orcelain and Pink" is an artifact of the very early
F. Scott Fitzgerald, an innocently risqué caper in the form
of a playlet which captures the joie de vivre of the 1920s
in the person of Julie, a young girl immersed in the waters
of a blue bathtub. We hear her, first, talking to her sister
Lois—Julie's spitting image but more sedate. They are
discussing the imminent arrival of Lois' date, "that literary
Mr. Calkins," recently divorced. Lois, waiting to use the
bathtub, scolds Julie for running into the bathroom sans
kimono. Finally Lois leaves and Julie hears a banging on
the pipes. A young man's face appears at the window—he
cannot see Julie but only hears her, mistaking her for Lois-
-and so begins a flirtatious colloquy on subjects ranging
from the heroine's attire to her taste in literature, which
reveals hilarious misapprehensions as to authorship.
The entire story is a quirky meditation on mistaken identity—
Julie's and Lois'—but perhaps more pointedly on Julie's
erroneous literary attributions. She mistakes O. Henry for
Oscar Wilde, Sir Walter Scott for James Fenimore Cooper.
In any case, Mr. Calkins is smitten, declaring his love for
Julie/Lois. I will leave the amusing denouement to the reader
of this charming tale, a piquant evocation of the blithe spirit
of the Roaring Twenties and its changing mores.
"P
Introduction
HYLAND
