbrush at night Out here its so broad and easy on the spirit
The long slope of a long hill
And the cold moon rolling moonlight down it
And thee and me last and most important
It was quiet that night—the straight road they followed up to the edge of the cliff knew few footsteps at any time Only an occasional negro cabin silvergray in the rockribbed moonlight broke the long line of bare ground behind lay the black edge of the woods like a dark frosting on white cake and ahead the sharp high horizon It was much colder—so cold that it settled on them and drove all the warm nights from their minds
The end of summer said Eleanor softly Listen to the beat of our horses hoofs—tumptumptumpatump Have you ever been feverish and had all noises divide into tumptumptump until you could swear eternity was divisible into so many tumps Thats the way I feel—old horses go tumptump I guess thats the only thing that separates horses and clocks from us Human beings cant go tumptumptump without going crazy
The breeze freshened and Eleanor pulled her cape around her and shivered
Are you very cold asked Amory
No Im thinking about myself—my black old inside self the real one with the fundamental honesty that keeps me from being absolutely wicked by making me realize my own sins
They were riding up close by the cliff and Amory gazed over Where the fall met the ground a hundred feet below a black stream made a sharp line broken by tiny glints in the swift water
Rotten rotten old world broke out Eleanor suddenly and the wretchedest thing of all is me—oh why am I a girl Why am I not a stupid— Look at you youre stupider than I am not much but some and you can lope about and get bored and then lope somewhere else and you can play around with girls without being involved in meshes of sentiment and you can do anything and be justified—and here am I with the brains to do everything yet tied to the sinking ship of future matrimony If I were born a hundred years from now well and good but now whats in store for me—I have to marry that goes without saying Who Im too bright for most men and yet I have to descend to their level and let them patronize my intellect in order to get their attention Every year that I dont marry Ive got less chance for a firstclass man At the best I can have my choice from one or two cities and of course I have to marry into a dinnercoat
Listen she leaned close again I like clever men and goodlooking men and of course no one cares more for personality than I do Oh just one person in fifty has any glimmer of what sex is Im hipped on Freud and all that but its rotten that every bit of real love in the world is ninetynine per cent passion and one little soupcon of jealousy She finished as suddenly as she began
Of course youre right Amory agreed Its a rather unpleasant overpowering force thats part of the machinery under everything Its like an actor that lets you see his mechanics Wait a minute till I think this out
He paused and tried to get a metaphor They had turned the cliff and were riding along the road about fifty feet to the left
You see every ones got to have some cloak to throw around it The mediocre intellects Platos second class use the remnants of romantic chivalry diluted with Victorian sentiment—and we who consider ourselves the intellectuals cover it up by pretending that its another side of us has nothing to do with our shining brains we pretend that the fact that we realize it is really absolving us from being a prey to it But the truth is that sex is right in the middle of our purest abstractions so close that it obscures vision I can kiss you now and will He leaned toward her in his saddle but she drew away
I cant—I cant kiss you now—Im more sensitive
Youre more stupid then he declared rather impatiently Intellect is no protection from sex any more than convention is
What is she fired up The Catholic Church or the maxims of Confucius
Amory looked up rather taken aback
Thats your panacea isnt it she cried Oh youre just an old hypocrite too Thousands of scowling priests keeping the degenerate Italians and illiterate Irish repentant with gabblegabble about the sixth and ninth commandments Its just all cloaks sentiment and spiritual rouge and panaceas Ill tell you there is no God not even a definite abstract goodness so its all got to be worked out for the individual by the individual here in high white foreheads like mine and youre too much the prig to admit it She let go her reins and shook her little fists at the stars
If theres a God let him strike me—strike me
Talking about God again after the manner of atheists Amory said sharply His materialism always a thin cloak was torn to shreds by Eleanors blasphemy She knew it and it angered him that she knew it
And like most intellectuals who dont find faith convenient he continued coldly like Napoleon and Oscar Wilde and the rest of your type youll yell loudly for a priest on your deathbed
Eleanor drew her horse up sharply and he reined in beside her
Will I she said in a queer voice that scared him Will I Watch Im going over the cliff And before he could interfere she had turned and was riding breakneck for the end of the plateau
He wheeled and started after her his body like ice his nerves in a vast clangor There was no chance of stopping her The moon was under a cloud and her horse would step blindly over Then some ten feet from the edge of the cliff she gave a sudden shriek and flung herself sideways—plunged from her horse and rolling over twice landed in a pile of brush five feet from the edge The horse went over with a frantic whinny In a minute he was by Eleanors side and saw that her eyes were open
Eleanor he cried
She did not answer but her lips moved and her eyes filled with sudden tears
Eleanor are you hurt
No I dont think so she said faintly and then began weeping
My horse dead
Good God—Yes
Oh she wailed I thought I was going over I didnt know—
He helped her gently to her feet and boosted her onto his saddle So they started homeward Amory walking and she bent forward on the pommel sobbing bitterly
Ive got a crazy streak she faltered twice before Ive done things like that When I was eleven mother went—went mad—stark raving crazy We were in Vienna—
All the way back she talked haltingly about herself and Amorys love waned slowly with the moon At her door they started from habit to kiss good night but she could not run into his arms nor were they stretched to meet her as in the week before For a minute they stood there hating each other with a bitter sadness But as Amory had loved himself in Eleanor so now what he hated was only a mirror Their poses were strewn about the pale dawn like broken glass The stars were long gone and there were left only the little sighing gusts of wind and the silences between but naked souls are poor things ever and soon he turned homeward and let new lights come in with the sun
A POEM THAT ELEANOR SENT AMORY SEVERAL YEARS LATER
Here Earthborn over the lilt of the water
Lisping its music and bearing a burden of light
Bosoming day as a laughing and radiant daughter
Here we may whisper unheard unafraid of the night
Walking alone was it splendor or what we were bound with
Deep in the time when summer lets down her hair
Shadows we loved and the patterns they covered the ground with
Tapestries mystical faint in the breathless air
That was the day and the night for another story
Pale as a dream and shadowed with pencilled trees—
Ghosts of the stars came by who had sought for glory
Whispered to us of peace in the plaintive breeze
Whispered of old dead faiths that the day had shattered
Youth the penny that bought delight of the moon
That was the urge that we knew and the language that mattered
That was the debt that we paid to the usurer June
Here deepest of dreams by the waters that bring not
Anything back of the past that we need not know
What if the light is but sun and the little streams sing not
We are together it seems I have loved you so
What did the last night hold with the summer over
Drawing us back to the home in the changing glade
What leered out of the dark in the ghostly clover
God till you stirred in your sleep and were wild
afraid
Well we have passed we are chronicle now to the eerie
Curious metal from meteors that failed in the sky
Earthborn the tireless is stretched by the water quite weary
Close to this ununderstandable changeling thats I
Fear is an echo we traced to Securitys daughter
Now we are faces and voices and less too soon
Whispering halflove over the lilt of the water
Youth the penny that bought delight of the moon
A POEM AMORY SENT TO ELEANOR AND WHICH HE CALLED SUMMER STORM
Faint winds and a song fading and leaves falling
Faint winds and far away a fading laughter
And the rain and over the fields a voice calling
Our gray blown cloud scurries and lifts above
Slides on the sun and flutters there to waft her
Sisters on The shadow of a dove
Falls on the cote the trees are filled with wings
And down the valley through the crying trees
The body of the darker storm flies brings
With its new air the breath of sunken seas
And slender tenuous thunder
But I wait
Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain—
Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate
Happier winds that pile her hair
Again
They tear me teach me strew the heavy air
