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
  • 明伦汇编人事典魂魄部

    明伦汇编人事典魂魄部

    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。
  • 华严法界观门注

    华严法界观门注

    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。
  • Joe the Hotel Boy

    Joe the Hotel Boy

    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。
  • 辨证汇编

    辨证汇编

    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。
  • 国初礼贤录

    国初礼贤录

    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
  • 销魂夜之默契情人

    销魂夜之默契情人

    他们是最默契的床伴,在一起整整四年他们共有无数个唯美的销魂夜他一直以为终有一天他会和她结婚,却没有想到一夕之间所有的一切全都破碎她离开了他,去寻找她梦想中的欢乐园他恨她,却在不知不觉中依然爱她爱得那么深他越是恨她,她就越不在乎她从没后悔成为他的床伴,但却拒绝用心去爱他一切都是因为那个女人她怕再受到伤害当他们再次相遇的时候,仇恨掩盖了一切、、、、、、、随心作品交流新群号:60031218敲砖石:随心作品中任何一个角色名字.《尝欢掠爱》已经完结!〈销魂夜之冷心情人〉新文《剜心》正式开坑,更多精彩,敬请期待!欢迎亲们一如既往地支持心的新文!
  • 穿梭在虚实世界

    穿梭在虚实世界

    啥?系统?楚羽摸着脑袋都想不明白这究竟是个什么东西。跟马里奥打魔王?在战场打飞机?跟周星驰学武功?
  • 幻夜奇谈

    幻夜奇谈

    魔都这座城市流传着无数的传说与怪谈,在这座看似平静的表面下究竟隐藏着什么样的秘密呢?不同的人在这个城市汇聚,每个人物都拥有着属于自己的回忆与过去,懵懂无知的少年们揭开了一个又一个秘密,这个世界真实的样貌的全部展现了出来,这是一个凡人的逆袭,一段逝去的友谊,一个爱恨交织的故事,失去的东西想要重获,需要付出高昂的的代价……当命运的齿轮开始转动之时,故事开始了……
  • 脉界天骄

    脉界天骄

    乱荡脉世,无数修炼强者在这一代集中,各族各宗,勾心斗角。边境黄泉,一人执剑扫尽苍穹,月神殿主手指明月定乾坤,白氏境域,独挡天下,白马帝国,谁能主宰?……山村少年,身附九重佛龙身,修得御冥奇术,背负他不知的使命闯入这乱世,浩瀚无垠,他可只手遮天,吾为脉世至尊
  • 南风不解意

    南风不解意

    暮南风曾经认为姜北淮是她的劫,她从他身上尝到了爱情的失意,又因为他的所作所为经历了家破人亡的灾难。重来一世,她绝对不会重蹈覆辙,可却又逐渐发觉,事情跟她想象中的似乎有些不一样。而她不知道的是,在另一个人的心里,她也早已成为避不开也逃不脱的劫数。--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 犹龙传

    犹龙传

    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。
  • 枫叶红了的时候

    枫叶红了的时候

    十二月份的雪愈加厚了,漫天皆白。在一片白中豁然而开的雪岭煤矿的坑口,不语而威。清晨,坑洞前的雪野,早被民工笑笑他们蹚出一条小路,小路蜿蜒南去,连着炊烟乍起的山村……
  • 美丽时光走丢了

    美丽时光走丢了

    我还注意到集子中的多篇作品都有一个叫“另维”或“另小维”的人物。作者也许是有意以此突出故事的真实感?许多前辈作家都说过,小说是作家的自叙传。作者显然很会讲故事,善于在营造情节的跌宕起伏上下功夫。但那些明显过于突兀的结尾、那些在字里行间流露出的对过于完美的人生结局的憧憬又难免给人以落入俗套的感觉。毕竟,作者还太年轻了吧。因此,如何经营结尾(其实关系到如何写出人生的复杂与难以逆料)就成为作者下一步面对的挑战。
  • 鱼音寺(上)

    鱼音寺(上)

    宋仁宗嘉祐元年,三月初三,戌时一刻。夜幕降临,像菱州这样的江南小城,街上早就没有了人烟,白天热闹的街道在夜的笼罩下变的幽暗,寂静空中无月,但依稀还能看清两旁屋宅的轮廓,一只乌鸦孤单地停驻在飞檐上,冷冷地注视着脚下空旷的街道。远处,一点昏暗的灯光出现在街角,摇摇晃晃而来。那灯光是一个年轻女子提的灯笼,女子叫叶瑾,是城东叶家的独女,从城西的姨妈家回来。她姨妈是个老女人,老女人的骨头都很容易断,今早姨妈被一辆马车撞了,还撞断了腿,那架马车飞也似的驶向城外,一溜烟不见了踪迹。
  • 血旗袍之人皮刺绣

    血旗袍之人皮刺绣

    校园后山的一座孤坟,斜插着一副红棺,一半掩埋在土里,一半裸露在外。一个女生,静寂深夜独自前往,打开棺盖,棺中竟躺着一具身着红色旗袍的女尸,双眼和脖颈上细细密密地缝着黑色的丝线,她入了魔似的抱起女尸,脱下她的绝美旗袍,穿上。一天后,寝室女生在红棺中找到了她被割去头颅的尸首……