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151 pages

English

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Flappers and Philosophers is a collection of short stories by America author F. Scott Fitzgerald, most famous for his novel The Great Gatsby. The collection was his first such publication and includes the stories "The Offshore Pirate", "The Ice Palace", "Head and Shoulders", "The Cut-Glass Bowl", "Bernice Bobs Her Hair", "Benediction", "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong" and "The Four Fists."

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Short story

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 avril 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775414902
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

FLAPPERS AND PHILOSOPHERS
* * *
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

*

Flappers and Philosophers First published in 1920 ISBN 978-1-775414-90-2 © 2009 The Floating Press
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
The Offshore Pirate The Ice Palace Head and Shoulders The Cut-Glass Bowl Bernice Bobs Her Hair Benediction Dalyrimple Goes Wrong The Four Fists
The Offshore Pirate
*
I
This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, ascolorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as theirises of children's eyes. From the western half of the sky thesun was shying little golden disks at the sea—if you gazedintently enough you could see them skip from wave tip to wave tipuntil they joined a broad collar of golden coin that wascollecting half a mile out and would eventually be a dazzlingsunset. About half-way between the Florida shore and the goldencollar a white steam-yacht, very young and graceful, was ridingat anchor and under a blue-and-white awning aft a yellow-hairedgirl reclined in a wicker settee reading The Revolt of theAngels, by Anatole France.
She was about nineteen, slender and supple, with a spoiledalluring mouth and quick gray eyes full of a radiant curiosity.Her feet, stockingless, and adorned rather than clad inblue-satin slippers which swung nonchalantly from her toes, wereperched on the arm of a settee adjoining the one she occupied.And as she read she intermittently regaled herself by a faintapplication to her tongue of a half-lemon that she held in herhand. The other half, sucked dry, lay on the deck at her feet androcked very gently to and fro at the almost imperceptible motionof the tide.
The second half-lemon was well-nigh pulpless and the goldencollar had grown astonishing in width, when suddenly the drowsysilence which enveloped the yacht was broken by the sound ofheavy footsteps and an elderly man topped with orderly gray hairand clad in a white-flannel suit appeared at the head of thecompanionway. There he paused for a moment until his eyes becameaccustomed to the sun, and then seeing the girl under the awninghe uttered a long even grunt of disapproval.
If he had intended thereby to obtain a rise of any sort he wasdoomed to disappointment. The girl calmly turned over two pages,turned back one, raised the lemon mechanically to tastingdistance, and then very faintly but quite unmistakably yawned.
"Ardita!" said the gray-haired man sternly.
Ardita uttered a small sound indicating nothing.
"Ardita!" he repeated. "Ardita!"
Ardita raised the lemon languidly, allowing three words to slipout before it reached her tongue.
"Oh, shut up."
"Ardita!"
"What?"
Will you listen to me—or will I have to get a servant to holdyou while I talk to you?"
The lemon descended very slowly and scornfully.
"Put it in writing."
"Will you have the decency to close that abominable book anddiscard that damn lemon for two minutes?"
"Oh, can't you lemme alone for a second?"
"Ardita, I have just received a telephone message from theshore—"
"Telephone?" She showed for the first time a faint interest.
"Yes, it was—"
"Do you mean to say," she interrupted wonderingly, "'at they letyou run a wire out here?"
"Yes, and just now—"
"Won't other boats bump into it?"
"No. It's run along the bottom. Five min—"
"Well, I'll be darned! Gosh! Science is golden orsomething—isn't it?"
"Will you let me say what I started to?"
"Shoot!"
"Well it seems—well, I am up here—" He paused and swallowedseveral times distractedly. "Oh, yes. Young woman, ColonelMoreland has called up again to ask me to be sure to bring you into dinner. His son Toby has come all the way from New York tomeet you and he's invited several other young people. For thelast time, will you—"
"No" said Ardita shortly, "I won't. I came along on this darncruise with the one idea of going to Palm Beach, and you knew it,and I absolutely refuse to meet any darn old colonel or any darnyoung Toby or any darn old young people or to set foot in anyother darn old town in this crazy state. So you either take me toPalm Beach or else shut up and go away."
"Very well. This is the last straw. In your infatuation for thisman.—a man who is notorious for his excesses—a man your fatherwould not have allowed to so much as mention your name—you haverejected the demi-monde rather than the circles in which you havepresumably grown up. From now on—"
