 THE CURIOUS CASE OF BINGEMON BUTTON, PART II CHAPTER V In 1880 Benjamin Button was twenty years old, and he signalized his birthday by going to work for his father in Roger Button and Company Wholesale Hardware. It was in that 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 companionable. In fact, since Benjamin had ceased to dye 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 faten, attired in their full dress suits, and drove out to a dance at the Chevalyn's country house, situated just outside of Baltimore. It was a gorgeous evening. A full moon drenched the road to the lusterless color of platinum, and late-blooming harvest flowers breathed into the motionless air, 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's a great future in the dry goods business, Roger Button was saying. He was not a spiritual man. His aesthetic sense was rudimentary. 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 Chevalyn's country house drifted into view, and presently there was a sighing sound that crept persistently toward them. It might have been the fine plate of violins, or the rustle of the silver wheat under the moon. They pulled up behind a handsome room whose passengers 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 ears. It was first love. 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 softest yellow, butterflyed in black. Her feet were glittering buttons at the hem of her bustled dress. Roger Button leaned over to his son. That, he said, is young Hildegard Moncrief, the daughter of General Moncrief. Benjamin nodded coldly. Pretty little thing, he said, indifferently. But when the negro boy had led the buggy away, he added, Dad, you might introduce me to her. They approached a group of which Miss Moncrief was the centre. Reared in the old tradition, she courtesy lobe for Benjamin. Yes, he might have a dance. He thanked her and walked away, staggered away. The interval until the time for his turn should arrive dragged itself out interminably. He stood close to the wall, silent, inscrutable, watching with murderous eyes the young bloods of Baltimore as they eddied around Hildegard Moncrief, passionate admiration in their faces. How obnoxious they seemed to Benjamin. How intolerably rosy. Their curling brown whiskers aroused in him a feeling equivalent to indigestion. But when his own time came and he drifted with her out upon the changing floor to the music of the latest waltz 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? Asked Hildegard, looking up at him with eyes that were like bright blue enamel. Benjamin hesitated. If she took him for his father's brother, would it be best to enlighten her? He 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. Later perhaps. So he nodded, smiled, listened, was happy. I like men of your age, Hildegard told him. Young boys are so 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 the romantic age, she continued. Fifty. Twenty-five is too worldly-wise. Thirty is apt to be pale from overwork. Forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell. Sixty is—oh, sixty is too near seventy. But fifty is the mellow age. I love fifty. Fifty seemed to Benjamin a glorious age. He longed passionately to be fifty. I've always said, went on Hildegard, that I'd rather marry a man of fifty and be taken care of than marry a man of thirty and take care of him. For Benjamin the rest of the evening was bathed in a honey-coloured mist. Hildegard gave him two more dances and they discovered that they were marvelously 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 these questions further. Going home in the faten just before the crack of dawn when the first bees were humming and the fading moon glimmered in the cool dew, 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 dazed eyes just as the eastern sky was suddenly cracked with light and an oriole yawned piercingly in the quickening trees. Chapter 6 When six months later the engagement of Miss Hildegard Moncrief to Mr. Benjamin Button was made known, I say, made known, for General Moncrief declared he would rather fall upon his sword than announce it. The excitement in Baltimore society reached a feverish pitch. The almost forgotten story of Benjamin's birth was remembered and sent out upon the winds of scandal in picaresque 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 New York papers played up the case with fascinating 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 Moncrief that it was criminal for a lovely girl who could have married any beau in Baltimore 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. Many of the stories about her fiance were false, that Hildegard refused stubbornly to believe even the true one. In vain General Moncrief 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 had chosen to marry for mellowness, and marry she did. CHAPTER VII In one particular, at least, the friends of Hildegard Moncrief were mistaken. The wholesale hardware business prospered amazingly. In the fifteen years between Benjamin 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 Moncrief became reconciled to his son-in-law when Benjamin gave him 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. It 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 of hammers and his cargoes of nails. It was 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 are shipped are the property of the ship-e. A proposal which became a statute was approved by Chief Justice Fossile 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 in the city of Baltimore to own and run an automobile. Meeting him on the street, his contemporaries would stare enviously at the picture he made of health and fatality. He seems to grow younger every year, they would remark. And if old Roger Button, now sixty-five years old, had failed at first to give a proper welcome to his son, he atoned 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 that time Hildegard was a woman of thirty-five, with a son, Roscoe, fourteen years old. In the early days of their marriage Benjamin had worshiped her. But as the years passed her honey-colored hair became an unexciting brown. The blue enamel of her eyes assumed the aspect of cheap crockery. Moreover, in most of all, she had become too settled in her ways. Too placid, too content, too anemic in her excitements, and too sober in her taste. As a bride it 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 that 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 little charm that he decided 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 regretted to give it up, but his business required attention so he resigned his commission and came home. He was met at the station by a brass band and escorted to his house. Chapter 8 Hildegard waving a large silk flag greeted him on the porch and even as he kissed her he felt with a sinking of the heart that these three years had taken their toll. She was a woman of forty now with a faint skirmish line of grey hairs in her head. The sight depressed him. Up in his room he saw his reflection in the familiar mirror. He went closer and examined his own face with anxiety tearing it after a moment with a photograph of himself in uniform 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. He had hitherto hoped that once he reached a bodily age equivalent to his age in years the grotesque phenomenon which had marked his birth would cease to function. He shuddered. His destiny seemed to 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 everybody says I look younger than ever. Hildegard regarded him with scorn. She sniffed. Do you think it's anything to boast about? 