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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
In 'The Posthumous Stories of Fitzgerald: 13 Stories in One Edition', F. Scott Fitzgerald showcases a collection of previously unpublished stories that offer readers a glimpse into the author's mastery of prose and depth of storytelling. Set against the backdrop of the Roaring Twenties, Fitzgerald's literary style captivates with its vivid imagery and keen social commentary, shedding light on the complexities of the American Dream and human nature. Each story within this compilation explores themes of love, loss, and the pursuit of happiness, highlighting Fitzgerald's ability to capture the essence of the Jazz Age in a thought-provoking manner. As a posthumous release, this edition provides readers with a unique opportunity to delve into the unpublished work of a literary icon, offering a new perspective on Fitzgerald's creative process and narrative voice. Fans of Fitzgerald's classic works such as 'The Great Gatsby' will find this collection a valuable addition to their library, providing a deeper understanding of the author's unique vision and literary legacy.
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The Posthumous Stories of Fitzgerald: 13 Stories in One Edition
Published by
Books
Table of Contents
On an Ocean Wave.
Esquire (February 1941)
Table of Contents
Gaston T. Scheer—the man, the company, the idea—five feet eight, carrying himself with dash and pride, walking the deck of the ocean liner like a conqueror. This was when it was something to be an American—Spring of 1929.
O’Kane, his confidential secretary, met him in the morning on the open front of the promenade deck.
“See her?” Scheer asked.
“Yes—sure. She’s all right.”
“Why shouldn’t she be all right?”
O’Kane hesitated.
“Some of her baggage is marked with her real initials—and the stewardess said——”
“Oh, hell!” said Scheer. “She should have had that fixed up in New York. It’s the same old story—girl’s not your wife, she’s always sensitive, always complaining about slights and injuries. Oh, hell.”
“She was all right.”
“Women are small potatoes,” said Scheer disgustedly. “Did you see that cable from Claud Hanson today that said he’d gladly die for me?”
“I saw it, Mr. Scheer.”
“I liked it.” Scheer said defiantly, “I think Claud meant it. I think he’d gladly die for me.”
Claud Hanson was Mr. Scheer’s other secretary. O’Kane let his natural cynicism run riot in silence.
“I think many people would, Mr. Scheer,” he said without vomiting. Gosh, it was probably true. Mr. Scheer did a lot for a lot of people—kept them alive, gave them work.
“I liked the sentiment,” said Scheer gazing gravely out to sea. “Anyhow Miss Denzer oughtn’t to grouse—it’s just four days and twelve hours. She doesn’t have to stay in her cabin, just so she doesn’t make herself conspicuous or talk to me—just in case.”
Just in case anyone had seen them together in New York.
“Anyhow—” he concluded. “My wife’s never seen her or heard of her.”
Mr. O’Kane had concluded that he himself would possibly die for Mr. Scheer if Mr. Scheer kept on giving him market tips for ten years more. He would die at the end of the ten—you could cram a lot into ten years. By that time he himself might be able to bring two women abroad in the same load, in separate crates so to speak.
Alone, Gaston T. Scheer faced a strong west wind with a little spray in it. He was not afraid of the situation he had created—he had never been afraid since the day he had forced himself to lay out a foreman with a section of pitch chain.
It just felt a little strange when he walked with Minna and the children to think that Catherine Denzer might be watching them. So when he was on deck with Minna he kept his face impassive and aloof, appearing not to have a good time. This was false. He liked Minna—she said nice things.
In Europe this summer it would be easier. Minna and the children would be parked here and there, in Paris and on the Riviera, and he would make business trips with Catherine. It was a willful, daring arrangement but he was twice a man in every way. Life certainly owed him two women.
The day passed—once he saw Catherine Denzer, passing her in an empty corridor. She kept her bargain, all except for her lovely pale head which yearned toward him momentarily as they passed and made his throat warm, made him want to turn and go after her. But he kept himself in control—they would be in Cherbourg in fifty hours.
Another day passed—there was a brokerage office on board and he spent the time there, putting in a few orders, using the ship-to-shore telephone once, sending a few code wires.
That evening he left Minna talking to the college professor in the adjoining deck chair, and strolled restlessly around the ship, continually playing with the idea of going to Catherine Denzer, but only as a form of mental indulgence because it was twenty-four hours now to Paris and the situation was well in hand.
