Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald - F. Scott Fitzgerald - Страница 193

When he awoke it was eleven o’clock, and he drew himself a cool bath, splashing around in it with much of the exultation of the night before.

“I have thought too much these twenty years,” he said to himself. “It’s thinking that makes people old.”

It was hotter than it had been the day before, and as he looked out the window the dust in the street seemed more tangible than on the night before. He breakfasted alone downstairs, wondering with the incessant wonder of the city man why fresh cream is almost unobtainable in the country. Word had spread already that he was home, and several men rose to greet him as he came into the lobby. Asked if he had a wife and children, he said no, in a careless way, and after he had said it he had a vague feeling of discomfort.

“I’m all alone,” he went on, with forced jocularity. “I wanted to come back and see the old town again.”

“Stay long?” They looked at him curiously.

“Just a day or so.”

He wondered what they would think tomorrow. There would be excited little groups of them here and there along the street with the startling and audacious news.

“See here,” he wanted to say, “you think I’ve had a wonderful life over there in the city, but I haven’t. I came down here because life had beaten me, and if there’s any brightness in my eyes this morning it’s because last night I found a part of my lost youth tucked away in this little town.”

At noon, as he walked toward Alice’s house, the heat increased and several times he stopped to wipe the sweat from his forehead. When he turned in at the gate he saw her waiting on the porch, wearing what was apparently a Sunday dress and moving herself gently back and forth in a rocking-chair in a way that he remembered her doing as a girl.

“Alice!” he exclaimed happily.

Her finger rose swiftly and touched her lips.

“Look out!” she said in a low voice.

He sat down beside her and took her hand, but she replaced it on the arm of her chair and resumed her gentle rocking.

“Be careful. The children are inside.”

“But I can’t be careful. Now that life’s begun all over again, I’ve forgotten all the caution that I learned in the other life, the one that’s past.”

“Sh-h-h!”

Somewhat irritated, he glanced at her closely. Her face, unmoved and unresponsive, seemed vaguely older than it had yesterday; she was white and tired. But he dismissed the impression with a low, exultant laugh.

“Alice, I haven’t slept as I slept last night since I was a little boy, except that several times I woke up just for the joy of seeing the same moon we once knew together. I’d got it back.”

“I didn’t sleep at all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I realized about two o’clock or three o’clock that I could never go away from my children—even with you.”

He was struck dumb. He looked at her blankly for a moment, and then he laughed—a short, incredulous laugh.

“Never, never!” she went on, shaking her head passionately. “Never, never, never! When I thought of it I began to tremble all over, right in my bed.” She hesitated. “I don’t know what came over me yesterday evening, John. When I’m with you, you can always make me do or feel or think just exactly what you like. But this is too late, I guess. It doesn’t seem real at all; it just seems sort of crazy to me, as if I’d dreamed it, that’s all.”

John Jackson laughed again, not incredulously this time, but on a menacing note.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

She began to cry and hid her eyes behind her hand because some people were passing along the road.

“You’ve got to tell me more than that,” cried John Jackson, his voice rising a little. “I can’t just take that and go away.”

“Please don’t talk so loud,” she implored him. “It’s so hot and I’m so confused. I guess I’m just a small-town woman, after all. It seems somehow awful to be talking here with you, when my husband’s working all day in the dust and heat.”

“Awful to be talking here?” he repeated.

“Don’t look that way!” she cried miserably. “I can’t bear to hurt you so. You have children, too, to think of—you said you had a son.”

“A son.” The fact seemed so far away that he looked at her, startled. “Oh, yes, I have a son.”

A sort of craziness, a wild illogic in the situation had communicated itself to him; and yet he fought blindly against it as he felt his own mood of ecstasy slipping away. For twenty hours he had recaptured the power of seeing things through a mist of hope—hope in some vague, happy destiny that lay just over the hill—and now with every word she uttered the mist was passing, the hope, the town, the memory, the very face of this woman before his eyes.

“Never again in this world,” he cried with a last despairing effort, “will you and I have a chance at happiness!”

But he knew, even as he said this, that it had never been a chance; simply a wild, desperate sortie from two long-beleaguered fortresses by night.

He looked up to see that George Harland had turned in at the gate.

“Lunch is ready,” called Alice, raising her head with an expression of relief. “John’s going to be with us too.”

“I can’t,” said John Jackson quickly. “You’re both very kind.”

“Better stay.” Harland, in oily overalls, sank down wearily on the steps and with a large handkerchief polished the hot space beneath his thin grey hair. “We can give you some iced tea.” He looked up at John. “I don’t know whether these hot days make you feel your age like I feel mine.”

“I guess—it affects all of us alike,” said John Jackson with an effort. “The awful part of it is that I’ve got to go back to the city this afternoon.”

“Really?” Harland nodded with polite regret.

“Why, yes. The fact is I promised to make a speech.”

“Is that so? Speak on some city problem, I suppose.”

“No; the fact is”—the words, forming in his mind to a senseless rhythm, pushed themselves out—“I’m going to speak on What Have I Got Out of Life.”

Then he became conscious of the heat indeed; and still wearing that smile he knew so well how to muster, he felt himself sway dizzily against the porch rail. After a minute they were walking with him toward the gate.

“I’m sorry you’re leaving,” said Alice, with frightened eyes. “Come back and visit your old town again.”

“I will.”

Blind with unhappiness, he set off up the street at what he felt must be a stumble; but some dim necessity made him turn after he had gone a little way and smile back at them and wave his hand. They were still standing there, and they waved at him and he saw them turn and walk together into their house.

“I must go back and make my speech,” he said to himself as he walked on, swaying slightly, down the street. “I shall get up and ask aloud ‘What have I got out of life?’ And there before them all I shall answer, ‘Nothing.’ I shall tell them the truth; that life has beaten me at every turning and used me for its own obscure purposes over and over; that everything I have loved has turned to ashes, and that every time I have stooped to pat a dog I have felt his teeth in my hand. And so at last they will learn the truth about one man’s heart.”