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 doing things and a wrong way. If you've made up your mind to be different from everybody 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 have always 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 the world be like? As 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 exercised over him. To add to the breach he found, as the new century gathered headway, that his thirst for gaiety grew stronger. Never a party of any kind in the city of Baltimore, but he was there, dancing with the prettiest of the young married women, 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 in haughty disapproval, and now following him with 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, as people inevitably 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 Maxis, while in nineteen-o-nine his castle walk was the envy of every young man in town. His social activities, 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 were, in fact, often mistaken for each other. This pleased Benjamin. He soon forgot the insidious fear which had come over him on his return from the Spanish-American war and grew to 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 One September day in nineteen-ten, a 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, partly 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 singly 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. The 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 had heard his classmates speak of St. Midas's, 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's where the sheltered life among boys his 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 toward him. There was even perceptible a tendency on his son's part to think that Benjamin, as he moped about the house in adolescent 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 persona grata with the debutantes in younger college set found himself left much alone 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, he said to 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. His eyes narrowed and he looked uneasily at his father. As a matter of fact, he added, you'd better not go on with his business much longer. You'd better pull up short. You'd better, you'd better. He paused in his face crimsoned as he sought for words. You'd 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, 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 so you'll get used to it. With a harsh look at his father, Roscoe turned away. CHAPTER X At the termination of this interview, Benjamin wandered dismally upstairs and stared at himself in the mirror. He had not shaved for three months, but he 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 had 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's stories, The Boy Scouts in Bimini Bay, and began to read. But he found himself thinking persistently about the war. America had joined the Allied cause during the preceding month, and Benjamin wanted to enlist. But alas, 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 his door, and the 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 informed 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 cap, 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 a clerk, casually. Benjamin flushed. Say, never mind what I want. He retorted angrily. My name's Button, 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 general's insignia because the dealer kept insisting to Benjamin that a nice YWCA 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 someone to handle my luggage, he said briskly. The sentry eyed him reproachfully. Say, he remarked, Where are you going with the general's dud, sonny? Benjamin, veteran of the Spanish-American War, whorled upon him with fire in his eye, but with, alas, a changing treble voice. Come 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. The colonel came up, drew rain, and looked coolly down at him with a twinkle in his eyes. Whose little boy are you? he demanded kindly. I'll soon darn well show you whose little boy I am, retorted Benjamin in a ferocious voice. Get down off that horse. The colonel roared with laughter. You want him, head general? Here, cried Benjamin desperately, read this, and he thrust his commission toward the colonel. The colonel read it, his eyes popping from their sockets. Where'd you get this? he demanded, slipping the document into his own pocket. I got it 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 along. The colonel turned and began walking his horse in the direction of headquarters. There was nothing for Benjamin to do but follow with as much dignity as possible, meanwhile promising himself a stern revenge. But this revenge did not materialize. Two days later, however, his son Roscoe materialized from Baltimore, hot and cross from a hasty trip, and escorted the weeping general, Sam's uniform, back to his home. Chapter 11 In 1920, Roscoe Button's first child was born. During the attendant festivities, however, no one thought it the thing to mention that the little grubby boy, about ten years of age, who played around the house with lead soldiers in a miniature circus, was the 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 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 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 little 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 in the windows and Miss Bailey's kind hand resting for a moment, now and then, 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 tots 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 realized that those were things in which he was never to share. The days flowed on in 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. The teacher talked to him, but though he tried to understand, he could not understand at all. He was taken from the 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 grey monster and say, elephant, Benjamin would say it after her. And when he was being undressed for bed that night, he would say it over and over aloud to her. Elephant, elephant, elephant. 