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Tales of the Jazz Age

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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 clears. 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. But 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--and ten years old. I'm really quite surprised that you
don't play it still.

JULIE: I do. I'm going to in a minute.

LOIS: Silly game.

JULIE: (_Warmly_) No, it isn't. It's good for the nerves. I'll
bet you've forgotten how to play it.

LOIS: (_Defiantly_) No, I haven't. You--you get the tub all full
of soapsuds and then you get up on the edge and slide down.

JULIE: (_Shaking her head scornfully_) Huh! That's only part of
it. You've got to slide down without touching your hand or feet--

LOIS:(_Impatiently_) Oh, Lord! What do I care? I wish we'd either
stop coming here in the summer or else get a house with two bath-tubs.

JULIE: You can buy yourself a little tin one, or use the hose-----

LOIS: Oh, shut up!

JULIE: (_Irrelevantly_) Leave the towel.

LOIS: What?

JULIE: Leave the towel when you go.

LOIS: This towel?

JULIE: (_Sweetly_) Yes, I forgot my towel.

LOIS: (_Looking around for the first time_) Why, you idiot! You
haven't even a kimono.

JULIE: (_Also looking around_) Why, so I haven't.

LOIS: (_Suspicion growing on her_) How did you get here?

JULIE: (_Laughing_) I guess I--I guess I whisked here. You know--a
white form whisking down the stairs and--

LOIS: (_Scandalized_) Why, you little wretch. Haven't you any
pride or self-respect?

JULIE: Lots of both. I think that proves it. I looked very well. I
really am rather cute in my natural state.

LOIS: Well, you--

JULIE: (_Thinking aloud_) I wish people didn't wear any clothes.
I guess I ought to have been a pagan or a native or something.

LOIS: You're a--

JULIE: I dreamt last night that one Sunday in church a small boy
brought in a magnet that attracted cloth. He attracted the clothes
right off of everybody; put them in an awful state; people were crying
and shrieking and carrying on as if they'd just discovered their skins
for the first time. Only _I_ didn't care. So I just laughed. I
had to pass the collection plate because nobody else would.

LOIS: (_Who has turned a deaf ear to this speech_) Do you mean to
tell me that if I hadn't come you'd have run back to your
room--un--unclothed?

JULIE: _Au naturel_ is so much nicer.

LOIS: Suppose there had been some one in the living-room.

JULIE: There never has been yet.

LOIS: Yet! Good grief! How long--

JULIE: Besides, I usually have a towel.

LOIS: (_Completely overcome_) Golly! You ought to be spanked. I
hope, you get caught. I hope there's a dozen ministers in the
living-room when you come out--and their wives, and their daughters.

JULIE: There wouldn't be room for them in the living-room, answered
Clean Kate of the Laundry District.

LOIS: All right. You've made your own--bath-tub; you can lie in it.

(_LOIS starts determinedly for the door._)

JULIE: (_In alarm_) Hey! Hey! I don't care about the k'mono, but
I want the towel. I can't dry myself on a piece of soap and a wet
wash-rag.

LOIS: (_Obstinately_). I won't humor such a creature. You'll have
to dry yourself the best way you can. You can roll on the floor like
the animals do that don't wear any clothes.

JULIE: (_Complacent again_) All right. Get out!

LOIS: (_Haughtily_) Huh!

(JULIE _turns on the cold water and with her finger directs a
parabolic stream at LOIS. LOIS retires quickly, slamming the door
after her. JULIE laughs and turns off the water_)

JULIE: (Singing)

When the Arrow-collar man
Meets the D'jer-kiss girl
On the smokeless Sante Fé
Her Pebeco smile
Her Lucile style
De dum da-de-dum one day--

(_She changes to a whistle and leans forward to turn on the taps,
but is startled by three loud banging noises in the pipes. Silence for
a moment--then she puts her mouth down near the spigot as if it were a
telephone_)

JULIE: Hello! (_No answer_) Are you a plumber? (_No answer_)
Are you the water department? (_One loud, hollow bang_) What do
you want? (_No answer_) I believe you're a ghost. Are you? (_No
answer_) Well, then, stop banging. (_She reaches out and turns on
the warm tap. No water flows. Again she puts her mouth down close to
the spigot_) If you're the plumber that's a mean trick. Turn it on
for a fellow. (_Two loud, hollow bangs_) Don't argue! I want
water--water! _Water_!

