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@@ -0,0 +1,11795 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: This Side of Paradise + +Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald + +Posting Date: August 6, 2008 [EBook #805] +Release Date: February, 1997 +[Last updated: June 22, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS SIDE OF PARADISE *** + + + + +Produced by David Reed, and Ken Reeder + + + + + +THIS SIDE OF PARADISE + +By F. Scott Fitzgerald + + + ... Well this side of Paradise!... + There's little comfort in the wise. + --Rupert Brooke. + + + Experience is the name so many people + give to their mistakes. + --Oscar Wilde. + + + + To SIGOURNEY FAY + + + + +CONTENTS + + BOOK ONE: The Romantic Egotist + 1. AMORY, SON OF BEATRICE + 2. SPIRES AND GARGOYLES + 3. THE EGOTIST CONSIDERS + 4. NARCISSUS OFF DUTY + + [INTERLUDE: MAY, 1917-FEBRUARY, 1919. ] + + BOOK TWO: The Education of a Personage + 1. THE DEBUTANTE + 2. EXPERIMENTS IN CONVALESCENCE + 3. YOUNG IRONY + 4. THE SUPERCILIOUS SACRIFICE + 5. THE EGOTIST BECOMES A PERSONAGE + + + + + +BOOK ONE--The Romantic Egotist + + + +CHAPTER 1. Amory, Son of Beatrice + + +Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the +stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while. His father, an +ineffectual, inarticulate man with a taste for Byron and a habit of +drowsing over the Encyclopedia Britannica, grew wealthy at thirty +through the death of two elder brothers, successful Chicago brokers, and +in the first flush of feeling that the world was his, went to Bar Harbor +and met Beatrice O'Hara. In consequence, Stephen Blaine handed down to +posterity his height of just under six feet and his tendency to waver at +crucial moments, these two abstractions appearing in his son Amory. +For many years he hovered in the background of his family's life, an +unassertive figure with a face half-obliterated by lifeless, silky hair, +continually occupied in "taking care" of his wife, continually harassed +by the idea that he didn't and couldn't understand her. + +But Beatrice Blaine! There was a woman! Early pictures taken on her +father's estate at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, or in Rome at the Sacred +Heart Convent--an educational extravagance that in her youth was only +for the daughters of the exceptionally wealthy--showed the exquisite +delicacy of her features, the consummate art and simplicity of her +clothes. A brilliant education she had--her youth passed in renaissance +glory, she was versed in the latest gossip of the Older Roman Families; +known by name as a fabulously wealthy American girl to Cardinal Vitori +and Queen Margherita and more subtle celebrities that one must have had +some culture even to have heard of. She learned in England to prefer +whiskey and soda to wine, and her small talk was broadened in two senses +during a winter in Vienna. All in all Beatrice O'Hara absorbed the +sort of education that will be quite impossible ever again; a tutelage +measured by the number of things and people one could be contemptuous of +and charming about; a culture rich in all arts and traditions, barren of +all ideas, in the last of those days when the great gardener clipped the +inferior roses to produce one perfect bud. + +In her less important moments she returned to America, met Stephen +Blaine and married him--this almost entirely because she was a little +bit weary, a little bit sad. Her only child was carried through +a tiresome season and brought into the world on a spring day in +ninety-six. + +When Amory was five he was already a delightful companion for her. He +was an auburn-haired boy, with great, handsome eyes which he would grow +up to in time, a facile imaginative mind and a taste for fancy dress. +From his fourth to his tenth year he did the country with his mother +in her father's private car, from Coronado, where his mother became so +bored that she had a nervous breakdown in a fashionable hotel, down to +Mexico City, where she took a mild, almost epidemic consumption. This +trouble pleased her, and later she made use of it as an intrinsic part +of her atmosphere--especially after several astounding bracers. + +So, while more or less fortunate little rich boys were defying +governesses on the beach at Newport, or being spanked or tutored or read +to from "Do and Dare," or "Frank on the Mississippi," Amory was biting +acquiescent bell-boys in the Waldorf, outgrowing a natural repugnance +to chamber music and symphonies, and deriving a highly specialized +education from his mother. + +"Amory." + +"Yes, Beatrice." (Such a quaint name for his mother; she encouraged it.) + +"Dear, don't _think_ of getting out of bed yet. I've always suspected +that early rising in early life makes one nervous. Clothilde is having +your breakfast brought up." + +"All right." + +"I am feeling very old to-day, Amory," she would sigh, her face a rare +cameo of pathos, her voice exquisitely modulated, her hands as facile +as Bernhardt's. "My nerves are on edge--on edge. We must leave this +terrifying place to-morrow and go searching for sunshine." + +Amory's penetrating green eyes would look out through tangled hair at +his mother. Even at this age he had no illusions about her. + +"Amory." + +"Oh, _yes_." + +"I want you to take a red-hot bath as hot as you can bear it, and just +relax your nerves. You can read in the tub if you wish." + +She fed him sections of the "Fetes Galantes" before he was ten; at +eleven he could talk glibly, if rather reminiscently, of Brahms and +Mozart and Beethoven. One afternoon, when left alone in the hotel at +Hot Springs, he sampled his mother's apricot cordial, and as the taste +pleased him, he became quite tipsy. This was fun for a while, but +he essayed a cigarette in his exaltation, and succumbed to a vulgar, +plebeian reaction. Though this incident horrified Beatrice, it also +secretly amused her and became part of what in a later generation would +have been termed her "line." + +"This son of mine," he heard her tell a room full of awestruck, admiring +women one day, "is entirely sophisticated and quite charming--but +delicate--we're all delicate; _here_, you know." Her hand was radiantly +outlined against her beautiful bosom; then sinking her voice to a +whisper, she told them of the apricot cordial. They rejoiced, for she +was a brave raconteuse, but many were the keys turned in sideboard locks +that night against the possible defection of little Bobby or Barbara.... + +These domestic pilgrimages were invariably in state; two maids, the +private car, or Mr. Blaine when available, and very often a physician. +When Amory had the whooping-cough four disgusted specialists glared at +each other hunched around his bed; when he took scarlet fever the number +of attendants, including physicians and nurses, totalled fourteen. +However, blood being thicker than broth, he was pulled through. + +The Blaines were attached to no city. They were the Blaines of Lake +Geneva; they had quite enough relatives to serve in place of friends, +and an enviable standing from Pasadena to Cape Cod. But Beatrice grew +more and more prone to like only new acquaintances, as there were +certain stories, such as the history of her constitution and its many +amendments, memories of her years abroad, that it was necessary for +her to repeat at regular intervals. Like Freudian dreams, they must be +thrown off, else they would sweep in and lay siege to her nerves. But +Beatrice was critical about American women, especially the floating +population of ex-Westerners. + +"They have accents, my dear," she told Amory, "not Southern accents +or Boston accents, not an accent attached to any locality, just an +accent"--she became dreamy. "They pick up old, moth-eaten London accents +that are down on their luck and have to be used by some one. They talk +as an English butler might after several years in a Chicago grand-opera +company." She became almost incoherent--"Suppose--time in every Western +woman's life--she feels her husband is prosperous enough for her to +have--accent--they try to impress _me_, my dear--" + +Though she thought of her body as a mass of frailties, she considered +her soul quite as ill, and therefore important in her life. She had +once been a Catholic, but discovering that priests were infinitely more +attentive when she was in process of losing or regaining faith in Mother +Church, she maintained an enchantingly wavering attitude. Often she +deplored the bourgeois quality of the American Catholic clergy, and was +quite sure that had she lived in the shadow of the great Continental +cathedrals her soul would still be a thin flame on the mighty altar of +Rome. Still, next to doctors, priests were her favorite sport. + +"Ah, Bishop Wiston," she would declare, "I do not want to talk of +myself. I can imagine the stream of hysterical women fluttering at your +doors, beseeching you to be simpatico"--then after an interlude filled +by the clergyman--"but my mood--is--oddly dissimilar." + +Only to bishops and above did she divulge her clerical romance. When she +had first returned to her country there had been a pagan, Swinburnian +young man in Asheville, for whose passionate kisses and unsentimental +conversations she had taken a decided penchant--they had discussed +the matter pro and con with an intellectual romancing quite devoid of +sappiness. Eventually she had decided to marry for background, and the +young pagan from Asheville had gone through a spiritual crisis, joined +the Catholic Church, and was now--Monsignor Darcy. + +"Indeed, Mrs. Blaine, he is still delightful company--quite the +cardinal's right-hand man." + +"Amory will go to him one day, I know," breathed the beautiful lady, +"and Monsignor Darcy will understand him as he understood me." + +Amory became thirteen, rather tall and slender, and more than ever on to +his Celtic mother. He had tutored occasionally--the idea being that he +was to "keep up," at each place "taking up the work where he left off," +yet as no tutor ever found the place he left off, his mind was still in +very good shape. What a few more years of this life would have made of +him is problematical. However, four hours out from land, Italy bound, +with Beatrice, his appendix burst, probably from too many meals in bed, +and after a series of frantic telegrams to Europe and America, to the +amazement of the passengers the great ship slowly wheeled around and +returned to New York to deposit Amory at the pier. You will admit that +if it was not life it was magnificent. + +After the operation Beatrice had a nervous breakdown that bore a +suspicious resemblance to delirium tremens, and Amory was left in +Minneapolis, destined to spend the ensuing two years with his aunt and +uncle. There the crude, vulgar air of Western civilization first catches +him--in his underwear, so to speak. + + ***** + +A KISS FOR AMORY + +His lip curled when he read it. + + "I am going to have a bobbing party," it said, "on Thursday, + December the seventeenth, at five o'clock, and I would like it + very much if you could come. + + Yours truly, + + R.S.V.P. Myra St. Claire. + +He had been two months in Minneapolis, and his chief struggle had been +the concealing from "the other guys at school" how particularly superior +he felt himself to be, yet this conviction was built upon shifting +sands. He had shown off one day in French class (he was in senior French +class) to the utter confusion of Mr. Reardon, whose accent Amory damned +contemptuously, and to the delight of the class. Mr. Reardon, who had +spent several weeks in Paris ten years before, took his revenge on the +verbs, whenever he had his book open. But another time Amory showed off +in history class, with quite disastrous results, for the boys there +were his own age, and they shrilled innuendoes at each other all the +following week: + +"Aw--I b'lieve, doncherknow, the Umuricun revolution was _lawgely_ an +affair of the middul _clawses_," or + +"Washington came of very good blood--aw, quite good--I b'lieve." + +Amory ingeniously tried to retrieve himself by blundering on purpose. +Two years before he had commenced a history of the United States which, +though it only got as far as the Colonial Wars, had been pronounced by +his mother completely enchanting. + +His chief disadvantage lay in athletics, but as soon as he discovered +that it was the touchstone of power and popularity at school, he began +to make furious, persistent efforts to excel in the winter sports, and +with his ankles aching and bending in spite of his efforts, he skated +valiantly around the Lorelie rink every afternoon, wondering how soon +he would be able to carry a hockey-stick without getting it inexplicably +tangled in his skates. + +The invitation to Miss Myra St. Claire's bobbing party spent the morning +in his coat pocket, where it had an intense physical affair with a dusty +piece of peanut brittle. During the afternoon he brought it to light +with a sigh, and after some consideration and a preliminary draft in the +back of Collar and Daniel's "First-Year Latin," composed an answer: + + My dear Miss St. Claire: + Your truly charming envitation for the evening of next Thursday + evening was truly delightful to receive this morning. I will be + charm and inchanted indeed to present my compliments on next + Thursday evening. + Faithfully, + + Amory Blaine. + + ***** + +On Thursday, therefore, he walked pensively along the slippery, +shovel-scraped sidewalks, and came in sight of Myra's house, on the +half-hour after five, a lateness which he fancied his mother would +have favored. He waited on the door-step with his eyes nonchalantly +half-closed, and planned his entrance with precision. He would cross +the floor, not too hastily, to Mrs. St. Claire, and say with exactly the +correct modulation: + +"My _dear_ Mrs. St. Claire, I'm _frightfully_ sorry to be late, but my +maid"--he paused there and realized he would be quoting--"but my uncle +and I had to see a fella--Yes, I've met your enchanting daughter at +dancing-school." + +Then he would shake hands, using that slight, half-foreign bow, with all +the starchy little females, and nod to the fellas who would be standing +'round, paralyzed into rigid groups for mutual protection. + +A butler (one of the three in Minneapolis) swung open the door. Amory +stepped inside and divested himself of cap and coat. He was mildly +surprised not to hear the shrill squawk of conversation from the next +room, and he decided it must be quite formal. He approved of that--as he +approved of the butler. + +"Miss Myra," he said. + +To his surprise the butler grinned horribly. + +"Oh, yeah," he declared, "she's here." He was unaware that his failure +to be cockney was ruining his standing. Amory considered him coldly. + +"But," continued the butler, his voice rising unnecessarily, "she's the +only one what _is_ here. The party's gone." + +Amory gasped in sudden horror. + +"What?" + +"She's been waitin' for Amory Blaine. That's you, ain't it? Her mother +says that if you showed up by five-thirty you two was to go after 'em in +the Packard." + +Amory's despair was crystallized by the appearance of Myra herself, +bundled to the ears in a polo coat, her face plainly sulky, her voice +pleasant only with difficulty. + +"'Lo, Amory." + +"'Lo, Myra." He had described the state of his vitality. + +"Well--you _got_ here, _any_ways." + +"Well--I'll tell you. I guess you don't know about the auto accident," +he romanced. + +Myra's eyes opened wide. + +"Who was it to?" + +"Well," he continued desperately, "uncle 'n aunt 'n I." + +"Was any one _killed?_" + +Amory paused and then nodded. + +"Your uncle?"--alarm. + +"Oh, no just a horse--a sorta gray horse." + +At this point the Erse butler snickered. + +"Probably killed the engine," he suggested. Amory would have put him on +the rack without a scruple. + +"We'll go now," said Myra coolly. "You see, Amory, the bobs were ordered +for five and everybody was here, so we couldn't wait--" + +"Well, I couldn't help it, could I?" + +"So mama said for me to wait till ha'past five. We'll catch the bobs +before it gets to the Minnehaha Club, Amory." + +Amory's shredded poise dropped from him. He pictured the happy party +jingling along snowy streets, the appearance of the limousine, the +horrible public descent of him and Myra before sixty reproachful eyes, +his apology--a real one this time. He sighed aloud. + +"What?" inquired Myra. + +"Nothing. I was just yawning. Are we going to _surely_ catch up with 'em +before they get there?" He was encouraging a faint hope that they might +slip into the Minnehaha Club and meet the others there, be found in +blase seclusion before the fire and quite regain his lost attitude. + +"Oh, sure Mike, we'll catch 'em all right--let's hurry." + +He became conscious of his stomach. As they stepped into the machine he +hurriedly slapped the paint of diplomacy over a rather box-like plan +he had conceived. It was based upon some "trade-lasts" gleaned at +dancing-school, to the effect that he was "awful good-looking and +_English_, sort of." + +"Myra," he said, lowering his voice and choosing his words carefully, +"I beg a thousand pardons. Can you ever forgive me?" She regarded +him gravely, his intent green eyes, his mouth, that to her +thirteen-year-old, arrow-collar taste was the quintessence of romance. +Yes, Myra could forgive him very easily. + +"Why--yes--sure." + +He looked at her again, and then dropped his eyes. He had lashes. + +"I'm awful," he said sadly. "I'm diff'runt. I don't know why I make faux +pas. 'Cause I don't care, I s'pose." Then, recklessly: "I been smoking +too much. I've got t'bacca heart." + +Myra pictured an all-night tobacco debauch, with Amory pale and reeling +from the effect of nicotined lungs. She gave a little gasp. + +"Oh, _Amory_, don't smoke. You'll stunt your _growth!_" + +"I don't care," he persisted gloomily. "I gotta. I got the habit. I've +done a lot of things that if my fambly knew"--he hesitated, giving her +imagination time to picture dark horrors--"I went to the burlesque show +last week." + +Myra was quite overcome. He turned the green eyes on her again. "You're +the only girl in town I like much," he exclaimed in a rush of sentiment. +"You're simpatico." + +Myra was not sure that she was, but it sounded stylish though vaguely +improper. + +Thick dusk had descended outside, and as the limousine made a sudden +turn she was jolted against him; their hands touched. + +"You shouldn't smoke, Amory," she whispered. "Don't you know that?" + +He shook his head. + +"Nobody cares." + +Myra hesitated. + +"_I_ care." + +Something stirred within Amory. + +"Oh, yes, you do! You got a crush on Froggy Parker. I guess everybody +knows that." + +"No, I haven't," very slowly. + +A silence, while Amory thrilled. There was something fascinating about +Myra, shut away here cosily from the dim, chill air. Myra, a little +bundle of clothes, with strands of yellow hair curling out from under +her skating cap. + +"Because I've got a crush, too--" He paused, for he heard in the +distance the sound of young laughter, and, peering through the frosted +glass along the lamp-lit street, he made out the dark outline of the +bobbing party. He must act quickly. He reached over with a violent, +jerky effort, and clutched Myra's hand--her thumb, to be exact. + +"Tell him to go to the Minnehaha straight," he whispered. "I wanta talk +to you--I _got_ to talk to you." + +Myra made out the party ahead, had an instant vision of her mother, and +then--alas for convention--glanced into the eyes beside. "Turn down this +side street, Richard, and drive straight to the Minnehaha Club!" she +cried through the speaking tube. Amory sank back against the cushions +with a sigh of relief. + +"I can kiss her," he thought. "I'll bet I can. I'll _bet_ I can!" + +Overhead the sky was half crystalline, half misty, and the night around +was chill and vibrant with rich tension. From the Country Club steps the +roads stretched away, dark creases on the white blanket; huge heaps of +snow lining the sides like the tracks of giant moles. They lingered for +a moment on the steps, and watched the white holiday moon. + +"Pale moons like that one"--Amory made a vague gesture--"make people +mysterieuse. You look like a young witch with her cap off and her hair +sorta mussed"--her hands clutched at her hair--"Oh, leave it, it looks +_good_." + +They drifted up the stairs and Myra led the way into the little den of +his dreams, where a cosy fire was burning before a big sink-down couch. +A few years later this was to be a great stage for Amory, a cradle for +many an emotional crisis. Now they talked for a moment about bobbing +parties. + +"There's always a bunch of shy fellas," he commented, "sitting at the +tail of the bob, sorta lurkin' an' whisperin' an' pushin' each other +off. Then there's always some crazy cross-eyed girl"--he gave a +terrifying imitation--"she's always talkin' _hard_, sorta, to the +chaperon." + +"You're such a funny boy," puzzled Myra. + +"How d'y' mean?" Amory gave immediate attention, on his own ground at +last. + +"Oh--always talking about crazy things. Why don't you come ski-ing with +Marylyn and I to-morrow?" + +"I don't like girls in the daytime," he said shortly, and then, thinking +this a bit abrupt, he added: "But I like you." He cleared his throat. "I +like you first and second and third." + +Myra's eyes became dreamy. What a story this would make to tell +Marylyn! Here on the couch with this _wonderful_-looking boy--the little +fire--the sense that they were alone in the great building-- + +Myra capitulated. The atmosphere was too appropriate. + +"I like you the first twenty-five," she confessed, her voice trembling, +"and Froggy Parker twenty-sixth." + +Froggy had fallen twenty-five places in one hour. As yet he had not even +noticed it. + +But Amory, being on the spot, leaned over quickly and kissed Myra's +cheek. He had never kissed a girl before, and he tasted his lips +curiously, as if he had munched some new fruit. Then their lips brushed +like young wild flowers in the wind. + +"We're awful," rejoiced Myra gently. She slipped her hand into his, +her head drooped against his shoulder. Sudden revulsion seized Amory, +disgust, loathing for the whole incident. He desired frantically to +be away, never to see Myra again, never to kiss any one; he became +conscious of his face and hers, of their clinging hands, and he wanted +to creep out of his body and hide somewhere safe out of sight, up in the +corner of his mind. + +"Kiss me again." Her voice came out of a great void. + +"I don't want to," he heard himself saying. There was another pause. + +"I don't want to!" he repeated passionately. + +Myra sprang up, her cheeks pink with bruised vanity, the great bow on +the back of her head trembling sympathetically. + +"I hate you!" she cried. "Don't you ever dare to speak to me again!" + +"What?" stammered Amory. + +"I'll tell mama you kissed me! I will too! I will too! I'll tell mama, +and she won't let me play with you!" + +Amory rose and stared at her helplessly, as though she were a new animal +of whose presence on the earth he had not heretofore been aware. + +The door opened suddenly, and Myra's mother appeared on the threshold, +fumbling with her lorgnette. + +"Well," she began, adjusting it benignantly, "the man at the desk told +me you two children were up here--How do you do, Amory." + +Amory watched Myra and waited for the crash--but none came. The pout +faded, the high pink subsided, and Myra's voice was placid as a summer +lake when she answered her mother. + +"Oh, we started so late, mama, that I thought we might as well--" + +He heard from below the shrieks of laughter, and smelled the vapid +odor of hot chocolate and tea-cakes as he silently followed mother and +daughter down-stairs. The sound of the graphophone mingled with the +voices of many girls humming the air, and a faint glow was born and +spread over him: + + "Casey-Jones--mounted to the cab-un + Casey-Jones--'th his orders in his hand. + Casey-Jones--mounted to the cab-un + Took his farewell journey to the prom-ised land." + + ***** + +SNAPSHOTS OF THE YOUNG EGOTIST + +Amory spent nearly two years in Minneapolis. The first winter he wore +moccasins that were born yellow, but after many applications of oil and +dirt assumed their mature color, a dirty, greenish brown; he wore a gray +plaid mackinaw coat, and a red toboggan cap. His dog, Count Del Monte, +ate the red cap, so his uncle gave him a gray one that pulled down over +his face. The trouble with this one was that you breathed into it and +your breath froze; one day the darn thing froze his cheek. He rubbed +snow on his cheek, but it turned bluish-black just the same. + + ***** + +The Count Del Monte ate a box of bluing once, but it didn't hurt him. +Later, however, he lost his mind and ran madly up the street, bumping +into fences, rolling in gutters, and pursuing his eccentric course out +of Amory's life. Amory cried on his bed. + +"Poor little Count," he cried. "Oh, _poor_ little _Count!_" + +After several months he suspected Count of a fine piece of emotional +acting. + + ***** + +Amory and Frog Parker considered that the greatest line in literature +occurred in Act III of "Arsene Lupin." + +They sat in the first row at the Wednesday and Saturday matinees. The +line was: + +"If one can't be a great artist or a great soldier, the next best thing +is to be a great criminal." + + ***** + +Amory fell in love again, and wrote a poem. This was it: + + "Marylyn and Sallee, + Those are the girls for me. + Marylyn stands above + Sallee in that sweet, deep love." + +He was interested in whether McGovern of Minnesota would make the +first or second All-American, how to do the card-pass, how to do +the coin-pass, chameleon ties, how babies were born, and whether +Three-fingered Brown was really a better pitcher than Christie +Mathewson. + +Among other things he read: "For the Honor of the School," "Little +Women" (twice), "The Common Law," "Sapho," "Dangerous Dan McGrew," "The +Broad Highway" (three times), "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Three +Weeks," "Mary Ware, the Little Colonel's Chum," "Gunga Din," The Police +Gazette, and Jim-Jam Jems. + +He had all the Henty biasses in history, and was particularly fond of +the cheerful murder stories of Mary Roberts Rinehart. + + ***** + +School ruined his French and gave him a distaste for standard authors. +His masters considered him idle, unreliable and superficially clever. + + ***** + +He collected locks of hair from many girls. He wore the rings of +several. Finally he could borrow no more rings, owing to his nervous +habit of chewing them out of shape. This, it seemed, usually aroused the +jealous suspicions of the next borrower. + + ***** + +All through the summer months Amory and Frog Parker went each week to +the Stock Company. Afterward they would stroll home in the balmy air of +August night, dreaming along Hennepin and Nicollet Avenues, through the +gay crowd. Amory wondered how people could fail to notice that he was a +boy marked for glory, and when faces of the throng turned toward him +and ambiguous eyes stared into his, he assumed the most romantic of +expressions and walked on the air cushions that lie on the asphalts of +fourteen. + +Always, after he was in bed, there were voices--indefinite, fading, +enchanting--just outside his window, and before he fell asleep he would +dream one of his favorite waking dreams, the one about becoming a great +half-back, or the one about the Japanese invasion, when he was rewarded +by being made the youngest general in the world. It was always +the becoming he dreamed of, never the being. This, too, was quite +characteristic of Amory. + + ***** + +CODE OF THE YOUNG EGOTIST + +Before he was summoned back to Lake Geneva, he had appeared, shy but +inwardly glowing, in his first long trousers, set off by a purple +accordion tie and a "Belmont" collar with the edges unassailably +meeting, purple socks, and handkerchief with a purple border peeping +from his breast pocket. But more than that, he had formulated his first +philosophy, a code to live by, which, as near as it can be named, was a +sort of aristocratic egotism. + +He had realized that his best interests were bound up with those of a +certain variant, changing person, whose label, in order that his past +might always be identified with him, was Amory Blaine. Amory marked +himself a fortunate youth, capable of infinite expansion for good or +evil. He did not consider himself a "strong char'c'ter," but relied on +his facility (learn things sorta quick) and his superior mentality (read +a lotta deep books). He was proud of the fact that he could never +become a mechanical or scientific genius. From no other heights was he +debarred. + +Physically.