Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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She waited, gave him ten, fifteen minutes to work his way up to this car—then she admitted to herself that he wasn’t on the train. A dull panic began—the sudden change in her relations to the world was so startling that she thought neither of his delinquency nor of what must be done, but only of the immediate fact that she was alone. Erratic as his protection had been, it was something. Now—why, she might sit in this strange train until it carried her to China and there was no one to care!

After a long while it occurred to her that he might have left part of the money in one of the suitcases. She took them down from the rack and went feverishly through all the clothes. In the bottom of an old pair of pants that Jim had worn on the boat she found two bright American dimes. The sight of them was somehow comforting and she clasped them tight in her hand. The bags yielded up nothing more.

An hour later, when it was dark outside, the train slid in under the yellow misty glow of the Gare du Nord. Strange, incomprehensible station cries fell on her ears, and her heart was beating loud as she wrenched at the handle of the door. She took her own bag with one hand and picked up Jim’s suitcase in the other, but it was heavy and she couldn’t get out the door with both, so in a rush of anger she left the suitcase in the carriage.