Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (514 page)

ALTHEA: You’ll get your breakfast after a while.

She turns and looks at Nicolas. He has just forked a piece of his sausage cake. Suddenly he realizes he is being looked at and is grateful for her interest, eyes brightening.

ALTHEA: Well — ?

NICOLAS: Well?

ALTHEA (smiling): Nicer?

NICOLAS: What, nicer?

ALTHEA: The ham.

The look in his eyes makes her turn away to return the birds to their cage, and speak in a cooler voice.

ALTHEA: It’s sent up from the South. Nicolas’little eagerness fades.

NICOLAS: Oh, yes — it’s fine. Delicious. Everything is.

ALTHEA: Thanks.

The drawing room: A little later. We truck in front of them as they walk from the breakfast alcove through the drawing room, to the front hall. Her side-glance is on the room as they pass — she stops momentarily to adjust some flowers that dangle awkwardly from a vase, then catches up with her husband.

The hall: The butler is handing Nicolas his hat and holding a light coat for him.

NICOLAS (realizing something): I don’t need this — it’s spring.

BUTLER: Yes, sir.

NICOLAS: And it’s Saturday. (To Althea:) You going to the country?

ALTHEA: To the Bancrofts’.

NICOLAS (with a faint sadness): No.

ALTHEA: You’ll have so many things to talk over with your brother — I’ll be back tomorrow night.

NICOLAS (to butler): If my brother phones here,call the office immediately.

BUTLER; Yes, sir.

NICOLAS (to Althea): Have a good time.

ALTHEA: Thank you, Nick.

He goes out.

Drawing room: Althea walks back toward the breakfast alcove. Over the shot, comes the sound of a telephone bell.

Street: Truck Nicolas to the limousine. Inside, he takes out his newspaper. Then, involuntarily, as though propelled by a strange longing, an inner loneliness, he looks back toward the house.

Breakfast alcove: Althea, glancing out the window, sees him looking from the limousine. She waves her handkerchief in a friendly fashion — but only friendly, like everything else. Sound of telephone bell continues.

The limousine: Nicolas’reaction: His eyes almost glisten with emotion.

The breakfast alcove: Althea turns from window, unmoved. The phone in breakfast alcove is still ringing. The butler hastens to answer it.

BUTLER (at phone): Who is this, please? (To Althea:) A gentleman from foreign pans.

ALTHEA (surprised): A gentleman from foreign parts? (Suddenly an expression of pleased recognition comes into her face as she crosses to the phone.)

The International Life Company; anteroom of the gigantic offices: Camera picks up Nicolas coming in from outside and trucks him through deferential clerks, typists at desks, and people waiting to see him, following him into his luxurious private office with the skyline outside the windows. He is definitely in a mood, throws his hat on his desk and wanders to the window, his eyes far away.

Miss Crane, his secretary, a neutral, not glamorous type, comes in and hangs up his hat.

SECRETARY: Morning, Mr. Gilbert. (She sits down with pad and pencil.)

NICOLAS (abstracted): Good morning. (He looks at her.) Not yet.

SECRETARY (surprised at his tone): What?

NICOLAS (as if in a dream): I mean, not yet. There’s something else.

SECRETARY (puzzled): Something I can do?

NICOLAS (seeing her for the first time): Not you. No, not you. (More collected.) I’ll send for you later.

Confused, she turns, her handkerchief dropping from her lap. Nicolas takes a step and picks it up, holds it gingerly, his mind going back to his wife’s gesture of that morning.

SECRETARY: You don’t approve of my handkerchief?

NICOLAS: Oh, yes. It’s very nice. (Hands it to her.)

SECRETARY (smells it): The perfume’s some you gave me last Christmas.

NICOLAS: Hmm.

An office boy opens the door.

BOY: Mr. Harrison Gilbert. Immediately a burly, successful-looking man, a few years older than Nicolas, brushes by him and advances toward his brother.

HARRISON: Nick!

