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Глава II Обрамление короткого рассказа. Функции зачина и концовки.
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2.1 Функции зачина в коротких рассказах
Зачин непосредственно подготавливает читателя, слушателя к восприятию основного содержания текста. В нём формулируется тема повествования.
В качестве практической направленности, необходимо проанализировать зачины нескольких произведения. Рассмотрим варианты зачинов на примере коротких рассказов Фрэнсиса Скотта Фицджеральда.
«The Diamond as Big as the Ritz»
by F.Scott Fitzgerald
«John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades—a small town on the Mississippi River—for several generations….»
Анализируя данный отрывок, мы видим большое количество глаголов, таких как «came from», «had held», «had just turned» из чего можно сделать вывод, что автор использует композиционно речевую форму – повествование.
Функцию зачина можно определить, как знакомство с персонажем, его происхождением.
«The Ice Palace»
«The sunlight dripped over the house like golden paint over an art jar, and the freckling shadows here and there only intensified the rigor of the bath of light…»
Подробное описание атмосферы и окружающего мира, с использованием прилагательных и описательных конструкций.
В зачине используется композиционно речевая форма – описание. Функция зачина - создание эмоционального фона. Детальное описание создаёт так же интригу дальнейших событий. Например «September afternoon» Читателю становится интересно узнать, что же случиться дальше.
«A night at the Fair»
«The two cities were separated only by a thin well-bridged river….»
В данном отрывке описывается место действия. Автор используем в качестве крф – описание.
Функция зачина – передача эмоционального фона и возможность представить картину тех времён с помощью подробного описания.
«Outside the Cabinet-Maker’s»
«The automobile stopped at the corner of Sixteenth and some dingy-looking street. The lady got out. The man and the little girl stayed in the car…»
В данном отрывке мы видим наличие множества глаголов, что является одной из черт повествования. Зачин выступает в повествовательной роли. Так же в рассказе ожидается действие, что является другой чертой повествования.
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«The Swimmers»
«In the Place Benoit, a suspended mass of gasoline exhaust cooked slowly by the June sun …»
В отрывке описывается подробно погода, что позволяет нам почувствовать настроение того, что будет в рассказе. В данном отрывке описывается жаркая погода, что чаще всего описывает напряженность ситуации.
В отрывке присутствует так же эмоциональное состояние героя, что является подтверждением того, что автор использует крф - описание. Зачин выступает в функции передачи эмоционального фона.
«Ten Years In The Advertising Business»
«Well, Mr. Fitzgerald, what can I do for you today?” It was in a high office with a view of that gold building…»
Данный рассказ очень короткий, что повышает важность зачина.
Крф- повествование. Диалог между двумя персонажами повествует нам о дальнейшем ходе событий в данном рассказ.
Можно судить о том, что функция зачина – создание интриги для читателя.
«The Last of the Belles»
«After Atlanta’s elaborate and theatrical rendition of Southern charm, we all underestimated Tarleton. It was a little hotter than anywhere….»
Данный отрывок описывает погоду и повествует о происходящем. КРФ-описание и повествование. Функция зачина определяется как знакомство с персонажами, местом действия.
«First blood»
« I remember your coming to me in despair when Josephine was about three!” cried Mrs. Bray. “George was furious because he couldn’t decide what to go to work at, so he used to spank little Josephine...»
Her mother was content to let it go at this.» В данном отрывке показан диалог двух персонажей, диалог воспоминаний. В данном случае автор использует крф рассуждение и драматическое повествование.
зачин выполняет функцию постановки проблемы.
«The Bridal Party»
«THERE was the usual insincere little note saying: “I wanted you to be the first to know.” It was a double shock to Michael, announcing, as it did, both the engagement and the imminent…»
Данный отрывок наполнен глаголами. Крф - повествование.
Зачин выполняет функции интриги, и автор заинтересовывает читателей событиями, которые произойдут далее.