Upon me winds that I know and storm
There was a summer every rain was rare
There was a season every wind was warm
And now you pass me in the mist your hair
Rainblown about you damp lips curved once more
In that wild irony that gay despair
That made you old when we have met before
Wraithlike you drift on out before the rain
Across the fields blown with the stemless flowers
With your old hopes dead leaves and loves again—
Dim as a dream and wan with all old hours
Whispers will creep into the growing dark
Tumult will die over the trees
Now night
Tears from her wetted breast the splattered blouse
Of day glides down the dreaming hills tearbright
To cover with her hair the eerie green
Love for the dusk Love for the glistening after
Quiet the trees to their last tops serene
Faint winds and far away a fading laughter
CHAPTER 4 The Supercilious Sacrifice
Atlantic City Amory paced the board walk at days end lulled by the everlasting surge of changing waves smelling the halfmournful odor of the salt breeze The sea he thought had treasured its memories deeper than the faithless land It seemed still to whisper of Norse galleys ploughing the water world under ravenfigured flags of the British dreadnoughts gray bulwarks of civilization steaming up through the fog of one dark July into the North Sea
Well—Amory Blaine
Amory looked down into the street below A low racing car had drawn to a stop and a familiar cheerful face protruded from the drivers seat
Come on down goopher cried Alec
Amory called a greeting and descending a flight of wooden steps approached the car He and Alec had been meeting intermittently but the barrier of Rosalind lay always between them He was sorry for this he hated to lose Alec
Mr Blaine this is Miss Waterson Miss Wayne and Mr Tully
How dy do
Amory said Alec exuberantly if youll jump in well take you to some secluded nook and give you a wee jolt of Bourbon
Amory considered
Thats an idea
Step in—move over Jill and Amory will smile very handsomely at you
Amory squeezed into the back seat beside a gaudy vermilionlipped blonde
Hello Doug Fairbanks she said flippantly Walking for exercise or hunting for company
I was counting the waves replied Amory gravely Im going in for statistics
Dont kid me Doug
When they reached an unfrequented side street Alec stopped the car among deep shadows
What you doing down here these cold days Amory he demanded as he produced a quart of Bourbon from under the fur rug
Amory avoided the question Indeed he had had no definite reason for coming to the coast
Do you remember that party of ours sophomore year he asked instead
Do I When we slept in the pavilions up in Asbury Park—
Lord Alec Its hard to think that Jesse and Dick and Kerry are all three dead
Alec shivered
Dont talk about it These dreary fall days depress me enough
Jill seemed to agree
Doug here is sorta gloomy anyways she commented Tell him to drink deep—its good and scarce these days
What I really want to ask you Amory is where you are—
Why New York I suppose—
I mean tonight because if you havent got a room yet youd better help me out
Glad to
You see Tully and I have two rooms with bath between at the Ranier and hes got to go back to New York I dont want to have to move Question is will you occupy one of the rooms
Amory was willing if he could get in right away
Youll find the key in the office the rooms are in my name
Declining further locomotion or further stimulation Amory left the car and sauntered back along the board walk to the hotel
He was in an eddy again a deep lethargic gulf without desire to work or write love or dissipate For the first time in his life he rather longed for death to roll over his generation obliterating their petty fevers and struggles and exultations His youth seemed never so vanished as now in the contrast between the utter loneliness of this visit and that riotous joyful party of four years before Things that had been the merest commonplaces of his life then deep sleep the sense of beauty around him all desire had flown away and the gaps they left were filled only with the great listlessness of his disillusion
To hold a man a woman has to appeal to the worst in him This sentence was the thesis of most of his bad nights of which he felt this was to be one His mind had already started to play variations on the subject Tireless passion fierce jealousy longing to possess and crush—these alone were left of all his love for Rosalind these remained to him as payment for the loss of his youth—bitter calomel under the thin sugar of loves exaltation
In his room he undressed and wrapping himself in blankets to keep out the chill October air drowsed in an armchair by the open window
He remembered a poem he had read months before
Oh staunch old heart who toiled so long for me
I waste my years sailing along the sea—
Yet he had no sense of waste no sense of the present hope that waste implied He felt that life had rejected him
Rosalind Rosalind He poured the words softly into the halfdarkness until she seemed to permeate the room the wet salt breeze filled his hair with moisture the rim of a moon seared the sky and made the curtains dim and ghostly He fell asleep
When he awoke it was very late and quiet The blanket had slipped partly off his shoulders and he touched his skin to find it damp and cold
Then he became aware of a tense whispering not ten feet away
He became rigid
Dont make a sound It was Alecs voice Jill—do you hear me
Yes— breathed very low very frightened They were in the bathroom
Then his ears caught a louder sound from somewhere along the corridor outside It was a mumbling of mens voices and a repeated muffled rapping Amory threw off the blankets and moved close to the bathroom door
My God came the girls voice again Youll have to let them in
Sh
Suddenly a steady insistent knocking began at Amorys hall door and simultaneously out of the bathroom came Alec followed by the vermilionlipped girl They were both clad in pajamas
Amory an anxious whisper
Whats the trouble
Its house detectives My God Amory—theyre just looking for a testcase—
Well better let them in
You dont understand They can get me under the Mann Act
The girl followed him slowly a rather miserable pathetic figure in the darkness
Amory tried to plan quickly
You make a racket and let them in your room he suggested anxiously and Ill get her out by this door
Theyre here too though Theyll watch this door
Cant you give a wrong name
No chance I registered under my own name besides theyd trail the auto license number
Say youre married
Jill says one of the house detectives knows her
The girl had stolen to the bed and tumbled upon it lay there listening wretchedly to the knocking which had grown gradually to a pounding Then came a mans voice angry and imperative
Open up or well break the door in
In the silence when this voice ceased Amory realized that there were other things in the room besides people over and around the figure crouched on the bed there hung an aura gossamer as a moonbeam tainted as stale weak wine yet a horror diffusively brooding already over the three of them and over by the window among the stirring curtains stood something else featureless and indistinguishable yet strangely familiar Simultaneously two great cases presented themselves side by side to Amory all that took place in his mind then occupied in actual time less than ten seconds
The first fact that flashed radiantly on his comprehension was the great impersonality of sacrifice—he perceived that what we call love and hate reward and punishment had no more to do with it than the date of the month He quickly recapitulated the story of a sacrifice he had heard of in college a man had cheated in an examination his roommate in a gust of sentiment had taken the entire blame—due to the shame of it the innocent ones entire future seemed shrouded in regret and failure capped by the ingratitude of the real culprit He had finally taken his own life—years afterward the facts had come out At the time the story had both puzzled and worried Amory Now he realized the truth that sacrifice was no purchase of freedom It was like a great elective office it was like an inheritance of power—to certain people at certain times an essential luxury carrying with it not a guarantee but a responsibility not a security but an infinite risk Its very momentum might drag him down to ruin—the passing of the emotional wave that made it possible might leave the one who made it high and dry forever on an island of despair
Amory knew that afterward Alec would secretly hate him for having done so much for him
All this was flung before Amory like an opened scroll while ulterior to him and speculating upon him were those two breathless listening forces the gossamer aura that hung over and about the girl and that familiar thing by the window
Sacrifice by its very nature was arrogant and impersonal sacrifice should be eternally supercilious
Weep not for me but for thy children
That—thought Amory—would be somehow the way God would talk to me
Amory felt a sudden surge of joy and then like a face in a motionpicture the aura over the bed faded out the dynamic shadow by the window that was as near as he could name it remained for the fraction of a moment and then the breeze seemed to lift it swiftly out of the room He clinched his hands in quick ecstatic excitement the ten seconds were up
