Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (475 page)

(
Francois starts up angrily.
)

Lemarque — Sit down (
Francois sits down muttering.
)

Francois — (
after a pause
) But, Monsieur, you must know — I leave the gift of — of — (
helplessly
) I can’t name it — appreciation, artistic, aesthetic sense — call it what you will. Weak — yes, why not? Here I am, with no chance, the world against me. I lie — I steal perhaps — I am drunk — I —

(
Destage fills up Francois glass with wine.
)

Destage — Here! Drink that and shut up! You are boring the gentleman. There is his weak side — poor infant.

(
Chandelle who has listened to the last, keenly turns his chair toward Destage.
)

Chandelle — But you say my father was more to you than a personal friend; in what way?

Lamarque — Can’t you see?

Francois — I — I — he helped — (
Destage pours out more wine and gives it to him.
)

Destage — You see he — how shall I say it? — he expressed us. If you can imagine a mind like mine, potently lyrical, sensitive without being cultivated. If you can imagine what a balm, what a medicine, what an all in all was summed up for me in my conversations with him. It was everything to me. I would struggle pathetically for a phrase to express a million yearnings and he would say it in a word.

Lamarque — Monsieur is bored? (
Chandelle shakes his head and opening his case selects a cigarette and lights it
)

Lamarque — Here, sir, are three rats, the product of a sewer-destined by nature to live and die in the filthy ruts where they were born. But these three rats in one thing are not of the sewer — they have eyes. Nothing to keep them from remaining in the sewer but their eyes, nothing to help them if they go out but their eyes — and now here comes the light. And it came and passed and left us rats again — vile rats — and one, when he lost the light, went blind.

Francois — (
muttering to himself
) —

Blind! Blind! Blind!
Then he ran alone, when the light had passed;
The sun had set and the night fell fast;
The rat lay down in the sewer at last,
Blind!

(
A beam of the sunset has come to rest on the glass of wine that Francois holds in his hand. The wine glitters and sparkles. Francois looks at it, starts, and drops the glass. The wine runs over the table.
)

Destage — (
animatedly
) Fifteen — twenty years ago he sat where you sat, small, heavy-bearded, black eyed — always sleepy looking.

Francois — (
his eyes closed — his voice trailing off
) Always sleepy, sleepy, slee —

Chandelle — (
dreamily
) He was a poet unsinging, crowned with wreaths of ashes. (
His voice rings with just a shade of triumph.
)

Francois — (
talking in his sleep
) Ah, well Chandelle, are you witty to-night, or melancholy or stupid or drunk.

Chandelle — Messieurs — it grows late. I must be off. Drink, all of you (
enthusiastically
) Drink until you cannot talk or walk or see. (
He throws a bill on the table.
)

Destage — Young Monsieur?

(
Chandelle dons his coat and hat. Pitou enters with more wine. He fills the glasses.
)

Lamarque — Drink with us, Monsieur.

Francois — (
asleep
) Toast, Chandelle, toast.

Chandelle — (
taking a glass and raising it aloft
). Toast (
His face is a little red and his hand unsteady. He appears infinitely more gallic than when he entered the wine shop.
)

Chandelle — I drink to one who might have been all, who was nothing — who might have sung; who only listened — who might have seen the sun; who but watched a dying ember — who drank of gall and wore a wreath of shadow laurels —

(
The others have risen, even Francois who totters wildly forward.
)

Francois — Jean, Jean, don’t go — don’t — till I, Francois — you can’t leave me — I’ll be all alone — alone — alone (
his voice rises higher and higher
) My God, man, can’t you see, you have no right to die —
You are my soul.
(
He stands for a moment, then sprawls across the table. Far away in the twilight a violin sighs plaintively. The last beam of the sun rests on Francois’ head. Chandelle opens the door and goes out.
)

Destage — The old days go by, and the old loves and the old spirit. “Ou sont les neiges d’antan? “ I guess. (
Pauses unsteadily and then continues.
) I’ve gone far enough without him.

Lamarque — (
dreamily
) Far enough.

Destage — Your hand Jaques! (
They clasp hands
).

Francois — (
wildly
) Here — I, too — you won’t leave me (
feebly
) I want — just one more glass — one more —

(
The light fades and disappears.
)

(CURTAIN.)

PORCELAIN AND PINK

This one act play was written in early 1920.

PORCELAIN AND PINK

The room in the down-stairs of a summer cottage. High around the wall runs an art frieze of a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and a ship on a crimson ocean, a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and a ship on a crimson ocean, a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and so on. In one place on the frieze there is an overlapping — here we have half a fisherman with half a pile of nets at his foot, crowded damply against half a ship on half a crimson ocean. The frieze is not in the plot, but frankly it fascinates me. I could continue indefinitely, but I am distracted by one of the two objects in the room — a blue porcelain bath-tub. It has character, this bath-tub. It is not one of the new racing bodies, but is small with a high tonneau and looks as if it were going to jump; discouraged, however, by the shortness of its legs, it has submitted to its environment and to its coal of sky-blue point. But it grumpily refuses to allow any patron completely to stretch his legs — which brings us neatly to the second object in the room:

It is a girl — clearly an appendage to the bath-tub, only her head and throat — beautiful girls have throats instead of necks — and a suggestion of shoulder appearing above the side. For the first ten minutes of the play the audience is engrossed in wondering if she really is playing the game fairly and hasn’t any clothes on or whether it is being cheated and she is dressed.