But he walked the halls of her deck, sometimes glancing casually down the little branch corridors to the staterooms. And so, entirely by accident, in one of these corridors he saw his wife Minna and the professor. They were in each other’s arms embracing, with all abandon. No mistake.
II.
Cautiously Scheer backed away from the corridor. His first thought was very simple: it jumped over several steps—over fury, hot jealousy and amazement—it was that his entire plan for the summer was ruined. His next thought was that Minna must sweat blood for this and then he jumped a few more steps. He was what is known medically as a “schizoid”—in his business dealings, too, he left out intermediate steps, surprising competitors by arriving quickly at an extreme position without any discoverable logic. He had arrived at one of these extreme positions now and was not even surprised to find himself there.
An hour later there was a knock on the door of Mr. O’Kane’s cabin and Professor Dollard of the faculty of Weston Technical College came into the room. He was a thin quiet man of forty, wearing a loose tweed suit.
“Oh yes,” said O’Kane. “Come in. Sit down.”
“Thank you,” said Dollard. “What do you want to see me about?”
“Have a cigarette.”
“No thanks. I’m on my way to bed, but tell me, what’s it about?”
O’Kane coughed pointedly—whereupon Cates, the swimming-pool steward, came out of the private bathroom behind Dollard and went to the corridor door, locking it and standing in front of it. At the same time Gaston T. Scheer came out of the bathroom and Dollard stood up, blushing suddenly dark as he recognized him.
“Oh, hello—” he said, “—Mr. Scheer. What’s the idea of this?” He took off his glasses with the thought that Scheer was going to hit him.
“What are you a professor of, Professor?”
“Mathematics, Mr. Scheer—I told you that. What’s the idea of asking me down here?”
“You ought to stick to your job,” said Scheer. “You ought to stick there in the college and teach it and not mess around with decent people.”
“I’m not messing around with anybody.”
“You oughtn’t to fool around with people that could buy you out ten thousand times—and not know they spent a nickel.”
Dollard stood up.
“You’re out of your class,” said Scheer. “You’re a school teacher that’s promoted himself out of his class.”
Cates, the steward, stirred impatiently. He had left the two hundred pounds in cash in his locker and he wanted to have this over with and get back and hide it better.
“I don’t know yet what I’ve done,” Dollard said. But he knew all right. It was too bad. A long time ago he had decided to avoid rich people and here he was tangled up with the very worst type.
“You stepped out of your class,” said Scheer thickly, “but you’re not going to do it any more. You’re going to feed the fishes out there, see?”
Mr. O’Kane, who had bucked himself with whiskey, kept imagining that it was Claud Hanson who was about to die for Mr. Scheer—instead of Professor Dollard who had not offered himself for a sacrifice. There was still a moment when Dollard could have cried out for help but because he was guilty he could not bring himself to cry out. Then he was engrossed in a struggle to keep breathing, a struggle that he lost without a sigh.
III.
Minna Scheer waited on the front of the promenade deck, walking in the chalked numbers of the shuffle-board game. She was excited and happy. Her feet as she placed them in the squares felt young and barefoot and desperate. She could play too—whatever it was they played. She had been a good girl so long, but now almost everybody she knew was raising the devil and it was a thrilling discovery to find that she could join in with such pleasure. The man was late but that made it all the more tense and unbearably lovely, and from time to time she raised her eyes in delight and looked off into the white hot wake of the steamer.
The Woman from “21”.
Esquire (June 1941)
Table of Contents
Ah, what a day for Raymond Torrence! Once you knew that your roots were safely planted outside megalopolitanism what fun it was to come back—every five years. He and Elizabeth woke up to the frozen music of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street, and first thing went down to his publishers on Fifth Avenue. Elizabeth, who was half Javanese and had never been in America before, liked it best of all there because her husband’s book was on multiple display in the window. She liked it in the store where she squeezed Ray’s hand tensely when people asked for it, and again when they bought it.
They lunched at the Stork Club with Hat Milbank, a pal of Ray’s at college and in the war. Of course no one there recognized Ray after these years but a man came in with the Book in his hands, crumpling up the jacket. Afterwards Hat asked them down to old Westbury to see the polo in which he still performed, but they went to the hotel and rested as they did in Java. Otherwise it would all be a little too much. Elizabeth wrote a letter to the children in Suva and told them “everyone in New York” was reading father’s book and admired the photograph which Janice had taken of a girl sick with yaws.
