"The Swimmers"

from: The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli (Scribners, 1989) Pages 495-512

As you can see, "The Swimmers" was published in the Saturday Evening Post (19 October, 1929). F. Scott told his agent that it was "the hardest story I ever wrote, too big for its space..."

So we begin in Paris with Henry Marston coming home early from work and discovering that his French wife, Choupette, has a male visitor. Uh Oh.

"...for the first time in his life he heard silence--a loud, singing silence, oppressive as heavy guns or thunder."

He collapses and is attended to by a physician--spends four weeks in a state of emotional distress and then decides he is going to continue on with his married life (they do have two boys, by the way)--AFTER a trip to the shores of St. Jean de Luz.

We find out that Henry is originally from Virginia and despite NOT being able to swim, decides to dive into the ocean to save an American girl whom his wife didn't like the look of:

"In her grace, at once exquisite and hardy, she was that perfect type of American girl that makes one wonder of the male is not being sacrificed to it..."

To show her gratitude for his attempt (he ends up having to be rescued) she offers to teach him and his two boys to swim--and in an interesting move, she remains UNNAMED throughout the story:

"Looking for a last time into her eyes, full of cool secrets, he realized how much he was going to miss these mornings, without knowing whether is was the girl who interested him or what she represented of his ever-new, ever-changing country."

There is a move back to Virginia, swimming, a divorce, a blackmail attempt, more swimming and the drinking of a gin fizz--before it is all said and done:

"The burden of his wretched marriage fell away with the bouyant tumble of his body among the swells, and he would begin to move in a child's dream space."

F. Scott has such a beautiful way of writing the words into feelings. You can FEEL them, sense them...and it always seems so effortless. Like he didn't TRY to make YOU feel this way, he didn't stumble over words or phrasing--I see the words floating off his pen in neat little lines.

By the way, this one is divided into four sections--unlike the first two I read. It is my favorite after "The Bridal Party," pushing "One Trip Abroad" down to number #3.

~~J