版权信息

书名：人间天堂：汉英对照

作者：〔美国〕F.S.菲茨杰拉德

译者：张方方

责任编辑：陈绍敏

特约编辑：张艳华

装帧设计：鹏飞艺术

校　　对：刘文硕

责任印制：贺伟

目录

版权信息

第一部 浪漫的自我中心主义者

第一章 艾默里：比阿特丽斯之子

第二章 尖塔与滴水兽

第三章 自我中心主义者的思考

第四章 告别自恋

插曲 一九一七年五月至一九一九年二月

第二部 个人的教育

第一章 初入社交圈的少女

第二章 康复期的实验

第三章 青春的荒谬

第四章 高傲的牺牲

第五章 从自我中心主义者到个人的转变

BOOK ONE—The Romantic Egotist

Chapter 1 Amory, Son of Beatrice

Chapter 2 Spires and Gargoyles

Chapter 3 The Egotist Considers

Chapter 4 Narcissus Off Duty

INTERLUDE: May, 1917-February, 1919

BOOK TWO—The Education of a Personage

Chapter 1 The Débutante

Chapter 2 Experiments in Convalescence

Chapter 3 Young Irony

Chapter 4 The Supercilious Sacrifice

Chapter 5 The Egotist Becomes a Personage

……这人间的天堂！

并无多少安乐可享。

——鲁伯特·布鲁克[1]

经验不过是数不胜数的人

对自己所犯错误的命名。

——奥斯卡·王尔德[2]

献给

西格尼·费伊[3]

第一部 浪漫的自我中心主义者

第一章　艾默里：比阿特丽斯之子

除了零星几个难以描述的品性之外，艾默里·布莱恩身上所有的可贵品质都遗传自他的母亲，这些品质使他受益匪浅。他的父亲，一生碌碌无为，不善言谈，但喜欢拜伦的诗歌，常常会在翻看《大英百科全书》时打瞌睡。他父亲在三十岁时，凭借两位在芝加哥做当红经纪人的长兄的遗赠而发家致富，一时间志得意满，去了巴尔港[4]，并在那里结识了比阿特丽斯·奥哈拉。后来，斯蒂芬·布莱恩接近六英尺的个头和优柔寡断的性格，便有了继承人，他的儿子艾默里就继承了这两个特点。多年以来，他徘徊于家庭生活的幕后，成了一个缺乏自信的角色，干枯的软发遮住了他半张脸，他一直忙于“照顾”妻子，并一直为没有理解她、无法理解她而感到苦恼。

比阿特丽斯·布莱恩则完全不同！这个女人！从她早年拍摄的照片中，不难看出她那时五官精致，衣装优雅简洁。这些照片有的拍摄于威斯康星州日内瓦湖城她父亲的庄园，有的拍摄于罗马的圣心修道院——毋庸置疑，她年轻时接受的教育是只有富家女才能享有的奢华待遇。她接受过优良的教育——她的青春年华在文艺复兴的辉煌中度过，她对于那些古老的罗马家族的新近传闻也了如指掌；作为一位美国富家千金，她在维托里主教、玛格丽特王后[5]，还有那些只有具备一定文化修养才能知晓的社会名流中，也有些名气。她在英国的学习使得她偏爱威士忌苏打，而不是葡萄酒；在维也纳度过的那个冬天，她闲聊的话题在这两方面都得到了拓展。总而言之，比阿特丽斯·奥哈拉接受了不可能再有的良好教育，这种教育可以从一个人能够嗤之以鼻和倾心喜爱的人或物的多寡得以体现。这是一种富有艺术和传统却思想贫乏的教育，它发生在精英教育式微之际，伟大的园丁仍然要去芜存菁，不惜修剪掉庞杂、低劣的玫瑰花而只为一朵完美的花蕾。

她在人生的低潮期返回美国，遇到了斯蒂芬·布莱恩并嫁给了他，这一切都是因为她当时对生活产生了厌倦，情绪低落。挨过让人倦怠的冬日之后，她的独子在一八九六年的春天降生。

艾默里五岁时已经能与母亲做伴，让她开心。他有着一头红褐色的头发，一双越长越漂亮的大眼睛，他灵巧又富有想象力，穿着花哨。他四岁到十岁的几年间一直乘着父亲的私人轿车陪母亲在这个国家游历，从科罗纳多[6]南下到墨西哥城[7]。母亲曾因过于颓丧，而在科罗纳多的一家豪华酒店里精神崩溃，也曾在墨西哥城感染轻度但极具传染性的肺结核。这病反倒让她精神振奋，后来她利用这病，把它变成自己生活氛围的一部分——尤其是在喝了几杯惊人的烈酒之后。

因而，当那些多多少少算得上幸运的富家子弟，在纽波特[8]度假区的沙滩上反抗女教师，或是被训罚，或是教导，或是被迫去读《敢作敢为》或《密西西比河下游的弗兰克》[9]时，艾默里正在华尔道夫酒店里折磨那些俯首帖耳的服务生，他正渐渐摆脱对室内乐和交响乐的天生厌恶，并从他母亲那里接受一种非常特殊的教育。

“艾默里。”

“唔，比阿特丽斯。”（这么称呼母亲未免有些奇怪，但她让他这么叫。）

“宝贝儿，不要想着起床。我总是怀疑年轻时早起会引发神经质。克洛蒂尔德马上会把早餐端过来。”

“好的。”

“我觉得自己今天老态龙钟，艾默里。”她不由得叹气道，她的脸上带着一种罕见的哀伤，她的嗓音是刻意调整过的，她的手如女演员伯恩哈特[10]的一样灵巧。“我要神经崩溃了——崩溃了。我们明天必须离开这个鬼地方，去寻找阳光。”

艾默里锐利的绿色眼睛正透过他蓬乱的鬈发看着母亲。虽然他还年幼，也已经对她有了很清醒的认识。

“艾默里。”

“哦，是的。”

“我想让你洗个热水澡——只要你能承受，尽量热一点，以便放松你的神经。如果你愿意，还可以在浴缸里看书。”

在他不到十岁的时候，她就给他念《华宴集》[11]的诗篇；他十一岁时就能像追忆似的，畅谈勃拉姆斯、莫扎特和贝多芬。一天下午，他被单独留在了温泉城那家酒店的房间里，于是趁机偷尝了母亲的杏味甜酒，发现味道宜人，便一直喝到微醺。他开心了好一会儿，兴奋之际，他居然还抽起了香烟，屈服于一种低俗粗野的反应。尽管此事让比阿特丽斯颇感震惊，但她私下里又觉得很好笑，这桩逸事后来也被她的孙辈看成是她“血统”的一部分。

“我的儿子，”他有一次听到她对着一屋子对她饱含敬畏与羡慕之情的女士说，“十分老成，可爱至极，只是他很纤弱——我们都很纤弱；这儿，你们知道的。”她把手置于胸前，在她迷人的胸部的衬托下，她的手愈发显得优雅夺目。然后她压低了声音，近乎耳语地给她们讲了杏味甜酒的事。她是个十分善于讲故事的人，讲得绘声绘色的，她们听得非常开心，但那天晚上，许多餐柜都被上了锁，以防家里的小鲍比或者芭芭拉效仿……

那些家庭远游总是难免兴师动众：配上两名侍女，一辆私家车，布莱恩先生如果有空也要跟着，通常还要带上一名家庭医生。当艾默里患百日咳的时候，有四名让人生厌的专科医生围在他的床前面面相觑；当他感染猩红热时，医生、护士，再加上陪护，有十四人之多。然而，好体质胜过营养汤，他最终挺了过来。

布莱恩一家并不囿于一城而居。他们是日内瓦湖城的布莱恩世家，他们不管是在帕萨迪纳还是科德角半岛[12]都颇有名望，他们的亲戚简直遍天下。但比阿特丽斯越来越喜欢新结交的朋友，因为她总要时不时地把自己的体质状况、患病历史，还有多年在异地的生活回忆，演绎一番，唠叨几遍。这非常必要，就像弗洛伊德式的梦境，这些必须得宣泄出去，否则就会一拥而上，围攻她脆弱的神经。然而，比阿特丽斯对美国妇女常有微词，尤其看不惯早期西部的流动人口。

“她们说话带着口音，我亲爱的，”她对艾默里说，“那不是南方口音或波士顿口音，或者任何一个地方的口音，就是浓重的口音。”她有些恍惚。“她们操着老掉牙的、遭人嫌弃却还没有绝迹的伦敦腔，说起话来，就像一个在芝加哥大歌剧院待了好几年的英国管家。”她开始有些语无伦次，“我猜——每个西部妇女的生活中都会有这么一天——她觉得自己的丈夫发达了，她需要——拿着腔调——她们想让我对她们刮目相看，我亲爱的——”

尽管她觉得自己体弱多病，但是她更觉得自己的灵魂也已病入膏肓，而这些特质在她的生活中意义重大。她曾是一名天主教徒，她发现神父们在她要失去或重拾对教会的信心之际，总是表现得更加殷勤，因而她总是保持一种可爱的摇摆不定的态度。她常常谴责美国天主教会的神职人员本性上平庸粗俗，并且非常确信，倘若她生活在欧洲大陆教堂的荫庇之下，她的灵魂一定还在伟大的罗马祭坛上燃着一线火苗。尽管如此，除了医生，她最爱的人物还是牧师。

“啊，韦斯顿主教，”她表态说，“我可不想谈论我自己。我能想象那些疯女人正拍打着你的房门，乞求你对她们仁慈友善。”——然而，在和牧师交往一段时间之后——“不过我的情绪——真是——异常不一样。”

她只对主教以及更高级的神职人员透露过她和一位牧师的罗曼史。那时她刚刚回国，遇到了一位来自阿什维尔[13]的异教徒，他是位斯温伯恩[14]式的青年，她倾心于他的激情热吻和理智交谈——他们从正反两个方面讨论了这件事，他们理性地谈情说爱，没有一点儿虚情假意。然而，她最终还是选择了门当户对的结婚对象，而这位来自阿什维尔的年轻异教徒，在经历了一场精神危机后，皈依了天主教，成了现在的达西大人。

“确实，布莱恩夫人，与他相伴总是让人愉快——他现在已经是主教的得力助手了。”

“我知道，艾默里总有一天会去找他，”美丽的女士轻声说道，“而达西大人会像理解我一样理解他。”

艾默里十三岁了，长得高挑瘦弱，越来越能猜透他那位凯尔特人母亲的心思。他会不定期地接受辅导——出于要他“保持良好状态”的想法，让他在每个地方都能“继续他上次的功课”，然而，没有家庭教师知道他上次学到了哪儿，但他的头脑依旧处于非常好的状态。如果这样的生活再持续几年，他会变成怎样，尚未可知。然而，他在陪比阿特丽斯去意大利的途中阑尾炎发作了，这很可能是过多在床上进餐导致的后果。那时船刚刚离岸四小时，在向欧洲和美国发送了一系列疯狂的电报之后，让所有旅客不可思议的是，这艘大船居然掉转船头返回纽约，把艾默里放回了码头。你不得不承认，如果不是性命攸关的事，这样做未免太过声势浩大了。

艾默里手术之后，比阿特丽斯经历了一次类似于震颤性谵妄的精神崩溃，而艾默里则被留在了明尼阿波利斯[15]，注定要和他的姨父姨母一起度过随后的两年时光。在那儿，他第一次感受到了，应该说是赤裸裸地感受到了，西方文明粗俗野蛮的气息。

献给艾默里一个吻

他读的时候不禁撇了撇嘴。

“我将要在十二月十七日，周四，五点钟，”信里写道，“举办一个雪橇聚会，如果你能来参加，我会非常高兴。

请速回复。

你真诚的，

米拉·圣克莱尔”

他来到明尼阿波利斯已经两个月了，在这里最让他困扰的是，他必须竭力掩饰，不让人看出他感到自己比“学校里的那帮小子”要优秀得多，然而他自视甚高的信念，是压根儿站不住脚的。他曾经在法语课上（他读的是高级法语班）表现了一回，艾默里对里尔登先生的口音颇为鄙视，他故意对着里尔登先生卖弄了一番，让他窘迫不已，而班上的同学则都兴冲冲的。这位里尔登先生不过是十年前在巴黎待过几个星期，他每次上课一打开书本，就会拿动词的词形变化来刁难学生。艾默里还在历史课上炫耀过一次，那一回他的下场很惨，班上那些和他同龄的男孩在接下来的一个星期里都尖着嗓子，对他含沙射影地嘲弄：

“哦——我觉得，你们知道的呀，美国革命在很大程度上是中产阶级惹是生非，”或者——

“华盛顿出身高贵——哦，非常高贵——我觉得。”

艾默里试图别出心裁，故意出错，借此挽回一点颜面。两年前，他就已经开始读一本关于美国历史的书，虽然那本书只讲到了殖民战争，但他的妈妈声称它写得引人入胜。

艾默里最大的劣势是他不擅长运动，但当他发现运动是检验你在学校是否拥有权威与人气的试金石时，便开始坚持不懈地苦练，力图在冬季运动会上脱颖而出。他的脚踝因为训练扭曲疼痛，但他每天下午都坚持到洛勒莱溜冰场刻苦地练习溜冰，心中想着自己不知要过多久才能熟练地操起冰球棒，而不会莫名其妙地让它绊住自己的冰鞋。

米拉·圣克莱尔小姐邀请他参加雪橇聚会的邀请信，整个上午都待在他的外套口袋里，与一块脏兮兮的花生脆糖黏在一起。下午他掏出来看了看，不免叹了口气。他构思了一会儿，便在卡勒和达尼尔合编的《拉丁语入门》课本的背面，草拟了一封回信：

亲爱的圣克莱尔小姐：

今天早上收到您下周四晚会的盛情邀约，不胜欣喜。届时，我将会当面问候，我为此倍感荣幸。

忠诚的，

艾默里·布莱恩

于是，周四那天，他沿着铲过雪的湿滑街道若有所思地彳亍而行，当他走近米拉的房子时，已经五点半钟，他想妈妈一定会赞同他的迟到。他站在门前的台阶上等候，若无其事地微微闭着眼，心里盘算着进门的种种细节。他会从容地穿过大厅，走到圣克莱尔夫人面前，用精准调试过的语调说：

“亲爱的圣克莱尔夫人，我为自己的迟到感到万分抱歉，但我的女佣——”他稍作停留，意识到自己说的话听起来像是在背书——“但我要和姨父去见一个人——对，我是在舞蹈学校遇见您迷人的女儿的。”

接下来他会和那些略显拘谨的年轻女士握手，以有些外国的方式微微鞠躬，并对周围的男士点头致意。他们全都僵直地站在那里，一动不动，三三两两地彼此分开，但又互相关照。

就在这时，一位男管家（明尼阿波利斯仅有的三位管家中的一位）打开了门。艾默里走进屋里，脱掉帽子和外套。他略感意外，因为并没有听到隔壁房间传来刺耳又聒噪的谈话声，便想到这一定是场颇为正式的聚会。这正合他意，正如他偏爱男管家一样。

“米拉小姐。”他说。

管家夸张地咧嘴一笑把他吓了一跳。

“哦，对，”管家说道，“她在这儿。”他没有意识到自己故意用不伦不类的伦敦腔讲话，降低了自己的身份，艾默里对他有些冷淡。

“但是，”男管家毫无必要地抬高了声音，继续说道，“这儿只剩下她了，其他参加晚会的人都走了。”

艾默里不禁大为惊诧。

“什么？”

“她一直在等艾默里·布莱恩。就是你，对吧？她妈妈说如果你五点半到，你们两个就乘那辆帕卡德轿车去追他们。”

在看到米拉本人后，艾默里的失望简直无以复加。米拉把自己裹在一件马球大衣里，衣服一直包到她耳朵那里，她看起来闷闷不乐，语气中虽流露出些许喜悦，但显得很勉强。

“嗨，艾默里。”

“嗨，米拉。”他的声音也显得有气无力。

“好吧——你总算是来了。”

“是的——我跟你解释一下。我猜你不知道关于车祸的事。”他开始信口开河。

米拉睁大了眼睛。

“谁出了车祸？”

“哦，”他迫不及待地说，“姨父姨母还有我。”

“有没有死人？”

艾默里停顿了一下，然后点了点头。

“你姨父？”——一声尖叫。

“噢，不——只是一匹马——一匹近乎灰色的马。”

说到这儿，那个有着苏格兰高地盖尔语口音的管家忍不住偷笑了起来。

“大概是撞坏了汽车的引擎。”他提示道。艾默里真恨不得给他上点儿酷刑。

“我们现在出发，”米拉冷冷地说，“艾默里，你看，我们预订了好几辆五人座的大雪橇呢，大家都来了，我们不能再耽搁了——”

“当然，但我也身不由己，不是吗？”

“所以妈妈告诉我等到五点半。艾默里，我们得在雪橇达到明尼哈哈俱乐部之前追上他们。”

艾默里再也不能镇定自若。他想象着参加聚会的人们正在冰雪覆盖的街道上，驾着雪橇一路欢歌，这辆豪华轿车开了过来，他和米拉不得不极其招摇地在众目睽睽之下下车，面对三十多双责备的眼睛，他必须道歉——这一回是真正的道歉。这样的景象让他不寒而栗，他不禁长叹一声。

“怎么了？”米拉问道。

“没什么。我打哈欠呢。我们肯定能在他们到那儿之前赶上他们吗？”他依然怀有一丝幻想：他们的汽车可以悄悄地溜进明尼哈哈俱乐部，在那儿和别的人碰面，也许他们可以找到一个幽闭之处，在暖融融的炉火前，他又重新找回自己的从容自若。

“噢，麦克有把握，我们一定能追上他们——快点儿。”

他感到胃里有些不舒服。当他们上汽车的时候，他匆忙把自己之前已经构想好的计划抛到脑后，取而代之的是一些外交辞令。那是他根据在舞蹈学校里听来的“恭维话”想到的，那恭维话的意思是说，他“极其英俊，且有几分英式风范”。

“米拉，”他压低了声音，字斟句酌地说道，“我请求你的宽恕。你能原谅我吗？”

她郑重其事地看着他，他那双专注的绿色眼睛和他的嘴唇，对于她这个十三岁，容易被外表所迷惑的女孩子来说，几乎就是浪漫的精髓所在。当然，米拉很轻易地就会原谅他。

“当然——一定——会。”

他又朝她看了一眼，然后垂下眼睑，他的睫毛纤长优美。

“我真是糟透了，”他沮丧地说，“我和他们不一样。我不知道自己为何失礼。我想，是因为我不在乎。”接着，他漫不经心地说：“我抽烟太多。我的心脏已经中了烟毒。”

米拉脑海中出现了一幅整夜沉溺于烟草的放纵场景，艾默里的肺里充塞着尼古丁，他面色苍白，摇摇晃晃。她不禁倒吸了一口气。

“噢，艾默里，不要抽烟。会导致你发育不良的。”

“我不在乎，”他阴郁地固执己见，“我非抽不可，我有这个嗜好。我干的许多事要是家里人知道了——”他故意犹豫了一下，好让她有时间去想象一幅黑暗的恐怖场景——“我上周去看了滑稽剧[16]表演。”

米拉快要受不了了。他绿色的眼睛又盯着她看。

“这镇上你是唯一一个我喜欢的女孩子，”他一时情绪激动，脱口而出，“你很仁慈和善。”

米拉知道自己未必如此，但这话听起来很时髦，虽然不那么合适。

车窗外夜幕低垂，就在这时，这辆豪车突然急转弯，她被甩到了他的身上，他们的手碰在了一起。

“你不该抽烟，艾默里，”她轻声说道，“你难道不知道吗？”

他摇了摇头。

“没人在乎。”

米拉欲言又止。

16

“我在乎。”

艾默里受到了某种触动。

“噢，是的，你确实！你迷上了弗洛吉·帕克。我猜每个人都知道。”

“不，我没有。”她慢吞吞地说。

车里一片寂静，艾默里却感到一阵兴奋的悸动。米拉身上散发着某种迷人的气质，隔绝了暗淡寒冷的气息，显得温柔可爱。米拉坐在那里，被衣服裹成了一团，几缕金黄的鬈发从她的滑雪帽中露了出来。

“因为我也迷上了一个人——”他停了下来，没有说下去，因为远处传来年轻人的欢笑声，透过雾气弥漫的玻璃窗，沿着华灯初上的街道，他辨认出了那是来参加雪橇聚会的人们的身影。他必须立刻行动。他猛地靠了过去，抓住了米拉的手——准确地说，是她的大拇指。

“跟他说，让他直接开到明尼哈哈，”他低声说，“我想要跟你谈谈——我必须和你谈谈。”

米拉认出了他们前方的聚会人群，妈妈的身影在她眼前闪过，还有——哎呀，也要顾及礼节吧——她瞥了一眼她身边人的那双眼睛。

“走这边小路，理查德，直接去明尼哈哈俱乐部！”她对着传声筒喊道。艾默里坐下来，陷进靠垫里，长吁了一口气。

“我可以亲她，”他想，“我打赌我可以。我打赌一定可以！”

夜幕笼罩的天空，一半微光掩映，一半雾气弥漫，夜色中透着寒气和紧张的气氛。道路从乡村俱乐部的台阶处开始延伸，如同白色毯子上的黑色褶皱，道路两边堆积的巨大雪堆好像一排排巨大的防波堤。他们在台阶上徘徊了一阵，注视着节日里的白色月亮。

“这样皎洁的月亮——”艾默里做了一个若有所指的手势——“会让人显得神秘莫测。你看起来就像一个没戴帽子、头发乱蓬蓬的年轻女巫——”她用手抓住头发——“哦，算了，这样挺好的。”

他们拾阶而上，米拉在前面引路，带他走进梦想中的小窝，屋里有一个巨大的软沙发，沙发前面，温暖的炉火烧得正旺。几年之后这里将是艾默里的大舞台，是他众多情感危机的摇篮。而这会儿，他们聊了一阵儿关于雪橇聚会的事。

“总会有那么一小撮害羞的家伙，”他大发议论道，“坐在雪橇尾部，缩头缩脑，嘀嘀咕咕，还相互推推搡搡。然而，也总是会有一个斗鸡眼的姑娘，疯疯癫癫的——”他做了一个很吓人的模仿——“对着陪他们外出的监护人叽叽喳喳地说个没完。”

“你真是个有趣的家伙。”米拉迷惑地说。

“你这是什么意思？”艾默里的注意力立即集中起来，随后，他终于又感到踏实了。

“哦——总是谈这些无聊的事儿。要不你明天过来陪我和玛丽莲滑雪？”

“我白天不喜欢女孩子。”他简短地说。紧接着，又觉得这样有些唐突了，他便又补充道：“但我喜欢你。”他清了清嗓子。“我第一喜欢你，第二喜欢你，第三还是喜欢你。”

米拉的眼睛开始变得迷离。这一切如果讲给玛丽莲该多么神奇！我和这个英俊少年在这沙发上——前面是暖融融的炉火——我们就这样单独待在这所大房子里——

米拉被征服了。这里的气氛再合适不过。

“从第一到第二十五，我都喜欢你。”她表白道，声音颤抖着，“弗洛吉·帕克排在第二十六名。”

弗洛吉在一个小时之内就落后了二十五名。对此他还毫无察觉。

但艾默里，就在她的身边，他飞快地侧身在米拉的脸上亲了一下。在这之前他还从未亲过女孩子，他好奇地舔了舔嘴唇，好像品尝某种新鲜的水果。接着，他们的嘴唇轻轻碰在一起，宛若娇嫩的野花在风中摇曳。

“我们太可怕了。”米拉娇声地欢呼。她的手滑落到他的手心，她把头靠在他的肩膀上。艾默里忽然感到一阵恶心、反感，对整件事情充满了厌恶感。他迫切地想要夺路而逃，永远不再和米拉相见，永远不再亲任何人；他突然意识到他们彼此靠近的脸庞，他们拉在一起的手，他想要从自己的身体里逃脱出去，躲进一个无人可见的安全的地方，躲进他头脑中的某个角落。

“再亲我一次。”她的声音从一片广袤的空间传来。

“我不想。”他听见自己的声音如是说。接着又停顿了一下。

“我不想！”他激动地重复道。

米拉跳了起来，她的虚荣心被重重地挫伤，两颊涨得通红，扎在脑后的那个蝴蝶结仿佛也同情她似的颤动着。

“我恨你！”她尖叫起来，“你休想再和我说话！”

“什么？”艾默里结巴起来。

“我要告诉妈妈你亲了我！我一定会！我一定会！我会告诉妈妈，她再也不会允许你跟我玩儿了！”

艾默里站起身，无助地看着她，仿佛她是降临到这世上的一个新鲜物种，而他竟一直毫无察觉。

门忽然开了，米拉的妈妈站在门口，抚弄着她的长柄眼镜。

“哦，”她先开了口，一边慈祥地摆弄她的眼镜，“前台的先生告诉我说你们两个小孩子在这儿——你好啊，艾默里。”

艾默里注视着米拉，等待着一场冲突——然而，什么也没发生。气呼呼地噘起的嘴已经平复，脸上的绯红也已消退，米拉在回母亲话的时候，声音平静得如同夏天的湖水。

“哦，妈妈，我们出门太晚了，所以我想我们最好——”

当艾默里默不作声地跟随母女二人下楼时，他听到楼下传来尖厉的笑声，嗅到了让人乏味的热巧克力和茶点的气味。留声机的音乐声混杂着女孩们的讲话声，在空气中嗡嗡响着，他感到脸上微微地发热，随后这股暖流传遍了他的全身：

凯西·琼斯——攀上了火车头，

凯西·琼斯——把命令握在手。

凯西·琼斯——攀上了火车头，

朝向天国不回头。[17]

年轻自我中心主义者的快照

艾默里在明尼阿波利斯度过了差不多两年的时光。第一年的冬天，他脚上穿的是一双莫卡辛软皮鞋，鞋子原本是黄色的，但在许多次的擦油浸渍之后，颜色日渐陈旧，后来变成了偏暗绿的棕色。他身上穿一件灰格子的羊毛大衣，头上戴一顶红色的雪橇帽。那顶红帽子被他那只名叫德尔蒙伯爵的狗给咬烂了，所以他的姨父送给他一顶灰色的。这顶灰帽子拉下来可以遮住他的脸，但麻烦就是，如果你在里面呼出热气，水汽很快就会结成冰。有一次他的脸就这样被冻住了。他在脸上搓了雪，可还是和原来一样青一块紫一块的。

德尔蒙伯爵曾经吞了一罐漂衣用的蓝色漂白粉，居然也无甚大碍。可后来，它发了疯似的在街上乱窜，撞上篱笆墙，在阴沟里打滚，后来它一路延续着自己的怪异路线，从艾默里的生活里消失了。艾默里躺在床上大哭了一场。

“可怜的小伯爵，”他哭道，“哎，可怜的小伯爵！”

几个月后，他怀疑伯爵是位做浮夸表演的高手。

艾默里和弗洛吉·帕克认为文学中最伟大的句子来自《绅士大盗》[18]的第三幕。

他们总是坐在星期三和星期六午后场的第一排。这句话是：

“如果一个人不能成为伟大的艺术家或伟大的战士，那接下来的最好选择就是成为一名伟大的罪犯。”

艾默里又恋爱了，还写了一首情诗。诗是这样写的：

玛丽莲和莎莉，

两个姑娘都让我着迷，

相比莎莉的甜蜜温柔，

玛丽莲更胜一筹。

他兴趣多样：明尼苏达州的麦克高文[19]在全美最佳橄榄球运动员的遴选中位居第一还是第二，扑克牌魔术怎么变，硬币魔术怎么玩，变色领带是怎么回事，孩子是如何出生的，还有“三指布朗”[20]是否是比克里斯蒂·马修森[21]更厉害的棒球投手。

他阅读广泛：《为校争光》、《小妇人》（两遍）、《普通法》、《萨福》、《危险的丹·麦克格鲁》、《大路朝天》（三遍）、《厄舍古屋的倒塌》、《三周》、《玛丽·维尔》、《营房谣》、《警察杂志》，还有《吉姆-詹姆·杰姆斯》[22]。

他持有亨特[23]对历史的种种偏见，对玛丽·罗伯茨·莱因哈特[24]精彩的探案故事情有独钟。

上学使他的法语都荒废了，还让他对主流作家的作品颇为抵制。他的老师们都说他懒散、滑头，爱耍小聪明。

他从许多女孩子那里收集她们的头发，手上戴着好几个人送他的戒指。到后来，再也无人借给他戒指了，因为他总是在紧张的时候把戒指咬得变形。看来，他这个坏习惯，难免被后面要借戒指的人猜忌和提防。

整个夏天的几个月里，艾默里和弗洛吉·帕克每个星期都要到剧团去看演出。之后他们会在八月夜晚的暖风中，穿过热闹的人群，沿着亨内平和尼科莱特大道，一路畅想，一起散步回家。艾默里纳闷，为什么人们总是注意不到他是一个日后要名耀四方的少年，当他在人群中迎向那些朝他看过来的面孔和说不清楚是什么意味的眼神时，他总是一副无比浪漫的表情，仿佛脚踩气垫，漫步在他十四岁的柏油路上。

通常，他上床之后，总会听到一些声音——模糊、遥远又充满魅惑——仿佛就在他的窗外，而在他快要睡着的时候，他会想到一个他清醒时最喜欢的梦，有时是成为一个出色的橄榄球后卫；有时是在日本人入侵的时候，他成了这个世界上最年轻的将军，并因此而受到嘉奖。他总是梦到自己成为这些人物，而这并不是真的。这当然也是极具艾默里特色的。

年轻自我中心主义者的准则

在母亲叫他回日内瓦湖城之前，他第一次穿上了西服长裤，这让他有些不好意思，然而心里却无比喜悦，西服搭配了一条紫色的折叠式领带，一副边角整齐、扣得严丝合缝的“培尔蒙”式衣领，一双紫色袜子，还有一块镶着紫色边的手帕从他上衣胸前的口袋里探出头来。然而，更为重要的是，他形成了自己的第一个哲学观念，一种可以遵从的准则，如果要贴切地描述它，不妨把它称作一种高贵的自我中心主义。

他已经意识到自己最大的利益与一个变化多端的人物紧密相连，息息相关，为了能让他的过去和自己产生认同，这个人物被赋予了一个标签，那就是艾默里·布莱恩。艾默里把自己看作一个幸运的年轻人，有着向善和向恶的无限潜能。他不认为自己有“很强的个性”，但他可以依仗自己的才能（才思敏捷）和优越的心态（读过不少深奥的书）。他引以为傲的是他永远不会成为机械或科学天才，但除此之外他几乎无所不能。

身体上——艾默里认为自己仪表堂堂，英俊潇洒。他的确如此。他想象着自己是一位很有发展前途的运动员和肢体柔软的舞者。

社交上——在这个方面，可以说，他的处境极其危险。他承认自己的人格、魅力、风度、姿态足以让他在同龄的男性中独领风骚，同时也足以让女性神魂颠倒。

心态上——完全地、毋庸置疑地高人一等。

是时候做一个坦诚的交代了。艾默里像清教徒一样常常受良心的折磨。这并不是说他总是屈就于它——他在后来的人生岁月里，几乎一举将自己的良知剿杀了——而此时，在他十五岁的时候，他的良心使他相信自己比其他的男孩子要糟糕得多：不择手段，肆无忌惮……妄图左右他人，甚至不惜教唆人为非作歹……冷漠无情到近乎残忍……见异思迁……自私狭隘……虽然懵懂，但对性及其相关的一切，都有按捺不住的好奇。

他身上还有一种让人捉摸不透的软弱特性，与他光鲜的外表不乏悖逆……那些大一些的男孩子（大男孩们通常都反感他）奚落他几句，他就会无所适从，变得敏感脆弱，或者胆怯又冲动……他完全受制于自己的情绪，尽管他可以不管不顾，大胆妄为，但他知道那绝不是因为自己有勇气，有百折不挠的意志或者自尊。

艾默里爱慕虚荣，其中夹杂着自我怀疑，姑且不说有无自知之明。他的心中涌动着一种“所有人唯我是从”的豪情，一种想要“超越”别人登上世界之巅的愿望，正是在这样的心理背景中，艾默里悄然开启了自己的青年时代。

为伟大的冒险做准备

火车带着仲夏的慵懒气息缓缓驶进日内瓦湖城，艾默里看见车站的砾石路上，妈妈正坐在她的电汽车里等他。那是一辆老式的电汽车，属于早期的一种型号，车身是灰色的。艾默里看见她坐在那里，腰身微微挺立，面庞美丽又庄重，带着一抹从回忆中唤起的梦幻般的微笑，他的心中涌出一股以母为荣的情绪。他们很自然地行了贴面礼，在他坐上电汽车的一刹那，他感到一种一闪而过的担忧：他担心自己已经失去了可以和母亲相配的那种魅力。

“我的宝贝儿子——你都这么高了……看看后面，有没有什么车过来……”

她左看看右看看，非常小心地将车速降到每小时两英里，同时还请求艾默里为她看路；在一个繁忙的十字路口，她让他下车，在前面像交警一样指引她通过。比阿特丽斯应该算得上一位非常小心的司机了。

“你长高了——但你还是很帅气——你越过了那个尴尬的年纪，是十六岁吧，或者是十四岁或十五岁；我总是记不清；但是你已经过去了。”

“别打趣我了。”艾默里嘟囔着。

“可是，我的宝贝儿子，你穿的这是什么呀！它们看上去像是一套的——不是吗？难道你的底裤也是紫色的？”

艾默里没好气地嘟囔了一声。

“你得去一趟布鲁克斯兄弟[25]那儿买几套真正考究的西服。哦，我们今晚或者明晚得好好谈谈。我想跟你谈谈你的内心——你很可能忽视了你的内心——而你还不知道。”

艾默里觉得自己这一代人的时髦打扮未免太过肤浅。除了有些许腼腆，他感到自己原有的和母亲如出一辙的玩世不恭一点没变。然而，回家最初的几天里，他倍感孤单，常常一个人在花园和湖畔漫步，或是窝在车库里和某一个司机一起抽“公牛”牌香烟，从而获得一种无所事事的满足。

庄园六十英亩的领地上疏落地分布着旧有的和新建的避暑房屋，还有许多喷水池和白色的长椅，常常在绿叶掩映的荫蔽处蓦然映入眼帘；白猫家族的成员在急剧而稳定地增加，它们在花丛间潜行，到了晚上会突然出现，在昏暗的大树下投下黑色的剪影。比阿特丽斯就是在这样一个幽暗的林间小路上最终抓到艾默里的，那时，布莱恩先生已经像往常一样到自己的书房休息了。她先是责怪艾默里总是躲着她，后来和他在月光下进行了一次促膝长谈。他无法让自己对她的美视而不见，但那毕竟是他的母亲，她有着精致的颈项和肩膀，身上流露着一个幸运的三十岁女人的优雅。

“艾默里，宝贝儿，”她轻声软语，“和你分开之后，我经历了一段奇怪的、不同寻常的时光。”

“是吗，比阿特丽斯？”

“那是我最后一次精神失常。”——她好像在说起一次英勇无畏的壮举。

“医生告诉我”——她的语气好似在谈论一件机密要事——“如果任何一个活着的人像我一样不间断地酗酒，他的身体早就垮掉了，亲爱的，他应该已经进了坟墓了——早就进了坟墓了。”

艾默里皱了皱眉头，他在想弗洛吉·帕克听了会有什么反应。

“是这样的，”比阿特丽斯悲叹道，“我老做梦——梦见宏大的场面。”她把两只手掌压在眼睛上。“我看见古铜色的河水拍打着大理石的河岸，空中有巨鸟在盘旋，这些鸟五彩缤纷，羽毛色彩斑斓。我听见奇怪的音乐和野蛮号角的鸣响——怎么了？”

艾默里在偷笑。

“怎么了，艾默里？”

“我说继续，比阿特丽斯。”

“就是这些——它只是一而再，再而三地出现——梦里的花园百花争艳，万紫千红，这里的园子与之相比，实在是不值一提。月亮在旋转摇晃，那是比冬天的月亮更为清冷，比秋收时的月亮更为金黄灿烂的月亮——”

“你现在感觉还好吗，比阿特丽斯？”

“非常好——好得不能再好了。艾默里，没有人理解我。我知道这无法向你表述，艾默里，但——没有人理解我。”

艾默里见这情形很受感动。他用胳膊搂着妈妈，把头靠在她的肩膀上轻轻摩挲。

“可怜的比阿特丽斯——可怜的比阿特丽斯。”

“说说你自己，艾默里。你这两年过得很糟糕吗？”

艾默里想着要编造一通，但随即又改了主意。

“不，比阿特丽斯。我过得很好。我适应了中产阶级的生活。我越来越保守。”他自己也很吃惊居然说出了这些话，他想象着弗洛吉如果在场，定会听得目瞪口呆。

“比阿特丽斯，”他突然冒出一句话来，“我想到外面去读书。明尼阿波利斯的每个人都会去外面读书。”

比阿特丽斯不免有些惊慌。

“但你只有十五岁。”

“是的，但大家都是十五岁出去上学，我也想去，比阿特丽斯。”

听从比阿特丽斯的建议，他们在接下来的散步中没有再提及这个话题，但一周以后，她给了他一个惊喜，告诉他：

“艾默里，我已经决定让你得偿所愿。如果你还想去上学，那就去吧。”

“是吗？”

“到康涅狄格州的圣瑞吉斯中学念书。”

艾默里感到一阵狂喜。

“已经安排好了，”比阿特丽斯接着说，“到外面念书也好。我本想让你去读伊顿公学，接着去牛津的基督堂学院，但现在似乎并不可行——接下来我们还是让读大学这件事顺其自然。”

“你接下来要怎么办，比阿特丽斯？”

“天知道。看起来我注定要在这个国家蹉跎残年了。我从未有一刻后悔自己是美国人——真的，我觉得只有那些粗俗之人才会有这样的懊悔，我确信我们国家必将成为一个伟大的国家——即使尚未实现”——她叹了口气——“我觉得自己应该在一个更古老、更醇美的文明里，在一个绿树成荫、秋叶斑斓的国度里消磨时光，浑浑噩噩度日——”

艾默里没有作声，于是他的妈妈继续说道：

“我只是遗憾你还没有去过国外，但话说回来，你是个男子汉，最好在这个咆哮之鹰的国度长大——咆哮之鹰，是这么说吗？”

艾默里承认就是这么说。反正她是不会赞成日本人入侵的。

“我什么时候去学校？”

“下个月。你要早一点动身去东部参加考试。在那之后，你会有一个星期的自由时间，所以我想让你沿着哈德孙河顺流而下，去拜访一个人。”

“拜访谁？”

“拜访达西大人，艾默里。他很想见你。他毕业于哈罗中学，后来去耶鲁读了大学——成了一名天主教徒。我想让他跟你谈谈——我想他能够帮助你——”她温柔地用手抚摸着他红褐色的头发。“亲爱的艾默里，我的艾默里——”

“亲爱的比阿特丽斯——”

于是，九月初的时候，艾默里带着他的行装——六套夏天内衣，六套冬天内衣，一件毛衣或者说T恤衫，一件运动衫，一件外套，冬天的衣物等，动身前往新英格兰，那个名校云集的地方。

安多佛和埃克塞特两所高级中学历史悠久，新英格兰尘封已久的记忆在校园中依然有迹可循——两所学校的校园都很大，还有像大学一样的民主管理制度；圣马可、格罗顿和圣瑞吉斯预备学校仅从波士顿和纽约的荷兰裔家族中招收子弟；圣保罗学校有大型的溜冰场，而庞弗雷特和圣乔治则以富丽堂皇的建筑及其美丽的外观著称；塔夫脱和霍奇科斯学校招收中西部的富家子弟，并会把他们培养成耶鲁社交圈的佼佼者；此外，还有珀林、威斯敏斯特、乔特、肯特等一百余所学校。年复一年，这些名校不断地为社会输送体格健壮、知书识礼、出类拔萃的各类人才。学校直接的思想动力是让学生通过大学的入学考试，而更笼统的目标则是像数以百计的文告上表述的那样，“通过全面的智力、品德和体格的训练，培养有基督教精神的绅士，让他们有能力应对自己以及时代所面临的问题，为他们在文学和科学领域的学习打下坚实的基础”。

艾默里在圣瑞吉斯待了三天，带着咄咄逼人的自信完成了各科的考试，之后他原路折返，再出发去纽约拜访他学业上的监护人。纽约这座大都市没有给他留下什么印象，他几乎没来得及看一眼，他只记得那天一大早在哈德孙河上的渡轮中看到那些高耸的白色楼房，而产生了一种干净清爽的感觉。的确，他满脑子想的是他在学校里获得了高超的运动技艺，从而美梦成真，这次拜访在他看来不过是伟大冒险之前一段无聊的序曲。然而，事实证明并非如此。

达西大人的房子位于俯瞰河谷的一座小山上，是一幢古旧的、布局凌乱的建筑。房子的主人足迹遍布罗马天主教世界的各个地区，他在外出访问的间歇住在这里，宛如一位遭到流放的斯图亚特王朝的国王，随时准备被召唤回去统治自己的领地。达西大人，那时四十有四，精力充沛——他身材矮小，体格壮硕但不够匀称，一头金丝般的头发，他聪颖过人，深藏不露。当他身着紫色长衫，配上从头到脚一身行头盛装出现在一个房间时，他就宛如透纳[26]的一幅印象派夕照画作一样，让人屏气凝神，顿生敬慕之情。他写过两本小说：一本是激烈地反天主教的作品，作于他皈依之前；五年之后他又创作了第二本，在第二本里，他试图把自己那些对天主教的讨巧的讥讽，都转变成更为巧妙的对新教圣公会的含沙射影。他是个地道的崇礼派，情感热烈，慷慨激昂，热爱上帝并立誓独身，还是位爱邻如己之人。

孩子们爱慕他因为他就如同一个孩子，青年人乐于与他为伴因为他依旧青春洋溢，且有着从容的气度。假如生在一个合适的国度和时代里，他可能会成为红衣主教黎塞留[27]之类的人物——但现在，他是一位非常正派、笃信教义（即使并不是特别虔诚）的神职人员，因为能运筹帷幄而显得神秘莫测，即使不能完全地享受生活，他依然对生活全情投入，充满感恩。

他和艾默里一见如故——一位是和颜悦色、卓尔不群的长者，是可以在外交舞会上使一众人物黯然失色的教长；另一位是眼眸青绿、神情热切的年轻人。这位后生初出茅庐，第一次穿起西装长裤，他们不过才聊了半个小时，已经感到彼此间的关系亲如父子。

“我亲爱的孩子，这么多年来我一直在等着和你见面。拿把大的椅子过来，我们好好谈谈。”

“我刚刚从学校过来——圣瑞吉斯，你知道的。”

“你母亲说了——她可是位了不起的女性；来支烟吧——我知道你一定抽烟。好吧，如果你像我一样，你一定厌恶所有的科学和数学——”

艾默里不住地点头。

“全都不喜欢。只喜欢英文和历史。”

“当然。你会有好一阵子对学校感到厌恶，但我很高兴你要去圣瑞吉斯。”

“为什么？”

“因为这是一所绅士学校，你不会过早地接触民主制度。等你读了大学，你会发现到处都是民主制度。”

“我想读普林斯顿大学，”艾默里说道，“我也说不清楚为什么，总是觉得读哈佛的都是些娘娘腔，像我以前一样，而读耶鲁的人总是穿着蓝色毛衣，抽烟斗。”

达西大人莞尔一笑。

“我就是其中一员，你知道。”

“哦，你不一样——我觉得普林斯顿的学生，作风散漫，长相俊俏，带着些贵族气质——你知道，就像明媚的春日。哈佛的学生似乎都爱闭门不出——”

“而耶鲁的学生像十一月的天气，清新，活力十足。”达西大人总结道。

“完全正确。”

他们聊得很投机，彼此视若知己，再无隔阂。

“我曾喜欢过漂亮王子查理[28]。”艾默里表态说。

“你当然喜欢——还喜欢汉尼拔[29]——”

“没错，还喜欢南方联邦。”他热爱自己的国家，但常常为自己拥有爱尔兰凯尔特人的血统而感到不安——他怀疑自己的爱尔兰血统让自己趋于平庸——但达西大人安慰他说，爱尔兰是一个富有浪漫精神的、失落的国度，爱尔兰人都风采迷人，毫无疑问，达西大人的这一认识是他顽固的个人偏见之一。

他们又抽了几支烟，兴致盎然地畅谈了一个小时，言谈之间，达西大人得知艾默里居然没有被培养成一个天主教徒，这让他颇感意外，但还没有到让他震惊的地步。随后，他说自己还要见另外一位访客。这位客人就是波士顿的桑顿·汉考克阁下，他曾是美国派驻海牙的公使，是一部内容博大精深的中世纪史书的作者，还是名门之后，他的家族声名显赫、居功至伟，他是这个家族最后的成员。

“他来这里休息一下。”达西大人推心置腹地说，他现在已经把艾默里当成自己的同辈来看待了。“我这儿就是一处逃避不可知论折磨的避难所，我想我是唯一一个了解他的人，他古板老朽的思想早已在海上迷失了方向，迫切需要一个像教会一样坚固的大椽给他支撑。”

艾默里对他们第一次在一起共进午餐的情景记忆犹新，那是他早年生活中最为难忘的事件之一。他那天神采飞扬，显得格外机灵、有吸引力。达西大人不断地提问并给出建议，帮助他把自己所能想到的最好的一面都展示了出来，艾默里的心中涌动着数不清的冲动、欲望、厌恶、信念和恐惧，他滔滔不绝，显得睿智机敏，才华横溢。只有他和达西大人在侃侃而谈，那位长者略显木讷和迟疑，但绝非冷漠，似乎更愿意倾听，他沐浴在阳光里，显得悠闲惬意。午后的阳光在他们中间闪动跳跃，温暖和煦。达西大人对于许多人来说就如同阳光一样，光明温暖，艾默里也给人同样的感觉，因为他此时正值青春年少，就是在他更年长一点的时候，阳光的感觉仍未消退，但两人从未像现在这样明亮夺目，交相辉映。

“他真是个前途无量的孩子。”桑顿·汉考克心下思忖着。他一生阅历丰富，曾经目睹了两个大陆的辉煌，与巴涅尔、格莱斯顿和俾斯麦亲王[30]都有过交谈——后来他对达西神父进言说：“但他的教育不该交付给任何一所学校或大学。”

然而，在接下来的四年里，艾默里的精力和心思都用来研究如何更受欢迎，大学社交圈的机关门道，以及以巴尔的摩茶舞会和温泉高尔夫为代表的美国社交团体。

……总而言之，艾默里度过了美好的一周，在这一周艾默里的思想发生了天翻地覆的变化，他无数的理论得到了肯定，他在生命中感受到的喜悦此时让他踌躇满志。感谢上帝——谈话都与学业无关。艾默里对萧伯纳是谁都模模糊糊——可达西大人非常注意分寸，他对《亲爱的流浪汉》和《奈杰尔骑士》[31]大加阐释，却丝毫没有让艾默里觉得自己孤陋寡闻。

但是，号角已经吹响，艾默里和自己同辈人的初次交锋已近在眼前。

“你大可不必为离别感到伤感。对于我们这样的人，谁不是四海为家？”达西大人说。

“可我还是难过——”

“不，你不要这样。在这个世界上，没有哪个人对你我是不可或缺的。”

“好吧——”

“再见。”

自我中心主义者的挫折

艾默里在圣瑞吉斯度过了两年的时光，他勤学苦读，也算学有所成，然而这段经历在他的生命中并没有多少切实的意义，就像美国的预备学校对于一般的美国生活而言，也并无多少裨益，因为这些预备学校和大学生活比起来，简直不值一提。我们这里没有帮助统治阶层建立自我意识的伊顿公学，我们有的是干净体面、疲软乏力、无关紧要的预备学校。

他在学校里一开始颇为不顺，被人认为自大傲慢、目中无人，因而遭到普遍的排斥。他热衷于橄榄球训练，有时候表现得勇猛无畏，有时又缩手缩脚，只顾着体面地保全自己不受伤害。有一回他和一个跟自己个头差不多的男孩子打架，他一时胆寒，在一阵巨大的恐慌中落荒而逃，引得围观者一众哄笑；一周之后，他气急败坏地想要挽回一点颜面，专门找了一个比他个头大得多的男孩子挑事，结果被痛扁一顿，可是他反而对此倍感自豪。

他对所有对他严加管教的老师都怀恨在心，再加上他对待课业总是一副漫不经心的样子，这几乎惹恼了学校里的每一位老师。他频频受到打击，进而把自己想象成一个社会的弃儿，总是一个人在角落里生闷气，还故意在熄灯之后才开始看书。因为不甘于孤身一人，他也结交了几个朋友，但他们都不是学校里的精英人物，因而艾默里把他们权当自己的镜子，当作一帮必不可少的观众，这样在他忍不住要装腔作势的时候就不仅仅是顾影自怜。他感觉到难以忍受的孤独，郁郁寡欢。

些许的慰藉也还是有的。即使是被淹没了，艾默里的虚荣心也一定是最后沉没的部分，因而当那个讲话“呜哩呜哩”、年老耳背的看门人说他是自己见过的最英俊的男孩子时，艾默里还是不免喜形于色。他为成为学校第一支橄榄球队里最灵活、年龄最小的球员而沾沾自喜。当杜戈尔博士在一场热烈的研讨会后告诉他，只要他肯努力就能拿到全校最高分时，他倍感欢欣鼓舞。但杜戈尔博士说错了。就艾默里的禀赋而言，要得到全校最高分简直就是天方夜谭，那是完全不可能的事。

悲苦不堪，遭受重重束缚，既不受老师待见，也不受同学欢迎——这就是艾默里第一学期的写照。然而在圣诞节的时候，他回到了明尼阿波利斯，对学校里的事缄口不言，还表现得异常欢快。

“哦，我一开始到那里，难免有些生疏，”他带着一副居高临下的派头对弗洛吉·帕克说，“但我很快就适应了——我是球队里最灵巧的。你应该出去念书，弗洛吉。那真不错。”

好心教授事件

第一学期末的最后一个晚上，教务长马格特森先生派人传信到自修室，请艾默里九点钟到他的办公室去一趟。艾默里猜想自己要被教训一顿了，但决定要表现得彬彬有礼，因为这位马格特森先生对他一向和蔼可亲。

召艾默里来的这位先生神情严肃，示意他在椅子上坐下。他嗯嗯咳了几声，清了清嗓子，有意地摆出一副和蔼可亲的样子，就像一个处于微妙境地的人必须十分小心谨慎一样。

“艾默里，”他开口道，“我请你来是为了一桩私事。”

“好的，先生。”

“今年我早就注意你了，并且我——我喜欢你。我认为你很有潜质——会成为一个非常优秀的人。”

“是的，先生。”艾默里勉强开了口。他讨厌被人评头论足，好像他是一个无可辩驳的失败者。

“但我观察到，”这位老先生继续糊里糊涂地说道，“你和男孩子们处得不怎么好呀。”

“是这样的，先生。”

“啊——我想你可能并不十分清楚他们——啊——反对的是什么。我来给你讲讲吧，因为我认为——啊——当一个男孩子知道问题的症结所在时，他就能更好地处理问题——去迎合别人对他的期望。”他停顿了一下，嗯嗯啊啊地清了清嗓子，一副讳莫如深的样子，继续说道：“他们大概觉得你——啊——有些无礼吧——”

艾默里再也无法忍受了。他猛地从椅子上站了起来，几乎已经无法控制自己的声音。

“我知道——哦，你以为我不知道吗？”他的嗓门越来越大，“我知道他们是怎么想的；你真以为非得由你来告诉我吗？”他稍稍停顿了一下。“我要——我现在得回去了——希望我并没有太失礼——”

他匆匆离开了办公室。户外的空气很凉爽，当他返回寝室的时候，他为自己拒绝了帮助而感到一阵阵的兴奋。

“那个老东西！”他大吼了一声，“还以为我真不知道！”

随即，他就有了主意，这件事情是个很好的借口，当天晚上他是不会再回自修室了。于是，他就舒舒服服地窝在宿舍，一边嚼着纳贝斯克[32]的夹心饼干，一边读完了《铁甲骑士队》[33]。

美丽姑娘事件

二月里诞生过一个灿烂如星的人物。华盛顿诞辰日这天，人们期盼已久的庆祝活动隆重登场，这让来到纽约的艾默里大开眼界。他曾经对这个城市有过惊鸿一瞥，湛蓝天空映衬下的白色建筑物给他留下了明艳的记忆，在他的脑海中，它宛如一幅绚丽的图画，可以和《天方夜谭》里的梦幻城市相媲美；而这一次，他看到的是灯火辉煌的纽约、百老汇战车大战[34]的广告牌和阿斯特酒店女人的双眸中透露的晶莹闪烁的浪漫色彩，他和自己圣瑞吉斯的同学帕斯卡特一起在阿斯特酒店共进了晚餐。他们去了剧院，当他们穿过剧院的过道时，迎面传来的是正在调弦的小提琴紧张的拨弦声和刺耳走音的和弦声，扑鼻而来的是香粉胭脂挑逗神经的浓重香味，他感到自己正游走于纵情欢悦之中。周围的一切都令他着迷。上演的剧目是乔治·M.科恩[35]主演的《小百万富翁》，剧中有位让人惊艳的褐发美人，她的舞姿让他神魂颠倒。他坐在那里，眼里噙满了泪水，看得出了神。

哦——你——美丽的姑娘，

你是一个多么美丽的姑娘呀——

男高音的歌声回响在耳边，艾默里默默地但充满激情地应和着。

你——所有——美妙的话语

都让我心醉神迷——

小提琴奏出了最后几个音符，琴声激响，震颤激昂，那个姑娘在舞台上伏倒，犹如一只折翅的蝴蝶，剧场中随即爆发出热烈的掌声。哦，就这样坠入爱河，在这样柔和优美、充满魔力的旋律中如痴如醉。

最后一幕的场景是在一个屋顶花园，大提琴声呜咽悠扬，向着剧中的月亮叹息，轻松的冒险经历和肤浅的泡沫喜剧在舞台的石膏背景中来来回回地迅速变幻着。艾默里情绪激昂，恨不得变成屋顶花园的常客，去邂逅一个那样的姑娘——或者更好，邂逅的就是那姑娘本人。她的长发沐浴在金色的月光中，一个面容模糊的侍者就在他的手肘边，为他们斟满美酒。当演员们最后一次谢幕完毕，他不免长叹一声，坐在他前面的观众转过身来，对他打量了一番，然后用大得他能听得到的声音说：

“长相多么英俊的男孩！”

这句话让他回过神来，他把剧撇在一边，纳闷起来：自己在纽约人的眼里，是否真有这么英俊。

他和帕斯卡特默默地朝他们的酒店走去。帕斯卡特打破沉默，先开了口。他十五岁尚在变化中的声音突然响起，带着悲伤的声调，打断了艾默里的沉思。

“我巴不得今晚就和那姑娘结婚。”

没有必要去追问他说的是哪个女孩子。

“我要是能带她回家，把她介绍给我的家里人，我会感到很骄傲。”帕斯卡特紧接着说道。

艾默里大为震动。他真希望这些话是他而不是帕斯卡特说的。这话听起来显得很成熟。

“我很疑惑，那些女演员，她们都很坏吗？”

“不，老兄，外表可看不出来，”那个故作精明的少年强调说，“我知道那个姑娘很善良，有颗金子般的心。我看得出来。”

他们继续漫步街头，混入百老汇街区的人潮中，伴着咖啡厅里飘出的音乐声想入非非。陌生的面孔在人群中闪现，又倏忽即逝，好像无数明灭的灯火，苍白的或涂着脂粉的面孔上满是倦意，但又被一种疲惫的兴奋支撑着。艾默里着了迷似的注视着他们。他正在规划自己的人生。他要生活在纽约，在每一间餐厅和咖啡馆都赚得名头，穿着燕尾服出入其间，从傍晚挨到次日清晨，然后在中午前的无聊时光里酣眠。

“是的，老兄，我今晚就要和那姑娘结婚！”

满堂喝彩的英雄

在艾默里的记忆中，他在圣瑞吉斯的第二年，也就是最后一年的十月，对他来说是一个巅峰时期。那是一个晴朗宜人的下午，他们和格罗顿中学的比赛从下午三点一直持续到凉意渐起的秋日黄昏。艾默里担任四分卫，他声嘶力竭地大声喊叫，进行难度极大的擒抱，不停呼喊着给队友的信号，直到声音嘶哑，变成愤怒的哀鸣。即使头上缠着带血的绷带，他也不忘欢庆，那些猛扑、身体冲撞、四肢的疼痛让他感受到令自己疲惫不堪又荣耀至极的英雄主义。在那样的时刻，勇气如十一月酿酒季的黄昏里出产的葡萄酒一般喷涌而出，他就是不朽的英雄，他就是在古挪威大船的船头挺立的海盗，他就是罗兰，是贺雷修斯，是奈杰尔骑士，是泰德·科伊[36]，经受锻炼和磨难，从而使自己调整到了最佳状态，然后凭借自己的意志在最后时刻挺身而出，力挽狂澜，远处雷鸣般的喝彩声不绝于耳……最后他遍体鳞伤，筋疲力尽，但对方依然困不住他，他躲过一个边卫，转身，变速，伸手挡开……扑倒在格罗顿守门员的身后，两个人压在他的腿上，那是整场比赛中唯一一个触地得分。

老滑头的人生哲学

艾默里的成功和身处六年级的独特优越感使他在回望之前一年时，不免有些许时过境迁的感慨。在艾默里·布莱恩身上发生的改变是前所未有的，他与之前的自己已经判若两人。艾默里、比阿特丽斯加上他在明尼阿波利斯的两年时光——这些就是刚来到圣瑞吉斯的艾默里的主要组成部分。但明尼阿波利斯的两年时光给他的影响，并没有厚重到足以掩盖他性格中“艾默里加上比阿特丽斯”的底色，这对于这个寄宿学校里那些雪貂般明亮的眼睛来说，是显而易见的。因而，圣瑞吉斯费尽周折地要把比阿特丽斯的影响从他的个性中去除，而后，开始给那个更根本的艾默里加上一层新的、更为保守的加固材料。然而，圣瑞吉斯和艾默里本人都没有意识到，那个根本的艾默里并没有丝毫改变。原本那些让他饱受折磨的品质：多愁善感，故作姿态，懒惰散漫，以及爱干蠢事，现在都不再是问题了，这些都被看作是这个明星四分卫、这个聪明的演员、《圣瑞吉斯闲话》杂志主编所特有的怪异之处。看到那些易受影响的小男生模仿自己虚荣自负的行为，艾默里大为疑惑，要知道，这些在不久之前还是他被人嘲弄的短处。

橄榄球赛季结束之后，他陷入了一种飘飘然的自我满足之中。假期前的舞会之夜，他偷偷溜走，早早地上了床，聆听着小提琴的乐声从草地的另一边传来。乐声在他的窗前回旋荡漾，他感到由衷的快乐。许多个夜晚，他躺在那里想入非非，半梦半醒中看到蒙马特神秘的夜总会，在那里皮肤如象牙般白皙的女人和外交官、雇佣军人一起追逐着浪漫的神秘，乐队在演奏着匈牙利华尔兹，空气中弥散着浓郁的异国气氛，阴谋、月光和奇遇正轮番登场。春天，他按照老师的要求读了《快乐的人》[37]，一时间灵感迸发，文思泉涌，创作了不少抒情诗，主要是抒写阿卡迪田园牧歌式的生活以及潘神之笛的浪漫故事。他特意移动了床的位置，以便被清晨照进来的阳光唤醒，然后他起身穿衣到那架老式秋千那里去，秋千挂在一棵苹果树下，就在六年级的教室外面。他会在秋千上越荡越高，直到他觉得自己仿佛置身于广阔的天空中，进入了远古的神话世界，那里有半人半羊的森林之神在吹笛子，还有金发的水泽仙女，她们的脸庞和纽约东切斯特大街上和他擦肩而过的那些金发女孩一样。当秋千飞到最高处时，阿卡迪仿佛就隐现于某座小山的山脊处，泥土路面在那里渐渐消失，最终融进一个金色的圆点。

刚满十八岁的那年，整个春天他都在一本接一本地读大部头的作品：《印第安纳绅士》《新天方夜谭》《马库斯·奥登那的道德标准》《名叫星期四的男人》，最后这一本虽然没读懂，但他还是很喜欢；《斯托弗耶鲁求学记》[38]几乎成了一本教科书；他读狄更斯的《董贝父子》是因为感到自己应该读点更经典的作品；此外，他还读了罗伯特·钱伯斯、大卫·格雷厄姆·菲利普斯和菲利普斯·奥本海姆的作品全集，还有丁尼生和吉卜林零星的几部作品。在他所有的功课中，只有《快乐的人》和立体几何中些许严整明晰的特质，勉强能让他有点兴趣。

六月临近之际，他感到有必要找个人进行对话，来形成自己的观点，出乎意料的是，他找到了六年级的学生会主席拉希尔。他发现拉希尔和自己一样有着哲学家的思维。他们常常相谈甚欢，或是在公路上，或是趴在棒球场的边上，或是深夜里伴着在黑暗中忽明忽暗的烟头，他们在交谈中找到了学校的根本问题，并且提出了“老滑头”这样一个说法。

“有烟吗？”一天晚上熄灯刚刚五分钟，拉希尔就把头探进门里，压低了声音问道。

“当然。”

“我过来了。”

“拿几个枕头过来，躺在窗台那边，听见没？”

艾默里从床上坐起来，点了根烟，拉希尔也安顿停当，准备好了聊上一阵。拉希尔最喜欢的话题是六年级学生各自的前程，艾默里从自身考虑，也总是不知疲倦地列举规划。

“特德·康弗斯？很简单。他考试过不了关，整个夏天都要在哈斯特蒙学校[39]补习，差不多满足了四项条件才勉强进了谢菲尔德学院[40]，结果第一学年才念了一半就因为挂科而不得不退学。然后，他回到西部老家，四处惹是生非，混了一年半载，最后他爸把他弄去做油漆生意。接下来，他会结婚，生四个儿子，个个都是傻蛋。他会一直认为是圣瑞吉斯毁了他，所以把儿子们都送到波特兰的走读学校上学。他在四十一岁上就死于脊髓痨，他老婆会把一个受洗台或者随便你叫它什么，送到长老会教会，上面写着他的名字——”

“打住，艾默里。这也太他妈的悲惨了。说说你自己吧，你怎么样？”

“我是读高级班的。你也是。我们是哲学家。”

“我可不是。”

“你当然是。你有一个了不起的脑瓜子。”但艾默里知道，任何泛泛而谈、抽象的、理论的或者概括的说法，都无法打动拉希尔，只有具体、实在的细节才能触动他。

“算了吧，”拉希尔坚持道，“我在这儿就是被人使唤的，我自己什么也没得到。我就是我那帮朋友的猎物，真他妈的——帮他们做作业，为他们排忧解难，暑假里还不忘傻乎乎地去拜访他们，还帮着他们照顾小妹妹；他们一门心思只想着自己的时候，我还得憋住不发火，然后，他们觉得投我一票，叫我一声圣瑞吉斯的‘老大哥’就算是报答我了。我想去的是一个人人都能管好自己事儿的地方，我可以给他们些指导。我已经厌倦了要去善待学校里的每一个可怜虫。”

“你不是个老滑头。”艾默里突然冒出这么一句。

“老什么？”

“老滑头。”

“那是什么意思？”

“嗯，那是指——指——其实有许多这样的人。你算不上，我也不是，但我比你更像一点。”

“那谁是？怎么才算是？”

艾默里沉思了一会儿。

“嗯——嗯，我想老滑头有个标志就是头发蘸了水梳到后面，梳得油光发亮。”

“像卡斯蒂尔斯？”

“对——没错。他就是个老滑头。”

他们花了两个晚上为“老滑头”下一个准确的定义。老滑头一般来说相貌英俊，或者整洁体面；他很有头脑，尤其是在社交方面，也就是说，他不惜使用各种手段，在诚实的大道上勇往直前，赢得人心，博得赞美，而又不卷入是非争端之中。他衣着得体，尤其注重外表的整洁，顾名思义，他总是将头发修剪得干净利落，蘸了水或者发乳，在中间分开，模仿流行的发式，向后梳得油光滑溜。那个年代的老滑头都戴着玳瑁眼镜，那是他们的标志物，这让他们很容易被认出，艾默里和拉希尔从未看走过眼。老滑头遍布学校的各处，他们总是比同龄人更足智多谋，管理一些队员或者别的什么，并且总是小心地深藏不露。

艾默里一直到读大学三年级的时候才发现，老滑头是一个最有价值的归类，因为那时这一类人的轮廓界定变得模糊并且难以确认，以至于不得不进行许多更细的分类，这个归类最终变成了对一种品质的描述。艾默里内心深处的理想人物具有所有老滑头的品质，然而，除此之外，还有勇气、非凡的头脑和天赋——同时，艾默里也承认自己身上有一个古怪的个性，是与正宗的老滑头品性水火不容的。

这和学校传统中的伪善格格不入，是第一次对伪善的真正的背离。毫无疑问，老滑头是明确的成功分子，和预备学校里的“老大哥”有着本质的不同。

艾默里决定非普林斯顿不读，即使那一年圣瑞吉斯只有他一人报考该校。根据在明尼阿波利斯流传的故事和入选了耶鲁“骷髅会”[41]的圣瑞吉斯学子的说法，耶鲁是浪漫且充满魅惑的，但普林斯顿因为拥有色彩明快的氛围和全美最宜人的乡村俱乐部的美誉，依然对艾默里有着最大的吸引力。在准备入学考试的阴影中，艾默里的校园生活很快就成了过去。许多年后，他重返圣瑞吉斯，似乎早已忘记了六年级的辉煌，而把自己想象成一个愣头小子，因为无法融入环境，总是急匆匆地穿过走廊，受到那些求知若渴的偏执少年的嘲笑。

第二章　尖塔与滴水兽

起初，艾默里只是注意到充沛的阳光，日脚爬过长长的绿色草坪，跳跃舞动在铅制的窗棂上，游走在尖塔的顶端、塔楼和垛堞的围墙上。渐渐地他意识到自己正行走在大学路上，千真万确，他一意识到手里还拎着行李箱，便立刻调整了姿态，目不斜视地和他身边的路人擦肩而过。有几次他可以断定他被人用挑剔的目光打量了一番。他暗暗地怀疑，不知是不是自己的衣服有什么不妥，又想到早上真该在火车上刮下脸。他感到自己在这些一身白色法兰绒、不戴帽子的青年中很不自在，身体毫无必要地变得僵硬、不听使唤，他猜想他们一定是三四年级的学生，从他们信步而行的干练姿态中就能看出。

他发现大学路十二号是一幢规模很大、破败失修的大楼，眼下很显然尚无人居住，但他知道通常这里都会有十几个大一新生入住。和女宿管员匆匆交涉了一番，他就出门开启探索之旅了，但他走出还不到一个街区就惊恐地意识到眼下他可能是城里唯一一个戴帽子的人。他只好匆匆忙忙地返回大学路十二号，摘下他的高顶圆帽，头上什么也没戴就出了门。他沿着拿骚街闲逛，在一个橱窗前逗留了一会儿，对里面展示的一组运动摄影照片研究了一番，其中有一张是橄榄球队长阿伦比的巨幅照片，接着他被一个甜品橱窗上方“吉格[42]屋”的招牌吸引。这个名字听起来有些耳熟，所以他就踱步走进了店里，在一个高凳上坐了下来。

“来一杯巧克力圣代。”他对一个黑人伙计说。

“双份巧克力吉格？还要点别的吗？”

“嗯——要。”

“培根小圆包？”

“嗯——没错。”

他一口气吃了四个小圆包，觉得挺对胃口，接着又来了杯双份巧克力吉格，这才感到心满意足。他漫不经心地浏览了挂在墙上排成一排的枕头套、皮质锦旗和“吉布森少女”[43]的画，之后便离开了。他把手揣在兜里，继续沿着拿骚街向前溜达。他开始慢慢能区分高年级学生和刚入学的新生了，虽然要到下周一新生才会领到专属于他们的无边小帽。那些看起来轻松自如、毫不拘束的恰恰是新生，他们很显眼，一列列火车不断送来新的成员，他们倏忽间就被吸收进了那个不戴帽子、穿着白鞋子、拿着书本的大群体，他们的主要任务似乎就是沿着大街无休止地逛来逛去，拿出崭新的烟斗吞云吐雾。下午的时候，艾默里意识到那些刚来的学生已经把他看作高年级学生了，他煞费苦心地尽量表现得很和善，既带着司空见惯的从容，又带着漫不经心的挑剔，在他看来这里的普遍表情就是这个样子。

五点钟的时候，他觉得有必要找人说说话，于是回到宿舍看看是否有别的人住进来。从摇摇晃晃的楼梯爬上来，他无可奈何地打量了一番自己的房间，想想除了班旗和运动队的张贴画，再也不必尝试更有创意的装饰了，这个房间简直不可救药。正在这时，传来了敲门声。

“进来！”

门口出现了一张清瘦的脸庞，来人有一双灰色的眼睛，还带着幽默的微笑。

“有锤子吗？”

“没有——抱歉。说不定十二号太太，随便叫她什么吧，她那儿会有。”

这个陌生人走了进来。

“你也是这个避难所的住户？”

艾默里点了点头。

“我们付了那么多租金，就住这么个牛圈一样的破烂地方。”

艾默里不得不同意，确实如此。

“我想到校园里走走的，”他说，“但他们说那里的新生太少，少到会落单迷路。所以只好在这里干坐着，学着做点什么事情。”

那个有着灰色眼睛的男生打算介绍一下自己。

“我的名字是霍里德。”

“我叫布莱恩。”

他们以时下流行的微微俯身的方式握了手。艾默里咧嘴笑了起来。

“你在哪里读的预备？”

“安多佛——你呢？”

“圣瑞吉斯。”

“哦，是吗？我有个表兄在那儿读过。”

他们详细地聊了聊这位表兄，接着霍里德宣布说他要和弟弟碰面六点一起吃饭。

“一起来吧，咱们一起去撮一顿。”

“好啊。”

在肯尼沃斯饭店，艾默里见到了伯恩·霍里德——那个长着灰色眼睛的是凯里——他们点了清汤和蔬菜，饭菜寡淡。他们一直盯着别的新生看，那些新生要么一小撮聚在一起显得局促不安，要么一大堆聚在一起看起来无拘无束，像在家里一样自在。

“我听说公共食堂伙食很差。”艾默里说。

“那是谣传吧。你总得在那儿吃——不然就要多花钱到外面吃。”

“简直是犯罪！”

“太过分了！”

“哎，在普林斯顿你第一年什么都得忍着。简直就是个见鬼的预备学校。”

艾默里表示同意。

“但是朝气蓬勃，”他坚定地说，“就是给我一百万，我也不想换到耶鲁去。”

“我也不去。”

“你打算参加什么社团了吗？”艾默里问那个当哥哥的。

“我没有——伯恩要在这儿参加普林斯——《普林斯顿人日报》社，你知道的。”

“对，我知道。”

“你打算参加什么社团吗？”

“嗯——对。我想试一试新生橄榄球队。”

“在圣瑞吉斯参加过吗？”

“玩过一阵儿，”艾默里故意低调地承认说，“但我现在太他妈的瘦了。”

“你不瘦。”

“嗯，我去年秋天比较壮。”

“哦！”

他们吃完饭去看了电影。电影院里，坐在艾默里前面的一个人会不时地油腔滑调地点评几句，艾默里几乎听上了瘾，那里疯狂的喊叫声也让他着迷。

“哟嚯！”

“噢，甜心宝贝儿——你这么大个儿，而且又强壮，可是你却如此温柔！”

“抱一个！”

“噢，抱一个！”

“亲她，亲那个女人，快点儿！”

“噢噢噢——”

一帮人打起口哨，吹起《在海边》的曲调，观众很快就嗡声应和起来。接下来他们又唱起一首歌，混杂着一片跺脚声，难以辨别是什么曲子，再后来是一首无休止的不连贯的挽歌。

噢——噢——噢——

她在一家果酱工厂工作，

这——似乎——也很好，

但你无法欺骗我，

因为我——太过——了解，

她根本不会整夜都在做果酱！

噢——噢——噢——

他们随着散场的人群推推搡搡，互相交换着好奇又冷漠的眼神。当他们拥出影院之际，艾默里断定自己喜欢看电影，并且希望能像前排的学长一样陶醉其中，像他们一样把双臂搭在椅背上，用凯尔特发音的英语对电影做一番辛辣的点评，他们的态度既带着批判的睿智，也有宽容的诙谐。

“想来杯圣代吗——我是说吉格？”凯里问道。

“当然。”

他们饱餐了一顿夜宵，然后溜达着又逛回十二号楼。

“美妙的夜晚。”

“真让人开心。”

“你们要拆包行李吗？”

“差不多。走吧，伯恩。”

艾默里打算在前面的台阶上坐一会儿，于是就跟他们道了别。

林立的树木在天空中织就了一张巨毯，随着最后一线暮光的暗去，这张巨毯上黑影绰绰，如鬼魅丛生。早早升起的月亮在拱门和穹顶之上遍洒华光，月华细若游丝，清透如纱，从月亮的边缘漫洒进苍茫的夜色。夜色之中有缥缈的歌声，那是一支哀婉的乐曲，飘忽不定，怅惘不绝。

他记起九十年代的一位校友曾跟他讲过布斯·塔金顿的有趣消遣：塔金顿先生三更半夜站在校园正中，对着群星放声高歌，那些夜不能寐、窝在沙发里的本科生本来就胸中郁结，听到歌声更被勾引得思绪万千。

这时，大学路远处幽暗的路上，一群白衣飘飘的身影打破了夜的昏暗。他们身穿白衣白裤，步调一致，手挽着手，昂首挺胸地阔步走来：

回去喽——回去喽，

返——回——到——拿骚——大楼[44]，

回去喽——回去喽——

回到——美好的——古老的——安身之所。

回去喽——回去喽，

从这——世间的——舞场——出走，

我们——在——归途中——一往无前——不回头——

返回——到——拿骚——大楼！

艾默里在这个魅影般的行进队伍走近之时，闭上了眼睛。歌曲的音调太高，已经唱不上去了，此时只剩下男高音的部分，他们成功地把调子飙到临界点，而后又缓缓地下降，成为迷人的和声。艾默里随即睁开了眼睛，但心里还有些担心，怕看到的画面会破坏他心中丰富迷人的和谐幻景。

他很快就松了一口气。昂首阔步走在队伍最前列的就是橄榄球队长阿伦比，他身材健美，目空一切，好像今年学院的希望就寄托在他身上了。人们期望他那一百六十磅的身躯能在深蓝和深红[45]的防线之中闪躲腾挪，锁定最后的胜局。

艾默里聚精会神地盯着一排排手挽手肩并肩的队伍。他们穿着马球衬衫，脸庞已经模糊不清，他们的声音在凯旋的欢歌中融合——接着行进的队伍穿过了黑暗中的坎贝尔拱门，当他们转向东边，朝着校园而去时，声音便渐渐沉寂了下来。

时间一分一秒地流逝，艾默里安静地坐在那里。他感到遗憾，学校居然禁止新生在宵禁之后外出，因为他很想到那些树影婆娑、花香四溢的小路上走走。在那里，威瑟斯普恩楼像一个黑暗中的母亲，默默端坐于两座带阁楼的子楼——辉格楼和克里奥楼——之上；在那里，哥特式的利特尔楼如黑色的长蛇一般，逶迤蜿蜒至下面的奎勒楼和帕顿楼，那些楼宇的谜一样的暗影又投射在一片静谧的湖边坡地上。

白日里的普林斯顿在他的意识里慢慢显现——威斯特学院和校友会，总是让人联想到六十年代；砖红色的七十九号楼傲然挺立；上下派恩楼宛如伊丽莎白时代的贵族少女，对屈身于市井小贩之中颇为不满；还有高高矗立的霍尔德楼和克利夫兰两座塔楼，它们似有青云之志，梦幻般的尖塔直插云霄。

他从一开始就喜欢上了普林斯顿——它惬意的美景，难以捕捉的意蕴，月夜里学生联谊会的纳新狂欢活动，大型体育活动中身材健硕、生气勃勃的人们，以及课堂上和所有这一切活动中弥散的争斗气息。那天，那些穿着运动衫的新生一脸懵懂、筋疲力尽地端坐在体育馆，推选出了来自希尔学校的某人为班长，来自劳伦斯维尔学校的某人为副班长，来自圣保罗学校的某位曲棍球明星做秘书长。从那次选举班委开始直到大学二年级结束，这种让人无法喘息的社交关系，这种对“老大哥”——这一称呼几乎从来没有被正式提起过，也从来没有被真正认可过——这一怪咖的崇拜一直都存在。

首先是关于学校的比拼，因为艾默里是来自圣瑞吉斯的唯一一人，因而只能看着其他的组群成形，扩大，再组合；来自圣保罗、希尔、庞弗雷特这些预备学校的学生在公共食堂里就餐，总是坐在那些大家心照不宣预留出来的座位上；他们在健身房属于他们的特定角落里更衣，那些毫不重要且怀有社交野心的人下意识地形成了一个壁垒来保护自己，排挤那些友好的，但迷迷糊糊，还是高中生做派的人。艾默里从意识到这些开始，就对社交壁垒深感厌恶，在他看来，这是强者为追随他们的弱者人为设立的差别待遇，以排斥和他们实力相当的另一些强者。

他打定主意要成为班上受人仰慕的重量级人物，便报名参加了新生的橄榄球训练。但在第二周，他担任四分卫的时候扭伤了膝关节，虽然那时他的事迹已经在《普林斯顿人日报》上的一个角落里有过一段报道，但膝伤使他不得不退出剩下的比赛。他被迫退出并开始重新思考眼前的情势。

十二号楼里住着十来个各式各样让人莫名其妙的人物。那里有来自劳伦斯维尔的三四个毫不起眼、失魂落魄的家伙；有两个来自纽约一所私立学校的业余户外爱好者（凯里·霍里德把他们叫作“粗俗的酒鬼”）；一个犹太青年，他也来自纽约。当然，好像为了对艾默里有所补偿，还有霍里德兄弟俩，第一次见面，艾默里就喜欢上了这哥儿俩。

有传言说霍里德兄弟俩是双胞胎，但实际上那位黑色头发的哥哥凯里比金色头发的弟弟伯恩要年长一岁。凯里个子高挑，长着一双幽默诙谐的灰色眼睛，会不经意间绽放出迷人的微笑；他立刻就变成了这幢楼里大伙的良师益友，是那些出格行为的管理者，是自负的监督者，还是那些难得听到的讽刺笑话的贩卖者。艾默里会依据自己对大学教育的理解，对大学应有的样子和大学实际的样子大谈特谈，并依此畅想他们之间的友谊会有怎样的前景。凯里那个时候还不喜欢一本正经地谈论问题，因而总是温和地嘲笑艾默里，说艾默里对社交圈的错综复杂兴趣盎然实在有些不合时宜，但凯里依然喜欢艾默里，对他兴致不减，并觉得他很有意思，招人喜欢。

伯恩一头金发，沉默寡言但认真专注，他每次出现都行色匆匆，夜深人静时他悄无声息地回来，一大早便又出门去图书馆开始他的工作——他加入了《普林斯顿人日报》，他一心想在激烈的竞争中打败另外四十来个对手，赢得众人觊觎的头等奖。十二月间他染上了白喉症被迫退出了比赛，头奖旁落他人，可是，他在二月份重返学校，甫一回来，便义无反顾地重新投入奖项的争夺之中。可想而知，艾默里同他的交往，不过是上课来去的路上三五分钟的闲聊，因此他不可能深入了解伯恩的兴趣所在及其背后的原因。

艾默里不满足于这样毫无生气的生活。他在这里绝无自己当年在圣瑞吉斯的风光，那时他广为人知，备受青睐。然而，普林斯顿依然在激励着他，许多将要发生的事情会激发他身上马基雅维利的潜质，只要他能插入一个楔子，给自己一个支点，他也可以为达目的而不择手段。高年级俱乐部激起了他强烈的好奇心，他曾经在前一年夏天缠着一个不愿多说话的毕业生盘问了一番：常春藤俱乐部，高高在上，十足的贵族风范，让人望而却步；木屋俱乐部，是一个不容小觑的混合组织，成员中既有卓尔不群的冒险家，也有衣冠楚楚的好色之徒；虎吧俱乐部，成员大都人高马大，体格健壮，他们还践行着预备学校的行事准则，看起来活力十足；方帽和长袍俱乐部，他们反对酗酒，有些许宗教色彩，有权有势，在政治上举足轻重；殖民俱乐部行事浮夸；四方俱乐部是文学团体；还有其他一些俱乐部，成员的年纪和地位都各不相同。

凡是一个低年级学生抛头露面、做备受瞩目的事情都会被贴上该死的“出风头”的标签。电影院因为有那些快人快语的辛辣点评而门庭若市，但那些发表这些评论的人则被认为是在出风头；对俱乐部评头论足是在出风头；在某些事情上坚持己见，比如说，支持举办狂欢酒会或者坚持滴酒不沾都是在出风头。简言之，就是不能容忍一个人引人注目，崭露头角，那些举足轻重的人物则都是不受限制的，可以任意妄为，那么到二年级的俱乐部选举时，每个人都应该已经被缝进了某个袋子，使他在剩余的大学生涯中永不再出头。

艾默里发现给《拿骚文学杂志》投稿总是让他一无所获，而加入《普林斯顿人日报》却可以让他受益良多。他曾经有过要投身表演事业的模糊想法，希望自己在英语戏剧协会的表演能名垂青史，但这样的想法渐渐不了了之，因为他发现那些最精明的头脑和最具天赋的青年才俊都聚集在三角俱乐部。那是一个表演音乐喜剧的社团组织，他们每年都有一次大型的圣诞巡演。与此同时，他在公共食堂里感到异常孤独，坐立不安，新的欲望和雄心壮志在他的心中涌动，让他心意难平，他的第一学期就这样蹉跎过去了。他一边对那些天生的优越分子嫉妒不已，一边和凯里满心烦忧，疑惑着他们为什么没有立刻被公认为是班上的精英分子。

许多个午后他们懒洋洋地站在十二号楼的窗户前，看着班上的同学从公共食堂里进进出出，他们注意到那些有头有脸的人物身边已经像卫星一样聚集了一群小跟班，而独来独往的书呆子总是步履匆匆，低着头垂着眼，艳羡着那些大群体的欢声笑语、其乐融融。

“我们就是见鬼的中产阶级，这就是原因！”他对凯里抱怨说。那一天他正四仰八叉地躺在沙发上，带着沉思般凝重的表情，一根接一根地抽着法提玛[46]香烟。

“对，为什么不呢？我们读的是普林斯顿，和那些不起眼的小学校比，我们就有了优越感——感觉高高在上，更有自信，穿得更体面，引人注目——”

“我不是看不惯让人目眩的等级体系，”艾默里坦白说，“我喜欢有一群人中龙凤高高在上，但是天哪，凯里，我得是他们当中的一个。”

“可现在，艾默里，你只是一个出臭汗的小市民而已。”

艾默里躺在那里，一言不发。

“我不会——总这个样子，”他最后开口说，“但我讨厌通过埋头苦干来成就什么。我要展示我的才干，你懂吗？”

“值得尊敬的伤疤。”凯里突然朝着马路那边伸长了脖子，“瞧，那是朗格杜克，你要不要看看他长什么模样——他后面就是亨博德。”

艾默里一跃而起，蹿到窗户边上。

“哦，”他一边审视着这些重要人物，一边喃喃着，“亨博德看起来像个人物，但这位朗格杜克——他是个粗人，对吧？我对这类人信不过。未经打磨的钻石看起来总是大一点。”

“嗯，”凯里说道，刚才那股兴奋劲儿这会儿已经过去了，“你是个文学天才。就看你的了。”

“我不知道”——艾默里吞吞吐吐——“我是否真的是。我有时确实觉得自己有天赋。这听起来像是魔鬼在大放厥词，除了你，我不会对任何人这么说。”

“这没什么——行动吧。你把头发留长，像文学杂志上那个丹维里埃一样开始写诗。”

艾默里懒洋洋地拿起桌上的一沓杂志。

“读过他最近的大作吗？”

“从没落下过。确实难得一见。”

艾默里开始翻看其中的一期。

“嗨！”他惊声叫起来，“他只是个大一新生，对吗？”

“对。”

“听听这个！我的天哪！”

一个侍餐的女子开口说道：

夜色那丝绒般的帷幕从天际垂下，

白色的蜡烛，屈身于银色的烛台之中，

在风中摇曳着微弱的火苗，

皮亚，庞皮亚，来——快过来——

“这，到底是什么意思？”

“这是一首餐具室即景诗。”

她的脚趾紧绷如同一只振翅而飞的鹳；

她躺在床上，躺在白色的床单之上，

双手置于平静的胸前，如圣徒一般，

贝拉·库尼莎，快快醒过来！

“我的天，凯里，这到底是写的什么东西？我发誓我完全不知道他在说什么，要知道我也是位文学爱好者呀。”

“这确实让人捉摸不透，”凯里说道，“你读的时候只要想着灵车和变味儿的牛奶就好了。这首不像其他几首诗那么热烈。”

艾默里把杂志丢在了桌上。

“哎，”他叹了口气，“我知道自己身处云端，绝非等闲之辈，可我厌恶别的人也出类拔萃。我拿不定主意是应该陶冶心志，立志成为一名伟大的剧作家，还是应该对《英诗宝库》[47]嗤之以鼻，做一个普林斯顿的老滑头。”

“干吗要费这个神？”凯里建议说，“最好像我一样，随波逐流。我打算跟在伯恩的燕尾服后面，沾亲带故也能赚得一些名望。”

“我不能随波逐流——我要成为万众瞩目的中心。我要做一个能掌控他人的人，哪怕是为了别人的利益，或者成为《普林斯顿人日报》的主席，或者三角俱乐部的主席。我想要受人仰慕，凯里。”

“你太过在意你自己了。”

艾默里听了这话一下子坐了起来。

“不。我也是在为你考虑。我们应该趁着大家都趋炎附势并以此为乐的时候，立刻出门和班上的同学打成一片。比如说，我要在六月份的舞会上带上一个美人儿，我不会真的这么做，除非我能做到风度翩翩，游刃有余——我会把她介绍给所有的好色之徒、橄榄球队长，以及所有头脑简单、四肢发达的家伙。”

“艾默里，”凯里不耐烦地说道，“你不过是绕来绕去地在原地打转。如果你想要出人头地，就出去干点儿什么；如果你不想，那就放松点儿，顺其自然。”他打了个哈欠。“算了吧，我们把屋子里的烟散一散。一会儿我们下去看橄榄球训练吧。”

艾默里渐渐地接受了这个观点，决心在来年秋天开启自己的事业，眼下他偃旗息鼓，只顾看着凯里想方设法在十二号楼里找乐子。

他们在那个犹太青年的床上放满了柠檬派；他们每天晚上往艾默里房间的煤气喷嘴里吹气，弄得煤气在整幢楼里四处飘散，让十二号太太和本地的管道工大惑不解。他们制造了烂醉的效果——把照片、课本还有家具都塞在了卫生间，当时两个粗鲁的酒鬼刚刚从特伦顿[48]的一夜狂欢中回来，喝得不省人事，迷迷糊糊地发现东西都搬了家，一时迷惑不解，后来他俩权当是个笑话，一笑置之，这让艾默里他们大失所望；他们吃完晚饭就开始打牌，玩比大小和二十一点，累积赌注，一直打到凌晨；有一次赶上一个人过生日，他们就撺掇那人去买香槟来庆贺，他们开怀畅饮，喝了个够。那晚聚会的出资人一直没醉，凯里和艾默里就出其不意地将他从楼梯上扔下，害他滚落了两节楼梯，艾默里俩人后来羞愧难当，后悔不已，在接下来的一周里一直在医务室照看这位同学。

“老实交代，这些女人都是谁？”凯里有一天诘问道，他对艾默里信件繁多颇为不满。“我最近都注意看了邮戳——法明顿、多卜斯、威斯托弗，还有达纳霍尔[49]——这都是怎么回事？”

艾默里咧嘴一笑。

“她们都是双子城[50]的。”他把她们逐一介绍了一遍，“这是玛丽莲·德·维特——她很漂亮，有一辆自己的车，那真是方便极了；这是莎莉·韦瑟比——她现在越来越胖了；这位是米拉·圣克莱尔，她是我的旧相好，如果你愿意的话，可以很轻易地亲到她——”

“你给她们写了什么情话？”凯里质问道，“我什么都试过了，她们就知道发疯似的起哄开玩笑，一点儿都不怕我。”

“你是‘乖小孩’类型的男生。”艾默里解释说。

“就是这样。我妈总觉得她得陪着我，这样和女孩子在一起才是安全的。说实话，这简直烦死了。我如果牵了她们的手，她们就笑话我，而且也不拒绝，就好像那手不是长在她们身上似的。只要我牵起一只手，那只手就好像和她身体的其他部分脱节了。”

“你就假装生气，”艾默里出主意说，“告诉她们你快气疯了，让她们开导开导你——你回到家就装疯——半个小时后再回来——吓唬吓唬她们。”

凯里摇了摇头。

“这没用。去年我给圣提摩西[51]的一个姑娘写了封爱意浓浓的情书。有一处地方，我心里慌得不知道该怎么下笔，于是就写道：‘天哪，我多么爱你！’谁知她用指甲剪剪掉了‘天哪’两个字，然后把那封信在整个学校里传看。一点用处也没有。我就是‘老好人凯里’，无可救药。”

艾默里不禁莞尔一笑，他试着想象自己变成“老好人艾默里”。可他完全做不到。

二月份，雨雪天气接连不断，旋风般的新生年中考试也结束了，十二号楼的生活一如既往的妙趣横生，即使那没有什么意义。艾默里照例每天会在“乔尔”享用一次大餐，其中包括总会三明治[52]、玉米片和土豆条，通常他是和凯里或者埃里克·康尼奇一起。埃里克毕业于霍奇科斯学校，少言寡语，是个清高的老滑头。他就住在艾默里隔壁，和艾默里一样，因为班上的其他同学都去了耶鲁，他在这里也就成了孤家寡人。乔尔餐厅的装修很普通，没什么美感可言，卫生条件也不容乐观，但食客们可以无限制地赊账，这正是艾默里看重的方便之处。他父亲一直在尝试做矿业股票的投资，因而，他的零花钱虽然也够花，但总不如他预想的那般宽绰。

乔尔餐厅的另一项优势是地处偏僻之处，可以躲过高年级学生审视的目光，所以每天下午四点钟，艾默里要么邀上好友，要么带上一本书，然后来这里开始他的消化体验。三月份的一天，他来了之后发现餐厅满座了，于是便默默地走到最后一张桌子旁，在一名大一新生对面的椅子上坐下，那名新生正埋头于一本书，读得津津有味。他们点了点头，算是打招呼。艾默里在那里坐了二十多分钟，一边吃着培根小圆包，一边读着《华伦夫人的职业》（萧伯纳的书是他年中考试期间在图书馆浏览书刊时偶然发现的）；对面那位新生，也一边全神贯注地读着自己手里的书，一边吃掉了一份三合一的巧克力麦芽牛奶。

艾默里渐渐地对自己这位午餐伙伴手里的书产生了兴趣，他的眼睛好奇地打量起这本书。他从倒着的书页上认出了作者和书名——斯蒂芬·菲利普斯的《玛佩萨》[53]。他对于这个名字一无所知，他的诗歌知识仅限于周日古典文学课上学的“到花园里来，莫德！”[54]之类的诗篇，以及最近被迫去读的寥寥几首莎士比亚和弥尔顿的诗作。

他一时兴起，打算和这位同伴聊上几句，于是先酝酿了一会儿，佯装出自己对这本书很感兴趣，然后大声赞叹，好像是情不自禁地脱口而出一样：

“啊！好东西呀！”

那位新生抬起头来，艾默里刻意表现出一副手足无措的样子。

“你是在说你的培根小圆包吗？”他沙哑、温和的嗓音和他那副巨大的眼镜，以及表现出的热切恰好相配。

“不，”艾默里回答道，“我说的是萧伯纳。”他把书倒过来解释说。

“我还从没读过萧伯纳，但我一直想读。”那个男生顿了顿接着说道，“你读过斯蒂芬·菲利普斯吗？你喜欢诗歌吗？”

“是的，很喜欢，”艾默里急切地回应说，“但我没怎么读过菲利普斯。”（他除了已经去世的大卫·格雷厄姆·菲利普斯，还没听说过任何其他姓菲利普斯的。）

“我想，这很正常。当然，他也算是维多利亚时代的人。”他们开始热烈地讨论起诗歌，讨论当中他们互相做了自我介绍，艾默里的这位同伴不是别人，正是那位“超凡脱俗的托马斯·帕克·丹维里埃”，那位在《文学》杂志上登载热烈的爱情诗的人。他大约十九岁，微微有些驼背，淡蓝色的眼睛，艾默里从他的大体外貌上就能判断出，他没有多少社会竞争的意识，也不了解那些一门心思钻营的现象。还有，他喜欢读书，艾默里似乎已经很久没有遇到这样爱书的人了。要是隔壁桌上圣保罗学校的那帮家伙没有把他错认作一个笨蛋，他会非常享受他们的这次邂逅。那帮家伙似乎并不在意他们这边，所以他干脆畅所欲言，聊起各种各样的书——他读过的书，有所耳闻的书，他从未听说过的书，像布兰塔诺书店里口若悬河的店员一样，一口气说出一大串书名。丹维里埃几乎被迷住了，兴高采烈。出于一种善意的揣测，他几乎已经认定普林斯顿有一部分十足的平庸之徒，还有一部分十足的书呆子，能遇到一个谈起济慈来头头是道的人，而且这人还很体面，那简直是上天的恩赐。

“读过奥斯卡·王尔德吗？”他问。

“没有。谁写的？”

“这是个人名——你不知道吗？”

“哦，当然。”艾默里的记忆一时出了点差错，卡壳了，“是不是那个幽默歌剧《忍耐》[55]说的就是他？”

“对，就是他。我刚刚读完了他的一本书，《道林·格雷的画像》[56]，我非常希望你也读一读这本书。你一定会喜欢的。你要是愿意，我可以借给你。”

“是吗，我太想看了——谢谢。”

“你想不想到我房间里坐坐？我还有几本其他的书。”

艾默里迟疑了一下，朝圣保罗那帮家伙瞥了一眼——其中一个就是气度不凡、精致优雅的亨博德——他思忖着要结识这个新朋友他得需要多大的决心。他还从来没有到要跟他们一伙或者甩掉他们的地步——他还不够强硬——所以他掂量着托马斯·帕克·丹维里埃毋庸置疑的魅力和价值，以及可能招致的威胁，他总觉得邻桌那帮家伙正虎视眈眈，那些玳瑁眼镜后面的每一双眼睛都咄咄逼人，冷酷无情。

“好的，我去。”

于是，他找到了《道林·格雷的画像》和《多洛雷斯》，还有《无情的美人》[57]，接下来的一个月他对别的东西再没有任何兴趣。世界好像淡去，但更加有趣，他竭力想透过奥斯卡·王尔德和斯温伯恩——他戏谑地把他们分别称作“芬格·欧弗拉迪”和“阿尔杰农·查尔斯”[58]——这两双饱经世事的眼睛来审视普林斯顿。他每天晚上都手不释卷——萧伯纳、切斯特顿、巴里、皮内罗、叶芝、辛吉、欧内斯特·道森、亚瑟·西门斯、济慈、苏德曼、罗伯特·休·本森，以及萨沃伊轻歌剧[59]——各式各样、五花八门的书他都读，因为他忽然发现自己这么多年以来好像什么都没读过。

汤姆·丹维里埃起初对爱默里来说只是一个日常生活的意外，而不是朋友。艾默里每周同他碰一次面，他们一起给汤姆房间的屋顶涂上了金色，用在拍卖会上买来的仿制的挂毯来装饰墙面，摆上了高高的烛台，装上了提花窗帘。艾默里之所以喜欢他，是因为他不仅聪颖伶俐，有文学天分，而且不阴阳怪气，不矫揉造作。事实上，大部分时间里都是艾默里在装腔作势，夸耀卖弄，挖空心思地试图把每句话都说得诙谐漂亮，像名言警句一般，但倘若一个人总是满足于那些故弄玄虚的名言警句，他大约就不知道还有许多要高明得多的技艺。十二号楼里的住户都兴致盎然。凯里读了《道林·格雷的画像》开始模仿起亨利勋爵[60]，艾默里所到之处凯里总是形影不离，称呼他“道尔”，还不忘像煞有介事地蛊惑他寻欢作恶，来消解他的厌世情绪。凯里甚至在公共食堂里也照做不误，这让同桌就餐的同学惊诧不已，艾默里难免感到难堪，并为此大为光火，之后他的名言警句便只说给丹维里埃听，或者说给一面恰巧合适的镜子。

有一天，汤姆和艾默里试着在凯里的留声机的音乐伴奏中，朗诵他们自己创作的和顿萨尼勋爵[61]有关的诗作。

“吟诵！”汤姆大声说道，“不是背诵！是吟诵！”

艾默里正声情并茂地在表演，被打断后不禁面露愠色，声称要换一张钢琴音乐少一点的唱片。凯里听了不觉笑翻在地。

“换上《花儿与爱心》[62]！”他吼了一声，“哦，上帝啊，我快要笑疯了。”

“关上那该死的留声机，”艾默里嚷嚷着，脸涨得通红，“我又不是在公演。”

与此同时，艾默里小心翼翼地想要启发一下丹维里埃对社交体系的认识，因为他知道这个诗人比他还要老套，丹维里埃需要往头发上涂一点水，学着与一小部分人展开对话，再戴上一顶暗棕色的帽子，这样就显得十分正常了。然而，丹维里埃对那些关于利文斯通衣领和黑色领结的礼仪宣教置若罔闻，事实上，他在隐隐地抗拒着艾默里苦口婆心的宣教。因而，艾默里限定自己每周只能去找他一次，偶尔才会带他来一次十二号楼。即使这样，其他的新生也难免在背后偷笑，称他们俩是“约翰逊博士和鲍斯威尔”[63]。

另外一位常客是埃里克·康尼奇，他隐隐约约地对艾默里有好感，但又担心艾默里是个清高之人，不敢亲近。凯里看透了埃里克虽然嘴上诗情画意，说起话来天花乱坠，但骨子里沉稳、自重、有思想，觉得十分有趣，便让埃里克来背诵诗歌，经常一背就是好几个小时，而凯里则躺在艾默里的沙发上闭着眼睛静静地听：

梦寐之中还是醒来之时？一个密吻

落在她的玉颈，留下紫色的吻痕，

那是疼痛的血液在此瘀结继而浮现；

轻吻，温柔地吮吸——一抹轻痕浅淡……[64]

“真不错，”凯里会轻声地说，“这节诗让霍里德大哥听得舒坦。我猜，这一定出自一位伟大的诗人。”埃里克为自己的朗诵有了听众而喜出望外，于是把《诗歌与民谣》里的诗一首一首地背了个遍，直到凯里和艾默里也几乎耳熟能详。

艾默里是在春日的午后开始写诗的，就在普林斯顿周边大庄园的花园里，那里的人工湖里有天鹅游弋，气氛恰到好处，柳梢之上有浮云悠悠，一片祥和的景象。五月来得太早，突然之间他再也不能忍受被困于围墙之内，不管是星光摇曳的晚上，还是飘洒雨滴的天气，他只管在校园中漫步游荡，不分昼夜。

夜雾中的象征性插曲

夜色中薄雾飘然而至，从月亮的四周漫卷开来，袭上尖顶和塔楼，团簇着，拥围着，接着又沉落下去，梦幻般的尖顶重又显露出来，它的雄心依然高耸入云霄。白天里如蚂蚁般的人影散落于各处，而此刻他们如鬼影飘忽不定，在眼前忽隐忽现。无数朦胧的黄色光块勾勒出大楼哥特式的门厅和回廊，它们在黑暗中赫然耸现，更显得神秘异常。不知何处传来钟声的鸣响，那是一刻的钟点，艾默里正走到日晷的旁边，他停下脚步，在潮湿的草地上躺下来，舒展全身。夜晚的凉气笼罩了他的双眼，时间也似乎停滞不前——四月午后的慵懒光阴已在不知不觉中偷偷溜走，漫长的春日黄昏里的时间更加难以捕捉。日复一日，黄昏里毕业班学生忧伤而动听的歌声散落在校园里，穿透了他本科生意识的外壳，激荡出心底深沉又虔敬的爱，那是他对这些灰色围墙和哥特尖顶的热爱，它们是盛放远去时代的记忆的象征。

从他的窗口望出去，能看到一座高耸的塔楼，塔上有尖顶直插云霄，最高处的塔尖在清晨的薄雾中几乎不可见，这座塔楼最先让他意识到校园中的身影皆是转瞬即逝、无足轻重的，他们不过是传递使徒传统的一代代继任者。他认为哥特式建筑向上飞升的走向与大学的氛围非常契合，他喜欢自己的这一想法，并把它看作一种非常个人的观念。默默蔓延的绿色植被，静谧的教学大楼，以及大楼里偶尔燃起的一盏苦读的夜灯，都能紧紧抓住他的想象，让他思绪万千，而尖塔的肃然高洁让他的思绪有所依着，成为这种思绪的一个象征。

“该死的。”他厉声嘀咕了一句，让双手在草地上沾满了露水，然后顺势捋了捋头发。“明年我要奋斗！”然而他自己也很清楚，此刻让他踌躇满志、沉默无言的塔楼和尖顶的气势，同样会让他心生胆怯。此刻他只是意识到自己的无足轻重，而努力会让他更清楚地认识到自己的无能和不足。

校园依然在睡梦中——半梦半醒的迷离状态。他感到一阵紧张的悸动，那似乎正是校园缓慢心跳的一次搏动。假使大学是一条溪流，他要投掷一块石头进去，石头入水时激起的涟漪甚至在他出手的那一刻就已经消失了。然而迄今为止，因为他不曾付出，所以他毫无建树。

一个晚归的新生啪嗒啪嗒地走过松软的小径，他身上的油布雨衣发出很大的响声，非常刺耳。不知何处的一个声音响起：“把你的脑袋伸出来！”这是从一个看不见的窗户下面传来的，想必这是某一种惯用的说话方式。雾中无数细流的潺潺水声涌向耳畔，压迫着他的意识，他终于回过神来。

“天哪！”他突然喊道，随即又被寂静中自己的叫声给惊到了。雨还在淅淅沥沥地下着。他又在草地上一动不动地躺了一会儿，双手紧攥着。接着他跳了起来，轻轻地拍了拍自己身上的衣服。

“我他妈的已经浑身湿透了！”他对着日晷大声喊道。

历史事件

战争开始于他一年级的那个夏天。德国人迅猛进攻巴黎时他还有看热闹的兴趣，但除此之外，整体的事态既没有让他震惊，也未能引起他太多的关注。怀着看一出消遣的情节剧的态度，他希望战事拉长，并且打得残酷血腥。如果战事未能持续下去，他会感到恼火，就像自己拿着票要观看职业拳击比赛，而选手却拒绝厮打纠缠、拼死搏斗一样。

这就是他对战争的总体反应。

“哈-哈奥尔唐斯！[65]”

“行啦，姑娘们！”

“开动起来！”

“嗨，姑娘们——能不能把那该死的游戏放一放，过来动动屁股，扭一扭？”

“嗨，姑娘们！”

指导老师无可奈何地发起脾气，三角俱乐部的主席愁容不展，怒目圆睁，一会儿大发雷霆训斥一通，一会儿又闷不作声，他无精打采地坐在那里，心中纳闷儿，不知道究竟怎样才能让这部剧赶上圣诞节的巡演。

“好吧。我们来排练那首海盗歌。”

这群男扮女装的姑娘最后抽了几口手里的烟，懒懒散散地各就各位；担当主角的姑娘急急忙忙冲到前台，踩出一阵制造气氛的小碎步，装腔作势地把手和脚架好；指导老师又是拍手，又是跺脚，身体一会儿斜向一边，一会儿打着嗒嗒的节奏，他们才勉强排了一出。

三角俱乐部就是一个活跃忙碌的巨大蚁冢。俱乐部每年排演一出音乐喜剧，整个圣诞假期，他们都要带着演员、合唱团、乐队、布景四处巡演。本科生负责创作剧本和音乐，而俱乐部本身无疑是最有影响力的社团，每年都有超过三百名学生申请加入。

艾默里因为在二年级第一次的《普林斯顿人日报》比赛中脱颖而出，便补缺饰演了“滚油”，一个海盗上尉。上周他们每晚都在娱乐城中排演《哈—哈奥尔唐斯！》，他们从下午两点排到早上八点，其间不得不依靠浓浓的黑咖啡来提神支撑，白天上课和课间的时候则在呼呼大睡。娱乐城是一个难得一见的场所。它就是一个大型的谷仓一样的礼堂：装扮成女孩、海盗和婴儿的男生散布于礼堂的各处；布景的工作正在如火如荼地展开，灯光师正在调试，有些怪异的光柱会直接投射进一双双愤怒的眼睛里；除此之外，还有乐队在进行常规调音的声音，或是三角俱乐部主题曲欢快的节拍声。那个写歌词的男孩正站在角落里，咬着铅笔，他要在二十分钟的时间里想出一个加演的节目；业务经理正在和俱乐部的干事争论到底要在“那些乱七八糟的挤奶女工的服装上”浪费多少钱；那个往届的毕业生，一八九八年的俱乐部主席，正坐在一个盒子上，想着他们那时候办事要简单多了。

三角俱乐部的剧目到底如何开场始终是一个谜，但一个人兢兢业业的付出是否足以获得一个可以戴在手表链上的金三角，才更是一个让人猜不透的谜。《哈—哈奥尔唐斯！》的剧本一共写了六稿，节目单上一共有九位合作者的名字。所有三角俱乐部的剧目创作的初衷都是要“有所不同——超越寻常的音乐喜剧”，然而经过数位作者、主席、指导教师和演职委员会的加工审定之后，完成的剧目几乎都千篇一律地秉承了三角俱乐部剧目稳妥的老一套：老一套的笑话，而担任主演的喜剧演员也总是在巡演开始之前要么被开除，要么病倒，要么出现什么别的状况；舞团里也总有一个髭须浓密的家伙，“绝不愿一天刮两遍胡子，绝不”！

《哈—哈奥尔唐斯！》有一处极为出彩的地方。普林斯顿有一个传统：那些加入了广为人知的骷髅会的耶鲁学生，不管何时，只要听到这个神圣的名字就要起身离开房间。这些成员都无一例外地在日后的人生中飞黄腾达，这也几乎成了另一个传统，他们或是聚敛财富，或是仕途得意，或者事业成功，反正他们选择什么就成就什么。因而，在每场《哈—哈奥尔唐斯！》的演出中，总会预留出六个座位不予出售，要给从街上花钱雇来的六个最为邋遢的流浪汉留着，这些流浪汉还要被三角俱乐部的化妆师修饰一番，以突出其不堪入目的形象。每次演出到“狂热分子”，海盗头目，指着黑色的海盗旗说，“我是耶鲁毕业生——看看我的骷髅旗！”的时候，那六个流浪汉就会按照事先的指示，非常招摇地从座位上站起身，带着抑郁、自尊心深受伤害的表情离开剧场。据未经证实的传言说，有一回那些受雇的埃利斯[66]居然真的因为一件什么事，气急败坏，愤然离去。

假期里他们在八个城市进行了巡演，观众主要是当地的名流。艾默里最喜欢路易斯维尔和孟菲斯这两个城市：这两个城市的人懂得如何接待陌生人，不仅提供上好的潘趣酒，并且两地都美女云集，让人叹为观止。他觉得芝加哥也不错，当地人热情有活力，完全消除了他们浓重的口音给人带来的不适——然而，那里毕竟是耶鲁的阵地，何况耶鲁的欢乐俱乐部一周后就会在那里演出，因而三角俱乐部只受到了有限的欢迎和礼遇。巴尔的摩是普林斯顿人的主场，每个人都恋恋不舍。他们一路上要消耗掉相当可观的烈性饮品，其中有一位演员每次登台都精神抖擞，他声称自己必须佐以烈酒才能对角色进行独特诠释。剧团配有三辆私人轿车，然而，除了第三辆车里的人，其他车里都没人睡，第三辆车也被称为“动物车”，那里聚集着乐队中戴着眼镜、喜欢夸夸其谈的一帮人。他们行程紧凑，所有的事都紧锣密鼓，根本没有时间感到无聊，然而当他们到达费城的时候，假期已经接近尾声，他们得以从鲜花和油彩的浓重氛围中脱身，舞蹈团里那些扮女装的男生也能脱掉把肚子勒疼的紧身衣，喘口气，放松一下。

待到巡演的队伍解散之际，艾默里迫不及待地动身前往明尼阿波利斯，因为莎莉·韦瑟比的表妹伊莎贝拉·博尔赫要来明尼阿波利斯过寒假，而她的父母则要到国外度假。他记得自己刚到明尼阿波利斯时，曾经和她一起玩过，那时她还是个小姑娘。她后来搬到了巴尔的摩居住——但从那之后她的情况便不得而知了。

艾默里一路健步如飞，心里充满自信，又有些紧张，还有难以抑制的兴奋。兴冲冲地赶回明尼阿波利斯去见一个儿时相识的小姑娘，这件事看起来很有意思，也很浪漫，所以当他发电报给妈妈让她不必等他回家时，他没有丝毫内疚——他坐上火车，在三十六个小时里一心想着他自己的事。

“宠爱”

在三角俱乐部的巡演途中艾默里开始频繁地接触到了当下美国极为盛行的现象——“宠爱聚会”。

那些因循守旧的像活在维多利亚时代的母亲——当然，大多数的妈妈都很像那个时代的人——根本不知道她们的女儿是多么随便地与人亲吻，她们的女儿对此已经习以为常，满不在乎了。“只有丫鬟们才会如此行事，”哈斯顿-卡莫莱特夫人对自己人见人爱的女儿说，“她们被吻在先，然后别人前来求婚。”

可这个人见人爱的女儿从十六岁到二十二岁，每六个月就会订一次婚，直到后来与凯姆贝尔父子公司的小汉姆贝尔结婚，这个年轻人居然愚蠢地相信自己是她的初恋情人。即使是在每一次订婚之后，这位人见人爱的女儿（她一贯相信物竞天择，适者生存，因而并不介意有人在舞会上横刀夺爱把她挑走）还要与他人作情意绵绵的最后吻别，或许是在月光下，或许是在炉火旁，也或许是在外面漆黑的夜色里。

艾默里见到的女孩子们的所作所为，即使是在他有限的记忆中，也都曾是被严格禁止的：舞会之后，凌晨三点在那些不三不四的咖啡馆里吃夜宵，毫无避讳地大肆谈论生活的方方面面，带着半认真半嘲讽的语气，还带着偷偷摸摸的兴奋，这在艾默里看来，世风是着实日下了。但直到他见识了从纽约到芝加哥之间的城市后，目睹了少男少女们如密谋一般统一的行动做派，才认识到这种风气的普遍程度。

午后的大酒店笼罩在冬日暮色的微光里，隐约有鼓乐声从楼下传来……他们在酒店的大堂中踱着步，有些烦躁不安，一杯接一杯地端起鸡尾酒，看得出他们都精心装扮过，都在等待着什么。这时旋转门转了起来，三个裹着裘皮大衣的人扭着身子走了进来。接下来他们要去看戏，坐在桌子边看上一阵子《午夜嬉戏》[67]——当然，母亲总是一路跟着，但她的存在只会让事情变得更隐蔽，更刺激，人都走后留她独自一人坐在甜品桌旁，心里还想着这样的消遣完全不像他们招贴画上画的那么差，只不过很容易让人厌倦。然而，人见人爱的女儿又坠入爱河了……有点儿奇怪，不是吗？——出租车里明明留有足够的空间，但人见人爱的女儿和来自威廉姆斯学院[68]的那个男生还是被挤了出来，而不得不单独另叫一辆车。奇怪！你难道没有注意到人见人爱的女儿晚到了七分钟，而且面颊绯红？不过人见人爱的女儿“总是能蒙混过关”。

这位“美人”已经变成了“调情者”，“调情者”又变成了“小荡妇”。这位“美人”每个下午都有五六位拜访者。如果人见人爱的女儿，由于某些奇怪的意外，同时有了两位来访者，那位无法与她约会的对象就会感到很不自在。舞会的间歇这位“美人”总是会被十几位男士环绕。如果你试图在舞会的间歇找到她，那只能去碰碰运气。

同一个姑娘……一边陶醉于丛林音乐的氛围中，一边又饱受道德规范的质疑。艾默里觉得如果他在八点前随便遇见哪个招摇的姑娘，十二点之前他就很有可能同她接吻，这种感觉实在令人着迷。

“我们究竟为什么会在这儿？”那天晚上在路易斯维尔乡村俱乐部外面，他问那个头上插着绿色压发梳的姑娘，当时他们坐在某个人的豪华轿车里。

“我不知道。我大概是鬼迷心窍了。”

“我们就直说吧——我们今后不可能再见面了。我愿意跟你出来到这儿来，只是因为你是我见到的最漂亮的女孩。你其实也不在乎还能不能再跟我见面的，对不对？”

“我不在乎——但你对每个女孩子都会这么说吗？我究竟做了什么，你要这样对我？”

“还有，你跳舞不觉得累吗？你不想抽根烟，或者干点儿你说过的什么事吗？你就是想着——”

“哦，我们进去吧，”她打断了他的话，“如果你要把我剖析一番。我们还是不要讨论这个话题为好。”

当时手工编织的无袖运动衫正引领潮流风尚，艾默里突发灵感，美其名曰“宠爱衫”。这个名字后来从东海岸传到西海岸，在好色之徒和人见人爱的女儿们之间口口相传。

客观描述

艾默里如今已经十八岁了，身高将近六英尺，一表人才，不是传统意义上的漂亮，而是异常英俊。他有一张稚气的脸庞，天真烂漫，但长而密的黑色睫毛下有一双锐利的碧眼。他没有那些俊男靓女身上常有的对异性的强烈吸引力，而有一种知性美，但这种特性绝非他所能控制，不能像水龙头那样可以随意打开或关闭。然而，他这张脸总是让人过目难忘。

伊莎贝拉

她站在楼梯的最顶端。兴奋的冲动在她的身体里翻涌，这种兴奋就像跳水运动员站在跳板之上，像女主角面临首演之夜，像那些生龙活虎的年轻人在全国大学生橄榄球赛那天所体验到的感受一样。她本来早该在鼓乐声中，或者在混合着《戴伊思》和《卡门》[69]的不和谐的主题音乐中下楼的。她从未像现在这样在意自己的外表，她也从未对自己的外表感到如此满意。她六个月前刚满十六岁。

“伊莎贝拉！”她的表姐莎莉站在更衣室的门口朝她喊道。

“我准备好了。”她觉得由于紧张嗓子里好像是哽住了。

“我得回去再拿双轻便舞鞋。一会儿就好。”

伊莎贝拉本来要到更衣室去，打算最后再照照镜子审视一番，然而她被某样东西吸引，莫名地在那里站住，俯瞰着明尼哈哈俱乐部宽阔的楼梯。楼梯转弯处的弧度半遮半掩，因而她只看到了楼下大厅里两双男士的脚。两双脚上统一都穿着黑色的男士包头鞋，无法辨认出鞋主人的身份，然而她急切地想知道是否其中的一双属于艾默里·布莱恩。这个年轻人，虽然此刻还未见到，却已经占据了她这一天中相当多的时间——这可是她到这里的第一天。从火车站坐上汽车回来开始，莎莉就抛给她一连串的问题，并不自觉地就要评论几句，透露些情况，或是夸大其词地渲染一番：

“你记得艾默里·布莱恩，对吧？好吧，他简直疯了似的想见到你。他从学校过来已经坐了一整天的车，今晚就能到。他听说了许多关于你的事——他说他还记得你的眼睛。”

这让伊莎贝拉心生得意。这样他们俩算是条件对等了，不管有没有事先的宣传，她都有能力主宰自己的浪漫故事。然而，她翘首期盼的幸福感觉过去后，随之而来的是一阵低落的情绪，她不禁问道：

“你说他听说了我许多事是什么意思？什么样的事？”

莎莉笑了。她感到自己在这位颇有姿色的表妹面前，更像一个经纪人。

“他知道你——你是公认的美女，就这些”——她停顿了一下——“还有，我猜他知道你被人吻过。”

一听这话，伊莎贝拉便猛地攥紧了她裘皮长袍下面的小拳头。她已经习惯了被人议论自己不堪回首的过去，她每一次都毫无例外地被弄得心烦意乱，不过——在这个陌生的小镇这倒是有优势的名声。她就是“老手”，不是吗？好吧——让他们等着瞧。

伊莎贝拉看着窗外的雪在严冬的早晨簌簌地飘落。这里总是比巴尔的摩冷得多，她居然都忘了。边门的玻璃上结满了冰，窗户的边角上都积着雪，好像打起了褶子。她的脑子还在想着一件事。他的穿着还像原来的那个男孩子吗？那个穿着莫卡辛软皮鞋和冬季狂欢的服装、在热闹的商业街头不紧不慢地走着的那个男孩？多么有西部风格！当然他不是那样的：他去了普林斯顿，差不多已经读大二了。事实上她对他只有非常模糊的印象。她的一个旧的柯达相册里还保存着一张过去的快照，她对他那双大眼睛印象深刻（现在他很可能已经像那双眼睛一样迷人了）。然而，当她上个月定下了冬季拜访莎莉的行程时，他已经显现出了一个势均力敌的对手的模样。孩子们最善于给人牵线搭桥，他们能够迅速地制订出活动计划，莎莉负责联络，她对伊莎贝拉冲动的个性做出了巧妙的应和。伊莎贝拉有时总是会产生强烈的情绪，即使是稍纵即逝的感情……

