This Side of Paradise - 19

He felt the quiver of a tear on his eyelid.

“Oh, Golly, Tom!”

---

BITTER SWEET

“Sit like we do,” she whispered.

He sat in the big chair and held out his arms so that she could nestle inside them.

“I knew you’d come to-night,” she said softly, “like summer, just when I needed you most... darling... darling...”

His lips moved lazily over her face.

“You taste so good,” he sighed.

“How do you mean, lover?”

“Oh, just sweet, just sweet...” he held her closer.

“Amory,” she whispered, “when you’re ready for me I’ll marry you.”

“We won’t have much at first.”

“Don’t!” she cried. “It hurts when you reproach yourself for what you can’t give me. I’ve got your precious self—and that’s enough for me.”

“Tell me...”

“You know, don’t you? Oh, you know.”

“Yes, but I want to hear you say it.”

“I love you, Amory, with all my heart.”

“Always, will you?”

“All my life—Oh, Amory—”

“What?”

“I want to belong to you. I want your people to be my people. I want to have your babies.”

“But I haven’t any people.”

“Don’t laugh at me, Amory. Just kiss me.”

“I’ll do what you want,” he said.

“No, I’ll do what you want. We’re you—not me. Oh, you’re so much a part, so much all of me...”

He closed his eyes.

“I’m so happy that I’m frightened. Wouldn’t it be awful if this was—was the high point?...”

She looked at him dreamily.

“Beauty and love pass, I know.... Oh, there’s sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses—”

“Beauty means the agony of sacrifice and the end of agony....”

“And, Amory, we’re beautiful, I know. I’m sure God loves us—”

“He loves you. You’re his most precious possession.”

“I’m not his, I’m yours. Amory, I belong to you. For the first time I regret all the other kisses; now I know how much a kiss can mean.”

Then they would smoke and he would tell her about his day at the office—and where they might live. Sometimes, when he was particularly loquacious, she went to sleep in his arms, but he loved that Rosalind—all Rosalinds—as he had never in the world loved any one else. Intangibly fleeting, unrememberable hours.

---

AQUATIC INCIDENT

One day Amory and Howard Gillespie meeting by accident down-town took lunch together, and Amory heard a story that delighted him. Gillespie after several cocktails was in a talkative mood; he began by telling Amory that he was sure Rosalind was slightly eccentric.

He had gone with her on a swimming party up in Westchester County, and some one mentioned that Annette Kellerman had been there one day on a visit and had dived from the top of a rickety, thirty-foot summer-house. Immediately Rosalind insisted that Howard should climb up with her to see what it looked like.

A minute later, as he sat and dangled his feet on the edge, a form shot by him; Rosalind, her arms spread in a beautiful swan dive, had sailed through the air into the clear water.

“Of course I had to go, after that—and I nearly killed myself. I thought I was pretty good to even try it. Nobody else in the party tried it. Well, afterward Rosalind had the nerve to ask me why I stooped over when I dove. ‘It didn’t make it any easier,’ she said, ‘it just took all the courage out of it.’ I ask you, what can a man do with a girl like that? Unnecessary, I call it.”

Gillespie failed to understand why Amory was smiling delightedly all through lunch. He thought perhaps he was one of these hollow optimists.

---

FIVE WEEKS LATER

Again the library of the Connage house. ROSALIND is alone, sitting on the lounge staring very moodily and unhappily at nothing. She has changed perceptibly—she is a trifle thinner for one thing; the light in her eyes is not so bright; she looks easily a year older.

Her mother comes in, muffled in an opera-cloak. She takes in ROSALIND with a nervous glance.

MRS. CONNAGE: Who is coming to-night?

(ROSALIND fails to hear her, at least takes no notice.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Alec is coming up to take me to this Barrie play, “Et tu, Brutus.” (She perceives that she is talking to herself.) Rosalind! I asked you who is coming to-night?

ROSALIND: (Starting) Oh—what—oh—Amory—

MRS. CONNAGE: (Sarcastically) You have so many admirers lately that I couldn’t imagine which one. (ROSALIND doesn’t answer.) Dawson Ryder is more patient than I thought he’d be. You haven’t given him an evening this week.