They went alone to a play by William Saroyan. After the curtain had been up five minutes the woman from “21” came in.
She was in the mid-thirties, dark and pretty. As she took her seat beside Ray Torrence she continued her conversation in a voice that was for outside and Elizabeth was a little sorry for her because obviously she did not know she was making herself a nuisance. They were a quartet—two in front. The girl’s escort was a tall and good-looking man. The woman leaning forward in her seat and talking to her friend in front, distracted Ray a little, but not overwhelmingly until she said in a conversational voice that must have reached the actors on the stage: “Let’s all go back to ‘21’.”
Her escort replied in a whisper and there was quiet for a moment. Then the woman drew a long, long sigh, culminating in an exhausted groan in which could be distinguished the words, “Oh, my God.”
Her friend in front turned around so sweetly that Ray thought the woman next to him must be someone very prominent and powerful—an Astor or a Vanderbilt or a Roosevelt.
“See a little bit of it,” suggested her friend.
The woman from “21” flopped forward with a dynamic movement and began an audible but indecipherable conversation in which the number of the restaurant occurred again and again. When she shifted restlessly back into her chair with another groaning “My God!” this time directed toward the play, Raymond turned his head sideways and uttered a prayer to her aloud: “Please.”
If Ray had muttered a four-letter word the effect could not have been more catalytic. The woman flashed about and regarded him—her eyes ablaze with the gastric hatred of many dying martinis and with something more. These were the unmistakable eyes of Mrs. Richbitch, that leftist creation as devoid of nuance as Mrs. Jiggs. As they burned with scalding arrogance—the very eyes of the Russian lady who let her coachman freeze outside while she wept at poverty in a play—at this moment Ray recognized a girl with whom he had played Run, Sheep, Run in Pittsburgh twenty years ago.
The woman did not after all excoriate him but this time her flop forward was so violent that it rocked the row ahead.
“Can you believe—can you imagine—”
Her voice raced along in a hoarse whisper. Presently she lunged sideways toward her escort and told him of the outrage. His eye caught Ray’s in a flickering embarrassed glance. On the other side of Ray, Elizabeth became disturbed and alarmed.
Ray did not remember the last five minutes of the act—beside him smoldered fury and he knew its name and the shape of its legs. Wanting nothing less than to kill, he hoped her man would speak to him or even look at him in a certain way during the entr’acte—but when it came the party stood up quickly, and the woman said: “We’ll go to ‘21’.”
On the crowded sidewalk between the acts Elizabeth talked softly to Ray. She did not seem to think it was of any great importance except for the effect on him. He agreed in theory—but when they went inside again the woman from “21” was already in her place, smoking and waving a cigarette.
“I could speak to the usher,” Ray muttered.
“Never mind,” said Elizabeth quickly. “In France you smoke in the music halls.”
“But you have some place to put the butt. She’s going to crush it out in my lap!”
In the sequel she spread the butt on the carpet and kept rubbing it in. Since a lady lush moves in mutually exclusive preoccupations just as a gent does, and the woman had passed beyond her preoccupation with Ray, things were tensely quiet.
When the lights went on after the second act, a voice called to Ray from the aisle. It was Hat Milbank.
“Hello, hello there, Ray! Hello, Mrs. Torrence. Do you want to go to ‘21’ after the theatre?”
His glance fell upon the people in between.
“Hello, Jidge,” he said to the woman’s escort; to the other three, who called him eagerly by name, he answered with an inclusive nod. Ray and Elizabeth crawled out over them. Ray told the story to Hat who seemed to ascribe as little importance to it as Elizabeth did, and wanted to know if he could come out to Fiji this spring.
But the effect upon Ray had been profound. It made him remember why he had left New York in the first place. This woman was what everything was for. She should have been humble, not awful, but she had become confused and thought she should be awful.
So Ray and Elizabeth would go back to Java, unmourned by anyone except Hat. Elizabeth would be a little disappointed at not seeing any more plays and not going to Palm Beach, and wouldn’t like having to pack so late at night. But in a silently communicable way she would understand. In a sense she would be glad. She even guessed that it was the children Ray was running to—to save them and shield them from all the walking dead.
