719 "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" by F Scott Fitzgerald (with Mike Palindrome) | 25 for 25 - #25 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Summary

Podcast Summary: The History of Literature - Episode 719

Episode Title: *"The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (with Mike Palindrome) | 25 for 25 - #25 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Release Date: July 24, 2025
Hosts: Jacke Wilson and Mike Palindrome
Podcast Network: The Podglomerate

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Introduction to the "25 for 25" Series

In this episode, host Jacke Wilson introduces a new series titled "25 for 25," which aims to explore and discuss the 25 greatest books of all time as selected by a comprehensive online source. This series promises in-depth discussions, insights, and analyses of each chosen book.

Segment 1: Exploring The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Overview: Jacke Wilson kicks off the "25 for 25" series by delving into John Steinbeck's seminal work, The Grapes of Wrath. Published in 1939, the novel chronicles the harrowing journey of the Joad family during the Great Depression as they migrate from the Dust Bowl-stricken Midwest to California in search of a better life.

Key Discussions:

• Steinbeck's Social Commentary:
  Wilson emphasizes Steinbeck's critique of economic disparity and the systemic forces that trap families like the Joads. He highlights Steinbeck's intent to expose the greed and indifference of those in power, stating Steinbeck's own words:

  "I've done my damnedest to rip a reader's nerves to rags." ([04:30])

• Character and Family Dynamics:
  The podcast explores the relatable family struggles depicted in the novel, discussing how these dynamics resonate across generations. Wilson notes the timelessness of the story, allowing listeners to see parts of themselves in the characters.

• Political and Moral Questions:
  The hosts delve into the moral dilemmas faced by characters in extreme conditions, questioning what actions are justified when survival is at stake. They discuss Steinbeck's portrayal of humanity under duress, referencing Tom Joad's profound reflections:

  "Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there." ([08:15])

Notable Quotes:

• Steinbeck on his purpose:

  "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this." ([06:45])

• Tom Joad's iconic declaration inspiring Bruce Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad":

  "I'll be there wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat." ([08:15])

Segment 2: Introduction to The Diamond as Big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Transitioning from Steinbeck to Fitzgerald, Wilson introduces The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, a short story from Fitzgerald's collection Tales of the Jazz Age. Co-host Mike Palindrome joins the discussion, bringing fresh perspectives to Fitzgerald's exploration of excess and moral compromise.

Key Points:

• Fitzgerald's Experimentation:
  Wilson expresses his anxiety about presenting Fitzgerald's unconventional narrative, mentioning the layered commentary and potential complexities in the storytelling process.

• Adherence to the Classic Narrative:
  The story revolves around John T. Unger, a young man from the modest town of Hades, Missouri, who befriends Percy Washington, the son of the wealthiest man in the world. Their journey unfolds into a tale of unimaginable wealth and the moral compromises it entails.

Segment 3: Reading and Analyzing The Diamond as Big as the Ritz

Part One: The hosts embark on a detailed reading of The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, breaking it down into manageable sections. They discuss Fitzgerald's vivid descriptions and the fantastical elements that set this story apart from his more grounded works like The Great Gatsby.

Notable Discussion Points:

• Character Introduction:
  John T. Unger represents the everyman thrust into extraordinary circumstances. His interactions with Percy Washington highlight themes of wealth obsession and ethical ambiguity.

  "The richer a fella is, the more I like him." ([21:05])

• Fitzgerald's Use of Language:
  The podcast highlights Fitzgerald's dense and descriptive prose, which builds momentum and creates a lush, almost surreal setting.

Quotes with Timestamps:

• Percy's revelation about his father's wealth:

  "My father has a diamond bigger than the Ritz Carlton Hotel." ([30:19])

• Descriptive passage illustrating the grandeur of Washington's estate:

  "An exquisite chateau rose from the borders of the lake, climbed in marble radiance half the height of an adjoining mountain." ([36:12])

Insights and Analysis:

• Themes of Excess and Isolation:
  The hosts discuss how Fitzgerald portrays the isolating effects of extreme wealth, illustrated by the Washington family's secluded, opulent estate and their disconnection from the outside world.

• Moral Decay and Power:
  The narrative explores how immense wealth leads to moral compromises, including the exploitation of labor and ethical corruption. The Washington family's reliance on enslaved labor and their ruthless measures to protect their wealth are focal points of criticism.

• Fitzgerald's Moral Stance:
  There's an exploration of whether Fitzgerald condemns or glamorizes the excesses depicted. The hosts debate the author's intentions, questioning if the portrayal serves as a warning against unchecked capitalism and moral voids.

Character Analysis:

• John T. Unger:
  Seen as a relatable protagonist, John's moral compass is tested as he navigates the treacherous waters of extreme wealth and power.

• Percy Washington and Braddock Washington:
  Represent the embodiment of decadence and ethical decline, the Washington brothers are central to understanding the story's critique of American aristocracy.

Segment 4: The Washington Family Backstory

The podcast delves into the intricate backstory of the Washington family, revealing the origins of their unprecedented wealth. This historical exposition uncovers the lengths to which the family went to conceal their vast diamond reserve, highlighting themes of secrecy and greed.

Key Points:

• Origins of Wealth:
  Fitzgerald crafts a legend around the Washington family's discovery of a mountain-sized diamond, detailing the elaborate deception and protection strategies employed to keep it hidden.

• Generational Impact:
  The narrative illustrates how wealth corrupts across generations, with Braddock Washington inheriting his father's ruthless methods to safeguard their fortune.

Notable Quotes:

• On the impossibility of valuing the diamond:

  "There was no valuing it by any regular computation." ([76:17])

• Braddock's interaction with prisoners:

  "How could a man of my position be fair minded toward you?" ([100:55])

Segment 5: Critical Analysis and Contemporary Perspectives

Themes Revisited:

• Wealth and Power:
  The hosts reflect on how Fitzgerald's portrayal of wealth is both mesmerizing and morally corrupting, drawing parallels to contemporary issues of economic inequality.

• Racism and Slavery:
  A critical discussion ensues regarding the portrayal of enslaved individuals and racial dynamics within the story. The hosts acknowledge the problematic aspects of Fitzgerald's characterization and narrative choices, debating their relevance and implications in today's context.

Character Dynamics:

• Kismine:
  Introduced as a symbol of innocence and beauty, Kismine serves as John's muse, juxtaposing his Midwestern simplicity against the Washingtons' opulence.

• Braddock Washington:
  Portrayed as a tyrannical yet affable patriarch, Braddock embodies the moral decay that accompanies absolute power and wealth.

Host Perspectives:

• Jack Wilson:
  Highlights the multifaceted nature of Fitzgerald's storytelling, appreciating the dense prose and thematic depth despite occasional narrative lapses.

• Mike Palindrome:
  Offers insights into the story's structural elements, comparing it to other literary works and discussing its place within Fitzgerald's oeuvre.

• Emma:
  Brings a modern lens to the discussion, critiquing the racial portrayals and reflecting on the story's relevance to current societal issues.

Notable Quote:

• Emma on the complexity of moral choices:

  "What would you do if you were faced with extremes?" ([10:20])

Conclusion and Looking Forward

As the episode wraps up, the hosts acknowledge the intricate and sometimes controversial layers of The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. They express anticipation for continuing the story in the next episode, promising further exploration of themes and character developments.

Final Remarks:

• Promotion of Upcoming Content:
  While briefly mentioning future discussions and episodes, the hosts steer clear of the initial promotional content, focusing instead on the literary analysis and insights shared throughout the episode.

Closing Quote:

"There will be things to correct or clarify instead of just presenting the story." ([02:45])

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Note: This summary intentionally omits advertisements, promotional segments, and non-content portions of the transcript to focus solely on the meaningful discussions and analyses pertinent to The Grapes of Wrath and The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.

Transcript

[Jack Wilson]

The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio. Hey, folks, it's Jack. Here to promote something that's a little special. Not a thing and not a service, an opportunity for you to have an experience. The History of Literature Podcast is going on the road and you can join us. Our first stop is literary England, the land of Dr. Johnson and Jane Austen and Tolkien and C.S. lewis. Oh, and Dickens. Oh, and Shakespeare. Perhaps you've heard of him. This isn't a trip where you march from site to site checking off boxes. Seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it. This is a week plus a little more traveling with me and Emma and a group of other fans of literature. All of us enjoying our conversations, our chance to learn and grow and be inspired by these writers and their works that we love so much. With special visits along the way from past guests of the show, your favorites who will deepen our appreciation for what we're seeing. So please consider it. We would love to have you. You can learn more by going to John Shores Travel, that's S H O R S. And look for the upcoming trip to England with Jack Wilson. Or reach out to [e-mail] and we will tell you all the details. It's going to be in May of 2026, but act now to secure your spot. Space is limited and let's all spend some quality time together enjoying literature and enjoying life on WhatsApp.

[Mike Palindrome]

No one can see or hear your personal messages.

[Jack Wilson]

Whether it's a voice call message or.

[Mike Palindrome]

Sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password.

[Jack Wilson]

In the family chat, we're trading those.

[Mike Palindrome]

Late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast. Your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us.

[Jack Wilson]

WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Hello. Today in the podcast, we kick off a new series, 25 for 25. 25 great books for the year 2025. Plus Mike Palindrome joins us for a look at the craziest story of Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote. The diamond as big as the Ritz. Don't worry, we'll have the whole story for you, plus the commentary to walk you through and my meta commentary on Jack and Mike's commentary, all coming up today on the history of literature. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jack Wilson, your host. I'm glad you're here. I'm a little anxious about this episode. Not only are we Kicking off a new series. 25 for 25. But I'm trying something a little new. Mike and I recorded our thoughts on this Fitzgerald story, which is crazy. I had forgotten just how crazy it is. Anyway, I've recorded the whole story and Mike and I recorded our discussion about it. And I've sort of forgotten what we've talked about a few months ago, but I remember that it all made me think, well, maybe there are going to be things to correct or clarify instead of just presenting the story. I probably owe it to you to listen to the commentary and jump in here and there as needed. If Mike and I go off the rails, put some rails back in. I don't know, this could get confusing. Maybe I should do it in a different voice, make sure that it's distinguished. Maybe something like this. Testing 1, 2, 3. Or maybe something like this. Testing 1, 2, three. Okay, we'll work on that. That's work in progress. Maybe I should just speak in an accent or something. Or just drop the idea altogether and say, this is me, July version of Jack, since it is July as I'm recording this. And who knows, maybe I'll just be silently listening and there will be nothing to add to any of it because the conversation will stand on its own and my fears that things went off the rails will be. Have been misplaced. All this hype for nothing. Maybe that's what will happen. But before we get to the story and the commentary, and the commentary, if any, on the commentary, we start today with a new series that I've been wanting to do for a while. And now, holy smokes, I'm not even sure we have 25 episodes left this season, so we'd better get cracking. The 25 greatest books of all time, selected by an online source, which I'll reveal at the end of the series. So you don't look ahead, but you could probably figure it out if you care to spoil things for yourself. I don't know. Feel free, I guess. This source looks at a list of. They make a list of lists, kind of like Rotten Tomatoes, but for books. And I have their list of what they're calling the 25 greatest books of all time, as voted by various critics and reviewers and essayists and. And polls. And it turns out that I had read 23 of the 25, so just had two to knock off. Easy enough. Polish those off and then we're all good. And I can deliver for you a little discussion of each book. We will sprinkle them through the episodes as a little appetizer. Maybe sometimes a side dish or even a dessert, and who knows, maybe a main course once in a while. These are great, great books after all. Today it's an appetizer, though. Let's start the series now. Number 25, the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Wow. John Steinbeck. We haven't talked about him too much. He won the Nobel Prize for literature. Mike and I did a whole episode on John Steinbeck once, which I took down from the archive. For various reasons, I found the whole thing to be a somewhat disquieting process dealing with John Steinbeck. But that's another story for another day. Today we have the story of the novel the Grapes of wrath, published in 1939 by John Steinbeck. The story of a family during the Great Depression, the Joads, a poor family of farmers who are trapped in the Dust bowl, headed for California, if they can get there, along with a lot of other Okies who've been blasted by fate and circumstances, drought, poverty, changes in the agricultural industry, bank foreclosures and so on. And then things in California don't get much better. I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this, steinbeck said, referring to the Great Depression and the westward migration. I've done my damnedest to rip a reader's nerves to rags. End quote. The story of the Joads and their plight became a phenomenon. It was debated, it was banned and burned, but above all it was bought and read. It was the best selling book of 1939, and in 1940 it won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was also made into a famous film with Henry Fonda as the star. Directed by John Ford, The Grapes of Wrath by now has sold millions of copies. It's still discussed, criticized, attacked by the left and the right by snooty novelists and critics and bored high school students. It has also been the source of of controversy, which I will get to in a moment. But first, the origins. In 1936, Steinbeck, who was from California, wrote a series of articles by the San Francisco News, or for the San Francisco News. The articles were called as a series, the Harvest Gypsies. This was about the migrant workers coming to California and the way they were treated once they arrived by the agricultural industry, after they had arrived from the Midwest. The title, the Grapes of Wrath, was suggested by the author's wife, Carol Steinbeck, and it was a reference to the lyrics from the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of The Lord, he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored he hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword he his truth is marching on. Where did Howe get those lyrics? Well, there's a key right in the first line there. The glory of the coming of the Lord. This is from the book of Revelation, which says, and the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city. And blood came out of the winepress even unto the horse bridles by the space of 1600 furlongs. In Steinbeck's book, there's a deliberate destruction of food in order to keep prices high. What does this do to a hungry populace? Elsewhere in the book, Steinbeck says, how can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach, but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him. He has known a few fear beyond every other end quote. That's why we still read the Grapes of Wrath. Well, there's a few reasons. One is that it's a sprawling family story. And like every human being, you can imagine yourself as one of the family members, or maybe more than one. Maybe you're the one who's been trying to hold it together in your family. Or maybe you're the one who's given up. Maybe you're the up and comer, trying to get out from under the shadow of someone. These family dynamics. It's a timeless story. And as we age, our relationship in the family changes and we can see ourselves as different characters and imagine our way into the story that way. There are half a dozen unforgettable characters in the Grapes of Wrath. Probably more than that. The other reason we still read the book is less personal, more political, more structural. We think, man, why do these people have to live like this? What kind of system produces this? Who got rich and why? And what were the consequences for the human beings at the other end of all this suffering? You read it for Steinbeck's passion and anger at what the country was going through, which isn't the country in the abstract. It's a country, a nation filled with people, individual people, all of them forced into these straitjackets by poverty, by the system. What happened and what can we do about it? That's another reason we read it. And then there's what I think is the darkest and deepest reason, the most literary reason that it Asks the question, what would you do if you were faced with extremes? When all bets are off, we have one Morality for the good times, right? Here's how we behave. We don't rob, we don't murder, we don't hate. And if we drop that morality for something, something like fame, well then we know who the bad guy is. It's the person who was so shallow and so greedy that they did something abominable just because they were. They were searching for something as pointless and self centered as fame. But what if the driver is hunger? You're hungry, your family is hungry, your children are hungry. What's acceptable then? Theft, murder. And on the flip side, who are you if you're creating these conditions, who are you serving? Yourself, your company, your country, the Lord? You can say what you want, but we know where Steinbeck stands. This isn't the passive Jesus turning the other cheek and telling us that sometime in the future the meek will inherit the earth. No, this is the returning Jesus. The vengeful Jesus. He's furious. He's wrathful. You're not his people. You wealthy people, the victims, the poor, the downtrodden are his people. His wrath is for you. You might be a fan of Bruce Springsteen, who tapped into this spirit of the Grapes of Wrath, no pun intended, for his song, the Ghost of Tom Joad in particular. He was clearly inspired by this famous passage in which Tom Joad says. Well, maybe like Casey says, a fella ain't got a soul of his own, but only a piece of a big one. And then, then I'll be around in the dark. I'll be everywhere, wherever you look, Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beating up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad and in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready. And when our folks eat the stuff they raise and live in the houses they build, why, I'll be there. End quote. Springsteen's lyrics have men walking along the railroad tracks Going someplace there's no going back. Highway patrol choppers coming up over the ridge. Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge Shelter lines stretching around the corner. Welcome to the new world order. Families sleeping in the cars in the Southwest no home, no job, no peace, no rest. Well, the highway is alive tonight. But nobody's kidding nobody about where it goes. I'm sitting down here in the campfire light searching for the Ghost of Tom Joad, skip ahead. End of the song. Now, Tom said, Mom, wherever there's a cop beating a guy, wherever a hungry newborn baby cries, where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air, look for me, Mom, I'll be there. Wherever somebody's fighting for a place to stand or a decent job or a helping hand, wherever somebody's struggling to be free, look in their eyes, Ma, and you'll see me. Well, the highway is alive tonight but nobody's kidding nobody about where it goes. I'm sitting down here in the campfire light with the ghost of old time Jod. That's the Grapes of Wrath. And if you're interested in literary history as well as literature, there's a controversy worth paying attention to. Steinbeck had an uncredited source for much of his story, Sonora Babb, who was herself quite a person. She was a collector of these stories. She was an editor who also became a poet and a novelist. Her father, who had been a professional gambler, was from Oklahoma, and she was born in Kansas. She grew up in a Native American community and came of age during the Great Depression. And she was out there collecting these stories and passing them along to a guy named Tom Collins, who asked her to send a copy of her notes to Steinbeck because Collins knew that Steinbeck was also working on something similar. Steinbeck used those notes of Sonora Babs in his famous novel the Grapes of Wrath. Meanwhile, Babb was writing a novel called Whose Names Are Unknown, which then got shelved by her publisher after the Grapes of Wrath came out and was such a huge success in the book. In Steinbeck's book he thanked his wife and he thanked Tom Collins in the dedication, but he never mentioned Sonora Babb in the public, didn't really know about bab's role until 2004 when her novel was finally published, a year before she died at the age of 98. Bab is a bit of literary history. She also had an affair with Ralph Ellison of Invisible man fame. And she was the love interest of author William Saroyan. And she was married to the famous Chinese American cinematographer James Wong Howe. The two of them got married in Paris in 1937 because California, like most states, had an anti miscegenation law in place. Sonora Babb, unsung hero of the Grapes of Wrath and author of a novel whose names are unknown, which gives the story of western migration and western migrants like the Joads from a feminist perspective. Next up we will hear from Mike Palindrome and a story about that was published about 17 years before the Grapes of Wrath. The Diamond As Big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This was a story from his collection, Tales of the Jazz Age, published three years before his most famous work, the Great Gatsby. This is an ad by BetterHelp. Hey, it's summer, but that can come with a lot of stress, especially for those of us who work. 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[Mike Palindrome]

Card, you can Venmo everything. Your favorite band's merch. You can Venmo this or their next.

[Emma]

Show, you can Venmo that.

[Jack Wilson]

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[Mike Palindrome]

The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp bank and a pursuant to license. My MasterCard MasterCard International Incorporated card may be used everywhere.

[Jack Wilson]

MasterCard is accepted.

[Mike Palindrome]

Venmo purchase restrictions apply.

[Jack Wilson]

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[Braddock Washington]

Okay.

[Jack Wilson]

Joining me now is Mike Palindrome, the.

[Braddock Washington]

President of the Literature Supporters Club. Mike F. Scott Fitzgerald was 25 when this story appeared in June of 1922.

[Jack Wilson]

Does it feel early to you? Does it feel like young Fitzgerald writing.

[Braddock Washington]

This story or youngish?

[Emma]

I feel like it's a Fitzgerald that we never see again. It's an unusual Fitzgerald that he lets.

[Braddock Washington]

His imagination kind of go run hog wild. He really kind of gets out there in certain ways.

[Emma]

Yeah, right. It wasn't good enough to have three or four outlandish details. He just went for it.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah, yeah. So it's a pre Gatsby story.

[Jack Wilson]

He got intensely absorbed by it. He says later, I spent three weeks on it.

[Braddock Washington]

As if he was disappointed by the way it was treated. He was disappointed that the editors at the usual places that he was publishing stories didn't want it. And he cut it down. It was 20,000 words originally.

[Jack Wilson]

It's still pretty long, 15,000 words.

[Braddock Washington]

And he just. I think he thought it would be.

[Jack Wilson]

Received better than it was.

[Braddock Washington]

And we are going to hear it in two parts. I guess we're going to do this chapter by chapter. We'll walk through it. But before we start reading it, anything that we should say to prepare the listeners?

[Emma]

I think it's genre fiction, and so I think people should not shy away from it because it doesn't sound like the other Fitzgerald short stories they've read or his novel.

[Jack Wilson]

It kind of starts out that way.

[Braddock Washington]

And we can talk about that as we go through this chapter by chapter.

[Jack Wilson]

It kind of leads us to think that maybe it is going to be.

[Braddock Washington]

A Gatsby type story. But it does take turns that are very different. And that's the thing I would say about this. Before we get started here is the.

[Jack Wilson]

Story that you think you're hearing might.

[Braddock Washington]

Not be what's most interesting about the story. There's a lot about the froth of wealth.

[Jack Wilson]

But the heart of the story, I.

[Braddock Washington]

Think, is the dark underpinnings of the wealth.

[Emma]

Yeah, I agree.

[Braddock Washington]

Okay, so let's listen to part one and then we'll come back.

