Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (457 page)

He beckoned to a waiter to my infinite misgiving, for though he seemed rather more sober than when I had arrived, he had been drinking steadily and I knew my own position would be embarrasing if he became altogether drunk.

“Then” — between sips — “we saw each other at sporadic intervals, quarreled, kissed and quarreled again. We were equals, neither was the leader. She was as interested in me as I was fascinated by her. We were both terrifically jealous but there was little occasion to show it. Each of us had small affairs on the side but merely as relaxations when the other was away. I didn’t realize it but my idealism was slowly waning — or increasing into love — and rather a gentle sort of love.” His face tightened. “This isn’t cup sentiment.” I nodded and he went on; “Well, we broke off in two hours and I was the weak one.”

“Senior year I went to her school dance in New York, and there was a man there from another college of whom I became very jealous and not without cause. She and I had a few words about it and half an hour later I walked out on the street in my coat and hat, leaving behind the melancholy statement that I was through for good. So far so good. If I’d gone back to college that night or if I’d gone and gotten drunk or done almost anything wild or resentful the break would never have occurred — she’d have written next day. Here’s what did happen. I walked along Fifth Avenue letting my imagination play on my sorrow, really luxuriating in it. She’d never looked better than she had that night, never; and I had never been so much in love. I worked myself up to the highest pitch of emotional imagination and moods grow real on me and then — Oh poor damn fool that I was — am — will always be — I went back. Went back! Couldn’t I have known or seen — I knew her and myself — I could have plotted out for anyone else or in a cool mood, for myself, just what I should have done, but my imagination made me go back, drove me. Half a thought in my brain would have sent me to Williamstown or the Manhattan bar. Another half thought sent me back to her school. When I crossed the threshold it was sixteen minutes after ten. At that minute I stopped living.”

“You can imagine the rest. She was angry at me for leaving, hadn’t had time to brood and when she saw me come in she resolved to punish me. I swallowed it hook and bait and temporarily lost confidence, temper, poise, every single jot of individuality or attractiveness I had. I wandered around that ballroom like a wild man trying to get a word with her and when I did I finished the job. I begged, pled, almost wept. She had no use for me from that hour. At two o’clock I walked out of that school a beaten man.”

“Why the rest — it’s a long nightmare — letters with all the nerve gone out of them, wild imploring letters; long silences hoping she’d care; rumors of her other affairs. At first I used to be sad when people still linked me up with her, asked me for news of her but finally when it got around that she’d thrown me over people didn’t ask me about her any more, they told me of her — crumbs to a dog. I wasn’t the authority any more on my own work, for that’s what she was — just what I’d read into her and brought out in her. That’s the story — “ He broke off suddenly and rose; tottering to his feet, his voice rose and rang through the deserted grill.

“I read history with a new viewpoint since I had known Cleopatra and Messaline and Montespan,” — he started toward the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked in alarm.

“We’re going upstairs to meet the lady. She’s a widow now for awhile so you must say Mrs. — see — Mrs.”

We went upstairs, I carefully behind with hands ready to be outstretched should he fall. I felt particularly unhappy. The hardest man in the world to handle is one who is too sober to be vacillating and too drunk to be persuaded; and I had, strange to say, an idea that my Uncle was eminently a person to be followed.

We entered a large room. I couldn’t describe it if my life depended on it. Uncle George nodded and beckoned to a woman at a bridge four across the room. She nodded and rising from the table walked slowly over. I started — naturally —

Here is my impression — a woman of thirty or a little under, dark, with intense physical magnetism and a most expressive mouth capable as I soon found out of the most remarkable change of expression by the slightest variance in facial geography. It was a mouth to be written to, but, though it could never have been called large, it could never have been crowded into a sonnet — I confess I have tried. Sonnet indeed! It contained the emotions of a drama and the history, I presume, of an epic. It was, as near as I can fathom, the eternal mouth. There were eyes also, brown, and a high warm coloring; but oh the mouth…

I felt like a character in a Victorian romance. The little living groups scattered around seemed to move in small spotlights around us who were acting out a comedy “down stage.” I was self-conscious about myself but purely physically so; I was merely a property; but I was very self-conscious for my Uncle. I dreaded the moment when he should lift his voice or overturn the table or kiss Mrs. Fulham bent dramatically back over his arm while the groups would start and stare. It was enormously unreal. I was introduced in a mumble and then forgotten.