她们的车在一幢白色石头筑成的房子前停了下来，这幢房子气势雄伟，这里离那条积雪覆盖的街道有一段距离。韦瑟比太太热情地出门迎接，许多出于礼貌而躲起来的小表妹也都从藏身的角落里出来见了面。伊莎贝拉非常得体地同她们一一见面。她状态极佳，和她接触的每个人都和她交好——除了大一点的姑娘和几个妇人。她给人留下的印象都是有意为之。那天早上她重新认识的六个女孩子都对她有很好的印象，一来她性情爽朗，二来她们对她早有耳闻。艾默里·布莱恩是个公开的话题。显而易见，他一贯轻浮，对爱情不专一，算不上招人待见，但也不让人讨厌——那里的每个女孩子似乎都在某些时候和他有过交往，可是没人愿意提供任何真正有价值的信息。他准保会爱上她……莎莉把这一情况公布给她的一帮小姐妹，而她们刚刚见过伊莎贝拉就开始把同样的信息反过来兜售给她。伊莎贝拉暗暗地下定决心，如果需要，她会强迫自己喜欢他——这是莎莉所期望的。或许，她说不定会大失所望。莎莉把他描述得天花乱坠——他长相英俊，“如果他愿意的话，可以说是卓尔不群”，会说漂亮话，而且会恰到好处地不专情。事实上，他简直集所有的浪漫于一身，正是她这个年龄的姑娘所向往的，也是整个社会环境引导她们去追求的。她在想那是不是他的舞鞋，那双在下面柔软的地毯上迟疑地跳着狐步舞的舞鞋。

所有的印象，事实上，所有的想法对于伊莎贝拉来说，就像万花筒一样千变万化。她身上交融着社交和艺术两种不同的气质，这样的融合实在少见，通常这两种气质分属于交际花和女艺术家两个不同的阶层。她的教育，确切一点说是她的世故都来源于那些她看上的男生，她引诱他们和她成双入对；她的手段可以说是与生俱来的，只要在电话能打到的范围之内，她酝酿情事的能力，仅仅受限于那些对她没有抵抗力的男人的数量的多寡。她那双深棕色的大眼睛秋波滟滟，眉目传情，她对于异性的强烈吸引力，使她千娇百媚，顾盼生辉。

那天晚上在等着莎莉去拿舞鞋的时候，她就这样站在楼梯的顶端。正当她有些不耐烦的时候，莎莉从更衣室走了出来，满面笑容，带着她一贯的好脾气和好心情，她们一起下到一楼，有两个念头在伊莎贝拉的脑子里交替闪烁着：她为自己今晚神采奕奕而感到高兴，还有她在疑惑他是否是一个舞场高手。

在楼下俱乐部的大房间里，她一度被下午见到的那些女孩子包围，接着她听到莎莉重复着一连串的名字，而她则应声对着一组六个、黑白相间、穿着正式、异常拘谨、模模糊糊有点印象的人鞠躬致意。布莱恩的名字好像被提及了，但一开始她却找不到他人在哪里。接下来在后退和推搡中，这群年轻人乱作一团，窘态百出，他们发现自己不得不和最不想见到的人攀谈几句。伊莎贝拉趁机脱身，和弗洛吉·帕克在楼梯上找了个位置坐了下来，帕克现在是哈佛的大一新生，她记得他们曾在一起玩过跳房子。她现在只需幽默诙谐地提提旧事就行了。伊莎贝拉把一种想法落实到社交活动上的能力简直无与伦比。起先，她用略带一点南方口音的低沉嗓音，热情洋溢地重复着过去的事，其中还带着难以抑制的狂热；接着，她好像从远处观望一样停了下来，含笑不语——带着她那灿烂迷人的微笑；既而，她又变着花样地旧事重提，故意玩弄些欲擒故纵的花招，而所有这一切她通过普通的交谈就能做到。弗洛吉完全沉醉其中，丝毫没有察觉这一切并不是为了他，而是表演给在她左边不远处的那个人，那人有一双绿色的眼睛，那双眼睛在仔细喷了水的、油光发亮的头发下面熠熠闪动，伊莎贝拉已经发现了艾默里。一个女演员即使是在自己的个人魅力释放得最彻底的时候，也会对第一排的大多数观众有深刻的印象，伊莎贝拉此刻就在审视着自己的对手。首先，他长着一头红褐色的头发，这让她有些失望，她也因此意识到自己之前预想的是一个黑色头发，像袜带广告上那样清瘦的人物……至于其他方面，他面色红润，身材挺拔，看起来风流潇洒；身上一套修身的燕尾服，一件丝绸褶裥的衬衫，更衬托出他的风姿。当时，女士们依然乐见男士们穿着这种衬衫，但男士们已经开始对它感到厌烦了。

在伊莎贝拉审视他的时候，艾默里也在静静地观察。

“难道你不这么认为吗？”她猛然转过身，对着他一脸无辜地问道。

舞厅里出现一阵骚动，莎莉领着大家到桌子边就座。艾默里奋力挤到伊莎贝拉的身旁，悄声道：

“你是我晚宴上的搭档，你知道的。我们是天造地设的一对。”

伊莎贝拉倒吸了一口气——开腔搭讪就应该是这个样子。但实际上她感到自己被人抢了风头，好像主角的一段好词被一个小角色给抢去了……她决不能把主导权拱手让与他人。晚宴桌上不时有笑声传来，大家挤在桌边寻找各自的位置，乱作一团。当她在桌子的上席落座时，有许多好奇的目光都投向了她。她此刻如鱼得水，尽情享受着眼前的一切，弗洛吉·帕克完全被她吸引，绯红的脸颊更为她增添了光彩，帕克望着她不觉出了神，忘了帮莎莉拉出来椅子，陷入了不知所措的窘境。艾默里坐在另一边，一副自命不凡的得意姿态，目不转睛地盯着她，毫不掩饰对她的倾慕之情。他一上来就开门见山，弗洛吉也不甘示弱：

“你还扎着辫子的时候，我就听说了许多关于你的事——”

“今天下午是不是有点儿荒唐——”

两人都停了下来。伊莎贝拉满面含羞地转向艾默里。不管对于什么人来说，她的脸庞已经足以回答任何问题，但她还是决定开口。

“怎么得知的——从谁那儿听说的？”

“人人都在说——从你离开之后这些年大家一直都在说你。”她恰如其分地红了脸。在她右边的弗洛吉已经被判出局了，尽管他自己似乎还没有意识到这一点。

“我来告诉你这些年我记得的关于你的事情。”艾默里继续说道。她将身体微微靠向他，眼睛则羞答答地盯着自己面前的一盘芹菜。弗洛吉叹了口气——他了解艾默里，也知道艾默里似乎生来就懂得掌控局面。他转向莎莉，问她是否明年就要出去求学了。艾默里发起了连珠炮式的进攻。

“我想到了一个形容词，与你非常相配。”这是他最为喜欢的开场白之一——他很少真的想到了什么词，但这么说会引起对方的好奇心，而且他总是能在情急之中，想到一些恭维之词。

“噢——什么词？”伊莎贝拉一脸醉心其中的好奇表情。

艾默里摇了摇头。

“我对你还不够了解。”

“你会告诉我吗——回头？”她用接近耳语的声音说道。

他点了点头。

“我们出去坐坐吧。”

伊莎贝拉点头同意。

“有没有人跟你说过，你的眼睛摄人心魄？”她说道。

艾默里试着让他的眼睛看起来更加敏锐。他猜想她的脚刚刚在桌子底下碰了碰他，但并不十分确定。但也可能只是桌腿碰到了他。这实在是难以分辨。不过，这还是让他兴奋异常，他很快就在想是否有可能用一下楼上的小房间。

林中的孩子

伊莎贝拉和艾默里显然都不纯真，但他们也没有特别厚颜无耻。而且，外行的身份在他们现在正玩的游戏中毫无价值可言，这种游戏可以说是她之后许多年里的主要功课。她和他一样，一开始游戏只是因为长得漂亮和容易激动的性情而引发的，后来，他们接触到一些随手可及的通俗小说，从大一点的孩子在更衣室的谈话中听到相关的内容，于是便开始了这样的游戏。伊莎贝拉从九点半开始一直在用一种扭捏的步态走路，当她那双炯炯有神的大眼睛装出一副天真少女的模样时，艾默里相对来说并没有被她蒙骗。他在等着她卸下面具，但同时他并不想质疑她如此这般做作，因为她有权利这么做。而对她来说，她并没有被他的精于世故和学究气质打动。她毕竟在大城市生活过，见过很多世面。但她接受他的这种姿态——这也是在谈情说爱中惯用的十几个小伎俩之一。他意识到自己如此受到她的偏爱恰恰是因为她在这方面训练有素，他知道自己是她视野之内最好的猎物，而在他失去自己的优势之前，他必须更好地把握自己的时机。因而他们把这个游戏一路进行下去，用尽了心机和诡计，如果她的父母知道，势必会大为震惊。

晚宴之后，舞会就开始了……顺利开始。顺利吗？——每跳几步，就会有男生上来把伊莎贝拉抢过去，接下来他们还会在角落里吵个没完：“你最好让我离她更近一点！”还有：“她也不喜欢这样——我第二次截舞时她这么对我说的。”这话不假——她对每个人都这么说，跳完松手之际她还会特意用力握一下对方的手，意思是说：“和你共舞成就了我的夜晚。”

但时间流逝，两个小时过去了，那些不太敏感的男舞伴最好把他们假装激情的目光投向别处，因为十一点的时候，在楼上阅览室旁的小房间里，伊莎贝拉和艾默里已经在沙发上坐定了。她意识到他们是漂亮的一对，似乎只有这个幽闭的角落才配得上他们这样的佳人，而那些不那么耀眼的人则在楼下上蹿下跳，叽叽喳喳。

那些从门前经过的男孩子都投来嫉妒的目光——女孩子们经过的时候只是笑笑或皱皱眉头，她们心里都更有数了。

他们此时已经步入了一个非常明确的阶段。他们交流了最后一次见面之后彼此的生活进展，而她听到的多数是她早已听过的故事。他正在读大学二年级，加入了《普林斯顿人日报》社，成了编委之一，有望在四年级的时候成为编委会的主席。他得知她在巴尔的摩交往过的一些男孩子是“情场老手”，他们会带着假装的兴奋参加舞会；他们大多数二十来岁，开着炫目的红色斯图兹跑车[70]。他们当中的一大半已经从高中或者大学中退学，其中还有几个是小有名气的运动员，这不免让他对她刮目相看。事实上，伊莎贝拉和大学更进一步的接触才刚刚开始。她和许多年轻人有过一面之交，他们认为她是个“漂亮小妞——值得他们留点儿神”。然而，伊莎贝拉用这些成串的名字织出了一张快乐织锦，即使是维也纳的贵族见了也会觉得炫目非常。这就是这位坐在软沙发里、有着低沉嗓音的年轻女士的本事。

他问她是否觉得他有点自高自大。她说自高自大和自信是两回事。她钦佩的是男人身上的自信。

“弗洛吉算是你的好友吗？”她问道。

“差不多——怎么了？”

“他是个很蹩脚的舞伴。”

艾默里笑了起来。

“他跳舞的时候，好像女孩子是在他后背上而不是在他怀里。”

她很赞同这个说法。

“你总是很善于观察别人。”

艾默里竭力想否认这一点。然而，他忍不住又对几个人评头论足一番，都是为了给她看。后来，他们谈论起手来。

“你的手真是美极了，”她说，“它们看起来像一双弹钢琴的手。你弹吗？”

我已经说过他们步入了一个非常明确的阶段——不，应该说是远不止于此，是进入了一个关键的阶段。艾默里乘了一天多的火车来看她，要知道他乘的那趟车是夜里十二点十八分发车的。他的行李箱和手提包都还在车站等着他，他的怀表已经在口袋里待了有一阵子，开始变得沉重起来。

“伊莎贝拉，”他突然开口道，“我要跟你说件事。”他们之前一直在轻松地聊“她眼中有趣的神情”，伊莎贝拉从他态度的变化中已经知道接下来会发生什么——确实，她一直纳闷要等到什么时候才会开始。艾默里把手伸到他们头顶上方，关掉了电灯，这样他们就处在一片黑暗之中了，只有阅览室的灯光透过门照进来，在黑暗中映出明灭可见的红色微光。然后，他开了口：

“我不知道你是否清楚——我将要说的这些话。上帝啊，伊莎贝拉——这听起来像是在背台词，但这不是。”

“我知道。”伊莎贝拉温柔地说。

“或许我们以后再也不能像今天这样见面了——我有时候实在是没什么运气。”他把身子从她身边挪开，靠在长沙发的另一个扶手上，但她依然能在黑暗中清楚地看到他的眼睛。

“你当然会再见到我——傻瓜。”她只是在最后一个词上稍微有些着重——这样它听起来差不多像一个昵称。他声音略带沙哑地继续说道：

“我曾经倾心于许多人——女孩子——我猜你也一样——倾心一些男孩子，我的意思是，可是，老实说，你——”他突然间打住，说不下去了。他身子前倾，用手托住下巴：“哎，这有什么用——我们总要分道扬镳，你走你的路，我走我的。”

有一阵子两人都默不作声。伊莎贝拉很受触动，她把自己的手帕卷成一个紧实的球，借着从她上方倾泻下来的微光，故意把它丢在了地上。有一刹那，他们的手碰在了一起，但两人都没有说话。沉默变得更为频繁，也更加甜蜜。外面另一对落单的情侣走了过来，开始在隔壁房间的钢琴上弹奏了起来。弹完平时的练习曲目《筷子曲》，他们中的一个开始演奏《林中的孩子》[71]，一个轻柔的男高音跟着曲子唱了起来，歌声传进了小房间里：

给我你的手——

我就会知道，

我们要出发去往睡梦之乡。

伊莎贝拉跟着轻轻哼唱起来，忽然一阵颤抖，她感到艾默里握住了自己的双手。

“伊莎贝拉，”他耳语着，“你知道我发了疯似的喜欢你。你对我也是有意的。”

“是的。”

“你有多在乎我——还是你更在乎别的什么人？”

“没有。”他几乎听不到她的声音，尽管他已经把头埋得很低，脸颊上都能感到她温热的鼻息。

“伊莎贝拉，我很快就要返校，在那里待上漫长的六个月，我们为什么不——如果有一件事值得我对你念念不忘，那么——”

“关上门……”她的声音仿佛只是一阵轻微的喘息，他甚至怀疑她是否开口说了话。当他轻轻推门把它关上的时候，外面的音乐声似乎也颤动起来。

月色多明亮，

吻我入梦乡。

多么美妙的歌声，她暗想着——今夜的一切都如此完美，最美好的莫过于这个小房间里的浪漫情景，他们双手紧扣，那不可避免的动人情形也要翩然来临。她未来的生活图景似乎正是此刻良辰美景的无限延展：在月光和淡淡的星光下，在豪华轿车温暖的后座上，在树荫掩映中停着的低矮舒适的敞篷轿车上——只是男孩子可能会换，而眼前这个是那么帅气。他轻轻握住她的手。突然之间他把它翻转过来，贴于他的唇上，吻了一下她的手心。

“伊莎贝拉！”他的低语声与音乐声融合在了一起，而他们似乎也越贴越近了。她的呼吸开始加快。“我可不可以吻你，伊莎贝拉——伊莎贝拉？”她在黑暗中把头转向他，微微张开嘴唇。突然间，一阵嘈杂的说话声、跑动的脚步声朝他们奔涌而来。艾默里如闪电一般飞快地伸手掀亮了电灯，门打开了，冲进来三个男生，其中之一就是急吼吼地要跳舞的弗洛吉。此时，艾默里已经坐定，正在翻阅桌上的杂志，而她则一动不动地坐着，安然自若，气定神闲，甚至还冲他们笑了笑，表示欢迎。然而，她的心在怦怦乱跳，她感到自己平白无故被人抢去了什么。

显然，这一切都结束了。大家嚷着要跳舞，他们俩互相交换了一个眼神——在他那一边是沮丧，在她这一边是惋惜，接下来晚会继续，男舞伴们打消了顾虑，还是无休止地插进来跳舞。

还差一刻就午夜十二点了，在一群凑过来祝他好运的人当中，艾默里郑重地和她握了握手。有一瞬间他忽然难以自持，她心里也感到一阵骚动，人群中不知哪个爱逗趣的人插科打诨道：

“带她出去，艾默里！”他在握着她的手时，轻轻按了一下，她也回以同样的反应，就像她和这天晚上二十双手分开时的反应一样——仅此而已。

当她们两点钟回到韦瑟比家时，莎莉问她是否和艾默里在小房间里有过“良宵一刻”。伊莎贝拉平静地转过身来，望着莎莉。她的眼中闪烁着理想主义者的光芒，宛如一个梦想成为圣女贞德那样不容诋毁的梦想家。

“没有，”她回答说，“我已经不做那样的事了；他试图让我那样，但我拒绝了。”

她爬上床时还在想，在明天特别提到这件事时不知道他会怎么说。他长着一张如此好看的嘴巴——她有没有可能——？

“有十四位天使在守候着他们。”莎莉在隔壁房间里带着睡意唱道。

“该死！”伊莎贝拉嘟囔着，一边把枕头拍打得蓬松隆起，一边小心翼翼地试探着钻进冰冷的被子里，“该死！”

狂欢

艾默里因故去了趟《普林斯顿人日报》社。那些无足轻重的势利小人，可以说是衡量成功的精密温度计，眼看俱乐部的选举在即，纷纷对他热情起来，常有高年级的学生成群结队地来拜访他和汤姆，他们的出现总有些唐突，进来之后就靠在家具的边角上，东拉西扯，唯独不提最令人关注的话题。受到如此殷切的关注让艾默里感到很有趣，假使那些来访者代表着他不感兴趣的俱乐部，他就故意说上些不成体统的话来吓唬他们，他自己则感到无比高兴。

“噢，让我想一想——”有一天晚上，他对着一个目瞪口呆的代表说，“你们是代表哪个俱乐部的？”

在来自常春藤、木屋、虎吧这些俱乐部的来访者面前，他可以游刃有余地扮演起“温和、懂事、天真的男孩子”的角色，对于他们到访的目的装作一无所知的样子。

三月初的一个早上迎来了决定胜负的选举日，整个校园都沸腾了，见证了各式各样情绪失控、精神异常的情况，他和埃里克·康尼奇悄悄地溜进木屋俱乐部，不可思议地发现他的同班同学忽然都变得神经兮兮。

这里有那些在俱乐部之间跳来跳去的摇摆群体；也有彼此结识不过三两天的朋友，哭天抢地地非要加入同一俱乐部，声称什么也不能把他们分开；还有那些一夜成名的，记起自己还是新生时遭受的冷落，不免要把积怨发泄一番。有些无名小卒一旦获得让人觊觎的会员资格，很快便会声名鹊起；另有一些自以为已经“搞定一切”的人却遭遇到不曾料想到的劲敌，会感到自己陷入困顿，被人抛弃，他们甚至扬言要退学。

艾默里看到在自己那群人中，有的人会被排斥在外，仅仅是因为戴着绿色的帽子，或者因为有点像“该死的裁缝的人体模型”，或因为“天堂里太有吸引力”，或因为某一天晚上醉得“不像个绅士，上帝做证啊”，或者因为某些除了反对票操纵者再无人知晓的深不可测的秘密原因。

这场社交狂欢活动在拿骚酒吧举办的盛大晚会中达到了高潮，巨型碗盛装的潘趣酒不停地供应，整个楼下的人都欣喜若狂，觥筹交错，到处是欢呼的脸庞和呼喊的声音。

“嗨，迪比——祝贺你！”

“好样的，汤姆，你在帽子俱乐部有一帮得力干将。”

“嗨，凯里——”

“哦，凯里——我听说跟你一起去虎吧俱乐部的都是举重运动员！”

“嗨，我没去木屋俱乐部——那帮花花公子的乐园。”

“他们说欧文顿得知自己拿到了常春藤的会员资格，当场昏了过去——他当天就签了吗？——噢，没有。他蹬上自行车就飞奔去了穆雷-道奇大楼——生怕是搞错了。”

“你怎么加入帽子俱乐部的——你这个不知悔改的酒色之徒。”

“祝贺你！”

“祝贺你自己吧。听说你手下有一大帮人。”

酒吧打烊时，晚会才结束，人们三五成群地分散开来，拥向积雪覆盖的校园，他们一路唱着歌，沉浸在一种不切实际的幻觉中，似乎趋炎附势和剑拔弩张的气氛终于已经过去，他们可以在接下来的两年里自由自在、无拘无束了。

许久之后，艾默里把这个大学二年级的春天看作他人生中最幸福的时光。那时他的想法和他眼前的生活完全合拍。他所想的莫过于放任自流，随心畅想，与新结识的十几个朋友度过惬意的四月午后。

一天早上，埃里克·康尼奇来到他的房间，把他从床上叫起来，那时太阳已经升起来很高，窗户上闪耀着坎贝尔大楼独特的光辉。

“起来，原罪，醒醒吧。半小时后到伦威克咖啡馆门口。他们有车子。”他拎起五斗橱的罩子，连同上面的许多小玩意儿，小心翼翼地放在了床上。

“你从哪里搞来的车子？”艾默里挖苦地问道。

“相信我就是了，不过你可不要多嘴多舌，不然就别想去了！”

“我想我还是要睡觉。”艾默里平静地说道，重新钻进被窝里，一边伸手到床边去拿烟。

“睡觉！”

“为什么不？我十一点半还要上课。”

“你真能扫兴！当然，除非你不想去海边——”

艾默里从床上一跃而起，把五斗橱罩子上的小东西撒了一地。海边……他许多年没去过了，上次去还是跟着妈妈一起家庭旅行的时候。

“都有谁去？”他一边往身上套着内衣一边追问道。

“哦，迪克·亨博德、凯里·霍里德，还有杰西·菲伦比，还有——哦，差不多五六个人吧。快点儿，老弟！”

不到十分钟的时间，艾默里就已经钻进伦威克咖啡馆，在里面大口大口地吃起牛奶玉米片了。九点半的时候他们已经开开心心地上了路，把小镇甩在了身后，直奔迪尔海滩[72]的沙滩而去。

“瞧瞧，”凯里说，“车子原本就在那儿。事实上，这车子不知是被谁从阿斯波利公园[73]偷来的，后来那人把车子丢在普林斯顿去了西部。咱们铁面无私的亨博德从市议会获得了许可来处置它。”

“有人带钱了吗？”菲伦比从前排座位转过头来，提醒大家说。

大家几乎异口同声地断然否认。

“这下可有意思了。”

“钱——钱是什么？我们把车子卖了不就有了。”

“把它当废品卖了怎么样？”

“我们怎么才能弄点吃的？”艾默里问道。

“说实在的，”凯里用责备的眼光看着他，回答道，“你是在怀疑我在短短三天内活下去的能力吗？有时候有些人即使几十年一无所有也照样活下来了。读读《童子军月刊》吧。”

“三天呀，”艾默里若有所思地说，“我还有课呢。”

“其中有一天是安息日。”

“还不都一样，学期还有一个半月呢，我只能再翘六节课。”

“把他扔出去！”

“走回去可得好久呢。”

“艾默里，如果我可以造一个新词的话，你这是在出风头。”

“艾默里，你难道没想过麻醉一下你自己吗？”

艾默里缩回座位中，偃旗息鼓，不再开口，他看着车窗外的景色，陷入了沉思。斯温伯恩的诗句此时倒是应景：

噢，冬日的冷雨和萧瑟都已消逝，

冰雪与罪恶的季节已杳无踪迹；

恋人们天各一方的长日也要结束，

黯淡的天光，无尽的黑夜，都随之而去；

时光在记忆中驻留，悲伤却已忘却，

寒霜消融，春花已在枝头萌动，

树丛中绿芽新展，枝头绿叶如盖，

鲜花竞放，春朝已至。

春水潺潺浇灌着花——[74]

“怎么了，艾默里？艾默里满脑子诗情画意，正想着美丽的鸟儿和花儿。我从他眼睛里就能看出来。”

“没有，我没有，”他掩饰道，“我正想着《普林斯顿人日报》，今晚本该我去排版，但我想我可以打电话回去。”

“哎，”凯里满怀敬意地说道，“这些大人物呀——”

艾默里不觉红了脸，他好像看到败选的菲伦比微微眉头一皱。当然，凯里只是在开玩笑，但自己实在不该提到《普林斯顿人日报》。

真是风和日丽美好的一天，当他们离海边越来越近的时候，已经能感觉到扑面而来的带着咸味的海风，他开始想象那波澜壮阔的大海，绵延平坦的沙滩，还有碧波之上的红色屋顶。很快，他们就穿过了小镇，大海突然出现在眼前，那一瞬间，他兴奋不已，心潮宛如凯歌般澎湃……

“噢，天哪！快看！”他大叫起来。

“怎么了？”

“放我下去，快——我有八年没见过它了！哦，好心人啊，快停车！”

“这小子真古怪！”埃里克说。

“我真觉得他有点儿怪异。”

车子如他所愿贴着路沿停了下来，艾默里朝着海滨步道飞奔起来。起先，他意识到海是蓝色的，接着又觉得它茫茫一片，浩瀚无边，再后来他听到涛声阵阵，不绝于耳——确实，正像人们所认识的海洋，这不过是它最平常的景象，但那时如果有人告诉他，这些是再平常不过的景象，他一定会惊讶得目瞪口呆。

“现在我们该去吃午饭了，”大家伙儿在一起溜达的时候，凯里像下达命令一样说，“行啦，艾默里，走吧，你也该实际一点。”

“我们应该先去最好的饭店，”他接着说，“然后一步一步再作打算。”

他们沿着海滨步道漫步，挑了目之所及最为豪华的一家酒店，径直就去了那里的餐厅，围着一张桌子坐下。

“八杯布朗克斯鸡尾酒，”埃里克吩咐道，“再来一份总会三明治和土豆条。吃的每人一份。余下喝的大家分吧。”

艾默里吃得很少，他一直坐在那把能够看见大海，并感受得到礁石上惊涛拍岸的气势的椅子上。午餐结束后，他们都坐着，安静地抽着烟。

“花了多少钱？”

有人扫了一眼。

“八块两毛五。”

“漫天要价。我们就给两块，再给一块给服务生。凯里，找找身上的零钱。”

服务生走了过来，凯里郑重地递给他一块钱，又丢了两块钱在账单上，接着扭头就走了。他们慢悠悠地朝门口晃过去，不一会儿就被那个心存疑虑的伽倪默德[75]给追上了。

“搞错了，先生。”

凯里接过来账单，仔仔细细地核对了一番。

“没问题！”他说着，一边一本正经地摇着头，一边把账单撕成四片，丢给了服务生。服务生一时没反应过来，站在原地一动不动，一脸茫然，而他们则大摇大摆地走了出去。

“他会不会再来追我们？”

“不会，”凯里说，“他这一时半会儿肯定认为我们是大老板的儿子或者什么；过会儿他会再核对下账单，然后把经理叫来，到那个时候——”

他们把车丢在了阿斯波利，乘电车去了阿伦赫斯特，他们去那些挤满人的亭子里转悠，专门看那些漂亮的姑娘。四点钟的时候，午餐室里提供点心，他们这一次依然只付了总数的一小部分，甚至比上一次的比例还少。大约他们这伙人的长相和手段发挥了作用，使得他们每次都能得逞，这一次也没有人来追他们。

“看到了吧，艾默里，我们是马克思说的社会主义者，”凯里解释说，“我们不相信私有财产，而且我们正在将它付诸伟大的实验。”

“马上要天黑了。”艾默里提醒说。

“看着吧，你就对霍里德彻底放心吧。”

五点半的时候他们变得快活起来，手挽着手，排成一排在海滨步道上来回闲逛，一边还哼唱着关于悲伤的海浪的小曲儿。这时凯里被人群中的一张脸吸引住了，他跑了过去，但很快就回来了，带着一个艾默里所见过的最不起眼的女孩子。她长着一张苍白的大嘴巴，从一只耳朵一直咧到另一只耳朵，龅牙鼓出来像一个楔子，眯眯眼还有点斜视，谄媚似的在她宽阔的鼻翼上方瞟来瞟去。凯里正儿八经地给他们做了介绍。

“她叫卡卢卡，夏威夷女王！我来介绍下这几位先生。康尼奇先生，斯洛恩先生，亨博德先生，菲伦比先生和布莱恩先生。”

那个姑娘挨个行了屈膝礼。可怜的人儿。艾默里猜想她可能从未被人注意过——说不定她还有点弱智。她和他们同行期间（凯里邀请她共进晚餐），她的言行无不印证着艾默里的猜想。

“她更喜欢自己的家乡菜，”埃里克一本正经地对侍者说，“不过，不要太过精细的饭菜也可以。”

整个晚餐期间他对她说话都毕恭毕敬，凯里在另一边朝她傻乎乎地示爱，她咯咯笑个不停，合不拢嘴。艾默里乐得坐在一旁看着他们打情骂俏，一边想着凯里的品位实在一般，以及他如何把一次普通的遇见演绎成了曲折有趣的故事。他们在座的几个人似乎或多或少都有这样的能力，和他们在一起无异于一次身心的放松。艾默里通常只喜欢和男孩子单个地交往，一大群人会让他感到恐慌，除非这群人是以他为中心的。他想知道每个人对于整体都做了怎样的贡献，因为大家多多少少总要有精神上的付出。埃里克和凯里是这群人的活力所在，但他们并非中心。从某种角度上说，那个默不作声的亨博德，还有带着咄咄逼人的傲慢的斯洛恩，才是他们的中心所在。

迪克·亨博德，从大学一年级开始，似乎就被艾默里看作一个贵族的典型代表。他身材修长但匀称健壮，黑色的鬈发，五官端正，肤色偏黑。他说的每句话，不知为何听起来都合情合理。他胆量过人，虽然算不上智力超群，但头脑灵活，充满了荣誉感，那是一种带着十足魅力和贵族使命的荣誉感，不同于一般的正义感。他也会挥霍放荡，但不会萎靡不振，即使是他最为出格的冒险，也从不会被人认为是“出风头”。人们模仿他的穿衣打扮，学他说话的方式……艾默里甚至认定他可能会妨碍世界的进步，但自己是不会被亨博德改变的……

他不像典型的中产阶级那样健康有活力——他似乎从来不出汗。如果没有回报的话，有些人是不会跟司机打交道的；但亨博德即使是在雪梨餐厅同一个黑人共进午餐，人们也总是放心，觉得这很正常。他不是一个势利小人，尽管他只认识班上一半的同学。他的朋友既有出身高贵的，也有来自底层的，但是想要刻意与他“交好”则是不可能的。仆人们对他顶礼膜拜，把他奉若神明。他似乎是高年级学生想要努力成为的永恒楷模。

“他就像《伦敦新闻画刊》上登载的阵亡英国军官的画像。”艾默里曾对埃里克这样说。

“好吧，”埃里克回答说，“如果你想知道让人震惊的真相，他的父亲曾经是一名杂货店的店员，后来在塔克马的房地产市场上捞了一笔，十年前来到了纽约。”

艾默里当时感到心中涌起一股莫名的消沉情绪。

目前这种类型的聚会总是发生在俱乐部选举之后，班上的同学一呼百应，凑到一起——仿佛要孤注一掷，最后一次努力了解自己的集体，和同伴们团结一心抵制其他俱乐部各自为政的抱团理念。这是把他们从平日里谨言慎行、亦步亦趋的拘束中解放出来的、彻底放松的活动。

晚饭之后他们把卡卢卡送到海滨步道，然后沿着海滩闲逛回阿斯波利。夜晚的大海给人不一样的感觉，它的色彩和醇美的沧桑感似乎都已消逝，只剩下让斯堪的纳维亚的传奇英雄黯然神伤的一片荒凉废墟。艾默里想到了吉卜林的诗句：

海豹掠杀者来临之前的腊卡农海滩。[76]

大海依然是一段乐章，只是充满了无尽的忧伤。

到了晚上十点的时候，他们已经身无分文了。他们用仅有的一毛一分钱饱餐了一顿，之后唱着歌、踱着步穿过海滨步道上的赌场和亮着灯的拱门，也会不时驻足，饶有兴致地听一听沿途乐队的演奏。在一个地方，凯里加入了一个为法国战争孤儿募捐的活动，净得了一块两毛钱，他们用这笔钱买了些白兰地酒，以防夜里受凉感冒。他们最后看了场电影，结束了这一天的活动，那是一部古典喜剧。他们一边看，一边集体爆发出阵阵大笑，场内的其他观众受到了惊扰，不禁对他们满腹怨言。他们一开始的入场很明显是预先策划好的，每个人入场时都指着身后的那个人骂骂咧咧。斯洛恩，他是最后一个进来的，当他看到其他人都已在场内就座，便装作一无所知的样子，推脱掉所有的责任。接着，当气急败坏的检票员冲进场内找人的时候，他便若无其事地跟了进来。

他们后来在赌场旁边重新会合，安排了一下如何过夜。凯里跟看门人套近乎磨了半天，最后他准许他们睡在平台上。他们在售货亭中收集到了一堆毯子当作床垫和被子，并且一直畅谈到深夜，后来都昏昏沉沉入睡了，一夜无梦，但艾默里则尽可能地保持清醒，为了看海面上一轮皓月的壮观景象。

他们就这样痛痛快快地玩了两日，乘着电车或汽车在海滨游玩，或者沿着拥挤的海滨步道徜徉；他们有时和有钱人一起进餐，更多的时候则是在那些老板毫无戒心的餐馆里，简单吃上几口就溜之大吉。在一家快印店里，他们拿着架势，一共拍了八张相片。凯里坚持要大家一起，拍张橄榄球“校队”的集体照，后来又拍了张纽约东区流氓团伙的集体照，大家都反穿着外套，凯里在正当中，坐在一个硬纸板做成的月亮上面。摄影师很可能一直在欺骗他们——至少，从没叫他们去取过照片。天气格外宜人，他们又在外面睡了一宿，艾默里照例不情愿马上进入梦乡。

星期天一大早，天空就是一副高高在上的冷漠姿态，连大海都开始低沉地抱怨起来。于是，他们就搭上过路农场主的福特车，返回了普林斯顿。他们都得了感冒，头昏脑涨地各自散去，但除此之外，这趟漫游并没有生出别的麻烦来。

早在这之前一年，艾默里就开始荒疏学业了，他并不是故意的，而是由于懒惰，外加上兴趣广泛而无暇顾及。解析几何，还有高乃依和拉辛的忧思六音步诗行对他实在没什么吸引力；他之前翘首期盼的心理学，原来也是一门枯燥的学科，讲的都是肌肉反射和生物学术语，根本不是性格和影响因素研究。那门课排在中午，总是让他昏昏欲睡。后来他发现“主观和客观，先生”这句话可以回答绝大多数的问题，便不管什么场合，总是拿这一句来搪塞。有一次老师瞅准了，专门喊他起来回答问题，不知是菲伦比还是斯洛恩把他弄醒，他站起来脱口而出的就是这句，这件事一度在班上被传为笑话。

聚会是常有的——到奥兰治或者新泽西的海滩，偶尔也会去纽约和费城，他们有一次在纽约，从查尔兹酒吧带出来十四个女招待，把她们拉上一辆公交巴士的顶层，一起沿着第五大道兜风。他们缺课的次数越来越多，已经超出了规定允许的范围，这意味着来年他们不得不多修一门附加课程，但春光大好，他们不允许任何事来干扰他们丰富多彩的外出漫游。五月的时候，艾默里当选为二年级的舞会筹备委员，他和埃里克经过一长夜的谈论，草拟出了一份加入高年级学生会的班级备选人的暂定名单，他们把自己放在了确定当选的一栏里。高年级学生会大概由十八位最具代表性的高年级学生组成，考虑到埃里克作为橄榄球经理的身份，和艾默里取代伯恩·霍里德成为《普林斯顿人日报》主席的可能性，他们的推测似乎还是很有道理的。奇怪的是，他们两个都把丹维里埃列入了可能人选的名单，这一猜测如果放在一年前肯定会让班上的同学大跌眼镜。

整个春天艾默里和伊莎贝拉·博尔赫都保持着断断续续的书信往来，两人的激烈争吵常会导致书信中断，而他寻找新的爱情词汇的不懈努力又使得这样的往来得以维系。他发现伊莎贝拉在信中总是小心谨慎并且表现出越来越鲜明的理智，但他仍抱有一线希望，但愿她不至于过分高贵冷艳到与整个春天都格格不入，而最好她能像在明尼哈哈俱乐部时那样，让他在小房间春心荡漾。五月间，他几乎每天晚上都写上洋洋洒洒三十页信纸，把信封塞得满满的寄给她，外面还要标上“第一部分”和“第二部分”。

“哦，埃里克，我觉得我已经厌倦大学生活了。”当他们在黄昏一起散步的时候，他难过地说。

“我想，在某种程度上，我也是。”

“我想要的不过是乡下的一处小屋，在某个温暖的乡下，还有一个老婆，再做一点不至于让自己虚度余生的事情。”

“我也一样。”

“我想退学。”

“你女朋友怎么说？”

“哦！”艾默里冷不丁地被吓了一跳，“对于结婚，她恐怕想都没想过……我是说，目前没想过。我刚才说的是将来，你知道的。”

“我女朋友说要结婚。我已经订婚了。”

“真的订婚了？”

“对。不要对任何人透露，拜托，但我确实是订婚了。明年我可能就不来了。”

“可你刚刚二十岁！要放弃学业？”

“怎么了，艾默里，你刚刚不是还说——”

“是的，”艾默里打断他说，“但我只是希望。我不会真的想退学。刚才只是因为这美妙的夜晚让我感怀。我有种感觉，这些美妙的夜晚将一去不复返，而我还没有来得及好好体会。我希望我的女朋友能在身边。但是结婚——根本不可能。尤其是我父亲说，钱不像过去那么好赚了。”

“这些个晚上真是良辰虚度呀！”埃里克附和着说。

艾默里叹了口气，但开始利用起这些夜晚的时光。他有一张伊莎贝拉的快照，镶在一块旧的怀表里面，几乎每天晚上一到八点钟，他就会把灯关掉，只留下书桌上的台灯，这时他会把这张照片放在面前，坐在打开的窗户前面，着了迷似的给她写信。

……噢，对你的思念如此深切，以至于我无法说清自己此时的真实感受；你对于我来说犹如一场梦境，恕我无法将对你的感觉付诸纸笔。你的前信我已收到，简直美妙至极！我把它从头到尾读了六遍，尤其是最后一部分，有时候我非常希望，你能更加坦率一些，告诉我你对我的真实看法，但是你在信中把我写得太过美好，我甚至怀疑这是否是你的真实情感，我已经等不到六月了！你务必要做好准备，来参加我们的舞会。我想，舞会应该会很棒，我希望在这个精彩的学年结束的时候，带上你一起参加。我经常回想起你那天晚上说的话，想弄明白你究竟想对我说什么。假如是别的什么人，而不是你——可是，你知道第一次见你的时候我觉得你是轻浮善变的，你是如此受人欢迎，宛如被众星所拱的月亮，我无法想象你真的最喜欢我。

噢，亲爱的伊莎贝拉——这真是一个美好的夜晚。有人正在远处的校园里用曼陀林演奏《爱之月》，音乐仿佛把你送到了我的窗口。这会儿他又在弹奏《再见，小伙子，我已经结束》，这音乐与我正合适，因为我正好结束了所有事情。我已经决定再也不碰鸡尾酒了，我也知道自己不会再一次坠入爱河——我做不到——你已经占据了我的黑夜和白天，对于别的姑娘，我连想都不会想。我每天都能遇到她们，但对她们没有丝毫的兴趣。我并不是要假装无动于衷，因为根本不是那样的。只是因为我在爱着你。噢，最最亲爱的伊莎贝拉（不知为什么我就是无法只单纯地叫你伊莎贝拉，我恐怕今年六月在你的家人面前，我也会忍不住会说“最最亲爱的”），你一定要来参加舞会，随后我会到你家拜访，待上一天，这样一切就完满了……

如此等等，一味地重复着你侬我侬的论调，但是对于他们两位似乎有着无穷的吸引力，百看不厌。

六月来临，烈日炎炎，人们都懒洋洋的，就算是考试也无法让他们打起精神。他们在木屋俱乐部的院子里度过让人昏昏欲睡的黄昏，在那里高谈阔论，直到石溪那边的乡野被蓝色的雾霭笼罩，网球场周围的丁香花开成了白茫茫的一片，他们都不再说话，默默地抽烟……之后沿着空荡荡的展望大道和四处歌声不断的麦考什林荫大道漫步，随后大家汇入拿骚街欢腾的人群。

那些天里汤姆·丹维里埃和艾默里很晚才出来散步。二年级的班级里掀起了一股赌博的热潮，许多个闷热的夜晚，他们埋头掷骰子，常常要玩到凌晨三点钟。赌完一盘，他们从斯洛恩的房间出来，发现露水已经降下，天上的星星已经暗淡得要隐去。

“我们去借两辆自行车，出去兜一圈。”艾默里提议道。

“好的。我一点都不困，而且这差不多是这一学年最后一个晚上了，真的，因为周一舞会的准备就开始了。”

他们在霍尔德楼的院子里找到了两辆未上锁的自行车，于是在三点半，他们沿着劳伦斯维尔路骑车出去了。

“你这个夏天打算做什么，艾默里？”

“别问我——我估计，还是老一套。到日内瓦湖城住一两个月——我可指望你七月的时候到那里去呢，你知道的——接着再到明尼阿波利斯，那儿意味着无休止的夏日舞会，找姑娘玩，然后越来越厌倦——不过，啊，汤姆，”他忽然补充了一句，“这一年岂不是棒极了！”

“不。”汤姆加重了语气说道。现在的汤姆，穿着布鲁克斯名牌上衣，脚上穿着弗兰克斯的名牌皮鞋，与之前判若两人了。“我赢了这场游戏，但我感觉到我再也不想玩第二个了。你说的没错——你是个橡皮球，不管怎样，这对你来说还算合适，但我已经厌倦了改变自己去迎合这个世界的角落里那些偏狭的势利做派。我想去一个地方，在那里人们不会因为领带的颜色和大衣的褶皱就遭到排斥。”

“你去不了，汤姆。”艾默里有不同的看法，他们在渐渐消退的夜色中骑车漫行；“现在不管你去哪儿，你会不自觉地运用‘有’或‘无’的标准来进行判断。不管是好是坏，我们已经给你打上了印记，你就是普林斯顿这种类型的人！”

“好吧，那么，”汤姆抱怨说，他提高了嗓门，沙哑的声音带着悲伤，“我为什么必须得回来？我已经学到了普林斯顿能教给我的一切。再花费两年的时间在一些迂腐的知识上或者在俱乐部里混日子，不会有任何益处。它们只会瓦解我的意志，让我变得毫无斗志，完全循规蹈矩。甚至现在我就已经没了骨气，我都不知道该如何摆脱这一切。”

“哦，但你没有抓住问题的关键，汤姆，”艾默里打断他说，“你只是太过突然地看到了这个世界趋炎附势的一面。普林斯顿总要让那些有头脑的人建立起一种社会意识。”

“你认为是你教会了我那些，对吗？”他疑惑地问道，一边在半暗的天光中打量着艾默里。

艾默里暗暗地笑了起来。

“不是我吗？”

“有时候，”他慢吞吞地说，“我觉得你是我的邪恶天使。我本可以成为一个相当不错的诗人。”

“算了吧，这么说也太不留情面了。你选择来到一所东部大学。你要么睁眼看看人们你争我夺的卑劣本性，要么就视若无睹，糊糊涂涂地过去，而你怨恨这样的做法——就像马蒂·凯那样。”

“对，”他表示赞同，“你是对的。我不会喜欢那样。然而，二十岁上就变成一个愤世嫉俗的人也很残酷。”

“我生下来就是了，”艾默里咕哝着说，“我是一个愤世嫉俗的理想主义者。”他打住没说下去，自己也疑惑那到底是什么意思。

他们骑到了沉睡中的劳伦斯维尔中学，然后折返回去。

“骑这一圈很舒服，对吧？”汤姆立马说道。

“对，这是一个美好的结束，完美一击；今晚的一切都很好。哦，对于这个即将到来的闷热、倦怠的夏天，要是伊莎贝拉在的话就好了！”

“哦，你和你的伊莎贝拉！她肯定是个天真无邪的姑娘……我们来吟诗吧。”

于是，艾默里对着路过的灌木丛朗诵起了《夜莺颂》。

“我永远不会成为诗人，”艾默里朗诵完后说道，“我其实不够感性；只有为数不多的几件事物在我看来有着绝对的美：女人、春天的黄昏、夜晚的音乐和大海；我体会不到像‘激扬清越的号声’[77]那样微妙的事物。我可能会成为一个知识分子，但除了那些庸俗诗歌，我再也写不出别的什么东西。”

他们骑车回到普林斯顿的时候，初升的太阳在研究生院后面的天空中勾画出色彩绚烂的版图。他们赶忙去冲了个澡，顿时一身清爽，就当是代替睡眠了。中午，身着艳丽服装的校友组成的乐队和合唱团已经挤满了街道，橙黑相间的旗帜在风中舒展、飘扬，而这些旗帜下的帐篷里正迎来校友的盛大欢聚。一处印着“六九届”这几个烫金大字的帐篷引得艾默里驻足凝视良久。几位两鬓斑白的老者坐在那里，安静地交谈着，而此时各班的游行队伍正蜂拥而至，像一幅展开的人生万象图景般斑斓多姿。

弧光灯下

随后，在六月将尽的时候，悲剧那双祖母绿色的魅眼突然盯上了艾默里。就在他骑车到劳伦斯维尔中学回来之后的那天晚上，他们一群人出发去了纽约做短途旅行，此番他们是要寻求刺激。到了夜里十二点的时候，这些人便分乘两辆车，开始打道回府。大家伙儿都玩得很尽兴，醉酒程度各不相同，有的人还很清醒，有的已经醉眼迷离。艾默里乘的是后面那辆车；他们走错了路，迷失了方向，所以匆匆忙忙要赶上前面的车子。

当天晚上月朗风清，行驶在路上的欢悦让艾默里倍感陶醉。他甚至在头脑中模模糊糊地酝酿出一首诗的两个小节……

灰色的汽车在黑暗中驶向夜的深处，它悄无声息，所过之处不曾惊扰到一个生灵……如同鲨鱼潜行在幽静的海水洋流之中，一路上星光闪烁，水花飞溅，美不胜收，披着银色月光的树木行行对对，朝身后分野而去，夜行的鸟儿拍打着翅膀，啾声婉转，掠过夜空……

在一间灯影交错的客栈旁小驻片刻，昏黄的小客栈在昏黄的月光下——接下来是一片寂静，欢笑声渐起渐落……汽车又迎着六月的暖风继续赶路，路面在阴影中延伸，阴影在夜色中变柔和，直到那昏黄的阴影，在疾驰的车轮下，投进一片蔚蓝……

他们的车子猛地停了下来，艾默里抬头凝视，不觉呆住了。路边站着一个女人，正在和开车的埃里克说话。后来他还记得，她身上那件破旧的和服睡衣让她显得像个泼妇，还有她开口说话时沙哑的嗓音显得有些空洞：

“你们是普林斯顿的学生？”

“是的。”

“哦，这边有你们的一个人死了，还有两个也快不行了。”

“天哪！”

“看！”她用手指着，他们看过去，都惊恐地睁大了眼睛。在路边弧光灯的强光之下躺着一个人，他脸朝下倒在不断扩大的血泊里。

他们都从车上跳了下来。艾默里想起了那个后脑勺——那个头发——那个头发……接着他们把那个人翻了过来。

“是迪克——迪克·亨博德！”

“哦，上帝啊！”

“摸摸他的心跳！”

那个丑老太婆不容争辩的声音响起，好像某种沙哑的凯旋式乐曲：

“他早就咽气了，行啦。车子翻了。两个没受伤的刚刚把另外几个抬进去，但这个已经没救了。”

艾默里冲进了屋子，其他人也都跟着进去。他们都浑身发软，一走进那个逼仄破败的起居室就瘫坐在沙发上。斯洛恩的肩膀被刺伤了，他躺在另外一张长沙发上。他几乎已经神志不清，不停地喊着什么，好像是八点十分还有一节化学课。

“我不知道到底发生了什么，”菲伦比的声音带着紧张，“迪克在开车，他抓着方向盘不放，不肯让别人开。我们跟他说他喝多了——接着就是这个见鬼的转弯——哦，上帝！……”他脸朝下扑倒在地上，扯着嗓子干号起来。

医生已经到了，艾默里走到诊疗床边，有人递给他一张床单让他盖上那具尸体。凭着忽然冒出的一股狠劲儿，他抬起了其中的一只手，并任凭它自然地跌落回去。虽然此时这具尸体的额头已经冰凉，但脸上并非毫无表情。他看到了鞋带——那天早上迪克系的鞋带。系好鞋带的人是他——而现在的他只是白色被单下一团沉重的血肉。他所知道的那个迪克·亨博德，那个记忆中富有魅力、有着独特个性的人，以及能唤起对他记忆的一切——噢，这一切现在都变得让人恐惧，绝无半点高贵气质，都已被碾作尘土。所有的悲剧都带给人离奇怪诞又肮脏作呕的紧张情绪——如此毫无价值，不值一提……像动物一样死去……艾默里记起了他童年时代在某个巷子里看到的那只被碾轧在地的血肉模糊、惨不忍睹的猫。

“得有人陪菲伦比回普林斯顿。”

艾默里走出门外，迎面而来的夜风让他微微颤抖——在一团扭曲变形的金属物中，一块破碎的挡泥板在风中摇晃，发出一阵凄惨尖细的悲鸣。

高潮！

所幸的是，事故的第二天在一片忙乱中很快就过去了。当艾默里独自一人的时候，他的思绪总是不可避免地要转回到那个骇人的景象，血红的嘴巴在一张惨白的脸上洞开，强烈的对比让人感觉极不和谐，但他决意要把当下兴奋的感觉堆积起来，来掩盖掉这个悲惨的记忆，把它冷冷地抛到脑后。

伊莎贝拉和她的母亲下午四点驱车到了镇上，他们经过喜气洋洋的展望大道，穿过欢乐的人群，接着到木屋俱乐部所在的楼里喝了杯茶。当晚各个俱乐部要举行年度晚宴，所以七点钟的时候，他把她交给一个大一新生，安排好十一点的时候和她在健身房见面，只有到那个时候，高年级学生才能参加新生的舞会。她和他期盼的一样，他非常开心，并且热切期盼着这一夜成为他所有梦想的中心。九点钟，高年级的学生都站在俱乐部前面，观看新生热闹非凡的火把游行。艾默里看着眼前在夜色中盛装出行的人群，不禁在想，在这些黑暗而雄伟的背景的衬托下，在燃烧的火炬之下，不停欢呼着的、全神贯注的新生，是否也觉得熊熊火炬照亮的夜晚，像一年前他看到的一样光辉灿烂。

第二天又是呼啸而过。他们一行六人在俱乐部的一个私人宴会厅一起共进午餐；大伙儿都很兴奋，伊莎贝拉和艾默里隔着桌上的炸鸡温柔地对视。他们知道，他们的爱情将会天长地久。他们在舞会上一直跳到五点钟，那些单身汉不停地插进来要和伊莎贝拉跳舞，兴高采烈地把他抛在一边。随着时间越来越晚，人们截舞的热情也越来越高涨，他们的红酒让不停袭来的倦意都歇了脚，能让他们彻夜狂欢直到天明，而酒就藏在衣帽间的大衣口袋里。这群没有舞伴的人都是同一类人，他们似乎都听从一个人的领导。倘若一个黑发美人在他们身边翩翩起舞，他们就会发出轻微的惊叹声，很快这种情绪就会像涟漪一样涌向前去，总有一个人比别的人脚底滑溜，他一个箭步冲上去，和美人跳起舞来。接着，当那个身高六英尺的姑娘（是你们班的凯带过来的，他一个晚上都在忙着把这姑娘介绍给你们）大踏步地走过来，他们的队列就会接连后退，几个人会面面相觑，接着专注地看着舞厅里远处的角落。这是因为凯此刻满头大汗，焦急万分，他从摩肩接踵的人群中挤出来，正在寻找熟悉的面孔。

“我说，老兄，我已经有一个特别可爱的——”

“对不起，凯，但我已经定下这个姑娘了。我得在那家伙截进去前和她跳上一曲。”

“好，要不下一个？”

“什么——啊——呃——我发誓轮到我去截舞了——没人等着跟她跳舞的时候你再来找我。”

伊莎贝拉提议出去待一会儿，不妨坐她的车去兜兜风，这让艾默里喜出望外。汽车沿着普林斯顿校园中安静的道路缓缓而行，他们一路上羞涩又兴奋，谈论着最近的心事，交换着浅白的心里话。一个小时的甜蜜时光很快就过去了。艾默里心里有种出乎意料的坦诚，并没有试图去吻她。

第二天他们驱车穿行于新泽西的乡间，到纽约吃了午饭，下午去看了一部问题剧，看第二幕的时候伊莎贝拉从头哭到尾，这让艾默里有些不知所措——但她的样子不免又让他心底生出无限柔情。他禁不住要俯身去吻干她的眼泪，而她则在黑暗的掩护下，把手放在了他的手心，让他温柔地握住。

六点钟的时候，他们到达了博尔赫家位于长岛的避暑别墅，艾默里一下车就冲到楼上换了一身出席晚宴的正装。在他扣上衬衫饰扣的时候，他忽然意识到他可能再也不会像现在这样享受着人生的欢悦。他正值青春年少，眼前的世界在他朦胧的视野中都变得神圣起来。他和自己同辈中的佼佼者一起并肩来到了普林斯顿。他坠入爱河，而他的爱又得到了回应。打开所有的灯，他望着镜子中的自己，试图从自己的脸上找到某些特性，这些特性表明他比普罗大众更有洞察力，更加义无反顾，更有能力去影响他人，更有能力去贯彻自己的意志……牛津或许会是一个更大的天地。

他默默地崇拜起自己来。他的外表是多么潇洒，这身晚宴服装是多么得体。他步入大厅，因为听到有脚步声传来，便在楼梯上面停了下来。正是伊莎贝拉，从她闪亮的秀发到她金色的小巧舞鞋，她从未像此刻这般动人。

“伊莎贝拉！”他几乎是不由自主地喊出了声，同时伸出双臂。就像故事书里写的那样，她扑到他的怀里，在他们的嘴唇第一次碰在一起的那半分钟里，他的虚荣心膨胀到了极点，他年少的自我中心主义登峰造极。

第三章　自我中心主义者的思考

“哎哟！放开我！”

他把手放开，垂在身体两侧。

“怎么了？”

“你衬衫上的扣子——弄疼我了——看哪！”她垂下头看着自己的脖子，一个发青的豌豆大小的印迹，在她白皙的脖颈上很是显眼。

“哦，伊莎贝拉，”他责怪自己说，“我真是个笨蛋。真的，对不起——我不应该把你抱得那么紧。”

她不耐烦地抬起头来。

“哦，艾默里，我当然知道你不是故意的，而且我也没怎么被伤到，可我们到底该怎么处置它？”

“处置它？”他问道，“哦——那个印记；它一会儿就会不见了。”

“不会的，”她聚精会神地盯着那个印记看了一会儿，说道，“它还在那儿——而且它看起来就像魔鬼的印记——噢，艾默里，我们怎么办？这正好是在你肩膀的高度。”

“揉一揉。”他抑制住有点想笑的冲动，建议说。

她用指尖轻柔地搓了搓那个地方，随即，泪水就涌上了她的眼角，汇聚成一滴泪珠，沿着脸颊滚落下来。

“哦，艾默里，”她抬起头，带着一脸惹人怜爱的表情，沮丧地说，“如果我这样揉搓，整个脖子都要红起来了。我该怎么办？”

一句台词闪现在他的脑海中，他按捺不住，直接大声背诵了出来：

阿拉伯的所有香料都无法让这只小手变白。[78]

她抬头望着他，眼中闪烁的泪花好像晶莹的冰花一样。

“你根本没有同情心。”

艾默里没有理解她的意思。

“伊莎贝拉，亲爱的，我想它会——”

“别碰我！”她叫起来，“我这会儿还不够乱吗？而你就站在那里笑！”

接下来，他又说错了话。

“啊，很有趣，伊莎贝拉，我们那天还在谈论幽默感可以——”

她看着他，嘴角带着一丝笑意，但那并不是微笑，隐隐约约更像是微笑的阴郁的倒影。

“噢，闭嘴！”她忽然大喊一声，并飞奔着穿过大厅跑向她的卧室。艾默里站在原地，脸上满是懊悔的茫然。

“见鬼！”

伊莎贝拉从房间里出来的时候，肩膀上搭了一件轻薄的披肩，他们默默走下了楼梯，直到晚宴结束两个人都一言未发。

“伊莎贝拉，”他试探性地开了口，他们那时正要上车去格林威治乡村俱乐部[79]跳舞，“你还在生气，过一会儿我也要生气了。咱们接个吻，算是和好。”

伊莎贝拉闷闷不乐地考虑着他的提议。

“我讨厌被人嘲笑。”她终于开了口。

“我再也不笑了。我现在就没笑，对吧？”

“你那会儿在笑。”

“哦，别这么婆婆妈妈的。”

她轻轻地噘了噘嘴。

“我想怎样就怎样。”

艾默里勉强压住了心中的怒火。他开始意识到自己对伊莎贝拉并没有真正的爱慕之情，一丝一毫都没有，不过她的冷漠伤害了他。他想吻她，想热烈地亲吻她，因为他知道这样他就可以在第二天早上离开，把她也抛在脑后。而且，如果他不吻她，他就会开始焦虑……这多多少少会妨碍他对自己作为一个征服者的认同。在伊莎贝拉这样强悍的对手面前屈膝求饶，甘拜下风，对于他来说实在是有失体面。

或许她正巧猜到了这一点。艾默里只好任由这个原本应该完满的浪漫之夜在眼前流逝而束手无策。那天晚上有巨大的飞蛾在头顶盘旋，有路边花园浓郁的花香萦绕，但就是没有那些吞吞吐吐、欲言又止的情话，没有那些轻柔的叹息……

后来他们在配餐室里吃了晚饭——喝了姜味汽水，吃了些巧克力蛋糕，接着艾默里便宣布了他的决定。

“我明天一早就走。”

“为什么？”

“为什么不？”他反问道。

“没必要这么做。”

“反正我是要走的。”

“好呀，如果你坚持要意气用事——”

“哦，快别这么说了。”他反驳道。

“——就因为我不让你吻我。你不觉得——”

“好了，伊莎贝拉，”他打断了她的话，“你知道不是那样的——就算你假设如此。就我们俩目前的关系状况而言，我们要么应该接吻，要么，要么就应该结束。你拒绝接吻也绝非出于道德观念上的考虑。”

她犹豫着，不置可否。

“我真的不知道该怎样看待你，”她开口说，依稀表现出颇为反常的想要和解的愿望，“你挺有意思的。”

“怎么有意思？”

“噢，我认为你总是自信满满，自以为是。记得有一天你对我说你可以为所欲为，得到任何你想要的东西，是吗？”

艾默里涨红了脸。他之前对她说过的事太多了。

“是的。”

“哦，可你今晚似乎没那么自信。也许你只是表面上心高气傲。”

“不，我不是，”他支支吾吾地说，“在普林斯顿——”

“哦，又是你和普林斯顿！你觉得那就是整个世界，瞧瞧你说话的样子！或许在你那老掉牙的《普林斯顿人日报》上，你会比任何别的人写得都好；或许那些大一新生确实觉得你举足轻重——”

“你不明白——”

“不，我明白，”她直接打断了他，“我明白，因为你总是一个劲儿地在说你自己，我之前还喜欢听你这么说，但现在我不喜欢了。”

“我今天晚上一直在说自己吗？”

“你终于说到点子上了，”伊莎贝拉咄咄逼人，“你今天晚上一直心烦意乱。你只是呆坐着，看着我的眼睛。还有，跟你说话的时候我不得不时刻小心——你总是那么挑剔。”

“我促使你去思考，不是吗？”艾默里用带着虚荣的口吻重复道。

“你是个神经质的人”——这话是伊莎贝拉加重了语气说的——“你就爱分析那些细枝末节的情绪和直觉感受，可我根本就没有。”

“我知道。”艾默里一边承认她说的没错，一边无可奈何地摇了摇头。

“我们走吧。”她站起身。

他心不在焉地站起来，他们一起走到楼梯下面。

“我能坐哪趟火车走？”

“如果你非走不可，九点十一分有趟车。”

“是的，我必须得走，真的。晚安。”

“晚安。”

他们走到楼梯顶那里，就在艾默里转身去往自己的房间时，他自以为看到她的脸上带着些许不满的愁容。他在黑暗中辗转难眠，思忖着他到底在不在乎——他突如其来的不快在多大程度上是源自虚荣心受挫——归根结底，从性格上来说，他是否不适合谈恋爱。

早上他一觉醒来，意识如潮水般奔涌起来，带着阵阵欢悦。晨风吹拂着棉质印花的窗帘，他迷迷糊糊中有些纳闷为什么自己不在普林斯顿自己的房间里，那边的五斗橱上应该有学校橄榄球队的照片，对面的墙上应该还有三角俱乐部的照片。接着外面大厅里的老爷钟敲了八下，昨夜的记忆慢慢清晰起来。他立刻下了床，像一阵风一样飞快穿好了衣服，他必须在看见伊莎贝拉之前从房子里走出去。原本一件带着感伤的意外小事，现在看来却成了让人厌倦又扫兴的结局。他只用半个小时就穿戴整齐了，于是就靠窗坐了下来；他感到自己的心在隐隐作痛，比预料的还要难受。这个美好的早晨更像是一个讽刺的嘲笑！——阳光明媚，花香四溢，他听到楼下的阳光房里传来博尔赫太太的声音，心中想着，不知伊莎贝拉身在何处。

这时，传来了敲门声。

“先生，九点差十分的时候车会在楼下等您。”

他重新回到对于户外的沉思中，并开始不自觉地重复起勃朗宁的一首诗，他曾在给伊莎贝拉的信中摘引过：

如你所见，生活总难遂人愿，

它悬而未决，支离破碎，杂乱无章。

我们还未曾深深地叹息，自由地欢笑，

未曾体味饥饿、饱食、绝望——和幸福的滋味。[80]

但他的生活不会难以如愿的。他为自己此刻的清醒感到满足，他意识到或许一直以来她只是自己意愿的投射，她本来无足轻重，这或许正是她的特别之处，没有人能让她思考。然而，这也正是她反感他的地方，艾默里忽然厌倦了思考，思考！

“让她见鬼去吧！”他狠狠地说，“她毁了我一整个学年！”

超人变得满不在乎

九月里，艾默里在一个尘土飞扬的日子回到了普林斯顿，校园的街道上挤满了参加补考的人员，他随即也加入了这一热火朝天的队伍。每天早上他要在补习学校人满为患的教室里待上四个小时，体会圆锥曲线的极度无聊，如此开始自己的高年级生涯实在是愚蠢透顶。任课老师鲁尼先生，从早上六点一直到午夜都在画图表、做等式，他一边讲课一边不停地抽着长红牌香烟，课堂简直沉闷到了极点。

“好了，朗格多克，如果我用这个公式，A点应该在哪里？”

朗格多克慢吞吞地摇晃着他六英尺三英寸的橄榄球运动员的庞大身躯，尽量集中精神。

“哦——啊——我要是知道就怪了，鲁尼先生。”

“哦，当然，你当然不能使用这个公式。这正是我想让你说的。”

“哦，确实，当然。”

“你能找到原因吗？”

“当然——我想是的。”

“如果你找不出来，只管说。我来给你演示。”

“哦，鲁尼先生，如果你不介意，我希望你能再讲一遍。”

“非常乐意。现在A在这里……”

这个教室处处都显得愚蠢荒唐——前面摆着两个放论文的大架子，穿着衬衣的鲁尼先生就站在这前面，周围椅子上无精打采地坐着一干人等：弗雷德·斯洛恩，一个棒球队的投球手，他别无选择，必须得通过考试；“苗条的”朗格多克，他只要能考出五十分，秋天就能参加校队打败耶鲁；麦克多维，一个年轻又欢快的二年级学生，他觉得在这儿和这些出色的运动员一起补习是件让人得意的事。

“我同情的是那些付不起补习费，不得不在学期当中努力的穷小子。”有一天他这样对艾默里说。他苍白的嘴唇叼着一支耷拉着的烟，下垂的烟卷和他萎靡不振的友善面孔一样让人打不起精神。“我觉得那简直无聊透顶，学期当中我们还要到纽约去干那么多好玩的事呢。我猜他们根本不知道自己错过了什么。”麦克多维先生说这些话时，那种“你和我哥儿俩好”的腔调，让艾默里几乎要把他从开着的窗户上推下去……明年二月份他妈妈就会纳闷为什么他没有加入俱乐部，还要增加他的零花钱……可怜的小笨蛋……

教室里充斥着烟雾和一种严肃又认真的氛围，总有无助的呼喊声不时传来：

“我不明白！鲁尼先生，再说一遍！”他们当中的绝大多数要么不开窍要么满不在乎，即使不明白也不愿意承认，艾默里就是其中之一。他发现圆锥曲线对于他来说如同天书，它们冷静又高贵，在鲁尼先生散发着恶臭的会客厅里大胆地阐述着自己的看法，以至于它们的等式都发生了扭曲，变成某种不可解的怪异字母组合。他捡起众所周知的湿毛巾[81]，在考前的最后一晚临阵磨枪，然后满心欢喜地参加了考试，他一边考试，还一边闷闷不乐地想着为什么之前春天里的色彩斑斓和雄心壮志都不见了踪影。不知怎么，伊莎贝拉的背叛，使得在本科阶段取得成功的想法对他失去了吸引力，他镇定地设想了考试失败无法通过补考的情况，尽管一切都很清楚，那样的结果意味着他必须退出《普林斯顿人日报》的编委会，并且再也无缘进入高年级学生会。

他的运气好像一直不差。

他打着哈欠，潦潦草草地在封面上写下了自己的诚信承诺，然后悠闲地离开了教室。

“要是你过不了，”刚到的埃里克说道，他们都坐在艾默里房间的窗台上，琢磨着装修墙壁的计划，“你实在是这个世界上最大的笨蛋。你在俱乐部和学校的名声会像坐着电梯一样一落千丈。”

“哦，见鬼，我知道。干吗哪壶不开提哪壶？”

“因为你咎由自取。大家都会根据你的表现押宝，知道你肯定没有资格入选《普林斯顿人日报》的编委主席了。”

“哎，说点儿别的吧，”艾默里抗议道，“等等看，先闭嘴。我可不想俱乐部的人总是问我这个，好像我是一颗金奖土豆，天天养着就等着参加蔬菜展览一样。”

一周后的一个傍晚，艾默里在去往伦威克咖啡馆的路上从自己房间的窗户下经过，他看见亮着灯，就喊了一句：

“嗨，汤姆，有没有我的信？”

埃里克的脑袋从窗口那一方黄色的灯光中探了出来。

“是的，考试结果出来了。”

他的心突然间狂跳起来。

“怎么样，蓝色还是粉色？”

“不知道。你最好自己上来看。”

他走进房间，径直走到了桌子旁边，这才忽然间意识到房间里还有其他人。

“嗨，凯里。”他尽量显得很礼貌，“啊，都是普林斯顿的同学。”他们中大多数好像都是朋友，所以他拿起了那封印有“教务处”字样的信，紧张地拿在手里掂量着。

“里面这张纸可不一般啊。”

“打开它，艾默里。”

“为了增加点戏剧性，我要告诉你们，如果是蓝色，我的名字就会从《普林斯顿人日报》的编委会名单中消失，我短暂的职业生涯就要告一段落了。”

他停顿了一下，然后第一次看向了菲伦比的眼睛，菲伦比正带着如饥似渴的表情，急切地望着他。艾默里也毫不示弱地回望着他。

“盯着我的脸，先生们，捕捉我最原始的感情吧。”

他撕开信封，把那张纸片拿到亮处。

“怎么样？”

“粉色还是蓝色？”

“快说是什么。”

“我们都等着听呢，艾默里。”

“微笑还是诅咒——或者什么。”

有一会儿大家都没了话……几十秒钟眨眼就过去了……接着他又看了一遍，又停了有几十秒钟。

“如天空般蔚蓝，先生们……”

后果

艾默里从九月初到第二年暮春，都在漫无目的、浑浑噩噩的庸碌中度过，几乎没有什么值得记录的。当然，他立刻就对自己失去的一切感到难过。他的成功哲学完全垮塌，他必须承担这一切，并不断地寻找原因。

“你自己的懒散。”埃里克后来说。

“不——是更深层次的原因。我开始感觉到我注定要失去这次机会。”

“你知道，他们在俱乐部里已经完全把你排除出去了；每一个没能过关的人都使得我们的群体更为虚弱。”

“我讨厌这种说法。”

“当然，你再稍微努力一把还可以东山再起。”

“不可能——我已经结束了——就在学校做一个有影响的人物来说。”

“可是，艾默里，说句实在话，最让我生气的并不是你没有成为《普林斯顿人日报》编委会的主席，或者没能加入高年级学生会，而是你没有真正用心通过那次考试。”

“不是我的原因，”艾默里慢吞吞地说，“具体的事情让我抓狂。我的懒散和我的行事风格很匹配，只是这次运气出了问题。”

“你指的是你的行事风格出了问题吧。”

“可能是。”

“那么，你接下来打算怎么办？是要重整旗鼓，再搏一次，还是像以前一样再混上两年？”

“我还不知道……”

“哦，艾默里，振作起来！”

“可能吧。”

艾默里的观点虽然是危险的，但却很接近他真实的想法。如果他对于环境的反应能够用列表来说明，从他早年开始，表格应该是这样的：

1.根本的艾默里。

2.艾默里加上比阿特丽斯。

3.艾默里加上比阿特丽斯加上明尼阿波利斯。

后来在圣瑞吉斯的岁月把他彻底瓦解，又对他进行了重组：

4.艾默里加上圣瑞吉斯。

5.艾默里加上圣瑞吉斯加上普林斯顿。

他以从众的方式寻求成功，而且成功一度近在咫尺。但根本的艾默里，那个懒散、充满想象力、叛逆的艾默里则几乎被雪藏。他曾经遵从法则，曾经成功在握，然而他的成功既无法满足，也无法安顿他的想象。他心不在焉，一不留神就葬送了这一切，而重新成为：

6.根本的艾默里。

财务状况

他的父亲在感恩节那天去世，走得悄无声息。死亡和日内瓦湖城的美丽景色，还有他母亲庄严沉稳的仪态显得格格不入，但这让他不至于沉溺于悲痛之中，甚至可以用一种消遣的宽容姿态来看待葬礼。他坚信土葬总归要好过火化，并暗自嘲笑自己年少时的选择，他那时觉得人死后要在树顶上缓慢氧化。葬礼的第二天，他躲进那间偌大的书房，躺在软沙发里，自娱自乐地摆出优雅的入殓姿势，思考着在他的那一天到来的时候，他是应该虔诚地交叉双臂于胸前（达西大人曾竭力主张采用这种最为尊贵的姿势），还是采用这种更有异教特色和拜伦风格的姿势，即十指交叉置于脑后。

比起父亲最终摆脱俗务与世长辞，更让他关注的是父亲葬礼几天后的一次三方会谈，与会三方分别是比阿特丽斯，他们的律师——来自巴顿-克罗格曼事务所的巴顿先生，还有他自己。这是他第一次实际接触家族的财务状况，并意识到父亲曾经打理如此可观的财富。他拿起一本带有“一九〇六”标签的账册，小心翼翼地翻看了一遍。那一年的开支总额超过十一万美元。其中四万美元是花费比阿特丽斯自己的收入，这一项没有必要进行说明，统统包含在这一名目之下：“汇票、账单和比阿特丽斯·布莱恩名下的信用证”。剩余开支的状况都有分门别类的明细：纳税和日内瓦湖城庄园的修缮费用大概有九千美元；日常养护费用，包括比阿特丽斯的电动汽车和那年新购置的一辆法国轿车，超过三千五百美元。剩下的项目都有仔细的记录，但总有些项目无法和账册右侧的开销相抵。

一九一二年的账册让艾默里大吃一惊，那一年持有的债券和收入都大幅缩水。这一点在比阿特丽斯的资产上并不明显，但很显然他父亲前一年在石油上的几次不成功的风险投资损失严重。石油的消耗很少，但斯蒂芬·布莱恩却被石油弄得焦头烂额。次年，还有之后的一年以及再下一年都有类似的资产缩水的情况，比阿特丽斯第一次用她自己的钱来维持家里的开销。而在一九一三年，她的医疗账单超过了九千美元。

巴顿先生对于事情的具体情况不甚了解，也颇感困惑。有一些最近的投资，其收益眼下看来还有不少疑问，他认为还有一些投机买卖和交易从未征求过他的意见。

直到几个月之后，比阿特丽斯才写信告诉艾默里完整的情况。布莱恩和奥哈拉两个家族全部的剩余资产只有日内瓦湖城的这一处房产和大约五十万美元的资金，这笔钱现在用于购买相当保守的收益率为百分之六的股票。事实上，比阿特丽斯信中说，她会在资金方便转手的时候，立刻把钱用于购买铁路和电车的债券。

“我非常确信，”她在写给艾默里的信中说，“如果有一件事可以让我们深信不疑，那就是人们不会再待在同一个地方了。那个叫福特的家伙毫无疑问充分利用了这一点。所以我现在请巴顿先生专门关注‘北太平洋铁路’公司，还有那些‘快速转运公司’，就是他们所说的电车公司。我如果不买‘伯利恒钢铁公司’的股票，我是不会原谅自己的。我听说了那些最为激动人心的故事。艾默里，你一定要投身金融业。我确信你会在这一行如鱼得水。你从通讯员或者出纳员开始做起，我相信，之后你会平步青云——前途无量。我想要是我是个男人，一定会喜欢上打理钱财，这已经成为我晚年的一大嗜好了。我可以好好跟你聊聊，但在这之前，我想跟你讨论另一件事。那天，我在茶会上遇见一位叫毕思潘的太太，她身材矮小，待人过分热情，她对我说，她在耶鲁读书的儿子写信告诉她，学校里的男生只穿着夏天的内衣就过冬了，整个冬天都如此，即使是在最冷的那些天，他们顶着湿漉漉的头发、穿着浅口露踝的鞋子就跑出去了。哎，艾默里，我不知道普林斯顿是不是也流行这种时尚，但我希望你不要犯傻。这样做很容易让这些小伙子染上肺炎和小儿麻痹症，也会引起各种各样的肺部疾病，而你对这些病症尤其敏感。你不能拿自己的健康做实验。那是逃不过我的眼睛的。我不会坚持让你穿着罩鞋，这样显得我不可理喻，虽然有些母亲会毫不犹豫地这样坚持。我记得有一年圣诞节你时常穿着罩鞋，但从来不扣搭扣，走路的时候总是发出奇怪的窸窸窣窣的声响，而你拒绝扣上搭扣仅仅因为你不想这么做。再后来的圣诞节，虽然我求过你，但你甚至连橡胶套鞋也不肯穿。亲爱的，你差不多要二十岁了，我不可能时时跟着你，看看你是否能理智行事。

“这封信里我谈的都是非常实际的问题。我在上一封信里告诫过你，因为缺钱而无法践行自己的理想，会让一个人变得乏味而且狭隘，但我们只要不过于铺张，开销方面还是绰绰有余的。照顾好自己，我亲爱的儿子，每周尽量至少给我写一封信，因为收不到你的来信，我总会胡思乱想，担心一些可怕的事情。

爱你的，

妈妈”

初闻“个人”说

达西大人邀请艾默里到他位于哈德孙河上那所被谑称为“斯图亚特宫殿”的住所里小住一周，欢度圣诞。他们常常在那里围坐在篝火旁促膝长谈，似乎有说不完的话。达西大人微微有些发福，不过更显健壮，他的性情也随之更为旷达。艾默里坐在低矮的靠背椅中，同他一起体味雪茄带给中年人的冷静和理智，心中既感到放松惬意，又觉安稳。

“我想退学，达西大人。”

“为什么？”

“我所有为之努力的事业都已化为乌有。你觉得这是区区小事，不值一提，可是——”

“完全不是小事。我认为这关系重大。我希望了解所有的情况。我们上次见面之后，你经历的每件事都可以说给我听。”

艾默里把那些事娓娓道来，从头到尾仔仔细细地讲述了他在自我中心主义的大道上失败的经历，半小时后他的声音中再也感觉不到那种无精打采的情绪。

“你如果退学，打算去干什么？”达西大人问道。

“还不知道。我想去旅行，只不过这场无休止的战争让人哪儿也去不了。不管怎么说，妈妈会因为我无法毕业而怨恨我。我很迷茫。凯里·霍里德希望我和他一起参军，加入拉斐特飞行队[82]。”

“你知道自己并不想去。”

“有时候我很愿意——如果是今晚，我会迫不及待地想去。”

“噢，这样看来，你消极厌世，远比我所想的要严重得多。我了解你。”

“恐怕是的，”艾默里很不情愿地表示赞同，“这不失为一种便捷的解脱之道——尤其是当我想起还有一年无所适从的漫长时光。”

“是的，我了解；但说句真心话，我并不十分担心你；在我看来你现在的发展进行得相当自然。”

“不，”艾默里反驳道，“在这一年中我一半的个性都折损掉了。”

“一点儿也没有！”达西大人嘲弄地说道，“你丢掉了相当多的虚荣心，仅此而已。”

“上帝啊！不管怎样，我感觉自己经历的一切，就好像在圣瑞吉斯又读了五年级。”

“不。”达西大人摇了摇头，“那是一种不幸的经历，而这是件于你有益的事。你去年孜孜以求的并不是真正重要的东西，那些真正有价值的东西不会以你那样的方式获得。”

“难道还有什么比我此刻的一蹶不振还要糟糕吗？”

“或许就在这其中……但你在进步。这段时期让你有时间进行反思，你正在抛弃你关于成功的那些旧包袱、超人的思想，还有诸如此类的一大堆负累。我们这一类人，不适合去生搬硬套一整套理论，就像你之前做的那样。如果我们能做好‘下一件事’，并且每天抽出一小时的时间去反思，我们就能创造奇迹，但若是把这心思用在进行盲目专横、肆意妄为的计划上——我们就一定会做出愚蠢的事来。”

“但是，达西大人，我无法去做‘下一件事’。”

“艾默里，说句你我之间的心里话，我也只是刚刚学会这么做。我可以做‘下一件事情’之外的其他上百件事，可我就是做不成这件事，总是会碰钉子，就像你这个秋天在数学上碰钉子一样。”

“我们为什么必须得做‘下一件事’？这并不像我应该做的事。”

“我们必须做，因为我们不只是有个性的人，还是重要的人物。”

“这听起来像句台词——到底是什么意思？”

“个性就是你之前所认识的自己，你认为自己是具有个性的人，就像你告诉我的凯里和斯洛恩，显而易见都是这类人物。个性可以说几乎完全是物质性的，它在人身上凸显时，反而会降低人的身份——我曾经见过个性在一个长期患病的人身上消失不见。但当个性处在活跃状态，它会使人飞扬跋扈，全然无视‘下一件事’。我们现在回过头来说重要的人，他的品质是在点点滴滴的累积中成形的。人们对他的看法，不会脱离他的所作所为。他如同一根横杆，上面悬挂着上千件不同的东西——多半是闪闪发光的东西，就像我们所拥有的那样；但是他以一种冷静的心态对它们加以使用。”

“可是，我最为珍视的那些闪闪发光的东西，往往在我需要它们的时候就跌落了。”艾默里急切地要把这个比喻接续下去。

“对，就是这样；当你感到你所积攒的威望和才干，以及其他的种种品质自然地彰显出来，你便没有必要再去担心其他人怎么想；你可以游刃有余地处置它们。”

“但是，反过来说，如果我一无所有，我将会绝望无助！”

“那是绝对的。”

“这确实是个与众不同的说法。”

“现在你有了一个崭新的开始——一个凯里和斯洛恩天生就无缘的开始。你把三四件华而不实的装饰物拨落丢弃，后来又一气之下，把其他的也都一起打翻在地。现在要做的就是去开始新的积攒，在这个过程中你看得越深远对你越有益处。但要记住，去做‘下一件事’！”

“你讲的道理真是深入浅出，明白易懂！”

他们就这样聊着，话题经常是关于他们自己，有时是关于哲学和宗教，有时是对人生的不同看法，他们会交换彼此对人生如一场游戏或者人生如未解之谜的理解。神父似乎总是能猜透他的心思，甚至在他自己都还不清楚这些想法时，神父就能洞若观火。他们的心灵如此贴近，他们思考和思维的方式，都紧密相连。

“我为什么要列清单？”有一天晚上艾默里质问道，“各种各样不同的清单？”

“因为你是一个中世纪研究者，”达西大人回答道，“我们两个人都是。具有一种对事物进行分类和归纳的特殊热情。”

“这是出于要把一件事弄明白的愿望。”

“这是经院哲学的核心所在。”

“来这儿之前，我意识到自己正变得越来越古怪。现在我猜，那不过是故作姿态。”

“不要为这些所困扰。对于你来说，不去故作姿态可能恰恰是最大的做作。做作——”

“嗯？”

“还是应该去做‘下一件事’。”

艾默里在返回学校之后收到了好几封达西大人写给他的信，这些信进一步滋养了他的自我中心主义，他从中汲取到不少养分。

我担心自己给了你太多的保证，让你相信自己无论怎样做都会平安无事，但你必须记住我这样做是因为你才刚刚开始付出努力，我对你充满信心；绝不是因为我天真地相信你可以不劳而获，可以不经历艰辛就能达成目标。你尽可以把你个性中那些细微敏感之处看作自己理所当然的一部分，但你必须小心不要随便把它们坦露给别人。你并不是一个多愁善感的人，很少会对什么一往情深，你头脑精明但并不狡诈，自负但并不傲慢。

切记不要妄自菲薄，不必担心自己一无是处，通常人们自视甚高的时候恰恰是他们表现最为糟糕的时候；也不必担心失去你坚持称作“个性”的东西；十五岁的时候你光彩夺目如晨曦初透，二十岁的时候你开始忧伤感怀如月色朦胧，当你到了我这个年岁，就会像我一样，撒播着友善的金色光芒，如午后四点钟的太阳。

如果你给我写信，尽量有感而发，写得自然一点。你上次的来信，那篇关于建筑的小论文，实在不堪卒读——一味地自炫博学，难免让我怀疑你是生活在知识和情感的真空里；还要警惕不要对人进行过于绝对的分类和区别；你会发现人们年轻的时候，会不厌其烦地在不同阶层之间跳来跳去，这种做法让人生厌，但是如果你自以为是地把每一个你见过的人都贴上标签，就无异于把他们都装进了玩偶盒子里，他们会在你真正遭遇到这个世界的敌意时，跳出来对你睥睨而视。此刻，把一个像莱昂纳多·达·芬奇这样的人物作为你的偶像，对于你来说无疑是一个更为有益的指路明灯。

你注定要经历人生的跌宕起伏，就像我年轻时一样，但是保持头脑的清醒异常重要，不管是愚人还是智者，倘若他们敢于对你进行批判，你都不必太过自责。

你说是传统让你在这个“女性命题”中保持冷静正直；然而，艾默里，我相信事实绝不止于此；你担心自己一旦开始就无法停下来；你担心自己会横冲直撞，我知道自己正在说什么；你通过犹如奇迹般不可思议的第六感感到了恶的存在，这其实是你心中对上帝半信半疑的敬畏。

不管你未来的专长是什么——宗教、建筑，或者文学——我确信你会更加依赖教会为你提供的精神慰藉，更为虔诚地把教会视作你的精神港湾，但我不会与你争论，拿我对你的影响力冒险，虽然我确实私下里确信“罗马天主教会的黑色裂隙”正在你的脚下裂开大口。尽快给我回信。

致以最深情的问候，

赛耶·达西

这段时间里连艾默里的阅读也显得黯然失色，他不断地在雾蒙蒙的文学小巷子里深入探索：于思曼、瓦尔特·佩特、泰奥菲尔·戈蒂埃[83]，还读了拉伯雷、薄伽丘、佩特罗尼乌斯、苏埃托尼乌斯等人诲淫诲盗的部分作品。有一个星期，出于人皆有之的好奇心，他查看了班上同学的私人藏书，发现斯洛恩的藏书极具代表性，许多人的书都和他的雷同：吉卜林的成套作品、欧亨利、小约翰·福克斯，还有理查德·哈丁·戴维斯；《中年妇女必读》《育空河的魅力》[84]，以及詹姆斯·维特科姆·莱雷的“赠阅”本，此外还有各种破烂不堪、标满注释的教材课本，最后，让他颇为吃惊的是，还有一本鲁伯特·布鲁克的诗集，这本书可是他最近的新发现之一。

他和汤姆·丹维里埃一起在普林斯顿的名流翘楚中搜寻，希望能找到一个或许能奠定伟大的美国诗歌传统的人物。

与两年前皆为平庸之辈的普林斯顿相比，这届本科生整体显得更为有趣。一切都变得不可思议地活跃，尽管这是以牺牲新生第一年许多自由纯真的魅力为代价的。在过去的普林斯顿，他们绝无可能发现塔纳杜克·怀利这样的人。塔纳杜克是一名二年级学生，长着两只扇风大耳，一开口就是“地球旋转着落入被世世代代视为不祥预兆的月亮的旋涡！”他们听了这样的话语都不免暗自纳闷，不知道自己怎么总是对他说的话感到一头雾水，但他们从来不怀疑这是一个天才人物的独特表达。至少汤姆和艾默里是这样认为的。他们真诚热切地告诉塔纳杜克，他有一颗雪莱一样的头脑，并在《拿骚文学杂志》上专门推介他极其自由的自由诗和散文诗。然而，塔纳杜克的天分吸收了许多时代的特色，他开始追逐波希米亚式放荡不羁的生活方式，这让他们大失所望。他现在张口闭口都是格林威治村如何如何，而不再提“陷入午夜旋涡的月亮”，结交了一群市井中的颓废文人而并非出于学术目的，醉心于第四十二街和百老汇的剧目，几乎与世隔绝，不闻不问窗外之事，再也不是那个他们曾寄予厚望、如雪莱一般的理想孩童了。所以他们放弃了塔纳杜克，把他交给了未来派，认为他和他那些色彩炫目的领带在那里会更适合。汤姆给了他最后的忠告，建议他在两年里停止写作，把亚历山大·蒲柏[85]的全部作品通读四遍，但是艾默里却认为，让塔纳杜克去读蒲柏，就如同通过放松双脚的方式来治疗胃病，他们最后哄笑一通，不了了之，并且决定用掷硬币的方法来决定，塔纳杜克对于他们来说到底是一个过于天才的人物，还是过于微不足道的一个人物。

艾默里对那些每天晚上用几句简单的名言警句和一点点荨麻酒来打发崇拜者的当红教授颇为不屑，对他们避之唯恐不及。人们对那些学究气十足的学科产生了普遍的怀疑，这种犹疑的气氛也让他颇感失望，他借着一首名为《在课堂上》的讽刺诗来阐发自己的观点，还说服汤姆把这首诗刊登在了《拿骚文学杂志》上：

早上好，傻瓜……

每周三次，一次不落，

您一开讲，我们就一头雾水，

您守着老滑头的人生哲学，不住点头称“是”，

我们求知若渴的心灵不断被敷衍嘲弄，

没错，我们就是您那迷途的一百只羔羊，

您摆好架势，口若悬河……我们昏昏欲睡……

他们说，您虚心向学，是个学者，

那一日您费尽周章制订出一套课题计划，

我们心知肚明，那不过是故纸堆里的旧货，

您嗅觉敏锐，探遍了这个时代的必读书目，

您不惜弯腰屈膝，让鼻孔沾满尘土，

随后，您撑腰起身，眉扬气吐，

打一个喷嚏震天响，喷出一大沓的出版物……

然而，我的右手边还有位兄弟，

像个急切的叫驴，似乎头脑机灵，

总有问不完的问题……瞧他那样站着，

表情热切，局促不安，

他等了一节课，要告诉您

他通宵达旦，琢磨研读

您的大作……噢，您扭捏自谦，

他故作成熟，一对酸腐学究，

您笑面含春，得意非常，

转眼又睨视着，匆忙投身课业之中……

一周前的今天，先生，您退回了我的论文，

（读过您草草而就的眉批旁注）

我方才得知自己犯了大忌，

违反了最高的批评准则，

通篇廉价又不知所云地插科打诨……

“你果真相信会有这种情况？”

还有

“萧伯纳可不是什么权威！”

但是那个急切的叫驴，呈给您的一篇

居然破天荒地得到了您的最高评价。

依旧——我依旧能随处见到您……

当莎士比亚剧作上演时您就在座，

某个风光不再、过气残败的明星，

都能让您这样自命不凡的道学先生神魂颠倒……

一个激进分子走下台来，

这难道就能动摇无神论者宣扬的教义？——

您坐在观众席中，瞠目结舌，

要知道您代表着人尽皆知的常识，

有时，即使是小教堂的钟声也能激发

您心中刻意的慈悲宽容，

和辽阔深远、熠熠生辉的真知灼见

（包括康德和救世军的布斯将军……），

因而，您一生尽管遭遇重重的震撼，

依然坚守着一个空洞又苍白的肯定……

该下课啦……从睡梦中醒来的

是一百个受着神恩眷顾的宠儿，

他们骗得你的只言片语，便踩着

扑腾扑腾的脚步，在拥挤的过道里散去……

忘掉这狭隘的人世间吧，

正是这非凡的倦怠赋予您生命。

四月里，凯里·霍里德离开学校，登上轮船去了法国，他要去加入拉斐特飞行中队。艾默里的心中一度充满了嫉妒和羡慕，但这种情绪在他有了类似经历后就慢慢消散了，虽然他始终不知道该如何看待这次经历，然而，在之后的三年里，他一直生活在这个经历的巨大阴影之中。

魔鬼

午夜十二点的时候他们离开海利饭店，搭乘出租车去了彼斯托乐瑞咖啡馆。他们一行人有艾柯西娅·马洛和菲比·科伦慕，她们是看了夏日园艺展之后过来的，还有弗雷德·斯洛恩和艾默里。夜生活对于他们来说才刚刚开始，他们旺盛的精力无处宣泄，感到百无聊赖，因而如同酒神节上的狂欢者一般又冲到了咖啡馆。

“四位，要大厅正中的位置，”菲比一进门就高声嚷道，“快点，老熟人，去说一声我们来了！”

“叫他们演奏《赞美歌》！”斯洛恩跟着大声嚷着，“你们两个去点餐；我和菲比要好好跳上一曲。”话音刚落，他们就踱着优雅的步子，翩然加入了拥挤的人群中。艾柯西娅和艾默里一个小时前才刚刚认识，他们跟着一位侍者，推推搡搡地穿过拥挤的人群，走到一个位置不错的餐桌前，他们在那里坐下来，四处观望着。

“那是芬德尔·马尔伯森，纽黑文[86]的！”她高声喊道，力图盖过人群的喧嚣声，“嗨，芬德尔！喂——喂！”

“哦，艾柯西娅！”他也高叫起来，向他们致意，“过来，到我们这儿来吧。”

“不要！”艾默里低声嘟囔了一句。

“不行，芬德尔，我这儿还有别的人！明天一点左右给我打电话！”

芬德尔长相平平，整日混迹于酒吧，口齿不清地搭了一腔算作回答，随即就转身招呼起身边的那个金发美女，殷勤地带着她四处转悠去了。

“简直就是个天生的蠢货。”艾默里不免要对他品头论足一番。

“哦，他还行。瞧，那个小钱就能打发的侍者过来了。你要是让我选，我要一杯双份的代基里酒。”

“来四杯吧。”

咖啡馆里的人群熙熙攘攘，不断地移动着、变换着。他们中的绝大多数都是在校的大学生，其中也不乏几个在百老汇混不下去的男演员，还有两种类型的女人，相比之下来自歌舞团的女孩子还是其中较好的一种。总的来说这是非常典型的一群人，他们的聚会也和那种典型的聚会相差无几。整个聚会中约有四分之三的人都是在逢场作戏，他们追求一种效果，因而也无伤大雅，一切都会在咖啡馆的门口结束，他们都还要赶五点钟回到耶鲁或者普林斯顿的火车。大约还有四分之一的人会纠缠到凌晨时分，他们喝得昏天黑地，浑然忘了自己身处何地。艾默里他们的聚会也是这样无伤大雅的聚会。弗雷德·斯洛恩和菲比·科伦慕是老相识，艾柯西娅和艾默里是刚刚结识的新朋友。然而，即使是在夜色深沉之际，也无法阻挡奇怪的事情酝酿发酵，咖啡馆这个平淡无奇、再寻常不过的场所，本来与奇异的事情无缘，然而，正是在这里一桩奇事正悄悄发生，准备破坏他在百老汇即将落幕的浪漫故事。这一桩奇事发生的方式让人不寒而栗，匪夷所思，以致他后来竟不能相信这是自己的亲身经历，然而它就是一出悲剧里模糊的一幕，在幕帷后面远远地上演，但他知道它有某些确凿的意味。

深夜一点的时候他们又去了马克西姆酒吧，两点的时候他们又出现在了戴维尼埃酒吧。斯洛恩不管在哪儿都杯不离手，他已经有些步履踉跄、兴奋过头了。艾默里则相当清醒，只是有些厌倦，他们并没有遇到通常来给他们纽约聚会助兴的那些老奸巨猾的香槟买家。

他们那时刚刚跳完舞，正打算回到座位上去，艾默里意识到邻近桌子上有人正一直在盯着他。他转过身，不经意地扫了一眼……那是一个中年男人，他穿着皱巴巴的棕色西装，独自一人坐在离他们不远的一个桌子旁，正神情专注地盯着他们这一行人。他微微一笑，回应了艾默里的目光。艾默里转过来盯着正要落座的弗雷德。

“那个脸色煞白、老盯着我们看的傻帽儿是谁？”他愤愤不平地抱怨着。

“哪儿呢？”斯洛恩大声嚷嚷着，“我们把他给扔出去！”他猛地站起来，身体前后摇晃着，他只好抓住椅子。“他在哪儿呢？”

艾柯西娅和菲比忽然俯身向前，两人隔着桌子嘀嘀咕咕说了些什么，艾默里一时恍恍惚惚，还没弄明白怎么回事，就已经跟着他们朝门口走去了。

“现在去哪儿？”

“回公寓去，”菲比提议说，“我们那儿有白兰地和汽水——今晚这里的一切都很没劲儿。”

艾默里飞快地思考起来。他还没有喝醉，并且断定只要他不再喝酒，跟着大家伙儿一起依然是理智且谨慎的做法。事实上，可能，这样做只是为了盯紧斯洛恩，因为他此刻已经不能做任何思考了。因此他挽着艾柯西娅的胳膊，两人异常亲密地挤到了一辆车里，他们的汽车开出去几百米，接着在一幢高大的、白色石头砌成的公寓楼前面停了下来……他永远不会忘记那条街……那是一条宽阔的大街，两边是几乎一样的白色石头砌成的高大楼房，点缀着黑色的窗户。这些楼房在银色月光的笼罩之下显现出钙质的灰白色，一直绵延到目光所及之处。他想象着每幢楼里都有一部电梯，一个看门的黑人男孩，还有一个钥匙架；每幢楼都有八层高，楼内都是三居室或四居室的套房。他怀着兴奋的心情走进菲比那间洋溢着欢乐气氛的起居室，直接坐进了沙发里，姑娘们则忙着到处翻找吃的东西去了。

“菲比是真的很不错。”斯洛恩告密似的轻声向艾默里说道。

“我只会在这里待半个小时。”艾默里板着面孔说，心里又犯嘀咕，不知道这样说会不会显得太不留情面。

“见鬼，瞧你说的，”斯洛恩大为不满，“我们都已经在这儿了——别着急呀。”

“我不喜欢这个地方，”艾默里闷闷不乐地说，“而且我什么也不想吃。”

菲比再次出现的时候，手里拿着三明治、白兰地、吸管，还有四个玻璃杯。

“艾默里，你来倒酒，”她说，“让我们为弗雷德·斯洛恩喝一杯，他有着举世罕见的高超本领。”

“对，”艾柯西娅正好走进来，应声说道，“还有艾默里。我喜欢艾默里。”她紧贴在他身边坐下，把她满头金发的脑袋靠在他的肩膀上。

“我来倒酒，”斯洛恩说道，“你用吸管喝吧，菲比。”

他们把酒杯放在托盘上。

“预备，她喝了！”

艾默里手里端着酒杯，却一直在犹豫。

刚才有那么一会儿，诱惑像暖风一般袭上他的心头，他想象中的情景也像火焰一般燃烧，然后他从菲比的手中接过了酒杯。就是这样，正当他要做出决定的那一秒他抬起头，却一眼看见那个他在咖啡馆里瞥见的男人，就在距离他十码远的地方。他不禁惊得跳了起来，酒杯从他举起的手中跌落。那个男人就在角落的长沙发上，身子半坐半靠在沙发的一堆靠枕上。他的脸色和在咖啡馆里所见的一样，蜡黄惨淡，既不像死人那种晦暗苍白的颜色，也不像人们所说的病态的惨白，而是一种带着活力的苍白，好像是一个常年在矿井中工作，或是在潮湿的天气里上夜班的精壮汉子的脸庞。艾默里仔细地打量了他一番，后来几乎能把他依样画下来，即使是微小的细节也不会漏掉。他的嘴唇属于扁平型的，灰色的眼睛里带着沉着的神色，逐一地审视着他们这伙人，目光中透出探询的意味。艾默里注意到了他的手，它们相当粗糙，但是相当灵活，柔韧又有力……那是一双紧张的手，轻轻地搭在靠垫上，还不时地来回在靠垫上摩挲，一会儿打开，一会儿攥紧。接着，艾默里猛然间看到了那双脚，他心里一紧，血一下子涌上头顶，他意识到了自己的恐惧。那双脚很不正常……这是他感觉到的，而不是他辨认出来的……就好像一个贤良淑女身上的不足，或者绸缎上的血渍，些许突兀的不协调之处就足以颠覆头脑中对一个事物的认知。他脚上没有穿普通的鞋子，而是穿着一种尖头的类似莫卡辛那样的软底鞋，就像十四世纪人们穿的鞋子，脚尖向上卷曲着。那是一双深棕色的鞋子，那人的脚趾似乎把鞋子全都撑满了……总之它们让人感到说不出的别扭……

他一定是说了什么话，或是眼神中流露出了什么，因为他听到艾柯西娅的声音从一片空虚之中传了出来，带着一种异样的关切。

“嗨，快看艾默里！可怜的艾默里是病了吧——还是老脑筋犯晕了？”

“你们瞧那个人！”艾默里指着角落里的长沙发，高声说道。

“你说的是那匹紫色的斑马！”艾柯西娅半开玩笑地惊声叫了起来，“噢——耶！艾默里觉得有匹紫色的斑马在盯着他！”

斯洛恩心不在焉地大笑起来。

“你被一匹斑马看上啦，艾默里？”

随之而来的是一阵沉默……那个男人狐疑地盯着艾默里……接着，隐约有人说话的声音传到了他的耳边：

“还以为你没喝多呢。”艾柯西娅不无讽刺地说道，但是听到她的声音还是好的。那个男人坐着的长沙发忽然间活了起来，就像柏油路上的热浪，像蠕动的毛毛虫……

“回来！快回来！”艾柯西娅用胳膊挽住了他，“艾默里，亲爱的，你不要走，艾默里！”那时他已经快到门口了。

“来吧，艾默里，跟我们一起！”

“你不舒服吗？”

“坐下来歇会儿！”

“喝点水。”

“来点儿白兰地……”

电梯关上了门，那个黑人男孩儿正昏昏欲睡，他的面庞苍白得几近青铜色……艾柯西娅恳切挽留的声音在电梯的升降机井里飘飘荡荡。那双脚……那双脚……

他们乘电梯下到底楼时，在大厅中昏黄的电灯的映照之下，那双脚又赫然出现。

小巷中

长街尽头处，天空中明月高悬，艾默里转身背对着月亮向前走去。十步或十五步开外的地方响起了脚步声。那脚步声如同缓缓滴落的水滴，绵绵不绝，每一滴落下时都带着那种微弱的坚持。艾默里的影子，大约就投射在他身体前方十英尺的地方，那双软底鞋大约就在他身后相同距离的地方。出于孩子般的本能，艾默里在白色大楼的蓝色暗影中缓缓向前，不时要狼狈地穿过月光照亮的危险罅隙，其间他忍不住磕磕绊绊地跑了起来。慢跑了几步之后，他又忽然停住，他想自己务必要沉住气。他的嘴唇干涩，忍不住舔了舔。

要是他能遇见一个好人——这个世界上还有任何活着的好人吗？或者他们此刻都在白色的公寓大楼里？是不是在月光下每个人都会被跟踪？不过，如果他能遇见一个好人，而且这个好人明白他的意思，也听见了这该死的窸窸窣窣的脚步声……这时，窸窸窣窣的脚步声突然间越来越近了，与此同时，一块乌云遮住了月亮。当白色的月光再一次跳上屋顶的飞檐时，那个脚步声几乎就在他身旁，艾默里感到自己还听到了平静的喘息声。他突然发觉脚步声并不在他的身后，从来就不在身后，而是一直在他前面，他并不是一直在躲避，而是在追随……追随。他开始漫无目的地跑动起来，他的心怦怦乱跳，双手攥拳。在他前面很远的地方隐约出现了一个黑点，这个黑点慢慢变大，变成了一个人的形状。但是艾默里现在把这些都抛开了，他从马路上转身离开，飞快地钻进一个巷子里，那是一个狭窄、阴暗，散发着腐臭气味的巷子。他跌跌撞撞地沿着狭长蜿蜒的黑色巷子向前奔跑，那里除了星星点点的闪光和亮斑见不到一丁点月光……后来，他突然瘫倒在一个角落里的篱笆墙边，气喘吁吁，体力不支。他前面的脚步声也戛然而止，他能够听到那双脚轻轻地移动，在地面上来来回回走动的声音，就像岸边涌动的海浪。

他把脸埋在手中，尽量把眼睛和耳朵都遮住。一路走来，他竟然从未想过自己是产生了幻觉或者喝醉了。他体验到一种真切的现实感，那是一种物质世界所不能给予他的现实感。他的智力认知似乎都在这种现实感面前缴械投降了，而这种体验似乎与他之前所经历的生活完美契合，没有一丝缝隙。这并没有导致他犯糊涂。这是一个纸上写有答案的问题，然而他就是不知道该如何解答。他此刻感受到的远不止恐惧。他已经从单薄的恐惧层面坠落，跌进另一层空间，在那里，那双脚和他对白色围墙的恐惧如此真切，它们似乎是活生生的事物，是他必须接受的事物。只是在他灵魂的最深处仍有一团火苗在跳动，向他呼喊着有什么东西拖住了他，似乎要把他拖入一扇门里然后把他死死地关在里面。那扇门在砰然关闭之后，那里将只剩下脚步声和月光中的白色楼房，或许他自己也会变成其中的一种脚步声。

在他跌坐在篱笆墙阴影中等待的五到十分钟里，不知怎么这团火苗……后来感到它和自己无限接近，甚至事后他还能说出当时的情景。他记得自己大声地叫喊：

“我想要一个愚蠢之人。哦，派一个愚蠢之人来！”他冲着对面的黑色篱笆喊道，在那篱笆的阴影里脚步声窸窸窣窣……窸窸窣窣。他猜想，“愚蠢”和“善良”通过刚才的联想，已经成为一体，难解难分了。他这样呼喊并非出自他自己的意志——他的意志曾让他远离街上那个移动的人影；不如说他的喊叫是出于本能，那是代代相传的积累起来的内在的传统，是自古以来人们对着黑夜所发出的狂野的祷告。接着，传来一阵铿锵作响的声音，好像远处的铜锣发出低沉的敲击声，那两只脚的上方有一个面孔在他的眼前一闪而过，那是一张苍白又扭曲的脸，无限的邪恶使那张脸扭曲变形，如同在风中摇曳的火苗；但是就在那锣声敲响并嗡嗡回荡的间隙，他已经认出，那是迪克·亨博德的脸。

几分钟之后，他猛地跳起身，隐约意识到附近已经没有了任何声响，灰暗的巷子里只剩下他孤身一人。天气很冷，他开始迈着稳健的步伐，朝着光亮处跑了起来，那是巷子的另一头，通向马路。

在窗口

他醒来的时候已经临近中午，床头的电话正疯狂地响个不停，他意识到自己正躺在酒店的房间里，并且记起来曾在服务台留言，让他们十一点的时候叫醒他。斯洛恩此时鼾声正隆，脱下的衣服在床边胡乱堆着。他们起床穿好衣服，默不作声地吃了早饭，然后便漫步到户外，出来透口气。艾默里的头脑仍混沌不清，努力想还原出昨天夜里发生的事情，想从记忆里混乱不堪的意象中分离出一些清晰的真相。假如当时天气寒冷，天色阴暗，他或许瞬间就能抓住过去所发生的这些事情的脉络，然而那天恰巧是纽约五月份偶尔才会有的温暖天气，第五大道上微风和煦，像温柔绵甜的美酒，让人沉醉。艾默里并不关心斯洛恩还能回忆起多少昨夜的事，不管他记得多还是少，很显然他并没有经受任何精神上的煎熬，而艾默里则深受其害，一度无法自拔，被迫翻来覆去来回思索着，思绪好像被一把发出尖叫的锯子左右拉扯。

他们没走多久，百老汇大街就映入眼帘，街上人声鼎沸，喧嚣声不绝于耳，涂脂抹粉的面孔不断在眼前闪过，艾默里忽然感到一阵恶心袭上心头。

“看在上帝的分上，我们回去吧！我们离开这儿——这个地方！”

斯洛恩一脸诧异地望着他。

“你什么意思？”

“这条街，太可怕了！快点！咱们还是回到第五大道上去！”

“你的意思是，”斯洛恩无动于衷地说，“就因为你昨天晚上有点儿消化不良，像着了魔一样疯疯癫癫的，你就再也不来百老汇了？”

斯洛恩说这话时，艾默里已经在心里把他和满大街的凡夫俗子归在了一处，他似乎不再是那个温文尔雅、谈吐幽默、性情开朗的斯洛恩了，而是随着混乱的人流在他眼前旋转的某一个邪恶面孔。

“老兄！”他大喊一声，声音之大，引得街角的众人都回过头来，对他上下打量，“这里是污秽之地，如果你看不到这一点，你也是个污秽之人！”

“这也由不得我，”斯洛恩不为所动，“你到底是怎么啦？老一套的悔过自新又来了？你要是经常和我们待在一起，现在肯定感觉不错。”

“我得走了，弗雷德。”艾默里一字一句地说道。他两腿发软，膝盖在颤抖，他知道如果在这条街上再待上哪怕一分钟，他就会当场趴下。“我要在范德比特饭店吃午饭。”说完，他大步流星地扬长而去，转身回到了第五大道。回到酒店他感觉好了一点，但是当他走进理发店，想要做头部按摩的时候，屋子里的脂粉和生发水的味道又让他想起了艾柯西娅暗送秋波的媚眼，他又慌忙走了出去。走到自己房间门口的时候，他忽然眼前一黑，黑暗犹如一条分汊的河流将他包裹起来。

他苏醒过来的时候发现已经过去好几个小时了。他爬起来，重重地扑到床上，脸朝下翻腾了几下，他陷入深深的恐惧之中，感觉自己快要疯了。他渴望有人来，随便什么人，只要神志清楚、愚蠢而且善良。他躺在那里一动不动，也不知躺了多久。他能感觉到前额上的毛细血管里热流涌动，根根暴突，心中的恐惧此刻已经像石膏一样凝固成形，变得结结实实了。他感到自己又一次向上穿过恐惧的单薄外壳，而他唯一能够分辨的，就是自己就要离开的那片阴森森的暮光。他一定是又一次睡着了，等他再次镇定下来的时候，他已经跟酒店结清了账单，在门口钻进了一辆出租车。那时外面正大雨如注。

他坐在回普林斯顿的火车上，没看到一个熟人，只看见一群看上去满面倦容的费城人。过道另一侧坐着一个浓妆艳抹的女人，看见她艾默里又感到一阵恶心难受，所以他换到了另外一节车厢，试图集中精神读流行杂志上的一篇文章。他发现自己把同一段文字读了一遍又一遍，因而放弃了这种徒劳的努力，有气无力地把滚烫的前额靠在湿漉漉的玻璃窗上。这节车厢是一节可吸烟车厢，密不透风，闷热难耐，空气中弥散着这个州的外来侨民身上所散发出的味道。他打开一扇窗户，迎面袭来一团雾气，他不禁打了个寒战。两个小时的车程感觉好像是过了几天，当普林斯顿校园的塔楼在他身边的车窗外慢慢显现的时候，当大楼窗口上一方方昏黄的灯光透过夜色中的大雨映入眼帘之际，他几乎要欢快地大叫起来。

汤姆站在屋子中间，正在心事重重地点之前留下的烟蒂。艾默里有种感觉，汤姆看见他似乎轻松了不少。

“昨天晚上做了个跟你有关的噩梦，”雪茄的烟雾背后传来汤姆沙哑的声音，“我感觉你一定是遇到什么麻烦了。”

“别跟我说那个梦！”艾默里几乎尖叫了起来，“一个字儿也别提，我累了，精疲力竭。”

汤姆一脸疑惑地看了看他，然后一屁股坐进椅子里，打开了他的意大利语笔记本。艾默里把外套和帽子直接扔在了地板上，把衣领解开，从书架上随便拿了本威尔斯的小说。“威尔斯是个理智的人，”他心想，“如果看他的书没用，我再读鲁伯特·布鲁克。”

半个小时过去了。外面刮起了风，被雨淋湿的树枝在风中摆动，划过玻璃窗的时候发出了好似指甲抓挠的声响，艾默里听到响动，不由得吓了一跳。汤姆那时正埋头做他的功课，房间里只有偶尔划火柴的声音，或者他们在椅子里变换姿势时摩擦皮革的声响，会打破原有的寂静。然而转瞬之间，犹如一道曲曲折折的闪电划过夜空，房间里的气氛突变。艾默里陡然直起身子，僵硬地坐在椅子上。汤姆正盯着他看，而他嘴巴大张着，眼睛直勾勾的。

“上帝救我们！”艾默里大叫起来。

“哦，我的天哪！”汤姆喊道，“看后面！”艾默里旋即转身，快如一道闪电。除了黑黢黢的玻璃窗，他什么也没看见。“它不见踪影了，”过了一秒钟汤姆才开口道，那一秒钟房间中的恐惧几乎将时间凝固。“有什么东西一直在盯着你看。”

艾默里浑身剧烈地颤抖，又跌坐进椅子里。

“我得告诉你。”他说道，“我经历了一桩可怕的事情。我想我是——我是见到了魔鬼或者——像魔鬼一样的东西。你刚才看见了怎样一张脸？哦，不，”他赶紧补充说，“不要告诉我！”

过了一会儿，他把那晚的经历告诉了汤姆。等他讲完的时候已经是半夜了，随后，他们把房间里的灯都打开，两个昏昏欲睡、浑身颤抖的大男孩各自为对方读起了《新马基雅维利传》[87]，直到威瑟斯普恩大楼那里亮起了破晓的天光，当天的《普林斯顿人日报》被送到了门口，直到五月的鸟儿欢唱着迎接夜雨之后初升的朝阳。

第四章　告别自恋

在普林斯顿的过渡时期，也就是艾默里待在那里的最后两年里，他透过那些比夜间游行更好的手段，观察到了这所大学的变化，它不断被充实、拓展，它的氛围越来越与哥特式美景的校园相得益彰，与此同时，新个体的出现给它带来了触及其宏大根基的改变。他们中的有些人是和艾默里一同进校的老生，他们也曾是放荡不羁的大一新生；有一些则是比他年级低的同学，就在艾默里大学生涯最后一年的伊始，这些同学在拿骚酒吧的小桌子前，大声质疑起学校的现行体制，而这种质疑，艾默里和先前无数的学子长久以来只会在私下里进行。起先，部分学生是出于偶然，他们碰巧读到了某些书，那是一种艾默里美其名曰“求索”类的书，实际上就是一种传记体小说。在这些“求索”书中，主人公出发开始其人生的探索之旅的时候，他们都配备了最好的武器，并信誓旦旦地说要按照惯用的方式运用这些武器，他们以此激励那些拥有武器的人可以不管不顾，不顾及他人而勇往直前，但这些“求索”故事的主人公后来发现这些武器原本有更为高尚的用途。《别无他神》、《邪恶街道》和《伟大研究》[88]都是此类书籍；而这三本中的最后一本让伯恩·霍里德最为着迷，这本书让他在刚刚步入大学四年级的时候，就开始思考在他的俱乐部展望大道里做一个擅于社交的独裁者，在班级办公室中享受受人注目的荣光，到底有多少价值。伯恩很显然是通过结交权贵才找到自己的成功之路的。之前由于凯里的关系，艾默里与他有过断断续续的泛泛之交，直到大四那年的一月份，他们俩的友谊才正式开始。

“知道最近发生了什么吗？”汤姆问道。他回来晚了，那是一个细雨蒙蒙的夜晚，他身上洋溢着一种胜利的欢快气息，他每每与人有过一番占据上风的高谈阔论后，总是这般欢快。

“不知道。有人因为考试不及格而辍学了？还是又有轮船失事了？”

“比这严重得多。大三的学生差不多有三分之一要退出他们的俱乐部了。”

“什么！”

“千真万确！”

“怎么会这样！”

“改革的精神，以及与此相关的种种。伯恩·霍里德是幕后推手。各个俱乐部的主席今晚要碰头开个会，看看他们能否联合起来阻止这一举动。”

“是吗？他们这样做的初衷是什么？”

“哦，他们说俱乐部损害了普林斯顿的民主精神，开销巨大，造成了阶级分化，要占用不少时间，还有一些老一套的牢骚话，那些灰心丧气的二年级学生有时也这样抱怨。伍德罗[89]认为，应该废止俱乐部还有相关的一切活动。”

“可是，情况果真是这样吗？”

“确凿无疑！我想这消息马上就会蔓延开来。”

“看在上帝的分上，快给我仔细讲讲。”

“好吧，”汤姆开始从头说起，“似乎同时有几个人都有了这种想法。我刚才还和伯恩聊了一会儿，他认为这是一件情理之中的事，如果一个有聪明才智的人对社交体系多做一些思考，就必然会产生这样的想法。他们有一个‘讨论群体’，其中一个人提出了废止俱乐部的想法——结果一呼百应，大家都跳起来响应——每个人或多或少都有这样的想法，只要那么一点火花就能将思想的火种引燃。”

“好！我敢肯定，这下有好戏看了。方帽和长袍俱乐部那边的情况怎么样？”

“当然全乱套了。每个人都坐在那里，不是在争论，就是在咒骂，大家伙儿都有些按捺不住，不是生气发飙，就是感情用事，还有人蛮不讲理。我刚刚到各处转了一圈，每个俱乐部情况都一样。他们会对某个激进分子进行围攻，抛出一连串的问题，让他难以招架。”

“那些激进分子回应得怎么样？”

“哦，大体上还算可以。伯恩真是个能言善辩的家伙，而且看起来也很真诚，基本上都说不过他。道理显而易见，在我们看来要阻止人们退出俱乐部事关重大，但伯恩认为，从俱乐部辞职对他来说意义更加重大，我感觉与他争论就是在白费力气，最后，我只能明智地选择保持中立。事实上，我相信伯恩曾一度认为他已经说服了我。”

“你刚才说三年级有三分之一的同学都要退出？”

“就算四分之一吧，稳妥一点。”

“天哪——谁能想到还会有这种事！”

这时传来了一阵轻快的敲门声，随后走进来的正是伯恩。“你好，艾默里——你好，汤姆。”

艾默里站了起来。

“晚上好，伯恩。我正好有桩急事要办，请别介意，我正准备去伦威克酒吧呢。”

伯恩随即转过身来。

“你估计已经知道我要和汤姆讨论什么，这没什么可保密的。我希望你留下来。”

“那就恭敬不如从命。”艾默里重新坐了下来，伯恩则盘腿坐在一张桌子上与汤姆展开了激烈的辩论，艾默里比以往任何时候都更仔细地打量起这个革命者。伯恩眉眼舒展，下巴坚毅，长着和凯里一样的灰色眼睛，眼神中透出真诚和优雅，他给人的第一印象是豁达大度，可以信赖——性格倔强，这显而易见，但他并不呆板。听他谈了五分钟之后，艾默里就意识到，他诚挚的热情中绝无半点半吊子的夸夸其谈。

艾默里后来在伯恩·霍里德身上感受到的强大的力量，与他起初对于亨博德的赞赏截然不同。这次纯粹是出于精神上的喜好。对于那些他认为是头等人物的男性，他以前总是被他们的个性所吸引，然而在伯恩身上，他并没有感受到通常情况下瞬间让他无法自拔的吸引力。但那天晚上，艾默里被伯恩身上执着的真诚所打动，之前他总是习惯于把这种品质与不可救药的愚蠢联系在一起，但伯恩的巨大热情拨响了他原本已经麻木的心弦。伯恩隐约之中代表着艾默里向往停泊的陆地，他希望自己漂向那里——这时也恰好是这块陆地显现的时候。汤姆、艾默里和埃里克早已陷入了困境，他们似乎从未有过共同的新鲜经历，因为汤姆和埃里克一直在为他们的委员会和理事会瞎忙着，而艾默里则一直在无所事事地瞎混，他们要一起进行剖析的事物——无非是大学的现状、时代个性以及诸如此类——他们已经就着无数次的粗茶淡饭，一而再，再而三地讨论过。

那天晚上他们就俱乐部的话题一直聊到十二点，大体上，他们很赞同伯恩的观点。对于艾默里和汤姆这两位室友来说，这个话题并不像两年前一样那么性命攸关，但伯恩反驳社交系统的逻辑，与他们一直思索的问题完全吻合，因而他们与其说是争论，不如说是在提问，他们羡慕他有如此清醒的头脑让他足以挺身而出，对抗所有的传统。

后来艾默里把话题岔开，讨论起一些别的事情，他发现伯恩在这些方面也有深邃的见解。伯恩对经济学抱有极大的兴趣，并且正在转变为一个社会主义者。和平主义在他的头脑中根深蒂固，他同时也是《民众》[90]月刊和列夫·托尔斯泰的忠实读者。

“对于宗教你怎么看？”艾默里问他。

“不知道。我对于许多事情都还是一头雾水——我只是刚刚发现自己可以思考，我正在发奋读书。”

“都读了哪些书？”

“什么都读。当然，我还是会有所选择，但是主要是那些能促使我思考的书。我最近正在看四部福音书，还有《论宗教体验之种种》[91]。”

“主要是哪些书启发了你？”

“威尔斯，我猜，还有托尔斯泰，还有一个叫爱德华·卡朋特[92]的人。他们的著作我已经读了一年多了——我读其中的一些片段，那些我认为至关重要的片段。”

“读诗歌吗？”

“嗯，坦率地说，我读的并不是你们所说的诗歌，或者说，我读诗歌并不是出于你们那样的原因——当然，你们两位都写诗，因而观察事物的角度也会与众不同。惠特曼是我喜欢的诗人。”

“惠特曼？”

“对，毫无疑问他的诗歌有一种道德训诫的力量。”

“好吧，说来惭愧，在惠特曼这个话题上我一无所知。你呢，汤姆？”

汤姆也有点难为情地点了点头。

“哦，”伯恩接着说，“你可能会读到几首写得比较乏味的诗，但我说的是他诗作的整体。他非常了不起——就像托尔斯泰一样。他们都敢于直面事情的真相，虽然他们迥然有别，但他们的主张是差不多一致的。”

“你真把我难住了，伯恩，”艾默里坦承道，“当然，我也读过《安娜·卡列尼娜》和《克鲁采奏鸣曲》，但是据我所知，托尔斯泰的影响主要还是集中在以俄语为母语的国家。”

“他是几百年来最伟大的人物，”伯恩热情地高声叫起来，“你有没有看过他头发花白蓬乱的晚年画像？”

他们的交谈一直持续到凌晨三点钟，从生物学聊到有组织的宗教，当艾默里哆哆嗦嗦地爬上床的时候，他脑子里的诸多观点都在熠熠闪光，他感受到震撼，因为已经有人发现了他本来有可能要追寻的道路。毋庸置疑，伯恩·霍里德正处于成长变化之中——艾默里曾一度认为自己也在成长。由于那些有碍他前程的事物，他曾经深深陷入愤世嫉俗的状态中，也对不完美的人性设计感到失望，他不断阅读萧伯纳和切斯特顿的作品，以便把自己从颓废的边缘拯救出来——此刻，突然之间他去年一年半以来的心路历程似乎都酸腐变质而又徒劳无益了——充其量不过是一次微不足道的自我完善……就像前一个春天里的那桩奇事一样，这种思绪如同一个阴郁的背景，使他夜里有一半的时间都处于一种阴沉的恐惧之中，甚至连祈祷都无法进行。他还算不上一名天主教徒，但那花哨的、注重仪式的、自相矛盾的天主教信仰，是他唯一保有的信条，这信条如同幽灵一般挥之不去，切斯特顿可以说是天主教的先知，它的追随者是像于思曼和布尔热那样改过自新的文学浪子，而它在美国的倡导者是拉尔夫·亚当斯·克拉姆[93]，他热情地赞美十三世纪的教堂——那代表着一种艾默里认为方便又现成的天主教，没有神父，没有圣礼，也没有献祭。

他无法入睡，于是打开了床头的台灯，从书架上取下《克鲁采奏鸣曲》，仔细地在书中寻找着让伯恩充满热情的缘由。成为伯恩那样的人物要比做一个聪明人真实得多。然而，他叹了口气……像伯恩这样的人物也难免有不为人知的缺陷吧，谁还没有两只泥足？

回顾自己两年来的生活，他依然记得刚刚入校时，伯恩还是一个行事匆忙又紧张的大一新生，跟他哥哥鲜明的个性截然不同，他显得毫不起眼。随后，他想起来二年级发生的一件事，那时就有人怀疑伯恩在其中扮演了主导角色。

系主任霍利斯特当时跟一名出租车司机发生了争执，那名司机刚刚把他从枢纽站接过来，有一大群人都听到了他们的争吵。在他们争吵的过程中，系主任说了一句“最后把你的车也买下来”。他付了钱之后就扬长而去，但是第二天一早当他走进自己的办公室时，发现他平日里原本摆放办公桌的地方停着一辆出租车，上面还放了一块牌子，牌子上写着“系主任霍利斯特的私有财产。购车款已付”。……后来两名技术熟练的机械工花了半天的时间把车子拆卸成一个个零件，才把它搬走。这件事情证明只要领导有方，二年级同学特有的幽默也能释放出罕见的能量。

接下来，就在那年秋天，伯恩又在校园里引起了一场轰动。有一个名叫菲利斯·思达尔的姑娘，她是活跃于校际舞会的交际花，那一年她居然没有收到哈佛-普林斯顿橄榄球赛的年度邀请。

杰西·菲伦比在几个星期之前曾带她参加了一场规模较小的比赛，并邀请伯恩参与了接待——最后致使后者嫌忌女性的心态土崩瓦解。

“你要来参加和哈佛的那场比赛吗？”伯恩随口问了她一句，只是为了要和她聊天。

“如果你邀请我，我就来。”菲利斯爽快地大声说道。

“当然要请你来。”伯恩怯生生地回答。他对于菲利斯的手段一无所知，满以为那不过是一句随口说说的玩笑话。不料，还不到一个小时，他就知道自己已经难以脱身了。菲利斯已经盯上了他，并开始对他不依不饶，告诉他自己来时要搭乘哪班火车，这让伯恩彻底绝望了。除了厌恶菲利斯，他还特别想单独观看那场比赛，顺便再招待一下几个哈佛的朋友。

“她就等着瞧吧，”他对专门跑到寝室来取笑他的那帮人说，“她以后休想再哄骗哪个无辜的小青年带她观看比赛！”

“可是，伯恩——既然你不想和她一起，为什么还邀请了她来？”

“伯恩，你明明知道你已经暗暗迷恋上她了——这才是问题的关键所在。”

“你打算怎么办，伯恩？你打算用什么办法来对付菲利斯？”

然而伯恩只是摇头，嘴里咕哝着带有威胁性的话语，大抵也就是说：她等着瞧吧，她就等着瞧吧！

那年夏天菲利斯刚满二十五岁，她一向无忧无虑，那天她从火车上走下来时还满心欢喜，可是站台上的一幕不禁让她大跌眼镜。伯恩和弗雷德·斯洛恩打扮得花里胡哨地站在站台上，两人从头到脚都艳丽非常，好像大学校园里那些招贴画上艳俗的人物。他俩都穿着买来的色彩艳丽的西装，肩膀被鼓鼓囊囊的垫肩撑得巨大，下身穿着腰间肥大的灯笼裤。两人头上歪戴着学校的礼帽，胸前别着别针，披挂着鲜艳的橙色和黑色绶带，塑料领子上火焰般的橙红色领带亮眼夺目。两人的胳膊上还戴着黑色的袖章，袖章上是大写的橙色字母P，手里拿着飘扬着普林斯顿三角旗的旗杆，脚上的袜子和胸袋上半露的手帕也都是同一色调，整个造型实在让人忍俊不禁。除此之外，他们手里还牵着哐啷作响的链子，链子上拴着一只身形庞大、性情暴躁的公猫，猫身上涂满了油漆，扮成老虎的模样。

车站里超过一半的人都在盯着他们看，一时被他们的装扮唬住了，不知是该对他们报以同情，还是热烈的大笑。菲利斯一脸惊诧，尖细的下巴紧绷着，当她朝他们走过来时，这两个家伙一起弯腰鞠躬，高呼着学校啦啦队的口号，声音嘹亮，余音缭绕，还不忘非常体贴地在最后加上“菲利斯”的名字。他们热热闹闹地迎接了她，而且一路上热情不减，声势浩大地护送她穿过校园，她身后还有五十来个村子里的淘气鬼簇拥跟随——校园中成百上千的校友和访客都笑得透不过气来，他们当中有一半人都没想到这是一出恶作剧，还以为伯恩和弗雷德是两个校队的活宝，在带着他们的女友参观校园呢。

当菲利斯在众目睽睽之下像游行表演一样穿过哈佛和普林斯顿的看台时，看台上正坐着一些她先前的忠实追随者，她当时的心情可想而知。她曾试图走得靠前一点，也试着落在后面一点——但是他们寸步不离，如影随形，人们一眼就能看出她是和谁在一起，他俩还不忘高声谈论起他们在橄榄球队里的朋友，到后来，连她自己都听到了她的几个熟人在底下议论纷纷：

“菲利斯和那两位在一起，可真是难过死了。”

这就是伯恩，富有活跃的幽默细胞，但骨子里严肃认真。他的能量正是迸发自这样的源泉，现在他正在通过不断的进步来引导自己的能量……

几个星期的时间倏忽即逝，转眼就到了阳春三月，艾默里并没有在伯恩身上发现他所谓的“泥足”，也就是个人的缺陷或短处。最终为了捍卫公平正义，约有一百位大三和大四的学生退出了他们所在的俱乐部，这些无计可施的俱乐部为了报复伯恩，拿出了他们的看家本事：嘲讽。几乎每一个认识伯恩的人都喜欢他——但是他所代表和倡导的东西（他开始倡导更多的东西了）总是会招致许多谩骂和攻击，众口铄金的力量如此强大，恐怕也只有像伯恩这样的坚定有毅力的人，才不至于被淹没。

“你难道不担心失去自己的声誉？”有一天晚上艾默里问他。他们现在已经喜欢上了每周都要互相拜访，见上几次。

“当然，我从不担心。往最好了说，声誉是什么？”

“有人说你不过就是个自发的政治说客。”

他仰天大笑。

“今天斯洛恩就是这么对我说的。我想我应该坦然接受。”

有一天下午他们谈到艾默里一直很感兴趣的一个话题——身体素质对于一个人性格塑造的影响。伯恩从生物学的视角探讨了这个问题，接着他说：

“当然，健康很重要——一个健康的人有双倍的概率会成为一个好人。”

“我不同意你的看法——我从来不相信‘强身派基督教’那套说法。”

“我相信——我认为耶稣基督就是个体格异常健壮的人。”

“哦，不，”艾默里反驳说，“他操劳过度。我想象着他死的那会儿一定已经羸弱不堪——那些伟大的圣徒也都不是体格健壮的人。”

“他们当中应该有一半是身强力壮的。”

“好吧，即使我们承认这是真的，我依然坚持健康和善良之间没有什么关联。当然，伟大的圣徒如果能够经受严峻的考验自然是难能可贵，但是那些很受欢迎的牧师争相展示自己的男子气概，假装自己身手矫健，活力无限，高喊着健美操将会拯救世界——不，伯恩，我实在不能苟同。”

“算了，让我们换个话题——我们无法达成一致的意见，况且我自己对这种想法也还有所保留。但是，有一件事我是确定无疑的——个人的外貌和品行息息相关。”

“你说的是肤色？”艾默里迫不及待地问道。

“对。”

“我和汤姆也是这么想的，”艾默里表示赞同，“我们曾经翻阅过最近十年的年鉴，并且查看了四年级学生会的照片。我知道你看不上这种高高在上的团体，但它确实代表了普遍意义的成功。嗯，我估计，在我们这儿，每个班金色头发的学生比例大约是百分之三十五，我说的是浅肤色的——然而在每届的四年级学生会中浅肤色的比例高达三分之二。提醒你一下，我们可是查看了十年的四年级学生会照片。这也就是说每十五个金色头发的四年级学生当中就会有一人进入了学生会，可这个比例在深色头发的学生当中是五十分之一。”

“千真万确，”伯恩附和道，“按照通常的说法，浅色头发的人是更高级的一种人。我得出这样的结论，是因为有一次我研究了一下历届的美国总统，随后发现他们当中有一半以上都是浅色头发——尤其是考虑到参选时深褐色头发的候选人实在是数不胜数。”

“人们下意识地认同这种说法，”艾默里说，“你会注意到，人们认为一个金色头发的人应该能言善辩。如果一个金发美女不说话，我们就说她是个‘洋娃娃’；如果一个金发碧眼的男人默不作声，很容易被看作是个呆子。可实际上，这世上到处都是‘深色皮肤，沉默寡言的人’和‘懒得开口的棕色头发的白人女子’，他们可能没有那么聪颖，但从不会有人因此而怪罪他们。”

“还有，大嘴巴，宽下巴，还有大鼻子，毫无疑问也是被看作更为尊贵的面孔。”

“我不太确定。”艾默里还是比较认同古典的面部特征。

“噢，可这是真的——我拿证据给你看。”伯恩说着就从书桌中抽出了一大沓照片，照片上全都是满脸胡子、头发蓬乱的各界名流——托尔斯泰、惠特曼、卡朋特，还有别的一些人。

“难道他们都不好看吗？”

艾默里出于礼貌尝试着去欣赏这些照片，可最终还是忍不住笑着作罢。

“伯恩，我觉得他们是我见过的最为丑陋的一群人。他们看上去就好像是一个养老院里的人物。”

“哦，艾默里，你看看爱默生的前额，看看托尔斯泰的眼睛。”他带着责备的口吻说道。

艾默里摇了摇头。

“不！随便你说他们气度不凡或是怎样——但是不可否认，他们都相当丑陋。”

伯恩并没有感到难堪，他饱含深情地用手抚过那些宽阔的额头，然后把相片收在一起，放回了书桌里。

晚间散步是伯恩一直坚持的一大爱好，有一天晚上他说服艾默里与他做伴，一起出去走走。

“我讨厌黑暗，”艾默里不大愿意，“我以前不是这样——除非在我特别富于想象力的时候，但现在，我真的讨厌——我觉得自己整日像个傻瓜一样，常常心有余悸。”

“这样是没用的，你知道的。”

“完全有可能。”

“我们朝东边走，”伯恩提议说，“然后沿着小路穿过树林。”

“听起来真不怎么样，”艾默里勉强表示愿意，“不过，还是去吧。”

他们迈着轻快的步子出发了，走了约一个小时，一边走一边轻松地交谈，很快普林斯顿校园的灯盏已被抛在了身后，变成暗夜中熠熠闪动的白色亮点。

“任何人只要有点想象力就难免会感到害怕，”伯恩很认真地说，“像我们这样的晚间散步，也曾是我所害怕的事情。我想告诉你现在我为什么到处溜达，但从不会感到害怕。”

“继续说。”艾默里急切地催促他。他们正大步朝着树林走去，伯恩紧张而又热情的声音响起，渐渐进入主题。

“我过去常常一个人晚上到这里来，哦，是三个月前，而且总是会在我们刚刚经过的那个路口停下来。因为再往前就是这片阴森森的树林，赫然耸立，就像现在这样，里面还有狗叫的声音，到处都是影子，就是没有人的声音。当然，是我把这片林子想象成充满可怕事物的所在，就像你一样；你是不是有这种感觉？”

“是的。”艾默里直言不讳。

“接着，我开始分析它——我为何总是把黑暗想象成恐怖的所在——我索性把自己的想象置于黑暗之中，让它从中反观自身——我让它如流浪狗、逃脱的罪犯或者鬼魂一样，来去自由，这样我就不自觉地开始沿着这条路走下去了。这样一来心里反倒踏实了——事情总是这样，当你能站在别人的立场上换位思考的时候，一切都变得明了了。我知道如果我是一只流浪狗，或者一名逃犯，或者一个鬼魂，我不会对伯恩·霍里德构成任何威胁，就像他不会对我构成威胁一样。后来，我想到了我的手表。我最好还是回去一趟，把手表放回去，再来尝试林中漫步。不，我随即否定了这个想法。权衡了一下，我决定宁可丢失一块手表，也不能就这样转身离开——然后，我真的走进了这片树林——不只是沿着穿过树林的大路，而且钻到了树林里面，后来心里就完全不害怕了——从那之后我经常来这儿，有一天晚上我在树林中坐下，还迷迷糊糊打了个盹儿，我那时就知道自己再也不会害怕黑暗了。”

“天哪，”艾默里嘘了一口气，“换作我，我就做不到。我估计走不到一半就会跑出来了。第一次来这儿的时候，碰上有汽车经过，等到车灯消失之后，夜色显得更暗，我本来可以走进去的，但后来还是放弃了。”

“哦。”伯恩沉默了一会儿，忽然开了口，“我们已经走了一半了，不如就转头回去吧。”

回去的路上，他开始了一场关于意志力的讨论。

“这事关全局，”他显得不容置疑，“这就是善与恶之间的那条分界线。我从未见过一个生活腐败堕落的人拥有坚强的意志，他们无一例外都是意志力薄弱的人。”

“那些罪大恶极的罪犯该怎么解释？”

“他们通常都已经丧失了理智。如果没有，他们的意志也是薄弱的。并不存在一个意志坚强且理智清醒的罪犯。”

“伯恩，我完全不同意你的观点，那你又对超人作何解释？”

“这个嘛？”

“他是邪恶的，我认为，但是他意志坚强，头脑理智。”

“我从未遇见过他。但是我敢打赌，他要么是个傻瓜，要么是个丧失理智的疯子。”

“我碰到过许多这样的人，他们既不是傻子也不是疯子。这就是我觉得你说得不对的原因。”

“我坚信自己没错——并且我不赞成拘禁，除非是针对那些丧失理智的人。”

在这一点上，艾默里无法和伯恩达成一致。对于他来说，意志坚强的罪犯在现实生活和历史长河中比比皆是，他们头脑精明，只是常常会自欺欺人，你可以在政治和商业领域发现这样的人，也可以在那些资深政治家、国王和将军中发现他们的身影；但是伯恩无法认同，他们俩在这一点上分道扬镳了。

伯恩正在远离他周围的世界，越走越远。他辞去了四年级学生会副主席的职务，把读书和散步当作他唯一追求的两个爱好。他自觉旁听了研究生阶段的哲学和生物课，他坐在他们中间带着悲伤的专注神情，似乎在等待着任课老师讲述永远不会涉及的什么问题。有时，艾默里看到他的身子在座位上局促不安，他的脸上闪烁着光彩，他总是热切地想和别人就一个问题展开争论。

他走在大街上时，越发显得心不在焉，甚至被人诟病为趾高气扬，但艾默里知道他绝不是那种人。有一次他和艾默里擦肩而过，他就在四英尺开外，对艾默里完全视而不见，他的思绪似乎依然驰骋在千里之外。艾默里看着他这副模样，一时间有股不明来由的喜悦涌上心头，让艾默里差点儿透不过气来。伯恩似乎攀爬到了他人永远无法企及的高度。

“我告诉你，”艾默里对汤姆直言不讳，“我不得不承认，在我所见过的同龄人中，他是第一个在智力水平上高于我的人。”

“现在可不适宜作这样的表白——大家已经开始意识到他有些古怪了。”

“他比那些人要高明多了——你只要同他聊上一会儿，自己就能意识到这一点——上帝啊，汤姆，你过去可是会挺身而出反对所谓的‘大家’的。你已经完全被成功驯化，变得亦步亦趋、因循守旧了。”

汤姆似乎被惹恼了，有点闷闷不乐。

“他到底想干什么——变得无比神圣吗？”

“不！他独一无二，绝非你所见过的任何人。他从未加入过费城社[94]。他不相信那些没落的东西。他不相信公共泳池和一两句及时的好话能够纠正这世间的不公，而且，他会在任何有雅兴的时候喝上一杯。”

“他毫无疑问已经走火入魔了。”

“你最近跟他说过话吗？”

“没有。”

“那么，你现在对他一无所知，根本不了解他是怎样的人。”

争论只能不了了之，但是艾默里比以往更明显地注意到，校园中人们对伯恩的感情发生了巨大的变化。

“真是奇怪，”一天晚上艾默里对汤姆说，那时他们在伯恩这个话题上已经缓和了下来，“那些极力反对伯恩激进主义的清一色的都是法利赛人[95]——我的意思是那些在学校中最有教养的一批人——报纸的编辑，就像你和菲伦比，那些年轻教授……那些像朗格杜克那样没什么文化的运动员，认为他越来越古怪，他们不过是说，‘老好人伯恩的脑子里总有些奇怪有趣的想法’，然后就不再提了——而那些法利赛人——啧啧！他们对他的嘲讽可谓是不遗余力，一点情面都不给。”

他第二天早上遇到了伯恩，伯恩刚刚上完了一节复习课，正沿着麦考什林荫道匆匆忙忙地赶路。

“去向何处呀，沙皇陛下？”

“去《普林斯顿人日报》社，找菲伦比，”他朝艾默里扬了扬手中当天早上的《普林斯顿人日报》，“这篇社论就是他写的。”

“是要去活剥了他吗？”

“不——可他完全把我给弄糊涂了。要么是我对他的判断有误，要么是他一夜之间变成了这个世界上最恶劣的激进分子。”

伯恩说完就匆匆而去，几天之后艾默里才了解到后来那场谈话的内容。伯恩那天一走进神圣的编辑室，就兴高采烈地把报纸摊开。

“你好，杰西。”

“你好呀，萨伏那洛拉[96]。”

“我刚刚拜读了你的这篇社论。”

“好家伙——不知道您肯这样屈尊。”

“杰西，你让我大吃一惊。”

“怎么会？”

“你写出这样大逆不道的东西，难道不害怕这里的人会抓住你不放？”

“什么？”

“就像今天早上这篇。”

“到底怎么回事？——那篇社论不过是教导体系的例行发文。”

“没错，可是那句语录——”

杰西坐直了身子。

“什么语录？”

“你知道的：‘谁要是不拥护我，就等于是反对我。’[97]”

“噢——那又怎么样？”

杰西一脸困惑，但依然没有惊慌失措。

“好吧，你自己说的——我找出来给你。”伯恩打开报纸，然后大声念起来，“诚如那位绅士所言，‘谁要是不拥护我，就等于是反对我’，此人正是以这样粗陋的划分和愚蠢的概括而浪得虚名的。”

“那又怎么样呢？”菲伦比脸上开始显露出慌张的神色，“这是奥利佛·克伦威尔说过的话，不是吗？要不就是华盛顿，或者是某一位圣徒？仁慈的上帝，恕我记不得了。”

伯恩一时间大笑不止。

“哦，杰西，哦，善良可爱的杰西。”

“到底是谁说的？看在彼得的分上告诉我吧。”

“好吧，”伯恩镇定下来，然后说，“圣徒马太认为这一句出自耶稣基督。”

“我的上帝啊！”杰西大叫一声，向后一仰，一下子跌倒在废纸篓上。

艾默里作诗

转眼间几个星期又蹉跎而去。艾默里偶尔还是会到纽约闲逛，想去碰碰运气，找一辆崭新的亮闪闪的绿色公共汽车，希望它如棒棒糖一般的耀眼光泽能渗入自己的性情之中。有一天他冒冒失失地走进了一家剧院，那里正在上演一出剧团的保留剧目，他隐隐约约觉得剧目的名字有些耳熟。大幕拉开——他漫不经心地看到有个姑娘走到台上。她念了几句台词，这几句话在他的耳边萦绕，似乎勾起了他的回忆，轻轻地拨动了他的记忆之弦。是在哪儿——？在什么时候——？

接着，他似乎听到有人在他的身旁耳语，一个异常温柔又充满活力的声音响起：“噢，我真是一个可怜的小傻瓜；要是我做错了什么，请你一定告诉我。”

答案瞬间闪现在他的脑海中，他迅即而又不无欢喜地想起了伊莎贝拉。

他在节目单上找到一处空白的地方，随即便开始奋笔疾书：

身处人影幢幢的黑暗之中我又一次凝神注目，

那边的舞台上，帷幕徐徐升起，卷去多少往昔岁月；

逝去的两年——我们曾经蹉跎时光，

少不更事的我们还不曾厌倦喜剧的美好结局。

我曾贪恋你年轻的脸庞，热切专注，在我左右，

你顾盼回眸，神采飞扬，莞尔一笑，

所有的剧目都黯然失色，那台上的演出

像远处水面的涟漪，到我的岸边，早已波澜不惊。

哈欠连天，浮想联翩，夜晚将尽，

我一人独坐……那无聊的喋喋不休，注定

要破坏这原本动人的一幕，

你含泪泣涕，我黯然心伤。

正是这里！某个先生要愤然休妻，决绝而去，

那个叫不上名字的姑娘在他的怀中昏厥不醒。

心如止水

“鬼魂都是些呆头呆脑的东西，”埃里克说，“他们都反应迟钝。我总是能领先一步拆穿他们。”

“怎么拆穿？”汤姆问道。

“嗯，那要看在什么地方。比方说卧室。只要你稍加谨慎，鬼魂永远不可能在卧室抓住你。”

“说下去，比方说，你觉得自己的卧室里可能有个鬼魂——深更半夜回到家时，你会采取什么措施？”艾默里兴致大发，追问道。

“拿根棍子，”埃里克故意语重心长地回答说，“差不多有笤帚把儿那么长。现在，首先要做的就是把房间‘排查’一遍——这么做的时候，你要闭上眼睛，猛地冲进书房，打开所有的灯——然后，慢慢地靠近壁橱，用棍子小心翼翼地在门前挥舞三四下。接着，要是什么事儿都没发生，你就可以朝里头看了。切记，切记首先要狠狠地挥舞棒子——绝不能先往里头看！”

“当然，这是古老的凯尔特人的做法。”汤姆一本正经地说。

“没错——不过他们总是先做祈祷。不管怎样，你用这种方法把所有的壁橱和门后面都排查一遍——”

“还有床。”艾默里提醒道。

“哦，艾默里，万万不可！”埃里克惊叫道，“这可不行——床要用到不同的计策——先不去管床，你需要思考一下这么做的理由——如果房间中有一个鬼魂，而它一天中有三分之一的时间待在里面，它几乎总是会躲在床底下。”

“好吧——”艾默里刚要开口说下去。

埃里克挥挥手，示意他安静。

“当然，你绝不能去看。你站在屋子的正中间，趁鬼魂还不知道你下一步要做什么之前，猛地跳到床上去——千万不要在床的周围走动；对于鬼魂来说，脚踝是你最薄弱的部分——你一旦到了床上，就安全了；他有可能整夜都待在床底下的某个地方，但你就像在白天一样，可以高枕无忧了。如果你还是放心不下，把毯子拉过来，盖在头上。”

“这些听起来都很有趣，汤姆。”

“是吗？”埃里克得意地笑了起来，“而且都是我自己的独到见解——我简直就是新世界的奥利弗·洛奇[98]。”

艾默里又重新尽情享受起大学的时光。他又重新找回了那种沿着笔直而坚定的道路一直走下去的感觉，青春如鸟振翅欲飞，抖落下几片崭新的羽毛。他甚至还积攒下充足的能量想让自己突破一下，改换一种新的姿态。

“摆出这么一副‘心烦意乱’的样子到底要干什么，艾默里？”有一天埃里克忍不住问道，接着当艾默里假装埋头苦读、一脸茫然时，他又说道：“哦，就别假装伯恩那一套了，他对我来说是个神秘主义者。”

艾默里一脸无辜地抬头望着他。

“什么？”

“什么？”埃里克怪声怪气地学着他说，“你这是在读一本史诗巨著，已经忘情其中了吗？——让我们来看看这是本什么书吧。”

他一把把书夺了过去，一脸不屑地看着。

“怎么样？”艾默里有点儿尴尬地说。

“《圣特蕾莎传》[99]，”埃里克大声地念出了书名，“哦，我的天哪！”

“得了，埃里克。”

“怎么啦？”

“这跟你有什么干系？”

“什么跟我有何相干？”

“我发呆不发呆与你有什么相干？”

“哦，不相干——这，当然与我无关。”

“那么，好了，别扫了我的兴。如果我愿意毫不掩饰地逢人就说，我认为自己是个天才，就让我去说好了。”

“你很快也会因为性情古怪而声名鹊起，”埃里克一边笑，一边说，“如果你真想这样。”

艾默里最终得偿所愿，埃里克同意有人在场时会顾全艾默里的面子，条件是等到他们两人单独相处时，他必须获得休息的时间，不必装模作样地捧场。于是艾默里开始非常频繁地“大出风头”，经常带一些特别古怪的角色来吃饭，他请来的人有那些目中无人的研究生，还有满脑子都是关于上帝和政府的奇怪言论的导师们，

这让自命不凡的木屋俱乐部成员们大为吃惊，又颇为不屑。

暖阳驱散了二月的寒气，草长莺飞的三月来到了，艾默里几次外出与达西大人共度周末，有一次他还带上了伯恩，结果皆大欢喜，他把他们介绍给彼此的时候，自己也感受到同样的自豪和欢欣。达西大人带他去看过好几次桑顿·汉考克，还曾带他到一个名为劳伦斯太太的人家里一两次，那位太太是一个对罗马情有独钟的美国人，艾默里立刻就喜欢上了她。

后来，有一天他收到了达西大人的一封信，信的末尾处有一段很有趣的附文：

“你知道，”信上说，“你的三表妹，克拉拉·佩吉，六个月前不幸丧偶，目前寡居在费城，日子过得相当清苦吗？我印象中，你们还从未见过面，不过，我希望你，就算是帮我个忙，抽空去看看她。在我心目中，她是个相当了不起的女人，正好也和你同龄。”

艾默里叹了口气，但还是决定去跑一趟，就算是帮一个忙吧……

克拉拉

她好像从远古而来……艾默里与她相比，大为逊色，且克拉拉有着一头波浪形的金色鬈发，当时的男性并没有人能配得上她。她的贤德远胜于那些只知道钓金龟婿的女人乏味的道德信条，也远在那些无聊的三从四德的说教之上。

悲伤淡淡地笼罩在她的周围，事实上当艾默里在费城见到她时，他觉得她坚定的蓝色眼睛中流露出的只有幸福。在她的身上，潜在的力量和务实的态度得到了完全的激发，这一切都要归功于她不得不去面对的残酷事实。她在这个世界上无依无靠，带着两个孩子，积蓄所剩无几，而最糟糕的是还有一大群所谓的朋友。那年冬天，他在费城见到她时，她正在家里举办晚会，忙于招待满满一屋子的男宾，那时他才得知她家里一个用人也没有，只有一个黑人姑娘负责照看楼上年幼的孩子。他看见本城最为有名的一个花花公子，一个尽人皆知、酗酒成性、声名狼藉之人，整个晚上都坐在她的对面，装出一副天真而又兴奋的样子，大谈特谈起女子寄宿学校。克拉拉的头脑转得可真快呀！她能够捕捉到客厅中飘过的最为微妙的讯息，并展开一段与之相关的让人着迷、欲罢不能的美好谈话。

基于他对情势的判断，艾默里对这位深陷贫困之中的姑娘颇为关切。他来到费城时，曾预想过方舟街921号一定是处于一个肮脏破败的小巷之中。因此，当他发现实际情况与他的设想大相径庭的时候，他甚至有些失望。那是一所老宅，许多年前就已经归她夫家所有。家族中一位年长的姑母反对将其出售，因此将房子十年的税款都交给了律师，自己大摇大摆地去了檀香山，剩下焦头烂额的克拉拉每年在这里为了房子的供暖问题多方求助。因而，欢迎他的并不是一个头发蓬乱、怀抱着饥饿的婴儿、一副艾米莉亚[100]一般愁苦面容的女人。相反，艾默里从自己受到的款待上来看，她并无衣食之忧。

她头脑冷静的同时，又带着镇定自若的活力和妙不可言的幽默感，这看起来似乎有着巨大的反差——她不时地在不同的心情中转换，来寻求慰藉。她能够胜任大多数乏味的家务（尽管她足够聪明，从不会让诸如编织和刺绣这些“闺阁女红”把自己困住），然而，在料理完家务之后，她立刻就可以拿起一本书，让自己的思绪如同空中变幻莫测的云朵一样随风漫步。她个性中最为深沉的底色是她由内而外散发出的夺目的金色光彩，正如黑暗房间中的一团明火，可以用浪漫和温情照亮围绕在周围的安静面孔，她可以把围绕在自己身上的光影投射到房子的各个角落里。她那位索然无味的老伯父在她的影响下，也变得像老派人物一样充满了沉思的迷人气质，而那个满街乱跑、投送电报的报童则好像脱胎换骨，变成了一个心情愉快、富有创造力的蒲克[101]式的少年。起先，她的这种气质还多少让艾默里有些恼火。他本以为自己的独特之处已经足够多了，可是她竟然还想在他身上发现更多的有趣之处，去取悦那些在场的其他爱慕者，这让他感到很难堪。他感到自己仿佛被一个彬彬有礼可是又说一不二的舞台经理逼迫，去重新诠释自己已经扮演了多年的老角色。

但是克拉拉还在滔滔不绝，她正在绘声绘色地讲述一个有关帽子上的别针、一个喝得烂醉的酒鬼和她自己的一个不起眼的小故事……人们事后总想复述她讲过的那些奇闻逸事，但他们即使耗上一辈子的时间也无法把那些故事讲得像模像样。他们似乎只是给予她最为单纯的注意和最为真诚的微笑，他们中的许多人已经这样笑了很久了；克拉拉几乎不动感情，但是听众总是泪眼婆娑地向她微笑。

极其偶然的情况下，艾默里会在其余的求婚者都走了之后，再留下来待上小半个钟头。他们会在黄昏时分一起坐下来喝茶，吃几片涂了果酱的面包，或者在晚上吃一点她称为“枫糖午餐”的甜点。

“你的确让人感到不可思议，真的！”有一天傍晚六点钟的时候，艾默里坐在餐桌正中间的位置上，忽然说出了这么一句听起来像陈词滥调的话。

“一点儿也不。”她回答说。她那时正在餐边柜里找餐巾。“我是个再普通不过的庸俗之人，是那种一心只想着自己的孩子，对什么事情都没有兴趣的人。”

“这话我可不信，你跟别人说去。”艾默里嗔怪道，“你知道自己是个耀眼夺目的人物。”他知道自己这么一说难免会让她感到尴尬。这也是《圣经》上第一个令人厌烦的人说给亚当的话。

“说说你自己吧。”而她也别无选择，只能以亚当说过的话作为回答。

“实在没什么好说的。”

然而，最终亚当可能还是把他当晚的所思所想都告诉了那个讨厌的人，那时蝗虫正躲在沙土草地里唱着歌，而他肯定也不无自豪地说起自己和夏娃是多么不一样，完全忘记了夏娃和他有着多大的区别……不管怎么说，克拉拉那天晚上对艾默里讲了许多她自己的事情。从十六岁起，她就一直被人纠缠，她不堪其扰，自己的闲适时光和学业也被迫中断。艾默里在她的书房浏览时，发现了一本破旧的灰色封皮的书，他翻看的时候，还有一张泛黄的纸片从中飘落，他不假思索地打开了它。上面是她学生时代写下的一首小诗，描写的是一个天气阴沉的日子里，在修道院灰色的围墙边上，一个姑娘坐在墙头，风把她的斗篷吹落了，引得她对墙外的多彩世界产生了无限的遐想。通常来说，这样的哀伤多半会让他感到厌倦，但这首小诗写得简练生动，克拉拉的形象跃然纸上，使他不由得想象着克拉拉在这样一个寒冷灰暗的日子里，一双炯炯有神的蓝色眼睛遥望着远方，想努力参透她生命中那些正跨过墙外的花园向她走来的悲剧。他开始嫉妒起这首诗。他多么希望自己当时就在场，陪着她一路走来，看着她坐在高墙上，他对她说些不着边际的胡话，或者甜言蜜语的情话，而她就在高高的围墙上，迎风不语。他忽然开始对和克拉拉有关的每件事都嫉妒得要命：她的过去，她的孩子，还有那些聚集在她周围的男男女女，他们吞噬着她孤傲的善意，在她这里为他们疲倦的心灵寻求慰藉，就好像沉浸于一出引人入胜的戏剧演出。

“好像没有什么人会让你感到厌烦。”他揶揄她道。

“这世上差不多有一半的人都让我感到厌烦，”她直言不讳，“但在我看来这已经是一个相当不错的平均数了，不是吗？”说着，她便找出勃朗宁的诗集，想从中找出相关话题的诗作。在他见过的人中，她是唯一一个在谈话当中就去找摘录和名言警句给他看的人，但这样的分心却丝毫没有让人不快。她常常这么做，严肃而热情地投入，他甚至喜欢上了看她金色的鬈发散落在书本上，眉头微蹙、翻书找句子的样子。

三月初的那段日子里，他一到周末就喜欢到费城去。几乎每次去她那里都有别的人在，她似乎也并不急切地想跟他单独相处，因为有许多合适的机会，只要她一句话，他就会留下来，体味饱含爱慕之情的半小时甜蜜时光。然而，渐渐地他还是坠入了爱河，并开始大胆地设想着结婚的事情。尽管这种想法在他的脑海中盘旋许久，差一点就要说出口，但后来他还是意识到这种愿望也并非发自心底深处。有一次他梦见一切成真，醒来后却惊得一身冷汗，因为在他的梦中她不过是个愚蠢、长着亚麻色头发的克拉拉，她头发上的金色光泽消失不见，她风趣的谈吐也被代之以陈词滥调，张口闭口都是些枯燥乏味的说辞。然而，她依然是他所认识的第一个高贵的女子，也是为数不多的几个他认为有趣的人。她把善良看作自己的资产。艾默里认为大多数的好人要么把善良当作一种责任，捆绑在自己身上，要么把它歪曲成虚伪的友善，当然，他们当中永远也少不了那些自命不凡的人和法利赛人那样的伪君子（不过艾默里从未觉得他们能获得救赎）。

圣西西莉亚[102]

灰色的丝绒长裙之上，

熔金而成的秀发之下，

玫瑰色的脸庞，故作哀伤，

赧色将退，姿容正姝，

柔光、悠然和轻声的叹息，

在他和她之间的空气中流转，

依稀隐约，他几乎察觉不到……

笑容如闪电般绽开，玫瑰的绯红。

“你喜欢我吗？”

“当然喜欢。”克拉拉很认真地说。

“为什么？”

“嗯，我们有许多共同之处。我们有许多自然流露出的共同品质——或者说原本就有的共同品质。”

“你的言外之意是，我没有很好地发掘自己身上的品质？”

克拉拉犹豫着，不作声。

“嗯，我不好判断。一个男人，当然，注定要经历更多的磨难，而我则一直有人替我遮风挡雨。”

“哦，别再拐弯抹角了，求求你，克拉拉，”艾默里直接打断了她，“还是请你略微谈论一下我吧，好吗？”

“当然可以，我很愿意这么做。”她的脸上看不到一丝笑容。

“你真好。首先先来回答几个问题。我是不是自高自大到了令人厌烦的地步？”

“嗯——还没有，你确实有极大的虚荣心，但是如果人们注意到你不容小觑的虚荣心，他们会发笑的。”

“我明白了。”

“实际上你内心谦卑。如果你认为自己被看轻，你会抑郁得如同坠入第三层地狱。事实上，你并没有多少自尊。”

“两次都正中靶心，克拉拉。你是如何做到的？你没让我说一个字。”

“当然不能让你说话——当一个人滔滔不绝的时候，我没法儿对他进行判断。不过，我还没有说完。尽管你总是郑重地对那些偶然遇到的庸俗之人宣称，你认为自己是个天才，但你总是把各种重大的过失归咎于你自己，然后又尽力让这些过失成为事实，我想这就是你缺少真正的自信的缘由所在。比方说，你总是说自己是个贪杯之徒。”

“可我确实如此，很有潜力成为这样的人。”

“你还说你是个性格软弱之人，没有什么意志力。”

“没有任何意志力——我是自己感情的奴隶，被自己的好恶左右，被自己痛恨的厌倦主宰，我对自己大多数的欲望也只能听之任之——”

“你不是那样的！”她把手攥成小拳头，去捶另一只手。“你身不由己，被这世界上的一样东西绑缚着，动弹不得，它就是你的想象。”

“你真是让我欲罢不能。如果这没有让你厌烦，就请你说下去。”

“我注意到，如果你从学校过来想要多待上一天，你肯定会这样处理。起先，当你把留下和回去的利弊考虑清楚的时候，你并不能立刻做出决定。你让自己的想象站在你欲望的这一边，任由它自由驰骋，几个小时之后，你就有了自己的决定。很自然，你的想象在被短暂地放任之后，已经想出来了你应该留下来的无数个理由，因而这时你的决定并不是客观真实的。它总是有失偏颇的。”

“即便如此，”艾默里反驳说，“这难道不是因为缺乏意志力的缘故，才致使想象力攀附在错误的一边？”

“我亲爱的小孩，这就是你最大的症结所在。这和意志力风马牛不相及；毋宁说，这是一个荒谬且并没有什么用处的词汇。你缺少的是判断力——当机立断的判断力，尤其是当你知道你的想象力可能会误导你的时候，哪怕只有一半的机会也务必要立即决断。”

“哎呀，我真该死！”艾默里惊讶地喊出了声，“我万万没有想到会这样。”

克拉拉并没有表现得得意扬扬。她立刻换了个话题，说起别的事情来。然而，她的话引发了他的思考，他相信她的判断部分是正确的。他感到自己像个工厂老板，刚刚指责完一个员工的不诚实之举，回头就发现自己的儿子每周都会到办公室里篡改账目。他仿佛看见自己曾经私下里并在朋友面前公然嘲笑过的意志力，那可怜的、遭受不公待遇的意志力，一脸无辜地站在自己的面前，而他的判断力却已走进牢房；那个无法约束的小精灵，他的想象力，正在他的身边欢快地跳着舞，发出嘲弄的嘘声。克拉拉的话让他始料未及，这是他唯一一次寻求他人的建议，却对自己寻求的答案毫无准备——或许，唯一的例外是他和达西大人的谈话。

他愿意和克拉拉一起做任何事，他简直无法自拔！和她一起出门购物简直就是一桩少有的、梦寐以求的享乐体验。走进她光顾过的每一家店铺，总能听到人们悄悄地议论她，把她称作美丽的佩吉太太。

“我敢打赌，她是不会长时间守寡的。”

“嘘，小声点。她可不是来听你的建议的。”

“她实在太迷人了！”

（商场的一个楼层巡视员走了过来——大家都默不作声，直到他痴痴地笑着，走到前面去。）

“她是社会名流吧，对不对？”

“没错，但是我猜，现在日子不大好过了；大家都这么说。”

“咦！姑娘们，她还带着孩子呢！”

克拉拉对所有人都报以微笑。艾默里觉得这些店铺都给了她优惠，有时候会告诉她，有时候还瞒着她。他知道她穿着讲究，房间里的各种摆设也都是一流品质，她到这里必然会受到楼层巡视员的迎候，这是最基本的待遇。

有时候他们会在礼拜日一起去教堂，他就走在她身边，陶醉地望着她的脸颊，清晨空气中的湿气使她的脸颊变得滋润。她非常虔诚，一直以来都是如此，当她跪在那儿，金色的鬈发垂下来，沐浴在透过彩色玻璃窗的流光之中的时候，上帝知道她已经到达了怎样的高度，汲取了怎样的力量。

“圣西西莉亚，”有一天他不自觉地大声喊了起来，引得大家都转身侧目而视，正在布道的神父也愣怔了片刻，停了下来，克拉拉和艾默里一时间都羞得面红耳赤。

那是他们一起度过的最后一个礼拜日，那天晚上他把一切都搞砸了。他根本控制不住自己。

他们一起穿过三月的薄暮，天气温暖得像是六月，他的心间充满了青春的欢悦，他感到自己必须把心里的话说出来。

“我想，”他刚一开口声音就颤抖了起来，“倘若我失去了对你的信仰，我自然也无法再信仰上帝。”

她一脸愕然，以颇为诧异的眼神盯着他，他忙问到底出了什么事。

“没什么，”她不慌不忙地说，“只不过，之前有五个男人对我说过同样的话，这实在让我感到惶恐。”

“噢，克拉拉，这难道不是你的宿命！”

她默不作声，没有回答。

“我想爱情对于你来说——”他开口说道。

她猛然间转过身。

“我从来就没有过爱情。”

他们继续走着，他渐渐意识到她刚刚向他袒露了许多心迹……从未有过爱情……她似乎突然间被单独分开，变成了圣灵之光的女儿。他的实体从她的高度跌落，他渴望去触碰她的衣裙，继而意识到约瑟夫一定也曾这样对玛丽的永恒意义有过同样的渴求。然而，就在此时，他听到自己非常机械地说着：

“可是我爱你——倘若我还有什么潜在的伟大之处，那就是……哦，我不会说话，但是克拉拉，如果我两年之后有条件了就会回来娶你——”

她摇了摇头。

“不，”她说，“我永远不会再结婚了。我有两个孩子，我想把自己奉献给他们。我喜欢你——我喜欢所有聪明的男人，尤其喜欢你——但是你非常了解我，知道我绝不会跟一个聪明的男人结婚——”她突然间打住，不再往下说了。

“艾默里。”

“怎么了？”

“你并没有爱上我。你根本不想和我结婚，对吗？”

“那只是一种朦朦胧胧的意识，”他若有所思地说，“我还没有感觉到，就像我还没有意识到自己已经喊出了声。但是我爱你——或者说我仰慕你——或者说我崇拜你——”

“这就是你——五秒钟的时间你已经把自己的感情目录过了一遍。”

他不自觉地笑了起来。

“别把我弄得像一个无足轻重的人，克拉拉；有时你真让人沮丧。”

“你可不是一个无足轻重的人，不管怎么说。”她很认真地说，边说边伸手挽住他的胳膊，睁大眼睛望着他——在渐渐暗去的暮色中，他依然看得出她眼睛里闪烁的一片温情。“一个无足轻重的人，这种话永远都不要说。”

“空气中有太多春天的气息——你心中有太多慵懒的甜蜜。”

她放开他的胳膊。

“你现在完全想开了，我也感到很欣慰。给我支烟吧。你还从未见过我抽烟，对吗？嗯，我抽烟，大约每个月抽上一回。”

后来，这个迷人的姑娘和艾默里在街角来了场赛跑，两人像两个疯孩子一样，在淡蓝色的雾霭中撒着欢儿拔腿狂奔。

“我明天要到乡下去。”她宣布说，整个人仍然气喘吁吁，她刻意站在一旁，避开街角路灯的强光。“这些日子实在太过美好，不容错过，或许是因为我在城市中所以对此更有感触。”

“哦，克拉拉！”艾默里说，“如果上帝把你的灵魂朝相反的方向弯折，你该会是怎样一个让人束手无策的小魔鬼！”

“也许吧，”她回答说，“但我不这么认为。我从来没有真正地放任过自己，从未有过。刚才那场小小的爆发不过是因为感染了这春天的气息。”

“可是，你也确实如此。”他说。

他们此时又并肩朝前走去。

“不——你又错了。一个像你这样对自己的头脑如此有信心的人，怎么总是一再地误解我呢？我是一个与春天所代表的一切截然相反的人。如果我碰巧长得像某个自作多情的古希腊雕塑家眼中的女神，这很不幸，但是我可以肯定地告诉你，如果不是因为我长着这样一张脸，我早就在某个修道院里成为一名清心寡欲的修女了，不用再——”话音未落，她就忽然跑了起来，他立刻起身去追，就听见她大声喊道——“我的两个宝贝孩子，我得赶紧回去看看。”

他认识那么多的姑娘，可她是唯一一个让他知道另一个男人怎样才会更受青睐的人。艾默里曾经认识的那些初入社交圈的姑娘，许多现在已经嫁作人妇，他经常见到她们，每次见面只要盯着她们看上一会儿，他就开始想象自己已经读懂了她们脸上的表情：

“哦，要是我能把你收入囊中就好了！”哎，人居然能自大到这种地步！

不管怎么说，那天晚上还是一个星光璀璨、歌声飘扬的夜晚，克拉拉明亮的心灵仍在他们走过的路上闪耀。

“金色，金色飘扬在空气中——”他对着积满水的小坑哼唱道……“金色飘扬在空气中，金色的曼陀林弹奏出金色的音符，金色的小提琴拉响金色的旋律，多么美好，噢，让人慵倦的美好……编织提篮里的纱锭，绝非凡人可以捧得；噢，那年轻飞扬的神祇，谁会知晓，谁会问询？……是谁撒下这一片金色……”

艾默里愤愤难平

艾默里还在侃侃而谈，耽于幻想之际，战争缓慢但势不可挡地袭来了，带着最后一浪的猛烈势头，它迅速冲上海岸，席卷了普林斯顿学生们还在玩耍的那一片沙滩。每天晚上体育馆都回响着一排排士兵蜂拥而至的声响，他们在那里整顿编排，篮球场上的标线都被磨去了。艾默里在接下来的那个周末去了趟华盛顿，他切实地看到了危机的征兆，在返程的普尔曼卧铺车厢里，这征兆变成了他对这一切的反感，因为他对面的铺位全都被那些散发着臭气的外国人给占据了——大概是希腊人，他猜想，要么就是俄国人。他意识到，爱国主义对于那些单一民族的国家应该要简单明白得多，和现在比起来，为爱国主义而战，对当时北美十三个殖民地来说要容易得多，或者对南方联盟来说也要容易得多。他那天晚上一夜未眠，听着那些外国佬发出阵阵大笑和鼾声，他们让整个车厢都充满了时下美国的浓烈味道。

普林斯顿的校园中，每个人都在公开场合打趣开玩笑，但私底下又告诉自己，就算是死了也算英勇报国。文学青年们在满怀激情地阅读鲁伯特·布鲁克的诗作；公子哥儿们担心的是政府是否会允许军官们穿英式剪裁的制服；还有一些不可救药的懒骨头给国防部几个不起眼的分支机构写信，希望寻求较为轻松的任务和软席铺位。

接着，一星期之后，艾默里见到了伯恩，他立刻意识到辩论是徒劳无益的——伯恩已然成了一名和平主义者。那些社会主义的杂志，对于托尔斯泰作品的广泛涉猎以及他自己对一份能够激发他内在力量的事业的孜孜以求，最终使他决心把宣讲和平作为自己的主观理想。

“德国军队进入比利时的时候，”他开始道，“如果当地居民能够心平气和，按部就班地做他们原有的工作，德国军队就会不攻自破，涣散瓦解——”

“我知道，”艾默里打断他说，“这些话我都听过。但是我不打算跟你谈论宣传教育。也有可能你是对的——但即使是这样，我们要把不抵抗变作现实，至少还要等上几百年。”

“可是，艾默里，你听我说——”

“伯恩，我们不妨来辩论一下——”

“非常好。”

“只说一个问题——我不会要求你去考虑自己的家人、朋友，因为我知道他们在你的使命感面前一文不值——可是，伯恩，你怎么知道你读过的那些杂志，加入的社团，以及那些你遇到的理想主义者，你怎么知道那些人不是普通的德国人？”

“当然，他们当中有一些是。”

“你怎么知道他们不是十足的挺德派——只不过是一群意志薄弱的人——还有着德籍犹太人的名字？”

“当然，有这种可能，”他慢条斯理地说，“我不知道自己现在的立场在多大程度上是受到了那些鼓动性宣传的影响；我只是很自然地认为这是我内心最深处的信念——这似乎就是此刻摆在我面前的道路。”

艾默里的心猛地沉了下去。

“但是，你应该考虑一下，这么做毫无价值——当然，没有人会因为你是个和平主义者而将你处死——只是这会让你陷入最糟糕的境地——”

“我并不这么认为。”他打断说。

“好吧，这对我来说完全是纽约那帮波希米亚人的味道。”

“我知道你这话是什么意思，这也是我并不确定要不要去鼓动大家的原因所在。”

“你只是势单力薄的匹夫，伯恩——你要向人们宣讲你的那套道理，但他们并不想听——纵然你有上帝赋予你的聪明才智。”

“许多年前，圣司提反[103]一定也是这样想的。但他还是坚持布道，最后招来杀身之祸。他临死之际可能也在想，所有的努力都付之东流了。但是，你要明白，我总是觉得使徒保罗在前往大马士革的路上想到的正是圣司提反的死，这促使他走遍世界宣讲基督的教诲。”

“继续说。”

“就这么多——这就是我肩负的独特使命。即使现在我看起来像是个无足轻重的卒子——就是去送死的。上帝啊，艾默里——你不会觉得我喜欢德国人吧！”

“嗯，我也没有别的话好说了——对于不抵抗运动，我已经无法在逻辑上对它进行更进一步的认识，况且，在那里，如同排中律一样非是即非，还站着亘古不变的巨大幽灵。而且，在这个幽灵的身旁，一边是托尔斯泰的逻辑必然性，另一边是尼采的逻辑必然性——”艾默里忽然停了下来，“你打算什么时候动身？”

“我打算下周出发。”

“当然，我会去送你的。”

对于艾默里来说，他离开的时候脸上的表情和两年前凯里在布莱尔拱门下与他道别时的一模一样。艾默里感到难过，他不明白自己为什么不能像他们两位一样带着本能的热忱投身于某事。

“伯恩是个狂热分子，”他对汤姆说，“而且他是完全错误的，我觉得他无意中充当了那些无政府主义出版商和被德国人收买的投降派手中的一枚卒子——可是他总是让我放心不下——把这些真正珍贵的东西抛在脑后——”

一个星期之后，伯恩以一种安静的戏剧性方式离开了。他卖掉了自己的所有物品，骑着一辆破旧的自行车，特意到他们的宿舍来道别，他打算就骑着这车子回他在宾夕法尼亚的老家。

“隐士彼得[104]在跟黎塞留主教道别呢。”埃里克调侃道，伯恩和艾默里握手的时候，他正懒洋洋地躺在靠窗的位置上。

但是艾默里完全没有心情调侃，当他目送伯恩的两条长腿蹬着那辆滑稽的自行车消失在亚历山大楼后面的时候，他知道自己在接下来的一星期里不会有什么好心情。并不是因为他怀疑这场战争——德国无疑代表着让他反感的一切，它代表着物质至上，代表着巨大反动势力的野心；而是因为伯恩的脸庞总是在他的记忆中挥之不去，他对将要听到的歇斯底里的叫喊也感到厌倦。

“忽然间就有了这么多对歌德的诋毁，这到底是为了什么？”他对埃里克和汤姆控诉道，“为什么要写这些书来证明是他挑起了这场战争——要么就是指责那个愚蠢无知、被过分高估的席勒[105]，说他是个披着伪装的魔鬼？”

“你看过他们写的东西吗？”汤姆不无狡黠地问道。

“没有。”艾默里坦承道。

“我也没有读过。”他说着就笑了起来。

“人们会大声叫嚣，”埃里克不动声色地说，“但是歌德会留在图书馆原有的书架上依然故我——谁想读就可以去读，只要别嫌枯燥乏味就是！”

艾默里在一旁坐了下来，这个话题也就此搁下了。

“你接下来打算怎么办，艾默里？”

“参加陆军还是空军，我现在还拿不定主意——我憎恨机械设备，不过，当然了，飞行员才是我的理想——”

“我的感觉和艾默里一样，”汤姆说，“陆军还是空军——当然，空军听起来好像是战争中比较浪漫的一面——就像过去的骑兵一样，你们知道的；但是我和艾默里一样，连马力和活塞杆都分不清。”

不知怎么回事，艾默里对自己缺乏热情产生的不满情绪日趋严重，最后演变成他对于他们这一代人前辈的指责，他试图把整个这场战争归咎于这些前辈……所有在一八七〇年普法战争结束后为德国欢呼的那些人……所有那些盲目跟风信奉物质至上的人，所有那些德国技术和德国效率的崇拜者。因此，有一天在英文课上听到老师引用了《洛克斯雷大楼》[106]，他便心情忧郁，陷入了沉思之中，他对丁尼生和他所代表的一切都充满蔑视，因为在他看来，丁尼生无疑是维多利亚时代的代表人物。

维多利亚人，永远学不会哭泣的维多利亚人，

他们播种下苦果，等待你的孩子们去

收割——

艾默里在他的笔记本上潦草地写下了这两句。讲课的老师正在大谈特谈丁尼生不容撼动的文学地位，底下的五十个学生正在头也不抬地忙着记笔记。艾默里翻到笔记本上崭新的一页，又开始奋笔疾书：

达尔文先生的发现让他们胆战心惊，

华尔兹的出现与纽曼[107]的离开让他们胆战心惊——

但是华尔兹是更早一些时候出现的，所以他划掉了这一句。

“这一篇，篇名为《秩序时代的颂歌》[108]。”又传来教授的声音，他好像在很远的地方低声吟唱。“秩序时代”——上帝啊！一切都被塞进了这个盒子里，而维多利亚人就坐在盒子盖上安详地微笑……勃朗宁在他的意大利别墅中发出无畏的呼喊：“一切都为了最后的圆满。”艾默里再一次在本子上写起来：

你在圣殿中跪下，他躬身听你的祷告，

你感激他赋予你“辉煌成就”——责备他为落后的“古老中国”[109]。

为什么每次都只能写出一联，而不能写得更多？现在他需要写出来能够押韵的句子：

你会用科学规范他的行为，尽管他曾一再犯错……

好吧，不管怎么说……

你在家里遇见自己的孩子——你大喊着“已经弥补了一切”，

你带着欧洲五十年的荣耀，然后堂堂正正地——死去。

“这在很大程度上正是丁尼生的思想，”老师还在滔滔不绝地讲着，“把斯温伯恩的《秩序时代的颂歌》用作丁尼生诗歌的标题倒也无妨。他崇尚秩序，把秩序理想化，反对混乱和浪费。”

最后，艾默里终于有了灵感。他又翻开一页，笔不离纸地一口气写了二十分钟，直到这堂课结束。写完他走上讲台，把从他笔记本上撕下来的那页纸放在桌上。

“老师，这首诗送给那些维多利亚时代的人。”他冷冷地说。

教授颇为好奇地拿起那张纸端详，艾默里则飞快地夺门而去。

这就是艾默里写的那首诗：

秩序时代的颂歌，

你留给我们唱的歌，

那是排中律非是即非的证据，

那是人生的答案押韵成句，

狱吏的钥匙在叮当作响，

古老的钟声回响激荡，

时间才是诸多谜团的答案，

我们已走到了时间的末端……

铁蹄把海洋围困成湖泊，

我们仅剩下天空可以触摸，

枪炮和严密戍守的边疆，

金属手套——并不是为了打仗，

古老的情感在胸中涌动，

每个人都在老调重弹，

秩序时代的颂歌——

还有那些花言巧语，我们要将其歌唱。

尘埃落定

四月的上旬在混沌之中一闪而过——混混沌沌地度日，在俱乐部长廊上挨过漫长的夜晚，听着房间里留声机一遍又一遍播放《可怜的蝴蝶》[110]……因为《可怜的蝴蝶》是这里最后一年的流行歌曲。战争几乎不曾波及他们，如果不是每隔一天下午的固定军训，这个四年级的春天会和过去的别无两样，然而，艾默里还是强烈地意识到，这应该是旧体制下的最后一个春天了。

“这是对尼采超人的最大抗议。”艾默里说。

“我也有同感。”埃里克表示赞同。

“他绝不会对任何乌托邦思想妥协。只要他出现在哪儿，哪儿就会有麻烦，因为他的讲话，总是会激起潜在的邪恶力量，民众会盲目跟风，或者摇摆不定。”

“当然，他是一个天赋异禀之人，只是没有什么道德准则。”

“就是这样。认真考虑一下这实在是最糟糕的一件事——以前就有先例，不知多久之后又会重演？滑铁卢之战过去五十年之后，拿破仑对于英国的中小学生来说，差不多和惠灵顿公爵一样都是英雄了。我们怎么知道将来孙子辈的孩子不会把冯·兴登堡[111]当作偶像来看待？”

“这是什么原因造成的？”

“时间，该死的时间，还有历史学家。要是我们能够正视邪恶，不被它蒙蔽，那该多好，不管它披着怎样的外衣——污秽不堪的、千篇一律的，抑或夺目耀眼的。”

“上帝啊！我们四年以来难道不是把整个宇宙都骂了个遍吗？”

很快夜幕降临，这是他们在一起度过的最后一个夜晚。汤姆和艾默里第二天一早就要奔赴不同的训练营了，他们如往常一样沿着幽暗的小路散步，似乎依然能看到他们周围那些曾经熟悉的面孔。

“今晚的草丛中似乎魅影重重。”

“整个校园都因为这些幽灵而变得生机勃勃。”

他们在利特尔楼旁边停住，看着月亮爬上天空，银色的月光洒在多德楼的石板屋顶上，在旁边随风摇曳的树林中映出一片蓝色的光晕。

“你知道吗，”汤姆细声细语地说，“我们此刻的感受正是两百多年来，那些意气风发的年轻人在这里挥洒青春、恣意妄为的感受。”

布莱尔拱门那里爆发出最后一阵歌声，歌声如潮水般涌来——那是人们依依惜别时的悲歌。

“我们在这里留下的远远不止这个班级的记忆，而是整个青春的遗产。我们仅仅是一代人——但我们似乎打破了所有的联结，不再和那些脚蹬高筒皮靴、出身望族的前辈紧密相连。我们有一半这样深蓝色的夜晚，是和伯尔还有轻骑兵哈里·李[112]在这里一起手挽手度过的。”

“这就是夜晚的颜色，”汤姆忽然间转换了话题，“深蓝色——多余的色彩会破坏整体的美感，使天空看起来充满异域风情。黎明将至的天空映衬下的尖塔，还有那些石板屋顶上的蓝色光晕——让人感伤……有些——”

“再见了，艾伦·伯尔，”艾默里对着空无一人的拿骚大楼高喊道，“你和我曾一起探访过人生中那些奇怪的角落。”

他的喊声在寂静的夜空中回响。

“火炬已经熄灭了，”汤姆轻声说，“啊，梅萨利娜[113]，那长长的影子正爬上体育馆，在上面叠搭出清真寺的宣礼塔——”

突然之间，大一刚刚入校时的豪言壮语涌上心头，他们四目相对，眼中隐约有泪光闪动。

“见鬼！”

“见鬼！”

最后的亮光也渐渐退去，沿着这块土地飘忽而逝——这是一片低洼的狭长土地，阳光充沛，尖塔耸立；夜色中的幽灵再一次拨动他们的里尔琴，他们沿着林间长廊，在哀婉的乐曲声中，边走边唱；惨淡的火光从高塔的顶端跳到塔座上，在黑夜中呼应闪动：哦，梦境中的沉睡，永不知倦怠的睡梦，从莲花的花瓣中掬起一抔，此间一个钟头里的精髓。

在这星光与尖塔的幽谷之中，无须再等待月色的微光，因为一个永恒的欲望涌动的清晨已经来临，转眼之间充满尘世气息的午后也会接踵而至。就在此刻，赫拉克利特[114]，你是否能在这烈火和变动不歇的尘世间，找到你在那些沉寂岁月中抛下的预言；这个午夜将被余烬吞噬，又会在火焰中重新聚拢，我的欲望将在此见证，这个世界的荣耀与伤痛。

插曲 一九一七年五月至一九一九年二月

这是达西大人写给艾默里的一封信，时间是一九一八年一月份，那时艾默里已经成为美军第一百七一步兵团的一名少尉，驻扎在长岛米尔斯营地的专用港口。

我亲爱的孩子：

关于你的情况，你只需告诉我你别来无恙，我便心下甚慰了。至于其他的情况，我会在不安分的记忆中搜寻一番，再把你和我当年的情况相互比照，就能有所了解，如今记忆中只剩下那些奔腾的岁月，如同一支只有发烧记录的体温计。但是人们依然会喋喋不休，你和我都不免要隔着舞台对着彼此呼喊，即使是些没用的废话，我们也要坚持，直到人生最后荒唐的帷幕砰的一声砸在我们颔首示意的脑袋上。此刻，你人生的走马灯已经噼噼啪啪地转了起来，带着和我当年相同的幻灯片画面，所以我有必要写信给你，哪怕只是为了提醒你可能遭遇到的人们的巨大愚昧……

至少有一件事已经明了：不管是好是坏，你再也不是那个我所熟知的艾默里·布莱恩了，我们即使再见也将不再是往日的光景，因为你们这一代人正在艰难地成长，比我们那一代人的成长要艰难得多，尽管他们曾接受了九十年代的熏陶和滋养。

艾默里，我最近重读了埃斯库罗斯的悲剧，在《阿伽门农》的神圣讽喻中，我找到了这个悲苦时代的唯一答案——整个世界在我们的耳边轰然倒塌，与之相似的情境可以追溯到阿伽门农当时无望的弃绝之感。有时候我会把那些远赴战场的人们想象成罗马人的军团，他们离开自己腐败的城市，驱赶着那些游牧部落……毕竟，那些游牧部落比起腐败的城市，是更现实的威胁……人类又一次经历盲目的战争，多年以前我们甚至为这样的暴虐热烈鼓掌，整个维多利亚时期我们都对着人类的尸骨絮絮低语，满怀胜利之情……

及至后来，出现了一个彻头彻尾的物质主义的世界——还有天主教会。我一直在想你会栖身何处。不过有一点我确信无疑——你生来是凯尔特人，死了也是凯尔特人；因而，如果你不用能否进入天堂作为你各种想法的衡量标准，你会发现尘世会持续不断地召唤你的雄心壮志。

艾默里，我忽然间发现自己已经是一位老人了。就像所有的老年人一样，我时常做梦，我想把我梦到的一些事告诉你。我一直喜欢想象你就是我的儿子，我想象自己年轻的时候，在某一个神志不清的时刻，成了你的生身父亲，而当我醒来的时候，却全然不记得这回事……这或许是想要为人父母的天性使然，艾默里——禁欲对人的影响远不止身体层面的……

有时候我想我们如此相像的缘由是因为我们有一个共同的祖先，我还发现达西家族和奥哈拉家族共有的唯一血脉是奥唐纳修……我想，他的名字是斯蒂芬……

倘若我俩当中任何一个人被闪电击中，也就相当于击中了我们两个。在你尚未到达那个专用港口的时候，我已经拿到了启程去罗马的各种文书，随时准备登船。说不定在你收到这封信之前，我就已经置身海上，接下来你很快也会登船出发。你像一个绅士应该做的那样奔赴战场，就像你离家求学，读中学，读大学，因为这是你应做之事。最好把夸夸其谈和胆小怕事的英雄主义留给中产阶级，他们对这种事总是很在行。

你还记得吗，去年三月份的某个周末你带着伯恩·霍里德从普林斯顿来见我？他真是一个非同凡响的小伙子！你后来写信说他认为我无与伦比，这着实让我受宠若惊，他怎么会如此轻易地就被迷惑了？你我二人都谈不上无与伦比。我们有许多特别之处——我们出类拔萃，天资聪慧，我想我们可以说是很优秀的人。我们有吸引力，能够带动气氛，我们可以在凯尔特的微妙情感中忘乎所以，我们几乎总是能够我行我素；但无与伦比——委实是做不到的。

我即将启程去罗马，随身带着一卷让人惊奇的文件，还有一沓介绍信，它们可以让我去到欧洲所有国家的首都，并且将会在我所到之处引起“不小的轰动”。我多么希望你能与我同行！这段话听起来实在有些冷漠自私，完全不像一个中年神职人员对一个即将奔赴战场的年轻人该说的话，唯一的解释是这个中年神职人员是在自言自语。我们之间有许多深沉的情感，你我都心知肚明。我们都有崇高的信仰，尽管你的信仰目前还不完全明确；我们都特别坦诚真实，这是我们的诡辩术也无法摧毁的真诚，最为重要的是，我们都有赤子般的纯真，这让我们不至于怀有真正的恶意。

我为你作了一首挽歌，随信附上。我很抱歉，你的脸颊并没有像我所描述的那般红润，但是你会一边抽烟，一边看书到深夜——

不管怎样，这首诗就是如下这样：

为义子而作的一首挽歌，他即将奔赴战场抵御外敌

呜呼

我的精神之子，他已离我而去，

他风华正茂像安格斯·奥奇[115]一般年华正好

安格斯的飞鸟在他的头顶盘旋

他意志坚强，心思敏锐

如穆伊尔蒂姆的古楚林[116]

悲夫

他的额头如梅弗[117]的奶牛的乳汁般洁白

他的脸颊如枝头的樱桃般红润

樱桃压弯枝头犹如向圣母玛丽俯首致意

她正在喂哺怀中的上帝之子

嗟夫

他的头发金黄得像塔拉山上国王的金领

他的双眸如爱尔兰四海一样苍茫深邃

他泪眼含泣如雨雾迷蒙

吁兮

他斗志昂扬，浴血沙场

他与一众将领冲锋陷阵，英勇无畏

他若战死疆场

我的灵魂之弦定会颓然崩裂

叹兮

我的心早已栖身于义子之心

我的命早已与义子之命合为一体

只有寄身于义子之身，

我才得享二度青春

呜呼哀哉

愿上帝之子护佑吾子，在其之上，在其之下，在其前后四方，

愿风雨雷电之神庇佑吾子，遮蔽外敌的耳目，

愿仁慈的女王执手相护，领他穿越枪林弹雨，毫发无伤

愿盖尔的圣帕特里克，教会的中流砥柱，爱尔兰的五千圣人，

在他沙场奋战之时，如盾甲护佑其身，保佑其人

呜呼

艾默里——艾默里——我感到，这大约就是我要说的话；我们当中会有一人，或者我们两人都无法在战争中幸存……我一直想告诉你，过去这几年，在你身上看到我自己的影子，这对我来说意义重大……我们是如此不可思议地相像……又不可思议地不同。

再见了，我亲爱的孩子，愿上帝与你同在。

赛耶·达西

夜晚登船

艾默里沿着甲板向前，直到他在一盏电灯下找到了一张凳子。他在口袋里摸索出笔记本和铅笔，然后开始慢慢地、非常吃力地写下：

我们今夜启程……

悄无声息，我们涌入寂静空荡的街巷，

一列灰色的纵队，人影憧憧，

沉闷的步伐惊起了夜游的魂灵，

没有月光的暗夜，长路愈加狰狞，

黑魆魆的船坞回荡着脚步声声，

那是日日夜夜不停往来的士兵。

我们在无风的甲板上徘徊，

遥望着幽灵般的海岸，难以释怀，

一千个日夜的光影交错，只剩下白骨残骸……

唉，我们是否应该悲叹感慨，

那些蹉跎的岁月，光阴不再！

看海面上白浪翻腾！

云开雾散，天宫中霞光彤彤，

碧波之上映出光芒的大道，我们逐浪追风，

船尾海浪声声，浪花翻涌，

宛若一支夜曲不绝于耳，澎湃有声，

……今夜我们启程。

艾默里给驻扎在佐治亚州高登军营的T.P.丹维里埃中尉写了一封信，信头上写着“布雷斯特[118]，一九一九年三月十一日”。

亲爱的波德莱尔：

我们这个月的三十号在曼哈顿碰头聚一聚吧，然后我们就去找一间漂亮的公寓，尽情玩耍，你、我还有埃里克，此刻我写信的当口，他就在我身边。我不知道接下来该作何打算，但我隐隐约约地希望自己能进入政坛。为什么英国人总是从牛津和剑桥学子中挑选精英分子进入政界，而在美国我们却让骗子大行其道？——那些人在收容所里长大，在生产流水线上接受教育，然后就被送到议会，全是些大腹便便的腐败堕落分子，正如那些持不同政见者常常说的那样，他们是既没有“思想”也没有“理想”的人。四十年前，我们的政坛中也不乏有识之士，但是到了我们这一代，我们被寄予希望成为百万富翁，向人们展示“我们之所以成功的要素”。有时候我真希望自己是个英国人，美国人的生活真是太笨、太蠢、太过健康了。

由于我母亲，可怜的比阿特丽斯，不久前去世了，我本来指望着能继承一笔钱，但是后来发现这笔钱实在少得可怜。我对母亲做过的几乎所有的事都可以原谅，但唯独这次例外，她在自己的人生即将走到尽头的时候，突然心血来潮开始笃信宗教，她把剩余财产的一半都花在了教堂的彩色玻璃和神学院捐款上。我的律师巴顿先生，来信说我那几千块基本都投资在城市有轨电车上了，那个所谓的城市有轨电车公司一直在亏损，因为车费不过五美分。他们每个月还要付给那些一个字不识的文盲工人每人三百五十块的工资，想象一下这样的工资单吧！——然而，事已至此，我相信也只能这样了，尽管我之前曾见过这原本是怎样一笔可观的资产，后来因为投机、铺张浪费，以及没有约束的民主管理和所得税征收而一点点消失不见了——摩登时代，我从头到脚不也是这样吗，梅布尔？

不管怎样，我们要找那些绝对不一般的房子——你可以在某个时尚杂志社找一份工作，埃里克可以到那个锌矿公司，或者他们家里人开的随便什么公司——他正趴在我肩膀上看着呢，他说是一家铜矿公司，但我觉得这无关紧要，对吧？不管是锌矿公司还是铜矿公司，在挣钱上还不都是一样的腐败。至于大名鼎鼎的艾默里嘛，如果他确信自己有非要分享给别人的故事，他将会创作出不朽的文学作品。留给子孙后代最危险的礼物，莫过于那些说得机智漂亮的老生常谈了。

汤姆，你为什么不做一个天主教徒呢？当然，要成为一名虔诚的天主教徒，你得舍弃之前跟我说过的那些不择手段的阴谋诡计，但是你如果和那些高大的金色烛台，还有缓慢悠长的诵诗活动相伴，你会写出更为优秀的诗歌，就算美国的牧师都像比阿特丽斯过去常说的那样平庸俗气，你要做的也不过是找一间气派的教堂，我会把达西大人引荐给你，他实在是非同凡响的人物。

凯里的死是个沉重的打击，在某种程度上杰西的死也一样让人难以接受。我还是十分好奇，想知道伯恩藏在这世界上哪个神奇的角落里。你觉得他会不会改名换姓被投进监狱去了？我承认，这场战争并没有让我皈依正统的信仰，尽管有所皈依似乎才是正确的反应，而是让我成了一个热情的不可知论者。罗马天主教会的羽翼最近频繁遭挫，其作用也日渐式微，寂寂无闻，他们再也没有什么像样的作家了。我对切斯特顿已经腻烦了。

到目前为止，我只发现有一个士兵成功度过了那场广为谈论的精神危机，像那位唐纳德·翰吉[119]一样，我认识的这一位目前已经在读书准备从事牧师职业，可以说他已经相当成熟，足够胜任这一职位了。我真诚地认为，这些纯属胡扯，尽管这对于那些待在国内的人来说，不失为一种情感上的慰藉，也会使父母双亲为自己的孩子感到欣慰。这种由危机诱发的宗教观念几乎毫无价值，充其量也不过是转瞬即逝的东西。我认为，假如有四个人发现帕里斯拐走了海伦，能发现上帝的也仅有一个。

但是我们——你、我和埃里克——哦，我们要找一个日本管家，穿戴整齐地去出席晚宴，品尝美酒佳肴，过一种沉思默想、无悲无喜的生活，直到有一天我们决定对有产者端起机关枪——或者和布尔什维克一起扔炸弹！汤姆，我希望能有什么事儿发生。我心烦意乱，像魔鬼一样坐立不安，一想起来要慢慢变胖，坠入爱河，困在家中，我就惶恐不已。

日内瓦湖城的房子现在正在出租，但等我登陆之后，我打算去西部找到巴顿先生，向他了解一下详细的情况。来信可寄芝加哥，由布莱克斯通转交。

永远的、亲爱的博斯维尔，

塞缪尔·约翰逊

第二部 个人[120]的教育

第一章　初入社交圈的少女

时间是二月份。地点是纽约第六十八街，康尼奇家一间宽敞精致的卧室。这是一间女孩的卧室：粉色的墙面和窗帘，奶油色的床上铺着粉色的床罩。粉色和奶油色是这个房间的主色调，但是房间中唯一一件显眼的家具是一张豪华的梳妆台，玻璃台面，三面都是镜子。四周的墙上挂着一幅昂贵的《樱桃熟了》的印刷画，几幅兰德希尔所作的乖巧的小狗，还有一幅麦克斯菲尔德·帕里什的《黑岛之王》[121]。

房间中杂乱不堪，堆放着以下物品：（1）七八个空纸盒子，卫生纸从纸盒的开口处耷拉下来，好像伸出来透气的长舌头；（2）桌子上堆着一些日常出门的连衣裙，还混杂着一些正式晚宴的礼服，看起来都是新的；（3）一卷已经旧气的薄纱，在目之所见的这一堆物品当中扭曲缠绕；（4）两只小椅子上堆着一叠难以形容的女士内衣。人们一定想看看购买这些华丽服饰的账单，并且想知道是哪位公主如此有幸——看！有人过来了！真让人失望！只是一个上来找东西的女仆——她把椅子上的一堆东西拎起来——不在那儿；又拎起另一堆，也没有，她又查看了梳妆台和五斗橱的抽屉。她把几件漂亮的宽松内衣和一件精致的睡衣拿到亮处看了看，但还是不满意——她走了出去。

隔壁房间传来嘟嘟囔囔的说话声，但听不清楚内容。

好了，让我们来熟悉一下。这是埃里克的妈妈，康尼奇太太，体态丰满，仪表端庄，脸上涂了脂粉，正好渲染出她气度不凡的贵妇人身份，但同时又让她显得疲惫不堪。她也正在找那个东西，嘴巴一直在引人注目地动来动去。她并不像女仆找得那么仔细，而是带着一股怒气，正好弥补了她翻找时的粗枝大叶。她被那卷薄纱绊了一跤，能清楚地听到她咒骂的声音。她两手空空地退下场去。

外面传来更多的吵闹声，还有一个女孩的声音，那是一个嗲声嗲气的声音，她说道：“全都是些蠢货——”

短暂的停顿之后，第三个寻找者登场，并不是那个嗲声嗲气的姑娘，而是一个更为年轻的姑娘。这是西西莉亚·康尼奇，年方十六，天生丽质，聪明伶俐，并且性情开朗、大方。她穿着参加晚会的一件礼服，那件礼服对于她来说显得过于朴素了，她有些闷闷不乐。她走到离她最近的一堆衣服那儿，从中挑出了一件小巧的粉色裙子，举起来仔细打量着。

西西莉亚：粉色的？

罗萨琳德：（场外音）对！

西西莉亚：挺时髦的？

罗萨琳德：对！

西西莉亚：我找到了！

（她在梳妆台的镜子里打量了一下自己，随后就开始欢快地跳起希米舞来。）

罗萨琳德：（场外音）你在干什么——在试穿吗？

（西西莉亚马上停了下来，把那条裙子搭在右边肩膀上走了出去。埃里克·康尼奇从另一个门走了上来。他飞快地四下里看了看，然后用洪亮的声音喊道：妈妈！从隔壁房门传来了一片抗议声，他随即朝那扇门走了过去，但又传来另一阵吵闹声，他便停了下来。）

埃里克：原来你们都在这儿！艾默里·布莱恩来了。

西西莉亚：（迅速回答道）把他带到楼下去。

埃里克：哦，他就在楼下。

康尼奇太太：那你就带他去看看他的房间。告诉他我很抱歉，我这会儿不方便见他。

埃里克：他对你们每个人都早有耳闻了。我希望你们能快点儿。父亲一直在跟他聊这场战争的事儿，他有些不耐烦了。他性情多变，很容易激动。

（最后这句话总算引起了西西莉亚的注意，她很快就到房间里来了。）

西西莉亚：（直接坐到了那堆内衣裤上）你说这话是什么意思——性情多变？你之前写信的时候也总这么说他。

埃里克：哦，他是搞创作的，经常写东西。

西西莉亚：他会弹钢琴吗？

埃里克：估计不会。

西西莉亚：（试探地）喝酒吗？

埃里克：当然——这对他来说一点儿也不奇怪。

西西莉亚：有钱吗？

埃里克：我的上帝呀——你去问他吧，他以前是很有钱的，现在也有一些收入。

（康尼奇太太出现在房间里。）

康尼奇太太：埃里克，不管你的什么朋友，我们当然都十分欢迎——

埃里克：你一定要认识一下艾默里。

康尼奇太太：当然，非常愿意。但是我想，你未免太过任性，耍小孩子脾气，放着这么一个完美舒适的家不住，而去和另外两个男孩子住在那些乱七八糟的公寓里。但愿你们不是为了要在一起尽情喝酒。（她停顿了一下。）今晚恐怕要怠慢他了。这一周是属于罗萨琳德的，你明白吧。当一个女孩子刚刚踏入社交圈，崭露头角的时候，她需要得到所有人的关注。

罗萨琳德：（场外音）好呀，那么，请进来证明给我看，帮我把裙子扣住。

（康尼奇太太退了下去。）

埃里克：罗萨琳德还是一点儿没变。

西西莉亚：（低声地）她实在是被宠坏了。

埃里克：今晚她要见到的那位，和她真是棋逢对手。

西西莉亚：谁——艾默里·布莱恩先生？

（埃里克点了点头。）

西西莉亚：看来，罗萨琳德也注定要遇见她降服不了的男人啦。老实说，埃里克，她对待男人可是够狠心的。她会当面辱骂他们，对他们置之不理，屡屡爽约，冲着他们的脸打哈欠——可他们还不是照样回来找罪受。

埃里克：他们喜欢这样。

西西莉亚：他们才不喜欢，他们痛恨这种做法。她就是——我觉得，她根本就是个妖精——她总是能让那些女孩子听命于她，做她通常想让她们做的事——只不过，她讨厌她们。

埃里克：这是我们家族的个性吧。

西西莉亚：（一脸无奈地）我猜还没等到我这儿，这个性就失传了吧。

埃里克：罗萨琳德知道要守规矩吗？

西西莉亚：不是很守规矩。哦，她也就一般般吧——有时候会抽烟，喝点潘趣酒，频繁地和人接吻——哦，当然——这不消说——也是战争造成的后果之一，你知道的。

（康尼奇太太上场。）

康尼奇太太：罗萨琳德差不多已经准备就绪，我这就下去见见你那位朋友。

（埃里克和他妈妈一起走了下去。）

罗萨琳德：（场外音）哦，妈妈——

西西莉亚：妈妈到楼下去了。

（这时候，罗萨琳德才走了进来。罗萨琳德正是——彻头彻尾的罗萨琳德。她是那种完全不费吹灰之力就能让男人对她一见倾心的女孩子。但有两种男人除外：愚钝型的男人通常害怕她太过聪明伶俐，而那些聪明的男人又担心她太过漂亮。其余的男人似乎天生就是她的囊中之物。

如果说罗萨琳德从小到大一直被宠着，那么这一次，大家对她的宠爱也算是要有个了结了，事实上，她的性情本来不至于变成现在这个样子。她任何时候想要什么东西都得遂她的心意，倘若不能，她会让周围的人都不得好过——然而，从真正意义上说，她并没有被宠坏。她依然保有纯真的热情，满怀学习和进步的愿望，她无限向往永不枯竭的浪漫爱情，她胆识过人，至诚至信——在这些方面她并没有被宠坏。

在相当长一段时间里，她打心眼儿里厌恶家里的每个人。她不服管束，我行我素；她的处世哲学，对己是抓住时机及时行乐，对人是放任自由不加干涉。她喜欢那些耸人听闻的故事；她身上粗犷豪放的性格特点和温和友善、不拘小节的特性倒是相得益彰。她渴望能得到人们的喜欢，但如果得不到，她也不会放在心上，更不会刻意改变自己。

她怎么看都算不上一个模范人物。

所有漂亮的女人都必须接受的教育就是认识男人。罗萨琳德一直对一个又一个的男性个体感到失望，但是她对男性这个性别群体倒是信心十足。她厌恶女人。她们代表着她在自己身上发现并且颇为不齿的那些特性——一贯的刻薄、自大、怯懦和耍小聪明骗人。她有一次对满满一屋子她母亲的朋友说，女人存在的唯一理由是男人都要找一个扰得他们心烦意乱的尤物。她的舞技异常出众，擅长绘画，尽管总是匆匆而就，而且她语言天赋惊人，但只是用在写情书的时候。

但是，所有对罗萨琳德的指责都会在她的美貌面前败下阵来。她有一头灿烂的金色头发，那是人人都梦寐以求的金发，可以说整个染发行业就是为了满足人们的这个愿望而存在的。一张樱桃小口，丰腴滋润，永远让人亲不够，总是让人心神不宁。灰色的眼眸，无懈可击的完美肌肤，脸上还带着两团淡淡的红晕。她身材苗条，身形健美，各处都很舒展，看着她在房间中走来走去，在大街上款款而行，挥动高尔夫球杆，或者做一个侧手翻的动作，都会让人赏心悦目。

最后一项资本——她个性鲜明，性格爽快，和艾默里在伊莎贝拉身上发现的那种刻意为之、矫揉造作的品性迥然不同。她究竟是一个有个性的女孩，还是魅力十足的女孩，想必即使是达西大人见了她，也会左右为难，难以判断吧。她大概算得上芬芳美丽，妙不可言，集诸多优点于一身的、百年一遇的佳人吧。

那天晚上是她初次亮相于社交场合，尽管她满脑子都是些怪诞、离奇的想法，但她表现得完全像个欢快活泼的小姑娘。她母亲的女仆刚刚帮她梳理好头发，但她又急不可耐地觉得自己梳的发型会更好。她过于紧张，完全无法待在一个地方。正因如此，我们才得以在这个凌乱不堪的小房间里看到她。她正要开口讲话。如果说伊莎贝拉的女低音像小提琴的如泣如诉，那么罗萨琳德的声音听起来更像是瀑布淙淙作响。）

罗萨琳德：说心里话，这个世界上只有两种衣服是我真正喜欢穿的——（坐在梳妆台前梳头）一种是带衬裤的箍裙，另一种是一件式泳衣。我穿这两种衣服都非常迷人。

西西莉亚：你终于要出场亮相了，开心吗？

罗萨琳德：当然，你不开心吗？

西西莉亚：（挖苦地）你当然开心了，因为你很快就能结婚，住在长岛上，和那帮生活放荡的年轻已婚一族为伍了。你想要的生活就是一桩接一桩的风流韵事，在每一段关系中都能和一个男人风流一时。

罗萨琳德：倒是希望只有一桩！你是说我会把这些都看成一桩。

西西莉亚：哈！

罗萨琳德：西西莉亚，亲爱的，你不知道这是怎样的考验——对于像我这样的人。我每天走在街上都要板起脸来，不苟言笑，像块铁板一样，免得那些男人对我挤眉弄眼。我要是在前排看戏的时候大笑了几声，那个喜剧演员整个晚上就会只对着我一个人演。我要是在舞会上低声讲了一句话，无意中使了个眼色，或是丢了一块手帕，我的舞伴会在接下来的一个星期每天都打电话过来。

西西莉亚：听起来那可真是严峻的考验。

罗萨琳德：最为不幸的是，为数不多的那几个我感兴趣的男生压根儿就配不上我。好了——要是我出身贫寒，我就直接去当演员了。

西西莉亚：是啊，你的演技一流，完全可以以此谋生了。

罗萨琳德：有时候，在我感觉自己特别光彩夺目的时候，我就会想，我这样的天资，为什么仅仅用在一个男人身上，那简直就是浪费！

西西莉亚：在你感觉特别郁闷的时候，我也常常会想，凭什么要把这些都发泄在你家人身上。（站起身）我想我要到楼下去，见见那位艾默里·布莱恩先生了。我喜欢性情多变的人。

罗萨琳德：压根儿就没有这样的男人。男人根本就不知道怎样才是真正的愤怒，或者真的开心——而那些知道的，早就精神崩溃了。

西西莉亚：好了，我很开心我没有你的这些烦恼。我已经心有所属了。

罗萨琳德：（露出鄙夷的笑容）心有所属？哎，你这个昏了头的小疯子！要是妈妈听见你说这种话，准会把你送到寄宿学校去，那才是你应该待的地方。

西西莉亚：但你是不会告诉她的，因为我知道不少本可以抖搂出去的秘密——而且你相当自私！

罗萨琳德：（有点儿生气）快走吧，小丫头！你的心上人是谁呀，是那个送冰的人，还是那个开糖果店的人？

西西莉亚：脑子真笨——再见，亲爱的，一会儿见。

罗萨琳德：哦，你最好拿定主意，好好表现——你真是帮了我的忙呢。

（西西莉亚退下。罗萨琳德梳好头发，站了起来，嘴里一边哼着歌儿。她走到镜子跟前，站在镜子前柔软的垫子上跳起舞来。她没有注意看自己的脚，而是盯着自己的眼睛——绝不是随意的一瞥，而是一直专注地盯着，即使是在她笑的时候。门突然间被打开，艾默里走了进来，门随即在他身后砰的一声关上了，他和平常一样冷静又潇洒。瞬间他就有些不知所措了。）

他：哦，抱歉。我以为——

她：（露出灿烂的笑容）哦，你就是艾默里·布莱恩，对吧？

他：（仔细打量着她）那么你就是罗萨琳德？

她：我接下来就叫你艾默里了——哦，进来吧——没关系的——妈妈马上就来——（压低声音）真不巧。

他：（仔细环顾四周）这地方对我来说很新奇。

她：这里是个“男性止步”的地方。

他：这就是你——你——（停顿）

她：是的——这些东西都是。（她径直走到五斗橱前面。）看，这是我的口红——这是眼线笔。

他：我之前不知道你是这样的。

她：你原先以为我是什么样的？

他：我之前认为你有些——有些——大大咧咧，你知道，就知道游泳啊、打高尔夫球之类的。

她：哦，我的确喜欢这些运动——但不是在工作时间。

他：工作时间？

她：六点到两点——准确地说。

他：我倒是希望能购买这个企业的股票。

她：哦，这不是什么企业——就是“罗萨琳德无限责任公司”。我拥有百分之五十一的股份、冠名、商誉还有其他一些别的，合在一起每年两万五千美元。

他：（不以为然地）并不怎么景气的生意呀。

她：哦，艾默里，你并不在意这些的——对吧？我如果认识一个男人超过两个星期，且并没有对他感到厌烦，可能情况就会不一样。

他：真奇怪，你对男人的看法和我对女人的看法不谋而合呀。

她：我的女性气质并不是真的那么突出，你知道——我说的是我不这么认为。

他：（很有兴趣地）说下去。

她：不，该你了——你接着说——你让我一个劲儿地说我自己。这不符合规矩。

他：规矩？

她：我自己的规矩——但是你——哦，艾默里，我听说你才智过人。我们一家人都对你期望很高。

他：这话真是让人深受鼓舞啊！

她：埃里克说是你教会他思考的，是吗？我不相信有人能做到这一点。

他：不。我其实相当愚笨。

（很显然，他并不希望别人把他这句话当真。）

她：说谎。

他：我——我信仰宗教——我爱好文学。我——我写过诗。

她：自由体诗——太棒了！（她慷慨激昂地朗诵起来。）

绿树如茵，

枝头鸟儿歌声婉转，

姑娘饮下毒汁，

鸟儿飞去，姑娘香消玉殒。

他：（大笑道）不，不是这种。

她：（冷不丁地）我喜欢你。

他：别这样。

她：还很谦虚——

他：我在你面前有点发怵。在女孩子面前我总是发怵——等到我吻了她就不会这样了。

她：（加重语气）我亲爱的小伙子，战争已经结束了。

他：所以我会一直在你面前发怵。

她：（颇为沮丧）我想你会这样的。

（他们双方都有点犹豫。）

他：（经过一番思考之后）听着。这件事说出来有点吓人。

她：（完全明白将要发生什么）再等五分钟吧。

他：但是，你愿意吗——愿意吻我吗？还是你害怕了？

她：我从来不会害怕——但你的借口也太拙劣了。

他：罗萨琳德，我真的很想吻你。

她：我也是。

（他们接吻了——吻得坚定而投入。）

他：（喘不过气的片刻之后）那么，你的好奇心得到满足了吗？

她：你的呢？

他：没有，反而被激发起来了。

（他脸上的表情证实了这一点。）

她：（陶醉似的）我亲吻过数十个男人。我想我还会再和数十个男人接吻。

他：（出神地）是的，我想你可以——就像这样。

她：大多数人都喜欢我接吻的方式。

他：（猛然醒悟）上帝啊，没错。再吻我一次吧，罗萨琳德。

她：不行——我的好奇心基本上一次就满足了。

他：（垂头丧气）这也是一条规矩吗？

她：我的规矩是视情况而定的。

他：你和我有不少相似之处——只不过我比你岁数大，更有经验。

她：你多大了？

他：差不多要二十三岁了。你呢？

她：刚刚十九岁。

他：我猜你是某个时尚学校培养出来的吧。

她：不——我是浑然天成的。我是被斯潘瑟[122]学校开除的——我已经忘记是因为什么了。

他：你大体上是怎样一个人？

她：哦，我很聪明，也很自私，动不动就会感情用事，喜欢被人捧着——

他：（出其不意地）我可不想爱上你——

她：（眉毛上扬）又没有人求你。

他：（继续冷冷地）但我说不定会的。我喜欢你的嘴巴。

她：嘘！请不要爱上我的嘴巴——头发、眼睛、肩膀、拖鞋什么都行——但是不要爱上我的嘴巴。人人都爱上我的嘴巴了。

他：你的嘴巴很漂亮。

她：有点儿太小了。

他：不，不小——让我看看。

（他又一次很投入地吻了她。）

她：（似乎被触动了）说句亲热的话。

他：（吓了一跳）上帝救我。

她：（推开他）算了，别说了——说句亲热话有这么难？

他：我们要这么装模作样吗？这是不是太快了？

她：我们和其他人的时间标准不一样。

他：已经是——我们和其他人了。

她：那我们就装装样子吧。

他：不行——我装不来——这是感情问题。

她：你难道不是一个感情丰富的人吗？

他：不，我是一个浪漫的人——一个感情丰富的人认为爱情会天长地久——一个浪漫的人不会抱有天长地久的希望。感情丰富意味着容易冲动。

她：这么说来，你不是这样的？（两眼微闭着）你大约是在自我标榜，觉得那是高人一等的态度吧。

他：算了——罗萨琳德，罗萨琳德，别争了——再吻我一次。

她：（此时相当冷淡）不——我根本没有吻你的欲望。

他：（表现得很吃惊）你一分钟之前还想吻我呢。

她：但现在不同了。

他：那我还是走吧。

她：我看也是。

（他朝门口走去。）

她：噢！

（他转过身来。）

她：（大笑着）比分——主队：一百分——客队：零分。

（他开始后退。）

她：（飞快地）下雨——停赛。

（他走了出去。）

（她安静地走到五斗橱前，取出来一个香烟盒，然后把它藏在书桌侧边的抽屉里。她的妈妈走了进来，手里拿着一个笔记本。）

康尼奇太太：好哇——我一直想在下楼之前跟你单独谈谈。

罗萨琳德：天哪！你吓了我一跳！

康尼奇太太：罗萨琳德，你一直以来花钱都是大手大脚的。

罗萨琳德：（无可奈何地）没错。

康尼奇太太：你也知道你父亲的产业大不如前了。

罗萨琳德：（做了一个鬼脸）哦，请不要再跟我讲钱的事情啦。

康尼奇太太：没有钱你什么事也做不了。今年是我们待在这所房子里的最后一年了——除非事情有了大的改观，否则西西莉亚绝不可能像你一样养尊处优。

罗萨琳德：（不耐烦地）好啦——你到底要说什么？

康尼奇太太：我过来是要交代你几件我记在本子上的事，你可要给我当心了。第一件事是：不要和那些年轻小伙子一起跑掉。或许有些时候做这种事还能捡到便宜，但是眼下你必须给我待在舞池里，待在我能找到你的地方。我要介绍你认识几位先生，我不希望在暖房的角落里逮到你和谁傻乎乎地聊天——或者听别人聊天。

罗萨琳德：（不无讥讽地）知道了，听别人聊天比自己在那儿聊天要好。

康尼奇太太：还有，别在那些大学生身上浪费大把的时间——他们不过是十九二十岁的毛孩子。我不反对你去参加学校里的舞会或者橄榄球赛，但是不能参加那些让别人趁机占你便宜的聚会，坐在闹市区的小咖啡馆里和什么汤姆、迪克、哈里吃吃喝喝——

罗萨琳德：（提出自己的行事准则，差不多和她妈妈一样，说得头头是道）妈妈，就这么说定了——你总不能什么事情都照着九十年代初你们那个时候的样子来。

康尼奇太太：（心不在焉地）今天晚上我想让你认识认识你父亲的几个朋友，他们都还是单身——年纪也不算太大。

罗萨琳德：（心知肚明地点了点头）差不多有四十五岁了吧？

康尼奇太太：（严厉地）有什么不可以的？

罗萨琳德：哦，完全可以——他们饱经世事，一脸沧桑，让人肃然起敬（连连摇头）——不过，他们还是愿意跳舞的。

康尼奇太太：我还没见到布莱恩先生——但我想你不会对他有兴趣。听起来，他也不像个能挣大钱的人。

罗萨琳德：妈妈，我从来就没有考虑过钱的事儿。

康尼奇太太：你从来没有跟谁交往到要考虑钱的地步。

罗萨琳德：（叹气）没错，我看什么时候我就嫁给成吨的钞票算了——等到我玩腻了。

康尼奇太太：（打开笔记本看了看）我收到哈特福德来的一封电报。道森·赖德马上要到了。总算有一个我喜欢的年轻人了，他可是位腰缠万贯的金主。在我看来，既然你有点儿讨厌霍华德·吉莱斯皮，那就不妨给赖德先生一些机会吧。这是他一个月里第三次到我们家登门拜访了。

罗萨琳德：你怎么知道我已经厌倦了霍华德·吉莱斯皮？

康尼奇太太：那个可怜的孩子每次来都哭丧着脸。

罗萨琳德：那不过是大战之前一次浪漫的预演。他们全都不明白。

康尼奇太太：（她要说的已经说完）不管怎么说，你今晚应该让我们大家都为你感到骄傲。

罗萨琳德：难道你觉得我还不够漂亮吗？

康尼奇太太：你当然足够漂亮，这你是知道的。

（楼下传来小提琴调琴的幽怨曲调，还有一阵鼓声。康尼奇太太迅速地转过身对着她女儿。）

康尼奇太太：来吧！

罗萨琳德：马上！

（她的妈妈离开房间。罗萨琳德走到镜子前，仔细地端详着镜子中的自己，感到非常满意。她吻了一下自己的手，接着又用这只手摸了一下镜子中的嘴巴。随后她关了灯，离开了房间。沉寂了片刻。从虚掩的房门处，传来了外面楼梯上各种声音的混响，这些交织在一起的声音中有悠扬的钢琴旋律，隐隐约约还有节奏鲜明的鼓声，以及丝绸面料的新裙子窸窣作响的声音。人们结伴走进灯火通明的大厅。楼下的笑声一阵高过一阵。接着有人走了进来，关上了门，打开了灯。是西西莉亚。她走到五斗橱前面，打开抽屉看了看，迟疑了一会儿——随后走到书桌前，取出了香烟盒，从中抽出了一根烟。她点燃香烟，吞云吐雾地吸了几口，就朝着镜子走了过来。）

西西莉亚：（以颇为世故的口吻）哦，没错，你知道，现在这种亮相社交圈的舞会简直就是一场闹剧。十七岁之前一个人可以尽情地到处玩耍，与之相比，这种晚会实在让人扫兴。（与一名想象中的中年绅士握手。）是的，久仰——我想我对您早有耳闻，我常听姐姐提起您。抽一口吗——相当不错的烟。这些是——是花冠牌[123]的。您不抽烟，太可惜了！我猜一定是国王不允许抽烟。好吧，我们跳舞吧。

（于是，她随着楼下传来的音乐声在房间里跳了起来，双臂张开，伸向一个想象中的舞伴，那支香烟在她的手中上下翻飞。）

几个小时之后

楼下一个休息室的角落里，摆放着一张非常舒适的真皮长沙发。沙发两侧的正上方各有一盏灯，沙发正中的墙上挂着一幅肖像画，画中是一位年岁已高、神情端庄的老先生，时间是一八六〇年。外面传来狐步舞曲的旋律。

长沙发上坐着罗萨琳德，在她的左边坐着霍华德·吉莱斯皮，他大约二十四岁，一副无精打采的样子。他显然很不开心，而她也百无聊赖。

吉莱斯皮：（弱弱地）你说我变了，这到底是什么意思？我觉得自己对你一点儿都没变。

罗萨琳德：可在我看来，你跟过去大不一样了。

吉莱斯皮：三个星期之前你总是对我说，你喜欢我就是因为我非常淡定，而且冷漠——我还是那个样子呀。

罗萨琳德：但这不关我什么事。我过去喜欢你，是因为你有一双棕色的眼睛和两条瘦长的腿。

吉莱斯皮：（无助地）我现在还是有两条瘦长的腿，一双棕色的眼睛。你就是个迷人的妖精，就是这么回事儿。

罗萨琳德：我认为只有钢琴乐曲才算得上迷人。男人们百思不得其解的是我竟然天性如此，完美又自然。我本以为你是不会嫉妒吃醋的。现在我走到哪儿，你的那双眼睛就会追到哪儿。

吉莱斯皮：我爱你。

罗萨琳德：（冷冷地）我知道。

吉莱斯皮：可是，你有两个星期没有吻过我了。我以前一直以为姑娘们都是——都是——一吻定情的。

罗萨琳德：那个时代已经一去不复返了。你每次看到我都要从头开始，赢得我的芳心。

吉莱斯皮：此话当真吗？

罗萨琳德：差不多跟往常一样。从前接吻有两种情况：第一种是女孩子被人家吻了，之后就被抛弃了；第二种是订婚的时候，一吻定情。现在还有第三种情况，男人被女孩子吻了，之后就被抛弃了。假如九十年代的某某先生夸耀说他吻了一个女孩子，大家都知道这意味着这个姑娘已经被抛弃。假如一九一九年的某某先生说了同样的话，大家都知道这意味着他再也不能吻那个姑娘了。现在倘若能给女孩子体面的地位，她们中的任何一个都能打败男人。

吉莱斯皮：那么你为什么玩弄男人？

罗萨琳德：（要分享秘密似的探身向前）为了最初他心动的那个时刻。会有那么一个时刻——哦，就是在第一次接吻之前，说上一句悄悄话——值得说的悄悄话。

吉莱斯皮：那么接下来呢？

罗萨琳德：接下来，在那之后你让他谈谈他自己。很快，他就想和你单独待在一起，除此之外他什么也不想——他会闷闷不乐，但不会跟你争吵，他不再想只是玩玩——胜利！

（现在登场的是道森·赖德，二十六岁，相貌英俊，家财万贯，忠于自我，可能不讨人喜欢，但自信坚定，对成功志在必得。）

赖德：我想，这一曲轮到我和你一起跳了吧，罗萨琳德？

罗萨琳德：嗯，道森，这么说你认出我来了。现在我知道脸上的脂粉并没有涂得太过。赖德先生，这位是吉莱斯皮先生。

（他们握了握手，吉莱斯皮随即离开，相当沮丧。）

赖德：你的这次晚会无疑非常成功。

罗萨琳德：是吗——最近我都没怎么操持。我觉得很累——你介意到外面坐一会儿吗？

赖德：介意？——怎么会，我求之不得。你知道我讨厌那种“赶场子”的主意。昨天见个女孩子，今天再见一个，明天还要再见一个。

罗萨琳德：道森！

赖德：怎么了？

罗萨琳德：我不确定你是否知道你爱我。

赖德：（大吃一惊）什么——哦——你确实无与伦比，这你知道的！

罗萨琳德：因为你知道我是个糟糕的家伙。谁要是娶了我就别想再有安安稳稳的日子了。我很刻薄——相当刻薄。

赖德：哦，我不这么认为。

罗萨琳德：哦，是的，我的确如此——尤其是对我身边最亲近的人。（她站了起来）来吧，我们该走了。我改主意了，我现在想跳舞。妈妈说不定正在生气呢。

（两人退场。埃里克和西西莉亚上场。）

西西莉亚：我运气真好，中场休息的时候有自己的哥哥陪着。

埃里克：（郁闷地）你要是不想让我在这儿，我立马就走。

西西莉亚：上帝啊，当然不是——我还能跟谁一起跳下一支舞？（叹气）自从那些法国军官[124]走后，跳舞就没什么情调了。

埃里克：（若有所思地）我可不愿看到艾默里爱上罗萨琳德。

西西莉亚：为什么？我怎么觉得这恰恰是你真正希望的。

埃里克：我曾经是这么想的，但是自从见了这些女孩子——我不知道。我和艾默里交情很深。他很敏感，我不想看到他为一个不在乎他的人伤心难过。

西西莉亚：他非常英俊。

埃里克：（依旧若有所思）她是不会嫁给他的，但不嫁给他不表示不会让他心碎。

西西莉亚：那是什么让人心碎？我很想知道这个秘密。

埃里克：得了，你这只冷血的小猫。上帝是眷顾你才让你长了个小塌鼻。

（康尼奇太太走了进来。）

康尼奇太太：罗萨琳德究竟去了哪里？

埃里克：（机智地）你可真是找对了人。她自然是和我们在一起。

康尼奇太太：她父亲把八个百万身家的单身汉都叫了来，要给她介绍。

埃里克：你最好让他们排成一队，正步走穿过大厅。

康尼奇太太：我可是在说正经的——据我所知，即便是在这个正式亮相的晚上，她也可能跟一个橄榄球运动员到椰林夜总会去鬼混。你到左边去看看，我到——

埃里克：（贸然地）你为什么不让管家到地窖里去找找？

康尼奇太太：（非常严肃地）哦，你以为她不会去那儿？

西西莉亚：他那是在开玩笑，妈妈。

埃里克：妈妈满脑子都在想，她正和某个高个子的跨栏运动员一起喝啤酒呢。

康尼奇太太：我们还是赶快去找吧。

（他们出去。罗萨琳德和吉莱斯皮走了上来。）

吉莱斯皮：罗萨琳德——我再问你一次。你难道对我一点儿都不在乎？

（艾默里轻快地走了过来。）

艾默里：轮到和我跳了。

罗萨琳德：吉莱斯皮先生，这位是布莱恩先生。

吉莱斯皮：我见过布莱恩先生。来自日内瓦湖城，对吗？

艾默里：没错。

吉莱斯皮：（绝望地）我去过那里。那是在——中西部，对吧？

艾默里：（尖酸地）大概是吧。不过我宁可当一盘地道的玉米粉蒸肉，也不愿意当一碗没有一点儿作料的汤。

吉莱斯皮：什么话！

艾默里：噢，我无意冒犯。

（吉莱斯皮鞠了一躬，退下。）

罗萨琳德：他这人太市侩了。

艾默里：我以前也爱上过一个小市民。

罗萨琳德：结果呢？

艾默里：哦，对了——她的名字叫伊莎贝拉——我一厢情愿，她压根儿不在乎。

罗萨琳德：后来呢？

艾默里：最后，我让她相信她比我高明——她随即就把我给甩了。说我吹毛求疵，不切实际，你知道，诸如此类的话。

罗萨琳德：你说的不切实际是什么意思？

艾默里：哦——就像会开车，但不会换轮胎。

罗萨琳德：你有什么打算？

艾默里：说不好——竞选总统，写作——

罗萨琳德：要去格林威治村吗？

艾默里：天哪，不——我说的是写作，不是喝酒。

罗萨琳德：我喜欢实业家。聪明的男人一般都相貌平平。

艾默里：我觉得和你一见如故。

罗萨琳德：哦，你是要开始从“金字塔”的故事讲起了吗？

艾默里：不——我打算讲法国人的故事。我是路易十四，你是我的一个——一个——（改变了一下语气。）假设——我们相爱了。

罗萨琳德：我刚才就提议了，我们不妨假装一下。

艾默里：要是我们真这样，可是要了不得了。

罗萨琳德：为什么？

艾默里：因为自私的人，从某个方面来说，可以造就伟大的爱情。

罗萨琳德：（嘟起她的嘴唇）假装一次。

（他们非常认真地吻在了一起。）

艾默里：我不会说什么甜言蜜语。但你真的很美。

罗萨琳德：我要的不是这个。

艾默里：那你要什么？

罗萨琳德：（难过地）噢，没什么——只不过，我要的是感情，真情实感——但我从未遇到过。

艾默里：我觉得在这世上除了感情之外，别无他物，所以我厌恶感情。

罗萨琳德：能找到一个可以满足我艺术品位的男人可真不容易。

（门被打开了，华尔兹的乐曲声飘然而至，回荡在房间里。罗萨琳德站了起来。）

罗萨琳德：你听！他们正在播放《再吻我一次》[125]。

（他注视着她。）

艾默里：嗯？

罗萨琳德：嗯？

艾默里：（温柔地——已经败下阵来）我爱你。

罗萨琳德：我爱你——现在。

（他们接吻了。）

艾默里：哦，上帝呀，我都干了什么？

罗萨琳德：没什么。哦，别说话。再吻我一次。

艾默里：我不知道什么原因，也不知道怎么，但是我爱你——从我见到你的那个时刻起。

罗萨琳德：我也是——我——我——哦，今夜真是无与伦比。

（她的哥哥踱步走了进来，不觉吃了一惊，接着大声说道：“哦，对不起。”随即转身离开。）

罗萨琳德：（她的两片嘴唇几乎没动）不要放开我——我根本不在乎什么人知道我做了什么。

艾默里：说吧！

罗萨琳德：我爱你——此时此刻。（他们分开。）哦——我正值青春年华，感谢上帝——而且，天生丽质，感谢上帝——而且开心幸福，感谢上帝，感谢上帝——（她停顿了一下，然后，似乎预见到了什么，又加了一句）可怜的艾默里！

（他又吻了她。）

缘分

艾默里和罗萨琳德坠入爱河，在两个星期不到的时间里，他们两个已经如胶似漆，难舍难分。之前让他们在各自的恋爱中屡屡受挫的乖张性情也销声匿迹，让路给了两人心中澎湃的激情。

“这会是一段疯狂的恋爱关系，”她对忧心忡忡的妈妈说，“但这并非头脑发热。”

爱情的力量促使艾默里在三月初进入了一家广告公司，在公司里他一边卖命工作，追求卓越的业绩，一边做着一夜暴富的美梦，期盼能带着罗萨琳德到意大利游玩。

他们几乎总是形影不离，一起吃午饭，一起共进晚餐，而且几乎每天晚上——都小心翼翼地守护他们一起厮守的时光，似乎害怕这段甜蜜的时光会戛然而止，让他们从这个玫瑰和火焰的天堂跌落。但这段甜蜜的日子让人魂不守舍，这种情况似乎与日俱增；他们在七月份——或者是在六月份，就开始谈婚论嫁。生活中的一切都成了他们爱情的特有表达，过往的经历，曾经的愿望梦想，雄心壮志，在爱情面前统统失去了效力——就连他们固有的幽默感都蛰伏起来了；那些过往的情事似乎也已经成了多少有些可笑，但已无暇去后悔的青涩往事。

艾默里有生以来第二次经历了一回彻底的大反转，他急切地要和自己的同龄人步调一致。

小插曲

艾默里沿着林荫大道缓步而行，在他的心目中夜晚似乎总是属于他的——多彩的黄昏和昏暗的街道构成了一场盛典与狂欢……他好像终于合上了渐渐弱去的和声乐谱，轻快地步入活色生香的人生轨道。四周亮起无数的灯火，暮色四合，充满生机，街上有人在唱歌——他半梦半醒地穿行于人群之中，仿佛期盼着罗萨琳德的出现，在每个街角他都好像看见她脚步急切地朝他跑来……那些黄昏中难忘的面孔都汇合成她的面孔，纷至沓来的脚步，风情万种的仪态，都融汇到她的脚步之中，她看向他的眼睛含情脉脉，比美酒更醉人。即使是他的幻想，此刻也变成小提琴的琴声，如空气中的夏日之歌一样悠扬婉转，飘忽不定。

房间中一片黑暗，只有汤姆手上的香烟明灭可见，他正懒洋洋地靠在打开的窗户边上。艾默里进来后把门关上了，又背靠着门站了一会儿。

“你好呀，本韦努托·布莱恩[126]，今天的广告事业进展如何？”

艾默里直接趴在了沙发上。

“我和往常一样讨厌它！”公司里忙乱的画面在他的脑海里一闪而过，取而代之的是另一幅画面。

“上帝啊！她实在是无与伦比！”

汤姆叹了口气。

“我没法向你描述，”艾默里反反复复地说，“她到底有多好。我也不想让你知道。我不想让任何人知道。”

又一声叹息从窗口那边传了过来——十分无奈的叹息。

“她是我的生活、希望和幸福所在，她现在就是我的整个世界。”

他感到自己的眼角有泪花闪动。

“哦，上帝呀，汤姆！”

又苦又甜

“还像我们之前那样坐。”她轻声说。

他坐在一张大椅子上，张开手臂，这样她就可以像小鸟一样依偎在他怀里。

“我就知道你今晚会来，”她温柔地说，“就像夏天，总是在我最需要你的时候到来……亲爱的……亲爱的……”

他的嘴唇慵懒地掠过她的脸颊。

“你的味道真不错。”他叹息道。

“你是什么意思，我的心上人？”

“哦，就是很香，很甜……”他把她抱得更紧了。

“艾默里，”她耳语道，“你什么时候准备好娶我了，我就嫁给你。”

“我们一开始可能没多少钱。”

“不许说这个！”她叫了起来，“你因为自己无法给我这些而责备自己，总是让我感到难过。我已经得到了无比珍贵的你——这已经足够了。”

“告诉我……”

“你知道的，不是吗？哦，你当然知道。”

“是的，但我想听你说出来。”

“我爱你，艾默里，全心全意地爱你。”

“直到永远，对吗？”

“生生世世——哦，艾默里——”

“怎么了？”

“我愿意永远为你所有。我愿意把你的亲人当作我的亲人。我愿意为你生儿育女。”

“但我已经没有什么亲人了。”

“不要笑我，艾默里。吻我。”

“你想让我做什么我就做什么。”他说。

“不，我愿意为你做任何事。我们就是你——不是我。哦，你是如此重要的一部分，你就是我的全部……”

他闭上了眼睛。

“我太幸福了，简直有些害怕。如果这就是——就是高潮阶段，这难道不是太残酷了？……”

她迷醉地望着他。

“我知道，美和爱都倏忽即逝……哦，还会惹得人伤心。我想所有伟大的幸福都带着一点悲伤。美既是芬芳绮丽惹人爱，又是红消香断惹人怜——”

“美意味着牺牲的悲痛以及悲痛的终结……”

“而且我知道，艾默里，我们都很美。我确信上帝是爱我们的——”

“他爱你。你是他最为宝贵的财产。”

“我不是他的，我是你的。艾默里，我属于你。我平生第一次为之前献给别人的那些吻而感到后悔，我现在才知道一个吻有多珍贵。”

接下来，他们会一起抽烟，他会告诉她白天在办公室里发生的事——还有，他们可能会在哪儿居住。有时，如果他那天特别健谈，一直说个没完，她就会在他的怀里睡着，但是他喜欢那样的罗萨琳德——他爱所有的罗萨琳

德，在这个世界上他还从未这样爱过任何别的人。时间总是在不知不觉间就溜走了，甚至没有留下什么记忆。

泳池事件

一天，艾默里和霍华德·吉莱斯皮在市区吃午饭的时候不期而遇，艾默里从他那儿听到了一则旧事，感到开心不已。当时吉莱斯皮喝了几杯鸡尾酒，开始滔滔不绝，他一开始就告诉艾默里，他觉得罗萨琳德有些古怪。

他有一次和罗萨琳德一起到纽约的韦斯特切斯特县参加一个泳池聚会，当时有人说起安妮特·凯勒曼[127]曾经到访这里，并从一个三十英尺高的、摇摇晃晃的别墅屋顶跳入泳池。罗萨琳德当即就要求霍华德和她一起爬上去看看那里是什么样子。

没有一会儿，他就已经坐在楼顶的边缘了，他在那里晃荡着双腿，忽然看见一个身影从他的身边跳了出去；是罗萨琳德，只见她张开双臂，以美丽的天鹅入水时的优雅姿态，腾空而起，跃入水中。

“当然，我必须跟着跳下去——差点儿要了我的命。我觉得我敢这么跳下去已经很了不起了，毕竟聚会上再也没有别的人胆敢一试。可是，后来罗萨琳德居然还好意思问我说，为什么我跳下去的时候弯腰弓背，缩手缩脚的。‘这样并不会变得更容易，’她说，‘而且看起来胆小如鼠，失去了该有的英姿。’你说说看，一个男人遇见一个这样的姑娘能怎么样？我宣布，没有追求的必要了。”

吉莱斯皮不明白艾默里为何整个午餐时间都面带微笑，看起来乐不可支。他想他可能就是那些傻乎乎的乐观分子中的一个。

五周之后

康尼奇家的书房。罗萨琳德独自一人坐在长沙发上，目视虚空，露出忧郁悲伤的神情。她有了明显的改变——她一方面消瘦了许多，再有就是，眼里的光彩也不再那么明亮，她看起来像老了一岁。

她的妈妈走了进来，披着一件晚礼服斗篷。她用不安的眼神瞥了一眼罗萨琳德。

康尼奇太太：今天晚上谁会来？

（罗萨琳德没有听到妈妈的话，至少她没有任何表示。）

康尼奇太太：埃里克一会儿过来，带我去看巴里的新剧《亲爱的布鲁托斯》。（她意识到自己在自言自语。）罗萨琳德！我问你今晚谁会过来？

罗萨琳德：（猛然回过神来）哦——什么——哦——艾默里——

康尼奇太太：（挖苦地）你最近的追求者无数，我都想象不出到底是哪一个。（罗萨琳德没有接话。）道森·赖德比我想的还要有耐心。这个星期你连一个晚上都没给他留。

罗萨琳德：（带着新近才有的疲惫不堪的表情）妈妈——求求你——

康尼奇太太：哦，我才不会横加干涉呢。你已经在那个理论天才身上浪费了两个月了，他身无分文，你尽可以继续执迷不悟，把你的一辈子都浪费在他身上。我才不会管呢。

罗萨琳德：（好像是在重复枯燥无味的功课）你知道他是有一点儿收入的——你也知道他每周靠做广告可以挣到三十五美元——

康尼奇太太：这还不够给你买衣服呢。（她停顿了一下，但罗萨琳德没有接话。）我劝你不要做让自己后悔的事情，这是一心为了你好。你不能指望你的父亲来帮你。现在生意不好做，他也已经上了年纪。你是把全部的希望寄托在一个空想家的身上，他人还不错，出身优渥，但是个不折不扣的空想家——不过是有点儿小聪明。（她暗示这种品质本身就很卑劣。）