[Jack Wilson]

The diamond as Big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald. John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades, a small town on the Mississippi river. For several generations. John's father had held the amateur Golf championship through many a heated contest. Mrs. Unger was known from hotbox to hotbed, as the local phrase went for her political addresses. And young John T. Unger, who had just turned 16, had danced all the latest dances from New York before he put on long trousers. And now, for a certain time, he was to be away from home. That respect for a New England education, which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents. Nothing would suit them but that he should go to Saint Midas School near Boston, Hades was too small to hold their darling and gifted son. Now in Hades, as you know, if you have ever been there, the names of the more fashionable preparatory schools and colleges mean very little. The inhabitants have been so long out of the world that though they make a show of keeping up to date in dress and manners and literature, they depend to a great extent on hearsay, and a function that in Hades would be considered elaborate would doubtless be hailed by a Chicago beef princess as perhaps a little techy. John T. Unger was on the eve of departure. Mrs. Unger, with maternal fatuity, packed his trunks full of linen suits and electric fans, and Mr. Unger presented his son with an asbestos pocketbook stuffed with money. Remember, you are always welcome here, he said. You can be sure, boy, that we'll keep the home fires burning. I know, answered John huskily. Don't forget who you are and where you come from, continued his father proudly. And you can do nothing to harm you. You are an Unger from Hades. So the old man and the young shook hands, and John walked away with tears streaming from his eyes. Ten minutes later he had passed outside the city limits when he stopped to glance back for the last time over the gates. The old fashioned Victorian motto seemed strangely attractive to him. His father had tried time and time again to have it changed to something with a little more push and verve about it, such as Hades your opportunity or else a plain welcome sign said over a hearty handshake pricked out in electric lights. The old motto was a little depressing, Mr. Unger had thought, but now so John took his look and then set his face resolutely toward his destination, and as he turned away, the lights of Hades against the sky seemed full of a warm and passionate beauty. Saint Midas School is half an hour from Boston in a Rolls Pierce motor car. The actual distance will never be known, for no one except John T. Unger had ever arrived there, save in a Rolls Pierce, and probably no one ever will again. St. Midas's is the most expensive and the most exclusive boys preparatory school in the world, John's first two years there passed pleasantly. The fathers of all the boys were money kings, and John spent his summers visiting at fashionable resorts. While he was very fond of all the boys he visited, their fathers struck him as being much of a piece of and in his boyish way, he often wondered at their exceeding sameness. When he told them where his home was, they would ask jovially, pretty hot down there. And John would muster a faint smile and answer, it certainly is his response would have been heartier had they not all made this joke, at best varying it with Is it hot enough for you down there? Which he hated just as much. In the middle of his second year at school, a quiet, handsome boy named Percy Washington had been put in John's form. The newcomer was pleasant in his manner and exceedingly well dressed, even for St. Midas's, but for some reason he kept aloof from the other boys. The only person with whom he was intimate was John T unger. But even to John he was entirely uncommunicative concerning his home or his family. That he was wealthy went without saying, but beyond a few such deductions, John knew little of his friend. So it promised rich confectionery for his curiosity. When Percy invited him to spend the summer at his home in the west, he accepted without hesitation. It was only when they were in the train that Percy became, for the first time, rather communicative. One day, while they were eating lunch in the dining car and discussing the imperfect characters of several of the boys at school, Percy suddenly changed his tone and made an abrupt remark. My father, he said, is by far the richest man in the world. Oh. Said John politely. He could think of no answer to make to this confidence. He considered, that's very nice, but it sounded hollow and was on the point of saying really, but refrained, since it would seem to question Percy's statement, and such an astounding statement could scarcely be questioned. By far the richest, repeated Percy. I was reading in the World Almanac, began John, that there was one man in America with an income of over 5 million a year and four men with incomes of over 3 million a year, and. Oh, they're nothing. Percy's mouth was a half moon of scorn. Catch. Penny capitalists, financial small fry, petty merchants and moneylenders. My father could buy them out and not know he'd done it. But how does he. Why haven't they put down his income tax? Because he doesn't pay any. At least he pays a little one. But he doesn't pay any on his real income. He must be very rich, said John simply. I'm glad. I like very rich people. The richer a fella is, the more I like him. There was a look of passionate frankness upon his dark face. I visited the Schnitlitzer Murphys last Easter. Vivian Schnitzer Murphy had rubies as big as hens, eggs and sapphires that were like globes with lights inside them. I love jewels, agreed Percy enthusiastically. Of course, I wouldn't want anyone at school to know about it. But I've got quite a collection myself. I used to collect them instead of stamps and diamonds, continued John eagerly. The Schnitzer Murphy's had diamonds as big as walnuts. That's nothing. Percy had leaned forward and dropped his voice to a low whisper. That's nothing at all. My father has a diamond bigger than the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

[Braddock Washington]

Okay, we're back.

[Jack Wilson]

So, Mike, we just heard part one. Let's start with John T. Unger.

[Braddock Washington]

How do you like this guy? What do we hear in part one that makes us identify with him?

[Emma]

If anything, I think it reminds me of other Fitzgerald stories where you have this Midwestern, wholesome narrator, Nick Carraway.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah.

[Emma]

Yeah. And his world is going to clash with the East Coast.

[Braddock Washington]

Yep.

[Emma]

What I also like about this is this sort of critique of the Midwest, which I'm not sure I think you get the narrator's critique of the Midwest and Great Gatsby. But here we get, like, the omniscient Fitzgerald.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[Emma]

You know, saying that. I love this line. The inhabitants have been so long out of the world. Yeah. That though they make a show of keeping up to date and dress and manners and literature, they depend a great extent on hearsay.

[Jack Wilson]

Yes.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah. The line that I've flagged comes right after that, where he says, a function that in Hades.

[Jack Wilson]

This is Hades, Missouri.

[Braddock Washington]

His. His hometown. A function that in Hades would be.

[Jack Wilson]

Considered elaborate, would doubtless be hailed by.

[Braddock Washington]

A Chicago Beef princess as perhaps a little techie. And that, you know, it comes directly out of Fitzgerald's own experience. He never got over this feeling he.

[Jack Wilson]

Had when he fell in with that.

[Braddock Washington]

Socialite Geneva King in Chicago. I think she's a stand in here for the Chicago Beef Princess. And he had overheard his father saying, like, you got to be rich to be with my daughter. And he never really got over. It's like his war wound, where he never got over this idea that I come from Minnesota, and no matter how hard I try or how well I.

[Jack Wilson]

Do in life or who I am.

[Braddock Washington]

Or what my personality is, I'm never going to crack this code of the.

[Jack Wilson]

People who really grew up wealthy.

[Braddock Washington]

And here he's kind of imposing that.

[Jack Wilson]

On his entire town of Hades that.

[Braddock Washington]

It'S a bit of a backwater. It only comes up with rituals and things by hearsay.

[Emma]

Yeah. And you get all that. I mean, he's such a master of the short story. You get all that in this first section, which is just, you know, couple of pages, and you. You're out of the Midwest. You're at the prep school, you meet Percy. It's just. It's such dense writing with momentum. It's so great. I mean, I think anyone who studies short stories, you know, there's so much to learn from rereading Fitzgerald.

[Jack Wilson]

Now.

[Braddock Washington]

I haven't read this for years, and I've got. I've got the same book I read it in the first time around, the Big Blue Book with the Matthew J. Brucoli edited Collected Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. And I didn't remember a whole lot about this story, but I remembered the ending of chapter one. I remember that it builds to this sentence and it's. It really does propel you along. I think this.

[Jack Wilson]

That's nothing. Percy had leaned forward and dropped his voice to a low whisper. That's nothing at all. My father has a diamond bigger than the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

[Braddock Washington]

And then end Part one and think, who's saying this? How could he say this? And it's such a fanciful image that it presents. How could you have a. A diamond that enormous? And why would this guy be making that up? What is going on? It's just such a funny line of dialogue that really, it captured my attention back then, and it did it again when I reread it this time. Yeah.

[Emma]

I think there are moments in the story that are purposefully jarring. Like when John says, you know, about Percy's father, he must be very rich. Said John simply, I'm glad. I like very rich people. Like, I like. I was like, I can't imagine people speak this way. But I guess, you know, that's kind of Fitzgerald's like, he's having fun a little bit with money in the story throughout. And these are the little moments of kind of critique where the reader pauses and says, like, well, is Jon the bad guy? Is Percy the bad guy? Like, who should I dislike?

[Jack Wilson]

Right, right.

[Braddock Washington]

And it is interesting here because that is a big difference, as we saw when you and I talked about the story Winter Dreams. And we had another kind of similar character, guy who grows up in the middle of the country and then heads east. And the big difference between that and Gatsby is Gatsby's narrator is in the first person, and here we have Fitzgerald.

[Jack Wilson]

In the third person.

[Braddock Washington]

And it seems to give him a little more license to kind of tweak these characters a bit. He's sort of. You get the feeling he's winking at us when he's describing some of these characters. And I think Gatsby's probably stronger for not doing that?

[Emma]

Yeah, I think. I mean, this is my fourth time reading it. I love the story, but perhaps it felt more dated than ever this time. And I think it's because it's less universal and mythic and more of a. Like a fairy tale.

[Braddock Washington]

Well, we haven't gotten there yet, so why don't we jump to. To part two so listeners can hear that. And, and I think we'll soon get into these, the kind of imaginative world that you're talking about.

[Jack Wilson]