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 sitting chairs and tables with it and saying, fight, fight, fight. When there were people there the old ladies would clock 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 oatmeal and nice soft mushy foods with a spoon. There were no troublesome memories in his childish sleep. No token came to him at the 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 a great big orange ball that Nana pointed at just before his twilight bed hour and called son. When the son 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 these had faded like unsubstantial 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 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 and over him there were soft mumblings and murmurings that he scarcely heard and faintly differentiated smells and light and darkness. Then it was all dark and his white crib and the dim faces of him and the warm sweet aroma of the milk faded out all together from his mind. End of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald Part 1 of The Lease of Happiness This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Larry Ann Walden. The Lease of Happiness by F. Scott Fitzgerald Part 1 Introduction Of this story I can say that it came to me in an irresistible form crying to be written. It will be accused perhaps of being a mere piece of sentimentality but as I saw it it was a great deal more. If therefore it lacks the ring of sincerity or even of tragedy the fault rests not with the theme but with my handling of it. It appeared in the Chicago Tribune and later obtained, I believe, the quadruple gold laurel leaf or some such incomium from one of the anthologists who at present swarm among us. The gentleman I refer to runs as a rule to stark melodramas with a volcano or the ghost of John Paul Jones in the role of Nemesis. Melodramas carefully disguised by early paragraphs in Jamesian manner which hint dark and subtle complexities to follow. On this order the case of Shaw McPhee, curiously enough, had no bearing on the almost incredible attitude of Martin Sulo. This is parenthetical and to at least three observers whose names for the present I must conceal it seems improbable etc etc etc until the poor rat of fiction is at least forced out into the open and the melodrama begins. End of the introduction The Lease of Happiness If you should look through the files of old magazines for the first years of the present century you would find sandwiched in between the stories of Richard Harding-Davis and Frank Norris and others long since dead the work of one Jeffrey Curtin a novel or two and perhaps three or four dozen short stories. You could, if you were interested, follow them along until say 1908 when they suddenly disappeared. When you had read them all you would have thought when you had read them all you would have been quite sure that here were no masterpieces here were passively amusing stories a bit out of date now but doubtless the sort that would then have wild away a dreary half hour in a dental office the man who did them was of good intelligence talented, glib, probably young in the samples of his work you found there would have been nothing to stir you to more than a faint interest in the whims of life no deep interior laughs no sense of futility or hint of tragedy after reading them you would yawn and put the number back in the files and perhaps if you were in some library reading room you would decide that by way of variety you would look at a newspaper of the period and see whether the Japs had taken Port Arthur but if by any chance the newspaper you had chosen was the right one and had crackled open at the theatrical page your eyes would have been arrested and held and for at least a minute you would have forgotten Port Arthur as quickly as you forgot Chateau Thierry for you would, by this fortunate chance be looking at the portrait of an exquisite woman those were the days of floridora and of sextets of pinched in wastes and blown out sleeves of almost bustles and absolute ballet skirts but here without doubt disguised as she might be the custom stiffness and old fashion of her costume was a butterfly of butterflies here was the gaiety of the period the soft wine of eyes the songs that flurried hearts the toasts and the bouquets the dances and the dinners here was a venus of the handsome cab the Gibson girl in her glorious prom here was here was you find by looking at the name beneath Roxanne Milbank who had been chorus girl and understudy in the daisy chain but who by reason of an excellent performance when the star was indisposed had gained a leading part you would look again and wonder why you had never heard of her why did her name not linger in popular songs and vaudeville jokes and cigar bands and the memory of that gay old uncle of yours along with Lillian Russell and Stella Mayhew and Anna Held Roxanne Milbank with her had she gone what dark trapdoor had opened suddenly and swallowed her up her name was certainly not in last Sunday's supplement on that list of actresses married to English nobleman no doubt she was dead poor beautiful young lady and quite forgotten I am hoping too much I'm having you stumble on Jeffrey Curtin's stories in Roxanne Milbank's picture it would be incredible that you should find a newspaper item six months later a single item two inches by four which informed the public of the marriage very quietly of Miss Roxanne Milbank who had been on tour with the daisy chain to Mr. Jeffrey Curtin the popular author Mrs. Curtin it added dispassionately will retire from the stage it was a marriage of love he was sufficiently spoiled to be charming she was ingenuous enough to be irresistible like two floating logs they met in a head-on rush caught and sped along together yet had Jeffrey Curtin kept it scrivening for two score years he could not have put a quirk into one of his stories weirder than the quirk that came into his own life had Roxanne Milbank played three dozen parts and filled five thousand houses she could never have had a role with more happiness and more despair than were in the fate prepared for Roxanne Curtin for a year they lived in hotels traveled to California to Alaska to Florida to Mexico loved and quarreled gently and gloried in the golden triflings of his wit with her beauty they were young and gravely passionate they demanded everything and then yielded everything again in ecstasies of unselfishness and pride she loved the swift tones of his voice and his frantic unfounded jealousy he loved her dark radiance the white irises of her eyes the warm lustrous enthusiasm of her smile don't you like her he would demand rather excitedly and shyly isn't she wonderful did you ever see yes they would answer grinning she's a wonder you're lucky the year passed they tired of hotels they bought an old house in twenty acres near the town of Marlowe half an hour from Chicago bought a little car and moved out riotously with a pioneering hallucination that would have confounded Balboa your room will be here they cried in turn and then and my room here and the nursery here when we have children and we'll build a sleeping porch oh next year they moved out in April in July Jeffrey's closest friend Harry Cromwell came to spend a week they met him at the end of the long lawn and hurried him proudly to the house Harry was married also his wife had had a baby some six months before and was still recuperating at her mother's in New York Roxanne had gathered from Jeffrey that Harry's wife was not as attractive as Harry Jeffrey had met her once and considered her shallow but Harry had been married nearly two years and was apparently happy so Jeffrey guessed that she was probably all right I'm making biscuits chattered Roxanne gravely can your wife make biscuits the cook