 As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At present, so I am told, the High Gods of Medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one. So young Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were fifty years ahead of style when they decided one day in the summer of 1860 that their first baby should be born in a hospital. Whether this anarchism had any bearing upon the astonishing history I am about to set down will never be known. I shall tell you what occurred and let you judge for yourself. The Roger Button's held an enviable position, both social and financial, in the antebellum Baltimore. They were related to the this family and that family, which as every Southerner knew, entitled them to membership in that enormous peerage, which largely populated the Confederacy. This was the first experience with the charming old custom of having babies. Mr. Button was naturally nervous. He hoped it would be a boy so that he could be sent to Yale College in Connecticut, at which institution Mr. Button himself had been known for four years by the somewhat obvious nickname of Cuff. On the September morning consecrated to the enormous event he arose nervously at six o'clock, dressed himself adjusted an impeccable stock, and hurried forth through the streets of Baltimore to the hospital to determine whether the darkness of the night had borne in any new life upon its bosom. When he was approximately a hundred yards from the Maryland private hospital for ladies and gentlemen, he saw Dr. King, the family physician, descending the front steps, rubbing his hands together with the washing movement, as all doctors are required to do by the unwritten ethics of their profession. Mr. Roger Button, the president of Roger Button and Company Wholesale Hardware, began to run toward Dr. King with much less dignity than was expected from a southern gentleman of that picturesque period. Dr. King, he called, Dr. King! The doctor heard him, faced around, and stood waiting, a curious expression settling on his harsh, medicinal face, as Mr. Button drew near. What happened? Demanded Mr. Button, as he came up in a gasping rush. What was it? How is she a boy? Who is what? Talk sense! said Dr. King sharply. He appeared somewhat irritated. Is the child born, beg Mr. Button? Dr. King frowned. Yes, I suppose, after fashion, again he threw a curious glance at Mr. Button. Hit my wife all right? Yes. Is it a boy-girl? Here now, cried Dr. King in a perfect passion of irritation. I'll ask you to go and see for yourself. Outrageous! He snapped the last word out in almost one syllable. Then he turned away muttering, Do you imagine a case like this while helping my professional reputation? One more would ruin me, ruin anybody. What's the matter? Demanded Mr. Button appalled. Triplets? No, not triplets, answered the doctor cuttingly. What's more, you can go and see for yourself and get another doctor. I've brought you into the world, young man, and I've been physician to your family for forty years, but I'm through with you. I don't want to see you or any of your relatives ever again. Goodbye. Then he turned sharply and, without another word, climbed into his vaotan, which was waiting at the curb-stone and drove severely away. Mr. Button stood there upon sidewalks, stupefied and trembling from head to foot. One horrible mishap had occurred. He had suddenly lost all desire to go into the Maryland private hospital for ladies and gentlemen. It was with the greatest difficulty that a moment later he forced himself to mount the steps and enter the front door. A nurse was sitting behind a desk in the opaque gloom of the hall, swallowing his shame Mr. Button approached her. Good morning, she remarked, looking up at him pleasantly. Good morning. I'm Mr. Button. At this, a look of utter terror spread itself over the girl's face. She rose to her feet and seemed about to fly from the hall, restraining herself only with the most apparent difficulty. I want to see my child, said Mr. Button. The nurse gave a little scream. Oh, of course! She cried hysterically upstairs, right upstairs. Go up. She pointed in direction to Mr. Button, bathed in cool perspiration and turned falteringly, and began to mount to the second floor. In the upper hall he addressed another nurse, who approached him, basin in hand. I'm Mr. Button. He managed to articulate. I want to see my… clank. The basin clattered to the floor and rolled in the direction of the stairs. Clank, clank. It began a methodical dissent, as if sharing in the general terror, which this gentleman provoked. I want to see my child. Mr. Button almost shrieked. He was on the verge of collapse. Clank. The basin reached the first floor. The nurse regained control of herself and threw Mr. Button a look of hearty contempt. All right, Mr. Button. She agreed in a hushed voice. Very well. But if you knew, what a state it's put us all in this morning. It's perfectly outrageous. The hospital will never have a ghost of a reputation after… Hurry, he cried hoarsely. I can't stand this. Come this way, then, Mr. Button. He dragged himself after her. At the end of a long hallway they reached a room from which proceeded a variety of howls. Indeed, a room which in later apartments would have been known as the crying room. They entered. Well, gasp, Mr. Button. Which is mine. There, said the nurse. Mr. Button's eyes followed her pointing finger. And this is what he saw. Wrapped in a voluminous white blanket and partially crammed into one of the cribs, there sat an old man, apparently about seventy years of age. His sparse hair almost white and from his chin dripped a long, spout-colored beard which waved absurdly back and forth, fanned by the breeze, coming in at the window. He looked up at Mr. Button with dim, faded eyes, in which lurked a puzzled question. Am I mad? thundered Mr. Button, his tear resolving into rage. Is this some ghastly hospital joke? Doesn't seem like a joke to us, replied the nurse severely. And I don't know whether you're mad or not. But that is most certainly your child. The cool perspiration redoubled on Mr. Button's forehead, closed his eyes and then, opening