3
Even after the new addition to the Button family had had his hair cutshort and then dyed to a sparse unnatural black, had had his faceshaved so dose that it glistened, and had been attired in small-boyclothes made to order by a flabbergasted tailor, it was impossible forButton to ignore the fact that his son was a excuse for a first familybaby. Despite his aged stoop, Benjamin Button--for it was by this namethey called him instead of by the appropriate but invidiousMethuselah--was five feet eight inches tall. His clothes did notconceal this, nor did the clipping and dyeing of his eyebrows disguisethe fact that the eyes under--were faded and watery and tired. Infact, the baby-nurse who had been engaged in advance left the houseafter one look, in a state of considerable indignation.
But Mr. Button persisted in his unwavering purpose. Benjamin was ababy, and a baby he should remain. At first he declared that ifBenjamin didn't like warm milk he could go without food altogether,but he was finally prevailed upon to allow his son bread and butter,and even oatmeal by way of a compromise. One day he brought home arattle and, giving it to Benjamin, insisted in no uncertain terms thathe should "play with it," whereupon the old man took it with--a wearyexpression and could be heard jingling it obediently at intervalsthroughout the day.
There can be no doubt, though, that the rattle bored him, and that hefound other and more soothing amusements when he was left alone. Forinstance, Mr. Button discovered one day that during the preceding weekbe had smoked more cigars than ever before--a phenomenon, which wasexplained a few days later when, entering the nursery unexpectedly, hefound the room full of faint blue haze and Benjamin, with a guiltyexpression on his face, trying to conceal the butt of a dark Havana.This, of course, called for a severe spanking, but Mr. Button foundthat he could not bring himself to administer it. He merely warned hisson that he would "stunt his growth."
Nevertheless he persisted in his attitude. He brought home leadsoldiers, he brought toy trains, he brought large pleasant animalsmade of cotton, and, to perfect the illusion which he wascreating--for himself at least--he passionately demanded of the clerkin the toy-store whether "the paint would come oft the pink duck ifthe baby put it in his mouth." But, despite all his father's efforts,Benjamin refused to be interested. He would steal down the back stairsand return to the nursery with a volume of the EncyclopediaBritannica, over which he would pore through an afternoon, while hiscotton cows and his Noah's ark were left neglected on the floor.Against such a stubbornness Mr. Button's efforts were of little avail.
The sensation created in Baltimore was, at first, prodigious. What themishap would have cost the Buttons and their kinsfolk socially cannotbe determined, for the outbreak of the Civil War drew the city'sattention to other things. A few people who were unfailingly politeracked their brains for compliments to give to the parents--andfinally hit upon the ingenious device of declaring that the babyresembled his grandfather, a fact which, due to the standard state ofdecay common to all men of seventy, could not be denied. Mr. and Mrs.Roger Button were not pleased, and Benjamin's grandfather wasfuriously insulted.
Benjamin, once he left the hospital, took life as he found it. Severalsmall boys were brought to see him, and he spent a stiff-jointedafternoon trying to work up an interest in tops and marbles--he evenmanaged, quite accidentally, to break a kitchen window with a stonefrom a sling shot, a feat which secretly delighted his father.
Thereafter Benjamin contrived to break something every day, but he didthese things only because they were expected of him, and because hewas by nature obliging.
When his grandfather's initial antagonism wore off, Benjamin and thatgentleman took enormous pleasure in one another's company. They wouldsit for hours, these two, so far apart in age and experience, and,like old cronies, discuss with tireless monotony the slow events ofthe day. Benjamin felt more at ease in his grandfather's presence thanin his parents'--they seemed always somewhat in awe of him and,despite the dictatorial authority they exercised over him, frequentlyaddressed him as "Mr."
He was as puzzled as any one else at the apparently advanced age ofhis mind and body at birth. He read up on it in the medical journal,but found that no such case had been previously recorded. At hisfather's urging he made an honest attempt to play with other boys, andfrequently he joined in the milder games--football shook him up toomuch, and he feared that in case of a fracture his ancient bones wouldrefuse to knit.
When he was five he was sent to kindergarten, where he initiated intothe art of pasting green paper on orange paper, of weaving colouredmaps and manufacturing eternal cardboard necklaces. He was inclined todrowse off to sleep in the middle of these tasks, a habit which bothirritated and frightened his young teacher. To his relief shecomplained to his parents, and he was removed from the school. TheRoger Buttons told their friends that they felt he was too young.