--Amory thought that he was exceedingly handsome. He was. He +fancied himself an athlete of possibilities and a supple dancer. + +Socially.--Here his condition was, perhaps, most dangerous. He granted +himself personality, charm, magnetism, poise, the power of dominating +all contemporary males, the gift of fascinating all women. + +Mentally.--Complete, unquestioned superiority. + +Now a confession will have to be made. Amory had rather a Puritan +conscience. Not that he yielded to it--later in life he almost +completely slew it--but at fifteen it made him consider himself a +great deal worse than other boys... unscrupulousness... the desire +to influence people in almost every way, even for evil... a certain +coldness and lack of affection, amounting sometimes to cruelty... a +shifting sense of honor... an unholy selfishness... a puzzled, furtive +interest in everything concerning sex. + +There was, also, a curious strain of weakness running crosswise through +his make-up... a harsh phrase from the lips of an older boy (older boys +usually detested him) was liable to sweep him off his poise into surly +sensitiveness, or timid stupidity... he was a slave to his own moods +and he felt that though he was capable of recklessness and audacity, he +possessed neither courage, perseverance, nor self-respect. + +Vanity, tempered with self-suspicion if not self-knowledge, a sense of +people as automatons to his will, a desire to "pass" as many boys as +possible and get to a vague top of the world... with this background did +Amory drift into adolescence. + + ***** + +PREPARATORY TO THE GREAT ADVENTURE + +The train slowed up with midsummer languor at Lake Geneva, and Amory +caught sight of his mother waiting in her electric on the gravelled +station drive. It was an ancient electric, one of the early types, and +painted gray. The sight of her sitting there, slenderly erect, and +of her face, where beauty and dignity combined, melting to a dreamy +recollected smile, filled him with a sudden great pride of her. As they +kissed coolly and he stepped into the electric, he felt a quick fear +lest he had lost the requisite charm to measure up to her. + +"Dear boy--you're _so_ tall... look behind and see if there's anything +coming..." + +She looked left and right, she slipped cautiously into a speed of two +miles an hour, beseeching Amory to act as sentinel; and at one busy +crossing she made him get out and run ahead to signal her forward like a +traffic policeman. Beatrice was what might be termed a careful driver. + +"You _are_ tall--but you're still very handsome--you've skipped the +awkward age, or is that sixteen; perhaps it's fourteen or fifteen; I can +never remember; but you've skipped it." + +"Don't embarrass me," murmured Amory. + +"But, my dear boy, what odd clothes! They look as if they were a +_set_--don't they? Is your underwear purple, too?" + +Amory grunted impolitely. + +"You must go to Brooks' and get some really nice suits. Oh, we'll have a +talk to-night or perhaps to-morrow night. I want to tell you about +your heart--you've probably been neglecting your heart--and you don't +_know_." + +Amory thought how superficial was the recent overlay of his own +generation. Aside from a minute shyness, he felt that the old cynical +kinship with his mother had not been one bit broken. Yet for the first +few days he wandered about the gardens and along the shore in a state +of superloneliness, finding a lethargic content in smoking "Bull" at the +garage with one of the chauffeurs. + +The sixty acres of the estate were dotted with old and new summer houses +and many fountains and white benches that came suddenly into sight from +foliage-hung hiding-places; there was a great and constantly increasing +family of white cats that prowled the many flower-beds and were +silhouetted suddenly at night against the darkening trees. It was on +one of the shadowy paths that Beatrice at last captured Amory, after Mr. +Blaine had, as usual, retired for the evening to his private library. +After reproving him for avoiding her, she took him for a long +tete-a-tete in the moonlight. He could not reconcile himself to her +beauty, that was mother to his own, the exquisite neck and shoulders, +the grace of a fortunate woman of thirty. + +"Amory, dear," she crooned softly, "I had such a strange, weird time +after I left you." + +"Did you, Beatrice?" + +"When I had my last breakdown"--she spoke of it as a sturdy, gallant +feat. + +"The doctors told me"--her voice sang on a confidential note--"that if +any man alive had done the consistent drinking that I have, he would +have been physically _shattered_, my dear, and in his _grave_--long in +his grave." + +Amory winced, and wondered how this would have sounded to Froggy Parker. + +"Yes," continued Beatrice tragically, "I had dreams--wonderful visions." +She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. "I saw bronze rivers +lapping marble shores, and great birds that soared through the air, +parti-colored birds with iridescent plumage. I heard strange music and +the flare of barbaric trumpets--what?" + +Amory had snickered. + +"What, Amory?" + +"I said go on, Beatrice." + +"That was all--it merely recurred and recurred--gardens that flaunted +coloring against which this would be quite dull, moons that whirled and +swayed, paler than winter moons, more golden than harvest moons--" + +"Are you quite well now, Beatrice?" + +"Quite well--as well as I will ever be. I am not understood, Amory. I +know that can't express it to you, Amory, but--I am not understood." + +Amory was quite moved. He put his arm around his mother, rubbing his +head gently against her shoulder. + +"Poor Beatrice--poor Beatrice." + +"Tell me about _you_, Amory. Did you have two _horrible_ years?" + +Amory considered lying, and then decided against it. + +"No, Beatrice. I enjoyed them. I adapted myself to the bourgeoisie. +I became conventional." He surprised himself by saying that, and he +pictured how Froggy would have gaped. + +"Beatrice," he said suddenly, "I want to go away to school. Everybody in +Minneapolis is going to go away to school." + +Beatrice showed some alarm. + +"But you're only fifteen." + +"Yes, but everybody goes away to school at fifteen, and I _want_ to, +Beatrice." + +On Beatrice's suggestion the subject was dropped for the rest of the +walk, but a week later she delighted him by saying: + +"Amory, I have decided to let you have your way. If you still want to, +you can go to school." + +"Yes?" + +"To St. Regis's in Connecticut." + +Amory felt a quick excitement. + +"It's being arranged," continued Beatrice. "It's better that you should +go away. I'd have preferred you to have gone to Eton, and then to Christ +Church, Oxford, but it seems impracticable now--and for the present +we'll let the university question take care of itself." + +"What are you going to do, Beatrice?" + +"Heaven knows. It seems my fate to fret away my years in this country. +Not for a second do I regret being American--indeed, I think that a +regret typical of very vulgar people, and I feel sure we are the great +coming nation--yet"--and she sighed--"I feel my life should have drowsed +away close to an older, mellower civilization, a land of greens and +autumnal browns--" + +Amory did not answer, so his mother continued: + +"My regret is that you haven't been abroad, but still, as you are a man, +it's better that you should grow up here under the snarling eagle--is +that the right term?" + +Amory agreed that it was. She would not have appreciated the Japanese +invasion. + +"When do I go to school?" + +"Next month. You'll have to start East a little early to take your +examinations. After that you'll have a free week, so I want you to go up +the Hudson and pay a visit." + +"To who?" + +"To Monsignor Darcy, Amory. He wants to see you. He went to Harrow and +then to Yale--became a Catholic. I want him to talk to you--I feel he +can be such a help--" She stroked his auburn hair gently. "Dear Amory, +dear Amory--" + +"Dear Beatrice--" + + ***** + +So early in September Amory, provided with "six suits summer underwear, +six suits winter underwear, one sweater or T shirt, one jersey, one +overcoat, winter, etc.," set out for New England, the land of schools. + +There were Andover and Exeter with their memories of New England +dead--large, college-like democracies; St. Mark's, Groton, St. +Regis'--recruited from Boston and the Knickerbocker families of New +York; St. Paul's, with its great rinks; Pomfret and St. George's, +prosperous and well-dressed; Taft and Hotchkiss, which prepared +the wealth of the Middle West for social success at Yale; Pawling, +Westminster, Choate, Kent, and a hundred others; all milling out their +well-set-up, conventional, impressive type, year after year; their +mental stimulus the college entrance exams; their vague purpose set +forth in a hundred circulars as "To impart a Thorough Mental, Moral, and +Physical Training as a Christian Gentleman, to fit the boy for meeting +the problems of his day and generation, and to give a solid foundation +in the Arts and Sciences." + +At St. Regis' Amory stayed three days and took his exams with a scoffing +confidence, then doubling back to New York to pay his tutelary visit. +The metropolis, barely glimpsed, made little impression on him, except +for the sense of cleanliness he drew from the tall white buildings seen +from a Hudson River steamboat in the early morning. Indeed, his mind was +so crowded with dreams of athletic prowess at school that he considered +this visit only as a rather tiresome prelude to the great adventure. +This, however, it did not prove to be. + +Monsignor Darcy's house was an ancient, rambling structure set on a hill +overlooking the river, and there lived its owner, between his trips to +all parts of the Roman-Catholic world, rather like an exiled Stuart king +waiting to be called to the rule of his land. Monsignor was forty-four +then, and bustling--a trifle too stout for symmetry, with hair the color +of spun gold, and a brilliant, enveloping personality. When he came into +a room clad in his full purple regalia from thatch to toe, he resembled +a Turner sunset, and attracted both admiration and attention. He had +written two novels: one of them violently anti-Catholic, just before his +conversion, and five years later another, in which he had attempted +to turn all his clever jibes against Catholics into even cleverer +innuendoes against Episcopalians. He was intensely ritualistic, +startlingly dramatic, loved the idea of God enough to be a celibate, and +rather liked his neighbor. + +Children adored him because he was like a child; youth revelled in his +company because he was still a youth, and couldn't be shocked. In the +proper land and century he might have been a Richelieu--at present he +was a very moral, very religious (if not particularly pious) clergyman, +making a great mystery about pulling rusty wires, and appreciating life +to the fullest, if not entirely enjoying it. + +He and Amory took to each other at first sight--the jovial, impressive +prelate who could dazzle an embassy ball, and the green-eyed, intent +youth, in his first long trousers, accepted in their own minds a +relation of father and son within a half-hour's conversation. + +"My dear boy, I've been waiting to see you for years. Take a big chair +and we'll have a chat." + +"I've just come from school--St. Regis's, you know." + +"So your mother says--a remarkable woman; have a cigarette--I'm sure +you smoke. Well, if you're like me, you loathe all science and +mathematics--" + +Amory nodded vehemently. + +"Hate 'em all. Like English and history." + +"Of course. You'll hate school for a while, too, but I'm glad you're +going to St. Regis's." + +"Why?" + +"Because it's a gentleman's school, and democracy won't hit you so +early. You'll find plenty of that in college." + +"I want to go to Princeton," said Amory. "I don't know why, but I think +of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be, and all Yale men as +wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes." + +Monsignor chuckled. + +"I'm one, you know." + +"Oh, you're different--I think of Princeton as being lazy and +good-looking and aristocratic--you know, like a spring day. Harvard +seems sort of indoors--" + +"And Yale is November, crisp and energetic," finished Monsignor. + +"That's it." + +They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered. + +"I was for Bonnie Prince Charlie," announced Amory. + +"Of course you were--and for Hannibal--" + +"Yes, and for the Southern Confederacy." He was rather sceptical about +being an Irish patriot--he suspected that being Irish was being somewhat +common--but Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause +and Irish people quite charming, and that it should, by all means, be +one of his principal biasses. + +After a crowded hour which included several more cigarettes, and during +which Monsignor learned, to his surprise but not to his horror, that +Amory had not been brought up a Catholic, he announced that he had +another guest. This turned out to be the Honorable Thornton Hancock, of +Boston, ex-minister to The Hague, author of an erudite history of the +Middle Ages and the last of a distinguished, patriotic, and brilliant +family. + +"He comes here for a rest," said Monsignor confidentially, treating +Amory as a contemporary. "I act as an escape from the weariness of +agnosticism, and I think I'm the only man who knows how his staid old +mind is really at sea and longs for a sturdy spar like the Church to +cling to." + +Their first luncheon was one of the memorable events of Amory's early +life. He was quite radiant and gave off a peculiar brightness and +charm. Monsignor called out the best that he had thought by question and +suggestion, and Amory talked with an ingenious brilliance of a thousand +impulses and desires and repulsions and faiths and fears. He and +Monsignor held the floor, and the older man, with his less receptive, +less accepting, yet certainly not colder mentality, seemed content to +listen and bask in the mellow sunshine that played between these two. +Monsignor gave the effect of sunlight to many people; Amory gave it in +his youth and, to some extent, when he was very much older, but never +again was it quite so mutually spontaneous. + +"He's a radiant boy," thought Thornton Hancock, who had seen the +splendor of two continents and talked with Parnell and Gladstone and +Bismarck--and afterward he added to Monsignor: "But his education ought +not to be intrusted to a school or college." + +But for the next four years the best of Amory's intellect was +concentrated on matters of popularity, the intricacies of a university +social system and American Society as represented by Biltmore Teas and +Hot Springs golf-links. + +... In all, a wonderful week, that saw Amory's mind turned inside out, a +hundred of his theories confirmed, and his joy of life crystallized to +a thousand ambitions. Not that the conversation was scholastic--heaven +forbid! Amory had only the vaguest idea as to what Bernard Shaw was--but +Monsignor made quite as much out of "The Beloved Vagabond" and "Sir +Nigel," taking good care that Amory never once felt out of his depth. + +But the trumpets were sounding for Amory's preliminary skirmish with his +own generation. + +"You're not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is +where we are not," said Monsignor. + +"I _am_ sorry--" + +"No, you're not. No one person in the world is necessary to you or to +me." + +"Well--" + +"Good-by." + + ***** + +THE EGOTIST DOWN + +Amory's two years at St. Regis', though in turn painful and triumphant, +had as little real significance in his own life as the American "prep" +school, crushed as it is under the heel of the universities, has +to American life in general. We have no Eton to create the +self-consciousness of a governing class; we have, instead, clean, +flaccid and innocuous preparatory schools. + +He went all wrong at the start, was generally considered both conceited +and arrogant, and universally detested. He played football intensely, +alternating a reckless brilliancy with a tendency to keep himself as +safe from hazard as decency would permit. In a wild panic he backed out +of a fight with a boy his own size, to a chorus of scorn, and a week +later, in desperation, picked a battle with another boy very much +bigger, from which he emerged badly beaten, but rather proud of himself. + +He was resentful against all those in authority over him, and this, +combined with a lazy indifference toward his work, exasperated every +master in school. He grew discouraged and imagined himself a pariah; +took to sulking in corners and reading after lights. With a dread of +being alone he attached a few friends, but since they were not among +the elite of the school, he used them simply as mirrors of himself, +audiences before which he might do that posing absolutely essential to +him. He was unbearably lonely, desperately unhappy. + +There were some few grains of comfort. Whenever Amory was submerged, +his vanity was the last part to go below the surface, so he could still +enjoy a comfortable glow when "Wookey-wookey," the deaf old housekeeper, +told him that he was the best-looking boy she had ever seen. It had +pleased him to be the lightest and youngest man on the first football +squad; it pleased him when Doctor Dougall told him at the end of a +heated conference that he could, if he wished, get the best marks in +school. But Doctor Dougall was wrong. It was temperamentally impossible +for Amory to get the best marks in school. + +Miserable, confined to bounds, unpopular with both faculty and +students--that was Amory's first term. But at Christmas he had returned +to Minneapolis, tight-lipped and strangely jubilant. + +"Oh, I was sort of fresh at first," he told Frog Parker patronizingly, +"but I got along fine--lightest man on the squad. You ought to go away +to school, Froggy. It's great stuff." + + ***** + +INCIDENT OF THE WELL-MEANING PROFESSOR + +On the last night of his first term, Mr. Margotson, the senior master, +sent word to study hall that Amory was to come to his room at nine. +Amory suspected that advice was forthcoming, but he determined to be +courteous, because this Mr. Margotson had been kindly disposed toward +him. + +His summoner received him gravely, and motioned him to a chair. He +hemmed several times and looked consciously kind, as a man will when he +knows he's on delicate ground. + +"Amory," he began. "I've sent for you on a personal matter." + +"Yes, sir." + +"I've noticed you this year and I--I like you. I think you have in you +the makings of a--a very good man." + +"Yes, sir," Amory managed to articulate. He hated having people talk as +if he were an admitted failure. + +"But I've noticed," continued the older man blindly, "that you're not +very popular with the boys." + +"No, sir." Amory licked his lips. + +"Ah--I thought you might not understand exactly what it +was they--ah--objected to. I'm going to tell you, because I +believe--ah--that when a boy knows his difficulties he's better able to +cope with them--to conform to what others expect of him." He a-hemmed +again with delicate reticence, and continued: "They seem to think that +you're--ah--rather too fresh--" + +Amory could stand no more. He rose from his chair, scarcely controlling +his voice when he spoke. + +"I know--oh, _don't_ you s'pose I know." His voice rose. "I know what +they think; do you s'pose you have to _tell_ me!" He paused. "I'm--I've +got to go back now--hope I'm not rude--" + +He left the room hurriedly. In the cool air outside, as he walked to his +house, he exulted in his refusal to be helped. + +"That _damn_ old fool!" he cried wildly. "As if I didn't _know!_" + +He decided, however, that this was a good excuse not to go back to study +hall that night, so, comfortably couched up in his room, he munched +Nabiscos and finished "The White Company." + + ***** + +INCIDENT OF THE WONDERFUL GIRL + +There was a bright star in February. New York burst upon him on +Washington's Birthday with the brilliance of a long-anticipated event. +His glimpse of it as a vivid whiteness against a deep-blue sky had left +a picture of splendor that rivalled the dream cities in the Arabian +Nights; but this time he saw it by electric light, and romance gleamed +from the chariot-race sign on Broadway and from the women's eyes at the +Astor, where he and young Paskert from St. Regis' had dinner. When they +walked down the aisle of the theatre, greeted by the nervous twanging +and discord of untuned violins and the sensuous, heavy fragrance of +paint and powder, he moved in a sphere of epicurean delight. Everything +enchanted him. The play was "The Little Millionaire," with George M. +Cohan, and there was one stunning young brunette who made him sit with +brimming eyes in the ecstasy of watching her dance. + + "Oh--you--wonderful girl, + What a wonderful girl you are--" + +sang the tenor, and Amory agreed silently, but passionately. + + "All--your--wonderful words + Thrill me through--" + +The violins swelled and quavered on the last notes, the girl sank to a +crumpled butterfly on the stage, a great burst of clapping filled the +house. Oh, to fall in love like that, to the languorous magic melody of +such a tune! + +The last scene was laid on a roof-garden, and the 'cellos sighed to the +musical moon, while light adventure and facile froth-like comedy flitted +back and forth in the calcium. Amory was on fire to be an habitui of +roof-gardens, to meet a girl who should look like that--better, that +very girl; whose hair would be drenched with golden moonlight, while at +his elbow sparkling wine was poured by an unintelligible waiter. When +the curtain fell for the last time he gave such a long sigh that the +people in front of him twisted around and stared and said loud enough +for him to hear: + +"What a _remarkable_-looking boy!" + +This took his mind off the play, and he wondered if he really did seem +handsome to the population of New York. + +Paskert and he walked in silence toward their hotel. The former was +the first to speak. His uncertain fifteen-year-old voice broke in in a +melancholy strain on Amory's musings: + +"I'd marry that girl to-night." + +There was no need to ask what girl he referred to. + +"I'd be proud to take her home and introduce her to my people," +continued Paskert. + +Amory was distinctly impressed. He wished he had said it instead of +Paskert. It sounded so mature. + +"I wonder about actresses; are they all pretty bad?" + +"No, _sir_, not by a darn sight," said the worldly youth with emphasis, +"and I know that girl's as good as gold. I can tell." + +They wandered on, mixing in the Broadway crowd, dreaming on the music +that eddied out of the cafes. New faces flashed on and off like +myriad lights, pale or rouged faces, tired, yet sustained by a weary +excitement. Amory watched them in fascination. He was planning his life. +He was going to live in New York, and be known at every restaurant and +cafe, wearing a dress-suit from early evening to early morning, sleeping +away the dull hours of the forenoon. + +"Yes, _sir_, I'd marry that girl to-night!" + + ***** + +HEROIC IN GENERAL TONE + +October of his second and last year at St. Regis' was a high point in +Amory's memory. The game with Groton was played from three of a snappy, +exhilarating afternoon far into the crisp autumnal twilight, and Amory +at quarter-back, exhorting in wild despair, making impossible tackles, +calling signals in a voice that had diminished to a hoarse, furious +whisper, yet found time to revel in the blood-stained bandage around his +head, and the straining, glorious heroism of plunging, crashing bodies +and aching limbs. For those minutes courage flowed like wine out of the +November dusk, and he was the eternal hero, one with the sea-rover on +the prow of a Norse galley, one with Roland and Horatius, Sir Nigel and +Ted Coy, scraped and stripped into trim and then flung by his own will +into the breach, beating back the tide, hearing from afar the thunder of +cheers... finally bruised and weary, but still elusive, circling an end, +twisting, changing pace, straight-arming... falling behind the Groton +goal with two men on his legs, in the only touchdown of the game. + + ***** + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SLICKER + +From the scoffing superiority of sixth-form year and success Amory +looked back with cynical wonder on his status of the year before. He was +changed as completely as Amory Blaine could ever be changed. Amory plus +Beatrice plus two years in Minneapolis--these had been his ingredients +when he entered St. Regis'. But the Minneapolis years were not a thick +enough overlay to conceal the "Amory plus Beatrice" from the ferreting +eyes of a boarding-school, so St. Regis' had very painfully drilled +Beatrice out of him, and begun to lay down new and more conventional +planking on the fundamental Amory. But both St. Regis' and Amory were +unconscious of the fact that this fundamental Amory had not in himself +changed. Those qualities for which he had suffered, his moodiness, his +tendency to pose, his laziness, and his love of playing the fool, were +now taken as a matter of course, recognized eccentricities in a star +quarter-back, a clever actor, and the editor of the St. Regis Tattler: +it puzzled him to see impressionable small boys imitating the very +vanities that had not long ago been contemptible weaknesses. + +After the football season he slumped into dreamy content. The night +of the pre-holiday dance he slipped away and went early to bed for the +pleasure of hearing the violin music cross the grass and come surging in +at his window. Many nights he lay there dreaming awake of secret cafes +in Mont Martre, where ivory women delved in romantic mysteries with +diplomats and soldiers of fortune, while orchestras played Hungarian +waltzes and the air was thick and exotic with intrigue and moonlight +and adventure. In the spring he read "L'Allegro," by request, and was +inspired to lyrical outpourings on the subject of Arcady and the pipes +of Pan. He moved his bed so that the sun would wake him at dawn that he +might dress and go out to the archaic swing that hung from an apple-tree +near the sixth-form house. Seating himself in this he would pump higher +and higher until he got the effect of swinging into the wide air, into +a fairyland of piping satyrs and nymphs with the faces of fair-haired +girls he passed in the streets of Eastchester. As the swing reached its +highest point, Arcady really lay just over the brow of a certain hill, +where the brown road dwindled out of sight in a golden dot. + +He read voluminously all spring, the beginning of his eighteenth year: +"The Gentleman from Indiana," "The New Arabian Nights," "The Morals +of Marcus Ordeyne," "The Man Who Was Thursday," which he liked without +understanding; "Stover at Yale," that became somewhat of a text-book; +"Dombey and Son," because he thought he really should read better +stuff; Robert Chambers, David Graham Phillips, and E. Phillips Oppenheim +complete, and a scattering of Tennyson and Kipling. Of all his class +work only "L'Allegro" and some quality of rigid clarity in solid +geometry stirred his languid interest. + +As June drew near, he felt the need of conversation to formulate his +own ideas, and, to his surprise, found a co-philosopher in Rahill, the +president of the sixth form. In many a talk, on the highroad or lying +belly-down along the edge of the baseball diamond, or late at night with +their cigarettes glowing in the dark, they threshed out the questions of +school, and there was developed the term "slicker." + +"Got tobacco?" whispered Rahill one night, putting his head inside the +door five minutes after lights. + +"Sure." + +"I'm coming in." + +"Take a couple of pillows and lie in the window-seat, why don't you." + +Amory sat up in bed and lit a cigarette while Rahill settled for a +conversation. Rahill's favorite subject was the respective futures of +the sixth form, and Amory never tired of outlining them for his benefit. + +"Ted Converse? 