The Notebooks
of F. Scott Fitzgerald
(F) Feelings & Emotions (without girls)
448
Ah, it was a great feeling to relax—the best feeling, unlike any sinking down he had ever known before.
“I have half an hour, an hour, two hours, ten hours, a hundred hours. God Almighty, I have even time to take a drink of water from the cooler in the hall; I can sleep eight full hours tonight, with a piece of paper stuffed in the telephone buzzer; I can face everybody in the office knowing they’ll be paid again this week, the week after, the week after next!”
But most of all—he had that first half an hour. Having no one to communicate with, Andrew Fulton made sounds. One was like Whee-ee-ooo, but though it was expressive for awhile it palled presently, and he tried a gentle yawning sigh, but that was not enough. Now he knew what he wanted to do—he wanted to cry. He wanted to drink but there was nothing to drink, or to take his office force for an aeroplane ride or wake up his parents out of their graves and say, “Look—I too can rest.”
449
He might find the ecstasy and misery, the infatuation that he wanted.
450
The thrilling staccato joy of the meeting.
451
“I feel as if I had a cannon ball in my stomach.’’
452
Wait for what? Wait while he swam off into a firmament of his own, so far off that she could only see his feathers gleaming in the distance, only hear distantly the clamor of war or feel the vacuum that he created when sometimes he fell through space. He came back eventually with spoils, but for her there was always another larger waiting—for the end of youth, the blurring of her uniqueness—her two menacing deaths beside which mortal death was no more than sleep.
453
She looked lovely, but he thought of a terrible thing she had said once when they were first married—that if he were away she could sleep with another man and it wouldn’t really affect her, or make her really unfaithful to him. This kept him awake for another hour, but he had a little fine deep restful sleep toward morning.
454
the blind luck that had attended the industry, and he knew croupiers who raked in the earnings of that vast gambling house. And he knew that the Europeans were impressed with it as they were impressed with the skyscrapers, as something without human rhythm or movement. They had left rhythm behind them and it was their rhythm he wanted. He was tired of his own rhythm and the rhythms of the people in Hollywood. He wanted to see people with more secrets than the necessity of concealing a proclivity for morphine.
455
Two Dreams
(1) A trip to Florida with Howard Garrish and many bathing beauties. Asleep standing on the prow the beach and girls dancing. The one one skates like skiis. Like Switzerland, far castles and palaces. The horseman in the sea, the motor truck on sand, the horsemen coming ashore, the Bishop rears, falls, the horse saves him. My room, suits and ties, the view, the soldiers drilling under arcs in khaki, the wonderful water man is now Tom Taylor, I buy and ties wake in strange room. Blunder into Mother who nags me. My mean remarks.
(2) The colored burglar. Found clothes in hotel—underwear, suit; I discover pocket book, Echenard, my accusation.
456
By the next morning she realized that she was the only one who cared, the only one who had the time and youth for the luxury of caring. Her aunt, her old cousins were mercifully anaesthetized against death— her brother was already worrying about his wife and children back in West Virginia. She and her father were alone; since the funeral had been held over for her the others somehow looked to her to summarize their grief. They were thin-drawn, worn out Anglo-Saxon stock and all that remained of their vitality seemed to have flowed by a mysterious distillation into her. They were chiefly interested in her. They wanted boldly to know whether it was true about the Prince of—
457
Slaves may love their bondage but all those in slavery are not slaves. What joy in the threat that the solid wall surrounding us is falling to rack and ruin—the whispers of measles running through the school on Monday morning, the news that the supply officer has run away with the mess fund, the rumor that the floor manager has appendicitis and won’t be downtown for two weeks! “Break it up! Tear it down!” shout the sans cullottes, and I can distinguish my voice among the others. Striped and short rations tomorrow, but for God’s sake, give us our measure of hysteria today.
458
It was not an American bar any more—he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned it. It had gone back into France.
459
Fed up with it—he wanted to deal again in the vapid, to deliver a drop of material solid out of the great gaseous world of men, and never again waste his priceless hours watching nothing and nothing with nothing.
460
she was alone at last. There was not even a ghost left now to drift with through the years. She might stretch out her arms as far as they could reach into the night without fear that they would brush friendly cloth.
461
Liking man when he’s tired.
462
The voices fainter and fainter—How is Zelda, how is Zelda—tell us—how is Zelda
463
Felt utterly forlorn and defeated and outlasted by circumstances.
464
She wanted to crawl into his pocket and be safe forever.
465
She fronted the appalling truth. She could never love him, never while he lived. It was as if he had charged her to react negatively and so long as the current flowed she had no choice. Passionately she tried to think back to a few minutes before when the world had been tragic and glorious, but the moment was gone. He was alive and as she heard his feet take up the chase again the wings of her mind were already preening themselves for flight.
466
Proxy in passion.
Next: G: Descriptions of Girls.
Переводы: F: Чувства (не любовные) (разные переводчики).