Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated)

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  There was a young woman named Mrs. King who was very happy with her husband. They were well-to-do and deeply in love but at the birth of her second child she went into a long coma and emerged with a dear case of schizophrenia or “split personality.” Her delusion, which had something to do with the Declaration of Independence, had little bearing on the case and as she regained her health it began to disappear. At the end of ten months she was a convalescent patient scarcely marked by what had happened to her and very eager to go back into the world.

  She was only twenty-one, rather girlish in an appealing way and a favorite with the staff of the sanitarium. When she became well enough so that she could take an experimental trip with her husband there was a general interest in the venture. One nurse had gone into Philadelphia with her to get a dress, another knew the story of her rather romantic courtship in Mexico and everyone had seen her two babies on visits to the hospital. The trip was to Virginia Beach for five days.

  It was a joy to watch her make ready, dressing and packing meticulously and living in the gay trivialities of hair waves and such things. She was ready half an hour before the time of departure and she paid some visits on the floor in her powder-blue gown and her hat that looked like one minute after an April shower Her frail lovely face, with just that touch of startled sadness that often lingers after an illness, was alight with anticipation.

  “We’ll just do nothing,” she said. “That’s my ambition. To get up when I want to for three straight mornings and stay up late three straight nights. To buy a bathing suit by myself and order a meal.”

  When the time approached Mrs. King decided to wait downstairs instead of in her room and as she passed along the corridors with an orderly carrying her suitcase she waved to the other patients, sorry that they too were not going on a gorgeous holiday .The superintendent wished her well, two nurses found excuses to linger and share her infectious joy.

  “What a beautiful tan you’ll get, Mrs. King.”

  “Be sure and send a postcard.”

  About the time she left her room her husband’s car was hit by a truck on his way from the city — he was hurt internally and was not expected to live more than a few hours. The information was received at the hospital in a glassed-in office adjoining the hall where Mrs. King waited. The operator, seeing Mrs. King and knowing that the glass was not sound proof, asked the head nurse to come immediately. The head nurse hurried aghast to a doctor and he decided what to do. So long as the husband was still alive it was best to tell her nothing, but of course she must know that he was not coming today.

  Mrs. King was greatly disappointed.

  “I suppose it’s silly to feel that way,” she said. “After all these months what’s one more day? He said he’d come tomorrow, didn’t he?”

  The nurse was having a difficult time but she managed to pass it off until the patient was back in her room. Then they assigned a very experienced and phlegmatic nurse to keep Mrs. King away from other patients and from newspapers. By the next day the matter would be decided one way or another.

  But her husband lingered on and they continued to prevaricate. A little before noon next day one of the nurses was passing along the corridor when she met Mrs. King, dressed as she had been the day before but this time carrying her own suitcase.

  “I’m going to meet my husband,”she explained. “He couldn’t come yesterday but he’s coming today at the same time.”

  The nurse walked along with her. Mrs. King had the freedom of the building and it was difficult to simply steer her back to her room and the nurse did not want to tell a story that would contradict what the authorities were telling her. When they reached the front hall she signaled to the operator who fortunately under-stood. Mrs. King gave herself a last inspection in the mirror and said:

  “I’d like to have a dozen hats just like this to remind me to be this happy always.”

  When the head nurse came in frowning a minute later she demanded:

  “Don’t tell me George is delayed?”

  “I’m afraid he is. There is nothing much to do but be patient.”

  Mrs. King laughed ruefully. “I wanted him to see my costume when it was absolutely new.”

  “Why, there isn’t a wrinkle in it.”

  “I guess it’ll last till tomorrow. I oughtn’t to be blue about wait-ing one more day when I’m so utterly happy.”

  “Certainly not.”

  That night her husband died and at a conference of doctors next morning there was some discussion about what to do — it was a risk to tell her and a risk to keep it from her. It was decided finally to say that Mr. King had been called away and thus destroy her hope of an immediate meeting; when she was reconciled to this they could tell her the truth.