“Tight again,” remarked Mrs. Fulham.

My Uncle made no answer.

“Well, I’m having a heavy bridge game and we’re ever so much behind. You can just have my dummy time. Aren’t you flattered?” She turned to me. “Your Uncle probably told you all about himself and me. He’s behaving so badly this year. He used to be such a pathetic, innocent little boy and such a devil with the debutantes.”

My Uncle broke in quickly with a rather grandiose air:

“That’s sufficient I think Myra, for you.”

“You’re going to blame me again?” she asked in feigned astonishment. “As if I — “

“Don’t — Don’t,” said my Uncle thickly. “Let one poor damn fool alone.”

Here I found myself suddenly appreciating a sudden contrast. My Uncle’s personality had dropped off him like a cloak. He was not the romantic figure of the grill, but a less sure, less attractive and somewhat contemptible individual. I had never seen personalities act like that before. Usually you either had one or you didn’t. I wonder if I mean personality or temperament or perhaps that brunette alto tenor mood that lies on the borderland… At any rate my Uncle’s mood was now that of a naughty boy to a stern aunt, almost that of a dog to his master.

“You know,” said Mrs. Fulham, “your Uncle is the only interesting thing in town. He’s such a perfect fool.”

Uncle George bowed his head and regarded the floor in a speculative manner. He smiled politely, if unhappily.

“That’s your idea.”

“He takes all his spite out on me.”

My Uncle nodded, Mrs. Fulham’s pardners called over to her that they had lost again and that the game was breaking up. She got rather angry.

“You know,” she said coldly to Uncle George, “you stand there like a trained spaniel letting me say anything I want to you — Do you know what a pitiful thing you are?”

My Uncle had gone a dark red. Mrs. Fulham turned again to me.

“I’ve been talking to him like this for ten years — like this or not at all. He’s my little lap dog. Here George, bring me my tea, write a book about me; you’re snippy, Georgie, but interesting.” Mrs. Fulham was rather carried away by the dramatic intensity of her own words and angered by George’s unmovable acceptance. So she lost her head.

“You know,” she said tensely, “my husband often wanted to horsewhip you but I’ve begged you off. He was very handy in the kennels and always said he could handle any kind of dog!”

Something had snapped. My Uncle rose, his eyes blazing. The shift of burden from her to her husband had lifted a weight from his shoulders. His eyes flashed but the words stored up for ten years came slow and measured.

“Your husband — Do you mean that crooked broker who kept you for five years. Horsewhip me! That was the prattle he may have used around the fireside to keep you under his dirty thumb. By God, I’ll horsewhip your next husband myself.” His voice had risen and the people were beginning to look up. A hush had fallen on the room and his words echoed from fireplace to fireplace.

“He’s the damn thief that robbed me of everything in this hellish world.”

He was shouting now. A few men drew near. Women shrank to the corners. Mrs. Fulham stood perfectly still. Her face had gone white but she was still sneering openly at him.

“What’s this?” he picked up her hand. She tried to snatch it away but he tightened his grip and twisting the wedding ring off her finger he threw it on the floor and stamped it into a beaten button of gold.

In a minute I had his arms held. She screamed and held up her broken finger. The crowd closed around us.

In five minutes Uncle George and I were speeding homeward in a taxi. Neither of us spoke; he sat staring straight before him, his green eyes glittering in the dark. I left next morning after breakfast.

*****

The story ought to end here. My Uncle George should remain with Mark Anthony and De Musset as a rather tragic semi-genius, ruined by a woman. Unfortunately the play continues into an inartistic sixth act where it topples over and descends like Uncle George himself in one of his more inebriated states, contrary to all the rules of dramatic literature. One month afterward Uncle George and Mrs. Fulham eloped in the most childish and romantic manner the night before her marriage to the Honorable Howard Bixby was to have taken place. Uncle George never drank again, nor did he ever write or in fact do anything except play a middling amount of golf and get comfortably bored with his wife.

