The Beautiful and Damned / Прекрасные и обреченные. Уровень 4

“You are old, Maury,” he agreed at length. “The first sign – you have spent the afternoon talking about tan and a lady’s legs.”

“Idiot!” cried Maury, “that from you! Here I sit, young Anthony, as I’ll sit for years and watch such souls as you and Dick and Gloria Gilbert go past me, dancing and singing and loving and hating one another. And I shall sit and the snow will come – and another winter and I shall be thirty and you and Dick and Gloria will eternally move and dance by me and sing.”

Maury left the window, stirred the blaze with a poker, and dropped a log upon the andirons. Then he sat back in his chair.

“After all, Anthony, it’s you who are very romantic and young. And it’s me who tries again and again to move – and I’m always me. Nothing stirs me.”

Turbulence

Anthony turned over sleepily in his bed. Bounds was close to the bed, his dark-brown eyes fixed imperturbably upon his master.

Anthony blinked.

“Bounds.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Can you come around about four and serve some tea and sandwiches or something?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Some sandwiches,” Anthony repeated helplessly, “oh, some cheese sandwiches and chicken and olive, I guess.”

He shut his eyes wearily, let his head roll to rest inertly, and quickly relaxed. Richard Caramel had called on him[17 - had called on him – зашёл к нему] at midnight; they had drunk four bottles of beer.

Suddenly he was awake, saying: “What?”

“For how many, sir?” It was still Bounds, standing patient and motionless.

“How many what?”

“I think, sir, I’d better know how many are coming. I’ll have to plan for the sandwiches, sir.”

“Two,” muttered Anthony huskily; “lady and a gentleman.”

Bounds said, “Thank you, sir,” and moved away.

After a long time Anthony arose. With a last yawn he went into the bathroom. Then he lit a cigarette and glanced through several letters and the morning Tribune.

An hour later, shaven and dressed, he was sitting at his desk looking at a small piece of paper he had taken out of his wallet. “Dick and Gloria Gilbert for tea.”

These words brought him obvious satisfaction. In justification of his manner of living there was first, of course, The Meaninglessness of Life. From a world fraught with the stupidity of many Geraldines he was thankfully delivered.

But he found in himself a growing horror and loneliness. The idea of eating alone frightened him; in preference he dined often with men he detested. Travel, which had once charmed him, seemed unendurable.

And yet he wanted something, something. After cocktails and luncheon at the University Club Anthony felt better. He was Anthony Patch, brilliant, magnetic, the heir of many years and many men. With his grandfather’s money he might build his own pedestal. The clarity of his mind, its sophistication, its versatile intelligence. He tried to imagine himself in Congress. Little men with copy-book ambitions, the lustreless and unromantic heaven of a government.

Back in his apartment the grayness returned. His thoughts were bitter. Anthony Patch with no achievement, without courage, without strength. Oh, he was a pretentious fool, making careers out of cocktails. He was empty, it seemed, empty as an old bottle.

The buzzer rang at the door. Anthony sprang up and lifted the tube to his ear. It was Richard Caramel’s voice, stilted and facetious:

“Announcing Miss Gloria Gilbert.”

The Lady

“How do you do?” he said, smiling and holding the door ajar.

Dick bowed.

“Gloria, this is Anthony.”

“Well!” she cried.

“Let me take your things.”

Anthony stretched out his arms and the brown mass of fur tumbled into them.

“Thanks.”

“What do you think of her, Anthony?” Richard Caramel demanded barbarously. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Well!” cried the girl defiantly.

She was dazzling.

“I’m a solid block of ice,” murmured Gloria, glancing around. “We found a place where you could stand on an iron-bar grating, and it blew warm air up at you – but Dick wouldn’t wait there with me. I told him to go on alone and let me be happy.”

She seemed talking for her own pleasure, without effort. Anthony, sitting at one end of the sofa, examined her profile: the exquisite regularity of nose and upper lip, the chin, balanced beautifully on a rather short neck.

“I think you’ve got the best name I’ve heard,” she was saying, still apparently to herself. “Anthony Patch. You look like Anthony, rather majestic and solemn.”

Anthony smiled.

“My name is too flamboyant,” she went on, “I used to know two girls named Jinks, though, and just think what they were named – Judy Jinks and Jerry Jinks. Cute, what? Don’t you think?”

“Everybody in the next generation,” suggested Dick, “will be named Peter or Barbara – because at present all the piquant literary characters are named Peter or Barbara.”

Anthony continued the prophecy:

“Of course Gladys and Eleanor.”

“Displacing Ella and Stella,” interrupted Dick.

“And Pearl and Jewel,” Gloria added cordially, “and Earl and Elmer and Minnie.”

“Where are you from?” inquired Anthony.

“Kansas City, Missouri.”