罗萨琳德：看在上帝的分上，妈妈——

（一个女仆走过来通报布莱恩先生到了，艾默里随即就跟了进来。艾默里的朋友们最近十天一直在告诉他，说他失魂落魄，“看起来就像是承受了上帝的怒火”，他也的确如此。事实上，在过去的三十六个小时中，他连一口饭都没吃。）

艾默里：晚上好，康尼奇太太。

康尼奇太太：（并非毫无热情）晚上好，艾默里。

（艾默里和罗萨琳德交换了一下眼神——这时埃里克走了进来。埃里克一直以来都保持着中立的态度。他心里一直相信这场婚姻会让艾默里变得庸碌无为，让罗萨琳德感到悲苦不堪，但是他对他们两人深表同情。）

埃里克：嗨，艾默里！

艾默里：嗨，埃里克！汤姆说他在剧院和你见面。

埃里克：是的，刚刚看到他了。今天的广告业务怎样？写了什么好的稿子吗？

艾默里：哦，还是老样子。我加薪了——（每个人都异常热切地望着他）——每周增加两美元。（大家全都泄了气。）

康尼奇太太：走吧，埃里克，我听到车子来了。

（夜色很美，不时能感到刺骨的寒意。康尼奇太太和埃里克走后，房间里沉寂了片刻。罗萨琳德依旧忧郁地盯着壁炉，目不转睛。艾默里走到她的身边，伸出手臂抱住了她。）

艾默里：亲爱的姑娘。

（他们拥吻在一起。过了一会儿，她抓住他的手，贴到嘴上吻了又吻，之后又把它捂在胸口。）

罗萨琳德：（难过地）我爱你的手，超过任何东西。当你不在我身边的时候，我的眼前常常会浮现出它们的样子——如此辛劳；我知道上面的每一道纹路。亲爱的双手！

（他们含情脉脉地注视着对方，片刻之后她开始啜泣——没有眼泪的啜泣。）

艾默里：罗萨琳德！

罗萨琳德：哦，我们实在是太可怜了！

艾默里：罗萨琳德！

罗萨琳德：哦，我宁可去死！

艾默里：罗萨琳德，如果再有一个像今天这样的夜晚，我就要崩溃了。你已经连续四天像今天这样了。你应该给我鼓励才是，否则我无法工作，寝食难安。（他四下里望了望，似乎是在寻找一些新鲜的词汇，给那些陈词滥调裹上一袭新衣。）我们需要有一个开始。我想我们应该一起去努力开创。（他勉强打起精神，想传达一些乐观的期许，可是看见她毫无反应，也只好作罢。）怎么啦？（他忽然间站起身，开始踱来踱去。）一定是道森·赖德，这就是原因所在。他一直让你心神不宁。你这一周每天下午都跟他见面。有人跟我说他们看见你和他在一起，我只能微笑、点头，假装毫不在意。事情发展到这个地步，而你对此从未与我有过任何交流。

罗萨琳德：艾默里，如果你再不坐下来，我就要尖叫了。

艾默里：（突然在她身边坐下）哦，上帝啊！

罗萨琳德：（温柔地拿起他的手）你知道我爱你，不是吗？

艾默里：是。

罗萨琳德：你知道我会永远爱你——

艾默里：不要这样说，你吓到我了。听起来我们好像将要失去彼此了。（她哭了一会儿，然后从沙发上起来，走到扶手椅的旁边。）整个下午我都觉得情况糟透了。我差点儿就在办公室里发疯了——一行字也写不出。你快把一切都原原本本地告诉我吧。

罗萨琳德：要我说，没什么值得说的。我只是太紧张了。

艾默里：罗萨琳德，你正在寻思要不要嫁给道森·赖德。

罗萨琳德：（迟疑了一会儿）他一整天都在向我求婚。

艾默里：哼，他倒是做得出！

罗萨琳德：（又迟疑了一会儿）我喜欢他。

艾默里：别说这种话了，我听了难受。

罗萨琳德：别像个傻瓜似的。你知道你是我唯一爱过的人，也是我唯一会爱的人。

艾默里：（急切地）罗萨琳德，我们结婚吧——下星期就结婚。

罗萨琳德：这行不通。

艾默里：为什么？

罗萨琳德：哦，我们办不到。那样我就成了你的老婆——住在某个破落的地方。

艾默里：我们每个月总共会有两百七十五美元的收入。

罗萨琳德：亲爱的，这都不够我平时做头发的。

艾默里：我来帮你做头发。

罗萨琳德：（哭笑不得地）多谢了。

艾默里：罗萨琳德，你不会真的在考虑嫁给别的什么人吧！告诉我！你让我一直蒙在鼓里。只要你告诉我，我就能帮你打消这个念头。

罗萨琳德：只是——你和我，我们两个。我们太可怜了，就是这样。那些让我爱你爱得死心塌地的品质恰恰会让你一事无成。

艾默里：（严肃地）说下去。

罗萨琳德：哦——确实是道森·赖德。他是如此可靠，我几乎感觉他就是一个——一个背景。

艾默里：你不爱他。

罗萨琳德：我知道，但我尊敬他，他是个善良的人，而且性情坚毅。

艾默里：（不情愿地）没错——他是这样的。

罗萨琳德：嗯——有这么一件小事。周二下午我们在麦城遇见了一个可怜的小男孩——而且，哦，道森把他抱起来放在自己膝头，跟他说话，并且保证要送他一套印第安人的服装——第二天他居然还记得，并且给他买了一套服装——哦，这真是太贴心了，我禁不住想他会如此体贴地对待——对待我们的孩子——照顾他们——这样我就不用再担心了。

艾默里：（绝望地）罗萨琳德！罗萨琳德！

罗萨琳德：（带着些许的调皮）不要看起来一副痛不欲生的样子。

艾默里：我们真是在不遗余力地伤害对方！

罗萨琳德：（又开始哭了起来）这是多么完美呀——你和我。简直就是我一直憧憬却从不敢奢望会成真的美梦。我平生第一次体会到了真正的无私是什么感觉。我不能就这样看着它消失在毫无生气的气氛之中！

艾默里：它不会消失——不会的！

罗萨琳德：我宁愿把它当作一次美好的回忆——珍藏在我的心间。

艾默里：没错，女人可以这么做——但是男人不行。我会永远记得，不是记得当初多么美好，而是之后多么苦涩，无穷无尽的苦涩。

罗萨琳德：别说了！

艾默里：有生之年我将再也不和你见面，再也不会吻你，就像一扇被关闭的门，已被牢牢地锁上——你根本不敢做我的妻子。

罗萨琳德：不——不——我选择的是最艰难的道路，也是最坚强的道路。嫁给你我会一败涂地，但我从来不接受失败——你要是还这样走来走去，不肯停下来，我就要大叫了！

（他又一次绝望地跌坐在长沙发上。）

艾默里：到我这里来吻我。

罗萨琳德：不。

艾默里：你难道已经不想吻我了？

罗萨琳德：今天晚上我要你冷静又克制地爱我。

艾默里：终结的开端。

罗萨琳德：（灵光一闪）艾默里，你还年轻，我也还年轻。人们会原谅我们此刻装腔作势，爱慕虚荣，原谅我们把他们当作桑丘一样戏弄，还能免受责难。他们此刻会原谅我们。但是麻烦很快就会接踵而来——

艾默里：所以你害怕，不愿意和我一起面对。

罗萨琳德：不，不是那样的。我曾经在什么地方读到过一首诗——你可能会说是埃拉·惠勒·威尔科克斯[128]写的，并且对它嗤之以鼻——但是听着：

因为这就是智慧——去爱，去生活，

接受命运或者神灵赋予我们的使命，

不去发问质疑，也不做任何祈求，

亲吻美丽的双唇，爱抚迷人的秀发，

激情如潮水涨落，倏忽即逝，

把握现在，拥抱此刻，而后——及时放手。[129]

艾默里：但我们还不曾拥有彼此。

罗萨琳德：艾默里，我是你的——你非常清楚。上个月有好多次，只要你开口我就完完全全是你的了。但是我不能嫁给你，不能毁了我们两人日后的生活。

艾默里：我们必须把握住获得幸福的机会。

罗萨琳德：道森说我会慢慢爱上他。

（艾默里双手抱头，一动不动。生命的活力似乎瞬间从他的身上抽离。）

罗萨琳德：吾爱！吾爱！我不能和你厮守，但是我不能想象没有你的生活。

艾默里：罗萨琳德，我们让彼此都心烦意乱。这都是因为我们过于紧张，而且这一周——

（他的声音莫名其妙地听起来十分苍老。她径直走到他的跟前，用双手捧起他的脸，吻了他。）

罗萨琳德：我做不到，艾默里。我不能住在没有绿树和鲜花的房子里，不能把自己幽闭于狭小的公寓中等你回家。你会怨恨那个处于狭小空间中的我。我会逼得你怨恨我。

（她又一次突然间不能自已，泪流满面。）

艾默里：罗萨琳德——

罗萨琳德：哦，亲爱的，走吧——不要让分手变得如此艰难！我已无法承受——

艾默里：（他一脸颓丧，声音已经走调）你知道自己在说什么吗？你是说要永远分开吗？

（他们两人此刻所经受的折磨还是有些不同。）

罗萨琳德：你怎么还不明白——

艾默里：如果你还爱我，我恐怕真的难以明白。你惧怕要和我一起经受两年的折磨。

罗萨琳德：我将不再是你爱的那个罗萨琳德。

艾默里：（有一点歇斯底里）我不能放弃你！我做不到，就是这样。我必须要和你在一起！

罗萨琳德：（她的声音中透露出一丝坚定）你现在这是在耍小孩子脾气。

艾默里：（疯狂地）我不在乎！你正在毁掉我们的生活！

罗萨琳德：我只是在做一件理智的事，唯一应该做的事。

艾默里：你要嫁给道森·赖德了吗？

罗萨琳德：哦，别再问我了。你知道在某些方面我很老成——在其他的方面——嗯，我还只是个小姑娘。我喜欢阳光、美好的事物，还有无忧无虑的生活——但我惧怕承担责任。我不想整日惦记着柴米油盐、锅碗瓢盆。我想要考虑的是，我在夏天游泳是否会让我的腿变得光滑，是否会晒黑。

艾默里：可是你爱我。

罗萨琳德：这恰恰是我们必须到此结束的原因所在。任其发展下去只会带来更多的伤害。我们不能让类似今天这样的场景再度出现。

（她从手上取下他送给她的戒指，递给了他。他们两人都泣不成声，泪眼模糊。）

艾默里：（把嘴唇贴到她带着泪痕的脸颊上）不要这样！请留着它吧——哦，不要让我心碎！

（她把戒指轻轻地塞到他的手里。）

罗萨琳德：（泣不成声）你最好还是走吧。

艾默里：再见——

（她再一次看着他，带着无尽的不舍，无尽的悲伤。）

罗萨琳德：千万不要忘了我，艾默里——

艾默里：再见——

（他走到门口，用手摸索着在门上寻找那个圆形的把手，直到摸到它——她看见他向后甩了一下头——然后就消失不见了。人已走了——她差不多是从长沙发上跳了起来，而后脸朝下扑倒在靠垫上。）

罗萨琳德：哦，上帝，我真想一死了之！（过了一会儿，她站起来，闭着眼摸索着走向门口。接着她又转过身，朝房间又看了一眼。他们曾经坐在这里一起畅想未来：那个托盘，她常常摆满火柴，拿给他用；那个遮阳的窗帘，他们曾小心翼翼地将它放下来，陪他们一起度过一个漫长的周日午后。她站在那里，泪眼婆娑，记起了曾经的一幕幕，最后不禁大声惋叹。）哦，艾默里，我都对你做了什么？

（悲伤的痛楚会随着时间的流逝而淡去，但在悲痛的背后，在更深层面，罗萨琳德感到自己已经失去了什么，她不明白失去的究竟是什么，也不知道她为何会失去。）

第二章　康复期的实验

尼克博克酒吧一直门庭若市，那里挂着一幅麦克斯菲尔德·帕里什的画作《老国王柯尔》，这幅画喜气洋洋，色彩艳丽，使整个酒吧都熠熠生辉。艾默里在酒吧的入口处停了下来，看了看手表；他特别想知道这一刻的准确时间，因为他善于进行分门别类和归纳汇总的头脑，总是喜欢把事情处理得干净利落。如果日后能清楚地记得“那件事情在一九一九年六月十日星期四晚上八点二十分结束”，他会隐隐约约地感到一丝满足。这个时间包括了从她家里离开走到这里的时间——这一段路究竟是怎样走过来的，他后来竟然完全记不起来了。

他正处在一种相当怪诞的状态：两天来一直惶惶不安，忧心如焚，夜不能寐，茶饭不思，情感危机不断加剧，最终因为罗萨琳德突然的决定而达到了顶峰——这种煎熬使得他的头脑几乎陷入了一种麻木的昏迷状态。正当他坐在免费午餐的餐桌前，动作迟钝地拨弄着盘子里的油橄榄时，有个人走了过来跟他打招呼，他吓了一跳，哆嗦的双手使得橄榄果撒了一地。

“喂，艾默里……”

他认出来是他在普林斯顿时的旧识，但是想不起来他叫什么名字。

“你好，老弟——”他听见自己的声音响起。

“我是吉姆·威尔逊——你已经记不得了。”

“哪里，怎么会，吉姆。我记得。”

“要去参加校友聚会吗？”

“你怎么知道！”话说出口的一刹那，他意识到自己根本没打算去参加聚会。

“被派到外面去打仗？”

艾默里点了点头，他眼神呆滞，神情恍惚。他朝后退了一步给别人让路，不小心将盛着橄榄果的餐盘打翻在地。

“糟糕，”他嘀咕了一声，“要喝一杯吗？”

威尔逊，一副老成持重的圆滑派头，伸出手去拍了拍他的后背。

“你已经喝多了，老兄。”

艾默里傻愣愣地瞪着威尔逊，直看得他心里发毛。

“喝多了，见鬼！”艾默里终于说了句话，“我今天一口都还没喝。”

威尔逊看起来完全不相信他的话。

“你到底要不要喝一杯？”艾默里粗鲁地厉声问道。

于是两人一起朝吧台走去。

“高杯的黑麦威士忌。”

“我就要一杯布朗克斯鸡尾酒。”

威尔逊又来了一杯，艾默里一连喝了好几杯。他们决定找个地方坐一坐。十点钟的时候，一五届的卡林过来替换了威尔逊。艾默里喝得晕头转向，酒精带来的惬意的满足感一层一层地包裹着他精神上的创口，借着酒兴，他开始大肆谈论起这场战争。

“就是一场精神上的虚耗。”他带着颇有洞察力的睿智，显得不容争辩。“我两年的生命都在智力的真空里度过。丢失了理想主义，就跟十足的动物没什么两样，”他张扬地朝着画中的老国王柯尔挥了挥拳头，“对任何事都要有普鲁士人的作风，尤其是女人。原来对女子学院的人以诚相待，现在我他妈的一点儿也看不起她们。”他为了展示自己现在对规则毫不在乎，便大手一挥把一个塞尔脱兹矿泉水瓶打翻在地，水瓶砰的一声摔了个粉碎，但这丝毫没有打断他的高谈阔论。“今朝有酒今朝醉，及时行乐，因为明天就可能死去。从今往后，这就是我的人生哲学。”

卡林打了个哈欠，但是艾默里越说越有兴致，兴高采烈，不肯就此作罢：

“过去对什么事都充满好奇——在生活态度上，人们满足于折中和妥协。现在我不再好奇了，不再好奇了——”他只顾着强调这一点，希望卡林知道他对什么都不再好奇了，到头来忘了自己刚才要说的话，最后只能仓促收尾，对着酒吧里的所有人大喊，说他自己就是个“十足的动物”。

“你这是在欢庆什么吗，艾默里？”

艾默里好像要和他推心置腹似的，把身体靠了过去。

“庆祝我的人生搞砸了。把人生搞砸的伟大时刻。不能跟你仔细说——”

他听到卡林对酒吧服务员说了一句：

“给他来点儿醒酒的溴化剂。”

艾默里愤愤地摇了摇头。

“我才不要那玩意儿！”

“但是听着，艾默里，你让自己喝得都要吐了。你现在脸色苍白，像鬼一样。”

艾默里考虑了一下他的话。他试着朝镜子里看看，照一照自己的模样，但是即使是眯起一只眼，他最远也只能看到吧台后面的那一排酒瓶。

“要吃点什么。我们去弄点——弄点沙拉吧。”

他整理了一下外套，试图看起来若无其事，但是离开吧台对他来说已经相当困难，他刚一松手就跌倒在一把椅子上。

“我们到尚利餐厅吧。”卡林建议道，并主动把胳膊伸过去扶他。

艾默里在卡林的帮助下勉强能够挪动双腿，硬撑着穿过了第四十二街。

尚利餐厅里一片昏暗。他意识到自己正在大声说话，内容应该是关于要把人们都踩在脚下的愿望，他说得简单扼要，理直气壮。他一口气吃了三块总会三明治，每一块都吃得狼吞虎咽，好像那不过是巧克力糖豆。随后，罗萨琳德的身影又在他的脑子里跳了出来，他发现自己在一遍一遍地默念她的名字。接下来他昏昏沉沉，模模糊糊地感觉到穿着西装的一群人，可能是服务员，全都围在他这张桌子的周围……

……他身处某个房间，卡林正在说着什么，好像是关于他鞋带上打的结。

“别管它，”他困乏无力，勉强挤出来几个字，“穿着睡……”

依旧借酒消愁

他大笑着醒来，睁开眼睛懒洋洋地环顾了一下，这显然是一个高级酒店里配有浴室的房间。他依然感觉天旋地转，一幕幕的场景浮现在他的眼前，而后又渐渐模糊，消失不见，但是除了有想笑的冲动之外，他的神志还没有完全清醒。他伸手拿起了床头的电话。

“你好——这是什么酒店——？”

“尼克博克？好的，送两杯黑麦威士忌上来——”

他在床上躺了一会儿，无聊地琢磨着他们到底会送上来一瓶酒，还是单单两只盛酒的玻璃杯。随后，他使劲地挣扎着从床上爬起来，拖拖拉拉地走进了浴室。

他一边懒洋洋地用毛巾擦着身体，一边从浴室中走出来，一出来就看见吧台的服务员正把酒端上来，他突然间冒出了一个戏弄服务员的念头。但是转念一想这样做未免有失体面，所以就挥了挥手让他走了。

两杯酒下肚，他感到身上微微发热，那一幕幕单独的画面慢慢串联起来，之前一天发生的事情如电影胶片一样开始在他的头脑中播放。他又一次看到罗萨琳德蜷曲着身体，哭倒在沙发的靠垫上，他又一次感到她的眼泪湿了他的脸颊。她说的话在他的耳边萦绕：“千万不要忘了我，艾默里——千万不要忘了我——”

“去他妈的！”他大声咒骂了一声，声音有些颤抖，接着一阵悲伤袭来，他感到喉头哽咽，浑身震颤，跌倒在床上。过了一会儿，他睁开眼睛，凝视着天花板。

“该死的傻瓜！”他心中愤恨难平，不由得大叫了一声，接着他长叹一声从床上起来去拿酒瓶。又喝了一杯之后，他终于控制不住自己，泪如雨下。他迫使自己去想那个已经逝去的春天里的一桩桩小事，把自己内心的情感倾诉出来，不过这让他对悲伤的反应更为剧烈。

“我们曾经很幸福，”他夸张地咏叹道，好像在进行舞台表演，“非常幸福。”随即他又不能自已，跪倒在床边，把脸埋进了枕头里。

“我心爱的姑娘——我心爱的——哦——”

他咬紧牙关强忍住悲痛，但泪水还是如溪流一般夺眶而出，汩汩不绝。

“哦……我亲爱的姑娘，我曾经的一切，我曾梦寐以求的一切！……哦，我的姑娘，回来吧，快回来！我需要你……需要你……我们如此可怜……只会给对方带来痛苦……她再也不会见我了……我再也不能见到她；我连她的朋友都做不成。结果只能是这样了——结果只能是——”

接着又重复一遍：

“我们曾经多么幸福，非常幸福……”

他站起身，扑倒在床上，感到自己被一阵癫狂的情绪占据，接着他躺在那里，感到筋疲力尽。他慢慢意识到自己前一天晚上确实喝到烂醉如泥，他现在还觉得天旋地转。他无所谓地大笑起来，站起来，又一次跨进“忘川”……

中午时分，他去了巴尔的摩酒吧，加入那里的人群中，开始了新一轮的放纵。他后来模糊记得自己曾和一名英国军官讨论法国诗歌来着，那人自称是“皇家步兵的科恩上尉”；他还记得自己在午餐的时候尝试背诵《月光》[130]这首诗；后来他在一把柔软的大椅子上睡着了，一直到五点钟被另一群来酒吧喝酒的人叫醒；随后他又发了几次脾气，也只能靠着酒精打发晚餐的煎熬。后来他们在泰森票务[131]的窗口买了戏票，专门挑了一场四幕都是饮酒的戏——剧中两个演员的声音单调乏味，场景乌烟瘴气，昏暗阴郁，灯光效果让人摸不着头脑，即使他眼力出众，也很难看得明白。他后来想象着这部剧一定是《玩笑盛宴》[132]……

……后来又去了椰林夜总会，在那里，艾默里在外面的一个小阳台上又睡着了。之后又去了扬克斯的尚利酒吧，他那时候已经基本上能有条理地说话了，再加上控制自己少喝了几杯威士忌，他渐渐清醒过来，话也多了起来。他发现和自己一起的一共有五个人，其中的两位有点儿面熟；他很义气，坚持要为自己消费的那一部分买单，不管到哪儿都大声地替大家张罗，让周围的客人乐不可支……

不知是谁说起，邻座有位名气响当当的卡巴莱歌舞明星，艾默里随即就起身，颇有绅士风度地走上前去，自报家门……结果引来一场争吵，一开始是和那位歌舞明星的随从，后来是跟酒吧的领班——艾默里态度傲慢，又表现得过于殷勤……经过一番无可辩驳的理论之后，他只好同意回到自己那桌。

“决定要自我了断了。”他突然宣布说。

“什么时候？明年？”

“现在。明天一早。打算到科莫多尔酒店开个房间，泡个热水澡，然后割开动脉。”

“他越来越病态了！”

“你需要再来一杯黑麦威士忌，老兄！”

“我们明天再好好谈谈。”

但是艾默里怎么也不会停止跟人辩论。

“你也曾经这样绝望过吗？”他神秘兮兮地追问道。

“当然！”

“经常吗？”

“我一直这样。”

这引起了大家的热烈讨论。有一个人说他有时也会绝望到认真考虑过自杀。另一个表示赞同，说人生并没有什么意义。那个不知道什么时候加入他们的“科恩上尉”说，在他看来，一个人疾病缠身的时候最容易想不开。艾默里提议大家都去点一杯布朗克斯鸡尾酒，把碎玻璃搅进去，而后一饮而尽。没有一个人响应他的号召，这让他倍感欣慰，因而在喝完他的威士忌之后，他用手托住下巴，把胳膊肘支在桌子上——这是一个非常高妙、不大可能被人注意的睡觉姿势，他放下心来——接着就陷入了昏睡中……

他被靠在他身上的一个女人弄醒了，她很漂亮，长着一头棕色蓬乱的头发和一双深蓝色的眼睛。

“带我回家！”她叫起来。

“你好！”艾默里一边说，一边眨了眨眼睛。

“我喜欢你。”她温柔地说道。

“我也喜欢你。”

他注意到后面有一个男人正在大吵大闹，和他争吵的正是他们这一伙儿中的一个。

“一直纠缠我的家伙是个十足的蠢货，”蓝眼睛的女人向他倾诉道，“我恨他。我想跟你回家。”

“你喝醉了吗？”艾默里非常精明地询问道。

她故作腼腆地点了点头。

“还是和他回家吧，”他一脸严肃地建议说，“是他带你过来的。”

就在这时，那个在后面吵闹的男人挣脱了揪住他不放的那几个人，朝他们这边走了过来。

“喂！”他恶狠狠地说，“是我把这个姑娘带到这里来的，你却在这儿横插一刀！”

艾默里冷冷地瞥了那人一眼，那个姑娘却在他身上靠得更紧了。

“你把那个姑娘放开！”那个吵闹的男人大喊一声。

艾默里试图让自己的目光凶狠一点。

“你见鬼去吧！”他最后如同下命令一样说道，然后转过脸去看着那个姑娘。

“这叫一见钟情。”他若有所指地说。

“我爱你。”她娇声娇气的，如小鸟一般依偎在他怀里。她的眼睛的确很美。

不知是谁凑过来，在艾默里的耳边说了句话。

“那位就是玛格丽特·戴梦得。她喝醉了，就是那个家伙把她带到这儿的。最好让她走吧。”

“那就请他看好她呀！”艾默里怒不可遏地叫了起来，“我又不是基督教青年会的义工，我是吗？——我是吗？”

“放开她！”

“是她不肯放手，见鬼！让她抱着吧！”

桌子边聚集的人越来越多。眼看就要挑起一场恶斗，这时一个手脚麻利的侍者过来掰开玛格丽特·戴梦得的手指，让她松开抱着艾默里的手，结果她怒不可遏，一巴掌打在那个侍者的脸上，并挥舞着胳膊扑向那个一开始陪她过来的男人，那人此时也正在气头上。

“哦，上帝啊！”艾默里大声叫道。

“我们走！”

“赶快吧，一会儿就叫不到出租车了！”

“结账，服务员。”

“走吧，艾默里。你的艳遇结束啦。”

艾默里大笑起来。

“你不知道你这句话说得多么贴切。你根本想不到。这才是整件事的关键所在。”

艾默里的劳资问题

两天之后，艾默里一早就来到巴斯科姆—巴洛广告公司，敲响了总经理办公室的门。

“请进！”

艾默里摇摇晃晃地走了进来。

“早上好，巴洛先生。”

巴洛先生拿出眼镜戴上，仔细打量着来人，嘴巴微微张开，以便能更清楚地听见对方所说。

“嗯，布莱恩先生。我们好几天都没见到你啦。”

“是啊，”艾默里说道，“我是来辞职的。”

“嗯——嗯——这是——”

“我不喜欢待在这里。”

“我很抱歉。我还以为我们一直相处得非常——啊——不错。你吃苦耐劳，是个不错的员工——可能比较偏爱写一些花哨的东西——”

“我只是对它失去兴趣了，”艾默里很粗鲁地打断了他的话，“我他妈的一点儿都不在乎海尔贝尔公司的面粉是不是比别家的好。事实上，我从来就没尝过。所以我厌倦了向人们推销它——哦，我知道最近我一直在喝酒——”

巴洛先生板起面孔，脸上的表情像凝结的铸铁块一样僵硬。

“你之前要申请一个职位——”

艾默里摆了摆手要他打住。

“而且我认为你们纯粹是在压榨我。一星期三十五美元——还比不上一个好木匠。”

“你才刚刚入职。而且之前没有任何经验。”巴洛先生冷冷地说。

“但是，差不多花掉了一万美元才把我培养成能在你这儿写那些狗屁东西的人。不管怎么说，就算是看工龄，你这里的速记员，五年来你每周也不过付给他们十五美元的薪金。”

“我可不想跟你进行争辩，先生。”巴洛先生说着站起身来。

“我也不想。我不过是要告诉你我不干了。”

他们面面相觑地在那里站了一会儿，然后，艾默里就转身离开了这间办公室。

稍许平静

在上述事件过去四天之后，他终于回到了自己的寓所。汤姆正忙于为他自己供职的《新民主》杂志撰写一篇书评。他们相顾无言，默默对视了一会儿。

“怎么？”

“怎么？”

“仁慈的上帝，艾默里，你在哪里弄得两眼乌黑——还有下巴？”

艾默里笑了笑。

“这无足挂齿。”

他从身上剥下外套，露出他的肩膀。

“看这儿！”

汤姆不禁低呼了一声。

“什么人打了你？”

艾默里又笑了起来。

“哦，有很多人。事实上，我被人揍扁了。”他慢慢地换下衬衫，“我早晚要挨这么一顿打，躲也躲不过！”

“到底是谁打的？”

“嗯，我猜，有几个服务员，还有几个水手和游手好闲的路人。这真是非常奇妙的感受。你真应该体验一下被人揍扁的感觉，只是为了这种感觉。你没一会儿就倒下了，但是在你还没着地之前每个人都冲着你劈砍——然后他们就开始用脚踹你。”

汤姆点了一支烟。

“我花了一整天的时间在街上到处找你，艾默里。但你总是跑在我的前头。要我说，你这些天是一直在跟人鬼混吧。”

艾默里踉踉跄跄地坐进了一把椅子里，向汤姆要一根烟。

“你现在清醒了吗？”汤姆一脸疑惑地询问道。

“相当清醒。怎么了？”

“哦，埃里克搬走了。他的家里人一直在催他回家去住，所以他——”

一阵痛苦袭上艾默里心头。

“太糟糕了。”

“没错，太糟糕了。我们要是还想继续待在这儿，就得另外再找个什么人。租金也在涨。”

“当然，找个人吧。这事儿就交给你来负责了，汤姆。”

艾默里走进他的房间。首先映入他眼帘的就是罗萨琳德的一张照片，照片斜靠在梳妆台的镜子上，他原本想把那张照片镶进相框里。他一动不动地盯着照片看了一会儿。眼下，他注定只能去想象她的样子，跟他头脑中那些活灵活现的倩影相比，这张照片莫名其妙地有些不太真实。他转身回了书房。

“有纸盒子吗？”

“没有，”汤姆一脸茫然地回答说，“我怎么会有？哦，对了——埃里克的房间里可能有一个。”

艾默里最终找到了他要找的东西，便回到梳妆台前，打开了一个抽屉，抽屉里满满当当地装满了信件、便条、一截链子、两块小手帕，还有几张快照。正当他小心翼翼地把这些东西都搬到盒子里的时候，他不禁想起自己在一本书的某个地方读到的故事，故事里的主人公一直珍藏着昔日恋人留下的一块肥皂，他把肥皂小心翼翼地保管了一年，最后还是用这块肥皂来洗手了。他嘿嘿笑了起来，并开始哼起《你离开之后》[133]……哼着哼着忽然戛然而止……

纸盒上的绑绳断开了两次，他不得不费了一番周折，重新把纸盒给固定住，接着他把这包东西放在他行李箱的最底层，然后砰的一声盖好盖子，又返回了书房。

“要出去？”汤姆的声音中暗藏着一丝不安。

“嗯——啊。”

“去哪儿？”

“说不好，老伙计。”

“我们晚上一起吃饭吧。”

“抱歉。我已经和苏凯·布莱特事先约好一起吃了。”

“噢。”

“再见。”

艾默里穿过马路，去喝了杯威士忌，然后他步行到华盛顿广场，搭上一辆公共汽车，坐在了顶层的一个位子上。他在第四十三大街下了车，一路溜达到巴尔的摩酒吧。

“嗨，艾默里！”

“你要来点儿什么？”

“哟嗬！服务员！”

体温正常了

禁酒法案的生效以及“饥渴优先”的原则使得艾默里借酒浇愁的习惯突然中断。有一天，他一早醒来意识到，原先从酒吧到酒吧的日子已经一去不复返了，他既没有为过去的三周感到懊悔，也没有为这样的日子再也无法重复而感到遗憾。他采取的是最为极端也最为软弱的办法，使自己免于被记忆的刀刃划得遍体鳞伤，尽管他不会向别人推荐这种饮鸩止渴的方式，但他发现到头来这个办法还是起了作用，他已经熬过了头一拨疼痛。

千万不要误解！艾默里的确爱过罗萨琳德，他绝不会再这样爱任何一个别的人了。她与正值青春年华的他相遇相恋，品尝到爱情最初的甜香，她从他尚未勘测过的内心深处唤起了——让他自己都感到惊叹的柔情蜜意，他在她面前变得温文尔雅，大度无私，他还从未在任何别的人面前展现过这种品质。他后来又经历了不少恋爱，但是那些都与此不同：他在那些恋爱关系中，可能还是陷入了固有的心理状态，那些女孩子如同镜子一样，成了他某种心境的反映。罗萨琳德在他身上唤起的远不止激情与爱慕；他对罗萨琳德怀有的是深沉的、无法抹去的眷恋之情。

然而，这场恋情到了结束的时候变成了扣人心弦的悲剧，这悲剧导致他在三个星期的时间里只能借酒浇愁，放浪形骸，简直就像一场让人匪夷所思的噩梦，他在感情上彻底被击垮了。他记得当时周围的人和事都是冷冰冰的，或者带着微妙的虚情假意，但这似乎反倒给了他某种庇护。他以父亲的葬礼为素材写了一个愤世嫉俗的故事，并把它投给了一家杂志社，没想到收到了一张六十美元的支票，而且杂志社让他继续写同样腔调的故事。这虽然激发了他的虚荣心，但是并没有激励他继续创作。

他开始如饥似渴地读书。他因《一个青年艺术家的肖像》[134]感到困惑而沮丧，对《朱安与彼得》还有《永不熄灭的火》[135]则产生了浓厚的兴趣，并且颇为意外地通过一个名叫门肯的批评家发现了好几本优秀的美国小说：《安多佛与野蛮人》、《特伦·威尔的毁灭》，以及《珍妮姑娘》[136]。麦肯齐、切斯特顿、高尔斯华绥和贝内特，这些作家在他的心目中，已经从原来睿智、饱经世事的创作天才沦落为只会写消遣作品的同侪了。萧伯纳的文笔清新高雅，简洁明朗，行文流畅如行云流水，而H.G.威尔斯笔法高超，能将飘忽的真理寓于浪漫的严整之中，如同以浪漫的钥匙去适配真理之锁，唯独这两位让他欲罢不能、极其入迷。

他很想见达西大人，他一回国就给达西大人写了信，但一直没有收到回信。另外，他也知道如果去拜访达西大人免不了要说说罗萨琳德的事，一想到要把这段经历从头到尾讲一遍，他就不寒而栗。

他想了想自己认识的那些遇事冷静的人，不禁想到了劳伦斯太太，她真是位睿智机敏、端庄大方的女士，她皈依了教会，还是达西大人虔诚的崇拜者。

有一天他给她打了个电话。是的，她还清清楚楚地记得他；不，她认为达西大人并不在城里，可能在波士顿；达西大人曾答应回来的时候会到她那边吃晚餐。艾默里能和她共进午餐吗？

“我想我最好赶过去，劳伦斯太太。”到了之后，他含糊其词地对她说。

“达西大人上周还在这里，”劳伦斯太太很遗憾地说，“他当时很急切地想见你，但是把你的地址落在家里了。”

“他是不是担心我已经投身布尔什维克主义了？”艾默里颇有兴致地问道。

“哦，他有一阵子确实忧心忡忡。”

“为什么？”

“是关于爱尔兰共和国。他认为整件事情都颇为龌龊。”

“后来呢？”

“爱尔兰总统[137]到访波士顿的时候，他也去了，接待委员会的做法让他很是难过，当他们乘车出行的时候，他们总是对总统先生严加防备。”

“我不怪他。”

“嗯，你在部队里服役的时候，什么事情最让你印象深刻？你看起来好像成熟了不少。”

“那是另外一场战斗，更有杀伤力的战斗造成的。”他回答道，尽管心里苦不堪言，他还是勉强笑了笑。“不过，说起在军队服役——让我想想——嗯，我发现一个人的胆量在很大程度上取决于他实际的身体状况。我发现我和身边的战友一样勇猛——过去我总是为这点感到担忧。”

“还有什么？”

“嗯，我认为人们可以经受任何痛苦，只要他们习惯了这种状态，还有我在心理学考试中得了高分。”

劳伦斯太太大笑起来。艾默里在河滨大道这所清凉的寓所中，感受到莫大的轻松惬意，远离喧嚣的纽约闹市区，完全没有那种许多人在狭小的空间中呼出大量气体的局促感受。劳伦斯太太隐约让他想起了比阿特丽斯，并非性格上的相像，而是那种完美的优雅与端庄气质如出一辙。这座房子，屋内的陈设，以及席间上菜的方式，都和他在长岛的那些豪门大宅里所见的情形截然不同，那些人家的用人总是碍手碍脚，常常要刻意地提醒他们让道，即使是在那些更为保守的“联谊俱乐部”的家庭中也是如此。他不禁纳闷，这种对等的双向约束的氛围以及这种优雅的举止，在他看来完全是欧洲大陆人的做派，不知这是源自劳伦斯太太在新英格兰的父辈先祖传承，还是她长年在意大利和西班牙居住所养成的。

午餐桌上，两杯苏特恩白葡萄酒下肚之后，他就打开了话匣子。他侃侃而谈，觉得自己又找回了昔日的魅力，谈论起宗教、文学，还有威胁到整个社会秩序的种种现象。劳伦斯太太显然也很为他感到开心，而且她对他的见解尤其感兴趣；他也非常希望他的见解能再度得到人们的喜欢——过不多久，这里可能会成为一个惬意的落脚点。

“达西大人依然把你看作他的化身，相信你的信仰终究会明朗起来的。”

“也许吧，”他表示赞同，“目前我可以说是个异教徒，并没有皈依基督教。这可能是因为宗教与我这个年龄的生活似乎没有丝毫的联系。”

他从她家里出来，沿着河滨大道缓步而行，心里感到说不出的满足。能再度和大家就某个话题展开讨论，让他感到轻松愉悦，不管这个话题是那个年轻的诗人斯蒂芬·文森特·贝尼特，还是爱尔兰共和国。爱德华·卡森和科哈兰法官[138]之间的谩骂指控让他对爱尔兰问题彻底失去了兴趣，虽然曾几何时，他曾经把自己凯尔特人的特点作为他人生哲学的支柱。

他突然意识到人生中还有很多乐趣可寻，但愿这次重拾往日的兴趣并没有让他再度偏离当下的生活——没有偏离生活本身。

坐立不安

“我真是老朽了，对什么都厌倦了，汤姆。”有一天艾默里感叹道，他一边说一边在舒适的窗台座位上伸着懒腰。他一向觉得躺着的姿势最自然、舒坦。

“你以前总是先把自己的想法拿出来消遣一番，再动手去写，”他接着说道，“现在你把所有看来有望出刊的想法都藏在心里。”

生活重新又回到缺少激情与梦想的状态当中。他们认为只要省吃俭用，还能租得起这套公寓，汤姆像一只在家里宅惯了的老猫，对这房子越来越有感情。墙上几张老旧的英国狩猎印刷画是汤姆的，一张大的挂毯是别人友情赠送的，也算是大学里那些颓废时光留下的旧物，屋子里还有一堆杂七杂八无人认领的烛台和一张雕花的路易十四风格的椅子，任何人在这张椅子上坐不了一分钟就会感到脊柱剧烈疼痛——汤姆口口声声说，那是因为你正好坐在蒙特斯潘阴魂的大腿上面——不管怎么说，正是因为有了汤姆的这些家具，他们才决定继续住下去的。

他们很少外出，只是偶尔出门去看戏，到利兹酒店或者普林斯顿俱乐部去吃饭。因为禁酒法令的生效，那些之前大受欢迎的聚会场所都遭受了致命的打击，门可罗雀；再没有人在十二点或者五点钟漫步到巴尔的摩酒吧，去寻求意气相投的伙伴了。汤姆和艾默里也早已没有兴致，到“二十夜总会”（俗称“怪人夜总会”）或者广场酒店的玫瑰厅去找那些中西部的或者新泽西初来乍到的姑娘跳舞了——更何况，要找姑娘的话就要先喝上几杯鸡尾酒“把自己的智商降到场上那些女人的水平”，艾默里曾经就是这么对一位大惊失色的中年妇女说的。

艾默里最近收到了好几封巴顿先生寄来的语气担忧的信件——日内瓦湖城的那幢别墅，因为面积太大，很难租出去；眼下最为可观的租金也仅仅够支付今年的税款和必要的修缮费用，几乎没有盈余；事实上，这位律师的言外之意是，整个房产在艾默里的手上就是件大而无当的东西，虽然看起来是资产，但实际上确实是个累赘。然而，即使这个房产在未来三年里不会给他带来一分钱的收入，艾默里出于某种说不清的感情，眼下已经打定主意，不管怎么说，他是不会出售这处房产的。

这一天，也就是他向汤姆诉说起他的厌烦情绪的那天，是一个特别的日子。他睡到中午才起床，和劳伦斯太太一起吃了午饭，然后登上他最喜欢的一趟公交车，坐在顶层的座位上，一路心不在焉地回了家。

“你为什么不该感到厌倦呢，”汤姆打着哈欠说，“对于你这个年龄和这种状态下的年轻人来说，这难道不是一种司空见惯的心态吗？”

“是的，”艾默里若有所思地说，“但我不只是感到厌倦，我简直就是坐立不安。”

“这是爱情和战争给你造成的影响。”

“嗯，”艾默里在思索着，“我不确定这场战争本身是否对你或者我造成了某种巨大的影响——但是它确定无疑，摧毁了旧有的背景，差不多把个人主义从我们这代人身上彻底铲除了。”

汤姆很是惊讶地抬起了头。

“没错，确实是这样，”艾默里显得不容置疑，“但我不确定它是否在全世界的范围内铲除了个人主义。哦，上帝啊，遥想当年，我曾梦想自己成为一个真正的大独裁者，或者伟大的作家，或者一个伟大的宗教或政治领袖，那是多么快意的事情——现在即使再出一个莱昂纳多·达·芬奇或者洛伦佐·德·美第奇，在当今的世界上他也不可能成为一个真正传统意义上的关键人物了。生活过于庞杂了。这个世界太过老朽，它甚至连举起一根手指的力气都没有，而我那时还在盘算着要成为一根举足轻重的手指——”

“我不同意你的观点，”汤姆打断他说，“自从——哦，自从法国大革命以来，还从未有过让人如此自我标榜的时候呢。”

艾默里表示强烈反对。

“你错误地理解了这个时代，可以说每一个顽固分子都是个人主义者，但他们只是在一段时间内奉行个人主义。威尔逊只有在代表着国家利益的时候才是强大有力的，但即使是他，也不得不一而再，再而三地妥协。托洛茨基一旦确立了坚定、始终如一的立场，也就和克伦斯基一样不过是转瞬即逝的人物。即使是福熙[139]，他的重要性也不及‘石墙’杰克逊[140]的一半。过去，战争一直是最能彰显个人主义的一种追求，然而，现在战争只是造就了那些家喻户晓的大众英雄，他们既没有权威性，也缺乏责任感，就比如吉纳迈和约克中士[141]。一个正在上学的孩子怎么能成为像潘兴[142]那样的英雄呢？一个伟大人物实在无暇去顾及别的任何事情，他就是单纯地成就自己的伟大。”

“那么，你认为将来再也不会有永恒的世界英雄了？”

“没错——历史上有——但现实中没有。卡莱尔[143]倘若还活着，也很难再找到素材续写新一章的‘论作为伟大人物的英雄’。”

“继续说。我今天要洗耳恭听了。”

“人们现在执着地相信会有领袖出现，他们苦苦期盼着有人来带领大家。但是，我们一旦拥有了一个深得人心的改革家、政治家，或者军事家、作家、哲学家——一个像罗斯福、托尔斯泰、伍德、萧伯纳、尼采那样的人物，他立刻就会被劈头盖脸的反面批评淹没。我的上帝呀，现在没有人能独占鳌头，获得显赫的声望。如果一个人声名鹊起，那也意味着他将很快变得寂寂无闻。人们厌倦了一遍又一遍地听同一个人的名字。”

“那么，在你看来，这一切都要归咎于新闻舆论了？”

“当然，绝对的。看看你吧，你现在供职于《新民主》杂志，这可是这个国家公认的最为优秀的周刊，被那些实干家还有诸如此类的人物广泛阅读。你的工作是什么呢？嗯，不管上面委派给你什么任务，去报道一个人、一种准则、一本书、一项政策，你都要尽量写得聪明、有趣，充满睿智的讥讽。你的报道引起的关注度越高，披露的精神顽疾越深刻，他们就会付给你越多的钱，买这本杂志的人也会越来越多。你，汤姆·丹维里埃，一个凋零的雪莱式的诗人，现在变化多端，会见风使舵，八面玲珑，变得不择手段，代表着全人类的批评意识——哦，不要反驳，这些手段我都知道。我念大学的时候也写过不少书评，我把推介那些新近出版的坦诚有良知的作品，看作难得的幸事，不管那样的作品是为了阐明一种理论，还是为了提供一剂济世良方，总之‘为我们轻松的暑期阅读提供了良好的补充’。得了，你就承认了吧。”

汤姆大笑起来，艾默里则得意扬扬地继续说。

“我们想要去相信。年轻的学子尽力去相信老一辈的作家，选民们尽力去相信他们的议员，国家尽力去相信他们的政治家，然而他们做不到。有太多不同的声音，太多不着边际、不合逻辑、居心叵测的批评。这种情况在新闻报纸上更为严重。任何一个富有、守旧的人物，只要如金融天才一样一门心思要聚敛财富，都可以拥有一家报纸，虽然报纸给成千上万的劳苦的、为生活奔忙的人提供精神食粮，但这些人也被现代生活裹挟，只能无奈地吞下已经提前消化好的食物。选民们只要花上两分钱就可以买到他要的政治观点、各种偏见和处世哲学。一年之后新的政治集团出现，或者报纸改换了东家，造成的后果是：更为严重的混乱，更多的矛盾冲突，新思想的突然涌入，新旧思想的糅合、升华，以及彼此间的对抗——”

他稍微停顿，只是为了喘口气。

“这就是我为什么发誓再也不动笔写东西的原因，除非我的思想能完全明朗或者彻底分离开来；我虽然不曾向人们的头脑里灌输过危险又浅陋的警世名言，但也已经罪孽深重了；我可能会让一个蹩脚的、从不冒犯别人的资本主义者和一颗炸弹结成可怕的联盟，或者让某个年幼无知的布尔什维克和机关枪的子弹纠缠不清——”

这一番冷嘲热讽针对的正是汤姆和《新民主》杂志之间的关系，这让汤姆开始坐立不安。

“这些跟你的厌烦情绪有什么相干？”

艾默里想了想，觉得这和自己的状态大有关系。

“我该如何适应这种环境？”他诘问道，“我又能有何作为？仅仅是为了传宗接代吗？美国小说里的那一套说辞总是让我们觉得，十九到二十五岁‘健康的美国男孩’是完全没有性生活的动物。事实上，他越是健康，这种说法就越显得荒唐。为了避免这种情况发生在你身上，唯一的选择就是培养一些感情强烈的兴趣。嗯，现在战争结束了。我相信如果要成为一名作家，最大的使命莫过于去书写当下的生活；如果从事商业，嗯，做生意也有做生意的门道。除了和经济学有那么一点实用主义的关联，这和我曾经感兴趣的世界里的任何事情都没有丝毫联系。我该怎样看待它，在接下来的十年，也是我人生中最好的十年里，作为一个小职员碌碌无为地混日子，这样的生活或许就像一部工业电影里的人文内涵一样，少得让人难以忍受。”

“试试写小说吧。”汤姆建议道。

“问题是，我一动手写故事就会分心——担心自己只是在写小说，而不是在生活——还会想，说不定生活正在利兹酒店的日本花园里等我，或者是在大西洋城，或者是在曼哈顿东区的南端等我。”

“不管怎样，”他继续说道，“我还没有那种迫不及待的冲动。我只是想做一个寻常的普通人，但是那个女孩子并不这么看。”

“你会再找到一个的。”

“上帝！打消这个念头吧。你为什么不说‘如果这个女孩子值得拥有，她就会等着你’？不，老弟，那个真正值得你拥有的女孩子是不会等任何人的。假如我认为还会再找到一个，那一定是我对人性仅存的一点信仰也消失了。也许我以后会逢场作戏——但是罗萨琳德是这普天之下唯一一个能让我情有所归的姑娘。”

“好吧，”汤姆打了个哈欠，“我听你诉衷肠已经听了整整一个小时了。不过，看到你又开始对事情发表言辞激烈的看法，我还是很开心的。”

“我确实如此，”艾默里不太情愿地表示赞同，“但是我一看到别人的幸福之家，我的心里就特别难受——”

“幸福之家就是要让人产生那样的感觉。”汤姆颇为不屑地说。

审查官汤姆

艾默里有时也会做一名倾听者。这往往发生在汤姆一边吞云吐雾，一边对美国文学大加挞伐的时候。这时，汤姆常常觉得词不达意，不能尽言。

“一年五万美元，”他大呼小叫地说，“我的上帝！你来看看，看看他们都是些什么人——艾德娜·菲尔伯、古维诺尔·莫里斯、范尼·赫斯特，玛丽·罗伯茨·莱因哈特[144]——他们当中没有人能写出一个能够存在十年的故事或小说。那个名叫库布[145]的人——我看他既不聪明，也不风趣——而且，我觉得没有多少人会认为他聪明又风趣，唯独那些编辑除外。他不过是听了几句溢美之词就开始头脑发昏，飘飘欲仙。还有，啊，哈罗德·贝尔·赖特，啊，赞恩·格雷[146]——”

“他们努力了。”

“不，他们甚至连尝试一下都没有。他们当中有的人确实有能力写，但他们根本不愿坐下来写一部诚实的小说。但我不得不说，他们当中的大多数根本就不会写。我相信鲁伯特·休斯还是努力要呈现一幅真实、全面的美国生活图景的，但是他的风格和视角都太过原始。欧内斯特·普尔和多萝西·坎菲尔德也努力了，但是他们因为毫无幽默感而举步维艰；但是至少他们还言之有物，能让自己的作品有血有肉，而不只是泛泛而谈，空洞单薄。每个作家在进行创作的时候，都应当把自己的每部作品当作是绝唱，作品的完成之日就是自己的死期。”

“你是一语双关吗？”

“别打岔！现在看来，他们当中好像有一些人还多少有点儿文化背景，有点儿悟性，也有相当好的文学修养，但是他们就是不能沉下心来进行真诚的创作；他们全都口口声声地说普通大众欣赏不了好东西。既然如此，为什么威尔斯、康拉德、高尔斯华绥、萧伯纳、贝内特，还有其他那些人，他们半数以上的作品都是在美国卖出的，这到底是为什么呢？”

“可爱的小汤米对这些诗人到底是怎么看的呢？”

汤姆完全没了脾气。他把手臂垂下来，任由两只胳膊在椅子的一侧荡来荡去，还不时地发出微弱的嘟哝抱怨的声音。

“我正在写一首讽刺他们的打油诗，名字叫作《波士顿的吟游诗人和赫斯特书评人》。[147]”

“说来听听。”艾默里迫不及待地说。

“我才刚刚写好了最后几句。”

“这倒是非常现代的写法。如果还算有趣，不妨让我们听听。”

汤姆从口袋里掏出一张叠起来的稿纸，开始大声朗读起来，他不时地停顿一下，好让艾默里明白这是首自由体的诗歌：

所以

瓦尔特·阿伦斯伯格，

艾尔弗雷德·克兰伯格，

卡尔·桑德伯格，

路易斯·昂特迈耶，

尤妮斯·蒂金斯，

克拉拉·莎娜菲尔特，

詹姆斯·奥本海姆，

迈克斯维尔·博登海姆，

理查德·格朗泽，

萨穆尔·艾里斯，

康拉德·艾肯[148]，

我把你们的名字记于此处，

这样你们或许能流芳百世

但只是作为名字，

婀娜多姿、姹紫嫣红的名字，

藏身在那些少不更事的文章中，

一起收录进我的作品全集。

艾默里哈哈大笑起来。

“你赢得了铁质三色堇勋章。我要为你大言不惭的最后两句请你吃一顿。”

艾默里不完全赞同汤姆对于美国小说家和诗人以偏概全的全盘否定。他很喜欢读韦切尔·林赛和布斯·塔金顿的作品，也很欣赏埃德加·李·马斯特的精巧构思，尽管他的艺术手法还略显单薄。

“我真正厌恶的是这种自命不凡的一派胡言：‘我是上帝——我是人——我御风而行——我看穿云雾——我就是生活的意义。’”

“真是鬼话连篇！”

“我还希望美国小说家不要总是把正经事渲染得浪漫有趣、天花乱坠。没有人愿意读那种东西，除非写的全是些奇闻怪谈。如果是消遣类的主题，人们宁愿去买詹姆斯·希尔[149]的传记故事，而不是那种冗长乏味的办公室悲剧，这种故事喋喋不休的也不过是些意义宛如烟云的——”

“还有，阴郁的故事，”汤姆说道，“这是另一个大家喜闻乐见的主题，但是我不得不承认俄国人在这方面是一枝独秀。我们的特长是那些悲情故事，小姑娘们摔断了脊柱，后来被脾气乖戾的老头儿收养了，原因是她们总是笑容满面。你会觉得我们这个国家全是些傻呵呵的乐天派，而俄国的农民似乎总是不可避免地会走向自杀的结局——”

“六点了，”艾默里看了看手表说，“就冲着你那句‘藏身在那些少不更事的文章中，一起收录进我的作品全集’中的豪放之情，我怎么也得请你大吃一顿。”

回首往昔

整个七月都烈日炎炎，过完最后一周酷暑难耐的日子，艾默里又陷入了新一轮的心烦意乱之中，他意识到从自己第一次见到罗萨琳德算起，才刚刚过去五个月。然而，实在难以想象，他曾经是个志得意满的大男孩，他那时信步从车里走出来，对人生的冒险心驰神往。有一天晚上，暑气逼人，一波波的热浪从卧室的窗户上滚滚袭来，他感到浑身无力，烦闷难受，但还是挣扎着折腾了好几个小时，想要把那段刻骨铭心的日子记录下来，使之成为永不磨灭的记忆。

二月的街道，被夜晚的疾风吹过，湿冷的夜雨伴着阵阵寒风，飘忽而至，断断续续地飘洒在街道上，道路两边荒废的人行步道上处处可见明晃晃的一片，那是融雪在路灯下熠熠闪光，如同天上某种神圣的机器洒下的金油，金光闪闪，这是一个星光闪耀、冰雪消融的时刻。

奇怪的夜雨——在许多男人的眼睛里闪动，充盈着生命的悸动，在一片寂静中悄然洒落……哦，我还年轻，因为我还可以再一次走向你，这世间最真实、美丽的女子，我还可以亲吻你的双唇，重温还未逝去的旧梦，品尝你唇间甜蜜又清新的滋味。

……午夜的空气中弥散着灼人的味道——一片死寂中没有任何声息响动——生活像冰层一样砰然断裂！——一曲优美的旋律传来，我看见你亭亭玉立，光彩照人，玉面盈盈……春天已经破茧而出。

（屋檐上的冰凌正在消融，那座被仙人偷换的城市还在昏睡。）

我们的思绪沿着屋檐结成霜冰；我们的魂魄高高在上，在交错如迷宫的电网上，拥抱亲吻——似笑非笑的诡异声响在空中回荡，留下一串叹息，喟叹那年少无知的轻狂；她爱过，又悔过，在身后留下一副巨大的空壳。

另一种结局

八月中旬，艾默里收到了达西大人的一封信，很显然他是刚刚碰巧找到了他的地址：

我亲爱的孩子：

你的前一封信着实让我为你担心了一阵子。那一点儿也不像你。字里行间透露的信息让我相信，你和这个姑娘的交往使你非常不开心，而且不难看出你在这场战争之前身上洋溢的浪漫气息，现在已经荡然无存。如果你认为没有信仰也能让人充满浪漫气息，那你就大错特错了。有时候我在想，如果我们能在自己身上找到成功的秘诀，那一定是我们身上的某种神秘元素：是一种在我们身上涌动的、能让我们的个性得到彰显的东西。如果这种元素不断衰退，我们的个性也会随之萎缩，我不得不说你前面的两封信都写得干巴巴的。你要时刻保持警惕，不要在另一个个体面前，不管是男人还是女人，丢掉自己的个性。

红衣主教奥尼尔大人和波士顿主教此刻正和我待在一起，因而我很难腾出时间来给你写信，但我希望过一阵子你能到我这儿来一趟，哪怕只是在这里过个周末。这周我还要到华盛顿去。

我未来的去向目前还悬而未决，不得而知。倘若在未来的八个月里，红衣主教的朱冠落在我这颗不值一提的脑袋上，我也不会太过惊讶，这话仅限于你我之间，切不可对外人言。不管怎样，我都希望能在纽约或者华盛顿找一处房子，这样你周末也可以过来探访。

艾默里，我非常庆幸我们二人都还活着，这场战争足以轻而易举地摧毁一个显赫的家族。不过，说到婚姻问题，你目前正处在人生中最危险的阶段。你可能会仓促选择，日后难免追悔莫及，但我想你不会这样做。你在信中告诉我你目前的财务状况可谓是灾难性的，你想要的生活自然无从谈起。然而，倘若让我用之前一贯的方法对你进行判断，我认为在未来的一年你会面临一次类似于情感危机的状况。

务必给我写信。不能和你保持及时的联络，总是让我感到烦闷不已。

致以最深沉的爱意，

赛耶·达西

在收到这封信的那个星期，艾默里他们的小家就陡然间土崩瓦解了。最为直接的原因是汤姆的母亲罹患重病，也可能是久治不愈的慢性病。因此，他们把家具都寄存起来，发出了房屋转租的公告，而后在宾夕法尼亚火车站惨淡地握手道别。艾默里和汤姆似乎总是逃不过分离。

艾默里倍感孤单，难以抑制的心血来潮令他出发南下，本想在华盛顿和达西大人会合。不料，因为耽搁了两个小时，两人竟失去联系，就此走散，艾默里随即决定到一位久未联系但尚有些记忆的叔叔家去小住几日，于是他便一路穿过马里兰州的肥沃田野，北上去了拉米利县。他原本只是打算住上三两日，后来却在那里待了一个多月，从八月中旬一直住到九月末，因为在马里兰州他遇到了埃莉诺。

第三章　青春的荒谬

多年以后，每当艾默里想起埃莉诺的时候，他似乎还能听到风在自己的耳边呜咽，发出阵阵凄厉之声，震颤着他的心房。那天晚上，他们一起爬上陡坡，看见一轮冷月在云层之间穿梭，他个性中的一部分又进一步失去了，而且无论用什么方法都无法复得；与此同时，随着那部分个性的丧失，他同时也失去了后悔的能力。埃莉诺，应该说，是在美貌掩护下的邪恶最后一次悄悄接近艾默里，是最后一个诡异的难解之谜，让他为之神魂颠倒，欲罢不能，甚至连灵魂都被击成了碎片。

与她在一起的时候，他总是浮想联翩，这也是他们那天一起爬上最高的那座山的原因，他们在山顶看着那一轮邪恶的月亮升起，爬上天空，他们彼此都很明白这正是他们能看见对方心中邪恶的时刻。但是，埃莉诺——难道是艾默里做梦梦见了她？后来，他们两个的鬼魂纠缠在一起嬉闹，但是他们本人都希望彼此的灵魂永不再相见。是她眼中无尽的悲伤打动了他？抑或是他在她无比清明的内心找到了能照见自己的镜子？她再也不会有像艾默里这样的奇遇了，如果她日后能读到这段，她一定会说：

“艾默里同样再也不会遇到像我这般的奇遇了。”

他不会为此黯然神伤，扼腕叹息，她更不会。

埃莉诺曾试着这样写道：

我们只知道那些正消逝的过往

我们会遗忘……

会搁置……

欲望已随冰雪消融殆尽，

被唤起的美梦

就在此刻今朝：

我们放声大笑问候这突如其来的黎明，

人人睁眼可见，却无人能够消受，

黎明别来无恙……纵使再相逢

我们也不会再把彼此放在心上。

亲爱的……没有一滴眼泪为此而流……

片刻之后

也不会再有丝毫悔恨

或许想起那难忘的一吻难免心有悸动

但我们重逢之际，

即使是默不作声，

旧日的鬼魂也不会在荒野四处游荡，

不会在海面搅起微澜……

即使有灰色的身影在泡沫下游弋

我们也会视而不见。

他们不计后果地大吵了一架，因为艾默里坚持认为，诗文结尾处的“澜”与“见”根本不能算作押韵。随后埃莉诺又开始念另一首诗的片段，这一首她还没有想好开头的部分：

……然而智慧会溜走……但是岁月

会赋予我们智慧……流年如水

回到往昔时光——纵使流干所有的泪水

我们依然不知如何是好。

埃莉诺对马里兰州可谓痛恨至极。在拉米利县世代居住的那些古老家族中，她的家族是其中历史最为悠久的，她和祖父共同生活在一所巨大而阴森的房子里。她出生在法国，并且在那里长大……我发现这样的开篇不大对头。还是让我重新开始吧。

艾默里感到困顿无聊，他在乡下一贯如此。他过去常常一个人出去散步，走到很远的地方——而且在漫步的途中，他会对着玉米地背诵《乌拉鲁姆》[150]这首诗，也会假想着给爱伦·坡道贺，祝贺他在人人笑容满面、自满自足的氛围中，将自己灌醉，直至丧命。一个午后，他沿着一条以前未曾走过的路一直向前，一直走了好几英里，后来他遇到一个黑人妇女，听从她胡乱给指的路，竟走入了一片树林……结果完全迷了路。那时正赶上一场雷雨将至，在他万分焦急之际，天空中已经乌云密布，漆黑一片，转眼间滂沱大雨就倾泻而下，穿过树冠噼里啪啦地掉落下来，周围一下子变得阴森森的，似乎有鬼魅出没。雷声滚滚，似有万钧之势响彻山谷，隆隆的雷声很快就在树林里四下响起，一阵接着一阵，此起彼伏。他慌不择路，盲目地四下摸索，试图找到一条能够出去的路径，最后，穿过纵横交错的枝干，他瞥见了林间的一个豁口，就在这时一道闪电从天而降，亮光划破天际的时候，他从豁口处看到了开阔的田野。他急忙朝着树林的边缘冲了过去，待到出了树林他又拿不定主意，不知道是该径直穿过田野，还是到山谷那边亮着灯的小屋里先避一避雨。那时刚刚五点过半，但是天色昏暗，他前面十步远的距离都几乎看不清楚，除非是在闪电划过的时候，亮光会穿透周围大片的黑暗区域，使四周的一切景物都显得逼真又古怪。

突然之间他听到一阵奇怪的声响。那是一首歌，是一个嗓音低沉、沙哑的女孩子吟唱的一首歌，不管她是谁，反正离他很近，就在他的周围。若是在一年前，他此时肯定会放声大笑，或者浑身震颤，但是眼下在他处在惴惴不安的情绪中，他只是伫立着不动，静静地听着，直到一句句的歌词开始在脑海中显现：

那长长的呜咽

是小提琴如泣如诉，

是秋日里絮语低吟，

声声刺痛我的心，

引出一段惆怅寂寥，

又有谁人可诉？

一道闪电撕破了天空，然而歌声依旧，没有半点迟疑与颤动。很显然，这个姑娘就在这片田野中，那个声音隐隐约约，似乎就来自他前面大约二十英尺的一个干草垛。

过了一会儿歌声停住了；暂停片刻，又重新开始，那是一种颇为古怪的吟唱，时而高亢激越，时而绵长悠扬，时而低回婉转，时而又与雨声融合在一起：

一切都令人窒息

时光中容颜惨淡，

钟声敲响之时，

我忆起旧日时光

昨日历历在目

不禁泪湿衣衫……[151]

“在这拉米利的乡间到底是谁在那儿，”艾默里大声嚷嚷起来，“是谁胆敢在这里对着湿漉漉的草垛即兴吟唱起魏尔伦的诗句？”

“什么人在那边！”那个声音叫了起来，没有丝毫的惊讶，“你是谁？——曼弗雷德、圣克里斯托弗[152]，还是维多利亚女王？”

“我是唐璜[153]！”艾默里脱口而出，他故意抬高了声音，以便盖过风雨的呼啸之声。

草垛那边传来一声欣喜的尖叫。

“我知道你是谁——你是那个喜欢《乌拉鲁姆》的金发男生——我听得出你的声音。”

“我怎么才能上去？”他站在草垛底下喊道，他已经走了过来，浑身湿透。草垛的边缘露出了一个脑袋——天色太暗，艾默里只能分辨出一束湿漉漉的头发，还有一双闪闪发亮的像猫一样的眼睛。

“退后一点！”那个声音说道，“然后跳起来，我会抓住你的手——不，不是这边——从另一边。”

他遵从指令，从边上爬了上去，正当他膝盖陷在草垛中的时候，一只纤小白皙的手伸了过来，抓住了他的手，把他拉了上去。

“你终于上来了，璜，”那个头发湿漉漉的她大声叫着，“你介不介意我省略了‘唐’这个敬称？”

“你的这个大拇指怎么跟我的一模一样！”他惊呼道。

“你还在攥着我的手呢，还没有看到我的脸就拉着我的手不放，这未免太过冒失了。”他飞快地松开她的手。

仿佛是回应了他的祈祷，正在这时一道闪电划过天际，他迫不及待地借着亮光看向身旁的她，他们此时距离地面十英尺高，在一个湿漉漉的草垛上面。但是她遮着脸，他只看到了一个苗条的身段，看到她被水湿透的黑色的短发，那双白色的小手，还有和他一样的向后翘起的大拇指。

“坐下吧。”她礼貌地提醒了他一句，这时闪电已经过去，周围又被黑暗包裹了起来。“如果你愿意和我面对面地坐在这个凹坑里，你就可以用这雨衣的一半来挡雨，我本来正把它当作我的防雨帐篷，谁知被你毫不讲理地打断了。”

“我是被邀请来的，”艾默里欢快地说，“是你邀请我上来的——你心里很清楚。”

“唐璜一贯如此行事，”她笑着说道，“但我不打算再这么叫你了，因为你长着红红的头发。既然你能够背诵《乌拉鲁姆》，我不妨就做普赛克[154]吧，你的灵魂。”

艾默里羞红了脸，幸好在风帘雨幕的掩饰之下没人看见。他们面对面坐在草垛上一个浅浅的凹坑里，前面有雨衣挡着，遮住了他们两个大半边身体，剩下的部分只能听任风吹雨打了。艾默里竭尽全力地想要看清楚“普赛克”，但是闪电却一直不肯现身，他只好焦急地等待着。上帝啊！假设她长得不漂亮——假设她已经年近四十，一身学究气——上天呀！假设，只是假设，她是个疯子。但是他知道，最后一个假设完全没有根据。就像上帝派本韦努托·切利尼的手下去搞谋杀一样，此时此刻，上帝派来一个姑娘来逗他开心，他之所以想知道她是否是个疯子，那是因为她的出现正好符合他此时的心绪。

“我不是。”她说。

“不是什么？”

“不是个疯子。我第一次看到你的时候并没有觉得你是个疯子，所以你这样看我实在太不公平了。”

“你究竟是怎么——”

埃莉诺和艾默里一旦了解了对方，就可以一起专注于“同一个话题”，他们可以停止交谈，但各自在脑子里认真思考这个话题。十分钟之后，他们大声把自己的想法说出来，就会发现他们的头脑一直在循着同一路径，引导他们得出并行不悖的观点，这个观点在外人看来可能和一开始的话题毫不相干。

“告诉我，”他热切地探过身去，追问道，“你是怎么知道《乌拉鲁姆》的——你是怎么知道我头发的颜色的？你到底叫什么名字？你在这里干什么？全都说出来，马上告诉我！”

突然，一道闪电划过，耀眼的光芒照亮了四方，随即远处的天空也开始闪动跳跃，他终于看见了埃莉诺，并第一次正视她的眼睛。哦，她简直无可挑剔——白皙的皮肤，如星光下的大理石透着温润的光芒，纤细的双眉，两只绿色的眼睛，被闪电的光芒照亮的瞬间，宛若绿宝石一般熠熠生辉。她真是让人着迷，他估摸着，她大约有十九岁，活泼机敏，开朗有魅力。她的上嘴唇上方有条显眼的白线，虽是美中不足，却也让人待见。他长出一口气，沉沉地靠在干草砌成的草壁上。

“现在你已经看到我了，”她平静地说，“而且我猜你马上会说，我那双绿色的眼睛正灼烧着你的大脑。”

“你的头发是什么颜色？”他颇为关切地问道，“你剪的是短发，对吧？”

“没错，是短发。我不知道我的头发算什么颜色，”她一边想，一边回答道，“许多男人都问过我这个问题。应该算是中间色吧，我猜——没有人仔细观察过我的头发。但是，我长着漂亮的眼睛，不是吗？我不管你怎么说，反正我的眼睛很漂亮。”

“回答我的问题，玛德琳[155]。”

“不记得你都问了什么问题了——再说，我的名字不是玛德琳，我叫埃莉诺。”

“我原本应该猜到的。你看起来就像埃莉诺——你长着埃莉诺的样子。你知道我的意思。”

他们都沉默了，只顾着听雨。

“雨水灌进我脖子里了，疯子朋友。”她终于主动说了句话。

“回答我的问题。”

“嗯——我的姓是萨维奇，名字叫埃莉诺；住在一幢古老的大房子里，就在顺着马路下去一英里的地方；目前活着的最亲近的联系人，是我的爷爷——拉米利·萨维奇；身高五英尺四英寸；表壳编号3077W；长着非常精致的鹰钩鼻；脾气，相当古怪——”

“我呢，”艾默里插嘴说，“你是在哪儿看见我的？”

“哦，你是那类人中的一个，”她一脸傲慢地说，“就是不管什么谈话都要把自己生拉硬扯进来的那种人。好了，我的小哥儿，上个星期，有一天我正一个人在篱笆墙后面晒太阳，这时有个男人走了过来，一副怡然自得、得意扬扬的模样，嘴里念念有词：

‘此时夜色正在衰退’（他说）

‘星晷已指向破晓之时’

‘道路尽头流动的星云中’（他说）

‘正有一束光喷薄而出。’[156]

所以我就探出了头，眼睛从篱笆墙上望过去，没想到你不知出于什么原因，突然开始跑了起来，所以我只看到了你那个漂亮脑袋的后脑勺。‘哦，’我对自己说，‘来了这么个人，许多人又难免为之惋叹了。’然后我就继续在我最好的爱尔兰——”

“行啦，”艾默里打断了她，“还是回过头来说说你自己吧。”

“嗯，我这就要说。我在这个世界上闯荡，总是会带给人们惊喜或者惊奇，我就是这种人，但我自己却鲜有那种让我为之兴奋的经历，除非是像今天这样的夜晚，我能在男人身上发现些有趣的事。我不怕出风头，有足够的勇气登台亮相，但我没有那么多的精力；我没有耐心坐下来写书；我还从未遇到过我愿意以身相许的男人。不过，我才刚刚十八岁。”

暴风雨渐渐平息了下来，只有风还在猛烈地吹着，发出一阵阵骇人的呼啸声，草垛被风吹得来回歪斜，不停地从一边重重地倒向另一边。艾默里恍恍惚惚，好像呆住了。他感到每一分钟都极其珍贵。在此之前，他还从未遇到过这样的姑娘——她仿佛每时每刻都在变化，都与之前的她不同。他完全没有那种恍然若梦，成为某个虚构的剧中人物的感觉，通常人们在一个非同寻常的环境中很容易出现这样的感觉——相反，他感到非常自在，如同回到了自己家里。

“我已经做出了一个重大决定，”又一阵沉默之后，埃莉诺开口说道，“这就是我在这儿的原因，也算是回答了你的另一个问题。我刚刚下定决心，再也不会相信所谓的天长地久了。”

“真的！那简直太老套了！”

“恐怕的确如此，”她回答说，“但是，终究还是有些沮丧，就算是老一套的多愁善感也免不了让人沮丧。我出来跑到这儿就是想淋淋雨——把自己淋得像只落汤鸡；不过，落汤鸡常常头脑清醒。”她总结道。

“接着说吧。”艾默里很礼貌地说道。

“嗯——我并不害怕天黑，所以我披上油布雨衣，套上橡胶靴子，就从家里出来了。你瞧，以前我总是战战兢兢，不敢说我不相信上帝——因为如果那样说恐怕会遭雷劈——但我今天就在这儿，我没有被雷劈，当然没有，不过，真正重要的是这一次我再也不会像去年那样胆战心惊了，那时我还是一名基督教科学派的成员。所以，我现在知道了，我是一个唯物主义者，因而当你走出树林，站在林子边缘惊魂未定的时候，我正在和干草垛结成亲密的盟友关系。”

“什么，你这个小坏蛋——”艾默里愤恨地叫了起来，“什么能让我惊魂未定？”

“你自己！”她大叫一声，把他吓得跳了起来。她却乐得直拍手，哈哈大笑。“看看——看看！良心——你真应该像我一样，把它扼杀掉！埃莉诺·萨维奇，一个唯物主义专家——没有乱蹦乱跳，没有一惊一乍，早早就来——”

“但是我必须有一个灵魂，”他反驳说，“我不可能那么理性——我也做不到事事谨小慎微。”

她朝他这边靠过来，实际上她那灼人的视线从来就没有从他的眼睛上离开过，以一种不容置疑的浪漫口吻轻声说道：

“我早就料到了，璜，我担心的也正是这一点——你多愁善感，容易感情用事。你和我不一样，我是一个浪漫的小唯物主义者。”

“我可不是多愁善感的人——我和你一样浪漫。你知道吗，多愁善感和浪漫的区别在于，一个多愁善感的人认为爱情会天长地久——而一个浪漫的人则坚定不移地认为爱情总是转瞬即逝。”（这是艾默里由来已久的看法。）

“警世名言呀。我要回家了。”她有些失落地说，“我们离开草垛，一起走到岔路那边去吧。”

他们慢慢起身，从刚刚栖身的地方下来。她不愿让他帮忙，并摆摆手让他离远点儿，接着纵身一跃，轻巧地落在了地上，可是脚下的泥土太过松软，她一个踉跄跌坐在泥里，便干脆坐了下来，还忍不住自嘲似的哈哈笑了起来。片刻之后，她从地上一跃而起，并把手悄悄地放在他的手心里，接着，他们踮起脚，从一块干燥的地方跳到另一块干燥的地方，就这样跳来跳去、摇摇晃晃地从田里横穿了过去。此时月亮已经升了起来，暴风雨朝着马里兰的西部席卷而去，田野里每一个水洼似乎都闪烁着超然的喜悦。埃莉诺的胳膊每次一碰到他的胳膊，他就感到自己双手冰凉，惊恐不已，唯恐会失去那支看不见的画笔，他的想象力正在用这支笔描绘着她的神奇魔力。他随着她一路走过来，总是不停地用眼角打量着她——她果然是个天生的尤物，憨态可掬，他宁愿自己这辈子就一直坐在那个干草垛上，凝望着她绿色的眼睛，品味人生。那天晚上，他的异教徒思想空前高涨，在目送她像一个灰色的魅影消失在道路尽头的时候，他的心在深情地歌唱，歌声飘荡在田野里，铺满了他回家的路。整个晚上，夏夜的飞蛾在艾默里的窗口飞进飞出；整个晚上，透过洒满银色月光的窗棂，远处空中传来的巨大轰响与他亦幻亦真的遐想交织融合，难分彼此——他躺在清明的暗夜里，一夜无眠。

九月

艾默里采了一片草叶，放在嘴里一点点地啃噬，好像在进行某种科学品鉴。

“我从来不会在八月或者九月坠入爱河。”他主动找话说。

“那会在什么时候？”

“要么是圣诞节，要么是复活节。我可是个严格遵从礼拜仪式的人。”

“复活节！”她抬起头来，鼻子朝上，“嚯！春天是穿着紧身胸衣的美丽姑娘！”

“复活节会惹得春天黯然神伤，对吗？复活节穿着考究的西装，会给春天扎起小辫儿。”

绑好你的鞋子，哦，你这健步如飞的人儿呀。

你的双脚迅疾有力，踏出一片生机盎然——[157]

埃莉诺温柔地念着这两句引用的诗，然后又补充道：“我觉得万圣节比感恩节更适合秋天。”

“适合得多——圣诞夜和冬天最配，可是夏天……”

“夏天没有任何节日，”她说，“我们绝无可能拥有一个夏日之恋。那么多人都已经尝试过了，夏日之恋成了有固定意义的一种说辞。夏天不过是春天没有兑现的诺言，是个地道的冒牌货，骗走四月里我日思夜想的温煦之夜。这是一个徒有生命却没有成长的悲伤季节……没有任何节日。”

“有七月四日。”艾默里诙谐地提醒道。

“别逗笑啦！”她一边说，一边用眼睛扫了他一眼。

“那么，该怎样才能兑现春天的诺言？”

她沉思了一会儿。

“噢，我猜只有在天堂才能兑现，如果真的有天堂的话，”她不容置疑地说，“一个类似异教徒眼中的天堂——你真应该成为一个唯物主义者。”她继续说道，前言不搭后语。

“为什么？”

“因为你看起来很像照片上的鲁伯特·布鲁克。”

可以说自从认识埃莉诺以后，艾默里就一直让自己扮出鲁伯特·布鲁克的样子。他所说的话，他对待生活的态度，对待她的态度，对待自己的态度，无不反映着那位已故的英国人的文学情操。她常常坐在草地上，任由慵懒的风吹拂着她的短发，她的嗓音略带沙哑，她把手中的诗集从《格兰特切斯特》翻到《怀基基》[158]，一首一首念出来。埃莉诺在大声朗读这些诗歌的时候，常常满怀深情。他们一起朗读的时候，似乎更为亲密，不只是精神上契合，身体上也更为亲近，甚至比她在他怀里还要亲密，因而他们常常一起朗读，似乎从第一次开始他们就几乎坠入情网了。然而，艾默里此刻真的有能力去爱别人了吗？他和原来一样能够在半个小时里经历多种不同的情感变化，但是，即使是在他们陶醉于无限遐想的时候，他也非常清楚，他们谁也不会像他曾经那样在意一个人了——我猜想这就是他们需要求助于布鲁克、斯温伯恩还有雪莱的原因所在。他们要确保每件事情都有始有终，进展顺利，不但要丰富多彩，还要富于想象力；他们必须弯下那些金色的触角，从他的想象中来，到她的想象中去，这样就足以替代伟大而深沉的爱情了，尽管这种爱情从未像现在这般触手可及，从未像现在这样如梦如幻。

有一首诗他们反复地读了又读，那首诗就是斯温伯恩的《时间的胜利》，其中的四行诗后来一直在他的记忆中萦绕，每当夏日里温煦的夜晚来临，他看见萤火虫在暮色中的树干中间穿梭飞舞，听见低沉的蛙鸣嗡声一片的时候，他就会想起这四行诗。接着，他就仿佛看见埃莉诺从夜色中走来，站在他的身旁，他听见她嘶哑的嗓音，带着羊毛鼓槌击鼓的音调，一遍又一遍地重复着：

是否眼泪空垂，是否光阴虚耗，

去重提那段不堪回首的陈年往事，

那不过是没有结出果实的空壳，充当了逃兵的花朵，

是早已远去的旧梦，抑或是极力克制的情思？

两天之后他们得以被正式引见，他的婶婶便趁机给他讲了讲她的故事。拉米利家族现在只剩下两个人：上了年纪的老拉米利先生和他的孙女埃莉诺。她早年跟着她那个不安分的母亲一直生活在巴黎，在艾默里的想象中埃莉诺的母亲像极了他的妈妈，后来母亲去世，埃莉诺便回到美国，居住在马里兰州。她起先去过巴尔的摩，跟一个单身的叔叔一起生活，在那边她刚刚十七岁，就执拗地要进入社交圈，开始自己的生活。她在那一个冬天里恣意妄为，和她在巴尔的摩的所有亲戚都吵得不可开交，闹翻了天。他们都气急败坏，再不肯收留她，所以三月份的时候她就到乡下来了。埃莉诺那时候整日和一群不三不四的人混在一起，他们在豪华轿车里喝鸡尾酒，行事狂傲不逊，常常不顾伦常，目无尊长。她天性活泼开朗，魅力非凡，身上还透着一股巴黎街头的浮华气质，许多身上还带着圣蒂莫西女校和法明顿女校气质的懵懂无知的姑娘都被她吸引，开始了波希米亚式的放荡不羁的生活。她的叔叔是那个更为虚伪的年代成长起来的人，常常一副漫不经心的样子，只知道对女人献殷勤，埃莉诺的事传到他耳朵里的时候，他也忍不住大发雷霆。埃莉诺被叔叔狠狠教训了一顿，虽然略有收敛，但心里并不服气，愤恨难平，后来一气之下就到乡下祖父这里寻求庇护来了，可她的祖父现在年事已高，整日在乡间游荡。这些都是道听途说的有关埃莉诺的故事，后面的故事是她自己告诉他的，这是后话。

他们常常一起游泳，艾默里会慵懒地漂在水面上，关上思绪的闸门，什么都不想。这时，他脑子里就会出现缥缈得像肥皂泡一样的梦幻王国，那里的树木在微风中摇曳、沉醉，阳光透过树林倾泻而下，洒下满地斑驳的光影。这个时候，不管是谁，除了在水中嬉戏、潜游，或者无所事事地徜徉于时间的边界，在花事将近的月份随波逐流，怎么可能再去思考、忧虑，或者干别的事情。任由光阴荏苒——让悲伤、记忆和伤痛在外面的世界尽情流转吧，在他再次和它们遭逢之前，就让他在这里恣意地漂荡，尽情地享受年轻。

艾默里有时候也会心生怨恨，以前的生活如同在一条道路上按部就班地行进，那条道路在眼前无限延伸，沿途的风景不停地融合交织，可是这样的生活一去不返，后来的生活变成了一连串快速切换但毫不相干的景致——在战场上度过了两年腥风血雨的时光，后来遇到罗萨琳德，她甚至让他突然产生了要为人父的念头；接着就是这个秋天遇到了埃莉诺，开始经历这种一半充满了感官刺激，一半充满了神经质的生活。他感到，这要耗费掉他余生的全部时光，比他所能拼凑到的还要多的时光，才能把这些奇形怪状、格格不入的画面粘贴到他人生的剪贴簿上。这简直就像是去赴一场盛宴，他端坐在那里，耗费掉一半的青春年华，去品尝一道道精致巧妙的美味佳肴。

他暗暗地和自己约定一个时间，到时候要把这一切都熔接起来。几个月以来他似乎总是游移不定，时而觉得自己沐浴在爱河或魅惑的河流之中，时而又觉得自己被弃置于漩涡之中。身处漩涡之中时，他根本没有思考的欲望，他宁愿海浪把自己推到风口浪尖，再将他裹挟而去。

“这让人绝望的萧瑟秋天和我们的爱情——竟然如此和谐！”有一天他们浑身湿漉漉地躺在水边，埃莉诺伤感地说。

“我们两颗心的小阳春——”他忽然又闭口不言。

“告诉我，”她终于忍不住问道，“她是浅色皮肤还是深色皮肤？”

“浅色皮肤。”

“她比我还漂亮吗？”

“我不知道。”艾默里一带而过。

一天夜里，他们外出散步，当时皓月当空，清辉灼灼，花园中月华遍地，宛若仙境一般。艾默里和埃莉诺如同闪着幽光的两个魅影，又如同两个精灵，沐浴在难以捉摸的绵绵爱意之中，仿佛变成了永恒的美的化身。后来他们从月光下走进一个爬满了葡萄藤的凉亭，幽暗的葡萄架下能嗅到阵阵沁人心脾的清香，宛如缥缈的歌声。

“划一根火柴吧，”她轻声说道，“我想看看你的样子。”

嚓！火光亮起！

顿时，周围的暗夜和斑驳的树木好像舞台剧的布景一样变得有些不太真实，和埃莉诺站在这样一个影影绰绰、亦真亦幻的环境中，不知为何，竟莫名其妙地让人感到似曾相识。艾默里想到，似乎只有过去会显得莫名其妙，让人匪夷所思。火柴熄灭了。

“真是漆黑一团。”

“我们现在只有声音了，”埃莉诺喃喃地说，“两个微弱寂寥的声音。再划一根火柴吧。”

“刚才就已经是最后一根了。”

突然，他一把把她抱在怀里。

“你是我的——你知道你是我的！”他发狂似的叫喊着……月光透过交错的葡萄藤钻了进来，静静地聆听着……萤火虫上下翻飞，凑上来围观他们的窃窃私语，似乎还想赢得他的注目，让他的目光从她熠熠闪光的双眸上离开片刻。

夏日的终结

“草地上寂静无风，没有一丝风吹草动的迹象……掩映在林间的水塘，水面如镜子一样不见一丝微漾，正前方是一轮满月，金色的月轮如同一个象征符号嵌进广袤冰冷的水面。”埃莉诺对着眼前的树木念念有词，那些树干宛如竖立在黑夜中的骷髅骨架。“这里是不是有些阴森恐怖？如果你能让你的马抬起前蹄，我们就能一起钻进树林，找到那些掩映在林间的水塘。”

“这会儿已经一点多了，你会遇见魔鬼的，”他反对说，“再说我对马并不熟悉，没法儿骑着它在这漆黑的夜里行进。”

“闭嘴，你这大傻瓜。”她言不由衷地悄声说道，而后，又把身子靠过来，用她的短鞭没精打采地在他的身上轻轻拍打着。“你可以把你的老马留在我们的马厩里，明天我会一早给你送过去。”

“但是我叔叔要在七点钟的时候赶着这匹老马把我送到车站去。”

“别像个宠坏的孩子一样——记住，你身上有一种摇摆不定的倾向，这使得你不能完全成为我生命中的那盏明灯。”

艾默里驱马上前，走到她身边与她并辔而行，随后他俯身向前，一把抓住了她的手。

“说我是你的明灯——快说，不然我会把你拉过来，让你落在我的后面。”

她抬起头嫣然一笑，然后兴奋地摇着头。

“哦，拉我过来吧——要么，就干脆算了！为什么激动人心的事都会让人感到不自在？就像打架、探险，还有去加拿大滑雪。顺便说一句，我们一会儿就要去登哈珀山了。估计五点钟的时候我们就开始这一行程了。”

“你这个小恶魔，”艾默里气冲冲地说，“你这是要让我熬个通宵，整夜都不得消停呀，明天我只好像个外来移民一样在火车上呼呼大睡，一路睡到纽约。”

“嘘！路上有人过来了——我们快走！哟——嗬——嗬！”随即她又大喝一声，这一声足以让那些晚归的赶路人吓得瑟瑟发抖，声音未落就见她拨转马头，径直进了森林，艾默里慢悠悠地跟在后头，就像他这三个星期以来一直跟在她屁股后头一样。

夏天不知不觉已经过去，然而他许多天以来一直在观察埃莉诺，一个优雅动人而又天真烂漫的曼弗雷德，她一边给自己搭建起智力和想象的金字塔，一边醉心于十几岁的喜怒无常和矫揉造作，他们会在晚饭桌上作诗。

一百个欢乐的六月以前，当虚伪亲吻着虚伪，他呼吸急促，对着她思量再三，所有人可能都会知道，他曾以性命相搏，要把她的双眸写进押韵的诗行：

“我要用时间留住吾爱！”他说道……然而他话音未落，美人便已香消玉殒，和她昔日的恋人们一起，黯然死去……

——永存的从来都是他的睿智，而不是她的双眸；从来都是他的艺术，而不是她的秀发：

“谁能学会押韵作诗的技巧，谁能聪慧敏锐，在他的十四行诗前驻足停留”……因而，纵然我的词句真实可靠，把你咏唱到第一千个六月，依然无人知晓你曾是一个午后里的如花美眷。

有一天他这样写道，那时他正想着我们未免对《十四行诗里的黑美人》[159]太过冷淡，我们对她的记忆可谓少之又少，怎比得上当初诗人希望她能永留心间的热烈情怀。莎士比亚当初一定饱含热情，才能怀着如此神圣的绝望之情，将她写进诗里，希望这位女士能名垂青史，与世长存……可是我们现在对她几乎毫无兴趣……这其中所包含的讽刺是，如果他关注更多的是那首诗，而不是那位女士，这首十四行诗便会过于肤浅，变成人云亦云的花言巧语，短短二十年后就会无人问津……

那个晚上是艾默里最后一次见到埃莉诺。他第二天一早就要动身离开，所以他们约定在那个清凉的月夜骑马远足，权当是道别。她有许多心里话要说，她说——或许这是她一生中最后一次能够保持理性（她的意思是能够自如地摆出姿势）。所以他们进入林间，骑了大约半个小时，几乎一句话也没说，只有在碰到一根碍事的树枝时，她低声骂了一句“见鬼！”——她的声音很低，那种口吻别的女孩子完全模仿不来。后来，他们牵着跑累的马，开始攀登哈珀山。

“上帝啊！这里真安静！”埃莉诺低声轻呼，“比在树林中还要孤寂。”

“我讨厌树林，”艾默里说着，禁不住打了个寒战，“夜里不管是树叶还是灌木都让我感到厌恶。这里就不同了，视野开阔，让人精神放松。”

“绵延的山脉，此起彼伏。”

“一轮冷月遍洒清辉。”

“最后也是最为重要的，还有君和我。”

那是一个宁静的夜晚，万籁俱寂——他们沿着笔直的道路爬上山顶，一直走到悬崖的边上，这条路不管什么时候都人迹罕至，少有人走。沿途只有偶尔可见的黑人居住的小木屋坐落在山脊上，月光在山脊的岩石上勾勒出明暗阴影的轮廓，小屋则笼罩在一片银灰色的光芒之中，打破了空旷地面的单调线条；他们身后就是树林的黑色边缘，仿佛是撒在白色蛋糕上的一层黑色糖霜，他们的前面则是清晰可见的高高在上的天际线。相比之下，这里要冷得多——可以说是寒意逼人，寒气侵入肌肤，将他们头脑中对那些温暖夜晚的记忆也一扫而光了。

“夏天就要过去了，”埃莉诺轻声说，“你听我们的马，正用马蹄在地面上踩出——‘嗒嗒嗒嗒嗒’的声音。你有没有过发高烧的经历，头脑发昏，所有的声音都被想象成嗒嗒嗒，直到你自己可以对天发誓，永恒也同样不过是许许多多的嗒嗒嗒？我就有这样的感觉——老马走路的时候是嗒嗒……我猜这是唯一能把马儿和钟表同我们区分开的东西。人要是一直这样嗒嗒嗒，肯定会疯掉。”

一阵清风吹来，让人精神振奋，埃莉诺裹紧她的披肩，却依然瑟瑟发抖。

“你是不是冻坏了？”艾默里问道。

“不，我只是在想我自己——我内心深处那个黑暗顽固的自我，那才是真正的我，带着本真的诚实，时刻提醒我自己犯下的罪孽，使我不至于堕入十恶不赦的深渊。”

他们在悬崖的边上骑马并行，艾默里探身朝下凝望。山崖与谷底地面的落差有一百英尺，崖谷相接处有一条黑色的溪流流过，像一条清清楚楚的分界线，只有湍流的溪水泛出的零星闪光，打破了界线的连贯。

“腐朽，腐朽透顶的旧世界，”埃莉诺突然间打破了沉默，“而这世间最为悲惨的人就是我——哦，为什么我偏偏是个女孩子？为什么我生来不是一个傻子——？看看你，你就比我要愚钝，不是很多，但有那么一些，这样你就可以各处逍遥，等到厌烦了，就再到别处去逍遥，你可以和女孩子们打情骂俏却不必卷入感情的纠葛，你可以任意妄为，并且总是能为自己找到理由和托词——而我生了一个无所不能的头脑，却偏偏被绑在未来的婚姻这条必沉之船上。倘若我能晚生一百年，必定是开心快活、无忧无虑的，但是现在，摆在我面前的就是——我必须结婚，这毋庸置疑。那么，嫁给谁呢？我对于大多数男人来说都太过聪明，可我却不得不迁就他们的水平，让他们在智力上获得优越感，对我指手画脚，这样去赢得他们的关注。我如果拖着不结婚，每过一年，能嫁给一个一流男人的机会就会越发渺茫。最好的情况是，我可以从一两个城市里挑选自己中意的人，当然，我怎么也得找一个大户人家。

“听着，”她又一次贴近他，“我喜欢聪明的男人，还有相貌英俊的男人，还有，当然，我更看重一个人的人品，我比任何人都更在乎这个。哦，五十个人里头只有一个人稍稍懂得一点性是什么。我为了赶时髦，读过一点弗洛伊德和相关的一些书籍，但是，如果说这个世界上所有真正的爱情都是由百分之九十九的激情和那微小的百分之一的嫉妒组成，这未免太过荒唐。”说到这儿，她戛然而止，就像她开始的时候一样突然。

“当然，你说得对，”艾默里表示赞同，“这的确是一种令人不快但又无法抗拒的力量，这是万事万物运行机制的一部分。这就好比一个演员让你看到了他的表演手段。等一会儿，让我想想清楚……”

他想了一会儿，试图找到一个恰当的比喻。他们这时已经从悬崖那里折返，正沿着左边五十英尺处的一条路骑马行进。

“你瞧，每个人都需要有件披风或者其他什么去把它掩盖起来。那些平庸之辈，也就是柏拉图所说的第二等级的人，他们死死地抓住浪漫的骑士精神的残存，当然那也是被维多利亚时代的情感稀释过的东西——而我们这些把自己看作知识分子的人用来掩盖的方式是，假装那不过是我们的另一面，与我们闪光的智慧毫不相干；我们自欺欺人地认为，一旦我们意识到它的存在便能免于受制于它。然而，真相是性占据着我们最为纯净的抽象思维的核心，它和我们如此贴近，以至于已经模糊了我们的视线……我现在可以吻你了，而且我就要……”他坐在马鞍上朝她探过身去，但是她抽身躲开了。

“我不能——我现在不能吻你——我比你要敏感得多。”

“那就是说你比我更蠢，”他不耐烦地厉声说道，“智力无法让你免于受到性的诱惑，规矩也一样帮不了你……”

“那什么可以？”她毫不示弱，“罗马天主教教廷，还是孔夫子的箴言？”

艾默里不觉吃了一惊，抬起头来。

“这就是你的万能灵药，对吧？”她叫了起来，“哦，你也不过是个老滑头、伪君子。这么说来，成千上万个怒不可遏的神父通过滔滔不绝地宣讲第六戒律和第九戒律[160]，使那些堕落下流的意大利人和目不识丁的爱尔兰人悔过自新。所谓的情感、精神胭脂、万能灵药，统统都是遮掩的外衣。我要告诉你根本就没有什么上帝，甚至也不存在确定的抽象意义上的善；因此，只能寄希望于每个个体能够为各自找到出路，那些个体就像我这样，白白的皮肤，高高的额头，但是你太自命不凡，根本不愿意承认这一点。”她松开手中的缰绳，朝着漫天的星斗挥舞着她那两只小拳头。

“如果真的有上帝存在，就请他惩罚我——来惩罚我吧！”

“又是在以无神论者的口吻谈论上帝。”艾默里不客气地说。他的唯物主义思想原本就只是件单薄的外衣，被埃莉诺这一番亵渎上帝的言论撕扯一阵后，早已变成碎片……她心里很明白，然而正因为知道她什么都明白，才让他忍不住怒火中烧。

“大多数知识分子并不觉得信仰可以时时处处为人解忧，”他冷冷地继续说道，“比如拿破仑和奥斯卡·王尔德，还有剩下来的像你一样的人，但到了临终的时候，你们还是会哭喊着请求一名牧师的帮助。”

埃莉诺猝不及防地拉住马头站住了，他也赶紧在她的旁边收紧缰绳。

“是吗？”她以一种奇怪的口吻反问道，这让他心里一惊，“我会吗？看好了！我要从悬崖上跳下去！”说着，他还来不及插手阻止她，她就已经掉转马头，策马向着高坡的尽头急冲过去。

他急忙掉过头来，策马朝她追了过去，他当时的身体像一块冰坨一样又冷又僵，脑子里发出巨大的轰响，神经乱作一团。已经没有办法阻止她了。月亮正躲在一块云朵后面，她的马定会像瞎了眼一样径直跳过去。接着，就在距离悬崖的边缘十英尺的地方，她突然尖叫一声，身体朝一侧飞了出去——她从马背上被甩了出去，在地上连打了两个滚儿，最后在距离崖边五英尺的一簇灌木丛中停了下来。她的马则伴着一声狂暴的嘶鸣跌下了悬崖。他飞速奔到埃莉诺的身边，看见她两眼圆睁。

“埃莉诺！”他大叫了一声。

她没有回答，只是动了动嘴唇，眼睛里却一下子涌出了泪水。

“埃莉诺，你摔伤了没有？”

“没有，我想应该没有。”她用微弱的声音说道，接着就哭了起来。

“我的马死了？”

“仁慈的上帝——是的！”

“哦！”她大声恸哭起来，“我想我就要跌下去了。我不知道——”

他轻轻地把她搀扶起来，然后又把她扶上他自己的马鞍。随后，他们就开始往回走；艾默里牵着马走在下面，她俯在马背上，一路痛哭不止。

“我生来就有发狂的特质，”她结结巴巴地说，“类似的事我之前就做过两次。我十一岁那年妈妈发——发了疯——满嘴胡言乱语。我们那时还在维也纳——”

回去的路上，她一直在结结巴巴地说自己的事儿，艾默里心中的爱随着月亮的沉落也渐渐消退。到她家门前时，他们还是习惯性地吻别，互道晚安，但是她无法再投入他的怀抱，而他似乎也没有像前一个星期那样张开双臂迎接她。有那么一会儿，他们就站在那儿，带着悲苦的伤感，憎恨着彼此。然而，艾默里爱的正是他在埃莉诺身上看到的自己，因而，此刻他所憎恨的也只不过是照出自己的这面镜子而已。天光微亮的晨曦中，他们摆开的架势就像是破碎的玻璃散落开来。星星早已不见了踪影，只有几许叹息的风还在原地徘徊，还有彼此间的沉默……但是，赤裸的灵魂总归是可怜的，没过多久他就折返回家，迎着初升的朝阳，接纳崭新的光明。

几年之后埃莉诺写给艾默里的诗

此间，有流水淙淙，泥土中的精灵，

正嘶嘶地歌唱，沐浴在惬意的阳光下，

像一个笑逐颜开的大地女儿拥抱着白天……

此间，无人知晓我们在窃窃私语，

我们也不再惧怕夜晚的来临。

踽踽独行……在夏日披散下她的秀发之际，

在时间的深处，这难道不是我们注定要领略的胜景？

树荫是我们的所爱，地上斑斑驳驳的树影，

如同斑斓的挂毯，在悄无声息的林间，神秘缥缈。

这是日间的光景……夜晚则是另一番景象，

月华如梦，树影憧憧，如同素描的风景——

星星的魅影，与昔日里追寻荣耀的魂灵擦肩而过，

微风凄凄，在我们耳边诉说着平和与安宁，

诉说着被白昼击碎的古老而沉寂的信仰，

青春一文不名，正好够交换月下的欢愉；

那正是我们熟悉的悸动，是字字珠玑的话语，

是我们抵偿给六月，这个高利贷者的情债。

此间，在最深的梦里，栖身在溪水边，

流水汩汩翻涌，带不回无须知晓的刻骨记忆，

倘若世间的光明只有太阳，倘若溪水不再歌唱，

我们相依相偎，这似乎……就是我爱你的样子……

夏日将尽，昨夜的温存还残留几何，

什么能将你我拉回那光阴流转的林间空地？

黑暗中是什么在那幽深的苜蓿草丛中暗中窥探？

上帝！……直到你从梦中惊醒……魂飞魄散……

唉……我们已成过去……我们相对那惊魂一刻已成永远。

流星终将掠过天际而陨落，洒下珍贵的光泽；

不知倦怠的泥中精灵在水边伸展身体，百无聊赖，

而我就在那个令人同情的、被仙女偷换的孩子身旁……

恐惧是一声回响，能带我们找到安全的女儿；

此刻我们音容俱在……然而转瞬即逝，

淙淙的流水之上，轻声耳语着似是而非的爱情……

青春一文不名，正好交换月下的欢愉。

艾默里送给埃莉诺的诗，他把它取名为“夏日风暴”

风声渐弱，歌声渐远，落叶飘零，

风声渐弱，远处的笑声渐渐沉落……

雨声淅沥，谁人在旷野上呼唤……

灰云如聚，在我们的头顶奔腾翻滚，

遮天蔽日，同它的姐妹们振翅飘飞，

白鸽的身影掠过，栖上云头，

林间树木森森，但见其间羽翼翻飞；

山涧之中，树木摇曳，如泣如诉，

黑色的风暴在天空中飞掠；裹挟着

清新的空气，那是沉落的大海的叹息，

雷声阵阵，缥缈悠远……

但是我在等待……

等待大雨如幕，等待昏天黑地——

等待雨骤风狂，掀起命运的面纱，

等待风声激越，卷起她的层层秀发；

再一次，

它们将我撕碎，给我教训，疾风骤雨，

给我迎头痛击，这正是我所知道的风和雨。

曾经有一个夏日，雨水罕至；

曾经有一个季节，风总是温暖和煦……

而此刻你和我在雨中相遇……你的头发

在风雨中凌乱，潮湿的嘴唇又一次噘起，

在那狂乱的讽喻中，让人欢快的绝望，

让你瞬间老去，那时我们还没有相见；

你像灵魂一般，在风雨来临之前，就在外游荡，

穿过田野，和飘落的花儿一起随风飞舞，

带着你往日的希冀，残败的落叶和爱情一起——

惨淡如梦，昏暗如所有老去的时光，

（轻声的耳语会爬进愈加浓重的黑暗……

轰鸣的雷声则会在树梢上销声匿迹）

夜晚来临，

撕开她胸部的衣衫，那里被白天的雨水溅湿，

沿着梦幻般的山坡翻滚而下，泪水晶莹，

用她的秀发掩起那双精灵古怪的绿色眸子……

暮色中的爱恋……星光下的爱情；

树梢处一片沉寂……宁静祥和……

风声渐弱，远处的笑声渐渐沉落……

第四章　高傲的牺牲

大西洋城。白日将尽，艾默里沿着海滨的木板栈道踱步前行，耳畔传来阵阵的海浪声，海浪翻涌澎湃，瞬息万变，永不停歇。扑面而来的海风，带着咸涩的味道和些许悲伤的气息，他感到内心一片安宁。大海，他暗想，要比精神荒芜的陆地更懂得珍藏它的记忆，藏得更深。涛声阵阵如呢喃细语，似乎还在诉说着，飘扬着渡鸦旗的斯堪的纳维亚古战船劈波斩浪、纵横四海的故事，似乎还在讲述大不列颠的无畏战舰，人类文明的灰色堡垒，在那个晦暗的七月开足马力，冲破迷雾，进入北海时的情景。

“嗨——艾默里·布莱恩！”

艾默里低头朝下面的马路望去。一辆车身很低的跑车已经停了下来，一张熟悉的面孔从驾驶座上探了出来，笑意盈盈。

“快下来，呆子！”埃里克高声喊道。

艾默里打了声招呼，随即就从木制台阶上走了下来，来到跑车跟前。他和埃里克经常隔三岔五地碰面，但是两人之间始终横亘着罗萨琳德这个障碍。他对这一点感到很遗憾，但他不愿失去埃里克。

“布莱恩先生，这位是沃特森小姐，这位是维尼小姐，还有这位，塔里先生。”

“你们好！”

“艾默里，”埃里克兴致勃勃地说，“你要是立马跳上车来，我们就带你去一个无人打扰的好去处，再给你来上一点儿波旁威士忌。”

艾默里想了想。

“这主意不错。”

“上车——往里挪一挪，吉尔，艾默里会对你报以灿烂的微笑。”

艾默里挤了上来，坐在后排那位打扮得妖娆多姿、嘴巴鲜红的金发女郎身旁。

“你好呀，道格·费尔班克斯[161]，”她轻佻地说，“你是在健身，还是在找姑娘？”

“我正在数海浪，”艾默里一本正经地回答道，“我马上要到统计部门工作了。”

“别开玩笑了，道格。”

当他们开到一条少有人去的小路时，埃里克在浓密的树荫下把车停了下来。

“现在天气冷了，你来这里干什么，艾默里？”他质问道，一边说一边从毛皮垫子底下取出一瓶一夸脱的波旁威士忌。

艾默里避而不答，确实，连他自己也不确定为什么要到海边来。

“你还记得我们那次聚会吗，大学二年级的时候？”他反过来问道。

“我怎么不记得？那一回我们就睡在阿斯波利公园的凉亭里——”

“上帝啊，埃里克！真不敢相信杰西、迪克和凯里，他们三个都已经不在人世了。”

埃里克不禁浑身一颤。

“别提这些了。这恼人的秋日已经够我烦的了。”

吉尔似乎非常赞同。

“我们的道格，不知怎么好像有点儿闷闷不乐，”她以评判的口吻说道，“告诉他多喝点儿——如今这年头，这样的好事儿不常有了。”

“我真正想问你的是，艾默里，你现在在哪里——”

“嗯，纽约，我猜——”

“我说的是今天晚上，因为如果你还没有找到落脚的地方，我想请你帮我一个忙。”

“乐意效劳。”

“是这样的，我和塔里在蓝尼尔酒店订了两间房，带一个共享的卫生间，但是他必须赶回纽约去。我不想再换地方了。所以想问你，愿不愿意过来住？”

艾默里当然愿意，巴不得这会儿就能住进去呢。

“钥匙在接待处你自己去取，房间是用我的名字订的。”

艾默里不愿再多跑路，也怕再有别的事端，就下了车，沿着木板栈道一路溜达去了酒店。

他眼下又处于人生的旋涡之中，处于一个让人眩晕的深壑，他完全打不起精神，既没有创作或者工作的念头，也没有恋爱或者放纵的想法。他有生以来第一次宁愿死神从他们这一代人身上碾轧过去，碾碎他们偏狭的执拗，碾碎他们的挣扎和得意忘形。相较四年前那次放肆又欢快的结伴出游，这次来到海滨令他倍感落寞，仿佛他的青春已经在此刻消亡殆尽。那些当年生活中再寻常不过的事——深沉踏实的睡眠，被佳丽环绕的感觉和所有的欲望——都已经飘然而去，留下空洞的缺口，只有幻灭之后无尽的倦怠感充斥其中。

“一个女人如果想留住一个男人，就必须投其所好满足他最软弱的部分。”这句话成了他无数个不眠之夜共同的主题，他感到今晚将又会是一个难眠的夜晚。他的头脑已经开始就这个话题展开演绎和推理了。不知疲倦的激情，强烈的嫉妒，渴望占有和征服的欲念——这就是他对罗萨琳德的爱仅剩的残余；这些残留下来的正是对于他青春损失的补偿——是这层爱情欢愉的薄糖衣下苦涩的毒药。

十月的空气中已经透着几分寒意，他在房间里脱了衣服，裹上毯子，以防着凉，然后来到打开的窗户前，蜷进一把扶手椅里，打起了盹儿。

他记起了几个月前自己读过的一首诗：

哦，痴情的旧爱多年来为我受苦受累，

我却漂流海上，把流年虚度——

然而他并没有流年虚度的感觉，感觉不到“虚度”这个字眼所暗示出的眼前的希望。他感到生活已经抛弃了他。

“罗萨琳德！罗萨琳德！”他对着昏黄的薄暮轻声呼唤着这个名字，直到房间中她的身影无处不在；微咸的海风带着水汽，打湿了他的头发，一轮朗月高悬，在天空中烙下清晰的轮廓，窗帘在月色中渐渐黯淡，影影绰绰。他昏昏沉沉地睡了过去。

他醒来的时候已经是深夜了，周围一片寂静。他裹在身上的毯子有一边已经从肩膀上滑落，他用手摸了摸自己的皮肤，感觉又湿又冷。

接着，他意识到有人在急切地窃窃私语，就在离他不到十英尺的地方。

他浑身僵硬。

“别出声！”那是埃里克的声音，“吉尔——你听见我的话了吗？”

“听到了——”声音非常微弱，非常胆怯。他们就在卫生间里。

就在这时，他的耳朵捕捉到了更大的动静，声音来自外面走廊上的某个地方。那是几个男人含混不清的声音，还有一阵连续不断的沉闷的敲门声。艾默里一把掀掉身上的毯子，走到靠近卫生间房门的地方。

“我的天！”又一次传来那个姑娘的声音，“你只能放他们进来了。”

“嘘！”

突然，艾默里所在的客厅的房门口响起了一阵镇定、持续的敲门声，与此同时埃里克从卫生间里走了出来，他身后跟着那个嘴巴鲜红的姑娘。他们两个都穿着睡衣。

“艾默里！”传来一声充满焦虑的轻呼。

“出什么事儿了？”

“是那些入户排查的探员。我的天哪，艾默里——他们是在寻找一个测试案例——”

“嗯，最好还是让他们进来。”

“你不明白。他们可以依据曼恩法案[162]把我给抓走。”

那个姑娘慢吞吞地跟在他身后，躲在暗处，一副愁眉苦脸、楚楚可怜的模样。

艾默里灵机一动，计上心来。

“你大呼小叫地闹腾一番，让他们到你的房间里去，”他急切地建议说，“然后我趁机从这扇门把她带出去。”

“可是，他们也会有人留在这边盯着这个门的。”

“你不能随便编个名字吗？”

“不行。我是用自己的名字登记的，再说，他们还可以通过车牌号查到我。”

“那就说你们结过婚了。”

“吉尔说其中有一个探员认识她。”

那个姑娘已经偷偷溜到了床边，慌不迭地爬了上去，躺在那儿可怜兮兮地听着敲门声，此时敲门声已经越来越响，变成了砰砰捶打的声音。紧接着就响起了一个男人的声音，怒气冲冲，刻不容缓：

“快开门，不然我们就要破门而入了！”

在这个声音停歇下来的片刻宁静中，艾默里意识到房间中除了人以外还有别的东西……蜷曲在床上的那个身体的上方和它的周围都笼罩着一层光晕，如薄纱，如月亮的清辉，散发着腐败的、劣质葡萄酒的气息。随即，一种恐怖的氛围弥散开来，笼罩在他们三个人身上……而那边的窗户边上，摇曳的窗帘中间好像伫立着别的什么东西，没有特征，无法辨认，然而却让人感到出奇地熟悉……与此同时，艾默里的脑海中并行出现了两个非同寻常的事例；所有这一切在他的头脑中涌现，实际上也不过十秒钟的时间。

他在一闪念的时间里想到的第一件事是伟大无私的牺牲——他体会到我们通常所说的爱憎、奖罚，就如同某月某日的日期一样和牺牲没有丝毫关联。他的脑海中迅疾浮现出他读大学时听到的一个有关牺牲的故事：有个人在考试中作弊，他的室友挺身而出，揽下了所有的指责——这个清白无辜的人，因为背负着令人不齿的污名，他未来的生活全都笼罩在悔恨与失败的阴影中，更为可悲的是那个真正的舞弊者竟然毫不领情。这个人后来终于不堪重负而自杀了——几年之后真相才水落石出。当时，艾默里对这个故事既感到困惑，又颇为忧伤。现在他终于领悟到其中的道理了，这种牺牲绝不是为了交换自由。这就像是一个巨大的选举办公室，就像是对于权力的继承——在特定的时间对于特定的人群，这是一种本质上的特权，与之相伴的不是保证而是承诺，不是要提供保障、获取安全感而是承担无穷无尽的风险。行事的动机或许会让他走向毁灭——那种激发牺牲的情感冲动退却之后，或许会致使那个有崇高举动的人，在绝望的孤岛上形容枯槁，凄惨终老。

……艾默里知道，事后埃里克会因为他做了如此巨大的牺牲而对他默默地怀恨在心……

……所有这一切都在艾默里的面前铺展开来，像一卷打开的卷轴，而外在于他，并对他横加揣测的则是悄无声息却静观其变的两股力量：笼罩在那个姑娘头顶和四周的缥缈如薄纱的光晕，以及伫立在窗口的似曾相识的东西。

牺牲就其本质而言，是高傲且不带个人色彩的；牺牲就是永恒地傲视一切。

不要为我哭泣，为你们的儿女哭泣吧。[163]

不管怎样——艾默里暗自思忖道——这就是上帝同我交谈的方式。

艾默里突然感到一阵喜悦之情涌上心头，随即，笼罩在床上的那种光晕就像电影中的一张面孔一样渐渐消失；窗口那个让人不安的身影，他只能这样来称呼它，也只是稍微停留了片刻，便在微风的托举之下飘然而去。他攥紧拳头，按捺住心中升腾的一阵狂喜……刚刚过去十秒钟的时间……

“照我说的做，埃里克——照我说的做。你听明白了吗？”

埃里克不知所措地看着他——他的脸上露出痛苦不堪的表情。

“你有一个大家庭，有父母姊妹，”艾默里缓缓地说，“你万万不能卷入这种事情。你听到我说的话了吗？”他把自己刚才的话又清清楚楚地重复了一遍。“你听见我说的话没有？”

“我听到了。”说话的声音莫名地听起来有些哽咽，那双眼睛紧紧盯着艾默里的双眼，一刻也没有离开过。

“埃里克，你马上躺到这里来。如果有人进来，你就假装喝醉了。照我说的做——否则，我没准儿会杀了你。”

他们又彼此对视了一会儿。接着，艾默里立刻走到写字台前，拿出他那本随身携带的简装书，不容分说地朝那个姑娘挥了挥手，招呼她过来。他听到埃里克似乎从牙缝里挤出一个词儿，听起来像是“监狱”，随后他和吉尔走进卫生间，并在身后把门闩插住。

“你是来这儿陪我的，”他用严厉的口吻说道，“你整个晚上都和我在一起。”

她点了点头，低声抽泣了一声。

一秒钟后，他立刻走出去，打开了另一个房间的门，三个男人径直走了进来。房间里顿时被刺眼的灯光照得雪亮，他站在那里几乎难以睁开眼睛。

“你玩儿的这个把戏未免太危险了吧，年轻人！”

艾默里嘿嘿一笑。

“怎么？”

三个人中领头的那个，命令式地朝那个穿着格子西装的魁梧男人点了点头。

“可以了，奥尔逊。”

“明白，欧梅先生。”奥尔逊点点头，回答说。另外两个人朝他们的追捕对象投去好奇的一瞥，便甩门而去，似乎有些气恼。

那个身材魁梧的男人用鄙夷的目光打量着艾默里。

“你难道从未听说过曼恩法案吗？把她带到这儿来，”他用大拇指朝那姑娘指了指，“开着一辆纽约牌照的汽车——居然跑到这样的酒店来。”他摇了摇头，意思是说在艾默里这件事上，他原本还有些犹豫，但现在打算放他一马了。

“那么，”艾默里有些不耐烦地说，“你想让我们做什么？”

“穿上衣服，快点——还有，告诉你那个朋友不要再这么大哭大闹了。”吉尔正坐在床上大声抽泣着，但是听了这句话，她便收住眼泪，哭丧着脸，收拾起自己的衣服，钻进了卫生间里。艾默里在套上埃里克的内衣时，才意识到自己对眼前这个情况一直抱着愉快、幽默的态度。那个身材魁梧的男人脸上一副很委屈的样子，让他忍不住想笑。

“这儿还有别的人吗？”奥尔逊盘问道，竭力想表现出敏锐、机警的样子。

“还有包下这两个房间的家伙，”艾默里漫不经心地说，“不过，他喝得烂醉如泥。从六点钟开始就一直在呼呼大睡。”

“我一会儿过去看看他。”

“你们是怎么发现的？”艾默里问道，显得很好奇的样子。

“值夜班的店员看见你带着这个女人上楼。”

艾默里点点头，吉尔从卫生间里走了出来，虽说收拾得不那么干净利落，但总算是穿戴整齐了。

“好了，现在，”奥尔逊掏出一个记事本，开口说道，“我需要记下你们的真名——别他妈的编造什么约翰·史密斯或者玛丽·布朗来搪塞我。”

“等一下，”艾默里平静地说，“别搞这一套吓唬人的东西了。我们就是被逮了个正着，也就这么回事。”

奥尔逊狠狠地瞪了他一眼。

“叫什么名字？”他厉声说道。

艾默里报了他的名字和他在纽约的住址。

“那位女士呢？”

“吉尔小姐——”

“快说，”奥尔逊怒气冲冲地大喝一声，“别哼哼唧唧的，像唱儿歌一样。你叫什么名字？莎拉·墨菲？还是敏尼·杰克逊？”

“哦，上帝呀！”那个姑娘双手捂着脸哭了起来，“我不想让我妈妈知道这事儿。我不想让我妈妈知道。”

“快点儿！”

“你闭嘴！”艾默里朝着奥尔逊大吼一声。

房间里一阵沉默。

“史黛拉·罗宾斯，”她终于结结巴巴地说了出来，“新罕布什尔州，拉戈威县，邮政大街。”

奥尔逊啪的一声合上了他的记事本，无精打采地打量着他们俩。

“酒店有权利将证据移交给警方，那样的话你就要蹲监狱了，因为你出于不道德的目的，把一个姑娘从一州带到了另外一州——”说到这里他停顿了一下，以便让他这番话显得更有威严。“但是——酒店准备放你们一马。”

“这可千万不要见报啊，”吉尔厉声哭喊着，“放了我们吧！啊！”

艾默里顿时感到如释重负。他知道自己平安无事了，也正是在这个时候他才意识到，这样引火烧身的举动可能招致多大的麻烦。

“可是，话说回来，”奥尔逊继续说道，“这些酒店之间有一个保护性的协作关系。这种事情实在太多了，我们已经和各家报纸协商好了，你们还是会享受一点免费的曝光。不提酒店的名字，只是一行文字，说你们在大西洋城犯了点事儿。明白吗？”

