The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Ep. 4

Tonight we conclude F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. As dawn breaks over the hidden mountain, dreams and fortunes begin to fade into memory. Settle in for the final installment, read slowly and softly to help you relax and find sweet slumber. 

Transcript

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Welcome to Southern Slumber Bedtime Stories for Sleep. I'm glad you're here tonight. I'm Holly, and each week we visit a corner of the American South, where the air is warm, the aroma of gardenias linger from the garden, and everything moves in slow motion. You can simply drift in and out tonight, letting the sound of my voice carry you. And if sleep comes, you can let it. I'll be right here as you rest. So close your eyes if you haven't already. Take a slow breath in and let it fall away. Tonight we conclude F Scott Fitzgerald's story The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. For several evenings we've wandered through hidden valleys and midnight gardens. Now as dawn breaks over the hidden mountain, John Unger and Kisman, Washington face a world where dreams, fortunes, and treasures are changing before their eyes. So sink beneath your blankets, let your breathing become slow and steady, and join me for the conclusion of the diamond as big as the writs. Long after midnight, John's body gave a nervous jerk, and he sat suddenly upright, staring into the veils of somnolence that draped the room. Through the squares of blue darkness that were his open windows, he had heard a faint faraway sound that died upon a bed of wind before identifying itself on his memory, clouded with uneasy dreams, but the sharp noise that had succeeded it was nearer, just outside his room. The click of a turned knob, a footstep, a whisper. He could not tell. A hard lump gathered in the pit of his stomach and his whole body ached in the moment that he strained agonizingly to hear. Then one of the veils seemed to dissolve, and he saw a vague figure standing by the door, a figure only faintly limbed and blocked in upon darkness, mingled so with the folds of the drapery as to seem distorted, like a reflection seen in a dirty pane of glass. With a sudden movement of fright or resolution, John pressed the button by his bedside, and the next moment he was sitting in the green sunken bath of the adjoining room, waked into alertness by the shot of cold water which half filled it. He sprang out, his wet pajamas scattering a heavy trickle of water behind him, ran for the aquamarine door which he knew led out onto the ivory landing of the second floor. The door opened noiselessly. A single crimson lamp burning in a great dome above lit the magnificent sweep of the carved stairways with a poignant beauty. For a moment John hesitated, appalled by the silent splendor massed about him, seeming to envelop his gigantic folds and contours, the solitary drenched little figure shivering upon the ivory landing. Then simultaneously, two things happened. The door of his own sitting room swung open, precipitating three naked servants into the hall, and as John swayed in wild terror above the stairway, another door slid back in the wall on the other side of the corridor, and John saw Braddock Washington standing in the lighted lift, wearing a fur coat and a pair of riding boots, which reached to his knees and displayed above the glow of his rose colored pajamas. On the instant the three servants John had never seen any of them before, and it flashed through his mind that they must be the professional executioners, paused in their movement toward John and turned expectantly to the man in the lift, who burst out with an imperious command. Get in here, all three of you quick as hell. Then, within the instant the three servants darted into the cage. The oblong of light was blotted, was blotted out as the lift door slid shut. And John was again alone in the hall. He slumped weakly down against an ivory stair. It was apparent that something portentious had occurred, something which, for the moment, at least, had postponed his own petty disaster. What was it? Had the servants risen in revolt? Had the aviators forced aside the iron bars of the grating? Or had the men of fish stumbled blindly through the hills and gazed with bleak, joyless eyes upon the gaudy valley? John did not know. He heard a faint whirr of air as the lift whizzed up again, and then a moment later as it descended. It was probable that Percy was hurrying to his father's assistance, and it occurred to John that this was his opportunity to join Kisman and plan an immediate escape. He waited until the lift had been silent for several minutes. Shivering a little with the night cool that whipped in through his wet pajamas, he returned to his room and dressed himself quickly. Then he mounted a long flight of stairs and turned down the corridor carpeted with Russian sable which led to Kisman's suite. The door of her sitting room was open, and the lamps were lighted. Kisman in an angora kimona stood near the window of the room in a listening attitude, and as John entered noiselessly, she turned