Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

413 страница из 1457

Amory: We’ve got to take our chance for happiness.

Rosalind: Dawson says I’d learn to love him.

(Amory with his head sunk in his hands does not move. The life seems suddenly gone out of him.)

Rosalind: Lover! Lover! I can’t do with you, and I can’t imagine life without you.

Amory: Rosalind, we’re on each other’s nerves. It’s just that we’re both high-strung, and this week——

(His voice is curiously old. She crosses to him and taking his face in her hands, kisses him.)

Rosalind: I can’t, Amory. I can’t be shut away from the trees and flowers, cooped up in a little flat, waiting for you. You’d hate me in a narrow atmosphere. I’d make you hate me.

(Again she is blinded by sudden uncontrolled tears.)

Amory: Rosalind——

Rosalind: Oh, darling, go—Don’t make it harder! I can’t stand it——

Amory[:] (His face drawn, his voice strained) Do you know what you’re saying? Do you mean forever?

(There is a difference somehow in the quality of their suffering.)

Rosalind: Can’t you see——

Amory: I’m afraid I can’t if you love me. You’re afraid of taking two years’ knocks with me.