Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“Is that enough—do you want a description of her eyes and hair and what she said?”

“No,” I answered, “go on.”

“Well, I went back to college an idealist. I built up a system of psychology in which dark ladies with alto voices and infinite possibilities floated through my days and nights. Of course we had the most frantic correspondence—each wrote ridiculous letters and sent ridiculous telegrams, told all our acquaintances about our flaming affair and—well you’ve been to college. All this is banal, I know. Here’s an odd thing. All the time I was idealizing her to the last possibility, I was perfectly conscious that she was about the faultiest girl I’d ever met. She was selfish, conceited and uncontrolled and since these were my own faults I was doubly aware of them. Yet I never wanted to change her. Each fault was knit up with a sort of passionate energy that transcended it. Her selfishness made her play the game harder, her lack of control put me rather in awe of her, and her conceit was punctuated by such delicious moments of remorse and self-denunciation that it was almost—almost dear to me—Isn’t this getting ridiculous? She had the strongest effect on me. She made me want to do something for her, to get something to show her. Every honor in college took on the semblance of a presentable trophy.”