This Side of Paradise | Page 9

whose label,
in order that his past might always be identified with him, was Amory
Blaine. Amory marked himself a fortunate youth, capable of infinite
expansion for good or evil. He did not consider himself a "strong
char'c'ter," but relied on his facility (learn things sorta quick) and his
superior mentality (read a lotta deep books). He was proud of the fact
that he could never become a mechanical or scientific genius. From no
other heights was he debarred. Physically. Amory thought that he was
exceedingly handsome. He was. He fancied himself an athlete of
possibilities and a supple dancer.
Socially. Here 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. Amory had rather a Puritan
conscience. Not that he yielded to itlater in life he almost completely
slew itbut at fifteen it made him consider himself a great deal worse
than other boys ... unscrupulousness ... 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 make-up ... a 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
Amory drift into adolescence.
PREPARATORY TO THE GREAT ADVENTURE
The train slowed up with midsummer languor at Lake Geneva, and
Amory caught sight of his mother waiting in her electric on the
gravelled station drive. It was an ancient electric, one of the early types,
and painted gray. The sight of her sitting there, slenderly 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 Amory 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 sixteen; perhaps it's fourteen or fifteen; I can
never remember; but you've skipped it."
"Don't embarrass me," murmured Amory.

"But, my dear boy, what odd clothes! They look as if they were a set
don't they? Is your underwear purple, too?"
Amory grunted impolitely.
"You must go to Brooks' and get some really nice suits. Oh, we'll have
a talk to-night or perhaps to-morrow night. I want to tell you about your
heartyou've probably been neglecting your heartand you don't know."
Amory 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 superloneliness, finding a lethargic content in smoking "Bull" at the
garage with one of the chauffeurs.
The sixty 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 flower-beds and
were silhouetted suddenly at night against the darkening trees. It was
on one of the shadowy paths that Beatrice at last captured Amory, after
Mr. Blaine had, as usual, retired for the evening to his private library.
After reproving him for avoiding her, she took him for a long
tˆte-`-tjte 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 thirty.
"Amory, dear," she crooned softly, "I had such a strange,