“Well, some afternoon then. I’d like to go to a tea-dance place and hear some new tunes. The newest thing I know is Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.”
“My nurse used to sing me to sleep with it.”
“When could you?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to make up a party. Your aunt, Mrs. Dicer, is very strict.”
“I keep forgetting,” he agreed. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” she said, anticipating by a month.
That was the point at which they were interrupted and the evening ended for her. The other young men in dinner coats looked like people in mourning beside the banner of his uniform. Some of them were persistent about Josephine, but she was in a reverie of horizon blue and she wanted to be alone.
“This is it at last,” something whispered inside her.
Later that night and next day, she still moved in a trance. Another day more and she would see him--forty-eight hours, forty, thirty. The very word “blasé” made her laugh; she had never known such excitement, such expectation. The blessed day itself was a haze of magic music and softly lit winter rooms, of automobiles where her knee trembled against the top lacing of his boot. She was proud of the eyes that followed them when they danced; she was proud of him even when he was dancing with another girl.
“He may think I’m too young,” she thought anxiously. “That’s why he won’t say anything. If he did, I’d leave school; I’d run away with him tonight.”
School opened next day and Josephine wrote home:
DEAR MOTHER: I wonder if I can’t spend part of the vacation in New York. Christine Dicer wants me to stay a week with her, which would still leave me a full ten days in Chicago. One reason is that the Metropolitan is putting on Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen and if I come home right away I can only see the Rheingold. Also there are two evening dresses that aren’t finished--
The answer came by return post:
. . . because, in the first place, your eighteenth birthday falls then, and your father would feel very badly, because it would be the first birthday you hadn’t passed with us; and, in the second place, I’ve never met the Dicers; and, thirdly, I’ve planned a little dance for you and I need your help; and, lastly, I can’t believe that the reasons you give are your real ones. During Christmas week the Chicago Grand Opera Company is giving--
Meanwhile Capt. Edward Dicer had sent flowers and several formal little notes that sounded to her like translations from the French. She was self-conscious, answering them; so she did it in slang. His French education and his years in the war while America was whirling toward the Jazz Age had made him, though he was only twenty-three, seem of a more formal, more courteous generation than her own. She wondered what he would think of such limp exotics as Travis de Coppet, or Book Chaffee, or Louie Randall. Two days before vacation he wrote asking when her train left for the West. That was something, and for seventy-two hours she lived on it, unable to turn her attention to the masses of Christmas invitations and unheeded letters that she had meant to answer before leaving. But on the day itself, Lillian brought her a marked copy of Town Tattle that, from its ragged appearance, had already been passed around the school.
It is rumored that a certain Tuxedo papa who was somewhat irrasticable about the marital choice of a previous offspring views with equanimity the fact that his remaining daughter is so often in company with a young man fresh from his exploits in the French army.
Captain Dicer did not come to the train. He sent no flowers. Lillian, who loved Josephine like part of herself, wept in their compartment. Josephine comforted her, saying: “But listen, darling; it’s all the same to me. I didn’t have a chance, being in school like we were. It’s all right.” But she was awake hours and hours after Lillian was asleep.
III
Eighteen--it was to have meant so many things: When I’m eighteen I can--Until a girl’s eighteen--You’ll see things differently when you’re eighteen.
That, at least, was true. Josephine saw her vacation invitations as so many overdue bills. Abstractedly she counted them as she always had before--twenty-eight dances, nineteen dinner and theater parties, fifteen tea dances and receptions, a dozen luncheons, a few miscellaneous bids, ranging from early breakfast for the Yale Glee Club to a bob party at Lake Forest--seventy-eight in all, and with the small dance she was giving herself, seventy-nine. Seventy-nine promises of gayety, seventy-nine offers to share fun with her. Patiently she sat down, choosing and weighing, referring doubtful cases to her mother.
“You seem a little white and tired,” her mother said.
“I’m wasting away. I’ve been jilted.”
“That won’t worry you very long. I know my Josephine. Tonight at the Junior League german you’ll meet the most marvelous men.”
“No, I won’t, mother. The only hope for me is to get married. I’ll learn to love him and have his children and scratch his back--”
“Josephine!”
“I know two girls who married for love who told me they were supposed to scratch their husbands’ backs and send out the laundry. But I’ll go through with it, and the sooner the better.”
“Every girl feels like that sometimes,” said her mother cheerfully. “Before I was married I had three or four beaus, and I honestly liked each one of them as well as the others. Each one had certain qualities I liked, and I worried about it so long that it didn’t seem worth while; I might as well have counted eenie, meenie, mynie, mo. Then one day when I was feeling lonely your father came to take me driving, and from that day I never had a single doubt. Love isn’t like it is in books.”
“But it is,” said Josephine gloomily. “At least for me it always has been.”