toward him. Oh it's you, she whispered, crossing the room to him. Did you hear them? Well, I heard your father's servants and my no, she interrupted excitedly. Airplanes Airplanes Well, perhaps that was the sound that woke me. There are at least a dozen. I saw one a few moments ago dead against the moon. The guard back by the cliff fired his rifle and that's what roused father. We're going to open on them right away. Well are they here on purpose? Yes, it's it's that Italian who got away. Simultaneously with her last word, a succession of sharp cracks humbled in through the open window. Kisman uttered a little cry, took a penny with fumbling fingers from a box on her dresser, and ran to one of the electric lights. In an instant the entire chateau was in darkness. She had blown out the fuse. Come on, she cried to him. We'll go up to the roof garden and watch it from there. Drawing a cape about her, she took his hand and they found their way out the door. It was only a step to the tower lift, and as she pressed the button that shot them upward he put his arms around her in the darkness and kissed her mouth. Romance had come to John Unger at last. A minute later they had stepped out upon the star white platform. Above under the misty moon, sliding in and out of the patches of cloud that eddied below it, floated a dozen dark winged bodies in a constant circling course. From here and there in the valley flashes of fire leaped toward them, followed by sharp detonations. Kissman clapped her hands with pleasure, which a moment later turned to dismay as the airplanes, at some prearranged signal, began to release their bombs, and the whole of the valley became a panorama of reverberation, sound and lurid light. Before long the aim of the attackers became concentrated upon the points where the anti craft guns were situated, and one of them was almost immediately reduced to a giant cinder to lie smoldering in a park of roses. Kisman, begged John, you'll be glad when I tell you that this attack came on the eve of my murder. If I hadn't heard that guard shoot off his gun back by the pass, I should now be stoned dead. I can't hear you, cried Kisman, intent on the scene before her. I simply said, shouted John, that we'd better get out before they begin to shell the chateau. Suddenly the whole portico of the servant quarters cracked asunder. A geyser of flame shot up from under the co the colonnades and a great fragments of jagged marble were hurled as far as the borders of the lake. There go fifty thousand dollars worth of servants, cried Kisman, at pre war prices. So few Americans have any respect for property. John renewed his efforts to compel her to leave. The aim of the airplanes was becoming more precise minute by minute, and only two of the anti craft guns were still retaliating. It was obvious that the garrison, encircled with fire, could not hold out much longer. Come on, cried John, pulling Kisman's arm. We've got to go. Do you realize that those aviators will kill you without question if they find you? She consented reluctantly. We'll have to wake Jasmine, she said, as they hurried toward the lift. Then she added in a sort of childish delight. We'll be poor, won't we? Like people in books. And I'll be an orphan and utterly free. Free and poor, oh what fun. She stopped and raised her lips to him in a delighted kiss. It's impossible to be both, said John grimly. People have found that out, and I should choose to be free as preferable of the two. As an extra caution, you'd better dump the contents of your jewel box into your pockets. Ten minutes later the two girls met John in the dark corridor, and they descended to the main floor of the chateau. Passing for the last time through the magnificence of the splendid halls, they stood for a moment out on the terrace, watching the burning servant quarters and the flaming embers of the two planes which had fallen on the other side of the lake. The solitary gun was still keeping up sturdy popping, and the attackers seemed timorous about descending lower, but sent their thunderous fireworks in a circle around it until any chance shot might annihilate its Ethiopian crew. John and the two sisters passed down the marble steps, turned sharply to the left, and began to ascend a narrow path that wound like a garter about the diamond mountain. Hisman knew a heavily wooded spot halfway up where they could lie concealed and yet be able to observe the wild night in the valley, finally to make an escape, when it should be necessary along a secret path laid in a rocky gully. It was three o'clock when they attained their destination. The obliging and phlegmatic jasmine fell off to sleep immediately, leaning against the trunk of a large tree, while John and Kisman sat, his arm around her, and watched the desperate ebb and flow of the dying battle among the ruins of a vista that had been a garden spot that morning. Shortly after four o'clock, the last remaining gun gave out a clanging sound and went out of action in a swift tongue of red smoke. Though the moon was down, they saw that the flying bodies were circling closer to the earth. When the planes had made certain that the