Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (512 page)

Pat
(
laughing
): Love by the pound. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry. (
looks at Bobby and whispers
) Be gay, darling. Be gay tonight for my sake. Who knows when I’ll be able to go to a ball again.

A fanfare of drums as we

DISSOLVE TO:

333 THE STAIRS OF THE SANITARIUM — MIDNIGHT

Pat and Bobby walking up together. He has one arm around her and carries her coat. Koster watches them from the foot of the stairs.

334 CLOSE UP OF PAT

As she half turns to say goodnight to Koster.

Pat
: It was a lovely dance. Goodnight, Otto.

Bobby and Pat continue to the landing and come to Pat’s door.

Bobby
(
rather shortly
): Now you go straight to bed. It’s after midnight.

As Pat steps inside her room he stays in the hall and starts to close her door.

Pat
(
in dismay
): Aren’t you even going to kiss —

(
he shuts the door on her
)

CUT TO:

335 PAT’S ROOM

Pat inside the door, rebellious at this treatment.

CUT TO:

336 THE HALL

Bobby hurrying to the next room, unlocking the door with a knowing look.

CUT TO:

337 PAT BEFORE THE MIRROR

 — looking at a tear in her dress.

Pat
(
to herself in a whisper
): It doesn’t matter. I’ll never wear it again.

She looks as if she were listening to something far off. Then she starts, and we see in the mirror that the door between the two rooms is opening and Bobby comes in.

Pat
: Oh, Bobby! — where did you come from?

Bobby
: My room — next door.

Pat
(
going toward him joyously
): Darling! Old times are here again.

DISSOLVE TO:

338 PAT’S ROOM SEVERAL HOURS LATER.

Pat and Bobby asleep in bed.

CUT TO:

339 CLOSEUP PAT’S FACE —
 — showing that she’s breathing with difficulty.

CUT TO:

340 TWO SHOT — PAT AND BOBBY

Bobby wakes, immediately concerned. Pat sits up in bed, coughing.

Pat
(
in a rasping voice
): If I can only get through this hour — just this hour, Bobby — then I’ll have one day more — it’s now that they die.

Bobby
: The operation’s going to make a new woman of you.

Pat
: That’s Tony’s radio there in the corner. Will you turn it on? (
Bobby goes to the radio
) Sometimes you can get an American station at this hour — it makes these times pass quicker.

Bobby dials in. After a moment a voice comes on in Spanish.

Voice
: Rio de Janeiro broadcasting — a programme of —

Pat
(
smiling wanly
): Oh, Bobby, do you remember — rolling down to Rio? — monkeys and coffee?

Music starts on the radio: it is “My Blue Heaven.” It continues through the following scene.

Pat
: You ought not to have slept in this room. Not any more.

Bobby
(
unperturbed
): All right — then. You can sleep in mine.

Pat
(
dully
): And you oughtn’t to kiss me.

Bobby
(
his arm around her
): I
will
kiss you.

Pat
(
leaning away gently
): No, you mustn’t get sick. You have to live a long time. I want you to keep well and have children and a real wife.

Bobby
: I don’t want children or a wife, except you. You are my child and my wife.

Pat
(
dreaming
): I would like to have had a child of yours, Bobby. It must be nice to leave a little of yourself behind. And sometimes when the child would look at you, you’d remember me. And for a moment I’d be there.

Bobby
: We’ll have a child when you’re well — a girl, and we’ll call her Pat.

Pat
(
drinks from a glass of water
): Maybe it’s better not. You’ve got to forget me. And if you do think of me, you must only think what good times we had — nothing more. (
she sighs
) It’s over — why — we’ll never understand. (
shakes her head; speaks almost impersonally
) I can’t understand it — why two people should love as we do and yet one die.

Bobby
(
speaking with difficulty
): One or the other must die first. But we’re a long way from that.

Pat
: People should die when they’re alone, or when they hate — not when they love.

Bobby
(
miserable
): We could make a better world, couldn’t we, dearest?

Pat
(
nodding
): We wouldn’t allow things like that. But what we’ve had couldn’t have been better. Only too short.

DISSOLVE TO:

341 — 350 AN OPERATING ROOM

WE SEE A MONTAGE MADE UP OF THE FOLLOWING FLASHES:

A DOCTOR’S TROUSERS AND NURSE’S SKIRT UNDER AN OPERATING TABLE — AN INSTRUMENT TABLE WITH RUBBER GLOVED HANDS PICKING UP INSTRUMENTS — A NURSE’S HAND AND MASK AS SHE OPERATES AN ANESTHETIC MACHINE — UNDER THE OPERATING TABLE AS BEFORE, THIS TIME A CLOSEUP OF THE DOCTOR’S FEET, HEEL LIFTING SLOWLY OFF THE GROUND AS IN A GOLFER’S SWING TO INDICATE THAT HE IS NOW AT THE CULMINATION OF HIS EFFORT.

A CORRIDOR OUTSIDE — TWO PAIRS OF LEGS (
BOBBY’S AND KOSTER’S
) WALKING UP AND DOWN TOGETHER — A CIGARETTE DROPS, A FOOT CRUSHES IT, A HAND PICKS UP THE BUTTS. THE FEET WALKING ONE WAY. THE FEET WALKING THE OTHER WAY.