NICOLAS: Harry! They do a boyhood grip — first slapping, then clasping hands on the third count. Miss Crane and the office boy go out.

HARRISON (smiling — referring to the grip that Nicolas fumbled): You missed it — first rime in twenty years. What’s the matter?

NICOLAS (smiling): I’m just surprised. I thought you weren’t ever coming East again.

By the door: The office boy opens it, piles two expensive, shining leather grips and a bag of golf clubs inside. As the door closes -

Two-shot of the brothers.

HARRISON: I wanted to see you... to see you close.

NICOLAS (a little embarrassed): Well, that’s nice —

His brother turns him to the window and examines him.

HARRISON: I meet people sometimes — who’ve seen you — and they say things — things that worry me.

NICOLAS (scoffing): What’s this?

HARRISON: They say you look like thirty — you think like forty — you always did — but you act like fifty.

NICOLAS (backing away): I deny it all.

HARRISON: And when a man acts like fifty, he feels like fifty. And, Nick, you’re thirty-three.

NICOLAS: Am I? That’s right.

HARRISON: How’s Althea?

NICOLAS: Never better. Very busy — interested in this children’s ward she started at the orthopedic. She’s gone to the country for the night, but you’ll see her tomorrow. Pause. Harrison sits on desk.

HARRISON: Nick, what’s the matter between you two?

NICOLAS: Oh, we’re fine. Do you expect two people to go on staring at each other like a couple of love-sick calves all their lives? Do people expect marriage to be one long honeymoon? Marriage has its phases — its acts — like anything else. This is another act, that’s all.

HARRISON (interrupting): Nick, what’s the matter between you and Althea? What happened two years ago? (Pause.)

NICOLAS: A door closed, that’s all.

HARRISON: Why? Why, Nick, up to two years ago —

At this point, with the voices continuing as an overtone, the scene dissolves to a montage composed of the following elements:

(a) Althea in a wide hat in a rope swing — Nicolas pushing and running completely under it, so that first her smiling face and then his come up to the camera.

(b) Nicolas in a room, holding a stepladder. Althea is driving a nail — She loses her balance, clutches the air wildly and falls into his arms, laughing.

(c) Nicolas and Althea, dressed as clown and harlequin, driving down a country road at dawn, his arm about her.

(d) Nicolas and Althea donkey riding in Mexico — her donkey stampedes, sending him tearing after in wild alarm.

(e) Nicolas and Althea snowballing each other in front of a big house. Nicolas ducks and a snowball knocks off the hat of a staid passerby.

(f) Nicolas at phone, his face fond and tender. Althea at phone, the same.

(g) Two hands over teacups, clasping.

(h) Nicolas and Althea entering a bedroom, arms about each other, closing a door behind them. Over this shot comes the following conversation:

HARRISON (continuing): ...You were the happiest pair I ever knew. The only thing that bothered me was that you were too happy.

NICOLAS: It couldn’t last.

HARRISON: But it didn’t have to break into bits. There was enough to last you your lifetime. People used to stare at you, envying you, wondering where you’d found it — found what everyone in the world is looking for. Pause.

NICOLAS: Don’t you think I remember. On the day she sailed for Europe, two years ago — if anyone had told me it could end -

His voice fades off as the montage ends. Medium shot: The gangway of an ocean liner. A standing sign reads, “Conte di Savoia — Sailing at Midnight.” Shooting from the pier, the camera goes swiftly up the gangway,passing stewards with luggage.

Dining salon of the ship: Quite a few people supping or drinking at tables. In the foreground a well-dressed group is saying good-bye.

Ad lib: Write me from Paris? Your summer clothes are in the country. Etc.

STEWARD’S VOICE (calling over scene): Fifteen minutes more.

Camera trucks forward swiftly through tables, taking up a medium-close position as in the shot on Waldotf Roof. Nicolas and Althea sit opposite each other but now all has changed. The emotions are love and excitement, sadness and animation, and every emotion is shared and exchanged.

