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diff --git a/old/tspar10.txt b/old/tspar10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0f19aa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tspar10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11955 @@ +******The Project Gutenberg Etext of This Side of Paradise****** +#1 in our series by F. Scott Fitzgerald + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +This Side of Paradise + +F. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association within the 60 + days following each date you prepare (or were legally + required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) + tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + + +This book was scanned by David Reed. Please let him know if you +find any errors or mistakes. haradda@aol.com or +davidr@inconnect.com. + + + + + +THIS SIDE OF PARADISE + +By F. SCOTT FITZGERALD + + + +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 DIBUTANTE +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 "Fjtes 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 Dark 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 bloodaw, quite goodI 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 recieve 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. +"Wellyou got here, anyways." + +"WellI'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 horsea 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 apologya 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 blasi seclusion before the fire and quite +regain his lost attitude. + +"Oh, sure Mike, we'll catch 'em all rightlet'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 handher +thumb, to be exact. + +"Tell him to go to the Minnehaha straight," he whispered. "I +wanta talk to youI got to talk to you." + +Myra made out the party ahead, had an instant vision of her +mother, and thenalas for conventionglanced 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 crashbut 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-Jonesmounted to the cab-un +Casey-Jones'th his orders in his hand. +Casey-Jonesmounted 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 matinies. +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 voicesindefinite, fading, +enchantingjust 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 itlater in life he almost +completely slew itbut 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 heartyou've probably been neglecting your heartand +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 tˆte-`-tjte 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 +gravelong 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 allit 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 wellas well as I will ever be. I am not understood, Amory. +I know that can't express it to you, Amory, butI 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 nowand +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 Americanindeed, I +think that a regret typical of very vulgar people, and I feel +sure we are the great coming nationyet"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 eagleis 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 Yalebecame a Catholic. I want him to talk to +youI 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 +deadlarge, 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 bustlinga 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 +Richelieuat 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 differentI think of Princeton as being lazy and +good-looking and aristocraticyou 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 patriothe suspected that being Irish was +being somewhat commonbut 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 Bismarckand 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 wasbut 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 ilite 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 +studentsthat 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 finelightest 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 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 knowoh, 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 cafis. 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 cafi, 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 +Minneapolisthese 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 cafis 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 fairy-land 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 minutif +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 +itdo 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?" + +"Yessure. 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 talentsalso 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. + + + +BOOK ONE +The Romantic Egotist + +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 +blasi 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 Holidayhe of the gray eyes was +Kerryand during a limpid meal of thin soup and anfmic 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 thereor 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 +Andthat-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 sundaeI mean a jigger?" asked Kerry. + +"Sure." + +They suppered heavily and then, still sauntering, eased back to + +"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 backgoing back, +Going-back-to-Nas-sau-Hall, +Going backgoing 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 pfan of triumphand 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 +consciousnessWest 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 Princetonits 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 libraryhe +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 +milange 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 ilite 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 collegeshave 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 belong," 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 likeand +Humbird just behind." + +Amory rose dynamically and sought the windows. + +"Oh," he said, scrutinizing these worthies, "Humbird looks like a +knockout, but this Langueduche'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 itintroduce +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 drunkspictures, +books, and furniturein 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 Wittshe's pretty, got a car of her own and that's damn +convenient; there's Sally Weatherbyshe'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 unfsthetic 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 dozensbooks 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 lotthanks." + +"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 groupone of them was +the magnificent, exquisite Humbirdand he considered how +determinate the addition of this friend would be. He never got to +the stage of making them and getting rid of themhe was not hard +enough for thatso 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 +Swinburneor "Fingal O'Flaherty" and "Algernon Charles," as he +called them in pricieuse jest. He read enormously every +nightShaw, Chesterton, Barrie, Pinero, Yeats, Synge, Ernest +Dowson, Arthur Symons, Keats, Sudermann, Robert Hugh Benson, the +Savoy Operasjust 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 softlyfairer 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 timetime 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 differentnot 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 graduatenot 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 accenthowever, 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 posthaste for +Minneapolis, for Sally Weatherby's cousin, Isabelle Borgi, 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 livebut 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 cafis, 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 Frolicof +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?" + +"Nobut 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 +daythe 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 yousays 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; yetin a strange town it was an advantageous +reputation. She was a "Speed," was she? Welllet 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 contactexcept 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 unpopularevery 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 himshe owed it to +Sally. Suppose she were terribly disappointed. Sally had painted +him in such glowing colorshe 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 +soupgon of Southern accent; then she held it off at a distance +and smiled at ither 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 sighedhe 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 startshe 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 +blasi sophistication. She had lived in a larger city and had +slightly an advantage in range. But she accepted his poseit 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 eithershe told me so next time I cut in." It was trueshe +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 enviouslygirls 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 kidworth 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 +comingindeed, 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 youwhat 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 wordso 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 thoughteverything 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 treesonly 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, +IsabelleIsabelle?" 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 themon 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 eveningthat 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 mouthwould 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, KerryI 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 roui?" + + +"'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 andoh +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 pfan 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 +roaredreally 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 lifepossibly +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-builtblack +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 +classhe 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 electionsas 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 yetat 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 partiesto 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 Borgi, 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 marrynot 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 fell 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 cure 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 ment. If it were +anyone but you-but you see I thought you were fickle the first +time I say 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 loveI couldn'tyou'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 blasi, 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 +GenevaI'm counting on you to be there in July, you knowthen +there'll be Minneapolis, and that means hundreds of summer hops, +parlor-snaking, getting boredBut 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 rightyou'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 moonthen 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 +headthat 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-lacesDick had tied them that morning. He had +tied themand now he was this heavy white mass. All that remained +of the charm and personality of the Dick Humbird he had knownoh, +it was all so horrible and unaristocratic and close to the earth. +All tragedy has that strain of the grotesque and squalidso +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 winda 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-a-her-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 +embarrassmentthough 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 Borgis' 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. + + +BOOK ONE +The Romantic Egotist + +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 sorryI 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. "Ohthat 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 Nickoh, 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 thateven +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 youyou'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 +vanitywhether 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. Borgi'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, despairedbeen 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 swearor 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 throughas 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 +upalmost 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 wouldto-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 everythingwhen 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 +concernedwe'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 linewhat 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 onI'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 hungglittering +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 medifvalist," 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 awfulso +"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 bereligion, architecture, +literatureI'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. + +Stillstill 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 cafi 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 cafi, 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 cafi, 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 +Devinihre'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 fizzand +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 nowdon'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 cafi, 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 cafi, neither the dull, +pasty color of a dead manrather a sort of virile pallornor +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 sickold 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 goodwere 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 allwill 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 thisthis 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'veI've seen the devil orsomething 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. + + +BOOK ONE +The Romantic Egotist + +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 oneeverybody there leaped at itit 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 securitystubborn, 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 towardand 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 dissectioncollege, +contemporary personality and the likethey 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 thingsI'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 nowon a few lines, on what I +consider the essential lines." + +"Poetry?" + +"Well, frankly, not what you call poetry, or for your reasonsyou +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 tremendouslike +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 +Karinina' 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 +developingand 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 decadencenow suddenly +all his mental processes of the last year and a half seemed stale +and futilea 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 cathedralsa 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 serviceto 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, Burnewhy 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 urchinsto 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 behindbut 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 himbut 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 timethe 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 countsa healthy man has twice the chance of +being good," he said. + +"I don't agree with youI 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 manand 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 worldno, Burne, I can't go that." +"Well, let's waive itwe won't get anywhere, and besides I haven't +quite made up my mind about it myself. Now, here's something I do +knowpersonal 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 lightyet 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-hairedyet 