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This is a liberal box recording. All liberal vox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libra vox dot org. This Reading by Chara Schellenberg This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald Book one. The Romantic Egotist Chapter one. Amory, Son of Beatrice, Part two Snapshots of the young egotist A Marie spent nearly two years in Minneapolis. The first winter he wore moccasins that were born yellow. But after many applications of oil and dirt assumed their mature color a dirty greenish brown. He wore a gray plaid mackinaw coat and a red toboggan cap. His dog, Count del Monte eight. The red cap. So his uncle gave him a gray one that pulled down over his face. The trouble with this one was that you breathe into it and your breath froze. One day, the darn thing froze his cheek. He rubs no on his cheek, but it turned bluish black. Just the same. The Count del Monte ate a box of gluing ones, but it didn't hurt him. Later, however, he lost his mind and ran madly up the street, bumping into fences, rolling in gutters and pursuing his eccentric course out of a Marie's life, a Marie cried on his bed. Poor little count, he cried. Oh, poor little count. After several months, he suspected count of a fine piece of emotional acting, a memory and frog. Parker considered that the greatest line in literature occurred in Act three of Our San Lupin. They sat in the first row at the Wednesday and Saturday matinee days. The line was, If one can't be a great artist or a great soldier, the next best thing is to be a great criminal. A Marie fell in love again and wrote a poem. This was it. Marilyn and Sally. Those are the girls for me. Maryland stands above Sally in that sweet, deep love. He was interested in whether McGovern of Minnesota would make the first or second all American how to do the card pass, how to do the Coin pass, chameleon ties, how babies were born and whether three fingered Brown was really a better picture than Christy Mathewson. Among other things, he read for the honor of the school. Little women, twice the Common law, Sappho dangerous Dan McGrew, The Broad Highway three times the fall of the House of Usher, three Weeks Mary, where the Little Kernels chum Gunga Din, the Police Gazette and Jim Jam gems. He had all the Hindi biases in history and was particularly fond of the cheerful murder stories of Mary Roberts Rinehart. School ruined his French and gave him a distaste for standard authors. His master's considered him idle, unreliable and superficially clever. He collected locks of hair from many girls. He wore the rings of several. Finally, he could borrow no more rings owing to his nervous habit of chewing them out of shape. This, it seemed, usually aroused the jealous suspicions of the next borrower. All through the summer months, a Marie and Frog Parker went each week to the stock company. Afterward, they would stroll home in the balmy air of August night, dreaming along Hennepin and Nicolette avenues through the *** crowd. A Marie wondered how people could fail to notice that he was a boy marked for glory, and when faces of the throng turned toward him and ambiguous eyes stared into his, he assumed the most romantic of expressions and walked on the air cushions that lie on the asphalt of 14. Always after he was in bed. There were voices indefinite, fading, enchanting just outside his window. And before he fell asleep, he would dream one of his favorite waking dreams, the one about becoming a great halfback or the one about the Japanese invasion, when he was rewarded by being made the youngest general in the world. It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being. This, too, was quite characteristic of Amory code of the young ego test. Before he was summoned back to Lake Geneva, he had appeared shy but inwardly glowing in his first long trousers, set off by a purple accordion tie and the Belmont collar with the edges unassailably meeting purple socks and handkerchief with a purple border peeping from his breast pocket. But more than that, he had formulated his first philosophy, a code to live by which, as near as it can be named, was a sort of aristocratic egotism. He had realized that his best interests were bound up with those of a certain variant, changing person whose label, in order that his past might always be identified with him, was Amory Blaine, A Marie marked himself a fortunate youth capable of infinite expansion for good or evil. He did not consider himself a strong character, but relied on his facility, learn things sort of quick and his superior mentality. Read a lot of deep books. He was proud of the fact that he could never become a mechanical or scientific genius from no other heights was he'd be barred physically. A Marie thought. He was exceedingly handsome. He was. He fancied himself an athlete of possibilities and a supple dancer. Socially hear his