skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Notes on Classic Movies
Actress Ingrid Bergman is a majestic presence in any movie in which she appears. I recently watched a movie I didn't even really want to watch because she was in it -- making crazy drama seem
so, so necessary! LOL. Ibsen's Hedda Gabler is one of those plays (made into a movie) that leaves you saying, Oh my goodness, these people are crazy!
The whole movie is on You Tube.
But my recommendation, if you want to have a basic Ingrid Bergman experience -- Ingrid Bergman 101 -- watch these three films:
Notorious
Indiscreet
Casablanca.
Indiscreet is light and fun and has great panache, on several different levels.
Notorious is Hitchcock -- but not violin-screaming, people getting stabbed, birds-pecking-people-Hitchcock; rather, it's 1940-1959 Hitchcock.
Not gruesome.
Suspense, shadows; trying to figure things out through the fog of pretenses; fight-against-evil; spies; loyalty; romance with obstacles; trust issues and uncertainty....
There's no birds pecking.
And Casablanca -- overall, it's love story and morality contemplation, set on backdrop of World War II.
It is one of the best films ever made, in any language.
_________________________________________
Casablanca, you have to buy it on DVD, or buy it (or rent it) in Prime Video from Amazon.
But Indiscreet and Notorious are both on You Tube.
-30-
----------------------- [excerpt, Gone With The Wind] ---------------------------------
"How you do run on," she said coldly, for there was no insult worse than being likened to a Yankee girl. "I believe you're lying about a siege. You know the Yankees will never get to Atlanta."
"I'll bet you they will be here within the month. I'll bet you a box of bonbons against--" His dark eyes wandered to her lips. "Against a kiss."
For a last brief moment, fear of a Yankee invasion clutched her heart but at the word "kiss," she forgot about it. This was familiar ground and far more interesting than military operations. With difficulty she restrained a smile of glee.
Since the day when he gave her the green bonnet, Rhett had made no advances which could in any way be construed as those of a lover. He could never be inveigled into personal conversations, try though she might, but now with no angling on her part, he was talking about kissing.
"I don't care for such personal conversation," she said coolly and managed a frown. "Besides, I'd just as soon kiss a pig."
"There's no accounting for tastes and I've always heard the Irish were partial to pigs -- kept them under their beds, in fact. But, Scarlett, you need kissing badly. That's what's wrong with you. All your beaux have respected you too much, though God knows why, or they have been too afraid of you to really do right by you. The result is that you are unendurably uppity. You should be kissed and by someone who knows how."
The conversation was not going the way she wanted it. It never did when she was with him. Always, it was a duel....
-30-
"I ain't noticed Mr. Ashley asking to marry you."
-30-
In Gone With The Wind, Ashley Wilkes is away fighting in the war, and when Melanie stops getting letters from him, they worry that he might be dead.
But he doesn't die, and eventually he shows up at Tara.
---------------------- [excerpt] --------------- "...If the war had not come I would have lived out my life, happily buried at Twelve Oaks, contentedly watching life go by and never being a part of it. But when the war came, life as it really is thrust itself against me. ...The worst thing about the war was the people I had to live with.
"I had sheltered myself from people all my life, I had carefully selected my few friends. But the war taught me I had created a world of my own with dream people in it. It taught me what people really are, but it didn't teach me how to live with them. And I'm afraid I'll never learn.
Now, I know that in order to support my wife and child, I will have to make my way among a world of people with whom I have nothing in common. You, Scarlett, are taking life by the horns and twisting it to your will. But where do I fit in the world any more? I tell you I am afraid."
While his low resonant voice went on, desolate, with a feeling she could not understand, Scarlett clutched at words here and there, trying to make sense of them. But the words swooped from her hands like wild birds. Something was driving him, driving him with a cruel goad, but she did not understand what it was.
"Scarlett, I don't know just when it was that the bleak realization came over me that my own private shadow show was over. Perhaps in the first five minutes at Bull Run when I saw the first man I killed drop to the ground. But I knew it was over and I could no longer be a spectator.
...My little inner world was gone, invaded by people whose thoughts were not my thoughts, whose actions were as alien as a Hottentot's. They'd tramped through my world with slimy feet and there was no place left where I could take refuge when things became too bad to stand.
When I was in prison, I thought: When the war is over, I can go back to the old life.
...But, Scarlett, there's no going back. And this which is facing all of us now is worse than war and worse than prison -- and, to me, worse than death..."