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, yesI'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 wantbut 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 toexcept 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 itmy imagination persisted in sticking +horrors into the darkso I stuck my imagination into the dark +instead, and let it look out at meI let it play stray dog or +escaped convict or ghost, and then saw myself coming along the +road. That made it all rightas 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 backand I did +go into themnot only followed the road through them, but walked +into them until I wasn't frightened any moredid 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 notand 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 itpeople are beginning to think he's +odd." + +"He's way over their headsyou know you think so yourself when you +talk to himGood 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 +classI mean they're the best-educated men in collegethe 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 onthe Pharisee classGee! +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 herelet 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 rosehe 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 yearsthere 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 +bedroomwhat 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 clearedto do this you rush with your eyes closed +into your study and turn on the lightsnext, 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 firstnever 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 waythe bed +requires different tacticslet the bed alone, as you value your +reasonif 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 bednever walk near the bed; to a ghost your ankle is your +most vulnerable partonce 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 withlet'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-headednessinto 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 usor 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 notI 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 willI'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 +judgmentthe 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 himselfexcept, 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-walkersilence 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 youany 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 youI like all clever men, you +more than anybut 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 youor adore youor +worship you-" + +"There you gorunning 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 eyeshe 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 dibutantes, 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 futileBurne 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 +rightbut 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 thingI 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 dutybut, 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-Germanjust a lot of weak +oneswith 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 +convictionit seems a path spread before me just now." + +Amory's heart sank. + +"But think of the cheapness of itno one's really going to martyr +you for being a pacifistit'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 pawnjust sacrificed. God! Amoryyou don't think I like the +Germans!" + +"Well, I can't say anything elseI 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 waversbut he haunts +mejust 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 warGermany 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 waror 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 libraryto 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 mindI hate mechanics, +but then of course aviation's the thing for me" + +"I feel as Amory does," said Tom. "Infantry or aviationaviation +sounds like the romantic side of the war, of courselike 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 forfor +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 virtuouslydied." + +"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, +Gantletsbut 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 hazea 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 rigime. + +"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 thisit'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 Archbroken 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 generationwe'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 bluea 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 roofsit +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 landthe 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 Fschylus and there in the divine irony of +the "Agamemnon" I find the only answer to this bitter ageall 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 worldand the Catholic +Church. I wonder where you'll fit in. Of one thing I'm sureCeltic +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 +thingswe'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 +splendidrather 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 go into the fight. +Och Ochone." + +Amory-AmoryI 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 +taxmodern, that's me all over, Mabel. + +At any rate we'll have really knock-out roomsyou can get a job on +some fashion magazine, and Alec can go into the Zinc Company or +whatever it is that his people ownhe'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 usyou and me and Alecoh, 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 ownersor 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 Dibutante + +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 doingtrying 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 +meantemperamental? 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 +facesand they come back for more. + +ALEC: They love it. + +CECELIA: They hate it. She's ashe's a sort of vampire, I thinkand +she can make girls do what she wants usuallyonly 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 averagesmokes +sometimes, drinks punch, frequently kissedOh, yescommon +knowledgeone 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: Mothers gone down. + +(And now ROSALIND enters. ROSALIND isutterly 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 itbut 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 +herselfincipient 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 dibut 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 +belike 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. Nowif 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 happyand 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 telland 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 thatyou'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 eyesnever 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 Amoryoh, come init'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 ofsort of-sexless, you know, swim and +play golf. + +SHE: Oh, I dobut 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 corporationit'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 knowin my mind. + +HE: (Interested) Go on. + +SHE: No, you-you go onyou've made me talk about myself. That's +against the rules. + +HE: Rules? + +SHE: My own rulesbut 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 girluntil 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 afraidbut 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 couldlike that. + +SHE: Most people like the way I kiss. + +HE: (Remembering himself) Good Lord, yes. Kiss me once more, +Rosalind. + +SHE: Nomy 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 SpenceI'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 mouthhair, eyes, +shoulders, slippersbut 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'tif 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'so-ther people. + +SHE: Let's pretend. + +HE: No-I can't-it's sentiment. + +SHE: You're not sentimental? + +HE: No, I'm romantica sentimental person thinks things will lasta +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: WellRosalind, Rosalind, don't argue-kiss me again. + +SHE: (Quite chilly now) NoI 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) ScoreHome Team: One hundredOpponents: Zero. (He +starts back.) + +SHE: (Quickly) Rainno 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: GoodI'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 houseand unless things change Cecelia won't have the +advantages you've had. + +ROSALIND: (Impatiently) Wellwhat 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 oneor listening to it. + +ROSALIND: (Sarcastically) Yes, listening to it is better. MRS. +CONNAGE: And don't waste a lot of time with the college setlittle +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 cafis 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 doneyou 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-nightyoungish +men. + +ROSALIND: (Nodding wisely) About forty-five? + +MRS. CONNAGE: (Sharply) Why not? + + +ROSALIND: Oh, quite all rightthey know life and are so adorably +tired looking (shakes her head)but they will dance. + +MRS. CONNAGE: I haven't met Mr. Blainebut 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, +hesitatesthen 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 +graceI b'lieve I've heard my sister speak of you. Have a +puffthey'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 blasi, so indifferentI 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 waswaswon. + +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 momentOh, just before the first +kiss, a whispered wordsomething 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 youhe 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 Ohyou 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 meanmighty mean. +RYDER: Oh, I wouldn't say that. + +ROSALIND: Oh, yes, I amespecially 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, nowith 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 girlsI 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 seriousfor all I know she may be at the +Cocoanut Grove with some football player on the night of her +dibut. 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, yesher name was Isabellenothing at all to her except +what I read into her. + +ROSALIND: What happened? + +AMORY: Finally I convinced her that she was smarter than I +wasthen she threw me over. Said I was critical and impractical, +you know. + +ROSALIND: What do you mean impractical? + +AMORY: Ohdrive a car, but can't change a tire. + +ROSALIND: What are you going to do? + +AMORY: Can't sayrun for President, write + +ROSALIND: Greenwich Village? + +AMORY: Good heavens, noI said writenot 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: NoI was going to make it French. I was Louis XIV and you +were one of mymy (Changing his tone.) Supposewe 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, nothingonly I want sentiment, real +sentimentand I never find it. + +AMORY: I never find anything else in the worldand 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 younow. + +(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 eveningalways 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 Julyin June. All life was transmitted into terms of +their love, all experience, all desires, all ambitions, were +nullifiedtheir 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 histhe 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 singinghe 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 +waswas 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 +officeand where they might live. Sometimes, when he was +particularly loquacious, she went to sleep in his arms, but he +loved that Rosalindall 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 thatand 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 perceptiblyshe 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.) Motherplease + +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 incomeand 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 glancesand 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 meso 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 +officecouldn'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 justus. 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 afternoonand, oh, Dawson took him on +his lap and talked to him and promised him an Indian suitand next +day he remembered and bought itand, oh, it was so sweet and I +couldn't help thinking he'd be so nice toto our childrentake care +of themand 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'ti-t won't! + +ROSALIND: I'd rather keep it as a beautiful memorytucked away in +my heart. + +AMORY: Yes, women can do thatbut 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 barredyou 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 failif 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 timelet 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 waysin +otherswell, I'm just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty +things and cheerfulnessand 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, pleaseoh, +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 itshe sees him +throw back his headand 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.) + + +BOOK TWO +The Education of a Personage + +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 housea 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 decisionthe 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 thingspeople 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 somesome 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 highballs" + +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, Amorydon'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 wayit'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 +programmea 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 headwaiterAmory'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 tablea most delicate, scarcely noticeable +sleeping position, he assured himselfand 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 workera 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 +weekless 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 eyeand 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, yesthere 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 armylet me seewell, 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 manit 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 againafter 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 Benit, 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 againbacking 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 disordersTom claimed that this was +because one was sitting in the lap of Montespan's wraithat 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 +Roombesides 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. +Bartonthe 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 mebut 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 leaderand 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 sinceoh, 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?" + +"Yesin historynot 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 philosophera 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 raceOh, 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 storiesget +afraid I'm doing it instead of livingget 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 playbut 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 themEdna Ferber, Gouverneur Morris, Fanny Hurst, +Mary Roberts Rinehartnot producing among 'em one story or novel +that will last ten years. This man CobbI don't tink he's either +clever or amusingand what's more, I don't think very many people +do, except the editors. He's just groggy with advertising. Andoh +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 GodI am manI ride +the windsI look through the smokeI 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 airsilence was dead and +sound not yet awokenLife 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 wireseerie 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. + + +BOOK TWO +The Education of a Personage + + +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 +Eleanordid 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 himselfand 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 bljme 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 +edgeit 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 handno, +not thereon 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 meyou 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 beautifulsupposing +she was forty and pedanticheavens! 