The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Knowledge house
John—(Hopefully) I’ll climb up.
Helen—John, don’t. You’ll tear your dress clothes. (He is evidently making good, as deduced from a few muttered fragments, barely audible.) Look out for the spike by the ledge. (A moment later he appears in the window, a young man of twenty-two, good-looking, but at present not particularly cheerful.)
Helen—(Sitting down) You simple boy! Do you want the family to kill me? Do you realize how conspicuous you are?
John—(Hopefully) I’d better come in.
Helen—No, you had better not. Mother may be up at any moment.
John—Better turn out the lights. I make a good movie standing like this on this ledge.
Helen hesitates and then turns out all the lights except an electric lamp on the dresser.
Helen—(Assuming an effective pose in the arm chair) What on earth do you want?
John—I want you. I want to know that you are mine when I see you dancing around with this crowd tonight.
Helen—Well, I am not. I belong to myself tonight, or rather to the crowd.
John—You’ve been rotten to me this week.
Helen—Have I?
John—You’re tired of me.
Helen—No, not that. The family. (They have evidently been over this ground before.)
John—It isn’t the family, and you know it.
Helen—Well, to tell the truth, it isn’t exactly the family.
John—I know it isn’t. It’s me—and you, and I’m getting desperate. You’ve got to do something one way or the other. We are engaged, or—
Helen—Well, we are not engaged.
John—Then what are we? What do you think about me, or do you think about me? You never tell me anymore. We’re drifting apart. Please, Helen—!
Helen—It’s a funny business, John, just how I do feel.
John—It isn’t funny to me.
Helen—No, I don’t suppose it is. You know, if you just weren’t so in love with me—
John—(Gloomily) Well, I am.
Helen—You see, there is no novelty in that. I always know just what you are going to say.
John—I wish I did. When you first met me, you used to tell me that you loved to hear me talk, because you never knew what I was going to say.
Helen—Well, I’ve found out. I like to run things, but it gets monotonous to always know that I am the key to the situation. If we are together, and I feel high, we enjoy ourselves. If I feel unhappy, then we don’t; or anyway you don’t. How you’re feeling never has anything to do with it.
John—Wouldn’t it be that way with most couples?
Helen—Oh, I suppose so. It would be if I were the girl.
John—Well, what do you want?
Helen—I want—Oh, I’ll be frank for once. I like the feeling of going after them. I like the thrill when you meet them and notice that they’ve got black hair that’s wavy, but awfully neat, or have dark lines under their eyes, and look charmingly dissipated, or have funny smiles that come and go and leave you wondering whether they smiled at all. Then I like the way they begin to follow you with their eyes. They’re interested. Good! Then I begin to place him. Try to get his type, find what he likes; right then the romance begins to lessen for me and increase for him. Then come a few long talks.
John—(Bitterly) I remember.
Helen—Then, John, here’s the worst of it. There’s a point where everything changes.
John—(Mournfully interested) What do you mean?
Helen—Well, sometimes it’s a kiss and sometimes it’s long before anything like that. Now if it’s a kiss, it can do one of three things.
John—Three! It’s done a thousand to me.
Helen—It can make him get tired of you, but a clever girl can avoid this. It’s only the young ones and the heroines of magazine epigrams that are kissed and deserted. Then there’s the second possibility. It can make you tired of him. This is usual. He immediately thinks of nothing but being alone with the girl, and she, rather touchy about the whole thing, gets snappy, and he’s first lovesick, then discouraged, and finally lost.
John—(More grimly) Go on.
Helen—Then the third state is where the kiss really means something, where the girl lets go of herself and the man is in deadly earnest.
John—Then they’re engaged?
Helen—Exactly.
John—Weren’t we?
Helen—(Emphatically) No, we distinctly were not. I knew what I was doing every blessed second, John Cannel.
John—Very well, don’t be angry. I feel mean enough already.
Helen—(Coldly) Do you?
John—Where do I come in? This is all a very clever system of yours, and you’ve played through it. You go along your way looking for another movie hero with black hair, or light hair, or red hair, and I am left with the same pair of eyes looking at me, the same lips moving in the same words to another poor fool, the next—
Helen—For Heaven sakes don’t cry!
John—Oh, I don’t give a damn what I do!
Helen—(Her eyes cast down to where her toe traces a pattern on the carpet) You are very young. You would think from the way you talk that it was my fault, that I tried not to like you.
John—Young! Oh, I’m in the discard, I know.
Helen—Oh, you’ll find someone else.
John—I don’t want anyone else.
Helen—(Scornfully) You’re making a perfect fool of yourself.
There is a silence. She idly kicks the heel of her slipper against the rung of the chair.
John—(Slowly) It’s this damn Charlie Wordsworth.
Helen—(Raising her eyes quickly) If you want to talk like that you’d better go. Please go now.
She rises. John watches her a moment and then admits his defeat.
John—Helen, don’t let’s do like this. Let’s be friends. Good God, I never thought I would have to ask you for just that.
She runs over and takes his hand, affecting a hopeful cheerfulness which immediately revolts him. He drops her hand and disappears from the window. She leans out and watches him.
Helen—Watch for that spike. Oh, John, I warned you. You’ve torn your clothes.
John—(Drearily from below) Yes, I’ve torn my clothes. I certainly play in wonderful luck. Such an effective exit.
Helen—Are you coming to the dance?
John—No, of course I am not. Do you think I’d come just to see you and Charlie—
Helen—(Gently)