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«Fun in an Artist’s studio»
«This was back in 1938 when few people except the Germans knew that they had already won their war in Europe. People still cared about art and tried to make it out of everything from old clothes to orange peel and that was how the Princess Dignanni found Pat…»
Данный отрывок повествует нам о событиях 1938 года.
Обилие глаголов в форме прошедшего времени подчёркивает повествовательность. Крф - повествование.
Функция зачина - ознакомление с обстановкой того времени.
2.2 Функции концовки в коротких рассказах.
Напомним, что концовка – это финальная и заключительная часть литературного произведения.
Перейдем к практическому рассмотрению концовок, основанных на этих же литературных произведениях.
«The Diamond As Big As The Ritz»
John turned to her in astonishment.
“Your father is dead,” he replied somberly. “Why should he go to Hades? You have it confused with another place that was abolished long ago.”
After supper they folded up the table-cloth and spread their blankets for the night.
В данном отрывке в роли крф выступает в виде драматического повествование с элементами рассуждения. Функция концовки - передача обстановки и переживание героев. На драматическое повествование нам указывает наличие диалогов в данном отрывке.
«The Ice Palace»
Sally Carrol Hopper, resting her chin on her arm, and her arm on an old window-seat, gazed sleepily down over the spangled dust whence the heat waves were rising for the first time this spring. She was watching a very ancient Ford turn a perilous corner and rattle and groan to a jolting stop at the end of the walls. She made no sound, and in a minute a strident familiar whistle rent the air. Sally Carrol smiled and blinked.
В данном отрывке кфр драматическое повествование. Функция концовки -Переживание героев и передача атмосферы происходящих событий.
«A Night at the Fair»
«He frowned. Then he turned and got into the Van Schellinger limousine.
Sitting beside Gladys in the little seats, he loved her suddenly. His hand swung gently against hers from time to time and be felt the warm bond that they were both going away to school tightened around them and pulling them together.
В данном отрывке крф повествование. Функция концовки - передача обстановки в момент происходящего и передача происходящих действий.
«Outside the Cabinet-Maker’s»
«The lady came out of the cabinet-maker’s shop.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“Good. Il dit qu’il a fait les maisons de poupee pour les Du Ponts. Il va le faire.”
“Combien?”
“Vingt-cinq. I’m sorry I was so long.”
“Look, Daddy, there go a lot more soldiers!”»
В данном отрывке используется крф - драматическое повествование, так как есть наличие глаголов.
Так же наличие глаголов говорит нам о повествование. Здесь концовка закрытая. Автор использует закрытую концовку для подведения итога действия в рассказе, и показать читателю к чему пришли главные герои.
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«The Swimmers»
«Going down to the purser’s office, he waited until a fellow passenger was through at the window. When she turned, they both started, and he saw it was the girl.
“Oh, hello!” she cried. “I’m glad you’re going! I was just asking when the pool opened. The great thing about this ship is that you can always get a swim.”» В отрывке присутствует множество глаголов, а так же диалоги. Кфр-драматическое повествование. Концовка закрытая и подводит итог происходящего в рассказе. Главный герой встречает девушку, которая упоминалась в зачине. Тем самым автор связывает зачин и концовку.
«Ten Years In The Advertising Business»
«“I realize that. We’ll call it fifteen hundred.”
“And it’s understood that I’m in no sense to endorse this product.”
“Perfectly. You merely pick the prettiest girl.”
We stood up and I looked out the window at that gold building.
“Did I understand you to say you’re about to get married?” he asked.
“Oh, no, I’ve been married ten years. That was back before those little dots.”
“It must have been some other couple.”
“It was,” I assured him. “Only the names were the same. The tissues change every decade. Good-by, Mr. Cakebook.”
“Good-by Mr. Fitzgerald.”»
В данном отрывке используются диалоги, что свидетельствует нам о использование крв – драматическое повествование. Концовка закрытая. «Good-by, Mr. Cakebook.”
