This Side of Paradise
get him nothing, but that being on the board of the Daily
Princetonian would get any one a good deal. His vague desire to
do immortal acting with the English Dramatic Association faded
out when he found that the most ingenious brains and talents were
concentrated upon the Triangle Club, a musical comedy
organization that every year took a great Christmas trip. In the
meanwhile, feeling strangely alone and restless in Commons, with
new desires and ambitions stirring in his mind, he let the first
term go by between an envy of the embryo successes and a puzzled
fretting with Kerry as to why they were not accepted immediately
among the elite of the class.
Many afternoons they lounged in the windows of 12 Univee and
watched the class pass to and from Commons, noting satellites
already attaching themselves to the more prominent, watching the
lonely grind with his hurried step and downcast eye, envying the
happy security of the big school groups.
“We’re the damned middle class, that’s what!” he complained to
Kerry one day as he lay stretched out on the sofa, consuming a
family of Fatimas with contemplative precision.
“Well, why not? We came to Princeton so we could feel that way
toward the small colleges—have it on ’em, more self-confidence,
dress better, cut a swathe—”
“Oh, it isn’t that I mind the glittering caste system,” admitted
Amory. “I like having a bunch of hot cats on top, but gosh,
Kerry, I’ve got to be one of them.”
“But just now, Amory, you’re only a sweaty bourgeois.”
Amory lay for a moment without speaking.
“I won’t be—long,” he said finally. “But I hate to get anywhere
by working for it. I’ll show the marks, don’t you know.”
“Honorable scars.” Kerry craned his neck suddenly at the street.
“There’s Langueduc, if you want to see what he looks like—and
Humbird just behind.”
Amory rose dynamically and sought the windows.
“Oh,” he said, scrutinizing these worthies, “Humbird looks like a
knock-out, but this Langueduc—he’s the rugged type, isn’t he? I
distrust that sort. All diamonds look big in the rough.”
“Well,” said Kerry, as the excitement subsided, “you’re a
literary genius. It’s up to you.”
“I wonder”—Amory paused—“if I could be. I honestly think so
sometimes. That sounds like the devil, and I wouldn’t say it to
anybody except you.”
“Well—go ahead. Let your hair grow and write poems like this guy
D’Invilliers in the Lit.”
Amory reached lazily at a pile of magazines on the table.
“Read his latest effort?”
“Never miss ’em. They’re rare.”
Amory glanced through the issue.
“Hello!” he said in surprise, “he’s a freshman, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Listen to this! My God!
“‘A serving lady speaks: Black velvet trails its folds over the day,
White tapers, prisoned in their silver frames, Wave their thin flames
like shadows in the wind, Pia, Pompia, come—come away—’
“Now, what the devil does that mean?”
“It’s a pantry scene.”
“‘Her toes are stiffened like a stork’s in flight; She’s laid upon
her bed, on the white sheets, Her hands pressed on her smooth bust
like a saint, Bella Cunizza, come into the light!’
“My gosh, Kerry, what in hell is it all about? I swear I don’t
get him at all, and I’m a literary bird myself.”
“It’s pretty tricky,” said Kerry, “only you’ve got to think of
hearses and stale milk when you read it. That isn’t as pash as
some of them.”
Amory tossed the magazine on the table.
“Well,” he sighed, “I sure am up in the air. I know I’m not a
regular fellow, yet I loathe anybody else that isn’t. I can’t
decide whether to cultivate my mind and be a great dramatist, or
to thumb my nose at the Golden Treasury and be a Princeton
slicker.”
“Why decide?” suggested Kerry. “Better drift, like me. I’m going
to sail into prominence on Burne’s coat-tails.”
“I can’t drift—I want to be interested. I want to pull strings,
even for somebody else, or be Princetonian chairman or Triangle
president. I want to be admired, Kerry.”
“You’re thinking too much about yourself.”
Amory sat up at this.
“No. I’m thinking about you, too. We’ve got to get out and mix
around the class right now, when it’s fun to be a snob. I’d like
to bring a sardine to the prom in June, for instance, but I
wouldn’t do it unless I could be damn debonaire about
it—introduce her to all the prize parlor-snakes, and the football
captain, and all that simple stuff.”
“Amory,” said Kerry impatiently, “you’re just going around in a
circle. If you want to be prominent, get out and try for
something; if you don’t, just take it easy.” He yawned. “Come on,
let’s let the smoke drift off. We’ll go down and watch football
practice.”
Amory gradually accepted this point of view, decided that next
fall would inaugurate his career, and relinquished himself to
watching Kerry extract joy from 12 Univee.
They filled the Jewish youth’s bed with lemon pie; they put out
the gas all over the house every night by blowing into the jet in
Amory’s room, to the bewilderment of Mrs. Twelve and the local
plumber; they set up the effects of the plebeian drunks—pictures,
books, and furniture—in the bathroom, to the confusion of the
pair, who hazily discovered the transposition on their return
from a Trenton spree; they were disappointed beyond measure when
the plebeian drunks decided to take it as a joke; they played
red-dog and twenty-one and jackpot from dinner to dawn, and on
the occasion of one man’s birthday persuaded him to buy
sufficient champagne for a hilarious celebration. The donor of
the party having remained sober, Kerry and Amory accidentally
dropped him down two flights of stairs and called, shame-faced
and penitent, at the infirmary all the following week.