By the time he was twelve years old his parents had grown used to him.Indeed, so strong is the force of custom that they no longer felt thathe was different from any other child--except when some curiousanomaly reminded them of the fact. But one day a few weeks after histwelfth birthday, while looking in the mirror, Benjamin made, orthought he made, an astonishing discovery. Did his eyes deceive him,or had his hair turned in the dozen years of his life from white toiron-gray under its concealing dye? Was the network of wrinkles on hisface becoming less pronounced? Was his skin healthier and firmer, witheven a touch of ruddy winter colour? He could not tell. He knew thathe no longer stooped, and that his physical condition had improvedsince the early days of his life.
"Can it be----?" he thought to himself, or, rather, scarcely dared tothink.
He went to his father. "I am grown," he announced determinedly. "Iwant to put on long trousers."
His father hesitated. "Well," he said finally, "I don't know. Fourteenis the age for putting on long trousers--and you are only twelve."
"But you'll have to admit," protested Benjamin, "that I'm big for myage."
His father looked at him with illusory speculation. "Oh, I'm not sosure of that," he said. "I was as big as you when I was twelve."
This was not true-it was all part of Roger Button's silent agreementwith himself to believe in his son's normality.
Finally a compromise was reached. Benjamin was to continue to dye hishair. He was to make a better attempt to play with boys of his ownage. He was not to wear his spectacles or carry a cane in the street.In return for these concessions he was allowed his first suit of longtrousers....
4
Of the life of Benjamin Button between his twelfth and twenty-firstyear I intend to say little. Suffice to record that they were years ofnormal ungrowth. When Benjamin was eighteen he was erect as a man offifty; he had more hair and it was of a dark gray; his step was firm,his voice had lost its cracked quaver and descended to a healthybaritone. So his father sent him up to Connecticut to takeexaminations for entrance to Yale College. Benjamin passed hisexamination and became a member of the freshman class.
On the third day following his matriculation he received anotification from Mr. Hart, the college registrar, to call at hisoffice and arrange his schedule. Benjamin, glancing in the mirror,decided that his hair needed a new application of its brown dye, butan anxious inspection of his bureau drawer disclosed that the dyebottle was not there. Then he remembered--he had emptied it the daybefore and thrown it away.
He was in a dilemma. He was due at the registrar's in five minutes.There seemed to be no help for it--he must go as he was. He did.
"Good-morning," said the registrar politely. "You've come to inquireabout your son."
"Why, as a matter of fact, my name's Button----" began Benjamin, butMr. Hart cut him off.
"I'm very glad to meet you, Mr. Button. I'm expecting your son hereany minute."
"That's me!" burst out Benjamin. "I'm a freshman."
"What!"
"I'm a freshman."
"Surely you're joking."
"Not at all."
The registrar frowned and glanced at a card before him. "Why, I haveMr. Benjamin Button's age down here as eighteen."
"That's my age," asserted Benjamin, flushing slightly.
The registrar eyed him wearily. "Now surely, Mr. Button, you don'texpect me to believe that."
Benjamin smiled wearily. "I am eighteen," he repeated.
The registrar pointed sternly to the door. "Get out," he said. "Getout of college and get out of town. You are a dangerous lunatic."
"I am eighteen."
Mr. Hart opened the door. "The idea!" he shouted. "A man of your agetrying to enter here as a freshman. Eighteen years old, are you? Well,I'll give you eighteen minutes to get out of town."
Benjamin Button walked with dignity from the room, and half a dozenundergraduates, who were waiting in the hall, followed him curiouslywith their eyes. When he had gone a little way he turned around, facedthe infuriated registrar, who was still standing in the door-way, andrepeated in a firm voice: "I am eighteen years old."
To a chorus of titters which went up from the group of undergraduates,Benjamin walked away.
But he was not fated to escape so easily. On his melancholy walk tothe railroad station he found that he was being followed by a group,then by a swarm, and finally by a dense mass of undergraduates. Theword had gone around that a lunatic had passed the entranceexaminations for Yale and attempted to palm himself off as a youth ofeighteen. A fever of excitement permeated the college. Men ran hatlessout of classes, the football team abandoned its practice and joinedthe mob, professors' wives with bonnets awry and bustles out ofposition, ran shouting after the procession, from which proceeded acontinual succession of remarks aimed at the tender sensibilities ofBenjamin Button.