(_A young man's head appears in the window--a head decorated with a
slim mustache and sympathetic eyes. These last stare, and though they
can see nothing but many fishermen with nets and much crimson ocean,
they decide him to speak_)

THE YOUNG MAN: Some one fainted?

JULIE: (_Starting up, all ears immediately_) Jumping cats!

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Helpfully_) Water's no good for fits.

JULIE: Fits! Who said anything about fits!

THE YOUNG MAN: You said something about a cat jumping

JULIE: (_Decidedly_) I did not!

THE YOUNG MAN: Well, we can talk it over later, Are you ready to go
out? Or do you still feel that if you go with me just now everybody
will gossip?

JULIE: (_Smiling_) Gossip! Would they? It'd be more than
gossip--it'd be a regular scandal.

THE YOUNG MAN: Here, you're going it a little strong. Your family
might be somewhat disgruntled--but to the pure all things are
suggestive. No one else would even give it a thought, except a few old
women. Come on.

JULIE: You don't know what you ask.

THE YOUNG MAN: Do you imagine we'd have a crowd following us?

JULIE: A crowd? There'd be a special, all-steel, buffet train leaving
New York hourly.

THE YOUNG MAN: Say, are you house-cleaning?

JULIE: Why?

THE YOUNG MAN: I see all the pictures are off the walls.

JULIE: Why, we never have pictures in this room.

THE YOUNG MAN: Odd, I never heard of a room without pictures or
tapestry or panelling or something.

JULIE: There's not even any furniture in here.

THE YOUNG MAN: What a strange house!

JULIE: It depend on the angle you see it from.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Sentimentally_) It's so nice talking to you like
this--when you're merely a voice. I'm rather glad I can't see you.

JULIE; (_Gratefully_) So am I.

THE YOUNG MAN: What color are you wearing?

JULIE: (_After a critical survey of her shoulders_) Why, I guess
it's a sort of pinkish white.

THE YOUNG MAN: Is it becoming to you?

JULIE: Very. It's--it's old. I've had it for a long while.

THE YOUNG MAN: I thought you hated old clothes.

JULIE: I do but this was a birthday present and I sort of have to wear
it.

THE YOUNG MAN: Pinkish-white. Well I'll bet it's divine. Is it in
style?

JULIE: Quite. It's very simple, standard model.

THE YOUNG MAN: What a voice you have! How it echoes! Sometimes I shut
my eyes and seem to see you in a far desert island calling for me. And
I plunge toward you through the surf, hearing you call as you stand
there, water stretching on both sides of you--

(_The soap slips from the side of the tub and splashes in. The young
man blinks_)

YOUNG MAN: What was that? Did I dream it?

JULIE: Yes. You're--you're very poetic, aren't you?

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Dreamily_) No. I do prose. I do verse only when
I am stirred.

JULIE: (_Murmuring_) Stirred by a spoon--

THE YOUNG MAN: I have always loved poetry. I can remember to this day
the first poem I ever learned by heart. It was "Evangeline."

JULIE: That's a fib.

THE YOUNG MAN: Did I say "Evangeline"? I meant "The Skeleton in
Armor."

JULIE: I'm a low-brow. But I can remember my first poem. It had one
verse:

Parker and Davis
Sittin' on a fence
Tryne to make a dollar
Outa fif-teen cents.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Eagerly_) Are you growing fond of literature?

JULIE: If it's not too ancient or complicated or depressing. Same way
with people. I usually like 'em not too ancient or complicated or
depressing.

THE YOUNG MAN: Of course I've read enormously. You told me last night
that you were very fond of Walter Scott.

JULIE: (_Considering_) Scott? Let's see. Yes, I've read "Ivanhoe"
and "The Last of the Mohicans."

THE YOUNG MAN: That's by Cooper.

JULIE: (_Angrily_) "Ivanhoe" is? You're crazy! I guess I know. I
read it. THE YOUNG MAN: "The Last of the Mohicans" is by Cooper.

JULIE: What do I care! I like O. Henry. I don't see how he ever wrote
those stories. Most of them he wrote in prison. "The Ballad of Reading
Gaol" he made up in prison.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Biting his lip_) Literature--literature! How
much it has meant to me!

JULIE: Well, as Gaby Deslys said to Mr. Bergson, with my looks and
your brains there's nothing we couldn't do.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Laughing_) You certainly are hard to keep up
with. One day you're awfully pleasant and the next you're in a mood.
If I didn't understand your temperament so well--

JULIE: (_Impatiently_) Oh, you're one of these amateur
character-readers, are you? Size people up in five minutes and then
look wise whenever they're mentioned. I hate that sort of thing.

