Happy holidays from the Louise Brooks Society. As a special treat for our many readers and thousands of followers, presented here is F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous 1920 short story, "Bernice Bobs Her Hair." It is a trademark work of the Jazz Age.
It is not known if Louise Brooks read this story, as she was only 14 years old when it was first published. However, it is known that Brooks and Fitzgerald later encountered one another on at least one occasion.
"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" tells the story of a shy young woman who leaves the confines and regularity of her home to visit her flapper
cousin. When her cousin tries to teach Bernice how to be modern, Bernice gives her much more than she bargained for. In 1976, there was a TV movie made starring Shelly Duvall.
"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" was written in 1920 and first published in the Saturday Evening Post
in May of that year (pictured below). The publication of the story marked the first time Fitzgerald's name appeared on the cover of the prestigious magazine. The story later appeared in Fitzgerald's short story collection Flappers and Philosophers
.
The first installment appeared yesterday. The second installment (featuring parts III and IV) can be found below. The third installment runs tomorrow. Tune in to find out what happens!
Part III
While Marjorie was breakfasting late next day Bernice came into the room with
a rather formal good morning, sat down opposite, stared intently over and
slightly moistened her lips.
"What's on your mind?" inquired Marjorie, rather puzzled.
Bernice paused before she threw her hand-grenade.
"I heard what you said about me to your mother last night."
Marjorie was startled, but she showed only a faintly heightened color and her
voice was quite even when she spoke.
"Where were you?"
"In the hall. I didn't mean to listen--at first."
After an involuntary look of contempt Marjorie dropped her eyes and became
very interested in balancing a stray corn-flake on her finger.
"I guess I'd better go back to Eau Claire--if I'm such a nuisance." Bernice's
lower lip was trembling violently and she continued on a wavering note: "I've
tried to be nice, and--and I've been first neglected and then insulted. No one
ever visited me and got such treatment."
Marjorie was silent.
"But I'm in the way, I see. I'm a drag on you. Your friends don't like me."
She paused, and then remembered another one of her grievances. "Of course I
was furious last week when you tried to hint to me that that dress was
unbecoming. Don't you think I know how to dress myself?"
"No," murmured Marjorie less than half-aloud.
"What?"
"I didn't hint anything," said Marjorie succinctly. "I said, as I remember,
that it was better to wear a becoming dress three times straight than to
alternate it with two frights."
"Do you think that was a very nice thing to say?"
"I wasn't trying to be nice." Then after a pause: "When do you want to go?"
Bernice drew in her breath sharply.
"Oh!" It was a little half-cry.
Marjorie looked up in surprise.
"Didn't you say you were going?"
"Yes, but----"
"Oh, you were only bluffing!"
They stared at each other across the breakfast-table for a moment. Misty waves
were passing before Bernice's eyes, while Marjorie's face wore that rather
hard expression that she used when slightly intoxicated undergraduates were
making love to her.
"So you were bluffing," she repeated as if it were what she might have
expected.
Bernice admitted it by bursting into tears. Marjorie's eyes showed boredom.
"You're my cousin," sobbed Bernice. "I'm v-v-visiting you. I was to stay a
month, and if I go home my mother will know and she'll wah-wonder----"
Marjorie waited until the shower of broken words collapsed into little
sniffles.
"I'll give you my month's allowance," she said coldly, "and you can spend this
last week anywhere you want. There's a very nice hotel----"
Bernice's sobs rose to a flute note, and rising of a sudden she fled from the
room.
An hour later, while Marjorie was in the library absorbed in composing one of
those non-committal, marvellously elusive letters that only a young girl can
write, Bernice reappeared, very red-eyed and consciously calm. She cast no
glance at Marjorie but took a book at random from the shelf and sat down as if
to read. Marjorie seemed absorbed in her letter and continued writing. When
the clock showed noon Bernice closed her book with a snap.
"I suppose I'd better get my railroad ticket."
This was not the beginning of the speech she had rehearsed up-stairs, but as
Marjorie was not getting her cues--wasn't urging her to be reasonable; it's
all a mistake--it was the best opening she could muster.