2. The Montana sunset lay between two mountains like a gigantic bruise from which dark arteries spread themselves over a poisoned sky. An immense distance. Under the sky crouched the village of Fish. Minute, dismal and forgotten. There were 12 men, so it was said in the village of fish, 12 sombre and inexplicable souls who sucked a lean milk from the almost literally bare rock upon which the mysterious populatory force had begotten them. They had become a race apart, these 12 men of fish, like some species developed by an early whim of nature which on second thought had abandoned them to struggle and extermination. Out of the blue black bruise in the distance crept a long line of moving lights upon the desolation of the land. And the 12 men of fish gathered like ghosts at the shanty depot to watch the passing of the 7 o' clock train, the transcontinental express from Chicago. Six times or so a year, the transcontinental express, through some inconceivable jurisdiction, stopped at the village of Fish. And when this occurred, a figure or so would disembark, mount into a buggy that always appeared from out of the dusk and drive off toward the bruised sunset. The observation of this pointless and preposterous phenomenon had become a sort of cult among the men of Fish to observe. That was all there remained in them, none of the vital quality of illusion which would make them wonder or speculate, else a religion might have grown up around these mysterious visitations. But the men of Fish were beyond all religion. The barest and most savage tenets of even Christianity could gain no foothold on that barren rock. So there was no altar, no priest, no sacrifice. Only each night at seven, the silent concourse by the shanty depot, a congregation who lifted up a prayer of dim anemic wonder. On this June night, the great brakemen, whom had they deified, anyone they might well have chosen as their celestial protagonist, had ordained that the 7 o' clock train should leave its human or inhuman deposit at Fish. At two minutes after seven, Percy Washington and John T. Unger disembarked, hurried past the spellbound the agape, the fearsome eyes of the twelve men of fish mounted into a buggy which had obviously appeared from nowhere and drove away. After half an hour, when the twilight had coagulated into dark, the silent Negro who was driving the buggy hailed an opaque body somewhere ahead of them in the gloom. In response to his cry, it turned upon them a luminous disk which regarded them like a malignant eye out of the unfathomable night. As they came closer, John saw that it was the taillight of an immense automobile, larger and more magnificent than any he had ever seen. Its body was of gleaming metal, richer than nickel and and lighter than silver, and the hubs of the wheels were studded with iridescent geometric figures of green and yellow. John did not dare to guess whether they were glass or jewel. Two Negroes, dressed in glittering livery, such as one sees in pictures of royal processions in London, were standing at attention beside the car, and as the two young men dismounted from the buggy, they were greeted in some language which the guest could not understand, but which seemed to be an extreme form of the southern Negro's dialect. Get in, said Percy to his friend as their trunks were tossed to the ebony roof of the limousine. Sorry we had to bring you this far in that buggy, but of course it wouldn't do for the people on the train or those godforsaken fellas and fish to see this automobile. Gosh, what a car. This ejaculation was provoked by its interior. John saw that the upholstery consisted of a thousand minute and exquisite tapestries of silk woven with jewels and embroideries and set upon a background of cloth of gold. The two armchair seats in which the boys luxuriated were covered with stuff that resembled duvetyn but seemed woven in numberless colors of the ends of ostrich feathers. What a car. Cried John again in amazement. This thing? Percy laughed. Why, it's just an old junk we use for a station wagon. By this time they were gliding along through the darkness toward the break between the two mountains. We'll be there in an hour and a half, said Percy, looking at the clock. I may as well tell you it's not going to be like anything you ever saw before. If the car was any indication of what Jon would see, he was prepared to be astonished. Indeed, the simple piety prevalent in Hades has the earnest worship of and respect for riches as the first article of its creed. Had John felt otherwise than radiantly humble? Before them, his parents would have turned away in horror at the blasphemy. They had now reached and were entering the break between the two mountains, and almost immediately the way became much rougher. If the moon shone down here, you'd see that we're in a big gulch, said Percy, trying to peer out of the window. He spoke a few words into the mouthpiece, and immediately the footman turned on a searchlight and swept the hillsides with an immense beam. Rocky, you see. An ordinary car would be knocked to pieces in half an hour. In fact, it'd take a tank to navigate it, unless you knew the way. You notice we're going uphill now. They were obviously ascending, and within a few minutes the car was crossing a high rise, when they caught a glimpse of a pale moon, newly risen in the distance. The car stopped suddenly, and several figures took shape out of the dark beside it. These were Negroes also. Again the two young men were saluted in the same dimly recognizable dialect. Then the Negroes set to work, and four immense cables dangling from overhead were attached with hooks to the hubs of the great jeweled wheels. At a resounding hi yah. John felt the car being lifted slowly from the ground, up and up, clear of the tallest rocks on both sides, then higher, until he could see a wavy, moonlit valley stretched out before him, in sharp contrast to the quagmire of rocks that they had just left. Only on one side was there still rock. And then suddenly there was no rock beside them or anywhere around. It was apparent that they had surmounted some immense knife blade of stone projecting perpendicularly into the air. In a moment they were going down again, and finally, with a soft bump, they were landed upon the smooth earth. The worst is over, said Percy, squinting out the window. It's only five miles from here. And our own road. Tapestry, brick all the way. This belongs to us. This is where the United States ends. Father says. Are we in Canada? We are not. We are in the middle of the Montana Rockies. But you are now on the only five square miles of land in the country that's never been surveyed. Why hasn't it? Did they forget it? No, said Percy, grinning. They tried to do it three times. The first time, my grandfather corrupted a whole department of the state survey. The second time, he had the official maps of the United States tinkered with that held them for 15 years. The last time was harder. My father fixed it so that their compasses were in the strongest magnetic field ever artificially set up. He had a whole set of surveying instruments made with a slight defection that would allow for this territory not to appear, and he substituted them for the ones that were to be used. Then he had a river deflected, and he had what looked like a village built up on its banks, and so that they'd see it and think it was a town 10 miles farther up the valley. There's only one thing my father's afraid of, he concluded. Only one thing in the world that could be used to find us out. What's that? Percy sank his voice to a whisper. Aeroplanes, he breathed. We've got half a dozen anti aircraft guns and we've arranged it so far. But there have been a few deaths and a great many prisoners. Not that we mind that, you know, Father and I. But it upsets Mother and the girls, and there's always the chance that sometime we won't be able to arrange it. Shreds and tatters of chinchilla courtesy Clouds in the green moon's heaven were passing the green moon like precious eastern stuffs paraded for the inspection of some Tartar khan. It seemed to John that it was day, and that he was looking at some lads sailing above him in the air, showering down tracks in patent medicine circulars with their messages of hope for despairing rock bound hamlets. It seemed to him that he could see them look down out of the clouds and stare and stare at whatever there was to stare at in this place whither he was bound. What then were they induced to land by some insidious device there to be immured far from patent medicines and from tracts until the Judgment day? Or should they fail to fall into the trap, did a quick puff of smoke and the sharp round of a splitting shell bring them drooping to earth and upset Percy's mother and sisters? John shook his head, and the wraith of a hollow laugh issued silently from his parted lips. What desperate transaction lay hidden here? What a moral expedient of a bizarre Creshus. What terrible and golden mystery. The chinchilla clouds had drifted past now, and outside the Montana night was bright as day. The tapestry brick of the road was smooth to the tread of the great tires as they rounded a still moonlit lake. They passed into darkness for a moment, a pine grove pungent and cool. Then they came out into a broad avenue of lawn, and John's exclamation of pleasure was simultaneous with Percy's taciturn we're home. Full. In the light of the stars an exquisite chateau rose from the borders of the lake, climbed in marble radiance half the height of an adjoining mountain, then melted in grace, in perfect symmetry, in translucent feminine languor, into the massed darkness of a forest of pine. The many towers, the slender tracery of the sloping parapets, the chiseled wonder of a thousand yellow windows with their oblongs and hectagons and triangles of golden light, the shattered softness of the intersecting plains of starshine and blue shade, all trembled on John's spirit like a chord of music. On one of the towers, the tallest, the blackest, at its base, an arrangement of exterior lights at the top made a sort of floating fairyland, and as John gazed up in warm enchantment, the faint achicare sound of violins drifted down in a rococo harmony that was like nothing he had ever heard before. Then, in a moment, the car stopped before wide, high marble steps around which the night air was fragrant with a host of flowers. At the top of the steps, two great doors swung silently open and amber light flooded out upon the darkness, silhouetting the figure of an exquisite lady with black high piled hair who held out her arms toward them. Mother, Percy was saying, this is my friend John Unger from Hades. Afterward, John remembered that first night as a daze of many colors, of quick sensory impressions, of music soft as a voice in love, and of the beauty of things, lights and shadows and motions and faces. There was a white haired man who stood drinking a many hued cordial from a crystal thimble set on a golden stem. There was a girl with a flowery face, dressed like Titania, with braided sapphires in her hair. There was a room where the solid soft gold of the walls yielded to the pressure of his hand in a room that was like a Platonic conception of the ultimate prism. Ceiling, floor and all, it was lined with an unbroken mass of diamonds, diamonds of every size and shape until lit with tall violet lamps in the corners. It dazzled the eyes with a whiteness that could be compared only with itself, beyond human wish or dream. Through a maze of these rooms the two boys wandered. Sometimes the floor under their feet would flame in brilliant patterns from lighting below, patterns of barbaric clashing colors, of pastel delicacy, of sheer whiteness, or of subtle and intricate mosaic, surely from some mosque on the Adriatic Sea. Sometimes, beneath layers of thick crystal, he would see blue or green water swirling, inhabited by vivid fish and growths of rainbow foliage. Then they would be treading on firs of every texture and color, or along corridors of palest ivory, unbroken, as though carved complete from the giant tusks of dinosaurs extinct before the age of man. Then a hazily remembered transition. And they were at dinner, where each plate was of two almost imperceptible layers of solid diamond, between which was curiously worked a filigree of emerald design, a shaving sliced from green air. Music, plangent and unobtrusive, drifted down through far corridors. His chair, feathered and curved insidiously to his back, seemed to engulf and overpower him. As he drank his first glass of port, he tried drowsily to answer a question that had been asked him, but the honeyed luxury that clasped his body added to the illusion of sleep. Jewels, fabrics, wines, and metals blurred before his eyes into a sweet mist. Yes, he replied with a polite effort. It certainly is hot enough for me down there, he managed to add a ghostly laugh. Then, without movement, without resistance, he seemed to float off and away, leaving an iced dessert that was pink as a dream. He fell asleep. When he awoke, he knew that several hours had passed. He was in a great quiet room with ebony walls and a dull illumination that was too faint, too subtle to be called a light. His young host was standing over him. You fell asleep at dinner, percy was saying. I nearly did too. It was such a treat to be comfortable again after this year of school. Servants undressed and bathed you while you were sleeping. Is this a bed or a cloud? Sighed John Percy. Percy, before you go, I want to apologize. For what? For doubting you when you said you had a diamond as big as the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Percy smiled. I thought that you didn't believe me. It's that mountain, you know. What mountain? The mountain the chateau rests on. It's not very big for a mountain, but except about 50ft of sod and gravel on top, it's solid diamond. One diamond, one cubic mile without a flaw. Aren't you listening? Say, but John T unger had again fallen asleep. Okay, we're back.

[Braddock Washington]

So, Mike, we just heard part two or chapter two here. We had tempted just to start here, the first line. The Montana sunset lay between two mountains like a gigantic bruise from which dark arteries spread themselves over a poisoned sky. I'm going to say that that lines like that probably did more damage to young men who were headed out to write their the great American novel than anything. It's Fitzgerald, kind of. It can be amazing, but it can be almost comically bad.

[Emma]

Yeah, he. He never shies away. He never, you know, if he can pile a couple adjectives.

[Braddock Washington]

He'S trying so hard. So what. What did you find memorable or were. Well, down about their.

[Jack Wilson]

Their trip out west here.

[Emma]

It's throughout the entire story, but the way there's this controlled revelation, little hints, you know, like the extreme form of the Southern Negro's dialect. And like the fact that the armchairs are woven with the colors of the ends of ostrich feathers.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah.

[Jack Wilson]

And the whole trip in the car.

[Braddock Washington]

That it takes forever for them to get there. But part of me thought this could have been condensed, and I'm guessing that's what some of the editors might have thought as well. But it does give you this sense of building. And we're going to hear that this. To make the point that this is a secluded place is being made kind.

[Jack Wilson]

Of in real time through the prose that it's taking us.

[Braddock Washington]

We're going over this prose as if we're in a car going over this choppy road.

[Emma]

Oh, boy. Yeah. And the first part setup, which will be familiar to Fitzgerald readers, you're really thrilled for a loop in the second part because this is unlike any Fitzgerald story.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[Braddock Washington]

Part two. In other stories, they'd maybe go to a golf course and they'd maybe start talking about an office job or start talking about, you know, or we'd have.

[Jack Wilson]

The romance that would.

[Braddock Washington]

Would jump in, you know, here this is like he's just riding along with this strange buddy of his from school who has got. Is apparently incredibly wealthy.

[Emma]

Yeah. And then these little glimpses, like the first talk of deaths and prisoners. You know, the first time I read this Fitzgerald, you can pretty much take details for face value. I think they're so, you know, something is to come, but you're not quite sure what, because Fitzgerald does not write often about violence. And so this is kind of unknown territory for a reader of Fitzgerald stories.

[Braddock Washington]

Right. And we learn what is familiar territory is Fitzgerald seems fascinated by this wealth and this money and the house. And it does make me think he's.

[Jack Wilson]

Maybe so dazzled by wealth, he's assuming that we will be, too.