"He must be the wandering Jew!"
"He ought to go to prep school at his age!"
"Look at the infant prodigy!" "He thought this was the old men'shome."
"Go up to Harvard!"
Benjamin increased his gait, and soon he was running. He would showthem! He _would_ go to Harvard, and then they would regret theseill-considered taunts!
Safely on board the train for Baltimore, he put his head from thewindow. "You'll regret this!" he shouted.
"Ha-ha!" the undergraduates laughed. "Ha-ha-ha!" It was the biggestmistake that Yale College had ever made....
5
In 1880 Benjamin Button was twenty years old, and he signalised hisbirthday by going to work for his father in Roger Button & Co.,Wholesale Hardware. It was in that same year that he began "going outsocially"--that is, his father insisted on taking him to severalfashionable dances. Roger Button was now fifty, and he and his sonwere more and more companionable--in fact, since Benjamin had ceasedto dye his hair (which was still grayish) they appeared about the sameage, and could have passed for brothers.
One night in August they got into the phaeton attired in theirfull-dress suits and drove out to a dance at the Shevlins' countryhouse, situated just outside of Baltimore. It was a gorgeous evening.A full moon drenched the road to the lustreless colour of platinum,and late-blooming harvest flowers breathed into the motionless airaromas that were like low, half-heard laughter. The open country,carpeted for rods around with bright wheat, was translucent as in theday. It was almost impossible not to be affected by the sheer beautyof the sky--almost.
"There's a great future in the dry-goods business," Roger Button wassaying. He was not a spiritual man--his aesthetic sense wasrudimentary.
"Old fellows like me can't learn new tricks," he observed profoundly."It's you youngsters with energy and vitality that have the greatfuture before you."
Far up the road the lights of the Shevlins' country house drifted intoview, and presently there was a sighing sound that crept persistentlytoward them--it might have been the fine plaint of violins or therustle of the silver wheat under the moon.
They pulled up behind a handsome brougham whose passengers weredisembarking at the door. A lady got out, then an elderly gentleman,then another young lady, beautiful as sin. Benjamin started; an almostchemical change seemed to dissolve and recompose the very elements ofhis body. A rigour passed over him, blood rose into his cheeks, hisforehead, and there was a steady thumping in his ears. It was firstlove.
The girl was slender and frail, with hair that was ashen under themoon and honey-coloured under the sputtering gas-lamps of the porch.Over her shoulders was thrown a Spanish mantilla of softest yellow,butterflied in black; her feet were glittering buttons at the hem ofher bustled dress.
Roger Button leaned over to his son. "That," he said, "is youngHildegarde Moncrief, the daughter of General Moncrief."
Benjamin nodded coldly. "Pretty little thing," he said indifferently.But when the negro boy had led the buggy away, he added: "Dad, youmight introduce me to her."
They approached a group, of which Miss Moncrief was the centre. Rearedin the old tradition, she curtsied low before Benjamin. Yes, he mighthave a dance. He thanked her and walked away--staggered away.
The interval until the time for his turn should arrive dragged itselfout interminably. He stood close to the wall, silent, inscrutable,watching with murderous eyes the young bloods of Baltimore as theyeddied around Hildegarde Moncrief, passionate admiration in theirfaces. How obnoxious they seemed to Benjamin; how intolerably rosy!Their curling brown whiskers aroused in him a feeling equivalent toindigestion.
But when his own time came, and he drifted with her out upon thechanging floor to the music of the latest waltz from Paris, hisjealousies and anxieties melted from him like a mantle of snow. Blindwith enchantment, he felt that life was just beginning.
"You and your brother got here just as we did, didn't you?" askedHildegarde, looking up at him with eyes that were like bright blueenamel.
Benjamin hesitated. If she took him for his father's brother, would itbe best to enlighten her? He remembered his experience at Yale, so hedecided against it. It would be rude to contradict a lady; it would becriminal to mar this exquisite occasion with the grotesque story ofhis origin. Later, perhaps. So he nodded, smiled, listened, was happy.