“我明白。”

“这可是从轻发落——处理得太他妈轻了——不过——”

“得了，”艾默里轻快地说，“让我们赶紧离开这儿吧。我们也不用发表一通告别演说。”

奥尔逊迈步从浴室里穿过，朝躺在地上一动不动的埃里克匆匆瞥了一眼。随后，他把房间里的灯都关掉，示意他们跟着他。他们走进电梯的时候，艾默里想着要不要借机逞能，虚张声势干点儿什么——最后还是放弃了。他伸出手，轻轻拍了拍奥尔逊的胳膊。

“能不能麻烦你把帽子摘了？电梯里可是有位女士。”

奥尔逊慢吞吞地把帽子摘了下来。他们穿过酒店的大堂，从灯光下走过的时候，经历了颇为尴尬的两分钟，那个值夜班的店员和几个晚到的客人都用好奇的目光注视着他们。那个姑娘衣着艳丽，低着头，那个年轻人相貌英俊，趾高气扬，下巴抬得很高，两人的关系是显而易见的。一出门，扑面而来的是户外寒冷的空气——随着破晓的来临，外面咸涩的空气变得更加清新，更加凛冽。

“你们可以搭一辆出租车，赶快溜之大吉吧。”奥尔逊说道，朝停在那边只能模模糊糊看得出轮廓的两辆汽车指了指，两名司机大概还在车子里睡觉呢。

“再见。”奥尔逊说。他暗示性地把手伸进口袋里[164]，但是艾默里不屑地哼了一声，挽起那个姑娘的胳膊，转身扬长而去了。

“你刚才吩咐司机往哪儿开？”当他们沿着昏暗的街道疾驰时，她忍不住问道。

“车站。”

“那个人要是写信给我妈妈——”

“他不会的。没有人会知道这件事——除了我们的朋友和敌人。”

海面上迎来了破晓时分。

“天越来越蓝了。”她说。

“蓝得很美，”艾默里不无挑剔地附和说，接着好像又想到了什么，“差不多是吃早饭的时候了——你想吃点儿什么吗？”

“吃饭——”她开心地笑了起来，“我们的好事就是被吃饭给搞砸了。我们订了一份非常丰盛的晚餐，要他们深夜两点的时候送到房间里来。埃里克没有给那个服务生小费，所以，我猜那个小杂种就去告发我们了。”

吉尔的低落情绪很快就一扫而空，似乎比渐渐遁去的夜色消失得还快。“我实话告诉你吧，”她语重心长地说，“你要是想一夜风流，就别碰酒精；如果你要一醉方休，那就离卧室远点儿。”

“我会记住的。”

他忽然在车窗玻璃上叩了几下，他们的车子随即停在了一家通宵营业的餐馆门前。

“埃里克是你很要好的一个朋友吗？”吉尔问道，这时他们已经进了餐馆，在高脚凳上坐定了，而且两人都把胳膊肘支在破败又肮脏的柜台上。

“他以前一直是。很可能以后不再是了——他自己估计也弄不明白是为什么。”

“你刚才把所有的责任都揽在自己身上，简直太疯狂了。他就那么重要吗？比你自己还重要？”

艾默里笑了笑。

“这还要进一步观察，”他回答说，“这才是问题的关键所在。”

精神支柱接连倒塌

两天之后，回到纽约的艾默里在一份报纸上看到了他一直在寻找的内容——那段话有十几行文字，谨向有关人士通报，艾默里·布莱恩先生，“据称家庭住址为”等等，诸如此类，由于在大西洋城的一家酒店里容留一位并非他太太的女士而被请出酒店。

接着他浑身一震，手指都不听使唤地哆嗦着，因为就在这段话的上面刊登了一则文字更长的告示，其起首语是这样写的：

“利兰·R.康尼奇先生和夫人在此宣布，他们的女儿罗萨琳德，与康涅狄格州哈特福德郡的J.道森·赖德先生正式订婚——”

他扔下报纸，颓然倒在了床上，五脏六腑内涌起一阵惊恐、颓丧的感觉。她走了，确定无疑，终于离他而去。直到现在，他有意无意地依然在内心深处存有一丝念想，希望有那么一天她会需要他，派人来找他，哭着告诉他那是一场误会，她因为给他造成的痛苦而一直伤心不已。从此以后，即使心情忧郁时，对她的遥想也变成了一种痴心妄想——他要的不是一个铁石心肠、青春不在的罗萨琳德，也不是随便哪个面容憔悴、困顿潦倒的女人，尽管在四十岁的当口，他的头脑中常常想象出这样的女人——艾默里渴望得到的是正值青春年华的她，是她焕发着勃勃生机的灵魂和身体，是她此刻一锤定音正在出卖的东西。此刻，就他而言，年轻的罗萨琳德已经死了。

一天之后，他收到了巴顿先生从芝加哥寄来的一封寥寥数语、简明扼要的信，信中告知他，由于又有三家电车公司落入了破产管理者手中，他目前已经不可能再收到任何汇款了。祸不单行，最后，在一个让人茫然无措的周日晚上，他收到一封电报，告知他达西大人已于五天前在费城溘然长逝。

这时他才明白过来，那晚在大西洋城的那间客房里，他在窗帘之间隐约看到的到底是什么。

第五章　从自我中心主义者到个人的转变

我陷入睡梦中一英寻的深处，

旧日里按捺下的欲念与我为伴，

向着现实生活断喝一声，

正像黑暗从灰色门里飞身遁去，

在求索共同的信条中，

我再度寻求自信飞扬的日子……

可旧日的单调乏味一成不变：

雨势滂沱迷蒙了无尽的前路。

哦，唯愿我能再度挺立！唯愿

将那旧日美酒的灼热一扫而光，

看那崭新的黎明正在天边攒聚，

堆起童话故事的高塔，层层叠叠；

在凌空高耸的每一个海市蜃楼里

找到一个象征，而不再是幻梦……

可旧日的单调乏味一成不变：

雨势滂沱迷蒙了无尽的前路。

艾默里站在一家剧院入口处的玻璃屋顶下，看着第一波大雨噼里啪啦从天而降，落在人行道上，打出一个个黑色的斑块。天空变得灰暗，闪着变幻莫测的光；突然有一盏灯孤零零地亮了起来，勾勒出马路对面一扇窗的轮廓，紧接着又有一盏灯亮了起来，之后上百盏灯亮了起来，跳跃闪动着映入眼帘。在他的脚下，路面仿佛洒满了密密麻麻的铁钉，正随着天光变得昏黄；街上过往的出租车的车灯，在已然漆黑的人行道上打出耀眼的光束。这场不受欢迎的十一月的冷雨已经任性地将这一天最后的时光偷去，典当给了古老的销赃者——黑夜。

他身后的剧院本来寂静无声，但随着一阵莫名其妙的噼啪声，响起了人们起身时发出的沉闷的咚咚响声，接着便是一片人声嘈杂、纷乱吵嚷的声音。午后场的演出结束了。

他往边上挪了挪，把身子微微侧向雨中，好让熙熙攘攘的人群从他身边走过。有一个小男孩直接冲了出去，鼻子嗅了嗅这潮湿、清新的空气，接着便把衣领竖了起来；有三四对情侣步履匆匆；接着又有一些人陆陆续续走了出来，刚刚走出剧院的时候，他们都无一例外地要四下观望一下，先看看湿漉漉的地面，再看看空中迷蒙的雨幕，最后再看看阴沉沉的天空；再后来出来的一群人踱着步子，前呼后拥，男人身上都是浓重的烟草味儿，女人身上则是难闻的脂粉带来的臭味儿，这些味道混合起来，浓烈得让他呛得难受。这群乌泱泱的人群后面，是稀稀拉拉、三五成群的几个人，还有五六个形只影单的人；有一个拄着双拐的男人；最后，剧院中终于传来折叠凳子的砰砰声，这说明引座员又开始忙碌了。

纽约似乎还没有苏醒过来，不过是在床上翻了个身。脸色苍白的男人用手紧紧扣住大衣的衣领，一路行色匆匆；一大群满面倦容却像喜鹊一样叽叽喳喳的女孩子从百货商店里拥了出来，她们三个一群，挤在一把伞下，一边走一边爆发出阵阵刺耳的笑声；还有，一群列队行进的警察经过，他们步伐整齐，还很神奇地都披上了防雨的油布雨衣。

这场雨让艾默里有了暂时从生活中抽离的感觉，在这个大城市里，拮据的生活给他带来了诸多不便，一桩桩烦心事接踵而至。地铁里总是拥挤不堪，臭气熏天，让人透不过气来——车厢窗口外的广告牌总是不由分说地戳在你的眼前，对你睥睨而视，好像那些烦人的讨厌鬼硬要拉着你的胳膊，再讲上一个无聊透顶的故事；你怨气满腹，时刻担心着是不是有人靠在你的身上；一个男人死活不肯把座位让给一个女人，并对她心生恨意；那个女人则因为那个男人不肯让座而对他怀恨在心；最糟糕的是车厢里充斥着污秽、浊臭的气息，人们呼吸吐纳的难闻气体，裹在身体上的破旧衣服的味道，以及吃下去的食物的味道，全都混杂在一起，交融变幻，难以名状——往好处想，还好这里只有人——他们要么太热，要么太冷，要么过于疲惫，要么过于忧虑。

他想象着这些人居住的房子——墙纸凹凸不平，清一色的都是黄绿背景上繁复重叠的向日葵花，屋子里摆着马口铁的浴缸，门厅阴暗，房屋的后面没有任何植被，只是一块块说不出是任何名堂的空地；在那种地方，爱情打扮得好像是在卖弄姿色——附近就发生过肮脏龌龊的谋杀案，楼上的公寓里住着未婚先孕的母亲。而且出于经济上的考虑，一到冬天，室内几乎无一例外地总是密不透风；而在漫长的炎炎夏日，四周的墙壁总是泛着潮气，湿漉漉的，人在里面大汗淋漓，如噩梦一般……肮脏的餐馆里，那些毫不讲究、疲惫不堪的人们总是拿着自己的咖啡勺去取糖，在碗底留下硬邦邦的棕色沉淀物。

在这些地方，倘若只住着男人，或者纯粹只是女人，情况还没那么糟糕。但如果是男男女女恬不知耻地混杂在一起，情况就糟糕透了。女人倘若被男人发现自己穷困潦倒，会感到羞愧难当——而男人则会因为自己的女人穷困潦倒对她产生厌恶。那样的生活场景，比他见过的任何战场都更污秽不堪，比任何充满了困顿、辛劳和危险的实际苦难都更难以想象，在那样的生活氛围里，生老病死、结婚生子都成为让人憎恨的、隐秘的事件。

他记得有一天在地铁里，一个送货的小伙子把一个用鲜花扎成的葬礼上用的大花环带进了车厢，花朵的芬芳使车厢里的空气顿时焕然一新，给每个人都带来了短暂的欢愉。

“我憎恨穷人，”艾默里突然冒出来这个想法，“我因为贫穷而怨恨他们。贫穷也许曾经有过它美好的一面，但是现在那实在是一种堕落。这世上最为丑陋的事情莫过于贫穷。从本质上说，腐败和富有远比清白和贫穷要纯洁得多。”他仿佛又看到了一个身影，那人颇显尊贵的派头让他印象深刻——那是一个衣着十分考究的年轻人，一边从一家俱乐部的窗口向下凝视着第五大道，一边带着鄙夷的神情对他的同伴说了句话。艾默里猜想，那句话估计是：“我的上帝呀！人真是可怕！”

艾默里在以往的生活中还从未考虑过穷人。他不免自嘲地认为自己对他人完全没有恻隐之心。欧·亨利在这些人的生活中发现了浪漫、同情、爱和恨——艾默里却只看到了粗俗、不洁和愚蠢。他没有对自己进行丝毫的谴责：他从未因为那些自然和真诚流露的情感而谴责过自己。他理所当然地认为，他对事物的任何反应都是他自身的一部分，既不能改变，也不关涉道德准则。贫穷的问题可能会被改头换面，被放大或者被嫁接到更为宏大、更加重要的人生态度上，进而在未来的某个日子成为他自身的重要问题，可是眼下，贫穷只能激发他深深的鄙夷。

他走到第五大道，途中需要不断地躲避不长眼睛的雨伞给他带来的恐怖威胁，走到德莫尼克尔餐厅门口时，他伸手叫停了一辆公共汽车。他把大衣的扣子扣紧，便爬到了顶层，独自一人坐在绵密不断的细雨中，湿冷的雨水在他的脸颊上不断聚积，刺激他一直保持着警觉的状态。一场对话正在他意识的某个地方展开，或许应该说是，重新成为他注意力的焦点。这段对话并不是在两个说话人之间展开的，而是一个人的对话，自问自答，这个人既充当问话人，也担当回答人的角色：

问：——嗯——现在情况怎么样？

答：——那个，我的名下还有二十四块钱。

问：——你还有日内瓦湖城的庄园呢。

答：——但我打算留着它。

问：——你能过得下去吗？

答：——我想象不出怎么就活不下去。有些人能写书挣钱，我发现他们写书的那些本事我都会，实际上那是我唯一会做的事。

问：——说具体点。

答：——我不清楚自己该干什么——我也没有多少好奇心。我准备明天就永远地离开纽约。这是个糟糕的城市，除非你生活在这个城市的最上层。

问：——你需要很多钱吗？

答：——不。我只是害怕会受穷。

问：——非常害怕吗？

答：——只是被动地有点怕。

问：——你会向何处漂泊？

答：——不要问我！

问：——你难道不在乎吗？

答：——可以这么说。我并不想让道德把我逼上绝路。

问：——你难道什么兴趣都没有了吗？

答：——没有。我没有更多可以失去的美德了。一只正在冷却的水壶总是会不停地散热，我们就像那只水壶一样，在青年和少年时期不停地释放着美德的卡路里。这就是所谓的纯真年代。

问：——有意思的想法。

答：——这就是为什么“好人堕落”的故事会吸引人。人们站在好人的周围，借用他释放出的美德卡路里来暖身，就是这样。莎拉说了句质朴的话，周围的人便开心地假笑了起来——“这个可怜的孩子多无辜啊！”他们借助她的美德来温暖自己。然而，莎拉看到众人的假笑便再也没有说过那样的话。至此之后，她就有些心寒了。

问：——你的卡路里全都消耗殆尽了吗？

答：——一点不剩。我已经开始借助别人的卡路里来温暖自己了。

问：——你堕落了吗？

答：——我想是的。我不那么确定。现在我对于是非善恶都不那么确定了。

问：——这本身就是个不祥之兆吗？

答：——那倒未必。

问：——什么才是判定堕落的标准？

答：——彻底的虚伪——声称自己“还不算是个坏家伙”，觉得自己是在追悔逝去的青春，而事实上，不过是对青春流逝所带来的诸种快乐艳羡不已。青春就好像是拿到一大盘糖果。感伤主义者希望他们能处在享用糖果之前那种纯粹、简单的状态。其实不然。他们不过是想重新享受一遍吃糖的乐趣。已婚的女人并不想再重回少女时代——她想要的是再度一次蜜月。我不想重复自己的纯真。我想要的是重新经历一遍失去它的快乐。

问：——你会向何处漂泊？

这场对话和他最为熟悉的意识状态非常怪诞地融为一体——那是一种怪诞的融合，将欲望、焦虑、外部印象和身体反应混合在一起。

第一百二十七大街——或者第一百三十七大街……二和三看上去很相像——不，不是很像。车座湿了……是衣服吸收了座位上的雨水，还是座位吸收了衣服的干燥？……坐在潮湿的东西上会得阑尾炎的，弗洛吉·帕克的妈妈是这么说的。嗯，他是得过阑尾炎的——我要起诉那家汽船公司，比阿特丽斯说，而我的舅舅还拥有四分之一的股权——比阿特丽斯已经去了天国吗？……也许没有吧——他的存在代表着比阿特丽斯的永生不朽，也代表着许多已故男人的风流韵事，不过他们肯定从未想到过他……如果那次不是阑尾炎，或许是流感。什么？第一百二十大街？那么刚才一定是第一百一十二大街。一〇二而不是一二七。罗萨琳德并不像比阿特丽斯，埃莉诺像比阿特丽斯，只不过埃莉诺更有脾气，更有头脑。这边的公寓都很贵——差不多要一百五十块一个月——也可能要两百块。姨父那时候在明尼阿波利斯的那幢大房子一个月也不过才一百块。问题——你进去的时候楼梯是在左边还是在右边？不管怎样，大学路十二号的那栋楼的楼梯是在左边正后方。这条河真够脏的——想要在那里下车，去看看它是不是真的这么脏——法国的河流全都是棕色或者黑色的，美国南方的河流也是这样。二十四美元意味着四百八十个甜甜圈。这些够他吃上三个月，但只能在公园里露宿。不知道吉尔这会儿在什么地方——吉尔·贝尼，还是吉尔·芬妮、吉尔·塞尼——真是见鬼了——脖子都疼了，座位真他妈的难受。完全没有和吉尔睡觉的欲望，埃里克到底看上了她什么？埃里克找女人太缺乏品位。我的品位倒是一流的：伊莎贝拉、克拉拉、罗萨琳德、埃莉诺，她们全都是美国人。埃莉诺可以投球，说不定还是个左撇子。罗萨琳德能当外场，是个出色的击球手。克拉拉估计可以打一垒。不知道亨博德的尸体现在怎么样了。要是他自己没去担任刺刀教官，可能三个月之前就上前线了，说不定已经丧命了。那该死的钟声是从哪里传来的——

湖滨大道上的街区数字全都隐匿于雨雾和滴着雨水的树木之中，若不是目光敏锐着实看不清楚，但艾默里最终还是捕捉到了一个数字——第一百二十七大街。他下了车，沿着一条蜿蜒而下的人行道，漫无目的地走着。后来，他走到了河边，眼前出现了一个长长的码头，还有很多隔开的废旧船坞，里面停泊着各种小型船舶：汽艇、独木舟、划艇和单桅船。他沿着河岸朝北走去，跳过一道铁丝网围成的小栅栏，走到了一处与码头比邻的院子里。院子面积很大，杂乱无章地堆满了东西。他的周围堆放着许多损毁程度不一的船体，空气中能闻到锯末和油漆的味道，还有几乎分辨不出的哈德孙河的淡淡气息。一个男人从那浓重的阴影中朝他走了过来。

“你好。”艾默里说。

“有通行证吗？”

“没有。这里是私人领地吗？”

“这里是哈德孙河运动和游艇俱乐部。”

“哦！我不知道。我只是随便走走。”

“嗯——”那个人一脸狐疑地说。

“如果不让进我这就走。”

那人不置可否地哼了几声，然后就走开了。艾默里在一条倒扣过来的船上坐了下来，俯身向前，用手托着腮帮子，一副心事重重的样子。

“霉运会把我塑造成一个该死的坏蛋。”他缓缓地说。

意志消沉的时刻

在淅淅沥沥的雨中，艾默里无望地回顾着自己的生命之河，回顾着那些闪光的片段和浑浊的浅水。首先，他仍然害怕——那不再是身体上的担惊受怕，而是对于他人、偏见、苦难和单调乏味的惧怕。然而，在他悲苦的内心深处，他很疑惑，不知道自己是否真的不如其他人。他知道，最终可以很世故地替自己开脱，说自己的那些弱点不过都是生活际遇与周围环境所造就的；每每在他斥责自己的自负行为，一个人生闷气的时候，总会有一个声音跳出来，不厌其烦地轻声叮咛：“不。你是天才！”然而，那恰恰是恐惧的宣言，那个对他轻声叮咛的声音不过是要告诉他伟大与善良不可兼得，而所谓的天才，正是那些无法解释的大脑回路的神奇组合，任何规训都能使它俯首听命，归于平庸。相较于那些具体的行为不端和缺点陋习，艾默里更为鄙视的或许是自己的个性——一想到明天和未来的日子里，自己还是难免像一个三流的音乐家或者一流的演员一样，听到一点溢美之词就沾沾自喜，听到几句逆耳的话就沮丧难过，他就对自己充满了厌恶。令他感到羞愧难当的是，那些淳朴而诚实的人们总是不信任他，而他对那些只要跟他混在一起就会丧失个性的人往往表现得过于冷酷——有好几个女孩子，还有大学时代里遇到的一两个男生，他们都是受过他不良影响的人；那些追随他一起经历心灵冒险的人，现在只有他一人得以全身而退。

这样的夜晚最近越发多了起来，通常他总是能从这样让人筋疲力尽的内省中逃离出来，他只要想想孩子和孩子身上无尽的可能性就可以了——他俯身静静聆听，就会听见马路对面的一幢房子里，一个婴儿在睡梦中惊醒，嘤嘤的啼哭声划破了宁静的夜空。他会在一闪念中抽身而去，心头掠过一丝惊恐，不知道他这样忧思重重的绝望心绪，是否在它幼小的灵魂中投下了一层暗影。这让他不寒而栗。倘若有一天，这微妙的平衡被打破，又会如何呢？他会变成一个让孩子们恐惧的怪物，趁着夜色爬进屋里，与那些幽灵纠缠在一起，听他们向盘踞在月球的黑色大陆上的疯子耳语那些阴森恐怖的秘密……

艾默里露出一丝微笑。

“你完全把自己束缚起来了。”他听到有人对他说。接着又说——

“出来，干点儿正事儿吧——”

“不要缩手缩脚——”

他想象着自己将来可能要如何作答。

“没错——我在年轻的时候算是个自我中心主义者，但是我很快就发现，过多地关注自己只会让我陷入病态的消极之中。”

突然，他感到一种无法抑制的欲望，想要纵容自己走向魔鬼——但并非如那些正人君子一样选择一条狂暴之路，而是安稳地、纵情地堕入无人可见的地方。他想象着自己置身于墨西哥的一座土坯房里，半躺半卧在一张铺着破布的沙发上，他用纤细的、充满艺术家气息的手指夹起一根香烟，听着哀婉的吉他弦音和着一曲古老的卡斯蒂尔挽歌，身边一个橄榄色皮肤、朱红色嘴唇的姑娘正亲昵地抚弄着他的头发。他在这里可能会经历一次奇怪而冗长的连祷，祷文由正反两方，由天狗，由诸位天神宣讲（极具异国情调的墨西哥神除外，因为他太过懒散，还格外醉心于东方的香料）——由成功、希望和贫穷宣讲，直到祷文变成冗长的自我放纵的陈述，最终将人们引入死亡的人工湖里。

可供人们纵情欢愉、腐败堕落的地方可太多了：塞得港、上海、突厥斯坦的部分地区、君士坦丁堡、南太平洋——这些地方到处都充斥着哀伤撩人的乐曲和多彩的香氛，在此淫欲是一种生活方式，也是生活的表达；在此夜晚的天空和黄昏的晚霞似乎只能投射激情：那是红唇与罂粟花的色彩。

继续清除杂念

曾几何时，神奇的是，他能够嗅出邪恶的气息，就像一匹马能在黑夜里探知前方的断桥一样，但是那个出现在菲比房间里并长着一双怪脚的男人已经隐身遁去，化为吉尔头上的奇怪光晕。他的直觉依然能够察觉贫穷发出的阵阵恶臭，可是却无法获知隐藏于傲慢和肉欲之下的深层邪恶。

世上再没有什么智者了，也再没有什么英雄。伯恩·霍里德从人们的视线中消失，就好像他从未来过；达西大人已经死了。艾默里在阅尽上千本书、上千个谎言之后，已经长大了；他曾经满怀热情地倾听过那些自称无所不知，实际上一无所知的道貌岸然者的观点。先贤们神秘的冥想，曾经让他在那些夜深人静的时刻满怀敬畏之情，而此刻却隐隐地让他感到反感。那些拜伦和布鲁克的效仿者自以为身在群山之巅可以蔑视生活，可到头来不过是些浪荡之徒和造作之人，充其量也不过是徒有其表，错把勇气的幻影当作智慧的实质。他思想的幻灭声势浩大，如同一场盛大的游行，一长列亘古长存的人物浩浩荡荡地迎面走来，有先知，有雅典人，有殉道者，有圣徒，有科学家，有唐璜式的人物，有耶稣会的教士，有清教徒，有浮士德式的人物，有诗人，还有和平主义者；这些人，如同盛装出席校友会的校友，在他眼前鱼贯而过，因为他们的梦想、人格还有信条，曾经如颜色各异的彩灯一样依次照亮过他的心灵。他们中的每一位都曾试着表达生命的荣耀和人的崇高；每一位都曾夸耀自己已经融会贯通，将过往时代的智慧融入自己略显牵强的概论之中；每一位终究都要仰仗已经搭建起来的舞台和剧院的传统，因为据此传统，一个人若是迫切地想要确立某种信仰时便会饥不择食，选择离他最为接近，并且最为方便的食粮去滋养他的心灵。

女人——他曾经对她们寄予莫大的期望；他曾经希望要将她们的美貌诉诸丰富多彩的艺术形式；他也曾一度想要在经验的层面延续她们深不可测的本能，那种毫无头绪、难以言喻却让人称奇的能耐——她们单凭着这种能耐就足以让子孙后代对她们顶礼膜拜。伊莎贝拉、克拉拉、罗萨琳德、埃莉诺，男人们曾对她们的美貌趋之若鹜，然而正是她们的美貌使她们没有任何机会有所贡献，她们除了能让一个人心力交瘁，写出一页不知所云的痴言疯语之外，别无所长。

艾默里对来自他人的帮助早已丧失了信心，他将此归结于几个概括性极强的三段论。假定他这一代人，不管在这场维多利亚时代的战争中怎样遍体鳞伤，死伤惨重，依然是进步的继承人。尽管有些结论可能也会招致几百万年轻人的死亡，但是不妨把结论中那些微小的分歧先放到一边，或许之后可以解释得通——假设萧伯纳和伯恩哈迪、博纳尔·劳和贝特曼-霍尔韦格[165]，都是同等的进步的继承人，即使他们只能在反对淹死女巫这件事情上达成共识——撇开他们的对立，单独地接近这些似乎可以担当领袖角色的人物，他依然对这些人自身的诸多差异和矛盾感到厌恶。

就以桑顿·汉考克为例，他被半个知识界尊为人生哲学的权威，对自己所遵从的道德准则坚定不移，是教育家们的教育者，是几任总统的顾问——然而艾默里知道，这个人在内心深处，仰赖的却是另一个宗教的神父。

再拿达西大人来说，尽管即将位居红衣主教的高位，依然会有莫名其妙的倍感恐惧和不安的时刻——而他所信奉的是一个能在信仰的层面解释怀疑的宗教，这实在是让人费解：如果你质疑魔鬼，那正是魔鬼在指使你质疑。艾默里曾亲眼见过达西大人出入那些冷漠而没有文化教养的人家，怒气冲冲地阅读通俗小说，将他自己沉浸在日常公务中，去逃避那种恐惧的时刻。

艾默里知道，这位神父大人尽管比他更为睿智，更为纯洁，但事实上并不比他更老成。

艾默里形只影单——他已经从一个狭小的围场中出逃，进入了一个巨大的迷宫。他正处于歌德开始创作《浮士德》的时刻；他就在康拉德开始写作《阿尔迈耶的蠢行》[166]的地方。

艾默里对自己说，本质上有两种人会因为天生头脑清楚或者思想幻灭离开那个围场，进入迷宫当中。一种人像威尔斯和柏拉图一样，几乎是无意识的，他们有一套奇怪而不外露的正统观念，他们只会接受能被所有人接受的准则——他们是无可救药的浪漫主义者，不管付出怎样的努力，都无法作为赤裸的灵魂进入迷宫当中；另一种人是像利刃一样的先锋派人物，塞缪尔·巴特勒，勒南，伏尔泰[167]，他们行进得更为缓慢，但实际上走得更远，他们并没有沿着思辨哲学的悲观线路笔直向前，而是始终专注地尝试赋予生活积极的意义……

艾默里停了下来。他有生以来第一次对所有的一般原则和名言警句产生了强烈的不信任。它们对于普通大众的头脑来说，也太过简单，太过危险。然而，所有的思想通常都会在产生三十年后，借助于某种形式被大众所认识：本森和切斯特顿使于思曼和纽曼变得家喻户晓；萧伯纳为尼采、易卜生和叔本华的思想披上了糖衣。大街上的普罗大众，通过他人精妙的悖论和说教式的警句，得以了解某个已故天才的思想结论。

生活就是糟透了的一团乱麻……一场没有裁判而每个人都在越位的橄榄球赛——每个人都声称裁判会站在自己这边……

进步就是一个迷宫……人们盲目地一头扎进去，而后又疯狂地往回跑，叫嚷着他们已经发现了……无形之王——生命力量——进化的原理……著书立说，发动战争，创建学校……

艾默里，即使他不曾是一个自私的人，也会开始提出这些质疑。他就是自己最好的范本——独坐雨中，一个有性别特征、有自尊心的活生生的人，他时运不济，又被他自身执着于爱情和孩子的特性所耽误，却依然坚持要帮助全人类建立起生存意识。

在自我谴责、孤单落寞和理想破灭的情况下，他来到了迷宫的入口。

在河的对岸，又一个黎明正扑面而来；一辆晚归的出租车疾驶过街道，它的车灯依然闪闪发亮，好像人在一夜狂饮作乐之后惨白的脸庞上两只烁烁的眼睛。远处的河面上传来一阵汽笛的悲鸣。

达西大人

艾默里一直在想达西大人会怎样看待自己的葬礼。葬礼按照天主教的传统和礼拜仪式举行，庄严而隆重。奥尼尔大主教亲自领唱庄严的大弥撒，而后红衣主教做最后的赦罪。桑顿·汉考克、劳伦斯太太、英国大使和意大利大使，罗马教皇的使节，还有一大批朋友和教士都出席了葬礼——然而，无情的岁月还是剪断了达西大人攥在手里的所有网线。对于艾默里来说，看到他躺在棺木里，双手合十置于他紫色的法衣之上，是一幕挥之不去的悲伤场景。他的面容没有丝毫改变，因为他并不知道自己死期将至，因而脸上没有任何痛苦和恐惧。这个故去的人曾是艾默里多年的挚友，是他的，也是其他人的——因为教堂里挤满了人，人们带着难以置信和目瞪口呆的表情，那些地位最高的人似乎也是最为震惊的人。

红衣主教活像一个身着教袍与主教冠的大天使，拈洒圣水；教堂的管风琴轰然作响，唱诗班开始唱起《安魂曲》。

所有在场的人都悲痛万分，因为他们都曾经或多或少地依赖过达西大人。他们的悲痛远远不止对他“略带沙哑的声音和略带停顿的脚步”的怀念，就像威尔斯曾经描述的那样。这些人曾经仰赖达西大人的信仰，学习他保持乐观的方式，跟从他把信仰看作光明与黑暗力量的角逐，而所有的光明与黑暗都只是上帝的不同面孔。有他在，人们总是会感到心安。

艾默里试图舍身救友那件事带来的结果仅仅是他理想的幻灭，而达西大人的葬礼则催生了那个将要与他一同步入迷宫的浪漫精灵。他找到了自己渴求的东西，那是他一直以来所渴求的，也将是他永远渴求的——并非像他之前担心的那样，是值得赞美的东西；也并非他之前愿意相信的那样，是受人爱慕的东西；而是人们所必需的东西，是不可或缺之物；他记起了他曾经在伯恩身上体会到的那种安全感。

生活在他的眼前打开，喷射出让人惊叹的万丈光芒，艾默里突然间醒悟，并永久地摒弃了那个在他的头脑中盘踞已久的古老信条：“重要的事情少之又少，没有什么真正重要。”

恰恰相反，艾默里感受到一种强烈的、要带给人安全感的愿望。

戴护目镜的大个子

艾默里步行重返普林斯顿的那天，天空好似一个透明无色的穹顶，清冷、高远，没有丝毫要下雨的迹象。天灰蒙蒙的，是所有天气中最为乏味的一种，但那天是承载着梦想的一天，也是承载远大理想和清晰的未来愿景的一天。那是一个可以很容易让人联想到抽象真理和一切纯粹的东西的日子，真理和纯粹的东西会在日光下消解，也会在月光的嘲笑声中隐遁。树木和云朵好像是按照严整的古典风格雕刻出来的，乡间的各种声响和谐地融为一体，像小号一样清脆悦耳，如希腊古瓮一般沉静。

那一天，艾默里一直沉浸于自己的冥思苦想中，路上好几个司机都因为他走得慢慢吞吞而不胜其烦，他们只能被迫大幅减速，否则车子就会把他撞倒。他陷入沉思之中，对于身边奇怪的现象也熟视无睹，没有丝毫的惊诧——在距离曼哈顿不到五十英里的地方有人热情地向他示好——一辆路过的汽车在他的身旁慢慢停了下来，有人跟他打招呼。他抬起头来，看见一辆豪华的敞篷汽车，里面坐着两个中年男人，其中一人个子矮小，神情焦灼，看上去好像从另外一个人身上人工培育出来的，那人戴着护目镜，身形高大，气宇轩昂。

“你要搭车吗？”那个像是人工培育的人问道，他一边说一边从眼角处瞟了一眼那个气宇轩昂的人，仿佛是习惯性地、默默地征得他的同意。

“没错。谢谢啦。”

司机打开车门，艾默里爬进车里，在后排中间的位置坐了下来。他好奇地打量了一下身边的两个伙伴。大个子的主要特点是，他对自己有极大的信心，而对于周遭的一切却感到无聊至极。护目镜下方突出的面部特征可以用通常说的“粗犷”来形容；靠近下巴的地方堆着一圈圈的肥肉，但似乎无伤大雅；下巴往上是一张大嘴巴，薄薄的嘴唇，还有一个粗线条的鹰钩鼻；往下，两个肩膀自然下塌，与庞大有力的胸腹部连成一体。他的衣着极为考究，但相当低调。艾默里注意到，他总是直直地盯着司机的后脑勺看，好像在一刻不停但又毫无头绪地思索着让人想不通的多毛症的问题。

小个子仅有的特别之处是他完全被另一个人的个性所吞没。他属于低级别的秘书类型的人，这类人到四十岁的时候，名片上会印着“总裁助理”的名号，并会毫无怨言地穷尽自己的余生，模仿他耳濡目染的那种行事风格。

“走远路吗？”那个小个子愉快又淡然地问道。

“好长一段路。”

“长途跋涉，锻炼身体吗？”

“不，”艾默里简短地回答说，“我付不起路费，只好走路。”

“哦。”

接着他又问：

“你在找工作吗？因为现在有很多工作。”他有些烦躁地说道，“总有人说没有工作。尤其是西部劳动力短缺。”他说到西部的时候用了一个横扫的手势。艾默里礼貌地点了点头。

“你有什么手艺？”

没有——艾默里没有什么手艺。

“当职员的，嗯？”

不是——艾默里不是职员。

“不管你是干哪一行的，”小个子说，似乎很明智地赞同艾默里刚才说的话，“现在正是充满机会、适合开拓事业的好时候。”他又朝大个头瞥了一眼，就好像律师在盘问目击者时不自觉地朝陪审团看上几眼。

艾默里认定自己必须说点儿什么，但是即使他绞尽脑汁也只能想到一件事可说。

“当然，我想发大财——”

小个子男人苦笑了一下，神情十分认真。

“现在每个人都想发财，但是却不肯花力气挣钱。”

“很自然、很正当的愿望。几乎所有的普通人都想不花大力气就能挣到钱——除了那些问题剧里的金融家，他们就想‘横冲直撞’。你难道不想轻轻松松地挣大钱？”

“当然想。”当秘书的人愤愤地说道。

“但是，”艾默里没有理睬他的回答继续说道，“眼下我很穷，所以我在考虑把社会主义当作我的救星。”

两个男人都好奇地朝他看了一眼。

“这些扔炸弹的人——”一听到大个子慢条斯理地开了腔，小个子男人便住了口。

“假如我认为你是个扔炸弹的人，我就把你押到纽瓦克监狱里去。这就是我对社会主义者的看法。”

艾默里笑了起来。

“你是什么人，”大个子问道，“也是那些布尔什维克？也是那样的空想主义者？我得说我看不出两者有什么区别。那些空想家就会四处游荡，写出些破玩意儿，去煽动那些穷苦的外来移民。”

“嗯，”艾默里说，“要是当一个空想家既有安全保障，又有利可图，我恐怕也会去试试。”

“你有什么困难？失业了？”

“失业也谈不上，不过——嗯，也算是吧。”

“那是什么工作？”

“为一家广告公司写文案。”

“广告公司挣钱多。”

艾默里含蓄地笑了笑。

“哦，我得承认这个行业终归会赚钱的。有才干的人不会被饿死。如今就连搞艺术的也能挣钱糊口。艺术家为你的杂志画封面，设计广告，为你的剧院炮制出雷格泰姆音乐[168]。随着出版业的大规模商业化，每一个能闯出一片天地的天才人物都能找到一份有益又体面的工作。但是要小心那些身为知识分子的艺术家。那样的艺术家不愿意随波逐流——当今的什么卢梭、托尔斯泰、塞缪尔·巴特勒、艾默里·布莱恩——”

“他是谁？”小个子男人一脸狐疑地追问道。

“嗯，”艾默里说，“他是——他是一个知识界的人物，眼下还不被人所知。”

小个子男人发出一阵拘谨的笑声，可是当他注意到艾默里炯炯有神的双眼正转过来看着自己的时候，他的笑声便戛然而止。

“你笑什么？”

“这些知识分子——”

“你知道这意味着什么吗？”

小个子男人的眼睛紧张地眨了几下。

“哦，这通常意味着——”

“这始终意味着一个人有头脑，受过良好的教育，”艾默里打断了他的话，“这意味着对人类经验的积极知识有一定的储备。”艾默里决心要出言不逊。他转身对着大个子。“那个年轻人，”他用大拇指指向那位秘书，用人们招呼旅馆门童的语气说起年轻人，却丝毫没有“年轻”的意思，“对当下通常都是一知半解。”

“你反对资本控制出版业吗？”大个子问道，戴着护目镜的眼睛直直地盯着他。

“是的——我不愿意为这些人提供脑力劳动。在我看来，我周围所有商业运作的根本就是雇佣一批俯首听命的新手，要他们加班加点地干活儿，付给他们少得可怜的薪水。”

“说到这里，”大个子说，“你不得不承认干体力活儿的劳工工资是很高的——每天工作五六个小时——这很荒唐。你无法用这些钱，从工会那里买到一个人一整天的诚实劳动。”

“你们是自找的，”艾默里坚持自己的看法，“如果不把他们压榨干净，你们这些人是不会罢休的。”

“哪些人？”

“你这个阶层的人；我直到最近还是这个阶层的一员；那些通过继承遗产，或者勤奋努力，或者聪明才智，或者投机倒把，成为有产阶级的人。”

“假如那边的修路工人有了一笔钱，你认为他们会愿意放弃不要吗？”

“不会，但是这跟我们说的有什么关系？”

年长的这位考虑了一会儿。

“没有，我必须承认确实没有关系。尽管听起来好像有关系。”

“实际上，”艾默里继续说道，“他会过得更糟。底层阶级的人心胸更狭隘，更难与人相处，而且就个人来说也更为自私——毫无疑问也更为愚蠢。可所有这些跟我们说的问题没有丝毫关系。”

“我们说的到底是什么问题？”

说到这里，艾默里也不得不停下，思考当初讨论的到底是什么问题。

艾默里生造了一个词语

“一个有头脑且受过良好教育的人一旦被生活钳制，”艾默里慢条斯理地开了头，“就是说，一旦他结了婚，就现存的社会条件而言，十有八九他就变成了一个保守派。他也许不自私，心地善良，哪怕对于他个人而言，但是他的第一要务就是养家糊口，不能松懈。他的妻子催促着他，从一年挣一万到一年挣两万，如此不停地挣钱，在一个没有窗户的封闭环境中做着单调乏味的工作。他就这样了！生活已经抓住了他！他已经没救了！他已经成为一个精神上的已婚人士了。”

艾默里停顿了一下，认为自己造的这个词儿不算蹩脚。

“有些人，”他继续说道，“逃脱了生活的钳制。也许他们的妻子没有社会野心；也许他们在一本喜欢的‘危险读物’上读到一两句发人深省的话；也许他们像我一样，刚一开始那种单调乏味的工作就被踢了出来。不管怎么说，他们会成为你不能收买的国会议员，成为不是政客的总统，成为作家、演说家、科学家，成为真正的，而非福袋式的政治领袖，不必靠碰运气去赢得五六个女人和孩子的喜爱。”

“他是天生的激进分子吗？”

“没错，”艾默里说道，“他会是各色不同的人物，从像老桑顿·汉考克那样理想幻灭的批评家，到托洛茨基都有可能。现在这位精神上的未婚人士并没有直接的权力，因为那些精神上的已婚人士已经将畅销报纸、通俗杂志、有影响力的周刊都纳入麾下，这是他们追求金钱的副产品——于是报纸太太、杂志太太、周刊太太便坐上了比马路对面的石油业老板或者街角的水泥商人更为高档的豪华轿车。”

“为什么不呢？”

“这样一来，有钱人就会成为这个世界上知识分子良知的保管人，当然，一个在某种社会制度中拥有资产的人，自然不会冒着家破人亡的风险，让另一套社会制度的闹剧见诸报端。”

“但最终还是见报了。”大个子说道。

“登在什么地方？——在那些没有信用的媒体上。在腐坏堕落、质量低劣的周刊上。”

“好吧——接着说。”

“哦，我要说的第一点是，基于把家庭放在首位的一系列条件的综合考虑，产生了两种不同的思维模式。一种是较为自然地看待人性，利用人性的胆怯，人性的弱点和优势，去达到自己的目的。与之相对的是另一种思维，一个精神上的未婚人士会不断地寻求新的体系，控制或者对抗人性。他所面临的问题要更为棘手。复杂的不是生活本身，而是试图引导、控制生活的抗争。这就是他的抗争。他会成为进步的一部分——那个精神上的已婚人士则不是。”

大个子取出三支雪茄，放在他宽大的手掌上递给他们。小个子拿了一支，艾默里摇了摇头，伸手掏出一支香烟。

“接着往下说，”大个子说，“我一直想听你们这样的人谈谈。”

加快速度

“现代生活，”艾默里又接着说道，“不再是一个世纪不同于上一个世纪，而是每年都有日新月异的变化，变化速度比以前要快十倍——人口翻倍，不同的文明之间连接得更加紧密，经济上相互依赖，种族问题，还有——我们还不紧不慢，拖拖拉拉。我的看法是我们必须快马加鞭，走得更快些。”他略微加重了最后几个字的语气，司机就下意识地提高了车速。艾默里和大个子都笑了起来；过了一会儿，小个子也笑起来。

“每个小孩，”艾默里说，“都应该有一个同等的起点。如果他的父亲能够赋予他强壮的体魄，他的母亲在他早年的教育中教给他一些常识，这也应该算是他继承的禀赋。如果父亲无法给他强壮的体魄，如果母亲在她原本应该全身心教育子女的时候，还在追逐男人，这对于孩子来说实在是命运不济。他的成长不应该是被金钱主导的揠苗助长，他也不应该被送到那些骇人听闻的辅导学校去受罪，然后在大学里蹉跎岁月——每个孩子都应该有同等的起点。”

“说下去。”大个子说道，从他的护目镜上，看不出他是表示赞同还是反对。

“接下来，我要全力试行所有产业的政府所有权制。”

“这已经被证明是行不通的。”

“不对——它只是曾经失败过。如果我们推行政府所有权制，政府就具备了最善于分析的商业人才，他们将会为自身之外的某个目标而卖力工作。我们就会启用麦凯式的人才，而不是伯尔逊那样的人；财政部门就会有像摩根这样的人才；我们会启用希尔这样的人来管理州与州之间的贸易；我们会让最优秀的律师变成参议员。”[169]

“他们可不会无偿地付出尽心尽力的劳动。小麦卡杜[170]——”

“那是当然，”艾默里一边说，一边摇了摇头，“金钱并不是唯一能驱使人发挥最大潜力的东西，即使是在美国。”

“你刚才还说是呢。”

“目前是的。但是如果超过一定数额的所得被认定为违法，那些优秀人才就会对另一个极具吸引力的奖赏——荣誉——趋之若鹜。”

大个子嘴里发出一个声音，听起来很像是“咘”。

“这是你的高谈阔论中最为荒唐的一句。”

“不，这并不荒唐。这是切实可行的。假如你上过大学就会深有体会，那里有上百种微不足道的荣誉，人们会为了其中的任何一个刻苦努力，其用功的程度是那些为了养家糊口而拼命挣钱的人的两倍。”

“他们还小——那都是在玩游戏！”他的对手轻蔑地说。

“一点儿都不是闹着玩——除非我们大家都是小孩子。你有没有见过一个成年人想要加入一个秘密组织——或者一个新兴家族要将自己的名字加入某个俱乐部？他们在听到自己名字的时候会高兴得跳起来。把金钱放在一个人的眼前去激励他努力工作，这只是一种观念，并非公理。我们依此行事的时间太久，以致已经忘了还有别的办法。我们甚至还创造出了让这种观念大行其道的世界。我来告诉你”——艾默里加重了语气——“假如有十个人做了同样的投保，为避免他们太过富裕，或者贫困饿死，然后一天工作五小时就颁发一条绿绶带，一天工作十个小时就颁发一条蓝绶带，那么十个人中有九个人都会去争取蓝绶带。这种竞争的本能只是想获得一个奖章。如果他们房子的大小成为奖章，他们挤破脑袋也要去争取。即使只是一条蓝绶带，我差不多也相信他们会一样努力。他们在别的年代也一样。”

“我不同意你的说法。”

“我知道，”艾默里伤心地点了点头，“不过这已经不重要了。我相信这些人马上就会来拿他们想要的东西了。”

小个子发出一声尖厉的嘘声。

“机关枪！”

“啊，不过你已经教过他们怎么用了。”

大个子摇了摇头。

“这个国家有不少私有财产者，他们绝不会允许这种事情发生。”

艾默里真希望他能了解关于财产所有者和非财产所有者的数据；他决定换个话题。

但是，大个子来了兴致。

“当你说‘来拿他们想要的东西’时，你已经处于危险的境地了。”

“不拿走怎么能得到？多少年来人们都被承诺给搪塞过去了。你必须要制造轰动效应去吸引人们的注意。”

“我猜，俄国就是你仁慈暴力的典范？”

“非常可能，”艾默里坦承，“当然，它就像当初的法国大革命一样有些过了头，但是我毫不怀疑这是一个真正伟大的试验，很值得一试。”

“你难道不相信温和手段吗？”

“你不能听信温和派的主张，而且实际上也已经太晚了。事情真相是公众已经完成了一件百年一遇的英雄壮举。他们懂得了一个道理，并紧抓住它不放。”

“什么道理？”

“人和人之间不管在智力和才干上有怎样的差别，他们的肚子在本质上都是一样的。”

小个子遭到批驳

“如果你把全世界的钱集中起来，”小个子高深莫测地说道，“然后平均分给——”

“哦，住嘴！”艾默里直截了当地说，根本没有注意小个子对他怒目而视的样子，他继续阐发自己的观点。

“人的肚子——”他说道；但是大个子很不耐烦地打断了他。

“我可以让你说下去，你知道，”他说，“但是请不要再提肚子的事情。我整整一天都对自己的肚子有切身的感受。不管怎么说，你说的话我有一半都不敢苟同。政府所有制是你一切论调的基础，但是它不可避免地会成为腐败的温床。人们不会为了蓝绶带而拼命工作，那是一派胡言。”

他一说完，小个子就果断地点了点头，好像这一次下定决心要说出自己的想法。

“世界上有一种叫作人性的东西，”他露出一副跟猫头鹰一样的神情，断言说，“一直存在着，过去有，将来永远会有，绝不可能改变。”

艾默里无可奈何地看看小个子，又看看大个子。

“你听听这个话！这就是我对进步感到灰心丧气的原因。听听这个话！我随口就可以说出一百多种被人的意志改变的自然现象——还可以说出一百种被文明消灭或者遏制的人的本能。这个人刚才说的话千百年来一直是世界上那些笨蛋的最后避难所。这句话否定了每一位科学家、政治家、道德家、改革家、医生和哲学家为了服务人类所做出的奉献和牺牲。这是对人性中一切可取之处的断然指责。每一个超过二十五岁的成年人，如果冷酷无情地发表这种言论，都应该被剥夺公民权。”

小个子靠在座位椅背上，气得脸色发紫。艾默里则对着大个子，继续发表他的看法。

“像你这位朋友一样只受过半吊子教育、思想迂腐的人，总是认为他们很懂；一遇到问题，你都会发现他们一如既往地糊里糊涂，满脑子糨糊。他们一会儿说‘那些普鲁士人的野蛮和凶残’——一会儿又说‘我们应该把日耳曼人完全铲除’。他们总是认为‘现在世风日下’，但是他们‘对于那些理想主义者没有任何信心’。他们刚刚说威尔逊‘是个幻想家，不切实际’——一年之后又怒斥他把梦想变成了现实。他们除了对所有的变化持一种顽固的反对态度之外，对任何一个话题都没有清晰的逻辑观点。他们认为没有受过教育的人不应该获得高薪，但是他们不明白，如果没有受过教育的人无法获得足够的薪水，他们的子女将同样无法接受教育，我们就会陷入一个无休止的循环当中。这——就是伟大的中产阶级。”

大个子笑得合不拢嘴，他俯身对着小个子微笑。

“你狠狠地挨了一顿骂，加文，感觉怎么样？”

小个子试图露出一个微笑，假装整件事情荒谬至极，根本不值一提。但是艾默里不依不饶。

“民众适合进行自我管理的理论就靠这个人来验证了。如果他能够进行自我教育，学会清晰、简洁、合理地思考问题，改掉借用陈词滥调、偏见和感情用事来寻求掩护的恶习，那么我就会成为一名激进的社会主义者。如果他做不到，那么我认为一切都无关紧要，不管人类和人类的社会制度发生什么改变，现在或是以后，都无关紧要了。”

“我既感到有趣，又觉得好笑，”大个子说，“你实在太年轻了。”

“这句话可能只意味着，当代经验既没有让我腐坏堕落，也没有让我变得胆怯。我拥有最为宝贵的经验，那是全人类的经验，因为尽管我上了大学，我还是尽力获得了良好的教育。”

“你满嘴油腔滑调。”

“这可不是胡说八道，”艾默里情绪激动地叫了起来，“这是我有生以来第一次跟人讨论社会主义。这是我所知的唯一一种济世良药。我整个人躁动不安。我们这一代人都躁动不安。在当今的制度下，最有钱的人只要他愿意就能得到最漂亮的姑娘，没有收入的艺术家只能在纽扣工厂里出卖自己的才能，我厌恶这样的制度。即使我一无所长，我也不会心甘情愿地干十年活儿，最后落得孤家寡人，或者偷偷放纵的下场，只不过为了给某个人家的公子生产一辆汽车。”

“可是，如果你还不能确定——”

“那也不要紧，”艾默里大声喊道，“我的状况不可能更糟了。一场社会革命没准儿会让我置身上层。当然我很自私。在太多陈旧的体制下，我觉得自己好像一条离开了水的鱼。在班上二十几人中，我也许算得上在大学里受过良好教育的一个；然而，他们只允许那些接受过专门辅导的笨蛋去打橄榄球，而我则没有资格，因为几个愚蠢的老家伙认为我们都应该从学习圆锥曲线中获益。我憎恨军队。我厌恶商业。我喜欢变革，而且我已经扼杀了我的良知——”

“所以你还是会一路高呼我们必须再快一点。”

“至少，这一点没错，”艾默里坚持说，“变革是跟不上文明的需要的，除非是有意为之。自由放任的政策，就好像宠溺一个孩子，告诉他到时候终归会好的。他会变好的——假如他是如此被塑造的。”

“不过，你对于自己这些社会主义的废话也不是全信的。”

“我不知道。在和你们交流之前我还从未认认真真地考虑过这个问题。我对自己说的这些话也是半信半疑。”

“你让我感到困惑，”大个子说，“但是你们很相像。他们说萧伯纳，暂且不说他的信条，对待他的版税是所有剧作家中最较真儿的。半个便士都不能少。”

“嗯，”艾默里说，“我只是想说，我是这躁动不安的一代人中一个头脑灵活的家伙——有充分的理由让我的头脑和笔杆与激进分子为伍。即使，在我的内心深处，我觉得我们不过是这个世界上盲目的微粒，就像钟摆的摆动一样处处受到限制，我和我的同道们会一起反抗传统；至少，要设法用新的话语替代旧的虚伪言辞。我在许多不同的时期都考虑过，认为自己对生活的认识是正确的，但是选择一个信仰很困难。有一点我是知道的。生活如果不是一段追寻圣杯的旅程，就很可能是一场搞笑的游戏。”

两人都沉默了一会儿，接着大个子问道：

“你读的哪所大学？”

“普林斯顿。”

大个子突然间有了兴致；他护目镜下的表情有了一点改变。

“我把儿子也送到了普林斯顿。”

“是吗？”

“也许你认识他。他的名字叫杰西·菲伦比。他去年在法国阵亡了。”

“我和他很熟。实际上，他是我一个特别的朋友。”

“他是——一个——很优秀的孩子。我们很亲密。”

艾默里开始看出这位父亲和已故儿子之间的相像之处，他心里对自己说，他一直觉得自己与这位父亲有一种熟悉感。杰西·菲伦比在大学的时候就摘得了他向往已久的桂冠。那些都是陈年往事了。他们那时是多么天真的小孩，为了蓝绶带而奋斗——

汽车在一所大庄园的门口慢慢停下，庄园被高大的树篱和铁丝网环绕。

“进去一起用午餐好吗？”

艾默里摇了摇头。

“谢谢你，菲伦比先生，但是我得继续赶路了。”

大个子伸出手来。艾默里发现，他和杰西是旧识这件事，把因为他的观点造成的不快一扫而光。人们的相处是多么古怪！就连小个子都坚持要和他握手。

“再见！”菲伦比先生高声喊道，那时车子已经转了弯，上了车道。“好运与你相伴，坏运和你的理论相伴。”

“也祝您好运，先生。”艾默里大喊道，一边微笑一边挥着手。

“离开炉火，走出小屋”[171]

距离普林斯顿还有八小时路程的时候，艾默里在新泽西的马路边坐了下来，望着四周经历霜冻的乡间田野。鲜花和虫蚁构成的这一幅粗糙的自然图景，细看之下能发现花朵被蛾子啃噬的痕迹，蚂蚁在草叶上无休止地来回穿行，这景象难免让人失望；相比之下，蓝天碧水以及水天相接的遥远地平线所代表的自然则更让人喜欢。霜冻和冬天的迫近让他感到阵阵寒意，也让他想起了圣瑞吉斯中学和格罗顿中学的那场激烈的球赛，那是好多年前了，是七年前——还有一年前在法国的一个秋日，那时他趴在高茂的草丛中，他同排的战友都在他身边不远处伏卧在地，等待时机去拍一个名叫路易斯的炮手的肩膀。这两幅画面同时浮现在他的脑海中，心里涌动着几乎相同的原始兴奋——这是他玩过的两场游戏，艰苦卓绝的程度有所不同，但彼此关联，它们和罗萨琳德以及迷宫的主题有所区别，毕竟后两者都是人生的大事。

“我很自私。”他思忖着。

“这是一种不会改变的特性，即使在我‘看到人类的疾苦’或者‘失去双亲’或者‘帮助别人’的时候。

“这种自私不仅仅是我的一部分。它是我最为鲜活的部分。

“正是通过超越而非躲避这种自私，我才得以在生活中找到支撑和平衡。

“世上并没有不能为我所用的无私美德。我可以做出牺牲，可以慷慨大方，可以施济友人，可以为朋友忍受苦难，可以为朋友献出生命——这都是因为这些事可能是最能表达自我的方式；然而我身上没有一滴人情的乳汁[172]。”

对于艾默里来说，邪恶的问题都可以归结为性的问题。他开始将布鲁克和威尔斯早期作品中的阴茎崇拜与邪恶等同起来。与邪恶密不可分的是美——美，依然是越来越强、持续不安的躁动；埃莉诺声音的柔美，夜里听到的一首老歌的温柔，这些美狂乱恣意地穿透生命，就像叠加在一起的瀑布，一半是和谐，一半是黑暗。艾默里明白，每次他抑制不住内心的渴望要靠近它的时候，它邪恶而怪异的面孔便会睨视着他。伟大艺术的美，一切欢乐的美，尤其是女人的美。

毕竟，美与放纵和沉溺有千丝万缕的联系。脆弱的事物往往是美丽的，但它绝不美好。他此刻正处于一种新的孤独情绪中，不管他日后取得怎样的成就，这种孤独早已命中注定，深陷在孤独中，美必定是相对的，或者美自身是和谐的，它只会给整体带来一丝不协调的和弦。

从某种意义上说，在幻想完全破灭之后，对美的逐渐放弃是他走出的第二步。他感到自己正在将成为某种艺术家的理想抛在了身后。成为某一种类型的人似乎要比成为某种艺术家重要得多。

他的思想突然间有了一次转弯，他意识到自己开始考虑罗马天主教。他强烈地感受到，正统宗教之所以对于有些人必不可少，那是因为这些人身上存在一种内在的缺陷，而宗教对于艾默里来说就意味着罗马天主教。不难想见，尽管它是一种空洞的仪式，但它似乎是对抗道德沦丧唯一有包容力的传统堡垒。在大批民众能够接受道德教化之前，必须有一个人高喊：“你切莫！”然而，就目前而言，皈依是不可能的。他需要时间，也需要外在压力的消失。他希望这棵树能免于被修饰，沿着这个新开端的方向和势头充分发展。

下午渐渐逝去，午后三点的濯秀风光已经变成了四点的金色美景。后来，他踩着落日的余晖一路走来，身体仿佛穿过一种麻木的痛感。残阳如血，他在薄暮中来到了一片墓园。空气中弥散着花的香气，如柔和的梦幻般缥缈，天上隐约有一轮新月，地上暗影憧憧。他一时冲动，想要打开位于山腰上的一处地下墓穴的锈迹斑斑的铁门；墓穴被冲洗得很干净，上面覆盖着一种晚开的花，让人伤感的水蓝色的花，它或许是从死人的眼睛里长出来的，摸起来黏糊糊的，有一股让人作呕的味道。

艾默里想摸一摸那块写着“威廉·戴菲尔德，一八六四”的石碑。

他很好奇，坟墓是否会让人感到生命的徒劳。不管怎样，他并没有在他的生命中感到任何的无望。所有的断柱残垣，紧紧握住的手，飞鸽与天使都代表着浪漫。他幻想着一百年后，他能让那时的年轻人揣测他的眼睛到底是棕色还是蓝色，他还满怀激情地希望，他的坟墓会笼罩着一种许多许多年以前的、久远的气氛。他感到有些奇怪，在一排联邦政府军士兵的坟墓中，有两三个让他想起了消失的爱情和逝去的恋人，可是它们看起来和其他的并无差别，即使是上面泛黄的苔藓都一模一样。

午夜已过去了很久，普林斯顿校园里的塔楼和尖顶依然可见，里面稀稀落落还亮着几盏熬夜苦读的灯——可是突然之间，在清静的黑暗之中，传来了钟声。钟声像无休止的梦境一样绵延不绝；昔日的精神在新一代人的心头萦绕，他们是从这纷繁芜杂、放任自流的世界中挑选出来的年轻一代，依然浪漫地从那些已故的政治家和诗人的错误和残梦里汲取养分。这里有崭新的一代，他们高喊着旧日的口号，学习着旧有的信条，在漫长的日日夜夜的遐想中送走流年；他们注定最终要投入污秽昏暗的骚乱之中，去追寻爱与尊严；他们这新的一代比上一代人更加惧怕贫穷，更为崇拜成功；他们长大成人，发现所有的神都已死去，所有的仗都已打完，所有的信仰都已动摇……

艾默里为他们感到难过，却没为自己感到难过——艺术、政治、宗教，不管他将借助怎样的媒介，他知道自己此刻已经安全了，不会再歇斯底里——他能够接受那些可接受的，漫游，成长，叛逆，在许多个夜晚沉沉睡去……

他知道，在他的心中没有神；他的思想依旧是一片混乱；记忆中的痛苦一直都在；青春逝去的悔恨一直都在——然而，幻灭的潮水在他的灵魂上留下了沉积物——责任感，对生命的热爱，仍在微微颤动的旧日的雄心壮志和没有实现的梦想。可是——哦，罗萨琳德！罗萨琳德！……

“所有的一切最多也不过是个拙劣的替代品。”他伤心地说道。

他还是无法说清楚为什么奋斗是值得的，他为什么决心要竭尽全力发挥自己的潜能，为什么要利用那些他生命中的过客留给他的遗产……

他对着透明的、熠熠闪动的苍穹伸出双臂。

“我了解我自己，”他大喊道，“但仅此而已。”

...Well this side of Paradise!...

There’s little comfort in the wise.

—Rupert Brooke

Experience is the name so many people

give to their mistakes.

—Oscar Wilde

To SIGOURNEY FAY

BOOK ONE—The Romantic Egotist

Chapter 1　Amory, Son of Beatrice

Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while. His father, an ineffectual, inarticulate man with a taste for Byron and a habit of drowsing over the Encyclopaedia Britannica, grew wealthy at thirty through the death of two elder brothers, successful Chicago brokers, and in the first flush of feeling that the world was his, went to Bar Harbor and met Beatrice O’Hara. In consequence, Stephen Blaine handed down to posterity his height of just under six feet and his tendency to waver at crucial moments, these two abstractions appearing in his son Amory. For many years he hovered in the background of his family’s life, an unassertive figure with a face half-obliterated by lifeless, silky hair, continually occupied in “taking care” of his wife, continually harassed by the idea that he didn’t and couldn’t understand her.

But Beatrice Blaine! There was a woman! Early pictures taken on her father’s estate at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, or in Rome at the Sacred Heart Convent—an educational extravagance that in her youth was only for the daughters of the exceptionally wealthy—showed the exquisite delicacy of her features, the consummate art and simplicity of her clothes. A brilliant education she had—her youth passed in renaissance glory, she was versed in the latest gossip of the Older Roman Families; known by name as a fabulously wealthy American girl to Cardinal Vitori and Queen Margherita and more subtle celebrities that one must have had some culture even to have heard of. She learned in England to prefer whiskey and soda to wine, and her small talk was broadened in two senses during a winter in Vienna. All in all Beatrice O’Hara absorbed the sort of education that will be quite impossible ever again; a tutelage measured by the number of things and people one could be contemptuous of and charming about; a culture rich in all arts and traditions, barren of all ideas, in the last of those days when the great gardener clipped the inferior roses to produce one perfect bud.

In her less important moments she returned to America, met Stephen Blaine and married him—this almost entirely because she was a little bit weary, a little bit sad. Her only child was carried through a tiresome season and brought into the world on a spring day in ninety-six.

When Amory was five he was already a delightful companion for her. He was an auburn-haired boy, with great, handsome eyes which he would grow up to in time, a facile imaginative mind and a taste for fancy dress. From his fourth to his tenth year he did the country with his mother in her father’s private car, from Coronado, where his mother became so bored that she had a nervous breakdown in a fashionable hotel, down to Mexico City, where she took a mild, almost epidemic consumption. This trouble pleased her, and later she made use of it as an intrinsic part of her atmosphere—especially after several astounding bracers.

So, while more or less fortunate little rich boys were defying governesses on the beach at Newport, or being spanked or tutored or read to from “Do and Dare,” or “Frank on the Mississippi,” Amory was biting acquiescent bell-boys in the Waldorf, outgrowing a natural repugnance to chamber music and symphonies, and deriving a highly specialized education from his mother.

“Amory.”

“Yes, Beatrice.” (Such a quaint name for his mother; she encouraged it.)

“Dear, don’t think of getting out of bed yet. I’ve always suspected that early rising in early life makes one nervous. Clothilde is having your breakfast brought up.”

“All right.”

“I am feeling very old to-day, Amory,” she would sigh, her face a rare cameo of pathos, her voice exquisitely modulated, her hands as facile as Bernhardt’s. “My nerves are on edge—on edge. We must leave this terrifying place to-morrow and go searching for sunshine.”

Amory’s penetrating green eyes would look out through tangled hair at his mother. Even at this age he had no illusions about her.

“Amory.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I want you to take a red-hot bath—as hot as you can bear it, and just relax your nerves. You can read in the tub if you wish.”

She fed him sections of the “Fêtes Galantes” before he was ten; at eleven he could talk glibly, if rather reminiscently, of Brahms and Mozart and Beethoven. One afternoon, when left alone in the hotel at Hot Springs, he sampled his mother’s apricot cordial, and as the taste pleased him, he became quite tipsy. This was fun for a while, but he essayed a cigarette in his exaltation, and succumbed to a vulgar, plebeian reaction. Though this incident horrified Beatrice, it also secretly amused her and became part of what in a later generation would have been termed her “line.”

“This son of mine,” he heard her tell a room full of awestruck, admiring women one day, “is entirely sophisticated and quite charming—but delicate—we’re all delicate; here, you know.” Her hand was radiantly outlined against her beautiful bosom; then sinking her voice to a whisper, she told them of the apricot cordial. They rejoiced, for she was a brave raconteuse, but many were the keys turned in sideboard locks that night against the possible defection of little Bobby or Barbara....

These domestic pilgrimages were invariably in state; two maids, the private car, or Mr. Blaine when available, and very often a physician. When Amory had the whooping-cough four disgusted specialists glared at each other hunched around his bed; when he took scarlet fever the number of attendants, including physicians and nurses, totalled fourteen. However, blood being thicker than broth, he was pulled through.

The Blaines were attached to no city. They were the Blaines of Lake Geneva; they had quite enough relatives to serve in place of friends, and an enviable standing from Pasadena to Cape Cod. But Beatrice grew more and more prone to like only new acquaintances, as there were certain stories, such as the history of her constitution and its many amendments, memories of her years abroad, that it was necessary for her to repeat at regular intervals. Like Freudian dreams, they must be thrown off, else they would sweep in and lay siege to her nerves. But Beatrice was critical about American women, especially the floating population of ex-Westerners.

“They have accents, my dear,” she told Amory, “not Southern accents or Boston accents, not an accent attached to any locality, just an accent”—she became dreamy. “They pick up old, moth-eaten London accents that are down on their luck and have to be used by some one. They talk as an English butler might after several years in a Chicago grand-opera company.” She became almost incoherent—“Suppose—time in every Western woman’s life—she feels her husband is prosperous enough for her to have—accent—they try to impress me, my dear—”

Though she thought of her body as a mass of frailties, she considered her soul quite as ill, and therefore important in her life. She had once been a Catholic, but discovering that priests were infinitely more attentive when she was in process of losing or regaining faith in Mother Church, she maintained an enchantingly wavering attitude. Often she deplored the bourgeois quality of the American Catholic clergy, and was quite sure that had she lived in the shadow of the great Continental cathedrals her soul would still be a thin flame on the mighty altar of Rome. Still, next to doctors, priests were her favorite sport.

“Ah, Bishop Wiston,” she would declare, “I do not want to talk of myself. I can imagine the stream of hysterical women fluttering at your doors, beseeching you to be simpatico”—then after an interlude filled by the clergyman—“but my mood—is—oddly dissimilar.”

Only to bishops and above did she divulge her clerical romance. When she had first returned to her country there had been a pagan, Swinburnian young man in Asheville, for whose passionate kisses and unsentimental conversations she had taken a decided penchant—they had discussed the matter pro and con with an intellectual romancing quite devoid of sappiness. Eventually she had decided to marry for background, and the young pagan from Asheville had gone through a spiritual crisis, joined the Catholic Church, and was now—Monsignor Darcy.

“Indeed, Mrs. Blaine, he is still delightful company—quite the cardinal’s right-hand man.”

“Amory will go to him one day, I know,” breathed the beautiful lady, “and Monsignor Darcy will understand him as he understood me.”

Amory became thirteen, rather tall and slender, and more than ever on to his Celtic mother. He had tutored occasionally—the idea being that he was to “keep up,” at each place “taking up the work where he left off,” yet as no tutor ever found the place he left off, his mind was still in very good shape. What a few more years of this life would have made of him is problematical. However, four hours out from land, Italy bound, with Beatrice, his appendix burst, probably from too many meals in bed, and after a series of frantic telegrams to Europe and America, to the amazement of the passengers the great ship slowly wheeled around and returned to New York to deposit Amory at the pier. You will admit that if it was not life it was magnificent.

After the operation Beatrice had a nervous breakdown that bore a suspicious resemblance to delirium tremens, and Amory was left in Minneapolis, destined to spend the ensuing two years with his aunt and uncle. There the crude, vulgar air of Western civilization first catches him—in his underwear, so to speak.

*****

A Kiss for Amory

His lip curled when he read it.

“I am going to have a bobbing party,” it said, “on Thursday, December the seventeenth, at five o’clock, and I would like it very much if you could come.

Yours truly,

R. S. V.P.

Myra St. Claire.”

He had been two months in Minneapolis, and his chief struggle had been the concealing from “the other guys at school” how particularly superior he felt himself to be, yet this conviction was built upon shifting sands. He had shown off one day in French class (he was in senior French class) to the utter confusion of Mr. Reardon, whose accent Amory damned contemptuously, and to the delight of the class. Mr. Reardon, who had spent several weeks in Paris ten years before, took his revenge on the verbs, whenever he had his book open. But another time Amory showed off in history class, with quite disastrous results, for the boys there were his own age, and they shrilled innuendoes at each other all the following week:

“Aw—I b’lieve, doncherknow, the Umuricun revolution was lawgely an affair of the middul clawses,” or “Washington came of very good blood—aw, quite good—I b’lieve.”

Amory ingeniously tried to retrieve himself by blundering on purpose. Two years before he had commenced a history of the United States which, though it only got as far as the Colonial Wars, had been pronounced by his mother completely enchanting.

His chief disadvantage lay in athletics, but as soon as he discovered that it was the touchstone of power and popularity at school, he began to make furious, persistent efforts to excel in the winter sports, and with his ankles aching and bending in spite of his efforts, he skated valiantly around the Lorelie rink every afternoon, wondering how soon he would be able to carry a hockey-stick without getting it inexplicably tangled in his skates.

The invitation to Miss Myra St. Claire’s bobbing party spent the morning in his coat pocket, where it had an intense physical affair with a dusty piece of peanut brittle. During the afternoon he brought it to light with a sigh, and after some consideration and a preliminary draft in the back of Collar and Daniel’s “First-Year Latin,” composed an answer:

My dear Miss St. Claire:

Your truly charming invitation for the evening of next Thursday evening was truly delightful to receive this morning. I will be charm and enchanted indeed to present my compliments on next Thursday evening.

Faithfully,

Amory Blaine.

On Thursday, therefore, he walked pensively along the slippery, shovel-scraped sidewalks, and came in sight of Myra’s house, on the half-hour after five, a lateness which he fancied his mother would have favored. He waited on the door-step with his eyes nonchalantly half-closed, and planned his entrance with precision. He would cross the floor, not too hastily, to Mrs. St. Claire, and say with exactly the correct modulation:

“My dear Mrs. St. Claire, I’m frightfully sorry to be late, but my maid”—he paused there and realized he would be quoting—“but my uncle and I had to see a fella—Yes, I’ve met your enchanting daughter at dancing-school.”

Then he would shake hands, using that slight, half-foreign bow, with all the starchy little females, and nod to the fellas who would be standing’round, paralyzed into rigid groups for mutual protection.

A butler (one of the three in Minneapolis) swung open the door. Amory stepped inside and divested himself of cap and coat. He was mildly surprised not to hear the shrill squawk of conversation from the next room, and he decided it must be quite formal. He approved of that—as he approved of the butler.

“Miss Myra,” he said.

To his surprise the butler grinned horribly.

“Oh, yeah,” he declared, “she’s here.” He was unaware that his failure to be cockney was ruining his standing. Amory considered him coldly.

“But,” continued the butler, his voice rising unnecessarily, “she’s the only one what is here. The party’s gone.” Amory gasped in sudden horror.

“What?”

“She’s been waitin’for Amory Blaine. That’s you, ain’t it?Her mother says that if you showed up by five-thirty you two was to go after’em in the Packard.”

Amory’s despair was crystallized by the appearance of Myra herself, bundled to the ears in a polo coat, her face plainly sulky, her voice pleasant only with difficulty.

“ ’Lo, Amory.”

“ ’Lo, Myra.” He had described the state of his vitality.

“Well—you got here, anyways.”

“Well—I’ll tell you. I guess you don’t know about the auto accident,” he romanced.

Myra’s eyes opened wide.

“Who was it to?”

“Well,” he continued desperately, “uncle’n aunt’n I.”

“Was any one killed?”

Amory paused and then nodded.

“Your uncle?”—alarm.

“Oh, no just a horse—a sorta gray horse.”

At this point the Erse butler snickered.

“Probably killed the engine,” he suggested. Amory would have put him on the rack without a scruple.

“We’ll go now,” said Myra coolly. “You see, Amory, the bobs were ordered for five and everybody was here, so we couldn’t wait—”

“Well, I couldn’t help it, could I?”

“So mama said for me to wait till ha’past five. We’ll catch the bobs before it gets to the Minnehaha Club, Amory.”

Amory’s shredded poise dropped from him. He pictured the happy party jingling along snowy streets, the appearance of the limousine, the horrible public descent of him and Myra before sixty reproachful eyes, his apology—a real one this time. He sighed aloud.

“What?”inquired Myra.

“Nothing. I was just yawning. Are we going to surely catch up with’em before they get there?”He was encouraging a faint hope that they might slip into the Minnehaha Club and meet the others there, be found in blasé seclusion before the fire and quite regain his lost attitude.

“Oh, sure Mike, we’ll catch’em all right—let’s hurry.”

He became conscious of his stomach. As they stepped into the machine he hurriedly slapped the paint of diplomacy over a rather box-like plan he had conceived. It was based upon some “trade-lasts” gleaned at dancing-school, to the effect that he was “awful good-looking and English, sort of.”

“Myra,” he said, lowering his voice and choosing his words carefully, “I beg a thousand pardons. Can you ever forgive me?”

She regarded him gravely, his intent green eyes, his mouth, that to her thirteen-year-old, arrow-collar taste was the quintessence of romance. Yes, Myra could forgive him very easily.

“Why—yes—sure.”

He looked at her again, and then dropped his eyes. He had lashes.

“I’m awful,” he said sadly. “I’m diff’runt. I don’t know why I make faux pas.’Cause I don’t care, I s’pose.” Then, recklessly: “I been smoking too much. I’ve got t’bacca heart.”

Myra pictured an all-night tobacco debauch, with Amory pale and reeling from the effect of nicotined lungs. She gave a little gasp.

“Oh, Amory, don’t smoke. You’ll stunt your growth!”

“I don’t care,” he persisted gloomily. “I gotta. I got the habit. I’ve done a lot of things that if my fambly knew”—he hesitated, giving her imagination time to picture dark horrors—“I went to the burlesque show last week.”

Myra was quite overcome. He turned the green eyes on her again.

“You’re the only girl in town I like much,” he exclaimed in a rush of sentiment. “You’re simpatico.”

Myra was not sure that she was, but it sounded stylish though vaguely improper.

Thick dusk had descended outside, and as the limousine made a sudden turn she was jolted against him; their hands touched.

“You shouldn’t smoke, Amory,” she whispered. “Don’t you know that?”

He shook his head.

“Nobody cares.”

Myra hesitated.

“I care.”

Something stirred within Amory.

“Oh, yes, you do! You got a crush on Froggy Parker. I guess everybody knows that.”

“No, I haven’t,” very slowly.

A silence, while Amory thrilled. There was something fascinating about Myra, shut away here cosily from the dim, chill air. Myra, a little bundle of clothes, with strands of yellow hair curling out from under her skating cap.

“Because I’ve got a crush, too—”He paused, for he heard in the distance the sound of young laughter, and, peering through the frosted glass along the lamp-lit street, he made out the dark outline of the bobbing party. He must act quickly. He reached over with a violent, jerky effort, and clutched Myra’s hand—her thumb, to be exact.

“Tell him to go to the Minnehaha straight,” he whispered. “I wanta talk to you—I got to talk to you.”

Myra made out the party ahead, had an instant vision of her mother, and then—alas for convention—glanced into the eyes beside.

“Turn down this side street, Richard, and drive straight to the Minnehaha Club!” she cried through the speaking tube. Amory sank back against the cushions with a sigh of relief.

“I can kiss her,” he thought. “I’ll bet I can. I’ll bet I can!”

Overhead the sky was half crystalline, half misty, and the night around was chill and vibrant with rich tension. From the Country Club steps the roads stretched away, dark creases on the white blanket; huge heaps of snow lining the sides like the tracks of giant moles. They lingered for a moment on the steps, and watched the white holiday moon.

“Pale moons like that one”—Amory made a vague gesture—“make people mysterieuse. You look like a young witch with her cap off and her hair sorta mussed”—her hands clutched at her hair—“Oh, leave it, it looks good.”

They drifted up the stairs and Myra led the way into the little den of his dreams, where a cosy fire was burning before a big sink-down couch. A few years later this was to be a great stage for Amory, a cradle for many an emotional crisis. Now they talked for a moment about bobbing parties.

“There’s always a bunch of shy fellas,” he commented, “sitting at the tail of the bob, sorta lurkin’an’whisperin’an’pushin’each other off. Then there’s always some crazy cross-eyed girl”—he gave a terrifying imitation—“she’s always talkin’hard, sorta, to the chaperon.”

“You’re such a funny boy,” puzzled Myra.

“How d’y’mean?”Amory gave immediate attention, on his own ground at last.

“Oh—always talking about crazy things. Why don’t you come ski-ing with Marylyn and I to-morrow?”

“I don’t like girls in the daytime,” he said shortly, and then, thinking this a bit abrupt, he added: “But I like you.” He cleared his throat. “I like you first and second and third.”

Myra’s eyes became dreamy. What a story this would make to tell Marylyn! Here on the couch with this wonderful-looking boy—the little fire—the sense that they were alone in the great building—

Myra capitulated. The atmosphere was too appropriate.

“I like you the first twenty-five,” she confessed, her voice trembling, “and Froggy Parker twenty-sixth.”

Froggy had fallen twenty-five places in one hour. As yet he had not even noticed it.

But Amory, being on the spot, leaned over quickly and kissed Myra’s cheek. He had never kissed a girl before, and he tasted his lips curiously, as if he had munched some new fruit. Then their lips brushed like young wild flowers in the wind.

“We’re awful,” rejoiced Myra gently. She slipped her hand into his, her head drooped against his shoulder. Sudden revulsion seized Amory, disgust, loathing for the whole incident. He desired frantically to be away, never to see Myra again, never to kiss any one; he became conscious of his face and hers, of their clinging hands, and he wanted to creep out of his body and hide somewhere safe out of sight, up in the corner of his mind.

“Kiss me again.” Her voice came out of a great void.

“I don’t want to,” he heard himself saying. There was another pause.

“I don’t want to!” he repeated passionately.

Myra sprang up, her cheeks pink with bruised vanity, the great bow on the back of her head trembling sympathetically. “I hate you!” she cried. “Don’t you ever dare to speak to me again!”

“What?”stammered Amory.

“I’ll tell mama you kissed me! I will too! I will too! I’ll tell mama, and she won’t let me play with you!”

Amory rose and stared at her helplessly, as though she were a new animal of whose presence on the earth he had not heretofore been aware.

The door opened suddenly, and Myra’s mother appeared on the threshold, fumbling with her lorgnette.

“Well,” she began, adjusting it benignantly, “the man at the desk told me you two children were up here—How do you do, Amory.”

Amory watched Myra and waited for the crash—but none came. The pout faded, the high pink subsided, and Myra’s voice was placid as a summer lake when she answered her mother.

“Oh, we started so late, mama, that I thought we might as well—”

He heard from below the shrieks of laughter, and smelled the vapid odor of hot chocolate and tea-cakes as he silently followed mother and daughter down-stairs. The sound of the graphophone mingled with the voices of many girls humming the air, and a faint glow was born and spread over him:

Casey-Jones—mounted to the cab-un

Casey-Jones—’th his orders in his hand.

Casey-Jones—mounted to the cab-un

Took his farewell journey to the prom-ised land.

*****

Snapshots of the Young Egotist

Amory spent nearly two years in Minneapolis. The first winter he wore moccasins that were born yellow, but after many applications of oil and dirt assumed their mature color, a dirty, greenish brown; he wore a gray plaid mackinaw coat, and a red toboggan cap. His dog, Count Del Monte, ate the red cap, so his uncle gave him a gray one that pulled down over his face. The trouble with this one was that you breathed into it and your breath froze; one day the darn thing froze his cheek. He rubbed snow on his cheek, but it turned bluish-black just the same.

The Count Del Monte ate a box of bluing once, but it

didn’t hurt him. Later, however, he lost his mind and ran madly up the street, bumping into fences, rolling in gutters, and pursuing his eccentric course out of Amory’s life. Amory cried on his bed.

“Poor little Count,” he cried. “Oh, poor little Count!”

After several months he suspected Count of a fine piece of emotional acting.

Amory and Frog Parker considered that the greatest line in literature occurred in Act III of “Arsene Lupin.”

They sat in the first row at the Wednesday and Saturday matinees. The line was:

“If one can’t be a great artist or a great soldier, the next best thing is to be a great criminal.”

Amory fell in love again, and wrote a poem. This was it:

Marylyn and Sallee,

°Those are the girls for me.

Marylyn stands above

°Sallee in that sweet, deep love.

He was interested in whether McGovern of Minnesota would make the first or second All-American, how to do the card-pass, how to do the coin-pass, chameleon ties, how babies were born, and whether Three-fingered Brown was really a better pitcher than Christie Mathewson.

Among other things he read: “For the Honor of the School,” “Little Women” (twice), “The Common Law,” “Sapho,” “Dangerous Dan McGrew,” “The Broad Highway” (three times), “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Three Weeks,” “Mary Ware, the Little Colonel’s Chum,” “Gunga Din,” The Police Gazette, and Jim-Jam Jems.

He had all the Henty biasses in history, and was particularly fond of the cheerful murder stories of Mary Roberts Rinehart.

School ruined his French and gave him a distaste for standard authors. His masters considered him idle, unreliable and superficially clever.

He collected locks of hair from many girls. He wore the rings of several. Finally he could borrow no more rings, owing to his nervous habit of chewing them out of shape. This, it seemed, usually aroused the jealous suspicions of the next borrower.

All through the summer months Amory and Frog Parker went each week to the Stock Company. Afterward they would stroll home in the balmy air of August night, dreaming along Hennepin and Nicollet Avenues, through the gay crowd. Amory wondered how people could fail to notice that he was a boy marked for glory, and when faces of the throng turned toward him and ambiguous eyes stared into his, he assumed the most romantic of expressions and walked on the air cushions that lie on the asphalts of fourteen.

Always, after he was in bed, there were voices—indefinite, fading, enchanting—just outside his window, and before he fell asleep he would dream one of his favorite waking dreams, the one about becoming a great half-back, or the one about the Japanese invasion, when he was rewarded by being made the youngest general in the world. It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being. This, too, was quite characteristic of Amory.

*****

Code of the Young Egotist

Before he was summoned back to Lake Geneva, he had appeared, shy but inwardly glowing, in his first long trousers, set off by a purple accordion tie and a “Belmont” collar with the edges unassailably meeting, purple socks, and handkerchief with a purple border peeping from his breast pocket. But more than that, he had formulated his first philosophy, a code to live by, which, as near as it can be named, was a sort of aristocratic egotism.

He had realized that his best interests were bound up with those of a certain variant, changing person, whose label, in order that his past might always be identified with him, was Amory Blaine. Amory marked himself a fortunate youth, capable of infinite expansion for good or evil. He did not consider himself a “strong char’c’ter,” but relied on his facility (learn things sorta quick) and his superior mentality (read a lotta deep books) .He was proud of the fact that he could never become a mechanical or scientific genius. From no other heights was he debarred.

Physically.—Amory thought that he was exceedingly handsome. He was. He fancied himself an athlete of possibilities and a supple dancer.

Socially.—Here his condition was, perhaps, most dangerous. He granted himself personality, charm, magnetism, poise, the power of dominating all contemporary males, the gift of fascinating all women.

Mentally.—Complete, unquestioned superiority.

Now a confession will have to be made. Amory had rather a Puritan conscience. Not that he yielded to it—later in life he almost completely slew it—but at fifteen it made him consider himself a great deal worse than other boys.... unscrupulousness.... the desire to influence people in almost every way, even for evil.... a certain coldness and lack of affection, amounting sometimes to cruelty.... a shifting sense of honor.... an unholy selfishness.... a puzzled, furtive interest in everything concerning sex.

There was, also, a curious strain of weakness running crosswise through his make-up.... a harsh phrase from the lips of an older boy (older boys usually detested him) was liable to sweep him off his poise into surly sensitiveness, or timid stupidity.... he was a slave to his own moods and he felt that though he was capable of recklessness and audacity, he possessed neither courage, perseverance, nor self-respect.

Vanity, tempered with self-suspicion if not self-knowledge, a sense of people as automatons to his will, a desire to “pass” as many boys as possible and get to a vague top of the world.... with this background did Amory drift into adolescence.

*****

Preparatory to the Great Adventure

The train slowed up with midsummer languor at Lake Geneva, and Amory caught sight of his mother waiting in her electric on the gravelled station drive. It was an ancient electric, one of the early types, and painted gray. The sight of her sitting there, slenderly erect, and of her face, where beauty and dignity combined, melting to a dreamy recollected smile, filled him with a sudden great pride of her. As they kissed coolly and he stepped into the electric, he felt a quick fear lest he had lost the requisite charm to measure up to her.

“Dear boy—you’re so tall.... look behind and see if there’s anything coming.... ”

She looked left and right, she slipped cautiously into a speed of two miles an hour, beseeching Amory to act as sentinel; and at one busy crossing she made him get out and run ahead to signal her forward like a traffic policeman. Beatrice was what might be termed a careful driver.

“You are tall—but you’re still very handsome—you’ve skipped the awkward age, or is that sixteen; perhaps it’s fourteen or fifteen; I can never remember; but you’ve skipped it.”

“Don’t embarrass me,” murmured Amory.

“But, my dear boy, what odd clothes! They look as if they were a set—don’t they?Is your underwear purple, too?”Amory grunted impolitely.

“You must go to Brooks’and get some really nice suits. Oh, we’ll have a talk to-night or perhaps to-morrow night. I want to tell you about your heart—you’ve probably been neglecting your heart—and you don’t know.”

Amory thought how superficial was the recent overlay of his own generation. Aside from a minute shyness, he felt that the old cynical kinship with his mother had not been one bit broken. Yet for the first few days he wandered about the gardens and along the shore in a state of superloneliness, finding a lethargic content in smoking “Bull” at the garage with one of the chauffeurs.

The sixty acres of the estate were dotted with old and new summer houses and many fountains and white benches that came suddenly into sight from foliage-hung hiding-places; there was a great and constantly increasing family of white cats that prowled the many flower-beds and were silhouetted suddenly at night against the darkening trees. It was on one of the shadowy paths that Beatrice at last captured Amory, after Mr. Blaine had, as usual, retired for the evening to his private library. After reproving him for avoiding her, she took him for a long tête-à-tête in the moonlight. He could not reconcile himself to her beauty, that was mother to his own, the exquisite neck and shoulders, the grace of a fortunate woman of thirty.

“Amory, dear,” she crooned softly, “I had such a strange, weird time after I left you.”

“Did you, Beatrice?”

“When I had my last breakdown”—she spoke of it as a sturdy, gallant feat.

“The doctors told me”—her voice sang on a confidential note—“that if any man alive had done the consistent drinking that I have, he would have been physically shattered, my dear, and in his grave—long in his grave.”

Amory winced, and wondered how this would have sounded to Froggy Parker.

“Yes,” continued Beatrice tragically, “I had dreams—wonderful visions.” She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. “I saw bronze rivers lapping marble shores, and great birds that soared through the air, parti-colored birds with iridescent plumage. I heard strange music and the flare of barbaric trumpets—what?”

Amory had snickered.

“What, Amory?”

“I said go on, Beatrice.”

“That was all—it merely recurred and recurred—gardens that flaunted coloring against which this would be quite dull, moons that whirled and swayed, paler than winter moons, more golden than harvest moons—”

“Are you quite well now, Beatrice?”

“Quite well—as well as I will ever be. I am not understood, Amory. I know that can’t express it to you, Amory, but—I am not understood.”

Amory was quite moved. He put his arm around his mother, rubbing his head gently against her shoulder.

“Poor Beatrice—poor Beatrice.”

“Tell me about you, Amory. Did you have two horrible years?”

Amory considered lying, and then decided against it.

“No, Beatrice. I enjoyed them. I adapted myself to the bourgeoisie. I became conventional.” He surprised himself by saying that, and he pictured how Froggy would have gaped.

“Beatrice,” he said suddenly, “I want to go away to school. Everybody in Minneapolis is going to go away to school.”

Beatrice showed some alarm.

“But you’re only fifteen.”

“Yes, but everybody goes away to school at fifteen, and I want to, Beatrice.”

On Beatrice’s suggestion the subject was dropped for the rest of the walk, but a week later she delighted him by saying:

“Amory, I have decided to let you have your way. If you still want to, you can go to school.”

“Yes?”

“To St. Regis’s in Connecticut.”

Amory felt a quick excitement.

“It’s being arranged,” continued Beatrice. “It’s better that you should go away. I’d have preferred you to have gone to Eton, and then to Christ Church, Oxford, but it seems impracticable now—and for the present we’ll let the university question take care of itself.”

“What are you going to do, Beatrice?”

“Heaven knows. It seems my fate to fret away my years in this country. Not for a second do I regret being American—indeed, I think that a regret typical of very vulgar people, and I feel sure we are the great coming nation—yet”—and she sighed—“I feel my life should have drowsed away close to an older, mellower civilization, a land of greens and autumnal browns—”

Amory did not answer, so his mother continued:

“My regret is that you haven’t been abroad, but still, as you are a man, it’s better that you should grow up here under the snarling eagle—is that the right term?”

Amory agreed that it was. She would not have appreciated the Japanese invasion.

“When do I go to school?”

“Next month. You’ll have to start East a little early to take your examinations. After that you’ll have a free week, so I want you to go up the Hudson and pay a visit.”

“To who?”

“To Monsignor Darcy, Amory. He wants to see you. He went to Harrow and then to Yale—became a Catholic. I want him to talk to you—I feel he can be such a help—”She stroked his auburn hair gently. “Dear Amory, dear Amory—”

“Dear Beatrice—”

So early in September Amory, provided with “six suits summer underwear, six suits winter underwear, one sweater or T shirt, one jersey, one overcoat, winter, etc.,” set out for New England, the land of schools.

There were Andover and Exeter with their memories of New England dead—large, college-like democracies; St. Mark’s, Groton, St. Regis’—recruited from Boston and the Knickerbocker families of New York; St. Paul’s, with its great rinks; Pomfret and St. George’s, prosperous and well-dressed; Taft and Hotchkiss, which prepared the wealth of the Middle West for social success at Yale; Pawling, Westminster, Choate, Kent, and a hundred others; all milling out their well-set-up, conventional, impressive type, year after year; their mental stimulus the college entrance exams; their vague purpose set forth in a hundred circulars as “To impart a Thorough Mental, Moral, and Physical Training as a Christian Gentleman, to fit the boy for meeting the problems of his day and generation, and to give a solid foundation in the Arts and Sciences.”

At St. Regis’Amory stayed three days and took his exams with a scoffing confidence, then doubling back to New York to pay his tutelary visit. The metropolis, barely glimpsed, made little impression on him, except for the sense of cleanliness he drew from the tall white buildings seen from a Hudson River steamboat in the early morning. Indeed, his mind was so crowded with dreams of athletic prowess at school that he considered this visit only as a rather tiresome prelude to the great adventure. This, however, it did not prove to be.

Monsignor Darcy’s house was an ancient, rambling structure set on a hill overlooking the river, and there lived its owner, between his trips to all parts of the Roman-Catholic world, rather like an exiled Stuart king waiting to be called to the rule of his land. Monsignor was forty-four then, and bustling—a trifle too stout for symmetry, with hair the color of spun gold, and a brilliant, enveloping personality. When he came into a room clad in his full purple regalia from thatch to toe, he resembled a Turner sunset, and attracted both admiration and attention. He had written two novels: one of them violently anti-Catholic, just before his conversion, and five years later another, in which he had attempted to turn all his clever jibes against Catholics into even cleverer innuendoes against Episcopalians. He was intensely ritualistic, startlingly dramatic, loved the idea of God enough to be a celibate, and rather liked his neighbor.

Children adored him because he was like a child; youth revelled in his company because he was still a youth, and couldn’t be shocked. In the proper land and century he might have been a Richelieu—at present he was a very moral, very religious (if not particularly pious) clergyman, making a great mystery about pulling rusty wires, and appreciating life to the fullest, if not entirely enjoying it.

He and Amory took to each other at first sight—the jovial, impressive prelate who could dazzle an embassy ball, and the green-eyed, intent youth, in his first long trousers, accepted in their own minds a relation of father and son within a half-hour’s conversation.

“My dear boy, I’ve been waiting to see you for years. Take a big chair and we’ll have a chat.”

“I’ve just come from school—St. Regis’s, you know.”

“So your mother says—a remarkable woman; have a cigarette—I’m sure you smoke. Well, if you’re like me, you loathe all science and mathematics—”

Amory nodded vehemently.

“Hate’em all. Like English and history.”

“Of course. You’ll hate school for a while, too, but I’m glad you’re going to St. Regis’s.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a gentleman’s school, and democracy won’t hit you so early. You’ll find plenty of that in college.”

“I want to go to Princeton,” said Amory. “I don’t know why, but I think of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be, and all Yale men as wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes.”

Monsignor chuckled.

“I’m one, you know.”

“Oh, you’re different—I think of Princeton as being lazy and good-looking and aristocratic—you know, like a spring day. Harvard seems sort of indoors—”

“And Yale is November, crisp and energetic,” finished Monsignor.

“That’s it.”

They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.

“I was for Bonnie Prince Charlie,” announced Amory.

“Of course you were—and for Hannibal—”

“Yes, and for the Southern Confederacy.” He was rather sceptical about being an Irish patriot—he suspected that being Irish was being somewhat common—but Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause and Irish people quite charming, and that it should, by all means, be one of his principal biasses.

After a crowded hour which included several more cigarettes, and during which Monsignor learned, to his surprise but not to his horror, that Amory had not been brought up a Catholic, he announced that he had another guest. This turned out to be the Honorable Thornton Hancock, of Boston, ex-minister to The Hague, author of an erudite history of the Middle Ages and the last of a distinguished, patriotic, and brilliant family.

“He comes here for a rest,” said Monsignor confidentially, treating Amory as a contemporary. “I act as an escape from the weariness of agnosticism, and I think I’m the only man who knows how his staid old mind is really at sea and longs for a sturdy spar like the Church to cling to.”

Their first luncheon was one of the memorable events of Amory’s early life. He was quite radiant and gave off a peculiar brightness and charm. Monsignor called out the best that he had thought by question and suggestion, and Amory talked with an ingenious brilliance of a thousand impulses and desires and repulsions and faiths and fears. He and Monsignor held the floor, and the older man, with his less receptive, less accepting, yet certainly not colder mentality, seemed content to listen and bask in the mellow sunshine that played between these two. Monsignor gave the effect of sunlight to many people; Amory gave it in his youth and, to some extent, when he was very much older, but never again was it quite so mutually spontaneous.

“He’s a radiant boy,” thought Thornton Hancock, who had seen the splendor of two continents and talked with Parnell and Gladstone and Bismarck—and afterward he added to Monsignor: “But his education ought not to be intrusted to a school or college.”

But for the next four years the best of Amory’s intellect was concentrated on matters of popularity, the intricacies of a university social system and American Society as represented by Biltmore Teas and Hot Springs golf-links.

.... In all, a wonderful week, that saw Amory’s mind turned inside out, a hundred of his theories confirmed, and his joy of life crystallized to a thousand ambitions. Not that the conversation was scholastic—heaven forbid! Amory had only the vaguest idea as to what Bernard Shaw was—but Monsignor made quite as much out of “The Beloved Vagabond” and “Sir Nigel,” taking good care that Amory never once felt out of his depth.

But the trumpets were sounding for Amory’s preliminary skirmish with his own generation.

“You’re not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not,” said Monsignor.

“I am sorry—”

“No, you’re not. No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.”

“Well—”

“Good-by.”

*****

The Egotist Down

Amory’s two years at St. Regis’, though in turn painful and triumphant, had as little real significance in his own life as the American “prep” school, crushed as it is under the heel of the universities, has to American life in general. We have no Eton to create the self-consciousness of a governing class; we have, instead, clean, flaccid and innocuous preparatory schools.

He went all wrong at the start, was generally considered both conceited and arrogant, and universally detested. He played football intensely, alternating a reckless brilliancy with a tendency to keep himself as safe from hazard as decency would permit. In a wild panic he backed out of a fight with a boy his own size, to a chorus of scorn, and a week later, in desperation, picked a battle with another boy very much bigger, from which he emerged badly beaten, but rather proud of himself.

He was resentful against all those in authority over him, and this, combined with a lazy indifference toward his work, exasperated every master in school. He grew discouraged and imagined himself a pariah; took to sulking in corners and reading after lights. With a dread of being alone he attached a few friends, but since they were not among the élite of the school, he used them simply as mirrors of himself, audiences before which he might do that posing absolutely essential to him. He was unbearably lonely, desperately unhappy.

There were some few grains of comfort. Whenever Amory was submerged, his vanity was the last part to go below the surface, so he could still enjoy a comfortable glow when “Wookey-wookey,” the deaf old housekeeper, told him that he was the best-looking boy she had ever seen. It had pleased him to be the lightest and youngest man on the first football squad; it pleased him when Doctor Dougall told him at the end of a heated conference that he could, if he wished, get the best marks in school. But Doctor Dougall was wrong. It was temperamentally impossible for Amory to get the best marks in school.

Miserable, confined to bounds, unpopular with both faculty and students—that was Amory’s first term. But at Christmas he had returned to Minneapolis, tight-lipped and strangely jubilant.

“Oh, I was sort of fresh at first,” he told Frog Parker patronizingly, “but I got along fine—lightest man on the squad. You ought to go away to school, Froggy. It’s great stuff.”

*****

Incident of the Well-Meaning Professor

On the last night of his first term, Mr. Margotson, the senior master, sent word to study hall that Amory was to come to his room at nine. Amory suspected that advice was forthcoming, but he determined to be courteous, because this Mr. Margotson had been kindly disposed toward him.

His summoner received him gravely, and motioned him to a chair. He hemmed several times and looked consciously kind, as a man will when he knows he’s on delicate ground.

“Amory,” he began. “I’ve sent for you on a personal matter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve noticed you this year and I—I like you. I think you have in you the makings of a—a very good man.”

“Yes, sir,” Amory managed to articulate. He hated having people talk as if he were an admitted failure.

“But I’ve noticed,” continued the older man blindly, “that you’re not very popular with the boys.”

“No, sir.” Amory licked his lips.

“Ah—I thought you might not understand exactly what it was they—ah—objected to. I’m going to tell you, because I believe—ah—that when a boy knows his difficulties he’s better able to cope with them—to conform to what others expect of him.” He a-hemmed again with delicate reticence, and continued: “They seem to think that you’re—ah—rather too fresh—”

Amory could stand no more. He rose from his chair, scarcely controlling his voice when he spoke.

“I know—oh, don’t you s’pose I know.” His voice rose. “I know what they think; do you s’pose you have to tell me!” He paused. “I’m—I’ve got to go back now—hope I’m not rude—”

He left the room hurriedly. In the cool air outside, as he walked to his house, he exulted in his refusal to be helped.

“That damn old fool!” he cried wildly. “As if I didn’t know!”

He decided, however, that this was a good excuse not to go back to study hall that night, so, comfortably couched up in his room, he munched nabiscos and finished “The White Company.”

*****

Incident of the Wonderful Girl

There was a bright star in February. New York burst upon him on Washington’s Birthday with the brilliance of a long-anticipated event. His glimpse of it as a vivid whiteness against a deep-blue sky had left a picture of splendor that rivalled the dream cities in the Arabian Nights; but this time he saw it by electric light, and romance gleamed from the chariot-race sign on Broadway and from the women’s eyes at the Astor, where he and young Paskert from St. Regis’had dinner. When they walked down the aisle of the theatre, greeted by the nervous twanging and discord of untuned violins and the sensuous, heavy fragrance of paint and powder, he moved in a sphere of epicurean delight. Everything enchanted him. The play was “The Little Millionaire,” with George M. Cohan, and there was one stunning young brunette who made him sit with brimming eyes in the ecstasy of watching her dance.

Oh—you—wonderful girl,

What a wonderful girl you are—

sang the tenor, and Amory agreed silently, but passionately.

All—your—wonderful words

Thrill me through—

The violins swelled and quavered on the last notes, the girl sank to a crumpled butterfly on the stage, a great burst of clapping filled the house. Oh, to fall in love like that, to the languorous magic melody of such a tune!

The last scene was laid on a roof-garden, and the’cellos sighed to the musical moon, while light adventure and facile froth-like comedy flitted back and forth in the calcium. Amory was on fire to be an habitué of roof-gardens, to meet a girl who should look like that—better, that very girl; whose hair would be drenched with golden moonlight, while at his elbow sparkling wine was poured by an unintelligible waiter. When the curtain fell for the last time he gave such a long sigh that the people in front of him twisted around and stared and said loud enough for him to hear:

“What a remarkable-looking boy!”

This took his mind off the play, and he wondered if he really did seem handsome to the population of New York.

Paskert and he walked in silence toward their hotel. The former was the first to speak. His uncertain fifteen-year-old voice broke in in a melancholy strain on Amory’s musings:

“I’d marry that girl to-night.”

There was no need to ask what girl he referred to.

“I’d be proud to take her home and introduce her to my people,” continued Paskert.

Amory was distinctly impressed. He wished he had said it instead of Paskert. It sounded so mature.

“I wonder about actresses; are they all pretty bad?”

“No, sir, not by a darn sight,” said the worldly youth with emphasis, “and I know that girl’s as good as gold. I can tell.”

They wandered on, mixing in the Broadway crowd, dreaming on the music that eddied out of the cafes. New faces flashed on and off like myriad lights, pale or rouged faces, tired, yet sustained by a weary excitement. Amory watched them in fascination. He was planning his life. He was going to live in New York, and be known at every restaurant and café, wearing a dress-suit from early evening to early morning, sleeping away the dull hours of the forenoon.

“Yes, sir, I’d marry that girl to-night!”

*****

Heroic in General Tone

October of his second and last year at St. Regis’was a high point in Amory’s memory. The game with Groton was played from three of a snappy, exhilarating afternoon far into the crisp autumnal twilight, and Amory at quarter-back, exhorting in wild despair, making impossible tackles, calling signals in a voice that had diminished to a hoarse, furious whisper, yet found time to revel in the blood-stained bandage around his head, and the straining, glorious heroism of plunging, crashing bodies and aching limbs. For those minutes courage flowed like wine out of the November dusk, and he was the eternal hero, one with the sea-rover on the prow of a Norse galley, one with Roland and Horatius, Sir Nigel and Ted Coy, scraped and stripped into trim and then flung by his own will into the breach, beating back the tide, hearing from afar the thunder of cheers.... finally bruised and weary, but still elusive, circling an end, twisting, changing pace, straight-arming.... falling behind the Groton goal with two men on his legs, in the only touchdown of the game.

*****

The Philosophy of the Slicker

From the scoffing superiority of sixth-form year and success Amory looked back with cynical wonder on his status of the year before. He was changed as completely as Amory Blaine could ever be changed. Amory plus Beatrice plus two years in Minneapolis—these had been his ingredients when he entered St. Regis’.But the Minneapolis years were not a thick enough overlay to conceal the “Amory plus Beatrice” from the ferreting eyes of a boarding-school, so St. Regis’had very painfully drilled Beatrice out of him, and begun to lay down new and more conventional planking on the fundamental Amory. But both St. Regis’and Amory were unconscious of the fact that this fundamental Amory had not in himself changed. Those qualities for which he had suffered, his moodiness, his tendency to pose, his laziness, and his love of playing the fool, were now taken as a matter of course, recognized eccentricities in a star quarter-back, a clever actor, and the editor of the St. Regis Tattler: it puzzled him to see impressionable small boys imitating the very vanities that had not long ago been contemptible weaknesses.

After the football season he slumped into dreamy content. The night of the pre-holiday dance he slipped away and went early to bed for the pleasure of hearing the violin music cross the grass and come surging in at his window. Many nights he lay there dreaming awake of secret cafés in Mont Martre, where ivory women delved in romantic mysteries with diplomats and soldiers of fortune, while orchestras played Hungarian waltzes and the air was thick and exotic with intrigue and moonlight and adventure. In the spring he read “L’Allegro,” by request, and was inspired to lyrical outpourings on the subject of Arcady and the pipes of Pan. He moved his bed so that the sun would wake him at dawn that he might dress and go out to the archaic swing that hung from an apple-tree near the sixth-form house. Seating himself in this he would pump higher and higher until he got the effect of swinging into the wide air, into a fairy-land of piping satyrs and nymphs with the faces of fair-haired girls he passed in the streets of Eastchester. As the swing reached its highest point, Arcady really lay just over the brow of a certain hill, where the brown road dwindled out of sight in a golden dot.

He read voluminously all spring, the beginning of his eighteenth year: “The Gentleman from Indiana,” “The New Arabian Nights,” “The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne,” “The Man Who Was Thursday,” which he liked without understanding; “Stover at Yale,” that became somewhat of a text-book; “Dombey and Son,” because he thought he really should read better stuff; Robert Chambers, David Graham Phillips, and E. Phillips Oppenheim complete, and a scattering of Tennyson and Kipling. Of all his class work only “L’Allegro” and some quality of rigid clarity in solid geometry stirred his languid interest.

As June drew near, he felt the need of conversation to formulate his own ideas, and, to his surprise, found a co-philosopher in Rahill, the president of the sixth form. In many a talk, on the highroad or lying belly-down along the edge of the baseball diamond, or late at night with their cigarettes glowing in the dark, they threshed out the questions of school, and there was developed the term “slicker.”

“Got tobacco?”whispered Rahill one night, putting his head inside the door five minutes after lights.

“Sure.”

“I’m coming in.”

“Take a couple of pillows and lie in the window-seat, why don’t you.”

Amory sat up in bed and lit a cigarette while Rahill settled for a conversation. Rahill’s favorite subject was the respective futures of the sixth form, and Amory never tired of outlining them for his benefit.

“Ted Converse?’At’s easy. He’ll fail his exams, tutor all summer at Harstrum’s, get into Sheff with about four conditions, and flunk out in the middle of the freshman year. Then he’ll go back West and raise hell for a year or so; finally his father will make him go into the paint business. He’ll marry and have four sons, all bone heads. He’ll always think St. Regis’s spoiled him, so he’ll send his sons to day school in Portland. He’ll die of locomotor ataxia when he’s forty-one, and his wife will give a baptizing stand or whatever you call it to the Presbyterian Church, with his name on it—”

“Hold up, Amory. That’s too darned gloomy. How about yourself?”

“I’m in a superior class. You are, too. We’re philosophers.”

“I’m not.”

“Sure you are. You’ve got a darn good head on you.” But Amory knew that nothing in the abstract, no theory or generality, ever moved Rahill until he stubbed his toe upon the concrete minutiae of it.

“Haven’t,” insisted Rahill. “I let people impose on me here and don’t get anything out of it. I’m the prey of my friends, damn it—do their lessons, get’em out of trouble, pay’em stupid summer visits, and always entertain their kid sisters; keep my temper when they get selfish and then they think they pay me back by voting for me and telling me I’m the‘big man’of St. Regis’s. I want to get where everybody does their own work and I can tell people where to go. I’m tired of being nice to every poor fish in school.”

“You’re not a slicker,” said Amory suddenly.

“A what?”

“A slicker.”

“What the devil’s that?”

“Well, it’s something that—that—there’s a lot of them. You’re not one, and neither am I, though I am more than you are.”

“Who is one?What makes you one?”

Amory considered.

“Why—why, I suppose that the sign of it is when a fellow slicks his hair back with water.”

“Like Carstairs?”

“Yes—sure. He’s a slicker.”

They spent two evenings getting an exact definition. The slicker was good-looking or clean-looking; he had brains, social brains, that is, and he used all means on the broad path of honesty to get ahead, be popular, admired, and never in trouble. He dressed well, was particularly neat in appearance, and derived his name from the fact that his hair was inevitably worn short, soaked in water or tonic, parted in the middle, and slicked back as the current of fashion dictated. The slickers of that year had adopted tortoise-shell spectacles as badges of their slickerhood, and this made them so easy to recognize that Amory and Rahill never missed one. The slicker seemed distributed through school, always a little wiser and shrewder than his contemporaries, managing some team or other, and keeping his cleverness carefully concealed.

Amory found the slicker a most valuable classification until his junior year in college, when the outline became so blurred and indeterminate that it had to be subdivided many times, and became only a quality. Amory’s secret ideal had all the slicker qualifications, but, in addition, courage and tremendous brains and talents—also Amory conceded him a bizarre streak that was quite irreconcilable to the slicker proper.

This was a first real break from the hypocrisy of school tradition. The slicker was a definite element of success, differing intrinsically from the prep school “big man.”

“THE SLICKER”

1.Clever sense of social values.

2.Dresses well. Pretends that dress is superficial—but knows that it isn’t.

3.Goes into such activities as he can shine in.

4.Gets to college and is, in a worldly way, successful.

5.Hair slicked.

“THE BIG MAN”

1.Inclined to stupidity and unconscious of social values.

2.Thinks dress is superficial, and is inclined to be careless about it.

3.Goes out for everything from a sense of duty.

4.Gets to college and has a problematical future. Feels lost without his circle, and always says that school days were happiest, after all. Goes back to school and makes speeches about what St. Regis’s boys are doing.

5.Hair is not slicked.

Amory had decided definitely on Princeton, even though he would be the only boy entering that year from St. Regis’.Yale had a romance and glamour from the tales of Minneapolis, and St. Regis’men who had been “tapped for Skull and Bones,” but Princeton drew him most, with its atmosphere of bright colors and its alluring reputation as the pleasantest country club in America. Dwarfed by the menacing college exams, Amory’s school days drifted into the past. Years afterward, when he went back to St. Regis’, he seemed to have forgotten the successes of sixth-form year, and to be able to picture himself only as the unadjustable boy who had hurried down corridors, jeered at by his rabid contemporaries mad with common sense.

Chapter 2　Spires and Gargoyles

At first Amory noticed only the wealth of sunshine creeping across the long, green swards, dancing on the leaded window-panes, and swimming around the tops of spires and towers and battlemented walls. Gradually he realized that he was really walking up University Place, self-conscious about his suitcase, developing a new tendency to glare straight ahead when he passed any one. Several times he could have sworn that men turned to look at him critically. He wondered vaguely if there was something the matter with his clothes, and wished he had shaved that morning on the train. He felt unnecessarily stiff and awkward among these white-flannelled, bareheaded youths, who must be juniors and seniors, judging from the savoir faire with which they strolled.

He found that 12 University Place was a large, dilapidated mansion, at present apparently uninhabited, though he knew it housed usually a dozen freshmen. After a hurried skirmish with his landlady he sallied out on a tour of exploration, but he had gone scarcely a block when he became horribly conscious that he must be the only man in town who was wearing a hat. He returned hurriedly to 12 University, left his derby, and, emerging bareheaded, loitered down Nassau Street, stopping to investigate a display of athletic photographs in a store window, including a large one of Allenby, the football captain, and next attracted by the sign “Jigger Shop” over a confectionary window. This sounded familiar, so he sauntered in and took a seat on a high stool.

“Chocolate sundae,” he told a colored person.

“Double chocolate jiggah?Anything else?”

“Why—yes.”

“Bacon bun?”

“Why—yes.”

He munched four of these, finding them of pleasing savor, and then consumed another double-chocolate jigger before ease descended upon him. After a cursory inspection of the pillow-cases, leather pennants, and Gibson Girls that lined the walls, he left, and continued along Nassau Street with his hands in his pockets. Gradually he was learning to distinguish between upper classmen and entering men, even though the freshman cap would not appear until the following Monday. Those who were too obviously, too nervously at home were freshmen, for as each train brought a new contingent it was immediately absorbed into the hatless, white-shod, book-laden throng, whose function seemed to be to drift endlessly up and down the street, emitting great clouds of smoke from brand-new pipes. By afternoon Amory realized that now the newest arrivals were taking him for an upper classman, and he tried conscientiously to look both pleasantly blasé and casually critical, which was as near as he could analyze the prevalent facial expression.

At five o’clock he felt the need of hearing his own voice, so he retreated to his house to see if any one else had arrived. Having climbed the rickety stairs he scrutinized his room resignedly, concluding that it was hopeless to attempt any more inspired decoration than class banners and tiger pictures. There was a tap at the door.

“Come in!”

A slim face with gray eyes and a humorous smile appeared in the doorway.

“Got a hammer?”

“No—sorry. Maybe Mrs. Twelve, or whatever she goes by, has one.”

The stranger advanced into the room.

“You an inmate of this asylum?”

Amory nodded.

“Awful barn for the rent we pay.”

Amory had to agree that it was.

“I thought of the campus,” he said, “but they say there’s so few freshmen that they’re lost. Have to sit around and study for something to do.”

The gray-eyed man decided to introduce himself.

“My name’s Holiday.”

“Blaine’s my name.”

They shook hands with the fashionable low swoop. Amory grinned.

“Where’d you prep?”

“Andover—where did you?”

“St. Regis’s.”

“Oh, did you?I had a cousin there.”

They discussed the cousin thoroughly, and then Holiday announced that he was to meet his brother for dinner at six.

“Come along and have a bite with us.”

“All right.”

At the Kenilworth Amory met Burne Holiday—he of the gray eyes was Kerry—and during a limpid meal of thin soup and anaemic vegetables they stared at the other freshmen, who sat either in small groups looking very ill at ease, or in large groups seeming very much at home.

“I hear Commons is pretty bad,” said Amory.

“That’s the rumor. But you’ve got to eat there—or pay anyways.”

“Crime!”

“Imposition!”

“Oh, at Princeton you’ve got to swallow everything the first year. It’s like a damned prep school.”

Amory agreed.

“Lot of pep, though,” he insisted. “I wouldn’t have gone to Yale for a million.”

“Me either.”

“You going out for anything?”inquired Amory of the elder brother.

“Not me—Burne here is going out for the Prince—the Daily Princetonian, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You going out for anything?”

“Why—yes. I’m going to take a whack at freshman football.”

“Play at St. Regis’s?”

“Some,” admitted Amory depreciatingly, “but I’m getting so damned thin.”

“You’re not thin.”

“Well, I used to be stocky last fall.”

“Oh!”

After supper they attended the movies, where Amory was fascinated by the glib comments of a man in front of him, as well as by the wild yelling and shouting.

“Yoho!”

“Oh, honey-baby—you’re so big and strong, but oh, so gentle!”

“Clinch!”

“Oh, Clinch!”

“Kiss her, kiss’at lady, quick!”

“Oh-h-h—!”

A group began whistling “By the Sea,” and the audience took it up noisily. This was followed by an indistinguishable song that included much stamping and then by an endless, incoherent dirge.

Oh-h-h-h-h

She works in a Jam Factoree

And—that-may-be-all-right

But you can’t-fool-me

For I know—DAMN—WELL

That she DON’T-make-jam-all-night!

Oh-h-h-h!

As they pushed out, giving and receiving curious impersonal glances, Amory decided that he liked the movies, wanted to enjoy them as the row of upper classmen in front had enjoyed them, with their arms along the backs of the seats, their comments Gaelic and caustic, their attitude a mixture of critical wit and tolerant amusement.

“Want a sundae—I mean a jigger?”asked Kerry.

“Sure.”

They suppered heavily and then, still sauntering, eased back to 12.

“Wonderful night.”

“It’s a whiz.”

“You men going to unpack?”

“Guess so. Come on, Burne.”

Amory decided to sit for a while on the front steps, so he bade them good night.

The great tapestries of trees had darkened to ghosts back at the last edge of twilight. The early moon had drenched the arches with pale blue, and, weaving over the night, in and out of the gossamer rifts of moon, swept a song, a song with more than a hint of sadness, infinitely transient, infinitely regretful.

He remembered that an alumnus of the nineties had told him of one of Booth Tarkington’s amusements: standing in mid-campus in the small hours and singing tenor songs to the stars, arousing mingled emotions in the couched undergraduates according to the sentiment of their moods.

Now, far down the shadowy line of University Place a white-clad phalanx broke the gloom, and marching figures, white-shirted, white-trousered, swung rhythmically up the street, with linked arms and heads thrown back:

Going back—going back,

Going—back—to—Nas-sau—Hall,

Going back—going back—

To the—Best—Old—Place—of—All.

Going back—going back,

From all—this—earth-ly—ball,

We’ll—clear—the—track—as—we—go—back—

Going—back—to—Nas-sau—Hall!

Amory closed his eyes as the ghostly procession drew near. The song soared so high that all dropped out except the tenors, who bore the melody triumphantly past the danger-point and relinquished it to the fantastic chorus. Then Amory opened his eyes, half afraid that sight would spoil the rich illusion of harmony.

He sighed eagerly. There at the head of the white platoon marched Allenby, the football captain, slim and defiant, as if aware that this year the hopes of the college rested on him, that his hundred-and-sixty pounds were expected to dodge to victory through the heavy blue and crimson lines.

Fascinated, Amory watched each rank of linked arms as it came abreast, the faces indistinct above the polo shirts, the voices blent in a paean of triumph—and then the procession passed through shadowy Campbell Arch, and the voices grew fainter as it wound eastward over the campus.

