Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated)

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Well,”she continued, “there had to be an outlet — and there was, and you know the form it took in what you called the fast set. Next enter Mr. Mars. You see as long as there was moral pressure exerted, the rotten side of society was localized. I won’t say it wasn’t spreading, but it was spreading slowly, some people even thought, rather normally, but when men began to go away and not come back, when marriage became a hurried thing and widows filled London, and all traditions seemed broken, why then things were different.”

  “How did it start?”

  “It started in cases where men were called away hurriedly and girls lost their nerve. Then the men didn’t come back — and there were the girls — “

  He gasped.

  “That was going on at the beginning? — I didn’t know at all.”

  “Oh it was very quiet at first. Very little leaked out into daylight, but the thing spread in the dark. The next thing, you see, was to weave a sentimental mantle to throw over it. It was there and it had to be excused. Most girls either put on trousers and drove cars all day or painted their faces and danced with officers all night.”

  “And what mighty principle had the honor of being a cloak for all that?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Now here, you see, is the paradox. I can talk like this and pretend to analyze, and even sneer at the principle. Yet I’m as much under the spell as the most wishy-washy typist who spends a week end at Brighton with her young man before he sails with the conscripts.”

  “I’m waiting to hear what the spell is.”

  “It’s this — self sacrifice with a capitol S. Young men going to get killed for us. — We would have been their wives — we can’t be — therefore we’ll be as much as we can. And that’s the story.”

  “Good God!”

  “Young officer comes back,” she went on; “must amuse him, must amuse him; must give him the impression that people here are with him, that it’s a big home he’s coming to, that he’s appreciated. Now you know, of course, in the lower classes that sort of thing means children. Whether that will ever spread to us will depend on the duration of the war.”

  “How about old ideas, and standards of woman and that sort of thing?” he asked, rather sheepishly.

  “Sky-high, my dear — dead and gone. It might be said for utility that it’s better and safer for the race that officers stay with women of their own class. Think of the next generation in France.”

  To Clay the whole compartment had suddenly become smothering. Bubbles of conventional ethics seemed to have burst and the long stagnant gas was reaching him. He was forced to seize his mind and make it cling to whatever shreds of the old still floated on the moral air. Eleanor’s voice came to him like the grey creed of a new materialistic world, the contrast was the more vivid because of the remains of erratic honor and sentimental religiosity that she flung out with the rest.

  “So you see, my dear, utility, heroism and sentiment all combine and le voice. And we’re pulling into Rochester,” she turned to him pathetically. “I see that in trying to clear myself I’ve only indicted my whole sex,” and with tears in their eyes they kissed.

  On the platform they talked for half a minute more. There was no emotion. She was trying to analyze again and her smooth brow was wrinkled in the effort. He was endeavoring to digest what she had said, but his brain was in a whirl.

  “Do you remember,” he asked, “what you said last night about love being a big word like Life and Death?”

  “A regular phrase; part of the technique of — of the game; a catch word.” The train moved off and as Clay swung himself on the last car she raised her voice so that he could hear her to the last — “Love is a big word, but I was flattering us. Real Love’s as big as Life and Death, but not that love — not that — “ Her voice failed and mingled with the sound of the rails, and to Clay she seemed to fade out like a grey ghost on the platform.

  III

  When the charge broke and the remnants lapped back like spent waves, Sergeant O’Flaherty, a bullet through the left side, dropped beside him, and as weary castaways fight half listlessly for shore, they crawled and pushed and edged themselves into a shell crater. Clay’s shoulder and back were bleeding profusely and he searched heavily and clumsily for his first aid package.

  “That’ll be that the Seventeenth Sussex gets reorganized,” remarked O’Flaherty, sagely. “Two weeks in the rear and two weeks home.”

  “Damn good regiment, it was, O’Flaherty,” said Clay. They would have seemed like two philosophic majors commenting from safe behind the lines had it not been that Clay was flat on his back, his face in a drawn ecstasy of pain, and that the Irishman was most evidently bleeding to death. The latter was twining an improvised tourniquet on his thigh, watching it with the careless casual interest a bashful suitor bestows upon his hat.

