Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

528 страница из 1457

“You puzzle me,” said the big man, “but you’re all alike. They say Bernard Shaw, in spite of his doctrines, is the most exacting of all dramatists about his royalties. To the last farthing.”

“Well,” said Amory, “I simply state that I’m a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation—with every reason to throw my mind and pen in with the radicals. Even if, deep in my heart, I thought we were all blind atoms in a world as limited as a stroke of a pendulum, I and my sort would struggle against tradition; try, at least, to displace old cants with new ones. I’ve thought I was right about life at various times, but faith is difficult. One thing I know. If living isn’t a seeking for the grail it may be a damned amusing game.”

For a minute neither spoke and then the big man asked:

“What was your university?”

“Princeton.”

The big man became suddenly interested; the expression of his goggles altered slightly.

“I sent my son to Princeton.”

“Did you?”

“Perhaps you knew him. His name was Jesse Ferrenby. He was killed last year in France.”