'At's easy. He'll fail his exams, tutor all summer at +Harstrum's, get into Sheff with about four conditions, and flunk out in +the middle of the freshman year. Then he'll go back West and raise hell +for a year or so; finally his father will make him go into the paint +business. He'll marry and have four sons, all bone heads. He'll always +think St. Regis's spoiled him, so he'll send his sons to day school in +Portland. He'll die of locomotor ataxia when he's forty-one, and +his wife will give a baptizing stand or whatever you call it to the +Presbyterian Church, with his name on it--" + +"Hold up, Amory. That's too darned gloomy. How about yourself?" + +"I'm in a superior class. You are, too. We're philosophers." + +"I'm not." + +"Sure you are. You've 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. + +"Haven't," insisted Rahill. "I let people impose on me here and don't +get anything out of it. I'm 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 I'm +the 'big man' of St. Regis's. I want to get where everybody does their +own work and I can tell people where to go. I'm tired of being nice to +every poor fish in school." + +"You're not a slicker," said Amory suddenly. + +"A what?" + +"A slicker." + +"What the devil's that?" + +"Well, it's something that--that--there's a lot of them. You're 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. He's a slicker." + +They spent two evenings getting an exact definition. The slicker was +good-looking or clean-looking; 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 tortoise-shell 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. +Amory's 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 isn't. + + 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. Regis's 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, Amory's school days drifted into the past. Years afterward, when +he went back to St. Regis', he seemed to have forgotten the successes +of sixth-form 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 window-panes, and swimming +around the tops of spires and towers and battlemented walls. +Gradually he realized that he was really walking up University Place, +self-conscious 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 white-flannelled, 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 double-chocolate jigger before ease descended upon him. +After a cursory inspection of the pillow-cases, 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, +white-shod, book-laden throng, whose function seemed to be to drift +endlessly up and down the street, emitting great clouds of smoke +from brand-new 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 blase and casually critical, +which was as near as he could analyze the prevalent facial expression. + +At five o'clock 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 there's so few +freshmen that they're lost. Have to sit around and study for something +to do." + +The gray-eyed man decided to introduce himself. + +"My name's Holiday." + +"Blaine's my name." + +They shook hands with the fashionable low swoop. Amory grinned. + +"Where'd you prep?" + +"Andover--where did you?" + +"St. Regis's." + +"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. + +"That's the rumor. But you've got to eat there--or pay anyways." + +"Crime!" + +"Imposition!" + +"Oh, at Princeton you've got to swallow everything the first year. It's +like a damned prep school." + +Amory agreed. + +"Lot of pep, though," he insisted. "I wouldn't 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. I'm going to take a whack at freshman football." + +"Play at St. Regis's?" + +"Some," admitted Amory depreciatingly, "but I'm getting so damned thin." + +"You're 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, honey-baby--you're so big and strong, but oh, so gentle!" + +"Clinch!" + +"Oh, Clinch!" + +"Kiss her, kiss 'at lady, quick!" + +"Oh-h-h--!" + +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. + + + "Oh-h-h-h-h + She works in a Jam Factoree + And--that-may-be-all-right + But you can't-fool-me + For I know--DAMN--WELL + That she DON'T-make-jam-all-night! + Oh-h-h-h!" + +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." + +"It's 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 Tarkington's amusements: standing in mid-campus 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 white-clad phalanx +broke the gloom, and marching figures, white-shirted, white-trousered, +swung rhythmically up the street, with linked arms and heads thrown +back: + + "Going back--going back, + Going--back--to--Nas-sau--Hall, + Going back--going back-- + To the--Best--Old--Place--of--All. + Going back--going back, + From all--this--earth-ly--ball, + We'll--clear--the--track--as--we--go--back-- + Going--back--to--Nas-sau--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 danger-point 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 hundred-and-sixty +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, Seventy-nine Hall, brick-red 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 half-grasped +significance, the wild moonlight revel of the rushes, the handsome, +prosperous big-game crowds, and under it all the air of struggle that +pervaded his class. From the day when, wild-eyed and exhausted, the +jerseyed freshmen sat in the gymnasium and elected some one from Hill +School class president, a Lawrenceville celebrity vice-president, a +hockey star from St. Paul's 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. Paul's, 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 high-school 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 +quarter-back, 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 question-marks. 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 dark-haired 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, fair-haired, 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, Amory's +acquaintance with him was in the way of three-minute chats, walking +to and from lectures, so he failed to penetrate Burne's 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 upper-class clubs, concerning +which he had pumped a reluctant graduate during the previous summer, +excited his curiosity: Ivy, detached and breathlessly aristocratic; +Cottage, an impressive melange of brilliant adventurers and well-dressed +philanderers; Tiger Inn, broad-shouldered and athletic, vitalized by +an honest elaboration of prep-school standards; Cap and Gown, +anti-alcoholic, 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 non-committal 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. + +"We're the damned middle class, that's 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 self-confidence, dress better, +cut a swathe--" + +"Oh, it isn't that I mind the glittering caste system," admitted Amory. +"I like having a bunch of hot cats on top, but gosh, Kerry, I've got to +be one of them." + +"But just now, Amory, you're only a sweaty bourgeois." + +Amory lay for a moment without speaking. + +"I won't be--long," he said finally. "But I hate to get anywhere by +working for it. I'll show the marks, don't you know." + +"Honorable scars." Kerry craned his neck suddenly at the street. +"There's 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 +knock-out, but this Langueduc--he's the rugged type, isn't he? I +distrust that sort. All diamonds look big in the rough." + +"Well," said Kerry, as the excitement subsided, "you're a literary +genius. It's up to you." + +"I wonder"--Amory paused--"if I could be. I honestly think so sometimes. +That sounds like the devil, and I wouldn't say it to anybody except +you." + +"Well--go ahead. Let your hair grow and write poems like this guy +D'Invilliers in the Lit." + +Amory reached lazily at a pile of magazines on the table. + +"Read his latest effort?" + +"Never miss 'em. They're rare." + +Amory glanced through the issue. + +"Hello!" he said in surprise, "he's a freshman, isn't 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?" + +"It's a pantry scene." + + + "'Her toes are stiffened like a stork's in flight; + She's 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 don't get him +at all, and I'm a literary bird myself." + +"It's pretty tricky," said Kerry, "only you've got to think of hearses +and stale milk when you read it. That isn't 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 I'm not a regular +fellow, yet I loathe anybody else that isn't. I can't 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. I'm going to sail +into prominence on Burne's coat-tails." + +"I can't 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." + +"You're thinking too much about yourself." + +Amory sat up at this. + +"No. I'm thinking about you, too. We've got to get out and mix around +the class right now, when it's fun to be a snob. I'd like to bring a +sardine to the prom in June, for instance, but I wouldn't do it unless +I could be damn debonaire about it--introduce her to all the prize +parlor-snakes, and the football captain, and all that simple stuff." + +"Amory," said Kerry impatiently, "you're just going around in a circle. +If you want to be prominent, get out and try for something; if you +don't, just take it easy." He yawned. "Come on, let's let the smoke +drift off. We'll 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 youth's bed with lemon pie; they put out the gas +all over the house every night by blowing into the jet in Amory's 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 red-dog and twenty-one and jackpot from dinner +to dawn, and on the occasion of one man's 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, shame-faced and penitent, at the infirmary +all the following week. + +"Say, who are all these women?" demanded Kerry one day, protesting +at the size of Amory's mail. "I've been looking at the postmarks +lately--Farmington and Dobbs and Westover and Dana Hall--what's the +idea?" + +Amory grinned. + +"All from the Twin Cities." He named them off. "There's Marylyn De +Witt--she's pretty, got a car of her own and that's damn convenient; +there's Sally Weatherby--she's getting too fat; there's Myra St. Claire, +she's an old flame, easy to kiss if you like it--" + +"What line do you throw 'em?" demanded Kerry. "I've tried everything, +and the mad wags aren't even afraid of me." + +"You're the 'nice boy' type," suggested Amory. + +"That's just it. Mother always feels the girl is safe if she's with me. +Honestly, it's annoying. If I start to hold somebody's hand, they laugh +at me, and let me, just as if it wasn't 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 you're 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. Doesn't work at all. I'm 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 mid-years 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 "Joe's," 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. "Joe's" 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. + +"Joe's" had the additional advantage of seclusion from curious +upper-class 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. Warren's Profession" (he had discovered Shaw quite +by accident while browsing in the library during mid-years); the other +freshman, also intent on his volume, meanwhile did away with a trio of +chocolate malted milks. + +By and by Amory's eyes wandered curiously to his fellow-luncher's 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 vis-a-vis, 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. + +"I've never read any Shaw. I've 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. "I've never read much of +Phillips, though." (He had never heard of any Phillips except the late +David Graham.) + +"It's pretty fair, I think. Of course he's a Victorian." They sallied +into a discussion of poetry, in the course of which they introduced +themselves, and Amory's companion proved to be none other than "that +awful highbrow, Thomas Parke D'Invilliers," who signed the passionate +love-poems 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. Paul's +crowd at the next table would not mistake _him_ for a bird, too, he +would enjoy the encounter tremendously. They didn't 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 Brentano's clerk. D'Invilliers was partially +taken in and wholly delighted. In a good-natured 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?" + +"It's a man--don't you know?" + +"Oh, surely." A faint chord was struck in Amory's memory. "Wasn't the +comic opera, 'Patience,' written about him?" + +"Yes, that's the fella. I've just finished a book of his, 'The Picture +of Dorian Gray,' and I certainly wish you'd read it. You'd like it. You +can borrow it if you want to." + +"Why, I'd like it a lot--thanks." + +"Don't you want to come up to the room? I've got a few other books." + +Amory hesitated, glanced at the St. Paul's 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 D'Invilliers' undoubted attractions and value +against the menace of cold eyes behind tortoise-rimmed spectacles that +he fancied glared from the next table. + +"Yes, I'll 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 +O'Flaherty" 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 D'Invilliers became at first an occasion rather than a friend. Amory +saw him about once a week, and together they gilded the ceiling of +Tom's 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 D'Invilliers or a convenient +mirror. + +One day Tom and Amory tried reciting their own and Lord Dunsany's poems +to the music of Kerry's graphophone. + +"Chant!" cried Tom. "Don't 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, I'm going to +cast a kitten." + +"Shut off the damn graphophone," Amory cried, rather red in the face. +"I'm not giving an exhibition." + +In the meanwhile Amory delicately kept trying to awaken a sense of the +social system in D'Invilliers, 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 D'Invilliers 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 Amory's 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..." + +"That's good," Kerry would say softly. "It pleases the elder Holiday. +That's 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 quarter-hour, and Amory, pausing by the sun-dial, 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 late-burning 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. + +"I'm very damn wet!" he said aloud to the sun-dial. + + ***** + +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 ticket-holder at a +prize-fight where the principals refused to mix it up. + +That was his total reaction. + + ***** + +"HA-HA 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. We'll 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 da-da'd, they hashed out a dance. + +A great, seething ant-hill 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 "Ha-Ha +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 tumpty-tump 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 +ninety-eight, 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 watch-chain. "Ha-Ha 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 +dark-whiskered man in the pony-ballet, who "absolutely won't shave twice +a day, doggone it!" + +There was one brilliant place in "Ha-Ha 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 "Ha-Ha +Hortense!" half-a-dozen seats were kept from sale and occupied by six +of the worst-looking vagabonds that could be hired from the streets, +further touched up by the Triangle make-up 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 +wind-jammers 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 grease-paint, 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 Weatherby's 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 thirty-six 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. "Servant-girls are that way," says Mrs. Huston-Carmelite to +her popular daughter. "They are kissed first and proposed to afterward." + +But the Popular Daughter becomes engaged every six months between +sixteen and twenty-two, 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 cut-in 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 three-o'clock, after-dance 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 let-down. But he never realized how wide-spread +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 down-stairs... 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, +wasn't 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! Didn't 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 hasn't 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 one's limousine, outside the Country Club in +Louisville. + +"I don't know. I'm just full of the devil." + +"Let's be frank--we'll never see each other again. I wanted to come out +here with you because I thought you were the best-looking girl in sight. +You really don't 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 didn't feel tired dancing or want a cigarette or any of the +things you said? You just wanted to be--" + +"Oh, let's go in," she interrupted, "if you want to _analyze_. Let's not +_talk_ about it." + +When the hand-knit, 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 parlor-snakes and P. D.'s. + + ***** + +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 water-faucet. But people never forgot his +face. + + ***** + +ISABELLE + +She paused at the top of the staircase. The sensations attributed to +divers on spring-boards, 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 +dressing-room. + +"I'm ready." She caught a slight lump of nervousness in her throat. + +"I had to send back to the house for another pair of slippers. It'll be +just a minute." + +Isabelle started toward the dressing-room 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. +Pump-shod 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, he's simply mad to +see you again. He's stayed over a day from college, and he's coming +to-night. He's 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 he's 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 you're--you're considered beautiful and all that"--she +paused--"and I guess he knows you've been kissed." + +At this Isabelle's 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 winter-carnival costume? How +very _Western!_ Of course he wasn't that way: he went to Princeton, was +a sophomore or something. Really she had no distinct idea of him. An +ancient snap-shot 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 match-makers, plot their campaigns quickly, and Sally +had played a clever correspondence sonata to Isabelle's excitable +temperament. Isabelle had been for some time capable of very strong, if +very transient emotions.... + +They drew up at a spreading, white-stone 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 half-dozen 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 good-looking, "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 dancing-shoes that fox-trotted 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 love-affairs was limited only by the number of the +susceptible within telephone distance. Flirt smiled from her large +black-brown 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 +dressing-room, beaming with her accustomed good nature and high spirits, +and together they descended to the floor below, while the shifting +search-light of Isabelle's mind flashed on two ideas: she was glad she +had high color to-night, and she wondered if he danced well. + +Down-stairs, in the club's great room, she was surrounded for a moment +by the girls she had met in the afternoon, then she heard Sally's 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 hop-scotch, 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 garter-advertisement slenderness.... For +the rest, a faint flush and a straight, romantic profile; the effect set +off by a close-fitting 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. + +"Don't _you_ think so?" she said suddenly, turning to him, +innocent-eyed. + +There was a stir, and Sally led the way over to their table. Amory +struggled to Isabelle's side, and whispered: + +"You're my dinner partner, you know. We're 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 mustn't lose the leadership a bit. The dinner-table +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 Sally's 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: + +"I've heard a lot about you since you wore braids--" + +"Wasn't 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 you've been away." She blushed +appropriately. On her right Froggy was _hors de combat_ already, +although he hadn't quite realized it. + +"I'll 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 grape-shot. + +"I've 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?" Isabelle's face was a study in enraptured curiosity. + +Amory shook his head. + +"I don't know you very well yet." + +"Will you tell me--afterward?" she half whispered. + +He nodded. + +"We'll 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 up-stairs. + + ***** + +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 dressing-room 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 blase +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 didn't 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 pseudo-passionate glances elsewhere, for eleven +o'clock found Isabelle and Amory sitting on the couch in the little +den off the reading-room up-stairs. She was conscious that they were +a handsome pair, and seemed to belong distinctively in this seclusion, +while lesser lights fluttered and chattered down-stairs. + +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, +Isabelle's 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 +sink-down sofas. + +He asked her if she thought he was conceited. She said there was +a difference between conceit and self-confidence. She adored +self-confidence in men. + +"Is Froggy a good friend of yours?" she asked. + +"Rather--why?" + +"He's a bum dancer." + +Amory laughed. + +"He dances as if the girl were on his back instead of in his arms." + +She appreciated this. + +"You're awfully good at sizing people up." + +Amory denied this painfully. However, he sized up several people for +her. Then they talked about hands. + +"You've 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 twelve-eighteen 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 reading-room lamps. +Then he began: + +"I don't know whether or not you know what you--what I'm going to say. +Lordy, Isabelle--this _sounds_ like a line, but it isn't." + +"I know," said Isabelle softly. + +"Maybe we'll 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. + +"You'll 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: + +"I've 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, what's the use--you'll go your +way and I suppose I'll 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 + I'll understand + We're off to slumberland." + + +Isabelle hummed it softly and trembled as she felt Amory's hand close +over hers. + +"Isabelle," he whispered. "You know I'm 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, I'm going back to college for six long months, and why +shouldn't 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 to-night, +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. "Can't 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 dance-craving +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 good-speed. 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 o'clock 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 Joan-like +dreams. + +"No," she answered. "I don't do that sort of thing any more; he asked me +to, but I said no." + +As she crept in bed she wondered what he'd say in his special delivery +to-morrow. He had such a good-looking mouth--would she ever--? + +"Fourteen angels were watching o'er 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 long-hidden 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 tailor's 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 +down-stairs 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 weight-lifters!" "Well, I +didn't go Cottage--the parlor-snakes' delight." + +"They say Overton fainted when he got his Ivy bid--Did he sign up the +first day?