and then, looked again. There was no mistake. He was gazing at a man of three score and ten. A baby, of three score and ten. A baby, whose feet hung over the sides of the crib. In which it was reposing. The old man looked placidly from one to the other, for a moment and then suddenly spoke in a crack to an ancient voice. Are you my father? He demanded. Mr. Button and the nurse stared violently. Because, if you are, went on the old man, coarsely. I wish you'd get me out of this place or at least get them to put a comfortable rocker in here. Where in God's name did you come from? Who are you? burst out Mr. Button frantically. Can't tell you exactly who I am, replied the quarrelous line. Because I've only been born a few hours but my last name is certainly Button. You lie, you're an impostor. The old man turned squarely to the news. Nice way to welcome a newborn child, he complained in a weak voice. Tell him he's wrong. Why don't you? You're wrong, Mr. Button, said the nurse severely. This is your child, and you have to make the best of it. We're going to ask you to take him home with you as soon as possible, some time today. Home? repeated Mr. Button incredulously. Yes, we can't have him here. We really can't, you know. I'm right glad of it, one of the old men. This is a fine place to keep a youngster of quiet taste. If all this yelling and howling, I would be able to get away to sleep. I ask for something to eat. Here his voice rose to a shill rise of protest, and they brought me a bottle of milk. Mr. Button sat down upon the chair near his son and concealed his face in his hands. My heavens, he murmured, in an ecstasy of horror. What will people say? What must I do? You'll have to take him home, insisted the nurse, immediately. A grotesque picture formed itself with dreadful clarity before the eyes of the tortured man, a picture of himself walking through the crowded streets of the city with this appalling apparition stalking by his side. Can't. Can't, he moaned. People would stop to speak to him, and what was he going to say? He would have to introduce this step to the generic. This was my son, born early this morning, and then the old man would gather his blanket around him, and they would plot on, past the bustling stores, the slave market, for a dark instant. Mr. Button wished passionately that his son was black. Past luxurious houses of the residential district, past the home for the aged. Come, put yourself together, commanded the nurse. Say here, the old man, and out suddenly, if you think I'm going to walk home in this blanket, you're entirely mistaken. Babies always have blankets. With a malicious cackle the old man held up a small white swaddling garment. Look, this is what they had ready for me. Babies always wear these, said the nurse, friendly. Well, said the old man, this baby not going to wear anything in about two minutes, this blanket itches. They might at least have given me a sheet. Keep it on, keep it on, said Mr. Button hurriedly. He turned to the nurse. What'll I do? Go downtown and buy your son some clothes. Mr. Button's son, Boyce, followed him down the hall. Anna Cain, father, I want to have a cane. Mr. Button banged the outer door savagely. CHAPTER II Good-good morning, Mr. Button said nervously to the clerk in the Chesapeake Dry Goods Company. I want to buy some clothes for my child. How old is your child, sir? About six hours, answered Mr. Button with due consideration. Baby's supply department in the rear. I don't think I'm not sure that's what I want. It's a he's an unusually large-sized child, except for only a large. They have the largest children's sizes. Where's the boy's department, inquired Mr. Button, shifting his ground desperately. He felt that the clerk was surely sent his shameful secret. Here? Well, he hesitated. The notion of dressing his son in men's clothes was repugnant to him. If, say, he could only find a very large boy suit, he might cut off the long and awful beard, dye the white hair brown, and thus manage to conceal the worst and retain something of his own self-respect. Not to mention his position in Baltimore society, but a prattling inspection of the boy's department reveals no suits to fit the newborn Button. He blamed the store, of course. In such cases, it is the thing to blame the store. How old you say that boy of yours was, demanded the clerk curiously? He's sixteen. Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you said six hours. You'll find the youth department in the next aisle. Mr. Button turned miserably away. Then he stopped, brightened, and pointed his finger toward a dress dummy in the window display. There, he exclaimed, I'll take that suit out on the dummy. The clerk stared. I protested. That's not a child's suit, at least it is. But it's for fancy dress. You could wear it yourself. Wrapping up, insisted his customer nervously. That's what I want. The astonished clerk obeyed. Back at the hospital, Mr. Button entered the nursery and almost threw the package at his son. There's your clothes," he snapped out. The old man untied the package and viewed its contents with a quizzical eye. Eh, it looks sort of funny to me, he complained. I don't want to be made a monkey of. You've made a monkey of me, retorted Mr. Button fiercely. Never you mind how funny you look, put them on. Or I'll spank you. He swallowed uneasily at the penultimate word, feeling nervously that it was the proper thing to say. All right, Father. This was a grotesque simulation of final respect. You've lived longer, you know best, just as you say. As before the sound of word, Father, caused Mr. Button to start violently. In hurry. I'm hurrying, Father. When his son was dressed, Mr. Button regarded him with depression. The costume consisted of dotted socks, pink pants, and a belted blouse with a wide, white collar. Over the latter, waved the long, whiteish beard. Drooping almost to the waist, the effect was not good. Wait. Mr. Button seized a hospital shears and with three quick snips amputated a large section of the beard. But even with this improvement, the ensemble fell far short of perfection. The remaining brush of scraggly hair, the watery