winter dreams by f scott fitzgerald [Music] some of the caddies were poor as sin and lived in one-room houses with a neuro-aesthetic cow in the front yard but dexter green's father owned the second best grocery store in black bear the best one was the hub patronized by the wealthy people from sherry island and dexter caddied only for pocket money in the fall when the days became crisp and gray and the long minnesota winter shut down like the white lid of a box dexter's skis moved over the snow that hid the fairways of the golf course at these times the country gave him a feeling of profound melancholy it offended him that the link should lie in enforced fallenness haunted by ragged sparrows for the long season it was dreary too that on the tees where the gay colors fluttered in summer there were now only the desolate sand boxes knee-deep and crusted ice when he crossed the hills the wind blew cold as misery and if the sun was out he trapped with his eyes squinted up against the hard dimensionless glare in april the winter seized abruptly the snow ran down into black bear lake scarcely tarrying for the early golfers to brave the season with red and black balls without elation without an interval of moist glory the cold was gone dexter knew there was something dismal about this northern spring just as he knew there was something gorgeous about the fall fall made him clinch his hands and tremble and repeat idiotic sentences to himself and make abrupt gestures of command to imaginary audiences and armies october filled him with hope which november raised to a sort of ecstatic triumph and in this mood the fleeting brilliant impressions of the summer at sherry island were already grist to his mill he became a golf champion and defeated mr t.a hedrick in a marvelous match played a hundred times over the fairways of his imagination a match each detail of which he changed about untiringly sometimes he won with almost laughable ease sometimes he came up magnificently from behind again stepping from a piercero automobile like mr mortimer jones he strolled frigidly into the lounge of the sherry island golf club or perhaps surrounded by an admiring crowd he gave an exhibition of fancy diving from the springboard of the club raft among those who watched him in open mouth wonder was mr mortimer jones one day it came to pass that mr jones himself and not his ghost came up to dexter with tears in his eyes and said that dexter was the best caddy in the club and wouldn't he decide not to quit if mr jones made it worth his while because every other caddy in the club lost one ball of hole for him regularly sir said dexter decisively i don't want to caddy anymore then after a pause i'm too old you're not more than 14. why the devil did you decide just this morning that you wanted to quit you promised that next week you'd go over to the state tournament with me i decided i was too old dexter handed in his a-class badge collected what money was due him from the caddy master and walked home to black bear village the best caddy i ever saw shouted mr mortimer jones over a drink that afternoon never lost a ball willing intelligent quiet honest grateful the little girl who had done this was eleven beautifully ugly as little girls are apt to be who are destined after a few years to be inexpressibly lovely and bring no end of misery to a great number of men the spark however was perceptible there was a general ungodliness in the way her lips twisted down at the corners when she smiled and in the heaven help us in the almost passionate quality of her eyes vitality is born early in such women it was utterly in evidence now shining through her thin frame and a sort of glow she had come eagerly out onto the course at nine o'clock with a white linen nurse and five small new golf clubs in a white canvas bag which the nurse was carrying when dexter first saw her she was standing by the caddy house rather ill at ease and trying to conceal the fact by engaging her nurse in an obviously unnatural conversation graced by startling and irrelevant grimaces from herself well it's certainly a nice day hilda dexter heard her say she drew down the corners of her mouth smiled and glanced furtively around her eyes and transit falling for an instant on dexter then to the nurse well i guess there aren't very many people out here this morning are there the smile again radiant blatantly artificial convincing i don't know what we're supposed to do now said the nurse looking nowhere in particular oh that's all right i'll fix it up dexter stood perfectly still his mouth slightly ajar he knew that if he moved forward a step as stare would be in her line of vision if he moved backward he would lose his full view of her face for a moment he had not realized how young she was now he remembered having seen her several times the year before in bloomers suddenly involuntarily he laughed a short abrupt laugh then startled by himself he turned and began to walk quickly away boy dexter stopped boy beyond question he was addressed not only that but he was treated to that absurd smile that preposterous smile the memory of which at least a dozen men were to carry in the middle age boy do you know where the golf teacher is he's giving a lesson well do you know where the caddy master is he isn't here yet this morning oh for a moment this baffled her she stood alternately on her right and left foot we'd like to get a caddy said the nurse mrs mortimer jones sent us out to play golf and we don't know how without a caddy here she was stopped by an ominous glance from miss jones followed immediately by