is showing me how I think every woman should know how to make biscuits it sounds so utterly disarming a woman who can make biscuits can surely do know you'll have to come out here and live said Jeffrey get a place out in the country like us for you and Kitty you don't know Kitty she hates the country she's got to have her theaters in vaudeville bring her out repeated Jeffrey we'll have a colony there's an awfully nice crowd here already bring her out they were at the porch steps now and Roxanne made a brisk gesture with a complicated structure on the right the garage she announced it will also be Jeffrey's writing room within the month meanwhile dinner is at seven meanwhile to that I will mix a cocktail the two men ascended to the second floor that is they ascended halfway for at the first landing Jeffrey dropped his guest suitcase and in a cross between a query and a cry exclaimed for God's sake Harry we like her we will go upstairs answered his guest and we will shut the door half an hour later as they were sitting together in the library Roxanne reissued from the kitchen bearing before her a pan of biscuits Jeffrey and Harry rose their beautiful dear said the husband intensely exquisite murmured Harry Roxanne beamed taste one I couldn't bear to touch them before you'd seen them all and I can't bear to take them back until I find what they taste like like men a darling simultaneously the two men raised the biscuits to their lips nibbled tentatively simultaneously they tried to change the subject but Roxanne undeceived sat down the pan and seized a biscuit after a second her comment rang out with legubrious finality absolutely bum really? why I didn't notice Roxanne roared oh I'm useless she cried laughing turn me out Jeffrey I'm a parasite I'm no good Jeffrey put his arm around her darling I'll eat your biscuits they're beautiful anyway insisted Roxanne their their decorative suggested Harry Jeffrey took him up wildly that's the word their decorative their masterpieces we'll use them he rushed to the kitchen and returned with a hammer and a handful of nails we'll use them by golly Roxanne we'll make a freeze out of them don't wailed Roxanne our beautiful house never mind we'll have the library repapered in October don't you remember well bang the first biscuit was impaled to the wall where it quivered for a moment like a live thing bang when Roxanne returned with a second round of cocktails the biscuits were in a perpendicular row 12 of them like a collection of primitive spearheads Roxanne exclaimed Jeffrey you're an artist cook nonsense you shall illustrate my books during dinner the twilight faltered into dusk and later it was a starry dark outside filled and permeated with the frail gorgeousness of Roxanne's white dress and her tremulous low laugh such a little girl she is thought Harry not as old as Kitty he compared the two Kitty nervous without being sensitive temperamental without temperament a woman who seemed to flit and never light and Roxanne who was as young as spring night and summed up in her own adolescent laughter a good match for Jeffrey he thought again two very young people the sort who'll stay very young until they suddenly find themselves old Harry thought these things between his constant thoughts about Kitty he was depressed about Kitty it seemed to him that she was well enough to come back to Chicago and bring his little son he was thinking vaguely of Kitty when he said goodnight to his friend's wife and his friend at the foot of the stairs you're our first real house guest called Roxanne after him aren't you thrilled and proud when he was out of sight around the stair corner she turned to Jeffrey who was standing beside her resting his hand on the end of the banister are you tired my dearest Jeffrey rubbed the center of his forehead with his fingers a little how did you know oh how could I help knowing about you it's a headache he said mootily splitting I'll take some aspirin she reached over and snapped out the light and with his arm tight about her waist they walked up the stairs together Chapter 2 Harry's week passed they drove about the dreaming lanes or idled in cheerful inanity upon lake or lawn in the evening Roxanne sitting inside played to them while the ashes whitened on the glowing ends of their cigars then came a telegram from Kitty saying that she wanted Harry to come east and get her so Roxanne and Jeffrey were left alone in that privacy of which they never seemed to tire alone thrilled them again they wandered about the house each feeling intimately the presence of the other they sat on the same side of the table like honeymooners they were intensely absorbed intensely happy the town of Marlowe though a comparatively old settlement had only recently acquired a society five or six years before alarmed at the smoky swelling of Chicago two or three young married couples bungalow people had moved out and followed the Jeffrey curtains found an already formed set prepared to welcome them a country club, ballroom and golf links yawned for them and there were bridge parties and poker parties and parties where they drank beer and parties where they drank nothing at all it was at a poker party that they found themselves a week after Harry's departure there were two tables and a good proportion of the young wives were smoking and shouting their bets and they had to finish for those days Roxanne had left the game early and taken to perambulation she wandered into the pantry and found herself some grape juice beer gave her a headache and then passed from table to table looking over shoulders at the hands keeping an eye on Jeffrey and being pleasantly unexcited and content Jeffrey with intense concentration was raising a pile of chips of all colors and Roxanne knew by the deepened between his eyes that he was interested she liked to see him interested in small things she crossed over quietly and sat down on the arm of his chair she sat there five minutes listening to the sharp intermittent comments of the men and the chatter of the women which rose from the table like soft smoke and yet scarcely hearing either then quite innocently she reached out her hand intending to place it on Jeffrey's shoulder as it touched him he started of a sudden gave a short grunt and sweeping back his arm furiously caught her a glancing blow on her elbow there was a general gasp Roxanne regained her balance gave a little cry and rose quickly to her feet it had been the greatest shock of her life this from Jeffrey the heart of kindness of consideration this instinctively brutal gesture the gasp became a silence a dozen eyes were turned on Jeffrey who looked up as though seeing Roxanne for the first time an expression of bewilderment settled on his face why, Roxanne he said haltingly into a dozen minds entered a quick suspicion a rumour of scandal could it be that behind the scenes with this couple apparently so in love some curious antipathy why else this streak of fire across such a cloudless heaven Jeffrey Roxanne's voice was pleading startled and horrified she yet knew that it was a mistake not once did it occur to her to blame him or to resent it her word was a trembling supplication tell me