Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated)

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Perhaps the worst of it was that he wasn’t really a star player. No team in the country could have spared using him, but he could do no spectacular thing superlatively well, neither run, pass nor kick. He was five-feet-eleven and weighed a little more than a hundred and sixty; he was a first-rate defensive man, sure in interference, a fair line plunger and a fair punter. He never fumbled and he was never inadequate; his presence, his constant cold sure aggression, had a strong effect on other men. Morally, he captained any team he played on and that was why Roper had spent so much time trying to get length in his kicks all season--he wanted him in the game.

  In the second quarter Yale began to crack. It was a mediocre team composed of flashy material, but uncoordinated because of injuries and impending changes in the Yale coaching system. The quarterback, Josh Logan, had been a wonder at Exeter--I could testify to that--where games can be won by the sheer confidence and spirit of a single man. But college teams are too highly organized to respond so simply and boyishly, and they recover less easily from fumbles and errors of judgment behind the line.

  So, with nothing to spare, with much grunting and straining, Princeton moved steadily down the field. On the Yale twenty-yard line things suddenly happened. A Princeton pass was intercepted; the Yale man, excited by his own opportunity, dropped the ball and it bobbed leisurely in the general direction of the Yale goal. Jack Devlin and Dolly Harlan of Princeton and somebody--I forget who--from Yale were all about the same distance from it. What Dolly did in that split second was all instinct; it presented no problem to him. He was a natural athlete and in a crisis his nervous system thought for him. He might have raced the two others for the ball; instead, he took out the Yale man with savage precision while Devlin scooped up the ball and ran ten yards for a touchdown.

  This was when the sports writers still saw games through the eyes of Ralph Henry Barbour. The press box was right behind me, and as Princeton lined up to kick goal I heard the radio man ask:

  “Who’s Number 22?”

  “Harlan.”

  “Harlan is going to kick goal. Devlin, who made the touchdown, comes from Lawrenceville School. He is twenty years old. The ball went true between the bars.”

  Between the halves, as Dolly sat shaking with fatigue in the locker room, Little, the back-field coach, came and sat beside him.

  “When the ends are right on you, don’t be afraid to make a fair catch,” Little said. “That big Havemeyer is liable to jar the ball right out of your hands.”

  Now was the time to say it: “I wish you’d tell Bill--” But the words twisted themselves into a trivial question about the wind. His feeling would have to be explained, gone into, and there wasn’t time. His own self seemed less important in this room, redolent with the tired breath, the ultimate effort, the exhaustion of ten other men. He was shamed by a harsh sudden quarrel that broke out between an end and tackle; he resented the former players in the room--especially the graduate captain of two years before, who was a little tight and over-vehement about the referee’s favoritism. It seemed terrible to add one more jot to all this strain and annoyance. But he might have come out with it all the same if Little hadn’t kept saying in a low voice: “What a take-out, Dolly! What a beautiful take-out!” and if Little’s hand hadn’t rested there, patting his shoulder.

  II

  In the third quarter Joe Dougherty kicked an easy field goal from the twenty-yard line and we felt safe, until toward twilight a series of desperate forward passes brought Yale close to a score. But Josh Logan had exhausted his personality in sheer bravado and he was outguessed by the defense at the last. As the substitutes came running in, Princeton began a last march down the field. Then abruptly it was over and the crowd poured from the stands, and Gottlieb, grabbing the ball, leaped up in the air. For a while everything was confused and crazy and happy; I saw some freshmen try to carry Dolly, but they were shy and he got away.

  We all felt a great personal elation. We hadn’t beaten Yale for three years and now everything was going to be all right. It meant a good winter at college, something pleasant and slick to think back upon in the damp cold days after Christmas, when a bleak futility settles over a university town. Down on the field, an improvised and uproarious team ran through plays with a derby, until the snake dance rolled over them and blotted them out. Outside the Bowl, I saw two abysmally gloomy and disgusted Yale men get into a waiting taxi and in a tone of final abnegation tell the driver “New York.” You couldn’t find Yale men; in the manner of the vanquished, they had absolutely melted away.

