Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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Side by side, and in silence, they walked back towards the pension. From a high window the plaintive wail of a violin drifted down into the street, mingling with practice chords from an invisible piano and a shrill incomprehensible quarrel of French children over the way. The twilight was fast dissolving into a starry blue Parisian evening, but it was still light enough for them to make out the figure of Mrs. Horton standing in front of the pension. She came towards them swiftly, talking as she came.

“I’ve got some news for you,” she said. “The secretary of the American Aid Society just telephoned. They’ve located your husband, and he’ll be in Paris the day after tomorrow.”

When Jim Cooley, the war hero, left the train at the small town of Evreux, he walked very fast until he was several hundred yards from the station. Then, standing behind a tree, he watched until the train pulled out and the last puff of smoke burst up behind a little hill. He stood for several minutes, laughing and looking after the train, until abruptly his face resumed his normal injured expression and he turned to examine the place in which he had chosen to be free.