August-10: From The Beautiful and Damned.
From The Beautiful and Damned.
BEAUTY: What will I be? Tell me?
VOICE: At first it was thought that you would go this time as an actress in the motion-pictures but, after all, it’s not advisable. You will be disguised during your fifteen years as what is called a “susciety gurl.”
BEAUTY: What’s that? (There is a new sound in the wind which must for our purposes be interpreted as THE VOICE scratching its head.)
THE VOICE: (At length) It’s sort of a bogus aristocrat.
BEAUTY: Bogus? What is bogus?
THE VOICE: That, too, you will discover in this land. You will find much that is bogus. Also, you will do much that is bogus.
BEAUTY: (Placidly) It all sounds so vulgar.
THE VOICE: Not half as vulgar as it is. You will be known during your fifteen years as a ragtime kid, a flapper, a jazz-baby, and a baby vamp. You will dance new dances neither more nor less gracefully than you danced the old ones.
BEAUTY: (In a whisper) Will I be paid?
THE VOICE: Yes, as usual—in love.
BEAUTY: (With a faint laugh which disturbs only momentarily the immobility of her lips) And will I like being called a jazz-baby?
THE VOICE: (Soberly) You will love it…
-F. S. Fitzgerald.
(Source: august-10)