[Braddock Washington]

And that's where I always wonder, is he maybe going to be a little more interested in this than.

[Jack Wilson]

Than I am?

[Braddock Washington]

And I'm going to read now what he wrote about it.

[Jack Wilson]

Are you reading this in the book Tales from the Jazz Age?

[Emma]

No, I have it in a collection called Babylon Revisited Horror Stories.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[Emma]

Paperback.

[Braddock Washington]

So he wrote an introduction to it in the book Tales from the Jazz Age. And he said about it, the diamond as Big as the Ritz, which appeared.

[Jack Wilson]

Last summer in the Smart City set, was designed utterly for my own amusement.

[Braddock Washington]

I was in that familiar mood, characterized by a perfect craving for luxury. And the story began as an attempt.

[Jack Wilson]

To feed that craving on imaginary foods.

[Braddock Washington]

So it's like he's just got this. He's got this thing. It's. It's his obsession, and he's indulging himself in it, maybe more than in any other story. So we learn at the end that the mountain is one big diamond. And there's got to be some kind of secret. There's secretive measures put in place to protect it. He's fabulously wealthy. So why don't we jump to. Unless there's anything else you have from part two, why don't we go to part three?

[Emma]

Well, I think just at the end that John Unger, who the reader closely. Most closely identifies with, seems to kind of be in the dreamlike state.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah.

[Emma]

You know where he falls asleep.

[Jack Wilson]

Just a bed or a cloud, he says.

[Emma]

Yeah.

[Jack Wilson]

Servants undressed and bathed you while you were sleeping.

[Emma]

I love that detail. In my 20s, I mean, some people might think, oh, it's. It's childish. But I. I don't know. In my 20s, the whole idea of. And there's a slide, right, that.

[Braddock Washington]

Oh, wait, that's coming up. Let's listen to part three, and we'll get plenty of that in the next part.

[Emma]

Okay.

[Jack Wilson]

Three. Morning. As he awoke, he perceived, drowsily, that the room had at the same moment become dense with sunlight. The ebony panels of one wall had slid aside on a sort of track, leaving his chamber half open to the day. A large Negro in a white uniform stood beside his bed. Good evening, muttered John, summoning his brains from the wild places. Good evening, sir. Are you ready for your bath, sir? Oh, don't get up. I'll put you in. If you'll just unbutton your pajamas. There. Thank you, sir. John lay quietly as his pajamas were removed. He was amused and delighted. He expected to be lifted like a child by this black gargantua who was tending him. But nothing of the sort happened. Instead, he felt the bed tilt up slowly on its side. He began to roll, startled at first in the direction of the wall. But when he reached the wall, its drapery gave way. Then, sliding two yards farther down a fleecy incline, he plumped gently into water the same temperature as his body. He looked about him. The Runway or roll way on which he had arrived had folded gently back into place. He had been projected into another chamber, then was sitting in a sunken bath with his head just above the level of the floor, all about him, lining the walls of the room and the sides and Bottom of the bath itself was a blue aquarium, and gazing through the crystal surface on which he sat, he could see fish swimming among amber lights and even gliding without curiosity past his outstretched toes, which were separated from them only by the thickness of the crystal. From overhead, sunlight came down through sea green glass. I suppose, sir, that you'd like hot rose water and soap suds this morning, sir? And perhaps cold salt water to finish. The Negro was standing beside him. Yes, agreed Jon, smiling inanely. As you please. Any idea of ordering this bath according to his own meager standards of living would have been priggish and not a little wicked. The Negro pressed a button and a warm rain began to fall, apparently from overhead. But.

[Braddock Washington]

But really.

[Jack Wilson]

So John discovered after a moment, from a fountain arrangement nearby, the water turned to a pale rose color and jets of liquid soap spurted into it from four miniature walrus heads at the corners of the bath. In a moment a dozen little paddle wheels fixed to the sides had churned the mixture into a radiant rainbow of pink foam, which enveloped him softly with its delicious lightness and burst in shining rosy bubbles here and there about him. Shall I turn on the moving picture machine, sir? Suggested the Negro deferentially. There's a good one reel comedy in this machine today. Or I can put in a serious piece in a moment if you prefer it. No, thanks, answered John politely but firmly. He was enjoying his bath too much to desire any distraction. But distraction came in a moment. He was listening intently to the sound of flutes from just outside, flutes dripping a melody that was like a waterfall, cool and green as the room itself, accompanying a frothy piccolo in play, more fragile than the lace of suds that covered and charmed him. After a cold salt water bracer and a cold fresh finish, he stepped out and into a fleecy robe and upon a couch covered with the same material he was rubbed with oil, alcohol and spice. Later he sat in a voluptuous chair while he was shaved and his hair was trimmed. Mr. Percy is waiting in your sitting room, said the Negro when these operations were finished. My name is Jigsum, Mr. Unger, sir. I am to see to Mr. Unger every morning. John walked out into the brisk sunshine of his living room, where he found breakfast waiting for him and Percy, gorgeous in white kid knickerbockers smoking in an easy chair.

[Braddock Washington]

Okay, we're back. So part three. Mike, this is a slide instead of. This is what you liked when you were in your 20s. The idea that instead of getting up and walking to the bath or the Shower. You could just have the bed tilt and you would roll down into the bath.

[Emma]

Yeah. I mean, I think this story made me pay more attention to furniture.

[Braddock Washington]

Like how convenient, how luxurious this is.

[Emma]

Yeah, like how, how. Why is this chair so far from the door? Why? You know, like just like, how can I, how can I make things a little more, you know, accommodating to me, like the setup for me, my, my lifestyle and.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Braddock Washington]

And are you. I mean, I don't think we have to spend too much time on this part because it's pretty quick and we're.

[Jack Wilson]

Basically just hearing what's happening in the.

[Braddock Washington]

House and with this negro attendant, as he puts it, he calls him a black gargantua at one point. And we're basically just getting a sense of luxury. Are you getting tired of, of this obsession Fitzgerald has with wealth or are you just riding along with it?

[Emma]

I actually take the opposite view from you. I'm kind of wanting more. Like can we get some food descriptions? Can we get. What do we do for leisure? Like, yeah, just.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay, well, we'll see.

[Braddock Washington]

I think we will get some more. Although first we're going to take a detour into the story of the Washington family. And we will hear that in part four.

[Mike Palindrome]

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[Jack Wilson]

For over 35 years, so delicious has been cranking up the flavor with show stopping products that are 100% dairy free, certified vegan by Vegan Action and are so unbelievably creamy your taste buds will.

[Mike Palindrome]

Do a double take.

[Jack Wilson]

Dairy free your mind. Visit sodeliciousdairyfree.com 4. This is the story of the Washington family as Percy sketched it for John during breakfast. The father of the present Mr. Washington had been a Virginian, a direct descendant of George Washington and Lord Baltimore. At the close of the Civil War he was a 25 year old colonel with a played out plantation and about $1,000 in gold. Fitz Norman Culpepper Washington, for that was the young colonel's name, Decided to present the Virginia estate to his younger brother and go west. He selected two dozen of the most faithful blacks, who, of course, worshiped him. And bought 25 tickets to the west, where he intended to take out land in their names and start a sheep and cattle ranch. When he had been in Montana for less than a month. And things were going very poorly indeed, he stumbled on his great discovery. He had lost his way when riding in the hills. And after a day without food, he began to grow hungry as he was without his rifle. He was forced to pursue a squirrel. And in the course of the pursuit, he noticed that it was carrying something shiny in its mouth. Just before it vanished into its hole. For Providence did not intend that this squirrel should alleviate his hunger. It dropped its burden. Sitting down to consider the situation. Fitz Norman's eye was caught by a gleam in the grass beside him. In 10 seconds, he had completely lost his appetite. And gained $100,000. The squirrel, which had refused with annoying persistence to become food. Had made him a present of a large and perfect diamond. Late that night, he found his way to camp. And 12 hours later, all the males among his darkies were back by the squirrel hole. Digging furiously at the side of the mountain, he told them he had discovered a rhinestone mine. And as only one or two of them had ever even seen a small diamond before, they believed him without question. When the magnitude of his discovery became apparent to him, he found himself in a quandary. The mountain was a diamond. It was literally nothing else but solid diamond. He filled four saddlebags full of glittering samples. And started on horseback for St. Paul. There he managed to dispose of half a dozen small stones. When he tried a larger one, a storekeeper fainted. And Fitznorman was arrested as a public disturber. He escaped from jail and caught the train for New York, where he sold a few medium sized diamonds. And received in exchange about $200,000 in gold. But he did not dare to produce any exceptional gems. In fact, he left New York just in time. Tremendous excitement had been created in jewelry circles. Not so much by the size of his diamonds as by their appearance in the city from mysterious sources. Wild rumors became current that a diamond mine had been discovered in the Catskills. On the Jersey coast. On Long island, beneath Washington Square. Excursion trains packed with men carrying picks and shovels. Began to leave New York hourly bound for various neighboring El Dorados. But by that time, young Fitz Norman was on his way back to Montana. By the end of a fortnight, he had estimated that the diamond in the mountain was approximately equal in quantity to all the rest of the diamonds known to exist in the world. There was no valuing it by any regular computation, however, for it was one solid diamond, and if it were offered for sale, not only would the bottom fall out of the market, but also if the value should vary with its size and the usual arithmetical progression, there would not be enough gold in the world to buy a tenth part of it. And what could anyone do with a diamond that size? It was an amazing predicament. He was, in one sense the richest man that ever lived. And yet, was he worth anything at all? If his secret should transpire, there was no telling to what measures the government might resort in order to prevent a panic in gold as well as in jewels. They might take over the claim immediately and institute a monopoly. There was no alternative. He must market his mountain in secret. He sent south for his younger brother and put him in charge of his colored following darkies who had never realized that slavery was abolished. To make sure of this, he read them a proclamation that he had composed which announced that General Forrest had reorganized the shattered southern armies and defeated the north in one pitched battle. The negroes believed him implicitly. They passed a vote declaring it a good thing and held revival services Immediately. Fitznorman himself set out for foreign parts with $100,000 in two trunks filled with rough diamonds of all sizes. He sailed for Russia in a Chinese junk, and six months after his departure from Montana, he was in St. Petersburg. He took obscure lodgings and called immediately upon the court jeweller, announcing that he had a diamond for the czar. He remained in St. Petersburg for two weeks, in constant danger of being murdered, living from lodging to lodging, and afraid to visit his trunks more than three or four times during the whole fortnight, on his promise to return in a year with larger and finer stones, he was allowed to leave for India. Before he left, however, the court treasurers had deposited to his credit in American banks the sum of $15 million under four different aliases. He returned to America in 1868, having been gone a little over two years. He had visited the capitals of 22 countries and talked with five emperors, 11 kings, three princes, a shah, a khan, and a sultan. At that time, Fitz Norman estimated his own wealth at $1 billion. One fact worked consistently against the disclosure of his secret. No one of his larger diamonds remained in the public eye for a week before being invested with a history of enough fatalities, amours, revolutions and wars to have occupied it from the days of the First Babylonian Empire. From 1870 until his death in 1900, the history of Fitz Norman Washington was a long epoch in gold. There were side issues, of course. He evaded the surveys. He married a Virginia lady by whom he had a single son. And he was compelled, due to a series of unfortunate complications, to murder his brother, whose unfortunate habit of drinking himself into an indiscreet stupor had several times endangered their safety. But very few other murders stained these happy years of progress and expansion. Just before he died, he changed his policy and with all but a few million dollars of his outside wealth, bought up rare minerals in bulk, which he deposited in the safety vaults of banks all over the world marked as bric a brac. His son, Braddock Tarleton Washington, followed this policy on an even more tensive scale. The minerals were converted into the rarest of all elementsradium, so that the equivalent of a billion dollars in gold could be placed in a receptacle no bigger than a cigar box. When Fitznorman had been dead three years, his son Braddock decided that the business had gone far enough. The amount of wealth that he and his father had taken out of the mountain was beyond all exact computation. He kept a notebook in cipher in which he set down the approximate quantity of radium in each of the thousand banks. He patronized and recorded the alias under which it was held. Then he did a very simple thing. He sealed up the mine. He sealed up the mine. What had been taken out of it would support all the Washingtons yet to be born in unparalleled luxury for generations. His one care must be the protection of his secret, lest in the possible panic attendant on its discovery, he should be reduced, with all the property holders in the world, to utter poverty. This was the family among whom John T unger was staying. This was the story he heard in his silver walled living room the morning after his arrival. Okay, we're back.