--oh, _no_. Tore over to Murray-Dodge on a bicycle--afraid it +was a mistake." + +"How'd 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 snow-clad 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 new-found 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 +Renwick's in half an hour. Somebody's got a car." He took the bureau +cover and carefully deposited it, with its load of small articles, upon +the bed. + +"Where'd you get the car?" demanded Amory cynically. + +"Sacred trust, but don't be a critical goopher or you can't go!" + +"I think I'll sleep," Amory said calmly, resettling himself and reaching +beside the bed for a cigarette. + +"Sleep!" + +"Why not? I've got a class at eleven-thirty." + +"You damned gloom! Of course, if you don't want to go to the coast--" + +With a bound Amory was out of bed, scattering the bureau cover's burden +on the floor. The coast... he hadn't seen it for years, since he and his +mother were on their pilgrimage. + +"Who's going?" he demanded as he wriggled into his B. V. D.'s. + +"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 Renwick's, and at +nine-thirty 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--what's money? We can sell the car." + +"Charge him salvage or something." + +"How're we going to get food?" asked Amory. + +"Honestly," answered Kerry, eying him reprovingly, "do you doubt Kerry's +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 I've 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!" + +"It's a long walk back." + +"Amory, you're running it out, if I may coin a new phrase." + +"Hadn't you better get some dope on yourself, Amory?" + +Amory subsided resignedly and drooped into a contemplation of the +scenery. Swinburne seemed to fit in somehow. + + + "Oh, winter's rains and ruins are over, + And all the seasons of snows and sins; + The days dividing lover and lover, + The light that loses, the night that wins; + And time remembered is grief forgotten, + And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, + And in green underwood and cover, + Blossom by blossom the spring begins. + + "The full streams feed on flower of--" + + +"What's the matter, Amory? Amory's thinking about poetry, about the +pretty birds and flowers. I can see it in his eye." + +"No, I'm not," he lied. "I'm thinking about the Princetonian. I ought to +make up to-night; but I can telephone back, I suppose." + +"Oh," said Kerry respectfully, "these important men--" + +Amory flushed and it seemed to him that Ferrenby, a defeated competitor, +winced a little. Of course, Kerry was only kidding, but he really +mustn't mention the Princetonian. + +It was a halcyon day, and as they neared the shore and the salt breezes +scurried by, he began to picture the ocean and long, level stretches of +sand and red roofs over blue sea. Then they hurried through the little +town and it all flashed upon his consciousness to a mighty paean of +emotion.... + +"Oh, good Lord! _Look_ at it!" he cried. + +"What?" + +"Let me out, quick--I haven't seen it for eight years! Oh, gentlefolk, +stop the car!" + +"What an odd child!" remarked Alec. + +"I do believe he's a bit eccentric." + +The car was obligingly drawn up at a curb, and Amory ran for the +boardwalk. First, he realized that the sea was blue and that there was +an enormous quantity of it, and that it roared and roared--really all +the banalities about the ocean that one could realize, but if any one +had told him then that these things were banalities, he would have gaped +in wonder. + +"Now we'll get lunch," ordered Kerry, wandering up with the crowd. "Come +on, Amory, tear yourself away and get practical." + +"We'll try the best hotel first," he went on, "and thence and so forth." + +They strolled along the boardwalk to the most imposing hostelry in +sight, and, entering the dining-room, scattered about a table. + +"Eight Bronxes," commanded Alec, "and a club sandwich and Juliennes. The +food for one. Hand the rest around." + +Amory ate little, having seized a chair where he could watch the sea and +feel the rock of it. When luncheon was over they sat and smoked quietly. + +"What's the bill?" + +Some one scanned it. + +"Eight twenty-five." + +"Rotten overcharge. We'll give them two dollars and one for the waiter. +Kerry, collect the small change." + +The waiter approached, and Kerry gravely handed him a dollar, tossed two +dollars on the check, and turned away. They sauntered leisurely toward +the door, pursued in a moment by the suspicious Ganymede. + +"Some mistake, sir." + +Kerry took the bill and examined it critically. + +"No mistake!" he said, shaking his head gravely, and, tearing it into +four pieces, he handed the scraps to the waiter, who was so dumfounded +that he stood motionless and expressionless while they walked out. + +"Won't he send after us?" + +"No," said Kerry; "for a minute he'll think we're the proprietor's sons +or something; then he'll look at the check again and call the manager, +and in the meantime--" + +They left the car at Asbury and street-car'd to Allenhurst, where +they investigated the crowded pavilions for beauty. At four there were +refreshments in a lunch-room, and this time they paid an even smaller +per cent on the total cost; something about the appearance and +savoir-faire of the crowd made the thing go, and they were not pursued. + +"You see, Amory, we're Marxian Socialists," explained Kerry. "We don't +believe in property and we're putting it to the great test." + +"Night will descend," Amory suggested. + +"Watch, and put your trust in Holiday." + +They became jovial about five-thirty and, linking arms, strolled up and +down the boardwalk in a row, chanting a monotonous ditty about the sad +sea waves. Then Kerry saw a face in the crowd that attracted him and, +rushing off, reappeared in a moment with one of the homeliest girls +Amory had ever set eyes on. Her pale mouth extended from ear to ear, her +teeth projected in a solid wedge, and she had little, squinty eyes that +peeped ingratiatingly over the side sweep of her nose. Kerry presented +them formally. + +"Name of Kaluka, Hawaiian queen! Let me present Messrs. Connage, Sloane, +Humbird, Ferrenby, and Blaine." + +The girl bobbed courtesies all around. Poor creature; Amory supposed she +had never before been noticed in her life--possibly she was half-witted. +While she accompanied them (Kerry had invited her to supper) she said +nothing which could discountenance such a belief. + +"She prefers her native dishes," said Alec gravely to the waiter, "but +any coarse food will do." + +All through supper he addressed her in the most respectful language, +while Kerry made idiotic love to her on the other side, and she giggled +and grinned. Amory was content to sit and watch the by-play, thinking +what a light touch Kerry had, and how he could transform the barest +incident into a thing of curve and contour. They all seemed to have +the spirit of it more or less, and it was a relaxation to be with them. +Amory usually liked men individually, yet feared them in crowds unless +the crowd was around him. He wondered how much each one contributed to +the party, for there was somewhat of a spiritual tax levied. Alec and +Kerry were the life of it, but not quite the centre. Somehow the quiet +Humbird, and Sloane, with his impatient superciliousness, were the +centre. + +Dick Humbird had, ever since freshman year, seemed to Amory a perfect +type of aristocrat. He was slender but well-built--black curly hair, +straight features, and rather a dark skin. Everything he said sounded +intangibly appropriate. He possessed infinite courage, an averagely good +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 wouldn't have changed him. +... + +He differed from the healthy type that was essentially middle class--he +never seemed to perspire. Some people couldn't be familiar with a +chauffeur without having it returned; Humbird could have lunched at +Sherry's 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. + +"He's 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 let-down 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 Kipling's + + "Beaches of Lukanon before the sealers came." + + +It was still a music, though, infinitely sorrowful. + +Ten o'clock 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 moving-picture 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 ticket-taker +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 +street-car or machine, or by shoe-leather 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 quick-development 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. +Co-ordinate 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 +evening's 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 Alec's football managership and +Amory's chance of nosing out Burne Holiday as Princetonian chairman, +they seemed fairly justified in this presumption. Oddly enough, they +both placed D'Invilliers 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 thirty-page documents almost +nightly, and sent them to her in bulky envelopes exteriorly labelled +"Part I" and "Part II." + +"Oh, Alec, I believe I'm tired of college," he said sadly, as they +walked the dusk together. + +"I think I am, too, in a way." + +"All I'd 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." + +"I'd like to quit." + +"What does your girl say?" + +"Oh!" Amory gasped in horror. "She wouldn't _think_ of marrying... that +is, not now. I mean the future, you know." + +"My girl would. I'm engaged." + +"Are you really?" + +"Yes. Don't say a word to anybody, please, but I am. I may not come back +next year." + +"But you're only twenty! Give up college?" + +"Why, Amory, you were saying a minute ago--" + +"Yes," Amory interrupted, "but I was just wishing. I wouldn't think of +leaving college. It's just that I feel so sad these wonderful nights. I +sort of feel they're never coming again, and I'm 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 isn't 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 snap-shot 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 it's so hard to write you what I really _feel_ when I + think about you so much; you've gotten to mean to me a _dream_ that + I can't 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, you'd 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. It'll 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 can't + imagine you really liking me _best_. + + Oh, Isabelle, dear--it's 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 he's playing "Good-by, + Boys, I'm 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 I'll never again fall in love--I couldn't--you've 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 don't interest me. + I'm not pretending to be blase, because it's not that. It's just + that I'm in love. Oh, _dearest_ Isabelle (somehow I can't call you + just Isabelle, and I'm afraid I'll come out with the "dearest" + before your family this June), you've got to come to the prom, + and then I'll come up to your house for a day and everything'll 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 tennis-courts, 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 D'Invilliers and Amory walked late in those days. A gambling fever +swept through the sophomore class and they bent over the bones till +three o'clock many a sultry night. After one session they came out of +Sloane's room to find the dew fallen and the stars old in the sky. + +"Let's borrow bicycles and take a ride," Amory suggested. + +"All right. I'm 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 +half-past three along the Lawrenceville Road. + +"What are you going to do this summer, Amory?" + +"Don't ask me--same old things, I suppose. A month or two in Lake +Geneva--I'm counting on you to be there in July, you know--then there'll +be Minneapolis, and that means hundreds of summer hops, parlor-snaking, +getting bored--But oh, Tom," he added suddenly, "hasn't this year been +slick!" + +"No," declared Tom emphatically, a new Tom, clothed by Brooks, shod +by Franks, "I've won this game, but I feel as if I never want to play +another. You're all right--you're a rubber ball, and somehow it suits +you, but I'm sick of adapting myself to the local snobbishness of this +corner of the world. I want to go where people aren't barred because of +the color of their neckties and the roll of their coats." + +"You can't, Tom," argued Amory, as they rolled along through the +scattering night; "wherever you go now you'll always unconsciously apply +these standards of 'having it' or 'lacking it.' For better or worse +we've stamped you; you're a Princeton type!" + +"Well, then," complained Tom, his cracked voice rising plaintively, "why +do I have to come back at all? I've learned all that Princeton has to +offer. Two years more of mere pedantry and lying around a club aren't +going to help. They're just going to disorganize me, conventionalize me +completely. Even now I'm so spineless that I wonder how I get away with +it." + +"Oh, but you're missing the real point, Tom," Amory interrupted. "You've +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, don't you?" he asked quizzically, +eying Amory in the half dark. + +Amory laughed quietly. + +"Didn't I?" + +"Sometimes," he said slowly, "I think you're my bad angel. I might have +been a pretty fair poet." + +"Come on, that's rather hard. You chose to come to an Eastern college. +Either your eyes were opened to the mean scrambling quality of people, +or you'd have gone through blind, and you'd hate to have done that--been +like Marty Kaye." + +"Yes," he agreed, "you're right. I wouldn't have liked it. Still, it's +hard to be made a cynic at twenty." + +"I was born one," Amory murmured. "I'm a cynical idealist." He paused +and wondered if that meant anything. + +They reached the sleeping school of Lawrenceville, and turned to ride +back. + +"It's good, this ride, isn't it?" Tom said presently. + +"Yes; it's a good finish, it's knock-out; everything's good to-night. +Oh, for a hot, languorous summer and Isabelle!" + +"Oh, you and your Isabelle! I'll bet she's a simple one... let's say +some poetry." + +So Amory declaimed "The Ode to a Nightingale" to the bushes they passed. + +"I'll never be a poet," said Amory as he finished. "I'm 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 don't catch the subtle things like 'silver-snarling trumpets.' I may +turn out an intellectual, but I'll 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 bright-costumed +alumni crowded the streets with their bands and choruses, and in the +tents there was great reunion under the orange-and-black banners that +curled and strained in the wind. Amory looked long at one house which +bore the legend "Sixty-nine." There a few gray-haired men sat and talked +quietly while the classes swept by in panorama of life. + + ***** + +UNDER THE ARC-LIGHT + +Then tragedy's 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 o'clock 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 Amory's +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, beauty-high, the + moon-swathed 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, there's 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 arc-light 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. + +"It's Dick--Dick Humbird!" + +"Oh, Christ!" + +"Feel his heart!" + +Then the insistent voice of the old crone in a sort of croaking triumph: + +"He's quite dead, all right. The car turned over. Two of the men that +weren't hurt just carried the others in, but this one's 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 8:10. + +"I don't know what happened," said Ferrenby in a strained voice. "Dick +was driving and he wouldn't give up the wheel; we told him he'd 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 shoe-laces--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 +dress-suited 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 dining-room 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 +dark-haired beauty dances by and there is a half-gasping sound as the +ripple surges forward and some one sleeker than the rest darts out and +cuts in. Then when the six-foot 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, I've got an awfully nice--" + +"Sorry, Kaye, but I'm set for this one. I've got to cut in on a fella." + +"Well, the next one?" + +"What--ah--er--I swear I've got to go cut in--look me up when she's 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 Amory's 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 up-stairs 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 story-books, she ran into them, and on that half-minute, 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. + +"What's 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, "I'm a goopher. Really, I'm +sorry--I shouldn't have held you so close." + +She looked up impatiently. + +"Oh, Amory, of course you couldn't help it, and it didn't hurt much; but +what _are_ we going to do about it?" + +"_Do_ about it?" he asked. "Oh--that spot; it'll disappear in a second." + +"It isn't," she said, after a moment of concentrated gazing, "it's still +there--and it looks like Old Nick--oh, Amory, what'll we do! It's _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, +"I'll just make my whole neck _flame_ if I rub it. What'll I do?" + +A quotation sailed into his head and he couldn't 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. + +"You're not very sympathetic." + +Amory mistook her meaning. + +"Isabelle, darling, I think it'll--" + +"Don't touch me!" she cried. "Haven't 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, "you're angry, and +I'll be, too, in a minute. Let's kiss and make up." + +Isabelle considered glumly. + +"I hate to be laughed at," she said finally. + +"I won't laugh any more. I'm not laughing now, am I?" + +"You did." + +"Oh, don't be so darned feminine." + +Her lips curled slightly. + +"I'll 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 didn't kiss her, it +would worry him.... It would interfere vaguely with his idea of himself +as a conqueror. It wasn't 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 devil's food in the pantry, +and Amory announced a decision. + +"I'm leaving early in the morning." + +"Why?" + +"Why not?" he countered. + +"There's no need." + +"However, I'm going." + +"Well, if you insist on being ridiculous--" + +"Oh, don't put it that way," he objected. + +"--just because I won't let you kiss me. Do you think--" + +"Now, Isabelle," he interrupted, "you know it's not that--even +suppose it is. We've reached the stage where we either ought to +kiss--or--or--nothing. It isn't as if you were refusing on moral +grounds." + +She hesitated. + +"I really don't know what to think about you," she began, in a feeble, +perverse attempt at conciliation. "You're 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 didn't seem to feel so self-confident to-night. Maybe you're +just plain conceited." + +"No, I'm not," he hesitated. "At Princeton--" + +"Oh, you and Princeton! You'd 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 you're important--" + +"You don't understand--" + +"Yes, I do," she interrupted. "I _do_, because you're always talking +about yourself and I used to like it; now I don't." + +"Have I to-night?" + +"That's just the point," insisted Isabelle. "You got all upset to-night. +You just sat and watched my eyes. Besides, I have to think all the time +I'm talking to you--you're so critical." + +"I make you think, do I?" Amory repeated with a touch of vanity. + +"You're a nervous strain"--this emphatically--"and when you analyze +every little emotion and instinct I just don't have 'em." + +"I know." Amory admitted her point and shook his head helplessly. + +"Let's go." She stood up. + +He rose abstractedly and they walked to the foot of the stairs. + +"What train can I get?" + +"There's one about 9:11 if you really must go." + +"Yes, I've 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 +grandfather's 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. Borge's voice in the sun-parlor 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, "she's 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 upper-class 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 six-foot-three of football material and +tries to concentrate. + +"Oh--ah--I'm damned if I know, Mr. Rooney." + +"Oh, why of course, of course you can't _use_ that formula. _That's_ +what I wanted you to say." + +"Why, sure, of course." + +"Do you see why?" + +"You bet--I suppose so." + +"If you don't see, tell me. I'm here to show you." + +"Well, Mr. Rooney, if you don't mind, I wish you'd go over that again." + +"Gladly. Now here's 'A'..." + +The room was a study in stupidity--two huge stands for paper, Mr. Rooney +in his shirt-sleeves 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 haven't 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, there's so much else to do in New +York during the term. I suppose they don't 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 didn't 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 don't get it! Repeat that, Mr. Rooney!" Most of them were so stupid +or careless that they wouldn't admit when they didn't 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. Rooney's fetid parlors distorted their equations +into insoluble anagrams. He made a last night's 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 don't pass it," said the newly arrived Alec as they sat on the +window-seat of Amory's room and mused upon a scheme of wall decoration, +"you're the world's 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 that'd 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 don't 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 Renwick's, and, +seeing a light, called up: + +"Oh, Tom, any mail?" + +Alec's head appeared against the yellow square of light. + +"Yes, your result's here." + +His heart clamored violently. + +"What is it, blue or pink?" + +"Don't 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 "Registrar's +Office," and weighed it nervously. + +"We have here quite a slip of paper." + +"Open it, Amory." + +"Just to be dramatic, I'll let you know that if it's 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 Ferrenby's 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." + +"We're 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. I've begun to feel that I was meant to +lose this chance." + +"They're rather off you at the club, you know; every man that doesn't +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--I'm through--as far as ever being a power in college is concerned." + +"But, Amory, honestly, what makes me the angriest isn't the fact that +you won't be chairman of the Prince and on the Senior Council, but just +that you didn't get down and pass that exam." + +"Not me," said Amory slowly; "I'm 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 has-been?" + +"I don't know yet..." + +"Oh, Amory, buck up!" + +"Maybe." + +Amory's 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, +half-accidentally 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 +mother's 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 tri-cornered 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 father's 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 Beatrice's 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 up-keep, including Beatrice's electric and +a French car, bought that year, was over thirty-five 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 +Beatrice's 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 doctor's 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 O'Hara fortunes +consisted of the place at Lake Geneva and approximately a half million +dollars, invested now in fairly conservative six-per-cent holdings. In +fact, Beatrice wrote that she was putting the money into railroad and +street-car 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 street-cars. I shall never forgive myself for not buying + Bethlehem Steel. I've heard the most fascinating stories. You + must go into finance, Amory. I'm sure you would revel in it. + You start as a messenger or a teller, I believe, and from that you + go up--almost indefinitely. I'm sure if I were a man I'd 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 don't know whether that is a fad at + Princeton too, but I don't 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 + can't 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 don't 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 middle-aged +sanity of a cigar. + +"I've felt like leaving college, Monsignor." + +"Why?" + +"All my career's gone up in smoke; you think it's petty and all that, +but--" + +"Not at all petty. I think it's most important. I want to hear the whole +thing. Everything you've been doing since I saw you last." + +Amory talked; he went thoroughly into the destruction of his egotistic +highways, and in a half-hour the listless quality had left his voice. + +"What would you do if you left college?" asked Monsignor. + +"Don't know. I'd like to travel, but of course this tiresome war +prevents that. Anyways, mother would hate not having me graduate. I'm +just at sea. Kerry Holiday wants me to go over with him and join the +Lafayette Esquadrille." + +"You know you wouldn't like to go." + +"Sometimes I would--to-night I'd go in a second." + +"Well, you'd have to be very much more tired of life than I think you +are. I know you." + +"I'm 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, I'm not worried about you; you +seem to me to be progressing perfectly naturally." + +"No," Amory objected. "I've lost half my personality in a year." + +"Not a bit of it!" scoffed Monsignor. "You've lost a great amount of +vanity and that's all." + +"Lordy! I feel, anyway, as if I'd gone through another fifth form at St. +Regis's." + +"No." Monsignor shook his head. "That was a misfortune; this has been +a good thing. Whatever worth while comes to you, won't be through the +channels you were searching last year." + +"What could be more unprofitable than my present lack of pep?" + +"Perhaps in itself... but you're developing. This has given you time to +think and you're casting off a lot of your old luggage about success and +the superman and all. People like us can't 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 high-handed scheme of blind +dominance is concerned--we'd just make asses of ourselves." + +"But, Monsignor, I can't 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 we're not personalities, but personages." + +"That's 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--I've 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 he's done. He's 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, that's 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 haven't my possessions, I'm helpless!" + +"Absolutely." + +"That's certainly an idea." + +"Now you've 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 Amory's 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 you're a mediaevalist," Monsignor answered. "We both are. It's +the passion for classifying and finding a type." + +"It's a desire to get something definite." + +"It's 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." + +"Don't 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. + + Don't let yourself feel worthless; often through life you will + really be at your worst when you seem to think best of yourself; + and don't 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 P.M. + + 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 Jack-in-the-box 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 don't blame yourself too much. + + You say that convention is all that really keeps you straight in + this "woman proposition"; but it's more than that, Amory; it's + the fear that what you begin you can't stop; you would run amuck, + and I know whereof I speak; it's that half-miraculous sixth sense + by which you detect evil, it's the half-realized fear of God in + your heart. + + Whatever your metier proves to be--religion, architecture, + literature--I'm sure you would be much safer anchored to the + Church, but I won't 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 Amory's 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 Sloane's as typical as any: sets +of Kipling, O. Henry, John Fox, Jr., and Richard Harding Davis; "What +Every Middle-Aged 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 D'Invilliers, 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 Shelley's, and +featured his ultrafree free verse and prose poetry in the Nassau +Literary Magazine. But Tanaduke's 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 "noon-swirled moons," and +met winter muses, unacademic, and cloistered by Forty-second Street +and Broadway, instead of the Shelleyan dream-children 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 +Amory's suggestion that Pope for Tanaduke was like foot-ease for stomach +trouble, they withdrew in laughter, and called it a coin's 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 Lecture-Room," +which he persuaded Tom to print in the Nassau Lit. + + + "Good-morning, 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; + You'd sniffled through an era's must, + Filling your nostrils up with dust, + And then, arising from your knees, + Published, in one gigantic sneeze... + But here's a neighbor on my right, + An Eager Ass, considered bright; + Asker of questions.... How he'll stand, + With earnest air and fidgy hand, + After this hour, telling you + He sat all night and burrowed through + Your book.... Oh, you'll be coy and he + Will simulate precosity, + And pedants both, you'll 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 he's sent, + Plays havoc with your best per cent. + + Still--still I meet you here and there... + When Shakespeare's played you hold a chair, + And some defunct, moth-eaten star + Enchants the mental prig you are... + A radical comes down and shocks + The atheistic orthodox? + You're 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 hour's up... and roused from rest + One hundred children of the blest + Cheat you a word or two with feet + That down the noisy aisle-ways beat... + Forget on _narrow-minded earth_ + The Mighty Yawn that gave you birth." + + +In April, Kerry Holiday left college and sailed for France to enroll in +the Lafayette Esquadrille. Amory's 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 + +Healy's they left at twelve and taxied to Bistolary's. 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 we're 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. + +"There's Findle Margotson, from New Haven!" she cried above the uproar. +"'Lo, Findle! Whoo-ee!" + +"Oh, Axia!" he shouted in salutation. "C'mon over to our table." "No!" +Amory whispered. + +"Can't do it, Findle; I'm with somebody else! Call me up to-morrow about +one o'clock!" + +Findle, a nondescript man-about-Bisty's, answered incoherently and +turned back to the brilliant blonde whom he was endeavoring to steer +around the room. + +"There's a natural damn fool," commented Amory. + +"Oh, he's all right. Here's 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 three-fourths +of the whole business was for effect and therefore harmless, ended at +the door of the cafe, soon enough for the five-o'clock train back to +Yale or Princeton; about one-fourth 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 o'clock they moved to Maxim's, and two found them in +Deviniere's. 