Jeffrey it said tell Roxanne your own Roxanne why Roxanne began Jeffrey again the bewildered look changed to pain he was clearly as startled as she I didn't intend that he went on you startled me you I felt as if someone were attacking me why how idiotic Jeffrey again the word was a prayer offered up to a high god through this new and unfathomable darkness they were both on their feet they were saying goodbye faltering apologizing explaining there was no attempt to pass it off easily that way lay sacrilege Jeffrey had not been feeling well they said he had become nervous back of both their minds was the unexplained horror of that blow the marvel that there had been for an instant something between them his anger and her fear and now to both a sorrow momentary no doubt but to be bridged at once at once while there was yet time was that swift water lashing under their feet the fierce glint of some uncharted chasm out in their car under the harvest moon he talked brokenly it was just incomprehensible to him he said he had been thinking of the poker game absorbed and the touch on his shoulder had seemed like an attack an attack he clung to that word flung it up as a shield he had hated what touched him with the impact of his hand it had gone that nervousness that was all he knew both their eyes filled with tears and they whispered love there under the broad night as the serene streets of Marlowe sped by later when they went to bed they were quite calm Jeffrey was to take a week off all work was simply to lull and sleep and go on long walks until this nervousness left him when they had decided this safety settled down upon Roxanne the pillows under head became soft and friendly the bed on which they lay seemed wide and white and sturdy beneath the radiance that streamed in at the window five days later in the first full of late afternoon Jeffrey picked up an oak chair and sent it crashing through his own front window then he lay down on the couch like a child weeping piteously and begging to die a blood clot the size of a marble had broken in his brain chapter three there is a sort of waking nightmare that sets in sometimes when one has missed a sleeper too a feeling that comes with extreme fatigue and a new son the quality of the life around has changed it is a fully articulate conviction that somehow the existence one is then leading is a branch shoot of life and is related to life only as a moving picture or a mirror that the people and streets and houses are only projections from a very dim and chaotic past it was in such a state that Roxanne found herself during the first months of Jeffrey's illness she slept only when she was utterly exhausted she awoke under a cloud the long sober voice consultations the faint aura of medicine in the halls the sudden tiptoeing in a house that had echoed to many cheerful footsteps and most of all Jeffrey's white face amid the pillows of the bed they had shared these things subdued her and made her indelibly older the doctors held out hope but that was all a long rest they said and quiet so responsibility came to Roxanne it was she who paid the bills poured over his bank book corresponded with his publishers she was in the kitchen constantly she learned from the nurse how to prepare his meals and after the first month took complete charge of the sick room she had had to let the nurse go for reasons of economy one of the two colored girls left at the same time Roxanne was realizing that they had been living from short story to short story the most frequent visitor was Harry Cromwell he had been shocked and depressed by the news and though his wife was now living with him in Chicago he found time to come out several times a month Roxanne found his sympathy welcome there was some quality of suffering in the man some inherent pitifulness that made her comfortable when he was near Roxanne's nature had suddenly deepened she felt sometimes that with Jeffrey she was losing her children also those children that now most of all she needed and should have had it was six months after Jeffrey's collapse and when the nightmare had faded leaving not the old world but a new one Greyer and colder that she went to see Harry's wife finding herself in Chicago with an extra hour before train time she decided out of courtesy to call as she stepped inside the door she had an immediate impression that the apartment was very like some place she had seen before and almost instantly she remembered around the corner bakery of her childhood a bakery full of rows and rows of pink frosted cakes a stuffy pink pink as a food pink triumphant vulgar and odious and this apartment was like that it was pink it smelled pink Mrs. Cromwell attired in a wrapper of pink and black opened the door her hair was yellow heightened Roxanne imagined by a dash of peroxide in the rinsing water every week her eyes were a thin wax and blue she was pretty and too consciously graceful her cordiality was strident and intimate hostility melted so quickly to hospitality that it seemed they were both merely in the face and voice never touching nor touched by the deep core of egotism beneath but to Roxanne these things were secondary her eyes were caught and held in uncanny fascination by the wrapper it was vilely unclean from its lowest hem up four inches it was sheerly dirty with the blue dust of the floor for the next three inches it was gray faded off into its natural color which was pink it was dirty at the sleeves too and at the collar and when the woman turned to lead the way into the parlor Roxanne was sure that her neck was dirty a one-sided rattle of conversation began Mrs. Cromwell became explicit about her likes and dislikes her head, her stomach, her teeth her apartment avoiding with a sort of insolent meticulousness the inclusion of Roxanne with life as if presuming that Roxanne having been dealt a blow wished life to be carefully skirted Roxanne smiled that kimono that neck after five minutes a little boy toddled into the parlor a dirty little boy clad in dirty pink rompers his face was smudgy Roxanne wanted to take him into her lap and wipe his nose other parts in the vicinity of his head needed attention his tiny shoes were kicked out at the toes unspeakable what a darling little boy exclaimed Roxanne smiling radiantly come here to me Mrs. Cromwell looked coldly at her son he will get dirty look at that face she held her head on one side and regarded it critically yet darling, repeated Roxanne look at his rompers, frowned Mrs. Cromwell he needs a change, don't you George? George stared at her curiously to his mind the word rompers connotated a garment extraneously smeared as this one I tried to make him look respectable this morning complained Mrs. Cromwell as one whose patience had been sorely tried and I found he didn't have any more rompers so rather than have him go round without any I put him back in those and his face how many pairs has he Roxanne's voice was pleasantly curious how many feather fans have you she might have asked oh, Mrs. Cromwell considered wrinkling her pretty brow five I think plenty I know you can get them for fifty cents a pair Mrs. Cromwell's eyes showed surprise and the faintest