“Good-by Mr. Fitzgerald.”» указывают нам о завершенности рассказа и завершенности осбытий. Функция- информирует о том, что стало с главными героями. Так же идёт упоминанию о «gold building». Автор показывает связь между зачином и концовкой, так как данное выражение используется в начале и в завершение рассказа.
«The Last Of The Belles»
«“They’re going to fix up the old race course,” Ailie called from the car. “Tarleton’s getting quite doggy in its old age.”
No. Upon consideration they didn’t look like the right trees. All I could be sure of was this place that had once been so full of life and effort was gone, as if it had never existed, and that in another month Ailie would be gone, and the South would be empty for me forever.»
Наличие множества глаголов, позволяет нам говорить о квр-повествование. Функция концовки- подведение итога действия героев в рассказе. Автор посчитал свою идею полностью воплощенной. И главные герои пришли к заключению.
«First blood»
«She sat quiet for a minute as they drove away, relieved and yet full of awe. Anthony Harker was twenty-two, handsome, popular and sought after—and how he had loved her—so much that he had to go away. She was as impressed as if they had been two other people.
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Taking her silence for depression, Ed Bement said:
“Well, it did one thing anyhow—it stopped that other story they had around about you.”
She turned to him quickly: “What story?”
“Oh, just some crazy story.”
“What was it?” she demanded.»
В данном отрывке используется большое количество глаголов. Наличие глаголов говорит нам о использование крф – драматическое повествование. Фунцкия концовки – постановка риторического вопроса. Счастливая пара вместе, и главный герой, влюблённый в героиню задаётся вопросом, что такое прекрасное создание может сделать плохого? Данная концовка считается счастливым концом, одним из стилистических видов концовок.
««The Bridal Party»
«Michael was cured. The ceremonial function, with its pomp and its revelry, had stood for a sort of initiation into a life where even his regret could not follow them. All the bitterness melted out of him suddenly and the world reconstituted itself out of the youth and happiness that was all around him, profligate as the spring sunshine. He was trying to remember which one of the bridesmaids he had made a date to dine with tonight as he walked forward to bid Hamilton and Caroline Rutherford good-by»
Наличие глаголов и прилагательных, говорит нам об использование автором крф – повествование и описание. Концовка закрытая и автор делает счастливый конец. У главного героя начинается новая жизнь. Назначена встреча с подругой, и жизнь продолжается. Функция концовки - подведение итога событий, происходящих с героем.
«Fun in an Artist’s studio»
«…A few minutes later as Pat sat shivering in the center of the room his memory went back to those peep-shows of his youth — though at the moment he could see little resemblance. He was grateful at least for the turkish towel, even now failing to realize that the Princess was not interested in his shattered frame but in his face.
It wore the exact expression that had wooed her in the commissary, the expression of Hollywood and Vine, the other self of Mr. DeTinc — and she worked fast while there was still light enough to paint by.»
В данном отрывке присутствует большое количество глаголов, что говорит нам о крф повествование. Концовка открытая. «while there was still light enough to paint by» данное предложение говорит нам о том, что персонаж продолжает дальше рисовать, и что случится дальше не известно. Функция концовки - интрига.
Выводы по II главе
Таким образом, под обрамлением мы понимаем зачин и концовку рассказа.
Проанализировав короткие рассказы Ф.С.Фицджеральда можно говорить о различных функциях зачина и концовки. В большинстве случаев в коротких рассказах зачин выполняет функцию ознакомление с персонажем, местом действия, постановкой проблемы, побуждение интереса (создание интриги) Анализ коротких рассказов так же показал, что автор чаще всего использует композиционно – речевые формы описания и повествования в зачине рассказа.
В свою очередь концовка в коротких рассказах Ф.С.Фицджеральда выполняет функцию завершенности действий героя, подводит итог.
В некоторых рассказах встречается стилистический вид концовки -счастливый конец, а так же есть отсылка к началу рассказа.