Do what I say Alec—do what I say Do you understand
Alec looked at him dumbly—his face a tableau of anguish
You have a family continued Amory slowly You have a family and its important that you should get out of this Do you hear me He repeated clearly what he had said Do you hear me
I hear you The voice was curiously strained the eyes never for a second left Amorys
Alec youre going to lie down here If any one comes in you act drunk You do what I say—if you dont Ill probably kill you
There was another moment while they stared at each other Then Amory went briskly to the bureau and taking his pocketbook beckoned peremptorily to the girl He heard one word from Alec that sounded like penitentiary then he and Jill were in the bathroom with the door bolted behind them
Youre here with me he said sternly Youve been with me all evening
She nodded gave a little half cry
In a second he had the door of the other room open and three men entered There was an immediate flood of electric light and he stood there blinking
Youve been playing a little too dangerous a game young man
Amory laughed
Well
The leader of the trio nodded authoritatively at a burly man in a check suit
All right Olson
I got you Mr OMay said Olson nodding The other two took a curious glance at their quarry and then withdrew closing the door angrily behind them
The burly man regarded Amory contemptuously
Didnt you ever hear of the Mann Act Coming down here with her he indicated the girl with his thumb with a New York license on your car—to a hotel like this He shook his head implying that he had struggled over Amory but now gave him up
Well said Amory rather impatiently what do you want us to do
Get dressed quick—and tell your friend not to make such a racket Jill was sobbing noisily on the bed but at these words she subsided sulkily and gathering up her clothes retired to the bathroom As Amory slipped into Alecs B V Ds he found that his attitude toward the situation was agreeably humorous The aggrieved virtue of the burly man made him want to laugh
Anybody else here demanded Olson trying to look keen and ferretlike
Fellow who had the rooms said Amory carelessly Hes drunk as an owl though Been in there asleep since six oclock
Ill take a look at him presently
How did you find out asked Amory curiously
Night clerk saw you go upstairs with this woman
Amory nodded Jill reappeared from the bathroom completely if rather untidily arrayed
Now then began Olson producing a notebook I want your real names—no damn John Smith or Mary Brown
Wait a minute said Amory quietly Just drop that bigbully stuff We merely got caught thats all
Olson glared at him
Name he snapped
Amory gave his name and New York address
And the lady
Miss Jill—
Say cried Olson indignantly just ease up on the nursery rhymes Whats your name Sarah Murphy Minnie Jackson
Oh my God cried the girl cupping her tearstained face in her hands I dont want my mother to know I dont want my mother to know
Come on now
Shut up cried Amory at Olson
An instants pause
Stella Robbins she faltered finally General Delivery Rugway New Hampshire
Olson snapped his notebook shut and looked at them very ponderously
By rights the hotel could turn the evidence over to the police and youd go to penitentiary you would for bringin a girl from one State to nother fr immoral purpses— He paused to let the majesty of his words sink in But—the hotel is going to let you off
It doesnt want to get in the papers cried Jill fiercely Let us off Huh
A great lightness surrounded Amory He realized that he was safe and only then did he appreciate the full enormity of what he might have incurred
However continued Olson theres a protective association among the hotels Theres been too much of this stuff and we got a rangement with the newspapers so that you get a little free publicity Not the name of the hotel but just a line sayin that you had a little trouble in lantic City See
I see
Youre gettin off light—damn light—but—
Come on said Amory briskly Lets get out of here We dont need a valedictory
Olson walked through the bathroom and took a cursory glance at Alecs still form Then he extinguished the lights and motioned them to follow him As they walked into the elevator Amory considered a piece of bravado—yielded finally He reached out and tapped Olson on the arm
Would you mind taking off your hat Theres a lady in the elevator
Olsons hat came off slowly There was a rather embarrassing two minutes under the lights of the lobby while the night clerk and a few belated guests stared at them curiously the loudly dressed girl with bent head the handsome young man with his chin several points aloft the inference was quite obvious Then the chill outdoors—where the salt air was fresher and keener still with the first hints of morning
You can get one of those taxis and beat it said Olson pointing to the blurred outline of two machines whose drivers were presumably asleep inside
Goodby said Olson He reached in his pocket suggestively but Amory snorted and taking the girls arm turned away
Where did you tell the driver to go she asked as they whirled along the dim street
The station
If that guy writes my mother—
He wont Nobodyll ever know about this—except our friends and enemies
Dawn was breaking over the sea
Its getting blue she said
It does very well agreed Amory critically and then as an afterthought Its almost breakfasttime—do you want something to eat
Food— she said with a cheerful laugh Food is what queered the party We ordered a big supper to be sent up to the room about two oclock Alec didnt give the waiter a tip so I guess the little bastard snitched
Jills low spirits seemed to have gone faster than the scattering night Let me tell you she said emphatically when you want to stage that sorta party stay away from liquor and when you want to get tight stay away from bedrooms
Ill remember
He tapped suddenly at the glass and they drew up at the door of an allnight restaurant
Is Alec a great friend of yours asked Jill as they perched themselves on high stools inside and set their elbows on the dingy counter
He used to be He probably wont want to be any more—and never understand why
It was sorta crazy you takin all that blame Is he pretty important Kinda more important than you are
Amory laughed
That remains to be seen he answered Thats the question
THE COLLAPSE OF SEVERAL PILLARS
Two days later back in New York Amory found in a newspaper what he had been searching for—a dozen lines which announced to whom it might concern that Mr Amory Blaine who gave his address as etc had been requested to leave his hotel in Atlantic City because of entertaining in his room a lady not his wife
Then he started and his fingers trembled for directly above was a longer paragraph of which the first words were
Mr and Mrs Leland R Connage are announcing the engagement of their daughter Rosalind to Mr J Dawson Ryder of Hartford Connecticut—
He dropped the paper and lay down on his bed with a frightened sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach She was gone definitely finally gone Until now he had half unconsciously cherished the hope deep in his heart that some day she would need him and send for him cry that it had been a mistake that her heart ached only for the pain she had caused him Never again could he find even the sombre luxury of wanting her—not this Rosalind harder older—nor any beaten broken woman that his imagination brought to the door of his forties—Amory had wanted her youth the fresh radiance of her mind and body the stuff that she was selling now once and for all So far as he was concerned young Rosalind was dead
A day later came a crisp terse letter from Mr Barton in Chicago which informed him that as three more streetcar companies had gone into the hands of receivers he could expect for the present no further remittances Last of all on a dazed Sunday night a telegram told him of Monsignor Darcys sudden death in Philadelphia five days before
He knew then what it was that he had perceived among the curtains of the room in Atlantic City
CHAPTER 5 The Egotist Becomes a Personage
A fathom deep in sleep I lie
With old desires restrained before
To clamor lifeward with a cry
As dark flies out the greying door
And so in quest of creeds to share
I seek assertive day again
But old monotony is there
Endless avenues of rain
Oh might I rise again Might I
Throw off the heat of that old wine
See the new morning mass the sky
With fairy towers line on line
Find each mirage in the high air
A symbol not a dream again
But old monotony is there
Endless avenues of rain
Under the glass portcullis of a theatre Amory stood watching the first great drops of rain splatter down and flatten to dark stains on the sidewalk The air became gray and opalescent a solitary light suddenly outlined a window over the way then another light then a hundred more danced and glimmered into vision Under his feet a thick ironstudded skylight turned yellow in the street the lamps of the taxicabs sent out glistening sheens along the already black pavement The unwelcome November rain had perversely stolen the days last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence the night