"Just wait till I finish this letter," said Marjorie without looking round. "I
want to get it off in the next mail."
After another minute, during which her pen scratched busily, she turned round
and relaxed with an air of "at your service." Again Bernice had to speak.
"Do you want me to go home?"
"Well," said Marjorie, considering, "I suppose if you're not having a good
time you'd better go. No use being miserable."
"Don't you think common kindness----"
"Oh, please don't quote `Little Women'!" cried Marjorie impatiently. "That's
out of style."
"You think so?"
"Heavens, yes! What modern girl could live like those inane females?"
"They were the models for our mothers."
Marjorie laughed.
"Yes, they were--not! Besides, our mothers were all very well in their way,
but they know very little about their daughters' problems."
Bernice drew herself up.
"Please don't talk about my mother."
Marjorie laughed.
"I don't think I mentioned her."
Bernice felt that she was being led away from her subject.
"Do you think you've treated me very well?"
"I've done my best. You're rather hard material to work with."
The lids of Bernice's eyes reddened.
"I think you're hard and selfish, and you haven't a feminine quality in
you."
"Oh, my Lord!" cried Marjorie in desperation. "You little nut! Girls like you
are responsible for all the tiresome colorless marriages; all those ghastly
inefficiencies that pass as feminine qualities. What a blow it must be when a
man with imagination marries the beautiful bundle of clothes that he's been
building ideals round, and finds that she's just a weak, whining, cowardly
mass of affectations!"
Bernice's mouth had slipped half open.
"The womanly woman!" continued Marjorie. "Her whole early life is occupied in
whining criticisms of girls like me who really do have a good time."
Bernice's jaw descended farther as Marjorie's voice rose.
"There's some excuse for an ugly girl whining. If I'd been irretrievably ugly
I'd never have forgiven my parents for bringing me into the world. But you're
starting life without any handicap--" Marjorie's little fist clinched. "If you
expect me to weep with you you'll be disappointed. Go or stay, just as you
like." And picking up her letters she left the room.
Bernice claimed a headache and failed to appear at luncheon. They had a
matinée date for the afternoon, but the headache persisting, Marjorie
made explanation to a not very downcast boy. But when she returned late in the
afternoon she found Bernice with a strangely set face waiting for her in her
bedroom.
"I've decided," began Bernice without preliminaries, "that maybe you're right
about things--possibly not. But if you'll tell me why your friends
aren't--aren't interested in me I'll see if I can do what you want me to."
Marjorie was at the mirror shaking down her hair.
"Do you mean it?"
"Yes."
"Without reservations? Will you do exactly what I say?"
"Well, I----"
"Well nothing! Will you do exactly as I say?"
"If they're sensible things."
"They're not! You're no case for sensible things."
" Are you going to make--to recommend----"
"Yes, everything. If I tell you to take boxing-lessons you'll have to do it. Write home and tell your mother you're going to
stay another two weeks."
"If you'll tell me----"
"All right--I'll just give you a few examples now. First, you have no ease of
manner. Why? Because you're never sure about your personal appearance. When a
girl feels that she's perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part
of her. That's charm. The more parts of yourself you can afford to forget the
more charm you have."
"Don't I look all right?"
"No; for instance, you never take care of your eyebrows. They're black and
lustrous, but by leaving them straggly they're a blemish. They'd be beautiful
if you'd take care of them in one-tenth the time you take doing nothing.
You're going to brush them so that they'll grow straight."
Bernice raised the brows in question.
"Do you mean to say that men notice eyebrows?"
"Yes--subconsciously. And when you go home you ought to have your teeth
straightened a little. It's almost imperceptible, still----"
"But I thought," interrupted Bernice in bewilderment, "that you despised
little dainty feminine things like that."
"I hate dainty minds," answered Marjorie. "But a girl has to be dainty in
person. If she looks like a million dollars she can talk about Russia,
ping-pong, or the League of Nations and get away with it."
"What else?"
"Oh, I'm just beginning! There's your dancing."
"Don't I dance all right?"