  “I can’t get up no emotion over a regiment these nights,” he commented disgustedly. “This’ll be the fifth I was in that I seen smashed to hell. I joined these Sussex byes so I needn’t see more o’ me own go.”

  “I think you know every one in Ireland, Sergeant.”

  “All Ireland’s me friend, Captain, though I niver knew it ‘till I left. So I left the Irish, what was left of them. You see when an English bye dies he does some play actin’ before. Blood on an Englishman always calls rouge to me mind. It’s a game with him. The Irish take death damn serious.”

  Clayton rolled painfully over and watched the night come softly down and blend with the drifting smoke. They were certainly between the devil and the deep sea and the slang of the next generation will use “no man’s land” for that. O’Flaherty was still talking.

  “You see you has to do somethin’. You haven’t any God worth remarkin’ on. So you pass from life in the names of your holy principles, and hope to meet in Westminster.”

  “We’re not mystics, O’Flaherty,” muttered Clay, “but we’ve got a firm grip on God and reality.”

  “Mystics, my eye, beggin’ your pardon, lieutenant,” cried the Irishman, “a mystic ain’t no race, it’s a saint. You got the most airy way o’ thinkin’ in the wurruld an yit you talk about plain faith as if it was cloud gazin’. There was a lecture last week behind Vimy Y.M.C.A., an’ I stuck my head in the door; ‘Tan-gi-ble,’ the fellow was sayin’ ‘we must be Tan-gi-ble in our religion, we must be practicle’ an’ he starts off on Christian brotherhood an’ honorable death — so I stuck me head out again. An’ you got lots a good men dyin’ for that every day-tryin’ to be tan-gi-ble, dyin’ because their father’s a Duke or because he ain’t. But that ain’t what I got to think of. An’ right here let’s light a pipe before it gets dark enough for the damn burgomasters to see the match and practice on it.”

  Pipes, as indispensible as the hard ration, were going in no time, and the sergeant continued as he blew a huge lung full of smoke towards the earth with incongruous supercaution.

  “I fight because I like it, an’ God ain’t to blame for that, but when it’s death you’re talkin’ about I’ll tell you what I get an’ you don’t. Pere Dupont gets in front of the Frenchies an’ he says: ‘Allon, mes enfants!’ fine! an’ Father O’Brien, he says: ‘Go on in byes and bate the Luther out o’ them’ — great stuff! But can you see the reverent Updike — Updike just out o’ Oxford — yellin’ ‘mix it up, chappies,’ or ‘soak ‘em blokes?’ — NO, Captain, the best leader you ever get is a six foot rowin’ man that thinks God’s got a seat in the House o’ Commons. All sportin’ men have to have a bunch o’ cheerin’ when they die. Give an Englishman four inches in the sportin’ page this side of the whistle an’ he’ll die happy — but not O’Flaherty.”

  But Clay’s thoughts were far away. Half delirious, his mind wandered to Eleanor. He had thought of nothing else for a week, ever since their parting at Rochester, and so many new sides of what he had learned were opening up. He had suddenly realized about Dick and Eleanor, they must have been married to all intents and purposes. Of course Clay had written to Eleanor from Paris, ask
ing her to marry him on his return, and just yesterday he had gotten a very short, very kind, but definite refusal. And he couldn’t understand at all.

  Then there was his sister — Eleanor’s words still rang in his ear. “They either put on trousers and act as chauffers all day or put on paint and dance with officers all night.” He felt perfectly sure that Clara was still well — virtuous. Virtuous — what a ridiculous word it seemed, and how odd to be using it about his sister. Clara had always been so painfully good. At fourteen she had been sent to Boston for a souvenir picture of Louisa M. Alcott to hang over her bed. His favorite amusement had been to replace it by some startling soubrette in tights, culled from the pages of the Pink Un. Well Clara, Eleanor, Dick, he himself, were all in the same boat, no matter what the actuality of their innocence or guilt. If he ever got back —

  The Irishman, evidently sinking fast, was talking rapidly.