superiority the price of rompers can you really I had no idea he ought to have plenty but I haven't had a minute all week to send the laundry out then dismissing the subject as irrelevant I must show you some things they rose and Roxanne followed her past an open bathroom door whose garment littered floor showed indeed that the laundry hadn't been sent out for some time into another room that was so to speak the quintessence of pinkness this was Mrs. Cromwell's room here the hostess opened a closet door and displayed before Roxanne's eyes an amazing collection of lingerie there were dozens of filmy marvels of lace and silk all clean, unruffled, seemingly yet touched on hangers beside them were three new evening dresses I have some beautiful things said Mrs. Cromwell but not much of a chance to wear them Harry doesn't care about going out spite crept into her voice he's perfectly content to let me play nurse maid and housekeeper all day and loving wife in the evening Roxanne smiled again you've got some beautiful clothes here yes I have let me show you beautiful repeated Roxanne interrupting but I'll have to run if I'm going to catch my train she felt that her hands were trembling she wanted to put them on this woman and shake her shaker she wanted her locked up somewhere and set to scrubbing floors beautiful she repeated and I just came in for a moment well I'm sorry Harry isn't here they moved toward the door and oh said Roxanne with an effort yet her voice was still gentle and her lips were smiling I think it's Argyles where you can get those rompers goodbye it was not until she had reached the station and bought her ticket to Marlowe that Roxanne realized that it was the first five minutes in six months that her mind had been ready end of part one part two of the Lees of Happiness this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded Valerie Ann Walden The Lees of Happiness by F. Scott Fitzgerald part two chapter four a week later Harry appeared at Marlowe arrived unexpectedly at five o'clock and coming up the walk sank into a porch chair in a state of exhaustion Roxanne herself had had a busy day and was worn out the doctors were coming at 5.30 bringing a celebrated nerve specialist from New York she was excited and thoroughly depressed but Harry's eyes made her sit down beside him what's the matter nothing Roxanne I came to see how Jeff was doing don't you bother about me Harry insisted Roxanne there's something the matter nothing he repeated how's Jeff anxiety darkened her face he's a little worse Harry Dr. Dewitt has come on from New York they thought he could tell me something definite he's going to try and find whether this paralysis has anything to do with the original blood clot Harry rose oh I'm sorry he said jerkily I didn't know you expected a consultation I wouldn't have come I thought I'd just rock on your porch for an hour sit down she commanded Harry hesitated sit down Harry dear boy her kindness flooded out now I know there's something the matter you're white as a sheet I'm going to get you a cool bottle of beer all at once he collapsed into his chair and covered his face with his hands I can't make her happy he said slowly I've tried and I've tried this morning we had some words about breakfast I'd been getting my breakfast downtown and well just after I went to the office she left the house and went east to her mother's with George in a suitcase full of lace underwear Harry and I don't know there was a crunch on the gravel a car turning into the drive Roxanne uttered a little cry it's Dr. Jewett oh Al you'll wait won't you she interrupted abstractedly he saw that his problem had already died on the troubled surface of her mind there was an embarrassing minute of vague alighted introductions and then Harry followed the party inside and watched them disappear up the stairs he went into the library and sat down on the big sofa for an hour he watched the sun creep up the pattern folds of the gents curtains in the deep quiet a trapped wasp buzzing on the inside of the window pane assumed the proportions of a clamor from time to time another buzzing drifted down from upstairs resembling several more larger wasps caught on larger window panes he heard low footfalls the clink of bottles the clamor of pouring water what had he and Roxanne done that life should deal these crashing blows to them upstairs there was taking place a living inquest on the soul of his friend he was sitting here in a quiet room listening to the plaint of a wasp just as when he was a boy he had been compelled by a strict ant to sit hour long on a chair and atone for some misbehavior but who had put him here what ferocious ant had leaned out of the sky to make him atone for what about Kitty he felt a great hopelessness she was too expensive that was the irremediable difficulty suddenly he hated her he wanted to throw her down and kick at her to tell her she was a cheat and a leech that she was dirty moreover she must give him his boy he rose and began pacing up and down the room simultaneously he heard someone began walking along the hallway upstairs in exact time with him he found himself wondering if they would walk in time until the person reached the end of the hall Kitty had gone to her mother God help her what a mother to go to he tried to imagine the meeting the abused wife collapsing upon the mother's breast he could not that Kitty was capable of any deep grief was unbelievable he had gradually grown to think of her as something unapproachable and callous she would get a divorce of course and eventually she would marry again he began to consider this whom would she marry he laughed bitterly stopped a picture flashed before him of Kitty's arms around some man whose face he could not see of Kitty's lips pressed close to other lips in what was surely passion God he cried aloud God God God then the pictures came thick and fast the Kitty of this morning faded the soiled kimono rolled up and disappeared the pout and rages and tears all were washed away again she was Kitty Carr with yellow hair and great baby eyes ah she had loved him she had loved him after a while he perceived that something was amiss with him something that had nothing to do with Kitty or Jeff something of a different genre amazingly it burst on him at last he was hungry simple enough he would go into the kitchen in a moment and ask the colored cook for a sandwich after that he must go back to the city he paused at the wall jerked at something round and fingering it absently put it to his mouth and tasted it as a baby tastes a bright toy his teeth closed on it ah she left that damn kimono that dirty pink kimono she might have had the decency to take it with her he thought it would hang in the house like the corpse of their sick alliance he would try to throw it away but he would never be able to bring himself to move it it would be like Kitty soft and pliable with all impervious you couldn't move Kitty you couldn't reach Kitty there was nothing there to reach he understood that perfectly he had understood it all along he reached to the wall for another biscuit and with an effort pulled it out nail and all he carefully removed the nail from