Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (274 page)

In
addition,
Benjamin
discovered
that
he
was
becoming
more
and more
attracted
by
the
gay
side
of
life.
It
was
typical
of
his
growing enthusiasm
for
pleasure
that
he
was
the
first
man
in
the
city
of
Baltimore
to
own
and
run
an
automobile.
Meeting
him
on
the
street,
his contemporaries
would
stare
enviously
at
the
picture
he
made
of health
and
vitality.

"He
seems
to
grow
younger
every
year,"
they
would
remark.
And if
old
Roger
Button,
now
sixty-five
years
old,
had
failed
at
first
to
give a
proper
welcome
to
his
son
he
atoned
at
last
by
bestowing
on
him what
amounted
to
adulation.

And
here
we
come
to
an
unpleasant
subject
which
it
will
be
well to
pass
over
as
quickly
as
possible.
There
was
only
one
thing
that
worried
Benjamin
Button:
his
wife
had
ceased
to
attract
him.

At
that
time
Hildegarde
was
a
woman
of
thirty-five,
with
a
son, Roscoe,
fourteen
years
old.
In
the
early
days
of
their
marriage
Benjamin
had
worshiped
her.
But,
as
the
years
passed,
her
honey-colored hair
became
an
unexciting
brown,
the
blue
enamel
of
her
eyes
assumed
the
aspect
of
cheap
crockery—moreover,
and
most
of
all,
she had
become
too
settled
in
her
ways,
too
placid,
too
content,
too anemic
in
her
excitements,
and
too
sober
in
her
taste.
As
a
bride
it had
been
she
who
had
"dragged"
Benjamin
to
dances
and
dinners— now
conditions
were
reversed.
She
went
out
socially
with
him,
but without
enthusiasm,
devoured
already
by
that
eternal
inertia
which comes
to
live
with
each
of
us
one
day
and
stays
with
us
to
the
end.

Benjamin's
discontent
waxed
stronger.
At
the
outbreak
of
the Spanish-American
War
in
1898
his
home
had
for
him
so
little
charm that
he
decided
to
join
the
army.
With
his
business
influence
he
obtained
a
commission
as
captain,
and
proved
so
adaptable
to
the
work that
he
was
made
a
major,
and
finally
a
lieutenant-colonel
just
in
time to
participate
in
the
celebrated
chaTge
up
San
Juan
Hill.
He
was slightly
wounded,
and
received
a
medal.

Benjamin
had
become
so
attached
to
the
activity
and
excitement of
army
life
that
he
regretted
to
give
it
up,
but
his
business
required attention,
so
he
resigned
his
commission
and
came
home.
He
was
met at
the
station
by
a
brass
band
and
escorted
to
his
house.

8

Hildegarde,
waving
a
large
silk
flag,
greeted
him
on
the
porch,
and even
as
he
kissed
her
he
felt
with
a
sinking
of
the
heart
that
these three
years
had
taken
their
toll.
She
was
a
woman
of
forty
now,
with a
faint
skirmish
line
of
gray
hairs
in
her
head.
The
sight
depressed him.