The Best Early Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald Page 4

  Lois was thinking that Kieth was the sort of man she’d like to have with her in a fight.

  “How did you—how did you first happen to do it?” she asked, rather shyly, “to come here, I mean. Of course mother told me the story about the Pullman car.”

  “Oh, that—” He looked rather annoyed.

  “Tell me that. I’d like to hear you tell it.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing, except what you probably know. It was evening and I’d been riding all day and thinking about—about a hundred things, Lois, and then suddenly I had a sense that some one was sitting across from me, felt that he’d been there for some time, and had a vague idea that he was another traveller. All at once he leaned over toward me and I heard a voice say: ‘I want you to be a priest, that’s what I want.’ Well, I jumped up and cried out, ‘Oh, my God, not that!’— made an idiot of myself before about twenty people; you see there wasn’t any one sitting there at all. A week after that I went to the Jesuit College in Philadelphia 4 and crawled up the last flight of stairs to the rector’s office on my hands and knees.”

  There was another silence and Lois saw that her brother’s eyes wore a far-away look, that he was staring unseeingly out over the sunny fields. She was stirred by the modulations of his voice and the sudden silence that seemed to flow about him when he finished speaking.

  She noticed now that his eyes were of the same fibre as hers, with the green left out, and that his mouth was much gentler, really, than in the picture—or was it that the face had grown up to it lately? He was getting a little bald just on top of his head. She wondered if that was from wearing a hat so much. It seemed awful for a man to grow bald and no one to care about it.

  “Were you—pious when you were young, Kieth?” she asked. “You know what I mean. Were you religious? If you don’t mind these personal questions.”

  “Yes,” he said with his eyes still far away—and she felt that his intense abstraction was as much a part of his personality as his attention. “Yes, I suppose I was, when I was—sober.”

  Lois thrilled slightly.

  “Did you drink?”

  He nodded.

  “I was on the way to making a bad hash of things.” He smiled and, turning his gray eyes on her, changed the subject.

  “Child, tell me about mother. I know it’s been awfully hard for you there, lately. I know you’ve had to sacrifice a lot and put up with a great deal, and I want you to know how fine of you I think it is. I feel, Lois, that you’re sort of taking the place of both of us there.”

  Lois thought quickly how little she had sacrificed; how lately she had constantly avoided her nervous, half-invalid mother.

  “Youth shouldn’t be sacrificed to age, Kieth,” she said steadily.

  “I know,” he sighed, “and you oughtn’t to have the weight on your shoulders, child. I wish I were there to help you.”

  She saw how quickly he had turned her remark and instantly she knew what this quality was that he gave off. He was sweet. Her thoughts went off on a side-track and then she broke the silence with an odd remark.

  “Sweetness is hard,” she said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she denied in confusion. “I didn’t mean to speak aloud. I was thinking of something—of a conversation with a man named Freddy Kebble.”

  “Maury Kebble’s brother?”

  “Yes,” she said, rather surprised to think of him having known Maury Kebble. Still there was nothing strange about it. “Well, he and I were talking about sweetness a few weeks ago. Oh, I don’t know— I said that a man named Howard—that a man I knew was sweet, and he didn’t agree with me, and we began talking about what sweetness in a man was. He kept telling me I meant a sort of soppy softness, but I knew I didn’t—yet I didn’t know exactly how to put it. I see now. I meant just the opposite. I suppose real sweetness is a sort of hardness—and strength.”

  Kieth nodded.

  “I see what you mean. I’ve known old priests who had it.”

  “I’m talking about young men,” she said, rather defiantly.

  “Oh!”

  They had reached the now deserted baseball diamond and, pointing her to a wooden bench, he sprawled full length on the grass.

  “Are these young men happy here, Kieth?”

  “Don’t they look happy, Lois?”

  “I suppose so, but those young ones, those two we just passed—have they—are they——”

  “Are they signed up?” he laughed. “No, but they will be next month.”

  “Permanently?”

  “Yes—unless they break down mentally or physically. Of course in a discipline like ours a lot drop out.”

  “But those boys. Are they giving up fine chances outside—like you did?”

  He nodded.

  “Some of them.”

  “But, Kieth, they don’t know what they’re doing. They haven’t had any experience of what they’re missing.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair. Life has just sort of scared them at first. Do they all come in so young? ”

  “No, some of them have knocked around, led pretty wild lives— Regan, for instance.”

  “I should think that sort would be better,” she said meditatively, “men that had seen life.”

  “No,” said Kieth earnestly, “I’m not sure that knocking about gives a man the sort of experience he can communicate to others. Some of the broadest men I’ve known have been absolutely rigid about themselves. And reformed libertines are a notoriously intolerant class. Don’t you think so, Lois?”

  She nodded, still meditative, and he continued:

  “It seems to me that when one weak person goes to another, it isn’t help they want; it’s a sort of companionship in guilt, Lois. After you were born, when mother began to get nervous she used to go and weep with a certain Mrs. Comstock. Lord, it used to make me shiver. She said it comforted her, poor old mother. No, I don’t think that to help others you’ve got to show yourself at all. Real help comes from a stronger person whom you respect. And their sympathy is all the bigger because it’s impersonal.”

