32
PARTISAN REVIEW
dangerous for themselves, and like Dick Diver, they found themselves
excluded not only from parties but from many hotels and other
public places. They believed that life ought to provide them something
wonderful and exciting to do. "We grew up," Zelda said ironically
later, "founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American ad–
vertising. I
still
believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and
that mud will give you a perfect complexion." The only real convic–
tion the twenties had was that you must do what you wanted to; it
was a matter of your honor, of your "sincerity." To this doctrine
the Fitzgeralds subscribed with an unequaled naivety. But as time
went on and they satisfied the accumulated and relatively organized
desires of their early years, doing what they wanted to became do–
ing immediately whatever momentary impulse suggested. Less and
less did they find any long-term desires to which they wanted to sac–
rifice their momentary inclinations; more and more they lived at
the edge of consciousness, where all the obscure and confused im–
pulses of their natures hovered. They were at the mercy of these im–
pulses because they were striving, desperately now, to reach a kind of
activity which would still seem unusual and exciting.
It
led them to do outrageous things. One night at the Casino at
Juan-Ies-Pins, very late in the evening, Zelda suddenly rose from the
table and, holding her skirt high above her head, danced around
the empty ballroom, seriously, with great dignity, appallingly. On an–
other occasion, in Cannes, they passed a tiny old French woman who
was offering for sale a basket of hazel nuts. It was evening and she
had clearly been trying all day to sell them. As they passed her,
Fitzgerald set himself for a moment and then, like a punter, kicked
the basket out of her hand and high into the air.
Under the pressure of such impulses they became more and more
irresponsible and unpredictable. One evening, with the Murphys,
they found themselves at a table next to Isadora Duncan at a small inn
in the mountains.
It
quickly became apparent that Fitzgerald was the
man whom, according to her custom, she had selected to sleep with
her that night. He went over to her table and sat at her feet, his eyes
shining with excitement while she ran her hands through his hair and
called him "her centurion." Presently she rose to go, telling Fitzgerald
where she was staying in a loud, clear voice. At this Zelda, who out
of some pride or principle never remonstrated with Fitzgerald and had
