The Beautiful and Damned: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Dick Caramel has always wanted to be a writer, but after college he was caught in the fad of working for charity or “service.” He spent about a year working with immigrants before becoming bored and starting a journalism career. About a year into this second career, he was fired and began working on his novel, The Demon Lover.

In January 1914, Dick’s book is nearly complete and is the subject of most of his social interactions. It follows him like a shadow and has turned his nose a blue color that is “suggestive of the flames licking around a sinner.” One of his literary confidantes is Mrs. Gilbert, who tells him one day that her palmist sees great things in store for him, despite never having heard his name. Uncomfortable discussing himself, Dick changes the subject to Gloria and his opinion that Anthony is smitten with her. He thinks she ought to marry him and have done with it, because the caliber of men she has been hanging around has been decreasing.

Mrs. Gilbert reflects that Gloria used to surround herself with undergraduate men until one day she suddenly announced she had grown tired of them. While she used to cultivate a reputation as the most sought-after young woman in Kansas City, she no longer seems to care about her reputation and has grown “cold.” Dick listens, reflecting that while he used to be interested in Gloria as the subject of a journalistic endeavor, he now finds himself interested in her on a familial level. Just as he begins to wonder why Gloria has been spending time with Joseph Bloeckman, Muriel Kane, and Rachael Jerryl, the door opens, and Gloria walks in with the latter two.

Dick notices Gloria’s two friends with what he thinks of as the novelist’s eye. Muriel Kane hovers between “plumpness and width” and is too fashionable, overly aware of style but not manners. Rachael Jerryl, meanwhile, is older and more reserved. Dick pegs her as a “Jewess” and notices that she seems to follow or copy Gloria’s every move. Gloria sucks on a gumdrop and largely ignores the group as they get to know one another, and Mrs. Gilbert describes Dick as an Ancient Soul. Gloria finally intervenes to invite everyone to a party, at which she promises to introduce Dick to Joseph Bloeckman.

On Monday, Anthony takes a girl named Geraldine, who works as an usher, to lunch. He doesn’t think much of her but prefers her to women of his own class because she does not expect him to marry her. In response to Geraldine’s questions about his heavy drinking and relation to millionaire Adam Patch, Anthony says that he does not intend to live to forty anyway and that, even if everyone wants to marry him because of his wealthy grandfather, he never intends to marry either.

Geraldine tells Anthony she is sure he will one day fall in love. Anthony tells her the story of his fictional character Le Chevalier O’Keefe, who fell to his death from a tower as he attempted to visit a maiden. Unimpressed, Geraldine bets Anthony he will be married within a year. Anthony protests that in addition to his distaste in marriage, such a plan is impractical for financial reasons. After Geraldine leaves, he feels intensely lonely and throws a tennis ball across the room in frustration.

The party to which Gloria invited Dick and her friends takes place at the Biltmore. Before Gloria, Muriel, or Rachael arrive, Joseph Bloeckman commands the attention of the room. At 35, he is socially disconnected from Anthony, Dick, and Maury. Anthony scoffs internally when Bloeckman attempts to bond with him, first over knowledge of Anthony’s grandfather and second over Harvard-Princeton sports rivalries. Anthony finds both conversation topics boring. When the girls finally arrive, Gloria and Rachael disappear into the dressing room while Muriel takes over as the center of attention. Bloeckman recaptures Dick’s attention by mentioning his work in the film industry and the adaptation of novels for the screen.

As soon as Gloria and Rachael reemerge, everyone begins dancing except for Bloeckman, who sits at a table and hopes for Gloria to rejoin him “on his left hand” while the oysters are still fresh. Meanwhile, Anthony is dancing “on Gloria’s left hand.” He compliments her beauty and says he approves of her as a priest approves of the Pope. Gloria comments on the vagueness of the compliment, then redirects Anthony’s attention to Muriel, who is leaning on Maury, swaying, and singing.

When the song is over, everyone returns to the table. Gloria complains that “Blockhead” never dances. She frequently puns on Bloeckman’s name like this. Muriel comments that he must think the rest of them a frivolous crowd. Bloeckman responds by stating abruptly, “When a man speaks he’s merely tradition. He has at best a few thousand years back of him. But woman, why, she is the miraculous mouthpiece of posterity.” Everyone attempts not to laugh, and Anthony shouts that Bloeckman must have memorized a subtitle from one of his movies. Gloria stares at Bloeckman in silent reproach until he resumes the air of a middle-aged man among youths.

Everyone falls to eating soup and listening to the orchestra. All but Richard and Rachael drink champagne, and all but Gloria and Bloeckman dance. Anthony watches Gloria as she listens to Bloeckman and watches the dancers. He wonders what Bloeckman is saying to her.

At ten, Gloria dances with Anthony out of earshot of the others and tells him she wants to go to the drugstore. She needs gum drops so she will stop nervously biting her fingernails. They leave the party and find a drugstore, where Gloria looks at the perfume counter and finally buys her gum drops. Anthony suggests riding around in a cab. Once in the cab, Anthony kisses Gloria. She remains silent as Anthony contemplates her beauty. The narrator writes, “Her eyes appeared to regard him out of many thousand years: all emotion she might have felt, all words she might have uttered, would have seemed inadequate beside the adequacy of her silence, ineloquent against the eloquence of her beauty…” When Gloria finally speaks, it is to tell Anthony to have the cab take them back to the party.

