Classic Audiobook Collection - The Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

The Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald audiobook. Genre: drama In The Ice Palace, F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces Sally Carrol Happer, a spirited young woman from a small Southern town who feels both cherished and confined by the languid rhythms of Georgia life. When she becomes engaged to Harry Bellamy, a promising man from the North, Sally Carrol sees a chance to step into a larger world - and to test whether her restlessness is real or just a romantic daydream. Traveling to Harry's Midwestern hometown in the heart of winter, she encounters a landscape of snow, ice, and brisk social codes that seems to demand a different version of herself. As parties and polite introductions give way to quieter moments of doubt, Sally Carrol must weigh the security of commitment against the pull of home, climate, and culture. Fitzgerald crafts a tense, intimate portrait of a woman caught between regions and expectations, where love is complicated by identity, pride, and the fear of losing one's sense of belonging. The story's central conflict turns on what it truly means to grow up, to choose, and to live with the consequences of choosing. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:11:57) Chapter 02 (00:20:26) Chapter 03 (00:37:44) Chapter 04 (00:46:07) Chapter 05 (01:00:37) Chapter 06 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the ice palace by f scott fitzgerald the sunlight dripped over the house like golden paint over an art jar and the freckling shadows here and there only intensified the rigor of the bath of light the butterworth and larkin houses flanking were entrenched behind great stodgy trees only the happer house took the full sun and all day long faced the dusty road street with a tolerant kindly patience. This was the city of Tarleton in southernmost Georgia, September afternoon. Up in her bedroom window, Sally Carol Happer rested her 19-year-old chin on a 52-year-old sill and watched Clark Darrow's ancient Ford turned the corner. The car was hot, being partly metallic, it retained all the heat it absorbed or evolved, and Clark Darrow, sitting bolt upright at the wheel were a pained, strained expression as though he considered himself a spare part, or rather likely to break.

He laboriously crossed two dust ruts, the wheels squeaking indignantly at the encounter, and then, with a terrifying expression, he gave the steering gear a final wrench and deposited self and car approximately in front of the happer steps. There was a heaving sound, a death rattle, followed by a short silence, and then the air was rent by a startling whistle. Sally Carroll gazed down sleepily. She started to yawn, but finding this quite impossible unless she raised her chin from the window, so changed her mind, and continued silently to regard the car, whose owner sat brilliantly, if perfunctorily, at attention. as he waited for an answer to his signal. After a moment the whistle once more

split the dusty air. Good moanin. With difficulty, Clark twisted his tall body round and bent a distorted glance on the window. Tame moanin'n, Sally Carroll. Isn't it show enough? What's you doing? Eatin'an an apple. Come on go swimming, won't too. Rick and so. How about hurrying up? Show not. Sally Carroll sighed voluminously and raised herself with a profound inertia from the floor where she had been occupied and alternately destroyed parts of a green apple and painting paper dolls for her younger sister. She approached a mirror, regarded her expression with a pleased and pleasant languor. Debbed two spots of rouge on her lips

and a grain of powder on her nose, and covered her bobbed, corn-colored hair, with a rose-littered sunbonnet. Then she kicked over the painting water, said, Oh, damn! But let it lay, and left the room. How you, Clark? She inquired a minute later,

as she slipped nimbly over the side of the car. Might a fine, sara Carol. Well, we go swimming. Out to Wally's pool. told marylin we'd call by and get her and joe ewin clark was dark and lean and went on foot was rather inclined to stoop his eyes were ominous and his expression somewhat petulant except when startlingly illuminated by one of his frequent smiles clark had an income just enough to keep himself in ease in his car and gasoline and he had spent the two years since he graduated from georgia tech and dozing round the lazy streets of his home town discussing how he could best invest his capital for an immediate fortune hanging round he found not at all difficult a crowd of little girls had grown up beautifully the amazing sally carroll foremost among them and they enjoyed being swum with and danced with and made love to in the flower-filled

summery evenings, and they all liked Clark immensely when feminine company. Paul, there were half a dozen other youths who were always just about to do something, and meanwhile were quite willing to join him in a few holes of golf, or a game of billiards, or the consumption of a quart of hard-yellow liquor. Every once in a while, one of these contemporaries made a farewell round of calls before going up to new york or philadelphia or pittsburg to go into business but mostly they just stayed round in this languid paradise of dreamy skies and firefly evenings and noisy nigger street bears and especially of gracious soft-voice girls who were brought up on memories instead of money the ford having been excited into a sort of restless resentful life clark and sally carroll rolled and rattled down valley avenue into jefferson street where the dust road became a pavement along opiate millicent place where there were half a dozen prosperous substantial mansions and on into the downtown section driving was perilous here for it was shopping time the population idled casually across the streets and a drove of low moaning oxen were being urged along in front of a plight of a plait of a plight of a plighton.

street car. Even the shops seemed only yawning their doors and blinking their windows in the sunshine before retiring into a state of utter and finite coma. Sally Carroll, said Clark suddenly. He had a fact that you're engaged? She looked at him, quickly. Where'd you hear that? Sure enough, you engaged? That's a nice question. Girl told me you were engaged to a Yankee you met up. in Ashfield last summer. Sally Carroll sighed. I never, never saw such an old town for rumors. Don't marry a Yankee, Sally Carol. We need you around here. Sally Carol was silent

a moment. Clark, she demanded suddenly, who on earth shall I marry? I offer my services. honey you couldn't support a wife she answered cheerfully anyway i know you too well to fall in love with you that doesn't mean you ought to marry a yankee he persisted suppose i love him he shook his head you couldn't he'd be a lot different from us every way he broke off as he held the car in front of a rambling dilapidated house maryland wade and joe ewing appeared in the doorway Low Sally Carroll. Hi. How you all? Sally Carol, demanded Marilyn as they started off again. You engaged?

Lodi, where'd all this start? Can I look at a man thought everybody in town engaging me to him? Clark stared straight in front of him at a bolt on the clattering windshield. Sally Carol, he said with a curious intensity. Don't you like us? What? Us down here. Why, Clark, you know I do.

I adore all you boys. Then why you're getting engaged to a Yankee? Clark, I don't know. I'm not sure what I'll do. But, well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale. What you mean?

Oh, Clark, I love you, and I love Joe here and Ben Arrock and you all, but you'll... You'll... Will all be failures? Yes, I don't mean only money failures, but just sort of... of ineffectual and sad. And, oh, how can I tell you? You mean because we stay here in Tolton? Yes, Clark, and because you like it and never want to change things.

or think, or go ahead, he nodded, and she reached over and pressed his hand. Clark, she said softly, I wouldn't change you for the world. You're sweet the way you are. The things that'll make you fail I love always, the living in the past, the lazy days and nights you have, and all your carelessness and generosity. But you're going away. Yes, because I could never marry you. You've a place in my heart no one else ever could have, but time down here I'd get restless.

I feel I was wasting myself. There's two sides to me, you see. There's the sleepy old side you love, and there's a sort of energy. The feeling that makes me do wild things. That's the part of me that may be useful somewhere. That'll last when I'm not beautiful anymore. She broke off with characteristic suddenness. and sighed, oh, sweet cookie, as her mood changed, half-closing her eyes and tipping back her head

till it rested on the seat back, she let the savory breeze fan her eyes and ripple the fluffy curls of her bobbed hair. They were in the country now, hurrying between tangled growths of bright green coppice and grass and tall trees that sent sprays of foliage to hang a cool welcome over the road. Here and there they passed a battered Negro cabin, its oldest white-haired inhabitant, smoking a corn-cob pipe beside the door, and a half-dozen scantily clothed piccaninnies, parading tattered dolls on the wild-grown grass in front. Farther out were lazy cotton fields, where even the workers seemed intangible shadows, lent by the sun to the earth, not for toil, but to while away some age-old tradition in the golden September fields, and round the drowsy

picturesqueness over the trees and shacks and muddy rivers, flowed the heat, never hostile, only comforting, like a great warm nourishing bosom for the infant earth. Sally Carroll, we're here. Poor child sound asleep. Honey, you dead at last out of sheer laziness? What, Sally Carol. Carol. Cool water waiting for you. Her eyes opened sleepily. Hi, she murmured, smiling. End of Part 1 of the Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Part 2 of the Ice Palace by F. Scott

Fitzgerald. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Matt Parrard. in november harry bellamy tall broad and brisk came down from his northern city to spend four days his intention was to settle a matter that had been hanging fire since he and sally carroll had met in ashville north carolina in midsummer the settlement took only a quiet afternoon and an evening in front of a glowing open fire for harry bellamy had everything she wanted and beside she loved him loved him with that side of that side of her own her. She kept especially for loving. Sally Carroll had several rather clearly defined sides. On his last afternoon, they walked, and she found their steps tending half unconsciously toward one of her favorite haunts, the cemetery. When it came in sight, gray white and golden green under the cheerful late sun, she paused, irresolute by the iron gate. are you mournful by nature harry she asked with a faint smile mournful not i then let's go in here it depresses some folks but i like you

they passed through the gateway and followed a path that led through a wavy valley of graves dusty gray and moldy for the fifties quaintly carved with flowers and jars for the seventies ornate and hideous for the nineties with fat marble cherubs, lying in sodden sleep on stone pillows, and great impossible growths of nameless granite flowers. Occasionally they saw a kneeling figure with tributary flowers, but over most of the graves lay silence and withered leaves, with only the fragrance that their own shadowy memories could waken in living minds. They reached the top of a hill where they were fronted by a tall, round headstone freckled with dark spots of damp and half grown over with vines marjorie lee she read eighteen forty four to eighteen seventy three wasn't she nice she died when she was twenty-nine

