The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Knowledge house
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 grew 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 anymore, they told me of her—crumbs to a dog. I wasn’t the authority anymore 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 Messalina 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, 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 partners 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!”