When they went back to their seats for the third act the party from “21” were no longer there—nor did they come in later. It had clearly been another game of Run, Sheep, Run.
Three Hours Between Planes.
Esquire (July 1941)
Table of Contents
It was a wild chance but Donald was in the mood, healthy and bored, with a sense of tiresome duty done. He was now rewarding himself. Maybe.
When the plane landed he stepped out into a mid-western summer night and headed for the isolated pueblo airport, conventionalized as an old red ‘railway depot’. He did not know whether she was alive, or living in this town, or what was her present name. With mounting excitement he looked through the phone book for her father who might be dead too, somewhere in these twenty years.
No. Judge Harmon Holmes—Hillside 3194.
A woman’s amused voice answered his inquiry for Miss Nancy Holmes.
‘Nancy is Mrs Walter Gifford now. Who is this?’
But Donald hung up without answering. He had found out what he wanted to know and had only three hours. He did not remember any Walter Gifford and there was another suspended moment while he scanned the phone book. She might have married out of town.
No. Walter Gifford—Hillside 1191. Blood flowed back into his fingertips.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello. Is Mrs Gifford there—this is an old friend of hers.’
‘This is Mrs Gifford.’
He remembered, or thought he remembered, the funny magic in the voice.
‘This is Donald Plant. I haven’t seen you since I was twelve years old.’
‘Oh-h-h!’ The note was utterly surprised, very polite, but he could distinguish in it neither joy nor certain recognition.
‘—Donald!’ added the voice. This time there was something more in it than struggling memory.
‘ … when did you come back to town?’ Then cordially, ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m out at the airport—for just a few hours.’
‘Well, come up and see me.’
‘Sure you’re not just going to bed?’
‘Heavens, no!’ she exclaimed. ‘I was sitting here—having a highball by myself. Just tell your taxi man…’
On his way Donald analysed the conversation. His words ‘at the airport’ established that he had retained his position in the upper bourgeoisie. Nancy’s aloneness might indicate that she had matured into an unattractive woman without friends. Her husband might be either away or in bed. And—because she was always ten years old in his dreams—the highball shocked him. But he adjusted himself with a smile—she was very close to thirty.
At the end of a curved drive he saw a dark-haired little beauty standing against the lighted door, a glass in her hand. Startled by her final materialization, Donald got out of the cab, saying: ‘Mrs Gifford?’
She turned on the porch light and stared at him, wide-eyed and tentative. A smile broke through the puzzled expression.
‘Donald—it is you—we all change so. Oh, this is remarkable!’
As they walked inside, their voices jingled the words ‘all these years’, and Donald felt a sinking in his stomach. This derived in part from a vision of their last meeting—when she rode past him on a bicycle, cutting him dead—and in part from fear lest they have nothing to say. It was like a college reunion—but there the failure to find the past was disguised by the hurried boisterous occasion. Aghast, he realized that this might be a long and empty hour. He plunged in desperately.
‘You always were a lovely person. But I’m a little shocked to find you as beautiful as you are.’
It worked. The immediate recognition of their changed state, the bold compliment, made them interesting strangers instead of fumbling childhood friends.
‘Have a highball?’ she asked. ‘No? Please don’t think I’ve become a secret drinker, but this was a blue night. I expected my husband but he wired he’d be two days longer. He’s very nice, Donald, and very attractive. Rather your type and colouring.’ She hesitated, ‘—and I think he’s interested in someone in New York—and I don’t know.’
‘After seeing you it sounds impossible,’ he assured her. ‘I was married for six years, and there was a time I tortured myself that way. Then one day I just put jealousy out of my life forever. After my wife died I was very glad of that. It left a very rich memory—nothing marred or spoiled or hard to think over.’
She looked at him attentively, then sympathetically as he spoke.
‘I’m very sorry,’ she said. And after a proper moment,’ You’ve changed a lot. Turn your head. I remember father saying, “That boy has a brain.”’
‘You probably argued against it.’
‘I was impressed. Up to then I thought everybody had a brain. That’s why it sticks in my mind.’
‘What else sticks in your mind?’ he asked smiling.
Suddenly Nancy got up and walked quickly a little away.
‘Ah, now,’ she reproached him. ‘That isn’t fair! I suppose I was a naughty girl.’
‘You were not,’ he said stoutly. ‘And I will have a drink now.’
