登陆注册
5224500000026

第26章 CHAPTER 2 Spires and Gargoyles(15)

...Oh it's so hard to write you what I really fell when I think about you so much; you've gotten to mean to me a dream that I can't put on paper any more. Your last letter came and it was wonderful! I read it over about six times, especially the last part, but I do wish, sometimes, you'd be more frank and tell me what you really do think of me, yet your last letter was too good to be true, and I can hardly wait until June! Be cure and be able to come to the prom. It"ll be fine, I think, and I want to bring you just at the end of a wonderful year. I often think over what you said on that night and wonder how much you ment. If it were anyone but you-but you see I thought you were fickle the first time I say you and you are so popular and everthing that I can't imagine you really liking me best. ...Oh, Isabelle, dear-it's a wonderful night. Somebody is playing "Love Moon" on a mandolin far across the campus, and the music seems to bring you into the window. Now he's playing "Good-by, Boys, I'm Through," and how well it suits me. For I am through with everything. I have decided never to take a cocktail again, and I know I'll never again fall in loveI couldn'tyou've been too much a part of my days and nights to ever let me think of another girl. I meet them all the time and they don't interest me. I'm not pretending to be blasi, because it's not that. It's just that I'm in love. Oh, dearest Isabelle (somehow I can't call you just Isabelle, and I'm afraid I'll come out with the "dearest" before your family this June), you've got to come to the prom, and then I'll come up to your house for a day and everything'll be perfect....

And so on in an eternal monotone that seemed to both of them infinitely charming, infinitely new.

June came and the days grew so hot and lazy that they could not worry even about exams, but spent dreamy evenings on the court of Cottage, talking of long subjects until the sweep of country toward Stony Brook became a blue haze and the lilacs were white around tennis-courts, and words gave way to silent cigarettes....

Then down deserted Prospect and along McCosh with song everywhere around them, up to the hot joviality of Nassau Street.

Tom D'Invilliers and Amory walked late in those days. A gambling fever swept through the sophomore class and they bent over the bones till three o'clock many a sultry night. After one session they came out of Sloane's room to find the dew fallen and the stars old in the sky.

"Let's borrow bicycles and take a ride," Amory suggested. "All right. I'm not a bit tired and this is almost the last night of the year, really, because the prom stuff starts Monday." They found two unlocked bicycles in Holder Court and rode out about half-past three along the Lawrenceville Road.

"What are you going to do this summer, Amory?"

"Don't ask me-same old things, I suppose. A month or two in Lake GenevaI'm counting on you to be there in July, you knowthen there'll be Minneapolis, and that means hundreds of summer hops, parlor-snaking, getting boredBut oh, Tom," he added suddenly, "hasn't this year been slick!"

"No," declared Tom emphatically, a new Tom, clothed by Brooks, shod by Franks, "I've won this game, but I feel as if I never want to play another. You're all rightyou're a rubber ball, and somehow it suits you, but I'm sick of adapting myself to the local snobbishness of this corner of the world. I want to go where people aren't barred because of the color of their neckties and the roll of their coats."

"You can't, Tom," argued Amory, as they rolled along through the scattering night; "wherever you go now you'll always unconsciously apply these standards of 'having it' or 'lacking it.' For better or worse we've stamped you; you're a Princeton type!"

"Well, then," complained Tom, his cracked voice rising plaintively, "why do I have to come back at all? I've learned all that Princeton has to offer. Two years more of mere pedantry and lying around a club aren't going to help. They're just going to disorganize me, conventionalize me completely. Even now I'm so spineless that I wonder how I get away with it."

"Oh, but you're missing the real point, Tom," Amory interrupted.

"You've just had your eyes opened to the snobbishness of the world in a rather abrupt manner. Princeton invariably gives the thoughtful man a social sense."

"You consider you taught me that, don't you?" he asked quizzically, eying Amory in the half dark.

Amory laughed quietly.

"Didn't I?"

"Sometimes," he said slowly, "I think you're my bad angel. I might have been a pretty fair poet."

"Come on, that's rather hard. You chose to come to an Eastern college. Either your eyes were opened to the mean scrambling quality of people, or you'd have gone through blind, and you'd hate to have done that-been like Marty Kaye."

"Yes," he agreed, "you're right. I wouldn't have liked it. Still, it's hard to be made a cynic at twenty."

"I was born one," Amory murmured. "I'm a cynical idealist." He paused and wondered if that meant anything.

They reached the sleeping school of Lawrenceville, and turned to ride back.

"It's good, this ride, isn't it?" Tom said presently.

"Yes; it's a good finish, it's knock-out; everything's good to-night. Oh, for a hot, languorous summer and Isabelle!" "Oh, you and your Isabelle! I'll bet she's a simple one ... let's say some poetry."