  As the doctors came out of the conference one of them stopped and pointed. Down the corridor toward the outer hall walked Mrs. King carrying her suitcase.

  Dr. Pirie, who had been in special charge of Mrs. King, caught his breath.

  “This is awful,” he said. “I think perhaps I’d better tell her now. There’s no use saying he’s away when she usually hears from him twice a week, and if we say he’s sick she’ll want to go to him. Anybody else like the job?”

  II

  One of the doctors in the conference went on a fortnight’s vacation that afternoon. On the day of his return in the same corridor at the same hour, he stopped at the sight of a little procession coming toward him — an orderly carrying a suitcase, a nurse and Mrs. King dressed in the powder-blue-colored suit and wearing the spring hat.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” she said. “I’m going to meet my husband and we’re going to Virginia Beach. I’m going to the hall because I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

  He looked into her face, clear and happy as a child’s. The nurse signaled to him that it was as ordered so he merely bowed and spoke of the pleasant weather.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” said Mrs. King, “but of course even if it was raining it would be a beautiful day for me.”

  The doctor looked after her, puzzled and annoyed — why are they letting this go on, he thought. What possible good can it do?

  Meeting Dr. Pirie he put the question to him.

  “We tried to tell her,” Dr. Pirie said. “She laughed and said we were trying to see whether she’s still sick. You could use the word unthinkable in an exact sense here — his death is unthinkable to her.”

  “But you can’t just go on like this.”

  “Theoretically no,” said Dr. Pirie. “A few days ago when she packed up as usual the nurse tried to keep her from going. From out in the hall I could see her face, see her begin to go to pieces — for the first time, mind you. Her muscles were tense and her eyes glazed and her voice was thick and shrill when she very politely called the nurse a liar. It was touch and go there for a minute whether we had a tractable patient or a restraint case — and I stepped in and told the nurse to take her down to the reception room.”

  He broke off as the procession that had just passed appeared again, headed back to the ward. Mrs. King stopped and spoke to Dr. Pirie.

  “My husband’s been delayed,” she said. “Of course I’m disappointed but they tell me he’s coming tomorrow and after waiting to long one more day doesn’t seem to matter. Don’t you agree with me, Doctor?”

  “I certainly do, Mrs. King.”

  She took off her hat.

  “I’ve got to put aside these clothes — I want them to be as fresh tomorrow as they are today.” She looked closely at the hat. “There’s a speck of dust on it, but I think I can get it off. Perhaps he won’t notice.”

  “I’m sure he won’t.”

  “Really I don’t mind waiting another day. It’ll be this time tomorrow before I know it, won’t it?”

  When she had gone along the younger doctor said:

  “There are still the two children.”

  “I don’t think the children are going to matter. When she ‘went under,’ she tied up this trip wi
th the idea of getting well. If we took it away she’d have to go to the bottom and start over.”

  “Could she?”

  “There’s no prognosis,” said Dr. Pirie. “I was simply explaining why she was allowed to go to the hall this morning.”

  “But there’s tomorrow morning and the next morning.”

  “There’s always the chance,” said Dr. Pirie, “that some day he will be there.”

  The doctor ended his story here, rather abruptly. When we pressed him to tell what happened he protested that the rest was anticlimax — that all sympathy eventually wears out and that finally the staff of the sanitarium had simply accepted the fact.

  “But does she still go to meet her husband?”

  “Oh yes, it’s always the same — but the other patients, except new ones, hardly look up when she passes along the hall. The nurses manage to substitute a new hat every year or so but she still wears the same suit. She’s always a little disappointed but she makes the best of it, very sweetly too. It’s not an unhappy life as far as we know, and in some funny way it seems to set an example of tranquillity to the other patients. For God’s sake let’s talk about something else — let’s go back to oubliettes.”

