FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129  
130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   >>   >|  
been. That little outburst was pure spring." "And you are, too," said he. They were walking along now. "No--you're wrong again, how can a person of your own self-reputed brains be so constantly wrong about me? I'm the opposite of everything spring ever stood for. It's unfortunate, if I happen to look like what pleased some soppy old Greek sculptor, but I assure you that if it weren't for my face I'd be a quiet nun in the convent without"--then she broke into a run and her raised voice floated back to him as he followed--"my precious babies, which I must go back and see." She was the only girl he ever knew with whom he could understand how another man might be preferred. Often Amory met wives whom he had known as debutantes, and looking intently at them imagined that he found something in their faces which said: "Oh, if I could only have gotten _you!_" Oh, the enormous conceit of the man! But that night seemed a night of stars and singing and Clara's bright soul still gleamed on the ways they had trod. "Golden, golden is the air--" he chanted to the little pools of water. ... "Golden is the air, golden notes from golden mandolins, golden frets of golden violins, fair, oh, wearily fair.... Skeins from braided basket, mortals may not hold; oh, what young extravagant God, who would know or ask it?... who could give such gold..." ***** AMORY IS RESENTFUL Slowly and inevitably, yet with a sudden surge at the last, while Amory talked and dreamed, war rolled swiftly up the beach and washed the sands where Princeton played. Every night the gymnasium echoed as platoon after platoon swept over the floor and shuffled out the basket-ball markings. When Amory went to Washington the next week-end he caught some of the spirit of crisis which changed to repulsion in the Pullman car coming back, for the berths across from him were occupied by stinking aliens--Greeks, he guessed, or Russians. He thought how much easier patriotism had been to a homogeneous race, how much easier it would have been to fight as the Colonies fought, or as the Confederacy fought. And he did no sleeping that night, but listened to the aliens guffaw and snore while they filled the car with the heavy scent of latest America. In Princeton every one bantered in public and told themselves privately that their deaths at least would be heroic. The literary students read Rupert Brooke passionately; the lounge-lizards worried over whethe
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129  
130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
golden
 

aliens

 

fought

 

platoon

 

easier

 
Princeton
 
Golden
 

basket

 
spring
 

gymnasium


echoed

 

markings

 
shuffled
 

dreamed

 
RESENTFUL
 

Slowly

 
inevitably
 
sudden
 

washed

 

swiftly


rolled

 

talked

 

played

 

bantered

 

public

 

America

 

guffaw

 

filled

 

latest

 

privately


deaths

 
passionately
 

Brooke

 

lounge

 

lizards

 
whethe
 

worried

 
Rupert
 

heroic

 
literary

students
 

listened

 
sleeping
 
Pullman
 

repulsion

 

coming

 
berths
 

occupied

 
extravagant
 

changed