Читать книгу The Beautiful and Damned / Прекрасные и обреченные. Уровень 4 - Френсис Скотт Фицджеральд, Френсис Фицджеральд - Страница 19

Anthony was in love – he cried it passionately to himself. If he did not marry her his life would be a feeble parody on his own adolescence. To be able to face people and to endure the constant reminder of Gloria that all existence had become, it was necessary for him to have hope. So he built hope desperately and tenaciously. Out of this developed a spark of wisdom.

“Memory is short,” he thought.

Anthony had seen Gloria altogether about a dozen times, say two dozen hours. Supposing he left her alone for a month, made no attempt to see her or speak to her, and avoided every place where she might possibly be. Wasn’t it possible that at the end of that time the rush of events would efface his personality from her conscious mind, and with his personality his offense and humiliation? She would forget, for there would be other men. He winced. Other men! Two months – God! Better three weeks, two weeks…

Two weeks – that was worse than no time at all. No, two weeks was too short a time. He must give her a period when the incident should fade, and then a new period when she should gradually begin to think of him, no matter how dimly.

He fixed, finally, on six weeks as approximately the interval best suited to his purpose, and on a desk calendar he marked the days off, finding that it would fall on the ninth of April. Very well, on that day he would phone and ask her if he might call. Until then – silence.

In another hour he fell into a deep sleep.

Nevertheless, though, as the days passed, the glory of her hair dimmed perceptibly for him and in a year of separation might have departed completely. He didn’t want to see Dick and Maury, imagining that they knew all – but when they met it was Richard Caramel and not Anthony who was the centre of attention. “The Demon Lover” had been accepted for immediate publication. Anthony felt that from now on he moved apart. He needed no more Maury’s society. Only Gloria could give him everything and no one else ever again. So Dick’s success rejoiced him and worried him. It meant that the world was going ahead – writing and reading and publishing – and living. And he wanted the world to wait motionless and breathless for six weeks – while Gloria forgot.