eyes, the ancient teeth seemed oddly out of tone with the gaiety of the costume. Mr. Button, however, was obdurate. He held out his hand. Come along, he said sternly. His son took the hand, trustingly. Weren't you going to call on me, Dad? Equavored as they walked from the nursery. Just baby for a while. Do you think of a better name? Mr. Button grunted. I don't know, he answered harshey. Think we'll call you Masuthzla. CHAPTER III Even after the new addition to the Button family, had had his hair cut short and then dyed to a sparse unnatural black, had had his face shaved so close that it glistened and had been attired in small boy clothes made to order by a flabbergasted tailor. It was impossible for Button to ignore the fact that his son was an excuse for a first family baby. Despite his aged stoop, Benjamin Button, for that was his name they called him instead of by the appropriate but individualist Masuthzla, was five feet eight inches tall. His clothes did not conceal this, nor did the clipping and dyeing of his eyebrows disguise the fact that the eyes under were the baby nurse who had been engaged in vance left the house after one look in a state of considerable indignation. But Mr. Button persisted in his unwavering purpose. Benjamin was a baby, and a baby he should remain. At first he declared that if Benjamin didn't like warm milk he would go without food altogether, but he was finally prevailed upon to allow his son bread and water and give compromise. One day he brought home a rattle, and giving it to Benjamin insisted in no uncertain terms that he should play with it, whereupon the old man took it with a weary expression, and could be heard jingling it obediently at intervals throughout the day. There can be no doubt, though, that the rattle bored him, and that he found other more soothing amusements when he was left alone. For one day that during the preceding week he had smoked more cigars than ever before, a phenomenon which was explained a few days later, when entering the nursery unexpectedly he found the room full of a faint blue haze in Benjamin with a guilty expression on his face trying to conceal the butt of a dark Havana. This, of course, called for a severe spanking, but Mr. Button found that he could not see the sun that he would stun his growth. Nevertheless he persisted in his attitude. He brought home led soldiers, he brought home toy trains, he brought large pleasant animals made of cotton, and to perfect the illusion which he was creating for himself at least, he passionately demanded of the clerk in a toy store, rather the paint would come off the pink duck if the baby put it in his mouth. He would steal down the back stairs and return to the nursery with the volume of the encyclopedia but Farnica, over which he would pour through an afternoon, while his cotton cows and his Noah's Ark were left neglected on the floor. Against such stubbornness Mr. Button's efforts were a little avail. The sensation created in Baltimore was at first prodigious. What the mishap would have cost the buttons that kinfolk socially cannot be determined, for the outbreak of the Civil War brought the city's attention to other things. A few people who were unfaithfully polite racked their brains for compliments to give to the parents, and finally hit upon the ingenious device that declaring that the baby resembled his grandfather. In fact, which due to the standard state of decay common to all men of seventy, could please, but Benjamin's grandfather was furiously insulted. Benjamin, once he left the hospital, took life as he founded. Several small boys were brought to see him, and he spent a stiff, jointed afternoon trying to work up an interest in tops and marbles. He even managed, quite accidentally, to break a kitchen window with the stone from a slingshot, a feat but he did these things only because they were expected of him and because he was, by nature, obliging. When his grandfather's initial antagonism wore off, Benjamin and that gentleman took enormous pleasure in one another's company. They would sit for hours, these two so far apart in age and experience, and like all cronies, discuss with tireless monotony the slow events of the day. Benjamin felt more disgusted with his grandfather's presence than in his parents. They seemed always somewhat in awe of him and, despite the dictatorial authority they exercised over him, frequently addressed him as Mr. He was as puzzled as anyone else at the apparently advanced age of his mind and body at birth. He read up on the medical journal but found that no such case had been previously recorded. Had his play with other boys and frequently he joined in milder games, but ball shook him up too much. He feared that in case of a fracture his ancient bones would refuse to knit. When he was five he was sent to kindergarten, where he initiated into the art of pasting green paper on orange paper, of weaving colored maps and manufacturing eternal cardboard necklaces. He was inclined to drows off to the habit which both irritated and frightened his young teacher. To his relief she complained to his parents and he was removed from the school. The Roger Buttons told their friends that they felt he was too young. By the time he was twelve years old his parents had grown used to him. Indeed, so strong is the force of custom that they no longer felt that he was different and reminded them of the fact. One day a few weeks after his twelfth birthday, while looking in the mirror, Benjamin made or thought he made an astonishing discovery. His eyes deceived him or had his hair turned in the dozen years of his life from white to iron gray under its concealing dye. Was the network of wrinkles on his face becoming less pronounced? Was his skin firmer? Was he even a touch of ruddy winter crawler? He could not tell. He knew that he no longer stooped and that his physical condition had improved since the early days of his life. Can it be he thought to himself or rather scarcely dared to think? He went to his father. I'm grown he announced determinedly. I want to put on long trousers. Well, he said finally, I don't know, fourteen is the age for