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Dans-Prosemaxx-Cowriter

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[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with 4 sentences, emulating the writing style of George Orwell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he put his hand to the door-knob Winston saw that he had left the diary open on the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER was written all over it, in letters almost big enough to be legible across the room. It was an inconceivably stupid thing to have done. But, he realised, even in his panic he had not wanted to smudge the creamy paper by shutting the book while the ink was wet.\n\nHe drew in his breath and opened the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instantly a warm wave of relief flowed through him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A colourless, crushed-looking woman, with wispy hair and a lined face, was standing outside.\n\n\"Oh, comrade,\" she began in a dreary, whining sort of voice, \"I thought I heard you come in. Do you think you could come across and have a look at our kitchen sink. It's got blocked up and –\"\n\nIt was Mrs Parsons, the wife of a neighbour on the same floor. (\"Mrs\" was a word somewhat discountenanced by the Party – you were supposed to call everyone \"comrade\" – but with some women one used it instinctively.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was a woman of about thirty, but looking much older." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One had the impression that there was dust in the creases of her face. Winston followed her down the passage. These amateur repair jobs were an almost daily irritation. Victory Mansions were old flats, built in 1930 or thereabouts, and were falling to pieces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The plaster flaked constantly from ceilings and walls, the pipes burst in every hard frost, the roof leaked whenever there was snow, the heating system was usually running at half steam when it was not closed down altogether from motives of economy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Repairs, except what you could do for yourself, had to be sanctioned by remote committees which were liable to hold up even the mending of a window-pane for two years.\n\n\"Of course it's only because Tom isn't home,\" said Mrs Parsons vaguely.\n\nThe Parsons' flat was bigger than Winston's, and dingy in a different way. Everything had a battered, trampled-on look, as though the place had just been visited by some large violent animal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Games impedimenta – hockey sticks, boxing gloves, a burst football, a pair of sweaty shorts turned inside out – lay all over the floor, and on the table there was a litter of dirty dishes and dog-eared exercise-books." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the walls were scarlet banners of the Youth League and the Spies, and a full-sized poster of Big Brother. There was the usual boiled-cabbage smell, common to the whole building, but it was shot through by a sharper reek of sweat, which – one knew this at the first sniff, though it was hard to say how – was the sweat of some person not present at the moment. In another room someone with a comb and a piece of toilet paper was trying to keep tune with the military music which was still issuing from the telescreen.\n\n\"It's the children,\" said Mrs Parsons, casting a half-apprehensive glance at the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They haven't been out today. And of course –\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had a habit of breaking off her sentences in the middle. The kitchen sink was full nearly to the brim with filthy greenish water which smelt worse than ever of cabbage. Winston knelt down and examined the angle-joint of the pipe. He hated using his hands, and he hated bending down, which was always liable to start him coughing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs Parsons looked on helplessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course if Tom was home he'd put it right in a moment,\" she said. \"He loves anything like that. He's ever so good with his hands, Tom is.\"\n\nParsons was Winston's fellow-employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms – one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At thirty-five he had just been unwillingly evicted from the Youth League, and before graduating into the Youth League he had managed to stay on in the Spies for a year beyond the statutory age." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the Ministry he was employed in some subordinate post for which intelligence was not required, but on the other hand he was a leading figure on the Sports Committee and all the other committees engaged in organising community hikes, spontaneous demonstrations, savings campaigns and voluntary activities generally. He would inform you with quiet pride, between whiffs of his pipe, that he had put in an appearance at the Community Centre every evening for the past four years. An overpowering smell of sweat, a sort of unconscious testimony to the strenuousness of his life, followed him about wherever he went, and even remained behind him after he had gone.\n\n\"Have you got a spanner?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Winston, fiddling with the nut on the angle-joint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A spanner,\" said Mrs Parsons, immediately becoming invertebrate. \"I don't know, I'm sure. Perhaps the children –\"\n\nThere was a trampling of boots and another blast on the comb as the children charged into the living-room. Mrs Parsons brought the spanner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston let out the water and disgustedly removed the clot of human hair that had blocked up the pipe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He cleaned his fingers as best he could in the cold water from the tap and went back into the other room.\n\n\"Up with your hands!\" yelled a savage voice.\n\nA handsome, tough-looking boy of nine had popped up from behind the table and was menacing him with a toy automatic pistol, while his small sister, about two years younger, made the same gesture with a fragment of wood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both of them were dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirts and red neckerchiefs which were the uniform of the Spies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston raised his hands above his head, but with an uneasy feeling, so vicious was the boy's demeanour, that it was not altogether a game.\n\n\"You're a traitor!\" yelled the boy. \"You're a thought-criminal! You're a Eurasian spy! I'll shoot you, I'll vaporise you, I'll send you to the salt mines!\"\n\nSuddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting \"Traitor!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and \"Thought-criminal! \", the little girl imitating her brother in every movement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gambolling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters. There was a sort of calculating ferocity in the boy's eye, a quite evident desire to hit or kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big enough to do so. It was a good job it was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston thought.\n\nMrs Parsons's eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children, and back again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the better light of the living-room he noticed with interest that there actually was dust in the creases of her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They do get so noisy,\" she said. \"They're disappointed because they couldn't go to see the hanging, that's what it is. I'm too busy to take them, and Tom won't be back from work in time.\"\n\n\"Why can't we go and see the hanging?\" roared the boy in his huge voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "chanted the little girl, still capering round.\n\nSome Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to be hanged in the Park that evening, Winston remembered. This happened about once a month, and was a popular spectacle. Children always clamoured to be taken to see it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took his leave of Mrs Parsons and made for the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he had not gone six steps down the passage when something hit the back of his neck an agonisingly painful blow. It was as though a red-hot wire had been jabbed into him. He spun round just in time to see Mrs Parsons dragging her son back into the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult.\n\n\"Goldstein!\" bellowed the boy as the door closed on him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman's greyish face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Back in the flat he stepped quickly past the telescreen and sat down at the table again, still rubbing his neck. The music from the telescreen had stopped. Instead, a clipped military voice was reading out, with a sort of brutal relish, a description of the armaments of the new Floating Fortress which had just been anchored between Iceland and the Faroe Islands.\n\nWith those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organisations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother – it was all a sort of glorious game to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak – \"child hero\" was the phrase generally used – had overheard some compromising remark and denounced his parents to the Thought Police.\n\nThe sting of the catapult bullet had worn off. He picked up his pen half-heartedly, wondering whether he could find something more to write in the diary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suddenly he began thinking of O'Brien again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Years ago – how long was it? Seven years it must be – he had dreamed that he was walking through a pitch-dark room. And someone sitting to one side of him had said as he passed: \"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.\" It was said very quietly, almost casually – a statement, not a command." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had walked on without pausing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was curious was that at the time, in the dream, the words had not made much impression on him. It was only later and by degrees that they had seemed to take on significance. He could not now remember whether it was before or after having the dream that he had seen O'Brien for the first time; nor could he remember when he had first identified the voice as O'Brien's. But at any rate the identification existed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was O'Brien who had spoken to him out of the dark." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston had never been able to feel sure – even after this morning's flash of the eyes it was still impossible to be sure – whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy. Nor did it even seem to matter greatly. There was a link of understanding between them, more important than affection or partisanship. \"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,\" he had said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston did not know what it meant, only that in some way or another it would come true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The voice from the telescreen paused. A trumpet call, clear and beautiful, floated into the stagnant air. The voice continued raspingly:\n\n\"Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this moment arrived from the Malabar front. Our forces in South India have won a glorious victory. I am authorised to say that the action we are now reporting may well bring the war within measurable distance of its end. Here is the newsflash –\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bad news coming, thought Winston." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And sure enough, following on a gory description of the annihilation of a Eurasian army, with stupendous figures of killed and prisoners, came the announcement that, as from next week, the chocolate ration would be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty.\n\nWinston belched again. The gin was wearing off, leaving a deflated feeling. The telescreen – perhaps to celebrate the victory, perhaps to drown the memory of the lost chocolate – crashed into \"Oceania, 'tis for thee\". You were supposed to stand to attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, in his present position he was invisible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oceania, 'tis for thee\" gave way to lighter music. Winston walked over to the window, keeping his back to the telescreen. The day was still cold and clear. Somewhere far away a rocket bomb exploded with a dull, reverberating roar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "About twenty or thirty of them a week were falling on London at present." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Down in the street the wind flapped the torn poster to and fro, and the word INGSOC fitfully appeared and vanished. Ingsoc. The sacred principles of Ingsoc. Newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past. He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The past was dead, the future was unimaginable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure for ever? Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back at him:\n\nWAR IS PEACE" }, { "from": "human", "value": "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.\n\nHe took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother. Even from the coin the eyes pursued you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters and on the wrapping of a cigarette packet – everywhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed – no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.\n\nThe sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of the Ministry of Truth, with the light no longer shining on them, looked grim as the loopholes of a fortress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His heart quailed before the enormous pyramidal shape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was too strong, it could not be stormed. A thousand rocket bombs would not batter it down. He wondered again for whom he was writing the diary. For the future, for the past – for an age that might be imaginary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And in front of him there lay not death but annihilation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The diary would be reduced to ashes and himself to vapour. Only the Thought Police would read what he had written, before they wiped it out of existence and out of memory. How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?\n\nThe telescreen struck fourteen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He must leave in ten minutes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had to be back at work by fourteen-thirty.\n\nCuriously, the chiming of the hour seemed to have put new heart into him. He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He went back to the table, dipped his pen, and wrote:\n\nTo the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone – to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone:\n\nFrom the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink – greetings!\n\nHe was already dead, he reflected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed to him that it was only now, when he had begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. He wrote:\n\nThoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.\n\nNow that he had recognised himself as a dead man it became important to stay alive as long as possible. Two fingers of his right hand were inkstained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was exactly the kind of detail that might betray you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some nosing zealot in the Ministry (a woman, probably: someone like the little sandy-haired woman or the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department) might start wondering why he had been writing during the lunch interval, why he had used an old-fashioned pen, what he had been writing – and then drop a hint in the appropriate quarter. He went to the bathroom and carefully scrubbed the ink away with the gritty dark-brown soap, which rasped your skin like sandpaper and was therefore well adapted for this purpose.\n\nHe put the diary away in the drawer. It was quite useless to think of hiding it, but he could at least make sure whether or not its existence had been discovered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A hair laid across the page-ends was too obvious." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the tip of his finger he picked up an identifiable grain of whitish dust and deposited it on the corner of the cover, where it was bound to be shaken off if the book was moved." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding 4 sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston was dreaming of his mother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He must, he thought, have been ten or eleven years old when his mother had disappeared. She was a tall, statuesque, rather silent woman with slow movements and magnificent fair hair. His father he remembered more vaguely as dark and thin, dressed always in neat dark clothes (Winston remembered especially the very thin soles of his father's shoes) and wearing spectacles. The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of the first great purges of the 'fifties." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At this moment his mother was sitting in some place deep down beneath him, with his young sister in her arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not remember his sister at all, except as a tiny, feeble baby, always silent, with large, watchful eyes. Both of them were looking up at him. They were down in some subterranean place – the bottom of a well, for instance, or a very deep grave – but it was a place which, already far below him, was itself moving downwards. They were in the saloon of a sinking ship, looking up at him through the darkening water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was still air in the saloon, they could still see him and he them, but all the while they were sinking down, down into the green waters which in another moment must hide them from sight for ever." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was out in the light and air while they were being sucked down to death, and they were down there because he was up here. He knew it and they knew it, and he could see the knowledge in their faces. There was no reproach either in their faces or in their hearts, only the knowledge that they must die in order that he might remain alive, and that this was part of the unavoidable order of things.\n\nHe could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to his own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was one of those dreams which, while retaining the characteristic dream scenery, are a continuation of one's intellectual life, and in which one becomes aware of facts and ideas which still seem new and valuable after one is awake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thing that now suddenly struck Winston was that his mother's death, nearly thirty years ago, had been tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer possible. Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still privacy, love and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable. Such things, he saw, could not happen today." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Today there were fear, hatred and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his mother and his sister, looking up at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms down and still sinking.\n\nSuddenly he was standing on short springy turf, on a summer evening when the slanting rays of the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he was looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he had seen it in the real world. In his waking thoughts he called it the Golden Country." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was an old, rabbit-bitten pasture, with a foot-track wandering across it and a molehill here and there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the ragged hedge on the opposite side of the field the boughs of the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women's hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was a clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the pools under the willow trees.\n\nThe girl with dark hair was coming towards him across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked at it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time. Winston woke up with the word \"Shakespeare\" on his lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The telescreen was giving forth an ear-splitting whistle which continued on the same note for thirty seconds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was nought seven fifteen, getting-up time for office workers. Winston wrenched his body out of bed – naked, for a member of the Outer Party received only three thousand clothing coupons annually, and a suit of pyjamas was six hundred – and seized a dingy singlet and a pair of shorts that were lying across a chair. The Physical Jerks would begin in three minutes. The next moment he was doubled up by a violent coughing fit which nearly always attacked him soon after waking up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It emptied his lungs so completely that he could only begin breathing again by lying on his back and taking a series of deep gasps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His veins had swelled with the effort of the cough, and the varicose ulcer had started itching.\n\n\"Thirty to forty group!\" yapped a piercing female voice. \"Thirty to forty group! Take your places, please. Thirties to forties!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed in tunic and gym-shoes, had already appeared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Arms bending and stretching!\" she rapped out. \"Take your time by me. One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of life into it! One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! ...\"\n\nThe pain of the coughing fit had not quite driven out of Winston's mind the impression made by his dream, and the rhythmic movements of the exercise restored it somewhat. As he mechanically shot his arms back and forth, wearing on his face the look of grim enjoyment which was considered proper during the Physical Jerks, he was struggling to think his way backward into the dim period of his early childhood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was extraordinarily difficult." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beyond the late 'fifties everything faded. When there were no external records that you could refer to, even the outline of your own life lost its sharpness. You remembered huge events which had quite probably not happened, you remembered the detail of incidents without being able to recapture their atmosphere, and there were long blank periods to which you could assign nothing. Everything had been different then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the names of countries, and their shapes on the map, had been different." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Airstrip One, for instance, had not been so called in those days: it had been called England or Britain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been called London.\n\nWinston could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war, but it was evident that there had been a fairly long interval of peace during his childhood, because one of his early memories was of an air raid which appeared to take everyone by surprise. Perhaps it was the time when the atomic bomb had fallen on Colchester. He did not remember the raid itself, but he did remember his father's hand clutching his own as they hurried down, down, down into some place deep in the earth, round and round a spiral staircase which rang under his feet and which finally so wearied his legs that he began whimpering and they had to stop and rest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mother, in her slow dreamy way, was following a long way behind them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was carrying his baby sister – or perhaps it was only a bundle of blankets that she was carrying: he was not certain whether his sister had been born then. Finally they had emerged into a noisy, crowded place which he had realized to be a Tube station.\n\nThere were people sitting all over the stone-flagged floor, and other people, packed tightly together, were sitting on metal bunks, one above the other. Winston and his mother and father found themselves a place on the floor, and near them an old man and an old woman were sitting side by side on a bunk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old man had on a decent dark suit and a black cloth cap pushed back from very white hair: his face was scarlet and his eyes were blue and full of tears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He reeked of gin. It seemed to breathe out of his skin in place of sweat, and one could have fancied that the tears welling from his eyes were pure gin. But though slightly drunk he was also suffering under some grief that was genuine and unbearable. In his childish way Winston grasped that some terrible thing, something that was beyond forgiveness and could never be remedied, had just happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It also seemed to him that he knew what it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone whom the old man loved, a little granddaughter perhaps, had been killed. Every few minutes the old man kept repeating:\n\n\"We didn't ought to 'ave trusted 'em. I said so, Ma, didn't I? That's what come of trusting 'em. I said so all along. We didn't ought to 'ave trusted the buggers.\"\n\nBut which buggers they didn't ought to have trusted Winston could not now remember." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For several months during his childhood there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some of which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one. At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time as he forced his shoulders painfully backward (with hands on hips, they were gyrating their bodies from the waist, an exercise that was supposed to be good for the back muscles) – the frightening thing was that it might all be true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened – that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?\n\nThe Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. \"Who controls the past,\" ran the Party slogan, \"controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.\" And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was quite simple." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. \"Reality control\", they called it: in Newspeak, \"doublethink\".\n\n\"Stand easy!\" barked the instructress, a little more genially.\n\nWinston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully-constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy; to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the world \"doublethink\" involved the use of doublethink.\n\nThe instructress had called them to attention again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And now let's see which of us can touch our toes!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she said enthusiastically. \"Right over from the hips, please, comrades. One-two! One-two! ...\"\n\nWinston loathed this exercise, which sent shooting pains all the way from his heels to his buttocks and often ended by bringing on another coughing fit. The half-pleasant quality went out of his meditations. The past, he reflected, had not merely been altered, it had been actually destroyed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For how could you establish even the most obvious fact when there existed no record outside your own memory?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tried to remember in what year he had first heard mention of Big Brother. He thought it must have been at some time in the 'sixties, but it was impossible to be certain. In the Party histories, of course, Big Brother figured as the leader and guardian of the Revolution since its very earliest days. His exploits had been gradually pushed backwards in time until already they extended into the fabulous world of the 'forties and the 'thirties, when the capitalists in their strange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets of London in great gleaming motor-cars or horse carriages with glass sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no knowing how much of this legend was true and how much invented." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston could not even remember at what date the Party itself had come into existence. He did not believe he had ever heard the word Ingsoc before 1960, but it was possible that in its Old-speak form – \"English Socialism\", that is to say – it had been current earlier. Everything melted into mist. Sometimes indeed, you could put your finger on a definite lie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not true, for example, as was claimed in the Party history books, that the Party had invented aeroplanes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He remembered aeroplanes since his earliest childhood. But you could prove nothing. There was never any evidence. Just once in his whole life he had held in his hands unmistakable documentary proof of the falsification of a historical fact." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And on that occasion –" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Smith!\" screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. \"6079 Smith W! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.\"\n\nA sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Never show dismay! Never show resentment!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and – one could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency – bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.\n\n\"There, comrades! That's how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again. I'm thirty-nine and I've had four children. Now look.\" She bent over again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You see my knees aren't bent. You can all do it if you want to,\" she added as she straightened herself up." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anyone under forty-five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don't all have the privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just think what they have to put up with. Now try again. That's better comrade, that's much better,\" she added encouragingly as Winston, with a violent lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees unbent, for the first time in several years." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like George Orwell and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the deep, unconscious sigh which not even the nearness of the telescreen could prevent him from uttering when his day's work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece and put on his spectacles. Then he unrolled and clipped together four small cylinders of paper which had already flopped out of the pneumatic tube on the right-hand side of his desk.\n\nIn the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages; to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This last was for the disposal of waste paper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, where-upon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.\n\nWinston examined the four slips of paper which he had unrolled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon – not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words – which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. They ran:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify\n\ntimes 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue\n\ntimes 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify\n\ntimes 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a faint feeling of satisfaction Winston laid the fourth message aside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an intricate and responsible job and had better be dealt with last. The other three were routine matters, though the second one would probably mean some tedious wading through lists of figures.\n\nWinston dialled \"back numbers\" on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of the Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For example, it appeared from the Times of the seventeenth of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in North Africa." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As it happened the Eurasian Higher Command had launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech, in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened. Or again, the Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today's issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston's job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for the third message, it referred to a very simple error which could be set right in a couple of minutes. As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a \"categorical pledge\" were the official words) that there would be no reduction of the chocolate ration during 1984. Actually, as Winston was aware, the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty grammes to twenty at the end of the present week. All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of the Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.\n\nWhat happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs – to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and re-inscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one in which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A number of the Times which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Books, also, were recalled and re-written again and again, and were invariably re-issued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed: always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.\n\nBut actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at a hundred and forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston, however, in re-writing the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been over-fulfilled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than a hundred and forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain.\n\nWinston glanced across the hall. In the corresponding cubicle on the other side a small, precise-looking, dark-chinned man named Tillotson was working steadily away, with a folded newspaper on his knee and his mouth very close to the mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He had the air of trying to keep what he was saying a secret between himself and the telescreen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked up, and his spectacles darted a hostile flash in Winston's direction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston hardly knew Tillotson, and had no idea what work he was employed on. People in the Records Department did not readily talk about their jobs. In the long, windowless hall, with its double row of cubicles and its endless rustle of papers and hum of voices murmuring into speakwrites, there were quite a dozen people whom Winston did not even know by name, though he daily saw them hurrying to and fro in the corridors or gesticulating in the Two Minutes Hate. He knew that in the cubicle next to him the little woman with sandy hair toiled day in, day out, simply at tracking down and deleting from the press the names of people who had been vaporised and were therefore considered never to have existed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a certain fitness in this, since her own husband had been vaporised a couple of years earlier." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and metres, was engaged in producing garbled versions – definitive texts, they were called – of poems which had become ideologically offensive but which for one reason or another were to be retained in the anthologies. And this hall, with its fifty workers or thereabouts, was only one sub-section, a single cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records Department. Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. There were the huge printing shops with their sub-editors, their typography experts and their elaborately-equipped studios for the faking of photographs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was the tele-programmes section with its engineers, its producers and its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were the armies of reference clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall. There were the vast repositories where the corrected documents were stored, and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed. And somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other rubbed out of existence.\n\nAnd the Records Department, after all, was itself only a single branch of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programmes, plays, novels – with every conceivable kind of information, instruction or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling book to a Newspeak dictionary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the Ministry had not only to supply the multifarious needs of the Party, but also to repeat the whole operation at a lower level for the benefit of the proletariat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator. There was even a whole sub-section – Pornosec, it was called in Newspeak – engaged in producing the lowest kind of pornography, which was sent out in sealed packets and which no Party member, other than those who worked on it, was permitted to look at.\n\nThree messages had slid out of the pneumatic tube while Winston was working; but they were simple matters, and he had disposed of them before the Two Minutes Hate interrupted him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the Hate was over he returned to his cubicle, took the Newspeak dictionary from the shelf, pushed the speakwrite to one side, cleaned his spectacles and settled down to his main job of the morning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston's greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem – delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind of thing. On occasion he had even been entrusted with the rectification of the Times leading articles, which were written entirely in Newspeak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He unrolled the message that he had set aside earlier. It ran:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusun-good refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling\n\nIn Oldspeak (or Standard English) this might be rendered:\n\nThe reporting of Big Brother's Order for the Day in the Times of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to non-existent persons. Re-write it in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston read through the offending article." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Big Brother's Order for the Day, it seemed, had been chiefly devoted to praising the work of an organisation known as FFCC, which supplied cigarettes and other comforts to the sailors in the Floating Fortresses. A certain Comrade Withers, a prominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special mention and awarded a decoration, the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second Class.\n\nThree months later FFCC had suddenly been dissolved with no reasons given. One could assume that Withers and his associates were now in disgrace, but there had been no report of the matter in the press or on the telescreen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was to be expected, since it was unusual for political offenders to be put on trial or even publicly denounced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special show-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of years. More commonly, people who had incurred the displeasure of the Party simply disappeared and were never heard of again. One never had the smallest clue as to what had happened to them. In some cases they might not even be dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps thirty people personally known to Winston, not counting his parents, had disappeared at one time or another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper-clip. In the cubicle across the way Comrade Tillotson was still crouching secretively over his speakwrite. He raised his head for a moment: again the hostile spectacle-flash. Winston wondered whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the same job as himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was perfectly possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So tricky a piece of work would never be entrusted to a single person: on the other hand, to turn it over to a committee would be to admit openly that an act of fabrication was taking place. Very likely as many as a dozen people were now working away on rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said. And presently some master brain in the Inner Party would select this version or that, would re-edit it and set in motion the complex processes of cross-referencing that would be required, and then the chosen lie would pass into the permanent records and become truth.\n\nWinston did not know why Withers had been disgraced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had been suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps – what was likeliest of all – the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporisations were a necessary part of the mechanics of government. The only real clue lay in the words \"refs unpersons\", which indicated that Withers was already dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You could not invariably assume this to be the case when people were arrested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes they were released and allowed to remain at liberty for as much as a year or two years before being executed. Very occasionally some person whom you had believed dead long since would make a ghostly re-appearance at some public trial where he would implicate hundreds of others by his testimony before vanishing, this time for ever. Withers, however, was already an unperson. He did not exist: he had never existed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston decided that it would not be enough simply to reverse the tendency of Big Brother's speech." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was better to make it deal with something totally unconnected with its original subject.\n\nHe might turn the speech into the usual denunciation of traitors and thought-criminals, but that was a little too obvious; while to invent a victory at the front, or some triumph of over-production in the Ninth Three-Year Plan, might complicate the records too much. What was needed was a piece of pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready made as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogilvy, who had recently died in battle, in heroic circumstances." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were occasions when Big Brother devoted his Order for the Day to commemorating some humble, rank-and-file Party member whose life and death he held up as an example worthy to be followed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Today he should commemorate Comrade Ogilvy. It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence.\n\nWinston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite towards him and began dictating in Big Brother's familiar style: a style at once military and pedantic, and, because of a trick of asking questions and then promptly answering them (\"What lessons do we learn from this fact, comrades? The lesson – which is also one of the fundamental principles of Ingsoc – that,\" etc. etc. ), easy to imitate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the age of three Comrade Ogilvy had refused all toys except a drum, a sub-machine gun and a model helicopter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At six – a year early, by a special relaxation of the rules – he had joined the Spies; at nine he had been a troop leader. At eleven he had denounced his uncle to the Thought Police after overhearing a conversation which appeared to him to have criminal tendencies. At seventeen he had been a district organiser of the Junior Anti-Sex League. At nineteen he had designed a hand grenade which had been adopted by the Ministry of Peace and which, at its first trial, had killed thirty-one Eurasian prisoners in one burst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At twenty-three he had perished in action." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pursued by enemy jet planes while flying over the Indian Ocean with important despatches, he had weighted his body with his machine-gun and leapt out of the helicopter into deep water, despatches and all – an end, said Big Brother, which it was impossible to contemplate without feelings of envy. Big Brother added a few remarks on the purity and single-mindedness of Comrade Ogilvy's life. He was a total abstainer and a non-smoker, had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium, and had taken a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the care of a family to be incompatible with a twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion to duty. He had no subjects of conversation except the principles of Ingsoc, and no aim in life except the defeat of the Eurasian enemy and the hunting-down of spies, saboteurs, thought-criminals and traitors generally." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston debated with himself whether to award Comrade Ogilvy the Order of Conspicuous Merit: in the end he decided against it because of the unnecessary cross-referencing that it would entail." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once again he glanced at his rival in the opposite cubicle. Something seemed to tell him with certainty that Tillotson was busy on the same job as himself. There was no way of knowing whose version would finally be adopted, but he felt a profound conviction that it would be his own. Comrade Ogilvy, unimagined an hour ago, was now a fact." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It struck him as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with four sentences in the style of George Orwell." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the low-ceilinged canteen, deep under ground, the lunch queue jerked slowly forward. The room was already very full and deafeningly noisy. From the grille at the counter the steam of stew came pouring forth, with a sour metallic smell which did not quite overcome the fumes of Victory Gin. On the far side of the room there was a small bar, a mere hole in the wall, where gin could be bought at ten cents the large nip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just the man I was looking for,\" said a voice at Winston's back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned round. It was his friend Syme, who worked in the Research Department. Perhaps \"friend\" was not exactly the right word. You did not have friends nowadays, you had comrades: but there were some comrades whose society was pleasanter than that of others. Syme was a philologist, a specialist in Newspeak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Indeed, he was one of the enormous team of experts now engaged in compiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a tiny creature, smaller than Winston, with dark hair and large, protuberant eyes, at once mournful and derisive, which seemed to search your face closely while he was speaking to you.\n\n\"I wanted to ask you whether you'd got any razor blades,\" he said.\n\n\"Not one!\" said Winston with a sort of guilty haste. \"I've tried all over the place. They don't exist any longer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everyone kept asking you for razor blades." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Actually he had two unused ones which he was hoarding up. There had been a famine of them for months past. At any given moment there was some necessary article which the Party shops were unable to supply. Sometimes it was buttons, sometimes it was darning wool, sometimes it was shoelaces; at present it was razor blades." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You could only get hold of them, if at all, by scrounging more or less furtively on the \"free\" market." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been using the same blade for six weeks,\" he added untruthfully.\n\nThe queue gave another jerk forward. As they halted he turned and faced Syme again. Each of them took a greasy metal tray from a pile at the edge of the counter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday?\" said Syme." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was working,\" said Winston indifferently. \"I shall see it on the flicks, I suppose.\"\n\n\"A very inadequate substitute,\" said Syme.\n\nHis mocking eyes roved over Winston's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know you,\" the eyes seemed to say, \"I see through you. I know very well why you didn't go to see those prisoners hanged.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In an intellectual way, Syme was venomously orthodox. He would talk with a disagreeable gloating satisfaction of helicopter raids on enemy villages, the trials and confessions of thought-criminals, the executions in the cellars of the Ministry of Love. Talking to him was largely a matter of getting him away from such subjects and entangling him, if possible, in the technicalities of Newspeak, on which he was authoritative and interesting. Winston turned his head a little aside to avoid the scrutiny of the large dark eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was a good hanging,\" said Syme reminiscently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think it spoils it when they tie their feet together. I like to see them kicking. And above all, at the end, the tongue sticking right out, and blue – a quite bright blue. That's the detail that appeals to me.\"\n\n\"Nex', please!\" yelled the white-aproned prole with the ladle.\n\nWinston and Syme pushed their trays beneath the grille. Onto each was dumped swiftly the regulation lunch – a metal pannikin of pinkish-grey stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one saccharine tablet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a table over there, under that telescreen,\" said Syme." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's pick up a gin on the way.\"\n\nThe gin was served out to them in handleless china mugs. They threaded their way across the crowded room and unpacked their trays onto the metal-topped table, on one corner of which someone had left a pool of stew, a filthy liquid mess that had the appearance of vomit. Winston took up his mug of gin, paused for an instant to collect his nerve, and gulped the oily-tasting stuff down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he had winked the tears out of his eyes he suddenly discovered that he was hungry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began swallowing spoonfuls of the stew, which, in among its general sloppiness, had cubes of spongy pinkish stuff which was probably a preparation of meat. Neither of them spoke again till they had emptied their pannikins. From the table at Winston's left, a little behind his back, someone was talking rapidly and continuously, a harsh gabble almost like the quacking of a duck, which pierced the general uproar of the room.\n\n\"How is the Dictionary getting on?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Slowly,\" said Syme. \"I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinating.\"\n\nHe had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.\n\n\"The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're getting the language into its final shape – the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant's passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.\n\n\"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take \"good\", for instance. If you have a word like \"good\", what need is there for a word like \"bad\"? \"Ungood\" will do just as well – better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of \"good\", what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like \"excellent\" and \"splendid\" and all the rest of them? \"Plusgood\" covers the meaning; or \"doubleplusgood\" if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words – in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B. 's idea originally, of course,\" he added as an afterthought.\n\nA sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,\" he said almost sadly. \"Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?\"\n\nWinston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thought crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,\" he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. \"Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?\"\n\n\"Except –\" began Winston doubtfully, and then stopped.\n\nIt had been on the tip of his tongue to say \"Except the proles,\" but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The proles are not human beings,\" he said carelessly. \"By 2050 – earlier, probably – all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron – they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like \"freedom is slavery\" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.\"\n\nOne of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.\n\nWinston had finished his bread and cheese." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned a little sideways in his chair to drink his mug of coffee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the table on his left the man with the strident voice was still talking remorselessly away. A young woman who was perhaps his secretary, and who was sitting with her back to Winston, was listening to him and seemed to be eagerly agreeing with everything that he said. From time to time Winston caught some such remark as \"I think you're so right. I do so agree with you\", uttered in a youthful and rather silly feminine voice. But the other voice never stopped for an instant, even when the girl was speaking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston knew the man by sight, though he knew no more about him than that he held some important post in the Fiction Department." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a man of about thirty, with a muscular throat and a large, mobile mouth. His head was thrown back a little, and because of the angle at which he was sitting, his spectacles caught the light and presented to Winston two blank discs instead of eyes. What was slightly horrible was that from the stream of sound that poured out of his mouth, it was almost impossible to distinguish a single word. Just once Winston caught a phrase – \"complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism\" – jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature. He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front – it made no difference. Whatever it was, you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc. As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up and down, Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not the man's brain that was speaking, it was his larynx." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck.\n\nSyme had fallen silent for a moment, and with the handle of his spoon was tracing patterns in the puddle of stew. The voice from the other table quacked rapidly on, easily audible in spite of the surrounding din.\n\n\"There is a word in Newspeak,\" said Syme, \"I don't know whether you know it: duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse; applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unquestionably Syme will be vaporised, Winston thought again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought it with a kind of sadness, although well knowing that Syme despised him and slightly disliked him, and was fully capable of denouncing him as a thought-criminal if he saw any reason for doing so. There was something subtly wrong with Syme. There was something that he lacked: discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity. You could not say that he was unorthodox." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He believed in the principles of Ingsoc, he venerated Big Brother, he rejoiced over victories, he hated heretics, not merely with sincerity but with a sort of restless zeal, an up-to-dateness of information, which the ordinary Party member did not approach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet a faint air of disreputability always clung to him. He said things that would have been better unsaid, he had read too many books, he frequented the Chestnut Tree Café, haunt of painters and musicians. There was no law, not even an unwritten law, against frequenting the Chestnut Tree Café, yet the place was somehow ill-omened. The old, discredited leaders of the Party had been used to gather there before they were finally purged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Goldstein himself, it was said, had sometimes been seen there, years and decades ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Syme's fate was not difficult to foresee. And yet it was a fact that if Syme grasped, even for three seconds, the nature of his, Winston's, secret opinions, he would betray him instantly to the Thought Police. So would anybody else, for that matter: but Syme more than most. Zeal was not enough. Orthodoxy was unconsciousness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syme looked up. \"Here comes Parsons,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something in the tone of his voice seemed to add, \"that bloody fool.\" Parsons, Winston's fellow-tenant at Victory Mansions, was in fact threading his way across the room – a tubby, middle-sized man with fair hair and a froglike face. At thirty-five he was already putting on rolls of fat at neck and waistline, but his movements were brisk and boyish. His whole appearance was that of a little boy grown large, so much so that although he was wearing the regulation overalls, it was almost impossible not to think of him as being dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirt and red neckerchief of the Spies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In visualising him one saw always a picture of dimpled knees and sleeves rolled back from pudgy forearms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsons did, indeed, invariably revert to shorts when a community hike or any other physical activity gave him an excuse for doing so. He greeted them both with a cheery \"Hullo, hullo!\" and sat down at the table, giving off an intense smell of sweat. Beads of moisture stood out all over his pink face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His powers of sweating were extraordinary." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the Community Centre you could always tell when he had been playing table-tennis by the dampness of the bat handle. Syme had produced a strip of paper on which there was a long column of words, and was studying it with an ink-pencil between his fingers.\n\n\"Look at him working away in the lunch hour,\" said Parsons, nudging Winston. \"Keenness, eh? What's that you've got there, old boy? Something a bit too brainy for me, I expect. Smith, old boy, I'll tell you why I'm chasing you. It's that sub you forgot to give me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which sub is that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said Winston, automatically feeling for money. About a quarter of one's salary had to be earmarked for voluntary subscriptions, which were so numerous that it was difficult to keep track of them.\n\n\"For Hate Week. You know – the house-by-house fund. I'm treasurer for our block. We're making an all-out effort – going to put on a tremendous show. I tell you, it won't be my fault if old Victory Mansions doesn't have the biggest outfit of flags in the whole street. Two dollars you promised me.\"\n\nWinston found and handed over two creased and filthy notes, which Parsons entered in a small notebook, in the neat handwriting of the illiterate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"By the way, old boy,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hear that little beggar of mine let fly at you with his catapult yesterday. I gave him a good dressing-down for it. In fact I told him I'd take the catapult away if he does it again.\"\n\n\"I think he was a little upset at not going to the execution,\" said Winston.\n\n\"Ah, well – what I mean to say, shows the right spirit, doesn't it? Mischievous little beggars they are, both of them, but talk about keenness! All they think about is the Spies, and the war, of course. D'you know what that little girl of mine did last Saturday, when her troop was on a hike out Berkhamsted way? She got two other girls to go with her, slipped off from the hike and spent the whole afternoon following a strange man. They kept on his tail for two hours, right through the woods, and then, when they got into Amersham, handed him over to the patrols.\"\n\n\"What did they do that for?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Winston, somewhat taken aback." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsons went on triumphantly:\n\n\"My kid made sure he was some kind of enemy agent – might have been dropped by parachute, for instance. But here's the point, old boy. What do you think put her onto him in the first place? She spotted he was wearing a funny kind of shoes – said she'd never seen anyone wearing shoes like that before. So the chances were he was a foreigner. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?\"\n\n\"What happened to the man?\" said Winston.\n\n\"Ah, that I couldn't say, of course. But I wouldn't be altogether surprised if –\" Parsons made the motion of aiming a rifle, and clicked his tongue for the explosion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good,\" said Syme abstractedly, without looking up from his strip of paper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course we can't afford to take chances,\" agreed Winston dutifully.\n\n\"What I mean to say, there is a war on,\" said Parsons.\n\nAs though in confirmation of this, a trumpet call floated from the telescreen just above their heads. However, it was not the proclamation of a military victory this time, but merely an announcement from the Ministry of Plenty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Comrades!\" cried an eager youthful voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Attention, comrades! We have glorious news for you. We have won the battle for production! Returns now completed of the output of all classes of consumption goods show that the standard of living has risen by no less than 20 per cent over the past year. All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life which his wise leadership has bestowed upon us. Here are some of the completed figures. Foodstuffs –\"\n\nThe phrase \"our new, happy life\" recurred several times. It had been a favourite of late with the Ministry of Plenty. Parsons, his attention caught by the trumpet call, sat listening with a sort of gaping solemnity, a sort of edified boredom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could not follow the figures, but he was aware that they were in some way a cause for satisfaction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had lugged out a huge and filthy pipe which was already half full of charred tobacco. With the tobacco ration at a hundred grammes a week it was seldom possible to fill a pipe up to the top. Winston was smoking a Victory Cigarette which he held carefully horizontal. The new ration did not start till tomorrow and he had only four cigarettes left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For the moment he had shut his ears to the remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed out of the telescreen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parsons swallowed it easily, with the stupidity of an animal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyeless creature at the other table swallowed it fanatically, passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grammes. Syme, too – in some more complex way, involving doublethink – Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?\n\nThe fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies – more of everything except disease, crime and insanity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards. As Syme had done earlier, Winston had taken up his spoon and was dabbling in the pale-coloured gravy that dribbled across the table, drawing a long streak of it out into a pattern. He meditated resentfully on the physical texture of life. Had it always been like this?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had food always tasted like this?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked round the canteen. A low-ceilinged, crowded room, its walls grimy from the contact of innumerable bodies; battered metal tables and chairs, placed so close together that you sat with elbows touching; bent spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs; all surfaces greasy, grime in every crack; and a sourish, composite smell of bad gin and bad coffee and metallic stew and dirty clothes. Always in your stomach and in your skin there was a sort of protest, a feeling that you had been cheated of something that you had a right to. It was true that he had no memories of anything greatly different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In any time that he could accurately remember, there had never been quite enough to eat, one had never had socks or underclothes that were not full of holes, furniture had always been battered and rickety, rooms underheated, tube trains crowded, houses falling to pieces, bread dark-coloured, tea a rarity, coffee filthy-tasting, cigarettes insufficient – nothing cheap and plentiful except synthetic gin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And though, of course, it grew worse as one's body aged, was it not a sign that this was not the natural order of things, if one's heart sickened at the discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the cold water, the gritty soap, the cigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange evil tastes? Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different?\n\nHe looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was ugly, and would still have been ugly even if dressed otherwise than in the uniform blue overalls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the far side of the room, sitting at a table alone, a small, curiously beetle-like man was drinking a cup of coffee, his little eyes darting suspicious glances from side to side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How easy it was, thought Winston, if you did not look about you, to believe that the physical type set up by the Party as an ideal – tall muscular youths and deep-bosomed maidens, blond-haired, vital, sunburnt, carefree – existed and even predominated. Actually, so far as he could judge, the majority of people in Airstrip One were small, dark and ill-favoured. It was curious how that beetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. It was the type that seemed to flourish best under the dominion of the Party." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The announcement from the Ministry of Plenty ended on another trumpet call and gave way to tinny music." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsons, stirred to vague enthusiasm by the bombardment of figures, took his pipe out of his mouth.\n\n\"The Ministry of Plenty's certainly done a good job this year,\" he said with a knowing shake of his head. \"By the way, Smith old boy, I suppose you haven't got any razor blades you can let me have?\"\n\n\"Not one,\" said Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've been using the same blade for six weeks myself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, well – just thought I'd ask you, old boy.\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" said Winston.\n\nThe quacking voice from the next table, temporarily silenced during the Ministry's announcement, had started up again, as loud as ever. For some reason Winston suddenly found himself thinking of Mrs Parsons, with her wispy hair and the dust in the creases of her face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Within two years those children would be denouncing her to the Thought Police." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs Parsons would be vaporized. Syme would be vaporised. Winston would be vaporized. O'Brien would be vaporised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parsons, on the other hand, would never be vaporised." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyeless creature with the quacking voice would never be vaporised. The little beetle-like men who scuttled so nimbly through the labyrinthine corridors of Ministries – they, too, would never be vaporised. And the girl with dark hair, the girl from the Fiction Department – she would never be vaporised either. It seemed to him that he knew instinctively who would survive and who would perish: though just what it was that made for survival, it was not easy to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At this moment he was dragged out of his reverie with a violent jerk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl at the next table had turned partly round and was looking at him. It was the girl with dark hair. She was looking at him in a sidelong way, but with curious intensity. The instant that she caught his eye she looked away again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sweat started out on Winston's backbone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A horrible pang of terror went through him. It was gone almost at once, but it left a sort of nagging uneasiness behind. Why was she watching him? Why did she keep following him about?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unfortunately he could not remember whether she had already been at that table when he arrived, or had come there after-wards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But yesterday, at any rate, during the Two Minutes Hate, she had sat immediately behind him when there was no apparent need to do so. Quite likely her real object had been to listen to him and make sure whether he was shouting loudly enough.\n\nHis earlier thought returned to him: probably she was not actually a member of the Thought Police, but then it was precisely the amateur spy who was the greatest danger of all. He did not know how long she had been looking at him, but perhaps for as much as five minutes, and it was possible that his features had not been perfectly under control." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself – anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl had turned her back on him again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps after all she was not really following him about; perhaps it was coincidence that she had sat so close to him two days running. His cigarette had gone out, and he laid it carefully on the edge of the table. He would finish smoking it after work, if he could keep the tobacco in it. Quite likely the person at the next table was a spy of the Thought Police, and quite likely he would be in the cellars of the Ministry of Love within three days, but a cigarette end must not be wasted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syme had folded up his strip of paper and stowed it away in his pocket." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsons had begun talking again.\n\n\"Did I ever tell you, old boy,\" he said, chuckling round the stem of his pipe, \"about the time when those two nippers of mine set fire to the old market-woman's skirt because they saw her wrapping up sausages in a poster of B.B.? Sneaked up behind her and set fire to it with a box of matches. Burned her quite badly, I believe. Little beggars, eh? But keen as mustard! That's a first-rate training they give them in the Spies nowadays – better than in my day, even. What d'you think's the latest thing they've served them out with? Ear trumpets for listening through key-holes! My little girl brought one home the other night – tried it out on our sitting-room door, and reckoned she could hear twice as much as with her ear to the hole. Of course it's only a toy, mind you. Still, gives 'em the right idea, eh?\"\n\nAt this moment the telescreen let out a piercing whistle. It was the signal to return to work. All three men sprang to their feet to join in the struggle round the lifts, and the remaining tobacco fell out of Winston's cigarette." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of George Orwell.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of George Orwell every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston was writing in his diary:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was three years ago. It was on a dark evening, in a narrow side-street near one of the big railway stations. She was standing near a doorway in the wall, under a street lamp that hardly gave any light. She had a young face, painted very thick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was really the paint that appealed to me, the whiteness of it, like a mask, and the bright red lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Party women never paint their faces. There was nobody else in the street, and no telescreens. She said two dollars. I –\n\nFor the moment it was too difficult to go on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shut his eyes and pressed his fingers against them, trying to squeeze out the vision that kept recurring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had an almost overwhelming temptation to shout a string of filthy words at the top of his voice. Or to bang his head against the wall, to kick over the table and hurl the inkpot through the window – to do any violent or noisy or painful thing that might black out the memory that was tormenting him.\n\nYour worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought of a man whom he had passed in the street a few weeks back: a quite ordinary-looking man, a Party member, aged thirty-five or forty, tallish and thin, carrying a briefcase." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were a few metres apart when the left side of the man's face was suddenly contorted by a sort of spasm. It happened again just as they were passing one another: it was only a twitch, a quiver, rapid as the clicking of a camera shutter, but obviously habitual. He remembered thinking at the time: That poor devil is done for. And what was frightening was that the action was quite possibly unconscious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The most deadly danger of all was talking in your sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no way of guarding against that, so far as he could see.\n\nHe drew in his breath and went on writing:\n\nI went with her through the doorway and across a backyard into a basement kitchen. There was a bed against the wall, and a lamp on the table, turned down very low. She –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His teeth were set on edge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would have liked to spit. Simultaneously with the woman in the basement kitchen he thought of Katharine, his wife. Winston was married – had been married, at any rate: probably he still was married, for so far as he knew his wife was not dead. He seemed to breathe again the warm stuffy odour of the basement kitchen, an odour compounded of bugs and dirty clothes and villainous cheap scent, but nevertheless alluring, because no woman of the Party ever used scent, or could be imagined as doing so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only the proles used scent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his mind the smell of it was inextricably mixed up with fornication.\n\nWhen he had gone with that woman it had been his first lapse in two years or thereabouts. Consorting with prostitutes was forbidden, of course, but it was one of those rules that you could occasionally nerve yourself to break. It was dangerous, but it was not a life-and-death matter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To be caught with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced-labour camp: not more, if you had committed no other offence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And it was easy enough, provided that you could avoid being caught in the act. The poorer quarters swarmed with women who were ready to sell themselves. Some could even be purchased for a bottle of gin, which the proles were not supposed to drink. Tacitly the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution, as an outlet for instincts which could not be altogether suppressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mere debauchery did not matter very much, so long as it was furtive and joyless, and only involved the women of a submerged and despised class." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The unforgivable crime was promiscuity between Party members. But – though this was one of the crimes that the accused in the great purges invariably confessed to – it was difficult to imagine any such thing actually happening.\n\nThe aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties which it might not be able to control. Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not love so much as eroticism was the enemy, inside marriage as well as outside it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All marriages between Party members had to be approved by a committee appointed for the purpose, and – though the principle was never clearly stated – permission was always refused if the couple concerned gave the impression of being physically attracted to one another. The only recognised purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of the Party. Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema. This again was never put into plain words, but in an indirect way it was rubbed into every Party member from childhood onwards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were even organisations such as the Junior Anti-Sex League which advocated complete celibacy for both sexes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All children were to be begotten by artificial insemination (artsem, it was called in Newspeak) and brought up in public institutions. This, Winston was aware, was not meant altogether seriously, but somehow it fitted in with the general ideology of the Party. The Party was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it. He did not know why this was so, but it seemed natural that it should be so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so far as the women were concerned, the Party's efforts were largely successful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought again of Katharine. It must be nine, ten – nearly eleven years since they had parted. It was curious how seldom he thought of her. For days at a time he was capable of forgetting that he had ever been married." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had only been together for about fifteen months." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Party did not permit divorce, but it rather encouraged separation in cases where there were no children.\n\nKatharine was a tall, fair-haired girl, very straight, with splendid movements. She had a bold, aquiline face, a face that one might have called noble until one discovered that there was as nearly as possible nothing behind it. Very early in their married life he had decided – though perhaps it was only that he knew her more intimately than he knew most people – that she had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had ever encountered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none, that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The human sound-track\" he nicknamed her in his own mind. Yet he could have endured living with her if it had not been for just one thing – sex.\n\nAs soon as he touched her she seemed to wince and stiffen. To embrace her was like embracing a jointed wooden image." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And what was strange was that even when she was clasping him against her he had the feeling that she was simultaneously pushing him away with all her strength." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rigidity of her muscles managed to convey that impression. She would lie there with shut eyes, neither resisting nor co-operating, but submitting. It was extraordinarily embarrassing, and, after a while, horrible. But even then he could have borne living with her if it had been agreed that they should remain celibate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But curiously enough it was Katharine who refused this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They must, she said, produce a child if they could. So the performance continued to happen, once a week quite regularly, whenever it was not impossible. She used even to remind him of it in the morning, as something which had to be done that evening and which must not be forgotten. She had two names for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One was \"making a baby\", and the other was \"our duty to the Party\": yes, she had actually used that phrase." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quite soon he grew to have a feeling of positive dread when the appointed day came round. But luckily no child appeared, and in the end she agreed to give up trying, and soon afterwards they parted.\n\nWinston sighed inaudibly. He picked up his pen again and wrote:\n\nShe threw herself down on the bed, and at once, without any kind of preliminary, in the most coarse, horrible way you can imagine, pulled up her skirt. I –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He saw himself standing there in the dim lamplight, with the smell of bugs and cheap scent in his nostrils, and in his heart a feeling of defeat and resentment which even at that moment was mixed up with the thought of Katharine's white body, frozen for ever by the hypnotic power of the Party." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why did it always have to be like this? Why could he not have a woman of his own instead of these filthy scuffles at intervals of years? But a real love affair was an almost unthinkable event. The women of the Party were all alike." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chastity was as deeply ingrained in them as Party loyalty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By careful early conditioning, by games and cold water, by the rubbish that was dinned into them at school and in the Spies and the Youth League, by lectures, parades, songs, slogans and martial music, the natural feeling had been driven out of them. His reason told him that there must be exceptions, but his heart did not believe it. They were all impregnable, as the Party intended that they should be. And what he wanted, more even than to be loved, was to break down that wall of virtue, even if it were only once in his whole life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Desire was thoughtcrime. Even to have awakened Katharine, if he could have achieved it, would have been like a seduction, although she was his wife.\n\nBut the rest of the story had got to be written down. He wrote:\n\nI turned up the lamp. When I saw her in the light –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "After the darkness the feeble light of the paraffin lamp had seemed very bright." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first time he could see the woman properly. He had taken a step towards her and then halted, full of lust and terror. He was painfully conscious of the risk he had taken in coming here. It was perfectly possible that the patrols would catch him on the way out: for that matter they might be waiting outside the door at this moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he went away without even doing what he had come here to do –!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had got to be written down, it had got to be confessed. What he had suddenly seen in the lamplight was that the woman was old. The paint was plastered so thick on her face that it looked as though it might crack like a cardboard mask. There were streaks of white in her hair; but the truly dreadful detail was that her mouth had fallen a little open, revealing nothing except a cavernous blackness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had no teeth at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wrote hurriedly, in scrabbling handwriting:\n\nWhen I saw her in the light she was quite an old woman, fifty years old at least. But I went ahead and did it just the same.\n\nHe pressed his fingers against his eyelids again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had written it down at last, but it made no difference." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The therapy had not worked. The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of George Orwell spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet –!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He remembered how once he had been walking down a crowded street when a tremendous shout of hundreds of voices – women's voices – had burst from a side-street a little way ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a great formidable cry of anger and despair, a deep loud \"Oh-o-o-o-oh!\" that went humming on like the reverberation of a bell. His heart had leapt. It's started! he had thought. A riot!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The proles are breaking loose at last!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he had reached the spot it was to see a mob of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls of a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had been the doomed passengers on a sinking ship. But at this moment the general despair broke down into a multitude of individual quarrels. It appeared that one of the stalls had been selling tin saucepans. They were wretched, flimsy things, but cooking-pots of any kind were always difficult to get." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now the supply had unexpectedly given out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper of favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve. There was a fresh outburst of yells. Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another's hands. For a moment they were both tugging, and then the handle came off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston watched them disgustedly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And yet, just for a moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?\n\nHe wrote:\n\nUntil they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That, he reflected, might almost have been a transcription from one of the Party textbooks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles from bondage. Before the Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by the capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had been forced to work in the coal mines (women still did work in the coal mines, as a matter of fact), children had been sold into the factories at the age of six. But simultaneously, true to the principles of doublethink, the Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals, by the application of a few simple rules. In reality very little was known about the proles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not necessary to know much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer and, above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To keep them in control was not difficult." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The larger evils invariably escaped their notice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The great majority of proles did not even have telescreens in their homes. Even the civil police interfered with them very little. There was a vast amount of criminality in London, a whole world-within-a-world of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug-peddlers and racketeers of every description; but since it all happened among the proles themselves, it was of no importance. In all questions of morals they were allowed to follow their ancestral code." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sexual puritanism of the Party was not imposed upon them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Promiscuity went unpunished, divorce was permitted. For that matter, even religious worship would have been permitted if the proles had shown any sign of needing or wanting it. They were beneath suspicion. As the Party slogan put it: \"Proles and animals are free.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston reached down and cautiously scratched his varicose ulcer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had begun itching again. The thing you invariably came back to was the impossibility of knowing what life before the Revolution had really been like. He took out of the drawer a copy of a children's history textbook which he had borrowed from Mrs Parsons, and began copying a passage into the diary:\n\nIn the old days [it ran], before the glorious Revolution, London was not the beautiful city that we know today." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a dark, dirty, miserable place where hardly anybody had enough to eat and where hundreds and thousands of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to sleep under." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Children no older than you are had to work twelve hours a day for cruel masters, who flogged them with whips if they worked too slowly and fed them on nothing but stale breadcrusts and water. But in among all this terrible poverty there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servants to look after them. These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly men with wicked faces, like the one in the picture on the opposite page." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You can see that he is dressed in a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it. The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as \"Sir\"." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and –\n\nBut he knew the rest of the catalogue. There would be mention of the bishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in their ermine robes, the pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the cat o' nine tails, the Lord Mayor's Banquet and the practice of kissing the Pope's toe. There was also something called the jus primae noctis, which would probably not be mentioned in a textbook for children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the law by which every capitalist had the right to sleep with any woman working in one of his factories." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How could you tell how much of it was lies? It might be true that the average human being was better off now than he had been before the Revolution. The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were intolerable and that at some other time they must have been different. It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the Party was trying to achieve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Great areas of it, even for a Party member, were neutral and non-political, a matter of slogging through dreary jobs, fighting for a place on the Tube, darning a worn-out sock, cadging a saccharine tablet, saving a cigarette end. The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible and glittering – a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons – a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting – three hundred million people all with the same face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage and bad lavatories. He seemed to see a vision of London, vast and ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and mixed up with it was a picture of Mrs Parsons, a woman with lined face and wispy hair, fiddling helplessly with a blocked wastepipe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached down and scratched his ankle again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations – that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. The Party claimed, for example, that today forty per cent of adult proles were literate: before the Revolution, it was said, the number had only been fifteen per cent. The Party claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only a hundred and sixty per thousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been three hundred – and so it went on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was like a single equation with two unknowns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy. For all he knew there might never have been any such law as the jus primae noctis, or any such creature as a capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat.\n\nEverything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just once in his life he had possessed – after the event: that was what counted – concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had held it between his fingers for as long as thirty seconds. In 1973, it must have been – at any rate, it was at about the time when he and Katharine had parted. But the really relevant date was seven or eight years earlier.\n\nThe story really began in the middle 'sixties, the period of the great purges in which the original leaders of the Revolution were wiped out once and for all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By 1970 none of them was left, except Big Brother himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the rest had by that time been exposed as traitors and counter-revolutionaries. Goldstein had fled and was hiding no one knew where, and of the others, a few had simply disappeared, while the majority had been executed after spectacular public trials at which they made confession of their crimes. Among the last survivors were three men named Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford. It must have been in 1965 that these three had been arrested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As often happened, they had vanished for a year or more, so that one did not know whether they were alive or dead, and then had suddenly been brought forth to incriminate themselves in the usual way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had confessed to intelligence with the enemy (at that date, too, the enemy was Eurasia), embezzlement of public funds, the murder of various trusted Party members, intrigues against the leadership of Big Brother which had started long before the Revolution happened, and acts of sabotage causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people. After confessing to these things they had been pardoned, re-instated in the Party and given posts which were in fact sinecures but which sounded important. All three had written long, abject articles in the Times, analysing the reasons for their defection and promising to make amends.\n\nSome time after their release Winston had actually seen all three of them in the Chestnut Tree Café." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He remembered the sort of terrified fascination with which he had watched them out of the corner of his eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were men far older than himself, relics of the ancient world, almost the last great figures left over from the heroic early days of the Party. The glamour of the underground struggle and the civil war still faintly clung to them. He had the feeling, though already at that time facts and dates were growing blurry, that he had known their names years earlier than he had known that of Big Brother. But also they were outlaws, enemies, untouchables, doomed with absolute certainty to extinction within a year or two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one who had once fallen into the hands of the Thought Police ever escaped in the end." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were corpses waiting to be sent back to the grave.\n\nThere was no one at any of the tables nearest to them. It was not wise even to be seen in the neighbourhood of such people. They were sitting in silence before glasses of the gin flavoured with cloves which was the speciality of the café." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of the three, it was Rutherford whose appearance had most impressed Winston." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rutherford had once been a famous caricaturist, whose brutal cartoons had helped to inflame popular opinion before and during the Revolution. Even now, at long intervals, his cartoons were appearing in the Times. They were simply an imitation of his earlier manner, and curiously lifeless and unconvincing. Always they were a rehashing of the ancient themes – slum tenements, starving children, street battles, capitalists in top hats – even on the barricades the capitalists still seemed to cling to their top hats – an endless, hopeless effort to get back into the past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a monstrous man, with a mane of greasy grey hair, his face pouched and seamed, with thick negroid lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At one time he must have been immensely strong; now his great body was sagging, sloping, bulging, falling away in every direction. He seemed to be breaking up before one's eyes, like a mountain crumbling.\n\nIt was the lonely hour of fifteen. Winston could not now remember how he had come to be in the café at such a time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The place was almost empty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A tinny music was trickling from the telescreens. The three men sat in their corner almost motionless, never speaking. Uncommanded, the waiter brought fresh glasses of gin. There was a chessboard on the table beside them, with the pieces set out but no game started." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then, for perhaps half a minute in all, something happened to the telescreens." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tune that they were playing changed, and the tone of the music changed too. There came into it – but it was something hard to describe. It was a peculiar, cracked, braying, jeering note: in his mind Winston called it a yellow note. And then a voice from the telescreen was singing:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Under the spreading chestnut tree" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I sold you and you sold me:\n\nThere lie they, and here lie we\n\nUnder the spreading chestnut tree.\n\nThe three men never stirred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But when Winston glanced again at Rutherford's ruinous face, he saw that his eyes were full of tears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And for the first time he noticed, with a kind of inward shudder, and yet not knowing at what he shuddered, that both Aaronson and Rutherford had broken noses.\n\nA little later all three were re-arrested. It appeared that they had engaged in fresh conspiracies from the very moment of their release. At their second trial they confessed to all their old crimes over again, with a whole string of new ones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were executed, and their fate was recorded in the Party histories, a warning to posterity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About five years after this, in 1973, Winston was unrolling a wad of documents which had just flopped out of the pneumatic tube onto his desk when he came on a fragment of paper which had evidently been slipped in among the others and then forgotten. The instant he had flattened it out he saw its significance. It was a half-page torn out of the Times of about ten years earlier – the top half of the page, so that it included the date – and it contained a photograph of the delegates at some Party function in New York. Prominent in the middle of the group were Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no mistaking them; in any case their names were in the caption at the bottom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The point was that at both trials all three men had confessed that on that date they had been on Eurasian soil. They had flown from a secret airfield in Canada to a rendezvous somewhere in Siberia, and had conferred with members of the Eurasian General Staff, to whom they had betrayed important military secrets. The date had stuck in Winston's memory because it chanced to be midsummer day; but the whole story must be on record in countless other places as well. There was only one possible conclusion: the confessions were lies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course, this was not in itself a discovery." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even at that time Winston had not imagined that the people who were wiped out in the purges had actually committed the crimes that they were accused of. But this was concrete evidence; it was a fragment of the abolished past, like a fossil bone which turns up in the wrong stratum and destroys a geological theory. It was enough to blow the Party to atoms, if in some way it could have been published to the world and its significance made known.\n\nHe had gone straight on working." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as he saw what the photograph was, and what it meant, he had covered it up with another sheet of paper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Luckily, when he unrolled it, it had been upside-down from the point of view of the telescreen.\n\nHe took his scribbling pad on his knee and pushed back his chair, so as to get as far away from the telescreen as possible. To keep your face expressionless was not difficult, and even your breathing could be controlled, with an effort: but you could not control the beating of your heart, and the telescreen was quite delicate enough to pick it up. He let what he judged to be ten minutes go by, tormented all the while by the fear that some accident – a sudden draught blowing across his desk, for instance – would betray him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, without uncovering it again, he dropped the photograph into the memory hole, along with some other waste papers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Within another minute, perhaps, it would have crumbled into ashes.\n\nThat was ten – eleven years ago. Today, probably, he would have kept that photograph. It was curious that the fact of having held it in his fingers seemed to him to make a difference even now, when the photograph itself, as well as the event it recorded, was only memory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was the Party's hold upon the past less strong, he wondered, because a piece of evidence which existed no longer had once existed?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But today, supposing that it could be somehow resurrected from its ashes, the photograph might not even be evidence. Already, at the time when he made his discovery, Oceania was no longer at war with Eurasia, and it must have been to the agents of Eastasia that the three dead men had betrayed their country. Since then there had been other charges – two, three, he could not remember how many. Very likely the confessions had been re-written and re-written until the original facts and dates no longer had the smallest significance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The past not only changed, but changed continuously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken. The immediate advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive was mysterious. He took up his pen again and wrote:\n\nI understand HOW: I do not understand WHY." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun: today, to believe that the past is unalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him: the horror was that he might also be wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He picked up the children's history book and looked at the portrait of Big Brother which formed its frontispiece." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own. It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you – something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or that the past is unchangeable?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?\n\nBut no! His courage seemed suddenly to stiffen of its own accord. The face of O'Brien, not called up by any obvious association, had floated into his mind. He knew, with more certainty than before, that O'Brien was on his side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was writing the diary for O'Brien – to O'Brien: it was like an interminable letter which no one would ever read, but which was addressed to a particular person and took its colour from that fact." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were wrong and he was right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The obvious, the silly and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth's centre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote:" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From somewhere at the bottom of a passage the smell of roasting coffee – real coffee, not Victory Coffee – came floating out into the street. Winston paused involuntarily. For perhaps two seconds he was back in the half-forgotten world of his childhood. Then a door banged, seeming to cut off the smell as abruptly as though it had been a sound.\n\nHe had walked several kilometres over pavements, and his varicose ulcer was throbbing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was the second time in three weeks that he had missed an evening at the Community Centre: a rash act, since you could be certain that the number of your attendances at the Centre was carefully checked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In principle a Party member had no spare time, and was never alone except in bed. It was assumed that when he was not working, eating or sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal recreation: to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: ownlife, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity. But this evening as he came out of the Ministry the balminess of the April air had tempted him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sky was a warmer blue than he had seen it that year, and suddenly the long, noisy evening at the Centre, the boring, exhausting games, the lectures, the creaking camaraderie oiled by gin, had seemed intolerable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On impulse he had turned away from the bus-stop and wandered off into the labyrinth of London, first south, then east, then north again, losing himself among unknown streets and hardly bothering in which direction he was going.\n\n\"If there is hope,\" he had written in the diary, \"it lies in the proles.\" The words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity. He was somewhere in the vague, brown-coloured slums to the north and east of what had once been Saint Pancras Station." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was walking up a cobbled street of little two-storey houses with battered doorways which gave straight on the pavement and which were somehow curiously suggestive of rat-holes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were puddles of filthy water here and there among the cobbles. In and out of the dark doorways, and down narrow alleyways that branched off on either side, people swarmed in astonishing numbers – girls in full bloom, with crudely lipsticked mouths, and youths who chased the girls, and swollen waddling women who showed you what the girls would be like in ten years' time, and old bent creatures shuffling along on splayed feet, and ragged barefooted children who played in the puddles and then scattered at angry yells from their mothers. Perhaps a quarter of the windows in the street were broken and boarded up. Most of the people paid no attention to Winston; a few eyed him with a sort of guarded curiosity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two monstrous women with brick-red forearms folded across their aprons were talking outside a doorway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston caught scraps of conversation as he approached.\n\n\"'Yes,' I says to 'er, 'that's all very well,' I says. 'But if you'd of been in my place you'd of done the same as what I done. It's easy to criticise,' I says, 'but you ain't got the same problems as what I got.'\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said the other, \"that's jest it. That's jest where it is.\"\n\nThe strident voices stopped abruptly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The women studied him in hostile silence as he went past." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was not hostility, exactly; merely a kind of wariness, a momentary stiffening, as at the passing of some unfamiliar animal. The blue overalls of the Party could not be a common sight in a street like this. Indeed, it was unwise to be seen in such places, unless you had definite business there. The patrols might stop you if you happened to run into them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"May I see your papers, comrade? What are you doing here? What time did you leave work? Is this your usual way home?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "– and so on and so forth. Not that there was any rule against walking home by an unusual route: but it was enough to draw attention to you if the Thought Police heard about it.\n\nSuddenly the whole street was in commotion. There were yells of warning from all sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People were shooting into the doorways like rabbits." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A young woman leapt out of a doorway a little ahead of Winston, grabbed up a tiny child playing in a puddle, whipped her apron round it and leapt back again, all in one movement. At the same instant a man in a concertina-like black suit, who had emerged from a side-alley, ran towards Winston, pointing excitedly to the sky.\n\n\"Steamer!\" he yelled. \"Look out, guv'nor! Bang over' ead! Lay down quick!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Steamer\" was a nickname which, for some reason, the proles applied to rocket bombs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston promptly flung himself on his face. The proles were nearly always right when they gave you a warning of this kind. They seemed to possess some kind of instinct which told them several seconds in advance when a rocket was coming, although the rockets supposedly travelled faster than sound. Winston clasped his forearms above his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a roar that seemed to make the pavement heave; a shower of light objects pattered onto his back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he stood up he found that he was covered with fragments of glass from the nearest window.\n\nHe walked on. The bomb had demolished a group of houses two hundred metres up the street. A black plume of smoke hung in the sky, and below it a cloud of plaster dust in which a crowd was already forming round the ruins. There was a little pile of plaster lying on the pavement ahead of him, and in the middle of it he could see a bright red streak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he got up to it he saw that it was a human hand severed at the wrist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Apart from the bloody stump, the hand was so completely whitened as to resemble a plaster cast.\n\nHe kicked the thing into the gutter, and then, to avoid the crowd, turned down a side-street to the right. Within three or four minutes he was out of the area which the bomb had affected, and the sordid swarming life of the streets was going on as though nothing had happened. It was nearly twenty hours, and the drinking-shops which the proles frequented (\"pubs\", they called them) were choked with customers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From their grimy swing doors, endlessly opening and shutting, there came forth a smell of urine, sawdust and sour beer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In an angle formed by a projecting housefront three men were standing very close together, the middle one of them holding a folded-up newspaper which the other two were studying over his shoulders. Even before he was near enough to make out the expression on their faces, Winston could see absorption in every line of their bodies. It was obviously some serious piece of news that they were reading. He was a few paces away from them when suddenly the group broke up and two of the men were in violent altercation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment they seemed almost on the point of blows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't you bleeding well listen to what I say? I tell you no number ending in seven ain't won for over fourteen months!\"\n\n\"Yes it 'as, then!\"\n\n\"No, it 'as not! Back 'ome I got the 'ole lot of 'em for over two years wrote down on a piece of paper. I takes 'em down reg'lar as the clock. An' I tell you, no number ending in seven –\"\n\n\"Yes, a seven' as won! I could pretty near tell you the bleeding number. Four oh seven, it ended in. It were in February – second week in February.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"February your grandmother! I got it all down in black and white. An' I tell you, no number –\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, pack it in!\" said the third man.\n\nThey were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked back when he had gone thirty metres." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were still arguing, with vivid, passionate faces." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts and lucky amulets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston had nothing to do with the running of the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the Party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being non-existent persons. In the absence of any real intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange.\n\nBut if there was hope, it lay in the proles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You had to cling on to that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When you put it in words it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of faith. The street into which he had turned ran downhill. He had a feeling that he had been in this neighbourhood before, and that there was a main thoroughfare not far away. From somewhere ahead there came a din of shouting voices." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The street took a sharp turn and then ended in a flight of steps which led down into a sunken alley where a few stall-keepers were selling tired-looking vegetables." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this moment Winston remembered where he was. The alley led out into the main street, and down the next turning, not five minutes away, was the junk shop where he had bought the blank book which was now his diary. And in a small stationer's shop not far away he had bought his penholder and his bottle of ink.\n\nHe paused for a moment at the top of the steps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the opposite side of the alley there was a dingy little pub whose windows appeared to be frosted over but in reality were merely coated with dust." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A very old man, bent but active, with white moustaches that bristled forward like those of a prawn, pushed open the swing door and went in. As Winston stood watching it occurred to him that the old man, who must be eighty at the least, had already been middle-aged when the Revolution happened. He and a few others like him were the last links that now existed with the vanished world of capitalism. In the Party itself there were not many people left whose ideas had been formed before the Revolution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The older generation had mostly been wiped out in the great purges of the 'fifties and 'sixties, and the few who survived had long ago been terrified into complete intellectual surrender." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If there was anyone still alive who could give you a truthful account of conditions in the early part of the century, it could only be a prole. Suddenly the passage from the history book that he had copied into his diary came back into Winston's mind, and a lunatic impulse took hold of him. He would go into the pub, he would scrape acquaintance with that old man and question him. He would say to him: \"Tell me about your life when you were a boy. What was it like in those days? Were things better than they are now, or were they worse?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hurriedly, lest he should have time to become frightened, he descended the steps and crossed the narrow street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was madness, of course. As usual, there was no definite rule against talking to proles and frequenting their pubs, but it was far too unusual an action to pass unnoticed. If the patrols appeared he might plead an attack of faintness, but it was not likely that they would believe him. He pushed open the door, and a hideous cheesy smell of sour beer hit him in the face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he entered the din of voices dropped to about half its volume." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind his back he could feel everyone eyeing his blue overalls. A game of darts which was going on at the other end of the room interrupted itself for perhaps as much as thirty seconds. The old man whom he had followed was standing at the bar, having some kind of altercation with the barman, a large, stout, hook-nosed young man with enormous forearms. A knot of others, standing round with glasses in their hands, were watching the scene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I arst you civil enough, didn't I?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said the old man, straightening his shoulders pugnaciously. \"You telling me you ain't got a pint mug in the 'ole bleeding boozer?\"\n\n\"And what in hell's name is a pint?\" said the barman, leaning forward with the tips of his fingers on the counter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Ark at 'im! Calls 'isself a barman and don't know what a pint is! Why, a pint's the 'alf of a quart, and there's four quarts to the gallon. 'Ave to teach you the A, B, C next.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never heard of 'em,\" said the barman shortly. \"Litre and half-litre – that's all we serve. There's the glasses on the shelf in front of you.\"\n\n\"I likes a pint,\" persisted the old man. \"You could'a drawed me off a pint easy enough. We didn't 'ave these bleeding litres when I was a young man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When you were a young man we were all living in the treetops,\" said the barman, with a glance at the other customers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a shout of laughter, and the uneasiness caused by Winston's entry seemed to disappear. The old man's white-stubbled face had flushed pink. He turned away, muttering to himself, and bumped into Winston. Winston caught him gently by the arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"May I offer you a drink?\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're a gent,\" said the other, straightening his shoulders again. He appeared not to have noticed Winston's blue overalls. \"Pint!\" he added aggressively to the barman. \"Pint of wallop.\"\n\nThe barman swished two half-litres of dark-brown beer into thick glasses which he had rinsed in a bucket under the counter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beer was the only drink you could get in prole pubs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The proles were supposed not to drink gin, though in practice they could get hold of it easily enough. The game of darts was in full swing again, and the knot of men at the bar had begun talking about lottery tickets. Winston's presence was forgotten for a moment. There was a deal table under the window where he and the old man could talk without fear of being overheard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was horribly dangerous, but at any rate there was no telescreen in the room, a point he had made sure of as soon as he came in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'E could'a drawed me off a pint,\" grumbled the old man as he settled down behind his glass. \"A 'alf-litre ain't enough. It don't satisfy. And a 'ole litre's too much. It starts my bladder running. Let alone the price.\"\n\n\"You must have seen great changes since you were a young man,\" said Winston tentatively.\n\nThe old man's pale blue eyes moved from the darts board to the bar, and from the bar to the door of the Gents, as though it were in the bar-room that he expected the changes to have occurred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The beer was better,\" he said finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And cheaper! When I was a young man, mild beer – wallop, we used to call it – was fourpence a pint. That was before the war, of course.\"\n\n\"Which war was that?\" said Winston.\n\n\"It's all wars,\" said the old man vaguely. He took up his glass, and his shoulders straightened again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ere's wishing you the very best of'ealth!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his lean throat the sharp-pointed Adam's apple made a surprisingly rapid up-and-down movement, and the beer vanished. Winston went to the bar and came back with two more half-litres. The old man appeared to have forgotten his prejudice against drinking a full litre.\n\n\"You are very much older than I am,\" said Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You must have been a grown man before I was born. You can remember what it was like in the old days, before the Revolution. People of my age don't really know anything about those times. We can only read about them in books, and what it says in the books may not be true. I should like your opinion on that. The history books say that life before the Revolution was completely different from what it is now. There was the most terrible oppression, injustice, poverty – worse than anything we can imagine. Here in London, the great mass of the people never had enough to eat from birth to death. Half of them hadn't even boots on their feet. They worked twelve hours a day, they left school at nine, they slept ten in a room. And at the same time there were a very few people, only a few thousands – the capitalists, they were called – who were rich and powerful. They owned everything that there was to own. They lived in great gorgeous houses with thirty servants, they rode about in motor-cars and four-horse carriages, they drank champagne, they wore top hats –\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old man brightened suddenly.\n\n\"Top 'ats!\" he said. \"Funny you should mention 'em. The same thing come into my 'ead only yesterday, I dono why. I was jest thinking, I ain't seen a top 'at in years. Gorn right out, they 'ave. The last time I wore one was at my sister-in-law's funeral. And that was – well, I couldn't give you the date, but it must'a been fifty year ago. Of course it was only 'ired for the occasion, you understand.\"\n\n\"It isn't very important about the top hats,\" said Winston patiently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The point is, these capitalists – they and a few lawyers and priests and so forth who lived on them – were the lords of the earth. Everything existed for their benefit. You – the ordinary people, the workers – were their slaves. They could do what they liked with you. They could ship you off to Canada like cattle. They could sleep with your daughters if they chose. They could order you to be flogged with something called a cat o' nine tails. You had to take your cap off when you passed them. Every capitalist went about with a gang of lackeys who –\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old man brightened again.\n\n\"Lackeys!\" he said. \"Now there's a word I ain't 'eard since ever so long. Lackeys! That reg'lar takes me back, that does. I recollect – oh, donkey's years ago – I used to sometimes go to 'Yde Park of a Sunday afternoon to 'ear the blokes making speeches. Salvation Army, Roman Catholics, Jews, Indians – all sorts, there was. And there was one bloke – well, I couldn't give you 'is name, but a real powerful speaker, 'e was. 'E didn't 'alf give it 'em! \"Lackeys!\" 'e says, \"Lackeys of the bourgeoisie! Flunkies of the ruling class!\" Parasites – that was another of them. And 'yenas –'e def'nitely called 'em 'yenas. Of course 'e was referring to the Labour Party, you understand.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston had the feeling that they were talking at cross-purposes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What I really wanted to know was this,\" he said. \"Do you feel that you have more freedom now than you had in those days? Are you treated more like a human being? In the old days, the rich people, the people at the top –\"\n\n\"The 'Ouse of Lords,\" put in the old man reminiscently.\n\n\"The House of Lords, if you like. What I am asking is, were these people able to treat you as an inferior, simply because they were rich and you were poor? Is it a fact, for instance, that you had to call them \"Sir\" and take off your cap when you passed them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old man appeared to think deeply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He drank off about a quarter of his beer before answering.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"They liked you to touch your cap to 'em. It showed respect, like. I didn't agree with it, myself, but I done it often enough. Had to, as you might say.\"\n\n\"And was it usual – I'm only quoting what I've read in history books – was it usual for these people and their servants to push you off the pavement into the gutter?\"\n\n\"One of 'em pushed me once,\" said the old man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I recollect it as if it was yesterday. It was Boat Race night – terrible rowdy they used to get on Boat Race night – and I bumps into a young bloke on Shaftesbury Avenue. Quite the gent, 'e was – dress shirt, top 'at, black overcoat. 'E was kind of zig-zagging across the pavement, and I bumps into 'im accidental-like. 'E says, 'Why can't you look where you're going?' 'e says. I says, 'Ju think you've bought the bleeding pavement?' 'E says, 'I'll twist your bloody 'ead off if you get fresh with me.' I says, 'You're drunk. I'll give you in charge in 'alf a minute,' I says. An' if you'll believe me, 'e puts 'is 'and on my chest and gives me a shove as pretty near sent me under the wheels of a bus. Well, I was young in them days, and I was going to 'ave fetched 'im one, only –\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston. The old man's memory was nothing but a rubbish-heap of details. One could question him all day without getting any real information. The Party histories might still be true, after a fashion: they might even be completely true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made a last attempt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps I have not made myself clear,\" he said. \"What I'm trying to say is this. You have been alive a very long time; you lived half your life before the Revolution. In 1925, for instance, you were already grown up. Would you say, from what you can remember, that life in 1925 was better than it is now, or worse? If you could choose, would you prefer to live then or now?\"\n\nThe old man looked meditatively at the darts board. He finished up his beer, more slowly than before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he spoke it was with a tolerant, philosophic air, as though the beer had mellowed him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know what you expect me to say,\" he said. \"You expect me to say as I'd sooner be young again. Most people'd say they'd sooner be young, if you arst 'em. You got your 'ealth and strength when you're young. When you get to my time of life you ain't never well. I suffer something wicked from my feet, and my bladder's jest terrible. Six and seven times a night it 'as me out of bed. On the other 'and there's great advantages in being a old man. You ain't got the same worries. No truck with women, and that's a great thing. I ain't 'ad a woman for near on thirty year, if you'd credit it. Nor wanted to, what's more.\"\n\nWinston sat back against the window sill. It was no use going on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was about to buy some more beer when the old man suddenly got up and shuffled rapidly into the stinking urinal at the side of the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The extra half-litre was already working on him. Winston sat for a minute or two gazing at his empty glass, and hardly noticed when his feet carried him out into the street again. Within twenty years at the most, he reflected, the huge and simple question, \"Was life better before the Revolution than it is now?\" would have ceased once and for all to be answerable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But in effect it was unanswerable even now, since the few scattered survivors from the ancient world were incapable of comparing one age with another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They remembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister's face, the swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago: but all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision. They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones. And when memory failed and written records were falsified – when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.\n\nAt this moment his train of thought stopped abruptly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He halted and looked up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was in a narrow street, with a few dark little shops interspersed among dwelling-houses. Immediately above his head there hung three discoloured metal balls which looked as if they had once been gilded. He seemed to know the place. Of course! He was standing outside the junk-shop where he had bought the diary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A twinge of fear went through him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had been a sufficiently rash act to buy the book in the beginning, and he had sworn never to come near the place again. And yet the instant that he allowed his thoughts to wander, his feet had brought him back here of their own accord. It was precisely against suicidal impulses of this kind that he had hoped to guard himself by opening the diary. At the same time he noticed that although it was nearly twenty-one hours the shop was still open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With the feeling that he would be less conspicuous inside than hanging about on the pavement, he stepped through the doorway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If questioned, he could plausibly say that he was trying to buy razor blades.\n\nThe proprietor had just lighted a hanging oil lamp which gave off an unclean but friendly smell. He was a man of perhaps sixty, frail and bowed, with a long, benevolent nose, and mild eyes distorted by thick spectacles. His hair was almost white, but his eyebrows were bushy and still black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His spectacles, his gentle, fussy movements and the fact that he was wearing an aged jacket of black velvet, gave him a vague air of intellectuality, as though he had been some kind of literary man, or perhaps a musician." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His voice was soft, as though faded, and his accent less debased than that of the majority of proles.\n\n\"I recognised you on the pavement,\" he said immediately. \"You're the gentleman that bought the young lady's keepsake album. That was a beautiful bit of paper, that was. Cream-laid, it used to be called. There's been no paper like that made for – oh, I dare say fifty years.\" He peered at Winston over the top of his spectacles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is there anything special I can do for you? Or did you just want to look round?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was passing,\" said Winston vaguely. \"I just looked in. I don't want anything in particular.\"\n\n\"It's just as well,\" said the other, \"because I don't suppose I could have satisfied you.\" He made an apologetic gesture with his soft-palmed hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You see how it is; an empty shop, you might say. Between you and me, the antique trade's just about finished. No demand any longer, and no stock either. Furniture, china, glass – it's all been broken up by degrees. And of course the metal stuff's mostly been melted down. I haven't seen a brass candlestick in years.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tiny interior of the shop was in fact uncomfortably full, but there was almost nothing in it of the slightest value. The floor-space was very restricted, because all round the walls were stacked innumerable dusty picture-frames. In the window there were trays of nuts and bolts, worn-out chisels, penknives with broken blades, tarnished watches that did not even pretend to be in going order, and other miscellaneous rubbish. Only on a small table in the corner was there a litter of odds and ends – lacquered snuff-boxes, agate brooches and the like – which looked as though they might include something interesting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Winston wandered towards the table his eye was caught by a round, smooth thing that gleamed softly in the lamplight, and he picked it up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making almost a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rain-water, in both the colour and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone.\n\n\"What is it?\" said Winston, fascinated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's coral, that is,\" said the old man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It must have come from the Indian Ocean. They used to kind of embed it in the glass. That wasn't made less than a hundred years ago. More, by the look of it.\"\n\n\"It's a beautiful thing,\" said Winston.\n\n\"It is a beautiful thing,\" said the other appreciatively. \"But there's not many that'd say so nowadays.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He coughed. \"Now, if it so happened that you wanted to buy it, that'd cost you four dollars. I can remember when a thing like that would have fetched eight pounds, and eight pounds was – well, I can't work it out, but it was a lot of money. But who cares about genuine antiques nowadays – even the few that's left?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston immediately paid over the four dollars and slid the coveted thing into his pocket. What appealed to him about it was not so much its beauty as the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different from the present one. The soft, rain-watery glass was not like any glass that he had ever seen. The thing was doubly attractive because of its apparent uselessness, though he could guess that it must once have been intended as a paperweight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was very heavy in his pocket, but fortunately it did not make much of a bulge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a queer thing, even a compromising thing, for a Party member to have in his possession. Anything old, and for that matter anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect. The old man had grown noticeably more cheerful after receiving the four dollars. Winston realised that he would have accepted three or even two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's another room upstairs that you might care to take a look at,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's not much in it. Just a few pieces. We'll do with a light if we're going upstairs.\"\n\nHe lit another lamp, and, with bowed back, led the way slowly up the steep and worn stairs and along a tiny passage, into a room which did not give on the street but looked out on a cobbled yard and a forest of chimney pots. Winston noticed that the furniture was still arranged as though the room were meant to be lived in. There was a strip of carpet on the floor, a picture or two on the walls, and a deep, slatternly armchair drawn up to the fireplace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An old-fashioned glass clock with a twelve-hour face was ticking away on the mantelpiece." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Under the window, and occupying nearly a quarter of the room, was an enormous bed with the mattress still on it.\n\n\"We lived here till my wife died,\" said the old man half apologetically. \"I'm selling the furniture off by little and little. Now that's a beautiful mahogany bed, or at least it would be if you could get the bugs out of it. But I dare say you'd find it a little bit cumbersome.\"\n\nHe was holding the lamp high up, so as to illumine the whole room, and in the warm dim light the place looked curiously inviting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thought flitted through Winston's mind that it would probably be quite easy to rent the room for a few dollars a week, if he dared to take the risk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a wild, impossible notion, to be abandoned as soon as thought of; but the room had awakened in him a sort of nostalgia, a sort of ancestral memory. It seemed to him that he knew exactly what it felt like to sit in a room like this, in an armchair beside an open fire with your feet in the fender and a kettle on the hob: utterly alone, utterly secure, with nobody watching you, no voice pursuing you, no sound except the singing of the kettle and the friendly ticking of the clock.\n\n\"There's no telescreen!\" he could not help murmuring.\n\n\"Ah,\" said the old man, \"I never had one of those things. Too expensive. And I never seemed to feel the need of it, somehow. Now that's a nice gate-leg table in the corner there. Though of course you'd have to put new hinges on it if you wanted to use the flaps.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a small bookcase in the other corner, and Winston had already gravitated towards it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It contained nothing but rubbish. The hunting-down and destruction of books had been done with the same thoroughness in the prole quarters as everywhere else. It was very unlikely that there existed anywhere in Oceania a copy of a book printed earlier than 1960. The old man, still carrying the lamp, was standing in front of a picture in a rosewood frame which hung on the other side of the fireplace, opposite the bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now, if you happen to be interested in old prints at all –\" he began delicately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston came across to examine the picture. It was a steel engraving of an oval building with rectangular windows, and a small tower in front. There was a railing running round the building, and at the rear end there was what appeared to be a statue. Winston gazed at it for some moments." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed vaguely familiar, though he did not remember the statue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The frame's fixed to the wall,\" said the old man, \"but I could unscrew it for you, I dare say.\"\n\n\"I know that building,\" said Winston finally. \"It's a ruin now. It's in the middle of the street outside the Palace of Justice.\"\n\n\"That's right. Outside the Law Courts. It was bombed in –oh, many years ago. It was a church at one time. St Clement's Dane, its name was.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He smiled apologetically, as though conscious of saying something slightly ridiculous, and added: \"'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St Clement's!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's that?\" said Winston.\n\n\"Oh – 'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St Clement's. That was a rhyme we had when I was a little boy. How it goes on I don't remember, but I do know it ended up, \"Here comes a candle to light you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.\" It was a kind of a dance. They held out their arms for you to pass under, and when they came to \"Here comes a chopper to chop off your head\" they brought their arms down and caught you. It was just names of churches. All the London churches were in it – all the principal ones, that is.\"\n\nWinston wondered vaguely to what century the church belonged. It was always difficult to determine the age of a London building." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anything large and impressive, if it was reasonably new in appearance, was automatically claimed as having been built since the Revolution, while anything that was obviously of earlier date was ascribed to some dim period called the Middle Ages." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The centuries of capitalism were held to have produced nothing of any value. One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the names of streets – anything that might throw light upon the past had been systematically altered.\n\n\"I never knew it had been a church,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a lot of them left, really,\" said the old man, \"though they've been put to other uses. Now, how did that rhyme go? Ah! I've got it!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oranges and lemons,\" say the bells of St Clement's,\n\n\"You owe me three farthings,\" say the bells of St Martin's –\n\n\"there, now, that's as far as I can get. A farthing, that was a small copper coin, looked something like a cent.\"\n\n\"Where was St Martin's?\" said Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"St Martin's? That's still standing. It's in Victory Square, alongside the picture gallery. A building with a kind of a triangular porch and pillars in front, and a big flight of steps.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston knew the place well. It was a museum used for propaganda displays of various kinds – scale models of rocket bombs and Floating Fortresses, waxwork tableaux illustrating enemy atrocities, and the like.\n\n\"St Martin's-in-the-Fields it used to be called,\" supplemented the old man, \"though I don't recollect any fields anywhere in those parts.\"\n\nWinston did not buy the picture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would have been an even more incongruous possession than the glass paperweight, and impossible to carry home, unless it were taken out of its frame." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he lingered for some minutes more, talking to the old man, whose name, he discovered, was not Weeks – as one might have gathered from the inscription over the shopfront – but Charrington. Mr Charrington, it seemed, was a widower aged sixty-three and had inhabited this shop for thirty years. Throughout that time he had been intending to alter the name over the window, but had never quite got to the point of doing it. All the while that they were talking the half-remembered rhyme kept running through Winston's head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's, You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was curious, but when you said it to yourself you had the illusion of actually hearing bells, the bells of a lost London that still existed somewhere or other, disguised and forgotten. From one ghostly steeple after another he seemed to hear them pealing forth. Yet so far as he could remember he had never in real life heard church bells ringing.\n\nHe got away from Mr Charrington and went down the stairs alone, so as not to let the old man see him reconnoitring the street before stepping out of the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had already made up his mind that after a suitable interval – a month, say – he would take the risk of visiting the shop again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was perhaps not more dangerous than shirking an evening at the Centre. The serious piece of folly had been to come back here in the first place, after buying the diary and without knowing whether the proprietor of the shop could be trusted. However –!\n\nYes, he thought again, he would come back. He would buy further scraps of beautiful rubbish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would buy the engraving of St Clement's Dane, take it out of its frame and carry it home concealed under the jacket of his overalls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would drag the rest of that poem out of Mr Charrington's memory. Even the lunatic project of renting the room upstairs flashed momentarily through his mind again. For perhaps five seconds exaltation made him careless, and he stepped out onto the pavement without so much as a preliminary glance through the window. He had even started humming to an improvised tune –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oranges and lemons,\" say the bells of St Clement's," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You owe me three farthings,\" say the –\n\nSuddenly his heart seemed to turn to ice and his bowels to water. A figure in blue overalls was coming down the pavement, not ten metres away. It was the girl from the Fiction Department, the girl with dark hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The light was failing, but there was no difficulty in recognising her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked him straight in the face, then walked quickly on as though she had not seen him.\n\nFor a few seconds Winston was too paralysed to move. Then he turned to the right and walked heavily away, not noticing for the moment that he was going in the wrong direction. At any rate, one question was settled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no doubting any longer that the girl was spying on him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She must have followed him here, because it was not credible that by pure chance she should have happened to be walking on the same evening up the same obscure backstreet, kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived. It was too great a coincidence. Whether she was really an agent of the Thought Police, or simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly mattered. It was enough that she was watching him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Probably she had seen him go into the pub as well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an effort to walk. The lump of glass in his pocket banged against his thigh at each step, and he was half minded to take it out and throw it away. The worst thing was the pain in his belly. For a couple of minutes he had the feeling that he would die if he did not reach a lavatory soon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But there would be no public lavatories in a quarter like this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the spasm passed, leaving a dull ache behind.\n\nThe street was a blind alley. Winston halted, stood for several seconds wondering vaguely what to do, then turned round and began to retrace his steps. As he turned it occurred to him that the girl had only passed him three minutes ago and that by running he could probably catch up with her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could keep on her track till they were in some quiet place, and then smash her skull in with a cobblestone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The piece of glass in his pocket would be heavy enough for the job. But he abandoned the idea immediately, because even the thought of making any physical effort was unbearable. He could not run, he could not strike a blow. Besides, she was young and lusty and would defend herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought also of hurrying to the Community Centre and staying there till the place closed, so as to establish a partial alibi for the evening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But that too was impossible. A deadly lassitude had taken hold of him. All he wanted was to get home quickly and then sit down and be quiet.\n\nIt was after twenty-two hours when he got back to the flat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lights would be switched off at the main at twenty-three thirty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He went into the kitchen and swallowed nearly a teacupful of Victory Gin. Then he went to the table in the alcove, sat down and took the diary out of the drawer. But he did not open it at once. From the telescreen a brassy female voice was squalling a patriotic song." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat staring at the marbled cover of the book, trying without success to shut the voice out of his consciousness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was at night that they came for you, always at night. The proper thing was to kill yourself before they got you. Undoubtedly some people did so. Many of the disappearances were actually suicides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it needed desperate courage to kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick and certain poison, were completely unprocurable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought with a kind of astonishment of the biological uselessness of pain and fear, the treachery of the human body which always freezes into inertia at exactly the moment when a special effort is needed. He might have silenced the dark-haired girl if only he had acted quickly enough: but precisely because of the extremity of his danger he had lost the power to act. It struck him that in moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against one's own body. Even now, in spite of the gin, the dull ache in his belly made consecutive thought impossible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And it is the same, he perceived, in all seemingly heroic or tragic situations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the universe, and even when you are not paralysed by fright or screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth.\n\nHe opened the diary. It was important to write something down. The woman on the telescreen had started a new song." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her voice seemed to stick into his brain like jagged splinters of glass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tried to think of O'Brien, for whom, or to whom, the diary was written, but instead he began thinking of the things that would happen to him after the Thought Police took him away. It would not matter if they killed you at once. To be killed was what you expected. But before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet everybody knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had to be gone through: the grovelling on the floor and screaming for mercy, the crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth and bloody clots of hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why did you have to endure it, since the end was always the same?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why was it not possible to cut a few days or weeks out of your life? Nobody ever escaped detection, and nobody ever failed to confess. When once you had succumbed to thoughtcrime it was certain that by a given date you would be dead. Why then did that horror, which altered nothing, have to lie embedded in future time?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried with a little more success than before to summon up the image of O'Brien." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,\" O'Brien had said to him. He knew what it meant, or thought he knew. The place where there is no darkness was the imagined future, which one would never see, but which, by foreknowledge, one could mystically share in. But with the voice from the telescreen nagging at his ears he could not follow the train of thought further." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put a cigarette in his mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Half the tobacco promptly fell out onto his tongue, a bitter dust which was difficult to spit out again. The face of Big Brother swam into his mind, displacing that of O'Brien. Just as he had done a few days earlier, he slid a coin out of his pocket and looked at it. The face gazed up at him, heavy, calm, protecting: but what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: George Orwell" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the middle of the morning, and Winston had left his cubicle to go to the lavatory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A solitary figure was coming towards him from the other end of the long, brightly-lit corridor. It was the girl with dark hair. Four days had gone past since the evening when he had run into her outside the junk-shop. As she came nearer he saw that her right arm was in a sling, not noticeable at a distance because it was of the same colour as her overalls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Probably she had crushed her hand while swinging round one of the big kaleidoscopes on which the plots of novels were \"roughed in\"." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a common accident in the Fiction Department.\n\nThey were perhaps four metres apart when the girl stumbled and fell almost flat on her face. A sharp cry of pain was wrung out of her. She must have fallen right on the injured arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston stopped short. The girl had risen to her knees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her face had turned a milky yellow colour against which her mouth stood out redder than ever. Her eyes were fixed on his, with an appealing expression that looked more like fear than pain.\n\nA curious emotion stirred in Winston's heart. In front of him was an enemy who was trying to kill him: in front of him, also, was a human creature, in pain and perhaps with a broken bone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Already he had instinctively started forward to help her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the moment when he had seen her fall on the bandaged arm, it had been as though he felt the pain in his own body.\n\n\"You're hurt?\" he said.\n\n\"It's nothing. My arm. It'll be all right in a second.\"\n\nShe spoke as though her heart were fluttering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had certainly turned very pale." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You haven't broken anything?\"\n\n\"No, I'm all right. It hurt for a moment, that's all.\"\n\nShe held out her free hand to him, and he helped her up. She had regained some of her colour, and appeared very much better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's nothing,\" she repeated shortly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I only gave my wrist a bit of a bang. Thanks, comrade!\"\n\nAnd with that she walked on in the direction in which she had been going, as briskly as though it had really been nothing. The whole incident could not have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appear in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen when the thing happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no question that she had done it intentionally. It was something small and flat. As he passed through the lavatory door he transferred it to his pocket and felt it with the tips of his fingers. It was a scrap of paper folded into a square." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While he stood at the urinal he managed, with a little more fingering, to get it unfolded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Obviously there must be a message of some kind written on it. For a moment he was tempted to take it into one of the water-closets and read it at once. But that would be shocking folly, as he well knew. There was no place where you could be more certain that the telescreens were watched continuously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He went back to his cubicle, sat down, threw the fragment of paper casually among the other papers on the desk, put on his spectacles and hitched the speakwrite towards him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Five minutes,\" he told himself, \"five minutes at the very least!\" His heart bumped in his breast with frightening loudness. Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on was mere routine, the rectification of a long list of figures, not needing close attention.\n\nWhatever was written on the paper, it must have some kind of political meaning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So far as he could see there were two possibilities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One, much the more likely, was that the girl was an agent of the Thought Police, just as he had feared. He did not know why the Thought Police should choose to deliver their messages in such a fashion, but perhaps they had their reasons. The thing that was written on the paper might be a threat, a summons, an order to commit suicide, a trap of some description. But there was another, wilder possibility that kept raising its head, though he tried vainly to suppress it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was, that the message did not come from the Thought Police at all, but from some kind of underground organisation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps the Brotherhood existed after all! Perhaps the girl was part of it! No doubt the idea was absurd, but it had sprung into his mind in the very instant of feeling the scrap of paper in his hand. It was not till a couple of minutes later that the other, more probable explanation had occurred to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And even now, though his intellect told him that the message probably meant death – still, that was not what he believed, and the unreasonable hope persisted, and his heart banged, and it was with difficulty that he kept his voice from trembling as he murmured his figures into the speakwrite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He rolled up the completed bundle of work and slid it into the pneumatic tube. Eight minutes had gone by. He re-adjusted his spectacles on his nose, sighed, and drew the next batch of work towards him, with the scrap of paper on top of it. He flattened it out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On it was written, in a large unformed handwriting:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I love you.\n\nFor several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminating thing into the memory hole. When he did so, although he knew very well the danger of showing too much interest, he could not resist reading it once again, just to make sure that the words were really there.\n\nFor the rest of the morning it was very difficult to work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What was even worse than having to focus his mind on a series of niggling jobs was the need to conceal his agitation from the telescreen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt as though a fire were burning in his belly. Lunch in the hot, crowded, noise-filled canteen was torment. He had hoped to be alone for a little while during the lunch hour, but as bad luck would have it the imbecile Parsons flopped down beside him, the tang of his sweat almost defeating the tinny smell of stew, and kept up a stream of talk about the preparations for Hate Week. He was particularly enthusiastic about a papier-mâché model of Big Brother's head, two metres wide, which was being made for the occasion by his daughter's troop of Spies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The irritating thing was that in the racket of voices Winston could hardly hear what Parsons was saying, and was constantly having to ask for some fatuous remark to be repeated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just once he caught a glimpse of the girl, at a table with two other girls at the far end of the room. She appeared not to have seen him, and he did not look in that direction again.\n\nThe afternoon was more bearable. Immediately after lunch there arrived a delicate, difficult piece of work which would take several hours and necessitated putting everything else aside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It consisted in falsifying a series of production reports of two years ago, in such a way as to cast discredit on a prominent member of the Inner Party who was now under a cloud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was the kind of thing that Winston was good at, and for more than two hours he succeeded in shutting the girl out of his mind altogether. Then the memory of her face came back, and with it a raging, intolerable desire to be alone. Until he could be alone it was impossible to think this new development out. Tonight was one of his nights at the Community Centre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wolfed another tasteless meal in the canteen, hurried off to the Centre, took part in the solemn foolery of a \"discussion group\", played two games of table tennis, swallowed several glasses of gin and sat for half an hour through a lecture entitled \"Ingsoc in relation to chess\"." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His soul writhed with boredom, but for once he had had no impulse to shirk his evening at the Centre. At the sight of the words I love you the desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minor risks suddenly seemed stupid. It was not till twenty-three hours, when he was home and in bed – in the darkness, where you were safe even from the telescreen so long as you kept silent – that he was able to think continuously.\n\nIt was a physical problem that had to be solved: how to get in touch with the girl and arrange a meeting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not consider any longer the possibility that she might be laying some kind of trap for him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew that it was not so, because of her unmistakable agitation when she handed him the note. Obviously she had been frightened out of her wits, as well she might be. Nor did the idea of refusing her advances even cross his mind. Only five nights ago he had contemplated smashing her skull in with a cobblestone; but that was of no importance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought of her naked, youthful body, as he had seen it in his dream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had imagined her a fool like all the rest of them, her head stuffed with lies and hatred, her belly full of ice. A kind of fever seized him at the thought that he might lose her, the white youthful body might slip away from him! What he feared more than anything else was that she would simply change her mind if he did not get in touch with her quickly. But the physical difficulty of meeting was enormous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was like trying to make a move at chess when you were already mated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whichever way you turned, the telescreen faced you. Actually, all the possible ways of communicating with her had occurred to him within five minutes of reading the note; but now, with time to think, he went over them one by one, as though laying out a row of instruments on a table.\n\nObviously the kind of encounter that had happened this morning could not be repeated. If she had worked in the Records Department it might have been comparatively simple, but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in the building the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for going there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he had known where she lived, and at what time she left work, he could have contrived to meet her somewhere on her way home; but to try to follow her home was not safe, because it would mean loitering about outside the Ministry, which was bound to be noticed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for sending a letter through the mails, it was out of the question. By a routine that was not even secret, all letters were opened in transit. Actually, few people ever wrote letters. For the messages that it was occasionally necessary to send, there were printed postcards with long lists of phrases, and you struck out the ones that were inapplicable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In any case he did not know the girl's name, let alone her address." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally he decided that the safest place was the canteen. If he could get her at a table by herself, somewhere in the middle of the room, not too near the telescreens, and with a sufficient buzz of conversation all round – if these conditions endured for, say, thirty seconds, it might be possible to exchange a few words.\n\nFor a week after this, life was like a restless dream. On the next day she did not appear in the canteen until he was leaving it, the whistle having already blown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Presumably she had been changed onto a later shift." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They passed each other without a glance. On the day after that she was in the canteen at the usual time, but with three other girls and immediately under a telescreen. Then for three dreadful days she did not appear at all. His whole mind and body seemed to be afflicted with an unbearable sensitivity, a sort of transparency, which made every movement, every sound, every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen to, an agony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even in sleep he could not altogether escape from her image." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not touch the diary during those days. If there was any relief, it was in his work, in which he could sometimes forget himself for ten minutes at a stretch. He had absolutely no clue as to what had happened to her. There was no enquiry he could make." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She might have been vaporised, she might have committed suicide, she might have been transferred to the other end of Oceania: worst and likeliest of all, she might simply have changed her mind and decided to avoid him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next day she reappeared. Her arm was out of the sling and she had a band of sticking plaster round her wrist. The relief of seeing her was so great that he could not resist staring directly at her for several seconds. On the following day he very nearly succeeded in speaking to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he came into the canteen she was sitting at a table well out from the wall, and was quite alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was early, and the place was not very full. The queue edged forward till Winston was almost at the counter, then was held up for two minutes because someone in front was complaining that he had not received his tablet of saccharine. But the girl was still alone when Winston secured his tray and began to make for her table. He walked casually towards her, his eyes searching for a place at some table beyond her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was perhaps three metres away from him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another two seconds would do it. Then a voice behind him called, \"Smith!\" He pretended not to hear. \"Smith!\" repeated the voice, more loudly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was no use. He turned round." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A blond-headed, silly-faced young man named Wilsher, whom he barely knew, was inviting him with a smile to a vacant place at his table. It was not safe to refuse. After having been recognised, he could not go and sit at a table with an unattended girl. It was too noticeable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat down with a friendly smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The silly blond face beamed into his. Winston had a hallucination of himself smashing a pickaxe right into the middle of it. The girl's table filled up a few minutes later.\n\nBut she must have seen him coming towards her, and perhaps she would take the hint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Next day he took care to arrive early." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sure enough, she was at a table in about the same place, and again alone. The person immediately ahead of him in the queue was a small, swiftly-moving, beetle-like man with a flat face and tiny, suspicious eyes. As Winston turned away from the counter with his tray, he saw that the little man was making straight for the girl's table. His hopes sank again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a vacant place at a table further away, but something in the little man's appearance suggested that he would be sufficiently attentive to his own comfort to choose the emptiest table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With ice at his heart Winston followed. It was no use unless he could get the girl alone. At this moment there was a tremendous crash. The little man was sprawling on all fours, his tray had gone flying, two streams of soup and coffee were flowing across the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He started to his feet with a malignant glance at Winston, whom he evidently suspected of having tripped him up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was all right. Five seconds later, with a thundering heart, Winston was sitting at the girl's table.\n\nHe did not look at her. He unpacked his tray and promptly began eating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was all-important to speak at once, before anyone else came, but now a terrible fear had taken possession of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A week had gone by since she had first approached him. She would have changed her mind, she must have changed her mind! It was impossible that this affair should end successfully; such things did not happen in real life. He might have flinched altogether from speaking if at this moment he had not seen Ampleforth, the hairy-eared poet, wandering limply round the room with a tray, looking for a place to sit down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In his vague way Ampleforth was attached to Winston, and would certainly sit down at his table if he caught sight of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was perhaps a minute in which to act. Both Winston and the girl were eating steadily. The stuff they were eating was a thin stew, actually a soup, of haricot beans. In a low murmur Winston began speaking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Neither of them looked up; steadily they spooned the watery stuff into their mouths, and between spoonfuls exchanged the few necessary words in low expressionless voices." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What time do you leave work?\"\n\n\"Eighteen-thirty.\"\n\n\"Where can we meet?\"\n\n\"Victory Square, near the monument.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's full of telescreens.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It doesn't matter if there's a crowd.\"\n\n\"Any signal?\"\n\n\"No. Don't come up to me until you see me among a lot of people. And don't look at me. Just keep somewhere near me.\"\n\n\"What time?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nineteen hours.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right.\"\n\nAmpleforth failed to see Winston and sat down at another table. They did not speak again, and, so far as it was possible for two people sitting on opposite sides of the same table, they did not look at one another. The girl finished her lunch quickly and made off, while Winston stayed to smoke a cigarette." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston was in Victory Square before the appointed time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wandered round the base of the enormous fluted column, at the top of which Big Brother's statue gazed southward towards the skies where he had vanquished the Eurasian aeroplanes (the Eastasian aeroplanes, it had been, a few years ago) in the Battle of Airstrip One. In the street in front of it there was a statue of a man on horseback which was supposed to represent Oliver Cromwell. At five minutes past the hour the girl had still not appeared. Again the terrible fear seized upon Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was not coming, she had changed her mind!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked slowly up to the north side of the square and got a sort of pale-coloured pleasure from identifying St Martin's church, whose bells, when it had bells, had chimed \"You owe me three farthings.\" Then he saw the girl standing at the base of the monument, reading or pretending to read a poster which ran spirally up the column. It was not safe to go near her until some more people had accumulated. There were telescreens all round the pediment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But at this moment there was a din of shouting and a zoom of heavy vehicles from somewhere to the left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly everyone seemed to be running across the square. The girl nipped nimbly round the lions at the base of the monument and joined in the rush. Winston followed. As he ran, he gathered from some shouted remarks that a convoy of Eurasian prisoners was passing.\n\nAlready a dense mass of people was blocking the south side of the square." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston, at normal times the kind of person who gravitates to the outer edge of any kind of scrimmage, shoved, butted, squirmed his way forward into the heart of the crowd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soon he was within arm's length of the girl, but the way was blocked by an enormous prole and an almost equally enormous woman, presumably his wife, who seemed to form an impenetrable wall of flesh. Winston wriggled himself sideways, and with a violent lunge managed to drive his shoulder between them. For a moment it felt as though his entrails were being ground to pulp between the two muscular hips, then he had broken through, sweating a little. He was next to the girl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were shoulder to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed with sub-machine-guns standing upright in each corner, was passing slowly down the street. In the trucks little yellow men in shabby greenish uniforms were squatting, jammed close together. Their sad Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides of the trucks, utterly incurious. Occasionally when a truck jolted there was a clank-clank of metal: all the prisoners were wearing leg-irons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Truck-load after truck-load of the sad faces passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston knew they were there, but he saw them only intermittently. The girl's shoulder, and her arm right down to the elbow, were pressed against his. Her cheek was almost near enough for him to feel its warmth. She had immediately taken charge of the situation, just as she had done in the canteen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She began speaking in the same expressionless voice as before, with lips barely moving, a mere murmur easily drowned by the din of voices and the rumbling of the trucks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can you hear me?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Can you get Sunday afternoon off?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then listen carefully. You'll have to remember this. Go to Paddington Station –\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a sort of military precision that astonished him, she outlined the route that he was to follow. A half-hour railway journey; turn left outside the station; two kilometres along the road; a gate with the top bar missing; a path across a field; a grass-grown lane; a track between bushes; a dead tree with moss on it. It was as though she had a map inside her head. \"Can you remember all that?\" she murmured finally." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You turn left, then right, then left again. And the gate's got no top bar.\"\n\n\"Yes. What time?\"\n\n\"About fifteen. You may have to wait. I'll get there by another way. Are you sure you remember everything?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then get away from me as quick as you can.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She need not have told him that. But for the moment they could not extricate themselves from the crowd. The trucks were still filing past, the people still insatiably gaping. At the start there had been a few boos and hisses, but it came only from the Party members among the crowd, and had soon stopped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The prevailing emotion was simply curiosity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Foreigners, whether from Eurasia or from Eastasia, were a kind of strange animal. One literally never saw them except in the guise of prisoners, and even as prisoners one never got more than a momentary glimpse of them. Nor did one know what became of them, apart from the few who were hanged as war-criminals: the others simply vanished, presumably into forced-labour camps. The round Mongol faces had given way to faces of a more European type, dirty, bearded and exhausted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From over scrubby cheekbones eyes looked into Winston's, sometimes with strange intensity, and flashed away again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The convoy was drawing to an end. In the last truck he could see an aged man, his face a mass of grizzled hair, standing upright with wrists crossed in front of him, as though he were used to having them bound together. It was almost time for Winston and the girl to part. But at the last moment, while the crowd still hemmed them in, her hand felt for his and gave it a fleeting squeeze." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It could not have been ten seconds, and yet it seemed a long time that their hands were clasped together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had time to learn every detail of her hand. He explored the long fingers, the shapely nails, the work-hardened palm with its row of callouses, the smooth flesh under the wrist. Merely from feeling it he would have known it by sight. In the same instant it occurred to him that he did not know what colour the girl's eyes were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were probably brown, but people with dark hair sometimes had blue eyes." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To turn his head and look at her would have been inconceivable folly. With hands locked together, invisible among the press of bodies, they stared steadily in front of them, and instead of the eyes of the girl, the eyes of the aged prisoner gazed mournfully at Winston out of nests of hair." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with four sentences, emulating the writing style of George Orwell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston picked his way up the lane through dappled light and shade, stepping out into pools of gold wherever the boughs parted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Under the trees to the left of him the ground was misty with bluebells. The air seemed to kiss one's skin. It was the second of May. From somewhere deeper in the heart of the wood came the droning of ring-doves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a bit early." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There had been no difficulties about the journey, and the girl was so evidently experienced that he was less frightened than he would normally have been. Presumably she could be trusted to find a safe place. In general you could not assume that you were much safer in the country than in London. There were no telescreens, of course, but there was always the danger of concealed microphones by which your voice might be picked up and recognised; besides, it was not easy to make a journey by yourself without attracting attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For distances of less than a hundred kilometres it was not necessary to get your passport endorsed, but sometimes there were patrols hanging about the railway stations, who examined the papers of any Party member they found there and asked awkward questions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, no patrols had appeared, and on the walk from the station he had made sure by cautious backward glances that he was not being followed. The train was full of proles, in holiday mood because of the summery weather. The wooden-seated carriage in which he travelled was filled to overflowing by a single enormous family, ranging from a toothless great-grandmother to a month-old baby, going out to spend an afternoon with \"in-laws\" in the country, and, as they freely explained to Winston, to get hold of a little black-market butter.\n\nThe lane widened, and in a minute he came to the footpath she had told him of, a mere cattle-track which plunged between the bushes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had no watch, but it could not be fifteen yet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bluebells were so thick underfoot that it was impossible not to tread on them. He knelt down and began picking some, partly to pass the time away, but also from a vague idea that he would like to have a bunch of flowers to offer to the girl when they met. He had got together a big bunch and was smelling their faint sickly scent when a sound at his back froze him, the unmistakable crackle of a foot on twigs. He went on picking bluebells." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the best thing to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It might be the girl, or he might have been followed after all. To look round was to show guilt. He picked another and another. A hand fell lightly on his shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked up. It was the girl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head, evidently as a warning that he must keep silent, then, parted the bushes and quickly led the way along the narrow track into the wood. Obviously she had been that way before, for she dodged the boggy bits as though by habit. Winston followed, still clasping his bunch of flowers. His first feeling was relief, but as he watched the strong slender body moving in front of him, with the scarlet sash that was just tight enough to bring out the curve of her hips, the sense of his own inferiority was heavy upon him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even now it seemed quite likely that when she turned round and looked at him she would draw back after all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sweetness of the air and the greenness of the leaves daunted him. Already on the walk from the station the May sunshine had made him feel dirty and etiolated, a creature of indoors, with the sooty dust of London in the pores of his skin. It occurred to him that till now she had probably never seen him in broad daylight in the open. They came to the fallen tree that she had spoken of." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl hopped over it and forced apart the bushes, in which there did not seem to be an opening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Winston followed her, he found that they were in a natural clearing, a tiny grassy knoll surrounded by tall saplings that shut it in completely. The girl stopped and turned.\n\n\"Here we are,\" she said.\n\nHe was facing her at several paces' distance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As yet he did not dare move nearer to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't want to say anything in the lane,\" she went on, \"in case there's a mike hidden there. I don't suppose there is, but there could be. There's always the chance of one of those swine recognising your voice. We're all right here.\"\n\nHe still had not the courage to approach her. \"We're all right here?\" he repeated stupidly.\n\n\"Yes. Look at the trees.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were small ashes, which at some time had been cut down and had sprouted up again into a forest of poles, none of them thicker than one's wrist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's nothing big enough to hide a mike in. Besides, I've been here before.\"\n\nThey were only making conversation. He had managed to move closer to her now. She stood before him very upright, with a smile on her face that looked faintly ironical, as though she were wondering why he was so slow to act." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bluebells had cascaded onto the ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They seemed to have fallen of their own accord. He took her hand.\n\n\"Would you believe,\" he said, \"that till this moment I didn't know what colour your eyes were?\" They were brown, he noted, a rather light shade of brown, with dark lashes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now that you've seen what I'm really like, can you still bear to look at me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, easily.\"\n\n\"I'm thirty-nine years old. I've got a wife that I can't get rid of. I've got varicose veins. I've got five false teeth.\"\n\n\"I couldn't care less,\" said the girl.\n\nThe next moment, it was hard to say by whose act, she was in his arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the beginning he had no feeling except sheer incredulity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The youthful body was strained against his own, the mass of dark hair was against his face, and yes! actually she had turned her face up and he was kissing the wide red mouth. She had clasped her arms about his neck, she was calling him darling, precious one, loved one. He had pulled her down onto the ground, she was utterly unresisting, he could do what he liked with her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the truth was that he had no physical sensation, except that of mere contact." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All he felt was incredulity and pride. He was glad that this was happening, but he had no physical desire. It was too soon, her youth and prettiness had frightened him, he was too much used to living without women – he did not know the reason. The girl picked herself up and pulled a bluebell out of her hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sat against him, putting her arm round his waist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never mind, dear. There's no hurry. We've got the whole afternoon. Isn't this a splendid hide-out? I found it when I got lost once on a community hike. If anyone was coming you could hear them a hundred metres away.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\" said Winston.\n\n\"Julia. I know yours. It's Winston – Winston Smith.\"\n\n\"How did you find that out?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I expect I'm better at finding things out than you are, dear. Tell me, what did you think of me before that day I gave you the note?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not feel any temptation to tell lies to her. It was even a sort of love-offering to start off by telling the worst.\n\n\"I hated the sight of you,\" he said. \"I wanted to rape you and then murder you afterwards. Two weeks ago I thought seriously of smashing your head in with a cobblestone. If you really want to know, I imagined that you had something to do with the Thought Police.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl laughed delightedly, evidently taking this as a tribute to the excellence of her disguise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not the Thought Police! You didn't honestly think that?\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps not exactly that. But from your general appearance – merely because you're young and fresh and healthy, you understand – I thought that probably –\"\n\n\"You thought I was a good Party member. Pure in word and deed. Banners, processions, slogans, games, community hikes – all that stuff. And you thought that if I had a quarter of a chance I'd denounce you as a thought-criminal and get you killed off?\"\n\n\"Yes, something of that kind. A great many young girls are like that, you know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's this bloody thing that does it,\" she said, ripping off the scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging it onto a bough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, as though touching her waist had reminded her of something, she felt in the pocket of her overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She broke it in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even before he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver paper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chocolate normally was dull-brown crumbly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like the smoke of a rubbish fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But at some time or another he had tasted chocolate like the piece she had given him. The first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling.\n\n\"Where did you get this stuff?\" he said.\n\n\"Black market,\" she said indifferently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Actually I am that sort of girl, to look at. I'm good at games. I was a troop-leader in the Spies. I do voluntary work three evenings a week for the Junior Anti-Sex League. Hours and hours I've spent pasting their bloody rot all over London. I always carry one end of a banner in the processions. I always look cheerful and I never shirk anything. Always yell with the crowd, that's what I say. It's the only way to be safe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first fragment of chocolate had melted on Winston's tongue. The taste was delightful. But there was still that memory moving round the edges of his consciousness, something strongly felt but not reducible to definite shape, like an object seen out of the corner of one's eye. He pushed it away from him, aware only that it was the memory of some action which he would have liked to undo but could not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are very young,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are ten or fifteen years younger than I am. What could you see to attract you in a man like me?\"\n\n\"It was something in your face. I thought I'd take a chance. I'm good at spotting people who don't belong. As soon as I saw you I knew you were against them.\"\n\nThem, it appeared, meant the Party, and above all the Inner Party, about whom she talked with an open jeering hatred which made Winston feel uneasy, although he knew that they were safe here if they could be safe anywhere. A thing that astonished him about her was the coarseness of her language." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Party members were supposed not to swear, and Winston himself very seldom did swear, aloud, at any rate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Julia, however, seemed unable to mention the Party, and especially the Inner Party, without using the kind of words that you saw chalked up in dripping alleyways. He did not dislike it. It was merely one symptom of her revolt against the Party and all its ways, and somehow it seemed natural and healthy, like the sneeze of a horse that smells bad hay. They had left the clearing and were wandering again through the chequered shade, with their arms round each other's waists whenever it was wide enough to walk two abreast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He noticed how much softer her waist seemed to feel now that the sash was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They did not speak above a whisper. Outside the clearing, Julia said, it was better to go quietly. Presently they had reached the edge of the little wood. She stopped him.\n\n\"Don't go out into the open. There might be someone watching. We're all right if we keep behind the boughs.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were standing in the shade of hazel bushes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sunlight, filtering through innumerable leaves, was still hot on their faces. Winston looked out into the field beyond, and underwent a curious, slow shock of recognition. He knew it by sight. An old, close-bitten pasture, with a footpath wandering across it and a molehill here and there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the ragged hedge on the opposite side the boughs of the elm trees swayed just perceptibly in the breeze, and their leaves stirred faintly in dense masses like women's hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Surely somewhere nearby, but out of sight, there must be a stream with green pools where dace were swimming?\n\n\"Isn't there a stream somewhere near here?\" he whispered.\n\n\"That's right, there is a stream. It's at the edge of the next field, actually. There are fish in it, great big ones. You can watch them lying in the pools under the willow trees, waving their tails.\"\n\n\"It's the Golden Country – almost,\" he murmured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Golden Country?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's nothing, really. A landscape I've seen sometimes in a dream.\"\n\n\"Look!\" whispered Julia.\n\nA thrush had alighted on a bough not five metres away, almost at the level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was in the sun, they in the shade." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance to the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In the afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Winston and Julia clung together, fascinated. The music went on and on, minute after minute, with astonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as though the bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes it stopped for a few seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then swelled its speckled breast and again burst into song." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston watched it with a sort of vague reverence. For whom, for what, was that bird singing? No mate, no rival was watching it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely wood and pour its music into nothingness?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered whether after all there was a microphone hidden somewhere near." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He and Julia had only spoken in low whispers, and it would not pick up what they had said, but it would pick up the thrush. Perhaps at the other end of the instrument some small, beetle-like man was listening intently – listening to that. But by degrees the flood of music drove all speculations out of his mind. It was as though it were a kind of liquid stuff that poured all over him and got mixed up with the sunlight that filtered through the leaves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped thinking and merely felt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl's waist in the bend of his arm was soft and warm. He pulled her round so that they were breast to breast; her body seemed to melt into his. Wherever his hands moved it was all as yielding as water. Their mouths clung together; it was quite different from the hard kisses they had exchanged earlier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they moved their faces apart again both of them sighed deeply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bird took fright and fled with a clatter of wings.\n\nWinston put his lips against her ear. \"Now,\" he whispered.\n\n\"Not here,\" she whispered back. \"Come back to the hide-out. It's safer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Quickly, with an occasional crackle of twigs, they threaded their way back to the clearing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they were once inside the ring of saplings she turned and faced him. They were both breathing fast, but the smile had reappeared round the corners of her mouth. She stood looking at him for an instant, then felt at the zipper of her overalls. And, yes! it was almost as in his dream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost as swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her clothes off, and when she flung them aside it was with that same magnificent gesture by which a whole civilisation seemed to be annihilated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her body gleamed white in the sun. But for a moment he did not look at her body; his eyes were anchored by the freckled face with its faint, bold smile. He knelt down before her and took her hands in his.\n\n\"Have you done this before?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course. Hundreds of times – well, scores of times, anyway.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"With Party members?\"\n\n\"Yes, always with Party members.\"\n\n\"With members of the Inner Party?\"\n\n\"Not with those swine, no. But there's plenty that would if they got half a chance. They're not so holy as they make out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His heart leapt. Scores of times she had done it: he wished it had been hundreds – thousands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anything that hinted at corruption always filled him with a wild hope. Who knew, perhaps the Party was rotten under the surface, its cult of strenuousness and self-denial simply a sham concealing iniquity. If he could have infected the whole lot of them with leprosy or syphilis, how gladly he would have done so! Anything to rot, to weaken, to undermine!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pulled her down so that they were kneeling face to face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Listen. The more men you've had, the more I love you. Do you understand that?\"\n\n\"Yes, perfectly.\"\n\n\"I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.\"\n\n\"Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I'm corrupt to the bones.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You like doing this? I don't mean simply me: I mean the thing in itself?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I adore it.\"\n\nThat was above all what he wanted to hear. Not merely the love of one person, but the animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear the Party to pieces. He pressed her down upon the grass, among the fallen bluebells." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This time there was no difficulty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Presently the rising and falling of their breasts slowed to normal speed, and in a sort of pleasant helplessness they fell apart. The sun seemed to have grown hotter. They were both sleepy. He reached out for the discarded overalls and pulled them partly over her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost immediately they fell asleep and slept for about half an hour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston woke first. He sat up and watched the freckled face, still peacefully asleep, pillowed on the palm of her hand. Except for her mouth, you could not call her beautiful. There was a line or two round the eyes, if you looked closely. The short dark hair was extraordinarily thick and soft." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It occurred to him that he still did not know her surname or where she lived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The young, strong body, now helpless in sleep, awoke in him a pitying, protecting feeling. But the mindless tenderness that he had felt under the hazel tree, while the thrush was singing, had not quite come back. He pulled the overalls aside and studied her smooth white flank. In the old days, he thought, a man looked at a girl's body and saw that it was desirable, and that was the end of the story." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of George Orwell.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of George Orwell every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We can come here once again,\" said Julia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's generally safe to use any hide-out twice. But not for another month or two, of course.\"\n\nAs soon as she woke up her demeanour had changed. She became alert and businesslike, put her clothes on, knotted the scarlet sash about her waist and began arranging the details of the journey home. It seemed natural to leave this to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She obviously had a practical cunning which Winston lacked, and she seemed also to have an exhaustive knowledge of the countryside round London, stored away from innumerable community hikes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The route she gave him was quite different from the one by which he had come, and brought him out at a different railway station. \"Never go home the same way as you went out,\" she said, as though enunciating an important general principle. She would leave first, and Winston was to wait half an hour before following her.\n\nShe had named a place where they could meet after work, four evenings hence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a street in one of the poorer quarters, where there was an open market which was generally crowded and noisy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would be hanging about among the stalls, pretending to be in search of shoelaces or sewing-thread. If she judged that the coast was clear she would blow her nose when he approached: otherwise he was to walk past her without recognition. But with luck, in the middle of the crowd, it would be safe to talk for a quarter of an hour and arrange another meeting.\n\n\"And now I must go,\" she said as soon as he had mastered his instructions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm due back at nineteen-thirty. I've got to put in two hours for the Junior Anti-Sex League, handing out leaflets, or something. Isn't it bloody? Give me a brush-down, would you. Have I got any twigs in my hair? Are you sure? Then good-bye, my love, good-bye!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She flung herself into his arms, kissed him almost violently, and a moment later pushed her way through the saplings and disappeared into the wood with very little noise. Even now he had not found out her surname or her address. However, it made no difference, for it was inconceivable that they could ever meet indoors or exchange any kind of written communication.\n\nAs it happened they never went back to the clearing in the wood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "During the month of May there was only one further occasion on which they actually succeeded in making love." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was in another hiding-place known to Julia, the belfry of a ruinous church in an almost-deserted stretch of country where an atomic bomb had fallen thirty years earlier. It was a good hiding-place when once you got there, but the getting there was very dangerous. For the rest they could meet only in the streets, in a different place every evening and never for more than half an hour at a time. In the street it was usually possible to talk, after a fashion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As they drifted down the crowded pavements, not quite abreast and never looking at one another, they carried on a curious, intermittent conversation which flicked on and off like the beams of a lighthouse, suddenly nipped into silence by the approach of a Party uniform or the proximity of a telescreen, then taken up again minutes later in the middle of a sentence, then abruptly cut short as they parted at the agreed spot, then continued almost without introduction on the following day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Julia appeared to be quite used to this kind of conversation, which she called \"talking by instalments\". She was also surprisingly adept at speaking without moving her lips. Just once in almost a month of nightly meetings they managed to exchange a kiss. They were passing in silence down a side-street (Julia would never speak when they were away from the main streets) when there was a deafening roar, the earth heaved and the air darkened, and Winston found himself lying on his side, bruised and terrified." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A rocket bomb must have dropped quite near at hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly he became aware of Julia's face a few centimetres from his own, deathly white, as white as chalk. Even her lips were white. She was dead! He clasped her against him and found that he was kissing a live warm face. But there was some powdery stuff that got in the way of his lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both of their faces were thickly coated with plaster." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were evenings when they reached their rendezvous and then had to walk past one another without a sign, because a patrol had just come round the corner or a helicopter was hovering overhead. Even if it had been less dangerous, it would still have been difficult to find time to meet. Winston's working week was sixty hours, Julia's was even longer, and their free days varied according to the pressure of work and did not often coincide. Julia, in any case, seldom had an evening completely free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and demonstrations, distributing literature for the Junior Anti-Sex League, preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings campaign, and such-like activities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It paid, she said; it was camouflage. If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones. She even induced Winston to mortgage yet another of his evenings by enrolling himself for the part-time munition-work which was done voluntarily by zealous Party members. So, one evening every week, Winston spent four hours of paralysing boredom, screwing together small bits of metal which were probably parts of bomb fuses, in a draughty ill-lit workshop where the knocking of hammers mingled drearily with the music of the telescreens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they met in the church tower the gaps in their fragmentary conversation were filled up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a blazing afternoon. The air in the little square chamber above the bells was hot and stagnant, and smelt overpoweringly of pigeon-dung. They sat talking for hours on the dusty, twig-littered floor, one or other of them getting up from time to time to cast a glance through the arrow-slits and make sure that no one was coming.\n\nJulia was twenty-six years old." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She lived in a hostel with thirty other girls (\"Always in the stink of women! How I hate women!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she said parenthetically), and she worked, as he had guessed, on the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted chiefly in running and servicing a powerful but tricky electric motor. She was \"not clever\", but was fond of using her hands and felt at home with machinery. She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she was not interested in the finished product." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She \"didn't much care for reading\", she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.\n\nShe had no memories of anything before the early 'sixties, and the only person she had ever known who talked frequently of the days before the Revolution was a grandfather who had disappeared when she was eight. At school she had been captain of the hockey team and had won the gymnastics trophy two years running." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had been a troop-leader in the Spies and a branch secretary in the Youth League before joining the Junior Anti-Sex League." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had always borne an excellent character. She had even (an infallible mark of good reputation) been picked out to work in Pornosec, the sub-section of the Fiction Department which turned out cheap pornography for distribution among the proles. It was nicknamed Muck House by the people who worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for a year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like Spanking Stories or One Night in a Girls' School, to be bought furtively by proletarian youths who were under the impression that they were buying something illegal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are these books like?\" said Winston curiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, ghastly rubbish. They're boring, really. They only have six plots, but they swap them round a bit. Of course I was only on the kaleidoscopes. I was never in the Rewrite Squad. I'm not literary, dear – not even enough for that.\"\n\nHe learned with astonishment that all the workers in Pornosec, except the head of the department, were girls. The theory was that men, whose sex instincts were less controllable than those of women, were in greater danger of being corrupted by the filth they handled.\n\n\"They don't even like having married women there,\" she added." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Girls are always supposed to be so pure. Here's one who isn't, anyway.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had had her first love-affair when she was sixteen, with a Party member of sixty who later committed suicide to avoid arrest. \"And a good job too,\" said Julia, \"otherwise they'd have had my name out of him when he confessed.\" Since then there had been various others. Life as she saw it was quite simple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You wanted a good time; \"they\", meaning the Party, wanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules as best you could." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She seemed to think it was just as natural that \"they\" should want to rob you of your pleasures as that you should want to avoid being caught. She hated the Party, and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she had no interest in Party doctrine. He noticed that she never used Newspeak words, except the ones that had passed into everyday use." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had never heard of the Brotherhood, and refused to believe in its existence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Any kind of organised revolt against the Party, which was bound to be a failure, struck her as stupid. The clever thing was to break the rules and stay alive all the same. He wondered vaguely how many others like her there might be in the younger generation – people who had grown up in the world of the Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its authority but simply evading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog.\n\nThey did not discuss the possibility of getting married." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was too remote to be worth thinking about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No imaginable committee would ever sanction such a marriage even if Katharine, Winston's wife, could somehow have been got rid of. It was hopeless even as a daydream.\n\n\"What was she like, your wife?\" said Julia.\n\n\"She was – do you know the Newspeak word goodthinkful? Meaning naturally orthodox, incapable of thinking a bad thought?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, I didn't know the word, but I know the kind of person, right enough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began telling her the story of his married life, but curiously enough she appeared to know the essential parts of it already. She described to him, almost as though she had seen or felt it, the stiffening of Katharine's body as soon as he touched her, the way in which she still seemed to be pushing him from her with all her strength, even when her arms were clasped tightly round him. With Julia he felt no difficulty in talking about such things: Katharine, in any case, had long ceased to be a painful memory and become merely a distasteful one.\n\n\"I could have stood it if it hadn't been for one thing,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He told her about the frigid little ceremony that Katharine had forced him to go through on the same night every week." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She hated it, but nothing would make her stop doing it. She used to call it – but you'll never guess.\"\n\n\"Our duty to the Party,\" said Julia promptly.\n\n\"How did you know that?\"\n\n\"I've been at school too, dear. Sex talks once a month for the over-sixteens. And in the Youth Movement. They rub it into you for years. I dare say it works in a lot of cases. But of course you can never tell; people are such hypocrites.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She began to enlarge upon the subject." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With Julia, everything came back to her own sexuality. As soon as this was touched upon in any way she was capable of great acuteness. Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner meaning of the Party's sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party's control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The way she put it was:\n\n\"When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?\"\n\nThat was very true, he thought. There was a direct, intimate connection between chastity and political orthodoxy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For how could the fear, the hatred and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sex impulse was dangerous to the Party, and the Party had turned it to account. They had played a similar trick with the instinct of parenthood. The family could not actually be abolished, and, indeed, people were encouraged to be fond of their children in almost the old-fashioned way. The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately.\n\nAbruptly his mind went back to Katharine. Katharine would unquestionably have denounced him to the Thought Police if she had not happened to be too stupid to detect the unorthodoxy of his opinions. But what really recalled her to him at this moment was the stifling heat of the afternoon, which had brought the sweat out on his forehead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He began telling Julia of something that had happened, or rather had failed to happen, on another sweltering summer afternoon, eleven years ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was three or four months after they were married. They had lost their way on a community hike somewhere in Kent. They had only lagged behind the others for a couple of minutes, but they took a wrong turning, and presently found themselves pulled up short by the edge of an old chalk quarry. It was a sheer drop of ten or twenty metres, with boulders at the bottom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was nobody of whom they could ask the way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as she realised that they were lost Katharine became very uneasy. To be away from the noisy mob of hikers even for a moment gave her a feeling of wrong-doing. She wanted to hurry back by the way they had come and start searching in the other direction. But at this moment Winston noticed some tufts of loosestrife growing in the cracks of the cliff beneath them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One tuft was of two colours, magenta and brick-red, apparently growing on the same root." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had never seen anything of the kind before, and he called to Katharine to come and look at it.\n\n\"Look, Katharine! Look at those flowers. That clump down near the bottom. Do you see they're two different colours?\"\n\nShe had already turned to go, but she did rather fretfully come back for a moment. She even leaned out over the cliff face to see where he was pointing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was standing a little behind her, and he put his hand on her waist to steady her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this moment it suddenly occurred to him how completely alone they were. There was not a human creature anywhere, not a leaf stirring, not even a bird awake. In a place like this the danger that there would be a hidden microphone was very small, and even if there was a microphone it would only pick up sounds. It was the hottest, sleepiest hour of the afternoon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sun blazed down upon them, the sweat tickled his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the thought struck him....\n\n\"Why didn't you give her a good shove?\" said Julia. \"I would have.\"\n\n\"Yes, dear, you would have. I would have, if I'd been the same person then as I am now. Or perhaps I would – I'm not certain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you sorry you didn't?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. On the whole I'm sorry I didn't.\"\n\nThey were sitting side by side on the dusty floor. He pulled her closer against him. Her head rested on his shoulder, the pleasant smell of her hair conquering the pigeon-dung." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was very young, he thought, she still expected something from life, she did not understand that to push an inconvenient person over a cliff solves nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Actually it would have made no difference,\" he said.\n\n\"Then why are you sorry you didn't do it?\"\n\n\"Only because I prefer a positive to a negative. In this game that we're playing, we can't win. Some kinds of failure are better than other kinds, that's all.\"\n\nHe felt her shoulders give a wriggle of dissent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She always contradicted him when he said anything of this kind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would not accept it as a law of nature that the individual is always defeated. In a way she realised that she herself was doomed, that sooner or later the Thought Police would catch her and kill her, but with another part of her mind she believed that it was somehow possible to construct a secret world in which you could live as you chose. All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness. She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that from the moment of declaring war on the Party it was better to think of yourself as a corpse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We are the dead,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're not dead yet,\" said Julia prosaically.\n\n\"Not physically. Six months, a year – five years, conceivably. I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably you're more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put it off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.\"\n\n\"Oh, rubbish! Which would you sooner sleep with, me or a skeleton? Don't you enjoy being alive? Don't you like feeling: This is me, this is my hand, this is my leg, I'm real, I'm solid, I'm alive! Don't you like this?\"\n\nShe twisted herself round and pressed her bosom against him." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston looked round the shabby little room above Mr Charrington's shop. Beside the window the enormous bed was made up, with ragged blankets and a coverless bolster. The old-fashioned clock with the twelve-hour face was ticking away on the mantelpiece. In the corner, on the gate-leg table, the glass paperweight which he had bought on his last visit gleamed softly out of the half-darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the fender was a battered tin oilstove, a saucepan and two cups, provided by Mr Charrington." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston lit the burner and set a pan of water to boil. He had brought an envelope full of Victory Coffee and some saccharine tablets. The clock's hands said seven-twenty: it was nineteen-twenty really. She was coming at nineteen-thirty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Folly, folly, his heart kept saying: conscious, gratuitous, suicidal folly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of all the crimes that a Party member could commit, this one was the least possible to conceal. Actually the idea had first floated into his head in the form of a vision of the glass paperweight mirrored by the surface of the gate-leg table. As he had foreseen, Mr Charrington had made no difficulty about letting the room. He was obviously glad of the few dollars that it would bring him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nor did he seem shocked or become offensively knowing when it was made clear that Winston wanted the room for the purpose of a love affair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead he looked into the middle distance and spoke in generalities, with so delicate an air as to give the impression that he had become partly invisible. Privacy, he said, was a very valuable thing. Everyone wanted a place where they could be alone occasionally. And when they had such a place, it was only common courtesy in anyone else who knew of it to keep his knowledge to himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He even, seeming almost to fade out of existence as he did so, added that there were two entries to the house, one of them through the back yard, which gave on an alley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Under the window somebody was singing. Winston peeped out, secure in the protection of the muslin curtain. The June sun was still high in the sky, and in the sun-filled court below a monstrous woman, solid as a Norman pillar, with brawny red forearms and a sacking apron strapped about her middle, was stumping to and fro between a washtub and a clothes line, pegging out a series of square white things which Winston recognized as babies' diapers. Whenever her mouth was not corked with clothes pegs she was singing in a powerful contralto:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was only an 'opeless fancy," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It passed like an Ipril dye,\n\nBut a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred\n\nThey 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!\n\nThe tune had been haunting London for weeks past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound. He could hear the woman singing and the scrape of her shoes on the flagstones, and the cries of the children in the street, and somewhere in the far distance a faint roar of traffic, and yet the room seemed curiously silent, thanks to the absence of a telescreen.\n\nFolly, folly, folly! he thought again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was inconceivable that they could frequent this place for more than a few weeks without being caught." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the temptation of having a hiding-place that was truly their own, indoors and near at hand, had been too much for both of them. For some time after their visit to the church belfry it had been impossible to arrange meetings. Working hours had been drastically increased in anticipation of Hate Week. It was more than a month distant, but the enormous, complex preparations that it entailed were throwing extra work onto everybody." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finally both of them managed to secure a free afternoon on the same day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had agreed to go back to the clearing in the wood. On the evening beforehand they met briefly in the street. As usual Winston hardly looked at Julia as they drifted towards one another in the crowd, but from the short glance he gave her it seemed to him that she was paler than usual.\n\n\"It's all off,\" she murmured as soon as she judged it safe to speak. \"Tomorrow, I mean,\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tomorrow afternoon. I can't come.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Oh, the usual reason. It's started early this time.\"\n\nFor a moment he was violently angry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "During the month that he had known her the nature of his desire for her had changed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the beginning there had been little true sensuality in it. Their first love-making had been simply an act of the will. But after the second time it was different. The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had become a physical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt that he had a right to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she said that she could not come, he had the feeling that she was cheating him. But just at this moment the crowd pressed them together and their hands accidentally met. She gave the tips of his fingers a quick squeeze that seemed to invite not desire but affection. It struck him that when one lived with a woman this particular disappointment must be a normal, recurring event; and a deep tenderness, such as he had not felt for her before, suddenly took hold of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wished that they were a married couple of ten years' standing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wished that he were walking through the streets with her just as they were doing now, but openly and without fear, talking of trivialities and buying odds and ends for the household. He wished above all that they had some place where they could be alone together without feeling the obligation to make love every time they met. It was not actually at that moment, but at some time on the following day, that the idea of renting Mr Charrington's room had occurred to him. When he suggested it to Julia she had agreed with unexpected readiness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both of them knew that it was lunacy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was as though they were intentionally stepping nearer to their graves. As he sat waiting on the edge of the bed he thought again of the cellars of the Ministry of Love. It was curious how that predestined horror moved in and out of one's consciousness. There it lay, fixed in future time, preceding death as surely as 99 precedes 100." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One could not avoid it, but one could perhaps postpone it: and yet instead, every now and again, by a conscious, wilful act, one chose to shorten the interval before it happened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this moment there was a quick step on the stairs. Julia burst into the room. She was carrying a tool-bag of coarse brown canvas, such as he had sometimes seen her carrying to and fro at the Ministry. He started forward to take her in his arms, but she disengaged herself rather hurriedly, partly because she was still holding the tool-bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Half a second,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just let me show you what I've brought. Did you bring some of that filthy Victory Coffee? I thought you would. You can chuck it away again, because we shan't be needing it. Look here.\"\n\nShe fell on her knees, threw open the bag and tumbled out some spanners and a screwdriver that filled the top part of it. Underneath was a number of neat paper packets. The first packet that she passed to Winston had a strange and yet vaguely familiar feeling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was filled with some kind of heavy, sand-like stuff which yielded wherever you touched it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It isn't sugar?\" he said.\n\n\"Real sugar. Not saccharine, sugar. And here's a loaf of bread – proper white bread, not our bloody stuff – and a little pot of jam. And here's a tin of milk – but look! This is the one I'm really proud of. I had to wrap a bit of sacking round it, because –\"\n\nBut she did not need to tell him why she had wrapped it up. The smell was already filling the room, a rich hot smell which seemed like an emanation from his early childhood, but which one did occasionally meet with even now, blowing down a passage-way before a door slammed, or diffusing itself mysteriously in a crowded street, sniffed for an instant and then lost again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's coffee,\" he murmured, \"real coffee.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's Inner Party coffee. There's a whole kilo here,\" she said.\n\n\"How did you manage to get hold of all these things?\"\n\n\"It's all Inner Party stuff. There's nothing those swine don't have, nothing. But of course waiters and servants and people pinch things, and – look, I got a little packet of tea as well.\"\n\nWinston had squatted down beside her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tore open a corner of the packet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's real tea. Not blackberry leaves.\"\n\n\"There's been a lot of tea about lately. They've captured India, or something,\" she said vaguely. \"But listen, dear. I want you to turn your back on me for three minutes. Go and sit on the other side of the bed. Don't go too near the window. And don't turn round till I tell you.\"\n\nWinston gazed abstractedly through the muslin curtain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Down in the yard the red-armed woman was still marching to and fro between the washtub and the line." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took two more pegs out of her mouth and sang with deep feeling:\n\nThey sye that time 'eals all things,\n\nThey sye you can always forget;\n\nBut the smiles an' the tears acrorss the years" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They twist my 'eart-strings yet!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew the whole drivelling song by heart, it seemed. Her voice floated upward with the sweet summer air, very tuneful, charged with a sort of happy melancholy. One had the feeling that she would have been perfectly content, if the June evening had been endless and the supply of clothes inexhaustible, to remain there for a thousand years, pegging out diapers and singing rubbish. It struck him as a curious fact that he had never heard a member of the Party singing alone and spontaneously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would even have seemed slightly unorthodox, a dangerous eccentricity, like talking to oneself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps it was only when people were somewhere near the starvation level that they had anything to sing about.\n\n\"You can turn round now,\" said Julia.\n\nHe turned round, and for a second almost failed to recognise her. What he had actually expected was to see her naked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she was not naked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The transformation that had happened was much more surprising than that. She had painted her face.\n\nShe must have slipped into some shop in the proletarian quarters and bought herself a complete set of make-up materials. Her lips were deeply reddened, her cheeks rouged, her nose powdered; there was even a touch of something under the eyes to make them brighter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not very skilfully done, but Winston's standards in such matters were not high." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had never before seen or imagined a woman of the Party with cosmetics on her face. The improvement in her appearance was startling. With just a few dabs of colour in the right places she had become not only very much prettier, but, above all, far more feminine. Her short hair and boyish overalls merely added to the effect." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he took her in his arms a wave of synthetic violets flooded his nostrils." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He remembered the half-darkness of a basement kitchen, and a woman's cavernous mouth. It was the very same scent that she had used; but at the moment it did not seem to matter.\n\n\"Scent too!\" he said.\n\n\"Yes, dear, scent too. And do you know what I'm going to do next? I'm going to get hold of a real woman's frock from somewhere and wear it instead of these bloody trousers. I'll wear silk stockings and high-heeled shoes! In this room I'm going to be a woman, not a Party comrade.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They flung their clothes off and climbed into the huge mahogany bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the first time that he had stripped himself naked in her presence. Until now he had been too much ashamed of his pale and meagre body, with the varicose veins standing out on his calves and the discoloured patch over his ankle. There were no sheets, but the blanket they lay on was threadbare and smooth, and the size and springiness of the bed astonished both of them.\n\n\"It's sure to be full of bugs, but who cares?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Julia. One never saw a double bed nowadays, except in the homes of the proles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston had occasionally slept in one in his boyhood: Julia had never been in one before, so far as she could remember.\n\nPresently they fell asleep for a little while. When Winston woke up the hands of the clock had crept round to nearly nine. He did not stir, because Julia was sleeping with her head in the crook of his arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of her make-up had transferred itself to his own face or the bolster, but a light stain of rouge still brought out the beauty of her cheekbone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A yellow ray from the sinking sun fell across the foot of the bed and lighted up the fireplace, where the water in the pan was boiling fast. Down in the yard the woman had stopped singing, but the faint shouts of children floated in from the street. He wondered vaguely whether in the abolished past it had been a normal experience to lie in bed like this, in the cool of a summer evening, a man and a woman with no clothes on, making love when they chose, talking of what they chose, not feeling any compulsion to get up, simply lying there and listening to peaceful sounds outside. Surely there could never have been a time when that seemed ordinary?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julia woke up, rubbed her eyes and raised herself on her elbow to look at the oilstove." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Half that water's boiled away,\" she said. \"I'll get up and make some coffee in another moment. We've got an hour. What time do they cut the lights off at your flats?\"\n\n\"Twenty-three thirty.\"\n\n\"It's twenty-three at the hostel. But you have to get in earlier than that, because – Hi! Get out, you filthy brute!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She suddenly twisted herself over in the bed, seized a shoe from the floor and sent it hurtling into the corner with a boyish jerk of her arm, exactly as he had seen her fling the dictionary at Goldstein, that morning during the Two Minutes Hate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What was it?\" he said in surprise.\n\n\"A rat. I saw him stick his beastly nose out of the wainscoting. There's a hole down there. I gave him a good fright, anyway.\"\n\n\"Rats!\" murmured Winston. \"In this room!\"\n\n\"They're all over the place,\" said Julia indifferently as she lay down again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've even got them in the kitchen at the hostel. Some parts of London are swarming with them. Did you know they attack children? Yes, they do. In some of these streets a woman daren't leave a baby alone for two minutes. It's the great huge brown ones that do it. And the nasty thing is that the brutes always –\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't go on!\" said Winston, with his eyes tightly shut.\n\n\"Dearest! You've gone quite pale. What's the matter? Do they make you feel sick?\"\n\n\"Of all horrors in the world – a rat!\"\n\nShe pressed herself against him and wound her limbs round him, as though to reassure him with the warmth of her body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not re-open his eyes immediately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For several moments he had had the feeling of being back in a nightmare which had recurred from time to time throughout his life. It was always very much the same. He was standing in front of a wall of darkness, and on the other side of it there was something unendurable, something too dreadful to be faced. In the dream his deepest feeling was always one of self-deception, because he did in fact know what was behind the wall of darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a deadly effort, like wrenching a piece out of his own brain, he could even have dragged the thing into the open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He always woke up without discovering what it was: but somehow it was connected with what Julia had been saying when he cut her short.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said; \"it's nothing. I don't like rats, that's all.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, dear, we're not going to have the filthy brutes in here. I'll stuff the hole with a bit of sacking before we go. And next time we come here I'll bring some plaster and bung it up properly.\"\n\nAlready the black instant of panic was half-forgotten." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Feeling slightly ashamed of himself, he sat up against the bedhead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Julia got out of bed, pulled on her overalls and made the coffee. The smell that rose from the saucepan was so powerful and exciting that they shut the window lest anybody outside should notice it and become inquisitive. What was even better than the taste of the coffee was the silky texture given to it by the sugar, a thing Winston had almost forgotten after years of saccharine. With one hand in her pocket and a piece of bread and jam in the other, Julia wandered about the room, glancing indifferently at the book-case, pointing out the best way of repairing the gate-leg table, plumping herself down in the ragged armchair to see if it was comfortable, and examining the absurd twelve-hour clock with a sort of tolerant amusement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She brought the glass paperweight over to the bed to have a look at it in a better light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took it out of her hand, fascinated, as always, by the soft, rain-watery appearance of the glass.\n\n\"What is it, do you think?\" said Julia.\n\n\"I don't think it's anything – I mean, I don't think it was ever put to any use. That's what I like about it. It's a little chunk of history that they've forgotten to alter. It's a message from a hundred years ago, if one knew how to read it.\"\n\n\"And that picture over there\" – she nodded at the engraving on the opposite wall – \"would that be a hundred years old?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"More. Two hundred, I dare say. One can't tell. It's impossible to discover the age of anything nowadays.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She went over to look at it. \"Here's where that brute stuck his nose out,\" she said, kicking the wainscoting immediately below the picture. \"What is this place? I've seen it before somewhere.\"\n\n\"It's a church, or at least it used to be. St Clement's Dane its name was.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fragment of rhyme that Mr Charrington had taught him came back into his head, and he added half-nostalgically: \"'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St Clement's!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To his astonishment she capped the line:\n\n\"You owe me three farthings,\" say the bells of St Martin's,\n\n\"When will you pay me?\" say the bells of Old Bailey –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can't remember how it goes on after that. But anyway I remember it ends up, 'Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!'\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like the two halves of a countersign. But there must be another line after \"the bells of Old Bailey\". Perhaps it could be dug out of Mr Charrington's memory, if he were suitably prompted.\n\n\"Who taught you that?\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My grandfather. He used to say it to me when I was a little girl. He was vaporised when I was eight – at any rate, he disappeared. I wonder what a lemon was,\" she added inconsequently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've seen oranges. They're a kind of round yellow fruit with a thick skin.\"\n\n\"I can remember lemons,\" said Winston. \"They were quite common in the 'fifties. They were so sour that it set your teeth on edge even to smell them.\"\n\n\"I bet that picture's got bugs behind it,\" said Julia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll take it down and give it a good clean some day. I suppose it's almost time we were leaving. I must start washing this paint off. What a bore! I'll get the lipstick off your face afterwards.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston did not get up for a few minutes more. The room was darkening. He turned over towards the light and lay gazing into the glass paperweight. The inexhaustibly interesting thing was not the fragment of coral but the interior of the glass itself." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: George Orwell" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syme had vanished. A morning came, and he was missing from work: a few thoughtless people commented on his absence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the next day nobody mentioned him. On the third day Winston went into the vestibule of the Records Department to look at the notice board. One of the notices carried a printed list of the members of the Chess Committee, of whom Syme had been one. It looked almost exactly as it had looked before – nothing had been crossed out – but it was one name shorter. It was enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syme had ceased to exist: he had never existed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weather was baking hot. In the labyrinthine Ministry the windowless, air-conditioned rooms kept their normal temperature, but outside the pavements scorched one's feet and the stench of the Tubes at the rush hours was a horror. The preparations for Hate Week were in full swing, and the staffs of all the Ministries were working overtime. Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programmes all had to be organised; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs faked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julia's unit in the Fiction Department had been taken off the production of novels and was rushing out a series of atrocity pamphlets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods every day in going through back files of the Times and altering and embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches. Late at night, when crowds of rowdy proles roamed the streets, the town had a curiously febrile air. The rocket bombs crashed oftener than ever, and sometimes in the far distance there were enormous explosions which no one could explain and about which there were wild rumours.\n\nThe new tune which was to be the theme-song of Hate Week (the Hate Song, it was called) had already been composed and was being endlessly plugged on the telescreens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had a savage, barking rhythm which could not exactly be called music, but resembled the beating of a drum." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Roared out by hundreds of voices to the tramp of marching feet, it was terrifying. The proles had taken a fancy to it, and in the midnight streets it competed with the still-popular \"It was only a hopeless fancy\". The Parsons children played it at all hours of the night and day, unbearably, on a comb and a piece of toilet paper. Winston's evenings were fuller than ever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Squads of volunteers, organised by Parsons, were preparing the street for Hate Week, stitching banners, painting posters, erecting flagstaffs on the roofs and perilously slinging wires across the street for the reception of streamers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsons boasted that Victory Mansions alone would display four hundred metres of bunting. He was in his native element and as happy as a lark. The heat and the manual work had even given him a pretext for reverting to shorts and an open shirt in the evenings. He was everywhere at once, pushing, pulling, sawing, hammering, improvising, jollying everyone along with comradely exhortations and giving out from every fold of his body what seemed an inexhaustible supply of acrid-smelling sweat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had no caption, and represented simply the monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier, three or four metres high, striding forward with expressionless Mongolian face and enormous boots, a sub-machine-gun pointed from his hip. From whatever angle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of the gun, magnified by the foreshortening, seemed to be pointed straight at you. The thing had been plastered on every blank space on every wall, even outnumbering the portraits of Big Brother. The proles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As though to harmonise with the general mood, the rocket bombs had been killing larger numbers of people than usual." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One fell on a crowded film theatre in Stepney, burying several hundred victims among the ruins. The whole population of the neighbourhood turned out for a long, trailing funeral which went on for hours and was in effect an indignation meeting. Another bomb fell on a piece of waste ground which was used as a playground, and several dozen children were blown to pieces. There were further angry demonstrations, Goldstein was burned in effigy, hundreds of copies of the poster of the Eurasian soldier were torn down and added to the flames, and a number of shops were looted in the turmoil; then a rumour flew round that spies were directing the rocket bombs by means of wireless waves, and an old couple who were suspected of being of foreign extraction had their house set on fire and perished of suffocation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the room over Mr Charrington's shop, when they could get there, Julia and Winston lay side by side on a stripped bed under the open window, naked for the sake of coolness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rat had never come back, but the bugs had multiplied hideously in the heat. It did not seem to matter. Dirty or clean, the room was paradise. As soon as they arrived they would sprinkle everything with pepper bought on the black market, tear off their clothes and make love with sweating bodies, then fall asleep and wake to find that the bugs had rallied and were massing for the counter-attack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Four, five, six – seven times they met during the month of June." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston had dropped his habit of drinking gin at all hours. He seemed to have lost the need for it. He had grown fatter, his varicose ulcer had subsided, leaving only a brown stain on the skin above his ankle, his fits of coughing in the early morning had stopped. The process of life had ceased to be intolerable, he had no longer any impulse to make faces at the telescreen or shout curses at the top of his voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now that they had a secure hiding-place, almost a home, it did not even seem a hardship that they could only meet infrequently and for a couple of hours at a time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What mattered was that the room over the junk-shop should exist. To know that it was there, inviolate, was almost the same as being in it. The room was a world, a pocket of the past where extinct animals could walk. Mr Charrington, thought Winston, was another extinct animal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He usually stopped to talk with Mr Charrington for a few minutes on his way upstairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old man seemed seldom or never to go out of doors, and on the other hand to have almost no customers. He led a ghostlike existence between the tiny, dark shop and an even tinier back kitchen where he prepared his meals and which contained, among other things, an unbelievably ancient gramophone with an enormous horn. He seemed glad of the opportunity to talk. Wandering about among his worthless stock, with his long nose and thick spectacles and his bowed shoulders in the velvet jacket, he had always vaguely the air of being a collector rather than a tradesman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a sort of faded enthusiasm he would finger this scrap of rubbish or that – a china bottle-stopper, the painted lid of a broken snuff-box, a pinchbeck locket containing a strand of some long-dead baby's hair – never asking that Winston should buy it, merely that he should admire it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To talk to him was like listening to the tinkling of a worn-out musical-box. He had dragged out from the corners of his memory some more fragments of forgotten rhymes. There was one about four-and-twenty blackbirds, and another about a cow with a crumpled horn, and another about the death of poor Cock Robin. \"It just occurred to me you might be interested,\" he would say with a deprecating little laugh whenever he produced a new fragment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he could never recall more than a few lines of any one rhyme." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both of them knew – in a way, it was never out of their minds – that what was now happening could not last long. There were times when the fact of impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five minutes of striking. But there were also times when they had the illusion not only of safety but of permanence. So long as they were actually in this room, they both felt, no harm could come to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Getting there was difficult and dangerous, but the room itself was sanctuary." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was as when Winston had gazed into the heart of the paperweight, with the feeling that it would be possible to get inside that glassy world, and that once inside it time could be arrested. Often they gave themselves up to day-dreams of escape. Their luck would hold indefinitely, and they would carry on their intrigue, just like this, for the remainder of their natural lives. Or Katharine would die, and by subtle manoeuvrings Winston and Julia would succeed in getting married." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or they would commit suicide together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or they would disappear, alter themselves out of recognition, learn to speak with proletarian accents, get jobs in a factory and live out their lives undetected in a back-street. It was all nonsense, as they both knew. In reality there was no escape. Even the one plan that was practicable, suicide, they had no intention of carrying out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To hang on from day to day and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed an unconquerable instinct, just as one's lungs will always draw the next breath so long as there is air available." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes, too, they talked of engaging in active rebellion against the Party, but with no notion of how to take the first step. Even if the fabulous Brotherhood was a reality, there still remained the difficulty of finding one's way into it. He told her of the strange intimacy that existed, or seemed to exist, between himself and O'Brien, and of the impulse he sometimes felt, simply to walk into O'Brien's presence, announce that he was the enemy of the Party and demand his help. Curiously enough this did not strike her as an impossibly rash thing to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was used to judging people by their faces, and it seemed natural to her that Winston should believe O'Brien to be trustworthy on the strength of a single flash of the eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moreover she took it for granted that everyone, or nearly everyone, secretly hated the Party and would break the rules if he thought it safe to do so. But she refused to believe that widespread, organised opposition existed or could exist. The tales about Goldstein and his underground army, she said, were simply a lot of rubbish which the Party had invented for its own purposes and which you had to pretend to believe in. Times beyond number, at Party rallies and spontaneous demonstrations, she had shouted at the top of her voice for the execution of people whose names she had never heard and in whose supposed crimes she had not the faintest belief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When public trials were happening she had taken her place in the detachments from the Youth League who surrounded the courts from morning to night, chanting at intervals \"Death to the traitors!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During the Two Minutes Hate she always excelled all others in shouting insults at Goldstein. Yet she had only the dimmest idea of who Goldstein was and what doctrines he was supposed to represent. She had grown up since the Revolution and was too young to remember the ideological battles of the 'fifties and 'sixties. Such a thing as an independent political movement was outside her imagination: and in any case the Party was invincible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would always exist, and it would always be the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You could only rebel against it by secret disobedience or, at most, by isolated acts of violence such as killing somebody or blowing something up.\n\nIn some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, \"just to keep people frightened\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was an idea that had literally never occurred to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She also stirred a sort of envy in him by telling him that during the Two Minutes Hate her great difficulty was to avoid bursting out laughing. But she only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life. Often she was ready to accept the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood did not seem important to her. She believed, for instance, having learnt it at school, that the Party had invented aeroplanes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(In his own schooldays, Winston remembered, in the late 'fifties, it was only the helicopter that the Party claimed to have invented; a dozen years later, when Julia was at school, it was already claiming the aeroplane; one generation more, and it would be claiming the steam engine.)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And when he told her that aeroplanes had been in existence before he was born, and long before the Revolution, the fact struck her as totally uninteresting. After all, what did it matter who had invented aeroplanes? It was rather more of a shock to him when he discovered from some chance remark that she did not remember that Oceania, four years ago, had been at war with Eastasia and at peace with Eurasia. It was true that she regarded the whole war as a sham: but apparently she had not even noticed that the name of the enemy had changed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought we'd always been at war with Eurasia,\" she said vaguely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It frightened him a little. The invention of aeroplanes dated from long before her birth, but the switch-over in the war had happened only four years ago, well after she was grown up. He argued with her about it for perhaps a quarter of an hour. In the end he succeeded in forcing her memory back until she did dimly recall that at one time Eastasia and not Eurasia had been the enemy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the issue still struck her as unimportant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who cares?\" she said impatiently. \"It's always one bloody war after another, and one knows the news is all lies anyway.\"\n\nSometimes he talked to her of the Records Department and the impudent forgeries that he committed there. Such things did not appear to horrify her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She did not feel the abyss opening beneath her feet at the thought of lies becoming truths." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He told her the story of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford and the momentous slip of paper which he had once held between his fingers. It did not make much impression on her. At first, indeed, she failed to grasp the point of the story.\n\n\"Were they friends of yours?\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, I never knew them. They were Inner Party members. Besides, they were far older men than I was. They belonged to the old days, before the Revolution. I barely knew them by sight.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then what was there to worry about? People are being killed off all the time, aren't they?\"\n\nHe tried to make her understand. \"This was an exceptional case. It wasn't just a question of somebody being killed. Do you realise that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about the Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been re-written, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been re-named, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don't know with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories. Just in that one instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete evidence after the event – years after it.\"\n\n\"And what good was that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was no good, because I threw it away a few minutes later. But if the same thing happened today, I should keep it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I wouldn't!\" said Julia. \"I'm quite ready to take risks, but only for something worth while, not for bits of old newspaper. What could you have done with it even if you had kept it?\"\n\n\"Not much, perhaps. But it was evidence. It might have planted a few doubts here and there, supposing that I'd dared to show it to anybody. I don't imagine that we can alter anything in our own lifetime. But one can imagine little knots of resistance springing up here and there – small groups of people banding themselves together, and gradually growing, and even leaving a few records behind, so that the next generation can carry on where we leave off.\"\n\n\"I'm not interested in the next generation, dear. I'm interested in us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're only a rebel from the waist downwards,\" he told her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought this brilliantly witty and flung her arms round him in delight.\n\nIn the ramifications of Party doctrine she had not the faintest interest. Whenever he began to talk of the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the mutability of the past and the denial of objective reality, and to use Newspeak words, she became bored and confused and said that she never paid any attention to that kind of thing. One knew that it was all rubbish, so why let oneself be worried by it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She knew when to cheer and when to boo, and that was all one needed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he persisted in talking of such subjects, she had a disconcerting habit of falling asleep. She was one of those people who can go to sleep at any hour and in any position. Talking to her, he realised how easy it was to present an appearance of orthodoxy while having no grasp whatever of what orthodoxy meant. In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: George Orwell" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had happened at last. The expected message had come. All his life, it seemed to him, he had been waiting for this to happen.\n\nHe was walking down the long corridor at the Ministry, and he was almost at the spot where Julia had slipped the note into his hand when he became aware that someone larger than himself was walking just behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The person, whoever it was, gave a small cough, evidently as a prelude to speaking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston stopped abruptly and turned. It was O'Brien.\n\nAt last they were face to face, and it seemed that his only impulse was to run away. His heart bounded violently. He would have been incapable of speaking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien, however, had continued forward in the same movement, laying a friendly hand for a moment on Winston's arm, so that the two of them were walking side by side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began speaking with the peculiar grave courtesy that differentiated him from the majority of Inner Party members.\n\n\"I had been hoping for an opportunity of talking to you,\" he said. \"I was reading one of your Newspeak articles in the Times the other day. You take a scholarly interest in Newspeak, I believe?\"\n\nWinston had recovered part of his self-possession." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hardly scholarly,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm only an amateur. It's not my subject. I have never had anything to do with the actual construction of the language.\"\n\n\"But you write it very elegantly,\" said O'Brien. \"That is not only my own opinion. I was talking recently to a friend of yours who is certainly an expert. His name has slipped my memory for the moment.\"\n\nAgain Winston's heart stirred painfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was inconceivable that this was anything other than a reference to Syme." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Syme was not only dead, he was abolished, an unperson. Any identifiable reference to him would have been mortally dangerous. O'Brien's remark must obviously have been intended as a signal, a code-word. By sharing a small act of thoughtcrime he had turned the two of them into accomplices." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had continued to stroll slowly down the corridor, but now O'Brien halted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the curious, disarming friendliness that he always managed to put into the gesture, he resettled his spectacles on his nose. Then he went on:\n\n\"What I had really intended to say was that in your article I noticed you had used two words which have become obsolete. But they have only become so very recently. Have you seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak Dictionary?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Winston. \"I didn't think it had been issued yet. We are still using the ninth in the Records Department.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The tenth edition is not due to appear for some months, I believe. But a few advance copies have been circulated. I have one myself. It might interest you to look at it, perhaps?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very much so,\" said Winston, immediately seeing where this tended.\n\n\"Some of the new developments are most ingenious. The reduction in the number of verbs – that is the point that will appeal to you, I think. Let me see, shall I send a messenger to you with the Dictionary? But I am afraid I invariably forget anything of that kind. Perhaps you could pick it up at my flat at some time that suited you? Wait. Let me give you my address.\"\n\nThey were standing in front of a telescreen. Somewhat absent-mindedly O'Brien felt two of his pockets and then produced a small leather-covered notebook and a gold ink-pencil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Immediately beneath the telescreen, in such a position that anyone who was watching at the other end of the instrument could read what he was writing, he scribbled an address, tore out the page and handed it to Winston." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am usually at home in the evenings,\" he said. \"If not, my servant will give you the Dictionary.\"\n\nHe was gone, leaving Winston holding the scrap of paper, which this time there was no need to conceal. Nevertheless he carefully memorised what was written on it, and some hours later dropped it into the memory hole along with a mass of other papers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had been talking to one another for a couple of minutes at the most." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was only one meaning that the episode could possibly have. It had been contrived as a way of letting Winston know O'Brien's address. This was necessary, because except by direct enquiry it was never possible to discover where anyone lived. There were no directories of any kind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you ever want to see me, this is where I can be found,\" was what O'Brien had been saying to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps there would even be a message concealed somewhere in the Dictionary. But at any rate, one thing was certain. The conspiracy that he had dreamed of did exist, and he had reached the outer edges of it.\n\nHe knew that sooner or later he would obey O'Brien's summons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps after a long delay – he was not certain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was happening was only the working-out of a process that had started years ago. The first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last step was something that would happen in the Ministry of Love." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as George Orwell" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston had woken up with his eyes full of tears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Julia rolled sleepily against him, murmuring something that might have been \"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"I dreamt –\" he began, and stopped short. It was too complex to be put into words. There was the dream itself, and there was a memory connected with it that had swum into his mind in the few seconds after waking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lay back with his eyes shut, still sodden in the atmosphere of the dream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a vast, luminous dream in which his whole life seemed to stretch out before him like a landscape on a summer evening after rain. It had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the glass was the dome of the sky, and inside the dome everything was flooded with clear soft light in which one could see into interminable distances. The dream had also been comprehended by – indeed, in some sense it had consisted in – a gesture of the arm made by his mother, and made again thirty years later by the Jewish woman he had seen on the news film, trying to shelter the small boy from the bullets, before the helicopters blew them both to pieces.\n\n\"Do you know,\" he said, \"that until this moment I believed I had murdered my mother?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why did you murder her?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said Julia, almost asleep.\n\n\"I didn't murder her. Not physically.\"\n\nIn the dream he had remembered his last glimpse of his mother, and within a few moments of waking the cluster of small events surrounding it had all come back. It was a memory that he must have deliberately pushed out of his consciousness over many years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was not certain of the date, but he could not have been less than ten years old, possibly twelve, when it had happened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His father had disappeared some time earlier; how much earlier, he could not remember. He remembered better the rackety, uneasy circumstances of the time: the periodical panics about air-raids and the sheltering in Tube stations, the piles of rubble everywhere, the unintelligible proclamations posted at street corners, the gangs of youths in shirts all the same colour, the enormous queues outside the bakeries, the intermittent machine-gun fire in the distance – above all, the fact that there was never enough to eat. He remembered long afternoons spent with other boys in scrounging round dustbins and rubbish heaps, picking out the ribs of cabbage leaves, potato peelings, sometimes even scraps of stale breadcrust from which they carefully scraped away the cinders; and also in waiting for the passing of trucks which travelled over a certain route and were known to carry cattle feed, and which, when they jolted over the bad patches in the road, sometimes spilt a few fragments of oil-cake.\n\nWhen his father disappeared, his mother did not show any surprise or any violent grief, but a sudden change came over her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She seemed to have become completely spiritless." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was evident even to Winston that she was waiting for something that she knew must happen. She did everything that was needed – cooked, washed, mended, made the bed, swept the floor, dusted the mantelpiece – always very slowly and with a curious lack of superfluous motion, like an artist's lay-figure moving of its own accord. Her large shapely body seemed to relapse naturally into stillness. For hours at a time she would sit almost immobile on the bed, nursing his young sister, a tiny, ailing, very silent child of two or three, with a face made simian by thinness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Very occasionally she would take Winston in her arms and press him against her for a long time without saying anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was aware, in spite of his youthfulness and selfishness, that this was somehow connected with the never-mentioned thing that was about to happen.\n\nHe remembered the room where they lived, a dark, close-smelling room that seemed half filled by a bed with a white counterpane. There was a gas ring in the fender, and a shelf where food was kept, and on the landing outside there was a brown earthenware sink, common to several rooms. He remembered his mother's statuesque body bending over the gas ring to stir at something in a saucepan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Above all he remembered his continuous hunger, and the fierce sordid battles at mealtimes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would ask his mother naggingly, over and over again, why there was not more food, he would shout and storm at her (he even remembered the tones of his voice, which was beginning to break prematurely and sometimes boomed in a peculiar way), or he would attempt a snivelling note of pathos in his efforts to get more than his share. His mother was quite ready to give him more than his share. She took it for granted that he, \"the boy\", should have the biggest portion; but however much she gave him he invariably demanded more. At every meal she would beseech him not to be selfish and to remember that his little sister was sick and also needed food, but it was no use." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would cry out with rage when she stopped ladling, he would try to wrench the saucepan and spoon out of her hands, he would grab bits from his sister's plate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew that he was starving the other two, but he could not help it; he even felt that he had a right to do it. The clamorous hunger in his belly seemed to justify him. Between meals, if his mother did not stand guard, he was constantly pilfering at the wretched store of food on the shelf.\n\nOne day a chocolate ration was issued." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There had been no such issue for weeks or months past." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He remembered quite clearly that precious little morsel of chocolate. It was a two-ounce slab (they still talked about ounces in those days) between the three of them. It was obvious that it ought to be divided into three equal parts. Suddenly, as though he were listening to somebody else, Winston heard himself demanding in a loud booming voice that he should be given the whole piece." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mother told him not to be greedy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a long, nagging argument that went round and round, with shouts, whines, tears, remonstrances, bargainings. His tiny sister, clinging to her mother with both hands, exactly like a baby monkey, sat looking over her shoulder at him with large, mournful eyes. In the end his mother broke off three-quarters of the chocolate and gave it to Winston, giving the other quarter to his sister. The little girl took hold of it and looked at it dully, perhaps not knowing what it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston stood watching her for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then with a sudden swift spring he had snatched the piece of chocolate out of his sister's hand and was fleeing for the door.\n\n\"Winston, Winston!\" his mother called after him. \"Come back! Give your sister back her chocolate!\"\n\nHe stopped, but he did not come back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mother's anxious eyes were fixed on his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even now he was thinking about the thing, he did not know what it was that was on the point of happening. His sister, conscious of having been robbed of something, had set up a feeble wail. His mother drew her arm round the child and pressed its face against her breast. Something in the gesture told him that his sister was dying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned and fled down the stairs, with the chocolate growing sticky in his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He never saw his mother again. After he had devoured the chocolate he felt somewhat ashamed of himself and hung about in the streets for several hours, until hunger drove him home. When he came back his mother had disappeared. This was already becoming normal at that time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing was gone from the room except his mother and his sister." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had not taken any clothes, not even his mother's overcoat. To this day he did not know with any certainty that his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible that she had merely been sent to a forced-labour camp. As for his sister, she might have been removed, like Winston himself, to one of the colonies for homeless children (Reclamation Centres, they were called) which had grown up as a result of the civil war; or she might have been sent to the labour camp along with his mother, or simply left somewhere or other to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the enveloping, protecting gesture of the arm in which its whole meaning seemed to be contained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mind went back to another dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother had sat on the dingy white-quilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him and drowning deeper every minute, but still looking up at him through the darkening water.\n\nHe told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance. Without opening her eyes she rolled over and settled herself into a more comfortable position." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,\" she said indistinctly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All children are swine.\"\n\n\"Yes. But the real point of the story –\"\n\nFrom her breathing it was evident that she was going off to sleep again. He would have liked to continue talking about his mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not suppose, from what he could remember of her, that she had been an unusual woman, still less an intelligent one; and yet she had possessed a kind of nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside. It would not have occurred to her that an action which is ineffectual thereby becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love. When the last of the chocolate was gone, his mother had clasped the child in her arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more chocolate, it did not avert the child's death or her own; but it seemed natural to her to do it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The refugee woman in the boat had also covered the little boy with her arm, which was no more use against the bullets than a sheet of paper. The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference. Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You were lifted clean out of the stream of history." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And yet to the people of only two generations ago, this would not have seemed all-important, because they were not attempting to alter history. They were governed by private loyalties which they did not question. What mattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself. The proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in this condition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first time in his life he did not despise the proles or think of them merely as an inert force which would one day spring to life and regenerate the world. The proles had stayed human. They had not become hardened inside. They had held on to the primitive emotions which he himself had to re-learn by conscious effort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And in thinking this he remembered, without apparent relevance, how a few weeks ago he had seen a severed hand lying on the pavement and had kicked it into the gutter as though it had been a cabbage-stalk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The proles are human beings,\" he said aloud. \"We are not human.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said Julia, who had woken up again.\n\nHe thought for a little while." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Has it ever occurred to you,\" he said, \"that the best thing for us to do would be simply to walk out of here before it's too late, and never see each other again?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, dear, it has occurred to me, several times. But I'm not going to do it, all the same.\"\n\n\"We've been lucky,\" he said, \"but it can't last much longer. You're young. You look normal and innocent. If you keep clear of people like me, you might stay alive for another fifty years.\"\n\n\"No. I've thought it all out. What you do, I'm going to do. And don't be too downhearted. I'm rather good at staying alive.\"\n\n\"We may be together for another six months – a year – there's no knowing. At the end we're certain to be apart. Do you realise how utterly alone we shall be? When once they get hold of us there will be nothing, literally nothing, that either of us can do for the other. If I confess, they'll shoot you, and if I refuse to confess they'll shoot you just the same. Nothing that I can do or say, or stop myself from saying, will put off your death for as much as five minutes. Neither of us will even know whether the other is alive or dead. We shall be utterly without power of any kind. The one thing that matters is that we shouldn't betray one another, although even that can't make the slightest difference.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you mean confessing,\" she said, \"we shall do that, right enough. Everybody always confesses. You can't help it. They torture you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter: only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you – that would be the real betrayal.\"\n\nShe thought it over. \"They can't do that,\" she said finally. \"It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you say anything – anything – but they can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" he said a little more hopefully, \"no; that's quite true. They can't get inside you. If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit them. With all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking. Perhaps that was less true when you were actually in their hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One did not know what happened inside the Ministry of Love, but it was possible to guess: tortures, drugs, delicate instruments that registered your nervous reactions, gradual wearing-down by sleeplessness and solitude and persistent questioning." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by enquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings: for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had done it, they had done it at last!\n\nThe room they were standing in was long-shaped and softly lit. The telescreen was dimmed to a low murmur; the richness of the dark-blue carpet gave one the impression of treading on velvet. At the far end of the room O'Brien was sitting at a table under a green-shaded lamp, with a mass of papers on either side of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had not bothered to look up when the servant showed Julia and Winston in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston's heart was thumping so hard that he doubted whether he would be able to speak. They had done it, they had done it at last, was all he could think. It had been a rash act to come here at all, and sheer folly to arrive together; though it was true that they had come by different routes and only met on O'Brien's doorstep. But merely to walk into such a place needed an effort of the nerve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was only on very rare occasions that one saw inside the dwelling-places of the Inner Party, or even penetrated into the quarter of the town where they lived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The whole atmosphere of the huge block of flats, the richness and spaciousness of everything, the unfamiliar smells of good food and good tobacco, the silent and incredibly rapid lifts sliding up and down, the white-jacketed servants hurrying to and fro – everything was intimidating. Although he had a good pretext for coming here, he was haunted at every step by the fear that a black-uniformed guard would suddenly appear from round the corner, demand his papers and order him to get out. O'Brien's servant, however, had admitted the two of them without demur. He was a small, dark-haired man in a white jacket, with a diamond-shaped, completely expressionless face which might have been that of a Chinese." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The passage down which he led them was softly carpeted, with cream-papered walls and white wainscoting, all exquisitely clean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That too was intimidating. Winston could not remember ever to have seen a passageway whose walls were not grimy from the contact of human bodies.\n\nO'Brien had a slip of paper between his fingers and seemed to be studying it intently. His heavy face, bent down so that one could see the line of the nose, looked both formidable and intelligent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For perhaps twenty seconds he sat without stirring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he pulled the speakwrite towards him and rapped out a message in the hybrid jargon of the Ministries:\n\nItems one comma five comma seven approved fullwise stop suggestion contained item six doubleplus ridiculous verging crimethink cancel stop unproceed constructionwise antegetting plusfull estimates machinery overheads stop end message.\n\nHe rose deliberately from his chair and came towards them across the soundless carpet. A little of the official atmosphere seemed to have fallen away from him with the Newspeak words, but his expression was grimmer than usual, as though he were not pleased at being disturbed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The terror that Winston already felt was suddenly shot through by a streak of ordinary embarrassment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed to him quite possible that he had simply made a stupid mistake. For what evidence had he in reality that O'Brien was any kind of political conspirator? Nothing but a flash of the eyes and a single equivocal remark: beyond that, only his own secret imaginings, founded on a dream. He could not even fall back on the pretence that he had come to borrow the Dictionary, because in that case Julia's presence was impossible to explain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As O'Brien passed the telescreen a thought seemed to strike him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was a sharp snap. The voice had stopped.\n\nJulia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even in the midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken aback to be able to hold his tongue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can turn it off!\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" said O'Brien, \"we can turn it off. We have that privilege.\"\n\nHe was opposite them now. His solid form towered over the pair of them, and the expression on his face was still indecipherable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was waiting, somewhat sternly, for Winston to speak, but about what?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even now it was quite conceivable that he was simply a busy man wondering irritably why he had been interrupted. Nobody spoke. After the stopping of the telescreen the room seemed deadly silent. The seconds marched past, enormous. With difficulty Winston continued to keep his eyes fixed on O'Brien's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then suddenly the grim face broke down into what might have been the beginnings of a smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With his characteristic gesture O'Brien resettled his spectacles on his nose.\n\n\"Shall I say it, or will you?\" he said.\n\n\"I will say it,\" said Winston promptly. \"That thing is really turned off?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, everything is turned off. We are alone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have come here because –\"\n\nHe paused, realising for the first time the vagueness of his own motives. Since he did not in fact know what kind of help he expected from O'Brien, it was not easy to say why he had come here. He went on, conscious that what he was saying must sound both feeble and pretentious:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some kind of secret organisation working against the Party, and that you are involved in it. We want to join it and work for it. We are enemies of the Party. We disbelieve in the principles of Ingsoc. We are thought-criminals. We are also adulterers. I tell you this because we want to put ourselves at your mercy. If you want us to incriminate ourselves in any other way, we are ready.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, with the feeling that the door had opened. Sure enough, the little yellow-faced servant had come in without knocking. Winston saw that he was carrying a tray with a decanter and glasses.\n\n\"Martin is one of us,\" said O'Brien impassively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bring the drinks over here, Martin. Put them on the round table. Have we enough chairs? Then we may as well sit down and talk in comfort. Bring a chair for yourself, Martin. This is business. You can stop being a servant for the next ten minutes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The little man sat down, quite at his ease, and yet still with a servant-like air, the air of a valet enjoying a privilege. Winston regarded him out of the corner of his eye. It struck him that the man's whole life was playing a part, and that he felt it to be dangerous to drop his assumed personality even for a moment. O'Brien took the decanter by the neck and filled up the glasses with a dark-red liquid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It aroused in Winston dim memories of something seen long ago on a wall or a hoarding – a vast bottle composed of electric lights which seemed to move up and down and pour its contents into a glass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seen from the top the stuff looked almost black, but in the decanter it gleamed like a ruby. It had a sour-sweet smell. He saw Julia pick up her glass and sniff at it with frank curiosity.\n\n\"It is called wine,\" said O'Brien with a faint smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You will have read about it in books, no doubt. Not much of it gets to the Outer Party, I am afraid.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face grew solemn again, and he raised his glass: \"I think it is fitting that we should begin by drinking a health. To our Leader: To Emmanuel Goldstein.\"\n\nWinston took up his glass with a certain eagerness. Wine was a thing he had read and dreamed about. Like the glass paperweight or Mr Charrington's half-remembered rhymes, it belonged to the vanished, romantic past, the olden time as he liked to call it in his secret thoughts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For some reason he had always thought of wine as having an intensely sweet taste, like that of blackberry jam, and an immediate intoxicating effect." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Actually, when he came to swallow it, the stuff was distinctly disappointing. The truth was that after years of gin-drinking he could barely taste it. He set down the empty glass.\n\n\"Then there is such a person as Goldstein?\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, there is such a person, and he is alive. Where, I do not know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the conspiracy – the organisation? It is real? It is not simply an invention of the Thought Police?\"\n\n\"No, it is real. The Brotherhood, we call it. You will never learn much more about the Brotherhood than that it exists and that you belong to it. I will come back to that presently.\" He looked at his wristwatch. \"It is unwise even for members of the Inner Party to turn off the telescreen for more than half an hour. You ought not to have come here together, and you will have to leave separately. You, Comrade\" – he bowed his head to Julia – \"will leave first. We have about twenty minutes at our disposal. You will understand that I must start by asking you certain questions. In general terms, what are you prepared to do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anything that we are capable of,\" said Winston." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien had turned himself a little in his chair so that he was facing Winston. He almost ignored Julia, seeming to take it for granted that Winston could speak for her. For a moment the lids flitted down over his eyes. He began asking his questions in a low, expressionless voice, as though this were a routine, a sort of catechism, most of whose answers were known to him already." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are prepared to give your lives?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You are prepared to commit murder?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"To commit acts of sabotage which may cause the death of hundreds of innocent people?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To betray your country to foreign powers?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds of children, to distribute habit-forming drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases – to do anything which is likely to cause demoralisation and weaken the power of the Party?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests to throw sulphuric acid in a child's face – are you prepared to do that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You are prepared to lose your identity and live out the rest of your life as a waiter or a dock-worker?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You are prepared to commit suicide, if and when we order you to do so?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are prepared, the two of you, to separate and never see one another again?\"\n\n\"No!\" broke in Julia.\n\nIt appeared to Winston that a long time passed before he answered. For a moment he seemed even to have been deprived of the power of speech." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His tongue worked soundlessly, forming the opening syllables first of one word, then of the other, over and over again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Until he had said it, he did not know which word he was going to say. \"No,\" he said finally.\n\n\"You did well to tell me,\" said O'Brien. \"It is necessary for us to know everything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned himself toward Julia and added in a voice with somewhat more expression in it:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you understand that even if he survives, it may be as a different person? We may be obliged to give him a new identity. His face, his movements, the shape of his hands, the colour of his hair – even his voice would be different. And you yourself might have become a different person. Our surgeons can alter people beyond recognition. Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes we even amputate a limb.\"\n\nWinston could not help snatching another sidelong glance at Martin's Mongolian face. There were no scars that he could see. Julia had turned a shade paler, so that her freckles were showing, but she faced O'Brien boldly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She murmured something that seemed to be assent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good. Then that is settled.\"\n\nThere was a silver box of cigarettes on the table. With a rather absent-minded air O'Brien pushed them towards the others, took one himself, then stood up and began to pace slowly to and fro, as though he could think better standing. They were very good cigarettes, very thick and well-packed, with an unfamiliar silkiness in the paper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien looked at his wristwatch again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You had better go back to your pantry, Martin,\" he said. \"I shall switch on in a quarter of an hour. Take a good look at these comrades' faces before you go. You will be seeing them again. I may not.\"\n\nExactly as they had done at the front door, the little man's dark eyes flickered over their faces. There was not a trace of friendliness in his manner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was memorising their appearance, but he felt no interest in them, or appeared to feel none." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It occurred to Winston that a synthetic face was perhaps incapable of changing its expression. Without speaking or giving any kind of salutation, Martin went out, closing the door silently behind him. O'Brien was strolling up and down, one hand in the pocket of his black overalls, the other holding his cigarette.\n\n\"You understand,\" he said, \"that you will be fighting in the dark. You will always be in the dark. You will receive orders and you will obey them, without knowing why. Later I shall send you a book from which you will learn the true nature of the society we live in, and the strategy by which we shall destroy it. When you have read the book, you will be full members of the Brotherhood. But between the general aims that we are fighting for, and the immediate tasks of the moment, you will never know anything. I tell you that the Brotherhood exists, but I cannot tell you whether it numbers a hundred members, or ten million. From your personal knowledge you will never be able to say that it numbers even as many as a dozen. You will have three or four contacts, who will be renewed from time to time as they disappear. As this was your first contact, it will be preserved. When you receive orders, they will come from me. If we find it necessary to communicate with you, it will be through Martin. When you are finally caught, you will confess. That is unavoidable. But you will have very little to confess, other than your own actions. You will not be able to betray more than a handful of unimportant people. Probably you will not even betray me. By that time I may be dead, or I shall have become a different person, with a different face.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He continued to move to and fro over the soft carpet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In spite of the bulkiness of his body there was a remarkable grace in his movements. It came out even in the gesture with which he thrust a hand into his pocket, or manipulated a cigarette. More even than of strength, he gave an impression of confidence and of an understanding tinged by irony. However much in earnest he might be, he had nothing of the single-mindedness that belongs to a fanatic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal disease, amputated limbs and altered faces, it was with a faint air of persiflage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is unavoidable,\" his voice seemed to say; \"this is what we have got to do, unflinchingly. But this is not what we shall be doing when life is worth living again.\" A wave of admiration, almost of worship, flowed out from Winston towards O'Brien. For the moment he had forgotten the shadowy figure of Goldstein. When you looked at O'Brien's powerful shoulders and his blunt-featured face, so ugly and yet so civilised, it was impossible to believe that he could be defeated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no stratagem that he was not equal to, no danger that he could not foresee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even Julia seemed to be impressed. She had let her cigarette go out and was listening intently. O'Brien went on:\n\n\"You will have heard rumours of the existence of the Brotherhood. No doubt you have formed your own picture of it. You have imagined, probably, a huge underworld of conspirators, meeting secretly in cellars, scribbling messages on walls, recognising one another by code-words or by special movements of the hand. Nothing of the kind exists. The members of the Brotherhood have no way of recognising one another, and it is impossible for any one member to be aware of the identity of more than a very few others. Goldstein himself, if he fell into the hands of the Thought Police, could not give them a complete list of members, or any information that would lead them to a complete list. No such list exists. The Brotherhood cannot be wiped out because it is not an organisation in the ordinary sense. Nothing holds it together except an idea which is indestructible. You will never have anything to sustain you, except the idea. You will get no comradeship and no encouragement. When finally you are caught, you will get no help. We never help our members. At most, when it is absolutely necessary that someone should be silenced, we are occasionally able to smuggle a razor blade into a prisoner's cell. You will have to get used to living without results and without hope. You will work for a while, you will be caught, you will confess, and then you will die. Those are the only results that you will ever see. There is no possibility that any perceptible change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away that future may be, there is no knowing. It might be a thousand years. At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little. We cannot act collectively. We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to individual, generation after generation. In the face of the Thought Police, there is no other way.\"\n\nHe halted and looked for the third time at his wristwatch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is almost time for you to leave, comrade,\" he said to Julia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait. The decanter is still half full.\"\n\nHe filled the glasses and raised his own glass by the stem.\n\n\"What shall it be this time?\" he said, still with the same faint suggestion of irony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To the confusion of the Thought Police? To the death of Big Brother? To humanity? To the future?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To the past,\" said Winston.\n\n\"The past is more important,\" agreed O'Brien gravely. They emptied their glasses, and a moment later Julia stood up to go. O'Brien took a small box from the top of a cabinet and handed her a flat white tablet which he told her to place on her tongue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was important, he said, not to go out smelling of wine: the lift attendants were very observant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as the door had shut behind her he appeared to forget her existence. He took another pace or two up and down, then stopped.\n\n\"There are details to be settled,\" he said. \"I assume that you have a hiding-place of some kind?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston explained about the room over Mr Charrington's shop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That will do for the moment. Later we will arrange something else for you. It is important to change one's hiding-place frequently. Meanwhile I shall send you a copy of the book\" – even O'Brien, Winston noticed, seemed to pronounce the words as though they were in italics – \"Goldstein's book, you understand, as soon as possible. It may be some days before I can get hold of one. There are not many in existence, as you can imagine. The Thought Police hunts them down and destroys them almost as fast as we can produce them. It makes very little difference. The book is indestructible. If the last copy were gone, we could reproduce it almost word for word. Do you carry a brief-case to work with you?\" he added.\n\n\"As a rule, yes.\"\n\n\"What is it like?\"\n\n\"Black, very shabby. With two straps.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Black, two straps, very shabby – good. One day in the fairly near future – I cannot give a date – one of the messages among your morning's work will contain a misprinted word, and you will have to ask for a repeat. On the following day you will go to work without your brief-case. At some time during the day, in the street, a man will touch you on the arm and say, \"I think you have dropped your brief-case.\" The one he gives you will contain a copy of Goldstein's book. You will return it within fourteen days.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were silent for a moment.\n\n\"There are a couple of minutes before you need go,\" said O'Brien. \"We shall meet again – if we do meet again –\"\n\nWinston looked up at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In the place where there is no darkness?\" he said hesitantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien nodded without appearance of surprise. \"In the place where there is no darkness,\" he said, as though he had recognised the allusion. \"And in the meantime, is there anything that you wish to say before you leave? Any message? Any question?\"\n\nWinston thought. There did not seem to be any further question that he wanted to ask: still less did he feel any impulse to utter high-sounding generalities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead of anything directly connected with O'Brien or the Brotherhood, there came into his mind a sort of composite picture of the dark bedroom where his mother had spent her last days, and the little room over Mr Charrington's shop, and the glass paperweight, and the steel engraving in its rosewood frame." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost at random he said:\n\n\"Did you ever happen to hear an old rhyme that begins ''Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St Clement's'?\"\n\nAgain O'Brien nodded. With a sort of grave courtesy he completed the stanza:\n\n\"Oranges and lemons,\" say the bells of St Clement's," }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You owe me three farthings,\" say the bells of St Martin's," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When will you pay me?\" say the bells of Old Bailey,\n\n\"When I grow rich,\" say the bells of Shoreditch.\n\n\"You knew the last line!\" said Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, I knew the last line. And now, I am afraid, it is time for you to go. But wait. You had better let me give you one of these tablets.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Winston stood up O'Brien held out a hand. His powerful grip crushed the bones of Winston's palm. At the door Winston looked back, but O'Brien seemed already to be in process of putting him out of mind. He was waiting with his hand on the switch that controlled the telescreen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beyond him Winston could see the writing-table with its green-shaded lamp and the speakwrite and the wire baskets deep-laden with papers." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The incident was closed. Within thirty seconds, it occurred to him, O'Brien would be back at his interrupted and important work on behalf of the Party." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like George Orwell and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston was gelatinous with fatigue. Gelatinous was the right word. It had come into his head spontaneously. His body seemed to have not only the weakness of a jelly, but its translucency." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt that if he held up his hand he would be able to see the light through it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the blood and lymph had been drained out of him by an enormous debauch of work, leaving only a frail structure of nerves, bones and skin. All sensations seemed to be magnified. His overalls fretted his shoulders, the pavement tickled his feet, even the opening and closing of a hand was an effort that made his joints creak.\n\nHe had worked more than ninety hours in five days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So had everyone else in the Ministry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now it was all over, and he had literally nothing to do, no Party work of any description, until tomorrow morning. He could spend six hours in the hiding-place and another nine in his own bed. Slowly, in mild afternoon sunshine, he walked up a dingy street in the direction of Mr Charrington's shop, keeping one eye open for the patrols, but irrationally convinced that this afternoon there was no danger of anyone interfering with him. The heavy brief-case that he was carrying bumped against his knee at each step, sending a tingling sensation up and down the skin of his leg." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inside it was the book, which he had now had in his possession for six days and had not yet opened, nor even looked at." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns – after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the two thousand Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces – at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.\n\nThere was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston was taking part in a demonstration in one of the central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was night, and the white faces and scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people, including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A little Rumpelstilt-skin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by the wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried onto the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next moment there was a tremendous commotion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in mid-sentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But at the moment he had other things to preoccupy him. It was during the moment of disorder while the posters were being torn down that a man whose face he did not see had tapped him on the shoulder and said, \"Excuse me, I think you've dropped your brief-case.\" He took the brief-case abstractedly, without speaking. He knew that it would be days before he had an opportunity to look inside it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The instant that the demonstration was over he went straight to the Ministry of Truth, though the time was now nearly twenty-three hours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The entire staff of the Ministry had done likewise. The orders already issuing from the telescreens, recalling them to their posts, were hardly necessary.\n\nOceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs – all had to be rectified at lightning speed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere. The work was overwhelming, all the more so because the processes that it involved could not be called by their true names. Everyone in the Records Department worked eighteen hours in the twenty-four, with two three-hour snatches of sleep. Mattresses were brought up from the cellars and pitched all over the corridors: meals consisted of sandwiches and Victory Coffee wheeled round on trolleys by attendants from the canteen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each time that Winston broke off for one of his spells of sleep he tried to leave his desk clear of work, and each time that he crawled back, sticky-eyed and aching, it was to find that another shower of paper cylinders had covered the desk like a snow-drift, half-burying the speakwrite and overflowing onto the floor, so that the first job was always to stack them into a neat-enough pile to give him room to work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was worst of all was that the work was by no means purely mechanical. Often it was enough merely to substitute one name for another, but any detailed report of events demanded care and imagination. Even the geographical knowledge that one needed in transferring the war from one part of the world to another was considerable.\n\nBy the third day his eyes ached unbearably and his spectacles needed wiping every few minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was like struggling with some crushing physical task, something which one had the right to refuse and which one was nevertheless neurotically anxious to accomplish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In so far as he had time to remember it, he was not troubled by the fact that every word he murmured into the speakwrite, every stroke of his ink-pencil, was a deliberate lie. He was as anxious as anyone else in the Department that the forgery should be perfect. On the morning of the sixth day the dribble of cylinders slowed down. For as much as half an hour nothing came out of the tube; then one more cylinder, then nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everywhere at about the same time the work was easing off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A deep and as it were secret sigh went through the Department. A mighty deed, which could never be mentioned, had been achieved. It was now impossible for any human being to prove by documentary evidence that the war with Eurasia had ever happened. At twelve hundred it was unexpectedly announced that all workers in the Ministry were free till tomorrow morning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston, still carrying the brief-case containing the book, which had remained between his feet while he worked and under his body while he slept, went home, shaved himself and almost fell asleep in his bath, although the water was barely more than tepid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a sort of voluptuous creaking in his joints he climbed the stair above Mr Charrington's shop. He was tired, but not sleepy any longer. He opened the window, lit the dirty little oilstove and put on a pan of water for coffee. Julia would arrive presently: meanwhile there was the book." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat down in the sluttish armchair and undid the straps of the brief-case." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A heavy black volume, amateurishly bound, with no name or title on the cover. The print also looked slightly irregular. The pages were worn at the edges, and fell apart easily, as though the book had passed through many hands. The inscription on the title-page ran:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM\n\nby\n\nEmmanuel Goldstein\n\nWinston began reading:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chapter I." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ignorance is Strength.\n\nThroughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that he was reading, in comfort and safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear at the keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the page with his hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From somewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of children: in the room itself there was no sound except the insect voice of the clock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He settled deeper into the armchair and put his feet up on the fender." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was bliss, it was eternity. Suddenly, as one sometimes does with a book of which one knows that one will ultimately read and re-read every word, he opened it at a different place and found himself at the third chapter. He went on reading:\n\nChapter III." }, { "from": "human", "value": "War is Peace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The splitting-up of the world into three great super-states was an event which could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers, Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third, Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused fighting. The frontiers between the three super-states are in some places arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general they follow geographical lines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eurasia comprises the whole of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal to the Bering Strait." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands including the British Isles, Australasia and the southern portion of Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the others and with a less definite western frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet.\n\nIn one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one's own side and not by the enemy, meritorious. But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the centres of civilisation war means no more than a continuous shortage of consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of deaths." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "War has in fact changed its character. More exactly, the reasons for which war is waged have changed in their order of importance. Motives which were already present to some small extent in the great wars of the early twentieth century have now become dominant and are consciously recognised and acted upon.\n\nTo understand the nature of the present war – for in spite of the re-grouping which occurs every few years, it is always the same war – one must realise in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "None of the three super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other two in combination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They are too evenly matched, and their natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces, Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity and industriousness of its inhabitants. Secondly, there is no longer, in a material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of self-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared to one another, the scramble for markets which was a main cause of previous wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In any case each of the three super-states is so vast that it can obtain almost all the materials that it needs within its own boundaries." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In so far as the war has a direct economic purpose, it is a war for labour power. Between the frontiers of the super-states, and not permanently in the possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin and Hong Kong, containing within it about a fifth of the population of the earth. It is for the possession of these thickly populated regions, and of the northern ice-cap, that the three powers are constantly struggling. In practice no one power ever controls the whole of the disputed area." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and it is the chance of seizing this or that fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery that dictates the endless changes of alignment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals, and some of them yield important vegetable products such as rubber which in colder climates it is necessary to synthesise by comparatively expensive methods. But above all they contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever power controls equatorial Africa, or the countries of the Middle East, or Southern India, or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies of scores or hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hard-working coolies. The inhabitants of these areas, reduced more or less openly to the status of slaves, pass continually from conqueror to conqueror, and are expended like so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control more labour power, to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, and so on indefinitely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It should be noted that the fighting never really moves beyond the edges of the disputed areas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The frontiers of Eurasia flow back and forth between the basin of the Congo and the northern shore of the Mediterranean; the islands of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific are constantly being captured and recaptured by Oceania or by Eastasia; in Mongolia the dividing line between Eurasia and Eastasia is never stable; round the Pole all three powers lay claim to enormous territories which in fact are largely uninhabited and unexplored: but the balance of power always remains roughly even, and the territory which forms the heartland of each super-state always remains inviolate. Moreover, the labour of the exploited peoples round the Equator is not really necessary to the world's economy. They add nothing to the wealth of the world, since whatever they produce is used for purposes of war, and the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. By their labour the slave populations allow the tempo of continuous warfare to be speeded up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But if they did not exist, the structure of world society, and the process by which it maintains itself, would not be essentially different." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognised and not recognised by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work. The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and still more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of that period looked forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the early twentieth century, the vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly and efficient – a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete – was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen, partly because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly regimented society. As a whole the world is more primitive today than it was fifty years ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, and various devices, always in some way connected with warfare and police espionage, have been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped, and the ravages of the atomic war of the nineteen-fifties have never been fully repaired." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nevertheless the dangers inherent in the machine are still there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process – by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute – the machine did raise the living standards of the average human being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.\n\nBut it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction – indeed, in some sense was the destruction – of a hierarchical society." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To return to the agricultural past, as some thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was not a practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency towards mechanisation which had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially backward was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated, directly or indirectly, by its more advanced rivals.\n\nNor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in poverty by restricting the output of goods. This happened to a great extent during the final phase of capitalism, roughly between 1920 and 1940." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The economy of many countries was allowed to stagnate, land went out of cultivation, capital equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were prevented from working and kept half alive by State charity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But this, too, entailed military weakness, and since the privations it inflicted were obviously unnecessary, it made opposition inevitable. The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. By the standards of the early twentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy – his large well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three servants, his private motor-car or helicopter – set him in a different world from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call \"the proles\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.\n\nWar, it will be seen, not only accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What is concerned here is not the morale of the masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralised by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world.\n\nAll members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more and more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance of power, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The search for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining activities in which the inventive or speculative type of mind can find any outlet. In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for \"Science\". The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital importance – meaning, in effect, war and police espionage – the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand. In so far as scientific research still continues, this is its subject matter. The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor, studying with extraordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis and physical torture; or he is chemist, physicist or biologist concerned only with such branches of his special subject as are relevant to the taking of life. In the vast laboratories of the Ministry of Peace, and in the experimental stations hidden in the Brazilian forests, or in the Australian desert, or on lost islands of the Antarctic, the teams of experts are indefatigably at work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some are concerned simply with planning the logistics of future wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable armour-plating; others search for new and deadlier gases, or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents, or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies; others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine under the water, or an aeroplane as independent of its base as a sailing ship; others explore even remoter possibilities such as focusing the sun's rays through lenses suspended thousands of kilometres away in space, or producing artificial earthquakes and tidal waves by tapping the heat at the earth's centre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But none of these projects ever comes anywhere near realisation, and none of the three super-states ever gains a significant lead on the others. What is more remarkable is that all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any that their present researches are likely to discover. Although the Party, according to its habit, claims the invention for itself, atomic bombs first appeared as early as the nineteen-forties, and were first used on a large scale about ten years later. At that time some hundreds of bombs were dropped on industrial centres, chiefly in European Russia, Western Europe and North America." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The effect was to convince the ruling groups of all countries that a few more atomic bombs would mean the end of organised society, and hence of their own power." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thereafter, although no formal agreement was ever made or hinted at, no more bombs were dropped. All three powers merely continue to produce atomic bombs and store them up against the decisive opportunity which they all believe will come sooner or later. And meanwhile the art of war has remained almost stationary for thirty or forty years. Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, bombing planes have been largely superseded by self-propelled projectiles, and the fragile movable battleship has given way to the almost unsinkable Floating Fortress; but otherwise there has been little development." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tank, the submarine, the torpedo, the machine-gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade are still in use." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And in spite of the endless slaughters reported in the press and on the telescreens, the desperate battles of earlier wars, in which hundreds of thousands or even millions of men were often killed in a few weeks, have never been repeated.\n\nNone of the three super-states ever attempts any manoeuvre which involves the risk of serious defeat. When any large operation is undertaken, it is usually a surprise attack against an ally. The strategy that all three powers are following, or pretend to themselves that they are following, is the same." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The plan is, by a combination of fighting, bargaining and well-timed strokes of treachery, to acquire a ring of bases completely encircling one or other of the rival states, and then to sign a pact of friendship with that rival and remain on peaceful terms for so many years as to lull suspicion to sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During this time rockets loaded with atomic bombs can be assembled at all the strategic spots; finally they will all be fired simultaneously, with effects so devastating as to make retaliation impossible. It will then be time to sign a pact of friendship with the remaining world-power, in preparation for another attack. This scheme, it is hardly necessary to say, is a mere daydream, impossible of realisation. Moreover, no fighting ever occurs except in the disputed areas round the Equator and the Pole: no invasion of enemy territory is ever undertaken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This explains the fact that in some places the frontiers between the super-states are arbitrary." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eurasia, for example, could easily conquer the British Isles, which are geographically part of Europe, or on the other hand it would be possible for Oceania to push its frontiers to the Rhine or even to the Vistula. But this would violate the principle, followed on all sides though never formulated, of cultural integrity. If Oceania were to conquer the areas that used once to be known as France and Germany, it would be necessary either to exterminate the inhabitants, a task of great physical difficulty, or to assimilate a population of about a hundred million people, who, so far as technical development goes, are roughly on the Oceanic level. The problem is the same for all three super-states." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is absolutely necessary to their structure that there should be no contact with foreigners, except, to a limited extent, with war prisoners and coloured slaves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the official ally of the moment is always regarded with the darkest suspicion. War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is therefore realised on all sides that however often Persia, or Egypt, or Java or Ceylon may change hands, the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Under this lies a fact never mentioned aloud, but tacitly understood and acted upon: namely, that the conditions of life in all three super-states are very much the same. In Oceania the prevailing philosophy is called Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps better rendered as Obliteration of the Self. The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of a semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It follows that the three super-states not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up, like three sheaves of corn. And, as usual, the ruling groups of all three powers are simultaneously aware and unaware of what they are doing. Their lives are dedicated to world conquest, but they also know that it is necessary that the war should continue everlastingly and without victory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Meanwhile the fact that there is no danger of conquest makes possible the denial of reality which is the special feature of Ingsoc and its rival systems of thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here it is necessary to repeat what has been said earlier, that by becoming continuous war has fundamentally changed its character.\n\nIn past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practised today would have been impossible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.\n\nBut when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not important. Efficiency, even military efficiency, is no longer needed. Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police. Since each of the three super-states is unconquerable, each is in effect a separate universe within which almost any perversion of thought can be safely practised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life – the need to eat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid swallowing poison or stepping out of top-storey windows, and the like." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Between life and death, and between physical pleasure and physical pain, there is still a distinction, but that is all. Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognise their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word \"war\", therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This – although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense – is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston stopped reading for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somewhere in remote distance a rocket bomb thundered. The blissful feeling of being alone with the forbidden book, in a room with no telescreen, had not worn off. Solitude and safety were physical sensations, mixed up somehow with the tiredness of his body, the softness of the chair, the touch of the faint breeze from the window that played upon his cheek. The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already. He had just turned back to Chapter I when he heard Julia's footstep on the stair and started out of his chair to meet her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She dumped her brown tool-bag on the floor and flung herself into his arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was more than a week since they had seen one another.\n\n\"I've got the book,\" he said as they disentangled themselves.\n\n\"Oh, you've got it? Good,\" she said without much interest, and almost immediately knelt down beside the oil stove to make the coffee.\n\nThey did not return to the subject until they had been in bed for half an hour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The evening was just cool enough to make it worth while to pull up the counterpane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From below came the familiar sound of singing and the scrape of boots on the flagstones. The brawny red-armed woman whom Winston had seen there on his first visit was almost a fixture in the yard. There seemed to be no hour of daylight when she was not marching to and fro between the washtub and the line, alternately gagging herself with clothes pegs and breaking forth into lusty song. Julia had settled down on her side and seemed to be already on the point of falling asleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached out for the book, which was lying on the floor, and sat up against the bed-head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We must read it,\" he said. \"You too. All members of the Brotherhood have to read it.\"\n\n\"You read it,\" she said with her eyes shut. \"Read it aloud. That's the best way. Then you can explain it to me as you go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The clock's hands said six, meaning eighteen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had three or four hours ahead of them. He propped the book against his knees and began reading:\n\nChapter I.\n\nIgnorance is Strength." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle and the Low." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.\n\n\"Julia, are you awake?\" said Winston.\n\n\"Yes, my love, I'm listening. Go on. It's marvellous.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He continued reading:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim – for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives – is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the late nineteenth century the recurrence of this pattern had become obvious to many observers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There then arose schools of thinkers who interpreted history as a cyclical process and claimed to show that inequality was the unalterable law of human life. This doctrine, of course, had always had its adherents, but in the manner in which it was now put forward there was a significant change. In the past the need for a hierarchical form of society had been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and by the priests, lawyers and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been softened by promises of compensation in an imaginary world beyond the grave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Middle, so long as it was struggling for power, had always made use of such terms as freedom, justice and fraternity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, however, the concept of human brotherhood began to be assailed by people who were not yet in positions of command, but merely hoped to be so before long. In the past the Middle had made revolutions under the banner of equality, and then had established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown. The new Middle groups in effect proclaimed their tyranny beforehand. Socialism, a theory which appeared in the early nineteenth century and was the last link in a chain of thought stretching back to the slave rebellions of antiquity, was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the century, Ingsoc in Oceania, Neo-Bolshevism in Eurasia, Death-Worship, as it is commonly called, in Eastasia, had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality. These new movements, of course, grew out of the old ones and tended to keep their names and pay lip-service to their ideology. But the purpose of all of them was to arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment. The familiar pendulum swing was to happen once more, and then stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As usual, the High were to be turned out by the Middle, who would then become the High; but this time, by conscious strategy, the High would be able to maintain their position permanently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The new doctrines arose partly because of the accumulation of historical knowledge, and the growth of the historical sense, which had hardly existed before the nineteenth century. The cyclical movement of history was now intelligible, or appeared to be so; and if it was intelligible, then it was alterable. But the principal, underlying cause was that, as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, human equality had become technically possible. It was still true that men were not equal in their native talents and that functions had to be specialised in ways that favoured some individuals against others; but there was no longer any real need for class distinctions or for large differences of wealth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In earlier ages, class distinctions had been not only inevitable but desirable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inequality was the price of civilisation. With the development of machine production, however, the case was altered. Even if it was still necessary for human beings to do different kinds of work, it was no longer necessary for them to live at different social or economic levels. Therefore, from the point of view of the new groups who were on the point of seizing power, human equality was no longer an ideal to be striven after, but a danger to be averted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In more primitive ages, when a just and peaceful society was in fact not possible, it had been fairly easy to believe it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The idea of an earthly paradise in which men should live together in a state of brotherhood, without laws and without brute labour, had haunted the human imagination for thousands of years. And this vision had had a certain hold even on the groups who actually profited by each historic change. The heirs of the French, English and American revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the like, and had even allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment when it became realisable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every new political theory, by whatever name it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years – imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations – not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.\n\nIt was only after a decade of national wars, civil wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions in all parts of the world that Ingsoc and its rivals emerged as fully worked-out political theories. But they had been foreshadowed by the various systems, generally called totalitarian, which had appeared earlier in the century, and the main outlines of the world which would emerge from the prevailing chaos had long been obvious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What kind of people would control this world had been equally obvious." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organisers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists and professional politicians. These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralised government. As compared with their opposite numbers in past ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and, above all, more conscious of what they were doing and more intent on crushing opposition. This last difference was cardinal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By comparison with that existing today, all the tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and inefficient." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ruling groups were always infected to some extent by liberal ideas, and were content to leave loose ends everywhere, to regard only the overt act and to be uninterested in what their subjects were thinking. Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police and in the sound of official propaganda, with all other channels of communication closed. The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time.\n\nAfter the revolutionary period of the 'fifties and 'sixties, society re-grouped itself, as always, into High, Middle and Low. But the new High group, unlike all its forerunners, did not act upon instinct but knew what was needed to safeguard its position." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had long been realised that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called \"abolition of private property\" which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass of individuals. Individually, no member of the Party owns anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the Party owns everything in Oceania, because it controls everything, and disposes of the products as it thinks fit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the years following the Revolution it was able to step into this commanding position almost unopposed, because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivisation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had always been assumed that if the capitalist class were expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport – everything had been taken away from them: and since these things were no longer private property, it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc, which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.\n\nBut the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern. These causes do not operate singly, and as a rule all four of them are present in some degree. A ruling class which could guard against all of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately the determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After the middle of the present century, the first danger had in reality disappeared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each of the three powers which now divide the world is in fact unconquerable, and could only become conquerable through slow demographic changes which a government with wide powers can easily avert. The second danger, also, is only a theoretical one. The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The recurrent economic crises of past times were totally unnecessary and are not now permitted to happen, but other and equally large dislocations can and do happen without having political results, because there is no way in which discontent can become articulate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for the problem of over-production, which has been latent in our society since the development of the machine technique, it is solved by the device of continuous warfare (see Chapter III), which is also useful in keying up public morale to the necessary pitch. From the point of view of our present rulers, therefore, the only genuine dangers are the splitting-off of a new group of able, under-employed, power-hungry people, and the growth of liberalism and scepticism in their own ranks. The problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem of continuously moulding the consciousness both of the directing group and of the larger executive group that lies immediately below it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Given this background, one could infer, if one did not know it already, the general structure of Oceanic society. At the apex of the pyramid comes Big Brother. Big Brother is infallible and all-powerful. Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nobody has ever seen Big Brother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born. Big Brother is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world. His function is to act as a focusing point for love, fear and reverence, emotions which are more easily felt towards an individual than towards an organisation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Below Big Brother comes the Inner Party, its numbers limited to six millions, or something less than two per cent of the population of Oceania." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Below the Inner Party comes the Outer Party, which, if the Inner Party is described as the brain of the State, may be justly likened to the hands. Below that come the dumb masses whom we habitually refer to as \"the proles\", numbering perhaps eighty-five per cent of the population. In the terms of our earlier classification, the proles are the Low: for the slave populations of the equatorial lands, who pass constantly from conqueror to conqueror, are not a permanent or necessary part of the structure.\n\nIn principle, membership of these three groups is not hereditary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The child of Inner Party parents is in theory not born into the Inner Party." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Admission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the age of sixteen. Nor is there any racial discrimination, or any marked domination of one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans of pure Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party, and the administrators of any area are always drawn from the inhabitants of that area. In no part of Oceania do the inhabitants have the feeling that they are a colonial population ruled from a distant capital." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oceania has no capital, and its titular head is a person whose whereabouts nobody knows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except that English is its chief lingua franca and Newspeak its official language, it is not centralised in any way. Its rulers are not held together by blood-ties but by adherence to a common doctrine. It is true that our society is stratified, and very rigidly stratified, on what at first sight appear to be hereditary lines. There is far less to-and-fro movement between the different groups than happened under capitalism or even in the pre-industrial ages." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Between the two branches of the Party there is a certain amount of interchange, but only so much as will ensure that weaklings are excluded from the Inner Party and that ambitious members of the Outer Party are made harmless by allowing them to rise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Proletarians, in practice, are not allowed to graduate into the Party. The most gifted among them, who might possibly become nuclei of discontent, are simply marked down by the Thought Police and eliminated. But this state of affairs is not necessarily permanent, nor is it a matter of principle. The Party is not a class in the old sense of the word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It does not aim at transmitting power to its own children, as such; and if there were no other way of keeping the ablest people at the top, it would be perfectly prepared to recruit an entire new generation from the ranks of the proletariat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the crucial years, the fact that the Party was not a hereditary body did a great deal to neutralise opposition. The older kind of Socialist, who had been trained to fight against something called \"class privilege\", assumed that what is not hereditary cannot be permanent. He did not see that the continuity of an oligarchy need not be physical, nor did he pause to reflect that hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas adoptive organisations such as the Catholic Church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years. The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.\n\nAll the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterise our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived. Physical rebellion, or any preliminary move towards rebellion, is at present not possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the proletarians nothing is to be feared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is. They could only become dangerous if the advance of industrial technique made it necessary to educate them more highly; but, since military and commercial rivalry are no longer important, the level of popular education is actually declining. What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a Party member, on the other hand, not even the smallest deviation of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be tolerated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police. Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone. Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in bed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is being inspected. Nothing that he does is indifferent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His friendships, his relaxations, his behaviour towards his wife and children, the expression of his face when he is alone, the words he mutters in sleep, even the characteristic movements of his body, are all jealously scrutinised." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not only any actual misdemeanour, but any eccentricity, however small, any change of habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be the symptom of an inner struggle, is certain to be detected. He has no freedom of choice in any direction whatever. On the other hand his actions are not regulated by law or by any clearly formulated code of behaviour. In Oceania there is no law." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments and vaporisations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts. Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated, and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent in Ingsoc. If he is a person naturally orthodox (in Newspeak a goodthinker), he will in all circumstances know, without taking thought, what is the true belief or the desirable emotion. But in any case an elaborate mental training, undergone in childhood and grouping itself round the Newspeak words crimestop, blackwhite and doublethink, makes him unwilling and unable to think too deeply on any subject whatever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A Party member is expected to have no private emotions and no respites from enthusiasm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He is supposed to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred of foreign enemies and internal traitors, triumph over victories, and self-abasement before the power and wisdom of the Party. The discontents produced by his bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately turned outwards and dissipated by such devices as the Two Minutes Hate, and the speculations which might possibly induce a sceptical or rebellious attitude are killed in advance by his early-acquired inner discipline. The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is called, in Newspeak, crimestop. Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity. But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one's own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body. Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the Party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.\n\nThe alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly rising." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is not merely that speeches, statistics and records of every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even one's policy, is a confession of weakness. If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia (whichever it may be) is the enemy today, then that country must always have been the enemy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And if the facts say otherwise, then the facts must be altered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability of the régime as the work of repression and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love.\n\nThe mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. It also follows that though the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any specific instance. For when it has been recreated in whatever shape is needed at the moment, then this new version is the past, and no different past can ever have existed. This holds good even when, as often happens, the same event has to be altered out of recognition several times in the course of a year." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At all times the Party is in possession of absolute truth, and clearly the absolute can never have been different from what it is now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It will be seen that the control of the past depends above all on the training of memory. To make sure that all written records agree with the orthodoxy of the moment is merely a mechanical act. But it is also necessary to remember that events happened in the desired manner. And if it is necessary to re-arrange one's memories or to tamper with written records, then it is necessary to forget that one has done so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The trick of doing this can be learned like any other mental technique." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is learned by the majority of Party members, and certainly by all who are intelligent as well as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called, quite frankly, \"reality control\". In Newspeak it is called doublethink, though doublethink comprises much else as well.\n\nDoublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able – and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years – to arrest the course of history.\n\nAll past oligarchies have fallen from power either because they ossified or because they grew soft. Either they became stupid and arrogant, failed to adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and were overthrown; or they became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have used force, and once again were overthrown. They fell, that is to say, either through consciousness or through unconsciousness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is the achievement of the Party to have produced a system of thought in which both conditions can exist simultaneously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And upon no other intellectual basis could the dominion of the Party be made permanent. If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality. For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility with the power to learn from past mistakes.\n\nIt need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion: the more intelligent, the less sane. One clear illustration of this is the fact that war hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in the social scale. Those whose attitude towards the war is most nearly rational are the subject peoples of the disputed territories. To these people the war is simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and fro over their bodies like a tidal wave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Which side is winning is a matter of complete indifference to them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They are aware that a change of overlordship means simply that they will be doing the same work as before for new masters who treat them in the same manner as the old ones. The slightly more favoured workers whom we call \"the proles\" are only intermittently conscious of the war. When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening. It is in the ranks of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, that the true war enthusiasm is found." }, { "from": "human", "value": "World-conquest is believed in most firmly by those who know it to be impossible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This peculiar linking-together of opposites – knowledge with ignorance, cynicism with fanaticism – is one of the chief distinguishing marks of Oceanic society. The official ideology abounds with contradictions even where there is no practical reason for them. Thus, the Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it chooses to do this in the name of Socialism. It preaches a contempt for the working class unexampled for centuries past, and it dresses its members in a uniform which was at one time peculiar to manual workers and was adopted for that reason." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It systematically undermines the solidarity of the family, and it calls its leader by a name which is a direct appeal to the sentiment of family loyalty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts. The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink. For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In no other way could the ancient cycle be broken." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If human equality is to be for ever averted – if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently – then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.\n\nBut there is one question which until this moment we have almost ignored. It is: why should human equality be averted? Supposing that the mechanics of the process have been rightly described, what is the motive for this huge, accurately planned effort to freeze history at a particular moment of time?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Here we reach the central secret." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As we have seen, the mystique of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, depends upon doublethink. But deeper than this lies the original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led to the seizure of power and brought doublethink, the Thought Police, continuous warfare and all the other necessary paraphernalia into existence afterwards. This motive really consists...\n\nWinston became aware of silence, as one becomes aware of a new sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed to him that Julia had been very still for some time past." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was lying on her side, naked from the waist upwards, with her cheek pillowed on her hand and one dark lock tumbling across her eyes. Her breast rose and fell slowly and regularly.\n\n\"Julia.\"\n\nNo answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Julia, are you awake?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No answer. She was asleep. He shut the book, put it carefully on the floor, lay down and pulled the coverlet over both of them.\n\nHe had still, he reflected, not learned the ultimate secret. He understood how; he did not understand why." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chapter I, like Chapter III, had not actually told him anything that he did not know, it had merely systematised the knowledge that he possessed already." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But after reading it he knew better than before that he was not mad. Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. A yellow beam from the sinking sun slanted in through the window and fell across the pillow." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding four sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he woke it was with the sensation of having slept for a long time, but a glance at the old-fashioned clock told him that it was only twenty-thirty. He lay dozing for a little while; then the usual deep-lunged singing struck up from the yard below:\n\nIt was only an 'opeless fancy,\n\nIt passed like an Ipril dye," }, { "from": "human", "value": "But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!\n\nThe drivelling song seemed to have kept its popularity. You still heard it all over the place. It had outlived the Hate Song." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julia woke at the sound, stretched herself luxuriously and got out of bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm hungry,\" she said. \"Let's make some more coffee. Damn! The stove's gone out and the water's cold.\" She picked the stove up and shook it. \"There's no oil in it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We can get some from old Charrington, I expect.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The funny thing is I made sure it was full. I'm going to put my clothes on,\" she added. \"It seems to have got colder.\"\n\nWinston also got up and dressed himself. The indefatigable voice sang on:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They sye that time 'eals all things," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They sye you can always forget;\n\nBut the smiles an' the tears across the years\n\nThey twist my 'eart-strings yet!\n\nAs he fastened the belt of his overalls he strolled across to the window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sun must have gone down behind the houses; it was not shining into the yard any longer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The flagstones were wet as though they had just been washed, and he had the feeling that the sky had been washed too, so fresh and pale was the blue between the chimney pots. Tirelessly the woman marched to and fro, corking and uncorking herself, singing and falling silent, and pegging out more diapers, and more and yet more. He wondered whether she took in washing for a living, or was merely the slave of twenty or thirty grandchildren. Julia had come across to his side; together they gazed down with a sort of fascination at the sturdy figure below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he looked at the woman in her characteristic attitude, her thick arms reaching up for the line, her powerful mare-like buttocks protruded, it struck him for the first time that she was beautiful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had never before occurred to him that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up to monstrous dimensions by childbearing, then hardened, roughened by work till it was coarse in the grain like an over-ripe turnip, could be beautiful. But it was so, and after all, he thought, why not? The solid, contourless body, like a block of granite, and the rasping red skin, bore the same relation to the body of a girl as the rose-hip to the rose. Why should the fruit be held inferior to the flower?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's beautiful,\" he murmured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's a metre across the hips, easily,\" said Julia.\n\n\"That is her style of beauty,\" said Winston.\n\nHe held Julia's supple waist easily encircled by his arm. From the hip to the knee her flank was against his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Out of their bodies no child would ever come." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was one thing they could never do. Only by word of mouth, from mind to mind, could they pass on the secret. The woman down there had no mind, she had only strong arms, a warm heart and a fertile belly. He wondered how many children she had given birth to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It might easily be fifteen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wildrose beauty, and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilised fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, darning, cooking, sweeping, polishing, mending, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over thirty unbroken years. At the end of it she was still singing. The mystical reverence that he felt for her was somehow mixed up with the aspect of the pale, cloudless sky, stretching away behind the chimney pots into interminable distances. It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the people under the sky were also very much the same – everywhere, all over the world, hundreds of thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same – people who had never learned to think but who were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If there was hope, it lay in the proles! Without having read to the end of the book, he knew that that must be Goldstein's final message. The future belonged to the proles. And could he be sure that when their time came the world they constructed would not be just as alien to him, Winston Smith, as the world of the Party?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, because at the least it would be a world of sanity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where there is equality there can be sanity. Sooner or later it would happen, strength would change into consciousness. The proles were immortal, you could not doubt it when you looked at that valiant figure in the yard. In the end their awakening would come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And until that happened, though it might be a thousand years, they would stay alive against all the odds, like birds, passing on from body to body the vitality which the Party did not share and could not kill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you remember,\" he said, \"the thrush that sang to us, that first day, at the edge of the wood?\"\n\n\"He wasn't singing to us,\" said Julia. \"He was singing to please himself. Not even that. He was just singing.\"\n\nThe birds sang, the proles sang, the Party did not sing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and Japan – everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead; theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.\n\n\"We are the dead,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We are the dead,\" echoed Julia dutifully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are the dead,\" said an iron voice behind them.\n\nThey sprang apart. Winston's entrails seemed to have turned into ice. He could see the white all round the irises of Julia's eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The smear of rouge that was still on each cheekbone stood out sharply, almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are the dead,\" repeated the iron voice.\n\n\"It was behind the picture,\" breathed Julia.\n\n\"It was behind the picture,\" said the voice. \"Remain exactly where you are. Make no movement until you are ordered.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was starting, it was starting at last!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They could do nothing except stand gazing into one another's eyes. To run for life, to get out of the house before it was too late – no such thought occurred to them. Unthinkable to disobey the iron voice from the wall. There was a snap as though a catch had been turned back, and a crash of breaking glass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The picture had fallen to the floor, uncovering the telescreen behind it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now they can see us,\" said Julia.\n\n\"Now we can see you,\" said the voice. \"Stand out in the middle of the room. Stand back to back. Clasp your hands behind your heads. Do not touch one another.\"\n\nThey were not touching, but it seemed to him that he could feel Julia's body shaking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or perhaps it was merely the shaking of his own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could just stop his teeth from chattering, but his knees were beyond his control. There was a sound of trampling boots below, inside the house and outside. The yard seemed to be full of men. Something was being dragged across the stones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The woman's singing had stopped abruptly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a long, rolling clang, as though the washtub had been flung across the yard, and then a confusion of angry shouts which ended in a yell of pain.\n\n\"The house is surrounded,\" said Winston.\n\n\"The house is surrounded,\" said the voice.\n\nHe heard Julia snap her teeth together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose we may as well say good-bye,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You may as well say good-bye,\" said the voice. And then another quite different voice, a thin, cultivated voice which Winston had the impression of having heard before, struck in: \"And by the way, while we are on the subject, 'Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!'\"\n\nSomething crashed onto the bed behind Winston's back. The head of a ladder had been thrust through the window and had burst in the frame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone was climbing through the window." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a stampede of boots up the stairs. The room was full of solid men in black uniforms, with iron-shod boots on their feet and truncheons in their hands.\n\nWinston was not trembling any longer. Even his eyes he barely moved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One thing alone mattered: to keep still, to keep still and not give them an excuse to hit you!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A man with a smooth prizefighter's jowl in which the mouth was only a slit paused opposite him, balancing his truncheon meditatively between thumb and forefinger. Winston met his eyes. The feeling of nakedness, with one's hands behind one's head and one's face and body all exposed, was almost unbearable. The man protruded the tip of a white tongue, licked the place where his lips should have been and then passed on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was another crash." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone had picked up the glass paperweight from the table and smashed it to pieces on the hearth-stone.\n\nThe fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud from a cake, rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small it always was! There was a gasp and a thump behind him, and he received a violent kick on the ankle which nearly flung him off his balance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the men had smashed his fist into Julia's solar plexus, doubling her up like a pocket ruler." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was thrashing about on the floor, fighting for breath. Winston dared not turn his head even by a millimetre, but sometimes her livid, gasping face came within the angle of his vision. Even in his terror it was as though he could feel the pain in his own body, the deadly pain which nevertheless was less urgent than the struggle to get back her breath. He knew what it was like: the terrible, agonising pain which was there all the while but could not be suffered yet, because before all else it was necessary to be able to breathe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then two of the men hoisted her up by knees and shoulders and carried her out of the room like a sack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston had a glimpse of her face, upside down, yellow and contorted, with the eyes shut, and still with a smear of rouge on either cheek; and that was the last he saw of her.\n\nHe stood dead still. No one had hit him yet. Thoughts which came of their own accord but seemed totally uninteresting began to flit through his mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered whether they had got Mr Charrington." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wondered what they had done to the woman in the yard. He noticed that he badly wanted to urinate, and felt a faint surprise, because he had done so only two or three hours ago. He noticed that the clock on the mantelpiece said nine, meaning twenty-one. But the light seemed too strong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Would not the light be fading at twenty-one hours on an August evening?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wondered whether after all he and Julia had mistaken the time – had slept the clock round and thought it was twenty-thirty when really it was nought eight-thirty on the following morning. But he did not pursue the thought further. It was not interesting.\n\nThere was another, lighter step in the passage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr Charrington came into the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The demeanour of the black-uniformed men suddenly became more subdued. Something had also changed in Mr Charrington's appearance. His eye fell on the fragments of the glass paperweight.\n\n\"Pick up those pieces,\" he said sharply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A man stooped to obey." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cockney accent had disappeared; Winston suddenly realized whose voice it was that he had heard a few moments ago on the telescreen. Mr Charrington was still wearing his old velvet jacket, but his hair, which had been almost white, had turned black. Also he was not wearing his spectacles. He gave Winston a single sharp glance, as though verifying his identity, and then paid no more attention to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was still recognisable, but he was not the same person any longer." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His body had straightened, and seemed to have grown bigger. His face had undergone only tiny changes that had nevertheless worked a complete transformation. The black eyebrows were less bushy, the wrinkles were gone, the whole lines of the face seemed to have altered; even the nose seemed shorter. It was the alert, cold face of a man of about five-and-thirty. It occurred to Winston that for the first time in his life he was looking, with knowledge, at a member of the Thought Police." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like George Orwell and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not know where he was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Presumably he was in the Ministry of Love; but there was no way of making certain.\n\nHe was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain. Concealed lamps flooded it with cold light, and there was a low, steady humming sound which he supposed had something to do with the air supply. A bench, or shelf, just wide enough to sit on ran round the wall, broken only by the door and, at the end opposite the door, a lavatory pan with no wooden seat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were four telescreens, one in each wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a dull aching in his belly. It had been there ever since they had bundled him into the closed van and driven him away. But he was also hungry, with a gnawing, unwholesome kind of hunger. It might be twenty-four hours since he had eaten, it might be thirty-six." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He still did not know, probably never would know, whether it had been morning or evening when they arrested him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Since he was arrested he had not been fed.\n\nHe sat as still as he could on the narrow bench, with his hands crossed on his knee. He had already learned to sit still. If you made unexpected movements they yelled at you from the telescreen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the craving for food was growing upon him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What he longed for above all was a piece of bread. He had an idea that there was a few breadcrumbs in the pocket of his overalls. It was even possible – he thought this because from time to time something seemed to tickle his leg – that there might be a sizeable bit of crust there. In the end the temptation to find out overcame his fear; he slipped a hand into his pocket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Smith!\" yelled a voice from the telescreen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"6079 Smith W! Hands out of pockets in the cells!\"\n\nHe sat still again, his hands crossed on his knee. Before being brought here he had been taken to another place which must have been an ordinary prison or a temporary lock-up used by the patrols. He did not know how long he had been there; some hours, at any rate; with no clocks and no daylight it was hard to gauge the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a noisy, evil-smelling place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had put him into a cell similar to the one he was now in, but filthily dirty and at all times crowded by ten or fifteen people. The majority of them were common criminals, but there were a few political prisoners among them. He had sat silent against the wall, jostled by dirty bodies, too preoccupied by fear and the pain in his belly to take much interest in his surroundings, but still noticing the astonishing difference in demeanour between the Party prisoners and the others. The Party prisoners were always silent and terrified, but the ordinary criminals seemed to care nothing for anybody." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They yelled insults at the guards, fought back fiercely when their belongings were impounded, wrote obscene words on the floor, ate smuggled food which they produced from mysterious hiding-places in their clothes, and even shouted down the telescreen when it tried to restore order." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other hand some of them seemed to be on good terms with the guards, called them by nicknames and tried to wheedle cigarettes through the spy-hole in the door. The guards, too, treated the common criminals with a certain forbearance, even when they had to handle them roughly. There was much talk about the forced-labour camps to which most of the prisoners expected to be sent. It was \"all right\" in the camps, he gathered, so long as you had good contacts and knew the ropes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was bribery, favouritism and racketeering of every kind, there was homosexuality and prostitution, there was even illicit alcohol distilled from potatoes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The positions of trust were given only to the common criminals, especially the gangsters and the murderers, who formed a sort of aristocracy. All the dirty jobs were done by the politicals.\n\nThere was a constant come-and-go of prisoners of every description: drug-peddlers, thieves, bandits, black-marketers, drunks, prostitutes. Some of the drunks were so violent that the other prisoners had to combine to suppress them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An enormous wreck of a woman, aged about sixty, with great tumbling breasts and thick coils of white hair which had come down in her struggles, was carried in, kicking and shouting, by four guards who had hold of her one at each corner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They wrenched off the boots with which she had been trying to kick them, and dumped her down across Winston's lap, almost breaking his thigh-bones. The woman hoisted herself upright and followed them out with a yell of \"F— bastards!\" Then, noticing that she was sitting on something uneven, she slid off Winston's knees onto the bench.\n\n\"Beg pardon, dearie,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wouldn't 'a sat on you, only the buggers put me there. They dono 'ow to treat a lady, do they?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She paused, patted her breast, and belched. \"Pardon,\" she said, \"I ain't myself, quite.\"\n\nShe leant forward and vomited copiously on the floor.\n\n\"Thass better,\" she said, leaning back with closed eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Never keep it down, thass what I say. Get it up while it's fresh on your stomach, like.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She revived, turned to have another look at Winston, and seemed immediately to take a fancy to him. She put a vast arm round his shoulder and drew him towards her, breathing beer and vomit into his face.\n\n\"Wass your name, dearie?\" she said.\n\n\"Smith,\" said Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Smith?\" said the woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thass funny. My name's Smith too. Why,\" she added sentimentally, \"I might be your mother!\"\n\nShe might, thought Winston, be his mother. She was about the right age and physique, and it was probable that people changed somewhat after twenty years in a forced-labour camp.\n\nNo one else had spoken to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To a surprising extent the ordinary criminals ignored the Party prisoners." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The polits,\" they called them, with a sort of uninterested contempt. The Party prisoners seemed terrified of speaking to anybody, and above all of speaking to one another. Only once, when two Party members, both women, were pressed close together on the bench, he overheard amid the din of voices a few hurriedly-whispered words; and in particular a reference to something called \"room one-oh-one\", which he did not understand.\n\nIt might be two or three hours ago that they had brought him here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dull pain in his belly never went away, but sometimes it grew better and sometimes worse, and his thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When it grew worse he thought only of the pain itself, and of his desire for food. When it grew better, panic took hold of him. There were moments when he foresaw the things that would happen to him with such actuality that his heart galloped and his breath stopped. He felt the smash of truncheons on his elbows and iron-shod boots on his shins; he saw himself grovelling on the floor, screaming for mercy through broken teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hardly thought of Julia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could not fix his mind on her. He loved her and would not betray her; but that was only a fact, known as he knew the rules of arithmetic. He felt no love for her, and he hardly even wondered what was happening to her. He thought oftener of O'Brien, with a flickering of hope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien must know that he had been arrested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Brotherhood, he had said, never tried to save its members. But there was the razor blade; they would send the razor blade if they could. There would be perhaps five seconds before the guards could rush into the cell. The blade would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness, and even the fingers that held it would be cut to the bone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everything came back to his sick body, which shrank trembling from the smallest pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was not certain that he would use the razor blade even if he got the chance. It was more natural to exist from moment to moment, accepting another ten minutes' life even with the certainty that there was torture at the end of it.\n\nSometimes he tried to calculate the number of porcelain bricks in the walls of the cell. It should have been easy, but he always lost count at some point or another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "More often he wondered where he was, and what time of day it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At one moment he felt certain that it was broad daylight outside, and at the next equally certain that it was pitch darkness. In this place, he knew instinctively, the lights would never be turned out. It was the place with no darkness: he saw now why O'Brien had seemed to recognise the allusion. In the Ministry of Love there were no windows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His cell might be at the heart of the building or against its outer wall; it might be ten floors below ground, or thirty above it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He moved himself mentally from place to place, and tried to determine by the feeling of his body whether he was perched high in the air or buried deep underground.\n\nThere was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel door opened with a clang. A young officer, a trim black-uniformed figure who seemed to glitter all over with polished leather, and whose pale, straight-featured face was like a wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He motioned to the guards outside to bring in the prisoner they were leading." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The poet Ampleforth shambled into the cell. The door clanged shut again.\n\nAmpleforth made one or two uncertain movements from side to side, as though having some idea that there was another door to go out of, and then began to wander up and down the cell. He had not yet noticed Winston's presence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre above the level of Winston's head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was shoeless; large, dirty toes were sticking out of the holes in his socks. He was also several days away from a shave. A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervous movements.\n\nWinston roused himself a little from his lethargy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He must speak to Ampleforth, and risk the yell from the telescreen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was even conceivable that Ampleforth was the bearer of the razor blade.\n\n\"Ampleforth,\" he said.\n\nThere was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth paused, mildly startled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes focused themselves slowly on Winston." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, Smith!\" he said. \"You too!\"\n\n\"What are you in for?\"\n\n\"To tell you the truth –\" He sat down awkwardly on the bench opposite Winston. \"There is only one offence, is there not?\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you have committed it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Apparently I have.\"\n\nHe put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for a moment, as though trying to remember something.\n\n\"These things happen,\" he began vaguely. \"I have been able to recall one instance – a possible instance. It was an indiscretion, undoubtedly. We were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed the word \"God\" to remain at the end of a line. I could not help it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he added almost indignantly, raising his face to look at Winston." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was impossible to change the line. The rhyme was 'rod'. Do you realise that there are only twelve rhymes to \"rod\" in the entire language? For days I had racked my brains. There was no other rhyme.\"\n\nThe expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed out of it and for a moment he looked almost pleased. A sort of intellectual warmth, the joy of the pedant who has found out some useless fact, shone through the dirt and scrubby hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Has it ever occurred to you,\" he said, \"that the whole history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston. Nor, in the circumstances, did it strike him as very important or interesting.\n\n\"Do you know what time of day it is?\" he said.\n\nAmpleforth looked startled again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I had hardly thought about it. They arrested me – it could be two days ago – perhaps three.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes flitted round the walls, as though he half expected to find a window somewhere. \"There is no difference between night and day in this place. I do not see how one can calculate the time.\"\n\nThey talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bade them be silent. Winston sat quietly, his hands crossed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ampleforth, too large to sit in comfort on the narrow bench, fidgeted from side to side, clasping his lank hands first round one knee, then round the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The telescreen barked at him to keep still. Time passed. Twenty minutes, an hour – it was difficult to judge. Once more there was a sound of boots outside. Winston's entrails contracted. Soon, very soon, perhaps in five minutes, perhaps now, the tramp of boots would mean that his own turn had come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door opened. The cold-faced young officer stepped into the cell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a brief movement of the hand he indicated Ampleforth.\n\n\"Room 101,\" he said.\n\nAmpleforth marched clumsily out between the guards, his face vaguely perturbed, but uncomprehending.\n\nWhat seemed like a long time passed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pain in Winston's belly had revived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mind sagged round and round on the same track, like a ball falling again and again into the same series of slots. He had only six thoughts. The pain in his belly; a piece of bread; the blood and the screaming; O'Brien; Julia; the razor blade. There was another spasm in his entrails; the heavy boots were approaching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the door opened, the wave of air that it created brought in a powerful smell of cold sweat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsons walked into the cell. He was wearing khaki shorts and a sports-shirt.\n\nThis time Winston was startled into self-forgetfulness.\n\n\"You here!\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Parsons gave Winston a glance in which there was neither interest nor surprise, but only misery." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began walking jerkily up and down, evidently unable to keep still. Each time he straightened his pudgy knees it was apparent that they were trembling. His eyes had a wide-open, staring look, as though he could not prevent himself from gazing at something in the middle distance.\n\n\"What are you in for?\" said Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thoughtcrime!\" said Parsons, almost blubbering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tone of his voice implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of incredulous horror that such a word could be applied to himself. He paused opposite Winston and began eagerly appealing to him: \"You don't think they'll shoot me, do you, old chap? They don't shoot you if you haven't actually done anything – only thoughts, which you can't help? I know they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust them for that! They'll know my record, won't they? You know what kind of a chap I was. Not a bad chap in my way. Not brainy, of course, but keen. I tried to do my best for the Party, didn't I? I'll get off with five years don't you think? Or even ten years? A chap like me could make himself pretty useful in a labour-camp. They wouldn't shoot me for going off the rails just once?\"\n\n\"Are you guilty?\" said Winston.\n\n\"Of course I'm guilty!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?\" His froglike face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. \"Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,\" he said sententiously. \"It's insidious. It can get hold of you without your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep! Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit – never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to utter an obscenity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'Down with Big Brother!' Yes, I said that! Said it over and over again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before it went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? 'Thank you,' I'm going to say, 'thank you for saving me before it was too late.'\"\n\n\"Who denounced you?\" said Winston.\n\n\"It was my little daughter,\" said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride. \"She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don't bear her any grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made a few more jerky movements up and down, several times casting a longing glance at the lavatory pan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he suddenly ripped down his shorts.\n\n\"Excuse me, old man,\" he said. \"I can't help it. It's the waiting.\"\n\nHe plumped his large posterior onto the lavatory pan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston covered his face with his hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Smith!\" yelled the voice from the telescreen. \"6079 Smith W! Uncover your face. No faces covered in the cells.\"\n\nWinston uncovered his face. Parsons used the lavatory, loudly and abundantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It then turned out that the plug was defective, and the cell stank abominably for hours afterwards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Parsons was removed. More prisoners came and went, mysteriously. One, a woman, was consigned to \"Room 101\", and, Winston noticed, seemed to shrivel and turn a different colour when she heard the words. A time came when, if it had been morning when he was brought here, it would be afternoon; or if it had been afternoon, then it would be midnight. There were six prisoners in the cell, men and women." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All sat very still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Opposite Winston there sat a man with a chinless, toothy face exactly like that of some large, harmless rodent. His fat, mottled cheeks were so pouched at the bottom that it was difficult not to believe that he had little stores of food tucked away there. His pale-grey eyes flitted timorously from face to face, and turned quickly away again when he caught anyone's eye.\n\nThe door opened, and another prisoner was brought in whose appearance sent a momentary chill through Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a commonplace, mean-looking man who might have been an engineer or technician of some kind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But what was startling was the emaciation of his face. It was like a skull. Because of its thinness the mouth and eyes looked disproportionately large, and the eyes seemed filled with a murderous, unappeasable hatred of somebody or something.\n\nThe man sat down on the bench at a little distance from Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston did not look at him again, but the tormented, skull-like face was as vivid in his mind as though it had been straight in front of his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly he realised what was the matter. The man was dying of starvation. The same thought seemed to occur almost simultaneously to everyone in the cell. There was a very faint stirring all the way round the bench." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The eyes of the chinless man kept flitting towards the skull-faced man, then turning guiltily away, then being dragged back by an irresistible attraction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Presently he began to fidget on his seat. At last he stood up, waddled clumsily across the cell, dug down into the pocket of his overalls, and, with an abashed air, held out a grimy piece of bread to the skull-faced man.\n\nThere was a furious, deafening roar from the telescreen. The chinless man jumped in his tracks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The skull-faced man had quickly thrust his hands behind his back, as though demonstrating to all the world that he refused the gift." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bumstead!\" roared the voice. \"2713 Bumstead J! Let fall that piece of bread.\"\n\nThe chinless man dropped the piece of bread on the floor.\n\n\"Remain standing where you are,\" said the voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Face the door. Make no movement.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chinless man obeyed. His large pouchy cheeks were quivering uncontrollably. The door clanged open. As the young officer entered and stepped aside, there emerged from behind him a short stumpy guard with enormous arms and shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took his stand opposite the chinless man, and then, at a signal from the officer, let free a frightful blow, with all the weight of his body behind it, full in the chinless man's mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The force of it seemed almost to knock him clear of the floor. His body was flung across the cell and fetched up against the base of the lavatory seat. For a moment he lay as though stunned, with dark blood oozing from his mouth and nose. A very faint whimpering or squeaking, which seemed unconscious, came out of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he rolled over and raised himself unsteadily on hands and knees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amid a stream of blood and saliva, the two halves of a dental plate fell out of his mouth.\n\nThe prisoners sat very still, their hands crossed on their knees. The chinless man climbed back into his place. Down one side of his face the flesh was darkening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mouth had swollen into a shapeless cherry-coloured mass with a black hole in the middle of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From time to time a little blood dripped onto the breast of his overalls. His grey eyes still flitted from face to face, more guiltily than ever, as though he were trying to discover how much the others despised him for his humiliation.\n\nThe door opened. With a small gesture the officer indicated the skull-faced man.\n\n\"Room 101,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a gasp and a flurry at Winston's side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man had actually flung himself on his knees on the floor, with his hands clasped together.\n\n\"Comrade! Officer!\" he cried. \"You don't have to take me to that place! Haven't I told you everything already? What else is it you want to know? There's nothing I wouldn't confess, nothing! Just tell me what it is and I'll confess it straight off. Write it down and I'll sign it – anything! Not room 101!\"\n\n\"Room 101,\" said the officer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man's face, already very pale, turned a colour Winston would not have believed possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was definitely, unmistakably, a shade of green.\n\n\"Do anything to me!\" he yelled. \"You've been starving me for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you anything you want. I don't care who it is or what you do to them. I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them isn't six years old. You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch it. But not room 101!\"\n\n\"Room 101,\" said the officer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man looked frantically round at the other prisoners, as though with some idea that he could put another victim in his own place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes settled on the smashed face of the chinless man. He flung out a lean arm.\n\n\"That's the one you ought to be taking, not me!\" he shouted. \"You didn't hear what he was saying after they bashed his face. Give me a chance and I'll tell you every word of it. He's the one that's against the Party, not me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The guards stepped forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man's voice rose to a shriek. \"You didn't hear him!\" he repeated. \"Something went wrong with the telescreen. He's the one you want. Take him, not me!\"\n\nThe two sturdy guards had stopped to take him by the arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But just at this moment he flung himself across the floor of the cell and grabbed one of the iron legs that supported the bench." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had set up a wordless howling, like an animal. The guards took hold of him to wrench him loose, but he clung on with astonishing strength. For perhaps twenty seconds they were hauling at him. The prisoners sat quiet, their hands crossed on their knees, looking straight in front of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The howling stopped; the man had no breath left for anything except hanging on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then there was a different kind of cry. A kick from a guard's boot had broken the fingers of one of his hands. They dragged him to his feet.\n\n\"Room 101,\" said the officer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man was led out, walking unsteadily, with head sunken, nursing his crushed hand, all the fight gone out of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A long time passed. If it had been midnight when the skull-faced man was taken away, it was morning: if morning, it was afternoon. Winston was alone, and had been alone for hours. The pain of sitting on the narrow bench was such that often he got up and walked about, unreproved by the telescreen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The piece of bread still lay where the chinless man had dropped it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the beginning it needed a hard effort not to look at it, but presently hunger gave way to thirst. His mouth was sticky and evil-tasting. The humming sound and the unvarying white light induced a sort of faintness, an empty feeling inside his head. He would get up because the ache in his bones was no longer bearable, and then would sit down again almost at once because he was too dizzy to make sure of staying on his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whenever his physical sensations were a little under control the terror returned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes with a fading hope he thought of O'Brien and the razor blade. It was thinkable that the razor blade might arrive concealed in his food, if he were ever fed. More dimly he thought of Julia. Somewhere or other she was suffering, perhaps far worse than he." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She might be screaming with pain at this moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought: \"If I could save Julia by doubling my own pain, would I do it? Yes, I would.\" But that was merely an intellectual decision, taken because he knew that he ought to take it. He did not feel it. In this place you could not feel anything, except pain and the foreknowledge of pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Besides, was it possible, when you were actually suffering it, to wish for any reason whatever that your own pain should increase?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But that question was not answerable yet.\n\nThe boots were approaching again. The door opened. O'Brien came in.\n\nWinston started to his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shock of the sight had driven all caution out of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first time in many years he forgot the presence of the telescreen.\n\n\"They've got you too!\" he cried.\n\n\"They got me a long time ago,\" said O'Brien with a mild, almost regretful irony. He stepped aside. From behind him there emerged a broad-chested guard with a long black truncheon in his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You knew this, Winston,\" said O'Brien." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't deceive yourself. You did know it – you have always known it.\"\n\nYes, he saw now, he had always known it. But there was no time to think of that. All he had eyes for was the truncheon in the guard's hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It might fall anywhere: on the crown, on the tip of the ear, on the upper arm, on the elbow –" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The elbow! He had slumped to his knees, almost paralysed, clasping the stricken elbow with his other hand. Everything had exploded into yellow light. Inconceivable, inconceivable that one blow could cause such pain! The light cleared and he could see the other two looking down at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The guard was laughing at his contortions." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One question at any rate was answered. Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase of pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes, no heroes, he thought over and over as he writhed on the floor, clutching uselessly at his disabled left arm." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: George Orwell" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was lying on something that felt like a camp bed, except that it was higher off the ground and that he was fixed down in some way so that he could not move." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Light that seemed stronger than usual was falling on his face. O'Brien was standing at his side, looking down at him intently. At the other side of him stood a man in a white coat, holding a hypodermic syringe.\n\nEven after his eyes were open he took in his surroundings only gradually." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had the impression of swimming up into this room from some quite different world, a sort of under-water world far beneath it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How long he had been down there he did not know. Since the moment when they arrested him he had not seen darkness or daylight. Besides, his memories were not continuous. There had been times when consciousness, even the sort of consciousness that one has in sleep, had stopped dead and started again after a blank interval." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But whether the intervals were of days or weeks or only seconds, there was no way of knowing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With that first blow on the elbow the nightmare had started. Later he was to realise that all that then happened was merely a preliminary, a routine interrogation to which nearly all prisoners were subjected. There was a long range of crimes – espionage, sabotage and the like – to which everyone had to confess as a matter of course. The confession was a formality, though the torture was real." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How many times he had been beaten, how long the beatings had continued, he could not remember." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Always there were five or six men in black uniforms at him simultaneously. Sometimes it was fists, sometimes it was truncheons, sometimes it was steel rods, sometimes it was boots. There were times when he rolled about the floor, as shameless as an animal, writhing his body this way and that in an endless, hopeless effort to dodge the kicks, and simply inviting more and yet more kicks, in his ribs, in his belly, on his elbows, on his shins, in his groin, in his testicles, on the bone at the base of his spine. There were times when it went on and on until the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed to him not that the guards continued to beat him but that he could not force himself into losing consciousness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were times when his nerve so forsook him that he began shouting for mercy even before the beating began, when the mere sight of a fist drawn back for a blow was enough to make him pour forth a confession of real and imaginary crimes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were other times when he started out with the resolve of confessing nothing, when every word had to be forced out of him between gasps of pain, and there were times when he feebly tried to compromise, when he said to himself: \"I will confess, but not yet. I must hold out till the pain becomes unbearable. Three more kicks, two more kicks, and then I will tell them what they want.\" Sometimes he was beaten till he could hardly stand, then flung like a sack of potatoes onto the stone floor of a cell, left to recuperate for a few hours, and then taken out and beaten again. There were also longer periods of recovery. He remembered them dimly, because they were spent chiefly in sleep or stupor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He remembered a cell with a plank bed, a sort of shelf sticking out from the wall, and a tin wash-basin, and meals of hot soup and bread and sometimes coffee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He remembered a surly barber arriving to scrape his chin and crop his hair, and businesslike, unsympathetic men in white coats feeling his pulse, tapping his reflexes, turning up his eyelids, running harsh fingers over him in search of broken bones, and shooting needles into his arm to make him sleep.\n\nThe beatings grew less frequent, and became mainly a threat, a horror to which he could be sent back at any moment when his answers were unsatisfactory. His questioners now were not ruffians in black uniforms but Party intellectuals, little rotund men with quick movements and flashing spectacles, who worked on him in relays over periods which lasted – he thought, he could not be sure – ten or twelve hours at a stretch. These other questioners saw to it that he was in constant slight pain, but it was not chiefly pain that they relied on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They slapped his face, wrung his ears, pulled his hair, made him stand on one leg, refused him leave to urinate, shone glaring lights in his face until his eyes ran with water; but the aim of this was simply to humiliate him and destroy his power of arguing and reasoning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their real weapon was the merciless questioning that went on and on, hour after hour, tripping him up, laying traps for him, twisting everything that he said, convicting him at every step of lies and self-contradiction, until he began weeping as much from shame as from nervous fatigue. Sometimes he would weep half a dozen times in a single session. Most of the time they screamed abuse at him and threatened at every hesitation to deliver him over to the guards again; but sometimes they would suddenly change their tune, call him comrade, appeal to him in the name of Ingsoc and Big Brother, and ask him sorrowfully whether even now he had not enough loyalty to the Party left to make him wish to undo the evil he had done. When his nerves were in rags after hours of questioning, even this appeal could reduce him to snivelling tears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the end the nagging voices broke him down more completely than the boots and fists of the guards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He became simply a mouth that uttered, a hand that signed, whatever was demanded of him. His sole concern was to find out what they wanted him to confess, and then confess it quickly, before the bullying started anew. He confessed to the assassination of eminent Party members, the distribution of seditious pamphlets, embezzlement of public funds, sale of military secrets, sabotage of every kind. He confessed that he had been a spy in the pay of the Eastasian government as far back as 1968." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He confessed that he was a religious believer, an admirer of capitalism and a sexual pervert." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He confessed that he had murdered his wife, although he knew, and his questioners must have known, that his wife was still alive. He confessed that for years he had been in personal touch with Goldstein and had been a member of an underground organisation which had included almost every human being he had ever known. It was easier to confess everything and implicate everybody. Besides, in a sense it was all true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was true that he had been the enemy of the Party, and in the eyes of the Party there was no distinction between the thought and the deed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were also memories of another kind. They stood out in his mind disconnectedly, like pictures with blackness all round them.\n\nHe was in a cell which might have been either dark or light, because he could see nothing except a pair of eyes. Near at hand some kind of instrument was ticking slowly and regularly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The eyes grew larger and more luminous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly he floated out of his seat, dived into the eyes and was swallowed up.\n\nHe was strapped into a chair surrounded by dials, under dazzling lights. A man in a white coat was reading the dials. There was a tramp of heavy boots outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door clanged open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The waxen-faced officer marched in, followed by two guards.\n\n\"Room 101,\" said the officer.\n\nThe man in the white coat did not turn round. He did not look at Winston either; he was looking only at the dials." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was rolling down a mighty corridor, a kilometre wide, full of glorious, golden light, roaring with laughter and shouting out confessions at the top of his voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was confessing everything, even the things he had succeeded in holding back under the torture. He was relating the entire history of his life to an audience who knew it already. With him were the guards, the other questioners, the men in white coats, O'Brien, Julia, Mr Charrington, all rolling down the corridor together and shouting with laughter. Some dreadful thing which had lain embedded in the future had somehow been skipped over and had not happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everything was all right, there was no more pain, the last detail of his life was laid bare, understood, forgiven." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was starting up from the plank bed in the half-certainty that he had heard O'Brien's voice. All through his interrogation, although he had never seen him, he had had the feeling that O'Brien was at his elbow, just out of sight. It was O'Brien who was directing everything. It was he who set the guards onto Winston and who prevented them from killing him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was he who decided when Winston should scream with pain, when he should have a respite, when he should be fed, when he should sleep, when the drugs should be pumped into his arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was he who asked the questions and suggested the answers. He was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was the inquisitor, he was the friend. And once – Winston could not remember whether it was in drugged sleep, or in normal sleep, or even in a moment of wakefulness – a voice murmured in his ear: \"Don't worry, Winston; you are in my keeping. For seven years I have watched over you. Now the turning-point has come. I shall save you, I shall make you perfect.\" He was not sure whether it was O'Brien's voice; but it was the same voice that had said to him, \"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,\" in that other dream, seven years ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not remember any ending to his interrogation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a period of blackness and then the cell, or room, in which he now was had gradually materialised round him. He was almost flat on his back, and unable to move. His body was held down at every essential point. Even the back of his head was gripped in some manner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien was looking down at him gravely and rather sadly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face, seen from below, looked coarse and worn, with pouches under the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He was older than Winston had thought him; he was perhaps forty-eight or fifty. Under his hand there was a dial with a lever on top and figures running round the face.\n\n\"I told you,\" said O'Brien, \"that if we met again it would be here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" said Winston." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without any warning except a slight movement of O'Brien's hand, a wave of pain flooded his body. It was a frightening pain, because he could not see what was happening, and he had the feeling that some mortal injury was being done to him. He did not know whether the thing was really happening, or whether the effect was electrically produced; but his body was being wrenched out of shape, the joints were being slowly torn apart. Although the pain had brought the sweat out on his forehead, the worst of all was the fear that his backbone was about to snap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He set his teeth and breathed hard through his nose, trying to keep silent as long as possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are afraid,\" said O'Brien, watching his face, \"that in another moment something is going to break. Your especial fear is that it will be your backbone. You have a vivid mental picture of the vertebrae snapping apart and the spinal fluid dripping out of them. That is what you are thinking, is it not, Winston?\"\n\nWinston did not answer. O'Brien drew back the lever on the dial. The wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it had come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was forty,\" said O'Brien." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can see that the numbers on this dial run up to a hundred. Will you please remember, throughout our conversation, that I have it in my power to inflict pain on you at any moment and to whatever degree I choose. If you tell me any lies, or attempt to prevaricate in any way, or even fall below your usual level of intelligence, you will cry out with pain, instantly. Do you understand that?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winston.\n\nO'Brien's manner became less severe. He resettled his spectacles thoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he spoke his voice was gentle and patient." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had the air of a doctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxious to explain and persuade rather than to punish.\n\n\"I am taking trouble with you, Winston,\" he said, \"because you are worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable to remember real events, and you persuade yourself that you remember other events which never happened. Fortunately it is curable. You have never cured yourself of it, because you did not choose to. There was a small effort of the will that you were not ready to make. Even now, I am well aware, you are clinging to your disease under the impression that it is a virtue. Now we will take an example. At this moment, which power is Oceania at war with?\"\n\n\"When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia.\"\n\n\"With Eastasia. Good. And Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, has it not?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston drew in his breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened his mouth to speak and then did not speak. He could not take his eyes away from the dial.\n\n\"The truth, please, Winston. Your truth. Tell me what you think you remember.\"\n\n\"I remember that until only a week before I was arrested, we were not at war with Eastasia at all. We were in alliance with them. The war was against Eurasia. That had lasted for four years. Before that –\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Another example,\" he said. \"Some years ago you had a very serious delusion indeed. You believed that three men, three one-time Party members named Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford – men who were executed for treachery and sabotage after making the fullest possible confession – were not guilty of the crimes they were charged with. You believed that you had seen unmistakable documentary evidence proving that their confessions were false. There was a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination. You believed that you had actually held it in your hands. It was a photograph something like this.\"\n\nAn oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between O'Brien's fingers. For perhaps five seconds it was within the angle of Winston's vision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a photograph, and there was no question of its identity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the photograph. It was another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford at the Party function in New York, which he had chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly destroyed. For only an instant it was before his eyes, then it was out of sight again. But he had seen it, unquestionably he had seen it!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made a desperate, agonising effort to wrench the top half of his body free." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was impossible to move so much as a centimetre in any direction. For the moment he had even forgotten the dial. All he wanted was to hold the photograph in his fingers again, or at least to see it.\n\n\"It exists!\" he cried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said O'Brien." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien turned away from the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ashes,\" he said. \"Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed.\"\n\n\"But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it. You remember it.\"\n\n\"I do not remember it,\" said O'Brien.\n\nWinston's heart sank. That was doublethink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had a feeling of deadly helplessness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he could have been certain that O'Brien was lying, it would not have seemed to matter. But it was perfectly possible that O'Brien had really forgotten the photograph. And if so, then already he would have forgotten his denial of remembering it, and forgotten the act of forgetting. How could one be sure that it was simply trickery?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could really happen: that was the thought that defeated him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.\n\n\"There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,\" he said. \"Repeat it, if you please.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,'\" repeated Winston obediently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'Who controls the present controls the past,'\" said O'Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. \"Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?\"\n\nAgain the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston. His eyes flitted towards the dial." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He not only did not know whether \"yes\" or \"no\" was the answer that would save him from pain; he did not even know which answer he believed to be the true one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien smiled faintly. \"You are no metaphysician, Winston,\" he said. \"Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then where does the past exist, if at all?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In records. It is written down.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In records. And –?\"\n\n\"In the mind. In human memories.\"\n\n\"In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?\"\n\n\"But how can you stop people remembering things?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried Winston, again momentarily forgetting the dial." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory? You have not controlled mine!\"\n\nO'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on the dial.\n\n\"On the contrary,\" he said, \"you have not controlled it. That is what has brought you here. You are here because you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to re-learn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what he had been saying to sink in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you remember,\" he went on, \"writing in your diary, 'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four'?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winston.\n\nO'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.\n\n\"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Four.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And if the Party says that it is not four but five – then how many?\"\n\n\"Four.\"\n\nThe word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up to fifty-five." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sweat had sprung out all over Winston's body." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which even by clenching his teeth he could not stop. O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly eased." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How many fingers, Winston?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Four.\"\n\nThe needle went up to sixty.\n\n\"How many fingers, Winston?\"\n\n\"Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, blurry and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four.\n\n\"How many fingers, Winston?\"\n\n\"Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How many fingers, Winston?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Five! Five! Five!\"\n\n\"No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?\"\n\n\"Four! Five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!\"\n\nAbruptly he was sitting up with O'Brien's arm round his shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bonds that had held his body down were loosened. He felt very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably, his teeth were chattering, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. For a moment he clung to O'Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by the heavy arm round his shoulders. He had the feeling that O'Brien was his protector, that the pain was something that came from outside, from some other source, and that it was O'Brien who would save him from it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are a slow learner, Winston,\" said O'Brien gently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How can I help it?\" he blubbered. \"How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.\"\n\n\"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.\"\n\nHe laid Winston down on the bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The grip on his limbs tightened again, but the pain had ebbed away and the trembling had stopped, leaving him merely weak and cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien motioned with his head to the man in the white coat, who had stood immobile throughout the proceedings. The man in the white coat bent down and looked closely into Winston's eyes, felt his pulse, laid an ear against his chest, tapped here and there; then he nodded to O'Brien.\n\n\"Again,\" said O'Brien.\n\nThe pain flowed into Winston's body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The needle must be at seventy, seventy-five." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had shut his eyes this time. He knew that the fingers were still there, and still four. All that mattered was somehow to stay alive until the spasm was over. He had ceased to notice whether he was crying out or not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pain lessened again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened his eyes. O'Brien had drawn back the lever.\n\n\"How many fingers, Winston?\"\n\n\"Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I could. I am trying to see five.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or really to see them?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Really to see them.\"\n\n\"Again,\" said O'Brien.\n\nPerhaps the needle was at eighty – ninety. Winston could only intermittently remember why the pain was happening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind his screwed-up eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to be moving in a sort of dance, weaving in and out, disappearing behind one another and reappearing again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was trying to count them, he could not remember why. He knew only that it was impossible to count them, and that this was somehow due to the mysterious identity between five and four. The pain died down again. When he opened his eyes it was to find that he was still seeing the same thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Innumerable fingers, like moving trees, were still streaming past in either direction, crossing and recrossing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shut his eyes again.\n\n\"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I don't know. You will kill me if you do that again. Four, five, six – in all honesty I don't know.\"\n\n\"Better,\" said O'Brien." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A needle slid into Winston's arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost in the same instant a blissful, healing warmth spread all through his body. The pain was already half-forgotten. He opened his eyes and looked up gratefully at O'Brien. At sight of the heavy, lined face, so ugly and so intelligent, his heart seemed to turn over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he could have moved he would have stretched out a hand and laid it on O'Brien's arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had never loved him so deeply as at this moment, and not merely because he had stopped the pain. The old feeling, that at bottom it did not matter whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy, had come back. O'Brien was a person who could be talked to. Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien had tortured him to the edge of lunacy, and in a little while, it was certain, he would send him to his death." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It made no difference. In some sense that went deeper than friendship, they were intimates: somewhere or other, although the actual words might never be spoken, there was a place where they could meet and talk. O'Brien was looking down at him with an expression which suggested that the same thought might be in his own mind. When he spoke it was in an easy, conversational tone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you know where you are, Winston?\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know. I can guess. In the Ministry of Love.\"\n\n\"Do you know how long you have been here?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Days, weeks, months – I think it is months.\"\n\n\"And why do you imagine that we bring people to this place?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To make them confess.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, that is not the reason. Try again.\"\n\n\"To punish them.\"\n\n\"No!\" exclaimed O'Brien. His voice had changed extraordinarily, and his face had suddenly become both stern and animated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No! Not merely to extract your confession, nor to punish you. Shall I tell you why we have brought you here? To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Winston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves our hands uncured? We are not interested in those stupid crimes that you have committed. The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them. Do you understand what I mean by that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was bending over Winston. His face looked enormous because of its nearness, and hideously ugly because it was seen from below. Moreover it was filled with a sort of exaltation, a lunatic intensity. Again Winston's heart shrank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If it had been possible he would have cowered deeper into the bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt certain that O'Brien was about to twist the dial out of sheer wantonness. At this moment, however, O'Brien turned away. He took a pace or two up and down. Then he continued less vehemently:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The first thing for you to understand is that in this place there are no martyrdoms. You have read of the religious persecutions of the past. In the Middle Ages there was the Inquisition. It was a failure. It set out to eradicate heresy, and ended by perpetuating it. For every heretic it burned at the stake, thousands of others rose up. Why was that? Because the Inquisition killed its enemies in the open, and killed them while they were still unrepentant: in fact, it killed them because they were unrepentant. Men were dying because they would not abandon their true beliefs. Naturally all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame to the Inquisitor who burned him. Later, in the twentieth century, there were the totalitarians, as they were called. There were the German Nazis and the Russian Communists. The Russians persecuted heresy more cruelly than the Inquisition had done. And they imagined that they had learned from the mistakes of the past; they knew, at any rate, that one must not make martyrs. Before they exposed their victims to public trial, they deliberately set themselves to destroy their dignity. They wore them down by torture and solitude until they were despicable, cringing wretches, confessing whatever was put into their mouths, covering themselves with abuse, accusing and sheltering behind one another, whimpering for mercy. And yet after only a few years the same thing had happened over again. The dead men had become martyrs and their degradation was forgotten. Once again, why was it? In the first place, because the confessions that they had made were obviously extorted and untrue. We do not make mistakes of that kind. All the confessions that are uttered here are true. We make them true. And above all we do not allow the dead to rise up against us. You must stop imagining that posterity will vindicate you, Winston. Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you; not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You will never have existed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then why bother to torture me? thought Winston, with a momentary bitterness. O'Brien checked his step as though Winston had uttered the thought aloud. His large ugly face came nearer, with the eyes a little narrowed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are thinking,\" he said, \"that since we intend to destroy you utterly, so that nothing that you say or do can make the smallest difference – in that case, why do we go to the trouble of interrogating you first? That is what you were thinking, was it not?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" said Winston.\n\nO'Brien smiled slightly. \"You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors of the past? We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out. The command of the old despotisms was 'Thou shalt not'. The command of the totalitarians was 'Thou shalt'. Our command is 'Thou art'. No one whom we bring to this place ever stands out against us. Everyone is washed clean. Even those three miserable traitors in whose innocence you once believed – Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford – in the end we broke them down. I took part in their interrogation myself. I saw them gradually worn down, whimpering, grovelling, weeping – and in the end it was not with pain or fear, only with penitence. By the time we had finished with them they were only the shells of men. There was nothing left in them except sorrow for what they had done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see how they loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still clean.\"\n\nHis voice had grown almost dreamy. The exaltation, the lunatic enthusiasm, was still in his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He is not pretending, thought Winston; he is not a hypocrite; he believes every word he says." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What most oppressed him was the consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority. He watched the heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro, in and out of the range of his vision. O'Brien was a being in all ways larger than himself. There was no idea that he had ever had, or could have, that O'Brien had not long ago known, examined and rejected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mind contained Winston's mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But in that case how could it be true that O'Brien was mad? It must be he, Winston, who was mad. O'Brien halted and looked down at him. His voice had grown stern again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do not imagine that you will save yourself, Winston, however completely you surrender to us. No one who has once gone astray is ever spared. And even if we chose to let you live out the natural term of your life, still you would never escape from us. What happens to you here is for ever. Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He paused and signed to the man in the white coat. Winston was aware of some heavy piece of apparatus being pushed into place behind his head. O'Brien had sat down beside the bed, so that his face was almost on a level with Winston's.\n\n\"Three thousand,\" he said, speaking over Winston's head to the man in the white coat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two soft pads, which felt slightly moist, clamped themselves against Winston's temples." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He quailed. There was pain coming, a new kind of pain. O'Brien laid a hand reassuringly, almost kindly, on his.\n\n\"This time it will not hurt,\" he said. \"Keep your eyes fixed on mine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At this moment there was a devastating explosion, or what seemed like an explosion, though it was not certain whether there was any noise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was undoubtedly a blinding flash of light. Winston was not hurt, only prostrated. Although he had already been lying on his back when the thing happened, he had a curious feeling that he had been knocked into that position. A terrific, painless blow had flattened him out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Also something had happened inside his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As his eyes regained their focus he remembered who he was, and where he was, and recognised the face that was gazing into his own; but somewhere or other there was a large patch of emptiness, as though a piece had been taken out of his brain.\n\n\"It will not last,\" said O'Brien. \"Look me in the eyes. What country is Oceania at war with?\"\n\nWinston thought. He knew what was meant by Oceania, and that he himself was a citizen of Oceania." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He also remembered Eurasia and Eastasia; but who was at war with whom he did not know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In fact he had not been aware that there was any war.\n\n\"I don't remember.\"\n\n\"Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Do you remember that now?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Since the beginning of your life, since the beginning of the Party, since the beginning of history, the war has continued without a break, always the same war. Do you remember that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Eleven years ago you created a legend about three men who had been condemned to death for treachery. You pretended that you had seen a piece of paper which proved them innocent. No such piece of paper ever existed. You invented it, and later you grew to believe in it. You remember now the very moment at which you first invented it. Do you remember that?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Just now I held up the fingers of my hand to you. You saw five fingers. Do you remember that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the thumb concealed.\n\n\"There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nAnd he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the scenery of his mind changed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He saw five fingers, and there was no deformity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then everything was normal again, and the old fear, the hatred and the bewilderment came crowding back again. But there had been a moment – he did not know how long, thirty seconds, perhaps – of luminous certainty, when each new suggestion of O'Brien's had filled up a patch of emptiness and become absolute truth, and when two and two could have been three as easily as five, if that were what was needed. It had faded out before O'Brien had dropped his hand; but though he could not recapture it, he could remember it, as one remembers a vivid experience at some remote period of one's life when one was in effect a different person.\n\n\"You see now,\" said O'Brien, \"that it is at any rate possible.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" said Winston." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien stood up with a satisfied air. Over to his left Winston saw the man in the white coat break an ampoule and draw back the plunger of a syringe. O'Brien turned to Winston with a smile. In almost the old manner he resettled his spectacles on his nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you remember writing in your diary,\" he said, \"that it did not matter whether I was a friend or an enemy, since I was at least a person who understood you and could be talked to? You were right. I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane. Before we bring the session to an end you can ask me a few questions, if you choose.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Any question I like?\"\n\n\"Anything.\" He saw that Winston's eyes were upon the dial. \"It is switched off. What is your first question?\"\n\n\"What have you done with Julia?\" said Winston." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien smiled again. \"She betrayed you, Winston. Immediately – unreservedly. I have seldom seen anyone come over to us so promptly. You would hardly recognize her if you saw her. All her rebelliousness, her deceit, her folly, her dirtymindedness – everything has been burned out of her. It was a perfect conversion, a textbook case.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You tortured her?\"\n\nO'Brien left this unanswered. \"Next question,\" he said.\n\n\"Does Big Brother exist?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does he exist in the same way as I exist?\"\n\n\"You do not exist,\" said O'Brien.\n\nOnce again the sense of helplessness assailed him. He knew, or he could imagine, the arguments which proved his own non-existence; but they were nonsense, they were only a play on words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Did not the statement, \"You do not exist\", contain a logical absurdity?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But what use was it to say so? His mind shrivelled as he thought of the unanswerable, mad arguments with which O'Brien would demolish him.\n\n\"I think I exist,\" he said wearily. \"I am conscious of my own identity. I was born, and I shall die. I have arms and legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously. In that sense, does Big Brother exist?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is of no importance. He exists.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will Big Brother ever die?\"\n\n\"Of course not. How could he die? Next question.\"\n\n\"Does the Brotherhood exist?\"\n\n\"That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston lay silent. His breast rose and fell a little faster." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He still had not asked the question that had come into his mind the first. He had got to ask it, and yet it was as though his tongue would not utter it. There was a trace of amusement in O'Brien's face. Even his spectacles seemed to wear an ironical gleam." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knows, thought Winston suddenly, he knows what I am going to ask!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the thought the words burst out of him:\n\n\"What is in Room 101?\"\n\nThe expression on O'Brien's face did not change. He answered drily:\n\n\"You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone knows what is in Room 101.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide 4 sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There are three stages in your re-integration,\" said O'Brien. \"There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance. It is time for you to enter upon the second stage.\"\n\nAs always, Winston was lying flat on his back. But of late his bonds were looser." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They still held him to the bed, but he could move his knees a little and could turn his head from side to side and raise his arms from the elbow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dial, also, had grown to be less of a terror. He could evade its pangs if he was quick-witted enough: it was chiefly when he showed stupidity that O'Brien pulled the lever. Sometimes they got through a whole session without use of the dial. He could not remember how many sessions there had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The whole process seemed to stretch out over a long, indefinite time – weeks, possibly – and the intervals between the sessions might sometimes have been days, sometimes only an hour or two." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As you lie there,\" said O'Brien, \"you have often wondered – you have even asked me – why the Ministry of Love should expend so much time and trouble on you. And when you were free you were puzzled by what was essentially the same question. You could grasp the mechanics of the society you lived in, but not its underlying motives. Do you remember writing in your diary, 'I understand how: I do not understand why'? It was when you thought about 'why' that you doubted your own sanity. You have read the book, Goldstein's book, or parts of it, at least. Did it tell you anything that you did not know already?\"\n\n\"You have read it?\" said Winston.\n\n\"I wrote it. That is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No book is produced individually, as you know.\"\n\n\"Is it true, what it says?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"As description, yes. The programme it sets forth is nonsense. The secret accumulation of knowledge – a gradual spread of enlightenment – ultimately a proletarian rebellion – the overthrow of the Party. You foresaw yourself that that was what it would say. It is all nonsense. The proletarians will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million. They cannot. I do not have to tell you the reason: you know it already. If you have ever cherished any dreams of violent insurrection, you must abandon them. There is no way in which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of the Party is for ever. Make that the starting-point of your thoughts.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He came closer to the bed. \"For ever!\" he repeated. \"And now let us get back to the question of \"how\" and \"why\". You understand well enough how the Party maintains itself in power. Now tell me why we cling to power. What is our motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak,\" he added as Winston remained silent.\n\nNevertheless Winston did not speak for another moment or two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The faint, mad gleam of enthusiasm had come back into O'Brien's face. He knew in advance what O'Brien would say. That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That the Party was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others. The terrible thing, thought Winston, the terrible thing was that when O'Brien said this he would believe it. You could see it in his face. O'Brien knew everything. A thousand times better than Winston he knew what the world was really like, in what degradation the mass of human beings lived and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept them there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no difference: all was justified by the ultimate purpose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?\n\n\"You are ruling over us for our own good,\" he said feebly. \"You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore –\"\n\nHe started and almost cried out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A pang of pain had shot through his body." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five.\n\n\"That was stupid, Winston, stupid!\" he said. \"You should know better than to say a thing like that.\"\n\nHe pulled the lever back and continued:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognise their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston was struck, as he had been struck before, by the tiredness of O'Brien's face. It was strong and fleshy and brutal, it was full of intelligence and a sort of controlled passion before which he felt himself helpless; but it was tired. There were pouches under the eyes, the skin sagged from the cheekbones. O'Brien leaned over him, deliberately bringing the worn face nearer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are thinking,\" he said, \"that my face is old and tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do you die when you cut your fingernails?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned away from the bed and began strolling up and down again, one hand in his pocket.\n\n\"We are the priests of power,\" he said. \"God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realise is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: 'Freedom is Slavery.' Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone – free – the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realise is that power is power over human beings. Over the body – but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter – external reality, as you would call it – is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute.\"\n\nFor a moment Winston ignored the dial." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But how can you control matter?\" he burst out. \"You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death –\"\n\nO'Brien silenced him by a movement of the hand. \"We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation – anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wished to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.\"\n\n\"But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny – helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.\"\n\n\"But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals – mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.\"\n\n\"What are the stars?\" said O'Brien indifferently. \"They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.\"\n\nWinston made another convulsive movement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This time he did not say anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:\n\n\"For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?\"\n\nWinston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And yet he knew, he knew, that he was in the right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind – surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I told you, Winston,\" he said, \"that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,\" he added in a different tone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.\" He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: \"How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?\"\n\nWinston thought. \"By making him suffer,\" he said.\n\n\"Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilisations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy – everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always – do not forget this, Winston – always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paused as though he expected Winston to speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. O'Brien went on:\n\n\"And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands – all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon – and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again, generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible – and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realise what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can't!\" he said weakly.\n\n\"What do you mean by that remark, Winston?\"\n\n\"You could not create such a world as you have just described. It is a dream. It is impossible.\"\n\n\"Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is impossible to found a civilisation on fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why not?\"\n\n\"It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? The Party is immortal.\"\n\nAs usual, the voice had battered Winston into helplessness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Moreover he was in dread that if he persisted in his disagreement O'Brien would twist the dial again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And yet he could not keep silent. Feebly, without arguments, with nothing to support him except his inarticulate horror of what O'Brien had said, he returned to the attack.\n\n\"I don't know – I don't care. Somehow you will fail. Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you.\"\n\n\"We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. Or perhaps you have returned to your old idea that the proletarians or the slaves will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your mind. They are helpless, like the animals. Humanity is the Party. The others are outside – irrelevant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't care. In the end they will beat you. Sooner or later they will see you for what you are, and then they will tear you to pieces.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you see any evidence that that is happening? Or any reason why it should?\"\n\n\"No. I believe it. I know that you will fail. There is something in the universe – I don't know, some spirit, some principle – that you will never overcome.\"\n\n\"Do you believe in God, Winston?\"\n\n\"No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know. The spirit of Man.\"\n\n\"And do you consider yourself a man?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are non-existent.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His manner changed and he said more harshly: \"And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies and our cruelty?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I consider myself superior.\"\n\nO'Brien did not speak. Two other voices were speaking. After a moment Winston recognised one of them as his own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a sound-track of the conversation he had had with O'Brien, on the night when he had enrolled himself in the Brotherhood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child's face. O'Brien made a small impatient gesture, as though to say that the demonstration was hardly worth making. Then he turned a switch and the voices stopped.\n\n\"Get up from that bed,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bonds had loosened themselves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston lowered himself to the floor and stood up unsteadily.\n\n\"You are the last man,\" said O'Brien. \"You are the guardian of the human spirit. You shall see yourself as you are. Take off your clothes.\"\n\nWinston undid the bit of string that held his overalls together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The zip fastener had long since been wrenched out of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could not remember whether at any time since his arrest he had taken off all his clothes at one time. Beneath the overalls his body was looped with filthy yellowish rags, just recognisable as the remnants of underclothes. As he slid them to the ground he saw that there was a three-sided mirror at the far end of the room. He approached it, then stopped short." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An involuntary cry had broken out of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go on,\" said O'Brien. \"Stand between the wings of the mirror. You shall see the side view as well.\"\n\nHe had stopped because he was frightened. A bowed, grey-coloured, skeleton-like thing was coming towards him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its actual appearance was frightening, and not merely the fact that he knew it to be himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He moved closer to the glass. The creature's face seemed to be protruded, because of its bent carriage. A forlorn, jailbird's face with a nobby forehead running back into a bald scalp, a crooked nose and battered-looking cheekbones above which the eyes were fierce and watchful. The cheeks were seamed, the mouth had a drawn-in look." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Certainly it was his own face, but it seemed to him that it had changed more than he had changed inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The emotions it registered would be different from the ones he felt. He had gone partially bald. For the first moment he had thought that he had gone grey as well, but it was only the scalp that was grey. Except for his hands and a circle of his face, his body was grey all over with ancient, ingrained dirt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Here and there under the dirt there were the red scars of wounds, and near the ankle the varicose ulcer was an inflamed mass with flakes of skin peeling off it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the truly frightening thing was the emaciation of his body. The barrel of the ribs was as narrow as that of a skeleton: the legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker than the thighs. He saw now what O'Brien had meant about seeing the side view. The curvature of the spine was astonishing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thin shoulders were hunched forward so as to make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck seemed to be bending double under the weight of the skull." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At a guess he would have said that it was the body of a man of sixty, suffering from some malignant disease.\n\n\"You have thought sometimes,\" said O'Brien, \"that my face – the face of a member of the Inner Party – looks old and worn. What do you think of your own face?\"\n\nHe seized Winston's shoulder and spun him round so that he was facing him.\n\n\"Look at the condition you are in!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he said. \"Look at this filthy grime all over your body. Look at the dirt between your toes. Look at that disgusting running sore on your leg. Do you know that you stink like a goat? Probably you have ceased to notice it. Look at your emaciation. Do you see? I can make my thumb and forefinger meet around your bicep. I could snap your neck like a carrot. Do you know that you have lost twenty-five kilograms since you have been in our hands? Even your hair is coming out in handfuls. Look!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He plucked at Winston's head and brought away a tuft of hair. \"Open your mouth. Nine, ten, eleven teeth left. How many had you when you came to us? And the few you have left are dropping out of your head. Look here!\"\n\nHe seized one of Winston's remaining front teeth between his powerful thumb and forefinger. A twinge of pain shot through Winston's jaw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien had wrenched the loose tooth out by the roots." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tossed it across the cell.\n\n\"You are rotting away,\" he said; \"you are falling to pieces. What are you? A bag of filth. Now turn round and look into that mirror again. Do you see that thing facing you? That is the last man. If you are human, that is humanity. Now put your clothes on again.\"\n\nWinston began to dress himself with slow stiff movements. Until now he had not seemed to notice how thin and weak he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only one thought stirred in his mind: that he must have been in this place longer than he had imagined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then suddenly as he fixed the miserable rags round himself a feeling of pity for his ruined body overcame him. Before he knew what he was doing he had collapsed onto a small stool that stood beside the bed and burst into tears. He was aware of his ugliness, his gracelessness, a bundle of bones in filthy underclothes sitting weeping in the harsh white light: but he could not stop himself. O'Brien laid a hand on his shoulder, almost kindly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It will not last for ever,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can escape from it whenever you choose. Everything depends on yourself.\"\n\n\"You did it!\" sobbed Winston. \"You reduced me to this state.\"\n\n\"No, Winston, you reduced yourself to it. This is what you accepted when you set yourself up against the Party. It was all contained in that first act. Nothing has happened that you did not foresee.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paused, and then went on:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have beaten you, Winston. We have broken you up. You have seen what your body is like. Your mind is in the same state. I do not think there can be much pride left in you. You have been kicked and flogged and insulted, you have screamed with pain, you have rolled on the floor in your own blood and vomit. You have whimpered for mercy, you have betrayed everybody and everything. Can you think of a single degradation that has not happened to you?\"\n\nWinston had stopped weeping, though the tears were still oozing out of his eyes. He looked up at O'Brien.\n\n\"I have not betrayed Julia,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O'Brien looked down at him thoughtfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" he said, \"no; that is perfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia.\"\n\nThe peculiar reverence for O'Brien, which nothing seemed able to destroy, flooded Winston's heart again. How intelligent, he thought, how intelligent! Never did O'Brien fail to understand what was said to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anyone else on earth would have answered promptly that he had betrayed Julia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For what was there that they had not screwed out of him under the torture? He had told them everything he knew about her, her habits, her character, her past life; he had confessed in the most trivial detail everything that had happened at their meetings, all that he had said to her and she to him, their black-market meals, their adulteries, their vague plottings against the Party – everything. And yet, in the sense in which he intended the word, he had not betrayed her. He had not stopped loving her; his feeling towards her had remained the same." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\n4 sentences\n\nStyle:\nGeorge Orwell" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was much better." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was growing fatter and stronger every day, if it was proper to speak of days.\n\nThe white light and the humming sound were the same as ever, but the cell was a little more comfortable than the others he had been in. There was a pillow and a mattress on the plank bed, and a stool to sit on. They had given him a bath, and they allowed him to wash himself fairly frequently in a tin basin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They even gave him warm water to wash with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had given him new underclothes and a clean suit of overalls. They had dressed his varicose ulcer with soothing ointment. They had pulled out the remnants of his teeth and given him a new set of dentures.\n\nWeeks or months must have passed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would have been possible now to keep count of the passage of time, if he had felt any interest in doing so, since he was being fed at what appeared to be regular intervals." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was getting, he judged, three meals in the twenty-four hours; sometimes he wondered dimly whether he was getting them by night or by day. The food was surprisingly good, with meat at every third meal. Once there was even a packet of cigarettes. He had no matches, but the never-speaking guard who brought his food would give him a light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first time he tried to smoke it made him sick, but he persevered, and spun the packet out for a long time, smoking half a cigarette after each meal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had given him a white slate with a stump of pencil tied to the corner. At first he made no use of it. Even when he was awake he was completely torpid. Often he would lie from one meal to the next almost without stirring, sometimes asleep, sometimes waking into vague reveries in which it was too much trouble to open his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had long grown used to sleeping with a strong light on his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed to make no difference, except that one's dreams were more coherent. He dreamed a great deal all through this time, and they were always happy dreams. He was in the Golden Country, or he was sitting among enormous, glorious, sunlit ruins, with his mother, with Julia, with O'Brien – not doing anything, merely sitting in the sun, talking of peaceful things. Such thoughts as he had when he was awake were mostly about his dreams." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He seemed to have lost the power of intellectual effort, now that the stimulus of pain had been removed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was not bored, he had no desire for conversation or distraction. Merely to be alone, not to be beaten or questioned, to have enough to eat, and to be clean all over, was completely satisfying.\n\nBy degrees he came to spend less time in sleep, but he still felt no impulse to get off the bed. All he cared for was to lie quiet and feel the strength gathering in his body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would finger himself here and there, trying to make sure that it was not an illusion that his muscles were growing rounder and his skin tauter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally it was established beyond a doubt that he was growing fatter; his thighs were now definitely thicker than his knees. After that, reluctantly at first, he began exercising himself regularly. In a little while he could walk three kilometres, measured by pacing the cell, and his bowed shoulders were growing straighter. He attempted more elaborate exercises, and was astonished and humiliated to find what things he could not do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could not move out of a walk, he could not hold his stool out at arm's length, he could not stand on one leg without falling over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He squatted down on his heels, and found that with agonising pains in thigh and calf he could just lift himself to a standing position. He lay flat on his belly and tried to lift his weight by his hands. It was hopeless, he could not raise himself a centimetre. But after a few more days – a few more mealtimes – even that feat was accomplished." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A time came when he could do it six times running." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began to grow actually proud of his body, and to cherish an intermittent belief that his face also was growing back to normal. Only when he chanced to put his hand on his bald scalp did he remember the seamed, ruined face that had looked back at him out of the mirror.\n\nHis mind grew more active. He sat down on the plank bed, his back against the wall and the slate on his knees, and set to work deliberately at the task of re-educating himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had capitulated, that was agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In reality, as he saw now, he had been ready to capitulate long before he had taken the decision. From the moment when he was inside the Ministry of Love – and yes, even during those minutes when he and Julia had stood helpless while the iron voice from the telescreen told them what to do – he had grasped the frivolity, the shallowness of his attempt to set himself up against the power of the Party. He knew now that for seven years the Thought Police had watched him like a beetle under a magnifying glass. There was no physical act, no word spoken aloud, that they had not noticed, no train of thought that they had not been able to infer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the speck of whitish dust on the cover of his diary they had carefully replaced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had played sound-tracks to him, shown him photographs. Some of them were photographs of Julia and himself. Yes, even.... He could not fight against the Party any longer. Besides, the Party was in the right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It must be so: how could the immortal, collective brain be mistaken?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By what external standard could you check its judgments? Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought. Only –!\n\nThe pencil felt thick and awkward in his fingers. He began to write down the thoughts that came into his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wrote first in large clumsy capitals:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.\n\nThen almost without a pause he wrote beneath it:\n\nTWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE.\n\nBut then there came a sort of check." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mind, as though shying away from something, seemed unable to concentrate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew that he knew what came next, but for the moment he could not recall it. When he did recall it, it was only by consciously reasoning out what it must be: it did not come of its own accord. He wrote:\n\nGOD IS POWER.\n\nHe accepted everything. The past was alterable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The past never had been altered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford were guilty of the crimes they were charged with. He had never seen the photograph that disproved their guilt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had never existed, he had invented it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He remembered remembering contrary things, but those were false memories, products of self-deception. How easy it all was! Only surrender, and everything else followed. It was like swimming against a current that swept you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing had changed except your own attitude: the predestined thing happened in any case." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hardly knew why he had ever rebelled. Everything was easy, except –!\n\nAnything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The law of gravity was nonsense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I wished,\" O'Brien had said, \"I could float off this floor like a soap bubble.\" Winston worked it out. \"If he think he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens.\" Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: \"It doesn't really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pushed the thought under instantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a \"real\" world where \"real\" things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "All happenings are in the mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.\n\nHe had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he was in no danger of succumbing to it. He realised, nevertheless, that it ought never to have occurred to him. The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The process should be automatic, instinctive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.\n\nHe set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions – \"the Party says the earth is flat\", \"the Party says that ice is heavier than water\" – and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them. It was not easy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It needed great powers of reasoning and improvisation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The arithmetical problems raised, for instance, by such a statement as \"two and two make five\" were beyond his intellectual grasp. It needed also a sort of athleticism of mind, an ability at one moment to make the most delicate use of logic and at the next to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors. Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.\n\nAll the while, with one part of his mind, he wondered how soon they would shoot him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everything depends on yourself,\" O'Brien had said; but he knew that there was no conscious act by which he could bring it nearer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It might be ten minutes hence, or ten years. They might keep him for years in solitary confinement, they might send him to a labour-camp, they might release him for a while, as they sometimes did. It was perfectly possible that before he was shot the whole drama of his arrest and interrogation would be enacted all over again. The one certain thing was that death never came at an expected moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tradition – the unspoken tradition: somehow you knew it, though you never heard it said – was that they shot you from behind: always in the back of the head, without warning, as you walked down a corridor from cell to cell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One day – but \"one day\" was not the right expression; just as probably it was in the middle of the night: once – he fell into a strange, blissful reverie. He was walking down the corridor, waiting for the bullet. He knew that it was coming in another moment. Everything was settled, smoothed out, reconciled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were no more doubts, no more arguments, no more pain, no more fear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His body was healthy and strong. He walked easily, with a joy of movement and with a feeling of walking in sunlight. He was not any longer in the narrow white corridors of the Ministry of Love, he was in the enormous sunlit passage, a kilometre wide, down which he had seemed to walk in the delirium induced by drugs. He was in the Golden Country, following the foot-track across the old rabbit-cropped pasture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could feel the short springy turf under his feet and the gentle sunshine on his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the edge of the field were the elm trees, faintly stirring, and somewhere beyond that was the stream where the dace lay in the green pools under the willows.\n\nSuddenly he started up with a shock of horror. The sweat broke out on his backbone. He had heard himself cry aloud:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment he had had an overwhelming hallucination of her presence. She had seemed to be not merely with him, but inside him. It was as though she had got into the texture of his skin. In that moment he had loved her far more than he had ever done when they were together and free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Also he knew that somewhere or other she was still alive and needed his help." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lay back on the bed and tried to compose himself. What had he done? How many years had he added to his servitude by that moment of weakness?\n\nIn another moment he would hear the tramp of boots outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They could not let such an outburst go unpunished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would know now, if they had not known before, that he was breaking the agreement he had made with them. He obeyed the Party, but he still hated the Party. In the old days he had hidden a heretical mind beneath an appearance of conformity. Now he had retreated a step further: in the mind he had surrendered, but he had hoped to keep the inner heart inviolate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew that he was in the wrong, but he preferred to be in the wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would understand that – O'Brien would understand it. It was all confessed in that single foolish cry.\n\nHe would have to start all over again. It might take years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ran a hand over his face, trying to familiarise himself with the new shape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were deep furrows in the cheeks, the cheekbones felt sharp, the nose flattened. Besides, since last seeing himself in the glass he had been given a complete new set of teeth. It was not easy to preserve inscrutability when you did not know what your face looked like. In any case, mere control of the features was not enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that could be given a name. From now onwards he must not only think right; he must feel right, dream right. And all the while he must keep his hatred locked up inside him like a ball of matter which was part of himself and yet unconnected with the rest of him, a kind of cyst.\n\nOne day they would decide to shoot him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You could not tell when it would happen, but a few seconds beforehand it should be possible to guess." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was always from behind, walking down a corridor. Ten seconds would be enough. In that time the world inside him could turn over. And then suddenly, without a word uttered, without a check in his step, without the changing of a line in his face – suddenly the camouflage would be down and bang!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "would go the batteries of his hatred." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hatred would fill him like an enormous roaring flame. And almost in the same instant bang! would go the bullet, too late, or too early. They would have blown his brain to pieces before they could reclaim it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The heretical thought would be unpunished, unrepented, out of their reach for ever." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They would have blown a hole in their own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom.\n\nHe shut his eyes. It was more difficult than accepting an intellectual discipline." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a question of degrading himself, mutilating himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had got to plunge into the filthiest of filth. What was the most horrible, sickening thing of all? He thought of Big Brother. The enormous face (because of constantly seeing it on posters he always thought of it as being a metre wide), with its heavy black moustache and the eyes that followed you to and fro, seemed to float into his mind of its own accord." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What were his true feelings towards Big Brother?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a heavy tramp of boots in the passage. The steel door swung open with a clang. O'Brien walked into the cell. Behind him were the waxen-faced officer and the black-uniformed guards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get up,\" said O'Brien. \"Come here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston stood opposite him. O'Brien took Winston's shoulders between his strong hands and looked at him closely.\n\n\"You have had thoughts of deceiving me,\" he said. \"That was stupid. Stand up straighter. Look me in the face.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paused, and went on in a gentler tone:" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are improving. Intellectually there is very little wrong with you. It is only emotionally that you have failed to make progress. Tell me, Winston – and remember, no lies: you know that I am always able to detect a lie – tell me, what are your true feelings towards Big Brother?\"\n\n\"I hate him.\"\n\n\"You hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him: you must love him.\"\n\nHe released Winston with a little push towards the guards.\n\n\"Room 101,\" he said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At each stage of his imprisonment he had known, or seemed to know, whereabouts he was in the windowless building. Possibly there were slight differences in the air pressure. The cells where the guards had beaten him were below ground level. The room where he had been interrogated by O'Brien was high up near the roof." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This place was many metres underground, as deep down as it was possible to go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was bigger than most of the cells he had been in. But he hardly noticed his surroundings. All he noticed was that there were two small tables straight in front of him, each covered with green baize. One was only a metre or two from him, the other was further away, near the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was strapped upright in a chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not even his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sort of pad gripped his head from behind, forcing him to look straight in front of him.\n\nFor a moment he was alone, then the door opened and O'Brien came in.\n\n\"You asked me once,\" said O'Brien, \"what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.\"\n\nThe door opened again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which O'Brien was standing, Winston could not see what the thing was.\n\n\"The worst thing in the world,\" said O'Brien, \"varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.\"\n\nHe had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were rats.\n\n\"In your case,\" said O'Brien, \"the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.\"\n\nA sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of he was not certain what, had passed through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But at this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it suddenly sank into him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His bowels seemed to turn to water.\n\n\"You can't do that!\" he cried out in a high cracked voice. \"You couldn't, you couldn't! It's impossible.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you remember,\" said O'Brien, \"the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a roaring sound in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side of the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open. It was the rats that were on the other side of the wall.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"O'Brien!\" said Winston, making an effort to control his voice. \"You know this is not necessary. What is it that you want me to do?\"\n\nO'Brien made no direct answer. When he spoke it was in the schoolmasterish manner that he sometimes affected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked thoughtfully into the distance, as though he were addressing an audience somewhere behind Winston's back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"By itself,\" he said, \"pain is not always enough. There are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death. But for everyone there is something unendurable – something that cannot be contemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved. If you are falling from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up from deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air. It is merely an instinct which cannot be disobeyed. It is the same with the rats. For you, they are unendurable. They are a form of pressure that you cannot withstand, even if you wished to. You will do what is required of you.\"\n\n\"But what is it, what is it? How can I do it if I don't know what it is?\"\n\nO'Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table. He set it down carefully on the baize cloth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston could hear the blood singing in his ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. He was in the middle of a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched with sunlight, across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances. Yet the cage with the rats was not two metres away from him. They were enormous rats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were at the age when a rat's muzzle grows blunt and fierce and his fur brown instead of grey." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The rat,\" said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, \"although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.\"\n\nThere was an outburst of squeals from the cage. It seemed to reach Winston from far away. The rats were fighting; they were trying to get at each other through the partition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He heard also a deep groan of despair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That, too, seemed to come from outside himself.\n\nO'Brien picked up the cage, and, as he did so, pressed something in it. There was a sharp click. Winston made a frantic effort to tear himself loose from the chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was hopeless, every part of him, even his head, was held immovably." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O'Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a metre from Winston's face.\n\n\"I have pressed the first lever,\" said O'Brien. \"You understand the construction of this cage. The mask will fit over your head, leaving no exit. When I press this other lever, the door of the cage will slide up. These starving brutes will shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen a rat leap through the air? They will leap onto your face and bore straight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Sometimes they burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cage was nearer; it was closing in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston heard a succession of shrill cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head. But he fought furiously against his panic. To think, to think, even with a split second left – to think was the only hope. Suddenly the foul musty odour of the brutes struck his nostrils." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a violent convulsion of nausea inside him, and he almost lost consciousness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything had gone black. For an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came out of the blackness clutching an idea. There was one and only one way to save himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He must interpose another human being, the body of another human being, between himself and the rats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of anything else. The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face. The rats knew what was coming now. One of them was leaping up and down, the other, an old scaly grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink hands against the bars, and fiercely snuffed the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Again the black panic took hold of him. He was blind, helpless, mindless.\n\n\"It was a common punishment in Imperial China,\" said O'Brien as didactically as ever.\n\nThe mask was closing on his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wire brushed his cheek." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then – no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps too late. But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just one person to whom he could transfer his punishment – one body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically, over and over:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was falling backwards, into enormous depths, away from the rats. He was still strapped in the chair, but he had fallen through the floor, through the walls of the building, through the earth, through the oceans, through the atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars – always away, away, away from the rats. He was light-years distant, but O'Brien was still standing at his side. There was still the cold touch of a wire against his cheek. But through the darkness that enveloped him he heard another metallic click, and knew that the cage door had clicked shut and not open." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell yellow on dusty table-tops. It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from the telescreens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said. Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up with Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the café." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Winston was listening to the telescreen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At present only music was coming out of it, but there was a possibility that at any moment there might be a special bulletin from the Ministry of Peace. The news from the African front was disquieting in the extreme. On and off he had been worrying about it all day. A Eurasian army (Oceania was at war with Eurasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia) was moving southward at terrifying speed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The midday bulletin had not mentioned any definite area, but it was probable that already the mouth of the Congo was a battlefield." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brazzaville and Leopoldville were in danger. One did not have to look at the map to see what it meant. It was not merely a question of losing Central Africa: for the first time in the whole war, the territory of Oceania itself was menaced.\n\nA violent emotion, not fear exactly but a sort of undifferentiated excitement, flared up in him, then faded again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped thinking about the war." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In these days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few moments at a time. He picked up his glass and drained it at a gulp. As always, it made him shudder and even retch slightly. The stuff was horrible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cloves and saccharine, themselves disgusting enough in their sickly way, could not disguise the flat oily smell; and what was worst of all was that the smell of gin, which dwelt with him night and day, was inextricably mixed up in his mind with the smell of those –" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He never named them, even in his thoughts, and so far as it was possible he never visualised them. They were something that he was half aware of, hovering close to his face, a smell that clung to his nostrils. As the gin rose in him he belched through purple lips. He had grown fatter since they released him, and had regained his old colour – indeed, more than regained it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His features had thickened, the skin on nose and cheekbones was coarsely red, even the bald scalp was too deep a pink." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A waiter, again unbidden, brought the chessboard and the current issue of the Times, with the page turned down at the chess problem. Then, seeing that Winston's glass was empty, he brought the gin bottle and filled it. There was no need to give orders. They knew his habits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chessboard was always waiting for him, his corner table was always reserved; even when the place was full he had it to himself, since nobody cared to be seen sitting too close to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He never even bothered to count his drinks. At irregular intervals they presented him with a dirty slip of paper which they said was the bill, but he had the impression that they always undercharged him. It would have made no difference if it had been the other way about. He had always plenty of money nowadays." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He even had a job, a sinecure, more highly paid than his old job had been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The music from the telescreen stopped and a voice took over. Winston raised his head to listen. No bulletin from the front, however. It was merely a brief announcement from the Ministry of Plenty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the preceding quarter, it appeared, the Tenth Three-Year Plan's quota for bootlaces had been overfulfilled by ninety-eight per cent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights. \"White to play and mate in two moves.\" Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "White always mates, he thought with a sort of cloudy mysticism." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Always, without exception, it is so arranged. In no chess problem since the beginning of the world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying triumph of Good over Evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power. White always mates." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The voice from the telescreen paused and added in a different and much graver tone: \"You are warned to stand by for an important announcement at fifteen-thirty. Fifteen-thirty! This is news of the highest importance. Take care not to miss it. Fifteen-thirty!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tinkling music struck up again.\n\nWinston's heart stirred. That was the bulletin from the front; instinct told him that it was bad news that was coming. All day, with little spurts of excitement, the thought of a smashing defeat in Africa had been in and out of his mind. He seemed actually to see the Eurasian army swarming across the never-broken frontier and pouring down into the tip of Africa like a column of ants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why had it not been possible to outflank them in some way?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The outline of the West African coast stood out vividly in his mind. He picked up the white knight and moved it across the board. There was the proper spot. Even while he saw the black horde racing southward he saw another force, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in their rear, cutting their communications by land and sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt that by willing it he was bringing that other force into existence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was necessary to act quickly. If they could get control of the whole of Africa, if they had airfields and submarine bases at the Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It might mean anything: defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the world, the destruction of the Party! He drew a deep breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An extraordinary medley of feelings – but it was not a medley, exactly; rather it was successive layers of feeling, in which one could not say which layer was undermost – struggled inside him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The spasm passed. He put the white knight back in its place, but for the moment he could not settle down to serious study of the chess problem. His thoughts wandered again. Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger in the dust on the table:\n\n2 + 2 = 5" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They can't get inside you,\" she had said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But they could get inside you. \"What happens to you here is for ever,\" O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could not recover." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterised out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was no danger in it. He knew as though instinctively that they now took almost no interest in his doings. He could have arranged to meet her a second time if either of them had wanted to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Actually it was by chance that they had met." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was in the Park, on a vile, biting day in March, when the earth was like iron and all the grass seemed dead and there was not a bud anywhere except a few crocuses which had pushed themselves up to be dismembered by the wind. He was hurrying along with frozen hands and watering eyes when he saw her not ten metres away from him. It struck him at once that she had changed in some ill-defined way. They almost passed one another without a sign, then he turned and followed her, not very eagerly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew that there was no danger, nobody would take any interest in them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She did not speak. She walked obliquely away across the grass as though trying to get rid of him, then seemed to resign herself to having him at her side. Presently they were in among a clump of ragged leafless shrubs, useless either for concealment or as protection from the wind. They halted. It was vilely cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wind whistled through the twigs and fretted the occasional, dirty-looking crocuses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He put his arm round her waist.\n\nThere was no telescreen, but there must be hidden microphones: besides, they could be seen. It did not matter, nothing mattered. They could have lain down on the ground and done that if they had wanted to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His flesh froze with horror at the thought of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She made no response whatever to the clasp of his arm; she did not even try to disengage herself. He knew now what had changed in her. Her face was sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair, across her forehead and temple; but that was not the change. It was that her waist had grown thicker, and, in a surprising way, had stiffened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He remembered how once, after the explosion of a rocket bomb, he had helped to drag a corpse out of some ruins, and had been astonished not only by the incredible weight of the thing, but by its rigidity and awkwardness to handle, which made it seem more like stone than flesh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her body felt like that. It occurred to him that the texture of her skin would be quite different from what it had once been.\n\nHe did not attempt to kiss her, nor did they speak. As they walked back across the grass she looked directly at him for the first time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was only a momentary glance, full of contempt and dislike." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wondered whether it was a dislike that came purely out of the past or whether it was inspired also by his bloated face and the water that the wind kept squeezing from his eyes. They sat down on two iron chairs, side by side but not too close together. He saw that she was about to speak. She moved her clumsy shoe a few centimetres and deliberately crushed a twig." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her feet seemed to have grown broader, he noticed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I betrayed you,\" she said baldly.\n\n\"I betrayed you,\" he said.\n\nShe gave him another quick look of dislike.\n\n\"Sometimes,\" she said, \"they threaten you with something – something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All you care about is yourself,\" he echoed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And after that, you don't feel the same towards the other person any longer.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"you don't feel the same.\"\n\nThere did not seem to be anything more to say. The wind plastered their thin overalls against their bodies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost at once it became embarrassing to sit there in silence: besides, it was too cold to keep still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She said something about catching her Tube and stood up to go.\n\n\"We must meet again,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"we must meet again.\"\n\nHe followed irresolutely for a little distance, half a pace behind her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They did not speak again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She did not actually try to shake him off, but walked at just such a speed as to prevent his keeping abreast of her. He had made up his mind that he would accompany her as far as the Tube station, but suddenly this process of trailing along in the cold seemed pointless and unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a desire not so much to get away from Julia as to get back to the Chestnut Tree Café, which had never seemed so attractive as at this moment. He had a nostalgic vision of his corner table, with the newspaper and the chessboard and the ever-flowing gin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Above all it would be warm in there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next moment, not altogether by accident, he allowed himself to become separated from her by a small knot of people. He made a half-hearted attempt to catch up, then slowed down, turned and made off in the opposite direction. When he had gone fifty metres he looked back. The street was not crowded, but already he could not distinguish her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Any one of a dozen hurrying figures might have been hers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps her thickened, stiffened body was no longer recognisable from behind.\n\n\"At the time when it happens,\" she had said, \"you do mean it.\" He had meant it. He had not merely said it, he had wished it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had wished that she and not he should be delivered over to the –" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something changed in the music that trickled from the telescreen. A cracked and jeering note, a yellow note, came into it. And then – perhaps it was not happening, perhaps it was only a memory taking on the semblance of sound – a voice was singing:\n\nUnder the spreading chestnut tree" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I sold you and you sold me –" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tears welled up in his eyes. A passing waiter noticed that his glass was empty and came back with the gin bottle.\n\nHe took up his glass and sniffed at it. The stuff grew not less but more horrible with every mouthful he drank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it had become the element he swam in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was his life, his death and his resurrection. It was gin that sank him into stupor every night, and gin that revived him every morning. When he woke, seldom before eleven hundred, with gummed-up eyelids and fiery mouth and a back that seemed to be broken, it would have been impossible even to rise from the horizontal if it had not been for the bottle and teacup placed beside the bed overnight. Through the midday hours he sat with glazed face, the bottle handy, listening to the telescreen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From fifteen to closing-time he was a fixture in the Chestnut Tree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one cared what he did any longer, no whistle woke him, no telescreen admonished him. Occasionally, perhaps twice a week, he went to a dusty, forgotten-looking office in the Ministry of Truth and did a little work, or what was called work. He had been appointed to a sub-committee of a sub-committee which had sprouted from one of the innumerable committees dealing with minor difficulties that arose in the compilation of the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. They were engaged in producing something called an Interim Report, but what it was that they were reporting on he had never definitely found out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was something to do with the question of whether commas should be placed inside brackets, or outside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were four others on the committee, all of them persons similar to himself. There were days when they assembled and then promptly dispersed again, frankly admitting to one another that there was not really anything to be done. But there were other days when they settled down to their work almost eagerly, making a tremendous show of entering up their minutes and drafting long memoranda which were never finished – when the argument as to what they were supposedly arguing about grew extraordinarily involved and abstruse, with subtle hagglings over definitions, enormous digressions, quarrels – threats, even, to appeal to higher authority. And then suddenly the life would go out of them and they would sit round the table looking at one another with extinct eyes, like ghosts fading at cock-crow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The telescreen was silent for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Winston raised his head again. The bulletin! But no, they were merely changing the music. He had the map of Africa behind his eyelids. The movement of the armies was a diagram: a black arrow tearing vertically southward, and a white arrow tearing horizontally eastward, across the tail of the first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As though for reassurance he looked up at the imperturbable face in the portrait." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was it conceivable that the second arrow did not even exist?\n\nHis interest flagged again. He drank another mouthful of gin, picked up the white knight and made a tentative move. Check. But it was evidently not the right move, because –" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Uncalled, a memory floated into his mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He saw a candlelit room with a vast white-counterpaned bed, and himself, a boy of nine or ten, sitting on the floor, shaking a dice-box and laughing excitedly. His mother was sitting opposite him and also laughing.\n\nIt must have been about a month before she disappeared. It was a moment of reconciliation, when the nagging hunger in his belly was forgotten and his earlier affection for her had temporarily revived." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He remembered the day well, a pelting, drenching day when the water streamed down the window-pane and the light indoors was too dull to read by." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The boredom of the two children in the dark, cramped bedroom became unbearable. Winston whined and grizzled, made futile demands for food, fretted about the room pulling everything out of place and kicking the wainscoting until the neighbours banged on the wall, while the younger child wailed intermittently. In the end his mother had said, \"Now be good, and I'll buy you a toy. A lovely toy – you'll love it\"; and then she had gone out in the rain, to a little general shop which was still sporadically open nearby, and came back with a cardboard box containing an outfit of Snakes and Ladders. He could still remember the smell of the damp cardboard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a miserable outfit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The board was cracked and the tiny wooden dice were so ill-cut that they would hardly lie on their sides. Winston looked at the thing sulkily and without interest. But then his mother lit a piece of candle and they sat down on the floor to play. Soon he was wildly excited and shouting with laughter as the tiddleywinks climbed hopefully up the ladders and then came slithering down the snakes again, almost back to the starting-point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They played eight games, winning four each." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His tiny sister, too young to understand what the game was about, had sat propped up against a bolster, laughing because the others were laughing. For a whole afternoon they had all been happy together, as in his earlier childhood.\n\nHe pushed the picture out of his mind. It was a false memory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was troubled by false memories occasionally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They did not matter so long as one knew them for what they were. Some things had happened, others had not happened. He turned back to the chessboard and picked up the white knight again. Almost in the same instant it dropped onto the board with a clatter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had started as though a pin had run into him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A shrill trumpet-call had pierced the air. It was the bulletin! Victory! It always meant victory when a trumpet-call preceded the news. A sort of electric thrill ran through the café." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the waiters had started and pricked up their ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The trumpet-call had let loose an enormous volume of noise. Already an excited voice was gabbling from the telescreen, but even as it started it was almost drowned by a roar of cheering from outside. The news had run round the streets like magic. He could hear just enough of what was issuing from the telescreen to realise that it had all happened as he had foreseen: a vast seaborne armada secretly assembled, a sudden blow in the enemy's rear, the white arrow tearing across the tail of the black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fragments of triumphant phrases pushed themselves through the din: \"Vast strategic manoeuvre – perfect coordination – utter rout – half a million prisoners – complete demoralisation – control of the whole of Africa – bring the war within measurable distance of its end – victory – greatest victory in human history – victory, victory, victory!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Under the table Winston's feet made convulsive movements. He had not stirred from his seat, but in his mind he was running, swiftly running, he was with the crowds outside, cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at the portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The rock against which the hordes of Asia dashed themselves in vain!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought how ten minutes ago – yes, only ten minutes – there had still been equivocation in his heart as he wondered whether the news from the front would be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was more than a Eurasian army that had perished! Much had changed in him since that first day in the Ministry of Love, but the final, indispensable, healing change had never happened, until this moment.\n\nThe voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had died down a little." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The waiters were turning back to their work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of them approached with the gin bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain.\n\nHe gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache." }, { "from": "human", "value": "O cruel, needless misunderstanding!" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\nfour sentences\n\nStyle:\nJoseph Heller" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was love at first sight.\n\nThe first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.\n\nYossarian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being jaundice. The doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn't quite jaundice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If it became jaundice they could treat it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If it didn't become jaundice and went away they could discharge him. But this just being short of jaundice all the time confused them.\n\nEach morning they came around, three brisk and serious men with efficient mouths and inefficient eyes, accompanied by brisk and serious Nurse Duckett, one of the ward nurses who didn't like Yossarian. They read the chart at the foot of the bed and asked impatiently about the pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They seemed irritated when he told them it was exactly the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Still no movement?\" the full colonel demanded.\n\nThe doctors exchanged a look when he shook his head.\n\n\"Give him another pill.\"\n\nNurse Duckett made a note to give Yossarian another pill, and the four of them moved along to the next bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "None of the nurses liked Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Actually, the pain in his liver had gone away, but Yossarian didn't say anything and the doctors never suspected. They just suspected that he had been moving his bowels and not telling anyone.\n\nYossarian had everything he wanted in the hospital. The food wasn't too bad, and his meals were brought to him in bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were extra rations of fresh meat, and during the hot part of the afternoon he and the others were served chilled fruit juice or chilled chocolate milk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Apart from the doctors and the nurses, no one ever disturbed him. For a little while in the morning he had to censor letters, but he was free after that to spend the rest of each day lying around idly with a clear conscience. He was comfortable in the hospital, and it was easy to stay on because he always ran a temperature of 101. He was even more comfortable than Dunbar, who had to keep falling down on his face in order to get his meals brought to him in bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After he had made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, Yossarian wrote letters to everyone he knew saying that he was in the hospital but never mentioning why." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One day he had a better idea. To everyone he knew he wrote that he was going on a very dangerous mission. \"They asked for volunteers. It's very dangerous, but someone has to do it. I'll write you the instant I get back.\" And he had not written anyone since." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the officer patients in the ward were forced to censor letters written by all the enlisted-men patients, who were kept in residence in wards of their own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a monotonous job, and Yossarian was disappointed to learn that the lives of enlisted men were only slightly more interesting than the lives of officers. After the first day he had no curiosity at all. To break the monotony he invented games. Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next day he made war on articles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He reached a much higher plane of creativity the following day when he blacked out everything in the letters but a, an and the. That erected more dynamic intralinear tensions, he felt, and in just about every case left a message far more universal. Soon he was proscribing parts of salutations and signatures and leaving the text untouched. One time he blacked out all but the salutation \"Dear Mary\" from a letter, and at the bottom he wrote, \"I yearn for you tragically. R. O. Shipman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "R. O. Shipman was the group chaplain's name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he had exhausted all possibilities in the letters, he began attacking the names and addresses on the envelopes, obliterating whole homes and streets, annihilating entire metropolises with careless flicks of his wrist as though he were God. Catch-22 required that each censored letter bear the censoring officer's name. Most letters he didn't read at all. On those he didn't read at all he wrote his own name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On those he did read he wrote, \"Washington Irving.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When that grew monotonous he wrote, \"Irving Washington.\" Censoring the envelopes had serious repercussions, produced a ripple of anxiety on some ethereal military echelon that floated a C.I.D. man back into the ward posing as a patient. They all knew he was a C.I.D." }, { "from": "human", "value": "man because he kept inquiring about an officer named Irving or Washington and because after his first day there he wouldn't censor letters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found them too monotonous.\n\nIt was a good ward this time, one of the best he and Dunbar had ever enjoyed. With them this time was the twenty-four-year-old fighter-pilot captain with the sparse golden mustache who had been shot into the Adriatic Sea in midwinter and not even caught cold. Now the summer was upon them, the captain had not been shot down, and he said he had the grippe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the bed on Yossarian's right, still lying amorously on his belly, was the startled captain with malaria in his blood and a mosquito bite on his ass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Across the aisle from Yossarian was Dunbar, and next to Dunbar was the artillery captain with whom Yossarian had stopped playing chess. The captain was a good chess player, and the games were always interesting. Yossarian had stopped playing chess with him because the games were so interesting they were foolish. Then there was the educated Texan from Texas who looked like someone in Technicolor and felt, patriotically, that people of means-decent folk-should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk-people without means." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian was unspringing rhythms in the letters the day they brought the Texan in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was another quiet, hot, untroubled day. The heat pressed heavily on the roof, stifling sound. Dunbar was lying motionless on his back again with his eyes staring up at the ceiling like a doll's. He was working hard at increasing his life span." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did it by cultivating boredom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dunbar was working so hard at increasing his life span that Yossarian thought he was dead. They put the Texan in a bed in the middle of the ward, and it wasn't long before he donated his views.\n\nDunbar sat up like a shot. \"That's it,\" he cried excitedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There was something missing-all the time I knew there was something missing-and now I know what it is.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He banged his fist down into his palm. \"No patriotism,\" he declared.\n\n\"You're right,\" Yossarian shouted back. \"You're right, you're right, you're right. The hot dog, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mom's apple pie. That's what everyone's fighting for. But who's fighting for the decent folk? Who's fighting for more votes for the decent folk? There's no patriotism, that's what it is. And no matriotism, either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The warrant officer on Yossarian's left was unimpressed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who gives a shit?\" he asked tiredly, and turned over on his side to go to sleep.\n\nThe Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sent shudders of annoyance scampering up ticklish spines, and everybody fled from him-everybody but the soldier in white, who had no choice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The soldier in white was encased from head to toe in plaster and gauze. He had two useless legs and two useless arms. He had been smuggled into the ward during the night, and the men had no idea he was among them until they awoke in the morning and saw the two strange legs hoisted from the hips, the two strange arms anchored up perpendicularly, all four limbs pinioned strangely in air by lead weights suspended darkly above him that never moved. Sewn into the bandages over the insides of both elbows were zippered lips through which he was fed clear fluid from a clear jar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A silent zinc pipe rose from the cement on his groin and was coupled to a slim rubber hose that carried waste from his kidneys and dripped it efficiently into a clear, stoppered jar on the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the jar on the floor was full, the jar feeding his elbow was empty, and the two were simply switched quickly so that the stuff could drip back into him. All they ever really saw of the soldier in white was a frayed black hole over his mouth.\n\nThe soldier in white had been filed next to the Texan, and the Texan sat sideways on his own bed and talked to him throughout the morning, afternoon and evening in a pleasant, sympathetic drawl. The Texan never minded that he got no reply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Temperatures were taken twice a day in the ward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Early each morning and late each afternoon Nurse Cramer entered with a jar full of thermometers and worked her way up one side of the ward and down the other, distributing a thermometer to each patient. She managed the soldier in white by inserting a thermometer into the hole over his mouth and leaving it balanced there on the lower rim. When she returned to the man in the first bed, she took his thermometer and recorded his temperature, and then moved on to the next bed and continued around the ward again. One afternoon when she had completed her first circuit of the ward and came a second time to the soldier in white, she read his thermometer and discovered that he was dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Murderer,\" Dunbar said quietly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Texan looked up at him with an uncertain grin.\n\n\"Killer,\" Yossarian said.\n\nWhat are you fellas talkin\" about?\" the Texan asked nervously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You murdered him,\" said Dunbar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You killed him,\" said Yossarian.\n\nThe Texan shrank back. \"You fellas are crazy. I didn't even touch him.\"\n\n\"You murdered him,\" said Dunbar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I heard you kill him,\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You killed him because he was a nigger,\" Dunbar said.\n\n\"You fellas are crazy,\" the Texan cried. \"They don't allow niggers in here. They got a special place for niggers.\"\n\n\"The sergeant smuggled him in,\" Dunbar said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Communist sergeant,\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you knew it.\"\n\nThe warrant officer on Yossarian's left was unimpressed by the entire incident of the soldier in white. The warrant officer was unimpressed by everything and never spoke at all unless it was to show irritation.\n\nThe day before Yossarian met the chaplain, a stove exploded in the mess hall and set fire to one side of the kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An intense heat flashed through the area." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even in Yossarian's ward, almost three hundred feet away, they could hear the roar of the blaze and the sharp cracks of flaming timber. Smoke sped past the orange-tinted windows. In about fifteen minutes the crash trucks from the airfield arrived to fight the fire. For a frantic half hour it was touch and go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the firemen began to get the upper hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly there was the monotonous old drone of bombers returning from a mission, and the firemen had to roll up their hoses and speed back to the field in case one of the planes crashed and caught fire. The planes landed safely. As soon as the last one was down, the firemen wheeled their trucks around and raced back up the hill to resume their fight with the fire at the hospital. When they got there, the blaze was out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had died of its own accord, expired completely without even an ember to be watered down, and there was nothing for the disappointed firemen to do but drink tepid coffee and hang around trying to screw the nurses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain arrived the day after the fire. Yossarian was busy expurgating all but romance words from the letters when the chaplain sat down in a chair between the beds and asked him how he was feeling. He had placed himself a bit to one side, and the captain's bars on the tab of his shirt collar were all the insignia Yossarian could see. Yossarian had no idea who he was and just took it for granted that he was either another doctor or another madman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, pretty good,\" he answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've got a slight pain in my liver and I haven't been the most regular of fellows, I guess, but all in all I must admit that I feel pretty good.\"\n\n\"That's good,\" said the chaplain.\n\n\"Yes,\" Yossarian said. \"Yes, that is good.\"\n\n\"I meant to come around sooner,\" the chaplain said, \"but I really haven't been well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's too bad,\" Yossarian said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just a head cold,\" the chaplain added quickly.\n\n\"I've got a fever of a hundred and one,\" Yossarian added just as quickly.\n\n\"That's too bad,\" said the chaplain.\n\n\"Yes,\" Yossarian agreed. \"Yes, that is too bad.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain fidgeted. \"Is there anything I can do for you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked after a while.\n\n\"No, no.\" Yossarian sighed. \"The doctors are doing all that's humanly possible, I suppose.\"\n\n\"No, no.\" The chaplain colored faintly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't mean anything like that. I meant cigarettes... or books... or... toys.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, no,\" Yossarian said. \"Thank you. I have everything I need, I suppose-everything but good health.\"\n\n\"That's too bad.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Yossarian said. \"Yes, that is too bad.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain stirred again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked from side to side a few times, then gazed up at the ceiling, then down at the floor. He drew a deep breath.\n\n\"Lieutenant Nately sends his regards,\" he said.\n\nYossarian was sorry to hear they had a mutual friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed there was a basis to their conversation after all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know Lieutenant Nately?\" he asked regretfully.\n\n\"Yes, I know Lieutenant Nately quite well.\"\n\n\"He's a bit loony, isn't he?\"\n\nThe chaplain's smile was embarrassed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm afraid I couldn't say. I don't think I know him that well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can take my word for it,\" Yossarian said. \"He's as goofy as they come.\"\n\nThe chaplain weighed the next silence heavily and then shattered it with an abrupt question. \"You are Captain Yossarian, aren't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please excuse me,\" the chaplain persisted timorously. \"I may be committing a very grave error. Are you Captain Yossarian?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Captain Yossarian confessed. \"I am Captain Yossarian.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of the 256th Squadron?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of the fighting 256th Squadron,\" Yossarian replied. \"I didn't know there were any other Captain Yossarians. As far as I know, I'm the only Captain Yossarian I know, but that's only as far as I know.\"\n\n\"I see,\" the chaplain said unhappily.\n\n\"That's two to the fighting eighth power,\" Yossarian pointed out, \"if you're thinking of writing a symbolic poem about our squadron.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" mumbled the chaplain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not thinking of writing a symbolic poem about your squadron.\"\n\nYossarian straightened sharply when he spied the tiny silver cross on the other side of the chaplain's collar. He was thoroughly astonished, for he had never really talked with a chaplain before.\n\n\"You're a chaplain,\" he exclaimed ecstatically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't know you were a chaplain.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why, yes,\" the chaplain answered. \"Didn't you know I was a chaplain?\"\n\n\"Why, no. I didn't know you were a chaplain.\" Yossarian stared at him with a big, fascinated grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've never really seen a chaplain before.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain flushed again and gazed down at his hands. He was a slight man of about thirty-two with tan hair and brown diffident eyes. His face was narrow and rather pale. An innocent nest of ancient pimple pricks lay in the basin of each cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian wanted to help him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can I do anything at all to help you?\" the chaplain asked.\n\nYossarian shook his head, still grinning. \"No, I'm sorry. I have everything I need and I'm quite comfortable. In fact, I'm not even sick.\"\n\n\"That's good.\" As soon as the chaplain said the words, he was sorry and shoved his knuckles into his mouth with a giggle of alarm, but Yossarian remained silent and disappointed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There are other men in the group I must visit,\" he apologized finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll come to see you again, probably tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Please do that,\" Yossarian said.\n\n\"I'll come only if you want me to,\" the chaplain said, lowering his head shyly. \"I've noticed that I make many of the men uncomfortable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian glowed with affection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want you to,\" he said. \"You won't make me uncomfortable.\"\n\nThe chaplain beamed gratefully and then peered down at a slip of paper he had been concealing in his hand all the while. He counted along the beds in the ward, moving his lips, and then centered his attention dubiously on Dunbar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"May I inquire,\" he whispered softly, \"if that is Lieutenant Dunbar?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Yossarian answered loudly, \"that is Lieutenant Dunbar.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" the chaplain whispered. \"Thank you very much. I must visit with him. I must visit with every member of the group who is in the hospital.\"\n\n\"Even those in other wards?\" Yossarian asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Even those in other wards.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be careful in those other wards, Father,\" Yossarian warned. \"That's where they keep the mental cases. They're filled with lunatics.\"\n\n\"It isn't necessary to call me Father,\" the chaplain explained. \"I'm an Anabaptist.\"\n\n\"I'm dead serious about those other wards,\" Yossarian continued grimly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"M.P.s won't protect you, because they're craziest of all. I'd go with you myself, but I'm scared stiff: Insanity is contagious. This is the only sane ward in the whole hospital. Everybody is crazy but us. This is probably the only sane ward in the whole world, for that matter.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain rose quickly and edged away from Yossarian's bed, and then nodded with a conciliating smile and promised to conduct himself with appropriate caution. \"And now I must visit with Lieutenant Dunbar,\" he said. Still he lingered, remorsefully. \"How is Lieutenant Dunbar?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked at last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As good as they go,\" Yossarian assured him. \"A true prince. One of the finest, least dedicated men in the whole world.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean that,\" the chaplain answered, whispering again. \"Is he very sick?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, he isn't very sick. In fact, he isn't sick at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's good.\" The chaplain sighed with relief.\n\n\"Yes,\" Yossarian said. \"Yes, that is good.\"\n\n\"A chaplain,\" Dunbar said when the chaplain had visited him and gone. \"Did you see that? A chaplain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wasn't he sweet?\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe they should give him three votes.\"\n\n\"Who's they?\" Dunbar demanded suspiciously.\n\nIn a bed in the small private section at the end of the ward, always working ceaselessly behind the green plyboard partition, was the solemn middle-aged colonel who was visited every day by a gentle, sweet-faced woman with curly ash-blond hair who was not a nurse and not a Wac and not a Red Cross girl but who nevertheless appeared faithfully at the hospital in Pianosa each afternoon wearing pretty pastel summer dresses that were very smart and white leather pumps with heels half high at the base of nylon seams that were inevitably straight. The colonel was in Communications, and he was kept busy day and night transmitting glutinous messages from the interior into square pads of gauze which he sealed meticulously and delivered to a covered white pail that stood on the night table beside his bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel was gorgeous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had a cavernous mouth, cavernous cheeks, cavernous, sad, mildewed eyes. His face was the color of clouded silver. He coughed quietly, gingerly, and dabbed the pads slowly at his lips with a distaste that had become automatic.\n\nThe colonel dwelt in a vortex of specialists who were still specializing in trying to determine what was troubling him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They hurled lights in his eyes to see if he could see, rammed needles into nerves to hear if he could feel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a urologist for his urine, a lymphologist for his lymph, an endocrinologist for his endocrines, a psychologist for his psyche, a dermatologist for his derma; there was a pathologist for his pathos, a cystologist for his cysts, and a bald and pedantic cetologist from the zoology department at Harvard who had been shanghaied ruthlessly into the Medical Corps by a faulty anode in an I.B.M. machine and spent his sessions with the dying colonel trying to discuss Moby Dick with him.\n\nThe colonel had really been investigated. There was not an organ of his body that had not been drugged and derogated, dusted and dredged, fingered and photographed, removed, plundered and replaced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Neat, slender and erect, the woman touched him often as she sat by his bedside and was the epitome of stately sorrow each time she smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The colonel was tall, thin and stooped. When he rose to walk, he bent forward even more, making a deep cavity of his body, and placed his feet down very carefully, moving ahead by inches from the knees down. There were violet pools under his eyes. The woman spoke softly, softer than the colonel coughed, and none of the men in the ward ever heard her voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In less than ten days the Texan cleared the ward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The artillery captain broke first, and after that the exodus started. Dunbar, Yossarian and the fighter captain all bolted the same morning. Dunbar stopped having dizzy spells, and the fighter captain blew his nose. Yossarian told the doctors that the pain in his liver had gone away." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a way the C.I.D. man was pretty lucky, because outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals. All over the world, boys on every side of the bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their young lives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no end in sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only end in sight was Yossarian's own, and he might have remained in the hospital until doomsday had it not been for that patriotic Texan with his infundibuliform jowls and his lumpy, rumpleheaded, indestructible smile cracked forever across the front of his face like the brim of a black ten-gallon hat. The Texan wanted everybody in the ward to be happy but Yossarian and Dunbar. He was really very sick.\n\nBut Yossarian couldn't be happy, even though the Texan didn't want him to be, because outside the hospital there was still nothing funny going on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only thing going on was a war, and no one seemed to notice but Yossarian and Dunbar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And when Yossarian tried to remind people, they drew away from him and thought he was crazy. Even Clevinger, who should have known better but didn't, had told him he was crazy the last time they had seen each other, which was just before Yossarian had fled into the hospital.\n\nClevinger had stared at him with apoplectic rage and indignation and, clawing the table with both hands, had shouted, \"You're crazy!\"\n\n\"Clevinger, what do you want from people?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dunbar had replied wearily above the noises of the officers' club." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not joking,\" Clevinger persisted.\n\n\"They're trying to kill me,\" Yossarian told him calmly.\n\n\"No one's trying to kill you,\" Clevinger cried.\n\n\"Then why are they shooting at me?\" Yossarian asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're shooting at everyone,\" Clevinger answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're trying to kill everyone.\"\n\n\"And what difference does that make?\"\n\nClevinger was already on the way, half out of his chair with emotion, his eyes moist and his lips quivering and pale. As always occurred when he quarreled over principles in which he believed passionately, he would end up gasping furiously for air and blinking back bitter tears of conviction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were many principles in which Clevinger believed passionately. He was crazy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who's they?\" he wanted to know. \"Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?\"\n\n\"Every one of them,\" Yossarian told him.\n\n\"Every one of whom?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Every one of whom do you think?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I haven't any idea.\"\n\n\"Then how do you know they aren't?\"\n\n\"Because...\" Clevinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration.\n\nClevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And if that wasn't funny, there were lots of things that weren't even funnier." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was nothing funny about living like a bum in a tent in Pianosa between fat mountains behind him and a placid blue sea in front that could gulp down a person with a cramp in the twinkling of an eye and ship him back to shore three days later, all charges paid, bloated, blue and putrescent, water draining out through both cold nostrils.\n\nThe tent he lived in stood right smack up against the wall of the shallow, dull-colored forest separating his own squadron from Dunbar's. Immediately alongside was the abandoned railroad ditch that carried the pipe that carried the aviation gasoline down to the fuel trucks at the airfield. Thanks to Orr, his roommate, it was the most luxurious tent in the squadron." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each time Yossarian returned from one of his holidays in the hospital or rest leaves in Rome, he was surprised by some new comfort Orr had installed in his absence-running water, wood-burning fireplace, cement floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian had chosen the site, and he and Orr had raised the tent together. Orr, who was a grinning pygmy with pilot's wings and thick, wavy brown hair parted in the middle, furnished all the knowledge, while Yossarian, who was taller, stronger, broader and faster, did most of the work. Just the two of them lived there, although the tent was big enough for six. When summer came, Orr rolled up the side flaps to allow a breeze that never blew to flush away the air baking inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Immediately next door to Yossarian was Havermeyer, who liked peanut brittle and lived all by himself in the two-man tent in which he shot tiny field mice every night with huge bullets from the.45 he had stolen from the dead man in Yossarian's tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other side of Havermeyer stood the tent McWatt no longer shared with Clevinger, who had still not returned when Yossarian came out of the hospital. McWatt shared his tent now with Nately, who was away in Rome courting the sleepy whore he had fallen so deeply in love with there who was bored with her work and bored with him too. McWatt was crazy. He was a pilot and flew his plane as low as he dared over Yossarian's tent as often as he could, just to see how much he could frighten him, and loved to go buzzing with a wild, close roar over the wooden raft floating on empty oil drums out past the sand bar at the immaculate white beach where the men went swimming naked. Sharing a tent with a man who was crazy wasn't easy, but Nately didn't care." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was crazy, too, and had gone every free day to work on the officers' club that Yossarian had not helped build." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Actually, there were many officers' clubs that Yossarian had not helped build, but he was proudest of the one on Pianosa. It was a sturdy and complex monument to his powers of determination. Yossarian never went there to help until it was finished; then he went there often, so pleased was he with the large, fine, rambling, shingled building. It was truly a splendid structure, and Yossarian throbbed with a mighty sense of accomplishment each time he gazed at it and reflected that none of the work that had gone into it was his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were four of them seated together at a table in the officers' club the last time he and Clevinger had called each other crazy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were seated in back near the crap table on which Appleby always managed to win. Appleby was as good at shooting crap as he was at playing ping-pong, and he was as good at playing ping-pong as he was at everything else. Everything Appleby did, he did well. Appleby was a fair-haired boy from Iowa who believed in God, Motherhood and the American Way of Life, without ever thinking about any of them, and everybody who knew him liked him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hate that son of a bitch,\" Yossarian growled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The argument with Clevinger had begun a few minutes earlier when Yossarian had been unable to find a machine gun. It was a busy night. The bar was busy, the crap table was busy, the ping-gong table was busy. The people Yossarian wanted to machine-gun were busy at the bar singing sentimental old favorites that nobody else ever tired of." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead of machine-gunning them, he brought his heel down hard on the ping-pong ball that came rolling toward him off the paddle of one of the two officers playing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That Yossarian,\" the two officers laughed, shaking their heads, and got another ball from the box on the shelf.\n\n\"That Yossarian,\" Yossarian answered them.\n\n\"Yossarian,\" Nately whispered cautioningly.\n\n\"You see what I mean?\" asked Clevinger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The officers laughed again when they heard Yossarian mimicking them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That Yossarian,\" they said more loudly.\n\n\"That Yossarian,\" Yossarian echoed.\n\n\"Yossarian, please,\" Nately pleaded.\n\n\"You see what I mean?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "asked Clevinger. \"He has antisocial aggressions.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, shut up,\" Dunbar told Clevinger. Dunbar liked Clevinger because Clevinger annoyed him and made the time go slow.\n\n\"Appleby isn't even here,\" Clevinger pointed out triumphantly to Yossarian.\n\n\"Who said anything about Appleby?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian wanted to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Colonel Cathcart isn't here, either.\"\n\n\"Who said anything about Colonel Cathcart?\"\n\n\"What son of a bitch do you hate, then?\"\n\n\"What son of a bitch is here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not going to argue with you,\" Clevinger decided." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't know who you hate.\"\n\n\"Whoever's trying to poison me,\" Yossarian told him.\n\n\"Nobody's trying to poison you.\"\n\n\"They poisoned my food twice, didn't they? Didn't they put poison in my food during Ferrara and during the Great Big Siege of Bologna?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They put poison in everybody's food,\" Clevinger explained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what difference does that make?\"\n\n\"And it wasn't even poison!\" Clevinger cried heatedly, growing more emphatic as he grew more confused.\n\nAs far back as Yossarian could recall, he explained to Clevinger with a patient smile, somebody was always hatching a plot to kill him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were people who cared for him and people who didn't, and those who didn't hated him and were out to get him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They hated him because he was Assyrian. But they couldn't touch him, he told Clevinger, because he had a sound mind in a pure body and was as strong as an ox. They couldn't touch him because he was Tarzan, Mandrake, Flash Gordon. He was Bill Shakespeare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Deirdre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was miracle ingredient Z-247. He was-\n\n\"Crazy!\" Clevinger interrupted, shrieking. \"That's what you are! Crazy!\"\n\n\"-immense. I'm a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness, three-fisted humdinger. I'm a bona fide supraman.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Superman?\" Clevinger cried. \"Superman?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Supraman,\" Yossarian corrected.\n\n\"Hey, fellas, cut it out,\" Nately begged with embarrassment. \"Everybody's looking at us.\"\n\n\"You're crazy,\" Clevinger shouted vehemently, his eyes filling with tears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've got a Jehovah complex.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think everyone is Nathaniel.\"\n\nClevinger arrested himself in mid-declamation, suspiciously. \"Who's Nathaniel?\"\n\n\"Nathaniel who?\" inquired Yossarian innocently.\n\nClevinger skirted the trap neatly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You think everybody is Jehovah. You're no better than Raskolnkov-\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who?\"\n\n\"-yes, Raskolnikov, who-\"\n\n\"Raskolnikov!\"\n\n\"-who-I mean it-who felt he could justify killing an old woman-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No better than?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"-yes, justify, that's right-with an ax! And I can prove it to you!\" Gasping furiously for air, Clevinger enumerated Yossarian's symptoms: an unreasonable belief that everybody around him was crazy, a homicidal impulse to machine-gun strangers, retrospective falsification, an unfounded suspicion that people hated him and were conspiring to kill him.\n\nBut Yossarian knew he was right, because, as he explained to Clevinger, to the best of his knowledge he had never been wrong. Everywhere he looked was a nut, and it was all a sensible young gentleman like himself could do to maintain his perspective amid so much madness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And it was urgent that he did, for he knew his life was in peril." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian eyed everyone he saw warily when he returned to the squadron from the hospital. Milo was away, too, in Smyrna for the fig harvest. The mess hall ran smoothly in Milo's absence. Yossarian had responded ravenously to the pungent aroma of spicy lamb while he was still in the cab of the ambulance bouncing down along the knotted road that lay like a broken suspender between the hospital and the squadron." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was shish-kabob for lunch, huge, savory hunks of spitted meat sizzling like the devil over charcoal after marinating seventy-two hours in a secret mixture Milo had stolen from a crooked trader in the Levant, served with Iranian rice and asparagus tips Parmesan, followed by cherries jubilee for dessert and then steaming cups of fresh coffee with Benedictine and brandy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The meal was served in enormous helpings on damask tablecloths by the skilled Italian waiters Major – de Coverley had kidnaped from the mainland and given to Milo.\n\nYossarian gorged himself in the mess hall until he thought he would explode and then sagged back in a contented stupor, his mouth filmy with a succulent residue. None of the officers in the squadron had ever eaten so well as they ate regularly in Milo's mess hall, and Yossarian wondered awhile if it wasn't perhaps all worth it. But then he burped and remembered that they were trying to kill him, and he sprinted out of the mess hall wildly and ran looking for Doc Daneeka to have himself taken off combat duty and sent home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He found Doc Daneeka in sunlight, sitting on a high stool outside his tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fifty missions,\" Doc Daneeka told him, shaking his head. \"The colonel wants fifty missions.\"\n\n\"But I've only got forty-four!\"\n\nDoc Daneeka was unmoved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a sad, birdlike man with the spatulate face and scrubbed, tapering features of a well-groomed rat." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fifty missions,\" he repeated, still shaking his head. \"The colonel wants fifty missions.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Actually, no one was around when Yossarian returned from the hospital but Orr and the dead man in Yossarian's tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dead man in Yossarian's tent was a pest, and Yossarian didn't like him, even though he had never seen him. Having him lying around all day annoyed Yossarian so much that he had gone to the orderly room several times to complain to Sergeant Towser, who refused to admit that the dead man even existed, which, of course, he no longer did. It was still more frustrating to try to appeal directly to Major Major, the long and bony squadron commander, who looked a little bit like Henry Fonda in distress and went jumping out the window of his office each time Yossarian bullied his way past Sergeant Towser to speak to him about it. The dead man in Yossarian's tent was simply not easy to live with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He even disturbed Orr, who was not easy to live with, either, and who, on the day Yossarian came back, was tinkering with the faucet that fed gasoline into the stove he had started building while Yossarian was in the hospital." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing?\" Yossarian asked guardedly when he entered the tent, although he saw at once.\n\n\"There's a leak here,\" Orr said. \"I'm trying to fix it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please stop it,\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're making me nervous.\"\n\n\"When I was a kid,\" Orr replied, \"I used to walk around all day with crab apples in my cheeks. One in each cheek.\"\n\nYossarian put aside the musette bag from which he had begun removing his toilet articles and braced himself suspiciously. A minute passed. \"Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he found himself forced to ask finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orr tittered triumphantly. \"Because they're better than horse chestnuts,\" he answered.\n\nOrr was kneeling on the floor of the tent. He worked without pause, taking the faucet apart, spreading all the tiny pieces out carefully, counting and then studying each one interminably as though he had never seen anything remotely similar before, and then reassembling the whole apparatus, over and over and over and over again, with no loss of patience or interest, no sign of fatigue, no indication of ever concluding. Yossarian watched him tinkering and felt certain he would be compelled to murder him in cold blood if he did not stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes moved toward the hunting knife that had been slung over the mosquito-net bar by the dead man the day he arrived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The knife hung beside the dead man's empty leather gun holster, from which Havermeyer had stolen the gun.\n\n\"When I couldn't get crab apples,\" Orr continued, \"I used horse chestnuts. Horse chestnuts are about the same size as crab apples and actually have a better shape, although the shape doesn't matter a bit.\"\n\n\"Why did you walk around with crab apples in your cheeks?\" Yossarian asked again. \"That's what I asked.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because they've got a better shape than horse chestnuts,\" Orr answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I just told you that.\"\n\n\"Why,\" swore Yossarian at him approvingly, \"you evil-eyed, mechanically-aptituded, disaffiliated son of a bitch, did you walk around with anything in your cheeks?\"\n\n\"I didn't,\" Orr said, \"walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around with crab apples in my cheeks. When I couldn't get crab apples I walked around with horse chestnuts. In my cheeks.\"\n\nOrr giggled. Yossarian made up his mind to keep his mouth shut and did. Orr waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian waited longer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One in each cheek,\" Orr said.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nOrr pounced. \"Why what?\"\n\nYossarian shook his head, smiling, and refused to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a funny thing about this valve,\" Orr mused aloud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is?\" Yossarian asked.\n\n\"Because I wanted-\"\n\nYossarian knew. \"Jesus Christ! Why did you want-\"\n\n\"-apple cheeks.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"-apple cheeks?\" Yossarian demanded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wanted apple cheeks,\" Orr repeated. \"Even when I was a kid I wanted apple cheeks someday, and I decided to work at it until I got them, and by God, I did work at it until I got them, and that's how I did it, with crab apples in my cheeks all day long.\" He giggled again. \"One in each cheek.\"\n\n\"Why did you want apple cheeks?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't want apple cheeks,\" Orr said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wanted big cheeks. I didn't care about the color so much, but I wanted them big. I worked at it just like one of those crazy guys you read about who go around squeezing rubber balls all day long just to strengthen their hands. In fact, I was one of those crazy guys. I used to walk around all day with rubber balls in my hands, too.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Why what?\"\n\n\"Why did you walk around all day with rubber balls in your hands?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because rubber balls-\" said Orr." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"-are better than crab apples?\"\n\nOrr sniggered as he shook his head. \"I did it to protect my good reputation in case anyone ever caught me walking around with crab apples in my cheeks. With rubber balls in my hands I could deny there were crab apples in my cheeks. Every time someone asked me why I was walking around with crab apples in my cheeks, I'd just open my hands and show them it was rubber balls I was walking around with, not crab apples, and that they were in my hands, not my cheeks. It was a good story. But I never knew if it got across or not, since it's pretty tough to make people understand you when you're talking to them with two crab apples in your cheeks.\"\n\nYossarian found it pretty tough to understand him then, and he wondered once again if Orr wasn't talking to him with the tip of his tongue in one of his apple cheeks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian decided not to utter another word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would be futile. He knew Orr, and he knew there was not a chance in hell of finding out from him then why he had wanted big cheeks. It would do no more good to ask than it had done to ask him why that whore had kept beating him over the head with her shoe that morning in Rome in the cramped vestibule outside the open door of Nately's whore's kid sister's room. She was a tall, strapping girl with long hair and incandescent blue veins converging populously beneath her cocoa-colored skin where the flesh was most tender, and she kept cursing and shrieking and jumping high up into the air on her bare feet to keep right on hitting him on the top of his head with the spiked heel of her shoe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were both naked, and raising a rumpus that brought everyone in the apartment into the hall to watch, each couple in a bedroom doorway, all of them naked except the aproned and sweatered old woman, who clucked reprovingly, and the lecherous, dissipated old man, who cackled aloud hilariously through the whole episode with a kind of avid and superior glee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl shrieked and Orr giggled. Each time she landed with the heel of her shoe, Orr giggled louder, infuriating her still further so that she flew up still higher into the air for another shot at his noodle, her wondrously full breasts soaring all over the place like billowing pennants in a strong wind and her buttocks and strong thighs shim-sham-shimmying this way and that way like some horrifying bonanza. She shrieked and Orr giggled right up to the time she shrieked and knocked him cold with a good solid crack on the temple that made him stop giggling and sent him off to the hospital in a stretcher with a hole in his head that wasn't very deep and a very mild concussion that kept him out of combat only twelve days.\n\nNobody could find out what had happened, not even the cackling old man and clucking old woman, who were in a position to find out everything that happened in that vast and endless brothel with its multitudinous bedrooms on facing sides of the narrow hallways going off in opposite directions from the spacious sitting room with its shaded windows and single lamp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every time she met Orr after that, she'd hoist her skirts up over her tight white elastic panties and, jeering coarsely, bulge her firm, round belly out at him, cursing him contemptuously and then roaring with husky laughter as she saw him giggle fearfully and take refuge behind Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever he had done or tried to do or failed to do behind the closed door of Nately's whore's kid sister's room was still a secret. The girl wouldn't tell Nately's whore or any of the other whores or Nately or Yossarian. Orr might tell, but Yossarian had decided not to utter another word.\n\n\"Do you want to know why I wanted big cheeks?\" Orr asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian kept his mouth shut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you remember,\" Orr said, \"that time in Rome when that girl who can't stand you kept hitting me over the head with the heel of her shoe? Do you want to know why she was hitting me?\"\n\nIt was still impossible to imagine what he could have done to make her angry enough to hammer him over the head for fifteen or twenty minutes, yet not angry enough to pick him up by the ankles and dash his brains out. She was certainly tall enough, and Orr was certainly short enough. Orr had buck teeth and bulging eyes to go with his big cheeks and was even smaller than young Huple, who lived on the wrong side of the railroad tracks in the tent in the administration area in which Hungry Joe lay screaming in his sleep every night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The administration area in which Hungry Joe had pitched his tent by mistake lay in the center of the squadron between the ditch, with its rusted railroad tracks, and the tilted black bituminous road." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The men could pick up girls along that road if they promised to take them where they wanted to go, buxom, young, homely, grinning girls with missing teeth whom they could drive off the road and lie down in the wild grass with, and Yossarian did whenever he could, which was not nearly as often as Hungry Joe, who could get a jeep but couldn't drive, begged him to try. The tents of the enlisted men in the squadron stood on the other side of the road alongside the open-air movie theater in which, for the daily amusement of the dying, ignorant armies clashed by night on a collapsible screen, and to which another U.S.O. troupe came that same afternoon.\n\nThe U.S.O. troupes were sent by General P. P. Peckem, who had moved his headquarters up to Rome and had nothing better to do while he schemed against General Dreedle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Peckem was a general with whom neatness definitely counted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a spry, suave and very precise general who knew the circumference of the equator and always wrote \"enhanced\" when he meant \"increased\". He was a prick, and no one knew this better than General Dreedle, who was incensed by General Peckem's recent directive requiring all tents in the Mediterranean theater of operations to be pitched along parallel lines with entrances facing back proudly toward the Washington Monument. To General Dreedle, who ran a fighting outfit, it seemed a lot of crap. Furthermore, it was none of General Peckem's goddam business how the tents in General Dreedle's wing were pitched." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There then followed a hectic jurisdictional dispute between these overlords that was decided in General Dreedle's favor by ex-P.F.C." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wintergreen, mail clerk at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters. Wintergreen determined the outcome by throwing all communications from General Peckem into the wastebasket. He found them too prolix. General Dreedle's views, expressed in less pretentious literary style, pleased ex-P.F.C." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wintergreen and were sped along by him in zealous observance of regulations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Dreedle was victorious by default.\n\nTo regain whatever status he had lost, General Peckem began sending out more U.S.O. troupes than he had ever sent out before and assigned to Colonel Cargill himself the responsibility of generating enough enthusiasm for them.\n\nBut there was no enthusiasm in Yossarian's group." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In Yossarian's group there was only a mounting number of enlisted men and officers who found their way solemnly to Sergeant Towser several times a day to ask if the orders sending them home had come in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were men who had finished their fifty missions. There were more of them now than when Yossarian had gone into the hospital, and they were still waiting. They worried and bit their nails. They were grotesque, like useless young men in a depression." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They moved sideways, like crabs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were waiting for the orders sending them home to safety to return from Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters in Italy, and while they waited they had nothing to do but worry and bite their nails and find their way solemnly to Sergeant Towser several times a day to ask if the order sending them home to safety had come.\n\nThey were in a race and knew it, because they knew from bitter experience that Colonel Cathcart might raise the number of missions again at any time. They had nothing better to do than wait. Only Hungry Joe had something better to do each time he finished his missions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had screaming nightmares and won fist fights with Huple's cat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took his camera to the front row of every U.S.O. show and tried to shoot pictures up the skirt of the yellow-headed singer with two big ones in a sequined dress that always seemed ready to burst. The pictures never came out.\n\nColonel Cargill, General Peckem's troubleshooter, was a forceful, ruddy man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before the war he had been an alert, hardhitting, aggressive marketing executive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a very bad marketing executive. Colonel Cargill was so awful a marketing executive that his services were much sought after by firms eager to establish losses for tax purposes. Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off. His prices were high, for failure often did not come easily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had to start at the top and work his way down, and with sympathetic friends in Washington, losing money was no simple matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It took months of hard work and careful misplanning. A person misplaced, disorganized, miscalculated, overlooked everything and opened every loophole, and just when he thought he had it made, the government gave him a lake or a forest or an oilfield and spoiled everything. Even with such handicaps, Colonel Cargill could be relied on to run the most prosperous enterprise into the ground. He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Men,\" Colonel Cargill began in Yossarian's squadron, measuring his pauses carefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it.\"\n\nSergeant Knight thought about it and then politely informed Colonel Cargill that he was addressing the enlisted men and that the officers were to be found waiting for him on the other side of the squadron. Colonel Cargill thanked him crisply and glowed with self-satisfaction as he strode across the area. It made him proud to observe that twenty-nine months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Men,\" he began his address to the officers, measuring his pauses carefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it.\" He waited a moment to permit them to think about it. \"These people are your guests!\" he shouted suddenly. \"They've traveled over three thousand miles to entertain you. How are they going to feel if nobody wants to go out and watch them? What's going to happen to their morale? Now, men, it's no skin off my behind. But that girl that wants to play the accordion for you today is old enough to be a mother. How would you feel if your own mother traveled over three thousand miles to play the accordion for some troops that didn't want to watch her? How is that kid whose mother that accordion player is old enough to be going to feel when he grows up and learns about it? We all know the answer to that one. Now, men, don't misunderstand me. This is all voluntary, of course. I'd be the last colonel in the world to order you to go to that U.S.O. show and have a good time, but I want every one of you who isn't sick enough to be in a hospital to go to that U.S.O. show right now and have a good time, and that's an order!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian did feel almost sick enough to go back into the hospital, and he felt even sicker three combat missions later when Doc Daneeka still shook his melancholy head and refused to ground him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You think you've got troubles?\" Doc Daneeka rebuked him grievingly. \"What about me? I lived on peanuts for eight years while I learned how to be a doctor. After the peanuts, I lived on chicken feed in my own office until I could build up a practice decent enough to even pay expenses. Then, just as the shop was finally starting to show a profit, they drafted me. I don't know what you're complaining about.\"\n\nDoc Daneeka was Yossarian's friend and would do just about nothing in his power to help him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian listened very carefully as Doc Daneeka told him about Colonel Cathcart at Group, who wanted to be a general, about General Dreedle at Wing and General Dreedle's nurse, and about all the other generals at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters, who insisted on only forty missions as a completed tour of duty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why don't you just smile and make the best of it?\" he advised Yossarian glumly. \"Be like Havermeyer.\"\n\nYossarian shuddered at the suggestion. Havermeyer was a lead bombardier who never took evasive action going in to the target and thereby increased the danger of all the men who flew in the same formation with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Havermeyer, why the hell don't you ever take evasive action?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "they would demand in a rage after the mission.\n\n\"Hey, you men leave Captain Havermeyer alone,\" Colonel Cathcart would order. \"He's the best damned bombardier we've got.\"\n\nHavermeyer grinned and nodded and tried to explain how he dumdummed the bullets with a hunting knife before he fired them at the field mice in his tent every night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Havermeyer was the best damned bombardier they had, but he flew straight and level all the way from the I.P." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "to the target, and even far beyond the target until he saw the falling bombs strike ground and explode in a darting spurt of abrupt orange that flashed beneath the swirling pall of smoke and pulverized debris geysering up wildly in huge, rolling waves of gray and black. Havermeyer held mortal men rigid in six planes as steady and still as sitting ducks while he followed the bombs all the way down through the plexiglass nose with deep interest and gave the German gunners below all the time they needed to set their sights and take their aim and pull their triggers or lanyards or switches or whatever the hell they did pull when they wanted to kill people they didn't know.\n\nHavermeyer was a lead bombardier who never missed. Yossarian was a lead bombardier who had been demoted because he no longer gave a damn whether he missed or not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The men had loved flying behind Yossarian, who used to come barreling in over the target from all directions and every height, climbing and diving and twisting and turning so steeply and sharply that it was all the pilots of the other five planes could do to stay in formation with him, leveling out only for the two or three seconds it took for the bombs to drop and then zooming off again with an aching howl of engines, and wrenching his flight through the air so violently as he wove his way through the filthy barrages of flak that the six planes were soon flung out all over the sky like prayers, each one a pushover for the German fighters, which was just fine with Yossarian, for there were no German fighters any more and he did not want any exploding planes near his when they exploded. Only when all the Sturm und Drang had been left far behind would he tip his flak helmet back wearily on his sweating head and stop barking directions to McWatt at the controls, who had nothing better to wonder about at a time like that than where the bombs had fallen.\n\n\"Bomb bay clear,\" Sergeant Knight in the back would announce.\n\n\"Did we hit the bridge?\" McWatt would ask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I couldn't see, sir, I kept getting bounced around back here pretty hard and I couldn't see. Everything's covered with smoke now and I can't see.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, Aarfy, did the bombs hit the target?\"\n\n\"What target?\" Captain Aardvaark, Yossarian's plump, pipe-smoking navigator, would say from the confusion of maps he had created at Yossarian's side in the nose of the ship. \"I don't think we're at the target yet. Are we?\"\n\n\"Yossarian, did the bombs hit the target?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What bombs?\" answered Yossarian, whose only concern had been the flak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, well,\" McWatt would sing, \"what the hell.\"\n\nYossarian did not give a damn whether he hit the target or not, just as long as Havermeyer or one of the other lead bombardiers did and they never had to go back. Every now and then someone grew angry enough at Havermeyer to throw a punch at him.\n\n\"I said you men leave Captain Havermeyer alone,\" Colonel Cathcart warned them all angrily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I said he's the best damned bombardier we've got, didn't I?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Havermeyer grinned at the colonel's intervention and shoved another piece of peanut brittle inside his face.\n\nHavermeyer had grown very proficient at shooting field mice at night with the gun he had stolen from the dead man in Yossarian's tent. His bait was a bar of candy and he would presight in the darkness as he sat waiting for the nibble with a finger of his other hand inside a loop of the line he had run from the frame of his mosquito net to the chain of the unfrosted light bulb overhead. The line was taut as a banjo string, and the merest tug would snap it on and blind the shivering quarry in a blaze of light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Havermeyer would chortle exultantly as he watched the tiny mammal freeze and roll its terrified eyes about in frantic search of the intruder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Havermeyer would wait until the eyes fell upon his own and then he laughed aloud and pulled the trigger at the same time, showering the rank, furry body all over the tent with a reverberating crash and dispatching its timid soul back to his or her Creator.\n\nLate one night, Havermeyer fired a shot at a mouse that brought Hungry Joe bolting out at him barefoot, ranting at the top of his screechy voice and emptying his own.45 into Havermeyer's tent as he came charging down one side of the ditch and up the other and vanished all at once inside one of the slit trenches that had appeared like magic beside every tent the morning after Milo Minderbinder had bombed the squadron. It was just before dawn during the Great Big Siege of Bologna, when tongueless dead men peopled the night hours like living ghosts and Hungry Joe was half out of his mind because he had finished his missions again and was not scheduled to fly. Hungry Joe was babbling incoherently when they fished him out from the dank bottom of the slit trench, babbling of snakes, rats and spiders." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Joseph Heller.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of Joseph Heller.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a Joseph Heller sorta thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hungry Joe was crazy, and no one knew it better than Yossarian, who did everything he could to help him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe just wouldn't listen to Yossarian. Hungry Joe just wouldn't listen because he thought Yossarian was crazy.\n\n\"Why should he listen to you?\" Doc Daneeka inquired of Yossarian without looking up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because he's got troubles.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka snorted scornfully. \"He thinks he's got troubles? What about me?\" Doc Daneeka continued slowly with a gloomy sneer. \"Oh, I'm not complaining. I know there's a war on. I know a lot of people are going to have to suffer for us to win it. But why must I be one of them? Why don't they draft some of these old doctors who keep shooting their kissers off in public about what big sacrifices the medical game stands ready to make? I don't want to make sacrifices. I want to make dough.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doc Daneeka was a very neat, clean man whose idea of a good time was to sulk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had a dark complexion and a small, wise, saturnine face with mournful pouches under both eyes. He brooded over his health continually and went almost daily to the medical tent to have his temperature taken by one of the two enlisted men there who ran things for him practically on their own, and ran it so efficiently that he was left with little else to do but sit in the sunlight with his stuffed nose and wonder what other people were so worried about. Their names were Gus and Wes and they had succeeded in elevating medicine to an exact science. All men reporting on sick call with temperatures above 102 were rushed to the hospital." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All those except Yossarian reporting on sick call with temperatures below 102 had their gums and toes painted with gentian violet solution and were given a laxative to throw away into the bushes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All those reporting on a sick call with temperatures of exactly 102 were asked to return in an hour to have their temperatures taken again. Yossarian, with his temperature of 101, could go to the hospital whenever he wanted to because he was not afraid of them.\n\nThe system worked just fine for everybody, especially for Doc Daneeka, who found himself with all the time he needed to watch old Major – de Coverley pitching horseshoes in his private horseshoe-pitching pit, still wearing the transparent eye patch Doc Daneeka had fashioned for him from the strip of celluloid stolen from Major Major's orderly room window months before when Major – de Coverley had returned from Rome with an injured cornea after renting two apartments there for the officers and enlisted men to use on their rest leaves. The only time Doc Daneeka ever went to the medical tent was the time he began to feel he was a very sick man each day and stopped in just to have Gus and Wes look him over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They could never find anything wrong with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His temperature was always 96.8, which was perfectly all right with them, as long as he didn't mind. Doc Daneeka did mind. He was beginning to lose confidence in Gus and Wes and was thinking of having them both transferred back to the motor pool and replaced by someone who could find something wrong.\n\nDoc Daneeka was personally familiar with a number of things that were drastically wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In addition to his health, he worried about the Pacific Ocean and flight time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Health was something no one ever could be sure of for a long enough time. The Pacific Ocean was a body of water surrounded on all sides by elephantiasis and other dread diseases to which, if he ever displeased Colonel Cathcart by grounding Yossarian, he might suddenly find himself transferred. And flight time was the time he had to spend in airplane flight each month in order to get his flight pay. Doc Daneeka hated to fly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt imprisoned in an airplane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In an airplane there was absolutely no place in the world to go except to another part of the airplane. Doc Daneeka had been told that people who enjoyed climbing into an airplane were really giving vent to a subconscious desire to climb back into the womb. He had been told this by Yossarian, who made it possible for Dan Daneeka to collect his flight pay each month without ever climbing back into the womb. Yossarian would persuade McWatt to enter Doc Daneeka's name on his flight log for training missions or trips to Rome." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know how it is,\" Doc Daneeka had wheedled, with a sly, conspiratorial wink." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why take chances when I don't have to?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Yossarian agreed.\n\n\"What difference does it make to anyone if I'm in the plane or not?\"\n\n\"No difference.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sure, that's what I mean,\" Doc Daneeka said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A little grease is what makes this world go round. One hand washes the other. Know what I mean? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.\"\n\nYossarian knew what he meant.\n\n\"That's not what I meant,\" Doc Daneeka said, as Yossarian began scratching his back. \"I'm talking about co-operation. Favors. You do a favor for me, I'll do one for you. Get it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do one for me,\" Yossarian requested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not a chance,\" Doc Daneeka answered.\n\nThere was something fearful and minute about Doc Daneeka as he sat despondently outside his tent in the sunlight as often as he could, dressed in khaki summer trousers and a short-sleeved summer shirt that was bleached almost to an antiseptic gray by the daily laundering to which he had it subjected. He was like a man who had grown frozen with horror once and had never come completely unthawed. He sat all tucked up into himself, his slender shoulders huddled halfway around his head, his suntanned hands with their luminous silver fingernails massaging the backs of his bare, folded arms gently as though he were cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Actually, he was a very warm, compassionate man who never stopped feeling sorry for himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why me?\" was his constant lament, and the question was a good one.\n\nYossarian knew it was a good one because Yossarian was a collector of good questions and had used them to disrupt the educational sessions Clevinger had once conducted two nights a week in Captain Black's intelligence tent with the corporal in eyeglasses who everybody knew was probably a subversive. Captain Black knew he was a subversive because he wore eyeglasses and used words like panacea and utopia, and because he disapproved of Adolf Hitler, who had done such a great job of combating un-American activities in Germany. Yossarian attended the educational sessions because he wanted to find out why so many people were working so hard to kill him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A handful of other men were also interested, and the questions were many and good when Clevinger and the subversive corporal finished and made the mistake of asking if there were any." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who is Spain?\"\n\n\"Why is Hitler?\"\n\n\"When is right?\"\n\n\"Where was that stooped and mealy-colored old man I used to call Poppa when the merry-go-round broke down?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How was trump at Munich?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ho-ho beriberi.\"\n\nand\n\n\"Balls!\"\n\nall rang out in rapid succession, and then there was Yossarian with the question that had no answer:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The question upset them, because Snowden had been killed over Avignon when Dobbs went crazy in mid-air and seized the controls away from Huple.\n\nThe corporal played it dumb. \"What?\" he asked.\n\n\"Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I don't understand.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Où sont les Neigedens d'antan?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian said to make it easier for him.\n\n\"Parlez en anglais, for Christ's sake,\" said the corporal. \"Je ne parle pas français.\"\n\n\"Neither do I,\" answered Yossarian, who was ready to pursue him through all the words in the world to wring the knowledge from him if he could, but Clevinger intervened, pale, thin, and laboring for breath, a humid coating of tears already glistening in his undernourished eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Group Headquarters was alarmed, for there was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart sent Colonel Korn to stop it, and Colonel Korn succeeded with a rule governing the asking of questions. Colonel Korn's rule was a stroke of genius, Colonel Korn explained in his report to Colonel Cathcart. Under Colonel Korn's rule, the only people permitted to ask questions were those who never did. Soon the only people attending were those who never asked questions, and the sessions were discontinued altogether, since Clevinger, the corporal and Colonel Korn agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart and Lieutenant Colonel Korn lived and worked in the Group Headquarters building, as did all the members of the headquarters staff, with the exception of the chaplain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Group Headquarters building was an enormous, windy, antiquated structure built of powdery red stone and banging plumbing. Behind the building was the modern skeet-shooting range that had been constructed by Colonel Cathcart for the exclusive recreation of the officers at Group and at which every officer and enlisted man on combat status now, thanks to General Dreedle, had to spend a minimum of eight hours a month.\n\nYossarian shot skeet, but never hit any. Appleby shot skeet and never missed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian was as bad at shooting skeet as he was at gambling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could never win money gambling either. Even when he cheated he couldn't win, because the people he cheated against were always better at cheating too. These were two disappointments to which he had resigned himself: he would never be a skeet shooter, and he would never make money.\n\n\"It takes brains not to make money,\" Colonel Cargill wrote in one of the homiletic memoranda he regularly prepared for circulation over General Peckem's signature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Any fool can make money these days and most of them do. But what about people with talent and brains? Name, for example, one poet who makes money.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"T. S. Eliot,\" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen said in his mail-sorting cubicle at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters, and slammed down the telephone without identifying himself.\n\nColonel Cargill, in Rome, was perplexed.\n\n\"Who was it?\" asked General Peckem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Colonel Cargill replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did he want?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Well, what did he say?\"\n\n\"'T. S. Eliot,'\" Colonel Cargill informed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'T. S. Eliot,'\" Colonel Cargill repeated.\n\n\"Just 'T. S.'-\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. That's all he said. Just 'T. S. Eliot.'\"\n\n\"I wonder what it means,\" General Peckem reflected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cargill wondered, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"T. S. Eliot,\" General Peckem mused.\n\n\"T. S. Eliot,\" Colonel Cargill echoed with the same funereal puzzlement.\n\nGeneral Peckem roused himself after a moment with an unctuous and benignant smile. His expression was shrewd and sophisticated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes gleamed maliciously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have someone get me General Dreedle,\" he requested Colonel Cargill. \"Don't let him know who's calling.\"\n\nColonel Cargill handed him the phone.\n\n\"T. S. Eliot,\" General Peckem said, and hung up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who was it?\" asked Colonel Moodus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Dreedle, in Corsica, did not reply. Colonel Moodus was General Dreedle's son-in-law, and General Dreedle, at the insistence of his wife and against his own better judgment, had taken him into the military business. General Dreedle gazed at Colonel Moodus with level hatred. He detested the very sight of his son-in-law, who was his aide and therefore in constant attendance upon him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had opposed his daughter's marriage to Colonel Moodus because he disliked attending weddings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wearing a menacing and preoccupied scowl, General Dreedle moved to the full-length mirror in his office and stared at his stocky reflection. He had a grizzled, broad-browed head with iron-gray tufts over his eyes and a blunt and belligerent jaw. He brooded in ponderous speculation over the cryptic message he had just received. Slowly his face softened with an idea, and he curled his lips with wicked pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get Peckem,\" he told Colonel Moodus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't let the bastard know who's calling.\"\n\n\"Who was it?\" asked Colonel Cargill, back in Rome.\n\n\"That same person,\" General Peckem replied with a definite trace of alarm. \"Now he's after me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What did he want?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\"\n\n\"The same thing.\"\n\n\"'T. S. Eliot'?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, 'T. S. Eliot.' That's all he said.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Peckem had a hopeful thought. \"Perhaps it's a new code or something, like the colors of the day. Why don't you have someone check with Communications and see if it's a new code or something or the colors of the day?\"\n\nCommunications answered that T. S. Eliot was not a new code or the colors of the day.\n\nColonel Cargill had the next idea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe I ought to phone Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters and see if they know anything about it. They have a clerk up there named Wintergreen I'm pretty close to. He's the one who tipped me off that our prose was too prolix.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen told Cargill that there was no record at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters of a T. S. Eliot.\n\n\"How's our prose these days?\" Colonel Cargill decided to inquire while he had ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen on the phone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's much better now, isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's still too prolix,\" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen replied.\n\n\"It wouldn't surprise me if General Dreedle were behind the whole thing,\" General Peckem confessed at last. \"Remember what he did to that skeet-shooting range?\"\n\nGeneral Dreedle had thrown open Colonel Cathcart's private skeet-shooting range to every officer and enlisted man in the group on combat duty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Dreedle wanted his men to spend as much time out on the skeet-shooting range as the facilities and their flight schedule would allow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shooting skeet eight hours a month was excellent training for them. It trained them to shoot skeet.\n\nDunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and the time passed so slowly. He had figured out that a single hour on the skeet-shooting range with people like Havermeyer and Appleby could be worth as much as eleven-times-seventeen years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think you're crazy,\" was the way Clevinger had responded to Dunbar's discovery." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who wants to know?\" Dunbar answered.\n\n\"I mean it,\" Clevinger insisted.\n\n\"Who cares?\" Dunbar answered.\n\n\"I really do. I'll even go so far as to concede that life seems longer I-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"-is longer I-\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"-is longer-Is longer? All right, is longer if it's filled with periods of boredom and discomfort, b-\"\n\n\"Guess how fast?\" Dunbar said suddenly.\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"They go,\" Dunbar explained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Years.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Years.\"\n\n\"Years,\" said Dunbar. \"Years, years, years.\"\n\n\"Clevinger, why don't you let Dunbar alone?\" Yossarian broke in. \"Don't you realize the toll this is taking?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's all right,\" said Dunbar magnanimously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have some decades to spare. Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?\"\n\n\"And you shut up also,\" Yossarian told Orr, who had begun to snigger.\n\n\"I was just thinking about that girl,\" Orr said. \"That girl in Sicily. That girl in Sicily with the bald head.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'd better shut up also,\" Yossarian warned him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's your fault,\" Dunbar said to Yossarian. \"Why don't you let him snigger if he wants to? It's better than having him talking.\"\n\n\"All right. Go ahead and snigger if you want to.\"\n\n\"Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dunbar repeated to Clevinger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This long.\" He snapped his fingers. \"A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man.\"\n\n\"Old?\" asked Clevinger with surprise. \"What are you talking about?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Old.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not old.\"\n\n\"You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow time down?\" Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.\n\n\"Well, maybe it is true,\" Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doc Daneeka lived in a splotched gray tent with Chief White Halfoat, whom he feared and despised." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can just picture his liver,\" Doc Daneeka grumbled.\n\n\"Picture my liver,\" Yossarian advised him.\n\n\"There's nothing wrong with your liver.\"\n\n\"That shows how much you don't know,\" Yossarian bluffed, and told Doc Daneeka about the troublesome pain in his liver that had troubled Nurse Duckett and Nurse Cramer and all the doctors in the hospital because it wouldn't become jaundice and wouldn't go away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doc Daneeka wasn't interested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You think you've got troubles?\" he wanted to know. \"What about me? You should've been in my office the day those newlyweds walked in.\"\n\n\"What newlyweds?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Those newlyweds that walked into my office one day. Didn't I ever tell you about them? She was lovely.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So was Doc Daneeka's office. He had decorated his waiting room with goldfish and one of the finest suites of cheap furniture. Whatever he could he bought on credit, even the goldfish. For the rest, he obtained money from greedy relatives in exchange for shares of the profits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His office was in Staten Island in a two-family firetrap just four blocks away from the ferry stop and only one block south of a supermarket, three beauty parlors, and two corrupt druggists." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a corner location, but nothing helped. Population turnover was small, and people clung through habit to the same physicians they had been doing business with for years. Bills piled up rapidly, and he was soon faced with the loss of his most precious medical instruments: his adding machine was repossessed, and then his typewriter. The goldfish died. Fortunately, just when things were blackest, the war broke out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was a godsend,\" Doc Daneeka confessed solemnly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Most of the other doctors were soon in the service, and things picked up overnight. The corner location really started paying off, and I soon found myself handling more patients than I could handle competently. I upped my kickback fee with those two drugstores. The beauty parlors were good for two, three abortions a week. Things couldn't have been better, and then look what happened. They had to send a guy from the draft board around to look me over. I was Four-F. I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service. You'd think my word would be enough, wouldn't you, since I was a doctor in good standing with my county medical society and with my local Better Business Bureau. But no, it wasn't, and they sent this guy around just to make sure I really did have one leg amputated at the hip and was helplessly bedridden with incurable rheumatoid arthritis. Yossarian, we live in an age of distrust and deteriorating spiritual values. It's a terrible thing,\" Doc Daneeka protested in a voice quavering with strong emotion. \"It's a terrible thing when even the word of a licensed physician is suspected by the country he loves.\"\n\nDoc Daneeka had been drafted and shipped to Pianosa as a flight surgeon, even though he was terrified of flying.\n\n\"I don't have to go looking for trouble in an airplane,\" he noted, blinking his beady, brown, offended eyes myopically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It comes looking for me. Like that virgin I'm telling you about that couldn't have a baby.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What virgin?\" Yossarian asked. \"I thought you were telling me about some newlyweds.\"\n\n\"That's the virgin I'm telling you about. They were just a couple of young kids, and they'd been married, oh, a little over a year when they came walking into my office without an appointment. You should have seen her. She was so sweet and young and pretty. She even blushed when I asked about her periods. I don't think I'll ever stop loving that girl. She was built like a dream and wore a chain around her neck with a medal of Saint Anthony hanging down inside the most beautiful bosom I never saw. 'It must be a terrible temptation for Saint Anthony,' I joked-just to put her at ease, you know. 'Saint Anthony?' her husband said. 'Who's Saint Anthony?' 'Ask your wife,' I told him. 'She can tell you who Saint Anthony is.' 'Who is Saint Anthony?' he asked her. 'Who?' she wanted to know. 'Saint Anthony,' he told her. 'Saint Anthony?' she said. 'Who's Saint Anthony?' When I got a good look at her inside my examination room I found she was still a virgin. I spoke to her husband alone while she was pulling her girdle back on and hooking it onto her stockings. 'Every night,' he boasted. A real wise guy, you know. 'I never miss a night,' he boasted. He meant it, too. 'I even been puttin' it to her mornings before the breakfasts she makes me before we go to work,' he boasted. There was only one explanation. When I had them both together again I gave them a demonstration of intercourse with the rubber models I've got in my office. I've got these rubber models in my office with all the reproductive organs of both sexes that I keep locked up in separate cabinets to avoid a scandal. I mean I used to have them. I don't have anything any more, not even a practice. The only thing I have now is this low temperature that I'm really starting to worry about. Those two kids I've got working for me in the medical tent aren't worth a damn as diagnosticians. All they know how to do is complain. They think they've got troubles? What about me? They should have been in my office that day with those two newlyweds looking at me as though I were telling them something nobody'd ever heard of before. You never saw anybody so interested. 'You mean like this?' he asked me, and worked the models for himself awhile. You know, I can see where a certain type of person might get a big kick out of doing just that. 'That's it,' I told him. 'Now, you go home and try it my way for a few months and see what happens. Okay?' 'Okay,' they said, and paid me in cash without any argument. 'Have a good time,' I told them, and they thanked me and walked out together. He had his arm around her waist as though he couldn't wait to get her home and put it to her again. A few days later he came back all by himself and told my nurse he had to see me right away. As soon as we were alone, he punched me in the nose.\"\n\n\"He did what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He called me a wise guy and punched me in the nose. 'What are you, a wise guy?' he said, and knocked me flat on my ass. Pow! Just like that. I'm not kidding.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know you're not kidding,\" Yossarian said. \"But why did he do it?\"\n\n\"How should I know why he did it?\" Doc Daneeka retorted with annoyance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe it had something to do with Saint Anthony?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka looked at Yossarian blankly. \"Saint Anthony?\" he asked with astonishment. \"Who's Saint Anthony?\"\n\n\"How should I know?\" answered Chief White Halfoat, staggering inside the tent just then with a bottle of whiskey cradled in his arm and sitting himself down pugnaciously between the two of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doc Daneeka rose without a word and moved his chair outside the tent, his back bowed by the compact kit of injustices that was his perpetual burden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could not bear the company of his roommate.\n\nChief White Halfoat thought he was crazy. \"I don't know what's the matter with that guy,\" he observed reproachfully. \"He's got no brains, that's what's the matter with him. If he had any brains he'd grab a shovel and start digging. Right here in the tent, he'd start digging, right under my cot. He'd strike oil in no time. Don't he know how that enlisted man struck oil with a shovel back in the States? Didn't he ever hear what happened to that kid-what was the name of that rotten rat bastard pimp of a snotnose back in Colorado?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wintergreen.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wintergreen.\"\n\n\"He's afraid,\" Yossarian explained.\n\n\"Oh, no. Not Wintergreen.\" Chief White Halfoat shook his head with undisguised admiration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That stinking little punk wise-guy son of a bitch ain't afraid of nobody.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Doc Daneeka's afraid. That's what's the matter with him.\"\n\n\"What's he afraid of?\"\n\n\"He's afraid of you,\" Yossarian said. \"He's afraid you're going to die of pneumonia.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He'd better be afraid,\" Chief White Halfoat said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A deep, low laugh rumbled through his massive chest. \"I will, too, the first chance I get. You just wait and see.\"\n\nChief White Halfoat was a handsome, swarthy Indian from Oklahoma with a heavy, hard-boned face and tousled black hair, a half-blooded Creek from Enid who, for occult reasons of his own, had made up his mind to die of pneumonia. He was a glowering, vengeful, disillusioned Indian who hated foreigners with names like Cathcart, Korn, Black and Havermeyer and wished they'd all go back to where their lousy ancestors had come from." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You wouldn't believe it, Yossarian,\" he ruminated, raising his voice deliberately to bait Doc Daneeka, \"but this used to be a pretty good country to live in before they loused it up with their goddam piety.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chief White Halfoat was out to revenge himself upon the white man. He could barely read or write and had been assigned to Captain Black as assistant intelligence officer.\n\n\"How could I learn to read or write?\" Chief White Halfoat demanded with simulated belligerence, raising his voice again so that Doc Daneeka would hear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Every place we pitched our tent, they sank an oil well. Every time they sank a well, they hit oil. And every time they hit oil, they made us pack up our tent and go someplace else. We were human divining rods. Our whole family had a natural affinity for petroleum deposits, and soon every oil company in the world had technicians chasing us around. We were always on the move. It was one hell of a way to bring a child up, I can tell you. I don't think I ever spent more than a week in one place.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His earliest memory was of a geologist.\n\n\"Every time another White Halfoat was born,\" he continued, \"the stock market turned bullish. Soon whole drilling crews were following us around with all their equipment just to get the jump on each other. Companies began to merge just so they could cut down on the number of people they had to assign to us. But the crowd in back of us kept growing. We never got a good night's sleep. When we stopped, they stopped. When we moved, they moved, chuckwagons, bulldozers, derricks, generators. We were a walking business boom, and we began to receive invitations from some of the best hotels just for the amount of business we would drag into town with us. Some of those invitations were mighty generous, but we couldn't accept any because we were Indians and all the best hotels that were inviting us wouldn't accept Indians as guests. Racial prejudice is a terrible thing, Yossarian. It really is. It's a terrible thing to treat a decent, loyal Indian like a nigger, kike, wop or spic.\" Chief White Halfoat nodded slowly with conviction.\n\n\"Then, Yossarian, it finally happened-the beginning of the end. They began to follow us around from in front. They would try to guess where we were going to stop next and would begin drilling before we even got there, so we couldn't stop. As soon as we'd begin to unroll our blankets, they would kick us off. They had confidence in us. They wouldn't even wait to strike oil before they kicked us off. We were so tired we almost didn't care the day our time ran out. One morning we found ourselves completely surrounded by oilmen waiting for us to come their way so they could kick us off. Everywhere you looked there was an oilman on a ridge, waiting there like Indians getting ready to attack. It was the end. We couldn't stay where we were because we had just been kicked off. And there was no place left for us to go. Only the Army saved me. Luckily, the war broke out just in the nick of time, and a draft board picked me right up out of the middle and put me down safely in Lowery Field, Colorado. I was the only survivor.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian knew he was lying, but did not interrupt as Chief White Halfoat went on to claim that he had never heard from his parents again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That didn't bother him too much, though, for he had only their word for it that they were his parents, and since they had lied to him about so many other things, they could just as well have been lying to him about that too. He was much better acquainted with the fate of a tribe of first cousins who had wandered away north in a diversionary movement and pushed inadvertently into Canada. When they tried to return, they were stopped at the border by American immigration authorities who would not let them back into the country. They could not come back in because they were red." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a horrible joke, but Doc Daneeka didn't laugh until Yossarian came to him one mission later and pleaded again, without any real expectation of success, to be grounded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka snickered once and was soon immersed in problems of his own, which included Chief White Halfoat, who had been challenging him all that morning to Indian wrestle, and Yossarian, who decided right then and there to go crazy.\n\n\"You're wasting your time,\" Doc Daneeka was forced to tell him.\n\n\"Can't you ground someone who's crazy?\"\n\n\"Oh, sure. I have to. There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy. Ask Clevinger.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Clevinger? Where is Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him.\"\n\n\"Then ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am.\"\n\n\"They're crazy.\"\n\n\"Then why don't you ground them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why don't they ask me to ground them?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because they're crazy, that's why.\"\n\n\"Of course they're crazy,\" Doc Daneeka replied. \"I just told you they're crazy, didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide whether you're crazy or not, can you?\"\n\nYossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. \"Is Orr crazy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He sure is,\" Doc Daneeka said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can you ground him?\"\n\n\"I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule.\"\n\n\"Then why doesn't he ask you to?\"\n\n\"Because he's crazy,\" Doc Daneeka said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's all he has to do to be grounded?\"\n\n\"That's all. Let him ask me.\"\n\n\"And then you can ground him?\" Yossarian asked.\n\n\"No. Then I can't ground him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You mean there's a catch?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure there's a catch,\" Doc Daneeka replied. \"Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.\"\n\nThere was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.\n\n\"That's some catch, that Catch-22,\" he observed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's the best there is,\" Doc Daneeka agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian saw it clearly in all its spinning reasonableness. There was an elliptical precision about its perfect pairs of parts that was graceful and shocking, like good modern art, and at times Yossarian wasn't quite sure that he saw it at all, just the way he was never quite sure about good modern art or about the flies Orr saw in Appleby's eyes. He had Orr's word to take for the flies in Appleby's eyes.\n\n\"Oh, they're there, all right,\" Orr had assured him about the flies in Appleby's eyes after Yossarian's fist fight with Appleby in the officers' club, \"although he probably doesn't even know it. That's why he can't see things as they really are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How come he doesn't know it?\" inquired Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because he's got flies in his eyes,\" Orr explained with exaggerated patience. \"How can he see he's got flies in his eyes if he's got flies in his eyes?\"\n\nIt made as much sense as anything else, and Yossarian was willing to give Orr the benefit of the doubt because Orr was from the wilderness outside New York City and knew so much more about wildlife than Yossarian did, and because Orr, unlike Yossarian's mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, in-law, teacher, spiritual leader, legislator, neighbor and newspaper, had never lied to him about anything crucial before. Yossarian had mulled his newfound knowledge about Appleby over in private for a day or two and then decided, as a good deed, to pass the word along to Appleby himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Appleby, you've got flies in your eyes,\" he whispered helpfully as they passed by each other in the doorway of the parachute tent on the day of the weekly milk run to Parma." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" Appleby responded sharply, thrown into confusion by the fact that Yossarian had spoken to him at all.\n\n\"You've got flies in your eyes,\" Yossarian repeated. \"That's probably why you can't see them.\"\n\nAppleby retreated from Yossarian with a look of loathing bewilderment and sulked in silence until he was in the jeep with Havermeyer riding down the long, straight road to the briefing room, where Major Danby, the fidgeting group operations officer, was waiting to conduct the preliminary briefing with all the lead pilots, bombardiers and navigators." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Appleby spoke in a soft voice so that he would not be heard by the driver or by Captain Black, who was stretched out with his eyes closed in the front seat of the jeep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Havermeyer,\" he asked hesitantly. \"Have I got flies in my eyes?\"\n\nHavermeyer blinked quizzically. \"Sties?\" he asked.\n\n\"No, flies,\" he was told." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Havermeyer blinked again. \"Flies?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In my eyes.\"\n\n\"You must be crazy,\" Havermeyer said.\n\n\"No, I'm not crazy. Yossarian's crazy. Just tell me if I've got flies in my eyes or not. Go ahead. I can take it.\"\n\nHavermeyer popped another piece of peanut brittle into his mouth and peered very closely into Appleby's eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't see any,\" he announced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Appleby heaved an immense sigh of relief. Havermeyer had tiny bits of peanut brittle adhering to his lips, chin and cheeks.\n\n\"You've got peanut brittle crumbs on your face,\" Appleby remarked to him.\n\n\"I'd rather have peanut brittle crumbs on my face than flies in my eyes,\" Havermeyer retorted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The officers of the other five planes in each flight arrived in trucks for the general briefing that took place thirty minutes later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The three enlisted men in each crew were not briefed at all, but were carried directly out on the airfield to the separate planes in which they were scheduled to fly that day, where they waited around with the ground crew until the officers with whom they had been scheduled to fly swung off the rattling tailgates of the trucks delivering them and it was time to climb aboard and start up. Engines rolled over disgruntedly on lollipop-shaped hardstands, resisting first, then idling smoothly awhile, and then the planes lumbered around and nosed forward lamely over the pebbled ground like sightless, stupid, crippled things until they taxied into the line at the foot of the landing strip and took off swiftly, one behind the other, in a zooming, rising roar, banking slowly into formation over mottled treetops, and circling the field at even speed until all the flights of six had been formed and then setting course over cerulean water on the first leg of the journey to the target in northern Italy or France. The planes gained altitude steadily and were above nine thousand feet by the time they crossed into enemy territory. One of the surprising things always was the sense of calm and utter silence, broken only by the test rounds fired from the machine guns, by an occasional toneless, terse remark over the intercom, and, at last, by the sobering pronouncement of the bombardier in each plane that they were at the I.P." }, { "from": "human", "value": "and about to turn toward the target." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was always sunshine, always a tiny sticking in the throat from the rarefied air.\n\nThe B-25s they flew in were stable, dependable, dull-green ships with twin rudders and engines and wide wings. Their single fault, from where Yossarian sat as a bombardier, was the tight crawlway separating the bombardier's compartment in the plexiglass nose from the nearest escape hatch. The crawlway was a narrow, square, cold tunnel hollowed out beneath the flight controls, and a large man like Yossarian could squeeze through only with difficulty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A chubby, moon-faced navigator with little reptilian eyes and a pipe like Aarfy's had trouble, too, and Yossarian used to chase him back from the nose as they turned toward the target, now minutes away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a time of tension then, a time of waiting with nothing to hear and nothing to see and nothing to do but wait as the antiaircraft guns below took aim and made ready to knock them all sprawling into infinite sleep if they could.\n\nThe crawlway was Yossarian's lifeline to outside from a plane about to fall, but Yossarian swore at it with seething antagonism, reviled it as an obstacle put there by providence as part of the plot that would destroy him. There was room for an additional escape hatch right there in the nose of a B-25, but there was no escape hatch. Instead there was the crawlway, and since the mess on the mission over Avignon he had learned to detest every mammoth inch of it, for it slung him seconds and seconds away from his parachute, which was too bulky to be taken up front with him, and seconds and seconds more after that away from the escape hatch on the floor between the rear of the elevated flight deck and the feet of the faceless top turret gunner mounted high above." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian longed to be where Aarfy could be once Yossarian had chased him back from the nose; Yossarian longed to sit on the floor in a huddled ball right on top of the escape hatch inside a sheltering igloo of extra flak suits that he would have been happy to carry along with him, his parachute already hooked to his harness where it belonged, one fist clenching the red-handled rip cord, one fist gripping the emergency hatch release that would spill him earthward into the air at the first dreadful squeal of destruction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was where he wanted to be if he had to be there at all, instead of hung out there in front like some goddam cantilevered goldfish in some goddam cantilevered goldfish bowl while the goddam foul black tiers of flak were bursting and booming and billowing all around and above and below him in a climbing, cracking, staggered, banging, phantasmagorical, cosmological wickedness that jarred and tossed and shivered, clattered and pierced, and threatened to annihilate them all in one splinter of a second in one vast flash of fire.\n\nAarfy had been no use to Yossarian as a navigator or as anything else, and Yossarian drove him back from the nose vehemently each time so that they would not clutter up each other's way if they had to scramble suddenly for safety. Once Yossarian had driven him back from the nose, Aarfy was free to cower on the floor where Yossarian longed to cower, but he stood bolt upright instead with his stumpy arms resting comfortably on the backs of the pilot's and co-pilot's seats, pipe in hand, making affable small talk to McWatt and whoever happened to be co-pilot and pointing out amusing trivia in the sky to the two men, who were too busy to be interested. McWatt was too busy responding at the controls to Yossarian's strident instructions as Yossarian slipped the plane in on the bomb run and then whipped them all away violently around the ravenous pillars of exploding shells with curt, shrill, obscene commands to McWatt that were much like the anguished, entreating nightmare yelpings of Hungry Joe in the dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aarfy would puff reflectively on his pipe throughout the whole chaotic clash, gazing with unruffled curiosity at the war through McWatt's window as though it were a remote disturbance that could not affect him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aarfy was a dedicated fraternity man who loved cheerleading and class reunions and did not have brains enough to be afraid. Yossarian did have brains enough and was, and the only thing that stopped him from abandoning his post under fire and scurrying back through the crawlway like a yellow-bellied rat was his unwillingness to entrust the evasive action out of the target area to anybody else. There was nobody else in the world he would honor with so great a responsibility. There was nobody else he knew who was as big a coward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian was the best man in the group at evasive action, but had no idea why." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no established procedure for evasive action. All you needed was fear, and Yossarian had plenty of that, more fear than Orr or Hungry Joe, more fear than Dunbar, who had resigned himself submissively to the idea that he must die someday. Yossarian had not resigned himself to that idea, and he bolted for his life wildly on each mission the instant his bombs were away, hollering, \"Hard, hard, hard, hard, you bastard, hard!\" at McWatt and hating McWatt viciously all the time as though McWatt were to blame for their being up there at all to be rubbed out by strangers, and everybody else in the plane kept off the intercom, except for the pitiful time of the mess on the mission to Avignon when Dobbs went crazy in mid-air and began weeping pathetically for help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Help him, help him,\" Dobbs sobbed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Help him, help him.\"\n\n\"Help who? Help who?\" called back Yossarian, once he had plugged his headset back into the intercom system, after it had been jerked out when Dobbs wrested the controls away from Huple and hurled them all down suddenly into the deafening, paralyzing, horrifying dive which had plastered Yossarian helplessly to the ceiling of the plane by the top of his head and from which Huple had rescued them just in time by seizing the controls back from Dobbs and leveling the ship out almost as suddenly right back in the middle of the buffeting layer of cacophonous flak from which they had escaped successfully only a moment before. Oh, God! Oh, God, oh, God, Yossarian had been pleading wordlessly as he dangled from the ceiling of the nose of the ship by the top of his head, unable to move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The bombardier, the bombardier,\" Dobbs answered in a cry when Yossarian spoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He doesn't answer, he doesn't answer. Help the bombardier, help the bombardier.\"\n\n\"I'm the bombardier,\" Yossarian cried back at him. \"I'm the bombardier. I'm all right. I'm all right.\"\n\n\"Then help him, help him,\" Dobbs begged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Help him, help him.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Snowden lay dying in back." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of Joseph Heller spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe did have fifty missions, but they were no help. He had his bags packed and was waiting again to go home. At night he had eerie, ear-splitting nightmares that kept everyone in the squadron awake but Huple, the fifteen-year-old pilot who had lied about his age to get into the Army and lived with his pet cat in the same tent with Hungry Joe. Huple was a light sleeper, but claimed he never heard Hungry Joe scream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hungry Joe was sick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So what?\" Doc Daneeka snarled resentfully. \"I had it made, I tell you. Fifty grand a year I was knocking down, and almost all of it tax-free, since I made my customers pay me in cash. I had the strongest trade association in the world backing me up. And look what happened. Just when I was all set to really start stashing it away, they had to manufacture fascism and start a war horrible enough to affect even me. I gotta laugh when I hear someone like Hungry Joe screaming his brains out every night. I really gotta laugh. He's sick? How does he think I feel?\"\n\nHungry Joe was too firmly embedded in calamities of his own to care how Doc Daneeka felt. There were the noises, for instance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Small ones enraged him and he hollered himself hoarse at Aarfy for the wet, sucking sounds he made puffing on his pipe, at Orr for tinkering, at McWatt for the explosive snap he gave each card he turned over when he dealt at blackjack or poker, at Dobbs for letting his teeth chatter as he went blundering clumsily about bumping into things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe was a throbbing, ragged mass of motile irritability. The steady ticking of a watch in a quiet room crashed like torture against his unshielded brain.\n\n\"Listen, kid,\" he explained harshly to Huple very late one evening, \"if you want to live in this tent, you've got to do like I do. You've got to roll your wrist watch up in a pair of wool socks every night and keep it on the bottom of your foot locker on the other side of the room.\"\n\nHuple thrust his jaw out defiantly to let Hungry Joe know he couldn't be pushed around and then did exactly as he had been told." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hungry Joe was a jumpy, emaciated wretch with a fleshless face of dingy skin and bone and twitching veins squirming subcutaneously in the blackened hollows behind his eyes like severed sections of snake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a desolate, cratered face, sooty with care like an abandoned mining town. Hungry Joe ate voraciously, gnawed incessantly at the tips of his fingers, stammered, choked, itched, sweated, salivated, and sprang from spot to spot fanatically with an intricate black camera with which he was always trying to take pictures of naked girls. They never came out. He was always forgetting to put film in the camera or turn on lights or remove the cover from the lens opening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't easy persuading naked girls to pose, but Hungry Joe had the knack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Me big man,\" he would shout. \"Me big photographer from Life magazine. Big picture on heap big cover. Si, si, si! Hollywood star. Multi dinero. Multi divorces. Multi ficky-fick all day long.\"\n\nFew women anywhere could resist such wily cajolery, and prostitutes would spring to their feet eagerly and hurl themselves into whatever fantastic poses he requested for them. Women killed Hungry Joe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His response to them as sexual beings was one of frenzied worship and idolatry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were lovely, satisfying, maddening manifestations of the miraculous, instruments of pleasure too powerful to be measured, too keen to be endured, and too exquisite to be intended for employment by base, unworthy man. He could interpret their naked presence in his hands only as a cosmic oversight destined to be rectified speedily, and he was driven always to make what carnal use of them he could in the fleeting moment or two he felt he had before Someone caught wise and whisked them away. He could never decide whether to furgle them or photograph them, for he had found it impossible to do both simultaneously. In fact, he was finding it almost impossible to do either, so scrambled were his powers of performance by the compulsive need for haste that invariably possessed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pictures never came out, and Hungry Joe never got in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The odd thing was that in civilian life Hungry Joe really had been a photographer for Life magazine.\n\nHe was a hero now, the biggest hero the Air Force had, Yossarian felt, for he had flown more combat tours of duty than any other hero the Air Force had. He had flown six combat tours of duty. Hungry Joe had finished flying his first combat tour of duty when twenty-five missions were all that were necessary for him to pack his bags, write happy letters home and begin hounding Sergeant Towser humorously for the arrival of the orders rotating him back to the States." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While he waited, he spent each day shuffling rhythmically around the entrance of the operations tent, making boisterous wisecracks to everybody who came by and jocosely calling Sergeant Towser a lousy son of a bitch every time Sergeant Towser popped out of the orderly room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe had finished flying his first twenty-five missions during the week of the Salerno beachhead, when Yossarian was laid up in the hospital with a burst of clap he had caught on a low-level mission over a Wac in bushes on a supply flight to Marrakech. Yossarian did his best to catch up with Hungry Joe and almost did, flying six missions in six days, but his twenty-third mission was to Arezzo, where Colonel Nevers was killed, and that was as close as he had ever been able to come to going home. The next day Colonel Cathcart was there, brimming with tough pride in his new outfit and celebrating his assumption of command by raising the number of missions required from twenty-five to thirty. Hungry Joe unpacked his bags and rewrote the happy letters home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped hounding Sergeant Towser humorously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began hating Sergeant Towser, focusing all blame upon him venomously, even though he knew Sergeant Towser had nothing to do with the arrival of Colonel Cathcart or the delay in the processing of shipping orders that might have rescued him seven days earlier and five times since.\n\nHungry Joe could no longer stand the strain of waiting for shipping orders and crumbled promptly into ruin every time he finished another tour of duty. Each time he was taken off combat status, he gave a big party for the little circle of friends he had. He broke out the bottles of bourbon he had managed to buy on his four-day weekly circuits with the courier plane and laughed, sang, shuffled and shouted in a festival of inebriated ecstasy until he could no longer keep awake and receded peacefully into slumber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as Yossarian, Nately and Dunbar put him to bed he began screaming in his sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the morning he stepped from his tent looking haggard, fearful and guilt-ridden, an eaten shell of a human building rocking perilously on the brink of collapse.\n\nThe nightmares appeared to Hungry Joe with celestial punctuality every single night he spent in the squadron throughout the whole harrowing ordeal when he was not flying combat missions and was waiting once again for the orders sending him home that never came. Impressionable men in the squadron like Dobbs and Captain Flume were so deeply disturbed by Hungry Joe's shrieking nightmares that they would begin to have shrieking nightmares of their own, and the piercing obscenities they flung into the air every night from their separate places in the squadron rang against each other in the darkness romantically like the mating calls of songbirds with filthy minds. Colonel Korn acted decisively to arrest what seemed to him to be the beginning of an unwholesome trend in Major Major's squadron." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The solution he provided was to have Hungry Joe fly the courier ship once a week, removing him from the squadron for four nights, and the remedy, like all Colonel Korn's remedies, was successful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every time Colonel Cathcart increased the number of missions and returned Hungry Joe to combat duty, the nightmares stopped and Hungry Joe settled down into a normal state of terror with a smile of relief. Yossarian read Hungry Joe's shrunken face like a headline. It was good when Hungry Joe looked bad and terrible when Hungry Joe looked good. Hungry Joe's inverted set of responses was a curious phenomenon to everyone but Hungry Joe, who denied the whole thing stubbornly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who dreams?\" he answered, when Yossarian asked him what he dreamed about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Joe, why don't you go see Doc Daneeka?\" Yossarian advised.\n\n\"Why should I go see Doc Daneeka? I'm not sick.\"\n\n\"What about your nightmares?\"\n\n\"I don't have nightmares,\" Hungry Joe lied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe he can do something about them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's nothing wrong with nightmares,\" Hungry Joe answered. \"Everybody has nightmares.\"\n\nYossarian thought he had him. \"Every night?\" he asked.\n\n\"Why not every night?\" Hungry Joe demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And suddenly it all made sense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why not every night, indeed? It made sense to cry out in pain every night. It made more sense than Appleby, who was a stickler for regulations and had ordered Kraft to order Yossarian to take his Atabrine tablets on the flight overseas after Yossarian and Appleby had stopped talking to each other. Hungry Joe made more sense than Kraft, too, who was dead, dumped unceremoniously into doom over Ferrara by an exploding engine after Yossarian took his flight of six planes in over the target a second time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The group had missed the bridge at Ferrara again for the seventh straight day with the bombsight that could put bombs into a pickle barrel at forty thousand feet, and one whole week had already passed since Colonel Cathcart had volunteered to have his men destroy the bridge in twenty-four hours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kraft was a skinny, harmless kid from Pennsylvania who wanted only to be liked, and was destined to be disappointed in even so humble and degrading an ambition. Instead of being liked, he was dead, a bleeding cinder on the barbarous pile whom nobody had heard in those last precious moments while the plane with one wing plummeted. He had lived innocuously for a little while and then had gone down in flame over Ferrara on the seventh day, while God was resting, when McWatt turned and Yossarian guided him in over the target on a second bomb run because Aarfy was confused and Yossarian had been unable to drop his bombs the first time.\n\n\"I guess we do have to go back again, don't we?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "McWatt had said somberly over the intercom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess we do,\" said Yossarian.\n\n\"Do we?\" said McWatt.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Oh, well,\" sang McWatt, \"what the hell.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And back they had gone while the planes in the other flights circled safely off in the distance and every crashing cannon in the Hermann Goering Division below was busy crashing shells this time only at them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart had courage and never hesitated to volunteer his men for any target available. No target was too dangerous for his group to attack, just as no shot was too difficult for Appleby to handle on the ping-pong table. Appleby was a good pilot and a superhuman ping-pong player with flies in his eyes who never lost a point. Twenty-one serves were all it ever took for Appleby to disgrace another opponent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His prowess on the ping-pong table was legendary, and Appleby won every game he started until the night Orr got tipsy on gin and juice and smashed open Appleby's forehead with his paddle after Appleby had smashed back each of Orr's first five serves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orr leaped on top of the table after hurling his paddle and came sailing off the other end in a running broad jump with both feet planted squarely in Appleby's face. Pandemonium broke loose. It took almost a full minute for Appleby to disentangle himself from Orr's flailing arms and legs and grope his way to his feet, with Orr held off the ground before him by the shirt front in one hand and his other arm drawn back in a fist to smite him dead, and at that moment Yossarian stepped forward and took Orr away from him. It was a night of surprises for Appleby, who was as large as Yossarian and as strong and who swung at Yossarian as hard as he could with a punch that flooded Chief White Halfoat with such joyous excitement that he turned and busted Colonel Moodus in the nose with a punch that filled General Dreedle with such mellow gratification that he had Colonel Cathcart throw the chaplain out of the officers' club and ordered Chief White Halfoat moved into Doc Daneeka's tent, where he could be under a doctor's care twenty-four hours a day and be kept in good enough physical condition to bust Colonel Moodus in the nose again whenever General Dreedle wanted him to. Sometimes General Dreedle made special trips down from Wing Headquarters with Colonel Moodus and his nurse just to have Chief White Halfoat bust his son-in-law in the nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chief White Halfoat would much rather have remained in the trailer he shared with Captain Flume, the silent, haunted squadron public-relations officer who spent most of each evening developing the pictures he took during the day to be sent out with his publicity releases." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Flume spent as much of each evening as he could working in his darkroom and then lay down on his cot with his fingers crossed and a rabbit's foot around his neck and tried with all his might to stay awake. He lived in mortal fear of Chief White Halfoat. Captain Flume was obsessed with the idea that Chief White Halfoat would tiptoe up to his cot one night when he was sound asleep and slit his throat open for him from ear to ear. Captain Flume had obtained this idea from Chief White Halfoat himself, who did tiptoe up to his cot one night as he was dozing off, to hiss portentously that one night when he, Captain Flume, was sound asleep he, Chief White Halfoat, was going to slit his throat open for him from ear to ear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Captain Flume turned to ice, his eyes, flung open wide, staring directly up into Chief White Halfoat's, glinting drunkenly only inches away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why?\" Captain Flume managed to croak finally.\n\n\"Why not?\" was Chief White Halfoat's answer.\n\nEach night after that, Captain Flume forced himself to keep awake as long as possible. He was aided immeasurably by Hungry Joe's nightmares." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Listening so intently to Hungry Joe's maniacal howling night after night, Captain Flume grew to hate him and began wishing that Chief White Halfoat would tiptoe up to his cot one night and slit his throat open for him from ear to ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Actually, Captain Flume slept like a log most nights and merely dreamed he was awake. So convincing were these dreams of lying awake that he woke from them each morning in complete exhaustion and fell right back to sleep.\n\nChief White Halfoat had grown almost fond of Captain Flume since his amazing metamorphosis. Captain Flume had entered his bed that night a buoyant extrovert and left it the next morning a brooding introvert, and Chief White Halfoat proudly regarded the new Captain Flume as his own creation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had never intended to slit Captain Flume's throat open for him from ear to ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Threatening to do so was merely his idea of a joke, like dying of pneumonia, busting Colonel Moodus in the nose or challenging Doc Daneeka to Indian wrestle. All Chief White Halfoat wanted to do when he staggered in drunk each night was go right to sleep, and Hungry Joe often made that impossible. Hungry Joe's nightmares gave Chief White Halfoat the heebie-jeebies, and he often wished that someone would tiptoe into Hungry Joe's tent, lift Huple's cat off his face and slit his throat open for him from ear to ear, so that everybody in the squadron but Captain Flume could get a good night's sleep.\n\nEven though Chief White Halfoat kept busting Colonel Moodus in the nose for General Dreedle's benefit, he was still outside the pale." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Also outside the pale was Major Major, the squadron commander, who had found that out the same time he found out that he was squadron commander from Colonel Cathcart, who came blasting into the squadron in his hopped-up jeep the day after Major Duluth was killed over Perugia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart slammed to a screeching stop inches short of the railroad ditch separating the nose of his jeep from the lopsided basketball court on the other side, from which Major Major was eventually driven by the kicks and shoves and stones and punches of the men who had almost become his friends.\n\n\"You're the new squadron commander,\" Colonel Cathcart had bellowed across the ditch at him. \"But don't think it means anything, because it doesn't. All it means is that you're the new squadron commander.\"\n\nAnd Colonel Cathcart had roared away as abruptly as he'd come, whipping the jeep around with a vicious spinning of wheels that sent a spray of fine grit blowing into Major Major's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Major was immobilized by the news." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stood speechless, lanky and gawking, with a scuffed basketball in his long hands as the seeds of rancor sown so swiftly by Colonel Cathcart took root in the soldiers around him who had been playing basketball with him and who had let him come as close to making friends with them as anyone had ever let him come before. The whites of his moony eyes grew large and misty as his mouth struggled yearningly and lost against the familiar, impregnable loneliness drifting in around him again like suffocating fog.\n\nLike all the other officers at Group Headquarters except Major Danby, Colonel Cathcart was infused with the democratic spirit: he believed that all men were created equal, and he therefore spurned all men outside Group Headquarters with equal fervor. Nevertheless, he believed in his men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he told them frequently in the briefing room, he believed they were at least ten missions better than any other outfit and felt that any who did not share this confidence he had placed in them could get the hell out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only way they could get the hell out, though, as Yossarian learned when he flew to visit ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen, was by flying the extra ten missions.\n\n\"I still don't get it,\" Yossarian protested. \"Is Doc Daneeka right or isn't he?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How many did he say?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Forty.\"\n\n\"Daneeka was telling the truth,\" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen admitted. \"Forty missions is all you have to fly as far as Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters is concerned.\"\n\nYossarian was jubilant. \"Then I can go home, right? I've got forty-eight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, you can't go home,\" ex-P.F.C." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wintergreen corrected him. \"Are you crazy or something?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Catch-22.\"\n\n\"Catch-22?\" Yossarian was stunned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the hell has Catch-22 got to do with it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Catch-22,\" Doc Daneeka answered patiently, when Hungry Joe had flown Yossarian back to Pianosa, \"says you've always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.\"\n\n\"But Twenty-seventh Air Force says I can go home with forty missions.\"\n\n\"But they don't say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That's the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you'd still have to fly them, or you'd be guilty of disobeying an order of his. And then Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters would really jump on you.\"\n\nYossarian slumped with disappointment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I really have to fly the fifty missions, don't I?\" he grieved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The fifty-five,\" Doc Daneeka corrected him.\n\n\"What fifty-five?\"\n\n\"The fifty-five missions the colonel now wants all of you to fly.\"\n\nHungry Joe heaved a huge sigh of relief when he heard Doc Daneeka and broke into a grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian grabbed Hungry Joe by the neck and made him fly them both right back to ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What would they do to me,\" he asked in confidential tones, \"if I refused to fly them?\"\n\n\"We'd probably shoot you,\" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen replied.\n\n\"We?\" Yossarian cried in surprise. \"What do you mean, we? Since when are you on their side?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you're going to be shot, whose side do you expect me to be on?\" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen retorted." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian winced. Colonel Cathcart had raised him again." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like Joseph Heller and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ordinarily, Yossarian's pilot was McWatt, who, shaving in loud red, clean pajamas outside his tent each morning, was one of the odd, ironic, incomprehensible things surrounding Yossarian. McWatt was the craziest combat man of them all probably, because he was perfectly sane and still did not mind the war. He was a short-legged, wide-shouldered, smiling young soul who whistled bouncy show tunes continuously and turned over cards with sharp snaps when he dealt at blackjack or poker until Hungry Joe disintegrated into quaking despair finally beneath their cumulative impact and began ranting at him to stop snapping the cards.\n\n\"You son of a bitch, you only do it because it hurts me,\" Hungry Joe would yell furiously, as Yossarian held him back soothingly with one hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the only reason he does it, because he likes to hear me scream-you goddam son of a bitch!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McWatt crinkled his fine, freckled nose apologetically and vowed not to snap the cards any more, but always forgot. McWatt wore fleecy bedroom slippers with his red pajamas and slept between freshly pressed colored bedsheets like the one Milo had retrieved half of for him from the grinning thief with the sweet tooth in exchange for none of the pitted dates Milo had borrowed from Yossarian. McWatt was deeply impressed with Milo, who, to the amusement of Corporal Snark, his mess sergeant, was already buying eggs for seven cents apiece and selling them for five cents. But McWatt was never as impressed with Milo as Milo had been with the letter Yossarian had obtained for his liver from Doc Daneeka." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's this?\" Milo had cried out in alarm, when he came upon the enormous corrugated carton filled with packages of dried fruit and cans of fruit juices and desserts that two of the Italian laborers Major – de Coverley had kidnaped for his kitchen were about to carry off to Yossarian's tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is Captain Yossarian, sir,\" said Corporal Snark with a superior smirk. Corporal Snark was an intellectual snob who felt he was twenty years ahead of his time and did not enjoy cooking down to the masses. \"He has a letter from Doc Daneeka entitling him to all the fruit and fruit juices he wants.\"\n\n\"What's this?\" cried out Yossarian, as Milo went white and began to sway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder, sir,\" said Corporal Snark with a derisive wink." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One of our new pilots. He became mess officer while you were in the hospital this last time.\"\n\n\"What's this?\" cried out McWatt, late in the afternoon, as Milo handed him half his bedsheet.\n\n\"It's half of the bedsheet that was stolen from your tent this morning,\" Milo explained with nervous self-satisfaction, his rusty mustache twitching rapidly. \"I'll bet you didn't even know it was stolen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why should anyone want to steal half a bedsheet?\" Yossarian asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo grew flustered. \"You don't understand,\" he protested.\n\nAnd Yossarian also did not understand why Milo needed so desperately to invest in the letter from Doc Daneeka, which came right to the point. \"Give Yossarian all the dried fruit and fruit juices he wants,\" Doc Daneeka had written. \"He says he has a liver condition.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A letter like this,\" Milo mumbled despondently, \"could ruin any mess officer in the world.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo had come to Yossarian's tent just to read the letter again, following his carton of lost provisions across the squadron like a mourner. \"I have to give you as much as you ask for. Why, the letter doesn't even say you have to eat all of it yourself.\"\n\n\"And it's a good thing it doesn't,\" Yossarian told him, \"because I never eat any of it. I have a liver condition.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I forgot,\" said Milo, in a voice lowered deferentially. \"Is it bad?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just bad enough,\" Yossarian answered cheerfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see,\" said Milo. \"What does that mean?\"\n\n\"It means that it couldn't be better...\"\n\n\"I don't think I understand.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"...without being worse. Now do you see?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, now I see. But I still don't think I understand.\"\n\n\"Well, don't let it trouble you. Let it trouble me. You see, I don't really have a liver condition. I've just got the symptoms. I have a Garnett-Fleischaker syndrome.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Milo. \"And what is a Garnett-Fleischaker syndrome?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A liver condition.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see,\" said Milo, and began massaging his black eyebrows together wearily with an expression of interior pain, as though waiting for some stinging discomfort he was experiencing to go away. \"In that case,\" he continued finally, \"I suppose you do have to be very careful about what you eat, don't you?.\n\n\"Very careful indeed,\" Yossarian told him. \"A good Garnett-Fleischaker syndrome isn't easy to come by, and I don't want to ruin mine. That's why I never eat any fruit.\"\n\n\"Now I do see,\" said Milo." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fruit is bad for your liver?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, fruit is good for my liver. That's why I never eat any.\"\n\n\"Then what do you do with it?\" demanded Milo, plodding along doggedly through his mounting confusion to fling out the question burning on his lips. \"Do you sell it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I give it away.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To who?\" cried Milo, in a voice cracking with dismay.\n\n\"To anyone who wants it,\" Yossarian shouted back.\n\nMilo let out a long, melancholy wail and staggered back, beads of perspiration popping out suddenly all over his ashen face. He tugged on his unfortunate mustache absently, his whole body trembling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I give a great deal of it to Dunbar,\" Yossarian went on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dunbar?\" Milo echoed numbly.\n\n\"Yes. Dunbar can eat all the fruit he wants and it won't do him a damned bit of good. I just leave the carton right out there in the open for anyone who wants any to come and help himself. Aarfy comes here to get prunes because he says he never gets enough prunes in the mess hall. You might look into that when you've got some time because it's no fun having Aarfy hanging around here. Whenever the supply runs low I just have Corporal Snark fill me up again. Nately always takes a whole load of fruit along with him whenever he goes to Rome. He's in love with a whore there who hates me and isn't at all interested in him. She's got a kid sister who never leaves them alone in bed together, and they live in an apartment with an old man and woman and a bunch of other girls with nice fat thighs who are always kidding around also. Nately brings them a whole cartonful every time he goes.\"\n\n\"Does he sell it to them?\"\n\n\"No, he gives it to them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo frowned. \"Well, I suppose that's very generous of him,\" he remarked with no enthusiasm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, very generous,\" Yossarian agreed.\n\n\"And I'm sure it's perfectly legal,\" said Milo, \"since the food is yours once you get it from me. I suppose that with conditions as hard as they are, these people are very glad to get it.\"\n\n\"Yes, very glad,\" Yossarian assured him. \"The two girls sell it all on the black market and use the money to buy flashy costume jewelry and cheap perfume.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo perked up. \"Costume jewelry!\" he exclaimed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't know that. How much are they paying for cheap perfume?\"\n\n\"The old man uses his share to buy raw whiskey and dirty pictures. He's a lecher.\"\n\n\"A lecher?\"\n\n\"You'd be surprised.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is there much of a market in Rome for dirty pictures?\" Milo asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'd be surprised. Take Aarfy, for instance. Knowing him, you'd never suspect, would you?\"\n\n\"That he's a lecher?\"\n\n\"No, that he's a navigator. You know Captain Aardvaark, don't you? He's that nice guy who came up to you your first day in the squadron and said, 'Aardvaark's my name, and navigation is my game.' He wore a pipe in his face and probably asked you what college you went to. Do you know him?\"\n\nMilo was paying no attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me be your partner,\" he blurted out imploringly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian turned him down, even though he had no doubt that the truckloads of fruit would be theirs to dispose of any way they saw fit once Yossarian had requisitioned them from the mess hall with Doc Daneeka's letter. Milo was crestfallen, but from that moment on he trusted Yossarian with every secret but one, reasoning shrewdly that anyone who would not steal from the country he loved would not steal from anybody. Milo trusted Yossarian with every secret but the location of the holes in the hills in which he began burying his money once he returned from Smyrna with his planeload of figs and learned from Yossarian that a C.I.D. man had come to the hospital." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Milo, who had been gullible enough to volunteer for it, the position of mess officer was a sacred trust." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't even realize we weren't serving enough prunes,\" he had admitted that first day. \"I suppose it's because I'm still so new. I'll raise the question with my first chef.\"\n\nYossarian eyed him sharply. \"What first chef?\" he demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't have a first chef.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Corporal Snark,\" Milo explained, looking away a little guiltily. \"He's the only chef I have, so he really is my first chef, although I hope to move him over to the administrative side. Corporal Snark tends to be a little too creative, I feel. He thinks being a mess sergeant is some sort of art form and is always complaining about having to prostitute his talents. Nobody is asking him to do any such thing! Incidentally, do you happen to know why he was busted to private and is only a corporal now?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Yossarian. \"He poisoned the squadron.\"\n\nMilo went pale again. \"He did what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He mashed hundreds of cakes of GI soap into the sweet potatoes just to show that people have the taste of Philistines and don't know the difference between good and bad. Every man in the squadron was sick. Missions were canceled.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well!\" Milo exclaimed, with thin-upped disapproval. \"He certainly found out how wrong he was, didn't he?\"\n\n\"On the contrary,\" Yossarian corrected. \"He found out how right he was. We packed it away by the plateful and clamored for more. We all knew we were sick, but we had no idea we'd been poisoned.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo sniffed in consternation twice, like a shaggy brown hare." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In that case, I certainly do want to get him over to the administrative side. I don't want anything like that happening while I'm in charge. You see,\" he confided earnestly, \"what I hope to do is give the men in this squadron the best meals in the whole world. That's really something to shoot at, isn't it? If a mess officer aims at anything less, it seems to me, he has no right being mess officer. Don't you agree?\"\n\nYossarian turned slowly to gaze at Milo with probing distrust. He saw a simple, sincere face that was incapable of subtlety or guile, an honest, frank face with disunited large eyes, rusty hair, black eyebrows and an unfortunate reddish-brown mustache. Milo had a long, thin nose with sniffing, damp nostrils heading sharply off to the right, always pointing away from where the rest of him was looking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the face of a man of hardened integrity who could no more consciously violate the moral principles on which his virtue rested than he could transform himself into a despicable toad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of these moral principles was that it was never a sin to charge as much as the traffic would bear. He was capable of mighty paroxysms of righteous indignation, and he was indignant as could be when he learned that a C.I.D. man was in the area looking for him.\n\n\"He's not looking for you,\" Yossarian said, trying to placate him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's looking for someone up in the hospital who's been signing Washington Irving's name to the letters he's been censoring.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I never signed Washington Irving's name to any letters,\" Milo declared.\n\n\"Of course not.\"\n\n\"But that's just a trick to get me to confess I've been making money in the black market.\" Milo hauled violently at a disheveled hunk of his off-colored mustache." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't like guys like that. Always snooping around people like us. Why doesn't the government get after ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen, if it wants to do some good? He's got no respect for rules and regulations and keeps cutting prices on me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo's mustache was unfortunate because the separated halves never matched. They were like Milo's disunited eyes, which never looked at the same thing at the same time. Milo could see more things than most people, but he could see none of them too distinctly. In contrast to his reaction to news of the C.I.D." }, { "from": "human", "value": "man, he learned with calm courage from Yossarian that Colonel Cathcart had raised the number of missions to fifty-five." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're at war,\" he said. \"And there's no use complaining about the number of missions we have to fly. If the colonel says we have to fly fifty-five missions, we have to fly them.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't have to fly them,\" Yossarian vowed. \"I'll go see Major Major.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How can you? Major Major never sees anybody.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then I'll go back into the hospital.\"\n\n\"You just came out of the hospital ten days ago,\" Milo reminded him reprovingly. \"You can't keep running into the hospital every time something happens you don't like. No, the best thing to do is fly the missions. It's our duty.\"\n\nMilo had rigid scruples that would not even allow him to borrow a package of pitted dates from the mess hall that day of McWatt's stolen bedsheet, for the food at the mess hall was all still the property of the government." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I can borrow it from you,\" he explained to Yossarian, \"since all this fruit is yours once you get it from me with Doctor Daneeka's letter. You can do whatever you want to with it, even sell it at a high profit instead of giving it away free. Wouldn't you want to do that together?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\nMilo gave up. \"Then lend me one package of pitted dates,\" he requested. \"I'll give it back to you. I swear I will, and there'll be a little something extra for you.\"\n\nMilo proved good as his word and handed Yossarian a quarter of McWatt's yellow bedsheet when he returned with the unopened package of dates and with the grinning thief with the sweet tooth who had stolen the bedsheet from McWatt's tent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The piece of bedsheet now belonged to Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had earned it while napping, although he did not understand how. Neither did McWatt.\n\n\"What's this?\" cried McWatt, staring in mystification at the ripped half of his bedsheet.\n\n\"It's half of the bedsheet that was stolen from your tent this morning,\" Milo explained. \"I'll bet you didn't even know it was stolen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why should anyone want to steal half a bedsheet?\" Yossarian asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo grew flustered. \"You don't understand,\" he protested. \"He stole the whole bedsheet, and I got it back with the package of pitted dates you invested. That's why the quarter of the bedsheet is yours. You made a very handsome return on your investment, particularly since you've gotten back every pitted date you gave me.\" Milo next addressed himself to McWatt. \"Half the bedsheet is yours because it was all yours to begin with, and I really don't understand what you're complaining about, since you wouldn't have any part of it if Captain Yossarian and I hadn't intervened in your behalf.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who's complaining?\" McWatt exclaimed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm just trying to figure out what I can do with half a bedsheet.\"\n\n\"There are lots of things you can do with half a bedsheet,\" Milo assured him. \"The remaining quarter of the bedsheet I've set aside for myself as a reward for my enterprise, work and initiative. It's not for myself, you understand, but for the syndicate. That's something you might do with half the bedsheet. You can leave it in the syndicate and watch it grow.\"\n\n\"What syndicate?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The syndicate I'd like to form someday so that I can give you men the good food you deserve.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You want to form a syndicate?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do. No, a mart. Do you know what a mart is?\"\n\n\"It's a place where you buy things, isn't it?\"\n\n\"And sell things,\" corrected Milo." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And sell things.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All my life I've wanted a mart. You can do lots of things if you've got a mart. But you've got to have a mart.\"\n\n\"You want a mart?\"\n\n\"And every man will have a share.\"\n\nYossarian was still puzzled, for it was a business matter, and there was much about business matters that always puzzled him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me try to explain it again,\" Milo offered with growing weariness and exasperation, jerking his thumb toward the thief with the sweet tooth, still grinning beside him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I knew he wanted the dates more than the bedsheet. Since he doesn't understand a word of English, I made it a point to conduct the whole transaction in English.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you just hit him over the head and take the bedsheet away from him?\" Yossarian asked.\n\nPressing his lips together with dignity, Milo shook his head. \"That would have been most unjust,\" he scolded firmly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Force is wrong, and two wrongs never make a right. It was much better my way. When I held the dates out to him and reached for the bedsheet, he probably thought I was offering to trade.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What were you doing?\"\n\n\"Actually, I was offering to trade, but since he doesn't understand English, I can always deny it.\"\n\n\"Suppose he gets angry and wants the dates?\"\n\n\"Why, we'll just hit him over the head and take them away from him,\" Milo answered without hesitation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked from Yossarian to McWatt and back again." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I really can't see what everyone is complaining about. We're all much better off than before. Everybody is happy but this thief, and there's no sense worrying about him, since he doesn't even speak our language and deserves whatever he gets. Don't you understand?\"\n\nBut Yossarian still didn't understand either how Milo could buy eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and sell them at a profit in Pianosa for five cents." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding four sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not even Clevinger understood how Milo could do that, and Clevinger knew everything. Clevinger knew everything about the war except why Yossarian had to die while Corporal Snark was allowed to live, or why Corporal Snark had to die while Yossarian was allowed to live. It was a vile and muddy war, and Yossarian could have lived without it-lived forever, perhaps. Only a fraction of his countrymen would give up their lives to win it, and it was not his ambition to be among them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To die or not to die, that was the question, and Clevinger grew limp trying to answer it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clevinger knew so much because Clevinger was a genius with a pounding heart and blanching face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a gangling, gawky, feverish, famish-eyed brain. As a Harvard undergraduate he had won prizes in scholarship for just about everything, and the only reason he had not won prizes in scholarship for everything else was that he was too busy signing petitions, circulating petitions and challenging petitions, joining discussion groups and resigning from discussion groups, attending youth congresses, picketing other youth congresses and organizing student committees in defense of dismissed faculty members. Everyone agreed that Clevinger was certain to go far in the academic world. In short, Clevinger was one of those people with lots of intelligence and no brains, and everyone knew it except those who soon found it out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In short, he was a dope." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He often looked to Yossarian like one of those people hanging around modern museums with both eyes together on one side of a face. It was an illusion, of course, generated by Clevinger's predilection for staring fixedly at one side of a question and never seeing the other side at all. Politically, he was a humanitarian who did know right from left and was trapped uncomfortably between the two. He was constantly defending his Communist friends to his right-wing enemies and his right-wing friends to his Communist enemies, and he was thoroughly detested by both groups, who never defended him to anyone because they thought he was a dope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a very serious, very earnest and very conscientious dope." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was impossible to go to a movie with him without getting involved afterwards in a discussion on empathy, Aristotle, universals, messages and the obligations of the cinema as an art form in a materialistic society. Girls he took to the theater had to wait until the first intermission to find out from him whether or not they were seeing a good or a bad play, and then found out at once. He was a militant idealist who crusaded against racial bigotry by growing faint in its presence. He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian tried to help him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't be a dope,\" he had counseled Clevinger when they were both at cadet school in Santa Ana, California.\n\n\"I'm going to tell him,\" Clevinger insisted, as the two of them sat high in the reviewing stands looking down on the auxiliary paradeground at Lieutenant Scheisskopf raging back and forth like a beardless Lear.\n\n\"Why me?\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf wailed.\n\n\"Keep still, idiot,\" Yossarian advised Clevinger avuncularly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't know what you're talking about,\" Clevinger objected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know enough to keep still, idiot.\"\n\nLieutenant Scheisskopf tore his hair and gnashed his teeth. His rubbery cheeks shook with gusts of anguish. His problem was a squadron of aviation cadets with low morale who marched atrociously in the parade competition that took place every Sunday afternoon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their morale was low because they did not want to march in parades every Sunday afternoon and because Lieutenant Scheisskopf had appointed cadet officers from their ranks instead of permitting them to elect their own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want someone to tell me,\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf beseeched them all prayerfully. \"If any of it is my fault, I want to be told.\"\n\n\"He wants someone to tell him,\" Clevinger said.\n\n\"He wants everyone to keep still, idiot,\" Yossarian answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Didn't you hear him?\" Clevinger argued." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I heard him,\" Yossarian replied. \"I heard him say very loudly and very distinctly that he wants every one of us to keep our mouths shut if we know what's good for us.\"\n\n\"I won't punish you,\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf swore.\n\n\"He says he won't punish me,\" said Clevinger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He'll castrate you,\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I swear I won't punish you,\" said Lieutenant Scheisskopf. \"I'll be grateful to the man who tells me the truth.\"\n\n\"He'll hate you,\" said Yossarian. \"To his dying day he'll hate you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant Scheisskopf was an R.O.T.C." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "graduate who was rather glad that war had broken out, since it gave him an opportunity to wear an officer's uniform every day and say \"Men\" in a clipped, military voice to the bunches of kids who fell into his clutches every eight weeks on their way to the butcher's block. He was an ambitious and humorless Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who confronted his responsibilities soberly and smiled only when some rival officer at the Santa Ana Army Air Force Base came down with a lingering disease. He had poor eyesight and chronic sinus trouble, which made war especially exciting for him, since he was in no danger of going overseas. The best thing about him was his wife and the best thing about his wife was a girl friend named Dori Duz who did whenever she could and had a Wac uniform that Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife put on every weekend and took off every weekend for every cadet in her husband's squadron who wanted to creep into her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dori Duz was a lively little tart of copper-green and gold who loved doing it best in toolsheds, phone booths, field houses and bus kiosks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was little she hadn't tried and less she wouldn't. She was shameless, slim, nineteen and aggressive. She destroyed egos by the score and made men hate themselves in the morning for the way she found them, used them and tossed them aside. Yossarian loved her. She was a marvelous piece of ass who found him only fair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He loved the feel of springy muscle beneath her skin everywhere he touched her the only time she'd let him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian loved Dori Duz so much that he couldn't help flinging himself down passionately on top of Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife every week to revenge himself upon Lieutenant Scheisskopf for the way Lieutenant Scheisskopf was revenging himself upon Clevinger.\n\nLieutenant Scheisskopf's wife was revenging herself upon Lieutenant Scheisskopf for some unforgettable crime of his she couldn't recall. She was a plump, pink, sluggish girl who read good books and kept urging Yossarian not to be so bourgeois without the r. She was never without a good book close by, not even when she was lying in bed with nothing on her but Yossarian and Dori Duz's dog tags. She bored Yossarian, but he was in love with her, too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was a crazy mathematics major from the Wharton School of Business who could not count to twenty-eight each month without getting into trouble." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Darling, we're going to have a baby again,\" she would say to Yossarian every month.\n\n\"You're out of your goddam head,\" he would reply.\n\n\"I mean it, baby,\" she insisted.\n\n\"So do I.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Darling, we're going to have a baby again,\" she would say to her husband." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I haven't the time,\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf would grumble petulantly. \"Don't you know there's a parade going on?\"\n\nLieutenant Scheisskopf cared very deeply about winning parades and about bringing Clevinger up on charges before the Action Board for conspiring to advocate the overthrow of the cadet officers Lieutenant Scheisskopf had appointed. Clevinger was a troublemaker and a wise guy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant Scheisskopf knew that Clevinger might cause even more trouble if he wasn't watched." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yesterday it was the cadet officers; tomorrow it might be the world. Clevinger had a mind, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf had noticed that people with minds tended to get pretty smart at times. Such men were dangerous, and even the new cadet officers whom Clevinger had helped into office were eager to give damning testimony against him. The case against Clevinger was open and shut." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only thing missing was something to charge him with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It could not be anything to do with parades, for Clevinger took the parades almost as seriously as Lieutenant Scheisskopf himself. The men fell out for the parades early each Sunday afternoon and groped their way into ranks of twelve outside the barracks. Groaning with hangovers, they limped in step to their station on the main paradeground, where they stood motionless in the heat for an hour or two with the men from the sixty or seventy other cadet squadrons until enough of them had collapsed to call it a day. On the edge of the field stood a row of ambulances and teams of trained stretcher bearers with walkie-talkies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the roofs of the ambulances were spotters with binoculars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A tally clerk kept score. Supervising this entire phase of the operation was a medical officer with a flair for accounting who okayed pulses and checked the figures of the tally clerk. As soon as enough unconscious men had been collected in the ambulances, the medical officer signaled the bandmaster to strike up the band and end the parade. One behind the other, the squadrons marched up the field, executed a cumbersome turn around the reviewing stand and marched down the field and back to their barracks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each of the parading squadrons was graded as it marched past the reviewing stand, where a bloated colonel with a big fat mustache sat with the other officers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The best squadron in each wing won a yellow pennant on a pole that was utterly worthless. The best squadron on the base won a red pennant on a longer pole that was worth even less, since the pole was heavier and was that much more of a nuisance to lug around all week until some other squadron won it the following Sunday. To Yossarian, the idea of pennants as prizes was absurd. No money went with them, no class privileges." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The parades themselves seemed equally absurd. Yossarian hated a parade. Parades were so martial. He hated hearing them, hated seeing them, hated being tied up in traffic by them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hated being made to take part in them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was bad enough being an aviation cadet without having to act like a soldier in the blistering heat every Sunday afternoon. It was bad enough being an aviation cadet because it was obvious now that the war would not be over before he had finished his training. That was the only reason he had volunteered for cadet training in the first place. As a soldier who had qualified for aviation cadet training, he had weeks and weeks of waiting for assignment to a class, weeks and weeks more to become a bombardier-navigator, weeks and weeks more of operational training after that to prepare him for overseas duty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed inconceivable then that the war could last that long, for God was on his side, he had been told, and God, he had also been told, could do whatever He wanted to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the war was not nearly over, and his training was almost complete.\n\nLieutenant Scheisskopf longed desperately to win parades and sat up half the night working on it while his wife waited amorously for him in bed thumbing through Krafft-Ebing to her favorite passages. He read books on marching. He manipulated boxes of chocolate soldiers until they melted in his hands and then maneuvered in ranks of twelve a set of plastic cowboys he had bought from a mail-order house under an assumed name and kept locked away from everyone's eyes during the day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leonardo's exercises in anatomy proved indispensable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One evening he felt the need for a live model and directed his wife to march around the room.\n\n\"Naked?\" she asked hopefully.\n\nLieutenant Scheisskopf smacked his hands over his eyes in exasperation. It was the despair of Lieutenant Scheisskopf's life to be chained to a woman who was incapable of looking beyond her own dirty, sexual desires to the titanic struggles for the unattainable in which noble man could become heroically engaged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why don't you ever whip me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she pouted one night.\n\n\"Because I haven't the time,\" he snapped at her impatiently. \"I haven't the time. Don't you know there's a parade going on?\"\n\nAnd he really did not have the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There it was Sunday already, with only seven days left in the week to get ready for the next parade." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had no idea where the hours went. Finishing last in three successive parades had given Lieutenant Scheisskopf an unsavory reputation, and he considered every means of improvement, even nailing the twelve men in each rank to a long two-by-four beam of seasoned oak to keep them in line. The plan was not feasible, for making a ninety-degree turn would have been impossible without nickel-alloy swivels inserted in the small of every man's back, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf was not sanguine at all about obtaining that many nickel-alloy swivels from Quartermaster or enlisting the cooperation of the surgeons at the hospital.\n\nThe week after Lieutenant Scheisskopf followed Clevinger's recommendation and let the men elect their own cadet officers, the squadron won the yellow pennant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant Scheisskopf was so elated by his unexpected achievement that he gave his wife a sharp crack over the head with the pole when she tried to drag him into bed to celebrate by showing their contempt for the sexual mores of the lower middle classes in Western civilization." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next week the squadron won the red flag, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf was beside himself with rapture. And the week after that his squadron made history by winning the red pennant two weeks in a row! Now Lieutenant Scheisskopf had confidence enough in his powers to spring his big surprise. Lieutenant Scheisskopf had discovered in his extensive research that the hands of marchers, instead of swinging freely, as was then the popular fashion, ought never to be moved more than three inches from the center of the thigh, which meant, in effect, that they were scarcely to be swung at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant Scheisskopf's preparations were elaborate and clandestine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the cadets in his squadron were sworn to secrecy and rehearsed in the dead of night on the auxiliary parade-ground. They marched in darkness that was pitch and bumped into each other blindly, but they did not panic, and they were learning to march without swinging their hands. Lieutenant Scheisskopf's first thought had been to have a friend of his in the sheet metal shop sink pegs of nickel alloy into each man's thighbones and link them to the wrists by strands of copper wire with exactly three inches of play, but there wasn't time-there was never enough time-and good copper wire was hard to come by in wartime. He remembered also that the men, so hampered, would be unable to fall properly during the impressive fainting ceremony preceding the marching and that an inability to faint properly might affect the unit's rating as a whole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And all week long he chortled with repressed delight at the officers' club." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Speculation grew rampant among his closest friends.\n\n\"I wonder what that Shithead is up to,\" Lieutenant Engle said.\n\nLieutenant Scheisskopf responded with a knowing smile to the queries of his colleagues. \"You'll find out Sunday,\" he promised. \"You'll find out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant Scheisskopf unveiled his epochal surprise that Sunday with all the aplomb of an experienced impresario." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said nothing while the other squadrons ambled past the reviewing stand crookedly in their customary manner. He gave no sign even when the first ranks of his own squadron hove into sight with their swingless marching and the first stricken gasps of alarm were hissing from his startled fellow officers. He held back even then until the bloated colonel with the big fat mustache whirled upon him savagely with a purpling face, and then he offered the explanation that made him immortal.\n\n\"Look, Colonel,\" he announced. \"No hands.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And to an audience stilled with awe, he distributed certified photostatic copies of the obscure regulation on which he had built his unforgettable triumph." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was Lieutenant Scheisskopf's finest hour. He won the parade, of course, hands down, obtaining permanent possession of the red pennant and ending the Sunday parades altogether, since good red pennants were as hard to come by in wartime as good copper wire. Lieutenant Scheisskopf was made First Lieutenant Scheisskopf on the spot and began his rapid rise through the ranks. There were few who did not hail him as a true military genius for his important discovery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That Lieutenant Scheisskopf,\" Lieutenant Travels remarked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's a military genius.\"\n\n\"Yes, he really is,\" Lieutenant Engle agreed. \"It's a pity the schmuck won't whip his wife.\"\n\n\"I don't see what that has to do with it,\" Lieutenant Travers answered coolly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lieutenant Bemis whips Mrs. Bemis beautifully every time they have sexual intercourse, and he isn't worth a farthing at parades.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm talking about flagellation,\" Lieutenant Engle retorted. \"Who gives a damn about parades?\"\n\nActually, no one but Lieutenant Scheisskopf really gave a damn about the parades, least of all the bloated colonel with the big fat mustache, who was chairman of the Action Board and began bellowing at Clevinger the moment Clevinger stepped gingerly into the room to plead innocent to the charges Lieutenant Scheisskopf had lodged against him. The colonel beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so further enraged with Clevinger that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and hurt his hand some more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant Scheisskopf glared at Clevinger with tight lips, mortified by the poor impression Clevinger was making." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In sixty days you'll be fighting Billy Petrolle,\" the colonel with the big fat mustache roared. \"And you think it's a big fat joke.\"\n\n\"I don't think it's a joke, sir,\" Clevinger replied.\n\n\"Don't interrupt.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And say 'sir' when you do,\" ordered Major Metcalf.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Weren't you just ordered not to interrupt?\" Major Metcalf inquired coldly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I didn't interrupt, sir,\" Clevinger protested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. And you didn't say 'sir,' either. Add that to the charges against him,\" Major Metcalf directed the corporal who could take shorthand. \"Failure to say 'sir' to superior officers when not interrupting them.\"\n\n\"Metcalf,\" said the colonel, \"you're a goddam fool. Do you know that?\"\n\nMajor Metcalf swallowed with difficulty. \"Yes, Sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then keep your goddam mouth shut. You don't make sense.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were three members of the Action Board, the bloated colonel with the big fat mustache, Lieutenant Scheisskopf and Major Metcalf, who was trying to develop a steely gaze. As a member of the Action Board, Lieutenant Scheisskopf was one of the judges who would weigh the merits of the case against Clevinger as presented by the prosecutor. Lieutenant Scheisskopf was also the prosecutor. Clevinger had an officer defending him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The officer defending him was Lieutenant Scheisskopf." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was all very confusing to Clevinger, who began vibrating in terror as the colonel surged to his feet like a gigantic belch and threatened to rip his stinking, cowardly body apart limb from limb. One day he had stumbled while marching to class; the next day he was formally charged with \"breaking ranks while in formation, felonious assault, indiscriminate behavior, mopery, high treason, provoking, being a smart guy, listening to classical music and so on\". In short, they threw the book at him, and there he was, standing in dread before the bloated colonel, who roared once more that in sixty days he would be fighting Billy Petrolle and demanded to know how the hell he would like being washed out and shipped to the Solomon Islands to bury bodies. Clevinger replied with courtesy that he would not like it; he was a dope who would rather be a corpse than bury one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel sat down and settled back, calm and cagey suddenly, and ingratiatingly polite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did you mean,\" he inquired slowly, \"when you said we couldn't punish you?\"\n\n\"When, sir?\"\n\n\"I'm asking the questions. You're answering them.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you think we brought you here to ask questions and for me to answer them?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sir. I-\"\n\n\"What did we bring you here for?\"\n\n\"To answer questions.\"\n\n\"You're goddam right,\" roared the colonel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now suppose you start answering some before I break your goddam head. Just what the hell did you mean, you bastard, when you said we couldn't punish you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think I ever made that statement, sir.\"\n\n\"Will you speak up, please? I couldn't hear you.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I-\"\n\n\"Will you speak up, please? He couldn't hear you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir. I-\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Metcalf.\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"Didn't I tell you to keep your stupid mouth shut?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then keep your stupid mouth shut when I tell you to keep your stupid mouth shut. Do you understand? Will you speak up, please? I couldn't hear you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir. I-\"\n\n\"Metcalf, is that your foot I'm stepping on?\"\n\n\"No, sir. It must be Lieutenant Scheisskopf's foot.\"\n\n\"It isn't my foot,\" said Lieutenant Scheisskopf." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then maybe it is my foot after all,\" said Major Metcalf." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Move it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. You'll have to move your foot first, colonel. It's on top of mine.\"\n\n\"Are you telling me to move my foot?\"\n\n\"No, sir. Oh, no, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then move your foot and keep your stupid mouth shut. Will you speak up, please? I still couldn't hear you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir. I said that I didn't say that you couldn't punish me.\"\n\n\"Just what the hell are you talking about?\"\n\n\"I'm answering your question, sir.\"\n\n\"What question?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Just what the hell did you mean, you bastard, when you said we couldn't punish you?'\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said the corporal who could take shorthand, reading from his steno pad.\n\n\"All right,\" said the colonel. \"Just what the hell did you mean?\"\n\n\"I didn't say you couldn't punish me, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When?\" asked the colonel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When what, sir?\"\n\n\"Now you're asking me questions again.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid I don't understand your question.\"\n\n\"When didn't you say we couldn't punish you? Don't you understand my question?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, sir. I don't understand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You've just told us that. Now suppose you answer my question.\"\n\n\"But how can I answer it?\"\n\n\"That's another question you're asking me.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir. But I don't know how to answer it. I never said you couldn't punish me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now you're telling us when you did say it. I'm asking you to tell us when you didn't say it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clevinger took a deep breath. \"I always didn't say you couldn't punish me, sir.\"\n\n\"That's much better, Mr. Clevinger, even though it is a barefaced lie. Last night in the latrine. Didn't you whisper that we couldn't punish you to that other dirty son of a bitch we don't like? What's his name?\"\n\n\"Yossarian, sir,\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, Yossarian. That's right. Yossarian. Yossarian? Is that his name? Yossarian? What the hell kind of a name is Yossarian?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lieutenant Scheisskopf had the facts at his fingertips. \"It's Yossarian's name, sir,\" he explained.\n\n\"Yes, I suppose it is. Didn't you whisper to Yossarian that we couldn't punish you?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, sir. I whispered to him that you couldn't find me guilty-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I may be stupid,\" interrupted the colonel, \"but the distinction escapes me. I guess I am pretty stupid, because the distinction escapes me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"W-\"\n\n\"You're a windy son of a bitch, aren't you? Nobody asked you for clarification and you're giving me clarification. I was making a statement, not asking for clarification. You are a windy son of a bitch, aren't you?\"\n\n\"No, Sir.\"\n\n\"No, sir? Are you calling me a goddam liar?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, no, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then you're a windy son of a bitch, aren't you?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"Are you a windy son of a bitch?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Goddammit, you are trying to pick a fight with me. For two stinking cents I'd jump over this big fat table and rip your stinking, cowardly body apart limb from limb.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do it! Do it!\" cried Major Metcalf\n\n\"Metcalf, you stinking son of a bitch. Didn't I tell you to keep your stinking, cowardly, stupid mouth shut?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir.\"\n\n\"Then suppose you do it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was only trying to learn, sir. The only way a person can learn is by trying.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who says so?\"\n\n\"Everybody says so, sir. Even Lieutenant Scheisskopf says so.\"\n\n\"Do you say so?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Lieutenant Scheisskopf." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But everybody says so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, Metcalf, suppose you try keeping that stupid mouth of yours shut, and maybe that's the way you'll learn how. Now, where were we? Read me back the last line.\"\n\n\"'Read me back the last line,'\" read back the corporal who could take shorthand.\n\n\"Not my last line, stupid!\" the colonel shouted. \"Somebody else's.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Read me back the last line,'\" read back the corporal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's my last line again!\" shrieked the colonel, turning purple with anger.\n\n\"Oh, no, sir,\" corrected the corporal. \"That's my last line. I read it to you just a moment ago. Don't you remember, sir? It was only a moment ago.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, my God! Read me back his last line, stupid. Say, what the hell's your name, anyway?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Popinjay, sir.\"\n\n\"Well, you're next, Popinjay. As soon as his trial ends, your trial begins. Get it?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. What will I be charged with?\"\n\n\"What the hell difference does that make? Did you hear what he asked me? You're going to learn, Popinjay-the minute we finish with Clevinger you're going to learn. Cadet Clevinger, what did-You are Cadet Clevinger, aren't you, and not Popinjay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good. What did-\"\n\n\"I'm Popinjay, sir.\"\n\n\"Popinjay, is your father a millionaire, or a member of the Senate?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then you're up shit creek, Popinjay, without a paddle. He's not a general or a high-ranking member of the Administration, is he?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"That's good. What does your father do?\"\n\n\"He's dead, sir.\"\n\n\"That's very good. You really are up the creek, Popinjay. Is Popinjay really your name? Just what the hell kind of a name is Popinjay anyway? I don't like it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's Popinjay's name, sir,\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf explained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I don't like it, Popinjay, and I just can't wait to rip your stinking, cowardly body apart limb from limb. Cadet Clevinger, will you please repeat what the hell it was you did or didn't whisper to Yossarian late last night in the latrine?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I said that you couldn't find me guilty-\"\n\n\"We'll take it from there. Precisely what did you mean, Cadet Clevinger, when you said we couldn't find you guilty?\"\n\n\"I didn't say you couldn't find me guilty, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When what, sir?\"\n\n\"Goddammit, are you going to start pumping me again?\"\n\n\"No, sir. I'm sorry, sir.\"\n\n\"Then answer the question. When didn't you say we couldn't find you guilty?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Late last night in the latrine, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that the only time you didn't say it?\"\n\n\"No, sir. I always didn't say you couldn't find me guilty, sir. What I did say to Yossarian was-\"\n\n\"Nobody asked you what you did say to Yossarian. We asked you what you didn't say to him. We're not at all interested in what you did say to Yossarian. Is that clear?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then we'll go on. What did you say to Yossarian?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I said to him, sir, that you couldn't find me guilty of the offense with which I am charged and still be faithful to the cause of...\"\n\n\"Of what? You're mumbling.\"\n\n\"Stop mumbling.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And mumble 'sir' when you do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Metcalf, you bastard!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" mumbled Clevinger. \"Of justice, sir. That you couldn't find-\"\n\n\"Justice?\" The colonel was astounded. \"What is justice?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Justice, sir-\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's not what justice is,\" the colonel jeered, and began pounding the table again with his big fat hand. \"That's what Karl Marx is. I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning. Garroting. That's what justice is when we've all got to be tough enough and rough enough to fight Billy Petrolle. From the hip. Get it?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"Don't sir me!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And say 'sir' when you don't,\" ordered Major Metcalf.\n\nClevinger was guilty, of course, or he would not have been accused, and since the only way to prove it was to find him guilty, it was their patriotic duty to do so. He was sentenced to walk fifty-seven punishment tours. Popinjay was locked up to be taught a lesson, and Major Metcalf was shipped to the Solomon Islands to bury bodies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A punishment tour for Clevinger was fifty minutes of a weekend hour spent pacing back and forth before the provost marshal's building with a ton of an unloaded rifle on his shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was all very confusing to Clevinger. There were many strange things taking place, but the strangest of all, to Clevinger, was the hatred, the brutal, uncloaked, inexorable hatred of the members of the Action Board, glazing their unforgiving expressions with a hard, vindictive surface, glowing in their narrowed eyes malignantly like inextinguishable coals. Clevinger was stunned to discover it. They would have lynched him if they could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were three grown men and he was a boy, and they hated him and wished him dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had hated him before he came, hated him while he was there, hated him after he left, carried their hatred for him away malignantly like some pampered treasure after they separated from each other and went to their solitude.\n\nYossarian had done his best to warn him the night before. \"You haven't got a chance, kid,\" he told him glumly. \"They hate Jews.\"\n\n\"But I'm not Jewish,\" answered Clevinger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It will make no difference,\" Yossarian promised, and Yossarian was right. \"They're after everybody.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clevinger recoiled from their hatred as though from a blinding light. These three men who hated him spoke his language and wore his uniform, but he saw their loveless faces set immutably into cramped, mean lines of hostility and understood instantly that nowhere in the world, not in all the fascist tanks or planes or submarines, not in the bunkers behind the machine guns or mortars or behind the blowing flame throwers, not even among all the expert gunners of the crack Hermann Goering Antiaircraft Division or among the grisly connivers in all the beer halls in Munich and everywhere else, were there men who hated him more." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Major Major Major had had a difficult time from the start.\n\nLike Minniver Cheevy, he had been born too late-exactly thirty-six hours too late for the physical well-being of his mother, a gentle, ailing woman who, after a full day and a half's agony in the rigors of childbirth, was depleted of all resolve to pursue further the argument over the new child's name. In the hospital corridor, her husband moved ahead with the unsmiling determination of someone who knew what he was about. Major Major's father was a towering, gaunt man in heavy shoes and a black woolen suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He filled out the birth certificate without faltering, betraying no emotion at all as he handed the completed form to the floor nurse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The nurse took it from him without comment and padded out of sight. He watched her go, wondering what she had on underneath.\n\nBack in the ward, he found his wife lying vanquished beneath the blankets like a desiccated old vegetable, wrinkled, dry and white, her enfeebled tissues absolutely still. Her bed was at the very end of the ward, near a cracked window thickened with grime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rain splashed from a moiling sky and the day was dreary and cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In other parts of the hospital chalky people with aged, blue lips were dying on time. The man stood erect beside the bed and gazed down at the woman a long time.\n\n\"I have named the boy Caleb,\" he announced to her finally in a soft voice. \"In accordance with your wishes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The woman made no answer, and slowly the man smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had planned it all perfectly, for his wife was asleep and would never know that he had lied to her as she lay on her sickbed in the poor ward of the county hospital.\n\nFrom this meager beginning had sprung the ineffectual squadron commander who was now spending the better part of each working day in Pianosa forging Washington Irving's name to official documents. Major Major forged diligently with his left hand to elude identification, insulated against intrusion by his own undesired authority and camouflaged in his false mustache and dark glasses as an additional safeguard against detection by anyone chancing to peer in through the dowdy celluloid window from which some thief had carved out a slice. In between these two low points of his birth and his success lay thirty-one dismal years of loneliness and frustration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.\n\nMajor Major had three strikes on him from the beginning-his mother, his father and Henry Fonda, to whom he bore a sickly resemblance almost from the moment of his birth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Long before he even suspected who Henry Fonda was, he found himself the subject of unflattering comparisons everywhere he went." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Total strangers saw fit to deprecate him, with the result that he was stricken early with a guilty fear of people and an obsequious impulse to apologize to society for the fact that he was not Henry Fonda. It was not an easy task for him to go through life looking something like Henry Fonda, but he never once thought of quitting, having inherited his perseverance from his father, a lanky man with a good sense of humor.\n\nMajor Major's father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. \"As ye sow, so shall ye reap,\" he counseled one and all, and everyone said, \"Amen.\"\n\nMajor Major's father was an outspoken champion of economy in government, provided it did not interfere with the sacred duty of government to pay farmers as much as they could get for all the alfalfa they produced that no one else wanted or for not producing any alfalfa at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a proud and independent man who was opposed to unemployment insurance and never hesitated to whine, whimper, wheedle, and extort for as much as he could get from whomever he could." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a devout man whose pulpit was everywhere.\n\n\"The Lord gave us good farmers two strong hands so that we could take as much as we could grab with both of them,\" he preached with ardor on the courthouse steps or in front of the A amp;P as he waited for the bad-tempered gum-chewing young cashier he was after to step outside and give him a nasty look. \"If the Lord didn't want us to take as much as we could get,\" he preached, \"He wouldn't have given us two good hands to take it with.\" And the others murmured, \"Amen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Major's father had a Calvinist's faith in predestination and could perceive distinctly how everyone's misfortunes but his own were expressions of God's will." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey, and he thrived on good wit and stimulating intellectual conversation, particularly his own when he was lying about his age or telling that good one about God and his wife's difficulties in delivering Major Major. The good one about God and his wife's difficulties had to do with the fact that it had taken God only six days to produce the whole world, whereas his wife had spent a full day and a half in labor just to produce Major Major. A lesser man might have wavered that day in the hospital corridor, a weaker man might have compromised on such excellent substitutes as Drum Major, Minor Major, Sergeant Major, or C. Sharp Major, but Major Major's father had waited fourteen years for just such an opportunity, and he was not a person to waste it. Major Major's father had a good joke about opportunity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Opportunity only knocks once in this world,\" he would say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Major's father repeated this good joke at every opportunity.\n\nBeing born with a sickly resemblance to Henry Fonda was the first of along series of practical jokes of which destiny was to make Major Major the unhappy victim throughout his joyless life. Being born Major Major Major was the second. The fact that he had been born Major Major Major was a secret known only to his father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not until Major Major was enrolling in kindergarten was the discovery of his real name made, and then the effects were disastrous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The news killed his mother, who just lost her will to live and wasted away and died, which was just fine with his father, who had decided to marry the bad-tempered girl at the A amp;P if he had to and who had not been optimistic about his chances of getting his wife off the land without paying her some money or flogging her.\n\nOn Major Major himself the consequences were only slightly less severe. It was a harsh and stunning realization that was forced upon him at so tender an age, the realization that he was not, as he had always been led to believe, Caleb Major, but instead was some total stranger named Major Major Major about whom he knew absolutely nothing and about whom nobody else had ever heard before. What playmates he had withdrew from him and never returned, disposed, as they were, to distrust all strangers, especially one who had already deceived them by pretending to be someone they had known for years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nobody would have anything to do with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began to drop things and to trip. He had a shy and hopeful manner in each new contact, and he was always disappointed. Because he needed a friend so desperately, he never found one. He grew awkwardly into a tall, strange, dreamy boy with fragile eyes and a very delicate mouth whose tentative, groping smile collapsed instantly into hurt disorder at every fresh rebuff." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was polite to his elders, who disliked him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever his elders told him to do, he did. They told him to look before he leaped, and he always looked before he leaped. They told him never to put off until the next day what he could do the day before, and he never did. He was told to honor his father and his mother, and he honored his father and his mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was told that he should not kill, and he did not kill, until he got into the Army." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he was told to kill, and he killed. He turned the other cheek on every occasion and always did unto others exactly as he would have had others do unto him. When he gave to charity, his left hand never knew what his right hand was doing. He never once took the name of the Lord his God in vain, committed adultery or coveted his neighbor's ass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In fact, he loved his neighbor and never even bore false witness against him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Major's elders disliked him because he was such a flagrant nonconformist.\n\nSince he had nothing better to do well in, he did well in school. At the state university he took his studies so seriously that he was suspected by the homosexuals of being a Communist and suspected by the Communists of being a homosexual. He majored in English history, which was a mistake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"English history!\" roared the silver-maned senior Senator from his state indignantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's the matter with American history? American history is as good as any history in the world!\"\n\nMajor Major switched immediately to American literature, but not before the F.B.I. had opened a file on him. There were six people and a Scotch terrier inhabiting the remote farmhouse Major Major called home, and five of them and the Scotch terrier turned out to be agents for the F.B.I." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Soon they had enough derogatory information on Major Major to do whatever they wanted to with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only thing they could find to do with him, however, was take him into the Army as a private and make him a major four days later so that Congressmen with nothing else on their minds could go trotting back and forth through the streets of Washington, D.C., chanting, \"Who promoted Major Major? Who promoted Major Major?\"\n\nActually, Major Major had been promoted by an I.B.M. machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father's. When war broke out, he was still docile and compliant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They told him to enlist, and he enlisted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They told him to apply for aviation cadet training, and he applied for aviation cadet training, and the very next night found himself standing barefoot in icy mud at three o'clock in the morning before a tough and belligerent sergeant from the Southwest who told them he could beat hell out of any man in his outfit and was ready to prove it. The recruits in his squadron had all been shaken roughly awake only minutes before by the sergeant's corporals and told to assemble in front of the administration tent. It was still raining on Major Major. They fell into ranks in the civilian clothes they had brought into the Army with them three days before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those who had lingered to put shoes and socks on were sent back to their cold, wet, dark tents to remove them, and they were all barefoot in the mud as the sergeant ran his stony eyes over their faces and told them he could beat hell out of any man in his outfit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one was inclined to dispute him.\n\nMajor Major's unexpected promotion to major the next day plunged the belligerent sergeant into a bottomless gloom, for he was no longer able to boast that he could beat hell out of any man in his outfit. He brooded for hours in his tent like Saul, receiving no visitors, while his elite guard of corporals stood discouraged watch outside. At three o'clock in the morning he found his solution, and Major Major and the other recruits were again shaken roughly awake and ordered to assemble barefoot in the drizzly glare at the administration tent, where the sergeant was already waiting, his fists clenched on his hips cockily, so eager to speak that he could hardly wait for them to arrive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Me and Major Major,\" he boasted, in the same tough, clipped tones of the night before, \"can beat hell out of any man in my outfit.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The officers on the base took action on the Major Major problem later that same day. How could they cope with a major like Major Major? To demean him personally would be to demean all other officers of equal or lesser rank. To treat him with courtesy, on the other hand, was unthinkable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fortunately, Major Major had applied for aviation cadet training." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orders transferring him away were sent to the mimeograph room late in the afternoon, and at three o'clock in the morning Major Major was again shaken roughly awake, bidden Godspeed by the sergeant and placed aboard a plane heading west.\n\nLieutenant Scheisskopf turned white as a sheet when Major Major reported to him in California with bare feet and mudcaked toes. Major Major had taken it for granted that he was being shaken roughly awake again to stand barefoot in the mud and had left his shoes and socks in the tent. The civilian clothing in which he reported for duty to Lieutenant Scheisskopf was rumpled and dirty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who had not yet made his reputation as a parader, shuddered violently at the picture Major Major would make marching barefoot in his squadron that coming Sunday." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go to the hospital quickly,\" he mumbled, when he had recovered sufficiently to speak, \"and tell them you're sick. Stay there until your allowance for uniforms catches up with you and you have some money to buy some clothes. And some shoes. Buy some shoes.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"I don't think you have to call me 'sir,' sir,\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf pointed out. \"You outrank me.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I may outrank you, sir, but you're still my commanding officer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir, that's right,\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You may outrank me, sir, but I'm still your commanding officer. So you better do what I tell you, sir, or you'll get into trouble. Go to the hospital and tell them you're sick, sir. Stay there until your uniform allowance catches up with you and you have some money to buy some uniforms.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"And some shoes, sir. Buy some shoes the first chance you get, sir.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I will, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Life in cadet school for Major Major was no different than life had been for him all along. Whoever he was with always wanted him to be with someone else. His instructors gave him preferred treatment at every stage in order to push him along quickly and be rid of him. In almost no time he had his pilot's wings and found himself overseas, where things began suddenly to improve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All his life, Major Major had longed for but one thing, to be absorbed, and in Pianosa, for a while, he finally was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rank meant little to the men on combat duty, and relations between officers and enlisted men were relaxed and informal. Men whose names he didn't even know said \"Hi\" and invited him to go swimming or play basketball. His ripest hours were spent in the day-long basketball games no one gave a damn about winning. Score was never kept, and the number of players might vary from one to thirty-five." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Major had never played basketball or any other game before, but his great, bobbing height and rapturous enthusiasm helped make up for his innate clumsiness and lack of experience." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Major found true happiness there on the lopsided basketball court with the officers and enlisted men who were almost his friends. If there were no winners, there were no losers, and Major Major enjoyed every gamboling moment right up till the day Colonel Cathcart roared up in his jeep after Major Duluth was killed and made it impossible for him ever to enjoy playing basketball there again.\n\n\"You're the new squadron commander,\" Colonel Cathcart had shouted rudely across the railroad ditch to him. \"But don't think it means anything, because it doesn't. All it means is that you're the new squadron commander.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart had nursed an implacable grudge against Major Major for a long time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A superfluous major on his rolls meant an untidy table of organization and gave ammunition to the men at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters who Colonel Cathcart was positive were his enemies and rivals. Colonel Cathcart had been praying for just some stroke of good luck like Major Duluth's death. He had been plagued by one extra major; he now had an opening for one major. He appointed Major Major squadron commander and roared away in his jeep as abruptly as he had come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For Major Major, it meant the end of the game." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face flushed with discomfort, and he was rooted to the spot in disbelief as the rain clouds gathered above him again. When he turned to his teammates, he encountered a reef of curious, reflective faces all gazing at him woodenly with morose and inscrutable animosity. He shivered with shame. When the game resumed, it was not good any longer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he dribbled, no one tried to stop him; when he called for a pass, whoever had the ball passed it; and when he missed a basket, no one raced him for the rebound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only voice was his own. The next day was the same, and the day after that he did not come back.\n\nAlmost on cue, everyone in the squadron stopped talking to him and started staring at him. He walked through life selfconsciously with downcast eyes and burning cheeks, the object of contempt, envy, suspicion, resentment and malicious innuendo everywhere he went." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People who had hardly noticed his resemblance to Henry Fonda before now never ceased discussing it, and there were even those who hinted sinisterly that Major Major had been elevated to squadron commander because he resembled Henry Fonda." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Black, who had aspired to the position himself, maintained that Major Major really was Henry Fonda but was too chickenshit to admit it.\n\nMajor Major floundered bewilderedly from one embarrassing catastrophe to another. Without consulting him, Sergeant Towser had his belongings moved into the roomy trailer Major Duluth had occupied alone, and when Major Major came rushing breathlessly into the orderly room to report the theft of his things, the young corporal there scared him half out of his wits by leaping to his feet and shouting \"Attention!\" the moment he appeared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Major snapped to attention with all the rest in the orderly room, wondering what important personage had entered behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Minutes passed in rigid silence, and the whole lot of them might have stood there at attention till doomsday if Major Danby had not dropped by from Group to congratulate Major Major twenty minutes later and put them all at ease.\n\nMajor Major fared even more lamentably at the mess hall, where Milo, his face fluttery with smiles, was waiting to usher him proudly to a small table he had set up in front and decorated with an embroidered tablecloth and a nosegay of posies in a pink cut-glass vase. Major Major hung back with horror, but he was not bold enough to resist with all the others watching. Even Havermeyer had lifted his head from his plate to gape at him with his heavy, pendulous jaw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Major submitted meekly to Milo's tugging and cowered in disgrace at his private table throughout the whole meal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The food was ashes in his mouth, but he swallowed every mouthful rather than risk offending any of the men connected with its preparation. Alone with Milo later, Major Major felt protest stir for the first time and said he would prefer to continue eating with the other officers. Milo told him it wouldn't work.\n\n\"I don't see what there is to work,\" Major Major argued." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing ever happened before.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were never the squadron commander before.\"\n\n\"Major Duluth was the squadron commander and he always ate at the same table with the rest of the men.\"\n\n\"It was different with Major Duluth, Sir.\"\n\n\"In what way was it different with Major Duluth?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wish you wouldn't ask me that, sir,\" said Milo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is it because I look like Henry Fonda?\" Major Major mustered the courage to demand.\n\n\"Some people say you are Henry Fonda,\" Milo answered.\n\n\"Well, I'm not Henry Fonda,\" Major Major exclaimed, in a voice quavering with exasperation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I don't look the least bit like him. And even if I do look like Henry Fonda, what difference does that make?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It doesn't make any difference. That's what I'm trying to tell you, sir. It's just not the same with you as it was with Major Duluth.\"\n\nAnd it just wasn't the same, for when Major Major, at the next meal, stepped from the food counter to sit with the others at the regular tables, he was frozen in his tracks by the impenetrable wall of antagonism thrown up by their faces and stood petrified with his tray quivering in his hands until Milo glided forward wordlessly to rescue him, by leading him tamely to his private table. Major Major gave up after that and always ate at his table alone with his back to the others. He was certain they resented him because he seemed too good to eat with them now that he was squadron commander." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was never any conversation in the mess tent when Major Major was present." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was conscious that other officers tried to avoid eating at the same time, and everyone was greatly relieved when he stopped coming there altogether and began taking his meals in his trailer.\n\nMajor Major began forging Washington Irving's name to official documents the day after the first C.I.D. man showed up to interrogate him about somebody at the hospital who had been doing it and gave him the idea. He had been bored and dissatisfied in his new position." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been made squadron commander but had no idea what he was supposed to do as squadron commander, unless all he was supposed to do was forge Washington Irving's name to official documents and listen to the isolated clinks and thumps of Major – de Coverley's horseshoes falling to the ground outside the window of his small office in the rear of the orderly-room tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was hounded incessantly by an impression of vital duties left unfulfilled and waited in vain for his responsibilities to overtake him. He seldom went out unless it was absolutely necessary, for he could not get used to being stared at. Occasionally, the monotony was broken by some officer or enlisted man Sergeant Towser referred to him on some matter that Major Major was unable to cope with and referred right back to Sergeant Towser for sensible disposition. Whatever he was supposed to get done as squadron commander apparently was getting done without any assistance from him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He grew moody and depressed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At times he thought seriously of going with all his sorrows to see the chaplain, but the chaplain seemed so overburdened with miseries of his own that Major Major shrank from adding to his troubles. Besides, he was not quite sure if chaplains were for squadron commanders.\n\nHe had never been quite sure about Major – de Coverley, either, who, when he was not away renting apartments or kidnaping foreign laborers, had nothing more pressing to do than pitch horseshoes. Major Major often paid strict attention to the horseshoes falling softly against the earth or riding down around the small steel pegs in the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He peeked out at Major – de Coverley for hours and marveled that someone so august had nothing more important to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was often tempted to join Major – de Coverley, but pitching horseshoes all day long seemed almost as dull as signing \"Major Major Major\" to official documents, and Major – de Coverley's countenance was so forbidding that Major Major was in awe of approaching him.\n\nMajor Major wondered about his relationship to Major – de Coverley and about Major – de Coverley's relationship to him. He knew that Major – de Coverley was his executive officer, but he did not know what that meant, and he could not decide whether in Major – de Coverley he was blessed with a lenient superior or cursed with a delinquent subordinate. He did not want to ask Sergeant Towser, of whom he was secretly afraid, and there was no one else he could ask, least of all Major – de Coverley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Few people ever dared approach Major – de Coverley about anything and the only officer foolish enough to pitch one of his horseshoes was stricken the very next day with the worst case of Pianosan crud that Gus or Wes or even Doc Daneeka had ever seen or even heard about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone was positive the disease had been inflicted upon the poor officer in retribution by Major – de Coverley, although no one was sure how.\n\nMost of the official documents that came to Major Major's desk did not concern him at all. The vast majority consisted of allusions to prior communications which Major Major had never seen or heard of. There was never any need to look them up, for the instructions were invariably to disregard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the space of a single productive minute, therefore, he might endorse twenty separate documents each advising him to pay absolutely no attention to any of the others." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From General Peckem's office on the mainland came prolix bulletins each day headed by such cheery homilies as \"Procrastination is the Thief of Time\" and \"Cleanliness is Next to Godliness.\"\n\nGeneral Peckem's communications about cleanliness and procrastination made Major Major feel like a filthy procrastinator, and he always got those out of the way as quickly as he could. The only official documents that interested him were those occasional ones pertaining to the unfortunate second lieutenant who had been killed on the mission over Orvieto less than two hours after he arrived on Pianosa and whose partly unpacked belongings were still in Yossarian's tent. Since the unfortunate lieutenant had reported to the operations tent instead of to the orderly room, Sergeant Towser had decided that it would be safest to report him as never having reported to the squadron at all, and the occasional documents relating to him dealt with the fact that he seemed to have vanished into thin air, which, in one way, was exactly what did happen to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the long run, Major Major was grateful for the official documents that came to his desk, for sitting in his office signing them all day long was a lot better than sitting in his office all day long not signing them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They gave him something to do.\n\nInevitably, every document he signed came back with a fresh page added for a new signature by him after intervals of from two to ten days. They were always much thicker than formerly, for in between the sheet bearing his last endorsement and the sheet added for his new endorsement were the sheets bearing the most recent endorsements of all the other officers in scattered locations who were also occupied in signing their names to that same official document. Major Major grew despondent as he watched simple communications swell prodigiously into huge manuscripts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No matter how many times he signed one, it always came back for still another signature, and he began to despair of ever being free of any of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One day-it was the day after the C.I.D. man's first visit-Major Major signed Washington Irving's name to one of the documents instead of his own, just to see how it would feel. He liked it. He liked it so much that for the rest of that afternoon he did the same with all the official documents. It was an act of impulsive frivolity and rebellion for which he knew afterward he would be punished severely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next morning he entered his office in trepidation and waited to see what would happen. Nothing happened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had sinned, and it was good, for none of the documents to which he had signed Washington Irving's name ever came back! Here, at last, was progress, and Major Major threw himself into his new career with uninhibited gusto. Signing Washington Irving's name to official documents was not much of a career, perhaps, but it was less monotonous than signing \"Major Major Major.\" When Washington Irving did grow monotonous, he could reverse the order and sign Irving Washington until that grew monotonous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he was getting something done, for none of the documents signed with either of these names ever came back to the squadron." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What did come back, eventually, was a second C.I.D. man, masquerading as a pilot. The men knew he was a C.I.D. man because he confided to them he was and urged each of them not to reveal his true identity to any of the other men to whom he had already confided that he was a C.I.D. man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're the only one in the squadron who knows I'm a C.I.D. man,\" he confided to Major Major, \"and it's absolutely essential that it remain a secret so that my efficiency won't be impaired. Do you understand?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sergeant Towser knows.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. I had to tell him in order to get in to see you. But I know he won't tell a soul under any circumstances.\"\n\n\"He told me,\" said Major Major. \"He told me there was a C.I.D. man outside to see me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That bastard. I'll have to throw a security check on him. I wouldn't leave any top-secret documents lying around here if I were you. At least not until I make my report.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't get any top-secret documents,\" said Major Major.\n\n\"That's the kind I mean. Lock them in your cabinet where Sergeant Towser can't get his hands on them.\"\n\n\"Sergeant Towser has the only key to the cabinet.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid we're wasting time,\" said the second C.I.D." }, { "from": "human", "value": "man rather stiffly. He was a brisk, pudgy, high-strung person whose movements were swift and certain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took a number of photostats out of a large red expansion envelope he had been hiding conspicuously beneath a leather flight jacket painted garishly with pictures of airplanes flying through orange bursts of flak and with orderly rows of little bombs signifying fifty-five combat missions flown. \"Have you ever seen any of these?\"\n\nMajor Major looked with a blank expression at copies of personal correspondence from the hospital on which the censoring officer had written \"Washington Irving\" or \"Irving Washington.\"\n\nNo." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How about these?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Major gazed next at copies of official documents addressed to him to which he had been signing the same signatures.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Is the man who signed these names in your squadron?\"\n\n\"Which one? There are two names here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Either one. We figure that Washington Irving and Irving Washington are one man and that he's using two names just to throw us off the track. That's done very often you know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think there's a man with either of those names in my squadron.\"\n\nA look of disappointment crossed the second C.I.D. man's face. \"He's a lot cleverer than we thought,\" he observed. \"He's using a third name and posing as someone else. And I think... yes, I think I know what that third name is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With excitement and inspiration, he held another photostat out for Major Major to study. \"How about this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Major bent forward slightly and saw a copy of the piece of V mail from which Yossarian had blacked out everything but the name Mary and on which he had written, \"I yearn for you tragically. R. O. Shipman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.\" Major Major shook his head.\n\n\"I've never seen it before.\"\n\n\"Do you know who R. O. Shipman is?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's the group chaplain.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That locks it up,\" said the second C.I.D. man. \"Washington Irving is the group chaplain.\"\n\nMajor Major felt a twinge of alarm. \"R. O. Shipman is the group chaplain,\" he corrected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you sure?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Why should the group chaplain write this on a letter?\"\n\n\"Perhaps somebody else wrote it and forged his name.\"\n\n\"Why should somebody want to forge the group chaplain's name?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To escape detection.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You may be right,\" the second C.I.D. man decided after an instant's hesitation, and smacked his lips crisply. \"Maybe we're confronted with a gang, with two men working together who just happen to have opposite names. Yes, I'm sure that's it. One of them here in the squadron, one of them up at the hospital and one of them with the chaplain. That makes three men, doesn't it? Are you absolutely sure you never saw any of these official documents before?\"\n\n\"I would have signed them if I had.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"With whose name?\" asked the second C.I.D. man cunningly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yours or Washington Irving's?\"\n\n\"With my own name,\" Major Major told him. \"I don't even know Washington Irving's name.\"\n\nThe second C.I.D. man broke into a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Major, I'm glad you're in the clear. It means we'll be able to work together, and I'm going to need every man I can get. Somewhere in the European theater of operations is a man who's getting his hands on communications addressed to you. Have you any idea who it can be?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, I have a pretty good idea,\" said the second C.I.D. man, and leaned forward to whisper confidentially. \"That bastard Towser. Why else would he go around shooting his mouth off about me? Now, you keep your eyes open and let me know the minute you hear anyone even talking about Washington Irving. I'll throw a security check on the chaplain and everyone else around here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The moment he was gone, the first C.I.D." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "man jumped into Major Major's office through the window and wanted to know who the second C.I.D. man was. Major Major barely recognized him.\n\n\"He was a C.I.D. man,\" Major Major told him.\n\n\"Like hell he was,\" said the first C.I.D." }, { "from": "human", "value": "man. \"I'm the C.I.D. man around here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Major barely recognized him because he was wearing a faded maroon corduroy bathrobe with open seams under both arms, linty flannel pajamas, and worn house slippers with one flapping sole. This was regulation hospital dress, Major Major recalled. The man had added about twenty pounds and seemed bursting with good health.\n\n\"I'm really a very sick man,\" he whined." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I caught cold in the hospital from a fighter pilot and came down with a very serious case of pneumonia.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm very sorry,\" Major Major said.\n\n\"A lot of good that does me,\" the C.I.D. man sniveled. \"I don't want your sympathy. I just want you to know what I'm going through. I came down to warn you that Washington Irving seems to have shifted his base of operations from the hospital to your squadron. You haven't heard anyone around here talking about Washington Irving, have you?\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact, I have,\" Major Major answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That man who was just in here. He was talking about Washington Irving.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Was he really?\" the first C.I.D. man cried with delight. \"This might be just what we needed to crack the case wide open! You keep him under surveillance twenty-four hours a day while I rush back to the hospital and write my superiors for further instructions.\" The C.I.D. man jumped out of Major Major's office through the window and was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A minute later, the flap separating Major Major's office from the orderly room flew open and the second C.I.D." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "man was back, puffing frantically in haste. Gasping for breath, he shouted, \"I just saw a man in red pajamas jumping out of your window and go running up the road! Didn't you see him?\"\n\n\"He was here talking to me,\" Major Major answered.\n\n\"I thought that looked mighty suspicious, a man jumping out the window in red pajamas.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man paced about the small office in vigorous circles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"At first I thought it was you, hightailing it for Mexico. But now I see it wasn't you. He didn't say anything about Washington Irving, did he?\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" said Major Major, \"he did.\"\n\n\"He did?\" cried the second C.I.D. man. \"That's fine! This might be just the break we needed to crack the case wide open. Do you know where we can find him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At the hospital. He's really a very sick man.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's great!\" exclaimed the second C.I.D. man. \"I'll go right up there after him. It would be best if I went incognito. I'll go explain the situation at the medical tent and have them send me there as a patient.\"\n\n\"They won't send me to the hospital as a patient unless I'm sick,\" he reported back to Major Major. \"Actually, I am pretty sick. I've been meaning to turn myself in for a checkup, and this will be a good opportunity. I'll go back to the medical tent and tell them I'm sick, and I'll get sent to the hospital that way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look what they did to me,\" he reported back to Major Major with purple gums." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His distress was inconsolable. He carried his shoes and socks in his hands, and his toes had been painted with gentian-violet solution, too. \"Who ever heard of a C.I.D. man with purple gums?\" he moaned.\n\nHe walked away from the orderly room with his head down and tumbled into a slit trench and broke his nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His temperature was still normal, but Gus and Wes made an exception of him and sent him to the hospital in an ambulance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Major had lied, and it was good. He was not really surprised that it was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie. Had he told the truth to the second C.I.D. man, he would have found himself in trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead he had lied and he was free to continue his work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He became more circumspect in his work as a result of the visit from the second C.I.D. man. He did all his signing with his left hand and only while wearing the dark glasses and false mustache he had used unsuccessfully to help him begin playing basketball again. As an additional precaution, he made a happy switch from Washington Irving to John Milton. John Milton was supple and concise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like Washington Irving, he could be reversed with good effect whenever he grew monotonous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Furthermore, he enabled Major Major to double his output, for John Milton was so much shorter than either his own name or Washington Irving's and took so much less time to write. John Milton proved fruitful in still one more respect. He was versatile, and Major Major soon found himself incorporating the signature in fragments of imaginary dialogues. Thus, typical endorsements on the official documents might read, \"John Milton is a sadist\" or \"Have you seen Milton, John?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "One signature of which he was especially proud read, \"Is anybody in the John, Milton?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "John Milton threw open whole new vistas filled with charming, inexhaustible possibilities that promised to ward off monotony forever. Major Major went back to Washington Irving when John Milton grew monotonous.\n\nMajor Major had bought the dark glasses and false mustache in Rome in a final, futile attempt to save himself from the swampy degradation into which he was steadily sinking. First there had been the awful humiliation of the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, when not one of the thirty or forty people circulating competitive loyalty oaths would even allow him to sign." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, just when that was blowing over, there was the matter of Clevinger's plane disappearing so mysteriously in thin air with every member of the crew, and blame for the strange mishap centering balefully on him because he had never signed any of the loyalty oaths." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dark glasses had large magenta rims. The false black mustache was a flamboyant organ-grinder's, and he wore them both to the basketball game one day when he felt he could endure his loneliness no longer. He affected an air of jaunty familiarity as he sauntered to the court and prayed silently that he would not be recognized. The others pretended not to recognize him, and he began to have fun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just as he finished congratulating himself on his innocent ruse he was bumped hard by one of his opponents and knocked to his knees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soon he was bumped hard again, and it dawned on him that they did recognize him and that they were using his disguise as a license to elbow, trip and maul him. They did not want him at all. And just as he did realize this, the players on his team fused instinctively with the players on the other team into a single, howling, bloodthirsty mob that descended upon him from all sides with foul curses and swinging fists. They knocked him to the ground, kicked him while he was on the ground, attacked him again after he had struggled blindly to his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He covered his face with his hands and could not see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They swarmed all over each other in their frenzied compulsion to bludgeon him, kick him, gouge him, trample him. He was pummeled spinning to the edge of the ditch and sent slithering down on his head and shoulders. At the bottom he found his footing, clambered up the other wall and staggered away beneath the hail of hoots and stones with which they pelted him until he lurched into shelter around a corner of the orderly room tent. His paramount concern throughout the entire assault was to keep his dark glasses and false mustache in place so that he might continue pretending he was somebody else and be spared the dreaded necessity of having to confront them with his authority." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back in his office, he wept; and when he finished weeping he washed the blood from his mouth and nose, scrubbed the dirt from the abrasions on his cheek and forehead, and summoned Sergeant Towser." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"From now on,\" he said, \"I don't want anyone to come in to see me while I'm here. Is that clear?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Sergeant Towser. \"Does that include me?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I see. Will that be all?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What shall I say to the people who do come to see you while you're here?\"\n\n\"Tell them I'm in and ask them to wait.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. For how long?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Until I've left.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And then what shall I do with them?\"\n\n\"I don't care.\"\n\n\"May I send them in to see you after you've left?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you won't be here then, will you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Will that be all?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"From now on,\" Major Major said to the middle-aged enlisted man who took care of his trailer, \"I don't want you to come here while I'm here to ask me if there's anything you can do for me. Is that clear?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir,\" said the orderly. \"When should I come here to find out if there's anything you want me to do for you?\"\n\n\"When I'm not here.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. And what should I do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Whatever I tell you to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you won't be here to tell me. Will you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then what should I do?\"\n\n\"Whatever has to be done.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That will be all,\" said Major Major.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said the orderly. \"Will that be all?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Major Major." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't come in to clean, either. Don't come in for anything unless you're sure I'm not here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir. But how can I always be sure?\"\n\n\"If you're not sure, just assume that I am here and go away until you are sure. Is that clear?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to have to talk to you in this way, but I have to. Goodbye.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Goodbye, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And thank you. For everything.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"From now on,\" Major Major said to Milo Minderbinder, \"I'm not going to come to the mess hall any more. I'll have all my meals brought to me in my trailer.\"\n\n\"I think that's a good idea, sir,\" Milo answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now I'll be able to serve you special dishes that the others will never know about. I'm sure you'll enjoy them. Colonel Cathcart always does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't want any special dishes. I want exactly what you serve all the other officers. Just have whoever brings it knock once on my door and leave the tray on the step. Is that clear?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Milo. \"That's very clear. I've got some live Maine lobsters hidden away that I can serve you tonight with an excellent Roquefort salad and two frozen éclairs that were smuggled out of Paris only yesterday together with an important member of the French underground. Will that do for a start?\"\n\n\"No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir. I understand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For dinner that night Milo served him broiled Maine lobster with excellent Roquefort salad and two frozen éclairs. Major Major was annoyed. If he sent it back, though, it would only go to waste or to somebody else, and Major Major had a weakness for broiled lobster. He ate with a guilty conscience." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next day for lunch there was terrapin Maryland with a whole quart of Dom Pérignon 1937, and Major Major gulped it down without a thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After Milo, there remained only the men in the orderly room, and Major Major avoided them by entering and leaving every time through the dingy celluloid window of his office. The window unbuttoned and was low and large and easy to jump through from either side. He managed the distance between the orderly room and his trailer by darting around the corner of the tent when the coast was clear, leaping down into the railroad ditch and dashing along with head bowed until he attained the sanctuary of the forest. Abreast of his trailer, he left the ditch and wove his way speedily toward home through the dense underbrush, in which the only person he ever encountered was Captain Flume, who, drawn and ghostly, frightened him half to death one twilight by materializing without warning out of a patch of dewberry bushes to complain that Chief White Halfoat had threatened to slit his throat open from ear to ear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you ever frighten me like that again,\" Major Major told him, \"I'll slit your throat open from ear to ear.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Flume gasped and dissolved right back into the patch of dewberry bushes, and Major Major never set eyes on him again.\n\nWhen Major Major looked back on what he had accomplished, he was pleased. In the midst of a few foreign acres teeming with more than two hundred people, he had succeeded in becoming a recluse. With a little ingenuity and vision, he had made it all but impossible for anyone in the squadron to talk to him, which was just fine with everyone, he noticed, since no one wanted to talk to him anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one, it turned out, but that madman Yossarian, who brought him down with a flying tackle one day as he was scooting along the bottom of the ditch to his trailer for lunch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The last person in the squadron Major Major wanted to be brought down with a flying tackle by was Yossarian. There was something inherently disreputable about Yossarian, always carrying on so disgracefully about that dead man in his tent who wasn't even there and then taking off all his clothes after the Avignon mission and going around without them right up to the day General Dreedle stepped up to pin a medal on him for his heroism over Ferrara and found him standing in formation stark naked. No one in the world had the power to remove the dead man's disorganized effects from Yossarian's tent. Major Major had forfeited the authority when he permitted Sergeant Towser to report the lieutenant who had been killed over Orvieto less than two hours after he arrived in the squadron as never having arrived in the squadron at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only one with any right to remove his belongings from Yossarian's tent, it seemed to Major Major, was Yossarian himself, and Yossarian, it seemed to Major Major, had no right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Major groaned after Yossarian brought him down with a flying tackle, and tried to wiggle to his feet. Yossarian wouldn't let him.\n\n\"Captain Yossarian,\" Yossarian said, \"requests permission to speak to the major at once about a matter of life or death.\"\n\n\"Let me up, please,\" Major Major bid him in cranky discomfort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can't return your salute while I'm lying on my arm.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian released him. They stood up slowly. Yossarian saluted again and repeated his request.\n\n\"Let's go to my office,\" Major Major said. \"I don't think this is the best place to talk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir,\" answered Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They smacked the gravel from their clothing and walked in constrained silence to the entrance of the orderly room.\n\n\"Give me a minute or two to put some mercurochrome on these cuts. Then have Sergeant Towser send you in.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nMajor Major strode with dignity to the rear of the orderly room without glancing at any of the clerks and typists working at the desks and filing cabinets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He let the flap leading to his office fall closed behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as he was alone in his office, he raced across the room to the window and jumped outside to dash away. He found Yossarian blocking his path. Yossarian was waiting at attention and saluted again.\n\n\"Captain Yossarian requests permission to speak to the major at once about a matter of life or death,\" he repeated determinedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Permission denied,\" Major Major snapped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That won't do it.\"\n\nMajor Major gave in. \"All right,\" he conceded wearily. \"I'll talk to you. Please jump inside my office.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"After you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They jumped inside the office. Major Major sat down, and Yossarian moved around in front of his desk and told him that he did not want to fly any more combat missions. What could he do? Major Major asked himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All he could do was what he had been instructed to do by Colonel Korn and hope for the best." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why not?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"That's nothing to be ashamed of,\" Major Major counseled him kindly. \"We're all afraid.\"\n\n\"I'm not ashamed,\" Yossarian said. \"I'm just afraid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You wouldn't be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome our fear.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, come on, Major. Can't we do without that horseshit?\"\n\nMajor Major lowered his gaze sheepishly and fiddled with his fingers. \"What do you want me to tell you?\"\n\n\"That I've flown enough missions and can go home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How many have you flown?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fifty-one.\"\n\n\"You've only got four more to fly.\"\n\n\"He'll raise them. Every time I get close he raises them.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he won't this time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He never sends anyone home, anyway. He just keeps them around waiting for rotation orders until he doesn't have enough men left for the crews, and then raises the number of missions and throws them all back on combat status. He's been doing that ever since he got here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You mustn't blame Colonel Cathcart for any delay with the orders,\" Major Major advised. \"It's Twenty-seventh Air Force's responsibility to process the orders promptly once they get them from us.\"\n\n\"He could still ask for replacements and send us home when the orders did come back. Anyway, I've been told that Twenty-seventh Air Force wants only forty missions and that it's only his own idea to get us to fly fifty-five.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't know anything about that,\" Major Major answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Colonel Cathcart is our commanding officer and we must obey him. Why don't you fly the four more missions and see what happens?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't want to.\"\n\nWhat could you do? Major Major asked himself again. What could you do with a man who looked you squarely in the eye and said he would rather die than be killed in combat, a man who was at least as mature and intelligent as you were and who you had to pretend was not?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What could you say to him?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Suppose we let you pick your missions and fly milk runs,\" Major Major said. \"That way you can fly the four missions and not run any risks.\"\n\n\"I don't want to fly milk runs. I don't want to be in the war any more.\"\n\n\"Would you like to see our country lose?\" Major Major asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We won't lose. We've got more men, more money and more material. There are ten million men in uniform who could replace me. Some people are getting killed and a lot more are making money and having fun. Let somebody else get killed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But suppose everybody on our side felt that way.\"\n\n\"Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn't I?\"\n\nWhat could you possibly say to him? Major Major wondered forlornly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One thing he could not say was that there was nothing he could do." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To say there was nothing he could do would suggest he would do something if he could and imply the existence of an error of injustice in Colonel Korn's policy. Colonel Korn had been most explicit about that. He must never say there was nothing he could do.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he said. \"But there's nothing I can do.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with four sentences in the style of Joseph Heller." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clevinger was dead. That was the basic flaw in his philosophy. Eighteen planes had let down through a beaming white cloud off the coast of Elba one afternoon on the way back from the weekly milk run to Parma; seventeen came out. No trace was ever found of the other, not in the air or on the smooth surface of the jade waters below. There was no debris." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Helicopters circled the white cloud till sunset." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During the night the cloud blew away, and in the morning there was no more Clevinger.\n\nThe disappearance was astounding, as astounding, certainly, as the Grand Conspiracy of Lowery Field, when all sixty-four men in a single barrack vanished one payday and were never heard of again. Until Clevinger was snatched from existence so adroitly, Yossarian had assumed that the men had simply decided unanimously to go AWOL the same day. In fact, he had been so encouraged by what appeared to be a mass desertion from sacred responsibility that he had gone running outside in elation to carry the exciting news to ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's so exciting about it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen sneered obnoxiously, resting his filthy GI shoe on his spade and lounging back in a surly slouch against the wall of one of the deep, square holes it was his military specialty to dig.\n\nEx-P.F.C. Wintergreen was a snide little punk who enjoyed working at cross-purposes. Each time he went AWOL, he was caught and sentenced to dig and fill up holes six feet deep, wide and long for a specified length of time. Each time he finished his sentence, he went AWOL again. Ex-P.F.C." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wintergreen accepted his role of digging and filling up holes with all the uncomplaining dedication of a true patriot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not a bad life,\" he would observe philosophically. \"And I guess somebody has to do it.\"\n\nHe had wisdom enough to understand that digging holes in Colorado was not such a bad assignment in wartime. Since the holes were in no great demand, he could dig them and fill them up at a leisurely pace, and he was seldom overworked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the other hand, he was busted down to buck private each time he was court-martialed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He regretted this loss of rank keenly.\n\n\"It was kind of nice being a P.F.C.,\" he reminisced yearningly. \"I had status-you know what I mean? – and I used to travel in the best circles.\" His face darkened with resignation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But that's all behind me now,\" he guessed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The next time I go over the hill it will be as a buck private, and I just know it won't be the same.\" There was no future in digging holes. \"The job isn't even steady. I lose it each time I finish serving my sentence. Then I have to go over the hill again if I want it back. And I can't even keep doing that. There's a catch. Catch-22. The next time I go over the hill, it will mean the stockade. I don't know what's going to become of me. I might even wind up overseas if I'm not careful.\" He did not want to keep digging holes for the rest of his life, although he had no objection to doing it as long as there was a war going on and it was part of the war effort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a matter of duty,\" he observed, \"and we each have our own to perform. My duty is to keep digging these holes, and I've been doing such a good job of it that I've just been recommended for the Good Conduct Medal. Your duty is to screw around in cadet school and hope the war ends before you get out. The duty of the men in combat is to win the war, and I just wish they were doing their duty as well as I've been doing mine. It wouldn't be fair if I had to go overseas and do their job too, would it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One day ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen struck open a water pipe while digging in one of his holes and almost drowned to death before he was fished out nearly unconscious. Word spread that it was oil, and Chief White Halfoat was kicked off the base. Soon every man who could find a shovel was outside digging frenziedly for oil. Dirt flew everywhere; the scene was almost like the morning in Pianosa seven months later after the night Milo bombed the squadron with every plane he had accumulated in his M amp; M syndicate, and the airfield, bomb dump and repair hangars as well, and all the survivors were outside hacking cavernous shelters into the solid ground and roofing them over with sheets of armor plate stolen from the repair sheds at the field and with tattered squares of waterproof canvas stolen from the side flaps of each other's tents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chief White Halfoat was transferred out of Colorado at the first rumor of oil and came to rest finally in Pianosa as a replacement for Lieutenant Coombs, who had gone out on a mission as a guest one day just to see what combat was like and had died over Ferrara in the plane with Kraft." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian felt guilty each time he remembered Kraft, guilty because Kraft had been killed on Yossarian's second bomb run, and guilty because Kraft had got mixed up innocently also in the Splendid Atabrine Insurrection that had begun in Puerto Rico on the first leg of their flight overseas and ended in Pianosa ten days later with Appleby striding dutifully into the orderly room the moment he arrived to report Yossarian for refusing to take his Atabrine tablets. The sergeant there invited him to be seated.\n\n\"Thank you, Sergeant, I think I will,\" said Appleby. \"About how long will I have to wait? I've still got a lot to get done today so that I can be fully prepared bright and early tomorrow morning to go into combat the minute they want me to.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sir?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's that, Sergeant?\"\n\n\"What was your question?\"\n\n\"About how long will I have to wait before I can go in to see the major?\"\n\n\"Just until he goes out to lunch,\" Sergeant Towser replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then you can go right in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But he won't be there then. Will he?\"\n\n\"No, sir. Major Major won't be back in his office until after lunch.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Appleby decided uncertainly. \"I think I'd better come back after lunch, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Appleby turned from the orderly room in secret confusion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The moment he stepped outside, he thought he saw a tall, dark officer who looked a little like Henry Fonda come jumping out of the window of the orderly-room tent and go scooting out of sight around the corner. Appleby halted and squeezed his eyes closed. An anxious doubt assailed him. He wondered if he were suffering from malaria, or, worse, from an overdose of Atabrine tablets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Appleby had been taking four times as many Atabrine tablets as the amount prescribed because he wanted to be four times as good a pilot as everyone else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes were still shut when Sergeant Towser tapped him lightly on the shoulder and told him he could go in now if he wanted to, since Major Major had just gone out. Appleby's confidence returned.\n\n\"Thank you, Sergeant. Will he be back soon?\"\n\n\"He'll be back right after lunch. Then you'll have to go right out and wait for him in front till he leaves for dinner. Major Major never sees anyone in his office while he's in his office.\"\n\n\"Sergeant, what did you just say?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I said that Major Major never sees anyone in his office while he's in his office.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Appleby stared at Sergeant Towser intently and attempted a firm tone. \"Sergeant, are you trying to make a fool out of me just because I'm new in the squadron and you've been overseas a long time?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, sir,\" answered the sergeant deferentially. \"Those are my orders. You can ask Major Major when you see him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's just what I intend to do, Sergeant. When can I see him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never.\"\n\nCrimson with humiliation, Appleby wrote down his report about Yossarian and the Atabrine tablets on a pad the sergeant offered him and left quickly, wondering if perhaps Yossarian were not the only man privileged to wear an officer's uniform who was crazy.\n\nBy the time Colonel Cathcart had raised the number of missions to fifty-five, Sergeant Towser had begun to suspect that perhaps every man who wore a uniform was crazy. Sergeant Towser was lean and angular and had fine blond hair so light it was almost without color, sunken cheeks, and teeth like large white marshmallows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ran the squadron and was not happy doing it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Men like Hungry Joe glowered at him with blameful hatred, and Appleby subjected him to vindictive discourtesy now that he had established himself as a hot pilot and a ping-pong player who never lost a point. Sergeant Towser ran the squadron because there was no one else in the squadron to run it. He had no interest in war or advancement. He was interested in shards and Hepplewhite furniture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost without realizing it, Sergeant Towser had fallen into the habit of thinking of the dead man in Yossarian's tent in Yossarian's own terms-as a dead man in Yossarian's tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In reality, he was no such thing. He was simply a replacement pilot who had been killed in combat before he had officially reported for duty. He had stopped at the operations tent to inquire the way to the orderly-room tent and had been sent right into action because so many men had completed the thirty-five missions required then that Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren were finding it difficult to assemble the number of crews specified by Group. Because he had never officially gotten into the squadron, he could never officially be gotten out, and Sergeant Towser sensed that the multiplying communications relating to the poor man would continue reverberating forever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His name was Mudd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To Sergeant Towser, who deplored violence and waste with equal aversion, it seemed like such an abhorrent extravagance to fly Mudd all the way across the ocean just to have him blown into bits over Orvieto less than two hours after he arrived. No one could recall who he was or what he had looked like, least of all Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren, who remembered only that a new officer had shown up at the operations tent just in time to be killed and who colored uneasily every time the matter of the dead man in Yossarian's tent was mentioned. The only one who might have seen Mudd, the men in the same plane, had all been blown to bits with him.\n\nYossarian, on the other hand, knew exactly who Mudd was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mudd was the unknown soldier who had never had a chance, for that was the only thing anyone ever did know about all the unknown soldiers-they never had a chance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had to be dead. And this dead one was really unknown, even though his belongings still lay in a tumble on the cot in Yossarian's tent almost exactly as he had left them three months earlier the day he never arrived-all contaminated with death less than two hours later, in the same way that all was contaminated with death in the very next week during the Great Big Siege of Bologna when the moldy odor of mortality hung wet in the air with the sulphurous fog and every man scheduled to fly was already tainted.\n\nThere was no escaping the mission to Bologna once Colonel Cathcart had volunteered his group for the ammunition dumps there that the heavy bombers on the Italian mainland had been unable to destroy from their higher altitudes. Each day's delay deepened the awareness and deepened the gloom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The clinging, overpowering conviction of death spread steadily with the continuing rainfall, soaking mordantly into each man's ailing countenance like the corrosive blot of some crawling disease." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone smelled of formaldehyde. There was nowhere to turn for help, not even to the medical tent, which had been ordered closed by Colonel Korn so that no one could report for sick call, as the men had done on the one clear day with a mysterious epidemic of diarrhea that had forced still another postponement. With sick call suspended and the door to the medical tent nailed shut, Doc Daneeka spent the intervals between rain perched on a high stool, wordlessly absorbing the bleak outbreak of fear with a sorrowing neutrality, roosting like a melancholy buzzard below the ominous, hand-lettered sign tacked up on the closed door of the medical tent by Captain Black as a joke and left hanging there by Doc Daneeka because it was no joke. The sign was bordered in dark crayon and read: \"CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. DEATH IN THE FAMILY.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fear flowed everywhere, into Dunbar's squadron, where Dunbar poked his head inquiringly through the entrance of the medical tent there one twilight and spoke respectfully to the blurred outline of Dr. Stubbs, who was sitting in the dense shadows inside before a bottle of whiskey and a bell jar filled with purified drinking water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you all right?\" he asked solicitously.\n\n\"Terrible,\" Dr. Stubbs answered.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Sitting.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought there was no more sick call.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There ain't.\"\n\n\"Then why are you sitting here?\"\n\n\"Where else should I sit? At the goddam officers' club with Colonel Cathcart and Korn? Do you know what I'm doing here?\"\n\n\"Sitting.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In the squadron, I mean. Not in the tent. Don't be such a goddam wise guy. Can you figure out what a doctor is doing here in the squadron?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They've got the doors to the medical tents nailed shut in the other squadrons,\" Dunbar remarked.\n\n\"If anyone sick walks through my door I'm going to ground him,\" Dr. Stubbs vowed. \"I don't give a damn what they say.\"\n\n\"You can't ground anyone,\" Dunbar reminded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you know the orders?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll knock him flat on his ass with an injection and really ground him.\" Dr. Stubbs laughed with sardonic amusement at the prospect. \"They think they can order sick call out of existence. The bastards. Ooops, there it goes again.\" The rain began falling again, first in the trees, then in the mud puddles, then, faintly, like a soothing murmur, on the tent top." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everything's wet,\" Dr. Stubbs observed with revulsion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Even the latrines and urinals are backing up in protest. The whole goddam world smells like a charnel house.\"\n\nThe silence seemed bottomless when he stopped talking. Night fell. There was a sense of vast isolation.\n\n\"Turn on the light,\" Dunbar suggested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is no light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I don't feel like starting my generator. I used to get a big kick out of saving people's lives. Now I wonder what the hell's the point, since they all have to die anyway.\n\n\"Oh, there's a point, all right,\" Dunbar assured him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is there? What is the point?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The point is to keep them from dying for as long as you can.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but what's the point, since they all have to die anyway?\"\n\n\"The trick is not to think about that.\"\n\n\"Never mind the trick. What the hell's the point?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dunbar pondered in silence for a few moments." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who the hell knows?\"\n\nDunbar didn't know. Bologna should have exulted Dunbar, because the minutes dawdled and the hours dragged like centuries. Instead it tortured him, because he knew he was going to be killed.\n\n\"Do you really want some more codeine?\" Dr. Stubbs asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's for my friend Yossarian. He's sure he's going to be killed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yossarian? Who the hell is Yossarian? What the hell kind of a name is Yossarian, anyway? Isn't he the one who got drunk and started that fight with Colonel Korn at the officers' club the other night?\"\n\n\"That's right. He's Assyrian.\"\n\n\"That crazy bastard.\"\n\n\"He's not so crazy,\" Dunbar said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He swears he's not going to fly to Bologna.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's just what I mean,\" Dr. Stubbs answered. \"That crazy bastard may be the only sane one left.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like Joseph Heller and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corporal Kolodny learned about it first in a phone call from Group and was so shaken by the news that he crossed the intelligence tent on tiptoe to Captain Black, who was resting drowsily with his bladed shins up on the desk, and relayed the information to him in a shocked whisper.\n\nCaptain Black brightened immediately. \"Bologna?\" he exclaimed with delight. \"Well, I'll be damned.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He broke into loud laughter. \"Bologna, huh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed again and shook his head in pleasant amazement. \"Oh, boy! I can't wait to see those bastards' faces when they find out they're going to Bologna. Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nIt was the first really good laugh Captain Black had enjoyed since the day Major Major outsmarted him and was appointed squadron commander, and he rose with torpid enthusiasm and stationed himself behind the front counter in order to wring the most enjoyment from the occasion when the bombardiers arrived for their map kits.\n\n\"That's right, you bastards, Bologna,\" he kept repeating to all the bombardiers who inquired incredulously if they were really going to Bologna." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ha! Ha! Ha! Eat your livers, you bastards. This time you're really in for it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Black followed the last of them outside to observe with relish the effect of the knowledge upon all of the other officers and enlisted men who were assembling with their helmets, parachutes and flak suits around the four trucks idling in the center of the squadron area. He was a tall, narrow, disconsolate man who moved with a crabby listlessness. He shaved his pinched, pale face every third or fourth day, and most of the time he appeared to be growing a reddish-gold mustache over his skinny upper lip. He was not disappointed in the scene outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was consternation darkening every expression, and Captain Black yawned deliciously, rubbed the last lethargy from his eyes and laughed gloatingly each time he told someone else to eat his liver." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bologna turned out to be the most rewarding event in Captain Black's life since the day Major Duluth was killed over Perugia and he was almost selected to replace him. When word of Major Duluth's death was radioed back to the field, Captain Black responded with a surge of joy. Although he had never really contemplated the possibility before, Captain Black understood at once that he was the logical man to succeed Major Duluth as squadron commander. To begin with, he was the squadron intelligence officer, which meant he was more intelligent than everyone else in the squadron." }, { "from": "human", "value": "True, he was not on combat status, as Major Duluth had been and as all squadron commanders customarily were; but this was really another powerful argument in his favor, since his life was in no danger and he would be able to fill the post for as long as his country needed him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The more Captain Black thought about it, the more inevitable it seemed. It was merely a matter of dropping the right word in the right place quickly. He hurried back to his office to determine a course of action. Settling back in his swivel chair, his feet up on the desk and his eyes closed, he began imagining how beautiful everything would be once he was squadron commander." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While Captain Black was imagining, Colonel Cathcart was acting, and Captain Black was flabbergasted by the speed with which, he concluded, Major Major had outsmarted him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His great dismay at the announcement of Major Major's appointment as squadron commander was tinged with an embittered resentment he made no effort to conceal. When fellow administrative officers expressed astonishment at Colonel Cathcart's choice of Major Major, Captain Black muttered that there was something funny going on; when they speculated on the political value of Major Major's resemblance to Henry Fonda, Captain Black asserted that Major Major really was Henry Fonda; and when they remarked that Major Major was somewhat odd, Captain Black announced that he was a Communist.\n\n\"They're taking over everything,\" he declared rebelliously. \"Well, you fellows can stand around and let them if you want to, but I'm not going to. I'm going to do something about it. From now on I'm going to make every son of a bitch who comes to my intelligence tent sign a loyalty oath. And I'm not going to let that bastard Major Major sign one even if he wants to.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured to discover himself spearheading it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had really hit on something. All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks. Every time they turned around there was another loyalty oath to be signed. They signed a loyalty oath to get their pay from the finance officer, to obtain their PX supplies, to have their hair cut by the Italian barbers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Captain Black, every officer who supported his Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a competitor, and he planned and plotted twenty-four hours a day to keep one step ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would stand second to none in his devotion to country. When other officers had followed his urging and introduced loyalty oaths of their own, he went them one better by making every son of a bitch who came to his intelligence tent sign two loyalty oaths, then three, then four; then he introduced the pledge of allegiance, and after that \"The Star-Spangled Banner,\" one chorus, two choruses, three choruses, four choruses. Each time Captain Black forged ahead of his competitors, he swung upon them scornfully for their failure to follow his example. Each time they followed his example, he retreated with concern and racked his brain for some new stratagem that would enable him to turn upon them scornfully again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were bullied, insulted, harassed and shoved about all day long by one after the other. When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To anyone who questioned the effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to. And to anyone who questioned the morality, he replied that \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" was the greatest piece of music ever composed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The more loyalty oaths a person signed, the more loyal he was; to Captain Black it was as simple as that, and he had Corporal Kolodny sign hundreds with his name each day so that he could always prove he was more loyal than anyone else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The important thing is to keep them pledging,\" he explained to his cohorts. \"It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what 'pledge' and 'allegiance' mean.\"\n\nTo Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren, the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a glorious pain in the ass, since it complicated their task of organizing the crews for each combat mission. Men were tied up all over the squadron signing, pledging and singing, and the missions took hours longer to get under way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Effective emergency action became impossible, but Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren were both too timid to raise any outcry against Captain Black, who scrupulously enforced each day the doctrine of \"Continual Reaffirmation\" that he had originated, a doctrine designed to trap all those men who had become disloyal since the last time they had signed a loyalty oath the day before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Captain Black who came with advice to Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren as they pitched about in their bewildering predicament. He came with a delegation and advised them bluntly to make each man sign a loyalty oath before allowing him to fly on a combat mission.\n\n\"Of course, it's up to you,\" Captain Black pointed out. \"Nobody's trying to pressure you. But everyone else is making them sign loyalty oaths, and it's going to look mighty funny to the F.B.I. if you two are the only ones who don't care enough about your country to make them sign loyalty oaths, too. If you want to get a bad reputation, that's nobody's business but your own. All we're trying to do is help.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo was not convinced and absolutely refused to deprive Major Major of food, even if Major Major was a Communist, which Milo secretly doubted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo was by nature opposed to any innovation that threatened to disrupt the normal course of affairs. Milo took a firm moral stand and absolutely refused to participate in the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade until Captain Black called upon him with his delegation and requested him to.\n\n\"National defense is everybody's job,\" Captain Black replied to Milo's objection. \"And this whole program is voluntary, Milo-don't forget that. The men don't have to sign Piltchard and Wren's loyalty oath if they don't want to. But we need you to starve them to death if they don't. It's just like Catch-22. Don't you get it? You're not against Catch-22, are you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doc Daneeka was adamant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What makes you so sure Major Major is a Communist?\"\n\n\"You never heard him denying it until we began accusing him, did you? And you don't see him signing any of our loyalty oaths.\"\n\n\"You aren't letting him sign any.\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" Captain Black explained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That would defeat the whole purpose of our crusade. Look, you don't have to play ball with us if you don't want to. But what's the point of the rest of us working so hard if you're going to give Major Major medical attention the minute Milo begins starving him to death? I just wonder what they're going to think up at Group about the man who's undermining our whole security program. They'll probably transfer you to the Pacific.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka surrendered swiftly. \"I'll go tell Gus and Wes to do whatever you want them to.\"\n\nUp at Group, Colonel Cathcart had already begun wondering what was going on.\n\n\"It's that idiot Black off on a patriotism binge,\" Colonel Korn reported with a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think you'd better play ball with him for a while, since you're the one who promoted Major Major to squadron commander.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was your idea,\" Colonel Cathcart accused him Petulantly. \"I never should have let you talk me into it.\"\n\n\"And a very good idea it was, too,\" retorted Colonel Korn, \"since it eliminated that superfluous major that's been giving you such an awful black eye as an administrator. Don't worry, this will probably run its course soon. The best thing to do now is send Captain Black a letter of total support and hope he drops dead before he does too much damage.\" Colonel Korn was struck with a whimsical thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wonder! You don't suppose that imbecile will try to turn Major Major out of his trailer, do you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The next thing we've got to do is turn that bastard Major Major out of his trailer,\" Captain Black decided. \"I'd like to turn his wife and kids out into the woods, too. But we can't. He has no wife and kids. So we'll just have to make do with what we have and turn him out. Who's in charge of the tents?\"\n\n\"He is.\"\n\n\"You see?\" cried Captain Black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're taking over everything! Well, I'm not going to stand for it. I'll take this matter right to Major – de Coverley himself if I have to. I'll have Milo speak to him about it the minute he gets back from Rome.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Black had boundless faith in the wisdom, power and justice of Major – de Coverley, even though he had never spoken to him before and still found himself without the courage to do so. He deputized Milo to speak to Major – de Coverley for him and stormed about impatiently as he waited for the tall executive officer to return. Along with everyone else in the squadron, he lived in profound awe and reverence of the majestic, white-haired major with craggy face and Jehovean bearing, who came back from Rome finally with an injured eye inside a new celluloid eye patch and smashed his whole Glorious Crusade to bits with a single stroke.\n\nMilo carefully said nothing when Major – de Coverley stepped into the mess hall with his fierce and austere dignity the day he returned and found his way blocked by a wall of officers waiting in line to sign loyalty oaths." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the far end of the food counter, a group of men who had arrived earlier were pledging allegiance to the flag, with trays of food balanced in one hand, in order to be allowed to take seats at the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Already at the tables, a group that had arrived still earlier was singing \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" in order that they might use the salt and pepper and ketchup there. The hubbub began to subside slowly as Major – de Coverley paused in the doorway with a frown of puzzled disapproval, as though viewing something bizarre. He started forward in a straight line, and the wall of officers before him parted like the Red Sea. Glancing neither left nor right, he strode indomitably up to the steam counter and, in a clear, full-bodied voice that was gruff with age and resonant with ancient eminence and authority, said:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gimme eat.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of eat, Corporal Snark gave Major – de Coverley a loyalty oath to sign. Major – de Coverley swept it away with mighty displeasure the moment he recognized what it was, his good eye flaring up blindingly with fiery disdain and his enormous old corrugated face darkening in mountainous wrath.\n\n\"Gimme eat, I said,\" he ordered loudly in harsh tones that rumbled ominously through the silent tent like claps of distant thunder.\n\nCorporal Snark turned pale and began to tremble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He glanced toward Milo pleadingly for guidance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For several terrible seconds there was not a sound. Then Milo nodded.\n\n\"Give him eat,\" he said.\n\nCorporal Snark began giving Major – de Coverley eat. Major – de Coverley turned from the counter with his tray full and came to a stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes fell on the groups of other officers gazing at him in mute appeal, and, with righteous belligerence, he roared:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give everybody eat!\"\n\n\"Give everybody eat!\" Milo echoed with joyful relief, and the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade came to an end.\n\nCaptain Black was deeply disillusioned by this treacherous stab in the back from someone in high place upon whom he had relied so confidently for support. Major – de Coverley had let him down." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of Joseph Heller.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of Joseph Heller every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Actually, it was not Captain Black but Sergeant Knight who triggered the solemn panic of Bologna, slipping silently off the truck for two extra flak suits as soon as he learned the target and signaling the start of the grim procession back into the parachute tent that degenerated into a frantic stampede finally before all the extra flak suits were gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, what's going on?\" Kid Sampson asked nervously. \"Bologna can't be that rough, can it?