The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  “Imagine their objecting to us having champagne for breakfast—jus’ imagine.”

  They both concentrated upon the vision of such an awesome possibility, but the feat was too much for them. It was impossible for their joint imaginations to conjure up a world where any one might object to any one else having champagne for breakfast. The waiter drew the cork with an enormous pop—and their glasses immediately foamed with pale yellow froth.

  “Here’s health, Mr. In.”

  “Here’s same to you, Mr. Out.”

  The waiter withdrew; the minutes passed; the champagne became low in the bottle.

  “It’s—it’s mortifying,” said Dean suddenly.

  “Wha’s mortifying?”

  “The idea their objecting us having champagne breakfast.”

  “Mortifying?” Peter considered. “Yes, tha’s word—mortifying.”

  Again they collapsed into laughter, howled, swayed, rocked back and forth in their chairs, repeating the word “mortifying” over and over to each other—each repetition seeming to make it only more brilliantly absurd.

  After a few more gorgeous minutes they decided on another quart. Their anxious waiter consulted his immediate superior, and this discreet person gave implicit instructions that no more champagne should be served. Their check was brought.

  Five minutes later, arm in arm, they left the Commodore and made their way through a curious, staring crowd along Forty-second Street, and up Vanderbilt Avenue to the Biltmore. There, with sudden cunning, they rose to the occasion and traversed the lobby, walking fast and standing unnaturally erect.

  Once in the dining-room they repeated their performance. They were torn between intermittent convulsive laughter and sudden spasmodic discussions of politics, college, and the sunny state of their dispositions. Their watches told them that it was now nine o’clock, and a dim idea was born in them that they were on a memorable party, something that they would remember always. They lingered over the second bottle. Either of them had only to mention the word “mortifying” to send them both into riotous gasps. The dining-room was whirring and shifting now; a curious lightness permeated and rarefied the heavy air.

  They paid their check and walked out into the lobby.

  It was at this moment that the exterior doors revolved for the thousandth time that morning, and admitted into the lobby a very pale young beauty with dark circles under her eyes, attired in a much-rumpled evening dress. She was accompanied by a plain stout man, obviously not an appropriate escort.

  At the top of the stairs this couple encountered Mr. In and Mr. Out.

  “Edith,” began Mr. In, stepping toward her hilariously and making a sweeping bow, “darling, good morning.”

  The stout man glanced questioningly at Edith, as if merely asking her permission to throw this man summarily out of the way.

  “ ’Scuse familiarity,” added Peter, as an afterthought. “Edith, good-morning.”

  He seized Dean’s elbow and impelled him into the foreground.

  “Meet Mr. In, Edith, my bes’ frien’. Inseparable. Mr. In and Mr. Out.”

  Mr. Out advanced and bowed; in fact, he advanced so far and bowed so low that he tipped slightly forward and only kept his balance by placing a hand lightly on Edith’s shoulder.

  “I’m Mr. Out, Edith,” he mumbled pleasantly, “S’misterin Mister-out.”

  “ ’Smisterinanout,” said Peter proudly.

  But Edith stared straight by them, her eyes fixed on some infinite speck in the gallery above her. She nodded slightly to the stout man, who advanced bull-like and with a sturdy brisk gesture pushed Mr. In and Mr. Out to either side. Through this alley he and Edith walked.

  But ten paces farther on Edith stopped again—stopped and pointed to a short, dark soldier who was eying the crowd in general, and the tableau of Mr. In and Mr. Out in particular, with a sort of puzzled, spell-bound awe.

  “There,” cried Edith. “See there!”

  Her voice rose, became somewhat shrill. Her pointing finger shook slightly.

  “There’s the soldier who broke my brother’s leg.”

  There were a dozen exclamations; a man in a cutaway coat left his place near the desk and advanced alertly; the stout person made a sort of lightning-like spring toward the short, dark soldier, and then the lobby closed around the little group and blotted them from the sight of Mr. In and Mr. Out.

  But to Mr. In and Mr. Out this event was merely a particolored iridescent segment of a whirring, spinning world.

  They heard loud voices; they saw the stout man spring; the picture suddenly blurred.

  Then they were in an elevator bound skyward.

  “What floor, please?” said the elevator man.

  “Any floor,” said Mr. In.

  “Top floor,” said Mr. Out.

  “This is the top floor,” said the elevator man.

  “Have another floor put on,” said Mr. Out.

  “Higher,” said Mr. In.

  “Heaven,” said Mr. Out.

  XI

  In a bedroom of a small hotel just off Sixth Avenue Gordon Sterrett awoke with a pain in the back of his head and a sick throbbing in all his veins. He looked at the dusky gray shadows in the corners of the room and at a raw place on a large leather chair in the corner where it had long been in use. He saw clothes, dishevelled, rumpled clothes on the floor and he smelt stale cigarette smoke and stale liquor. The windows were tight shut. Outside the bright sunlight had thrown a dust-filled beam across the sill—a beam broken by the head of the wide wooden bed in which he had slept. He lay very quiet—comatose, drugged, his eyes wide, his mind clicking wildly like an un-oiled machine.

  It must have been thirty seconds after he perceived the sunbeam with the dust on it and the rip on the large leather chair that he had the sense of life close beside him, and it was another thirty seconds after that before that he realized that he was irrevocably married to Jewel Hudson.

  He went out half an hour later and bought a revolver at a sporting goods store. Then he took a taxi to the room where he had been living on East Twenty-seventh Street, and, leaning across the table that held his drawing materials, fired a cartridge into his head just behind the temple.

  Porcelain and Pink

  A 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 coat of sky-blue paint. 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 Easter 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; it lets in much sunshine, but effectually prevents any one who looks in fr
om 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 Nervii1 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’re 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 filled 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 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 experience 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 hands 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: (Complacement again) All right. Get out!

  LOIS: (Haughtily) Huh!

  (JULIE turns on the c
old 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 style2

  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?