  “But people want human sympathy,” objected Lois. “They want to feel the other person’s been tempted.”

  “Lois, in their hearts they want to feel that the other person’s been weak. That’s what they mean by human.

  “Here in this old monkery, Lois,” he continued with a smile, “they try to get all that self-pity and pride in our own wills out of us right at the first. They put us to scrubbing floors—and other things. It’s like that idea of saving your life by losing it. You see we sort of feel that the less human a man is, in your sense of human, the better servant he can be to humanity. We carry it out to the end, too. When one of us dies his family can’t even have him then. He’s buried here under a plain wooden cross with a thousand others.”

  His tone changed suddenly and he looked at her with a great brightness in his gray eyes.

  “But way back in a man’s heart there are some things he can’t get rid of—and one of them is that I’m awfully in love with my little sister.”

  With a sudden impulse she knelt beside him in the grass and, leaning over, kissed his forehead.

  “You’re hard, Kieth,” she said, “and I love you for it—and you’re sweet.”

  III

  Back in the reception-room Lois met a half-dozen more of Kieth’s particular friends; there was a young man named Jarvis, rather pale and delicate-looking, who, she knew, must be a grandson of old Mrs. Jarvis at home, and she mentally compared this ascetic with a brace of his riotous uncles.

  And there was Regan with a scarred face and piercing intent eyes that followed her about the room and often rested on Kieth with something very like worship. She knew then what Kieth had meant about “a good man to have with you in a fight.”

  He’s the missionary type—she thought vaguely—China or something.

  “I want Kieth’s sister to show us what the shimmy is,�
�� demanded one young man with a broad grin.

  Lois laughed.

  “I’m afraid the Father Rector would send me shimmying out the gate. Besides, I’m not an expert.”

  “I’m sure it wouldn’t be best for Jimmy’s soul anyway,” said Kieth solemnly. “He’s inclined to brood about things like shimmys. They were just starting to do the—maxixe,5 wasn’t it, Jimmy?—when he became a monk, and it haunted him his whole first year. You’d see him when he was peeling potatoes, putting his arm around the bucket and making irreligious motions with his feet.”

  There was a general laugh in which Lois joined.

  “An old lady who comes here to Mass sent Kieth this ice-cream,” whispered Jarvis under cover of the laugh, “because she’d heard you were coming. It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”

  There were tears trembling in Lois’ eyes.

  IV

  Then half an hour later over in the chapel things suddenly went all wrong. It was several years since Lois had been at Benediction6 and at first she was thrilled by the gleaming monstrance with its central spot of white, the air rich and heavy with incense, and the sun shining through the stained-glass window of St. Francis Xavier7 overhead and falling in warm red tracery on the cassock of the man in front of her, but at the first notes of the “O Salutaris Hostia” a heavy weight seemed to descend upon her soul. Kieth was on her right and young Jarvis on her left, and she stole uneasy glances at both of them.

  What’s the matter with me? she thought impatiently.

  She looked again. Was there a certain coldness in both their profiles, that she had not noticed before—a pallor about the mouth and a curious set expression in their eyes? She shivered slightly: they were like dead men.

  She felt her soul recede suddenly from Kieth’s. This was her brother—this, this unnatural person. She caught herself in the act of a little laugh.

  “What is the matter with me?”

  She passed her hand over her eyes and the weight increased. The incense sickened her and a stray, ragged note from one of the tenors in the choir grated on her ear like the shriek of a slate-pencil. She fidgeted, and raising her hand to her hair touched her forehead, found moisture on it.

  “It’s hot in here, hot as the deuce.”

  Again she repressed a faint laugh, and then in an instant the weight upon her heart suddenly diffused into cold fear. . . . It was that candle on the altar. It was all wrong—wrong. Why didn’t somebody see it? There was something in it. There was something coming out of it, taking form and shape above it.

  She tried to fight down her rising panic, told herself it was the wick. If the wick wasn’t straight, candles did something—but they didn’t do this! With incalculable rapidity a force was gathering within her, a tremendous, assimilative force, drawing from every sense, every corner of her brain, and as it surged up inside her she felt an enormous, terrified repulsion. She drew her arms in close to her side, away from Kieth and Jarvis.

  Something in that candle . . . she was leaning forward—in another moment she felt she would go forward toward it—didn’t any one see it? . . . anyone?

  “Ugh!”

  She felt a space beside her and something told her that Jarvis had gasped and sat down very suddenly . . . then she was kneeling and as the flaming monstrance slowly left the altar in the hands of the priest, she heard a great rushing noise in her ears—the crash of the bells was like hammer-blows . . . and then in a moment that seemed eternal a great torrent rolled over her heart—there was a shouting there and a lashing as of waves . . .

  . . . She was calling, felt herself calling for Kieth, her lips mouthing the words that would not come:

  “Kieth! Oh, my God! Kieth!”

  Suddenly she became aware of a new presence, something external, in front of her, consummated and expressed in warm red tracery. Then she knew. It was the window of St. Francis Xavier. Her mind gripped at it, clung to it finally, and she felt herself calling again endlessly, impotently—Kieth—Kieth!