THE YOUNG MAN: I don't boast of sizing you up. You're most mysterious,
I'll admit.

JULIE: There's only two mysterious people in history.

THE YOUNG MAN: Who are they?

JULIE: The Man with the Iron Mask and the fella who says "ug uh-glug
uh-glug uh-glug" when the line is busy.

THE YOUNG MAN: You _are_ mysterious, I love you. You're
beautiful, intelligent, and virtuous, and that's the rarest known
combination.

JULIE: You're a historian. Tell me if there are any bath-tubs in
history. I think they've been frightfully neglected.

THE YOUNG MAN: Bath-tubs! Let's see. Well, Agamemnon was stabbed in
his bath-tub. And Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat in his bath-tub.

JULIE: (_Sighing_) Way back there! Nothing new besides the sun,
is there? Why only yesterday I picked up a musical-comedy score that
mast have been at least twenty years old; and there on the cover it
said "The Shimmies of Normandy," but shimmie was spelt the old way,
with a "C."

THE YOUNG MAN: I loathe these modern dances. Oh, Lois, I wish I could
see you. Come to the window.

(_There is a loud bang in the water-pipe and suddenly the flow
starts from the open taps. Julie turns them off quickly_)

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Puzzled_) What on earth was that?

JULIE: (_Ingeniously_) I heard something, too.

THE YOUNG MAN: Sounded like running water.

JULIE: Didn't it? Strange like it. As a matter of fact I was filling
the gold-fish bowl.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Still puzzled_) What was that banging noise?

JULIE: One of the fish snapping his golden jaws.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_With sudden resolution_) Lois, I love you. I am
not a mundane man but I am a forger---

JULIE: (_Interested at once_) Oh, how fascinating.

THE YOUNG MAN:--a forger ahead. Lois, I want you.

JULIE: (_Skeptically_) Huh! What you really want is for the world
to come to attention and stand there till you give "Rest!"

THE YOUNG MAN: Lois I--Lois I--

(_He stops as Lois opens the door, comes in, and bangs it behind
her. She looks peevishly at _JULIE _and then suddenly catches
sight of the young man in the window_)

LOIS: (_In horror_) Mr. Calkins!

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Surprised_) Why I thought you said you were
wearing pinkish white!

(_After one despairing stare _LOIS _ shrieks, throws up her
hands in surrender, and sinks to the floor._)

THE YOUNG MAN: (_In great alarm_) Good Lord! She's fainted! I'll
be right in.

(JULIE'S _eyes light on the towel which has slipped from_ LOIS'S
_inert hand._)

JULIE: In that case I'll be right out.

(_She puts her hands on the side of the tub to lift herself out and
a murmur, half gasp, half sigh, ripples from the audience.

A Belasco midnight comes guickly down and blots out the stage._)

CURTAIN.




_FANTASIES_



THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ

1


John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades--a
small town on the Mississippi River--for several generations. John's
father had held the amateur golf championship through many a heated
contest; Mrs. Unger was known "from hot-box to hot-bed," as the local
phrase went, for her political addresses; and young John T. Unger, who
had just turned sixteen, had danced all the latest dances from New
York before he put on long trousers. And now, for a certain time, he
was to be away from home. That respect for a New England education
which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly
of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents.
Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas's School
near Boston--Hades was too small to hold their darling and gifted son.

Now in Hades--as you know if you ever have been there--the names of
the more fashionable preparatory schools and colleges mean very
little. The inhabitants have been so long out of the world that,
though they make a show of keeping up-to-date in dress and manners and
literature, they depend to a great extent on hearsay, and a function
that in Hades would be considered elaborate would doubtless be hailed
by a Chicago beef-princess as "perhaps a little tacky."

John T. Unger was on the eve of departure. Mrs. Unger, with maternal
fatuity, packed his trunks full of linen suits and electric fans, and
Mr. Unger presented his son with an asbestos pocket-book stuffed with
money.

"Remember, you are always welcome here," he said. "You can be sure,
boy, that we'll keep the home fires burning."

"I know," answered John huskily.

"Don't forget who you are and where you come from," continued his
father proudly, "and you can do nothing to harm you. You are an
Unger--from Hades."