ALTHEA (leaning over table): I don’t believe I’m going away. I never have believed it and never will. If you were leaving me, I could understand it — but that I’m going away, free and in my right mind — (She shakes her head somberly from side to fide)

NICOLAS: You’re not going away. Listen, did you readin papers about the dog they froze up in a cake of ice —

ALTHEA: Poor dog.

NICOLAS: Wait a minute —

ALTHEA (near tears anyhow): I’m afraid I’m going to weep over that dog.

NICOLAS: Wait! They thawed him out after a month, and he came to life again. That’s how it’ll be with us.

ALTHEA: But what’ll I think about in my cake of ice?

NICOLAS: Oh, you’ll look out and see the Italian scenery and watch your mother get well and write me letters.

ALTHEA (desolately): Here are some letters. (She hands him a package — six letters, each addressed to Nicolas Gilbert, Esq.) This for the time I’m on the boat. You’re to open one every day.

NICOLAS: Oh, that’s fine.

ALTHEA: They’re not so good. They’re all about the waves and fascinating stranger I meet on the boat deck in the storm. (Pause.) You ought to see a lot of Kitty Tredwick while I’m away, or Mary Hoffman or that horrible woman with the pink hair you admire so.

NICOLAS (taking out notebook and consulting it): I’m seeing her tonight. The others’ll have to wait a few days.

ALTHEA: And please wear the knee bandage another month. And listen (leans over table) I don’t want you to write me. Send me a few cables if you like.

NICOLAS (vaguely hurt): Not write?

ALTHEA: No. I can’t explain. This is a dream, being away from you, and a cable is part of the dream, all vague arid impossible. But a letter would be like seeing you a long way off — where I couldn’t reach out and touch you.

Nicolas is shaking his head from side to side — tears are winking in his eyes.

NICOLAS: You are the craziest girl.

STEWARD’S VOICE (off scene): Five minutes more.

NICOLAS: I want to see your state-room.

As they go up -

A beautiful, big, light cabin on a high deck filled with flowers, Nicolas and Althea coming in: She stands with her arms folded, looking at the floor.

NICOLAS: Comfortable?

ALTHEA: Yes.

NICOLAS: Everything you want? (Crosses to washstand)

ALTHEA: Yes.

NICOLAS (at washstand): Hot water — cold water — (Neither flows.) I guess they don’t go till the boat starts. Even ice water.

ALTHEA: You can freeze me right now.

He comes behind her and puts his arms around her.

NICOLAS: No, not yet.

ALTHEA (unsmiling): Yes.

NICOLAS (letting her go and speaking with dead seriousness): This is pretty awful, isn’t

it?

ALTHEA: This is the awfullest thing that ever happened. I can’t stand it.

She grabs his hand and begins to jump up and down. He jumps with her and, unsmiling, like two children, they jump in a circle, shouting:

ALTHEA AND NICOLAS: We — can’t — stand — it. We — can’t — stand — it —

Door opens and stewardess puts her head in.

STEWARDESS: Is anything wrong? They stop jumping and look at her.

NICOLAS AND ALTHEA (together): Ye-e-s-s-s. Everything.

NICOLAS (feeling fives from a bill roll): You take care of this lady as if she was a piece of glass. She is. A tin gong beats in the hall.

STEWARDESS: All ashore that’s going ashore. (She exits.) Althea, wide-eyed, points suddenly to the window. Shot of the porthole and outside it.

Apparently the ship is in motion, passing the lighted port-holes of another ship. Nicolas throws up his hat in joy.

NICOLAS: Yea — we’re moving! I’m a stowaway. I’ll ride as far as Quarantine.

ALTHEA: You can’t ride to Quarantine! It’s contagious there. Althea rushes toward the porthole.

Medium shot as from the porthole: Another ship, backing into dock, is passing dose to the Conte di Savoia. It is the old Optical illusion of one’s own train moving when it is really the train beside it, moving in another direction. Two-shot of Nicolas and Althea beside the porthole.

Nicolas laughing; Althea looking relieved.