The minutes passed and Amory sat there very quietly. He regretted the rule that would forbid freshmen to be outdoors after curfew, for he wanted to ramble through the shadowy scented lanes, where Witherspoon brooded like a dark mother over Whig and Clio, her Attic children, where the black Gothic snake of Little curled down to Cuyler and Patton, these in turn flinging the mystery out over the placid slope rolling to the lake.

Princeton of the daytime filtered slowly into his conscious-ness—West and Reunion, redolent of the sixties, Seventy-nine Hall, brick-red and arrogant, Upper and Lower Pyne, aristocratic Elizabethan ladies not quite content to live among shopkeepers, and, topping all, climbing with clear blue aspiration, the great dreaming spires of Holder and Cleveland towers.

From the first he loved Princeton—its lazy beauty, its half-grasped significance, the wild moonlight revel of the rushes, the handsome, prosperous big-game crowds, and under it all the air of struggle that pervaded his class. From the day when, wild-eyed and exhausted, the jerseyed freshmen sat in the gymnasium and elected some one from Hill School class president, a Lawrenceville celebrity vice-president, a hockey star from St. Paul’s secretary, up until the end of sophomore year it never ceased, that breathless social system, that worship, seldom named, never really admitted, of the bogey “Big Man.”

First it was schools, and Amory, alone from St. Regis’, watched the crowds form and widen and form again; St. Paul’s, Hill, Pomfret, eating at certain tacitly reserved tables in Commons, dressing in their own corners of the gymnasium, and drawing unconsciously about them a barrier of the slightly less important but socially ambitious to protect them from the friendly, rather puzzled high-school element. From the moment he realized this Amory resented social barriers as artificial distinctions made by the strong to bolster up their weak retainers and keep out the almost strong.

Having decided to be one of the gods of the class, he reported for freshman football practice, but in the second week, playing quarter-back, already paragraphed in corners of the Princetonian, he wrenched his knee seriously enough to put him out for the rest of the season. This forced him to retire and consider the situation.

“12 Univee” housed a dozen miscellaneous question-marks. There were three or four inconspicuous and quite startled boys from Lawrenceville, two amateur wild men from a New York private school (Kerry Holiday christened them the “plebeian drunks”), a Jewish youth, also from New York, and, as compensation for Amory, the two Holidays, to whom he took an instant fancy.

The Holidays were rumored twins, but really the dark-haired one, Kerry, was a year older than his blond brother, Burne. Kerry was tall, with humorous gray eyes, and a sudden, attractive smile; he became at once the mentor of the house, reaper of ears that grew too high, censor of conceit, vendor of rare, satirical humor. Amory spread the table of their future friendship with all his ideas of what college should and did mean. Kerry, not inclined as yet to take things seriously, chided him gently for being curious at this inopportune time about the intricacies of the social system, but liked him and was both interested and amused.

Burne, fair-haired, silent, and intent, appeared in the house only as a busy apparition, gliding in quietly at night and off again in the early morning to get up his work in the library—he was out for the Princetonian, competing furiously against forty others for the coveted first place. In December he came down with diphtheria, and some one else won the competition, but, returning to college in February, he dauntlessly went after the prize again. Necessarily, Amory’s acquaintance with him was in the way of three-minute chats, walking to and from lectures, so he failed to penetrate Burne’s one absorbing interest and find what lay beneath it.

Amory was far from contented. He missed the place he had won at St. Regis’, the being known and admired, yet Princeton stimulated him, and there were many things ahead calculated to arouse the Machiavelli latent in him, could he but insert a wedge. The upper-class clubs, concerning which he had pumped a reluctant graduate during the previous summer, excited his curiosity: Ivy, detached and breathlessly aristocratic; Cottage, an impressive mélange of brilliant adventurers and well-dressed philanderers; Tiger Inn, broad-shouldered and athletic, vitalized by an honest elaboration of prep-school standards; Cap and Gown, anti-alcoholic, faintly religious and politically powerful; flamboyant Colonial; literary Quadrangle; and the dozen others, varying in age and position.

Anything which brought an under classman into too glaring a light was labelled with the damning brand of “running it out.” The movies thrived on caustic comments, but the men who made them were generally running it out; talking of clubs was running it out; standing for anything very strongly, as, for instance, drinking parties or teetotalling, was running it out; in short, being personally conspicuous was not tolerated, and the influential man was the non-committal man, until at club elections in sophomore year every one should be sewed up in some bag for the rest of his college career.

Amory found that writing for the Nassau Literary Magazine would get him nothing, but that being on the board of the Daily Princetonian would get any one a good deal. His vague desire to do immortal acting with the English Dramatic Association faded out when he found that the most ingenious brains and talents were concentrated upon the Triangle Club, a musical comedy organization that every year took a great Christmas trip. In the meanwhile, feeling strangely alone and restless in Commons, with new desires and ambitions stirring in his mind, he let the first term go by between an envy of the embryo successes and a puzzled fretting with Kerry as to why they were not accepted immediately among the élite of the class.

Many afternoons they lounged in the windows of 12 Univee and watched the class pass to and from Commons, noting satellites already attaching themselves to the more prominent, watching the lonely grind with his hurried step and downcast eye, envying the happy security of the big school groups.

“We’re the damned middle class, that’s what!” he complained to Kerry one day as he lay stretched out on the sofa, consuming a family of Fatimas with contemplative precision.

“Well, why not?We came to Princeton so we could feel that way toward the small colleges—have it on’em, more self-confidence, dress better, cut a swathe—”

“Oh, it isn’t that I mind the glittering caste system,” admitted Amory. “I like having a bunch of hot cats on top, but gosh, Kerry, I’ve got to be one of them.”

“But just now, Amory, you’re only a sweaty bourgeois.”

Amory lay for a moment without speaking.

“I won’t be—long,” he said finally. “But I hate to get anywhere by working for it. I’ll show the marks, don’t you know.”

“Honorable scars.” Kerry craned his neck suddenly at the street. “There’s Langueduc, if you want to see what he looks like—and Humbird just behind.”

Amory rose dynamically and sought the windows.

“Oh,” he said, scrutinizing these worthies, “Humbird looks like a knock-out, but this Langueduc—he’s the rugged type, isn’t he?I distrust that sort. All diamonds look big in the rough.”

“Well,” said Kerry, as the excitement subsided, “you’re a literary genius. It’s up to you.”

“I wonder”—Amory paused—“if I could be. I honestly think so sometimes. That sounds like the devil, and I wouldn’t say it to anybody except you.”

“Well—go ahead. Let your hair grow and write poems like this guy D’Invilliers in the Lit.”

Amory reached lazily at a pile of magazines on the table.

“Read his latest effort?”

“Never miss’em. They’re rare.”

Amory glanced through the issue.

“Hello!” he said in surprise, “he’s a freshman, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“Listen to this! My God!

“‘A serving lady speaks:

°Black velvet trails its folds over the day,

°White tapers, prisoned in their silver frames,

°Wave their thin flames like shadows in the wind,

°Pia, Pompia, come—come away—’

“Now, what the devil does that mean?”

“It’s a pantry scene.”

“‘Her toes are stiffened like a stork’s in flight;

She’s laid upon her bed, on the white sheets,

Her hands pressed on her smooth bust like a saint,

Bella Cunizza, come into the light!’

“My gosh, Kerry, what in hell is it all about?I swear I don’t get him at all, and I’m a literary bird myself.”

“It’s pretty tricky,” said Kerry, “only you’ve got to think of hearses and stale milk when you read it. That isn’t as pash as some of them.”

Amory tossed the magazine on the table.

“Well,” he sighed, “I sure am up in the air. I know I’m not a regular fellow, yet I loathe anybody else that isn’t. I can’t decide whether to cultivate my mind and be a great dramatist, or to thumb my nose at the Golden Treasury and be a Princeton slicker.”

“Why decide?”suggested Kerry. “Better drift, like me. I’m going to sail into prominence on Burne’s coat-tails.”

“I can’t drift—I want to be interested. I want to pull strings, even for somebody else, or be Princetonian chairman or Triangle president. I want to be admired, Kerry.”

“You’re thinking too much about yourself.”

Amory sat up at this.

“No. I’m thinking about you, too. We’ve got to get out and mix around the class right now, when it’s fun to be a snob. I’d like to bring a sardine to the prom in June, for instance, but I wouldn’t do it unless I could be damn debonaire about it—introduce her to all the prize parlor-snakes, and the football captain, and all that simple stuff.”

“Amory,” said Kerry impatiently, “you’re just going around in a circle. If you want to be prominent, get out and try for something; if you don’t, just take it easy.” He yawned. “Come on, let’s let the smoke drift off. We’ll go down and watch football practice.”

Amory gradually accepted this point of view, decided that next fall would inaugurate his career, and relinquished himself to watching Kerry extract joy from 12 Univee.

They filled the Jewish youth’s bed with lemon pie; they put out the gas all over the house every night by blowing into the jet in Amory’s room, to the bewilderment of Mrs. Twelve and the local plumber; they set up the effects of the plebeian drunks—pictures, books, and furniture—in the bathroom, to the confusion of the pair, who hazily discovered the transposition on their return from a Trenton spree; they were disappointed beyond measure when the plebeian drunks decided to take it as a joke; they played red-dog and twenty-one and jack-pot from dinner to dawn, and on the occasion of one man’s birthday persuaded him to buy sufficient champagne for a hilarious celebration. The donor of the party having remained sober, Kerry and Amory accidentally dropped him down two flights of stairs and called, shame-faced and penitent, at the infirmary all the following week.

“Say, who are all these women?”demanded Kerry one day, protesting at the size of Amory’s mail. “I’ve been looking at the postmarks lately—Farmington and Dobbs and Westover and Dana Hall—what’s the idea?”

Amory grinned.

“All from the Twin Cities.” He named them off. “There’s Marylyn De Witt—she’s pretty, got a car of her own and that’s damn convenient; there’s Sally Weatherby—she’s getting too fat; there’s Myra St. Claire, she’s an old flame, easy to kiss if you like it—”

“What line do you throw’em?”demanded Kerry. “I’ve tried everything, and the mad wags aren’t even afraid of me.”

“You’re the‘nice boy’type,” suggested Amory.

“That’s just it. Mother always feels the girl is safe if she’s with me. Honestly, it’s annoying. If I start to hold somebody’s hand, they laugh at me, and let me, just as if it wasn’t part of them. As soon as I get hold of a hand they sort of disconnect it from the rest of them.”

“Sulk,” suggested Amory. “Tell’em you’re wild and have’em reform you—go home furious—come back in half an hour—startle’em.”

Kerry shook his head.

“No chance. I wrote a St. Timothy girl a really loving letter last year. In one place I got rattled and said: ‘My God, how I love you!’ She took a nail scissors, clipped out the‘My God’and showed the rest of the letter all over school. Doesn’t work at all. I’m just‘good old Kerry’and all that rot.”

Amory smiled and tried to picture himself as “good old Amory.” He failed completely.

February dripped snow and rain, the cyclonic freshman mid-years passed, and life in 12 Univee continued interesting if not purposeful. Once a day Amory indulged in a club sandwich, cornflakes, and Julienne potatoes at “Joe’s,” accompanied usually by Kerry or Alec Connage. The latter was a quiet, rather aloof slicker from Hotchkiss, who lived next door and shared the same enforced singleness as Amory, due to the fact that his entire class had gone to Yale. “Joe’s” was unaesthetic and faintly unsanitary, but a limitless charge account could be opened there, a convenience that Amory appreciated. His father had been experimenting with mining stocks and, in consequence, his allowance, while liberal, was not at all what he had expected.

“Joe’s” had the additional advantage of seclusion from curious upper-class eyes, so at four each afternoon Amory, accompanied by friend or book, went up to experiment with his digestion. One day in March, finding that all the tables were occupied, he slipped into a chair opposite a freshman who bent intently over a book at the last table. They nodded briefly. For twenty minutes Amory sat consuming bacon buns and reading “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” (he had discovered Shaw quite by accident while browsing in the library during mid-years); the other freshman, also intent on his volume, meanwhile did away with a trio of chocolate malted milks.

By and by Amory’s eyes wandered curiously to his fellow-luncher’s book. He spelled out the name and title upside down—“Marpessa,” by Stephen Phillips. This meant nothing to him, his metrical education having been confined to such Sunday classics as “Come into the Garden, Maude,” and what morsels of Shakespeare and Milton had been recently forced upon him.

Moved to address his vis-à-vis, he simulated interest in his book for a moment, and then exclaimed aloud as if involuntarily:

“Ha! Great stuff!”

The other freshman looked up and Amory registered artificial embarrassment.

“Are you referring to your bacon buns?”His cracked, kindly voice went well with the large spectacles and the impression of a voluminous keenness that he gave.

“No,” Amory answered. “I was referring to Bernard Shaw.” He turned the book around in explanation.

“I’ve never read any Shaw. I’ve always meant to.” The boy paused and then continued: “Did you ever read Stephen Phillips, or do you like poetry?”

“Yes, indeed,” Amory affirmed eagerly. “I’ve never read much of Phillips, though.” (He had never heard of any Phillips except the late David Graham.)

“It’s pretty fair, I think. Of course he’s a Victorian.” They sallied into a discussion of poetry, in the course of which they introduced themselves, and Amory’s companion proved to be none other than “that awful highbrow, Thomas Parke D’Invilliers,” who signed the passionate love-poems in the Lit. He was, perhaps, nineteen, with stooped shoulders, pale blue eyes, and, as Amory could tell from his general appearance, without much conception of social competition and such phenomena of absorbing interest. Still, he liked books, and it seemed forever since Amory had met any one who did; if only that St. Paul’s crowd at the next table would not mistake him for a bird, too, he would enjoy the encounter tremendously. They didn’t seem to be noticing, so he let himself go, discussed books by the dozens—books he had read, read about, books he had never heard of, rattling off lists of titles with the facility of a Brentano’s clerk. D’Invilliers was partially taken in and wholly delighted. In a good-natured way he had almost decided that Princeton was one part deadly Philistines and one part deadly grinds, and to find a person who could mention Keats without stammering, yet evidently washed his hands, was rather a treat.

“Ever read any Oscar Wilde?”he asked.

“No. Who wrote it?”

“It’s a man—don’t you know?”

“Oh, surely.” A faint chord was struck in Amory’s memory. “Wasn’t the comic opera, ‘Patience,’ written about him?”

“Yes, that’s the fella. I’ve just finished a book of his, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ and I certainly wish you’d read it. You’d like it. You can borrow it if you want to.”

“Why, I’d like it a lot—thanks.”

“Don’t you want to come up to the room?I’ve got a few other books.”

Amory hesitated, glanced at the St. Paul’s group—one of them was the magnificent, exquisite Humbird—and he considered how determinate the addition of this friend would be. He never got to the stage of making them and getting rid of them—he was not hard enough for that—so he measured Thomas Parke D’Invilliers’undoubted attractions and value against the menace of cold eyes behind tortoise-rimmed spectacles that he fancied glared from the next table. “Yes, I’ll go.”

So he found “Dorian Gray” and the “Mystic and Somber Dolores” and the “Belle Dame sans Merci;” for a month was keen on naught else. The world became pale and interesting, and he tried hard to look at Princeton through the satiated eyes of Oscar Wilde and Swinburne—or “Fingal O’Flaherty” and “Algernon Charles,” as he called them in précieuse jest. He read enormously every night—Shaw, Chesterton, Barrie, Pinero, Yeats, Synge, Ernest Dowson, Arthur Symons, Keats, Sudermann, Robert Hugh Benson, the Savoy Operas—just a heterogeneous mixture, for he suddenly discovered that he had read nothing for years.

Tom D’Invilliers became at first an occasion rather than a friend. Amory saw him about once a week, and together they gilded the ceiling of Tom’s room and decorated the walls with imitation tapestry, bought at an auction, tall candlesticks and figured curtains. Amory liked him for being clever and literary without effeminacy or affectation. In fact, Amory did most of the strutting and tried painfully to make every remark an epigram, than which, if one is content with ostensible epigrams, there are many feats harder.12 Univee was amused. Kerry read “Dorian Gray” and simulated Lord Henry, following Amory about, addressing him as “Dorian” and pretending to encourage in him wicked fancies and attenuated tendencies to ennui. When he carried it into Commons, to the amazement of the others at table, Amory became furiously embarrassed, and after that made epigrams only before D’Invilliers or a convenient mirror.

One day Tom and Amory tried reciting their own and Lord Dunsany’s poems to the music of Kerry’s graphophone. “Chant!” cried Tom. “Don’t recite! Chant!”

Amory, who was performing, looked annoyed, and claimed that he needed a record with less piano in it. Kerry thereupon rolled on the floor in stifled laughter.

“Put on‘Hearts and Flowers’!” he howled. “Oh, my Lord, I’m going to cast a kitten.”

“Shut off the damn graphophone,” Amory cried, rather red in the face. “I’m not giving an exhibition.”

In the meanwhile Amory delicately kept trying to awaken a sense of the social system in D’Invilliers, for he knew that this poet was really more conventional than he, and needed merely watered hair, a smaller range of conversation, and a darker brown hat to become quite regular. But the liturgy of Livingstone collars and dark ties fell on heedless ears; in fact D’Invilliers faintly resented his efforts; so Amory confined himself to calls once a week, and brought him occasionally to 12 Univee. This caused mild titters among the other freshmen, who called them “Doctor Johnson and Boswell.”

Alec Connage, another frequent visitor, liked him in a vague way, but was afraid of him as a highbrow. Kerry, who saw through his poetic patter to the solid, almost respectable depths within, was immensely amused and would have him recite poetry by the hour, while he lay with closed eyes on Amory’s sofa and listened:

Asleep or waking is it?for her neck

Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck

Wherein the pained blood falters and goes out;

Soft and stung softly—fairer for a fleck....

“That’s good,” Kerry would say softly. “It pleases the elder Holiday. That’s a great poet, I guess.” Tom, delighted at an audience, would ramble through the “Poems and Ballades” until Kerry and Amory knew them almost as well as he.

Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmoniously above the willows. May came too soon, and suddenly unable to bear walls, he wandered the campus at all hours through starlight and rain.

*****

A Damp Symbolic Interlude

The night mist fell. From the moon it rolled, clustered about the spires and towers, and then settled below them, so that the dreaming peaks were still in lofty aspiration toward the sky. Figures that dotted the day like ants now brushed along as shadowy ghosts, in and out of the foreground. The Gothic halls and cloisters were infinitely more mysterious as they loomed suddenly out of the darkness, outlined each by myriad faint squares of yellow light. Indefinitely from somewhere a bell boomed the quarter-hour, and Amory, pausing by the sun-dial, stretched himself out full length on the damp grass. The cool bathed his eyes and slowed the flight of time—time that had crept so insidiously through the lazy April afternoons, seemed so intangible in the long spring twilights. Evening after evening the senior singing had drifted over the campus in melancholy beauty, and through the shell of his undergraduate consciousness had broken a deep and reverent devotion to the gray walls and Gothic peaks and all they symbolized as warehouses of dead ages.

The tower that in view of his window sprang upward, grew into a spire, yearning higher until its uppermost tip was half invisible against the morning skies, gave him the first sense of the transiency and unimportance of the campus figures except as holders of the apostolic succession. He liked knowing that Gothic architecture, with its upward trend, was peculiarly appropriate to universities, and the idea became personal to him. The silent stretches of green, the quiet halls with an occasional late-burning scholastic light held his imagination in a strong grasp, and the chastity of the spire became a symbol of this perception.

“Damn it all,” he whispered aloud, wetting his hands in the damp and running them through his hair. “Next year I work!” Yet he knew that where now the spirit of spires and towers made him dreamily acquiescent, it would then overawe him. Where now he realized only his own inconsequence, effort would make him aware of his own impotency and insufficiency.

The college dreamed on—awake. He felt a nervous excitement that might have been the very throb of its slow heart. It was a stream where he was to throw a stone whose faint ripple would be vanishing almost as it left his hand. As yet he had given nothing, he had taken nothing.

A belated freshman, his oilskin slicker rasping loudly, slushed along the soft path. A voice from somewhere called the inevitable formula, “Stick out your head!” below an unseen window. A hundred little sounds of the current drifting on under the fog pressed in finally on his consciousness.

“Oh, God!” he cried suddenly, and started at the sound of his voice in the stillness. The rain dripped on. A minute longer he lay without moving, his hands clinched. Then he sprang to his feet and gave his clothes a tentative pat.

“I’m very damn wet!” he said aloud to the sun-dial.

*****

Historical

The war began in the summer following his freshman year. Beyond a sporting interest in the German dash for Paris the whole affair failed either to thrill or interest him. With the attitude he might have held toward an amusing melodrama he hoped it would be long and bloody. If it had not continued he would have felt like an irate ticket-holder at a prize-fight where the principals refused to mix it up.

That was his total reaction.

*****

“Ha-Ha Hortense!”

“All right, ponies!”

“Shake it up!”

“Hey, ponies—how about easing up on that crap game and shaking a mean hip?”

“Hey, ponies!”

The coach fumed helplessly, the Triangle Club president, glowering with anxiety, varied between furious bursts of authority and fits of temperamental lassitude, when he sat spiritless and wondered how the devil the show was ever going on tour by Christmas.

“All right. We’ll take the pirate song.”

The ponies took last drags at their cigarettes and slumped into place; the leading lady rushed into the foreground, setting his hands and feet in an atmospheric mince; and as the coach clapped and stamped and tumped and da-da’d, they hashed out a dance.

A great, seething ant-hill was the Triangle Club. It gave a musical comedy every year, travelling with cast, chorus, orchestra, and scenery all through Christmas vacation. The play and music were the work of undergraduates, and the club itself was the most influential of institutions, over three hundred men competing for it every year.

Amory, after an easy victory in the first sophomore Princetonian competition, stepped into a vacancy of the cast as Boiling Oil, a Pirate Lieutenant. Every night for the last week they had rehearsed “Ha-Ha Hortense!” in the Casino, from two in the afternoon until eight in the morning, sustained by dark and powerful coffee, and sleeping in lectures through the interim. A rare scene, the Casino. A big, barnlike auditorium, dotted with boys as girls, boys as pirates, boys as babies; the scenery in course of being violently set up; the spotlight man rehearsing by throwing weird shafts into angry eyes; over all the constant tuning of the orchestra or the cheerful tumpty-tump of a Triangle tune. The boy who writes the lyrics stands in the corner, biting a pencil, with twenty minutes to think of an encore; the business manager argues with the secretary as to how much money can be spent on “those damn milkmaid costumes;” the old graduate, president in ninety-eight, perches on a box and thinks how much simpler it was in his day.

How a Triangle show ever got off was a mystery, but it was a riotous mystery, anyway, whether or not one did enough service to wear a little gold Triangle on his watch-chain. “Ha-Ha Hortense!” was written over six times and had the names of nine collaborators on the programme. All Triangle shows started by being “something different—not just a regular musical comedy,” but when the several authors, the president, the coach and the faculty committee finished with it, there remained just the old reliable Triangle show with the old reliable jokes and the star comedian who got expelled or sick or something just before the trip, and the dark-whiskered man in the pony-ballet, who “absolutely won’t shave twice a day, dog-gone it!”

There was one brilliant place in “Ha-Ha Hortense!” It is a Princeton tradition that whenever a Yale man who is a member of the widely advertised “Skull and Bones” hears the sacred name mentioned, he must leave the room. It is also a tradition that the members are invariably successful in later life, amassing fortunes or votes or coupons or whatever they choose to amass. Therefore, at each performance of “Ha-Ha Hortense!” half-a-dozen seats were kept from sale and occupied by six of the worst-looking vagabonds that could be hired from the streets, further touched up by the Triangle make-up man. At the moment in the show where Firebrand, the Pirate Chief, pointed at his black flag and said, “I am a Yale graduate—note my Skull and Bones!” —at this very moment the six vagabonds were instructed to rise conspicuously and leave the theatre with looks of deep melancholy and an injured dignity. It was claimed though never proved that on one occasion the hired Elis were swelled by one of the real thing.

They played through vacation to the fashionable of eight cities. Amory liked Louisville and Memphis best: these knew how to meet strangers, furnished extraordinary punch, and flaunted an astonishing array of feminine beauty. Chicago he approved for a certain verve that transcended its loud accent—however, it was a Yale town, and as the Yale Glee Club was expected in a week the Triangle received only divided homage. In Baltimore, Princeton was at home, and every one fell in love. There was a proper consumption of strong waters all along the line; one man invariably went on the stage highly stimulated, claiming that his particular interpretation of the part required it. There were three private cars; however, no one slept except in the third car, which was called the “animal car,” and where were herded the spectacled wind-jammers of the orchestra. Everything was so hurried that there was no time to be bored, but when they arrived in Philadelphia, with vacation nearly over, there was rest in getting out of the heavy atmosphere of flowers and grease-paint, and the ponies took off their corsets with abdominal pains and sighs of relief.

When the disbanding came, Amory set out post-haste for Minneapolis, for Sally Weatherby’s cousin, Isabelle Borgé, was coming to spend the winter in Minneapolis while her parents went abroad. He remembered Isabelle only as a little girl with whom he had played sometimes when he first went to Minneapolis. She had gone to Baltimore to live—but since then she had developed a past.

Amory was in full stride, confident, nervous, and jubilant. Scurrying back to Minneapolis to see a girl he had known as a child seemed the interesting and romantic thing to do, so without compunction he wired his mother not to expect him.... sat in the train, and thought about himself for thirty-six hours.

*****

“Petting”

On the Triangle trip Amory had come into constant contact with that great current American phenomenon, the “petting party.”

None of the Victorian mothers—and most of the mothers were Victorian—had any idea how casually their daughters were accustomed to be kissed. “Servant-girls are that way,” says Mrs. Huston-Carmelite to her popular daughter. “They are kissed first and proposed to afterward.”

But the Popular Daughter becomes engaged every six months between sixteen and twenty-two, when she arranges a match with young Hambell, of Cambell&Hambell, who fatuously considers himself her first love, and between engagements the P. D. (she is selected by the cut-in system at dances, which favors the survival of the fittest) has other sentimental last kisses in the moonlight, or the firelight, or the outer darkness.

Amory saw girls doing things that even in his memory would have been impossible: eating three-o’clock, after-dance suppers in impossible cafés, talking of every side of life with an air half of earnestness, half of mockery, yet with a furtive excitement that Amory considered stood for a real moral let-down. But he never realized how wide-spread it was until he saw the cities between New York and Chicago as one vast juvenile intrigue.

Afternoon at the Plaza, with winter twilight hovering outside and faint drums down-stairs.... they strut and fret in the lobby, taking another cocktail, scrupulously attired and waiting. Then the swinging doors revolve and three bundles of fur mince in. The theatre comes afterward; then a table at the Midnight Frolic—of course, mother will be along there, but she will serve only to make things more secretive and brilliant as she sits in solitary state at the deserted table and thinks such entertainments as this are not half so bad as they are painted, only rather wearying. But the P. D.is in love again.... it was odd, wasn’t it?—that though there was so much room left in the taxi the P. D.and the boy from Williams were somehow crowded out and had to go in a separate car. Odd! Didn’t you notice how flushed the P. D.was when she arrived just seven minutes late?But the P. D. “gets away with it.”

The “belle” had become the “flirt,” the “flirt” had become the “baby vamp.” The “belle” had five or six callers every afternoon. If the P. D., by some strange accident, has two, it is made pretty uncomfortable for the one who hasn’t a date with her. The “belle” was surrounded by a dozen men in the intermissions between dances. Try to find the P. D.between dances, just try to find her.

The same girl.... deep in an atmosphere of jungle music and the questioning of moral codes. Amory found it rather fascinating to feel that any popular girl he met before eight he might quite possibly kiss before twelve.

“Why on earth are we here?”he asked the girl with the green combs one night as they sat in some one’s limousine, outside the Country Club in Louisville.

“I don’t know. I’m just full of the devil.”

“Let’s be frank—we’ll never see each other again. I wanted to come out here with you because I thought you were the best-looking girl in sight. You really don’t care whether you ever see me again, do you?”

“No—but is this your line for every girl?What have I done to deserve it?”

“And you didn’t feel tired dancing or want a cigarette or any of the things you said?You just wanted to be—”“Oh, let’s go in,” she interrupted, “if you want to analyze. Let’s not talk about it.”

When the hand-knit, sleeveless jerseys were stylish, Amory, in a burst of inspiration, named them “petting shirts.” The name travelled from coast to coast on the lips of parlor-snakes and P. D.’s.

*****

Descriptive

Amory was now eighteen years old, just under six feet tall and exceptionally, but not conventionally, handsome. He had rather a young face, the ingenuousness of which was marred by the penetrating green eyes, fringed with long dark eyelashes. He lacked somehow that intense animal magnetism that so often accompanies beauty in men or women; his personality seemed rather a mental thing, and it was not in his power to turn it on and off like a water-faucet. But people never forgot his face.

*****

Isabelle

She paused at the top of the staircase. The sensations attributed to divers on spring-boards, leading ladies on opening nights, and lumpy, husky young men on the day of the Big Game, crowded through her. She should have descended to a burst of drums or a discordant blend of themes from “Thais” and “Carmen.” She had never been so curious about her appearance, she had never been so satisfied with it. She had been sixteen years old for six months.

“Isabelle!” called her cousin Sally from the doorway of the dressing-room.

“I’m ready.” She caught a slight lump of nervousness in her throat.

“I had to send back to the house for another pair of slippers. It’ll be just a minute.”

Isabelle started toward the dressing-room for a last peek in the mirror, but something decided her to stand there and gaze down the broad stairs of the Minnehaha Club. They curved tantalizingly, and she could catch just a glimpse of two pairs of masculine feet in the hall below. Pump-shod in uniform black, they gave no hint of identity, but she wondered eagerly if one pair were attached to Amory Blaine. This young man, not as yet encountered, had nevertheless taken up a considerable part of her day—the first day of her arrival. Coming up in the machine from the station, Sally had volunteered, amid a rain of question, comment, revelation, and exaggeration:

“You remember Amory Blaine, of course. Well, he’s simply mad to see you again. He’s stayed over a day from college, and he’s coming to-night. He’s heard so much about you—says he remembers your eyes.”

This had pleased Isabelle. It put them on equal terms, although she was quite capable of staging her own romances, with or without advance advertising. But following her happy tremble of anticipation, came a sinking sensation that made her ask:

“How do you mean he’s heard about me?What sort of things?”

Sally smiled. She felt rather in the capacity of a showman with her more exotic cousin.

“He knows you’re—you’re considered beautiful and all that”—she paused—“and I guess he knows you’ve been kissed.”

At this Isabelle’s little fist had clinched suddenly under the fur robe. She was accustomed to be thus followed by her desperate past, and it never failed to rouse in her the same feeling of resentment; yet—in a strange town it was an advantageous reputation. She was a “Speed,” was she?Well—let them find out.

Out of the window Isabelle watched the snow glide by in the frosty morning. It was ever so much colder here than in Baltimore; she had not remembered; the glass of the side door was iced, the windows were shirred with snow in the corners. Her mind played still with one subject. Did he dress like that boy there, who walked calmly down a bustling business street, in moccasins and winter-carnival costume?How very Western! Of course he wasn’t that way: he went to Princeton, was a sophomore or something. Really she had no distinct idea of him. An ancient snap-shot she had preserved in an old kodak book had impressed her by the big eyes (which he had probably grown up to by now). However, in the last month, when her winter visit to Sally had been decided on, he had assumed the proportions of a worthy adversary. Children, most astute of match-makers, plot their campaigns quickly, and Sally had played a clever correspondence sonata to Isabelle’s excitable temperament. Isabelle had been for some time capable of very strong, if very transient emotions....

They drew up at a spreading, white-stone building, set back from the snowy street. Mrs. Weatherby greeted her warmly and her various younger cousins were produced from the corners where they skulked politely. Isabelle met them tactfully. At her best she allied all with whom she came in contact—except older girls and some women. All the impressions she made were conscious. The half-dozen girls she renewed acquaintance with that morning were all rather impressed and as much by her direct personality as by her reputation. Amory Blaine was an open subject. Evidently a bit light of love, neither popular nor unpopular—every girl there seemed to have had an affair with him at some time or other, but no one volunteered any really useful information. He was going to fall for her.... Sally had published that information to her young set and they were retailing it back to Sally as fast as they set eyes on Isabelle. Isabelle resolved secretly that she would, if necessary, force herself to like him—she owed it to Sally. Suppose she were terribly disappointed. Sally had painted him in such glowing colors—he was good-looking, “sort of distinguished, when he wants to be,” had a line, and was properly inconstant. In fact, he summed up all the romance that her age and environment led her to desire. She wondered if those were his dancing-shoes that fox-trotted tentatively around the soft rug below.

All impressions and, in fact, all ideas were extremely kaleidoscopic to Isabelle. She had that curious mixture of the social and the artistic temperaments found often in two classes, society women and actresses. Her education or, rather, her sophistication, had been absorbed from the boys who had dangled on her favor; her tact was instinctive, and her capacity for love-affairs was limited only by the number of the susceptible within telephone distance. Flirt smiled from her large black-brown eyes and shone through her intense physical magnetism.

So she waited at the head of the stairs that evening while slippers were fetched. Just as she was growing impatient, Sally came out of the dressing-room, beaming with her accustomed good nature and high spirits, and together they descended to the floor below, while the shifting search-light of Isabelle’s mind flashed on two ideas: she was glad she had high color to-night, and she wondered if he danced well.

Down-stairs, in the club’s great room, she was surrounded for a moment by the girls she had met in the afternoon, then she heard Sally’s voice repeating a cycle of names, and found herself bowing to a sextet of black and white, terribly stiff, vaguely familiar figures. The name Blaine figured somewhere, but at first she could not place him. A very confused, very juvenile moment of awkward backings and bumpings followed, and every one found himself talking to the person he least desired to. Isabelle manoeuvred herself and Froggy Parker, freshman at Harvard, with whom she had once played hop-scotch, to a seat on the stairs. A humorous reference to the past was all she needed. The things Isabelle could do socially with one idea were remarkable. First, she repeated it rapturously in an enthusiastic contralto with a soupçon of Southern accent; then she held it off at a distance and smiled at it—her wonderful smile; then she delivered it in variations and played a sort of mental catch with it, all this in the nominal form of dialogue. Froggy was fascinated and quite unconscious that this was being done, not for him, but for the green eyes that glistened under the shining carefully watered hair, a little to her left, for Isabelle had discovered Amory. As an actress even in the fullest flush of her own conscious magnetism gets a deep impression of most of the people in the front row, so Isabelle sized up her antagonist. First, he had auburn hair, and from her feeling of disappointment she knew that she had expected him to be dark and of garter-advertisement slenderness.... For the rest, a faint flush and a straight, romantic profile; the effect set off by a close-fitting dress suit and a silk ruffled shirt of the kind that women still delight to see men wear, but men were just beginning to get tired of.

During this inspection Amory was quietly watching.

“Don’t you think so?”she said suddenly, turning to him, innocent-eyed.

There was a stir, and Sally led the way over to their table. Amory struggled to Isabelle’s side, and whispered: “You’re my dinner partner, you know. We’re all coached for each other.”

Isabelle gasped—this was rather right in line. But really she felt as if a good speech had been taken from the star and given to a minor character.... She mustn’t lose the leadership a bit. The dinner-table glittered with laughter at the confusion of getting places and then curious eyes were turned on her, sitting near the head. She was enjoying this immensely, and Froggy Parker was so engrossed with the added sparkle of her rising color that he forgot to pull out Sally’s chair, and fell into a dim confusion. Amory was on the other side, full of confidence and vanity, gazing at her in open admiration. He began directly, and so did Froggy:

“I’ve heard a lot about you since you wore braids—”

“Wasn’t it funny this afternoon—”

Both stopped. Isabelle turned to Amory shyly. Her face was always enough answer for any one, but she decided to speak. “How—from whom?”

“From everybody—for all the years since you’ve been away.” She blushed appropriately. On her right Froggy was hors de combat already, although he hadn’t quite realized it.

“I’ll tell you what I remembered about you all these years,” Amory continued. She leaned slightly toward him and looked modestly at the celery before her. Froggy sighed—he knew Amory, and the situations that Amory seemed born to handle. He turned to Sally and asked her if she was going away to school next year. Amory opened with grape-shot.

“I’ve got an adjective that just fits you.” This was one of his favorite starts—he seldom had a word in mind, but it was a curiosity provoker, and he could always produce something complimentary if he got in a tight corner.

“Oh—what?”Isabelle’s face was a study in enraptured curiosity.

Amory shook his head.

“I don’t know you very well yet.”

“Will you tell me—afterward?”she half whispered.

He nodded.

“We’ll sit out.”

Isabelle nodded.

“Did any one ever tell you, you have keen eyes?”she said.

Amory attempted to make them look even keener. He fancied, but he was not sure, that her foot had just touched his under the table. But it might possibly have been only the table leg. It was so hard to tell. Still it thrilled him. He wondered quickly if there would be any difficulty in securing the little den up-stairs.

*****

Babes in the woods

Isabelle and Amory were distinctly not innocent, nor were they particularly brazen. Moreover, amateur standing had very little value in the game they were playing, a game that would presumably be her principal study for years to come. She had begun as he had, with good looks and an excitable temperament, and the rest was the result of accessible popular novels and dressing-room conversation culled from a slightly older set. Isabelle had walked with an artificial gait at nine and a half, and when her eyes, wide and starry, proclaimed the ingenue most. Amory was proportionately less deceived. He waited for the mask to drop off, but at the same time he did not question her right to wear it. She, on her part, was not impressed by his studied air of blasé sophistication. She had lived in a larger city and had slightly an advantage in range. But she accepted his pose—it was one of the dozen little conventions of this kind of affair. He was aware that he was getting this particular favor now because she had been coached; he knew that he stood for merely the best game in sight, and that he would have to improve his opportunity before he lost his advantage. So they proceeded with an infinite guile that would have horrified her parents.

After the dinner the dance began.... smoothly. Smoothly?—boys cut in on Isabelle every few feet and then squabbled in the corners with: “You might let me get more than an inch!” and “She didn’t like it either—she told me so next time I cut in.” It was true—she told every one so, and gave every hand a parting pressure that said: “You know that your dances are making my evening.”

But time passed, two hours of it, and the less subtle beaux had better learned to focus their pseudo-passionate glances elsewhere, for eleven o’clock found Isabelle and Amory sitting on the couch in the little den off the reading-room up-stairs. She was conscious that they were a handsome pair, and seemed to belong distinctively in this seclusion, while lesser lights fluttered and chattered down-stairs.

Boys who passed the door looked in enviously—girls who passed only laughed and frowned and grew wise within themselves.

They had now reached a very definite stage. They had traded accounts of their progress since they had met last, and she had listened to much she had heard before. He was a sophomore, was on the Princetonian board, hoped to be chairman in senior year. He learned that some of the boys she went with in Baltimore were “terrible speeds” and came to dances in states of artificial stimulation; most of them were twenty or so, and drove alluring red Stutzes. A good half seemed to have already flunked out of various schools and colleges, but some of them bore athletic names that made him look at her admiringly. As a matter of fact, Isabelle’s closer acquaintance with the universities was just commencing. She had bowing acquaintance with a lot of young men who thought she was a “pretty kid—worth keeping an eye on.” But Isabelle strung the names into a fabrication of gayety that would have dazzled a Viennese nobleman. Such is the power of young contralto voices on sink-down sofas.

He asked her if she thought he was conceited. She said there was a difference between conceit and self-confidence. She adored self-confidence in men.

“Is Froggy a good friend of yours?”she asked.

“Rather—why?”

“He’s a bum dancer.”

Amory laughed.

“He dances as if the girl were on his back instead of in his arms.”

She appreciated this.

“You’re awfully good at sizing people up.”

Amory denied this painfully. However, he sized up several people for her. Then they talked about hands.

“You’ve got awfully nice hands,” she said. “They look as if you played the piano. Do you?”

I have said they had reached a very definite stage—nay, more, a very critical stage. Amory had stayed over a day to see her, and his train left at twelve-eighteen that night. His trunk and suitcase awaited him at the station; his watch was beginning to hang heavy in his pocket.

“Isabelle,” he said suddenly, “I want to tell you something.” They had been talking lightly about “that funny look in her eyes,” and Isabelle knew from the change in his manner what was coming—indeed, she had been wondering how soon it would come. Amory reached above their heads and turned out the electric light, so that they were in the dark, except for the red glow that fell through the door from the reading-room lamps. Then he began:

“I don’t know whether or not you know what you—what I’m going to say. Lordy, Isabelle—this sounds like a line, but it isn’t.”

“I know,” said Isabelle softly.

“Maybe we’ll never meet again like this—I have darned hard luck sometimes.” He was leaning away from her on the other arm of the lounge, but she could see his eyes plainly in the dark.

“You’ll meet me again—silly.” There was just the slightest emphasis on the last word—so that it became almost a term of endearment. He continued a bit huskily:

“I’ve fallen for a lot of people—girls—and I guess you have, too—boys, I mean, but, honestly, you—”he broke off suddenly and leaned forward, chin on his hands: “Oh, what’s the use—you’ll go your way and I suppose I’ll go mine.”

Silence for a moment. Isabelle was quite stirred; she wound her handkerchief into a tight ball, and by the faint light that streamed over her, dropped it deliberately on the floor. Their hands touched for an instant, but neither spoke. Silences were becoming more frequent and more delicious. Outside another stray couple had come up and were experimenting on the piano in the next room. After the usual preliminary of “chopsticks,” one of them started “Babes in the Woods” and a light tenor carried the words into the den:

Give me your hand—

I’ll understand

We’re off to slumberland.

Isabelle hummed it softly and trembled as she felt Amory’s hand close over hers.

“Isabelle,” he whispered. “You know I’m mad about you. You do give a darn about me.”

“Yes.”

“How much do you care—do you like any one better?”

“No.” He could scarcely hear her, although he bent so near that he felt her breath against his cheek.

“Isabelle, I’m going back to college for six long months, and why shouldn’t we—if I could only just have one thing to remember you by—”

“Close the door.... ”Her voice had just stirred so that he half wondered whether she had spoken at all. As he swung the door softly shut, the music seemed quivering just outside.

Moonlight is bright,

Kiss me good night.

What a wonderful song, she thought—everything was wonderful to-night, most of all this romantic scene in the den, with their hands clinging and the inevitable looming charmingly close. The future vista of her life seemed an unending succession of scenes like this: under moonlight and pale starlight, and in the backs of warm limousines and in low, cosey roadsters stopped under sheltering trees—only the boy might change, and this one was so nice. He took her hand softly. With a sudden movement he turned it and, holding it to his lips, kissed the palm.

“Isabelle!” His whisper blended in the music, and they seemed to float nearer together. Her breath came faster. “Can’t I kiss you, Isabelle—Isabelle?”Lips half parted, she turned her head to him in the dark. Suddenly the ring of voices, the sound of running footsteps surged toward them. Quick as a flash Amory reached up and turned on the light, and when the door opened and three boys, the wrathy and dance-craving Froggy among them, rushed in, he was turning over the magazines on the table, while she sat without moving, serene and unembarrassed, and even greeted them with a welcoming smile. But her heart was beating wildly, and she felt somehow as if she had been deprived.

It was evidently over. There was a clamor for a dance, there was a glance that passed between them—on his side despair, on hers regret, and then the evening went on, with the reassured beaux and the eternal cutting in.

At quarter to twelve Amory shook hands with her gravely, in the midst of a small crowd assembled to wish him good-speed. For an instant he lost his poise, and she felt a bit rattled when a satirical voice from a concealed wit cried:

“Take her outside, Amory!” As he took her hand he pressed it a little, and she returned the pressure as she had done to twenty hands that evening—that was all.

At two o’clock back at the Weatherbys’Sally asked her if she and Amory had had a “time” in the den. Isabelle turned to her quietly. In her eyes was the light of the idealist, the inviolate dreamer of Joan-like dreams.

“No,” she answered. “I don’t do that sort of thing any more; he asked me to, but I said no.”

As she crept in bed she wondered what he’d say in his special delivery to-morrow. He had such a good-looking mouth—would she ever—?

“Fourteen angels were watching o’er them,” sang Sally sleepily from the next room.

“Damn!” muttered Isabelle, punching the pillow into a luxurious lump and exploring the cold sheets cautiously. “Damn!”

*****

Carnival

Amory, by way of the Princetonian, had arrived. The minor snobs, finely balanced thermometers of success, warmed to him as the club elections grew nigh, and he and Tom were visited by groups of upper classmen who arrived awkwardly, balanced on the edge of the furniture and talked of all subjects except the one of absorbing interest. Amory was amused at the intent eyes upon him, and, in case the visitors represented some club in which he was not interested, took great pleasure in shocking them with unorthodox remarks.

“Oh, let me see—”he said one night to a flabbergasted delegation, “what club do you represent?”

With visitors from Ivy and Cottage and Tiger Inn he played the “nice, unspoilt, ingenuous boy” very much at ease and quite unaware of the object of the call.

When the fatal morning arrived, early in March, and the campus became a document in hysteria, he slid smoothly into Cottage with Alec Connage and watched his suddenly neurotic class with much wonder.

There were fickle groups that jumped from club to club; there were friends of two or three days who announced tearfully and wildly that they must join the same club, nothing should separate them; there were snarling disclosures of long-hidden grudges as the Suddenly Prominent remembered snubs of freshman year. Unknown men were elevated into importance when they received certain coveted bids; others who were considered “all set” found that they had made unexpected enemies, felt themselves stranded and deserted, talked wildly of leaving college.

In his own crowd Amory saw men kept out for wearing green hats, for being “a damn tailor’s dummy,” for having “too much pull in heaven,” for getting drunk one night “not like a gentleman, by God,” or for unfathomable secret reasons known to no one but the wielders of the black balls.

This orgy of sociability culminated in a gigantic party at the Nassau Inn, where punch was dispensed from immense bowls, and the whole down-stairs became a delirious, circulating, shouting pattern of faces and voices.

“Hi, Dibby—’gratulations!”

“Goo’boy, Tom, you got a good bunch in Cap.”

“Say, Kerry—”

“Oh, Kerry—I hear you went Tiger with all the weight-lifters!”

“Well, I didn’t go Cottage—the parlor-snakes’delight.”

“They say Overton fainted when he got his Ivy bid—Did he sign up the first day?—oh, no. Tore over to Murray-Dodge on a bicycle—afraid it was a mistake.”

“How’d you get into Cap—you old roué?”

“’Gratulations!”

“’Gratulations yourself. Hear you got a good crowd.”

When the bar closed, the party broke up into groups and streamed, singing, over the snow-clad campus, in a weird delusion that snobbishness and strain were over at last, and that they could do what they pleased for the next two years. Long afterward Amory thought of sophomore spring as the happiest time of his life. His ideas were in tune with life as he found it; he wanted no more than to drift and dream and enjoy a dozen new-found friendships through the April afternoons.

Alec Connage came into his room one morning and woke him up into the sunshine and peculiar glory of Campbell Hall shining in the window.

“Wake up, Original Sin, and scrape yourself together. Be in front of Renwick’s in half an hour. Somebody’s got a car.” He took the bureau cover and carefully deposited it, with its load of small articles, upon the bed.

“Where’d you get the car?”demanded Amory cynically.

“Sacred trust, but don’t be a critical goopher or you can’t go!”

“I think I’ll sleep,” Amory said calmly, resettling himself and reaching beside the bed for a cigarette.

“Sleep!”

“Why not?I’ve got a class at eleven-thirty.”

“You damned gloom! Of course, if you don’t want to go to the coast—”

With a bound Amory was out of bed, scattering the bureau cover’s burden on the floor. The coast.... he hadn’t seen it for years, since he and his mother were on their pilgrimage.

“Who’s going?”he demanded as he wriggled into his B. V. D.’s.

“Oh, Dick Humbird and Kerry Holiday and Jesse Ferrenby and—oh about five or six. Speed it up, kid!”

In ten minutes Amory was devouring cornflakes in Renwick’s, and at nine-thirty they bowled happily out of town, headed for the sands of Deal Beach.

“You see,” said Kerry, “the car belongs down there. In fact, it was stolen from Asbury Park by persons unknown, who deserted it in Princeton and left for the West. Heartless Humbird here got permission from the city council to deliver it.”

“Anybody got any money?”suggested Ferrenby, turning around from the front seat.

There was an emphatic negative chorus.

“That makes it interesting.”

“Money—what’s money?We can sell the car.”

“Charge him salvage or something.”

“How’re we going to get food?”asked Amory.

“Honestly,” answered Kerry, eying him reprovingly, “do you doubt Kerry’s ability for three short days?Some people have lived on nothing for years at a time. Read the Boy Scout Monthly.”

“Three days,” Amory mused, “and I’ve got classes.”

“One of the days is the Sabbath.”

“Just the same, I can only cut six more classes, with over a month and a half to go.”

“Throw him out!”

“It’s a long walk back.”

“Amory, you’re running it out, if I may coin a new phrase.”

“Hadn’t you better get some dope on yourself, Amory?”

Amory subsided resignedly and drooped into a contemplation of the scenery. Swinburne seemed to fit in somehow.

Oh, winter’s rains and ruins are over,

And all the seasons of snows and sins;

The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins;

And time remembered is grief forgotten,

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

And in green underwood and cover,

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

The full streams feed on flower of—

“What’s the matter, Amory?Amory’s thinking about poetry, about the pretty birds and flowers. I can see it in his eye.”

“No, I’m not,” he lied. “I’m thinking about the Princetonian. I ought to make up to-night; but I can telephone back, I suppose.”

“Oh,” said Kerry respectfully, “these important men—”

Amory flushed and it seemed to him that Ferrenby, a defeated competitor, winced a little. Of course, Kerry was only kidding, but he really mustn’t mention the Princetonian.

It was a halcyon day, and as they neared the shore and the salt breezes scurried by, he began to picture the ocean and long, level stretches of sand and red roofs over blue sea. Then they hurried through the little town and it all flashed upon his consciousness to a mighty paean of emotion....

“Oh, good Lord! Look at it!” he cried.

“What?”

“Let me out, quick—I haven’t seen it for eight years! Oh, gentlefolk, stop the car!”

“What an odd child!” remarked Alec.

“I do believe he’s a bit eccentric.”

The car was obligingly drawn up at a curb, and Amory ran for the boardwalk. First, he realized that the sea was blue and that there was an enormous quantity of it, and that it roared and roared—really all the banalities about the ocean that one could realize, but if any one had told him then that these things were banalities, he would have gaped in wonder.

“Now we’ll get lunch,” ordered Kerry, wandering up with the crowd. “Come on, Amory, tear yourself away and get practical.”

“We’ll try the best hotel first,” he went on, “and thence and so forth.”

They strolled along the boardwalk to the most imposing hostelry in sight, and, entering the dining-room, scattered about a table.

“Eight Bronxes,” commanded Alec, “and a club sandwich and Juliennes. The food for one. Hand the rest around.” Amory ate little, having seized a chair where he could watch the sea and feel the rock of it. When luncheon was over they sat and smoked quietly.

“What’s the bill?”

Some one scanned it.

“Eight twenty-five.”

“Rotten overcharge. We’ll give them two dollars and one for the waiter. Kerry, collect the small change.”

The waiter approached, and Kerry gravely handed him a dollar, tossed two dollars on the check, and turned away. They sauntered leisurely toward the door, pursued in a moment by the suspicious Ganymede.

“Some mistake, sir.”

Kerry took the bill and examined it critically.

“No mistake!” he said, shaking his head gravely, and, tearing it into four pieces, he handed the scraps to the waiter, who was so dumfounded that he stood motionless and expressionless while they walked out.

“Won’t he send after us?”

“No,” said Kerry; “for a minute he’ll think we’re the proprietor’s sons or something; then he’ll look at the check again and call the manager, and in the meantime—”

They left the car at Asbury and street-car’d to Allenhurst, where they investigated the crowded pavilions for beauty. At four there were refreshments in a lunch-room, and this time they paid an even smaller per cent on the total cost; something about the appearance and savoir-faire of the crowd made the thing go, and they were not pursued.

“You see, Amory, we’re Marxian Socialists,” explained Kerry. “We don’t believe in property and we’re putting it to the great test.”

“Night will descend,” Amory suggested.

“Watch, and put your trust in Holiday.”

They became jovial about five-thirty and, linking arms, strolled up and down the boardwalk in a row, chanting a monotonous ditty about the sad sea waves. Then Kerry saw a face in the crowd that attracted him and, rushing off, reappeared in a moment with one of the homeliest girls Amory had ever set eyes on. Her pale mouth extended from ear to ear, her teeth projected in a solid wedge, and she had little, squinty eyes that peeped ingratiatingly over the side sweep of her nose. Kerry presented them formally.

“Name of Kaluka, Hawaiian queen! Let me present Messrs. Connage, Sloane, Humbird, Ferrenby, and Blaine.”

The girl bobbed courtesies all around. Poor creature; Amory supposed she had never before been noticed in her life—possibly she was half-witted. While she accompanied them (Kerry had invited her to supper) she said nothing which could discountenance such a belief.

“She prefers her native dishes,” said Alec gravely to the waiter, “but any coarse food will do.”

All through supper he addressed her in the most respectful language, while Kerry made idiotic love to her on the other side, and she giggled and grinned. Amory was content to sit and watch the by-play, thinking what a light touch Kerry had, and how he could transform the barest incident into a thing of curve and contour. They all seemed to have the spirit of it more or less, and it was a relaxation to be with them. Amory usually liked men individually, yet feared them in crowds unless the crowd was around him. He wondered how much each one contributed to the party, for there was somewhat of a spiritual tax levied. Alec and Kerry were the life of it, but not quite the centre. Somehow the quiet Humbird, and Sloane, with his impatient superciliousness, were the centre.

Dick Humbird had, ever since freshman year, seemed to Amory a perfect type of aristocrat. He was slender but well-built—black curly hair, straight features, and rather a dark skin. Everything he said sounded intangibly appropriate. He possessed infinite courage, an averagely good mind, and a sense of honor with a clear charm and noblesse oblige that varied it from righteousness. He could dissipate without going to pieces, and even his most bohemian adventures never seemed “running it out.” People dressed like him, tried to talk as he did.... Amory decided that he probably held the world back, but he wouldn’t have changed him....

He differed from the healthy type that was essentially middle-class—he never seemed to perspire. Some people couldn’t be familiar with a chauffeur without having it returned; Humbird could have lunched at Sherry’s with a colored man, yet people would have somehow known that it was all right. He was not a snob, though he knew only half his class. His friends ranged from the highest to the lowest, but it was impossible to “cultivate” him. Servants worshipped him, and treated him like a god. He seemed the eternal example of what the upper class tries to be.

“He’s like those pictures in the Illustrated London News of the English officers who have been killed,” Amory had said to Alec.

“Well,” Alec had answered, “if you want to know the shocking truth, his father was a grocery clerk who made a fortune in Tacoma real estate and came to New York ten years ago.”

Amory had felt a curious sinking sensation.

This present type of party was made possible by the surging together of the class after club elections—as if to make a last desperate attempt to know itself, to keep together, to fight off the tightening spirit of the clubs. It was a let-down from the conventional heights they had all walked so rigidly.

After supper they saw Kaluka to the boardwalk, and then strolled back along the beach to Asbury. The evening sea was a new sensation, for all its color and mellow age was gone, and it seemed the bleak waste that made the Norse sagas sad; Amory thought of Kipling’s

Beaches of Lukanon before the sealers came.

It was still a music, though, infinitely sorrowful.

Ten o’clock found them penniless. They had suppered greatly on their last eleven cents and, singing, strolled up through the casinos and lighted arches on the boardwalk, stopping to listen approvingly to all band concerts. In one place Kerry took up a collection for the French War Orphans which netted a dollar and twenty cents, and with this they bought some brandy in case they caught cold in the night. They finished the day in a moving-picture show and went into solemn systematic roars of laughter at an ancient comedy, to the startled annoyance of the rest of the audience. Their entrance was distinctly strategic, for each man as he entered pointed reproachfully at the one just behind him. Sloane, bringing up the rear, disclaimed all knowledge and responsibility as soon as the others were scattered inside; then as the irate ticket-taker rushed in he followed nonchalantly.

They reassembled later by the Casino and made arrangements for the night. Kerry wormed permission from the watchman to sleep on the platform and, having collected a huge pile of rugs from the booths to serve as mattresses and blankets, they talked until midnight, and then fell into a dreamless sleep, though Amory tried hard to stay awake and watch that marvellous moon settle on the sea.

So they progressed for two happy days, up and down the shore by street-car or machine, or by shoe-leather on the crowded boardwalk; sometimes eating with the wealthy, more frequently dining frugally at the expense of an unsuspecting restaurateur. They had their photos taken, eight poses, in a quick-development store. Kerry insisted on grouping them as a “varsity” football team, and then as a tough gang from the East Side, with their coats inside out, and himself sitting in the middle on a cardboard moon. The photographer probably has them yet—at least, they never called for them. The weather was perfect, and again they slept outside, and again Amory fell unwillingly asleep.

Sunday broke stolid and respectable, and even the sea seemed to mumble and complain, so they returned to Princeton via the Fords of transient farmers, and broke up with colds in their heads, but otherwise none the worse for wandering.

Even more than in the year before, Amory neglected his work, not deliberately but lazily and through a multitude of other interests. Co-ordinate geometry and the melancholy hexameters of Corneille and Racine held forth small allurements, and even psychology, which he had eagerly awaited, proved to be a dull subject full of muscular reactions and biological phrases rather than the study of personality and influence. That was a noon class, and it always sent him dozing. Having found that “subjective and objective, sir,” answered most of the questions, he used the phrase on all occasions, and it became the class joke when, on a query being levelled at him, he was nudged awake by Ferrenby or Sloane to gasp it out.

Mostly there were parties—to Orange or the Shore, more rarely to New York and Philadelphia, though one night they marshalled fourteen waitresses out of Childs’and took them to ride down Fifth Avenue on top of an auto bus. They all cut more classes than were allowed, which meant an additional course the following year, but spring was too rare to let anything interfere with their colorful ramblings. In May Amory was elected to the Sophomore Prom Committee, and when after a long evening’s discussion with Alec they made out a tentative list of class probabilities for the senior council, they placed themselves among the surest. The senior council was composed presumably of the eighteen most representative seniors, and in view of Alec’s football managership and Amory’s chance of nosing out Burne Holiday as Princetonian chairman, they seemed fairly justified in this presumption. Oddly enough, they both placed D’Invilliers as among the possibilities, a guess that a year before the class would have gaped at.

All through the spring Amory had kept up an intermittent correspondence with Isabelle Borgé, punctuated by violent squabbles and chiefly enlivened by his attempts to find new words for love. He discovered Isabelle to be discreetly and aggravatingly unsentimental in letters, but he hoped against hope that she would prove not too exotic a bloom to fit the large spaces of spring as she had fitted the den in the Minnehaha Club. During May he wrote thirty-page documents almost nightly, and sent them to her in bulky envelopes exteriorly labelled “Part I” and “Part II.”

“Oh, Alec, I believe I’m tired of college,” he said sadly, as they walked the dusk together.

“I think I am, too, in a way.”

“All I’d like would be a little home in the country, some warm country, and a wife, and just enough to do to keep from rotting.”

“Me, too.”

“I’d like to quit.”

“What does your girl say?”

“Oh!” Amory gasped in horror. “She wouldn’t think of marrying.... that is, not now. I mean the future, you know.”

“My girl would. I’m engaged.”

“Are you really?”

“Yes. Don’t say a word to anybody, please, but I am. I may not come back next year.”

“But you’re only twenty! Give up college?”

“Why, Amory, you were saying a minute ago—”

“Yes,” Amory interrupted, “but I was just wishing. I wouldn’t think of leaving college. It’s just that I feel so sad these wonderful nights. I sort of feel they’re never coming again, and I’m not really getting all I could out of them. I wish my girl lived here. But marry—not a chance. Especially as father says the money isn’t forthcoming as it used to be.”

“What a waste these nights are!” agreed Alec.

But Amory sighed and made use of the nights. He had a snap-shot of Isabelle, enshrined in an old watch, and at eight almost every night he would turn off all the lights except the desk lamp and, sitting by the open windows with the picture before him, write her rapturous letters.

.... Oh it’s so hard to write you what I really feel when I think about you so much; you’ve gotten to mean to me a dream that I can’t put on paper any more. Your last letter came and it was wonderful! I read it over about six times, especially the last part, but I do wish, sometimes, you’d be more frank and tell me what you really do think of me, yet your last letter was too good to be true, and I can hardly wait until June! Be sure and be able to come to the prom. It’ll be fine, I think, and I want to bring you just at the end of a wonderful year. I often think over what you said on that night and wonder how much you meant. If it were any one but you—but you see I thought you were fickle the first time I saw you and you are so popular and everthing that I can’t imagine you really liking me best.

Oh, Isabelle, dear—it’s a wonderful night. Somebody is playing “Love Moon” on a mandolin far across the campus, and the music seems to bring you into the window. Now he’s playing “Good-by, Boys, I’m Through,” and how well it suits me. For I am through with everything. I have decided never to take a cocktail again, and I know I’ll never again fall in love—I couldn’t—you’ve been too much a part of my days and nights to ever let me think of another girl. I meet them all the time and they don’t interest me. I’m not pretending to be blasé, because it’s not that. It’s just that I’m in love. Oh, dearest Isabelle (somehow I can’t call you just Isabelle, and I’m afraid I’ll come out with the “dearest” before your family this June), you’ve got to come to the prom, and then I’ll come up to your house for a day and everything’ll be perfect....

And so on in an eternal monotone that seemed to both of them infinitely charming, infinitely new.

June came and the days grew so hot and lazy that they could not worry even about exams, but spent dreamy evenings on the court of Cottage, talking of long subjects until the sweep of country toward Stony Brook became a blue haze and the lilacs were white around tennis-courts, and words gave way to silent cigarettes.... Then down deserted Prospect and along McCosh with song everywhere around them, up to the hot joviality of Nassau Street.

Tom D’Invilliers and Amory walked late in those days. A gambling fever swept through the sophomore class and they bent over the bones till three o’clock many a sultry night. After one session they came out of Sloane’s room to find the dew fallen and the stars old in the sky.

“Let’s borrow bicycles and take a ride,” Amory suggested.

“All right. I’m not a bit tired and this is almost the last night of the year, really, because the prom stuff starts Monday.”

They found two unlocked bicycles in Holder Court and rode out about half-past three along the Lawrenceville Road.

“What are you going to do this summer, Amory?”

“Don’t ask me—same old things, I suppose. A month or two in Lake Geneva—I’m counting on you to be there in July, you know—then there’ll be Minneapolis, and that means hundreds of summer hops, parlor-snaking, getting bored—But oh, Tom,” he added suddenly, “hasn’t this year been slick!”

“No,” declared Tom emphatically, a new Tom, clothed by Brooks, shod by Franks, “I’ve won this game, but I feel as if I never want to play another. You’re all right—you’re a rubber ball, and somehow it suits you, but I’m sick of adapting myself to the local snobbishness of this corner of the world. I want to go where people aren’t barred because of the color of their neckties and the roll of their coats.”

“You can’t, Tom,” argued Amory, as they rolled along through the scattering night; “wherever you go now you’ll always unconsciously apply these standards of‘having it’or‘lacking it.’For better or worse we’ve stamped you; you’re a Princeton type!”

“Well, then,” complained Tom, his cracked voice rising plaintively, “why do I have to come back at all?I’ve learned all that Princeton has to offer. Two years more of mere pedantry and lying around a club aren’t going to help. They’re just going to disorganize me, conventionalize me completely. Even now I’m so spineless that I wonder how I get away with it.”

“Oh, but you’re missing the real point, Tom,” Amory interrupted. “You’ve just had your eyes opened to the snobbishness of the world in a rather abrupt manner. Princeton invariably gives the thoughtful man a social sense.”

“You consider you taught me that, don’t you?”he asked quizzically, eying Amory in the half dark.

Amory laughed quietly.

“Didn’t I?”

“Sometimes,” he said slowly, “I think you’re my bad angel. I might have been a pretty fair poet.”

“Come on, that’s rather hard. You chose to come to an Eastern college. Either your eyes were opened to the mean scrambling quality of people, or you’d have gone through blind, and you’d hate to have done that—been like Marty Kaye.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “you’re right. I wouldn’t have liked it. Still, it’s hard to be made a cynic at twenty.”

“I was born one,” Amory murmured. “I’m a cynical idealist.” He paused and wondered if that meant anything.

They reached the sleeping school of Lawrenceville, and turned to ride back.

“It’s good, this ride, isn’t it?”Tom said presently.

“Yes; it’s a good finish, it’s knock-out; everything’s good to-night. Oh, for a hot, languorous summer and Isabelle!”

“Oh, you and your Isabelle! I’ll bet she’s a simple one.... let’s say some poetry.”

So Amory declaimed “The Ode to a Nightingale” to the bushes they passed.

“I’ll never be a poet,” said Amory as he finished. “I’m not enough of a sensualist really; there are only a few obvious things that I notice as primarily beautiful: women, spring evenings, music at night, the sea; I don’t catch the subtle things like‘silver-snarling trumpets.’I may turn out an intellectual, but I’ll never write anything but mediocre poetry.”

They rode into Princeton as the sun was making colored maps of the sky behind the graduate school, and hurried to the refreshment of a shower that would have to serve in place of sleep. By noon the bright-costumed alumni crowded the streets with their bands and choruses, and in the tents there was great reunion under the orange-and-black banners that curled and strained in the wind. Amory looked long at one house which bore the legend “Sixty-nine.” There a few gray-haired men sat and talked quietly while the classes swept by in panorama of life.

*****

Under the Arc-Light

Then tragedy’s emerald eyes glared suddenly at Amory over the edge of June. On the night after his ride to Lawrenceville a crowd sallied to New York in quest of adventure, and started back to Princeton about twelve o’clock in two machines. It had been a gay party and different stages of sobriety were represented. Amory was in the car behind; they had taken the wrong road and lost the way, and so were hurrying to catch up.

It was a clear night and the exhilaration of the road went to Amory’s head. He had the ghost of two stanzas of a poem forming in his mind....

So the gray car crept nightward in the dark and there was no life stirred as it went by.... As the still ocean paths before the shark in starred and glittering waterways, beauty-high, the moon-swathed trees divided, pair on pair, while flapping nightbirds cried across the air....

A moment by an inn of lamps and shades, a yellow inn under a yellow moon—then silence, where crescendo laughter fades.... the car swung out again to the winds of June, mellowed the shadows where the distance grew, then crushed the yellow shadows into blue....

They jolted to a stop, and Amory peered up, startled. A woman was standing beside the road, talking to Alec at the wheel. Afterward he remembered the harpy effect that her old kimono gave her, and the cracked hollowness of her voice as she spoke:

“You Princeton boys?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there’s one of you killed here, and two others about dead.”

“My God!”

“Look!” She pointed and they gazed in horror. Under the full light of a roadside arc-light lay a form, face downward in a widening circle of blood.

They sprang from the car. Amory thought of the back of that head—that hair—that hair.... and then they turned the form over.

“It’s Dick—Dick Humbird!”

“Oh, Christ!”

“Feel his heart!”

Then the insistent voice of the old crone in a sort of croaking triumph:

“He’s quite dead, all right. The car turned over. Two of the men that weren’t hurt just carried the others in, but this one’s no use.”

Amory rushed into the house and the rest followed with a limp mass that they laid on the sofa in the shoddy little front parlor. Sloane, with his shoulder punctured, was on another lounge. He was half delirious, and kept calling something about a chemistry lecture at 8:10.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Ferrenby in a strained voice. “Dick was driving and he wouldn’t give up the wheel; we told him he’d been drinking too much—then there was this damn curve—oh, my God!.... ” He threw himself face downward on the floor and broke into dry sobs.

The doctor had arrived, and Amory went over to the couch, where some one handed him a sheet to put over the body. With a sudden hardness, he raised one of the hands and let it fall back inertly. The brow was cold but the face not expressionless. He looked at the shoe-laces—Dick had tied them that morning. He had tied them—and now he was this heavy white mass. All that remained of the charm and personality of the Dick Humbird he had known—oh, it was all so horrible and unaristocratic and close to the earth. All tragedy has that strain of the grotesque and squalid—so useless, futile.... the way animals die.... Amory was reminded of a cat that had lain horribly mangled in some alley of his childhood.

“Some one go to Princeton with Ferrenby.”

Amory stepped outside the door and shivered slightly at the late night wind—a wind that stirred a broken fender on the mass of bent metal to a plaintive, tinny sound.

*****

Crescendo!

Next day, by a merciful chance, passed in a whirl. When Amory was by himself his thoughts zigzagged inevitably to the picture of that red mouth yawning incongruously in the white face, but with a determined effort he piled present excitement upon the memory of it and shut it coldly away from his mind.

Isabelle and her mother drove into town at four, and they rode up smiling Prospect Avenue, through the gay crowd, to have tea at Cottage. The clubs had their annual dinners that night, so at seven he loaned her to a freshman and arranged to meet her in the gymnasium at eleven, when the upper classmen were admitted to the freshman dance. She was all he had expected, and he was happy and eager to make that night the centre of every dream. At nine the upper classes stood in front of the clubs as the freshman torchlight parade rioted past, and Amory wondered if the dress-suited groups against the dark, stately backgrounds and under the flare of the torches made the night as brilliant to the staring, cheering freshmen as it had been to him the year before.

The next day was another whirl. They lunched in a gay party of six in a private dining-room at the club, while Isabelle and Amory looked at each other tenderly over the fried chicken and knew that their love was to be eternal. They danced away the prom until five, and the stags cut in on Isabelle with joyous abandon, which grew more and more enthusiastic as the hour grew late, and their wines, stored in overcoat pockets in the coat room, made old weariness wait until another day. The stag line is a most homogeneous mass of men. It fairly sways with a single soul. A dark-haired beauty dances by and there is a half-gasping sound as the ripple surges forward and some one sleeker than the rest darts out and cuts in. Then when the six-foot girl (brought by Kaye in your class, and to whom he has been trying to introduce you all evening) gallops by, the line surges back and the groups face about and become intent on far corners of the hall, for Kaye, anxious and perspiring, appears elbowing through the crowd in search of familiar faces.

“I say, old man, I’ve got an awfully nice—”

“Sorry, Kaye, but I’m set for this one. I’ve got to cut in on a fella.”

“Well, the next one?”

“What—ah—er—I swear I’ve got to go cut in—look me up when she’s got a dance free.”

It delighted Amory when Isabelle suggested that they leave for a while and drive around in her car. For a delicious hour that passed too soon they glided the silent roads about Princeton and talked from the surface of their hearts in shy excitement. Amory felt strangely ingenuous and made no attempt to kiss her.

Next day they rode up through the Jersey country, had luncheon in New York, and in the afternoon went to see a problem play at which Isabelle wept all through the second act, rather to Amory’s embarrassment—though it filled him with tenderness to watch her. He was tempted to lean over and kiss away her tears, and she slipped her hand into his under cover of darkness to be pressed softly.

Then at six they arrived at the Borgés’summer place on Long Island, and Amory rushed up-stairs to change into a dinner coat. As he put in his studs he realized that he was enjoying life as he would probably never enjoy it again. Everything was hallowed by the haze of his own youth. He had arrived, abreast of the best in his generation at Princeton. He was in love and his love was returned. Turning on all the lights, he looked at himself in the mirror, trying to find in his own face the qualities that made him see clearer than the great crowd of people, that made him decide firmly, and able to influence and follow his own will. There was little in his life now that he would have changed.... Oxford might have been a bigger field.

Silently he admired himself. How conveniently well he looked, and how well a dinner coat became him. He stepped into the hall and then waited at the top of the stairs, for he heard footsteps coming. It was Isabelle, and from the top of her shining hair to her little golden slippers she had never seemed so beautiful.

“Isabelle!” he cried, half involuntarily, and held out his arms. As in the story-books, she ran into them, and on that half-minute, as their lips first touched, rested the high point of vanity, the crest of his young egotism.

Chapter 3　The Egotist Considers

“Ouch! Let me go!”

He dropped his arms to his sides.

“What’s the matter?”

“Your shirt stud—it hurt me—look!” She was looking down at her neck, where a little blue spot about the size of a pea marred its pallor.

“Oh, Isabelle,” he reproached himself, “I’m a goopher. Really, I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have held you so close.”

She looked up impatiently.

“Oh, Amory, of course you couldn’t help it, and it didn’t hurt much; but what are we going to do about it?”

“Do about it?”he asked. “Oh—that spot; it’ll disappear in a second.”

“It isn’t,” she said, after a moment of concentrated gazing, “it’s still there—and it looks like Old Nick—oh, Amory, what’ll we do! It’s just the height of your shoulder.”

“Massage it,” he suggested, repressing the faintest inclination to laugh.

She rubbed it delicately with the tips of her fingers, and then a tear gathered in the corner of her eye, and slid down her cheek.

“Oh, Amory,” she said despairingly, lifting up a most pathetic face, “I’ll just make my whole neck flame if I rub it. What’ll I do?”

A quotation sailed into his head and he couldn’t resist repeating it aloud.

All the perfumes of Arabia will not whiten this little hand.

She looked up and the sparkle of the tear in her eye was like ice.

“You’re not very sympathetic.”

Amory mistook her meaning.

“Isabelle, darling, I think it’ll—”

“Don’t touch me!” she cried. “Haven’t I enough on my mind and you stand there and laugh!”

Then he slipped again.

“Well, it is funny, Isabelle, and we were talking the other day about a sense of humor being—”

She was looking at him with something that was not a smile, rather the faint, mirthless echo of a smile, in the corners of her mouth.

“Oh, shut up!” she cried suddenly, and fled down the hallway toward her room. Amory stood there, covered with remorseful confusion.

“Damn!”

When Isabelle reappeared she had thrown a light wrap about her shoulders, and they descended the stairs in a silence that endured through dinner.

“Isabelle,” he began rather testily, as they arranged themselves in the car, bound for a dance at the Greenwich Country Club, “you’re angry, and I’ll be, too, in a minute. Let’s kiss and make up.”

Isabelle considered glumly.

“I hate to be laughed at,” she said finally.

“I won’t laugh any more. I’m not laughing now, am I?”

“You did.”

“Oh, don’t be so darned feminine.”

Her lips curled slightly.

“I’ll be anything I want.”

Amory kept his temper with difficulty. He became aware that he had not an ounce of real affection for Isabelle, but her coldness piqued him. He wanted to kiss her, kiss her a lot, because then he knew he could leave in the morning and not care. On the contrary, if he didn’t kiss her, it would worry him.... It would interfere vaguely with his idea of himself as a conqueror. It wasn’t dignified to come off second best, pleading, with a doughty warrior like Isabelle.

Perhaps she suspected this. At any rate, Amory watched the night that should have been the consummation of romance glide by with great moths overhead and the heavy fragrance of roadside gardens, but without those broken words, those little sighs....

Afterward they suppered on ginger ale and devil’s food in the pantry, and Amory announced a decision.

“I’m leaving early in the morning.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”he countered.

“There’s no need.”

“However, I’m going.”

“Well, if you insist on being ridiculous—”

“Oh, don’t put it that way,” he objected.

“—just because I won’t let you kiss me. Do you think—”

“Now, Isabelle,” he interrupted, “you know it’s not that—even suppose it is. We’ve reached the stage where we either ought to kiss—or—or—nothing. It isn’t as if you were refusing on moral grounds.”

She hesitated.

“I really don’t know what to think about you,” she began, in a feeble, perverse attempt at conciliation. “You’re so funny.”

“How?”

“Well, I thought you had a lot of self-confidence and all that; remember you told me the other day that you could do anything you wanted, or get anything you wanted?”

Amory flushed. He had told her a lot of things.

“Yes.”

“Well, you didn’t seem to feel so self-confident to-night. Maybe you’re just plain conceited.”

“No, I’m not,” he hesitated. “At Princeton—”

“Oh, you and Princeton! You’d think that was the world, the way you talk! Perhaps you can write better than anybody else on your old Princetonian; maybe the freshmen do think you’re important—”

“You don’t understand—”

“Yes, I do,” she interrupted. “I do, because you’re always talking about yourself and I used to like it; now I don’t.”

“Have I to-night?”

“That’s just the point,” insisted Isabelle. “You got all upset to-night. You just sat and watched my eyes. Besides, I have to think all the time I’m talking to you—you’re so critical.”

“I make you think, do I?”Amory repeated with a touch of vanity.

“You’re a nervous strain”—this emphatically—“and when you analyze every little emotion and instinct I just don’t have’em.”

“I know.” Amory admitted her point and shook his head helplessly.

“Let’s go.” She stood up.

He rose abstractedly and they walked to the foot of the stairs.

“What train can I get?”

“There’s one about 9:11 if you really must go.”

“Yes, I’ve got to go, really. Good night.”

“Good night.”

They were at the head of the stairs, and as Amory turned into his room he thought he caught just the faintest cloud of discontent in her face. He lay awake in the darkness and wondered how much he cared—how much of his sudden unhappiness was hurt vanity—whether he was, after all, temperamentally unfitted for romance.

When he awoke, it was with a glad flood of consciousness. The early wind stirred the chintz curtains at the windows and he was idly puzzled not to be in his room at Princeton with his school football picture over the bureau and the Triangle Club on the wall opposite. Then the grandfather’s clock in the hall outside struck eight, and the memory of the night before came to him. He was out of bed, dressing, like the wind; he must get out of the house before he saw Isabelle. What had seemed a melancholy happening, now seemed a tiresome anticlimax. He was dressed at half past, so he sat down by the window; felt that the sinews of his heart were twisted somewhat more than he had thought. What an ironic mockery the morning seemed! —bright and sunny, and full of the smell of the garden; hearing Mrs. Borgé’s voice in the sun-parlor below, he wondered where was Isabelle.

There was a knock at the door.

“The car will be around at ten minutes of nine, sir.”

He returned to his contemplation of the outdoors, and began repeating over and over, mechanically, a verse from Browning, which he had once quoted to Isabelle in a letter:

Each life unfulfilled, you seel

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy;

We have not sighed deep, laughed freel

Starved, feasted, despaired—been happy.

But his life would not be unfulfilled. He took a sombre satisfaction in thinking that perhaps all along she had been nothing except what he had read into her; that this was her high point, that no one else would ever make her think. Yet that was what she had objected to in him; and Amory was suddenly tired of thinking, thinking!

“Damn her!” he said bitterly, “she’s spoiled my year!”

*****

The Superman Grows Careless

On a dusty day in September Amory arrived in Princeton and joined the sweltering crowd of conditioned men who thronged the streets. It seemed a stupid way to commence his upper-class years, to spend four hours a morning in the stuffy room of a tutoring school, imbibing the infinite boredom of conic sections. Mr. Rooney, pander to the dull, conducted the class and smoked innumerable Pall Malls as he drew diagrams and worked equations from six in the morning until midnight.

“Now, Langueduc, if I used that formula, where would my A point be?”

Langueduc lazily shifts his six-foot-three of football material and tries to concentrate.

“Oh—ah—I’m damned if I know, Mr. Rooney.”

“Oh, why of course, of course you can’t use that formula. That’s what I wanted you to say.”

“Why, sure, of course.”

“Do you see why?”

“You bet—I suppose so.”

“If you don’t see, tell me. I’m here to show you.”

“Well, Mr. Rooney, if you don’t mind, I wish you’d go over that again.”

“Gladly. Now here’s ‘A’...”

The room was a study in stupidity—two huge stands for paper, Mr. Rooney in his shirt-sleeves in front of them, and slouched around on chairs, a dozen men: Fred Sloane, the pitcher, who absolutely had to get eligible; “Slim” Langueduc, who would beat Yale this fall, if only he could master a poor fifty per cent; McDowell, gay young sophomore, who thought it was quite a sporting thing to be tutoring here with all these prominent athletes.

“Those poor birds who haven’t a cent to tutor, and have to study during the term are the ones I pity,” he announced to Amory one day, with a flaccid camaraderie in the droop of the cigarette from his pale lips. “I should think it would be such a bore, there’s so much else to do in New York during the term. I suppose they don’t know what they miss, anyhow.” There was such an air of “you and I” about Mr. McDowell that Amory very nearly pushed him out of the open window when he said this.... Next February his mother would wonder why he didn’t make a club and increase his allowance.... simple little nut....

Through the smoke and the air of solemn, dense earnestness that filled the room would come the inevitable helpless cry: “I don’t get it! Repeat that, Mr. Rooney!” Most of them were so stupid or careless that they wouldn’t admit when they didn’t understand, and Amory was of the latter. He found it impossible to study conic sections; something in their calm and tantalizing respectability breathing defiantly through Mr. Rooney’s fetid parlors distorted their equations into insoluble anagrams. He made a last night’s effort with the proverbial wet towel, and then blissfully took the exam, wondering unhappily why all the color and ambition of the spring before had faded out. Somehow, with the defection of Isabelle the idea of undergraduate success had loosed its grasp on his imagination, and he contemplated a possible failure to pass off his condition with equanimity, even though it would arbitrarily mean his removal from the Princetonian board and the slaughter of his chances for the Senior Council.

There was always his luck.

He yawned, scribbled his honor pledge on the cover, and sauntered from the room.

“If you don’t pass it,” said the newly arrived Alec as they sat on the window-seat of Amory’s room and mused upon a scheme of wall decoration, “you’re the world’s worst goopher. Your stock will go down like an elevator at the club and on the campus.”

“Oh, hell, I know it. Why rub it in?”

“’Cause you deserve it. Anybody that’d risk what you were in line for ought to be ineligible for Princetonian chairman.”

“Oh, drop the subject,” Amory protested. “Watch and wait and shut up. I don’t want every one at the club asking me about it, as if I were a prize potato being fattened for a vegetable show.”

One evening a week later Amory stopped below his own window on the way to Renwick’s, and, seeing a light, called up:

“Oh, Tom, any mail?”

Alec’s head appeared against the yellow square of light.

“Yes, your result’s here.”

His heart clamored violently.

“What is it, blue or pink?”

“Don’t know. Better come up.”

He walked into the room and straight over to the table, and then suddenly noticed that there were other people in the room. “ ’Lo, Kerry.” He was most polite. “Ah, men of Princeton.”

They seemed to be mostly friends, so he picked up the envelope marked “Registrar’s Office,” and weighed it nervously.

“We have here quite a slip of paper.”

“Open it, Amory.”

“Just to be dramatic, I’ll let you know that if it’s blue, my name is withdrawn from the editorial board of the Prince, and my short career is over.”

He paused, and then saw for the first time Ferrenby’s eyes, wearing a hungry look and watching him eagerly. Amory returned the gaze pointedly.

“Watch my face, gentlemen, for the primitive emotions.”

He tore it open and held the slip up to the light.

“Well?”

“Pink or blue?”

“Say what it is.”

“We’re all ears, Amory.”

“Smile or swear—or something.”

There was a pause.... a small crowd of seconds swept by.... then he looked again and another crowd went on into time.

“Blue as the sky, gentlemen.... ”

*****

Aftermath

What Amory did that year from early September to late in the spring was so purposeless and inconsecutive that it seems scarcely worth recording. He was, of course, immediately sorry for what he had lost. His philosophy of success had tumbled down upon him, and he looked for the reasons.

“Your own laziness,” said Alec later.

“No—something deeper than that. I’ve begun to feel that I was meant to lose this chance.”

“They’re rather off you at the club, you know; every man that doesn’t come through makes our crowd just so much weaker.”

“I hate that point of view.”

“Of course, with a little effort you could still stage a comeback.”

“No—I’m through—as far as ever being a power in college is concerned.”

“But, Amory, honestly, what makes me the angriest isn’t the fact that you won’t be chairman of the Prince and on the Senior Council, but just that you didn’t get down and pass that exam.”

“Not me,” said Amory slowly; “I’m mad at the concrete thing. My own idleness was quite in accord with my system, but the luck broke.”

“Your system broke, you mean.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, what are you going to do?Get a better one quick, or just bum around for two more years as a has-been?”

“I don’t know yet.... ”

“Oh, Amory, buck up!”

“Maybe.”

Amory’s point of view, though dangerous, was not far from the true one. If his reactions to his environment could be tabulated, the chart would have appeared like this, beginning with his earliest years:

1.The fundamental Amory.

2.Amory plus Beatrice.

3.Amory plus Beatrice plus Minneapolis.

Then St. Regis’had pulled him to pieces and started him over again:

4.Amory plus St. Regis’.

5.Amory plus St. Regis’plus Princeton.

That had been his nearest approach to success through con-formity. The fundamental Amory, idle, imaginative, rebellious, had been nearly snowed under. He had conformed, he had succeeded, but as his imagination was neither satisfied nor grasped by his own success, he had listlessly, half-accidentally chucked the whole thing and become again: 6.The fundamental Amory.

*****

Financial

His father died quietly and inconspicuously at Thanksgiving. The incongruity of death with either the beauties of Lake Geneva or with his mother’s dignified, reticent attitude diverted him, and he looked at the funeral with an amused tolerance. He decided that burial was after all preferable to cremation, and he smiled at his old boyhood choice, slow oxidation in the top of a tree. The day after the ceremony he was amusing himself in the great library by sinking back on a couch in graceful mortuary attitudes, trying to determine whether he would, when his day came, be found with his arms crossed piously over his chest (Monsignor Darcy had once advocated this posture as being the most distinguished), or with his hands clasped behind his head, a more pagan and Byronic attitude.

What interested him much more than the final departure of his father from things mundane was a tri-cornered conversation between Beatrice, Mr. Barton, of Barton and Krogman, their lawyers, and himself, that took place several days after the funeral. For the first time he came into actual cognizance of the family finances, and realized what a tidy fortune had once been under his father’s management. He took a ledger labelled“1906”and ran through it rather carefully. The total expenditure that year had come to something over one hundred and ten thousand dollars. Forty thousand of this had been Beatrice’s own income, and there had been no attempt to account for it: it was all under the heading, “Drafts, checks, and letters of credit forwarded to Beatrice Blaine.” The dispersal of the rest was rather minutely itemized: the taxes and improvements on the Lake Geneva estate had come to almost nine thousand dollars; the general up-keep, including Beatrice’s electric and a French car, bought that year, was over thirty-five thousand dollars. The rest was fully taken care of, and there were invariably items which failed to balance on the right side of the ledger. In the volume for 1912 Amory was shocked to discover the decrease in the number of bond holdings and the great drop in the income. In the case of Beatrice’s money this was not so pronounced, but it was obvious that his father had devoted the previous year to several unfortunate gambles in oil. Very little of the oil had been burned, but Stephen Blaine had been rather badly singed. The next year and the next and the next showed similar decreases, and Beatrice had for the first time begun using her own money for keeping up the house. Yet her doctor’s bill for 1913 had been over nine thousand dollars.

About the exact state of things Mr. Barton was quite vague and confused. There had been recent investments, the outcome of which was for the present problematical, and he had an idea there were further speculations and exchanges concerning which he had not been consulted.

It was not for several months that Beatrice wrote Amory the full situation. The entire residue of the Blaine and O’Hara fortunes consisted of the place at Lake Geneva and approximately a half million dollars, invested now in fairly conservative six-per-cent holdings. In fact, Beatrice wrote that she was putting the money into railroad and street-car bonds as fast as she could conveniently transfer it.

“I am quite sure,” she wrote to Amory, “that if there is one thing we can be positive of, it is that people will not stay in one place. This Ford person has certainly made the most of that idea. So I am instructing Mr. Barton to specialize on such things as Northern Pacific and these Rapid Transit Companies, as they call the street-cars. I shall never forgive myself for not buying Bethlehem Steel. I’ve heard the most fascinating stories. You must go into finance, Amory. I’m sure you would revel in it. You start as a messenger or a teller, I believe, and from that you go up—almost indefinitely. I’m sure if I were a man I’d love the handling of money; it has become quite a senile passion with me. Before I get any farther I want to discuss something. A Mrs. Bispam, an overcordial little lady whom I met at a tea the other day, told me that her son, he is at Yale, wrote her that all the boys there wore their summer underwear all during the winter, and also went about with their heads wet and in low shoes on the coldest days. Now, Amory, I don’t know whether that is a fad at Princeton too, but I don’t want you to be so foolish. It not only inclines a young man to pneumonia and infantile paralysis, but to all forms of lung trouble, to which you are particularly inclined. You cannot experiment with your health. I have found that out. I will not make myself ridiculous as some mothers no doubt do, by insisting that you wear overshoes, though I remember one Christmas you wore them around constantly without a single buckle latched, making such a curious swishing sound, and you refused to buckle them because it was not the thing to do. The very next Christmas you would not wear even rubbers, though I begged you. You are nearly twenty years old now, dear, and I can’t be with you constantly to find whether you are doing the sensible thing.

“This has been a very practical letter. I warned you in my last that the lack of money to do the things one wants to makes one quite prosy and domestic, but there is still plenty for everything if we are not too extravagant. Take care of yourself, my dear boy, and do try to write at least once a week, because I imagine all sorts of horrible things if I don’t hear from you.

Affectionately,

MOTHER.”

*****

First Appearance of the Term “Personage”

Monsignor Darcy invited Amory up to the Stuart palace on the Hudson for a week at Christmas, and they had enormous conversations around the open fire. Monsignor was growing a trifle stouter and his personality had expanded even with that, and Amory felt both rest and security in sinking into a squat, cushioned chair and joining him in the middle-aged sanity of a cigar.

“I’ve felt like leaving college, Monsignor.”

“Why?”

“All my career’s gone up in smoke; you think it’s petty and all that, but—”

“Not at all petty. I think it’s most important. I want to hear the whole thing. Everything you’ve been doing since I saw you last.”

Amory talked; he went thoroughly into the destruction of his egotistic highways, and in a half-hour the listless quality had left his voice.

“What would you do if you left college?”asked Monsignor.

“Don’t know. I’d like to travel, but of course this tiresome war prevents that. Anyways, mother would hate not having me graduate. I’m just at sea. Kerry Holiday wants me to go over with him and join the Lafayette Esquadrille.” “You know you wouldn’t like to go.”

“Sometimes I would—to-night I’d go in a second.”

“Well, you’d have to be very much more tired of life than I think you are. I know you.”

“I’m afraid you do,” agreed Amory reluctantly. “It just seemed an easy way out of everything—when I think of another useless, draggy year.”

“Yes, I know; but to tell you the truth, I’m not worried about you; you seem to me to be progressing perfectly naturally.”

“No,” Amory objected. “I’ve lost half my personality in a year.”

“Not a bit of it!” scoffed Monsignor. “You’ve lost a great amount of vanity and that’s all.”

“Lordy! I feel, anyway, as if I’d gone through another fifth form at St. Regis’s.”

“No.” Monsignor shook his head. “That was a misfortune; this has been a good thing. Whatever worth while comes to you, won’t be through the channels you were searching last year.”

“What could be more unprofitable than my present lack of pep?”

“Perhaps in itself.... but you’re developing. This has given you time to think and you’re casting off a lot of your old luggage about success and the superman and all. People like us can’t adopt whole theories, as you did. If we can do the next thing, and have an hour a day to think in, we can accomplish marvels, but as far as any high-handed scheme of blind dominance is concerned—we’d just make asses of ourselves.”

“But, Monsignor, I can’t do the next thing.”

“Amory, between you and me, I have only just learned to do it myself. I can do the one hundred things beyond the next thing, but I stub my toe on that, just as you stubbed your toe on mathematics this fall.”

“Why do we have to do the next thing?It never seems the sort of thing I should do.”

“We have to do it because we’re not personalities, but personages.”

“That’s a good line—what do you mean?”

“A personality is what you thought you were, what this Kerry and Sloane you tell me of evidently are. Personality is a physical matter almost entirely; it lowers the people it acts on—I’ve seen it vanish in a long sickness. But while a personality is active, it overrides‘the next thing.’Now a personage, on the other hand, gathers. He is never thought of apart from what he’s done. He’s a bar on which a thousand things have been hung—glittering things sometimes, as ours are; but he uses those things with a cold mentality back of them.”

“And several of my most glittering possessions had fallen off when I needed them.” Amory continued the simile eagerly.

“Yes, that’s it; when you feel that your garnered prestige and talents and all that are hung out, you need never bother about anybody; you can cope with them without difficulty.”

“But, on the other hand, if I haven’t my possessions, I’m helpless!”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s certainly an idea.”

“Now you’ve a clean start—a start Kerry or Sloane can consti-tutionally never have. You brushed three or four ornaments down, and, in a fit of pique, knocked off the rest of them. The thing now is to collect some new ones, and the farther you look ahead in the collecting the better. But remember, do the next thing!”

“How clear you can make things!”

So they talked, often about themselves, sometimes of philosophy and religion, and life as respectively a game or a mystery. The priest seemed to guess Amory’s thoughts before they were clear in his own head, so closely related were their minds in form and groove.

“Why do I make lists?”Amory asked him one night. “Lists of all sorts of things?”

“Because you’re a mediaevalist,” Monsignor answered. “We both are. It’s the passion for classifying and finding a type.”

“It’s a desire to get something definite.”

“It’s the nucleus of scholastic philosophy.”

“I was beginning to think I was growing eccentric till I came up here. It was a pose, I guess.”

“Don’t worry about that; for you not posing may be the biggest pose of all. Pose—”

“Yes?”

“But do the next thing.”

After Amory returned to college he received several letters from Monsignor which gave him more egotistic food for consumption.

I am afraid that I gave you too much assurance of your inevitable safety, and you must remember that I did that through faith in your springs of effort; not in the silly conviction that you will arrive without struggle. Some nuances of character you will have to take for granted in yourself, though you must be careful in confessing them to others. You are unsentimental, almost incapable of affection, astute without being cunning and vain without being proud.

Don’t let yourself feel worthless; often through life you will really be at your worst when you seem to think best of yourself; and don’t worry about losing your “personality,” as you persist in calling it; at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon, and when you are my age you will give out, as I do, the genial golden warmth of 4 P. M.

If you write me letters, please let them be natural ones. Your last, that dissertation on architecture, was perfectly awful—so “highbrow” that I picture you living in an intellectual and emotional vacuum; and beware of trying to classify people too definitely into types; you will find that all through their youth they will persist annoyingly in jumping from class to class, and by pasting a supercilious label on every one you meet you are merely packing a Jack-in-the-box that will spring up and leer at you when you begin to come into really antagonistic contact with the world. An idealization of some such a man as Leonardo da Vinci would be a more valuable beacon to you at present.

You are bound to go up and down, just as I did in my youth, but do keep your clarity of mind, and if fools or sages dare to criticise don’t blame yourself too much.

You say that convention is all that really keeps you straight in this “woman proposition;” but it’s more than that, Amory; it’s the fear that what you begin you can’t stop; you would run amuck, and I know whereof I speak; it’s that half-miraculous sixth sense by which you detect evil, it’s the half-realized fear of God in your heart.

Whatever your metier proves to be—religion, architecture, literature—I’m sure you would be much safer anchored to the Church, but I won’t risk my influence by arguing with you even though I am secretly sure that the “black chasm of Romanism” yawns beneath you. Do write me soon.

With affectionate regards,

THAYER DARCY.

Even Amory’s reading paled during this period; he delved further into the misty side streets of literature: Huysmans, Walter Pater, Theophile Gautier, and the racier sections of Rabelais, Boccaccio, Petronius, and Suetonius. One week, through general curiosity, he inspected the private libraries of his classmates and found Sloane’s as typical as any: sets of Kipling, O. Henry, John Fox, Jr., and Richard Harding Davis; “What Every Middle-Aged Woman Ought to Know,” “The Spell of the Yukon;” a “gift” copy of James Whitcomb Riley, an assortment of battered, annotated school-books, and, finally, to his surprise, one of his own late discoveries, the collected poems of Rupert Brooke.

Together with Tom D’Invilliers, he sought among the lights of Princeton for some one who might found the Great American Poetic Tradition.

The undergraduate body itself was rather more interesting that year than had been the entirely Philistine Princeton of two years before. Things had livened surprisingly, though at the sacrifice of much of the spontaneous charm of freshman year. In the old Princeton they would never have discovered Tanaduke Wylie. Tanaduke was a sophomore, with tremendous ears and a way of saying, “The earth swirls down through the ominous moons of preconsidered generations!” that made them vaguely wonder why it did not sound quite clear, but never question that it was the utterance of a supersoul. At least so Tom and Amory took him. They told him in all earnestness that he had a mind like Shelley’s, and featured his ultrafree free verse and prose poetry in the Nassau Literary Magazine. But Tanaduke’s genius absorbed the many colors of the age, and he took to the Bohemian life, to their great disappointment. He talked of Greenwich Village now instead of “noon-swirled moons,” and met winter muses, unacademic, and cloistered by Forty-second Street and Broadway, instead of the Shelleyan dream-children with whom he had regaled their expectant appreciation. So they surrendered Tanaduke to the futurists, deciding that he and his flaming ties would do better there. Tom gave him the final advice that he should stop writing for two years and read the complete works of Alexander Pope four times, but on Amory’s suggestion that Pope for Tanaduke was like foot-ease for stomach trouble, they withdrew in laughter, and called it a coin’s toss whether this genius was too big or too petty for them.

Amory rather scornfully avoided the popular professors who dispensed easy epigrams and thimblefuls of Chartreuse to groups of admirers every night. He was disappointed, too, at the air of general uncertainty on every subject that seemed linked with the pedantic temperament; his opinions took shape in a miniature satire called “In a Lecture-Room,” which he persuaded Tom to print in the Nassau Lit.

Good-morning, Fool....

Three times a week

You hold us helpless while you speak,

Teasing our thirsty souls with the

Sleek ‘yeas’ of your philosophy...

Well, here we are, your hundred sheep,

Tune up, play on, pour forth...we sleep...

You are a student, so they say;

You hammered out the other day

A syllabus, from what we know

Of some forgotten folio;

You’d sniffled through an era’s must,

Filling your nostrils up with dust,

And then, arising from your knees,

Published, in one gigantic sneeze....

But here’s a neighbor on my right,

An Eager Ass, considered bright;

Asker of questions.... How he’ll stand,

With earnest air and fidgy hand,

After this hour, telling you

He sat all night and burrowed through

Your book.... Oh, you’ll be coy and he

Will simulate precosity,

And pedants both, you’ll smile and smirk,

And leer, and hasten back to work....

‘Twas this day week, sir, you returned

A theme of mine, from which I learned

(Through various comment on the side

Which you had scrawled) that I defied

The highest rules of criticism

For cheap and careless witticism....

‘Are you quite sure that this could be?’

And

‘Shaw is no authority!’

But Eager Ass, with what he’s sent,

Plays havoc with your best per cent.

Still—still I meet you here and there....

When Shakespeare’s played you hold a chair,

And some defunct, moth-eaten star

Enchants the mental prig you are....

A radical comes down and shocks

The atheistic orthodox?

You’re representing Common Sense,

Mouth open, in the audience.

And, sometimes, even chapel lures

That conscious tolerance of yours,

That broad and beaming view of truth

(Including Kant and General Booth.... )

And so from shock to shock you live,

A hollow, pale affirmative....

The hour’s up.... and roused from rest

One hundred children of the blest

Cheat you a word or two with feet

That down the noisy aisle-ways beat....

Forget on narrow-minded earth

The Mighty Yawn that gave you birth.

In April, Kerry Holiday left college and sailed for France to enroll in the Lafayette Esquadrille. Amory’s envy and admiration of this step was drowned in an experience of his own to which he never succeeded in giving an appropriate value, but which, nevertheless, haunted him for three years afterward.

*****

The Devil

Healy’s they left at twelve and taxied to Bistolary’s. There were Axia Marlowe and Phoebe Column, from the Summer Garden show, Fred Sloane and Amory. The evening was so very young that they felt ridiculous with surplus energy, and burst into the café like Dionysian revellers.

“Table for four in the middle of the floor,” yelled Phoebe. “Hurry, old dear, tell’em we’re here!”

“Tell’em to play‘Admiration’!” shouted Sloane. “You two order; Phoebe and I are going to shake a wicked calf,” and they sailed off in the muddled crowd. Axia and Amory, acquaintances of an hour, jostled behind a waiter to a table at a point of vantage; there they took seats and watched.

“There’s Findle Margotson, from New Haven!” she cried above the uproar. “’Lo, Findle! Whoo-ee!”

“Oh, Axia!” he shouted in salutation. “C’mon over to our table.”

“No!” Amory whispered.

“Can’t do it, Findle; I’m with somebody else! Call me up to-morrow about one o’clock!”

Findle, a nondescript man-about-Bisty’s, answered incoherently and turned back to the brilliant blonde whom he was endeavoring to steer around the room.

“There’s a natural damn fool,” commented Amory.

“Oh, he’s all right. Here’s the old jitney waiter. If you ask me, I want a double Daiquiri.”

“Make it four.”

The crowd whirled and changed and shifted. They were mostly from the colleges, with a scattering of the male refuse of Broadway, and women of two types, the higher of which was the chorus girl. On the whole it was a typical crowd, and their party as typical as any. About three-fourths of the whole business was for effect and therefore harmless, ended at the door of the café, soon enough for the five-o’clock train back to Yale or Princeton; about one-fourth continued on into the dimmer hours and gathered strange dust from strange places. Their party was scheduled to be one of the harmless kind. Fred Sloane and Phoebe Column were old friends; Axia and Amory new ones. But strange things are prepared even in the dead of night, and the unusual, which lurks least in the café, home of the prosaic and inevitable, was preparing to spoil for him the waning romance of Broadway. The way it took was so inexpressibly terrible, so unbelievable, that afterward he never thought of it as experience; but it was a scene from a misty tragedy, played far behind the veil, and that it meant something definite he knew.

About one o’clock they moved to Maxim’s, and two found them in Devinière’s. Sloane had been drinking consecutively and was in a state of unsteady exhilaration, but Amory was quite tiresomely sober; they had run across none of those ancient, corrupt buyers of champagne who usually assisted their New York parties.

They were just through dancing and were making their way back to their chairs when Amory became aware that some one at a near-by table was looking at him. He turned and glanced casually.... a middle-aged man dressed in a brown sack suit, it was, sitting a little apart at a table by himself and watching their party intently. At Amory’s glance he smiled faintly. Amory turned to Fred, who was just sitting down.

“Who’s that pale fool watching us?”he complained indignantly.

“Where?”cried Sloane. “We’ll have him thrown out!” He rose to his feet and swayed back and forth, clinging to his chair. “Where is he?”

Axia and Phoebe suddenly leaned and whispered to each other across the table, and before Amory realized it they found themselves on their way to the door.

“Where now?”

“Up to the flat,” suggested Phoebe. “We’ve got brandy and fizz—and everything’s slow down here to-night.” Amory considered quickly. He hadn’t been drinking, and decided that if he took no more, it would be reasonably discreet for him to trot along in the party. In fact, it would be, perhaps, the thing to do in order to keep an eye on Sloane, who was not in a state to do his own thinking. So he took Axia’s arm and, piling intimately into a taxicab, they drove out over the hundreds and drew up at a tall, white-stone apartment-house.... Never would he forget that street.... It was a broad street, lined on both sides with just such tall, white-stone buildings, dotted with dark windows; they stretched along as far as the eye could see, flooded with a bright moonlight that gave them a calcium pallor. He imagined each one to have an elevator and a colored hall-boy and a key-rack; each one to be eight stories high and full of three and four room suites. He was rather glad to walk into the cheeriness of Phoebe’s living-room and sink onto a sofa, while the girls went rummaging for food.

“Phoebe’s great stuff,” confided Sloane, sotto voce.

“I’m only going to stay half an hour,” Amory said sternly. He wondered if it sounded priggish.

“Hell y’say,” protested Sloane. “We’re here now—don’t le’s rush.”

“I don’t like this place,” Amory said sulkily, “and I don’t want any food.”

Phoebe reappeared with sandwiches, brandy bottle, siphon, and four glasses.

“Amory, pour’em out,” she said, “and we’ll drink to Fred Sloane, who has a rare, distinguished edge.”

“Yes,” said Axia, coming in, “and Amory. I like Amory.” She sat down beside him and laid her yellow head on his shoulder.

“I’ll pour,” said Sloane; “you use siphon, Phoebe.”

They filled the tray with glasses.

“Ready, here she goes!”

Amory hesitated, glass in hand.

There was a minute while temptation crept over him like a warm wind, and his imagination turned to fire, and he took the glass from Phoebe’s hand. That was all; for at the second that his decision came, he looked up and saw, ten yards from him, the man who had been in the café, and with his jump of astonishment the glass fell from his uplifted hand. There the man half sat, half leaned against a pile of pillows on the corner divan. His face was cast in the same yellow wax as in the café, neither the dull, pasty color of a dead man—rather a sort of virile pallor—nor unhealthy, you’d have called it; but like a strong man who’d worked in a mine or done night shifts in a damp climate. Amory looked him over carefully and later he could have drawn him after a fashion, down to the merest details. His mouth was the kind that is called frank, and he had steady gray eyes that moved slowly from one to the other of their group, with just the shade of a questioning expression. Amory noticed his hands; they weren’t fine at all, but they had versatility and a tenuous strength.... they were nervous hands that sat lightly along the cushions and moved constantly with little jerky openings and closings. Then, suddenly, Amory perceived the feet, and with a rush of blood to the head he realized he was afraid. The feet were all wrong.... with a sort of wrongness that he felt rather than knew.... It was like weakness in a good woman, or blood on satin; one of those terrible incongruities that shake little things in the back of the brain. He wore no shoes, but, instead, a sort of half moccasin, pointed, though, like the shoes they wore in the fourteenth century, and with the little ends curling up. They were a darkish brown and his toes seemed to fill them to the end.... They were unutterably terrible....

He must have said something, or looked something, for Axia’s voice came out of the void with a strange goodness.

“Well, look at Amory! Poor old Amory’s sick—old head going’round?”

“Look at that man!” cried Amory, pointing toward the corner divan.

“You mean that purple zebra!” shrieked Axia facetiously. “Ooo-ee! Amory’s got a purple zebra watching him!”

Sloane laughed vacantly.

“Ole zebra gotcha, Amory?”

There was a silence.... The man regarded Amory quizzically.... Then the human voices fell faintly on his ear:

“Thought you weren’t drinking,” remarked Axia sardonically, but her voice was good to hear; the whole divan that held the man was alive; alive like heat waves over asphalt, like wriggling worms....

“Come back! Come back!” Axia’s arm fell on his. “Amory, dear, you aren’t going, Amory!” He was half-way to the door.

“Come on, Amory, stick’th us!”

“Sick, are you?”

“Sit down a second!”

“Take some water.”

“Take a little brandy.... ”

The elevator was close, and the colored boy was half asleep, paled to a livid bronze.... Axia’s beseeching voice floated down the shaft. Those feet.... those feet....

As they settled to the lower floor the feet came into view in the sickly electric light of the paved hall.

*****

In the Alley

Down the long street came the moon, and Amory turned his back on it and walked. Ten, fifteen steps away sounded the footsteps. They were like a slow dripping, with just the slightest insistence in their fall. Amory’s shadow lay, perhaps, ten feet ahead of him, and soft shoes was presumably that far behind. With the instinct of a child Amory edged in under the blue darkness of the white buildings, cleaving the moonlight for haggard seconds, once bursting into a slow run with clumsy stumblings. After that he stopped suddenly; he must keep hold, he thought. His lips were dry and he licked them. If he met any one good—were there any good people left in the world or did they all live in white apartment-houses now?Was every one followed in the moonlight?But if he met some one good who’d know what he meant and hear this damned scuffle.... then the scuffling grew suddenly nearer, and a black cloud settled over the moon. When again the pale sheen skimmed the cornices, it was almost beside him, and Amory thought he heard a quiet breathing. Suddenly he realized that the footsteps were not behind, had never been behind, they were ahead and he was not eluding but following.... following. He began to run, blindly, his heart knocking heavily, his hands clinched. Far ahead a black dot showed itself, resolved slowly into a human shape. But Amory was beyond that now; he turned off the street and darted into an alley, narrow and dark and smelling of old rottenness. He twisted down a long, sinuous blackness, where the moonlight was shut away except for tiny glints and patches.... then suddenly sank panting into a corner by a fence, exhausted. The steps ahead stopped, and he could hear them shift slightly with a continuous motion, like waves around a dock.

He put his face in his hands and covered eyes and ears as well as he could. During all this time it never occurred to him that he was delirious or drunk. He had a sense of reality such as material things could never give him. His intellectual content seemed to submit passively to it, and it fitted like a glove everything that had ever preceded it in his life. It did not muddle him. It was like a problem whose answer he knew on paper, yet whose solution he was unable to grasp. He was far beyond horror. He had sunk through the thin surface of that, now moved in a region where the feet and the fear of white walls were real, living things, things he must accept. Only far inside his soul a little fire leaped and cried that something was pulling him down, trying to get him inside a door and slam it behind him. After that door was slammed there would be only footfalls and white buildings in the moonlight, and perhaps he would be one of the footfalls.

During the five or ten minutes he waited in the shadow of the fence, there was somehow this fire.... that was as near as he could name it afterward. He remembered calling aloud:

“I want some one stupid. Oh, send some one stupid!” This to the black fence opposite him, in whose shadows the footsteps shuffled.... shuffled. He supposed “stupid” and “good” had become somehow intermingled through previous association. When he called thus it was not an act of will at all—will had turned him away from the moving figure in the street; it was almost instinct that called, just the pile on pile of inherent tradition or some wild prayer from way over the night. Then something clanged like a low gong struck at a distance, and before his eyes a face flashed over the two feet, a face pale and distorted with a sort of infinite evil that twisted it like flame in the wind; but he knew, for the half instant that the gong tanged and hummed, that it was the face of Dick Humbird.

Minutes later he sprang to his feet, realizing dimly that there was no more sound, and that he was alone in the graying alley. It was cold, and he started on a steady run for the light that showed the street at the other end.

*****

At the Window

It was late morning when he woke and found the telephone beside his bed in the hotel tolling frantically, and remembered that he had left word to be called at eleven. Sloane was snoring heavily, his clothes in a pile by his bed. They dressed and ate breakfast in silence, and then sauntered out to get some air. Amory’s mind was working slowly, trying to assimilate what had happened and separate from the chaotic imagery that stacked his memory the bare shreds of truth. If the morning had been cold and gray he could have grasped the reins of the past in an instant, but it was one of those days that New York gets sometimes in May, when the air on Fifth Avenue is a soft, light wine. How much or how little Sloane remembered Amory did not care to know; he apparently had none of the nervous tension that was gripping Amory and forcing his mind back and forth like a shrieking saw.

Then Broadway broke upon them, and with the babel of noise and the painted faces a sudden sickness rushed over Amory.

“For God’s sake, let’s go back! Let’s get off of this—this place!”

Sloane looked at him in amazement.

“What do you mean?”

“This street, it’s ghastly! Come on! let’s get back to the Avenue!”

“Do you mean to say,” said Sloane stolidly, “that’cause you had some sort of indigestion that made you act like a maniac last night, you’re never coming on Broadway again?”

Simultaneously Amory classed him with the crowd, and he seemed no longer Sloane of the debonair humor and the happy personality, but only one of the evil faces that whirled along the turbid stream.

“Man!” he shouted so loud that the people on the corner turned and followed them with their eyes, “it’s filthy, and if you can’t see it, you’re filthy, too!”

“I can’t help it,” said Sloane doggedly. “What’s the matter with you?Old remorse getting you?You’d be in a fine state if you’d gone through with our little party.”

“I’m going, Fred,” said Amory slowly. His knees were shaking under him, and he knew that if he stayed another minute on this street he would keel over where he stood. “I’ll be at the Vanderbilt for lunch.” And he strode rapidly off and turned over to Fifth Avenue. Back at the hotel he felt better, but as he walked into the barber-shop, intending to get a head massage, the smell of the powders and tonics brought back Axia’s sidelong, suggestive smile, and he left hurriedly. In the doorway of his room a sudden blackness flowed around him like a divided river.

When he came to himself he knew that several hours had passed. He pitched onto the bed and rolled over on his face with a deadly fear that he was going mad. He wanted people, people, some one sane and stupid and good. He lay for he knew not how long without moving. He could feel the little hot veins on his forehead standing out, and his terror had hardened on him like plaster. He felt he was passing up again through the thin crust of horror, and now only could he distinguish the shadowy twilight he was leaving. He must have fallen asleep again, for when he next recollected himself he had paid the hotel bill and was stepping into a taxi at the door. It was raining torrents.

On the train for Princeton he saw no one he knew, only a crowd of fagged-looking Philadelphians. The presence of a painted woman across the aisle filled him with a fresh burst of sickness and he changed to another car, tried to concentrate on an article in a popular magazine. He found himself reading the same paragraphs over and over, so he abandoned this attempt and leaning over wearily pressed his hot forehead against the damp window-pane. The car, a smoker, was hot and stuffy with most of the smells of the state’s alien population; he opened a window and shivered against the cloud of fog that drifted in over him. The two hours’ride were like days, and he nearly cried aloud with joy when the towers of Princeton loomed up beside him and the yellow squares of light filtered through the blue rain.

Tom was standing in the centre of the room, pensively relighting a cigar-stub. Amory fancied he looked rather relieved on seeing him.

“Had a hell of a dream about you last night,” came in the cracked voice through the cigar smoke. “I had an idea you were in some trouble.”

“Don’t tell me about it!” Amory almost shrieked. “Don’t say a word; I’m tired and pepped out.”

Tom looked at him queerly and then sank into a chair and opened his Italian note-book. Amory threw his coat and hat on the floor, loosened his collar, and took a Wells novel at random from the shelf. “Wells is sane,” he thought, “and if he won’t do I’ll read Rupert Brooke.”

Half an hour passed. Outside the wind came up, and Amory started as the wet branches moved and clawed with their finger-nails at the window-pane. Tom was deep in his work, and inside the room only the occasional scratch of a match or the rustle of leather as they shifted in their chairs broke the stillness. Then like a zigzag of lightning came the change. Amory sat bolt upright, frozen cold in his chair. Tom was looking at him with his mouth drooping, eyes fixed.

“God help us!” Amory cried.

“Oh, my heavens!” shouted Tom, “look behind!” Quick as a flash Amory whirled around. He saw nothing but the dark window-pane. “It’s gone now,” came Tom’s voice after a second in a still terror. “Something was looking at you.”

Trembling violently, Amory dropped into his chair again.

“I’ve got to tell you,” he said. “I’ve had one hell of an experience. I think I’ve—I’ve seen the devil or—something like him. What face did you just see?—or no,” he added quickly, “don’t tell me!”

And he gave Tom the story. It was midnight when he finished, and after that, with all lights burning, two sleepy, shivering boys read to each other from “The New Machiavelli,” until dawn came up out of Witherspoon Hall, and the Princetonian fell against the door, and the May birds hailed the sun on last night’s rain.

Chapter 4　Narcissus Off Duty

During Princeton’s transition period, that is, during Amory’s last two years there, while he saw it change and broaden and live up to its Gothic beauty by better means than night parades, certain individuals arrived who stirred it to its plethoric depths. Some of them had been freshmen, and wild freshmen, with Amory; some were in the class below; and it was in the beginning of his last year and around small tables at the Nassau Inn that they began questioning aloud the institutions that Amory and countless others before him had questioned so long in secret. First, and partly by accident, they struck on certain books, a definite type of biographical novel that Amory christened “quest” books. In the “quest” book the hero set off in life armed with the best weapons and avowedly intending to use them as such weapons are usually used, to push their possessors ahead as selfishly and blindly as possible, but the heroes of the “quest” books discovered that there might be a more magnificent use for them. “None Other Gods,” “Sinister Street,” and “The Research Magnificent” were examples of such books; it was the latter of these three that gripped Burne Holiday and made him wonder in the beginning of senior year how much it was worth while being a diplomatic autocrat around his club on Prospect Avenue and basking in the high lights of class office. It was distinctly through the channels of aristocracy that Burne found his way. Amory, through Kerry, had had a vague drifting acquaintance with him, but not until January of senior year did their friendship commence.

“Heard the latest?”said Tom, coming in late one drizzly evening with that triumphant air he always wore after a successful conversational bout.

“No. Somebody flunked out?Or another ship sunk?”

“Worse than that. About one-third of the junior class are going to resign from their clubs.”

“What!”

“Actual fact!”

“Why!”

“Spirit of reform and all that. Burne Holiday is behind it. The club presidents are holding a meeting to-night to see if they can find a joint means of combating it.”

“Well, what’s the idea of the thing?”

“Oh, clubs injurious to Princeton democracy; cost a lot; draw social lines, take time; the regular line you get sometimes from disappointed sophomores. Woodrow thought they should be abolished and all that.”

“But this is the real thing?”

“Absolutely. I think it’ll go through.”

“For Pete’s sake, tell me more about it.”

“Well,” began Tom, “it seems that the idea developed simul-taneously in several heads. I was talking to Burne awhile ago, and he claims that it’s a logical result if an intelligent person thinks long enough about the social system. They had a‘discussion crowd’and the point of abolishing the clubs was brought up by some one—everybody there leaped at it—it had been in each one’s mind, more or less, and it just needed a spark to bring it out.”

“Fine! I swear I think it’ll be most entertaining. How do they feel up at Cap and Gown?”

“Wild, of course. Every one’s been sitting and arguing and swearing and getting mad and getting sentimental and getting brutal. It’s the same at all the clubs; I’ve been the rounds. They get one of the radicals in the corner and fire questions at him.”

“How do the radicals stand up?”

“Oh, moderately well. Burne’s a damn good talker, and so obviously sincere that you can’t get anywhere with him. It’s so evident that resigning from his club means so much more to him than preventing it does to us that I felt futile when I argued; finally took a position that was brilliantly neutral. In fact, I believe Burne thought for a while that he’d converted me.”

“And you say almost a third of the junior class are going to resign?”

“Call it a fourth and be safe.”

“Lord—who’d have thought it possible!”

There was a brisk knock at the door, and Burne himself came in. “Hello, Amory—hello, Tom.”

Amory rose.

“’Evening, Burne. Don’t mind if I seem to rush; I’m going to Renwick’s.”

Burne turned to him quickly.

“You probably know what I want to talk to Tom about, and it isn’t a bit private. I wish you’d stay.”