  THE WOMAN FROM “21”

  Ah, what a day for Raymond Torrence! Once you knew that your roots were safely planted outside megalopolitanism what fun it was to come back — every five years. He and Elizabeth woke up to the frozen music of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street, and first thing went down to his publishers on Fifth Avenue. Elizabeth, who was half Javanese and had never been in America before, liked it best of all there because her husband’s book was on multiple display in the window. She liked it in the store where she squeezed Ray’s hand tensely when people asked for it, and again when they bought it.

  They lunched at the Stork Club with Hat Milbank, a pal of Ray’s at college and in the war. Of course no one there recognized Ray after these years but a man came in with the Book in his hands, crumpling up the jacket. Afterwards Hat asked them down to old Westbury to see the polo in which he still performed, but they went to the hotel and rested as they did in Java. Otherwise it would all be a little too much. Elizabeth wrote a letter to the children in Suva and told them “everyone in New York” was reading father’s book and admired the photograph which Janice had taken of a girl sick with yaws.

  They went alone to a play by William Saroyan. After the curtain had been up five minutes the woman from “21” came in.

  She was in the mid-thirties, dark and pretty. As she took her seat beside Ray Torrence she continued her conversation in a voice that was for outside and Elizabeth was a little sorry for her because obviously she did not know she was making herself a nuisance. They were a quartet — two in front. The girl’s escort was a tall and good-looking man. The woman leaning forward in her seat and talking to her friend in front, distracted Ray a little, but not overwhelmingly until she said in a conversational voice that must have reached the actors on the stage:

  “Let’s all go back to ‘21’.”

  Her escort replied in a whisper and there was quiet for a moment. Then the woman drew a long, long sigh, culminating in an exhausted groan in which could be distinguished the words, “Oh, my God.”

  Her friend in front turned around so sweetly that Ray thought the woman next to him must be someone very prominent and powerful — an Astor or a Vanderbilt or a Roosevelt.

  “See a little bit of it,” suggested her friend.

  The woman from “21” flopped forward with a dynamic movement and began an audible but indecipherable conversation in which the number of the restaurant occurred again and again. When she shifted restlessly back into her chair with another groaning “My God!” this time directed toward the play, Raymond turned his head sideways and uttered a prayer to her aloud:

  “Please.”

  If Ray had muttered a four-letter word the effect could not have been more catalytic. The woman flashed about and regarded him — her eyes ablaze with the gastric hatred of many dying martinis and with something more. These were the unmistakable eyes of Mrs. Richbitch, that leftist creation as devoid of nuance as Mrs. Jiggs. As they burned with scalding arrogance — the very eyes of the Russian lady who let her coachman freeze outside while she wept at poverty in a play — at this moment Ray recognized a girl with whom he had played Run, Sheep, Run in Pittsburgh twenty years ago.

  The woman did not after all excoriate him but this time her flop forward was so violent that it rocked the row ahead.

  “Can you believe — can you imagine — “

  Her voice raced along in a hoarse whisper. Presently she lunged sideways toward her escort and told him of the outrage. His eye caught Ray’s in a flickering embarrassed glance. On the other side of Ray, Elizabeth became disturbed and alarmed.

  Ray did not remember the last five minutes of the act — beside him smoldered fury and he knew its name and the shape of its legs. Wanting nothing less than to kill, he hoped her man would speak to him or even look at him in a certain way during the entr’acte — but when it came the party stood up quickly, and the woman said: “We’ll go to ‘21’.”

  On the crowded sidewalk between the acts Elizabeth talked softly to Ray. She did not seem to think it was of any great importance except for the effect on him. He agreed in theory — but when they went inside again the woman from “21” was already in her place, smoking and waving a cigarette.

  “I could speak to the usher,” Ray muttered.

  “Never mind,” said Elizabeth quickly. “In France you smoke in the music halls.”

  “But you have some place to put the butt. She’s going to crush it out in my lap!”

