Gone with the Wind / Унесённые ветром

“Honey, you mustn’t do things like that. Everybody will be talking about you and saying you are fast.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Auntie! I forgot it was my bedroom window.

I won’t do it again – I – I just wanted to see them go by. I wish I was going.”

“Honey!”

“Well, I do. I’m so tired of sitting at home.”

“Scarlett, promise me you won’t say things like that. People would talk so. They’d say you didn’t have the proper respect for poor Charlie —”

“Oh, Auntie, don’t cry!” And Scarlett wailed out loud – not, as Pittypat thought, for poor Charlie but because the last sounds of the wheels and the laughter were dying away.

“Oh, now I’ve made you cry, too,” sobbed Pittypat, in a pleased way, fumbling for her handkerchief.

Melanie came running from her room: “Darlings! What is the matter?”

“Charlie!” sobbed Pittypat.

“Oh,” said Melly, “Be brave, dear. Don’t cry. Oh, Scarlett!”

Scarlett had thrown herself on the bed and was sobbing at the top of her voice, sobbing for her lost youth and the pleasures of youth.

“I might as well be dead!” she sobbed passionately.

“Dear, don’t cry! Try to think how much Charlie loved you and let that comfort you!”

“Oh, do go away and leave me alone!”

She sank her face into the pillow, and the two standing over her tiptoed out. She heard Melanie say to Pittypat:

“Aunt Pitty, I wish you wouldn’t speak of Charles to her. You know how it always affects her. We mustn’t make it harder for her.”

Scarlett kicked the coverlet in impotent rage.

She remained gloomily in her room until afternoon and then the sight of the returning picnickers did not cheer her. Life was a hopeless affair and certainly not worth living.

Good riddance came in the form she least expected when, during the after-dinner-nap period, Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing drove up.

“Mrs. Bonnell’s children have the measles,” said Mrs. Merriwether abruptly.

“And the McLure girls have been called to Virginia,” said Mrs. Elsing, “for Dallas McLure is wounded.”

“So, Pitty, we need you and Melly tonight to take Mrs. Bonnell’s and the McLure girls’ places,” said Mrs. Merriwether.

“Oh, we just couldn’t – with poor Charlie dead only a —”

“I know how you feel but there isn’t any sacrifice too great for the Cause,” broke in Mrs. Elsing.

“I think we should go,” said Scarlett. “It is the least we can do for the hospital.”

Neither of the visiting ladies had even mentioned her name, and they turned and looked sharply at her. Scarlett’s face kept a childlike expression.

“I think we should go and help to make it a success, all of us. I think I should go in the booth with Melly because – well, I think it would look better for us both. Don’t you think so, Melly?”

“Well,” began Melly helplessly. The idea of appearing publicly at a social gathering while in mourning was so unheard of she was bewildered.

“Scarlett’s right,” said Mrs. Merriwether. “And I know Charlie would like you to help the Cause he died for.”

“Too good to be true![32 - Не может быть!]” said Scarlett’s joyful heart. Actually she was at a party! After a year’s seclusion, she was at the biggest party Atlanta had ever seen. And she could see people and many lights and hear music.

She sat down on one of the little stools behind the counter of the booth and looked up and down the long hall. It looked lovely. And everywhere among the greenery, on flags, blazed the bright stars of the Confederacy.

The musicians got on the platform, black, grinning, their fat cheeks already shining with sweat, and began tuning their fiddles. Scarlett felt her heart beat faster as the sweet melancholy of the waltz came to her:

“The years creep slowly by, Lorena! The snow is on the grass again. The sun’s far down the sky, Lorena…”

One-two-three, one-two-three. What a beautiful waltz!

Suddenly the hall burst into life. It was full of girls, who floated in bright dresses; round little white shoulders bare; lace shawls carelessly hanging from arms; girls with masses of golden curls about their necks.

There were so many uniforms in the crowd on so many men whom Scarlett knew, men she had met on hospital cots, on the streets, at the drill ground. All of them were so young looking, so handsome, so reckless, with their arms in slings, with head bandages white across sun-browned faces. Some of them were on crutches and how proud were the girls who slowed their steps to their escorts’ hopping pace! The whole hospital must have turned out, at least everybody who could walk. The hospital should make a lot of money tonight.

There was a sound of drums from the street below, the tramp of feet. In a moment, the Home Guard and the militia unit in their bright uniforms crowded into the room, bowing, saluting, shaking hands.

The orchestra burst into “Bonnie Blue Flag[33 - Неофициальный гимн Конфедерации; флаг с белой звездой на синем поле, символ независимости Юга].”

A hundred voices took it up, sang it, shouted it like a cheer.

“Hurrah! Hurrah! For the Southern Rights, hurrah! Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!”

They started the second verse and Scarlett, singing with the rest, heard the high sweet soprano of Melanie behind her. Turning, she saw that Melly was standing with her hands clasped to her breast, her eyes closed, and tiny tears oozing from the corners. She smiled at Scarlett, as the music ended.

“I’m so happy,” she whispered, “and so proud of the soldiers that I just can’t help crying about it.”

The same look was on the faces of all the women as the song ended, tears of pride on cheeks, pink or wrinkled, smiles on lips, as they turned to their men, sweetheart to lover, mother to son, wife to husband. They were all beautiful with the beauty that transfigures even the plainest woman when she is utterly protected and loved and is giving back that love a thousand times.

They loved their men, they believed in them, they trusted them to the last breaths of their bodies. It was devotion to and pride in the Confederacy, for final victory was at hand. Stonewall Jackson[34 - Томас Джонатан Джексон по прозвищу Каменная стена, один из самых талантливых генералов Юга]’s triumphs in the Valley and the defeat of the Yankees in the Seven Days’ Battle around Richmond showed that clearly. How could it be otherwise with such leaders as Lee[35 - Роберт Эдвард Ли, главнокомандующий армией Конфедерации] and Jackson? One more victory and the Yankees would be on their knees asking for peace and the men would be riding home and there would be kissing and laughter. One more victory and the war was over!

But then Scarlett’s joy began to evaporate as she didn’t feel any such emotion. It bewildered and depressed her. Somehow, the ball did not seem so pretty nor the girls so dashing, and the devotion to the Cause – why, it just seemed silly!

The Cause didn’t seem sacred to her. The war didn’t seem to be a holy affair, but a nuisance that killed men and cost money and made luxuries hard to get. She saw that she was tired of the endless knitting and the endless bandage rolling. And oh, she was so tired of the hospital! Tired and bored and nauseated with the sickening gangrene smells and the endless moaning, frightened by the look of coming death.

Oh, why was she different? She could never love anything or anyone so selflessly as they did. She was trying to justify herself to herself – a task which she seldom found difficult.

The other women were simply silly and hysterical with their talk of patriotism and the Cause, and the men were almost as bad with their talk of States’ Rights. She, Scarlett O’Hara Hamilton, alone had good hard-headed Irish sense. She wasn’t going to make a fool out of herself about the Cause, but neither was she going to make a fool out of herself by admitting her true feelings. She was hard-headed enough to be practical about the situation, and no one would ever know how she felt.

She looked about the hall with distaste. The McLure girls’ booth was inconspicuous and there were long intervals when no one came to their corner and Scarlett had nothing to do but look enviously on the happy crowd.