putting on long trousers and you are only twelve. But you have to admit, protested Benjamin. I'm big from age. The father looked at him with illusory speculation. I'm not so sure of that, he said. I was as big as you when I was twelve. This was not true. It was to believe in his son's normality. Finally a compromise was reached. Benjamin was to continue to dye his hair. He was to make a better attempt to play with boys of his own age. He was not to wear spectacles or carry a cane in the street. In return for these concessions he was allowed his first suit of long trousers. In the early first year I intend to say little. Suffice to record that they were years of normal ungrowth. When Benjamin was eighteen he was erect as a man of fifty. He had more hair and it was of a dark gray. His step was firm, his voice had lost its crack quaver, and descended to a healthy baritone. So his father sent him up and Benjamin passed his examinations and became a member of the freshman class. On the third day, following his articulation, he received a notification from Mr. Hart to college registrar, to call at his office and arrange his schedule. Benjamin, glancing in the mirror, decided that his hair needed a new application of its brown dye, but an anxious inspection of his bureau drawer he had emptied it the day before and thrown it away. He was in a dilemma. He was due at the registrars in five minutes. There seemed to be no help for it. He must go as he was. He did. Good morning, said the registrar politely. You've come to inquire about your son. Why, as a matter of fact, my name's Button. Began Benjamin, but Mr. Hart cut him off. Very glad to meet him. First out, Benjamin. I'm a freshman. What? I'm a freshman. Surely you're joking. Not at all. The registrar frowned and glanced at a card before him. Why, have Mr. Benjamin Button's age down at his 18? At my age, asserted Benjamin, flushing slightly. The registrar eyed him weirdly. Now, surely, Mr. Button, you don't expect me to believe Benjamin spiraled weirdly. I'm 18, he repeated. The registrar pointed sternly at the door. Get out, he said. Get out of college and get out of town. You're a dangerous lunatic. I'm 18. Mr. Hart opened the door. The idea. He shouted, a man of your age trying to enter here as a freshman. Eighteen years old, are you? Well, I'll give you 18 minutes to get away from the room. And half a dozen undergraduates who were waiting in the hall followed him curiously with their eyes. When he had gone a little way, he turned around, faced the infuriated registrar, who was still standing in the door and repeated in a firm voice. I am 18 years old. To a chorus of titters which went up from the group of undergraduates, Benjamin walked away. But he was not surprised that a railroad station he found that he was being followed by a group, then by a swarm, and finally by a dense mass of undergraduates. The word had gone around that a lunatic had passed the entrance examinations for Yale and attempted to palm himself off as a youth of 18. A fever of excitement permeated the college. Men ran hatless out of classes. The football team abandoned his practice and bustles out of position ran shouting after the procession, from which proceeded a continual succession of remarks aimed at the tender sensibilities of Benjamin Button. He must be a wandering Jew. He ought to go to prep school or hit sage. Look at the infant prodigy. He thought this was the old man's home. Go up to Harvard. Benjamin increased his gate and soon he was running. He would show them. He would go to Harvard and then they would regret these ill-considerate taunts. Safely on the train for Baltimore, he put his head from the window. He'll regret this. He shouted. The undergraduates laughed. It was the biggest mistake that Yale College had ever made. In 1980 Benjamin Button was twenty years old and he signaled his birthday by going to work for his father in Roger Button and Company Wholesale Hardware. It was in the same year that he began going out socially, that is, his father insisted on taking him to several fashionable dances. Roger Button was now fifty and he and his son were more and more compatible. When he was in his hair, which was still grayish, they appeared about the same age and could have passed for brothers. One night in August they got into the Phaeton, attired in their full-dressed suits and drove out to a dance at the Shulman's Country Cloughs. Situated just outside of Baltimore, it was a gorgeous evening, a full moon drenched the road to the lusterless aromas that were like low half-herd laughter. The open country carpeted for rods around with bright wheat was translucent as in the day. It was almost impossible not to be affected by the sheer beauty of the sky. Almost. There is a great future in the dry goods business, Roger Button was saying. He was not a spiritual man, his aesthetic sense was old fellows like me can't learn new tricks, he observed profoundly. It's you youngsters with energy and vitality that have the great future before you. Far up the road the lights of the Shulman's Country House drifted into view, and presently there was a singing sound that crept persistently toward them. It might have been the fine plate of violoons or the rustle of the silver wheat that the others were disembarking at the door, a lady got out. Then an elderly gentleman, then another young lady, beautiful as sin, Benjamin started. An almost chemical change seemed to dissolve and recompose the very elements of his body. A rigor passed over him, blood rose into his cheeks, his forehead, and there was a steady thumping in his hair. The girl was slender and frail, with hair that was ashen under the moon and honey-coloured under the sputtering gas-lamps of the porch. Over her shoulders was thrown a Spanish mantilla, of soft as yellow, but applied in black. Her feet were glittering buttons at the hem of her bustled dress. Roger Button leaned over his son. That, he said, his young Hildegard pretty low-fing, he said indifferently. But when the boy had led the buggy away, Dad, he might introduce me to her. They approached a group of which Miss Montgrieve was the centre. Reared