  In the sequel she spread the butt on the carpet and kept rubbing it in. Since a lady lush moves in mutually exclusive preoccupations just as a gent does, and the woman had passed beyond her preoccupation with Ray, things were tensely quiet.

  When the lights went on after the second act, a voice called to Ray from the aisle. It was Hat Milbank.

  “Hello, hello there, Ray! Hello, Mrs. Torrence. Do you want to go to ‘21’ after the theatre?”

  His glance fell upon the people in between.

  “Hello, Jidge,” he said to the woman’s escort; to the other three, who called him eagerly by name, he answered with an inclusive nod. Ray and Elizabeth crawled out over them. Ray told the story to Hat who seemed to ascribe as little importance to it as Elizabeth did, and wanted to know if he could come out to Fiji this spring.

  But the effect upon Ray had been profound. It made him remember why he had left New York in the first place. This woman was what everything was for. She should have been humble, not awful, but she had become confused and thought she should be awful.

  So Ray and Elizabeth would go back to Java, unmourned by anyone except Hat. Elizabeth would be a little disappointed at not seeing any more plays and not going to Palm Beach, and wouldn’t like having to pack so late at night. But in a silently communicable way she would understand. In a sense she would be glad. She even guessed that it was the children Ray was running to — to save them and shield them from all the walking dead.

  When they went back to their seats for the third act the party from “21” were no longer there — nor did they come in later. It had clearly been another game of Run, Sheep, Run.

  ON AN OCEAN WAVE

  Gaston T. Scheer — the man, the company, the idea — five feet eight, carrying himself with dash and pride, walking the deck of the ocean liner like a conqueror. This was when it was something to be an American — Spring of 1929.

  O’Kane, his confidential secretary, met him in the morning on the open front of the promenade deck.

  “See her?” Scheer asked.

  “Yes — sure. She’s all right.”

  “Why shouldn’t she be all right?”

  O’Kane hesitated.

  “Some of her baggage is marked with her real initials — and the stewardess said — — “

  “Oh, hell!” said S
cheer. “She should have had that fixed up in New York. It’s the same old story — girl’s not your wife, she’s always sensitive, always complaining about slights and injuries. Oh, hell.”

  “She was all right.”

  “Women are small potatoes,” said Scheer disgustedly. “Did you see that cable from Claud Hanson today that said he’d gladly die for me?”

  “I saw it, Mr. Scheer.”

  “I liked it.” Scheer said defiantly, “I think Claud meant it. I think he’d gladly die for me.”

  Claud Hanson was Mr. Scheer’s other secretary. O’Kane let his natural cynicism run riot in silence.

  “I think many people would, Mr. Scheer,” he said without vomiting. Gosh, it was probably true. Mr. Scheer did a lot for a lot of people — kept them alive, gave them work.

  “I liked the sentiment,” said Scheer gazing gravely out to sea. “Anyhow Miss Denzer oughtn’t to grouse — it’s just four days and twelve hours. She doesn’t have to stay in her cabin, just so she doesn’t make herself conspicuous or talk to me — just in case.”

  Just in case anyone had seen them together in New York.

  “Anyhow — “ he concluded. “My wife’s never seen her or heard of her.”

  Mr. O’Kane had concluded that he himself would possibly die for Mr. Scheer if Mr. Scheer kept on giving him market tips for ten years more. He would die at the end of the ten — you could cram a lot into ten years. By that time he himself might be able to bring two women abroad in the same load, in separate crates so to speak.

  Alone, Gaston T. Scheer faced a strong west wind with a little spray in it. He was not afraid of the situation he had created — he had never been afraid since the day he had forced himself to lay out a foreman with a section of pitch chain.

  It just felt a little strange when he walked with Minna and the children to think that Catherine Denzer might be watching them. So when he was on deck with Minna he kept his face impassive and aloof, appearing not to have a good time. This was false. He liked Minna — she said nice things.