"No, you don't--you lean on a man; yes, you do--ever so slightly. I noticed it
when we were dancing together yesterday. And you dance standing up straight
instead of bending over a little. Probably some old lady on the side-line once
told you that you looked so dignified that way. But except with a very small
girl it's much harder on the man, and he's the one that counts."
"Go on." Bernice's brain was reeling.
"Well, you've got to learn to be nice to men who are sad birds. You look as if
you'd been insulted whenever you're thrown with any except the most popular
boys. Why, Bernice, I'm cut in on every few feet--and who does most of it?
Why, those very sad birds. No girl can afford to neglect them. They're the big
part of any crowd. Young boys too shy to talk are the very best conversational
practice. Clumsy boys are the best dancing practice. If you can follow them
and yet look graceful you can follow a baby tank across a barb-wire
sky-scraper."
Bernice sighed profoundly, but Marjorie was not through.
"If you go to a dance and really amuse, say, three sad birds that dance with
you; if you talk so well to them that they forget they're stuck with you,
you've done something. They'll come back next time, and gradually so many sad
birds will dance with you that the attractive boys will see there's no danger
of being stuck--then they'll dance with you."
"Yes," agreed Bernice faintly. "I think I begin to see."
"And finally," concluded Marjorie, "poise and charm will just come. You'll
wake up some morning knowing you've attained it, and men will know it too."
Bernice rose.
"It's been awfully kind of you--but nobody's ever talked to me like this
before, and I feel sort of startled."
Marjorie made no answer but gazed pensively at her own image in the mirror.
"You're a peach to help me," continued Bernice.
Still Marjorie did not answer, and Bernice thought she had seemed too
grateful.
"I know you don't like sentiment," she said timidly.
Marjorie turned to her quickly.
"Oh, I wasn't thinking about that. I was considering whether we hadn't better
bob your hair."
Bernice collapsed backward upon the bed.
Part IV
On the following Wednesday evening there was a dinner-dance at the country
club. When the guests strolled in Bernice found her place-card with a slight
feeling of irritation. Though at her right sat G. Reece Stoddard, a most
desirable and distinguished young bachelor, the all-important left held only
Charley Paulson. Charley lacked height, beauty, and social shrewdness, and in
her new enlightenment Bernice decided that his only qualification to be her
partner was that he had never been stuck with her. But this feeling of
irritation left with the last of the soup-plates, and Marjorie's specific
instruction came to her. Swallowing her pride she turned to Charley Paulson
and plunged.
"Do you think I ought to bob my hair, Mr. Charley Paulson?"
Charley looked up in surprise.
"Why?"
"Because I'm considering it. It's such a sure and easy way of attracting
attention."
Charley smiled pleasantly. He could not know this had been rehearsed. He
replied that he didn't know much about bobbed hair. But Bernice was there to
tell him.
"I want to be a society vampire, you see," she announced coolly, and went on
to inform him that bobbed hair was the necessary prelude. She added that she
wanted to ask his advice, because she had heard he was so critical about
girls.
Charley, who knew as much about the psychology of women as he did of the
mental states of Buddhist contemplatives, felt vaguely flattered.
"So I've decided," she continued, her voice rising slightly, "that early next
week I'm going down to the Sevier Hotel barber-shop, sit in the first chair,
and get my hair bobbed." She faltered, noticing that the people near her had
paused in their conversation and were listening; but after a confused second
Marjorie's coaching told, and she finished her paragraph to the vicinity at
large. "Of course I'm charging admission, but if you'll all come down and
encourage me I'll issue passes for the inside seats."
There was a ripple of appreciative laughter, and under cover of it G. Reece
Stoddard leaned over quickly and said close to her ear: "I'll take a box right
now."
She met his eyes and smiled as if he had said something surpassingly
brilliant.
"Do you believe in bobbed hair?" asked G. Reece in the same undertone.
