Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“I get crazy,” he said emphatically next morning, and his marbly eyes rolled back and forth realistically in his head. “I get started, thinkin’ I’m fightin’ the war, an’ I take a poke at whatever’s in front of me, see?”

He was a Brooklyn boy, and he had joined the marines. And on a June twilight he had crawled fifty yards out of his lines to search the body of a Bavarian captain that lay out in plain sight. He found a copy of German regimental orders, and in consequence his own brigade attacked much sooner than would otherwise have been possible, and perhaps the war was shortened by so much as a quarter of an hour. The fact was appreciated by the French and American races in the form of engraved slugs of precious metal which Jim showed around for four years before it occurred to him how nice it would be to have a permanent audience. Milly’s mother was impressed with his martial achievement, and a marriage was arranged—Milly didn’t realize her mistake until twenty-four hours after it was too late.