"But, Ashley," she began, floundering in a quagmire of bewilderment, "if you're afraid we'll starve, why -- why -- Oh, Ashley, we'll manage somehow! I know we will!"
For a moment, his eyes came back to her, wide and crystal gray, and there was admiration in them. Then, suddenly, they were remote again and she knew with a sinking heart that he had not been thinking about starving. They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages.
But she loved him so much that, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews.
She wanted to catch him by the shoulders and hug him to her, make him realize that she was flesh and blood and not something he had read or dreamed. If she could only feel that sense of oneness with him for which she had yearned since that day, so long ago, when he had come home from Europe and stood on the steps of Tara and smiled up at her.
"Starving's not pleasant," he said. "I know for I've starved, but I'm not afraid of that. I am afraid of facing life without the slow beauty of our old world that is gone."
Scarlett thought despairingly that Melanie would know what he meant.
Melly and he were always talking such foolishness, poetry and books and dreams and moonrays and star dust. He was not fearing the things she feared, not the gnawing of an empty stomach, nor the keenness of the winter wind nor eviction from Tara. He was shrinking before some fear she had never known and could not imagine. For, in God's name, what was there to fear in this wreck of a world but hunger and cold and the loss of home?
And she had thought that if she listened closely she would know the answer to Ashley.
"Oh!" she said and the disappointment in her voice was like that of a child who opens a beautifully wrapped package to find it empty. At her tone, he smiled ruefully as though apologizing.
"Forgive me, Scarlett, for talking so. I can't make you understand because you don't know the meaning of fear. You have the heart of a lion and an utter lack of imagination and I envy you both of those qualities. You'll never mind facing realities and you'll never want to escape from them as I do."
____________________________
{Gone With The Wind, a novel written by Margaret Mitchell}
-30-
------------- [excerpt, Gone With The Wind, 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell] ----------------------
What would she do if the baby came?
These matters she discussed with Prissy in whispers one evening, as they prepared Melanie's supper tray, and Prissy, surprisingly enough, calmed her fears.
"Miss Scarlett, if we kain git de doctah when Miss Melly's time come, don't you bother. Ah kin manage. I know all about birthin'. Aint my ma a midwife? Ain't she raise me to be a midwife, too? Jest you leave it t'me."
Scarlett breathed more easily knowing that experienced hands were near, but she nevertheless yearned to have the ordeal over and done with. Mad to be away from exploding shells, desperate to get home to the quiet of Tara, she prayed every night that the baby would arrive the next day, so she would be released from her promise and could leave Atlanta. Tara seemed so safe, so far away from all this misery.
Scarlett longed for home and her mother as she had never longed for anything in all her life. If she were just near Ellen she wouldn't be afraid, no matter what happened.
Every night after a day of screeching ear-splitting shells, she went to bed determined to tell Melanie the next morning that she could not stand Atlanta another day, that she would have to go home and Melanie would have to go to Mrs. Meade's.
But, as she lay on her pillow, there always rose the memory of Ashley's face
as it had looked when she last saw him, drawn as with an inner pain but with a little smile on his lips: "You'll take care of Melanie, won't you? You're so strong. ... Promise me."
And she had promised.
Somewhere, Ashley lay dead. Wherever he was, he was watching her, holding her to that promise. Living or dead, she could not fail him, no matter what the cost.
So she remained day after day.
-30-
CHAPTER 7
Within two weeks Scarlett had become a wife, and within two months more she was a widow. She was soon released from the bonds she had assumed with so much haste and so little thought, but she was never again to know the careless freedom of her unmarried days. Widowhood had crowded closely on the heels of marriage but, to her dismay, motherhood soon followed.
In after years when she thought of those last days of April, 1861, Scarlett could never quite remember details. Time and events were telescoped, jumbled together like a nightmare that had no reality or reason. Till the day she died there would be blank spots in her memories of those days.
Especially vague were her recollections of the time between her acceptance of Charles and her wedding.
Two weeks!
So short an engagement would have been impossible in times of peace. Then there would have been a decorous interval of a year or at least six months. But the South was aflame with war, events roared along as swiftly as if carried by a mighty wind and the slow tempo of the old days was gone.
Ellen had wrung her hands and counseled delay, in order that Scarlett might think the matter over at greater length. But to her pleadings, Scarlett turned a sullen face and a deaf ear. Marry she would! and quickly too. Within two weeks.
Learning that Ashley's wedding had been moved up from the autumn to the first of May, so he could leave with the Troop as soon as it was called into service, Scarlett set the date of her wedding for the day before his.
__________________________
{Gone With The Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. Macmillan Publishers. 1936.}
-30-
----------------- [excerpt, Gone With The Wind, Chapter 6] --------------------------
The gravel flew again and across her vision a man on horseback galloped over the green lawn toward the lazy group under the trees.
Some late-come guest, but why did he ride his horse across the turf that was India's pride? She could not recognize him, but as he flung himself from the saddle and clutched John Wilkes' arm, she could see that there was excitement in every line of him. The crowd swarmed about him, tall glasses and palmetto fans abandoned on tables and on the ground.
In spite of the distance, she could hear the hubbub of voices, questioning, calling, feel the fever-pitch tenseness of the men. Then above the confused sounds Stuart Tarleton's voice rose, in an exultant shout "Yee-aay-ee!" as if he were on the hunting field. And she heard for the first time, without knowing it, the Rebel yell.
As she watched, the four Tarletons followed by the Fontaine boys broke from the group and began hurrying toward the stable, yelling as they ran, "Jeems! You, Jeems! Saddle the horses!"
"Somebody's house must have caught fire," Scarlett thought. But fire or no fire, her job was to get herself back into the bedroom before she was discovered.
Her heart was quieter now and she tiptoed up the steps into the silent hall. A heavy warm somnolence lay over the house, as if it slept at ease like the girls, until night when it would burst into its full beauty with music and candle flames. Carefully, she eased open the door of the dressing room and slipped in. Her hand was behind her, still holding the knob, when Honey Wilkes' voice, low pitched, almost in a whisper, came to her through the crack of the opposite door leading into the bedroom.
"I think Scarlett acted as fast as a girl could act today."
Scarlett felt her heart begin its mad racing again and she clutched her hand against it unconsciously, as if she would squeeze it into submission. "Eavesdroppers often hear highly instructive things," jibed a memory.
Should she slip out again? Or make herself known and embarrass Honey as she deserved? But the next voice made her pause. A team of mules could not have dragged her away when she heard Melanie's voice.
"Oh, Honey, no! Don't be unkind. She's just high spirited and vivacious. I thought her most charming."
"Oh," thought Scarlett, clawing her nails into her basque. "To have that mealymouthed little mess take up for me!"
It was harder to bear than Honey's out-and-out cattiness. Scarlett had never trusted any woman and had never credited any woman except her mother with motives other than selfish ones. Melanie knew she had Ashley securely, so she could well afford to show such a Christian spirit.
Scarlett felt it was just Melanie's way of parading her conquest and getting credit for being sweet at the same time.
Scarlett had frequently used the same trick herself when discussing other girls with men, and it had never failed to convince foolish males of her sweetness and unselfishness.
"Well, Miss," said Honey tartly, her voice rising, "you must be blind."
"Hush, Honey," hissed the voice of Sally Munroe. "They'll hear you all over the house!"
Honey lowered her voice but went on.
"Well, you saw how she was carrying on with every man she could get hold of -- even Mr. Kennedy and he's her own sister's beau. I never saw the like! And she certainly was going after Charles." Honey giggled self-consciously. "And you know, Charles and I--"
"Are you really?" whispered voices excitedly.
"Well, don't tell anybody, girls -- not yet!"
There were more gigglings and the bed springs creaked as someone squeezed Honey. Melanie murmured something about how happy she was that Honey would be her sister.
"Well, I won't be happy to have Scarlett for my sister, because she's a fast piece if ever I saw one," came the aggrieved voice of Hetty Tarleton. "But she's as good as engaged to Stuart. Brent says she doesn't give a rap about him, but, of course, Brent's crazy about her, too."
"If you should ask me," said Honey with mysterious importance, "there's only one person she does give a rap about. And that's Ashley!"
As the whisperings merged together violently, questioning, interrupting, Scarlett felt herself go cold with fear and humiliation. Honey was a fool, a silly, a simpleton about men, but she had a feminine instinct about other women that Scarlett had underestimated. The mortification and hurt pride that she had suffered in the library with Ashley and with Rhett Butler were pin pricks to this.
Men could be trusted to keep their mouths shut, even men like Mr. Butler, but with Honey Wilkes giving tongue like a hound in the field, the entire County would know about it before six o'clock. And Gerald had said only last night that he wouldn't be having the County laughing at his daughter. And how they would all laugh now! Clammy perspiration, starting under her armpits, began to creep down her ribs.
Melanie's voice, measured and peaceful, a little reproving, rose above the others.
"Honey, you know that isn't so. And it's so unkind."
"It is too, Melly, and if you weren't always so busy looking for the good in people that haven't got any good in them, you'd see it. And I'm glad it's so. It serves her right. All Scarlett O'Hara has ever done has been to stir up trouble and try to get other girls' beaux. You know mighty well she took Stuart from India and she didn't want him. And today she tried to take Mr. Kennedy and Ashley and Charles --"
"I must get home!" thought Scarlett. "I must get home!"
If she could only be transferred by magic to Tara and to safety. If she could only be with Ellen, just to see her, to hold onto her skirt, to cry and pour out the whole story in her lap.
If she had to listen to another word, she'd rush in and pull out Honey's straggly pale hair in big handfuls and spit on Melanie Hamilton to show her just what she thought of her charity.
But she'd already acted common enough today, enough like white trash -- that was where all her trouble lay.
She pressed her hands hard against her skirts, so they would not rustle and backed out as stealthily as an animal. Home, she thought, as she sped down the hall, past the closed doors and still rooms, I must go home.
She was already on the front porch when a new thought brought her up sharply -- she couldn't go home! She couldn't run away! She would have to see it through, bear all the malice of the girls and her own humiliation and heartbreak. To run away would only give them more ammunition.
She pounded her clenched fist against the tall white pillar beside her, and she wished that she were Samson, so that she could pull down all of Twelve Oaks and destroy every person in it. She'd make them sorry. She'd show them. She didn't quite see how she'd show them, but she'd do it all the same. She'd hurt them worse than they hurt her.
For the moment, Ashley as Ashley was forgotten. He was not the tall drowsy boy she loved but part and parcel of the Wilkeses, Twelve Oaks, the County -- and she hated them all because they laughed. Vanity was stronger than love at sixteen and there was no room in her hot heart now for anything but hate.
"I won't go home," she thought. "I'll stay here and I'll make them sorry. And I'll never tell Mother. No, I'll never tell anybody." She braced herself to go back into the house, to reclimb the stairs and go into another bedroom.
As she turned, she saw Charles coming into the house from the other end of the long hall. When he saw her, he hurried toward her. His hair was tousled and his face near geranium with excitement.
"Do you know what's happened?" he cried, even before he reached her. "Have you heard? Paul Wilson just rode over from Jonesboro with the news!"
He paused, breathless, as he came up to her. She said nothing and only stared at him.
"Mr. Lincoln has called for men, soldiers -- I mean volunteers -- seventy-five thousand of them!"
Mr. Lincoln again! Didn't men ever think about anything that really mattered? Here was this fool expecting her to be excited about Mr. Lincoln's di-does when her heart was broken and her reputation as good as ruined.
Charles stared at her. Her face was paper white and her narrow eyes blazing like emeralds. He had never seen such fire in any girl's face, such a glow in anyone's eyes.
"I'm so clumsy," he said. "I should have told you more gently. I forgot how delicate ladies are. I'm sorry I've upset you so. You don't feel faint, do you? Can I get you a glass of water?"
"No," she said, and managed a crooked smile.
"Shall we go sit on the bench?" he asked, taking her arm.
She nodded and he carefully handed her down the front steps and led her across the grass to the iron bench beneath the largest oak in the front yard. How fragile and tender women are, he thought, the mere mention of war and harshness makes them faint. The idea made him feel very masculine and he was doubly gentle as he seated her.
She looked so strangely, and there was a wild beauty about her white face that set his heart leaping. Could it be that she was distressed by the thought that he might go to the war? No, that was too conceited for belief. But why did she look at him so oddly? And why did her hands shake as they fingered her lace handkerchief? And her thick sooty lashes -- they were fluttering just like the eyes of girls in romances he had read, fluttering with timidity and love.
He cleared his throat three times to speak and failed each time. He dropped his eyes because her own green ones met his so piercingly, almost as if she were not seeing him.
"He has a lot of money," she was thinking swiftly, as a thought and a plan went through her brain. "And he hasn't any parents to bother me and he lives in Atlanta. And if I married him right away, it would show Ashley that I didn't care a rap -- that I was only flirting with him. And it would just kill Honey. She'd never, never catch another beau and everybody'd laugh fit to die at her. And it would hurt Melanie, because she loves Charles so much. And it would hurt Stu and Brent--" She didn't quite know why she wanted to hurt them, except that they had catty sisters.
"And they'd all be sorry when I came back here to visit in a fine carriage and with lots of pretty clothes and a house of my own. And they would never, never laugh at me."
"Of course, it will mean fighting," said Charles, after several more embarrassed attempts. "But don't you fret, Miss Scarlett, it'll be over in a month and we'll have them howling. Yes, sir! Howling! I wouldn't miss it for anything. I'm afraid there won't be much of a ball tonight, because the Troop is going to meet at Jonesboro. The Tarleton boys have gone to spread the news. I know the ladies will be sorry."
She said, "Oh," for want of anything better, but it sufficed.
Coolness was beginning to come back to her and her mind was collecting itself. A frost lay over all her emotions and she thought that she would never feel anything warmly again. Why not take this pretty, flushed boy? He was as good as anyone else and she didn't care. No, she could never care about anything again, not if she lived to be ninety.
"I can't decide now whether to go with Mr. Wade Hampton's South Carolina Legion or with the Atlanta Gate City Guard."
She said, "Oh," again and their eyes met and the fluttering lashes were his undoing.
"Will you wait for me, Miss Scarlett? It -- it would be Heaven just knowing that you were waiting for me until after we licked them!" He hung breathless on her words, watching the way her lips curled up at the corners, noting for the first time the shadows about these corners and thinking what it would mean to kiss them. Her hand, with palm clammy with perspiration, slid into his.
"I wouldn't want to wait," she said and her eyes were veiled.
He sat clutching her hand, his mouth wide open....
"Can you possibly love me?"
She said nothing but looked down into her lap, and Charles was thrown into new states of ecstasy and embarrassment. Perhaps a man should not ask a girl such a question. Perhaps it would be unmaidenly for her to answer it. Having never possessed the courage to get himself into such a situation before, Charles was at a loss as to how to act.
He wanted to shout and to sing and to kiss her and to caper about the lawn and then run tell everyone, black and white, that she loved him. But he only squeezed her hand until he drove her rings into the flesh.
"You will marry me soon, Miss Scarlett?"
-30-
Rereading Gone With The Wind, one of the main points of the story is to illustrate the horrific waste that is war.
Some scenes from the movie are on You Tube: when you watch them, there are interesting Comments:
------------------ Jack Green
Beautiful film. Absolutely beautiful. It has an atmosphere that stays with you.
------------------ Lucille Badger
I agree. I'm worn out by the time the movie ends!
_______________________________
-30-
[excerpts, Gone With The Wind] -----------------
CHAPTER 29
The following April General Johnston, who had been given back the shattered remnants of his old command, surrendered them in North Carolina and the war was over. But not until two weeks later did the news reach Tara. There was too much to do at Tara for anyone to waste time traveling abroad and hearing gossip and, as the neighbors were just as busy as they, there was little visiting and news spread slowly....
CHAPTER 30
In that warm summer after peace came, Tara suddenly lost its isolation. And for months thereafter a stream of scarecrows, bearded, ragged, footsore and always hungry, toiled up the red hill to Tara and came to rest on the shady front steps, wanting food and a night's lodging. They were Confederate soldiers walking home.
The railroad had carried the remains of Johnston's army from North Carolina to Atlanta and dumped them there, and from Atlanta they began their pilgrimages afoot.
When the wave of Johnston's men had passed, the weary veterans from the Army of Virginia arrived and then men from the Western troops, beating their way south toward homes which might not exist and families which might be scattered or dead.
Most of them were walking, a few fortunate ones rode bony horses and mules which the terms of the surrender had permitted them to keep, gaunt animals which even an untrained eye could tell would never reach far-away Florida and south Georgia.
Going home! Going home! That was the only thought in the soldiers' minds. Some were sad and silent, others gay and contemptuous of hardships, but the thought that it was all over and they were going home was the one thing that sustained them. Few of them were bitter. They left bitterness to their women and their old people. They had fought a good fight, had been licked and were willing to settle down peaceably to plowing beneath the flag they had fought.
Going home! Going home! They could talk of nothing else, neither battles nor wounds, nor imprisonment nor the future. Later, they would refight battles and tell children and grandchildren of pranks and forays and charges, of hunger, forced marches and wounds, but not now.
Some of them lacked an arm or a leg or an eye, many had scars which would ache in rainy weather if they lived for seventy years but these seemed small matters now. Later it would be different....
...When the soldiers were too ill to go on, and there were many such, Scarlett put them to bed with none too good grace.
Each sick man meant another mouth to feed.
Someone had to nurse him and that meant one less worker at the business of fence building, hoeing, weeding and plowing.
One boy, on whose face a blond fuzz had just begun to sprout, was dumped on the front porch by a mounted soldier bound for Fayetteville. He had found him unconscious by the roadside and had brought him, across his saddle, to Tara, the nearest house.
The girls though he must be one of the little cadets who had been called out of military school when Sherman approached Milledgeville but they never knew, for he died without regaining consciousness and a search of his pockets yielded no information.
-30-
---------------------- [excerpt, Gone With The Wind] -----------------------------------
CHAPTER 18
For the first time since the war began, Atlanta could hear the sound of battle. In the early morning hours before the noises of the town awoke, the cannon at Kennesaw Mountain could be heard faintly, far away, a low dim booming that might have passed for summer thunder.
Occasionally it was loud enough to be heard even above the rattle of traffic at noon.
People tried not to listen to it, tried to talk, to laugh, to carry on their business, just as though the Yankees were not there, twenty-two miles away, but always ears were strained for the sound.
The town wore a preoccupied look, for no matter what occupied their hands, all were listening, listening, their hearts leaping suddenly a hundred times a day. Was the booming louder? Or did they only think it was louder?
Would General Johnston hold them this time?
Would he?
Panic lay just beneath the surface....
-30-
------------- [excerpt / Gone With The Wind] ------------------
"Gentlemen, if you wish to lead a reel with the lady of your choice, you must bargain for her. I will be auctioneer and the proceeds will go to the hospital."
Fans stopped in mid-swish and a ripple of excited murmuring ran through the hall. The chaperons' corner was in tumult and Mrs. Meade, anxious to support her husband in an action of which she heartily disapproved, was at a disadvantage.
Mrs. Elsing, Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Whiting were red with indignation. But suddenly the Home Guard gave a cheer and it was taken up by the other uniformed guests. The young girls clapped their hands and jumped excitedly.
"Don't you think it's -- it's just -- just a little like a slave auction?" whispered Melanie, staring uncertainly at the embattled doctor who heretofore had been perfect in her eyes.
Scarlett said nothing but her eyes glittered and her heart contracted with a little pain. If only she were not a widow. If only she were Scarlett O'Hara again, out there on the floor in an apple-green dress with dark-green velvet ribbons dangling from her bosom and tuberoses in her black hair -- she'd lead that reel. Yes, indeed! There'd be a dozen men battling for her and paying over money to the doctor. Oh, to have to sit here, a wallflower against her will and see Fanny or Maybelle lead the first reel as the belle of Atlanta!
...Now, they would all dance -- except her and the old ladies. Now everyone would have a good time, except her. She saw Rhett Butler standing just below the doctor and, before she could change the expression of her face, he saw her and one corner of his mouth went down and one eyebrow went up. She jerked her chin up and turned away from him and suddenly she heard her own name called -- called in an unmistakable Charleston voice that rang out above the hubbub of other names.
"Mrs. Charles Hamilton -- one hundred and fifty dollars -- in gold."
A sudden hush fell on the crowd both at the mention of the sum and at the name. Scarlett was so startled she could not even move. She remained sitting with her chin in her hands, her eyes wide with astonishment. Everybody turned to look at her. She saw the doctor lean down from the platform and whisper something to Rhett Butler. Probably telling him she was in mourning and it was impossible for her to appear on the floor. She saw Rhett's shoulders shrug lazily.
"Another one of our belles, perhaps?" questioned the doctor.
"No," said Rhett clearly, his eyes sweeping the crowd carelessly. "Mrs. Hamilton."
"I tell you it is impossible," said the doctor testily. "Mrs. Hamilton will not--"
Scarlett heard a voice which, at first, she did not recognize as her own.
"Yes, I will!"
She leaped to her feet, her heart hammering so wildly she feared she could not stand, hammering with the thrill of being the center of attention again, of being the most highly desired girl present and oh, best of all, at the prospect of dancing again.
"Oh, I don't care! I don't care what they say!" she whispered, as a sweet madness swept over her. She tossed her head and sped out of the booth, tapping her heels like castanets, snapping open her black silk fan to its widest.
-30-