\"\n\nNately, sitting trancelike on the floor of the truck, held his grave young face in both hands and did not answer him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Sergeant Knight and the cruel series of postponements, for just as they were climbing up into their planes that first morning, along came a jeep with the news that it was raining in Bologna and that the mission would be delayed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was raining in Pianosa too by the time they returned to the squadron, and they had the rest of that day to stare woodenly at the bomb line on the map under the awning of the intelligence tent and ruminate hypnotically on the fact that there was no escape. The evidence was there vividly in the narrow red ribbon tacked across the mainland: the ground forces in Italy were pinned down forty-two insurmountable miles south of the target and could not possibly capture the city in time. Nothing could save the men in Pianosa from the mission to Bologna. They were trapped.\n\nTheir only hope was that it would never stop raining, and they had no hope because they all knew it would." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When it did stop raining in Pianosa, it rained in Bologna." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When it stopped raining in Bologna, it began again in Pianosa. If there was no rain at all, there were freakish, inexplicable phenomena like the epidemic of diarrhea or the bomb line that moved. Four times during the first six days they were assembled and briefed and then sent back. Once, they took off and were flying in formation when the control tower summoned them down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The more it rained, the worse they suffered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The worse they suffered, the more they prayed that it would continue raining. All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars. All through the day, they looked at the bomb line on the big, wobbling easel map of Italy that blew over in the wind and was dragged in under the awning of the intelligence tent every time the rain began. The bomb line was a scarlet band of narrow satin ribbon that delineated the forwardmost position of the Allied ground forces in every sector of the Italian mainland." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The morning after Hungry Joe's fist fight with Huple's cat, the rain stopped falling in both places." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The landing strip began to dry. It would take a full twenty-four hours to harden; but the sky remained cloudless. The resentments incubating in each man hatched into hatred. First they hated the infantrymen on the mainland because they had failed to capture Bologna." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then they began to hate the bomb line itself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For hours they stared relentlessly at the scarlet ribbon on the map and hated it because it would not move up high enough to encompass the city. When night fell, they congregated in the darkness with flashlights, continuing their macabre vigil at the bomb line in brooding entreaty as though hoping to move the ribbon up by the collective weight of their sullen prayers.\n\n\"I really can't believe it,\" Clevinger exclaimed to Yossarian in a voice rising and falling in protest and wonder. \"It's a complete reversion to primitive superstition. They're confusing cause and effect. It makes as much sense as knocking on wood or crossing your fingers. They really believe that we wouldn't have to fly that mission tomorrow if someone would only tiptoe up to the map in the middle of the night and move the bomb line over Bologna. Can you imagine? You and I must be the only rational ones left.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the middle of the night Yossarian knocked on wood, crossed his fingers, and tiptoed out of his tent to move the bomb line up over Bologna." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corporal Kolodny tiptoed stealthily into Captain Black's tent early the next morning, reached inside the mosquito net and gently shook the moist shoulder-blade he found there until Captain Black opened his eyes.\n\n\"What are you waking me up for?\" whimpered Captain Black.\n\n\"They captured Bologna, sir,\" said Corporal Kolodny. \"I thought you'd want to know. Is the mission canceled?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Captain Black tugged himself erect and began scratching his scrawny long thighs methodically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a little while he dressed and emerged from his tent, squinting, cross and unshaven. The sky was clear and warm. He peered without emotion at the map. Sure enough, they had captured Bologna." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inside the intelligence tent, Corporal Kolodny was already removing the maps of Bologna from the navigation kits." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Black seated himself with a loud yawn, lifted his feet to the top of his desk and phoned Colonel Korn.\n\n\"What are you waking me up for?\" whimpered Colonel Korn.\n\n\"They captured Bologna during the night, sir. Is the mission canceled?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about, Black?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn growled. \"Why should the mission be canceled?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because they captured Bologna, sir. Isn't the mission canceled?\"\n\n\"Of course the mission is canceled. Do you think we're bombing our own troops now?\"\n\n\"What are you waking me up for?\" Colonel Cathcart whimpered to Colonel Korn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They captured Bologna,\" Colonel Korn told him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought you'd want to know.\"\n\n\"Who captured Bologna?\"\n\n\"We did.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart was overjoyed, for he was relieved of the embarrassing commitment to bomb Bologna without blemish to the reputation for valor he had earned by volunteering his men to do it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Dreedle was pleased with the capture of Bologna, too, although he was angry with Colonel Moodus for waking him up to tell him about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Headquarters was also pleased and decided to award a medal to the officer who captured the city. There was no officer who had captured the city, so they gave the medal to General Peckem instead, because General Peckem was the only officer with sufficient initiative to ask for it.\n\nAs soon as General Peckem had received his medal, he began asking for increased responsibility. It was General Peckem's opinion that all combat units in the theater should be placed under the jurisdiction of the Special Service Corps, of which General Peckem himself was the commanding officer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If dropping bombs on the enemy was not a special service, he reflected aloud frequently with the martyred smile of sweet reasonableness that was his loyal confederate in every dispute, then he could not help wondering what in the world was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With amiable regret, he declined the offer of a combat post under General Dreedle.\n\n\"Flying combat missions for General Dreedle is not exactly what I had in mind,\" he explained indulgently with a smooth laugh. \"I was thinking more in terms of replacing General Dreedle, or perhaps of something above General Dreedle where I could exercise supervision over a great many other generals too. You see, my most precious abilities are mainly administrative ones. I have a happy facility for getting different people to agree.\"\n\n\"He has a happy facility for getting different people to agree what a prick he is,\" Colonel Cargill confided invidiously to ex-P.F.C." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wintergreen in the hope that ex-P.F.C." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wintergreen would spread the unfavorable report along through Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters. \"If anyone deserves that combat post, I do. It was even my idea that we ask for the medal.\"\n\n\"You really want to go into combat?\" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen inquired.\n\n\"Combat?\" Colonel Cargill was aghast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, no-you misunderstand me. Of course, I wouldn't actually mind going into combat, but my best abilities are mainly administrative ones. I too have a happy facility for getting different people to agree.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He too has a happy facility for getting different people to agree what a prick he is,\" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen confided with a laugh to Yossarian, after he had come to Pianosa to learn if it was really true about Milo and the Egyptian cotton. \"If anyone deserves a promotion, I do.\" Actually, he had risen already to ex-corporal, having shot through the ranks shortly after his transfer to Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters as a mail clerk and been busted right down to private for making odious audible comparisons about the commissioned officers for whom he worked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The heady taste of success had infused him further with morality and fired him with ambition for loftier attainments." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you want to buy some Zippo lighters?\" he asked Yossarian. \"They were stolen right from quartermaster.\"\n\n\"Does Milo know you're selling cigarette lighters?\"\n\n\"What's it his business? Milo's not carrying cigarette lighters too now, is he?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He sure is,\" Yossarian told him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And his aren't stolen.\"\n\n\"That's what you think,\" ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen answered with a laconic snort. \"I'm selling mine for a buck apiece. What's he getting for his?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A dollar and a penny.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen snickered triumphantly. \"I beat him every time,\" he gloated. \"Say, what about all that Egyptian cotton he's stuck with? How much did he buy?\"\n\n\"All.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In the whole world? Well, I'll be damned!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen crowed with malicious glee. \"What a dope! You were in Cairo with him. Why'd you let him do it?\"\n\n\"Me?\" Yossarian answered with a shrug. \"I have no influence on him. It was those teletype machines they have in all the good restaurants there. Milo had never seen a stock ticker before, and the quotation for Egyptian cotton happened to be coming in just as he asked the headwaiter to explain it to him. 'Egyptian cotton?' Milo said with that look of his. 'How much is Egyptian cotton selling for?' The next thing I knew he had bought the whole goddam harvest. And now he can't unload any of it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He has no imagination. I can unload plenty of it in the black market if he'll make a deal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Milo knows the black market. There's no demand for cotton.\"\n\n\"But there is a demand for medical supplies. I can roll the cotton up on wooden toothpicks and peddle them as sterile swabs. Will he sell to me at a good price?\"\n\n\"He won't sell to you at any price,\" Yossarian answered. \"He's pretty sore at you for going into competition with him. In fact, he's pretty sore at everybody for getting diarrhea last weekend and giving his mess hall a bad name. Say, you can help us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian suddenly seized his arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Couldn't you forge some official orders on that mimeograph machine of yours and get us out of flying to Bologna?\"\n\nEx-P.F.C. Wintergreen pulled away slowly with a look of scorn. \"Sure I could,\" he explained with pride. \"But I would never dream of doing anything like that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why not?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because it's your job. We all have our jobs to do. My job is to unload these Zippo lighters at a profit if I can and pick up some cotton from Milo. Your job is to bomb the ammunition dumps at Bologna.\"\n\n\"But I'm going to be killed at Bologna,\" Yossarian pleaded. \"We're all going to be killed.\"\n\n\"Then you'll just have to be killed,\" replied ex-P.F.C." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wintergreen. \"Why can't you be a fatalist about it the way I am? If I'm destined to unload these lighters at a profit and pick up some Egyptian cotton cheap from Milo, then that's what I'm going to do. And if you're destined to be killed over Bologna, then you're going to be killed, so you might just as well go out and die like a man. I hate to say this, Yossarian, but you're turning into a chronic complainer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clevinger agreed with ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen that it was Yossarian's job to get killed over Bologna and was livid with condemnation when Yossarian confessed that it was he who had moved the bomb line and caused the mission to be canceled.\n\n\"Why the hell not?\" Yossarian snarled, arguing all the more vehemently because he suspected he was wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Am I supposed to get my ass shot off just because the colonel wants to be a general?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about the men on the mainland?\" Clevinger demanded with just as much emotion. \"Are they supposed to get their asses shot off just because you don't want to go? Those men are entitled to air support!\"\n\n\"But not necessarily by me. Look, they don't care who knocks out those ammunition dumps. The only reason we're going is because that bastard Cathcart volunteered us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, I know all that,\" Clevinger assured him, his gaunt face pale and his agitated brown eyes swimming in sincerity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But the fact remains that those ammunition dumps are still standing. You know very well that I don't approve of Colonel Cathcart any more than you do.\" Clevinger paused for emphasis, his mouth quivering, and then beat his fist down softly against his sleeping-bag. \"But it's not for us to determine what targets must be destroyed or who's to destroy them or-\"\n\n\"Or who gets killed doing it? And why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, even that. We have no right to question-\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're insane!\"\n\n\"-no right to question-\"\n\n\"Do you really mean that it's not my business how or why I get killed and that it is Colonel Cathcart's? Do you really mean that?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" Clevinger insisted, seeming unsure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There are men entrusted with winning the war who are in a much better position than we are to decide what targets have to be bombed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are talking about two different things,\" Yossarian answered with exaggerated weariness. \"You are talking about the relationship of the Air Corps to the infantry, and I am talking about the relationship of me to Colonel Cathcart. You are talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning the war and keeping alive.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Clevinger snapped smugly. \"And which do you think is more important?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To whom?\" Yossarian shot back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Open your eyes, Clevinger. It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.\"\n\nClevinger sat for a moment as though he'd been slapped. \"Congratulations!\" he exclaimed bitterly, the thinnest milk-white line enclosing his lips tightly in a bloodless, squeezing ring. \"I can't think of another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the enemy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The enemy,\" retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, \"is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Clevinger did forget it, and now he was dead. At the time, Clevinger was so upset by the incident that Yossarian did not dare tell him he had also been responsible for the epidemic of diarrhea that had caused the other unnecessary postponement. Milo was even more upset by the possibility that someone had poisoned his squadron again, and he came bustling fretfully to Yossarian for assistance.\n\n\"Please find out from Corporal Snark if he put laundry soap in the sweet potatoes again,\" he requested furtively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Corporal Snark trusts you and will tell you the truth if you give him your word you won't tell anyone else. As soon as he tells you, come and tell me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course I put laundry soap in the sweet potatoes,\" Corporal Snark admitted to Yossarian. \"That's what you asked me to do, isn't it? Laundry soap is the best way.\"\n\n\"He swears to God he didn't have a thing to do with it,\" Yossarian reported back to Milo.\n\nMilo pouted dubiously. \"Dunbar says there is no God.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no hope left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the middle of the second week, everyone in the squadron began to look like Hungry Joe, who was not scheduled to fly and screamed horribly in his sleep. He was the only one who could sleep. All night long, men moved through the darkness outside their tents like tongueless wraiths with cigarettes. In the daytime they stared at the bomb line in futile, drooping clusters or at the still figure of Doc Daneeka sitting in front of the closed door of the medical tent beneath the morbid hand-lettered sign." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They began to invent humorless, glum jokes of their own and disastrous rumors about the destruction awaiting them at Bologna." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian sidled up drunkenly to Colonel Korn at the officers' club one night to kid with him about the new Lepage gun that the Germans had moved in.\n\n\"What Lepage gun?\" Colonel Korn inquired with curiosity.\n\n\"The new three-hundred-and-forty-four-millimeter Lepage glue gun,\" Yossarian answered. \"It glues a whole formation of planes together in mid-air.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn jerked his elbow free from Yossarian's clutching fingers in startled affront." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let go of me, you idiot!\" he cried out furiously, glaring with vindictive approval as Nately leaped upon Yossarian's back and pulled him away. \"Who is that lunatic, anyway?\"\n\nColonel Cathcart chortled merrily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the man you made me give a medal to after Ferrara. You had me promote him to captain, too, remember? It serves you right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately was lighter than Yossarian and had great difficulty maneuvering Yossarian's lurching bulk across the room to an unoccupied table. \"Are you crazy?\" Nately kept hissing with trepidation. \"That was Colonel Korn. Are you crazy?\"\n\nYossarian wanted another drink and promised to leave quietly if Nately brought him one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he made Nately bring him two more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Nately finally coaxed him to the door, Captain Black came stomping in from outside, banging his sloshing shoes down hard on the wood floor and spilling water from his eaves like a high roof.\n\n\"Boy, are you bastards in for it!\" he announced exuberantly, splashing away from the puddle forming at his feet. \"I just got a call from Colonel Korn. Do you know what they've got waiting for you at Bologna? Ha! Ha! They've got the new Lepage glue gun. It glues a whole formation of planes together in mid-air.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My God, it's true!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian shrieked, and collapsed against Nately in terror.\n\n\"There is no God,\" answered Dunbar calmly, coming up with a slight stagger.\n\n\"Hey, give me a hand with him, will you? I've got to get him back in his tent.\"\n\n\"Says who?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Says me. Gee, look at the rain.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've got to get a car.\"\n\n\"Steal Captain Black's car,\" said Yossarian. \"That's what I always do.\"\n\n\"We can't steal anybody's car. Since you began stealing the nearest car every time you wanted one, nobody leaves the ignition on.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hop in,\" said Chief White Halfoat, driving up drunk in a covered jeep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waited until they had crowded inside and then spurted ahead with a suddenness that rolled them all over backward. He roared with laughter at their curses. He drove straight ahead when he left the parking lot and rammed the car into the embankment on the other side of the road. The others piled forward in a helpless heap and began cursing him again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I forgot to turn,\" he explained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be careful, will you?\" Nately cautioned. \"You'd better put your headlights on.\"\n\nChief White Halfoat pulled back in reverse, made his turn and shot away up the road at top speed. The wheels were sibilant on the whizzing blacktop surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not so fast,\" urged Nately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'd better take me to your squadron first so I can help you put him to bed. Then you can drive me back to my squadron.\"\n\n\"Who the hell are you?\"\n\n\"Dunbar.\"\n\n\"Hey, put your headlights on,\" Nately shouted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And watch the road!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They are on. Isn't Yossarian in this car? That's the only reason I let the rest of you bastards in.\" Chief White Halfoat turned completely around to stare into the back seat.\n\n\"Watch the road!\"\n\n\"Yossarian? Is Yossarian in here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm here, Chief. Let's go home. What makes you so sure? You never answered my question.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You see? I told you he was here.\"\n\n\"What question?\"\n\n\"Whatever it was we were talking about.\"\n\n\"Was it important?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't remember if it was important or not. I wish to God I knew what it was.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is no God.\"\n\n\"That's what we were talking about,\" Yossarian cried. \"What makes you so sure?\"\n\n\"Hey, are you sure your headlights are on?\" Nately called out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're on, they're on. What does he want from me? It's all this rain on the windshield that makes it look dark from back there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Beautiful, beautiful rain.\"\n\n\"I hope it never stops raining. Rain, rain, go a-\"\n\n\"-way. Come a-\"\n\n\"-again some oth-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"-er day. Little Yo-Yo wants-\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"-to play. In-\"\n\n\"-the meadow, in-\"\n\nChief White Halfoat missed the next turn in the road and ran the jeep all the way up to the crest of a steep embankment. Rolling back down, the jeep turned over on its side and settled softly in the mud." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a frightened silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is everyone all right?\" Chief White Halfoat inquired in a hushed voice. No one was injured, and he heaved a long sigh of relief. \"You know, that's my trouble,\" he groaned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I never listen to anybody. Somebody kept telling me to put my headlights on, but I just wouldn't listen.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I kept telling you to put your headlights on.\"\n\n\"I know, I know. And I just wouldn't listen, would I? I wish I had a drink. I do have a drink. Look. It's not broken.\"\n\n\"It's raining in,\" Nately noticed. \"I'm getting wet.\"\n\nChief White Halfoat got the bottle of rye open, drank and handed it off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lying tangled up on top of each other, they all drank but Nately, who kept groping ineffectually for the door handle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bottle fell against his head with a clunk, and whiskey poured down his neck. He began writhing convulsively.\n\n\"Hey, we've got to get out of here!\" he cried. \"We'll all drown.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is anybody in there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked Clevinger with concern, shining a flashlight down from the top.\n\n\"It's Clevinger!\" they shouted, and tried to pull him in through the window as he reached down to aid them.\n\n\"Look at them!\" Clevinger exclaimed indignantly to McWatt, who sat grinning at the wheel of the staff car. \"Lying there like a bunch of drunken animals. You too, Nately? You ought to be ashamed! Come on-help me get them out of here before they all die of pneumonia.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know, that don't sound like such a bad idea,\" Chief White Halfoat reflected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think I will die of pneumonia.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Why not?\" answered Chief White Halfoat, and lay back in the mud contentedly with the bottle of rye cuddled in his arms.\n\n\"Oh, now look what he's doing!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clevinger exclaimed with irritation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will you get up and get into the car so we can all go back to the squadron?\"\n\n\"We can't all go back. Someone has to stay here to help the Chief with this car he signed out of the motor pool.\"\n\nChief White Halfoat settled back in the staff car with an ebullient, prideful chuckle. \"That's Captain Black's car,\" he informed them jubilantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I stole it from him at the officers' club just now with an extra set of keys he thought he lost this morning.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I'll be damned! That calls for a drink.\"\n\n\"Haven't you had enough to drink?\" Clevinger began scolding as soon as McWatt started the car. \"Look at you. You don't care if you drink yourselves to death or drown yourselves to death, do you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just as long as we don't fly ourselves to death.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, open it up, open it up,\" Chief White Halfoat urged McWatt. \"And turn off the headlights. That's the only way to do it.\"\n\n\"Doc Daneeka is right,\" Clevinger went on. \"People don't know enough to take care of themselves. I really am disgusted with all of you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay, fatmouth, out of the car,\" Chief White Halfoat ordered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everybody get out of the car but Yossarian. Where's Yossarian?\"\n\n\"Get the hell off me.\" Yossarian laughed, pushing him away. \"You're all covered with mud.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clevinger focused on Nately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're the one who really surprises me. Do you know what you smell like? Instead of trying to keep him out of trouble, you get just as drunk as he is. Suppose he got in another fight with Appleby?\" Clevinger's eyes opened wide with alarm when he heard Yossarian chuckle. \"He didn't get in another fight with Appleby, did he?\"\n\n\"Not this time,\" said Dunbar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, not this time. This time I did even better.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This time he got in a fight with Colonel Korn.\"\n\n\"He didn't!\" gasped Clevinger.\n\n\"He did?\" exclaimed Chief White Halfoat with delight. \"That calls for a drink.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But that's terrible!\" Clevinger declared with deep apprehension." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why in the world did you have to pick on Colonel Korn? Say, what happened to the lights? Why is everything so dark?\"\n\n\"I turned them off,\" answered McWatt. \"You know, Chief White Halfoat is right. It's much better with the headlights off.\"\n\n\"Are you crazy?\" Clevinger screamed, and lunged forward to snap the headlights on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He whirled around upon Yossarian in near hysteria." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You see what you're doing? You've got them all acting like you! Suppose it stops raining and we have to fly to Bologna tomorrow. You'll be in fine physical condition.\"\n\n\"It won't ever gonna stop raining. No, sir, a rain like this really might go on forever.\"\n\n\"It has stopped raining!\" someone said, and the whole car fell silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You poor bastards,\" Chief White Halfoat murmured compassionately after a few moments had passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did it really stop raining?\" Yossarian asked meekly.\n\nMcWatt switched off the windshield wipers to make certain. The rain had stopped. The sky was starting to clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The moon was sharp behind a gauzy brown mist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, well,\" sang McWatt soberly. \"What the hell.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, fellas,\" Chief White Halfoat said. \"The landing strip is too soft to use tomorrow. Maybe it'll start raining again before the field dries out.\"\n\n\"You goddam stinking lousy son of a bitch,\" Hungry Joe screamed from his tent as they sped into the squadron." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jesus, is he back here tonight? I thought he was still in Rome with the courier ship.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh! Ooooh! Oooooooh!\" Hungry Joe screamed.\n\nChief White Halfoat shuddered. \"That guy gives me the willies,\" he confessed in a grouchy whisper. \"Hey, whatever happened to Captain Flume?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a guy that gives me the willies. I saw him in the woods last week eating wild berries. He never sleeps in his trailer any more. He looked like hell.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hungry Joe's afraid he'll have to replace somebody who goes on sick call, even though there is no sick call. Did you see him the other night when he tried to kill Havermeyer and fell into Yossarian's slit trench?\"\n\n\"Ooooh!\" screamed Hungry Joe. \"Oh! Ooooh! Ooooooh!\"\n\n\"It sure is a pleasure not having Flume around in the mess hall any more. No more of that 'Pass the salt, Walt.'\"\n\n\"Or 'Pass the bread, Fred.'\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or 'Shoot me a beet, Pete.'\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Keep away, keep away,\" Hungry Joe screamed. \"I said keep away, keep away, you goddam stinking lousy son of a bitch.\"\n\n\"At least we found out what he dreams about,\" Dunbar observed wryly. \"He dreams about goddam stinking lousy sons of bitches.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Late that night Hungry Joe dreamed that Huple's cat was sleeping on his face, suffocating him, and when he woke up, Huple's cat was sleeping on his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His agony was terrifying, the piercing, unearthly howl with which he split the moonlit dark vibrating in its own impact for seconds afterward like a devastating shock. A numbing silence followed, and then a riotous din rose from inside his tent.\n\nYossarian was among the first ones there. When he burst through the entrance, Hungry Joe had his gun out and was struggling to wrench his arm free from Huple to shoot the cat, who kept spitting and feinting at him ferociously to distract him from shooting Huple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both humans were in their GI underwear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The unfrosted light bulb overhead was swinging crazily on its loose wire, and the jumbled black shadows kept swirling and bobbing chaotically, so that the entire tent seemed to be reeling. Yossarian reached out instinctively for balance and then launched himself forward in a prodigious dive that crushed the three combatants to the ground beneath him. He emerged from the melee with the scruff of a neck in each hand-Hungry Joe's neck and the cat's. Hungry Joe and the cat glared at each other savagely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cat spat viciously at Hungry Joe, and Hungry Joe tried to hit it with a haymaker." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A fair fight,\" Yossarian decreed, and all the others who had come running to the uproar in horror began cheering ecstatically in a tremendous overflow of relief. \"We'll have a fair fight,\" he explained officially to Hungry Joe and the cat after he had carried them both outside, still holding them apart by the scruffs of their necks. \"Fists, fangs and claws. But no guns,\" he warned Hungry Joe. \"And no spitting,\" he warned the cat sternly." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of Joseph Heller.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of Joseph Heller every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Moving the bomb line did not fool the Germans, but it did fool Major – de Coverley, who packed his musette bag, commandeered an airplane and, under the impression that Florence too had been captured by the Allies, had himself flown to that city to rent two apartments for the officers and the enlisted men in the squadron to use on rest leaves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had still not returned by the time Yossarian jumped back outside Major Major's office and wondered whom to appeal to next for help.\n\nMajor – de Coverley was a splendid, awe-inspiring, grave old man with a massive leonine head and an angry shock of wild white hair that raged like a blizzard around his stern, patriarchal face. His duties as squadron executive officer did consist entirely, as both Doc Daneeka and Major Major had conjectured, of pitching horseshoes, kidnaping Italian laborers, and renting apartments for the enlisted men and officers to use on rest leaves, and he excelled at all three.\n\nEach time the fall of a city like Naples, Rome or Florence seemed imminent, Major – de Coverley would pack his musette bag, commandeer an airplane and a pilot, and have himself flown away, accomplishing all this without uttering a word, by the sheer force of his solemn, domineering visage and the peremptory gestures of his wrinkled finger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A day or two after the city fell, he would be back with leases on two large and luxurious apartments there, one for the officers and one for the enlisted men, both already staffed with competent, jolly cooks and maids." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few days after that, newspapers would appear throughout the world with photographs of the first American soldiers bludgeoning their way into the shattered city through rubble and smoke. Inevitably, Major – de Coverley was among them, seated straight as a ramrod in a jeep he had obtained from somewhere, glancing neither right nor left as the artillery fire burst about his invincible head and lithe young infantrymen with carbines went loping up along the sidewalks in the shelter of burning buildings or fell dead in doorways. He seemed eternally indestructible as he sat there surrounded by danger, his features molded firmly into that same fierce, regal, just and forbidding countenance which was recognized and revered by every man in the squadron.\n\nTo German intelligence, Major – de Coverley was a vexatious enigma; not one of the hundreds of American prisoners would ever supply any concrete information about the elderly white-haired officer with the gnarled and menacing brow and blazing, powerful eyes who seemed to spearhead every important advance so fearlessly and successfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To American authorities his identity was equally perplexing; a whole regiment of crack C.I.D." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "men had been thrown into the front lines to find out who he was, while a battalion of combat-hardened public-relations officers stood on red alert twenty-four hours a day with orders to begin publicizing him the moment he was located.\n\nIn Rome, Major – de Coverley had outdone himself with the apartments. For the officers, who arrived in groups of four or five, there was an immense double room for each in a new white stone building, with three spacious bathrooms with walls of shimmering aquamarine tile and one skinny maid named Michaela who tittered at everything and kept the apartment in spotless order. On the landing below lived the obsequious owners." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the landing above lived the beautiful rich black-haired Countess and her beautiful, rich black-haired daughter-in-law, both of whom would put out only for Nately, who was too shy to want them, and for Aarfy, who was too stuffy to take them and tried to dissuade them from ever putting out for anyone but their husbands, who had chosen to remain in the north with the family's business interests." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're really a couple of good kids,\" Aarfy confided earnestly to Yossarian, whose recurring dream it was to have the nude milk-white female bodies of both these beautiful rich black-haired good kids lying stretched out in bed erotically with him at the same time.\n\nThe enlisted men descended upon Rome in gangs of twelve or more with Gargantuan appetites and heavy crates filled with canned food for the women to cook and serve to them in the dining room of their own apartment on the sixth floor of a red brick building with a clinking elevator. There was always more activity at the enlisted men's place. There were always more enlisted men, to begin with, and more women to cook and serve and sweep and scrub, and then there were always the gay and silly sensual young girls that Yossarian had found and brought there and those that the sleepy enlisted men returning to Pianosa after their exhausting seven-day debauch had brought there on their own and were leaving behind for whoever wanted them next." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girls had shelter and food for as long as they wanted to stay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All they had to do in return was hump any of the men who asked them to, which seemed to make everything just about perfect for them.\n\nEvery fourth day or so Hungry Joe came crashing in like a man in torment, hoarse, wild, and frenetic, if he had been unlucky enough to finish his missions again and was flying the courier ship. Most times he slept at the enlisted men's apartment. Nobody was certain how many rooms Major – de Coverley had rented, not even the stout black-bodiced woman in corsets on the first floor from whom he had rented them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They covered the whole top floor, and Yossarian knew they extended down to the fifth floor as well, for it was in Snowden's room on the fifth floor that he had finally found the maid in the lime-colored panties with a dust mop the day after Bologna, after Hungry Joe had discovered him in bed with Luciana at the officers' apartment that same morning and had gone running like a fiend for his camera." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The maid in the lime-colored panties was a cheerful, fat, obliging woman in her mid-thirties with squashy thighs and swaying hams in lime-colored panties that she was always rolling off for any man who wanted her. She had a plain broad face and was the most virtuous woman alive: she laid for everybody, regardless of race, creed, color or place of national origin, donating herself sociably as an act of hospitality, procrastinating not even for the moment it might take to discard the cloth or broom or dust mop she was clutching at the time she was grabbed. Her allure stemmed from her accessibility; like Mt. Everest, she was there, and the men climbed on top of her each time they felt the urge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian was in love with the maid in the lime-colored panties because she seemed to be the only woman left he could make love to without falling in love with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the bald-headed girl in Sicily still evoked in him strong sensations of pity, tenderness and regret.\n\nDespite the multiple perils to which Major – de Coverley exposed himself each time he rented apartments, his only injury had occurred, ironically enough, while he was leading the triumphal procession into the open city of Rome, where he was wounded in the eye by a flower fired at him from close range by a seedy, cackling, intoxicated old man, who, like Satan himself, had then bounded up on Major – de Coverley's car with malicious glee, seized him roughly and contemptuously by his venerable white head and kissed him mockingly on each cheek with a mouth reeking with sour fumes of wine, cheese and garlic, before dropping back into the joyous celebrating throngs with a hollow, dry, excoriating laugh. Major – de Coverley, a Spartan in adversity, did not flinch once throughout the whole hideous ordeal. And not until he had returned to Pianosa, his business in Rome completed, did he seek medical attention for his wound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He resolved to remain binocular and specified to Doc Daneeka that his eye patch be transparent so that he could continue pitching horseshoes, kidnaping Italian laborers and renting apartments with unimpaired vision." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To the men in the squadron, Major – de Coverley was a colossus, although they never dared tell him so. The only one who ever did dare address him was Milo Minderbinder, who approached the horseshoe-pitching pit with a hard-boiled egg his second week in the squadron and held it aloft for Major – de Coverley to see. Major – de Coverley straightened with astonishment at Milo's effrontery and concentrated upon him the full fury of his storming countenance with its rugged overhang of gullied forehead and huge crag of a humpbacked nose that came charging out of his face wrathfully like a Big Ten fullback. Milo stood his ground, taking shelter behind the hard-boiled egg raised protectively before his face like a magic charm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In time the gale began to subside, and the danger passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is that?\" Major – de Coverley demanded at last.\n\n\"An egg,\" Milo answered\n\n\"What kind of an egg?\" Major – de Coverley demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A hard-boiled egg,\" Milo answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What kind of a hard-boiled egg?\" Major – de Coverley demanded.\n\n\"A fresh hard-boiled egg,\" Milo answered.\n\n\"Where did the fresh egg come from?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major – de Coverley demanded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"From a chicken,\" Milo answered.\n\n\"Where is the chicken?\" Major – de Coverley demanded.\n\n\"The chicken is in Malta,\" Milo answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How many chickens are there in Malta?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Enough chickens to lay fresh eggs for every officer in the squadron at five cents apiece from the mess fund,\" Milo answered.\n\n\"I have a weakness for fresh eggs,\" Major – de Coverley confessed.\n\n\"If someone put a plane at my disposal, I could fly down there once a week in a squadron plane and bring back all the fresh eggs we need,\" Milo answered. \"After all, Malta's not so far away.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Malta's not so far away,\" Major – de Coverley observed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could probably fly down there once a week in a squadron plane and bring back all the fresh eggs we need.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Milo agreed. \"I suppose I could do that, if someone wanted me to and put a plane at my disposal.\"\n\n\"I like my fresh eggs fried,\" Major – de Coverley remembered. \"In fresh butter.\"\n\n\"I can find all the fresh butter we need in Sicily for twenty-five cents a pound,\" Milo answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Twenty-five cents a pound for fresh butter is a good buy. There's enough money in the mess fund for butter too, and we could probably sell some to the other squadrons at a profit and get back most of what we pay for our own.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's your name, son?\" asked Major – de Coverley.\n\n\"My name is Milo Minderbinder, sir. I am twenty-seven years old.\"\n\n\"You're a good mess officer, Milo.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not the mess officer, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're a good mess officer, Milo.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. I'll do everything in my power to be a good mess officer.\"\n\n\"Bless you, my boy. Have a horseshoe.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. What should I do with it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Throw it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Away?\"\n\n\"At the peg there. Then pick it up and throw it at this peg. It's a game, see? You get the horseshoe back.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I see. How much are horseshoes selling for?\"\n\nThe smell of a fresh egg snapping exotically in a pool of fresh butter carried a long way on the Mediterranean trade winds and brought General Dreedle racing back with a voracious appetite, accompanied by his nurse, who accompanied him everywhere, and his son-in-law, Colonel Moodus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the beginning General Dreedle devoured all his meals in Milo's mess hall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the other three squadrons in Colonel Cathcart's group turned their mess halls over to Milo and gave him an airplane and a pilot each so that he could buy fresh eggs and fresh butter for them too. Milo's planes shuttled back and forth seven days a week as every officer in the four squadrons began devouring fresh eggs in an insatiable orgy of fresh-egg eating. General Dreedle devoured fresh eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner-between meals he devoured more fresh eggs-until Milo located abundant sources of fresh veal, beef, duck, baby lamb chops, mushroom caps, broccoli, South African rock lobster tails, shrimp, hams, puddings, grapes, ice cream, strawberries and artichokes. There were three other bomb groups in General Dreedle's combat wing, and they each jealously dispatched their own planes to Malta for fresh eggs, but discovered that fresh eggs were selling there for seven cents apiece." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since they could buy them from Milo for five cents apiece, it made more sense to turn over their mess halls to his syndicate, too, and give him the planes and pilots needed to ferry in all the other good food he promised to supply as well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone was elated with this turn of events, most of all Colonel Cathcart, who was convinced he had won a feather in his cap. He greeted Milo jovially each time they met and, in an excess of contrite generosity, impulsively recommended Major Major for promotion. The recommendation was rejected at once at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters by ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen, who scribbled a brusque, unsigned reminder that the Army had only one Major Major Major Major and did not intend to lose him by promotion just to please Colonel Cathcart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart was stung by the blunt rebuke and skulked guiltily about his room in smarting repudiation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He blamed Major Major for this black eye and decided to bust him down to lieutenant that very same day.\n\n\"They probably won't let you,\" Colonel Korn remarked with a condescending smile, savoring the situation. \"For precisely the same reasons that they wouldn't let you promote him. Besides, you'd certainly look foolish trying to bust him down to lieutenant right after you tried to promote him to my rank.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart felt hemmed in on every side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been much more successful in obtaining a medal for Yossarian after the debacle of Ferrara, when the bridge spanning the Po was still standing undamaged seven days after Colonel Cathcart had volunteered to destroy it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nine missions his men had flown there in six days, and the bridge was not demolished until the tenth mission on the seventh day, when Yossarian killed Kraft and his crew by taking his flight of six planes in over the target a second time. Yossarian came in carefully on his second bomb run because he was brave then. He buried his head in his bombsight until his bombs were away; when he looked up, everything inside the ship was suffused in a weird orange glow. At first he thought that his own plane was on fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he spied the plane with the burning engine directly above him and screamed to McWatt through the intercom to turn left hard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A second later, the wing of Kraft's plane blew off. The flaming wreck dropped, first the fuselage, then the spinning wing, while a shower of tiny metal fragments began tap dancing on the roof of Yossarian's own plane and the incessant cachung! cachung! cachung! of the flak was still thumping all around him.\n\nBack on the ground, every eye watched grimly as he walked in dull dejection up to Captain Black outside the green clapboard briefing room to make his intelligence report and learned that Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn were waiting to speak to him inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Danby stood barring the door, waving everyone else away in ashen silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was leaden with fatigue and longed to remove his sticky clothing. He stepped into the briefing room with mixed emotions, uncertain how he was supposed to feel about Kraft and the others, for they had all died in the distance of a mute and secluded agony at a moment when he was up to his own ass in the same vile, excruciating dilemma of duty and damnation.\n\nColonel Cathcart, on the other hand, was all broken up by the event. \"Twice?\" he asked.\n\n\"I would have missed it the first time,\" Yossarian replied softly, his face lowered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their voices echoed slightly in the long, narrow bungalow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But twice?\" Colonel Cathcart repeated, in vivid disbelief.\n\n\"I would have missed it the first time,\" Yossarian repeated.\n\n\"But Kraft would be alive.\"\n\n\"And the bridge would still be up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A trained bombardier is supposed to drop his bombs the first time,\" Colonel Cathcart reminded him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The other five bombardiers dropped their bombs the first time.\"\n\n\"And missed the target,\" Yossarian said. \"We'd have had to go back there again.\"\n\n\"And maybe you would have gotten it the first time then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And maybe I wouldn't have gotten it at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But maybe there wouldn't have been any losses.\"\n\n\"And maybe there would have been more losses, with the bridge still left standing. I thought you wanted the bridge destroyed.\"\n\n\"Don't contradict me,\" Colonel Cathcart said. \"We're all in enough trouble.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not contradicting you, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes you are. Even that's a contradiction.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I'm sorry.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart cracked his knuckles violently. Colonel Korn, a stocky, dark, flaccid man with a shapeless paunch, sat completely relaxed on one of the benches in the front row, his hands clasped comfortably over the top of his bald and swarthy head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes were amused behind his glinting rimless spectacles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're trying to be perfectly objective about this,\" he prompted Colonel Cathcart.\n\n\"We're trying to be perfectly objective about this,\" Colonel Cathcart said to Yossarian with the zeal of sudden inspiration. \"It's not that I'm being sentimental or anything. I don't give a damn about the men or the airplane. It's just that it looks so lousy on the report. How am I going to cover up something like this in the report?\"\n\n\"Why don't you give me a medal?\" Yossarian suggested timidly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For going around twice?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You gave one to Hungry Joe when he cracked up that airplane by mistake.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart snickered ruefully. \"You'll be lucky if we don't give you a court-martial.\"\n\n\"But I got the bridge the second time around,\" Yossarian protested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought you wanted the bridge destroyed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, I don't know what I wanted,\" Colonel Cathcart cried out in exasperation. \"Look, of course I wanted the bridge destroyed. That bridge has been a source of trouble to me ever since I decided to send you men out to get it. But why couldn't you do it the first time?\"\n\n\"I didn't have enough time. My navigator wasn't sure we had the right city.\"\n\n\"The right city?\" Colonel Cathcart was baffled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you trying to blame it all on Aarfy now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sir. It was my mistake for letting him distract me. All I'm trying to say is that I'm not infallible.\"\n\n\"Nobody is infallible,\" Colonel Cathcart said sharply, and then continued vaguely, with an afterthought: \"Nobody is indispensable, either.\"\n\nThere was no rebuttal. Colonel Korn stretched sluggishly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've got to reach a decision,\" he observed casually to Colonel Cathcart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've got to reach a decision,\" Colonel Cathcart said to Yossarian. \"And it's all your fault. Why did you have to go around twice? Why couldn't you drop your bombs the first time like all the others?\"\n\n\"I would have missed the first time.\"\n\n\"It seems to me that we're going around twice,\" Colonel Korn interrupted with a chuckle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But what are we going to do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart exclaimed with distress. \"The others are all waiting outside.\"\n\n\"Why don't we give him a medal?\" Colonel Korn proposed.\n\n\"For going around twice? What can we give him a medal for?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For going around twice,\" Colonel Korn answered with a reflective, self-satisfied smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"After all, I suppose it did take a lot of courage to go over that target a second time with no other planes around to divert the antiaircraft fire. And he did hit the bridge. You know, that might be the answer-to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail.\"\n\n\"Do you think it will work?\"\n\n\"I'm sure it will. And let's promote him to captain, too, just to make certain.\"\n\n\"Don't you think that's going a bit farther than we have to?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of Joseph Heller spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time of the mission to Bologna, Yossarian was brave enough not to go around over the target even once, and when he found himself aloft finally in the nose of Kid Sampson's plane, he pressed in the button of his throat mike and asked,\n\n\"Well? What's wrong with the plane?\"\n\nKid Sampson let out a shriek. \"Is something wrong with the plane? What's the matter?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kid Sampson's cry turned Yossarian to ice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is something the matter?\" he yelled in horror. \"Are we bailing out?\"\n\n\"I don't know!\" Kid Sampson shot back in anguish, wailing excitedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Someone said we're bailing out! Who is this, anyway? Who is this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is Yossarian in the nose! Yossarian in the nose. I heard you say there was something the matter. Didn't you say there was something the matter?\"\n\n\"I thought you said there was something wrong. Everything seems okay. Everything is all right.\"\n\nYossarian's heart sank. Something was terribly wrong if everything was all right and they had no excuse for turning back. He hesitated gravely.\n\n\"I can't hear you,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I said everything is all right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sun was blinding white on the porcelain-blue water below and on the flashing edges of the other airplanes. Yossarian took hold of the colored wires leading into the jackbox of the intercom system and tore them loose.\n\n\"I still can't hear you,\" he said.\n\nHe heard nothing. Slowly he collected his map case and his three flak suits and crawled back to the main compartment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately, sitting stiffly in the co-pilot's seat, spied him through the corner of his eye as he stepped up on the flight deck behind Kid Sampson." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled at Yossarian wanly, looking frail and exceptionally young and bashful in the bulky dungeon of his earphones, hat, throat mike, flak suit and parachute. Yossarian bent close to Kid Sampson's ear.\n\n\"I still can't hear you,\" he shouted above the even drone of the engines.\n\nKid Sampson glanced back at him with surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kid Sampson had an angular, comical face with arched eyebrows and a scrawny blond mustache." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" he called out over his shoulder.\n\n\"I still can't hear you,\" Yossarian repeated.\n\n\"You'll have to talk louder,\" Kid Sampson said. \"I still can't hear you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I said I still can't hear you!\" Yossarian yelled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't help it,\" Kid Sampson yelled back at him. \"I'm shouting as loud as I can.\"\n\n\"I couldn't hear you over my intercom,\" Yossarian bellowed in mounting helplessness. \"You'll have to turn back.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For an intercom?\" asked Kid Sampson incredulously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Turn back,\" said Yossarian, \"before I break your head.\"\n\nKid Sampson looked for moral support toward Nately, who stared away from him pointedly. Yossarian outranked them both. Kid Sampson resisted doubtfully for another moment and then capitulated eagerly with a triumphant whoop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's just fine with me,\" he announced gladly, and blew out a shrill series of whistles up into his mustache." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes sirree, that's just fine with old Kid Sampson.\" He whistled again and shouted over the intercom, \"Now hear this, my little chickadees. This is Admiral Kid Sampson talking. This is Admiral Kid Sampson squawking, the pride of the Queen's marines. Yessiree. We're turning back, boys, by crackee, we're turning back!\"\n\nNately ripped off his hat and earphones in one jubilant sweep and began rocking back and forth happily like a handsome child in a high chair. Sergeant Knight came plummeting down from the top gun turret and began pounding them all on the back with delirious enthusiasm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kid Sampson turned the plane away from the formation in a wide, graceful arc and headed toward the airfield." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Yossarian plugged his headset into one of the auxiliary jackboxes, the two gunners in the rear section of the plane were both singing \"La Cucaracha.\"\n\nBack at the field, the party fizzled out abruptly. An uneasy silence replaced it, and Yossarian was sober and self-conscious as he climbed down from the plane and took his place in the jeep that was already waiting for them. None of the men spoke at all on the drive back through the heavy, mesmerizing quiet blanketing mountains, sea and forests." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The feeling of desolation persisted when they turned off the road at the squadron." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian got out of the car last. After a minute, Yossarian and a gentle warm wind were the only things stirring in the haunting tranquillity that hung like a drug over the vacated tents. The squadron stood insensate, bereft of everything human but Doc Daneeka, who roosted dolorously like a shivering turkey buzzard beside the closed door of the medical tent, his stuffed nose jabbing away in thirsting futility at the hazy sunlight streaming down around him. Yossarian knew Doc Daneeka would not go swimming with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doc Daneeka would never go swimming again; a person could swoon or suffer a mild coronary occlusion in an inch or two of water and drown to death, be carried out to sea by an undertow, or made vulnerable to poliomyelitis or meningococcus infection through chilling or over-exertion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The threat of Bologna to others had instilled in Doc Daneeka an even more poignant solicitude for his own safety. At night now, he heard burglars.\n\nThrough the lavender gloom clouding the entrance of the operations tent, Yossarian glimpsed Chief White Halfoat, diligently embezzling whiskey rations, forging the signatures of nondrinkers and pouring off the alcohol with which he was poisoning himself into separate bottles rapidly in order to steal as much as he could before Captain Black roused himself with recollection and came hurrying over indolently to steal the rest himself.\n\nThe jeep started up again softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kid Sampson, Nately and the others wandered apart in a noiseless eddy of motion and were sucked away into the cloying yellow stillness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The jeep vanished with a cough. Yossarian was alone in a ponderous, primeval lull in which everything green looked black and everything else was imbued with the color of pus. The breeze rustled leaves in a dry and diaphanous distance. He was restless, scared and sleepy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sockets of his eyes felt grimy with exhaustion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wearily he moved inside the parachute tent with its long table of smoothed wood, a nagging bitch of a doubt burrowing painlessly inside a conscience that felt perfectly clear. He left his flak suit and parachute there and crossed back past the water wagon to the intelligence tent to return his map case to Captain Black, who sat drowsing in his chair with his skinny long legs up on his desk and inquired with indifferent curiosity why Yossarian's plane had turned back. Yossarian ignored him. He set the map down on the counter and walked out.\n\nBack in his own tent, he squirmed out of his parachute harness and then out of his clothes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr was in Rome, due back that same afternoon from the rest leave he had won by ditching his plane in the waters off Genoa." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately would already be packing to replace him, entranced to find himself still alive and undoubtedly impatient to resume his wasted and heartbreaking courtship of his prostitute in Rome. When Yossarian was undressed, he sat down on his cot to rest. He felt much better as soon as he was naked. He never felt comfortable in clothes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a little while he put fresh undershorts back on and set out for the beach in his moccasins, a khaki-colored bath towel draped over his shoulders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The path from the squadron led him around a mysterious gun emplacement in the woods; two of the three enlisted men stationed there lay sleeping on the circle of sand bags and the third sat eating a purple pomegranate, biting off large mouthfuls between his churning jaws and spewing the ground roughage out away from him into the bushes. When he bit, red juice ran out of his mouth. Yossarian padded ahead into the forest again, caressing his bare, tingling belly adoringly from time to time as though to reassure himself it was all still there. He rolled a piece of lint out of his navel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Along the ground suddenly, on both sides of the path, he saw dozens of new mushrooms the rain had spawned poking their nodular fingers up through the clammy earth like lifeless stalks of flesh, sprouting in such necrotic profusion everywhere he looked that they seemed to be proliferating right before his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were thousands of them swarming as far back into the underbrush as he could see, and they appeared to swell in size and multiply in number as he spied them. He hurried away from them with a shiver of eerie alarm and did not slacken his pace until the soil crumbled to dry sand beneath his feet and they had been left behind. He glanced back apprehensively, half expecting to find the limp white things crawling after him in sightless pursuit or snaking up through the treetops in a writhing and ungovernable mutative mass.\n\nThe beach was deserted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only sounds were hushed ones, the bloated gurgle of the stream, the respirating hum of the tall grass and shrubs behind him, the apathetic moaning of the dumb, translucent waves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The surf was always small, the water clear and cool. Yossarian left his things on the sand and moved through the knee-high waves until he was completely immersed. On the other side of the sea, a bumpy sliver of dark land lay wrapped in mist, almost invisible. He swam languorously out to the raft, held on a moment, and swam languorously back to where he could stand on the sand bar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He submerged himself head first into the green water several times until he felt clean and wide-awake and then stretched himself out face down in the sand and slept until the planes returning from Bologna were almost overhead and the great, cumulative rumble of their many engines came crashing in through his slumber in an earth-shattering roar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He woke up blinking with a slight pain in his head and opened his eyes upon a world boiling in chaos in which everything was in proper order. He gasped in utter amazement at the fantastic sight of the twelve flights of planes organized calmly into exact formation. The scene was too unexpected to be true. There were no planes spurting ahead with wounded, none lagging behind with damage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No distress flares smoked in the sky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No ship was missing but his own. For an instant he was paralyzed with a sensation of madness. Then he understood, and almost wept at the irony. The explanation was simple: clouds had covered the target before the planes could bomb it, and the mission to Bologna was still to be flown." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide 4 sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren, the inoffensive joint squadron operations officers, were both mild, soft-spoken men of less than middle height who enjoyed flying combat missions and begged nothing more of life and Colonel Cathcart than the opportunity to continue flying them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had flown hundreds of combat missions and wanted to fly hundreds more. They assigned themselves to every one. Nothing so wonderful as war had ever happened to them before; and they were afraid it might never happen to them again. They conducted their duties humbly and reticently, with a minimum of fuss, and went to great lengths not to antagonize anyone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They smiled quickly at everyone they passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they spoke, they mumbled. They were shifty, cheerful, subservient men who were comfortable only with each other and never met anyone else's eye, not even Yossarian's eye at the open-air meeting they called to reprimand him publicly for making Kid Sampson turn back from the mission to Bologna.\n\n\"Fellas,\" said Captain Piltchard, who had thinning dark hair and smiled awkwardly. \"When you turn back from a mission, try to make sure it's for something important, will you? Not for something unimportant... like a defective intercom... or something like that. Okay? Captain Wren has more he wants to say to you on that subject.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Captain Piltchard's right, fellas,\" said Captain Wren." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that's all I'm going to say to you on that subject. Well, we finally got to Bologna today, and we found out it's a milk run. We were all a little nervous, I guess, and didn't do too much damage. Well, listen to this. Colonel Cathcart got permission for us to go back. And tomorrow we're really going to paste those ammunition dumps. Now, what do you think about that?\"\n\nAnd to prove to Yossarian that they bore him no animosity, they even assigned him to fly lead bombardier with McWatt in the first formation when they went back to Bologna the next day. He came in on the target like a Havermeyer, confidently taking no evasive action at all, and suddenly they were shooting the living shit out of him!\n\nHeavy flak was everywhere!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been lulled, lured and trapped, and there was nothing he could do but sit there like an idiot and watch the ugly black puffs smashing up to kill him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was nothing he could do until his bombs dropped but look back into the bombsight, where the fine cross-hairs in the lens were glued magnetically over the target exactly where he had placed them, intersecting perfectly deep inside the yard of his block of camouflaged warehouses before the base of the first building. He was trembling steadily as the plane crept ahead. He could hear the hollow boom-boom-boom-boom of the flak pounding all around him in overlapping measures of four, the sharp, piercing crack! of a single shell exploding suddenly very close by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His head was bursting with a thousand dissonant impulses as he prayed for the bombs to drop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to sob. The engines droned on monotonously like a fat, lazy fly. At last the indices on the bombsight crossed, tripping away the eight 500-pounders one after the other. The plane lurched upward buoyantly with the lightened load." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian bent away from the bombsight crookedly to watch the indicator on his left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the pointer touched zero, he closed the bomb bay doors and, over the intercom, at the very top of his voice, shrieked:\n\n\"Turn right hard!\"\n\nMcWatt responded instantly. With a grinding howl of engines, he flipped the plane over on one wing and wrung it around remorselessly in a screaming turn away from the twin spires of flak Yossarian had spied stabbing toward them. Then Yossarian had McWatt climb and keep climbing higher and higher until they tore free finally into a calm, diamond-blue sky that was sunny and pure everywhere and laced in the distance with long white veils of tenuous fluff." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wind strummed soothingly against the cylindrical panes of his windows, and he relaxed exultantly only until they picked up speed again and then turned McWatt left and plunged him right back down, noticing with a transitory spasm of elation the mushrooming clusters of flak leaping open high above him and back over his shoulder to the right, exactly where he could have been if he had not turned left and dived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He leveled McWatt out with another harsh cry and whipped him upward and around again into a ragged blue patch of unpolluted air just as the bombs he had dropped began to strike. The first one fell in the yard, exactly where he had aimed, and then the rest of the bombs from his own plane and from the other planes in his flight burst open on the ground in a charge of rapid orange flashes across the tops of the buildings, which collapsed instantly in a vast, churning wave of pink and gray and coal-black smoke that went rolling out turbulently in all directions and quaked convulsively in its bowels as though from great blasts of red and white and golden sheet lightning.\n\n\"Well, will you look at that,\" Aarfy marveled sonorously right beside Yossarian, his plump, orbicular face sparkling with a look of bright enchantment. \"There must have been an ammunition dump down there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian had forgotten about Aarfy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get out!\" he shouted at him. \"Get out of the nose!\"\n\nAarfy smiled politely and pointed down toward the target in a generous invitation for Yossarian to look. Yossarian began slapping at him insistently and signaled wildly toward the entrance of the crawlway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get back in the ship!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he cried frantically. \"Get back in the ship!\"\n\nAarfy shrugged amiably. \"I can't hear you,\" he explained.\n\nYossarian seized him by the straps of his parachute harness and pushed him backward toward the crawlway just as the plane was hit with a jarring concussion that rattled his bones and made his heart stop. He knew at once they were all dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Climb!\" he screamed into the intercom at McWatt when he saw he was still alive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb!\"\n\nThe plane zoomed upward again in a climb that was swift and straining, until he leveled it out with another harsh shout at McWatt and wrenched it around once more in a roaring, merciless forty-five-degree turn that sucked his insides out in one enervating sniff and left him floating fleshless in mid-air until he leveled McWatt out again just long enough to hurl him back around toward the right and then down into a screeching dive. Through endless blobs of ghostly black smoke he sped, the hanging smut wafting against the smooth plexiglass nose of the ship like an evil, damp, sooty vapor against his cheeks. His heart was hammering again in aching terror as he hurtled upward and downward through the blind gangs of flak charging murderously into the sky at him, then sagging inertly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sweat gushed from his neck in torrents and poured down over his chest and waist with the feeling of warm slime." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was vaguely aware for an instant that the planes in his formation were no longer there, and then he was aware of only himself. His throat hurt like a raw slash from the strangling intensity with which he shrieked each command to McWatt. The engines rose to a deafening, agonized, ululating bellow each time McWatt changed direction. And far out in front the bursts of flak were still swarming into the sky from new batteries of guns poking around for accurate altitude as they waited sadistically for him to fly into range." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The plane was slammed again suddenly with another loud, jarring explosion that almost rocked it over on its back, and the nose filled immediately with sweet clouds of blue smoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something was on fire! Yossarian whirled to escape and smacked into Aarfy, who had struck a match and was placidly lighting his pipe. Yossarian gaped at his grinning, moon-faced navigator in utter shock and confusion. It occurred to him that one of them was mad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jesus Christ!\" he screamed at Aarfy in tortured amazement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get the hell out of the nose! Are you crazy? Get out!\"\n\n\"What?\" said Aarfy.\n\n\"Get out!\" Yossarian yelled hysterically, and began clubbing Aarfy backhanded with both fists to drive him away. \"Get out!\"\n\n\"I still can't hear you,\" Aarfy called back innocently with an expression of mild and reproving perplexity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll have to talk a little louder.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get out of the nose!\" Yossarian shrieked in frustration. \"They're trying to kill us! Don't you understand? They're trying to kill us!\"\n\n\"Which way should I go, goddam it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "McWatt shouted furiously over the intercom in a suffering, high-pitched voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which way should I go?\"\n\n\"Turn left! Left, you goddam dirty son of a bitch! Turn left hard!\"\n\nAarfy crept up close behind Yossarian and jabbed him sharply in the ribs with the stem of his pipe. Yossarian flew up toward the ceiling with a whinnying cry, then jumped completely around on his knees, white as a sheet and quivering with rage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aarfy winked encouragingly and jerked his thumb back toward McWatt with a humorous moue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's eating him?\" he asked with a laugh.\n\nYossarian was struck with a weird sense of distortion. \"Will you get out of here?\" he yelped beseechingly, and shoved Aarfy over with all his strength." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you deaf or something? Get back in the plane!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And to McWatt he screamed, \"Dive! Dive!\"\n\nDown they sank once more into the crunching, thudding, voluminous barrage of bursting antiaircraft shells as Aarfy came creeping back behind Yossarian and jabbed him sharply in the ribs again. Yossarian shied upward with another whinnying gasp.\n\n\"I still couldn't hear you,\" Aarfy said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I said get out of here!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian shouted, and broke into tears. He began punching Aarfy in the body with both hands as hard as he could. \"Get away from me! Get away!\"\n\nPunching Aarfy was like sinking his fists into a limp sack of inflated rubber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no resistance, no response at all from the soft, insensitive mass, and after a while Yossarian's spirit died and his arms dropped helplessly with exhaustion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was overcome with a humiliating feeling of impotence and was ready to weep in self-pity.\n\n\"What did you say?\" Aarfy asked.\n\n\"Get away from me,\" Yossarian answered, pleading with him now. \"Go back in the plane.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I still can't hear you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never mind,\" wailed Yossarian, \"never mind. Just leave me alone.\"\n\n\"Never mind what?\"\n\nYossarian began hitting himself in the forehead. He seized Aarfy by the shirt front and, struggling to his feet for traction, dragged him to the rear of the nose compartment and flung him down like a bloated and unwieldy bag in the entrance of the crawlway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A shell banged open with a stupendous clout right beside his ear as he was scrambling back toward the front, and some undestroyed recess of his intelligence wondered that it did not kill them all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were climbing again. The engines were howling again as though in pain, and the air inside the plane was acrid with the smell of machinery and fetid with the stench of gasoline. The next thing he knew, it was snowing!\n\nThousands of tiny bits of white paper were falling like snowflakes inside the plane, milling around his head so thickly that they clung to his eyelashes when he blinked in astonishment and fluttered against his nostrils and lips each time he inhaled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he spun around in his bewilderment, Aarfy was grinning proudly from ear to ear like something inhuman as he held up a shattered paper map for Yossarian to see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A large chunk of flak had ripped up from the floor through Aarfy's colossal jumble of maps and had ripped out through the ceiling inches away from their heads. Aarfy's joy was sublime.\n\n\"Will you look at this?\" he murmured, waggling two of his stubby fingers playfully into Yossarian's face through the hole in one of his maps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will you look at this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was dumbfounded by his state of rapturous contentment. Aarfy was like an eerie ogre in a dream, incapable of being bruised or evaded, and Yossarian dreaded him for a complex of reasons he was too petrified to untangle. Wind whistling up through the jagged gash in the floor kept the myriad bits of paper circulating like alabaster particles in a paperweight and contributed to a sensation of lacquered, waterlogged unreality. Everything seemed strange, so tawdry and grotesque." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His head was throbbing from a shrill clamor that drilled relentlessly into both ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was McWatt, begging for directions in an incoherent frenzy. Yossarian continued staring in tormented fascination at Aarfy's spherical countenance beaming at him so serenely and vacantly through the drifting whorls of white paper bits and concluded that he was a raving lunatic just as eight bursts of flak broke open successively at eye level off to the right, then eight more, and then eight more, the last group pulled over toward the left so that they were almost directly in front.\n\n\"Turn left hard!\" he hollered to McWatt, as Aarfy kept grinning, and McWatt did turn left hard, but the flak turned left hard with them, catching up fast, and Yossarian hollered, \"I said hard, hard, hard, hard, you bastard, hard!\"\n\nAnd McWatt bent the plane around even harder still, and suddenly, miraculously, they were out of range." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The flak ended. The guns stopped booming at them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And they were alive.\n\nBehind him, men were dying. Strung out for miles in a stricken, tortuous, squirming line, the other flights of planes were making the same hazardous journey over the target, threading their swift way through the swollen masses of new and old bursts of flak like rats racing in a pack through their own droppings. One was on fire, and flapped lamely off by itself, billowing gigantically like a monstrous blood-red star." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Yossarian watched, the burning plane floated over on its side and began spiraling down slowly in wide, tremulous, narrowing circles, its huge flaming burden blazing orange and flaring out in back like a long, swirling cape of fire and smoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were parachutes, one, two, three... four, and then the plane gyrated into a spin and fell the rest of the way to the ground, fluttering insensibly inside its vivid pyre like a shred of colored tissue paper. One whole flight of planes from another squadron had been blasted apart.\n\nYossarian sighed barrenly, his day's work done. He was listless and sticky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The engines crooned mellifluously as McWatt throttled back to loiter and allow the rest of the planes in his flight to catch up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The abrupt stillness seemed alien and artificial, a little insidious. Yossarian unsnapped his flak suit and took off his helmet. He sighed again, restlessly, and closed his eyes and tried to relax.\n\n\"Where's Orr?\" someone asked suddenly over his intercom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian bounded up with a one-syllable cry that crackled with anxiety and provided the only rational explanation for the whole mysterious phenomenon of the flak at Bologna: Orr!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lunged forward over the bombsight to search downward through the plexiglass for some reassuring sign of Orr, who drew flak like a magnet and who had undoubtedly attracted the crack batteries of the whole Hermann Goering Division to Bologna overnight from wherever the hell they had been stationed the day before when Orr was still in Rome. Aarfy launched himself forward an instant later and cracked Yossarian on the bridge of the nose with the sharp rim of his flak helmet. Yossarian cursed him as his eyes flooded with tears.\n\n\"There he is,\" Aarfy orated funereally, pointing down dramatically at a hay wagon and two horses standing before the barn of a gray stone farmhouse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Smashed to bits. I guess their numbers were all up.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian swore at Aarfy again and continued searching intently, cold with a compassionate kind of fear now for the little bouncy and bizarre buck-toothed tentmate who had smashed Appleby's forehead open with a ping-pong racket and who was scaring the daylights out of Yossarian once again. At last Yossarian spotted the two-engined, twin-ruddered plane as it flew out of the green background of the forests over a field of yellow farmland. One of the propellers was feathered and perfectly still, but the plane was maintaining altitude and holding a proper course. Yossarian muttered an unconscious prayer of thankfulness and then flared up at Orr savagely in a ranting fusion of resentment and relief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That bastard!\" he began." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That goddam stunted, red-faced, big-cheeked, curly-headed, buck-toothed rat bastard son of a bitch!\"\n\n\"What?\" said Aarfy.\n\n\"That dirty goddam midget-assed, apple-cheeked, goggle-eyed, undersized, buck-toothed, grinning, crazy sonofabitchin-bastard!\" Yossarian sputtered.\n\n\"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Never mind!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I still can't hear you,\" Aarfy answered.\n\nYossarian swung himself around methodically to face Aarfy. \"You prick,\" he began.\n\n\"Me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You pompous, rotund, neighborly, vacuous, complacent...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aarfy was unperturbed. Calmly he struck a wooden match and sucked noisily at his pipe with an eloquent air of benign and magnanimous forgiveness. He smiled sociably and opened his mouth to speak. Yossarian put his hand over Aarfy's mouth and pushed him away wearily. He shut his eyes and pretended to sleep all the way back to the field so that he would not have to listen to Aarfy or see him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the briefing room Yossarian made his intelligence report to Captain Black and then waited in muttering suspense with all the others until Orr chugged into sight overhead finally with his one good engine still keeping him aloft gamely." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nobody breathed. Orr's landing gear would not come down. Yossarian hung around only until Orr had crash-landed safely, and then stole the first jeep he could find with a key in the ignition and raced back to his tent to begin packing feverishly for the emergency rest leave he had decided to take in Rome, where he found Luciana and her invisible scar that same night." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with four sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Joseph Heller.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next four sentences in the distinctive voice of Joseph Heller.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a Joseph Heller sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found Luciana sitting alone at a table in the Allied officers' night club, where the drunken Anzac major who had brought her there had been stupid enough to desert her for the ribald company of some singing comrades at the bar.\n\n\"All right, I'll dance with you,\" she said, before Yossarian could even speak. \"But I won't let you sleep with me.\"\n\n\"Who asked you?\" Yossarian asked her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't want to sleep with me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she exclaimed with surprise.\n\n\"I don't want to dance with you.\"\n\nShe seized Yossarian's hand and pulled him out on the dance floor. She was a worse dancer than even he was, but she threw herself about to the synthetic jitterbug music with more uninhibited pleasure than he had ever observed until he felt his legs falling asleep with boredom and yanked her off the dance floor toward the table at which the girl he should have been screwing was still sitting tipsily with one hand around Aarfy's neck, her orange satin blouse still hanging open slovenly below her full white lacy brassière as she made dirty sex talk ostentatiously with Huple, Orr, Kid Sampson and Hungry Joe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just as he reached them, Luciana gave him a forceful, unexpected shove that carried them both well beyond the table, so that they were still alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was a tall, earthy, exuberant girl with long hair and a pretty face, a buxom, delightful, flirtatious girl.\n\n\"All right,\" she said, \"I will let you buy me dinner. But I won't let you sleep with me.\"\n\n\"Who asked you?\" Yossarian asked with surprise.\n\n\"You don't want to sleep with me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't want to buy you dinner.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pulled him out of the night club into the street and down a flight of steps into a black-market restaurant filled with lively, chirping, attractive girls who all seemed to know each other and with the self-conscious military officers from different countries who had come there with them. The food was elegant and expensive, and the aisles were overflowing with great streams of flushed and merry proprietors, all stout and balding. The bustling interior radiated with enormous, engulfing waves of fun and warmth.\n\nYossarian got a tremendous kick out of the rude gusto with which Luciana ignored him completely while she shoveled away her whole meal with both hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She ate like a horse until the last plate was clean, and then she placed her silverware down with an air of conclusion and settled back lazily in her chair with a dreamy and congested look of sated gluttony." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She drew a deep, smiling, contented breath and regarded him amorously with a melting gaze.\n\n\"Okay, Joe,\" she purred, her glowing dark eyes drowsy and grateful. \"Now I will let you sleep with me.\"\n\n\"My name is Yossarian.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay, Yossarian,\" she answered with a soft repentant laugh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now I will let you sleep with me.\"\n\n\"Who asked you?\" said Yossarian.\n\nLuciana was stunned. \"You don't want to sleep with me?\"\n\nYossarian nodded emphatically, laughing, and shot his hand up under her dress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl came to life with a horrified start." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She jerked her legs away from him instantly, whipping her bottom around. Blushing with alarm and embarrassment, she pushed her skirt back down with a number of prim, sidelong glances about the restaurant.\n\n\"Now I will let you sleep with me,\" she explained cautiously in a manner of apprehensive indulgence. \"But not now.\"\n\n\"I know. When we get back to my room.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl shook her head, eyeing him mistrustfully and keeping her knees pressed together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, now I must go home to my mamma, because my mamma does not like me to dance with soldiers or let them take me to dinner, and she will be very angry with me if I do not come home now. But I will let you write down for me where you live. And tomorrow morning I will come to your room for ficky-fick before I go to my work at the French office. Capisci?\"\n\n\"Bullshit!\" Yossarian exclaimed with angry disappointment.\n\n\"Cosa vuol dire bullshit?\" Luciana inquired with a blank look." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian broke into loud laughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He answered her finally in a tone of sympathetic good humor. \"It means that I want to escort you now to wherever the hell I have to take you next so that I can rush back to that night club before Aarfy leaves with that wonderful tomato he's got without giving me a chance to ask about an aunt or friend she must have who's just like her.\"\n\n\"Come?\"\n\n\"Subito, subito,\" he taunted her tenderly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mamma is waiting. Remember?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Si, si. Mamma.\"\n\nYossarian let the girl drag him through the lovely Roman spring night for almost a mile until they reached a chaotic bus depot honking with horns, blazing with red and yellow lights and echoing with the snarling vituperations of unshaven bus drivers pouring loathsome, hair-raising curses out at each other, at their passengers and at the strolling, unconcerned knots of pedestrians clogging their paths, who ignored them until they were bumped by the buses and began shouting curses back. Luciana vanished aboard one of the diminutive green vehicles, and Yossarian hurried as fast as he could all the way back to the cabaret and the bleary-eyed bleached blonde in the open orange satin blouse. She seemed infatuated with Aarfy, but he prayed intensely for her luscious aunt as he ran, or for a luscious girl friend, sister, cousin, or mother who was just as libidinous and depraved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She would have been perfect for Yossarian, a debauched, coarse, vulgar, amoral, appetizing slattern whom he had longed for and idolized for months." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was a real find. She paid for her own drinks, and she had an automobile, an apartment and a salmon-colored cameo ring that drove Hungry Joe clean out of his senses with its exquisitely carved figures of a naked boy and girl on a rock. Hungry Joe snorted and pranced and pawed at the floor in salivating lust and groveling need, but the girl would not sell him the ring, even though he offered her all the money in all their pockets and his complicated black camera thrown in. She was not interested in money or cameras." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was interested in fornication." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was gone when Yossarian got there. They were all gone, and he walked right out and moved in wistful dejection through the dark, emptying streets. Yossarian was not often lonely when he was by himself, but he was lonely now in his keen envy of Aarfy, who he knew was in bed that very moment with the girl who was just right for Yossarian, and who could also make out any time he wanted to, if he ever wanted to, with either or both of the two slender, stunning, aristocratic women who lived in the apartment upstairs and fructified Yossarian's sex fantasies whenever he had sex fantasies, the beautiful rich black-haired countess with the red, wet, nervous lips and her beautiful rich black-haired daughter-in-law. Yossarian was madly in love with all of them as he made his way back to the officers' apartment, in love with Luciana, with the prurient intoxicated girl in the unbuttoned satin blouse, and with the beautiful rich countess and her beautiful rich daughter-in-law, both of whom would never let him touch them or even flirt with them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They doted kittenishly on Nately and deferred passively to Aarfy, but they thought Yossarian was crazy and recoiled from him with distasteful contempt each time he made an indecent proposal or tried to fondle them when they passed on the stairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were both superb creatures with pulpy, bright, pointed tongues and mouths like round warm plums, a little sweet and sticky, a little rotten. They had class; Yossarian was not sure what class was, but he knew that they had it and he did not, and that they knew it, too. He could picture, as he walked, the kind of underclothing they wore against their svelte feminine parts, filmy, smooth, clinging garments of deepest black or of opalescent pastel radiance with flowering lace borders fragrant with the tantalizing fumes of pampered flesh and scented bath salts rising in a germinating cloud from their blue-white breasts. He wished again that he was where Aarfy was, making obscene, brutal, cheerful love with a juicy drunken tart who didn't give a tinker's dam about him and would never think of him again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Aarfy was already back in the apartment when Yossarian arrived, and Yossarian gaped at him with that same sense of persecuted astonishment he had suffered that same morning over Bologna at his malign and cabalistic and irremovable presence in the nose of the plane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing here?\" he asked.\n\n\"That's right, ask him!\" Hungry Joe exclaimed in a rage. \"Make him tell you what he's doing here!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a long, theatrical moan, Kid Sampson made a pistol of his thumb and forefinger and blew his own brains out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Huple, chewing away on a bulging wad of bubble gum, drank everything in with a callow, vacant expression on his fifteen-year old face. Aarfy was tapping the bowl of his pipe against his palm leisurely as he paced back and forth in corpulent self-approval, obviously delighted by the stir he was causing.\n\n\"Didn't you go home with that girl?\" Yossarian demanded.\n\n\"Oh, sure, I went home with her,\" Aarfy replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You didn't think I was going to let her try to find her way home alone, did you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wouldn't she let you stay with her?\"\n\n\"Oh, she wanted me to stay with her, all right.\" Aarfy chuckled. \"Don't you worry about good old Aarfy. But I wasn't going to take advantage of a sweet kid like that just because she'd had a little too much to drink. What kind of a guy do you think I am?\"\n\n\"Who said anything about taking advantage of her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian railed at him in amazement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All she wanted to do was get into bed with someone. That's the only thing she kept talking about all night long.\"\n\n\"That's because she was a little mixed up,\" Aarfy explained. \"But I gave her a little talking to and really put some sense into her.\"\n\n\"You bastard!\" Yossarian exclaimed, and sank down tiredly on the divan beside Kid Sampson." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why the hell didn't you give her to one of us if you didn't want her?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You see?\" Hungry Joe asked. \"There's something wrong with him.\"\n\nYossarian nodded and looked at Aarfy curiously. \"Aarfy, tell me something. Don't you ever screw any of them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aarfy chuckled again with conceited amusement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh sure, I prod them. Don't you worry about me. But never any nice girls. I know what kind of girls to prod and what kind of girls not to prod, and I never prod any nice girls. This one was a sweet kid. You could see her family had money. Why, I even got her to throw that ring of hers away right out the car window.\"\n\nHungry Joe flew into the air with a screech of intolerable pain. \"You did what?\" he screamed. \"You did what?\" He began whaling away at Aarfy's shoulders and arms with both fists, almost in tears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I ought to kill you for what you did, you lousy bastard. He's sinful, that's what he is. He's got a dirty mind, ain't he? Ain't he got a dirty mind?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The dirtiest,\" Yossarian agreed.\n\n\"What are you fellows talking about?\" Aarfy asked with genuine puzzlement, tucking his face away protectively inside the cushioning insulation of his oval shoulders. \"Aw, come on, Joe,\" he pleaded with a smile of mild discomfort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Quit punching me, will you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Hungry Joe would not quit punching until Yossarian picked him up and pushed him away toward his bedroom. Yossarian moved listlessly into his own room, undressed and went to sleep. A second later it was morning, and someone was shaking him.\n\n\"What are you waking me up for?\" he whimpered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Michaela, the skinny maid with the merry disposition and homely sallow face, and she was waking him up because he had a visitor waiting just outside the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Luciana! He could hardly believe it. And she was alone in the room with him after Michaela had departed, lovely, hale and statuesque, steaming and rippling with an irrepressible affectionate vitality even as she remained in one place and frowned at him irately. She stood like a youthful female colossus with her magnificent columnar legs apart on high white shoes with wedged heels, wearing a pretty green dress and swinging a large, flat white leather pocketbook, with which she cracked him hard across the face when he leaped out of bed to grab her. Yossarian staggered backward out of range in a daze, clutching his stinging cheek with bewilderment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pig!\" She spat out at him viciously, her nostrils flaring in a look of savage disdain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Vive com' un animale!\"\n\nWith a fierce, guttural, scornful, disgusted oath, she strode across the room and threw open the three tall casement windows, letting inside an effulgent flood of sunlight and crisp fresh air that washed through the stuffy room like an invigorating tonic. She placed her pocketbook on a chair and began tidying the room, picking his things up from the floor and off the tops of the furniture, throwing his socks, handkerchief and underwear into an empty drawer of the dresser and hanging his shirt and trousers up in the closet.\n\nYossarian ran out of the bedroom into the bathroom and brushed his teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He washed his hands and face and combed his hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he ran back, the room was in order and Luciana was almost undressed. Her expression was relaxed. She left her earrings on the dresser and padded barefoot to the bed wearing just a pink rayon chemise that came down to her hips. She glanced about the room prudently to make certain there was nothing she had overlooked in the way of neatness and then drew back the coverlet and stretched herself out luxuriously with an expression of feline expectation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She beckoned to him longingly, with a husky laugh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now,\" she announced in a whisper, holding both arms out to him eagerly. \"Now I will let you sleep with me.\"\n\nShe told him some lies about a single weekend in bed with a slaughtered fiancé in the Italian Army, and they all turned out to be true, for she cried, \"finito!\" almost as soon as he started and wondered why he didn't stop, until he had finitoed too and explained to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lit cigarettes for both of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was enchanted by the deep suntan covering his whole body. He wondered about the pink chemise that she would not remove. It was cut like a man's undershirt, with narrow shoulder straps, and concealed the invisible scar on her back that she refused to let him see after he had made her tell him it was there. She grew tense as fine steel when he traced the mutilated contours with his fingertip from a pit in her shoulder blade almost to the base of her spine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He winced at the many tortured nights she had spent in the hospital, drugged or in pain, with the ubiquitous, ineradicable odors of ether, fecal matter and disinfectant, of human flesh mortified and decaying amid the white uniforms, the rubbersoled shoes, and the eerie night lights glowing dimly until dawn in the corridors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had been wounded in an air raid.\n\n\"Dove?\" he asked, and he held his breath in suspense.\n\n\"Napoli.\"\n\n\"Germans?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Americani.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His heart cracked, and he fell in love. He wondered if she would marry him.\n\n\"Tu sei pazzo,\" she told him with a pleasant laugh.\n\n\"Why am I crazy?\" he asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perchè non posso sposare.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why can't you get married?\"\n\n\"Because I am not a virgin,\" she answered.\n\n\"What has that got to do with it?\"\n\n\"Who will marry me? No one wants a girl who is not a virgin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will. I'll marry you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ma non posso sposarti.\"\n\n\"Why can't you marry me?\"\n\n\"Perchè sei pazzo.\"\n\n\"Why am I crazy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perchè vuoi sposarmi.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian wrinkled his forehead with quizzical amusement. \"You won't marry me because I'm crazy, and you say I'm crazy because I want to marry you? Is that right?\"\n\n\"Si.\"\n\n\"Tu sei pazz'!\" he told her loudly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perchè?\" she shouted back at him indignantly, her unavoidable round breasts rising and falling in a saucy huff beneath the pink chemise as she sat up in bed indignantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why am I crazy?\"\n\n\"Because you won't marry me.\"\n\n\"Stupido!\" she shouted back at him, and smacked him loudly and flamboyantly on the chest with the back of her hand. \"Non posso sposarti! Non capisci? Non posso sposarti.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, sure, I understand. And why can't you marry me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perchè sei pazzo!\"\n\n\"And why am I crazy?\"\n\n\"Perchè vuoi sposarmi.\"\n\n\"Because I want to marry you. Carina, ti amo,\" he explained, and he drew her gently back down to the pillow. \"Ti amo molto.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tu sei pazzo,\" she murmured in reply, flattered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perchè?\"\n\n\"Because you say you love me. How can you love a girl who is not a virgin?\"\n\n\"Because I can't marry you.\"\n\nShe bolted right up again in a threatening rage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why can't you marry me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she demanded, ready to clout him again if he gave an uncomplimentary reply. \"Just because I am not a virgin?\"\n\n\"No, no, darling. Because you're crazy.\"\n\nShe stared at him in blank resentment for a moment and then tossed her head back and roared appreciatively with hearty laughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She gazed at him with new approval when she stopped, the lush, responsive tissues of her dark face turning darker still and blooming somnolently with a swelling and beautifying infusion of blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes grew dim. He crushed out both their cigarettes, and they turned into each other wordlessly in an engrossing kiss just as Hungry Joe came meandering into the room without knocking to ask if Yossarian wanted to go out with him to look for girls. Hungry Joe stopped on a dime when he saw them and shot out of the room. Yossarian shot out of bed even faster and began shouting at Luciana to get dressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl was dumbfounded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pulled her roughly out of bed by her arm and flung her away toward her clothing, then raced for the door in time to slam it shut as Hungry Joe was running back in with his camera. Hungry Joe had his leg wedged in the door and would not pull it out.\n\n\"Let me in!\" he begged urgently, wriggling and squirming maniacally. \"Let me in!\" He stopped struggling for a moment to gaze up into Yossarian's face through the crack in the door with what he must have supposed was a beguiling smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Me no Hungry Joe,\" he explained earnestly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Me heap big photographer from Life magazine. Heap big picture on heap big cover. I make you big Hollywood star, Yossarian. Multi dinero. Multi divorces. Multi ficky-fic all day long. Si, si, si!\"\n\nYossarian slammed the door shut when Hungry Joe stepped back a bit to try to shoot a picture of Luciana dressing. Hungry Joe attacked the stout wooden barrier fanatically, fell back to reorganize his energies and hurled himself forward fanatically again. Yossarian slithered into his own clothes between assaults." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Luciana had her green-and-white summer dress on and was holding the skirt bunched up above her waist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A wave of misery broke over him as he saw her about to vanish inside her panties forever. He reached out to grasp her and drew her to him by the raised calf of her leg. She hopped forward and molded herself against him. Yossarian kissed her ears and her closed eyes romantically and rubbed the backs of her thighs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She began to hum sensually a moment before Hungry Joe hurled his frail body against the door in still one more desperate attack and almost knocked them both down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian pushed her away.\n\n\"Vite! Vite!\" he scolded her. \"Get your things on!\"\n\n\"What the hell are you talking about?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she wanted to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fast! Fast! Can't you understand English? Get your clothes on fast!\"\n\n\"Stupido!\" she snarled back at him. \"Vite is French, not Italian. Subito, subito! That's what you mean. Subito!\"\n\n\"Si, si. That's what I mean. Subito, subito!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Si, si,\" she responded co-operatively, and ran for her shoes and earrings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe had paused in his attack to shoot pictures through the closed door. Yossarian could hear the camera shutter clicking. When both he and Luciana were ready, Yossarian waited for Hungry Joe's next charge and yanked the door open on him unexpectedly. Hungry Joe spilled forward into the room like a floundering frog." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian skipped nimbly around him, guiding Luciana along behind him through the apartment and out into the hallway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They bounced down the stairs with a great roistering clatter, laughing out loud breathlessly and knocking their hilarious heads together each time they paused to rest. Near the bottom they met Nately coming up and stopped laughing. Nately was drawn, dirty and unhappy. His tie was twisted and his shirt was rumpled, and he walked with his hands in his pockets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wore a hangdog, hopeless look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's the matter, kid?\" Yossarian inquired compassionately.\n\n\"I'm flat broke again,\" Nately replied with a lame and distracted smile. \"What am I going to do?\"\n\nYossarian didn't know. Nately had spent the last thirty-two hours at twenty dollars an hour with the apathetic whore he adored, and he had nothing left of his pay or of the lucrative allowance he received every month from his wealthy and generous father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That meant he could not spend time with her any more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would not allow him to walk beside her as she strolled the pavements soliciting other servicemen, and she was infuriated when she spied him trailing her from a distance. He was free to hang around her apartment if he cared to, but there was no certainty that she would be there. And she would give him nothing unless he could pay. She found sex uninteresting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately wanted the assurance that she was not going to bed with anyone unsavory or with someone he knew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Black always made it a point to buy her each time he came to Rome, just so he could torment Nately with the news that he had thrown his sweetheart another hump and watch Nately eat his liver as he related the atrocious indignities to which he had forced her to submit.\n\nLuciana was touched by Nately's forlorn air, but broke loudly into robust laughter again the moment she stepped outside into the sunny street with Yossarian and heard Hungry Joe beseeching them from the window to come back and take their clothes off, because he really was a photographer from Life magazine. Luciana fled mirthfully along the sidewalk in her high white wedgies, pulling Yossarian along in tow with the same lusty and ingenuous zeal she had displayed in the dance hall the night before and at every moment since. Yossarian caught up and walked with his arm around her waist until they came to the corner and she stepped away from him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She straightened her hair in a mirror from her pocketbook and put lipstick on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why don't you ask me to let you write my name and address on a piece of paper so that you will be able to find me again when you come to Rome?\" she suggested.\n\n\"Why don't you let me write your name and address down on a piece of paper?\" he agreed.\n\n\"Why?\" she demanded belligerently, her mouth curling suddenly into a vehement sneer and her eyes flashing with anger. \"So you can tear it up into little pieces as soon as I leave?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who's going to tear it up?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian protested in confusion. \"What the hell are you talking about?\"\n\n\"You will,\" she insisted. \"You'll tear it up into little pieces the minute I'm gone and go walking away like a big shot because a tall, young, beautiful girl like me, Luciana, let you sleep with her and did not ask you for money.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How much money are you asking me for?\" he asked her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stupido!\" she shouted with emotion. \"I am not asking you for any money!\" She stamped her foot and raised her arm in a turbulent gesture that made Yossarian fear she was going to crack him in the face again with her great pocketbook. Instead, she scribbled her name and address on a slip of paper and thrust it at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Here,\" she taunted him sardonically, biting on her lip to still a delicate tremor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't forget. Don't forget to tear it into tiny pieces as soon as I am gone.\"\n\nThen she smiled at him serenely, squeezed his hand and, with a whispered regretful \"Addio,\" pressed herself against him for a moment and then straightened and walked away with unconscious dignity and grace.\n\nThe minute she was gone, Yossarian tore the slip of paper up and walked away in the other direction, feeling very much like a big shot because a beautiful young girl like Luciana had slept with him and did not ask for money. He was pretty pleased with himself until he looked up in the dining room of the Red Cross building and found himself eating breakfast with dozens and dozens of other servicemen in all kinds of fantastic uniforms, and then all at once he was surrounded by images of Luciana getting out of her clothes and into her clothes and caressing and haranguing him tempestuously in the pink rayon chemise she wore in bed with him and would not take off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian choked on his toast and eggs at the enormity of his error in tearing her long, lithe, nude, young vibrant limbs into any pieces of paper so impudently and dumping her down so smugly into the gutter from the curb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He missed her terribly already. There were so many strident faceless people in uniform in the dining room with him. He felt an urgent desire to be alone with her again soon and sprang up impetuously from his table and went running outside and back down the street toward the apartment in search of the tiny bits of paper in the gutter, but they had all been flushed away by a street cleaner's hose.\n\nHe couldn't find her again in the Allied officers' night club that evening or in the sweltering, burnished, hedonistic bedlam of the black-market restaurant with its vast bobbing wooden trays of elegant food and its chirping flock of bright and lovely girls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't even find the restaurant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he went to bed alone, he dodged flak over Bologna again in a dream, with Aarfy hanging over his shoulder abominably in the plane with a bloated sordid leer. In the morning he ran looking for Luciana in all the French offices he could find, but nobody knew what he was talking about, and then he ran in terror, so jumpy, distraught and disorganized that he just had to keep running in terror somewhere, to the enlisted men's apartment for the squat maid in the lime-colored panties, whom he found dusting in Snowden's room on the fifth floor in her drab brown sweater and heavy dark skirt. Snowden was still alive then, and Yossarian could tell it was Snowden's room from the name stenciled in white on the blue duffel bag he tripped over as he plunged through the doorway at her in a frenzy of creative desperation. The woman caught him by the wrists before he could fall as he came stumbling toward her in need and pulled him along down on top of her as she flopped over backward onto the bed and enveloped him hospitably in her flaccid and consoling embrace, her dust mop aloft in her hand like a banner as her broad, brutish congenial face gazed up at him fondly with a smile of unperjured friendship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a sharp elastic snap as she rolled the lime-colored panties off beneath them both without disturbing him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stuffed money into her hand when they were finished. She hugged him in gratitude. He hugged her. She hugged him back and then pulled him down on top of her on the bed again. He stuffed more money into her hand when they were finished this time and ran out of the room before she could begin hugging him in gratitude again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back at his own apartment, he threw his things together as fast as he could, left for Nately what money he had, and ran back to Pianosa on a supply plane to apologize to Hungry Joe for shutting him out of the bedroom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The apology was unnecessary, for Hungry Joe was in high spirits when Yossarian found him. Hungry Joe was grinning from ear to ear, and Yossarian turned sick at the sight of him, for he understood instantly what the high spirits meant.\n\n\"Forty missions,\" Hungry Joe announced readily in a voice lyrical with relief and elation. \"The colonel raised them again.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian ran right into the hospital, determined to remain there forever rather than fly one mission more than the thirty-two missions he had. Ten days after he changed his mind and came out, the colonel raised the missions to forty-five and Yossarian ran right back in, determined to remain in the hospital forever rather than fly one mission more than the six missions more he had just flown.\n\nYossarian could run into the hospital whenever he wanted to because of his liver and because of his eyes; the doctors couldn't fix his liver condition and couldn't meet his eyes each time he told them he had a liver condition. He could enjoy himself in the hospital, just as long as there was no one really very sick in the same ward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His system was sturdy enough to survive a case of someone else's malaria or influenza with scarcely any discomfort at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could come through other people's tonsillectomies without suffering any postoperative distress, and even endure their hernias and hemorrhoids with only mild nausea and revulsion. But that was just about as much as he could go through without getting sick. After that he was ready to bolt. He could relax in the hospital, since no one there expected him to do anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All he was expected to do in the hospital was die or get better, and since he was perfectly all right to begin with, getting better was easy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Being in the hospital was better than being over Bologna or flying over Avignon with Huple and Dobbs at the controls and Snowden dying in back.\n\nThere were usually not nearly as many sick people inside the hospital as Yossarian saw outside the hospital, and there were generally fewer people inside the hospital who were seriously sick. There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside the hospital, and a much healthier death rate. Few people died unnecessarily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People knew a lot more about dying inside the hospital and made a much neater, more orderly job of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady. People gave up the ghost with delicacy and taste inside the hospital." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so common outside the hospital." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They did not blow up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian's tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane.\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Snowden had whimpered. \"I'm cold.\"\n\n\"There, there,\" Yossarian had tried to comfort him. \"There, there.\"\n\nThey didn't take it on the lam weirdly inside a cloud the way Clevinger had done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They didn't explode into blood and clotted matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They didn't drown or get struck by lightning, mangled by machinery or crushed in landslides. They didn't get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, bludgeoned to death with axes by parents or children or die summarily by some other act of God. Nobody choked to death. People bled to death like gentlemen in an operating room or expired without comment in an oxygen tent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was none of that tricky now-you-see-me-now-you-don't business so much in vogue outside the hospital, none of that now-I-am-and-now-I-ain't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no famines or floods. Children didn't suffocate in cradles or iceboxes or fall under trucks. No one was beaten to death. People didn't stick their heads into ovens with the gas on, jump in front of subway trains or come plummeting like dead weights out of hotel windows with a whoosh!, accelerating at the rate of sixteen feet per second to land with a hideous plop!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "on the sidewalk and die disgustingly there in public like an alpaca sack full of hairy strawberry ice cream, bleeding, pink toes awry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All things considered, Yossarian often preferred the hospital, even though it had its faults. The help tended to be officious, the rules, if heeded, restrictive, and the management meddlesome. Since sick people were apt to be present, he could not always depend on a lively young crowd in the same ward with him, and the entertainment was not always good. He was forced to admit that the hospitals had altered steadily for the worse as the war continued and one moved closer to the battlefront, the deterioration in the quality of the guests becoming most marked within the combat zone itself where the effects of booming wartime conditions were apt to make themselves conspicuous immediately." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The people got sicker and sicker the deeper he moved into combat, until finally in the hospital that last time there had been the soldier in white, who could not have been any sicker without being dead, and he soon was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The soldier in white was constructed entirely of gauze, plaster and a thermometer, and the thermometer was merely an adornment left balanced in the empty dark hole in the bandages over his mouth early each morning and late each afternoon by Nurse Cramer and Nurse Duckett right up to the afternoon Nurse Cramer read the thermometer and discovered he was dead. Now that Yossarian looked back, it seemed that Nurse Cramer, rather than the talkative Texan, had murdered the soldier in white; if she had not read the thermometer and reported what she had found, the soldier in white might still be lying there alive exactly as he had been lying there all along, encased from head to toe in plaster and gauze with both strange, rigid legs elevated from the hips and both strange arms strung up perpendicularly, all four bulky limbs in casts, all four strange, useless limbs hoisted up in the air by taut wire cables and fantastically long lead weights suspended darkly above him. Lying there that way might not have been much of a life, but it was all the life he had, and the decision to terminate it, Yossarian felt, should hardly have been Nurse Cramer's.\n\nThe soldier in white was like an unrolled bandage with a hole in it or like a broken block of stone in a harbor with a crooked zinc pipe jutting out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other patients in the ward, all but the Texan, shrank from him with a tenderhearted aversion from the moment they set eyes on him the morning after the night he had been sneaked in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They gathered soberly in the farthest recess of the ward and gossiped about him in malicious, offended undertones, rebelling against his presence as a ghastly imposition and resenting him malevolently for the nauseating truth of which he was bright reminder. They shared a common dread that he would begin moaning.\n\n\"I don't know what I'll do if he does begin moaning,\" the dashing young fighter pilot with the golden mustache had grieved forlornly. \"It means he'll moan during the night, too, because he won't be able to tell time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No sound at all came from the soldier in white all the time he was there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ragged round hole over his mouth was deep and jet black and showed no sign of lip, teeth, palate or tongue. The only one who ever came close enough to look was the affable Texan, who came close enough several times a day to chat with him about more votes for the decent folk, opening each conversation with the same unvarying greeting: \"What do you say, fella? How you coming along?\" The rest of the men avoided them both in their regulation maroon corduroy bathrobes and unraveling flannel pajamas, wondering gloomily who the soldier in white was, why he was there and what he was really like inside.\n\n\"He's all right, I tell you,\" the Texan would report back to them encouragingly after each of his social visits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Deep down inside he's really a regular guy. He's feeling a little shy and insecure now because he doesn't know anybody here and can't talk. Why don't you all just step right up to him and introduce yourselves? He won't hurt you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What the goddam hell are you talking about?\" Dunbar demanded. \"Does he even know what you're talking about?\"\n\n\"Sure he knows what I'm talking about. He's not stupid. There ain't nothing wrong with him.\"\n\n\"Can he hear you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, I don't know if he can hear me or not, but I'm sure he knows what I'm talking about.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does that hole over his mouth ever move?\"\n\n\"Now, what kind of a crazy question is that?\" the Texan asked uneasily.\n\n\"How can you tell if he's breathing if it never moves?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How can you tell it's a he?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does he have pads over his eyes underneath that bandage over his face?\"\n\n\"Does he ever wiggle his toes or move the tips of his fingers?\"\n\nThe Texan backed away in mounting confusion. \"Now, what kind of a crazy question is that? You fellas must all be crazy or something. Why don't you just walk right up to him and get acquainted? He's a real nice guy, I tell you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The soldier in white was more like a stuffed and sterilized mummy than a real nice guy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nurse Duckett and Nurse Cramer kept him spick-and-span. They brushed his bandages often with a whiskbroom and scrubbed the plaster casts on his arms, legs, shoulders, chest and pelvis with soapy water. Working with a round tin of metal polish, they waxed a dim gloss on the dull zinc pipe rising from the cement on his groin. With damp dish towels they wiped the dust several times a day from the slim black rubber tubes leading in and out of him to the two large stoppered jars, one of them, hanging on a post beside his bed, dripping fluid into his arm constantly through a slit in the bandages while the other, almost out of sight on the floor, drained the fluid away through the zinc pipe rising from his groin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both young nurses polished the glass jars unceasingly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were proud of their housework. The more solicitous of the two was Nurse Cramer, a shapely, pretty, sexless girl with a wholesome unattractive face. Nurse Cramer had a cute nose and a radiant, blooming complexion dotted with fetching sprays of adorable freckles that Yossarian detested. She was touched very deeply by the soldier in white." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her virtuous, pale-blue, saucerlike eyes flooded with leviathan tears on unexpected occasions and made Yossarian mad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How the hell do you know he's even in there?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Don't you dare talk to me that way!\" she replied indignantly.\n\n\"Well, how do you? You don't even know if it's really him.\"\n\n\"Who?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Whoever's supposed to be in all those bandages. You might really be weeping for somebody else. How do you know he's even alive?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What a terrible thing to say!\" Nurse Cramer exclaimed. \"Now, you get right into bed and stop making jokes about him.\"\n\n\"I'm not making jokes. Anybody might be in there. For all we know, it might even be Mudd.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Cramer pleaded with him in a quavering voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe that's where the dead man is.\"\n\n\"What dead man?\"\n\n\"I've got a dead man in my tent that nobody can throw out. His name is Mudd.\"\n\nNurse Cramer's face blanched and she turned to Dunbar desperately for aid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Make him stop saying things like that,\" she begged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe there's no one inside,\" Dunbar suggested helpfully. \"Maybe they just sent the bandages here for a joke.\"\n\nShe stepped away from Dunbar in alarm. \"You're crazy,\" she cried, glancing about imploringly. \"You're both crazy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Duckett showed up then and chased them all back to their own beds while Nurse Cramer changed the stoppered jars for the soldier in white." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Changing the jars for the soldier in white was no trouble at all, since the same clear fluid was dripped back inside him over and over again with no apparent loss. When the jar feeding the inside of his elbow was just about empty, the jar on the floor was just about full, and the two were simply uncoupled from their respective hoses and reversed quickly so that the liquid could be dripped right back into him. Changing the jars was no trouble to anyone but the men who watched them changed every hour or so and were baffled by the procedure.\n\n\"Why can't they hook the two jars up to each other and eliminate the middleman?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "the artillery captain with whom Yossarian had stopped playing chess inquired." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What the hell do they need him for?\"\n\n\"I wonder what he did to deserve it,\" the warrant officer with malaria and a mosquito bite on his ass lamented after Nurse Cramer had read her thermometer and discovered that the soldier in white was dead.\n\n\"He went to war,\" the fighter pilot with the golden mustache surmised.\n\n\"We all went to war,\" Dunbar countered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's what I mean,\" the warrant officer with malaria continued." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why him? There just doesn't seem to be any logic to this system of rewards and punishment. Look what happened to me. If I had gotten syphilis or a dose of clap for my five minutes of passion on the beach instead of this damned mosquito bite, I could see justice. But malaria? Malaria? Who can explain malaria as a consequence of fornication?\" The warrant officer shook his head in numb astonishment.\n\n\"What about me?\" Yossarian said. \"I stepped out of my tent in Marrakech one night to get a bar of candy and caught your dose of clap when that Wac I never even saw before hissed me into the bushes. All I really wanted was a bar of candy, but who could turn it down?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That sounds like my dose of clap, all right,\" the warrant officer agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I've still got somebody else's malaria. Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in this universe.\"\n\n\"I've got somebody else's three hundred thousand dollars,\" the dashing young fighter captain with the golden mustache admitted. \"I've been goofing off since the day I was born. I cheated my way through prep school and college, and just about all I've been doing ever since is shacking up with pretty girls who think I'd make a good husband. I've got no ambition at all. The only thing I want to do after the war is marry some girl who's got more money than I have and shack up with lots more pretty girls. The three hundred thousand bucks was left to me before I was born by a grandfather who made a fortune selling on an international scale. I know I don't deserve it, but I'll be damned if I give it back. I wonder who it really belongs to.\"\n\n\"Maybe it belongs to my father,\" Dunbar conjectured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He spent a lifetime at hard work and never could make enough money to even send my sister and me through college. He's dead now, so you might as well keep it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now, if we can just find out who my malaria belongs to we'd be all set. It's not that I've got anything against malaria. I'd just as soon goldbrick with malaria as with anything else. It's only that I feel an injustice has been committed. Why should I have somebody else's malaria and you have my dose of clap?\"\n\n\"I've got more than your dose of clap,\" Yossarian told him. \"I've got to keep flying combat missions because of that dose of yours until they kill me.\"\n\n\"That makes it even worse. What's the justice in that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I had a friend named Clevinger two and a half weeks ago who used to see plenty of justice in it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's the highest kind of justice of all,\" Clevinger had gloated, clapping his hands with a merry laugh. \"I can't help thinking of the Hippolytus of Euripides, where the early licentiousness of Theseus is probably responsible for the asceticism of the son that helps bring about the tragedy that ruins them all. If nothing else, that episode with the Wac should teach you the evil of sexual immorality.\"\n\n\"It teaches me the evil of candy.\"\n\n\"Can't you see that you're not exactly without blame for the predicament you're in?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clevinger had continued with undisguised relish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you hadn't been laid up in the hospital with venereal disease for ten days back there in Africa, you might have finished your twenty-five missions in time to be sent home before Colonel Nevers was killed and Colonel Cathcart came to replace him.\"\n\n\"And what about you?\" Yossarian had replied. \"You never got clap in Marrakech and you're in the same predicament.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" confessed Clevinger, with a trace of mock concern." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I guess I must have done something very bad in my time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you really believe that?\"\n\nClevinger laughed. \"No, of course not. I just like to kid you along a little.\"\n\nThere were too many dangers for Yossarian to keep track of. There was Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, for example, and they were all out to kill him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was Lieutenant Scheisskopf with his fanaticism for parades and there was the bloated colonel with his big fat mustache and his fanaticism for retribution, and they wanted to kill him, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was Appleby, Havermeyer, Black and Korn. There was Nurse Cramer and Nurse Duckett, who he was almost certain wanted him dead, and there was the Texan and the C.I.D. man, about whom he had no doubt. There were bartenders, bricklayers and bus conductors all over the world who wanted him dead, landlords and tenants, traitors and patriots, lynchers, leeches and lackeys, and they were all out to bump him off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was the secret Snowden had spilled to him on the mission to Avignon-they were out to get him; and Snowden had spilled it all over the back of the plane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were lymph glands that might do him in. There were kidneys, nerve sheaths and corpuscles. There were tumors of the brain. There was Hodgkin's disease, leukemia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were fertile red meadows of epithelial tissue to catch and coddle a cancer cell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were diseases of the skin, diseases of the bone, diseases of the lung, diseases of the stomach, diseases of the heart, blood and arteries. There were diseases of the head, diseases of the neck, diseases of the chest, diseases of the intestines, diseases of the crotch. There even were diseases of the feet. There were billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping him alive and healthy, and every one was a potential traitor and foe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were so many diseases that it took a truly diseased mind to even think about them as often as he and Hungry Joe did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about. He grew very upset whenever he misplaced some or when he could not add to his list, and he would go rushing in a cold sweat to Doc Daneeka for help.\n\n\"Give him Ewing's tumor,\" Yossarian advised Doc Daneeka, who would come to Yossarian for help in handling Hungry Joe, \"and follow it up with melanoma. Hungry Joe likes lingering diseases, but he likes the fulminating ones even more.\"\n\nDoc Daneeka had never heard of either." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you manage to keep up on so many diseases like that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he inquired with high professional esteem.\n\n\"I learn about them at the hospital when I study the Reader's Digest.\"\n\nYossarian had so many ailments to be afraid of that he was sometimes tempted to turn himself in to the hospital for good and spend the rest of his life stretched out there inside an oxygen tent with a battery of specialists and nurses seated at one side of his bed twenty-four hours a day waiting for something to go wrong and at least one surgeon with a knife poised at the other, ready to jump forward and begin cutting away the moment it became necessary. Aneurisms, for instance; how else could they ever defend him in time against an aneurism of the aorta?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian felt much safer inside the hospital than outside the hospital, even though he loathed the surgeon and his knife as much as he had ever loathed anyone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could start screaming inside a hospital and people would at least come running to try to help; outside the hospital they would throw him in prison if he ever started screaming about all the things he felt everyone ought to start screaming about, or they would put him in the hospital. One of the things he wanted to start screaming about was the surgeon's knife that was almost certain to be waiting for him and everyone else who lived long enough to die. He wondered often how he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch, sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end.\n\nHe was afraid also that Doc Daneeka would still refuse to help him when he went to him again after jumping out of Major Major's office, and he was right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You think you've got something to be afraid about?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka demanded, lifting his delicate immaculate dark head up from his chest to gaze at Yossarian irascibly for a moment with lachrymose eyes. \"What about me? My precious medical skills are rusting away here on this lousy island while other doctors are cleaning up. Do you think I enjoy sitting here day after day refusing to help you? I wouldn't mind it so much if I could refuse to help you back in the States or in some place like Rome. But saying no to you here isn't easy for me, either.\"\n\n\"Then stop saying no. Ground me.\"\n\n\"I can't ground you,\" Doc Daneeka mumbled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How many times do you have to be told?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes you can. Major Major told me you're the only one in the squadron who can ground me.\"\n\nDoc Daneeka was stunned. \"Major Major told you that? When?\"\n\n\"When I tackled him in the ditch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Major Major told you that? In a ditch?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He told me in his office after we left the ditch and jumped inside. He told me not to tell anyone he told me, so don't start shooting your mouth off.\"\n\n\"Why that dirty, scheming liar!\" Doc Daneeka cried. \"He wasn't supposed to tell anyone. Did he tell you how I could ground you?\"\n\n\"Just by filling out a little slip of paper saying I'm on the verge of a nervous collapse and sending it to Group. Dr. Stubbs grounds men in his squadron all the time, so why can't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what happens to the men after Stubbs does ground them?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka retorted with a sneer. \"They go right back on combat status, don't they? And he finds himself right up the creek. Sure, I can ground you by filling out a slip saying you're unfit to fly. But there's a catch.\"\n\n\"Catch-22?\"\n\n\"Sure. If I take you off combat duty, Group has to approve my action, and Group isn't going to. They'll put you right back on combat status, and then where will I be? On my way to the Pacific Ocean, probably. No, thank you. I'm not going to take any chances for you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Isn't it worth a try?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian argued. \"What's so hot about Pianosa?\"\n\n\"Pianosa is terrible. But it's better than the Pacific Ocean. I wouldn't mind being shipped someplace civilized where I might pick up a buck or two in abortion money every now and then. But all they've got in the Pacific is jungles and monsoons, I'd rot there.\"\n\n\"You're rotting here.\"\n\nDoc Daneeka flared up angrily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah? Well, at least I'm going to come out of this war alive, which is a lot more than you're going to do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's just what I'm trying to tell you, goddammit. I'm asking you to save my life.\"\n\n\"It's not my business to save lives,\" Doc Daneeka retorted sullenly.\n\n\"What is your business?\"\n\n\"I don't know what my business is. All they ever told me was to uphold the ethics of my profession and never give testimony against another physician. Listen. You think you're the only one whose life is in danger? What about me? Those two quacks I've got working for me in the medical tent still can't find out what's wrong with me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe it's Ewing's tumor,\" Yossarian muttered sarcastically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you really think so?\" Doc Daneeka exclaimed with fright.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know,\" Yossarian answered impatiently. \"I just know I'm not going to fly any more missions. They wouldn't really shoot me, would they? I've got fifty-one.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why don't you at least finish the fifty-five before you take a stand?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka advised. \"With all your bitching, you've never finished a tour of duty even once.\"\n\n\"How the hell can I? The colonel keeps raising them every time I get close.\"\n\n\"You never finish your missions because you keep running into the hospital or going off to Rome. You'd be in a much, stronger position if you had your fifty-five finished and then refused to fly. Then maybe I'd see what I could do.\"\n\n\"Do you promise?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I promise.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you promise?\"\n\n\"I promise that maybe I'll think about doing something to help if you finish your fifty-five missions and if you get McWatt to put my name on his flight log again so that I can draw my flight pay without going up in a plane. I'm afraid of airplanes. Did you read about that airplane crash in Idaho three weeks ago? Six people killed. It was terrible. I don't know why they want me to put in four hours' flight time every month in order to get my flight pay. Don't I have enough to worry about without worrying about being killed in an airplane crash too?\"\n\n\"I worry about the airplane crashes also,\" Yossarian told him. \"You're not the only one.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, but I'm also pretty worried about that Ewing's tumor,\" Doc Daneeka boasted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you think that's why my nose is stuffed all the time and why I always feel so chilly? Take my pulse.\"\n\nYossarian also worried about Ewing's tumor and melanoma. Catastrophes were lurking everywhere, too numerous to count. When he contemplated the many diseases and potential accidents threatening him, he was positively astounded that he had managed to survive in good health for as long as he had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was miraculous. Each day he faced was another dangerous mission against mortality." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he had been surviving them for twenty-eight years." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian owed his good health to exercise, fresh air, teamwork and good sportsmanship; it was to get away from them all that he had first discovered the hospital. When the physical-education officer at Lowery Field ordered everyone to fall out for calisthenics one afternoon, Yossarian, the private, reported instead at the dispensary with what he said was a pain in his right side.\n\n\"Beat it,\" said the doctor on duty there, who was doing a crossword puzzle.\n\n\"We can't tell him to beat it,\" said a corporal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a new directive out about abdominal complaints. We have to keep them under observation five days because so many of them have been dying after we make them beat it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" grumbled the doctor. \"Keep him under observation five days and then make him beat it.\"\n\nThey took Yossarian's clothes away and put him in a ward, where he was very happy when no one was snoring nearby. In the morning a helpful young English intern popped in to ask him about his liver." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think it's my appendix that's bothering me,\" Yossarian told him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your appendix is no good,\" the Englishman declared with jaunty authority. \"If your appendix goes wrong, we can take it out and have you back on active duty in almost no time at all. But come to us with a liver complaint and you can fool us for weeks. The liver, you see, is a large, ugly mystery to us. If you've ever eaten liver you know what I mean. We're pretty sure today that the liver exists and we have a fairly good idea of what it does whenever it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. Beyond that, we're really in the dark. After all, what is a liver? My father, for example, died of cancer of the liver and was never sick a day of his life right up till the moment it killed him. Never felt a twinge of pain. In a way, that was too bad, since I hated my father. Lust for my mother, you know.\"\n\n\"What's an English medical officer doing on duty here?\" Yossarian wanted to know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The officer laughed. \"I'll tell you all about that when I see you tomorrow morning. And throw that silly ice bag away before you die of pneumonia.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian never saw him again. That was one of the nice things about all the doctors at the hospital; he never saw any of them a second time. They came and went and simply disappeared. In place of the English intern the next day, there arrived a group of doctors he had never seen before to ask him about his appendix." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's nothing wrong with my appendix,\" Yossarian informed them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The doctor yesterday said it was my liver.\"\n\n\"Maybe it is his liver,\" replied the white-haired officer in charge. \"What does his blood count show?\"\n\n\"He hasn't had a blood count.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Have one taken right away. We can't afford to take chances with a patient in his condition. We've got to keep ourselves covered in case he dies.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He made a notation on his clipboard and spoke to Yossarian. \"In the meantime, keep that ice bag on. It's very important.\"\n\n\"I don't have an ice bag on.\"\n\n\"Well, get one. There must be an ice bag around here somewhere. And let someone know if the pain becomes unendurable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the end of ten days, a new group of doctors came to Yossarian with bad news; he was in perfect health and had to get out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was rescued in the nick of time by a patient across the aisle who began to see everything twice. Without warning, the patient sat up in bed and shouted.\n\n\"I see everything twice!\"\n\nA nurse screamed and an orderly fainted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doctors came running up from every direction with needles, lights, tubes, rubber mallets and oscillating metal tines." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They rolled up complicated instruments on wheels. There was not enough of the patient to go around, and specialists pushed forward in line with raw tempers and snapped at their colleagues in front to hurry up and give somebody else a chance. A colonel with a large forehead and horn-rimmed glasses soon arrived at a diagnosis.\n\n\"It's meningitis,\" he called out emphatically, waving the others back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Although Lord knows there's not the slightest reason for thinking so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why pick meningitis?\" inquired a major with a suave chuckle. \"Why not, let's say, acute nephritis?\"\n\n\"Because I'm a meningitis man, that's why, and not an acute-nephritis man,\" retorted the colonel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I'm not going to give him up to any of you kidney birds without a struggle. I was here first.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the end, the doctors were all in accord. They agreed they had no idea what was wrong with the soldier who saw everything twice, and they rolled him away into a room in the corridor and quarantined everyone else in the ward for fourteen days.\n\nThanksgiving Day came and went without any fuss while Yossarian was still in the hospital. The only bad thing about it was the turkey for dinner, and even that was pretty good." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the most rational Thanksgiving he had ever spent, and he took a sacred oath to spend every future Thanksgiving Day in the cloistered shelter of a hospital." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He broke his sacred oath the very next year, when he spent the holiday in a hotel room instead in intellectual conversation with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife, who had Dori Duz's dog tags on for the occasion and who henpecked Yossarian sententiously for being cynical and callous about Thanksgiving, even though she didn't believe in God just as much as he didn't.\n\n\"I'm probably just as good an atheist as you are,\" she speculated boastfully. \"But even I feel that we all have a great deal to be thankful for and that we shouldn't be ashamed to show it.\"\n\n\"Name one thing I've got to be thankful for,\" Yossarian challenged her without interest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well...\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife mused and paused a moment to ponder dubiously. \"Me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, come on,\" he scoffed.\n\nShe arched her eyebrows in surprise. \"Aren't you thankful for me?\" she asked. She frowned peevishly, her pride wounded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't have to shack up with you, you know,\" she told him with cold dignity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My husband has a whole squadron full of aviation cadets who would be only too happy to shack up with their commanding officer's wife just for the added fillip it would give them.\"\n\nYossarian decided to change the subject. \"Now you're changing the subject,\" he pointed out diplomatically. \"I'll bet I can name two things to be miserable about for every one you can name to be thankful for.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Be thankful you've got me,\" she insisted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am, honey. But I'm also goddam good and miserable that I can't have Dori Duz again, too. Or the hundreds of other girls and women I'll see and want in my short lifetime and won't be able to go to bed with even once.\"\n\n\"Be thankful you're healthy.\"\n\n\"Be bitter you're not going to stay that way.\"\n\n\"Be glad you're even alive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Be furious you're going to die.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Things could be much worse,\" she cried.\n\n\"They could be one hell of a lot better,\" he answered heatedly.\n\n\"You're naming only one thing,\" she protested. \"You said you could name two.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways,\" Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about-a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?\"\n\n\"Pain?\" Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife pounced upon the word victoriously. \"Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is a warning to us of bodily dangers.\"\n\n\"And who created the dangers?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian demanded. He laughed caustically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn't He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person's forehead. Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn't He?\"\n\n\"People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes in the middle of their foreheads.\"\n\n\"They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony or stupefied with morphine, don't they? What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It's obvious He never met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping clerk!\"\n\nLieutenant Scheisskopf's wife had turned ashen in disbelief and was ogling him with alarm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'd better not talk that way about Him, honey,\" she warned him reprovingly in a low and hostile voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He might punish you.\"\n\n\"Isn't He punishing me enough?\" Yossarian snorted resentfully. \"You know, we mustn't let Him get away with it. Oh, no, we certainly mustn't let Him get away scot free for all the sorrow He's caused us. Someday I'm going to make Him pay. I know when. On the Judgment Day. Yes, That's the day I'll be close enough to reach out and grab that little yokel by His neck and-\"\n\n\"Stop it! Stop it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife screamed suddenly, and began beating him ineffectually about the head with both fists. \"Stop it!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian ducked behind his arm for protection while she slammed away at him in feminine fury for a few seconds, and then he caught her determinedly by the wrists and forced her gently back down on the bed. \"What the hell are you getting so upset about?\" he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. \"I thought you didn't believe in God.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't,\" she sobbed, bursting violently into tears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be.\"\n\nYossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. \"Let's have a little more religious freedom between us,\" he proposed obligingly. \"You don't believe in the God you want to, and I won't believe in the God I want to. Is that a deal?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was the most illogical Thanksgiving he could ever remember spending, and his thoughts returned wishfully to his halcyon fourteen-day quarantine in the hospital the year before; but even that idyll had ended on a tragic note; he was still in good health when the quarantine period was over, and they told him again that he had to get out and go to war." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian sat up in bed when he heard the bad news and shouted.\n\n\"I see everything twice!\"\n\nPandemonium broke loose in the ward again. The specialists came running up from all directions and ringed him in a circle of scrutiny so confining that he could feel the humid breath from their various noses blowing uncomfortably upon the different sectors of his body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They went snooping into his eyes and ears with tiny beams of light, assaulted his legs and feet with rubber hammers and vibrating forks, drew blood from his veins, held anything handy up for him to see on the periphery of his vision." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The leader of this team of doctors was a dignified, solicitous gentleman who held one finger up directly in front of Yossarian and demanded, \"How many fingers do you see?\"\n\n\"Two,\" said Yossarian.\n\n\"How many fingers do you see now?\" asked the doctor, holding up two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Two,\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And how many now?\" asked the doctor, holding up none.\n\n\"Two,\" said Yossarian.\n\nThe doctor's face wreathed with a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"By Jove, he's right,\" he declared jubilantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He does see everything twice.\"\n\nThey rolled Yossarian away on a stretcher into the room with the other soldier who saw everything twice and quarantined everyone else in the ward for another fourteen days.\n\n\"I see everything twice!\" the soldier who saw everything twice shouted when they rolled Yossarian in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I see everything twice!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian shouted back at him just as loudly, with a secret wink.\n\n\"The walls! The walls!\" the other soldier cried. \"Move back the walls!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The walls! The walls!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian cried. \"Move back the walls!\"\n\nOne of the doctors pretended to shove the wall back. \"Is that far enough?\"\n\nThe soldier who saw everything twice nodded weakly and sank back on his bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian nodded weakly too, eying his talented roommate with great humility and admiration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew he was in the presence of a master. His talented roommate was obviously a person to be studied and emulated. During the night, his talented roommate died, and Yossarian decided that he had followed him far enough.\n\n\"I see everything once!\" he cried quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A new group of specialists came pounding up to his bedside with their instruments to find out if it was true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How many fingers do you see?\" asked the leader, holding up one.\n\n\"One.\"\n\nThe doctor held up two fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How many fingers do you see now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One.\"\n\nThe doctor held up ten fingers. \"And how many now?\"\n\n\"One.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The doctor turned to the other doctors with amazement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He does see everything once!\" he exclaimed. \"We made him all better.\"\n\n\"And just in time, too,\" announced the doctor with whom Yossarian next found himself alone, a tall, torpedo-shaped congenial man with an unshaven growth of brown beard and a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket that he chain-smoked insouciantly as he leaned against the wall. \"There are some relatives here to see you. Oh, don't worry,\" he added with a laugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not your relatives. It's the mother, father and brother of that chap who died. They've traveled all the way from New York to see a dying soldier, and you're the handiest one we've got.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you talking about?\" Yossarian asked suspiciously. \"I'm not dying.\"\n\n\"Of course you're dying. We're all dying. Where the devil else do you think you're heading?\"\n\n\"They didn't come to see me,\" Yossarian objected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They came to see their son.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They'll have to take what they can get. As far as we're concerned, one dying boy is just as good as any other, or just as bad. To a scientist, all dying boys are equal. I have a proposition for you. You let them come in and look you over for a few minutes and I won't tell anyone you've been lying about your liver symptoms.\"\n\nYossarian drew back from him farther. \"You know about that?\"\n\n\"Of course I do. Give us some credit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The doctor chuckled amiably and lit another cigarette." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do you expect anyone to believe you have a liver condition if you keep squeezing the nurses' tits every time you get a chance? You're going to have to give up sex if you want to convince people you've got an ailing liver.\"\n\n\"That's a hell of a price to pay just to keep alive. Why didn't you turn me in if you knew I was faking?\"\n\n\"Why the devil should I?\" asked the doctor with a flicker of surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're all in this business of illusion together. I'm always willing to lend a helping hand to a fellow conspirator along the road to survival if he's willing to do the same for me. These people have come a long way, and I'd rather not disappoint them. I'm sentimental about old people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But they came to see their son.\"\n\n\"They came too late. Maybe they won't even notice the difference.\"\n\n\"Suppose they start crying.\"\n\n\"They probably will start crying. That's one of the reasons they came. I'll listen outside the door and break it up if it starts getting tacky.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It all sounds a bit crazy,\" Yossarian reflected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do they want to watch their son die for, anyway?\"\n\n\"I've never been able to figure that one out,\" the doctor admitted, \"but they always do. Well, what do you say? All you've got to do is lie there a few minutes and die a little. Is that asking so much?\"\n\n\"All right,\" Yossarian gave in. \"If it's just for a few minutes and you promise to wait right outside.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He warmed to his role." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Say, why don't you wrap a bandage around me for effect?\"\n\n\"That sounds like a splendid idea,\" applauded the doctor.\n\nThey wrapped a batch of bandages around Yossarian. A team of medical orderlies installed tan shades on each of the two windows and lowered them to douse the room in depressing shadows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian suggested flowers and the doctor sent an orderly out to find two small bunches of fading ones with a strong and sickening smell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When everything was in place, they made Yossarian get back into bed and lie down. Then they admitted the visitors.\n\nThe visitors entered uncertainly as though they felt they were intruding, tiptoeing in with stares of meek apology, first the grieving mother and father, then the brother, a glowering heavy-set sailor with a deep chest. The man and woman stepped into the room stify side by side as though right out of a familiar, though esoteric, anniversary daguerreotype on a wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were both short, sere and proud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They seemed made of iron and old, dark clothing. The woman had a long, brooding oval face of burnt umber, with coarse graying black hair parted severely in the middle and combed back austerely behind her neck without curl, wave or ornamentation. Her mouth was sullen and sad, her lined lips compressed. The father stood very rigid and quaint in a double-breasted suit with padded shoulders that were much too tight for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was broad and muscular on a small scale and had a magnificently curled silver mustache on his crinkled face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes were creased and rheumy, and he appeared tragically ill at ease as he stood awkwardly with the brim of his black felt fedora held in his two brawny laborer's hands out in front of his wide lapels. Poverty and hard work had inflicted iniquitous damage on both. The brother was looking for a fight. His round white cap was cocked at an insolent tilt, his hands were clenched, and he glared at everything in the room with a scowl of injured truculence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The three creaked forward timidly, holding themselves close to each other in a stealthy, funereal group and inching forward almost in step, until they arrived at the side of the bed and stood staring down at Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a gruesome and excruciating silence that threatened to endure forever. Finally Yossarian was unable to bear it any longer and cleared his throat. The old man spoke at last.\n\n\"He looks terrible,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's sick, Pa.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Giuseppe,\" said the mother, who had seated herself in a chair with her veinous fingers clasped in her lap.\n\n\"My name is Yossarian,\" Yossarian said.\n\n\"His name is Yossarian, Ma. Yossarian, don't you recognize me? I'm your brother John. Don't you know who I am?\"\n\n\"Sure I do. You're my brother John.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He does recognize me! Pa, he knows who I am. Yossarian, here's Papa. Say hello to Papa.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hello, Papa,\" said Yossarian.\n\n\"Hello, Giuseppe.\"\n\n\"His name is Yossarian, Pa.\"\n\n\"I can't get over how terrible he looks,\" the father said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's very sick, Pa. The doctor says he's going to die.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't know whether to believe the doctor or not,\" the father said. \"You know how crooked those guys are.\"\n\n\"Giuseppe,\" the mother said again, in a soft, broken chord of muted anguish.\n\n\"His name is Yossarian, Ma. She don't remember things too good any more. How're they treating you in here, kid? They treating you pretty good?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pretty good,\" Yossarian told him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's good. Just don't let anybody in here push you around. You're just as good as anybody else in here even though you are Italian. You've got rights, too.\"\n\nYossarian winced and closed his eyes so that he would not have to look at his brother John. He began to feel sick.\n\n\"Now see how terrible he looks,\" the father observed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Giuseppe,\" the mother said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ma, his name is Yossarian,\" the brother interrupted her impatiently. \"Can't you remember?\"\n\n\"It's all right,\" Yossarian interrupted him. \"She can call me Giuseppe if she wants to.\"\n\n\"Giuseppe,\" she said to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't worry, Yossarian,\" the brother said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everything is going to be all right.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, Ma,\" Yossarian said. \"Everything is going to be all right.\"\n\n\"Did you have a priest?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "the brother wanted to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Yossarian lied, wincing again.\n\n\"That's good,\" the brother decided. \"Just as long as you're getting everything you've got coming to you. We came all the way from New York. We were afraid we wouldn't get here in time.\"\n\n\"In time for what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In time to see you before you died.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What difference would it make?\"\n\n\"We didn't want you to die by yourself.\"\n\n\"What difference would it make?\"\n\n\"He must be getting delirious,\" the brother said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He keeps saying the same thing over and over again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's really very funny,\" the old man replied. \"All the time I thought his name was Giuseppe, and now I find out his name is Yossarian. That's really very funny.\"\n\n\"Ma, make him feel good,\" the brother urged. \"Say something to cheer him up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Giuseppe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not Giuseppe, Ma. It's Yossarian.\"\n\n\"What difference does it make?\" the mother answered in the same mourning tone, without looking up. \"He's dying.\"\n\nHer tumid eyes filled with tears and she began to cry, rocking back and forth slowly in her chair with her hands lying in her lap like fallen moths." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian was afraid she would start wailing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The father and brother began crying also. Yossarian remembered suddenly why they were all crying, and he began crying too. A doctor Yossarian had never seen before stepped inside the room and told the visitors courteously that they had to go. The father drew himself up formally to say goodbye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Giuseppe,\" he began." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yossarian,\" corrected the son.\n\n\"Yossarian,\" said the father.\n\n\"Giuseppe,\" corrected Yossarian.\n\n\"Soon you're going to die.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian began to cry again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doctor threw him a dirty look from the rear of the room, and Yossarian made himself stop.\n\nThe father continued solemnly with his head lowered. \"When you talk to the man upstairs,\" he said, \"I want you to tell Him something for me. Tell Him it ain't right for people to die when they're young. I mean it. Tell Him if they got to die at all, they got to die when they're old. I want you to tell Him that. I don't think He knows it ain't right, because He's supposed to be good and it's been going on for a long, long time. Okay?\"\n\n\"And don't let anybody up there push you around,\" the brother advised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll be just as good as anybody else in heaven, even though you are Italian.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dress warm,\" said the mother, who seemed to know." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with four sentences, emulating the writing style of Joseph Heller." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart was a slick, successful, slipshod, unhappy man of thirty-six who lumbered when he walked and wanted to be a general." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was dashing and dejected, poised and chagrined. He was complacent and insecure, daring in the administrative stratagems he employed to bring himself to the attention of his superiors and craven in his concern that his schemes might all backfire. He was handsome and unattractive, a swashbuckling, beefy, conceited man who was putting on fat and was tormented chronically by prolonged seizures of apprehension. Colonel Cathcart was conceited because he was a full colonel with a combat command at the age of only thirty-six; and Colonel Cathcart was dejected because although he was already thirty-six he was still only a full colonel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart was impervious to absolutes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could measure his own progress only in relationship to others, and his idea of excellence was to do something at least as well as all the men his own age who were doing the same thing even better. The fact that there were thousands of men his own age and older who had not even attained the rank of major enlivened him with foppish delight in his own remarkable worth; on the other hand, the fact that there were men of his own age and younger who were already generals contaminated him with an agonizing sense of failure and made him gnaw at his fingernails with an unappeasable anxiety that was even more intense than Hungry Joe's.\n\nColonel Cathcart was a very large, pouting, broadshouldered man with close-cropped curly dark hair that was graying at the tips and an ornate cigarette holder that he purchased the day before he arrived in Pianosa to take command of his group. He displayed the cigarette holder grandly on every occasion and had learned to manipulate it adroitly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unwittingly, he had discovered deep within himself a fertile aptitude for smoking with a cigarette holder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As far as he could tell, his was the only cigarette holder in the whole Mediterranean theater of operations, and the thought was both flattering and disquieting. He had no doubts at all that someone as debonair and intellectual as General Peckem approved of his smoking with a cigarette holder, even though the two were in each other's presence rather seldom, which in a way was very lucky, Colonel Cathcart recognized with relief, since General Peckem might not have approved of his cigarette holder at all. When such misgivings assailed Colonel Cathcart, he choked back a sob and wanted to throw the damned thing away, but he was restrained by his unswerving conviction that the cigarette holder never failed to embellish his masculine, martial physique with a high gloss of sophisticated heroism that illuminated him to dazzling advantage among all the other full colonels in the American Army with whom he was in competition. Although how could he be sure?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart was indefatigable that way, an industrious, intense, dedicated military tactician who calculated day and night in the service of himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was his own sarcophagus, a bold and infallible diplomat who was always berating himself disgustedly for all the chances he had missed and kicking himself regretfully for all the errors he had made. He was tense, irritable, bitter and smug. He was a valorous opportunist who pounced hoggishly upon every opportunity Colonel Korn discovered for him and trembled in damp despair immediately afterward at the possible consequences he might suffer. He collected rumors greedily and treasured gossip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He believed all the news he heard and had faith in none." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was on the alert constantly for every signal, shrewdly sensitive to relationships and situations that did not exist. He was someone in the know who was always striving pathetically to find out what was going on. He was a blustering, intrepid bully who brooded inconsolably over the terrible ineradicable impressions he knew he kept making on people of prominence who were scarcely aware that he was even alive.\n\nEverybody was persecuting him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart lived by his wits in an unstable, arithmetical world of black eyes and feathers in his cap, of overwhelming imaginary triumphs and catastrophic imaginary defeats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He oscillated hourly between anguish and exhilaration, multiplying fantastically the grandeur of his victories and exaggerating tragically the seriousness of his defeats. Nobody ever caught him napping. If word reached him that General Dreedle or General Peckem had been seen smiling, frowning, or doing neither, he could not make himself rest until he had found an acceptable interpretation and grumbled mulishly until Colonel Korn persuaded him to relax and take things easy.\n\nLieutenant Colonel Korn was a loyal, indispensable ally who got on Colonel Cathcart's nerves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart pledged eternal gratitude to Colonel Korn for the ingenious moves he devised and was furious with him afterward when he realized they might not work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart was greatly indebted to Colonel Korn and did not like him at all. The two were very close. Colonel Cathcart was jealous of Colonel Korn's intelligence and had to remind himself often that Colonel Korn was still only a lieutenant colonel, even though he was almost ten years older than Colonel Cathcart, and that Colonel Korn had obtained his education at a state university. Colonel Cathcart bewailed the miserable fate that had given him for an invaluable assistant someone as common as Colonel Korn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was degrading to have to depend so thoroughly on a person who had been educated at a state university." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If someone did have to become indispensable to him, Colonel Cathcart lamented, it could just as easily have been someone wealthy and well groomed, someone from a better family who was more mature than Colonel Korn and who did not treat Colonel Cathcart's desire to become a general as frivolously as Colonel Cathcart secretly suspected Colonel Korn secretly did.\n\nColonel Cathcart wanted to be a general so desperately he was willing to try anything, even religion, and he summoned the chaplain to his office late one morning the week after he had raised the number of missions to sixty and pointed abruptly down toward his desk to his copy of The Saturday Evening Post. The colonel wore his khaki shirt collar wide open, exposing a shadow of tough black bristles of beard on his egg-white neck, and had a spongy hanging underlip. He was a person who never tanned, and he kept out of the sun as much as possible to avoid burning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel was more than a head taller than the chaplain and over twice as broad, and his swollen, overbearing authority made the chaplain feel frail and sickly by contrast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Take a look, Chaplain,\" Colonel Cathcart directed, screwing a cigarette into his holder and seating himself affluently in the swivel chair behind his desk. \"Let me know what you think.\"\n\nThe chaplain looked down at the open magazine compliantly and saw an editorial spread dealing with an American bomber group in England whose chaplain said prayers in the briefing room before each mission. The chaplain almost wept with happiness when he realized the colonel was not going to holler at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two had hardly spoken since the tumultuous evening Colonel Cathcart had thrown him out of the officers' club at General Dreedle's bidding after Chief White Halfoat had punched Colonel Moodus in the nose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain's initial fear had been that the colonel intended reprimanding him for having gone back into the officers' club without permission the evening before. He had gone there with Yossarian and Dunbar after the two had come unexpectedly to his tent in the clearing in the woods to ask him to join them. Intimidated as he was by Colonel Cathcart, he nevertheless found it easier to brave his displeasure than to decline the thoughtful invitation of his two new friends, whom he had met on one of his hospital visits just a few weeks before and who had worked so effectively to insulate him against the myriad social vicissitudes involved in his official duty to live on closest terms of familiarity with more than nine hundred unfamiliar officers and enlisted men who thought him an odd duck.\n\nThe chaplain glued his eyes to the pages of the magazine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He studied each photograph twice and read the captions intently as he organized his response to the colonel's question into a grammatically complete sentence that he rehearsed and reorganized in his mind a considerable number of times before he was able finally to muster the courage to reply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think that saying prayers before each mission is a very moral and highly laudatory procedure, sir,\" he offered timidly, and waited.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said the colonel. \"But I want to know if you think they'll work here.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" answered the chaplain after a few moments." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I should think they would.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then I'd like to give it a try.\" The colonel's ponderous, farinaceous cheeks were tinted suddenly with glowing patches of enthusiasm. He rose to his feet and began walking around excitedly. \"Look how much good they've done for these people in England. Here's a picture of a colonel in The Saturday Evening Post whose chaplain conducts prayers before each mission. If the prayers work for him, they should work for us. Maybe if we say prayers, they'll put my picture in The Saturday Evening Post.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel sat down again and smiled distantly in lavish contemplation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain had no hint of what he was expected to say next. With a pensive expression on his oblong, rather pale face, he allowed his gaze to settle on several of the high bushels filled with red plum tomatoes that stood in rows against each of the walls. He pretended to concentrate on a reply. After a while he realized that he was staring at rows and rows of bushels of red plum tomatoes and grew so intrigued by the question of what bushels brimming with red plum tomatoes were doing in a group commander's office that he forgot completely about the discussion of prayer meetings until Colonel Cathcart, in a genial digression, inquired:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Would you like to buy some, Chaplain? They come right off the farm Colonel Korn and I have up in the hills. I can let you have a bushel wholesale.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, no, sir. I don't think so.\"\n\n\"That's quite all right,\" the colonel assured him liberally. \"You don't have to. Milo is glad to snap up all we can produce. These were picked only yesterday. Notice how firm and ripe they are, like a young girl's breasts.\"\n\nThe chaplain blushed, and the colonel understood at once that he had made a mistake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lowered his head in shame, his cumbersome face burning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His fingers felt gross and unwieldy. He hated the chaplain venomously for being a chaplain and making a coarse blunder out of an observation that in any other circumstances, he knew, would have been considered witty and urbane. He tried miserably to recall some means of extricating them both from their devastating embarrassment. He recalled instead that the chaplain was only a captain, and he straightened at once with a shocked and outraged gasp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His cheeks grew tight with fury at the thought that he had just been duped into humiliation by a man who was almost the same age as he was and still only a captain, and he swung upon the chaplain avengingly with a look of such murderous antagonism that the chaplain began to tremble." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The colonel punished him sadistically with a long, glowering, malignant, hateful, silent stare.\n\n\"We were speaking about something else,\" he reminded the chaplain cuttingly at last. \"We were not speaking about the firm, ripe breasts of beautiful young girls but about something else entirely. We were speaking about conducting religious services in the briefing room before each mission. Is there any reason why we can't?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" the chaplain mumbled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then we'll begin with this afternoon's mission.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The colonel's hostility softened gradually as he applied himself to details. \"Now, I want you to give a lot of thought to the kind of prayers we're going to say. I don't want anything heavy or sad. I'd like you to keep it light and snappy, something that will send the boys out feeling pretty good. Do you know what I mean? I don't want any of this Kingdom of God or Valley of Death stuff. That's all too negative. What are you making such a sour face for?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir,\" the chaplain stammered. \"I happened to be thinking of the Twenty-third Psalm just as you said that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How does that one go?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's the one you were just referring to, sir. 'The Lord is my shepherd; I-'\"\n\n\"That's the one I was just referring to. It's out. What else have you got?\"\n\n\"'Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto-'\"\n\n\"No waters,\" the colonel decided, blowing ruggedly into his cigarette holder after flipping the butt down into his combed-brass ash tray." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why don't we try something musical? How about the harps on the willows?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That has the rivers of Babylon in it, sir,\" the chaplain replied. \"'...there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.'\"\n\n\"Zion? Let's forget about that one right now. I'd like to know how that one even got in there. Haven't you got anything humorous that stays away from waters and valleys and God? I'd like to keep away from the subject of religion altogether if we can.\"\n\nThe chaplain was apologetic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry, sir, but just about all the prayers I know are rather somber in tone and make at least some passing reference to God.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then let's get some new ones. The men are already doing enough bitching about the missions I send them on without our rubbing it in with any sermons about God or death or Paradise. Why can't we take a more positive approach? Why can't we all pray for something good, like a tighter bomb pattern, for example? Couldn't we pray for a tighter bomb pattern?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, sir, I suppose so,\" the chaplain answered hesitantly. \"You wouldn't even need me if that's all you wanted to do. You could do that yourself.\"\n\n\"I know I could,\" the colonel responded tartly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But what do you think you're here for? I could shop for my own food, too, but that's Milo's job, and that's why he's doing it for every group in the area. Your job is to lead us in prayer, and from now on you're going to lead us in a prayer for a tighter bomb pattern before every mission. Is that clear? I think a tighter bomb pattern is something really worth praying for. It will be a feather in all our caps with General Peckem. General Peckem feels it makes a much nicer aerial photograph when the bombs explode close together.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"General Peckem, sir?\"\n\n\"That's right, Chaplain,\" the colonel replied, chuckling paternally at the chaplain's look of puzzlement. \"I wouldn't want this to get around, but it looks like General Dreedle is finally on the way out and that General Peckem is slated to replace him. Frankly, I'm not going to be sorry to see that happen. General Peckem is a very good man, and I think we'll all be much better off under him. On the other hand, it might never take place, and we'd still remain under General Dreedle. Frankly, I wouldn't be sorry to see that happen either, because General Dreedle is another very good man, and I think we'll all be much better off under him too. I hope you're going to keep all this under your hat, Chaplain. I wouldn't want either one to get the idea I was throwing my support on the side of the other.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's good,\" the colonel exclaimed, and stood up jovially." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But all this gossip isn't getting us into The Saturday Evening Post, eh, Chaplain? Let's see what kind of procedure we can evolve. Incidentally, Chaplain, not a word about this beforehand to Colonel Korn. Understand?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart began tramping back and forth reflectively in the narrow corridors left between his bushels of plum tomatoes and the desk and wooden chairs in the center of the room. \"I suppose we'll have to keep you waiting outside until the briefing is over, because all that information is classified. We can slip you in while Major Danby is synchronizing the watches. I don't think there's anything secret about the right time. We'll allocate about a minute and a half for you in the schedule. Will a minute and a half be enough?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir. If it doesn't include the time necessary to excuse the atheists from the room and admit the enlisted men.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart stopped in his tracks. \"What atheists?\" he bellowed defensively, his whole manner changing in a flash to one of virtuous and belligerent denial. \"There are no atheists in my outfit! Atheism is against the law, isn't it?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It isn't?\" The colonel was surprised." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then it's un-American, isn't it?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure, sir,\" answered the chaplain.\n\n\"Well, I am!\" the colonel declared. \"I'm not going to disrupt our religious services just to accommodate a bunch of lousy atheists. They're getting no special privileges from me. They can stay right where they are and pray with the rest of us. And what's all this about enlisted men? Just how the hell do they get into this act?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain felt his face flush." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry, sir. I just assumed you would want the enlisted men to be present, since they would be going along on the same mission.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't. They've got a God and a chaplain of their own, haven't they?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about? You mean they pray to the same God we do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And He listens?\"\n\n\"I think so, sir.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll be damned,\" remarked the colonel, and he snorted to himself in quizzical amusement. His spirits drooped suddenly a moment later, and he ran his hand nervously over his short, black, graying curls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you really think it's a good idea to let the enlisted men in?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked with concern.\n\n\"I should think it only proper, sir.\"\n\n\"I'd like to keep them out,\" confided the colonel, and began cracking his knuckles savagely as he wandered back and forth. \"Oh, don't get me wrong, Chaplain. It isn't that I think the enlisted men are dirty, common and inferior. It's that we just don't have enough room. Frankly, though, I'd just as soon the officers and enlisted men didn't fraternize in the briefing room. They see enough of each other during the mission, it seems to me. Some of my very best friends are enlisted men, you understand, but that's about as close as I care to let them come. Honestly now, Chaplain, you wouldn't want your sister to marry an enlisted man, would you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My sister is an enlisted man, sir,\" the chaplain replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The colonel stopped in his tracks again and eyed the chaplain sharply to make certain he was not being ridiculed. \"Just what do you mean by that remark, Chaplain? Are you trying to be funny?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, sir,\" the chaplain hastened to explain with a look of excruciating discomfort. \"She's a master sergeant in the Marines.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel had never liked the chaplain and now he loathed and distrusted him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He experienced a keen premonition of danger and wondered if the chaplain too were plotting against him, if the chaplain's reticent, unimpressive manner were really just a sinister disguise masking a fiery ambition that, way down deep, was crafty and unscrupulous. There was something funny about the chaplain, and the colonel soon detected what it was. The chaplain was standing stiffly at attention, for the colonel had forgotten to put him at ease. Let him stay that way, the colonel decided vindictively, just to show him who was boss and to safeguard himself against any loss of dignity that might devolve from his acknowledging the omission." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart was drawn hypnotically toward the window with a massive, dull stare of moody introspection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The enlisted men were always treacherous, he decided. He looked downward in mournful gloom at the skeet-shooting range he had ordered built for the officers on his headquarters staff, and he recalled the mortifying afternoon General Dreedle had tongue-lashed him ruthlessly in front of Colonel Korn and Major Danby and ordered him to throw open the range to all the enlisted men and officers on combat duty. The skeet-shooting range had been a real black eye for him, Colonel Cathcart was forced to conclude. He was positive that General Dreedle had never forgotten it, even though he was positive that General Dreedle didn't even remember it, which was really very unjust, Colonel Cathcart lamented, since the idea of a skeet-shooting range itself should have been a real feather in his cap, even though it had been such a real black eye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart was helpless to assess exactly how much ground he had gained or lost with his goddam skeet-shooting range and wished that Colonel Korn were in his office right then to evaluate the entire episode for him still one more time and assuage his fears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was all very perplexing, all very discouraging. Colonel Cathcart took the cigarette holder out of his mouth, stood it on end inside the pocket of his shirt, and began gnawing on the fingernails of both hands grievously. Everybody was against him, and he was sick to his soul that Colonel Korn was not with him in this moment of crisis to help him decide what to do about the prayer meetings. He had almost no faith at all in the chaplain, who was still only a captain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you think,\" he asked, \"that keeping the enlisted men out might interfere with our chances of getting results?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain hesitated, feeling himself on unfamiliar ground again. \"Yes, sir,\" he replied finally. \"I think it's conceivable that such an action could interfere with your chances of having the prayers for a tighter bomb pattern answered.\"\n\n\"I wasn't even thinking about that!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried the colonel, with his eyes blinking and splashing like puddles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You mean that God might even decide to punish me by giving us a looser bomb pattern?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said the chaplain. \"It's conceivable He might.\"\n\n\"The hell with it, then,\" the colonel asserted in a huff of independence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not going to set these damned prayer meetings up just to make things worse than they are.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a scornful snicker, he settled himself behind his desk, replaced the empty cigarette holder in his mouth and lapsed into parturient silence for a few moments. \"Now I think about it,\" he confessed, as much to himself as to the chaplain, \"having the men pray to God probably wasn't such a hot idea anyway. The editors of The Saturday Evening Post might not have co-operated.\"\n\nThe colonel abandoned his project with remorse, for he had conceived it entirely on his own and had hoped to unveil it as a striking demonstration to everyone that he had no real need for Colonel Korn. Once it was gone, he was glad to be rid of it, for he had been troubled from the start by the danger of instituting the plan without first checking it out with Colonel Korn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He heaved an immense sigh of contentment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had a much higher opinion of himself now that his idea was abandoned, for he had made a very wise decision, he felt, and, most important, he had made this wise decision without consulting Colonel Korn.\n\n\"Will that be all, sir?\" asked the chaplain.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Colonel Cathcart. \"Unless you've got something else to suggest.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, sir. Only...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The colonel lifted his eyes as though affronted and studied the chaplain with aloof distrust. \"Only what, Chaplain?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said the chaplain, \"some of the men are very upset since you raised the number of missions to sixty. They've asked me to speak to you about it.\"\n\nThe colonel was silent. The chaplain's face reddened to the roots of his sandy hair as he waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel kept him squirming a long time with a fixed, uninterested look devoid of all emotion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell them there's a war going on,\" he advised finally in a flat voice.\n\n\"Thank you, sir, I will,\" the chaplain replied in a flood of gratitude because the colonel had finally said something. \"They were wondering why you couldn't requisition some of the replacement crews that are waiting in Africa to take their places and then let them go home.\"\n\n\"That's an administrative matter,\" the colonel said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's none of their business.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pointed languidly toward the wall. \"Help yourself to a plum tomato, Chaplain. Go ahead, it's on me.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. Sir-\"\n\n\"Don't mention it. How do you like living out there in the woods, Chaplain? Is everything hunky dory?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's good. You get in touch with us if you need anything.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Sir-\"\n\n\"Thanks for dropping around, Chaplain. I've got some work to do now. You'll let me know if you can think of anything for getting our names into The Saturday Evening Post, won't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I will.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain braced himself with a prodigious effort of the will and plunged ahead brazenly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm particularly concerned about the condition of one of the bombardiers, sir. Yossarian.\"\n\nThe colonel glanced up quickly with a start of vague recognition. \"Who?\" he asked in alarm.\n\n\"Yossarian, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yossarian?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir. Yossarian. He's in a very bad way, sir. I'm afraid he won't be able to suffer much longer without doing something desperate.\"\n\n\"Is that a fact, Chaplain?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I'm afraid it is.\"\n\nThe colonel thought about it in heavy silence for a few moments." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell him to trust in God,\" he advised finally." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, sir,\" said the chaplain. \"I will.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of Joseph Heller spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The late-August morning sun was hot and steamy, and there was no breeze on the balcony." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain moved slowly. He was downcast and burdened with self-reproach when he stepped without noise from the colonel's office on his rubber-soled and rubber-heeled brown shoes. He hated himself for what he construed to be his own cowardice. He had intended to take a much stronger stand with Colonel Cathcart on the matter of the sixty missions, to speak out with courage, logic and eloquence on a subject about which he had begun to feel very deeply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead he had failed miserably, had choked up once again in the face of opposition from a stronger personality." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a familiar, ignominious experience, and his opinion of himself was low.\n\nHe choked up even more a second later when he spied Colonel Korn's tubby monochrome figure trotting up the curved, wide, yellow stone staircase toward him in lackadaisical haste from the great dilapidated lobby below with its lofty walls of cracked dark marble and circular floor of cracked grimy tile. The chaplain was even more frightened of Colonel Korn than he was of Colonel Cathcart. The swarthy, middle-aged lieutenant colonel with the rimless, icy glasses and faceted, bald, domelike pate that he was always touching sensitively with the tips of his splayed fingers disliked the chaplain and was impolite to him frequently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He kept the chaplain in a constant state of terror with his curt, derisive tongue and his knowing, cynical eyes that the chaplain was never brave enough to meet for more than an accidental second." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inevitably, the chaplain's attention, as he cowered meekly before him, focused on Colonel Korn's midriff, where the shirttails bunching up from inside his sagging belt and ballooning down over his waist gave him an appearance of slovenly girth and made him seem inches shorter than his middle height. Colonel Korn was an untidy disdainful man with an oily skin and deep, hard lines running almost straight down from his nose between his crepuscular jowls and his square, clefted chin. His face was dour, and he glanced at the chaplain without recognition as the two drew close on the staircase and prepared to pass.\n\n\"Hiya, Father,\" he said tonelessly without looking at the chaplain. \"How's it going?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good morning, sir,\" the chaplain replied, discerning wisely that Colonel Korn expected nothing more in the way of a response." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Korn was proceeding up the stairs without slackening his pace, and the chaplain resisted the temptation to remind him again that he was not a Catholic but an Anabaptist, and that it was therefore neither necessary nor correct to address him as Father. He was almost certain now that Colonel Korn remembered and that calling him Father with a look of such bland innocence was just another one of Colonel Korn's methods of taunting him because he was only an Anabaptist.\n\nColonel Korn halted without warning when he was almost by and came whirling back down upon the chaplain with a glare of infuriated suspicion. The chaplain was petrified." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you doing with that plum tomato, Chaplain?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Korn demanded roughly.\n\nThe chaplain looked down his arm with surprise at the plum tomato Colonel Cathcart had invited him to take. \"I got it in Colonel Cathcart's office, sir,\" he managed to reply.\n\n\"Does the colonel know you took it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir. He gave it to me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, in that case I guess it's okay,\" Colonel Korn said, mollified. He smiled without warmth, jabbing the crumpled folds of his shirt back down inside his trousers with his thumbs. His eyes glinted keenly with a private and satisfying mischief. \"What did Colonel Cathcart want to see you about, Father?\" he asked suddenly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain was tongue-tied with indecision for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think I ought-\"\n\n\"Saying prayers to the editors of The Saturday Evening Post?\"\n\nThe chaplain almost smiled. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\nColonel Korn was enchanted with his own intuition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He laughed disparagingly. \"You know, I was afraid he'd begin thinking about something so ridiculous as soon as he saw this week's Saturday Evening Post. I hope you succeeded in showing him what an atrocious idea it is.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He has decided against it, sir.\"\n\n\"That's good. I'm glad you convinced him that the editors of The Saturday Evening Post were not likely to run that same story twice just to give some publicity to some obscure colonel. How are things in the wilderness, Father? Are you able to manage out there?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Everything is working out.\"\n\n\"That's good. I'm happy to hear you have nothing to complain about. Let us know if you need anything to make you comfortable. We all want you to have a good time out there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you, sir. I will.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Noise of a growing stir rose from the lobby below. It was almost lunchtime, and the earliest arrivals were drifting into the headquarters mess halls, the enlisted men and officers separating into different dining halls on facing sides of the archaic rotunda. Colonel Korn stopped smiling.\n\n\"You had lunch with us here just a day or so ago, didn't you, Father?\" he asked meaningfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir. The day before yesterday.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's what I thought,\" Colonel Korn said, and paused to let his point sink in. \"Well, take it easy, Father. I'll see you around when it's time for you to eat here again.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir.\"\n\nThe chaplain was not certain at which of the five officers' and five enlisted men's mess halls he was scheduled to have lunch that day, for the system of rotation worked out for him by Colonel Korn was complicated, and he had forgotten his records back in his tent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain was the only officer attached to Group Headquarters who did not reside in the moldering red-stone Group Headquarters building itself or in any of the smaller satellite structures that rose about the grounds in disjuncted relationship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain lived in a clearing in the woods about four miles away between the officers' club and the first of the four squadron areas that stretched away from Group Headquarters in a distant line. The chaplain lived alone in a spacious, square tent that was also his office. Sounds of revelry traveled to him at night from the officers' club and kept him awake often as he turned and tossed on his cot in passive, half-voluntary exile. He was not able to gauge the effect of the mild pills he took occasionally to help him sleep and felt guilty about it for days afterward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only one who lived with the chaplain in his clearing in the woods was Corporal Whitcomb, his assistant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corporal Whitcomb, an atheist, was a disgruntled subordinate who felt he could do the chaplain's job much better than the chaplain was doing it and viewed himself, therefore, as an underprivileged victim of social inequity. He lived in a tent of his own as spacious and square as the chaplain's. He was openly rude and contemptuous to the chaplain once he discovered that the chaplain would let him get away with it. The borders of the two tents in the clearing stood no more than four or five feet apart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Colonel Korn who had mapped out this way of life for the chaplain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One good reason for making the chaplain live outside the Group Headquarters building was Colonel Korn's theory that dwelling in a tent as most of his parishioners did would bring him into closer communication with them. Another good reason was the fact that having the chaplain around Headquarters all the time made the other officers uncomfortable. It was one thing to maintain liaison with the Lord, and they were all in favor of that; it was something else, though, to have Him hanging around twenty-four hours a day. All in all, as Colonel Korn described it to Major Danby, the jittery and goggle-eyed group operations officer, the chaplain had it pretty soft; he had little more to do than listen to the troubles of others, bury the dead, visit the bedridden and conduct religious services." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And there were not so many dead for him to bury any more, Colonel Korn pointed out, since opposition from German fighter planes had virtually ceased and since close to ninety per cent of what fatalities there still were, he estimated, perished behind the enemy lines or disappeared inside the clouds, where the chaplain had nothing to do with disposing of the remains." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The religious services were certainly no great strain, either, since they were conducted only once a week at the Group Headquarters building and were attended by very few of the men.\n\nActually, the chaplain was learning to love it in his clearing in the woods. Both he and Corporal Whitcomb had been provided with every convenience so that neither might ever plead discomfort as a basis for seeking permission to return to the Headquarters building. The chaplain rotated his breakfasts, lunches and dinners in separate sets among the eight squadron mess halls and ate every fifth meal in the enlisted men's mess at Group Headquarters and every tenth meal at the officers' mess there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back home in Wisconsin the chaplain had been very fond of gardening, and his heart welled with a glorious impression of fertility and fruition each time he contemplated the low, prickly boughs of the stunted trees and the waist-high weeds and thickets by which he was almost walled in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the spring he had longed to plant begonias and zinnias in a narrow bed around his tent but had been deterred by his fear of Corporal Whitcomb's rancor. The chaplain relished the privacy and isolation of his verdant surroundings and the reverie and meditation that living there fostered. Fewer people came to him with their troubles than formerly, and he allowed himself a measure of gratitude for that too. The chaplain did not mix freely and was not comfortable in conversation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He missed his wife and his three small children, and she missed him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What displeased Corporal Whitcomb most about the chaplain, apart from the fact that the chaplain believed in God, was his lack of initiative and aggressiveness. Corporal Whitcomb regarded the low attendance at religious services as a sad reflection of his own status. His mind germinated feverishly with challenging new ideas for sparking the great spiritual revival of which he dreamed himself the architect-box lunches, church socials, form letters to the families of men killed and injured in combat, censorship, Bingo. But the chaplain blocked him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Corporal Whitcomb bridled with vexation beneath the chaplain's restraint, for he spied room for improvement everywhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was people like the chaplain, he concluded, who were responsible for giving religion such a bad name and making pariahs out of them both. Unlike the chaplain, Corporal Whitcomb detested the seclusion of the clearing in the woods. One of the first things he intended to do after he deposed the chaplain was move back into the Group Headquarters building, where he could be right in the thick of things.\n\nWhen the chaplain drove back into the clearing after leaving Colonel Korn, Corporal Whitcomb was outside in the muggy haze talking in conspiratorial tones to a strange chubby man in a maroon corduroy bathrobe and gray flannel pajamas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain recognized the bathrobe and pajamas as official hospital attire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neither of the two men gave him any sign of recognition. The stranger's gums had been painted purple; his corduroy bathrobe was decorated in back with a picture of a B-25 nosing through orange bursts of flak and in front with six neat rows of tiny bombs signifying sixty combat missions flown. The chaplain was so struck by the sight that he stopped to stare. Both men broke off their conversation and waited in stony silence for him to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain hurried inside his tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard, or imagined he heard, them tittering.\n\nCorporal Whitcomb walked in a moment later and demanded, \"What's doing?\"\n\n\"There isn't anything new,\" the chaplain replied with averted eyes. \"Was anyone here to see me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just that crackpot Yossarian again. He's a real troublemaker, isn't he?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not so sure he's a crackpot,\" the chaplain observed.\n\n\"That's right, take his part,\" said Corporal Whitcomb in an injured tone, and stamped out.\n\nThe chaplain could not believe that Corporal Whitcomb was offended again and had really walked out. As soon as he did realize it, Corporal Whitcomb walked back in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You always side with other people,\" Corporal Whitcomb accused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't back up your men. That's one of the things that's wrong with you.\"\n\n\"I didn't intend to side with him,\" the chaplain apologized. \"I was just making a statement.\"\n\n\"What did Colonel Cathcart want?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It wasn't anything important. He just wanted to discuss the possibility of saying prayers in the briefing room before each mission.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, don't tell me,\" Corporal Whitcomb snapped and walked out again.\n\nThe chaplain felt terrible. No matter how considerate he tried to be, it seemed he always managed to hurt Corporal Whitcomb's feelings. He gazed down remorsefully and saw that the orderly forced upon him by Colonel Korn to keep his tent clean and attend to his belongings had neglected to shine his shoes again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Corporal Whitcomb came back in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You never trust me with information,\" he whined truculently. \"You don't have confidence in your men. That's another one of the things that's wrong with you.\"\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" the chaplain assured him guiltily. \"I have lots of confidence in you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then how about those letters?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, not now,\" the chaplain pleaded, cringing. \"Not the letters. Please don't bring that up again. I'll let you know if I have a change of mind.\"\n\nCorporal Whitcomb looked furious. \"Is that so? Well, it's all right for you to just sit there and shake your head while I do all the work. Didn't you see the guy outside with all those pictures painted on his bathrobe?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is he here to see me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Corporal Whitcomb said, and walked out.\n\nIt was hot and humid inside the tent, and the chaplain felt himself turning damp. He listened like an unwilling eavesdropper to the muffled, indistinguishable drone of the lowered voices outside. As he sat inertly at the rickety bridge table that served as a desk, his lips were closed, his eyes were blank, and his face, with its pale ochre hue and ancient, confined clusters of minute acne pits, had the color and texture of an uncracked almond shell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He racked his memory for some clue to the origin of Corporal Whitcomb's bitterness toward him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In some way he was unable to fathom, he was convinced he had done him some unforgivable wrong. It seemed incredible that such lasting ire as Corporal Whitcomb's could have stemmed from his rejection of Bingo or the form letters home to the families of the men killed in combat. The chaplain was despondent with an acceptance of his own ineptitude. He had intended for some weeks to have a heart-to-heart talk with Corporal Whitcomb in order to find out what was bothering him, but was already ashamed of what he might find out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Outside the tent, Corporal Whitcomb snickered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other man chuckled. For a few precarious seconds, the chaplain tingled with a weird, occult sensation of having experienced the identical situation before in some prior time or existence. He endeavored to trap and nourish the impression in order to predict, and perhaps even control, what incident would occur next, but the afatus melted away unproductively, as he had known beforehand it would. Déjà vu. The subtle, recurring confusion between illusion and reality that was characteristic of paramnesia fascinated the chaplain, and he knew a number of things about it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew, for example, that it was called paramnesia, and he was interested as well in such corollary optical phenomena as jamais vu, never seen, and presque vu, almost seen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were terrifying, sudden moments when objects, concepts and even people that the chaplain had lived with almost all his life inexplicably took on an unfamiliar and irregular aspect that he had never seen before and which made them totally strange: jamais vu. And there were other moments when he almost saw absolute truth in brilliant flashes of clarity that almost came to him: presque vu. The episode of the naked man in the tree at Snowden's funeral mystified him thoroughly. It was not déjà vu, for at the time he had experienced no sensation of ever having seen a naked man in a tree at Snowden's funeral before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not jamais vu, since the apparition was not of someone, or something, familiar appearing to him in an unfamiliar guise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And it was certainly not presque vu, for the chaplain did see him.\n\nA jeep started up with a backfire directly outside and roared away. Had the naked man in the tree at Snowden's funeral been merely a hallucination? Or had it been a true revelation?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain trembled at the mere idea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted desperately to confide in Yossarian, but each time he thought about the occurrence he decided not to think about it any further, although now that he did think about it he could not be sure that he ever really had thought about it.\n\nCorporal Whitcomb sauntered back in wearing a shiny new smirk and leaned his elbow impertinently against the center pole of the chaplain's tent.\n\n\"Do you know who that guy in the red bathrobe was?\" he asked boastfully. \"That was a C.I.D. man with a fractured nose. He came down here from the hospital on official business. He's conducting an investigation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain raised his eyes quickly in obsequious commiseration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hope you're not in any trouble. Is there anything I can do?\"\n\n\"No, I'm not in any trouble,\" Corporal Whitcomb replied with a grin. \"You are. They're going to crack down on you for signing Washington Irving's name to all those letters you've been signing Washington Irving's name to. How do you like that?\"\n\n\"I haven't been signing Washington Irving's name to any letters,\" said the chaplain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't have to lie to me,\" Corporal Whitcomb answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not the one you have to convince.\"\n\n\"But I'm not lying.\"\n\n\"I don't care whether you're lying or not. They're going to get you for intercepting Major Major's correspondence, too. A lot of that stuff is classified information.\"\n\n\"What correspondence?\" asked the chaplain plaintively in rising exasperation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've never even seen any of Major Major's correspondence.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't have to lie to me,\" Corporal Whitcomb replied. \"I'm not the one you have to convince.\"\n\n\"But I'm not lying!\" protested the chaplain.\n\n\"I don't see why you have to shout at me,\" Corporal Whitcomb retorted with an injured look." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He came away from the center pole and shook his finger at the chaplain for emphasis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I just did you the biggest favor anybody ever did you in your whole life, and you don't even realize it. Every time he tries to report you to his superiors, somebody up at the hospital censors out the details. He's been going batty for weeks trying to turn you in. I just put a censor's okay on his letter without even reading it. That will make a very good impression for you up at C.I.D. headquarters. It will let them know that we're not the least bit afraid to have the whole truth about you come out.\"\n\nThe chaplain was reeling with confusion. \"But you aren't authorized to censor letters, are you?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" Corporal Whitcomb answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only officers are ever authorized to do that. I censored it in your name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I'm not authorized to censor letters either. Am I?\"\n\n\"I took care of that for you, too,\" Corporal Whitcomb assured him. \"I signed somebody else's name for you.\"\n\n\"Isn't that forgery?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, don't worry about that either. The only one who might complain in a case of forgery is the person whose name you forged, and I looked out for your interests by picking a dead man. I used Washington Irving's name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corporal Whitcomb scrutinized the chaplain's face closely for some sign of rebellion and then breezed ahead confidently with concealed irony. \"That was pretty quick thinking on my part, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" the chaplain wailed softly in a quavering voice, squinting with grotesque contortions of anguish and incomprehension. \"I don't think I understand all you've been telling me. How will it make a good impression for me if you signed Washington Irving's name instead of my own?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because they're convinced that you are Washington Irving. Don't you see? They'll know it was you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But isn't that the very belief we want to dispel? Won't this help them prove it?\"\n\n\"If I thought you were going to be so stuffy about it, I wouldn't even have tried to help,\" Corporal Whitcomb declared indignantly, and walked out. A second later he walked back in. \"I just did you the biggest favor anybody ever did you in your whole life and you don't even know it. You don't know how to show your appreciation. That's another one of the things that's wrong with you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry,\" the chaplain apologized contritely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I really am sorry. It's just that I'm so completely stunned by all you're telling me that I don't even realize what I'm saying. I'm really very grateful to you.\"\n\n\"Then how about letting me send out those form letters?\" Corporal Whitcomb demanded immediately. \"Can I begin working on the first drafts?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain's jaw dropped in astonishment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, no,\" he groaned. \"Not now.\"\n\nCorporal Whitcomb was incensed. \"I'm the best friend you've got and you don't even know it,\" he asserted belligerently, and walked out of the chaplain's tent. He walked back in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm on your side and you don't even realize it. Don't you know what serious trouble you're in? That C.I.D. man has gone rushing back to the hospital to write a brand-new report on you about that tomato.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What tomato?\" the chaplain asked, blinking.\n\n\"The plum tomato you were hiding in your hand when you first showed up here. There it is. The tomato you're still holding in your hand right this very minute!\"\n\nThe captain unclenched his fingers with surprise and saw that he was still holding the plum tomato he had obtained in Colonel Cathcart's office. He set it down quickly on the bridge table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I got this tomato from Colonel Cathcart,\" he said, and was struck by how ludicrous his explanation sounded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He insisted I take it.\"\n\n\"You don't have to lie to me,\" Corporal Whitcomb answered. \"I don't care whether you stole it from him or not.\"\n\n\"Stole it?\" the chaplain exclaimed with amazement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why should I want to steal a plum tomato?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's exactly what had us both stumped,\" said Corporal Whitcomb. \"And then the C.I.D. man figured out you might have some important secret papers hidden away inside it.\"\n\nThe chaplain sagged limply beneath the mountainous weight of his despair. \"I don't have any important secret papers hidden away inside it,\" he stated simply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't even want it to begin with. Here, you can have it and see for yourself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't want it.\"\n\n\"Please take it away,\" the chaplain pleaded in a voice that was barely audible. \"I want to be rid of it.\"\n\n\"I don't want it,\" Corporal Whitcomb snapped again, and stalked out with an angry face, suppressing a smile of great jubilation at having forged a powerful new alliance with the C.I.D." }, { "from": "human", "value": "man and at having succeeded again in convincing the chaplain that he was really displeased." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Poor Whitcomb, sighed the chaplain, and blamed himself for his assistant's malaise. He sat mutely in a ponderous, stultifying melancholy, waiting expectantly for Corporal Whitcomb to walk back in. He was disappointed as he heard the peremptory crunch of Corporal Whitcomb's footsteps recede into silence. There was nothing he wanted to do next." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with 4 sentences in the style of Joseph Heller." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart was not thinking anything at all about the chaplain, but was tangled up in a brand-new, menacing problem of his own: Yossarian!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian! The mere sound of that execrable, ugly name made his blood run cold and his breath come in labored gasps. The chaplain's first mention of the name Yossarian! had tolled deep in his memory like a portentous gong. As soon as the latch of the door had clicked shut, the whole humiliating recollection of the naked man in formation came cascading down upon him in a mortifying, choking flood of stinging details." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He began to perspire and tremble." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a sinister and unlikely coincidence exposed that was too diabolical in implication to be anything less than the most hideous of omens. The name of the man who had stood naked in ranks that day to receive his Distinguished Flying Cross from General Dreedle had also been-Yossarian! And now it was a man named Yossarian who was threatening to make trouble over the sixty missions he had just ordered the men in his group to fly. Colonel Cathcart wondered gloomily if it was the same Yossarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He climbed to his feet with an air of intolerable woe and began moving about his office." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt himself in the presence of the mysterious. The naked man in formation, he conceded cheerlessly, had been a real black eye for him. So had the tampering with the bomb line before the mission to Bologna and the seven-day delay in destroying the bridge at Ferrara, even though destroying the bridge at Ferrara finally, he remembered with glee, had been a real feather in his cap, although losing a plane there the second time around, he recalled in dejection, had been another black eye, even though he had won another real feather in his cap by getting a medal approved for the bombardier who had gotten him the real black eye in the first place by going around over the target twice. That bombardier's name, he remembered suddenly with another stupefying shock, had also been Yossarian!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now there were three!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His viscous eyes bulged with astonishment and he whipped himself around in alarm to see what was taking place behind him. A moment ago there had been no Yossarians in his life; now they were multiplying like hobgoblins. He tried to make himself grow calm. Yossarian was not a common name; perhaps there were not really three Yossarians but only two Yossarians, or maybe even only one Yossarian-but that really made no difference!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel was still in grave peril." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Intuition warned him that he was drawing close to some immense and inscrutable cosmic climax, and his broad, meaty, towering frame tingled from head to toe at the thought that Yossarian, whoever he would eventually turn out to be, was destined to serve as his nemesis.\n\nColonel Cathcart was not superstitious, but he did believe in omens, and he sat right back down behind his desk and made a cryptic notation on his memorandum pad to look into the whole suspicious business of the Yossarians right away. He wrote his reminder to himself in a heavy and decisive hand, amplifying it sharply with a series of coded punctuation marks and underlining the whole message twice, so that it read:\n\nYossarian!!! (? )!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel sat back when he had finished and was extremely pleased with himself for the prompt action he had just taken to meet this sinister crisis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian-the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an odious, alien, distasteful name, that just did not inspire confidence. It was not at all like such clean, crisp, honest, American names as Cathcart, Peckem and Dreedle.\n\nColonel Cathcart rose slowly and began drifting about his office again. Almost unconsciously, he picked up a plum tomato from the top of one of the bushels and took a voracious bite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made a wry face at once and threw the rest of the plum tomato into his waste-basket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The colonel did not like plum tomatoes, not even when they were his own, and these were not even his own. These had been purchased in different market places all over Pianosa by Colonel Korn under various identities, moved up to the colonel's farmhouse in the hills in the dead of night, and transported down to Group Headquarters the next morning for sale to Milo, who paid Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn premium prices for them. Colonel Cathcart often wondered if what they were doing with the plum tomatoes was legal, but Colonel Korn said it was, and he tried not to brood about it too often. He had no way of knowing whether or not the house in the hills was legal, either, since Colonel Korn had made all the arrangements." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart did not know if he owned the house or rented it, from whom he had acquired it or how much, if anything, it was costing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Korn was the lawyer, and if Colonel Korn assured him that fraud, extortion, currency manipulation, embezzlement, income tax evasion and black-market speculations were legal, Colonel Cathcart was in no position to disagree with him.\n\nAll Colonel Cathcart knew about his house in the hills was that he had such a house and hated it. He was never so bored as when spending there the two or three days every other week necessary to sustain the illusion that his damp and drafty stone farmhouse in the hills was a golden palace of carnal delights. Officers' clubs everywhere pulsated with blurred but knowing accounts of lavish, hushed-up drinking and sex orgies there and of secret, intimate nights of ecstasy with the most beautiful, the most tantalizing, the most readily aroused and most easily satisfied Italian courtesans, film actresses, models and countesses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No such private nights of ecstasy or hushed-up drinking and sex orgies ever occurred." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They might have occurred if either General Dreedle or General Peckem had once evinced an interest in taking part in orgies with him, but neither ever did, and the colonel was certainly not going to waste his time and energy making love to beautiful women unless there was something in it for him.\n\nThe colonel dreaded his dank lonely nights at his farmhouse and the dull, uneventful days. He had much more fun back at Group, browbeating everyone he wasn't afraid of. However, as Colonel Korn kept reminding him, there was not much glamour in having a farmhouse in the hills if he never used it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He drove off to his farmhouse each time in a mood of self-pity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He carried a shotgun in his jeep and spent the monotonous hours there shooting it at birds and at the plum tomatoes that did grow there in untended rows and were too much trouble to harvest.\n\nAmong those officers of inferior rank toward whom Colonel Cathcart still deemed it prudent to show respect, he included Major – de Coverley, even though he did not want to and was not sure he even had to. Major – de Coverley was as great a mystery to him as he was to Major Major and to everyone else who ever took notice of him. Colonel Cathcart had no idea whether to look up or look down in his attitude toward Major – de Coverley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major – de Coverley was only a major, even though he was ages older than Colonel Cathcart; at the same time, so many other people treated Major – de Coverley with such profound and fearful veneration that Colonel Cathcart had a hunch they might know something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major – de Coverley was an ominous, incomprehensible presence who kept him constantly on edge and of whom even Colonel Korn tended to be wary. Everyone was afraid of him, and no one knew why. No one even knew Major – de Coverley's first name, because no one had ever had the temerity to ask him. Colonel Cathcart knew that Major – de Coverley was away and he rejoiced in his absence until it occurred to him that Major – de Coverley might be away somewhere conspiring against him, and then he wished that Major – de Coverley were back in his squadron where he belonged so that he could be watched." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a little while Colonel Cathcart's arches began to ache from pacing back and forth so much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sat down behind his desk again and resolved to embark upon a mature and systematic evaluation of the entire military situation. With the businesslike air of a man who knows how to get things done, he found a large white pad, drew a straight line down the middle and crossed it near the top, dividing the page into two blank columns of equal width. He rested a moment in critical rumination. Then he huddled over his desk, and at the head of the left column, in a cramped and finicky hand, he wrote, \"Black Eyes!!!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the top of the right column he wrote, \"Feathers in My Cap!!!!!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He leaned back once more to inspect his chart admiringly from an objective perspective. After a few seconds of solemn deliberation, he licked the tip of his pencil carefully and wrote under \"Black Eyes!! !,\" after intent intervals:\n\nFerrara\n\nBologna (bomb line moved on map during)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Skeet range" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naked man information (after Avignon)\n\nThen he added:\n\nFood poisoning (during Bologna)\n\nand" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Moaning (epidemic of during Avignon briefing)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he added:\n\nChaplain (hanging around officers' club every night)\n\nHe decided to be charitable about the chaplain, even though he did not like him, and under \"Feathers in My Cap!!!!!\" he wrote:\n\nChaplain (hanging around officers' club every night)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two chaplain entries, therefore, neutralized each other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alongside \"Ferrara\" and \"Naked man in formation (after Avignon)\" he then wrote:\n\nYossarian!\n\nAlongside \"Bologna (bomb line moved on map during)\" \"Food poisoning (during Bologna)\" and \"Moaning (epidemic of during Avignon briefing)\" he wrote in a bold, decisive hand:\n\n?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those entries labeled \"?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "were the ones he wanted to investigate immediately to determine if Yossarian had played any part in them.\n\nSuddenly his arm began to shake, and he was unable to write any more. He rose to his feet in terror, feeling sticky and fat, and rushed to the open window to gulp in fresh air. His gaze fell on the skeet-range, and he reeled away with a sharp cry of distress, his wild and feverish eyes scanning the walls of his office frantically as though they were swarming with Yossarians." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nobody loved him. General Dreedle hated him, although General Peckem liked him, although he couldn't be sure, since Colonel Cargill, General Peckem's aide, undoubtedly had ambitions of his own and was probably sabotaging him with General Peckem at every opportunity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only good colonel, he decided, was a dead colonel, except for himself. The only colonel he trusted was Colonel Moodus, and even he had an in with his father-in-law. Milo, of course, had been the big feather in his cap, although having his group bombed by Milo's planes had probably been a terrible black eye for him, even though Milo had ultimately stilled all protest by disclosing the huge net profit the syndicate had realized on the deal with the enemy and convincing everyone that bombing his own men and planes had therefore really been a commendable and very lucrative blow on the side of private enterprise. The colonel was insecure about Milo because other colonels were trying to lure him away, and Colonel Cathcart still had that lousy Big Chief White Halfoat in his group who that lousy, lazy Captain Black claimed was the one really responsible for the bomb line's being moved during the Big Siege of Bologna." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart liked Big Chief White Halfoat because Big Chief White Halfoat kept punching that lousy Colonel Moodus in the nose every time he got drunk and Colonel Moodus was around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wished that Big Chief White Halfoat would begin punching Colonel Korn in his fat face, too. Colonel Korn was a lousy smart aleck. Someone at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters had it in for him and sent back every report he wrote with a blistering rebuke, and Colonel Korn had bribed a clever mail clerk there named Wintergreen to try to find out who it was. Losing the plane over Ferrara the second time around had not done him any good, he had to admit, and neither had having that other plane disappear inside that cloud-that was one he hadn't even written down!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to recall, longingly, if Yossarian had been lost in that plane in the cloud and realized that Yossarian could not possibly have been lost in that plane in the cloud if he was still around now raising such a big stink about having to fly a lousy five missions more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe sixty missions were too many for the men to fly, Colonel Cathcart reasoned, if Yossarian objected to flying them, but he then remembered that forcing his men to fly more missions than everyone else was the most tangible achievement he had going for him. As Colonel Korn often remarked, the war was crawling with group commanders who were merely doing their duty, and it required just some sort of dramatic gesture like making his group fly more combat missions than any other bomber group to spotlight his unique qualities of leadership. Certainly none of the generals seemed to object to what he was doing, although as far as he could detect they weren't particularly impressed either, which made him suspect that perhaps sixty combat missions were not nearly enough and that he ought to increase the number at once to seventy, eighty, a hundred, or even two hundred, three hundred, or six thousand!\n\nCertainly he would be much better off under somebody suave like General Peckem than he was under somebody boorish and insensitive like General Dreedle, because General Peckem had the discernment, the intelligence and the Ivy League background to appreciate and enjoy him at his full value, although General Peckem had never given the slightest indication that he appreciated or enjoyed him at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart felt perceptive enough to realize that visible signals of recognition were never necessary between sophisticated, self-assured people like himself and General Peckem who could warm to each other from a distance with innate mutual understanding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was enough that they were of like kind, and he knew it was only a matter of waiting discreetly for preferment until the right time, although it rotted Colonel Cathcart's self-esteem to observe that General Peckem never deliberately sought him out and that he labored no harder to impress Colonel Cathcart with his epigrams and erudition than he did to impress anyone else in earshot, even enlisted men. Either Colonel Cathcart wasn't getting through to General Peckem or General Peckem was not the scintillating, discriminating, intellectual, forward-looking personality he pretended to be and it was really General Dreedle who was sensitive, charming, brilliant and sophisticated and under whom he would certainly be much better off, and suddenly Colonel Cathcart had absolutely no conception of how strongly he stood with anyone and began banging on his buzzer with his fist for Colonel Korn to come running into his office and assure him that everybody loved him, that Yossarian was a figment of his imagination, and that he was making wonderful progress in the splendid and valiant campaign he was waging to become a general.\n\nActually, Colonel Cathcart did not have a chance in hell of becoming a general. For one thing, there was ex-P.F.C." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wintergreen, who also wanted to be a general and who always distorted, destroyed, rejected or misdirected any correspondence by, for or about Colonel Cathcart that might do him credit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For another, there already was a general, General Dreedle who knew that General Peckem was after his job but did not know how to stop him.\n\nGeneral Dreedle, the wing commander, was a blunt, chunky, barrel-chested man in his early fifties. His nose was squat and red, and he had lumpy white, bunched-up eyelids circling his small gray eyes like haloes of bacon fat. He had a nurse and a son-in law, and he was prone to long, ponderous silences when he had not been drinking too much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Dreedle had wasted too much of his time in the Army doing his job well, and now it was too late." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "New power alignments had coalesced without him and he was at a loss to cope with them. At unguarded moments his hard and sullen face slipped into a somber, preoccupied look of defeat and frustration. General Dreedle drank a great deal. His moods were arbitrary and unpredictable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"War is hell,\" he declared frequently, drunk or sober, and he really meant it, although that did not prevent him from making a good living out of it or from taking his son-in-law into the business with him, even though the two bickered constantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That bastard,\" General Dreedle would complain about his son-in-law with a contemptuous grunt to anyone who happened to be standing beside him at the curve of the bar of the officers' club. \"Everything he's got he owes to me. I made him, that lousy son of a bitch! He hasn't got brains enough to get ahead on his own.\"\n\n\"He thinks he knows everything,\" Colonel Moodus would retort in a sulking tone to his own audience at the other end of the bar. \"He can't take criticism and he won't listen to advice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All he can do is give advice,\" General Dreedle would observe with a rasping snort." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If it wasn't for me, he'd still be a corporal.\"\n\nGeneral Dreedle was always accompanied by both Colonel Moodus and his nurse, who was as delectable a piece of ass as anyone who saw her had ever laid eyes on. General Dreedle's nurse was chubby, short and blonde. She had plump dimpled cheeks, happy blue eyes, and neat curly turned-up hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She smiled at everyone and never spoke at all unless she was spoken to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her bosom was lush and her complexion clear. She was irresistible, and men edged away from her carefully. She was succulent, sweet, docile and dumb, and she drove everyone crazy but General Dreedle.\n\n\"You should see her naked,\" General Dreedle chortled with croupy relish, while his nurse stood smiling proudly right at his shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Back at Wing she's got a uniform in my room made of purple silk that's so tight her nipples stand out like bing cherries. Milo got me the fabric. There isn't even room enough for panties or a brassière underneath. I make her wear it some nights when Moodus is around just to drive him crazy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Dreedle laughed hoarsely. \"You should see what goes on inside that blouse of hers every time she shifts her weight. She drives him out of his mind. The first time I catch him putting a hand on her or any other woman I'll bust the horny bastard right down to private and put him on K.P. for a year.\"\n\n\"He keeps her around just to drive me crazy,\" Colonel Moodus accused aggrievedly at the other end of the bar. \"Back at Wing she's got a uniform made out of purple silk that's so tight her nipples stand out like bing cherries. There isn't even room for panties or a brassière underneath. You should hear that rustle every time she shifts her weight. The first time I make a pass at her or any other girl he'll bust me right down to private and put me on K.P. for a year. She drives me out of my mind.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He hasn't gotten laid since we shipped overseas,\" confided General Dreedle, and his square grizzled head bobbed with sadistic laughter at the fiendish idea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's one of the reasons I never let him out of my sight, just so he can't get to a woman. Can you imagine what that poor son of a bitch is going through?\"\n\n\"I haven't been to bed with a woman since we shipped overseas,\" Colonel Moodus whimpered tearfully. \"Can you imagine what I'm going through?\"\n\nGeneral Dreedle could be as intransigent with anyone else when displeased as he was with Colonel Moodus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had no taste for sham, tact or pretension, and his credo as a professional soldier was unified and concise: he believed that the young men who took orders from him should be willing to give up their lives for the ideals, aspirations and idiosyncrasies of the old men he took orders from." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The officers and enlisted men in his command had identity for him only as military quantities. All he asked was that they do their work; beyond that, they were free to do whatever they pleased. They were free, as Colonel Cathcart was free, to force their men to fly sixty missions if they chose, and they were free, as Yossarian had been free, to stand in formation naked if they wanted to, although General Dreedle's granite jaw swung open at the sight and he went striding dictatorially right down the line to make certain that there really was a man wearing nothing but moccasins waiting at attention in ranks to receive a medal from him. General Dreedle was speechless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart began to faint when he spied Yossarian, and Colonel Korn stepped up behind him and squeezed his arm in a strong grip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The silence was grotesque. A steady warm wind flowed in from the beach, and an old cart filled with dirty straw rumbled into view on the main road, drawn by a black donkey and driven by a farmer in a flopping hat and faded brown work clothes who paid no attention to the formal military ceremony taking place in the small field on his right.\n\nAt last General Dreedle spoke. \"Get back in the car,\" he snapped over his shoulder to his nurse, who had followed him down the line." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The nurse toddled away with a smile toward his brown staff car, parked about twenty yards away at the edge of the rectangular clearing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Dreedle waited in austere silence until the car door slammed and then demanded, \"Which one is this?\"\n\nColonel Moodus checked his roster. \"This one is Yossarian, Dad. He gets a Distinguished Flying Cross.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll be damned,\" mumbled General Dreedle, and his ruddy monolithic face softened with amusement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why aren't you wearing clothes, Yossarian?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't want to.\"\n\n\"What do you mean you don't want to? Why the hell don't you want to?\"\n\n\"I just don't want to, sir.\"\n\n\"Why isn't he wearing clothes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Dreedle demanded over his shoulder of Colonel Cathcart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's talking to you,\" Colonel Korn whispered over Colonel Cathcart's shoulder from behind, jabbing his elbow sharply into Colonel Cathcart's back.\n\n\"Why isn't he wearing clothes?\" Colonel Cathcart demanded of Colonel Korn with a look of acute pain, tenderly nursing the spot where Colonel Korn had just jabbed him.\n\n\"Why isn't he wearing clothes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn demanded of Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A man was killed in his plane over Avignon last week and bled all over him,\" Captain Wren replied. \"He swears he's never going to wear a uniform again.\"\n\n\"A man was killed in his plane over Avignon last week and bled all over him,\" Colonel Korn reported directly to General Dreedle. \"His uniform hasn't come back from the laundry yet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where are his other uniforms?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're in the laundry, too.\"\n\n\"What about his underwear?\" General Dreedle demanded.\n\n\"All his underwear's in the laundry, too,\" answered Colonel Korn.\n\n\"That sounds like a lot of crap to me,\" General Dreedle declared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is a lot of crap, sir,\" Yossarian said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't you worry, sir,\" Colonel Cathcart promised General Dreedle with a threatening look at Yossarian. \"You have my personal word for it that this man will be severely punished.\"\n\n\"What the hell do I care if he's punished or not?\" General Dreedle replied with surprise and irritation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's just won a medal. If he wants to receive it without any clothes on, what the hell business is it of yours?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Those are my sentiments exactly, sir!\" Colonel Cathcart echoed with resounding enthusiasm and mopped his brow with a damp white handkerchief. \"But would you say that, sir, even in the light of General Peckem's recent memorandum on the subject of appropriate military attire in combat areas?\"\n\n\"Peckem?\" General Dreedle's face clouded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir, sir,\" said Colonel Cathcart obsequiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"General Peckem even recommends that we send our men into combat in full-dress uniform so they'll make a good impression on the enemy when they're shot down.\"\n\n\"Peckem?\" repeated General Dreedle, still squinting with bewilderment. \"Just what the hell does Peckem have to do with it?\"\n\nColonel Korn jabbed Colonel Cathcart sharply again in the back with his elbow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Absolutely nothing, sir!\" Colonel Cathcart responded sprucely, wincing in extreme pain and gingerly rubbing the spot where Colonel Korn had just jabbed him again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that's exactly why I decided to take absolutely no action at all until I first had an opportunity to discuss it with you. Shall we ignore it completely, sir?\"\n\nGeneral Dreedle ignored him completely, turning away from him in baleful scorn to hand Yossarian his medal in its case.\n\n\"Get my girl back from the car,\" he commanded Colonel Moodus crabbily, and waited in one spot with his scowling face down until his nurse had rejoined him.\n\n\"Get word to the office right away to kill that directive I just issued ordering the men to wear neckties on the combat missions,\" Colonel Cathcart whispered to Colonel Korn urgently out of the corner of his mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I told you not to do it,\" Colonel Korn snickered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you just wouldn't listen to me.\"\n\n\"Shhhh!\" Colonel Cathcart cautioned. \"Goddammit, Korn, what did you do to my back?\"\n\nColonel Korn snickered again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Dreedle's nurse always followed General Dreedle everywhere he went, even into the briefing room just before the mission to Avignon, where she stood with her asinine smile at the side of the platform and bloomed like a fertile oasis at General Dreedle's shoulder in her pink-and-green uniform." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian looked at her and fell in love, desperately. His spirits sank, leaving him empty inside and numb. He sat gazing in clammy want at her full red lips and dimpled cheeks as he listened to Major Danby describe in a monotonous, didactic male drone the heavy concentrations of flak awaiting them at Avignon, and he moaned in deep despair suddenly at the thought that he might never see again this lovely woman to whom he had never spoken a word and whom he now loved so pathetically. He throbbed and ached with sorrow, fear and desire as he stared at her; she was so beautiful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He worshiped the ground she stood on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He licked his parched, thirsting lips with a sticky tongue and moaned in misery again, loudly enough this time to attract the startled, searching glances of the men sitting around him on the rows of crude wooden benches in their chocolate-colored coveralls and stitched white parachute harnesses.\n\nNately turned to him quickly with alarm. \"What is it?\" he whispered. \"What's the matter?\"\n\nYossarian did not hear him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Dreedle's nurse was only a little chubby, and his senses were stuffed to congestion with the yellow radiance of her hair and the unfelt pressure of her soft short fingers, with the rounded, untasted wealth of her nubile breasts in her Army-pink shirt that was opened wide at the throat and with the rolling, ripened, triangular confluences of her belly and thighs in her tight, slick forest-green gabardine officer's pants. He drank her in insatiably from head to painted toenail. He never wanted to lose her. \"Oooooooooooooh,\" he moaned again, and this time the whole room rippled at his quavering, drawn-out cry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A wave of startled uneasiness broke over the officers on the dais, and even Major Danby, who had begun synchronizing the watches, was distracted momentarily as he counted out the seconds and almost had to begin again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately followed Yossarian's transfixed gaze down the long frame auditorium until he came to General Dreedle's nurse. He blanched with trepidation when he guessed what was troubling Yossarian.\n\n\"Cut it out, will you?\" Nately warned in a fierce whisper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ooooooooooooooooooooh,\" Yossarian moaned a fourth time, this time loudly enough for everyone to hear him distinctly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you crazy?\" Nately hissed vehemently. \"You'll get into trouble.\"\n\n\"Ooooooooooooooooooooh,\" Dunbar answered Yossarian from the opposite end of the room.\n\nNately recognized Dunbar's voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The situation was now out of control, and he turned away with a small moan. \"Ooh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ooooooooooooooooooooh,\" Dunbar moaned back at him.\n\n\"Ooooooooooooooooooooh,\" Nately moaned out loud in exasperation when he realized that he had just moaned.\n\n\"Ooooooooooooooooooooh,\" Dunbar moaned back at him again.\n\n\"Ooooooooooooooooooooh,\" someone entirely new chimed in from another section of the room, and Nately's hair stood on end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian and Dunbar both replied while Nately cringed and hunted about futilely for some hole in which to hide and take Yossarian with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sprinkling of people were smothering laughter. An elfin impulse possessed Nately and he moaned intentionally the next time there was a lull. Another new voice answered. The flavor of disobedience was titillating, and Nately moaned deliberately again, the next time he could squeeze one in edgewise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still another new voice echoed him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The room was boiling irrepressibly into bedlam. An eerie hubbub of voices was rising. Feet were scuffled, and things began to drop from people's fingers-pencils, computers, map cases, clattering steel flak helmets. A number of men who were not moaning were now giggling openly, and there was no telling how far the unorganized insurrection of moaning might have gone if General Dreedle himself had not come forward to quell it, stepping out determinedly in the center of the platform directly in front of Major Danby, who, with his earnest, persevering head down, was still concentrating on his wrist watch and saying, \"...twenty-five seconds... twenty... fifteen...