  I begin Dolly’s story with my memories of this game because that evening the girl walked into it. She was a friend of Josephine Pickman’s and the four of us were going to drive up to the Midnight Frolic in New York. When I suggested to him that he’d be too tired he laughed dryly--he’d have gone anywhere that night to get the feel and rhythm of football out of his head. He walked into the hall of Josephine’s house at half-past six, looking as if he’d spent the day in the barber shop save for a small and fetching strip of court plaster over one eye. He was one of the handsomest men I ever knew, anyhow; he appeared tall and slender in street clothes, his hair was dark, his eyes big and sensitive and dark, his nose aquiline and, like all his features, somehow romantic. It didn’t occur to me then, but I suppose he was pretty vain--not conceited, but vain--for he always dressed in brown or soft light gray, with black ties, and people don’t match themselves so successfully by accident.

  He was smiling a little to himself as he came in. He shook my hand buoyantly and said, “Why, what a surprise to meet you here, Mr. Deering,” in a kidding way. Then he saw the two girls through the long hall, one dark and shining, like himself, and one with gold hair that was foaming and frothing in the firelight, and said in the happiest voice I’ve ever heard, “Which one is mine?”

  “Either you want, I guess.”

  “Seriously, which is Pickman?”

  “She’s light.”

  “Then the other one belongs to me. Isn’t that the idea?”

  “I think I’d better warn them about the state you’re in.”

  Miss Thorne, small, flushed and lovely, stood beside the fire. Dolly went right up to her.

  “You’re mine,” he said; “you belong to me.”

  She looked at him coolly, making up her mind; suddenly she liked him and smiled. But Dolly wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to do something incredibly silly or startling to express his untold jubilation that he was free.

  “I love you,” he said. He took her hand, his brown velvet eyes regarding her tenderly, unseeingly, convincingly. “I love you.”

  For a moment the corners of her lips fell as if in dismay that she had met someone stronger, more confident, more challenging than herself. Then, as she drew herself together visibly, he dropped her hand and the little scene in which he had expended the tension of the afternoon was over.

  It was a bright cold November night and the rush of air past the open car brought a vague excitement, a sense that we were hurrying at top speed toward a brilliant destiny. The roads were packed with cars that came to long inexplicable halts while police, blinded by the lights, walked up and down the line giving obscure commands. Before we had been gone an hour New York began to be a distant hazy glow against the sky.

  Miss Thorne, Josephine told me, was from Washington, and had just come down from a visit in Boston.

  “For the game?” I said.

  “No; she didn’t go to the game.”

  “That’s too bad. If you’d let me know I could have picked up a seat--”

  “She wouldn’t have gone. Vienna never goes to games.”

  I remembered now that she hadn’t even murmured the conventional congratulations to Dolly.

  “She hates football. Her brother was killed in a prep-school game last year. I wouldn’t have brought her tonight, but when we got home from the game I saw she’d been sitting there holding a book open at the same page all afternoon. You see, he was this wonderful kid
and her family saw it happen and naturally never got over it.”

  “But does she mind being with Dolly?”

  “Of course not. She just ignores football. If anyone mentions it she simply changes the subject.”

  I was glad that it was Dolly and not, say, Jack Devlin who was sitting back there with her. And I felt rather sorry for Dolly. However strongly he felt about the game, he must have waited for some acknowledgment that his effort had existed.

  He was probably giving her credit for a subtle consideration, yet, as the images of the afternoon flashed into his mind he might have welcomed a compliment to which he could respond “What nonsense!” Neglected entirely, the images would become insistent and obtrusive.

  I turned around and was somewhat startled to find that Miss Thorne was in Dolly’s arms; I turned quickly back and decided to let them take care of themselves.