Back in the supper room, Muriel asks Gloria where she has been. Gloria tells her she went to call her mother. Bloeckman, meanwhile, fixes Anthony with a strange glance. When Gloria goes by, Bloeckman rises and then resumes his conversation with Dick about literature’s influence on film. The narrator comments that Anthony will reflect on this moment many years later.

In the morning, Anthony sits in his apartment and reflects on his kiss with Gloria. She strikes him as different from other women in that she has not “submitted to any will of his nor caressed his vanity.” He decides they will be able to separate their reality from the game of entanglement, and so he calls her at the Plaza Hotel. He is affronted to find that Gloria is out. He worries that he is at a disadvantage for expressing interest first and that he will seem like the other men who chase her.

The narrator interjects that it does not occur to Anthony that it isn’t Gloria influencing him but rather some omnipotent photographer taking snapshots of Gloria who is using Anthony as the sensitive plate. Anthony imagines Gloria moving through her day and decides that he must kiss her again. He goes to Dick’s reading of his novel but resumes calling Gloria at six in the evening. When he finally reaches her at eight, he finds, “climax of anticlimaxes!” that she is unavailable until Tuesday.

Tuesday is freezing cold. Anthony meets Gloria at the Plaza and wonders whether he dreamed their kiss. He asks if they can go somewhere alone, not at a tea table. She says yes, but not today. Today she wants to walk. Once on the walk, they are both distracted by the cold and barely talk. Finally, Gloria tells Anthony she would rather go home. She comments on his self-absorption, and Anthony tries not to express his annoyance. 

Back at the Plaza, Gloria insists that Anthony come upstairs. He at first despises himself for letting her take control this way, but he soon talks himself into “sophistic satisfaction” by reflecting that he had wanted to come up in the first place and only refused out of propriety. Anthony inquires about Bloeckman and whether he is in love with Gloria. Gloria tells Anthony that Bloeckman doesn’t like him either. She also admits that she told Bloeckman where she actually went during the dinner party. Anthony tries to disguise his jealousy by turning the conversation into one in which they reveal parts of their pasts to one another.

The narrator interjects that the growth of intimacy is like the creation of a painting with more and more details until it is impossible to conceal the flaws to sell an ideal image. “We must be satisfied,” the narrator writes, “with hoping that such fatuous accounts of ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates are accepted as true.”

Anthony tells Gloria of his difficulty in finding a suitable career, and Gloria expresses disinterest in what he or anyone else does. Just as Anthony thinks he hates her, she looks at him, and the hate vanishes. He begins alternately kissing her and begging her to ask him to leave so he does not fall in love. Suddenly, she does ask him to leave. After his departure, Gloria stares into the fire and says, “Good-by, you ass!” Later, Anthony is unsure whether or not Gloria enjoyed the kisses.

Anthony is overtaken with panic at the realization that he is “not so much in love with Gloria as mad for her.” He wants her all the more for her rejection of him. He wanders aimlessly through the streets, thoughts of Gloria distracting him even from dealing with his hunger. He revels in the intense jealousy that makes him want to kill Bloeckman, taking it as a sign that he is finally in love.

After another day, Anthony has calmed down and decides to devise a plan to deal with his love for Gloria and her rejection of him. Memory is short, he decides, so if he waits six weeks before calling her again, they should be able to start fresh. He begins the six-week hiatus by falling asleep. As the six weeks roll on, Dick’s manuscript is accepted for publication. Anthony feels a growing distance between himself and his friends. He feels that he wants only what Gloria can give him.

Anthony tries to pass the time with Geraldine the usher, who lets him kiss her as much as he wants. However, he is driven to the brink of madness again by two incidents: one in which he sees Gloria walking with a strange man, and one in which he runs into Joseph Bloeckman waiting for Gloria in a restaurant. In the fifth week, Anthony gives in and calls Gloria. When Mrs. Gilbert answers, he refuses to identify himself.

The first thing Anthony says to Gloria when he finally sees her is that she bobbed her hair. The narrator interjects to note that the style will not be fashionable for another five or six years. The pair walks through the Zoo and around the city, talking little but enjoying the sights and the warmer weather. Gloria tells Anthony that she wants to escape south to Hot Springs, where a million robins sing. Anthony says that all women are birds and that Gloria is a sparrow, and sometimes a bird of paradise. Anthony is flattered to hear Gloria say he is a Russian wolfhound. They decide to spend a whole day together next Sunday.

On Sunday, Anthony and Gloria spend the day on his lounge. He tells her that he loves her, and she says she is glad. In the morning, after a night of reflection on their day together, Anthony calls Gloria and in “a sheer cry, a rhapsody,” tells her again that he loves her. Again, she says she is glad. “Handsome then if never before, bound for one of those immortal moments which come so radiantly that their remembered light is enough to see by for years,” Anthony goes the Plaza and knocks on Gloria’s door. She answers in a pink dress, “starched and fresh as a flower,” and they embrace.