condition was perhaps most dangerous. He granted himself personality, charm, magnetism, poise, the power of dominating all contemporary males. The gift of fascinating all women, mentally complete, unquestioned superiority. Now a confession will have to be made. A Marie had rather a Puritan conscience. Not that he yielded to it later in life. He almost completely slough it. But at 15, it made him consider himself a great deal worse than other boys. Unscrupulous nous. The desire to influence people in almost every way, even for evil, a certain coldness and lack of affection, amounting sometimes to cruelty, a shifting sense of honor, an unholy selfishness, a puzzled, furtive interest in everything concerning sex. There was also a curious strain of weakness running crosswise through his makeup. Harsh phrase from the lips of an older boy older boys usually detested him was liable to sweep him off his poise into surly sensitiveness or timid stupidity. He was a slave to his own moods, and he felt that though he was capable of recklessness and audacity, he possessed neither courage, perseverance nor self respect. Vanity tempered with self suspicion, if not self knowledge. A sense of people as automatons to his will, a desire to pass as many boys as possible and get to a vague top of the world. With this background, did Ameri drift into adolescence, preparatory to the great adventure, the train slowed up with midsummer Langer at Lake Geneva, and Emery caught sight of his mother waiting in her electric on the graveled station drive. It was an ancient electric, one of the early types and painted gray. The sight of her sitting there slender, early erect and of her face, where beauty and dignity combined melting to a dreamy, recollected smile, filled him with a sudden great pride of her. As they kissed coolly and he stepped into the electric, he felt a quick fear lest he had lost the requisite charm to measure up to her. Dear boy, you're so tall. Look behind and see if there's anything coming. She looked left and right. She slipped cautiously into a speed of two miles an hour, beseeching Ameri to act as sentinel. And at one busy crossing, she made him get out and run ahead to signal her forward. Like a traffic policeman, Beatrice was what might be termed a careful driver. You are tall, but you're still very handsome. You've skipped the awkward age or is that 16? Perhaps it's 14 or 15. I can never remember. But you've skipped it. Don't embarrass me, murmured Emery. But my dear boy, what odd clothes. They look as if they were a set, don't they? Is your underwear purple too? A Marie grunted him politely. You must go to Brooks and get some really nice suits. Oh, we'll have a talk tonight. Or perhaps tomorrow night. I want to tell you about your heart. You've probably been neglecting your heart and you don't know a Marie thought. How superficial was the recent overlay of his own generation. Aside from a minute shyness, he felt that the old cynical kinship with his mother had not been one bit broken yet for the first few days, he wandered about the gardens and along the shore in a state of super loneliness, finding a lethargic content in smoking bull at the garage with one of the chauffeurs. The 60 acres of the estate were dotted with old and new summer houses and many fountains and white benches that came suddenly into sight from foliage hung hiding places. There was a great and constantly increasing family of white cats that prowled the many flowerbeds and were silhouetted suddenly at night against the darkening trees. It was on one of the shadowy paths that Beatrice at last captured Emery after Mr Blaine had, as usual, retired for the evening to his private library. After re proving him for avoiding her, she took him for a long to Tibet in the moonlight. He could not reconcile himself to her beauty that was mother to his own. The exquisite neck and shoulders, the grace of a fortunate woman of 30. A Marie dear, she crooned softly. I had such a strange, weird time after I left you, did you? Beatrice, when I had my last breakdown. She spoke of it as a sturdy, gallant feat. The doctors told me, her voice saying on a confidential note that if any man alive had done the consistent drinking that I have, he would have been physically shattered, my dear. And in his grave, long in his grave, Amory winced and wondered how this would have sounded to Froggy Parker. Yes, continued Beatrice. Tragically, I had dreams, wonderful visions. She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. I saw Bronze Rivers lapping marble shores and great birds that soared through the air. Parti coloured birds with iridescent plumage. I heard strange music and the flair of barbaric trumpets. What a Marie had snickered. What a memory! I said. Go on, Beatrice. That was all it merely Rickard and Rickard gardens that flaunted coloring against which this would be quite dull. Moons that Horrell and suede paler than winter moons, more golden than harvest moons. Are you quite well now, Beatrice? Quite well as well as I will ever be. I am not understood, Emory. I know that can't express it to you, Emery, but I am not understood. Amory was quite moved. He put his arm around his mother, rubbing his head gently against her shoulder. Poor Beatrice. Poor Beatrice. Tell me about you, Amory. Did you have to? Horrible years. Hey, Marie considered lying and then decided against it. No, Beatrice, I enjoyed them. I adapted myself to the bourgeoisie. I became conventional. He surprised himself by saying that, and he pictured how Froggy would have gaped. Beatrice, he said, Suddenly, I want to go away to school. Everybody in Minneapolis is going to go away to school. But you're only 15. Yes, but everybody goes away to school at 15, and I want to. Beatrice, on Beatrice is suggestion. The subject was dropped for the rest of the walk, but a week later she delighted him by saying a memory. I have decided to let you have your way. If you still want to, you can go to school. Yes. To ST Regis is in Connecticut. A Marie felt a quick excitement. It's being arranged, continued Beatrice. It's better that you should go away. I'd have preferred you to have gone to Eton and then to Christchurch, Oxford. But it seems impracticable now and for the present will let the university question take care of itself. What are you going to do, Beatrice? Heaven knows it seems my fate to fret away my years in this country, not for a second do I regret being American. Indeed, I think that a regret typical of very vulgar people, and I feel sure we are the great coming nation yet. And she sighed, I feel my life should have browsed away close to an older, mellower civilization, a land of greens and autumnal browns. Amory did not answer. So his mother continued. My regret is that you haven't been abroad, but still, as you are a man, it's better that you should grow up here under the snarling eagle. Is that the right term? A. Marie agreed that it was she would not have appreciated the Japanese invasion. When do I go to school? Next month. You'll have to start east a little early to take your examinations. After that, you'll have a free week. So I want you to go up the Hudson and pay a visit to who? Two months in your Darcy Ameri. He wants to see you. He went to Harrow and then to Yale, became a Catholic. I want him to talk to you. I feel he can be such a help. She stroked his auburn hair gently. Dear Ameri. Dear Ameri. Dear Beatrice. So early in September, Ameri provided with six suits summer underwear, six suits, winter underwear, one sweater or T shirt, one jersey, one overcoat, winter, etcetera set out for New England. The land of schools there were and over and Exeter with their memories of New England dead, large college like democracies. ST Mark's Groton, ST Regis, recruited from Boston and the Knickerbocker Families of New York. ST Paul's, with its great rinks, Pomfret and ST George's prosperous and well dressed Taft and Hodgkiss, which prepared the wealth of the Middle West for social success at Yale, Pauling, Westminster, Choi Kent and 100 others all milling out there well set up conventional impressive type year after year, their mental stimulus, the college entrance exams, they're vague purpose set forth in 100 circulars as to impart a thorough mental moral and physical training as a Christian gentleman to fit the boy for meeting the problems of his day and generation, and to give a solid foundation in the arts and sciences at ST Regis is a Marie, stayed three days and took his exams with a scuffing confidence, then doubling back to New York to pay his tutela revisit. The metropolis, barely glimpsed, made little impression on him, except for the sense of cleanliness he drew from the tall white buildings seen from a Hudson River steamboat in the early morning. Indeed, his mind was so crowded with dreams of athletic prowess at school that he considered this visit only as a rather tiresome prelude to the great adventure. This, however, it did not prove to be Monsignor. Darcy's house was an ancient, rambling structure set on a hill overlooking the river, and there lived its owner between his trips to all parts of the Roman Catholic world. Rather like an exiled Stuart King waiting to be called to the rule of his land. Monsignor was 44 then and bustling a trifle too stout for symmetry, with hair the color of spun gold and a brilliant, enveloping personality. When he came into a room, clad in his full purple regalia from thatch to toe, he resembled to turn her sunset and attracted both admiration and attention. He had written two novels, one of them violently anti Catholic just before his conversion and five years later, another in which he had attempted to turn all his clever jibes against Catholics into even cleverer innuendoes against Episcopalians. He was intensely ritualistic, startlingly dramatic, loved the idea of God enough to be a celibate and rather liked his neighbor. Children adored him because he was like a child. Youth reveled in his company because he was still a youth and couldn't be shocked in the proper land and century. He might have been a racial you. At present, he was a very moral, very religious, if not particularly pious clergymen making a great mystery about pulling rusty wires and appreciating life to the fullest, if not entirely enjoying it. He and Anne Marie took to each other at first sight. The jovial, impressive pre late who could dazzle an embassy ball and the green eyed intent youth in his first long trousers accepted in their own minds a relation of father and son within a half hour's conversation. My dear boy, I've been waiting to see you for years. Take a big chair and we'll have a chat. I've just come from school. ST. Regis is you know, So your mother says, a remarkable woman. Have a cigarette. I'm sure you smoke well. If you're like me, you loathe all science and mathematics. Amory nodded vehemently. Hate them all like English and history. Of course, you will hate school for a while, too, but I'm glad you're going to ST Regis, is why? Because it's a gentleman School and democracy won't hit you so early. You'll find plenty of that in college. I want to go to Princeton, said Amory. I don't know why, but I think of all Harvard men as sissies like I used to be and all Yale men as wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes. Monsignor chuckled. I'm one, you know. Oh, you're different. I think of Princeton as being lazy and good looking and aristocratic, You know, like a spring day. Harvard seems sort of indoors, and Yale is November. Chris. Spend energetic, Finished monsignor. That's it. They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered. I was for Bonnie, Prince Charlie announced Ameri, Of course you were. And for Hannibal? Yes, and for the Southern Confederacy. He was rather skeptical about being an Irish patriot. He suspected that being Irish was being somewhat common. But Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause and Irish people quite charming, and that it should by all means be one of his principal biases. After a crowded hour, which included several more cigarettes and during which Monsignor learned to his surprise but not to his horror that Amory had not been brought up a Catholic, he announced that he had another guest. This turned out to be the honourable Thornton Hancock of Boston, ex minister to The Hague, author of an erudite history of the Middle Ages and the last of a distinguished, patriotic and brilliant family. He comes here for a rest, said Monsignor, confidentially treating Ameri as a contemporary. I act as an escape from the weariness of agnosticism, and I think I'm the only man who knows how his stayed old mind is really at sea and longs for a sturdy spar like the church to cling to. Their first luncheon was one of the memorable events of Emery's early life. He was quite radiant and gave off a peculiar brightness and charm. Monsignor called out the best that he had thought by question and suggestion, and Ameri talked with an ingenious brilliance of 1000 impulses and desires and repulsion, Zand faiths and fears. He and Monsignor held the floor, and the older man, with his less receptive, less accepting yet certainly not colder mentality, seemed content and listen and bask in the mellow sunshine that played between these two. Monsignor gave the effect of sunlight to many people. A Marie gave it in his youth and to some extent when he was very much older. But never again was it quite so mutually spontaneous. He's a radiant boy, thought Thornton Hancock, who had seen the splendor of two continents and talked with Parnell and Gladstone and Bismarck. And afterward, he added to Monsignor. But his education ought not to be entrusted to a school or college. But for the next four years, the best of Emery's intellect was concentrated on matters of popularity, the intricacies of a university social system and American society, as represented by Biltmore teas and Hot Springs golf links. In all, a wonderful week that saw Anne Marie's mind turned inside out 100 of his theories confirmed, and his joy of life crystallized to 1000 ambitions. Not that the conversation was scholastic. Heaven forbid, a Marie had only the vaguest idea as to what Bernard Shaw was. But Monsignor made quite as much out of the beloved vagabond and Sir Nigel, taking good care that Ameri never once felt out of his depth. But the trumpets were sounding for a Marie's preliminary skirmish with his own generation. You're not sorry to go, Of course, with people like us, our home is where we are not, said Monsignor. I am sorry. No, you're not. No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me. Well, goodbye. End of Book one Chapter one, Part two, read by Chara Schellenberg. Www dot k ray dot org on September 21st, 2006 in Oceanside, California