the smile there aren't any caddies here except me said dexter to the nurse and i gotta stay here and charge until the caddymaster gets here oh miss jones in a retinue now withdrew and at a proper distance from dexter became involved in a heated conversation which was concluded by miss jones taking one of the clubs and hitting it on the ground with violence for further emphasis she raised it again and i was about to bring it down smartly upon the nurse's bosom when the nurse seized the club and twisted it from her hands dude you damn little mean old thing cried miss jones wildly another argument ensued realizing that the elements of the comedy were implied in the scene dexter several times began to laugh each time restrained the laugh before it reached audibility he could not resist the monstrous conviction that the little girl was justified in beating the nurse the situation was resolved by the fortuitous appearance of the catty master who was appealed to immediately by the nurse miss jones is to have a little caddy and this one says he can't go mr mckenna said i was to wait here till you came said dexter quickly well he's here now miss jones smiled cheerfully at the caddy master then she dropped her bag and set off at a hottie mince toward the first tee well the caddy master turned to dexter what are you standing there like a dummy for go pick up the young lady's clubs i don't think i'll go out today said dexter you don't i think i'll quit the enormity of his decision frightened him he was a favorite caddy and the thirty dollars a month he earned through the summer were not to be made elsewhere around the lake but he had received a strong emotional shock and his perturbation required a violent and immediate outlet [Music] it's not so simple as that either as so frequently would be the case in the future dexter was unconsciously dictated to by his winter dreams [Music] now of course the quality and the seasonability of these winter dreams varied but the stuff of them remained they persuaded dexter several years later to pass up a business course at the state university his father prospering now would have paid his way for the precarious advantage of attending an older and more famous university in the east where he was bothered by his scanty funds but do not get the impression because his winter dreams happen to be concerned at first with musings on the rich that there was anything merely snobbish in the boy he wanted not association with glittering things and glittering people he wanted the glittering things themselves often he reached out for the best without knowing why he wanted it and sometimes he ran up against the mysterious denials and prohibitions in which life indulges it is with one of those denials and not with his career as a whole that this story deals he made money it was rather amazing after college he went to the city from which black bear lake draws its wealthy patrons when he was only 23 and had been there not quite two years there were already people who like to say now there's a boy all about him rich men's sons were peddling bonds precariously or investing patrimonies precariously or plotting through the two dozen volumes of the george washington commercial course but dexter borrowed a thousand dollars on his college degree and his confident mouth and bought a partnership in a laundry it was a small laundry when he went into it but dexter made a specialty of learning how the english washed fine woolen golf stockings without shrinking them and within a year he was catering to the trade that wore knickerbockers men were insisting that their shetland hoes and sweaters go to his laundry just as they had insisted on a caddy could find golf balls a little later he was doing their wives lingerie as well and running five branches in different parts of the city before he was 27 he owned the largest string of laundries in his section of the country it was then that he sold out and went to new york but the part of a story that concerns us goes back to the days when he was making his first big success when he was 23 mr hart one of the gray-haired men who liked to say now there's a boy gave him a guest card to the sherry island golf club for a weekend so he signed his name one day on the register and that afternoon played golf in a foursome with mr hart and mr sandwood and mr t.a hedrick he did not consider it necessary to remark that he had once carried mr hart's bag over the same lengths and that he knew every trap and gully with his eyes shut but he found himself glancing at the four caddies who trailed them trying to catch a gleam or gesture that would remind him of himself that would lessen the gap which lay between his presence and his past it was a curious day slashed abruptly with fleeting familiar impressions one minute he had the sense of being a trespasser in the next he was impressed by the tremendous superiority he felt toward mr t.a hedrick who was a boar and not even a good golfer anymore then because of a ball mr hart lost near the 15th green an enormous thing happened while they were searching the stiff grasses of the rough there was a clear call from behind a hill in their rear and as they all turned abruptly from their search a bright new ball sliced abruptly over the hill and caught mr t a hedrick in the abdomen by god cried mr t.a hedrick they ought to put some of these crazy women off the course it's getting to be outrageous a head and a voice came up together over the hill do you mind if we go through you hit me in the stomach declared mr hedrick wildly did i the girl approached the group of