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Роль обрамление в коротких рассказах, безусловно важна и именно обрамление даёт читателю полную и завершённую картину прочитанного.
Заключение
Таким образом, в ходе курсовой работы цель, а именно определение роли и значимости композиционного обрамление короткого рассказа была достигнута в полной мере. Так же все задачи были успешно решены. Изучена научная литература, рассмотрены основные понятия, касающиеся проблемы исследования и на практике рассмотрены различия обрамления коротких рассказов через композиционно речевые формы. Данную курсовую работу безусловно можно считать актуальной. Актуальность обусловлена интересом к вопросам типологии художественного текста и обусловлена необходимостью теоретического анализа и практического применения современных аспектов в изучении повествования. Полученные результаты исследования имеют большую практическую значимость и могут широко использоваться на занятиях по английскому языку в старших классах, а так же в дисциплинах по культуроведению в высших учебных заведениях, возможно использование в курсах теоретической и практической грамматике, стилистики английского языка, в курсах теории и практики анализа текста, при подготовке пособий, курсовых и дипломных работ.
В ходе курсовой работы были проанализированы короткие рассказы Ф.Скотт Фицджеральда и сделаны выводы о функции и роли зачина и концовки. Большое внимание уделялось особенностям использования автором лексики и структуры рассказа в целом. В качестве примера мы могли увидеть диалоги, что приводит нас к функции крф-драматическое повествование.
Уделялось внимание и самому объёму рассказа, так как чем короче рассказ, тем сильнее выражена функция заинтриговать читателя с первых слов. Так же были рассмотрены объёмы зачина и концовки. Проанализировав рассказы, можно сделать вывод, что объём в среднем один абзац.
Зачин и концовка создают обрамление рассказа.
Анализ коротких рассказов показал, что в зачине чаще всего используется крф –повествование и описание. Функция зачина - ознакомление с главным героем и местом действия. В концовке же применятся крф – повествование и чаще всего концовка выполняет роль подведения итога.
Выражая своё мнение по данной теме, хочется сказать, что обрамление коротких рассказов действительно очень актуальна, но к сожалению мало изученная тема. Для себя я отметил множество интересных моментов и наблюдений. Сложности в данной курсовой работе возникали при определение функции концовки. В завершение хочется отметить особенностью данного исследования считается разнообразие литературных приёмов, наличие различных крф и функций зачина и концовки, что позволяет рассмотреть и проанализировать короткие рассказы с разных сторон и придти к единому выводу.
Приложение 1.
«The Last of the Belles»
«After Atlanta’s elaborate and theatrical rendition of Southern charm, we all underestimated Tarleton. It was a little hotter than anywhere we’d been — a dozen rookies collapsed the first day in that Georgia sun — and when you saw herds of cows drifting through the business streets, hi-yaed by colored drovers, a trance stole down over you out of the hot light; you wanted to move a hand or foot to be sure you were alive.»
«Outside the Cabinet-Maker’s»
«The automobile stopped at the corner of Sixteenth and some dingy-looking street. The lady got out. The man and the little girl stayed in the car.
“I’m going to tell him it can’t cost more than twenty dollars,” said the lady.
“All right. Have you the plans?”
“Oh, yes” — she reached for her bag in the back seat — “at least I have now.”
“Dites qu’il ne faut pas avoir les forts placards,” said the man. “Ni le bon bois.”
“All right.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk French,” said the little girl.
“Et il faut avoir un bon ‘height.’ L’un des Murphys était comme ça.”
He held his hand five feet from the ground. The lady went through a door lettered “Cabinet-Maker” and disappeared up a small stairs.
The man and the little girl looked around unexpectantly. The neighborhood was red brick, vague, quiet. There were a few darkies doing something or other up the street and an occasional automobile went by. It was a fine November day.»