THE OPERATING ROOM, Nurses’ and Doctor’s feet walking away from the table, instruments being thrown into a steam boiler.

CUT TO:

THE TABLE — being wheeled back through the building into an elevator, out again.

DISSOLVE TO:

351 INT. BOBBY’S ROOM

Bobby pacing. Koster coming in the door from the hall.

Koster
: Perfectly normal. Never was any danger and there won’t be, if she stays perfectly quiet.

Bobby
: Can’t I even see her?

Koster
: Certainly. I’ve even got permission to say goodbye before I start.

DISSOLVE TO:

352 PAT’S ROOM —
 — darkened. The door to Bobby’s room is open and Bobby and Koster are standing beside Pat who lies in bed.

Koster
(
to Pat
): Don’t you try to say goodbye — you save your strength for this husband of yours. Half an hour ago he was a lot sicker than you. (
Pat presses his hand and smiles from one to the other
) Goodbye for a little while — Comrade.

FOLLOW Bobby and Koster into the other room. They close the door behind them.

CUT TO:

353 A CURTAIN

 — blowing in at the window with a sudden draft.

CUT TO:

354 THE CONNECTING DOOR

 — which they had thought shut, blowing slowly open.

CUT TO:

355 PAT’S EYES

 — fixed on that door.

CUT TO:

356 INT. BOBBY’S ROOM

Bobby
(
firmly
): Otto, where are you getting the money for this?

Koster
: Somewhere out of the future — it’s nice not knowing exactly. (
he hands Bobby a roll of bills
) Why not draw on the future? We draw on the past. Why there are stars still shining that blew up ten thousand years ago —

Bobby
(
interrupting
): Where are you getting this money?

Koster
: Why —

Bobby
: Tell me!

Koster
(
hesitating, then very simply
): From Heinrich — it’s Dr. Jaffé’s Heinrich now. You see, he admired him so much…

CUT TO:

357 PAT’S ROOM

Pat’s eyes wide and staring. Pat’s head shaking from side to side in dismay.

CUT TO:

358 BOBBY’S ROOM

Bobby utterly sunk.

Bobby
: That’s worse than the money lenders.

Koster
: I shouldn’t have told you, you baby.

Bobby
: This may be a matter of months, years.

CUT TO:

359 PAT’S ROOM

A nurse opening the door, looking at her, closing it. Pat’s hand slowly comes out from under the covers.

CUT TO:

360 THE UPPER HALL

Bobby and Koster walking toward the head of the stairs.

CUT TO:

361 PAT’S ROOM

Pat’s hand slowly taking off the bed clothes.

CUT TO:

362 THE LOBBY DOWNSTAIRS

A scattering of patients. Koster and Bobby pass through, meet Tony who shakes hands with Koster. Radio playing nervous music. “Heinrich” is visible through the front door.

CUT TO:

363 PAT ON THE SIDE OF HER BED

 — slowly pulling herself erect, standing still a moment and then stretching out her closed fists quickly toward the ceiling and reaching toward death — the only thing that can save her love, her high honor.

CUT TO:

364 EXT. THE INN

“Heinrich” racing from the door with the cut-out open.

CUT TO:

365 PANNING SHOT — BOBBY

 — rushing through the lobby again, brushing past several patients and running upstairs, two steps at a time.

CUT TO:

366 PAT’S ROOM

Pat collapsed in a heap beside the bed, dying. Bobby coming in the door — seeing — going to her —

Bobby
: Pat — oh, Pat. (
he raises her, supports her. Pat’s head wobbles on her shoulders
) Help — somebody!

Pat
(
very low
): It’s all right — it’s hard to die — but I’m quite full of love — like a bee is full of honey when it comes back to the hive in the evening.

On these words, before her eyes close in death, we —

FADE OUT.

367 FADE IN:

A SNOW-COVERED CEMETERY ON A HILL IN THE CITY — EVENING

Bobby and Koster, their eyes straight before them, are walking down a broad path. There is a faint glow in the sky and far away the unmistakable tp! tp! tp! tp! of a machine gun.

Koster
: There’s fighting in the city.

As they continue on, they are suddenly four instead of two — the shadowy figures of Pat and Lenz, grave and tender, walk beside them toward whatever lies ahead.

FADE OUT.

THE END

INFIDELITY

Fitzgerald wrote this unfinished screenplay in 1938, but the censor Joseph Breen was unhappy with the content when he read a draft, and the project was dropped.  It was felt the handling of adultery would give out an immoral message, which was particularly frowned upon at that time.  Therefore, the film was never made and the script was left incomplete.

INFIDELITY.

The Waldorf Roof after the theatre on a gala night: A well-dressed crowd, two bands, a floor show.

Camera picks up two men in tailcoats at a table near the door. One of them is trim and elderly. The other has wild, rumpled hair. They have dropped in for a quick drink and their top hats sit on the table before them. Both hold opera glasses to their eyes, through which they rather unsteadily observe the crowd.