men i'm sorry i yelled four her glance fell casually on each of the men then scanned the fairway for her ball did i bounce into the rough it was impossible to determine whether this question was ingenuous or malicious in a moment however she felt no doubt for as her partner came up over the hill she called cheerfully here i am i'd have gone on the green except that i hit something as she took her stance for a short mashy shot dexter looked at her closely she wore a blue gingham dress rimmed at throat and shoulders with a white edging that accentuated her tan the quality of exaggeration of thinness which had made her passionate eyes and down turning mouth absurd at 11 was gone now she was arrestingly beautiful the color in her cheeks was centered like the color in a picture it was not a high color but a sort of fluctuating and feverish warmth so shaded that it seemed at any moment it would recede and disappear this color and the mobility of her mouth gave a continual impression of flux of intense life of passionate vitality balanced only partially by the sad luxury of her eyes she swung her mashy and patiently and without interest pitching the ball into a sand pit on the other side of the green with a quick insincere smile and a careless thank you she went on after it that judy jones remarked mr hedrick on the next tee as they waited some moments for her to play on ahead all she needs is to be turned up and spanked for six months and then to be married off to an old-fashioned cavalry captain my god she's good-looking said mr sandwood who is just over 30. good-looking cried mr hedrick contemptuously she always looks as if she wanted to be kissed turning those big cow eyes on every calf in town it was doubtful if mr hedrick intended a reference to the maternal instinct she'd play pretty good golf if she'd try said mr sandwood she has no form said mr hedrick solemly she has a nice figure said mr sandwood you better thank the lord she doesn't have a swifter ball said mr hart winking at dexter later in the afternoon the sun went down with a riotous swirl of gold and varying blues and scarlets and left the dry rustling night of western summer dexter watched from the veranda of the golf club watched the even overlap of the waters and the little wind silver molasses under the harvest moon then the moon held a finger to her lips and the lake became a clear pool pale and quiet dexter put on his bathing suit and swam out to the farthest raft where he stretched dripping on the wet canvas of the springboard there was a fish jumping and a star shining and the lights are on the lake were gleaming over on a dark peninsula a piano was playing the songs of last summer and of summers before that songs from chinchin and the count of luxembourg and the chocolate soldier and because the sound of a piano over a stretch of water had always seemed beautiful to dexter he lay perfectly quiet and listened [Music] the tune the piano was playing at that moment had been gay and new five years before when dexter was a sophomore at college they had played it at a prom once when he could not afford the luxury of proms and he stood outside the gymnasium and listened the sound of the tune precipitated in him as sort of ecstasy and it was with that ecstasy he viewed what happened to him now it was a mood of intense appreciation a sense that for once he was magnificently attuned to life and that everything about him was radiating a brightness and a glamour he might never know again a low pale oblong detached itself suddenly from the darkness of the island spitting forth the reverberate sound of a racing motorboat two white streamers of cleft water rolled themselves out behind it and almost immediately the boat was beside [Music] drowning out the hot tinkle of the piano in the drone of its spray dexter raising himself on his arms was aware of a figure standing at the wheel of two dark eyes regarding him over the lengthening space of water then the boat had gone by and was sweeping in an immense and purposeless circle of spray round and round in the middle of the lake with equal eccentricity one of the circles flattened out and headed back toward the raft who's that she called shutting off her motor she was so near now the dexter could see her bathing suit which consisted apparently of pink rompers the nose of the boat bumped the raft and as the ladder tilted rakishly he was precipitated toward her with different degrees of interest they recognized each other oh aren't you one of those men we played through this afternoon she demanded he was well do you know how to drive a motorboat because if you do i wish you'd drive this one so i can ride on the surfboard behind my name is judy jones she favored him with an absurd smirk rather what tried to be a smirk for twist your mouth as she might it was not grotesque it was merely beautiful and i live in a house over there on the island and in that house there is a man waiting for me when he drove up at the door i drove out to the dock because he says i'm his ideal there was a fish jumping and a star shining and the lights around the lake were gleaming dexter sat beside judy jones and she explained how her boat was driven then she was in the water swimming to the floating surfboard with a sinuous crawl watching her was without effort to the eye watching a branch waving or a seagull flying her arms burned to butternut move sinuously among the dull platinum ripples elbow appearing first casting the forearm back with a cadence of falling water then reaching out and down stabbing a path ahead they moved out into the lake turning