So the old man and the young shook hands, and John walked away with
tears streaming from his eyes. Ten minutes later he had passed outside
the city limits and he stopped to glance back for the last time. Over
the gates the old-fashioned Victorian motto seemed strangely
attractive to him. His father had tried time and time again to have it
changed to something with a little more push and verve about it, such
as "Hades--Your Opportunity," or else a plain "Welcome" sign set over
a hearty handshake pricked out in electric lights. The old motto was a
little depressing, Mr. Unger had thought--but now ....

So John took his look and then set his face resolutely toward his
destination. And, as he turned away, the lights of Hades against the
sky seemed full of a warm and passionate beauty.

* * * * *

St. Midas's School is half an hour from Boston in a Rolls-Pierce
motor-car. The actual distance will never be known, for no one, except
John T. Unger, had ever arrived there save in a Rolls-Pierce and
probably no one ever will again. St. Midas's is the most expensive and
the most exclusive boys' preparatory school in the world.

John's first two years there passed pleasantly. The fathers of all the
boys were money-kings, and John spent his summer visiting at
fashionable resorts. While he was very fond of all the boys he
visited, their fathers struck him as being much of a piece, and in his
boyish way he often wondered at their exceeding sameness. When he told
them where his home was they would ask jovially, "Pretty hot down
there?" and John would muster a faint smile and answer, "It certainly
is." His response would have been heartier had they not all made this
joke--at best varying it with, "Is it hot enough for you down there?"
which he hated just as much.

In the middle of his second year at school, a quiet, handsome boy
named Percy Washington had been put in John's form. The new-comer was
pleasant in his manner and exceedingly well dressed even for St.
Midas's, but for some reason he kept aloof from the other boys. The
only person with whom he was intimate was John T. Unger, but even to
John he was entirely uncommunicative concerning his home or his
family. That he was wealthy went without saying, but beyond a few such
deductions John knew little of his friend, so it promised rich
confectionery for his curiosity when Percy invited him to spend the
summer at his home "in the West." He accepted, without hesitation.

It was only when they were in the train that Percy became, for the
first time, rather communicative. One day while they were eating lunch
in the dining-car and discussing the imperfect characters of several
of the boys at school, Percy suddenly changed his tone and made an
abrupt remark.

"My father," he said, "is by far the richest man in the world."

"Oh," said John politely. He could think of no answer to make to this
confidence. He considered "That's very nice," but it sounded hollow
and was on the point of saying, "Really?" but refrained since it would
seem to question Percy's statement. And such an astounding statement
could scarcely be questioned.

"By far the richest," repeated Percy.

"I was reading in the _World Almanac_," began John, "that there
was one man in America with an income of over five million a years and
four men with incomes of over three million a year, and---"

"Oh, they're nothing." Percy's mouth was a half-moon of scorn.
"Catch-penny capitalists, financial small-fry, petty merchants and
money-lenders. My father could buy them out and not know he'd done
it."

"But how does he---"

"Why haven't they put down _his_ income-tax? Because he doesn't
pay any. At least he pays a little one--but he doesn't pay any on his
_real_ income."

"He must be very rich," said John simply, "I'm glad. I like very rich
people.

"The richer a fella is, the better I like him." There was a look of
passionate frankness upon his dark face. "I visited the
Schnlitzer-Murphys last Easter. Vivian Schnlitzer-Murphy had rubies as
big as hen's eggs, and sapphires that were like globes with lights
inside them---"

"I love jewels," agreed Percy enthusiastically. "Of course I wouldn't
want any one at school to know about it, but I've got quite a
collection myself. I used to collect them instead of stamps."

"And diamonds," continued John eagerly. "The Schnlitzer-Murphys had
diamonds as big as walnuts---"

"That's nothing." Percy had leaned forward and dropped his voice to a
low whisper. "That's nothing at all. My father has a diamond bigger
than the Ritz-Carlton Hotel."


2

The Montana sunset lay between two mountains like a gigantic bruise
from which dark arteries spread themselves over a poisoned sky. An
immense distance under the sky crouched the village of Fish, minute,
dismal, and forgotten. There were twelve men, so it was said, in the
village of Fish, twelve sombre and inexplicable souls who sucked a
lean milk from the almost literally bare rock upon which a mysterious
populatory force had begotten them. They had become a race apart,
these twelve men of Fish, like some species developed by an early whim
of nature, which on second thought had abandoned them to struggle and
extermination.