in the old tradition, she curtsied low before Benjamin. Yes, he might have a dance. He thanked her and walked away, staggered away. The interval until the time terminally. He stood close to the wall, silent and scruitable, watching with murderous eyes the young blood-soaked, as they eddied around Hildegard Montgrieve, passionate admiration in their faces. How obnoxious they seemed to Benjamin. How intolerably rosy. Their curling-brown whiskers aroused in him, feeling equivalent to indigestion. But when his own time came with her out upon the changing floor, to the music of the latest walls from Paris, his jealousies and anxieties melted from him, like a mantle of snow, blind with enchantment, he felt that life was just beginning. You and your brother got here just as we did, didn't you? Ask Hildegard. Looking up at him with eyes that were like bright blue enamel. Was it him for his father's brother, or would it be best to enlighten her? You remembered his experience at Yale, so he decided against it. It would be rude to contradict a lady. It would be criminal to mar this exquisite occasion, with the grotesque story of his origin. It perhaps. So he nodded, smiled, listened, was happy. I like men of your age, idiotic. They tell me how much champagne they drink at college, and how much money they lose playing cards. Men of your age know how to appreciate women. Benjamin felt himself on the verge of a proposal. With an effort he choked back the impulse. You're just a romantic age, she continued. Fifty-twenty-five is two wordly, wise, thirty is apt to be pale from over forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell. Sixty is ah, sixty is two near seventy. But fifty is the mellow age. I love fifty. Fifty seemed to Benjamin agroir his age. He longed passionately to be fifty. I've always said, went on Hildegarde, that I'd rather marry a man of fifty and be taken care of, than marry a man of thirty and fifty. Benjamin, the rest of the evening, was bathed in honey-coloured mist. Hildegarde gave him two more dances, and they discovered that they were marvellously in accord on all the questions of the day. She was to go driving with him on the following Sunday, and then they would discuss all their questions further. Going home in the Fayettan just before the crack of night, Benjamin knew vaguely that his father was discussing wholesale hardware. And what do you think should merit our biggest attention after hammers and nails? The elder Button was saying, "'Love,' replied Benjamin, absentmindedly. "'Lugs,' exclaimed Roger Button. "'Why, I've just covered the question of lugs.' Benjamin regarded him with light, and an oil yawn piercingly in the quickening trees. When six months later the engagement of Miss Hildegarde Moncliff to Mr. Benjamin Button was made known—I say made known for General Moncliff, declared—he would rather fall upon his sword than announce it. The excitement in Baltimore society reached a feverish pitch. The members remembered and sent out upon the winds of scandal in picturesque and incredible forms. It was said that Benjamin was really the father of Roger Button, that he was his brother, who had been in prison for forty years, that he was John Wilkes Booth in disguise, and finally that he had two small conical horns sprouting from his head. The Sunday supplements of the snating sketches, which showed the head of Benjamin Button attached to a fish, to a snake, and finally to a body of solid brass. He became known journalistically as the mystery man of Maryland, but the true story, as is usually the case, had a very small circulation. However, everyone agreed with General Moncliff that it was criminal for a lovely girl who could have to throw herself into the arms of a man who was assuredly fifty. In vain Mr. Roger Button published his son's birth certificate in large type in the Baltimore blaze. No one believed it. You had only to look at Benjamin and see. On the part of the two people most concerned, there was no wavering, so many of the stories about her fiance were false, that certainly, to believe even the true one. In vain General Moncliff pointed out to her the high mortality among men of fifty, or at least among men who looked fifty. In vain he told her of the instability of the wholesale hardware business, Hildegard, and chosen to marry formalness, and marry she did. In one particular at least the friend of Hildegard The wholesale hardware business prospered amazingly. In the fifteen years between Benjamin and Button's marriage in 1880, and his father's retirement in 1895, the family fortune was doubled, and this was due largely to the younger member of the firm. Needless to say, Baltimore eventually received the couple to its bosom. Even old General Moncliff became reconciled to his son-in-law for the money to bring out his history of the Civil War in twenty volumes, which had been refused by nine prominent publishers. In Benjamin himself fifteen years had wrought many changes, seemed to him that the blood flowed with new vigor through his veins. It began to be a pleasure to rise in the morning to walk with an active step along the busy sunny street, to work untiringly with his shipments in 1890 that he executed his famous business coup. He brought up the suggestion that all nails used in nailing up the boxes in which nails were shipped are the property of the ship-e. A proposal which became a statute was approved by Chief Justice Fossil, and saved Roger Button and Company wholesale hardware more than six hundred nails every year. In addition, Benjamin discovered that he was becoming more and more attracted by the gay side of life. It was typical of his growing enthusiasm for pleasure that he was the first man of the city of Baltimore to own and run an automobile. Meeting him on the street his contemporaries would stare ambiously at the picture he made of health and vitality. He seems to grow younger every year, they would remark, and if old Roger had failed at first to give a proper welcome to his son, a tone at last by bestowing on him what amounted to adulation. And here we come to an unpleasant subject which it will be well to pass over as quickly as possible. There was only one thing that worried Benjamin Button. His wife had ceased to attract him. At the time Hildegard was a woman of thirty-five with a son, Roscoe, fourteen years old. In the early days of their marriage Benjamin had worshipped her, but as the years passed her honey-coloured hair became an unexciting brown. The blue enamel of her eyes assumed the aspect of cheap crockery. Moreover, and most of all, she had become too settled in ways, too placid, too content, too anemic in her excitements, and too sober in her taste. She had been she who had dragged Benjamin to dances and dinners. Now conditions were reversed. She went out socially with him, but without enthusiasm. Devoured already by the eternal inertia which comes to live with each of us one day and stays with us to the end. Benjamin's discontent waxed stronger. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 his home had for him so excited to join the army. With his business influence he obtained a commission as captain and proved so adaptable to the work that he was made a major and, finally, a lieutenant colonel just in time to participate in the celebrated charge up San Juan Hill, he was slightly wounded and received a medal. Benjamin had become so attached to the activity and excitement of army life that he had no intention so he resigned his commission, came home. He was met at the station by a brass band and escorted to his house. End of part one. Section two of the curious case of Benjamin Button. This lever box recording is in the public domain, recording by Mike Vendetti, Mike Vendetti.com. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. By F. Scott Fitzgerald. The silk flag greeted him on the porch and, even as he kissed her, he felt with a sinking feeling of the heart that these three years had taken her toll. She was a woman of forty now with a faint skirmish line of gray hairs in her head. The sight depressed him. Up in his room he saw his reflection in the familiar mirror and went closer and examined his own face with a form taken just before the war. Good Lord! he said aloud. The process was continuing. There was no doubt of it. He looked now like a man of thirty instead of being delighted. He was uneasy. He was growing younger and had hitherto hoped that once he reached a bodily age equivalent to his age in years, the grotesque phenomenon on which had marked his birth would cease the time for him. Awful! Incredible! When he came downstairs Hildegard was waiting for him. She appeared annoyed and he wondered if she had at last discovered that there was something amiss. It was with an effort to relieve the tension between them that he broached the matter at dinner in what he considered a delicate way. Well, he remarked lightly, and regarded him with scorn. She sniffed. Do you think it's anything to boast about? Well, I'm not boasting. He asserted uncomfortably. She sniffed again. The idea, she said, and after a moment I should think you'd have enough pride to stop it. How can I? He demanded. I'm not going to argue with you, she retorted. But there's a right way of different from everyone else. I don't suppose I can stop you, but I really don't think it's very considerate. But Hildegard, I can't help it. You can, too. You're simply stubborn. You think you don't want to be like anyone else. You always have been that way, and you always will be. But just think how it would be if everyone else looked at things as you do. What would be more appropriate to think about? We must think that we would have more pride in the society. But, at the time, this was an inane and unanswerable argument. Benjamin made no reply, and from that time on a chasm began to widen between them. He wondered what possible fascination she had ever chatting with the most popular of the debutantes, and finding their company charming, while his wife, a dowager of evil omen, sat among the chaperones. Now an haughty disapproval, and now following him was solemn, puzzled, and reproachful eyes. Look, people would remark what a pity! A young fellow that age tied to a woman of forty-five. He must be twenty years younger than his wife. They had forgotten his people and very thoroughly forget. That, back in eighteen-eighty, their mamas and papas had also remarked about this same ill-matched pair. Benjamin's growing unhappiness at home was compensated for by his many new interests. He took up golf and made a great success of it. He went in for dancing. In nineteen-o-six he was an expert at the Boston, and in nineteen-o-eight he was considered proficient at the Maxine, while in nineteen-o-nine his castle walk was the envy of every young man in town. His social activity, of course, interfered to some extent with his business. But then he had worked hard at Wholesale Hardware for twenty-five years, and felt that he could soon hand it on to his son, Roscoe, who had recently graduated from Harvard. He and his son, in fact, were often mistaken for each other. Thus pleased Benjamin, he soon forgot the insidious fear which had come over him on his return from the Spanish-American War, and could it take a naive pleasure in his appearance. There was only one fly in the delicious ointment. He hated to appear in public with his wife. Hildegard was almost fifty, and the sight of her made him feel absurd. CHAPTER IX On September day in nineteen-ten, few years after Roger Button and Company Wholesale Hardware had been handed over to young Roscoe Button, a man apparently about twenty years old, entered himself as a freshman at Harvard University in Cambridge. He did not make the mistake of announcing that he would never see fifty again, nor did he mention the fact that his son had been graduated from the same institution ten years before. He was admitted and almost immediately attained a prominent position in the class, partially because he seemed a little older than the other freshman, whose average age was about eighteen. But his success was largely due to the fact that in the football game with Yale he played so brilliantly with so much dash and with such a cold, remorseless anger that he scored seven touchdowns and fourteen field