For the first time it seemed to her more peaceful to be with a crowd than to be alone with a man. The beginning of a line wearied her; how many lines had she listened to in three years? New men were pointed out as exciting, were introduced, and she took pleasure in freezing them to unhappiness with languid answers and wandering glances. Ancient admirers looked favorably upon the metamorphosis, grateful for a little overdue time at last. Josephine was glad when the holiday drew to a close. Returning from a luncheon one gray afternoon, the day after New Year’s, she thought that for once it was nice to think she had nothing to do until dinner. Kicking off her overshoes in the hall, she found herself staring at something on the table that at first seemed a projection of her own imagination. It was a card fresh from a case--MR. EDWARD DICER.
Instantly the world jerked into life, spun around dizzily and came to rest on a new world. The hall where he must have stood throbbed with life; she pictured his straight figure against the open door, and thought how he must have stood with his hat and cane in hand. Outside the house, Chicago, permeated with his presence, pulsed with the old delight. She heard the phone ring in the downstairs lounge and, still in her fur coat, ran for it.
“Hello!”
“Miss Josephine, please.”
“Oh, hello!”
“Oh. This is Edward Dicer.”
“I saw your card.”
“I must have just missed you.”
What did the words matter when every word was winged and breathless?
“I’m only here for the day. Unfortunately, I’m tied up for dinner tonight with the people I’m visiting.”
“Can you come over now?”
“If you like.”
“Come right away.”
She rushed upstairs to change her dress, singing for the first time in weeks. She sang:
“Where’s my shoes?
Where’s my new gray shoes, shoes, shoes?
I think I put them here,
But I guess--oh, where the deuce--”
Dressed, she was at the head of the stairs when the bell rang.
“Never mind,” she called to the maid; “I’ll answer.”
She opened upon Mr. and Mrs. Warren Dillon. They were old friends and she hadn’t seen them before, this Christmas.
“
Josephine! We came to meet Constance here, but we hoped we’d have a glimpse of you; but you’re rushing around so.”
Aghast, she led the way into the library. “What time is sister meeting you?” she asked when she could.
“Oh, in half an hour, if she isn’t delayed.”
She tried to be especially polite, to atone in advance for what impoliteness might be necessary later. In five minutes the bell rang again; there was the romantic figure on the porch, cut sharp and clear against the bleak sky; and up the steps behind him came Travis de Coppet and Ed Bement.
“Stay!” she whispered quickly. “These people will all go.”
“I’ve two hours,” he said. “Of course, I’ll wait if you want me to.”
She wanted to throw her arms around him then, but she controlled herself, even her hands. She introduced everyone, she sent for tea. The men asked Edward Dicer questions about the war and he parried them politely but restlessly.
After half an hour he asked Josephine: “Have you the time? I must keep track of my train.”
They might have noticed the watch on his own wrist and taken the hint, but he fascinated them all, as though they had isolated a rare specimen and were determined to find out all about it. Even had they realized Josephine’s state of mind, it would have seemed to them that she was selfish to want something of such general interest for her own.
The arrival of Constance, her married sister, did not help matters; again Dicer was caught up into the phenomenon of human curiosity. As the clock in the hall struck six, he shot a desperate glance at Josephine. With a belated appreciation of the situation, the group broke itself up. Constance took the Dillons upstairs to the other sitting room, the two young men went home.
Silence, save for the voices fading off on the stairs, the automobile crunching away on the snow outside. Before a word was said, Josephine rang for the maid, and instructing her that she was not at home, closed the door into the hall. Then she went and sat down on the couch next to him and clasped her hands and waited.
“Thank God,” he said. “I thought if they stayed another minute--”
“Wasn’t it terrible?”
“I came out here because of you. The night you left New York I was ten minutes late getting to the train because I was detained at the French propaganda office. I’m not much good at letters. Since then I’ve thought of nothing but getting out here to see you.”
“I felt sad.” But not now; now she was thinking that in a moment she would be in his arms, feeling the buttons of his tunic press bruisingly against her, feeling his diagonal belt as something that bound them both and made her part of him. There were no doubts, no reservations, he was everything she wanted.
“I’m over here for six months more--perhaps a year. Then, if this damned war goes on, I’ll have to go back. I suppose I haven’t really got the right--”
“Wait--wait!” she cried. She wanted a moment longer to taste, to feel fully her happiness. “Wait,” she repeated, putting her hand on his. She felt every object in the room vividly; she saw the seconds passing, each one carrying a load of loveliness toward the future. “All right; now tell me.”
“Just that I love you,” he whispered. She was in his arms, her hair against his cheek. “We haven’t known each other long, and you’re only eighteen, but I’ve learned to be afraid of waiting.”
Now she leaned her head back until she was looking up at him, supported by his arm. Her neck curved gracefully, full and soft, and she leaned in toward his shoulder, as she knew how, so that her lips were every minute closer to him. “Now,” she thought. He gave a funny little sigh and pulled her face up to his.
After a minute she leaned away from him and twisted herself upright.
“Darling--darling--darling,” he said.
She looked at him, stared at him. Gently he pulled her over again and kissed her. This time, when she sat up, she rose and went across the room, where she opened a dish of almonds and dropped some in her mouth. Then she came back and sat beside him, looking straight ahead, then darting a sudden glance at him.
“What are you thinking, darling, darling Josephine?” She didn’t answer; he put both hands over hers. “What are you feeling, then?”
As he breathed, she could hear the faint sound of his leather belt moving on his shoulder; she could feel his strong, kind handsome eyes looking at her; she could feel his proud self feeding on glory as others feed on security; she heard the jingle of spurs ring in his strong, rich, compelling voice.
“I feel nothing at all,” she said.
“What do you mean?” He was startled.
“Oh, help me!” she cried. “Help me!”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Kiss me again.”
He kissed her. This time he held on to her and looked down into her face.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “You mean you don’t love me?”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“But you did love me.”
“I don’t know.”
He let her go. She went across the room and sat down.
“I don’t understand,” he said after a minute.
“I think you’re perfect,” she said, her lips quivering.
“But I’m not--thrilling to you?”
“Oh, yes, very thrilling. I was thrilled all afternoon.”
“Then what is it, darling?”
“I don’t know. When you kissed me I wanted to laugh.” It made her sick to say this, but a desperate, interior honesty drove her on. She saw his eyes change, saw him withdrawing a little from her. “Help me,” she repeated.
“Help you how? You’ll have to be more definite. I love you; I thought perhaps you loved me. That’s all. If I don’t please you--”
“But you do. You’re everything--you’re everything I’ve always wanted.” Her voice continued inside herself: “But I’ve had everything.”
“But you simply don’t love me.”
“I’ve got nothing to give you. I don’t feel anything at all.”
He got up abruptly. He felt her vast, tragic apathy pervading the room, and it set up an indifference in him now, too--a lot of things suddenly melted out of him.
“Good-by.”
“You won’t help me,” she murmured abstractedly.
“How in the devil can I help you?” he answered impatiently. “You feel indifferent to me. You can’t change that, but neither can I. Good-by.”
“Good-by.”
She was very tired and lay face downward on the couch with that awful, awful realization that all the old things are true. One cannot both spend and have. The love of her life had come by, and looking in her empty basket, she had found not a flower left for him--not one. After a while she wept.
“Oh, what have I done to myself?” she wailed. “What have I done? What have I done?”
FINANCING FINNEGAN
Esquire (January 1938)
Finnegan and I have the same literary agent to sell our writings for us--but though I’d often been in Mr. Cannon’s office just before and just after Finnegan’s visits, I had never met him. Likewise we had the same publisher and often when I arrived there Finnegan had just departed. I gathered from a thoughtful sighing way in which they spoke of him--
“Ah--Finnegan--”
“Oh yes, Finnegan was here.”
--that the distinguished author’s visit had been not uneventful. Certain remarks implied that he had taken something with him when he went--manuscripts, I supposed, one of those great successful novels of his. He had taken “it” off for a final revision, a last draft, of which he was rumored to make ten in order to achieve that facile flow, that ready wit, which distinguished his work. I discovered only gradually that most of Finnegan’s visits had to do with money.
“I’m sorry you’re leaving,” Mr. Cannon would tell me, “Finnegan will be here tomorrow.” Then after a thoughtful pause, “I’ll probably have to spend some time with him.”
I don
’t know what note in his voice reminded me of a talk with a nervous bank president when Dillinger was reported in the vicinity. His eyes looked out into the distance and he spoke as to himself:
“Of course he may be bringing a manuscript. He has a novel he’s working on, you know. And a play too.”
He spoke as though he were talking about some interesting but remote events of the cinquecento; but his eyes became more hopeful as he added: “Or maybe a short story.”
“He’s very versatile, isn’t he?” I said.
“Oh yes,” Mr. Cannon perked up. “He can do anything--anything when he puts his mind to it. There’s never been such a talent.”
“I haven’t seen much of his work lately.”
“Oh, but he’s working hard. Some of the magazines have stories of his that they’re holding.”
“Holding for what?”
“Oh, for a more appropriate time--an upswing. They like to think they have something of Finnegan’s.”
His was indeed a name with ingots in it. His career had started brilliantly and if it had not kept up to its first exalted level, at least it started brilliantly all over again every few years. He was the perennial man of promise in American letters--what he could actually do with words was astounding, they glowed and coruscated--he wrote sentences, paragraphs, chapters that were masterpieces of fine weaving and spinning. It was only when I met some poor devil of a screen writer who had been trying to make a logical story out of one of his books that I realized he had his enemies.
“It’s all beautiful when you read it,” this man said disgustedly, “but when you write it down plain it’s like a week in the nut-house.”
From Mr. Cannon’s office I went over to my publishers on Fifth Avenue and there too I learned in no time that Finnegan was expected tomorrow.
Indeed he had thrown such a long shadow before him that the luncheon where I expected to discuss my own work was largely devoted to Finnegan. Again I had the feeling that my host, Mr. George Jaggers, was talking not to me but to himself.
“Finnegan’s a great writer,” he said.
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 270