"I know" interrupted Ardita ironically, "from now on you go yourway and I go mine. I've heard that story before. You know I'dlike nothing better."
"From now on," he announced grandiloquently, "you are no niece ofmine. I—"
"O-o-o-oh!" The cry was wrung from Ardita with the agony of alost soul. "Will you stop boring me! Will you go 'way! Will youjump overboard and drown! Do you want me to throw this book atyou!"
"If you dare do any—"
Smack! The Revolt of the Angels sailed through the air, missedits target by the length of a short nose, and bumped cheerfullydown the companionway.
The gray-haired man made an instinctive step backward and thentwo cautious steps forward. Ardita jumped to her five feet fourand stared at him defiantly, her gray eyes blazing.
"Keep off!"
"How dare you!" he cried.
"Because I darn please!"
"You've grown unbearable! Your disposition—"
"You've made me that way! No child ever has a bad dispositionunless it's her fancy's fault! Whatever I am, you did it."
Muttering something under his breath her uncle turned and,walking forward called in a loud voice for the launch. Then hereturned to the awning, where Ardita had again seated herself andresumed her attention to the lemon.
"I am going ashore," he said slowly. "I will be out again at nineo'clock to-night. When I return we start back to New York,wither I shall turn you over to your aunt for the rest of yournatural, or rather unnatural, life." He paused and looked ather, and then all at once something in the utter childness of herbeauty seemed to puncture his anger like an inflated tire, andrender him helpless, uncertain, utterly fatuous.
"Ardita," he said not unkindly, "I'm no fool. I've been round. Iknow men. And, child, confirmed libertines don't reform untilthey're tired—and then they're not themselves—they're husks ofthemselves." He looked at her as if expecting agreement, butreceiving no sight or sound of it he continued. "Perhaps the manloves you—that's possible. He's loved many women and he'll lovemany more. Less than a month ago, one month, Ardita, he wasinvolved in a notorious affair with that red-haired woman, MimiMerril; promised to give her the diamond bracelet that the Czarof Russia gave his mother. You know—you read the papers."
"Thrilling scandals by an anxious uncle," yawned Ardita. "Have itfilmed. Wicked clubman making eyes at virtuous flapper. Virtuousflapper conclusively vamped by his lurid past. Plans to meet himat Palm Beach. Foiled by anxious uncle."
"Will you tell me why the devil you want to marry him?"
"I'm sure I couldn't say," said Audits shortly. "Maybe becausehe's the only man I know, good or bad, who has an imagination andthe courage of his convictions. Maybe it's to get away from theyoung fools that spend their vacuous hours pursuing me around thecountry. But as for the famous Russian bracelet, you can setyour mind at rest on that score. He's going to give it to me atPalm Beach—if you'll show a little intelligence."
"How about the—red-haired woman?"
"He hasn't seen her for six months," she said angrily. "Don't yousuppose I have enough pride to see to that? Don't you know bythis time that I can do any darn thing with any darn man I wantto?"
She put her chin in the air like the statue of France Aroused,and then spoiled the pose somewhat by raising the lemon foraction.
"Is it the Russian bracelet that fascinates you?"
"No, I'm merely trying to give you the sort of argument thatwould appeal to your intelligence. And I wish you'd go 'way," shesaid, her temper rising again. "You know I never change my mind.You've been boring me for three days until I'm about to gocrazy. I won't go ashore! Won't! Do you hear? Won't!"
"Very well," he said, "and you won't go to Palm Beach either. Ofall the selfish, spoiled, uncontrolled disagreeable, impossiblegirl I have—"
Splush! The half-lemon caught him in the neck. Simultaneouslycame a hail from over the side.
"The launch is ready, Mr. Farnam."
Too full of words and rage to speak, Mr. Farnam cast one utterlycondemning glance at his niece and, turning, ran swiftly down theladder.
II
Five o'clock robed down from the sun and plumped soundlessly intothe sea. The golden collar widened into a glittering island; anda faint breeze that had been playing with the edges of theawning and swaying one of the dangling blue slippers becamesuddenly freighted with song. It was a chorus of men in closeharmony and in perfect rhythm to an accompanying sound of oarsdealing the blue writers. Ardita lifted her head andlistened.
"Carrots and Peas, Beans on their knees, Pigs in the seas, Lucky fellows! Blow us a breeze, Blow us a breeze, Blow us a breeze, With your bellows."
Ardita's brow wrinkled in astonishment. Sitting very still shelistened eagerly as the chorus took up a second verse.
"Onions and beans, Marshalls and Deans, Goldbergs and Greens And Costellos. Blow us a breeze, Blow us a breeze, Blow us a breeze, With your bellows."
With an exclamation she tossed her book to the desk, where itsprawled at a straddle, and hurried to the rail. Fifty feet awaya large rowboat w