Basil and Cleopatra, F. Scott Fitzgerald

I

Wherever she was, became a beautiful and enchanted place to Basil, but he did not think of it that way. He thought the fascination was inherent in the locality, and long afterward a commonplace street or the mere name of a city would exude a peculiar glow, a sustained sound, that struck his soul alert with delight. In her presence he was too absorbed to notice his surroundings; so that her absence never made them empty, but, rather, sent him seeking for her through haunted rooms and gardens that he had never really seen before.

This time, as usual, he saw only the expression of her face, the mouth that gave an attractive interpretation of any emotion she felt or pretended to feel—oh, invaluable mouth—and the rest of her, new as a peach and old as sixteen. He was almost unconscious that they stood in a railroad station and entirely unconscious that she had just glanced over his shoulder and fallen in love with another young man. Turning to walk with the rest to the car, she was already acting for the stranger; no less so because her voice was pitched for Basil and she clung to him, squeezing his arm.

Had Basil noticed this other young man that the train discharged he would merely have been sorry for him—as he had been sorry for the wretched people in the villages along the railroad and for his fellow travelers—they were not entering Yale in a fortnight nor were they about to spend three days in the same town with Miss Erminie Gilberte Labouisse Bibble. There was something dense, hopeless and a little contemptible about them all.

Basil had come to visit here because Erminie Bibble was visiting here.

On the sad eve of her departure from his native Western city a month before, she had said, with all the promise one could ask in her urgent voice:

“If you know a boy in Mobile, why don’t you make him invite you down when I’ll be there?”

He had followed this suggestion. And now with the soft, unfamiliar Southern city actually flowing around him, his excitement led him to believe that Fat Gaspar’s car floated off immediately they entered it. A voice from the curb came as a surprise:

“Hi, Bessie Belle. Hi, William. How you all?”

The newcomer was tall and lean and a year or so older than Basil. He wore a white linen suit and a panama hat, under which burned fierce, undefeated Southern eyes.

“Why, Littleboy Le Moyne!” exclaimed Miss Cheever. “When did you get home?”

“Jus’ now, Bessie Belle. Saw you lookin’ so fine and pretty, had to come and see closer.”

He was introduced to Minnie and Basil.

“Drop you somewhere, Littleboy?” asked Fat—on his native heath, William.

“Why—” Le Moyne hesitated. “You’re very kind, but the man ought to be here with the car.”

“Jump in.”

Le Moyne swung his bag on top of Basil’s and with courteous formality got in the back seat beside them. Basil caught Minnie’s eye and she smiled quickly back, as if to say, “This is too bad, but it’ll soon be over.”

“Do you happen to come from New Orleans, Miss Bibble?” asked Le Moyne.

“Sure do.”

“’Cause I just came from there and they told me one of their mos’ celebrated heartbreakers was visiting up here, and meanwhile her suitors were shooting themselves all over the city. That’s the truth. I used to help pick ’em up myself sometimes when they got littering the streets.”

“This must be Mobile Bay on the left,” Basil thought; “Down Mobile,” and the Dixie moonlight and darky stevedores singing. The houses on either side of the street were gently faded behind proud, protecting vines; there had been crinolines on these balconies, and guitars by night in these broken gardens.

It was so warm; the voices were so sure they had time to say everything—even Minnie’s voice, answering the banter of the youth with the odd nickname, seemed slower and lazier—he had scarcely ever thought of her as a Southern girl before. They stopped at a large gate where flickers of a yellow house showed through luscious trees. Le Moyne got out.

“I certainly hope you both enjoy your visit here. If you’ll permit me I’ll call around and see if there’s anything I can do to add to your pleasure.” He swooped his panama. “I bid you good day.”

As they started off, Bessie Belle turned around and smiled at Minnie.

“Didn’t I tell you?” she demanded.

“I guessed it in the station, before he came up to the car,” said Minnie. “Something told me that was him.”

“Did you think he was good-looking?”

“He was divine,” Minnie said.

“Of course he’s always gone with an older crowd.”

To Basil, this prolonged discussion seemed a little out of place. After all, the young man was simply a local Southerner who lived here; add to that, that he went with an older crowd, and it seemed that his existence was being unnecessarily insisted upon.