The silence of the theatre behind him ended with a curious snapping sound followed by the heavy roaring of a rising crowd and the interlaced clatter of many voices The matinee was over
He stood aside edged a little into the rain to let the throng pass A small boy rushed out sniffed in the damp fresh air and turned up the collar of his coat came three or four couples in a great hurry came a further scattering of people whose eyes as they emerged glanced invariably first at the wet street then at the rainfilled air finally at the dismal sky last a dense strolling mass that depressed him with its heavy odor compounded of the tobacco smell of the men and the fetid sensuousness of stale powder on women After the thick crowd came another scattering a stray halfdozen a man on crutches finally the rattling bang of folding seats inside announced that the ushers were at work
New York seemed not so much awakening as turning over in its bed Pallid men rushed by pinching together their coatcollars a great swarm of tired magpie girls from a departmentstore crowded along with shrieks of strident laughter three to an umbrella a squad of marching policemen passed already miraculously protected by oilskin capes
The rain gave Amory a feeling of detachment and the numerous unpleasant aspects of city life without money occurred to him in threatening procession There was the ghastly stinking crush of the subway—the car cards thrusting themselves at one leering out like dull bores who grab your arm with another story the querulous worry as to whether some one isnt leaning on you a man deciding not to give his seat to a woman hating her for it the woman hating him for not doing it at worst a squalid phantasmagoria of breath and old cloth on human bodies and the smells of the food men ate—at best just people—too hot or too cold tired worried
He pictured the rooms where these people lived—where the patterns of the blistered wallpapers were heavy reiterated sunflowers on green and yellow backgrounds where there were tin bathtubs and gloomy hallways and verdureless unnamable spaces in back of the buildings where even love dressed as seduction—a sordid murder around the corner illicit motherhood in the flat above And always there was the economical stuffiness of indoor winter and the long summers nightmares of perspiration between sticky enveloping walls dirty restaurants where careless tired people helped themselves to sugar with their own used coffeespoons leaving hard brown deposits in the bowl
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 poor—it 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 every one in the car a momentary glow
I detest poor people thought Amory suddenly I hate them for being poor Poverty may have been beautiful once but its rotten now Its the ugliest thing in the world Its essentially cleaner to be corrupt and rich than it is to be innocent and poor He seemed to see again a figure whose significance had once impressed him—a welldressed 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 My God Arent people horrible
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 hate—Amory saw only coarseness physical filth and stupidity He made no selfaccusations 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 Delmonicos 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—Well—whats the situation
Answer—That I have about twentyfour dollars to my name
Q—You have the Lake Geneva estate
A—But I intend to keep it
Q—Can you live
A—I cant imagine not being able to People make money in books and Ive found that I can always do the things that people do in books Really they are the only things I can do
Q—Be definite
A—I dont know what Ill do—nor have I much curiosity Tomorrow Im going to leave New York for good Its a bad town unless youre on top of it
Q—Do you want a lot of money
A—No I am merely afraid of being poor
Q—Very afraid
A—Just passively afraid
Q—Where are you drifting
A—Dont ask me
Q—Dont you care
A—Rather I dont want to commit moral suicide
Q—Have you no interests left
A—None Ive 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 Thats whats called ingenuousness
Q—An interesting idea
A—Thats why a good man going wrong 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 delight—How innocent the poor child is Theyre 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—All your calories gone
A—All of them Im beginning to warm myself at other peoples virtue
Q—Are you corrupt
A—I think so Im not sure Im not sure about good and evil at all any more
Q—Is that a bad sign in itself?
A—Not necessarily
Q—What would be the test of corruption
A—Becoming really insincere—calling myself not such a bad fellow 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 dont They just want the fun of eating it all over again The matron doesnt want to repeat her girlhood—she wants to repeat her honeymoon I dont want to repeat my innocence I want the pleasure of losing it again
Q—Where are you drifting
This dialogue merged grotesquely into his minds most familiar state—a grotesque blending of desires worries exterior impressions and physical reactions
One Hundred and Twentyseventh Street—or One Hundred and Thirtyseventh Street Two and three look alike—no not much Seat damp are clothes absorbing wetness from seat or seat absorbing dryness from clothes Sitting on wet substance gave appendicitis so Froggy Parkers mother said Well hed had it—Ill sue the steamboat company Beatrice said and my uncle has a quarter interest—did Beatrice go to heaven probably not—He represented Beatrices immortality also loveaffairs of numerous dead men who surely had never thought of him if it wasnt 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 expensive—probably hundred and fifty a month—maybe two hundred Uncle had only paid hundred a month for whole great big house in Minneapolis Question—were 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 river—want to go down there and see if its dirty—French rivers all brown or black so were Southern rivers Twentyfour dollars meant four hundred and eighty doughnuts He could live on it three months and sleep in the park Wonder where Jill was—Jill Bayne Fayne Sayne—what the devil—neck hurts darned uncomfortable seat No desire to sleep with Jill what could Alec see in her Alec had a coarse taste in women Own taste the best Isabelle Clara Rosalind Eleanor were allAmerican Eleanor would pitch probably southpaw Rosalind was outfield wonderful hitter Clara first base maybe Wonder what Humbirds body looked like now If he himself hadnt been bayonet instructor hed have gone up to line three months sooner probably been killed Wheres the darned bell—
The street numbers of Riverside Drive were obscured by the mist and dripping trees from anything but the swiftest scrutiny but Amory had finally caught sight of one—One Hundred and Twentyseventh Street He got off and with no distinct destination followed a winding descending sidewalk and came out facing the river in particular a long pier and a partitioned litter of shipyards for miniature craft small launches canoes rowboats and catboats He turned northward and followed the shore jumped a small wire fence and found himself in a great disorderly yard adjoining a dock The hulls of many boats in various stages of repair were around him he smelled sawdust and paint and the scarcely distinguishable fiat odor of the Hudson A man approached through the heavy gloom
Hello said Amory
Got a pass
No Is this private
This is the Hudson River Sporting and Yacht Club
Oh I didnt know Im just resting
Well— began the man dubiously
Ill go if you want me to
The man made noncommittal noises in his throat and passed on Amory seated himself on an overturned boat and leaned forward thoughtfully until his chin rested in his hand
Misfortune is liable to make me a damn bad man he said slowly
IN THE DROOPING HOURS
While the rain drizzled on Amory looked futilely back at the stream of his life all its glitterings and dirty shallows To begin with he was still afraid—not physically afraid any more but afraid of people and prejudice and misery and monotony Yet deep in his bitter heart he wondered if he was after all worse than this man or the next He knew that he could sophisticate himself finally into saying that his own weakness was just the result of circumstances and environment that often when he raged at himself as an egotist something would whisper ingratiatingly No Genius That was one manifestation of fear that voice which whispered that he could not be both great and good that genius was the exact combination of those inexplicable grooves and twists in his mind that any discipline would curb it to mediocrity Probably more than any concrete vice or failing Amory despised his own personality—he loathed knowing that tomorrow and the thousand days after he would swell pompously at a compliment and sulk at an ill word like a thirdrate musician or a firstclass actor He was ashamed of the fact that very simple and honest people usually distrusted him that he had been cruel often to those who had sunk their personalities in him—several girls and a man here and there through college that he had been an evil influence on people who had followed him here and there into mental adventures from which he alone rebounded unscathed