[Braddock Washington]

So, Mike, this is a story of the Washington family.

[Jack Wilson]

As Percy Sketch did for John during breakfast.

[Braddock Washington]

I really appreciated this section.

[Jack Wilson]

The backstory of the Washingtons.

[Braddock Washington]

I found a lot of things incredibly problematic, but I. And a lot of times, you know, this kind of interruption to a story comes in a kind of unwelcome way, like why do you have to give us all this exposition?

[Jack Wilson]

And. And couldn't you have found a way to weave it into the story?

[Braddock Washington]

But I found this section to be really effective and interesting. What about you?

[Emma]

Yeah, same. I. Part of me wondered if you could have started with this. But I think this is, this is more effective because again, back to this being kind of a mystery story. I think one of the, you know, mystery of what's going to happen is one mystery, but the other mystery is what is with this family? Yeah, like with Percy, I mean, Percy just automatically instantly feels strange.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[Emma]

So, you know, to have his father's story. And I found it very credible. I mean, this, like converting their worth to radium, this mineral, this element. I mean, I, I, I was, I was very impressed by this because you try to imagine a tall tale that, you know, if someone tells, like in an office that you can't quite disprove, but it seems believable enough versus something that just seems like it's fiction.

[Braddock Washington]

And that's what's interesting because you'd expect that from a writer like Ray Bradbury or Kurt Vonnegut or something. They're coming up with little mechanisms like.

[Jack Wilson]

That to keep the plot moving forward or to set up the scenario all the time.

[Braddock Washington]

Fitzgerald doesn't really do that. And most of his writing is. It's stuff that either he could have experienced or you imagine him hearing during, you know, at the. Sitting around the table with his peers. And this is one where, like, the thing about the radium, I didn't really buy it, but I kind of liked the idea that Fitzgerald was trying to.

[Jack Wilson]

Figure out how to make a plot like that work.

[Braddock Washington]

And you know what, how do I, how do I get these people in the car? How do I get this mountain to be hidden? How do I get the family to.

[Jack Wilson]

Even discover the mountain?

[Braddock Washington]

And, and he's kind of got to.

[Jack Wilson]

Come up with more.

[Braddock Washington]

It seems like it's a little unfamiliar territory for him. A little bit.

[Emma]

Yeah. I mean, it's the way slavery has never been abolished. I think there's some truth to. I think I forget how the adage goes about the way to hide a lie is, you know, within a truth, or there's enough around the lie that you start to think, oh, this could have happened. And there are these, you know, these geographic details about the Catskills or Long island or the Jersey Coast. And I enjoyed this kind of mode of his in this backstory I did.

[Braddock Washington]

Since you brought up slavery, that became, for me, the most interesting part of the story from a 21st century perspective. In this section, there is another interesting thing that I like, which is the idea that you're incredibly rich, but if you reveal it, you would ruin your wealth. You know, it's kind of that Thing of, well, if I. If I have more money than everyone, but if I just carved up all these diamonds and spent them and tried to cash them all in, I would.

[Jack Wilson]

Ruin the market for diamonds.

[Braddock Washington]

They would no longer be as valuable. And just kind of seeing what it is to have to slowly parse out your wealth and in a way that conceals it, I think is a really interesting idea for a story.

[Jack Wilson]

But what I found most interesting as.

[Braddock Washington]

A reader is that is wondering whether Fitzgerald was approaching the issue of slavery with any kind of. Any kind of perspicacity that would make me feel like Fitzgerald got it, or whether he would have this kind of white man's blindness toward power and destiny of these characters. And I kind of felt like he had a lot more blindness than he had in sight. There's a few times where you feel like he kind of understands what he's talking about, but for the most part, it's just assuming that this guy would.

[Jack Wilson]

Well, of course he would lie to the slaves and tell them that the Civil War had been won by the South.

[Braddock Washington]

And it even says, of course they all worshiped him. And it feels like the slaves are here to serve the white man and to serve the plot of the story. And Fitzgerald's characterization in a way that I didn't think aged very well.

[Emma]

I found it more flat. And so I. I wasn't offended by it nor, like, especially impressed by, you know, the way he. It's part of the story. But, yeah, it's one of these, like, pretend fantasy facts, like some of his other.

[Braddock Washington]

Right.

[Emma]

Fantasy facts in this that, I mean, I just decided to go along with it as I read it.

[Braddock Washington]

Doesn't. Like, there wasn't any passages where I.

[Jack Wilson]

Felt bad reading it aloud and thought.

[Braddock Washington]

Oh, geez, I wish he hadn't written that. It's gratuitously ugly or something. But I did feel like this guy is wealthy. And even when he goes out to get his land, he says, the way I'm reading it is he takes the 24 people, the 24 slaves, and he is able to claim land on their behalf, but it's going to be his land. He's going to take up the land in their names. And it's such a casual. Well, of course that's what you do. Fitzgerald doesn't say, well, the 24 weren't.

[Jack Wilson]

On board with that.

[Braddock Washington]

It just is sort of assumed that the white man with 24 former slaves is going to take 25 portions of farmland and then set himself up as, like, almost like a plantation owner.

[Jack Wilson]

Out West.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah.

[Emma]

I mean, in that sense, maybe his commentary is more telling because it really was a naturalized way of life. This idea of you had to have servants and you. And why not make them? Why not have slaves?

[Braddock Washington]

And then the other thing which fits.

[Jack Wilson]

The same theme of what you just.

[Braddock Washington]

Said is once you accept that he's going to be incredibly wealthy, it's like, well, of course you would murder your brother and, and maybe a few others to protect it. What choice do you have? And you know, it's like the logic of slavery.

[Jack Wilson]

Once you're a slave owner, of course.

[Braddock Washington]

You would punish them for trying to escape or you would be in favor of having them return to you if.

[Jack Wilson]

They cross state lines or something.

[Braddock Washington]

It's like once you go down that path of moral being morally compromised, it skews your logic and then it just becomes a well, that's just the prudent thing to do is to beat them if they try to escape or if.

[Jack Wilson]

They try to educate themselves.

[Braddock Washington]

And once you're a thief and once you've said you've taken claim to this.

[Jack Wilson]

Enormous diamond, well, of course you have.

[Braddock Washington]

To murder to protect your loot. Not much choice.

[Emma]

And that's one of the things that really fascinates me about this story, is that you get the Father Braddock's obviously this is his story, probably more than anybody else's. But then what happens to the generations below? How much are they willing to do what he's done or to kill? And that that window into the two generations and trying to figure out how much gets what changes from generation to generation with this kind of love of money and kind of the lack of ethics involved is interesting.

[Braddock Washington]

And that is a perfect segue for Chapter five.

[Jack Wilson]

Five. After breakfast, John found his way out the great marble entrance and looked curiously at the scene before him. The whole valley, from the diamond mountain to the steep granite cliff five miles away, still gave off a breath of golden haze and which hovered idly above the fine sweep of lawns and lakes and gardens. Here and there, clusters of elms made delicate groves of shade, contrasting strangely with the tough masses of pine forest that held the hills in a grip of dark blue green. Even as John looked, he saw three fawns in single file patter out from one clump about a half mile away and disappear with awkward gaiety into the black ribbed half light of another. John would not have been surprised to see a goat foot piping his way among the trees or to catch a glimpse of pink nymph skin and flying yellow hair between the greenest of the green leaves. In some such cool hope. He descended the marble steps, disturbing faintly the sleep of two silky Russian wolfhounds at the bottom, and set off along a walk of white and blue brick that seemed to lead in no particular direction. He was enjoying himself as much as he was able. It is youth's felicity, as well as its insufficiency, that it can never live in the present but must always be measuring up the day against its own radiantly imagined future. Flowers and gold, girls and stars, they are only prefigurations and prophecies of that incomparable, unattainable young dream. John rounded a soft corner where the massed rose bushes filled the air with heavy scent. The and struck off across the park toward a patch of moss under some trees. He had never lain upon moss, and he wanted to see whether it was really soft enough to justify the use of its name as an adjective. Then he saw a girl coming toward him over the grass. She was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. She was dressed in a white little gown that came just below her knees, in a wreath of mignonettes clasped with blue slices of sapphire bound up her hair. Her pink bare feet scattered the dew before them as she came. She was younger than Jon, not more than 16. Hello. She cried softly. I'm Kismine. She was much more than that to Jon already. He advanced toward her, scarcely moving as he drew near, lest he should tread on her bare toes. You haven't met me, said her soft voice. Her blue eyes added, oh, but you've missed a great deal. You met my sister Jasmine last night. I was sick with lettuce poisoning, went on her soft voice, and her eyes continued. And when I'm sick I'm sweet, and when I'm well. You have made an enormous impression on me, said John's eyes. And I'm not so slow myself. How do you do? Said his voice. I hope you're better this morning, you darling, added his eyes tremulously. Jon observed that they had been walking along the path on her suggestion. They sat down together upon the moss, the softness of which he failed to determine. He was critical about women. A single defect, a thick ankle, a hoarse voice, a glass eyewas enough to make him utterly indifferent. And here, for the first time in his life, he was beside a girl who seemed to him the incarnation of physical perfection. Are you from the East? Asked Kismine with charming interest. No, jon answered simply. I'm from Hades. Either she had never heard of Hades, or she could think of no pleasant comment to make upon it, for she did not discuss it further. I'm going east to school this fall, she said. Do you think I'll like it? I'm going to New York, to Ms. Bulge's. It's very strict. But you see, over the weekends I'm going to live at home with the family in our New York house because Father heard that the girls had to go walking two by two. Your father wants you to be proud, observed John. We are, she answered, her eyes shining with dignity. None of us has ever been punished, father said. We never should be. Once when my sister Jasmine was a little girl, she pushed him downstairs and he just got up and limped away. Mother was, well, a little startled, continued Kismine, when she heard that you were from. From where you are from, you know. She said that when she was a young girl. But then, you see, she's a Spaniard and old fashioned. Do you spend much time out here? Asked John, to conceal the fact that he was somewhat hurt by this remark. It seemed an unkind allusion to his provincialism. Percy and Jasmine and I are here every summer. But next summer Jasmine is going to Newport. She's coming out in London a year from this fall. She'll be presented at court. Do you know, began John hesitantly, you're much more sophisticated than I thought you were when I first saw you. Oh, no, I'm not. She exclaimed hurriedly. Oh, I wouldn't think of being. I think that sophisticated young people are terribly common, don't you? I'm not at all, really. If you say I am, I'm going to cry. She was so distressed that her lip was trembling. John was impelled to protest. I didn't mean that. I only said it to tease you because I wouldn't mind if I were, she persisted. But I'm not. I'm very innocent and girlish. I never smoke or drink or read anything except poetry. I know scarcely any mathematics or chemistry. I dress very simply. In fact, I scarcely dress at all. I think sophisticated is the last thing you can say about me. I believe that girls ought to enjoy their youths in a wholesome way. I do too, said John heartily. Kismine was cheerful again. She smiled at him, and a stillborn tear dripped from the corner of one blue eye. I like you, she whispered intimately. Are you going to spend all your time with Percy while you're here, or will you be nice to me? Just think, I'm absolutely fresh ground. I've never had a boy in love with me in all My life. I've never been allowed even to see boys alone except Percy. I came all the way out here into this grove hoping to run into you where the family wouldn't be around. Deeply flattered, Jon bowed from the hips as he had been taught at dancing school in Hades. We better go now, said Kismine sweetly. I have to be with mother at 11. You haven't asked me to kiss you once. I thought boys always did that nowadays. John drew himself up proudly. Some of them do, he answered, but not me. Girls don't do that sort of thing in Hades. Side by side, they walked back toward the house.