dear marjorie she added softly can't you see her harry yes sally carroll he felt a little hand insert itself into his he felt a little hand insert itself into his she was dark i think and she always wore her hair with a ribbon in it and gorgeous hoop skirts of alice blue and old rose yes oh she was sweet harry and she was the sort of girl born to stand on a wide pillared porch and welcome folks in i think perhaps a lot of men went away to war meaning to come back to her but maybe none of em ever did he stooped down close to the stone hunting for any record of marriage there's nothing here to show of course not how could there be anything they're better than just marjor lee and that eloquent date she drew close to him and an unexpected lump came into his throat as her yellow hair brushed his chin cheek you see how she was don't you harry i see he agreed gently i see through your precious eyes you're beautiful now so i know she must have been silent and close they stood and he could feel her shoulders trembling a little an ambling breeze swept up the hill and stirred the brim of her floppity hat let's go down there she was pointing to a flat stretch on the other side of the hill where along the green turf were a thousand grayish white crosses stretching an endless ordered rows like the stacked arms of a battalion those are the confederate dead said sally carroll simply

they walked along and read the inscriptions always only a name and a date sometimes quite indecipherable the last row is the saddestest see wail there every cross has just a date on it and the word unknown she looked at him and her eyes brimmed with tears i can't tell you how real it is to me darling if you don't know how you feel about it is beautiful to me no no it's not me it's them that old time that i've tried to have live in me these were just men unimportant evidently or they wouldn't have been unknown but they died for the most beautiful thing in the world the dead south you see she continued her voice still husky her eyes glistening with tears people have these dreams they fasten on to things and have always grown up with that dream it was so easy because it was all dead and there weren't any disillusions coming to me i've tried in a way to live up to those past standards of noblesse of liege there's just the last remnants of it you know like the roses of an old god dying all round us streaks of strange courtliness and chivalry in some of these boys and stories i used to hear from a confederate soldier who lived next door and a few old darkies oh harry there was something there was something i couldn't ever make you understand but it was there i understand he assured her again quietly sally carroll smiled and dried her eyes on the tip of a handkerchief protruding from his breast pocket

you don't feel depressed do you lover even when i cry i'm happy here and i get a sort of strength from it hand in hand they turned and walked slowly away finding soft grass she drew him down to a seat beside her with their backs against the remnants of a low broken wall. Wish those three old women would clear out, he complained. I want to kiss you, Sally Carroll. Me too. They waited impatiently for the three bent figures to move off, and then she kissed him until the skies seemed to fade out and all her smiles and tears to vanish in an ecstasy of eternal seconds.

Afterward, they walked slowly back together. While on the corners, Twilight played at Somnilin'liff, black and white checkers, with the end of the day. You'll be up about mid-January, he said, and you've got to stay a month at least. It'll be slick. There's a winter carnival on, and if you've never really seen snow, it'll be like fairyland to you. They'll be skating and skiing and tobogganing and sleigh-riding and all sorts of torchlight parades on snow-shoes. They haven't had one for years, so they're going to make it a knockout. Will it be cold, Harry? She asked suddenly.

You certainly won't. You may freeze your nose, but you won't be shivery cold. It's hard and dry, you know. I guess I'm a summer child. I don't like any cold I've ever seen. She broke off, and they were both silent for a minute. Sally Carroll, he said very slowly. What do you say to March?

I say I love you. March? March, Harry. End of part two. Part three of the Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Liberbox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Matt Parrard. All night in the Pullman, it was very cold.

She rang for the porter to ask for another blanket, and when he couldn't give her one, she tried vainly by squeezing down into the bottom of her berth and doubling back the bedclothes to snatch a few hours sleep. She wanted to look her best in the morning. She rose at six, and sliding uncomfortably into her clothes, stumbled up to the diner for a cup of coffee. The snow had filtered into the vestibules and covered the door with a slippery coating. It was intriguing, this cold. It crept in everywhere. Her breath was quite visible, and she blew into the air with a naive enjoyment. Seated in the diner, she stared out the window at white hills and valleys and scattered pines, whose every branch was a green platter for a cold feast of snow. Sometimes a solitary farmhouse would fly by, ugly and bleak and lone on the white waist, and with each one she had an instant of chill compassion,

for the souls shut in there waiting for spring. As she left the diner and swayed back into the Pullman, she experienced a surging rush of energy and wondered if she was feeling the bracing air of which Harry had spoken. This was the north, the north, her land now. Then blow ye winds, hi-ho, a roland! I will go. She chanted exultedly to herself. Would's that? inquired the porter politely. I said, brush me off.

The long wires of the telegraph poles doubled. Two tracks ran up beside the train. Three, four, came a succession of white-rooped houses, a glimpse of a trolley car with frosted windows, streets, more streets, the city. she stood for a dazed moment in the frosty station before she saw three fur-bundled figures descending upon her there she is oh sally carroll sally carroll dropped her bag a faintly familiar icy cold face kissed her and then she was in a group of faces all apparently emitting great clouds of heavy smoke she was shaking hands there were gordon a short eager man of thirty who looked like an amateur knocked-about model for a hairy and his wife myra a listless lady with flaxen hair under a fur automobile cat almost immediately sally carroll thought of her as vaguely scandinavian

a cheerful chauffeur adopted her bag and amid ricochets of half phrases exclamations and perfunctory listless my dears from mira they swept each other from the state Then they were in a sedan bound through a crooked succession of snowy streets where dozens of little boys were hitching sleds behind grocery wagons and automobiles. Oh, cried Sally Carroll. I want to do that. Can we Harry? That's for kids, but we might. It looks like such a circus, she said regretfully. Home was a rambling frame house, set on a white lap of snow. and there she met a big gray-haired man of whom she approved, and a lady who was like an egg, and who kissed her. These were Harry's parents.