Usually on nights like this for there had been many lately he could escape from this consuming introspection by thinking of children and the infinite possibilities of children—he leaned and listened and he heard a startled baby awake in a house across the street and lend a tiny whimper to the still night Quick as a flash he turned away wondering with a touch of panic whether something in the brooding despair of his mood had made a darkness in its tiny soul He shivered What if some day the balance was overturned and he became a thing that frightened children and crept into rooms in the dark approached dim communion with those phantoms who whispered shadowy secrets to the mad of that dark continent upon the moon
Amory smiled a bit
Youre too much wrapped up in yourself he heard some one say And again—
Get out and do some real work—
Stop worrying—
He fancied a possible future comment of his own
Yes—I was perhaps an egotist in youth but I soon found it made me morbid to think too much about myself
Suddenly he felt an overwhelming desire to let himself go to the devil—not to go violently as a gentleman should but to sink safely and sensuously out of sight He pictured himself in an adobe house in Mexico halfreclining on a rugcovered couch his slender artistic fingers closed on a cigarette while he listened to guitars strumming melancholy undertones to an ageold dirge of Castile and an oliveskinned carminelipped girl caressed his hair Here he might live a strange litany delivered from right and wrong and from the hound of heaven and from every God except the exotic Mexican one who was pretty slack himself and rather addicted to Oriental scents—delivered from success and hope and poverty into that long chute of indulgence which led after all only to the artificial lake of death
There were so many places where one might deteriorate pleasantly Port Said Shanghai parts of Turkestan Constantinople the South Seas—all lands of sad haunting music and many odors where lust could be a mode and expression of life where the shades of night skies and sunsets would seem to reflect only moods of passion the colors of lips and poppies
STILL WEEDING
Once he had been miraculously able to scent evil as a horse detects a broken bridge at night but the man with the queer feet in Phoebes room had diminished to the aura over Jill His instinct perceived the fetidness of poverty but no longer ferreted out the deeper evils in pride and sensuality
There were no more wise men there were no more heroes Burne Holiday was sunk from sight as though he had never lived Monsignor was dead Amory had grown up to a thousand books a thousand lies he had listened eagerly to people who pretended to know who knew nothing The mystical reveries of saints that had once filled him with awe in the still hours of night now vaguely repelled him The Byrons and Brookes who had defied life from mountain tops were in the end but flaneurs and poseurs at best mistaking the shadow of courage for the substance of wisdom The pageantry of his disillusion took shape in a worldold procession of Prophets Athenians Martyrs Saints Scientists Don Juans Jesuits Puritans Fausts Poets Pacifists like costumed alumni at a college reunion they streamed before him as their dreams personalities and creeds had in turn thrown colored lights on his soul each had tried to express the glory of life and the tremendous significance of man each had boasted of synchronizing what had gone before into his own rickety generalities each had depended after all on the set stage and the convention of the theatre which is that man in his hunger for faith will feed his mind with the nearest and most convenient food
Women—of whom he had expected so much whose beauty he had hoped to transmute into modes of art whose unfathomable instincts marvellously incoherent and inarticulate he had thought to perpetuate in terms of experience—had become merely consecrations to their own posterity Isabelle Clara Rosalind Eleanor were all removed by their very beauty around which men had swarmed from the possibility of contributing anything but a sick heart and a page of puzzled words to write
Amory based his loss of faith in help from others on several sweeping syllogisms Granted that his generation however bruised and decimated from this Victorian war were the heirs of progress Waving aside petty differences of conclusions which although they might occasionally cause the deaths of several millions of young men might be explained away—supposing that after all Bernard Shaw and Bernhardi Bonar Law and BethmannHollweg were mutual heirs of progress if only in agreeing against the ducking of witches—waiving the antitheses and approaching individually these men who seemed to be the leaders he was repelled by the discrepancies and contradictions in the men themselves
There was for example, Thornton Hancock respected by half the intellectual world as an authority on life a man who had verified and believed the code he lived by an educator of educators an adviser to Presidents—yet Amory knew that this man had in his heart leaned on the priest of another religion
And Monsignor upon whom a cardinal rested had moments of strange and horrible insecurity—inexplicable in a religion that explained even disbelief in terms of its own faith if you doubted the devil it was the devil that made you doubt him Amory had seen Monsignor go to the houses of stolid philistines read popular novels furiously saturate himself in routine to escape from that horror
And this priest a little wiser somewhat purer had been Amory knew not essentially older than he
Amory was alone—he had escaped from a small enclosure into a great labyrinth He was where Goethe was when he began Faust he was where Conrad was when he wrote Almayers Folly
Amory said to himself that there were essentially two sorts of people who through natural clarity or disillusion left the enclosure and sought the labyrinth There were men like Wells and Plato who had half unconsciously a strange hidden orthodoxy who would accept for themselves only what could be accepted for all men—incurable romanticists who never for all their efforts could enter the labyrinth as stark souls there were on the other hand swordlike pioneering personalities Samuel Butler Renan Voltaire who progressed much slower yet eventually much further not in the direct pessimistic line of speculative philosophy but concerned in the eternal attempt to attach a positive value to life
Amory stopped He began for the first time in his life to have a strong distrust of all generalities and epigrams They were too easy too dangerous to the public mind Yet all thought usually reached the public after thirty years in some such form Benson and Chesterton had popularized Huysmans and Newman Shaw had sugarcoated Nietzsche and Ibsen and Schopenhauer The man in the street heard the conclusions of dead genius through some one elses clever paradoxes and didactic epigrams
Life was a damned muddle a football game with every one offside and the referee gotten rid of—every one claiming the referee would have been on his side
Progress was a labyrinth people plunging blindly in and then rushing wildly back shouting that they had found it the invisible king—the elan vital—the principle of evolution writing a book starting a war founding a school
Amory even had he not been a selfish man would have started all inquiries with himself He was his own best example—sitting in the rain a human creature of sex and pride foiled by chance and his own temperament of the balm of love and children preserved to help in building up the living consciousness of the race
In selfreproach and loneliness and disillusion he came to the entrance of the labyrinth
Another dawn flung itself across the river a belated taxi hurried along the street its lamps still shining like burning eyes in a face white from a nights carouse A melancholy siren sounded far down the river
MONSIGNOR
Amory kept thinking how Monsignor would have enjoyed his own funeral It was magnificently Catholic and liturgical Bishop ONeill sang solemn high mass and the cardinal gave the final absolutions Thornton Hancock Mrs Lawrence the British and Italian ambassadors the papal delegate and a host of friends and priests were there—yet the inexorable shears had cut through all these threads that Monsignor had gathered into his hands To Amory it was a haunting grief to see him lying in his coffin with closed hands upon his purple vestments His face had not changed and as he never knew he was dying it showed no pain or fear It was Amorys dear old friend his and the others—for the church was full of people with daft staring faces the most exalted seeming the most stricken
The cardinal like an archangel in cope and mitre sprinkled the holy water the organ broke into sound the choir began to sing the Requiem Eternam
All these people grieved because they had to some extent depended upon Monsignor Their grief was more than sentiment for the crack in his voice or a certain break in his walk as Wells put it These people had leaned on Monsignors faith his way of finding cheer of making religion a thing of lights and shadows making all light and shadow merely aspects of God People felt safe when he was near
