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britannica - americana
85
FITZGERALD FRANCIS SCOTT
(1896-1940).
TAPUSCRIT avec ADDITIONS et CORRECTIONS
autographes,
At Your Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
,
[Paris
juin 1929] ; 30 pages in-fol. avec additions et corrections
au crayon (trace de rouille de trombone à la 1
ère
page) ;
en anglais ; dans une boîte-étui de maroquin brun,
titre doré sur le plat sup.
10 000 / 15 000 €
Tapuscrit de travail abondamment corrigé d’une version primitive
de cette nouvelle.
At Your Age
a été publié dans le
Saturday Evening Post
du 17 août
1929, et recueilli dès 1930 dans
Great Modern Short Stories
édité par
Grant Overton (New York, Modern Library).
Le titre
At Your Age,
autographe, remplace un titre antérieur, effacé :
The Old Beau.
Plus sommaire que la version connue, celle-ci ne
comporte ni le voyage au Mexique, ni le sauvetage de l’Américaine
ivre et abandonnée, ni les fiançailles ; l’épisode de l’attente, tard un
soir, que sa belle rentre d’un tour en voiture avec son rival, précipite
la renonciation définitive du protagoniste.
Le tapuscrit est surchargé de corrections au crayon, et, entre les lignes
et dans les marges, d’additions qui enrichissent le texte.
Dans le Minneapolis de l’après-guerre, Tom Squires, veuf
quinquagénaire et riche, père d’un seul enfant, se rappelle subitement
les plaisirs d’autrefois et aspire à les goûter à nouveau. Il se rend à un
bal privé, où il voit et admire Annie Lorry. En stratège avisé, il attend
que les jeunes gens de la ville rentrent à l’université, puis invite Annie
et ses parents à dîner. Ainsi commence une campagne d’hiver menée
sans hâte : aux yeux d’Annie, le vieillard se transforme en homme du
monde… L’attirance du bellâtre Campbell demeure forte cependant, et
alors qu’Annie songe à laisser tomber le veuf attentionné, ce dernier,
diplomatiquement, demande à Mme Lorry la permission de courtiser
sa fille, essuyant un refus indigné, et feignant près d’Annie le regret
et la résignation. Aussitôt Annie de défier sa mère : elle verra qui
elle veut, tant qu’elle veut ! Tom et Annie se voient de plus en plus,
sortent longuement ensemble… Puis arrive une soirée de printemps
où Tom attend des heures le retour d’Annie, sortie avec Campbell….
Il comprend et s’éloigne au clair de lune… Cet été-là, il fait le tour des
monuments et ruines de sa jeunesse ; il avait perdu la bataille contre
la jeunesse et le printemps…
FITZGERALD FRANCIS SCOTT
(1896-1940).
TYPSCRIPT with autograph ADDITIONS and
CORRECTIONS,
At Your Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
,
[Paris
June 1929]; a working draft entitled “At Your Age”, with
the original title “The Old Beau” visible beneath the new;
30 pages in-fol., with pencil additions and corrections (rust
stains due to a paper clip on the first page); in English;
in a brown morocco box, gilt lettering on the front board.
10 000 / 15 000 €
Original working typescript of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story
“At Your Age” for which he was paid a high price. His agent Harold
Ober was especially enthusiastic, calling it “the finest story you have
ever written-and the finest I have ever read.”
At Your Age
was published in the
Saturday Evening Post
of 17 August
1929, and made its way as early as 1930 in
Great Modern Short Stories
published by Grant Overton (New York, Modern Library). Except for
this appearance in the Great Modern Short Stories in 1930, it was not
reprinted during the author’s lifetime. The present version of the short
story is shorter than the published version, excluding a number of
episodes such as a trip to Mexico, the engagement etc. Fitzgerald’s
story, set in Minneapolis, is about a well-off man of fifty attempting to
recapture his lost youth in a romance (and a planned marriage) with
a young woman Annie, and his discovery that while he had lost the
battle against youth, “Conflict itself has a value beyond victory and
defeat”: “Tom Squires came into the drug store to buy a toothbrush,
a can of talcum, aspirin, a gargle, castile soap, epsom salis and a box
of cigars. Having lived alone for many years he was methodical, and
while waiting to be served he held the list in his hand. It was Christmas
week and Minneapolis was under two feet of exhilarating, constantly
refreshed snow; with his cane Tom knocked two clean crusts of it
from his overshoes. Then, looking up, he saw the blonde girl”.
“She was a rare blonde, even in that Promised Land of Scandinavians,
where pretty blondes are not rare. There was warm color in her cheeks,
her lips and her pink little hands that folded powders into papers; her
hair, in long braids twisted about her head, was shining and alive.
She seemed to Tom suddenly the cleanest person he knew of and he
caught his breath as he stepped forward a little, and looked into her
grey eyes. ‘A can of talcum’. ‘What kind?’ ‘Any kind. That’s fine’ She
looked into his eyes back at him without self-consciousness, and,
as the list melted away, his heart raced with it wildly...”