“I’d be glad to.” Amory sat down again, and as Burne perched on a table and launched into argument with Tom, he looked at this revolutionary more carefully than he ever had before. Broad-browed and strong-chinned, with a fineness in the honest gray eyes that were like Kerry’s, Burne was a man who gave an immediate impression of bigness and security—stubborn, that was evident, but his stubbornness wore no stolidity, and when he had talked for five minutes Amory knew that this keen enthusiasm had in it no quality of dilettantism.

The intense power Amory felt later in Burne Holiday differed from the admiration he had had for Humbird. This time it began as purely a mental interest. With other men of whom he had thought as primarily first-class, he had been attracted first by their personalities, and in Burne he missed that immediate magnetism to which he usually swore allegiance. But that night Amory was struck by Burne’s intense earnestness, a quality he was accustomed to associate only with the dread stupidity, and by the great enthusiasm that struck dead chords in his heart. Burne stood vaguely for a land Amory hoped he was drifting toward—and it was almost time that land was in sight. Tom and Amory and Alec had reached an impasse; never did they seem to have new experiences in common, for Tom and Alec had been as blindly busy with their committees and boards as Amory had been blindly idling, and the things they had for dissection—college, contemporary personality and the like—they had hashed and rehashed for many a frugal conversational meal.

That night they discussed the clubs until twelve, and, in the main, they agreed with Burne. To the roommates it did not seem such a vital subject as it had in the two years before, but the logic of Burne’s objections to the social system dovetailed so completely with everything they had thought, that they questioned rather than argued, and envied the sanity that enabled this man to stand out so against all traditions.

Then Amory branched off and found that Burne was deep in other things as well. Economics had interested him and he was turning socialist. Pacifism played in the back of his mind, and he read The Masses and Lyoff Tolstoi faithfully.

“How about religion?”Amory asked him.

“Don’t know. I’m in a muddle about a lot of things—I’ve just discovered that I’ve a mind, and I’m starting to read.”

“Read what?”

“Everything. I have to pick and choose, of course, but mostly things to make me think. I’m reading the four gospels now, and the‘Varieties of Religious Experience.’”

“What chiefly started you?”

“Wells, I guess, and Tolstoi, and a man named Edward Carpenter. I’ve been reading for over a year now—on a few lines, on what I consider the essential lines.”

“Poetry?”

“Well, frankly, not what you call poetry, or for your reasons—you two write, of course, and look at things differently. Whitman is the man that attracts me.”

“Whitman?”

“Yes; he’s a definite ethical force.”

“Well, I’m ashamed to say that I’m a blank on the subject of Whitman. How about you, Tom?”

Tom nodded sheepishly.

“Well,” continued Burne, “you may strike a few poems that are tiresome, but I mean the mass of his work. He’s tremendous—like Tolstoi. They both look things in the face, and, somehow, different as they are, stand for somewhat the same things.”

“You have me stumped, Burne,” Amory admitted. “I’ve read‘Anna Karénina’and the‘Kreutzer Sonata’of course, but Tolstoi is mostly in the original Russian as far as I’m concerned.”

“He’s the greatest man in hundreds of years,” cried Burne enthusiastically. “Did you ever see a picture of that shaggy old head of his?”

They talked until three, from biology to organized religion, and when Amory crept shivering into bed it was with his mind aglow with ideas and a sense of shock that some one else had discovered the path he might have followed. Burne Holiday was so evidently developing—and Amory had considered that he was doing the same. He had fallen into a deep cynicism over what had crossed his path, plotted the imperfectability of man and read Shaw and Chesterton enough to keep his mind from the edges of decadence—now suddenly all his mental processes of the last year and a half seemed stale and futile—a petty consummation of himself.... and like a sombre background lay that incident of the spring before, that filled half his nights with a dreary terror and made him unable to pray. He was not even a Catholic, yet that was the only ghost of a code that he had, the gaudy, ritualistic, paradoxical Catholicism whose prophet was Chesterton, whose claqueurs were such reformed rakes of literature as Huysmans and Bourget, whose American sponsor was Ralph Adams Cram, with his adulation of thirteenth-century cathedrals—a Catholicism which Amory found convenient and ready-made, without priest or sacraments or sacrifice.

He could not sleep, so he turned on his reading-lamp and, taking down the “Kreutzer Sonata,” searched it carefully for the germs of Burne’s enthusiasm. Being Burne was suddenly so much realler than being clever. Yet he sighed.... here were other possible clay feet.

He thought back through two years, of Burne as a hurried, nervous freshman, quite submerged in his brother’s personality. Then he remembered an incident of sophomore year, in which Burne had been suspected of the leading rôle. Dean Hollister had been heard by a large group arguing with a taxi-driver, who had driven him from the junction. In the course of the altercation the dean remarked that he “might as well buy the taxicab.” He paid and walked off, but next morning he entered his private office to find the taxicab itself in the space usually occupied by his desk, bearing a sign which read “Property of Dean Hollister. Bought and Paid for.” .... It took two expert mechanics half a day to dissemble it into its minutest parts and remove it, which only goes to prove the rare energy of sophomore humor under efficient leadership.

Then again, that very fall, Burne had caused a sensation. A certain Phyllis Styles, an intercollegiate prom-trotter, had failed to get her yearly invitation to the Harvard-Princeton game.

Jesse Ferrenby had brought her to a smaller game a few weeks before, and had pressed Burne into service—to the ruination of the latter’s misogyny.

“Are you coming to the Harvard game?”Burne had asked indiscreetly, merely to make conversation.

“If you ask me,” cried Phyllis quickly.

“Of course I do,” said Burne feebly. He was unversed in the arts of Phyllis, and was sure that this was merely a vapid form of kidding. Before an hour had passed he knew that he was indeed involved. Phyllis had pinned him down and served him up, informed him the train she was arriving by, and depressed him thoroughly. Aside from loathing Phyllis, he had particularly wanted to stag that game and entertain some Harvard friends.

“She’ll see,” he informed a delegation who arrived in his room to josh him. “This will be the last game she ever persuades any young innocent to take her to!”

“But, Burne—why did you invite her if you didn’t want her?”

“Burne, you know you’re secretly mad about her—that’s the real trouble.”

“What can you do, Burne?What can you do against Phyllis?”

But Burne only shook his head and muttered threats which consisted largely of the phrase: “She’ll see, she’ll see!” The blithesome Phyllis bore her twenty-five summers gayly from the train, but on the platform a ghastly sight met her eyes. There were Burne and Fred Sloane arrayed to the last dot like the lurid figures on college posters. They had bought flaring suits with huge peg-top trousers and gigantic padded shoulders. On their heads were rakish college hats, pinned up in front and sporting bright orange-and-black bands, while from their celluloid collars blossomed flaming orange ties. They wore black arm-bands with orange “P’s,” and carried canes flying Princeton pennants, the effect completed by socks and peeping handkerchiefs in the same color motifs. On a clanking chain they led a large, angry tom-cat, painted to represent a tiger.

A good half of the station crowd was already staring at them, torn between horrified pity and riotous mirth, and as Phyllis, with her svelte jaw dropping, approached, the pair bent over and emitted a college cheer in loud, far-carrying voices, thoughtfully adding the name “Phyllis” to the end. She was vociferously greeted and escorted enthusiastically across the campus, followed by half a hundred village urchins—to the stifled laughter of hundreds of alumni and visitors, half of whom had no idea that this was a practical joke, but thought that Burne and Fred were two varsity sports showing their girl a collegiate time.

Phyllis’s feelings as she was paraded by the Harvard and Princeton stands, where sat dozens of her former devotees, can be imagined. She tried to walk a little ahead, she tried to walk a little behind—but they stayed close, that there should be no doubt whom she was with, talking in loud voices of their friends on the football team, until she could almost hear her acquaintances whispering:

“Phyllis Styles must be awfully hard up to have to come with those two.”

That had been Burne, dynamically humorous, fundamentally serious. From that root had blossomed the energy that he was now trying to orient with progress....

So the weeks passed and March came and the clay feet that Amory looked for failed to appear. About a hundred juniors and seniors resigned from their clubs in a final fury of righteousness, and the clubs in helplessness turned upon Burne their finest weapon: ridicule. Every one who knew him liked him—but what he stood for (and he began to stand for more all the time) came under the lash of many tongues, until a frailer man than he would have been snowed under.

“Don’t you mind losing prestige?”asked Amory one night. They had taken to exchanging calls several times a week.

“Of course I don’t. What’s prestige, at best?”

“Some people say that you’re just a rather original politician.”

He roared with laughter.

“That’s what Fred Sloane told me to-day. I suppose I have it coming.”

One afternoon they dipped into a subject that had interested Amory for a long time—the matter of the bearing of physical attributes on a man’s make-up. Burne had gone into the biology of this, and then:

“Of course health counts—a healthy man has twice the chance of being good,” he said.

“I don’t agree with you—I don’t believe in‘muscular Christianity.’”

“I do—I believe Christ had great physical vigor.”

“Oh, no,” Amory protested. “He worked too hard for that. I imagine that when he died he was a broken-down man—and the great saints haven’t been strong.”

“Half of them have.”

“Well, even granting that, I don’t think health has anything to do with goodness; of course, it’s valuable to a great saint to be able to stand enormous strains, but this fad of popular preachers rising on their toes in simulated virility, bellowing that calisthenics will save the world—no, Burne, I can’t go that.”

“Well, let’s waive it—we won’t get anywhere, and besides I haven’t quite made up my mind about it myself. Now, here’s something I do know—personal appearance has a lot to do with it.”

“Coloring?”Amory asked eagerly.

“Yes.”

“That’s what Tom and I figured,” Amory agreed. “We took the year-books for the last ten years and looked at the pictures of the senior council. I know you don’t think much of that august body, but it does represent success here in a general way. Well, I suppose only about thirty-five per cent of every class here are blonds, are really light—yet two-thirds of every senior council are light. We looked at pictures of ten years of them, mind you; that means that out of every fifteen light-haired men in the senior class one is on the senior council, and of the dark-haired men it’s only one in fifty.”

“It’s true,” Burne agreed. “The light-haired man is a higher type, generally speaking. I worked the thing out with the Presidents of the United States once, and found that way over half of them were light-haired—yet think of the preponderant number of brunettes in the race.”

“People unconsciously admit it,” said Amory. “You’ll notice a blond person is expected to talk. If a blond girl doesn’t talk we call her a‘doll; ’if a light-haired man is silent he’s considered stupid. Yet the world is full of‘dark silent men’and‘languorous brunettes’who haven’t a brain in their heads, but somehow are never accused of the dearth.”

“And the large mouth and broad chin and rather big nose undoubtedly make the superior face.”

“I’m not so sure.” Amory was all for classical features.

“Oh, yes—I’ll show you,” and Burne pulled out of his desk a photographic collection of heavily bearded, shaggy celebrities—Tolstoi, Whitman, Carpenter, and others.

“Aren’t they wonderful?”

Amory tried politely to appreciate them, and gave up laughingly.

“Burne, I think they’re the ugliest-looking crowd I ever came across. They look like an old man’s home.”

“Oh, Amory, look at that forehead on Emerson; look at Tolstoi’s eyes.” His tone was reproachful.

Amory shook his head.

“No! Call them remarkable-looking or anything you want—but ugly they certainly are.”

Unabashed, Burne ran his hand lovingly across the spacious foreheads, and piling up the pictures put them back in his desk.

Walking at night was one of his favorite pursuits, and one night he persuaded Amory to accompany him.

“I hate the dark,” Amory objected. “I didn’t use to—except when I was particularly imaginative, but now, I really do—I’m a regular fool about it.”

“That’s useless, you know.”

“Quite possibly.”

“We’ll go east,” Burne suggested, “and down that string of roads through the woods.”

“Doesn’t sound very appealing to me,” admitted Amory reluctantly, “but let’s go.”

They set off at a good gait, and for an hour swung along in a brisk argument until the lights of Princeton were luminous white blots behind them.

“Any person with any imagination is bound to be afraid,” said Burne earnestly. “And this very walking at night is one of the things I was afraid about. I’m going to tell you why I can walk anywhere now and not be afraid.”

“Go on,” Amory urged eagerly. They were striding toward the woods, Burne’s nervous, enthusiastic voice warming to his subject.

“I used to come out here alone at night, oh, three months ago, and I always stopped at that cross-road we just passed. There were the woods looming up ahead, just as they do now, there were dogs howling and the shadows and no human sound. Of course, I peopled the woods with everything ghastly, just like you do; don’t you?”

“I do,” Amory admitted.

“Well, I began analyzing it—my imagination persisted in sticking horrors into the dark—so I stuck my imagination into the dark instead, and let it look out at me—I let it play stray dog or escaped convict or ghost, and then saw myself coming along the road. That made it all right—as it always makes everything all right to project yourself completely into another’s place. I knew that if I were the dog or the convict or the ghost I wouldn’t be a menace to Burne Holiday any more than he was a menace to me. Then I thought of my watch. I’d better go back and leave it and then essay the woods. No; I decided, it’s better on the whole that I should lose a watch than that I should turn back—and I did go into them—not only followed the road through them, but walked into them until I wasn’t frightened any more—did it until one night I sat down and dozed off in there; then I knew I was through being afraid of the dark.”

“Lordy,” Amory breathed. “I couldn’t have done that. I’d have come out half-way, and the first time an automobile passed and made the dark thicker when its lamps disappeared, I’d have come in.”

“Well,” Burne said suddenly, after a few moments’silence, “we’re half-way through, let’s turn back.”

On the return he launched into a discussion of will.

“It’s the whole thing,” he asserted. “It’s the one dividing line between good and evil. I’ve never met a man who led a rotten life and didn’t have a weak will.”

“How about great criminals?”

“They’re usually insane. If not, they’re weak. There is no such thing as a strong, sane criminal.”

“Burne, I disagree with you altogether; how about the superman?”

“Well?”

“He’s evil, I think, yet he’s strong and sane.”

“I’ve never met him. I’ll bet, though, that he’s stupid or insane.”

“I’ve met him over and over and he’s neither. That’s why I think you’re wrong.”

“I’m sure I’m not—and so I don’t believe in imprisonment except for the insane.”

On this point Amory could not agree. It seemed to him that life and history were rife with the strong criminal, keen, but often self-deluding; in politics and business one found him and among the old statesmen and kings and generals; but Burne never agreed and their courses began to split on that point.

Burne was drawing farther and farther away from the world about him. He resigned the vice-presidency of the senior class and took to reading and walking as almost his only pursuits. He voluntarily attended graduate lectures in philosophy and biology, and sat in all of them with a rather pathetically intent look in his eyes, as if waiting for something the lecturer would never quite come to. Sometimes Amory would see him squirm in his seat; and his face would light up; he was on fire to debate a point.

He grew more abstracted on the street and was even accused of becoming a snob, but Amory knew it was nothing of the sort, and once when Burne passed him four feet off, absolutely unseeingly, his mind a thousand miles away, Amory almost choked with the romantic joy of watching him. Burne seemed to be climbing heights where others would be forever unable to get a foothold.

“I tell you,” Amory declared to Tom, “he’s the first contemporary I’ve ever met whom I’ll admit is my superior in mental capacity.”

“It’s a bad time to admit it—people are beginning to think he’s odd.”

“He’s way over their heads—you know you think so yourself when you talk to him—Good Lord, Tom, you used to stand out against‘people.’Success has completely conventionalized you.”

Tom grew rather annoyed.

“What’s he trying to do—be excessively holy?”

“No! not like anybody you’ve ever seen. Never enters the Philadelphian Society. He has no faith in that rot. He doesn’t believe that public swimming-pools and a kind word in time will right the wrongs of the world; moreover, he takes a drink whenever he feels like it.”

“He certainly is getting in wrong.”

“Have you talked to him lately?”

“No.”

“Then you haven’t any conception of him.”

The argument ended nowhere, but Amory noticed more than ever how the sentiment toward Burne had changed on the campus.

“It’s odd,” Amory said to Tom one night when they had grown more amicable on the subject, “that the people who violently disapprove of Burne’s radicalism are distinctly the Pharisee class—I mean they’re the best-educated men in college—the editors of the papers, like yourself and Ferrenby, the younger professors.... The illiterate athletes like Langueduc think he’s getting eccentric, but they just say, ‘Good old Burne has got some queer ideas in his head,’ and pass on—the Pharisee class—Gee! They ridicule him unmercifully.”

The next morning he met Burne hurrying along McCosh walk after a recitation.

“Whither bound, Tsar?”

“Over to the Prince office to see Ferrenby,” he waved a copy of the morning’s Princetonian at Amory. “He wrote this editorial.”

“Going to flay him alive?”

“No—but he’s got me all balled up. Either I’ve misjudged him or he’s suddenly become the world’s worst radical.”

Burne hurried on, and it was several days before Amory heard an account of the ensuing conversation. Burne had come into the editor’s sanctum displaying the paper cheerfully.

“Hello, Jesse.”

“Hello there, Savonarola.”

“I just read your editorial.”

“Good boy—didn’t know you stooped that low.”

“Jesse, you startled me.”

“How so?”

“Aren’t you afraid the faculty’ll get after you if you pull this irreligious stuff?”

“What?”

“Like this morning.”

“What the devil—that editorial was on the coaching system.”

“Yes, but that quotation—”

Jesse sat up.

“What quotation?”

“You know: ‘He who is not with me is against me.’”

“Well—what about it?”

Jesse was puzzled but not alarmed.

“Well, you say here—let me see.” Burne opened the paper and read: “‘He who is not with me is against me, as that gentleman said who was notoriously capable of only coarse distinctions and puerile generalities.’”

“What of it?”Ferrenby began to look alarmed. “Oliver Cromwell said it, didn’t he?or was it Washington, or one of the saints?Good Lord, I’ve forgotten.”

Burne roared with laughter.

“Oh, Jesse, oh, good, kind Jesse.”

“Who said it, for Pete’s sake?”

“Well,” said Burne, recovering his voice, “St. Matthew attributes it to Christ.”

“My God!” cried Jesse, and collapsed backward into the waste-basket.

*****

Amory Writes a Poem

The weeks tore by. Amory wandered occasionally to New York on the chance of finding a new shining green auto-bus, that its stick-of-candy glamour might penetrate his disposition. One day he ventured into a stock-company revival of a play whose name was faintly familiar. The curtain rose—he watched casually as a girl entered. A few phrases rang in his ear and touched a faint chord of memory. Where—?When—?

Then he seemed to hear a voice whispering beside him, a very soft, vibrant voice: “Oh, I’m such a poor little fool; do tell me when I do wrong.”

The solution came in a flash and he had a quick, glad memory of Isabelle.

He found a blank space on his programme, and began to scribble rapidly:

Here in the figured dark I watch once more,

There, with the curtain, roll the years away;

Two years of years—there was an idle day

Of ours, when happy endings didn’t bore

Our unfermented souls; I could adore

Your eager face beside me, wide-eyed, gay,

Smiling a repertoire while the poor play

Reached me as a faint ripple reaches shore.

Yawning and wondering an evening through,

I watch alone.... and chatterings, of course,

Spoil the one scenewhich, somehow, did have charms;

You wept a bit, and I grew sad for you

Right here! Where Mr. X defends divorce

And What’s-Her-Name falls fainting in his arms.

*****

Still Calm

“Ghosts are such dumb things,” said Alec, “they’re slow-witted. I can always outguess a ghost.”

“How?”asked Tom.

“Well, it depends where. Take a bedroom, for example. If you use any discretion a ghost can never get you in a bedroom.”

“Go on, s’pose you think there’s maybe a ghost in your bedroom—what measures do you take on getting home at night?”demanded Amory, interested.

“Take a stick” answered Alec, with ponderous reverence, “one about the length of a broom-handle. Now, the first thing to do is to get the room cleared—to do this you rush with your eyes closed into your study and turn on the lights—next, approaching the closet, carefully run the stick in the door three or four times. Then, if nothing happens, you can look in. Always, always run the stick in viciously first—never look first!”

“Of course, that’s the ancient Celtic school,” said Tom gravely.

“Yes—but they usually pray first. Anyway, you use this method to clear the closets and also for behind all doors—”“And the bed,” Amory suggested.

“Oh, Amory, no!” cried Alec in horror. “That isn’t the way—the bed requires different tactics—let the bed alone, as you value your reason—if there is a ghost in the room and that’s only about a third of the time, it is almost always under the bed.”

“Well—”Amory began.

Alec waved him into silence.

“Of course you never look. You stand in the middle of the floor and before he knows what you’re going to do make a sudden leap for the bed—never walk near the bed; to a ghost your ankle is your most vulnerable part—once in bed, you’re safe; he may lie around under the bed all night, but you’re safe as daylight. If you still have doubts pull the blanket over your head.”

“All that’s very interesting, Tom.”

“Isn’t it?”Alec beamed proudly. “All my own, too—the Sir Oliver Lodge of the new world.”

Amory was enjoying college immensely again. The sense of going forward in a direct, determined line had come back; youth was stirring and shaking out a few new feathers. He had even stored enough surplus energy to sally into a new pose.

“What’s the idea of all this‘distracted’stuff, Amory?”asked Alec one day, and then as Amory pretended to be cramped over his book in a daze: “Oh, don’t try to act Burne, the mystic, to me.”

Amory looked up innocently.

“What?”

“What?”mimicked Alec. “Are you trying to read yourself into a rhapsody with—let’s see the book.”

He snatched it; regarded it derisively.

“Well?”said Amory a little stiffly.

“‘The Life of St. Teresa,’ ”read Alec aloud. “Oh, my gosh!”

“Say, Alec.”

“What?”

“Does it bother you?”

“Does what bother me?”

“My acting dazed and all that?”

“Why, no—of course it doesn’t bother me.”

“Well, then, don’t spoil it. If I enjoy going around telling people guilelessly that I think I’m a genius, let me do it.”

“You’re getting a reputation for being eccentric,” said Alec, laughing, “if that’s what you mean.”

Amory finally prevailed, and Alec agreed to accept his face value in the presence of others if he was allowed rest periods when they were alone; so Amory “ran it out” at a great rate, bringing the most eccentric characters to dinner, wild-eyed grad students, preceptors with strange theories of God and government, to the cynical amazement of the supercilious Cottage Club.

As February became slashed by sun and moved cheerfully into March, Amory went several times to spend week-ends with Monsignor; once he took Burne, with great success, for he took equal pride and delight in displaying them to each other. Monsignor took him several times to see Thornton Hancock, and once or twice to the house of a Mrs. Lawrence, a type of Rome-haunting American whom Amory liked immediately.

Then one day came a letter from Monsignor, which appended an interesting P. S.:

“Do you know,” it ran, “that your third cousin, Clara Page, widowed six months and very poor, is living in Philadelphia?I don’t think you’ve ever met her, but I wish, as a favor to me, you’d go to see her. To my mind, she’s rather a remarkable woman, and just about your age.”

Amory sighed and decided to go, as a favor....

*****

Clara

She was immemorial.... Amory wasn’t good enough for Clara, Clara of ripply golden hair, but then no man was. Her goodness was above the prosy morals of the husband-seeker, apart from the dull literature of female virtue.

Sorrow lay lightly around her, and when Amory found her in Philadelphia he thought her steely blue eyes held only happiness; a latent strength, a realism, was brought to its fullest development by the facts that she was compelled to face. She was alone in the world, with two small children, little money, and, worst of all, a host of friends. He saw her that winter in Philadelphia entertaining a houseful of men for an evening, when he knew she had not a servant in the house except the little colored girl guarding the babies overhead. He saw one of the greatest libertines in that city, a man who was habitually drunk and notorious at home and abroad, sitting opposite her for an evening, discussing girls’boarding-schools with a sort of innocent excitement. What a twist Clara had to her mind! She could make fascinating and almost brilliant conversation out of the thinnest air that ever floated through a drawing-room.

The idea that the girl was poverty-stricken had appealed to Amory’s sense of situation. He arrived in Philadelphia expecting to be told that 921 Ark Street was in a miserable lane of hovels. He was even disappointed when it proved to be nothing of the sort. It was an old house that had been in her husband’s family for years. An elderly aunt, who objected to having it sold, had put ten years’taxes with a lawyer and pranced off to Honolulu, leaving Clara to struggle with the heating-problem as best she could. So no wild-haired woman with a hungry baby at her breast and a sad Amelia-like look greeted him. Instead, Amory would have thought from his reception that she had not a care in the world.

A calm virility and a dreamy humor, marked contrasts to her level-headedness—into these moods she slipped sometimes as a refuge. She could do the most prosy things (though she was wise enough never to stultify herself with such “household arts” as knitting and embroidery), yet immediately afterward pick up a book and let her imagination rove as a formless cloud with the wind. Deepest of all in her personality was the golden radiance that she diffused around her. As an open fire in a dark room throws romance and pathos into the quiet faces at its edge, so she cast her lights and shadows around the rooms that held her, until she made of her prosy old uncle a man of quaint and meditative charm, metamorphosed the stray telegraph boy into a Puck-like creature of delightful originality. At first this quality of hers somehow irritated Amory. He considered his own uniqueness sufficient, and it rather embarrassed him when she tried to read new interests into him for the benefit of what other adorers were present. He felt as if a polite but insistent stage-manager were attempting to make him give a new interpretation of a part he had conned for years.

But Clara talking, Clara telling a slender tale of a hat-pin and an inebriated man and herself.... People tried afterward to repeat her anecdotes but for the life of them they could make them sound like nothing whatever. They gave her a sort of innocent attention and the best smiles many of them had smiled for long; there were few tears in Clara, but people smiled misty-eyed at her.

Very occasionally Amory stayed for little half-hours after the rest of the court had gone, and they would have bread and jam and tea late in the afternoon or “maple-sugar lunches,” as she called them, at night.

“You are remarkable, aren’t you!” Amory was becoming trite from where he perched in the centre of the dining-room table one six o’clock.

“Not a bit,” she answered. She was searching out napkins in the sideboard. “I’m really most humdrum and commonplace. One of those people who have no interest in anything but their children.”

“Tell that to somebody else,” scoffed Amory. “You know you’re perfectly effulgent.” He asked her the one thing that he knew might embarrass her. It was the remark that the first bore made to Adam.

“Tell me about yourself.” And she gave the answer that Adam must have given.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

But eventually Adam probably told the bore all the things he thought about at night when the locusts sang in the sandy grass, and he must have remarked patronizingly how different he was from Eve, forgetting how different she was from him.... at any rate, Clara told Amory much about herself that evening. She had had a harried life from sixteen on, and her education had stopped sharply with her leisure. Browsing in her library, Amory found a tattered gray book out of which fell a yellow sheet that he impudently opened. It was a poem that she had written at school about a gray convent wall on a gray day, and a girl with her cloak blown by the wind sitting atop of it and thinking about the many-colored world. As a rule such sentiment bored him, but this was done with so much simplicity and atmosphere, that it brought a picture of Clara to his mind, of Clara on such a cool, gray day with her keen blue eyes staring out, trying to see her tragedies come marching over the gardens outside. He envied that poem. How he would have loved to have come along and seen her on the wall and talked nonsense or romance to her, perched above him in the air. He began to be frightfully jealous of everything about Clara: of her past, of her babies, of the men and women who flocked to drink deep of her cool kindness and rest their tired minds as at an absorbing play.

“Nobody seems to bore you,” he objected.

“About half the world do,” she admitted, “but I think that’s a pretty good average, don’t you?”and she turned to find something in Browning that bore on the subject. She was the only person he ever met who could look up passages and quotations to show him in the middle of the conversation, and yet not be irritating to distraction. She did it constantly, with such a serious enthusiasm that he grew fond of watching her golden hair bent over a book, brow wrinkled ever so little at hunting her sentence.

Through early March he took to going to Philadelphia for week-ends. Almost always there was some one else there and she seemed not anxious to see him alone, for many occasions presented themselves when a word from her would have given him another delicious half-hour of adoration. But he fell gradually in love and began to speculate wildly on marriage. Though this design flowed through his brain even to his lips, still he knew afterward that the desire had not been deeply rooted. Once he dreamt that it had come true and woke up in a cold panic, for in his dream she had been a silly, flaxen Clara, with the gold gone out of her hair and platitudes falling insipidly from her changeling tongue. But she was the first fine woman he ever knew and one of the few good people who ever interested him. She made her goodness such an asset. Amory had decided that most good people either dragged theirs after them as a liability, or else distorted it to artificial geniality, and of course there were the ever-present prig and Pharisee—(but Amory never included them as being among the saved).

*****

St. Cecilia

Over her gray and velvet dress,

Under her molten, beaten hair,

Color of rose in mock distress

Flushes and fades and makes her fair;

Fills the air from her to him

With light and languor and little sighs,

Just so subtly he scarcely knows....

Laughing lightning, color of rose.

“Do you like me?”

“Of course I do,” said Clara seriously.

“Why?”

“Well, we have some qualities in common. Things that are spontaneous in each of us—or were originally.”

“You’re implying that I haven’t used myself very well?”

Clara hesitated.

“Well, I can’t judge. A man, of course, has to go through a lot more, and I’ve been sheltered.”

“Oh, don’t stall, please, Clara,” Amory interrupted; “but do talk about me a little, won’t you?”

“Surely, I’d adore to.” She didn’t smile.

“That’s sweet of you. First answer some questions. Am I painfully conceited?”

“Well—no, you have tremendous vanity, but it’ll amuse the people who notice its preponderance.”

“I see.”

“You’re really humble at heart. You sink to the third hell of depression when you think you’ve been slighted. In

fact, you haven’t much self-respect.”

“Centre of target twice, Clara. How do you do it?You never let me say a word.”

“Of course not—I can never judge a man while he’s talking. But I’m not through; the reason you have so little real self-confidence, even though you gravely announce to the occasional philistine that you think you’re a genius, is that you’ve attributed all sorts of atrocious faults to yourself and are trying to live up to them. For instance, you’re always saying that you are a slave to high-balls.”

“But I am, potentially.”

“And you say you’re a weak character, that you’ve no will.”

“Not a bit of will—I’m a slave to my emotions, to my likes, to my hatred of boredom, to most of my desires—”

“You are not!” She brought one little fist down onto the other. “You’re a slave, a bound helpless slave to one thing in the world, your imagination.”

“You certainly interest me. If this isn’t boring you, go on.”

“I notice that when you want to stay over an extra day from college you go about it in a sure way. You never decide at first while the merits of going or staying are fairly clear in your mind. You let your imagination shinny on the side of your desires for a few hours, and then you decide. Naturally your imagination, after a little freedom, thinks up a million reasons why you should stay, so your decision when it comes isn’t true. It’s biassed.”

“Yes,” objected Amory, “but isn’t it lack of will-power to let my imagination shinny on the wrong side?”

“My dear boy, there’s your big mistake. This has nothing to do with will-power; that’s a crazy, useless word, anyway; you lack judgment—the judgment to decide at once when you know your imagination will play you false, given half a chance.”

“Well, I’ll be darned!” exclaimed Amory in surprise, “that’s the last thing I expected.”

Clara didn’t gloat. She changed the subject immediately. But she had started him thinking and he believed she was partly right. He felt like a factory-owner who after accusing a clerk of dishonesty finds that his own son, in the office, is changing the books once a week. His poor, mistreated will that he had been holding up to the scorn of himself and his friends, stood before him innocent, and his judgment walked off to prison with the unconfinable imp, imagination, dancing in mocking glee beside him. Clara’s was the only advice he ever asked without dictating the answer himself—except, perhaps, in his talks with Monsignor Darcy.

How he loved to do any sort of thing with Clara! Shopping with her was a rare, epicurean dream. In every store where she had ever traded she was whispered about as the beautiful Mrs. Page.

“I’ll bet she won’t stay single long.”

“Well, don’t scream it out. She ain’t lookin’for no advice.”

“Ain’t she beautiful!”

(Enter a floor-walker—silence till he moves forward, smirking.)

“Society person, ain’t she?”

“Yeah, but poor now, I guess; so they say.”

“Gee! girls, ain’t she some kid!”

And Clara beamed on all alike. Amory believed that tradespeople gave her discounts, sometimes to her knowledge and sometimes without it. He knew she dressed very well, had always the best of everything in the house, and was inevitably waited upon by the head floor-walker at the very least.

Sometimes they would go to church together on Sunday and he would walk beside her and revel in her cheeks moist from the soft water in the new air. She was very devout, always had been, and God knows what heights she attained and what strength she drew down to herself when she knelt and bent her golden hair into the stained-glass light.

“St. Cecelia,” he cried aloud one day, quite involuntarily, and the people turned and peered, and the priest paused in his sermon and Clara and Amory turned to fiery red.

That was the last Sunday they had, for he spoiled it all that night. He couldn’t help it.

They were walking through the March twilight where it was as warm as June, and the joy of youth filled his soul so that he felt he must speak.

“I think,” he said and his voice trembled, “that if I lost faith in you I’d lose faith in God.”

She looked at him with such a startled face that he asked her the matter.

“Nothing,” she said slowly, “only this: five men have said that to me before, and it frightens me.”

“Oh, Clara, is that your fate!”

She did not answer.

“I suppose love to you is—”he began.

She turned like a flash.

“I have never been in love.”

They walked along, and he realized slowly how much she had told him.... never in love.... She seemed suddenly a daughter of light alone. His entity dropped out of her plane and he longed only to touch her dress with almost the realization that Joseph must have had of Mary’s eternal significance. But quite mechanically he heard himself saying: “And I love you—any latent greatness that I’ve got is.... oh, I can’t talk, but Clara, if I come back in two years in a position to marry you—”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said; “I’d never marry again. I’ve got my two children and I want myself for them. I like you—I like all clever men, you more than any—but you know me well enough to know that I’d never marry a clever man—”She broke off suddenly.

“Amory.”

“What?”

“You’re not in love with me. You never wanted to marry me, did you?”

“It was the twilight,” he said wonderingly. “I didn’t feel as though I were speaking aloud. But I love you—or adore you—or worship you—”

“There you go—running through your catalogue of emotions in five seconds.”

He smiled unwillingly.

“Don’t make me out such a light-weight, Clara; you are depressing sometimes.”

“You’re not a light-weight, of all things,” she said intently, taking his arm and opening wide her eyes—he could see their kindliness in the fading dusk. “A light-weight is an eternal nay.”

“There’s so much spring in the air—there’s so much lazy sweetness in your heart.”

She dropped his arm.

“You’re all fine now, and I feel glorious. Give me a cigarette. You’ve never seen me smoke, have you?Well, I do, about once a month.”

And then that wonderful girl and Amory raced to the corner like two mad children gone wild with pale-blue twilight.

“I’m going to the country for to-morrow,” she announced, as she stood panting, safe beyond the flare of the corner lamp-post. “These days are too magnificent to miss, though perhaps I feel them more in the city.”

“Oh, Clara!” Amory said; “what a devil you could have been if the Lord had just bent your soul a little the other way!”

“Maybe,” she answered; “but I think not. I’m never really wild and never have been. That little outburst was pure spring.”

“And you are, too,” said he.

They were walking along now.

“No—you’re wrong again, how can a person of your own self-reputed brains be so constantly wrong about me?I’m the opposite of everything spring ever stood for. It’s unfortunate, if I happen to look like what pleased some soppy old Greek sculptor, but I assure you that if it weren’t for my face I’d be a quiet nun in the convent without”—then she broke into a run and her raised voice floated back to him as he followed—“my precious babies, which I must go back and see.”

She was the only girl he ever knew with whom he could understand how another man might be preferred. Often Amory met wives whom he had known as débutantes, and looking intently at them imagined that he found something in their faces which said:

“Oh, if I could only have gotten you!” Oh, the enormous conceit of the man!

But that night seemed a night of stars and singing and Clara’s bright soul still gleamed on the ways they had trod.

“Golden, golden is the air—”he chanted to the little pools of water.... “Golden is the air, golden notes from golden mandolins, golden frets of golden violins, fair, oh, wearily fair.... Skeins from braided basket, mortals may not hold; oh, what young extravagant God, who would know or ask it?.... who could give such gold.... ”

*****

Amory is Resentful

Slowly and inevitably, yet with a sudden surge at the last, while Amory talked and dreamed, war rolled swiftly up the beach and washed the sands where Princeton played. Every night the gymnasium echoed as platoon after platoon swept over the floor and shuffled out the basket-ball markings. When Amory went to Washington the next week-end he caught some of the spirit of crisis which changed to repulsion in the Pullman car coming back, for the berths across from him were occupied by stinking aliens—Greeks, he guessed, or Russians. He thought how much easier patriotism had been to a homogeneous race, how much easier it would have been to fight as the Colonies fought, or as the Confederacy fought. And he did no sleeping that night, but listened to the aliens guffaw and snore while they filled the car with the heavy scent of latest America.

In Princeton every one bantered in public and told themselves privately that their deaths at least would be heroic. The literary students read Rupert Brooke passionately; the lounge-lizards worried over whether the government would permit the English-cut uniform for officers; a few of the hopelessly lazy wrote to the obscure branches of the War Department, seeking an easy commission and a soft berth.

Then, after a week, Amory saw Burne and knew at once that argument would be futile—Burne had come out as a pacifist. The socialist magazines, a great smattering of Tolstoi, and his own intense longing for a cause that would bring out whatever strength lay in him, had finally decided him to preach peace as a subjective ideal.

“When the German army entered Belgium,” he began, “if the inhabitants had gone peaceably about their business, the German army would have been disorganized in—”

“I know,” Amory interrupted, “I’ve heard it all. But I’m not going to talk propaganda with you. There’s a chance that you’re right—but even so we’re hundreds of years before the time when non-resistance can touch us as a reality.”

“But, Amory, listen—”

“Burne, we’d just argue—”

“Very well.”

“Just one thing—I don’t ask you to think of your family or friends, because I know they don’t count a picayune with you beside your sense of duty—but, Burne, how do you know that the magazines you read and the societies you join and these idealists you meet aren’t just plain German?”

“Some of them are, of course.”

“How do you know they aren’t all pro-German—just a lot of weak ones—with German-Jewish names.”

“That’s the chance, of course,” he said slowly. “How much or how little I’m taking this stand because of propaganda I’ve heard, I don’t know; naturally I think that it’s my most innermost conviction—it seems a path spread before me just now.”

Amory’s heart sank.

“But think of the cheapness of it—no one’s really going to martyr you for being a pacifist—it’s just going to throw you in with the worst—”

“I doubt it,” he interrupted.

“Well, it all smells of Bohemian New York to me.”

“I know what you mean, and that’s why I’m not sure I’ll agitate.”

“You’re one man, Burne—going to talk to people who won’t listen—with all God’s given you.”

“That’s what Stephen must have thought many years ago. But he preached his sermon and they killed him. He probably thought as he was dying what a waste it all was. But you see, I’ve always felt that Stephen’s death was the thing that occurred to Paul on the road to Damascus, and sent him to preach the word of Christ all over the world.”

“Go on.”

“That’s all—this is my particular duty. Even if right now I’m just a pawn—just sacrificed. God! Amory—you don’t think I like the Germans!”

“Well, I can’t say anything else—I get to the end of all the logic about non-resistance, and there, like an excluded middle, stands the huge spectre of man as he is and always will be. And this spectre stands right beside the one logical necessity of Tolstoi’s, and the other logical necessity of Nietzsche’s—”Amory broke off suddenly. “When are you going?”

“I’m going next week.”

“I’ll see you, of course.”

As he walked away it seemed to Amory that the look in his face bore a great resemblance to that in Kerry’s when he had said good-by under Blair Arch two years before. Amory wondered unhappily why he could never go into anything with the primal honesty of those two.

“Burne’s a fanatic,” he said to Tom, “and he’s dead wrong and, I’m inclined to think, just an unconscious pawn in the hands of anarchistic publishers and German-paid rag wavers—but he haunts me—just leaving everything worth while—”

Burne left in a quietly dramatic manner a week later. He sold all his possessions and came down to the room to say good-by, with a battered old bicycle, on which he intended to ride to his home in Pennsylvania.

“Peter the Hermit bidding farewell to Cardinal Richelieu,” suggested Alec, who was lounging in the window-seat as Burne and Amory shook hands.

But Amory was not in a mood for that, and as he saw Burne’s long legs propel his ridiculous bicycle out of sight beyond Alexander Hall, he knew he was going to have a bad week. Not that he doubted the war—Germany stood for everything repugnant to him; for materialism and the direction of tremendous licentious force; it was just that Burne’s face stayed in his memory and he was sick of the hysteria he was beginning to hear.

“What on earth is the use of suddenly running down Goethe,” he declared to Alec and Tom. “Why write books to prove he started the war—or that that stupid, overestimated Schiller is a demon in disguise?”

“Have you ever read anything of theirs?”asked Tom shrewdly.

“No,” Amory admitted.

“Neither have I,” he said laughing.

“People will shout,” said Alec quietly, “but Goethe’s on his same old shelf in the library—to bore any one that wants to read him!”

Amory subsided, and the subject dropped.

“What are you going to do, Amory?”

“Infantry or aviation, I can’t make up my mind—I hate mechanics, but then of course aviation’s the thing for me—”

“I feel as Amory does,” said Tom. “Infantry or aviation—aviation sounds like the romantic side of the war, of course—like cavalry used to be, you know; but like Amory I don’t know a horse-power from a piston-rod.”

Somehow Amory’s dissatisfaction with his lack of enthusiasm culminated in an attempt to put the blame for the whole war on the ancestors of his generation.... all the people who cheered for Germany in 1870.... All the materialists rampant, all the idolizers of German science and efficiency. So he sat one day in an English lecture and heard “Locksley Hall” quoted and fell into a brown study with contempt for Tennyson and all he stood for—for he took him as a representative of the Victorians.

Victorians, Victorians, who never learned to weep

Who sowed the bitter harvest that your children go to reap—

scribbled Amory in his note-book. The lecturer was saying something about Tennyson’s solidity and fifty heads were bent to take notes. Amory turned over to a fresh page and began scrawling again.

They shuddered when they found what Mr. Darwin was about,

They shuddered when the waltz came in and Newman hurried out—

But the waltz came in much earlier; he crossed that out.

“And entitled A Song in the Time of Order,” came the professor’s voice, droning far away. “Time of Order”—Good Lord! Everything crammed in the box and the Victorians sitting on the lid smiling serenely.... With Browning in his Italian villa crying bravely: “All’s for the best.” Amory scribbled again.

You knelt up in the temple and he bent to hear you pray,

You thanked him for your‘glorious gains’—reproached him for‘Cathay.’

Why could he never get more than a couplet at a time?Now he needed something to rhyme with:

You would keep Him straight with science, tho He had gone wrong before....

Well, anyway....

You met your children in your home—‘I’ve fixed it up!’ you cried,

Took your fifty years of Europe, and then virtuously—

died.

“That was to a great extent Tennyson’s idea,” came the lecturer’s voice. “Swinburne’s Song in the Time of Order might well have been Tennyson’s title. He idealized order against chaos, against waste.”

At last Amory had it. He turned over another page and scrawled vigorously for the twenty minutes that was left of the hour. Then he walked up to the desk and deposited a page torn out of his note-book.

“Here’s a poem to the Victorians, sir,” he said coldly.

The professor picked it up curiously while Amory backed rapidly through the door.

Here is what he had written:

Songs in the time of order

You left for us to sing,

Proofs with excluded middles,

Answers to life in rhyme,

Keys of the prison warder

And ancient bells to ring,

Time was the end of riddles,

We were the end of time....

Here were domestic oceans

And a sky that we might reach,

Guns and a guarded border,

Gantlets—but not to fling,

Thousands of old emotions

And a platitude for each,

Songs in the time of order—

And tongues, that we might sing.

*****

The End of Many Things

Early April slipped by in a haze—a haze of long evenings on the club veranda with the graphophone playing “Poor Butterfly” inside.... for “Poor Butterfly” had been the song of that last year. The war seemed scarcely to touch them and it might have been one of the senior springs of the past, except for the drilling every other afternoon, yet Amory realized poignantly that this was the last spring under the old régime.

“This is the great protest against the superman,” said Amory.

“I suppose so,” Alec agreed.

“He’s absolutely irreconcilable with any Utopia. As long as he occurs, there’s trouble and all the latent evil that makes a crowd list and sway when he talks.”

“And of course all that he is is a gifted man without a moral sense.”

“That’s all. I think the worst thing to contemplate is this—it’s all happened before, how soon will it happen again?Fifty years after Waterloo Napoleon was as much a hero to English school children as Wellington. How do we know our grandchildren won’t idolize Von Hindenburg the same way?”

“What brings it about?”

“Time, damn it, and the historian. If we could only learn to look on evil as evil, whether it’s clothed in filth or monotony or magnificence.”

“God! Haven’t we raked the universe over the coals for four years?”

Then the night came that was to be the last. Tom and Amory, bound in the morning for different training-camps, paced the shadowy walks as usual and seemed still to see around them the faces of the men they knew.

“The grass is full of ghosts to-night.”

“The whole campus is alive with them.”

They paused by Little and watched the moon rise, to make silver of the slate roof of Dodd and blue the rustling trees.

“You know,” whispered Tom, “what we feel now is the sense of all the gorgeous youth that has rioted through here in two hundred years.”

A last burst of singing flooded up from Blair Arch—broken voices for some long parting.

“And what we leave here is more than this class; it’s the whole heritage of youth. We’re just one generation—we’re breaking all the links that seemed to bind us here to top-booted and high-stocked generations. We’ve walked arm and arm with Burr and Light-Horse Harry Lee through half these deep-blue nights.”

“That’s what they are,” Tom tangented off, “deep blue—a bit of color would spoil them, make them exotic. Spires, against a sky that’s a promise of dawn, and blue light on the slate roofs—it hurts.... rather—”

“Good-by, Aaron Burr,” Amory called toward deserted Nassau Hall, “you and I knew strange corners of life.” His voice echoed in the stillness.

“The torches are out,” whispered Tom. “Ah, Messalina, the long shadows are building minarets on the stadium—”For an instant the voices of freshman year surged around them and then they looked at each other with faint tears in their eyes.

“Damn!”

“Damn!”

The last light fades and drifts across the land—the low, long land, the sunny land of spires; the ghosts of evening tune again their lyres and wander singing in a plaintive band down the long corridors of trees; pale fires echo the night from tower top to tower: Oh, sleep that dreams, and dream that never tires, press from the petals of the lotus flower something of this to keep, the essence of an hour.

No more to wait the twilight of the moon in this sequestered vale of star and spire, for one eternal morning of desire passes to time and earthy afternoon. Here, Heraclitus, did you find in fire and shifting things the prophecy you hurled down the dead years; this midnight my desire will see, shadowed among the embers, furled in flame, the splendor and the sadness of the world.

INTERLUDE: May, 1917-February, 1919

A letter dated January, 1918, written by Monsignor Darcy to Amory, who is a second lieutenant in the 171st Infantry, Port of Embarkation, Camp Mills, Long Island.

MY DEAR BOY:—

All you need tell me of yourself is that you still are; for the rest I merely search back in a restive memory, a thermometer that records only fevers, and match you with what I was at your age. But men will chatter and you and I will still shout our futilities to each other across the stage until the last silly curtain falls plump! upon our bobbing heads. But you are starting the spluttering magic-lantern show of life with much the same array of slides as I had, so I need to write you if only to shriek the colossal stupidity of people....

This is the end of one thing: for better or worse you will never again be quite the Amory Blaine that I knew, never again will we meet as we have met, because your generation is growing hard, much harder than mine ever grew, nourished as they were on the stuff of the nineties.

Amory, lately I reread Aeschylus and there in the divine irony of the “Agamemnon” I find the only answer to this bitter age—all the world tumbled about our ears, and the closest parallel ages back in that hopeless resignation. There are times when I think of the men out there as Roman legionaries, miles from their corrupt city, stemming back the hordes.... hordes a little more menacing, after all, than the corrupt city.... another blind blow at the race, furies that we passed with ovations years ago, over whose corpses we bleated triumphantly all through the Victorian era....

And afterward an out-and-out materialistic world—and the Catholic Church. I wonder where you’ll fit in. Of one thing I’m sure—Celtic you’ll live and Celtic you’ll die; so if you don’t use heaven as a continual referendum for your ideas you’ll find earth a continual recall to your ambitions.

Amory, I’ve discovered suddenly that I’m an old man. Like all old men, I’ve had dreams sometimes and I’m going to tell you of them. I’ve enjoyed imagining that you were my son, that perhaps when I was young I went into a state of coma and begat you, and when I came to, had no recollection of it.... it’s the paternal instinct, Amory—celibacy goes deeper than the flesh....

Sometimes I think that the explanation of our deep resemblance is some common ancestor, and I find that the only blood that the Darcys and the O’Haras have in common is that of the O’Donahues.... Stephen was his name, I think....

When the lightning strikes one of us it strikes both: you had hardly arrived at the port of embarkation when I got my papers to start for Rome, and I am waiting every moment to be told where to take ship. Even before you get this letter I shall be on the ocean; then will come your turn. You went to war as a gentleman should, just as you went to school and college, because it was the thing to do. It’s better to leave the blustering and tremulo-heroism to the middle classes; they do it so much better.

Do you remember that week-end last March when you brought Burne Holiday from Princeton to see me?What a magnificent boy he is! It gave me a frightful shock afterward when you wrote that he thought me splendid; how could he be so deceived?Splendid is the one thing that neither you nor I are. We are many other things—we’re extraordinary, we’re clever, we could be said, I suppose, to be brilliant. We can attract people, we can make atmosphere, we can almost lose our Celtic souls in Celtic subtleties, we can almost always have our own way; but splendid—rather not!

I am going to Rome with a wonderful dossier and letters of introduction that cover every capital in Europe, and there will be “no small stir” when I get there. How I wish you were with me! This sounds like a rather cynical paragraph, not at all the sort of thing that a middle-aged clergyman should write to a youth about to depart for the war; the only excuse is that the middle-aged clergyman is talking to himself. There are deep things in us and you know what they are as well as I do. We have great faith, though yours at present is uncrystallized; we have a terrible honesty that all our sophistry cannot

destroy and, above all, a childlike simplicity that keeps us from ever being really malicious.

I have written a keen for you which follows. I am sorry your cheeks are not up to the description I have written of them, but you will smoke and read all night—

At any rate here it is:

A Lament for a Foster Son, and He going to the War

Against the King of Foreign.

Ochone

He is gone from me the son of my mind

And he in his golden youth like Angus Oge

Angus of the bright birds

And his mind strong and subtle like the mind of

Cuchulin on Muirtheme.

Awirra sthrue

His brow is as white as the milk of the cows of Maeve

And his cheeks like the cherries of the tree

And it bending down to Mary and she feeding the Son of God.

Aveelia Vrone

His hair is like the golden collar of the Kings at Tara

And his eyes like the four gray seas of Erin.

And they swept with the mists of rain.

Mavrone go Gudyo

He to be in the joyful and red battle

Amongst the chieftains and they doing great deeds

of valor

His life to go from him

It is the chords of my own soul would be loosed.

A Vich Deelish

My heart is in the heart of my son

And my life is in his life surely

A man can be twice young

In the life of his sons only.

Jia du Vaha Alanav

May the Son of God be above him and beneath him, before him and behind him

May the King of the elements cast a mist over the eyes of the King of Foreign,

May the Queen of the Graces lead him by the hand the way he can go through the midst of his enemies and they not seeing him

May Patrick of the Gael and Collumb of the Churches and the five thousand Saints of Erin be better than a shield to him

And he got into the fight.

Och Ochone.

Amory—Amory—I feel, somehow, that this is all; one or both of us is not going to last out this war.... I’ve been trying to tell you how much this reincarnation of myself in you has meant in the last few years.... curiously alike we are.... curiously unlike.

Good-by, dear boy, and God be with you.

THAYER DARCY.

*****

Embarking at Night

Amory moved forward on the deck until he found a stool under an electric light. He searched in his pocket for note-book and pencil and then began to write, slowly, laboriously:

We leave to-night....

Silent, we filled the still, deserted street,

A column of dim gray,

And ghosts rose startled at the muffled beat

Along the moonless way;

The shadowy shipyards echoed to the feet

That turned from night and day.

And so we linger on the windless decks,

See on the spectre shore

Shades of a thousand days, poor gray-ribbed wrecks....

Oh, shall we then deplore

These futile years!

See how the sea is white!

The clouds have broken and the heavens burn

To hollow highways, paved with gravelled light

The churning of the waves about the stern

Rises to one voluminous nocturne,

.... We leave to-night.

A letter from Amory, headed “Brest, March 11th, 1919,” to Lieutenant T. P. D’Invilliers, Camp Gordon, Ga. DEAR BAUDELAIRE:—

We meet in Manhattan on the 30th of this very mo.; we then proceed to take a very sporty apartment, you and I and Alec, who is at me elbow as I write. I don’t know what I’m going to do but I have a vague dream of going into politics. Why is it that the pick of the young Englishmen from Oxford and Cambridge go into politics and in the U. S.A. we leave it to the muckers?—raised in the ward, educated in the assembly and sent to Congress, fat-paunched bundles of corruption, devoid of “both ideas and ideals” as the debaters used to say. Even forty years ago we had good men in politics, but we, we are brought up to pile up a million and “show what we are made of.” Sometimes I wish I’d been an Englishman; American life is so damned dumb and stupid and healthy.

Since poor Beatrice died I’ll probably have a little money, but very darn little. I can forgive mother almost everything except the fact that in a sudden burst of religiosity toward the end, she left half of what remained to be spent in stained-glass windows and seminary endowments. Mr. Barton, my lawyer, writes me that my thousands are mostly in street railways and that the said Street R. R.s are losing money because of the five-cent fares. Imagine a salary list that gives$350 a month to a man that can’t read and write!—yet I believe in it, even though I’ve seen what was once a sizable fortune melt away between speculation, extravagance, the democratic administration, and the income tax—modern, that’s me all over, Mabel.

At any rate we’ll have really knock-out rooms—you can get a job on some fashion magazine, and Alec can go into the Zinc Company or whatever it is that his people own—he’s looking over my shoulder and he says it’s a brass company, but I don’t think it matters much, do you?There’s probably as much corruption in zinc-made money as brass-made money. As for the well-known Amory, he would write immortal literature if he were sure enough about anything to risk telling any one else about it. There is no more dangerous gift to posterity than a few cleverly turned platitudes.

Tom, why don’t you become a Catholic?Of course to be a good one you’d have to give up those violent intrigues you used to tell me about, but you’d write better poetry if you were linked up to tall golden candlesticks and long, even chants, and even if the American priests are rather burgeois, as Beatrice used to say, still you need only go to the sporty churches, and I’ll introduce you to Monsignor Darcy who really is a wonder.

Kerry’s death was a blow, so was Jesse’s to a certain extent. And I have a great curiosity to know what queer corner of the world has swallowed Burne. Do you suppose he’s in prison under some false name?I confess that the war instead of making me orthodox, which is the correct reaction, has made me a passionate agnostic. The Catholic Church has had its wings clipped so often lately that its part was timidly negligible, and they haven’t any good writers any more. I’m sick of Chesterton.

I’ve only discovered one soldier who passed through the much-advertised spiritual crisis, like this fellow, Donald Hankey, and the one I knew was already studying for the ministry, so he was ripe for it. I honestly think that’s all pretty much rot, though it seemed to give sentimental comfort to those at home; and may make fathers and mothers appreciate their children. This crisis-inspired religion is rather valueless and fleeting at best. I think four men have discovered Paris to one that discovered God.

But us—you and me and Alec—oh, we’ll get a Jap butler and dress for dinner and have wine on the table and lead a contemplative, emotionless life until we decide to use machine-guns with the property owners—or throw bombs with the Bolshevik God! Tom, I hope something happens. I’m restless as the devil and have a horror of getting fat or falling in love and growing domestic.

The place at Lake Geneva is now for rent but when I land I’m going West to see Mr. Barton and get some details. Write me care of the Blackstone, Chicago.

S’ever, dear Boswell,

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

BOOK TWO—The Education of a Personage

Chapter 1　The Débutante

The time is February. The place is a large, dainty bedroom in the Connage house on Sixty-eighth Street, New York. A girl’s room: pink walls and curtains and a pink bedspread on a cream-colored bed. Pink and cream are the motifs of the room, but the only article of furniture in full view is a luxurious dressing-table with a glass top and a three-sided mirror. On the walls there is an expensive print of “Cherry Ripe,” a few polite dogs by Landseer, and the “King of the Black Isles,” by Maxfield Parrish.

Great disorder consisting of the following items: (1) seven or eight empty cardboard boxes, with tissue-paper tongues hanging panting from their mouths; (2) an assortment of street dresses mingled with their sisters of the evening, all upon the table, all evidently new; (3) a roll of tulle, which has lost its dignity and wound itself tortuously around everything in sight, and (4) upon the two small chairs, a collection of lingerie that beggars description. One would enjoy seeing the bill called forth by the finery displayed and one is possessed by a desire to see the princess for whose benefit—Look! There’s some one! Disappointment! This is only a maid hunting for something—she lifts a heap from a chair—Not there; another heap, the dressing-table, the chiffonier drawers. She brings to light several beautiful chemises and an amazing pajama but this does not satisfy her—she goes out.

An indistinguishable mumble from the next room.

Now, we are getting warm. This is Alec’s mother, Mrs. Connage, ample, dignified, rouged to the dowager point and quite worn out. Her lips move significantly as she looks for IT. Her search is less thorough than the maid’s but there is a touch of fury in it, that quite makes up for its sketchiness. She stumbles on the tulle and her “damn” is quite audible. She retires, empty-handed.

More chatter outside and a girl’s voice, a very spoiled voice, says: “Of all the stupid people—”

After a pause a third seeker enters, not she of the spoiled voice, but a younger edition. This is Cecelia Connage, sixteen, pretty, shrewd, and constitutionally good-humored. She is dressed for the evening in a gown the obvious simplicity of which probably bores her. She goes to the nearest pile, selects a small pink garment and holds it up appraisingly.

CECELIA: Pink?

ROSALIND: (Outside) Yes!

CECELIA: Very snappy?

ROSALIND: Yes!

CECELIA: I’ve got it!

(She sees herself in the mirror of the dressing-table and commences to shimmy enthusiastically.)

ROSALIND: (Outside) What are you doing—trying it on?

(CECELIA ceases and goes out carrying the garment at the right shoulder. From the other door, enters ALEC CONNAGE. He looks around quickly and in a huge voice shouts: Mama! There is a chorus of protest from next door and encouraged he starts toward it, but is repelled by another chorus.)

ALEC: So that’s where you all are! Amory Blaine is here.

CECELIA: (Quickly) Take him down-stairs.

ALEC: Oh, he is down-stairs.

MRS. CONNAGE: Well, you can show him where his room is. Tell him I’m sorry that I can’t meet him now.

ALEC: He’s heard a lot about you all. I wish you’d hurry. Father’s telling him all about the war and he’s restless. He’s sort of temperamental.

(This last suffices to draw CECELIA into the room.)

CECELIA: (Seating herself high upon lingerie) How do you mean—temperamental?You used to say that about him in letters.

ALEC: Oh, he writes stuff.

CECELIA: Does he play the piano?

ALEC: Don’t think so.

CECELIA: (Speculatively) Drink?

ALEC: Yes—nothing queer about him.

CECELIA: Money?

ALEC: Good Lord—ask him, he used to have a lot, and he’s got some income now.

(MRS. CONNAGE appears.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Alec, of course we’re glad to have any friend of yours—

ALEC: You certainly ought to meet Amory.

MRS. CONNAGE: Of course, I want to. But I think it’s so childish of you to leave a perfectly good home to go and live with two other boys in some impossible apartment. I hope it isn’t in order that you can all drink as much as you want. (She pauses.) He’ll be a little neglected to-night. This is Rosalind’s week, you see. When a girl comes out, she needs all the attention.

ROSALIND: (Outside) Well, then, prove it by coming here and hooking me.

(MRS. CONNAGE goes.)

ALEC: Rosalind hasn’t changed a bit.

CECELIA: (In a lower tone) She’s awfully spoiled.

ALEC: She’ll meet her match to-night.

CECELIA: Who—Mr. Amory Blaine?

(ALEC nods.)

CECELIA: Well, Rosalind has still to meet the man she can’t outdistance. Honestly, Alec, she treats men terribly. She abuses them and cuts them and breaks dates with them and yawns in their faces—and they come back for more.

ALEC: They love it.

CECELIA: They hate it. She’s a—she’s a sort of vampire, I think—and she can make girls do what she wants usually—only she hates girls.

ALEC: Personality runs in our family.

CECELIA: (Resignedly) I guess it ran out before it got to me.

ALEC: Does Rosalind behave herself?

CECELIA: Not particularly well. Oh, she’s average—smokes sometimes, drinks punch, frequently kissed—Oh, yes—common knowledge—one of the effects of the war, you know.

(Emerges MRS. CONNAGE.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Rosalind’s almost finished so I can go down and meet your friend.

(ALEC and his mother go out.)

ROSALIND: (Outside) Oh, mother—

CECELIA: Mother’s gone down.

(And now ROSALIND enters. ROSALIND is—utterly ROSALIND. She is one of those girls who need never make the slightest effort to have men fall in love with them. Two types of men seldom do: dull men are usually afraid of her cleverness and intellectual men are usually afraid of her beauty. All others are hers by natural prerogative.

If ROSALIND could be spoiled the process would have been complete by this time, and as a matter of fact, her disposition is not all it should be; she wants what she wants when she wants it and she is prone to make every one around her pretty miserable when she doesn’t get it—but in the true sense she is not spoiled. Her fresh enthusiasm, her will to grow and learn, her endless faith in the inexhaustibility of romance, her courage and fundamental honesty—these things are not spoiled.

There are long periods when she cordially loathes her whole family. She is quite unprincipled; her philosophy is carpe diem for herself and laissez faire for others. She loves shocking stories: she has that coarse streak that usually goes with natures that are both fine and big. She wants people to like her, but if they do not it never worries her or changes her.

She is by no means a model character.

The education of all beautiful women is the knowledge of men. ROSALIND had been disappointed in man after man as individuals, but she had great faith in man as a sex. Women she detested. They represented qualities that she felt and despised in herself—incipient meanness, conceit, cowardice, and petty dishonesty. She once told a roomful of her mother’s friends that the only excuse for women was the necessity for a disturbing element among men. She danced exceptionally well, drew cleverly but hastily, and had a startling facility with words, which she used only in love-letters.

But all criticism of ROSALIND ends in her beauty. There was that shade of glorious yellow hair, the desire to imitate which supports the dye industry. There was the eternal kissable mouth, small, slightly sensual, and utterly disturbing. There were gray eyes and an unimpeachable skin with two spots of vanishing color. She was slender and athletic, without underdevelopment, and it was a delight to watch her move about a room, walk along a street, swing a golf club, or turn a “cartwheel.”

A last qualification—her vivid, instant personality escaped that conscious, theatrical quality that AMORY had found in ISABELLE. MONSIGNOR DARCY would have been quite up a tree whether to call her a personality or a personage. She was perhaps the delicious, inexpressible, once-in-a-century blend.

On the night of her debut she is, for all her strange, stray wisdom, quite like a happy little girl. Her mother’s maid has just done her hair, but she has decided impatiently that she can do a better job herself. She is too nervous just now to stay in one place. To that we owe her presence in this littered room. She is going to speak. ISABELLE’S alto tones had been like a violin, but if you could hear ROSALIND, you would say her voice was musical as a waterfall.)

ROSALIND: Honestly, there are only two costumes in the world that I really enjoy being in—(Combing her hair at the dressing-table. )One’s a hoop skirt with pantaloons; the other’s a one-piece bathing-suit. I’m quite charming in both of them.

CECELIA: Glad you’re coming out?

ROSALIND: Yes; aren’t you?

CECELIA: (Cynically) You’re glad so you can get married and live on Long Island with the fast younger married set.

You want life to be a chain of flirtation with a man for every link.

ROSALIND: Want it to be one! You mean I’ve found it one.

CECELIA: Ha!

ROSALIND: Cecelia, darling, you don’t know what a trial it is to be—like me. I’ve got to keep my face like steel in the street to keep men from winking at me. If I laugh hard from a front row in the theatre, the comedian plays to me for the rest of the evening. If I drop my voice, my eyes, my handkerchief at a dance, my partner calls me up on the’phone every day for a week.

CECELIA: It must be an awful strain.

ROSALIND: The unfortunate part is that the only men who interest me at all are the totally ineligible ones. Now—if I were poor I’d go on the stage.

CECELIA: Yes, you might as well get paid for the amount of acting you do.

ROSALIND: Sometimes when I’ve felt particularly radiant I’ve thought, why should this be wasted on one man?

CECELIA: Often when you’re particularly sulky, I’ve wondered why it should all be wasted on just one family. (Getting up.) I think I’ll go down and meet Mr. Amory Blaine. I like temperamental men.

ROSALIND: There aren’t any. Men don’t know how to be really angry or really happy—and the ones that do, go to pieces.

CECELIA: Well, I’m glad I don’t have all your worries. I’m engaged.

ROSALIND: (With a scornful smile) Engaged?Why, you little lunatic! If mother heard you talking like that she’d send you off to boarding-school, where you belong.

CECELIA: You won’t tell her, though, because I know things I could tell—and you’re too selfish!

ROSALIND: (A little annoyed) Run along, little girl! Who are you engaged to, the Iceman?the man that keeps the candy-store?

CECELIA: Cheap wit—good-by, darling, I’ll see you later.

ROSALIND: Oh, be sure and do that—you’re such a help.

(Exit CECELIA. ROSALIND finished her hair and rises, humming. She goes up to the mirror and starts to dance in front of it on the soft carpet. She watches not her feet, but her eyes—never casually but always intently, even when she smiles. The door suddenly opens and then slams behind AMORY, very cool and handsome as usual. He melts into instant confusion.)

HE: Oh, I’m sorry. I thought—

SHE: (Smiling radiantly) Oh, you’re Amory Blaine, aren’t you?

HE: (Regarding her closely) And you’re Rosalind?

SHE: I’m going to call you Amory—oh, come in—it’s all right—mother’ll be right in—(under her breath) unfortunately.

HE: (Gazing around) This is sort of a new wrinkle for me.

SHE: This is No Man’s Land.

HE: This is where you—you—(pause)

SHE: Yes—all those things. (She crosses to the bureau.) See, here’s my rouge—eye pencils.

HE: I didn’t know you were that way.

SHE: What did you expect?

HE: I thought you’d be sort of—sort of—sexless, you know, swim and play golf.

SHE: Oh, I do—but not in business hours.

HE: Business?

SHE: Six to two—strictly.

HE: I’d like to have some stock in the corporation.

SHE: Oh, it’s not a corporation—it’s just “Rosalind, Unlimited.” Fifty-one shares, name, good-will, and everything goes at$25,000 a year.

HE: (Disapprovingly) Sort of a chilly proposition.

SHE: Well, Amory, you don’t mind—do you?When I meet a man that doesn’t bore me to death after two weeks, perhaps it’ll be different.

HE: Odd, you have the same point of view on men that I have on women.

SHE: I’m not really feminine, you know—in my mind.

HE: (Interested) Go on.

SHE: No, you—you go on—you’ve made me talk about myself. That’s against the rules.

HE: Rules?

SHE: My own rules—but you—Oh, Amory, I hear you’re brilliant. The family expects so much of you.

HE: How encouraging!

SHE: Alec said you’d taught him to think. Did you?I didn’t believe any one could.

HE: No. I’m really quite dull.

(He evidently doesn’t intend this to be taken seriously.)

SHE: Liar.

HE: I’m—I’m religious—I’m literary. I’ve—I’ve even written poems.

SHE: Vers libre—splendid! (She declaims.)

The trees are green,

The birds are singing in the trees,

The girl sips her poison

The bird flies away the girl dies.

HE: (Laughing) No, not that kind.

SHE: (Suddenly) I like you.

HE: Don’t.

SHE: Modest too—

HE: I’m afraid of you. I’m always afraid of a girl—until I’ve kissed her.

SHE: (Emphatically) My dear boy, the war is over.

HE: So I’ll always be afraid of you.

SHE: (Rather sadly) I suppose you will.

(A slight hesitation on both their parts.)

HE: (After due consideration) Listen. This is a frightful thing to ask.

SHE: (Knowing what’s coming) After five minutes.

HE: But will you—kiss me?Or are you afraid?

SHE: I’m never afraid—but your reasons are so poor.

HE: Rosalind, I really want to kiss you.

SHE: So do I.

(They kiss—definitely and thoroughly.)

HE: (After a breathless second) Well, is your curiosity satisfied?

SHE: Is yours?

HE: No, it’s only aroused.

(He looks it.)

SHE: (Dreamily) I’ve kissed dozens of men. I suppose I’ll kiss dozens more.

HE: (Abstractedly) Yes, I suppose you could—like that.

SHE: Most people like the way I kiss.

HE: (Remembering himself) Good Lord, yes. Kiss me once more, Rosalind.

SHE: No—my curiosity is generally satisfied at one.

HE: (Discouraged) Is that a rule?

SHE: I make rules to fit the cases.

HE: You and I are somewhat alike—except that I’m years older in experience.

SHE: How old are you?

HE: Almost twenty-three. You?

SHE: Nineteen—just.

HE: I suppose you’re the product of a fashionable school.

SHE: No—I’m fairly raw material. I was expelled from Spence—I’ve forgotten why.

HE: What’s your general trend?

SHE: Oh, I’m bright, quite selfish, emotional when aroused, fond of admiration—

HE: (Suddenly) I don’t want to fall in love with you—

SHE: (Raising her eyebrows) Nobody asked you to.

HE: (Continuing coldly) But I probably will. I love your mouth.

SHE: Hush! Please don’t fall in love with my mouth—hair, eyes, shoulders, slippers—but not my mouth. Everybody falls in love with my mouth.

HE: It’s quite beautiful.

SHE: It’s too small.

HE: No it isn’t—let’s see.

(He kisses her again with the same thoroughness.)

SHE: (Rather moved) Say something sweet.

HE: (Frightened) Lord help me.

SHE: (Drawing away) Well, don’t—if it’s so hard.

HE: Shall we pretend?So soon?

SHE: We haven’t the same standards of time as other people.

HE: Already it’s—other people.

SHE: Let’s pretend.

HE: No—I can’t—it’s sentiment.

SHE: You’re not sentimental?

HE: No, I’m romantic—a sentimental person thinks things will last—a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t. Sentiment is emotional.

SHE: And you’re not? (With her eyes half-closed.) You probably flatter yourself that that’s a superior attitude.

HE: Well—Rosalind, Rosalind, don’t argue—kiss me again.

SHE: (Quite chilly now) No—I have no desire to kiss you.

HE: (Openly taken aback) You wanted to kiss me a minute ago.

SHE: This is now.

HE: I’d better go.

SHE: I suppose so.

(He goes toward the door.)

SHE: Oh!

(He turns.)

SHE: (Laughing) Score—Home Team: One hundred—Opponents: Zero.

(He starts back.)

SHE: (Quickly) Rain—no game.

(He goes out.)

(She goes quietly to the chiffonier, takes out a cigarette-case and hides it in the side drawer of a desk. Her mother enters, note-book in hand.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Good—I’ve been wanting to speak to you alone before we go down-stairs.

ROSALIND: Heavens! you frighten me!

MRS. CONNAGE: Rosalind, you’ve been a very expensive proposition.

ROSALIND: (Resignedly) Yes.

MRS. CONNAGE: And you know your father hasn’t what he once had.

ROSALIND: (Making a wry face) Oh, please don’t talk about money.

MRS. CONNAGE: You can’t do anything without it. This is our last year in this house—and unless things change Cecelia won’t have the advantages you’ve had.

ROSALIND: (Impatiently) Well—what is it?

MRS. CONNAGE: So I ask you to please mind me in several things I’ve put down in my note-book. The first one is: don’t disappear with young men. There may be a time when it’s valuable, but at present I want you on the dance-floor where I can find you. There are certain men I want to have you meet and I don’t like finding you in some corner of the conservatory exchanging silliness with any one—or listening to it.

ROSALIND: (Sarcastically) Yes, listening to it is better.

MRS. CONNAGE: And don’t waste a lot of time with the college set—little boys nineteen and twenty years old. I don’t mind a prom or a football game, but staying away from advantageous parties to eat in little cafés down-town with Tom, Dick, and Harry—

ROSALIND: (Offering her code, which is, in its way, quite as high as her mother’s) Mother, it’s done—you can’t run everything now the way you did in the early nineties.

MRS. CONNAGE: (Paying no attention) There are several bachelor friends of your father’s that I want you to meet to-night—youngish men.

ROSALIND: (Nodding wisely) About forty-five?

MRS. CONNAGE: (Sharply) Why not?

ROSALIND: Oh, quite all right—they know life and are so adorably tired looking (shakes her head)—but they will dance.

MRS. CONNAGE: I haven’t met Mr. Blaine—but I don’t think you’ll care for him. He doesn’t sound like a money-maker.

ROSALIND: Mother, I never think about money.

MRS. CONNAGE: You never keep it long enough to think about it.

ROSALIND: (Sighs) Yes, I suppose some day I’ll marry a ton of it—out of sheer boredom.

MRS. CONNAGE: (Referring to note-book) I had a wire from Hartford. Dawson Ryder is coming up. Now there’s a young man I like, and he’s floating in money. It seems to me that since you seem tired of Howard Gillespie you might give Mr. Ryder some encouragement. This is the third time he’s been up in a month.

ROSALIND: How did you know I was tired of Howard Gillespie?

MRS. CONNAGE: The poor boy looks so miserable every time he comes.

ROSALIND: That was one of those romantic, pre-battle affairs. They’re all wrong.

MRS. CONNAGE: (Her say said) At any rate, make us proud of you to-night.

ROSALIND: Don’t you think I’m beautiful?

MRS. CONNAGE: You know you are.

(From down-stairs is heard the moan of a violin being tuned, the roll of a drum. MRS. CONNAGE turns quickly to her daughter.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Come!

ROSALIND: One minute!

(Her mother leaves. ROSALIND goes to the glass where she gazes at herself with great satisfaction. She kisses her hand and touches her mirrored mouth with it. Then she turns out the lights and leaves the room. Silence for a moment. A few chords from the piano, the discreet patter of faint drums, the rustle of new silk, all blend on the staircase outside and drift in through the partly opened door. Bundled figures pass in the lighted hall. The laughter heard below becomes doubled and multiplied. Then some one comes in, closes the door, and switches on the lights. It is CECELIA. She goes to the chiffonier, looks in the drawers, hesitates—then to the desk whence she takes the cigarette-case and extracts one. She lights it and then, puffing and blowing, walks toward the mirror.)

CECELIA: (In tremendously sophisticated accents) Oh, yes, coming out is such a farce nowadays, you know. One really plays around so much before one is seventeen, that it’s positively anticlimax. (Shaking hands with a visionary middle-aged nobleman.) Yes, your grace—I b’lieve I’ve heard my sister speak of you. Have a puff—they’re very good. They’re—they’re Coronas. You don’t smoke?What a pity! The king doesn’t allow it, I suppose. Yes, I’ll dance.

(So she dances around the room to a tune from down-stairs, her arms outstretched to an imaginary partner, the cigarette waving in her hand.)

*****

Several Hours Later

The corner of a den down-stairs, filled by a very comfortable leather lounge. A small light is on each side above, and in the middle, over the couch hangs a painting of a very old, very dignified gentleman, period 1860.Outside the music is heard in a fox-trot.

ROSALIND is seated on the lounge and on her left is HOWARD GILLESPIE, a vapid youth of about twenty-four. He is obviously very unhappy, and she is quite bored.

GILLESPIE: (Feebly) What do you mean I’ve changed. I feel the same toward you.

ROSALIND: But you don’t look the same to me.

GILLESPIE: Three weeks ago you used to say that you liked me because I was so blasé, so indifferent—I still am.

ROSALIND: But not about me. I used to like you because you had brown eyes and thin legs.

GILLESPIE: (Helplessly) They’re still thin and brown. You’re a vampire, that’s all.

ROSALIND: The only thing I know about vamping is what’s on the piano score. What confuses men is that I’m perfectly natural. I used to think you were never jealous. Now you follow me with your eyes wherever I go.

GILLESPIE: I love you.

ROSALIND: (Coldly) I know it.

GILLESPIE: And you haven’t kissed me for two weeks. I had an idea that after a girl was kissed she was—was—won. ROSALIND: Those days are over. I have to be won all over again every time you see me.

GILLESPIE: Are you serious?

ROSALIND: About as usual. There used to be two kinds of kisses: First when girls were kissed and deserted; second, when they were engaged. Now there’s a third kind, where the man is kissed and deserted. If Mr. Jones of the nineties bragged he’d kissed a girl, every one knew he was through with her. If Mr. Jones of 1919 brags the same every one knows it’s because he can’t kiss her any more. Given a decent start any girl can beat a man nowadays.

GILLESPIE: Then why do you play with men?

ROSALIND: (Leaning forward confidentially) For that first moment, when he’s interested. There is a moment—Oh, just before the first kiss, a whispered word—something that makes it worth while.

GILLESPIE: And then?

ROSALIND: Then after that you make him talk about himself. Pretty soon he thinks of nothing but being alone with you—he sulks, he won’t fight, he doesn’t want to play—Victory!

(Enter DAWSON RYDER, twenty-six, handsome, wealthy, faithful to his own, a bore perhaps, but steady and sure of success.)

RYDER: I believe this is my dance, Rosalind.

ROSALIND: Well, Dawson, so you recognize me. Now I know I haven’t got too much paint on. Mr. Ryder, this is Mr. Gillespie.

(They shake hands and GILLESPIE leaves, tremendously downcast.)

RYDER: Your party is certainly a success.

ROSALIND: Is it—I haven’t seen it lately. I’m weary—Do you mind sitting out a minute?

RYDER: Mind—I’m delighted. You know I loathe this “rushing” idea. See a girl yesterday, to-day, to-morrow.

ROSALIND: Dawson!

RYDER: What?

ROSALIND: I wonder if you know you love me.

RYDER: (Startled) What—Oh—you know you’re remarkable!

ROSALIND: Because you know I’m an awful proposition. Any one who marries me will have his hands full. I’m mean—mighty mean.

RYDER: Oh, I wouldn’t say that.

ROSALIND: Oh, yes, I am—especially to the people nearest to me. (She rises.) Come, let’s go. I’ve changed my mind and I want to dance. Mother is probably having a fit.

(Exeunt. Enter ALEC and CECELIA.)

CECELIA: Just my luck to get my own brother for an intermission.

ALEC: (Gloomily) I’ll go if you want me to.

CECELIA: Good heavens, no—with whom would I begin the next dance? (Sighs.) There’s no color in a dance since the French officers went back.

ALEC: (Thoughtfully) I don’t want Amory to fall in love with Rosalind.

CECELIA: Why, I had an idea that that was just what you did want.

ALEC: I did, but since seeing these girls—I don’t know. I’m awfully attached to Amory. He’s sensitive and I don’t want him to break his heart over somebody who doesn’t care about him.

CECELIA: He’s very good looking.

ALEC: (Still thoughtfully) She won’t marry him, but a girl doesn’t have to marry a man to break his heart.

CECELIA: What does it?I wish I knew the secret.

ALEC: Why, you cold-blooded little kitty. It’s lucky for some that the Lord gave you a pug nose.

(Enter MRS. CONNAGE.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Where on earth is Rosalind?

ALEC: (Brilliantly) Of course you’ve come to the best people to find out. She’d naturally be with us.

MRS. CONNAGE: Her father has marshalled eight bachelor millionaires to meet her.

ALEC: You might form a squad and march through the halls.

MRS. CONNAGE: I’m perfectly serious—for all I know she may be at the Cocoanut Grove with some football player on the night of her début. You look left and I’ll—

ALEC: (Flippantly) Hadn’t you better send the butler through the cellar?

MRS. CONNAGE: (Perfectly serious) Oh, you don’t think she’d be there?

CECELIA: He’s only joking, mother.

ALEC: Mother had a picture of her tapping a keg of beer with some high hurdler.

MRS. CONNAGE: Let’s look right away.

(They go out. ROSALIND comes in with GILLESPIE.)

GILLESPIE: Rosalind—Once more I ask you. Don’t you care a blessed thing about me?

(AMORY walks in briskly.)

AMORY: My dance.

ROSALIND: Mr. Gillespie, this is Mr. Blaine.

GILLESPIE: I’ve met Mr. Blaine. From Lake Geneva, aren’t you?

AMORY: Yes.

GILLESPIE: (Desperately) I’ve been there. It’s in the—the Middle West, isn’t it?

AMORY: (Spicily) Approximately. But I always felt that I’d rather be provincial hot-tamale than soup without seasoning.

GILLESPIE: What!

AMORY: Oh, no offense.

(GILLESPIE bows and leaves.)

ROSALIND: He’s too much people.

AMORY: I was in love with a people once.

ROSALIND: So?

AMORY: Oh, yes—her name was Isabelle—nothing at all to her except what I read into her.

ROSALIND: What happened?

AMORY: Finally I convinced her that she was smarter than I was—then she threw me over. Said I was critical and impractical, you know.

ROSALIND: What do you mean impractical?

AMORY: Oh—drive a car, but can’t change a tire.

ROSALIND: What are you going to do?

AMORY: Can’t say—run for President, write—

ROSALIND: Greenwich Village?

AMORY: Good heavens, no—I said write—not drink.

ROSALIND: I like business men. Clever men are usually so homely.

AMORY: I feel as if I’d known you for ages.

ROSALIND: Oh, are you going to commence the “pyramid” story?

AMORY: No—I was going to make it French. I was Louis XIV and you were one of my—my—(Changing his tone.) Suppose—we fell in love.

ROSALIND: I’ve suggested pretending.

AMORY: If we did it would be very big.

ROSALIND: Why?

AMORY: Because selfish people are in a way terribly capable of great loves.

ROSALIND: (Turning her lips up) Pretend.

(Very deliberately they kiss.)

AMORY: I can’t say sweet things. But you are beautiful.

ROSALIND: Not that.

AMORY: What then?

ROSALIND: (Sadly) Oh, nothing—only I want sentiment, real sentiment—and I never find it.

AMORY: I never find anything else in the world—and I loathe it.

ROSALIND: It’s so hard to find a male to gratify one’s artistic taste.

(Some one has opened a door and the music of a waltz surges into the room. ROSALIND rises.) ROSALIND: Listen! they’re playing “Kiss Me Again.”

(He looks at her.)

AMORY: Well?

ROSALIND: Well?

AMORY: (Softly—the battle lost) I love you.

ROSALIND: I love you—now.

(They kiss.)

AMORY: Oh, God, what have I done?

ROSALIND: Nothing. Oh, don’t talk. Kiss me again.

AMORY: I don’t know why or how, but I love you—from the moment I saw you.

ROSALIND: Me too—I—I—oh, to-night’s to-night.

(Her brother strolls in, starts and then in a loud voice says: “Oh, excuse me,” and goes.)

ROSALIND: (Her lips scarcely stirring) Don’t let me go—I don’t care who knows what I do.

AMORY: Say it!

ROSALIND: I love you—now. (They part.) Oh—I am very youthful, thank God—and rather beautiful, thank God—and happy, thank God, thank God—(She pauses and then, in an odd burst of prophecy, adds) Poor Amory!

(He kisses her again.)

*****

Kismet

Within two weeks Amory and Rosalind were deeply and passionately in love. The critical qualities which had spoiled for each of them a dozen romances were dulled by the great wave of emotion that washed over them.

“It may be an insane love-affair,” she told her anxious mother, “but it’s not inane.”

The wave swept Amory into an advertising agency early in March, where he alternated between astonishing bursts of rather exceptional work and wild dreams of becoming suddenly rich and touring Italy with Rosalind.

They were together constantly, for lunch, for dinner, and nearly every evening—always in a sort of breathless hush, as if they feared that any minute the spell would break and drop them out of this paradise of rose and flame. But the spell became a trance, seemed to increase from day to day; they began to talk of marrying in July—in June. All life was transmitted into terms of their love, all experience, all desires, all ambitions, were nullified—their senses of humor crawled into corners to sleep; their former love-affairs seemed faintly laughable and scarcely regretted juvenalia.

For the second time in his life Amory had had a complete bouleversement and was hurrying into line with his generation.

*****

A Little Interlude

Amory wandered slowly up the avenue and thought of the night as inevitably his—the pageantry and carnival of rich dusk and dim streets.... it seemed that he had closed the book of fading harmonies at last and stepped into the sensuous vibrant walks of life. Everywhere these countless lights, this promise of a night of streets and singing—he moved in a half-dream through the crowd as if expecting to meet Rosalind hurrying toward him with eager feet from every corner.... How the unforgettable faces of dusk would blend to her, the myriad footsteps, a thousand overtures, would blend to her footsteps; and there would be more drunkenness than wine in the softness of her eyes on his. Even his dreams now were faint violins drifting like summer sounds upon the summer air.

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 to-day?”

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!”

*****

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 l o v e y o u, A m o r y, w i t h a l l m y h e a r t.”

“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, shop-worn 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.

“You’ve had plenty, old boy.”

Amory eyed him dumbly until Wilson grew embarrassed under the scrutiny.

“Plenty, hell!” said Amory finally. “I haven’t had a drink to-day.”

Wilson looked incredulous.

“Have a drink or not?”cried Amory rudely.

Together they sought the bar.

“Rye high.”

“I’ll just take a Bronx.”

Wilson had another; Amory had several more. They decided to sit down. At ten o’clock Wilson was displaced by Carling, class of’15.Amory, his head spinning gorgeously, layer upon layer of soft satisfaction setting over the bruised spots of his spirit, was discoursing volubly on the war.

“’S a mental was’e,” he insisted with owl-like wisdom. “Two years my life spent inalleshual vacuity. Los’idealism, got be physcal anmal,” he shook his fist expressively at Old King Cole, “got be Prussian’bout ev’thing, women’specially. Use’be straight’bout women college. Now don’givadam.” He expressed his lack of principle by sweeping a seltzer bottle with a broad gesture to noisy extinction on the floor, but this did not interrupt his speech. “Seek pleasure where find it for to-morrow die.’At’s philos’phy for me now on.”

Carling yawned, but Amory, waxing brilliant, continued:

“Use’wonder’bout things—people satisfied compromise, fif’y-fif’y att’tude on life. Now don’wonder, don’

wonder—”He became so emphatic in impressing on Carling the fact that he didn’t wonder that he lost the thread of his discourse and concluded by announcing to the bar at large that he was a “physcal anmal.”

“What are you celebrating, Amory?”

Amory leaned forward confidentially.

“Cel’brating blowmylife. Great moment blow my life. Can’t tell you’bout it—”

He heard Carling addressing a remark to the bartender:

“Give him a bromo-seltzer.”

Amory shook his head indignantly.

“None that stuff!”

“But listen, Amory, you’re making yourself sick. You’re white as a ghost.”

Amory considered the question. He tried to look at himself in the mirror but even by squinting up one eye could only see as far as the row of bottles behind the bar.

“Like som’n solid. We go get some—some salad.”

He settled his coat with an attempt at nonchalance, but letting go of the bar was too much for him, and he slumped against a chair.

“We’ll go over to Shanley’s,” suggested Carling, offering an elbow.

With this assistance Amory managed to get his legs in motion enough to propel him across Forty-second Street.

Shanley’s was very dim. He was conscious that he was talking in a loud voice, very succinctly and convincingly, he thought, about a desire to crush people under his heel. He consumed three club sandwiches, devouring each as though it were no larger than a chocolate-drop. Then Rosalind began popping into his mind again, and he found his lips forming her name over and over. Next he was sleepy, and he had a hazy, listless sense of people in dress suits, probably waiters, gathering around the table....

.... He was in a room and Carling was saying something about a knot in his shoe-lace.

“Nemmine,” he managed to articulate drowsily. “Sleep in’em.... ”

*****

Still Alcoholic

He awoke laughing and his eyes lazily roamed his surroundings, evidently a bedroom and bath in a good hotel. His head was whirring and picture after picture was forming and blurring and melting before his eyes, but beyond the desire to laugh he had no entirely conscious reaction. He reached for the’phone beside his bed.

“Hello—what hotel is this—?

“Knickerbocker?All right, send up two rye high-balls—”

He lay for a moment and wondered idly whether they’d send up a bottle or just two of those little glass containers. Then, with an effort, he struggled out of bed and ambled into the bathroom.

When he emerged, rubbing himself lazily with a towel, he found the bar boy with the drinks and had a sudden desire to kid him. On reflection he decided that this would be undignified, so he waved him away.

As the new alcohol tumbled into his stomach and warmed him, the isolated pictures began slowly to form a cinema reel of the day before. Again he saw Rosalind curled weeping among the pillows, again he felt her tears against his cheek. Her words began ringing in his ears: “Don’t ever forget me, Amory—don’t ever forget me—”

“Hell!” he faltered aloud, and then he choked and collapsed on the bed in a shaken spasm of grief. After a minute he opened his eyes and regarded the ceiling.

“Damned fool!” he exclaimed in disgust, and with a voluminous sigh rose and approached the bottle. After another glass he gave way loosely to the luxury of tears. Purposely he called up into his mind little incidents of the vanished spring, phrased to himself emotions that would make him react even more strongly to sorrow.

“We were so happy,” he intoned dramatically, “so very happy.” Then he gave way again and knelt beside the bed, his head half-buried in the pillow.

“My own girl—my own—Oh—”

He clinched his teeth so that the tears streamed in a flood from his eyes.

“Oh.... my baby girl, all I had, all I wanted!.... Oh, my girl, come back, come back! I need you.... need you.... we’re so pitiful.... just misery we brought each other.... She’ll be shut away from me.... I can’t see her; I can’t be her friend. It’s got to be that way—it’s got to be—”

And then again:

“We’ve been so happy, so very happy.... ”

He rose to his feet and threw himself on the bed in an ecstasy of sentiment, and then lay exhausted while he realized slowly that he had been very drunk the night before, and that his head was spinning again wildly. He laughed, rose, and crossed again to Lethe....

At noon he ran into a crowd in the Biltmore bar, and the riot began again. He had a vague recollection afterward of discussing French poetry with a British officer who was introduced to him as “Captain Corn, of his Majesty’s Foot,” and he remembered attempting to recite “Clair de Lune” at luncheon; then he slept in a big, soft chair until almost five o’clock when another crowd found and woke him; there followed an alcoholic dressing of several temperaments for the ordeal of dinner. They selected theatre tickets at Tyson’s for a play that had a four-drink programme—a play with two monotonous voices, with turbid, gloomy scenes, and lighting effects that were hard to follow when his eyes behaved so amazingly. He imagined afterward that it must have been “The Jest.” ....

.... Then the Cocoanut Grove, where Amory slept again on a little balcony outside. Out in Shanley’s, Yonkers, he became almost logical, and by a careful control of the number of high-balls he drank, grew quite lucid and garrulous. He found that the party consisted of five men, two of whom he knew slightly; he became righteous about paying his share of the expense and insisted in a loud voice on arranging everything then and there to the amusement of the tables around him....

Some one mentioned that a famous cabaret star was at the next table, so Amory rose and, approaching gallantly, introduced himself.... this involved him in an argument, first with her escort and then with the headwaiter—Amory’s attitude being a lofty and exaggerated courtesy.... he consented, after being confronted with irrefutable logic, to being led back to his own table.

“Decided to commit suicide,” he announced suddenly.

“When?Next year?”

“Now. To-morrow morning. Going to take a room at the Commodore, get into a hot bath and open a vein.”

“He’s getting morbid!”

“You need another rye, old boy!”

“We’ll all talk it over to-morrow.”

But Amory was not to be dissuaded, from argument at least.

“Did you ever get that way?”he demanded confidentially fortaccio.

“Sure!”

“Often?”

“My chronic state.”

This provoked discussion. One man said that he got so depressed sometimes that he seriously considered it. Another agreed that there was nothing to live for. “Captain Corn,” who had somehow rejoined the party, said that in his opinion it was when one’s health was bad that one felt that way most. Amory’s suggestion was that they should each order a Bronx, mix broken glass in it, and drink it off. To his relief no one applauded the idea, so having finished his high-ball, he balanced his chin in his hand and his elbow on the table—a most delicate, scarcely noticeable sleeping position, he assured himself—and went into a deep stupor....

He was awakened by a woman clinging to him, a pretty woman, with brown, disarranged hair and dark blue eyes.

“Take me home!” she cried.

“Hello!” said Amory, blinking.

“I like you,” she announced tenderly.

“I like you too.”

He noticed that there was a noisy man in the background and that one of his party was arguing with him.

“Fella I was with’s a damn fool,” confided the blue-eyed woman. “I hate him. I want to go home with you.”

“You drunk?”queried Amory with intense wisdom.

She nodded coyly.

“Go home with him,” he advised gravely. “He brought you.”

At this point the noisy man in the background broke away from his detainers and approached.

“Say!” he said fiercely. “I brought this girl out here and you’re butting in!”

Amory regarded him coldly, while the girl clung to him closer.

“You let go that girl!” cried the noisy man.

Amory tried to make his eyes threatening.

“You go to hell!” he directed finally, and turned his attention to the girl.

“Love first sight,” he suggested.

“I love you,” she breathed and nestled close to him. She did have beautiful eyes.

Some one leaned over and spoke in Amory’s ear.

“That’s just Margaret Diamond. She’s drunk and this fellow here brought her. Better let her go.”

“Let him take care of her, then!” shouted Amory furiously. “I’m no W. Y. C.A. worker, am I?—am I?”

“Let her go!”

“It’s her hanging on, damn it! Let her hang!”

The crowd around the table thickened. For an instant a brawl threatened, but a sleek waiter bent back Margaret Diamond’s fingers until she released her hold on Amory, whereupon she slapped the waiter furiously in the face and flung her arms about her raging original escort.

“Oh, Lord!” cried Amory.

“Let’s go!”

“Come on, the taxis are getting scarce!”

“Check, waiter.”

“C’mon, Amory. Your romance is over.”

Amory laughed.

“You don’t know how true you spoke. No idea.’At’s the whole trouble.”

*****

Amory on the Labor Question

Two mornings later he knocked at the president’s door at Bascome and Barlow’s advertising agency.

“Come in!”

Amory entered unsteadily.

“’Morning, Mr. Barlow.”

Mr. Barlow brought his glasses to the inspection and set his mouth slightly ajar that he might better listen.

“Well, Mr. Blaine. We haven’t seen you for several days.”

“No,” said Amory. “I’m quitting.”

“Well—well—this is—”

“I don’t like it here.”

“I’m sorry. I thought our relations had been quite—ah—pleasant. You seemed to be a hard worker—a little inclined perhaps to write fancy copy—”

“I just got tired of it,” interrupted Amory rudely. “It didn’t matter a damn to me whether Harebell’s flour was any better than any one else’s. In fact, I never ate any of it. So I got tired of telling people about it—oh, I know I’ve been drinking—”

Mr. Barlow’s face steeled by several ingots of expression.

“You asked for a position—”

Amory waved him to silence.

“And I think I was rottenly underpaid. Thirty-five dollars a week—less than a good carpenter.”

“You had just started. You’d never worked before,” said Mr. Barlow coolly.

“But it took about ten thousand dollars to educate me where I could write your darned stuff for you. Anyway, as far as length of service goes, you’ve got stenographers here you’ve paid fifteen a week for five years.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, sir,” said Mr. Barlow rising.

“Neither am I. I just wanted to tell you I’m quitting.”

They stood for a moment looking at each other impassively and then Amory turned and left the office.

*****

A Little Lull

Four days after that he returned at last to the apartment. Tom was engaged on a book review for The New Democracy on the staff of which he was employed. They regarded each other for a moment in silence.

“Well?”

“Well?”

“Good Lord, Amory, where’d you get the black eye—and the jaw?”

Amory laughed.

“That’s a mere nothing.”

He peeled off his coat and bared his shoulders.

“Look here!”

Tom emitted a low whistle.

“What hit you?”

Amory laughed again.

“Oh, a lot of people. I got beaten up. Fact.” He slowly replaced his shirt. “It was bound to come sooner or later and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

“Who was it?”

“Well, there were some waiters and a couple of sailors and a few stray pedestrians, I guess. It’s the strangest feeling. You ought to get beaten up just for the experience of it. You fall down after a while and everybody sort of slashes in at you before you hit the ground—then they kick you.”

Tom lighted a cigarette.

“I spent a day chasing you all over town, Amory. But you always kept a little ahead of me. I’d say you’ve been on some party.”

Amory tumbled into a chair and asked for a cigarette.

“You sober now?”asked Tom quizzically.

“Pretty sober. Why?”

“Well, Alec has left. His family had been after him to go home and live, so he—”

A spasm of pain shook Amory.

“Too bad.”

“Yes, it is too bad. We’ll have to get some one else if we’re going to stay here. The rent’s going up.”

“Sure. Get anybody. I’ll leave it to you, Tom.”

Amory walked into his bedroom. The first thing that met his glance was a photograph of Rosalind that he had intended to have framed, propped up against a mirror on his dresser. He looked at it unmoved. After the vivid mental pictures of her that were his portion at present, the portrait was curiously unreal. He went back into the study.

“Got a cardboard box?”

“No,” answered Tom, puzzled. “Why should I have?Oh, yes—there may be one in Alec’s room.”

Eventually Amory found what he was looking for and, returning to his dresser, opened a drawer full of letters, notes, part of a chain, two little handkerchiefs, and some snap-shots. As he transferred them carefully to the box his mind wandered to some place in a book where the hero, after preserving for a year a cake of his lost love’s soap, finally washed his hands with it. He laughed and began to hum “After you’ve gone”.... ceased abruptly....

The string broke twice, and then he managed to secure it, dropped the package into the bottom of his trunk, and having slammed the lid returned to the study.

“Going out?”Tom’s voice held an undertone of anxiety.

“Uh-huh.”

“Where?”

“Couldn’t say, old keed.”

“Let’s have dinner together.”

“Sorry. I told Sukey Brett I’d eat with him.”

“Oh.”

“By-by.”

Amory crossed the street and had a high-ball; then he walked to Washington Square and found a top seat on a bus. He disembarked at Forty-third Street and strolled to the Biltmore bar.

“Hi, Amory!”

“What’ll you have?”

“Yoho! Waiter!”

*****

Temperature Normal

The advent of prohibition with the “thirsty-first” put a sudden stop to the submerging of Amory’s sorrows, and when he awoke one morning to find that the old bar-to-bar days were over, he had neither remorse for the past three weeks nor regret that their repetition was impossible. He had taken the most violent, if the weakest, method to shield himself from the stabs of memory, and while it was not a course he would have prescribed for others, he found in the end that it had done its business: he was over the first flush of pain.

Don’t misunderstand! Amory had loved Rosalind as he would never love another living person. She had taken the first flush of his youth and brought from his unplumbed depths tenderness that had surprised him, gentleness and unselfishness that he had never given to another creature. He had later love-affairs, but of a different sort: in those he went back to that, perhaps, more typical frame of mind, in which the girl became the mirror of a mood in him. Rosalind had drawn out what was more than passionate admiration; he had a deep, undying affection for Rosalind.

But there had been, near the end, so much dramatic tragedy, culminating in the arabesque nightmare of his three weeks’spree, that he was emotionally worn out. The people and surroundings that he remembered as being cool or delicately artificial, seemed to promise him a refuge. He wrote a cynical story which featured his father’s funeral and despatched it to a magazine, receiving in return a check for sixty dollars and a request for more of the same tone. This tickled his vanity, but inspired him to no further effort.

He read enormously. He was puzzled and depressed by “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man;” intensely interested by “Joan and Peter” and “The Undying Fire,” and rather surprised by his discovery through a critic named Mencken of several excellent American novels: “Vandover and the Brute,” “The Damnation of Theron Ware,” and “Jennie Gerhardt.” Mackenzie, Chesterton, Galsworthy, Bennett, had sunk in his appreciation from sagacious, life-saturated geniuses to merely diverting contemporaries. Shaw’s aloof clarity and brilliant consistency and the gloriously intoxicated efforts of H. G.Wells to fit the key of romantic symmetry into the elusive lock of truth, alone won his rapt attention.

He wanted to see Monsignor Darcy, to whom he had written when he landed, but he had not heard from him; besides he knew that a visit to Monsignor would entail the story of Rosalind, and the thought of repeating it turned him cold with horror.

In his search for cool people he remembered Mrs. Lawrence, a very intelligent, very dignified lady, a convert to the church, and a great devotee of Monsignor’s.

He called her on the’phone one day. Yes, she remembered him perfectly; no, Monsignor wasn’t in town, was in Boston she thought; he’d promised to come to dinner when he returned. Couldn’t Amory take luncheon with her?

“I thought I’d better catch up, Mrs. Lawrence,” he said rather ambiguously when he arrived.

“Monsignor was here just last week,” said Mrs. Lawrence regretfully. “He was very anxious to see you, but he’d left your address at home.”

“Did he think I’d plunged into Bolshevism?”asked Amory, interested.

“Oh, he’s having a frightful time.”

“Why?”

“About the Irish Republic. He thinks it lacks dignity.”

“So?”

“He went to Boston when the Irish President arrived and he was greatly distressed because the receiving committee, when they rode in an automobile, would put their arms around the President.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“Well, what impressed you more than anything while you were in the army?You look a great deal older.”

“That’s from another, more disastrous battle,” he answered, smiling in spite of himself. “But the army—let me see—well, I discovered that physical courage depends to a great extent on the physical shape a man is in. I found that I was as brave as the next man—it used to worry me before.”

“What else?”

“Well, the idea that men can stand anything if they get used to it, and the fact that I got a high mark in the psychological examination.”

Mrs. Lawrence laughed. Amory was finding it a great relief to be in this cool house on Riverside Drive, away from more condensed New York and the sense of people expelling great quantities of breath into a little space. Mrs. Lawrence reminded him vaguely of Beatrice, not in temperament, but in her perfect grace and dignity. The house, its furnishings, the manner in which dinner was served, were in immense contrast to what he had met in the great places on Long Island, where the servants were so obtrusive that they had positively to be bumped out of the way, or even in the houses of more conservative “Union Club” families. He wondered if this air of symmetrical restraint, this grace, which he felt was continental, was distilled through Mrs. Lawrence’s New England ancestry or acquired in long residence in Italy and Spain.

Two glasses of sauterne at luncheon loosened his tongue, and he talked, with what he felt was something of his old charm, of religion and literature and the menacing phenomena of the social order. Mrs. Lawrence was ostensibly pleased with him, and her interest was especially in his mind; he wanted people to like his mind again—after a while it might be such a nice place in which to live.

“Monsignor Darcy still thinks that you’re his reincarnation, that your faith will eventually clarify.”

“Perhaps,” he assented. “I’m rather pagan at present. It’s just that religion doesn’t seem to have the slightest bearing on life at my age.”

When he left her house he walked down Riverside Drive with a feeling of satisfaction. It was amusing to discuss again such subjects as this young poet, Stephen Vincent Benét, or the Irish Republic. Between the rancid accusations of Edward Carson and Justice Cohalan he had completely tired of the Irish question; yet there had been a time when his own Celtic traits were pillars of his personal philosophy.

There seemed suddenly to be much left in life, if only this revival of old interests did not mean that he was backing away from it again—backing away from life itself.

*****

Restlessness

“I’m tres old and tres bored, Tom,” said Amory one day, stretching himself at ease in the comfortable window-seat. He always felt most natural in a recumbent position.

“You used to be entertaining before you started to write,” he continued. “Now you save any idea that you think would do to print.”

Existence had settled back to an ambitionless normality. They had decided that with economy they could still afford the apartment, which Tom, with the domesticity of an elderly cat, had grown fond of. The old English hunting prints on the wall were Tom’s, and the large tapestry by courtesy, a relic of decadent days in college, and the great profusion of orphaned candlesticks and the carved Louis XV chair in which no one could sit more than a minute without acute spinal disorders—Tom claimed that this was because one was sitting in the lap of Montespan’s wraith—at any rate, it was Tom’s furniture that decided them to stay.

They went out very little: to an occasional play, or to dinner at the Ritz or the Princeton Club. With prohibition the great rendezvous had received their death wounds; no longer could one wander to the Biltmore bar at twelve or five and find congenial spirits, and both Tom and Amory had outgrown the passion for dancing with mid-Western or New Jersey debbies at the Club-de-Vingt (surnamed the “Club de Gink”) or the Plaza Rose Room—besides even that required several cocktails “to come down to the intellectual level of the women present,” as Amory had once put it to a horrified matron.

Amory had lately received several alarming letters from Mr. Barton—the Lake Geneva house was too large to be easily rented; the best rent obtainable at present would serve this year to little more than pay for the taxes and necessary improvements; in fact, the lawyer suggested that the whole property was simply a white elephant on Amory’s hands. Nevertheless, even though it might not yield a cent for the next three years, Amory decided with a vague sentimentality that for the present, at any rate, he would not sell the house.

This particular day on which he announced his ennui to Tom had been quite typical. He had risen at noon, lunched with Mrs. Lawrence, and then ridden abstractedly homeward atop one of his beloved buses.

“Why shouldn’t you be bored,” yawned Tom. “Isn’t that the conventional frame of mind for the young man of your age and condition?”

“Yes,” said Amory speculatively, “but I’m more than bored; I am restless.”

“Love and war did for you.”

“Well,” Amory considered, “I’m not sure that the war itself had any great effect on either you or me—but it certainly ruined the old backgrounds, sort of killed individualism out of our generation.”

Tom looked up in surprise.

“Yes it did,” insisted Amory. “I’m not sure it didn’t kill it out of the whole world. Oh, Lord, what a pleasure it used to be to dream I might be a really great dictator or writer or religious or political leader—and now even a Leonardo da Vinci or Lorenzo de Medici couldn’t be a real old-fashioned bolt in the world. Life is too huge and complex. The world is so overgrown that it can’t lift its own fingers, and I was planning to be such an important finger—”

“I don’t agree with you,” Tom interrupted. “There never were men placed in such egotistic positions since—oh, since the French Revolution.”

Amory disagreed violently.

“You’re mistaking this period when every nut is an individualist for a period of individualism. Wilson has only been powerful when he has represented; he’s had to compromise over and over again. Just as soon as Trotsky and Lenin take a definite, consistent stand they’ll become merely two-minute figures like Kerensky. Even Foch hasn’t half the significance of Stonewall Jackson. War used to be the most individualistic pursuit of man, and yet the popular heroes of the war had neither authority nor responsibility: Guynemer and Sergeant York. How could a schoolboy make a hero of Pershing?A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.”

“Then you don’t think there will be any more permanent world heroes?”

“Yes—in history—not in life. Carlyle would have difficulty getting material for a new chapter on‘The Hero as a Big Man.’”

“Go on. I’m a good listener to-day.”

“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoi, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”

“Then you blame it on the press?”

“Absolutely. Look at you; you’re on The New Democracy, considered the most brilliant weekly in the country, read by the men who do things and all that. What’s your business?Why, to be as clever, as interesting, and as brilliantly cynical as possible about every man, doctrine, book, or policy that is assigned you to deal with. The more strong lights, the more spiritual scandal you can throw on the matter, the more money they pay you, the more the people buy the issue. You, Tom D’Invilliers, a blighted Shelley, changing, shifting, clever, unscrupulous, represent the critical consciousness of the race—Oh, don’t protest, I know the stuff. I used to write book reviews in college; I considered it rare sport to refer to the latest honest, conscientious effort to propound a theory or a remedy as a‘welcome addition to our light summer reading.’Come on now, admit it.”

Tom laughed, and Amory continued triumphantly.

“We want to believe. Young students try to believe in older authors, constituents try to believe in their Congressmen, countries try to believe in their statesmen, but they can’t. Too many voices, too much scattered, illogical, ill-considered criticism. It’s worse in the case of newspapers. Any rich, unprogressive old party with that particularly grasping, acquisitive form of mentality known as financial genius can own a paper that is the intellectual meat and drink of thousands of tired, hurried men, men too involved in the business of modern living to swallow anything but predigested food. For two cents the voter buys his politics, prejudices, and philosophy. A year later there is a new political ring or a change in the paper’s ownership, consequence: more confusion, more contradiction, a sudden inrush of new ideas, their tempering, their distillation, the reaction against them—”

He paused only to get his breath.

“And that is why I have sworn not to put pen to paper until my ideas either clarify or depart entirely; I have quite enough sins on my soul without putting dangerous, shallow epigrams into people’s heads; I might cause a poor, inoffensive capitalist to have a vulgar liaison with a bomb, or get some innocent little Bolshevik tangled up with a machine-gun bullet—”

Tom was growing restless under this lampooning of his connection with The New Democracy.

“What’s all this got to do with your being bored?”

Amory considered that it had much to do with it.

“How’ll I fit in?”he demanded. “What am I for?To propagate the race?According to the American novels we are led to believe that the‘healthy American boy’from nineteen to twenty-five is an entirely sexless animal. As a matter of fact, the healthier he is the less that’s true. The only alternative to letting it get you is some violent interest. Well, the war is over; I believe too much in the responsibilities of authorship to write just now; and business, well, business speaks for itself. It has no connection with anything in the world that I’ve ever been interested in, except a slim, utilitarian connection with economics. What I’d see of it, lost in a clerkship, for the next and best ten years of my life would have the intellectual content of an industrial movie.”

“Try fiction,” suggested Tom.

“Trouble is I get distracted when I start to write stories—get afraid I’m doing it instead of living—get thinking maybe life is waiting for me in the Japanese gardens at the Ritz or at Atlantic City or on the lower East Side.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I haven’t the vital urge. I wanted to be a regular human being but the girl couldn’t see it that way.”

“You’ll find another.”

“God! Banish the thought. Why don’t you tell me that‘if the girl had been worth having she’d have waited for you?’No, sir, the girl really worth having won’t wait for anybody. If I thought there’d be another I’d lose my remaining faith in human nature. Maybe I’ll play—but Rosalind was the only girl in the wide world that could have held me.”

“Well,” yawned Tom, “I’ve played confidant a good hour by the clock. Still, I’m glad to see you’re beginning to have violent views again on something.”

“I am,” agreed Amory reluctantly. “Yet when I see a happy family it makes me sick at my stomach—”

“Happy families try to make people feel that way,” said Tom cynically.

*****

Tom the Censor

There were days when Amory listened. These were when Tom, wreathed in smoke, indulged in the slaughter of American literature. Words failed him.

“Fifty thousand dollars a year,” he would cry. “My God! Look at them, look at them—Edna Ferber, Gouverneur Morris, Fanny Hurst, Mary Roberts Rinehart—not producing among’em one story or novel that will last ten years. This man Cobb—I don’t tink he’s either clever or amusing—and what’s more, I don’t think very many people do, except the editors. He’s just groggy with advertising. And—oh Harold Bell Wright oh Zane Grey—”

“They try.”

“No, they don’t even try. Some of them can write, but they won’t sit down and do one honest novel. Most of them can’t write, I’ll admit. I believe Rupert Hughes tries to give a real, comprehensive picture of American life, but his style and perspective are barbarous. Ernest Poole and Dorothy Canfield try but they’re hindered by their absolute lack of any sense of humor; but at least they crowd their work instead of spreading it thin. Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it.”

“Is that double entente?”

“Don’t slow me up! Now there’s a few of’em that seem to have some cultural background, some intelligence and a good deal of literary felicity but they just simply won’t write honestly; they’d all claim there was no public for good stuff. Then why the devil is it that Wells, Conrad, Galsworthy, Shaw, Bennett, and the rest depend on America for over half their sales?”

“How does little Tommy like the poets?”

Tom was overcome. He dropped his arms until they swung loosely beside the chair and emitted faint grunts.

“I’m writing a satire on’em now, calling it‘Boston Bards and Hearst Reviewers.’”

“Let’s hear it,” said Amory eagerly.

“I’ve only got the last few lines done.”

“That’s very modern. Let’s hear’em, if they’re funny.”

Tom produced a folded paper from his pocket and read aloud, pausing at intervals so that Amory could see that it was free verse:

So

Walter Arensberg,

Alfred Kreymborg,

Carl Sandburg,

Louis Untermeyer,

Eunice Tietjens,

Clara Shanafelt,

James Oppenheim,

Maxwell Bodenheim,

Richard Glaenzer,

Scharmel Iris,

Conrad Aiken,

I place your names here

So that you may live

If only as names,

Sinuous, mauve-colored names,

In the Juvenalia

Of my collected editions.

Amory roared.

“You win the iron pansy. I’ll buy you a meal on the arrogance of the last two lines.”

Amory did not entirely agree with Tom’s sweeping damnation of American novelists and poets. He enjoyed both Vachel Lindsay and Booth Tarkington, and admired the conscientious, if slender, artistry of Edgar Lee Masters.

“What I hate is this idiotic drivel about‘I am God—I am man—I ride the winds—I look through the smoke—I am the life sense.’”

“It’s ghastly!”

“And I wish American novelists would give up trying to make business romantically interesting. Nobody wants to read about it, unless it’s crooked business. If it was an entertaining subject they’d buy the life of James J. Hill and not one of these long office tragedies that harp along on the significance of smoke—”

“And gloom,” said Tom. “That’s another favorite, though I’ll admit the Russians have the monopoly. Our specialty is stories about little girls who break their spines and get adopted by grouchy old men because they smile so much. You’d think we were a race of cheerful cripples and that the common end of the Russian peasant was suicide—”

“Six o’clock,” said Amory, glancing at his wrist-watch. “I’ll buy you a grea’big dinner on the strength of the Juvenalia of your collected editions.”

*****

Looking Backward

July sweltered out with a last hot week, and Amory in another surge of unrest realized that it was just five months since he and Rosalind had met. Yet it was already hard for him to visualize the heart-whole boy who had stepped off the transport, passionately desiring the adventure of life. One night while the heat, overpowering and enervating, poured into the windows of his room he struggled for several hours in a vague effort to immortalize the poignancy of that time.

The February streets, wind-washed by night, blow full of strange half-intermittent damps, bearing on wasted walks in shining sight wet snow plashed into gleams under the lamps, like golden oil from some divine machine, in an hour of thaw and stars.

Strange damps—full of the eyes of many men, crowded with life borne in upon a lull.... Oh, I was young, for I could turn again to you, most finite and most beautiful, and taste the stuff of half-remembered dreams, sweet and new on your mouth.

.... There was a tanging in the midnight air—silence was dead and sound not yet awoken—Life cracked like ice!—one brilliant note and there, radiant and pale, you stood.... and spring had broken. (The icicles were short upon the roofs and the changeling city swooned.)

Our thoughts were frosty mist along the eaves; our two ghosts kissed, high on the long, mazed wires—eerie half-laughter echoes here and leaves only a fatuous sigh for young desires; regret has followed after things she loved, leaving the great husk.

*****

Another Ending

In mid-August came a letter from Monsignor Darcy, who had evidently just stumbled on his address:

MY DEAR BOY:—

Your last letter was quite enough to make me worry about you. It was not a bit like yourself. Reading between the lines I should imagine that your engagement to this girl is making you rather unhappy, and I see you have lost all the feeling of romance that you had before the war. You make a great mistake if you think you can be romantic without religion. Sometimes I think that with both of us the secret of success, when we find it, is the mystical element in us: something flows into us that enlarges our personalities, and when it ebbs out our personalities shrink;

I should call your last two letters rather shrivelled. Beware of losing yourself in the personality of another being, man or woman.

His Eminence Cardinal O’Neill and the Bishop of Boston are staying with me at present, so it is hard for me to get a moment to write, but I wish you would come up here later if only for a week-end. I go to Washington this week.

What I shall do in the future is hanging in the balance. Absolutely between ourselves I should not be surprised to see the red hat of a cardinal descend upon my unworthy head within the next eight months. In any event, I should like to have a house in New York or Washington where you could drop in for week-ends.

Amory, I’m very glad we’re both alive; this war could easily have been the end of a brilliant family. But in regard to matrimony, you are now at the most dangerous period of your life. You might marry in haste and repent at leisure, but I think you won’t. From what you write me about the present calamitous state of your finances, what you want is naturally impossible. However, if I judge you by the means I usually choose, I should say that there will be something of an emotional crisis within the next year.

Do write me. I feel annoyingly out of date on you.

With greatest affection,

THAYER DARCY.

Within a week after the receipt of this letter their little household fell precipitously to pieces. The immediate cause was the serious and probably chronic illness of Tom’s mother. So they stored the furniture, gave instructions to sublet and shook hands gloomily in the Pennsylvania Station. Amory and Tom seemed always to be saying good-by.

Feeling very much alone, Amory yielded to an impulse and set off southward, intending to join Monsignor in Washington. They missed connections by two hours, and, deciding to spend a few days with an ancient, remembered uncle, Amory journeyed up through the luxuriant fields of Maryland into Ramilly County. But instead of two days his stay lasted from mid-August nearly through September, for in Maryland he met Eleanor.

Chapter 3　Young Irony

For years afterward when Amory thought of Eleanor he seemed still to hear the wind sobbing around him and sending little chills into the places beside his heart. The night when they rode up the slope and watched the cold moon float through the clouds, he lost a further part of him that nothing could restore; and when he lost it he lost also the power of regretting it. Eleanor was, say, the last time that evil crept close to Amory under the mask of beauty, the last weird mystery that held him with wild fascination and pounded his soul to flakes.

With her his imagination ran riot and that is why they rode to the highest hill and watched an evil moon ride high, for they knew then that they could see the devil in each other. But Eleanor—did Amory dream her?Afterward their ghosts played, yet both of them hoped from their souls never to meet. Was it the infinite sadness of her eyes that drew him or the mirror of himself that he found in the gorgeous clarity of her mind?She will have no other adventure like Amory, and if she reads this she will say:

“And Amory will have no other adventure like me.”

Nor will she sigh, any more than he would sigh.

Eleanor tried to put it on paper once:

The fading things we only know

We’ll have forgotten....

Put away....

Desires that melted with the snow,

And dreams begotten

This to-day:

The sudden dawns we laughed to greet,

That all could see, that none could share,

Will be but dawns.... and if we meet

We shall not care.

Dear.... not one tear will rise for this....

A little while hence

No regret

Will stir for a remembered kiss—

Not even silence,

When we’ve met,

Will give old ghosts a waste to roam,

Or stir the surface of the sea....

If gray shapes drift beneath the foam

We shall not see.