Of Amorys attempted sacrifice had been born merely the full realization of his disillusion but of Monsignors funeral was born the romantic elf who was to enter the labyrinth with him He found something that he wanted had always wanted and always would want—not to be admired as he had feared not to be loved as he had made himself believe but to be necessary to people to be indispensable he remembered the sense of security he had found in Burne
Life opened up in one of its amazing bursts of radiance and Amory suddenly and permanently rejected an old epigram that had been playing listlessly in his mind Very few things matter and nothing matters very much
On the contrary Amory felt an immense desire to give people a sense of security
THE BIG MAN WITH GOGGLES
On the day that Amory started on his walk to Princeton the sky was a colorless vault cool high and barren of the threat of rain It was a gray day that least fleshly of all weathers a day of dreams and far hopes and clear visions It was a day easily associated with those abstract truths and purities that dissolve in the sunshine or fade out in mocking laughter by the light of the moon The trees and clouds were carved in classical severity the sounds of the countryside had harmonized to a monotone metallic as a trumpet breathless as the Grecian urn
The day had put Amory in such a contemplative mood that he caused much annoyance to several motorists who were forced to slow up considerably or else run him down So engrossed in his thoughts was he that he was scarcely surprised at that strange phenomenon—cordiality manifested within fifty miles of Manhattan—when a passing car slowed down beside him and a voice hailed him He looked up and saw a magnificent Locomobile in which sat two middleaged men one of them small and anxious looking apparently an artificial growth on the other who was large and begoggled and imposing
Do you want a lift asked the apparently artificial growth glancing from the corner of his eye at the imposing man as if for some habitual silent corroboration
You bet I do Thanks
The chauffeur swung open the door and climbing in Amory settled himself in the middle of the back seat He took in his companions curiously The chief characteristic of the big man seemed to be a great confidence in himself set off against a tremendous boredom with everything around him That part of his face which protruded under the goggles was what is generally termed strong rolls of not undignified fat had collected near his chin somewhere above was a wide thin mouth and the rough model for a Roman nose and below his shoulders collapsed without a struggle into the powerful bulk of his chest and belly He was excellently and quietly dressed Amory noticed that he was inclined to stare straight at the back of the chauffeurs head as if speculating steadily but hopelessly some baffling hirsute problem
The smaller man was remarkable only for his complete submersion in the personality of the other He was of that lower secretarial type who at forty have engraved upon their business cards Assistant to the President and without a sigh consecrate the rest of their lives to secondhand mannerisms
Going far asked the smaller man in a pleasant disinterested way
Quite a stretch
Hiking for exercise
No responded Amory succinctly Im walking because I cant afford to ride
Oh
Then again
Are you looking for work Because theres lots of work he continued rather testily All this talk of lack of work The West is especially short of labor He expressed the West with a sweeping lateral gesture Amory nodded politely
Have you a trade
No—Amory had no trade
Clerk eh
No—Amory was not a clerk
Whatever your line is said the little man seeming to agree wisely with something Amory had said now is the time of opportunity and business openings He glanced again toward the big man as a lawyer grilling a witness glances involuntarily at the jury
Amory decided that he must say something and for the life of him could think of only one thing to say
Of course I want a great lot of money—
The little man laughed mirthlessly but conscientiously
Thats what every one wants nowadays but they dont want to work for it
A very natural healthy desire Almost all normal people want to be rich without great effort—except the financiers in problem plays who want to crash their way through Dont you want easy money
Of course not said the secretary indignantly
But continued Amory disregarding him being very poor at present I am contemplating socialism as possibly my forte
Both men glanced at him curiously
These bomb throwers— The little man ceased as words lurched ponderously from the big mans chest
If I thought you were a bomb thrower Id run you over to the Newark jail Thats what I think of Socialists
Amory laughed
What are you asked the big man one of these parlor Bolsheviks one of these idealists I must say I fail to see the difference The idealists loaf around and write the stuff that stirs up the poor immigrants
Well said Amory if being an idealist is both safe and lucrative I might try it
Whats your difficulty Lost your job
Not exactly but—well call it that
What was it
Writing copy for an advertising agency
Lots of money in advertising
Amory smiled discreetly
Oh Ill admit theres money in it eventually Talent doesnt starve any more Even art gets enough to eat these days Artists draw your magazine covers write your advertisements hash out ragtime for your theatres By the great commercializing of printing youve found a harmless polite occupation for every genius who might have carved his own niche But beware the artist whos an intellectual also The artist who doesnt fit—the Rousseau the Tolstoi the Samuel Butler the Amory Blaine—
Whos he demanded the little man suspiciously
Well said Amory hes a—hes an intellectual personage not very well known at present
The little man laughed his conscientious laugh and stopped rather suddenly as Amorys burning eyes turned on him
What are you laughing at
These intellectual people—
Do you know what it means
The little mans eyes twitched nervously
Why it usually means—
It always means brainy and welleducated interrupted Amory It means having an active knowledge of the races experience Amory decided to be very rude He turned to the big man The young man he indicated the secretary with his thumb and said young man as one says bellboy with no implication of youth has the usual muddled connotation of all popular words
You object to the fact that capital controls printing said the big man fixing him with his goggles
Yes—and I object to doing their mental work for them It seemed to me that the root of all the business I saw around me consisted in overworking and underpaying a bunch of dubs who submitted to it
Here now said the big man youll have to admit that the laboring man is certainly highly paid—five and six hour days—its ridiculous You cant buy an honest days work from a man in the tradesunions
Youve brought it on yourselves insisted Amory You people never make concessions until theyre wrung out of you
What people
Your class the class I belonged to until recently those who by inheritance or industry or brains or dishonesty have become the moneyed class
Do you imagine that if that roadmender over there had the money hed be any more willing to give it up
No but whats that got to do with it
The older man considered
No Ill admit it hasnt It rather sounds as if it had though
In fact continued Amory hed be worse The lower classes are narrower less pleasant and personally more selfish—certainly more stupid But all that has nothing to do with the question
Just exactly what is the question
Here Amory had to pause to consider exactly what the question was
AMORY COINS A PHRASE
When life gets hold of a brainy man of fair education began Amory slowly that is when he marries he becomes nine times out of ten a conservative as far as existing social conditions are concerned He may be unselfish kindhearted even just in his own way but his first job is to provide and to hold fast His wife shoos him on from ten thousand a year to twenty thousand a year on and on in an enclosed treadmill that hasnt any windows Hes done Lifes got him Hes no help Hes a spiritually married man
Amory paused and decided that it wasnt such a bad phrase
Some men he continued escape the grip Maybe their wives have no social ambitions maybe theyve hit a sentence or two in a dangerous book that pleased them maybe they started on the treadmill as I did and were knocked off Anyway theyre the congressmen you cant bribe the Presidents who arent politicians the writers speakers scientists statesmen who arent just popular grabbags for a halfdozen women and children
Hes the natural radical
Yes said Amory He may vary from the disillusioned critic like old Thornton Hancock all the way to Trotsky Now this spiritually unmarried man hasnt direct power for unfortunately the spiritually married man as a byproduct of his money chase has garnered in the great newspaper the popular magazine the influential weekly—so that Mrs Newspaper Mrs Magazine Mrs Weekly can have a better limousine than those oil people across the street or those cement people round the corner
Why not
It makes wealthy men the keepers of the worlds intellectual conscience and of course a man who has money under one set of social institutions quite naturally cant risk his familys happiness by letting the clamor for another appear in his newspaper