«The Swimmers»
«In the Place Benoit, a suspended mass of gasoline exhaust cooked slowly by the June sun. It was a terrible thing, for, unlike pure heat, it held no promise of rural escape, but suggested only roads choked with the same foul asthma. In the offices of The Promissory Trust Company, Paris Branch, facing the square, an American man of thirty-five inhaled it, and it became the odor of the thing he must presently do. A black horror suddenly descended upon him, and he went up to the washroom, where he stood, trembling a little, just inside the door.
Through the washroom window his eyes fell upon a sign—1000 Chemises. The shirts in question filled the shop window, piled, cravated and stuffed, or else draped with shoddy grace on the show-case floor. 1000 Chemises—Count them! To the left he read Papeterie, Patisserie, Solde, Reclame, and Constance Talmadge in Dejeuner de Soleil; and his eye, escaping to the right, met yet more somber announcements: Vetements Ecclesiastiques, Declaration de Deces, and Pompes Funebres. Life and Death.
Henry Marston’s trembling became a shaking; it would be pleasant if this were the end and nothing more need be done, he thought, and with a certain hope he sat down on a stool. But it is seldom really the end, and after a while, as he became too exhausted to care, the shaking stopped and he was better. Going downstairs, looking as alert and self-possessed as any other officer of the bank, he spoke to two clients he knew, and set his face grimly toward noon.»
«The Diamond as Big as the Ritz»
«John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades—a small town on the Mississippi River—for several generations. John's father had held the amateur golf championship through many a heated contest; Mrs. Unger was known "from hot-box to hot-bed," as the local phrase went, for her political addresses; and young John T. Unger, who had just turned sixteen, had danced all the latest dances from New York before he put on long trousers. And now, for a certain time, he was to be away from home. That respect for a New England education which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents. Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas's School near Boston—Hades was too small to hold their darling and gifted son.»
«First blood»
« “I remember your coming to me in despair when Josephine was about three!” cried Mrs. Bray. “George was furious because he couldn’t decide what to go to work at, so he used to spank little Josephine.”
“I remember,” said Josephine’s mother.
“And so this is Josephine.”
This was, indeed, Josephine. She looked at Mrs. Bray and smiled, and Mrs. Bray’s eyes hardened imperceptibly. Josephine kept on smiling.
“How old are you, Josephine?”
“Just sixteen.”
“Oh-h. I would have said you were older.”
At the first opportunity Josephine asked Mrs. Perry, “Can I go to the movies with Lillian this afternoon?”
“No, dear; you have to study.” She turned to Mrs. Bray as if the matter were dismissed—but: “You darn fool,” muttered Josephine audibly.
Mrs. Bray said some words to cover the situation, but, of course, Mrs. Perry could not let it pass unreproved.
“What did you call mother, Josephine?”
“I don’t see why I can’t go to the movies with Lillian.”
«The Bridal Party»
«THERE was the usual insincere little note saying: “I wanted you to be the first to know.” It was a double shock to Michael, announcing, as it did, both the engagement and the imminent marriage; which, moreover, was to be held, not in New York, decently and far away, but here in Paris under his very nose, if that could be said to extend over the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Avenue George-Cinq. The date was two weeks off, early in June.
At first Michael was afraid and bis stomach felt hollow. When he left the hotel that morning, the femme de chambre, who was in love with his fine, sharp profile and his pleasant buoyancy, scented the hard abstraction that had settled over him. He walked in a daze to his bank, he bought a detective story at Smith’s on the Roe de Rivoli, he sympathetically stared for a while at a faded panorama of the battlefields in a tourist-office window and cursed a Greek tout who followed him with a half-displayed packet of innocuous post cards warranted to be very dirty indeed.
But the fear stayed with him, and after a while he recognized it as the fear that now he would never be happy. He had met Caroline Dandy when she was seventeen, possessed her young heart all through her first season in New York, and then lost her, slowly, tragically, uselessly, because he had no money and could make no money; because, with all the energy and goodwill in the world, he could not find himself; because, loving him still, Caroline had lost faith and begun to see him as something pathetic, futile, and shabby, outside the great, shining stream of life towards which she was inevitably drawn.