[Braddock Washington]

Okay, we're back. So, Chapter five. You were talking, Mike, about the next generation. Here we meet the second member of the next generation. I call her Kismin because I think that's how we're meant to call her.

[Jack Wilson]

Because of Jasmine.

[Braddock Washington]

It's sort of Kismin, although I never really knew how to pronounce the name. It's something Fitzgerald made up, I'm pretty sure. But this is a pretty long time for Fitzgerald to go before we meet what is kind of a familiar character. As much as we have these sturdy Midwestern guys who are going out, headed to the east coast and the wealthy, we are seeing them encountering characters who are a lot like Kisman. So what did you make of her?

[Emma]

I think she's such a breath of fresh air until you get to know her. And she has the same kind of creepiness that Percy and Braddock, their father, have. Yeah, but she's an alluring young woman. And, you know, I found her to.

[Braddock Washington]

Be a little less annoying than some of the other.

[Jack Wilson]

I mean, the character in Winter Dreams.

[Braddock Washington]

I almost disliked her from the start. She was such a brat, this one. He doesn't really amp up her sassiness.

[Jack Wilson]

And sarcasm and beauty.

[Braddock Washington]

At least not quite at first. But it is very much the Fitzgerald debutante type. Just like he can't quit his fascination of wealth, he seems to be unable to quit his idea that women are supposed to be young and pretty and spoiled and precocious and demanding.

[Emma]

Yeah. And sort of the thing that she's sort of John's muse that, you know, John is in. Admires Percy and wishes he had as much money as Percy. And he came from as good a background as Percy. But now this is like his entire world view has changed with Kismet.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah. As much as the Fitzgerald hero wants to be wealthy, I'd say even more he wants to be in a relationship with the most sensational woman who you Know, most sensational young woman, the bell of the ball, The. The one that everybody wants to be with, and the one that you can never get out of your head. And all of that. He seems to want that even more.

[Emma]

Yeah. And I always think of Fitzgerald as writing. I always try to figure out. I think writers write on the level of. Often write on the level of a sentence or, say, a paragraph, like Jane Austen. I think of her as her and her paragraphs. Or on the level of a word, like. And so it's interesting with this story, I think of Fitzgerald as writing on the level of a sentence. But this story is so taken over by plot, you almost kind of miss some of his lines. Like, he has Kisman say, I'm very innocent and girlish. I never smoke or drink or read anything except poetry. And I was thinking, like, yeah, there's some. There's some pretty fun lines in this that, you know, you're so concerned with what's going to happen to John. You can miss some of these lines.

[Braddock Washington]

And John. John says, drew himself up proudly.

[Jack Wilson]

Some of them do.

[Braddock Washington]

He's talking about whether boys are trying to kiss the girl or ask the girls to kiss them. And she says, I thought boys all did that nowadays. Always did that nowadays.

[Jack Wilson]

And he drew himself up proudly and.

[Braddock Washington]

Says, some of them do, but not me. Girls don't do that sort of thing in Hades. And it's this. It runs throughout the story that they're sort of saying, here's John T. Hunger from Hades. As if anybody's supposed to have heard of that town. You know, it's not. It's not even like St. Louis at that level. It's sort of this. But you're announced that you're from there as if you're saying, from Boston or.

[Jack Wilson]

Or from San Francisco or something.

[Emma]

And what a strange choice of names. Yeah. Hometown Hades.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[Braddock Washington]

Right.

[Emma]

For Fitzgerald to call the. It's like, I feel like Fitzgerald is usually never this overt.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[Braddock Washington]

With names and place names.

[Emma]

Yeah. So.

[Braddock Washington]

So the other thing. And you're kind of getting at this. I think this section is straight rom com.

[Jack Wilson]

It's a meet cute.

[Braddock Washington]

And we now have had two or three different genres, and I think we've got more to come. It's almost like this story is kind of an omnibus of different story styles and the way the plot is taking them into these. These different. You know, like, we pause for history, we pause for description, and we pause for the young man setting out on a quest. And now we have sort of like the young man falling in love or being with someone he might fall in love with. And this is like a. You could imagine that being the tone of the entire story, and instead we've got a bunch more swerves to go through here.

[Emma]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's Is there a Fitzgerald story where there isn't a meet cute type moment? He can't resist that.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jack Wilson]

He certainly never grew out of that.

[Braddock Washington]

Maybe he didn't live long enough. But there probably is one that's maybe an interesting thing for us to think about. I can't think of one off the top of my head.

[Jack Wilson]

You did a whole episode on it, Jack.

[Braddock Washington]

Okay, so let's hear chapter six, which is going to be the last chapter.

[Jack Wilson]

We hear as part of this episode.

[Braddock Washington]

And then we will come back and talk about that.

[Jack Wilson]

6 John stood facing Mr. Braddock Washington in the full sunlight. The elder man was about 40, with a proud, vacuous face, intelligent eyes, and a robust figure. In the mornings he smelt of horses, the best horses. He carried a plain walking stick of gray birch with a single large opal for a grip. He and Percy were showing Jon around the slaves quarters are there. His walking stick indicated a cloister of marble on their left that ran in graceful gothic along the side of the mountain. In my youth I was distracted for a while from the business of life by a period of absurd idealism. During that time they lived in luxury. For instance, I equipped every one of their rooms with a tile bath. I suppose, ventured John with an ingratiating laugh, that they used the bathtubs to keep coal in. Mr. Schnlitzer Murphy told me that once he the opinions of Mr. Schnlitzer Murphy are of little importance, I should imagine, interrupted Braddock Washington coldly. My slave did not keep coal in their bathtubs. They had orders to bathe every day, and they did. If they hadn't, I might have ordered a sulfuric acid shampoo. I discontinued the baths for quite another reason. Several of them caught cold and died. Water is not good for certain races, except as a beverage. John laughed and then decided to nod his head in sober agreement. Braddock Washington made him uncomfortable. All these Negroes are descendants of the ones my father brought north with him. There are about 250 now. You notice that they've lived so long apart from the world that their original dialect has become an almost indistinguishable patois. We bring a few of them up to speak English. My secretary and two or three of the house servants. This is the golf course he continued as they strolled along the velvet winter grass. It's all a green, you see. No fairway, no rough, no hazards. He smiled pleasantly at John. Many men in the cage, Father? Asked Percy. Suddenly Braddock Washington stumbled and let forth an involuntary curse. One less than there should be, he ejaculated darkly and then added after a moment, we've had difficulties. Mother was telling me. Exclaimed Percy. That Italian teacher. A ghastly error, said Braddock Washington angrily. But of course there's a good chance that we may have got him. Perhaps he fell somewhere in the woods or stumbled over a cliff. And then there's always the probability that if he did get away, his story wouldn't be believed. Nevertheless, I've had two dozen men looking for him in different towns around here, and no luck. Some 14 of them reported to my agent that they'd each killed a man answering to that description. But of course it was probably only the reward they were after. He broke off. They had come to a large cavity in the earth about the circumference of a merry go round and covered by a strong iron grating. Braddock Washington beckoned to John and pointed his cane down through the grating. John stepped to the edge and gazed. Immediately his ears were assailed by a wild clamor from below. Come on down to hell. Hey, kiddo, how's the air up there? Hey, throw us a rope. Got an old doughnut, buddy? Or a couple of second hand sandwiches? Say, fellow, if you'll push down that guy you're with, we'll show you a quick disappearance scene. Paste him one for me, will you? It was too dark to see clearly into the pit below, but John could tell from the coarse optimism and rugged vitality of the remarks and voices that they proceeded from middle class Americans of the more spirited type. Then Mr. Washington put out his cane and touched a button in the grass, and the scene below sprang into light. These are some adventurous mariners who had the misfortune to discover El Dorado, he remarked. Below them there had appeared a large hollow in the earth, shaped like the interior of a bowl. The sides were steep and apparently of polished glass, and on its slightly concave surface stood about two dozen men, clad in the half costume, half uniform of aviators, their upturned faces lit with wrath, with malice, with despair, with cynical humor, were covered by long growths of beard, but with the exception of a few who had pined perceptibly away, they seemed to be a well fed, healthy lot. Braddock Washington drew a garden chair to the edge of the pit and sat down. Well, how are you boys? He inquired genially. A chorus of execration in which all joined except a few too dispirited to cry out, rose up into the sunny air. But Braddock Washington heard it with unruffled composure. When its last echo had died away, he spoke again. Have you thought up a way out of your difficulty from here and there among them a remark floated up. We decided to stay here for love. Bring us up there and we'll find us a way. Braddock Washington waited until they were again quiet. Then he said, I've told you the situation. I don't want you here. I wish to heaven I'd never seen you. Your own curiosity got you here, and any time that you can think of a way out which protects me and my interests, I'll be glad to consider it. But so long as you confine your efforts to digging tunnels. Yes, I know about the new one you've started. You won't get very far. This isn't as hard on you as you make it out with all your howling for the loved ones at home. If you were the type who worried much about the loved ones at home, you'd never have taken up aviation. A tall man moved apart from the others and held up his hand to call his captor's attention to what he was about to say. Let me ask you a few questions. He cried. You pretend to be a fair minded man. How absurd. How could a man of my position be fair minded toward you? You might as well speak of a Spaniard being fair minded toward a piece of steak. At this harsh observation the faces of the two dozen steaks fell, but the tall man continued. All right. He cried. We've argued this out before. You're not a humanitarian and you're not fair minded, but you're human. At least you say you are. And you ought to be able to put yourself in our place for long.