But it appears said the big man
Where—in the discredited mediums Rotten cheappapered weeklies
All right—go on
Well my first point is that through a mixture of conditions of which the family is the first there are these two sorts of brains One sort takes human nature as it finds it uses its timidity its weakness and its strength for its own ends Opposed is the man who being spiritually unmarried continually seeks for new systems that will control or counteract human nature His problem is harder It is not life thats complicated its the struggle to guide and control life That is his struggle He is a part of progress—the spiritually married man is not
The big man produced three big cigars and proffered them on his huge palm The little man took one Amory shook his head and reached for a cigarette
Go on talking said the big man Ive been wanting to hear one of you fellows
GOING FASTER
Modern life began Amory again changes no longer century by century but year by year ten times faster than it ever has before—populations doubling civilizations unified more closely with other civilizations economic interdependence racial questions and—were dawdling along My idea is that weve got to go very much faster He slightly emphasized the last words and the chauffeur unconsciously increased the speed of the car Amory and the big man laughed the little man laughed too after a pause
Every child said Amory should have an equal start If his father can endow him with a good physique and his mother with some common sense in his early education that should be his heritage If the father cant give him a good physique if the mother has spent in chasing men the years in which she should have been preparing herself to educate her children so much the worse for the child He shouldnt be artificially bolstered up with money sent to these horrible tutoring schools dragged through college Every boy ought to have an equal start
All right said the big man his goggles indicating neither approval nor objection
Next Id have a fair trial of government ownership of all industries
Thats been proven a failure
No—it merely failed If we had government ownership wed have the best analytical business minds in the government working for something besides themselves Wed have Mackays instead of Burlesons wed have Morgans in the Treasury Department wed have Hills running interstate commerce Wed have the best lawyers in the Senate
They wouldnt give their best efforts for nothing McAdoo—
No said Amory shaking his head Money isnt the only stimulus that brings out the best thats in a man even in America
You said a while ago that it was
It is right now But if it were made illegal to have more than a certain amount the best men would all flock for the one other reward which attracts humanity—honor
The big man made a sound that was very like boo
Thats the silliest thing youve said yet
No it isnt silly Its quite plausible If youd gone to college youd have been struck by the fact that the men there would work twice as hard for any one of a hundred petty honors as those other men did who were earning their way through
Kids—childs play scoffed his antagonist
Not by a darned sight—unless were all children Did you ever see a grown man when hes trying for a secret society—or a rising family whose name is up at some club Theyll jump when they hear the sound of the word The idea that to make a man work youve got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth not an axiom Weve done that for so long that weve forgotten theres any other way Weve made a world where thats necessary Let me tell you—Amory became emphatic—if there were ten men insured against either wealth or starvation and offered a green ribbon for five hours work a day and a blue ribbon for ten hours work a day nine out of ten of them would be trying for the blue ribbon That competitive instinct only wants a badge If the size of their house is the badge theyll sweat their heads off for that If its only a blue ribbon I damn near believe theyll work just as hard They have in other ages
I dont agree with you
I know it said Amory nodding sadly It doesnt matter any more though I think these people are going to come and take what they want pretty soon
A fierce hiss came from the little man
Machineguns
Ah but youve taught them their use
The big man shook his head
In this country there are enough property owners not to permit that sort of thing
Amory wished he knew the statistics of property owners and nonproperty owners he decided to change the subject
But the big man was aroused
When you talk of taking things away youre on dangerous ground
How can they get it without taking it For years people have been stalled off with promises Socialism may not be progress but the threat of the red flag is certainly the inspiring force of all reform Youve got to be sensational to get attention
Russia is your example of a beneficent violence I suppose
Quite possibly admitted Amory Of course its overflowing just as the French Revolution did but Ive no doubt that its really a great experiment and well worth while
Dont you believe in moderation
You wont listen to the moderates and its almost too late The truth is that the public has done one of those startling and amazing things that they do about once in a hundred years Theyve seized an idea
What is it
That however the brains and abilities of men may differ their stomachs are essentially the same
THE LITTLE MAN GETS HIS
If you took all the money in the world said the little man with much profundity and divided it up in equ—
Oh shut up said Amory briskly and paying no attention to the little mans enraged stare he went on with his argument
The human stomach— he began but the big man interrupted rather impatiently
Im letting you talk you know he said but please avoid stomachs Ive been feeling mine all day Anyway I dont agree with onehalf youve said Government ownership is the basis of your whole argument and its invariably a beehive of corruption Men wont work for blue ribbons thats all rot
When he ceased the little man spoke up with a determined nod as if resolved this time to have his say out
There are certain things which are human nature he asserted with an owllike look which always have been and always will be which can't be changed
Amory looked from the small man to the big man helplessly
Listen to that Thats what makes me discouraged with progress Listen to that I can name offhand over one hundred natural phenomena that have been changed by the will of man—a hundred instincts in man that have been wiped out or are now held in check by civilization What this man here just said has been for thousands of years the last refuge of the associated muttonheads of the world It negates the efforts of every scientist statesman moralist reformer doctor and philosopher that ever gave his life to humanitys service Its a flat impeachment of all thats worth while in human nature Every person over twentyfive years old who makes that statement in cold blood ought to be deprived of the franchise
The little man leaned back against the seat his face purple with rage Amory continued addressing his remarks to the big man
These quartereducated staleminded men such as your friend here who think they think every question that comes up youll find his type in the usual ghastly muddle One minute its the brutality and inhumanity of these Prussians—the next its we ought to exterminate the whole German people They always believe that things are in a bad way now but they havent any faith in these idealists One minute they call Wilson just a dreamer not practical—a year later they rail at him for making his dreams realities They havent clear logical ideas on one single subject except a sturdy stolid opposition to all change They dont think uneducated people should be highly paid but they wont see that if they dont pay the uneducated people their children are going to be uneducated too and were going round and round in a circle That—is the great middle class
The big man with a broad grin on his face leaned over and smiled at the little man
Youre catching it pretty heavy Garvin how do you feel
The little man made an attempt to smile and act as if the whole matter were so ridiculous as to be beneath notice But Amory was not through
The theory that people are fit to govern themselves rests on this man If he can be educated to think clearly concisely and logically freed of his habit of taking refuge in platitudes and prejudices and sentimentalisms then Im a militant Socialist If he cant then I dont think it matters much what happens to man or his systems now or hereafter
I am both interested and amused said the big man You are very young
Which may only mean that I have neither been corrupted nor made timid by contemporary experience I possess the most valuable experience the experience of the race for in spite of going to college Ive managed to pick up a good education
You talk glibly
Its not all rubbish cried Amory passionately This is the first time in my life Ive argued Socialism Its the only panacea I know Im restless My whole generation is restless Im sick of a system where the richest man gets the most beautiful girl if he wants her where the artist without an income has to sell his talents to a button manufacturer Even if I had no talents Id not be content to work ten years condemned either to celibacy or a furtive indulgence to give some mans son an automobile