beleaguered possessed no further resources, they would land and the dark and glittering rain of the Washingtons would be over. With the cessation of the firing of the valley, it grew quiet. The embers of the two airplanes glowed like the eyes of some monster crouching in the grass. The chateau stood dark and silent, beautiful without light, as it had been beautiful in the sun, while the woody rattles of Nemesis filled the air above with a growing and receding complaint. Then John perceived that Kisman, like her sister, had fallen sound asleep. It was long after four when he became aware of footsteps along the path that had lately followed, and he waited in breathless silence until the persons to whom they belonged had passed the vantage point he occupied. There was a faint stir in the air now that was not of human origin, and the dew was cold. He knew that the dawn would break soon. John waited until the steps had gone a safe distance up the mountain and were inaudible. Then he followed. About halfway to the steep summit, the trees fell away, and a hard saddle of rock spread itself over the diamond beneath. Just before he reached this point, he slowed down his pace, warned by an animal sense that there was life just ahead of him. Coming to a boulder, he lifted his head gradually above its edge. His curiosity was rewarded. This is what he saw. Raddock Washington was standing there motionless, silhouetted against the gray sky without sound or sign of life. As the dawn came up out of the east, lending a gold green color to the earth, it brought the solitary figure into insignificant contrast with the new day. While John watched, his host remained for a few moments, absorbed in some inscrutable contemplation. Then he signaled to the two servants who crouched at his feet to lift the burden which lay between them. As they struggled upright, the first yellow beam of the sun struck through the innumerable prisons of an immense and exquisitely chiseled diamond, and a white radiance was kindled that glowed upon the air like a fragment of the morning star. The bear staggered beneath its weight for a moment. Then their rippling muscles caught and hardened under the wet shine of the skins, and the three figures were again motionless in their defiant impotency before the heavens. After a while the white man lifted his head and slowly raised his arm in a gesture of attention, as one would call a great crowd to hear, but there was no crowd, only the vast silence of the mountain and the sky, broken by faint bird voices down among the trees. The figure on the saddle of rock began to speak ponderously and with an indistinguishable pride. You out there he cried in a trembling voice. You there he paused, his arms still uplifted, his head held attentively as though he were expecting an answer. John strained his eyes to see whether there might be men coming down the mountain. But the mountain was bare of human life. There was only sky and a mocking flute of wind among the treetops. Could Washington be praying? For a moment John wondered. Then the illusion passed. There was something in the man's whole attitude antithetical to prayer. Oh you above there. Voice was becoming strong and confident. This was no forlorn supplication. If anything, there was in it a quality of monstrous condescension. You there words too quickly uttered to be understood, flowing one into the other. John listened breathlessly, catching a phrase here and there while the voice broke off, resumed, and broke off again, now strong and argumentative, now colored with a slow, puzzled impatience. Then a conviction commenced to dawn on the single listener, and as realization crept over him, a spray of quick blood rushed through his arteries. Braddock Washington was offering a bribe to God. That was it. There was no doubt. The dark Diamond in the arms of his slaves was some advance sample, a promise of more to follow. That, John perceived after a time, was the thread running through his sentences. Prometheus enriched was calling to witness forgotten sacrifices, forgotten rituals, prayers obsolete before the birth of Christ. For a while his discourse took the form of reminding God of this gift, or that which divinity had deigned to accept from men, great churches if he would rescue cities from the plague, gifts of myrrh and gold, of human lives and beautiful women and captive armies of children and queens of beast of the forest and field, sheeps and goats, harvest and cities, whole conquered lands that had been offered up in lust for blood for his hazel by an Amead's worth of alleviation from the divine wrath. And now he, Braddock Washington, Emperor of Diamonds, King and Priest of the Age of Gold, Arbiter of Splendor and Luxury, would offer up a treasure such as princes before him had never dreamed of. Offer it up not in suppliance, but in pride. He would give to God, he continued, getting down to specifications the greatest diamond in the world. This diamond would be cut with many more thousand facets than there were leaves on a tree, and yet the whole diamond would be shaped with the perfection of a stone no bigger than a fly. Many men would work upon