The Beautiful and Damned, pp. 119-120
Gloria Gilbert’s diary, two months before marrying Anthony Patch.
“April 21st. — Woke up thinking of Anthony and sure enough he called and sounded sweet on the phone. So I broke a date for him. Today I feel I’d break anything for him, including the ten commandments and my neck. …”
“April 24th. — I want to marry Anthony, because husbands are so often “husbands” and I must marry a lover.
“There are four general types of husbands”
(1) The husband who always wants to stay in in the evening, has no vices and works for a salary. Totally undesirable!
(2) The atavistic mater whose mistress one is, to wait on his pleasure. This sort always considers every pretty woman ‘shallow,’ a sort of peacock with arrested development.
(3) Next comes the worshipper, the idolater of his wife and all that is his, to the utter oblivion of everything else. This sort demands an emotional actress for a wife. God! it must be an exertion to be thought righteous.
(4) And Anthony–a temporarily passionate lover with wisdom enough tor ealize when it has flown and that it must fly. And I want to get married to Anthony.
“What grubworms women are to crawl on their bellies through colorless marriages! Marriage was created not to be a background but to need one. Mine is going to be outstanding. It can’t, shan’t be the setting–it’s going to be the performance, the live, lovely, glamorous performance, and the world shall be the scenery. …”
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Something tells me Gloria’s attitude, though charming, is what screwed up her marriage in the end. Ditto with Zelda and F. Scott.
January 17, 2012