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 depends 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)
THE 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”3? 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 if they’re 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.4
JULIE: (Considering) Scott? Let’s see. Yes, I’ve read “Ivanhoe” and “The Last of the Mohicans.”
THE YOUNG MAN: That’s by Cooper.5
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.6 I don’t see how he ever wrote those stories. Most of them he wrote in prison. “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”7 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. Bergson8, 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 Mask9 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 Marat10 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 must have been at least twenty years old; and there on the cover it said “The Shimmies of Normandy,”11 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 midnight12 comes quickly down and blots out the stage.)
CURTAIN.
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
I
John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades1—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’ School2 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.”<
br />
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’ 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’ 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 summers 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’, 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 year 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.3”
II
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, anæmic 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 disk 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 duvetyn4, but seemed woven in numberless colors 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 search-light 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.”
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories Page 35