There was a breathless, indescribable hour, crammed full of self-sentences, hot water, bacon and AIDS and confusion, and after that she was alone with Harry in the library, asking him if she dared smoke. It was a large room with a Madonna over the fireplace and rose upon her. rows of books and covers of light gold and dark gold and shiny red. All the chairs had little lace squares where one's head should rest. The couch was just comfortable. The books looked as if they had been read, some, and Sally Carroll had an instantaneous vision of the battered old library at home, with her father's huge medical books and the oil paintings of her three

great uncles and the old couch that had been mended up for 45 years and was still luxurious to dream in. This room struck her as being neither attractive nor particularly otherwise. It was simply a room with a lot of fairly expensive things in it that all looked about fifteen years old. What do you think of it up here? demanded Harry eagerly. Does it surprise you?

Is it what you expected, I mean? you are harry she said quietly and reached out her arms to him but after a brief kiss he seemed to extort enthusiasm from her the town i mean do you like it can you feel the pep in the air oh harry she laughed you'll have to give me time you can't just fling questions at me she puffed at me she puffed at her cigarette with a sigh of contentment one thing i want to ask you he began rather apologetically you southerners put quite an emphasis on family and all that not that it isn't quite all right but you'll find it a little different here i mean you'll notice a lot of things that'll seem to you sort of vulgar display at first sally carroll but just remember that this is a three-generation town everybody has a father and about half of us have grandfather back of that we don't go of course she murmured our grandfathers you see founded the place and a lot of them had to take some pretty queer jobs while they were doing the founding for instance there's one woman who at present is about the social model for the town well her father was the first public ashman things like that why said sally carroll puzzled did you s'pose i suppose i'm I was going to make remarks about people?

Not at all, interrupted Harry, and I'm not apologizing for anyone either. It's just that, well, a Southern girl came up here last summer and said some unfortunate things, and, oh, I just thought I'd tell you. Sally Carroll felt suddenly indignant, as though she had been unjustly spanked. But Harry evidently considered the subject closed, for he went on with a great surge of enthusiasm. It's carnival time, you know, first in ten years, and there's an ice palace. They're building new. That's the first they've had since 85. Built out of blocks of the clearest ice they could find on a tremendous scale. She rose, and, walking to the window,

pushed aside the heavy Turkish portires and looked out. Oh, she cried suddenly, there's two little boys making a snowman. Harry, do you reckon I can go out and help him? You dream. Come here and kiss me. She left the window, rather reluctantly. I don't guess this is a very kissable climate, is it? I mean, it makes you so you don't want to sit around, doesn't it?

We're not going to. I've got a vacation for the first week you're here, and there's a dinner dance tonight. Oh, Harry, she confessed, subsiding in a heap. half in his lap half in the pillows i shall do feel confused i haven't got an idea whether i'll like it or not and i don't know what people expect or anything you'll have to tell me honey i'll tell you he said softly if you'll just tell me you're glad to be here glad just awful glad she whispered insinuating herself into his arms in her own peculiar way where you are is home for me harry and as she said this she had the feeling for almost the first time in her life that she was acting apart that night amid the gleaming candles of a dinner party where the men seemed to do most of the talking while the girls sat in a haughty and expensive aloofness even harry's presence on her left failed to make her feel at home they're a good-looking crowd don't you think he demanded just look round their spud hubbard tackle at princeton last year and junie morton he and the red-haired fellow next to him were both yale hockey captains junie was in my class why the best athletes in the world come from these states around here this is a man's country i tell you look at john j fishburn

who's he asked sally carroll innocently don't you know i've heard the name greatest weak man in the northwest and one of the greatest financiers in the country she turned suddenly to a voice on her right i guess they forgot to introduce us my name's roger patten my name is sara carroll happer she said graciously yes i know harry told me you were coming. You relative? No, I'm a professor. Oh, she laughed. At the university. You're from the south, aren't you?

Yes, Taught and Georgia. She liked him immediately, a reddish-brown mustache under watery blue eyes that had something in them that these other eyes lacked, some quality of appreciation. They exchanged stray sentences through dinner. and she made up her mind to see him again.