“Say, who are all these women?” demanded Kerry one day,
protesting at the size of Amory’s mail. “I’ve been looking at the
postmarks lately—Farmington and Dobbs and Westover and Dana
Hall—what’s the idea?”
Amory grinned.
“All from the Twin Cities.” He named them off. “There’s Marylyn
De Witt—she’s pretty, got a car of her own and that’s damn
convenient; there’s Sally Weatherby—she’s getting too fat;
there’s Myra St. Claire, she’s an old flame, easy to kiss if you
like it—”
“What line do you throw ’em?” demanded Kerry. “I’ve tried
everything, and the mad wags aren’t even afraid of me.”
“You’re the ‘nice boy’ type,” suggested Amory.
“That’s just it. Mother always feels the girl is safe if she’s
with me. Honestly, it’s annoying. If I start to hold somebody’s
hand, they laugh at me, and let me, just as if it wasn’t part of
them. As soon as I get hold of a hand they sort of disconnect it
from the rest of them.”
“Sulk,” suggested Amory. “Tell ’em you’re wild and have ’em
reform you—go home furious—come back in half an hour—startle
’em.”
Kerry shook his head.
“No chance. I wrote a St. Timothy girl a really loving letter
last year. In one place I got rattled and said: ‘My God, how I
love you!’ She took a nail scissors, clipped out the ‘My God’ and
showed the rest of the letter all over school. Doesn’t work at
all. I’m just ‘good old Kerry’ and all that rot.”
Amory smiled and tried to picture himself as “good old Amory.” He
failed completely.
February dripped snow and rain, the cyclonic freshman mid-years
passed, and life in 12 Univee continued interesting if not
purposeful. Once a day Amory indulged in a club sandwich,
cornflakes, and Julienne potatoes at “Joe’s,” accompanied usually
by Kerry or Alec Connage. The latter was a quiet, rather aloof
slicker from Hotchkiss, who lived next door and shared the same
enforced singleness as Amory, due to the fact that his entire
class had gone to Yale. “Joe’s” was unaesthetic and faintly
unsanitary, but a limitless charge account could be opened there,
a convenience that Amory appreciated. His father had been
experimenting with mining stocks and, in consequence, his
allowance, while liberal, was not at all what he had expected.
“Joe’s” had the additional advantage of seclusion from curious
upper-class eyes, so at four each afternoon Amory, accompanied by
friend or book, went up to experiment with his digestion. One day
in March, finding that all the tables were occupied, he slipped
into a chair opposite a freshman who bent intently over a book at
the last table. They nodded briefly. For twenty minutes Amory sat
consuming bacon buns and reading “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” (he
had discovered Shaw quite by accident while browsing in the
library during mid-years); the other freshman, also intent on his
volume, meanwhile did away with a trio of chocolate malted milks.
By and by Amory’s eyes wandered curiously to his fellow-luncher’s
book. He spelled out the name and title upside down—“Marpessa,”
by Stephen Phillips. This meant nothing to him, his metrical
education having been confined to such Sunday classics as “Come
into the Garden, Maude,” and what morsels of Shakespeare and
Milton had been recently forced upon him.
Moved to address his vis-a-vis, he simulated interest in his book
for a moment, and then exclaimed aloud as if involuntarily:
“Ha! Great stuff!”
The other freshman looked up and Amory registered artificial
embarrassment.
“Are you referring to your bacon buns?” His cracked, kindly voice
went well with the large spectacles and the impression of a
voluminous keenness that he gave.
“No,” Amory answered. “I was referring to Bernard Shaw.” He
turned the book around in explanation.
“I’ve never read any Shaw. I’ve always meant to.” The boy paused
and then continued: “Did you ever read Stephen Phillips, or do
you like poetry?”
“Yes, indeed,” Amory affirmed eagerly. “I’ve never read much of
Phillips, though.” (He had never heard of any Phillips except the
late David Graham.)
“It’s pretty fair, I think. Of course he’s a Victorian.” They
sallied into a discussion of poetry, in the course of which they
introduced themselves, and Amory’s companion proved to be none
other than “that awful highbrow, Thomas Parke D’Invilliers,” who
signed the passionate love-poems in the Lit. He was, perhaps,
nineteen, with stooped shoulders, pale blue eyes, and, as Amory
could tell from his general appearance, without much conception
of social competition and such phenomena of absorbing interest.
Still, he liked books, and it seemed forever since Amory had met
any one who did; if only that St. Paul’s crowd at the next table
would not mistake _him_ for a bird, too, he would enjoy the
encounter tremendously. They didn’t seem to be noticing, so he
let himself go, discussed books by the dozens—books he had read,
read about, books he had never heard of, rattling off lists of
titles with the facility of a Brentano’s clerk. D’Invilliers was