  Then out of a great stillness came a voice:

  “Blessed be God.”

  With a gradual rumble sounded the response rolling heavily through the chapel:

  “Blessed be God.”

  The words sang instantly in her heart; the incense lay mystically and sweetly peaceful upon the air, and the candle on the altar went out.

  “Blessed be His Holy Name.”

  “Blessed be His Holy Name.”

  Everything blurred into a swinging mist. With a sound half-gasp, half-cry she rocked on her feet and reeled backward into Kieth’s suddenly outstretched arms.

  V

  “Lie still, child.”

  She closed her eyes again. She was on the grass outside, pillowed on Kieth’s arm, and Regan was dabbing her head with a cold towel.

  “I’m all right,” she said quietly.

  “I know, but just lie still a minute longer. It was too hot in there. Jarvis felt it, too.”

  She laughed as Regan again touched her gingerly with the towel.

  “I’m all right,” she repeated.

  But though a warm peace was filling her mind and heart she felt oddly broken and chastened, as if some one had held her stripped soul up and laughed.

  VI

  Half an hour later she walked leaning on Kieth’s arm down the long central path toward the gate.

  “It’s been such a short afternoon,” he sighed, “and I’m so sorry you were sick, Lois.”

  “Kieth, I’m feeling fine now, really; I wish you wouldn’t worry.”

  “Poor old child. I didn’t realize that Benediction’d be a long service for you after your hot trip out here and all.”

  She laughed cheerfully.

  “I guess the truth is I’m not much used to Benediction. Mass is the limit of my religious exertions.”

  She paused and then continued quickly:

  “I don’t want to shock you, Kieth, but I can’t tell you how—how inconvenient being a Catholic is. It really doesn’t seem to apply any more. As far as morals go, some of the wildest boys I know are Catholics. And the brightest boys—I mean the ones who think and read a lot, don’t seem to believe in much of anything any more.”

  “Tell me about it. The bus won’t be here for another half-hour.”

  They sat down on a bench by the path.

  “For instance, Gerald Carter, he’s published a novel. He absolutely roars when people mention immortality. And then Howa—well, another man I’ve known well, lately, who was Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard, says that no intelligent person can believe in Supernatural Christianity. He says Christ was a great socialist, though. Am I shocking you?”

  She broke off suddenly.

  Kieth smiled.

  “You can’t shock a monk. He’s a professional shock-absorber.”

  “Well,” she continued, “that’s about all. It seems so—so narrow. Church schools, for instance. There’s more freedom about things that Catholic people can’t see—like birth control.”

  Kieth winced, almost imperceptibly, but Lois saw it.

  “Oh,” she said quickly, “everybody talks about everything now.”

  “It’s probably better that way.”

  “Oh, yes, much better. Well, that’s all, Kieth. I just wanted to tell you why I’m a little—lukewarm, at present.”

  “I’m not shocked, Lois. I understand better than you think. We all go through those times. But I know it’ll come out all right, child. There’s that gift of faith that we have, you and I, that’ll carry us past the bad spots.”

  He rose as he spoke and they started again down the path.

  “I want you to pray for me sometimes, Lois. I think your prayers would be about what I need. Because we’ve come very close in these few hours, I think.”

  Her eyes were suddenly shining.

  “Oh, we have, we have!” she cried. “I feel closer to you now than to any one in the world.”

  He stopped suddenly and indicated the side of the path.

  “We m
ight—just a minute——”

  It was a pietà, a life-size statue of the Blessed Virgin set within a semicircle of rocks.8

  Feeling a little self-conscious she dropped on her knees beside him and made an unsuccessful attempt at prayer.

  She was only half through when he rose. He took her arm again.

  “I wanted to thank Her for letting us have this day together,” he said simply.

  Lois felt a sudden lump in her throat and she wanted to say something that would tell him how much it had meant to her, too. But she found no words.

  “I’ll always remember this,” he continued, his voice trembling a little—“this summer day with you. It’s been just what I expected. You’re just what I expected, Lois.”

  “I’m awfully glad, Kieth.”

  “You see, when you were little they kept sending me snap-shots of you, first as a baby and then as a child in socks playing on the beach with a pail and shovel, and then suddenly as a wistful little girl with wondering, pure eyes—and I used to build dreams about you. A man has to have something living to cling to. I think, Lois, it was your little white soul I tried to keep near me—even when life was at its loudest and every intellectual idea of God seemed the sheerest mockery, and desire and love and a million things came up to me and said: ‘Look here at me! See, I’m Life. You’re turning your back on it!’ All the way through that shadow, Lois, I could always see your baby soul flitting on ahead of me, very frail and clear and wonderful.”

  Lois was crying softly. They had reached the gate and she rested her elbow on it and dabbed furiously at her eyes.

  “And then later, child, when you were sick I knelt all one night and asked God to spare you for me—for I knew then that I wanted more; He had taught me to want more. I wanted to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me. I saw you growing up, that white innocence of yours changing to a flame and burning to give light to other weaker souls. And then I wanted some day to take your children on my knee and hear them call the crabbed old monk Uncle Kieth.”