dexter saw that she was kneeling on the low rear of the now up tilted surfboard you go faster she called fast as it'll go obediently he jammed the lever forward and the white spray mounted at the bow when he looked around again the girl was standing up on the rushing board her arm spread wide her eyes lifted toward the moon it's awful cold she shouted what's your name he told her well why don't you come to dinner tomorrow night his heart turned over like the flywheel of the boat and for the second time her casual whim gave a new direction to his life [Music] next evening while he waited for her to come downstairs dexter peopled the soft deep summer room and the sun porch that opened from it with the men who had already loved judy jones he knew the sort of men they were the men who when he first went to college had entered from the great prep schools with graceful clothes and a deep tan of healthy summers he had seen that in one sense he was better than these men he was newer and stronger yet in acknowledging to himself that he wished his children to be like them he was admitting that he was but the rough strong stuff from which they eternally sprang when the time had come for him to wear good clothes he had known who were the best tailors in america and the best tailors in america had made him the suit he wore this evening he had acquired that particular reserve peculiar to his university that set it off from other universities he recognized the value to him of such a mannerism and he adopted it he knew that to be careless and dress in manner required more confidence than to be careful but carelessness was for his children his mother's name had been crimslich she was a bohemian of the peasant class and she had talked broken english to the end of her days her son must keep to the set patterns at a little after seven judy jones came downstairs she wore a blue silk afternoon dress and he was disappointed at first that she had not put on something more elaborate this feeling was accentuated when after a brief greeting she went to the door of a butler's pantry and pushed it open called you can serve dinner martha he had rather expected that a butler would announce dinner that there would be a cocktail then he put these thoughts behind him as they sat down side by side on a lounge and looked at each other father and mother won't be here she said thoughtfully he remembered the last time he had seen her father and he was glad the parents were not to be here tonight they might wonder who he was he had been born in keeble a minnesota village 50 miles farther north and he always gave keeble as his home instead of black bear village country towns were well enough to come from if they weren't inconveniently in sight and used as footstools by fashionable lakes they talked of his university which she had visited frequently during the past two years and of the nearby city which supplied sherry island with its patrons and whether dixter would return next day to his prospering laundries during dinner she slipped into a moody depression which gave dexter a feeling of uneasiness whatever petulance she uttered in her throaty voice worried him whatever she smiled at at him at a chicken liver at nothing it disturbed him that her smile could have no root in mirth or even in amusement when the scarlet corners of her lips curved down it was less a smile than an invitation to a kiss then after dinner she let him out on the dark sun porch and deliberately change the atmosphere do you mind if i weep a little she said i'm afraid i'm boring you he responded quickly you're not i like you but i've just had a terrible afternoon there was a man i cared about and this afternoon he told me out of a clear sky that he was poor as a church mouse he'd never even hinted it before does this sound horribly mundane perhaps he was afraid to tell you suppose he was she answered he didn't start right you see if i thought of him as poor well i've been mad about loads of poor men and fully intended to marry them all but in this case i hadn't thought of him that way and my interest in him wasn't strong enough to survive the shock as if a girl calmly informed her fiance that she was a widow he might not object to widows but let's start right she interrupted herself suddenly who are you anyhow for a moment dexter hesitated then i'm nobody he announced my career is largely a matter of futures are you poor no he said frankly i'm probably making more money than any man my age in the northwest i know that's an obnoxious remark but you advised me to stop right there was a pause then she smiled and the corners of her mouth drooped and an almost imperceptible sway brought her closer to him looking up into his eyes a lump rose in dexter's throat and he waited breathless for the experiment facing the unpredictable compound that would form mysteriously from the elements of their lips she communicated her excitement to him lavishly deeply with kisses that were not a promise but a fulfillment they aroused him and not hunger demanding renewal but serfed that would demand more serf it kisses that were like charity creating want by holding back nothing at all it did not take him many hours to decide that he had wanted judy jones ever since he was a proud desirous little boy [Music] it began like that and continued with varying shades of intensity on such a note right up to the danuma dexter surrendered a part of himself to the most direct and unprincipled personality with which he had ever come in contact whatever judy wanted she went after with the full pressure of her charm there was no