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 near-by table was looking at him. He turned and +glanced casually... a middle-aged man dressed in a brown sack suit, it +was, sitting a little apart at a table by himself and watching their +party intently. At Amory's glance he smiled faintly. Amory turned to +Fred, who was just sitting down. + +"Who's that pale fool watching us?" he complained indignantly. + +"Where?" cried Sloane. "We'll 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. "We've got brandy and fizz--and +everything's slow down here to-night." + +Amory considered quickly. He hadn't 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 Axia's arm and, piling intimately into a taxicab, they drove out +over the hundreds and drew up at a tall, white-stone apartment-house. +... Never would he forget that street.... It was a broad street, lined +on both sides with just such tall, white-stone 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 hall-boy and a key-rack; 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 Phoebe's living-room and +sink onto a sofa, while the girls went rummaging for food. + +"Phoebe's great stuff," confided Sloane, sotto voce. + +"I'm only going to stay half an hour," Amory said sternly. He wondered +if it sounded priggish. + +"Hell y' say," protested Sloane. "We're here now--don't le's rush." + +"I don't like this place," Amory said sulkily, "and I don't want any +food." + +Phoebe reappeared with sandwiches, brandy bottle, siphon, and four +glasses. + +"Amory, pour 'em out," she said, "and we'll 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. + +"I'll 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 Phoebe's +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, you'd have called it; but like a strong man who'd +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 weren't 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 Axia's voice came +out of the void with a strange goodness. + +"Well, look at Amory! Poor old Amory's sick--old head going 'round?" + +"Look at that man!" cried Amory, pointing toward the corner divan. + +"You mean that purple zebra!" shrieked Axia facetiously. "Ooo-ee! +Amory's 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 weren't 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!" Axia's arm fell on his. "Amory, dear, you aren't +going, Amory!" He was half-way 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... Axia's 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. +Amory's 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 apartment-houses now? Was every one followed +in the moonlight? But if he met some one good who'd 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. Amory's 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 God's sake, let's go back! Let's get off of this--this place!" + +Sloane looked at him in amazement. + +"What do you mean?" + +"This street, it's ghastly! Come on! let's 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, you're +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, "it's filthy, and if you can't see it, +you're filthy, too!" + +"I can't help it," said Sloane doggedly. "What's the matter with you? +Old remorse getting you? You'd be in a fine state if you'd gone through +with our little party." + +"I'm 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. "I'll 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 barber-shop, intending to get a +head massage, the smell of the powders and tonics brought back Axia's +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 +fagged-looking 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 window-pane. The car, a smoker, was hot and stuffy with +most of the smells of the state's 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 +cigar-stub. 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." + +"Don't tell me about it!" Amory almost shrieked. "Don't say a word; I'm +tired and pepped out." + +Tom looked at him queerly and then sank into a chair and opened his +Italian note-book. 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 won't do I'll read Rupert Brooke." + +Half an hour passed. Outside the wind came up, and Amory started as +the wet branches moved and clawed with their finger-nails at the +window-pane. 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 window-pane. "It's gone +now," came Tom's voice after a second in a still terror. "Something was +looking at you." + +Trembling violently, Amory dropped into his chair again. + +"I've got to tell you," he said. "I've had one hell of an experience. +I think I've--I've seen the devil or--something like him. What face did +you just see?--or no," he added quickly, "don't 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 night's rain. + + + +CHAPTER 4. Narcissus Off Duty + + +During Princeton's transition period, that is, during Amory's 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 one-third 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 to-night to see if they can find a +joint means of combating it." + +"Well, what's 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 it'll go through." + +"For Pete's 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 +it's 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 one's mind, more or less, and it just needed +a spark to bring it out." + +"Fine! I swear I think it'll be most entertaining. How do they feel up +at Cap and Gown?" + +"Wild, of course. Every one's been sitting and arguing and swearing and +getting mad and getting sentimental and getting brutal. It's the same at +all the clubs; I've 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. Burne's a damn good talker, and so obviously +sincere that you can't get anywhere with him. It's 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 he'd converted me." + +"And you say almost a third of the junior class are going to resign?" + +"Call it a fourth and be safe." + +"Lord--who'd 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. Don't mind if I seem to rush; I'm going to Renwick's." + +Burne turned to him quickly. + +"You probably know what I want to talk to Tom about, and it isn't a bit +private. I wish you'd stay." + +"I'd 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. Broad-browed and strong-chinned, +with a fineness in the honest gray eyes that were like Kerry's, +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 +first-class, 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 Burne's 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 Burne's 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. + +"Don't know. I'm in a muddle about a lot of things--I've just discovered +that I've a mind, and I'm starting to read." + +"Read what?" + +"Everything. I have to pick and choose, of course, but mostly things to +make me think. I'm 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. I've +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; he's a definite ethical force." + +"Well, I'm ashamed to say that I'm 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. He's 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. "I've read 'Anna Karenina' +and the 'Kreutzer Sonata' of course, but Tolstoi is mostly in the +original Russian as far as I'm concerned." + +"He's 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 thirteenth-century cathedrals--a Catholicism which +Amory found convenient and ready-made, without priest or sacraments or +sacrifice. + +He could not sleep, so he turned on his reading-lamp and, taking down +the "Kreutzer Sonata," searched it carefully for the germs of Burne's +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 brother's 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 +taxi-driver, 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 prom-trotter, had failed to get her +yearly invitation to the Harvard-Princeton 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 latter's +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. + +"She'll 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 didn't want her?" + +"Burne, you _know_ you're secretly mad about her--that's 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: "She'll see, she'll see!" + +The blithesome Phyllis bore her twenty-five 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 peg-top +trousers and gigantic padded shoulders. On their heads were rakish +college hats, pinned up in front and sporting bright orange-and-black +bands, while from their celluloid collars blossomed flaming orange ties. +They wore black arm-bands with orange "P's," 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 tom-cat, 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, far-carrying 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. + +Phyllis's 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. + +"Don't you mind losing prestige?" asked Amory one night. They had taken +to exchanging calls several times a week. + +"Of course I don't. What's prestige, at best?" + +"Some people say that you're just a rather original politician." + +He roared with laughter. + +"That's what Fred Sloane told me to-day. 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 man's +make-up. 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 don't agree with you--I don't 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 broken-down man--and the great saints haven't been +strong." + +"Half of them have." + +"Well, even granting that, I don't think health has anything to do with +goodness; of course, it's 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 can't go that." + +"Well, let's waive it--we won't get anywhere, and besides I haven't +quite made up my mind about it myself. Now, here's something I _do_ +know--personal appearance has a lot to do with it." + +"Coloring?" Amory asked eagerly. + +"Yes." + +"That's what Tom and I figured," Amory agreed. "We took the year-books +for the last ten years and looked at the pictures of the senior council. +I know you don't think much of that august body, but it does represent +success here in a general way. Well, I suppose only about thirty-five +per cent of every class here are blonds, are really light--yet +_two-thirds_ of every senior council are light. We looked at pictures +of ten years of them, mind you; that means that out of every _fifteen_ +light-haired men in the senior class _one_ is on the senior council, and +of the dark-haired men it's only one in _fifty_." + +"It's true," Burne agreed. "The light-haired 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 +light-haired--yet think of the preponderant number of brunettes in the +race." + +"People unconsciously admit it," said Amory. "You'll notice a blond +person is _expected_ to talk. If a blond girl doesn't talk we call her a +'doll'; if a light-haired man is silent he's considered stupid. Yet +the world is full of 'dark silent men' and 'languorous brunettes' who +haven't 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." + +"I'm not so sure." Amory was all for classical features. + +"Oh, yes--I'll show you," and Burne pulled out of his desk a +photographic collection of heavily bearded, shaggy celebrities--Tolstoi, +Whitman, Carpenter, and others. + +"Aren't they wonderful?" + +Amory tried politely to appreciate them, and gave up laughingly. + +"Burne, I think they're the ugliest-looking crowd I ever came across. +They look like an old man's home." + +"Oh, Amory, look at that forehead on Emerson; look at Tolstoi's eyes." +His tone was reproachful. + +Amory shook his head. + +"No! Call them remarkable-looking 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 didn't use to--except when I was +particularly imaginative, but now, I really do--I'm a regular fool about +it." + +"That's useless, you know." + +"Quite possibly." + +"We'll go east," Burne suggested, "and down that string of roads through +the woods." + +"Doesn't sound very appealing to me," admitted Amory reluctantly, "but +let's 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. I'm 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, +Burne's 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 cross-road 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; don't 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 another's place. I knew that if I were the dog or the +convict or the ghost I wouldn't be a menace to Burne Holiday any more +than he was a menace to me. Then I thought of my watch. I'd better go +back and leave it and then essay the woods. No; I decided, it's +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 wasn't 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 couldn't have done that. I'd have come out +half-way, and the first time an automobile passed and made the dark +thicker when its lamps disappeared, I'd have come in." + +"Well," Burne said suddenly, after a few moments' silence, "we're +half-way through, let's turn back." + +On the return he launched into a discussion of will. + +"It's the whole thing," he asserted. "It's the one dividing line between +good and evil. I've never met a man who led a rotten life and didn't +have a weak will." + +"How about great criminals?" + +"They're usually insane. If not, they're weak. There is no such thing as +a strong, sane criminal." + +"Burne, I disagree with you altogether; how about the superman?" + +"Well?" + +"He's evil, I think, yet he's strong and sane." + +"I've never met him. I'll bet, though, that he's stupid or insane." + +"I've met him over and over and he's neither. That's why I think you're +wrong." + +"I'm sure I'm not--and so I don't 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 +self-deluding; 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 vice-presidency 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, "he's the first contemporary I've +ever met whom I'll admit is my superior in mental capacity." + +"It's a bad time to admit it--people are beginning to think he's odd." + +"He's 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. + +"What's he trying to do--be excessively holy?" + +"No! not like anybody you've ever seen. Never enters the Philadelphian +Society. He has no faith in that rot. He doesn't believe that public +swimming-pools 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 haven't any conception of him." + +The argument ended nowhere, but Amory noticed more than ever how the +sentiment toward Burne had changed on the campus. + +"It's odd," Amory said to Tom one night when they had grown more +amicable on the subject, "that the people who violently disapprove of +Burne's radicalism are distinctly the Pharisee class--I mean they're the +best-educated men in college--the editors of the papers, like yourself +and Ferrenby, the younger professors.... The illiterate athletes like +Langueduc think he's 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 +morning's Princetonian at Amory. "He wrote this editorial." + +"Going to flay him alive?" + +"No--but he's got me all balled up. Either I've misjudged him or he's +suddenly become the world's worst radical." + +Burne hurried on, and it was several days before Amory heard an account +of the ensuing conversation. Burne had come into the editor's sanctum +displaying the paper cheerfully. + +"Hello, Jesse." + +"Hello there, Savonarola." + +"I just read your editorial." + +"Good boy--didn't know you stooped that low." + +"Jesse, you startled me." + +"How so?" + +"Aren't 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, +didn't he? or was it Washington, or one of the saints? Good Lord, I've +forgotten." + +Burne roared with laughter. + +"Oh, Jesse, oh, good, kind Jesse." + +"Who said it, for Pete's sake?" + +"Well," said Burne, recovering his voice, "St. Matthew attributes it to +Christ." + +"My God!" cried Jesse, and collapsed backward into the waste-basket. + + ***** + +AMORY WRITES A POEM + +The weeks tore by. Amory wandered occasionally to New York on the chance +of finding a new shining green auto-bus, that its stick-of-candy +glamour might penetrate his disposition. One day he ventured into a +stock-company 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, I'm 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 didn't bore + Our unfermented souls; I could adore + Your eager face beside me, wide-eyed, 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 What's-Her-Name falls fainting in his arms." + + ***** + +STILL CALM + +"Ghosts are such dumb things," said Alec, "they're slow-witted. 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, s'pose you think there's 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 broom-handle. 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, that's 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 isn't 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 that's 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 you're 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, you're safe; he may lie around under the +bed all night, but you're safe as daylight. If you still have doubts +pull the blanket over your head." + +"All that's very interesting, Tom." + +"Isn't 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. + +"What's 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, don't 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--let's 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 doesn't _bother_ me." + +"Well, then, don't spoil it. If I enjoy going around telling people +guilelessly that I think I'm a genius, let me do it." + +"You're getting a reputation for being eccentric," said Alec, laughing, +"if that's 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, wild-eyed 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 week-ends 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 Rome-haunting 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 don't think you've ever met her, but I wish, as a favor to me, + you'd go to see her. To my mind, she's rather a remarkable woman, + and just about your age." + + +Amory sighed and decided to go, as a favor.... + + ***** + +CLARA + +She was immemorial.... Amory wasn't good enough for Clara, Clara of +ripply golden hair, but then no man was. Her goodness was above the +prosy morals of the husband-seeker, 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' boarding-schools_ 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 drawing-room. + +The idea that the girl was poverty-stricken had appealed to Amory's +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 husband's 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 +heating-problem as best she could. So no wild-haired woman with a hungry +baby at her breast and a sad Amelia-like 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 +level-headedness--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 Puck-like +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 stage-manager 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 misty-eyed at her. + +Very occasionally Amory stayed for little half-hours after the rest of +the court had gone, and they would have bread and jam and tea late in +the afternoon or "maple-sugar lunches," as she called them, at night. + +"You _are_ remarkable, aren't you!" Amory was becoming trite from where +he perched in the centre of the dining-room table one six o'clock. + +"Not a bit," she answered. She was searching out napkins in the +sideboard. "I'm 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 you're 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. + +"There's 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 +many-colored 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 that's a pretty +good average, don't 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 week-ends. +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 half-hour 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 ever-present 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." + +"You're implying that I haven't used myself very well?" + +Clara hesitated. + +"Well, I can't judge. A man, of course, has to go through a lot more, +and I've been sheltered." + +"Oh, don't stall, please, Clara," Amory interrupted; "but do talk about +me a little, won't you?" + +"Surely, I'd adore to." She didn't smile. + +"That's sweet of you. First answer some questions. Am I painfully +conceited?" + +"Well--no, you have tremendous vanity, but it'll amuse the people who +notice its preponderance." + +"I see." + +"You're really humble at heart. You sink to the third hell of depression +when you think you've been slighted. In fact, you haven't much +self-respect." + +"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 he's talking. But I'm not +through; the reason you have so little real self-confidence, even though +you gravely announce to the occasional philistine that you think you're +a genius, is that you've attributed all sorts of atrocious faults to +yourself and are trying to live up to them. For instance, you're always +saying that you are a slave to high-balls." + +"But I am, potentially." + +"And you say you're a weak character, that you've no will." + +"Not a bit of will--I'm 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. +"You're a slave, a bound helpless slave to one thing in the world, your +imagination." + +"You certainly interest me. If this isn't 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 isn't true. +It's biassed." + +"Yes," objected Amory, "but isn't it lack of will-power to let my +imagination shinny on the wrong side?" + +"My dear boy, there's your big mistake. This has nothing to do with +will-power; that's 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, I'll be darned!" exclaimed Amory in surprise, "that's the last +thing I expected." + +Clara didn't gloat. She changed the subject immediately. But she had +started him thinking and he believed she was partly right. He felt like +a factory-owner 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. Clara's 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. + +"I'll bet she won't stay single long." + +"Well, don't scream it out. She ain't lookin' for no advice." + +"_Ain't_ she beautiful!" + + (Enter a floor-walker--silence till he moves forward, smirking.) + +"Society person, ain't she?" + +"Yeah, but poor now, I guess; so they say." + +"Gee! girls, _ain't_ 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 floor-walker 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 stained-glass 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 +couldn't 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 +I'd 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 Mary's eternal +significance. But quite mechanically he heard himself saying: + +"And I love you--any latent greatness that I've got is... oh, I can't +talk, but Clara, if I come back in two years in a position to marry +you--" + +She shook her head. + +"No," she said; "I'd never marry again. I've 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 I'd never marry a clever +man--" She broke off suddenly. + +"Amory." + +"What?" + +"You're not in love with me. You never wanted to marry me, did you?" + +"It was the twilight," he said wonderingly. "I didn't 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. + +"Don't make me out such a light-weight, Clara; you _are_ depressing +sometimes." + +"You're not a light-weight, of all things," she said intently, taking +his arm and opening wide her eyes--he could see their kindliness in the +fading dusk. "A light-weight is an eternal nay." + +"There's so much spring in the air--there's so much lazy sweetness in +your heart." + +She dropped his arm. + +"You're all fine now, and I feel glorious. Give me a cigarette. You've +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 pale-blue twilight. + +"I'm going to the country for to-morrow," she announced, as she stood +panting, safe beyond the flare of the corner lamp-post. "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. I'm 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--you're wrong again, how can a person of your own self-reputed +brains be so constantly wrong about me? I'm the opposite of everything +spring ever stood for. It's unfortunate, if I happen to look like what +pleased some soppy old Greek sculptor, but I assure you that if it +weren't for my face I'd 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 Clara's 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 basket-ball +markings. When Amory went to Washington the next week-end 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 lounge-lizards worried over whether the +government would permit the English-cut 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, "I've heard it all. But I'm not going to +talk propaganda with you. There's a chance that you're right--but even +so we're hundreds of years before the time when non-resistance can touch +us as a reality." + +"But, Amory, listen--" + +"Burne, we'd just argue--" + +"Very well." + +"Just one thing--I don't ask you to think of your family or friends, +because I know they don't 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 aren't just plain +_German?_" + +"Some of them are, of course." + +"How do you know they aren't _all_ pro-German--just a lot of weak +ones--with German-Jewish names." + +"That's the chance, of course," he said slowly. "How much or how little +I'm taking this stand because of propaganda I've heard, I don't know; +naturally I think that it's my most innermost conviction--it seems a +path spread before me just now." + +Amory's heart sank. + +"But think of the cheapness of it--no one's really going to martyr you +for being a pacifist--it's 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 that's why I'm not sure I'll agitate." + +"You're one man, Burne--going to talk to people who won't listen--with +all God's given you." + +"That's 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, I've always felt that Stephen's 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." + +"That's all--this is my particular duty. Even if right now I'm just a +pawn--just sacrificed. God! Amory--you don't think I like the Germans!" + +"Well, I can't say anything else--I get to the end of all the logic +about non-resistance, 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 Tolstoi's, and the other +logical necessity of Nietzsche's--" Amory broke off suddenly. "When are +you going?" + +"I'm going next week." + +"I'll 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 Kerry's when he had said good-by under +Blair Arch two years before. Amory wondered unhappily why he could never +go into anything with the primal honesty of those two. + +"Burne's a fanatic," he said to Tom, "and he's dead wrong and, I'm +inclined to think, just an unconscious pawn in the hands of anarchistic +publishers and German-paid 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 good-by, 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 window-seat as Burne and Amory shook +hands. + +But Amory was not in a mood for that, and as he saw Burne's 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 Burne's +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 Goethe's 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 can't make up my mind--I hate mechanics, but +then of course aviation's 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 don't know a horse-power from a piston-rod." + +Somehow Amory's 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 note-book. The lecturer was saying something +about Tennyson's 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 professor's 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: "All's 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--'I've fixed it up!' you cried, + Took your fifty years of Europe, and then virtuously--died." + +"That was to a great extent Tennyson's idea," came the lecturer's voice. +"Swinburne's Song in the Time of Order might well have been Tennyson's +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 note-book. + +"Here's 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. + +"He's absolutely irreconcilable with any Utopia. As long as he occurs, +there's 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." + +"That's all. I think the worst thing to contemplate is this--it's +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 won't 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 it's clothed in filth or monotony or +magnificence." + +"God! Haven't 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 training-camps, 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 to-night." + +"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; it's the whole heritage +of youth. We're just one generation--we're breaking all the links that +seemed to bind us here to top-booted and high-stocked generations. We've +walked arm and arm with Burr and Light-Horse Harry Lee through half +these deep-blue nights." + +"That's what they are," Tom tangented off, "deep blue--a bit of color +would spoil them, make them exotic. Spires, against a sky that's +a promise of dawn, and blue light on the slate roofs--it hurts... +rather--" + +"Good-by, 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, 1917-February, 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 magic-lantern 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 out-and-out materialistic world--and the Catholic +Church. I wonder where you'll fit in. Of one thing I'm sure--Celtic +you'll live and Celtic you'll die; so if you don't use heaven as a +continual referendum for your ideas you'll find earth a continual recall +to your ambitions. + +Amory, I've discovered suddenly that I'm an old man. Like all old +men, I've had dreams sometimes and I'm going to tell you of them. I've +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... it's 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 O'Haras have in common is that of the O'Donahues... 