it for many years. It would be set in a great dome of beaten gold, wonderfully carved and equipped with gates of opal, encrusted sapphire. In the middle would be hollowed out a chapel presided over by an altar of iridescent, decomposing, ever changing radium, which would burn out the eyes of any worshiper who lifted up his head from prayer, and on this altar there would be slain for the amusement of the divine benefactor, any victim he should choose, even though it should be the greatest and most powerful man alive. In return, he asked only a simple thing, a thing that for God would be absurdly easy, only that matters should be as they were yesterday at this hour, and that they should so remain. So very simple. Let but the heavens open, swallowing these men in their aeroplanes, and then close again. Let him have his servants once more restored to life and well. There was no one else with whom he had ever needed to treat or bargain. He doubted only whether he had made his bribe big enough. God had his price, of course. God was made in man's image, so it had been said. He must have his price. And the price would be rare. No cathedral whose building consumed many years, no pyramid constructed by ten thousand workmen would be like this cathedral. This pyramid. He paused. That was his proposition. Everything would be up to specifications, and there was nothing vulgar in his assertion that it would be cheap at the price. He implied that Providence would take it or leave it. As he approached the end, his sentences became broken, became short and uncertain, and his body seemed tense, seemed strained to catch the slightest pleasure or pressure or whisper of life in the spaces around him. His hair had turned gradually white as he talked, and now he lifted his head high to the heavens like a prophet of old, magnificently mad. Then, as John stared in giddy fascination, it seemed to him that a curious phenomenon took place somewhere around him. It was as though the sky had darkened for an instant, as though there had been a sudden murmur in a gust of wind, the sound of faraway trumpets, a sighing like the rustle of a great silken robe. For a time the whole of nature round about partook of this darkness. The bird's song ceased. The trees were still, and far over the mountain there was a mutter of dull, menacing thunder. That was all. The wind died along the tall grasses of the valley. The dawn and the day resumed their place in a time, and the risen sun sent hot waves of yellow mist that made its path bright before it. The leaves laughed in the sun, and their laughter shook until each bough was like a girl's school in fairy land. God had refused to accept the bribe. For another moment John watched the triumph of the day. Then turning he saw a flutter of brown down by the lake, then another flutter and another, like the dance of golden angels alighting from the clouds. The airplanes had come to earth. John slid off the boulder and ran down the side of the mountain to the clump trees, where the two girls were awake and waiting for him. Kisman sprang to her feet, the jewels in her pockets jingling, a question on her parted lips, but instinct told John that there was no time for words. They must get off the mountain without losing a moment. He seized a hand of each and in silence they threaded the tree trunks, washed with light now, and with the rising mist. Behind them from the valley came no sound at all, except the complaint of the peacocks far away and the pleasant undertone of mourning. When they had gone about a half a mile, they avoided the parkland and entered a narrow path that led over the next rise of ground. At the highest point of this they paused and turned around. Their eyes rested upon the mountainside they had just left, oppressed by some dark sense of tragic impendency. Clear against the sky a broken, white haired man was slowly descending the steep slope, followed by the two gigantic and emotionless servants, who carried a burden between them which still flashed and glittered in the sun. Halfway down two other figures joined them. John could see that they were misses Washington and her son, upon whose arm she leaned. The aviators had clambered from their machines to the sweeping lawn in front of the chateau, and with rifles in hand were starting up the diamond mountain in skirmishing formation. But the little group of five which had formed farther up and was engrossing all the watchers' attention had stopped upon a ledge of rock. The servants stooped and pulled up what appeared to be a trapdoor in the side of the mountain. Into this they all disappeared. The white haired man first, then his wife and son, finally the two servants, the glittering tips of whose jewelled headdresses caught the sun for a moment before the trap door descended and engulfed them all. Kisman clutched John's arm. Oh, she cried wildly. Where are they going? What are they going to do? Well, it must be some underground way of escape. A little scream from the two girls interrupted his sentence. Don't you see, sobbed Kisman hysterically. The mountain is wired. Even as she spoke, John put up his hands to shield his sight. Before