ROSALIND: (With a very weary expression that is quite new to her face.) Mother—please—

MRS. CONNAGE: Oh, I won’t interfere. You’ve already wasted over two months on a theoretical genius who hasn’t a penny to his name, but go ahead, waste your life on him. I won’t interfere.

ROSALIND: (As if repeating a tiresome lesson) You know he has a little income—and you know he’s earning thirty-five dollars a week in advertising—

MRS. CONNAGE: And it wouldn’t buy your clothes. (She pauses but ROSALIND makes no reply.) I have your best interests at heart when I tell you not to take a step you’ll spend your days regretting. It’s not as if your father could help you. Things have been hard for him lately and he’s an old man. You’d be dependent absolutely on a dreamer, a nice, well-born boy, but a dreamer—merely clever. (She implies that this quality in itself is rather vicious.)

ROSALIND: For heaven’s sake, mother—

(A maid appears, announces Mr. Blaine who follows immediately. AMORY’S friends have been telling him for ten days that he “looks like the wrath of God,” and he does. As a matter of fact he has not been able to eat a mouthful in the last thirty-six hours.)

AMORY: Good evening, Mrs. Connage.

MRS. CONNAGE: (Not unkindly) Good evening, Amory.

(AMORY and ROSALIND exchange glances—and ALEC comes in. ALEC’S attitude throughout has been neutral. He believes in his heart that the marriage would make AMORY mediocre and ROSALIND miserable, but he feels a great sympathy for both of them.)

ALEC: Hi, Amory!

AMORY: Hi, Alec! Tom said he’d meet you at the theatre.

ALEC: Yeah, just saw him. How’s the advertising to-day? Write some brilliant copy?

AMORY: Oh, it’s about the same. I got a raise—(Every one looks at him rather eagerly)—of two dollars a week. (General collapse.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Come, Alec, I hear the car.

(A good night, rather chilly in sections. After MRS. CONNAGE and ALEC go out there is a pause. ROSALIND still stares moodily at the fireplace. AMORY goes to her and puts his arm around her.)

AMORY: Darling girl.

(They kiss. Another pause and then she seizes his hand, covers it with kisses and holds it to her breast.)

ROSALIND: (Sadly) I love your hands, more than anything. I see them often when you’re away from me—so tired; I know every line of them. Dear hands!

(Their eyes meet for a second and then she begins to cry—a tearless sobbing.)

AMORY: Rosalind!

ROSALIND: Oh, we’re so darned pitiful!

AMORY: Rosalind!

ROSALIND: Oh, I want to die!

AMORY: Rosalind, another night of this and I’ll go to pieces. You’ve been this way four days now. You’ve got to be more encouraging or I can’t work or eat or sleep. (He looks around helplessly as if searching for new words to clothe an old, shopworn phrase.) We’ll have to make a start. I like having to make a start together. (His forced hopefulness fades as he sees her unresponsive.) What’s the matter? (He gets up suddenly and starts to pace the floor.) It’s Dawson Ryder, that’s what it is. He’s been working on your nerves. You’ve been with him every afternoon for a week. People come and tell me they’ve seen you together, and I have to smile and nod and pretend it hasn’t the slightest significance for me. And you won’t tell me anything as it develops.

ROSALIND: Amory, if you don’t sit down I’ll scream.

AMORY: (Sitting down suddenly beside her) Oh, Lord.

ROSALIND: (Taking his hand gently) You know I love you, don’t you?

AMORY: Yes.

ROSALIND: You know I’ll always love you—

AMORY: Don’t talk that way; you frighten me. It sounds as if we weren’t going to have each other. (She cries a little and rising from the couch goes to the armchair.) I’ve felt all afternoon that things were worse. I nearly went wild down at the office—couldn’t write a line. Tell me everything.

ROSALIND: There’s nothing to tell, I say. I’m just nervous.

AMORY: Rosalind, you’re playing with the idea of marrying Dawson Ryder.

ROSALIND: (After a pause) He’s been asking me to all day.

AMORY: Well, he’s got his nerve!