  As we waited for a traffic light on upper Broadway, I saw a sporting extra headlined with the score of the game. The green sheet was more real than the afternoon itself--succinct, condensed and clear:

  PRINCETON CONQUERS YALE 10-3

  SEVENTY THOUSAND WATCH TIGER TRIM

  BULLDOG

  DEVLIN SCORES ON YALE FUMBLE

  There it was--not like the afternoon, muddled, uncertain, patchy and scrappy to the end, but nicely mounted now in the setting of the past:

  PRINCETON, 10; YALE, 3

  Achievement was a curious thing, I thought. Dolly was largely responsible for that. I wondered if all things that screamed in the headlines were simply arbitrary accents. As if people should ask, “What does it look like?”

  “It looks most like a cat.”

  “Well, then, let’s call it a cat.”

  My mind, brightened by the lights and the cheerful tumult, suddenly grasped the fact that all achievement was a placing of emphasis--a molding of the confusion of life into form.

  Josephine stopped in front of the New Amsterdam Theater, where her chauffeur met us and took the car. We were early, but a small buzz of excitement went up from the undergraduates waiting in the lobby--”There’s Dolly Harlan”--and as we moved toward the elevator several acquaintances came up to shake his hand. Apparently oblivious to these ceremonies, Miss Thorne caught my eye and smiled. I looked at her with curiosity; Josephine had imparted the rather surprising information that she was just sixteen years old. I suppose my return smile was rather patronizing, but instantly I realized that the fact could not be imposed on. In spite of all the warmth and delicacy of her face, the figure that somehow reminded me of an exquisite, romanticized little ballerina, there was a quality in her that was as hard as steel. She had been brought up in Rome, Vienna and Madrid, with flashes of Washington; her father was one of those charming American diplomats who, with fine obstinacy, try to re-create the Old World in their children by making their education rather more royal than that of princes. Miss Thorne was sophisticated. In spite of all the abandon of American young people, sophistication is still a Continental monopoly.

  We walked in upon a number in which a dozen chorus girls in orange and black were racing wooden horses against another dozen dressed in Yale blue. When the lights went on, Dolly was recognized and some Princeton students set up a clatter of approval with the little wooden hammers given out for applause; he moved his chair unostentatiously into a shadow.

  Almost immediately a flushed and very miserable young man appeared beside our table. In better form he would have been extremely prepossessing; indeed, he flashed a charming and dazzling smile at Dolly, as if requesting his permission to speak to Miss Thorne.

  Then he said, “I thought you weren’t coming to New York tonight.”

  “Hello, Carl.” She looked up at him coolly.

  “Hello, Vienna. That’s just it; ‘Hello Vienna--Hello Carl.’ But why? I thought you weren’t coming to New York tonight.”

  Miss Thorne made no move to introduce the man, but we were conscious of his somewhat raised voice.

  “I thought you promised me you weren’t coming.”

  “I didn’t expect to, child. I just left Boston this morning.”

  “And who did you meet in Boston--the fascinating Tunti?” he demanded.

  “I didn’t meet anyone, child.”

  “Oh, yes, you did! You met the fascinating Tunti and you discussed living on the Riviera.” She didn’t answer. “Why are you so dishonest, Vienna?” he went on. “Why did you tell me on the phone--”

  “I am not going to be lectured,” she said, her tone changing suddenly. “I told you if you took another drink I was through with you. I’m a person of my word and I’d be enormously happy if you went away.”

  “Vienna!” he cried in a sinking, trembling voice.

  At this point I got up and danced with Josephine. When we came back there were people at the table--the men to whom we were to hand over Josephine and Miss Thorne, for I had allowed for Dolly being tired, and several others. One of them was Al Ratoni, the composer, who, it appeared, had been entertained at the embassy in Madrid. Dolly Harlan had drawn his chair aside and was watching the dancers. Just as the lights went down for a new number a man came up out of the darkness and leaning over Miss Thorne whispered in her ear. She started and made a motion to rise, but he put his hand on her shoulder and forced her down. They began to talk together in low excited voices.

  The tables were packed close at the old Frolic. There was a man rejoining the party next to us and I couldn’t help hearing what he said:

  “A young fellow just tried to kill himself down in the wash room. He shot himself through the shoulder, but they got the pistol away before--”

  A minute later his voice again: “Carl Sanderson, they said.”

