The Beautiful and Damned
just haven't room for any other desires."
They were bound eastward through a parched and lifeless Indiana, and she
had looked up from one of her beloved moving picture magazines to find a
casual conversation suddenly turned grave.
Anthony frowned out the car window. As the track crossed a country road
a farmer appeared momentarily in his wagon; he was chewing on a straw
and was apparently the same farmer they had passed a dozen times before,
sitting in silent and malignant symbolism. As Anthony turned to Gloria
his frown intensified.
"You worry me," he objected; "I can imagine _wanting_ another woman
under certain transitory circumstances, but I can't imagine taking her."
"But I don't feel that way, Anthony. I can't be bothered resisting
things I want. My way is not to want them--to want nobody but you."
"Yet when I think that if you just happened to take a fancy to some
one--"
"Oh, don't be an idiot!" she exclaimed. "There'd be nothing casual about
it. And I can't even imagine the possibility."
This emphatically closed the conversation. Anthony's unfailing
appreciation made her happier in his company than in any one's else. She
definitely enjoyed him--she loved him. So the summer began very much as
had the one before.
There was, however, one radical change in ménage. The icy-hearted
Scandinavian, whose austere cooking and sardonic manner of waiting on
table had so depressed Gloria, gave way to an exceedingly efficient
Japanese whose name was Tanalahaka, but who confessed that he heeded any
summons which included the dissyllable "Tana."
Tana was unusually small even for a Japanese, and displayed a somewhat
naïve conception of himself as a man of the world. On the day of his
arrival from "R. Gugimoniki, Japanese Reliable Employment Agency," he
called Anthony into his room to see the treasures of his trunk. These
included a large collection of Japanese post cards, which he was all for
explaining to his employer at once, individually and at great length.
Among them were half a dozen of pornographic intent and plainly of
American origin, though the makers had modestly omitted both their names
and the form for mailing. He next brought out some of his own
handiwork--a pair of American pants, which he had made himself, and two
suits of solid silk underwear. He informed Anthony confidentially as to
the purpose for which these latter were reserved. The next exhibit was a
rather good copy of an etching of Abraham Lincoln, to whose face he had
given an unmistakable Japanese cast. Last came a flute; he had made it
himself but it was broken: he was going to fix it soon.
After these polite formalities, which Anthony conjectured must be native
to Japan, Tana delivered a long harangue in splintered English on the
relation of master and servant from which Anthony gathered that he had
worked on large estates but had always quarrelled with the other
servants because they were not honest. They had a great time over the
word "honest," and in fact became rather irritated with each other,
because Anthony persisted stubbornly that Tana was trying to say
"hornets," and even went to the extent of buzzing in the manner of a bee
and flapping his arms to imitate wings.
After three-quarters of an hour Anthony was released with the warm
assurance that they would have other nice chats in which Tana would tell
"how we do in my countree."
Such was Tana's garrulous première in the gray house--and he fulfilled
its promise. Though he was conscientious and honorable, he was
unquestionably a terrific bore. He seemed unable to control his tongue,
sometimes continuing from paragraph to paragraph with a look akin to
pain in his small brown eyes.
Sunday and Monday afternoons he read the comic sections of the
newspapers. One cartoon which contained a facetious Japanese butler
diverted him enormously, though he claimed that the protagonist, who to
Anthony appeared clearly Oriental, had really an American face. The
difficulty with the funny paper was that when, aided by Anthony, he had
spelled out the last three pictures and assimilated their context with a
concentration surely adequate for Kant's "Critique," he had entirely
forgotten what the first pictures were about.
In the middle of June Anthony and Gloria celebrated their first
anniversary by having a "date." Anthony knocked at the door and she ran
to let him in. Then they sat together on the couch calling over those
names they had made for each other, new combinations of endearments ages
old. Yet to this "date" was appended no attenuated good-night with its
ecstasy of regret.
Later in June horror leered out at Gloria, struck at her and frightened
her bright soul back half a generation. Then slowly it faded out, faded
back into that impenetrable darkness whence it had come--taking
relentlessly its modicum of youth.
With an infallible sense of the dramatic it chose a little railroad
station in a wretched village near Portchester. The station platform lay
all day bare as a prairie, exposed to the dusty yellow sun and to the
glance of that most obnoxious type of countryman who lives near a
metropolis and has attained its cheap smartness without its urbanity. A
dozen of these yokels, red-eyed, cheerless as scarecrows, saw the
incident. Dimly it passed across their confused and uncomprehending
minds, taken at its broadest for a coarse joke, at its subtlest for a
"shame." Meanwhile there upon the platform a measure of brightness faded
from the world.
With Eric Merriam, Anthony had been sitting over a decanter of Scotch
all the hot summer afternoon, while Gloria and Constance Merriam swam
and sunned themselves at the Beach Club, the latter under a striped
parasol-awning, Gloria stretched sensuously upon the soft hot sand,
tanning her inevitable legs. Later they had all four played with
inconsequential sandwiches; then Gloria had risen, tapping Anthony's
knee with her parasol to get his attention.
"We've got to go, dear."