  “Put your wishy-washy pretty clothes on everythin’ but it ain’t no disguise. If I get drunk it’s the flesh and the devil, if you get drunk it’s your wild oats. But you ain’t disguisin’ death, not to me you ain’t. It’s a damn serious affair. I may get killed for me flag, but I’m goin’ to die for meself. ‘I die for England’ he says. ‘Settle up with God, you’re through with England’ I says.”

  He raised himself on his elbow and shook his fist toward the German trenches.

  “It’s you an’ your damn Luther,” he shouted. “You been protestin’ and analyzin’ until you’re makin’ my body ache and burn like hell; you been evolvin’ like mister Darwin, an’ you stretched yourself so far that you’ve split. Everythin’s in-tan-gi-ble except your God. Honor an’ Fatherland an’ Westminster Abbey, they’re all in-tan-gi-ble except God an’ sure you got him tan-gi-ble. You got him on the flag an’ in the constitution. Next you’ll be writin’ your bibles with Christ sowin’ wild oats to make him human. You say he’s on your side. Onc’t, just onc’t, he had a favorite nation and they hung Him up by the hands and feet and his body hurt him and burn’t him,” his voice grew fainter. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is wit’ thee — “ His voice trailed off, he shuddered and was dead.

  The hours went on. Clayton lit another pipe, heedless of what German sharpshooters might see. A heavy March mist had come down and the damp was eating into him. His whole left side was paralyzed and he felt chill creep slowly over him. He spoke aloud.

  “Damned old mist — damned lucky old Irishman — Damnation.” He felt a dim wonder that he was to know death but his thoughts turned as ever to England, and three faces came in sequence before him. Clara’s, Dick’s and Eleanor’s. It was all such a mess. He’d like to have gone back and finished that conversation. It had stopped at Rochester — he had stopped living in the station at Rochester. How queer to have stopped there — Rochester had no significance. Wasn’t there a play where a man was born in a station, or a handbag in a station, and he’d stopped living at — what did the Irishman say about cloaks, Eleanor said something about cloaks; too, he couldn’t see any cloaks, didn’t feel sentimental — only cold and dim and mixed up. He didn’t know about God — God was a good thing for curates — then there was the Y. M. C. A; God — and he always wore short sleeves, and bumpy Oxfords — but that wasn’t God — that was just the man who talked about God to soldiers. And then there was O’Flaherty’s God. He felt as if he knew him, but then he’d never called him God — he was fear and love, and it wasn’t dignified to fear God — or even to love him except in a calm respectable way. There were so many God’s it seemed — he had thought that Christianity was monotheistic, and it seemed pagan to have so many Gods.

  Well, he’d find out the whole muddled business in about three minutes, and a lot of good it’d do anybody else left in the muddle.

  Damned muddle — everything a muddle, everybody offside, and the referee gotten rid of — everybody trying to say that if the referee were there he’d have been on their side. He was going to go and find that old referee — find him — get hold of him, get a good hold — cling to him — cling to him — ask him —

  THE PIERIAN SPRINGS AND THE LAST STRAW

  My Uncle George assumed, during my childhood, almost legendary proportions. His name was never mentioned except in verbal italics. His published works lay in bright, interesting binding on the library table — forbidden to my whetted curiosity until I should reach the age of corruption. When one day I broke the orange lamp into a hundred shivers and glints of glass, it was in search of closer information concerning a late arrival among the books. I spent the afternoon in bed and for weeks could not play under the table because of maternal horror of severed arteries in hands and knees. But I had gotten my first idea of Uncle George — he was a tall, angular man with crooked arms. His opinion was founded upon the shape of the handwriting in which he had written “To you, my brother, with heartiest of futile hopes that you will enjoy and approve of this: George Rombert.” After this unintelligible beginning whatever interest I had in the matter waned, as would have all my ideas of the author, had he not been a constant family topic.

  When I was eleven I unwillingly listened to the first comprehensible discussion of him. I was figeting on a chair in barbarous punishment when a letter arrived and I noticed my father growing stern and formidable as he read it. Instinctively I knew it concerned Uncle George — and I was right.

  “What’s the matter Tom? — Some one sick?” asked my mother rather anxiously.

  For answer father rose and handed her the letter and some newspaper clippings it had enclosed. When she had read it twice (for her naive curiosity could never resist a preliminary skim) she plunged —

  “Why should she write to you and not to me?”

  Father threw himself wearily on the sofa and arranged his long limbs decoratively.

  “It’s getting tiresome, isn’t it? This is the third time he’s become — involved.” I started for I distinctively heard him add under his breath “Poor damn fool!”

  “It’s much more than tiresome,” began my mother, “It’s disgusting; a great strong man with money and talent and every reason to behave and get married (she implied that these words were synonymous) playing around with serious women like a silly, conceited college boy. You’d think it was a harmless game!”

  Here I put in my word. I thought that perhaps my being de trop in the conversation might lead to an early release.

  “I’m here,” I volunteered.

  “So I see,” said father in the tones he used to intimidate other young lawyers downtown; so I sat there and listened respectfully while they plumbed the iniquitous depths.

  “It is a game to him,” said my father; “That’s all part of his theory.”

  My mother sighed. “Mr. Sedgewick told me yesterday that his books had done inestimable harm to the spirit in which love is held in this country.”

  “Mr. Sedgewick wrote him a letter,” remarked my father rather dryly, “and George sent him the book of Solomon by return post — “

  “Don’t joke, Thomas,” said mother crowding her face with eyes, “George is treacherous, his mind is unhealthy — “

  “And so would mine be, had you not snatched me passionately from his clutches — and your son here will be George the second, if he feeds on this sort of conversation at his age.” So the curtain fell upon my Uncle George for the first time.

  Scrappy and rough-pieced information on this increasingly engrossing topic fitted gradually into my consciousness in the next five years like the parts of a picture puzzle. Here is the finished portrait from the angle of seventeen years — Uncle George was a Romeo and a mesogamist, a combination of Byron, Don Juan, and Bernard Shaw, with a touch of Havelock Ellis for good measure. He was about thirty, had been engaged seven times and drank ever so much more than was good for him. His attitude towards women was the piece-de-resistance of his character. To put it mildly he was not an idealist. He had written a series of novels, all of them bitter, each of them with some woman as the principal character.
Some of the women were bad. None of them were quite good. He picked a rather wierd selection of Lauras to play muse to his whimsical Petrarch; for he could write, write well.

  He was the type of author that gets dozens of letters a week from solicitors, aged men and enthusiastic young women who tell him that he is “prostituting his art” and “wasting golden literary opportunities.” As a matter of fact he wasn’t. It was very conceivable that he might have written better despite his unpleasant range of subject, but what he had written had a huge vogue that strangely enough, consisted not of the usual devotees of prostitute art, the eager shopgirls and sentimental salesmen to whom he was accused of pandering, but of the academic and literary circles of the country. His shrewd tenderness with nature (that is, everything but the white race), his well drawn men and the particularly cynical sting to his wit gave him many adherents. He was ranked in the most staid and severe of reviews as a coming man. Long psychopathic stories and dull germanized novels were predicted of him by optimistic critics. At one time he was the Thomas Hardy of America and he was several times heralded as the Balzac of his century. He was accused of having the great American novel in his coat pocket trying to peddle it from publisher to publisher. But somehow neither matter nor style had improved, people accused him of not “living.” His unmarried sister and he had an apartment where she sat greying year by year with one furtive hand on the bromo-seltzer and the other on the telephone receiver of frantic feminine telephone calls. For George Rombert grew violently involved at least once a year. He filled columns in the journals of society gossip. Oddly enough most of his affairs were with debutantes — a fact which was considered particularly annoying by sheltering mothers. It seemed as though he had the most serious way of talking the most outrageous nonsense and as he was most desirable from an economic point of view, many essayed the perilous quest.

  Though we had lived in the East since I had been a baby, it was always understood that home meant the prosperous Western city that still supported the roots of our family tree. When I was twenty I went back for the first time and made my only acquaintance with United George.