This Side of Paradise (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (29 page)

The room was in darkness except for the faint glow of Tom’s cigarette where he lounged by the open window. As the door shut behind him, Amory stood a moment with his back against it.

“Hello, Benvenuto Blaine. How went the advertising business today?”

Amory sprawled on a couch.

“I loathed it as usual!” The momentary vision of the bustling agency was displaced quickly by another picture.

“My God! She’s wonderful!”

Tom sighed.

“I can’t tell you,” repeated Amory, “just how wonderful she is. I don’t want you to know. I don’t want any one to know.”

Another sigh came from the window—quite a resigned sigh.

“She’s life and hope and happiness, my whole world now.”

He felt the quiver of a tear on his eyelid.

“Oh,
Golly,
Tom!”

“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.

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.

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—

 

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.

 

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!

 

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 risingfrom the couch goes to the armcbair.)
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 suf fering.

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 wont—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!

 

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: