9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

chapter 9. of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald, performed by Anna Butterworth

Episode Transcript

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Nine, one September Day. Innineteen ten, a few years after Roger
Button and Co. Wholesale hardware hadbeen handed over to young Roscoe Button,
a man apparently about twenty years old, entered himself as a freshman at Harvard
University in Cambridge. He did notmake the mistake of announcing that he would

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never see fifty again, nor didhe mention the fact that his son had
been graduated from the same institution tenyears before. He was admitted and almost
immediately attained a prominent position in theclass, partly because he seemed a little
older than the other freshman, whoseaverage age was about eighteen. But his

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success was largely due to the factthat in the football game with Yale,
he played so brilliantly, with somuch dash, and with such a cold,
remorseless anger, that he scored seventouchdowns and fourteen field goals for Harvard
and caused one entire eleven of Yalemen to be carried singly from the field
unconscious. He was the most celebratedman in college, strange to say,

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in his third or junior year hewas scarcely able to make the team.
The coaches said he had lost weightand it seemed to be more observant among
them that he was not quite astall as before. He made no touchdowns.
Indeed, he was retained on theteam, chiefly in hope that his
enormous reputation would bring terror and disorganizationto the Yale team. In his senior

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year, he did not make theteam at all. He had grown so
slight and frail that one day hewas taken by some sophomores for a freshman,
an incident which humiliated him terribly.He became known as something of a
prodigy, a senior who was surelyno more than sixteen, and he was
often shocked at the worldliness of someof his classmates. His study seemed harder

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to him. He felt that theywere too advancedant. He had heard his
classmates speak of Saint Midas, thefamous preparatory school at which so many of
them had prepared for college, andhe determined after his graduation to enter himself
at Saint Midas, where the shelteredlife among boys his own size would be
more congenial to him. Upon hisgraduation in nineteen fourteen, he went home

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to Baltimore with his Harvard diploma inhis pocket, Hildegarde was now residing in
Italy, so Benjamin went to livewith his son Roscoe. But though he
was welcomed in a general way,there was obviously no heartiness in Roscoe's feeling
toward him. There was even perceptiblea tendency on his son's part to think

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that Benjamin, as he moped aboutthe house in adolescent mooniness, was somewhat
in the way. Roscoe was marriednow and prominent in Baltimore life, and
he wanted no scandal to creep outin connection with his family. Benjamin,
no longer persona grotto with the debutantesand younger college set, found himself left

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much alone, except for the companionshipof three or four fifteen year old boys
in the neighborhood. His idea ofgoing to Saint Mida's school recurred to him,
say, he said to Roscoe oneday, I've told you over and
over that I want to go toprep school. Well go, then,
replied Roscoe shortly. The matter wasdistasteful to him, and he wished to

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avoid a discussion. I can't goalone, said Benjamin helplessly. You'll have
to enter me and take me upthere. I haven't got time, declared
Roscoe. Abruptly. His eyes narrowedand he looked uneasily at his father.
As a matter of fact, headded, you'd better not go on with
this business much longer. You betterpull up short, You better, you

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better, He paused, and hisface crimsoned as he sought for words.
You better turn right around and startback the other way. This has gone
too far to be a joke.It isn't funny any longer. You you
behave yourself. Benjamin looked at himon the verge of tears, and another
thing, continued Roscoe. When visitorsair in the house, I want you

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to call me uncle, not Roscoe, but uncle. Do you understand it
looks absurd for a boy of fifteento call me by my first name.
Perhaps you'd better call me uncle allthe time so you'll get used to it.
With a harsh look at his father, Roscoe turned away.