\" General Dreedle's great, red domineering face was gnarled with perplexity and oaken with awesome resolution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That will be all, men,\" he ordered tersely, his eyes glaring with disapproval and his square jaw firm, and that's all there was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I run a fighting outfit,\" he told them sternly, when the room had grown absolutely quiet and the men on the benches were all cowering sheepishly, \"and there'll be no more moaning in this group as long as I'm in command. Is that clear?\"\n\nIt was clear to everybody but Major Danby, who was still concentrating on his wrist watch and counting down the seconds aloud. \"...four... three... two... one... time!\" called out Major Danby, and raised his eyes triumphantly to discover that no one had been listening to him and that he would have to begin all over again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ooooh,\" he moaned in frustration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What was that?\" roared General Dreedle incredulously, and whirled around in a murderous rage upon Major Danby, who staggered back in terrified confusion and began to quail and perspire. \"Who is this man?\"\n\n\"M-major Danby, sir,\" Colonel Cathcart stammered. \"My group operations officer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Take him out and shoot him,\" ordered General Dreedle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"S-sir?\"\n\n\"I said take him out and shoot him. Can't you hear?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir!\" Colonel Cathcart responded smartly, swallowing hard, and turned in a brisk manner to his chauffeur and his meteorologist. \"Take Major Danby out and shoot him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"S-sir?\" his chauffeur and his meteorologist stammered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I said take Major Danby out and shoot him,\" Colonel Cathcart snapped. \"Can't you hear?\"\n\nThe two young lieutenants nodded lumpishly and gaped at each other in stunned and flaccid reluctance, each waiting for the other to initiate the procedure of taking Major Danby outside and shooting him. Neither had ever taken Major Danby outside and shot him before. They inched their way dubiously toward Major Danby from opposite sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Danby was white with fear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His legs collapsed suddenly and he began to fall, and the two young lieutenants sprang forward and seized him under both arms to save him from slumping to the floor. Now that they had Major Danby, the rest seemed easy, but there were no guns. Major Danby began to cry. Colonel Cathcart wanted to rush to his side and comfort him, but did not want to look like a sissy in front of General Dreedle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He remembered that Appleby and Havermeyer always brought their.45 automatics on the missions, and he began to scan the rows of men in search of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as Major Danby began to cry, Colonel Moodus, who had been vacillating wretchedly on the sidelines, could restrain himself no longer and stepped out diffidently toward General Dreedle with a sickly air of self-sacrifice. \"I think you'd better wait a minute, Dad,\" he suggested hesitantly. \"I don't think you can shoot him.\"\n\nGeneral Dreedle was infuriated by his intervention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who the hell says I can't?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he thundered pugnaciously in a voice loud enough to rattle the whole building. Colonel Moodus, his face flushing with embarrassment, bent close to whisper into his ear. \"Why the hell can't I?\" General Dreedle bellowed. Colonel Moodus whispered some more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You mean I can't shoot anyone I want to?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Dreedle demanded with uncompromising indignation. He pricked up his ears with interest as Colonel Moodus continued whispering. \"Is that a fact?\" he inquired, his rage tamed by curiosity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, Dad. I'm afraid it is.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess you think you're pretty goddam smart, don't you?\" General Dreedle lashed out at Colonel Moodus suddenly.\n\nColonel Moodus turned crimson again. \"No, Dad, it isn't-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right, let the insubordinate son of a bitch go,\" General Dreedle snarled, turning bitterly away from his son-in-law and barking peevishly at Colonel Cathcart's chauffeur and Colonel Cathcart's meteorologist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But get him out of this building and keep him out. And let's continue this goddam briefing before the war ends. I've never seen so much incompetence.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart nodded lamely at General Dreedle and signaled his men hurriedly to push Major Danby outside the building. As soon as Major Danby had been pushed outside, though, there was no one to continue the briefing. Everyone gawked at everyone else in oafish surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Dreedle turned purple with rage as nothing happened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart had no idea what to do. He was about to begin moaning aloud when Colonel Korn came to the rescue by stepping forward and taking control. Colonel Cathcart sighed with enormous, tearful relief, almost overwhelmed with gratitude.\n\n\"Now, men, we're going to synchronize our watches,\" Colonel Korn began promptly in a sharp, commanding manner, rolling his eyes flirtatiously in General Dreedle's direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're going to synchronize our watches one time and one time only, and if it doesn't come off in that one time, General Dreedle and I are going to want to know why. Is that clear?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He fluttered his eyes toward General Dreedle again to make sure his plug had registered. \"Now set your watches for nine-eighteen.\"\n\nColonel Korn synchronized their watches without a single hitch and moved ahead with confidence. He gave the men the colors of the day and reviewed the weather conditions with an agile, flashy versatility, casting sidelong, simpering looks at General Dreedle every few seconds to draw increased encouragement from the excellent impression he saw he was making." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Preening and pruning himself effulgendy and strutting vaingloriously about the platform as he picked up momentum, he gave the men the colors of the day again and shifted nimbly into a rousing pep talk on the importance of the bridge at Avignon to the war effort and the obligation of each man on the mission to place love of country above love of life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When his inspiring dissertation was finished, he gave the men the colors of the day still one more time, stressed the angle of approach and reviewed the weather conditions again. Colonel Korn felt himself at the full height of his powers. He belonged in the spotlight.\n\nComprehension dawned slowly on Colonel Cathcart; when it came, he was struck dumb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His face grew longer and longer as he enviously watched Colonel Korn's treachery continue, and he was almost afraid to listen when General Dreedle moved up beside him and, in a whisper blustery enough to be heard throughout the room, demanded," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who is that man?\"\n\nColonel Cathcart answered with wan foreboding, and General Dreedle then cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered something that made Colonel Cathcart's face glow with immense joy. Colonel Korn saw and quivered with uncontainable rapture. Had he just been promoted in the field by General Dreedle to full colonel?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could not endure the suspense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a masterful flourish, he brought the briefing to a close and turned expectantly to receive ardent congratulations from General Dreedle-who was already striding out of the building without a glance backward, trailing his nurse and Colonel Moodus behind him. Colonel Korn was stunned by this disappointing sight, but only for an instant. His eyes found Colonel Cathcart, who was still standing erect in a grinning trance, and he rushed over jubilantly and began pulling on his arm.\n\n\"What'd he say about me?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like Joseph Heller and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was the mission on which Yossarian lost his nerve. Yossarian lost his nerve on the mission to Avignon because Snowden lost his guts, and Snowden lost his guts because their pilot that day was Huple, who was only fifteen years old, and their co-pilot was Dobbs, who was even worse and who wanted Yossarian to join with him in a plot to murder Colonel Cathcart. Huple was a good pilot, Yossarian knew, but he was only a kid, and Dobbs had no confidence in him, either, and wrested the controls away without warning after they had dropped their bombs, going berserk in mid-air and tipping the plane over into that heart-stopping, ear-splitting, indescribably petrifying fatal dive that tore Yossarian's earphones free from their connection and hung him helplessly to the roof of the nose by the top of his head.\n\nOh, God! Yossarian had shrieked soundlessly as he felt them all falling. Oh, God!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oh, God!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh, God! Oh, God! he had shrieked beseechingly through lips that could not open as the plane fell and he dangled without weight by the top of his head until Huple managed to seize the controls back and leveled the plane out down inside the crazy, craggy, patchwork canyon of crashing antiaircraft fire from which they had climbed away and from which they would now have to escape again. Almost at once there was a thud and a hole the size of a big fist in the plexiglass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian's cheeks were stinging with shimmering splinters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no blood.\n\n\"What happened? What happened?\" he cried, and trembled violently when he could not hear his own voice in his ears. He was cowed by the empty silence on the intercom and almost too horrified to move as he crouched like a trapped mouse on his hands and knees and waited without daring to breathe until he finally spied the gleaming cylindrical jack plug of his headset swinging back and forth in front of his eyes and jammed it back into its receptacle with fingers that rattled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oh, God! he kept shrieking with no abatement of terror as the flak thumped and mushroomed all about him. Oh, God!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dobbs was weeping when Yossarian jammed his jack plug back into the intercom system and was able to hear again.\n\n\"Help him, help him,\" Dobbs was sobbing. \"Help him, help him.\"\n\n\"Help who? Help who?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian called back. \"Help who?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The bombardier, the bombardier,\" Dobbs cried. \"He doesn't answer. Help the bombardier, help the bombardier.\"\n\n\"I'm the bombardier,\" Yossarian cried back at him. \"I'm the bombardier. I'm all right. I'm all right.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then help him, help him,\" Dobbs wept." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Help him, help him.\"\n\n\"Help who? Help who?\"\n\n\"The radio-gunner,\" Dobbs begged. \"Help the radio-gunner.\"\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Snowden whimpered feebly over the intercom system then in a bleat of plaintive agony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please help me. I'm cold.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Yossarian crept out through the crawlway and climbed up over the bomb bay and down into the rear section of the plane where Snowden lay on the floor wounded and freezing to death in a yellow splash of sunlight near the new tail-gunner lying stretched out on the floor beside him in a dead faint.\n\nDobbs was the worst pilot in the world and knew it, a shattered wreck of a virile young man who was continually striving to convince his superiors that he was no longer fit to pilot a plane. None of his superiors would listen, and it was the day the number of missions was raised to sixty that Dobbs stole into Yossarian's tent while Orr was out looking for gaskets and disclosed the plot he had formulated to murder Colonel Cathcart. He needed Yossarian's assistance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You want us to kill him in cold blood?\" Yossarian objected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's right,\" Dobbs agreed with an optimistic smile, encouraged by Yossarian's ready grasp of the situation. \"We'll shoot him to death with the Luger I brought back from Sicily that nobody knows I've got.\"\n\n\"I don't think I could do it,\" Yossarian concluded, after weighing the idea in silence awhile.\n\nDobbs was astonished. \"Why not?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look. Nothing would please me more than to have the son of a bitch break his neck or get killed in a crash or to find out that someone else had shot him to death. But I don't think I could kill him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He'd do it to you,\" Dobbs argued. \"In fact, you're the one who told me he is doing it to us by keeping us in combat so long.\"\n\n\"But I don't think I could do it to him. He's got a right to live, too, I guess.\"\n\n\"Not as long as he's trying to rob you and me of our right to live. What's the matter with you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dobbs was flabbergasted. \"I used to listen to you arguing that same thing with Clevinger. And look what happened to him. Right inside that cloud.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stop shouting, will you?\" Yossarian shushed him.\n\n\"I'm not shouting!\" Dobbs shouted louder, his face red with revolutionary fervor. His eyes and nostrils were running, and his palpitating crimson lower lip was splattered with a foamy dew. \"There must have been close to a hundred men in the group who had finished their fifty-five missions when he raised the number to sixty. There must have been at least another hundred like you with just a couple more to fly. He's going to kill us all if we let him go on forever. We've got to kill him first.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian nodded expressionlessly, without committing himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you think we could get away with it?\"\n\n\"I've got it all worked out. I-\"\n\n\"Stop shouting, for Christ's sake!\"\n\n\"I'm not shouting. I've got it-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will you stop shouting!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've got it all worked out,\" Dobbs whispered, gripping the side of Orr's cot with white-knuckled hands to constrain them from waving. \"Thursday morning when he's due back from that goddam farmhouse of his in the hills, I'll sneak up through the woods to that hairpin turn in the road and hide in the bushes. He has to slow down there, and I can watch the road in both directions to make sure there's no one else around. When I see him coming, I'll shove a big log out into the road to make him stop his jeep. Then I'll step out of the bushes with my Luger and shoot him in the head until he's dead. I'll bury the gun, come back down through the woods to the squadron and go about my business just like everybody else. What could possibly go wrong?\"\n\nYossarian had followed each step attentively. \"Where do I come in?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked in puzzlement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I couldn't do it without you,\" Dobbs explained. \"I need you to tell me to go ahead.\"\n\nYossarian found it hard to believe him. \"Is that all you want me to do? Just tell you to go ahead?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's all I need from you,\" Dobbs answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just tell me to go ahead and I'll blow his brains out all by myself the day after tomorrow.\" His voice was accelerating with emotion and rising again. \"I'd like to shoot Colonel Korn in the head, too, while we're at it, although I'd like to spare Major Danby, if that's all right with you. Then I'd murder Appleby and Havermeyer also, and after we finish murdering Appleby and Havermeyer I'd like to murder McWatt.\"\n\n\"McWatt?\" cried Yossarian, almost jumping up in horror." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"McWatt's a friend of mine. What do you want from McWatt?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Dobbs confessed with an air of floundering embarrassment. \"I just thought that as long as we were murdering Appleby and Havermeyer we might as well murder McWatt too. Don't you want to murder McWatt?\"\n\nYossarian took a firm stand. \"Look, I might keep interested in this if you stop shouting it all over the island and if you stick to killing Colonel Cathcart. But if you're going to turn this into a blood bath, you can forget about me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right, all right,\" Dobbs sought to placate him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just Colonel Cathcart. Should I do it? Tell me to go ahead.\"\n\nYossarian shook his head. \"I don't think I could tell you to go ahead.\"\n\nDobbs was frantic. \"I'm willing to compromise,\" he pleaded vehemently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't have to tell me to go ahead. Just tell me it's a good idea. Okay? Is it a good idea?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian still shook his head. \"It would have been a great idea if you had gone ahead and done it without even speaking to me. Now it's too late. I don't think I can tell you anything. Give me some more time. I might change my mind.\"\n\n\"Then it will be too late.\"\n\nYossarian kept shaking his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dobbs was disappointed. He sat for a moment with a hangdog look, then spurted to his feet suddenly and stamped away to have another impetuous crack at persuading Doc Daneeka to ground him, knocking over Yossarian's washstand with his hip when he lurched around and tripping over the fuel line of the stove Orr was still constructing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka withstood Dobbs's blustering and gesticulating attack with a series of impatient nods and sent him to the medical tent to describe his symptoms to Gus and Wes, who painted his gums purple with gentian-violet solution the moment he started to talk. They painted his toes purple, too, and forced a laxative down his throat when he opened his mouth again to complain, and then they sent him away.\n\nDobbs was in even worse shape than Hungry Joe, who could at least fly missions when he was not having nightmares. Dobbs was almost as bad as Orr, who seemed happy as an undersized, grinning lark with his deranged and galvanic giggle and shivering warped buck teeth and who was sent along for a rest leave with Milo and Yossarian on the trip to Cairo for eggs when Milo bought cotton instead and took off at dawn for Istanbul with his plane packed to the gun turrets with exotic spiders and unripened red bananas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr was one of the homeliest freaks Yossarian had ever encountered, and one of the most attractive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had a raw bulgy face, with hazel eyes squeezing from their sockets like matching brown halves of marbles and thick, wavy particolored hair sloping up to a peak on the top of his head like a pomaded pup tent. Orr was knocked down into the water or had an engine shot out almost every time he went up, and he began jerking on Yossarian's arm like a wild man after they had taken off for Naples and come down in Sicily to find the scheming, cigar-smoking, ten-year-old pimp with the two twelve-year-old virgin sisters waiting for them in town in front of the hotel in which there was room for only Milo. Yossarian pulled back from Orr adamantly, gazing with some concern and bewilderment at Mt. Etna instead of Mt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vesuvius and wondering what they were doing in Sicily instead of Naples as Orr kept entreating him in a tittering, stuttering, concupiscent turmoil to go along with him behind the scheming ten-year-old pimp to his two twelve-year-old virgin sisters who were not really virgins and not really sisters and who were really only twenty-eight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go with him,\" Milo instructed Yossarian laconically. \"Remember your mission.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Yossarian yielded with a sigh, remembering his mission. \"But at least let me try to find a hotel room first so I can get a good night's sleep afterward.\"\n\n\"You'll get a good night's sleep with the girls,\" Milo replied with the same air of intrigue. Remember your mission.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But they got no sleep at all, for Yossarian and Orr found themselves jammed into the same double bed with the two twelve-year-old twenty-eight-year-old prostitutes, who turned out to be oily and obese and who kept waking them up all night long to ask them to switch partners." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian's perceptions were soon so fuzzy that he paid no notice to the beige turban the fat one crowding into him kept wearing until late the next morning when the scheming ten-year-old pimp with the Cuban panatella snatched it off in public in a bestial caprice that exposed in the brilliant Sicilian daylight her shocking, misshapen and denudate skull. Vengeful neighbors had shaved her hair to the gleaming bone because she had slept with Germans. The girl screeched in feminine outrage and waddled comically after the scheming ten-year-old pimp, her grisly, bleak, violated scalp slithering up and down ludicrously around the queer darkened wart of her face like something bleached and obscene. Yossarian had never laid eyes on anything so bare before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pimp spun the turban high on his finger like a trophy and kept himself skipping inches ahead of her finger tips as he led her in a tantalizing circle around the square congested with people who were howling with laughter and pointing to Yossarian with derision when Milo strode up with a grim look of haste and puckered his lips reprovingly at the unseemly spectacle of so much vice and frivolity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo insisted on leaving at once for Malta.\n\n\"We're sleepy,\" Orr whined.\n\n\"That's your own fault,\" Milo censured them both selfrighteously. \"If you had spent the night in your hotel room instead of with these immoral girls, you'd both feel as good as I do today.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You told us to go with them,\" Yossarian retorted accusingly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And we didn't have a hotel room. You were the only one who could get a hotel room.\"\n\n\"That wasn't my fault, either,\" Milo explained haughtily. \"How was I supposed to know all the buyers would be in town for the chick-pea harvest?\"\n\n\"You knew it,\" Yossarian charged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That explains why we're here in Sicily instead of Naples. You've probably got the whole damned plane filled with chick-peas already.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shhhhhh!\" Milo cautioned sternly, with a meaningful glance toward Orr. \"Remember your mission.\"\n\nThe bomb bay, the rear and tail sections of the plane and most of the top turret gunner's section were all filled with bushels of chick-peas when they arrived at the airfield to take off for Malta.\n\nYossarian's mission on the trip was to distract Orr from observing where Milo bought his eggs, even though Orr was a member of Milo's syndicate and, like every other member of Milo's syndicate, owned a share. His mission was silly, Yossarian felt, since it was common knowledge that Milo bought his eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and sold them to the mess halls in his syndicate for five cents apiece." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I just don't trust him,\" Milo brooded in the plane, with a backward nod toward Orr, who was curled up like a tangled rope on the low bushels of chick-peas, trying torturedly to sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I'd just as soon buy my eggs when he's not around to learn my business secrets. What else don't you understand?\"\n\nYossarian was riding beside him in the co-pilot's seat. \"I don't understand why you buy eggs for seven cents apiece in Malta and sell them for five cents.\"\n\n\"I do it to make a profit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But how can you make a profit? You lose two cents an egg.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg. Of course, I don't make the profit. The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share.\"\n\nYossarian felt he was beginning to understand. \"And the people you sell the eggs to at four and a quarter cents apiece make a profit of two and three quarter cents apiece when they sell them back to you at seven cents apiece. Is that right? Why don't you sell the eggs directly to you and eliminate the people you buy them from?\"\n\n\"Because I'm the people I buy them from,\" Milo explained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I make a profit of three and a quarter cents apiece when I sell them to me and a profit of two and three quarter cents apiece when I buy them back from me. That's a total profit of six cents an egg. I lose only two cents an egg when I sell them to the mess halls at five cents apiece, and that's how I can make a profit buying eggs for seven cents apiece and selling them for five cents apiece. I pay only one cent apiece at the hen when I buy them in Sicily.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In Malta,\" Yossarian corrected. \"You buy your eggs in Malta, not Sicily.\"\n\nMilo chortled proudly. \"I don't buy eggs in Malta,\" he confessed, with an air of slight and clandestine amusement that was the only departure from industrious sobriety Yossarian had ever seen him make. \"I buy them in Sicily for one cent apiece and transfer them to Malta secretly at four and a half cents apiece in order to get the price of eggs up to seven cents apiece when people come to Malta looking for them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why do people come to Malta for eggs when they're so expensive there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because they've always done it that way.\"\n\n\"Why don't they look for eggs in Sicily?\"\n\n\"Because they've never done it that way.\"\n\n\"Now I really don't understand. Why don't you sell your mess halls the eggs for seven cents apiece instead offer five cents apiece?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because my mess halls would have no need for me then. Anyone can buy seven-cents-apiece eggs for seven cents apiece.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why don't they bypass you and buy the eggs directly from you in Malta at four and a quarter cents apiece?\"\n\n\"Because I wouldn't sell it to them.\"\n\n\"Why wouldn't you sell it to them?\"\n\n\"Because then there wouldn't be as much room for profit. At least this way I can make a bit for myself as a middleman.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then you do make a profit for yourself,\" Yossarian declared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course I do. But it all goes to the syndicate. And everybody has a share. Don't you understand? It's exactly what happens with those plum tomatoes I sell to Colonel Cathcart.\"\n\n\"Buy,\" Yossarian corrected him. \"You don't sell plum tomatoes to Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn. You buy plum tomatoes from them.\"\n\n\"No, sell,\" Milo corrected Yossarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I distribute my plum tomatoes in markets all over Pianosa under an assumed name so that Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn can buy them up from me under their assumed names at four cents apiece and sell them back to me the next day for the syndicate at five cents apiece. They make a profit of one cent apiece. I make a profit of three and a half cents apiece, and everybody comes out ahead.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everybody but the syndicate,\" said Yossarian with a snort. \"The syndicate is paying five cents apiece for plum tomatoes that cost you only half a cent apiece. How does the syndicate benefit?\"\n\n\"The syndicate benefits when I benefit,\" Milo explained, \"because everybody has a share. And the syndicate gets Colonel Cathcart's and Colonel Korn's support so that they'll let me go out on trips like this one. You'll see how much profit that can mean in about fifteen minutes when we land in Palermo.\"\n\n\"Malta,\" Yossarian corrected him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're flying to Malta now, not Palermo.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, we're flying to Palermo,\" Milo answered. \"There's an endive exporter in Palermo I have to see for a minute about a shipment of mushrooms to Bern that were damaged by mold.\"\n\n\"Milo, how do you do it?\" Yossarian inquired with laughing amazement and admiration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You fill out a flight plan for one place and then you go to another. Don't the people in the control towers ever raise hell?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They all belong to the syndicate,\" Milo said. \"And they know that what's good for the syndicate is good for the country, because that's what makes Sammy run. The men in the control towers have a share, too, and that's why they always have to do whatever they can to help the syndicate.\"\n\n\"Do I have a share?\"\n\n\"Everybody has a share.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does Orr have a share?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everybody has a share.\"\n\n\"And Hungry Joe? He has a share, too?\"\n\n\"Everybody has a share.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll be damned,\" mused Yossarian, deeply impressed with the idea of a share for the very first time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo turned toward him with a faint glimmer of mischief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have a sure-fire plan for cheating the federal government out of six thousand dollars. We can make three thousand dollars apiece without any risk to either of us. Are you interested?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nMilo looked at Yossarian with profound emotion. \"That's what I like about you,\" he exclaimed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're honest! You're the only one I know that I can really trust. That's why I wish you'd try to be of more help to me. I really was disappointed when you ran off with those two tramps in Catania yesterday.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian stared at Milo in quizzical disbelief. \"Milo, you told me to go with them. Don't you remember?\"\n\n\"That wasn't my fault,\" Milo answered with dignity. \"I had to get rid of Orr some way once we reached town. It will be a lot different in Palermo. When we land in Palermo, I want you and Orr to leave with the girls right from the airport.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"With what girls?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I radioed ahead and made arrangements with a four-year-old pimp to supply you and Orr with two eight-year-old virgins who are half Spanish. He'll be waiting at the airport in a limousine. Go right in as soon as you step out of the plane.\"\n\n\"Nothing doing,\" said Yossarian, shaking his head. \"The only place I'm going is to sleep.\"\n\nMilo turned livid with indignation, his slim long nose flickering spasmodically between his black eyebrows and his unbalanced orange-brown mustache like the pale, thin flame of a single candle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yossarian, remember your mission,\" he reminded reverently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To hell with my mission,\" Yossarian responded indifferently. \"And to hell with the syndicate too, even though I do have a share. I don't want any eight-year-old virgins, even if they are half Spanish.\"\n\n\"I don't blame you. But these eight-year-old virgins are really only thirty-two. And they're not really half Spanish but only one-third Estonian.\"\n\n\"I don't care for any virgins.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And they're not even virgins,\" Milo continued persuasively." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The one I picked out for you was married for a short time to an elderly schoolteacher who slept with her only on Sundays, so she's really almost as good as new.\"\n\nBut Orr was sleepy, too, and Yossarian and Orr were both at Milo's side when they rode into the city of Palermo from the airport and discovered that there was no room for the two of them at the hotel there either, and, more important, that Milo was mayor.\n\nThe weird, implausible reception for Milo began at the airfield, where civilian laborers who recognized him halted in their duties respectfully to gaze at him with full expressions of controlled exuberance and adulation. News of his arrival preceded him into the city, and the outskirts were already crowded with cheering citizens as they sped by in their small uncovered truck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian and Orr were mystified and mute and pressed close against Milo for security." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inside the city, the welcome for Milo grew louder as the truck slowed and eased deeper toward the middle of town. Small boys and girls had been released from school and were lining the sidewalks in new clothes, waving tiny flags. Yossarian and Orr were absolutely speechless now. The streets were jammed with joyous throngs, and strung overhead were huge banners bearing Milo's picture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo had posed for these pictures in a drab peasant's blouse with a high collar, and his scrupulous, paternal countenance was tolerant, wise, critical and strong as he stared out at the populace omnisciently with his undisciplined mustache and disunited eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sinking invalids blew kisses to him from windows. Aproned shopkeepers cheered ecstatically from the narrow doorways of their shops. Tubas crumped. Here and there a person fell and was trampled to death. Sobbing old women swarmed through each other frantically around the slow-moving truck to touch Milo's shoulder or press his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo bore the tumultuous celebrations with benevolent grace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waved back to everyone in elegant reciprocation and showered generous handfuls of foilcovered Hershey kisses to the rejoicing multitudes. Lines of lusty young boys and girls skipped along behind him with their arms linked, chanting in hoarse and glassy-eyed adoration, \"Milo! Mi-lo! Mi-lo!\"\n\nNow that his secret was out, Milo relaxed with Yossarian and Orr and inflated opulently with a vast, shy pride. His cheeks turned flesh-colored." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo had been elected mayor of Palermo-and of nearby Carini, Monreale, Bagheria, Termini Imerese, Cefalu, Mistretta and Nicosia as well-because he had brought Scotch to Sicily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was amazed. \"The people here like to drink Scotch that much?\"\n\n\"They don't drink any of the Scotch,\" Milo explained. \"Scotch is very expensive, and these people here are very poor.\"\n\n\"Then why do you import it to Sicily if nobody drinks any?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To build up a price. I move the Scotch here from Malta to make more room for profit when I sell it back to me for somebody else. I created a whole new industry here. Today Sicily is the third largest exporter of Scotch in the world, and that's why they elected me mayor.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How about getting us a hotel room if you're such a hotshot?\" Orr grumbled impertinently in a voice slurred with fatigue.\n\nMilo responded contritely. \"That's just what I'm going to do,\" he promised. \"I'm really sorry about forgetting to radio ahead for hotel rooms for you two. Come along to my office and I'll speak to my deputy mayor about it right now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo's office was a barbershop, and his deputy mayor was a pudgy barber from whose obsequious lips cordial greetings foamed as effusively as the lather he began whipping up in Milo's shaving cup." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, Vittorio,\" said Milo, settling back lazily in one of Vittorio's barber chairs, \"how were things in my absence this time?\"\n\n\"Very sad, Signor Milo, very sad. But now that you are back, the people are all happy again.\"\n\n\"I was wondering about the size of the crowds. How come all the hotels are full?\"\n\n\"Because so many people from other cities are here to see you, Signor Milo. And because we have all the buyers who have come into town for the artichoke auction.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo's hand soared up perpendicularly like an eagle and arrested Vittorio's shaving brush." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's artichoke?\" he inquired.\n\n\"Artichoke, Signor Milo? An artichoke is a very tasty vegetable that is popular everywhere. You must try some artichokes while you are here, Signor Milo. We grow the best in the world.\"\n\n\"Really?\" said Milo. \"How much are artichokes selling for this year?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It looks like a very good year for artichokes. The crops were very bad.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that a fact?\" mused Milo, and was gone, sliding from his chair so swiftly that his striped barber's apron retained his shape for a second or two after he had gone before it collapsed. Milo had vanished from sight by the time Yossarian and Orr rushed after him to the doorway.\n\n\"Next?\" barked Milo's deputy mayor officiously. \"Who's next?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian and Orr walked from the barbershop in dejection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deserted by Milo, they trudged homelessly through the reveling masses in futile search of a place to sleep. Yossarian was exhausted. His head throbbed with a dull, debilitating pain, and he was irritable with Orr, who had found two crab apples somewhere and walked with them in his cheeks until Yossarian spied them there and made him take them out. Then Orr found two horse chestnuts somewhere and slipped those in until Yossarian detected them and snapped at him again to take the crab apples out of his mouth. Orr grinned and replied that they were not crab apples but horse chestnuts and that they were not in his mouth but in his hands, but Yossarian was not able to understand a single word he said because of the horse chestnuts in his mouth and made him take them out anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A sly light twinkled in Orr's eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He rubbed his forehead harshly with his knuckles, like a man in an alcoholic stupor, and snickered lewdly.\n\n\"Do you remember that girl-\" He broke off to snicker lewdly again. \"Do you remember that girl who was hitting me over the head with that shoe in that apartment in Rome, when we were both naked?\" he asked with a look of cunning expectation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He waited until Yossarian nodded cautiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you let me put the chestnuts back in my mouth I'll tell you why she was hitting me. Is that a deal?\"\n\nYossarian nodded, and Orr told him the whole fantastic story of why the naked girl in Nately's whore's apartment was hitting him over the head with her shoe, but Yossarian was not able to understand a single word because the horse chestnuts were back in his mouth. Yossarian roared with exasperated laughter at the trick, but in the end there was nothing for them to do when night fell but eat a damp dinner in a dirty restaurant and hitch a ride back to the airfield, where they slept on the chill metal floor of the plane and turned and tossed in groaning torment until the truck drivers blasted up less than two hours later with their crates of artichokes and chased them out onto the ground while they filled up the plane. A heavy rain began falling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian and Orr were dripping wet by the time the trucks drove away and had no choice but to squeeze themselves back into the plane and roll themselves up like shivering anchovies between the jolting corners of the crates of artichokes that Milo flew up to Naples at dawn and exchanged for the cinnamon sticks, cloves, vanilla beans and pepper pods that he rushed right back down south with that same day to Malta, where, it turned out, he was Assistant Governor-General." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no room for Yossarian and Orr in Malta either. Milo was Major Sir Milo Minderbinder in Malta and had a gigantic office in the governor-general's building. His mahogany desk was immense. In a panel of the oak wall, between crossed British flags, hung a dramatic arresting photograph of Major Sir Milo Minderbinder in the dress uniform of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mustache in the photograph was clipped and narrow, his chin was chiseled, and his eyes were sharp as thorns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo had been knighted, commissioned a major in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and named Assistant Governor-General of Malta because he had brought the egg trade there. He gave Yossarian and Orr generous permission to spend the night on the thick carpet in his office, but shortly after he left a sentry in battle dress appeared and drove them from the building at the tip of his bayonet, and they rode out exhaustedly to the airport with a surly cab driver, who overcharged them, and went to sleep inside the plane again, which was filled now with leaking gunny sacks of cocoa and freshly ground coffee and reeking with an odor so rich that they were both outside retching violently against the landing gear when Milo was chauffeured up the first thing the next morning, looking fit as a fiddle, and took right off for Oran, where there was again no room at the hotel for Yossarian and Orr, and where Milo was Vice-Shah. Milo had at his disposal sumptuous quarters inside a salmon-pink palace, but Yossarian and Orr were not allowed to accompany him inside because they were Christian infidels. They were stopped at the gates by gargantuan Berber guards with scimitars and chased away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr was snuffling and sneezing with a crippling head cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian's broad back was bent and aching. He was ready to break Milo's neck, but Milo was Vice-Shah of Oran and his person was sacred. Milo was not only the Vice-Shah of Oran, as it turned out, but also the Caliph of Baghdad, the Imam of Damascus, and the Sheik of Araby. Milo was the corn god, the rain god and the rice god in backward regions where such crude gods were still worshiped by ignorant and superstitious people, and deep inside the jungles of Africa, he intimated with becoming modesty, large graven images of his mustached face could be found overlooking primitive stone altars red with human blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everywhere they touched he was acclaimed with honor, and it was one triumphal ovation after another for him in city after city until they finally doubled back through the Middle East and reached Cairo, where Milo cornered the market on cotton that no one else in the world wanted and brought himself promptly to the brink of ruin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In Cairo there was at last room at the hotel for Yossarian and Orr. There were soft beds for them with fat fluffed-up pillows and clean, crisp sheets. There were closets with hangers for their clothes. There was water to wash with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian and Orr soaked their rancid, unfriendly bodies pink in a steaming-hot tub and then went from the hotel with Milo to eat shrimp cocktails and filet mignon in a very fine restaurant with a stock ticker in the lobby that happened to be clicking out the latest quotation for Egyptian cotton when Milo inquired of the captain of waiters what kind of machine it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo had never imagined a machine so beautiful as a stock ticker before.\n\n\"Really?\" he exclaimed when the captain of waiters had finished his explanation. \"And how much is Egyptian cotton selling for?\" The captain of waiters told him, and Milo bought the whole crop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Yossarian was not nearly so frightened by the Egyptian cotton Milo bought as he was by the bunches of green red bananas Milo had spotted in the native market place as they drove into the city, and his fears proved justified, for Milo shook him awake out of a deep sleep just after twelve and shoved a partly peeled banana toward him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian choked back a sob.\n\n\"Taste it,\" Milo urged, following Yossarian's writhing face around with the banana insistently.\n\n\"Milo, you bastard,\" moaned Yossarian, \"I've got to get some sleep.\"\n\n\"Eat it and tell me if it's good,\" Milo persevered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't tell Orr I gave it to you. I charged him two piasters for his.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian ate the banana submissively and closed his eyes after telling Milo it was good, but Milo shook him awake again and instructed him to get dressed as quickly as he could, because they were leaving at once for Pianosa.\n\n\"You and Orr have to load the bananas into the plane right away,\" he explained. \"The man said to watch out for spiders while you're handling the bunches.\"\n\n\"Milo, can't we wait until morning?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only one back in the squadron who did see any of Milo's red bananas was Aarfy, who picked up two from an influential fraternity brother of his in the Quartermaster Corps when the bananas ripened and began streaming into Italy through normal black-market channels and who was in the officer's apartment with Yossarian the evening Nately finally found his whore again after so many fruitless weeks of mournful searching and lured her back to the apartment with two girl friends by promising them thirty dollars each.\n\n\"Thirty dollars each?\" remarked Aarfy slowly, poking and patting each of the three strapping girls skeptically with the air of a grudging connoisseur. \"Thirty dollars is a lot of money for pieces like these. Besides, I never paid for it in my life.\"\n\n\"I'm not asking you to pay for it,\" Nately assured him quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll pay for them all. I just want you guys to take the other two. Won't you help me out?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aarfy smirked complacently and shook his soft round head. \"Nobody has to pay for it for good old Aarfy. I can get all I want any time I want it. I'm just not in the mood right now.\"\n\n\"Why don't you just pay all three and send the other two away?\" Yossarian suggested.\n\n\"Because then mine will be angry with me for making her work for her money,\" Nately replied with an anxious look at his girl, who was glowering at him restlessly and starting to mutter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She says that if I really like her I'd send her away and go to bed with one of the others.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have a better idea,\" boasted Aarfy. \"Why don't we keep the three of them here until after the curfew and then threaten to push them out into the street to be arrested unless they give us all their money? We can even threaten to push them out the window.\"\n\n\"Aarfy!\" Nately was aghast.\n\n\"I was only trying to help,\" said Aarfy sheepishly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aarfy was always trying to help Nately because Nately's father was rich and prominent and in an excellent position to help Aarfy after the war." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gee whiz,\" he defended himself querulously. \"Back in school we were always doing things like that. I remember one day we tricked these two dumb high-school girls from town into the fraternity house and made them put out for all the fellows there who wanted them by threatening to call up their parents and say they were putting out for us. We kept them trapped in bed there for more than ten hours. We even smacked their faces a little when they started to complain. Then we took away their nickels and dimes and chewing gum and threw them out. Boy, we used to have fun in that fraternity house,\" he recalled peacefully, his corpulent cheeks aglow with the jovial, rubicund warmth of nostalgic recollection. \"We used to ostracize everyone, even each other.\"\n\nBut Aarfy was no help to Nately now as the girl Nately had fallen so deeply in love with began swearing at him sullenly with rising, menacing resentment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Luckily, Hungry Joe burst in just then, and everything was all right again, except that Dunbar staggered in drunk a minute later and began embracing one of the other giggling girls at once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now there were four men and three girls, and the seven of them left Aarfy in the apartment and climbed into a horse-drawn cab, which remained at the curb at a dead halt while the girls demanded their money in advance. Nately gave them ninety dollars with a gallant flourish, after borrowing twenty dollars from Yossarian, thirty-five dollars from Dunbar and seventeen dollars from Hungry Joe. The girls grew friendlier then and called an address to the driver, who drove them at a clopping pace halfway across the city into a section they had never visited before and stopped in front of an old, tall building on a dark street. The girls led them up four steep, very long flights of creaking wooden stairs and guided them through a doorway into their own wonderful and resplendent tenement apartment, which burgeoned miraculously with an infinite and proliferating flow of supple young naked girls and contained the evil and debauched ugly old man who irritated Nately constantly with his caustic laughter and the clucking, proper old woman in the ash-gray woolen sweater who disapproved of everything immoral that occurred there and tried her best to tidy up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The amazing place was a fertile, seething cornucopia of female nipples and navels." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At first, there were just their own three girls, in the dimly-lit, drab brown sitting room that stood at the juncture of three murky hallways leading in separate directions to the distant recesses of the strange and marvelous bordello. The girls disrobed at once, pausing in different stages to point proudly to their garish underthings and bantering all the while with the gaunt and dissipated old man with the shabby long white hair and slovenly white unbuttoned shirt who sat cackling lasciviously in a musty blue armchair almost in the exact center of the room and bade Nately and his companions welcome with a mirthful and sardonic formality. Then the old woman trudged out to get a girl for Hungry Joe, dipping her captious head sadly, and returned with two big-bosomed beauties, one already undressed and the other in only a transparent pink half slip that she wiggled out of while sitting down. Three more naked girls sauntered in from a different direction and remained to chat, then two others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Four more girls passed through the room in an indolent group, engrossed in conversation; three were barefoot and one wobbled perilously on a pair of unbuckled silver dancing shoes that did not seem to be her own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One more girl appeared wearing only panties and sat down, bringing the total congregating there in just a few minutes to eleven, all but one of them completely unclothed.\n\nThere was bare flesh lounging everywhere, most of it plump, and Hungry Joe began to die. He stood stock still in rigid, cataleptic astonishment while the girls ambled in and made themselves comfortable. Then he let out a piercing shriek suddenly and bolted toward the door in a headlong dash back toward the enlisted men's apartment for his camera, only to be halted in his tracks with another frantic shriek by the dreadful, freezing premonition that this whole lovely, lurid, rich and colorful pagan paradise would be snatched away from him irredeemably if he were to let it out of his sight for even an instant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped in the doorway and sputtered, the wiry veins and tendons in his face and neck pulsating violently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old man watched him with victorious merriment, sitting in his musty blue armchair like some satanic and hedonistic deity on a throne, a stolen U.S. Army blanket wrapped around his spindly legs to ward off a chill. He laughed quietly, his sunken, shrewd eyes sparkling perceptively with a cynical and wanton enjoyment. He had been drinking. Nately reacted on sight with bristling enmity to this wicked, depraved and unpatriotic old man who was old enough to remind him of his father and who made disparaging jokes about America." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"America,\" he said, \"will lose the war. And Italy will win it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"America is the strongest and most prosperous nation on earth,\" Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. \"And the American fighting man is second to none.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. \"Italy, on the other hand, is one of the least prosperous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that's exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while your country is doing so poorly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately guffawed with surprise, then blushed apologetically for his impoliteness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry I laughed at you,\" he said sincerely, and he continued in a tone of respectful condescension. \"But Italy was occupied by the Germans and is now being occupied by us. You don't call that doing very well, do you?\"\n\n\"But of course I do,\" exclaimed the old man cheerfully. \"The Germans are being driven out, and we are still here. In a few years you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is really a very poor and weak country, and that's what makes us so strong. Italian soldiers are not dying any more. But American and German soldiers are. I call that doing extremely well. Yes, I am quite certain that Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately could scarcely believe his ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had never heard such shocking blasphemies before, and he wondered with instinctive logic why G-men did not appear to lock the traitorous old man up. \"America is not going to be destroyed!\" he shouted passionately.\n\n\"Never?\" prodded the old man softly.\n\n\"Well...\" Nately faltered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old man laughed indulgently, holding in check a deeper, more explosive delight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His goading remained gentle. \"Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so.\"\n\nNately squirmed uncomfortably. \"Well, forever is a long time, I guess.\"\n\n\"A million years?\" persisted the jeering old man with keen, sadistic zest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A half million? The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with its fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is the highest in the world, will last as long as... the frog?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately wanted to smash his leering face. He looked about imploringly for help in defending his country's future against the obnoxious calumnies of this sly and sinful assailant. He was disappointed. Yossarian and Dunbar were busy in a far corner pawing orgiastically at four or five frolicsome girls and six bottles of red wine, and Hungry Joe had long since tramped away down one of the mystic hallways, propelling before him like a ravening despot as many of the broadest-hipped young prostitutes as he could contain in his frail wind-milling arms and cram into one double bed.\n\nNately felt himself at an embarrassing loss." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His own girl sat sprawled out gracelessly on an overstuffed sofa with an expression of otiose boredom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately was unnerved by her torpid indifference to him, by the same sleepy and inert poise that he remembered so vivdly, so sweetly, and so miserably from the first time she had seen him and ignored him at the packed penny-ante blackjack game in the living room of the enlisted men's apartment. Her lax mouth hung open in a perfect O, and God alone knew at what her glazed and smoky eyes were staring in such brute apathy. The old man waited tranquilly, watching him with a discerning smile that was both scornful and sympathetic. A lissome, blond, sinuous girl with lovely legs and honey-colored skin laid herself out contentedly on the arm of the old man's chair and began molesting his angular, pale, dissolute face languidly and coquettishly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately stiffened with resentment and hostility at the sight of such lechery in a man so old." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned away with a sinking heart and wondered why he simply did not take his own girl and go to bed.\n\nThis sordid, vulturous, diabolical old man reminded Nately of his father because the two were nothing at all alike. Nately's father was a courtly white-haired gentleman who dressed impeccably; this old man was an uncouth bum. Nately's father was a sober, philosophical and responsible man; this old man was fickle and licentious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately's father was discreet and cultured; this old man was a boor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately's father believed in honor and knew the answer to everything; this old man believed in nothing and had only questions. Nately's father had a distinguished white mustache; this old man had no mustache at all. Nately's father-and everyone else's father Nately had ever met-was dignified, wise and venerable; this old man was utterly repellent, and Nately plunged back into debate with him, determined to repudiate his vile logic and insinuations with an ambitious vengeance that would capture the attention of the bored, phlegmatic girl he had fallen so intensely in love with and win her admiration forever.\n\n\"Well, frankly, I don't know how long America is going to last,\" he proceeded dauntlessly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose we can't last forever if the world itself is going to be destroyed someday. But I do know that we're going to survive and triumph for a long, long time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For how long?\" mocked the profane old man with a gleam of malicious elation. \"Not even as long as the frog?\"\n\n\"Much longer than you or me,\" Nately blurted out lamely.\n\n\"Oh, is that all! That won't be very much longer then, considering that you're so gullible and brave and that I am already such an old, old man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How old are you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately asked, growing intrigued and charmed with the old man in spite of himself.\n\n\"A hundred and seven.\" The old man chuckled heartily at Nately's look of chagrin. \"I see you don't believe that either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't believe anything you tell me,\" Nately replied, with a bashful mitigating smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The only thing I do believe is that America is going to win the war.\"\n\n\"You put so much stock in winning wars,\" the grubby iniquitous old man scoffed. \"The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly we've done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our own recent history. Italy won a war in Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn't a chance of winning. But now that we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.\"\n\nNately gaped at him in undisguised befuddlement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now I really don't understand what you're saying. You talk like a madman.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I live like a sane one. I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top, and I am an anti-fascist now that he has been deposed. I was fanatically pro-German when the Germans were here to protect us against the Americans, and now that the Americans are here to protect us against the Germans I am fanatically pro-American. I can assure you, my outraged young friend\"-the old man's knowing, disdainful eyes shone even more effervescently as Nately's stuttering dismay increased-\"that you and your country will have a no more loyal partisan in Italy than me-but only as long as you remain in Italy.\"\n\n\"But,\" Nately cried out in disbelief, \"you're a turncoat! A time-server! A shameful, unscrupulous opportunist!\"\n\n\"I am a hundred and seven years old,\" the old man reminded him suavely.\n\n\"Don't you have any principles?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course not.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No morality?\"\n\n\"Oh, I am a very moral man,\" the villainous old man assured him with satiric seriousness, stroking the bare hip of a buxom black-haired girl with pretty dimples who had stretched herself out seductively on the other arm of his chair. He grinned at Nately sarcastically as he sat between both naked girls in smug and threadbare splendor, with a sovereign hand on each.\n\n\"I can't believe it,\" Nately remarked grudgingly, trying stubbornly not to watch him in relationship to the girls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I simply can't believe it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it's perfectly true. When the Germans marched into the city, I danced in the streets like a youthful ballerina and shouted, 'Heil Hitler!' until my lungs were hoarse. I even waved a small Nazi flag that I snatched away from a beautiful little girl while her mother was looking the other way. When the Germans left the city, I rushed out to welcome the Americans with a bottle of excellent brandy and a basket of flowers. The brandy was for myself, of course, and the flowers were to sprinkle upon our liberators. There was a very stiff and stuffy old major riding in the first car, and I hit him squarely in the eye with a red rose. A marvelous shot! You should have seen him wince.\"\n\nNately gasped and was on his feet with amazement, the blood draining from his cheeks. \"Major – de Coverley!\" he cried.\n\n\"Do you know him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "inquired the old man with delight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What a charming coincidence!\"\n\nNately was too astounded even to hear him. \"So you're the one who wounded Major – de Coverley!\" he exclaimed in horrified indignation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How could you do such a thing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fiendish old man was unperturbed. \"How could I resist, you mean. You should have seen the arrogant old bore, sitting there so sternly in that car like the Almighty Himself, with his big, rigid head and his foolish, solemn face. What a tempting target he made! I got him in the eye with an American Beauty rose. I thought that was most appropriate. Don't you?\"\n\n\"That was a terrible thing to do!\" Nately shouted at him reproachfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A vicious and criminal thing! Major – de Coverley is our squadron executive officer!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is he?\" teased the unregenerate old man, pinching his pointy jaw gravely in a parody of repentance. \"In that case, you must give me credit for being impartial. When the Germans rode in, I almost stabbed a robust young Oberleutnant to death with a sprig of edelweiss.\"\n\nNately was appalled and bewildered by the abominable old man's inability to perceive the enormity of his offence. \"Don't you realize what you've done?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he scolded vehemently. \"Major – de Coverley is a noble and wonderful person, and everyone admires him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's a silly old fool who really has no right acting like a silly young fool. Where is he today? Dead?\"\n\nNately answered softly with somber awe. \"Nobody knows. He seems to have disappeared.\"\n\n\"You see? Imagine a man his age risking what little life he has left for something so absurd as a country.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately was instantly up in arms again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country!\" he declared.\n\n\"Isn't there?\" asked the old man. \"What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.\"\n\n\"Anything worth living for,\" said Nately, \"is worth dying for.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And anything worth dying for,\" answered the sacrilegious old man, \"is certainly worth living for. You know, you're such a pure and naive young man that I almost feel sorry for you. How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nineteen,\" said Nately. \"I'll be twenty in January.\"\n\n\"If you live.\" The old man shook his head, wearing, for a moment, the same touchy, meditating frown of the fretful and disapproving old woman. \"They are going to kill you if you don't watch out, and I can see now that you are not going to watch out. Why don't you use some sense and try to be more like me? You might live to be a hundred and seven, too.\"\n\n\"Because it's better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees,\" Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty conviction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I guess you've heard that saying before.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I certainly have,\" mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. \"But I'm afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees. That is the way the saying goes.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Nately asked with sober confusion. \"It seems to make more sense my way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, it makes more sense my way. Ask your friends.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately turned to ask his friends and discovered they had gone. Yossarian and Dunbar had both disappeared. The old man roared with contemptuous merriment at Nately's look of embarrassed surprise. Nately's face darkened with shame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He vacillated helplessly for a few seconds and then spun himself around and fled inside the nearest of the hallways in search of Yossarian and Dunbar, hoping to catch them in time and bring them back to the rescue with news of the remarkable clash between the old man and Major – de Coverley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the doors in the hallways were shut. There was light under none. It was already very late. Nately gave up his search forlornly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was nothing left for him to do, he realized finally, but get the girl he was in love with and lie down with her somewhere to make tender, courteous love to her and plan their future together; but she had gone off to bed, too, by the time he returned to the sitting room for her, and there was nothing left for him to do then but resume his abortive discussion with the loathsome old man, who rose from his armchair with jesting civility and excused himself for the night, abandoning Nately there with two bleary-eyed girls who could not tell him into which room his own whore had gone and who padded off to bed several seconds later after trying in vain to interest him in themselves, leaving him to sleep alone in the sitting room on the small, lumpy sofa." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately was a sensitive, rich, good-looking boy with dark hair, trusting eyes, and a pain in his neck when he awoke on the sofa early the next morning and wondered dully where he was. His nature was invariably gentle and polite. He had lived for almost twenty years without trauma, tension, hate, or neurosis, which was proof to Yossarian of just how crazy he really was. His childhood had been a pleasant, though disciplined, one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He got on well with his brothers and sisters, and he did not hate his mother and father, even though they had both been very good to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately had been brought up to detest people like Aarfy, whom his mother characterized as climbers, and people like Milo, whom his father characterized as pushers, but he had never learned how, since he had never been permitted near them. As far as he could recall, his homes in Philadelphia, New York, Maine, Palm Beach, Southampton, London, Deauville, Paris and the south of France had always been crowded only with ladies and gentlemen who were not climbers or pushers. Nately's mother, a descendant of the New England Thorntons, was a Daughter of the American Revolution. His father was a Son of a Bitch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Always remember,\" his mother had reminded him frequently, \"that you are a Nately. You are not a Vanderbilt, whose fortune was made by a vulgar tugboat captain, or a Rockefeller, whose wealth was amassed through unscrupulous speculations in crude petroleum; or a Reynolds or Duke, whose income was derived from the sale to the unsuspecting public of products containing cancer-causing resins and tars; and you are certainly not an Astor, whose family, I believe, still lets rooms. You are a Nately, and the Natelys have never done anything for their money.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What your mother means, son,\" interjected his father affably one time with that flair for graceful and economical expression Nately admired so much, \"is that old money is better than new money and that the newly rich are never to be esteemed as highly as the newly poor. Isn't that correct, my dear?\"\n\nNately's father brimmed continually with sage and sophisticated counsel of that kind. He was as ebullient and ruddy as mulled claret, and Nately liked him a great deal, although he did not like mulled claret. When war broke out, Nately's family decided that he would enlist in the armed forces, since he was too young to be placed in the diplomatic service, and since his father had it on excellent authority that Russia was going to collapse in a matter of weeks or months and that Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Mussolini, Gandhi, Franco, Peron and the Emperor of Japan would then all sign a peace treaty and live together happily ever after." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Nately's father's idea that he join the Air Corps, where he could train safely as a pilot while the Russians capitulated and the details of the armistice were worked out, and where, as an officer, he would associate only with gentlemen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, he found himself with Yossarian, Dunbar and Hungry Joe in a whore house in Rome, poignantly in love with an indifferent girl there with whom he finally did lie down the morning after the night he slept alone in the sitting room, only to be interrupted almost immediately by her incorrigible kid sister, who came bursting in without warning and hurled herself onto the bed jealously so that Nately could embrace her, too. Nately's whore sprang up snarling to whack her angrily and jerked her to her feet by her hair. The twelve-year-old girl looked to Nately like a plucked chicken or like a twig with the bark peeled off her sapling body embarrassed everyone in her precocious attempts to imitate her elders, and she was always being chased away to put clothes on and ordered out into the street to play in the fresh air with the other children. The two sisters swore and spat at each other now savagely, raising a fluent, deafening commotion that brought a whole crowd of hilarious spectators swarming into the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately gave up in exasperation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He asked his girl to get dressed and took her downstairs for breakfast. The kid sister tagged along, and Nately felt like the proud head of a family as the three of them ate respectably in a nearby open-air café. But Nately's whore was already bored by the time they started back, and she decided to go streetwalking with two other girls rather than spend more time with him. Nately and the kid sister followed meekly a block behind, the ambitious youngster to pick up valuable pointers, Nately to eat his liver in mooning frustration, and both were saddened when the girls were stopped by soldiers in a staff car and driven away." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of Joseph Heller spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "human", "value": "April had been the best month of all for Milo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lilacs bloomed in April and fruit ripened on the vine. Heartbeats quickened and old appetites were renewed. In April a livelier iris gleamed upon the burnished dove. April was spring, and in the spring Milo Minderbinder's fancy had lightly turned to thoughts of tangerines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tangerines?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"My men would love tangerines,\" admitted the colonel in Sardinia who commanded four squadrons of B-26s.\n\n\"There'll be all the tangerines they can eat that you're able to pay for with money from your mess fund,\" Milo assured him.\n\n\"Casaba melons?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are going for a song in Damascus.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have a weakness for casaba melons. I've always had a weakness for casaba melons.\"\n\n\"Just lend me one plane from each squadron, just one plane, and you'll have all the casabas you can eat that you've money to pay for.\"\n\n\"We buy from the syndicate?\"\n\n\"And everybody has a share.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's amazing, positively amazing. How can you do it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mass purchasing power makes the big difference. For example, breaded veal cutlets.\"\n\n\"I'm not so crazy about breaded veal cutlets,\" grumbled the skeptical B-25 commander in the north of Corsica.\n\n\"Breaded veal cutlets are very nutritious,\" Milo admonished him piously. \"They contain egg yolk and bread crumbs. And so are lamb chops.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, lamb chops,\" echoed the B-25 commander. \"Good lamb chops?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The best,\" said Milo, \"that the black market has to offer.\"\n\n\"Baby lamb chops?\"\n\n\"In the cutest little pink paper panties you ever saw. Are going for a song in Portugal.\"\n\n\"I can't send a plane to Portugal. I haven't the authority.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can, once you lend the plane to me. With a pilot to fly it. And don't forget-you'll get General Dreedle.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will General Dreedle eat in my mess hall again?\"\n\n\"Like a pig, once you start feeding him my best white fresh eggs fried in my pure creamery butter. There'll be tangerines too, and casaba melons, honeydews, filet of Dover sole, baked Alaska, and cockles and mussels.\"\n\n\"And everybody has a share?\"\n\n\"That,\" said Milo, \"is the most beautiful part of it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't like it,\" growled the unco-operative fighter-plane commander, who didn't like Milo either." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's an unco-operative fighter-plane commander up north who's got it in for me,\" Milo complained to General Dreedle. \"It takes just one person to ruin the whole thing, and then you wouldn't have your fresh eggs fried in my pure creamery butter any more.\"\n\nGeneral Dreedle had the unco-operative fighter-plane commander transferred to the Solomon Islands to dig graves and replaced him with a senile colonel with bursitis and a craving for litchi nuts who introduced Milo to the B-17 general on the mainland with a yearning for Polish sausage.\n\n\"Polish sausage is going for peanuts in Cracow,\" Milo informed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Polish sausage,\" sighed the general nostalgically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know, I'd give just about anything for a good hunk of Polish sausage. Just about anything.\"\n\n\"You don't have to give anything. Just give me one plane for each mess hall and a pilot who will do what he's told. And a small down payment on your initial order as a token of good faith.\"\n\n\"But Cracow is hundreds of miles behind the enemy lines. How will you get to the sausage?\"\n\n\"There's an international Polish sausage exchange in Geneva. I'll just fly the peanuts into Switzerland and exchange them for Polish sausage at the open market rate. They'll fly the peanuts back to Cracow and I'll fly the Polish sausage back to you. You buy only as much Polish sausage as you want through the syndicate. There'll be tangerines too, with only a little artificial coloring added. And eggs from Malta and Scotch from Sicily. You'll be paying the money to yourself when you buy from the syndicate, since you'll own a share, so you'll really be getting everything you buy for nothing. Doesn't that makes sense?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sheer genius. How in the world did you ever think of it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My name is Milo Minderbinder. I am twenty-seven years old.\"\n\nMilo Minderbinder's planes flew in from everywhere, the pursuit planes, bombers, and cargo ships streaming into Colonel Cathcart's field with pilots at the controls who would do what they were told. The planes were decorated with flamboyant squadron emblems illustrating such laudable ideals as Courage, Might, Justice, Truth, Liberty, Love, Honor and Patriotism that were painted out at once by Milo's mechanics with a double coat of flat white and replaced in garish purple with the stenciled name M amp; M ENTERPRISES, FINE FRUITS AND PRODUCE. The 'M amp; M' In 'M amp; M ENTERPRISES' stood for Milo amp; Minderbinder, and the amp; was inserted, Milo revealed candidly, to nullify any impression that the syndicate was a one-man operation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Planes arrived for Milo from airfields in Italy, North Africa and England, and from Air Transport Command stations in Liberia, Ascension Island, Cairo, and Karachi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pursuit planes were traded for additional cargo ships or retained for emergency invoice duty and small-parcel service; trucks and tanks were procured from the ground forces and used for short-distance road hauling. Everybody had a share, and men got fat and moved about tamely with toothpicks in their greasy lips. Milo supervised the whole expanding operation by himself. Deep otter-brown lines of preoccupation etched themselves permanently into his careworn face and gave him a harried look of sobriety and mistrust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everybody but Yossarian thought Milo was a jerk, first for volunteering for the job of mess officer and next for taking it so seriously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian also thought that Milo was a jerk; but he also knew that Milo was a genius.\n\nOne day Milo flew away to England to pick up a load of Turkish halvah and came flying back from Madagascar leading four German bombers filled with yams, collards, mustard greens and black-eyed Georgia peas. Milo was dumbfounded when he stepped down to the ground and found a contingent of armed M.P.s waiting to imprison the German pilots and confiscate their planes. Confiscate! The mere word was anathema to him, and he stormed back and forth in excoriating condemnation, shaking a piercing finger of rebuke in the guilt-ridden faces of Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn and the poor battle-scarred captain with the submachine gun who commanded the M.P.s." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is this Russia?\" Milo assailed them incredulously at the top of his voice. \"Confiscate?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he shrieked, as though he could not believe his own ears. \"Since when is it the policy of the American government to confiscate the private property of its citizens? Shame on you! Shame on all of you for even thinking such a horrible thought.\"\n\n\"But Milo,\" Major Danby interrupted timidly, \"we're at war with Germany, and those are German planes.\"\n\n\"They are no such thing!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo retorted furiously. \"Those planes belong to the syndicate, and everybody has a share. Confiscate? How can you possibly confiscate your own private property? Confiscate, indeed! I've never heard anything so depraved in my whole life.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And sure enough, Milo was right, for when they looked, his mechanics had painted out the German swastikas on the wings, tails and fuselages with double coats of flat white and stenciled in the words M amp; M ENTERPRISES, FINE FRUITS AND PRODUCE. Right before their eyes he had transformed his syndicate into an international cartel.\n\nMilo's argosies of plenty now filled the air. Planes poured in from Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Sweden, Finland, Poland-from everywhere in Europe, in fact, but Russia, with whom Milo refused to do business." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When everybody who was going to had signed up with M amp; M Enterprises, Fine Fruits and Produce, Milo created a wholly owned subsidiary, M amp; M Fancy Pastry, and obtained more airplanes and more money from the mess funds for scones and crumpets from the British Isles, prune and cheese Danish from Copenhagen, éclairs, cream puffs, Napoleons and petits fours from Paris, Reims and Grenoble, Kugelhopf, pumpernickel and Pfefferkuchen from Berlin, Linzer and Dobos Torten from Vienna, Strudel from Hungary and baklava from Ankara." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each morning Milo sent planes aloft all over Europe and North Africa hauling long red tow signs advertising the day's specials in large square letters: \"EYEROUND, 79¢... WHITING, 21¢.\" He boosted cash income for the syndicate by leasing tow signs to Pet Milk, Gaines Dog Food, and Noxzema. In a spirit of civic enterprise, he regularly allotted a certain amount of free aerial advertising space to General Peckem for the propagation of such messages in the public interest as NEATNESS COUNTS, HASTE MAKES WASTE, and THE FAMILY THAT PRAYS TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER. Milo purchased spot radio announcements on Axis Sally's and Lord Haw Haw's daily propaganda broadcasts from Berlin to keep things moving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Business boomed on every battlefront." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo's planes were a familiar sight. They had freedom of passage everywhere, and one day Milo contracted with the American military authorities to bomb the German-held highway bridge at Orvieto and with the German military authorities to defend the highway bridge at Orvieto with antiaircraft fire against his own attack. His fee for attacking the bridge for America was the total cost of the operation plus six per cent and his fee from Germany for defending the bridge was the same cost-plus-six agreement augmented by a merit bonus of a thousand dollars for every American plane he shot down. The consummation of these deals represented an important victory for private enterprise, he pointed out, since the armies of both countries were socialized institutions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once the contracts were signed, there seemed to be no point in using the resources of the syndicate to bomb and defend the bridge, inasmuch as both governments had ample men and material right there to do so and were perfectly happy to contribute them, and in the end Milo realized a fantastic profit from both halves of his project for doing nothing more than signing his name twice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The arrangements were fair to both sides. Since Milo did have freedom of passage everywhere, his planes were able to steal over in a sneak attack without alerting the German antiaircraft gunners; and since Milo knew about the attack, he was able to alert the German antiaircraft gunners in sufficient time for them to begin firing accurately the moment the planes came into range. It was an ideal arrangement for everyone but the dead man in Yossarian's tent, who was killed over the target the day he arrived.\n\n\"I didn't kill him!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo kept replying passionately to Yossarian's angry protest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wasn't even there that day, I tell you. Do you think I was down there on the ground firing an antiaircraft gun when the planes came over?\"\n\n\"But you organized the whole thing, didn't you?\" Yossarian shouted back at him in the velvet darkness cloaking the path leading past the still vehicles of the motor pool to the open-air movie theater.\n\n\"And I didn't organize anything,\" Milo answered indignantly, drawing great agitated sniffs of air in through his hissing, pale, twitching nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Germans have the bridge, and we were going to bomb it, whether I stepped into the picture or not. I just saw a wonderful opportunity to make some profit out of the mission, and I took it. What's so terrible about that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's so terrible about it? Milo, a man in my tent was killed on that mission before he could even unpack his bags.\"\n\n\"But I didn't kill him.\"\n\n\"You got a thousand dollars extra for it.\"\n\n\"But I didn't kill him. I wasn't even there, I tell you. I was in Barcelona buying olive oil and skinless and boneless sardines, and I've got the purchase orders to prove it. And I didn't get the thousand dollars. That thousand dollars went to the syndicate, and everybody got a share, even you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo was appealing to Yossarian from the bottom of his soul." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look, I didn't start this war, Yossarian, no matter what that lousy Wintergreen is saying. I'm just trying to put it on a businesslike basis. Is anything wrong with that? You know, a thousand dollars ain't such a bad price for a medium bomber and a crew. If I can persuade the Germans to pay me a thousand dollars for every plane they shoot down, why shouldn't I take it?\"\n\n\"Because you're dealing with the enemy, that's why. Can't you understand that we're fighting a war? People are dying. Look around you, for Christ's sake!\"\n\nMilo shook his head with weary forbearance. \"And the Germans are not our enemies,\" he declared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh I know what you're going to say. Sure, we're at war with them. But the Germans are also members in good standing of the syndicate, and it's my job to protect their rights as shareholders. Maybe they did start the war, and maybe they are killing millions of people, but they pay their bills a lot more promptly than some allies of ours I could name. Don't you understand that I have to respect the sanctity of my contract with Germany? Can't you see it from my point of view?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Yossarian rebuffed him harshly.\n\nMilo was stung and made no effort to disguise his wounded feelings. It was a muggy, moonlit night filled with gnats, moths, and mosquitoes. Milo lifted his arm suddenly and pointed toward the open-air theater, where the milky, dust-filled beam bursting horizontally from the projector slashed a conelike swath in the blackness and draped in a fluorescent membrane of light the audience tilted on the seats there in hypnotic sags, their faces focused upward toward the aluminized movie screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo's eyes were liquid with integrity, and his artless and uncorrupted face was lustrous with a shining mixture of sweat and insect repellent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at them,\" he exclaimed in a voice choked with emotion. \"They're my friends, my countrymen, my comrades in arms. A fellow never had a better bunch of buddies. Do you think I'd do a single thing to harm them if I didn't have to? Haven't I got enough on my mind? Can't you see how upset I am already about all that cotton piling up on those piers in Egypt?\" Milo's voice splintered into fragments, and he clutched at Yossarian's shirt front as though drowning. His eyes were throbbing visibly like brown caterpillars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yossarian, what am I going to do with so much cotton? It's all your fault for letting me buy it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cotton was piling up on the piers in Egypt, and nobody wanted any. Milo had never dreamed that the Nile Valley could be so fertile or that there would be no market at all for the crop he had bought. The mess halls in his syndicate would not help; they rose up in uncompromising rebellion against his proposal to tax them on a per capita basis in order to enable each man to own his own share of the Egyptian cotton crop. Even his reliable friends the Germans failed him in this crisis: they preferred ersatz." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo's mess halls would not even help him store the cotton, and his warehousing costs skyrocketed and contributed to the devastating drain upon his cash reserves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The profits from the Orvieto mission were sucked away. He began writing home for the money he had sent back in better days; soon that was almost gone. And new bales of cotton kept arriving on the wharves at Alexandria every day. Each time he succeeded in dumping some on the world market for a loss it was snapped up by canny Egyptian brokers in the Levant, who sold it back to him at the original price, so that he was really worse off than before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "M amp; M Enterprises verged on collapse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo cursed himself hourly for his monumental greed and stupidity in purchasing the entire Egyptian cotton crop, but a contract was a contract and had to be honored, and one night, after a sumptuous evening meal, all Milo's fighters and bombers took off, joined in formation directly overhead and began dropping bombs on the group. He had landed another contract with the Germans, this time to bomb his own outfit. Milo's planes separated in a well co-ordinated attack and bombed the fuel stocks and the ordnance dump, the repair hangars and the B-25 bombers resting on the lollipop-shaped hardstands at the field. His crews spared the landing strip and the mess halls so that they could land safely when their work was done and enjoy a hot snack before retiring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They bombed with their landing lights on, since no one was shooting back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They bombed all four squadrons, the officers' club and the Group Headquarters building. Men bolted from their tents in sheer terror and did not know in which direction to turn. Wounded soon lay screaming everywhere. A cluster of fragmentation bombs exploded in the yard of the officers' club and punched jagged holes in the side of the wooden building and in the bellies and backs of a row of lieutenants and captains standing at the bar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They doubled over in agony and dropped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rest of the officers fled toward the two exits in panic and jammed up the doorways like a dense, howling dam of human flesh as they shrank from going farther.\n\nColonel Cathcart clawed and elbowed his way through the unruly, bewildered mass until he stood outside by himself. He stared up at the sky in stark astonishment and horror. Milo's planes, ballooning serenely in over the blossoming treetops with their bomb bay doors open and wing flaps down and with their monstrous, bug-eyed, blinding, fiercely flickering, eerie landing lights on, were the most apocalyptic sight he had ever beheld." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart let go a stricken gasp of dismay and hurled himself headlong into his jeep, almost sobbing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found the gas pedal and the ignition and sped toward the airfield as fast as the rocking car would carry him, his huge flabby hands clenched and bloodless on the wheel or blaring his horn tormentedly. Once he almost killed himself when he swerved with a banshee screech of tires to avoid plowing into a bunch of men running crazily toward the hills in their underwear with their stunned faces down and their thin arms pressed high around their temples as puny shields. Yellow, orange and red fires were burning on both sides of the road. Tents and trees were in flames, and Milo's planes kept coming around interminably with their blinking white landing lights on and their bomb bay doors open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart almost turned the jeep over when he slammed the brakes on at the control tower." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He leaped from the car while it was still skidding dangerously and hurtled up the flight of steps inside, where three men were busy at the instruments and the controls. He bowled two of them aside in his lunge for the nickel-plated microphone, his eyes glittering wildly and his beefy face contorted with stress. He squeezed the microphone in a bestial grip and began shouting hysterically at the top of his voice.\n\n\"Milo, you son of a bitch! Are you crazy? What the hell are you doing? Come down! Come down!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stop hollering so much, will you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "answered Milo, who was standing there right beside him in the control tower with a microphone of his own. \"I'm right here.\" Milo looked at him with reproof and turned back to his work. \"Very good, men, very good,\" he chanted into his microphone. \"But I see one supply shed still standing. That will never do, Purvis-I've spoken to you about that kind of shoddy work before. Now, you go right back there this minute and try it again. And this time come in slowly... slowly. Haste makes waste, Purvis. Haste makes waste. If I've told you that once, I must have told you that a hundred times. Haste makes waste.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The loudspeaker overhead began squawking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Milo, this is Alvin Brown. I've finished dropping my bombs. What should I do now?\"\n\n\"Strafe,\" said Milo.\n\n\"Strafe?\" Alvin Brown was shocked.\n\n\"We have no choice,\" Milo informed him resignedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's in the contract.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, okay, then,\" Alvin Brown acquiesced. \"In that case I'll strafe.\"\n\nThis time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "High-ranking government officials poured in to investigate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Newspapers inveighed against Milo with glaring headlines, and Congressmen denounced the atrocity in stentorian wrath and clamored for punishment. Mothers with children in the service organized into militant groups and demanded revenge. Not one voice was raised in his defense. Decent people everywhere were affronted, and Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could reimburse the government for all the people and property he had destroyed and still have enough money left over to continue buying Egyptian cotton." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everybody, of course, owned a share. And the sweetest part of the whole deal was that there really was no need to reimburse the government at all.\n\n\"In a democracy, the government is the people,\" Milo explained. \"We're people, aren't we? So we might just as well keep the money and eliminate the middleman. Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry. If we pay the government everything we owe it, we'll only be encouraging government control and discouraging other individuals from bombing their own men and planes. We'll be taking away their incentive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo was correct, of course, as everyone soon agreed but a few embittered misfits like Doc Daneeka, who sulked cantankerously and muttered offensive insinuations about the morality of the whole venture until Milo mollified him with a donation, in the name of the syndicate, of a lightweight aluminum collapsible garden chair that Doc Daneeka could fold up conveniently and carry outside his tent each time Chief White Halfoat came inside his tent and carry back inside his tent each time Chief White Halfoat came out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka had lost his head during Milo's bombardment; instead of running for cover, he had remained out in the open and performed his duty, slithering along the ground through shrapnel, strafing and incendiary bombs like a furtive, wily lizard from casualty to casualty, administering tourniquets, morphine, splints and sulfanilamide with a dark and doleful visage, never saying one word more than he had to and reading in each man's bluing wound a dreadful portent of his own decay. He worked himself relentlessly into exhaustion before the long night was over and came down with a snife the next day that sent him hurrying querulously into the medical tent to have his temperature taken by Gus and Wes and to obtain a mustard plaster and vaporizer.\n\nDoc Daneeka tended each moaning man that night with the same glum and profound and introverted grief he showed at the airfield the day of the Avignon mission when Yossarian climbed down the few steps of his plane naked, in a state of utter shock, with Snowden smeared abundantly all over his bare heels and toes, knees, arms and fingers, and pointed inside wordlessly toward where the young radio-gunner lay freezing to death on the floor beside the still younger tail-gunner who kept falling back into a dead faint each time he opened his eyes and saw Snowden dying.\n\nDoc Daneeka draped a blanket around Yossarian's shoulders almost tenderly after Snowden had been removed from the plane and carried into an ambulance on a stretcher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He led Yossarian toward his jeep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McWatt helped, and the three drove in silence to the squadron medical tent, where McWatt and Doc Daneeka guided Yossarian inside to a chair and washed Snowden off him with cold wet balls of absorbent cotton. Doc Daneeka gave him a pill and a shot that put him to sleep for twelve hours. When Yossarian woke up and went to see him, Doc Daneeka gave him another pill and a shot that put him to sleep for another twelve hours. When Yossarian woke up again and went to see him, Doc Daneeka made ready to give him another pill and a shot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How long are you going to keep giving me those pills and shots?\" Yossarian asked him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Until you feel better.\"\n\n\"I feel all right now.\"\n\nDoc Daneeka's frail suntanned forehead furrowed with surprise. \"Then why don't you put some clothes on? Why are you walking around naked?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't want to wear a uniform any more.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka accepted the explanation and put away his hypodermic syringe. \"Are you sure you feel all right?\"\n\n\"I feel fine. I'm just a little logy from all those pills and shots you've been giving me.\"\n\nYossarian went about his business with no clothes on all the rest of that day and was still naked late the next morning when Milo, after hunting everywhere else, finally found him sitting up a tree a small distance in back of the quaint little military cemetery at which Snowden was being buried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo was dressed in his customary business attire-olive-drab trousers, a fresh olive-drab shirt and tie, with one silver first lieutenant's bar gleaming on the collar, and a regulation dress cap with a stiff leather bill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been looking all over for you,\" Milo called up to Yossarian from the ground reproachfully.\n\n\"You should have looked for me in this tree,\" Yossarian answered. \"I've been up here all morning.\"\n\n\"Come on down and taste this and tell me if it's good. It's very important.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sat nude on the lowest limb of the tree and balanced himself with both hands grasping the bough directly above. He refused to budge, and Milo had no choice but to stretch both arms about the trunk in a distasteful hug and start climbing. He struggled upward clumsily with loud grunts and wheezes, and his clothes were squashed and crooked by the time he pulled himself up high enough to hook a leg over the limb and pause for breath. His dress cap was askew and in danger of falling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo caught it just in time when it began slipping." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Globules of perspiration glistened like transparent pearls around his mustache and swelled like opaque blisters under his eyes. Yossarian watched him impassively. Cautiously Milo worked himself around in a half circle so that he could face Yossarian. He unwrapped tissue paper from something soft, round and brown and handed it to Yossarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please taste this and let me know what you think. I'd like to serve it to the men.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is it?\" asked Yossarian, and took a big bite.\n\n\"Chocolate-covered cotton.\"\n\nYossarian gagged convulsively and sprayed his big mouthful of chocolate-covered cotton right into Milo's face. \"Here, take it back!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he spouted angrily. \"Jesus Christ! Have you gone crazy? You didn't even take the goddam seeds out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give it a chance, will you?\" Milo begged. \"It can't be that bad. Is it really that bad?\"\n\n\"It's even worse.\"\n\n\"But I've got to make the mess halls feed it to the men.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They'll never be able to swallow it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They've got to swallow it,\" Milo ordained with dictatorial grandeur, and almost broke his neck when he let go with one arm to wave a righteous finger in the air.\n\n\"Come on out here,\" Yossarian invited him. \"You'll be much safer, and you can see everything.\"\n\nGripping the bough above with both hands, Milo began inching his way out on the limb sideways with utmost care and apprehension." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His face was rigid with tension, and he sighed with relief when he found himself seated securely beside Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stroked the tree affectionately. \"This is a pretty good tree,\" he observed admiringly with proprietary gratitude.\n\n\"It's the tree of life,\" Yossarian answered, waggling his toes, \"and of knowledge of good and evil, too.\"\n\nMilo squinted closely at the bark and branches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No it isn't,\" he replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a chestnut tree. I ought to know. I sell chestnuts.\"\n\n\"Have it your way.\"\n\nThey sat in the tree without talking for several seconds, their legs dangling and their hands almost straight up on the bough above, the one completely nude but for a pair of crepe-soled sandals, the other completely dressed in a coarse olive-drab woolen uniform with his tie knotted tight. Milo studied Yossarian diffidently through the corner of his eye, hesitating tactfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I want to ask you something,\" he said at last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't have any clothes on. I don't want to butt in or anything, but I just want to know. Why aren't you wearing your uniform?\"\n\n\"I don't want to.\"\n\nMilo nodded rapidly like a sparrow pecking. \"I see, I see,\" he stated quickly with a look of vivid confusion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I understand perfectly. I heard Appleby and Captain Black say you had gone crazy, and I just wanted to find out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hesitated politely again, weighing his next question. \"Aren't you ever going to put your uniform on again?\"\n\n\"I don't think so.\"\n\nMilo nodded with spurious vim to indicate he still understood and then sat silent, ruminating gravely with troubled misgiving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A scarlet-crested bird shot by below, brushing sure dark wings against a quivering bush." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian and Milo were covered in their bower by tissue-thin tiers of sloping green and largely surrounded by other gray chestnut trees and a silver spruce. The sun was high overhead in a vast sapphire-blue sky beaded with low, isolated, puffy clouds of dry and immaculate white. There was no breeze, and the leaves about them hung motionless. The shade was feathery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everything was at peace but Milo, who straightened suddenly with a muffled cry and began pointing excitedly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at that!\" he exclaimed in alarm. \"Look at that! That's a funeral going on down there. That looks like the cemetery. Isn't it?\"\n\nYossarian answered him slowly in a level voice. \"They're burying that kid who got killed in my plane over Avignon the other day. Snowden.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What happened to him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo asked in a voice deadened with awe.\n\n\"He got killed.\"\n\n\"That's terrible,\" Milo grieved, and his large brown eyes filled with tears. \"That poor kid. It really is terrible.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He bit his trembling lip hard, and his voice rose with emotion when he continued." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And it will get even worse if the mess halls don't agree to buy my cotton. Yossarian, what's the matter with them? Don't they realize it's their syndicate? Don't they know they've all got a share?\"\n\n\"Did the dead man in my tent have a share?\" Yossarian demanded caustically.\n\n\"Of course he did,\" Milo assured him lavishly. \"Everybody in the squadron has a share.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He was killed before he even got into the squadron.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo made a deft grimace of tribulation and turned away. \"I wish you'd stop picking on me about that dead man in your tent,\" he pleaded peevishly. \"I told you I didn't have anything to do with killing him. Is it my fault that I saw this great opportunity to corner the market on Egyptian cotton and got us into all this trouble? Was I supposed to know there was going to be a glut? I didn't even know what a glut was in those days. An opportunity to corner a market doesn't come along very often, and I was pretty shrewd to grab the chance when I had it.\" Milo gulped back a moan as he saw six uniformed pallbearers lift the plain pine coffin from the ambulance and set it gently down on the ground beside the yawning gash of the freshly dug grave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And now I can't get rid of a single penny's worth,\" he mourned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was unmoved by the fustian charade of the burial ceremony, and by Milo's crushing bereavement. The chaplain's voice floated up to him through the distance tenuously in an unintelligible, almost inaudible monotone, like a gaseous murmur. Yossarian could make out Major Major by his towering and lanky aloofness and thought he recognized Major Danby mopping his brow with a handkerchief. Major Danby had not stopped shaking since his run-in with General Dreedle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were strands of enlisted men molded in a curve around the three officers, as inflexible as lumps of wood, and four idle gravediggers in streaked fatigues lounging indifferently on spades near the shocking, incongruous heap of loose copperred earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Yossarian stared, the chaplain elevated his gaze toward Yossarian beatifically, pressed his fingers down over his eyeballs in a manner of affliction, peered upward again toward Yossarian searchingly, and bowed his head, concluding what Yossarian took to be a climactic part of the funeral rite. The four men in fatigues lifted the coffin on slings and lowered it into the grave. Milo shuddered violently.\n\n\"I can't watch it,\" he cried, turning away in anguish. \"I just can't sit here and watch while those mess halls let my syndicate die.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He gnashed his teeth and shook his head with bitter woe and resentment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If they had any loyalty, they would buy my cotton till it hurts so that they can keep right on buying my cotton till it hurts them some more. They would build fires and burn up their underwear and summer uniforms just to create bigger demand. But they won't do a thing. Yossarian, try eating the rest of this chocolate-covered cotton for me. Maybe it will taste delicious now.\"\n\nYossarian pushed his hand away. \"Give up, Milo. People can't eat cotton.\"\n\nMilo's face narrowed cunningly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It isn't really cotton,\" he coaxed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was joking. It's really cotton candy, delicious cotton candy. Try it and see.\"\n\n\"Now you're lying.\"\n\n\"I never lie!\" Milo rejoindered with proud dignity.\n\n\"You're lying now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I only lie when it's necessary,\" Milo explained defensively, averting his eyes for a moment and blinking his lashes winningly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This stuff is better than cotton candy, really it is. It's made out of real cotton. Yossarian, you've got to help me make the men eat it. Egyptian cotton is the finest cotton in the world.\"\n\n\"But it's indigestible,\" Yossarian emphasized. \"It will make them sick, don't you understand? Why don't you try living on it yourself if you don't believe me?\"\n\n\"I did try,\" admitted Milo gloomily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And it made me sick.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The graveyard was yellow as hay and green as cooked cabbage. In a little while the chaplain stepped back, and the beige crescent of human forms began to break up sluggishly, like flotsam. The men drifted without haste or sound to the vehicles parked along the side of the bumpy dirt road. With their heads down disconsolately, the chaplain, Major Major and Major Danby moved toward their jeeps in an ostracized group, each holding himself friendlessly several feet away from the other two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's all over,\" observed Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's the end,\" Milo agreed despondently. \"There's no hope left. And all because I left them free to make their own decisions. That should teach me a lesson about discipline the next time I try something like this.\"\n\n\"Why don't you sell your cotton to the government?\" Yossarian suggested casually, as he watched the four men in streaked fatigues shoveling heaping bladefuls of the copper-red earth back down inside the grave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo vetoed the idea brusquely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a matter of principle,\" he explained firmly. \"The government has no business in business, and I would be the last person in the world to ever try to involve the government in a business of mine. But the business of government is business,\" he remembered alertly, and continued with elation. \"Calvin Coolidge said that, and Calvin Coolidge was a President, so it must be true. And the government does have the responsibility of buying all the Egyptian cotton I've got that no one else wants so that I can make a profit, doesn't it?\" Milo's face clouded almost as abruptly, and his spirits descended into a state of sad anxiety." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But how will I get the government to do it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bribe it,\" Yossarian said.\n\n\"Bribe it!\" Milo was outraged and almost lost his balance and broke his neck again. \"Shame on you!\" he scolded severely, breathing virtuous fire down and upward into his rusty mustache through his billowing nostrils and prim lips. \"Bribery is against the law, and you know it. But it's not against the law to make a profit, is it? So it can't be against the law for me to bribe someone in order to make a fair profit, can it? No, of course not!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He fell to brooding again, with a meek, almost pitiable distress." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But how will I know who to bribe?\"\n\n\"Oh, don't you worry about that,\" Yossarian comforted him with a toneless snicker as the engines of the jeeps and ambulance fractured the drowsy silence and the vehicles in the rear began driving away backward. \"You make the bribe big enough and they'll find you. Just make sure you do everything right out in the open. Let everyone know exactly what you want and how much you're willing to pay for it. The first time you act guilty or ashamed, you might get into trouble.\"\n\n\"I wish you'd come with me,\" Milo remarked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I won't feel safe among people who take bribes. They're no better than a bunch of crooks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'll be all right,\" Yossarian assured him with confidence. \"If you run into trouble, just tell everybody that the security of the country requires a strong domestic Egyptian-cotton speculating industry.\"\n\n\"It does,\" Milo informed him solemnly. \"A strong Egyptian-cotton speculating industry means a much stronger America.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course it does. And if that doesn't work, point out the great number of American families that depend on it for income.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A great many American families do depend on it for income.\"\n\n\"You see?\" said Yossarian. \"You're much better at it than I am. You almost make it sound true.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" Milo exclaimed with a strong trace of old hauteur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's what I mean. You do it with just the right amount of conviction.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're sure you won't come with me?\"\n\nYossarian shook his head.\n\nMilo was impatient to get started. He stuffed the remainder of the chocolate-covered cotton ball into his shirt pocket and edged his way back gingerly along the branch to the smooth gray trunk." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with four sentences, emulating the writing style of Joseph Heller." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was already some time since the chaplain had first begun wondering what everything was all about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was there a God? How could he be sure? Being an Anabaptist minister in the American Army was difficult enough under the best of circumstances; without dogma, it was almost intolerable.\n\nPeople with loud voices frightened him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brave, aggressive men of action like Colonel Cathcart left him feeling helpless and alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wherever he went in the Army, he was a stranger. Enlisted men and officers did not conduct themselves with him as they conducted themselves with other enlisted men and officers, and even other chaplains were not as friendly toward him as they were toward each other. In a world in which success was the only virtue, he had resigned himself to failure. He was painfully aware that he lacked the ecclesiastical aplomb and savoir-faire that enabled so many of his colleagues in other faiths and sects to get ahead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was just not equipped to excel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought of himself as ugly and wanted daily to be home with his wife.\n\nActually, the chaplain was almost good-looking, with a pleasant, sensitive face as pale and brittle as sandstone. His mind was open on every subject.\n\nPerhaps he really was Washington Irving, and perhaps he really had been signing Washington Irving's name to those letters he knew nothing about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Such lapses of memory were not uncommon in medical annals, he knew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no way of really knowing anything. He remembered very distinctly-or was under the impression he remembered very distinctly-his feeling that he had met Yossarian somewhere before the first time he had met Yossarian lying in bed in the hospital. He remembered experiencing the same disquieting sensation almost two weeks later when Yossarian appeared at his tent to ask to be taken off combat duty. By that time, of course, the chaplain had met Yossarian somewhere before, in that odd, unorthodox ward in which every patient seemed delinquent but the unfortunate patient covered from head to toe in white bandages and plaster who was found dead one day with a thermometer in his mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the chaplain's impression of a prior meeting was of some occasion far more momentous and occult than that, of a significant encounter with Yossarian in some remote, submerged and perhaps even entirely spiritual epoch in which he had made the identical, foredooming admission that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, he could do to help him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doubts of such kind gnawed at the chaplain's lean, suffering frame insatiably. Was there a single true faith, or a life after death? How many angels could dance on the head of a pin, and with what matters did God occupy himself in all the infinite aeons before the Creation? Why was it necessary to put a protective seal on the brow of Cain if there were no other people to protect him from?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Did Adam and Eve produce daughters?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These were the great, complex questions of ontology that tormented him. Yet they never seemed nearly as crucial to him as the question of kindness and good manners. He was pinched perspinngly in the epistemological dilemma of the skeptic, unable to accept solutions to problems he was unwilling to dismiss as unsolvable. He was never without misery, and never without hope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Have you ever,\" he inquired hesitantly of Yossarian that day in his tent as Yossarian sat holding in both hands the warm bottle of Coca-Cola with which the chaplain had been able to solace him, \"been in a situation which you felt you had been in before, even though you knew you were experiencing it for the first time?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian nodded perfunctorily, and the chaplain's breath quickened in anticipation as he made ready to join his will power with Yossarian's in a prodigious effort to rip away at last the voluminous black folds shrouding the eternal mysteries of existence. \"Do you have that feeling now?\"\n\nYossarian shook his head and explained that déjà vu was just a momentary infinitesimal lag in the operation of two coactive sensory nerve centers that commonly functioned simultaneously. The chaplain scarcely heard him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was disappointed, but not inclined to believe Yossarian, for he had been given a sign, a secret, enigmatic vision that he still lacked the boldness to divulge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no mistaking the awesome implications of the chaplain's revelation: it was either an insight of divine origin or a hallucination; he was either blessed or losing his mind. Both prospects filled him with equal fear and depression. It was neither déjà vu, presque vu nor jamais vu. It was possible that there were other vus of which he had never heard and that one of these other vus would explain succinctly the bafing phenomenon of which he had been both a witness and a part; it was even possible that none of what he thought had taken place, really had taken place, that he was dealing with an aberration of memory rather than of perception, that he never really had thought he had seen, that his impression now that he once had thought so was merely the illusion of an illusion, and that he was only now imagining that he had ever once imagined seeing a naked man sitting in a tree at the cemetery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was obvious to the chaplain now that he was not particularly well suited to his work, and he often speculated whether he might not be happier serving in some other branch of the service, as a private in the infantry or field artillery, perhaps, or even as a paratrooper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had no real friends. Before meeting Yossarian, there was no one in the group with whom he felt at ease, and he was hardly at ease with Yossarian, whose frequent rash and insubordinate outbursts kept him almost constantly on edge and in an ambiguous state of enjoyable trepidation. The chaplain felt safe when he was at the officers' club with Yossarian and Dunbar, and even with just Nately and McWatt. When he sat with them he had no need to sit with anyone else; his problem of where to sit was solved, and he was protected against the undesired company of all those fellow officers who invariably welcomed him with excessive cordiality when he approached and waited uncomfortably for him to go away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made so many people uneasy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone was always very friendly toward him, and no one was ever very nice; everyone spoke to him, and no one ever said anything. Yossarian and Dunbar were much more relaxed, and the chaplain was hardly uncomfortable with them at all. They even defended him the night Colonel Cathcart tried to throw him out of the officers' club again, Yossarian rising truculently to intervene and Nately shouting out, \"Yossarian!\" to restrain him. Colonel Cathcart turned white as a sheet at the sound of Yossarian's name, and, to everyone's amazement, retreated in horrified disorder until he bumped into General Dreedle, who elbowed him away with annoyance and ordered him right back to order the chaplain to start coming into the officers' club every night again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain had almost as much trouble keeping track of his status at the officers' club as he had remembering at which of the ten mess halls in the group he was scheduled to eat his next meal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would just as soon have remained kicked out of the officers' club, had it not been for the pleasure he was now finding there with his new companions. If the chaplain did not go to the officers' club at night, there was no place else he could go. He would pass the time at Yossarian's and Dunbar's table with a shy, reticent smile, seldom speaking unless addressed, a glass of thick sweet wine almost untasted before him as he toyed unfamiliarly with the tiny corncob pipe that he affected selfconsciously and occasionally stuffed with tobacco and smoked. He enjoyed listening to Nately, whose maudlin, bittersweet lamentations mirrored much of his own romantic desolation and never failed to evoke in him resurgent tides of longing for his wife and children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain would encourage Nately with nods of comprehension or assent, amused by his candor and immaturity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately did not glory too immodestly that his girl was a prostitute, and the chaplain's awareness stemmed mainly from Captain Black, who never slouched past their table without a broad wink at the chaplain and some tasteless, wounding gibe about her to Nately. The chaplain did not approve of Captain Black and found it difficult not to wish him evil.\n\nNo one, not even Nately, seemed really to appreciate that he, Chaplain Robert Oliver Shipman, was not just a chaplain but a human being, that he could have a charming, passionate, pretty wife whom he loved almost insanely and three small blue-eyed children with strange, forgotten faces who would grow up someday to regard him as a freak and who might never forgive him for all the social embarrassment his vocation would cause them. Why couldn't anybody understand that he was not really a freak but a normal, lonely adult trying to lead a normal, lonely adult life?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If they pricked him, didn't he bleed?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And if he was tickled, didn't he laugh? It seemed never to have occurred to them that he, just as they, had eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses and affections, that he was wounded by the same kind of weapons they were, warmed and cooled by the same breezes and fed by the same kind of food, although, he was forced to concede, in a different mess hall for each successive meal. The only person who did seem to realize he had feelings was Corporal Whitcomb, who had just managed to bruise them all by going over his head to Colonel Cathcart with his proposal for sending form letters of condolence home to the families of men killed or wounded in combat.\n\nThe chaplain's wife was the one thing in the world he could be certain of, and it would have been sufficient, if only he had been left to live his life out with just her and the children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain's wife was a reserved, diminutive, agreeable woman in her early thirties, very dark and very attractive, with a narrow waist, calm intelligent eyes, and small, bright, pointy teeth in a childlike face that was vivacious and petite; he kept forgetting what his children looked like, and each time he returned to their snapshots it was like seeing their faces for the first time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain loved his wife and children with such tameless intensity that he often wanted to sink to the ground helplessly and weep like a castaway cripple. He was tormented inexorably by morbid fantasies involving them, by dire, hideous omens of illness and accident. His meditations were polluted with threats of dread diseases like Ewing's tumor and leukemia; he saw his infant son die two or three times every week because he had never taught his wife how to stop arterial bleeding; watched, in tearful, paralyzed silence, his whole family electrocuted, one after the other, at a baseboard socket because he had never told her that a human body would conduct electricity; all four went up in flames almost every night when the water heater exploded and set the two-story wooden house afire; in ghastly, heartless, revolting detail he saw his poor dear wife's trim and fragile body crushed to a viscous pulp against the brick wall of a market building by a half-wined drunken automobile driver and watched his hysterical five-year-old daughter being led away from the grisly scene by a kindly middle-aged gentleman with snow-white hair who raped and murdered her repeatedly as soon as he had driven her off to a deserted sandpit, while his two younger children starved to death slowly in the house after his wife's mother, who had been baby-sitting, dropped dead from a heart attack when news of his wife's accident was given to her over the telephone. The chaplain's wife was a sweet, soothing, considerate woman, and he yearned to touch the warm flesh of her slender arm again and stroke her smooth black hair, to hear her intimate, comforting voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was a much stronger person than he was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wrote brief, untroubled letters to her once a week, sometimes twice. He wanted to write urgent love letters to her all day long and crowd the endless pages with desperate, uninhibited confessions of his humble worship and need and with careful instructions for administering artificial respiration. He wanted to pour out to her in torrents of self-pity all his unbearable loneliness and despair and warn her never to leave the boric acid or the aspirin in reach of the children or to cross a street against the traffic light. He did not wish to worry her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain's wife was intuitive, gentle, compassionate and responsive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost inevitably, his reveries of reunion with her ended in explicit acts of love-making.\n\nThe chaplain felt most deceitful presiding at funerals, and it would not have astonished him to learn that the apparition in the tree that day was a manifestation of the Almighty's censure for the blasphemy and pride inherent in his function. To simulate gravity, feign grief and pretend supernatural intelligence of the hereafter in so fearsome and arcane a circumstance as death seemed the most criminal of offenses. He recalled-or was almost convinced he recalled-the scene at the cemetery perfectly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could still see Major Major and Major Danby standing somber as broken stone pillars on either side of him, see almost the exact number of enlisted men and almost the exact places in which they had stood, see the four unmoving men with spades, the repulsive coffin and the large, loose, triumphant mound of reddish-brown earth, and the massive, still, depthless, muffling sky, so weirdly blank and blue that day it was almost poisonous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would remember them forever, for they were all part and parcel of the most extraordinary event that had ever befallen him, an event perhaps marvelous, perhaps pathological-the vision of the naked man in the tree. How could he explain it? It was not already seen or never seen, and certainly not almost seen; neither déjà vu, jamais vu nor presque vu was elastic enough to cover it. Was it a ghost, then?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dead man's soul?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An angel from heaven or a minion from hell? Or was the whole fantastic episode merely the figment of a diseased imagination, his own, of a deteriorating mind, a rotting brain? The possibility that there really had been a naked man in the tree-two men, actually, since the first had been joined shortly by a second man clad in a brown mustache and sinister dark garments from head to toe who bent forward ritualistically along the limb of the tree to offer the first man something to drink from a brown goblet-never crossed the chaplain's mind.\n\nThe chaplain was sincerely a very helpful person who was never able to help anyone, not even Yossarian when he finally decided to seize the bull by the horns and visit Major Major secretly to learn if, as Yossarian had said, the men in Colonel Cathcart's group really were being forced to fly more combat missions than anyone else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a daring, impulsive move on which the chaplain decided after quarreling with Corporal Whitcomb again and washing down with tepid canteen water his joyless lunch of Milky Way and Baby Ruth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He went to Major Major on foot so that Corporal Whitcomb would not see him leaving, stealing into the forest noiselessly until the two tents in his clearing were left behind, then dropping down inside the abandoned railroad ditch, where the footing was surer. He hurried along the fossilized wooden ties with accumulating mutinous anger. He had been browbeaten and humiliated successively that morning by Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn and Corporal Whitcomb. He just had to make himself felt in some respect!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His slight chest was soon puffing for breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He moved as swiftly as he could without breaking into a run, fearing his resolution might dissolve if he slowed. Soon he saw a uniformed figure coming toward him between the rusted rails. He clambered immediately up the side of the ditch, ducked inside a dense copse of low trees for concealment and sped along in his original direction a narrow, overgrown mossy path he found winding deep inside the shaded forest. It was tougher going there, but he plunged ahead with the same reckless and consuming determination, slipping and stumbling often and stinging his unprotected hands on the stubborn branches blocking his way until the bushes and tall ferns on both sides spread open and he lurched past an olive-drab military trailer on cinder blocks clearly visible through the thinning underbrush." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He continued past a tent with a luminous pearl-gray cat sunning itself outside and past another trailer on cinder blocks and then burst into the clearing of Yossarian's squadron." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A salty dew had formed on his lips. He did not pause, but strode directly across the clearing into the orderly room, where he was welcomed by a gaunt, stoop-shouldered staff sergeant with prominent cheekbones and long, very light blond hair, who informed him graciously that he could go right in, since Major Major was out.\n\nThe chaplain thanked him with a curt nod and proceeded alone down the aisle between the desks and typewriters to the canvas partition in the rear. He bobbed through the triangular opening and found himself inside an empty office." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The flap fell closed behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was breathing hard and sweating profusely. The office remained empty. He thought he heard furtive whispering. Ten minutes passed. He looked about in stern displeasure, his jaws clamped together indomitably, and then turned suddenly to water as he remembered the staff sergeant's exact words: he could go right in, since Major Major was out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The enlisted men were playing a practical joke!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain shrank back from the wall in terror, bitter tears springing to his eyes. A pleading whimper escaped his trembling lips. Major Major was elsewhere, and the enlisted men in the other room had made him the butt of an inhuman prank. He could almost see them waiting on the other side of the canvas wall, bunched up expectantly like a pack of greedy, gloating omnivorous beasts of prey, ready with their barbaric mirth and jeers to pounce on him brutally the moment he reappeared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He cursed himself for his gullibility and wished in panic for something like a mask or a pair of dark glasses and a false mustache to disguise him, or for a forceful, deep voice like Colonel Cathcart's and broad, muscular shoulders and biceps to enable him to step outside fearlessly and vanquish his malevolent persecutors with an overbearing authority and self-confidence that would make them all quail and slink away cravenly in repentance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lacked the courage to face them. The only other way out was the window. The coast was clear, and the chaplain jumped out of Major Major's office through the window, darted swiftly around the corner of the tent, and leaped down inside the railroad ditch to hide.\n\nHe scooted away with his body doubled over and his face contorted intentionally into a nonchalant, sociable smile in case anyone chanced to see him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He abandoned the ditch for the forest the moment he saw someone coming toward him from the opposite direction and ran through the cluttered forest frenziedly like someone pursued, his cheeks burning with disgrace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard loud, wild peals of derisive laughter crashing all about him and caught blurred glimpses of wicked, beery faces smirking far back inside the bushes and high overhead in the foliage of the trees. Spasms of scorching pains stabbed through his lungs and slowed him to a crippled walk. He lunged and staggered onward until he could go no farther and collapsed all at once against a gnarled apple tree, banging his head hard against the trunk as he toppled forward and holding on with both arms to keep from falling. His breathing was a rasping, moaning din in his ears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Minutes passed like hours before he finally recognized himself as the source of the turbulent roar that was overwhelming him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pains in his chest abated. Soon he felt strong enough to stand. He cocked his ears craftily. The forest was quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no demonic laughter, no one was chasing him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was too tired and sad and dirty to feel relieved. He straightened his disheveled clothing with fingers that were numb and shaking and walked the rest of the way to the clearing with rigid self-control. The chaplain brooded often about the danger of heart attack.\n\nCorporal Whitcomb's jeep was still parked in the clearing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain tiptoed stealthily around the back of Corporal Whitcomb's tent rather than pass the entrance and risk being seen and insulted by him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heaving a grateful sigh, he slipped quickly inside his own tent and found Corporal Whitcomb ensconced on his cot, his knees propped up. Corporal Whitcomb's mud-caked shoes were on the chaplain's blanket, and he was eating one of the chaplain's candy bars as he thumbed with sneering expression through one of the chaplain's Bibles.\n\n\"Where've you been?\" he demanded rudely and disinterestedly, without looking up.\n\nThe chaplain colored and turned away evasively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I went for a walk through the woods.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" Corporal Whitcomb snapped. \"Don't take me into your confidence. But just wait and see what happens to my morale.\" He bit into the chaplain's candy bar hungrily and continued with a full mouth. \"You had a visitor while you were gone. Major Major.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain spun around with surprise and cried: \"Major Major? Major Major was here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's who we're talking about, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Where did he go?\"\n\n\"He jumped down into that railroad ditch and took off like a frightened rabbit.\" Corporal Whitcomb snickered. \"What a jerk!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did he say what he wanted?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He said he needed your help in a matter of great importance.\"\n\nThe chaplain was astounded. \"Major Major said that?\"\n\n\"He didn't say that,\" Corporal Whitcomb corrected with withering precision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He wrote it down in a sealed personal letter he left on your desk.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain glanced at the bridge table that served as his desk and saw only the abominable orange-red pear-shaped plum tomato he had obtained that same morning from Colonel Cathcart, still lying on its side where he had forgotten it like an indestructible and incamadine symbol of his own ineptitude. \"Where is the letter?\"\n\n\"I threw it away as soon as I tore it open and read it.\" Corporal Whitcomb slammed the Bible shut and jumped up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's the matter? Won't you take my word for it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked out. He walked right back in and almost collided with the chaplain, who was rushing out behind him on his way back to Major Major. \"You don't know how to delegate responsibility,\" Corporal Whitcomb informed him sullenly. \"That's another one of the things that's wrong with you.\"\n\nThe chaplain nodded penitently and hurried past, unable to make himself take the time to apologize." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could feel the skillful hand of fate motivating him imperatively." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twice that day already, he realized now, Major Major had come racing toward him inside the ditch; and twice that day the chaplain had stupidly postponed the destined meeting by bolting into the forest. He seethed with self-recrimination as he hastened back as rapidly as he could stride along the splintered, irregularly spaced railroad ties. Bits of grit and gravel inside his shoes and socks were grinding the tops of his toes raw. His pale, laboring face was screwed up unconsciously into a grimace of acute discomfort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The early August afternoon was growing hotter and more humid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was almost a mile from his tent to Yossarian's squadron. The chaplain's summer-tan shirt was soaking with perspiration by the time he arrived there and rushed breathlessly back inside the orderly room tent, where he was halted peremptorily by the same treacherous, soft-spoken staff sergeant with round eyeglasses and gaunt cheeks, who requested him to remain outside because Major Major was inside and told him he would not be allowed inside until Major Major went out. The chaplain looked at him in an uncomprehending daze. Why did the sergeant hate him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he wondered. His lips were white and trembling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was aching with thirst. What was the matter with people? Wasn't there tragedy enough? The sergeant put his hand out and held the chaplain steady." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry, sir,\" he said regretfully in a low, courteous, melancholy voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But those are Major Major's orders. He never wants to see anyone.\"\n\n\"He wants to see me,\" the chaplain pleaded. \"He came to my tent to see me while I was here before.\"\n\n\"Major Major did that?\" the sergeant asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, he did. Please go in and ask him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm afraid I can't go in, sir. He never wants to see me either. Perhaps if you left a note.\"\n\n\"I don't want to leave a note. Doesn't he ever make an exception?\"\n\n\"Only in extreme circumstances. The last time he left his tent was to attend the funeral of one of the enlisted men. The last time he saw anyone in his office was a time he was forced to. A bombardier named Yossarian forced-\"\n\n\"Yossarian?\" The chaplain lit up with excitement at this new coincidence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was this another miracle in the making?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But that's exactly whom I want to speak to him about! Did they talk about the number of missions Yossarian has to fly?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, that's exactly what they did talk about. Captain Yossarian had flown fifty-one missions, and he appealed to Major Major to ground him so that he wouldn't have to fly four more. Colonel Cathcart wanted only fifty-five missions then.\"\n\n\"And what did Major Major say?\"\n\n\"Major Major told him there was nothing he could do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain's face fell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Major Major said that?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. In fact, he advised Yossarian to go see you for help. Are you certain you wouldn't like to leave a note, sir? I have a pencil and paper right here.\"\n\nThe chaplain shook his head, chewing his clotted dry lower lip forlornly, and walked out. It was still so early in the day, and so much had already happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air was cooler in the forest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His throat was parched and sore. He walked slowly and asked himself ruefully what new misfortune could possibly befall him a moment before the mad hermit in the woods leaped out at him without warning from behind a mulberry bush. The chaplain screamed at the top of his voice.\n\nThe tall, cadaverous stranger fell back in fright at the chaplain's cry and shrieked, \"Don't hurt me!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who are you?\" the chaplain shouted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please don't hurt me!\" the man shouted back.\n\n\"I'm the chaplain!\"\n\n\"Then why do you want to hurt me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't want to hurt you!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the chaplain insisted with a rising hint of exasperation, even though he was still rooted to the spot. \"Just tell me who you are and what you want from me.\"\n\n\"I just want to find out if Chief White Halfoat died of pneumonia yet,\" the man shouted back. \"That's all I want. I live here. My name is Flume. I belong to the squadron, but I live here in the woods. You can ask anyone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain's composure began trickling back as he studied the queer, cringing figure intently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pair of captain's bars ulcerated with rust hung on the man's ragged shirt collar. He had a hairy, tar-black mole on the underside of one nostril and a heavy rough mustache the color of poplar bark.\n\n\"Why do you live in the woods if you belong to the squadron?\" the chaplain inquired curiously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have to live in the woods,\" the captain replied crabbily, as though the chaplain ought to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He straightened slowly, still watching the chaplain guardedly although he towered above him by more than a full head.\n\n\"Don't you hear everybody talking about me? Chief White Halfoat swore he was going to cut my throat some night when I was fast asleep, and I don't dare lie down in the squadron while he's still alive.\"\n\nThe chaplain listened to the implausible explanation distrustfully. \"But that's incredible,\" he replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That would be premeditated murder. Why didn't you report the incident to Major Major?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I did report the incident to Major Major,\" said the captain sadly, \"and Major Major said he would cut my throat if I ever spoke to him again.\" The man studied the chaplain fearfully. \"Are you going to cut my throat, too?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, no, no,\" the chaplain assured him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course not. Do you really live in the forest?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The captain nodded, and the chaplain gazed at his porous gray pallor of fatigue and malnutrition with a mixture of pity and esteem. The man's body was a bony shell inside rumpled clothing that hung on him like a disorderly collection of sacks. Wisps of dried grass were glued all over him; he needed a haircut badly. There were great, dark circles under his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain was moved almost to tears by the harassed, bedraggled picture the captain presented, and he filled with deference and compassion at the thought of the many severe rigors the poor man had to endure daily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a voice hushed with humility, he said,\n\n\"Who does your laundry?\"\n\nThe captain pursed his lips in a businesslike manner. \"I have it done by a washerwoman in one of the farmhouses down the road. I keep my things in my trailer and sneak inside once or twice a day for a clean handkerchief or a change of underwear.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What will you do when winter comes?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, I expect to be back in the squadron by then,\" the captain answered with a kind of martyred confidence. \"Chief White Halfoat kept promising everyone that he was going to die of pneumonia, and I guess I'll have to be patient until the weather turns a little colder and damper.\" He scrutinized the chaplain perplexedly. \"Don't you know all this? Don't you hear all the fellows talking about me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I certainly can't understand that.\" The captain was piqued, but managed to carry on with a pretense of optimism. \"Well, here it is almost September already, so I guess it won't be too long now. The next time any of the boys ask about me, why, just tell them I'll be back grinding out those old publicity releases again as soon as Chief White Halfoat dies of pneumonia. Will you tell them that? Say I'll be back in the squadron as soon as winter comes and Chief Halfoat dies of pneumonia. Okay?\"\n\nThe chaplain memorized the prophetic words solemnly, entranced further by their esoteric import." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you live on berries, herbs and roots?\" he asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, of course not,\" the captain replied with surprise. \"I sneak into the mess hall through the back and eat in the kitchen. Milo gives me sandwiches and milk.\"\n\n\"What do you do when it rains?\"\n\nThe captain answered frankly. \"I get wet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where do you sleep?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Swiftly the captain ducked down into a crouch and began backing away. \"You too?\" he cried frantically.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" cried the chaplain. \"I swear to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You do want to cut my throat!\" the captain insisted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I give my word,\" the chaplain pleaded, but it was too late, for the homely hirsute specter had already vanished, dissolving so expertly inside the blooming, dappled, fragmented malformations of leaves, light and shadows that the chaplain was already doubting that he had even been there. So many monstrous events were occurring that he was no longer positive which events were monstrous and which were really taking place. He wanted to find out about the madman in the woods as quickly as possible, to check if there ever really had been a Captain Flume, but his first chore, he recalled with reluctance, was to appease Corporal Whitcomb for neglecting to delegate enough responsibility to him. He plodded along the zigzagging path through the forest listlessly, clogged with thirst and feeling almost too exhausted to go on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was remorseful when he thought of Corporal Whitcomb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He prayed that Corporal Whitcomb would be gone when he reached the clearing so that he could undress without embarrassment, wash his arms and chest and shoulders thoroughly, drink water, lie down refreshed and perhaps even sleep for a few minutes; but he was in for still another disappointment and still another shock, for Corporal Whitcomb was Sergeant Whitcomb by the time he arrived and was sitting with his shirt off in the chaplain's chair sewing his new sergeant's stripes on his sleeve with the chaplain's needle and thread. Corporal Whitcomb had been promoted by Colonel Cathcart, who wanted to see the chaplain at once about the letters.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" groaned the chaplain, sinking down dumbfounded on his cot. His warm canteen was empty, and he was too distraught to remember the lister bag hanging outside in the shade between the two tents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can't believe it. I just can't believe that anyone would seriously believe that I've been forging Washington Irving's name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not those letters,\" Corporal Whitcomb corrected, plainly enjoying the chaplain's chagrin. \"He wants to see you about the letters home to the families of casualties.\"\n\n\"Those letters?\" asked the chaplain with surprise.\n\n\"That's right,\" Corporal Whitcomb gloated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's really going to chew you out for refusing to let me send them. You should have seen him go for the idea once I reminded him the letters could carry his signature. That's why he promoted me. He's absolutely sure they'll get him into The Saturday Evening Post.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain's befuddlement increased. \"But how did he know we were even considering the idea?\"\n\n\"I went to his office and told him.\"\n\n\"You did what?\" the chaplain demanded shrilly, and charged to his feet in an unfamiliar rage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you mean to say that you actually went over my head to the colonel without asking my permission?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corporal Whitcomb grinned brazenly with scornful satisfaction. \"That's right, Chaplain,\" he answered. \"And you better not try to do anything about it if you know what's good for you.\" He laughed quietly in malicious defiance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Colonel Cathcart isn't going to like it if he finds out you're getting even with me for bringing him my idea. You know something, Chaplain?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corporal Whitcomb continued, biting the chaplain's black thread apart contemptuously with a loud snap and buttoning on his shirt. \"That dumb bastard really thinks it's one of the greatest ideas he's ever heard.\"\n\n\"It might even get me into The Saturday Evening Post,\" Colonel Cathcart boasted in his office with a smile, swaggering back and forth convivially as he reproached the chaplain. \"And you didn't have brains enough to appreciate it. You've got a good man in Corporal Whitcomb, Chaplain. I hope you have brains enough to appreciate that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sergeant Whitcomb,\" the chaplain corrected, before he could control himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart Oared. \"I said Sergeant Whitcomb,\" he replied. \"I wish you'd try listening once in a while instead of always finding fault. You don't want to be a captain all your life, do you?\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"Well, I certainly don't see how you're ever going to amount to anything else if you keep on this way. Corporal Whitcomb feels that you fellows haven't had a fresh idea in nineteen hundred and forty-four years, and I'm inclined to agree with him. A bright boy, that Corporal Whitcomb. Well, it's all going to change.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart sat down at his desk with a determined air and cleared a large neat space in his blotter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he had finished, he tapped his finger inside it. \"Starting tomorrow,\" he said, \"I want you and Corporal Whitcomb to write a letter of condolence for me to the next of kin of every man in the group who's killed, wounded or taken prisoner. I want those letters to be sincere letters. I want them filled up with lots of personal details so there'll be no doubt I mean every word you say. Is that clear?\"\n\nThe chaplain stepped forward impulsively to remonstrate. \"But, sir, that's impossible!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he blurted out. \"We don't even know all the men that well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What difference does that make?\" Colonel Cathcart demanded, and then smiled amicably. \"Corporal Whitcomb brought me this basic form letter that takes care of just about every situation. Listen: 'Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. and Mrs.: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded or reported missing in action.' And so on. I think that opening sentence sums up my sentiments exactly. Listen, maybe you'd better let Corporal Whitcomb take charge of the whole thing if you don't feel up to it.\" Colonel Cathcart whipped out his cigarette holder and flexed it between both hands like an onyx and ivory riding crop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's one of the things that's wrong with you, Chaplain. Corporal Whitcomb tells me you don't know how to delegate responsibility. He says you've got no initiative either. You're not going to disagree with me, are you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sir.\" The chaplain shook his head, feeling despicably remiss because he did not know how to delegate responsibility and had no initiative, and because he really had been tempted to disagree with the colonel. His mind was a shambles. They were shooting skeet outside, and every time a gun was fired his senses were jarred. He could not adjust to the sound of the shots." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was surrounded by bushels of plum tomatoes and was almost convinced that he had stood in Colonel Cathcart's office on some similar occasion deep in the past and had been surrounded by those same bushels of those same plum tomatoes. Déjà vu again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The setting seemed so familiar; yet it also seemed so distant. His clothes felt grimy and old, and he was deathly afraid he smelled.\n\n\"You take things too seriously, Chaplain,\" Colonel Cathcart told him bluntly with an air of adult objectivity. \"That's another one of the things that's wrong with you. That long face of yours gets everybody depressed. Let me see you laugh once in a while. Come on, Chaplain. You give me a belly laugh now and I'll give you a whole bushel of plum tomatoes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He waited a second or two, watching, and then chortled victoriously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You see, Chaplain, I'm right. You can't give me a belly laugh, can you?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" admitted the chaplain meekly, swallowing slowly with a visible effort. \"Not right now. I'm very thirsty.\"\n\n\"Then get yourself a drink. Colonel Korn keeps some bourbon in his desk. You ought to try dropping around the officers' club with us some evening just to have yourself a little fun. Try getting lit once in a while. I hope you don't feel you're better than the rest of us just because you're a professional man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, no, sir,\" the chaplain assured him with embarrassment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As a matter of fact, I have been going to the officers' club the past few evenings.\"\n\n\"You're only a captain, you know,\" Colonel Cathcart continued, paying no attention to the chaplain's remark. \"You may be a professional man, but you're still only a captain.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's fine, then. It's just as well you didn't laugh before. I wouldn't have given you the plum tomatoes anyway. Corporal Whitcomb tells me you took a plum tomato when you were in here this morning.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This morning? But, sir! You gave it to me.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart cocked his head with suspicion. \"I didn't say I didn't give it to you, did I? I merely said you took it. I don't see why you've got such a guilty conscience if you really didn't steal it. Did I give it to you?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I swear you did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I'll just have to take your word for it. Although I can't imagine why I'd want to give you a plum tomato.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart transferred a round glass paperweight competently from the right edge of his desk to the left edge and picked up a sharpened pencil. \"Okay. Chaplain, I've got a lot of important work to do now if you're through. You let me know when Corporal Whitcomb has sent out about a dozen of those letters and we'll get in touch with the editors of The Saturday Evening Post.\" A sudden inspiration made his face brighten. \"Say! I think I'll volunteer the group for Avignon again. That should speed things up!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For Avignon?\" The chaplain's heart missed a beat, and all his flesh began to prickle and creep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's right,\" the colonel explained exuberantly. \"The sooner we get some casualties, the sooner we can make some progress on this. I'd like to get in the Christmas issue if we can. I imagine the circulation is higher then.\"\n\nAnd to the chaplain's horror, the colonel lifted the phone to volunteer the group for Avignon and tried to kick him out of the officers' club again that very same night a moment before Yossarian rose up drunkenly, knocking over his chair, to start an avenging punch that made Nately call out his name and made Colonel Cathcart blanch and retreat prudently smack into General Dreedle, who shoved him off his bruised foot disgustedly and order him forward to kick the chaplain right back into the officers' club. It was all very upsetting to Colonel Cathcart, first the dreaded name Yossarian!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "tolling out again clearly like a warning of doom and then General Dreedle's bruised foot, and that was another fault Colonel Cathcart found in the chaplain, the fact that it was impossible to predict how General Dreedle would react each time he saw him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart would never forget the first evening General Dreedle took notice of the chaplain in the officers' club, lifting his ruddy, sweltering, intoxicated face to stare ponderously through the yellow pall of cigarette smoke at the chaplain lurking near the wall by himself.\n\n\"Well, I'll be damned,\" General Dreedle had exclaimed hoarsely, his shaggy gray menacing eyebrows beetling in recognition. \"Is that a chaplain I see over there? That's really a fine thing when a man of God begins hanging around a place like this with a bunch of dirty drunks and gamblers.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart compressed his lips primly and started to rise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I couldn't agree with you more, sir,\" he assented briskly in a tone of ostentatious disapproval." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I just don't know what's happening to the clergy these days.\"\n\n\"They're getting better, that's what's happening to them,\" General Dreedle growled emphatically.\n\nColonel Cathcart gulped awkwardly and made a nimble recovery. \"Yes, sir. They are getting better. That's exactly what I had in mind, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is just the place for a chaplain to be, mingling with the men while they're out drinking and gambling so he can get to understand them and win their confidence. How the hell else is he ever going to get them to believe in God?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's exactly what I had in mind, sir, when I ordered him to come here,\" Colonel Cathcart said carefully, and threw his arm familiarly around the chaplain's shoulders as he walked him off into a corner to order him in a cold undertone to start reporting for duty at the officers' club every evening to mingle with the men while they were drinking and gambling so that he could get to understand them and win their confidence.\n\nThe chaplain agreed and did report for duty to the officers' club every night to mingle with men who wanted to avoid him, until the evening the vicious fist fight broke out at the ping-pong table and Chief White Halfoat whirled without provocation and punched Colonel Moodus squarely in the nose, knocking Colonel Moodus down on the seat of his pants and making General Dreedle roar with lusty, unexpected laughter until he spied the chaplain standing close by gawking at him grotesquely in tortured wonder. General Dreedle froze at the sight of him. He glowered at the chaplain with swollen fury for a moment, his good humor gone, and turned back toward the bar disgruntedly, rolling from side to side like a sailor on his short bandy legs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart cantered fearfully along behind, glancing anxiously about in vain for some sign of help from Colonel Korn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a fine thing,\" General Dreedle growled at the bar, gripping his empty shot glass in his burly hand. \"That's really a fine thing, when a man of God begins hanging around a place like this with a bunch of dirty drunks and gamblers.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart sighed with relief. \"Yes, sir,\" he exclaimed proudly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It certainly is a fine thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why the hell don't you do something about it?\"\n\n\"Sir?\" Colonel Cathcart inquired, blinking.\n\n\"Do you think it does you credit to have your chaplain hanging around here every night? He's in here every goddam time I come.\"\n\n\"You're right, sir, absolutely right,\" Colonel Cathcart responded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It does me no credit at all. And I am going to do something about it, this very minute.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aren't you the one who ordered him to come here?\"\n\n\"No, sir, that was Colonel Korn. I intend to punish him severely, too.\"\n\n\"If he wasn't a chaplain,\" General Dreedle muttered, \"I'd have him taken outside and shot.\"\n\n\"He's not a chaplain, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart advised helpfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Isn't he? Then why the hell does he wear that cross on his collar if he's not a chaplain?\"\n\n\"He doesn't wear a cross on his collar, sir. He wears a silver leaf. He's a lieutenant colonel.\"\n\n\"You've got a chaplain who's a lieutenant colonel?\" inquired General Dreedle with amazement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, no, sir. My chaplain is only a captain.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why the hell does he wear a silver leaf on his collar if he's only a captain?\"\n\n\"He doesn't wear a silver leaf on his collar, sir. He wears a cross.\"\n\n\"Go away from me now, you son of a bitch,\" said General Dreedle. \"Or I'll have you taken outside and shot!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart went away from General Dreedle with a gulp and kicked the chaplain out of the officers' club, and it was exactly the way it almost was two months later after the chaplain had tried to persuade Colonel Cathcart to rescind his order increasing the number of missions to sixty and had failed abysmally in that endeavor too, and the chaplain was ready now to capitulate to despair entirely but was restrained by the memory of his wife, whom he loved and missed so pathetically with such sensual and exalted ardor, and by the lifelong trust he had placed in the wisdom and justice of an immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, humane, universal, anthropomorphic, English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon, pro-American God, which had begun to waver. So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans. Did it then seem probable, as he had once overheard Dunbar ask, that the answers to the riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with four sentences in the style of Joseph Heller." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a way it was all Yossarian's fault, for if he had not moved the bomb line during the Big Siege of Bologna, Major – de Coverley might still be around to save him, and if he had not stocked the enlisted men's apartment with girls who had no other place to live, Nately might never have fallen in love with his whore as she sat naked from the waist down in the room full of grumpy blackjack players who ignored her. Nately stared at her covertly from his over-stuffed yellow armchair, marveling at the bored, phlegmatic strength with which she accepted the mass rejection. She yawned, and he was deeply moved. He had never witnessed such heroic poise before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl had climbed five steep flights of stairs to sell herself to the group of satiated enlisted men, who had girls living there all around them; none wanted her at any price, not even after she had stripped without real enthusiasm to tempt them with a tall body that was firm and full and truly voluptuous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She seemed more fatigued than disappointed. Now she sat resting in vacuous indolence, watching the card game with dull curiosity as she gathered her recalcitrant energies for the tedious chore of donning the rest of her clothing and going back to work. In a little while she stirred. A little while later she rose with an unconscious sigh and stepped lethargically into her tight cotton panties and dark skirt, then buckled on her shoes and left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately slipped out behind her; and when Yossarian and Aarfy entered the officers' apartment almost two hours later, there she was again, stepping into her panties and skirt, and it was almost like the chaplain's recurring sensation of having been through a situation before, except for Nately, who was moping inconsolably with his hands in his pockets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She wants to go now,\" he said in a faint, strange voice. \"She doesn't want to stay.\"\n\n\"Why don't you just pay her some money to let you spend the rest of the day with her?\" Yossarian advised.\n\n\"She gave me my money back,\" Nately admitted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's tired of me now and wants to go looking for someone else.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl paused when her shoes were on to glance in surly invitation at Yossarian and Aarfy. Her breasts were pointy and large in the thin white sleeveless sweater she wore that squeezed each contour and flowed outward smoothly with the tops of her enticing hips. Yossarian returned her gaze and was strongly attracted. He shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good riddance to bad rubbish,\" was Aarfy's unperturbed response." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't say that about her!\" Nately protested with passion that was both a plea and a rebuke. \"I want her to stay with me.\"\n\n\"What's so special about her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aarfy sneered with mock surprise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's only a whore.\"\n\n\"And don't call her a whore!\"\n\nThe girl shrugged impassively after a few more seconds and ambled toward the door. Nately bounded forward wretchedly to hold it open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wandered back in a heartbroken daze, his sensitive face eloquent with grief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't worry about it,\" Yossarian counseled him as kindly as he could. \"You'll probably be able to find her again. We know where all the whores hang out.\"\n\n\"Please don't call her that,\" Nately begged, looking as though he might cry.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" murmured Yossarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aarfy thundered jovially, \"There are hundreds of whores just as good crawling all over the streets. That one wasn't even pretty.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He chuckled mellifluously with resonant disdain and authority. \"Why, you rushed forward to open that door as though you were in love with her.\"\n\n\"I think I am in love with her,\" Nately confessed in a shamed, far-off voice.\n\nAarfy wrinkled his chubby round rosy forehead in comic disbelief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ho, ho, ho, ho!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he laughed, patting the expansive forest-green sides of his officer's tunic prosperously. \"That's rich. You in love with her? That's really rich.\" Aarfy had a date that same afternoon with a Red Cross girl from Smith whose father owned an important milk-of-magnesia plant. \"Now, that's the kind of girl you ought to be associating with, and not with common sluts like that one. Why, she didn't even look clean.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't care!\" Nately shouted desperately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I wish you'd shut up, I don't even want to talk about it with you.\"\n\n\"Aarfy, shut up,\" said Yossarian.\n\n\"Ho, ho, ho, ho!\" Aarfy continued. \"I just can't imagine what your father and mother would say if they knew you were running around with filthy trollops like that one. Your father is a very distinguished man, you know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not going to tell him,\" Nately declared with determination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not going to say a word about her to him or Mother until after we're married.\"\n\n\"Married?\" Aarfy's indulgent merriment swelled tremendously. \"Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! Now you're really talking stupid. Why, you're not even old enough to know what true love is.\"\n\nAarfy was an authority on the subject of true love because he had already fallen truly in love with Nately's father and with the prospect of working for him after the war in some executive capacity as a reward for befriending Nately." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aarfy was a lead navigator who had never been able to find himself since leaving college." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a genial, magnanimous lead navigator who could always forgive the other man in the squadron for denouncing him furiously each time he got lost on a combat mission and led them over concentrations of antiaircraft fire. He got lost on the streets of Rome that same afternoon and never did find the eligible Red Cross girl from Smith with the important milk-of-magnesia plant. He got lost on the mission to Ferrara the day Kraft was shot down and killed, and he got lost again on the weekly milk run to Parma and tried to lead the planes out to sea over the city of Leghorn after Yossarian had dropped his bombs on the undefended inland target and settled back against his thick wall of armor plate with his eyes closed and a fragrant cigarette in his fingertips. Suddenly there was flak, and all at once McWatt was shrieking over the intercom, \"Flak! Flak! Where the hell are we? What the hell's going on?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian flipped his eyes open in alarm and saw the totally unexpected bulging black puffs of flak crashing down in toward them from high up and Aarfy's complacent melon-round tiny-eyed face gazing out at the approaching cannon bursts with affable bemusement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was flabbergasted. His leg went abruptly to sleep. McWatt had started to climb and was yelping over the intercom for instructions. Yossarian sprang forward to see where they were and remained in the same place. He was unable to move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he realized he was sopping wet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked down at his crotch with a sinking, sick sensation. A wild crimson blot was crawling upward rapidly along his shirt front like an enormous sea monster rising to devour him. He was hit! Separate trickles of blood spilled to a puddle on the floor through one saturated trouser leg like countless unstoppable swarms of wriggling red worms. His heart stopped. A second solid jolt struck the plane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian shuddered with revulsion at the queer sight of his wound and screamed at Aarfy for help." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I lost my balls! Aarfy, I lost my balls!\" Aarfy didn't hear, and Yossarian bent forward and tugged at his arm. \"Aarfy, help me,\" he pleaded, almost weeping, \"I'm hit! I'm hit!\"\n\nAarfy turned slowly with a bland, quizzical grin. \"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm hit, Aarfy! Help me!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aarfy grinned again and shrugged amiably. \"I can't hear you,\" he said.\n\n\"Can't you see me?\" Yossarian cried incredulously, and he pointed to the deepening pool of blood he felt splashing down all around him and spreading out underneath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm wounded! Help me, for God's sake! Aarfy, help me!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I still can't hear you,\" Aarfy complained tolerantly, cupping his podgy hand behind the blanched corolla of his ear. \"What did you say?\"\n\nYossarian answered in a collapsing voice, weary suddenly of shouting so much, of the whole frustrating, exasperating, ridiculous situation. He was dying, and no one took notice. \"Never mind.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\" Aarfy shouted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I said I lost my balls! Can't you hear me? I'm wounded in the groin!\"\n\n\"I still can't hear you,\" Aarfy chided.\n\n\"I said never mind!\" Yossarian screamed with a trapped feeling of terror and began to shiver, feeling very cold suddenly and very weak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aarfy shook his head regretfully again and lowered his obscene, lactescent ear almost directly into Yossarian's face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'll just have to speak up, my friend. You'll just have to speak up.\"\n\n\"Leave me alone, you bastard! You dumb, insensitive bastard, leave me alone!\" Yossarian sobbed. He wanted to pummel Aarfy, but lacked the strength to lift his arms. He decided to sleep instead and keeled over sideways into a dead faint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was wounded in the thigh, and when he recovered consciousness he found McWatt on both knees taking care of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was relieved, even though he still saw Aarfy's bloated cherub's face hanging down over McWatt's shoulder with placid interest. Yossarian smiled feebly at McWatt, feeling ill, and asked, \"Who's minding the store?\" McWatt gave no sign that he heard. With growing horror, Yossarian gathered in breath and repeated the words as loudly as he could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "McWatt looked up. \"Christ, I'm glad you're still alive!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he exclaimed, heaving an enormous sigh. The good-humored, friendly crinkles about his eyes were white with tension and oily with grime as he kept unrolling an interminable bandage around the bulky cotton compress Yossarian felt strapped burdensomely to the inside of one thigh. \"Nately's at the controls. The poor kid almost started bawling when he heard you were hit. He still thinks you're dead. They knocked open an artery for you, but I think I've got it stopped. I gave you some morphine.\"\n\n\"Give me some more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It might be too soon. I'll give you some more when it starts to hurt.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It hurts now.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, what the hell,\" said McWatt and injected another syrette of morphine into Yossarian's arm.\n\n\"When you tell Nately I'm all right...\" said Yossarian to McWatt, and lost consciousness again as everything went fuzzy behind a film of strawberry-strained gelatin and a great baritone buzz swallowed him in sound. He came to in the ambulance and smiled encouragement at Doc Daneeka's weevil-like, glum and overshadowed countenance for the dizzy second or two he had before everything went rose-petal pink again and then turned really black and unfathomably still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian woke up in the hospital and went to sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he woke up in the hospital again, the smell of ether was gone and Dunbar was lying in pajamas in the bed across the aisle maintaining that he was not Dunbar but a fortiori. Yossarian thought he was cracked. He curled his lip skeptically at Dunbar's bit of news and slept on it fitfully for a day or two, then woke up while the nurses were elsewhere and eased himself out of bed to see for himself. The floor swayed like the floating raft at the beach and the stitches on the inside of his thigh bit into his flesh like fine sets of fish teeth as he limped across the aisle to peruse the name on the temperature card on the foot of Dunbar's bed, but sure enough, Dunbar was right: he was not Dunbar any more but Second Lieutenant Anthony F. Fortiori." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the hell's going on?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A. Fortiori got out of bed and motioned to Yossarian to follow. Grasping for support at anything he could reach, Yossarian limped along after him into the corridor and down the adjacent ward to a bed containing a harried young man with pimples and a receding chin. The harried young man rose on one elbow with alacrity as they approached. A. Fortiori jerked his thumb over his shoulder and said, \"Screw.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The harried young man jumped out of bed and ran away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A. Fortiori climbed into the bed and became Dunbar again.\n\n\"That was A. Fortiori,\" Dunbar explained. \"They didn't have an empty bed in your ward, so I pulled my rank and chased him back here into mine. It's a pretty satisfying experience pulling rank. You ought to try it sometime. You ought to try it right now, in fact, because you look like you're going to fall down.\"\n\nYossarian felt like he was going to fall down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned to the lantern jawed, leather-faced middle-aged man lying in the bed next to Dunbar's, jerked his thumb over his shoulder and said \"Screw.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The middle-aged man stiffened fiercely and glared.\n\n\"He's a major,\" Dunbar explained. \"Why don't you aim a little lower and try becoming Warrant Officer Homer Lumley for a while? Then you can have a father in the state legislature and a sister who's engaged to a champion skier. Just tell him you're a captain.\"\n\nYossarian turned to the startled patient Dunbar had indicated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm a captain,\" he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. \"Screw.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The startled patient jumped down to the floor at Yossarian's command and ran away. Yossarian climbed up into his bed and became Warrant Officer Homer Lumley, who felt like vomiting and was covered suddenly with a clammy sweat. He slept for an hour and wanted to be Yossarian again. It did not mean so much to have a father in the state legislature and a sister who was engaged to a champion skier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dunbar led the way back to Yossarian's ward, where he thumbed A. Fortiori out of bed to become Dunbar again for a while." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no sign of Warrant Officer Homer Lumley. Nurse Cramer was there, though, and sizzled with sanctimonious anger like a damp firecracker. She ordered Yossarian to get right back into his bed and blocked his path so he couldn't comply. Her pretty face was more repulsive than ever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Cramer was a good-hearted, sentimental creature who rejoiced unselfishly at news of weddings, engagements, births and anniversaries even though she was unacquainted with any of the people involved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you crazy?\" she scolded virtuously, shaking an indignant finger in front of his eyes. \"I suppose you just don't care if you kill yourself, do you?\"\n\n\"It's my self,\" he reminded her.\n\n\"I suppose you just don't care if you lose your leg, do you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's my leg.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It certainly is not your leg!\" Nurse Cramer retorted. \"That leg belongs to the U. S. government. It's no different than a gear or a bedpan. The Army has invested a lot of money to make you an airplane pilot, and you've no right to disobey the doctor's orders.\"\n\nYossarian was not sure he liked being invested in. Nurse Cramer was still standing directly in front of him so that he could not pass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His head was aching." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nurse Cramer shouted at him some question he could not understand. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and said, \"Screw.\"\n\nNurse Cramer cracked him in the face so hard she almost knocked him down. Yossarian drew back his fist to punch her in the jaw just as his leg buckled and he began to fall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Duckett strode up in time to catch him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She addressed them both firmly.\n\n\"Just what's going on here?\"\n\n\"He won't get back into his bed,\" Nurse Cramer reported zealously in an injured tone. \"Sue Ann, he said something absolutely horrible to me. Oh, I can't even make myself repeat it!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with 4 sentences in the style of Joseph Heller." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Sue Ann Duckett was a tall, spare, mature, straight-backed woman with a prominent, well-rounded ass, small breasts and angular ascetic New England features that came equally close to being very lovely and very plain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her skin was white and pink, her eyes small, her nose and chin slender and sharp. She was able, prompt, strict and intelligent. She welcomed responsibility and kept her head in every crisis. She was adult and self-reliant, and there was nothing she needed from anyone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian took pity and decided to help her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next morning while she was standing bent over smoothing the sheets at the foot of his bed, he slipped his hand stealthily into the narrow space between her knees and, all at once, brought it up swiftly under her dress as far as it would go. Nurse Duckett shrieked and jumped into the air a mile, but it wasn't high enough, and she squirmed and vaulted and seesawed back and forth on her divine fulcrum for almost a full fifteen seconds before she wiggled free finally and retreated frantically into the aisle with an ashen, trembling face. She backed away too far, and Dunbar, who had watched from the beginning, sprang forward on his bed without warning and flung both arms around her bosom from behind. Nurse Duckett let out another scream and twisted away, fleeing far enough from Dunbar for Yossarian to lunge forward and grab her by the snatch again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Duckett bounced out across the aisle once more like a ping-pong ball with legs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dunbar was waiting vigilantly, ready to pounce. She remembered him just in time and leaped aside. Dunbar missed completely and sailed by her over the bed to the floor, landing on his skull with a soggy, crunching thud that knocked him cold.\n\nHe woke up on the floor with a bleeding nose and exactly the same distressful head symptoms he had been feigning all along." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ward was in a chaotic uproar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nurse Duckett was in tears, and Yossarian was consoling her apologetically as he sat beside her on the edge of a bed. The commanding colonel was wroth and shouting at Yossarian that he would not permit his patients to take indecent liberties with his nurses.\n\n\"What do you want from him?\" Dunbar asked plaintively from the floor, wincing at the vibrating pains in his temples that his voice set up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He didn't do anything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm talking about you!\" the thin, dignified colonel bellowed as loudly as he could. \"You're going to be punished for what you did.\"\n\n\"What do you want from him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian called out. \"All he did was fall on his head.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I'm talking about you too!\" the colonel declared, whirling to rage at Yossarian. \"You're going to be good and sorry you grabbed Nurse Duckett by the bosom.\"\n\n\"I didn't grab Nurse Duckett by the bosom,\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I grabbed her by the bosom,\" said Dunbar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you both crazy?\" the doctor cried shrilly, backing away in paling confusion.\n\n\"Yes, he really is crazy, Doc,\" Dunbar assured him. \"Every night he dreams he's holding a live fish in his hands.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The doctor stopped in his tracks with a look of elegant amazement and distaste, and the ward grew still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He does what?\" he demanded.\n\n\"He dreams he's holding a live fish in his hand.\"\n\n\"What kind of fish?\" the doctor inquired sternly of Yossarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Yossarian answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't tell one kind of fish from another.\"\n\n\"In which hand do you hold them?\"\n\n\"It varies,\" answered Yossarian.\n\n\"It varies with the fish,\" Dunbar added helpfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel turned and stared down at Dunbar suspiciously with a narrow squint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes? And how come you seem to know so much about it?\"\n\n\"I'm in the dream,\" Dunbar answered without cracking a smile.\n\nThe colonel's face flushed with embarrassment. He glared at them both with cold, unforgiving resentment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get up off the floor and into your bed,\" he directed Dunbar through thin lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I don't want to hear another word about this dream from either one of you. I've got a man on my staff to listen to disgusting bilge like this.\"\n\n\"Just why do you think,\" carefully inquired Major Sanderson, the soft and thickset smiling staff psychiatrist to whom the colonel had ordered Yossarian sent, \"that Colonel Ferredge finds your dream disgusting?\"\n\nYossarian replied respectfully. \"I suppose it's either some quality in the dream or some quality in Colonel Ferredge.\"\n\n\"That's very well put,\" applauded Major Sanderson, who wore squeaking GI shoes and had charcoal-black hair that stood up almost straight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For some reason,\" he confided, \"Colonel Ferredge has always reminded me of a sea gull. He doesn't put much faith in psychiatry, you know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't like sea gulls, do you?\" inquired Yossarian.\n\n\"No, not very much,\" admitted Major Sanderson with a sharp, nervous laugh and pulled at his pendulous second chin lovingly as though it were a long goatee. \"I think your dream is charming, and I hope it recurs frequently so that we can continue discussing it. Would you like a cigarette?\" He smiled when Yossarian declined." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just why do you think,\" he asked knowingly, \"that you have such a strong aversion to accepting a cigarette from me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I put one out a second ago. It's still smoldering in your ash tray.\"\n\nMajor Sanderson chuckled. \"That's a very ingenious explanation. But I suppose we'll soon discover the true reason.\" He tied a sloppy double bow in his opened shoelace and then transferred a lined yellow pad from his desk to his lap. \"This fish you dream about. Let's talk about that. It's always the same fish, isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Yossarian replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have trouble recognizing fish.\"\n\n\"What does the fish remind you of?\"\n\n\"Other fish.\"\n\n\"And what do other fish remind you of?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Other fish.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Sanderson sat back disappointedly. \"Do you like fish?\"\n\n\"Not especially.\"\n\n\"Just why do you think you have such a morbid aversion to fish?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "asked Major Sanderson triumphantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're too bland,\" Yossarian answered. \"And too bony.\"\n\nMajor Sanderson nodded understandingly, with a smile that was agreeable and insincere. \"That's a very interesting explanation. But we'll soon discover the true reason, I suppose. Do you like this particular fish? The one you're holding in your hand?\"\n\n\"I have no feelings about it either way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you dislike the fish? Do you have any hostile or aggressive emotions toward it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, not at all. In fact, I rather like the fish.\"\n\n\"Then you do like the fish.\"\n\n\"Oh, no. I have no feelings toward it either way.\"\n\n\"But you just said you liked it. And now you say you have no feelings toward it either way. I've just caught you in a contradiction. Don't you see?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir. I suppose you have caught me in a contradiction.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Sanderson proudly lettered \"Contradiction\" on his pad with his thick black pencil. \"Just why do you think,\" he resumed when he had finished, looking up, \"that you made those two statements expressing contradictory emotional responses to the fish?\"\n\n\"I suppose I have an ambivalent attitude toward it.\"\n\nMajor Sanderson sprang up with joy when he heard the words \"ambivalent attitude\"." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You do understand!\" he exclaimed, wringing his hands together ecstatically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, you can't imagine how lonely it's been for me, talking day after day to patients who haven't the slightest knowledge of psychiatry, trying to cure people who have no real interest in me or my work! It's given me such a terrible feeling of inadequacy.\" A shadow of anxiety crossed his face. \"I can't seem to shake it.\"\n\n\"Really?\" asked Yossarian, wondering what else to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why do you blame yourself for gaps in the education of others?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's silly, I know,\" Major Sanderson replied uneasily with a giddy, involuntary laugh. \"But I've always depended very heavily on the good opinion of others. I reached puberty a bit later than all the other boys my age, you see, and it's given me sort of-well, all sorts of problems. I just know I'm going to enjoy discussing them with you. I'm so eager to begin that I'm almost reluctant to digress now to your problem, but I'm afraid I must. Colonel Ferredge would be cross if he knew we were spending all our time on me. I'd like to show you some ink blots now to find out what certain shapes and colors remind you of.\"\n\n\"You can save yourself the trouble, Doctor. Everything reminds me of sex.\"\n\n\"Does it?\" cried Major Sanderson with delight, as though unable to believe his ears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now we're really getting somewhere! Do you ever have any good sex dreams?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My fish dream is a sex dream.\"\n\n\"No, I mean real sex dreams-the kind where you grab some naked bitch by the neck and pinch her and punch her in the face until she's all bloody and then throw yourself down to ravish her and burst into tears because you love her and hate her so much you don't know what else to do. That's the kind of sex dreams I like to talk about. Don't you ever have sex dreams like that?\"\n\nYossarian reflected a moment with a wise look. \"That's a fish dream,\" he decided." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Sanderson recoiled as though he had been slapped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, of course,\" he conceded frigidly, his manner changing to one of edgy and defensive antagonism. \"But I'd like you to dream one like that anyway just to see how you react. That will be all for today. In the meantime, I'd also like you to dream up the answers to some of those questions I asked you. These sessions are no more pleasant for me than they are for you, you know.\"\n\n\"I'll mention it to Dunbar,\" Yossarian replied.\n\n\"Dunbar?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's the one who started it all. It's his dream.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, Dunbar.\" Major Sanderson sneered, his confidence returning. \"I'll bet Dunbar is that evil fellow who really does all those nasty things you're always being blamed for, isn't he?\"\n\n\"He's not so evil.\"\n\nAnd yet you'll defend him to the very death, won't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not that far.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Sanderson smiled tauntingly and wrote \"Dunbar\" on his pad. \"Why are you limping?\" he asked sharply, as Yossarian moved to the door. \"And what the devil is that bandage doing on your leg? Are you mad or something?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was wounded in the leg. That's what I'm in the hospital for.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, no, you're not,\" gloated Major Sanderson maliciously. \"You're in the hospital for a stone in your salivary gland. So you're not so smart after all, are you? You don't even know what you're in the hospital for.\"\n\n\"I'm in the hospital for a wounded leg,\" Yossarian insisted.\n\nMajor Sanderson ignored his argument with a sarcastic laugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, give my regards to your friend Dunbar. And you will tell him to dream that dream for me, won't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Dunbar had nausea and dizziness with his constant headache and was not inclined to co-operate with Major Sanderson. Hungry Joe had nightmares because he had finished sixty missions and was waiting again to go home, but he was unwilling to share any when he came to the hospital to visit.\n\n\"Hasn't anyone got any dreams for Major Sanderson?\" Yossarian asked. \"I hate to disappoint him. He feels so rejected already.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've been having a very peculiar dream ever since I learned you were wounded,\" confessed the chaplain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I used to dream every night that my wife was dying or being murdered or that my children were choking to death on morsels of nutritious food. Now I dream that I'm out swimming in water over my head and a shark is eating my left leg in exactly the same place where you have your bandage.\"\n\n\"That's a wonderful dream,\" Dunbar declared. \"I bet Major Sanderson will love it.\"\n\n\"That's a horrible dream!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Sanderson cried. \"It's filled with pain and mutilation and death. I'm sure you had it just to spite me. You know, I'm not even sure you belong in the Army, with a disgusting dream like that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian thought he spied a ray of hope. \"Perhaps you're right, sir,\" he suggested slyly. \"Perhaps I ought to be grounded and returned to the States.\"\n\n\"Hasn't it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir, it has.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why do you do it?\"\n\n\"To assuage my fears of sexual impotence.\"\n\n\"Why don't you get yourself a good hobby instead?\" Major Sanderson inquired with friendly interest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Like fishing. Do you really find Nurse Duckett so attractive? I should think she was rather bony. Rather bland and bony, you know. Like a fish.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hardly know Nurse Duckett.\"\n\n\"Then why did you grab her by the bosom? Merely because she has one?\"\n\n\"Dunbar did that.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't start that again,\" Major Sanderson exclaimed with vitriolic scorn, and hurled down his pencil disgustedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you really think that you can absolve yourself of guilt by pretending to be someone else? I don't like you, Fortiori. Do you know that? I don't like you at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian felt a cold, damp wind of apprehension blow over him. \"I'm not Fortiori, sir,\" he said timidly. \"I'm Yossarian.\"\n\n\"You're who?\"\n\n\"My name is Yossarian, sir. And I'm in the hospital with a wounded leg.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your name is Fortiori,\" Major Sanderson contradicted him belligerently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you're in the hospital for a stone in your salivary gland.\"\n\n\"Oh, come on, Major!\" Yossarian exploded. \"I ought to know who I am.\"\n\n\"And I've got an official Army record here to prove it,\" Major Sanderson retorted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'd better get a grip on yourself before it's too late. First you're Dunbar. Now you're Yossarian. The next thing you know you'll be claiming you're Washington Irving. Do you know what's wrong with you? You've got a split personality, that's what's wrong with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps you're right, sir.\" Yossarian agreed diplomatically.\n\n\"I know I'm right. You've got a bad persecution complex. You think people are trying to harm you.\"\n\n\"People are trying to harm me.\"\n\n\"You see? You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you serious?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're an enemy of the people!\"\n\n\"Are you nuts?\" Yossarian shouted.\n\n\"No, I'm not nuts,\" Dobbs roared furiously back in the ward, in what he imagined was a furtive whisper. \"Hungry Joe saw them, I tell you. He saw them yesterday when he flew to Naples to pick up some black-market air conditioners for Colonel Cathcart's farm. They've got a big replacement center there and it's filled with hundreds of pilots, bombardiers and gunners on the way home. They've got forty-five missions, that's all. A few with Purple Hearts have even less. Replacement crews are pouring in from the States into the other bomber groups. They want everyone to serve overseas at least once, even administrative personnel. Don't you read the papers? We've got to kill him now!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've got only two more missions to fly,\" Yossarian reasoned with him in a low voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why take a chance?\"\n\n\"I can get killed flying them, too,\" Dobbs answered pugnaciously in his rough, quavering, overwrought voice. \"We can kill him the first thing tomorrow morning when he drives back from his farm. I've got the gun right here.\"\n\nYossarian goggled with amazement as Dobbs pulled a gun out of his pocket and displayed it high in the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you crazy?\" he hissed frantically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Put it away. And keep your idiot voice down.\"\n\n\"What are you worried about?\" Dobbs asked with offended innocence. \"No one can hear us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, knock it off down there,\" a voice rang out from the far end of the ward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't you see we're trying to nap?\"\n\n\"What the hell are you, a wise guy?\" Dobbs yelled back and spun around with clenched fists, ready to fight. He whirled back to Yossarian and, before he could speak, sneezed thunderously six times, staggering sideways on rubbery legs in the intervals and raising his elbows ineffectively to fend each seizure off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lids of his watery eyes were puffy and inflamed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who does he think,\" he demanded, sniffing spasmodically and wiping his nose with the back of his sturdy wrist, \"he is, a cop or something?\"\n\n\"He's a C.I.D. man,\" Yossarian notified him tranquilly. \"We've got three here now and more on the way. Oh, don't be scared. They're after a forger named Washington Irving. They're not interested in murderers.\"\n\n\"Murderers?\" Dobbs was affronted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why do you call us murderers? Just because we're going to murder Colonel Cathcart?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be quiet, damn you!\" directed Yossarian. \"Can't you whisper?\"\n\n\"I am whispering. I-\"\n\n\"You're still shouting.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, I'm not. I-\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, shut up down there, will you?\" patients all over the ward began hollering at Dobbs.\n\n\"I'll fight you all!\" Dobbs screamed back at them, and stood up on a rickety wooden chair, waving the gun wildly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian caught his arm and yanked him down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dobbs began sneezing again. \"I have an allergy,\" he apologized when he had finished, his nostrils running and his eyes streaming with tears.\n\n\"That's too bad. You'd make a great leader of men without it.\"\n\n\"Colonel Cathcart's the murderer,\" Dobbs complained hoarsely when he had shoved away a soiled, crumpled khaki handkerchief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Colonel Cathcart's the one who's going to murder us all if we don't do something to stop him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe he won't raise the missions any more. Maybe sixty is as high as he'll go.\"\n\n\"He always raises the missions. You know that better than I do.\" Dobbs swallowed and bent his intense face very close to Yossarian's, the muscles in his bronze, rocklike jaw bunching up into quivering knots. \"Just say it's okay and I'll do the whole thing tomorrow morning. Do you understand what I'm telling you? I'm whispering now, ain't I?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian tore his eyes away from the gaze of burning entreaty Dobbs had fastened on him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why the goddam hell don't you just go out and do it?\" he protested. \"Why don't you stop talking to me about it and do it alone?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid to do it alone. I'm afraid to do anything alone.\"\n\n\"Then leave me out of it. I'd have to be crazy to get mixed up in something like this now. I've got a million-dollar leg wound here. They're going to send me home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you crazy?\" Dobbs exclaimed in disbelief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All you've got there is a scratch. He'll have you back flying combat missions the day you come out, Purple Heart and all.\"\n\n\"Then I really will kill him,\" Yossarian vowed. \"I'll come looking for you and we'll do it together.\"\n\n\"Then let's do it tomorrow while we've still got the chance,\" Dobbs pleaded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The chaplain says he's volunteered the group for Avignon again. I may be killed before you get out. Look how these hands of mine shake. I can't fly a plane. I'm not good enough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was afraid to say yes. \"I want to wait and see what happens first.\"\n\n\"The trouble with you is that you just won't do anything,\" Dobbs complained in a thick infuriated voice.\n\n\"I'm doing everything I possibly can,\" the chaplain explained softly to Yossarian after Dobbs had departed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I even went to the medical tent to speak to Doc Daneeka about helping you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I can see.\" Yossarian suppressed a smile. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"They painted my gums purple,\" the chaplain replied sheepishly.\n\n\"They painted his toes purple, too,\" Nately added in outrage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And then they gave him a laxative.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I went back again this morning to see him.\"\n\n\"And they painted his gums purple again,\" said Nately.\n\n\"But I did get to speak to him,\" the chaplain argued in a plaintive tone of self-justification. \"Doctor Daneeka seems like such an unhappy man. He suspects that someone is plotting to transfer him to the Pacific Ocean. All this time he's been thinking of coming to me for help. When I told him I needed his help, he wondered if there wasn't a chaplain I couldn't go see.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain waited in patient dejection when Yossarian and Dunbar both broke into laughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I used to think it was immoral to be unhappy,\" he continued, as though keening aloud in solitude. \"Now I don't know what to think any more. I'd like to make the subject of immorality the basis of my sermon this Sunday, but I'm not sure I ought to give any sermon at all with these purple gums. Colonel Korn was very displeased with them.\"\n\n\"Chaplain, why don't you come into the hospital with us for a while and take it easy?\" Yossarian invited. \"You could be very comfortable here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The brash iniquity of the proposal tempted and amused the chaplain for a second or two." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I don't think so,\" he decided reluctantly. \"I want to arrange for a trip to the mainland to see a mail clerk named Wintergreen. Doctor Daneeka told me he could help.\"\n\n\"Wintergreen is probably the most influential man in the whole theater of operations. He's not only a mail clerk, but he has access to a mimeograph machine. But he won't help anybody. That's one of the reasons he'll go far.\"\n\n\"I'd like to speak to him anyway. There must be somebody who will help you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do it for Dunbar, Chaplain,\" Yossarian corrected with a superior air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've got this million-dollar leg wound that will take me out of combat. If that doesn't do it, there's a psychiatrist who thinks I'm not good enough to be in the Army.\"\n\n\"I'm the one who isn't good enough to be in the Army,\" Dunbar whined jealously. \"It was my dream.\"\n\n\"It's not the dream, Dunbar,\" Yossarian explained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He likes your dream. It's my personality. He thinks it's split.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's split right down the middle,\" said Major Sanderson, who had laced his lumpy GI shoes for the occasion and had slicked his charcoal-dull hair down with some stiffening and redolent tonic. He smiled ostentatiously to show himself reasonable and nice. \"I'm not saying that to be cruel and insulting,\" he continued with cruel and insulting delight. \"I'm not saying it because I hate you and want revenge. I'm not saying it because you rejected me and hurt my feelings terribly. No, I'm a man of medicine and I'm being coldly objective. I have very bad news for you. Are you man enough to take it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"God, no!\" screamed Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll go right to pieces.\"\n\nMajor Sanderson flew instantly into a rage. \"Can't you even do one thing right?\" he pleaded, turning beet-red with vexation and crashing the sides of both fists down upon his desk together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The trouble with you is that you think you're too good for all the conventions of society. You probably think you're too good for me too, just because I arrived at puberty late. Well, do you know what you are? You're a frustrated, unhappy, disillusioned, undisciplined, maladjusted young man!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Sanderson's disposition seemed to mellow as he reeled off the uncomplimentary adjectives.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Yossarian agreed carefully. \"I guess you're right.\"\n\n\"Of course I'm right. You're immature. You've been unable to adjust to the idea of war.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have a morbid aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you're at war and might get your head blown off any second.\"\n\n\"I more than resent it, sir. I'm absolutely incensed.\"\n\n\"You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate.\"\n\n\"Consciously, sir, consciously,\" Yossarian corrected in an effort to help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hate them consciously.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Slums depress you. Greed depresses you. Crime depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic-depressive!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Perhaps I am.\"\n\n\"Don't try to deny it.\"\n\n\"I'm not denying it, sir,\" said Yossarian, pleased with the miraculous rapport that finally existed between them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I agree with all you've said.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then you admit you're crazy, do you?\"\n\n\"Crazy?\" Yossarian was shocked. \"What are you talking about? Why am I crazy? You're the one who's crazy!\"\n\nMajor Sanderson turned red with indignation again and crashed both fists down upon his thighs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Calling me crazy,\" he shouted in a sputtering rage, \"is a typically sadistic and vindictive paranoiac reaction! You really are crazy!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why don't you send me home?\"\n\n\"And I'm going to send you home!\"\n\n\"They're going to send me home!\" Yossarian announced jubilantly, as he hobbled back into the ward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Me too!\" A. Fortiori rejoiced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They just came to my ward and told me.\"\n\n\"What about me?\" Dunbar demanded petulantly of the doctors.\n\n\"You?\" they replied with asperity. \"You're going with Yossarian. Right back into combat!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And back into combat they both went." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was enraged when the ambulance returned him to the squadron, and he went limping for justice to Doc Daneeka, who glared at him glumly with misery and disdain.\n\n\"You!\" Doc Daneeka exclaimed mournfully with accusing disgust, the egg-shaped pouches under both eyes firm and censorious. \"All you ever think of is yourself. Go take a look at the bomb line if you want to see what's been happening since you went to the hospital.\"\n\nYossarian was startled. \"Are we losing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Losing?\" Doc Daneeka cried." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The whole military situation has been going to hell ever since we captured Paris. I knew it would happen.\" He paused, his sulking ire turning to melancholy, and frowned irritably as though it were all Yossarian's fault. \"American troops are pushing into German soil. The Russians have captured back all of Romania. Only yesterday the Greeks in the Eighth Army captured Rimini. The Germans are on the defensive everywhere!\" Doc Daneeka paused again and fortified himself with a huge breath for a piercing ejaculation of grief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's no more Luftwaffe left!\" he wailed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He seemed ready to burst into tears. \"The whole Gothic line is in danger of collapsing!\"\n\n\"So?\" asked Yossarian. \"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"What's wrong?\" Doc Daneeka cried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If something doesn't happen soon, Germany may surrender. And then we'll all be sent to the Pacific!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian gawked at Doc Daneeka in grotesque dismay. \"Are you crazy? Do you know what you're saying?\"\n\n\"Yeah, it's easy for you to laugh,\" Doc Daneeka sneered.\n\n\"Who the hell is laughing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At least you've got a chance. You're in combat and might get killed. But what about me? I've got nothing to hope for.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're out of your goddam head!\" Yossarian shouted at him emphatically, seizing him by the shirt front. \"Do you know that? Now keep your stupid mouth shut and listen to me.\"\n\nDoc Daneeka wrenched himself away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you dare talk to me like that. I'm a licensed physician.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then keep your stupid licensed physician's mouth shut and listen to what they told me up at the hospital. I'm crazy. Did you know that?\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"Really crazy.\"\n\n\"So?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "human", "value": "McWatt went, and McWatt was not crazy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so did Yossarian, still walking with a limp, and when Yossarian had gone two more times and then found himself menaced by the rumor of another mission to Bologna, he limped determinedly into Dobbs's tent early one warm afternoon, put a finger to his mouth and said, \"Shush!\"\n\n\"What are you shushing him for?\" asked Kid Sampson, peeling a tangerine with his front teeth as he perused the dog-eared pages of a comic book. \"He isn't even saying anything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Screw,\" said Yossarian to Kid Sampson, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder toward the entrance of the tent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kid Sampson cocked his blond eyebrows discerningly and rose to co-operate. He whistled upward four times into his drooping yellow mustache and spurted away into the hills on the dented old green motorcycle he had purchased secondhand months before. Yossarian waited until the last faint bark of the motor had died away in the distance. Things inside the tent did not seem quite normal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The place was too neat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dobbs was watching him curiously, smoking a fat cigar. Now that Yossarian had made up his mind to be brave, he was deathly afraid.\n\n\"All right,\" he said. \"Let's kill Colonel Cathcart. We'll do it together.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dobbs sprang forward off his cot with a look of wildest terror. \"Shush!\" he roared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kill Colonel Cathcart? What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Be quiet, damn it,\" Yossarian snarled. \"The whole island will hear. Have you still got that gun?\"\n\n\"Are you crazy or something?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "shouted Dobbs. \"Why should I want to kill Colonel Cathcart?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why?\" Yossarian stared at Dobbs with an incredulous scowl. \"Why? It was your idea, wasn't it? Didn't you come to the hospital and ask me to do it?\"\n\nDobbs smiled slowly. \"But that was when I had only fifty-eight missions,\" he explained, puffing on his cigar luxuriously. \"I'm all packed now and I'm waiting to go home. I've finished my sixty missions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So what?\" Yossarian replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's only going to raise them again.\"\n\n\"Maybe this time he won't.\"\n\n\"He always raises them. What the hell's the matter with you, Dobbs? Ask Hungry Joe how many time he's packed his bags.\"\n\n\"I've got to wait and see what happens,\" Dobbs maintained stubbornly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd have to be crazy to get mixed up in something like this now that I'm out of combat.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He flicked the ash from his cigar. \"No, my advice to you,\" he remarked, \"is that you fly your sixty missions like the rest of us and then see what happens.\"\n\nYossarian resisted the impulse to spit squarely in his eye. \"I may not live through sixty,\" he wheedled in a flat, pessimistic voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a rumor around that he volunteered the group for Bologna again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's only a rumor,\" Dobbs pointed out with a self-important air. \"You mustn't believe every rumor you hear.\"\n\n\"Will you stop giving me advice?\"\n\n\"Why don't you speak to Orr?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dobbs advised. \"Orr got knocked down into the water again last week on that second mission to Avignon. Maybe he's unhappy enough to kill him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Orr hasn't got brains enough to be unhappy.\"\n\nOrr had been knocked down into the water again while Yossarian was still in the hospital and had eased his crippled airplane down gently into the glassy blue swells off Marseilles with such flawless skill that not one member of the six-man crew suffered the slightest bruise. The escape hatches in the front and rear sections flew open while the sea was still foaming white and green around the plane, and the men scrambled out as speedily as they could in their flaccid orange Mae West life jackets that failed to inflate and dangled limp and useless around their necks and waists. The life jackets failed to inflate because Milo had removed the twin carbon-dioxide cylinders from the inflating chambers to make the strawberry and crushed-pineapple ice-cream sodas he served in the officers' mess hall and had replaced them with mimeographed notes that read: \"What's good for M amp; M Enterprises is good for the country.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr popped out of the sinking airplane last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You should have seen him!\" Sergeant Knight roared with laughter as he related the episode to Yossarian. \"It was the funniest goddam thing you ever saw. None of the Mae Wests would work because Milo had stolen the carbon dioxide to make those ice-cream sodas you bastards have been getting in the officers' mess. But that wasn't too bad, as it turned out. Only one of us couldn't swim, and we lifted that guy up into the raft after Orr had worked it over by its rope right up against the fuselage while we were all still standing on the plane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That little crackpot sure has a knack for things like that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the other raft came loose and drifted away, so that all six of us wound up sitting in one with our elbows and legs pressed so close against each other you almost couldn't move without knocking the guy next to you out of the raft into the water. The plane went down about three seconds after we left it and we were out there all alone, and right after that we began unscrewing the caps on our Mae Wests to see what the hell had gone wrong and found those goddam notes from Milo telling us that what was good for him was good enough for the rest of us. That bastard! Jesus, did we curse him, all except that buddy of yours, Orr, who just kept grinning as though for all he cared what was good for Milo might be good enough for the rest of us.\n\n\"I swear, you should have seen him sitting up there on the rim of the raft like the captain of a ship while the rest of us just watched him and waited for him to tell us what to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He kept slapping his hands on his legs every few seconds as though he had the shakes and saying, 'All right now, all right,' and giggling like a crazy little freak, then saying, 'All right now, all right,' again, and giggling like a crazy little freak some more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like watching some kind of a moron. Watching him was all that kept us from going to pieces altogether during the first few minutes, what with each wave washing over us into the raft or dumping a few of us back into the water so that we had to climb back in again before the next wave came along and washed us right back out. It was sure funny. We just kept falling out and climbing back in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We had the guy who couldn't swim stretched out in the middle of the raft on the floor, but even there he almost drowned, because the water inside the raft was deep enough to keep splashing in his face. Oh, boy!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then Orr began opening up compartments in the raft, and the fun really began. First he found a box of chocolate bars and he passed those around so we sat there eating salty chocolate bars while the waves kept knocking us out of the raft into the water. Next he found some bouillon cubes and aluminum cups and made us some soup. Then he found some tea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sure, he made it!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Can't you see him serving us tea as we sat there soaking wet in water up to our ass? Now I was falling out of the raft because I was laughing so much. We were all laughing. And he was dead serious, except for that goofy giggle of his and that crazy grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What a jerk! Whatever he found he used." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found some shark repellent and he sprinkled it right out into the water. He found some marker dye and he threw it into the water. The next thing he finds is a fishing line and dried bait, and his face lights up as though the Air-Sea Rescue launch had just sped up to save us before we died of exposure or before the Germans sent a boat out from Spezia to take us prisoner or machine-gun us. In no time at all, Orr had that fishing line out into the water, trolling away as happy as a lark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "'Lieutenant, what do you expect to catch?' I asked him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'Cod,' he told me. And he meant it. And it's a good thing he didn't catch any, because he would have eaten that codfish raw if he had caught any, and would have made us eat it, too, because he had found this little book that said it was all right to eat codfish raw.\n\n\"The next thing he found was this little blue oar about the size of a Dixie-cup spoon, and, sure enough, he began rowing with it, trying to move all nine hundred pounds of us with that little stick. Can you imagine? After that he found a small magnetic compass and a big waterproof map, and he spread the map open on his knees and set the compass on top of it. And that's how he spent the time until the launch picked us up about thirty minutes later, sitting there with that baited fishing line out behind him, with the compass in his lap and the map spread out on his knees, and paddling away as hard as he could with that dinky blue oar as though he was speeding to Majorca. Jesus!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sergeant Knight knew all about Majorca, and so did Orr, because Yossarian had told them often of such sanctuaries as Spain, Switzerland and Sweden where American fliers could be interned for the duration of the war under conditions of utmost ease and luxury merely by flying there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was the squadron's leading authority on internment and had already begun plotting an emergency heading into Switzerland on every mission he flew into northernmost Italy. He would certainly have preferred Sweden, where the level of intelligence was high and where he could swim nude with beautiful girls with low, demurring voices and sire whole happy, undisciplined tribes of illegitimate Yossarians that the state would assist through parturition and launch into life without stigma; but Sweden was out of reach, too far away, and Yossarian waited for the piece of flak that would knock out one engine over the Italian Alps and provide him with the excuse for heading for Switzerland. He would not even tell his pilot he was guiding him there. Yossarian often thought of scheming with some pilot he trusted to fake a crippled engine and then destroy the evidence of deception with a belly landing, but the only pilot he really trusted was McWatt, who was happiest where he was and still got a big boot out of buzzing his plane over Yossarian's tent or roaring in so low over the bathers at the beach that the fierce wind from his propellers slashed dark furrows in the water and whipped sheets of spray flapping back for seconds afterward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dobbs and Hungry Joe were out of the question, and so was Orr, who was tinkering with the valve of the stove again when Yossarian limped despondently back into the tent after Dobbs had turned him down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stove Orr was manufacturing out of an inverted metal drum stood in the middle of the smooth cement floor he had constructed. He was working sedulously on both knees. Yossarian tried paying no attention to him and limped wearily to his cot and sat down with a labored, drawn-out grunt. Prickles of perspiration were turning chilly on his forehead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dobbs had depressed him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doc Daneeka depressed him. An ominous vision of doom depressed him when he looked at Orr. He began ticking with a variety of internal tremors. Nerves twitched, and the vein in one wrist began palpitating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr studied Yossarian over his shoulder, his moist lips drawn back around convex rows of large buck teeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reaching sideways, he dug a bottle of warm beer out of his foot locker, and he handed it to Yossarian after prying off the cap. Neither said a word. Yossarian sipped the bubbles off the top and tilted his head back. Orr watched him cunningly with a noiseless grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian eyed Orr guardedly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orr snickered with a slight, mucid sibilance and turned back to his work, squatting. Yossarian grew tense.\n\n\"Don't start,\" he begged in a threatening voice, both hands tightening around his beer bottle. \"Don't start working on your stove.\"\n\nOrr cackled quietly. \"I'm almost finished.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, you're not. You're about to begin.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here's the valve. See? It's almost all together.\"\n\n\"And you're about to take it apart. I know what you're doing, you bastard. I've seen you do it three hundred times.\"\n\nOrr shivered with glee. \"I want to get the leak in this gasoline line out,\" he explained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've got it down now to where it's only an ooze.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't watch you,\" Yossarian confessed tonelessly. \"If you want to work with something big, that's okay. But that valve is filled with tiny parts, and I just haven't got the patience right now to watch you working so hard over things that are so goddam small and unimportant.\"\n\n\"Just because they're small doesn't mean they're unimportant.\"\n\n\"I don't care.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Once more?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When I'm not around. You're a happy imbecile and you don't know what it means to feel the way I do. Things happen to me when you work over small things that I can't even begin to explain. I find out that I can't stand you. I start to hate you, and I'm soon thinking seriously about busting this bottle down on your head or stabbing you in the neck with that hunting knife there. Do you understand?\"\n\nOrr nodded very intelligently. \"I won't take the valve apart now,\" he said, and began taking it apart, working with slow, tireless, interminable precision, his rustic, ungainly face bent very close to the floor, picking painstakingly at the minute mechanism in his fingers with such limitless, plodding concentration that he seemed scarcely to be thinking of it at all.\n\nYossarian cursed him silently and made up his mind to ignore him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the hell's your hurry with that stove, anyway?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he barked out a moment later in spite of himself. \"It's still hot out. We're probably going swimming later. What are you worried about the cold for.\"\n\n\"The days are getting shorter,\" Orr observed philosophically. \"I'd like to get this all finished for you while there's still time. You'll have the best stove in the squadron when I'm through. It will burn all night with this feed control I'm fixing, and these metal plates will radiate the heat all over the tent. If you leave a helmet full of water on this thing when you go to sleep, you'll have warm water to wash with all ready for you when you wake up. Won't that be nice? If you want to cook eggs or soup, all you'll have to do is set the pot down here and turn the fire up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you mean, me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian wanted to know. \"Where are you going to be?\"\n\nOrr's stunted torso shook suddenly with a muffled spasm of amusement. \"I don't know,\" he exclaimed, and a weird, wavering giggle gushed out suddenly through his chattering buck teeth like an exploding jet of emotion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was still laughing when he continued, and his voice was clogged with saliva." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If they keep on shooting me down this way, I don't know where I'm going to be.\"\n\nYossarian was moved. \"Why don't you try to stop flying, Orr? You've got an excuse.\"\n\n\"I've only got eighteen missions.\"\n\n\"But you've been shot down on almost every one. You're either ditching or crash-landing every time you go up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, I don't mind flying missions. I guess they're lots of fun. You ought to try flying a few with me when you're not flying lead. Just for laughs. Tee-hee.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orr gazed up at Yossarian through the corners of his eyes with a look of pointed mirth.\n\nYossarian avoided his stare. \"They've got me flying lead again.\"\n\n\"When you're not flying lead. If you had any brains, do you know what you'd do? You'd go right to Piltchard and Wren and tell them you want to fly with me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And get shot down with you every time you go up? What's the fun in that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's just why you ought to do it,\" Orr insisted. \"I guess I'm just about the best pilot around now when it comes to ditching or making crash landings. It would be good practice for you.\"\n\n\"Good practice for what?\"\n\n\"Good practice in case you ever have to ditch or make a crash landing. Tee-hee-hee.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Have you got another bottle of beer for me?\" Yossarian asked morosely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you want to bust it down on my head?\"\n\nThis time Yossarian did laugh. \"Like that whore in that apartment in Rome?\"\n\nOrr sniggered lewdly, his bulging crab apple cheeks blowing outward with pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you really want to know why she was hitting me over the head with her shoe?\" he teased." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do know,\" Yossarian teased back. \"Nately's whore told me.\"\n\nOrr grinned like a gargoyle. \"No she didn't.\"\n\nYossarian felt sorry for Orr." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr was so small and ugly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who would protect him if he lived? Who would protect a warm-hearted, simple-minded gnome like Orr from rowdies and cliques and from expert athletes like Appleby who had flies in their eyes and would walk right over him with swaggering conceit and self-assurance every chance they got? Yossarian worried frequently about Orr. Who would shield him against animosity and deceit, against people with ambition and the embittered snobbery of the big shot's wife, against the squalid, corrupting indignities of the profit motive and the friendly neighborhood butcher with inferior meat?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr was a happy and unsuspecting simpleton with a thick mass of wavy polychromatic hair parted down the center." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would be mere child's play for them. They would take his money, screw his wife and show no kindness to his children. Yossarian felt a flood of compassion sweep over him.\n\nOrr was an eccentric midget, a freakish, likable dwarf with a smutty mind and a thousand valuable skills that would keep him in a low income group all his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could use a soldering iron and hammer two boards together so that the wood did not split and the nails did not bend." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could drill holes. He had built a good deal more in the tent while Yossarian was away in the hospital. He had filed or chiseled a perfect channel in the cement so that the slender gasoline line was flush with the floor as it ran to the stove from the tank he had built outside on an elevated platform. He had constructed andirons for the fireplace out of excess bomb parts and had filled them with stout silver logs, and he had framed with stained wood the photographs of girls with big breasts he had torn out of cheesecake magazines and hung over the mantelpiece." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr could open a can of paint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could mix paint, thin paint, remove paint. He could chop wood and measure things with a ruler. He knew how to build fires. He could dig holes, and he had a real gift for bringing water for them both in cans and canteens from the tanks near the mess hall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could engross himself in an inconsequential task for hours without growing restless or bored, as oblivious to fatigue as the stump of a tree, and almost as taciturn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had an uncanny knowledge of wildlife and was not afraid of dogs or cats or beetles or moths, or of foods like scrod or tripe.\n\nYossarian sighed drearily and began brooding about the rumored mission to Bologna. The valve Orr was dismantling was about the size of a thumb and contained thirty-seven separate parts, excluding the casing, many of them so minute that Orr was required to pinch them tightly between the tips of his fingernails as he placed them carefully on the floor in orderly, catalogued rows, never quickening his movements or slowing them down, never tiring, never pausing in his relentless, methodical, monotonous procedure unless it was to leer at Yossarian with maniacal mischief. Yossarian tried not to watch him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He counted the parts and thought he would go clear out of his mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned away, shutting his eyes, but that was even worse, for now he had only the sounds, the tiny maddening, indefatigable, distinct clicks and rustles of hands and weightless parts. Orr was breathing rhythmically with a noise that was stertorous and repulsive. Yossarian clenched his fists and looked at the long bone-handled hunting knife hanging in a holster over the cot of the dead man in the tent. As soon as he thought of stabbing Orr, his tension eased." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The idea of murdering Orr was so ridiculous that he began to consider it seriously with queer whimsy and fascination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He searched the nape of Orr's neck for the probable site of the medulla oblongata. Just the daintiest stick there would kill him and solve so many serious, agonizing problems for them both.\n\n\"Does it hurt?\" Orr asked at precisely that moment, as though by protective instinct.\n\nYossarian eyed him closely. \"Does what hurt?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your leg,\" said Orr with a strange, mysterious laugh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You still limp a little.\"\n\n\"It's just a habit, I guess,\" said Yossarian, breathing again with relief. \"I'll probably get over it soon.\"\n\nOrr rolled over sideways to the floor and came up on one knee, facing toward Yossarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you remember,\" he drawled reflectively, with an air of labored recollection, \"that girl who was hitting me on the head that day in Rome?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He chuckled at Yossarian's involuntary exclamation of tricked annoyance. \"I'll make a deal with you about that girl. I'll tell you why that girl was hitting me on the head with her shoe that day if you answer one question.\"\n\n\"What's the question?\"\n\n\"Did you ever screw Nately's girl?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian laughed with surprise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Me? No. Now tell me why that girl hit you with her shoe.\"\n\n\"That wasn't the question,\" Orr informed him with victorious delight. \"That was just conversation. She acts like you screwed her.\"\n\n\"Well, I didn't. How does she act?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She acts like she don't like you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She doesn't like anyone.\"\n\n\"She likes Captain Black,\" Orr reminded.\n\n\"That's because he treats her like dirt. Anyone can get a girl that way.\"\n\n\"She wears a slave bracelet on her leg with his name on it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He makes her wear it to needle Nately.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She even gives him some of the money she gets from Nately.\"\n\n\"Listen, what do you want from me?\"\n\n\"Did you ever screw my girl?\"\n\n\"Your girl? Who the hell is your girl?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The one who hit me over the head with her shoe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been with her a couple of times,\" Yossarian admitted. \"Since when is she your girl? What are you getting at?\"\n\n\"She don't like you, either.\"\n\n\"What the hell do I care if she likes me or not? She likes me as much as she likes you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did she ever hit you over the head with her shoe?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Orr, I'm tired. Why don't you leave me alone?\"\n\n\"Tee-hee-hee. How about that skinny countess in Rome and her skinny daughter-in-law?\" Orr persisted impishly with increasing zest. \"Did you ever screw them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, how I wish I could,\" sighed Yossarian honestly, imagining, at the mere question, the prurient, used, decaying feel in his petting hands of their teeny, pulpy buttocks and breasts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They don't like you either,\" commented Orr. \"They like Aarfy, and they like Nately, but they don't like you. Women just don't seem to like you. I think they think you're a bad influence.\"\n\n\"Women are crazy,\" Yossarian answered, and waited grimly for what he knew was coming next.\n\n\"How about that other girl of yours?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr asked with a pretense of pensive curiosity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The fat one? The bald one? You know, that fat bald one in Sicily with the turban who kept sweating all over us all night long? Is she crazy too?\"\n\n\"Didn't she like me either?\"\n\n\"How could you do it to a girl with no hair?\"\n\n\"How was I supposed to know she had no hair?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I knew it,\" Orr bragged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I knew it all the time.\"\n\n\"You knew she was bald?\" Yossarian exclaimed in wonder.\n\n\"No, I knew this valve wouldn't work if I left a part out,\" Orr answered, glowing with cranberry-red elation because he had just duped Yossarian again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will you please hand me that small composition gasket that rolled over there? It's right near your foot.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No it isn't.\"\n\n\"Right here,\" said Orr, and took hold of something invisible with the tips of his fingernails and held it up for Yossarian to see. \"Now I'll have to start all over again.\"\n\n\"I'll kill you if you do. I'll murder you right on the spot.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why don't you ever fly with me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Orr asked suddenly, and looked straight into Yossarian's face for the first time. \"There, that's the question I want you to answer. Why don't you ever fly with me?\"\n\nYossarian turned away with intense shame and embarrassment. \"I told you why. They've got me flying lead bombardier most of the time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's not why,\" Orr said, shaking his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You went to Piltchard and Wren after the first Avignon mission and told them you didn't ever want to fly with me. That's why, isn't it?\"\n\nYossarian felt his skin turn hot. \"No I didn't,\" he lied.\n\n\"Yes you did,\" Orr insisted equably." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You asked them not to assign you to any plane piloted by me, Dobbs or Huple because you didn't have confidence in us at the controls. And Piltchard and Wren said they couldn't make an exception of you because it wouldn't be fair to the men who did have to fly with us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So?\" said Yossarian. \"It didn't make any difference then, did it?\"\n\n\"But they've never made you fly with me.\" Orr, working on both knees again, was addressing Yossarian without bitterness or reproach, but with injured humility, which was infinitely more painful to observe, although he was still grinning and snickering, as though the situation were comic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You really ought to fly with me, you know. I'm a pretty good pilot, and I'd take care of you. I may get knocked down a lot, but that's not my fault, and nobody's ever been hurt in my plane. Yes, sir-if you had any brains, you know what you'd do? You'd go right to Piltchard and Wren and tell them you want to fly all your missions with me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian leaned forward and peered closely into Orr's inscrutable mask of contradictory emotions. \"Are you trying to tell me something?\"\n\n\"Tee-hee-hee-hee,\" Orr responded. \"I'm trying to tell you why that big girl with the shoe was hitting me on the head that day. But you just won't let me.\"\n\n\"Tell me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will you fly with me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian laughed and shook his head. \"You'll only get knocked down into the water again.\"\n\nOrr did get knocked down into the water again when the rumored mission to Bologna was flown, and he landed his single-engine plane with a smashing jar on the choppy, windswept waves tossing and falling below the warlike black thunderclouds mobilizing overhead. He was late getting out of the plane and ended up alone in a raft that began drifting away from the men in the other raft and was out of sight by the time the Air-Sea Rescue launch came plowing up through the wind and splattering raindrops to take them aboard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Night was already falling by the time they were returned to the squadron." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no word of Orr.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" reassured Kid Sampson, still wrapped in the heavy blankets and raincoat in which he had been swaddled on the boat by his rescuers. \"He's probably been picked up already if he didn't drown in that storm. It didn't last long. I bet he'll show up any minute.\"\n\nYossarian walked back to his tent to wait for Orr to show up any minute and lit a fire to make things warm for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stove worked perfectly, with a strong, robust blaze that could be raised or lowered by turning the tap Orr had finally finished repairing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A light rain was falling, drumming softly on the tent, the trees, the ground. Yossarian cooked a can of hot soup to have ready for Orr and ate it all himself as the time passed. He hard-boiled some eggs for Orr and ate those too. Then he ate a whole tin of Cheddar cheese from a package of K rations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each time he caught himself worrying he made himself remember that Orr could do everything and broke into silent laughter at the picture of Orr in the raft as Sergeant Knight had described him, bent forward with a busy, preoccupied smile over the map and compass in his lap, stuffing one soaking-wet chocolate bar after another into his grinning, tittering mouth as he paddled away dutifully through the lightning, thunder and rain with the bright-blue useless toy oar, the fishing line with dried bait trailing out behind him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian really had no doubt about Orr's ability to survive. If fish could be caught with that silly fishing line, Orr would catch them, and if it was codfish he was after, then Orr would catch a codfish, even though no codfish had ever been caught in those waters before. Yossarian put another can of soup up to cook and ate that too when it was hot. Every time a car door slammed, he broke into a hopeful smile and turned expectantly toward the entrance, listening for footsteps. He knew that any moment Orr would come walking into the tent with big, glistening, rain-soaked eyes, cheeks and buck teeth, looking ludicrously like a jolly New England oysterman in a yellow oilskin rain hat and slicker numerous sizes too large for him and holding up proudly for Yossarian's amusement a great dead codfish he had caught. But he didn't." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no word about Orr the next day, and Sergeant Whitcomb, with commendable dispatch and considerable hope, dropped a reminder in his tickler file to send a form letter over Colonel Cathcart's signature to Orr's next of kin when nine more days had elapsed. There was word from General Peckem's headquarters, though, and Yossarian was drawn to the crowd of officers and enlisted men in shorts and bathing trunks buzzing in grumpy confusion around the bulletin board just outside the orderly room.\n\n\"What's so different about this Sunday, I want to know?\" Hungry Joe was demanding vociferously of Chief White Halfoat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why won't we have a parade this Sunday when we don't have a parade every Sunday? Huh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian worked his way through to the front and let out a long, agonized groan when he read the terse announcement there:\n\nDue to circumstances beyond my control, there will be no big parade this Sunday afternoon.\n\nColonel Scheisskopf\n\nDobbs was right. They were indeed sending everyone overseas, even Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who had resisted the move with all the vigor and wisdom at his command and who reported for duty at General Peckem's office in a mood of grave discontent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Peckem welcomed Colonel Scheisskopf with effusive charm and said he was delighted to have him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An additional colonel on his staff meant that he could now begin agitating for two additional majors, four additional captains, sixteen additional lieutenants and untold quantities of additional enlisted men, typewriters, desks, filing cabinets, automobiles and other substantial equipment and supplies that would contribute to the prestige of his position and increase his striking power in the war he had declared against General Dreedle. He now had two full colonels; General Dreedle had only five, and four of those were combat commanders. With almost no intriguing at all, General Peckem had executed a maneuver that would eventually double his strength. And General Dreedle was getting drunk more often." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The future looked wonderful, and General Peckem contemplated his bright new colonel enchantedly with an effulgent smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In all matters of consequence, General P. P. Peckem was, as he always remarked when he was about to criticize the work of some close associate publicly, a realist. He was a handsome, pink-skinned man of fifty-three. His manner was always casual and relaxed, and his uniforms were custom-made. He had silver-gray hair, slightly myopic eyes and thin, overhanging, sensual lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a perceptive, graceful, sophisticated man who was sensitive to everyone's weaknesses but his own and found everyone absurd but himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Peckem laid great, fastidious stress on small matters of taste and style. He was always augmenting things. Approaching events were never coming, but always upcoming. It was not true that he wrote memorandums praising himself and recommending that his authority be enhanced to include all combat operations; he wrote memoranda." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the prose in the memoranda of other officers was always turgid, stilted, or ambiguous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The errors of others were inevitably deplorable. Regulations were stringent, and his data never was obtained from a reliable source, but always were obtained. General Peckem was frequently constrained. Things were often incumbent upon him, and he frequently acted with greatest reluctance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It never escaped his memory that neither black nor white was a color, and he never used verbal when he meant oral." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could quote glibly from Plato, Nietzsche, Montaigne, Theodore Roosevelt, the Marquis de Sade and Warren G. Harding. A virgin audience like Colonel Scheisskopf was grist for General Peckem's mill, a stimulating opportunity to throw open his whole dazzling erudite treasure house of puns, wisecracks, slanders, homilies, anecdotes, proverbs, epigrams, apophthegms, bon mots and other pungent sayings. He beamed urbanely as he began orienting Colonel Scheisskopf to his new surroundings.\n\n\"My only fault,\" he observed with practiced good humor, watching for the effect of his words, \"is that I have no faults.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Scheisskopf didn't laugh, and General Peckem was stunned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A heavy doubt crushed his enthusiasm. He had just opened with one of his most trusted paradoxes, and he was positively alarmed that not the slightest flicker of acknowledgment had moved across that impervious face, which began to remind him suddenly, in hue and texture, of an unused soap eraser. Perhaps Colonel Scheisskopf was tired, General Peckem granted to himself charitably; he had come a long way, and everything was unfamiliar. General Peckem's attitude toward all the personnel in his command, officers and enlisted men, was marked by the same easy spirit of tolerance and permissiveness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He mentioned often that if the people who worked for him met him halfway, he would meet them more than halfway, with the result, as he always added with an astute chuckle, that there was never any meeting of the minds at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Peckem thought of himself as aesthetic and intellectual. When people disagreed with him, he urged them to be objective.\n\nAnd it was indeed an objective Peckem who gazed at Colonel Scheisskopf encouragingly and resumed his indoctrination with an attitude of magnanimous forgiveness. \"You've come to us just in time, Scheisskopf. The summer offensive has petered out, thanks to the incompetent leadership with which we supply our troops, and I have a crying need for a tough, experienced, competent officer like you to help produce the memoranda upon which we rely so heavily to let people know how good we are and how much work we're turning out. I hope you are a prolific writer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know anything about writing,\" Colonel Scheisskopf retorted sullenly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, don't let that trouble you,\" General Peckem continued with a careless flick of his wrist. \"Just pass the work I assign you along to somebody else and trust to luck. We call that delegation of responsibility. Somewhere down near the lowest level of this co-ordinated organization I run are people who do get the work done when it reaches them, and everything manages to run along smoothly without too much effort on my part. I suppose that's because I am a good executive. Nothing we do in this large department of ours is really very important, and there's never any rush. On the other hand, it is important that we let people know we do a great deal of it. Let me know if you find yourself shorthanded. I've already put in a requisition for two majors, four captains and sixteen lieutenants to give you a hand. While none of the work we do is very important, it is important that we do a great deal of it. Don't you agree?\"\n\n\"What about the parades?\" Colonel Scheisskopf broke in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What parades?\" inquired General Peckem with a feeling that his polish just wasn't getting across." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Won't I be able to conduct parades every Sunday afternoon?\" Colonel Scheisskopf demanded petulantly.\n\n\"No. Of course not. What ever gave you that idea?\"\n\n\"But they said I could.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who said you could?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The officers who sent me overseas. They told me I'd be able to march the men around in parades all I wanted to.\"\n\n\"They lied to you.\"\n\n\"That wasn't fair, sir.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Scheisskopf. I'm willing to do everything I can to make you happy here, but parades are out of the question. We don't have enough men in our own organization to make up much of a parade, and the combat units would rise up in open rebellion if we tried to make them march. I'm afraid you'll just have to hold back awhile until we get control. Then you can do what you want with the men.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about my wife?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Scheisskopf demanded with disgruntled suspicion. \"I'll still be able to send for her, won't I?\"\n\n\"Your wife? Why in the world should you want to?\"\n\n\"A husband and wife should be together.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's out of the question also.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But they said I could send for her!\"\n\n\"They lied to you again.\"\n\n\"They had no right to lie to me!\" Colonel Scheisskopf protested, his eyes wetting with indignation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course they had a right,\" General Peckem snapped with cold and calculated severity, resolving right then and there to test the mettle of his new colonel under fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't be such an ass, Scheisskopf. People have a right to do anything that's not forbidden by law, and there's no law against lying to you. Now, don't ever waste my time with such sentimental platitudes again. Do you hear?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" murmured Colonel Scheisskopf\n\nColonel Scheisskopf wilted pathetically, and General Peckem blessed the fates that had sent him a weakling for a subordinate. A man of spunk would have been unthinkable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Having won, General Peckem relented." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not enjoy humiliating his men. \"If your wife were a Wac, I could probably have her transferred here. But that's the most I can do.\"\n\n\"She has a friend who's a Wac,\" Colonel Scheisskopf offered hopefully.\n\n\"I'm afraid that isn't good enough. Have Mrs. Scheisskopf join the Wacs if she wants to, and I'll bring her over here. But in the meantime, my dear Colonel, let's get back to our little war, if we may. Here, briefly, is the military situation that confronts us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Peckem rose and moved toward a rotary rack of enormous colored maps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Scheisskopf blanched. \"We're not going into combat, are we?\" he blurted out in horror.\n\n\"Oh, no, of course not,\" General Peckem assured him indulgently, with a companionable laugh. \"Please give me some credit, won't you? That's why we're still down here in Rome. Certainly, I'd like to be up in Florence, too, where I could keep in closer touch with ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen. But Florence is still a bit too near the actual fighting to suit me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "General Peckem lifted a wooden pointer and swept the rubber tip cheerfully across Italy from one coast to the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"These, Scheisskopf, are the Germans. They're dug into these mountains very solidly in the Gothic Line and won't be pushed out till late next spring, although that isn't going to stop those clods we have in charge from trying. That gives us in Special Services almost nine months to achieve our objective. And that objective is to capture every bomber group in the U.S. Air Force. After all,\" said General Peckem with his low, well-modulated chuckle, \"if dropping bombs on the enemy isn't a special service, I wonder what in the world is. Don't you agree?\" Colonel Scheisskopf gave no indication that he did agree, but General Peckem was already too entranced with his own loquacity to notice. \"Our position right now is excellent. Reinforcements like yourself keep arriving, and we have more than enough time to plan our entire strategy carefully. Our immediate goal,\" he said, \"is right here.\" And General Peckem swung his pointer south to the island of Pianosa and tapped it significantly upon a large word that had been lettered on there with black grease pencil." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The word was DREEDLE." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Scheisskopf, squinting, moved very close to the map, and for the first time since he entered the room a light of comprehension shed a dim glow over his stolid face. \"I think I understand,\" he exclaimed. \"Yes, I know I understand. Our first job is to capture Dreedle away from the enemy. Right?\"\n\nGeneral Peckem laughed benignly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, Scheisskopf. Dreedle's on our side, and Dreedle is the enemy. General Dreedle commands four bomb groups that we simply must capture in order to continue our offensive. Conquering General Dreedle will give us the aircraft and vital bases we need to carry our operations into other areas. And that battle, by the way, is just about won.