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. It's better to leave the +blustering and tremulo-heroism to the middle classes; they do it so much +better. + +Do you remember that week-end 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--we're extraordinary, we're 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 middle-aged +clergyman should write to a youth about to depart for the war; the only +excuse is that the middle-aged 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.... I've 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. Good-by, 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 note-book and pencil and then began +to write, slowly, laboriously: + + + "We leave to-night... + 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 gray-ribbed 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 to-night." + + +A letter from Amory, headed "Brest, March 11th, 1919," to Lieutenant T. +P. D'Invilliers, 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 don't know what I'm 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, fat-paunched 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 I'd been an Englishman; +American life is so damned dumb and stupid and healthy. + +Since poor Beatrice died I'll 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 stained-glass windows and seminary endowments. +Mr. Barton, my lawyer, writes me that my thousands are mostly in street +railways and that the said Street R.R. s are losing money because of the +five-cent fares. Imagine a salary list that gives $350 a month to a man +that can't read and write!--yet I believe in it, even though I've +seen what was once a sizable fortune melt away between speculation, +extravagance, the democratic administration, and the income tax--modern, +that's me all over, Mabel. + +At any rate we'll have really knock-out 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--he's looking over my shoulder and he says it's +a brass company, but I don't think it matters much, do you? There's +probably as much corruption in zinc-made money as brass-made money. As +for the well-known 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 don't you become a Catholic? Of course to be a good one you'd +have to give up those violent intrigues you used to tell me about, +but you'd 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 I'll introduce you to Monsignor Darcy who really is +a wonder. + +Kerry's death was a blow, so was Jesse's to a certain extent. And I have +a great curiosity to know what queer corner of the world has swallowed +Burne. Do you suppose he's 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 haven't any good writers any more. I'm sick of Chesterton. + +I've only discovered one soldier who passed through the much-advertised +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 that's 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 crisis-inspired 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, we'll 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 machine-guns with the property owners--or +throw bombs with the Bolshevik God! Tom, I hope something happens. I'm +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 I'm going West +to see Mr. Barton and get some details. Write me care of the Blackstone, +Chicago. + + S'ever, 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 Sixty-eighth Street, New York. A girl's room: pink +walls and curtains and a pink bedspread on a cream-colored bed. Pink and +cream are the motifs of the room, but the only article of furniture +in full view is a luxurious dressing-table with a glass top and a +three-sided 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 tissue-paper 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! There's some one! +Disappointment! This is only a maid hunting for something--she lifts +a heap from a chair--Not there; another heap, the dressing-table, 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 Alec's 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 +maid's 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, empty-handed. + +More chatter outside and a girl's 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 good-humored. 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: I've got it! + +(She sees herself in the mirror of the dressing-table 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 _that's_ where you all are! Amory Blaine is here. + +CECELIA: (Quickly) Take him down-stairs. + +ALEC: Oh, he _is_ down-stairs. + +MRS. CONNAGE: Well, you can show him where his room is. Tell him I'm +sorry that I can't meet him now. + +ALEC: He's heard a lot about you all. I wish you'd hurry. Father's +telling him all about the war and he's restless. He's 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: Don't 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 he's got some +income now. + +(MRS. CONNAGE appears.) + +MRS. CONNAGE: Alec, of course we're glad to have any friend of yours-- + +ALEC: You certainly ought to meet Amory. + +MRS. CONNAGE: Of course, I want to. But I think it's 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 isn't in order that you can all +drink as much as you want. (She pauses.) He'll be a little neglected +to-night. This is Rosalind's 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 hasn't changed a bit. + +CECELIA: (In a lower tone) She's awfully spoiled. + +ALEC: She'll meet her match to-night. + +CECELIA: Who--Mr. Amory Blaine? + +(ALEC nods.) + +CECELIA: Well, Rosalind has still to meet the man she can't 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. She's a--she's 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, she's 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: Rosalind's almost finished so I can go down and meet your +friend. + +(ALEC and his mother go out.) + +ROSALIND: (Outside) Oh, mother-- + +CECELIA: Mother's 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 doesn't 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 +mother's friends that the only excuse for women was the necessity for +a disturbing element among men. She danced exceptionally well, drew +cleverly but hastily, and had a startling facility with words, which she +used only in love-letters. + +But all criticism of ROSALIND ends in her beauty. There was that shade +of glorious yellow hair, the desire to imitate which supports the dye +industry. There was the eternal kissable mouth, small, slightly sensual, +and utterly disturbing. There were gray eyes and an unimpeachable skin +with two spots of vanishing color. She was slender and athletic, without +underdevelopment, and it was a delight to watch her move about a room, +walk along a street, swing a golf club, or turn a "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, once-in-a-century blend. + +On the night of her debut she is, for all her strange, stray wisdom, +quite like a happy little girl. Her mother's 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. +ISABELLE'S 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 dressing-table.) One's +a hoop skirt with pantaloons; the other's a one-piece bathing-suit. I'm +quite charming in both of them. + +CECELIA: Glad you're coming out? + +ROSALIND: Yes; aren't you? + +CECELIA: (Cynically) You're 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 I've _found_ it one. + +CECELIA: Ha! + +ROSALIND: Cecelia, darling, you don't know what a trial it is to +be--like me. I've 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 I'd go on the +stage. + +CECELIA: Yes, you might as well get paid for the amount of acting you +do. + +ROSALIND: Sometimes when I've felt particularly radiant I've thought, +why should this be wasted on one man? + +CECELIA: Often when you're particularly sulky, I've wondered why it +should all be wasted on just one family. (Getting up.) I think I'll go +down and meet Mr. Amory Blaine. I like temperamental men. + +ROSALIND: There aren't any. Men don't know how to be really angry or +really happy--and the ones that do, go to pieces. + +CECELIA: Well, I'm glad I don't have all your worries. I'm engaged. + +ROSALIND: (With a scornful smile) Engaged? Why, you little lunatic! +If mother heard you talking like that she'd send you off to +boarding-school, where you belong. + +CECELIA: You won't tell her, though, because I know things I could +tell--and you're too selfish! + +ROSALIND: (A little annoyed) Run along, little girl! Who are you engaged +to, the iceman? the man that keeps the candy-store? + +CECELIA: Cheap wit--good-by, darling, I'll see you later. + +ROSALIND: Oh, be _sure_ and do that--you're 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, I'm sorry. I thought-- + +SHE: (Smiling radiantly) Oh, you're Amory Blaine, aren't you? + +HE: (Regarding her closely) And you're Rosalind? + +SHE: I'm going to call you Amory--oh, come in--it's all right--mother'll +be right in--(under her breath) unfortunately. + +HE: (Gazing around) This is sort of a new wrinkle for me. + +SHE: This is No Man's Land. + +HE: This is where you--you--(pause) + +SHE: Yes--all those things. (She crosses to the bureau.) See, here's my +rouge--eye pencils. + +HE: I didn't know you were that way. + +SHE: What did you expect? + +HE: I thought you'd 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: I'd like to have some stock in the corporation. + +SHE: Oh, it's not a corporation--it's just "Rosalind, Unlimited." +Fifty-one shares, name, good-will, and everything goes at $25,000 a +year. + +HE: (Disapprovingly) Sort of a chilly proposition. + +SHE: Well, Amory, you don't mind--do you? When I meet a man that doesn't +bore me to death after two weeks, perhaps it'll be different. + +HE: Odd, you have the same point of view on men that I have on women. + +SHE: I'm not really feminine, you know--in my mind. + +HE: (Interested) Go on. + +SHE: No, you--you go on--you've made me talk about myself. That's +against the rules. + +HE: Rules? + +SHE: My own rules--but you--Oh, Amory, I hear you're brilliant. The +family expects _so_ much of you. + +HE: How encouraging! + +SHE: Alec said you'd taught him to think. Did you? I didn't believe any +one could. + +HE: No. I'm really quite dull. + +(He evidently doesn't intend this to be taken seriously.) + +SHE: Liar. + +HE: I'm--I'm religious--I'm literary. I've--I've 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: Don't. + +SHE: Modest too-- + +HE: I'm afraid of you. I'm always afraid of a girl--until I've kissed +her. + +SHE: (Emphatically) My dear boy, the war is over. + +HE: So I'll 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 what's coming) After five minutes. + +HE: But will you--kiss me? Or are you afraid? + +SHE: I'm 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, it's only aroused. + +(He looks it.) + +SHE: (Dreamily) I've kissed dozens of men. I suppose I'll 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 I'm years older in +experience. + +SHE: How old are you? + +HE: Almost twenty-three. You? + +SHE: Nineteen--just. + +HE: I suppose you're the product of a fashionable school. + +SHE: No--I'm fairly raw material. I was expelled from Spence--I've +forgotten why. + +HE: What's your general trend? + +SHE: Oh, I'm bright, quite selfish, emotional when aroused, fond of +admiration-- + +HE: (Suddenly) I don't 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 don't fall in love with my mouth--hair, eyes, +shoulders, slippers--but _not_ my mouth. Everybody falls in love with my +mouth. + +HE: It's quite beautiful. + +SHE: It's too small. + +HE: No it isn't--let's see. + +(He kisses her again with the same thoroughness.) + +SHE: (Rather moved) Say something sweet. + +HE: (Frightened) Lord help me. + +SHE: (Drawing away) Well, don't--if it's so hard. + +HE: Shall we pretend? So soon? + +SHE: We haven't the same standards of time as other people. + +HE: Already it's--other people. + +SHE: Let's pretend. + +HE: No--I can't--it's sentiment. + +SHE: You're not sentimental? + +HE: No, I'm romantic--a sentimental person thinks things will last--a +romantic person hopes against hope that they won't. Sentiment is +emotional. + +SHE: And you're not? (With her eyes half-closed.) You probably flatter +yourself that that's a superior attitude. + +HE: Well--Rosalind, Rosalind, don't 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: I'd 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 cigarette-case and +hides it in the side drawer of a desk. Her mother enters, note-book in +hand.) + +MRS. CONNAGE: Good--I've been wanting to speak to you alone before we go +down-stairs. + +ROSALIND: Heavens! you frighten me! + +MRS. CONNAGE: Rosalind, you've been a very expensive proposition. + +ROSALIND: (Resignedly) Yes. + +MRS. CONNAGE: And you know your father hasn't what he once had. + +ROSALIND: (Making a wry face) Oh, please don't talk about money. + +MRS. CONNAGE: You can't do anything without it. This is our last year in +this house--and unless things change Cecelia won't have the advantages +you've had. + +ROSALIND: (Impatiently) Well--what is it? + +MRS. CONNAGE: So I ask you to please mind me in several things I've put +down in my note-book. The first one is: don't disappear with young men. +There may be a time when it's valuable, but at present I want you on the +dance-floor where I can find you. There are certain men I want to have +you meet and I don't 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 don't waste a lot of time with the college set--little +boys nineteen and twenty years old. I don't mind a prom or a football +game, but staying away from advantageous parties to eat in little cafes +down-town with Tom, Dick, and Harry-- + +ROSALIND: (Offering her code, which is, in its way, quite as high as her +mother's) Mother, it's done--you can't run everything now the way you +did in the early nineties. + +MRS. CONNAGE: (Paying no attention) There are several bachelor friends +of your father's that I want you to meet to-night--youngish men. + +ROSALIND: (Nodding wisely) About forty-five? + +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 haven't met Mr. Blaine--but I don't think you'll care +for him. He doesn't sound like a money-maker. + +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 I'll marry a ton of it--out of +sheer boredom. + +MRS. CONNAGE: (Referring to note-book) I had a wire from Hartford. +Dawson Ryder is coming up. Now there's a young man I like, and he's +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 he's 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, pre-battle affairs. They're +all wrong. + +MRS. CONNAGE: (Her say said) At any rate, make us proud of you to-night. + +ROSALIND: Don't you think I'm beautiful? + +MRS. CONNAGE: You know you are. + +(From down-stairs 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 +cigarette-case 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 it's positively anticlimax. (Shaking hands +with a visionary middle-aged nobleman.) Yes, your grace--I b'lieve +I've heard my sister speak of you. Have a puff--they're very good. +They're--they're Coronas. You don't smoke? What a pity! The king doesn't +allow it, I suppose. Yes, I'll dance. + +(So she dances around the room to a tune from down-stairs, her arms +outstretched to an imaginary partner, the cigarette waving in her hand.) + + ***** + +SEVERAL HOURS LATER + +The corner of a den down-stairs, 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 fox-trot. + +ROSALIND is seated on the lounge and on her left is HOWARD GILLESPIE, a +vapid youth of about twenty-four. He is obviously very unhappy, and she +is quite bored. + +GILLESPIE: (Feebly) What do you mean I've changed. I feel the same +toward you. + +ROSALIND: But you don't look the same to me. + +GILLESPIE: Three weeks ago you used to say that you liked me because I +was so blase, 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) They're still thin and brown. You're a vampire, +that's all. + +ROSALIND: The only thing I know about vamping is what's on the piano +score. What confuses men is that I'm 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 haven't 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 +there's a third kind, where the man is kissed and deserted. If Mr. +Jones of the nineties bragged he'd kissed a girl, every one knew he was +through with her. If Mr. Jones of 1919 brags the same every one knows +it's because he can't 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 +he's 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 won't fight, +he doesn't want to play--Victory! + +(Enter DAWSON RYDER, twenty-six, 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 haven't 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 haven't seen it lately. I'm weary--Do you mind +sitting out a minute? + +RYDER: Mind--I'm delighted. You know I loathe this "rushing" idea. See a +girl yesterday, to-day, to-morrow. + +ROSALIND: Dawson! + +RYDER: What? + +ROSALIND: I wonder if you know you love me. + +RYDER: (Startled) What--Oh--you know you're remarkable! + +ROSALIND: Because you know I'm an awful proposition. Any one who marries +me will have his hands full. I'm mean--mighty mean. + +RYDER: Oh, I wouldn't say that. + +ROSALIND: Oh, yes, I am--especially to the people nearest to me. (She +rises.) Come, let's go. I've 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) I'll go if you want me to. + +CECELIA: Good heavens, no--with whom would I begin the next dance? +(Sighs.) There's no color in a dance since the French officers went +back. + +ALEC: (Thoughtfully) I don't 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 don't know. I'm awfully +attached to Amory. He's sensitive and I don't want him to break his +heart over somebody who doesn't care about him. + +CECELIA: He's very good looking. + +ALEC: (Still thoughtfully) She won't marry him, but a girl doesn't have +to marry a man to break his heart. + +CECELIA: What does it? I wish I knew the secret. + +ALEC: Why, you cold-blooded little kitty. It's 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 you've come to the best people to find +out. She'd 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: I'm 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 I'll-- + +ALEC: (Flippantly) Hadn't you better send the butler through the cellar? + +MRS. CONNAGE: (Perfectly serious) Oh, you don't think she'd be there? + +CECELIA: He's only joking, mother. + +ALEC: Mother had a picture of her tapping a keg of beer with some high +hurdler. + +MRS. CONNAGE: Let's look right away. + +(They go out. ROSALIND comes in with GILLESPIE.) + +GILLESPIE: Rosalind--Once more I ask you. Don't you care a blessed thing +about me? + +(AMORY walks in briskly.) + +AMORY: My dance. + +ROSALIND: Mr. Gillespie, this is Mr. Blaine. + +GILLESPIE: I've met Mr. Blaine. From Lake Geneva, aren't you? + +AMORY: Yes. + +GILLESPIE: (Desperately) I've been there. It's in the--the Middle West, +isn't it? + +AMORY: (Spicily) Approximately. But I always felt that I'd rather be +provincial hot-tamale than soup without seasoning. + +GILLESPIE: What! + +AMORY: Oh, no offense. + +(GILLESPIE bows and leaves.) + +ROSALIND: He's 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 can't change a tire. + +ROSALIND: What are you going to do? + +AMORY: Can't 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 I'd 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: I've 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 can't 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: It's so hard to find a male to gratify one's artistic taste. + +(Some one has opened a door and the music of a waltz surges into the +room. ROSALIND rises.) + +ROSALIND: Listen! they're 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, don't talk. Kiss me again. + +AMORY: I don't know why or how, but I love you--from the moment I saw +you. + +ROSALIND: Me too--I--I--oh, to-night's to-night. + +(Her brother strolls in, starts and then in a loud voice says: "Oh, +excuse me," and goes.) + +ROSALIND: (Her lips scarcely stirring) Don't let me go--I don't 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 love-affair," she told her anxious mother, "but +it's 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 love-affairs 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 half-dream 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 Tom's 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 to-day?" + +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! She's wonderful!" + +Tom sighed. + +"I can't tell you," repeated Amory, "just how wonderful she is. I don't +want you to know. I don't want any one to know." + +Another sigh came from the window--quite a resigned sigh. + +"She's 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 you'd come to-night," 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 you're ready for me I'll marry you." + +"We won't have much at first." + +"Don't!" she cried. "It hurts when you reproach yourself for what you +can't give me. I've got your precious self--and that's enough for me." + +"Tell me..." + +"You know, don't 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 haven't any people." + +"Don't laugh at me, Amory. Just kiss me." + +"I'll do what you want," he said. + +"No, I'll do what _you_ want. We're _you_--not me. Oh, you're so much a +part, so much all of me..." + +He closed his eyes. + +"I'm so happy that I'm frightened. Wouldn't it be awful if this was--was +the high point?..." + +She looked at him dreamily. + +"Beauty and love pass, I know.... Oh, there's 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, we're beautiful, I know. I'm sure God loves us--" + +"He loves you. You're his most precious possession." + +"I'm not his, I'm 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 down-town 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, thirty-foot summer-house. +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 didn't 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 opera-cloak. She takes in ROSALIND +with a nervous glance. + +MRS. CONNAGE: Who is coming to-night? + +(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 to-night? + +ROSALIND: (Starting) Oh--what--oh--Amory-- + +MRS. CONNAGE: (Sarcastically) You have so _many_ admirers lately that I +couldn't imagine _which_ one. (ROSALIND doesn't answer.) Dawson Ryder +is more patient than I thought he'd be. You haven't 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_ won't interfere. You've already wasted over two +months on a theoretical genius who hasn't a penny to his name, but _go_ +ahead, waste your life on him. _I_ won't interfere. + +ROSALIND: (As if repeating a tiresome lesson) You know he has a +little income--and you know he's earning thirty-five dollars a week in +advertising-- + +MRS. CONNAGE: And it wouldn't 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 you'll spend your days regretting. It's not as if your +father could help you. Things have been hard for him lately and he's an +old man. You'd be dependent absolutely on a dreamer, a nice, well-born +boy, but a dreamer--merely _clever_. (She implies that this quality in +itself is rather vicious.) + +ROSALIND: For heaven's sake, mother-- + +(A maid appears, announces Mr. Blaine who follows immediately. AMORY'S +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 thirty-six hours.) + +AMORY: Good evening, Mrs. Connage. + +MRS. CONNAGE: (Not unkindly) Good evening, Amory. + +(AMORY and ROSALIND exchange glances--and ALEC comes in. ALEC'S 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 he'd meet you at the theatre. + +ALEC: Yeah, just saw him. How's the advertising to-day? Write some +brilliant copy? + +AMORY: Oh, it's 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 you're 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, we're so darned pitiful! + +AMORY: Rosalind! + +ROSALIND: Oh, I want to die! + +AMORY: Rosalind, another night of this and I'll go to pieces. You've +been this way four days now. You've got to be more encouraging or I +can't work or eat or sleep. (He looks around helplessly as if searching +for new words to clothe an old, shopworn phrase.) We'll have to make a +start. I like having to make a start together. (His forced hopefulness +fades as he sees her unresponsive.) What's the matter? (He gets up +suddenly and starts to pace the floor.) It's Dawson Ryder, that's what +it is. He's been working on your nerves. You've been with him every +afternoon for a week. People come and tell me they've seen you together, +and I have to smile and nod and pretend it hasn't the slightest +significance for me. And you won't tell me anything as it develops. + +ROSALIND: Amory, if you don't sit down I'll scream. + +AMORY: (Sitting down suddenly beside her) Oh, Lord. + +ROSALIND: (Taking his hand gently) You know I love you, don't you? + +AMORY: Yes. + +ROSALIND: You know I'll always love you-- + +AMORY: Don't talk that way; you frighten me. It sounds as if we weren't +going to have each other. (She cries a little and rising from the couch +goes to the armchair.) I've felt all afternoon that things were worse. +I nearly went wild down at the office--couldn't write a line. Tell me +everything. + +ROSALIND: There's nothing to tell, I say. I'm just nervous. + +AMORY: Rosalind, you're playing with the idea of marrying Dawson Ryder. + +ROSALIND: (After a pause) He's been asking me to all day. + +AMORY: Well, he's got his nerve! + +ROSALIND: (After another pause) I like him. + +AMORY: Don't say that. It hurts me. + +ROSALIND: Don't be a silly idiot. You know you're the only man I've ever +loved, ever will love. + +AMORY: (Quickly) Rosalind, let's get married--next week. + +ROSALIND: We can't. + +AMORY: Why not? + +ROSALIND: Oh, we can't. I'd be your squaw--in some horrible place. + +AMORY: We'll have two hundred and seventy-five dollars a month all told. + +ROSALIND: Darling, I don't even do my own hair, usually. + +AMORY: I'll do it for you. + +ROSALIND: (Between a laugh and a sob) Thanks. + +AMORY: Rosalind, you _can't_ be thinking of marrying some one else. Tell +me! You leave me in the dark. I can help you fight it out if you'll only +tell me. + +ROSALIND: It's