Since his only support was that she loved him, he leaned weakly on that; the support broke, but still Be held on to it and was carried out to sea and washed up on the French coast with its broken pieces still in his hands. He carried them around with him in the form of photographs and packets of correspondence and a liking for a maudlin popular song called Among My Souvenirs. He kept clear of other girls, as if Caroline would somehow know it and reciprocate with a faithful heart. Her note informed him that he had lost her forever.»
«Fun in an Artist’s studio»
«This was back in 1938 when few people except the Germans knew that they had already won their war in Europe. People still cared about art and tried to make it out of everything from old clothes to orange peel and that was how the Princess Dignanni found Pat. She wanted to make art out of him.
“No, not you, Mr. DeTinc,” she said, “I can’t paint you. You are a very standardized product, Mr. DeTinc.”
Mr. DeTinc, who was a power in pictures and had even been photographed with Mr. Duchman, the Secret Sin specialist, stepped smoothly out of the way. He was not offended — in his whole life Mr. DeTinc had never been offended — but especially not now, for the Princess did not want to paint Clark Gable or Spencer Rooney or Vivien Leigh either.
She saw Pat in the commissary and found he was a writer, and asked that he be invited to Mr. DeTinc’s party. The Princess was a pretty woman born in Boston, Massachusetts and Pat was forty-nine with red-rimmed eyes and a soft purr of whiskey on his breath.»
«Ten Years In The Advertising Business»
«Well, Mr. Fitzgerald, what can I do for you today?” It was in a high office with a view of that gold building.
“I want a raise, Mr. Cakebook,” I said.
“Why?”
“I’m about to get married. You’re only paying me Ninety-Five Dollars a month and, of course, with a family to support I’ve got to think of money.”
Into his grey eyes came a faraway look.»
«A night at the Fair»
«The two cities were separated only by a thin well-bridged river; their tails curling over the banks met and mingled, and at the juncture, under the jealous eye of each, lay, every fall, the State Fair. Because of this advantageous position, and because of the agricultural eminence of the state, the fair was one of the most magnificent in America. There were immense exhibits of grain, livestock and farming machinery; there were horse races and automobile races and, lately, aeroplanes that really left the ground; there was a tumultuous Midway with Coney Island thrillers to whirl you through space, and a whining, tinkling hoochie-coochie show. As a compromise between the serious and the trivial, a grand exhibition of fireworks, culminating in a representation of the Battle of Gettysburg, took place in the Grand Concourse every night.»
«The Last of the Belles»
«After Atlanta’s elaborate and theatrical rendition of Southern charm, we all underestimated Tarleton. It was a little hotter than anywhere we’d been — a dozen rookies collapsed the first day in that Georgia sun — and when you saw herds of cows drifting through the business streets, hi-yaed by colored drovers, a trance stole down over you out of the hot light; you wanted to move a hand or foot to be sure you were alive.»
«The Diamond as Big as the Ritz»
«John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades—a small town on the Mississippi River—for several generations. John's father had held the amateur golf championship through many a heated contest; Mrs. Unger was known "from hot-box to hot-bed," as the local phrase went, for her political addresses; and young John T. Unger, who had just turned sixteen, had danced all the latest dances from New York before he put on long trousers. And now, for a certain time, he was to be away from home. That respect for a New England education which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents. Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas's School near Boston—Hades was too small to hold their darling and gifted son.»
«The Diamond As Big As The Ritz»
John turned to her in astonishment.
“Your father is dead,” he replied somberly. “Why should he go to Hades? You have it confused with another place that was abolished long ago.”
After supper they folded up the table-cloth and spread their blankets for the night.
“What a dream it was,” Kismine sighed, gazing up at the stars. “How strange it seems to be here with one dress and a penniless fiance!
“Under the stars,” she repeated. “I never noticed the stars before. I always thought of them as great big diamonds that belonged to some one. Now they frighten me. They make me feel that it was all a dream, all my youth.”