ROSALIND: (After another pause) I like him.

AMORY: Don’t say that. It hurts me.

ROSALIND: Don’t be a silly idiot. You know you’re the only man I’ve ever loved, ever will love.

AMORY: (Quickly) Rosalind, let’s get married—next week.

ROSALIND: We can’t.

AMORY: Why not?

ROSALIND: Oh, we can’t. I’d be your squaw—in some horrible place.

AMORY: We’ll have two hundred and seventy-five dollars a month all told.

ROSALIND: Darling, I don’t even do my own hair, usually.

AMORY: I’ll do it for you.

ROSALIND: (Between a laugh and a sob) Thanks.

AMORY: Rosalind, you can’t be thinking of marrying some one else. Tell me! You leave me in the dark. I can help you fight it out if you’ll only tell me.

ROSALIND: It’s just—us. We’re pitiful, that’s all. The very qualities I love you for are the ones that will always make you a failure.

AMORY: (Grimly) Go on.

ROSALIND: Oh—it is Dawson Ryder. He’s so reliable, I almost feel that he’d be a—a background.

AMORY: You don’t love him.

ROSALIND: I know, but I respect him, and he’s a good man and a strong one.

AMORY: (Grudgingly) Yes—he’s that.

ROSALIND: Well—here’s one little thing. There was a little poor boy we met in Rye Tuesday afternoon—and, oh, Dawson took him on his lap and talked to him and promised him an Indian suit—and next day he remembered and bought it—and, oh, it was so sweet and I couldn’t help thinking he’d be so nice to—to our children—take care of them—and I wouldn’t have to worry.

AMORY: (In despair) Rosalind! Rosalind!

ROSALIND: (With a faint roguishness) Don’t look so consciously suffering.

AMORY: What power we have of hurting each other!

ROSALIND: (Commencing to sob again) It’s been so perfect—you and I. So like a dream that I’d longed for and never thought I’d find. The first real unselfishness I’ve ever felt in my life. And I can’t see it fade out in a colorless atmosphere!

AMORY: It won’t—it won’t!

ROSALIND: I’d rather keep it as a beautiful memory—tucked away in my heart.

AMORY: Yes, women can do that—but not men. I’d remember always, not the beauty of it while it lasted, but just the bitterness, the long bitterness.

ROSALIND: Don’t!

AMORY: All the years never to see you, never to kiss you, just a gate shut and barred—you don’t dare be my wife.

ROSALIND: No—no—I’m taking the hardest course, the strongest course. Marrying you would be a failure and I never fail—if you don’t stop walking up and down I’ll scream!

(Again he sinks despairingly onto the lounge.)

AMORY: Come over here and kiss me.

ROSALIND: No.

AMORY: Don’t you want to kiss me?

ROSALIND: To-night I want you to love me calmly and coolly.

AMORY: The beginning of the end.

ROSALIND: (With a burst of insight) Amory, you’re young. I’m young. People excuse us now for our poses and vanities, for treating people like Sancho and yet getting away with it. They excuse us now. But you’ve got a lot of knocks coming to you—

AMORY: And you’re afraid to take them with me.

ROSALIND: No, not that. There was a poem I read somewhere—you’ll say Ella Wheeler Wilcox and laugh—but listen:

“For this is wisdom—to love and live, To take what fate or the gods may give, To ask no question, to make no prayer, To kiss the lips and caress the hair, Speed passion’s ebb as we greet its flow, To have and to hold, and, in time—let go.”

AMORY: But we haven’t had.

ROSALIND: Amory, I’m yours—you know it. There have been times in the last month I’d have been completely yours if you’d said so. But I can’t marry you and ruin both our lives.

AMORY: We’ve got to take our chance for happiness.

ROSALIND: Dawson says I’d learn to love him.

(AMORY with his head sunk in his hands does not move. The life seems suddenly gone out of him.)

ROSALIND: Lover! Lover! I can’t do with you, and I can’t imagine life without you.

AMORY: Rosalind, we’re on each other’s nerves. It’s just that we’re both high-strung, and this week—

(His voice is curiously old. She crosses to him and taking his face in her hands, kisses him.)