their eyes, the whole surface of the mountain had changed suddenly to a dazzling burning yellow, which showed up through the jacket of turf as light shows through a human hand. For a moment the intolerable glow continued, and then like an extinguished filament, it disappeared, revealing a black waste from which blue smoke arose slowly, carrying off with it what remained of vegetation and of human flesh. Of the aviators there was left neither blood nor bone. They were consumed as completely as the five souls who had gone inside. Simultaneously and with immense concession, the chateau literally threw itself into the air, bursting into flaming fragments as it rose, and then tumbling back upon itself in a smoking pile that lay projecting half into the water of the lake. There was no fire. What smoke there was drifted off mingling with the sunshine, and for a few minutes longer a powdery dust of marbled drift from the great featureless pile that had once been the house of jewels. There was no more sound, and the three people were alone in the valley. At sunset, John and his two companions reached the huge cliff which had marked the boundaries of the Washington's dominion, and looking back found the valley tranquil and lovely in the dusk. They sat down to finish the food which Jasmine had brought with her in a basket. There, she said, as she spread the tablecloth and put the sandwiches in a neat pile upon it. Don't they look tempting? I always think that food tastes just better outdoors. With that remark, remarked Kisman, Jasmine enters the middle class. Now, said John eagerly, turn out your pocket and let's see what jewels you brought along. If you made a good selection, we three ought to live comfortably all the rest of our lives. Obediently, Kisman put her hand in her pocket and tossed two handfuls of glittering stones before him. Not so bad, cried John enthusiastically. They aren't very big, but hello. His expression changed as he held one of them up to the declining sun. Why these aren't diamonds There's something the matter. By golly, exclaimed Kisman, with a startled look. What an idiot I am. Why these are rhinestones, cried John. I know, she broke into a laugh. I opened the wrong door. They belonged on the dress of a girl who visited Jasmine. I got her to give them to me in exchange for diamonds. I'd never seen anything but precious stones before. And this is what you brought? I'm afraid so. She fingered the brilliance wistfully. I think I like these better. I'm I'm a little tired of diamonds. Very well, said John gloomily. We'll have to live in Hades, and you will grow old telling incredulous women that you got the wrong drawer. Unfortunately, your father's bank books were consumed with him. Well, what's the matter with Hades? If I come home with a wife at my age, my father is just as liable as not to cut me off with a hot coal, as they say down there. Jasmine spoke up. I love washing, she said quietly. I have always washed my own handkerchiefs. I'll take in laundry and support you both. Do they have wash women in Hades? asked Kisman innocently. Of course, answered John. It's just like anywhere else. I thought perhaps it was too hot to wear any clothes. John laughed. Just try it, he suggested. They'll run you out before you're half started. Will father be there? she asked. John turned to her in astonishment. Your father is dead, he replied. Why should he go to Hades? You have it confused with another place that was abolished long ago. After supper they folded up the tablecloth and spread their blankets for the night. What a dream it was, Kisman sighed, gazing up at the stars. How strange it seems to be here with one dress and a penniless fiance. Under the stars, she repeated. I never noticed the stars before. I always thought of them as great big diamonds that belonged to someone. Now they frighten me. They make me feel that it was all a dream all my youth. It was a dream, said John quietly. Everybody's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness. How pleasant then to be insane? So I'm told, said John gloomily. I don't know any longer. At any rate, let us love for a while. For a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. They're only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion. Well, I have that last, and I will make the usual nothing of it. He shivered. Turn up your coat collar, little girl. The night's full of chill, and you'll get pneumonia. His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours. So wrapping himself in his blanket, he fell asleep. The lights have dimmed now and the voices have grown quiet. The mountains beneath the silver stars and the last echoes of the evening have drifted away into darkness. F. Scott Fitzgerald's dreamlike world reminds us that even the most dazzling treasures are fleeting, and our simple everyday moments, like a quiet walk through the woods, a date beneath the stars, often linger longest in our hearts and memories. Thank you for spending part of your evening with me here at Southern Slumber, where the air is warm, the gardenias linger, and everything moves in slow motion. Until our next story, good night for now.