Out of the blue-black bruise in the distance crept a long line of
moving lights upon the desolation of the land, and the twelve men of
Fish gathered like ghosts at the shanty depot to watch the passing of
the seven o'clock train, the Transcontinental Express from Chicago.
Six times or so a year the Transcontinental Express, through some
inconceivable jurisdiction, stopped at the village of Fish, and when
this occurred a figure or so would disembark, mount into a buggy that
always appeared from out of the dusk, and drive off toward the bruised
sunset. The observation of this pointless and preposterous phenomenon
had become a sort of cult among the men of Fish. To observe, that was
all; there remained in them none of the vital quality of illusion
which would make them wonder or speculate, else a religion might have
grown up around these mysterious visitations. But the men of Fish were
beyond all religion--the barest and most savage tenets of even
Christianity could gain no foothold on that barren rock--so there was
no altar, no priest, no sacrifice; only each night at seven the silent
concourse by the shanty depot, a congregation who lifted up a prayer
of dim, anaemic wonder.

On this June night, the Great Brakeman, whom, had they deified any
one, they might well have chosen as their celestial protagonist, had
ordained that the seven o'clock train should leave its human (or
inhuman) deposit at Fish. At two minutes after seven Percy Washington
and John T. Unger disembarked, hurried past the spellbound, the agape,
the fearsome eyes of the twelve men of Fish, mounted into a buggy
which had obviously appeared from nowhere, and drove away.

After half an hour, when the twilight had coagulated into dark, the
silent negro who was driving the buggy hailed an opaque body somewhere
ahead of them in the gloom. In response to his cry, it turned upon
them a luminous disc which regarded them like a malignant eye out of
the unfathomable night. As they came closer, John saw that it was the
tail-light of an immense automobile, larger and more magnificent than
any he had ever seen. Its body was of gleaming metal richer than
nickel and lighter than silver, and the hubs of the wheels were
studded with iridescent geometric figures of green and yellow--John
did not dare to guess whether they were glass or jewel.

Two negroes, dressed in glittering livery such as one sees in pictures
of royal processions in London, were standing at attention beside the
car and, as the two young men dismounted from the buggy, they were
greeted in some language which the guest could not understand, but
which seemed to be an extreme form of the Southern negro's dialect.

"Get in," said Percy to his friend, as their trunks were tossed to the
ebony roof of the limousine. "Sorry we had to bring you this far in
that buggy, but of course it wouldn't do for the people on the train
or those God-forsaken fellas in Fish to see this automobile."

"Gosh! What a car!" This ejaculation was provoked by its interior.
John saw that the upholstery consisted of a thousand minute and
exquisite tapestries of silk, woven with jewels and embroideries, and
set upon a background of cloth of gold. The two armchair seats in
which the boys luxuriated were covered with stuff that resembled
duvetyn, but seemed woven in numberless colours of the ends of ostrich
feathers.

"What a car!" cried John again, in amazement.

"This thing?" Percy laughed. "Why, it's just an old junk we use for a
station wagon."

By this time they were gliding along through the darkness toward the
break between the two mountains.

"We'll be there in an hour and a half," said Percy, looking at the
clock. "I may as well tell you it's not going to be like anything you
ever saw before."

If the car was any indication of what John would see, he was prepared
to be astonished indeed. The simple piety prevalent in Hades has the
earnest worship of and respect for riches as the first article of its
creed--had John felt otherwise than radiantly humble before them, his
parents would have turned away in horror at the blasphemy.

They had now reached and were entering the break between the two
mountains and almost immediately the way became much rougher.

"If the moon shone down here, you'd see that we're in a big gulch,"
said Percy, trying to peer out of the window. He spoke a few words
into the mouthpiece and immediately the footman turned on a
searchlight and swept the hillsides with an immense beam.

"Rocky, you see. An ordinary car would be knocked to pieces in half an
hour. In fact, it'd take a tank to navigate it unless you knew the
way. You notice we're going uphill now."

They were obviously ascending, and within a few minutes the car was
crossing a high rise, where they caught a glimpse of a pale moon newly
risen in the distance. The car stopped suddenly and several figures
took shape out of the dark beside it--these were negroes also. Again
the two young men were saluted in the same dimly recognisable dialect;
then the negroes set to work and four immense cables dangling from
overhead were attached with hooks to the hubs of the great jewelled
wheels. At a resounding "Hey-yah!" John felt the car being lifted
slowly from the ground--up and up--clear of the tallest rocks on both
sides--then higher, until he could see a wavy, moonlit valley
stretched out before him in sharp contrast to the quagmire of rocks
that they had just left. Only on one side was there still rock--and
then suddenly there was no rock beside them or anywhere around.

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