the center wondering idly if he had eaten the nail with the first biscuit preposterous he would have remembered it was a huge nail he felt his stomach he must be very hungry he considered remembered yesterday he had had no dinner it was the girl's day out and Kitty had lain in her room eating chocolate drops she had said she felt smothery and couldn't bear having him near her he had given George a bath and put him to bed and then lain down on the couch intending to rest a minute before getting his own dinner there he had fallen asleep and awakened about eleven to find that there was nothing in the icebox except a spoonful of potato salad this he had eaten together with some chocolate drops that he found on Kitty's bureau this morning he had breakfasted hurriedly downtown before going to the office but at noon beginning to worry about Kitty he had decided to go home and take her out to lunch after that there had been the note on his pillow the pile of lingerie and the closet was gone and she had left instructions for sending her trunk he had never been so hungry he thought at five o'clock when the visiting nurse tiptoed downstairs he was sitting on the sofa staring at the carpet Mr. Cromwell yes oh Mrs. Curtin won't be able to see you at dinner she's not well she told me to tell you that the cook will fix you something and that there's a spare bedroom she's sick you say she's lying down in a room the consultation is just over did they did they decide anything yes said the nurse softly Dr. Jewett says there's no hope Mr. Curtin may live indefinitely but he'll never see again or move again or think he'll just breathe just breathe yes for the first time the nurse noted that beside the writing desk where she remembered that she had seen a line of a dozen curious round objects she had vaguely imagined to be some exotic form of decoration there was now only one where the others had been there was now a series of little nail holes Harry followed her glance daisily and then rose to his feet I don't believe I'll stay I believe there's a train she nodded Harry picked up his hat goodbye she said pleasantly goodbye he answered as though he was talking to himself and evidently moved by some involuntary necessity he paused on his way to the door and she saw him pluck the last object from the wall and drop it into his pocket then he opened the screen door and descending the porch steps passed out of her sight Chapter 5 after a while the coat of clean white paint on the Jeffery Curtin house made a definite compromise with the sons of many Julas by turning gray it scaled huge peelings of very brittle old paint leaned over backward like aged men practicing grotesque gymnastics and finally dropped to a moldy death in the overgrown grass beneath the paint on the front pillars became streaky the white ball was knocked off the left-hand doorpost the green blinds darkened then lost all pretense of color it began to be a house surrounded by the tender minded some church bought a lot diagonally opposite for a graveyard and this, combined with the place where Mrs. Curtin stays with that living corpse was enough to throw a ghostly aura over that quarter of the road not that she was left alone men and women came to see her met her downtown where she went to do her marketing brought her home in their cars and came in for a moment that still played in her smile but men who did not know her no longer followed her with admiring glances in the street a diaphanous veil had come down over her beauty destroying its vividness yet bringing neither wrinkles nor fat she acquired a character in the village a group of little stories were told of her how when the country was frozen over one winter so that no wagons nor automobiles could travel so that she could make quick time to the grocer and drugist and not leave Jeffrey alone for long it was said that every night since his paralysis she slept in a small bed beside his bed holding his hand Jeffrey Curtin was spoken of as though he were already dead as the years dropped by those who had known him died or moved away there were but half a dozen of the old crowd who had drunk cocktails together by their first names and thought that Jeff was about the wittiest and most talented fellow that Marlowe had ever known now to the casual visitor he was merely the reason that Mrs. Curtin excused herself sometimes and hurried upstairs he was a grown or a sharp cry born to the silent parlor on the heavy air of a Sunday afternoon he could not move he was stone blind dumb and totally unconscious all day he lay in his bed except for a shift to his wheelchair every morning while she straightened the room his paralysis was creeping slowly toward his heart at first, for the first year Roxanne had received the faintest answering pressure sometimes when she held his hand then it had gone ceased one evening and never come back and through two nights Roxanne lay wide-eyed staring into the dark and wondering what had gone what fraction of his soul had taken flight what last grain of comprehension those shattered broken nerves still carried to the brain after that hope died had it not been for her unceasing care the last spark would have gone long before every morning she shaved and bathed him shifted him with her own hands from bed to chair and back to bed she was in his room constantly bearing medicine, straightening a pillow talking to him almost as one talks to a nearly human dog without hope of response or appreciation but with the dim persuasion of habit a prayer when faith has gone not a few people one celebrated nerve specialist among them gave her a plain impression that it was futile to exercise so much care that if Jeffrey had been conscious he would have wished to die if his spirit were hovering in some wider air it would agree to no such sacrifice from her it would fret only for the prison of its body to give it full release but you see she replied shaking her head gently when I married Jeffrey it was until I ceased to love him but was protested in effect you can't love that I can love what it once was what else is there for me to do the specialist shrugged his shoulders and went away to say that Mrs. Curtin was a remarkable woman and just about as sweet as an angel but he added it was a terrible pity there must be some man or a dozen just crazy to take care of her casually there were here and there someone began in hope and ended in reverence for love in the woman except strangely enough for life for the people in the world from the tramp to whom she gave food she could ill afford to the butcher who sold her a cheap cut of steak across the meaty board the other phase was sealed up somewhere in that expressionless mummy who lay with his face turned ever toward the light as mechanically as a compass needle and waited dumbly for the last wave to wash over his heart for eleven years he died in the middle of a may night when the scent of the syringa hung upon the windowsill and a breeze wafted in the shrillings of the frogs in cicadas outside Roxanne awoke at two and realized with a start she was alone in the house at last Chapter 6 after that she sat on her weather beaten porch through many afternoons gazing