divergence of method no jockeying for position or premeditation of effects there is very little mental side to any of her affairs she simply made men conscious to the highest degree of her physical loveliness dexter had no desire to change her her deficiencies were knit up with a passionate energy that transcended and justified them when as judy's head lay against his shoulder that first night she whispered hmm i don't know what's the matter with me last night i thought i was in love with the man and tonight i think i'm in love with you it seemed to him a beautiful and romantic thing to say it was the exquisite excitability that for the moment he controlled and owned but a week later he was compelled to view the same quality in a different light she took him in her roadster to a picnic supper and after supper she disappeared likewise in a roadster with another man dexter became enormously upset and was scarcely able to be decently civil to the other people present when she assured him that she had not kissed the other man he knew that she was lying yet he was glad that she had taken the trouble to lie to him he was as he found before the summer ended one of a varying dozen who circulated about her each of them had at one time been favored above all others about half them still basked in the solace of occasional sentimental revivals whenever one showed signs of dropping out through long neglect she granted him a brief honeyed hour which encouraged him to tag along for a year or so longer judy made these forays upon the helpless and defeated without malice indeed half unconscious that there was anything mischievous in what she did when a new man came to town everyone dropped out dates were automatically canceled the helpless part of trying to do anything about it was that she did it all herself she was not a girl who could be one in the kinetic sense she was proof against cleverness she was proof against charm if any of these assailed her too strongly she would immediately resolve the affair to a physical basis and under the magic of her physical splendor the strong as well as the brilliant played her game and not their own she was entertained only by the gratification of her desires and by the direct exercise of her own charm perhaps from so much youthful love so many youthful lovers she had come in self-defense to nourish herself wholly from within [Music] succeeding dexter's first exhilaration came restlessness and dissatisfaction the helpless ecstasy of losing himself in her was opiate rather than tonic it was fortunate for his work during the winter that those moments of ecstasy came infrequently early in their acquaintance it had seemed for a while that there was a deep and spontaneous mutual attraction that first august for example three days of long evenings on her dusky veranda of strange wand kisses through the late afternoon and shadowy alcoves are behind the protecting trellises of the garden arbors of mornings when she was as fresh as a dream and almost shy at meeting him in the clarity of the rising day there was all the ecstasy of an engagement about it sharpened by his realization that there was no engagement it was during those three days that for the first time he had asked her to marry him she said maybe someday she said kiss me she said i'd like to marry you she said i love you she said nothing the three days were interrupted by the arrival of a new york man who visited at her house for half september to dexter's agony rumor engaged them the man was the son of the president of a great trust company but at the end of the month it was reported that judy was yawning at a dance one night she sat all evening in a motorboat with a local bow while the new yorker searched the club for her frantically she told the local beau that she was bored with her visitor and two days later he left she was seen with him at the station and it was reported that he looked very mournful indeed on this note the summer ended dexter was 24 and he found himself increasingly in a position to do as he wished he joined two clubs in the city and lived at one of them though he was by no means an integral part of the stag lines at these clubs he managed to be on hand at dances where judy jones was likely to appear he could have gone out socially as much as he liked he was an eligible young man now and popular with downtown fathers his confessed devotion to judy jones had rather solidified his position but he had no social aspirations and rather despise the dancing men who were always on tap for the thursday or saturday parties and who filled in at dinners with the younger married set already he was playing with the idea of going east to new york he wanted to take judy jones with him no disillusion as to the world in which she had grown up could cure his illusion as to her desirability remember that for only in the light of it can what he did for her be understood eighteen months after he first met judy jones he became engaged to another girl her name was irene shearer and her father was one of the men who had always believed in dexter irene was light-haired and sweet and honorable and a little stout and she had two suitors whom she pleasantly relinquished when dexter formally asked her to marry him summer fall winter spring another summer another fall so much he had given of his active life to the incorrigible lips of judy jones she had treated him with interest with encouragement with malice with indifference with contempt she had inflicted on him the innumerable little slights and indignities possible in such a case as if in revenge for having