just--us. We're pitiful, that's 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. He's so reliable, I almost feel that +he'd be a--a background. + +AMORY: You don't love him. + +ROSALIND: I know, but I respect him, and he's a good man and a strong +one. + +AMORY: (Grudgingly) Yes--he's that. + +ROSALIND: Well--here's 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 couldn't help +thinking he'd be so nice to--to our children--take care of them--and I +wouldn't have to worry. + +AMORY: (In despair) Rosalind! Rosalind! + +ROSALIND: (With a faint roguishness) Don't look so consciously +suffering. + +AMORY: What power we have of hurting each other! + +ROSALIND: (Commencing to sob again) It's been so perfect--you and I. So +like a dream that I'd longed for and never thought I'd find. The first +real unselfishness I've ever felt in my life. And I can't see it fade +out in a colorless atmosphere! + +AMORY: It won't--it won't! + +ROSALIND: I'd rather keep it as a beautiful memory--tucked away in my +heart. + +AMORY: Yes, women can do that--but not men. I'd remember always, not +the beauty of it while it lasted, but just the bitterness, the long +bitterness. + +ROSALIND: Don't! + +AMORY: All the years never to see you, never to kiss you, just a gate +shut and barred--you don't dare be my wife. + +ROSALIND: No--no--I'm taking the hardest course, the strongest course. +Marrying you would be a failure and I never fail--if you don't stop +walking up and down I'll scream! + +(Again he sinks despairingly onto the lounge.) + +AMORY: Come over here and kiss me. + +ROSALIND: No. + +AMORY: Don't you _want_ to kiss me? + +ROSALIND: To-night I want you to love me calmly and coolly. + +AMORY: The beginning of the end. + +ROSALIND: (With a burst of insight) Amory, you're young. I'm 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 you've +got a lot of knocks coming to you-- + +AMORY: And you're afraid to take them with me. + +ROSALIND: No, not that. There was a poem I read somewhere--you'll 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 passion's ebb as we greet its flow, + To have and to hold, and, in time--let go." + +AMORY: But we haven't had. + +ROSALIND: Amory, I'm yours--you know it. There have been times in the +last month I'd have been completely yours if you'd said so. But I can't +marry you and ruin both our lives. + +AMORY: We've got to take our chance for happiness. + +ROSALIND: Dawson says I'd 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 can't do with you, and I can't imagine life +without you. + +AMORY: Rosalind, we're on each other's nerves. It's just that we're both +high-strung, and this week-- + +(His voice is curiously old. She crosses to him and taking his face in +her hands, kisses him.) + +ROSALIND: I can't, Amory. I can't be shut away from the trees and +flowers, cooped up in a little flat, waiting for you. You'd hate me in a +narrow atmosphere. I'd make you hate me. + +(Again she is blinded by sudden uncontrolled tears.) + +AMORY: Rosalind-- + +ROSALIND: Oh, darling, go--Don't make it harder! I can't stand it-- + +AMORY: (His face drawn, his voice strained) Do you know what you're +saying? Do you mean forever? + +(There is a difference somehow in the quality of their suffering.) + +ROSALIND: Can't you see-- + +AMORY: I'm afraid I can't if you love me. You're afraid of taking two +years' knocks with me. + +ROSALIND: I wouldn't be the Rosalind you love. + +AMORY: (A little hysterically) I can't give you up! I can't, that's all! +I've got to have you! + +ROSALIND: (A hard note in her voice) You're being a baby now. + +AMORY: (Wildly) I don't care! You're spoiling our lives! + +ROSALIND: I'm doing the wise thing, the only thing. + +AMORY: Are you going to marry Dawson Ryder? + +ROSALIND: Oh, don't ask me. You know I'm old in some ways--in +others--well, I'm just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty things +and cheerfulness--and I dread responsibility. I don't 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: That's just why it has to end. Drifting hurts too much. We +can't 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) Don't! Keep it, please--oh, +don't break my heart! + +(She presses the ring softly into his hand.) + +ROSALIND: (Brokenly) You'd better go. + +AMORY: Good-by-- + +(She looks at him once more, with infinite longing, infinite sadness.) + +ROSALIND: Don't ever forget me, Amory-- + +AMORY: Good-by-- + +(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. Misty-eyed 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 Parrish's jovial, +colorful "Old King Cole," was well crowded. Amory stopped in the +entrance and looked at his wrist-watch; 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 Rosalind's 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 free-lunch 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. + +"Name's Jim Wilson--you've 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. + +"You've had plenty, old boy." + +Amory eyed him dumbly until Wilson grew embarrassed under the scrutiny. + +"Plenty, hell!" said Amory finally. "I haven't had a drink to-day." + +Wilson looked incredulous. + +"Have a drink or not?" cried Amory rudely. + +Together they sought the bar. + +"Rye high." + +"I'll just take a Bronx." + +Wilson had another; Amory had several more. They decided to sit down. +At ten o'clock 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 was'e," he insisted with owl-like 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 +ev'thing, women 'specially. Use' be straight 'bout women college. Now +don'givadam." 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 to-morrow +die. 'At's philos'phy for me now on." + +Carling yawned, but Amory, waxing brilliant, continued: + +"Use' wonder 'bout things--people satisfied compromise, fif'y-fif'y +att'tude on life. Now don' wonder, don' wonder--" He became so emphatic +in impressing on Carling the fact that he didn't 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. + +"Cel'brating blowmylife. Great moment blow my life. Can't tell you 'bout +it--" + +He heard Carling addressing a remark to the bartender: + +"Give him a bromo-seltzer." + +Amory shook his head indignantly. + +"None that stuff!" + +"But listen, Amory, you're making yourself sick. You're 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 som'n 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. + +"We'll go over to Shanley's," suggested Carling, offering an elbow. + +With this assistance Amory managed to get his legs in motion enough to +propel him across Forty-second Street. + +Shanley's 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 chocolate-drop. +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 shoe-lace. + +"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 high-balls--" + +He lay for a moment and wondered idly whether they'd 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: "Don't ever +forget me, Amory--don't 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 half-buried 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... we're so pitiful ... just misery we +brought each other.... She'll be shut away from me.... I can't see her; +I can't be her friend. It's got to be that way--it's got to be--" + +And then again: + +"We've 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 Majesty's Foot," and he remembered attempting to recite "Clair de +Lune" at luncheon; then he slept in a big, soft chair until almost +five o'clock 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 Tyson's for a play that had a +four-drink 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 Shanley's, Yonkers, he became almost logical, and by a +careful control of the number of high-balls 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--Amory's 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. To-morrow morning. Going to take a room at the Commodore, get into +a hot bath and open a vein." + +"He's getting morbid!" + +"You need another rye, old boy!" + +"We'll all talk it over to-morrow." + +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 one's health was bad that one felt +that way most. Amory's 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 high-ball, 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 with's a damn fool," confided the blue-eyed 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 you're +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 Amory's ear. + +"That's just Margaret Diamond. She's drunk and this fellow here brought +her. Better let her go." + +"Let him take care of her, then!" shouted Amory furiously. "I'm no W. Y. +C. A. worker, am I?--am I?" + +"Let her go!" + +"It's _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 Diamond's 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. + +"Let's go!" + +"Come on, the taxis are getting scarce!" + +"Check, waiter." + +"C'mon, Amory. Your romance is over." + +Amory laughed. + +"You don't know how true you spoke. No idea. 'At's the whole trouble." + + ***** + +AMORY ON THE LABOR QUESTION + +Two mornings later he knocked at the president's door at Bascome and +Barlow's 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 haven't seen you for several days." + +"No," said Amory. "I'm quitting." + +"Well--well--this is--" + +"I don't like it here." + +"I'm 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 didn't matter a +damn to me whether Harebell's flour was any better than any one else's. +In fact, I never ate any of it. So I got tired of telling people about +it--oh, I know I've been drinking--" + +Mr. Barlow's face steeled by several ingots of expression. + +"You asked for a position--" + +Amory waved him to silence. + +"And I think I was rottenly underpaid. Thirty-five dollars a week--less +than a good carpenter." + +"You had just started. You'd 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, you've got stenographers here you've paid fifteen a week for five +years." + +"I'm not going to argue with you, sir," said Mr. Barlow rising. + +"Neither am I. I just wanted to tell you I'm 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, where'd you get the black eye--and the jaw?" + +Amory laughed. + +"That's 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 wouldn't 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. It's 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. I'd say you've 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. We'll have to get some one else if we're going to +stay here. The rent's going up." + +"Sure. Get anybody. I'll 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 Alec's 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 snap-shots. 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 love's soap, +finally washed his hands with it. He laughed and began to hum "After +you've 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?" Tom's voice held an undertone of anxiety. + +"Uh-huh." + +"Where?" + +"Couldn't say, old keed." + +"Let's have dinner together." + +"Sorry. I told Sukey Brett I'd eat with him." + +"Oh." + +"By-by." + +Amory crossed the street and had a high-ball; then he walked to +Washington Square and found a top seat on a bus. He disembarked at +Forty-third Street and strolled to the Biltmore bar. + +"Hi, Amory!" + +"What'll you have?" + +"Yo-ho! Waiter!" + + ***** + +TEMPERATURE NORMAL + +The advent of prohibition with the "thirsty-first" put a sudden stop to +the submerging of Amory's sorrows, and when he awoke one morning to find +that the old bar-to-bar 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. + +Don't 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 love-affairs, 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 father's 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, life-saturated geniuses to merely diverting +contemporaries. Shaw's 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 Monsignor's. + +He called her on the 'phone one day. Yes, she remembered him perfectly; +no, Monsignor wasn't in town, was in Boston she thought; he'd promised +to come to dinner when he returned. Couldn't Amory take luncheon with +her? + +"I thought I'd 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 he'd left your address at home." + +"Did he think I'd plunged into Bolshevism?" asked Amory, interested. + +"Oh, he's 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 don't blame him." + +"Well, what impressed you more than anything while you were in the army? +You look a great deal older." + +"That's 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. Lawrence's 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 you're his reincarnation, that your +faith will eventually clarify." + +"Perhaps," he assented. "I'm rather pagan at present. It's just that +religion doesn't 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 + +"I'm tres old and tres bored, Tom," said Amory one day, stretching +himself at ease in the comfortable window-seat. 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 Tom's, 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 Montespan's +wraith--at any rate, it was Tom's 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 mid-Western or New Jersey +debbies at the Club-de-Vingt (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 Amory's 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 shouldn't you be bored," yawned Tom. "Isn't that the conventional +frame of mind for the young man of your age and condition?" + +"Yes," said Amory speculatively, "but I'm more than bored; I am +restless." + +"Love and war did for you." + +"Well," Amory considered, "I'm 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. "I'm not sure it didn't 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 couldn't be a real +old-fashioned bolt in the world. Life is too huge and complex. The world +is so overgrown that it can't lift its own fingers, and I was planning +to be such an important finger--" + +"I don't agree with you," Tom interrupted. "There never were men placed +in such egotistic positions since--oh, since the French Revolution." + +Amory disagreed violently. + +"You're mistaking this period when every nut is an individualist for +a period of individualism. Wilson has only been powerful when he has +represented; he's had to compromise over and over again. Just as soon +as Trotsky and Lenin take a definite, consistent stand they'll become +merely two-minute figures like Kerensky. Even Foch hasn't 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 don't 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. I'm a good listener to-day." + +"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 cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand +prominence these days. It's 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; you're on The New Democracy, considered the +most brilliant weekly in the country, read by the men who do things and +all that. What's 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 d'Invilliers, a +blighted Shelley, changing, shifting, clever, unscrupulous, represent +the critical consciousness of the race--Oh, don't 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 _can't_. Too many voices, too much +scattered, illogical, ill-considered criticism. It's 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 paper's 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 people's 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 +machine-gun bullet--" + +Tom was growing restless under this lampooning of his connection with +The New Democracy. + +"What's all this got to do with your being bored?" + +Amory considered that it had much to do with it. + +"How'll 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 twenty-five is an entirely sexless +animal. As a matter of fact, the healthier he is the less that's 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 I've +ever been interested in, except a slim, utilitarian connection with +economics. What I'd 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 +I'm 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 haven't the vital urge. I wanted to be a +regular human being but the girl couldn't see it that way." + +"You'll find another." + +"God! Banish the thought. Why don't you tell me that 'if the girl had +been worth having she'd have waited for you'? No, sir, the girl really +worth having won't wait for anybody. If I thought there'd be another I'd +lose my remaining faith in human nature. Maybe I'll play--but Rosalind +was the only girl in the wide world that could have held me." + +"Well," yawned Tom, "I've played confidant a good hour by the clock. +Still, I'm glad to see you're 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 don't tink he's either clever or amusing--and +what's more, I don't think very many people do, except the editors. He's +just groggy with advertising. And--oh Harold Bell Wright oh Zane Grey--" + +"They try." + +"No, they don't even try. Some of them _can_ write, but they won't sit +down and do one honest novel. Most of them _can't_ write, I'll 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 they're 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?" + +"Don't slow me up! Now there's a few of 'em that seem to have some +cultural background, some intelligence and a good deal of literary +felicity but they just simply won't write honestly; they'd 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. + +"I'm writing a satire on 'em now, calling it 'Boston Bards and Hearst +Reviewers.'" + +"Let's hear it," said Amory eagerly. + +"I've only got the last few lines done." + +"That's very modern. Let's hear 'em, if they're 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, mauve-colored names, + In the Juvenalia + Of my collected editions." + + +Amory roared. + +"You win the iron pansy. I'll buy you a meal on the arrogance of the +last two lines." + +Amory did not entirely agree with Tom's 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.'" + +"It's ghastly!" + +"And I wish American novelists would give up trying to make business +romantically interesting. Nobody wants to read about it, unless it's +crooked business. If it was an entertaining subject they'd 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. "That's another favorite, though I'll 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. You'd think we were a race of cheerful cripples and that +the common end of the Russian peasant was suicide--" + +"Six o'clock," said Amory, glancing at his wrist-watch. "I'll 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 heart-whole 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, wind-washed by night, blow full of strange + half-intermittent 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 half-remembered 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 half-laughter 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 mid-August 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 O'Neill 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 week-end. 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 week-ends. + +Amory, I'm very glad we're 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 won't. 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 Tom's 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 good-by. + +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 mid-August 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 + We'll have forgotten... + Put away... + Desires that melted with the snow, + And dreams begotten + This to-day: + 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 we've 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_ couldn't possibly be used as a rhyme. And then Eleanor had part of +another verse that she couldn't 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 +corn-fields, 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 girl's 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 l'automne + Blessent mon coeur + D'une 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 l'heure + 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?" + +"Somebody's there!" cried the voice unalarmed. "Who are you?--Manfred, +St. Christopher, or Queen Victoria?" + +"I'm 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--you're 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 cat's. + +"Run back!" came the voice, "and jump and I'll catch your hand--no, not +there--on the other side." + +He followed directions and as he sprawled up the side, knee-deep 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?" + +"You've got a thumb like mine!" he exclaimed. + +"And you're 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 +you'll sit opposite me in this hollow you can have half of the raincoat, +which I was using as a water-proof 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 shan't call +you that any more, because you've got reddish hair. Instead you can +recite 'Ulalume' and I'll 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 wasn't +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. + +"I'm not," she said. + +"Not what?" + +"Not mad. I didn't think you were mad when I first saw you, so it isn't +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? What's 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 tell-tale 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 you've seen me," she said calmly, "and I suppose you're about to +say that my green eyes are burning into your brain." + +"What color is your hair?" he asked intently. "It's bobbed, isn't it?" + +"Yes, it's bobbed. I don't know what color it is," she answered, musing, +"so many men have asked me. It's medium, I suppose--No one ever looks +long at my hair. I've got beautiful eyes, though, haven't I. I don't +care what you say, I have beautiful eyes." + +"Answer my question, Madeline." + +"Don't remember them all--besides my name isn't Madeline, it's 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. + +"It's 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 watch-case, 3077 W; nose, +delicate aquiline; temperament, uncanny--" + +"And me," Amory interrupted, "where did you see me?" + +"Oh, you're 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, 'there's 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. I'm 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 haven't the patience to write books; and I +never met a man I'd marry. However, I'm 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 didn't 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 I'm here, to answer another of your questions. I have +just decided that I don't 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--I'm 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 didn't +believe in God--because the lightning might strike me--but here I am and +it hasn't, of course, but the main point is that this time I wasn't any +more afraid of it than I had been when I was a Christian Scientist, like +I was last year. So now I know I'm 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 can't be rational--and I +won't 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--you're sentimental. You're not like +me. I'm a romantic little materialist." + +"I'm not sentimental--I'm 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 won't." (This was an ancient +distinction of Amory's.) + +"Epigrams. I'm going home," she said sadly. "Let's get off the haystack +and walk to the cross-roads." + +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 Eleanor's +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 Amory's 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. I'm a liturgist." + +"Easter!" She turned up her nose. "Huh! Spring in corsets!" + +"Easter _would_ bore spring, wouldn't 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 Hallowe'en 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 can't possibly have a summer love. So +many people have tried that the name's become proverbial. Summer is +only the unfulfilled promise of spring, a charlatan in place of the +warm balmy nights I dream of in April. It's a sad season of life without +growth.... It has no day." + +"Fourth of July," Amory suggested facetiously. + +"Don't 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 Englishman's 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 Eleanor's 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; Swinburne's "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 fleecy-headed 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. Timothy's 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. That's 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 soap-bubble lands where the +sun splattered through wind-drunk 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 half-sensual, half-neurotic 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 scrap-book of +his life. It was all like a banquet where he sat for this half-hour 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 wave's 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 don't 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 vine-hung 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. + +"It's black as pitch." + +"We're 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 you're 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. "Isn't it ghostly here? If you can +hold your horse's feet up, let's cut through the woods and find the +hidden pools." + +"It's after one, and you'll get the devil," he objected, "and I don't +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 riding-crop. "You can leave your old plug +in our stable and I'll send him over to-morrow." + +"But my uncle has got to drive me to the station with this old plug at +seven o'clock." + +"Don't be a spoil-sport--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 I'll pull you over and make you ride behind me." + +She looked up and smiled and shook her head excitedly. + +"Oh, do!--or rather, don't! Why are all the exciting things so +uncomfortable, like fighting and exploring and ski-ing in Canada? By +the way, we're going to ride up Harper's Hill. I think that comes in our +programme about five o'clock." + +"You little devil," Amory growled. "You're going to make me stay up all +night and sleep in the train like an immigrant all day to-morrow, going +back to New York." + +"Hush! some one's coming along the road--let's go! Whoo-ee-oop!" 