The girl’s name is
JULIE MARVIS.
From the proud way she sits up in the bath-tub we deduce that she is not very tall and that she carries herself well. When she smiles, her upper lip rolls a little and reminds you of an Easier Bunny. She is within whispering distance of twenty years old.

One thing more — above and to the right of the bath-tub is a window. It is narrow and has a wide sill; if lets in much sunshine, but effectually prevents any one who looks in from seeing the bath-tub. You begin to suspect the plot?

We open, conventionally enough, with a song, but, as the startled gasp of the audience quite drowns out the first half, we will give only the last of it:

JULIE:
(In an airy sophrano-enthusiastico)

When Caesar did the Chicago
He was a graceful child,
Those sacred chickens
Just raised the dickens
The Vestal Virgins went wild.
Whenever the Nervii got nervy
He gave them an awful razz
They shook in their shoes
With the Consular blues
The Imperial Roman Jazz

(During the wild applause that follows
JULIE modestly moves her arms and makes waves on the surface of the water — at least we suppose she does. Then the door on the left opens and
LOIS MARVIS
enters, dressed but carrying garments and towels.
LOIS
is a year older than
JULIE
and is nearly her double in face and voice, but in her clothes and expression are the marks of the conservative. Yes, you’ve guessed it. Mistaken identity is the old, rusty pivot upon which the plot turns.)

LOIS:
(Starting)
Oh, ‘scuse me. I didn’t know you were here.

JULIE: Oh, hello. I’m giving a little concert —  —

LOIS:
(Interrupting)
Why didn’t you lock the door?

JULIE: Didn’t I?

LOIS: Of course you didn’t. Do you think I just walked through it?

JULIE: I thought you picked the lock, dearest.

LOIS: You are
so
careless.

JULIE: No. I’m happy as a garbage-man’s dog and I’m giving a little concert.

LOIS:
(Severely)
Grow up!

JULIE:
(Waving a pink arm around the room)
The walls reflect the sound, you see. That’s why there’s something very beautiful about singing in a bath-tub. It gives an effect of surpassing loveliness. Can I render you a selection?

LOIS: I wish you’d hurry out of the tub.

JULIE:
(Shaking her head thoughtfully)
Can’t be hurried. This is my kingdom at present, Godliness.

LOIS: Why the mellow name?

JULIE: Because you’re next to Cleanliness. Don’t throw anything please!

LOIS: How long will you be?

JULIE:
(After some consideration)
Not less than fifteen nor more than twenty-five minutes.

LOIS: As a favor to me will you make it ten?

JULIE:
(Reminiscing)
Oh, Godliness, do you remember a day in the chill of last January when one Julie, famous for her Easter-rabbit smile, was going out and there was scarcely any hot water and young Julie had just filed the tub for her own little self when the wicked sister came and did bathe herself therein, forcing the young Julie to perform her ablutions  with cold cream — which is expensive and a darn lot of trouble?

LOIS:
(Impatiently)
Then you won’t hurry?

JULIE: Why should I?

LOIS: I’ve got a date.

JULIE: Here at the house?

LOIS: None of your business.

(JULIE
shrugs the visible tips of her shoulders and stirs the water into ripples
.)

JULIE: So be It.

LOIS: Oh, for Heaven’s sake, yes! I have a date here at the house-in a way.

JULIE: In a way?

LOIS: He isn’t coming in. He’s calling for me and we’re walking.

JULIE:
(Raising her eyebrows)
Oh, the plot dears. It’s that literary Mr. Calkins. I thought you promised mother you wouldn’t invite him in.

LOIS:
(Desperately)
She’s so idiotic. She detests him because he’s just got a divorce. Of course she’s had more expedience than I have, but —  —

JULIE:
(Wisely)
Don’t let her kid you! Experience Is the biggest gold brick in the world. All older people have it for sale.

LOIS: I like him. We talk literature.

JULIE: Oh, so that’s why I’ve noticed all these weighty books around the house lately.

LOIS: He lends them to me.

JULIE: Well, you’ve got to play his game. When in Rome do as the Romans would like to do. Bat I’m through with books. I’m all educated.

LOIS: You’re very inconsistent — last summer you read every day.

JULIE: If I were consistent I’d still be living on warm milk out of a bottle.

LOIS: Yes, and probably my bottle. But I like Mr. Calkins.

JULIE: I never met him.

LOIS: Well, will you hurry up?

JULIE: Yes.
(After a pause)
I wait till the water gets tepid and then I let in more hot.

LOIS:
(Sarcastically)
How interesting!

JULIE: ‘Member when we used to play “soapo “?

LOIS: Yes — at ten years old. I’m really quite surprised that you don’t play it still.