They quarrelled dangerously because Amory maintained that sea and see couldn’t possibly be used as a rhyme. And then Eleanor had part of another verse that she couldn’t find a beginning for:

.... But wisdom passes.... still the years

Will feed us wisdom.... Age will go

Back to the old—For all our tears

We shall not know.

Eleanor hated Maryland passionately. She belonged to the oldest of the old families of Ramilly County and lived in a big, gloomy house with her grandfather. She had been born and brought up in France.... I see I am starting wrong. Let me begin again.

Amory was bored, as he usually was in the country. He used to go for far walks by himself—and wander along reciting “Ulalume” to the corn-fields, and congratulating Poe for drinking himself to death in that atmosphere of smiling complacency. One afternoon he had strolled for several miles along a road that was new to him, and then through a wood on bad advice from a colored woman.... losing himself entirely. A passing storm decided to break out, and to his great impatience the sky grew black as pitch and the rain began to splatter down through the trees, become suddenly furtive and ghostly. Thunder rolled with menacing crashes up the valley and scattered through the woods in intermittent batteries. He stumbled blindly on, hunting for a way out, and finally, through webs of twisted branches, caught sight of a rift in the trees where the unbroken lightning showed open country. He rushed to the edge of the woods and then hesitated whether or not to cross the fields and try to reach the shelter of the little house marked by a light far down the valley. It was only half past five, but he could see scarcely ten steps before him, except when the lightning made everything vivid and grotesque for great sweeps around.

Suddenly a strange sound fell on his ears. It was a song, in a low, husky voice, a girl’s voice, and whoever was singing was very close to him. A year before he might have laughed, or trembled; but in his restless mood he only stood and listened while the words sank into his consciousness:

Les sanglots longs

Des violons

De l’automne

Blessent mon coeur

D’une langueur

Monotone.

The lightning split the sky, but the song went on without a quaver. The girl was evidently in the field and the voice seemed to come vaguely from a haystack about twenty feet in front of him.

Then it ceased: ceased and began again in a weird chant that soared and hung and fell and blended with the rain:

Tout suffocant

Et blême quand

Sonne l’heure

Je me souviens

Des jours anciens

Et je pleure....

“Who the devil is there in Ramilly County,” muttered Amory aloud, “who would deliver Verlaine in an extemporaneous tune to a soaking haystack?”

“Somebody’s there!” cried the voice unalarmed. “Who are you?—Manfred, St. Christopher, or Queen Victoria?”“I’m Don Juan!” Amory shouted on impulse, raising his voice above the noise of the rain and the wind.

A delighted shriek came from the haystack.

“I know who you are—you’re the blond boy that likes‘Ulalume’—I recognize your voice.”

“How do I get up?”he cried from the foot of the haystack, whither he had arrived, dripping wet. A head appeared over the edge—it was so dark that Amory could just make out a patch of damp hair and two eyes that gleamed like a cat’s.

“Run back!” came the voice, “and jump and I’ll catch your hand—no, not there—on the other side.”

He followed directions and as he sprawled up the side, knee-deep in hay, a small, white hand reached out, gripped his, and helped him onto the top.

“Here you are, Juan,” cried she of the damp hair. “Do you mind if I drop the Don?”

“You’ve got a thumb like mine!” he exclaimed.

“And you’re holding my hand, which is dangerous without seeing my face.” He dropped it quickly.

As if in answer to his prayers came a flash of lightning and he looked eagerly at her who stood beside him on the soggy haystack, ten feet above the ground. But she had covered her face and he saw nothing but a slender figure, dark, damp, bobbed hair, and the small white hands with the thumbs that bent back like his.

“Sit down,” she suggested politely, as the dark closed in on them. “If you’ll sit opposite me in this hollow you can have half of the raincoat, which I was using as a water-proof tent until you so rudely interrupted me.”

“I was asked,” Amory said joyfully; “you asked me—you know you did.”

“Don Juan always manages that,” she said, laughing, “but I shan’t call you that any more, because you’ve got reddish hair. Instead you can recite‘Ulalume’and I’ll be Psyche, your soul.”

Amory flushed, happily invisible under the curtain of wind and rain. They were sitting opposite each other in a slight hollow in the hay with the raincoat spread over most of them, and the rain doing for the rest. Amory was trying desperately to see Psyche, but the lightning refused to flash again, and he waited impatiently. Good Lord! supposing she wasn’t beautiful—supposing she was forty and pedantic—heavens! Suppose, only suppose, she was mad. But he knew the last was unworthy. Here had Providence sent a girl to amuse him just as it sent Benvenuto Cellini men to murder, and he was wondering if she was mad, just because she exactly filled his mood.

“I’m not,” she said.

“Not what?”

“Not mad. I didn’t think you were mad when I first saw you, so it isn’t fair that you should think so of me.”

“How on earth—”

As long as they knew each other Eleanor and Amory could be “on a subject” and stop talking with the definite thought of it in their heads, yet ten minutes later speak aloud and find that their minds had followed the same channels and led them each to a parallel idea, an idea that others would have found absolutely unconnected with the first.

“Tell me,” he demanded, leaning forward eagerly, “how do you know about‘Ulalume’—how did you know the color of my hair?What’s your name?What were you doing here?Tell me all at once!”

Suddenly the lightning flashed in with a leap of overreaching light and he saw Eleanor, and looked for the first time into those eyes of hers. Oh, she was magnificent—pale skin, the color of marble in starlight, slender brows, and eyes that glittered green as emeralds in the blinding glare. She was a witch, of perhaps nineteen, he judged, alert and dreamy and with the tell-tale white line over her upper lip that was a weakness and a delight. He sank back with a gasp against the wall of hay.

“Now you’ve seen me,” she said calmly, “and I suppose you’re about to say that my green eyes are burning into your brain.”

“What color is your hair?”he asked intently. “It’s bobbed, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s bobbed. I don’t know what color it is,” she answered, musing, “so many men have asked me. It’s medium, I suppose—No one ever looks long at my hair. I’ve got beautiful eyes, though, haven’t I. I don’t care what you say, I have beautiful eyes.”

“Answer my question, Madeline.”

“Don’t remember them all—besides my name isn’t Madeline, it’s Eleanor.”

“I might have guessed it. You look like Eleanor—you have that Eleanor look. You know what I mean.”

There was a silence as they listened to the rain.

“It’s going down my neck, fellow lunatic,” she offered finally.

“Answer my questions.”

“Well—name of Savage, Eleanor; live in big old house mile down road; nearest living relation to be notified, grandfather—Ramilly Savage; height, five feet four inches; number on watch-case, 3077 W; nose, delicate aquiline; temperament, uncanny—”

“And me,” Amory interrupted, “where did you see me?”

“Oh, you’re one of those men,” she answered haughtily, “must lug old self into conversation. Well, my boy, I was behind a hedge sunning myself one day last week, and along comes a man saying in a pleasant, conceited way of talking:

“‘And now when the night was senescent’

(says he)

‘And the star dials pointed to morn

At the end of the path a liquescent’

(says he)

‘And nebulous lustre was born.’

“So I poked my eyes up over the hedge, but you had started to run, for some unknown reason, and so I saw but the back of your beautiful head.‘Oh!’ says I, ‘there’s a man for whom many of us might sigh,’ and I continued in my best Irish—”

“All right,” Amory interrupted. “Now go back to yourself.”

“Well, I will. I’m one of those people who go through the world giving other people thrills, but getting few myself except those I read into men on such nights as these. I have the social courage to go on the stage, but not the energy; I haven’t the patience to write books; and I never met a man I’d marry. However, I’m only eighteen.”

The storm was dying down softly and only the wind kept up its ghostly surge and made the stack lean and gravely settle from side to side. Amory was in a trance. He felt that every moment was precious. He had never met a girl like this before—she would never seem quite the same again. He didn’t at all feel like a character in a play, the appropriate feeling in an unconventional situation—instead, he had a sense of coming home.

“I have just made a great decision,” said Eleanor after another pause, “and that is why I’m here, to answer another of your questions. I have just decided that I don’t believe in immortality.”

“Really! how banal!”

“Frightfully so,” she answered, “but depressing with a stale, sickly depression, nevertheless. I came out here to get wet—like a wet hen; wet hens always have great clarity of mind,” she concluded.

“Go on,” Amory said politely.

“Well—I’m not afraid of the dark, so I put on my slicker and rubber boots and came out. You see I was always afraid, before, to say I didn’t believe in God—because the lightning might strike me—but here I am and it hasn’t, of course, but the main point is that this time I wasn’t any more afraid of it than I had been when I was a Christian Scientist, like I was last year. So now I know I’m a materialist and I was fraternizing with the hay when you came out and stood by the woods, scared to death.”

“Why, you little wretch—”cried Amory indignantly. “Scared of what?”

“Yourself!” she shouted, and he jumped. She clapped her hands and laughed. “See—see! Conscience—kill it like me! Eleanor Savage, materiologist—no jumping, no starting, come early—”

“But I have to have a soul,” he objected. “I can’t be rational—and I won’t be molecular.”

She leaned toward him, her burning eyes never leaving his own and whispered with a sort of romantic finality:

“I thought so, Juan, I feared so—you’re sentimental. You’re not like me. I’m a romantic little materialist.”

“I’m not sentimental—I’m as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last—the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won’t.” (This was an ancient distinction of Amory’s.)

“Epigrams. I’m going home,” she said sadly. “Let’s get off the haystack and walk to the cross-roads.”

They slowly descended from their perch. She would not let him help her down and motioning him away arrived in a graceful lump in the soft mud where she sat for an instant, laughing at herself. Then she jumped to her feet and slipped her hand into his, and they tiptoed across the fields, jumping and swinging from dry spot to dry spot. A transcendent delight seemed to sparkle in every pool of water, for the moon had risen and the storm had scurried away into western Maryland. When Eleanor’s arm touched his he felt his hands grow cold with deadly fear lest he should lose the shadow brush with which his imagination was painting wonders of her. He watched her from the corners of his eyes as ever he did when he walked with her—she was a feast and a folly and he wished it had been his destiny to sit forever on a haystack and see life through her green eyes. His paganism soared that night and when she faded out like a gray ghost down the road, a deep singing came out of the fields and filled his way homeward. All night the summer moths flitted in and out of Amory’s window; all night large looming sounds swayed in mystic revery through the silver grain—and he lay awake in the clear darkness.

*****

September

Amory selected a blade of grass and nibbled at it scientifically.

“I never fall in love in August or September,” he proffered.

“When then?”

“Christmas or Easter. I’m a liturgist.”

“Easter!” She turned up her nose. “Huh! Spring in corsets!”

“Easter would bore spring, wouldn’t she?Easter has her hair braided, wears a tailored suit.”

Bind on thy sandals, oh, thou most fleet.

Over the splendor and speed of thy feet—

quoted Eleanor softly, and then added: “I suppose Hallowe’en is a better day for autumn than Thanksgiving.” “Much better—and Christmas eve does very well for winter, but summer.... ”

“Summer has no day,” she said. “We can’t possibly have a summer love. So many people have tried that the name’s become proverbial. Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring, a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April. It’s a sad season of life without growth.... It has no day.”

“Fourth of July,” Amory suggested facetiously.

“Don’t be funny!” she said, raking him with her eyes.

“Well, what could fulfil the promise of spring?”

She thought a moment.

“Oh, I suppose heaven would, if there was one,” she said finally, “a sort of pagan heaven—you ought to be a materialist,” she continued irrelevantly.

“Why?”

“Because you look a good deal like the pictures of Rupert Brooke.”

To some extent Amory tried to play Rupert Brooke as long as he knew Eleanor. What he said, his attitude toward life, toward her, toward himself, were all reflexes of the dead Englishman’s literary moods. Often she sat in the grass, a lazy wind playing with her short hair, her voice husky as she ran up and down the scale from Grantchester to Waikiki. There was something most passionate in Eleanor’s reading aloud. They seemed nearer, not only mentally, but physically, when they read, than when she was in his arms, and this was often, for they fell half into love almost from the first. Yet was Amory capable of love now?He could, as always, run through the emotions in a half hour, but even while they revelled in their imaginations, he knew that neither of them could care as he had cared once before—I suppose that was why they turned to Brooke, and Swinburne, and Shelley. Their chance was to make everything fine and finished and rich and imaginative; they must bend tiny golden tentacles from his imagination to hers, that would take the place of the great, deep love that was never so near, yet never so much of a dream.

One poem they read over and over; Swinburne’s “Triumph of Time,” and four lines of it rang in his memory afterward on warm nights when he saw the fireflies among dusky tree trunks and heard the low drone of many frogs. Then Eleanor seemed to come out of the night and stand by him, and he heard her throaty voice, with its tone of a fleecy-headed drum, repeating:

Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour,

To think of things that are well outworn;

Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower,

The dream foregone and the deed foreborne?

They were formally introduced two days later, and his aunt told him her history. The Ramillys were two: old Mr. Ramilly and his granddaughter, Eleanor. She had lived in France with a restless mother whom Amory imagined to have been very like his own, on whose death she had come to America, to live in Maryland. She had gone to Baltimore first to stay with a bachelor uncle, and there she insisted on being a débutante at the age of seventeen. She had a wild winter and arrived in the country in March, having quarrelled frantically with all her Baltimore relatives, and shocked them into fiery protest. A rather fast crowd had come out, who drank cocktails in limousines and were promiscuously condescending and patronizing toward older people, and Eleanor with an esprit that hinted strongly of the boulevards, led many innocents still redolent of St. Timothy’s and Farmington, into paths of Bohemian naughtiness. When the story came to her uncle, a forgetful cavalier of a more hypocritical era, there was a scene, from which Eleanor emerged, subdued but rebellious and indignant, to seek haven with her grandfather who hovered in the country on the near side of senility. That’s as far as her story went; she told him the rest herself, but that was later.

Often they swam and as Amory floated lazily in the water he shut his mind to all thoughts except those of hazy soap-bubble lands where the sun splattered through wind-drunk trees. How could any one possibly think or worry, or do anything except splash and dive and loll there on the edge of time while the flower months failed. Let the days move over—sadness and memory and pain recurred outside, and here, once more, before he went on to meet them he wanted to drift and be young.

There were days when Amory resented that life had changed from an even progress along a road stretching ever in sight, with the scenery merging and blending, into a succession of quick, unrelated scenes—two years of sweat and blood, that sudden absurd instinct for paternity that Rosalind had stirred; the half-sensual, half-neurotic quality of this autumn with Eleanor. He felt that it would take all time, more than he could ever spare, to glue these strange cumbersome pictures into the scrap-book of his life. It was all like a banquet where he sat for this half-hour of his youth and tried to enjoy brilliant epicurean courses.

Dimly he promised himself a time where all should be welded together. For months it seemed that he had alternated between being borne along a stream of love or fascination, or left in an eddy, and in the eddies he had not desired to think, rather to be picked up on a wave’s top and swept along again.

“The despairing, dying autumn and our love—how well they harmonize!” said Eleanor sadly one day as they lay dripping by the water.

“The Indian summer of our hearts—”he ceased.

“Tell me,” she said finally, “was she light or dark?”

“Light.”

“Was she more beautiful than I am?”

“I don’t know,” said Amory shortly.

One night they walked while the moon rose and poured a great burden of glory over the garden until it seemed fairy-land with Amory and Eleanor, dim phantasmal shapes, expressing eternal beauty in curious elfin love moods. Then they turned out of the moonlight into the trellised darkness of a vine-hung pagoda, where there were scents so plaintive as to be nearly musical.

“Light a match,” she whispered. “I want to see you.”

Scratch! Flare!

The night and the scarred trees were like scenery in a play, and to be there with Eleanor, shadowy and unreal, seemed somehow oddly familiar. Amory thought how it was only the past that ever seemed strange and unbelievable. The match went out.

“It’s black as pitch.”

“We’re just voices now,” murmured Eleanor, “little lonesome voices. Light another.”

“That was my last match.”

Suddenly he caught her in his arms.

“You are mine—you know you’re mine!” he cried wildly.... the moonlight twisted in through the vines and listened.... the fireflies hung upon their whispers as if to win his glance from the glory of their eyes.

*****

The End of Summer

“No wind is stirring in the grass; not one wind stirs.... the water in the hidden pools, as glass, fronts the full moon and so inters the golden token in its icy mass,” chanted Eleanor to the trees that skeletoned the body of the night. “Isn’t it ghostly here?If you can hold your horse’s feet up, let’s cut through the woods and find the hidden pools.”

“It’s after one, and you’ll get the devil,” he objected, “and I don’t know enough about horses to put one away in the pitch dark.”

“Shut up, you old fool,” she whispered irrelevantly, and, leaning over, she patted him lazily with her riding-crop.

“You can leave your old plug in our stable and I’ll send him over to-morrow.”

“But my uncle has got to drive me to the station with this old plug at seven o’clock.”

“Don’t be a spoil-sport—remember, you have a tendency toward wavering that prevents you from being the entire light of my life.”

Amory drew his horse up close beside, and, leaning toward her, grasped her hand.

“Say I am—quick, or I’ll pull you over and make you ride behind me.”

She looked up and smiled and shook her head excitedly.

“Oh, do!—or rather, don’t! Why are all the exciting things so uncomfortable, like fighting and exploring and ski-ing in Canada?By the way, we’re going to ride up Harper’s Hill. I think that comes in our programme about five o’clock.”

“You little devil,” Amory growled. “You’re going to make me stay up all night and sleep in the train like an immigrant all day to-morrow, going back to New York.”

“Hush! Some one’s coming along the road—let’s go! Whoo-ee-oop!” And with a shout that probably gave the belated traveller a series of shivers, she turned her horse into the woods and Amory followed slowly, as he had followed her all day for three weeks.

The summer was over, but he had spent the days in watching Eleanor, a graceful, facile Manfred, build herself intellectual and imaginative pyramids while she revelled in the artificialities of the temperamental teens and they wrote poetry at the dinner-table.

When Vanity kissed Vanity, a hundred happy Junes ago, he pondered o’er her breathlessly, and, that all men might ever know, he rhymed her eyes with life and death:

“Thru Time I’ll save my love!” he said.... yet Beauty vanished with his breath, and, with her lovers, she was dead....

—Ever his wit and not her eyes, ever his art and not her hair:

“Who’d learn a trick in rhyme, be wise and pause before his sonnet there”.... So all my words, however true, might sing you to a thousandth June, and no one ever know that you were Beauty for an afternoon.

So he wrote one day, when he pondered how coldly we thought of the “Dark Lady of the Sonnets,” and how little we remembered her as the great man wanted her remembered. For what Shakespeare must have desired, to have been able to write with such divine despair, was that the lady should live.... and now we have no real interest in her.... The irony of it is that if he had cared more for the poem than for the lady the sonnet would be only obvious, imitative rhetoric and no one would ever have read it after twenty years....

This was the last night Amory ever saw Eleanor. He was leaving in the morning and they had agreed to take a long farewell trot by the cold moonlight. She wanted to talk, she said—perhaps the last time in her life that she could be rational (she meant pose with comfort). So they had turned into the woods and rode for half an hour with scarcely a word, except when she whispered “Damn!” at a bothersome branch—whispered it as no other girl was ever able to whisper it. Then they started up Harper’s Hill, walking their tired horses.

“Good Lord! It’s quiet here!” whispered Eleanor; “much more lonesome than the woods.”

“I hate woods,” Amory said, shuddering. “Any kind of foliage or underbrush at night. Out here it’s so broad and easy on the spirit.”

“The long slope of a long hill.”

“And the cold moon rolling moonlight down it.”

“And thee and me, last and most important.”

It was quiet that night—the straight road they followed up to the edge of the cliff knew few footsteps at any time. Only an occasional negro cabin, silver-gray in the rock-ribbed moonlight, broke the long line of bare ground; behind lay the black edge of the woods like a dark frosting on white cake, and ahead the sharp, high horizon. It was much colder—so cold that it settled on them and drove all the warm nights from their minds.

“The end of summer,” said Eleanor softly. “Listen to the beat of our horses’hoofs—tump-tump-tump-a-tump.’Have you ever been feverish and had all noises divide into‘tump-tump-tump’until you could swear eternity was divisible into so many tumps?That’s the way I feel—old horses go tump-tump.... I guess that’s the only thing that separates horses and clocks from us. Human beings can’t go‘tump-tump-tump’without going crazy.”

The breeze freshened and Eleanor pulled her cape around her and shivered.

“Are you very cold?”asked Amory.

“No, I’m thinking about myself—my black old inside self, the real one, with the fundamental honesty that keeps me from being absolutely wicked by making me realize my own sins.”

They were riding up close by the cliff and Amory gazed over. Where the fall met the ground a hundred feet below, a black stream made a sharp line, broken by tiny glints in the swift water.

“Rotten, rotten old world,” broke out Eleanor suddenly, “and the wretchedest thing of all is me—oh, why am I a girl?Why am I not a stupid—?Look at you; you’re stupider than I am, not much, but some, and you can lope about and get bored and then lope somewhere else, and you can play around with girls without being involved in meshes of sentiment, and you can do anything and be justified—and here am I with the brains to do everything, yet tied to the sinking ship of future matrimony. If I were born a hundred years from now, well and good, but now what’s in store for me—I have to marry, that goes without saying. Who?I’m too bright for most men, and yet I have to descend to their level and let them patronize my intellect in order to get their attention. Every year that I don’t marry I’ve got less chance for a first-class man. At the best I can have my choice from one or two cities and, of course, I have to marry into a dinner-coat.

“Listen,” she leaned close again, “I like clever men and good-looking men, and, of course, no one cares more for personality than I do. Oh, just one person in fifty has any glimmer of what sex is. I’m hipped on Freud and all that, but it’s rotten that every bit of real love in the world is ninety-nine per cent passion and one little soupcon of jealousy.” She finished as suddenly as she began.

“Of course, you’re right,” Amory agreed. “It’s a rather unpleasant overpowering force that’s part of the machinery under everything. It’s like an actor that lets you see his mechanics! Wait a minute till I think this out.... ”

He paused and tried to get a metaphor. They had turned the cliff and were riding along the road about fifty feet to the left.

“You see every one’s got to have some cloak to throw around it. The mediocre intellects, Plato’s second class, use the remnants of romantic chivalry diluted with Victorian sentiment—and we who consider ourselves the intellectuals cover it up by pretending that it’s another side of us, has nothing to do with our shining brains; we pretend that the fact that we realize it is really absolving us from being a prey to it. But the truth is that sex is right in the middle of our purest abstractions, so close that it obscures vision.... I can kiss you now and will.... ”He leaned toward her in his saddle, but she drew away.

“I can’t—I can’t kiss you now—I’m more sensitive.”

“You’re more stupid then,” he declared rather impatiently. “Intellect is no protection from sex any more than convention is.... ”

“What is?”she fired up. “The Catholic Church or the maxims of Confucius?”

Amory looked up, rather taken aback.

“That’s your panacea, isn’t it?”she cried. “Oh, you’re just an old hypocrite, too. Thousands of scowling priests keeping the degenerate Italians and illiterate Irish repentant with gabble-gabble about the sixth and ninth commandments. It’s just all cloaks, sentiment and spiritual rouge and panaceas. I’ll tell you there is no God, not even a definite abstract goodness; so it’s all got to be worked out for the individual by the individual here in high white foreheads like mine, and you’re too much the prig to admit it.” She let go her reins and shook her little fists at the stars.

“If there’s a God let him strike me—strike me!”

“Talking about God again after the manner of atheists,” Amory said sharply. His materialism, always a thin cloak, was torn to shreds by Eleanor’s blasphemy.... She knew it and it angered him that she knew it.

“And like most intellectuals who don’t find faith convenient,” he continued coldly, “like Napoleon and Oscar Wilde and the rest of your type, you’ll yell loudly for a priest on your death-bed.”

Eleanor drew her horse up sharply and he reined in beside her.

“Will I?”she said in a queer voice that scared him. “Will I?Watch! I’m going over the cliff!” And before he could interfere she had turned and was riding breakneck for the end of the plateau.

He wheeled and started after her, his body like ice, his nerves in a vast clangor. There was no chance of stopping her. The moon was under a cloud and her horse would step blindly over. Then some ten feet from the edge of the cliff she gave a sudden shriek and flung herself sideways—plunged from her horse and, rolling over twice, landed in a pile of brush five feet from the edge. The horse went over with a frantic whinny. In a minute he was by Eleanor’s side and saw that her eyes were open.

“Eleanor!” he cried.

She did not answer, but her lips moved and her eyes filled with sudden tears.

“Eleanor, are you hurt?”

“No; I don’t think so,” she said faintly, and then began weeping.

“My horse dead?”

“Good God—Yes!”

“Oh!” she wailed. “I thought I was going over. I didn’t know—”

He helped her gently to her feet and boosted her onto his saddle. So they started homeward; Amory walking and she bent forward on the pommel, sobbing bitterly.

“I’ve got a crazy streak,” she faltered, “twice before I’ve done things like that. When I was eleven mother went—went mad—stark raving crazy. We were in Vienna—”

All the way back she talked haltingly about herself, and Amory’s love waned slowly with the moon. At her door they started from habit to kiss good night, but she could not run into his arms, nor were they stretched to meet her as in the week before. For a minute they stood there, hating each other with a bitter sadness. But as Amory had loved himself in Eleanor, so now what he hated was only a mirror. Their poses were strewn about the pale dawn like broken glass. The stars were long gone and there were left only the little sighing gusts of wind and the silences between.... but naked souls are poor things ever, and soon he turned homeward and let new lights come in with the sun.

*****

A Poem that Eleanor Sent Amory Several Years Later

Here, Earth-born, over the lilt of the water,

Lisping its music and bearing a burden of light,

Bosoming day as a laughing and radiant daughter....

Here we may whisper unheard, unafraid of the night.

Walking alone.... was it splendor, or what, we were bound with,

Deep in the time when summer lets down her hair?

Shadows we loved and the patterns they covered the

ground with

Tapestries, mystical, faint in the breathless air.

That was the day.... and the night for another story,

Pale as a dream and shadowed with pencilled trees—

Ghosts of the stars came by who had sought for glory,

Whispered to us of peace in the plaintive breeze,

Whispered of old dead faiths that the day had shattered,

Youth the penny that bought delight of the moon;

That was the urge that we knew and the language that mattered

That was the debt that we paid to the usurer June.

Here, deepest of dreams, by the waters that bring not

Anything back of the past that we need not know,

What if the light is but sun and the little streams sing not,

We are together, it seems.... I have loved you so....

What did the last night hold, with the summer over,

Drawing us back to the home in the changing glade?

What leered out of the dark in the ghostly clover?

God!.... tillyoustirredinyoursleep.... andwerewildafraid....

Well.... we havepassed.... we are chronicle nowtothe eerie.

Curious metal from meteors that failed in the sky;

Earth-bornthetirelessisstretchedbythewater, quiteweary,

Close to this ununderstandable changeling that’s I....

Fear is an echo we traced to Security’s daughter;

Now we are faces and voices.... and less, too soon,

Whispering half-love over the lilt of the water....

Youth the penny that bought delight of the moon.

*****

A Poem Amory Sent to Eleanor and Which He Called “Summer Storm”

Faint winds, and a song fading and leaves falling,

Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter....

And the rain and over the fields a voice calling....

Our gray blown cloud scurries and lifts above,

Slides on the sun and flutters there to waft her

Sisters on. The shadow of a dove

Falls on the cote, the trees are filled with wings;

And down the valley through the crying trees

The body of the darker storm flies; brings

With its new air the breath of sunken seas

And slender tenuous thunder....

But I wait....

Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain—

Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate,

Happier winds that pile her hair;

Again

They tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air

Upon me, winds that I know, and storm.

There was a summer every rain was rare;

There was a season every wind was warm....

And now you pass me in the mist.... your hair

Rain-blown about you, damp lips curved once more

In that wild irony, that gay despair

That made you old when we have met before;

Wraith-like you drift on out before the rain,

Across the fields, blown with the stemless flowers,

With your old hopes, dead leaves and loves again—

Dim as a dream and wan with all old hours

(Whispers will creep into the growing dark....

Tumult will die over the trees)

Now night

Tears from her wetted breast the splattered blouse

Of day, glides down the dreaming hills, tear-bright,

To cover with her hair the eerie green....

Love for the dusk.... Love for the glistening after;

Quiet the trees to their last tops.... serene....

Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter....

Chapter 4　The Supercilious Sacrifice

Atlantic City. Amory paced the board walk at day’s end, lulled by the everlasting surge of changing waves, smelling the half-mournful odor of the salt breeze. The sea, he thought, had treasured its memories deeper than the faithless land. It seemed still to whisper of Norse galleys ploughing the water world under raven-figured flags, of the British dreadnoughts, gray bulwarks of civilization steaming up through the fog of one dark July into the North Sea.

“Well—Amory Blaine!”

Amory looked down into the street below. A low racing car had drawn to a stop and a familiar cheerful face protruded from the driver’s seat.

“Come on down, goopher!” cried Alec.

Amory called a greeting and descending a flight of wooden steps approached the car. He and Alec had been meeting intermittently, but the barrier of Rosalind lay always between them. He was sorry for this; he hated to lose Alec.

“Mr. Blaine, this is Miss Waterson, Miss Wayne, and Mr. Tully.”

“How d’y do?”

“Amory,” said Alec exuberantly, “if you’ll jump in we’ll take you to some secluded nook and give you a wee jolt of Bourbon.”

Amory considered.

“That’s an idea.”

“Step in—move over, Jill, and Amory will smile very handsomely at you.”

Amory squeezed into the back seat beside a gaudy, vermilion-lipped blonde.

“Hello, Doug Fairbanks,” she said flippantly. “Walking for exercise or hunting for company?”

“I was counting the waves,” replied Amory gravely. “I’m going in for statistics.”

“Don’t kid me, Doug.”

When they reached an unfrequented side street Alec stopped the car among deep shadows.

“What you doing down here these cold days, Amory?”he demanded, as he produced a quart of Bourbon from under the fur rug.

Amory avoided the question. Indeed, he had had no definite reason for coming to the coast.

“Do you remember that party of ours, sophomore year?”he asked instead.

“Do I?When we slept in the pavilions up in Asbury Park—”

“Lord, Alec! It’s hard to think that Jesse and Dick and Kerry are all three dead.”

Alec shivered.

“Don’t talk about it. These dreary fall days depress me enough.”

Jill seemed to agree.

“Doug here is sorta gloomy anyways,” she commented. “Tell him to drink deep—it’s good and scarce these days.”

“What I really want to ask you, Amory, is where you are—”

“Why, New York, I suppose—”

“I mean to-night, because if you haven’t got a room yet you’d better help me out.”

“Glad to.”

“You see, Tully and I have two rooms with bath between at the Ranier, and he’s got to go back to New York. I don’t want to have to move. Question is, will you occupy one of the rooms?”

Amory was willing, if he could get in right away.

“You’ll find the key in the office; the rooms are in my name.”

Declining further locomotion or further stimulation, Amory left the car and sauntered back along the board walk to the hotel.

He was in an eddy again, a deep, lethargic gulf, without desire to work or write, love or dissipate. For the first time in his life he rather longed for death to roll over his generation, obliterating their petty fevers and struggles and exultations. His youth seemed never so vanished as now in the contrast between the utter loneliness of this visit and that riotous, joyful party of four years before. Things that had been the merest commonplaces of his life then, deep sleep, the sense of beauty around him, all desire, had flown away and the gaps they left were filled only with the great listlessness of his disillusion.

“To hold a man a woman has to appeal to the worst in him.” This sentence was the thesis of most of his bad nights, of which he felt this was to be one. His mind had already started to play variations on the subject. Tireless passion, fierce jealousy, longing to possess and crush—these alone were left of all his love for Rosalind; these remained to him as payment for the loss of his youth—bitter calomel under the thin sugar of love’s exaltation.

In his room he undressed and wrapping himself in blankets to keep out the chill October air drowsed in an armchair by the open window.

He remembered a poem he had read months before:

Oh staunch old heart who toiled so long for me,

I waste my years sailing along the sea—

Yet he had no sense of waste, no sense of the present hope that waste implied. He felt that life had rejected him.

“Rosalind! Rosalind!” He poured the words softly into the half-darkness until she seemed to permeate the room; the wet salt breeze filled his hair with moisture, the rim of a moon seared the sky and made the curtains dim and ghostly. He fell asleep.

When he awoke it was very late and quiet. The blanket had slipped partly off his shoulders and he touched his skin to find it damp and cold.

Then he became aware of a tense whispering not ten feet away.

He became rigid.

“Don’t make a sound!” It was Alec’s voice. “Jill—do you hear me?”

“Yes—”breathed very low, very frightened. They were in the bathroom.

Then his ears caught a louder sound from somewhere along the corridor outside. It was a mumbling of men’s voices and a repeated muffled rapping. Amory threw off the blankets and moved close to the bathroom door.

“My God!” came the girl’s voice again. “You’ll have to let them in.”

“Sh!”

Suddenly a steady, insistent knocking began at Amory’s hall door and simultaneously out of the bathroom came Alec, followed by the vermilion-lipped girl. They were both clad in pajamas.

“Amory!” an anxious whisper.

“What’s the trouble?”

“It’s house detectives. My God, Amory—they’re just looking for a test-case—”

“Well, better let them in.”

“You don’t understand. They can get me under the Mann Act.”

The girl followed him slowly, a rather miserable, pathetic figure in the darkness.

Amory tried to plan quickly.

“You make a racket and let them in your room,” he suggested anxiously, “and I’ll get her out by this door.”

“They’re here too, though. They’ll watch this door.”

“Can’t you give a wrong name?”

“No chance. I registered under my own name; besides, they’d trail the auto license number.”

“Say you’re married.”

“Jill says one of the house detectives knows her.”

The girl had stolen to the bed and tumbled upon it; lay there listening wretchedly to the knocking which had grown gradually to a pounding. Then came a man’s voice, angry and imperative:

“Open up or we’ll break the door in!”

In the silence when this voice ceased Amory realized that there were other things in the room besides people.... over and around the figure crouched on the bed there hung an aura, gossamer as a moonbeam, tainted as stale, weak wine, yet a horror, diffusively brooding already over the three of them.... and over by the window among the stirring curtains stood something else, featureless and indistinguishable, yet strangely familiar.... Simultaneously two great cases presented themselves side by side to Amory; all that took place in his mind, then, occupied in actual time less than ten seconds. The first fact that flashed radiantly on his comprehension was the great impersonality of sacrifice—he perceived that what we call love and hate, reward and punishment, had no more to do with it than the date of the month. He quickly recapitulated the story of a sacrifice he had heard of in college: a man had cheated in an examination; his roommate in a gust of sentiment had taken the entire blame—due to the shame of it the innocent one’s entire future seemed shrouded in regret and failure, capped by the ingratitude of the real culprit. He had finally taken his own life—years afterward the facts had come out. At the time the story had both puzzled and worried Amory. Now he realized the truth; that sacrifice was no purchase of freedom. It was like a great elective office, it was like an inheritance of power—to certain people at certain times an essential luxury, carrying with it not a guarantee but a responsibility, not a security but an infinite risk. Its very momentum might drag him down to ruin—the passing of the emotional wave that made it possible might leave the one who made it high and dry forever on an island of despair.

.... Amory knew that afterward Alec would secretly hate him for having done so much for him....

.... All this was flung before Amory like an opened scroll, while ulterior to him and speculating upon him were those two breathless, listening forces: the gossamer aura that hung over and about the girl and that familiar thing by the window.

Sacrifice by its very nature was arrogant and impersonal; sacrifice should be eternally supercilious.

Weep not for me but for thy children.

That—thought Amory—would be somehow the way God would talk to me.

Amory felt a sudden surge of joy and then like a face in a motion-picture the aura over the bed faded out; the dynamic shadow by the window, that was as near as he could name it, remained for the fraction of a moment and then the breeze seemed to lift it swiftly out of the room. He clinched his hands in quick ecstatic excitement.... the ten seconds were up.... “Do what I say, Alec—do what I say. Do you understand?”

Alec looked at him dumbly—his face a tableau of anguish.

“You have a family,” continued Amory slowly. “You have a family and it’s important that you should get out of this. Do you hear me?”He repeated clearly what he had said. “Do you hear me?”

“I hear you.” The voice was curiously strained, the eyes never for a second left Amory’s.

“Alec, you’re going to lie down here. If any one comes in you act drunk. You do what I say—if you don’t I’ll probably kill you.”

There was another moment while they stared at each other. Then Amory went briskly to the bureau and, taking his pocket-book, beckoned peremptorily to the girl. He heard one word from Alec that sounded like “penitentiary,” then he and Jill were in the bathroom with the door bolted behind them.

“You’re here with me,” he said sternly. “You’ve been with me all evening.”

She nodded, gave a little half cry.

In a second he had the door of the other room open and three men entered. There was an immediate flood of electric light and he stood there blinking.

“You’ve been playing a little too dangerous a game, young man!”

Amory laughed.

“Well?”

The leader of the trio nodded authoritatively at a burly man in a check suit.

“All right, Olson.”

“I got you, Mr. O’May,” said Olson, nodding. The other two took a curious glance at their quarry and then withdrew, closing the door angrily behind them.

The burly man regarded Amory contemptuously.

“Didn’t you ever hear of the Mann Act?Coming down here with her,” he indicated the girl with his thumb, “with a New York license on your car—to a hotel like this.” He shook his head implying that he had struggled over Amory but now gave him up.

“Well,” said Amory rather impatiently, “what do you want us to do?”

“Get dressed, quick—and tell your friend not to make such a racket.” Jill was sobbing noisily on the bed, but at these words she subsided sulkily and, gathering up her clothes, retired to the bathroom. As Amory slipped into Alec’s B. V.D.’s he found that his attitude toward the situation was agreeably humorous. The aggrieved virtue of the burly man made him want to laugh.

“Anybody else here?”demanded Olson, trying to look keen and ferret-like.

“Fellow who had the rooms,” said Amory carelessly. “He’s drunk as an owl, though. Been in there asleep since six o’clock.”

“I’ll take a look at him presently.”

“How did you find out?”asked Amory curiously.

“Night clerk saw you go up-stairs with this woman.”

Amory nodded; Jill reappeared from the bathroom, completely if rather untidily arrayed.

“Now then,” began Olson, producing a note-book, “I want your real names—no damn John Smith or Mary Brown.”

“Wait a minute,” said Amory quietly. “Just drop that big-bully stuff. We merely got caught, that’s all.”

Olson glared at him.

“Name?”he snapped.

Amory gave his name and New York address.

“And the lady?”

“Miss Jill—”

“Say,” cried Olson indignantly, “just ease up on the nursery rhymes. What’s your name?Sarah Murphy?Minnie Jackson?”

“Oh, my God!” cried the girl cupping her tear-stained face in her hands. “I don’t want my mother to know. I don’t want my mother to know.”

“Come on now!”

“Shut up!” cried Amory at Olson.

An instant’s pause.

“Stella Robbins,” she faltered finally. “General Delivery, Rugway, New Hampshire.”

Olson snapped his note-book shut and looked at them very ponderously.

“By rights the hotel could turn the evidence over to the police and you’d go to penitentiary, you would, for bringin’a girl from one State to’nother f’r immoral purp’ses—”He paused to let the majesty of his words sink in. “But—the hotel is going to let you off.”

“It doesn’t want to get in the papers,” cried Jill fiercely. “Let us off! Huh!”

A great lightness surrounded Amory. He realized that he was safe and only then did he appreciate the full enormity of what he might have incurred.

“However,” continued Olson, “there’s a protective association among the hotels. There’s been too much of this stuff, and we got a’rangement with the newspapers so that you get a little free publicity. Not the name of the hotel, but just a line sayin’that you had a little trouble in’lantic City. See?”

“I see.”

“You’re gettin’off light—damn light—but—”

“Come on,” said Amory briskly. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t need a valedictory.”

Olson walked through the bathroom and took a cursory glance at Alec’s still form. Then he extinguished the lights and motioned them to follow him. As they walked into the elevator Amory considered a piece of bravado—yielded finally. He reached out and tapped Olson on the arm.

“Would you mind taking off your hat?There’s a lady in the elevator.”

Olson’s hat came off slowly. There was a rather embarrassing two minutes under the lights of the lobby while the night clerk and a few belated guests stared at them curiously; the loudly dressed girl with bent head, the handsome young man with his chin several points aloft; the inference was quite obvious. Then the chill outdoors—where the salt air was fresher and keener still with the first hints of morning.

“You can get one of those taxis and beat it,” said Olson, pointing to the blurred outline of two machines whose drivers were presumably asleep inside.

“Good-by,” said Olson. He reached in his pocket suggestively, but Amory snorted, and, taking the girl’s arm, turned away.

“Where did you tell the driver to go?”she asked as they whirled along the dim street.

“The station.”

“If that guy writes my mother—”

“He won’t. Nobody’ll ever know about this—except our friends and enemies.”

Dawn was breaking over the sea.

“It’s getting blue,” she said.

“It does very well,” agreed Amory critically, and then as an after-thought: “It’s almost breakfast-time—do you want something to eat?”

“Food—”she said with a cheerful laugh. “Food is what queered the party. We ordered a big supper to be sent up to the room about two o’clock. Alec didn’t give the waiter a tip, so I guess the little bastard snitched.”

Jill’s low spirits seemed to have gone faster than the scattering night. “Let me tell you,” she said emphatically, “when you want to stage that sorta party stay away from liquor, and when you want to get tight stay away from bedrooms.”

“I’ll remember.”

He tapped suddenly at the glass and they drew up at the door of an all-night restaurant.

“Is Alec a great friend of yours?”asked Jill as they perched themselves on high stools inside, and set their elbows on the dingy counter.

“He used to be. He probably won’t want to be any more—and never understand why.”

“It was sorta crazy you takin’all that blame. Is he pretty important?Kinda more important than you are?”

Amory laughed.

“That remains to be seen,” he answered. “That’s the question.”

*****

The Collapse of Several Pillars

Two days later back in New York Amory found in a newspaper what he had been searching for—a dozen lines which announced to whom it might concern that Mr. Amory Blaine, who “gave his address” as, etc., had been requested to leave his hotel in Atlantic City because of entertaining in his room a lady not his wife.

Then he started, and his fingers trembled, for directly above was a longer paragraph of which the first words were:

“Mr. and Mrs. Leland R. Connage are announcing the engagement of their daughter, Rosalind, to Mr. J.Dawson Ryder, of Hartford, Connecticut—”

He dropped the paper and lay down on his bed with a frightened, sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. She was gone, definitely, finally gone. Until now he had half unconsciously cherished the hope deep in his heart that some day she would need him and send for him, cry that it had been a mistake, that her heart ached only for the pain she had caused him. Never again could he find even the sombre luxury of wanting her—not this Rosalind, harder, older—nor any beaten, broken woman that his imagination brought to the door of his forties—Amory had wanted her youth, the fresh radiance of her mind and body, the stuff that she was selling now once and for all. So far as he was concerned, young Rosalind was dead.

A day later came a crisp, terse letter from Mr. Barton in Chicago, which informed him that as three more street-car companies had gone into the hands of receivers he could expect for the present no further remittances. Last of all, on a dazed Sunday night, a telegram told him of Monsignor Darcy’s sudden death in Philadelphia five days before.

He knew then what it was that he had perceived among the curtains of the room in Atlantic City.

Chapter 5　The Egotist Becomes a Personage

A fathom deep in sleep I lie

With old desires, restrained before,

To clamor lifeward with a cry,

As dark flies out the greying door;

And so in quest of creeds to share

I seek assertive day again....

But old monotony is there:

Endless avenues of rain.

Oh, might I rise again! Might I

Throw off the heat of that old wine,

See the new morning mass the sky

With fairy towers, line on line;

Find each mirage in the high air

A symbol, not a dream again....

But old monotony is there:

Endless avenues of rain.

Under the glass portcullis of a theatre Amory stood, watching the first great drops of rain splatter down and flatten to dark stains on the sidewalk. The air became gray and opalescent; a solitary light suddenly outlined a window over the way; then another light; then a hundred more danced and glimmered into vision. Under his feet a thick, iron-studded skylight turned yellow; in the street the lamps of the taxi-cabs sent out glistening sheens along the already black pavement. The unwelcome November rain had perversely stolen the day’s last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence, the night. The silence of the theatre behind him ended with a curious snapping sound, followed by the heavy roaring of a rising crowd and the interlaced clatter of many voices. The matinee was over.

He stood aside, edged a little into the rain to let the throng pass. A small boy rushed out, sniffed in the damp, fresh air and turned up the collar of his coat; came three or four couples in a great hurry; came a further scattering of people whose eyes as they emerged glanced invariably, first at the wet street, then at the rain-filled air, finally at the dismal sky; last a dense, strolling mass that depressed him with its heavy odor compounded of the tobacco smell of the men and the fetid sensuousness of stale powder on women. After the thick crowd came another scattering; a stray half-dozen; a man on crutches; finally the rattling bang of folding seats inside announced that the ushers were at work.

New York seemed not so much awakening as turning over in its bed. Pallid men rushed by, pinching together their coat-collars; a great swarm of tired, magpie girls from a department-store crowded along with shrieks of strident laughter, three to an umbrella; a squad of marching policemen passed, already miraculously protected by oilskin capes.

The rain gave Amory a feeling of detachment, and the numerous unpleasant aspects of city life without money occurred to him in threatening procession. There was the ghastly, stinking crush of the subway—the car cards thrusting themselves at one, leering out like dull bores who grab your arm with another story; the querulous worry as to whether some one isn’t leaning on you; a man deciding not to give his seat to a woman, hating her for it; the woman hating him for not doing it; at worst a squalid phantasmagoria of breath, and old cloth on human bodies and the smells of the food men ate—at best just people—too hot or too cold, tired, worried.

He pictured the rooms where these people lived—where the patterns of the blistered wall-papers were heavy reiterated sunflowers on green and yellow backgrounds, where there were tin bathtubs and gloomy hallways and verdureless, unnamable spaces in back of the buildings; where even love dressed as seduction—a sordid murder around the corner, illicit motherhood in the flat above. And always there was the economical stuffiness of indoor winter, and the long summers, nightmares of perspiration between sticky enveloping walls.... dirty restaurants where careless, tired people helped themselves to sugar with their own used coffee-spoons, leaving hard brown deposits in the bowl.

It was not so bad where there were only men or else only women; it was when they were vilely herded that it all seemed so rotten. It was some shame that women gave off at having men see them tired and poor—it was some disgust that men had for women who were tired and poor. It was dirtier than any battle-field he had seen, harder to contemplate than any actual hardship moulded of mire and sweat and danger, it was an atmosphere wherein birth and marriage and death were loathsome, secret things.

He remembered one day in the subway when a delivery boy had brought in a great funeral wreath of fresh flowers, how the smell of it had suddenly cleared the air and given every one in the car a momentary glow.

“I detest poor people,” thought Amory suddenly. “I hate them for being poor. Poverty may have been beautiful once, but it’s rotten now. It’s the ugliest thing in the world. It’s essentially cleaner to be corrupt and rich than it is to be innocent and poor.” He seemed to see again a figure whose significance had once impressed him—a well-dressed young man gazing from a club window on Fifth Avenue and saying something to his companion with a look of utter disgust. Probably, thought Amory, what he said was: “My God! Aren’t people horrible!”

Never before in his life had Amory considered poor people. He thought cynically how completely he was lacking in all human sympathy. O.Henry had found in these people romance, pathos, love, hate—Amory saw only coarseness, physical filth, and stupidity. He made no self-accusations: never any more did he reproach himself for feelings that were natural and sincere. He accepted all his reactions as a part of him, unchangeable, unmoral. This problem of poverty transformed, magnified, attached to some grander, more dignified attitude might some day even be his problem; at present it roused only his profound distaste.

He walked over to Fifth Avenue, dodging the blind, black menace of umbrellas, and standing in front of Delmonico’s hailed an auto-bus. Buttoning his coat closely around him he climbed to the roof, where he rode in solitary state through the thin, persistent rain, stung into alertness by the cool moisture perpetually reborn on his cheek. Somewhere in his mind a conversation began, rather resumed its place in his attention. It was composed not of two voices, but of one, which acted alike as questioner and answerer:

Question.—Well—what’s the situation?

Answer.—That I have about twenty-four dollars to my name.

Q.—You have the Lake Geneva estate.

A.—But I intend to keep it.

Q.—Can you live?

A.—I can’t imagine not being able to. People make money in books and I’ve found that I can always do the things that people do in books. Really they are the only things I can do.

Q.—Be definite.

A.—I don’t know what I’ll do—nor have I much curiosity. To-morrow I’m going to leave New York for good.

It’s a bad town unless you’re on top of it.

Q.—Do you want a lot of money?

A.—No. I am merely afraid of being poor.

Q.—Very afraid?

A.—Just passively afraid.

Q.—Where are you drifting?

A.—Don’t ask me!

Q.—Don’t you care?

A.—Rather. I don’t want to commit moral suicide.

Q.—Have you no interests left?

A.—None. I’ve no more virtue to lose. Just as a cooling pot gives off heat, so all through youth and adolescence we give off calories of virtue. That’s what’s called ingenuousness.

Q.—An interesting idea.

A.—That’s why a “good man going wrong” attracts people. They stand around and literally warm themselves at the calories of virtue he gives off. Sarah makes an unsophisticated remark and the faces simper in delight—“How innocent the poor child is!” They’re warming themselves at her virtue. But Sarah sees the simper and never makes that remark again. Only she feels a little colder after that.

Q.—All your calories gone?

A.—All of them. I’m beginning to warm myself at other people’s virtue.

Q.—Are you corrupt?

A.—I think so. I’m not sure. I’m not sure about good and evil at all any more.

Q.—Is that a bad sign in itself?

A.—Not necessarily.

Q.—What would be the test of corruption?

A.—Becoming really insincere—calling myself “not such a bad fellow,” thinking I regretted my lost youth when I only envy the delights of losing it. Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don’t. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesn’t want to repeat her girlhood—she wants to repeat her honeymoon. I don’t want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

Q.—Where are you drifting?

This dialogue merged grotesquely into his mind’s most familiar state—a grotesque blending of desires, worries, exterior impressions and physical reactions.

One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street—or One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Street.... Two and three look alike—no, not much. Seat damp.... are clothes absorbing wetness from seat, or seat absorbing dryness from clothes?.... Sitting on wet substance gave appendicitis, so Froggy Parker’s mother said. Well, he’d had it—I’ll sue the steamboat company, Beatrice said, and my uncle has a quarter interest—did Beatrice go to heaven?.... probably not—He represented Beatrice’s immortality, also love-affairs of numerous dead men who surely had never thought of him.... if it wasn’t appendicitis, influenza maybe. What?One Hundred and Twentieth Street?That must have been One Hundred and Twelfth back there. One O Two instead of One Two Seven. Rosalind not like Beatrice, Eleanor like Beatrice, only wilder and brainier. Apartments along here expensive—probably hundred and fifty a month—maybe two hundred. Uncle had only paid hundred a month for whole great big house in Minneapolis. Question—were the stairs on the left or right as you came in?Anyway, in 12 Univee they were straight back and to the left. What a dirty river—want to go down there and see if it’s dirty—French rivers all brown or black, so were Southern rivers. Twenty-four dollars meant four hundred and eighty doughnuts. He could live on it three months and sleep in the park. Wonder where Jill was—Jill Bayne, Fayne, Sayne—what the devil—neck hurts, darned uncomfortable seat. No desire to sleep with Jill, what could Alec see in her?Alec had a coarse taste in women. Own taste the best; Isabelle, Clara, Rosalind, Eleanor, were all-American. Eleanor would pitch, probably southpaw. Rosalind was outfield, wonderful hitter, Clara first base, maybe. Wonder what Humbird’s body looked like now. If he himself hadn’t been bayonet instructor he’d have gone up to line three months sooner, probably been killed. Where’s the darned bell—

The street numbers of Riverside Drive were obscured by the mist and dripping trees from anything but the swiftest scrutiny, but Amory had finally caught sight of one—One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street. He got off and with no distinct destination followed a winding, descending sidewalk and came out facing the river, in particular a long pier and a partitioned litter of shipyards for miniature craft: small launches, canoes, rowboats, and catboats. He turned northward and followed the shore, jumped a small wire fence and found himself in a great disorderly yard adjoining a dock. The hulls of many boats in various stages of repair were around him; he smelled sawdust and paint and the scarcely distinguishable fiat odor of the Hudson. A man approached through the heavy gloom.

“Hello,” said Amory.

“Got a pass?”

“No. Is this private?”

“This is the Hudson River Sporting and Yacht Club.”

“Oh! I didn’t know. I’m just resting.”

“Well—”began the man dubiously.

“I’ll go if you want me to.”

The man made non-committal noises in his throat and passed on. Amory seated himself on an overturned boat and leaned forward thoughtfully until his chin rested in his hand.

“Misfortune is liable to make me a damn bad man,” he said slowly.

*****

In the Drooping Hours

While the rain drizzled on Amory looked futilely back at the stream of his life, all its glitterings and dirty shallows. To begin with, he was still afraid—not physically afraid any more, but afraid of people and prejudice and misery and monotony. Yet, deep in his bitter heart, he wondered if he was after all worse than this man or the next. He knew that he could sophisticate himself finally into saying that his own weakness was just the result of circumstances and environment; that often when he raged at himself as an egotist something would whisper ingratiatingly: “No. Genius!” That was one manifestation of fear, that voice which whispered that he could not be both great and good, that genius was the exact combination of those inexplicable grooves and twists in his mind, that any discipline would curb it to mediocrity. Probably more than any concrete vice or failing Amory despised his own personality—he loathed knowing that to-morrow and the thousand days after he would swell pompously at a compliment and sulk at an ill word like a third-rate musician or a first-class actor. He was ashamed of the fact that very simple and honest people usually distrusted him; that he had been cruel, often, to those who had sunk their personalities in him—several girls, and a man here and there through college, that he had been an evil influence on; people who had followed him here and there into mental adventures from which he alone rebounded unscathed.

Usually, on nights like this, for there had been many lately, he could escape from this consuming introspection by thinking of children and the infinite possibilities of children—he leaned and listened and he heard a startled baby awake in a house across the street and lend a tiny whimper to the still night. Quick as a flash he turned away, wondering with a touch of panic whether something in the brooding despair of his mood had made a darkness in its tiny soul. He shivered. What if some day the balance was overturned, and he became a thing that frightened children and crept into rooms in the dark, approached dim communion with those phantoms who whispered shadowy secrets to the mad of that dark continent upon the moon....

Amory smiled a bit.

“You’re too much wrapped up in yourself,” he heard some one say. And again—

“Get out and do some real work—”

“Stop worrying—”

He fancied a possible future comment of his own.

“Yes—I was perhaps an egotist in youth, but I soon found it made me morbid to think too much about myself.”

Suddenly he felt an overwhelming desire to let himself go to the devil—not to go violently as a gentleman should, but to sink safely and sensuously out of sight. He pictured himself in an adobe house in Mexico, half-reclining on a rug-covered couch, his slender, artistic fingers closed on a cigarette while he listened to guitars strumming melancholy undertones to an age-old dirge of Castile and an olive-skinned, carmine-lipped girl caressed his hair. Here he might live a strange litany, delivered from right and wrong and from the hound of heaven and from every God (except the exotic Mexican one who was pretty slack himself and rather addicted to Oriental scents)—delivered from success and hope and poverty into that long chute of indulgence which led, after all, only to the artificial lake of death.

There were so many places where one might deteriorate pleasantly: Port Said, Shanghai, parts of Turkestan, Constantinople, the South Seas—all lands of sad, haunting music and many odors, where lust could be a mode and expression of life, where the shades of night skies and sunsets would seem to reflect only moods of passion: the colors of lips and poppies.

*****

Still Weeding

Once he had been miraculously able to scent evil as a horse detects a broken bridge at night, but the man with the queer feet in Phoebe’s room had diminished to the aura over Jill. His instinct perceived the fetidness of poverty, but no longer ferreted out the deeper evils in pride and sensuality.

There were no more wise men; there were no more heroes; Burne Holiday was sunk from sight as though he had never lived; Monsignor was dead. Amory had grown up to a thousand books, a thousand lies; he had listened eagerly to people who pretended to know, who knew nothing. The mystical reveries of saints that had once filled him with awe in the still hours of night, now vaguely repelled him. The Byrons and Brookes who had defied life from mountain tops were in the end but flaneurs and poseurs, at best mistaking the shadow of courage for the substance of wisdom. The pageantry of his disillusion took shape in a world-old procession of Prophets, Athenians, Martyrs, Saints, Scientists, Don Juans, Jesuits, Puritans, Fausts, Poets, Pacifists; like costumed alumni at a college reunion they streamed before him as their dreams, personalities, and creeds had in turn thrown colored lights on his soul; each had tried to express the glory of life and the tremendous significance of man; each had boasted of synchronizing what had gone before into his own rickety generalities; each had depended after all on the set stage and the convention of the theatre, which is that man in his hunger for faith will feed his mind with the nearest and most convenient food.

Women—of whom he had expected so much; whose beauty he had hoped to transmute into modes of art; whose unfathomable instincts, marvellously incoherent and inarticulate, he had thought to perpetuate in terms of experience—had become merely consecrations to their own posterity. Isabelle, Clara, Rosalind, Eleanor, were all removed by their very beauty, around which men had swarmed, from the possibility of contributing anything but a sick heart and a page of puzzled words to write.

Amory based his loss of faith in help from others on several sweeping syllogisms. Granted that his generation, however bruised and decimated from this Victorian war, were the heirs of progress. Waving aside petty differences of conclusions which, although they might occasionally cause the deaths of several millions of young men, might be explained away—supposing that after all Bernard Shaw and Bernhardi, Bonar Law and Bethmann-Hollweg were mutual heirs of progress if only in agreeing against the ducking of witches—waiving the antitheses and approaching individually these men who seemed to be the leaders, he was repelled by the discrepancies and contradictions in the men themselves.

There was, for example, Thornton Hancock, respected by half the intellectual world as an authority on life, a man who had verified and believed the code he lived by, an educator of educators, an adviser to Presidents—yet Amory knew that this man had, in his heart, leaned on the priest of another religion.

And Monsignor, upon whom a cardinal rested, had moments of strange and horrible insecurity—inexplicable in a religion that explained even disbelief in terms of its own faith: if you doubted the devil it was the devil that made you doubt him. Amory had seen Monsignor go to the houses of stolid philistines, read popular novels furiously, saturate himself in routine, to escape from that horror.

And this priest, a little wiser, somewhat purer, had been, Amory knew, not essentially older than he.

Amory was alone—he had escaped from a small enclosure into a great labyrinth. He was where Goethe was when he began “Faust;” he was where Conrad was when he wrote “Almayer’s Folly.”

Amory said to himself that there were essentially two sorts of people who through natural clarity or disillusion left the enclosure and sought the labyrinth. There were men like Wells and Plato, who had, half unconsciously, a strange, hidden orthodoxy, who would accept for themselves only what could be accepted for all men—incurable romanticists who never, for all their efforts, could enter the labyrinth as stark souls; there were on the other hand sword-like pioneering personalities, Samuel Butler, Renan, Voltaire, who progressed much slower, yet eventually much further, not in the direct pessimistic line of speculative philosophy but concerned in the eternal attempt to attach a positive value to life.... Amory stopped. He began for the first time in his life to have a strong distrust of all generalities and epigrams. They were too easy, too dangerous to the public mind. Yet all thought usually reached the public after thirty years in some such form: Benson and Chesterton had popularized Huysmans and Newman; Shaw had sugar-coated Nietzsche and Ibsen and Schopenhauer. The man in the street heard the conclusions of dead genius through some one else’s clever paradoxes and didactic epigrams.

Life was a damned muddle.... a football game with every one off-side and the referee gotten rid of—every one claiming the referee would have been on his side....

Progress was a labyrinth.... people plunging blindly in and then rushing wildly back, shouting that they had found it.... the invisible king—the élan vital—the principle of evolution.... writing a book, starting a war, founding a school....

Amory, even had he not been a selfish man, would have started all inquiries with himself. He was his own best example—sitting in the rain, a human creature of sex and pride, foiled by chance and his own temperament of the balm of love and children, preserved to help in building up the living consciousness of the race.

In self-reproach and loneliness and disillusion he came to the entrance of the labyrinth.

Another dawn flung itself across the river, a belated taxi hurried along the street, its lamps still shining like burning eyes in a face white from a night’s carouse. A melancholy siren sounded far down the river.

*****

Monsignor

Amory kept thinking how Monsignor would have enjoyed his own funeral. It was magnificently Catholic and liturgical. Bishop O’Neill sang solemn high mass and the cardinal gave the final absolutions. Thornton Hancock, Mrs. Lawrence, the British and Italian ambassadors, the papal delegate, and a host of friends and priests were there—yet the inexorable shears had cut through all these threads that Monsignor had gathered into his hands. To Amory it was a haunting grief to see him lying in his coffin, with closed hands upon his purple vestments. His face had not changed, and, as he never knew he was dying, it showed no pain or fear. It was Amory’s dear old friend, his and the others’—for the church was full of people with daft, staring faces, the most exalted seeming the most stricken.

The cardinal, like an archangel in cope and mitre, sprinkled the holy water; the organ broke into sound; the choir began to sing the Requiem Eternam.

All these people grieved because they had to some extent depended upon Monsignor. Their grief was more than sentiment for the “crack in his voice or a certain break in his walk,” as Wells put it. These people had leaned on Monsignor’s faith, his way of finding cheer, of making religion a thing of lights and shadows, making all light and shadow merely aspects of God. People felt safe when he was near.

Of Amory’s attempted sacrifice had been born merely the full realization of his disillusion, but of Monsignor’s funeral was born the romantic elf who was to enter the labyrinth with him. He found something that he wanted, had always wanted and always would want—not to be admired, as he had feared; not to be loved, as he had made himself believe; but to be necessary to people, to be indispensable; he remembered the sense of security he had found in Burne. Life opened up in one of its amazing bursts of radiance and Amory suddenly and permanently rejected an old epigram that had been playing listlessly in his mind: “Very few things matter and nothing matters very much.”

On the contrary, Amory felt an immense desire to give people a sense of security.

*****

The Big Man with Goggles

On the day that Amory started on his walk to Princeton the sky was a colorless vault, cool, high and barren of the threat of rain. It was a gray day, that least fleshly of all weathers; a day of dreams and far hopes and clear visions. It was a day easily associated with those abstract truths and purities that dissolve in the sunshine or fade out in mocking laughter by the light of the moon. The trees and clouds were carved in classical severity; the sounds of the countryside had harmonized to a monotone, metallic as a trumpet, breathless as the Grecian urn.

The day had put Amory in such a contemplative mood that he caused much annoyance to several motorists who were forced to slow up considerably or else run him down. So engrossed in his thoughts was he that he was scarcely surprised at that strange phenomenon—cordiality manifested within fifty miles of Manhattan—when a passing car slowed down beside him and a voice hailed him. He looked up and saw a magnificent Locomobile in which sat two middle-aged men, one of them small and anxious looking, apparently an artificial growth on the other who was large and begoggled and imposing.

“Do you want a lift?”asked the apparently artificial growth, glancing from the corner of his eye at the imposing man as if for some habitual, silent corroboration.

“You bet I do. Thanks.”

The chauffeur swung open the door, and, climbing in, Amory settled himself in the middle of the back seat. He took in his companions curiously. The chief characteristic of the big man seemed to be a great confidence in himself set off against a tremendous boredom with everything around him. That part of his face which protruded under the goggles was what is generally termed “strong;” rolls of not undignified fat had collected near his chin; somewhere above was a wide thin mouth and the rough model for a Roman nose, and, below, his shoulders collapsed without a struggle into the powerful bulk of his chest and belly. He was excellently and quietly dressed. Amory noticed that he was inclined to stare straight at the back of the chauffeur’s head as if speculating steadily but hopelessly some baffling hirsute problem.

The smaller man was remarkable only for his complete submersion in the personality of the other. He was of that lower secretarial type who at forty have engraved upon their business cards: “Assistant to the President,” and without a sigh consecrate the rest of their lives to second-hand mannerisms.

“Going far?”asked the smaller man in a pleasant disinterested way.

“Quite a stretch.”

“Hiking for exercise?”

“No,” responded Amory succinctly, “I’m walking because I can’t afford to ride.”

“Oh.”

Then again:

“Are you looking for work?Because there’s lots of work,” he continued rather testily. “All this talk of lack of work. The West is especially short of labor.” He expressed the West with a sweeping, lateral gesture. Amory nodded politely.

“Have you a trade?”

No—Amory had no trade.

“Clerk, eh?”

No—Amory was not a clerk.

“Whatever your line is,” said the little man, seeming to agree wisely with something Amory had said, “now is the time of opportunity and business openings.” He glanced again toward the big man, as a lawyer grilling a witness glances involuntarily at the jury.

Amory decided that he must say something and for the life of him could think of only one thing to say.

“Of course I want a great lot of money—”

The little man laughed mirthlessly but conscientiously.

“That’s what every one wants nowadays, but they don’t want to work for it.”

“A very natural, healthy desire. Almost all normal people want to be rich without great effort—except the financiers in problem plays, who want to‘crash their way through.’Don’t you want easy money?”

“Of course not,” said the secretary indignantly.

“But,” continued Amory disregarding him, “being very poor at present I am contemplating socialism as possibly my forte.”

Both men glanced at him curiously.

“These bomb throwers—”The little man ceased as words lurched ponderously from the big man’s chest.

“If I thought you were a bomb thrower I’d run you over to the Newark jail. That’s what I think of Socialists.”

Amory laughed.

“What are you,” asked the big man, “one of these parlor Bolsheviks, one of these idealists?I must say I fail to see the difference. The idealists loaf around and write the stuff that stirs up the poor immigrants.”

“Well,” said Amory, “if being an idealist is both safe and lucrative, I might try it.”

“What’s your difficulty?Lost your job?”

“Not exactly, but—well, call it that.”

“What was it?”

“Writing copy for an advertising agency.”

“Lots of money in advertising.”

Amory smiled discreetly.

“Oh, I’ll admit there’s money in it eventually. Talent doesn’t starve any more. Even art gets enough to eat these days. Artists draw your magazine covers, write your advertisements, hash out rag-time for your theatres. By the great commercializing of printing you’ve found a harmless, polite occupation for every genius who might have carved his own niche. But beware the artist who’s an intellectual also. The artist who doesn’t fit—the Rousseau, the Tolstoi, the Samuel Butler, the Amory Blaine—”

“Who’s he?”demanded the little man suspiciously.

“Well,” said Amory, “he’s a—he’s an intellectual personage not very well known at present.”

The little man laughed his conscientious laugh, and stopped rather suddenly as Amory’s burning eyes turned on him.

“What are you laughing at?”

“These intellectual people—”

“Do you know what it means?”

The little man’s eyes twitched nervously.

“Why, it usually means—”

“It always means brainy and well-educated,” interrupted Amory. “It means having an active knowledge of the race’s experience.” Amory decided to be very rude. He turned to the big man. “The young man,” he indicated the secretary with his thumb, and said young man as one says bell-boy, with no implication of youth, “has the usual muddled connotation of all popular words.”

“You object to the fact that capital controls printing?”said the big man, fixing him with his goggles.

“Yes—and I object to doing their mental work for them. It seemed to me that the root of all the business I saw around me consisted in overworking and underpaying a bunch of dubs who submitted to it.”

“Here now,” said the big man, “you’ll have to admit that the laboring man is certainly highly paid—five and six hour days—it’s ridiculous. You can’t buy an honest day’s work from a man in the trades-unions.”

“You’ve brought it on yourselves,” insisted Amory. “You people never make concessions until they’re wrung out of you.”

“What people?”

“Your class; the class I belonged to until recently; those who by inheritance or industry or brains or dishonesty have become the moneyed class.”

“Do you imagine that if that road-mender over there had the money he’d be any more willing to give it up?”

“No, but what’s that got to do with it?”

The older man considered.

“No, I’ll admit it hasn’t. It rather sounds as if it had though.”

“In fact,” continued Amory, “he’d be worse. The lower classes are narrower, less pleasant and personally more selfish—certainly more stupid. But all that has nothing to do with the question.”

“Just exactly what is the question?”

Here Amory had to pause to consider exactly what the question was.

*****

Amory Coins a Phrase

“When life gets hold of a brainy man of fair education,” began Amory slowly, “that is, when he marries he becomes, nine times out of ten, a conservative as far as existing social conditions are concerned. He may be unselfish, kind-hearted, even just in his own way, but his first job is to provide and to hold fast. His wife shoos him on, from ten thousand a year to twenty thousand a year, on and on, in an enclosed treadmill that hasn’t any windows. He’s done! Life’s got him! He’s no help! He’s a spiritually married man.”

Amory paused and decided that it wasn’t such a bad phrase.

“Some men,” he continued, “escape the grip. Maybe their wives have no social ambitions; maybe they’ve hit a sentence or two in a‘dangerous book’that pleased them; maybe they started on the treadmill as I did and were knocked off. Anyway, they’re the congressmen you can’t bribe, the Presidents who aren’t politicians, the writers, speakers, scientists, statesmen who aren’t just popular grab-bags for a half-dozen women and children.”

“He’s the natural radical?”

“Yes,” said Amory. “He may vary from the disillusioned critic like old Thornton Hancock, all the way to Trotsky. Now this spiritually unmarried man hasn’t direct power, for unfortunately the spiritually married man, as a by-product of his money chase, has garnered in the great newspaper, the popular magazine, the influential weekly—so that Mrs. Newspaper, Mrs. Magazine, Mrs. Weekly can have a better limousine than those oil people across the street or those cement people’round the corner.”

“Why not?”

“It makes wealthy men the keepers of the world’s intellectual conscience and, of course, a man who has money under one set of social institutions quite naturally can’t risk his family’s happiness by letting the clamor for another appear in his newspaper.”

“But it appears,” said the big man.

“Where?—in the discredited mediums. Rotten cheap-papered weeklies.”

“All right—go on.”

“Well, my first point is that through a mixture of conditions of which the family is the first, there are these two sorts of brains. One sort takes human nature as it finds it, uses its timidity, its weakness, and its strength for its own ends. Opposed is the man who, being spiritually unmarried, continually seeks for new systems that will control or counteract human nature. His problem is harder. It is not life that’s complicated, it’s the struggle to guide and control life. That is his struggle. He is a part of progress—the spiritually married man is not.”

The big man produced three big cigars, and proffered them on his huge palm. The little man took one, Amory shook his head and reached for a cigarette.

“Go on talking,” said the big man. “I’ve been wanting to hear one of you fellows.”

*****

Going Faster

“Modern life,” began Amory again, “changes no longer century by century, but year by year, ten times faster than it ever has before—populations doubling, civilizations unified more closely with other civilizations, economic interdependence, racial questions, and—we’re dawdling along. My idea is that we’ve got to go very much faster.” He slightly emphasized the last words and the chauffeur unconsciously increased the speed of the car. Amory and the big man laughed; the little man laughed, too, after a pause.

“Every child,” said Amory, “should have an equal start. If his father can endow him with a good physique and his mother with some common sense in his early education, that should be his heritage. If the father can’t give him a good physique, if the mother has spent in chasing men the years in which she should have been preparing herself to educate her children, so much the worse for the child. He shouldn’t be artificially bolstered up with money, sent to these horrible tutoring schools, dragged through college.... Every boy ought to have an equal start.”

“All right,” said the big man, his goggles indicating neither approval nor objection.

“Next I’d have a fair trial of government ownership of all industries.”

“That’s been proven a failure.”

“No—it merely failed. If we had government ownership we’d have the best analytical business minds in the government working for something besides themselves. We’d have Mackays instead of Burlesons; we’d have Morgans in the Treasury Department; we’d have Hills running interstate commerce. We’d have the best lawyers in the Senate.”

“They wouldn’t give their best efforts for nothing. McAdoo—”

“No,” said Amory, shaking his head. “Money isn’t the only stimulus that brings out the best that’s in a man, even in America.”

“You said a while ago that it was.”

“It is, right now. But if it were made illegal to have more than a certain amount the best men would all flock for the one other reward which attracts humanity—honor.”

The big man made a sound that was very like boo.

“That’s the silliest thing you’ve said yet.”

“No, it isn’t silly. It’s quite plausible. If you’d gone to college you’d have been struck by the fact that the men there would work twice as hard for any one of a hundred petty honors as those other men did who were earning their way through.”

“Kids—child’s play!” scoffed his antagonist.

“Not by a darned sight—unless we’re all children. Did you ever see a grown man when he’s trying for a secret society—or a rising family whose name is up at some club?They’ll jump when they hear the sound of the word. The idea that to make a man work you’ve got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We’ve done that for so long that we’ve forgotten there’s any other way. We’ve made a world where that’s necessary. Let me tell you”—Amory became emphatic—“if there were ten men insured against either wealth or starvation, and offered a green ribbon for five hours’work a day and a blue ribbon for ten hours’work a day, nine out of ten of them would be trying for the blue ribbon. That competitive instinct only wants a badge. If the size of their house is the badge they’ll sweat their heads off for that. If it’s only a blue ribbon, I damn near believe they’ll work just as hard. They have in other ages.”

“I don’t agree with you.”

“I know it,” said Amory nodding sadly. “It doesn’t matter any more though. I think these people are going to come and take what they want pretty soon.”

A fierce hiss came from the little man.

“Machine-guns!”

“Ah, but you’ve taught them their use.”

The big man shook his head.

“In this country there are enough property owners not to permit that sort of thing.”

Amory wished he knew the statistics of property owners and non-property owners; he decided to change the subject. But the big man was aroused.

“When you talk of‘taking things away,’ you’re on dangerous ground.”

“How can they get it without taking it?For years people have been stalled off with promises. Socialism may not be progress, but the threat of the red flag is certainly the inspiring force of all reform. You’ve got to be sensational to get attention.”

“Russia is your example of a beneficent violence, I suppose?”

“Quite possibly,” admitted Amory. “Of course, it’s overflowing just as the French Revolution did, but I’ve no doubt that it’s really a great experiment and well worth while.”

“Don’t you believe in moderation?”

“You won’t listen to the moderates, and it’s almost too late. The truth is that the public has done one of those startling and amazing things that they do about once in a hundred years. They’ve seized an idea.”

“What is it?”

“That however the brains and abilities of men may differ, their stomachs are essentially the same.”

*****

The Little Man Gets His

“If you took all the money in the world,” said the little man with much profundity, “and divided it up in equ—”

“Oh, shut up!” said Amory briskly and, paying no attention to the little man’s enraged stare, he went on with his argument.

“The human stomach—”he began; but the big man interrupted rather impatiently.

“I’m letting you talk, you know,” he said, “but please avoid stomachs. I’ve been feeling mine all day. Anyway, I don’t agree with one-half you’ve said. Government ownership is the basis of your whole argument, and it’s invariably a beehive of corruption. Men won’t work for blue ribbons, that’s all rot.”

When he ceased the little man spoke up with a determined nod, as if resolved this time to have his say out.

“There are certain things which are human nature,” he asserted with an owl-like look, “which always have been and always will be, which can’t be changed.”

Amory looked from the small man to the big man helplessly.

“Listen to that! That’s what makes me discouraged with progress. Listen to that! I can name offhand over one hundred natural phenomena that have been changed by the will of man—a hundred instincts in man that have been wiped out or are now held in check by civilization. What this man here just said has been for thousands of years the last refuge of the associated mutton-heads of the world. It negates the efforts of every scientist, statesman, moralist, reformer, doctor, and philosopher that ever gave his life to humanity’s service. It’s a flat impeachment of all that’s worth while in human nature. Every person over twenty-five years old who makes that statement in cold blood ought to be deprived of the franchise.”

The little man leaned back against the seat, his face purple with rage. Amory continued, addressing his remarks to the big man.

“These quarter-educated, stale-minded men such as your friend here, who think they think, every question that comes up, you’ll find his type in the usual ghastly muddle. One minute it’s‘the brutality and inhumanity of these Prussians’—the next it’s‘we ought to exterminate the whole German people.’They always believe that‘things are in a bad way now,’ but they‘haven’t any faith in these idealists.’One minute they call Wilson‘just a dreamer, not practical’—a year later they rail at him for making his dreams realities. They haven’t clear logical ideas on one single subject except a sturdy, stolid opposition to all change. They don’t think uneducated people should be highly paid, but they won’t see that if they don’t pay the uneducated people their children are going to be uneducated too, and we’re going round and round in a circle. That—is the great middle class!”

The big man with a broad grin on his face leaned over and smiled at the little man.

“You’re catching it pretty heavy, Garvin; how do you feel?”

The little man made an attempt to smile and act as if the whole matter were so ridiculous as to be beneath notice. But Amory was not through.

“The theory that people are fit to govern themselves rests on this man. If he can be educated to think clearly, concisely, and logically, freed of his habit of taking refuge in platitudes and prejudices and sentimentalisms, then I’m a militant Socialist. If he can’t, then I don’t think it matters much what happens to man or his systems, now or hereafter.”

“I am both interested and amused,” said the big man. “You are very young.”

“Which may only mean that I have neither been corrupted nor made timid by contemporary experience. I possess the most valuable experience, the experience of the race, for in spite of going to college I’ve managed to pick up a good education.”

“You talk glibly.”

“It’s not all rubbish,” cried Amory passionately. “This is the first time in my life I’ve argued Socialism. It’s the only panacea I know. I’m restless. My whole generation is restless. I’m sick of a system where the richest man gets the most beautiful girl if he wants her, where the artist without an income has to sell his talents to a button manufacturer. Even if I had no talents I’d not be content to work ten years, condemned either to celibacy or a furtive indulgence, to give some man’s son an automobile.”

“But, if you’re not sure—”

“That doesn’t matter,” exclaimed Amory. “My position couldn’t be worse. A social revolution might land me on top. Of course I’m selfish. It seems to me I’ve been a fish out of water in too many outworn systems. I was probably one of the two dozen men in my class at college who got a decent education; still they’d let any well-tutored flathead play football and I was ineligible, because some silly old men thought we should all profit by conic sections. I loathed the army. I loathed business. I’m in love with change and I’ve killed my conscience—”

“So you’ll go along crying that we must go faster.”

“That, at least, is true,” Amory insisted. “Reform won’t catch up to the needs of civilization unless it’s made to. A laissez-faire policy is like spoiling a child by saying he’ll turn out all right in the end. He will—if he’s made to.” “But you don’t believe all this Socialist patter you talk.”

“I don’t know. Until I talked to you I hadn’t thought seriously about it. I wasn’t sure of half of what I said.”

“You puzzle me,” said the big man, “but you’re all alike. They say Bernard Shaw, in spite of his doctrines, is the most exacting of all dramatists about his royalties. To the last farthing.”

“Well,” said Amory, “I simply state that I’m a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation—with every reason to throw my mind and pen in with the radicals. Even if, deep in my heart, I thought we were all blind atoms in a world as limited as a stroke of a pendulum, I and my sort would struggle against tradition; try, at least, to displace old cants with new ones. I’ve thought I was right about life at various times, but faith is difficult. One thing I know. If living isn’t a seeking for the grail it may be a damned amusing game.”

For a minute neither spoke and then the big man asked:

“What was your university?”

“Princeton.”

The big man became suddenly interested; the expression of his goggles altered slightly.

“I sent my son to Princeton.”

“Did you?”

“Perhaps you knew him. His name was Jesse Ferrenby. He was killed last year in France.”

“I knew him very well. In fact, he was one of my particular friends.”

“He was—a—quite a fine boy. We were very close.”

Amory began to perceive a resemblance between the father and the dead son and he told himself that there had been all along a sense of familiarity. Jesse Ferrenby, the man who in college had borne off the crown that he had aspired to. It was all so far away. What little boys they had been, working for blue ribbons—

The car slowed up at the entrance to a great estate, ringed around by a huge hedge and a tall iron fence.

“Won’t you come in for lunch?”

Amory shook his head.

“Thank you, Mr. Ferrenby, but I’ve got to get on.”

The big man held out his hand. Amory saw that the fact that he had known Jesse more than outweighed any disfavor he had created by his opinions. What ghosts were people with which to work! Even the little man insisted on shaking hands. “Good-by!” shouted Mr. Ferrenby, as the car turned the corner and started up the drive. “Good luck to you and bad luck to your theories.”

“Same to you, sir,” cried Amory, smiling and waving his hand.

*****

“Out of the Fire, Out of the Little Room”

Eight hours from Princeton Amory sat down by the Jersey roadside and looked at the frost-bitten country. Nature as a rather coarse phenomenon composed largely of flowers that, when closely inspected, appeared moth-eaten, and of ants that endlessly traversed blades of grass, was always disillusioning; nature represented by skies and waters and far horizons was more likable. Frost and the promise of winter thrilled him now, made him think of a wild battle between St. Regis and Groton, ages ago, seven years ago—and of an autumn day in France twelve months before when he had lain in tall grass, his platoon flattened down close around him, waiting to tap the shoulders of a Lewis gunner. He saw the two pictures together with somewhat the same primitive exaltation—two games he had played, differing in quality of acerbity, linked in a way that differed them from Rosalind or the subject of labyrinths which were, after all, the business of life.

“I am selfish,” he thought.

“This is not a quality that will change when I‘see human suffering’or‘lose my parents’or‘help others.’“This selfishness is not only part of me. It is the most living part.

“It is by somehow transcending rather than by avoiding that selfishness that I can bring poise and balance into my life. “There is no virtue of unselfishness that I cannot use. I can make sacrifices, be charitable, give to a friend, endure for a friend, lay down my life for a friend—all because these things may be the best possible expression of myself; yet I have not one drop of the milk of human kindness.”

The problem of evil had solidified for Amory into the problem of sex. He was beginning to identify evil with the strong phallic worship in Brooke and the early Wells. Inseparably linked with evil was beauty—beauty, still a constant rising tumult; soft in Eleanor’s voice, in an old song at night, rioting deliriously through life like superimposed waterfalls, half rhythm, half darkness. Amory knew that every time he had reached toward it longingly it had leered out at him with the grotesque face of evil. Beauty of great art, beauty of all joy, most of all the beauty of women.

After all, it had too many associations with license and indulgence. Weak things were often beautiful, weak things were never good. And in this new loneness of his that had been selected for what greatness he might achieve, beauty must be relative or, itself a harmony, it would make only a discord.

In a sense this gradual renunciation of beauty was the second step after his disillusion had been made complete. He felt that he was leaving behind him his chance of being a certain type of artist. It seemed so much more important to be a certain sort of man.

His mind turned a corner suddenly and he found himself thinking of the Catholic Church. The idea was strong in him that there was a certain intrinsic lack in those to whom orthodox religion was necessary, and religion to Amory meant the Church of Rome. Quite conceivably it was an empty ritual but it was seemingly the only assimilative, traditionary bulwark against the decay of morals. Until the great mobs could be educated into a moral sense some one must cry: “Thou shalt not!” Yet any acceptance was, for the present, impossible. He wanted time and the absence of ulterior pressure. He wanted to keep the tree without ornaments, realize fully the direction and momentum of this new start.

The afternoon waned from the purging good of three o’clock to the golden beauty of four. Afterward he walked through the dull ache of a setting sun when even the clouds seemed bleeding and at twilight he came to a graveyard. There was a dusky, dreamy smell of flowers and the ghost of a new moon in the sky and shadows everywhere. On an impulse he considered trying to open the door of a rusty iron vault built into the side of a hill; a vault washed clean and covered with late-blooming, weepy watery-blue flowers that might have grown from dead eyes, sticky to the touch with a sickening odor.

Amory wanted to feel “William Dayfield, 1864.”

He wondered that graves ever made people consider life in vain. Somehow he could find nothing hopeless in having lived. All the broken columns and clasped hands and doves and angels meant romances. He fancied that in a hundred years he would like having young people speculate as to whether his eyes were brown or blue, and he hoped quite passionately that his grave would have about it an air of many, many years ago. It seemed strange that out of a row of Union soldiers two or three made him think of dead loves and dead lovers, when they were exactly like the rest, even to the yellowish moss.

Long after midnight the towers and spires of Princeton were visible, with here and there a late-burning light—and suddenly out of the clear darkness the sound of bells. As an endless dream it went on; the spirit of the past brooding over a new generation, the chosen youth from the muddled, unchastened world, still fed romantically on the mistakes and half-forgotten dreams of dead statesmen and poets. Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken....

Amory, sorry for them, was still not sorry for himself—art, politics, religion, whatever his medium should be, he knew he was safe now, free from all hysteria—he could accept what was acceptable, roam, grow, rebel, sleep deep through many nights....

There was no God in his heart, he knew; his ideas were still in riot; there was ever the pain of memory; the regret for his lost youth—yet the waters of disillusion had left a deposit on his soul, responsibility and a love of life, the faint stirring of old ambitions and unrealized dreams. But—oh, Rosalind! Rosalind!....

“It’s all a poor substitute at best,” he said sadly.

And he could not tell why the struggle was worth while, why he had determined to use to the utmost himself and his heritage from the personalities he had passed....

He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky.

“I know myself,” he cried, “but that is all.”

[1]鲁伯特·布鲁克（Rupert Chawner Brooke，1887—1915），英国诗人，毕业于剑桥大学，第一次世界大战中任海军军官，随地中海远征军出征的途中病亡。此处两句引自他的诗作《蒂亚雷塔希提岛》（Tiare Tahiti，1915）。

[2]奥斯卡·王尔德（Oscar Wilde，1854—1900），爱尔兰作家、诗人，19世纪末英国唯美主义主要代表，他的代表作品有长篇小说《道林·格雷的画像》（The Picture of Dorian Gray，1890），喜剧《认真的重要性》（The Importance of Being Earnest，1895）、《温夫人的扇子》（Lady Windermere’s Fan，1892）等。此处两句诗引自《温夫人的扇子》第三幕。

[3]西格尼·费伊（Father Cyril Sigourney Webster Fay，1875—1919），美国天主教神父，菲茨杰拉德在纽曼预备学校就读时任该校的校长。他赏识菲氏的创作才华，对菲茨杰拉德日后的写作生涯影响巨大，他是小说中“达西大人”的人物原型。

[4]巴尔港（Bar Harbor），美国缅因州南端的海岛小城，受到上流社会和富裕阶层青睐的旅游度假胜地。

[5]玛格丽特王后（Margherita of Savoy，1851—1926），意大利王后。

[6]科罗纳多（Coronado），又称科罗纳多岛，位于加利福尼亚州圣迭戈境内，美国著名旅游胜地。

[7]墨西哥城（Mexico City），位于美国圣地亚哥。

[8]纽波特（Newport），位于罗德岛，美国新英格兰地区著名的避暑胜地。

[9]《敢作敢为》（Do and Dare，1884），美国作家小霍雷修·阿尔杰（Horatio Alger Jr.，1832—1899）所著的少年励志故事；《密西西比河下游的弗兰克》（Frank on the Lower Mississippi，1867），美国作家查尔斯·奥斯汀·傅斯迪克（Charles Austin Fosdick，1842—1915，笔名哈利·卡斯曼[Harry Castlemon]）早年创作的少年历险小说。

[10]莎拉·伯恩哈特（Sarah Bernhardt，1844—1923），法国名伶。

[11]《华宴集》（Fêtes Galantes，1869），诗集，法国象征主义诗人保尔·魏尔伦（Paul Verlaine，1844—1896）的代表作之一。

[12]帕萨迪纳（Pasadena），美国西海岸加利福尼亚州城市；科德角半岛（Cape Cod），位于美国东海岸的马萨诸塞州东南部。

[13]阿什维尔（Asheville），美国北卡罗来纳州城市。

[14]斯温伯恩（Algernon Charles Swinburne，1837—1909），英国诗人、剧作家、小说家、文学评论家，以抒情诗见长，创作上有唯美主义倾向，代表作有《卡里顿的阿塔兰达》（Atalanta in Calydon，1865）、《诗歌与民谣》（Poems and Ballads，1866）等。

[15]明尼阿波利斯（Minneapolis），明尼苏达州密西西比河畔的工业港口城市，现为该州最大的城市。

[16]滑稽剧包含脱衣舞、女演员半裸的歌舞表演等内容。

[17]凯西·琼斯（Casey Jones，1863—1900），美国铁路工程师、火车司机。在一起列车相撞事故中，他奋力阻止仍在运行中的列车而英勇献身。他的事迹使他成为美国家喻户晓的英雄。这是根据他的英勇事迹创作的一首民谣。

[18]《绅士大盗》又名《亚森·罗平》（Arsène Lupin），剧作，改编自法国作家莫里斯·勒布朗（Maurice Leblanc，1864—1941）所创作的系列侦探小说。

[19]麦克高文（John McGovern，1887—1963），1909年入选橄榄球全美最佳阵容，他是第一位来自明尼苏达大学的入选球员。

[20]莫迪凯·布朗（Mordecai Brown，1876—1948）的绰号，他早年右手被机器所伤，失去二指，但他克服困难，成了一名优秀的棒球投球手，名噪一时。

[21]克里斯蒂·马修森（Christopher“Christie”Mathewson，1880—1925），美国职业棒球大联盟著名投球手。

[22]《为校争光》（For the Honor of the School，1900），美国小说家拉尔夫·亨利·巴勃（Ralph Henry Barbour，1870—1944）以校园生活为题材的长篇小说；《小妇人》（Little Women，1868），美国女作家路易莎·梅·奥尔科特（Louisa May Alcott，1832—1888）所著的长篇小说；《普通法》（The Common Law，1911），美国作家罗伯特·钱伯斯（Robert W.Chambers，1865—1933）所著的长篇小说；《萨福》（Sapho，1884），法国小说家阿尔丰斯·都德（Alphonse Daudet，1840—1897）的一部长篇小说；《危险的丹·麦克格鲁》（Dangerous Dan McGrew，1907），加拿大作家罗伯特·塞尔维斯（Robert Service，1874—1958）的一部抒情诗集；《大路朝天》（The Broad Highway，1910），英国历史小说家杰弗里·法诺尔（Jeffery Farnol，1878—1952）所著的一部较有影响的长篇小说；《厄舍古屋的倒塌》（The Fall of the House of Usher，1839），美国作家埃德加·爱伦·坡（Edgar Allan Poe，1809—1849）的短篇小说名作；《三周》（Three Weeks，1907），英国女作家艾丽诺·葛林（Elinor Glyn，1864—1943）所著的以女性生活为题材的长篇小说；《小上校的密友：玛丽·维尔》（The Little Colonel’s Chum：Mary Ware，1908），美国作家安妮·菲洛斯·约翰斯顿（Annie Fellows Johnston，1863—1931）的系列长篇小说之一；《营房谣》（Gunga Din，1890），英国作家约瑟夫·吉卜林（Joseph Rudyard Kipling，1865—1936）所著的叙事长诗；《警察杂志》（The Police Gazette），期刊，主要报道轰动一时的重要案件；《吉姆—詹姆·杰姆斯》（Jim-Jam Jems），20世纪初叶的一本流行杂志。

[23]亨特（George Alfred Henty，1832—1902），英国小说家，擅长创作以历史事件为题材的冒险小说。

[24]玛丽·罗伯茨·莱因哈特（Mary Roberts Rinehart，1876—1958），美国作家，著有多部探案小说。

[25]布鲁克斯兄弟服装公司（Brooks Brothers），美国历史最悠久的服装公司。

[26]透纳（Joseph Mallord William Turner，1775—1851），英国画家，19世纪上半叶英国学院派画家的代表，擅长风景画，尤其以对光的表现和色彩的运用见长。

[27]黎塞留（Cardinal Richelieu，1585—1642），法王路易十三的国务秘书兼御前会议主席、枢机主教。

[28]查尔斯·爱德华·斯图亚特（Charles Edward Stuart，1720—1788），詹姆斯·斯图亚特的长子，苏格兰的民族英雄，始终无缘英王的宝座，史称“漂亮王子查理”（Bonnie Prince Charlie）。

[29]汉尼拔（Hannibal Barca，前247—约前183），迦太基将军，在第二次布匿战争（Punic War）中，翻越阿尔卑斯山，数次击败罗马军队，但始终未能攻克罗马城。

[30]巴涅尔（Charles Stewart Parnell，1846—1891），爱尔兰自治运动的领导人；格莱斯顿（William Ewart Gladstone，1809—1898），英国自由党领袖，曾四度出任英国首相；俾斯麦亲王（Otto von Bismarck，1815—1898），政治家，普鲁士王国的宰相，史称“铁血宰相”。

[31]《亲爱的流浪汉》（The Beloved Vagabond，1906），英国作家威廉·约翰·洛奇（William John Locke，1863—1930）所著的长篇小说；《奈杰尔骑士》（Sir Nigel，1906），英国侦探小说家柯南·道尔（Arthur Conan Doyle，1859—1930）的长篇历史小说。

[32]纳贝斯克（Nabisco），美国著名的食品公司。

[33]《铁甲骑士队》（The White Company，1891），英国小说家柯南·道尔的历史小说，记录骑士英雄奈杰尔的传奇故事。

[34]战车大战指的是路易斯·华莱士（Lewis Wallace，1827—1905）的小说《宾虚》（Ben-Hur，1880）中描述的宾虚与罗马执政官进行战车竞技的场景，是全书的高潮部分。

[35]乔治·M.科恩（George M.Cohan，1878—1942），美国著名艺术家，集剧作家、诗人、作曲家、导演、演员、歌唱家、舞蹈家于一身，是百老汇的传奇人物，《小百万富翁》就是由他创作、执导并演出的一部音乐剧。

[36]罗兰是法国中世纪的英雄史诗《罗兰之歌》（The Song of Roland）中描述的骑士英雄；贺雷修斯是古罗马帝国的英雄。传说他独自坚守在桥上，阻击了伊特拉斯坎斯人的进攻。奈杰尔是柯南·道尔的小说中的传奇英雄人物；泰德·科伊（Ted Coy，1888—1935）是美国橄榄球明星。

[37]《快乐的人》（L’Allegro，1632），英国诗人弥尔顿（John Milton，1608—1674）的田园抒情诗。

[38]《印第安纳绅士》（The Gentleman from Indiana，1899），美国作家布斯·塔金顿（Booth Tarkington，1869—1946）所著的长篇小说，塔金顿曾就读于普林斯顿大学，本书的后文中有提及；《新天方夜谭》（The New Arabian Nights，1882），英国作家史蒂文森（Robert Louis Stevenson，1850—1894）所著短篇小说集；《马库斯·奥登那的道德标准》（The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne，1905），英国作家威廉·约翰·洛奇所著长篇小说；《名叫星期四的男人》（The Man Who Was Thursday，1908），英国作家切斯特顿（G.K.Chesterton，1874—1936）所著的侦探小说；《斯托弗耶鲁求学记》（Stover at Yale，1912），美国作家欧文·约翰逊（Owen Johnson，1878—1952）所著的长篇小说。

[39]哈斯特蒙学校（Harstrum School），位于康涅狄格州诺瓦克的一所补习学校，帮助学生准备耶鲁的入学考试。

[40]耶鲁的谢菲尔德科学学院（Sheffield Scientific School），学制三年，入学条件较之四年制的耶鲁本科宽松一些。

[41]骷髅会（Skull and Bones），耶鲁大学本科生的高级秘密社团，成员多为学生干部或成绩优异的优等生。

[42]吉格（jigger）是一种双向量杯或酒杯，主要用于调酒或饮料，一吉格相当于1.5盎司，大约45毫升。此处用来指用吉格杯调制的饮料。

[43]“吉布森少女”（Gibson Girl），美国画家吉布森（Charles Dana Gibson，1867—1944）以自己的妻子为原型创作的系列钢笔墨水少女画。

[44]拿骚楼（Nassau Hall），普林斯顿大学最早建成的综合性大楼，始建于1756年，当时是新泽西最大的建筑，内有教室、图书馆、小教堂、师生住宿区等多功能设施。

[45]深蓝和深红两色的队服分别指代耶鲁和哈佛的橄榄球队，这两支球队一直是普林斯顿队的宿敌。

[46]法提玛（Fatima），一种土耳其烤烟风味的香烟。

[47]《英诗宝库》（Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics，1861），著名英国文学批评家、诗人弗朗西斯·特纳·帕尔格莱弗（Francis Turner Palgrave，1824—1897）选编的英文抒情诗集。

[48]特伦顿（Trenton），美国新泽西州的首府。

[49]法明顿（Farmington），康涅狄格州的一所高级中学；多卜斯（Dobbs），纽约州的一所寄宿制预备学校；威斯托弗（Westover），康涅狄格州的一所私立女子预备学校；达纳霍尔（Dana Hall），马萨诸塞州的一所私立女子预备学校。以上学校均为名牌高级中学。

[50]双子城（Twin Cities），指美国明尼苏达州的明尼阿波利斯和圣保罗两市。

[51]圣提摩西女子学校，马里兰州的一所女子高级中学。

[52]总会三明治（club sandwich），通常为三片烤面包，中间夹鸡肉或火腿或熏肉和生菜、番茄及色拉酱。

[53]《玛佩萨》（Marpessa，1897），斯蒂芬·菲利普斯（Stephen Phillips，1864—1915）创作的长诗，取材于古希腊神话中伊托利亚公主玛佩萨和太阳神阿波罗之间的爱情故事。

[54]这一句为英国桂冠诗人阿尔弗雷德·丁尼生（Alfred Tennyson，1809—1892）诗集《莫德》（Maud，1855）中第十二首的首句。

[55]《忍耐》（Patience，1881），W.S.基尔伯特（William Schwenck Gilbert，1836—1911）和阿瑟·苏立文（Arthur Sullivan，1842—1900）创作的轻歌剧，1881年4月在伦敦首演，剧作对王尔德和唯美主义运动进行了嘲讽。

[56]《道林·格雷的画像》是王尔德唯一的长篇小说，创作于1891年，在本书中多次被提及，艾默里常将自己和放荡、颓废的道林·格雷作比照。

[57]《多洛雷斯》（Mystic and Somber Dolores，1866）为斯温伯恩所作的长诗；《无情的美人》（Belle dame sans Merci，1819）为济慈的诗作。

[58]芬格·欧弗拉迪、阿尔杰农·查尔斯分别是王尔德和斯温伯恩全名当中的两个名字。

[59]巴里（Sir James Matthew Barrie，1860—1937），英国小说家、戏剧家；皮内罗（Sir Arthur Wing Pinero，1855—1934），英国著名演员、导演、戏剧家；叶芝（William Butler Yeats，1865—1939），爱尔兰著名诗人、剧作家；辛吉（Edmund John Millington Synge，1871—1909），爱尔兰剧作家、诗人；欧内斯特·道森（Ernest Christopher Dowson，1867—1900），英国诗人、小说家；亚瑟·西门斯（Arthur William Symons，1865—1945），英国诗人、文学批评家；济慈（John Keats，1795—1821），英国著名浪漫主义诗人；苏德曼（Hermann Sudermann, l857—1928），德国剧作家、小说家；罗伯特·休·本森（Robert Hugh Benson，1871—1914）英国天主教神父、作家；萨沃伊轻歌剧（Savoy Comic Operas），19世纪末英国维多利亚时代兴起的一种歌剧，因常在伦敦的萨沃伊剧院上演而得名。

[60]《道林·格雷的画像》中的人物，主张生活的唯一追求是美和感官享受。

[61]即爱德华·普伦吉特（Edward Plunkett，1878—1957），英国剧作家、诗人、小说家，其作品均以顿萨尼勋爵（Lord Dunsany）的名字发表。

[62]美国流行歌曲，由西奥多·默西·托巴尼（Thodore Moses Tobani，1855—1933）作曲，玛丽·D.布莱恩作词，在美国英语里“花儿与爱心”常有多愁善感之意。

[63]约翰逊博士（Samuel Johnson，1709—1784），英国大文豪，独自编纂了第一部英语大词典，对后世影响深远；鲍斯威尔（James Boswell，1740—1795），传记作家，约翰逊博士的好友，著有《萨缪尔·约翰逊传》（The Life of Samuel Johnson，1791），两人之间的友谊被人们传为美谈。

[64]这是斯温伯恩《诗歌与民谣》中《维纳斯颂》（Laus Veneris）的第一节。

[65]奥尔唐斯（Hortense de Beauharnais，1783—1837），荷兰国王路易·波拿巴的妻子，法皇拿破仑三世的母亲。

[66]埃利斯（Elis）是称呼耶鲁学生的绰号。该名源于艾利和·耶鲁（Elihu Yale，1649—1721），他曾是学校最早的出资人，学校也以他的姓命名。

[67]《午夜嬉戏》（Midnight Frolic），纽约新阿姆斯特丹剧院演出的剧目。

[68]马萨诸塞州威廉斯顿的威廉姆斯学院（Williams College），享誉世界的文理学院，美国最有名的贵族学院。

[69]《戴伊思》（Thaïs，1894），法国剧作家马斯奈（Jules Massenet，1842—1912）根据阿纳托尔·法朗士（Anatole France，1844—1924）同名小说改编的歌剧；《卡门》（Carmen，1875），法国作曲家毕赛特（Georges Bizet，1838—1875）根据梅里美（Prosper Mérimée，1803—1870）同名小说改编的四幕歌剧。作者此处试图把伊莎贝拉和这两部歌剧的女主角作对比。

[70]斯图兹（Stutz），20世纪初叶风靡一时的两座轿跑车，由美国斯图兹汽车公司生产。

[71]《林中的孩子》（Babes in the Woods，1915）是杰罗姆·柯尔恩（Jerome Kern，1885—1945）和斯凯乐·格林（Schuyler Greene）为百老汇音乐剧《好人艾迪》（Very Good Eddie，1915）创作的流行歌曲。

[72]迪尔海滩（Deal Beach），位于新泽西海滨的一处度假胜地。

[73]阿斯波利公园（Asbury Park），位于新泽西州的海滨小镇公园。

[74]斯温伯恩的著名长诗《阿塔兰塔在卡吕顿》（Atalanta in Calydon，1865）中的一段，“春水”句未完。

[75]伽倪默德（Ganymede），古希腊神话中的美少年，为宙斯司酒。此处指年轻的服务生。

[76]引自吉卜林《丛林之书》（The Jungle Book，1894），《腊卡农》（Lukannon）一诗的第二小节。

[77]引自济慈叙事诗《圣安格尼斯之夜》（The Eve of St.Agnes，1820）。

[78]引自莎士比亚剧作《麦克白》（Macbeth，1606）第五幕第一场。

[79]格林威治乡村俱乐部（Greenwich Country Club），位于康涅狄格州西南部长岛海峡上的格林威治镇。

[80]引自罗伯特·勃朗宁（Robert Browning，1812—1889）《剧中人物》（Dramatis Personae，1864）中《青春与艺术》（Youth and Art）一诗第十六节。

[81]“湿毛巾”语出英语俗语“throw in the towel”（扔掉毛巾），意思是认输、投降。

[82]拉斐特飞行队（Lafayette Esquadrille），一支主要由美国志愿者参加的法国飞行中队，1916年开始执行飞行任务，后于1919年编入美国空军，成为第103追击中队。

[83]于思曼（Joris-Karl Huysmans，1848—1907），法国小说家、艺术批评家；瓦尔特·佩特（Walter Pater，1839—1894），英国散文作家和评论家；泰奥菲尔·戈蒂埃（Théophile Gautier，1811—1872），法国诗人。

[84]小约翰·福克斯（John Fox Jr.，1862—1919），美国新闻记者、小说家；戴维斯（Richard Harding Davis，1864—1916），美国新闻记者、小说家；《育空河的魅力》（The Spell of the Yukon，1907）是加拿大作家罗伯特·塞尔维斯（Robert W.Service，1874—1958）的一部诗集；詹姆斯·维特科姆·莱雷（James Whitcomb Riley，1849—1916），美国作家、诗人。

[85]亚历山大·蒲柏（Alexander Pope，1688—1744），英国诗人。深受法国布瓦洛影响，著有诗体论文《批评论》，阐述古典主义审美原则，主张诗歌应模仿自然，认为古希腊、罗马的作品是艺术典范。

[86]纽黑文（New Haven），耶鲁大学的所在地。

[87]《新马基雅维利传》（The New Machiavelli，1911），英国作家H.G.威尔斯（H.G.Wells，1866—1946）的长篇小说。

[88]《别无他神》（None Other Gods，1911），英国作家罗伯特·休·本森的长篇小说；《邪恶街道》（Sinister Street，1914），康普顿·麦肯齐（Compton Mackenzie，1883—1972）的长篇小说；《伟大研究》（The Research Magnificent，1915）英国作家H.G.威尔斯的长篇小说。

[89]伍德罗（Woodrow Wilson，1856—1924），美国第28任总统，在1902至1910年间担任普林斯顿的校长，曾试图废止学校中的上层“吃喝”俱乐部，但并未成功。

[90]《民众》（The Masses），美国1911年至1917年出版的激进的社会主义刊物，主要聚焦于美国的工人问题。

[91]《论宗教体验之种种》（The Varieties of Religious Experience：A Study in Human Nature，1901—1902）是美国著名心理学家威廉·詹姆斯（William James，1842—1910）关于宗教心理的经典著作。

[92]爱德华·卡朋特（Edward Carpenter，1844—1929），英国著名进步人士、诗人、社会活动家。

[93]布尔热（Paul Charles Joseph Bourget，1852—1935），法国小说家、文艺批评家；拉尔夫·亚当斯·克拉姆（Ralph Adams Cram，1863—1942），美国著名艺术家、建筑设计师。

[94]费城社（the Philadelphian Society），普林斯顿大学的基督教团体，该社团的成员大多致力于成为牧师。

[95]法利赛人（the Pharisee），古犹太教一个派别的成员，恪守旧约传统，自视甚高。

[96]萨伏那洛拉（Girolamo Savonarola，1452—1498），意大利传教士和宗教改革家。

[97]参见《圣经·新约全书·马太福音》第十二章第三十节，原文为：“不与我相合的，就是敌我的。不同我收聚的，就是分散的。”

[98]奥利弗·洛奇爵士（Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge，1851—1940），英国物理学家，致力于科学与宗教的融合，相信人能死而复生。

[99]圣特蕾莎（St.Teresa of Ávila，1515—1582），西班牙天主教修女，著有自传《圣特蕾莎传》。

[100]艾米莉亚·欧斯本（Amelia Osborne）是英国小说家威廉·M.萨克雷（William Makepeace Thackeray，1811—1863）的《名利场》中的人物，她心地善良，年轻守寡。

[101]蒲克（Puck），英国神话故事中经常出现的一个聪明伶俐、爱搞恶作剧的小精灵。

[102]圣西西莉亚（St.Cecilia），罗马天主教贞洁圣女，教堂音乐的主保圣人，11月22日是她的庆日。

[103]圣司提反（Saint Stephen，约5—34），耶路撒冷的七圣之一，在宣教时被众教徒用乱石砸死。

[104]隐士彼得（Peter the Hermit，约1050—1115），法国僧侣，第一次十字军东征时的关键人物之一。

[105]席勒（Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller，1759—1805），德国剧作家、诗人。

[106]《洛克斯雷大楼》（Locksley Hall），丁尼生写于1835年的一首长诗。

[107]纽曼（John Henry Newman，1801—1890），英国神学家，原为圣公会的牧师，1845年皈依罗马天主教。

[108]《秩序时代的颂歌》（A Song in Time of Order）是斯温伯恩发表于1852年的诗作。

[109]“辉煌成就”（glorious gains）和“古老中国”（Cathay）均出自丁尼生《洛克斯雷大楼》的诗句。

[110]取材于贾科莫·普契尼（Giacomo Puccini，1858—1924）的歌剧《蝴蝶夫人》（Madama Butterfly，1904）的一首流行歌曲，出自百老汇音乐剧《盛大演出》（The Big Show，1916）。

[111]冯·兴登堡（Paul von Hindenburg，1847—1934），德国陆军元帅和政治家，第一次世界大战中德军的军事首脑。

[112]伯尔（Aaron Burr，1756—1836），美国政治家，参加过美国独立战争；哈里·李（“Light-Horse Harry”Lee Ⅲ，1756—1818）是美国独立战争大陆军骑兵部队的军官。两位都是普林斯顿校友。

[113]梅萨利娜（Valeria Messalina，约17或20—48），罗马皇后，克劳狄一世的第三个妻子，行为放荡、不端。

[114]赫拉克利特（Heraclitus，约前540—约前475），公元前5世纪的古希腊哲学家，爱非斯学派的创始人。认为物质性的“火”是万物的本原，且万物都处于变化之中。

[115]安格斯·奥奇（Angus Oge），爱尔兰神话中的爱神，头上飞着象征吻的四只鸟。

[116]古楚林（Cuchulain），爱尔兰民间传说中的英雄。

[117]梅弗（Maeve），爱尔兰神话中的康诺特女王。

[118]布雷斯特（Brest），法国布列塔尼半岛西端的海港。

[119]唐纳德·翰吉（Donald Hankey，1884—1916），英国军人，1916年10月阵亡，著有散文集《弃学从戎》（A Student in Arms，1916）。

[120]个人（personage）：“个人”在本书中是一个与“个性”（personality）相对的概念，强调个体经验的丰富、独特，区别于“个性”对于个体片面、简化的概括，两者的区分详见作者在第一部第三章第五节“初闻‘个人’说”中的阐释。

[121]《樱桃熟了》（Cherry Ripe），英国画家约翰·艾弗列特·米莱斯（John Everett Millais，1829—1896）创作的少女主题画作；兰德希尔（Sir Edwin Henry Landseer，1802—1873），英国画家，尤以画狗著称；麦克斯菲尔德·帕里什（Maxfield Parrish，1870—1966），美国插画家，《黑岛之王》是他以《天方夜谭》为题材所作的装饰画。

[122]斯潘瑟女子学校（Spence School for Girls），位于纽约的一所著名女子私立学校。

[123]花冠（Coronas），面向高端市场的香烟品牌。

[124]指第一次世界大战期间身穿彩色军服的法国军官经常光顾纽约的社交舞会。

[125]《再吻我一次》（Kiss Me Again，1905）是由亨利·保罗萨姆（Henry Blossom，1866—1919）和维克多·赫伯特（Victor Herbert，1859—1924）创作的歌曲，在20世纪初叶的美国极为流行。

[126]此处暗指本韦努托·切利尼（Benvenuto Cellini，1500—1571）。他是16世纪的意大利雕塑家，著有一本直白夸张的自传。

[127]安妮特·凯勒曼（Annette Kellermann，1887—1975），澳大利亚游泳健将，后来到美国发展，成为炙手可热的好莱坞明星，人称“百万美元美人鱼”。

[128]埃拉·惠勒·威尔科克斯（Ella Wheeler Wilcox，1850—1919），美国女作家、诗人，著有二十几本诗集。

[129]引自阿黛拉·弗洛伦斯·尼科尔森（Adela Florence Nicolson，1865—1904）[笔名劳伦斯·厚普（Lawrence Hope）]的诗作《柚木森林》（The Teak Forest），选自她的诗集《印度情诗》（India’s Love Lyrics，1902）。

[130]《月光》（Clair de Lune，1869），法国象征派诗人保尔·魏尔伦的作品。

[131]泰森票务（Tyson’s），百老汇的一家票务公司，在纽约的主要酒店都设有自己的票务窗口。

[132]《玩笑盛宴》（The Jest，1919），意大利剧作家贝尼里（Sem Benelli，1877—1949）的四幕喜剧。

[133]《你离开之后》（After You’ve Gone），1918年的美国流行歌曲，由特纳·雷顿（Turner Layton，1894—1978）和亨利·克里默（Henry Creamer，1879—1930）创作。

[134]《一个青年艺术家的画像》（A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man，1916）是爱尔兰的现代主义大师詹姆斯·乔伊斯（James Joyce，1882—1941）的成名作。

[135]《朱安与彼得》（Joan and Peter，1918）、《永不熄灭的火》（The Undying Fire，1919）的作者为H.G.威尔斯。

[136]《安多佛与野蛮人》（Vandover and the Brute，1914）的作者为美国自然主义小说家弗兰克·诺里斯（Frank Norris，1870—1902）；《特伦·威尔的毁灭》（The Damnation of Theron Ware，1896）的作者为美国小说家哈罗德·弗雷德里克（Harold Frederic，1856—1898）；《珍妮姑娘》（Jennie Gerhardt，1911）是美国小说家西奥多·德莱赛（Theodore Dreiser，1871—1945）的第三部长篇小说，也是他的代表作。

[137]指埃蒙·德瓦勒拉（Éamon de Valera，1882—1975），爱尔兰共和国总统，1918年出任新芬党主席，1919年造访美国寻求经济援助和政治认同。

[138]爱德华·卡森（Edward Henry Carson，1854—1935），爱尔兰律师、政治家；科哈兰（Daniel F.Cohalan，1867—1946），纽约州最高法院的大法官（1912—1935）。

[139]福熙（Ferdinand Foch，1851—1929），法国元帅、军事理论家，第一次世界大战期间任法军总参谋长。

[140]“石墙”杰克逊（Thomas Jonanthan Jackson，1824—1863），美国南北战争时期南部联军的将领。

[141]吉纳迈（Georges Guynemer，1894—1917），“一战”时期的法国空军飞行员，在一次空战中失踪，后被追认为法国民族英雄；约克中士（Alvin Cullum York，1887—1964），“一战”时期的美国战斗英雄。

[142]潘兴（John Joseph Pershing，1860—1948），美国将军、军事指挥家，第一次世界大战期间美国远征军将领。

[143]卡莱尔（Thomas Carlyle，1795—1881），英国散文家、批评家，著有《论英雄、英雄崇拜及历史上的英雄事迹》（On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History，1841）。

[144]这几位都是20世纪初叶的美国小说家。

[145]库布（Irvin S.Cobb，1876—1944），美国短篇小说家、幽默作家。

[146]赖特（Harold Bell Wright，1872—1944）和格雷（Pearl Zane Grey，1872—1939）均为美国20世纪初叶的地方小说家。

[147]对拜伦的《英国游吟诗人和苏格兰评论家》（English Bards and Scotch Reviewers，1809）的戏仿。

[148]这些均为当时流行一时的诗人。

[149]詹姆斯·希尔（James J.Hill，1838—1916），美国铁路大亨，人称“帝国的缔造者”。

[150]《乌拉鲁姆》（Ulalume，1847），爱伦·坡的一首长诗，记录叙述者对自己早亡的恋人的追思与悼念。

[151]这两节诗均出自法国诗人保尔·魏尔伦的《秋之歌》（Chanson d’automne，1866）。

[152]曼弗雷德是拜伦诗作《曼弗雷德》（Manfred，1817）中的主人公，他是一个浮士德式的人物；圣克里斯托弗是罗马天主教的殉道圣徒。

[153]唐璜（Don Juan），中世纪西班牙传说中的青年贵族，最初以否定宗教的禁欲道德者的形象出现，后发展为极端个人主义者的典型。他也是拜伦的政治讽刺长诗《唐璜》中人物的原型。

[154]普赛克（Psyche），希腊神话中人类灵魂的化身，以少女形象出现，与爱神厄洛斯（Eros）相恋。

[155]玛德琳（Madeline），指的是玛德琳·厄舍，爱伦·坡的短篇名著《厄舍古屋的倒塌》中“死而复生”的女性人物。

[156]《乌拉鲁姆》中的诗句。

[157]斯温伯恩《阿塔兰塔在卡吕顿》中的诗句。

[158]鲁伯特·布鲁克的诗作。

[159]《十四行诗里的黑美人》（The Dark Lady of the Sonnets，1910），萧伯纳的一幕短剧，取材自莎士比亚《黑美人十四行诗》（The Dark Lady Sonnets）中所描写的人物。

[160]据《圣经·旧约全书·出埃及记》摩西传十诫中的第六戒是“毋杀人”，第九戒是“毋妄证以陷人”。

[161]道格拉斯·费尔班克斯（Douglas Fairbanks，1883—1939），美国演员、导演与剧作家，是第一位在电影中扮演蒙面侠佐罗的演员。此处是揶揄的说法。

[162]曼恩法案（Mann Act），1910年由美国国会通过，旨在禁止州与州之间“一切非法的、出于不道德的目的贩运妇女的行为”。

[163]《圣经·新约全书·路加福音》第二十三章第二十八节，耶稣被钉死在十字架之前转身对众人说：“耶路撒冷的女子，不要为我哭泣，为你们自己哭吧，为你们自己的儿女哭泣吧。”

[164]他在暗示艾默里，因为他没有拘捕他们，应该给他点儿好处。

[165]伯恩哈迪（Friedrich von Bernhardi，1849—1930），普鲁士将军、军事历史学家；博纳尔·劳（Andrew Bonar Law，1858—1923），英国保守党领袖、前首相；贝特曼—霍尔韦格（Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg，1856—1921），德国政治家，曾于1909年至1917年间任德意志帝国总理。

[166]《阿尔迈耶的蠢行》（Almayer’s Folly，1895），康拉德的第一部长篇小说，根据他在马来半岛的见闻写成。

[167]塞缪尔·巴特勒（Samuel Butler，1835—1902），英国小说家，著有长篇小说《众生之路》（The Way of All Flesh，1903）和乌托邦小说《艾瑞洪》（Erewhon，1872）；勒南（Joseph Ernest Renan，1823—1892），法国历史学家、神学家，著有《耶稣传》（Life of Jesus，1863）；伏尔泰（Voltaire，1694—1778），法国启蒙时代思想家、哲学家、文学家，被称为“法兰西思想之父”。

[168]雷格泰姆音乐（Ragtime），20世纪初期兴起的黑人爵士乐。

[169]麦凯（Clarence Hungerford Mackay，1874—1948），美国金融家；伯尔逊（Albert Sidney Burleson，1863—1937），曾任美国邮政局长、国会议员；摩根（John Pierpont Morgan，1837—1913），美国金融家、银行家；希尔（Joe Hill，1879—1915），美国劳工运动的著名活动家。

[170]小麦卡杜（William Gibbs McAdoo Jr.，1863—1941），美国律师、政治家，曾担任美国参议院议员、美国财政部长。

[171]引自鲁伯特·布鲁克的诗《夜行》（The Night Journey，1913）第五节。

[172]“人情的乳汁”（milk of human kindness）出自莎士比亚悲剧《麦克白》第一幕第五场。