"I think it's unmoral," affirmed Bernice gravely. "But, of course, you've
either got to amuse people or feed 'em or shock 'em." Marjorie had culled this
from Oscar Wilde. It was greeted with a ripple of laughter from the men and a
series of quick, intent looks from the girls. And then as though she had said
nothing of wit or moment Bernice turned again to Charley and spoke
confidentially in his ear.
"I want to ask you your opinion of several people. I imagine you're a
wonderful judge of character."
Charley thrilled faintly--paid her a subtle compliment by overturning her
water.
Two hours later, while Warren McIntyre was standing passively in the stag line
abstractedly watching the dancers and wondering whither and with whom Marjorie
had disappeared, an unrelated perception began to creep slowly upon him--a
perception that Bernice, cousin to Marjorie, had been cut in on several times
in the past five minutes. He closed his eyes, opened them and looked again.
Several minutes back she had been dancing with a visiting boy, a matter easily
accounted for; a visiting boy would know no better. But now she was dancing
with some one else, and there was Charley Paulson headed for her with
enthusiastic determination in his eye. Funny--Charley seldom danced with more
than three girls an evening.
Warren was distinctly surprised when--the exchange having been effected--the
man relieved proved to be none other than G. Reece Stoddard himself. And G.
Reece seemed not at all jubilant at being relieved. Next time Bernice danced
near, Warren regarded her intently. Yes, she was pretty, distinctly pretty;
and to-night her face seemed really vivacious. She had that look that no
woman, however histrionically proficient, can successfully counterfeit--she
looked as if she were having a good time. He liked the way she had her hair
arranged, wondered if it was brilliantine that made it glisten so. And that
dress was becoming--a dark red that set off her shadowy eyes and high
coloring. He remembered that he had thought her pretty when she first came to
town, before he had realized that she was dull. Too bad she was dull--dull
girls unbearable--certainly pretty though.
His thoughts zigzagged back to Marjorie. This disappearance would be like
other disappearances. When she reappeared he would demand where she had
been--would be told emphatically that it was none of his business. What a pity
she was so sure of him! She basked in the knowledge that no other girl in town
interested him; she defied him to fall in love with Genevieve or Roberta.
Warren sighed. The way to Marjorie's affections was a labyrinth indeed. He
looked up. Bernice was again dancing with the visiting boy. Half unconsciously
he took a step out from the stag line in her direction, and hesitated. Then he
said to himself that it was charity. He walked toward her --collided suddenly
with G. Reece Stoddard.
"Pardon me," said Warren.
But G. Reece had not stopped to apologize. He had again cut in on Bernice.
That night at one o'clock Marjorie, with one hand on the electric-light switch
in the hall, turned to take a last look at Bernice's sparkling eyes.
"So it worked?"
"Oh, Marjorie, yes!" cried Bernice.
"I saw you were having a gay time."
"I did! The only trouble was that about midnight I ran short of talk. I had to
repeat myself--with different men of course. I hope they won't compare
notes."
"Men don't," said Marjorie, yawning, "and it wouldn't matter if they
did--they'd think you were even trickier."
She snapped out the light, and as they started up the stairs Bernice grasped
the banister thankfully. For the first time in her life she had been danced
tired.
"You see," said Marjorie at the top of the stairs, "one man sees another man
cut in and he thinks there must be something there. Well, we'll fix up some
new stuff to-morrow. Good night."
"Good night."
As Bernice took down her hair she passed the evening before her in review. She
had followed instructions exactly. Even when Charley Paulson cut in for the
eighth time she had simulated delight and had apparently been both interested
and flattered. She had not talked about the weather or Eau Claire or
automobiles or her school, but had confined her conversation to me, you, and
us.
But a few minutes before she fell asleep a rebellious thought was churning
drowsily in her brain--after all, it was she who had done it. Marjorie, to be
sure, had given her her conversation, but then Marjorie got much of her
conversation out of things she read. Bernice had bought the red dress, though
she had never valued it highly before Marjorie dug it out of her trunk--and
her own voice had said the words, her own lips had smiled, her own feet had
danced. Marjorie nice girl--vain, though--nice evening--nice boys--like
Warren--Warren--Warren--what's-his-name--Warren----
She fell asleep.