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 dinner-table. + + + When Vanity kissed Vanity, a hundred happy Junes ago, he + pondered o'er her breathlessly, and, that all men might ever + know, he rhymed her eyes with life and death: + + "Thru Time I'll 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: + + "Who'd 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 Harper's Hill, walking their tired horses. + +"Good Lord! It's 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 it's 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, silver-gray in the rock-ribbed 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--'tump-tump-tump-a-tump.' Have you ever been feverish +and had all noises divide into 'tump-tump-tump' until you could swear +eternity was divisible into so many tumps? That's the way I feel--old +horses go tump-tump.... I guess that's the only thing that separates +horses and clocks from us. Human beings can't go 'tump-tump-tump' +without going crazy." + +The breeze freshened and Eleanor pulled her cape around her and +shivered. + +"Are you very cold?" asked Amory. + +"No, I'm 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; you're 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 what's in store for me--I have to marry, that goes without saying. +Who? I'm 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 don't marry I've got less chance for a +first-class man. At the best I can have my choice from one or two cities +and, of course, I have to marry into a dinner-coat. + +"Listen," she leaned close again, "I like clever men and good-looking +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. I'm hipped on +Freud and all that, but it's rotten that every bit of _real_ love in +the world is ninety-nine per cent passion and one little soupcon of +jealousy." She finished as suddenly as she began. + +"Of course, you're right," Amory agreed. "It's a rather unpleasant +overpowering force that's part of the machinery under everything. It's +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 one's got to have some cloak to throw around it. The +mediocre intellects, Plato's 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 it's 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 can't--I can't kiss you now--I'm more sensitive." + +"You're 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. + +"That's your panacea, isn't it?" she cried. "Oh, you're just an old +hypocrite, too. Thousands of scowling priests keeping the degenerate +Italians and illiterate Irish repentant with gabble-gabble about the +sixth and ninth commandments. It's just all cloaks, sentiment and +spiritual rouge and panaceas. I'll tell you there is no God, not even +a definite abstract goodness; so it's all got to be worked out for the +individual by the individual here in high white foreheads like mine, and +you're too much the prig to admit it." She let go her reins and shook +her little fists at the stars. + +"If there's 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 +Eleanor's blasphemy.... She knew it and it angered him that she knew it. + +"And like most intellectuals who don't find faith convenient," he +continued coldly, "like Napoleon and Oscar Wilde and the rest of your +type, you'll yell loudly for a priest on your death-bed." + +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! +_I'm 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 Eleanor's 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 don't 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 didn't 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. + +"I've got a crazy streak," she faltered, "twice before I've 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 Amory's 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, Earth-born, 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; + Earth-born the tireless is stretched by the water, quite weary, + Close to this ununderstandable changeling that's I... + Fear is an echo we traced to Security's daughter; + Now we are faces and voices... and less, too soon, + Whispering half-love 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 + Rain-blown about you, damp lips curved once more + In that wild irony, that gay despair + That made you old when we have met before; + Wraith-like 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, tear-bright, + 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 day's end, lulled by the +everlasting surge of changing waves, smelling the half-mournful 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 raven-figured 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 driver's 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 d'y do?" + +"Amory," said Alec exuberantly, "if you'll jump in we'll take you to +some secluded nook and give you a wee jolt of Bourbon." + +Amory considered. + +"That's an idea." + +"Step in--move over, Jill, and Amory will smile very handsomely at you." + +Amory squeezed into the back seat beside a gaudy, vermilion-lipped +blonde. + +"Hello, Doug Fairbanks," she said flippantly. "Walking for exercise or +hunting for company?" + +"I was counting the waves," replied Amory gravely. "I'm going in for +statistics." + +"Don't 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! It's hard to think that Jesse and Dick and Kerry are all +three dead." + +Alec shivered. + +"Don't 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--it's good and scarce these days." + +"What I really want to ask you, Amory, is where you are--" + +"Why, New York, I suppose--" + +"I mean to-night, because if you haven't got a room yet you'd better +help me out." + +"Glad to." + +"You see, Tully and I have two rooms with bath between at the Ranier, +and he's got to go back to New York. I don't want to have to move. +Question is, will you occupy one of the rooms?" + +Amory was willing, if he could get in right away. + +"You'll 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 love's 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 half-darkness +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. + +"Don't make a sound!" It was Alec's 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 men's voices and a repeated muffled +rapping. Amory threw off the blankets and moved close to the bathroom +door. + +"My God!" came the girl's voice again. "You'll have to let them in." + +"Sh!" + +Suddenly a steady, insistent knocking began at Amory's hall door +and simultaneously out of the bathroom came Alec, followed by the +vermilion-lipped girl. They were both clad in pajamas. + +"Amory!" an anxious whisper. + +"What's the trouble?" + +"It's house detectives. My God, Amory--they're just looking for a +test-case--" + +"Well, better let them in." + +"You don't 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 I'll get her out by this door." + +"They're here too, though. They'll watch this door." + +"Can't you give a wrong name?" + +"No chance. I registered under my own name; besides, they'd trail the +auto license number." + +"Say you're 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 man's voice, angry and imperative: + +"Open up or we'll 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 one's 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 +motion-picture 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 it's +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 Amory's. + +"Alec, you're going to lie down here. If any one comes in you act drunk. +You do what I say--if you don't I'll probably kill you." + +There was another moment while they stared at each other. Then Amory +went briskly to the bureau and, taking his pocket-book, 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. + +"You're here with me," he said sternly. "You've 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. + +"You've 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. O'May," 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. + +"Didn't 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 Alec's B. V. D.'s 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 +ferret-like. + +"Fellow who had the rooms," said Amory carelessly. "He's drunk as an +owl, though. Been in there asleep since six o'clock." + +"I'll take a look at him presently." + +"How did you find out?" asked Amory curiously. + +"Night clerk saw you go up-stairs with this woman." + +Amory nodded; Jill reappeared from the bathroom, completely if rather +untidily arrayed. + +"Now then," began Olson, producing a note-book, "I want your real +names--no damn John Smith or Mary Brown." + +"Wait a minute," said Amory quietly. "Just drop that big-bully stuff. We +merely got caught, that's 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. +What's your name? Sarah Murphy? Minnie Jackson?" + +"Oh, my God!" cried the girl cupping her tear-stained face in her hands. +"I don't want my mother to know. I don't want my mother to know." + +"Come on now!" + +"Shut up!" cried Amory at Olson. + +An instant's pause. + +"Stella Robbins," she faltered finally. "General Delivery, Rugway, New +Hampshire." + +Olson snapped his note-book shut and looked at them very ponderously. + +"By rights the hotel could turn the evidence over to the police and +you'd go to penitentiary, you would, for bringin' a girl from one State +to 'nother f'r immoral purp'ses--" He paused to let the majesty of his +words sink in. "But--the hotel is going to let you off." + +"It doesn't 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, "there's a protective association among the +hotels. There's 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." + +"You're gettin' off light--damn light--but--" + +"Come on," said Amory briskly. "Let's get out of here. We don't need a +valedictory." + +Olson walked through the bathroom and took a cursory glance at Alec's +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? There's a lady in the elevator." + +Olson's 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. + +"Good-by," said Olson. He reached in his pocket suggestively, but Amory +snorted, and, taking the girl's 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 won't. Nobody'll ever know about this--except our friends and +enemies." + +Dawn was breaking over the sea. + +"It's getting blue," she said. + +"It does very well," agreed Amory critically, and then as an +after-thought: "It's almost breakfast-time--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 +o'clock. Alec didn't give the waiter a tip, so I guess the little +bastard snitched." + +Jill's 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." + +"I'll remember." + +He tapped suddenly at the glass and they drew up at the door of an +all-night 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 won't 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. "That's 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 street-car 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 Darcy's 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, iron-studded +skylight turned yellow; in the street the lamps of the taxi-cabs sent +out glistening sheens along the already black pavement. The unwelcome +November rain had perversely stolen the day's 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 rain-filled 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 half-dozen; 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 coat-collars; a great swarm of +tired, magpie girls from a department-store 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 +isn't 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 wall-papers 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 +coffee-spoons, 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 battle-field 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 it's rotten now. It's +the ugliest thing in the world. It's 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 well-dressed young +man gazing from a club window on Fifth Avenue and saying something to +his companion with a look of utter disgust. Probably, thought Amory, +what he said was: "My God! Aren't 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 self-accusations: +never any more did he reproach himself for feelings that were +natural and sincere. He accepted all his reactions as a part of him, +unchangeable, unmoral. This problem of poverty transformed, magnified, +attached to some grander, more dignified attitude might some day even be +his problem; at present it roused only his profound distaste. + +He walked over to Fifth Avenue, dodging the blind, black menace of +umbrellas, and standing in front of Delmonico's hailed an auto-bus. +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--what's the situation? + +Answer.--That I have about twenty-four dollars to my name. + +Q.--You have the Lake Geneva estate. + +A.--But I intend to keep it. + +Q.--Can you live? + +A.--I can't imagine not being able to. People make money in books and +I've 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 don't know what I'll do--nor have I much curiosity. To-morrow I'm +going to leave New York for good. It's a bad town unless you're 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.--Don't ask _me!_ + +Q.--Don't you care? + +A.--Rather. I don't want to commit moral suicide. + +Q.--Have you no interests left? + +A.--None. I've 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. That's what's called ingenuousness. + +Q.--An interesting idea. + +A.--That's 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!" They're 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. I'm beginning to warm myself at other people's virtue. + +Q.--Are you corrupt? + +A.--I think so. I'm not sure. I'm 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 don't. They just want the fun of eating it all over +again. The matron doesn't want to repeat her girlhood--she wants to +repeat her honeymoon. I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the +pleasure of losing it again. + +Q.--Where are you drifting? + +This dialogue merged grotesquely into his mind's most familiar state--a +grotesque blending of desires, worries, exterior impressions and +physical reactions. + +One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street--or One Hundred and Thirty-seventh +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 +Parker's mother said. Well, he'd had it--I'll sue the steamboat company, +Beatrice said, and my uncle has a quarter interest--did Beatrice go to +heaven?... probably not--He represented Beatrice's immortality, also +love-affairs of numerous dead men who surely had never thought of +him... if it wasn't 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 it's dirty--French rivers all +brown or black, so were Southern rivers. Twenty-four 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 all-American. +Eleanor would pitch, probably southpaw. Rosalind was outfield, wonderful +hitter, Clara first base, maybe. Wonder what Humbird's body looked like +now. If he himself hadn't been bayonet instructor he'd have gone up +to line three months sooner, probably been killed. Where's 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 Twenty-seventh 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 didn't know. I'm just resting." + +"Well--" began the man dubiously. + +"I'll go if you want me to." + +The man made non-committal 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 to-morrow and the thousand days +after he would swell pompously at a compliment and sulk at an ill word +like a third-rate musician or a first-class 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. + +"You're 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, half-reclining on a rug-covered couch, his slender, artistic +fingers closed on a cigarette while he listened to guitars strumming +melancholy undertones to an age-old dirge of Castile and an +olive-skinned, carmine-lipped 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 Phoebe's +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 world-old 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 Bethmann-Hollweg 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 "Almayer's 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 sword-like 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 sugar-coated Nietzsche and +Ibsen and Schopenhauer. The man in the street heard the conclusions +of dead genius through some one else's clever paradoxes and didactic +epigrams. + +Life was a damned muddle... a football game with every one off-side 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 self-reproach 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 night's 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 O'Neill 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 +Amory's 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 Monsignor's 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 Amory's attempted sacrifice had been born merely the full realization +of his disillusion, but of Monsignor's 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 middle-aged 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 chauffeur's 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 +second-hand mannerisms. + +"Going far?" asked the smaller man in a pleasant disinterested way. + +"Quite a stretch." + +"Hiking for exercise?" + +"No," responded Amory succinctly, "I'm walking because I can't afford to +ride." + +"Oh." + +Then again: + +"Are you looking for work? Because there's 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. + +"That's what every one wants nowadays, but they don't 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.' Don't 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 man's chest. + +"If I thought you were a bomb thrower I'd run you over to the Newark +jail. That's 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." + +"What's 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, I'll admit there's money in it eventually. Talent doesn't starve +any more. Even art gets enough to eat these days. Artists draw your +magazine covers, write your advertisements, hash out rag-time for +your theatres. By the great commercializing of printing you've found a +harmless, polite occupation for every genius who might have carved his +own niche. But beware the artist who's an intellectual also. The artist +who doesn't fit--the Rousseau, the Tolstoi, the Samuel Butler, the Amory +Blaine--" + +"Who's he?" demanded the little man suspiciously. + +"Well," said Amory, "he's a--he's an intellectual personage not very +well known at present." + +The little man laughed his conscientious laugh, and stopped rather +suddenly as Amory's burning eyes turned on him. + +"What are you laughing at?" + +"These _intellectual_ people--" + +"Do you know what it means?" + +The little man's eyes twitched nervously. + +"Why, it _usually_ means--" + +"It _always_ means brainy and well-educated," interrupted Amory. "It +means having an active knowledge of the race's 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 bell-boy, 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, "you'll have to admit that the laboring +man is certainly highly paid--five and six hour days--it's ridiculous. +You can't buy an honest day's work from a man in the trades-unions." + +"You've brought it on yourselves," insisted Amory. "You people never +make concessions until they're 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 road-mender over there had the money he'd +be any more willing to give it up?" + +"No, but what's that got to do with it?" + +The older man considered. + +"No, I'll admit it hasn't. It rather sounds as if it had though." + +"In fact," continued Amory, "he'd 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, kind-hearted, 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 hasn't any windows. He's done! Life's got him! He's no help! He's a +spiritually married man." + +Amory paused and decided that it wasn't such a bad phrase. + +"Some men," he continued, "escape the grip. Maybe their wives have no +social ambitions; maybe they've 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, they're the congressmen you can't +bribe, the Presidents who aren't politicians, the writers, speakers, +scientists, statesmen who aren't just popular grab-bags for a half-dozen +women and children." + +"He's 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 hasn't direct power, for unfortunately the spiritually married man, +as a by-product 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 world's intellectual conscience +and, of course, a man who has money under one set of social institutions +quite naturally can't risk his family's happiness by letting the clamor +for another appear in his newspaper." + +"But it appears," said the big man. + +"Where?--in the discredited mediums. Rotten cheap-papered 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 that's +complicated, it's 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. "I've 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--we're _dawdling_ +along. My idea is that we've 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 can't +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 shouldn't 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 I'd have a fair trial of government ownership of all industries." + +"That's been proven a failure." + +"No--it merely failed. If we had government ownership we'd have the +best analytical business minds in the government working for something +besides themselves. We'd have Mackays instead of Burlesons; we'd have +Morgans in the Treasury Department; we'd have Hills running interstate +commerce. We'd have the best lawyers in the Senate." + +"They wouldn't give their best efforts for nothing. McAdoo--" + +"No," said Amory, shaking his head. "Money isn't the only stimulus that +brings out the best that's 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_. + +"That's the silliest thing you've said yet." + +"No, it isn't silly. It's quite plausible. If you'd gone to college +you'd 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--child's play!" scoffed his antagonist. + +"Not by a darned sight--unless we're all children. Did you ever see +a grown man when he's trying for a secret society--or a rising family +whose name is up at some club? They'll jump when they hear the sound of +the word. The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in +front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We've done that for so long +that we've forgotten there's any other way. We've made a world where +that's 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 they'll sweat their heads off for that. If it's only a +blue ribbon, I damn near believe they'll work just as hard. They have in +other ages." + +"I don't agree with you." + +"I know it," said Amory nodding sadly. "It doesn't 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. + +"_Machine-guns!_" + +"Ah, but you've 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 non-property +owners; he decided to change the subject. + +But the big man was aroused. + +"When you talk of 'taking things away,' you're 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. You've +got to be sensational to get attention." + +"Russia is your example of a beneficent violence, I suppose?" + +"Quite possibly," admitted Amory. "Of course, it's overflowing just as +the French Revolution did, but I've no doubt that it's really a great +experiment and well worth while." + +"Don't you believe in moderation?" + +"You won't listen to the moderates, and it's 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. They've 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 +man's enraged stare, he went on with his argument. + +"The human stomach--" he began; but the big man interrupted rather +impatiently. + +"I'm letting you talk, you know," he said, "but please avoid stomachs. +I've been feeling mine all day. Anyway, I don't agree with one-half +you've said. Government ownership is the basis of your whole argument, +and it's invariably a beehive of corruption. Men won't work for blue +ribbons, that's 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 +owl-like 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! _That's_ 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 mutton-heads of the world. It negates the efforts of +every scientist, statesman, moralist, reformer, doctor, and philosopher +that ever gave his life to humanity's service. It's a flat impeachment +of all that's worth while in human nature. Every person over twenty-five +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 quarter-educated, stale-minded men such as your friend here, who +_think_ they think, every question that comes up, you'll find his +type in the usual ghastly muddle. One minute it's 'the brutality and +inhumanity of these Prussians'--the next it's 'we ought to exterminate +the whole German people.' They always believe that 'things are in a bad +way now,' but they 'haven't 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 haven't clear logical ideas +on one single subject except a sturdy, stolid opposition to all change. +They don't think uneducated people should be highly paid, but they won't +see that if they don't pay the uneducated people their children are +going to be uneducated too, and we're 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. + +"You're 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 I'm a militant Socialist. If he can't, then I +don't 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 I've managed to +pick up a good education." + +"You talk glibly." + +"It's not all rubbish," cried Amory passionately. "This is the first +time in my life I've argued Socialism. It's the only panacea I know. I'm +restless. My whole generation is restless. I'm 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 I'd not be content to work ten +years, condemned either to celibacy or a furtive indulgence, to give +some man's son an automobile." + +"But, if you're not sure--" + +"That doesn't matter," exclaimed Amory. "My position couldn't be worse. +A social revolution might land me on top. Of course I'm selfish. It +seems to me I've 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 they'd let any well-tutored 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. I'm in love with change and I've killed my conscience--" + +"So you'll go along crying that we must go faster." + +"That, at least, is true," Amory insisted. "Reform won't catch up to +the needs of civilization unless it's made to. A laissez-faire policy is +like spoiling a child by saying he'll turn out all right in the end. He +will--if he's made to." + +"But you don't believe all this Socialist patter you talk." + +"I don't know. Until I talked to you I hadn't thought seriously about +it. I wasn't sure of half of what I said." + +"You puzzle me," said the big man, "but you're 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 I'm 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. I've thought I was right about life at various +times, but faith is difficult. One thing I know. If living isn't 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. + +"Won't you come in for lunch?" + +Amory shook his head. + +"Thank you, Mr. Ferrenby, but I've 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. + +"Good-by!" 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 frost-bitten country. Nature as a rather coarse phenomenon +composed largely of flowers that, when closely inspected, appeared +moth-eaten, 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 Eleanor's 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 o'clock 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 late-blooming, weepy +watery-blue 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 late-burning 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 half-forgotten 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!... + +"It's 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." + + + + + + +Appendix: Production notes for eBook edition 11 + +The primary feature of edition 11 is restoration of em-dashes which +are missing from edition 10. (My favorite instance is "I won't belong" +rather than "I won't be--long".) + +Characters which are 8-bit in the printed text were misrepresented in +edition 10. Edition 10 had some end-of-paragraph problems. A handful of +other minor errors are corrected. + +Two volumes served as reference for edition 11: a 1960 reprint, and +an undated reprint produced sometime after 1948. There are a number of +differences between the volumes. Evidence suggests that the 1960 reprint +has been somewhat "modernized", and that the undated reprint is a +better match for the original 1920 printing. Therefore, when the volumes +differ, edition 11 more closely follows the undated reprint. + +In edition 11, underscores are used to denote words and phrases +italicized for emphasis. + +There is a section of text in book 2, chapter 3, beginning with "When +Vanity kissed Vanity," which is referred to as "poetry" but is formatted +as prose. + +I considered, but decided against introducing an 8-bit version of +edition 11, in large part because the bulk of the 8-bit usage (as found +in the 1960 reprint) consists of words commonly used in their 7-bit +form: + + Aeschylus blase cafe debut debutante elan elite Encyclopaedia + matinee minutiae paean regime soupcon unaesthetic + +Less-commonly-used 8-bit word forms in this book include: + + anaemic bleme coeur manoeuvered mediaevalist tete-a-tete + and the name "Borge". + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS SIDE OF PARADISE *** + +***** This file should be named 805.txt or 805.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/0/805/ + +Produced by David Reed, and Ken Reeder + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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