After coffee, she was introduced to numerous good-looking young men who danced with conscious precision and seemed to take it for granted that she wanted to talk about nothing except Harry. Heavens, she thought, they talk as if my being engaged may be older than they are, as if I tell them mothers on them. In the South, an engaged girl, even a young married woman,

expected the same amount of half-affectionate baddenage and flattery that would be accorded a debutante but here all that seemed bam one young man after getting well started on the subject of sally carroll's eyes and how they had alerted him ever since she entered the room went into a violent convulsion when she found she was visiting the bellamese was harry's fiancee he seemed to feel as though he had made some risque and inexcusable blunder became immediately formal and left her at the first opportunity she was rather glad when roger patten cut in on her and suggested that they sit out a while well he inquired blinking cheerily how's carman from the south mighter fine how's dangerous dan mcgru sorry but he's the only northerner i know much about you seem to enjoy that of course he confessed as a professor of literature i'm not supposed to have read dangerous dan mcgru are you a native no i'm a philadelphia imported from harvard to teach you a to teach french but i've been here ten years nine years three hundred and sixty-four days longer than me like it here ah i shall do really well why not don't i look as if i were having a good time i saw you look out the window a minute ago and shiver oh just my imagination laughed sally carroll i'm used to have a having everything quiet outside and sometimes I look out and see a flurry of snow and it's

just as if something dead was moving." He nodded appreciatively. Ever been north before? It's been two julys in Asheville, North Carolina. Nice looking crowd, aren't they? Suggested Pat and indicating the swirling floor. Sally Carroll started. This had been Harry's remark.

So are. They're canine. What? She flushed. I'm sorry. That sounded worse than I meant it. You see, I always think of people as feline or canine, irrespective of sex. Which are you?

I'm feline. So are you. So are most southern men and most of these girls here. What's Harry? Harry is canine distinctly. All the men I've met, Actonite seemed to be canine. What does canine imply a certain conscious masculinity as opposed to subtlety?

I reckon so. I never analyzed it. Only I just look at people and say canine or feline. Right off. It's right absurd, I guess. Not at all. I'm interested. I used to have a theory about these people.

I think they're freezing up. up. What? Well, they're growing like Swedes. Ibsen-esque, you know, very gradually getting gloomy and melancholy. It's these long winters. Ever read Ibsen? She shook her head.

Well, you find in his characters a certain brooding rigidity. They're righteous, narrow and cheerless, without infinite possibilities for great sorrow or joy. smiles or tears? Exactly. That's my theory. You see, there are thousands of Swedes up here. They come, I imagine, because the climate is very much like their own, and there's been a gradual mingling. They're probably not half a dozen here tonight, but we've had four Swedish governors. Am I boring you? I'm mighty interested. Your future sister-in-law is half-swee I'm Swedish. Personally, I like her. But my theory is that Swedes react rather badly on us as a whole. Scandinavians, you know, have the largest suicide rate in the world.

Why do you live here if it's so depressing? Oh, it doesn't get me. I'm pretty well cloistered. And I suppose books mean more than people to me anyway. But right as I'll speak about the South being tragic. You know, Spanish senior readings. black hair and daggers and haunt in music? He shook his head. No, the northern races are the tragic races. They don't indulge in the cheering luxury of tears. Sally Carroll thought of her graveyard.

She supposed that that was vaguely what she had meant when she said it didn't depress her. The Italians are about the gayest people in the world. But it's a dull subject, he broke off. Anyway, I want to tell you. you're marrying a pretty fine man. Sally Carroll was moved by an impulse of confidence. I know. I'm the sort of person who wants to be taken care of after a certain point,

and I feel sure I will be. Shall we dance? You know, he continued as they rose, it's encouraging to find a girl who knows what she's marrying for. Nine-tenths of them think of it as sort of walking into a moving picture sunset. she laughed and liked him immensely two hours later on the way home she nestled near harry in the back seat oh harry she whispered it's so cold but it's warm an ear darling girl but outside it's cold and oh that howling wind she buried her face deep in his fur coat and trembled involuntarily as his cold kissed the tip of her ear. End of part three.

Part four of the Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Librebox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4. The first week of her visit passed in a whirl. She had her promised toboggan ride at the back of an automobile through a chill January twilight. Swathed in furs, she put in a morning tobogganing on the country club hill. even tried skiing to sail through the air for a glorious moment and then land in a tangled laughing bundle on a soft snowdrift she liked all the winter sports except an afternoon spent snowshoeing over a glaring plain under pale yellow sunshine but she soon realized that these things were for children that she was being humor and that the enjoyment round her was only a reflection of her own at first the bellamy family puzzled her the men were reliable and she liked them to mr bellamy especially with his iron-gray hair and energetic dignity she took an immediate fancy once she found that he was born in kentucky this made of him a link between the old life and the new

but toward the women she felt a definite hostility myra her future sister-in-law seemed the essence of spiritless conversationality her conversation was so utterly divest utterly devoid of personality but sally carroll who came from a country where a certain amount of charm and assurance could be taken for granted and the women was inclined to despise her if those women aren't beautiful she thought then nothing they just fade out when you look at them they glorify domestics men are the centre of every mixed group lastly there was mrs bellamy whom sally carroll detested the first day's impression of an egg had been confirmed, an egg with a cracked, vainy voice, and such an ungracious dumpiness of carriage, that Sally Carroll felt that if she once fell, she would surely scramble. In addition, Mrs. Bellamy seemed to typify the town in being innately hostile to strangers. She called Sally Carroll Sally, and could not be persuaded that the double name was anything

more than a tedious, ridiculous nickname. To Sally Carroll, the shortening of her name was presenting her to the public, half-clothed. She loved Sally Carroll. She loathed Sally. She knew also that Harry's mother disproved of her bobbed hair, and she had never dared smoke downstairs after that first day when Mrs. Bellamy had come into the library sniffing violently. Of all the men she met, she preferred Roger Patton, who was a frequent visitor at the house.

