Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“I’m all alone,” he went on, with forced jocularity. “I wanted to come back and see the old town again.”

“Stay long?” They looked at him curiously.

“Just a day or so.”

He wondered what they would think tomorrow. There would be excited little groups of them here and there along the street with the startling and audacious news.

“See here,” he wanted to say, “you think I’ve had a wonderful life over there in the city, but I haven’t. I came down here because life had beaten me, and if there’s any brightness in my eyes this morning it’s because last night I found a part of my lost youth tucked away in this little town.”

At noon, as he walked toward Alice’s house, the heat increased and several times he stopped to wipe the sweat from his forehead. When he turned in at the gate he saw her waiting on the porch, wearing what was apparently a Sunday dress and moving herself gently back and forth in a rocking-chair in a way that he remembered her doing as a girl.

“Alice!” he exclaimed happily.

Her finger rose swiftly and touched her lips.