ever cared for him at all she had beckoned him and yawned at him and beckoned him again and he had responded often with bitterness and narrowed eyes she had brought him ecstatic happiness and intolerable agony of spirit she had caused him untold inconvenience and not a little trouble she had insulted him and she had ridden over him and she had played his interest in her against his interest in his work for fun she had done everything to him except to criticize him this she had not done it seemed to him only because it might have sullied the utter indifference she manifested and sincerely fell toward him when adam came and gone again it occurred to him that he could not have judy john's he had to beat this into his mind but he convinced himself at last he lay awake at night for a while and argued it over he told himself the trouble and the pain she had caused him he enumerated her glaring deficiencies as a wife then he said to himself that he loved her and after a while he fell asleep for a week lest he imagined her husky voice over the telephone or her eyes opposite him at lunch he worked hard and late and at night he went to his office and plotted out his ears at the end of a week he went to a dance and cut in on her once for almost the first time since they had met he did not ask her to sit with him or tell her that she was lovely it hurt him that she did not miss these things that was all he was not jealous when he saw that there was a new man tonight he had been hardened against jealousy long before he stayed late at the dance he sat for an hour with irene sheer and talked about books and about music he knew very little about either but he was beginning to be the master of his own time now and he had a rather priggish notion that he the young and already fabulously successful dexter green should know more about such things that was in october when he was 25 in january dexter and irene became engaged it was to be announced in june and they were to be married three months later the minnesota winter prolonged itself interminably and it was almost may when the winds came soft and the snow ran down into black bear lake at last for the first time in over a year dexter was enjoying a certain tranquility of spirit judy jones had been in florida and afterward in hot springs and somewhere she had been engaged and somewhere she had broken it off at first when dexter had definitely given her up it had made him sad that people still linked them together and asked for news of her but when he began to be placed at dinner next to irene scheer people didn't ask him about her anymore they told him about her he ceased to be an authority on her may at last dexter walked the streets at night when the darkness was damp as rain wondering that so soon with so little done so much of ecstasy had gone from him may one year back had been marked by judy's poignant unforgivable yet forgiven turbulence it had been one of those rare times when he fancied she had grown to care for him that old penny's worth of happiness that he had spent for this bushel of content he knew that irene would be no more than a curtain spread behind him a hand moving gleaming teacups a voice calling to children fire and loveliness were gone the magic of nights and the wonder of the varying hours and seasons slender lips down turning dropping to his lips and burying him up into a heaven of eyes the thing was deep in him he was too strong and alive for it to die lightly in the middle of may when the weather balanced for a few days on the thin bridge that led to deep summer he turned in one night at irene's house their engagement was to be announced in a week now no one would be surprised at it and tonight they would sit together on the lounge at the university club and look on for an hour at the dancers it gave him a sense of solidity to go with her she was so sturdily popular so intensely great he mounted the steps of the brownstone house and stepped inside irene he called mrs sheer came out of the living room to meet him dexter she said irene's gone upstairs with a splitting headache she wanted to go with you but i made her go to bed nothing serious i no she's going to play golf with you in the morning you can spare her for just one night can't you dexter her smile was kind she and dexter liked each other in the living room he talked for a moment before he said good night returning to the university club where he had rooms he stood in the doorway for a moment and watched the dancers he leaned against the doorpost nodded at a man or two yawned hello darling the familiar voice at his elbow startled him judy jones had left a man and crossed the room to him judy jones a slender enamel doll and cloth of gold gold and a band at her head gold and two slipper points at her dress's hem the fragile glow of her face seemed to blossom as she smiled at him a breeze of warmth and light blew through the room his hands and the pockets of his dinner jacket tightened spasmodically he was filled with a sudden excitement when did you get back yes casually well come here and i'll tell you about it she turned and he followed her she had been away he could have wept at the wonder of her return she had passed through enchanted streets doing things that were like provocative music all mysterious happenings all fresh and quickening hopes had gone away with her come back with her now she turned in the doorway have you a car here if you haven't i have i have a coupe and then with a rustle of golden cloth he slammed the door into so many cars she had stepped like this like that her back against the leather