As she poured it, her face still turned from him, he continued:
‘Do you think you were the only little girl who was ever kissed?’
‘Do you like the subject?’ she demanded. Her momentary irritation melted and she said: ‘What the hell! We did have fun. Like in the song.’
‘On the sleigh ride.’
‘Yes—and somebody’s picnic—Trudy James’s. And at Frontenac that—those summers.’
It was the sleigh ride he remembered most and kissing her cool cheeks in the straw in one corner while she laughed up at the cold white stars. The couple next to them had their backs turned and he kissed her little neck and her ears and never her lips.
‘And the Macks’ party where they played post office and I couldn’t go because I had the mumps,’ he said.
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘Oh, you were there. And you were kissed and I was crazy with jealousy like I never have been since.’
‘Funny I don’t remember. Maybe I wanted to forget.’
‘But why?’ he asked in amusement. ‘We were two perfectly innocent kids. Nancy, whenever I talked to my wife about the past, I told her you were the girl I loved almost as much as I loved her. But I think I really loved you just as much. When we moved out of town I carried you like a cannon ball in my insides.’
‘Were you that much—stirred up?’
‘My God, yes! I—’ He suddenly realized that they were standing just two feet from each other, that he was talking as if he loved her in the present, that she was looking up at him with her lips half-parted and a clouded look in her eyes.
‘Go on,’ she said, ‘I’m ashamed to say—I like it. I didn’t know you were so upset then. I thought it was me who was upset.’
‘You!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t you remember throwing me over at the drugstore.’ He laughed. ‘You stuck out your tongue at me.’
‘I don’t remember at all. It seemed to me you did the throwing over.’ Her hand fell lightly, almost consolingly on his arm. ‘I’ve got a photograph book upstairs I haven’t looked at for years. I’ll dig it out.’
Donald sat for five minutes with two thoughts—first the hopeless impossibility of reconciling what different people remembered about the same event—and secondly that in a frightening way Nancy moved him as a woman as she had moved him as a child. Half an hour had developed an emotion that he had not known since the death of his wife—that he had never hoped to know again.
Side by side on a couch they opened the book between them. Nancy looked at him, smiling and very happy.
‘Oh, this is such fun,’ she said. ‘Such fun that you’re so nice, that you remember me so—beautifully. Let me tell you—I wish I’d known it then! After you’d gone I hated you.’
‘What a pity,’ he said gently.
‘But not now,’ she reassured him, and then impulsively, ‘Kiss and make up—’
‘ … that isn’t being a good wife,’ she said after a minute. ‘I really don’t think I’ve kissed two men since I was married.’
He was excited—but most of all confused. Had he kissed Nancy? or a memory? or this lovely trembly stranger who looked away from him quickly and turned a page of the book?
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘I don’t think I could see a picture for a few seconds.’
‘We won’t do it again. I don’t feel so very calm myself.’
Donald said one of those trivial things that cover so much ground.
‘Wouldn’t it be awful if we fell in love again?’
‘Stop it!’ She laughed, but very breathlessly. ‘It’s all over. It was a moment. A moment I’ll have to forget.’
‘Don’t tell your husband.’
‘Why not? Usually I tell him everything.’
‘It’ll hurt him. Don’t ever tell a man such things.’
‘All right I won’t.’
‘Kiss me once more,’ he said inconsistently, but Nancy had turned a page and was pointing eagerly at a picture.
‘Here’s you,’ she cried. ‘Right away!’
He looked. It was a little boy in shorts standing on a pier with a sailboat in the background.
‘I remember—’ she laughed triumphantly, ‘—the very day it was taken. Kitty took it and I stole it from her.’
For a moment Donald failed to recognize himself in the photo—then, bending closer—he failed utterly to recognize himself.
‘That’s not me,’ he said.
‘Oh yes. It was at Frontenac—the summer we—we used to go to the cave.’
‘What cave? I was only three days in Frontenac.’ Again he strained his eyes at the slightly yellowed picture. ‘And that isn’t me. That’s Donald Bowers. We did look rather alike.’
Now she was staring at him—leaning back, seeming to lift away from him.
‘But you’re Donald Bowers!’ she exclaimed; her voice rose a little. ‘No, you’re not. You’re Donald Plant.’
‘I told you on the phone.’
She was on her feet—her face faintly horrified.