  When the number was over I looked around. Vienna Thorne was staring very rigidly at Miss Lillian Lorraine, who was rising toward the ceiling as an enormous telephone doll. The man who had leaned over Vienna was gone and the others were obliviously unaware that anything had happened. I turned to Dolly and suggested that he and I had better go, and after a glance at Vienna in which reluctance, weariness and then resignation were mingled, he consented. On the way to the hotel I told Dolly what had happened.

  “Just some souse,” he remarked after a moment’s fatigued consideration. “He probably tried to miss himself and get a little sympathy. I suppose those are the sort of things a really attractive girl is up against all the time.”

  This wasn’t my attitude. I could see that mussed white shirt front with very young blood pumping over it, but I didn’t argue, and after a while Dolly said, “I suppose that sounds brutal, but it seems a little soft and weak, doesn’t it? Perhaps that’s just the way I feel tonight.”

  When Dolly undressed I saw that he was a mass of bruises, but he assured me that none of them would keep him awake. Then I told him why Miss Thorne hadn’t mentioned the game and he woke up suddenly; the familiar glitter came back into his eyes.

  “So that was it! I wondered. I thought maybe you’d told her not to say anything about it.”

  Later, when the lights had been out half an hour, he suddenly said “I see” in a loud clear voice. I don’t know whether he was awake or asleep.

  III

  I’ve put down as well as I can everything I can remember about the first meeting between Dolly and Miss Vienna Thorne. Reading it over, it sounds casual and insignificant, but the evening lay in the shadow of the game and all that happened seemed like that. Vienna went back to Europe almost immediately and for fifteen months passed out of Dolly’s life.

  It was a good year--it still rings true in my memory as a good year. Sophomore year is the most dramatic at Princeton, just as junior year is at Yale. It’s not only the elections to the upperclass clubs but also everyone’s destiny begins to work itself out. You can tell pretty well who’s going to come through, not only by their immediate success but by the way they survive failure. Life was very full for me. I made the board of the Princetonian, and our house burned down out in Dayton, and I had a silly h
alf-hour fist fight in the gymnasium with a man who later became one of my closest friends, and in March Dolly and I joined the upperclass club we’d always wanted to be in. I fell in love, too, but it would be an irrelevancy to tell about that here.

  April came and the first real Princeton weather, the lazy green-and-gold afternoons and the bright thrilling nights haunted with the hour of senior singing. I was happy, and Dolly would have been happy except for the approach of another football season. He was playing baseball, which excused him from spring practice, but the bands were beginning to play faintly in the distance. They rose to concert pitch during the summer, when he had to answer the question, “Are you going back early for football?” a dozen times a day. On the fifteenth of September he was down in the dust and heat of late-summer Princeton, crawling over the ground on all fours, trotting through the old routine and turning himself into just the sort of specimen that I’d have given ten years of my life to be.

  From first to last, he hated it, and never let down for a minute. He went into the Yale game that fall weighing a hundred and fifty-three pounds, though that wasn’t the weight printed in the paper, and he and Joe McDonald were the only men who played all through that disastrous game. He could have been captain by lifting his finger--but that involves some stuff that I know confidentially and can’t tell. His only horror was that by some chance he’d have to accept it. Two seasons! He didn’t even talk about it now. He left the room or the club when the conversation veered around to football. He stopped announcing to me that he “wasn’t going through that business any more.” This time it took the Christmas holidays to drive that unhappy look from his eyes.

  Then at the New Year Miss Vienna Thorne came home from Madrid and in February a man named Case brought her down to the Senior Prom.

  IV

  She was even prettier than she had been before, softer, externally at least, and a tremendous success. People passing her on the street jerked their heads quickly to look at her--a frightened look, as if they realized that they had almost missed something. She was temporarily tired of European men, she told me, letting me gather that there had been some sort of unfortunate love affair. She was coming out in Washington next fall.