8. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

chapter 8. of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald, performed by Anna Butterworth

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Eight, Hildegarde, waving a largesilk flag, greeted him on the porch,
and even as he kissed her,he fell with the sinking of the
heart that these three years had takentheir toll. She was a woman of
forty now, with a faint,skirmish line of gray hairs in her head.
The sight depressed him. Up inhis room, he saw his reflection

(00:24):
in the familiar mirror. He wentcloser and examined his own face with anxiety,
comparing it, after a moment,with a photograph of himself in uniform
taken just before the war. GoodLord, he said aloud, The process
was continuing, there was no doubtof it. He looked now like a
man of thirty. Instead of beingdelighted, he was uneasy. He was

(00:48):
growing younger. He had hitherto hopedthat once he reached a bodily age equivalent
to his age in years, thegrotesque phenomenon which had marked his birth would
cease to function. He shuddered.His destiny seemed to him awful, incredible.
When he came downstairs, Hildegard waswaiting for him. She appeared annoyed,

(01:10):
and he wondered if she had atlast discovered that there was something amiss.
It was with an effort to relievethe tension between them that he broke
the matter at dinner in what heconsidered a delicate way. Well, he
remarked, lightly, everybody says Ilook younger than ever. Hildegarde regarded him
with scorn. She sniffed, doyou think it's anything to boast about?

(01:34):
I'm not boasting, he asserted,uncomfortably. She sniffed again. The idea,
she said, and after a moment, I should think you'd have enough
pride to stop it. How canI, he demanded. I'm not going
to argue with you, she retorted, but there's a right way of doin

(01:57):
things and a wrong way if you'vemade up your mind to be different than
everybody else. I don't suppose Ican stop you, but I really don't
think it's very considerate. But Hildegarde, I can't help it. You can
too. You're simply stubborn. Youthink you don't want to be like any
one else. You always have beenthat way and you always will be.

(02:19):
But just think how it would beif every one else looked at things as
you do. What would the worldbela like as This was an inane and
unanswerable argument. Benjamin made no reply, and from that time on a chasm
began to widen between them. Hewondered what possible fascination she had ever exercised
over him. To add to thebreach, he found as the new sentry

(02:44):
gathered headway that his thirst for gaietygrew stronger. Never a party of any
kind in the city of Baltimore,but he was there, dancing with the
prettiest of the young married women,chatting with the most popular of the debutantes,
and finding their company charming, whilehis wife, a dowager of evil
omen, sat among the chaperones,now in haughty disapproval, and now following

(03:08):
him with solemn, puzzled and reproachfuleyes. Look people would remark, what
a pity a young fellow that agetied to a woman of forty five.
He must be twenty years younger thanhis wife. They had forgotten, as
people inevitably forget that back in eighteeneighty, their mammas and papas had also

(03:30):
remarked about this same ill matched pair. Benjamin's growing unhappiness at home was compensated
for by his many new interests.He took up golf and made a great
success of it. He went infor dancing. In nineteen o six he
was an expert at the Boston,and in nineteen o eight he was considered

(03:51):
proficient at the Maxiqus, while innineteen o nine his castle walk was the
envy of every young man in town. His social activities, of course,
interfered to some extent with his business. But then he had worked hard at
wholesale hardware for twenty five years andfelt that he could soon hand it on
to his son, Roscoe, whohad recently graduated from Harvard. He and

(04:15):
his son were, in fact oftenmistaken for each other. Displeased Benjamin,
he soon forgot the insidious fear whichhad come over him on his return from
the Spanish American War, and grewto take a naive pleasure in his appearance.
There was only one fly in thedelicious ointment. He hated to appear
in public with his wife. Hildegardewas almost fifty, and the sight of

(04:41):
her made him feel absurd.