Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“Tell me about it,” she whispered.

“This morning, in the rain, I heard your voice.”

“What did my voice say?”

“It said, ‘Come home.’”

“And here you are, my dear.”

“Here I am.”

Suddenly he got to his feet.

“You and I are going away,” he said. “Do you understand that?”

“I always knew that when you came for me I’d go.”

Later, when the moon had risen, she walked with him to the gate.

“Tomorrow!” he whispered.

“Tomorrow!”

His heart was going like mad, and he stood carefully away from her to let foot-steps across the way approach, pass and fade out down the dim street. With a sort of wild innocence he kissed her once more and held her close to his heart under the April moon.

When he awoke it was eleven o’clock, and he drew himself a cool bath, splashing around in it with much of the exultation of the night before.

“I have thought too much these twenty years,” he said to himself. “It’s thinking that makes people old.”

It was hotter than it had been the day before, and as he looked out the window the dust in the street seemed more tangible than on the night before. He breakfasted alone downstairs, wondering with the incessant wonder of the city man why fresh cream is almost unobtainable in the country. Word had spread already that he was home, and several men rose to greet him as he came into the lobby. Asked if he had a wife and children, he said no, in a careless way, and after he had said it he had a vague feeling of discomfort.