he never again alluded to the ibsenesque tendency of the populace but when he came in one day and found her curled upon the sofa bent over pierre gent he laughed and told her to forget what he'd said that it was all wrought they had been walking homeward between mounds of high-piled snow and under a sun which sally carroll scarcely recognized they passed a little girl done up in gray wool until she resembled a small teddy bear and sally carroll could not resist a gasp of paternal appreciation look harry what that little girl did you see her face yes why it was red as a little strawberry oh she was cute why your own face is almost as red as that already everybody's healthy here we're out in the cold as soon as we're old enough to walk wonderful climate she looked at him and had to agree He was mighty healthy looking. So was his brother. And she noticed the new red in her own cheeks that very morning. Suddenly their glances were caught and held,

and they stared for a moment at the street corner ahead of them. A man was standing there, his knees bent, his eyes gazing upward with a tense expression, as though he were about to make a leap toward the chilly sky. And then they both exploded into a shout of laughter, for coming closer they discovered it had been a loose, ludicrous momentary illusion produced by the extreme bagginess of the man's trousers. Reckon that's one on us, she laughed.

He must be a southerner, judging by those trousers, suggested Harry mischievously. Well, Harry! Her surprised look must have irritated him. Those damn southerners! Sally Carroll's eyes flashed. Don't call him that! I'm sorry, dear, said Harry, malignantly. apologetic, but you know what I think of them. They're sort of degenerates. Not at all, like the old Southerners. They've lived so long down there with all the colored people that they've gotten lazy and shiftless. Hush your mouth, Harry, she cried angrily. They are not. They may be lazy.

Anybody would be in that climate, but they're my best friends, and I don't want to him criticize an innocent sweeping way. Some of them are the finest, men in the world oh i know they're all right when they come north to college but of all the hang dog ill-dressed slovenly lot i ever saw a bunch of small-town southerners are the worst sally carroll was clenching her gloved hands and biting her lip furiously why continued harry if there was one in my class at new haven and we all thought at last we'd found the true type of southern aristotle's but it turned out that he wasn't an aristocrat at all, just the son, just the son of a northern carpetbagger who owned about all the cotton around Mobile. A southerna wouldn't talk the way you're talking now, she said evenly. They haven't the energy, although something else. I'm sorry, Sally Carroll, but I've heard you say yourself that you'd never marry.

That's quite different. I told you I wouldn't want to tie. I laughed to any of the boys that are round Tarleton now, but I never made any sweeping generalities. They walked along in silence. I probably spread it on a bit thick, Sally Carroll. I'm sorry. She nodded, but made no answer.

Five minutes later, as they stood in the hallway, she suddenly threw her arms round him. Oh, Harry, she cried. Her eyes brimming with tears. Let's get married next week. I'm afraid of having fussings like that. I'm afraid, Harry, it wouldn't be that way if we were married. But Harry, being in the wrong, was still irritated. That'd be idiotic.

We decided on March. The tears in Sally Carroll's eyes faded. Her expression hardened slightly. Very well. I suppose I shouldn't have said that. Harry melted. Dear little nut, he cried. come and kiss me and let's forget.

That very night at the end of a Bodville performance, the orchestra played Dixie and Sally Carroll felt something stronger and more enduring than her tears and smiles of the day brim up inside her. She leaned forward, gripping the arms of her chair, until her face grew crimson. Sort of get you, dear, whispered Harry, but she did not hear him, to the limited throb of the violins

and the inspiring beat of the kettle drones, her own old ghosts, were marching by and on into the darkness. And as Fifez whistled and sighed in the low encore, they seemed so nearly out of sight that she could have waved goodbye. Away, away, away, away down south and Dixie. Away, away, away down south and Dixie. End of Part four. Part 5 of the Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. It was a particularly cold night. A sudden thaw had nearly cleared the streets the day before, but now they were traversed again with a powdery rape of loose snow that traveled in wavy lines