“It was a dream,” said John quietly. “Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.”
“How pleasant then to be insane!”
“So I’m told,” said John gloomily. “I don’t know any longer. At any rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That’s a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion. Well, I have that last and I will make the usual nothing of it.” He shivered. “Turn up your coat collar, little girl, the night’s full of chill and you’ll get pneumonia. His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours.”
«The Ice Palace»
Sally Carrol Hopper, resting her chin on her arm, and her arm on an old window-seat, gazed sleepily down over the spangled dust whence the heat waves were rising for the first time this spring. She was watching a very ancient Ford turn a perilous corner and rattle and groan to a jolting stop at the end of the walls. She made no sound, and in a minute a strident familiar whistle rent the air. Sally Carrol smiled and blinked.
“Good mawnin’.”
A head appeared tortuously from under the cartop below.
“’Tain’t mawnin’.”
“Sure enough!” she said in affected surprise. “I guess maybe not.”
“What you doin’?”
“Eatin’ green peach. ’Spect to die any minute.”
Clark twisted himself a last impossible notch to get a view of her face.
“Water’s warm as a kettla steam, Sally Carrol. Wanta go swimmin’?”
“Hate to move,” sighed Sally Carrol lazily, “but I reckon so.”
«A Night at the Fair»
«He frowned. Then he turned and got into the Van Schellinger limousine.
Sitting beside Gladys in the little seats, he loved her suddenly. His hand swung gently against hers from time to time and be felt the warm bond that they were both going away to school tightened around them and pulling them together.
“Can’t you come and see me tomorrow?” she urged him. “Mother’s going to be away and she says I can have anybody I like.”
“All right.”
As the car slowed up for Basil’s house, she leaned towards him swiftly. “Basil—”
He waited. Her breath was warm on his cheek. He wanted her to hurry, or, when the engine stopped, her parents, dozing in back, might hear what she said. She seemed beautiful to him then; that vague unexciting quality about her was more than compensated for by her exquisite delicacy, the fine luxury of her life.
“Basil—Basil, when you come tomorrow, will you bring that Hubert Blair?”
The chauffeur opened the door and Mr. and Mrs. Van Schellinger woke up with a start. When the car had driven off, Basil stood looking after it thoughtfully until it turned the corner of the street.»
«Outside the Cabinet-Maker’s»
The lady came out of the cabinet-maker’s shop.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“Good. Il dit qu’il a fait les maisons de poupee pour les Du Ponts. Il va le faire.”
“Combien?”
“Vingt-cinq. I’m sorry I was so long.”
“Look, Daddy, there go a lot more soldiers!”
They drove off. When they had gone a few miles the man turned around and said, “We saw the most remarkable thing while you were there.” He summarized the episode. “It’s too bad we couldn’t wait and see the rescue.”
“But we did,” the child cried. “They had the rescue in the next street. And there’s the Ogre’s body in that yard there. The King and Queen and Prince were killed and now the Princess is Queen.”
He had liked his King and Queen and felt that they had been too summarily disposed of.
“You had to have a heroine,” he said rather impatiently.
“She’ll marry somebody and make him Prince.”
They rode on abstractedly. The lady thought about the doll’s house, for she had been poor and had never had one as a child, the man thought how he had almost a million dollars and the little girl thought about the odd doings on the dingy street that they had left behind.
«The Swimmers»
«Going down to the purser’s office, he waited until a fellow passenger was through at the window. When she turned, they both started, and he saw it was the girl.
“Oh, hello!” she cried. “I’m glad you’re going! I was just asking when the pool opened. The great thing about this ship is that you can always get a swim.”
“Why do you like to swim?” he demanded.
“You always ask me that.” She laughed.
“Perhaps you’d tell me if we had dinner together tonight.”
But when, in a moment, he left her he knew that she could never tell him—she or another. France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter—it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart.»