so her elbow resting on the door waiting she would have been soiled long since had there been anything to soil her except herself but this was her own self-outpouring with an effort he forced himself to start the car and back into the street this was nothing he must remember she had done this before and he had put her behind him as he would have crossed a bad account from his books he drove slowly downtown and affecting abstraction traversed the deserted streets of the business section peopled here and there where a movie was giving out its crowd or where consumptive or pugilistic youth lounged in front of pool halls the clink of glasses and the slap of hands on the bars issued from saloons cloisters of glazed glass and dirty yellow light she was watching closely and the silence was embarrassing yet in this crisis he could find no casual word with which to profane the hour at a convenient turning he began to zigzag back toward the university club have you missed me she asked suddenly everybody missed you he wondered if she knew of irene sheer she had been back only a day her absence had been almost contemporaneous with his engagement what a remark judy laughed sadly without sadness she looked at him searchingly he became absorbed in the dashboard you're handsomer than you used to be she said thoughtfully dexter you have the most rememberable eyes he could have laughed at this but he did not laugh it was the sort of thing that was said to sophomores yet it stabbed at him i'm awfully tired of everything darling she called everyone darling endowing the endearment with careless individual camaraderie i wish you'd marry me the directness of this confused him he should have told her now that he was going to marry another girl but he could not tell her he could as easily have sworn that he had never loved her i think we'd get along she continued on the same note unless probably you've forgotten me and have fallen in love with another girl her confidence was obviously enormous she had said in effect that she found such a thing impossible to believe that if it were true he had merely committed a childish indiscretion and probably to show off she would forgive him because it was not a matter of any moment but rather something to be brushed aside lightly of course you'd never love anybody but me she continued i like the way you loved me oh dexter have you forgotten last year no i haven't forgotten neither have i was she sincerely moved or was she carried along by the wave of her own acting i wish we could be like that again she said and he forced himself to answer i don't think we can i suppose not i hear you're giving irene shearer a violent rush there was not the faintest emphasis on the name yet dexter was suddenly ashamed oh take me home cried judy suddenly i don't want to go back to that idiotic dance with those children then as he turned up the street that led to the residence district judy began to cry quietly to herself he had never seen her cry before the dark street lightened the dwellings of the rich loomed up around them he stopped his coop in front of the great white bulk of the mortimer jones's house somnolent gorgeous drenched with the splendor of the damn moonlight its solidity startled him the strong walls the steel of the girders the breadth and beam and pomp of it were there only to bring out the contrast with the young beauty beside him it was sturdy to accentuate her slightness as if to show what a breeze could be generated by a butterfly's wing he sat perfectly quiet his nerves and wild clamor afraid that if he moved he would find her irresistibly in his arms two tears had rolled down her wet face and trembled on her upper lip i'm more beautiful than anybody else she said brokenly why can't i be happy her moist eyes tore at his stability her mouth turned slowly downward with an exquisite sadness i'd like to marry you if you'll have me dexter i suppose you think i'm not worth having but i'll be so beautiful for you dexter a million phrases of anger pride passion hatred tenderness fought on his lips then a perfect wave of emotion washed over him carrying off with it a sediment of wisdom of convention of doubt of honor this was his girl who was speaking his own his beautiful his pride won't you come in you heard her drawing her breath sharply waiting all right his voice was trembling i'll come in it was strange that neither when it was over nor a long time afterward did he regret that night looking at it from the perspective of 10 years the fact that judy's flare for him endured just one month seemed of little importance nor did it matter that by his yielding he subjected himself to a deeper agony in the end and gave serious hurt to irene sheer and to irene's parents who had befriended him there was nothing sufficiently pictorial about irene's grief to stamp itself on his mind dexter was at bottom hard-minded the attitude of the city on his action was of no importance to him not because he was going to leave the city but because any outside attitude on the situation seemed superficial he was completely indifferent to popular opinion nor when he had seen that it was no use that he did not possess in himself the power to move fundamentally or to hold judy jones did he bear any malice toward her he loved her and he would love her until the day he was too old for loving but he could not have her so he tasted the deep pain that is reserved only for the strong just he had tasted for a little while the deep happiness even the ultimate falsity of the grounds upon which judy terminated the engagement that she did not want