"Now?" He looked at her unwillingly. At that moment nothing seemed of
more importance than to idle on that shady porch drinking mellowed
Scotch, while his host reminisced interminably on the byplay of some
forgotten political campaign.
"We've really got to go," repeated Gloria. "We can get a taxi to the
station.... Come on, Anthony!" she commanded a bit more imperiously.
"Now see here--" Merriam, his yarn cut off, made conventional
objections, meanwhile provocatively filling his guest's glass with a
high-ball that should have been sipped through ten minutes. But at
Gloria's annoyed "We really _must!_" Anthony drank it off, got to his
feet and made an elaborate bow to his hostess.
"It seems we 'must,'" he said, with little grace.
In a minute he was following Gloria down a garden-walk between tall
rose-bushes, her parasol brushing gently the June-blooming leaves. Most
inconsiderate, he thought, as they reached the road. He felt with
injured naïvete that Gloria should not have interrupted such innocent
and harmless enjoyment. The whiskey had both soothed and clarified the
restless things in his mind. It occurred to him that she had taken this
same attitude several times before. Was he always to retreat from
pleasant episodes at a touch of her parasol or a flicker of her eye? His
unwillingness blurred to ill will, which rose within him like a
resistless bubble. He kept silent, perversely inhibiting a desire to
reproach her. They found a taxi in front of the Inn; rode silently to
the little station....
Then Anthony knew what he wanted--to assert his will against this cool
and impervious girl, to obtain with one magnificent effort a mastery
that seemed infinitely desirable.
"Let's go over to see the Barneses," he said without looking at her. "I
don't feel like going home."
--Mrs. Barnes, née Rachael Jerryl, had a summer place several miles from
Redgate.
"We went there day before yesterday," she answered shortly.
"I'm sure they'd be glad to see us." He felt that that was not a strong
enough note, braced himself stubbornly, and added: "I want to see the
Barneses. I haven't any desire to go home."
"Well, I haven't any desire to go to the Barneses."
Suddenly they stared at each other.
"Why, Anthony," she said with annoyance, "this is Sunday night and they
probably have guests for supper. Why we should go in at this hour--"
"Then why couldn't we have stayed at the Merriams'?" he burst out. "Why
go home when we were having a perfectly decent time? They asked us
to supper."
"They had to. Give me the money and I'll get the railroad tickets."
"I certainly will not! I'm in no humour for a ride in that damn hot
train."
Gloria stamped her foot on the platform.
"Anthony, you act as if you're tight!"
"On the contrary, I'm perfectly sober."
But his voice had slipped into a husky key and she knew with certainty
that this was untrue.
"If you're sober you'll give me the money for the tickets."
But it was too late to talk to him that way. In his mind was but one
idea--that Gloria was being selfish, that she was always being selfish
and would continue to be unless here and now he asserted himself as her
master. This was the occasion of all occasions, since for a whim she had
deprived him of a pleasure. His determination solidified, approached
momentarily a dull and sullen hate.
"I won't go in the train," he said, his voice trembling a little with
anger. "We're going to the Barneses."
"I'm not!" she cried. "If you go I'm going home alone."
"Go on, then."
Without a word she turned toward the ticket office; simultaneously he
remembered that she had some money with her and that this was not the
sort of victory he wanted, the sort he must have. He took a step after
her and seized her arm.
"See here!" he muttered, "you're _not_ going alone!"
"I certainly am--why, Anthony!" This exclamation as she tried to pull
away from him and he only tightened his grasp.
He looked at her with narrowed and malicious eyes.
"Let go!" Her cry had a quality of fierceness. "If you have _any_
decency you'll let go."
"Why?" He knew why. But he took a confused and not quite confident pride
in holding her there.
"I'm going home, do you understand? And you're going to let me go!"
"No, I'm not."
Her eyes were burning now.
"Are you going to make a scene here?"
"I say you're not going! I'm tired of your eternal selfishness!"
"I only want to go home." Two wrathful tears started from her eyes.
"This time you're going to do what _I_ say."
Slowly her body straightened: her head went back in a gesture of
infinite scorn.
"I hate you!" Her low words were expelled like venom through her
clenched teeth. "Oh, _let_ me go! Oh, I _hate_ you!" She tried to jerk
herself away but he only grasped the other arm. "I hate you! I
hate you!"
At Gloria's fury his uncertainty returned, but he felt that now he had
gone too far to give in. It seemed that he had always given in and that
in her heart she had despised him for it. Ah, she might hate him now,
but afterward she would admire him for his dominance.
The approaching train gave out a premonitory siren that tumbled
melodramatically toward them down the glistening blue tracks. Gloria
tugged and strained to free herself, and words older than the Book of
Genesis came to her lips.
"Oh, you brute!" she sobbed. "Oh, you brute! Oh, I hate you! Oh, you
brute! Oh--"
On the station platform other prospective passengers were beginning to
turn and stare; the drone of the train was audible, it increased to a
clamor. Gloria's efforts redoubled, then ceased altogether, and she
stood there trembling and hot-eyed at this helpless humiliation, as the
engine roared and thundered into the station.
Low, below the flood of steam and the grinding of the brakes came her
voice: