Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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This prelude belongs to the story of a young man who lived, as you and I do, before the book.

The generation which numbered Bryan Dalyrimple drifted out of adolescence to a mighty fanfare of trumpets. Bryan played the star in an affair which included a Lewis gun and a nine-day romp behind the retreating German lines, so luck triumphant or sentiment rampant awarded him a row of medals and on his arrival in the States he was told that he was second in importance only to General Pershing and Sergeant York. This was a lot of fun. The governor of his State, a stray congressman, and a citizens’ committee gave him enormous smiles and “By God, Sirs,” on the dock at Hoboken; there were newspaper reporters and photographers who said “would you mind” and “if you could just”; and back in his home town there were old ladies, the rims of whose eyes grew red as they talked to him, and girls who hadn’t remembered him so well since his father’s business went blah! in nineteen-twelve.

But when the shouting died he realized that for a month he had been the house guest of the mayor, that he had only fourteen dollars in the world, and that “the name that will live forever in the annals and legends of this State” was already living there very quietly and obscurely.