to take him away from irene judy who had wanted nothing else did not revolt him he was beyond any revulsion or any amusement he went east in february with the intention of selling out his laundries and settling in new york but the war came to america in march and changed his plans he returned to the west handed over the management of the businesses to his partner and went into the first officers training camp in late april he was one of those young thousands who greeted the war with a certain amount of relief welcoming the liberation from webs of tangled emotion [Music] this story is not his biography remember although things creep into it which have nothing to do with those dreams he had when he was young we are almost done with them and with him now there's only one more incident to be related here and it happened seven years farther on it took place in new york where he had done well so well that there were no barriers too high for him he was 32 years old and except for one flying trip immediately after the war he had not been west in seven years a man named devlin from detroit came into his office to see him in a business way and then and there this incident occurred and closed out so to speak this particular side of his life so you're from the middle west said the man devlin with careless curiosity that's funny i thought men like you were probably born and raised on wall street you know wife of one of my best friends in detroit came from your city i was an usher at the wedding dexter waited with no apprehension of what was coming judy sims said devlin with no particular interest at judy jones she was once yes i knew her a dull impatience spread over him he had heard of course that she was married perhaps deliberately he had heard no more awfully nice girl brooded devlin meaninglessly i'm sort of sorry for why something in dexter was alert receptive at once oh lud sims has gone to pieces in a way i don't mean he ill uses her but he drinks and runs around doesn't she run around no stays at home with the kids oh she's a little too old for him said devlin too old cried dexter why man she's only 27. he was possessed with a wild notion of rushing out into the streets and taking a train to detroit he rose to his feet spasmodically i guess you're busy devlin apologized quickly i didn't realize no i'm not busy said dexter studying his voice i'm not busy at all not busy at all did you say she was 27 no i said she was 27. yes she did agreed devlin dryly go on then go on what do you mean about judy jones devlin looked at him helplessly well that's i told you all there is to it he treats her like the devil oh that they're not going to get divorced or anything and he's particularly outrageous she forgives him in fact i'm inclined to think she loves him she was a pretty girl when she first came to detroit a pretty girl the phrase struck dexter as ludicrous isn't she a pretty girl anymore oh she's all right look here said dexter sitting down suddenly i don't understand you say she was a pretty girl and now you say she's all right i don't understand what you mean judy jones wasn't a pretty girl at all she was a great beauty when i knew her i knew her she was devlin laughed pleasantly i'm not trying to start a row he said i think judy's a nice girl and i like her i can't understand how a man like lud sims could fall madly in love with her but he did then he added most of the women like her dexter looked closely at dublin thinking wildly that there must be a reason for this some insensitivity in the man or some private malice lots of women fade just like that devlin snapped his fingers you must have seen it happen perhaps i've forgotten how pretty she was at a wedding i've seen her so much since then you see she has nice eyes a sort of dullness settled down upon dexter for the first time in his life he felt like getting very drunk he knew that he was laughing loudly at something devlin had said but he did not know what it was or why it was funny when in a few minutes devlin went he laid down on his lounge and looked out the window at the new york skyline into which the sun was sinking in a dull lovely shades of pink and gold he had thought that having nothing else to lose he was invulnerable at last but he knew that he had just lost something more as surely as if he had married judy jones and seen her fade away before his eyes the dream was gone something had been taken from him in a sort of panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried to bring up a picture of the waters lapping on sherry island and the moonlit veranda and gingham on the golf links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck soft down and her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes plaintive with melancholy and her freshness like new fine linen in the morning why these things were no longer in the world they had existed and they existed no longer for the first time in years the tears were streaming down his face but they were for himself now he did not care about mouth and eyes and moving hands he wanted to care and he could not care for he had gone away and he could never go back anymore the gates were closed the sun was gone down and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time even the grief that he could have born was left behind in the country of illusion of youth of the richness of life where his winter dreams had flourished long ago he said long ago there was something in me but now that thing is gone now that thing is gone that thing is gone i cannot cry i cannot care that thing will come back no more [Music] you