«The Last of the Belles»
“You won’t find a single thing, darling,” said Ailie. “The contractors took it all down.”
We rode slowly along the margin of the fields. It might have been here —
“All right. I want to get out,” I said suddenly.
I left Ailie sitting in the car, looking very beautiful with the warm breeze stirring her long, curly bob.
It might have been here. That would make the company streets down there and the mess shack, where we dined that night, just over the way.
The taxi driver regarded me indulgently while I stumbled here and there in the knee-deep underbrush, looking for my youth in a clapboard or a strip of roofing or a rusty tomato can. I tried to sight on a vaguely familiar clump of trees, but it was growing darker now and I couldn’t be quite sure they were the right trees.
“They’re going to fix up the old race course,” Ailie called from the car. “Tarleton’s getting quite doggy in its old age.”
No. Upon consideration they didn’t look like the right trees. All I could be sure of was this place that had once been so full of life and effort was gone, as if it had never existed, and that in another month Ailie would be gone, and the South would be empty for me forever.»
«First blood»
«She sat quiet for a minute as they drove away, relieved and yet full of awe. Anthony Harker was twenty-two, handsome, popular and sought after—and how he had loved her—so much that he had to go away. She was as impressed as if they had been two other people.
Taking her silence for depression, Ed Bement said:
“Well, it did one thing anyhow—it stopped that other story they had around about you.”
She turned to him quickly: “What story?”
“Oh, just some crazy story.”
“What was it?” she demanded.
“Oh, nothing much,” he said hesitantly, “but there was a story around last August that you and Travis de Coppet were married.”
“Why, how perfectly terrible!” she exclaimed. “Why, I never heard of such a lie. It—” She stopped herself short of saying the truth—that though she and Travis had adventurously driven twenty miles to New Ulm, they had been unable to find a minister willing to marry them. It all seemed ages behind her, childish, forgotten.
“Oh, how perfectly terrible!” she repeated. “That’s the kind of story that gets started by jealous girls.”
“I know,” agreed Ed. “I’d just like to hear any boy try to repeat it to me. Nobody believed it anyhow.”
It was the work of ugly and jealous girls. Ed Bement, aware of her body next to him, and of her face shining like fire through the half darkness, knew that nobody so beautiful could ever do anything really wrong.»
«The Bridal Party»
«Michael was cured. The ceremonial function, with its pomp and its revelry, had stood for a sort of initiation into a life where even his regret could not follow them. All the bitterness melted out of him suddenly and the world reconstituted itself out of the youth and happiness that was all around him, profligate as the spring sunshine. He was trying to remember which one of the bridesmaids he had made a date to dine with tonight as he walked forward to bid Hamilton and Caroline Rutherford good-by»
«Fun in an Artist’s studio»
«The policeman looked at the staring image of guilt upon the couch.
“Get fresh?” he inquired.
“I don’t want to prefer charges — I called the desk to be on the safe side. He was to pose for me in the nude and now he refuses.” She walked casually to her easel. “Mr. Hobby, why don’t you stop this mock-modesty — you’ll find a turkish towel in the bathroom.”
Pat reached stupidly for his shoes. Somehow it flashed into his mind that they were running the eighth race at Santa Anita —
“Shake it up, you,” said the cop. “You heard what the lady said.”
Pat stood up vaguely and fixed a long poignant look on the Princess.
“You told me — ” he said hoarsely, “you wanted to paint — ”
“You told me I meant something else. Hurry please. And officer, there’s a drink in the pantry.”
…A few minutes later as Pat sat shivering in the center of the room his memory went back to those peep-shows of his youth — though at the moment he could see little resemblance. He was grateful at least for the turkish towel, even now failing to realize that the Princess was not interested in his shattered frame but in his face.
It wore the exact expression that had wooed her in the commissary, the expression of Hollywood and Vine, the other self of Mr. DeTinc — and she worked fast while there was still light enough to paint by.»
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