But if youre not sure—
That doesnt matter exclaimed Amory My position couldnt be worse A social revolution might land me on top Of course Im selfish It seems to me Ive been a fish out of water in too many outworn systems I was probably one of the two dozen men in my class at college who got a decent education still theyd let any welltutored flathead play football and I was ineligible because some silly old men thought we should all profit by conic sections I loathed the army I loathed business Im in love with change and Ive killed my conscience—
So youll go along crying that we must go faster
That at least is true Amory insisted Reform wont catch up to the needs of civilization unless its made to A laissezfaire policy is like spoiling a child by saying hell turn out all right in the end He will—if hes made to
But you dont believe all this Socialist patter you talk
I dont know Until I talked to you I hadnt thought seriously about it I wasnt sure of half of what I said
You puzzle me said the big man but youre all alike They say Bernard Shaw in spite of his doctrines is the most exacting of all dramatists about his royalties To the last farthing
Well said Amory I simply state that Im a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation—with every reason to throw my mind and pen in with the radicals Even if deep in my heart I thought we were all blind atoms in a world as limited as a stroke of a pendulum I and my sort would struggle against tradition try at least to displace old cants with new ones Ive thought I was right about life at various times but faith is difficult One thing I know If living isnt a seeking for the grail it may be a damned amusing game
For a minute neither spoke and then the big man asked
What was your university
Princeton
The big man became suddenly interested the expression of his goggles altered slightly
I sent my son to Princeton
Did you
Perhaps you knew him His name was Jesse Ferrenby He was killed last year in France
I knew him very well In fact he was one of my particular friends
He was—a—quite a fine boy We were very close
Amory began to perceive a resemblance between the father and the dead son and he told himself that there had been all along a sense of familiarity Jesse Ferrenby the man who in college had borne off the crown that he had aspired to It was all so far away What little boys they had been working for blue ribbons—
The car slowed up at the entrance to a great estate ringed around by a huge hedge and a tall iron fence
Wont you come in for lunch
Amory shook his head
Thank you Mr Ferrenby but Ive got to get on
The big man held out his hand Amory saw that the fact that he had known Jesse more than outweighed any disfavor he had created by his opinions What ghosts were people with which to work Even the little man insisted on shaking hands
Goodby shouted Mr Ferrenby as the car turned the corner and started up the drive Good luck to you and bad luck to your theories
Same to you sir cried Amory smiling and waving his hand
OUT OF THE FIRE OUT OF THE LITTLE ROOM
Eight hours from Princeton Amory sat down by the Jersey roadside and looked at the frostbitten country Nature as a rather coarse phenomenon composed largely of flowers that when closely inspected appeared motheaten and of ants that endlessly traversed blades of grass was always disillusioning nature represented by skies and waters and far horizons was more likable Frost and the promise of winter thrilled him now made him think of a wild battle between St Regis and Groton ages ago seven years ago—and of an autumn day in France twelve months before when he had lain in tall grass his platoon flattened down close around him waiting to tap the shoulders of a Lewis gunner He saw the two pictures together with somewhat the same primitive exaltation—two games he had played differing in quality of acerbity linked in a way that differed them from Rosalind or the subject of labyrinths which were after all the business of life
I am selfish he thought
This is not a quality that will change when I see human suffering or lose my parents or help others
This selfishness is not only part of me It is the most living part
It is by somehow transcending rather than by avoiding that selfishness that I can bring poise and balance into my life
There is no virtue of unselfishness that I cannot use I can make sacrifices be charitable give to a friend endure for a friend lay down my life for a friend—all because these things may be the best possible expression of myself yet I have not one drop of the milk of human kindness
The problem of evil had solidified for Amory into the problem of sex He was beginning to identify evil with the strong phallic worship in Brooke and the early Wells Inseparably linked with evil was beauty—beauty still a constant rising tumult soft in Eleanors voice in an old song at night rioting deliriously through life like superimposed waterfalls half rhythm half darkness Amory knew that every time he had reached toward it longingly it had leered out at him with the grotesque face of evil Beauty of great art beauty of all joy most of all the beauty of women
After all it had too many associations with license and indulgence Weak things were often beautiful weak things were never good And in this new loneness of his that had been selected for what greatness he might achieve beauty must be relative or itself a harmony it would make only a discord
In a sense this gradual renunciation of beauty was the second step after his disillusion had been made complete He felt that he was leaving behind him his chance of being a certain type of artist It seemed so much more important to be a certain sort of man
His mind turned a corner suddenly and he found himself thinking of the Catholic Church The idea was strong in him that there was a certain intrinsic lack in those to whom orthodox religion was necessary and religion to Amory meant the Church of Rome Quite conceivably it was an empty ritual but it was seemingly the only assimilative traditionary bulwark against the decay of morals Until the great mobs could be educated into a moral sense some one must cry Thou shalt not Yet any acceptance was for the present impossible He wanted time and the absence of ulterior pressure He wanted to keep the tree without ornaments realize fully the direction and momentum of this new start
The afternoon waned from the purging good of three oclock to the golden beauty of four Afterward he walked through the dull ache of a setting sun when even the clouds seemed bleeding and at twilight he came to a graveyard There was a dusky dreamy smell of flowers and the ghost of a new moon in the sky and shadows everywhere On an impulse he considered trying to open the door of a rusty iron vault built into the side of a hill a vault washed clean and covered with lateblooming weepy wateryblue flowers that might have grown from dead eyes sticky to the touch with a sickening odor
Amory wanted to feel William Dayfield 1864
He wondered that graves ever made people consider life in vain Somehow he could find nothing hopeless in having lived All the broken columns and clasped hands and doves and angels meant romances He fancied that in a hundred years he would like having young people speculate as to whether his eyes were brown or blue and he hoped quite passionately that his grave would have about it an air of many many years ago It seemed strange that out of a row of Union soldiers two or three made him think of dead loves and dead lovers when they were exactly like the rest even to the yellowish moss
Long after midnight the towers and spires of Princeton were visible with here and there a lateburning light—and suddenly out of the clear darkness the sound of bells As an endless dream it went on the spirit of the past brooding over a new generation the chosen youth from the muddled unchastened world still fed romantically on the mistakes and halfforgotten dreams of dead statesmen and poets Here was a new generation shouting the old cries learning the old creeds through a revery of long days and nights destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success grown up to find all Gods dead all wars fought all faiths in man shaken
Amory sorry for them was still not sorry for himself—art politics religion whatever his medium should be he knew he was safe now free from all hysteria—he could accept what was acceptable roam grow rebel sleep deep through many nights
There was no God in his heart he knew his ideas were still in riot there was ever the pain of memory the regret for his lost youth—yet the waters of disillusion had left a deposit on his soul responsibility and a love of life the faint stirring of old ambitions and unrealized dreams But—oh Rosalind Rosalind
Its all a poor substitute at best he said sadly
And he could not tell why the struggle was worth while why he had determined to use to the utmost himself and his heritage from the personalities he had passed
He stretched out his arms to the crystalline radiant sky
I know myself he cried but that is all