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 magnificentpale 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 allbesides 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, grandfatherRamilly +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 beforeshe 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 +situationinstead, 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 wetlike 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 Godbecause the lightning might strike +mebut 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! Consciencekill it like me! Eleanor Savage, +materiologistno jumping, no starting, come early" + +"But I have to have a soul," he objected. "I can't be rationaland +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 soyou're sentimental. You're not +like me. I'm a romantic little materialist." + +"I'm not sentimentalI'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you +know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will lastthe +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 hershe 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 grainand 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 heavenyou 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 beforeI 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 dibutante 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 oversadness 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 scenestwo 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 lovehow 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 umbelievable. 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 saidperhaps 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 branchwhispered 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 colderso 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 feelold 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 meoh, 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 +justifiedand 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 meI +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 soupgon 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 sentimentand 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 sidewaysplunged 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 wentwent madstark +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..." + + +BOOK TWO +The Education of a Personage + + +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 deepit'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 crushthese alone were left of all his love +for Rosalind; these remained to him as payment for the loss of +his youthbitter 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, Amorythey'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 sacrificehe 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 blamedue 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 +lifeyears 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 powerto 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 ruinthe 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 dumblyhis 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 sayif 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 carto 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 +namesno 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. "Butthe 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 bravadoyielded 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 +out-doors-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 thisexcept 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 moreand 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 fora 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 hernot this +Rosalind, harder, oldernor any beaten, broken woman that his +imagination brought to the door of his fortiesAmory 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. + + +BOOK TWO +The Education of a Personage + +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 matinie 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 subwaythe 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 ateat best just peopletoo hot or too cold, +tired, worried. + +He pictured the rooms where these people livedwhere 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 seductiona 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 poorit 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 hima 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, hateAmory 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 donor 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 insincerecalling 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 girlhoodshe 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 +statea grotesque blending of desires, worries, exterior +impressions and physical reactions. + +One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Streetor One Hundred and +Thirty-seventh Street.... Two and three look alikeno, 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 +itI'll sue the steamboat company, Beatrice said, and my uncle has +a quarter interestdid 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 expensiveprobably hundred and fifty a monthmaybe 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 riverwant to go down there and +see if it's dirtyFrench 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 wasJill Bayne, Fayne, Saynewhat the +devilneck 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 afraidnot 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 personalityhe 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 himseveral +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 childrenhe 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 +devilnot 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 Seasall 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 experiencehad 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 awaysupposing 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 witcheswaiving 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 Presidentsyet 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 insecurityinexplicable 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 alonehe 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 menincurable 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 ofevery 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 kingthe ilan vitalthe 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 examplesitting 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 thereyet 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 wantnot 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 +phenomenoncordiality 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 effortexcept 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 ahe'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 paidfive and six hour daysit'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 selfishcertainly 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 weeklyso 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 progressthe 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, andwe'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 sightunless we're all children. Did you ever see +a grown man when he's trying for a secret societyor 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 mana 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. Thatis 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 generationwith 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 agoand 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 +exaltationtwo 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 friendall 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." + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of This Side of Paradise + |