So Amory declaimed "The Ode to a Nightingale" to the bushes they passed.

"I'll never be a poet," said Amory as he finished. "I'm not enough of a sensualist really; there are only a few obvious things that I notice as primarily beautiful: women, spring evenings, music at night, the sea; I don't catch the subtle things like 'silver-snarling trumpets.' I may turn out an intellectual, but I'll never write anything but mediocre poetry."

同类推荐
  • 太上黄箓斋仪

    太上黄箓斋仪

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 炎徼纪闻

    炎徼纪闻

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • A House-Boat on the Styx

    A House-Boat on the Styx

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 周易本义

    周易本义

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 三春梦

    三春梦

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 越看越想笑的校园笑话(悦读珍藏版)

    越看越想笑的校园笑话(悦读珍藏版)

    《越看越想笑的校园笑话》根据当代小学生的阅读兴趣,精心筛选出集趣味性、益智性为一体的校园笑话,内容积极向上,语言诙谐幽默,让小读者不仅能够在阅读的时候感受到快乐,而且还能够在看笑话的同时学到新的东西。同时,小读者还可以从笑话中积累写作素材,并从中体会与人相处的道理。
  • 视刀环歌

    视刀环歌

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 阴魂秘录

    阴魂秘录

    天地初开,-------------------
  • 下一年便是永远

    下一年便是永远

    小时候的青梅竹马,长大的竞争对手,现在的夫妻,到底发生了什么?
  • 两个牧师

    两个牧师

    吉姆·马尔罗尼和我在神学院一直是最好的朋友,但是,直到我们被正式任命为牧师一年以后,我才慢慢发现他的隐密爱好。
  • 不科学的原始人

    不科学的原始人

    穿越之后的原始社会,彻底的颠覆了王伟的三观。不是说原始人身材矮小,身高不足一米六吗,为何我碰到的原始人,个个的身材都是需要我去仰望的存在。不是说原始人身体弱,力气小吗?为什么在我看来,他们拳上能站人,臂上能跑马。不是说原始人的诞生,距离恐龙年代长达六千万年吗?为什么三叠纪,侏罗纪,白垩纪的恐龙以及不同时代的巨型昆虫都糅杂在这个年代?看着空中的翼龙以及巨型蜻蜓,再看看地上那些数米长的蜈蚣,十几米长的恐龙和巨兽,还有身边那些同野牛角力,力能扛鼎的原始人,王伟欲哭无泪。这个原始世界,这些原始人,一点都不科学!
  • 伏天狂神

    伏天狂神

    地若拘我,我便覆地!天若逆我,我便伏天!
  • 佛说十地经卷第一

    佛说十地经卷第一

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Rose in Bloom

    Rose in Bloom

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 圈养七岁小王妃

    圈养七岁小王妃

    她被亲生父亲给卖了,卖给姐姐的前男友。只可惜,她不会认人摆布,早早起来逃跑,却不幸被花盆砸中。还有没有比她更倒霉的?自此,她一个现世的小厨娘。穿越到一个未知朝代七岁半的奶娃娃,家族被人陷害,本该充军的她,被指腹为婚的夫君护着。硬是逃了厄运。可是,奶娃娃毕竟从小身子弱,没等嫁入夫家就一命呜呼了片段一某一天,嚣张跋扈的大小姐指着奶娃娃的鼻子,大骂“你就是个逆臣之女,在我面前嚣张?告诉你,赶快滚出王府,本小姐饶你不死”奶娃娃哼着曲儿,玩着手里的猫猫,口气非常平淡“管家,把侧妃轰出去”管家胆战心惊了,虽然这个是王妃,可是那个毕竟是将军之女,而且,眼前使唤他的还是个奶娃娃“王妃说的话,你没听见吗?还是你聋了?”某个男人一身素袄,站在她的身边,厉声警告片段二“皇后娘娘,请问,现在是不是该给我爹爹清白了?”某个不良的奶娃娃一脸认真的问道“本宫听不懂你说的是什么,给本宫出去”“王爷,王爷,她凶你娘子”一脸泪痕,某个奶娃娃冲进一边那个坚实的怀抱“谁敢凶你,本王给你出气,别哭了,嗯?”他抬起她的小脸,心疼的抹掉脸上的泪珠“皇后,以后见王妃如见本王,要是你再敢对她怎么样,如同对本王”阴势的眸子,冷烈的神情,让在场的人都倒抽了一口冷气片段三“王爷,王爷,不好了”门口的通报大呼小叫“讲”他慵懒的声音从卧榻传来“王妃她,她”通报欲言又止“说”他的声音冷冽三分“王妃她,打了太子妃。”“王妃受伤了没?”“禀告王爷,王妃没受伤”“传本王口谕,太子妃废了”