ROSALIND: I can’t, Amory. I can’t be shut away from the trees and flowers, cooped up in a little flat, waiting for you. You’d hate me in a narrow atmosphere. I’d make you hate me.

(Again she is blinded by sudden uncontrolled tears.)

AMORY: Rosalind—

ROSALIND: Oh, darling, go—Don’t make it harder! I can’t stand it—

AMORY: (His face drawn, his voice strained) Do you know what you’re saying? Do you mean forever?

(There is a difference somehow in the quality of their suffering.)

ROSALIND: Can’t you see—

AMORY: I’m afraid I can’t if you love me. You’re afraid of taking two years’ knocks with me.

ROSALIND: I wouldn’t be the Rosalind you love.

AMORY: (A little hysterically) I can’t give you up! I can’t, that’s all! I’ve got to have you!

ROSALIND: (A hard note in her voice) You’re being a baby now.

AMORY: (Wildly) I don’t care! You’re spoiling our lives!

ROSALIND: I’m doing the wise thing, the only thing.

AMORY: Are you going to marry Dawson Ryder?

ROSALIND: Oh, don’t ask me. You know I’m old in some ways—in others—well, I’m just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness—and I dread responsibility. I don’t want to think about pots and kitchens and brooms. I want to worry whether my legs will get slick and brown when I swim in the summer.

AMORY: And you love me.

ROSALIND: That’s just why it has to end. Drifting hurts too much. We can’t have any more scenes like this.

(She draws his ring from her finger and hands it to him. Their eyes blind again with tears.)

AMORY: (His lips against her wet cheek) Don’t! Keep it, please—oh, don’t break my heart!

(She presses the ring softly into his hand.)

ROSALIND: (Brokenly) You’d better go.

AMORY: Good-by—

(She looks at him once more, with infinite longing, infinite sadness.)

ROSALIND: Don’t ever forget me, Amory—

AMORY: Good-by—

(He goes to the door, fumbles for the knob, finds it—she sees him throw back his head—and he is gone. Gone—she half starts from the lounge and then sinks forward on her face into the pillows.)

ROSALIND: Oh, God, I want to die! (After a moment she rises and with her eyes closed feels her way to the door. Then she turns and looks once more at the room. Here they had sat and dreamed: that tray she had so often filled with matches for him; that shade that they had discreetly lowered one long Sunday afternoon. Misty-eyed she stands and remembers; she speaks aloud.) Oh, Amory, what have I done to you?

(And deep under the aching sadness that will pass in time, Rosalind feels that she has lost something, she knows not what, she knows not why.)

CHAPTER 2. Experiments in Convalescence

The Knickerbocker Bar, beamed upon by Maxfield Parrish’s jovial, colorful “Old King Cole,” was well crowded. Amory stopped in the entrance and looked at his wrist-watch; he wanted particularly to know the time, for something in his mind that catalogued and classified liked to chip things off cleanly. Later it would satisfy him in a vague way to be able to think “that thing ended at exactly twenty minutes after eight on Thursday, June 10, 1919.” This was allowing for the walk from her house—a walk concerning which he had afterward not the faintest recollection.

He was in rather grotesque condition: two days of worry and nervousness, of sleepless nights, of untouched meals, culminating in the emotional crisis and Rosalind’s abrupt decision—the strain of it had drugged the foreground of his mind into a merciful coma. As he fumbled clumsily with the olives at the free-lunch table, a man approached and spoke to him, and the olives dropped from his nervous hands.

“Well, Amory...”

It was some one he had known at Princeton; he had no idea of the name.

“Hello, old boy—” he heard himself saying.

“Name’s Jim Wilson—you’ve forgotten.”

“Sure, you bet, Jim. I remember.”

“Going to reunion?”

“You know!” Simultaneously he realized that he was not going to reunion.

“Get overseas?”

Amory nodded, his eyes staring oddly. Stepping back to let some one pass, he knocked the dish of olives to a crash on the floor.

“Too bad,” he muttered. “Have a drink?”

Wilson, ponderously diplomatic, reached over and slapped him on the back.