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The Bridal Party
Fitzgerald, Francis Scott
Published:
1930
Type(s):
Short Fiction
Source:
http://gutenberg.net.au
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About Fitzgerald:
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American Jazz Age author of novels and short stories. He is regarded as one of the greatest twentieth century writers. Fitzgerald was of the self-styled "LostGeneration," Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I.He finished four novels, left a fifth unfinished, and wrote dozens of short storiesthat treat themes of youth, despair, and age.
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(1925)•
(1933)•
(1936)•
(1924)•
(1920)•
(1922)•
(1931)•
(1920)•
(1937)•
(1922)
Copyright:
This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50.Cette oeuvre est disponible pour les pays où le droit d'auteur est de 50 ans aprèsmort de l'auteur.
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This book is brought to you by Feedbooks.http://www.feedbooks.comStrictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes.
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Chapter
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There was the usual insincere little note saying: "I wanted you to be the first toknow." It was a double shock to Michael, announcing, as it did, both the engage-ment 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 couldbe 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 his stomach felt hollow. When he left the hotelthat morning, the
femmedechambre,
who was in love with his fine, sharp profileand his pleasant buoyancy, scented the hard abstraction that had settled overhim. He walked in a daze to his bank, he bought a detective story at Smith's onthe Rue 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 followedhim with a half-displayed packet of innocuous post cards warranted to be verydirty indeed.But the fear stayed with him, and after a while he recognized it as the fear thatnow he would never be happy. He had met Caroline Dandy when she was seven-teen, possessed her young heart all through her first season in New York, andthen lost her, slowly, tragically, uselessly, because he had no money and couldmake no money; because, with all the energy and good will in the world, he couldnot find himself; because, loving him still, Caroline had lost faith and begun tosee him as something pathetic, futile and shabby, outside the great, shiningstream of life toward which she was inevitably drawn.Since his only support was that she loved him, he leaned weakly on that; thesupport broke, but still he held on to it and was carried out to sea and washed upon the French coast with its broken pieces still in his hands. He carried themaround with him in the form of photographs and packets of correspondence and aliking 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 faithfulheart. Her note informed him that he had lost her forever.It was a fine morning. In front of the shops in the Rue de Castiglione, propriet-ors and patrons were on the sidewalk gazing upward, for the Graf Zeppelin, shin-ing and glorious, symbol of escape and destruction—of escape, if necessary,through destruction—glided in the Paris sky. He heard a woman say in Frenchthat it would not her astonish if that commenced to let fall the bombs. Then heheard another voice, full of husky laughter, and the void in his stomach froze.Jerking about, he was face to face with Caroline Dandy and her fiancé.
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