The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald (best fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

his voice to a vine-covered window: “Glor‑i‑a! We’ve got a visitor!”

“I’m in the tub,” wailed Gloria politely.

With a smile the two men acknowledged the triumph of her alibi.

“She’ll be down. Come round here on the side-porch. Like a drink? Gloria’s always in the tub⁠—good third of every day.”

“Pity she doesn’t live on the Sound.”

“Can’t afford it.”

As coming from Adam Patch’s grandson, Bloeckman took this as a form of pleasantry. After fifteen minutes filled with estimable brilliancies, Gloria appeared, fresh in starched yellow, bringing atmosphere and an increase of vitality.

“I want to be a successful sensation in the movies,” she announced. “I hear that Mary Pickford makes a million dollars annually.”

“You could, you know,” said Bloeckman. “I think you’d film very well.”

“Would you let me, Anthony? If I only play unsophisticated roles?”

As the conversation continued in stilted commas, Anthony wondered that to him and Bloeckman both this girl had once been the most stimulating, the most tonic personality they had ever known⁠—and now the three sat like overoiled machines, without conflict, without fear, without elation, heavily enamelled little figures secure beyond enjoyment in a world where death and war, dull emotion and noble savagery were covering a continent with the smoke of terror.

In a moment he would call Tana and they would pour into themselves a gay and delicate poison which would restore them momentarily to the pleasurable excitement of childhood, when every face in a crowd had carried its suggestion of splendid and significant transactions taking place somewhere to some magnificent and illimitable purpose.⁠ ⁠… Life was no more than this summer afternoon; a faint wind stirring the lace collar of Gloria’s dress; the slow baking drowsiness of the veranda.⁠ ⁠… Intolerably unmoved they all seemed, removed from any romantic imminency of action. Even Gloria’s beauty needed wild emotions, needed poignancy, needed death.⁠ ⁠…

“… Any day next week,” Bloeckman was saying to Gloria. “Here⁠—take this card. What they do is to give you a test of about three hundred feet of film, and they can tell pretty accurately from that.”

“How about Wednesday?”

“Wednesday’s fine. Just phone me and I’ll go around with you⁠—”

He was on his feet, shaking hands briskly⁠—then his car was a wraith of dust down the road. Anthony turned to his wife in bewilderment.

“Why, Gloria!”

“You don’t mind if I have a trial, Anthony. Just a trial? I’ve got to go to town Wednesday, anyhow.”

“But it’s so silly! You don’t want to go into the movies⁠—moon around a studio all day with a lot of cheap chorus people.”

“Lot of mooning around Mary Pickford does!”

“Everybody isn’t a Mary Pickford.”

“Well, I can’t see how you’d object to my trying.”

“I do, though. I hate actors.”

“Oh, you make me tired. Do you imagine I have a very thrilling time dozing on this damn porch?”

“You wouldn’t mind if you loved me.”

“Of course I love you,” she said impatiently, making out a quick case for herself. “It’s just because I do that I hate to see you go to pieces by just lying around and saying you ought to work. Perhaps if I did go into this for a while it’d stir you up so you’d do something.”

“It’s just your craving for excitement, that’s all it is.”

“Maybe it is! It’s a perfectly natural craving, isn’t it?”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. If you go to the movies I’m going to Europe.”

“Well, go on then! I’m not stopping you!”

To show she was not stopping him she melted into melancholy tears. Together they marshalled the armies of sentiment⁠—words, kisses, endearments, self-reproaches. They attained nothing. Inevitably they attained nothing. Finally, in a burst of gargantuan emotion each of them sat down and wrote a letter. Anthony’s was to his grandfather; Gloria’s was to Joseph Bloeckman. It was a triumph of lethargy.

One day early in July Anthony, returned from an afternoon in New York, called upstairs to Gloria. Receiving no answer he guessed she was asleep and so went into the pantry for one of the little sandwiches that were always prepared for them. He found Tana seated at the kitchen table before a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends⁠—cigar-boxes, knives, pencils, the tops of cans, and some scraps of paper covered with elaborate figures and diagrams.

“What the devil you doing?” demanded Anthony curiously.

Tana politely grinned.

“I show you,” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “I tell⁠—”

“You making a doghouse?”

“No, sa.” Tana grinned again. “Make typewutta.”

“Typewriter?”

“Yes, sa. I think, oh all time I think, lie in bed think ’bout typewutta.”

“So you thought you’d make one, eh?”

“Wait. I tell.”

Anthony, munching a sandwich, leaned leisurely against the sink. Tana opened and closed his mouth several times as though testing its capacity for action. Then with a rush he began:

“I been think⁠—typewutta⁠—has, oh, many many many many thing. Oh many many many many.”

“Many keys. I see.”

“No‑o? Yes-key! Many many many many lettah. Like so a-b-c.”

“Yes, you’re right.”

“Wait. I tell.” He screwed his face up in a tremendous effort to express himself: “I been think⁠—many words⁠—end same. Like i-n-g.”

“You bet. A whole raft of them.”

“So⁠—I make⁠—typewutta⁠—quick. Not so many lettah⁠—”

“That’s a great idea, Tana. Save time. You’ll make a fortune. Press one key and there’s ‘ing.’ Hope you work it out.”

Tana laughed disparagingly. “Wait. I tell⁠—”

“Where’s Mrs. Patch?”

“She out. Wait, I tell⁠—” Again he screwed up his face for action. “My typewutta⁠—”

“Where is she?”

“Here⁠—I make.” He pointed to the miscellany of junk on the table.

“I mean Mrs. Patch.”

“She out.” Tana reassured him. “She be back five o’clock, she say.”

“Down in the village?”

“No. Went off before lunch. She go Mr. Bloeckman.”

Anthony started.

“Went out with Mr. Bloeckman?”

“She be back five.”

Without a word Anthony left the kitchen with Tana’s disconsolate “I tell” trailing after him. So this was Gloria’s idea of excitement, by God! His fists were clenched; within a moment he had worked himself up to a tremendous pitch of indignation. He went to the door and looked out; there was no car in sight and his watch stood at four minutes of five. With furious energy he dashed down to the end of the path⁠—as far as the bend of