down across the fields that undulated in a slow descent light in green town she was wondering what she would do with her life she was thirty six handsome strong and free the years had eaten up jeffrey's insurance she had reluctantly parted with the acres to right and left of her and had even placed a small mortgage on the house with her husband's death had come a great physical restlessness she missed having to care for him in the morning she was rushed to town and the brief and therefore accentuated neighborly meetings in the butchers and grocers she missed the cooking for two the preparation of delicate liquid food for him one day consumed with energy she went out and spaded up the whole garden a thing that had not been done for years and she was alone at night in the room that had seen the glory of her marriage and then the pain to meet jeff again she went back in spirit to that wonderful year that intense passionate absorption and companionship rather than looked forward to a problematical meeting hereafter she awoke often to lie and wish for that presence beside her inanimate yet breathing still jeff one afternoon six months after his death she was sitting on the porch in a black dress which took away the faintest suggestion of plumpness from her figure in summer golden brown all about her a hush broken by the sighing of leaves westward a four o'clock sun dripping streaks of red and yellow over a flaming sky most of the birds had gone only a sparrow that had built itself a nest on the cornice of a pillar kept up an intermittent cheeping varied by occasional fluttering sallies overhead rock sand moved her chair to where she could watch him and her mind on the bosom of the afternoon harry cromwell was coming out from chicago to dinner since his divorce over eight years before he had been a frequent visitor they had kept up what amounted to a tradition between them when he arrived they would go to look at jeff harry would sit down on the edge of the bed and in a hearty voice ask well jeff old man how do you feel today rock sand standing beside would look intently at jeff dreaming that some shadowy recognition of this former friend had passed across that broken mind but the head pale carbon would only move slowly in its sole gesture toward the light as if something behind the blind eyes were groping for another light long since gone out these visits stretched over eight years at easter christmas thanksgiving and on many a sunday harry had arrived paid his call on jeff and then talked for a long while with rock sand on the porch he was devoted to her he made no pretense of hiding no attempt to deepen this relation she was his best friend as the mass of flesh on the bed there had been his best friend she was peace she was rest she was the past of his own tragedy she alone knew he had been at the funeral but since then the company for which he worked had shifted him to the east and only a business trip had brought him to the vicinity of chicago rock sand had written him to come when he could after a night in the city he had caught a train out they shook hands and he helped her move two rockers together house george he's fine rock sand seems to like school of course it was the only thing to do to miss him of course you miss him horribly harry yes i do miss him he's a funny boy he talked a lot about george rock sand was interested harry must bring him out on his next vacation she had only seen him once in her life a child in dirty rompers she left him with the newspaper while she prepared dinner she had four chops tonight and some late vegetables in her own garden she put it all on and then called him and sitting down together they continued their talk about george if i had a child she would say afterward harry having given her what slender advice he could about investments they walked through the garden pausing here and there to recognize what had once been a cement bench or where the tennis court had lain do you remember then they were off on a flood of reminiscences the day they had taken all the snapshots and jeff had been photographed astride the calf and the sketch harry had made of jeff and rock sand lying sprawled in the grass their heads almost touching there was to have been a covered lattice connecting the barn studio with the house so that jeff could get there on wet days the lattice had been started but nothing remained except a broken triangular piece that still went to the house and resembled a battered chicken coop and those meant julips and jeff's notebook do you remember how we laugh harry when we'd get it out of his pocket and re-allowed a page of material and how frantic he used to get wild he was such a kid about his writing there were both silent a moment and then harry said we were to have a place out here too remember we were to buy the adjoining 20 acres and the parties we were going to have again there was a pause broken this time by a low question from rock sand do you ever hear of her harry why yes he admitted placidly she's in seattle she's married again to a man named horton a sort of lumber king he's a great deal older than she is I believe and she's behaving yes that is I've heard so she has everything you see nothing much to do except dress up for this fellow at dinner time I see without effort he changed the subject are you going to keep the house I think so she said nodding I've lived here so long harry it seemed terrible to move I thought of trained nursing but of course that mean leaving I've about decided to be a boarding house lady live in one no keep one is there such an anomaly as a boarding house lady anyway I'd have a negris and keep about eight people in the summer and two or three if I can get them in the winter of course I'll have to have the house repainted and gone over inside harry considered rock sand why naturally you know best what you can do but it does seem a shock rock sand you came here as a bride perhaps she said that's why I don't mind remaining here as a boarding house lady I remember a certain batch of biscuits oh those biscuits she cried still from all I heard about the way you devoured them they couldn't have been so bad I was so low that day somehow I laughed when the nurse told me about those biscuits I noticed that the twelve nail holes are still in the library wall where Jeff drove them yes it was getting very dark now a crispness settled in the air a little gust of wind sent down a last spray of leaves rock sand shivered slightly we'd better go in he looked at his watch it's late I've got to be leaving I go east tomorrow must you they lingered for a moment just below the stoop watching a moon that seemed full of snow float out of the distance where the lake lay summer was gone and now Indian summer the grass was cold and there was no mist and no dew after he left she would go in and light the gas and close the shutters and he would go down the path and onto the village to these two life had come quickly and gone leaving not bitterness but pity not disillusion but only pain there was already enough moonlight when they shook hands for each to see the gathered kindness and the other's eyes end of the Leaves of Happiness by F. Scott Fitzgerald