Mother still doubts and predicts gruesome fates for his wife, Father is frankly astonished and not too pleased. In fact I rather believe he enjoyed having an author in the family, even if his books did look a bit decadent on the library table. From time to time I receive subscription lists and invitations from Uncle George. I keep them for use in my new book on
Theories of Genius
. You see I claim that if Dante had ever won — but a hypothetical sixth act is just as untechnical as a real one.

CEDRIC THE STOKER

The true story of the Battle of the Baltic

The grimy coal-hole of the battleship of the line was hot, and Cedric felt the loss of his parasol keenly. It was his duty to feed the huge furnace that sent the ship rolling over and over in the sea, heated the sailors’ bedrooms, and ran the washing machine. Cedric was hard at work. He would fill his hat with a heap of the black coals, carry them to the huge furnace, and throw them in. His hat was now soiled beyond recognition, and try as he might he could not keep his hands clean.

He was interrupted in his work by the jingle of the telephone bell. “Captain wishes to speak to you, Mr. Cedric,” said the girl at the exchange. Cedric rushed to the phone.

“How’s your mother,” asked the Captain.

“Very well, thank you, sir,” answered Cedric.

“Is it hot enough for you, down there?” said the Captain.

“Quite,” replied Cedric, courteously.

The Captain’s voice changed. He would change it every now and then. “Come to my office at once,” he said, “we are about to go into action and I wish your advice.”

Cedric rushed to the elevator, and getting off at the fourth floor, ran to the office. He found the Captain rubbing his face with cold cream to remove sunburn.

“Cedric,” said the Captain, sticking a lump of the greasy stuff into his mouth, and chewing it while he talked, “You are a bright child, rattle off the binomial theorem.”

Cedric repeated it forwards, backwards, and from the middle to both ends.

“Now name all the salts of phosphoric acid!”

Cedric named them all, and four or five extra.

“Now the Iliad!”

Here Cedric did his most difficult task. He repeated the Iliad backwards leaving out alternately every seventh and fourth word.

“You
are
efficient,” said the Captain smilingly. He took from his mouth the cold cream, which he had chewed into a hard porous lump, and dropped it back into the jar. “I shall trust you with all our lives.” He drew Cedric closer to him.

“Listen,” he whispered; “the enemy are attacking in force. They are far stronger than we. We outnumber them only five to one: nevertheless we shall fight with the utmost bravery. As commander of the fleet, I have ordered the crews of all my ships to struggle to the last shell and powder roll, and then to flee for their lives. This ship is not so fast as the others so I guess it had better begin fleeing now!”

“Sir — “ began Cedric, but he was interrupted by the stacatto noise of the huge forward turret pop-guns as the two fleets joined in battle. They could hear the sharp raps of the paddles as the bosuns spanked their crews to make them work faster. Their ears were deafened by the cursing of the pilots as the ships fouled one another. All the hideous sounds of battle rose and assailed them. Cedric rushed to the window and threw it open. He shrank back, aghast. Bearing down upon them, and only ten miles away, was the huge
Hoboken,
the biggest of all ferry-boats, captured by the enemy from the Erie Railroad in the fall of ‘92. So close she was that Cedric could read her route sign “Bronx West to Toid Avenoo.” The very words struck him numb. On she came, andon, throwing mountains of spray a mile in front of her and several miles to her rear.

“Is she coming fast, boy?” asked the Captain.

“Sir, she’s making every bit of a knot an hour,” answered Cedric, trembling.

The Captain seized him roughly by the shoulders. “We’ll fight to the end,” he said; “even though she is faster than we are. Quick! To the cellars, and stoke, stoke, STOKE!!”

Cedric unable to take his eyes from the terrible sight, ran backwards down the passageway, fell down the elevator shaft, and rushed to the furnace. Madly he carried coal back and forth, from the bin to the furnace door, and then back to the bin. Already the speed of the ship had increased. It tore through the water in twenty-foot jumps. But it was not enough. Cedric worked more madly, and still more madly. At last he had thrown the last lump of coal into the furnace. There was nothing more to be done. He rested his tired body against the glowing side of the furnace.