before the feet of the wind and filled the lower air with a fine particle mist. There was no sky, only a dark ominous tent that draped in the tops of the streets and was in reality a vast approaching army of snowflakes while over it all chilling away the comfort from the brown and green glow of lighted windows and muffling the steady trot of the horse pulling their sleigh and terminably washed the north wind it was a dismal town after all she thought dismal sometimes at night it had seemed to her as though no one lived here they had all gone long ago leaving lighted houses to be covered in time by tooming heaps of sleet oh if there should be snow on her grave to be beneath great piles of it all winter long where even her headstone would be a light shadow against the light shadows her grave a grave that should be flower-strewn and washed with sun and rain she thought again of those eyes isolated country houses that her train had passed, and of the life there the long winter through, the ceaseless glare through the windows, the crust forming on the soft drifts of snow, finally the slow, cheerless melting, and the harsh spring, of which Roger Patton had told her. Her spring, to lose it forever, with its lilacs in the lazy sweetness it stirred in her heart,

she was laying away that spring. Afterward, she would lay away that sweetness. With a gradual insistence, the storm broke. Sally Carroll felt a film of flakes melt quickly on her eyelashes, and Harry reached over a furry arm and drew down her complicated glannel cap. The small flakes came in skirmish line, and the horse bent his neck patiently as the transparency of white appeared momentarily on his coat. oh he's cold harry she said quickly who the horse oh no he isn't he likes it after another ten minutes they turned a corner and came in sight of their destination

on a tall hill outlined in vivid glaring green against the wintry sky stood the ice palace it was three stories in the air with battlements and embrasures and narrow icicleed windows and the innumerable electric light inside made a gorgeous transparency of the great central hall. Sally Carroll clutched Harry's hand under the fur robe. It's beautiful, he cried excitedly. My golly, it's beautiful, isn't it? They haven't had one here since 85. Somehow the notion of their not having been one since 85 oppressed her. Ice was a ghost, and this mansion of it was surely peopled by those shades of the 80s with pale faces and blurred snow-filled hair. Come on, dear, said Harry.

She followed him out of the slave and waited while he hitched the horse. A party of four, Gordon, Myra, Roger Patton, and another girl, drew up beside them with a mighty jingle of bells. There were quite a crowd already. Bundled in fur or sheepskin, shouting and calling to each other as they moved through the snow. which was now so thick that people could scarcely be distinguished a few yards away it's a hundred and seventy feet tall harry was saying to a muffled figure beside him as they trudged toward the entrance cover six thousand square yards she caught snatches of conversation one main hall walls twenty to forty inches thick and the ice cave has almost a mile of this kinnock who built it they found their way inside and dazed by the magic of the great crystal walls sally carroll found herself repeating over and over two lines from

it was a miracle of rare device a sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice in the great littering cavern with the dark shut out she took a seat on a wooded bench and the evening's oppression lifted harry was right it was beautiful and her gaze traveled the smooth surface of the walls the blocks for which had been selected for their purity and dearness to obtain this opalescent translucent effect look here we go oh boy cried harry a band in a far corner struck up hail hail the gang's all here which echoed over to them in wild muddled acoustics and then the lights suddenly went out silence seemed to flow down the icy sides and sweep over them sally carroll could still see her white breath in the darkness and a dim row of pale faces over on the other side the music eased to a sighing complaint and from outside drifted in the full-throated remnant chant of the marching clubs it grew louder like some pan of a viking tribe traversing an ancient wild it swelled they were coming nearer then a row of torches appeared and another and another and keeping time with their moccasined feet a long column of gray mackinod figures swept in snow-shoes slung at their shoulders torches soaring and flickering as their voice rose along the great walls the gray column ended and another followed the light streaming luridly this time over red toboggan caps and flaming crimson mackinaws and as they entered they took up the refrain then came a long platoon of blue and white of green of white of brown and yellow those white ones are the wakuta club whispered Harry, heavily? Those are the men you've met round at dances. The volume of the voices grew.

The great cavern was a phantasmagoria of torches waving in great banks of fire, of colors, and the rhythm of soft leather steps. The leading column turned and halted. Platoon deploys in front of platoon until the whole procession made a solid flag of flame, and then from thousands of voices burst a mighty shout that filled the air like a crash of thunder and sent the torches wavering. It was magnificent. It was tremendous. To Sally Carroll, it was the North offering sacrifice on some mighty altar to the gray pagan god of snow. As the shout died, the band struck up again, and there came more singing, and then long reverberating cheers by each club. She sat very quiet, listening while the staccato cries rent the stillness, and then she started, for there was a volley of explosion, and great clouds of smoke went up here and there through the cavern,

the flashlight photographers at work, and the council was over. With a band at their head, the clubs formed in column once more, took up their chant, and began to march out. "'Come on!' shouted Harry. we want to see the labyrinths downstairs before they turned the lights off. They all rose and started toward the chute. Harry and Sally Carroll in the lead, her little mitten buried in his big fur gauntlet. At the bottom of the chute was a long empty room of ice, with the ceiling so low that they had to stoop,

and their hands were parted. Before she realized what he intended, Harry had darted down one of the half-dozen glittering passages that opened into the room and was only a vague receding blot against the green shimmer. Harry! she called. Come on, he cried back. She looked round the empty chamber. The rest of the party had evidently decided to go home. We're already outside somewhere in the blundering snow.