But now Minnie turned to him, said, “Basil,” wriggled invitingly and folded her hands in a humble, expectant way that invariably caused disturbances in his heart.

“I loved your letters,” she said.

“You might have answered them.”

“I haven’t had a minute, Basil. I visited in Chicago and then in Nashville. I haven’t even been home.” She lowered her voice. “Father and mother are getting a divorce, Basil. Isn’t that awful?”

He was startled; then, after a moment, he adjusted the idea to her and she became doubly poignant; because of its romantic connection with her, the thought of divorce would never shock him again.

“That’s why I didn’t write. But I’ve thought of you so much. You’re the best friend I have, Basil. You always understand.”

This was decidedly not the note upon which they had parted in St. Paul. A dreadful rumor that he hadn’t intended to mention rose to his lips.

“Who is this fellow Bailey you met at Lake Forest?” he inquired lightly.

“Buzz Bailey!” Her big eyes opened in surprise. “He’s very attractive and a divine dancer, but we’re just friends.” She frowned. “I bet Connie Davies has been telling tales in St. Paul. Honestly, I’m so sick of girls that, just out of jealousy or nothing better to do, sit around and criticize you if you have a good time.”

He was convinced now that something had occurred in Lake Forest, but he concealed the momentary pang from Minnie.

“Anyhow, you’re a fine one to talk.” She smiled suddenly. “I guess everybody knows how fickle you are, Mr. Basil Duke Lee.”

Generally such an implication is considered flattering, but the lightness, almost the indifference, with which she spoke increased his alarm—and then suddenly the bomb exploded.

“You needn’t worry about Buzz Bailey. At present I’m absolutely heart-whole and fancy free.”

Before he could even comprehend the enormity of what she had said, they stopped at Bessie Belle Cheever’s door and the two girls ran up the steps, calling back, “We’ll see you this afternoon.”

Mechanically Basil climbed into the front seat beside his host.

“Going out for freshman football, Basil?” William asked.

“What? Oh, sure. If I can get off my two conditions.” There was no if in his heart; it was the greatest ambition of his life.

“You’ll probably make the freshman team easy. That fellow Littleboy Le Moyne you just met is going to Princeton this fall. He played end at V.M.I.”

“Where’d he get that crazy name?”

“Why, his family always called him that and everybody picked it up.” After a moment he added, “He asked them to the country-club dance with him tonight.”

“When did he?” Basil demanded in surprise.

“Right then. That’s what they were talking about. I meant to ask them and I was just leading up to it gradually, but he stepped in before I could get a chance.” He sighed, blaming himself. “Well, anyhow, we’ll see them there.”

“Sure; it doesn’t matter,” said Basil. But was it Fat’s mistake? Couldn’t Minnie have said right out: “But Basil came all this way to see me and I ought to go with him on his first night here.”

What had happened? One month ago, in the dim, thunderous Union Station at St. Paul, they had gone behind a baggage truck and he had kissed her, and her eyes had said: “Again.” Up to the very end, when she disappeared in a swirl of vapor at the car window, she had been his—those weren’t things you thought; they were things you knew. He was bewildered. It wasn’t like Minnie, who, for all her glittering popularity, was invariably kind. He tried to think of something in his letters that might have offended her, and searched himself for new shortcomings. Perhaps she didn’t like him the way he was in the morning. The joyous mood in which he had arrived was vanishing into air.

She was her familiar self when they played tennis that afternoon; she admired his strokes and once, when they were close at the net, she suddenly patted his hand. But later, as they drank lemonade on the Cheevers’ wide, shady porch, he couldn’t seem to be alone with her even for a minute. Was it by accident that, coming back from the courts, she had sat in front with Fat? Last summer she had made opportunities to be alone with him—made them out of nothing. It was in a state that seemed to border on some terrible realization that he dressed for the country-club dance.

The club lay in a little valley, almost roofed over by willows, and down through their black silhouettes, in irregular blobs and patches, dripped the light of a huge harvest moon. As they parked the car, Basil’s tune of tunes, “Chinatown”, drifted from the windows and dissolved into its