goals for Harvard, and caused one entire eleven of Yale men to be carried singularly away from the field unconscious. He was the most celebrated man in college. Strange to say in his third or junior year he was scarcely able to make the team. Coaches said that he had lost weight and it seemed to the more observant among them that he was not quite as tall as before. He made no touchdowns, indeed. He was retained on the team chiefly in hope that his enormous reputation would bring terror and disorganization to the Yale team. In his senior year he did not make the team at all. He had grown so slight and frail that one day he was taken by some sophomores for a freshman, an incident which humiliated him terribly. He became known as something of a prodigy, a senior who was surely no more than sixteen, and he was often shocked at the worldliness of some of his classmates. His studies seemed harder to him. He felt that they were too advanced. He heard his classmates speak of St. Midas, the famous preparatory school at which so many of them had prepared for college, and he determined after his graduation to enter himself at St. Midas, where the sheltered life among boys' own size would be more congenial to him. Upon his graduation in 1914 he went home to Baltimore with his Harvard diploma in his pocket. Hildegard was now residing in Italy, so Benjamin went to live with his son Roscoe. But though he was welcomed in a general way, there was obviously no heartiness in Roscoe's feeling for him. There was even perceptible a tendency on his son's part to think that Benjamin was, as he moped about the house, in adolescence, mooniness, was somewhat in the way. Roscoe was married now and prominent in Baltimore life, and he wanted no scandal to creep out in connection with his family. Benjamin, no longer a persona grata, with the debitants and younger colleagues set, found himself much left done except for the companionship of three or four fifteen-year-old boys in the neighborhood. His idea of going to St. Midas's school recurred to him. Say, said Roscoe one day, I've told you over and over that I want to go to prep school. Well, go then, replied Roscoe shortly. The matter was distasteful to him and he wished to avoid a discussion. I can't go alone, said Benjamin helplessly. You'll have to enter me and take me up there. I haven't got time, declared Roscoe abruptly, as I had narrowed and he looked uneasily at his father. As a matter of fact he added, you better not go on with this business much longer. You better pull up short. You better, you better, you pause then his face crimson that he sought for words. You better turn right around and start back the other way. This has gone too far to be a joke. It isn't funny any longer. You behave yourself. Benjamin looked at him on the verge of tears. And another thing continued Roscoe. When visitors are in the house, I want you to call me Uncle, not Roscoe but Uncle. Do you understand? It looks absurd for a boy of fifteen to call me by my first name. Perhaps you'd better call me Uncle all the time. Still get used to it. With a harsh look after his father, Roscoe turned away. CHAPTER X At the termination of his interview Benjamin wandered dismally upstairs and stared at himself in a mirror. He had not shaved for three months but it could find nothing on his face but a faint white down with which it seemed unnecessary to meddle. When he had first come home from Harvard Roscoe had approached him with the proposition that he should wear eyeglasses and imitation whiskers glued to his cheeks and it seemed for a moment that the farce of his early years was to be repeated but whiskers had itched and made him ashamed. He wept and Roscoe had reluctantly relented. Benjamin opened a book of boy stories, The Boy Scouts in Bimini Bay. He began to read. But he found himself thinking persistently about the war. American had joined the Allies' cause during the preceding month and Benjamin wanted to enlist. But last sixteen was the minimum age and he did not look that old. His true age, which was fifty-seven, would have disqualified him anyway. There was a knock at the door. And a butler appeared with a letter bearing a large official legend in the corner and addressed to Mr. Benjamin Button. Benjamin tore it open eagerly. And read the enclosure with delight. It formed him that many reserve officers who had served in the Spanish-American War were being called back into service with a higher rank. And it enclosed his commission as Brigadier General in the United States Army, with orders to report immediately. Benjamin jumped to his feet, fairly quivering with enthusiasm. This was what he had wanted. He seized his camp and ten minutes later he had entered a large tailoring establishment on Charles Street and asked in his uncertain treble to be measured for a uniform. Want to play soldier, sonny? Demanded the clerk casually. Benjamin flushed. Say, never mind what I want. He retorted angrily. My name's Benjamin and I live on Mount Vernon Place, so you know I'm good for it. Well, admitted the clerk hesitantly. If you're not, I guess your daddy is all right. Benjamin was measured and a week later his uniform was completed. He had difficulty in obtaining the proper generals insignia because the dealer kept insisting to Benjamin that a nice VWCA badge would look just as well and be much more fun to play with. Saying nothing to Roscoe he left the house one night and proceeded by train to Camp Mosby in South Carolina, where he was to command an infantry brigade. On a sultry April day he approached the entrance to the camp, paid off the taxicab which had brought him from the station and turned to the sentry on guard. Get some one to handle my luggage, he said briskly. The sentry eyed him reproachily. Say, he remarked. Where you going with the general, dud, sonny? Benjamin, veteran of the Spanish-American War, whirled upon him with fire in his eye, but with a last, a changing, treble voice. Dumb to attention! He tried to thunder, he paused for breath, then suddenly he saw the sentry snap his heels together and bring his rifle to the present. Benjamin concealed a smile of gratification, but