She hesitated, and then darted in after Harry. Harry! She shouted. She had reached a turning point thirty feet down. She heard a faint muffled answer far. to the left, and with a touch of panic, fled toward it. She passed another turning, two more yawning alleys. Harry!

No answer. She started to run straight forward, and then turned like lightning, and sped back the way she had come, enveloped in a sudden, icy terror. She reached a turn, was it here, took the left, and came to what should have been the outlet, into the long, low room, but it was only another glittering passage. with darkness at the end. She called again, but the walls gave back a flat, lifeless echo with no reverberations. Retracing her steps, she turned another corner, this time following a wide passage. It was like the green lane between the ported water of the Red Sea, like a damp vault,

connecting empty tombs. She slipped a little now as she walked, for ice had formed on the bottom of her overshoes. She had to run her gloves along to half-slip. half-sticky walls to keep her balance. Harry! Still, no answer. The sound she made bounced mockingly down to the end of the passage. Then, on an instant, the lights went out, and she was in complete darkness. She gave a small, frightened cry and sank down into a cold little heap on the ice.

She felt her lovely do something as she fell, but she scarcely noticed it, as some deep terror far greater. than any fear of being lost settled upon her. She was alone with this presence that came out of the north, the dreary loneliness that rose from ice-bound whalers in the Arctic seas, from smokeless, trackless wastes, whereward strewn the whitened bones of adventure. It was an icy breath of death. It was rolling down low across the land to clutch at her. With a furious, despairing energy, she rose again and started blindly down. the darkness. She must get out. She might be lost in here for days, freeze to death and lie embedded in the ice, like corpses she had read of,

kept perfectly preserved until the melting of a glacier. Harry probably thought she had left with the others. He had gone by now. No one would know until next day. She reached pitifully for the wall. Forty inches thick, they had said. Forty inches thick. On both sides of her along the walls, she felt things creeping, damp souls that haunted this palace, this town, this north. Oh, send somebody, send somebody, she cried aloud. Clark Darrow, he would understand, or Joe Ewan. She couldn't be left here to wander forever, to be frozen, heart, body, and soul. This her, this Sally Carroll. Why, she was a happy thing. She was a happy thing. she was a happy little girl she liked warmth and summer and dixie these things were foreign foreign you're not crying something said aloud you'll never cry any more your tears would just freeze all tears freeze up here she sprawled full length on the ice

oh god she faltered a long single file of minutes went by and with a great weariness she felt her eyes closing then some one seemed to sit down near her and take her face in warm soft hands she looked up gratefully why it's marjorie lee she crooned softly to herself i knew you'd come it really was marjorie lee and she was as sally carroll had known she would be-and she was just as sally carroll had known she would be with a young white brow and wide welcoming eyes and a hoop skirt of some soft material that was quite comforting to rest on. Marjorie Lee It was getting darker now and darker. All those tombstones ought to be repainted, sure enough. Only that would spoil them, of course. Still, you ought to be able to see him.

Then, after a succession of moments that went fast and then slow, but seemed to be ultimately resolving themselves, into a multitude of blurred rays converging toward a pale yellow sun. She heard a great cracking noise break her newfound stillness. It was the sun. It was a light, a torch, and a torch beyond that, and another one, and voices, and a face took flesh below the torch. Heavy arms raised her, and she felt something on her cheek.

It felt wet. Someone had seized her and was rubbing her face with snow. How ridiculous was snow. Sally Carroll! Sally Carroll! It was dangerous Dan McGrew, and two other faces she didn't know. Child, child, we've been looking for you. Two hours. Harry's half crazy. Things came rushing back into place.

The singing, the torches, the great shout of the marching clubs. She squirmed in Patton's arms and gave a long, low cry. Oh, I want to get out of here. I'm going back home. Take me home! Her voice rose to a scream that sent a chill to Harry's heart as he came racing down the next passage. Tomorrow! She cried with delirious, unstrained passion. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

End of Part 5. Port 6 of the Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This Liberbox recording is in the public domain. The wealth of golden sun. Sunlight poured a quite innervating, yet oddly comforting heat over the house, where day long it faced the dusty stretch of road. Two birds were making a great to-do in a cool spot found among the branches of a tree next door, and down the street a colored woman was announcing herself melodiously as a purveyor of strawberries. It was April afternoon.

Sally Carol Happer, resting her chin on her arm and her arm on an old window seat, gaze sleepily down over the spangled dust whence the heat waves were rising for the first time this spring she was watching a very ancient ford turn a perilous corner and rattle and groan to a jolting stop at the end of the walk she made no sound and in a minute a strident familiar whistle rent the air sally carroll smile and blinked good moanin a head appeared tortuously from under the car top below. Tain't mawning, Sally Carroll. Show enough, she said in effect and surprise. I guess maybe not. What's you doing? Eating a green peach, spec to die in a minute. Clark twisted himself a last impossible notch to get a view of her face. Water's warm as a kettle of steam, Sally Carroll. Want to go swimming? "'Hate to move,' sighed Sally Carroll, lazily.

"'But I reckon so.' End of Part 6. End of the Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald.