Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

135 страница из 1457

Pipes, as indispensible as the hard ration, were going in no time, and the sergeant continued as he blew a huge lungful of smoke towards the earth with incongruous supercaution.

“I fight because I like it, an’ God ain’t to blame for that, but when it’s death you’re talkin’ about I’ll tell you what I get an’ you don’t. Père Dupont gets in front of the Frenchies an’ he says:

‘Allons, mes enfants!’ fine! an’ Father O’Brien, he says: ‘Go on in byes and bate the Luther out o’ them’—great stuff! But can you see the Reverent Updike—Updike just out o’ Oxford, yellin’ ‘mix it up, chappies,’ or ‘soak ’em blokes’?—No, Captain, the best leader you ever get is a six-foot rowin’ man that thinks God’s got a seat in the House o’ Commons. All sportin’ men have to have a bunch o’ cheerin’ when they die. Give an Englishman four inches in the sportin’ page this side of the whistle an’ he’ll die happy—but not O’Flaherty.”

But Clay’s thoughts were far away. Half delirious, his mind wandered to Eleanor. He had thought of nothing else for a week, ever since their parting at Rochester, and so many new sides of what he had learned were opening up. He had suddenly realized about Dick and Eleanor; they must have been married to all intents and purposes. Of course Clay had written to Eleanor from Paris, asking her to marry him on his return, and just yesterday he had gotten a very short, very kind, but definite refusal. And he couldn’t understand at all.