when he glanced around his smile faded. It was not he who had inspired obedience, but an imposing artillery colonel who was approaching on horseback. Colonel called Benjamin shrilly. Colonel came up, drew rain, and looked coldly down at him with a twinkle in his eye. Who, little boy, are you? he demanded kindly. I'll soon darn well show you who, little boy, I am. Retorted Benjamin in a ferocious voice, and get down off that horse. Colonel roared with laughter. You want him, eh, general? Here, cried Benjamin desperately, read this. And he thrust his commotion toward the colonel. The colonel read at his eyes, popping from their sockets. Where'd you get this? he demanded, slipping the document into his own pocket. I got him from the government as you'll soon find out. You come along with me, said the colonel, with a peculiar look. We'll go up to headquarters and talk this over. Come on. The colonel turned and began walking his horse in the direction of headquarters. There was nothing for Benjamin to do but to follow, with as much dignity as possible, meanwhile promising himself a stern revenge. But his revenge did not materialize. Two days later, however, his son, Roscoe, materialized from Baltimore, hot and cross, from a hasty trip, and escorted the weaking general, sans uniform, back to his home. CHAPTER XI In 1920 Roscoe Button's first child was born. During the attendant festivities, however, no one thought it a thing to mention that the little grubby boy, apparently about ten years of age, who played around the house with lead soldiers in a miniature circus, was a new baby's own grandfather. No one disliked the little boy, whose fresh, cheerful face was crossed with just a hint of sadness, but to Roscoe Button his presence was a source of torment. In the idiom of his generation, Roscoe did not consider the matter efficient. It seemed to him that his father, in refusing to look sixty, had not behaved like a red-blooded he-man. This was Roscoe's favorite expression. But in a curious and perverse manner, indeed, to think about the matter for as much as a half an hour drove him to the edge of insanity. Roscoe believed that live wires should keep young, but carrying it out on such a scale once was inefficient, and there Roscoe rested. Five years later, Roscoe's little boy had grown old enough to play childish games with little Benjamin, under the supervision of the same nurse. Roscoe took them both to kindergarten on the same day, and Benjamin found that playing with those strips of colored paper, making mats and chains and curious and beautiful designs, was the most fascinating game in the world. Once he was bad and had to stand in the corner. Then he cried, but for the most part there were gay hours in the cheerful room, with the sunlight coming into windows and Miss Bailey's kind hand resting for a moment now and then in his tousled hair. Roscoe's son moved up into the first grade after a year, but Benjamin stayed on in the kindergarten. He was very happy. Sometimes when other tauts talked about what they would do when they grew up, a shadow would cross his little face as if in a dim, childish way. He relished that those were things in which he was never to share. The days flowed on monotonous content. He went back a third year to the kindergarten, but he was too little now to understand what the bright shining strips of paper were for. He cried because the other boys were bigger than he, and he was afraid of them. Teacher talked to him, but though he tried to understand, he could not understand at all. He was taken from kindergarten. His nurse, Nana, in her starched gingham dress, became the center of his tiny world. On bright days, they walked in the park. Nana would point at a great, great monster and say, Elfant. And Benjamin would say it after her. And when it was being undressed for bed that night, he would say it over and over aloud to her. Elfant, Elfant, Elfant! Sometimes Nana let him jump on the bed, which was fun, because if you sat down exactly right, it would bounce you up on your feet again. And if you said, ah, for a long time while you jumped, you got a very pleasing, broken vocal effect. He loved to take a big cane from the hat rack and go around hitting chairs and tables with it and saying, fight, fight, fight! When there were people there, the old ladies would cluck at him, which interested him and the young ladies would try to kiss him, which he submitted to with mild boredom. And when the long day was done at five o'clock, he would go upstairs with Nana and be fed an oatmeal and nice, soft, mushy food with a spoon. There were no troublesome memories in his childish sleep. No token came to him of his brave days at college, of the glittering years when he flustered the hearts of many girls. There were only the white safe walls of his crib, and Nana and a man who came to see him sometimes and had a great big orange ball that Nana pointed at just before his twilight bed hour and called the sun. When the sun went, his eyes were sleepy. There were no dreams, no dreams to haunt him. The past, the wild charge at the head of his men up San Juan Hill, the first years of his marriage when he worked late into the summer dusk, down in the busy city for young Hildegard, whom he loved the days before that when he sat smoking, far into the night in the gloomy old button-house on Monroe Street with his grandfather, all those had faded, like the substantial dreams from his mind as though they had never been. He did not remember. He did not remember clearly whether the milk was warm or cool at his last feeding, or how the days passed. There was only his crib and Nana's familiar presence, and then he remembered nothing. When he was hungry, he cried. That was all. Through the noons and nights he breathed in over him. There were soft mumblings and murmurings that he scarcely heard, and faintly differentiated smells and light and darkness. It was all dark, and his white crib and the dim faces that moved above him, and the warm, sweet aroma of the milk, faded out altogether from his mind. End of the curious case of Benjamin Button, narrated by Mike Vendetti. MikeVendetti.com