Read Online Beautiful and Damned (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Free Book Online Page A

eyes.
    “Now that you’re here you ought to do something,” said his grandfather softly, “accomplish something.”
    Anthony waited for him to speak of “leaving something done when you pass on.” Then he made a suggestion:
    “I thought—it seemed to me that perhaps I’m best qualified to write—”
    Adam Patch winced, visualizing a family poet with long hair and three mistresses.
    “—history,” finished Anthony.
    “History? History of what? The Civil War? The Revolution?”
    “Why—no, sir. A history of the Middle Ages.” Simultaneously an idea was born for a history of the Renaissance popes, written from some novel angle. Still, he was glad he had said “Middle Ages.”
    “Middle Ages? Why not your own country ? Something you know about?”
    “Well, you see I’ve lived so much abroad—”
    “Why you should write about the Middle Ages, I don’t know. Dark Ages, we used to call ’em. Nobody knows what happened, and nobody cares, except that they’re over now.” He continued for some minutes on the uselessness of such information, touching, naturally, on the Spanish Inquisition and the “corruption of the monasteries.” Then:
    “Do you think you’ll be able to do any work in New York—or do you really intend to work at all?” This last with soft, almost imperceptible, cynicism.
    “Why, yes, I do, sir.”
    “When’ll you be done?”
    “Well, there’ll be an outline, you see—and a lot of preliminary reading.”
    “I should think you’d have done enough of that already.”
    The conversation worked itself jerkily toward a rather abrupt conclusion, when Anthony rose, looked at his watch, and remarked that he had an engagement with his broker that afternoon. He had intended to stay a few days with his grandfather, but he was tired and irritated from a rough crossing, and quite unwilling to stand a subtle and sanctimonious browbeating. He would come out again in a few days, he said.
    Nevertheless, it was due to this encounter that work had come into his life as a permanent idea. During the year that had passed since then, he had made several lists of authorities, he had even experimented with chapter titles and the division of his work into periods, but not one line of actual writing existed at present, or seemed likely ever to exist. He did nothing—and contrary to the most accredited copy-book logic, he managed to divert himself with more than average content.

Afternoon
    It was October in 1913, midway in a week of pleasant days, with the sunshine loitering in the cross-streets and the atmosphere so languid as to seem weighted with ghostly falling leaves. It was pleasant to sit lazily by the open window finishing a chapter of “Erewhon.” It was pleasant to yawn about five, toss the book on a table, and saunter humming along the hall to his bath.
    “To... you ... beaut-if-ul lady,”
    he was singing as he turned on the tap.
    “I raise ... my ... eyes;
To... you ... beaut-if ul la-a-dy
My ... heart ... cries—”
    He raised his voice to compete with the flood of water pouring into the tub, and as he looked at the picture of Hazel Dawn upon the wall he put an imaginary violin to his shoulder and softly caressed it with a phantom bow. Through his closed lips he made a humming noise, which he vaguely imagined resembled the sound of a violin. After a moment his hands ceased their gyrations and wandered to his shirt, which he began to unfasten. Stripped, and adopting an athletic posture like the tiger-skin man in the advertisement, he regarded himself with some satisfaction in the mirror, breaking off to dabble a tentative foot in the tub. Readjusting a faucet and indulging in a few preliminary grunts, he slid in.
    Once accustomed to the temperature of the water he relaxed into a state of drowsy content. When he finished his bath he would dress leisurely and walk down Fifth Avenue to the Ritz, where he had an appointment for dinner with his two most frequent companions, Dick Caramel and