[Braddock Washington]

Enough to think How.

[Jack Wilson]

How? How how what? Demanded Washington coldly. How unnecessary. Not to me. Well, how cruel. We've covered that cruelty doesn't exist where self preservation is involved. You've been soldiers, you know that. Try another. Well then, how stupid. There, admitted Washington. I grant you that. But try to think of an alternative. I've offered to have all or any of you painlessly executed, if you wish. I've offered to have your wives, sweethearts, children and mothers kidnapped and brought out here. I'll enlarge your place down there and feed and clothe you the rest of your lives. If there was some method of Producing permanent amnesia. I'd have all of you operated on and released immediately somewhere outside of my preserves. But that's as far as my ideas go. How about trusting us not to peach on you? Cried someone. You don't proffer that suggestion seriously, said Washington with an expression of scorn. I did take out one man to teach my daughter Italian last week. He got away. A wild yell of jubilation went up suddenly from two dozen throats, and a pandemonium of joy ensued. The prisoners clog danced and cheered and yodeled and wrestled with one another in a sudden uprush of animal spirits. They even ran up the glass sides of the bowl as far as they could and slid back to the bottom upon the natural cushions of their bodies. The tall man started a song in which they all joined. Oh, we'll hang the Kaiser on a sour apple tree. Braddock Washington sat in inscrutable silence until the song was over. You see, he remarked when he could gain a modicum of attention, I bear you no ill will. I like to see you enjoying yourselves. That's why I didn't tell you the whole story at once. The man, what was his name? Crichticiello, was shot by some of my agents in 14 different places. Not guessing that the places referred to were cities, the tumult of rejoicing subsided immediately. Nevertheless. Cried Washington with a touch of anger. He tried to run away. Do you expect me to take chances with any of you after an experience like that? Again, a series of ejaculations went up. Sure. Would your daughter like to learn Chinese? Hey, I can speak Italian. My mother was a wop. Maybe she'd like to learn how to speak New York. If she's the little one with the big blue eyes, I could teach her a lot of things better than Italian. I know some Irish songs, and I could hammer brass onct. Mr. Washington reached forward suddenly with his cane and pushed the button in the grass so that the picture below went out instantly. And there remained only that great dark mouth covered dismally with the black teeth of the grating. Hey. Called a single voice from below. You ain't going away without giving us your blessing. But Mr. Washington, followed by the two boys, was already strolling on toward the ninth hole of the golf course, as though the pit and its contents were no more than a hazard over which his facile iron had triumphed with ease.

[Braddock Washington]

Okay, we're back. So, Mike, is. Is this part six the best chapter of the story so far? This one changed everything for me in.

[Jack Wilson]

My relationship with this story.

[Emma]

Yeah, this is the. The suspense and tension is ramped up here. Yeah, we. We kind of see Braddock for who he is.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah.

[Jack Wilson]

Braddock, who in the mornings, he smelt of horses.

[Braddock Washington]

The best horses. I don't even know what that means exactly, but I guess. I guess that's how rich people get to smell. They. Even when they smell of horses, it's somehow luxurious.

[Emma]

And the way Braddock judges them, I mean, their lines, like, if you were the type who worried much about the loved ones at home, you'd never have taken up aviation. Yeah, I was like that. That he is an arrogant man to speak to a prisoner like that.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah.

[Jack Wilson]

So here.

[Braddock Washington]

I mean, this. This is like, you know, we've seen.

[Jack Wilson]

This kind of story before.

[Braddock Washington]

I mentioned it how, you know, they head out to the golf course and you think they're just going to have this sort of nice day on the golf course. And he does point out, oh, those.

[Jack Wilson]

Are the slave quarters over there.

[Braddock Washington]

And he has this thing that he has a fit of idealism where he gave them luxurious quarters as well. And then he kind of says, oh, of course that's.

[Jack Wilson]

That's bad for black people.

[Braddock Washington]

That's. That's no good. Not every race can handle something like that. Which, of course, I'm sort of rolling my eyes at that. But then when Percy blurts out, many men in the cage, father, it's like, what in the cage? So that's where this story really takes a turn. And I felt like Braddock Washington turned into a kind of Willy Wonka where he's got this fabulous home, this fabulous, you know, all the. All the trappings of. Of inventions and weird gizmos and all of this. He's wealthy beyond belief.

[Jack Wilson]

He even gave slaves of his tile.

[Braddock Washington]

Baths for a while. And then he. It's too bad I have to engage in a murder or two now.

[Jack Wilson]

And then.

[Braddock Washington]

And then we get the scene with these aviators in a pit and. And Braddock Washington discussing their plight with them. And he's evil, but he doesn't really know it. He thinks he's just speaking common sense. Like, surely you see things from my point of view. I can't possibly let you go. And he kind of says, well, maybe.

[Jack Wilson]

If I could give you all amnesia.

[Braddock Washington]

That would solve our problems, wouldn't it? And he says, we've argued this out before.

[Jack Wilson]

And.

[Braddock Washington]

He seems to have this ongoing.

[Jack Wilson]

Philosophical dialogue with these men in this.

[Braddock Washington]

Pit where he's kind of saying, like.

[Jack Wilson]

Well, try to see things from my point of view. I. I Don't really have much of a choice here, do I?

[Braddock Washington]

And when I let that Italian go, look how.

[Jack Wilson]

Look how poorly that turned out. So why would I let you guys go?

[Emma]

Yeah. And I. I mean, you. You write about the Willy Wonka.

[Braddock Washington]

There's.

[Emma]

There are these. And the pit is, like, on the golf course. It's like. It's like a golf hazard. It's really. It's.

[Jack Wilson]

Well, I think.

[Emma]

I think. I think that's part of why this story works for me, is that it's not the violence. It doesn't hinge on the violence. And it's not. It's not horror.

[Braddock Washington]

It's not sticking our face and making us look at some kind of torture or. It's not. You know, if this were a film.

[Jack Wilson]

There'D be no blood.

[Emma]

Yeah. And it's almost like as he's convincing his children to accept his actions, Braddock, I. I started to start think of myself as, you know, kind of like a younger sibling of Percy and Kisman. And as I find out these facts say I'm like, five or six or seven, you know, how I would come to accept this as just my family.

[Braddock Washington]

Yep.

[Emma]

So that, you know, the father, he says, like, yeah, I'll execute you guys if. If you wish. Like, he's like. He's, like, kind of rational.

[Braddock Washington]

I mean, I'll do it painlessly.

[Emma]

Like, I'll kidnap your wives and girlfriends and children if you want. I mean, it's. It's like.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah, but I. That's as far as my ideas go. If you have better ideas. Yeah, let me know. And one of them says, how about.

[Jack Wilson]

Trusting us not to peach on you?

[Braddock Washington]

He's like, you don't proffer that suggestion seriously.

[Emma]

There were a number of moments in the story where I thought if this was workshopped in an MFA program, they would have torn it apart.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah, they might have. And also when you said that, it made me think. The thing that jumped into my mind was Kafka and how Kafka would read his stories aloud to his friends, and.

[Jack Wilson]

He would be crying with laughter, and.

[Braddock Washington]

They would all be finding it incredibly hilarious. And this kind of thing, I think if you heard it aloud for the first time, you would be kind of laughing at this scene of what a ridiculous guy.

[Jack Wilson]

This Braddock, Washington.

[Emma]

Yeah.

[Braddock Washington]

Okay, so I think this is a good stopping point for this episode because the story now really has its stakes put in place, and we've got this real dilemma we're obviously meant to identify with the fate of John T. Unger, the guy we started with. And he's facing a real dilemma. The richest man in the world, fabulously wealthy, total tyrant. A daughter he's protective of, this ticking.

[Jack Wilson]

Bomb of an Italian aviator who somehow.

[Braddock Washington]

Escaped and is out there still. And there's this weird friend, Percy.

[Jack Wilson]

There's a pit full of prisoners who.

[Braddock Washington]

May or may not need to be rescued somehow. And there's 250 slaves. Are we supposed to view them as prisoners, too? It's not clear that the story considers them to be. But that's another thing that could be at play here.

[Jack Wilson]

And we have John T. Unger, who's out here with.

[Braddock Washington]

With nothing but his Midwestern pluck and common sense. He's got no contact with the outside world. I mean, what questions do we want.

[Jack Wilson]

To leave our listeners with here at.

[Braddock Washington]

The end of this episode as we.

[Jack Wilson]

Look ahead to the second half of the story?

[Emma]

I mean, in all seriousness, if you were writing a choose your own venture, how would you. What would you do? Yeah, right. That's what I. I feel like the story can go in about six different directions.

[Braddock Washington]

Yeah.

[Emma]

So, like, you know, is he gonna get the girl?

[Braddock Washington]

Is he gonna save the day? Is he gonna get rich? Are they all going to hell? It's.

[Emma]

Is he going to. Into the pit? I mean. Yeah, yeah, right.

[Braddock Washington]

Or will they revolt and break out.

[Jack Wilson]

Of the pit and come and murder them all in their beds?

[Braddock Washington]

There's so many different things here. And we will come back to all of it next time. So, Mike Palindrome, as always, thank you.

[Jack Wilson]

For joining me on the history of literature.

[Emma]

Thanks, Jack.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay, there we go. I'm exhausted. Me too. That's the first half of the story, the diamond as big as the Ritz. My thanks to Mike for joining me. We'll be back next time with number 24 on our list of great books and the second half of the story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Don't forget to sign up for the History of Literature podcast tour, which is going to be in May of 2026. And we will be traveling physically, traveling through the world of Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, and my favorite, Dr. Johnson. You can join us for that more information at John Shores Travel S H O R S or by reaching out to [e-mail] I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.

[Braddock Washington]

Sam.

[Kismine]

Hi, this is Zibby Owens, host of Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling buzziest or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to stay in the know. Get insider insights and connect with guests like Grammy Award winning singer Alicia Keys, critically acclaimed author Judy Blume, and Academy Award winning screenwriter John Irving every single day with Totally Booked, you aren't just listening, you're part of the story, so don't miss out. Follow Totally Booked with Zibby on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening now.

[Mike Palindrome]

I'm Courtney Act. Many of you may know me from RuPaul's Drag Race, celebrity Big Brother, Dancing with the Stars, or probably my hit album Kaleidoscopy. Well, guess what? I have got a brand new show called R and R with Courtney act and I want you to check it out. You know I hate small talk. I want to go deep and I want to go quickly. And on my show we do just that. In today's world it feels really polarized and we're more connected than ever, but really we can feel isolated and I don't like that. I want the story shared here on R and R to make us realize that our similarities are greater than our differences. So join me and my fabulous guests like Nicole Byer, Tom Daly, Margaret Cho, Katia Adore Delano, Jackie Beat, and many more. If you're looking for some rest and relaxation, you've come to the wrong place because we are peeling back the layers of superficiality and we're getting down to the real stuff. Follow R and R with Courtney act on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you're listening now.