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Peckem drifted toward the window, laughing quietly again, and settled back against the sill with his arms folded, greatly satisfied by his own wit and by his knowledgeable, blase impudence. The skilled choice of words he was exercising was exquisitely titillating. General Peckem liked listening to himself talk, like most of all listening to himself talk about himself. \"General Dreedle simply doesn't know how to cope with me,\" he gloated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I keep invading his jurisdiction with comments and criticisms that are really none of my business, and he doesn't know what to do about it. When he accuses me of seeking to undermine him, I merely answer that my only purpose in calling attention to his errors is to strengthen our war effort by eliminating inefficiency. Then I ask him innocently if he's opposed to improving our war effort. Oh, he grumbles and he bristles and he bellows, but he's really quite helpless. He's simply out of style. He's turning into quite a souse, you know. The poor blockhead shouldn't even be a general. He has no tone, no tone at all. Thank God he isn't going to last.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Peckem chuckled with jaunty relish and sailed smoothly along toward a favorite learned allusion. \"I sometimes think of myself as Fortinbras-ha, ha-in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, who just keeps circling and circling around the action until everything else falls apart, and then strolls in at the end to pick up all the pieces for himself. Shakespeare is-\"\n\n\"I don't know anything about plays,\" Colonel Scheisskopf broke in bluntly.\n\nGeneral Peckem looked at him with amazement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Never before had a reference of his to Shakespeare's hallowed Hamlet been ignored and trampled upon with such rude indifference." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He began to wonder with genuine concern just what sort of shithead the Pentagon had foisted on him. \"What do you know about?\" he asked acidly.\n\n\"Parades,\" answered Colonel Scheisskopf eagerly. \"Will I be able to send out memos about parades?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"As long as you don't schedule any.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Peckem returned to his chair still wearing a frown. \"And as long as they don't interfere with your main assignment of recommending that the authority of Special Services be expanded to include combat activities.\"\n\n\"Can I schedule parades and then call them off?\"\n\nGeneral Peckem brightened instantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why, that's a wonderful idea! But just send out weekly announcements postponing the parades. Don't even bother to schedule them. That would be infinitely more disconcerting.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "General Peckem was blossoming spryly with cordiality again. \"Yes, Scheisskopf,\" he said, \"I think you've really hit on something. After all, what combat commander could possibly quarrel with us for notifying his men that there won't be a parade that coming Sunday? We'd be merely stating a widely known fact. But the implication is beautiful. Yes, positively beautiful. We're implying that we could schedule a parade if we chose to. I'm going to like you, Scheisskopf. Stop in and introduce yourself to Colonel Cargill and tell him what you're up to. I know you two will like each other.\"\n\nColonel Cargill came storming into General Peckem's office a minute later in a furor of timid resentment. \"I've been here longer than Scheisskopf,\" he complained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why can't I be the one to call off the parades?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because Scheisskopf has experience with parades, and you haven't. You can call off U.S.O. shows if you want to. In fact why don't you? Just think of all the places that won't be getting a U.S.O. show on any given day. Think of all the places each big-name entertainer won't be visiting. Yes, Cargill, I think you've hit on something. I think you've just thrown open a whole new area of operation for us. Tell Colonel Scheisskopf I want him to work along under your supervision on this. And send him in to see me when you're through giving him instructions.\"\n\n\"Colonel Cargill says you told him you want me to work along under his supervision on the U.S.O. project,\" Colonel Scheisskopf complained.\n\n\"I told him no such thing,\" answered General Peckem. \"Confidentially, Scheisskopf, I'm not too happy with Colonel Cargill. He's bossy and he's slow. I'd like you to keep a close eye on what he's doing and see if you can't get a little more work out of him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He keeps butting in,\" Colonel Cargill protested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He won't let me get any work done.\"\n\n\"There's something very funny about Scheisskopf,\" General Peckem agreed reflectively. \"Keep a very close eye on him and see if you can't find out what he's up to.\"\n\n\"Now he's butting into my business!\" Colonel Scheisskopf cried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't let it worry you, Scheisskopf,\" said General Peckem, congratulating himself on how adeptly he had fit Colonel Scheisskopf into his standard method of operation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Already his two colonels were barely on speaking terms. \"Colonel Cargill envies you because of the splendid job you're doing on parades. He's afraid I'm going to put you in charge of bomb patterns.\"\n\nColonel Scheisskopf was all ears. \"What are bomb patterns?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bomb patterns?\" General Peckem repeated, twinkling with self-satisfied good humor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A bomb pattern is a term I dreamed up just several weeks ago. It means nothing, but you'd be surprised at how rapidly it's caught on. Why, I've got all sorts of people convinced I think it's important for the bombs to explode close together and make a neat aerial photograph. There's one colonel in Pianosa who's hardly concerned any more with whether he hits the target or not. Let's fly over and have some fun with him today. It will make Colonel Cargill jealous, and I learned from Wintergreen this morning that General Dreedle will be off in Sardinia. It drives General Dreedle insane to find out I've been inspecting one of his installations while he's been off inspecting another. We may even get there in time for the briefing. They'll be bombing a tiny undefended village, reducing the whole community to rubble. I have it from Wintergreen-Wintergreen's an ex-sergeant now, by the way-that the mission is entirely unnecessary. Its only purpose is to delay German reinforcements at a time when we aren't even planning an offensive. But that's the way things go when you elevate mediocre people to positions of authority.\" He gestured languidly toward his gigantic map of Italy. \"Why, this tiny mountain village is so insignificant that it isn't even there.\"\n\nThey arrived at Colonel Cathcart's group too late to attend the preliminary briefing and hear Major Danby insist, \"But it is there, I tell you. It's there, it's there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's where?\" Dunbar demanded defiantly, pretending not to see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's right there on the map where this road makes this slight turn. Can't you see this slight turn on your map?\"\n\n\"No, I can't see it.\"\n\n\"I can see it,\" volunteered Havermeyer, and marked the spot on Dunbar's map. \"And here's a good picture of the village right on these photographs. I understand the whole thing. The purpose of the mission is to knock the whole village sliding down the side of the mountain and create a roadblock that the Germans will have to clear. Is that right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's right,\" said Major Danby, mopping his perspiring forehead with his handkerchief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm glad somebody here is beginning to understand. These two armored divisions will be coming down from Austria into Italy along this road. The village is built on such a steep incline that all the rubble from the houses and other buildings you destroy will certainly tumble right down and pile upon the road.\"\n\n\"What the hell difference will it make?\" Dunbar wanted to know, as Yossarian watched him excitedly with a mixture of awe and adulation. \"It will only take them a couple of days to clear it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Danby was trying to avoid an argument." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, it apparently makes some difference to Headquarters,\" he answered in a conciliatory tone. \"I suppose that's why they ordered the mission.\"\n\n\"Have the people in the village been warned?\" asked McWatt.\n\nMajor Danby was dismayed that McWatt too was registering opposition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, I don't think so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Haven't we dropped any leaflets telling them that this time we'll be flying over to hit them?\" asked Yossarian. \"Can't we even tip them off so they'll get out of the way?\"\n\n\"No, I don't think so.\" Major Danby was swearing some more and still shifting his eyes about uneasily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Germans might find out and choose another road. I'm not sure about any of this. I'm just making assumptions.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They won't even take shelter,\" Dunbar argued bitterly. \"They'll pour out into the streets to wave when they see our planes coming, all the children and dogs and old people. Jesus Christ! Why can't we leave them alone?\"\n\n\"Why can't we create the roadblock somewhere else?\" asked McWatt. \"Why must it be there?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Major Danby answered unhappily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know. Look, fellows, we've got to have some confidence in the people above us who issue our orders. They know what they're doing.\"\n\n\"The hell they do,\" said Dunbar.\n\n\"What's the trouble?\" inquired Colonel Korn, moving leisurely across the briefing room with his hands in his pockets and his tan shirt baggy.\n\n\"Oh, no trouble, Colonel,\" said Major Danby, trying nervously to cover up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're just discussing the mission.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They don't want to bomb the village,\" Havermeyer snickered, giving Major Danby away.\n\n\"You prick!\" Yossarian said to Havermeyer.\n\n\"You leave Havermeyer alone,\" Colonel Korn ordered Yossarian curtly. He recognized Yossarian as the drunk who had accosted him roughly at the officers' club one night before the first mission to Bologna, and he swung his displeasure prudently to Dunbar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why don't you want to bomb the village?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's cruel, that's why.\"\n\n\"Cruel?\" asked Colonel Korn with cold good humor, frightened only momentarily by the uninhibited vehemence of Dunbar's hostility. \"Would it be any less cruel to let those two German divisions down to fight with our troops? American lives are at stake, too, you know. Would you rather see American blood spilled?\"\n\n\"American blood is being spilled. But those people are living up there in peace. Why can't we leave them the hell alone?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, it's easy for you to talk,\" Colonel Korn jeered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're safe here in Pianosa. It won't make any difference to you when these German reinforcements arrive, will it?\"\n\nDunbar turned crimson with embarrassment and replied in a voice that was suddenly defensive. \"Why can't we create the roadblock somewhere else? Couldn't we bomb the slope of a mountain or the road itself?\"\n\n\"Would you rather go back to Bologna?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The question, asked quietly, rang out like a shot and created a silence in the room that was awkward and menacing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian prayed intensely, with shame, that Dunbar would keep his mouth shut. Dunbar dropped his gaze, and Colonel Korn knew he had won. \"No, I thought not,\" he continued with undisguised scorn. \"You know, Colonel Cathcart and I have to go to a lot of trouble to get you a milk run like this. If you'd sooner fly missions to Bologna, Spezia and Ferrara, we can get those targets with no trouble at all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes gleamed dangerously behind his rimless glasses, and his muddy jowls were square and hard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just let me know.\"\n\n\"I would,\" responded Havermeyer eagerly with another boastful snicker. \"I like to fly into Bologna straight and level with my head in the bombsight and listen to all that flak pumping away all around me. I get a big kick out of the way the men come charging over to me after the mission and call me dirty names. Even the enlisted men get sore enough to curse me and want to take socks at me.\"\n\nColonel Korn chucked Havermeyer under the chin jovially, ignoring him, and then addressed himself to Dunbar and Yossarian in a dry monotone. \"You've got my sacred word for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nobody is more distressed about those lousy wops up in the hills than Colonel Cathcart and myself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mais c\"est la guerre. Try to remember that we didn't start the war and Italy did. That we weren't the aggressors and Italy was. And that we couldn't possibly inflict as much cruelty on the Italians, Germans, Russians and Chinese as they're already inflicting on themselves.\" Colonel Korn gave Major Danby's shoulder a friendly squeeze without changing his unfriendly expression. \"Carry on with the briefing, Danby. And make sure they understand the importance of a tight bomb pattern.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Colonel,\" Major Danby blurted out, blinking upward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not for this target. I've told them to space their bombs sixty feet apart so that we'll have a roadblock the full length of the village instead of in just one spot. It will be a much more effective roadblock with a loose bomb pattern.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We don't care about the roadblock,\" Colonel Korn informed him. \"Colonel Cathcart wants to come out of this mission with a good clean aerial photograph he won't be ashamed to send through channels. Don't forget that General Peckem will be here for the full briefing, and you know how he feels about bomb patterns. Incidentally, Major, you'd better hurry up with these details and clear out before he gets here. General Peckem can't stand you.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Colonel,\" Major Danby corrected obligingly. \"It's General Dreedle who can't stand me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"General Peckem can't stand you either. In fact, no one can stand you. Finish what you're doing, Danby, and disappear. I'll conduct the briefing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where's Major Danby?\" Colonel Cathcart inquired, after he had driven up for the full briefing with General Peckem and Colonel Scheisskopf.\n\n\"He asked permission to leave as soon as he saw you driving up,\" answered Colonel Korn. \"He's afraid General Peckem doesn't like him. I was going to conduct the briefing anyway. I do a much better job.\"\n\n\"Splendid!\" said Colonel Cathcart. \"No!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart countermanded himself an instant later when he remembered how good a job Colonel Korn had done before General Dreedle at the first Avignon briefing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll do it myself.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart braced himself with the knowledge that he was one of General Peckem's favorites and took charge of the meeting, snapping his words out crisply to the attentive audience of subordinate officers with the bluff and dispassionate toughness he had picked up from General Dreedle. He knew he cut a fine figure there on the platform with his open shirt collar, his cigarette holder, and his close-cropped, gray-tipped curly black hair. He breezed along beautifully, even emulating certain characteristic mispronunciations of General Dreedle's, and he was not the least bit intimidated by General Peckem's new colonel until he suddenly recalled that General Peckem detested General Dreedle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then his voice cracked, and all confidence left him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stumbled ahead through instinct in burning humiliation. He was suddenly in terror of Colonel Scheisskopf. Another colonel in the area meant another rival, another enemy, another person who hated him. And this one was tough!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A horrifying thought occurred to Colonel Cathcart: Suppose Colonel Scheisskopf had already bribed all the men in the room to begin moaning, as they had done at the first Avignon mission." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How could he silence them? What a terrible black eye that would be! Colonel Cathcart was seized with such fright that he almost beckoned to Colonel Korn. Somehow he held himself together and synchronized the watches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he had done that, he knew he had won, for he could end now at any time." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had come through in a crisis. He wanted to laugh in Colonel Scheisskopf's face with triumph and spite. He had proved himself brilliantly under pressure, and he concluded the briefing with an inspiring peroration that every instinct told him was a masterful exhibition of eloquent tact and subtlety.\n\n\"Now, men,\" he exhorted. \"We have with us today a very distinguished guest, General Peckem from Special Services, the man who gives us all our softball bats, comic books and U.S.O. shows. I want to dedicate this mission to him. Go on out there and bomb-for me, for your country, for God, and for that great American, General P. P. Peckem. And let's see you put all those bombs on a dime!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian no longer gave a damn where his bombs fell, although he did not go as far as Dunbar, who dropped his bombs hundreds of yards past the village and would face a court-martial if it could ever be shown he had done it deliberately. Without a word even to Yossarian, Dunbar had washed his hands of the mission. The fall in the hospital had either shown him the light or scrambled his brains; it was impossible to say which.\n\nDunbar seldom laughed any more and seemed to be wasting away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He snarled belligerently at superior officers, even at Major Danby, and was crude and surly and profane even in front of the chaplain, who was afraid of Dunbar now and seemed to be wasting away also." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain's pilgrimage to Wintergreen had proved abortive; another shrine was empty. Wintergreen was too busy to see the chaplain himself. A brash assistant brought the chaplain a stolen Zippo cigarette lighter as a gift and informed him condescendingly that Wintergreen was too deeply involved with wartime activities to concern himself with matters so trivial as the number of missions men had to fly. The chaplain worried about Dunbar and brooded more over Yossarian now that Orr was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To the chaplain, who lived by himself in a spacious tent whose pointy top sealed him in gloomy solitude each night like the cap of a tomb, it seemed incredible that Yossarian really preferred living alone and wanted no roommates." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As a lead bombardier again, Yossarian had McWatt for a pilot, and that was one consolation, although he was still so utterly undefended. There was no way to fight back. He could not even see McWatt and the co-pilot from his post in the nose. All he could ever see was Aarfy, with whose fustian, moon-faced ineptitude he had finally lost all patience, and there were minutes of agonizing fury and frustration in the sky when he hungered to be demoted again to a wing plane with a loaded machine gun in the compartment instead of the precision bombsight that he really had no need for, a powerful, heavy fifty-caliber machine gun he could seize vengefully in both hands and turn loose savagely against all the demons tyrannizing him: at the smoky black puffs of the flak itself; at the German antiaircraft gunners below whom he could not even see and could not possibly harm with his machine gun even if he ever did take the time to open fire, at Havermeyer and Appleby in the lead plane for their fearless straight and level bomb run on the second mission to Bologna where the flak from two hundred and twenty-four cannons had knocked out one of Orr's engines for the very last time and sent him down ditching into the sea between Genoa and La Spezia just before the brief thunderstorm broke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Actually, there was not much he could do with that powerful machine gun except load it and test-fire a few rounds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was no more use to him than the bombsight. He could really cut loose with it against attacking German fighters, but there were no German fighters any more, and he could not even swing it all the way around into the helpless faces of pilots like Huple and Dobbs and order them back down carefully to the ground, as he had once ordered Kid Sampson back down, which is exactly what he did want to do to Dobbs and Huple on the hideous first mission to Avignon the moment he realized the fantastic pickle he was in, the moment he found himself aloft in a wing plane with Dobbs and Huple in a flight headed by Havermeyer and Appleby. Dobbs and Huple? Huple and Dobbs? Who were they? What preposterous madness to float in thin air two miles high on an inch or two of metal, sustained from death by the meager skill and intelligence of two vapid strangers, a beardless kid named Huple and a nervous nut like Dobbs, who really did go nuts right there in the plane, running amuck over the target without leaving his copilot's seat and grabbing the controls from Huple to plunge them all down into that chilling dive that tore Yossarian's headset loose and brought them right back inside the dense flak from which they had almost escaped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next thing he knew, another stranger, a radio-gunner named Snowden, was dying in back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was impossible to be positive that Dobbs had killed him, for when Yossarian plugged his headset back in, Dobbs was already on the intercom pleading for someone to go up front and help the bombardier. And almost immediately Snowden broke in, whimpering, \"Help me. Please help me. I'm cold. I'm cold.\" And Yossarian crawled slowly out of the nose and up on top of the bomb bay and wriggled back into the rear section of the plane-passing the first-aid kit on the way that he had to return for-to treat Snowden for the wrong wound, the yawning, raw, melon-shaped hole as big as a football in the outside of his thigh, the unsevered, blood-soaked muscle fibers inside pulsating weirdly like blind things with lives of their own, the oval, naked wound that was almost a foot long and made Yossarian moan in shock and sympathy the instant he spied it and nearly made him vomit. And the small, slight tail-gunner was lying on the floor beside Snowden in a dead faint, his face as white as a handkerchief, so that Yossarian sprang forward with revulsion to help him first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, in the long run, he was much safer flying with McWatt, and he was not even safe with McWatt, who loved flying too much and went buzzing boldly inches off the ground with Yossarian in the nose on the way back from the training flight to break in the new bombardier in the whole replacement crew Colonel Cathcart had obtained after Orr was lost." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The practice bomb range was on the other side of Pianosa, and, flying back, McWatt edged the belly of the lazing, slow-cruising plane just over the crest of mountains in the middle and then, instead of maintaining altitude, jolted both engines open all the way, lurched up on one side and, to Yossarian's astonishment, began following the falling land down as fast as the plane would go, wagging his wings gaily and skimming with a massive, grinding, hammering roar over each rocky rise and dip of the rolling terrain like a dizzy gull over wild brown waves. Yossarian was petrified. The new bombardier beside him sat demurely with a bewitched grin and kept whistling \"Whee!\" and Yossarian wanted to reach out and crush his idiotic face with one hand as he flinched and flung himself away from the boulders and hillocks and lashing branches of trees that loomed up above him out in front and rushed past just underneath in a sinking, streaking blur. No one had a right to take such frightful risks with his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go up, go up, go up!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he shouted frantically at McWatt, hating him venomously, but McWatt was singing buoyantly over the intercom and probably couldn't hear. Yossarian, blazing with rage and almost sobbing for revenge, hurled himself down into the crawlway and fought his way through against the dragging weight of gravity and inertia until he arrived at the main section and pulled himself up to the flight deck, to stand trembling behind McWatt in the pilot's seat. He looked desperately about for a gun, a gray-black.45 automatic that he could cock and ram right up against the base of McWatt's skull. There was no gun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no hunting knife either, and no other weapon with which he could bludgeon or stab, and Yossarian grasped and jerked the collar of McWatt's coveralls in tightening fists and shouted to him to go up, go up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The land was still swimming by underneath and flashing by overhead on both sides. McWatt looked back at Yossarian and laughed joyfully as though Yossarian were sharing his fun. Yossarian slid both hands around McWatt's bare throat and squeezed. McWatt turned stiff:\n\n\"Go up,\" Yossarian ordered unmistakably through his teeth in a low, menacing voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or I'll kill you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rigid with caution, McWatt cut the motors back and climbed gradually. Yossarian's hands weakened on McWatt's neck and slid down off his shoulders to dangle inertly. He was not angry any more. He was ashamed. When McWatt turned, he was sorry the hands were his and wished there were someplace where he could bury them. They felt dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "McWatt gazed at him deeply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no friendliness in his stare. \"Boy,\" he said coldly, \"you sure must be in pretty bad shape. You ought to go home.\"\n\n\"They won't let me.\" Yossarian answered with averted eyes, and crept away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian stepped down from the flight deck and seated himself on the floor, hanging his head with guilt and remorse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was covered with sweat.\n\nMcWatt set course directly back toward the field. Yossarian wondered whether McWatt would now go to the operations tent to see Piltchard and Wren and request that Yossarian never be assigned to his plane again, just as Yossarian had gone surreptitiously to speak to them about Dobbs and Huple and Orr and, unsuccessfully, about Aarfy. He had never seen McWatt look displeased before, had never seen him in any but the most lighthearted mood, and he wondered whether he had just lost another friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But McWatt winked at him reassuringly as he climbed down from the plane and joshed hospitably with the credulous new pilot and bombardier during the jeep ride back to the squadron, although he did not address a word to Yossarian until all four had returned their parachutes and separated and the two of them were walking side by side toward their own row of tents." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then McWatt's sparsely freckled tan Scotch-Irish face broke suddenly into a smile and he dug his knuckles playfully into Yossarian's ribs, as though throwing a punch.\n\n\"You louse,\" he laughed. \"Were you really going to kill me up there?\"\n\nYossarian grinned penitently and shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. I don't think so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't realize you got it so bad. Boy! Why don't you talk to somebody about it?\"\n\n\"I talk to everybody about it. What the hell's the matter with you? Don't you ever hear me?\"\n\n\"I guess I never really believed you.\"\n\n\"Aren't you ever afraid?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe I ought to be.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not even on the missions?\"\n\n\"I guess I just don't have brains enough.\" McWatt laughed sheepishly.\n\n\"There are so many ways for me to get killed,\" Yossarian commented, \"and you had to find one more.\"\n\nMcWatt smiled again. \"Say, I bet it must really scare you when I buzz your tent, huh?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It scares me to death. I've told you that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought it was just the noise you were complaining about.\" McWatt made a resigned shrug. \"Oh, well, what the hell,\" he sang. \"I guess I'll just have to give it up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But McWatt was incorrigible, and, while he never buzzed Yossarian's tent again, he never missed an opportunity to buzz the beach and roar like a fierce and low-flying thunderbolt over the raft in the water and the secluded hollow in the sand where Yossarian lay feeling up Nurse Duckett or playing hearts, poker or pinochle with Nately, Dunbar and Hungry Joe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian met Nurse Duckett almost every afternoon that both were free and came with her to the beach on the other side of the narrow swell of shoulder-high dunes separating them from the area in which the other officers and enlisted men went swimming nude. Nately, Dunbar and Hungry Joe would come there, too. McWatt would occasionally join them, and often Aarfy, who always arrived pudgily in full uniform and never removed any of his clothing but his shoes and his hat; Aarfy never went swimming. The other men wore swimming trunks in deference to Nurse Duckett, and in deference also to Nurse Cramer, who accompanied Nurse Duckett and Yossarian to the beach every time and sat haughtily by herself ten yards away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one but Aarfy ever made reference to the naked men sun-bathing in full view farther down the beach or jumping and diving from the enormous white-washed raft that bobbed on empty oil drums out beyond the silt sand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nurse Cramer sat by herself because she was angry with Yossarian and disappointed in Nurse Duckett.\n\nNurse Sue Ann Duckett despised Aarfy, and that was another one of the numerous fetching traits about Nurse Duckett that Yossarian enjoyed. He enjoyed Nurse Sue Ann Duckett's long white legs and supple, callipygous ass; he often neglected to remember that she was quite slim and fragile from the waist up and hurt her unintentionally in moments of passion when he hugged her too roughly. He loved her manner of sleepy acquiescence when they lay on the beach at dusk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He drew solace and sedation from her nearness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had a craving to touch her always, to remain always in physical communication. He liked to encircle her ankle loosely with his fingers as he played cards with Nately, Dunbar and Hungry Joe, to lightly and lovingly caress the downy skin of her fair, smooth thigh with the backs of his nails or, dreamily, sensuously, almost unconsciously, slide his proprietary, respectful hand up the shell-like ridge of her spine beneath the elastic strap of the top of the two-piece bathing suit she always wore to contain and cover her tiny, long-nippled breasts. He loved Nurse Duckett's serene, flattered response, the sense of attachment to him she displayed proudly. Hungry Joe had a craving to feel Nurse Duckett up, too, and was restrained more than once by Yossarian's forbidding glower." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Duckett flirted with Hungry Joe just to keep him in heat, and her round light-brown eyes glimmered with mischief every time Yossarian rapped her sharply with his elbow or fist to make her stop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The men played cards on a towel, undershirt, or blanket, and Nurse Duckett mixed the extra deck of cards, sitting with her back resting against a sand dune. When she was not shuffling the extra deck of cards, she sat squinting into a tiny pocket mirror, brushing mascara on her curling reddish eyelashes in a birdbrained effort to make them longer permanently. Occasionally she was able to stack the cards or spoil the deck in a way they did not discover until they were well into the game, and she laughed and glowed with blissful gratification when they all hurled their cards down disgustedly and began punching her sharply on the arms or legs as they called her filthy names and warned her to stop fooling around. She would prattle nonsensically when they were striving hardest to think, and a pink flush of elation crept into her cheeks when they gave her more sharp raps on the arms and legs with their fists and told her to shut up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Duckett reveled in such attention and ducked her short chestnut bangs with joy when Yossarian and the others focused upon her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It gave her a peculiar feeling of warm and expectant well-being to know that so many naked boys and men were idling close by on the other side of the sand dunes. She had only to stretch her neck or rise on some pretext to see twenty or forty undressed males lounging or playing ball in the sunlight. Her own body was such a familiar and unremarkable thing to her that she was puzzled by the convulsive ecstasy men could take from it, by the intense and amusing need they had merely to touch it, to reach out urgently and press it, squeeze it, pinch it, rub it. She did not understand Yossarian's lust; but she was willing to take his word for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evenings when Yossarian felt horny he brought Nurse Duckett to the beach with two blankets and enjoyed making love to her with most of their clothes on more than he sometimes enjoyed making love to all the vigorous bare amoral girls in Rome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frequently they went to the beach at night and did not make love, but just lay shivering between the blankets against each other to ward off the brisk, damp chill. The ink-black nights were turning cold, the stars frosty and fewer. The raft swayed in the ghostly trail of moonlight and seemed to be sailing away. A marked hint of cold weather penetrated the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Other men were just starting to build stoves and came to Yossarian's tent during the day to marvel at Orr's workmanship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It thrilled Nurse Duckett rapturously that Yossarian could not keep his hands off her when they were together, although she would not let him slip them inside her bathing shorts during the day when anyone was near enough to see, not even when the only witness was Nurse Cramer, who sat on the other side of her sand dune with her reproving nose in the air and pretended not to see anything.\n\nNurse Cramer had stopped speaking to Nurse Duckett, her best friend, because of her liaison with Yossarian, but still went everywhere with Nurse Duckett since Nurse Duckett was her best friend. She did not approve of Yossarian or his friends. When they stood up and went swimming with Nurse Duckett, Nurse Cramer stood up and went swimming, too, maintaining the same ten-yard distance between them, and maintaining her silence, snubbing them even in the water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they laughed and splashed, she laughed and splashed; when they dived, she dived; when they swam to the sand bar and rested, Nurse Cramer swam to the sand bar and rested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they came out, she came out, dried her shoulders with her own towel and seated herself aloofly in her own spot, her back rigid and a ring of reflected sunlight burnishing her light-blond hair like a halo. Nurse Cramer was prepared to begin talking to Nurse Duckett again if she repented and apologized. Nurse Duckett preferred things the way they were. For a long time she had wanted to give Nurse Cramer a rap to make her shut up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She loved to watch him taking short naps with his face down and his arm thrown across her, or staring bleakly at the endless tame, quiet waves breaking like pet puppy dogs against the shore, scampering lightly up the sand a foot or two and then trotting away. She was calm in his silences. She knew she did not bore him, and she buffed or painted her fingernails studiously while he dozed or brooded and the desultory warm afternoon breeze vibrated delicately on the surface of the beach. She loved to look at his wide, long, sinewy back with its bronzed, unblemished skin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She loved to bring him to flame instantly by taking his whole ear in her mouth suddenly and running her hand down his front all the way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She loved to make him burn and suffer till dark, then satisfy him. Then kiss him adoringly because she had brought him such bliss.\n\nYossarian was never lonely with Nurse Duckett, who really did know how to keep her mouth shut and was just capricious enough. He was haunted and tormented by the vast, boundless ocean." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered mournfully, as Nurse Duckett buffed her nails, about all the people who had died under water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were surely more than a million already. Where were they? What insects had eaten their flesh? He imagined the awful impotence of breathing in helplessly quarts and quarts of water. Yossarian followed the small fishing boats and military launches plying back and forth far out and found them unreal; it did not seem true that there were full-sized men aboard, going somewhere every time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked toward stony Elba, and his eyes automatically searched overhead for the fluffy, white, turnip-shaped cloud in which Clevinger had vanished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He peered at the vaporous Italian skyline and thought of Orr. Clevinger and Orr. Where had they gone? Yossarian had once stood on a jetty at dawn and watched a tufted round log that was drifting toward him on the tide turn unexpectedly into the bloated face of a drowned man; it was the first dead person he had ever seen. He thirsted for life and reached out ravenously to grasp and hold Nurse Duckett's flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He studied every floating object fearfully for some gruesome sign of Clevinger and Orr, prepared for any morbid shock but the shock McWatt gave him one day with the plane that came blasting suddenly into sight out of the distant stillness and hurtled mercilessly along the shore line with a great growling, clattering roar over the bobbing raft on which blond, pale Kid Sampson, his naked sides scrawny even from so far away, leaped clownishly up to touch it at the exact moment some arbitrary gust of wind or minor miscalculation of McWatt's senses dropped the speeding plane down just low enough for a propeller to slice him half away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even people who were not there remembered vividly exactly what happened next. There was the briefest, softest tsst! filtering audibly through the shattering, overwhelming howl of the plane's engines, and then there were just Kid Sampson's two pale, skinny legs, still joined by strings somehow at the bloody truncated hips, standing stock-still on the raft for what seemed a full minute or two before they toppled over backward into the water finally with a faint, echoing splash and turned completely upside down so that only the grotesque toes and the plaster-white soles of Kid Sampson's feet remained in view.\n\nOn the beach, all hell broke loose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Cramer materialized out of thin air suddenly and was weeping hysterically against Yossarian's chest while Yossarian hugged her shoulders and soothed her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His other arm bolstered Nurse Duckett, who was trembling and sobbing against him, too, her long, angular face dead white. Everyone at the beach was screaming and running, and the men sounded like women. They scampered for their things in panic, stooping hurriedly and looking askance at each gentle, knee-high wave bubbling in as though some ugly, red, grisly organ like a liver or a lung might come washing right up against them. Those in the water were struggling to get out, forgetting in their haste to swim, wailing, walking, held back in their flight by the viscous, clinging sea as though by a biting wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kid Sampson had rained all over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those who spied drops of him on their limbs or torsos drew back with terror and revulsion, as though trying to shrink away from their own odious skins. Everybody ran in a sluggish stampede, shooting tortured, horrified glances back, filling the deep, shadowy, rustling woods with their frail gasps and cries. Yossarian drove both stumbling, faltering women before him frantically, shoving them and prodding them to make them hurry, and raced back with a curse to help when Hungry Joe tripped on the blanket or the camera case he was carrying and fell forward on his face in the mud of the stream.\n\nBack at the squadron everyone already knew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Men in uniform were screaming and running there too, or standing motionless in one spot, rooted in awe, like Sergeant Knight and Doc Daneeka as they gravely craned their heads upward and watched the guilty, banking, forlorn airplane with McWatt circle and circle slowly and climb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who is it?\" Yossarian shouted anxiously at Doc Daneeka as he ran up, breathless and limp, his somber eyes burning with a misty, hectic anguish. \"Who's in the plane?\"\n\n\"McWatt,\" said Sergeant Knight. \"He's got the two new pilots with him on a training flight. Doc Daneeka's up there, too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm right here,\" contended Doc Daneeka, in a strange and troubled voice, darting an anxious look at Sergeant Knight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why doesn't he come down?\" Yossarian exclaimed in despair. \"Why does he keep going up?\"\n\n\"He's probably afraid to come down,\" Sergeant Knight answered, without moving his solemn gaze from McWatt's solitary climbing airplane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He knows what kind of trouble he's in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And McWatt kept climbing higher and higher, nosing his droning airplane upward evenly in a slow, oval spiral that carried him far out over the water as he headed south and far in over the russet foothills when he had circled the landing field again and was flying north. He was soon up over five thousand feet. His engines were soft as whispers. A white parachute popped open suddenly in a surprising puff." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A second parachute popped open a few minutes later and coasted down, like the first, directly in toward the clearing of the landing strip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no motion on the ground. The plane continued south for thirty seconds more, following the same pattern, familiar and predictable now, and McWatt lifted a wing and banked gracefully around into his turn.\n\n\"Two more to go,\" said Sergeant Knight. \"McWatt and Doc Daneeka.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm right here, Sergeant Knight,\" Doc Daneeka told him plaintively." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not in the plane.\"\n\n\"Why don't they jump?\" Sergeant Knight asked, pleading aloud to himself. \"Why don't they jump?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding 4 sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Colonel Cathcart learned that Doc Daneeka too had been killed in McWatt's plane, he increased the number of missions to seventy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first person in the squadron to find out that Doc Daneeka was dead was Sergeant Towser, who had been informed earlier by the man in the control tower that Doc Daneeka's name was down as a passenger on the pilot's manifest McWatt had filed before taking off. Sergeant Towser brushed away a tear and struck Doc Daneeka's name from the roster of squadron personnel. With lips still quivering, he rose and trudged outside reluctantly to break the bad news to Gus and Wes, discreetly avoiding any conversation with Doc Daneeka himself as he moved by the flight surgeon's slight sepulchral figure roosting despondently on his stool in the late-afternoon sunlight between the orderly room and the medical tent. Sergeant Towser's heart was heavy; now he had two dead men on his hands-Mudd, the dead man in Yossarian's tent who wasn't even there, and Doc Daneeka, the new dead man in the squadron, who most certainly was there and gave every indication of proving a still thornier administrative problem for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gus and Wes listened to Sergeant Towser with looks of stoic surprise and said not a word about their bereavement to anyone else until Doc Daneeka himself came in about an hour afterward to have his temperature taken for the third time that day and his blood pressure checked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thermometer registered a half degree lower than his usual subnormal temperature of 96.8. Doc Daneeka was alarmed. The fixed, vacant, wooden stares of his two enlisted men were even more irritating than always.\n\n\"Goddammit,\" he expostulated politely in an uncommon excess of exasperation, \"what's the matter with you two men anyway? It just isn't right for a person to have a low temperature all the time and walk around with a stuffed nose.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doc Daneeka emitted a glum, self-pitying sniff and strolled disconsolately across the tent to help himself to some aspirin and sulphur pills and paint his own throat with Argyrol." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His downcast face was fragile and forlorn as a swallow's, and he rubbed the back of his arms rhythmically. \"Just look how cold I am right now. You're sure you're not holding anything back?\"\n\n\"You're dead, sir,\" one of his two enlisted men explained.\n\nDoc Daneeka jerked his head up quickly with resentful distrust. \"What's that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're dead, sir,\" repeated the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's probably the reason you always feel so cold.\"\n\n\"That's right, sir. You've probably been dead all this time and we just didn't detect it.\"\n\n\"What the hell are you both talking about?\" Doc Daneeka cried shrilly with a surging, petrifying sensation of some onrushing unavoidable disaster." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's true, sir,\" said one of the enlisted men." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The records show that you went up in McWatt's plane to collect some flight time. You didn't come down in a parachute, so you must have been killed in the crash.\"\n\n\"That's right, sir,\" said the other. \"You ought to be glad you've got any temperature at all.\"\n\nDoc Daneeka's mind was reeling in confusion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Have you both gone crazy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he demanded. \"I'm going to report this whole insubordinate incident to Sergeant Towser.\"\n\n\"Sergeant Towser's the one who told us about it,\" said either Gus or Wes. \"The War Department's even going to notify your wife.\"\n\nDoc Daneeka yelped and ran out of the medical tent to remonstrate with Sergeant Towser, who edged away from him with repugnance and advised Doc Daneeka to remain out of sight as much as possible until some decision could be reached relating to the disposition of his remains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gee, I guess he really is dead,\" grieved one of his enlisted men in a low, respectful voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm going to miss him. He was a pretty wonderful guy, wasn't he?\"\n\n\"Yeah, he sure was,\" mourned the other. \"But I'm glad the little fuck is gone. I was getting sick and tired of taking his blood pressure all the time.\"\n\nMrs. Daneeka, Doc Daneeka's wife, was not glad that Doc Daneeka was gone and split the peaceful Staten Island night with woeful shrieks of lamentation when she learned by War Department telegram that her husband had been killed in action." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Women came to comfort her, and their husbands paid condolence calls and hoped inwardly that she would soon move to another neighborhood and spare them the obligation of continuous sympathy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The poor woman was totally distraught for almost a full week. Slowly, heroically, she found the strength to contemplate a future filled with dire problems for herself and her children. Just as she was growing resigned to her loss, the postman rang with a bolt from the blue-a letter from overseas that was signed with her husband's signature and urged her frantically to disregard any bad news concerning him. Mrs. Daneeka was dumbfounded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The date on the letter was illegible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The handwriting throughout was shaky and hurried, but the style resembled her husband's and the melancholy, self-pitying tone was familiar, although more dreary than usual. Mrs. Daneeka was overjoyed and wept irrepressibly with relief and kissed the crinkled, grubby tissue of V-mail stationery a thousand times. She dashed a grateful note off to her husband pressing him for details and sent a wire informing the War Department of its error. The War Department replied touchily that there had been no error and that she was undoubtedly the victim of some sadistic and psychotic forger in her husband's squadron." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The letter to her husband was returned unopened, stamped KILLED IN ACTION." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Daneeka had been widowed cruelly again, but this time her grief was mitigated somewhat by a notification from Washington that she was sole beneficiary of her husband's $10,000 GI insurance policy, which amount was obtainable by her on demand. The realization that she and the children were not faced immediately with starvation brought a brave smile to her face and marked the turning point in her distress. The Veterans Administration informed her by mail the very next day that she would be entitled to pension benefits for the rest of her natural life because of her husband's demise, and to a burial allowance for him of $250. A government check for $250 was enclosed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gradually, inexorably, her prospects brightened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A letter arrived that same week from the Social Security Administration stating that, under the provisions of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Act Of 1935, she would receive monthly support for herself and her dependent children until they reached the age of eighteen, and a burial allowance of $250. With these government letters as proof of death, she applied for payment on three life insurance policies Doc Daneeka had carried, with a value of $50,000 each; her claim was honored and processed swiftly. Each day brought new unexpected treasures. A key to a safe-deposit box led to a fourth life insurance policy with a face value of $50,000, and to $18,000 in cash on which income tax had never been paid and need never be paid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A fraternal lodge to which he had belonged gave her a cemetery plot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A second fraternal organization of which he had been a member sent her a burial allowance of $250. His county medical association gave her a burial allowance of $250.\n\nThe husbands of her closest friends began to flirt with her. Mrs. Daneeka was simply delighted with the way things were turning out and had her hair dyed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her fantastic wealth just kept piling up, and she had to remind herself daily that all the hundreds of thousands of dollars she was acquiring were not worth a single penny without her husband to share this good fortune with her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It astonished her that so many separate organizations were willing to do so much to bury Doc Daneeka, who, back in Pianosa, was having a terrible time trying to keep his head above the ground and wondered with dismal apprehension why his wife did not answer the letter he had written.\n\nHe found himself ostracized in the squadron by men who cursed his memory foully for having supplied Colonel Cathcart with provocation to raise the number of combat missions. Records attesting to his death were pullulating like insect eggs and verifying each other beyond all contention. He drew no pay or PX rations and depended for life on the charity of Sergeant Towser and Milo, who both knew he was dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart refused to see him, and Colonel Korn sent word through Major Danby that he would have Doc Daneeka cremated on the spot if he ever showed up at Group Headquarters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Danby confided that Group was incensed with all flight surgeons because of Dr. Stubbs, the bushy-haired, baggy-chinned, slovenly flight surgeon in Dunbar's squadron who was deliberately and defiantly brewing insidious dissension there by grounding all men with sixty missions on proper forms that were rejected by Group indignantly with orders restoring the confused pilots, navigators, bombardiers and gunners to combat duty. Morale there was ebbing rapidly, and Dunbar was under surveillance. Group was glad Doc Daneeka had been killed and did not intend to ask for a replacement.\n\nNot even the chaplain could bring Doc Daneeka back to life under the circumstances." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alarm changed to resignation, and more and more Doc Daneeka acquired the look of an ailing rodent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sacks under his eyes turned hollow and black, and he padded through the shadows fruitlessly like a ubiquitous spook. Even Captain Flume recoiled when Doc Daneeka sought him out in the woods for help. Heartlessly, Gus and Wes turned him away from their medical tent without even a thermometer for comfort, and then, only then, did he realize that, to all intents and purposes, he really was dead, and that he had better do something damned fast if he ever hoped to save himself.\n\nThere was nowhere else to turn but to his wife, and he scribbled an impassioned letter begging her to bring his plight to the attention of the War Department and urging her to communicate at once with his group commander, Colonel Cathcart, for assurances that-no matter what else she might have heard-it was indeed he, her husband, Doc Daneeka, who was pleading with her, and not a corpse or some impostor." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was warm when the cold weather came and whale-shaped clouds blew low through a dingy, slate-gray sky, almost without end, like the droning, dark, iron flocks of B-17 and B-24 bombers from the long-range air bases in Italy the day of the invasion of southern France two months earlier. Everyone in the squadron knew that Kid Sampson's skinny legs had washed up on the wet sand to lie there and rot like a purple twisted wishbone. No one would go to retrieve them, not Gus or Wes or even the men in the mortuary at the hospital; everyone made believe that Kid Sampson's legs were not there, that they had bobbed away south forever on the tide like all of Clevinger and Orr. Now that bad weather had come, almost no one ever sneaked away alone any more to peek through bushes like a pervert at the moldering stumps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were no more beautiful days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no more easy missions. There was stinging rain and dull, chilling fog, and the men flew at week-long intervals, whenever the weather cleared. At night the wind moaned. The gnarled and stunted tree trunks creaked and groaned and forced Yossarian's thoughts each morning, even before he was fully awake, back on Kid Sampson's skinny legs bloating and decaying, as systematically as a ticking clock, in the icy rain and wet sand all through the blind, cold, gusty October nights." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After Kid Sampson's legs, he would think of pitiful, whimpering Snowden freezing to death in the rear section of the plane, holding his eternal, immutable secret concealed inside his quilted, armor-plate flak suit until Yossarian had finished sterilizing and bandaging the wrong wound on his leg, and then spilling it out suddenly all over the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At night when he was trying to sleep, Yossarian would call the roll of all the men, women and children he had ever known who were now dead. He tried to remember all the soldiers, and he resurrected images of all the elderly people he had known when a child-all the aunts, uncles, neighbors, parents and grandparents, his own and everyone else's, and all the pathetic, deluded shopkeepers who opened their small, dusty stores at dawn and worked in them foolishly until midnight. They were all dead, too. The number of dead people just seemed to increase." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the Germans were still fighting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Death was irreversible, he suspected, and he began to think he was going to lose.\n\nYossarian was warm when the cold weather came because of Orr's marvelous stove, and he might have existed in his warm tent quite comfortably if not for the memory of Orr, and if not for the gang of animated roommates that came swarming inside rapaciously one day from the two full combat crews Colonel Cathcart had requisitioned-and obtained in less than forty-eight hours-as replacements for Kid Sampson and McWatt. Yossarian emitted a long, loud, croaking gasp of protest when he trudged in tiredly after a mission and found them already there.\n\nThere were four of them, and they were having a whale of a good time as they helped each other set up their cots." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were horsing around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The moment he saw them, Yossarian knew they were impossible. They were frisky, eager and exuberant, and they had all been friends in the States. They were plainly unthinkable.\n\nThey were noisy, overconfident, empty-headed kids of twenty-one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had gone to college and were engaged to pretty, clean girls whose pictures were already standing on the rough cement mantelpiece of Orr's fireplace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had ridden in speedboats and played tennis. They had been horseback riding. One had once been to bed with an older woman. They knew the same people in different parts of the country and had gone to school with each other's cousins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had listened to the World Series and really cared who won football games." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were obtuse; their morale was good. They were glad that the war had lasted long enough for them to find out what combat was really like. They were halfway through unpacking when Yossarian threw them out.\n\nThey were plainly out of the question, Yossarian explained adamantly to Sergeant Towser, whose sallow equine face was despondent as he informed Yossarian that the new officers would have to be admitted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sergeant Towser was not permitted to requisition another six-man tent from Group while Yossarian was living in one alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not living in this one alone,\" Yossarian said with a sulk. \"I've got a dead man in here with me. His name is Mudd.\"\n\n\"Please, sir,\" begged Sergeant Towser, sighing wearily, with a sidelong glance at the four baffled new officers listening in mystified silence just outside the entrance. \"Mudd was killed on the mission to Orvieto. You know that. He was flying right beside you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then why don't you move his things out?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because he never even got here. Captain, please don't bring that up again. You can move in with Lieutenant Nately if you like. I'll even send some men from the orderly room to transfer your belongings.\"\n\nBut to abandon Orr's tent would be to abandon Orr, who would have been spurned and humiliated clannishly by these four simple-minded officers waiting to move in. It did not seem just that these boisterous, immature young men should show up after all the work was done and be allowed to take possession of the most desirable tent on the island. But that was the law, Sergeant Towser explained, and all Yossarian could do was glare at them in baleful apology as he made room for them and volunteer helpful penitent hints as they moved inside his privacy and made themselves at home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were the most depressing group of people Yossarian had ever been with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were always in high spirits. They laughed at everything. They called him \"Yo-Yo\" jocularly and came in tipsy late at night and woke him up with their clumsy, bumping, giggling efforts to be quiet, then bombarded him with asinine shouts of hilarious good-fellowship when he sat up cursing to complain. He wanted to massacre them each time they did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They reminded him of Donald Duck's nephews." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were afraid of Yossarian and persecuted him incessantly with nagging generosity and with their exasperating insistence on doing small favors for him. They were reckless, puerile, congenial, naive, presumptuous, deferential and rambunctious. They were dumb; they had no complaints. They admired Colonel Cathcart and they found Colonel Korn witty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were afraid of Yossarian, but they were not the least bit afraid of Colonel Cathcart's seventy missions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were four clean-cut kids who were having lots of fun, and they were driving Yossarian nuts. He could not make them understand that he was a crotchety old fogey of twenty-eight, that he belonged to another generation, another era, another world, that having a good time bored him and was not worth the effort, and that they bored him, too. He could not make them shut up; they were worse than women. They had not brains enough to be introverted and repressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cronies of theirs in other squadrons began dropping in unashamedly and using the tent as a hangout." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was often not room enough for him. Worst of all, he could no longer bring Nurse Duckett there to lie down with her. And now that foul weather had come, he had no place else! This was a calamity he had not foreseen, and he wanted to bust his roommates' heads open with his fists or pick them up, each in turn, by the seats of their pants and the scruffs of their necks and pitch them out once and for all into the dank, rubbery perennial weeds growing between his rusty soupcan urinal with nail holes in the bottom and the knotty-pine squadron latrine that stood like a beach locker not far away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead of busting their heads open, he tramped in his galoshes and black raincoat through the drizzling darkness to invite Chief White Halfoat to move in with him, too, and drive the fastidious, clean-living bastards out with his threats and swinish habits." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Chief White Halfoat felt cold and was already making plans to move up into the hospital to die of pneumonia. Instinct told Chief White Halfoat it was almost time. His chest ached and he coughed chronically. Whiskey no longer warmed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most damning of all, Captain Flume had moved back into his trailer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here was an omen of unmistakable meaning.\n\n\"He had to move back,\" Yossarian argued in a vain effort to cheer up the glum, barrel-chested Indian, whose well-knit sorrel-red face had degenerated rapidly into a dilapidated, calcareous gray. \"He'd die of exposure if he tried to live in the woods in this weather.\"\n\n\"No, that wouldn't drive the yellowbelly back,\" Chief White Halfoat disagreed obstinately." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tapped his forehead with cryptic insight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sirree. He knows something. He knows it's time for me to die of pneumonia, that's what he knows. And that's how I know it's time.\"\n\n\"What does Doc Daneeka say?\"\n\n\"I'm not allowed to say anything,\" Doc Daneeka said sorrowfully from his seat on his stool in the shadows of a corner, his smooth, tapered, diminutive face turtle-green in the flickering candlelight. Everything smelled of mildew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bulb in the tent had blown out several days before, and neither of the two men had been able to muster the initiative to replace it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not allowed to practice medicine any more,\" Doc Daneeka added.\n\n\"He's dead,\" Chief White Halfoat gloated, with a horse laugh entangled in phlegm. \"That's really funny.\"\n\n\"I don't even draw my pay any more.\"\n\n\"That's really funny,\" Chief White Halfoat repeated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All this time he's been insulting my liver, and look what happened to him. He's dead. Killed by his own greed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's not what killed me,\" Doc Daneeka observed in a voice that was calm and flat. \"There's nothing wrong with greed. It's all that lousy Dr. Stubbs' fault, getting Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn stirred up against flight surgeons. He's going to give the medical profession a bad name by standing up for principle. If he's not careful, he'll be black-balled by his state medical association and kept out of the hospitals.\"\n\nYossarian watched Chief White Halfoat pour whiskey carefully into three empty shampoo bottles and store them away in the musette bag he was packing.\n\n\"Can't you stop by my tent on your way up to the hospital and punch one of them in the nose for me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he speculated aloud. \"I've got four of them, and they're going to crowd me out of my tent altogether.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know, something like that once happened to my whole tribe,\" Chief White Halfoat remarked in jolly appreciation, sitting back on his cot to chuckle. \"Why don't you get Captain Black to kick those kids out? Captain Black likes to kick people out.\"\n\nYossarian grimaced sourly at the mere mention of Captain Black, who was already bullying the new fliers each time they stepped into his intelligence tent for maps or information. Yossarian's attitude toward his roommates turned merciful and protective at the mere recollection of Captain Black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not their fault that they were young and cheerful, he reminded himself as he carried the swinging beam of his flashlight back through the darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wished that he could be young and cheerful, too. And it wasn't their fault that they were courageous, confident and carefree. He would just have to be patient with them until one or two were killed and the rest wounded, and then they would all turn out okay. He vowed to be more tolerant and benevolent, but when he ducked inside his tent with his friendlier attitude a great blaze was roaring in the fireplace, and he gasped in horrified amazement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Orr's beautiful birch logs were going up in smoke!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His roommates had set fire to them! He gaped at the four insensitive overheated faces and wanted to shout curses at them. He wanted to bang their heads together as they greeted him with loud convivial cries and invited him generously to pull up a chair and eat their chestnuts and roasted potatoes. What could he do with them?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the very next morning they got rid of the dead man in his tent!" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just like that, they whisked him away! They carried his cot and all his belongings right out into the bushes and simply dumped them there, and then they strode back slapping their hands briskly at a job well done. Yossarian was stunned by their overbearing vigor and zeal, by their practical, direct efficiency. In a matter of moments they had disposed energetically of a problem with which Yossarian and Sergeant Towser had been grappling unsuccessfully for months. Yossarian was alarmed-they might get rid of him just as quickly, he feared-and ran to Hungry Joe and fled with him to Rome the day before Nately's whore finally got a good night's sleep and woke up in love." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding 4 sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He missed Nurse Duckett in Rome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was not much else to do after Hungry Joe left on his mail run. Yossarian missed Nurse Duckett so much that he went searching hungrily through the streets for Luciana, whose laugh and invisible scar he had never forgotten, or the boozy, blowzy, bleary-eyed floozy in the overloaded white brassière and unbuttoned orange satin blouse whose naughty salmon-colored cameo ring Aarfy had thrown away so callously through the window of her car. How he yearned for both girls! He looked for them in vain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was so deeply in love with them, and he knew he would never see either again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Despair gnawed at him. Visions beset him. He wanted Nurse Duckett with her dress up and her slim thighs bare to the hips. He banged a thin streetwalker with a wet cough who picked him up from an alley between hotels, but that was no fun at all and he hastened to the enlisted men's apartment for the fat, friendly maid in the lime-colored panties, who was overjoyed to see him but couldn't arouse him. He went to bed there early and slept alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He woke up disappointed and banged a sassy, short, chubby girl he found in the apartment after breakfast, but that was only a little better, and he chased her away when he'd finished and went back to sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He napped till lunch and then went shopping for presents for Nurse Duckett and a scarf for the maid in the lime-coloured panties, who hugged him with such gargantuan gratitude that he was soon hot for Nurse Duckett and ran looking lecherously for Luciana again. Instead he found Aarfy, who had landed in Rome when Hungry Joe returned with Dunbar, Nately and Dobbs, and who would not go along on the drunken foray that night to rescue Nately's whore from the middle-aged military big shots holding her captive in a hotel because she would not say uncle.\n\n\"Why should I risk getting into trouble just to help her out?\" Aarfy demanded haughtily. \"But don't tell Nately I said that. Tell him I had to keep an appointment with some very important fraternity brothers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The middle-aged big shots would not let Nately's whore leave until they made her say uncle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Say uncle,\" they said to her.\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said.\n\n\"No, no. Say uncle.\"\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She still doesn't understand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You still don't understand, do you? We can't really make you say uncle unless you don't want to say uncle. Don't you see? Don't say uncle when I tell you to say uncle. Okay? Say uncle.\"\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said.\n\n\"No, don't say uncle. Say uncle.\"\n\nShe didn't say uncle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's good!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's very good.\"\n\n\"It's a start. Now say uncle.\"\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said.\n\n\"It's no good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, it's no good that way either. She just isn't impressed with us. There's just no fun making her say uncle when she doesn't care whether we make her say uncle or not.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, she really doesn't care, does she? Say 'foot.'\"\n\n\"Foot.\"\n\n\"You see? She doesn't care about anything we do. She doesn't care about us. We don't mean a thing to you, do we?\"\n\n\"Uncle,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't care about them a bit, and it upset them terribly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They shook her roughly each time she yawned. She did not seem to care about anything, not even when they threatened to throw her out the window. They were utterly demoralized men of distinction. She was bored and indifferent and wanted very much to sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had been on the job for twenty-two hours, and she was sorry that these men had not permitted her to leave with the other two girls with whom the orgy had begun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wondered vaguely why they wanted her to laugh when they laughed, and why they wanted her to enjoy it when they made love to her. It was all very mysterious to her, and very uninteresting.\n\nShe was not sure what they wanted from her. Each time she slumped over with her eyes closed they shook her awake and made her say \"uncle\" again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each time she said \"uncle,\" they were disappointed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wondered what \"uncle\" meant. She sat on the sofa in a passive, phlegmatic stupor, her mouth open and all her clothing crumpled in a corner on the floor, and wondered how much longer they would sit around naked with her and make her say uncle in the elegant hotel suite to which Orr's old girl friend, giggling uncontrollably at Yossarian's and Dunbar's drunken antics, guided Nately and the other members of the motley rescue party.\n\nDunbar squeezed Orr's old girl friend's fanny gratefully and passed her back to Yossarian, who propped her against the door jamb with both hands on her hips and wormed himself against her lasciviously until Nately seized him by the arm and pulled him away from her into the blue sitting room, where Dunbar was already hurling everything in sight out the window into the court. Dobbs was smashing furniture with an ash stand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A nude, ridiculous man with a blushing appendectomy scar appeared in the doorway suddenly and bellowed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's going on here?\"\n\n\"Your toes are dirty,\" Dunbar said.\n\nThe man covered his groin with both hands and shrank from view. Dunbar, Dobbs and Hungry Joe just kept dumping everything they could lift out the window with great, howling whoops of happy abandon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They soon finished with the clothing on the couches and the luggage on the floor, and they were ransacking a cedar closet when the door to the inner room opened again and a man who was very distinguished-looking from the neck up padded into view imperiously on bare feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here, you, stop that,\" he barked. \"Just what do you men think you're doing?\"\n\n\"Your toes are dirty,\" Dunbar said to him.\n\nThe man covered his groin as the first one had done and disappeared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately charged after him, but was blocked by the first officer, who plodded back in holding a pillow in front of him, like a bubble dancer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, you men!\" he roared angrily. \"Stop it!\"\n\n\"Stop it,\" Dunbar replied.\n\n\"That's what I said.\"\n\n\"That's what I said,\" Dunbar said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The officer stamped his foot petulantly, turning weak with frustration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you deliberately repeating everything I say?\"\n\n\"Are you deliberately repeating everything I say?\"\n\n\"I'll thrash you.\" The man raised a fist.\n\n\"I'll thrash you,\" Dunbar warned him coldly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're a German spy, and I'm going to have you shot.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"German spy? I'm an American colonel.\"\n\n\"You don't look like an American colonel. You look like a fat man with a pillow in front of him. Where's your uniform, if you're an American colonel?\"\n\n\"You just threw it out the window.\"\n\n\"All right, men,\" Dunbar said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lock the silly bastard up. Take the silly bastard down to the station house and throw away the key.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The colonel blanched with alarm. \"Are you all crazy? Where's your badge? Hey, you! Come back in here!\"\n\nBut he whirled too late to stop Nately, who had glimpsed his girl sitting on the sofa in the other room and had darted through the doorway behind his back. The others poured through after him right into the midst of the other naked big shots." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hungry Joe laughed hysterically when he saw them, pointing in disbelief at one after the other and clasping his head and sides." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two with fleshy physiques advanced truculently until they spied the look of mean dislike and hostility on Dobbs and Dunbar and noticed that Dobbs was still swinging like a two-handed club the wrought-iron ash stand he had used to smash things in the sitting room. Nately was already at his girl's side. She stared at him without recognition for a few seconds. Then she smiled faintly and let her head sink to his shoulder with her eyes closed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately was in ecstasy; she had never smiled at him before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Filpo,\" said a calm, slender, jaded-looking man who had not even stirred from his armchair. \"You don't obey orders. I told you to get them out, and you've gone and brought them in. Can't you see the difference?\"\n\n\"They've thrown our things out the window, General.\"\n\n\"Good for them. Our uniforms too? That was clever. We'll never be able to convince anyone we're superior without our uniforms.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's get their names, Lou, and-\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, Ned, relax,\" said the slender man with practiced weariness. \"You may be pretty good at moving armored divisions into action, but you're almost useless in a social situation. Sooner or later we'll get our uniforms back, and then we'll be their superiors again. Did they really throw our uniforms out? That was a splendid tactic.\"\n\n\"They threw everything out.\"\n\n\"The ones in the closet, too?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They threw the closet out, General. That was that crash we heard when we thought they were coming in to kill us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I'll throw you out next,\" Dunbar threatened.\n\nThe general paled slightly. \"What the devil is he so mad about?\" he asked Yossarian.\n\n\"He means it, too,\" Yossarian said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'd better let the girl leave.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lord, take her,\" exclaimed the general with relief. \"All she's done is make us feel insecure. At least she might have disliked or resented us for the hundred dollars we paid her. But she wouldn't even do that. Your handsome young friend there seems quite attached to her. Notice the way he lets his fingers linger on the inside of her thighs as he pretends to roll up her stockings.\"\n\nNately, caught in the act, blushed guiltily and moved more quickly through the steps of dressing her. She was sound asleep and breathed so regularly that she seemed to be snoring softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's charge her now, Lou!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "urged another officer. \"We've got more personnel, and we can encircle-\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Bill,\" answered the general with a sigh. \"You may be a wizard at directing a pincer movement in good weather on level terrain against an enemy that has already committed his reserves, but you don't always think so clearly anywhere else. Why should we want to keep her?\"\n\n\"General, we're in a very bad strategic position. We haven't got a stitch of clothing, and it's going to be very degrading and embarrassing for the person who has to go downstairs through the lobby to get some.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, Filpo, you're quite right,\" said the general." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that's exactly why you're the one to do it. Get going.\"\n\n\"Naked, sir?\"\n\n\"Take your pillow with you if you want to. And get some cigarettes, too, while you're downstairs picking up my underwear and pants, will you?\"\n\n\"I'll send everything up for you,\" Yossarian offered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There, General,\" said Filpo with relief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now I won't have to go.\"\n\n\"Filpo, you nitwit. Can't you see he's lying?\"\n\n\"Are you lying?\"\n\nYossarian nodded, and Filpo's faith was shattered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian laughed and helped Nately walk his girl out into the corridor and into the elevator." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her face was smiling as though with a lovely dream as she slept with her head still resting on Nately's shoulder. Dobbs and Dunbar ran out into the street to stop a cab.\n\nNately's whore looked up when they left the car. She swallowed dryly several times during the arduous trek up the stairs to her apartment, but she was sleeping soundly again by the time Nately undressed her and put her to bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She slept for eighteen hours, while Nately dashed about the apartment all the next morning shushing everybody in sight, and when she woke up she was deeply in love with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the last analysis, that was all it took to win her heart-a good night's sleep.\n\nThe girl smiled with contentment when she opened her eyes and saw him, and then, stretching her long legs languorously beneath the rustling sheets, beckoned him into bed beside her with that look of simpering idiocy of a woman in heat. Nately moved to her in a happy daze, so overcome with rapture that he hardly minded when her kid sister interrupted him again by flying into the room and flinging herself down onto the bed between them. Nately's whore slapped and cursed her, but this time with laughter and generous affection, and Nately settled back smugly with an arm about each, feeling strong and protective." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They made a wonderful family group, he decided." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The little girl would go to college when she was old enough, to Smith or Radcliffe or Bryn Mawr-he would see to that. Nately bounded out of bed after a few minutes to announce his good fortune to his friends at the top of his voice. He called to them jubilantly to come to the room and slammed the door in their startled faces as soon as they arrived. He had remembered just in time that his girl had no clothes on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get dressed,\" he ordered her, congratulating himself on his alertness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perchè?\" she asked curiously.\n\n\"Perchè?\" he repeated with an indulgent chuckle. \"Because I don't want them to see you without any clothes on.\"\n\n\"Perchè no?\" she inquired." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perchè no?\" He looked at her with astonishment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because it isn't right for other men to see you naked, that's why.\"\n\n\"Perchè no?\"\n\n\"Because I say no!\" Nately exploded in frustration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now don't argue with me. I'm the man and you have to do whatever I say. From now on, I forbid you ever to go out of this room unless you have all your clothes on. Is that clear?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately's whore looked at him as though he were insane. \"Are you crazy? Che succede?\"\n\n\"I mean every word I say.\"\n\n\"Tu sei pazzo!\" she shouted at him with incredulous indignation, and sprang out of bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Snarling unintelligibly, she snapped on panties and strode toward the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately drew himself up with full manly authority. \"I forbid you to leave this room that way,\" he informed her.\n\n\"Tu sei pazzo!\" she shot back at him, after he had left, shaking her head in disbelief. \"Idiota! Tu sei un pazzo imbecille!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tu sei pazzo,\" said her thin kid sister, starting out after her in the same haughty walk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You come back here,\" Nately ordered her. \"I forbid you to go out that way, too!\"\n\n\"Idiota!\" the kid sister called back at him with dignity after she had flounced past. \"Tu sei un pazzo imbecille.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately fumed in circles of distracted helplessness for several seconds and then sprinted out into the sitting room to forbid his friends to look at his girl friend while she complained about him in only her panties." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why not?\" asked Dunbar.\n\n\"Why not?\" exclaimed Nately. \"Because she's my girl now, and it isn't right for you to see her unless she's fully dressed.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" asked Dunbar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You see?\" said his girl with a shrug. \"Lui è pazzo!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Si, è molto pazzo,\" echoed her kid sister.\n\n\"Then make her keep her clothes on if you don't want us to see her,\" argued Hungry Joe. \"What the hell do you want from us?\"\n\n\"She won't listen to me,\" Nately confessed sheepishly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So from now on you'll all have to shut your eyes or look in the other direction when she comes in that way. Okay?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Madonn'!\" cried his girl in exasperation, and stamped out of the room.\n\n\"Madonn'!\" cried her kid sister, and stamped out behind her.\n\n\"Lui è pazzo,\" Yossarian observed good-naturedly. \"I certainly have to admit it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, you crazy or something?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe demanded of Nately. \"The next thing you know you'll be trying to make her give up hustling.\"\n\n\"From now on,\" Nately said to his girl, \"I forbid you to go out hustling.\"\n\n\"Perchè?\" she inquired curiously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perchè?\" he screamed with amazement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because it's not nice, that's why!\"\n\n\"Perchè no?\"\n\n\"Because it just isn't!\" Nately insisted. \"It just isn't right for a nice girl like you to go looking for other men to sleep with. I'll give you all the money you need, so you won't have to do it any more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what will I do all day instead?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do?\" said Nately. \"You'll do what all your friends do.\"\n\n\"My friends go looking for men to sleep with.\"\n\n\"Then get new friends! I don't even want you to associate with girls like that, anyway. Prostitution is bad! Everybody knows that, even him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned with confidence to the experienced old man. \"Am I right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're wrong,\" answered the old man. \"Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.\"\n\n\"From now on,\" Nately declared sternly to his girl friend, \"I forbid you to have anything to do with that wicked old man.\"\n\n\"Va fongul!\" his girl replied, rolling her harassed eyes up toward the ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What does he want from me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she implored, shaking her fists. \"Lasciami!\" she told him in menacing entreaty. \"Stupido! If you think my friends are so bad, go tell your friends not to ficky-fick all the time with my friends!\"\n\n\"From now on,\" Nately told his friends, \"I think you fellows ought to stop running around with her friends and settle down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Madonn'!\" cried his friends, rolling their harassed eyes up toward the ceiling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately had gone clear out of his mind. He wanted them all to fall in love right away and get married. Dunbar could marry Orr's whore, and Yossarian could fall in love with Nurse Duckett or anyone else he liked. After the war they could all work for Nately's father and bring up their children in the same suburb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately saw it all very clearly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Love had transmogrified him into a romantic idiot, and they drove him away back into the bedroom to wrangle with his girl over Captain Black. She agreed not to go to bed with Captain Black again or give him any more of Nately's money, but she would not budge an inch on her friendship with the ugly, ill-kempt, dissipated, filthy-minded old man, who witnessed Nately's flowering love affair with insulting derision and would not admit that Congress was the greatest deliberative body in the whole world.\n\n\"From now on,\" Nately ordered his girl firmly, \"I absolutely forbid you even to speak to that disgusting old man.\"\n\n\"Again the old man?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried the girl in wailing confusion. \"Perchè no?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He doesn't like the House of Representatives.\"\n\n\"Mamma mia! What's the matter with you?\"\n\n\"È pazzo,\" observed her kid sister philosophically. \"That's what's the matter with him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Si,\" the older girl agreed readily, tearing at her long brown hair with both hands. \"Lui è pazzo.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she missed Nately when he was away and was furious with Yossarian when he punched Nately in the face with all his might and knocked him into the hospital with a broken nose." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Joseph Heller.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of Joseph Heller.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a Joseph Heller sorta thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was actually all Sergeant Knight's fault that Yossarian busted Nately in the nose on Thanksgiving Day, after everyone in the squadron had given humble thanks to Milo for providing the fantastically opulent meal on which the officers and enlisted men had gorged themselves insatiably all afternoon and for dispensing like inexhaustible largess the unopened bottles of cheap whiskey he handed out unsparingly to every man who asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even before dark, young soldiers with pasty white faces were throwing up everywhere and passing out drunkenly on the ground. The air turned foul. Other men picked up steam as the hours passed, and the aimless, riotous celebration continued. It was a raw, violent, guzzling saturnalia that spilled obstreperously through the woods to the officers' club and spread up into the hills toward the hospital and the antiaircraft-gun emplacements." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were fist fights in the squadron and one stabbing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corporal Kolodny shot himself through the leg in the intelligence tent while playing with a loaded gun and had his gums and toes painted purple in the speeding ambulance as he lay on his back with the blood spurting from his wound. Men with cut fingers, bleeding heads, stomach cramps and broken ankles came limping penitently up to the medical tent to have their gums and toes painted purple by Gus and Wes and be given a laxative to throw into the bushes. The joyous celebration lasted long into the night, and the stillness was fractured often by wild, exultant shouts and by the cries of people who were merry or sick. There was the recurring sound of retching and moaning, of laughter, greetings, threats and swearing, and of bottles shattering against rock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were dirty songs in the distance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was worse than New Year's Eve.\n\nYossarian went to bed early for safety and soon dreamed that he was fleeing almost headlong down an endless wooden staircase, making a loud, staccato clatter with his heels. Then he woke up a little and realized someone was shooting at him with a machine gun. A tortured, terrified sob rose in his throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His first thought was that Milo was attacking the squadron again, and he rolled of his cot to the floor and lay underneath in a trembling, praying ball, his heart thumping like a drop forge, his body bathed in a cold sweat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no noise of planes. A drunken, happy laugh sounded from afar. \"Happy New Year, Happy New Year!\" a triumphant familiar voice shouted hilariously from high above between the short, sharp bursts of machine gun fire, and Yossarian understood that some men had gone as a prank to one of the sandbagged machine-gun emplacements Milo had installed in the hills after his raid on the squadron and staffed with his own men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian blazed with hatred and wrath when he saw he was the victim of an irresponsible joke that had destroyed his sleep and reduced him to a whimpering hulk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to kill, he wanted to murder. He was angrier than he had ever been before, angrier even than when he had slid his hands around McWatt's neck to strangle him. The gun opened fire again. Voices cried \"Happy New Year!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and gloating laughter rolled down from the hills through the darkness like a witch's glee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In moccasins and coveralls, Yossarian charged out of his tent for revenge with his.45, ramming a clip of cartridges up into the grip and slamming the bolt of the gun back to load it. He snapped off the safety catch and was ready to shoot. He heard Nately running after him to restrain him, calling his name. The machine gun opened fire once more from a black rise above the motor pool, and orange tracer bullets skimmed like low-gliding dashes over the tops of the shadowy tents, almost clipping the peaks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Roars of rough laughter rang out again between the short bursts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian felt resentment boil like acid inside him; they were endangering his life, the bastards! With blind, ferocious rage and determination, he raced across the squadron past the motor pool, running as fast as he could, and was already pounding up into the hills along the narrow, winding path when Nately finally caught up, still calling \"Yo-Yo! Yo-Yo!\" with pleading concern and imploring him to stop. He grasped Yossarian's shoulders and tried to hold him back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian twisted free, turning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately reached for him again, and Yossarian drove his fist squarely into Nately's delicate young face as hard as he could, cursing him, then drew his arm back to hit him again, but Nately had dropped out of sight with a groan and lay curled up on the ground with his head buried in both hands and blood streaming between his fingers. Yossarian whirled and plunged ahead up the path without looking back.\n\nSoon he saw the machine gun. Two figures leaped up in silhouette when they heard him and fled into the night with taunting laughter before he could get there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was too late." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their footsteps receded, leaving the circle of sandbags empty and silent in the crisp and windless moonlight. He looked about dejectedly. Jeering laughter came to him again, from a distance. A twig snapped nearby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian dropped to his knees with a cold thrill of elation and aimed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard a stealthy rustle of leaves on the other side of the sandbags and fired two quick rounds. Someone fired back at him once, and he recognized the shot.\n\n\"Dunbar? he called.\n\n\"Yossarian?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two men left their hiding places and walked forward to meet in the clearing with weary disappointment, their guns down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were both shivering slightly from the frosty air and wheezing from the labor of their uphill rush.\n\n\"The bastards,\" said Yossarian. \"They got away.\"\n\n\"They took ten years off my life,\" Dunbar exclaimed. \"I thought that son of a bitch Milo was bombing us again. I've never been so scared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I wish I knew who the bastards were." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One was Sergeant Knight.\"\n\n\"Let's go kill him.\" Dunbar's teeth were chattering. \"He had no right to scare us that way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian no longer wanted to kill anyone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's help Nately first. I think I hurt him at the bottom of the hill.\"\n\nBut there was no sign of Nately along the path, even though Yossarian located the right spot by the blood on the stones. Nately was not in his tent either, and they did not catch up with him until the next morning when they checked into the hospital as patients after learning he had checked in with a broken nose the night before. Nately beamed in frightened surprise as they padded into the ward in their slippers and robes behind Nurse Cramer and were assigned to their beds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately's nose was in a bulky cast, and he had two black eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He kept blushing giddily in shy embarrassment and saying he was sorry when Yossarian came over to apologize for hitting him. Yossarian felt terrible; he could hardly bear to look at Nately's battered countenance, even though the sight was so comical he was tempted to guffaw. Dunbar was disgusted by their sentimentality, and all three were relieved when Hungry Joe came barging in unexpectedly with his intricate black camera and trumped-up symptoms of appendicitis to be near enough to Yossarian to take pictures of him feeling up Nurse Duckett. Like Yossarian, he was soon disappointed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Duckett had decided to marry a doctor-any doctor, because they all did so well in business-and would not take chances in the vicinity of the man who might someday be her husband." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe was irate and inconsolable until-of all people-the chaplain was led in wearing a maroon corduroy bathrobe, shining like a skinny lighthouse with a radiant grin of self-satisfaction too tremendous to be concealed. The chaplain had entered the hospital with a pain in his heart that the doctors thought was gas in his stomach and with an advanced case of Wisconsin shingles.\n\n\"What in the world are Wisconsin shingles?\" asked Yossarian.\n\n\"That's just what the doctors wanted to know!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "blurted out the chaplain proudly, and burst into laughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one had ever seen him so waggish, or so happy. \"There's no such thing as Wisconsin shingles. Don't you understand? I lied. I made a deal with the doctors. I promised that I would let them know when my Wisconsin shingles went away if they would promise not to do anything to cure them. I never told a lie before. Isn't it wonderful?\"\n\nThe chaplain had sinned, and it was good. Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil, and that no good could come from evil." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he did feel good; he felt positively marvelous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It merely required no character. With effervescent agility the chaplain ran through the whole gamut of orthodox immoralities, while Nately sat up in bed with flushed elation, astounded by the mad gang of companions of which he found himself the nucleus. He was flattered and apprehensive, certain that some severe official would soon appear and throw the whole lot of them out like a pack of bums. No one bothered them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the evening they all trooped exuberantly out to see a lousy Hollywood extravaganza in Technicolor, and when they trooped exuberantly back in after the lousy Hollywood extravaganza, the soldier in white was there, and Dunbar screamed and went to pieces." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's back!\" Dunbar screamed. \"He's back! He's back!\"\n\nYossarian froze in his tracks, paralyzed as much by the eerie shrillness in Dunbar's voice as by the familiar, white, morbid sight of the soldier in white covered from head to toe in plaster and gauze. A strange, quavering, involuntary noise came bubbling from Yossarian's throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's back!\" Dunbar screamed again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's back!\" a patient delirious with fever echoed in automatic terror.\n\nAll at once the ward erupted into bedlam. Mobs of sick and injured men began ranting incoherently and running and jumping in the aisle as though the building were on fire. A patient with one foot and one crutch was hopping back and forth swiftly in panic crying, \"What is it? What is it? Are we burning? Are we burning?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's back!\" someone shouted at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't you hear him? He's back! He's back!\"\n\n\"Who's back?\" shouted someone else. \"Who is it?\"\n\n\"What does it mean? What should we do?\"\n\n\"Are we on fire?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get up and run, damn it! Everybody get up and run!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everybody got out of bed and began running from one end of the ward to the other. One C.I.D. man was looking for a gun to shoot one of the other C.I.D. men who had jabbed his elbow into his eye. The ward had turned into chaos." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The patient delirious with the high fever leaped into the aisle and almost knocked over the patient with one foot, who accidentally brought the black rubber tip of his crutch down on the other's bare foot, crushing some toes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The delirious man with the fever and the crushed toes sank to the floor and wept in pain while other men tripped over him and hurt him more in their blind, milling, agonized stampede. \"He's back!\" all the men kept mumbling and chanting and calling out hysterically as they rushed back and forth. \"He's back, he's back!\" Nurse Cramer was there in the middle suddenly like a spinning policeman, trying desperately to restore order, dissolving helplessly into tears when she failed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Be still, please be still,\" she urged uselessly through her massive sobs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain, pale as a ghost, had no idea what was going on. Neither did Nately, who kept close to Yossarian's side, clinging to his elbow, or Hungry Joe, who followed dubiously with his scrawny fists clenched and glanced from side to side with a face that was scared.\n\n\"Hey, what's going on?\" Hungry Joe pleaded. \"What the hell is going on?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's the same one!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dunbar shouted at him emphatically in a voice rising clearly above the raucous commotion. \"Don't you understand? It's the same one.\"\n\n\"The same one!\" Yossarian heard himself echo, quivering with a deep and ominous excitement that he could not control, and shoved his way after Dunbar toward the bed of the soldier in white.\n\n\"Take it easy, fellas,\" the short patriotic Texan counseled affably, with an uncertain grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's no cause to be upset. Why don't we all just take it easy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The same one!\" others began murmuring, chanting and shouting.\n\nSuddenly Nurse Duckett was there, too. \"What's going on?\" she demanded.\n\n\"He's back!\" Nurse Cramer screamed, sinking into her arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's back, he's back!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was, indeed, the same man. He had lost a few inches and added some weight, but Yossarian remembered him instantly by the two stiff anus and the two stiff, thick, useless legs all drawn upward into the air almost perpendicularly by the taut ropes and the long lead weights suspended from pulleys over him and by the frayed black hole in the bandages over his mouth. He had, in fact, hardly changed at all. There was the same zinc pipe rising from the hard stone mass over his groin and leading to the clear glass jar on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was the same clear glass jar on a pole dripping fluid into him through the crook of his elbow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian would recognize him anywhere. He wondered who he was.\n\n\"There's no one inside!\" Dunbar yelled out at him unexpectedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian felt his heart skip a beat and his legs grow weak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you talking about?\" he shouted with dread, stunned by the haggard, sparking anguish in Dunbar's eyes and by his crazed look of wild shock and horror. \"Are you nuts or something? What the hell do you mean, there's no one inside?\"\n\n\"They've stolen him away!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dunbar shouted back. \"He's hollow inside, like a chocolate soldier. They just took him away and left those bandages there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why should they do that?\"\n\n\"Why do they do anything?\"\n\n\"They've stolen him away!\" screamed someone else, and people all over the ward began screaming, \"They've stolen him away. They've stolen him away!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go back to your beds,\" Nurse Duckett pleaded with Dunbar and Yossarian, pushing feebly against Yossarian's chest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please go back to your beds.\"\n\n\"You're crazy!\" Yossarian shouted angrily at Dunbar. \"What the hell makes you say that?\"\n\n\"Did anyone see him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dunbar demanded with sneering fervor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You saw him, didn't you?\" Yossarian said to Nurse Duckett. \"Tell Dunbar there's someone inside.\"\n\n\"Lieutenant Schmulker is inside,\" Nurse Duckett said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's burned all over.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did she see him?\"\n\n\"You saw him, didn't you?\"\n\n\"The doctor who bandaged him saw him.\"\n\n\"Go get him, will you? Which doctor was it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nurse Duckett reacted to the question with a startled gasp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The doctor isn't even here!\" she exclaimed. \"The patient was brought to us that way from a field hospital.\"\n\n\"You see?\" cried Nurse Cramer. \"There's no one inside!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's no one inside!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "yelled Hungry Joe, and began stamping on the floor.\n\nDunbar broke through and leaped up furiously on the soldier in white's bed to see for himself, pressing his gleaming eye down hungrily against the tattered black hole in the shell of white bandages. He was still bent over staring with one eye into the lightless, unstirring void of the soldier in white's mouth when the doctors and the M.P.s came running to help Yossarian pull him away. The doctors wore guns at the waist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The guards carried carbines and rifles with which they shoved and jolted the crowd of muttering patients back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A stretcher on wheels was there, and the solder in white was lifted out of bed skillfully and rolled out of sight in a matter of seconds. The doctors and M.P.s moved through the ward assuring everyone that everything was all right.\n\nNurse Duckett plucked Yossarian's arm and whispered to him furtively to meet her in the broom closet outside in the corridor. Yossarian rejoiced when he heard her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought Nurse Duckett finally wanted to get laid and pulled her skirt up the second they were alone in the broom closet, but she pushed him away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had urgent news about Dunbar.\n\n\"They're going to disappear him,\" she said.\n\nYossarian squinted at her uncomprehendingly. \"They're what?\" he asked in surprise, and laughed uneasily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What does that mean?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know. I heard them talking behind a door.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I couldn't see them. I just heard them say they were going to disappear Dunbar.\"\n\n\"Why are they going to disappear him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar. What the hell does it mean when they disappear somebody?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Jesus, you're a great help!\"\n\n\"Why are you picking on me?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first time in his life, Yossarian prayed. He got down on his knees and prayed to Nately not to volunteer to fly more than seventy missions after Chief White Halfoat did die of pneumonia in the hospital and Nately had applied for his job. But Nately just wouldn't listen.\n\n\"I've got to fly more missions,\" Nately insisted lamely with a crooked smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Otherwise they'll send me home.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So?\"\n\n\"I don't want to go home until I can take her back with me.\"\n\n\"She means that much to you?\"\n\nNately nodded dejectedly. \"I might never see her again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then get yourself grounded,\" Yossarian urged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You've finished your missions and you don't need the flight pay. Why don't you ask for Chief White Halfoat's job, if you can stand working for Captain Black?\"\n\nNately shook his head, his cheeks darkening with shy and regretful mortification. \"They won't give it to me. I spoke to Colonel Korn, and he told me I'd have to fly more missions or be sent home.\"\n\nYossarian cursed savagely. \"That's just plain meanness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't mind, I guess. I've flown seventy missions without getting hurt. I guess I can fly a few more.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't do anything at all about it until I talk to someone,\" Yossarian decided, and went looking for help from Milo, who went immediately afterward to Colonel Cathcart for help in having himself assigned to more combat missions.\n\nMilo had been earning many distinctions for himself. He had flown fearlessly into danger and criticism by selling petroleum and ball bearings to Germany at good prices in order to make a good profit and help maintain a balance of power between the contending forces. His nerve under fire was graceful and infinite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a devotion to purpose above and beyond the line of duty, he had then raised the price of food in his mess halls so high that all officers and enlisted men had to turn over all their pay to him in order to eat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their alternative-there was an alternative, of course, since Milo detested coercion and was a vocal champion of freedom of choice-was to starve. When he encountered a wave of enemy resistance to this attack, he stuck to his position without regard for his safety or reputation and gallantly invoked the law of supply and demand. And when someone somewhere said no, Milo gave ground grudgingly, valiantly defending, even in retreat, the historic right of free men to pay as much as they had to for the things they needed in order to survive.\n\nMilo had been caught red-handed in the act of plundering his countrymen, and, as a result, his stock had never been higher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He proved good as his word when a rawboned major from Minnesota curled his lip in rebellious disavowal and demanded his share of the syndicate Milo kept saying everybody owned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo met the challenge by writing the words \"A Share\" on the nearest scrap of paper and handing it away with a virtuous disdain that won the envy and admiration of almost everyone who knew him. His glory was at a peak, and Colonel Cathcart, who knew and admired his war record, was astonished by the deferential humility with which Milo presented himself at Group Headquarters and made his fantastic appeal for more hazardous assignments.\n\n\"You want to fly more combat missions?\" Colonel Cathcart gasped. \"What in the world for?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Milo answered in a demure voice with his face lowered meekly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want to do my duty, sir. The country is at war, and I want to fight to defend it like the rest of the fellows.\"\n\n\"But, Milo, you are doing your duty,\" Colonel Cathcart exclaimed with a laugh that thundered jovially. \"I can't think of a single person who's done more for the men than you have. Who gave them chocolate-covered cotton?\"\n\nMilo shook his head slowly and sadly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But being a good mess officer in wartime just isn't enough, Colonel Cathcart.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Certainly it is, Milo. I don't know what's come over you.\"\n\n\"Certainly it isn't, Colonel,\" Milo disagreed in a somewhat firm tone, raising his subservient eyes significantly just far enough to arrest Colonel Cathcart's. \"Some of the men are beginning to talk.\"\n\n\"Oh, is that it? Give me their names, Milo. Give me their names and I'll see to it that they go on every dangerous mission the group flies.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, Colonel, I'm afraid they're right,\" Milo said, with his head drooping again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was sent overseas as a pilot, and I should be flying more combat missions and spending less time on my duties as a mess officer.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart was surprised but co-operative. \"Well, Milo, if you really feel that way, I'm sure we can make whatever arrangements you want. How long have you been overseas now?\"\n\n\"Eleven months, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And how many missions have you flown?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Five.\"\n\n\"Five?\" asked Colonel Cathcart.\n\n\"Five, sir.\"\n\n\"Five, eh?\" Colonel Cathcart rubbed his cheek pensively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That isn't very good, is it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Isn't it?\" asked Milo in a sharply edged voice, glancing up again.\n\nColonel Cathcart quailed. \"On the contrary, that's very good, Milo,\" he corrected himself hastily. \"It isn't bad at all.\"\n\n\"No, Colonel,\" Milo said, with a long, languishing, wistful sigh, \"it isn't very good. Although it's very generous of you to say so.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But it's really not bad, Milo. Not bad at all, when you consider all your other valuable contributions. Five missions, you say? Just five?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just five, sir.\"\n\n\"Just five.\" Colonel Cathcart grew awfully depressed for a moment as he wondered what Milo was really thinking, and whether he had already got a black eye with him. \"Five is very good, Milo,\" he observed with enthusiasm, spying a ray of hope. \"That averages out to almost one combat mission every two months. And I'll bet your total doesn't include the time you bombed us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir. It does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It does?\" inquired Colonel Cathcart with mild wonder. \"You didn't actually fly along on that mission, did you? If I remember correctly, you were in the control tower with me, weren't you?\"\n\n\"But it was my mission,\" Milo contended. \"I organized it, and we used my planes and supplies. I planned and supervised the whole thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, certainly, Milo, certainly. I'm not disputing you. I'm only checking the figures to make sure you're claiming all you're entitled to. Did you also include the time we contracted with you to bomb the bridge at Orvieto?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, no, sir. I didn't think I should, since I was in Orvieto at the time directing the antiaircraft fire.\"\n\n\"I don't see what difference that makes, Milo. It was still your mission. And a damned good one, too, I must say. We didn't get the bridge, but we did have a beautiful bomb pattern. I remember General Peckem commenting on it. No, Milo, I insist you count Orvieto as a mission, too.\"\n\n\"If you insist, sir.\"\n\n\"I do insist, Milo. Now, let's see-you now have a grand total of six missions, which is damned good, Milo, damned good, really. Six missions is an increase of twenty per cent in just a couple of minutes, which is not bad at all, Milo, not bad at all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Many of the other men have seventy missions,\" Milo pointed out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But they never produced any chocolate-covered cotton, did they? Milo, you're doing more than your share.\"\n\n\"But they're getting all the fame and opportunity,\" Milo persisted with a petulance that bordered on sniveling. \"Sir, I want to get in there and fight like the rest of the fellows. That's what I'm here for. I want to win medals, too.\"\n\n\"Yes, Milo, of course. We all want to spend more time in combat. But people like you and me serve in different ways. Look at my own record,\" Colonel Cathcart uttered a deprecatory laugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll bet it's not generally known, Milo, that I myself have flown only four missions, is it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sir,\" Milo replied. \"It's generally known that you've flown only two missions. And that one of those occurred when Aarfy accidentally flew you over enemy territory while navigating you to Naples for a black-market water cooler.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart, flushing with embarrassment, abandoned all further argument. \"All right, Milo. I can't praise you enough for what you want to do. If it really means so much to you, I'll have Major Major assign you to the next sixty-four missions so that you can have seventy, too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you, Colonel, thank you, sir. You don't know what this means.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't mention it, Milo. I know exactly what it means.\"\n\n\"No, Colonel, I don't think you do know what it means,\" Milo disagreed pointedly. \"Someone will have to begin running the syndicate for me right away. It's very complicated, and I might get shot down at any time.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart brightened instantly at the thought and began rubbing his hands with avaricious zest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know, Milo, I think Colonel Korn and I might be willing to take the syndicate off your hands,\" he suggested in an offhand manner, almost licking his lips in savory anticipation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Our experience in black-market plum tomatoes should come in very useful. Where do we begin?\"\n\nMilo watched Colonel Cathcart steadily with a bland and guileless expression. \"Thank you, sir, that's very good of you. Begin with a salt-free diet for General Peckem and a fat-free diet for General Dreedle.\"\n\n\"Let me get a pencil. What's next?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The cedars.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cedars?\"\n\n\"From Lebanon.\"\n\n\"Lebanon?\"\n\n\"We've got cedars from Lebanon due at the sawmill in Oslo to be turned into shingles for the builder in Cape Cod. C.O.D. And then there's the peas.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Peas?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That are on the high seas. We've got boatloads of peas that are on the high seas from Atlanta to Holland to pay for the tulips that were shipped to Geneva to pay for the cheeses that must go to Vienna M.I.F.\"\n\n\"M.I.F.?\"\n\n\"Money in Front. The Hapsburgs are shaky.\"\n\n\"Milo.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And don't forget the galvanized zinc in the warehouse at Flint. Four carloads of galvanized zinc from Flint must be flown to the smelters in Damascus by noon of the eighteenth, terms F.O.B. Calcutta two per cent ten days E.O.M. One Messerschmitt full of hemp is due in Belgrade for a C-47 and a half full of those semi-pitted dates we stuck them with from Khartoum. Use the money from the Portuguese anchovies we're selling back to Lisbon to pay for the Egyptian cotton we've got coming back to us from Mamaroneck and to pick up as many oranges as you can in Spain. Always pay cash for naranjas.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naranjas?\"\n\n\"That's what they call oranges in Spain, and these are Spanish oranges. And-oh, yes. Don't forget Piltdown Man.\"\n\n\"Piltdown Man?\"\n\n\"Yes, Piltdown Man. The Smithsonian Institution is not in a position at this time to meet our price for a second Piltdown Man, but they are looking forward to the death of a wealthy and beloved donor and-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Milo.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"France wants all the parsley we can send them, and I think we might as well, because we'll need the francs for the lire for the pfennigs for the dates when they get back. I've also ordered a tremendous shipment of Peruvian balsa wood for distribution to each of the mess halls in the syndicate on a pro rata basis.\"\n\n\"Balsa wood? What are the mess halls going to do with balsa wood?\"\n\n\"Good balsa wood isn't so easy to come by these days, Colonel. I just didn't think it was a good idea to pass up the chance to buy it.\"\n\n\"No, I suppose not,\" Colonel Cathcart surmised vaguely with the look of somebody seasick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I assume the price was right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The price,\" said Milo, \"was outrageous-positively exorbitant! But since we bought it from one of our own subsidiaries, we were happy to pay it. Look after the hides.\"\n\n\"The hives?\"\n\n\"The hides.\"\n\n\"The hides?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The hides. In Buenos Aires. They have to be tanned.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tanned?\"\n\n\"In Newfoundland. And shipped to Helsinki N.M.I.F. before the spring thaw begins. Everything to Finland goes N.M.I.F. before the spring thaw begins.\"\n\n\"No Money in Front?\" guessed Colonel Cathcart.\n\n\"Good, Colonel. You have a gift, sir. And then there's the cork.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The cork?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That must go to New York, the shoes for Toulouse, the ham for Siam, the nails from Wales, and the tangerines for New Orleans.\"\n\n\"Milo.\"\n\n\"We have coals in Newcastle, sir.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart threw up his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Milo, stop!\" he cried, almost in tears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's no use. You're just like I am-indispensable!\" He pushed his pencil aside and rose to his feet in frantic exasperation. \"Milo, you can't fly sixty-four more missions. You can't even fly one more mission. The whole system would fall apart if anything happened to you.\"\n\nMilo nodded serenely with complacent gratification." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sir, are you forbidding me to fly any more combat missions?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Milo, I forbid you to fly any more combat missions,\" Colonel Cathcart declared in a tone of stern and inflexible authority.\n\n\"But that's not fair, sir,\" said Milo. \"What about my record? The other men are getting all the fame and medals and publicity. Why should I be penalized just because I'm doing such a good job as mess officer?\"\n\n\"No, Milo, it isn't fair. But I don't see anything we can do about it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe we can get someone else to fly my missions for me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But maybe we can get someone else to fly your missions for you,\" Colonel Cathcart suggested. \"How about the striking coal miners in Pennsylvania and West Virginia?\"\n\nMilo shook his head. \"It would take too long to train them. But why not the men in the squadron, sir? After all, I'm doing this for them. They ought to be willing to do something for me in return.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But why not the men in the squadron, Milo?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart exclaimed. \"After all, you're doing all this for them. They ought to be willing to do something for you in return.\"\n\n\"What's fair is fair.\"\n\n\"What's fair is fair.\"\n\n\"They could take turns, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They might even take turns flying your missions for you, Milo.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who gets the credit?\"\n\n\"You get the credit, Milo. And if a man wins a medal flying one of your missions, you get the medal.\"\n\n\"Who dies if he gets killed?\"\n\n\"Why, he dies, of course. After all, Milo, what's fair is fair. There's just one thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll have to raise the number of missions.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I might have to raise the number of missions again, and I'm not sure the men will fly them. They're still pretty sore because I jumped them to seventy. If I can get just one of the regular officers to fly more, the rest will probably follow.\"\n\n\"Nately will fly more missions, sir,\" Milo said. \"I was told in strictest confidence just a little while ago that he'll do anything he has to in order to remain overseas with a girl he's fallen in love with.\"\n\n\"But Nately will fly more!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart declared, and he brought his hands together in a resounding clap of victory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, Nately will fly more. And this time I'm really going to jump the missions, right up to eighty, and really knock General Dreedle's eye out. And this is a good way to get that lousy rat Yossarian back into combat where he might get killed.\"\n\n\"Yossarian?\" A tremor of deep concern passed over Milo's simple, homespun features, and he scratched the corner of his reddish-brown mustache thoughtfully.\n\n\"Yeah, Yossarian. I hear he's going around saying that he's finished his missions and the war's over for him. Well, maybe he has finished his missions. But he hasn't finished your missions, has he? Ha! Ha! Has he got a surprise coming to him!\"\n\n\"Sir, Yossarian is a friend of mine,\" Milo objected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd hate to be responsible for doing anything that would put him back in combat. I owe a lot to Yossarian. Isn't there any way we could make an exception of him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, no, Milo.\" Colonel Cathcart clucked sententiously, shocked by the suggestion. \"We must never play favorites. We must always treat every man alike.\"\n\n\"I'd give everything I own to Yossarian,\" Milo persevered gamely on Yossarian's behalf. \"But since I don't own anything, I can't give everything to him, can I? So he'll just have to take his chances with the rest of the men, won't he?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's fair is fair, Milo.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir, what's fair is fair,\" Milo agreed. \"Yossarian is no better than the other men, and he has no right to expect any special privileges, has he?\"\n\n\"No, Milo. What's fair is fair.\"\n\nAnd there was no time for Yossarian to save himself from combat once Colonel Cathcart issued his announcement raising the missions to eighty late that same afternoon, no time to dissuade Nately from flying them or even to conspire again with Dobbs to murder Colonel Cathcart, for the alert sounded suddenly at dawn the next day and the men were rushed into the trucks before a decent breakfast could be prepared, and they were driven at top speed to the briefing room and then out to the airfield, where the clitterclattering fuel trucks were still pumping gasoline into the tanks of the planes and the scampering crews of armorers were toiling as swiftly as they could at hoisting the thousand-pound demolition bombs into the bomb bays." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everybody was running, and engines were turned on and warmed up as soon as the fuel trucks had finished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Intelligence had reported that a disabled Italian cruiser in drydock at La Spezia would be towed by the Germans that same morning to a channel at the entrance of the harbor and scuttled there to deprive the Allied armies of deep-water port facilities when they captured the city. For once, a military intelligence report proved accurate. The long vessel was halfway across the harbor when they flew in from the west, and broke it apart with direct hits from every flight that filled them all with waves of enormously satisfying group pride until they found themselves engulfed in great barrages of flak that rose from guns in every bend of the huge horseshoe of mountainous land below. Even Havermeyer resorted to the wildest evasive action he could command when he saw what a vast distance he had still to travel to escape, and Dobbs, at the pilot's controls in his formation, zigged when he should have zagged, skidding his plane into the plane alongside, and chewed off its tail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His wing broke off at the base, and his plane dropped like a rock and was almost out of sight in an instant." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no fire, no smoke, not the slightest untoward noise. The remaining wing revolved as ponderously as a grinding cement mixer as the plane plummeted nose downward in a straight line at accelerating speed until it struck the water, which foamed open at the impact like a white water lily on the dark-blue sea, and washed back in a geyser of apple-green bubbles when the plane sank. It was over in a matter of seconds. There were no parachutes. And Nately, in the other plane, was killed too." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with four sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Joseph Heller.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next four sentences in the distinctive voice of Joseph Heller.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a Joseph Heller sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately's death almost killed the chaplain. Chaplain Shipman was seated in his tent, laboring over his paperwork in his reading spectacles, when his phone rang and news of the mid-air collision was given to him from the field. His insides turned at once to dry clay. His hand was trembling as he put the phone down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His other hand began trembling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The disaster was too immense to contemplate. Twelve men killed-how ghastly, how very, very awful! His feeling of terror grew. He prayed instinctively that Yossarian, Nately, Hungry Joe and his other friends would not be listed among the victims, then berated himself repentantly, for to pray for their safety was to pray for the death of other young men he did not even know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was too late to pray; yet that was all he knew how to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His heart was pounding with a noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere outside, and he knew he would never sit in a dentist's chair again, never glance at a surgical tool, never witness an automobile accident or hear a voice shout at night, without experiencing the same violent thumping in his chest and dreading that he was going to die. He would never watch another fist fight without fearing he was going to faint and crack his skull open on the pavement or suffer a fatal heart attack or cerebral hemorrhage. He wondered if he would ever see his wife again or his three small children. He wondered if he ever should see his wife again, now that Captain Black had planted in his mind such strong doubts about the fidelity and character of all women." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were so many other men, he felt, who could prove more satisfying to her sexually." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he thought of death now, he always thought of his wife, and when he thought of his wife he always thought of losing her.\n\nIn another minute the chaplain felt strong enough to rise and walk with glum reluctance to the tent next door for Sergeant Whitcomb. They drove in Sergeant Whitcomb's jeep. The chaplain made fists of his hands to keep them from shaking as they lay in his lap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ground his teeth together and tried not to hear as Sergeant Whitcomb chirruped exultantly over the tragic event." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twelve men killed meant twelve more form letters of condolence that could be mailed in one bunch to the next of kin over Colonel Cathcart's signature, giving Sergeant Whitcomb hope of getting an article on Colonel Cathcart into The Saturday Evening Post in time for Easter.\n\nAt the field a heavy silence prevailed, overpowering motion like a ruthless, insensate spell holding in thrall the only beings who might break it. The chaplain was in awe. He had never beheld such a great, appalling stillness before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost two hundred tired, gaunt, downcast men stood holding their parachute packs in a somber and unstirring crowd outside the briefing room, their faces staring blankly in different angles of stunned dejection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They seemed unwilling to go, unable to move. The chaplain was acutely conscious of the faint noise his footsteps made as he approached. His eyes searched hurriedly, frantically, through the immobile maze of limp figures. He spied Yossarian finally with a feeling of immense joy, and then his mouth gaped open slowly in unbearable horror as he noted Yossarian's vivid, beaten, grimy look of deep, drugged despair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He understood at once, recoiling in pain from the realization and shaking his head with a protesting and imploring grimace, that Nately was dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The knowledge struck him with a numbing shock. A sob broke from him. The blood drained from his legs, and he thought he was going to drop. Nately was dead. All hope that he was mistaken was washed away by the sound of Nately's name emerging with recurring clarity now from the almost inaudible babble of murmuring voices that he was suddenly aware of for the first time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately was dead: the boy had been killed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A whimpering sound rose in the chaplain's throat, and his jaw began to quiver. His eyes filled with tears, and he was crying. He started toward Yossarian on tiptoe to mourn beside him and share his wordless grief. At that moment a hand grabbed him roughly around the arm and a brusque voice demanded," }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Chaplain Shipman?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned with surprise to face a stout, pugnacious colonel with a large head and mustache and a smooth, florid skin. He had never seen the man before. \"Yes. What is it?\" The fingers grasping the chaplain's arm were hurting him, and he tried in vain to squirm loose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come along.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain pulled back in frightened confusion. \"Where? Why? Who are you, anyway?\"\n\n\"You'd better come along with us, Father,\" a lean, hawk-faced major on the chaplain's other side intoned with reverential sorrow. \"We're from the government. We want to ask you some questions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What kind of questions? What's the matter?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aren't you Chaplain Shipman?\" demanded the obese colonel.\n\n\"He's the one,\" Sergeant Whitcomb answered.\n\n\"Go on along with them,\" Captain Black called out to the chaplain with a hostile and contemptuous sneer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go on into the car if you know what's good for you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hands were drawing the chaplain away irresistibly. He wanted to shout for help to Yossarian, who seemed too far away to hear. Some of the men nearby were beginning to look at him with awakening curiosity. The chaplain bent his face away with burning shame and allowed himself to be led into the rear of a staff car and seated between the fat colonel with the large, pink face and the skinny, unctuous, despondent major." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He automatically held a wrist out to each, wondering for a moment if they wanted to handcuff him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another officer was already in the front seat. A tall M.P. with a whistle and a white helmet got in behind the wheel. The chaplain did not dare raise his eyes until the closed car had lurched from the area and the speeding wheels were whining on the bumpy blacktop road.\n\n\"Where are you taking me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked in a voice soft with timidity and guilt, his gaze still averted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The notion came to him that they were holding him to blame for the mid-air crash and the death of Nately. \"What have I done?\"\n\n\"Why don't you keep your trap shut and let us ask the questions?\" said the colonel.\n\n\"Don't talk to him that way,\" said the major." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It isn't necessary to be so disrespectful.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then tell him to keep his trap shut and let us ask the questions.\"\n\n\"Father, please keep your trap shut and let us ask the questions,\" urged the major sympathetically. \"It will be better for you.\"\n\n\"It isn't necessary to call me Father,\" said the chaplain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not a Catholic.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Neither am I, Father,\" said the major. \"It's just that I'm a very devout person, and I like to call all men of God Father.\"\n\n\"He doesn't even believe there are atheists in foxholes,\" the colonel mocked, and nudged the chaplain in the ribs familiarly. \"Go on, Chaplain, tell him. Are there atheists in foxholes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know, sir,\" the chaplain replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've never been in a foxhole.\"\n\nThe officer in front swung his head around swiftly with a quarrelsome expression. \"You've never been in heaven either, have you? But you know there's a heaven, don't you?\"\n\n\"Or do you?\" said the colonel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's a very serious crime you've committed, Father,\" said the major." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What crime?\"\n\n\"We don't know yet,\" said the colonel. \"But we're going to find out. And we sure know it's very serious.\"\n\nThe car swung off the road at Group Headquarters with a squeal of tires, slackening speed only slightly, and continued around past the parking lot to the back of the building." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The three officers and the chaplain got out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In single file, they ushered him down a wobbly flight of wooden stairs leading to the basement and led him into a damp, gloomy room with a low cement ceiling and unfinished stone walls. There were cobwebs in all the corners. A huge centipede blew across the floor to the shelter of a water pipe. They sat the chaplain in a hard, straight-backed chair that stood behind a small, bare table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please make yourself comfortable, Chaplain,\" invited the colonel cordially, switching on a blinding spotlight and shooting it squarely into the chaplain's face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He placed a set of brass knuckles and box of wooden matches on the table. \"We want you to relax.\"\n\nThe chaplain's eyes bulged out incredulously. His teeth chattered and his limbs felt utterly without strength." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was powerless. They might do whatever they wished to him, he realized; these brutal men might beat him to death right there in the basement, and no one would intervene to save him, no one, perhaps, but the devout and sympathetic major with the sharp face, who set a water tap dripping loudly into a sink and returned to the table to lay a length of heavy rubber hose down beside the brass knuckles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everything's going to be all right, Chaplain,\" the major said encouragingly. \"You've got nothing to be afraid of if you're not guilty. What are you so afraid of? You're not guilty, are you?\"\n\n\"Sure he's guilty,\" said the colonel. \"Guilty as hell.\"\n\n\"Guilty of what?\" implored the chaplain, feeling more and more bewildered and not knowing which of the men to appeal to for mercy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The third officer wore no insignia and lurked in silence off to the side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did I do?\"\n\n\"That's just what we're going to find out,\" answered the colonel, and he shoved a pad and pencil across the table to the chaplain. \"Write your name for us, will you? In your own handwriting.\"\n\n\"My own handwriting?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's right. Anywhere on the page.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the chaplain had finished, the colonel took the pad back and held it up alongside a sheet of paper he removed from a folder. \"See?\" he said to the major, who had come to his side and was peering solemnly over his shoulder.\n\n\"They're not the same, are they?\" the major admitted.\n\n\"I told you he did it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did what?\" asked the chaplain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Chaplain, this comes as a great shock to me,\" the major accused in a tone of heavy lamentation.\n\n\"What does?\"\n\n\"I can't tell you how disappointed I am in you.\"\n\n\"For what?\" persisted the chaplain more fiantically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What have I done?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For this,\" replied the major, and, with an air of disillusioned disgust, tossed down on the table the pad on which the chaplain had signed his name. \"This isn't your handwriting.\"\n\nThe chaplain blinked rapidly with amazement. \"But of course it's my handwriting.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No it isn't, Chaplain. You're lying again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I just wrote it!\" the chaplain cried in exasperation. \"You saw me write it.\"\n\n\"That's just it,\" the major answered bitterly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I saw you write it. You can't deny that you did write it. A person who'll lie about his own handwriting will lie about anything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But who lied about my own handwriting?\" demanded the chaplain, forgetting his fear in the wave of anger and indignation that welled up inside him suddenly. \"Are you crazy or something? What are you both talking about?\"\n\n\"We asked you to write your name in your own handwriting. And you didn't do it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But of course I did. In whose handwriting did I write it if not my own?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In somebody else's.\"\n\n\"Whose?\"\n\n\"That's just what we're going to find out,\" threatened the colonel.\n\n\"Talk, Chaplain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain looked from one to the other of the two men with rising doubt and hysteria." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That handwriting is mine,\" he maintained passionately. \"Where else is my handwriting, if that isn't it?\"\n\n\"Right here,\" answered the colonel. And looking very superior, he tossed down on the table a photostatic copy of a piece of V mail in which everything but the salutation \"Dear Mary\" had been blocked out and on which the censoring officer had written, \"I long for you tragically. R. O. Shipman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colonel smiled scornfully as he watched the chaplain's face turn crimson." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, Chaplain? Do you know who wrote that?\"\n\nThe chaplain took a long moment to reply; he had recognized Yossarian's handwriting. \"No.\"\n\n\"You can read, though, can't you?\" the colonel persevered sarcastically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The author signed his name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's my name there.\"\n\n\"Then you wrote it. Q.E.D.\"\n\n\"But I didn't write it. That isn't my handwriting, either.\"\n\n\"Then you signed your name in somebody else's handwriting again,\" the colonel retorted with a shrug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's all that means.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, this is ridiculous!\" the chaplain shouted, suddenly losing all patience. He jumped to his feet in a blazing fury, both fists clenched. \"I'm not going to stand for this any longer! Do you hear? Twelve men were just killed, and I have no time for these silly questions. You've no right to keep me here, and I'm just not going to stand for it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without saying a word, the colonel pushed the chaplain's chest hard and knocked him back down into the chair, and the chaplain was suddenly weak and very much afraid again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The major picked up the length of rubber hose and began tapping it menacingly against his open palm. The colonel lifted the box of matches, took one out and held it poised against the striking surface, watching with glowering eyes for the chaplain's next sign of defiance. The chaplain was pale and almost too petrified to move. The bright glare of the spotlight made him turn away finally; the dripping water was louder and almost unbearably irritating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wished they would tell him what they wanted so that he would know what to confess." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waited tensely as the third officer, at a signal from the colonel, ambled over from the wall and seated himself on the table just a few inches away from the chaplain. His face was expressionless, his eyes penetrating and cold.\n\n\"Turn off the light,\" he said over his shoulder in a low, calm voice. \"It's very annoying.\"\n\nThe chaplain gave him a small smile of gratitude." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you, sir. And the drip too, please.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Leave the drip,\" said the officer. \"That doesn't bother me.\" He tugged up the legs of his trousers a bit, as though to preserve their natty crease. \"Chaplain,\" he asked casually, \"of what religious persuasion are you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm an Anabaptist, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a pretty suspicious religion, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Suspicious?\" inquired the chaplain in a kind of innocent daze. \"Why, sir?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know a thing about it. You'll have to admit that, won't you? Doesn't that make it pretty suspicious?\"\n\n\"I don't know, sir,\" the chaplain answered diplomatically, with an uneasy stammer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He found the man's lack of insignia disconcerting and was not even sure he had to say \"sir\"." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who was he? And what authority had he to interrogate him?\n\n\"Chaplain, I once studied Latin. I think it's only fair to warn you of that before I ask my next question. Doesn't the word Anabaptist simply mean that you're not a Baptist?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, sir. There's much more.\"\n\n\"Are you a Baptist?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then you are not a Baptist, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"I don't see why you're bickering with me on that point. You've already admitted it. Now, Chaplain, to say you're not a Baptist doesn't really tell us anything about what you are, does it? You could be anything or anyone.\" He leaned forward slightly and his manner took on a shrewd and significant air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You could even be,\" he added, \"Washington Irving, couldn't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Washington Irving?\" the chaplain repeated with surprise.\n\n\"Come on, Washington,\" the corpulent colonel broke in irascibly. \"Why don't you make a clean breast of it? We know you stole that plum tomato.\"\n\nAfter a moment's shock, the chaplain giggled with nervous relief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, is that it!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he exclaimed. \"Now I'm beginning to understand. I didn't steal that plum tomato, sir. Colonel Cathcart gave it to me. You can even ask him if you don't believe me.\"\n\nA door opened at the other end of the room and Colonel Cathcart stepped into the basement as though from a closet.\n\n\"Hello, Colonel. Colonel, he claims you gave him that plum tomato. Did you?\"\n\n\"Why should I give him a plum tomato?\" answered Colonel Cathcart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you, Colonel. That will be all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a pleasure, Colonel,\" Colonel Cathcart replied, and he stepped back out of the basement, closing the door after him.\n\n\"Well, Chaplain? What have you got to say now?\"\n\n\"He did give it to me!\" the chaplain hissed in a whisper that was both fierce and fearful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He did give it to me!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're not calling a superior officer a liar are you, Chaplain?\"\n\n\"Why should a superior officer give you a plum tomato, Chaplain?\"\n\n\"Is that why you tried to give it to Sergeant Whitcomb, Chaplain? Because it was a hot tomato?\"\n\n\"No, no, no,\" the chaplain protested, wondering miserably why they were not able to understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I offered it to Sergeant Whitcomb because I didn't want it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why'd you steal it from Colonel Cathcart if you didn't want it?\"\n\n\"I didn't steal it from Colonel Cathcard\"\n\n\"Then why are you so guilty, if you didn't steal it?\"\n\n\"I'm not guilty!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then why would we be questioning you if you weren't guilty?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, I don't know,\" the chaplain groaned, kneading his fingers in his lap and shaking his bowed and anguished head. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"He thinks we have time to waste,\" snorted the major.\n\n\"Chaplain,\" resumed the officer without insignia at a more leisurely pace, lifting a typewritten sheet of yellow paper from the open folder, \"I have a signed statement here from Colonel Cathcart asserting you stole that plum tomato from him.\" He lay the sheet face down on one side of the folder and picked up a second page from the other side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I have a notarized affidavit from Sergeant Whitcomb in which he states that he knew the tomato was hot just from the way you tried to unload it on him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I swear to God I didn't steal it, sir,\" the chaplain pleaded with distress, almost in tears. \"I give you my sacred word it was not a hot tomato.\"\n\n\"Chaplain, do you believe in God?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Of course I do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's odd, Chaplain,\" said the officer, taking from the folder another typewritten yellow page, \"because I have here in my hands now another statement from Colonel Cathcart in which he swears that you refused to co-operate with him in conducting prayer meetings in the briefing room before each mission.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After looking blank a moment, the chaplain nodded quickly with recollection. \"Oh, that's not quite true, sir,\" he explained eagerly. \"Colonel Cathcart gave up the idea himself once he realized enlisted men pray to the same God as officers.\"\n\n\"He did what?\" exclaimed the officer in disbelief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What nonsense!\" declared the red-faced colonel, and swung away from the chaplain with dignity and annoyance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does he expect us to believe that?\" cried the major incredulously.\n\nThe officer without insignia chuckled acidly. \"Chaplain, aren't you stretching things a bit far now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he inquired with a smile that was indulgent and unfriendly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But, sir, it's the truth, sir! I swear it's the truth.\"\n\n\"I don't see how that matters one way or the other,\" the officer answered nonchalantly, and reached sideways again toward the open folder filled with papers. \"Chaplain, did you say you did believe in God in answer to my question? I don't remember.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I did say so, sir. I do believe in God.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then that really is very odd, Chaplain, because I have here another affidavit from Colonel Cathcart that states you once told him atheism was not against the law. Do you recall ever making a statement like that to anyone?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain nodded without any hesitation, feeling himself on very solid ground now. \"Yes, sir, I did make a statement like that. I made it because it's true. Atheism is not against the law.\"\n\n\"But that's still no reason to say so, Chaplain, is it?\" the officer chided tartly, frowning, and picked up still one more typewritten, notarized page from the folder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And here I have another sworn statement from Sergeant Whitcomb that says you opposed his plan of sending letters of condolence over Colonel Cathcart's signature to the next of kin of men killed or wounded in combat. Is that true?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir, I did oppose it,\" answered the chaplain. \"And I'm proud that I did. Those letters are insincere and dishonest. Their only purpose is to bring glory to Colonel Cathcart.\"\n\n\"But what difference does that make?\" replied the officer. \"They still bring solace and comfort to the families that receive them, don't they? Chaplain, I simply can't understand your thinking process.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain was stumped and at a complete loss for a reply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hung his head, feeling tongue-tied and naive.\n\nThe ruddy stout colonel stepped forward vigorously with a sudden idea. \"Why don't we knock his goddam brains out?\" he suggested with robust enthusiasm to the others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, we could knock his goddam brains out, couldn't we?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the hawk-faced major agreed. \"He's only an Anabaptist.\"\n\n\"No, we've got to find him guilty first,\" the officer without insignia cautioned with a languid restraining wave. He slid lightly to the floor and moved around to the other side of the table, facing the chaplain with both hands pressed flat on the surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His expression was dark and very stern, square and forbidding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Chaplain,\" he announced with magisterial rigidity, \"we charge you formally with being Washington Irving and taking capricious and unlicensed liberties in censoring the letters of officers and enlisted men. Are you guilty or innocent?\"\n\n\"Innocent, sir.\" The chaplain licked dry lips with a dry tongue and leaned forward in suspense on the edge of his chair.\n\n\"Guilty,\" said the colonel.\n\n\"Guilty,\" said the major." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Guilty it is, then,\" remarked the officer without insignia, and wrote a word on a page in the folder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Chaplain,\" he continued, looking up, \"we accuse you also of the commission of crimes and infractions we don't even know about yet. Guilty or innocent?\"\n\n\"I don't know, sir. How can I say if you don't tell me what they are?\"\n\n\"How can we tell you if we don't know?\"\n\n\"Guilty,\" decided the colonel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sure he's guilty,\" agreed the major." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If they're his crimes and infractions, he must have committed them.\"\n\n\"Guilty it is, then,\" chanted the officer without insignia, and moved off to the side of the room. \"He's all yours, Colonel.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" commended the colonel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You did a very good job.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned to the chaplain. \"Okay, Chaplain, the jig's up. Take a walk.\"\n\nThe chaplain did not understand. \"What do you wish me to do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go on, beat it, I told you!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the colonel roared, jerking a thumb over his shoulder angrily. \"Get the hell out of here.\"\n\nThe chaplain was shocked by his bellicose words and tone and, to his own amazement and mystification, deeply chagrined that they were turning him loose. \"Aren't you even going to punish me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he inquired with querulous surprise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're damned right we're going to punish you. But we're certainly not going to let you hang around while we decide how and when to do it. So get going. Hit the road.\"\n\nThe chaplain rose tentatively and took a few steps away. \"I'm free to go?\"\n\n\"For the time being. But don't try to leave the island. We've got your number, Chaplain. Just remember that we've got you under surveillance twenty-four hours a day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not conceivable that they would allow him to leave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain walked toward the exit gingerly, expecting at any instant to be ordered back by a peremptory voice or halted in his tracks by a heavy blow on the shoulder or the head. They did nothing to stop him. He found his way through the stale, dark, dank corridors to the flight of stairs. He was staggering and panting when he climbed out into the fresh air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as he had escaped, a feeling of overwhelming moral outrage filled him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was furious, more furious at the atrocities of the day than he had ever felt before in his whole life. He swept through the spacious, echoing lobby of the building in a temper of scalding and vindictive resentment. He was not going to stand for it any more, he told himself, he was simply not going to stand for it. When he reached the entrance, he spied, with a feeling of good fortune, Colonel Korn trotting up the wide steps alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bracing himself with a deep breath, the chaplain moved courageously forward to intercept him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Colonel, I'm not going to stand for it any more,\" he declared with vehement determination, and watched in dismay as Colonel Korn went trotting by up the steps without even noticing him. \"Colonel Korn!\"\n\nThe tubby, loose figure of his superior officer stopped, turned and came trotting back down slowly. \"What is it, Chaplain?\"\n\n\"Colonel Korn, I want to talk to you about the crash this morning. It was a terrible thing to happen, terrible!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn was silent a moment, regarding the chaplain with a glint of cynical amusement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, Chaplain, it certainly was terrible,\" he said finally. \"I don't know how we're going to write this one up without making ourselves look bad.\"\n\n\"That isn't what I meant,\" the chaplain scolded firmly without any fear at all. \"Some of those twelve men had already finished their seventy missions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn laughed. \"Would it be any less terrible if they had all been new men?\" he inquired caustically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once again the chaplain was stumped. Immoral logic seemed to be confounding him at every turn. He was less sure of himself than before when he continued, and his voice wavered. \"Sir, it just isn't right to make the men in this group fly eighty missions when the men in other groups are being sent home with fifty and fifty-five.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'll take the matter under consideration,\" Colonel Korn said with bored disinterest, and started away. \"Adios, Padre.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What does that mean, sir?\" the chaplain persisted in a voice turning shrill.\n\nColonel Korn stopped with an unpleasant expression and took a step back down. \"It means we'll think about it, Padre,\" he answered with sarcasm and contempt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You wouldn't want us to do anything without thinking about it, would you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sir, I suppose not. But you have been thinking about it, haven't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, Padre, we have been thinking about it. But to make you happy, we'll think about it some more, and you'll be the first person we'll tell if we reach a new decision. And now, adios.\" Colonel Korn whirled away again and hurried up the stairs.\n\n\"Colonel Korn!\" The chaplain's cry made Colonel Korn stop once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His head swung slowly around toward the chaplain with a look of morose impatience." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Words gushed from the chaplain in a nervous torrent. \"Sir, I would like your permission to take the matter to General Dreedle. I want to bring my protests to Wing Headquarters.\"\n\nColonel Korn's thick, dark jowls inflated unexpectedly with a suppressed guffaw, and it took him a moment to reply. \"That's all right, Padre,\" he answered with mischievous merriment, trying hard to keep a straight face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You have my permission to speak to General Dreedle.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, sir. I believe it only fair to warn you that I think I have some influence with General Dreedle.\"\n\n\"It's good of you to warn me, Padre. And I believe it only fair to warn you that you won't find General Dreedle at Wing.\" Colonel Korn grinned wickedly and then broke into triumphant laughter. \"General Dreedle is out, Padre. And General Peckem is in. We have a new wing commander.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain was stunned. \"General Peckem!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's right, Chaplain. Have you got any influence with him?\"\n\n\"Why, I don't even know General Peckem,\" the chaplain protested wretchedly.\n\nColonel Korn laughed again. \"That's too bad, Chaplain, because Colonel Cathcart knows him very well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn chuckled steadily with gloating relish for another second or two and then stopped abruptly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And by the way, Padre,\" he warned coldly, poking his finger once into the chaplain's chest. \"The jig is up between you and Dr. Stubbs. We know very well he sent you up here to complain today.\"\n\n\"Dr. Stubbs?\" The chaplain shook his head in baffled protest. \"I haven't seen Dr. Stubbs, Colonel. I was brought here by three strange officers who took me down into the cellar without authority and questioned and insulted me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn poked the chaplain in the chest once more." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know damned well Dr. Stubbs has been telling the men in his squadron they didn't have to fly more than seventy missions.\" He laughed harshly. \"Well, Padre, they do have to fly more than seventy missions, because we're transferring Dr. Stubbs to the Pacific. So adios, Padre. Adios.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dreedle was out, and General Peckem was in, and General Peckem had hardly moved inside General Dreedle's office to replace him when his splendid military victory began falling to pieces around him.\n\n\"General Scheisskopf?\" he inquired unsuspectingly of the sergeant in his new office who brought him word of the order that had come in that morning. \"You mean Colonel Scheisskopf, don't you?\"\n\n\"No, sir, General Scheisskopf He was promoted to general this morning, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, that's certainly curious! Scheisskopf? A general? What grade?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lieutenant general, sir, and-\"\n\n\"Lieutenant general!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, and he wants you to issue no orders to anyone in your command without first clearing them through him.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll be damned,\" mused General Peckem with astonishment, swearing aloud for perhaps the first time in his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cargill, did you hear that? Scheisskopf was promoted way up to lieutenant general. I'll bet that promotion was intended for me and they gave it to him by mistake.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cargill had been rubbing his sturdy chin reflectively. \"Why is he giving orders to us?\"\n\nGeneral Peckem's sleek, scrubbed, distinguished face tightened. \"Yes, Sergeant,\" he said slowly with an uncomprehending frown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why is he issuing orders to us if he's still in Special Services and we're in combat operations?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's another change that was made this morning, sir. All combat operations are now under the jurisdiction of Special Services. General Scheisskopf is our new commanding officer.\"\n\nGeneral Peckem let out a sharp cry. \"Oh, my God!\" he wailed, and all his practical composure went up in hysteria. \"Scheisskopf in charge? Scheisskopf?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pressed his fists down on his eyes with horror." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cargill, get me Wintergreen! Scheisskopf? Not Scheisskopf!\"\n\nAll phones began ringing at once. A corporal ran in and saluted.\n\n\"Sir, there's a chaplain outside to see you with news of an injustice in Colonel Cathcart's squadron.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Send him away, send him away! We've got enough injustices of our own. Where's Wintergreen?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sir, General Scheisskopf is on the phone. He wants to speak to you at once.\"\n\n\"Tell him I haven't arrived yet. Good Lord!\" General Peckem screamed, as though struck by the enormity of the disaster for the first time. \"Scheisskopf? The man's a moron! I walked all over that blockhead, and now he's my superior officer. Oh, my Lord! Cargill! Cargill, don't desert me! Where's Wintergreen?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sir, I have an ex-Sergeant Wintergreen on your other telephone. He's been trying to reach you all morning.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"General, I can't get Wintergreen,\" Colonel Cargill shouted, \"His line is busy.\"\n\nGeneral Peckem was perspiring freely as he lunged for the other telephone.\n\n\"Wintergreen!\"\n\n\"Peckem, you son of a bitch-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wintergreen, have you heard what they've done?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"-what have you done, you stupid bastard?\"\n\n\"They put Scheisskopf in charge of everything!\"\n\nWintergreen was shrieking with rage and panic. \"You and your goddam memorandums! They've gone and transferred combat operations to Special Services!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, no,\" moaned General Peckem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that what did it? My memoranda? Is that what made them put Scheisskopf in charge? Why didn't they put me in charge?\"\n\n\"Because you weren't in Special Services any more. You transferred out and left him in charge. And do you know what he wants? Do you know what the bastard wants us all to do?\"\n\n\"Sir, I think you'd better talk to General Scheisskopf,\" pleaded the sergeant nervously. \"He insists on speaking to someone.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\nfour sentences\n\nStyle:\nJoseph Heller" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian marched backward with his gun on his hip and refused to fly any more missions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He marched backward because he was continously spinning around as he walked to make certain no one was sneaking up on him from behind. Every sound to his rear was a warning, every person he passed a potential assassin. He kept his hand on his gun butt constantly and smiled at no one but Hungry Joe. He told Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren that he was through flying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren left his name off the flight schedule for the next mission and reported the matter to Group Headquarters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Korn laughed cahnly. \"What the devil do you mean, he won't fly more missions?\" he asked with a smile, as Colonel Cathcart crept away into a corner to brood about the sinister import of the name Yossarian popping up to plague him once again. \"Why won't he?\"\n\n\"His friend Nately was killed in the crash over Spezia. Maybe that's why.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who does he think he is-Achilles?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Korn was pleased with the simile and filed a mental reminder to repeat it the next time he found himself in General Peckem's presence. \"He has to fly more missions. He has no choice. Go back and tell him you'll report the matter to us if he doesn't change his mind.\"\n\n\"We already did tell him that, sir. It made no difference.\"\n\n\"What does Major Major say?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We never see Major Major. He seems to have disappeared.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wish we could disappear him!\" Colonel Cathcart blurted out from the corner peevishly. \"The way they did that fellow Dunbar.\"\n\n\"Oh, there are plenty of other ways we can handle this one,\" Colonel Korn assured him confidently, and continued to Piltchard and Wren, \"Let's begin with the kindest. Send him to Rome for a rest for a few days. Maybe this fellow's death really did hurt him a bit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately's death, in fact, almost killed Yossarian too, for when he broke the news to Nately's whore in Rome she uttered a piercing, heartbroken shriek and tried to stab him to death with a potato peeler." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bruto!\" she howled at him in hysterical fury as he bent her arm up around behind her back and twisted gradually until the potato peeler dropped from her grasp. \"Bruto! Bruto!\" She lashed at him swiftly with the long-nailed fingers of her free hand and raked open his cheek. She spat in his face viciously.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" he screamed in stinging pain and bewilderment, flinging her away from him all the way across the room to the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you want from me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She flew back at him with both fists flailing and bloodied his mouth with a solid punch before he was able to grab her wrists and hold her still. Her hair tossed wildly. Tears were streaming in single torrents from her flashing, hate-filled eyes as she struggled against him fiercely in an irrational frenzy of maddened might, snarling and cursing savagely and screaming \"Bruto! Bruto!\" each time he tried to explain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her great strength caught him off guard, and he lost his footing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was nearly as tall as Yossarian, and for a few fantastic, terror-filled moments he was certain she would overpower him in her crazed determination, crush him to the ground and rip him apart mercilessly limb from limb for some heinous crime he had never committed. He wanted to yell for help as they strove against each other frantically in a grunting, panting stalemate, arm against arm. At last she weakened, and he was able to force her back and plead with her to let him talk, swearing to her that Nately's death had not been his fault. She spat in his face again, and he pushed her away hard in disgusted anger and frustration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hurled herself down toward the potato peeler the instant he released her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He flung himself down after her, and they rolled over each other on the floor several times before he could tear the potato peeler away. She tried to trip him with her hand as he scrambled to his feet and scratched an excruciating chunk out of his ankle. He hopped across the room in pain and threw the potato peeler out the window. He heaved a huge sigh of relief once he saw he was safe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now, please let me explain something to you,\" he cajoled in a mature, reasoning, earnest voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She kicked him in the groin. Whoosh! went the air out of him, and he sank down on his side with a shrill and ululating cry, doubled up over his knees in chaotic agony and retching for breath. Nately's whore ran from the room. Yossarian staggered up to his feet not a moment too soon, for she came charging back in from the kitchen carrying a long bread knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A moan of incredulous dismay wafted from his lips as, still clutching his throbbing, tender, burning bowels in both hands, he dropped his full weight down against her shins and knocked her legs out from under her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She flipped completely over his head and landed on the floor on her elbows with a jarring thud. The knife skittered free, and he slapped it out of sight under the bed. She tried to lunge after it, and he seized her by the arm and yanked her up. She tried to kick him in the groin again, and he slung her away with a violent oath of his own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She slammed into the wall off balance and smashed a chair over into a vanity table covered with combs, hairbrushes and cosmetic jars that all went crashing off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A framed picture fell to the floor at the other end of the room, the glass front shattering.\n\n\"What do you want from me?\" he yelled at her in whining and exasperated confusion. \"I didn't kill him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hurled a heavy glass ash tray at his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He made a fist and wanted to punch her in the stomach when she came charging at him again, but he was afraid he might harm her. He wanted to clip her very neatly on the point of the jaw and run from the room, but there was no clear target, and he merely skipped aside neatly at the last second and helped her along past him with a strong shove. She banged hard against the other wall. Now she was blocking the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She threw a large vase at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she came at him with a full wine bottle and struck him squarely on the temple, knocking him down half-stunned on one knee. His ears were buzzing, his whole face was numb. More than anything else, he was embarrassed. He felt awkward because she was going to murder him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He simply did not understand what was going on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had no idea what to do. But he did know he had to save himself, and he catapulted forward off the floor when he saw her raise the wine bottle to clout him again and barreled into her midriff before she could strike him. He had momentum, and he propelled her before him backward in his driving rush until her knees buckled against the side of the bed and she fell over onto the mattress with Yossarian sprawled on top of her between her legs. She plunged her nails into the side of his neck and gouged as he worked his way up the supple, full hills and ledges of her rounded body until he covered her completely and pressed her into submission, his fingers pursuing her thrashing arm persistently until they arrived at the wine bottle finally and wrenched it free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was still kicking and cursing and scratching ferociously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tried to bite him cruelly, her coarse, sensual lips stretched back over her teeth like an enraged omnivorous beast's. Now that she lay captive beneath him, he wondered how he would ever escape her without leaving himself vulnerable. He could feel the tensed, straddling inside of her buffeting thighs and knees squeezing and churning around one of his legs. He was stirred by thoughts of sex that made him ashamed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was conscious of the voluptuous flesh of her firm, young-woman's body straining and beating against him like a humid, fluid, delectable, unyielding tide, her belly and warm, live, plastic breasts thrusting upward against him vigorously in sweet and menacing temptation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her breath was scalding. All at once he realized-though the writhing turbulence beneath him had not diminished one whit-that she was no longer grappling with him, recognized with a quiver that she was not fighting him but heaving her pelvis up against him remorselessly in the primal, powerful, rhapsodic instinctual rhythm of erotic ardor and abandonment. He gasped in delighted surprise. Her face-as beautiful as a blooming flower to him now-was distorted with a new kind of torture, the tissues serenely swollen, her half-closed eyes misty and unseeing with the stultifying languor of desire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Caro,\" she murmured hoarsely as though from the depths of a tranquil and luxurious trance. \"Ooooh, caro mio.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stroked her hair. She drove her mouth against his face with savage passion. He licked her neck. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt himself falling, falling ecstatically in love with her as she kissed him again and again with lips that were steaming and wet and soft and hard, mumbling deep sounds to him adoringly in an incoherent oblivion of rapture, one caressing hand on his back slipping deftly down inside his trouser belt while the other groped secretly and treacherously about on the floor for the bread knife and found it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He saved himself just in time. She still wanted to kill him! He was shocked and astounded by her depraved subteruge as he tore the knife from her grasp and hurled it away. He bounded out of the bed to his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His face was agog with befuddlement and disillusion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not know whether to dart through the door to freedom or collapse on the bed to fall in love with her and place himself abjectly at her mercy again. She spared him from doing either by bursting unpredictably into tears. He was stunned again.\n\nThis time she wept with no other emotion than grief, profound, debilitating, humble grief, forgetting all about him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her desolation was pathetic as she sat with her tempestuous, proud, lovely head bowed, her shoulders sagging, her spirit melting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This time there was no mistaking her anguish. Great racking sobs choked and shook her. She was no longer aware of him, no longer cared. He could have walked from the room safely then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he chose to remain and console and help her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please,\" he urged her inarticulately with his arm about her shoulders, recollecting with pained sadness how inarticulate and enfeebled he had felt in the plane coming back from Avignon when Snowden kept whimpering to him that he was cold, he was cold, and all Yossarian could offer him in return was \"There, there. There, there.\" \"Please,\" he repeated to her sympathetically. \"Please, please.\"\n\nShe rested against him and cried until she seemed too weak to cry any longer, and did not look at him once until he extended his handkerchief when she had finished. She wiped her cheeks with a tiny, polite smile and gave the handkerchief back, murmuring \"Grazie, grazie\" with meek, maidenly propriety, and then, without any warning whatsoever of a change in mood, clawed suddenly at his eyes with both hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She landed with each and let out a victorious shriek." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ha! Assassino!\" she hooted, and raced joyously across the room for the bread knife to finish him off.\n\nHalf blinded, he rose and stumbled after her. A noise behind him made him turn. His senses reeled in horror at what he saw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nately's whore's kid sister, of all people, was coming after him with another long bread knife!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, no,\" he wailed with a shudder, and he knocked the knife out of her hand with a sharp downward blow on her wrist. He lost patience entirely with the whole grotesque and incomprehensible melee. There was no telling who might lunge at him next through the doorway with another long bread knife, and he lifted Nately's whore's kid sister off the floor, threw her at Nately's whore and ran out of the room, out of the apartment and down the stairs. The two girls chased out into the hall after him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He heard their footsteps lag farther and farther behind as he fled and then cease altogether." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard sobbing directly overhead. Glancing backward up the stair well, he spied Nately's whore sitting in a heap on one of the steps, weeping with her face in both hands, while her pagan, irrepressible kid sister hung dangerously over the banister shouting \"Bruto! Bruto!\" down at him happily and brandished her bread knife at him as though it were an exciting new toy she was eager to use.\n\nYossarian escaped, but kept looking back over his shoulder anxiously as he retreated through the street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People stared at him strangely, making him more apprehensive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked in nervous haste, wondering what there was in his appearance that caught everyone's attention. When he touched his hand to a sore spot on his forehead, his fingers turned gooey with blood, and he understood. He dabbed his face and neck with a handkerchief. Wherever it pressed, he picked up new red smudges." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was bleeding everywhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hurried into the Red Cross building and down the two steep flights of white marble stairs to the men's washroom, where he cleansed and nursed his innumerable visible wounds with cold water and soap and straightened his shirt collar and combed his hair. He had never seen a face so badly bruised and scratched as the one still blinking back at him in the mirror with a dazed and startled uneasiness. What on earth had she wanted from him?\n\nWhen he left the men's room, Nately's whore was waiting outside in ambush." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was crouched against the wall near the bottom of the staircase and came pouncing down upon him like a hawk with a glittering silver steak knife in her fist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He broke the brunt of her assault with his upraised elbow and punched her neatly on the jaw. Her eyes rolled. He caught her before she dropped and sat her down gently. Then he ran up the steps and out of the building and spent the next three hours hunting through the city for Hungry Joe so that he could get away from Rome before she could find him again. He did not feel really safe until the plane had taken off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they landed in Pianosa, Nately's whore, disguised in a mechanic's green overalls, was waiting with her steak knife exactly where the plane stopped, and all that saved him as she stabbed at his chest in her leather-soled high-heeled shoes was the gravel underfoot that made her feet roll out from under her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian, astounded, hauled her up into the plane and held her motionless on the floor in a double armlock while Hungry Joe radioed the control tower for permission to return to Rome. At the airport in Rome, Yossarian dumped her out of the plane on the taxi strip, and Hungry Joe took right off for Pianosa again without even cutting his engines. Scarcely breathing, Yossarian scrutinized every figure warily as he and Hungry Joe walked back through the squadron toward their tents. Hungry Joe eyed him steadily with a funny expression." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you sure you didn't imagine the whole thing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe inquired hesitantly after a while.\n\n\"Imagine it? You were right there with me, weren't you? You just flew her back to Rome.\"\n\n\"Maybe I imagined the whole thing, too. Why does she want to kill you for?\"\n\n\"She never did like me. Maybe it's because I broke his nose, or maybe it's because I was the only one in sight she could hate when she got the news. Do you think she'll come back?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian went to the officers' club that night and stayed very late." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He kept a leery eye out for Nately's whore as he approached his tent. He stopped when he saw her hiding in the bushes around the side, gripping a huge carving knife and all dressed up to look like a Pianosan farmer. Yossarian tiptoed around the back noiselessly and seized her from behind.\n\n\"Caramba!\" she exclaimed in a rage, and resisted like a wildcat as he dragged her inside the tent and hurled her down on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, what's going on?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "queried one of his roommates drowsily.\n\n\"Hold her till I get back,\" Yossarian ordered, yanking him out of bed on top of her and running out. \"Hold her!\"\n\n\"Let me kill him and I'll ficky-fick you all,\" she offered.\n\nThe other roommates leaped out of their cots when they saw it was a girl and tried to make her ficky-fick them all first as Yossarian ran to get Hungry Joe, who was sleeping like a baby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian lifted Huple's cat off Hungry Joe's face and shook him awake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe dressed rapidly. This time they flew the plane north and turned in over Italy far behind the enemy lines. When they were over level land, they strapped a parachute on Nately's whore and shoved her out the escape hatch. Yossarian was positive that he was at last rid of her and was relieved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he approached his tent back in Pianosa, a figure reared up in the darkness right beside the path, and he fainted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He came to sitting on the ground and waited for the knife to strike him, almost welcoming the mortal blow for the peace it would bring. A friendly hand helped him up instead. It belonged to a pilot in Dunbar's squadron.\n\n\"How are you doing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "asked the pilot, whispering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pretty good,\" Yossarian answered.\n\n\"I saw you fall down just now. I thought something happened to you.\"\n\n\"I think I fainted.\"\n\n\"There's a rumor in my squadron that you told them you weren't going to fly any more combat missions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the truth.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then they came around from Group and told us that the rumor wasn't true, that you were just kidding around.\"\n\n\"That was a lie.\"\n\n\"Do you think they'll let you get away with it?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What will they do to you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Do you think they'll court-martial you for desertion in the face of the enemy?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"I hope you get away with it,\" said the pilot in Dunbar's squadron, stealing out of sight into the shadows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me know how you're doing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian stared after him a few seconds and continued toward his tent.\n\n\"Pssst!\" said a voice a few paces onward. It was Appleby, hiding in back of a tree. \"How are you doing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pretty good,\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I heard them say they were going to threaten to court-martial you for deserting in the face of the enemy. But that they wouldn't try to go through with it because they're not even sure they've got a case against you on that. And because it might make them look bad with the new commanders. Besides, you're still a pretty big hero for going around twice over the bridge at Ferrara. I guess you're just about the biggest hero we've got now in the group. I just thought you'd like to know that they'll only be bluffing.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Appleby.\"\n\n\"That's the only reason I started talking to you, to warn you.\"\n\n\"I appreciate it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Appleby scuffed the toes of his shoes into the ground sheepishly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry we had that fist fight in the officers' club, Yossarian.\"\n\n\"That's all right.\"\n\n\"But I didn't start it. I guess that was Orr's fault for hitting me in the face with his ping-pong paddle. What'd he want to do that for?\"\n\n\"You were beating him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wasn't I supposed to beat him? Isn't that the point? Now that he's dead, I guess it doesn't matter any more whether I'm a better ping-pong player or not, does it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess not.\"\n\n\"And I'm sorry about making such a fuss about those Atabrine tablets on the way over. If you want to catch malaria, I guess it's your business, isn't it?\"\n\n\"That's all right, Appleby.\"\n\n\"But I was only trying to do my duty. I was obeying orders. I was always taught that I had to obey orders.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's all right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know, I said to Colonel Korn and Colonel Cathcart that I didn't think they ought to make you fly any more missions if you didn't want to, and they said they were very disappointed in me.\"\n\nYossarian smiled with rueful amusement. \"I'll bet they are.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't care. Hell, you've flown seventy-one. That ought to be enough. Do you think they'll let you get away with it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Say, if they do let you get away with it, they'll have to let the rest of us get away with it, won't they?\"\n\n\"That's why they can't let me get away with it.\"\n\n\"What do you think they'll do?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you think they will try to court-martial you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Are you afraid?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Are you going to fly more missions?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hope you do get away with it,\" Appleby whispered with conviction. \"I really do.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Appleby.\"\n\n\"I don't feel too happy about flying so many missions either now that it looks as though we've got the war won. I'll let you know if I hear anything else.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Appleby.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey!\" called a muted, peremptory voice from the leafless shrubs growing beside his tent in a waist-high clump after Appleby had gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Havermeyer was hiding there in a squat. He was eating peanut brittle, and his pimples and large, oily pores looked like dark scales. \"How you doing?\" he asked when Yossarian had walked to him.\n\n\"Pretty good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you going to fly more missions?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\n\"Suppose they try to make you?\"\n\n\"I won't let them.\"\n\n\"Are you yellow?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will they court-martial you?\"\n\n\"They'll probably try.\"\n\n\"What did Major Major say?\"\n\n\"Major Major's gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did they disappear him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"What will you do if they decide to disappear you?\"\n\n\"I'll try to stop them.\"\n\n\"Didn't they offer you any deals or anything if you did fly?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Piltchard and Wren said they'd arrange things so I'd only go on milk runs.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Havermeyer perked up. \"Say, that sounds like a pretty good deal. I wouldn't mind a deal like that myself. I bet you snapped it up.\"\n\n\"I turned it down.\"\n\n\"That was dumb.\" Havermeyer's stolid, dull face furrowed with consternation. \"Say, a deal like that wasn't so fair to the rest of us, was it? If you only flew on milk runs, then some of us would have to fly your share of the dangerous missions, wouldn't we?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Say, I don't like that,\" Havermeyer exclaimed, rising resentfully with his hands clenched on his hips. \"I don't like that a bit. That's a real royal screwing they're getting ready to give me just because you're too goddam yellow to fly any more missions, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Take it up with them,\" said Yossarian and moved his hand to his gun vigilantly.\n\n\"No, I'm not blaming you,\" said Havermeyer, \"even though I don't like you. You know, I'm not too happy about flying so many missions any more either. Isn't there some way I can get out of it, too?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian snickered ironically and joked, \"Put a gun on and start marching with me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Havermeyer shook his head thoughtfully. \"Nah, I couldn't do that. I might bring some disgrace on my wife and kid if I acted like a coward. Nobody likes a coward. Besides, I want to stay in the reserves when the war is over. You get five hundred dollars a year if you stay in the reserves.\"\n\n\"Then fly more missions.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I guess I have to. Say, do you think there's any chance they might take you off combat duty and send you home?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But if they do and let you take one person with you, will you pick me? Don't pick anyone like Appleby. Pick me.\"\n\n\"Why in the world should they do something like that?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But if they do, just remember that I asked you first, will you? And let me know how you're doing. I'll wait for you here in these bushes every night. Maybe if they don't do anything bad to you, I won't fly any more missions either. Okay?\"\n\nAll the next evening, people kept popping up at him out of the darkness to ask him how he was doing, appealing to him for confidential information with weary, troubled faces on the basis of some morbid and clandestine kinship he had not guessed existed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People in the squadron he barely knew popped into sight out of nowhere as he passed and asked him how he was doing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even men from other squadrons came one by one to conceal themselves in the darkness and pop out. Everywhere he stepped after sundown someone was lying in wait to pop out and ask him how he was doing. People popped out at him from trees and bushes, from ditches and tall weeds, from around the corners of tents and from behind the fenders of parked cars. Even one of his roommates popped out to ask him how he was doing and pleaded with him not to tell any of his other roommates he had popped out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian drew near each beckoning, overly cautious silhouette with his hand on his gun, never knowing which hissing shadow would finally turn dishonestly into Nately's whore or, worse, into some duly constituted governmental authority sent to club him ruthlessly into insensibility." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It began to look as if they would have to do something like that. They did not want to court-martial him for desertion in the face of the enemy because a hundred and thirty-five miles away from the enemy could hardly be called the face of the enemy, and because Yossarian was the one who had finally knocked down the bridge at Ferrara by going around twice over the target and killing Kraft-he was always almost forgetting Kraft when he counted the dead men he knew. But they had to do something to him, and everyone waited grimly to see what horrible thing it would be.\n\nDuring the day, they avoided him, even Aarfy, and Yossarian understood that they were different people together in daylight than they were alone in the dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not care about them at all as he walked about backward with his hand on his gun and awaited the latest blandishments, threats and inducements from Group each time Captains Piltchard and Wren drove back from another urgent conference with Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hungry Joe was hardly around, and the only other person who ever spoke to him was Captain Black, who called him \"Old Blood and Guts\" in a merry, taunting voice each time he hailed him and who came back from Rome toward the end of the week to tell him Nately's whore was gone. Yossarian turned sorry with a stab of yearning and remorse. He missed her.\n\n\"Gone?\" he echoed in a hollow tone.\n\n\"Yeah, gone.\" Captain Black laughed, his bleary eyes narrow with fatigue and his peaked, sharp face sprouting as usual with a sparse reddish-blond stubble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rubbed the bags under his eyes with both fists." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought I might as well give the stupid broad another boff just for old times' sake as long as I was in Rome anyway. You know, just to keep that kid Nately's body spinning in his grave, ha, ha! Remember the way I used to needle him? But the place was empty.\"\n\n\"Was there any word from her?\" prodded Yossarian, who had been brooding incessantly about the girl, wondering how much she was suffering, and feeling almost lonely and deserted without her ferocious and unappeasable attacks.\n\n\"There's no one there,\" Captain Black exclaimed cheerfully, trying to make Yossarian understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you understand? They're all gone. The whole place is busted.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gone?\"\n\n\"Yeah, gone. Flushed right out into the street.\" Captain Black chuckled heartily again, and his pointed Adam's apple jumped up and down with glee inside his scraggly neck. \"The joint's empty. The M.P.s busted the whole apartment up and drove the whores right out. Ain't that a laugh?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian was scared and began to tremble." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why'd they do that?\"\n\n\"What difference does it make? responded Captain Black with an exuberant gesture. \"They flushed them right out into the street. How do you like that? The whole batch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about the kid sister?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Flushed away,\" laughed Captain Black. \"Flushed away with the rest of the broads. Right out into the street.\"\n\n\"But she's only a kid!\" Yossarian objected passionately. \"She doesn't know anybody else in the whole city. What's going to happen to her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the hell do I care?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "responded Captain Black with an indifferent shrug, and then gawked suddenly at Yossarian with surprise and with a crafty gleam of prying elation. \"Say, what's the matter? If I knew this was going to make you so unhappy, I would have come right over and told you, just to make you eat your liver. Hey, where are you going? Come on back! Come on back here and eat your liver!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with four sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Joseph Heller.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next four sentences in the distinctive voice of Joseph Heller.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a Joseph Heller sorta thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian was going absent without official leave with Milo, who, as the plane cruised toward Rome, shook his head reproachfully and, with pious lips pulsed, informed Yossarian in ecclesiastical tones that he was ashamed of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian nodded. Yossarian was making an uncouth spectacle of himself by walking around backward with his gun on his hip and refusing to fly more combat missions, Milo said. Yossarian nodded. It was disloyal to his squadron and embarrassing to his superiors. He was placing Milo in a very uncomfortable position, too. Yossarian nodded again. The men were starting to grumble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not fair for Yossarian to think only of his own safety while men like Milo, Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn and ex-P.F.C." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wintergreen were willing to do everything they could to win the war. The men with seventy missions were starring to grumble because they had to fly eighty, and there was a danger some of them might put on guns and begin walking around backward, too. Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian kept nodding in the co-pilot's seat and tried not to listen as Milo prattled on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nately's whore was on his mind, as were Kraft and Orr and Nately and Dunbar, and Kid Sampson and McWatt, and all the poor and stupid and diseased people he had seen in Italy, Egypt and North Africa and knew about in other areas of the world, and Snowden and Nately's whore's kid sister were on his conscience, too. Yossarian thought he knew why Nately's whore held him responsible for Nately's death and wanted to kill him. Why the hell shouldn't she? It was a man's world, and she and everyone younger had every right to blame him and everyone older for every unnatural tragedy that befell them; just as she, even in her grief, was to blame for every man-made misery that landed on her kid sister and on all other children behind her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone had to do something sometime." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim, and somebody had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain of inherited habit that was imperiling them all. In parts of Africa little boys were still stolen away by adult slave traders and sold for money to men who disemboweled them and ate them. Yossarian marveled that children could suffer such barbaric sacrifice without evincing the slightest hint of fear or pain. He took it for granted that they did submit so stoically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If not, he reasoned, the custom would certainly have died, for no craving for wealth or immortality could be so great, he felt, as to subsist on the sorrow of children." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was rocking the boat, Milo said, and Yossarian nodded once more. He was not a good member of the team, Milo said. Yossarian nodded and listened to Milo tell him that the decent thing to do if he did not like the way Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn were running the group was go to Russia, instead of stirring up trouble. Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn had both been very good to Yossarian, Milo said; hadn't they given him a medal after the last mission to Ferrara and promoted him to captain?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian nodded. Didn't they feed him and give him his pay every month? Yossarian nodded again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo was sure they would be charitable if he went to them to apologize and recant and promise to fly eighty missions. Yossarian said he would think it over, and held his breath and prayed for a safe landing as Milo dropped his wheels and glided in toward the runway. It was funny how he had really come to detest flying.\n\nRome was in ruins, he saw, when the plane was down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The airdrome had been bombed eight months before, and knobby slabs of white stone rubble had been bulldozed into flat-topped heaps on both sides of the entrance through the wire fence surrounding the field." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Colosseum was a dilapidated shell, and the Arch of Constantine had fallen. Nately's whore's apartment was a shambles. The girls were gone, and the only one there was the old woman. The windows in the apartment had been smashed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was bundled up in sweaters and skirts and wore a dark shawl about her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat on a wooden chair near an electric hot plate, her arms folded, boiling water in a battered aluminum pot. She was talking aloud to herself when Yossarian entered and began moaning as soon as she saw him.\n\n\"Gone,\" she moaned before he could even inquire. Holding her elbows, she rocked back and forth mournfully on her creaking chair. \"Gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All. All the poor young girls.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Away. Chased away into the street. All of them gone. All the poor young girls.\"\n\n\"Chased away by who? Who did it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The mean tall soldiers with the hard white hats and clubs. And by our carabinieri. They came with their clubs and chased them away. They would not even let them take their coats. The poor things. They just chased them away into the cold.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did they arrest them?\"\n\n\"They chased them away. They just chased them away.\"\n\n\"Then why did they do it if they didn't arrest them?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" sobbed the old woman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know. Who will take care of me? Who will take care of me now that all the poor young girls are gone? Who will take care of me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There must have been a reason,\" Yossarian persisted, pounding his fist into his hand. \"They couldn't just barge in here and chase everyone out.\"\n\n\"No reason,\" wailed the old woman. \"No reason.\"\n\n\"What right did they have?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Catch-22.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" Yossarian froze in his tracks with fear and alarm and felt his whole body begin to tingle. \"What did you say?\"\n\n\"Catch-22\" the old woman repeated, rocking her head up and down. \"Catch-22. Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the hell are you talking about?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian shouted at her in bewildered, furious protest. \"How did you know it was Catch-22? Who the hell told you it was Catch-22?\"\n\n\"The soldiers with the hard white hats and clubs. The girls were crying. 'Did we do anything wrong?' they said. The men said no and pushed them away out the door with the ends of their clubs. 'Then why are you chasing us out?' the girls said. 'Catch-22,' the men said. 'What right do you have?' the girls said. 'Catch-22,' the men said. All they kept saying was 'Catch-22, Catch-22.' What does it mean, Catch-22? What is Catch-22?\"\n\n\"Didn't they show it to you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian demanded, stamping about in anger and distress." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't you even make them read it?\"\n\n\"They don't have to show us Catch-22,\" the old woman answered. \"The law says they don't have to.\"\n\n\"What law says they don't have to?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Catch-22.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, God damn!\" Yossarian exclaimed bitterly. \"I bet it wasn't even really there.\" He stopped walking and glanced about the room disconsolately. \"Where's the old man?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gone,\" mourned the old woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gone?\"\n\n\"Dead,\" the old woman told him, nodding in emphatic lament, pointing to her head with the flat of her hand. \"Something broke in here. One minute he was living, one minute he was dead.\"\n\n\"But he can't be dead!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian cried, ready to argue insistently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But of course he knew it was true, knew it was logical and true; once again the old man had marched along with the majority.\n\nYossarian turned away and trudged through the apartment with a gloomy scowl, peering with pessimistic curiosity into all the rooms. Everything made of glass had been smashed by the men with the clubs. Torn drapes and bedding lay dumped on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chairs, tables and dressers had been overturned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything breakable had been broken. The destruction was total. No wild vandals could have been more thorough. Every window was smashed, and darkness poured like inky clouds into each room through the shattered panes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian could imagine the heavy, crashing footfalls of the tall M.P.s in the hard white hats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could picture the fiery and malicious exhilaration with which they had made their wreckage, and their sanctimonious, ruthless sense of right and dedication. All the poor young girls were gone. Everyone was gone but the weeping old woman in the bulky brown and gray sweaters and black head shawl, and soon she too would be gone.\n\n\"Gone,\" she grieved, when he walked back in, before he could even speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who will take care of me now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian ignored the question. \"Nately's girl friend-did anyone hear from her?\" he asked.\n\n\"Gone.\"\n\n\"I know she's gone. But did anyone hear from her? Does anyone know where she is?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The little sister. What happened to her?\"\n\n\"Gone.\" The old woman's tone had not changed.\n\n\"Do you know what I'm talking about?\" Yossarian asked sharply, staring into her eyes to see if she were not speaking to him from a coma." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He raised his voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What happened to the kid sister, to the little girl?\"\n\n\"Gone, gone,\" the old woman replied with a crabby shrug, irritated by his persistence, her low wail growing louder. \"Chased away with the rest, chased away into the street. They would not even let her take her coat.\"\n\n\"Where did she go?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know. I don't know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who will take care of her?\"\n\n\"Who will take care of me?\"\n\n\"She doesn't know anybody else, does she?\"\n\n\"Who will take care of me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian left money in the old woman's lap-it was odd how many wrongs leaving money seemed to right-and strode out of the apartment, cursing Catch-22 vehemently as he descended the stairs, even though he knew there was no such thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Catch-22 did not exist, he was positive of that, but it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to shreds, trample upon or burn up.\n\nIt was cold outside, and dark, and a leaky, insipid mist lay swollen in the air and trickled down the large, unpolished stone blocks of the houses and the pedestals of monuments. Yossarian hurried back to Milo and recanted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said he was sorry and, knowing he was lying, promised to fly as many more missions as Colonel Cathcart wanted if Milo would only use all his influence in Rome to help him locate Nately's whore's kid sister." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's just a twelve-year-old virgin, Milo,\" he explained anxiously, \"and I want to find her before it's too late.\"\n\nMilo responded to his request with a benign smile. \"I've got just the twelve-year-old virgin you're looking for,\" he announced jubilantly. \"This twelve-year-old virgin is really only thirty-four, but she was brought up on a low-protein diet by very strict parents and didn't start sleeping with men until-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Milo, I'm talking about a little girl!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian interrupted him with desperate impatience. \"Don't you understand? I don't want to sleep with her. I want to help her. You've got daughters. She's just a little kid, and she's all alone in this city with no one to take care of her. I want to protect her from harm. Don't you know what I'm talking about?\"\n\nMilo did understand and was deeply touched. \"Yossarian, I'm proud of you,\" he exclaimed with profound emotion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I really am. You don't know how glad I am to see that everything isn't always just sex with you. You've got principles. Certainly I've got daughters, and I know exactly what you're talking about. We'll find that girl if we have to turn this whole city upside down. Come along.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian went along in Milo Minderbinder's speeding M amp; M staff car to police headquarters to meet a swarthy, untidy police commissioner with a narrow black mustache and unbuttoned tunic who was fiddling with a stout woman with warts and two chins when they entered his office and who greeted Milo with warm surprise and bowed and scraped in obscene servility as though Milo were some elegant marquis.\n\n\"Ah, Marchese Milo,\" he declared with effusive pleasure, pushing the fat, disgruntled woman out the door without even looking toward her. \"Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I would have a big party for you. Come in, come in, Marchese. You almost never visit us any more.\"\n\nMilo knew that there was not one moment to waste." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hello, Luigi,\" he said, nodding so briskly that he almost seemed rude." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Luigi, I need your help. My friend here wants to find a girl.\"\n\n\"A girl, Marchese?\" said Luigi, scratching his face pensively. \"There are lots of girls in Rome. For an American officer, a girl should not be too difficult.\"\n\n\"No, Luigi, you don't understand. This is a twelve-year-old virgin that he has to find right away.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, yes, now I understand,\" Luigi said sagaciously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A virgin might take a little time. But if he waits at the bus terminal where the young farm girls looking for work arrive, I-\"\n\n\"Luigi, you still don't understand,\" Milo snapped with such brusque impatience that the police commissioner's face flushed and he jumped to attention and began buttoning his uniform in confusion. \"This girl is a friend, an old friend of the family, and we want to help her. She's only a child. She's all alone in this city somewhere, and we have to find her before somebody harms her. Now do you understand? Luigi, this is very important to me. I have a daughter the same age as that little girl, and nothing in the world means more to me right now than saving that poor child before it's too late. Will you help?\"\n\n\"Si, Marchese, now I understand,\" said Luigi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I will do everything in my power to find her. But tonight I have almost no men. Tonight all my men are busy trying to break up the traffic in illegal tobacco.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Illegal tobacco?\" asked Milo.\n\n\"Milo,\" Yossarian bleated faintly with a sinking heart, sensing at once that all was lost.\n\n\"Si, Marchese,\" said Luigi. \"The profit in illegal tobacco is so high that the smuggling is almost impossible to control.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is there really that much profit in illegal tobacco?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Milo inquired with keen interest, his rust-colored eyebrows arching avidly and his nostrils sniffing.\n\n\"Milo,\" Yossarian called to him. \"Pay attention to me, will you?\"\n\n\"Si, Marchese,\" Luigi answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The profit in illegal tobacco is very high. The smuggling is a national scandal, Marchese, truly a national disgrace.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that a fact?\" Milo observed with a preoccupied smile and started toward the door as though in a spell.\n\n\"Milo!\" Yossarian yelled, and bounded forward impulsively to intercept him. \"Milo, you've got to help me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Illegal tobacco,\" Milo explained to him with a look of epileptic lust, struggling doggedly to get by." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let me go. I've got to smuggle illegal tobacco.\"\n\n\"Stay here and help me find her,\" pleaded Yossarian. \"You can smuggle illegal tobacco tomorrow.\"\n\nBut Milo was deaf and kept pushing forward, nonviolently but irresistibly, sweating, his eyes, as though he were in the grip of a blind fixation, burning feverishly, and his twitching mouth slavering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He moaned calmly as though in remote, instinctive distress and kept repeating, \"Illegal tobacco, illegal tobacco.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian stepped out of the way with resignation finally when he saw it was hopeless to try to reason with him. Milo was gone like a shot. The commissioner of police unbuttoned his tunic again and looked at Yossarian with contempt.\n\n\"What do you want here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked coldly. \"Do you want me to arrest you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian walked out of the office and down the stairs into the dark, tomblike street, passing in the hall the stout woman with warts and two chins, who was already on her way back in. There was no sign of Milo outside. There were no lights in any of the windows. The deserted sidewalk rose steeply and continuously for several blocks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could see the glare of a broad avenue at the top of the long cobblestone incline." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The police station was almost at the bottom; the yellow bulbs at the entrance sizzled in the dampness like wet torches. A frigid, fine rain was falling. He began walking slowly, pushing uphill. Soon he came to a quiet, cozy, inviting restaurant with red velvet drapes in the windows and a blue neon sign near the door that said: TONY's RESTAURANT FINE FOOD AND DRINK." }, { "from": "human", "value": "KEEP OUT. The words on the blue neon sign surprised him mildly for only an instant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing warped seemed bizarre any more in his strange, distorted surroundings. The tops of the sheer buildings slanted in weird, surrealistic perspective, and the street seemed tilted. He raised the collar of his warm woolen coat and hugged it around him. The night was raw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A boy in a thin shirt and thin tattered trousers walked out of the darkness on bare feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The boy had black hair and needed a haircut and shoes and socks. His sickly face was pale and sad. His feet made grisly, soft, sucking sounds in the rain puddles on the wet pavement as he passed, and Yossarian was moved by such intense pity for his poverty that he wanted to smash his pale, sad, sickly face with his fist and knock him out of existence because he brought to mind all the pale, sad, sickly children in Italy that same night who needed haircuts and needed shoes and socks. He made Yossarian think of cripples and of cold and hungry men and women, and of all the dumb, passive, devout mothers with catatonic eyes nursing infants outdoors that same night with chilled animal udders bared insensibly to that same raw rain. Cows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost on cue, a nursing mother padded past holding an infant in black rags, and Yossarian wanted to smash her too, because she reminded him of the barefoot boy in the thin shirt and thin, tattered trousers and of all the shivering, stupefying misery in a world that never yet had provided enough heat and food and justice for all but an ingenious and unscrupulous handful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to blackguards for petty cash, how many had never had souls?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere. Yossarian walked in lonely torture, feeling estranged, and could not wipe from his mind the excruciating image of the barefoot boy with sickly cheeks until he turned the corner into the avenue finally and came upon an Allied soldier having convulsions on the ground, a young lieutenant with a small, pale, boyish face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Six other soldiers from different countries wrestled with different parts of him, striving to help him and hold him still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He yelped and groaned unintelligibly through clenched teeth, his eyes rolled up into his head. \"Don't let him bite his tongue off,\" a short sergeant near Yossarian advised shrewdly, and a seventh man threw himself into the fray to wrestle with the ill lieutenant's face. All at once the wrestlers won and turned to each other undecidedly, for now that they held the young lieutenant rigid they did not know what to do with him. A quiver of moronic panic spread from one straining brute face to another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why don't you lift him up and put him on the hood of that car?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "a corporal standing in back of Yossarian drawled. That seemed to make sense, so the seven men lifted the young lieutenant up and stretched him out carefully on the hood of a parked car, still pinning each struggling part of him down. Once they had him stretched out on the hood of the parked car, they stared at each other uneasily again, for they had no idea what to do with him next. \"Why don't you lift him up off the hood of that car and lay him down on the ground?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "drawled the same corporal behind Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That seemed like a good idea, too, and they began to move him back to the sidewalk, but before they could finish, a jeep raced up with a flashing red spotlight at the side and two military policemen in the front seat.\n\n\"What's going on?\" the driver yelled.\n\n\"He's having convulsions,\" one of the men grappling with one of the young lieutenant's limbs answered. \"We're holding him still.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's good. He's under arrest.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What should we do with him?\"\n\n\"Keep him under arrest!\" the M.P. shouted, doubling over with raucous laughter at his jest, and sped away in his jeep.\n\nYossarian recalled that he had no leave papers and moved prudently past the strange group toward the sound of muffled voices emanating from a distance inside the murky darkness ahead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The broad, rain-blotched boulevard was illuminated every half-block by short, curling lampposts with eerie, shimmering glares surrounded by smoky brown mist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From a window overhead he heard an unhappy female voice pleading, \"Please don't. Please don't.\" A despondent young woman in a black raincoat with much black hair on her face passed with her eyes lowered. At the Ministry of Public Affairs on the next block, a drunken lady was backed up against one of the fluted Corinthian columns by a drunken young soldier, while three drunken comrades in arms sat watching nearby on the steps with wine bottles standing between their legs. \"Pleeshe don't,\" begged the drunken lady." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I want to go home now. Pleeshe don't.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the sitting men cursed pugnaciously and hurled a wine bottle at Yossarian when he turned to look up. The bottle shattered harmlessly far away with a brief and muted noise. Yossarian continued walking away at the same listless, unhurried pace, hands buried in his pockets. \"Come on, baby,\" he heard the drunken soldier urge determinedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's my turn now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pleeshe don't,\" begged the drunken lady. \"Pleeshe don't.\" At the very next corner, deep inside the dense, impenetrable shadows of a narrow, winding side street, he heard the mysterious, unmistakable sound of someone shoveling snow. The measured, labored, evocative scrape of iron shovel against concrete made his flesh crawl with terror as he stepped from the curb to cross the ominous alley and hurried onward until the haunting, incongruous noise had been left behind. Now he knew where he was: soon, if he continued without turning, he would come to the dry fountain in the middle of the boulevard, then to the officers' apartment seven blocks beyond." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He heard snarling, inhuman voices cutting through the ghostly blackness in front suddenly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bulb on the corner lamp post had died, spilling gloom over half the street, throwing everything visible off balance. On the other side of the intersection, a man was beating a dog with a stick like the man who was beating the horse with a whip in Raskolnikov's dream. Yossarian strained helplessly not to see or hear. The dog whimpered and squealed in brute, dumbfounded hysteria at the end of an old Manila rope and groveled and crawled on its belly without resisting, but the man beat it and beat it anyway with his heavy, flat stick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A small crowd watched." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A squat woman stepped out and asked him please to stop. \"Mind your own business,\" the man barked gruffly, lifting his stick as though he might beat her too, and the woman retreated sheepishly with an abject and humiliated air. Yossarian quickened his pace to get away, almost ran. The night was filled with horrors, and he thought he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through the world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts, like a victim through a prison full of thieves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What a welcome sight a leper must have been!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the next corner a man was beating a small boy brutally in the midst of an immobile crowd of adult spectators who made no effort to intervene. Yossarian recoiled with sickening recognition. He was certain he had witnessed that same horrible scene sometime before. Déjà vu? The sinister coincidence shook him and filled him with doubt and dread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the same scene he had witnessed a block before, although everything in it seemed quite different." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What in the world was happening? Would a squat woman step out and ask the man to please stop? Would he raise his hand to strike her and would she retreat? Nobody moved. The child cried steadily as though in drugged misery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man kept knocking him down with hard, resounding open-palm blows to the head, then jerking him up to his feet in order to knock him down again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one in the sullen, cowering crowd seemed to care enough about the stunned and beaten boy to interfere. The child was no more than nine. One drab woman was weeping silently into a dirty dish towel. The boy was emaciated and needed a haircut." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bright-red blood was streaming from both ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian crossed quickly to the other side of the immense avenue to escape the nauseating sight and found himself walking on human teeth lying on the drenched, glistening pavement near splotches of blood kept sticky by the pelting raindrops poking each one like sharp fingernails. Molars and broken incisors lay scattered everywhere. He circled on tiptoe the grotesque debris and came near a doorway containing a crying soldier holding a saturated handkerchief to his mouth, supported as he sagged by two other soldiers waiting in grave impatience for the military ambulance that finally came clanging up with amber fog lights on and passed them by for an altercation on the next block between a civilian Italian with books and a slew of civilian policemen with armlocks and clubs. The screaming, struggling civilian was a dark man with a face white as flour from fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes were pulsating in hectic desperation, flapping like bat's wings, as the many tall policemen seized him by the arms and legs and lifted him up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His books were spilled on the ground. \"Help!\" he shrieked shrilly in a voice strangling in its own emotion, as the policemen carried him to the open doors in the rear of the ambulance and threw him inside. \"Police! Help! Police!\" The doors were shut and bolted, and the ambulance raced away. There was a humorless irony in the ludicrous panic of the man screaming for help to the police while policemen were all around him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian smiled wryly at the futile and ridiculous cry for aid, then saw with a start that the words were ambiguous, realized with alarm that they were not, perhaps, intended as a call for police but as a heroic warning from the grave by a doomed friend to everyone who was not a policeman with a club and a gun and a mob of other policemen with clubs and guns to back him up. \"Help! Police!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the man had cried, and he could have been shouting of danger. Yossarian responded to the thought by slipping away stealthily from the police and almost tripped over the feet of a burly woman of forty hastening across the intersection guiltily, darting furtive, vindictive glances behind her toward a woman of eighty with thick, bandaged ankles doddering after her in a losing pursuit. The old woman was gasping for breath as she minced along and muttering to herself in distracted agitation. There was no mistaking the nature of the scene; it was a chase." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The triumphant first woman was halfway across the wide avenue before the second woman reached the curb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The nasty, small, gloating smile with which she glanced back at the laboring old woman was both wicked and apprehensive. Yossarian knew he could help the troubled old woman if she would only cry out, knew he could spring forward and capture the sturdy first woman and hold her for the mob of policemen nearby if the second woman would only give him license with a shriek of distress. But the old woman passed by without even seeing him, mumbling in terrible, tragic vexation, and soon the first woman had vanished into the deepening layers of darkness and the old woman was left standing helplessly in the center of the thoroughfare, dazed, uncertain which way to proceed, alone. Yossarian tore his eyes from her and hurried away in shame because he had done nothing to assist her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He darted furtive, guilty glances back as he fled in defeat, afraid the old woman might now start following him, and he welcomed the concealing shelter of the drizzling, drifting, lightless, nearly opaque gloom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mobs... mobs of policemen-everything but England was in the hands of mobs, mobs, mobs. Mobs with clubs were in control everywhere.\n\nThe surface of the collar and shoulders of Yossarian's coat was soaked. His socks were wet and cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The light on the next lamppost was out, too, the glass globe broken." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Buildings and featureless shapes flowed by him noiselessly as though borne past immutably on the surface of some rank and timeless tide. A tall monk passed, his face buried entirely inside a coarse gray cowl, even the eyes hidden. Footsteps sloshed toward him steadily through a puddle, and he feared it would be another barefoot child. He brushed by a gaunt, cadaverous, tristful man in a black raincoat with a star-shaped scar in his cheek and a glossy mutilated depression the size of an egg in one temple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On squishing straw sandals, a young woman materialized with her whole face disfigured by a God-awful pink and piebald burn that started on her neck and stretched in a raw, corrugated mass up both cheeks past her eyes!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian could not bear to look, and shuddered. No one would ever love her. His spirit was sick; he longed to lie down with some girl he could love who would soothe and excite him and put him to sleep. A mob with a club was waiting for him in Pianosa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girls were all gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The countess and her daughter-in-law were no longer good enough; he had grown too old for fun, he no longer had the time. Luciana was gone, dead, probably; if not yet, then soon enough. Aarfy's buxom trollop had vanished with her smutty cameo ring, and Nurse Duckett was ashamed of him because he had refused to fly more combat missions and would cause a scandal. The only girl he knew nearby was the plain maid in the officers' apartment, whom none of the men had ever slept with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her name was Michaela, but the men called her filthy things in dulcet, ingratiating voices, and she giggled with childish joy because she understood no English and thought they were flattering her and making harmless jokes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything wild she watched them do filled her with enchanted delight. She was a happy, simple-minded, hard-working girl who could not read and was barely able to write her name. Her straight hair was the color of rotting straw. She had sallow skin and myopic eyes, and none of the men had ever slept with her because none of the men had ever wanted to, none but Aarfy, who had raped her once that same evening and had then held her prisoner in a clothes closet for almost two hours with his hand over her mouth until the civilian curfew sirens sounded and it was unlawful for her to be outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he threw her out the window." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her dead body was still lying on the pavement when Yossarian arrived and pushed his way politely through the circle of solemn neighbors with dim lanterns, who glared with venom as they shrank away from him and pointed up bitterly toward the second-floor windows in their private, grim, accusing conversations. Yossarian's heart pounded with fright and horror at the pitiful, ominous, gory spectacle of the broken corpse. He ducked into the hallway and bolted up the stairs into the apartment, where he found Aarfy pacing about uneasily with a pompous, slightly uncomfortable smile. Aarfy seemed a bit unsettled as he fidgeted with his pipe and assured Yossarian that everything was going to be all right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was nothing to worry about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I only raped her once,\" he explained.\n\nYossarian was aghast. \"But you killed her, Aarfy! You killed her!\"\n\n\"Oh, I had to do that after I raped her,\" Aarfy replied in his most condescending manner. \"I couldn't very well let her go around saying bad things about us, could I?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But why did you have to touch her at all, you dumb bastard?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian shouted. \"Why couldn't you get yourself a girl off the street if you wanted one? The city is full of prostitutes.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, not me,\" Aarfy bragged. \"I never paid for it in my life.\"\n\n\"Aarfy, are you insane?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian was almost speechless." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You killed a girl. They're going to put you in jail!\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Aarfy answered with a forced smile. \"Not me. They aren't going to put good old Aarfy in jail. Not for killing her.\"\n\n\"But you threw her out the window. She's lying dead in the street.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She has no right to be there,\" Aarfy answered. \"It's after curfew.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stupid! Don't you realize what you've done?\" Yossarian wanted to grab Aarfy by his well-fed, caterpillar-soft shoulders and shake some sense into him. \"You've murdered a human being. They are going to put you in jail. They might even hang you!\"\n\n\"Oh, I hardly think they'll do that,\" Aarfy replied with a jovial chuckle, although his symptoms of nervousness increased." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He spilled tobacco crumbs unconsciously as his short fingers fumbled with the bowl of his pipe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sirree. Not to good old Aarfy.\" He chortled again. \"She was only a servant girl. I hardly think they're going to make too much of a fuss over one poor Italian servant girl when so many thousands of lives are being lost every day. Do you?\"\n\n\"Listen!\" Yossarian cried, almost in joy. He pricked up his ears and watched the blood drain from Aarfy's face as sirens mourned far away, police sirens, and then ascended almost instantaneously to a howling, strident, onrushing cacophony of overwhelming sound that seemed to crash into the room around them from every side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aarfy, they're coming for you,\" he said in a flood of compassion, shouting to be heard above the noise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're coming to arrest you. Aarfy, don't you understand? You can't take the life of another human being and get away with it, even if she is just a poor servant girl. Don't you see? Can't you understand?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Aarfy insisted with a lame laugh and a weak smile. \"They're not coming to arrest me. Not good old Aarfy.\"\n\nAll at once he looked sick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sank down on a chair in a trembling stupor, his stumpy, lax hands quaking in his lap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cars skidded to a stop outside. Spotlights hit the windows immediately. Car doors slammed and police whistles screeched. Voices rose harshly. Aarfy was green." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He kept shaking his head mechanically with a queer, numb smile and repeating in a weak, hollow monotone that they were not coming for him, not for good old Aarfy, no sirree, striving to convince himself that this was so even as heavy footsteps raced up the stairs and pounded across the landing, even as fists beat on the door four times with a deafening, inexorable force." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the door to the apartment flew open, and two large, tough, brawny M.P.s with icy eyes and firm, sinewy, unsmiling jaws entered quickly, strode across the room, and arrested Yossarian.\n\nThey arrested Yossarian for being in Rome without a pass.\n\nThey apologized to Aarfy for intruding and led Yossarian away between them, gripping him under each arm with fingers as hard as steel manacles. They said nothing at all to him on the way down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two more tall M.P.s with clubs and hard white helmets were waiting outside at a closed car." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They marched Yossarian into the back seat, and the car roared away and weaved through the rain and muddy fog to a police station. The M.P.s locked him up for the night in a cell with four stone walls. At dawn they gave him a pail for a latrine and drove him to the airport, where two more giant M.P.s with clubs and white helmets were waiting at a transport plane whose engines were already warming up when they arrived, the cylindrical green cowlings oozing quivering beads of condensation. None of the M.P.s said anything to each other either." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They did not even nod." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian had never seen such granite faces. The plane flew to Pianosa. Two more silent M.P.s were waiting at the landing strip. There were now eight, and they filed with precise, wordless discipline into two cars and sped on humming tires past the four squadron areas to the Group Headquarters building, where still two more M.P.s were waiting at the parking area." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All ten tall, strong, purposeful, silent men towered around him as they turned toward the entrance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their footsteps crunched in loud unison on the cindered ground. He had an impression of accelerating haste. He was terrified. Every one of the ten M.P.s seemed powerful enough to bash him to death with a single blow. They had only to press their massive, toughened, boulderous shoulders against him to crush all life from his body." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was, of course, a catch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Catch-22?\" inquired Yossarian.\n\n\"Of course,\" Colonel Korn answered pleasantly, after he had chased the mighty guard of massive M.P.s out with an insouciant flick of his hand and a slightly contemptuous nod-most relaxed, as always, when he could be most cynical. His rimless square eyeglasses glinted with sly amusement as he gazed at Yossarian. \"After all, we can't simply send you home for refusing to fly more missions and keep the rest of the men here, can we? That would hardly be fair to them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're goddam right!\" Colonel Cathcart blurted out, lumbering back and forth gracelessly like a winded bull, puffing and pouting angrily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd like to tie him up hand and foot and throw him aboard a plane on every mission. That's what I'd like to do.\"\n\nColonel Korn motioned Colonel Cathcart to be silent and smiled at Yossarian. \"You know, you really have been making things terribly difficult for Colonel Cathcart,\" he observed with flip good humor, as though the fact did not displease him at all. \"The men are unhappy and morale is beginning to deteriorate. And it's all your fault.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's your fault,\" Yossarian argued, \"for raising the number of missions.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, it's your fault for refusing to fly them,\" Colonel Korn retorted. \"The men were perfectly content to fly as many missions as we asked as long as they thought they had no alternative. Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.\"\n\n\"Doesn't he know there's a war going on?\" Colonel Cathcart, still stamping back and forth, demanded morosely without looking at Yossarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm quite sure he does,\" Colonel Korn answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's probably why he refuses to fly them.\"\n\n\"Doesn't it make any difference to him?\"\n\n\"Will the knowledge that there's a war going on weaken your decision to refuse to participate in it?\" Colonel Korn inquired with sarcastic seriousness, mocking Colonel Cathcart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, sir,\" Yossarian replied, almost returning Colonel Korn's smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was afraid of that,\" Colonel Korn remarked with an elaborate sigh, locking his fingers together comfortably on top of his smooth, bald, broad, shiny brown head. \"You know, in all fairness, we really haven't treated you too badly, have we? We've fed you and paid you on time. We gave you a medal and even made you a captain.\"\n\n\"I never should have made him a captain,\" Colonel Cathcart exclaimed bitterly. \"I should have given him a court-martial after he loused up that Ferrara mission and went around twice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I told you not to promote him,\" said Colonel Korn, \"but you wouldn't listen to me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No you didn't. You told me to promote him, didn't you?\"\n\n\"I told you not to promote him. But you just wouldn't listen.\"\n\n\"I should have listened.\"\n\n\"You never listen to me,\" Colonel Korn persisted with relish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the reason we're in this spot.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, gee whiz. Stop rubbing it in, will you?\"\n\nColonel Cathcart burrowed his fists down deep inside his pockets and turned away in a slouch. \"Instead of picking on me, why don't you figure out what we're going to do about him?\"\n\n\"We're going to send him home, I'm afraid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn was chuckling triumphantly when he turned away from Colonel Cathcart to face Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yossarian, the war is over for you. We're going to send you home. You really don't deserve it, you know, which is one of the reasons I don't mind doing it. Since there's nothing else we can risk doing to you at this time, we've decided to return you to the States. We've worked out this little deal to-\"\n\n\"What kind of deal?\" Yossarian demanded with defiant mistrust.\n\nColonel Korn tossed his head back and laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, a thoroughly despicable deal, make no mistake about that. It's absolutely revolting. But you'll accept it quickly enough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't be too sure.\"\n\n\"I haven't the slightest doubt you will, even though it stinks to high heaven. Oh, by the way. You haven't told any of the men you've refused to fly more missions, have you?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" Yossarian answered promptly.\n\nColonel Korn nodded approvingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's good. I like the way you lie. You'll go far in this world if you ever acquire some decent ambition.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Doesn't he know there's a war going on?\" Colonel Cathcart yelled out suddenly, and blew with vigorous disbelief into the open end of his cigarette holder.\n\n\"I'm quite sure he does,\" Colonel Korn replied acidly, \"since you brought that identical point to his attention just a moment ago.\" Colonel Korn frowned wearily for Yossarian's benefit, his eyes twinkling swarthily with sly and daring scorn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gripping the edge of Colonel Cathcart's desk with both hands, he lifted his flaccid haunches far back on the corner to sit with both short legs dangling freely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His shoes kicked lightly against the yellow oak wood, his sludge-brown socks, garterless, collapsed in sagging circles below ankles that were surprisingly small and white. \"You know, Yossarian,\" he mused affably in a manner of casual reflection that seemed both derisive and sincere, \"I really do admire you a bit. You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.\"\n\n\"These are very critical times,\" Colonel Cathcart asserted petulantly from a far corner of the office, paying no attention to Colonel Korn.\n\n\"Very critical times indeed,\" Colonel Korn agreed with a placid nod." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've just had a change of command above, and we can't afford a situation that might put us in a bad light with either General Scheisskopf or General Peckem. Isn't that what you mean, Colonel?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hasn't he got any patriotism?\"\n\n\"Won't you fight for your country?\" Colonel Korn demanded, emulating Colonel Cathcart's harsh, self-righteous tone. \"Won't you give up your life for Colonel Cathcart and me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian tensed with alert astonishment when he heard Colonel Korn's concluding words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's that?\" he exclaimed. \"What have you and Colonel Cathcart got to do with my country? You're not the same.\"\n\n\"How can you separate us?\" Colonel Korn inquired with ironical tranquillity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's right,\" Colonel Cathcart cried emphatically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're either for us or against us. There's no two ways about it.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid he's got you,\" added Colonel Korn. \"You're either for us or against your country. It's as simple as that.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Colonel. I don't buy that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn was unrufed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Neither do I, frankly, but everyone else will. So there you are.\"\n\n\"You're a disgrace to your uniform!\" Colonel Cathcart declared with blustering wrath, whirling to confront Yossarian for the first time. \"I'd like to know how you ever got to be a captain, anyway.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You promoted him,\" Colonel Korn reminded sweetly, stifling a snicker. \"Don't you remember?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I never should have done it.\"\n\n\"I told you not to do it,\" Colonel Korn said. \"But you just wouldn't listen to me.\"\n\n\"Gee whiz, will you stop rubbing it in?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Cathcart cried. He furrowed his brow and glowered at Colonel Korn through eyes narrow with suspicion, his fists clenched on his hips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Say, whose side are you on, anyway?\"\n\n\"Your side, Colonel. What other side could I be on?\"\n\n\"Then stop picking on me, will you? Get off my back, will you?\"\n\n\"I'm on your side, Colonel. I'm just loaded with patriotism.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, just make sure you don't forget that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart turned away grudgingly after another moment, incompletely reassured, and began striding the floor, his hands kneading his long cigarette holder. He jerked a thumb toward Yossarian. \"Let's settle with him. I know what I'd like to do with him. I'd like to take him outside and shoot him. That's what I'd like to do with him. That's what General Dreedle would do with him.\"\n\n\"But General Dreedle isn't with us any more,\" said Colonel Korn, \"so we can't take him outside and shoot him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now that his moment of tension with Colonel Cathcart had passed, Colonel Korn relaxed again and resumed kicking softly against Colonel Cathcart's desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He returned to Yossarian. \"So we're going to send you home instead. It took a bit of thinking, but we finally worked out this horrible little plan for sending you home without causing too much dissatisfaction among the friends you'll leave behind. Doesn't that make you happy?\"\n\n\"What kind of plan? I'm not sure I'm going to like it.\"\n\n\"I know you're not going to like it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn laughed, locking his hands contentedly on top of his head again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're going to loathe it. It really is odious and certainly will offend your conscience. But you'll agree to it quickly enough. You'll agree to it because it will send you home safe and sound in two weeks, and because you have no choice. It's that or a court-martial. Take it or leave it.\"\n\nYossarian snorted. \"Stop bluffing, Colonel. You can't court-martial me for desertion in the face of the enemy. It would make you look bad and you probably couldn't get a conviction.\"\n\n\"But we can court-martial you now for desertion from duty, since you went to Rome without a pass. And we could make it stick. If you think about it a minute, you'll see that you'd leave us no alternative. We can't simply let you keep walking around in open insubordination without punishing you. All the other men would stop flying missions, too. No, you have my word for it. We will court-martial you if you turn our deal down, even though it would raise a lot of questions and be a terrible black eye for Colonel Cathcart.\"\n\nColonel Cathcart winced at the words \"black eye\" and, without any apparent premeditation, hurled his slender onyx-and-ivory cigarette holder down viciously on the wooden surface on his desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jesus Christ!\" he shouted unexpectedly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hate this goddam cigarette holder!\" The cigarette holder bounced off the desk to the wall, ricocheted across the window sill to the floor and came to a stop almost where he was standing. Colonel Cathcart stared down at it with an irascible scowl. \"I wonder if it's really doing me any good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a feather in your cap with General Peckem, but a black eye for you with General Scheisskopf,\" Colonel Korn informed him with a mischievous look of innocence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, which one am I supposed to please?\"\n\n\"Both.\"\n\n\"How can I please them both? They hate each other. How am I ever going to get a feather in my cap from General Scheisskopf without getting a black eye from General Peckem?\"\n\n\"March.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, march. That's the only way to please him. March. March.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Cathcart grimaced sullenly. \"Some generals! They're a disgrace to their uniforms. If people like those two can make general, I don't see how I can miss.\"\n\n\"You're going to go far.\" Colonel Korn assured him with a flat lack of conviction, and turned back chuckling to Yossarian, his disdainful merriment increasing at the sight of Yossarian's unyielding expression of antagonism and distrust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And there you have the crux of the situation. Colonel Cathcart wants to be a general and I want to be a colonel, and that's why we have to send you home.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why does he want to be a general?\"\n\n\"Why? For the same reason that I want to be a colonel. What else have we got to do? Everyone teaches us to aspire to higher things. A general is higher than a colonel, and a colonel is higher than a lieutenant colonel. So we're both aspiring. And you know, Yossarian, it's a lucky thing for you that we are. Your timing on this is absolutely perfect, but I suppose you took that factor into account in your calculations.\"\n\n\"I haven't been doing any calculating,\" Yossarian retorted.\n\n\"Yes, I really do enjoy the way you lie,\" Colonel Korn answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Won't it make you proud to have your commanding officer promoted to general-to know you served in an outfit that averaged more combat missions per person than any other? Don't you want to earn more unit citations and more oak leaf clusters for your Air Medal? Where's your 'sprit de corps?' Don't you want to contribute further to this great record by flying more combat missions? It's your last chance to answer yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\n\"In that case, you have us over a barrel-\" said Colonel Korn without rancor.\n\n\"He ought to be ashamed of himself!\"\n\n\"-and we have to send you home. Just do a few little things for us, and-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What sort of things?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian interrupted with belligerent misgiving.\n\n\"Oh, tiny, insignificant things. Really, this is a very generous deal we're making with you. We will issue orders returning you to the States-really, we will-and all you have to do in return is...\"\n\n\"What? What must I do?\"\n\nColonel Korn laughed curtly. \"Like us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian blinked. \"Like you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like us.\"\n\n\"Like you?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Colonel Korn, nodding, gratified immeasurably by Yossarian's guileless surprise and bewilderment. \"Like us. Join us. Be our pal. Say nice things about us here and back in the States. Become one of the boys. Now, that isn't asking too much, is it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You just want me to like you? Is that all?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's all.\"\n\n\"That's all?\"\n\n\"Just find it in your heart to like us.\"\n\nYossarian wanted to laugh confidently when he saw with amazement that Colonel Korn was telling the truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That isn't going to be too easy,\" he sneered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, it will be a lot easier than you think,\" Colonel Korn taunted in return, undismayed by Yossarian's barb. \"You'll be surprised at how easy you'll find it to like us once you begin.\" Colonel Korn hitched up the waist of his loose, voluminous trousers. The deep black grooves isolating his square chin from his jowls were bent again in a kind of jeering and reprehensible mirth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You see, Yossarian, we're going to put you on easy street. We're going to promote you to major and even give you another medal. Captain Flume is already working on glowing press releases describing your valor over Ferrara, your deep and abiding loyalty to your outfit and your consummate dedication to duty. Those phrases are all actual quotations, by the way. We're going to glorify you and send you home a hero, recalled by the Pentagon for morale and public-relations purposes. You'll live like a millionaire. Everyone will lionize you. You'll have parades in your honor and make speeches to raise money for war bonds. A whole new world of luxury awaits you once you become our pal. Isn't it lovely?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian found himself listening intently to the fascinating elucidation of details. \"I'm not sure I want to make speeches.\"\n\n\"Then we'll forget the speeches. The important thing is what you say to people here.\" Colonel Korn leaned forward earnestly, no longer smiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We don't want any of the men in the group to know that we're sending you home as a result of your refusal to fly more missions. And we don't want General Peckem or General Scheisskopf to get wind of any friction between us, either. That's why we're going to become such good pals.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What will I say to the men who asked me why I refused to fly more missions?\"\n\n\"Tell them you had been informed in confidence that you were being returned to the States and that you were unwilling to risk your life for another mission or two. Just a minor disagreement between pals, that's all.\"\n\n\"Will they believe it?\"\n\n\"Of course they'll believe it, once they see what great friends we've become and when they see the press releases and read the flattering things you have to say about me and Colonel Cathcart. Don't worry about the men. They'll be easy enough to discipline and control when you've gone. It's only while you're still here that they may prove troublesome. You know, one good apple can spoil the rest,\" Colonel Korn concluded with conscious irony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know-this would really be wonderful-you might even serve as an inspiration to them to fly more missions.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Suppose I denounce you when I get back to the States?\"\n\n\"After you've accepted our medal and promotion and all the fanfare? No one would believe you, the Army wouldn't let you, and why in the world should you want to? You're going to be one of the boys, remember? You'll enjoy a rich, rewarding, luxurious, privileged existence. You'd have to be a fool to throw it all away just for a moral principle, and you're not a fool. Is it a deal?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"It's that or a court-martial.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's a pretty scummy trick I'd be playing on the men in the squadron, isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Odious,\" Colonel Korn agreed amiably, and waited, watching Yossarian patiently with a glimmer of private delight.\n\n\"But what the hell!\" Yossarian exclaimed. \"If they don't want to fly more missions, let them stand up and do something about it the way I did. Right?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Colonel Korn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's no reason I have to risk my life for them, is there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course not.\"\n\nYossarian arrived at his decision with a swift grin. \"It's a deal!\" he announced jubilantly.\n\n\"Great,\" said Colonel Korn with somewhat less cordiality than Yossarian had expected, and he slid himself off Colonel Cathcart's desk to stand on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tugged the folds of cloth of his pants and undershorts free from his crotch and gave Yossarian a limp hand to shake. \"Welcome aboard.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks, Colonel. I-\"\n\n\"Call me Blackie, John. We're pals now.\"\n\n\"Sure, Blackie. My friends call me Yo-Yo. Blackie, I-\"\n\n\"His friends call him Yo-Yo,\" Colonel Korn sang out to Colonel Cathcart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why don't you congratulate Yo-Yo on what a sensible move he's making?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a real sensible move you're making, Yo-Yo,\" Colonel Cathcart said, pumping Yossarian's hand with clumsy zeal.\n\n\"Thank you, Colonel, I-\"\n\n\"Call him Chuck,\" said Colonel Korn.\n\n\"Sure, call me Chuck,\" said Colonel Cathcart with a laugh that was hearty and awkward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're all pals now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure, Chuck.\"\n\n\"Exit smiling,\" said Colonel Korn, his hands on both their shoulders as the three of them moved to the door.\n\n\"Come on over for dinner with us some night, Yo-Yo,\" Colonel Cathcart invited hospitably. \"How about tonight? In the group dining room.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd love to, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Chuck,\" Colonel Korn corrected reprovingly.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Blackie. Chuck. I can't get used to it.\"\n\n\"That's all right, pal.\"\n\n\"Sure, pal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks, pal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't mention it, pal.\"\n\n\"So long, pal.\"\n\nYossarian waved goodbye fondly to his new pals and sauntered out onto the balcony corridor, almost bursting into song the instant he was alone. He was home free: he had pulled it off; his act of rebellion had succeeded; he was safe, and he had nothing to be ashamed of to anyone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He started toward the staircase with a jaunty and exhilarated air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A private in green fatigues saluted him. Yossarian returned the salute happily, staring at the private with curiosity. He looked strangely familiar. When Yossarian returned the salute, the private in green fatigues turned suddenly into Nately's whore and lunged at him murderously with a bone-handled kitchen knife that caught him in the side below his upraised arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian sank to the floor with a shriek, shutting his eyes in overwhelming terror as he saw the girl lift the knife to strike at him again." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was already unconscious when Colonel Korn and Colonel Cathcart dashed out of the office and saved his life by frightening her away." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\nfour sentences\n\nStyle:\nJoseph Heller" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cut,\" said a doctor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You cut,\" said another.\n\n\"No cuts,\" said Yossarian with a thick, unwieldy tongue.\n\n\"Now look who's butting in,\" complained one of the doctors. \"Another county heard from. Are we going to operate or aren't we?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He doesn't need an operation,\" complained the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a small wound. All we have to do is stop the bleeding, clean it out and put a few stitches in.\"\n\n\"But I've never had a chance to operate before. Which one is the scalpel? Is this one the scalpel?\"\n\n\"No, the other one is the scalpel. Well, go ahead and cut already if you're going to. Make the incision.\"\n\n\"Like this?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not there, you dope!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No incisions,\" Yossarian said, perceiving through the lifting fog of insensibility that the two strangers were ready to begin cutting him.\n\n\"Another county heard from,\" complained the first doctor sarcastically. \"Is he going to keep talking that way while I operate on him?\"\n\n\"You can't operate on him until I admit him,\" said a clerk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can't admit him until I clear him,\" said a fat, gruff colonel with a mustache and an enormous pink face that pressed down very close to Yossarian and radiated scorching heat like the bottom of a huge frying pan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where were you born?\"\n\nThe fat, gruff colonel reminded Yossarian of the fat, gruff colonel who had interrogated the chaplain and found him guilty. Yossarian stared up at him through a glassy film. The cloying scents of formaldehyde and alcohol sweetened the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"On a battlefield,\" he answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, no. In what state were you born?\"\n\n\"In a state of innocence.\"\n\n\"No, no, you don't understand.\"\n\n\"Let me handle him,\" urged a hatchet-faced man with sunken acrimonious eyes and a thin, malevolent mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you a smart aleck or something?\" he asked Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's delirious,\" one of the doctors said. \"Why don't you let us take him back inside and treat him?\"\n\n\"Leave him right here if he's delirious. He might say something incriminating.\"\n\n\"But he's still bleeding profusely. Can't you see? He might even die.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good for him!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It would serve the finky bastard right,\" said the fat, gruff colonel. \"All right, John, let's speak out. We want to get to the truth.\"\n\n\"Everyone calls me Yo-Yo.\"\n\n\"We want you to co-operate with us, Yo-Yo. We're your friends and we want you to trust us. We're here to help you. We're not going to hurt you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's jab our thumbs down inside his wound and gouge it,\" suggested the hatchet-faced man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian let his eyes fall closed and hoped they would think he was unconscious.\n\n\"He's fainted,\" he heard a doctor say. \"Can't we treat him now before it's too late? He really might die.\"\n\n\"All right, take him. I hope the bastard does die.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can't treat him until I admit him,\" the clerk said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian played dead with his eyes shut while the clerk admitted him by shuffling some papers, and then he was rolled away slowly into a stuffy, dark room with searing spotlights overhead in which the cloying smell of formaldehyde and sweet alcohol was even stronger. The pleasant, permeating stink was intoxicating. He smelled ether too and heard glass tinkling. He listened with secret, egotistical mirth to the husky breathing of the two doctors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It delighted him that they thought he was unconscious and did not know he was listening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It all seemed very silly to him until one of the doctors said, \"Well, do you think we should save his life? They might be sore at us if we do.\"\n\n\"Let's operate,\" said the other doctor. \"Let's cut him open and get to the inside of things once and for all. He keeps complaining about his liver. His liver looks pretty small on this X ray.\"\n\n\"That's his pancreas, you dope. This is his liver.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No it isn't. That's his heart. I'll bet you a nickel this is his liver. I'm going to operate and find out. Should I wash my hands first?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No operations,\" Yossarian said, opening his eyes and trying to sit up.\n\n\"Another county heard from,\" scoffed one of the doctors indignantly. \"Can't we make him shut up?\"\n\n\"We could give him a total. The ether's right here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No totals,\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Another county heard from,\" said a doctor.\n\n\"Let's give him a total and knock him out. Then we can do what we want with him.\"\n\nThey gave Yossarian total anesthesia and knocked him out. He woke up thirsty in a private room, drowning in ether fumes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Korn was there at his bedside, waiting calmly in a chair in his baggy, wool, olive-drab shirt and trousers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A bland, phlegmatic smile hung on his brown face with its heavy-bearded cheeks, and he was buffing the facets of his bald head gently with the palms of both hands. He bent forward chuckling when Yossarian awoke, and assured him in the friendliest tones that the deal they had made was still on if Yossarian didn't die. Yossarian vomited, and Colonel Korn shot to his feet at the first cough and fled in disgust, so it seemed indeed that there was a silver lining to every cloud, Yossarian reflected, as he drifted back into a suffocating daze. A hand with sharp fingers shook him awake roughly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned and opened his eyes and saw a strange man with a mean face who curled his lip at him in a spiteful scowl and bragged, \"We've got your pal, buddy. We've got your pal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian turned cold and faint and broke into a sweat.\n\n\"Who's my pal?\" he asked when he saw the chaplain sitting where Colonel Korn had been sitting.\n\n\"Maybe I'm your pal,\" the chaplain answered.\n\nBut Yossarian couldn't hear him and closed his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone gave him water to sip and tiptoed away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slept and woke up feeling great until he turned his head to smile at the chaplain and saw Aarfy there instead. Yossarian moaned instinctively and screwed his face up with excruciating irritability when Aarfy chortled and asked how he was feeling. Aarfy looked puzzled when Yossarian inquired why he was not in jail. Yossarian shut his eyes to make him go away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he opened them, Aarfy was gone and the chaplain was there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian broke into laughter when he spied the chaplain's cheerful grin and asked him what in the hell he was so happy about.\n\n\"I'm happy about you,\" the chaplain replied with excited candor and joy. \"I heard at Group that you were very seriously injured and that you would have to be sent home if you lived. Colonel Korn said your condition was critical. But I've just learned from one of the doctors that your wound is really a very slight one and that you'll probably be able to leave in a day or two. You're in no danger. It isn't bad at all.\"\n\nYossarian listened to the chaplain's news with enormous relief. \"That's good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" said the chaplain, a pink flush of impish pleasure creeping into his cheeks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, that is good.\"\n\nYossarian laughed, recalling his first conversation with the chaplain. \"You know, the first time I met you was in the hospital. And now I'm in the hospital again. Just about the only time I see you lately is in the hospital. Where've you been keeping yourself?\"\n\nThe chaplain shrugged. \"I've been praying a lot,\" he confessed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I try to stay in my tent as much as I can, and I pray every time Sergeant Whitcomb leaves the area, so that he won't catch me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does it do any good?\"\n\n\"It takes my mind off my troubles,\" the chaplain answered with another shrug. \"And it gives me something to do.\"\n\n\"Well that's good, then, isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" agreed the chaplain enthusiastically, as though the idea had not occurred to him before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I guess that is good.\" He bent forward impulsively with awkward solicitude. \"Yossarian, is there anything I can do for you while you're here, anything I can get you?\"\n\nYossarian teased him jovially." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Like toys, or candy, or chewing gum?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain blushed again, grinning self-consciously, and then turned very respectful. \"Like books, perhaps, or anything at all. I wish there was something I could do to make you happy. You know, Yossarian, we're all very proud of you.\"\n\n\"Proud?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course. For risking your life to stop that Nazi assassin. It was a very noble thing to do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What Nazi assassin?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The one that came here to murder Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn. And you saved them. He might have stabbed you to death as you grappled with him on the balcony. It's a lucky thing you're alive!\"\n\nYossarian snickered sardonically when he understood. \"That was no Nazi assassin.\"\n\n\"Certainly it was. Colonel Korn said it was.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was Nately's girl friend. And she was after me, not Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn. She's been trying to kill me ever since I broke the news to her that Nately was dead.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But how could that be?\" the chaplain protested in livid and resentful confusion. \"Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn both saw him as he ran away. The official report says you stopped a Nazi assassin from killing them.\"\n\n\"Don't believe the official report,\" Yossarian advised dryly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's part of the deal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What deal?\"\n\n\"The deal I made with Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn. They'll let me go home a big hero if I say nice things about them to everybody and never criticize them to anyone for making the rest of the men fly more missions.\"\n\nThe chaplain was appalled and rose halfway out of his chair. He bristled with bellicose dismay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But that's terrible! That's a shameful, scandalous deal, isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Odious,\" Yossarian answered, staring up woodenly at the ceiling with just the back of his head resting on the pillow. \"I think 'odious' is the word we decided on.\"\n\n\"Then how could you agree to it?\"\n\n\"It's that or a court-martial, Chaplain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh,\" the chaplain exclaimed with a look of stark remorse, the back of his hand covering his mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lowered himself into his chair uneasily. \"I shouldn't have said anything.\"\n\n\"They'd lock me in prison with a bunch of criminals.\"\n\n\"Of course. You must do whatever you think is right, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chaplain nodded to himself as though deciding the argument and lapsed into embarrassed silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't worry,\" Yossarian said with a sorrowful laugh after several moments had passed. \"I'm not going to do it.\"\n\n\"But you must do it,\" the chaplain insisted, bending forward with concern. \"Really, you must. I had no right to influence you. I really had no right to say anything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You didn't influence me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian hauled himself over onto his side and shook his head in solemn mockery. \"Christ, Chaplain! Can you imagine that for a sin? Saving Colonel Cathcart's life! That's one crime I don't want on my record.\"\n\nThe chaplain returned to the subject with caution. \"What will you do instead? You can't let them put you in prison.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll fly more missions. Or maybe I really will desert and let them catch me. They probably would.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And they'd put you in prison. You don't want to go to prison.\"\n\n\"Then I'll just keep flying missions until the war ends, I guess. Some of us have to survive.\"\n\n\"But you might get killed.\"\n\n\"Then I guess I won't fly any more missions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What will you do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Will you let them send you home?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Is it hot out? It's very warm in here.\"\n\n\"It's very cold out,\" the chaplain said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know,\" Yossarian remembered, \"a very funny thing happened-maybe I dreamed it. I think a strange man came in here before and told me he's got my pal. I wonder if I imagined it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think you did,\" the chaplain informed him. \"You started to tell me about him when I dropped in earlier.\"\n\n\"Then he really did say it. 'We've got your pal, buddy,' he said. 'We've got your pal.' He had the most malignant manner I ever saw. I wonder who my pal is.\"\n\n\"I like to think that I'm your pal, Yossarian,\" the chaplain said with humble sincerity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And they certainly have got me. They've got my number and they've got me under surveillance, and they've got me right where they want me. That's what they told me at my interrogation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I don't think it's you he meant,\" Yossarian decided. \"I think it must be someone like Nately or Dunbar. You know, someone who was killed in the war, like Clevinger, Orr, Dobbs, Kid Sampson or McWatt.\" Yossarian emitted a startled gasp and shook his head. \"I just realized it,\" he exclaimed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They've got all my pals, haven't they? The only ones left are me and Hungry Joe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tingled with dread as he saw the chaplain's face go pale. \"Chaplain, what is it?\"\n\n\"Hungry Joe was killed.\"\n\n\"God, no! On a mission?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He died in his sleep while having a dream. They found a cat on his face.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Poor bastard,\" Yossarian said, and began to cry, hiding his tears in the crook of his shoulder. The chaplain left without saying goodbye. Yossarian ate something and went to sleep. A hand shook him awake in the middle of the night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He opened his eyes and saw a thin, mean man in a patient's bathrobe and pajamas who looked at him with a nasty smirk and jeered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've got your pal, buddy. We've got your pal.\"\n\nYossarian was unnerved. \"What the hell are you talking about?\" he pleaded in incipient panic.\n\n\"You'll find out, buddy. You'll find out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian lunged for his tormentor's throat with one hand, but the man glided out of reach effortlessly and vanished into the corridor with a malicious laugh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian lay there trembling with a pounding pulse. He was bathed in icy sweat. He wondered who his pal was. It was dark in the hospital and perfectly quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had no watch to tell him the time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was wide-awake, and he knew he was a prisoner in one of those sleepless, bedridden nights that would take an eternity to dissolve into dawn. A throbbing chill oozed up his legs. He was cold, and he thought of Snowden, who had never been his pal but was a vaguely familiar kid who was badly wounded and freezing to death in the puddle of harsh yellow sunlight splashing into his face through the side gunport when Yossarian crawled into the rear section of the plane over the bomb bay after Dobbs had beseeched him on the intercom to help the gunner, please help the gunner. Yossarian's stomach turned over when his eyes first beheld the macabre scene; he was absolutely revolted, and he paused in fright a few moments before descending, crouched on his hands and knees in the narrow tunnel over the bomb bay beside the sealed corrugated carton containing the first-aid kit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Snowden was lying on his back on the floor with his legs stretched out, still burdened cumbersomely by his flak suit, his flak helmet, his parachute harness and his Mae West." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not far away on the floor lay the small tail-gunner in a dead faint. The wound Yossarian saw was in the outside of Snowden's thigh, as large and deep as a football, it seemed. It was impossible to tell where the shreds of his saturated coveralls ended and the ragged flesh began.\n\nThere was no morphine in the first-aid kit, no protection for Snowden against pain but the numbing shock of the gaping wound itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The twelve syrettes of morphine had been stolen from their case and replaced by a cleanly lettered note that said: \"What's good for M amp; M Enterprises is good for the country. Milo Minderbinder.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian swore at Milo and held two aspirins out to ashen lips unable to receive them. But first he hastily drew a tourniquet around Snowden's thigh because he could not think what else to do in those first tumultuous moments when his senses were in turmoil, when he knew he must act competently at once and feared he might go to pieces completely. Snowden watched him steadily, saying nothing. No artery was spurting, but Yossarian pretended to absorb himself entirely into the fashioning of a tourniquet, because applying a tourniquet was something he did know how to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He worked with simulated skill and composure, feeling Snowden's lack-luster gaze resting upon him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He recovered possession of himself before the tourniquet was finished and loosened it immediately to lessen the danger of gangrene. His mind was clear now, and he knew how to proceed. He rummaged through the first-aid kit for scissors.\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Snowden said softly. \"I'm cold.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're going to be all right, kid,\" Yossarian reassured him with a grin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're going to be all right.\"\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Snowden said again in a frail, childlike voice. \"I'm cold.\"\n\n\"There, there,\" Yossarian said, because he did not know what else to say. \"There, there.\"\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Snowden whimpered. \"I'm cold.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There, there. There, there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian was frightened and moved more swiftly. He found a pair of scissors at last and began cutting carefully through Snowden's coveralls high up above the wound, just below the groin. He cut through the heavy gabardine cloth all the way around the thigh in a straight line. The tiny tailgunner woke up while Yossarian was cutting with the scissors, saw him, and fainted again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Snowden rolled his head to the other side of his neck in order to stare at Yossarian more directly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dim, sunken light glowed in his weak and listless eyes. Yossarian, puzzled, tried not to look at him. He began cutting downward through the coveralls along the inside seam. The yawning wound-was that a tube of slimy bone he saw running deep inside the gory scarlet flow behind the twitching, startling fibers of weird muscle?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "– was dripping blood in several trickles, like snow melting on eaves, but viscous and red, already thickening as it dropped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian kept cutting through the coveralls to the bottom and peeled open the severed leg of the garment. It fell to the floor with a plop, exposing the hem of khaki undershorts that were soaking up blotches of blood on one side as though in thirst. Yossarian was stunned at how waxen and ghastly Snowden's bare leg looked, how loathsome, how lifeless and esoteric the downy, fine, curled blond hairs on his odd white shin and calf. The wound, he saw now, was not nearly as large as a football, but as long and wide as his hand and too raw and deep to see into clearly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The raw muscles inside twitched like live hamburger meat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A long sigh of relief escaped slowly through Yossarian's mouth when he saw that Snowden was not in danger of dying. The blood was already coagulating inside the wound, and it was simply a matter of bandaging him up and keeping him calm until the plane landed. He removed some packets of sulfanilamide from the first-aid kit. Snowden quivered when Yossarian pressed against him gently to turn him up slightly on his side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did I hurt you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm cold,\" Snowden whimpered. \"I'm cold.\"\n\n\"There, there,\" Yossarian said. \"There, there.\"\n\n\"I'm cold. I'm cold.\"\n\n\"There, there. There, there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's starting to hurt me,\" Snowden cried out suddenly with a plaintive, urgent wince." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian scrambled frantically through the first-aid kit in search of morphine again and found only Milo's note and a bottle of aspirin. He cursed Milo and held two aspirin tablets out to Snowden. He had no water to offer. Snowden rejected the aspirin with an almost imperceptible shake of his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His face was pale and pasty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian removed Snowden's flak helmet and lowered his head to the floor.\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Snowden moaned with half-closed eyes. \"I'm cold.\"\n\nThe edges of his mouth were turning blue. Yossarian was petrified. He wondered whether to pull the rip cord of Snowden's parachute and cover him with the nylon folds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was very warm in the plane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glancing up unexpectedly, Snowden gave him a wan, co-operative smile and shifted the position of his hips a bit so that Yossarian could begin salting the wound with sulfanilamide. Yossarian worked with renewed confidence and optimism. The plane bounced hard inside an air pocket, and he remembered with a start that he had left his own parachute up front in the nose. There was nothing to be done about that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He poured envelope after envelope of the white crystalline powder into the bloody oval wound until nothing red could be seen and then drew a deep, apprehensive breath, steeling himself with gritted teeth as he touched his bare hand to the dangling shreds of drying flesh to tuck them up inside the wound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quickly he covered the whole wound with a large cotton compress and jerked his hand away. He smiled nervously when his brief ordeal had ended. The actual contact with the dead flesh had not been nearly as repulsive as he had anticipated, and he found an excuse to caress the wound with his fingers again and again to convince himself of his own courage.\n\nNext he began binding the compress in place with a roll of gauze." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The second time around Snowden's thigh with the bandage, he spotted the small hole on the inside through which the piece of flak had entered, a round, crinkled wound the size of a quarter with blue edges and a black core inside where the blood had crusted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian sprinkled this one with sulfanilamide too and continued unwinding the gauze around Snowden's leg until the compress was secure. Then he snipped off the roll with the scissors and slit the end down the center. He made the whole thing fast with a tidy square knot. It was a good bandage, he knew, and he sat back on his heels with pride, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and grinned at Snowden with spontaneous friendliness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm cold,\" Snowden moaned. \"I'm cold.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're going to be all right, kid,\" Yossarian assured him, patting his arm comfortingly. \"Everything's under control.\"\n\nSnowden shook his head feebly. \"I'm cold,\" he repeated, with eyes as dull and blind as stone. \"I'm cold.\"\n\n\"There, there,\" said Yossarian, with growing doubt and trepidation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There, there. In a little while we'll be back on the ground and Doc Daneeka will take care of you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Snowden kept shaking his head and pointed at last, with just the barest movement of his chin, down toward his armpit. Yossarian bent forward to peer and saw a strangely colored stain seeping through the coveralls just above the armhole of Snowden's flak suit. Yossarian felt his heart stop, then pound so violently he found it difficult to breathe. Snowden was wounded inside his flak suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian ripped open the snaps of Snowden's flak suit and heard himself scream wildly as Snowden's insides slithered down to the floor in a soggy pile and just kept dripping out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A chunk of flak more than three inches big had shot into his other side just underneath the arm and blasted all the way through, drawing whole mottled quarts of Snowden along with it through the gigantic hole in his ribs it made as it blasted out. Yossarian screamed a second time and squeezed both hands over his eyes. His teeth were chattering in horror. He forced himself to look again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Here was God's plenty, all right, he thought bitterly as he stared-liver, lungs, kidneys, ribs, stomach and bits of the stewed tomatoes Snowden had eaten that day for lunch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian hated stewed tomatoes and turned away dizzily and began to vomit, clutching his burning throat. The tail gunner woke up while Yossarian was vomiting, saw him, and fainted again. Yossarian was limp with exhaustion, pain and despair when he finished. He turned back weakly to Snowden, whose breath had grown softer and more rapid, and whose face had grown paler." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered how in the world to begin to save him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm cold,\" Snowden whimpered. \"I'm cold.\"\n\n\"There, there,\" Yossarian mumbled mechanically in a voice too low to be heard. \"There, there.\"\n\nYossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was easy to read the message in his entrails." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The spirit gone, man is garbage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Snowden said. \"I'm cold.\"\n\n\"There, there,\" said Yossarian. \"There, there.\" He pulled the rip cord of Snowden's parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm cold.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There, there.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Joseph Heller" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Colonel Korn says,\" said Major Danby to Yossarian with a prissy, gratified smile, \"that the deal is still on. Everything is working out fine.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No it isn't.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, indeed,\" Major Danby insisted benevolently. \"In fact, everything is much better. It was really a stroke of luck that you were almost murdered by that girl. Now the deal can go through perfectly.\"\n\n\"I'm not making any deals with Colonel Korn.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Danby's effervescent optimism vanished instantly, and he broke out all at once into a bubbling sweat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you do have a deal with him, don't you?\" he asked in anguished puzzlement. \"Don't you have an agreement?\"\n\n\"I'm breaking the agreement.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you shook hands on it, didn't you? You gave him your word as a gentleman.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm breaking my word.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" sighed Major Danby, and began dabbing ineffectually at his careworn brow with a folded white handkerchief. \"But why, Yossarian? It's a very good deal they're offering you.\"\n\n\"It's a lousy deal, Danby. It's an odious deal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, dear,\" Major Danby fretted, running his bare hand over his dark, wiry hair, which was already soaked with perspiration to the tops of the thick, close-cropped waves. \"Oh dear.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Danby, don't you think it's odious?\"\n\nMajor Danby pondered a moment. \"Yes, I suppose it is odious,\" he conceded with reluctance. His globular, exophthalmic eyes were quite distraught." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But why did you make such a deal if you didn't like it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I did it in a moment of weakness,\" Yossarian wisecracked with glum irony. \"I was trying to save my life.\"\n\n\"Don't you want to save your life now?\"\n\n\"That's why I won't let them make me fly more missions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then let them send you home and you'll be in no more danger.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let them send me home because I flew more than fifty missions,\" Yossarian said, \"and not because I was stabbed by that girl, or because I've turned into such a stubborn son of a bitch.\"\n\nMajor Danby shook his head emphatically in sincere and bespectacled vexation. \"They'd have to send nearly every man home if they did that. Most of the men have more than fifty missions. Colonel Cathcart couldn't possibly requisition so many inexperienced replacement crews at one time without causing an investigation. He's caught in his own trap.\"\n\n\"That's his problem.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, no, no, Yossarian,\" Major Danby disagreed solicitously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's your problem. Because if you don't go through with the deal, they're going to institute court-martial proceedings as soon as you sign out of the hospital.\"\n\nYossarian thumbed his nose at Major Danby and laughed with smug elation. \"The hell they will! Don't lie to me, Danby. They wouldn't even try.\"\n\n\"But why wouldn't they?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "inquired Major Danby, blinking with astonishment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because I've really got them over a barrel now. There's an official report that says I was stabbed by a Nazi assassin trying to kill them. They'd certainly look silly trying to court-martial me after that.\"\n\n\"But, Yossarian!\" Major Danby exclaimed. \"There's another official report that says you were stabbed by an innocent girl in the course of extensive black-market operations involving acts of sabotage and the sale of military secrets to the enemy.\"\n\nYossarian was taken back severely with surprise and disappointment. \"Another official report?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yossarian, they can prepare as many official reports as they want and choose whichever ones they need on any given occasion. Didn't you know that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, dear,\" Yossarian murmured in heavy dejection, the blood draining from his face. \"Oh, dear.\"\n\nMajor Danby pressed forward avidly with a look of vulturous well-meaning. \"Yossarian, do what they want and let them send you home. It's best for everyone that way.\"\n\n\"It's best for Cathcart, Korn and me, not for everyone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For everyone,\" Major Danby insisted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It will solve the whole problem.\"\n\n\"Is it best for the men in the group who will have to keep flying more missions?\"\n\nMajor Danby flinched and turned his face away uncomfortably for a second. \"Yossarian,\" he replied, \"it will help nobody if you force Colonel Cathcart to court-martial you and prove you guilty of all the crimes with which you'll be charged. You will go to prison for a long time, and your whole life will be ruined.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian listened to him with a growing feeling of concern." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What crimes will they charge me with?\"\n\n\"Incompetence over Ferrara, insubordination, refusal to engage the enemy in combat when ordered to do so, and desertion.\"\n\nYossarian sucked his cheeks in soberly. \"They could charge me with all that, could they? They gave me a medal for Ferrara. How could they charge me with incompetence now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aarfy will swear that you and McWatt lied in your official report.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll bet the bastard would!\"\n\n\"They will also find you guilty,\" Major Danby recited, \"of rape, extensive black-market operations, acts of sabotage and the sale of military secrets to the enemy.\"\n\n\"How will they prove any of that? I never did a single one of those things.\"\n\n\"But they have witnesses who will swear you did. They can get all the witnesses they need simply by persuading them that destroying you is for the good of the country. And in a way, it would be for the good of the country.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In what way?\" Yossarian demanded, rising up slowly on one elbow with bridling hostility." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Danby drew back a bit and began mopping his forehead again. \"Well, Yossarian,\" he began with an apologetic stammer, \"it would not help the war effort to bring Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn into disrepute now. Let's face it, Yossarian-in spite of everything, the group does have a very good record. If you were court-martialed and found innocent, other men would probably refuse to fly missions, too. Colonel Cathcart would be in disgrace, and the military efficiency of the unit might be destroyed. So in that way it would be for the good of the country to have you found guilty and put in prison, even though you are innocent.\"\n\n\"What a sweet way you have of putting things!\" Yossarian snapped with caustic resentment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Danby turned red and squirmed and squinted uneasily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please don't blame me,\" he pleaded with a look of anxious integrity. \"You know it's not my fault. All I'm doing is trying to look at things objectively and arrive at a solution to a very difficult situation.\"\n\n\"I didn't create the situation.\"\n\n\"But you can resolve it. And what else can you do? You don't want to fly more missions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can run away.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Run away?\"\n\n\"Desert. Take off I can turn my back on the whole damned mess and start running.\"\n\nMajor Danby was shocked. \"Where to? Where could you go?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I could get to Rome easily enough. And I could hide myself there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And live in danger every minute of your life that they would find you? No, no, no, no, Yossarian. That would be a disastrous and ignoble thing to do. Running away from problems never solved them. Please believe me. I am only trying to help you.\"\n\n\"That's what that kind detective said before he decided to jab his thumb into my wound,\" Yossarian retorted sarcastically.\n\n\"I am not a detective,\" Major Danby replied with indignation, his cheeks flushing again. \"I'm a university professor with a highly developed sense of right and wrong, and I wouldn't try to deceive you. I wouldn't lie to anyone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What would you do if one of the men in the group asked you about this conversation?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I would lie to him.\"\n\nYossarian laughed mockingly, and Major Danby, despite his blushing discomfort, leaned back with relief, as though welcoming the respite Yossarian's changing mood promised. Yossarian gazed at him with a mixture of reserved pity and contempt. He sat up in bed with his back resting against the headboard, lit a cigarette, smiled slightly with wry amusement, and stared with whimsical sympathy at the vivid, pop-eyed horror that had implanted itself permanently on Major Danby's face the day of the mission to Avignon, when General Dreedle had ordered him taken outside and shot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The startled wrinkles would always remain, like deep black scars, and Yossarian felt sorry for the gentle, moral, middle-aged idealist, as he felt sorry for so many people whose shortcomings were not large and whose troubles were light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With deliberate amiability he said, \"Danby, how can you work along with people like Cathcart and Korn? Doesn't it turn your stomach?\"\n\nMajor Danby seemed surprised by Yossarian's question. \"I do it to help my country,\" he replied, as though the answer should have been obvious. \"Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn are my superiors, and obeying their orders is the only contribution I can make to the war effort. I work along with them because it's my duty. And also,\" he added in a much lower voice, dropping his eyes, \"because I am not a very aggressive person.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your country doesn't need your help any more,\" Yossarian reasoned with antagonism." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So all you're doing is helping them.\"\n\n\"I try not to think of that,\" Major Danby admitted frankly. \"But I try to concentrate on only the big result and to forget that they are succeeding, too. I try to pretend that they are not significant.\"\n\n\"That's my trouble, you know,\" Yossarian mused sympathetically, folding his arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Between me and every ideal I always find Scheisskopfs, Peckems, Korns and Cathcarts. And that sort of changes the ideal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You must try not to think of them,\" Major Danby advised affirmatively. \"And you must never let them change your values. Ideals are good, but people are sometimes not so good. You must try to look up at the big picture.\"\n\nYossarian rejected the advice with a skeptical shake of his head. \"When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you must try not to think of that, too,\" Major Danby insisted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you must try not to let it upset you.\"\n\n\"Oh, it doesn't really upset me. What does upset me, though, is that they think I'm a sucker. They think that they're smart, and that the rest of us are dumb. And, you know, Danby, the thought occurs to me right now, for the first time, that maybe they're right.\"\n\n\"But you must try not to think of that too,\" argued Major Danby. \"You must think only of the welfare of your country and the dignity of man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" said Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean it, Yossarian. This is not World War One. You must never forget that we're at war with aggressors who would not let either one of us live if they won.\"\n\n\"I know that,\" Yossarian replied tersely, with a sudden surge of scowling annoyance. \"Christ, Danby, I earned that medal I got, no matter what their reasons were for giving it to me. I've flown seventy goddam combat missions. Don't talk to me about fighting to save my country. I've been fighting all along to save my country. Now I'm going to fight a little to save myself. The country's not in danger any more, but I am.\"\n\n\"The war's not over yet. The Germans are driving toward Antwerp.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Germans will be beaten in a few months. And Japan will be beaten a few months after that. If I were to give up my life now, it wouldn't be for my country. It would be for Cathcart and Korn. So I'm turning my bombsight in for the duration. From now on I'm thinking only of me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile, \"But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way.\"\n\n\"Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?\" Yossarian sat up straighter with a quizzical expression. \"You know, I have a queer feeling that I've been through this exact conversation before with someone. It's just like the chaplain's sensation of having experienced everything twice.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The chaplain wants you to let them send you home,\" Major Danby remarked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The chaplain can jump in the lake.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear.\" Major Danby sighed, shaking his head in regretful disappointment. \"He's afraid he might have influenced you.\"\n\n\"He didn't influence me. You know what I might do? I might stay right here in this hospital bed and vegetate. I could vegetate very comfortably right here and let other people make the decisions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You must make decisions,\" Major Danby disagreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A person can't live like a vegetable.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nA distant warm look entered Major Danby's eyes. \"It must be nice to live like a vegetable,\" he conceded wistfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's lousy,\" answered Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, it must be very pleasant to be free from all this doubt and pressure,\" insisted Major Danby. \"I think I'd like to live like a vegetable and make no important decisions.\"\n\n\"What kind of vegetable, Danby?\"\n\n\"A cucumber or a carrot.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What kind of cucumber? A good one or a bad one?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, a good one, of course.\"\n\n\"They'd cut you off in your prime and slice you up for a salad.\"\n\nMajor Danby's face fell. \"A poor one, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They'd let you rot and use you for fertilizer to help the good ones grow.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess I don't want to live like a vegetable, then,\" said Major Danby with a smile of sad resignation.\n\n\"Danby, must I really let them send me home?\" Yossarian inquired of him seriously.\n\nMajor Danby shrugged. \"It's a way to save yourself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a way to lose myself, Danby. You ought to know that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could have lots of things you want.\"\n\n\"I don't want lots of things I want,\" Yossarian replied, and then beat his fist down against the mattress in an outburst of rage and frustration. \"Goddammit, Danby! I've got friends who were killed in this war. I can't make a deal now. Getting stabbed by that bitch was the best thing that ever happened to me.\"\n\n\"Would you rather go to jail?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Would you let them send you home?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course I would!\" Major Danby declared with conviction. \"Certainly I would,\" he added a few moments later, in a less positive manner. \"Yes, I suppose I would let them send me home if I were in your place,\" he decided uncomfortably, after lapsing into troubled contemplation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he threw his face sideways disgustedly in a gesture of violent distress and blurted out, \"Oh, yes, of course I'd let them send me home! But I'm such a terrible coward I couldn't really be in your place.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But suppose you weren't a coward?\" Yossarian demanded, studying him closely. \"Suppose you did have the courage to defy somebody?\"\n\n\"Then I wouldn't let them send me home,\" Major Danby vowed emphatically with vigorous joy and enthusiasm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I certainly wouldn't let them court-martial me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Would you fly more missions?\"\n\n\"No, of course not. That would be total capitulation. And I might be killed.\"\n\n\"Then you'd run away?\"\n\nMajor Danby started to retort with proud spirit and came to an abrupt stop, his half-opened jaw swinging closed dumbly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pursed his lips in a tired pout." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess there just wouldn't be any hope for me, then, would there?\"\n\nHis forehead and protuberant white eyeballs were soon glistening nervously again. He crossed his limp wrists in his lap and hardly seemed to be breathing as he sat with his gaze drooping toward the floor in acquiescent defeat. Dark, steep shadows slanted in from the window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian watched him solemnly, and neither of the two men stirred at the rattling noise of a speeding vehicle skidding to a stop outside and the sound of racing footsteps pounding toward the building in haste." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, there's hope for you,\" Yossarian remembered with a sluggish flow of inspiration. \"Milo might help you. He's bigger than Colonel Cathcart, and he owes me a few favors.\"\n\nMajor Danby shook his head and answered tonelessly. \"Milo and Colonel Cathcart are pals now. He made Colonel Cathcart a vice-president and promised him an important job after the war.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen will help us,\" Yossarian exclaimed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He hates them both, and this will infuriate him.\"\n\nMajor Danby shook his head bleakly again. \"Milo and ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen merged last week. They're all partners now in M amp; M Enterprises.\"\n\n\"Then there is no hope for us, is there?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No hope.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No hope at all, is there?\"\n\n\"No, no hope at all,\" Major Danby conceded. He looked up after a while with a half-formed notion. \"Wouldn't it be nice if they could disappear us the way they disappeared the others and relieve us of all these crushing burdens?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian said no. Major Danby agreed with a melancholy nod, lowering his eyes again, and there was no hope at all for either of them until footsteps exploded in the corridor suddenly and the chaplain, shouting at the top of his voice, came bursting into the room with the electrifying news about Orr, so overcome with hilarious excitement that he was almost incoherent for a minute or two." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tears of great elation were sparkling in his eyes, and Yossarian leaped out of bed with an incredulous yelp when he finally understood.\n\n\"Sweden?\" he cried.\n\n\"Orr!\" cried the chaplain.\n\n\"Orr?\" cried Yossarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sweden!\" cried the chaplain, shaking his head up and down with gleeful rapture and prancing about uncontrollably from spot to spot in a grinning, delicious frenzy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a miracle, I tell you! A miracle! I believe in God again. I really do. Washed ashore in Sweden after so many weeks at sea! It's a miracle.\"\n\n\"Washed ashore, hell!\" Yossarian declared, jumping all about also and roaring in laughing exultation at the walls, the ceiling, the chaplain and Major Danby. \"He didn't wash ashore in Sweden. He rowed there! He rowed there, Chaplain, he rowed there.\"\n\n\"Rowed there?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He planned it that way! He went to Sweden deliberately.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I don't care!\" the chaplain flung back with undiminished zeal. \"It's still a miracle, a miracle of human intelligence and human endurance. Look how much he accomplished!\" The chaplain clutched his head with both hands and doubled over in laughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can't you just picture him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he exclaimed with amazement. \"Can't you just picture him in that yellow raft, paddling through the Straits of Gibraltar at night with that tiny little blue oar-\"\n\n\"With that fishing line trailing out behind him, eating raw codfish all the way to Sweden, and serving himself tea every afternoon-\"\n\n\"I can just see him!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried the chaplain, pausing a moment in his celebration to catch his breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a miracle of human perseverance, I tell you. And that's just what I'm going to do from now on! I'm going to persevere. Yes, I'm going to persevere.\"\n\n\"He knew what he was doing every step of the way!\" Yossarian rejoiced, holding both fists aloft triumphantly as though hoping to squeeze revelations from them. He spun to a stop facing Major Danby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Danby, you dope! There is hope, after all. Can't you see? Even Clevinger might be alive somewhere in that cloud of his, hiding inside until it's safe to come out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you talking about?\" Major Danby asked in confusion. \"What are you both talking about?\"\n\n\"Bring me apples, Danby, and chestnuts too. Run, Danby, run. Bring me crab apples and horse chestnuts before it's too late, and get some for yourself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Horse chestnuts? Crab apples? What in the world for?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To pop into our cheeks, of course.\" Yossarian threw his arms up into the air in a gesture of mighty and despairing selfrecrimination. \"Oh, why didn't I listen to him? Why wouldn't I have some faith?\"\n\n\"Have you gone crazy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Major Danby demanded with alarm and bewilderment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yossarian, will you please tell me what you are talking about?\"\n\n\"Danby, Orr planned it that way. Don't you understand-he planned it that way from the beginning. He even practiced getting shot down. He rehearsed for it on every mission he flew. And I wouldn't go with him! Oh, why wouldn't I listen? He invited me along, and I wouldn't go with him! Danby, bring me buck teeth too, and a valve to fix and a look of stupid innocence that nobody would ever suspect of any cleverness. I'll need them all. Oh, why wouldn't I listen to him. Now I understand what he was trying to tell me. I even understand why that girl was hitting him on the head with her shoe.\"\n\n\"Why?\" inquired the chaplain sharply.\n\nYossarian whirled and seized the chaplain by the shirt front in an importuning grip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Chaplain, help me! Please help me. Get my clothes. And hurry, will you? I need them right away.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chaplain started away alertly. \"Yes, Yossarian, I will. But where are they? How will I get them?\"\n\n\"By bullying and browbeating anybody who tries to stop you. Chaplain, get me my uniform! It's around this hospital somewhere. For once in your life, succeed at something.\"\n\nThe chaplain straightened his shoulders with determination and tightened his jaw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't worry, Yossarian. I'll get your uniform. But why was that girl hitting Orr over the head with her shoe? Please tell me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because he was paying her to, that's why! But she wouldn't hit him hard enough, so he had to row to Sweden. Chaplain, find me my uniform so I can get out of here. Ask Nurse Duckett for it. She'll help you. She'll do anything she can to be rid of me.\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\" Major Danby asked apprehensively when the chaplain had shot from the room. \"What are you going to do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm going to run away,\" Yossarian announced in an exuberant, clear voice, already tearing open the buttons of his pajama tops." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, no,\" Major Danby groaned, and began patting his perspiring face rapidly with the bare palms of both hands. \"You can't run away. Where can you run to? Where can you go?\"\n\n\"To Sweden.\"\n\n\"To Sweden?\" Major Danby exclaimed in astonishment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're going to run to Sweden? Are you crazy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Orr did it.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, no, no, no, no,\" Major Danby pleaded. \"No, Yossarian, you'll never get there. You can't run away to Sweden. You can't even row.\"\n\n\"But I can get to Rome if you'll keep your mouth shut when you leave here and give me a chance to catch a ride. Will you do it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But they'll find you,\" Major Danby argued desperately, \"and bring you back and punish you even more severely.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They'll have to try like hell to catch me this time.\"\n\n\"They will try like hell. And even if they don't find you, what kind of way is that to live? You'll always be alone. No one will ever be on your side, and you'll always live in danger of betrayal.\"\n\n\"I live that way now.\"\n\n\"But you can't just turn your back on all your responsibilities and run away from them,\" Major Danby insisted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's such a negative move. It's escapist.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian laughed with buoyant scorn and shook his head. \"I'm not running away from my responsibilities. I'm running to them. There's nothing negative about running away to save my life. You know who the escapists are, don't you, Danby? Not me and Orr.\"\n\n\"Chaplain, please talk to him, will you? He's deserting. He wants to run away to Sweden.\"\n\n\"Wonderful!\" cheered the chaplain, proudly throwing on the bed a pillowcase full of Yossarian's clothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Run away to Sweden, Yossarian. And I'll stay here and persevere. Yes. I'll persevere. I'll nag and badger Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn every time I see them. I'm not afraid. I'll even pick on General Dreedle.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"General Dreedle's out,\" Yossarian reminded, pulling on his trousers and hastily stuffing the tails of his shirt inside. \"It's General Peckem now.\"\n\nThe chaplain's babbling confidence did not falter for an instant. \"Then I'll pick on General Peckem, and even on General Scheisskopf. And do you know what else I'm going to do? I'm going to punch Captain Black in the nose the very next time I see him. Yes, I'm going to punch him in the nose. I'll do it when lots of people are around so that he may not have a chance to hit me back.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Have you both gone crazy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Danby protested, his bulging eyes straining in their sockets with tortured awe and exasperation. \"Have you both taken leave of your senses? Yossarian, listen-\"\n\n\"It's a miracle, I tell you,\" the chaplain proclaimed, seizing Major Danby about the waist and dancing him around with his elbows extended for a waltz. \"A real miracle. If Orr could row to Sweden, then I can triumph over Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn, if only I persevere.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Chaplain, will you please shut up?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Major Danby entreated politely, pulling free and patting his perspiring brow with a fluttering motion. He bent toward Yossarian, who was reaching for his shoes. \"What about Colonel-\"\n\n\"I couldn't care less.\"\n\n\"But this may actua-\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"To hell with them both!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This may actually help them,\" Major Danby persisted stubbornly. \"Have you thought of that?\"\n\n\"Let the bastards thrive, for all I care, since I can't do a thing to stop them but embarrass them by running away. I've got responsibilities of my own now, Danby. I've got to get to Sweden.\"\n\n\"You'll never make it. It's impossible. It's almost a geographical impossibility to get there from here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hell, Danby, I know that. But at least I'll be trying. There's a young kid in Rome whose life I'd like to save if I can find her. I'll take her to Sweden with me if I can find her, so it isn't all selfish, is it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's absolutely insane. Your conscience will never let you rest.\"\n\n\"God bless it.\" Yossarian laughed. \"I wouldn't want to live without strong misgivings. Right, Chaplain?\"\n\n\"I'm going to punch Captain Black right in the nose the next time I see him,\" gloried the chaplain, throwing two left jabs in the air and then a clumsy haymaker. \"Just like that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about the disgrace?\" demanded Major Danby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What disgrace? I'm more in disgrace now.\" Yossarian tied a hard knot in the second shoelace and sprang to his feet. \"Well, Danby, I'm ready. What do you say? Will you keep your mouth shut and let me catch a ride?\"\n\nMajor Danby regarded Yossarian in silence, with a strange, sad smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had stopped sweating and seemed absolutely calm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What would you do if I did try to stop you?\" he asked with rueful mockery. \"Beat me up?\"\n\nYossarian reacted to the question with hurt surprise. \"No, of course not. Why do you say that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will beat you up,\" boasted the chaplain, dancing up very close to Major Danby and shadowboxing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You and Captain Black, and maybe even Corporal Whitcomb. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I found I didn't have to be afraid of Corporal Whitcomb any more?\"\n\n\"Are you going to stop me?\" Yossarian asked Major Danby, and gazed at him steadily.\n\nMajor Danby skipped away from the chaplain and hesitated a moment longer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, of course not!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he blurted out, and suddenly was waving both arms toward the door in a gesture of exuberant urgency. \"Of course I won't stop you. Go, for God sakes, and hurry! Do you need any money?\"\n\n\"I have some money.\"\n\n\"Well, here's some more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With fervent, excited enthusiasm, Major Danby pressed a thick wad of Italian currency upon Yossarian and clasped his hand in both his own, as much to still his own trembling fingers as to give encouragement to Yossarian." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It must be nice to be in Sweden now,\" he observed yearningly. \"The girls are so sweet. And the people are so advanced.\"\n\n\"Goodbye, Yossarian,\" the chaplain called. \"And good luck. I'll stay here and persevere, and we'll meet again when the fighting stops.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So long, Chaplain. Thanks, Danby.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do you feel, Yossarian?\"\n\n\"Fine. No, I'm very frightened.\"\n\n\"That's good,\" said Major Danby. \"It proves you're still alive. It won't be fun.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yossarian started out. \"Yes it will.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean it, Yossarian. You'll have to keep on your toes every minute of every day. They'll bend heaven and earth to catch you.\"\n\n\"I'll keep on my toes every minute.\"\n\n\"You'll have to jump.\"\n\n\"I'll jump.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jump!\" Major Danby cried." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yossarian jumped. Nately's whore was hiding just outside the door. The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with four sentences in the style of F. Scott Fitzgerald." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. \"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,\" he told me, \"just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.\"\n\nHe didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Most of the confidences were unsought–frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.\n\nAnd, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction–Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"creative temperament. \"–it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No–Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.\n\nMy family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day. I never saw this great-uncle, but I'm supposed to look like him–with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father's office I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe–so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said,\n\n\"Why–ye–es,\" with very grave, hesitant faces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog–at least I had him for a few days until he ran away–and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.\n\nIt was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you get to West Egg village?\" he asked helplessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.\n\nAnd so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college–one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the \"Yale News. \"–and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the \"well-rounded man.\" This isn't just an epigram–life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York–and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. they are not perfect ovals–like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end–but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. to the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I lived at West Egg, the–well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "my house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. the one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard–it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. it was Gatsby's mansion. Or, rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires–all for eighty dollars a month." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.\n\nHer husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven–a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His family were enormously wealthy–even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach–but now he'd left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "it was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.\n\nWhy they came East I don't know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it–I had no sight into Daisy's heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens–finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.\n\nHe had changed since his New Haven years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body–he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage–a cruel body.\n\nHis speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked–and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final,\" he seemed to say, \"just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are.\" We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.\n\nWe talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.\n\n\"I've got a nice place here,\" he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motor-boat that bumped the tide offshore." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.\" He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. \"We'll go inside.\"\n\nWe walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The younger of the two was a stranger to me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it–indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.\n\nThe other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise–she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression–then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.\n\n\"I'm p-paralyzed with happiness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)\n\nAt any rate, Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again–the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Again a sort of apology arose to my lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.\n\nI looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "a singing compulsion, a whispered \"Listen,\" a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.\n\n\"Do they miss me?\" she cried ecstatically.\n\n\"The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there's a persistent wail all night along the north shore.\"\n\n\"How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. To-morrow!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she added irrelevantly: \"You ought to see the baby.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd like to.\"\n\n\"She's asleep. She's three years old. Haven't you ever seen her?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Well, you ought to see her. She's—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What you doing, Nick?\"\n\n\"I'm a bond man.\"\n\n\"Who with?\"\n\nI told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Never heard of them,\" he remarked decisively." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This annoyed me.\n\n\"You will,\" I answered shortly. \"You will if you stay in the East.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll stay in the East, don't you worry,\" he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd be a God damned fool to live anywhere else.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this point Miss Baker said: \"Absolutely!\" with such suddenness that I started–it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.\n\n\"I'm stiff,\" she complained, \"I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't look at me,\" Daisy retorted, \"I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, thanks,\" said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, \"I'm absolutely in training.\"\n\nHer host looked at her incredulously.\n\n\"You are!\" He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. \"How you ever get anything done is beyond me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she \"got done.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You live in West Egg,\" she remarked contemptuously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know somebody there.\"\n\n\"I don't know a single—\"\n\n\"You must know Gatsby.\"\n\n\"Gatsby?\" demanded Daisy. \"What Gatsby?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.\n\n\"Why CANDLES?\" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. \"In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked at us all radiantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.\"\n\n\"We ought to plan something,\" yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.\n\n\"All right,\" said Daisy. \"What'll we plan?\" She turned to me helplessly:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do people plan?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.\n\n\"Look!\" she complained; \"I hurt it.\"\n\nWe all looked–the knuckle was black and blue.\n\n\"You did it, Tom,\" she said accusingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know you didn't mean to, but you DID do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hate that word hulking,\" objected Tom crossly, \"even in kidding.\"\n\n\"Hulking,\" insisted Daisy.\n\nSometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.\n\n\"You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,\" I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. \"Can't you talk about crops or something?\"\n\nI meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Civilization's going to pieces,\" broke out Tom violently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read\n\n'The Rise of the Colored Empires' by this man Goddard?\"\n\n\"Why, no,\" I answered, rather surprised by his tone.\n\n\"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be–will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tom's getting very profound,\" said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—\"\n\n\"Well, these books are all scientific,\" insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. \"This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.\"\n\n\"We've got to beat them down,\" whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You ought to live in California–\" began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and—\" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. \"–And we've produced all the things that go to make civilization–oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?\"\n\nThere was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll tell you a family secret,\" she whispered enthusiastically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?\"\n\n\"That's why I came over to-night.\"\n\n\"Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose—\"\n\n\"Things went from bad to worse,\" suggested Miss Baker." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened–then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.\n\nThe butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.\n\n\"I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a–of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn't he?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"An absolute rose?\"\n\nThis was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said \"Sh!\" in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor—\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't talk. I want to hear what happens.\"\n\n\"Is something happening?\" I inquired innocently.\n\n\"You mean to say you don't know?\" said Miss Baker, honestly surprised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought everybody knew.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't.\"\n\n\"Why—\" she said hesitantly, \"Tom's got some woman in New York.\"\n\n\"Got some woman?\" I repeated blankly.\n\nMiss Baker nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don't you think?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.\n\n\"It couldn't be helped!\" cried Daisy with tense gaiety.\n\nShe sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: \"I looked outdoors for a minute, and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away—\" Her voice sang: \"It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very romantic,\" he said, and then miserably to me: \"If it's light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing–my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.\n\nDaisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We don't know each other very well, Nick,\" she said suddenly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding.\"\n\n\"I wasn't back from the war.\"\n\n\"That's true.\" She hesitated. \"Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evidently she had reason to be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.\n\n\"I suppose she talks, and–eats, and everything.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes.\" She looked at me absently. \"Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very much.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about–things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'all right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool–that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.\"\n\n\"You see I think everything's terrible anyhow,\" she went on in a convinced way. \"Everybody thinks so–the most advanced people. And I KNOW. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.\"\n\nHer eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. \"Sophisticated–God, I'm sophisticated!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.\n\nInside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the SATURDAY EVENING POST.–the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.\n\n\"To be continued,\" she said, tossing the magazine on the table, \"in our very next issue.\"\n\nHer body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.\n\n\"Ten o'clock,\" she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Time for this good girl to go to bed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jordan's going to play in the tournament to-morrow,\" explained Daisy,\n\n\"over at Westchester.\"\n\n\"Oh–you're Jordan BAKER.\"\n\nI knew now why her face was familiar–its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good night,\" she said softly. \"Wake me at eight, won't you.\"\n\n\"If you'll get up.\"\n\n\"I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course you will,\" confirmed Daisy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In fact I think I'll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of–oh–fling you together. You know–lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—\"\n\n\"Good night,\" called Miss Baker from the stairs. \"I haven't heard a word.\"\n\n\"She's a nice girl,\" said Tom after a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They oughtn't to let her run around the country this way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who oughtn't to?\" inquired Daisy coldly.\n\n\"Her family.\"\n\n\"Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's going to look after her, aren't you, Nick? She's going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.\"\n\nDaisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is she from New York?\" I asked quickly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—\"\n\n\"Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?\"\n\ndemanded Tom suddenly.\n\n\"Did I?\" She looked at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can't seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I'm sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't believe everything you hear, Nick,\" he advised me.\n\nI said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called: \"Wait!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I forgot to ask you something, and it's important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's right,\" corroborated Tom kindly. \"We heard that you were engaged.\"\n\n\"It's libel. I'm too poor.\"\n\n\"But we heard it,\" insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We heard it from three people, so it must be true.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn't even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can't stop going with an old friend on account of rumors, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.\n\nTheir interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich–nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms–but apparently there were no such intentions in her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for Tom, the fact that he \"had some woman in New York.\"\n\nwas really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.\n\nAlready it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone–fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor's mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.\n\nI decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But I didn't call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone–he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Involuntarily I glanced seaward–and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of F. Scott Fitzgerald.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of F. Scott Fitzgerald every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is a valley of ashes–a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight. But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic–their irises are one yard high." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground. The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute, and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fact that he had one was insisted upon wherever he was known." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew. Though I was curious to see her, I had no desire to meet her–but I did. I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon, and when we stopped by the ashheaps he jumped to his feet and, taking hold of my elbow, literally forced me from the car.\n\n\"We're getting off,\" he insisted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I want you to meet my girl.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think he'd tanked up a good deal at luncheon, and his determination to have my company bordered on violence. The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do.\n\nI followed him over a low whitewashed railroad fence, and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor Eckleburg's persistent stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it, and contiguous to absolutely nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the three shops it contained was for rent and another was an all-night restaurant, approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a garage–Repairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "GEORGE B. WILSON. Cars bought and sold.–and I followed Tom inside.\n\nThe interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to me that this shadow of a garage must be a blind, and that sumptuous and romantic apartments were concealed overhead, when the proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. He was a blond, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hello, Wilson, old man,\" said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. \"How's business?\"\n\n\"I can't complain,\" answered Wilson unconvincingly. \"When are you going to sell me that car?\"\n\n\"Next week; I've got my man working on it now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Works pretty slow, don't he?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, he doesn't,\" said Tom coldly. \"And if you feel that way about it, maybe I'd better sell it somewhere else after all.\"\n\n\"I don't mean that,\" explained Wilson quickly. \"I just meant—\"\n\nHis voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips, and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get some chairs, why don't you, so somebody can sit down.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, sure,\" agreed Wilson hurriedly, and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity–except his wife, who moved close to Tom.\n\n\"I want to see you,\" said Tom intently. \"Get on the next train.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll meet you by the news-stand on the lower level.\" She nodded and moved away from him just as George Wilson emerged with two chairs from his office door.\n\nWe waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a gray, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Terrible place, isn't it,\" said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Awful.\"\n\n\"It does her good to get away.\"\n\n\"Doesn't her husband object?\"\n\n\"Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York–or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train.\n\nShe had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York. At the news-stand she bought a copy of TOWN TATTLE. and a moving-picture magazine, and in the station drug-store some cold cream and a small flask of perfume." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Up-stairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxicabs drive away before she selected a new one, lavender-colored with gray upholstery, and in this we slid out from the mass of the station into the glowing sunshine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But immediately she turned sharply from the window and, leaning forward, tapped on the front glass.\n\n\"I want to get one of those dogs,\" she said earnestly. \"I want to get one for the apartment. They're nice to have–a dog.\"\n\nWe backed up to a gray old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a basket swung from his neck cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What kind are they?\" asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly, as he came to the taxi-window.\n\n\"All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?\"\n\n\"I'd like to get one of those police dogs; I don't suppose you got that kind?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up, wriggling, by the back of the neck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's no police dog,\" said Tom.\n\n\"No, it's not exactly a polICE dog,\" said the man with disappointment in his voice. \"It's more of an Airedale.\" He passed his hand over the brown wash-rag of a back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look at that coat. Some coat. That's a dog that'll never bother you with catching cold.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think it's cute,\" said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. \"How much is it?\"\n\n\"That dog?\" He looked at it admiringly. \"That dog will cost you ten dollars.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Airedale–undoubtedly there was an Airedale concerned in it somewhere, though its feet were startlingly white–changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is it a boy or a girl?\" she asked delicately.\n\n\"That dog? That dog's a boy.\"\n\n\"It's a bitch,\" said Tom decisively. \"Here's your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We drove over to Fifth Avenue, so warm and soft, almost pastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon that I wouldn't have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold on,\" I said, \"I have to leave you here.\"\n\n\"No, you don't,\" interposed Tom quickly.\n\n\"Myrtle'll be hurt if you don't come up to the apartment. Won't you, Myrtle?\"\n\n\"Come on,\" she urged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll telephone my sister Catherine. She's said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I'd like to, but—\"\n\nWe went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the West Hundreds. At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment-houses. Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighborhood, Mrs. Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases, and went haughtily in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm going to have the McKees come up,\" she announced as we rose in the elevator." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And, of course, I got to call up my sister, too.\"\n\nThe apartment was on the top floor–a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath. The living-room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it, so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was an over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Looked at from a distance, however, the hen resolved itself into a bonnet, and the countenance of a stout old lady beamed down into the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Several old copies of TOWN TATTLE. lay on the table together with a copy of SIMON CALLED PETER, and some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. Mrs. Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator-boy went for a box full of straw and some milk, to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large, hard dog-biscuits–one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon; so everything that happened has a dim, hazy cast over it, although until after eight o'clock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Tom's lap Mrs. Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then there were no cigarettes, and I went out to buy some at the drugstore on the corner. When I came back they had disappeared, so I sat down discreetly in the living-room and read a chapter of SIMON CALLED PETER.–either it was terrible stuff or the whiskey distorted things, because it didn't make any sense to me.\n\nJust as Tom and Myrtle (after the first drink Mrs. Wilson and I called each other by our first names) reappeared, company commenced to arrive at the apartment-door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sister, Catherine, was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red hair, and a complexion powdered milky white." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eye-brows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle, but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face. When she moved about there was an incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms. She came in with such a proprietary haste, and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here. But when I asked her she laughed immoderately, repeated my question aloud, and told me she lived with a girl friend at a hotel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. McKee was a pale, feminine man from the flat below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had just shaved, for there was a white spot of lather on his cheekbone, and he was most respectful in his greeting to every one in the room. He informed me that he was in the \"artistic game,\" and I gathered later that he was a photographer and had made the dim enlargement of Mrs. Wilson's mother which hovered like an ectoplasm on the wall. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible. She told me with pride that her husband had photographed her a hundred and twenty-seven times since they had been married." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.\n\n\"My dear,\" she told her sister in a high, mincing shout, \"most of these fellas will cheat you every time. All they think of is money. I had a woman up here last week to look at my feet, and when she gave me the bill you'd of thought she had my appendicitis out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What was the name of the woman?\" asked Mrs. McKee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mrs. Eberhardt. She goes around looking at people's feet in their own homes.\"\n\n\"I like your dress,\" remarked Mrs. McKee, \"I think it's adorable.\"\n\nMrs. Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain.\n\n\"It's just a crazy old thing,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I just slip it on sometimes when I don't care what I look like.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what I mean,\" pursued Mrs. McKee. \"If Chester could only get you in that pose I think he could make something of it.\"\n\nWe all looked in silence at Mrs. Wilson, who removed a strand of hair from over her eyes and looked back at us with a brilliant smile. Mr. McKee regarded her intently with his head on one side, and then moved his hand back and forth slowly in front of his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I should change the light,\" he said after a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd like to bring out the modelling of the features. And I'd try to get hold of all the back hair.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't think of changing the light,\" cried Mrs. McKee. \"I think it's—\"\n\nHer husband said \"SH!\" and we all looked at the subject again, whereupon Tom Buchanan yawned audibly and got to his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You McKees have something to drink,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get some more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, before everybody goes to sleep.\"\n\n\"I told that boy about the ice.\" Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. \"These people! You have to keep after them all the time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked at me and laughed pointlessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy, and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her orders there.\n\n\"I've done some nice things out on Long Island,\" asserted Mr. McKee.\n\nTom looked at him blankly.\n\n\"Two of them we have framed down-stairs.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Two what?\" demanded Tom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Two studies. One of them I call MONTAUK POINT–THE GULLS, and the other I call MONTAUK POINT–THE SEA.\"\n\nThe sister Catherine sat down beside me on the couch.\n\n\"Do you live down on Long Island, too?\" she inquired.\n\n\"I live at West Egg.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Really? I was down there at a party about a month ago. At a man named Gatsby's. Do you know him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I live next door to him.\"\n\n\"Well, they say he's a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm's. That's where all his money comes from.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\nShe nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm scared of him. I'd hate to have him get anything on me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This absorbing information about my neighbor was interrupted by Mrs. McKee's pointing suddenly at Catherine:\n\n\"Chester, I think you could do something with HER,\" she broke out, but Mr. McKee only nodded in a bored way, and turned his attention to Tom.\n\n\"I'd like to do more work on Long Island, if I could get the entry. All I ask is that they should give me a start.\"\n\n\"Ask Myrtle,\" said Tom, breaking into a short shout of laughter as Mrs. Wilson entered with a tray." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She'll give you a letter of introduction, won't you Myrtle?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do what?\" she asked, startled.\n\n\"You'll give McKee a letter of introduction to your husband, so he can do some studies of him.\" His lips moved silently for a moment as he invented. \"GEORGE B. WILSON AT THE GASOLINE PUMP, or something like that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Catherine leaned close to me and whispered in my ear: \"Neither of them can stand the person they're married to.\" \"Can't they?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't STAND them.\" She looked at Myrtle and then at Tom. \"What I say is, why go on living with them if they can't stand them? If I was them I'd get a divorce and get married to each other right away.\"\n\n\"Doesn't she like Wilson either?\"\n\nThe answer to this was unexpected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It came from Myrtle, who had overheard the question, and it was violent and obscene." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You see,\" cried Catherine triumphantly. She lowered her voice again.\n\n\"It's really his wife that's keeping them apart. She's a Catholic, and they don't believe in divorce.\"\n\nDaisy was not a Catholic, and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When they do get married,\" continued Catherine, \"they're going West to live for a while until it blows over.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It'd be more discreet to go to Europe.\"\n\n\"Oh, do you like Europe?\" she exclaimed surprisingly. \"I just got back from Monte Carlo.\"\n\n\"Really.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just last year. I went over there with another girl.\" \"Stay long?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We went by way of Marseilles. We had over twelve hundred dollars when we started, but we got gypped out of it all in two days in the private rooms. We had an awful time getting back, I can tell you. God, how I hated that town!\"\n\nThe late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean–then the shrill voice of Mrs. McKee called me back into the room.\n\n\"I almost made a mistake, too,\" she declared vigorously. \"I almost married a little kyke who'd been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me: 'Lucille, that man's 'way below you!' But if I hadn't met Chester, he'd of got me sure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, but listen,\" said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"at least you didn't marry him.\"\n\n\"I know I didn't.\"\n\n\"Well, I married him,\" said Myrtle, ambiguously. \"And that's the difference between your case and mine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why did you, Myrtle?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "demanded Catherine. \"Nobody forced you to.\"\n\nMyrtle considered.\n\n\"I married him because I thought he was a gentleman,\" she said finally.\n\n\"I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You were crazy about him for a while,\" said Catherine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Crazy about him!\" cried Myrtle incredulously. \"Who said I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there.\"\n\nShe pointed suddenly at me, and every one looked at me accusingly. I tried to show by my expression that I had played no part in her past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The only CRAZY I was was when I married him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody's best suit to get married in, and never even told me about it, and the man came after it one day when he was out.\n\n'oh, is that your suit?' I said. 'this is the first I ever heard about it.' But I gave it to him and then I lay down and cried to beat the band all afternoon.\"\n\n\"She really ought to get away from him,\" resumed Catherine to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They've been living over that garage for eleven years. And tom's the first sweetie she ever had.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bottle of whiskey–a second one–was now in constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine, who \"felt just as good on nothing at all.\"\n\nTom rang for the janitor and sent him for some celebrated sandwiches, which were a complete supper in themselves. I wanted to get out and walk southward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom.\n\n\"It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes, and I couldn't keep my eyes off him, but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me, and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm, and so I told him I'd have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn't hardly know I wasn't getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was 'You can't live forever; you can't live forever.'\"\n\nShe turned to Mrs. McKee and the room rang full of her artificial laughter.\n\n\"My dear,\" she cried, \"I'm going to give you this dress as soon as I'm through with it. I've got to get another one to-morrow. I'm going to make a list of all the things I've got to get. A massage and a wave, and a collar for the dog, and one of those cute little ash-trays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother's grave that'll last all summer. I got to write down a list so I won't forget all the things I got to do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was nine o'clock–almost immediately afterward I looked at my watch and found it was ten." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. McKee was asleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the remains of the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon.\n\nThe little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly. People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!\" shouted Mrs. Wilson. \"I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai—\"\n\nMaking a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.\n\nThen there were bloody towels upon the bath-room floor, and women's voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. McKee awoke from his doze and started in a daze toward the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he had gone half way he turned around and stared at the scene–his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture with articles of aid, and the despairing figure on the couch, bleeding fluently, and trying to spread a copy of TOWN TATTLE. over the tapestry scenes of Versailles. Then Mr. McKee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier, I followed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come to lunch some day,\" he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where?\"\n\n\"Anywhere.\"\n\n\"Keep your hands off the lever,\" snapped the elevator boy.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said Mr. McKee with dignity, \"I didn't know I was touching it.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide 4 sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York–every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb.\n\nAt least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names.\n\nThe lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.\n\nSuddenly one of the gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the FOLLIES. The party has begun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People were not invited–they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had been actually invited." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A chauffeur in a uniform of robin's-egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer: the honor would be entirely Gatsby's, it said, if I would attend his \"little party.\" that night. He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it–signed Jay Gatsby, in a majestic hand.\n\nDressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven, and wandered around rather ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn't know–though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.\n\nAs soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements, that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table–the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.\n\nI was on my way to get roaring drunk from sheer embarrassment when Jordan Baker came out of the house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little backward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden.\n\nWelcome or not, I found it necessary to attach myself to some one before I should begin to address cordial remarks to the passers-by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hello!\" I roared, advancing toward her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My voice seemed unnaturally loud across the garden.\n\n\"I thought you might be here,\" she responded absently as I came up.\n\n\"I remembered you lived next door to—\" She held my hand impersonally, as a promise that she'd take care of me in a minute, and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses, who stopped at the foot of the steps.\n\n\"Hello!\" they cried together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry you didn't win.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before.\n\n\"You don't know who we are,\" said one of the girls in yellow, \"but we met you here about a month ago.\"\n\n\"You've dyed your hair since then,\" remarked Jordan, and I started, but the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer's basket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With Jordan's slender golden arm resting in mine, we descended the steps and sauntered about the garden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble.\n\n\"Do you come to these parties often?\" inquired Jordan of the girl beside her.\n\n\"The last one was the one I met you at,\" answered the girl, in an alert confident voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned to her companion: \"Wasn't it for you, Lucille?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was for Lucille, too.\n\n\"I like to come,\" Lucille said. \"I never care what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address–inside of a week I got a package from Croirier's with a new evening gown in it.\"\n\n\"Did you keep it?\" asked Jordan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sure I did. I was going to wear it to-night, but it was too big in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's something funny about a fellow that'll do a thing like that,\"\n\nsaid the other girl eagerly. \"He doesn't want any trouble with ANYbody.\"\n\n\"Who doesn't?\" I inquired." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gatsby. Somebody told me—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.\n\n\"Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.\"\n\nA thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't think it's so much THAT,\" argued Lucille sceptically; \"it's more that he was a German spy during the war.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the men nodded in confirmation.\n\n\"I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,\" he assured us positively.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said the first girl, \"it couldn't be that, because he was in the American army during the war.\" As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody's looking at him. I'll bet he killed a man.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.\n\nThe first supper–there would be another one after midnight–was now being served, and Jordan invited me to join her own party, who were spread around a table on the other side of the garden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were three married couples and Jordan's escort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo, and obviously under the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the country-side–East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety.\n\n\"Let's get out,\" whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate half-hour. \"This is much too polite for me.\"\n\nWe got up, and she explained that we were going to find the host:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had never met him, she said, and it was making me uneasy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The undergraduate nodded in a cynical, melancholy way.\n\nThe bar, where we glanced first, was crowded, but Gatsby was not there. She couldn't find him from the top of the steps, and he wasn't on the veranda. On a chance we tried an important-looking door, and walked into a high Gothic library, panelled with carved English oak, and probably transported complete from some ruin overseas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot.\n\n\"What do you think?\" he demanded impetuously.\n\n\"About what?\" He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.\n\n\"About that. As a matter of fact you needn't bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They're real.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The books?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He nodded.\n\n\"Absolutely real–have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they're absolutely real. Pages and–Here! Lemme show you.\"\n\nTaking our scepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One of the \"Stoddard Lectures.\"\n\n\"See!\" he cried triumphantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too–didn't cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.\n\n\"Who brought you?\" he demanded. \"Or did you just come? I was brought. Most people were brought.\"\n\nJordan looked at him alertly, cheerfully, without answering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt,\" he continued." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mrs. Claud Roosevelt. Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night. I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.\"\n\n\"Has it?\"\n\n\"A little bit, I think. I can't tell yet. I've only been here an hour. Did I tell you about the books? They're real. They're—\"\n\n\"You told us.\" We shook hands with him gravely and went back outdoors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden; old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably, and keeping in the corners–and a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the traps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By midnight the hilarity had increased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian, and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz, and between the numbers people were doing \"stunts.\" all over the garden, while happy, vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky. A pair of stage twins, who turned out to be the girls in yellow, did a baby act in costume, and champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger-bowls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales, trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drip of the banjoes on the lawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table with a man of about my age and a rowdy little girl, who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter. I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two finger-bowls of champagne, and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental, and profound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At a lull in the entertainment the man looked at me and smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your face is familiar,\" he said, politely. \"Weren't you in the Third Division during the war?\"\n\n\"Why, yes. I was in the Ninth Machine-gun Battalion.\"\n\n\"I was in the Seventh Infantry until June nineteen-eighteen. I knew I'd seen you somewhere before.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We talked for a moment about some wet, gray little villages in France." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evidently he lived in this vicinity, for he told me that he had just bought a hydroplane, and was going to try it out in the morning.\n\n\"Want to go with me, old sport? Just near the shore along the Sound.\"\n\n\"What time?\"\n\n\"Any time that suits you best.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was on the tip of my tongue to ask his name when Jordan looked around and smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Having a gay time now?\" she inquired.\n\n\"Much better.\" I turned again to my new acquaintance. \"This is an unusual party for me. I haven't even seen the host. I live over there—\" I waved my hand at the invisible hedge in the distance, \"and this man Gatsby sent over his chauffeur with an invitation.\" For a moment he looked at me as if he failed to understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm Gatsby,\" he said suddenly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What!\" I exclaimed. \"Oh, I beg your pardon.\"\n\n\"I thought you knew, old sport. I'm afraid I'm not a very good host.\"\n\nHe smiled understandingly–much more than understandingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It faced–or seemed to face–the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished–and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost at the moment when Mr. Gatsby identified himself, a butler hurried toward him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He excused himself with a small bow that included each of us in turn.\n\n\"If you want anything just ask for it, old sport,\" he urged me.\n\n\"Excuse me. I will rejoin you later.\"\n\nWhen he was gone I turned immediately to Jordan–constrained to assure her of my surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who is he?\" I demanded.\n\n\"Do you know?\"\n\n\"He's just a man named Gatsby.\"\n\n\"Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now YOU'RE started on the subject,\" she answered with a wan smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, he told me once he was an Oxford man.\" A dim background started to take shape behind him, but at her next remark it faded away.\n\n\"However, I don't believe it.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" \"I don't know,\" she insisted, \"I just don't think he went there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something in her tone reminded me of the other girl's \"I think he killed a man,\" and had the effect of stimulating my curiosity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would have accepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang from the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East Side of New York. That was comprehensible. But young men didn't–at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn't–drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound.\n\n\"Anyhow, he gives large parties,\" said Jordan, changing the subject with an urbane distaste for the concrete. \"And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ladies and gentlemen,\" he cried. \"At the request of Mr. Gatsby we are going to play for you Mr. Vladimir Tostoff's latest work, which attracted so much attention at Carnegie Hall last May. If you read the papers, you know there was a big sensation.\" He smiled with jovial condescension, and added: \"Some sensation!\" Whereupon everybody laughed.\n\n\"The piece is known,\" he concluded lustily, \"as Vladimir Tostoff's JAZZ HISTORY OF THE WORLD.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The nature of Mr. Tostoff's composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day. I could see nothing sinister about him. I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased. When the JAZZ HISTORY OF THE WORLD was over, girls were putting their heads on men's shoulders in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men's arms, even into groups, knowing that some one would arrest their falls–but no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby's shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby's head for one link." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I beg your pardon.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gatsby's butler was suddenly standing beside us.\n\n\"Miss Baker?\" he inquired. \"I beg your pardon, but Mr. Gatsby would like to speak to you alone.\"\n\n\"With me?\" she exclaimed in surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, madame.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She got up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment, and followed the butler toward the house. I noticed that she wore her evening-dress, all her dresses, like sports clothes–there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings.\n\nI was alone and it was almost two. For some time confused and intriguing sounds had issued from a long, many-windowed room which overhung the terrace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eluding Jordan's undergraduate, who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation with two chorus girls, and who implored me to join him, I went inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The large room was full of people. One of the girls in yellow was playing the piano, and beside her stood a tall, red-haired young lady from a famous chorus, engaged in song. She had drunk a quantity of champagne, and during the course of her song she had decided, ineptly, that everything was very, very sad–she was not only singing, she was weeping too. Whenever there was a pause in the song she filled it with gasping, broken sobs, and then took up the lyric again in a quavering soprano." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tears coursed down her cheeks–not freely, however, for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her face, whereupon she threw up her hands, sank into a chair, and went off into a deep vinous sleep.\n\n\"She had a fight with a man who says he's her husband,\" explained a girl at my elbow.\n\nI looked around. Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands. Even Jordan's party, the quartet from East Egg, were rent asunder by dissension." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the men was talking with curious intensity to a young actress, and his wife, after attempting to laugh at the situation in a dignified and indifferent way, broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacks–at intervals she appeared suddenly at his side like an angry diamond, and hissed: \"You promised!\" into his ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The reluctance to go home was not confined to wayward men. The hall was at present occupied by two deplorably sober men and their highly indignant wives. The wives were sympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices.\n\n\"Whenever he sees I'm having a good time he wants to go home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Never heard anything so selfish in my life.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're always the first ones to leave.\"\n\n\"So are we.\"\n\n\"Well, we're almost the last to-night,\" said one of the men sheepishly.\n\n\"The orchestra left half an hour ago.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In spite of the wives' agreement that such malevolence was beyond credibility, the dispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted, kicking, into the night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As I waited for my hat in the hall the door of the library opened and Jordan Baker and Gatsby came out together. He was saying some last word to her, but the eagerness in his manner tightened abruptly into formality as several people approached him to say good-bye.\n\nJordan's party were calling impatiently to her from the porch, but she lingered for a moment to shake hands.\n\n\"I've just heard the most amazing thing,\" she whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How long were we in there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why, about an hour.\" \"It was–simply amazing,\" she repeated abstractedly. \"But I swore I wouldn't tell it and here I am tantalizing you.\" She yawned gracefully in my face: \"Please come and see me... Phone book... Under the name of Mrs. Sigourney Howard... My aunt...\" She was hurrying off as she talked–her brown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted into her party at the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rather ashamed that on my first appearance I had stayed so late, I joined the last of Gatsby's guests, who were clustered around him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wanted to explain that I'd hunted for him early in the evening and to apologize for not having known him in the garden.\n\n\"Don't mention it,\" he enjoined me eagerly. \"Don't give it another thought, old sport.\" The familiar expression held no more familiarity than the hand which reassuringly brushed my shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And don't forget we're going up in the hydroplane to-morrow morning, at nine o'clock.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the butler, behind his shoulder: \"Philadelphia wants you on the\n\n'phone, sir.\"\n\n\"All right, in a minute. Tell them I'll be right there... good night.\"\n\n\"Good night.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good night.\" He smiled–and suddenly there seemed to be a pleasant significance in having been among the last to go, as if he had desired it all the time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good night, old sport... good night.\"\n\nBut as I walked down the steps I saw that the evening was not quite over. Fifty feet from the door a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene. In the ditch beside the road, right side up, but violently shorn of one wheel, rested a new coupe which had left Gatsby's drive not two minutes before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sharp jut of a wall accounted for the detachment of the wheel, which was now getting considerable attention from half a dozen curious chauffeurs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, as they had left their cars blocking the road, a harsh, discordant din from those in the rear had been audible for some time, and added to the already violent confusion of the scene.\n\nA man in a long duster had dismounted from the wreck and now stood in the middle of the road, looking from the car to the tire and from the tire to the observers in a pleasant, puzzled way.\n\n\"See!\" he explained. \"It went in the ditch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fact was infinitely astonishing to him, and I recognized first the unusual quality of wonder, and then the man–it was the late patron of Gatsby's library." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How'd it happen?\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"I know nothing whatever about mechanics,\" he said decisively.\n\n\"But how did it happen? Did you run into the wall?\" \"Don't ask me,\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Owl Eyes, washing his hands of the whole matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know very little about driving–next to nothing. It happened, and that's all I know.\"\n\n\"Well, if you're a poor driver you oughtn't to try driving at night.\"\n\n\"But I wasn't even trying,\" he explained indignantly, \"I wasn't even trying.\"\n\nAn awed hush fell upon the bystanders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you want to commit suicide?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're lucky it was just a wheel! A bad driver and not even TRYing!\"\n\n\"You don't understand,\" explained the criminal. \"I wasn't driving. There's another man in the car.\"\n\nThe shock that followed this declaration found voice in a sustained" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah-h-h!\" as the door of the coupe swung slowly open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crowd–it was now a crowd–stepped back involuntarily, and when the door had opened wide there was a ghostly pause. Then, very gradually, part by part, a pale, dangling individual stepped out of the wreck, pawing tentatively at the ground with a large uncertain dancing shoe.\n\nBlinded by the glare of the headlights and confused by the incessant groaning of the horns, the apparition stood swaying for a moment before he perceived the man in the duster.\n\n\"Wha's matter?\" he inquired calmly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did we run outa gas?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look!\"\n\nHalf a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel–he stared at it for a moment, and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.\n\n\"It came off,\" some one explained.\n\nHe nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At first I din' notice we'd stopped.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders, he remarked in a determined voice:\n\n\"Wonder'ff tell me where there's a gas'line station?\"\n\nAt least a dozen men, some of them little better off than he was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond.\n\n\"Back out,\" he suggested after a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Put her in reverse.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But the WHEEL'S off!\"\n\nHe hesitated.\n\n\"No harm in trying,\" he said.\n\nThe caterwauling horns had reached a crescendo and I turned away and cut across the lawn toward home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I glanced back once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby's house, making the night fine as before, and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell.\n\nReading over what I have written so far, I see I have given the impression that the events of three nights several weeks apart were all that absorbed me. On the contrary, they were merely casual events in a crowded summer, and, until much later, they absorbed me infinitely less than my personal affairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of the time I worked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the early morning the sun threw my shadow westward as I hurried down the white chasms of lower New York to the Probity Trust. I knew the other clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names, and lunched with them in dark, crowded restaurants on little pig sausages and mashed potatoes and coffee. I even had a short affair with a girl who lived in Jersey City and worked in the accounting department, but her brother began throwing mean looks in my direction, so when she went on her vacation in July I let it blow quietly away.\n\nI took dinner usually at the Yale Club–for some reason it was the gloomiest event of my day–and then I went up-stairs to the library and studied investments and securities for a conscientious hour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were generally a few rioters around, but they never came into the library, so it was a good place to work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After that, if the night was mellow, I strolled down Madison Avenue past the old Murray Hill Hotel, and over 33rd Street to the Pennsylvania Station.\n\nI began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others–poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner–young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Again at eight o'clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were five deep with throbbing taxi-cabs, bound for the theatre district, I felt a sinking in my heart. Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and there was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes outlined unintelligible 70 gestures inside. Imagining that I, too, was hurrying toward gayety and sharing their intimate excitement, I wished them well.\n\nFor a while I lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in midsummer I found her again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At first I was flattered to go places with her, because she was a golf champion, and every one knew her name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then it was something more. I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity. The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something–most affectations conceal something eventually, even though they don't in the beginning–and one day I found what it was. When we were on a house-party together up in Warwick, she left a borrowed car out in the rain with the top down, and then lied about it–and suddenly I remembered the story about her that had eluded me that night at Daisy's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers–a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thing approached the proportions of a scandal–then died away. A caddy retracted his statement, and the only other witness admitted that he might have been mistaken. The incident and the name had remained together in my mind.\n\nJordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was incurably dishonest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wasn't able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body.\n\nIt made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply–I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was on that same house party that we had a curious conversation about driving a car." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button on one man's coat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're a rotten driver,\" I protested. \"Either you ought to be more careful, or you oughtn't to drive at all.\"\n\n\"I am careful.\"\n\n\"No, you're not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, other people are,\" she said lightly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's that got to do with it?\"\n\n\"They'll keep out of my way,\" she insisted. \"It takes two to make an accident.\"\n\n\"Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hope I never will,\" she answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hate careless people. That's why I like you.\"\n\nHer gray, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. I'd been writing letters once a week and signing them: \"Love, Nick,\" and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore, the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn. \"He's a bootlegger,\" said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. \"One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass.\"\n\nOnce I wrote down on the empty spaces of a time-table the names of those who came to Gatsby's house that summer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is an old time-table now, disintegrating at its folds, and headed \"This schedule in effect July 5th, 1922.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I can still read the gray names, and they will give you a better impression than my generalities of those who accepted Gatsby's hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him.\n\nFrom East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew at Yale, and Doctor Webster Civet, who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires, and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near. And the Ismays and the Chrysties (or rather Hubert Auerbach and Mr. Chrystie's wife), and Edgar Beaver, whose hair, they say, turned cotton-white one winter afternoon for no good reason at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clarence Endive was from East Egg, as I remember." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He came only once, in white knickerbockers, and had a fight with a bum named Etty in the garden. From farther out on the Island came the Cheadles and the O. R. P. Schraeders, and the Stonewall Jackson Abrams of Georgia, and the Fishguards and the Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days before he went to the penitentiary, so drunk out on the gravel drive that Mrs. Ulysses Swett's automobile ran over his right hand. The Dancies came, too, and S. B. Whitebait, who was well over sixty, and Maurice A. Flink, and the Hammerheads, and Beluga the tobacco importer, and Beluga's girls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From West Egg came the Poles and the Mulreadys and Cecil Roebuck and Cecil Schoen and Gulick the state senator and Newton Orchid, who controlled Films Par Excellence, and Eckhaust and Clyde Cohen and Don S. Schwartze (the son) and Arthur McCarty, all connected with the movies in one way or another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the Catlips and the Bembergs and G. Earl Muldoon, brother to that Muldoon who afterward strangled his wife. Da Fontano the promoter came there, and Ed Legros and James B. (\"Rot-Gut.\") Ferret and the De Jongs and Ernest Lilly–they came to gamble, and when Ferret wandered into the garden it meant he was cleaned out and Associated Traction would have to fluctuate profitably next day.\n\nA man named Klipspringer was there so often and so long that he became known as \"the boarder. \"–I doubt if he had any other home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of theatrical people there were Gus Waize and Horace O'donavan and Lester Meyer and George Duckweed and Francis Bull." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Also from New York were the Chromes and the Backhyssons and the Dennickers and Russel Betty and the Corrigans and the Kellehers and the Dewars and the Scullys and S. W. Belcher and the Smirkes and the young Quinns, divorced now, and Henry L. Palmetto, who killed himself by jumping in front of a subway train in Times Square.\n\nBenny McClenahan arrived always with four girls. They were never quite the same ones in physical person, but they were so identical one with another that it inevitably seemed they had been there before. I have forgotten their names–Jaqueline, I think, or else Consuela, or Gloria or Judy or June, and their last names were either the melodious names of flowers and months or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists whose cousins, if pressed, they would confess themselves to be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In addition to all these I can remember that Faustina O'brien came there at least once and the Baedeker girls and young Brewer, who had his nose shot off in the war, and Mr. Albrucksburger and Miss Haag, his fiancee, and Ardita Fitz-Peters and Mr. P. Jewett, once head of the American Legion, and Miss Claudia Hip, with a man reputed to be her chauffeur, and a prince of something, whom we called Duke, and whose name, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All these people came to Gatsby's house in the summer.\n\nAt nine o'clock, one morning late in July, Gatsby's gorgeous car lurched up the rocky drive to my door and gave out a burst of melody from its three-noted horn. It was the first time he had called on me, though I had gone to two of his parties, mounted in his hydroplane, and, at his urgent invitation, made frequent use of his beach. \"Good morning, old sport. You're having lunch with me to-day and I thought we'd ride up together.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American–that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.\n\nHe saw me looking with admiration at his car.\n\n\"It's pretty, isn't it, old sport?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He jumped off to give me a better view." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Haven't you ever seen it before?\"\n\nI'd seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory, we started to town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had talked with him perhaps half a dozen times in the past month and found, to my disappointment, that he had little to say: So my first impression, that he was a person of some undefined consequence, had gradually faded and he had become simply the proprietor of an elaborate road-house next door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then came that disconcerting ride. We hadn't reached West Egg village before Gatsby began leaving his elegant sentences unfinished and slapping himself indecisively on the knee of his caramel-colored suit.\n\n\"Look here, old sport,\" he broke out surprisingly. \"What's your opinion of me, anyhow?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A little overwhelmed, I began the generalized evasions which that question deserves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I'm going to tell you something about my life,\" he interrupted.\n\n\"I don't want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear.\"\n\nSo he was aware of the bizarre accusations that flavored conversation in his halls.\n\n\"I'll tell you God's truth.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His right hand suddenly ordered divine retribution to stand by." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West–all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition.\"\n\nHe looked at me sideways–and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying. He hurried the phrase \"educated at Oxford,\" or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him, after all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What part of the Middle West?\" I inquired casually." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"San Francisco.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\n\"My family all died and I came into a good deal of money.\"\n\nHis voice was solemn, as if the memory of that sudden extinction of a clan still haunted him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment I suspected that he was pulling my leg, but a glance at him convinced me otherwise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe–Paris, Venice, Rome–collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only, and trying to forget something very sad that had happened to me long ago.\"\n\nWith an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned \"character.\" leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to bear an enchanted life. I accepted a commission as first lieutenant when it began. In the Argonne Forest I took two machine-gun detachments so far forward that there was a half mile gap on either side of us where the infantry couldn't advance. We stayed there two days and two nights, a hundred and thirty men with sixteen Lewis guns, and when the infantry came up at last they found the insignia of three German divisions among the piles of dead. I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration–even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at them–with his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro's troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated fully the chain of national circumstances which had elicited this tribute from Montenegro's warm little heart. My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached in his pocket, and a piece of metal, slung on a ribbon, fell into my palm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's the one from Montenegro.\"\n\nTo my astonishment, the thing had an authentic look.\n\n\"Orderi di Danilo,\" ran the circular legend, \"Montenegro, Nicolas Rex.\"\n\n\"Turn it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Major Jay Gatsby,\" I read, \"For Valour Extraordinary.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here's another thing I always carry. A souvenir of Oxford days. It was taken in Trinity Quad–the man on my left is now the Earl of Dorcaster.\"\n\nIt was a photograph of half a dozen young men in blazers loafing in an archway through which were visible a host of spires. There was Gatsby, looking a little, not much, younger–with a cricket bat in his hand.\n\nThen it was all true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I saw the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on the Grand Canal; I saw him opening a chest of rubies to ease, with their crimson-lighted depths, the gnawings of his broken heart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm going to make a big request of you to-day,\" he said, pocketing his souvenirs with satisfaction, \"so I thought you ought to know something about me. I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody. You see, I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad thing that happened to me.\" He hesitated.\n\n\"You'll hear about it this afternoon.\"\n\n\"At lunch?\"\n\n\"No, this afternoon. I happened to find out that you're taking Miss Baker to tea.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you mean you're in love with Miss Baker?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, old sport, I'm not. But Miss Baker has kindly consented to speak to you about this matter.\"\n\nI hadn't the faintest idea what \"this matter.\" was, but I was more annoyed than interested. I hadn't asked Jordan to tea in order to discuss Mr. Jay Gatsby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was sure the request would be something utterly fantastic, and for a moment I was sorry I'd ever set foot upon his overpopulated lawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wouldn't say another word. His correctness grew on him as we neared the city. We passed Port Roosevelt, where there was a glimpse of red-belted ocean-going ships, and sped along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserted saloons of the faded-gilt nineteen-hundreds. Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse of Mrs. Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With fenders spread like wings we scattered light through half Long Island City–only half, for as we twisted among the pillars of the elevated I heard the familiar \"jug–jug–SPAT!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "of a motorcycle, and a frantic policeman rode alongside.\n\n\"All right, old sport,\" called Gatsby. We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet, he waved it before the man's eyes.\n\n\"Right you are,\" agreed the policeman, tipping his cap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Know you next time, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse ME!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What was that?\" I inquired.\n\n\"The picture of Oxford?\"\n\n\"I was able to do the commissioner a favor once, and he sends me a Christmas card every year.\"\n\nOver the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds, and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of southeastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby's splendid car was included in their sombre holiday. As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anything can happen now that we've slid over this bridge,\" I thought;" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"anything at all...\"\n\nEven Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder.\n\nRoaring noon. In a well–fanned Forty-second Street cellar I met Gatsby for lunch. Blinking away the brightness of the street outside, my eyes picked him out obscurely in the anteroom, talking to another man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Carraway, this is my friend Mr. Wolfshiem.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half-darkness.\n\n\"–So I took one look at him,\" said Mr. Wolfshiem, shaking my hand earnestly, \"and what do you think I did?\"\n\n\"What?\" I inquired politely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But evidently he was not addressing me, for he dropped my hand and covered Gatsby with his expressive nose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I handed the money to Katspaugh and I sid: 'all right, Katspaugh, don't pay him a penny till he shuts his mouth.' He shut it then and there.\"\n\nGatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant, whereupon Mr. Wolfshiem swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction.\n\n\"Highballs?\" asked the head waiter.\n\n\"This is a nice restaurant here,\" said Mr. Wolfshiem, looking at the Presbyterian nymphs on the ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I like across the street better!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, highballs,\" agreed Gatsby, and then to Mr. Wolfshiem: \"It's too hot over there.\"\n\n\"Hot and small–yes,\" said Mr. Wolfshiem, \"but full of memories.\"\n\n\"What place is that?\" I asked.\n\n\"The old Metropole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The old Metropole,\" brooded Mr. Wolfshiem gloomily. \"Filled with faces dead and gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filled with friends gone now forever. I can't forget so long as I live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table, and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "'all right,' says Rosy, and begins to get up, and I pulled him down in his chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'Let the bastards come in here if they want you, Rosy, but don't you, so help me, move outside this room.'\n\n\"It was four o'clock in the morning then, and if we'd of raised the blinds we'd of seen daylight.\"\n\n\"Did he go?\" I asked innocently.\n\n\"Sure he went.\" Mr. Wolfshiem's nose flashed at me indignantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He turned around in the door and says: 'Don't let that waiter take away my coffee!' Then he went out on the sidewalk, and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove away.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Four of them were electrocuted,\" I said, remembering.\n\n\"Five, with Becker.\" His nostrils turned to me in an interested way.\n\n\"I understand you're looking for a business gonnegtion.\"\n\nThe juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gatsby answered for me:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, no,\" he exclaimed, \"this isn't the man.\"\n\n\"No?\" Mr. Wolfshiem seemed disappointed.\n\n\"This is just a friend. I told you we'd talk about that some other time.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said Mr. Wolfshiem, \"I had a wrong man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A succulent hash arrived, and Mr. Wolfshiem, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes, meanwhile, roved very slowly all around the room–he completed the arc by turning to inspect the people directly behind. I think that, except for my presence, he would have taken one short glance beneath our own table.\n\n\"Look here, old sport,\" said Gatsby, leaning toward me, \"I'm afraid I made you a little angry this morning in the car.\"\n\nThere was the smile again, but this time I held out against it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't like mysteries,\" I answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I don't understand why you won't come out frankly and tell me what you want. Why has it all got to come through Miss Baker?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's nothing underhand,\" he assured me. \"Miss Baker's a great sportswoman, you know, and she'd never do anything that wasn't all right.\"\n\nSuddenly he looked at his watch, jumped up, and hurried from the room, leaving me with Mr. Wolfshiem at the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He has to telephone,\" said Mr. Wolfshiem, following him with his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fine fellow, isn't he? Handsome to look at and a perfect gentleman.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"He's an Oggsford man.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He went to Oggsford College in England. You know Oggsford College?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've heard of it.\"\n\n\"It's one of the most famous colleges in the world.\"\n\n\"Have you known Gatsby for a long time?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Several years,\" he answered in a gratified way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I made the pleasure of his acquaintance just after the war. But I knew I had discovered a man of fine breeding after I talked with him an hour. I said to myself: 'There's the kind of man you'd like to take home and introduce to your mother and sister.'.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He paused. \"I see you're looking at my cuff buttons.\" I hadn't been looking at them, but I did now.\n\nThey were composed of oddly familiar pieces of ivory.\n\n\"Finest specimens of human molars,\" he informed me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well!\" I inspected them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a very interesting idea.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He flipped his sleeves up under his coat. \"Yeah, Gatsby's very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend's wife.\"\n\nWhen the subject of this instinctive trust returned to the table and sat down Mr. Wolfshiem drank his coffee with a jerk and got to his feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have enjoyed my lunch,\" he said, \"and I'm going to run off from you two young men before I outstay my welcome.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't hurry, Meyer,\" said Gatsby, without enthusiasm. Mr. Wolfshiem raised his hand in a sort of benediction.\n\n\"You're very polite, but I belong to another generation,\" he announced solemnly. \"You sit here and discuss your sports and your young ladies and your—\" He supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"As for me, I am fifty years old, and I won't impose myself on you any longer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he shook hands and turned away his tragic nose was trembling. I wondered if I had said anything to offend him.\n\n\"He becomes very sentimental sometimes,\" explained Gatsby. \"This is one of his sentimental days. He's quite a character around New York–a denizen of Broadway.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who is he, anyhow, an actor?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\n\"A dentist?\"\n\n\"Meyer Wolfshiem? No, he's a gambler.\" Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: \"He's the man who fixed the World's Series back in 1919.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fixed the World's Series?\" I repeated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World's Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely HAPPENED, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people–with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.\n\n\"How did he happen to do that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I asked after a minute." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He just saw the opportunity.\"\n\n\"Why isn't he in jail?\"\n\n\"They can't get him, old sport. He's a smart man.\"\n\nI insisted on paying the check." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the waiter brought my change I caught sight of Tom Buchanan across the crowded room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come along with me for a minute,\" I said; \"I've got to say hello to some one.\" When he saw us Tom jumped up and took half a dozen steps in our direction.\n\n\"Where've you been?\" he demamded eagerly. \"Daisy's furious because you haven't called up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Mr. Gatsby, Mr. Buchanan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They shook hands briefly, and a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over Gatsby's face.\n\n\"How've you been, anyhow?\" demanded Tom of me. \"How'd you happen to come up this far to eat?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there.\n\nOne October day in nineteen-seventeen— (said Jordan Baker that afternoon, sitting up very straight on a straight chair in the tea-garden at the Plaza Hotel)\n\n–I was walking along from one place to another, half on the sidewalks and half on the lawns. I was happier on the lawns because I had on shoes from England with rubber nobs on the soles that bit into the soft ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had on a new plaid skirt also that blew a little in the wind, and whenever this happened the red, white, and blue banners in front of all the houses stretched out stiff and said TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT, in a disapproving way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The largest of the banners and the largest of the lawns belonged to Daisy Fay's house. She was just eighteen, two years older than me, and by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville. She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster, and all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night. \"Anyways, for an hour!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I came opposite her house that morning her white roadster was beside the curb, and she was sitting in it with a lieutenant I had never seen before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were so engrossed in each other that she didn't see me until I was five feet away.\n\n\"Hello, Jordan,\" she called unexpectedly. \"Please come here.\"\n\nI was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I was going to the Red Cross and make bandages." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was. Well, then, would I tell them that she couldn't come that day?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby, and I didn't lay eyes on him again for over four years–even after I'd met him on Long Island I didn't realize it was the same man.\n\nThat was nineteen-seventeen. By the next year I had a few beaux myself, and I began to play in tournaments, so I didn't see Daisy very often. She went with a slightly older crowd–when she went with anyone at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wild rumors were circulating about her–how her mother had found her packing her bag one winter night to go to New York and say good-by to a soldier who was going overseas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was effectually prevented, but she wasn't on speaking terms with her family for several weeks. After that she didn't play around with the soldiers any more, but only with a few flat-footed, short-sighted young men in town, who couldn't get into the army at all.\n\nBy the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. She had a debut after the Armistice, and in February she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He came down with a hundred people in four private cars, and hired a whole floor of the Seelbach Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.\n\nI was bridesmaid. I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress–and as drunk as a monkey. she had a bottle of Sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other.\n\n\"'Gratulate me,\" she muttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Never had a drink before, but oh how I do enjoy it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's the matter, Daisy?\"\n\nI was scared, I can tell you; I'd never seen a girl like that before.\n\n\"Here, deares'.\" She groped around in a waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. \"Take 'em down-stairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mine. Say: 'Daisy's change' her mine!'.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She began to cry–she cried and cried." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I rushed out and found her mother's maid, and we locked the door and got her into a cold bath. She wouldn't let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow.\n\nBut she didn't say another word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We gave her spirits of ammonia and put ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress, and half an hour later, when we walked out of the room, the pearls were around her neck and the incident was over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next day at five o'clock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver, and started off on a three months' trip to the South Seas.\n\nI saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back, and I thought I'd never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she'd look around uneasily, and say: \"Where's Tom gone?\" and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She used to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the hour, rubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with unfathomable delight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was touching to see them together–it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was in August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night, and ripped a front wheel off his car. The girl who was with him got into the papers, too, because her arm was broken–she was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next April Daisy had her little girl, and they went to France for a year." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I saw them one spring in Cannes, and later in Deauville, and then they came back to Chicago to settle down. Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know. They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she doesn't drink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care. Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at all–and yet there's something in that voice of hers...\n\nWell, about six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for the first time in years. It was when I asked you–do you remember?–if you knew Gatsby in West Egg." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After you had gone home she came into my room and woke me up, and said: \"What Gatsby?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and when I described him–I was half asleep–she said in the strangest voice that it must be the man she used to know. It wasn't until then that I connected this Gatsby with the officer in her white car.\n\nWhen Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had left the Plaza for half an hour and were driving in a victoria through Central Park. The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties, and the clear voices of girls, already gathered like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm the Sheik of Araby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your love belongs to me.\n\nAt night when you're are asleep\n\nInto your tent I'll creep—\"\n\n\"It was a strange coincidence,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But it wasn't a coincidence at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.\"\n\nThen it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He wants to know,\" continued Jordan, \"if you'll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths–so that he could\n\n\"come over.\" some afternoon to a stranger's garden.\n\n\"Did I have to know all this before he could ask such a little thing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's afraid, he's waited so long. He thought you might be offended. You see, he's a regular tough underneath it all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something worried me.\n\n\"Why didn't he ask you to arrange a meeting?\"\n\n\"He wants her to see his house,\" she explained. \"And your house is right next door.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,\" went on Jordan, \"but she never did. Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found. It was that night he sent for me at his dance, and you should have heard the elaborate way he worked up to it. Of course, I immediately suggested a luncheon in New York–and I thought he'd go mad:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'I don't want to do anything out of the way!' he kept saying. 'I want to see her right next door.'\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When I said you were a particular friend of Tom's, he started to abandon the whole idea. He doesn't know very much about Tom, though he says he's read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy's name.\"\n\nIt was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal scepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: \"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And Daisy ought to have something in her life,\" murmured Jordan to me." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does she want to see Gatsby?\"\n\n\"She's not to know about it. Gatsby doesn't want her to know. You're just supposed to invite her to tea.\"\n\nWe passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the facade of Fifty-ninth Street, a block of delicate pale light, beamed down into the park. Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Her wan, scornful mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as F. Scott Fitzgerald" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I came home to West Egg that night I was afraid for a moment that my house was on fire. Two o'clock and the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light, which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires. Turning a corner, I saw that it was Gatsby's house, lit from tower to cellar. At first I thought it was another party, a wild rout that had resolved itself into \"hide-and-go-seek.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "or \"sardines-in-the-box.\" with all the house thrown open to the game." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there wasn't a sound. Only wind in the trees, which blew the wires and made the lights go off and on again as if the house had winked into the darkness. As my taxi groaned away I saw Gatsby walking toward me across his lawn.\n\n\"Your place looks like the World's Fair,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does it?\" He turned his eyes toward it absently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have been glancing into some of the rooms. Let's go to Coney Island, old sport. In my car.\"\n\n\"It's too late.\"\n\n\"Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming-pool? I haven't made use of it all summer.\"\n\n\"I've got to go to bed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waited, looking at me with suppressed eagerness.\n\n\"I talked with Miss Baker,\" I said after a moment. \"I'm going to call up Daisy to-morrow and invite her over here to tea.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's all right,\" he said carelessly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't want to put you to any trouble.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What day would suit you?\"\n\n\"What day would suit YOU?\" he corrected me quickly. \"I don't want to put you to any trouble, you see.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How about the day after to-morrow?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He considered for a moment. Then, with reluctance:\n\n\"I want to get the grass cut,\" he said.\n\nWe both looked at the grass–there was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept expanse of his began. I suspected that he meant my grass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's another little thing,\" he said uncertainly, and hesitated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Would you rather put it off for a few days?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, it isn't about that. At least—\" He fumbled with a series of beginnings. \"Why, I thought–why, look here, old sport, you don't make much money, do you?\"\n\n\"Not very much.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought you didn't, if you'll pardon my–You see, I carry on a little business on the side, a sort of side line, you understand. And I thought that if you don't make very much–You're selling bonds, aren't you, old sport?\"\n\n\"Trying to.\"\n\n\"Well, this would interest you. It wouldn't take up much of your time and you might pick up a nice bit of money. It happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing.\"\n\nI realize now that under different circumstances that conversation might have been one of the crises of my life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But, because the offer was obviously and tactlessly for a service to be rendered, I had no choice except to cut him off there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've got my hands full,\" I said. \"I'm much obliged but I couldn't take on any more work.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't have to do any business with Wolfshiem.\" Evidently he thought that I was shying away from the \"gonnegtion.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "mentioned at lunch, but I assured him he was wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waited a moment longer, hoping I'd begin a conversation, but I was too absorbed to be responsive, so he went unwillingly home.\n\nThe evening had made me light-headed and happy; I think I walked into a deep sleep as I entered my front door. So I didn't know whether or not Gatsby went to Coney Island, or for how many hours he \"glanced into rooms.\" while his house blazed gaudily on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I called up Daisy from the office next morning, and invited her to come to tea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't bring Tom,\" I warned her.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Don't bring Tom.\"\n\n\"Who is 'Tom'?\" she asked innocently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The day agreed upon was pouring rain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At eleven o'clock a man in a raincoat, dragging a lawn-mower, tapped at my front door and said that Mr. Gatsby had sent him over to cut my grass. This reminded me that I had forgotten to tell my Finn to come back, so I drove into West Egg Village to search for her among soggy, whitewashed alleys and to buy some cups and lemons and flowers.\n\nThe flowers were unnecessary, for at two o'clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby's, with innumerable receptacles to contain it. An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-colored tie, hurried in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is everything all right?\" he asked immediately.\n\n\"The grass looks fine, if that's what you mean.\"\n\n\"What grass?\" he inquired blankly. \"Oh, the grass in the yard.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked out the window at it, but, judging from his expression, I don't believe he saw a thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Looks very good,\" he remarked vaguely. \"One of the papers said they thought the rain would stop about four. I think it was the JOURNAL. Have you got everything you need in the shape of–of tea?\"\n\nI took him into the pantry, where he looked a little reproachfully at the Finn. Together we scrutinized the twelve lemon cakes from the delicatessen shop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will they do?\" I asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course, of course! They're fine!\" and he added hollowly, \"...old sport.\"\n\nThe rain cooled about half-past three to a damp mist, through which occasional thin drops swam like dew. Gatsby looked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clay's ECONOMICS, starting at the Finnish tread that shook the kitchen floor, and peering toward the bleared windows from time to time as if a series of invisible but alarming happenings were taking place outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finally he got up and informed me, in an uncertain voice, that he was going home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why's that?\"\n\n\"Nobody's coming to tea. It's too late!\" He looked at his watch as if there was some pressing demand on his time elsewhere. \"I can't wait all day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't be silly; it's just two minutes to four.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sat down miserably, as if I had pushed him, and simultaneously there was the sound of a motor turning into my lane. We both jumped up, and, a little harrowed myself, I went out into the yard.\n\nUnder the dripping bare lilac-trees a large open car was coming up the drive. It stopped. Daisy's face, tipped sideways beneath a three-cornered lavender hat, looked out at me with a bright ecstatic smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is this absolutely where you live, my dearest one?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear alone, before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her cheek, and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car.\n\n\"Are you in love with me,\" she said low in my ear, \"or why did I have to come alone?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the secret of Castle Rackrent. Tell your chauffeur to go far away and spend an hour.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come back in an hour, Ferdie.\" Then in a grave murmur: \"His name is Ferdie.\"\n\n\"Does the gasoline affect his nose?\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" she said innocently. \"Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We went in. To my overwhelming surprise the living-room was deserted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, that's funny,\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"What's funny?\"\n\nShe turned her head as there was a light dignified knocking at the front door. I went out and opened it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me into the hall, turned sharply as if he were on a wire, and disappeared into the living-room. It wasn't a bit funny. Aware of the loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain.\n\nFor half a minute there wasn't a sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then from the living-room I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by Daisy's voice on a clear artificial note: \"I certainly am awfully glad to see you again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pause; it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall, so I went into the room.\n\nGatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful, on the edge of a stiff chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've met before,\" muttered Gatsby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes glanced momentarily at me, and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers, and set it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his chin in his hand.\n\n\"I'm sorry about the clock,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I couldn't muster up a single commonplace out of the thousand in my head.\n\n\"It's an old clock,\" I told them idiotically.\n\nI think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor.\n\n\"We haven't met for many years,\" said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Five years next November.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The automatic quality of Gatsby's answer set us all back at least another minute. I had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray.\n\nAmid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical decency established itself. Gatsby got himself into a shadow and, while Daisy and I talked, looked conscientiously from one to the other of us with tense, unhappy eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, as calmness wasn't an end in itself, I made an excuse at the first possible moment, and got to my feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are you going?\" demanded Gatsby in immediate alarm.\n\n\"I'll be back.\"\n\n\"I've got to speak to you about something before you go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He followed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the door, and whispered:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, God!\" in a miserable way.\n\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"This is a terrible mistake,\" he said, shaking his head from side to side, \"a terrible, terrible mistake.\"\n\n\"You're just embarrassed, that's all,\" and luckily I added: \"Daisy's embarrassed too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's embarrassed?\" he repeated incredulously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just as much as you are.\"\n\n\"Don't talk so loud.\"\n\n\"You're acting like a little boy,\" I broke out impatiently. \"Not only that, but you're rude. Daisy's sitting in there all alone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He raised his hand to stop my words, looked at me with unforgettable reproach, and, opening the door cautiously, went back into the other room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I walked out the back way–just as Gatsby had when he had made his nervous circuit of the house half an hour before–and ran for a huge black knotted tree, whose massed leaves made a fabric against the rain. Once more it was pouring, and my irregular lawn, well-shaved by Gatsby's gardener, abounded in small, muddy swamps and prehistoric marshes. There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby's enormous house, so I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour. A brewer had built it early in the \"period.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "craze, a decade before, and there was a story that he'd agreed to pay five years' taxes on all the neighboring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to Found a Family–he went into an immediate decline. His children sold his house with the black wreath still on the door. Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.\n\nAfter half an hour, the sun shone again, and the grocer's automobile rounded Gatsby's drive with the raw material for his servants' dinner–I felt sure he wouldn't eat a spoonful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A maid began opening the upper windows of his house, appeared momentarily in each, and, leaning from a large central bay, spat meditatively into the garden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was time I went back. While the rain continued it had seemed like the murmur of their voices, rising and swelling a little now and then with gusts of emotion. But in the new silence I felt that silence had fallen within the house too.\n\nI went in–after making every possible noise in the kitchen, short of pushing over the stove–but I don't believe they heard a sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were sitting at either end of the couch, looking at each other as if some question had been asked, or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daisy's face was smeared with tears, and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.\n\n\"Oh, hello, old sport,\" he said, as if he hadn't seen me for years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I thought for a moment he was going to shake hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's stopped raining.\"\n\n\"Has it?\" When he realized what I was talking about, that there were twinkle-bells of sunshine in the room, he smiled like a weather man, like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light, and repeated the news to Daisy. \"What do you think of that? It's stopped raining.\"\n\n\"I'm glad, Jay.\" Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her unexpected joy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I want you and Daisy to come over to my house,\" he said, \"I'd like to show her around.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're sure you want me to come?\"\n\n\"Absolutely, old sport.\"\n\nDaisy went up-stairs to wash her face–too late I thought with humiliation of my towels–while Gatsby and I waited on the lawn.\n\n\"My house looks well, doesn't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he demanded. \"See how the whole front of it catches the light.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I agreed that it was splendid.\n\n\"Yes.\" His eyes went over it, every arched door and square tower. \"It took me just three years to earn the money that bought it.\"\n\n\"I thought you inherited your money.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I did, old sport,\" he said automatically, \"but I lost most of it in the big panic–the panic of the war.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think he hardly knew what he was saying, for when I asked him what business he was in he answered, \"That's my affair,\" before he realized that it wasn't the appropriate reply.\n\n\"Oh, I've been in several things,\" he corrected himself. \"I was in the drug business and then I was in the oil business. But I'm not in either one now.\" He looked at me with more attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you mean you've been thinking over what I proposed the other night?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before I could answer, Daisy came out of the house and two rows of brass buttons on her dress gleamed in the sunlight.\n\n\"That huge place THERE?\" she cried pointing.\n\n\"Do you like it?\"\n\n\"I love it, but I don't see how you live there all alone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I keep it always full of interesting people, night and day. People who do interesting things. Celebrated people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of taking the short cut along the Sound we went down the road and entered by the big postern. With enchanting murmurs Daisy admired this aspect or that of the feudal silhouette against the sky, admired the gardens, the sparkling odor of jonquils and the frothy odor of hawthorn and plum blossoms and the pale gold odor of kiss-me-at-the-gate. It was strange to reach the marble steps and find no stir of bright dresses in and out the door, and hear no sound but bird voices in the trees.\n\nAnd inside, as we wandered through Marie Antoinette music-rooms and Restoration salons, I felt that there were guests concealed behind every couch and table, under orders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Gatsby closed the door of \"the Merton College Library.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could have sworn I heard the owl-eyed man break into ghostly laughter.\n\nWe went up-stairs, through period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through dressing-rooms and poolrooms, and bathrooms with sunken baths–intruding into one chamber where a dishevelled man in pajamas was doing liver exercises on the floor. It was Mr. Klipspringer, the \"boarder.\" I had seen him wandering hungrily about the beach that morning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finally we came to Gatsby's own apartment, a bedroom and a bath, and an Adam study, where we sat down and drank a glass of some Chartreuse he took from a cupboard in the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.\n\nHis bedroom was the simplest room of all–except where the dresser was garnished with a toilet set of pure dull gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Daisy took the brush with delight, and smoothed her hair, whereupon Gatsby sat down and shaded his eyes and began to laugh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's the funniest thing, old sport,\" he said hilariously. \"I can't–When I try to—\"\n\nHe had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock.\n\nRecovering himself in a minute he opened for us two hulking patent cabinets which held his massed suits and dressing-gowns and ties, and his shirts, piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high.\n\n\"I've got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall.\"\n\nHe took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher–shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, and monograms of Indian blue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.\n\n\"They're such beautiful shirts,\" she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. \"It makes me sad because I've never seen such–such beautiful shirts before.\"\n\nAfter the house, we were to see the grounds and the swimming-pool, and the hydroplane and the mid-summer flowers–but outside Gatsby's window it began to rain again, so we stood in a row looking at the corrugated surface of the Sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay,\" said Gatsby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.\"\n\nDaisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had seemed as close as a star to the moon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.\n\nI began to walk about the room, examining various indefinite objects in the half darkness. A large photograph of an elderly man in yachting costume attracted me, hung on the wall over his desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who's this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That? That's Mr. Dan Cody, old sport.\"\n\nThe name sounded faintly familiar.\n\n\"He's dead now. He used to be my best friend years ago.\"\n\nThere was a small picture of Gatsby, also in yachting costume, on the bureau–Gatsby with his head thrown back defiantly–taken apparently when he was about eighteen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I adore it,\" exclaimed Daisy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The pompadour! You never told me you had a pompadour–or a yacht.\"\n\n\"Look at this,\" said Gatsby quickly. \"Here's a lot of clippings–about you.\"\n\nThey stood side by side examining it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was going to ask to see the rubies when the phone rang, and Gatsby took up the receiver." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes... well, I can't talk now... I can't talk now, old sport... I said a SMALL town... he must know what a small town is... well, he's no use to us if Detroit is his idea of a small town...\"\n\nHe rang off.\n\n\"Come here QUICK!\" cried Daisy at the window.\n\nThe rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted in the west, and there was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look at that,\" she whispered, and then after a moment: \"I'd like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I tried to go then, but they wouldn't hear of it; perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactorily alone.\n\n\"I know what we'll do,\" said Gatsby, \"we'll have Klipspringer play the piano.\"\n\nHe went out of the room calling \"Ewing!\" and returned in a few minutes accompanied by an embarrassed, slightly worn young man, with shell-rimmed glasses and scanty blond hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was now decently clothed in a \"sport shirt,\" open at the neck, sneakers, and duck trousers of a nebulous hue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did we interrupt your exercises?\" inquired Daisy politely.\n\n\"I was asleep,\" cried Mr. Klipspringer, in a spasm of embarrassment.\n\n\"That is, I'd BEEN asleep. Then I got up...\"\n\n\"Klipspringer plays the piano,\" said Gatsby, cutting him off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you, Ewing, old sport?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't play well. I don't–I hardly play at all. I'm all out of prac—\"\n\n\"We'll go down-stairs,\" interrupted Gatsby. He flipped a switch. The gray windows disappeared as the house glowed full of light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the music-room Gatsby turned on a solitary lamp beside the piano." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lit Daisy's cigarette from a trembling match, and sat down with her on a couch far across the room, where there was no light save what the gleaming floor bounced in from the hall.\n\nWhen Klipspringer had played THE LOVE NEST. he turned around on the bench and searched unhappily for Gatsby in the gloom.\n\n\"I'm all out of practice, you see. I told you I couldn't play. I'm all out of prac—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't talk so much, old sport,\" commanded Gatsby. \"Play!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"IN THE MORNING, IN THE EVENING,\"\n\n\"AIN'T WE GOT FUN—\"\n\nOutside the wind was loud and there was a faint flow of thunder along the Sound. All the lights were going on in West Egg now; the electric trains, men-carrying, were plunging home through the rain from New York." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the hour of a profound human change, and excitement was generating on the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"ONE THING'S SURE AND NOTHING'S SURER THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET–CHILDREN.\"\n\n\"IN THE MEANTIME,\"\n\n\"IN BETWEEN TIME—\"\n\nAs I went over to say good-by I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby's face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon whe Daisy tumbled short of his dreams–not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.\n\nAs I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with 4 sentences, emulating the writing style of F. Scott Fitzgerald." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About this time an ambitious young reporter from New York arrived one morning at Gatsby's door and asked him if he had anything to say. \"Anything to say about what?\" inquired Gatsby politely.\n\n\"Why–any statement to give out.\"\n\nIt transpired after a confused five minutes that the man had heard Gatsby's name around his office in a connection which he either wouldn't reveal or didn't fully understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was his day off and with laudable initiative he had hurried out \"to see.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a random shot, and yet the reporter's instinct was right. Gatsby's notoriety, spread about by the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so become authorities on his past, had increased all summer until he fell just short of being news. Contemporary legends such as the \"underground pipe-line to Canada.\" attached themselves to him, and there was one persistent story that he didn't live in a house at all, but in a boat that looked like a house and was moved secretly up and down the Long Island shore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just why these inventions were a source of satisfaction to James Gatz of North Dakota, isn't easy to say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "James Gatz–that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career–when he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a rowboat, pulled out to the TUOLOMEE, and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour.\n\nI suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people–his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God–a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that–and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.\n\nFor over a year he had been beating his way along the south shore of Lake Superior as a clam-digger and a salmon-fisher or in any other capacity that brought him food and bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His brown, hardening body lived naturally through the half-fierce, half-lazy work of the bracing days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew women early, and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorbtion he took for granted.\n\nBut his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the wash-stand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.\n\nAn instinct toward his future glory had led him, some months before, to the small Lutheran college of St. Olaf in southern Minnesota. He stayed there two weeks, dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny, to destiny itself, and despising the janitor's work with which he was to pay his way through. Then he drifted back to Lake Superior, and he was still searching for something to do on the day that Dan Cody's yacht dropped anchor in the shallows alongshore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cody was fifty years old then, a product of the Nevada silver fields, of the Yukon, of every rush for metal since seventy-five." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The transactions in Montana copper that made him many times a millionaire found him physically robust but on the verge of soft-mindedness, and, suspecting this, an infinite number of women tried to separate him from his money. The none too savory ramifications by which Ella Kaye, the newspaper woman, played Madame de Maintenon to his weakness and sent him to sea in a yacht, were common knowledge to the turgid sub-journalism of 1902. He had been coasting along all too hospitable shores for five years when he turned up as James Gatz's destiny at Little Girls Point.\n\nTo the young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, the yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I suppose he smiled at Cody–he had probably discovered that people liked him when he smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At any rate Cody asked him a few questions (one of them elicited the brand new name) and found that he was quick and extravagantly ambitious. A few days later he took him to Duluth and bought him a blue coat, six pair of white duck trousers, and a yachting cap. And when the TUOLOMEE left for the West Indies and the Barbary Coast Gatsby left too.\n\nHe was employed in a vague personal capacity–while he remained with Cody he was in turn steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor, for Dan Cody sober knew what lavish doings Dan Cody drunk might soon be about, and he provided for such contingencies by reposing more and more trust in Gatsby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The arrangement lasted five years, during which the boat went three times around the Continent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It might have lasted indefinitely except for the fact that Ella Kaye came on board one night in Boston and a week later Dan Cody inhospitably died.\n\nI remember the portrait of him up in Gatsby's bedroom, a gray, florid man with a hard, empty face–the pioneer debauchee, who during one phase of American life brought back to the Eastern seaboard the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon. It was indirectly due to Cody that Gatsby drank so little. Sometimes in the course of gay parties women used to rub champagne into his hair; for himself he formed the habit of letting liquor alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And it was from Cody that he inherited money–a legacy of twenty-five thousand dollars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't get it. He never understood the legal device that was used against him, but what remained of the millions went intact to Ella Kaye. He was left with his singularly appropriate education; the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man.\n\nHe told me all this very much later, but I've put it down here with the idea of exploding those first wild rumors about his antecedents, which weren't even faintly true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Moreover he told it to me at a time of confusion, when I had reached the point of believing everything and nothing about him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So I take advantage of this short halt, while Gatsby, so to speak, caught his breath, to clear this set of misconceptions away.\n\nIt was a halt, too, in my association with his affairs. For several weeks I didn't see him or hear his voice on the phone–mostly I was in New York, trotting around with Jordan and trying to ingratiate myself with her senile aunt–but finally I went over to his house one Sunday afternoon. I hadn't been there two minutes when somebody brought Tom Buchanan in for a drink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was startled, naturally, but the really surprising thing was that it hadn't happened before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were a party of three on horseback–Tom and a man named Sloane and a pretty woman in a brown riding-habit, who had been there previously.\n\n\"I'm delighted to see you,\" said Gatsby, standing on his porch.\n\n\"I'm delighted that you dropped in.\"\n\nAs though they cared!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sit right down. Have a cigarette or a cigar.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked around the room quickly, ringing bells. \"I'll have something to drink for you in just a minute.\"\n\nHe was profoundly affected by the fact that Tom was there. But he would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something, realizing in a vague way that that was all they came for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Sloane wanted nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A lemonade? No, thanks. A little champagne? Nothing at all, thanks... I'm sorry—\n\n\"Did you have a nice ride?\"\n\n\"Very good roads around here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose the automobiles—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah.\"\n\nMoved by an irresistible impulse, Gatsby turned to Tom, who had accepted the introduction as a stranger.\n\n\"I believe we've met somewhere before, Mr. Buchanan.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Tom, gruffly polite, but obviously not remembering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So we did. I remember very well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"About two weeks ago.\"\n\n\"That's right. You were with Nick here.\"\n\n\"I know your wife,\" continued Gatsby, almost aggressively.\n\n\"That so?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom turned to me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You live near here, Nick?\"\n\n\"Next door.\"\n\n\"That so?\"\n\nMr. Sloane didn't enter into the conversation, but lounged back haughtily in his chair; the woman said nothing either–until unexpectedly, after two highballs, she became cordial." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'll all come over to your next party, Mr. Gatsby,\" she suggested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you say?\"\n\n\"Certainly; I'd be delighted to have you.\"\n\n\"Be ver' nice,\" said Mr. Sloane, without gratitude. \"Well–think ought to be starting home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please don't hurry,\" Gatsby urged them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had control of himself now, and he wanted to see more of Tom. \"Why don't you–why don't you stay for supper? I wouldn't be surprised if some other people dropped in from New York.\"\n\n\"You come to supper with ME,\" said the lady enthusiastically.\n\n\"Both of you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This included me. Mr. Sloane got to his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come along,\" he said–but to her only.\n\n\"I mean it,\" she insisted. \"I'd love to have you. Lots of room.\"\n\nGatsby looked at me questioningly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wanted to go, and he didn't see that Mr. Sloane had determined he shouldn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm afraid I won't be able to,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, you come,\" she urged, concentrating on Gatsby.\n\nMr. Sloane murmured something close to her ear.\n\n\"We won't be late if we start now,\" she insisted aloud." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I haven't got a horse,\" said Gatsby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I used to ride in the army, but I've never bought a horse. I'll have to follow you in my car. Excuse me for just a minute.\"\n\nThe rest of us walked out on the porch, where Sloane and the lady began an impassioned conversation aside.\n\n\"My God, I believe the man's coming,\" said Tom. \"Doesn't he know she doesn't want him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She says she does want him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She has a big dinner party and he won't know a soul there.\" He frowned.\n\n\"I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish.\"\n\nSuddenly Mr. Sloane and the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses.\n\n\"Come on,\" said Mr. Sloane to Tom, \"we're late. We've got to go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then to me: \"Tell him we couldn't wait, will you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom and I shook hands, the rest of us exchanged a cool nod, and they trotted quickly down the drive, disappearing under the August foliage just as Gatsby, with hat and light overcoat in hand, came out the front door.\n\nTom was evidently perturbed at Daisy's running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby's party. Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness–it stands out in my memory from Gatsby's other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-colored, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy's eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.\n\nThey arrived at twilight, and, as we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds, Daisy's voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat.\n\n\"These things excite me so,\" she whispered.\n\n\"If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I'll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I'm giving out green—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look around,\" suggested Gatsby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm looking around. I'm having a marvelous—\"\n\n\"You must see the faces of many people you've heard about.\"\n\nTom's arrogant eyes roamed the crowd.\n\n\"We don't go around very much,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In fact, I was just thinking I don't know a soul here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps you know that lady.\" Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies.\n\n\"She's lovely,\" said Daisy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The man bending over her is her director.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took them ceremoniously from group to group:\n\n\"Mrs. Buchanan... and Mr. Buchanan—\" After an instant's hesitation he added: \"the polo player.\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" objected Tom quickly, \"not me.\"\n\nBut evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby, for Tom remained \"the polo player.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "for the rest of the evening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've never met so many celebrities!\" Daisy exclaimed. \"I liked that man–what was his name?–with the sort of blue nose.\"\n\nGatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer.\n\n\"Well, I liked him anyhow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd a little rather not be the polo player,\" said Tom pleasantly, \"I'd rather look at all these famous people in–in oblivion.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daisy and Gatsby danced. I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative fox-trot–I had never seen him dance before. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour, while at her request I remained watchfully in the garden. \"In case there's a fire or a flood,\" she explained, \"or any act of God.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom appeared from his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you mind if I eat with some people over here?\" he said. \"A fellow's getting off some funny stuff.\"\n\n\"Go ahead,\" answered Daisy genially, \"and if you want to take down any addresses here's my little gold pencil.\"... she looked around after a moment and told me the girl was \"common but pretty,\" and I knew that except for the half-hour she'd been alone with Gatsby she wasn't having a good time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We were at a particularly tipsy table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was my fault–Gatsby had been called to the phone, and I'd enjoyed these same people only two weeks before. But what had amused me then turned septic on the air now.\n\n\"How do you feel, Miss Baedeker?\"\n\nThe girl addressed was trying, unsuccessfully, to slump against my shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At this inquiry she sat up and opened her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wha'?\"\n\nA massive and lethargic woman, who had been urging Daisy to play golf with her at the local club to-morrow, spoke in Miss Baedeker's defence:\n\n\"Oh, she's all right now. When she's had five or six cocktails she always starts screaming like that. I tell her she ought to leave it alone.\"\n\n\"I do leave it alone,\" affirmed the accused hollowly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We heard you yelling, so I said to Doc Civet here: 'There's somebody that needs your help, Doc.'\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's much obliged, I'm sure,\" said another friend, without gratitude.\n\n\"But you got her dress all wet when you stuck her head in the pool.\"\n\n\"Anything I hate is to get my head stuck in a pool,\" mumbled Miss Baedeker. \"They almost drowned me once over in New Jersey.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then you ought to leave it alone,\" countered Doctor Civet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Speak for yourself!\" cried Miss Baedeker violently. \"Your hand shakes. I wouldn't let you operate on me!\"\n\nIt was like that. Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy and watching the moving-picture director and his Star." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were still under the white plum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale, thin ray of moonlight between." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek.\n\n\"I like her,\" said Daisy, \"I think she's lovely.\"\n\nBut the rest offended her–and inarguably, because it wasn't a gesture but an emotion. She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented \"place.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village–appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.\n\nI sat on the front steps with them while they waited for their car. It was dark here in front; only the bright door sent ten square feet of light volleying out into the soft black morning. Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing-room blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, who rouged and powdered in an invisible glass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who is this Gatsby anyhow?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "demanded Tom suddenly. \"Some big bootlegger?\"\n\n\"Where'd you hear that?\" I inquired.\n\n\"I didn't hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.\"\n\n\"Not Gatsby,\" I said shortly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was silent for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pebbles of the drive crunched under his feet.\n\n\"Well, he certainly must have strained himself to get this menagerie together.\"\n\nA breeze stirred the gray haze of Daisy's fur collar.\n\n\"At least they're more interesting than the people we know,\" she said with an effort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You didn't look so interested.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I was.\"\n\nTom laughed and turned to me.\n\n\"Did you notice Daisy's face when that girl asked her to put her under a cold shower?\"\n\nDaisy began to sing with the music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that it had never had before and would never have again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the melody rose, her voice broke up sweetly, following it, in a way contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a little of her warm human magic upon the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lots of people come who haven't been invited,\" she said suddenly.\n\n\"That girl hadn't been invited. They simply force their way in and he's too polite to object.\"\n\n\"I'd like to know who he is and what he does,\" insisted Tom. \"And I think I'll make a point of finding out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can tell you right now,\" she answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He owned some drug-stores, a lot of drug-stores. He built them up himself.\"\n\nThe dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive.\n\n\"Good night, Nick,\" said Daisy.\n\nHer glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps, where THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, a neat, sad little waltz of that year, was drifting out the open door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After all, in the very casualness of Gatsby's party there were romantic possibilities totally absent from her world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was it up there in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside? What would happen now in the dim, incalculable hours? Perhaps some unbelievable guest would arrive, a person infinitely rare and to be marvelled at, some authentically radiant young girl who with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years of unwavering devotion.\n\nI stayed late that night, Gatsby asked me to wait until he was free, and I lingered in the garden until the inevitable swimming party had run up, chilled and exalted, from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in the guest-rooms overhead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he came down the steps at last the tanned skin was drawn unusually tight on his face, and his eyes were bright and tired." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She didn't like it,\" he said immediately.\n\n\"Of course she did.\"\n\n\"She didn't like it,\" he insisted. \"She didn't have a good time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was silent, and I guessed at his unutterable depression." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I feel far away from her,\" he said. \"It's hard to make her understand.\"\n\n\"You mean about the dance?\"\n\n\"The dance?\" He dismissed all the dances he had given with a snap of his fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Old sport, the dance is unimportant.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say:\n\n\"I never loved you.\" After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house–just as if it were five years ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And she doesn't understand,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She used to be able to understand. We'd sit for hours—\"\n\nHe broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers.\n\n\"I wouldn't ask too much of her,\" I ventured. \"You can't repeat the past.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can't repeat the past?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he cried incredulously. \"Why of course you can!\"\n\nHe looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.\n\n\"I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before,\" he said, nodding determinedly. \"She'll see.\"\n\nHe talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "...One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees–he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of F. Scott Fitzgerald.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of F. Scott Fitzgerald.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a F. Scott Fitzgerald sorta thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night–and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only gradually did I become aware that the automobiles which turned expectantly into his drive stayed for just a minute and then drove sulkily away. Wondering if he were sick I went over to find out–an unfamiliar butler with a villainous face squinted at me suspiciously from the door. \"Is Mr. Gatsby sick?\"\n\n\"Nope.\" After a pause he added \"sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "in a dilatory, grudging way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hadn't seen him around, and I was rather worried. Tell him Mr. Carraway came over.\"\n\n\"Who?\" he demanded rudely.\n\n\"Carraway.\"\n\n\"Carraway. All right, I'll tell him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Abruptly he slammed the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My Finn informed me that Gatsby had dismissed every servant in his house a week ago and replaced them with half a dozen others, who never went into West Egg Village to be bribed by the tradesmen, but ordered moderate supplies over the telephone. The grocery boy reported that the kitchen looked like a pigsty, and the general opinion in the village was that the new people weren't servants at all.\n\nNext day Gatsby called me on the phone.\n\n\"Going away?\" I inquired." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, old sport.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hear you fired all your servants.\"\n\n\"I wanted somebody who wouldn't gossip. Daisy comes over quite often–in the afternoons.\"\n\nSo the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes.\n\n\"They're some people Wolfshiem wanted to do something for. They're all brothers and sisters. They used to run a small hotel.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I see.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was calling up at Daisy's request–would I come to lunch at her house to-morrow? Miss Baker would be there. Half an hour later Daisy herself telephoned and seemed relieved to find that I was coming. Something was up. And yet I couldn't believe that they would choose this occasion for a scene–especially for the rather harrowing scene that Gatsby had outlined in the garden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon. The straw seats of the car hovered on the edge of combustion; the woman next to me perspired delicately for a while into her white shirtwaist, and then, as her newspaper dampened under her fingers, lapsed despairingly into deep heat with a desolate cry. Her pocket-book slapped to the floor.\n\n\"Oh, my!\" she gasped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I picked it up with a weary bend and handed it back to her, holding it at arm's length and by the extreme tip of the corners to indicate that I had no designs upon it–but every one near by, including the woman, suspected me just the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hot!\" said the conductor to familiar faces. \"Some weather! hot! hot! hot! Is it hot enough for you? Is it hot? Is it...?\"\n\nMy commutation ticket came back to me with a dark stain from his hand. That any one should care in this heat whose flushed lips he kissed, whose head made damp the pajama pocket over his heart!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "...Through the hall of the Buchanans' house blew a faint wind, carrying the sound of the telephone bell out to Gatsby and me as we waited at the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The master's body!\" roared the butler into the mouthpiece. \"I'm sorry, madame, but we can't furnish it–it's far too hot to touch this noon!\"\n\nWhat he really said was: \"Yes... yes... I'll see.\"\n\nHe set down the receiver and came toward us, glistening slightly, to take our stiff straw hats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Madame expects you in the salon!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he cried, needlessly indicating the direction. In this heat every extra gesture was an affront to the common store of life.\n\nThe room, shadowed well with awnings, was dark and cool. Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We can't move,\" they said together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jordan's fingers, powdered white over their tan, rested for a moment in mine.\n\n\"And Mr. Thomas Buchanan, the athlete?\" I inquired.\n\nSimultaneously I heard his voice, gruff, muffled, husky, at the hall telephone.\n\nGatsby stood in the centre of the crimson carpet and gazed around with fascinated eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Daisy watched him and laughed, her sweet, exciting laugh; a tiny gust of powder rose from her bosom into the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The rumor is,\" whispered Jordan, \"that that's Tom's girl on the telephone.\"\n\nWe were silent. The voice in the hall rose high with annoyance:\n\n\"Very well, then, I won't sell you the car at all... I'm under no obligations to you at all... and as for your bothering me about it at lunch time, I won't stand that at all!\"\n\n\"Holding down the receiver,\" said Daisy cynically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, he's not,\" I assured her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a bona-fide deal. I happen to know about it.\"\n\nTom flung open the door, blocked out its space for a moment with his thick body, and hurried into the room.\n\n\"Mr. Gatsby!\" He put out his broad, flat hand with well-concealed dislike. \"I'm glad to see you, sir... Nick...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Make us a cold drink,\" cried Daisy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he left the room again she got up and went over to Gatsby and pulled his face down, kissing him on the mouth.\n\n\"You know I love you,\" she murmured.\n\n\"You forget there's a lady present,\" said Jordan.\n\nDaisy looked around doubtfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You kiss Nick too.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What a low, vulgar girl!\"\n\n\"I don't care!\" cried Daisy, and began to clog on the brick fireplace. Then she remembered the heat and sat down guiltily on the couch just as a freshly laundered nurse leading a little girl came into the room.\n\n\"Bles-sed pre-cious,\" she crooned, holding out her arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come to your own mother that loves you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The child, relinquished by the nurse, rushed across the room and rooted shyly into her mother's dress.\n\n\"The bles-sed pre-cious! Did mother get powder on your old yellowy hair? Stand up now, and say–How-de-do.\"\n\nGatsby and I in turn leaned down and took the small, reluctant hand. Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I don't think he had ever really believed in its existence before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I got dressed before luncheon,\" said the child, turning eagerly to Daisy.\n\n\"That's because your mother wanted to show you off.\" Her face bent into the single wrinkle of the small, white neck. \"You dream, you. You absolute little dream.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" admitted the child calmly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aunt Jordan's got on a white dress too.\"\n\n\"How do you like mother's friends?\" Daisy turned her around so that she faced Gatsby. \"Do you think they're pretty?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where's Daddy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She doesn't look like her father,\" explained Daisy. \"She looks like me. She's got my hair and shape of the face.\"\n\nDaisy sat back upon the couch. The nurse took a step forward and held out her hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come, Pammy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good-by, sweetheart!\"\n\nWith a reluctant backward glance the well-disciplined child held to her nurse's hand and was pulled out the door, just as Tom came back, preceding four gin rickeys that clicked full of ice.\n\nGatsby took up his drink.\n\n\"They certainly look cool,\" he said, with visible tension." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We drank in long, greedy swallows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I read somewhere that the sun's getting hotter every year,\" said Tom genially. \"It seems that pretty soon the earth's going to fall into the sun–or wait a minute–it's just the opposite–the sun's getting colder every year.\n\n\"Come outside,\" he suggested to Gatsby, \"I'd like you to have a look at the place.\"\n\nI went with them out to the veranda. On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled slowly toward the fresher sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gatsby's eyes followed it momentarily; he raised his hand and pointed across the bay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm right across from you.\"\n\n\"So you are.\"\n\nOur eyes lifted over the rose-beds and the hot lawn and the weedy refuse of the dog-days along-shore. Slowly the white wings of the boat moved against the blue cool limit of the sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ahead lay the scalloped ocean and the abounding blessed isles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's sport for you,\" said Tom, nodding. \"I'd like to be out there with him for about an hour.\"\n\nWe had luncheon in the dining-room, darkened too against the heat, and drank down nervous gayety with the cold ale.\n\n\"What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried Daisy, \"and the day after that, and the next thirty years?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't be morbid,\" Jordan said. \"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.\"\n\n\"But it's so hot,\" insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, \"and everything's so confused. Let's all go to town!\"\n\nHer voice struggled on through the heat, beating against it, molding its senselessness into forms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've heard of making a garage out of a stable,\" Tom was saying to Gatsby, \"but I'm the first man who ever made a stable out of a garage.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who wants to go to town?\" demanded Daisy insistently. Gatsby's eyes floated toward her. \"Ah,\" she cried, \"you look so cool.\"\n\nTheir eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With an effort she glanced down at the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You always look so cool,\" she repeated.\n\nShe had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded. His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as some one he knew a long time ago.\n\n\"You resemble the advertisement of the man,\" she went on innocently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know the advertisement of the man—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" broke in Tom quickly, \"I'm perfectly willing to go to town. Come on–we're all going to town.\"\n\nHe got up, his eyes still flashing between Gatsby and his wife. No one moved.\n\n\"Come on!\" His temper cracked a little. \"What's the matter, anyhow? If we're going to town, let's start.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hand, trembling with his effort at self-control, bore to his lips the last of his glass of ale." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daisy's voice got us to our feet and out on to the blazing gravel drive.\n\n\"Are we just going to go?\" she objected. \"Like this? Aren't we going to let any one smoke a cigarette first?\"\n\n\"Everybody smoked all through lunch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, let's have fun,\" she begged him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's too hot to fuss.\"\n\nHe didn't answer.\n\n\"Have it your own way,\" she said. \"Come on, Jordan.\"\n\nThey went up-stairs to get ready while we three men stood there shuffling the hot pebbles with our feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A silver curve of the moon hovered already in the western sky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gatsby started to speak, changed his mind, but not before Tom wheeled and faced him expectantly.\n\n\"Have you got your stables here?\" asked Gatsby with an effort.\n\n\"About a quarter of a mile down the road.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pause.\n\n\"I don't see the idea of going to town,\" broke out Tom savagely.\n\n\"Women get these notions in their heads—\"\n\n\"Shall we take anything to drink?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "called Daisy from an upper window." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll get some whiskey,\" answered Tom. He went inside.\n\nGatsby turned to me rigidly:\n\n\"I can't say anything in his house, old sport.\"\n\n\"She's got an indiscreet voice,\" I remarked. \"It's full of—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I hesitated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Her voice is full of money,\" he said suddenly.\n\nThat was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money–that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it... high in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl...\n\nTom came out of the house wrapping a quart bottle in a towel, followed by Daisy and Jordan wearing small tight hats of metallic cloth and carrying light capes over their arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shall we all go in my car?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "suggested Gatsby. He felt the hot, green leather of the seat. \"I ought to have left it in the shade.\"\n\n\"Is it standard shift?\" demanded Tom.\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, you take my coupe and let me drive your car to town.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The suggestion was distasteful to Gatsby.\n\n\"I don't think there's much gas,\" he objected.\n\n\"Plenty of gas,\" said Tom boisterously. He looked at the gauge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And if it runs out I can stop at a drug-store. You can buy anything at a drug-store nowadays.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pause followed this apparently pointless remark. Daisy looked at Tom frowning, and an indefinable expression, at once definitely unfamiliar and vaguely recognizable, as if I had only heard it described in words, passed over Gatsby's face.\n\n\"Come on, Daisy,\" said Tom, pressing her with his hand toward Gatsby's car. \"I'll take you in this circus wagon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He opened the door, but she moved out from the circle of his arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You take Nick and Jordan. We'll follow you in the coupe.\"\n\nShe walked close to Gatsby, touching his coat with her hand. Jordan and Tom and I got into the front seat of Gatsby's car, Tom pushed the unfamiliar gears tentatively, and we shot off into the oppressive heat, leaving them out of sight behind.\n\n\"Did you see that?\" demanded Tom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"See what?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked at me keenly, realizing that Jordan and I must have known all along.\n\n\"You think I'm pretty dumb, don't you?\" he suggested. \"Perhaps I am, but I have a–almost a second sight, sometimes, that tells me what to do. Maybe you don't believe that, but science—\"\n\nHe paused. The immediate contingency overtook him, pulled him back from the edge of the theoretical abyss." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've made a small investigation of this fellow,\" he continued." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I could have gone deeper if I'd known—\"\n\n\"Do you mean you've been to a medium?\" inquired Jordan humorously.\n\n\"What?\" Confused, he stared at us as we laughed. \"A medium?\"\n\n\"About Gatsby.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"About Gatsby! No, I haven't. I said I'd been making a small investigation of his past.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you found he was an Oxford man,\" said Jordan helpfully.\n\n\"An Oxford man!\" He was incredulous. \"Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless he's an Oxford man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oxford, New Mexico,\" snorted Tom contemptuously, \"or something like that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Listen, Tom. If you're such a snob, why did you invite him to lunch?\"\n\ndemanded Jordan crossly.\n\n\"Daisy invited him; she knew him before we were married–God knows where!\"\n\nWe were all irritable now with the fading ale, and aware of it we drove for a while in silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then as Doctor T. J. Eckleburg's faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby's caution about gasoline." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've got enough to get us to town,\" said Tom.\n\n\"But there's a garage right here,\" objected Jordan. \"I don't want to get stalled in this baking heat.\" Tom threw on both brakes impatiently, and we slid to an abrupt dusty stop under Wilson's sign." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a moment the proprietor emerged from the interior of his establishment and gazed hollow-eyed at the car." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's have some gas!\" cried Tom roughly. \"What do you think we stopped for–to admire the view?\"\n\n\"I'm sick,\" said Wilson without moving. \"Been sick all day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's the matter?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm all run down.\"\n\n\"Well, shall I help myself?\" Tom demanded. \"You sounded well enough on the phone.\"\n\nWith an effort Wilson left the shade and support of the doorway and, breathing hard, unscrewed the cap of the tank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the sunlight his face was green." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't mean to interrupt your lunch,\" he said. \"But I need money pretty bad, and I was wondering what you were going to do with your old car.\"\n\n\"How do you like this one?\" inquired Tom. \"I bought it last week.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a nice yellow one,\" said Wilson, as he strained at the handle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like to buy it?\"\n\n\"Big chance,\" Wilson smiled faintly. \"No, but I could make some money on the other.\"\n\n\"What do you want money for, all of a sudden?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and I want to go West.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your wife does,\" exclaimed Tom, startled.\n\n\"She's been talking about it for ten years.\" He rested for a moment against the pump, shading his eyes. \"And now she's going whether she wants to or not. I'm going to get her away.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The coupe flashed by us with a flurry of dust and the flash of a waving hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do I owe you?\" demanded Tom harshly.\n\n\"I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,\" remarked Wilson. \"That's why I want to get away. That's why I been bothering you about the car.\"\n\n\"What do I owe you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Dollar twenty.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn't alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before–and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty–as if he had just got some poor girl with child." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll let you have that car,\" said Tom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll send it over to-morrow afternoon.\"\n\nThat locality was always vaguely disquieting, even in the broad glare of afternoon, and now I turned my head as though I had been warned of something behind. Over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil, but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away.\n\nIn one of the windows over the garage the curtains had been moved aside a little, and Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the car." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So engrossed was she that she had no consciousness of being observed, and one emotion after another crept into her face like objects into a slowly developing picture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her expression was curiously familiar–it was an expression I had often seen on women's faces, but on Myrtle Wilson's face it seemed purposeless and inexplicable until I realized that her eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed not on Tom, but on Jordan Baker, whom she took to be his wife.\n\nThere is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control. Instinct made him step on the accelerator with the double purpose of overtaking Daisy and leaving Wilson behind, and we sped along toward Astoria at fifty miles an hour, until, among the spidery girders of the elevated, we came in sight of the easy-going blue coupe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool,\" suggested Jordan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I love New York on summer afternoons when every one's away. There's something very sensuous about it–overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.\"\n\nThe word \"sensuous\" had the effect of further disquieting Tom, but before he could invent a protest the coupe came to a stop, and Daisy signaled us to draw up alongside.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" she cried.\n\n\"How about the movies?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's so hot,\" she complained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You go. We'll ride around and meet you after.\" With an effort her wit rose faintly, \"We'll meet you on some corner. I'll be the man smoking two cigarettes.\"\n\n\"We can't argue about it here,\" Tom said impatiently, as a truck gave out a cursing whistle behind us. \"You follow me to the south side of Central Park, in front of the Plaza.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Several times he turned his head and looked back for their car, and if the traffic delayed them he slowed up until they came into sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think he was afraid they would dart down a side street and out of his life forever.\n\nBut they didn't. And we all took the less explicable step of engaging the parlor of a suite in the Plaza Hotel.\n\nThe prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by herding us into that room eludes me, though I have a sharp physical memory that, in the course of it, my underwear kept climbing like a damp snake around my legs and intermittent beads of sweat raced cool across my back. The notion originated with Daisy's suggestion that we hire five bath-rooms and take cold baths, and then assumed more tangible form as \"a place to have a mint julep.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each of us said over and over that it was a \"crazy idea. \"–we all talked at once to a baffled clerk and thought, or pretended to think, that we were being very funny..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The room was large and stifling, and, though it was already four o'clock, opening the windows admitted Only a gust of hot shrubbery from the Park. Daisy went to the mirror and stood with her back to us, fixing her hair.\n\n\"It's a swell suite,\" whispered Jordan respectfully, and every one laughed.\n\n\"Open another window,\" commanded Daisy, without turning around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There aren't any more.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, we'd better telephone for an axe—\"\n\n\"The thing to do is to forget about the heat,\" said Tom impatiently.\n\n\"You make it ten times worse by crabbing about it.\"\n\nHe unrolled the bottle of whiskey from the towel and put it on the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why not let her alone, old sport?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "remarked Gatsby. \"You're the one that wanted to come to town.\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence. The telephone book slipped from its nail and splashed to the floor, whereupon Jordan whispered, \"Excuse me. \"–but this time no one laughed.\n\n\"I'll pick it up,\" I offered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've got it.\" Gatsby examined the parted string, muttered \"Hum!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "in an interested way, and tossed the book on a chair.\n\n\"That's a great expression of yours, isn't it?\" said Tom sharply.\n\n\"What is?\"\n\n\"All this 'old sport' business. Where'd you pick that up?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now see here, Tom,\" said Daisy, turning around from the mirror, \"if you're going to make personal remarks I won't stay here a minute. Call up and order some ice for the mint julep.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Tom took up the receiver the compressed heat exploded into sound and we were listening to the portentous chords of Mendelssohn's Wedding March from the ballroom below.\n\n\"Imagine marrying anybody in this heat!\" cried Jordan dismally.\n\n\"Still–I was married in the middle of June,\" Daisy remembered,\n\n\"Louisville in June! Somebody fainted. Who was it fainted, Tom?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Biloxi,\" he answered shortly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A man named Biloxi. 'blocks' Biloxi, and he made boxes–that's a fact–and he was from Biloxi, Tennessee.\"\n\n\"They carried him into my house,\" appended Jordan, \"because we lived just two doors from the church. And he stayed three weeks, until Daddy told him he had to get out. The day after he left Daddy died.\" After a moment she added as if she might have sounded irreverent, \"There wasn't any connection.\"\n\n\"I used to know a Bill Biloxi from Memphis,\" I remarked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was his cousin. I knew his whole family history before he left. He gave me an aluminum putter that I use to-day.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The music had died down as the ceremony began and now a long cheer floated in at the window, followed by intermittent cries of \"Yea-ea-ea!\"\n\nand finally by a burst of jazz as the dancing began.\n\n\"We're getting old,\" said Daisy. \"If we were young we'd rise and dance.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Remember Biloxi,\" Jordan warned her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where'd you know him, Tom?\"\n\n\"Biloxi?\" He concentrated with an effort. \"I didn't know him. He was a friend of Daisy's.\"\n\n\"He was not,\" she denied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd never seen him before. He came down in the private car.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, he said he knew you. He said he was raised in Louisville. Asa Bird brought him around at the last minute and asked if we had room for him.\"\n\nJordan smiled.\n\n\"He was probably bumming his way home. He told me he was president of your class at Yale.\"\n\nTom and I looked at each other blankly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Biloxi?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"First place, we didn't have any president—\"\n\nGatsby's foot beat a short, restless tattoo and Tom eyed him suddenly.\n\n\"By the way, Mr. Gatsby, I understand you're an Oxford man.\"\n\n\"Not exactly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, yes, I understand you went to Oxford.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes–I went there.\"\n\nA pause. Then Tom's voice, incredulous and insulting: \"You must have gone there about the time Biloxi went to New Haven.\"\n\nAnother pause. A waiter knocked and came in with crushed mint and ice but, the silence was unbroken by his \"thank you.\" and the soft closing of the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This tremendous detail was to be cleared up at last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I told you I went there,\" said Gatsby.\n\n\"I heard you, but I'd like to know when.\"\n\n\"It was in nineteen-nineteen, I only stayed five months. That's why I can't really call myself an Oxford man.\"\n\nTom glanced around to see if we mirrored his unbelief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But we were all looking at Gatsby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was an opportunity they gave to some of the officers after the Armistice,\" he continued. \"We could go to any of the universities in England or France.\"\n\nI wanted to get up and slap him on the back. I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him that I'd experienced before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Daisy rose, smiling faintly, and went to the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Open the whiskey, Tom,\" she ordered, \"and I'll make you a mint julep. Then you won't seem so stupid to yourself... Look at the mint!\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" snapped Tom, \"I want to ask Mr. Gatsby one more question.\"\n\n\"Go on,\" Gatsby said politely.\n\n\"What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were out in the open at last and Gatsby was content." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He isn't causing a row.\" Daisy looked desperately from one to the other. \"You're causing a row. Please have a little self-control.\"\n\n\"Self-control!\" Repeated Tom incredulously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that's the idea you can count me out... Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization.\n\n\"We're all white here,\" murmured Jordan.\n\n\"I know I'm not very popular. I don't give big parties. I suppose you've got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends–in the modern world.\"\n\nAngry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The transition from libertine to prig was so complete." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've got something to tell YOU, old sport—\" began Gatsby. But Daisy guessed at his intention.\n\n\"Please don't!\" she interrupted helplessly. \"Please let's all go home. Why don't we all go home?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's a good idea.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I got up. \"Come on, Tom. Nobody wants a drink.\"\n\n\"I want to know what Mr. Gatsby has to tell me.\"\n\n\"Your wife doesn't love you,\" said Gatsby. \"She's never loved you. She loves me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You must be crazy!\" exclaimed Tom automatically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement.\n\n\"She never loved you, do you hear?\" he cried. \"She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved any one except me!\"\n\nAt this point Jordan and I tried to go, but Tom and Gatsby insisted with competitive firmness that we remain–as though neither of them had anything to conceal and it would be a privilege to partake vicariously of their emotions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sit down, Daisy,\" Tom's voice groped unsuccessfully for the paternal note." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's been going on? I want to hear all about it.\"\n\n\"I told you what's been going on,\" said Gatsby. \"Going on for five years–and you didn't know.\"\n\nTom turned to Daisy sharply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've been seeing this fellow for five years?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not seeing,\" said Gatsby. \"No, we couldn't meet. But both of us loved each other all that time, old sport, and you didn't know. I used to laugh sometimes. \"–but there was no laughter in his eyes—\" to think that you didn't know.\"\n\n\"Oh–that's all.\" Tom tapped his thick fingers together like a clergyman and leaned back in his chair.\n\n\"You're crazy!\" he exploded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can't speak about what happened five years ago, because I didn't know Daisy then–and I'll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back door. But all the rest of that's a God damned lie. Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" said Gatsby, shaking his head.\n\n\"She does, though. The trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas in her head and doesn't know what she's doing.\" He nodded sagely. \"And what's more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time.\"\n\n\"You're revolting,\" said Daisy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned to me, and her voice, dropping an octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn: \"Do you know why we left Chicago? I'm surprised that they didn't treat you to the story of that little spree.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gatsby walked over and stood beside her.\n\n\"Daisy, that's all over now,\" he said earnestly. \"It doesn't matter any more. Just tell him the truth–that you never loved him–and it's all wiped out forever.\"\n\nShe looked at him blindly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why–how could I love him–possibly?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You never loved him.\"\n\nShe hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doing–and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all. But it was done now. It was too late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I never loved him,\" she said, with perceptible reluctance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not at Kapiolani?\" demanded Tom suddenly.\n\n\"No.\"\n\nFrom the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air.\n\n\"Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a husky tenderness in his tone... \"Daisy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please don't.\" Her voice was cold, but the rancor was gone from it. She looked at Gatsby. \"There, Jay,\" she said–but her hand as she tried to light a cigarette was trembling. Suddenly she threw the cigarette and the burning match on the carpet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, you want too much!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she cried to Gatsby. \"I love you now–isn't that enough? I can't help what's past.\" She began to sob helplessly.\n\n\"I did love him once–but I loved you too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gatsby's eyes opened and closed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You loved me TOO?\" he repeated.\n\n\"Even that's a lie,\" said Tom savagely. \"She didn't know you were alive. Why–there're things between Daisy and me that you'll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget.\"\n\nThe words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I want to speak to Daisy alone,\" he insisted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's all excited now—\"\n\n\"Even alone I can't say I never loved Tom,\" she admitted in a pitiful voice. \"It wouldn't be true.\"\n\n\"Of course it wouldn't,\" agreed Tom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned to her husband." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As if it mattered to you,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course it matters. I'm going to take better care of you from now on.\"\n\n\"You don't understand,\" said Gatsby, with a touch of panic. \"You're not going to take care of her any more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not?\" Tom opened his eyes wide and laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could afford to control himself now. \"Why's that?\"\n\n\"Daisy's leaving you.\"\n\n\"Nonsense.\"\n\n\"I am, though,\" she said with a visible effort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's not leaving me!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom's words suddenly leaned down over Gatsby.\n\n\"Certainly not for a common swindler who'd have to steal the ring he put on her finger.\"\n\n\"I won't stand this!\" cried Daisy. \"Oh, please let's get out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who are you, anyhow?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "broke out Tom. \"You're one of that bunch that hangs around with Meyer Wolfshiem–that much I happen to know. I've made a little investigation into your affairs–and I'll carry it further to-morrow.\"\n\n\"You can suit yourself about that, old sport.\" said Gatsby steadily.\n\n\"I found out what your 'drug-stores' were.\" He turned to us and spoke rapidly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about it?\" said Gatsby politely. \"I guess your friend Walter Chase wasn't too proud to come in on it.\"\n\n\"And you left him in the lurch, didn't you? You let him go to jail for a month over in New Jersey. God! You ought to hear Walter on the subject of YOU.\"\n\n\"He came to us dead broke. He was very glad to pick up some money, old sport.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you call me 'old sport'!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "cried Tom. Gatsby said nothing.\n\n\"Walter could have you up on the betting laws too, but Wolfshiem scared him into shutting his mouth.\"\n\nThat unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back again in Gatsby's face.\n\n\"That drug-store business was just small change,\" continued Tom slowly," }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"but you've got something on now that Walter's afraid to tell me about.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I glanced at Daisy, who was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband, and at Jordan, who had begun to balance an invisible but absorbing object on the tip of her chin. Then I turned back to Gatsby–and was startled at his expression. He looked–and this is said in all contempt for the babbled slander of his garden–as if he had\n\n\"killed a man.\" For a moment the set of his face could be described in just that fantastic way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room.\n\nThe voice begged again to go.\n\n\"PLEASE, Tom! I can't stand this any more.\"\n\nHer frightened eyes told that whatever intentions, whatever courage, she had had, were definitely gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You two start on home, Daisy,\" said Tom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In Mr. Gatsby's car.\"\n\nShe looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous scorn.\n\n\"Go on. He won't annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over.\"\n\nThey were gone, without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a moment Tom got up and began wrapping the unopened bottle of whiskey in the towel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Want any of this stuff? Jordan?... Nick?\"\n\nI didn't answer.\n\n\"Nick?\" He asked again.\n\n\"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Want any?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No... I just remembered that to-day's my birthday.\"\n\nI was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.\n\nIt was seven o'clock when we got into the coupe with him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign clamor on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thirty–the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat's shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand.\n\nSo we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the ashheaps was the principal witness at the inquest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had slept through the heat until after five, when he strolled over to the garage, and found George Wilson sick in his office–really sick, pale as his own pale hair and shaking all over. Michaelis advised him to go to bed, but Wilson refused, saying that he'd miss a lot of business if he did. While his neighbor was trying to persuade him a violent racket broke out overhead.\n\n\"I've got my wife locked in up there,\" explained Wilson calmly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's going to stay there till the day after to-morrow, and then we're going to move away.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Michaelis was astonished; they had been neighbors for four years, and Wilson had never seemed faintly capable of such a statement. Generally he was one of these worn-out men: when he wasn't working, he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colorless way. He was his wife's man and not his own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So naturally Michaelis tried to find out what had happened, but Wilson wouldn't say a word–instead he began to throw curious, suspicious glances at his visitor and ask him what he'd been doing at certain times on certain days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just as the latter was getting uneasy, some workmen came past the door bound for his restaurant, and Michaelis took the opportunity to get away, intending to come back later. But he didn't. He supposed he forgot to, that's all. When he came outside again, a little after seven, he was reminded of the conversation because he heard Mrs. Wilson's voice, loud and scolding, down-stairs in the garage.\n\n\"Beat me!\" he heard her cry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting–before he could move from his door the business was over.\n\nThe \"death car.\" as the newspapers called it, didn't stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the next bend. Michaelis wasn't even sure of its color–he told the first policeman that it was light green. The other car, the one going toward New York, came to rest a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick dark blood with the dust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Michaelis and this man reached her first, but when they had torn open her shirtwaist, still damp with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap, and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners, as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long.\n\nWe saw the three or four automobiles and the crowd when we were still some distance away. \"Wreck!\" said Tom. \"That's good. Wilson'll have a little business at last.\"\n\nHe slowed down, but still without any intention of stopping, until, as we came nearer, the hushed, intent faces of the people at the garage door made him automatically put on the brakes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'll take a look,\" he said doubtfully, \"just a look.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I became aware now of a hollow, wailing sound which issued incessantly from the garage, a sound which as we got out of the coupe and walked toward the door resolved itself into the words \"Oh, my God!\" uttered over and over in a gasping moan.\n\n\"There's some bad trouble here,\" said Tom excitedly.\n\nHe reached up on tiptoes and peered over a circle of heads into the garage, which was lit only by a yellow light in a swinging wire basket overhead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he made a harsh sound in his throat, and with a violent thrusting movement of his powerful arms pushed his way through." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The circle closed up again with a running murmur of expostulation; it was a minute before I could see anything at all. Then new arrivals deranged the line, and Jordan and I were pushed suddenly inside.\n\nMyrtle Wilson's body, wrapped in a blanket, and then in another blanket, as though she suffered from a chill in the hot night, lay on a work-table by the wall, and Tom, with his back to us, was bending over it, motionless. Next to him stood a motorcycle policeman taking down names with much sweat and correction in a little book." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At first I couldn't find the source of the high, groaning words that echoed clamorously through the bare garage–then I saw Wilson standing on the raised threshold of his office, swaying back and forth and holding to the doorposts with both hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some man was talking to him in a low voice and attempting, from time to time, to lay a hand on his shoulder, but Wilson neither heard nor saw. His eyes would drop slowly from the swinging light to the laden table by the wall, and then jerk back to the light again, and he gave out incessantly his high, horrible call:\n\n\"Oh, my Ga-od! Oh, my Ga-od! oh, Ga-od! oh, my Ga-od!\"\n\nPresently Tom lifted his head with a jerk and, after staring around the garage with glazed eyes, addressed a mumbled incoherent remark to the policeman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"M-a-y-.\" the policeman was saying, \"-o—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, r-.\" corrected the man, \"M-a-v-r-o—\"\n\n\"Listen to me!\" muttered Tom fiercely.\n\n\"r\" said the policeman, \"o—\"\n\n\"g—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"g—\" He looked up as Tom's broad hand fell sharply on his shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What you want, fella?\"\n\n\"What happened?–that's what I want to know.\"\n\n\"Auto hit her. Ins'antly killed.\"\n\n\"Instantly killed,\" repeated Tom, staring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She ran out ina road. Son-of-a-bitch didn't even stopus car.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There was two cars,\" said Michaelis, \"one comin', one goin', see?\"\n\n\"Going where?\" asked the policeman keenly.\n\n\"One goin' each way. Well, she. \"–his hand rose toward the blankets but stopped half way and fell to his side—\" she ran out there an' the one comin' from N'york knock right into her, goin' thirty or forty miles an hour.\"\n\n\"What's the name of this place here?\" demanded the officer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hasn't got any name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pale well-dressed negro stepped near.\n\n\"It was a yellow car,\" he said, \"big yellow car. New.\"\n\n\"See the accident?\" asked the policeman.\n\n\"No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster'n forty. Going fifty, sixty.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come here and let's have your name. Look out now. I want to get his name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some words of this conversation must have reached Wilson, swaying in the office door, for suddenly a new theme found voice among his gasping cries:\n\n\"You don't have to tell me what kind of car it was! I know what kind of car it was!\"\n\nWatching Tom, I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson and, standing in front of him, seized him firmly by the upper arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've got to pull yourself together,\" he said with soothing gruffness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wilson's eyes fell upon Tom; he started up on his tiptoes and then would have collapsed to his knees had not Tom held him upright.\n\n\"Listen,\" said Tom, shaking him a little. \"I just got here a minute ago, from New York. I was bringing you that coupe we've been talking about. That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn't mine–do you hear? I haven't seen it all afternoon.\"\n\nOnly the negro and I were near enough to hear what he said, but the policeman caught something in the tone and looked over with truculent eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's all that?\" he demanded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm a friend of his.\" Tom turned his head but kept his hands firm on Wilson's body. \"He says he knows the car that did it... it was a yellow car.\"\n\nSome dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspiciously at Tom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what color's your car?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a blue car, a coupe.\"\n\n\"We've come straight from New York,\" I said.\n\nSome one who had been driving a little behind us confirmed this, and the policeman turned away.\n\n\"Now, if you'll let me have that name again correct—\" Picking up Wilson like a doll, Tom carried him into the office, set him down in a chair, and came back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If somebody'll come here and sit with him,\" he snapped authoritatively." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He watched while the two men standing closest glanced at each other and went unwillingly into the room. Then Tom shut the door on them and came down the single step, his eyes avoiding the table. As he passed close to me he whispered: \"Let's get out.\"\n\nSelf-consciously, with his authoritative arms breaking the way, we pushed through the still gathering crowd, passing a hurried doctor, case in hand, who had been sent for in wild hope half an hour ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom drove slowly until we were beyond the bend–then his foot came down hard, and the coupe raced along through the night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a little while I heard a low husky sob, and saw that the tears were overflowing down his face.\n\n\"The God damned coward!\" he whimpered. \"He didn't even stop his car.\"\n\nThe Buchanans' house floated suddenly toward us through the dark rustling trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom stopped beside the porch and looked up at the second floor, where two windows bloomed with light among the vines." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Daisy's home,\" he said. As we got out of the car he glanced at me and frowned slightly.\n\n\"I ought to have dropped you in West Egg, Nick. There's nothing we can do to-night.\"\n\nA change had come over him, and he spoke gravely, and with decision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As we walked across the moonlight gravel to the porch he disposed of the situation in a few brisk phrases." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll telephone for a taxi to take you home, and while you're waiting you and Jordan better go in the kitchen and have them get you some supper–if you want any.\" He opened the door. \"Come in.\"\n\n\"No, thanks. But I'd be glad if you'd order me the taxi. I'll wait outside.\"\n\nJordan put her hand on my arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Won't you come in, Nick?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, thanks.\"\n\nI was feeling a little sick and I wanted to be alone. But Jordan lingered for a moment more.\n\n\"It's only half-past nine,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'd be damned if I'd go in; I'd had enough of all of them for one day, and suddenly that included Jordan too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She must have seen something of this in my expression, for she turned abruptly away and ran up the porch steps into the house. I sat down for a few minutes with my head in my hands, until I heard the phone taken up inside and the butler's voice calling a taxi. Then I walked slowly down the drive away from the house, intending to wait by the gate.\n\nI hadn't gone twenty yards when I heard my name and Gatsby stepped from between two bushes into the path." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I must have felt pretty weird by that time, because I could think of nothing except the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Just standing here, old sport.\"\n\nSomehow, that seemed a despicable occupation. For all I knew he was going to rob the house in a moment; I wouldn't have been surprised to see sinister faces, the faces of 'Wolfshiem's people,' behind him in the dark shrubbery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you see any trouble on the road?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he asked after a minute.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe hesitated.\n\n\"Was she killed?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought so; I told Daisy I thought so. It's better that the shock should all come at once. She stood it pretty well.\"\n\nHe spoke as if Daisy's reaction was the only thing that mattered.\n\n\"I got to West Egg by a side road,\" he went on, \"and left the car in my garage. I don't think anybody saw us, but of course I can't be sure.\"\n\nI disliked him so much by this time that I didn't find it necessary to tell him he was wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who was the woman?\" he inquired." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Her name was Wilson. Her husband owns the garage. How the devil did it happen?\"\n\n\"Well, I tried to swing the wheel—\" He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth.\n\n\"Was Daisy driving?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said after a moment, \"but of course I'll say I was. You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive–and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way. It all happened in a minute, but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew. Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back. The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock–it must have killed her instantly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It ripped her open—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't tell me, old sport.\" He winced. \"Anyhow–Daisy stepped on it. I tried to make her stop, but she couldn't, so I pulled on the emergency brake. Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on.\n\n\"She'll be all right to-morrow,\" he said presently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon. She's locked herself into her room, and if he tries any brutality she's going to turn the light out and on again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He won't touch her,' I said. \"He's not thinking about her.\"\n\n\"I don't trust him, old sport.\"\n\n\"How long are you going to wait?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All night, if necessary. Anyhow, till they all go to bed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A new point of view occurred to me. Suppose Tom found out that Daisy had been driving. He might think he saw a connection in it–he might think anything. I looked at the house; there were two or three bright windows down-stairs and the pink glow from Daisy's room on the second floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You wait here,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll see if there's any sign of a commotion.\"\n\nI walked back along the border of the lawn, traversed the gravel softly, and tiptoed up the veranda steps. The drawing-room curtains were open, and I saw that the room was empty. Crossing the porch where we had dined that June night three months before, I came to a small rectangle of light which I guessed was the pantry window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The blind was drawn, but I found a rift at the sill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, with a plate of cold fried chicken between them, and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her, and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement.\n\nThey weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale–and yet they weren't unhappy either." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As I tiptoed from the porch I heard my taxi feeling its way along the dark road toward the house. Gatsby was waiting where I had left him in the drive.\n\n\"Is it all quiet up there?\" he asked anxiously.\n\n\"Yes, it's all quiet.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of F. Scott Fitzgerald spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I couldn't sleep all night; a fog-horn was groaning incessantly on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams. Toward dawn I heard a taxi go up Gatsby's drive, and immediately I jumped out of bed and began to dress–I felt that I had something to tell him, something to warn him about, and morning would be too late. Crossing his lawn, I saw that his front door was still open and he was leaning against a table in the hall, heavy with dejection or sleep.\n\n\"Nothing happened,\" he said wanly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I waited, and about four o'clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes. We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for electric light switches–once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano. There was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere, and the rooms were musty, as though they hadn't been aired for many days. I found the humidor on an unfamiliar table, with two stale, dry cigarettes inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Throwing open the French windows of the drawing-room, we sat smoking out into the darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You ought to go away,\" I said. \"It's pretty certain they'll trace your car.\"\n\n\"Go away NOW, old sport?\"\n\n\"Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wouldn't consider it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He couldn't possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free.\n\nIt was this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan Cody–told it to me because \"Jay Gatsby.\" had broken up like glass against Tom's hard malice, and the long secret extravaganza was played out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I think that he would have acknowledged anything now, without reserve, but he wanted to talk about Daisy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was the first \"nice\" girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people, but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It amazed him–he had never been in such a beautiful house before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "but what gave it an air of breathless intensity, was that Daisy lived there–it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms up-stairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motor-cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy–it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he knew that he was in Daisy's house by a colossal accident." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders. So he made the most of his time. He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously– eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand.\n\nHe might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her under false pretenses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I don't mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself–that he was fully able to take care of her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As a matter of fact, he had no such facilities–he had no comfortable family standing behind him, and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to be blown anywhere about the world.\n\nBut he didn't despise himself and it didn't turn out as he had imagined. He had intended, probably, to take what he could and go–but now he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail. He knew that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn't realize just how extraordinary a \"nice\" girl could be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby–nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt married to her, that was all.\n\nWhen they met again, two days later, it was Gatsby who was breathless, who was, somehow, betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of star-shine; the wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can't describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she'd throw me over, but she didn't, because she was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her... Well, there I was, 'way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn't care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the last afternoon before he went abroad, he sat with Daisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall day, with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and then she moved and he changed his arm a little, and once he kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon had made them tranquil for a while, as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had never been closer in their month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the front, and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command of the divisional machine-guns. After the Armistice he tried frantically to get home, but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead. He was worried now–there was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy's letters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't see why he couldn't come." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was feeling the pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all. For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes. All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the BEALE STREET BLUES. while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately–and the decision must be made by some force–of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality–that was close at hand.\n\nThat force took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a wholesome bulkiness about his person and his position, and Daisy was flattered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doubtless there was a certain struggle and a certain relief. The letter reached Gatsby while he was still at Oxford.\n\nIt was dawn now on Long Island and we went about opening the rest of the windows down-stairs, filling the house with gray-turning, gold-turning light. The shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a slow, pleasant movement in the air, scarcely a wind, promising a cool, lovely day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think she ever loved him.\" Gatsby turned around from a window and looked at me challengingly. \"You must remember, old sport, she was very excited this afternoon. He told her those things in a way that frightened her–that made it look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper. And the result was she hardly knew what she was saying.\"\n\nHe sat down gloomily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course she might have loved him just for a minute, when they were first married–and loved me more even then, do you see?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly he came out with a curious remark.\n\n\"In any case,\" he said, \"it was just personal.\"\n\nWhat could you make of that, except to suspect some intensity in his conception of the affair that couldn't be measured?\n\nHe came back from France when Tom and Daisy were still on their wedding trip, and made a miserable but irresistible journey to Louisville on the last of his army pay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stayed there a week, walking the streets where their footsteps had clicked together through the November night and revisiting the out-of-the-way places to which they had driven in her white car." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just as Daisy's house had always seemed to him more mysterious and gay than other houses, so his idea of the city itself, even though she was gone from it, was pervaded with a melancholy beauty.\n\nHe left feeling that if he had searched harder, he might have found her–that he was leaving her behind. The day-coach–he was penniless now–was hot. He went out to the open vestibule and sat down on a folding-chair, and the station slid away and the backs of unfamiliar buildings moved by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then out into the spring fields, where a yellow trolley raced them for a minute with people in it who might once have seen the pale magic of her face along the casual street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The track curved and now it was going away from the sun, which as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in benediction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath. He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.\n\nIt was nine o'clock when we finished breakfast and went out on the porch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The night had made a sharp difference in the weather and there was an autumn flavor in the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gardener, the last one of Gatsby's former servants, came to the foot of the steps.\n\n\"I'm going to drain the pool to-day, Mr. Gatsby. Leaves'll start falling pretty soon, and then there's always trouble with the pipes.\"\n\n\"Don't do it to-day,\" Gatsby answered. He turned to me apologetically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know, old sport, I've never used that pool all summer?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I looked at my watch and stood up.\n\n\"Twelve minutes to my train.\"\n\nI didn't want to go to the city. I wasn't worth a decent stroke of work, but it was more than that–I didn't want to leave Gatsby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I missed that train, and then another, before I could get myself away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll call you up,\" I said finally.\n\n\"Do, old sport.\"\n\n\"I'll call you about noon.\"\n\nWe walked slowly down the steps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose Daisy'll call too.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked at me anxiously, as if he hoped I'd corroborate this.\n\n\"I suppose so.\"\n\n\"Well, good-by.\"\n\nWe shook hands and I started away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just before I reached the hedge I remembered something and turned around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're a rotten crowd,\" I shouted across the lawn. \"You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.\"\n\nI've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we'd been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His gorgeous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of color against the white steps, and I thought of the night when I first came to his ancestral home, three months before. The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption–and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them good-by.\n\nI thanked him for his hospitality. We were always thanking him for that–I and the others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good-by,\" I called. \"I enjoyed breakfast, Gatsby.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Up in the city, I tried for a while to list the quotations on an interminable amount of stock, then I fell asleep in my swivel-chair. Just before noon the phone woke me, and I started up with sweat breaking out on my forehead. It was Jordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find in any other way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing in at the office window, but this morning it seemed harsh and dry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've left Daisy's house,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm at Hempstead, and I'm going down to Southampton this afternoon.\"\n\nProbably it had been tactful to leave Daisy's house, but the act annoyed me, and her next remark made me rigid.\n\n\"You weren't so nice to me last night.\"\n\n\"How could it have mattered then?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Silence for a moment. Then:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"However–I want to see you.\"\n\n\"I want to see you, too.\"\n\n\"Suppose I don't go to Southampton, and come into town this afternoon?\"\n\n\"No–I don't think this afternoon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's impossible this afternoon. Various—\"\n\nWe talked like that for a while, and then abruptly we weren't talking any longer. I don't know which of us hung up with a sharp click, but I know I didn't care. I couldn't have talked to her across a tea-table that day if I never talked to her again in this world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I called Gatsby's house a few minutes later, but the line was busy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I tried four times; finally an exasperated central told me the wire was being kept open for long distance from Detroit. Taking out my time-table, I drew a small circle around the three-fifty train. Then I leaned back in my chair and tried to think. It was just noon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I passed the ashheaps on the train that morning I had crossed deliberately to the other side of the car." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I suppose there'd be a curious crowd around there all day with little boys searching for dark spots in the dust, and some garrulous man telling over and over what had happened, until it became less and less real even to him and he could tell it no longer, and Myrtle Wilson's tragic achievement was forgotten. Now I want to go back a little and tell what happened at the garage after we left there the night before. They had difficulty in locating the sister, Catherine. She must have broken her rule against drinking that night, for when she arrived she was stupid with liquor and unable to understand that the ambulance had already gone to Flushing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they convinced her of this, she immediately fainted, as if that was the intolerable part of the affair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some one, kind or curious, took her in his car and drove her in the wake of her sister's body.\n\nUntil long after midnight a changing crowd lapped up against the front of the garage, while George Wilson rocked himself back and forth on the couch inside. For a while the door of the office was open, and every one who came into the garage glanced irresistibly through it. Finally someone said it was a shame, and closed the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Michaelis and several other men were with him; first, four or five men, later two or three men." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still later Michaelis had to ask the last stranger to wait there fifteen minutes longer, while he went back to his own place and made a pot of coffee. After that, he stayed there alone with Wilson until dawn.\n\nAbout three o'clock the quality of Wilson's incoherent muttering changed–he grew quieter and began to talk about the yellow car. He announced that he had a way of finding out whom the yellow car belonged to, and then he blurted out that a couple of months ago his wife had come from the city with her face bruised and her nose swollen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But when he heard himself say this, he flinched and began to cry \"Oh, my God!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "again in his groaning voice. Michaelis made a clumsy attempt to distract him.\n\n\"How long have you been married, George? Come on there, try and sit still a minute and answer my question. How long have you been married?\"\n\n\"Twelve years.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ever had any children? Come on, George, sit still–I asked you a question. Did you ever have any children?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hard brown beetles kept thudding against the dull light, and whenever Michaelis heard a car go tearing along the road outside it sounded to him like the car that hadn't stopped a few hours before. He didn't like to go into the garage, because the work bench was stained where the body had been lying, so he moved uncomfortably around the office–he knew every object in it before morning–and from time to time sat down beside Wilson trying to keep him more quiet.\n\n\"Have you got a church you go to sometimes, George? Maybe even if you haven't been there for a long time? Maybe I could call up the church and get a priest to come over and he could talk to you, see?\"\n\n\"Don't belong to any.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You ought to have a church, George, for times like this. You must have gone to church once. Didn't you get married in a church? Listen, George, listen to me. Didn't you get married in a church?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was a long time ago.\"\n\nThe effort of answering broke the rhythm of his rocking–for a moment he was silent. Then the same half-knowing, half-bewildered look came back into his faded eyes.\n\n\"Look in the drawer there,\" he said, pointing at the desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which drawer?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That drawer–that one.\"\n\nMichaelis opened the drawer nearest his hand. There was nothing in it but a small, expensive dog-leash, made of leather and braided silver. It was apparently new." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This?\" he inquired, holding it up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wilson stared and nodded.\n\n\"I found it yesterday afternoon. She tried to tell me about it, but I knew it was something funny.\"\n\n\"You mean your wife bought it?\"\n\n\"She had it wrapped in tissue paper on her bureau.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Michaelis didn't see anything odd in that, and he gave Wilson a dozen reasons why his wife might have bought the dog-leash." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But conceivably Wilson had heard some of these same explanations before, from Myrtle, because he began saying \"Oh, my God!\" again in a whisper–his comforter left several explanations in the air.\n\n\"Then he killed her,\" said Wilson. His mouth dropped open suddenly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who did?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have a way of finding out.\"\n\n\"You're morbid, George,\" said his friend. \"This has been a strain to you and you don't know what you're saying. You'd better try and sit quiet till morning.\"\n\n\"He murdered her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was an accident, George.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wilson shook his head. His eyes narrowed and his mouth widened slightly with the ghost of a superior \"Hm!\"\n\n\"I know,\" he said definitely, \"I'm one of these trusting fellas and I don't think any harm to nobody, but when I get to know a thing I know it. It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn't stop.\"\n\nMichaelis had seen this too, but it hadn't occurred to him that there was any special significance in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He believed that Mrs. Wilson had been running away from her husband, rather than trying to stop any particular car." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How could she of been like that?\"\n\n\"She's a deep one,\" said Wilson, as if that answered the question.\n\n\"Ah-h-h—\"\n\nHe began to rock again, and Michaelis stood twisting the leash in his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe you got some friend that I could telephone for, George?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was a forlorn hope–he was almost sure that Wilson had no friend:\n\nthere was not enough of him for his wife. He was glad a little later when he noticed a change in the room, a blue quickening by the window, and realized that dawn wasn't far off. About five o'clock it was blue enough outside to snap off the light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wilson's glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where small gray clouds took on fantastic shape and scurried here and there in the faint dawn wind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I spoke to her,\" he muttered, after a long silence. \"I told her she might fool me but she couldn't fool God. I took her to the window. \"–with an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it—\" and I said 'God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me, but you can't fool God!'\"\n\nStanding behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night.\n\n\"God sees everything,\" repeated Wilson." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's an advertisement,\" Michaelis assured him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something made him turn away from the window and look back into the room. But Wilson stood there a long time, his face close to the window pane, nodding into the twilight.\n\nBy six o'clock Michaelis was worn out, and grateful for the sound of a car stopping outside. It was one of the watchers of the night before who had promised to come back, so he cooked breakfast for three, which he and the other man ate together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wilson was quieter now, and Michaelis went home to sleep; when he awoke four hours later and hurried back to the garage, Wilson was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His movements–he was on foot all the time–were afterward traced to Port Roosevelt and then to Gad's Hill, where he bought a sandwich that he didn't eat, and a cup of coffee. He must have been tired and walking slowly, for he didn't reach Gad's Hill until noon. Thus far there was no difficulty in accounting for his time–there were boys who had seen a man \"acting sort of crazy,\" and motorists at whom he stared oddly from the side of the road. Then for three hours he disappeared from view." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The police, on the strength of what he said to Michaelis, that he \"had a way of finding out,\" supposed that he spent that time going from garage to garage thereabout, inquiring for a yellow car." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other hand, no garage man who had seen him ever came forward, and perhaps he had an easier, surer way of finding out what he wanted to know. By half-past two he was in West Egg, where he asked someone the way to Gatsby's house. So by that time he knew Gatsby's name.\n\nAt two o'clock Gatsby put on his bathing-suit and left word with the butler that if any one phoned word was to be brought to him at the pool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped at the garage for a pneumatic mattress that had amused his guests during the summer, and the chauffeur helped him pump it up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he gave instructions that the open car wasn't to be taken out under any circumstances–and this was strange, because the front right fender needed repair.\n\nGatsby shouldered the mattress and started for the pool. Once he stopped and shifted it a little, and the chauffeur asked him if he needed help, but he shook his head and in a moment disappeared among the yellowing trees.\n\nNo telephone message arrived, but the butler went without his sleep and waited for it until four o'clock–until long after there was any one to give it to if it came." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about... like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.\n\nThe chauffeur–he was one of Wolfshiem's proteges–heard the shots–afterward he could only say that he hadn't thought anything much about them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I drove from the station directly to Gatsby's house and my rushing anxiously up the front steps was the first thing that alarmed any one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But they knew then, I firmly believe. With scarcely a word said, four of us, the chauffeur, butler, gardener, and I, hurried down to the pool.\n\nThere was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other. with little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of compass, a thin red circle in the water.\n\nIt was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of F. Scott Fitzgerald.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of F. Scott Fitzgerald every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After two years I remember the rest of that day, and that night and the next day, only as an endless drill of police and photographers and newspaper men in and out of Gatsby's front door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A rope stretched across the main gate and a policeman by it kept out the curious, but little boys soon discovered that they could enter through my yard, and there were always a few of them clustered open-mouthed about the pool. Someone with a positive manner, perhaps a detective, used the expression \"madman.\" as he bent over Wilson's body that afternoon, and the adventitious authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper reports next morning. Most of those reports were a nightmare–grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Michaelis's testimony at the inquest brought to light Wilson's suspicions of his wife I thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade–but Catherine, who might have said anything, didn't say a word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She showed a surprising amount of character about it too–looked at the coroner with determined eyes under that corrected brow of hers, and swore that her sister had never seen Gatsby, that her sister was completely happy with her husband, that her sister had been into no mischief whatever. She convinced herself of it, and cried into her handkerchief, as if the very suggestion was more than she could endure. So Wilson was reduced to a man \"deranged by grief.\" in order that the case might remain in its simplist form." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And it rested there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But all this part of it seemed remote and unessential. I found myself on Gatsby's side, and alone. From the moment I telephoned news of the catastrophe to West Egg village, every surmise about him, and every practical question, was referred to me. At first I was surprised and confused; then, as he lay in his house and didn't move or breathe or speak, hour upon hour, it grew upon me that I was responsible, because no one else was interested–interested, I mean, with that intense personal interest to which every one has some vague right at the end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them.\n\n\"Left no address?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Say when they'd be back?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Any idea where they are? How I could reach them?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Can't say.\"\n\nI wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into the room where he lay and reassure him: \"I'll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don't worry. Just trust me and I'll get somebody for you—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Meyer Wolfshiem's name wasn't in the phone book." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The butler gave me his office address on Broadway, and I called Information, but by the time I had the number it was long after five, and no one answered the phone.\n\n\"Will you ring again?\"\n\n\"I've rung them three times.\"\n\n\"It's very important.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry. I'm afraid no one's there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I went back to the drawing-room and thought for an instant that they were chance visitors, all these official people who suddenly filled it. But, as they drew back the sheet and looked at Gatsby with unmoved eyes, his protest continued in my brain:\n\n\"Look here, old sport, you've got to get somebody for me. You've got to try hard. I can't go through this alone.\"\n\nSome one started to ask me questions, but I broke away and going up-stairs looked hastily through the unlocked parts of his desk–he'd never told me definitely that his parents were dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But there was nothing–only the picture of Dan Cody, a token of forgotten violence, staring down from the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next morning I sent the butler to New York with a letter to Wolfshiem, which asked for information and urged him to come out on the next train. That request seemed superfluous when I wrote it. I was sure he'd start when he saw the newspapers, just as I was sure there'd be a wire from Daisy before noon–but neither a wire nor Mr. Wolfshiem arrived; no one arrived except more police and photographers and newspaper men. When the butler brought back Wolfshiem's answer I began to have a feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gatsby and me against them all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "DEAR MR. CARRAWAY. This has been one of the most terrible shocks of my life to me I hardly can believe it that it is true at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such a mad act as that man did should make us all think. I cannot come down now as I am tied up in some very important business and cannot get mixed up in this thing now. If there is anything I can do a little later let me know in a letter by Edgar. I hardly know where I am when I hear about a thing like this and am completely knocked down and out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yours truly MEYER WOLFSHIEM" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and then hasty addenda beneath:\n\nLet me know about the funeral etc. do not know his family at all.\n\nWhen the phone rang that afternoon and Long Distance said Chicago was calling I thought this would be Daisy at last." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the connection came through as a man's voice, very thin and far away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is Slagle speaking...\"\n\n\"Yes?\" The name was unfamiliar.\n\n\"Hell of a note, isn't it? Get my wire?\"\n\n\"There haven't been any wires.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Young Parke's in trouble,\" he said rapidly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They picked him up when he handed the bonds over the counter. They got a circular from New York giving 'em the numbers just five minutes before. What d'you know about that, hey? You never can tell in these hick towns—\"\n\n\"Hello!\" I interrupted breathlessly. \"Look here–this isn't Mr. Gatsby. Mr. Gatsby's dead.\"\n\nThere was a long silence on the other end of the wire, followed by an exclamation... then a quick squawk as the connection was broken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I think it was on the third day that a telegram signed Henry C. Gatz arrived from a town in Minnesota." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It said only that the sender was leaving immediately and to postpone the funeral until he came. It was Gatsby's father, a solemn old man, very helpless and dismayed, bundled up in a long cheap ulster against the warm September day. His eyes leaked continuously with excitement, and when I took the bag and umbrella from his hands he began to pull so incessantly at his sparse gray beard that I had difficulty in getting off his coat. He was on the point of collapse, so I took him into the music room and made him sit down while I sent for something to eat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he wouldn't eat, and the glass of milk spilled from his trembling hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I saw it in the Chicago newspaper,\" he said. \"It was all in the Chicago newspaper. I started right away.\"\n\n\"I didn't know how to reach you.\" His eyes, seeing nothing, moved ceaselessly about the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was a madman,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He must have been mad.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't you like some coffee?\" I urged him.\n\n\"I don't want anything. I'm all right now, Mr.—\"\n\n\"Carraway.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, I'm all right now. Where have they got Jimmy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I took him into the drawing-room, where his son lay, and left him there. Some little boys had come up on the steps and were looking into the hall; when I told them who had arrived, they went reluctantly away.\n\nAfter a little while Mr. Gatz opened the door and came out, his mouth ajar, his face flushed slightly, his eyes leaking isolated and unpunctual tears. He had reached an age where death no longer has the quality of ghastly surprise, and when he looked around him now for the first time and saw the height and splendor of the hall and the great rooms opening out from it into other rooms, his grief began to be mixed with an awed pride." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I helped him to a bedroom up-stairs; while he took off his coat and vest I told him that all arrangements had been deferred until he came." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't know what you'd want, Mr. Gatsby—\"\n\n\"Gatz is my name.\"\n\n\"–Mr. Gatz. I thought you might want to take the body West.\"\n\nHe shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jimmy always liked it better down East. He rose up to his position in the East. Were you a friend of my boy's, Mr.–?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We were close friends.\"\n\n\"He had a big future before him, you know. He was only a young man, but he had a lot of brain power here.\"\n\nHe touched his head impressively, and I nodded.\n\n\"If he'd of lived, he'd of been a great man. A man like James J. Hill. He'd of helped build up the country.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's true,\" I said, uncomfortably." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He fumbled at the embroidered coverlet, trying to take it from the bed, and lay down stiffly–was instantly asleep.\n\nThat night an obviously frightened person called up, and demanded to know who I was before he would give his name.\n\n\"This is Mr. Carraway,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh!\" He sounded relieved. \"This is Klipspringer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was relieved too, for that seemed to promise another friend at Gatsby's grave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't want it to be in the papers and draw a sightseeing crowd, so I'd been calling up a few people myself. They were hard to find.\n\n\"The funeral's to-morrow,\" I said. \"Three o'clock, here at the house. I wish you'd tell anybody who'd be interested.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, I will,\" he broke out hastily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course I'm not likely to see anybody, but if I do.\"\n\nHis tone made me suspicious.\n\n\"Of course you'll be there yourself.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll certainly try. What I called up about is—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait a minute,\" I interrupted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How about saying you'll come?\"\n\n\"Well, the fact is–the truth of the matter is that I'm staying with some people up here in Greenwich, and they rather expect me to be with them to-morrow. In fact, there's a sort of picnic or something. Of course I'll do my very best to get away.\"\n\nI ejaculated an unrestrained \"Huh!\" and he must have heard me, for he went on nervously:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What I called up about was a pair of shoes I left there. Iwonder if it'd be too much trouble to have the butler send them on. You see, they're tennis shoes, and I'm sort of helpless without them. My address is care of B. F.—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't hear the rest of the name, because I hung up the receiver.\n\nAfter that I felt a certain shame for Gatsby–one gentleman to whom I telephoned implied that he had got what he deserved. However, that was my fault, for he was one of those who used to sneer most bitterly at Gatsby on the courage of Gatsby's liquor, and I should have known better than to call him.\n\nThe morning of the funeral I went up to New York to see Meyer Wolfshiem; I couldn't seem to reach him any other way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door that I pushed open, on the advice of an elevator boy, was marked \"The Swastika Holding Company,\" and at first there didn't seem to be any one inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But when I'd shouted \"hello.\" several times in vain, an argument broke out behind a partition, and presently a lovely Jewess appeared at an interior door and scrutinized me with black hostile eyes.\n\n\"Nobody's in,\" she said. \"Mr. Wolfshiem's gone to Chicago.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first part of this was obviously untrue, for someone had begun to whistle \"The Rosary,\" tunelessly, inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please say that Mr. Carraway wants to see him.\"\n\n\"I can't get him back from Chicago, can I?\"\n\nAt this moment a voice, unmistakably Wolfshiem's, called \"Stella!\"\n\nfrom the other side of the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Leave your name on the desk,\" she said quickly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll give it to him when he gets back.\"\n\n\"But I know he's there.\"\n\nShe took a step toward me and began to slide her hands indignantly up and down her hips.\n\n\"You young men think you can force your way in here any time,\" she scolded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're getting sickantired of it. When I say he's in Chicago, he's in Chicago.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I mentioned Gatsby.\n\n\"Oh–h!\" She looked at me over again. \"Will you just–What was your name?\"\n\nShe vanished. In a moment Meyer Wolfshiem stood solemnly in the doorway, holding out both hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He drew me into his office, remarking in a reverent voice that it was a sad time for all of us, and offered me a cigar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My memory goes back to when I first met him,\" he said. \"A young major just out of the army and covered over with medals he got in the war. He was so hard up he had to keep on wearing his uniform because he couldn't buy some regular clothes. First time I saw him was when he come into Winebrenner's poolroom at Forty-third Street and asked for a job. He hadn't eat anything for a couple of days. 'come on have some lunch with me,' I sid. He ate more than four dollars' worth of food in half an hour.\"\n\n\"Did you start him in business?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Start him! I made him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I raised him up out of nothing, right out of the gutter. I saw right away he was a fine-appearing, gentlemanly young man, and when he told me he was an Oggsford I knew I could use him good. I got him to join up in the American Legion and he used to stand high there. Right off he did some work for a client of mine up to Albany. We were so thick like that in everything. \"–he held up two bulbous fingers—\" always together.\"\n\nI wondered if this partnership had included the World's Series transaction in 1919.\n\n\"Now he's dead,\" I said after a moment. \"You were his closest friend, so I know you'll want to come to his funeral this afternoon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd like to come.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, come then.\"\n\nThe hair in his nostrils quivered slightly, and as he shook his head his eyes filled with tears.\n\n\"I can't do it–I can't get mixed up in it,\" he said.\n\n\"There's nothing to get mixed up in. It's all over now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When a man gets killed I never like to get mixed up in it in any way. I keep out. When I was a young man it was different–if a friend of mine died, no matter how, I stuck with them to the end. You may think that's sentimental, but I mean it–to the bitter end.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I saw that for some reason of his own he was determined not to come, so I stood up.\n\n\"Are you a college man?\" he inquired suddenly.\n\nFor a moment I thought he was going to suggest a \"gonnegtion,\" but he only nodded and shook my hand.\n\n\"Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,\" he suggested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"After that my own rule is to let everything alone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I left his office the sky had turned dark and I got back to West Egg in a drizzle. After changing my clothes I went next door and found Mr. Gatz walking up and down excitedly in the hall. His pride in his son and in his son's possessions was continually increasing and now he had something to show me.\n\n\"Jimmy sent me this picture.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took out his wallet with trembling fingers. \"Look there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a photograph of the house, cracked in the corners and dirty with many hands. He pointed out every detail to me eagerly. \"Look there!\" and then sought admiration from my eyes. He had shown it so often that I think it was more real to him now than the house itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jimmy sent it to me. I think it's a very pretty picture. It shows up well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very well. Had you seen him lately?\"\n\n\"He come out to see me two years ago and bought me the house I live in now. Of course we was broke up when he run off from home, but I see now there was a reason for it. He knew he had a big future in front of him. And ever since he made a success he was very generous with me.\" He seemed reluctant to put away the picture, held it for another minute, lingeringly, before my eyes. Then he returned the wallet and pulled from his pocket a ragged old copy of a book called HOPALONG CASSIDY." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look here, this is a book he had when he was a boy. It just shows you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened it at the back cover and turned it around for me to see. On the last fly-leaf was printed the word SCHEDULE, and the date September 12, 1906. and underneath:\n\n\"Rise from bed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00 A.M. Dumbbell exercise and wall-scaling . . . . . . 6.15-6.30\"\n\n\"Study electricity, etc . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.15-8.15\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.30-4.30 P.M. Baseball and sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.30-5.00\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Practice elocution, poise and how to attain it 5.00-6.00\"\n\n\"Study needed inventions . . . . . . . . . . . 7.00-9.00\"\n\n\"GENERAL RESOLVES No wasting time at Shafters or [a name, indecipherable]\"\n\n\"No more smokeing or chewing Bath every other day Read one improving book or magazine per week Save $5.00 {crossed out} $3.00 per week Be better to parents\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I come across this book by accident,\" said the old man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It just shows you, don't it?\"\n\n\"It just shows you.\"\n\n\"Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he's got about improving his mind? He was always great for that. He told me I et like a hog once, and I beat him for it.\"\n\nHe was reluctant to close the book, reading each item aloud and then looking eagerly at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I think he rather expected me to copy down the list for my own use." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A little before three the Lutheran minister arrived from Flushing, and I began to look involuntarily out the windows for other cars. So did Gatsby's father. And as the time passed and the servants came in and stood waiting in the hall, his eyes began to blink anxiously, and he spoke of the rain in a worried, uncertain way. The minister glanced several times at his watch, so I took him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it wasn't any use. Nobody came." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About five o'clock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gate–first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then Mr. Gatz and the minister and I in the limousine, and a little later four or five servants and the postman from West Egg in Gatsby's station wagon, all wet to the skin. As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and then the sound of someone splashing after us over the soggy ground. I looked around. It was the man with owl-eyed glasses whom I had found marvelling over Gatsby's books in the library one night three months before. I'd never seen him since then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I don't know how he knew about the funeral, or even his name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rain poured down his thick glasses, and he took them off and wiped them to see the protecting canvas unrolled from Gatsby's grave.\n\nI tried to think about Gatsby then for a moment, but he was already too far away, and I could only remember, without resentment, that Daisy hadn't sent a message or a flower. Dimly I heard someone murmur,\n\n\"Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on,\" and then the owl-eyed man said \"Amen to that,\" in a brave voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We straggled down quickly through the rain to the cars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Owl-eyes spoke to me by the gate.\n\n\"I couldn't get to the house,\" he remarked.\n\n\"Neither could anybody else.\"\n\n\"Go on!\" He started." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why, my God! they used to go there by the hundreds.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took off his glasses and wiped them again, outside and in.\n\n\"The poor son-of-a-bitch,\" he said.\n\nOne of my most vivid memories is of coming back West from prep school and later from college at Christmas time. Those who went farther than Chicago would gather in the old dim Union Station at six o'clock of a December evening, with a few Chicago friends, already caught up into their own holiday gayeties, to bid them a hasty good-by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I remember the fur coats of the girls returning from Miss This-or-that's and the chatter of frozen breath and the hands waving overhead as we caught sight of old acquaintances, and the matchings of invitations: \"Are you going to the Ordways'? the Herseys'? the Schultzes'?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and the long green tickets clasped tight in our gloved hands. And last the murky yellow cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad looking cheerful as Christmas itself on the tracks beside the gate.\n\nWhen we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That's my Middle West–not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent from growing up in the Carraway house in a city where dwellings are still called through decades by a family's name. I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all–Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.\n\nEven when the East excited me most, even when I was most keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very old–even then it had always for me a quality of distortion. West Egg, especially, still figures in my more fantastic dreams." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lustreless moon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the foreground four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles over the side, sparkles cold with jewels. Gravely the men turn in at a house–the wrong house. But no one knows the woman's name, and no one cares." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home.\n\nThere was one thing to be done before I left, an awkward, unpleasant thing that perhaps had better have been let alone. But I wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away. I saw Jordan Baker and talked over and around what had happened to us together, and what had happened afterward to me, and she lay perfectly still, listening, in a big chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was dressed to play golf, and I remember thinking she looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little jauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. I doubted that, though there were several she could have married at a nod of her head, but I pretended to be surprised. For just a minute I wondered if I wasn't making a mistake, then I thought it all over again quickly and got up to say good-bye.\n\n\"Nevertheless you did throw me over,\" said Jordan suddenly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You threw me over on the telephone. I don't give a damn about you now, but it was a new experience for me, and I felt a little dizzy for a while.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We shook hands.\n\n\"Oh, and do you remember. \"–she added—\" a conversation we had once about driving a car?\"\n\n\"Why–not exactly.\"\n\n\"You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm thirty,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor.\"\n\nShe didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.\n\nOne afternoon late in October I saw Tom Buchanan. He was walking ahead of me along Fifth Avenue in his alert, aggressive way, his hands out a little from his body as if to fight off interference, his head moving sharply here and there, adapting itself to his restless eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just as I slowed up to avoid overtaking him he stopped and began frowning into the windows of a jewelry store." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly he saw me and walked back, holding out his hand.\n\n\"What's the matter, Nick? Do you object to shaking hands with me?\"\n\n\"Yes. You know what I think of you.\"\n\n\"You're crazy, Nick,\" he said quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Crazy as hell. I don't know what's the matter with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tom,\" I inquired, \"what did you say to Wilson that afternoon?\"\n\nHe stared at me without a word, and I knew I had guessed right about those missing hours. I started to turn away, but he took a step after me and grabbed my arm.\n\n\"I told him the truth,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He came to the door while we were getting ready to leave, and when I sent down word that we weren't in he tried to force his way up-stairs. He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn't told him who owned the car. His hand was on a revolver in his pocket every minute he was in the house—\" He broke off defiantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy's, but he was a tough one. He ran over Myrtle like you'd run over a dog and never even stopped his car.\"\n\nThere was nothing I could say, except the one unutterable fact that it wasn't true.\n\n\"And if you think I didn't have my share of suffering–look here, when I went to give up that flat and saw that damn box of dog biscuits sitting there on the sideboard, I sat down and cried like a baby. By God it was awful—\"\n\nI couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was all very careless and confused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...\n\nI shook hands with him; it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child. Then he went into the jewelry store to buy a pearl necklace–or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons–rid of my provincial squeamishness forever.\n\nGatsby's house was still empty when I left–the grass on his lawn had grown as long as mine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the taxi drivers in the village never took a fare past the entrance gate without stopping for a minute and pointing inside; perhaps it was he who drove Daisy and Gatsby over to East Egg the night of the accident, and perhaps he had made a story about it all his own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't want to hear it and I avoided him when I got off the train. I spent my Saturday nights in New York because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant, from his garden, and the cars going up and down his drive. One night I did hear a material car there, and saw its lights stop at his front steps. But I didn't investigate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Probably it was some final guest who had been away at the ends of the earth and didn't know that the party was over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold to the grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more. On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone. Then I wandered down to the beach and sprawled out on the sand.\n\nMost of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes–a fresh, green breast of the new world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.\n\nAnd as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It eluded us then, but that's no matter–to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning—\n\nSo we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like Harper Lee and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.\n\nI said if he wanted to take a broad view of the thing, it really began with Andrew Jackson. If General Jackson hadn't run the Creeks up the creek, Simon Finch would never have paddled up the Alabama, and where would we be if he hadn't?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We were far too old to settle an argument with a fist-fight, so we consulted Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our father said we were both right.\n\nBeing Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings. All we had was Simon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess. In England, Simon was irritated by the persecution of those who called themselves Methodists at the hands of their more liberal brethren, and as Simon called himself a Methodist, he worked his way across the Atlantic to Philadelphia, thence to Jamaica, thence to Mobile, and up the Saint Stephens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mindful of John Wesley's strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicing medicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So Simon, having forgotten his teacher's dictum on the possession of human chattels, bought three slaves and with their aid established a homestead on the banks of the Alabama River some forty miles above Saint Stephens. He returned to Saint Stephens only once, to find a wife, and with her established a line that ran high to daughters. Simon lived to an impressive age and died rich.\n\nIt was customary for the men in the family to remain on Simon's homestead, Finch's Landing, and make their living from cotton." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The place was self-sufficient: modest in comparison with the empires around it, the Landing nevertheless produced everything required to sustain life except ice, wheat flour, and articles of clothing, supplied by river-boats from Mobile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Simon would have regarded with impotent fury the disturbance between the North and the South, as it left his descendants stripped of everything but their land, yet the tradition of living on the land remained unbroken until well into the twentieth century, when my father, Atticus Finch, went to Montgomery to read law, and his younger brother went to Boston to study medicine. Their sister Alexandra was the Finch who remained at the Landing: she married a taciturn man who spent most of his time lying in a hammock by the river wondering if his trot-lines were full.\n\nWhen my father was admitted to the bar, he returned to Maycomb and began his practice. Maycomb, some twenty miles east of Finch's Landing, was the county seat of Maycomb County." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus's office in the courthouse contained little more than a hat rack, a spittoon, a checkerboard and an unsullied Code of Alabama." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His first two clients were the last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail. Atticus had urged them to accept the state's generosity in allowing them to plead Guilty to second-degree murder and escape with their lives, but they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a name synonymous with jackass. The Haverfords had dispatched Maycomb's leading blacksmith in a misunderstanding arising from the alleged wrongful detention of a mare, were imprudent enough to do it in the presence of three witnesses, and insisted that the-son-of-a-bitch-had-it-coming-to-him was a good enough defense for anybody. They persisted in pleading Not Guilty to first-degree murder, so there was nothing much Atticus could do for his clients except be present at their departure, an occasion that was probably the beginning of my father's profound distaste for the practice of criminal law." }, { "from": "human", "value": "During his first five years in Maycomb, Atticus practiced economy more than anything; for several years thereafter he invested his earnings in his brother's education." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "John Hale Finch was ten years younger than my father, and chose to study medicine at a time when cotton was not worth growing; but after getting Uncle Jack started, Atticus derived a reasonable income from the law. He liked Maycomb, he was Maycomb County born and bred; he knew his people, they knew him, and because of Simon Finch's industry, Atticus was related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town.\n\nMaycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.\n\nPeople moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.\n\nWe lived on the main residential street in town—Atticus, Jem and I, plus Calpurnia our cook. Jem and I found our father satisfactory: he played with us, read to us, and treated us with courteous detachment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia was something else again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was all angles and bones; she was nearsighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. She was always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn't behave as well as Jem when she knew he was older, and calling me home when I wasn't ready to come. Our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had been with us ever since Jem was born, and I had felt her tyrannical presence as long as I could remember." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our mother died when I was two, so I never felt her absence. She was a Graham from Montgomery; Atticus met her when he was first elected to the state legislature. He was middle-aged then, she was fifteen years his junior. Jem was the product of their first year of marriage; four years later I was born, and two years later our mother died from a sudden heart attack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They said it ran in her family." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I did not miss her, but I think Jem did. He remembered her clearly, and sometimes in the middle of a game he would sigh at length, then go off and play by himself behind the car-house. When he was like that, I knew better than to bother him.\n\nWhen I was almost six and Jem was nearly ten, our summertime boundaries (within calling distance of Calpurnia) were Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose's house two doors to the north of us, and the Radley Place three doors to the south." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We were never tempted to break them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Radley Place was inhabited by an unknown entity the mere description of whom was enough to make us behave for days on end; Mrs. Dubose was plain hell.\n\nThat was the summer Dill came to us.\n\nEarly one morning as we were beginning our day's play in the back yard, Jem and I heard something next door in Miss Rachel Haverford's collard patch. We went to the wire fence to see if there was a puppy—Miss Rachel's rat terrier was expecting—instead we found someone sitting looking at us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sitting down, he wasn't much higher than the collards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We stared at him until he spoke:\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\n\"Hey yourself,\" said Jem pleasantly.\n\n\"I'm Charles Baker Harris,\" he said. \"I can read.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So what?\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I just thought you'd like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin' I can do it...\"\n\n\"How old are you,\" asked Jem, \"four-and-a-half?\"\n\n\"Goin' on seven.\"\n\n\"Shoot no wonder, then,\" said Jem, jerking his thumb at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Scout yonder's been readin' ever since she was born, and she ain't even started to school yet. You look right puny for goin' on seven.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm little but I'm old,\" he said.\n\nJem brushed his hair back to get a better look. \"Why don't you come over, Charles Baker Harris?\" he said. \"Lord, what a name.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\" 's not any funnier'n yours. Aunt Rachel says your name's Jeremy Atticus Finch.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem scowled. \"I'm big enough to fit mine,\" he said. \"Your name's longer'n you are. Bet it's a foot longer.\"\n\n\"Folks call me Dill,\" said Dill, struggling under the fence.\n\n\"Do better if you go over it instead of under it,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where'd you come from?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill was from Meridian, Mississippi, was spending the summer with his aunt, Miss Rachel, and would be spending every summer in Maycomb from now on. His family was from Maycomb County originally, his mother worked for a photographer in Meridian, had entered his picture in a Beautiful Child contest and won five dollars. She gave the money to Dill, who went to the picture show twenty times on it.\n\n\"Don't have any picture shows here, except Jesus ones in the courthouse sometimes,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ever see anything good?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill had seen Dracula, a revelation that moved Jem to eye him with the beginning of respect. \"Tell it to us,\" he said.\n\nDill was a curiosity. He wore blue linen shorts that buttoned to his shirt, his hair was snow white and stuck to his head like duck-fluff; he was a year my senior but I towered over him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he told us the old tale his blue eyes would lighten and darken; his laugh was sudden and happy; he habitually pulled at a cowlick in the center of his forehead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Dill reduced Dracula to dust, and Jem said the show sounded better than the book, I asked Dill where his father was: \"You ain't said anything about him.\"\n\n\"I haven't got one.\"\n\n\"Is he dead?\"\n\n\"No...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then if he's not dead you've got one, haven't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill blushed and Jem told me to hush, a sure sign that Dill had been studied and found acceptable. Thereafter the summer passed in routine contentment. Routine contentment was: improving our treehouse that rested between giant twin chinaberry trees in the back yard, fussing, running through our list of dramas based on the works of Oliver Optic, Victor Appleton, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. In this matter we were lucky to have Dill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He played the character parts formerly thrust upon me—the ape in Tarzan, Mr. Crabtree in The Rover Boys, Mr. Damon in Tom Swift." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies.\n\nBut by the end of August our repertoire was vapid from countless reproductions, and it was then that Dill gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.\n\nThe Radley Place fascinated Dill. In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew him as the moon draws water, but drew him no nearer than the light-pole on the corner, a safe distance from the Radley gate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There he would stand, his arm around the fat pole, staring and wondering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Radley Place jutted into a sharp curve beyond our house. Walking south, one faced its porch; the sidewalk turned and ran beside the lot. The house was low, was once white with a deep front porch and green shutters, but had long ago darkened to the color of the slate-gray yard around it. Rain-rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda; oak trees kept the sun away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard—a \"swept\" yard that was never swept—where johnson grass and rabbit-tobacco grew in abundance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People said he went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows. When people's azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once the town was terrorized by a series of morbid nocturnal events: people's chickens and household pets were found mutilated; although the culprit was Crazy Addie, who eventually drowned himself in Barker's Eddy, people still looked at the Radley Place, unwilling to discard their initial suspicions. A Negro would not pass the Radley Place at night, he would cut across to the sidewalk opposite and whistle as he walked. The Maycomb school grounds adjoined the back of the Radley lot; from the Radley chickenyard tall pecan trees shook their fruit into the schoolyard, but the nuts lay untouched by the children: Radley pecans would kill you. A baseball hit into the Radley yard was a lost ball and no questions asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The misery of that house began many years before Jem and I were born." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Radleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb. They did not go to church, Maycomb's principal recreation, but worshiped at home; Mrs. Radley seldom if ever crossed the street for a mid-morning coffee break with her neighbors, and certainly never joined a missionary circle. Mr. Radley walked to town at eleven-thirty every morning and came back promptly at twelve, sometimes carrying a brown paper bag that the neighborhood assumed contained the family groceries. I never knew how old Mr. Radley made his living—Jem said he \"bought cotton,\" a polite term for doing nothing—but Mr. Radley and his wife had lived there with their two sons as long as anybody could remember." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shutters and doors of the Radley house were closed on Sundays, another thing alien to Maycomb's ways: closed doors meant illness and cold weather only." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of all days Sunday was the day for formal afternoon visiting: ladies wore corsets, men wore coats, children wore shoes. But to climb the Radley front steps and call, \"He-y,\" of a Sunday afternoon was something their neighbors never did. The Radley house had no screen doors. I once asked Atticus if it ever had any; Atticus said yes, but before I was born." }, { "from": "human", "value": "According to neighborhood legend, when the younger Radley boy was in his teens he became acquainted with some of the Cunninghams from Old Sarum, an enormous and confusing tribe domiciled in the northern part of the county, and they formed the nearest thing to a gang ever seen in Maycomb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They did little, but enough to be discussed by the town and publicly warned from three pulpits: they hung around the barbershop; they rode the bus to Abbottsville on Sundays and went to the picture show; they attended dances at the county's riverside gambling hall, the Dew-Drop Inn & Fishing Camp; they experimented with stumphole whiskey. Nobody in Maycomb had nerve enough to tell Mr. Radley that his boy was in with the wrong crowd.\n\nOne night, in an excessive spurt of high spirits, the boys backed around the square in a borrowed flivver, resisted arrest by Maycomb's ancient beadle, Mr. Conner, and locked him in the courthouse outhouse. The town decided something had to be done; Mr. Conner said he knew who each and every one of them was, and he was bound and determined they wouldn't get away with it, so the boys came before the probate judge on charges of disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, assault and battery, and using abusive and profane language in the presence and hearing of a female." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The judge asked Mr. Conner why he included the last charge; Mr. Conner said they cussed so loud he was sure every lady in Maycomb heard them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The judge decided to send the boys to the state industrial school, where boys were sometimes sent for no other reason than to provide them with food and decent shelter: it was no prison and it was no disgrace. Mr. Radley thought it was. If the judge released Arthur, Mr. Radley would see to it that Arthur gave no further trouble. Knowing that Mr. Radley's word was his bond, the judge was glad to do so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other boys attended the industrial school and received the best secondary education to be had in the state; one of them eventually worked his way through engineering school at Auburn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doors of the Radley house were closed on weekdays as well as Sundays, and Mr. Radley's boy was not seen again for fifteen years.\n\nBut there came a day, barely within Jem's memory, when Boo Radley was heard from and was seen by several people, but not by Jem. He said Atticus never talked much about the Radleys: when Jem would question him Atticus's only answer was for him to mind his own business and let the Radleys mind theirs, they had a right to; but when it happened Jem said Atticus shook his head and said, \"Mm mm, mm.\"\n\nSo Jem received most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighborhood scold, who said she knew the whole thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "According to Miss Stephanie, Boo was sitting in the livingroom cutting some items from The Maycomb Tribune to paste in his scrapbook." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His father entered the room. As Mr. Radley passed by, Boo drove the scissors into his parent's leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities.\n\nMrs. Radley ran screaming into the street that Arthur was killing them all, but when the sheriff arrived he found Boo still sitting in the livingroom, cutting up the Tribune. He was thirty-three years old then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Stephanie said old Mr. Radley said no Radley was going to any asylum, when it was suggested that a season in Tuscaloosa might be helpful to Boo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Boo wasn't crazy, he was high-strung at times. It was all right to shut him up, Mr. Radley conceded, but insisted that Boo not be charged with anything: he was not a criminal. The sheriff hadn't the heart to put him in jail alongside Negroes, so Boo was locked in the courthouse basement.\n\nBoo's transition from the basement to back home was nebulous in Jem's memory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Stephanie Crawford said some of the town council told Mr. Radley that if he didn't take Boo back, Boo would die of mold from the damp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Besides, Boo could not live forever on the bounty of the county.\n\nNobody knew what form of intimidation Mr. Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight, but Jem figured that Mr. Radley kept him chained to the bed most of the time. Atticus said no, it wasn't that sort of thing, that there were other ways of making people into ghosts.\n\nMy memory came alive to see Mrs. Radley occasionally open the front door, walk to the edge of the porch, and pour water on her cannas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But every day Jem and I would see Mr. Radley walking to and from town." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a thin leathery man with colorless eyes, so colorless they did not reflect light. His cheekbones were sharp and his mouth was wide, with a thin upper lip and a full lower lip. Miss Stephanie Crawford said he was so upright he took the word of God as his only law, and we believed her, because Mr. Radley's posture was ramrod straight.\n\nHe never spoke to us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he passed we would look at the ground and say, \"Good morning, sir,\" and he would cough in reply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Radley's elder son lived in Pensacola; he came home at Christmas, and he was one of the few persons we ever saw enter or leave the place. From the day Mr. Radley took Arthur home, people said the house died.\n\nBut there came a day when Atticus told us he'd wear us out if we made any noise in the yard and commissioned Calpurnia to serve in his absence if she heard a sound out of us. Mr. Radley was dying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took his time about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wooden sawhorses blocked the road at each end of the Radley lot, straw was put down on the sidewalk, traffic was diverted to the back street. Dr. Reynolds parked his car in front of our house and walked to the Radley's every time he called. Jem and I crept around the yard for days. At last the sawhorses were taken away, and we stood watching from the front porch when Mr. Radley made his final journey past our house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into,\" murmured Calpurnia, and she spat meditatively into the yard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We looked at her in surprise, for Calpurnia rarely commented on the ways of white people.\n\nThe neighborhood thought when Mr. Radley went under Boo would come out, but it had another think coming: Boo's elder brother returned from Pensacola and took Mr. Radley's place. The only difference between him and his father was their ages. Jem said Mr. Nathan Radley \"bought cotton,\" too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Nathan would speak to us, however, when we said good morning, and sometimes we saw him coming from town with a magazine in his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The more we told Dill about the Radleys, the more he wanted to know, the longer he would stand hugging the light-pole on the corner, the more he would wonder.\n\n\"Wonder what he does in there,\" he would murmur. \"Looks like he'd just stick his head out the door.\"\n\nJem said, \"He goes out, all right, when it's pitch dark. Miss Stephanie Crawford said she woke up in the middle of the night one time and saw him looking straight through the window at her... said his head was like a skull lookin' at her. Ain't you ever waked up at night and heard him, Dill? He walks like this—\" Jem slid his feet through the gravel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why do you think Miss Rachel locks up so tight at night? I've seen his tracks in our back yard many a mornin', and one night I heard him scratching on the back screen, but he was gone time Atticus got there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wonder what he looks like?\" said Dill.\n\nJem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time.\n\n\"Let's try to make him come out,\" said Dill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd like to see what he looks like.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem said if Dill wanted to get himself killed, all he had to do was go up and knock on the front door.\n\nOur first raid came to pass only because Dill bet Jem The Gray Ghost against two Tom Swifts that Jem wouldn't get any farther than the Radley gate. In all his life, Jem had never declined a dare.\n\nJem thought about it for three days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I suppose he loved honor more than his head, for Dill wore him down easily: \"You're scared,\" Dill said, the first day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ain't scared, just respectful,\" Jem said. The next day Dill said, \"You're too scared even to put your big toe in the front yard.\" Jem said he reckoned he wasn't, he'd passed the Radley Place every school day of his life.\n\n\"Always runnin',\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Dill got him the third day, when he told Jem that folks in Meridian certainly weren't as afraid as the folks in Maycomb, that he'd never seen such scary folks as the ones in Maycomb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was enough to make Jem march to the corner, where he stopped and leaned against the light-pole, watching the gate hanging crazily on its homemade hinge.\n\n\"I hope you've got it through your head that he'll kill us each and every one, Dill Harris,\" said Jem, when we joined him. \"Don't blame me when he gouges your eyes out. You started it, remember.\"\n\n\"You're still scared,\" murmured Dill patiently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem wanted Dill to know once and for all that he wasn't scared of anything: \"It's just that I can't think of a way to make him come out without him gettin' us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Besides, Jem had his little sister to think of.\n\nWhen he said that, I knew he was afraid. Jem had his little sister to think of the time I dared him to jump off the top of the house: \"If I got killed, what'd become of you?\" he asked. Then he jumped, landed unhurt, and his sense of responsibility left him until confronted by the Radley Place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You gonna run out on a dare?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked Dill. \"If you are, then—\"\n\n\"Dill, you have to think about these things,\" Jem said. \"Lemme think a minute... it's sort of like making a turtle come out...\"\n\n\"How's that?\" asked Dill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Strike a match under him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I told Jem if he set fire to the Radley house I was going to tell Atticus on him.\n\nDill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful.\n\n\"Ain't hateful, just persuades him—'s not like you'd chunk him in the fire,\" Jem growled.\n\n\"How do you know a match don't hurt him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Turtles can't feel, stupid,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Were you ever a turtle, huh?\"\n\n\"My stars, Dill! Now lemme think... reckon we can rock him...\"\n\nJem stood in thought so long that Dill made a mild concession: \"I won't say you ran out on a dare an' I'll swap you The Gray Ghost if you just go up and touch the house.\"\n\nJem brightened. \"Touch the house, that's all?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure that's all, now? I don't want you hollerin' something different the minute I get back.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's all,\" said Dill. \"He'll probably come out after you when he sees you in the yard, then Scout'n'me'll jump on him and hold him down till we can tell him we ain't gonna hurt him.\"\n\nWe left the corner, crossed the side street that ran in front of the Radley house, and stopped at the gate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well go on,\" said Dill, \"Scout and me's right behind you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm going,\" said Jem, \"don't hurry me.\"\n\nHe walked to the corner of the lot, then back again, studying the simple terrain as if deciding how best to effect an entry, frowning and scratching his head.\n\nThen I sneered at him.\n\nJem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm and ran back past us, not waiting to see if his foray was successful." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like Harper Lee would" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill left us early in September, to return to Meridian. We saw him off on the five o'clock bus and I was miserable without him until it occurred to me that I would be starting to school in a week. I never looked forward more to anything in my life. Hours of wintertime had found me in the treehouse, looking over at the schoolyard, spying on multitudes of children through a two-power telescope Jem had given me, learning their games, following Jem's red jacket through wriggling circles of blind man's buff, secretly sharing their misfortunes and minor victories." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I longed to join them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem condescended to take me to school the first day, a job usually done by one's parents, but Atticus had said Jem would be delighted to show me where my room was. I think some money changed hands in this transaction, for as we trotted around the corner past the Radley Place I heard an unfamiliar jingle in Jem's pockets. When we slowed to a walk at the edge of the schoolyard, Jem was careful to explain that during school hours I was not to bother him, I was not to approach him with requests to enact a chapter of Tarzan and the Ant Men, to embarrass him with references to his private life, or tag along behind him at recess and noon. I was to stick with the first grade and he would stick with the fifth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In short, I was to leave him alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You mean we can't play any more?\" I asked.\n\n\"We'll do like we always do at home,\" he said, \"but you'll see—school's different.\"\n\nIt certainly was. Before the first morning was over, Miss Caroline Fisher, our teacher, hauled me up to the front of the room and patted the palm of my hand with a ruler, then made me stand in the corner until noon.\n\nMiss Caroline was no more than twenty-one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had bright auburn hair, pink cheeks, and wore crimson fingernail polish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She also wore high-heeled pumps and a red-and-white-striped dress. She looked and smelled like a peppermint drop. She boarded across the street one door down from us in Miss Maudie Atkinson's upstairs front room, and when Miss Maudie introduced us to her, Jem was in a haze for days.\n\nMiss Caroline printed her name on the blackboard and said, \"This says I am Miss Caroline Fisher. I am from North Alabama, from Winston County.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The class murmured apprehensively, should she prove to harbor her share of the peculiarities indigenous to that region." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "(When Alabama seceded from the Union on January 11, 1861, Winston County seceded from Alabama, and every child in Maycomb County knew it.) North Alabama was full of Liquor Interests, Big Mules, steel companies, Republicans, professors, and other persons of no background.\n\nMiss Caroline began the day by reading us a story about cats. The cats had long conversations with one another, they wore cunning little clothes and lived in a warm house beneath a kitchen stove." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time Mrs. Cat called the drugstore for an order of chocolate malted mice the class was wriggling like a bucketful of catawba worms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Caroline seemed unaware that the ragged, denim-shirted and floursack-skirted first grade, most of whom had chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk, were immune to imaginative literature. Miss Caroline came to the end of the story and said, \"Oh, my, wasn't that nice?\"\n\nThen she went to the blackboard and printed the alphabet in enormous square capitals, turned to the class and asked, \"Does anybody know what these are?\"\n\nEverybody did; most of the first grade had failed it last year." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading.\n\n\"Teach me?\" I said in surprise. \"He hasn't taught me anything, Miss Caroline. Atticus ain't got time to teach me anything,\" I added, when Miss Caroline smiled and shook her head. \"Why, he's so tired at night he just sits in the livingroom and reads.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If he didn't teach you, who did?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Caroline asked good-naturedly. \"Somebody did. You weren't born reading The Mobile Register.\"\n\n\"Jem says I was. He read in a book where I was a Bullfinch instead of a Finch. Jem says my name's really Jean Louise Bullfinch, that I got swapped when I was born and I'm really a—\"\n\nMiss Caroline apparently thought I was lying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's not let our imaginations run away with us, dear,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now you tell your father not to teach you any more. It's best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I'll take over from here and try to undo the damage—\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"Your father does not know how to teach. You can have a seat now.\"\n\nI mumbled that I was sorry and retired meditating upon my crime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I never deliberately learned to read, but somehow I had been wallowing illicitly in the daily papers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the long hours of church—was it then I learned? I could not remember not being able to read hymns. Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces. I could not remember when the lines above Atticus's moving finger separated into words, but I had stared at them all the evenings in my memory, listening to the news of the day, Bills to Be Enacted into Laws, the diaries of Lorenzo Dow—anything Atticus happened to be reading when I crawled into his lap every night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One does not love breathing.\n\nI knew I had annoyed Miss Caroline, so I let well enough alone and stared out the window until recess when Jem cut me from the covey of first-graders in the schoolyard. He asked how I was getting along. I told him.\n\n\"If I didn't have to stay I'd leave. Jem, that damn lady says Atticus's been teaching me to read and for him to stop it—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't worry, Scout,\" Jem confronted me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Our teacher says Miss Caroline's introducing a new way of teaching. She learned about it in college. It'll be in all the grades soon. You don't have to learn much out of books that way—it's like if you wanta learn about cows, you go milk one, see?\"\n\n\"Yeah Jem, but I don't wanta study cows, I—\"\n\n\"Sure you do. You hafta know about cows, they're a big part of life in Maycomb County.\"\n\nI contented myself with asking Jem if he'd lost his mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm just trying to tell you the new way they're teachin' the first grade, stubborn. It's the Dewey Decimal System.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Having never questioned Jem's pronouncements, I saw no reason to begin now. The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of Miss Caroline waving cards at us on which were printed \"the,\" \"cat,\" \"rat,\" \"man,\" and \"you.\" No comment seemed to be expected of us, and the class received these impressionistic revelations in silence. I was bored, so I began a letter to Dill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Caroline caught me writing and told me to tell my father to stop teaching me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Besides,\" she said. \"We don't write in the first grade, we print. You won't learn to write until you're in the third grade.\"\n\nCalpurnia was to blame for this. It kept me from driving her crazy on rainy days, I guess. She would set me a writing task by scrawling the alphabet firmly across the top of a tablet, then copying out a chapter of the Bible underneath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If I reproduced her penmanship satisfactorily, she rewarded me with an open-faced sandwich of bread and butter and sugar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In Calpurnia's teaching, there was no sentimentality: I seldom pleased her and she seldom rewarded me.\n\n\"Everybody who goes home to lunch hold up your hands,\" said Miss Caroline, breaking into my new grudge against Calpurnia.\n\nThe town children did so, and she looked us over.\n\n\"Everybody who brings his lunch put it on top of his desk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Molasses buckets appeared from nowhere, and the ceiling danced with metallic light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Caroline walked up and down the rows peering and poking into lunch containers, nodding if the contents pleased her, frowning a little at others. She stopped at Walter Cunningham's desk. \"Where's yours?\" she asked.\n\nWalter Cunningham's face told everybody in the first grade he had hookworms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His absence of shoes told us how he got them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People caught hookworms going barefooted in barnyards and hog wallows. If Walter had owned any shoes he would have worn them the first day of school and then discarded them until mid-winter. He did have on a clean shirt and neatly mended overalls.\n\n\"Did you forget your lunch this morning?\" asked Miss Caroline." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Walter looked straight ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I saw a muscle jump in his skinny jaw.\n\n\"Did you forget it this morning?\" asked Miss Caroline. Walter's jaw twitched again.\n\n\"Yeb'm,\" he finally mumbled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Caroline went to her desk and opened her purse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here's a quarter,\" she said to Walter. \"Go and eat downtown today. You can pay me back tomorrow.\"\n\nWalter shook his head. \"Nome thank you ma'am,\" he drawled softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Impatience crept into Miss Caroline's voice: \"Here Walter, come get it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Walter shook his head again.\n\nWhen Walter shook his head a third time someone whispered, \"Go on and tell her, Scout.\"\n\nI turned around and saw most of the town people and the entire bus delegation looking at me. Miss Caroline and I had conferred twice already, and they were looking at me in the innocent assurance that familiarity breeds understanding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I rose graciously on Walter's behalf: \"Ah—Miss Caroline?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is it, Jean Louise?\"\n\n\"Miss Caroline, he's a Cunningham.\"\n\nI sat back down.\n\n\"What, Jean Louise?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I thought I had made things sufficiently clear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was clear enough to the rest of us: Walter Cunningham was sitting there lying his head off. He didn't forget his lunch, he didn't have any. He had none today nor would he have any tomorrow or the next day. He had probably never seen three quarters together at the same time in his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I tried again: \"Walter's one of the Cunninghams, Miss Caroline.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I beg your pardon, Jean Louise?\"\n\n\"That's okay, ma'am, you'll get to know all the country folks after a while. The Cunninghams never took anything they can't pay back—no church baskets, and no scrip stamps. They never took anything off of anybody, they get along on what they have. They don't have much, but they get along on it.\"\n\nMy special knowledge of the Cunningham tribe—one branch, that is—was gained from events of last winter. Walter's father was one of Atticus's clients." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a dreary conversation in our livingroom one night about his entailment, before Mr. Cunningham left he said, \"Mr. Finch, I don't know when I'll ever be able to pay you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let that be the least of your worries, Walter,\" Atticus said.\n\nWhen I asked Jem what entailment was, and Jem described it as a condition of having your tail in a crack, I asked Atticus if Mr. Cunningham would ever pay us.\n\n\"Not in money,\" Atticus said, \"but before the year's out I'll have been paid. You watch.\"\n\nWe watched. One morning Jem and I found a load of stovewood in the back yard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Later, a sack of hickory nuts appeared on the back steps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With Christmas came a crate of smilax and holly. That spring when we found a croker-sack full of turnip greens, Atticus said Mr. Cunningham had more than paid him.\n\n\"Why does he pay you like that?\" I asked.\n\n\"Because that's the only way he can pay me. He has no money.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are we poor, Atticus?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus nodded. \"We are indeed.\"\n\nJem's nose wrinkled. \"Are we as poor as the Cunninghams?\"\n\n\"Not exactly. The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them hardest.\"\n\nAtticus said professional people were poor because the farmers were poor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Maycomb County was farm country, nickels and dimes were hard to come by for doctors and dentists and lawyers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Entailment was only a part of Mr. Cunningham's vexations. The acres not entailed were mortgaged to the hilt, and the little cash he made went to interest. If he held his mouth right, Mr. Cunningham could get a WPA job, but his land would go to ruin if he left it, and he was willing to go hungry to keep his land and vote as he pleased. Mr. Cunningham, said Atticus, came from a set breed of men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the Cunninghams had no money to pay a lawyer, they simply paid us with what they had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you know,\" said Atticus, \"that Dr. Reynolds works the same way? He charges some folks a bushel of potatoes for delivery of a baby. Miss Scout, if you give me your attention I'll tell you what entailment is. Jem's definitions are very nearly accurate sometimes.\"\n\nIf I could have explained these things to Miss Caroline, I would have saved myself some inconvenience and Miss Caroline subsequent mortification, but it was beyond my ability to explain things as well as Atticus, so I said, \"You're shamin' him, Miss Caroline. Walter hasn't got a quarter at home to bring you, and you can't use any stovewood.\"\n\nMiss Caroline stood stock still, then grabbed me by the collar and hauled me back to her desk. \"Jean Louise, I've had about enough of you this morning,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're starting off on the wrong foot in every way, my dear. Hold out your hand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought she was going to spit in it, which was the only reason anybody in Maycomb held out his hand: it was a time-honored method of sealing oral contracts. Wondering what bargain we had made, I turned to the class for an answer, but the class looked back at me in puzzlement. Miss Caroline picked up her ruler, gave me half a dozen quick little pats, then told me to stand in the corner. A storm of laughter broke loose when it finally occurred to the class that Miss Caroline had whipped me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Miss Caroline threatened it with a similar fate the first grade exploded again, becoming cold sober only when the shadow of Miss Blount fell over them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Blount, a native Maycombian as yet uninitiated in the mysteries of the Decimal System, appeared at the door hands on hips and announced: \"If I hear another sound from this room I'll burn up everybody in it. Miss Caroline, the sixth grade cannot concentrate on the pyramids for all this racket!\"\n\nMy sojourn in the corner was a short one. Saved by the bell, Miss Caroline watched the class file out for lunch. As I was the last to leave, I saw her sink down into her chair and bury her head in her arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had her conduct been more friendly toward me, I would have felt sorry for her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was a pretty little thing." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of Harper Lee.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of Harper Lee every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Catching Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard gave me some pleasure, but when I was rubbing his nose in the dirt Jem came by and told me to stop. \"You're bigger'n he is,\" he said.\n\n\"He's as old as you, nearly,\" I said. \"He made me start off on the wrong foot.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let him go, Scout. Why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He didn't have any lunch,\" I said, and explained my involvement in Walter's dietary affairs.\n\nWalter had picked himself up and was standing quietly listening to Jem and me. His fists were half cocked, as if expecting an onslaught from both of us. I stomped at him to chase him away, but Jem put out his hand and stopped me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He examined Walter with an air of speculation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your daddy Mr. Walter Cunningham from Old Sarum?\" he asked, and Walter nodded.\n\nWalter looked as if he had been raised on fish food: his eyes, as blue as Dill Harris's, were red-rimmed and watery. There was no color in his face except at the tip of his nose, which was moistly pink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He fingered the straps of his overalls, nervously picking at the metal hooks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem suddenly grinned at him. \"Come on home to dinner with us, Walter,\" he said. \"We'd be glad to have you.\"\n\nWalter's face brightened, then darkened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem said, \"Our daddy's a friend of your daddy's. Scout here, she's crazy—she won't fight you any more.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wouldn't be too certain of that,\" I said. Jem's free dispensation of my pledge irked me, but precious noontime minutes were ticking away. \"Yeah Walter, I won't jump on you again. Don't you like butterbeans? Our Cal's a real good cook.\"\n\nWalter stood where he was, biting his lip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem and I gave up, and we were nearly to the Radley Place when Walter called, \"Hey, I'm comin'!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Walter caught up with us, Jem made pleasant conversation with him. \"A hain't lives there,\" he said cordially, pointing to the Radley house. \"Ever hear about him, Walter?\"\n\n\"Reckon I have,\" said Walter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Almost died first year I come to school and et them pecans—folks say he pizened 'em and put 'em over on the school side of the fence.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem seemed to have little fear of Boo Radley now that Walter and I walked beside him. Indeed, Jem grew boastful: \"I went all the way up to the house once,\" he said to Walter.\n\n\"Anybody who went up to the house once oughta not to still run every time he passes it,\" I said to the clouds above.\n\n\"And who's runnin', Miss Priss?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are, when ain't anybody with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time we reached our front steps Walter had forgotten he was a Cunningham. Jem ran to the kitchen and asked Calpurnia to set an extra plate, we had company. Atticus greeted Walter and began a discussion about crops neither Jem nor I could follow.\n\n\"Reason I can't pass the first grade, Mr. Finch, is I've had to stay out ever' spring an' help Papa with the choppin', but there's another'n at the house now that's field size.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you pay a bushel of potatoes for him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I asked, but Atticus shook his head at me.\n\nWhile Walter piled food on his plate, he and Atticus talked together like two men, to the wonderment of Jem and me. Atticus was expounding upon farm problems when Walter interrupted to ask if there was any molasses in the house. Atticus summoned Calpurnia, who returned bearing the syrup pitcher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stood waiting for Walter to help himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Walter poured syrup on his vegetables and meat with a generous hand. He would probably have poured it into his milk glass had I not asked what the sam hill he was doing.\n\nThe silver saucer clattered when he replaced the pitcher, and he quickly put his hands in his lap. Then he ducked his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus shook his head at me again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But he's gone and drowned his dinner in syrup,\" I protested. \"He's poured it all over—\"\n\nIt was then that Calpurnia requested my presence in the kitchen.\n\nShe was furious, and when she was furious Calpurnia's grammar became erratic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When in tranquility, her grammar was as good as anybody's in Maycomb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus said Calpurnia had more education than most colored folks.\n\nWhen she squinted down at me the tiny lines around her eyes deepened. \"There's some folks who don't eat like us,\" she whispered fiercely, \"but you ain't called on to contradict 'em at the table when they don't. That boy's yo' comp'ny and if he wants to eat up the table cloth you let him, you hear?\"\n\n\"He ain't company, Cal, he's just a Cunningham—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hush your mouth! Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house's yo' comp'ny, and don't you let me catch you remarkin' on their ways like you was so high and mighty! Yo' folks might be better'n the Cunninghams but it don't count for nothin' the way you're disgracin' 'em—if you can't act fit to eat at the table you can just set here and eat in the kitchen!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia sent me through the swinging door to the diningroom with a stinging smack. I retrieved my plate and finished dinner in the kitchen, thankful, though, that I was spared the humiliation of facing them again. I told Calpurnia to just wait, I'd fix her: one of these days when she wasn't looking I'd go off and drown myself in Barker's Eddy and then she'd be sorry. Besides, I added, she'd already gotten me in trouble once today: she had taught me to write and it was all her fault." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hush you fussin',\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem and Walter returned to school ahead of me: staying behind to advise Atticus of Calpurnia's iniquities was worth a solitary sprint past the Radley Place. \"She likes Jem better'n she likes me, anyway,\" I concluded, and suggested that Atticus lose no time in packing her off.\n\n\"Have you ever considered that Jem doesn't worry her half as much?\" Atticus's voice was flinty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've no intention of getting rid of her, now or ever. We couldn't operate a single day without Cal, have you ever thought of that? You think about how much Cal does for you, and you mind her, you hear?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I returned to school and hated Calpurnia steadily until a sudden shriek shattered my resentments. I looked up to see Miss Caroline standing in the middle of the room, sheer horror flooding her face. Apparently she had revived enough to persevere in her profession.\n\n\"It's alive!\" she screamed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The male population of the class rushed as one to her assistance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lord, I thought, she's scared of a mouse. Little Chuck Little, whose patience with all living things was phenomenal, said, \"Which way did he go, Miss Caroline? Tell us where he went, quick! D.C.—\" he turned to a boy behind him—\"D.C., shut the door and we'll catch him. Quick, ma'am, where'd he go?\"\n\nMiss Caroline pointed a shaking finger not at the floor nor at a desk, but to a hulking individual unknown to me. Little Chuck's face contracted and he said gently, \"You mean him, ma'am? Yessum, he's alive. Did he scare you some way?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Caroline said desperately, \"I was just walking by when it crawled out of his hair... just crawled out of his hair—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Little Chuck grinned broadly. \"There ain't no need to fear a cootie, ma'am. Ain't you ever seen one? Now don't you be afraid, you just go back to your desk and teach us some more.\"\n\nLittle Chuck Little was another member of the population who didn't know where his next meal was coming from, but he was a born gentleman. He put his hand under her elbow and led Miss Caroline to the front of the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now don't you fret, ma'am,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There ain't no need to fear a cootie. I'll just fetch you some cool water.\"\n\nThe cootie's host showed not the faintest interest in the furor he had wrought. He searched the scalp above his forehead, located his guest and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.\n\nMiss Caroline watched the process in horrid fascination." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Little Chuck brought water in a paper cup, and she drank it gratefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally she found her voice. \"What is your name, son?\" she asked softly.\n\nThe boy blinked. \"Who, me?\" Miss Caroline nodded.\n\n\"Burris Ewell.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Caroline inspected her roll-book." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have a Ewell here, but I don't have a first name... would you spell your first name for me?\"\n\n\"Don't know how. They call me Burris't home.\"\n\n\"Well, Burris,\" said Miss Caroline, \"I think we'd better excuse you for the rest of the afternoon. I want you to go home and wash your hair.\"\n\nFrom her desk she produced a thick volume, leafed through its pages and read for a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A good home remedy for—Burris, I want you to go home and wash your hair with lye soap. When you've done that, treat your scalp with kerosene.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What fer, missus?\"\n\n\"To get rid of the—er, cooties. You see, Burris, the other children might catch them, and you wouldn't want that, would you?\"\n\nThe boy stood up. He was the filthiest human I had ever seen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His neck was dark gray, the backs of his hands were rusty, and his fingernails were black deep into the quick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He peered at Miss Caroline from a fist-sized clean space on his face. No one had noticed him, probably, because Miss Caroline and I had entertained the class most of the morning.\n\n\"And Burris,\" said Miss Caroline, \"please bathe yourself before you come back tomorrow.\"\n\nThe boy laughed rudely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You ain't sendin' me home, missus. I was on the verge of leavin'—I done done my time for this year.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Caroline looked puzzled. \"What do you mean by that?\"\n\nThe boy did not answer. He gave a short contemptuous snort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the elderly members of the class answered her: \"He's one of the Ewells, ma'am,\" and I wondered if this explanation would be as unsuccessful as my attempt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Miss Caroline seemed willing to listen. \"Whole school's full of 'em. They come first day every year and then leave. The truant lady gets 'em here 'cause she threatens 'em with the sheriff, but she's give up tryin' to hold 'em. She reckons she's carried out the law just gettin' their names on the roll and runnin' 'em here the first day. You're supposed to mark 'em absent the rest of the year...\"\n\n\"But what about their parents?\" asked Miss Caroline, in genuine concern." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ain't got no mother,\" was the answer, \"and their paw's right contentious.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Burris Ewell was flattered by the recital. \"Been comin' to the first day o' the first grade fer three year now,\" he said expansively. \"Reckon if I'm smart this year they'll promote me to the second...\"\n\nMiss Caroline said, \"Sit back down, please, Burris,\" and the moment she said it I knew she had made a serious mistake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The boy's condescension flashed to anger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You try and make me, missus.\"\n\nLittle Chuck Little got to his feet. \"Let him go, ma'am,\" he said. \"He's a mean one, a hard-down mean one. He's liable to start somethin', and there's some little folks here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was among the most diminutive of men, but when Burris Ewell turned toward him, Little Chuck's right hand went to his pocket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Watch your step, Burris,\" he said. \"I'd soon's kill you as look at you. Now go home.\"\n\nBurris seemed to be afraid of a child half his height, and Miss Caroline took advantage of his indecision: \"Burris, go home. If you don't I'll call the principal,\" she said. \"I'll have to report this, anyway.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The boy snorted and slouched leisurely to the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Safely out of range, he turned and shouted: \"Report and be damned to ye! Ain't no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c'n make me do nothin'! You ain't makin' me go nowhere, missus. You just remember that, you ain't makin' me go nowhere!\"\n\nHe waited until he was sure she was crying, then he shuffled out of the building.\n\nSoon we were clustered around her desk, trying in our various ways to comfort her. He was a real mean one... below the belt... you ain't called on to teach folks like that... them ain't Maycomb's ways, Miss Caroline, not really... now don't you fret, ma'am." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Caroline, why don't you read us a story?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That cat thing was real fine this mornin'...\n\nMiss Caroline smiled, blew her nose, said, \"Thank you, darlings,\" dispersed us, opened a book and mystified the first grade with a long narrative about a toadfrog that lived in a hall.\n\nWhen I passed the Radley Place for the fourth time that day—twice at a full gallop—my gloom had deepened to match the house. If the remainder of the school year were as fraught with drama as the first day, perhaps it would be mildly entertaining, but the prospect of spending nine months refraining from reading and writing made me think of running away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By late afternoon most of my traveling plans were complete; when Jem and I raced each other up the sidewalk to meet Atticus coming home from work, I didn't give him much of a race." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was our habit to run meet Atticus the moment we saw him round the post office corner in the distance. Atticus seemed to have forgotten my noontime fall from grace; he was full of questions about school. My replies were monosyllabic and he did not press me.\n\nPerhaps Calpurnia sensed that my day had been a grim one: she let me watch her fix supper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shut your eyes and open your mouth and I'll give you a surprise,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was not often that she made crackling bread, she said she never had time, but with both of us at school today had been an easy one for her. She knew I loved crackling bread.\n\n\"I missed you today,\" she said. \"The house got so lonesome 'long about two o'clock I had to turn on the radio.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why? Jem'n me ain't ever in the house unless it's rainin'.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know,\" she said, \"but one of you's always in callin' distance. I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin' after you. Well,\" she said, getting up from the kitchen chair, \"it's enough time to make a pan of cracklin' bread, I reckon. You run along now and let me get supper on the table.\"\n\nCalpurnia bent down and kissed me. I ran along, wondering what had come over her. She had wanted to make up with me, that was it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had always been too hard on me, she had at last seen the error of her fractious ways, she was sorry and too stubborn to say so." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was weary from the day's crimes.\n\nAfter supper, Atticus sat down with the paper and called, \"Scout, ready to read?\" The Lord sent me more than I could bear, and I went to the front porch. Atticus followed me.\n\n\"Something wrong, Scout?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I told Atticus I didn't feel very well and didn't think I'd go to school any more if it was all right with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus sat down in the swing and crossed his legs. His fingers wandered to his watchpocket; he said that was the only way he could think. He waited in amiable silence, and I sought to reinforce my position: \"You never went to school and you do all right, so I'll just stay home too. You can teach me like Grandaddy taught you 'n' Uncle Jack.\"\n\n\"No I can't,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have to make a living. Besides, they'd put me in jail if I kept you at home—dose of magnesia for you tonight and school tomorrow.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm feeling all right, really.\"\n\n\"Thought so. Now what's the matter?\"\n\nBit by bit, I told him the day's misfortunes. \"—and she said you taught me all wrong, so we can't ever read any more, ever. Please don't send me back, please sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus stood up and walked to the end of the porch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he completed his examination of the wisteria vine he strolled back to me.\n\n\"First of all,\" he said, \"if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said I had learned many things today, and Miss Caroline had learned several things herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had learned not to hand something to a Cunningham, for one thing, but if Walter and I had put ourselves in her shoes we'd have seen it was an honest mistake on her part. We could not expect her to learn all Maycomb's ways in one day, and we could not hold her responsible when she knew no better.\n\n\"I'll be dogged,\" I said. \"I didn't know no better than not to read to her, and she held me responsible—listen Atticus, I don't have to go to school!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was bursting with a sudden thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Burris Ewell, remember? He just goes to school the first day. The truant lady reckons she's carried out the law when she gets his name on the roll—\"\n\n\"You can't do that, Scout,\" Atticus said. \"Sometimes it's better to bend the law a little in special cases. In your case, the law remains rigid. So to school you must go.\"\n\n\"I don't see why I have to when he doesn't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then listen.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus said the Ewells had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations. None of them had done an honest day's work in his recollection. He said that some Christmas, when he was getting rid of the tree, he would take me with him and show me where and how they lived. They were people, but they lived like animals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They can go to school any time they want to, when they show the faintest symptom of wanting an education,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There are ways of keeping them in school by force, but it's silly to force people like the Ewells into a new environment—\"\n\n\"If I didn't go to school tomorrow, you'd force me to.\"\n\n\"Let us leave it at this,\" said Atticus dryly. \"You, Miss Scout Finch, are the common folk. You must obey the law.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said that the Ewells were members of an exclusive society made up of Ewells." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In certain circumstances the common folk judiciously allowed them certain privileges by the simple method of becoming blind to some of the Ewells' activities. They didn't have to go to school, for one thing. Another thing, Mr. Bob Ewell, Burris's father, was permitted to hunt and trap out of season.\n\n\"Atticus, that's bad,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In Maycomb County, hunting out of season was a misdemeanor at law, a capital felony in the eyes of the populace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's against the law, all right,\" said my father, \"and it's certainly bad, but when a man spends his relief checks on green whiskey his children have a way of crying from hunger pains. I don't know of any landowner around here who begrudges those children any game their father can hit.\"\n\n\"Mr. Ewell shouldn't do that—\"\n\n\"Of course he shouldn't, but he'll never change his ways. Are you going to take out your disapproval on his children?\"\n\n\"No sir,\" I murmured, and made a final stand: \"But if I keep on goin' to school, we can't ever read any more...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's really bothering you, isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes sir.\"\n\nWhen Atticus looked down at me I saw the expression on his face that always made me expect something. \"Do you know what a compromise is?\" he asked.\n\n\"Bending the law?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, an agreement reached by mutual concessions. It works this way,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you'll concede the necessity of going to school, we'll go on reading every night just as we always have. Is it a bargain?\"\n\n\"Yes sir!\"\n\n\"We'll consider it sealed without the usual formality,\" Atticus said, when he saw me preparing to spit.\n\nAs I opened the front screen door Atticus said, \"By the way, Scout, you'd better not say anything at school about our agreement.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why not?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm afraid our activities would be received with considerable disapprobation by the more learned authorities.\"\n\nJem and I were accustomed to our father's last-will-and-testament diction, and we were at all times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.\n\n\"Huh, sir?\"\n\n\"I never went to school,\" he said, \"but I have a feeling that if you tell Miss Caroline we read every night she'll get after me, and I wouldn't want her after me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus kept us in fits that evening, gravely reading columns of print about a man who sat on a flagpole for no discernible reason, which was reason enough for Jem to spend the following Saturday aloft in the treehouse." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem sat from after breakfast until sunset and would have remained overnight had not Atticus severed his supply lines. I had spent most of the day climbing up and down, running errands for him, providing him with literature, nourishment and water, and was carrying him blankets for the night when Atticus said if I paid no attention to him, Jem would come down. Atticus was right." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write four sentences sentences in the style of Harper Lee spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The remainder of my schooldays were no more auspicious than the first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indeed, they were an endless Project that slowly evolved into a Unit, in which miles of construction paper and wax crayon were expended by the State of Alabama in its well-meaning but fruitless efforts to teach me Group Dynamics. What Jem called the Dewey Decimal System was school-wide by the end of my first year, so I had no chance to compare it with other teaching techniques. I could only look around me: Atticus and my uncle, who went to school at home, knew everything—at least, what one didn't know the other did. Furthermore, I couldn't help noticing that my father had served for years in the state legislature, elected each time without opposition, innocent of the adjustments my teachers thought essential to the development of Good Citizenship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem, educated on a half-Decimal half-Duncecap basis, seemed to function effectively alone or in a group, but Jem was a poor example: no tutorial system devised by man could have stopped him from getting at books." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for me, I knew nothing except what I gathered from Time magazine and reading everything I could lay hands on at home, but as I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.\n\nAs the year passed, released from school thirty minutes before Jem, who had to stay until three o'clock, I ran by the Radley Place as fast as I could, not stopping until I reached the safety of our front porch. One afternoon as I raced by, something caught my eye and caught it in such a way that I took a deep breath, a long look around, and went back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two live oaks stood at the edge of the Radley lot; their roots reached out into the side-road and made it bumpy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something about one of the trees attracted my attention.\n\nSome tinfoil was sticking in a knot-hole just above my eye level, winking at me in the afternoon sun. I stood on tiptoe, hastily looked around once more, reached into the hole, and withdrew two pieces of chewing gum minus their outer wrappers.\n\nMy first impulse was to get it into my mouth as quickly as possible, but I remembered where I was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I ran home, and on our front porch I examined my loot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gum looked fresh. I sniffed it and it smelled all right. I licked it and waited for a while. When I did not die I crammed it into my mouth: Wrigley's Double-Mint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Jem came home he asked me where I got such a wad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I told him I found it.\n\n\"Don't eat things you find, Scout.\"\n\n\"This wasn't on the ground, it was in a tree.\"\n\nJem growled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well it was,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was sticking in that tree yonder, the one comin' from school.\"\n\n\"Spit it out right now!\"\n\nI spat it out. The tang was fading, anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've been chewin' it all afternoon and I ain't dead yet, not even sick.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem stamped his foot. \"Don't you know you're not supposed to even touch the trees over there? You'll get killed if you do!\"\n\n\"You touched the house once!\"\n\n\"That was different! You go gargle—right now, you hear me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ain't neither, it'll take the taste outa my mouth.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't 'n' I'll tell Calpurnia on you!\"\n\nRather than risk a tangle with Calpurnia, I did as Jem told me. For some reason, my first year of school had wrought a great change in our relationship: Calpurnia's tyranny, unfairness, and meddling in my business had faded to gentle grumblings of general disapproval. On my part, I went to much trouble, sometimes, not to provoke her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.\n\nThe authorities released us early the last day of school, and Jem and I walked home together. \"Reckon old Dill'll be coming home tomorrow,\" I said.\n\n\"Probably day after,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mis'sippi turns 'em loose a day later.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As we came to the live oaks at the Radley Place I raised my finger to point for the hundredth time to the knot-hole where I had found the chewing gum, trying to make Jem believe I had found it there, and found myself pointing at another piece of tinfoil.\n\n\"I see it, Scout! I see it—\"\n\nJem looked around, reached up, and gingerly pocketed a tiny shiny package. We ran home, and on the front porch we looked at a small box patchworked with bits of tinfoil collected from chewing-gum wrappers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the kind of box wedding rings came in, purple velvet with a minute catch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem flicked open the tiny catch. Inside were two scrubbed and polished pennies, one on top of the other. Jem examined them.\n\n\"Indian-heads,\" he said. \"Nineteen-six and Scout, one of 'em's nineteen-hundred. These are real old.\"\n\n\"Nineteen-hundred,\" I echoed. \"Say—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hush a minute, I'm thinkin'.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jem, you reckon that's somebody's hidin' place?\"\n\n\"Naw, don't anybody much but us pass by there, unless it's some grown person's—\"\n\n\"Grown folks don't have hidin' places. You reckon we ought to keep 'em, Jem?\"\n\n\"I don't know what we could do, Scout. Who'd we give 'em back to? I know for a fact don't anybody go by there—Cecil goes by the back street an' all the way around by town to get home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cecil Jacobs, who lived at the far end of our street next door to the post office, walked a total of one mile per school day to avoid the Radley Place and old Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Dubose lived two doors up the street from us; neighborhood opinion was unanimous that Mrs. Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived. Jem wouldn't go by her place without Atticus beside him.\n\n\"What you reckon we oughta do, Jem?\"\n\nFinders were keepers unless title was proven." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Plucking an occasional camellia, getting a squirt of hot milk from Miss Maudie Atkinson's cow on a summer day, helping ourselves to someone's scuppernongs was part of our ethnical culture, but money was different." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell you what,\" said Jem. \"We'll keep 'em till school starts, then go around and ask everybody if they're theirs. They're some bus child's, maybe—he was too taken up with gettin' outa school today an' forgot 'em. These are somebody's, I know that. See how they've been slicked up? They've been saved.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but why should somebody wanta put away chewing gum like that? You know it doesn't last.\"\n\n\"I don't know, Scout. But these are important to somebody...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How's that, Jem...?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, Indian-heads—well, they come from the Indians. They're real strong magic, they make you have good luck. Not like fried chicken when you're not lookin' for it, but things like long life 'n' good health, 'n' passin' six-weeks tests... these are real valuable to somebody. I'm gonna put 'em in my trunk.\"\n\nBefore Jem went to his room, he looked for a long time at the Radley Place. He seemed to be thinking again.\n\nTwo days later Dill arrived in a blaze of glory: he had ridden the train by himself from Meridian to Maycomb Junction (a courtesy title—Maycomb Junction was in Abbott County) where he had been met by Miss Rachel in Maycomb's one taxi; he had eaten dinner in the diner, he had seen two twins hitched together get off the train in Bay St. Louis and stuck to his story regardless of threats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had discarded the abominable blue shorts that were buttoned to his shirts and wore real short pants with a belt; he was somewhat heavier, no taller, and said he had seen his father." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill's father was taller than ours, he had a black beard (pointed), and he was president of the L & N Railroad.\n\n\"I helped the engineer for a while,\" said Dill, yawning.\n\n\"In a pig's ear you did, Dill. Hush,\" said Jem. \"What'll we play today?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tom and Sam and Dick,\" said Dill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's go in the front yard.\" Dill wanted the Rover Boys because there were three respectable parts. He was clearly tired of being our character man.\n\n\"I'm tired of those,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was tired of playing Tom Rover, who suddenly lost his memory in the middle of the picture show and was out of the script until the end, when he was found in Alaska." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Make us up one, Jem,\" I said.\n\n\"I'm tired of makin' 'em up.\"\n\nOur first days of freedom, and we were tired. I wondered what the summer would bring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We had strolled to the front yard, where Dill stood looking down the street at the dreary face of the Radley Place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I—smell—death,\" he said. \"I do, I mean it,\" he said, when I told him to shut up.\n\n\"You mean when somebody's dyin' you can smell it?\"\n\n\"No, I mean I can smell somebody an' tell if they're gonna die. An old lady taught me how.\" Dill leaned over and sniffed me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jean—Louise—Finch, you are going to die in three days.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dill if you don't hush I'll knock you bowlegged. I mean it, now—\"\n\n\"Yawl hush,\" growled Jem, \"you act like you believe in Hot Steams.\"\n\n\"You act like you don't,\" I said.\n\n\"What's a Hot Steam?\" asked Dill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Haven't you ever walked along a lonesome road at night and passed by a hot place?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem asked Dill. \"A Hot Steam's somebody who can't get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads an' if you walk through him, when you die you'll be one too, an' you'll go around at night suckin' people's breath—\"\n\n\"How can you keep from passing through one?\"\n\n\"You can't,\" said Jem. \"Sometimes they stretch all the way across the road, but if you hafta go through one you say, 'Angel-bright, life-in-death; get off the road, don't suck my breath.' That keeps 'em from wrapping around you—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you believe a word he says, Dill,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Calpurnia says that's nigger-talk.\"\n\nJem scowled darkly at me, but said, \"Well, are we gonna play anything or not?\"\n\n\"Let's roll in the tire,\" I suggested.\n\nJem sighed. \"You know I'm too big.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You c'n push.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I ran to the back yard and pulled an old car tire from under the house. I slapped it up to the front yard. \"I'm first,\" I said.\n\nDill said he ought to be first, he just got here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem arbitrated, awarded me first push with an extra time for Dill, and I folded myself inside the tire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Until it happened I did not realize that Jem was offended by my contradicting him on Hot Steams, and that he was patiently awaiting an opportunity to reward me. He did, by pushing the tire down the sidewalk with all the force in his body. Ground, sky and houses melted into a mad palette, my ears throbbed, I was suffocating. I could not put out my hands to stop, they were wedged between my chest and knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I could only hope that Jem would outrun the tire and me, or that I would be stopped by a bump in the sidewalk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I heard him behind me, chasing and shouting.\n\nThe tire bumped on gravel, skeetered across the road, crashed into a barrier and popped me like a cork onto pavement. Dizzy and nauseated, I lay on the cement and shook my head still, pounded my ears to silence, and heard Jem's voice: \"Scout, get away from there, come on!\"\n\nI raised my head and stared at the Radley Place steps in front of me. I froze." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come on, Scout, don't just lie there!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem was screaming. \"Get up, can'tcha?\"\n\nI got to my feet, trembling as I thawed.\n\n\"Get the tire!\" Jem hollered. \"Bring it with you! Ain't you got any sense at all?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I was able to navigate, I ran back to them as fast as my shaking knees would carry me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why didn't you bring it?\" Jem yelled.\n\n\"Why don't you get it?\" I screamed.\n\nJem was silent.\n\n\"Go on, it ain't far inside the gate. Why, you even touched the house once, remember?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem looked at me furiously, could not decline, ran down the sidewalk, treaded water at the gate, then dashed in and retrieved the tire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"See there?\" Jem was scowling trimphantly. \"Nothin' to it. I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl it's mortifyin'.\"\n\nThere was more to it than he knew, but I decided not to tell him.\n\nCalpurnia appeared in the front door and yelled, \"Lemonade time! You all get in outa that hot sun 'fore you fry alive!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lemonade in the middle of the morning was a summertime ritual." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia set a pitcher and three glasses on the porch, then went about her business. Being out of Jem's good graces did not worry me especially. Lemonade would restore his good humor.\n\nJem gulped down his second glassful and slapped his chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know what we are going to play,\" he announced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something new, something different.\"\n\n\"What?\" asked Dill.\n\n\"Boo Radley.\"\n\nJem's head at times was transparent: he had thought that up to make me understand he wasn't afraid of Radleys in any shape or form, to contrast his own fearless heroism with my cowardice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Boo Radley? How?\" asked Dill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem said, \"Scout, you can be Mrs. Radley—\"\n\n\"I declare if I will. I don't think—\"\n\n\" 'Smatter?\" said Dill. \"Still scared?\"\n\n\"He can get out at night when we're all asleep...\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem hissed. \"Scout, how's he gonna know what we're doin'? Besides, I don't think he's still there. He died years ago and they stuffed him up the chimney.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill said, \"Jem, you and me can play and Scout can watch if she's scared.\"\n\nI was fairly sure Boo Radley was inside that house, but I couldn't prove it, and felt it best to keep my mouth shut or I would be accused of believing in Hot Steams, phenomena I was immune to in the daytime.\n\nJem parceled out our roles: I was Mrs. Radley, and all I had to do was come out and sweep the porch. Dill was old Mr. Radley: he walked up and down the sidewalk and coughed when Jem spoke to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went under the front steps and shrieked and howled from time to time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the summer progressed, so did our game. We polished and perfected it, added dialogue and plot until we had manufactured a small play upon which we rang changes every day.\n\nDill was a villain's villain: he could get into any character part assigned him, and appear tall if height was part of the devilry required. He was as good as his worst performance; his worst performance was Gothic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I reluctantly played assorted ladies who entered the script." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I never thought it as much fun as Tarzan, and I played that summer with more than vague anxiety despite Jem's assurances that Boo Radley was dead and nothing would get me, with him and Calpurnia there in the daytime and Atticus home at night.\n\nJem was a born hero.\n\nIt was a melancholy little drama, woven from bits and scraps of gossip and neighborhood legend: Mrs. Radley had been beautiful until she married Mr. Radley and lost all her money. She also lost most of her teeth, her hair, and her right forefinger (Dill's contribution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Boo bit it off one night when he couldn't find any cats and squirrels to eat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "); she sat in the livingroom and cried most of the time, while Boo slowly whittled away all the furniture in the house.\n\nThe three of us were the boys who got into trouble; I was the probate judge, for a change; Dill led Jem away and crammed him beneath the steps, poking him with the brushbroom. Jem would reappear as needed in the shapes of the sheriff, assorted townsfolk, and Miss Stephanie Crawford, who had more to say about the Radleys than anybody in Maycomb.\n\nWhen it was time to play Boo's big scene, Jem would sneak into the house, steal the scissors from the sewing-machine drawer when Calpurnia's back was turned, then sit in the swing and cut up newspapers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill would walk by, cough at Jem, and Jem would fake a plunge into Dill's thigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From where I stood it looked real.\n\nWhen Mr. Nathan Radley passed us on his daily trip to town, we would stand still and silent until he was out of sight, then wonder what he would do to us if he suspected. Our activities halted when any of the neighbors appeared, and once I saw Miss Maudie Atkinson staring across the street at us, her hedge clippers poised in midair.\n\nOne day we were so busily playing Chapter XXV, Book II of One Man's Family, we did not see Atticus standing on the sidewalk looking at us, slapping a rolled magazine against his knee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sun said twelve noon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you all playing?\" he asked.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Jem.\n\nJem's evasion told me our game was a secret, so I kept quiet.\n\n\"What are you doing with those scissors, then? Why are you tearing up that newspaper? If it's today's I'll tan you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing what?\" said Atticus.\n\n\"Nothing, sir.\"\n\n\"Give me those scissors,\" Atticus said. \"They're no things to play with. Does this by any chance have anything to do with the Radleys?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No sir,\" said Jem, reddening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hope it doesn't,\" he said shortly, and went inside the house.\n\n\"Je-m...\"\n\n\"Shut up! He's gone in the livingroom, he can hear us in there.\"\n\nSafely in the yard, Dill asked Jem if we could play any more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know. Atticus didn't say we couldn't—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jem,\" I said, \"I think Atticus knows it anyway.\"\n\n\"No he don't. If he did he'd say he did.\"\n\nI was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.\n\n\"All right, you just keep it up then,\" I said. \"You'll find out.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My nagging got the better of Jem eventually, as I knew it would, and to my relief we slowed down the game for a while. He still maintained, however, that Atticus hadn't said we couldn't, therefore we could; and if Atticus ever said we couldn't, Jem had thought of a way around it: he would simply change the names of the characters and then we couldn't be accused of playing anything.\n\nDill was in hearty agreement with this plan of action. Dill was becoming something of a trial anyway, following Jem about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had asked me earlier in the summer to marry him, then he promptly forgot about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He staked me out, marked as his property, said I was the only girl he would ever love, then he neglected me. I beat him up twice but it did no good, he only grew closer to Jem. They spent days together in the treehouse plotting and planning, calling me only when they needed a third party. But I kept aloof from their more foolhardy schemes for a while, and on pain of being called a g-irl, I spent most of the remaining twilights that summer sitting with Miss Maudie Atkinson on her front porch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem and I had always enjoyed the free run of Miss Maudie's yard if we kept out of her azaleas, but our contact with her was not clearly defined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Until Jem and Dill excluded me from their plans, she was only another lady in the neighborhood, but a relatively benign presence.\n\nOur tacit treaty with Miss Maudie was that we could play on her lawn, eat her scuppernongs if we didn't jump on the arbor, and explore her vast back lot, terms so generous we seldom spoke to her, so careful were we to preserve the delicate balance of our relationship, but Jem and Dill drove me closer to her with their behavior.\n\nMiss Maudie hated her house: time spent indoors was time wasted. She was a widow, a chameleon lady who worked in her flower beds in an old straw hat and men's coveralls, but after her five o'clock bath she would appear on the porch and reign over the street in magisterial beauty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She loved everything that grew in God's earth, even the weeds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With one exception. If she found a blade of nut-grass in her yard it was like the Second Battle of the Marne: she swooped down upon it with a tin tub and subjected it to blasts from beneath with a poisonous substance she said was so powerful it'd kill us all if we didn't stand out of the way.\n\n\"Why can't you just pull it up?\" I asked, after witnessing a prolonged campaign against a blade not three inches high.\n\n\"Pull it up, child, pull it up?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She picked up the limp sprout and squeezed her thumb up its tiny stalk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Microscopic grains oozed out. \"Why, one sprig of nut-grass can ruin a whole yard. Look here. When it comes fall this dries up and the wind blows it all over Maycomb County!\" Miss Maudie's faced likened such an occurrence unto an Old Testament pestilence.\n\nHer speech was crisp for a Maycomb County inhabitant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She called us by all our names, and when she grinned she revealed two minute gold prongs clipped to her eye-teeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I admired them and hoped I would have some eventually, she said, \"Look here.\" With a click of her tongue she thrust out her bridgework, a gesture of cordiality that cemented our friendship.\n\nMiss Maudie's benevolence extended to Jem and Dill, whenever they paused in their pursuits: we reaped the benefits of a talent Miss Maudie had hitherto kept hidden from us. She made the best cakes in the neighborhood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she was admitted into our confidence, every time she baked she made a big cake and three little ones, and she would call across the street: \"Jim Finch, Scout Finch, Charles Baker Harris, come here!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our promptness was always rewarded.\n\nIn summertime, twilights are long and peaceful. Often as not, Miss Maudie and I would sit silently on her porch, watching the sky go from yellow to pink as the sun went down, watching flights of martins sweep low over the neighborhood and disappear behind the schoolhouse rooftops.\n\n\"Miss Maudie,\" I said one evening, \"do you think Boo Radley's still alive?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"His name's Arthur and he's alive,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was rocking slowly in her big oak chair. \"Do you smell my mimosa? It's like angels' breath this evening.\"\n\n\"Yessum. How do you know?\"\n\n\"Know what, child?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That B—Mr. Arthur's still alive?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What a morbid question. But I suppose it's a morbid subject. I know he's alive, Jean Louise, because I haven't seen him carried out yet.\"\n\n\"Maybe he died and they stuffed him up the chimney.\"\n\n\"Where did you get such a notion?\"\n\n\"That's what Jem said he thought they did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"S-ss-ss. He gets more like Jack Finch every day.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie had known Uncle Jack Finch, Atticus's brother, since they were children. Nearly the same age, they had grown up together at Finch's Landing. Miss Maudie was the daughter of a neighboring landowner, Dr. Frank Buford. Dr. Buford's profession was medicine and his obsession was anything that grew in the ground, so he stayed poor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Uncle Jack Finch confined his passion for digging to his window boxes in Nashville and stayed rich." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We saw Uncle Jack every Christmas, and every Christmas he yelled across the street for Miss Maudie to come marry him. Miss Maudie would yell back, \"Call a little louder, Jack Finch, and they'll hear you at the post office, I haven't heard you yet!\" Jem and I thought this a strange way to ask for a lady's hand in marriage, but then Uncle Jack was rather strange. He said he was trying to get Miss Maudie's goat, that he had been trying unsuccessfully for forty years, that he was the last person in the world Miss Maudie would think about marrying but the first person she thought about teasing, and the best defense to her was spirited offense, all of which we understood clearly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Arthur Radley just stays in the house, that's all,\" said Miss Maudie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wouldn't you stay in the house if you didn't want to come out?\"\n\n\"Yessum, but I'd wanta come out. Why doesn't he?\"\n\nMiss Maudie's eyes narrowed. \"You know that story as well as I do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I never heard why, though. Nobody ever told me why.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie settled her bridgework. \"You know old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist—\"\n\n\"That's what you are, ain't it?\"\n\n\"My shell's not that hard, child. I'm just a Baptist.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you all believe in foot-washing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We do. At home in the bathtub.\"\n\n\"But we can't have communion with you all—\"\n\nApparently deciding that it was easier to define primitive baptistry than closed communion, Miss Maudie said: \"Foot-washers believe anything that's pleasure is a sin. Did you know some of 'em came out of the woods one Saturday and passed by this place and told me me and my flowers were going to hell?\"\n\n\"Your flowers, too?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes ma'am. They'd burn right with me. They thought I spent too much time in God's outdoors and not enough time inside the house reading the Bible.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My confidence in pulpit Gospel lessened at the vision of Miss Maudie stewing forever in various Protestant hells. True enough, she had an acid tongue in her head, and she did not go about the neighborhood doing good, as did Miss Stephanie Crawford. But while no one with a grain of sense trusted Miss Stephanie, Jem and I had considerable faith in Miss Maudie. She had never told on us, had never played cat-and-mouse with us, she was not at all interested in our private lives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was our friend." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How so reasonable a creature could live in peril of everlasting torment was incomprehensible.\n\n\"That ain't right, Miss Maudie. You're the best lady I know.\"\n\nMiss Maudie grinned. \"Thank you ma'am. Thing is, foot-washers think women are a sin by definition. They take the Bible literally, you know.\"\n\n\"Is that why Mr. Arthur stays in the house, to keep away from women?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've no idea.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It doesn't make sense to me. Looks like if Mr. Arthur was hankerin' after heaven he'd come out on the porch at least. Atticus says God's loving folks like you love yourself—\"\n\nMiss Maudie stopped rocking, and her voice hardened. \"You are too young to understand it,\" she said, \"but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of—oh, of your father.\"\n\nI was shocked. \"Atticus doesn't drink whiskey,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He never drunk a drop in his life—nome, yes he did. He said he drank some one time and didn't like it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie laughed. \"Wasn't talking about your father,\" she said. \"What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn't be as hard as some men are at their best. There are just some kind of men who—who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.\"\n\n\"Do you think they're true, all those things they say about B—Mr. Arthur?\"\n\n\"What things?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I told her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is three-fourths colored folks and one-fourth Stephanie Crawford,\" said Miss Maudie grimly. \"Stephanie Crawford even told me once she woke up in the middle of the night and found him looking in the window at her. I said what did you do, Stephanie, move over in the bed and make room for him? That shut her up a while.\"\n\nI was sure it did. Miss Maudie's voice was enough to shut anybody up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, child,\" she said, \"that is a sad house. I remember Arthur Radley when he was a boy. He always spoke nicely to me, no matter what folks said he did. Spoke as nicely as he knew how.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You reckon he's crazy?\"\n\nMiss Maudie shook her head. \"If he's not he should be by now. The things that happen to people we never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets—\"\n\n\"Atticus don't ever do anything to Jem and me in the house that he don't do in the yard,\" I said, feeling it my duty to defend my parent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gracious child, I was raveling a thread, wasn't even thinking about your father, but now that I am I'll say this: Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets. How'd you like some fresh poundcake to take home?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I liked it very much.\n\nNext morning when I awakened I found Jem and Dill in the back yard deep in conversation. When I joined them, as usual they said go away.\n\n\"Will not. This yard's as much mine as it is yours, Jem Finch. I got just as much right to play in it as you have.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill and Jem emerged from a brief huddle: \"If you stay you've got to do what we tell you,\" Dill warned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We-ll,\" I said, \"who's so high and mighty all of a sudden?\"\n\n\"If you don't say you'll do what we tell you, we ain't gonna tell you anything,\" Dill continued.\n\n\"You act like you grew ten inches in the night! All right, what is it?\"\n\nJem said placidly, \"We are going to give a note to Boo Radley.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just how?\" I was trying to fight down the automatic terror rising in me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was all right for Miss Maudie to talk—she was old and snug on her porch. It was different for us.\n\nJem was merely going to put the note on the end of a fishing pole and stick it through the shutters. If anyone came along, Dill would ring the bell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill raised his right hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In it was my mother's silver dinnerbell.\n\n\"I'm goin' around to the side of the house,\" said Jem. \"We looked yesterday from across the street, and there's a shutter loose. Think maybe I can make it stick on the window sill, at least.\"\n\n\"Jem—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now you're in it and you can't get out of it, you'll just stay in it, Miss Priss!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, okay, but I don't wanta watch. Jem, somebody was—\"\n\n\"Yes you will, you'll watch the back end of the lot and Dill's gonna watch the front of the house an' up the street an' if anybody comes he'll ring the bell. That clear?\"\n\n\"All right then. What'd you write him?\"\n\nDill said, \"We're askin' him real politely to come out sometimes, and tell us what he does in there—we said we wouldn't hurt him and we'd buy him an ice cream.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You all've gone crazy, he'll kill us!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill said, \"It's my idea. I figure if he'd come out and sit a spell with us he might feel better.\"\n\n\"How do you know he don't feel good?\"\n\n\"Well how'd you feel if you'd been shut up for a hundred years with nothin' but cats to eat? I bet he's got a beard down to here—\"\n\n\"Like your daddy's?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He ain't got a beard, he—\" Dill stopped, as if trying to remember." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Uh huh, caughtcha,\" I said. \"You said 'fore you were off the train good your daddy had a black beard—\"\n\n\"If it's all the same to you he shaved it off last summer! Yeah, an' I've got the letter to prove it—he sent me two dollars, too!\"\n\n\"Keep on—I reckon he even sent you a mounted police uniform! That'n never showed up, did it? You just keep on tellin' 'em, son—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill Harris could tell the biggest ones I ever heard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Among other things, he had been up in a mail plane seventeen times, he had been to Nova Scotia, he had seen an elephant, and his grandaddy was Brigadier General Joe Wheeler and left him his sword.\n\n\"You all hush,\" said Jem. He scuttled beneath the house and came out with a yellow bamboo pole. \"Reckon this is long enough to reach from the sidewalk?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anybody who's brave enough to go up and and touch the house hadn't oughta use a fishin' pole,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why don't you just knock the front door down?\"\n\n\"This—is—different,\" said Jem, \"how many times do I have to tell you that?\"\n\nDill took a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to Jem. The three of us walked cautiously toward the old house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill remained at the light-pole on the front center of the lot, and Jem and I edged down the sidewalk parallel to the side of the house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I walked beyond Jem and stood where I could see around the curve.\n\n\"All clear,\" I said. \"Not a soul in sight.\"\n\nJem looked up the sidewalk to Dill, who nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem attached the note to the end of the fishing pole, let the pole out across the yard and pushed it toward the window he had selected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pole lacked several inches of being long enough, and Jem leaned over as far as he could. I watched him making jabbing motions for so long, I abandoned my post and went to him.\n\n\"Can't get it off the pole,\" he muttered, \"or if I get it off I can't make it stay. G'on back down the street, Scout.\"\n\nI returned and gazed around the curve at the empty road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Occasionally I looked back at Jem, who was patiently trying to place the note on the window sill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would flutter to the ground and Jem would jab it up, until I thought if Boo Radley ever received it he wouldn't be able to read it. I was looking down the street when the dinner-bell rang.\n\nShoulder up, I reeled around to face Boo Radley and his bloody fangs; instead, I saw Dill ringing the bell with all his might in Atticus's face.\n\nJem looked so awful I didn't have the heart to tell him I told him so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He trudged along, dragging the pole behind him on the sidewalk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus said, \"Stop ringing that bell.\"\n\nDill grabbed the clapper; in the silence that followed, I wished he'd start ringing it again. Atticus pushed his hat to the back of his head and put his hands on his hips. \"Jem,\" he said, \"what were you doing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothin', sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't want any of that. Tell me.\"\n\n\"I was—we were just tryin' to give somethin' to Mr. Radley.\"\n\n\"What were you trying to give him?\"\n\n\"Just a letter.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me see it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem held out a filthy piece of paper. Atticus took it and tried to read it. \"Why do you want Mr. Radley to come out?\"\n\nDill said, \"We thought he might enjoy us...\" and dried up when Atticus looked at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Son,\" he said to Jem, \"I'm going to tell you something and tell you one time: stop tormenting that man. That goes for the other two of you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What Mr. Radley did was his own business. If he wanted to come out, he would. If he wanted to stay inside his own house he had the right to stay inside free from the attentions of inquisitive children, which was a mild term for the likes of us. How would we like it if Atticus barged in on us without knocking, when we were in our rooms at night?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We were, in effect, doing the same thing to Mr. Radley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What Mr. Radley did might seem peculiar to us, but it did not seem peculiar to him. Furthermore, had it never occurred to us that the civil way to communicate with another being was by the front door instead of a side window? Lastly, we were to stay away from that house until we were invited there, we were not to play an asinine game he had seen us playing or make fun of anybody on this street or in this town—\n\n\"We weren't makin' fun of him, we weren't laughin' at him,\" said Jem, \"we were just—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So that was what you were doing, wasn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Makin' fun of him?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Atticus, \"putting his life's history on display for the edification of the neighborhood.\"\n\nJem seemed to swell a little. \"I didn't say we were doin' that, I didn't say it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus grinned dryly. \"You just told me,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You stop this nonsense right now, every one of you.\"\n\nJem gaped at him.\n\n\"You want to be a lawyer, don't you?\" Our father's mouth was suspiciously firm, as if he were trying to hold it in line." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with four sentences in the style of Harper Lee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" said our father, when Jem asked him if we could go over and sit by Miss Rachel's fishpool with Dill, as this was his last night in Maycomb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell him so long for me, and we'll see him next summer.\"\n\nWe leaped over the low wall that separated Miss Rachel's yard from our driveway. Jem whistled bob-white and Dill answered in the darkness.\n\n\"Not a breath blowing,\" said Jem. \"Looka yonder.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pointed to the east." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A gigantic moon was rising behind Miss Maudie's pecan trees. \"That makes it seem hotter,\" he said.\n\n\"Cross in it tonight?\" asked Dill, not looking up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was constructing a cigarette from newspaper and string." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, just the lady. Don't light that thing, Dill, you'll stink up this whole end of town.\"\n\nThere was a lady in the moon in Maycomb. She sat at a dresser combing her hair.\n\n\"We're gonna miss you, boy,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Reckon we better watch for Mr. Avery?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Avery boarded across the street from Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose's house. Besides making change in the collection plate every Sunday, Mr. Avery sat on the porch every night until nine o'clock and sneezed. One evening we were privileged to witness a performance by him which seemed to have been his positively last, for he never did it again so long as we watched. Jem and I were leaving Miss Rachel's front steps one night when Dill stopped us: \"Golly, looka yonder.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pointed across the street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At first we saw nothing but a kudzu-covered front porch, but a closer inspection revealed an arc of water descending from the leaves and splashing in the yellow circle of the street light, some ten feet from source to earth, it seemed to us. Jem said Mr. Avery misfigured, Dill said he must drink a gallon a day, and the ensuing contest to determine relative distances and respective prowess only made me feel left out again, as I was untalented in this area.\n\nDill stretched, yawned, and said altogether too casually, \"I know what, let's go for a walk.\"\n\nHe sounded fishy to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nobody in Maycomb just went for a walk. \"Where to, Dill?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill jerked his head in a southerly direction.\n\nJem said, \"Okay.\" When I protested, he said sweetly, \"You don't have to come along, Angel May.\"\n\n\"You don't have to go. Remember—\"\n\nJem was not one to dwell on past defeats: it seemed the only message he got from Atticus was insight into the art of cross examination." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Scout, we ain't gonna do anything, we're just goin' to the street light and back.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We strolled silently down the sidewalk, listening to porch swings creaking with the weight of the neighborhood, listening to the soft night-murmurs of the grown people on our street. Occasionally we heard Miss Stephanie Crawford laugh.\n\n\"Well?\" said Dill.\n\n\"Okay,\" said Jem. \"Why don't you go on home, Scout?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you gonna do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill and Jem were simply going to peep in the window with the loose shutter to see if they could get a look at Boo Radley, and if I didn't want to go with them I could go straight home and keep my fat flopping mouth shut, that was all.\n\n\"But why in the sam holy hill did you wait till tonight?\"\n\nBecause nobody could see them at night, because Atticus would be so deep in a book he wouldn't hear the Kingdom coming, because if Boo Radley killed them they'd miss school instead of vacation, and because it was easier to see inside a dark house in the dark than in the daytime, did I understand?\n\n\"Jem, please—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Scout, I'm tellin' you for the last time, shut your trap or go home—I declare to the Lord you're gettin' more like a girl every day!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With that, I had no option but to join them. We thought it was better to go under the high wire fence at the rear of the Radley lot, we stood less chance of being seen. The fence enclosed a large garden and a narrow wooden outhouse.\n\nJem held up the bottom wire and motioned Dill under it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I followed, and held up the wire for Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a right squeeze for him. \"Don't make a sound,\" he whispered. \"Don't get in a row of collards whatever you do, they'll wake the dead.\"\n\nWith this thought in mind, I made perhaps one step per minute." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I moved faster when I saw Jem far ahead beckoning in the moonlight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We came to the gate that divided the garden from the back yard. Jem touched it. The gate squeaked.\n\n\"Spit on it,\" whispered Dill.\n\n\"You've got us in a box, Jem,\" I muttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We can't get out of here so easy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sh-h. Spit on it, Scout.\"\n\nWe spat ourselves dry, and Jem opened the gate slowly, lifting it aside and resting it on the fence. We were in the back yard.\n\nThe back of the Radley house was less inviting than the front: a ramshackle porch ran the width of the house; there were two doors and two dark windows between the doors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead of a column, a rough two-by-four supported one end of the roof." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An old Franklin stove sat in a corner of the porch; above it a hat-rack mirror caught the moon and shone eerily.\n\n\"Ar-r,\" said Jem softly, lifting his foot.\n\n\"'Smatter?\"\n\n\"Chickens,\" he breathed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That we would be obliged to dodge the unseen from all directions was confirmed when Dill ahead of us spelled G-o-d in a whisper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We crept to the side of the house, around to the window with the hanging shutter. The sill was several inches taller than Jem.\n\n\"Give you a hand up,\" he muttered to Dill. \"Wait, though.\" Jem grabbed his left wrist and my right wrist, I grabbed my left wrist and Jem's right wrist, we crouched, and Dill sat on our saddle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We raised him and he caught the window sill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hurry,\" Jem whispered, \"we can't last much longer.\"\n\nDill punched my shoulder, and we lowered him to the ground.\n\n\"What'd you see?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Curtains. There's a little teeny light way off somewhere, though.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's get away from here,\" breathed Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's go 'round in back again. Sh-h,\" he warned me, as I was about to protest.\n\n\"Let's try the back window.\"\n\n\"Dill, no,\" I said.\n\nDill stopped and let Jem go ahead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Jem put his foot on the bottom step, the step squeaked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stood still, then tried his weight by degrees. The step was silent. Jem skipped two steps, put his foot on the porch, heaved himself to it, and teetered a long moment. He regained his balance and dropped to his knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He crawled to the window, raised his head and looked in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then I saw the shadow. It was the shadow of a man with a hat on. At first I thought it was a tree, but there was no wind blowing, and tree-trunks never walked. The back porch was bathed in moonlight, and the shadow, crisp as toast, moved across the porch toward Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill saw it next." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He put his hands to his face.\n\nWhen it crossed Jem, Jem saw it. He put his arms over his head and went rigid.\n\nThe shadow stopped about a foot beyond Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its arm came out from its side, dropped, and was still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then it turned and moved back across Jem, walked along the porch and off the side of the house, returning as it had come.\n\nJem leaped off the porch and galloped toward us. He flung open the gate, danced Dill and me through, and shooed us between two rows of swishing collards. Halfway through the collards I tripped; as I tripped the roar of a shotgun shattered the neighborhood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill and Jem dived beside me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem's breath came in sobs: \"Fence by the schoolyard!—hurry, Scout!\"\n\nJem held the bottom wire; Dill and I rolled through and were halfway to the shelter of the schoolyard's solitary oak when we sensed that Jem was not with us. We ran back and found him struggling in the fence, kicking his pants off to get loose. He ran to the oak tree in his shorts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Safely behind it, we gave way to numbness, but Jem's mind was racing: \"We gotta get home, they'll miss us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We ran across the schoolyard, crawled under the fence to Deer's Pasture behind our house, climbed our back fence and were at the back steps before Jem would let us pause to rest.\n\nRespiration normal, the three of us strolled as casually as we could to the front yard. We looked down the street and saw a circle of neighbors at the Radley front gate.\n\n\"We better go down there,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They'll think it's funny if we don't show up.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Nathan Radley was standing inside his gate, a shotgun broken across his arm. Atticus was standing beside Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie Crawford. Miss Rachel and Mr. Avery were near by. None of them saw us come up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We eased in beside Miss Maudie, who looked around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where were you all, didn't you hear the commotion?\"\n\n\"What happened?\" asked Jem.\n\n\"Mr. Radley shot at a Negro in his collard patch.\"\n\n\"Oh. Did he hit him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said Miss Stephanie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shot in the air. Scared him pale, though. Says if anybody sees a white nigger around, that's the one. Says he's got the other barrel waitin' for the next sound he hears in that patch, an' next time he won't aim high, be it dog, nigger, or—Jem Finch!\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\" asked Jem.\n\nAtticus spoke. \"Where're your pants, son?\"\n\n\"Pants, sir?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pants.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was no use. In his shorts before God and everybody. I sighed.\n\n\"Ah—Mr. Finch?\"\n\nIn the glare from the streetlight, I could see Dill hatching one: his eyes widened, his fat cherub face grew rounder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is it, Dill?\" asked Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah—I won 'em from him,\" he said vaguely.\n\n\"Won them? How?\"\n\nDill's hand sought the back of his head. He brought it forward and across his forehead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We were playin' strip poker up yonder by the fishpool,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem and I relaxed. The neighbors seemed satisfied: they all stiffened. But what was strip poker?\n\nWe had no chance to find out: Miss Rachel went off like the town fire siren: \"Do-o-o Jee-sus, Dill Harris! Gamblin' by my fishpool? I'll strip-poker you, sir!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus saved Dill from immediate dismemberment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just a minute, Miss Rachel,\" he said. \"I've never heard of 'em doing that before. Were you all playing cards?\"\n\nJem fielded Dill's fly with his eyes shut: \"No sir, just with matches.\"\n\nI admired my brother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Matches were dangerous, but cards were fatal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jem, Scout,\" said Atticus, \"I don't want to hear of poker in any form again. Go by Dill's and get your pants, Jem. Settle it yourselves.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, Dill,\" said Jem, as we trotted up the sidewalk, \"she ain't gonna get you. He'll talk her out of it. That was fast thinkin', son. Listen... you hear?\"\n\nWe stopped, and heard Atticus's voice: \"...not serious... they all go through it, Miss Rachel...\"\n\nDill was comforted, but Jem and I weren't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was the problem of Jem showing up some pants in the morning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'d give you some of mine,\" said Dill, as we came to Miss Rachel's steps. Jem said he couldn't get in them, but thanks anyway. We said good-bye, and Dill went inside the house. He evidently remembered he was engaged to me, for he ran back out and kissed me swiftly in front of Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yawl write, hear?\" he bawled after us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had Jem's pants been safely on him, we would not have slept much anyway. Every night-sound I heard from my cot on the back porch was magnified three-fold; every scratch of feet on gravel was Boo Radley seeking revenge, every passing Negro laughing in the night was Boo Radley loose and after us; insects splashing against the screen were Boo Radley's insane fingers picking the wire to pieces; the china-berry trees were malignant, hovering, alive. I lingered between sleep and wakefulness until I heard Jem murmur.\n\n\"Sleep, Little Three-Eyes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you crazy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sh-h. Atticus's light's out.\"\n\nIn the waning moonlight I saw Jem swing his feet to the floor.\n\n\"I'm goin' after 'em,\" he said.\n\nI sat upright. \"You can't. I won't let you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was struggling into his shirt. \"I've got to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You do an' I'll wake up Atticus.\"\n\n\"You do and I'll kill you.\"\n\nI pulled him down beside me on the cot. I tried to reason with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Nathan's gonna find 'em in the morning, Jem. He knows you lost 'em. When he shows 'em to Atticus it'll be pretty bad, that's all there is to it. Go'n back to bed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's what I know,\" said Jem. \"That's why I'm goin' after 'em.\"\n\nI began to feel sick. Going back to that place by himself—I remembered Miss Stephanie: Mr. Nathan had the other barrel waiting for the next sound he heard, be it nigger, dog... Jem knew that better than I." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was desperate: \"Look, it ain't worth it, Jem. A lickin' hurts but it doesn't last. You'll get your head shot off, Jem. Please...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He blew out his breath patiently. \"I—it's like this, Scout,\" he muttered. \"Atticus ain't ever whipped me since I can remember. I wanta keep it that way.\"\n\nThis was a thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed that Atticus threatened us every other day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You mean he's never caught you at anything.\"\n\n\"Maybe so, but—I just wanta keep it that way, Scout. We shouldn'a done that tonight, Scout.\"\n\nIt was then, I suppose, that Jem and I first began to part company. Sometimes I did not understand him, but my periods of bewilderment were short-lived." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was beyond me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please,\" I pleaded, \"can'tcha just think about it for a minute—by yourself on that place—\"\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\n\"It's not like he'd never speak to you again or somethin'... I'm gonna wake him up, Jem, I swear I am—\"\n\nJem grabbed my pajama collar and wrenched it tight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I'm goin' with you—\" I choked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No you ain't, you'll just make noise.\"\n\nIt was no use. I unlatched the back door and held it while he crept down the steps. It must have been two o'clock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The moon was setting and the lattice-work shadows were fading into fuzzy nothingness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem's white shirt-tail dipped and bobbed like a small ghost dancing away to escape the coming morning. A faint breeze stirred and cooled the sweat running down my sides.\n\nHe went the back way, through Deer's Pasture, across the schoolyard and around to the fence, I thought—at least that was the way he was headed. It would take longer, so it was not time to worry yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I waited until it was time to worry and listened for Mr. Radley's shotgun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then I thought I heard the back fence squeak. It was wishful thinking.\n\nThen I heard Atticus cough. I held my breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes when we made a midnight pilgrimage to the bathroom we would find him reading." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said he often woke up during the night, checked on us, and read himself back to sleep. I waited for his light to go on, straining my eyes to see it flood the hall. It stayed off, and I breathed again.\n\nThe night-crawlers had retired, but ripe chinaberries drummed on the roof when the wind stirred, and the darkness was desolate with the barking of distant dogs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There he was, returning to me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His white shirt bobbed over the back fence and slowly grew larger. He came up the back steps, latched the door behind him, and sat on his cot. Wordlessly, he held up his pants. He lay down, and for a while I heard his cot trembling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Soon he was still." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I did not hear him stir again." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like Harper Lee and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem stayed moody and silent for a week." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem's skin and walk around in it: if I had gone alone to the Radley Place at two in the morning, my funeral would have been held the next afternoon. So I left Jem alone and tried not to bother him.\n\nSchool started. The second grade was as bad as the first, only worse—they still flashed cards at you and wouldn't let you read or write. Miss Caroline's progress next door could be estimated by the frequency of laughter; however, the usual crew had flunked the first grade again, and were helpful in keeping order." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only thing good about the second grade was that this year I had to stay as late as Jem, and we usually walked home together at three o'clock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One afternoon when we were crossing the schoolyard toward home, Jem suddenly said: \"There's something I didn't tell you.\"\n\nAs this was his first complete sentence in several days, I encouraged him: \"About what?\"\n\n\"About that night.\"\n\n\"You've never told me anything about that night,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem waved my words away as if fanning gnats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was silent for a while, then he said, \"When I went back for my breeches—they were all in a tangle when I was gettin' out of 'em, I couldn't get 'em loose. When I went back—\" Jem took a deep breath. \"When I went back, they were folded across the fence... like they were expectin' me.\"\n\n\"Across—\"\n\n\"And something else—\" Jem's voice was flat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Show you when we get home. They'd been sewed up. Not like a lady sewed 'em, like somethin' I'd try to do. All crooked. It's almost like—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"—somebody knew you were comin' back for 'em.\"\n\nJem shuddered. \"Like somebody was readin' my mind... like somebody could tell what I was gonna do. Can't anybody tell what I'm gonna do lest they know me, can they, Scout?\"\n\nJem's question was an appeal. I reassured him: \"Can't anybody tell what you're gonna do lest they live in the house with you, and even I can't tell sometimes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We were walking past our tree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In its knot-hole rested a ball of gray twine.\n\n\"Don't take it, Jem,\" I said. \"This is somebody's hidin' place.\"\n\n\"I don't think so, Scout.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes it is. Somebody like Walter Cunningham comes down here every recess and hides his things—and we come along and take 'em away from him. Listen, let's leave it and wait a couple of days. If it ain't gone then, we'll take it, okay?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, you might be right,\" said Jem. \"It must be some little kid's place—hides his things from the bigger folks. You know it's only when school's in that we've found things.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said, \"but we never go by here in the summertime.\"\n\nWe went home. Next morning the twine was where we had left it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When it was still there on the third day, Jem pocketed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From then on, we considered everything we found in the knot-hole our property.\n\nThe second grade was grim, but Jem assured me that the older I got the better school would be, that he started off the same way, and it was not until one reached the sixth grade that one learned anything of value. The sixth grade seemed to please him from the beginning: he went through a brief Egyptian Period that baffled me—he tried to walk flat a great deal, sticking one arm in front of him and one in back of him, putting one foot behind the other. He declared Egyptians walked that way; I said if they did I didn't see how they got anything done, but Jem said they accomplished more than the Americans ever did, they invented toilet paper and perpetual embalming, and asked where would we be today if they hadn't?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are no clearly defined seasons in South Alabama; summer drifts into autumn, and autumn is sometimes never followed by winter, but turns to a days-old spring that melts into summer again. That fall was a long one, hardly cool enough for a light jacket. Jem and I were trotting in our orbit one mild October afternoon when our knothole stopped us again. Something white was inside this time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem let me do the honors: I pulled out two small images carved in soap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One was the figure of a boy, the other wore a crude dress.\n\nBefore I remembered that there was no such thing as hoodooing, I shrieked and threw them down.\n\nJem snatched them up. \"What's the matter with you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he yelled. He rubbed the figures free of red dust." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"These are good,\" he said. \"I've never seen any these good.\"\n\nHe held them down to me. They were almost perfect miniatures of two children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The boy had on shorts, and a shock of soapy hair fell to his eyebrows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I looked up at Jem. A point of straight brown hair kicked downwards from his part. I had never noticed it before.\n\nJem looked from the girl-doll to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl-doll wore bangs. So did I." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"These are us,\" he said.\n\n\"Who did 'em, you reckon?\"\n\n\"Who do we know around here who whittles?\" he asked.\n\n\"Mr. Avery.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Avery just does like this. I mean carves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Avery averaged a stick of stovewood per week; he honed it down to a toothpick and chewed it.\n\n\"There's old Miss Stephanie Crawford's sweetheart,\" I said.\n\n\"He carves all right, but he lives down the country. When would he ever pay any attention to us?\"\n\n\"Maybe he sits on the porch and looks at us instead of Miss Stephanie. If I was him, I would.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem stared at me so long I asked what was the matter, but got Nothing, Scout for an answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we went home, Jem put the dolls in his trunk.\n\nLess than two weeks later we found a whole package of chewing gum, which we enjoyed, the fact that everything on the Radley Place was poison having slipped Jem's memory.\n\nThe following week the knot-hole yielded a tarnished medal. Jem showed it to Atticus, who said it was a spelling medal, that before we were born the Maycomb County schools had spelling contests and awarded medals to the winners." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said someone must have lost it, and had we asked around?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem camel-kicked me when I tried to say where we had found it. Jem asked Atticus if he remembered anybody who ever won one, and Atticus said no.\n\nOur biggest prize appeared four days later. It was a pocket watch that wouldn't run, on a chain with an aluminum knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You reckon it's white gold, Jem?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't know. I'll show it to Atticus.\"\n\nAtticus said it would probably be worth ten dollars, knife, chain and all, if it were new. \"Did you swap with somebody at school?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, no sir!\" Jem pulled out his grandfather's watch that Atticus let him carry once a week if Jem were careful with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the days he carried the watch, Jem walked on eggs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Atticus, if it's all right with you, I'd rather have this one instead. Maybe I can fix it.\"\n\nWhen the new wore off his grandfather's watch, and carrying it became a day's burdensome task, Jem no longer felt the necessity of ascertaining the hour every five minutes.\n\nHe did a fair job, only one spring and two tiny pieces left over, but the watch would not run. \"Oh-h,\" he sighed, \"it'll never go. Scout—?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Huh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You reckon we oughta write a letter to whoever's leaving us these things?\"\n\n\"That'd be right nice, Jem, we can thank 'em—what's wrong?\"\n\nJem was holding his ears, shaking his head from side to side. \"I don't get it, I just don't get it—I don't know why, Scout...\" He looked toward the livingroom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've gotta good mind to tell Atticus—no, I reckon not.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll tell him for you.\"\n\n\"No, don't do that, Scout. Scout?\"\n\n\"Wha-t?\"\n\nHe had been on the verge of telling me something all evening; his face would brighten and he would lean toward me, then he would change his mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He changed it again. \"Oh, nothin'.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here, let's write a letter.\" I pushed a tablet and pencil under his nose.\n\n\"Okay. Dear Mister...\"\n\n\"How do you know it's a man? I bet it's Miss Maudie—been bettin' that for a long time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ar-r, Miss Maudie can't chew gum—\" Jem broke into a grin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know, she can talk pretty sometimes. One time I asked her to have a chew and she said no thanks, that—chewing gum cleaved to her palate and rendered her speechless,\" said Jem carefully. \"Doesn't that sound nice?\"\n\n\"Yeah, she can say nice things sometimes. She wouldn't have a watch and chain anyway.\"\n\n\"Dear sir,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We appreciate the—no, we appreciate everything which you have put into the tree for us. Yours very truly, Jeremy Atticus Finch.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He won't know who you are if you sign it like that, Jem.\"\n\nJem erased his name and wrote, \"Jem Finch.\" I signed, \"Jean Louise Finch (Scout),\" beneath it. Jem put the note in an envelope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Next morning on the way to school he ran ahead of me and stopped at the tree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem was facing me when he looked up, and I saw him go stark white.\n\n\"Scout!\"\n\nI ran to him.\n\nSomeone had filled our knot-hole with cement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you cry, now, Scout... don't cry now, don't you worry—\" he muttered at me all the way to school." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we went home for dinner Jem bolted his food, ran to the porch and stood on the steps. I followed him. \"Hasn't passed by yet,\" he said.\n\nNext day Jem repeated his vigil and was rewarded.\n\n\"Hidy do, Mr. Nathan,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Morning Jem, Scout,\" said Mr. Radley, as he went by." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Radley,\" said Jem.\n\nMr. Radley turned around.\n\n\"Mr. Radley, ah—did you put cement in that hole in that tree down yonder?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"I filled it up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why'd you do it, sir?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tree's dying. You plug 'em with cement when they're sick. You ought to know that, Jem.\"\n\nJem said nothing more about it until late afternoon. When we passed our tree he gave it a meditative pat on its cement, and remained deep in thought. He seemed to be working himself into a bad humor, so I kept my distance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As usual, we met Atticus coming home from work that evening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we were at our steps Jem said, \"Atticus, look down yonder at that tree, please sir.\"\n\n\"What tree, son?\"\n\n\"The one on the corner of the Radley lot comin' from school.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that tree dyin'?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why no, son, I don't think so. Look at the leaves, they're all green and full, no brown patches anywhere—\"\n\n\"It ain't even sick?\"\n\n\"That tree's as healthy as you are, Jem. Why?\"\n\n\"Mr. Nathan Radley said it was dyin'.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well maybe it is. I'm sure Mr. Radley knows more about his trees than we do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus left us on the porch. Jem leaned on a pillar, rubbing his shoulders against it.\n\n\"Do you itch, Jem?\" I asked as politely as I could." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like Harper Lee and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "For reasons unfathomable to the most experienced prophets in Maycomb County, autumn turned to winter that year." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We had two weeks of the coldest weather since 1885, Atticus said. Mr. Avery said it was written on the Rosetta Stone that when children disobeyed their parents, smoked cigarettes and made war on each other, the seasons would change: Jem and I were burdened with the guilt of contributing to the aberrations of nature, thereby causing unhappiness to our neighbors and discomfort to ourselves.\n\nOld Mrs. Radley died that winter, but her death caused hardly a ripple—the neighborhood seldom saw her, except when she watered her cannas. Jem and I decided that Boo had got her at last, but when Atticus returned from the Radley house he said she died of natural causes, to our disappointment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ask him,\" Jem whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You ask him, you're the oldest.\"\n\n\"That's why you oughta ask him.\"\n\n\"Atticus,\" I said, \"did you see Mr. Arthur?\"\n\nAtticus looked sternly around his newspaper at me: \"I did not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem restrained me from further questions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said Atticus was still touchous about us and the Radleys and it wouldn't do to push him any. Jem had a notion that Atticus thought our activities that night last summer were not solely confined to strip poker. Jem had no firm basis for his idea, he said it was merely a twitch.\n\nNext morning I awoke, looked out the window and nearly died of fright." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My screams brought Atticus from his bathroom half-shaven." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The world's endin', Atticus! Please do something—!\" I dragged him to the window and pointed.\n\n\"No it's not,\" he said. \"It's snowing.\"\n\nJem asked Atticus would it keep up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem had never seen snow either, but he knew what it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus said he didn't know any more about snow than Jem did. \"I think, though, if it's watery like that, it'll turn to rain.\"\n\nThe telephone rang and Atticus left the breakfast table to answer it. \"That was Eula May,\" he said when he returned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I quote—'As it has not snowed in Maycomb County since 1885, there will be no school today.'\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eula May was Maycomb's leading telephone operator. She was entrusted with issuing public announcements, wedding invitations, setting off the fire siren, and giving first-aid instructions when Dr. Reynolds was away.\n\nWhen Atticus finally called us to order and bade us look at our plates instead of out the windows, Jem asked, \"How do you make a snowman?\"\n\n\"I haven't the slightest idea,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't want you all to be disappointed, but I doubt if there'll be enough snow for a snowball, even.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia came in and said she thought it was sticking. When we ran to the back yard, it was covered with a feeble layer of soggy snow.\n\n\"We shouldn't walk about in it,\" said Jem. \"Look, every step you take's wasting it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I looked back at my mushy footprints." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem said if we waited until it snowed some more we could scrape it all up for a snowman. I stuck out my tongue and caught a fat flake. It burned.\n\n\"Jem, it's hot!\"\n\n\"No it ain't, it's so cold it burns. Now don't eat it, Scout, you're wasting it. Let it come down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I want to walk in it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know what, we can go walk over at Miss Maudie's.\"\n\nJem hopped across the front yard. I followed in his tracks. When we were on the sidewalk in front of Miss Maudie's, Mr. Avery accosted us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had a pink face and a big stomach below his belt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"See what you've done?\" he said. \"Hasn't snowed in Maycomb since Appomattox. It's bad children like you makes the seasons change.\"\n\nI wondered if Mr. Avery knew how hopefully we had watched last summer for him to repeat his performance, and reflected that if this was our reward, there was something to say for sin. I did not wonder where Mr. Avery gathered his meteorological statistics: they came straight from the Rosetta Stone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jem Finch, you Jem Finch!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miss Maudie's callin' you, Jem.\"\n\n\"You all stay in the middle of the yard. There's some thrift buried under the snow near the porch. Don't step on it!\"\n\n\"Yessum!\" called Jem. \"It's beautiful, ain't it, Miss Maudie?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Beautiful my hind foot! If it freezes tonight it'll carry off all my azaleas!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie's old sunhat glistened with snow crystals. She was bending over some small bushes, wrapping them in burlap bags. Jem asked her what she was doing that for.\n\n\"Keep 'em warm,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How can flowers keep warm? They don't circulate.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I cannot answer that question, Jem Finch. All I know is if it freezes tonight these plants'll freeze, so you cover 'em up. Is that clear?\"\n\n\"Yessum. Miss Maudie?\"\n\n\"What, sir?\"\n\n\"Could Scout and me borrow some of your snow?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Heavens alive, take it all! There's an old peach basket under the house, haul it off in that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie's eyes narrowed. \"Jem Finch, what are you going to do with my snow?\"\n\n\"You'll see,\" said Jem, and we transferred as much snow as we could from Miss Maudie's yard to ours, a slushy operation.\n\n\"What are we gonna do, Jem?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll see,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now get the basket and haul all the snow you can rake up from the back yard to the front. Walk back in your tracks, though,\" he cautioned.\n\n\"Are we gonna have a snow baby, Jem?\"\n\n\"No, a real snowman. Gotta work hard, now.\"\n\nJem ran to the back yard, produced the garden hoe and began digging quickly behind the woodpile, placing any worms he found to one side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He went in the house, returned with the laundry hamper, filled it with earth and carried it to the front yard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we had five baskets of earth and two baskets of snow, Jem said we were ready to begin.\n\n\"Don't you think this is kind of a mess?\" I asked.\n\n\"Looks messy now, but it won't later,\" he said.\n\nJem scooped up an armful of dirt, patted it into a mound on which he added another load, and another until he had constructed a torso." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jem, I ain't ever heard of a nigger snowman,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He won't be black long,\" he grunted.\n\nJem procured some peachtree switches from the back yard, plaited them, and bent them into bones to be covered with dirt.\n\n\"He looks like Miss Stephanie Crawford with her hands on her hips,\" I said. \"Fat in the middle and little-bitty arms.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll make 'em bigger.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem sloshed water over the mud man and added more dirt. He looked thoughtfully at it for a moment, then he molded a big stomach below the figure's waistline. Jem glanced at me, his eyes twinkling: \"Mr. Avery's sort of shaped like a snow man, ain't he?\"\n\nJem scooped up some snow and began plastering it on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He permitted me to cover only the back, saving the public parts for himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gradually Mr. Avery turned white.\n\nUsing bits of wood for eyes, nose, mouth, and buttons, Jem succeeded in making Mr. Avery look cross. A stick of stovewood completed the picture. Jem stepped back and viewed his creation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's lovely, Jem,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Looks almost like he'd talk to you.\"\n\n\"It is, ain't it?\" he said shyly.\n\nWe could not wait for Atticus to come home for dinner, but called and said we had a big surprise for him. He seemed surprised when he saw most of the back yard in the front yard, but he said we had done a jim-dandy job." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't know how you were going to do it,\" he said to Jem, \"but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem's ears reddened from Atticus's compliment, but he looked up sharply when he saw Atticus stepping back. Atticus squinted at the snowman a while. He grinned, then laughed. \"Son, I can't tell what you're going to be—an engineer, a lawyer, or a portrait painter. You've perpetrated a near libel here in the front yard. We've got to disguise this fellow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus suggested that Jem hone down his creation's front a little, swap a broom for the stovewood, and put an apron on him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem explained that if he did, the snowman would become muddy and cease to be a snowman.\n\n\"I don't care what you do, so long as you do something,\" said Atticus. \"You can't go around making caricatures of the neighbors.\"\n\n\"Ain't a characterture,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It looks just like him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Avery might not think so.\"\n\n\"I know what!\" said Jem. He raced across the street, disappeared into Miss Maudie's back yard and returned triumphant. He stuck her sunhat on the snowman's head and jammed her hedge-clippers into the crook of his arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said that would be fine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie opened her front door and came out on the porch. She looked across the street at us. Suddenly she grinned. \"Jem Finch,\" she called. \"You devil, bring me back my hat, sir!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem looked up at Atticus, who shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's just fussing,\" he said. \"She's really impressed with your—accomplishments.\"\n\nAtticus strolled over to Miss Maudie's sidewalk, where they engaged in an arm-waving conversation, the only phrase of which I caught was \"...erected an absolute morphodite in that yard! Atticus, you'll never raise 'em!\"\n\nThe snow stopped in the afternoon, the temperature dropped, and by nightfall Mr. Avery's direst predictions came true: Calpurnia kept every fireplace in the house blazing, but we were cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Atticus came home that evening he said we were in for it, and asked Calpurnia if she wanted to stay with us for the night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia glanced up at the high ceilings and long windows and said she thought she'd be warmer at her house. Atticus drove her home in the car.\n\nBefore I went to sleep Atticus put more coal on the fire in my room. He said the thermometer registered sixteen, that it was the coldest night in his memory, and that our snowman outside was frozen solid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Minutes later, it seemed, I was awakened by someone shaking me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus's overcoat was spread across me. \"Is it morning already.\"\n\n\"Baby, get up.\"\n\nAtticus was holding out my bathrobe and coat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Put your robe on first,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem was standing beside Atticus, groggy and tousled. He was holding his overcoat closed at the neck, his other hand was jammed into his pocket. He looked strangely overweight.\n\n\"Hurry, hon,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Here're your shoes and socks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stupidly, I put them on. \"Is it morning?\"\n\n\"No, it's a little after one. Hurry now.\"\n\nThat something was wrong finally got through to me. \"What's the matter?\"\n\nBy then he did not have to tell me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just as the birds know where to go when it rains, I knew when there was trouble in our street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soft taffeta-like sounds and muffled scurrying sounds filled me with helpless dread.\n\n\"Whose is it?\"\n\n\"Miss Maudie's, hon,\" said Atticus gently.\n\nAt the front door, we saw fire spewing from Miss Maudie's dining-room windows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As if to confirm what we saw, the town fire siren wailed up the scale to a treble pitch and remained there, screaming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's gone, ain't it?\" moaned Jem.\n\n\"I expect so,\" said Atticus. \"Now listen, both of you. Go down and stand in front of the Radley Place. Keep out of the way, do you hear? See which way the wind's blowing?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Jem. \"Atticus, reckon we oughta start moving the furniture out?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not yet, son. Do as I tell you. Run now. Take care of Scout, you hear? Don't let her out of your sight.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a push, Atticus started us toward the Radley front gate. We stood watching the street fill with men and cars while fire silently devoured Miss Maudie's house. \"Why don't they hurry, why don't they hurry...\" muttered Jem.\n\nWe saw why. The old fire truck, killed by the cold, was being pushed from town by a crowd of men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the men attached its hose to a hydrant, the hose burst and water shot up, tinkling down on the pavement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh-h Lord, Jem...\"\n\nJem put his arm around me. \"Hush, Scout,\" he said. \"It ain't time to worry yet. I'll let you know when.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The men of Maycomb, in all degrees of dress and undress, took furniture from Miss Maudie's house to a yard across the street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I saw Atticus carrying Miss Maudie's heavy oak rocking chair, and thought it sensible of him to save what she valued most.\n\nSometimes we heard shouts. Then Mr. Avery's face appeared in an upstairs window. He pushed a mattress out the window into the street and threw down furniture until men shouted, \"Come down from there, Dick! The stairs are going! Get outta there, Mr. Avery!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Avery began climbing through the window." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Scout, he's stuck...\" breathed Jem. \"Oh God...\"\n\nMr. Avery was wedged tightly. I buried my head under Jem's arm and didn't look again until Jem cried, \"He's got loose, Scout! He's all right!\"\n\nI looked up to see Mr. Avery cross the upstairs porch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He swung his legs over the railing and was sliding down a pillar when he slipped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He fell, yelled, and hit Miss Maudie's shrubbery.\n\nSuddenly I noticed that the men were backing away from Miss Maudie's house, moving down the street toward us. They were no longer carrying furniture. The fire was well into the second floor and had eaten its way to the roof: window frames were black against a vivid orange center." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jem, it looks like a pumpkin—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Scout, look!\"\n\nSmoke was rolling off our house and Miss Rachel's house like fog off a riverbank, and men were pulling hoses toward them. Behind us, the fire truck from Abbottsville screamed around the curve and stopped in front of our house.\n\n\"That book...\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That Tom Swift book, it ain't mine, it's Dill's...\"\n\n\"Don't worry, Scout, it ain't time to worry yet,\" said Jem. He pointed. \"Looka yonder.\"\n\nIn a group of neighbors, Atticus was standing with his hands in his overcoat pockets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He might have been watching a football game." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie was beside him.\n\n\"See there, he's not worried yet,\" said Jem.\n\n\"Why ain't he on top of one of the houses?\"\n\n\"He's too old, he'd break his neck.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You think we oughta make him get our stuff out?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's don't pester him, he'll know when it's time,\" said Jem.\n\nThe Abbottsville fire truck began pumping water on our house; a man on the roof pointed to places that needed it most. I watched our Absolute Morphodite go black and crumble; Miss Maudie's sun-hat settled on top of the heap. I could not see her hedge-clippers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the heat between our house, Miss Rachel's and Miss Maudie's, the men had long ago shed coats and bathrobes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They worked in pajama tops and nightshirts stuffed into their pants, but I became aware that I was slowly freezing where I stood. Jem tried to keep me warm, but his arm was not enough. I pulled free of it and clutched my shoulders. By dancing a little, I could feel my feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another fire truck appeared and stopped in front of Miss Stephanie Crawford's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no hydrant for another hose, and the men tried to soak her house with hand extinguishers.\n\nMiss Maudie's tin roof quelled the flames. Roaring, the house collapsed; fire gushed everywhere, followed by a flurry of blankets from men on top of the adjacent houses, beating out sparks and burning chunks of wood.\n\nIt was dawn before the men began to leave, first one by one, then in groups." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They pushed the Maycomb fire truck back to town, the Abbottsville truck departed, the third one remained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We found out next day it had come from Clark's Ferry, sixty miles away.\n\nJem and I slid across the street. Miss Maudie was staring at the smoking black hole in her yard, and Atticus shook his head to tell us she did not want to talk. He led us home, holding onto our shoulders to cross the icy street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said Miss Maudie would stay with Miss Stephanie for the time being." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anybody want some hot chocolate?\" he asked. I shuddered when Atticus started a fire in the kitchen stove.\n\nAs we drank our cocoa I noticed Atticus looking at me, first with curiosity, then with sternness. \"I thought I told you and Jem to stay put,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why, we did. We stayed—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then whose blanket is that?\"\n\n\"Blanket?\"\n\n\"Yes ma'am, blanket. It isn't ours.\"\n\nI looked down and found myself clutching a brown woolen blanket I was wearing around my shoulders, squaw-fashion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Atticus, I don't know, sir... I—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I turned to Jem for an answer, but Jem was even more bewildered than I. He said he didn't know how it got there, we did exactly as Atticus had told us, we stood down by the Radley gate away from everybody, we didn't move an inch—Jem stopped.\n\n\"Mr. Nathan was at the fire,\" he babbled, \"I saw him, I saw him, he was tuggin' that mattress—Atticus, I swear...\"\n\n\"That's all right, son.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus grinned slowly. \"Looks like all of Maycomb was out tonight, in one way or another. Jem, there's some wrapping paper in the pantry, I think. Go get it and we'll—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Atticus, no sir!\"\n\nJem seemed to have lost his mind. He began pouring out our secrets right and left in total disregard for my safety if not for his own, omitting nothing, knot-hole, pants and all.\n\n\"...Mr. Nathan put cement in that tree, Atticus, an' he did it to stop us findin' things—he's crazy, I reckon, like they say, but Atticus, I swear to God he ain't ever harmed us, he ain't ever hurt us, he coulda cut my throat from ear to ear that night but he tried to mend my pants instead... he ain't ever hurt us, Atticus—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said, \"Whoa, son,\" so gently that I was greatly heartened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was obvious that he had not followed a word Jem said, for all Atticus said was, \"You're right. We'd better keep this and the blanket to ourselves. Someday, maybe, Scout can thank him for covering her up.\"\n\n\"Thank who?\" I asked.\n\n\"Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn't know it when he put the blanket around you.\"\n\nMy stomach turned to water and I nearly threw up when Jem held out the blanket and crept toward me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He sneaked out of the house—turn 'round—sneaked up, an' went like this!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus said dryly, \"Do not let this inspire you to further glory, Jeremy.\"\n\nJem scowled, \"I ain't gonna do anything to him,\" but I watched the spark of fresh adventure leave his eyes. \"Just think, Scout,\" he said, \"if you'd just turned around, you'da seen him.\"\n\nCalpurnia woke us at noon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus had said we need not go to school that day, we'd learn nothing after no sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia said for us to try and clean up the front yard.\n\nMiss Maudie's sunhat was suspended in a thin layer of ice, like a fly in amber, and we had to dig under the dirt for her hedge-clippers. We found her in her back yard, gazing at her frozen charred azaleas.\n\n\"We're bringing back your things, Miss Maudie,\" said Jem. \"We're awful sorry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Maudie looked around, and the shadow of her old grin crossed her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. Gives me more yard. Just think, I'll have more room for my azaleas now!\"\n\n\"You ain't grievin', Miss Maudie?\" I asked, surprised. Atticus said her house was nearly all she had.\n\n\"Grieving, child? Why, I hated that old cow barn. Thought of settin' fire to it a hundred times myself, except they'd lock me up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't you worry about me, Jean Louise Finch. There are ways of doing things you don't know about. Why, I'll build me a little house and take me a couple of roomers and—gracious, I'll have the finest yard in Alabama. Those Bellingraths'll look plain puny when I get started!\"\n\nJem and I looked at each other. \"How'd it catch, Miss Maudie?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know, Jem. Probably the flue in the kitchen. I kept a fire in there last night for my potted plants. Hear you had some unexpected company last night, Miss Jean Louise.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How'd you know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Atticus told me on his way to town this morning. Tell you the truth, I'd like to've been with you. And I'd've had sense enough to turn around, too.\"\n\nMiss Maudie puzzled me. With most of her possessions gone and her beloved yard a shambles, she still took a lively and cordial interest in Jem's and my affairs.\n\nShe must have seen my perplexity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She said, \"Only thing I worried about last night was all the danger and commotion it caused. This whole neighborhood could have gone up. Mr. Avery'll be in bed for a week—he's right stove up. He's too old to do things like that and I told him so. Soon as I can get my hands clean and when Stephanie Crawford's not looking, I'll make him a Lane cake. That Stephanie's been after my recipe for thirty years, and if she thinks I'll give it to her just because I'm staying with her she's got another think coming.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I reflected that if Miss Maudie broke down and gave it to her, Miss Stephanie couldn't follow it anyway. Miss Maudie had once let me see it: among other things, the recipe called for one large cup of sugar.\n\nIt was a still day. The air was so cold and clear we heard the courthouse clock clank, rattle and strain before it struck the hour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Maudie's nose was a color I had never seen before, and I inquired about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been out here since six o'clock,\" she said. \"Should be frozen by now.\" She held up her hands. A network of tiny lines criss-crossed her palms, brown with dirt and dried blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've ruined 'em,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why don't you get a colored man?\" There was no note of sacrifice in his voice when he added, \"Or Scout'n'me, we can help you.\"\n\nMiss Maudie said, \"Thank you sir, but you've got a job of your own over there.\" She pointed to our yard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You mean the Morphodite?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I asked. \"Shoot, we can rake him up in a jiffy.\"\n\nMiss Maudie stared down at me, her lips moving silently. Suddenly she put her hands to her head and whooped. When we left her, she was still chuckling.\n\nJem said he didn't know what was the matter with her—that was just Miss Maudie." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of Harper Lee.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of Harper Lee every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can just take that back, boy!\"\n\nThis order, given by me to Cecil Jacobs, was the beginning of a rather thin time for Jem and me. My fists were clenched and I was ready to let fly. Atticus had promised me he would wear me out if he ever heard of me fighting any more; I was far too old and too big for such childish things, and the sooner I learned to hold in, the better off everybody would be. I soon forgot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cecil Jacobs made me forget." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Finch's daddy defended niggers. I denied it, but told Jem.\n\n\"What'd he mean sayin' that?\" I asked.\n\n\"Nothing,\" Jem said. \"Ask Atticus, he'll tell you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you defend niggers, Atticus?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I asked him that evening.\n\n\"Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common.\"\n\n\"'s what everybody at school says.\"\n\n\"From now on it'll be everybody less one—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, why do you send me to school?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My father looked at me mildly, amusement in his eyes. Despite our compromise, my campaign to avoid school had continued in one form or another since my first day's dose of it: the beginning of last September had brought on sinking spells, dizziness, and mild gastric complaints. I went so far as to pay a nickel for the privilege of rubbing my head against the head of Miss Rachel's cook's son, who was afflicted with a tremendous ringworm. It didn't take.\n\nBut I was worrying another bone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do all lawyers defend n-Negroes, Atticus?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course they do, Scout.\"\n\n\"Then why did Cecil say you defended niggers? He made it sound like you were runnin' a still.\"\n\nAtticus sighed. \"I'm simply defending a Negro—his name's Tom Robinson. He lives in that little settlement beyond the town dump. He's a member of Calpurnia's church, and Cal knows his family well. She says they're clean-living folks. Scout, you aren't old enough to understand some things yet, but there's been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn't do much about defending this man. It's a peculiar case—it won't come to trial until summer session. John Taylor was kind enough to give us a postponement...\"\n\n\"If you shouldn't be defendin' him, then why are you doin' it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For a number of reasons,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again.\"\n\n\"You mean if you didn't defend that man, Jem and me wouldn't have to mind you any more?\"\n\n\"That's about right.\"\n\n\"Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one's mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change... it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Atticus, are we going to win it?\"\n\n\"No, honey.\"\n\n\"Then, why—\"\n\n\"Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,\" Atticus said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You sound like Cousin Ike Finch,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cousin Ike Finch was Maycomb County's sole surviving Confederate veteran. He wore a General Hood type beard of which he was inordinately vain. At least once a year Atticus, Jem and I called on him, and I would have to kiss him. It was horrible. Jem and I would listen respectfully to Atticus and Cousin Ike rehash the war." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell you, Atticus,\" Cousin Ike would say, \"the Missouri Compromise was what licked us, but if I had to go through it agin I'd walk every step of the way there an' every step back jist like I did before an' furthermore we'd whip 'em this time... now in 1864, when Stonewall Jackson came around by—I beg your pardon, young folks. Ol' Blue Light was in heaven then, God rest his saintly brow...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come here, Scout,\" said Atticus. I crawled into his lap and tucked my head under his chin. He put his arms around me and rocked me gently. \"It's different this time,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This time we aren't fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With this in mind, I faced Cecil Jacobs in the schoolyard next day: \"You gonna take that back, boy?\"\n\n\"You gotta make me first!\" he yelled. \"My folks said your daddy was a disgrace an' that nigger oughta hang from the water-tank!\"\n\nI drew a bead on him, remembered what Atticus had said, then dropped my fists and walked away, \"Scout's a cow—ward!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "ringing in my ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the first time I ever walked away from a fight.\n\nSomehow, if I fought Cecil I would let Atticus down. Atticus so rarely asked Jem and me to do something for him, I could take being called a coward for him. I felt extremely noble for having remembered, and remained noble for three weeks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then Christmas came and disaster struck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem and I viewed Christmas with mixed feelings. The good side was the tree and Uncle Jack Finch. Every Christmas Eve day we met Uncle Jack at Maycomb Junction, and he would spend a week with us.\n\nA flip of the coin revealed the uncompromising lineaments of Aunt Alexandra and Francis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I suppose I should include Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Alexandra's husband, but as he never spoke a word to me in my life except to say, \"Get off the fence,\" once, I never saw any reason to take notice of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neither did Aunt Alexandra. Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry, who left home as soon as was humanly possible, married, and produced Francis. Henry and his wife deposited Francis at his grandparents' every Christmas, then pursued their own pleasures.\n\nNo amount of sighing could induce Atticus to let us spend Christmas day at home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We went to Finch's Landing every Christmas in my memory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fact that Aunty was a good cook was some compensation for being forced to spend a religious holiday with Francis Hancock. He was a year older than I, and I avoided him on principle: he enjoyed everything I disapproved of, and disliked my ingenuous diversions.\n\nAunt Alexandra was Atticus's sister, but when Jem told me about changelings and siblings, I decided that she had been swapped at birth, that my grandparents had perhaps received a Crawford instead of a Finch. Had I ever harbored the mystical notions about mountains that seem to obsess lawyers and judges, Aunt Alexandra would have been analogous to Mount Everest: throughout my early life, she was cold and there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Uncle Jack jumped down from the train Christmas Eve day, we had to wait for the porter to hand him two long packages." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem and I always thought it funny when Uncle Jack pecked Atticus on the cheek; they were the only two men we ever saw kiss each other. Uncle Jack shook hands with Jem and swung me high, but not high enough: Uncle Jack was a head shorter than Atticus; the baby of the family, he was younger than Aunt Alexandra. He and Aunty looked alike, but Uncle Jack made better use of his face: we were never wary of his sharp nose and chin.\n\nHe was one of the few men of science who never terrified me, probably because he never behaved like a doctor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whenever he performed a minor service for Jem and me, as removing a splinter from a foot, he would tell us exactly what he was going to do, give us an estimation of how much it would hurt, and explain the use of any tongs he employed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One Christmas I lurked in corners nursing a twisted splinter in my foot, permitting no one to come near me. When Uncle Jack caught me, he kept me laughing about a preacher who hated going to church so much that every day he stood at his gate in his dressing-gown, smoking a hookah and delivering five-minute sermons to any passers-by who desired spiritual comfort. I interrupted to make Uncle Jack let me know when he would pull it out, but he held up a bloody splinter in a pair of tweezers and said he yanked it while I was laughing, that was what was known as relativity.\n\n\"What's in those packages?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I asked him, pointing to the long thin parcels the porter had given him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"None of your business,\" he said.\n\nJem said, \"How's Rose Aylmer?\"\n\nRose Aylmer was Uncle Jack's cat. She was a beautiful yellow female Uncle Jack said was one of the few women he could stand permanently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached into his coat pocket and brought out some snapshots. We admired them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's gettin' fat,\" I said.\n\n\"I should think so. She eats all the leftover fingers and ears from the hospital.\"\n\n\"Aw, that's a damn story,\" I said.\n\n\"I beg your pardon?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said, \"Don't pay any attention to her, Jack. She's trying you out. Cal says she's been cussing fluently for a week, now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Uncle Jack raised his eyebrows and said nothing. I was proceeding on the dim theory, aside from the innate attractiveness of such words, that if Atticus discovered I had picked them up at school he wouldn't make me go.\n\nBut at supper that evening when I asked him to pass the damn ham, please, Uncle Jack pointed at me. \"See me afterwards, young lady,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When supper was over, Uncle Jack went to the livingroom and sat down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slapped his thighs for me to come sit on his lap. I liked to smell him: he was like a bottle of alcohol and something pleasantly sweet. He pushed back my bangs and looked at me. \"You're more like Atticus than your mother,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're also growing out of your pants a little.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I reckon they fit all right.\"\n\n\"You like words like damn and hell now, don't you?\"\n\nI said I reckoned so.\n\n\"Well I don't,\" said Uncle Jack, \"not unless there's extreme provocation connected with 'em. I'll be here a week, and I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I said not particularly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course you do. Now let's get to the tree.\"\n\nWe decorated the tree until bedtime, and that night I dreamed of the two long packages for Jem and me. Next morning Jem and I dived for them: they were from Atticus, who had written Uncle Jack to get them for us, and they were what we had asked for.\n\n\"Don't point them in the house,\" said Atticus, when Jem aimed at a picture on the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll have to teach 'em to shoot,\" said Uncle Jack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's your job,\" said Atticus. \"I merely bowed to the inevitable.\"\n\nIt took Atticus's courtroom voice to drag us away from the tree. He declined to let us take our air rifles to the Landing (I had already begun to think of shooting Francis) and said if we made one false move he'd take them away from us for good." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finch's Landing consisted of three hundred and sixty-six steps down a high bluff and ending in a jetty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Farther down stream, beyond the bluff, were traces of an old cotton landing, where Finch Negroes had loaded bales and produce, unloaded blocks of ice, flour and sugar, farm equipment, and feminine apparel. A two-rut road ran from the riverside and vanished among dark trees. At the end of the road was a two-storied white house with porches circling it upstairs and downstairs. In his old age, our ancestor Simon Finch had built it to please his nagging wife; but with the porches all resemblance to ordinary houses of its era ended." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The internal arrangements of the Finch house were indicative of Simon's guilelessness and the absolute trust with which he regarded his offspring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were six bedrooms upstairs, four for the eight female children, one for Welcome Finch, the sole son, and one for visiting relatives. Simple enough; but the daughters' rooms could be reached only by one staircase, Welcome's room and the guestroom only by another. The Daughters' Staircase was in the ground-floor bedroom of their parents, so Simon always knew the hours of his daughters' nocturnal comings and goings.\n\nThere was a kitchen separate from the rest of the house, tacked onto it by a wooden catwalk; in the back yard was a rusty bell on a pole, used to summon field hands or as a distress signal; a widow's walk was on the roof, but no widows walked there—from it, Simon oversaw his overseer, watched the river-boats, and gazed into the lives of surrounding landholders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There went with the house the usual legend about the Yankees: one Finch female, recently engaged, donned her complete trousseau to save it from raiders in the neighborhood; she became stuck in the door to the Daughters' Staircase but was doused with water and finally pushed through." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we arrived at the Landing, Aunt Alexandra kissed Uncle Jack, Francis kissed Uncle Jack, Uncle Jimmy shook hands silently with Uncle Jack, Jem and I gave our presents to Francis, who gave us a present. Jem felt his age and gravitated to the adults, leaving me to entertain our cousin. Francis was eight and slicked back his hair.\n\n\"What'd you get for Christmas?\" I asked politely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just what I asked for,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Francis had requested a pair of knee-pants, a red leather booksack, five shirts and an untied bow tie.\n\n\"That's nice,\" I lied. \"Jem and me got air-rifles, and Jem got a chemistry set—\"\n\n\"A toy one, I reckon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, a real one. He's gonna make me some invisible ink, and I'm gonna write to Dill in it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Francis asked what was the use of that.\n\n\"Well, can't you just see his face when he gets a letter from me with nothing in it? It'll drive him nuts.\"\n\nTalking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean. He was the most boring child I ever met." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he lived in Mobile, he could not inform on me to school authorities, but he managed to tell everything he knew to Aunt Alexandra, who in turn unburdened herself to Atticus, who either forgot it or gave me hell, whichever struck his fancy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the only time I ever heard Atticus speak sharply to anyone was when I once heard him say, \"Sister, I do the best I can with them!\" It had something to do with my going around in overalls.\n\nAunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to be doing things that required pants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aunt Alexandra's vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father's lonely life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants just as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. She hurt my feelings and set my teeth permanently on edge, but when I asked Atticus about it, he said there were already enough sunbeams in the family and to go on about my business, he didn't mind me much the way I was.\n\nAt Christmas dinner, I sat at the little table in the diningroom; Jem and Francis sat with the adults at the dining table. Aunty had continued to isolate me long after Jem and Francis graduated to the big table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I often wondered what she thought I'd do, get up and throw something?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I sometimes thought of asking her if she would let me sit at the big table with the rest of them just once, I would prove to her how civilized I could be; after all, I ate at home every day with no major mishaps. When I begged Atticus to use his influence, he said he had none—we were guests, and we sat where she told us to sit. He also said Aunt Alexandra didn't understand girls much, she'd never had one.\n\nBut her cooking made up for everything: three kinds of meat, summer vegetables from her pantry shelves; peach pickles, two kinds of cake and ambrosia constituted a modest Christmas dinner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Afterwards, the adults made for the livingroom and sat around in a dazed condition." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem lay on the floor, and I went to the back yard. \"Put on your coat,\" said Atticus dreamily, so I didn't hear him.\n\nFrancis sat beside me on the back steps. \"That was the best yet,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Grandma's a wonderful cook,\" said Francis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's gonna teach me how.\"\n\n\"Boys don't cook.\" I giggled at the thought of Jem in an apron.\n\n\"Grandma says all men should learn to cook, that men oughta be careful with their wives and wait on 'em when they don't feel good,\" said my cousin.\n\n\"I don't want Dill waitin' on me,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd rather wait on him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dill?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Don't say anything about it yet, but we're gonna get married as soon as we're big enough. He asked me last summer.\"\n\nFrancis hooted.\n\n\"What's the matter with him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I asked. \"Ain't anything the matter with him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You mean that little runt Grandma says stays with Miss Rachel every summer?\"\n\n\"That's exactly who I mean.\"\n\n\"I know all about him,\" said Francis.\n\n\"What about him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Grandma says he hasn't got a home—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Has too, he lives in Meridian.\"\n\n\"—he just gets passed around from relative to relative, and Miss Rachel keeps him every summer.\"\n\n\"Francis, that's not so!\"\n\nFrancis grinned at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're mighty dumb sometimes, Jean Louise. Guess you don't know any better, though.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"If Uncle Atticus lets you run around with stray dogs, that's his business, like Grandma says, so it ain't your fault. I guess it ain't your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger-lover besides, but I'm here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family—\"\n\n\"Francis, what the hell do you mean?\"\n\n\"Just what I said. Grandma says it's bad enough he lets you all run wild, but now he's turned out a nigger-lover we'll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb again. He's ruinin' the family, that's what he's doin'.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Francis rose and sprinted down the catwalk to the old kitchen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At a safe distance he called, \"He's nothin' but a nigger-lover!\"\n\n\"He is not!\" I roared. \"I don't know what you're talkin' about, but you better cut it out this red hot minute!\"\n\nI leaped off the steps and ran down the catwalk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was easy to collar Francis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I said take it back quick.\n\nFrancis jerked loose and sped into the old kitchen. \"Nigger-lover!\" he yelled.\n\nWhen stalking one's prey, it is best to take one's time. Say nothing, and as sure as eggs he will become curious and emerge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Francis appeared at the kitchen door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You still mad, Jean Louise?\" he asked tentatively.\n\n\"Nothing to speak of,\" I said.\n\nFrancis came out on the catwalk.\n\n\"You gonna take it back, Fra—ancis?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But I was too quick on the draw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Francis shot back into the kitchen, so I retired to the steps. I could wait patiently. I had sat there perhaps five minutes when I heard Aunt Alexandra speak: \"Where's Francis?\"\n\n\"He's out yonder in the kitchen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He knows he's not supposed to play in there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Francis came to the door and yelled, \"Grandma, she's got me in here and she won't let me out!\"\n\n\"What is all this, Jean Louise?\"\n\nI looked up at Aunt Alexandra. \"I haven't got him in there, Aunty, I ain't holdin' him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes she is,\" shouted Francis, \"she won't let me out!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you all been fussing?\"\n\n\"Jean Louise got mad at me, Grandma,\" called Francis.\n\n\"Francis, come out of there! Jean Louise, if I hear another word out of you I'll tell your father. Did I hear you say hell a while ago?\"\n\n\"Nome.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought I did. I'd better not hear it again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aunt Alexandra was a back-porch listener. The moment she was out of sight Francis came out head up and grinning. \"Don't you fool with me,\" he said.\n\nHe jumped into the yard and kept his distance, kicking tufts of grass, turning around occasionally to smile at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem appeared on the porch, looked at us, and went away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Francis climbed the mimosa tree, came down, put his hands in his pockets and strolled around the yard. \"Hah!\" he said. I asked him who he thought he was, Uncle Jack? Francis said he reckoned I got told, for me to just sit there and leave him alone.\n\n\"I ain't botherin' you,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Francis looked at me carefully, concluded that I had been sufficiently subdued, and crooned softly, \"Nigger-lover...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This time, I split my knuckle to the bone on his front teeth. My left impaired, I sailed in with my right, but not for long. Uncle Jack pinned my arms to my sides and said, \"Stand still!\"\n\nAunt Alexandra ministered to Francis, wiping his tears away with her handkerchief, rubbing his hair, patting his cheek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus, Jem, and Uncle Jimmy had come to the back porch when Francis started yelling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who started this?\" said Uncle Jack.\n\nFrancis and I pointed at each other. \"Grandma,\" he bawled, \"she called me a whore-lady and jumped on me!\"\n\n\"Is that true, Scout?\" said Uncle Jack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I reckon so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Uncle Jack looked down at me, his features were like Aunt Alexandra's. \"You know I told you you'd get in trouble if you used words like that? I told you, didn't I?\"\n\n\"Yes sir, but—\"\n\n\"Well, you're in trouble now. Stay there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was debating whether to stand there or run, and tarried in indecision a moment too long: I turned to flee but Uncle Jack was quicker." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I found myself suddenly looking at a tiny ant struggling with a bread crumb in the grass.\n\n\"I'll never speak to you again as long as I live! I hate you an' despise you an' hope you die tomorrow!\" A statement that seemed to encourage Uncle Jack, more than anything. I ran to Atticus for comfort, but he said I had it coming and it was high time we went home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I climbed into the back seat of the car without saying good-bye to anyone, and at home I ran to my room and slammed the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem tried to say something nice, but I wouldn't let him.\n\nWhen I surveyed the damage there were only seven or eight red marks, and I was reflecting upon relativity when someone knocked on the door. I asked who it was; Uncle Jack answered.\n\n\"Go away!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Uncle Jack said if I talked like that he'd lick me again, so I was quiet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he entered the room I retreated to a corner and turned my back on him. \"Scout,\" he said, \"do you still hate me?\"\n\n\"Go on, please sir.\"\n\n\"Why, I didn't think you'd hold it against me,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm disappointed in you—you had that coming and you know it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't either.\"\n\n\"Honey, you can't go around calling people—\"\n\n\"You ain't fair,\" I said, \"you ain't fair.\"\n\nUncle Jack's eyebrows went up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not fair? How not?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're real nice, Uncle Jack, an' I reckon I love you even after what you did, but you don't understand children much.\"\n\nUncle Jack put his hands on his hips and looked down at me. \"And why do I not understand children, Miss Jean Louise? Such conduct as yours required little understanding. It was obstreperous, disorderly, and abusive—\"\n\n\"You gonna give me a chance to tell you? I don't mean to sass you, I'm just tryin' to tell you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Uncle Jack sat down on the bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyebrows came together, and he peered up at me from under them. \"Proceed,\" he said.\n\nI took a deep breath. \"Well, in the first place you never stopped to gimme a chance to tell you my side of it—you just lit right into me. When Jem an' I fuss Atticus doesn't ever just listen to Jem's side of it, he hears mine too, an' in the second place you told me never to use words like that except in extreme provocation, and Francis provocated me enough to knock his block off—\"\n\nUncle Jack scratched his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What was your side of it, Scout?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Francis called Atticus somethin', an' I wasn't about to take it off him.\"\n\n\"What did Francis call him?\"\n\n\"A nigger-lover. I ain't very sure what it means, but the way Francis said it—tell you one thing right now, Uncle Jack, I'll be—I swear before God if I'll sit there and let him say somethin' about Atticus.\"\n\n\"He called Atticus that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes sir, he did, an' a lot more. Said Atticus'd be the ruination of the family an' he let Jem an' me run wild...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the look on Uncle Jack's face, I thought I was in for it again. When he said, \"We'll see about this,\" I knew Francis was in for it. \"I've a good mind to go out there tonight.\"\n\n\"Please sir, just let it go. Please.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've no intention of letting it go,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alexandra should know about this. The idea of—wait'll I get my hands on that boy...\"\n\n\"Uncle Jack, please promise me somethin', please sir. Promise you won't tell Atticus about this. He—he asked me one time not to let anything I heard about him make me mad, an' I'd ruther him think we were fightin' about somethin' else instead. Please promise...\"\n\n\"But I don't like Francis getting away with something like that—\"\n\n\"He didn't. You reckon you could tie up my hand? It's still bleedin' some.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course I will, baby. I know of no hand I would be more delighted to tie up. Will you come this way?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Uncle Jack gallantly bowed me to the bathroom. While he cleaned and bandaged my knuckles, he entertained me with a tale about a funny nearsighted old gentleman who had a cat named Hodge, and who counted all the cracks in the sidewalk when he went to town. \"There now,\" he said. \"You'll have a very unladylike scar on your wedding-ring finger.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you sir. Uncle Jack?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"What's a whore-lady?\"\n\nUncle Jack plunged into another long tale about an old Prime Minister who sat in the House of Commons and blew feathers in the air and tried to keep them there when all about him men were losing their heads. I guess he was trying to answer my question, but he made no sense whatsoever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Later, when I was supposed to be in bed, I went down the hall for a drink of water and heard Atticus and Uncle Jack in the livingroom:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shall never marry, Atticus.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I might have children.\"\n\nAtticus said, \"You've a lot to learn, Jack.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know. Your daughter gave me my first lesson this afternoon. She said I didn't understand children much and told me why. She was quite right. Atticus, she told me how I should have treated her—oh dear, I'm so sorry I romped on her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus chuckled. \"She earned it, so don't feel too remorseful.\"\n\nI waited, on tenterhooks, for Uncle Jack to tell Atticus my side of it. But he didn't. He simply murmured, \"Her use of bathroom invective leaves nothing to the imagination. But she doesn't know the meaning of half she says—she asked me what a whore-lady was...\"\n\n\"Did you tell her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, I told her about Lord Melbourne.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jack! When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em. No,\" my father mused, \"you had the right answer this afternoon, but the wrong reasons. Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it. Hotheadedness isn't. Scout's got to learn to keep her head and learn soon, with what's in store for her these next few months. She's coming along, though. Jem's getting older and she follows his example a good bit now. All she needs is assistance sometimes.\"\n\n\"Atticus, you've never laid a hand on her.\"\n\n\"I admit that. So far I've been able to get by with threats. Jack, she minds me as well as she can. Doesn't come up to scratch half the time, but she tries.\"\n\n\"That's not the answer,\" said Uncle Jack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, the answer is she knows I know she tries. That's what makes the difference. What bothers me is that she and Jem will have to absorb some ugly things pretty soon. I'm not worried about Jem keeping his head, but Scout'd just as soon jump on someone as look at him if her pride's at stake...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I waited for Uncle Jack to break his promise. He still didn't.\n\n\"Atticus, how bad is this going to be? You haven't had too much chance to discuss it.\"\n\n\"It couldn't be worse, Jack. The only thing we've got is a black man's word against the Ewells'. The evidence boils down to you-did—I-didn't. The jury couldn't possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson's word against the Ewells'—are you acquainted with the Ewells?\"\n\nUncle Jack said yes, he remembered them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He described them to Atticus, but Atticus said, \"You're a generation off. The present ones are the same, though.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you going to do, then?\"\n\n\"Before I'm through, I intend to jar the jury a bit—I think we'll have a reasonable chance on appeal, though. I really can't tell at this stage, Jack. You know, I'd hoped to get through life without a case of this kind, but John Taylor pointed at me and said, 'You're It.'\"\n\n\"Let this cup pass from you, eh?\"\n\n\"Right. But do you think I could face my children otherwise? You know what's going to happen as well as I do, Jack, and I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb's usual disease. Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand... I just hope that Jem and Scout come to me for their answers instead of listening to the town. I hope they trust me enough... Jean Louise?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Harper Lee.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of Harper Lee.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a Harper Lee sorta thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his abilities and manliness. He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries, and there was nothing Jem or I could say about him when our classmates said, \"My father—\"\n\nJem was football crazy. Atticus was never too tired to play keep-away, but when Jem wanted to tackle him Atticus would say, \"I'm too old for that, son.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Our father didn't do anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He worked in an office, not in a drugstore. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.\n\nBesides that, he wore glasses. He was nearly blind in his left eye, and said left eyes were the tribal curse of the Finches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whenever he wanted to see something well, he turned his head and looked from his right eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not do the things our schoolmates' fathers did: he never went hunting, he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke. He sat in the livingroom and read.\n\nWith these attributes, however, he would not remain as inconspicuous as we wished him to: that year, the school buzzed with talk about him defending Tom Robinson, none of which was complimentary. After my bout with Cecil Jacobs when I committed myself to a policy of cowardice, word got around that Scout Finch wouldn't fight any more, her daddy wouldn't let her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was not entirely correct: I wouldn't fight publicly for Atticus, but the family was private ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would fight anyone from a third cousin upwards tooth and nail. Francis Hancock, for example, knew that.\n\nWhen he gave us our air-rifles Atticus wouldn't teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; he said Atticus wasn't interested in guns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said to Jem one day, \"I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.\n\n\"Your father's right,\" she said. \"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.\"\n\n\"Miss Maudie, this is an old neighborhood, ain't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Been here longer than the town.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nome, I mean the folks on our street are all old. Jem and me's the only children around here. Mrs. Dubose is close on to a hundred and Miss Rachel's old and so are you and Atticus.\"\n\n\"I don't call fifty very old,\" said Miss Maudie tartly. \"Not being wheeled around yet, am I? Neither's your father. But I must say Providence was kind enough to burn down that old mausoleum of mine, I'm too old to keep it up—maybe you're right, Jean Louise, this is a settled neighborhood. You've never been around young folks much, have you?\"\n\n\"Yessum, at school.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I mean young grown-ups. You're lucky, you know. You and Jem have the benefit of your father's age. If your father was thirty you'd find life quite different.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I sure would. Atticus can't do anything...\"\n\n\"You'd be surprised,\" said Miss Maudie. \"There's life in him yet.\"\n\n\"What can he do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, he can make somebody's will so airtight can't anybody meddle with it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shoot...\"\n\n\"Well, did you know he's the best checker-player in this town? Why, down at the Landing when we were coming up, Atticus Finch could beat everybody on both sides of the river.\"\n\n\"Good Lord, Miss Maudie, Jem and me beat him all the time.\"\n\n\"It's about time you found out it's because he lets you. Did you know he can play a Jew's Harp?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This modest accomplishment served to make me even more ashamed of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well...\" she said.\n\n\"Well what, Miss Maudie?\"\n\n\"Well nothing. Nothing—it seems with all that you'd be proud of him. Can't everybody play a Jew's Harp. Now keep out of the way of the carpenters. You'd better go home, I'll be in my azaleas and can't watch you. Plank might hit you.\"\n\nI went to the back yard and found Jem plugging away at a tin can, which seemed stupid with all the bluejays around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I returned to the front yard and busied myself for two hours erecting a complicated breastworks at the side of the porch, consisting of a tire, an orange crate, the laundry hamper, the porch chairs, and a small U.S. flag Jem gave me from a popcorn box." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Atticus came home to dinner he found me crouched down aiming across the street. \"What are you shooting at?\"\n\n\"Miss Maudie's rear end.\"\n\nAtticus turned and saw my generous target bending over her bushes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pushed his hat to the back of his head and crossed the street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maudie,\" he called, \"I thought I'd better warn you. You're in considerable peril.\"\n\nMiss Maudie straightened up and looked toward me. She said, \"Atticus, you are a devil from hell.\"\n\nWhen Atticus returned he told me to break camp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you ever let me catch you pointing that gun at anybody again,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wished my father was a devil from hell. I sounded out Calpurnia on the subject. \"Mr. Finch? Why, he can do lots of things.\"\n\n\"Like what?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia scratched her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I don't rightly know,\" she said.\n\nJem underlined it when he asked Atticus if he was going out for the Methodists and Atticus said he'd break his neck if he did, he was just too old for that sort of thing. The Methodists were trying to pay off their church mortgage, and had challenged the Baptists to a game of touch football. Everybody in town's father was playing, it seemed, except Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem said he didn't even want to go, but he was unable to resist football in any form, and he stood gloomily on the sidelines with Atticus and me watching Cecil Jacob's father make touchdowns for the Baptists." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One Saturday Jem and I decided to go exploring with our air-rifles to see if we could find a rabbit or a squirrel. We had gone about five hundred yards beyond the Radley Place when I noticed Jem squinting at something down the street. He had turned his head to one side and was looking out of the corners of his eyes.\n\n\"Whatcha looking at?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That old dog down yonder,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's old Tim Johnson, ain't it?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nTim Johnson was the property of Mr. Harry Johnson who drove the Mobile bus and lived on the southern edge of town. Tim was a liver-colored bird dog, the pet of Maycomb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's he doing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know, Scout. We better go home.\"\n\n\"Aw Jem, it's February.\"\n\n\"I don't care. I'm gonna tell Cal.\"\n\nWe raced home and ran to the kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cal,\" said Jem, \"can you come down the sidewalk a minute?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What for, Jem? I can't come down the sidewalk every time you want me.\"\n\n\"There's somethin' wrong with an old dog down yonder.\"\n\nCalpurnia sighed. \"I can't wrap up any dog's foot now. There's some gauze in the bathroom, go get it and do it yourself.\"\n\nJem shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's sick, Cal. Something's wrong with him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's he doin', trying to catch his tail?\"\n\n\"No, he's doin' like this.\"\n\nJem gulped like a goldfish, hunched his shoulders and twitched his torso. \"He's goin' like that, only not like he means to.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you telling me a story, Jem Finch?\" Calpurnia's voice hardened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No Cal, I swear I'm not.\"\n\n\"Was he runnin'?\"\n\n\"No, he's just moseyin' along, so slow you can't hardly tell it. He's comin' this way.\"\n\nCalpurnia rinsed her hands and followed Jem into the yard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't see any dog,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She followed us beyond the Radley Place and looked where Jem pointed. Tim Johnson was not much more than a speck in the distance, but he was closer to us. He walked erratically, as if his right legs were shorter than his left legs. He reminded me of a car stuck in a sand-bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's gone lopsided,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia stared, then grabbed us by the shoulders and ran us home. She shut the wood door behind us, went to the telephone and shouted, \"Gimme Mr. Finch's office!\"\n\n\"Mr. Finch!\" she shouted. \"This is Cal. I swear to God there's a mad dog down the street a piece—he's comin' this way, yes sir, he's—Mr. Finch, I declare he is—old Tim Johnson, yes sir... yessir... yes—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hung up and shook her head when we tried to ask her what Atticus had said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She rattled the telephone hook and said, \"Miss Eula May—now ma'am, I'm through talkin' to Mr. Finch, please don't connect me no more—listen, Miss Eula May, can you call Miss Rachel and Miss Stephanie Crawford and whoever's got a phone on this street and tell 'em a mad dog's comin'? Please ma'am!\"\n\nCalpurnia listened. \"I know it's February, Miss Eula May, but I know a mad dog when I see one. Please ma'am hurry!\"\n\nCalpurnia asked Jem, \"Radleys got a phone?\"\n\nJem looked in the book and said no." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They won't come out anyway, Cal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't care, I'm gonna tell 'em.\"\n\nShe ran to the front porch, Jem and I at her heels. \"You stay in that house!\" she yelled.\n\nCalpurnia's message had been received by the neighborhood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every wood door within our range of vision was closed tight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We saw no trace of Tim Johnson. We watched Calpurnia running toward the Radley Place, holding her skirt and apron above her knees. She went up to the front steps and banged on the door. She got no answer, and she shouted, \"Mr. Nathan, Mr. Arthur, mad dog's comin'! Mad dog's comin'!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's supposed to go around in back,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem shook his head. \"Don't make any difference now,\" he said.\n\nCalpurnia pounded on the door in vain. No one acknowledged her warning; no one seemed to have heard it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Calpurnia sprinted to the back porch a black Ford swung into the driveway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus and Mr. Heck Tate got out.\n\nMr. Heck Tate was the sheriff of Maycomb County. He was as tall as Atticus, but thinner. He was long-nosed, wore boots with shiny metal eye-holes, boot pants and a lumber jacket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His belt had a row of bullets sticking in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He carried a heavy rifle. When he and Atticus reached the porch, Jem opened the door.\n\n\"Stay inside, son,\" said Atticus. \"Where is he, Cal?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He oughta be here by now,\" said Calpurnia, pointing down the street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not runnin', is he?\" asked Mr. Tate.\n\n\"Naw sir, he's in the twitchin' stage, Mr. Heck.\"\n\n\"Should we go after him, Heck?\" asked Atticus.\n\n\"We better wait, Mr. Finch. They usually go in a straight line, but you never can tell. He might follow the curve—hope he does or he'll go straight in the Radley back yard. Let's wait a minute.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't think he'll get in the Radley yard,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fence'll stop him. He'll probably follow the road...\"\n\nI thought mad dogs foamed at the mouth, galloped, leaped and lunged at throats, and I thought they did it in August. Had Tim Johnson behaved thus, I would have been less frightened.\n\nNothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The trees were still, the mockingbirds were silent, the carpenters at Miss Maudie's house had vanished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I heard Mr. Tate sniff, then blow his nose. I saw him shift his gun to the crook of his arm. I saw Miss Stephanie Crawford's face framed in the glass window of her front door. Miss Maudie appeared and stood beside her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus put his foot on the rung of a chair and rubbed his hand slowly down the side of his thigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There he is,\" he said softly.\n\nTim Johnson came into sight, walking dazedly in the inner rim of the curve parallel to the Radley house.\n\n\"Look at him,\" whispered Jem. \"Mr. Heck said they walked in a straight line. He can't even stay in the road.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He looks more sick than anything,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let anything get in front of him and he'll come straight at it.\"\n\nMr. Tate put his hand to his forehead and leaned forward. \"He's got it all right, Mr. Finch.\"\n\nTim Johnson was advancing at a snail's pace, but he was not playing or sniffing at foliage: he seemed dedicated to one course and motivated by an invisible force that was inching him toward us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We could see him shiver like a horse shedding flies; his jaw opened and shut; he was alist, but he was being pulled gradually toward us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's lookin' for a place to die,\" said Jem.\n\nMr. Tate turned around. \"He's far from dead, Jem, he hasn't got started yet.\"\n\nTim Johnson reached the side street that ran in front of the Radley Place, and what remained of his poor mind made him pause and seem to consider which road he would take." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made a few hesitant steps and stopped in front of the Radley gate; then he tried to turn around, but was having difficulty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus said, \"He's within range, Heck. You better get him now before he goes down the side street—Lord knows who's around the corner. Go inside, Cal.\"\n\nCalpurnia opened the screen door, latched it behind her, then unlatched it and held onto the hook. She tried to block Jem and me with her body, but we looked out from beneath her arms.\n\n\"Take him, Mr. Finch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Tate handed the rifle to Atticus; Jem and I nearly fainted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't waste time, Heck,\" said Atticus. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"Mr. Finch, this is one-shot job.\"\n\nAtticus shook his head vehemently: \"Don't just stand there, Heck! He won't wait all day for you—\"\n\n\"For God's sake, Mr. Finch, look where he is! Miss and you'll go straight into the Radley house! I can't shoot that well and you know it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I haven't shot a gun in thirty years—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Tate almost threw the rifle at Atticus. \"I'd feel mighty comfortable if you did now,\" he said.\n\nIn a fog, Jem and I watched our father take the gun and walk out into the middle of the street. He walked quickly, but I thought he moved like an underwater swimmer: time had slowed to a nauseating crawl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Atticus raised his glasses Calpurnia murmured, \"Sweet Jesus help him,\" and put her hands to her cheeks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus pushed his glasses to his forehead; they slipped down, and he dropped them in the street. In the silence, I heard them crack. Atticus rubbed his eyes and chin; we saw him blink hard.\n\nIn front of the Radley gate, Tim Johnson had made up what was left of his mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had finally turned himself around, to pursue his original course up our street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He made two steps forward, then stopped and raised his head. We saw his body go rigid.\n\nWith movements so swift they seemed simultaneous, Atticus's hand yanked a ball-tipped lever as he brought the gun to his shoulder.\n\nThe rifle cracked. Tim Johnson leaped, flopped over and crumpled on the sidewalk in a brown-and-white heap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't know what hit him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Tate jumped off the porch and ran to the Radley Place. He stopped in front of the dog, squatted, turned around and tapped his finger on his forehead above his left eye. \"You were a little to the right, Mr. Finch,\" he called.\n\n\"Always was,\" answered Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If I had my 'druthers I'd take a shotgun.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stooped and picked up his glasses, ground the broken lenses to powder under his heel, and went to Mr. Tate and stood looking down at Tim Johnson.\n\nDoors opened one by one, and the neighborhood slowly came alive. Miss Maudie walked down the steps with Miss Stephanie Crawford.\n\nJem was paralyzed. I pinched him to get him moving, but when Atticus saw us coming he called, \"Stay where you are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Mr. Tate and Atticus returned to the yard, Mr. Tate was smiling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll have Zeebo collect him,\" he said. \"You haven't forgot much, Mr. Finch. They say it never leaves you.\"\n\nAtticus was silent.\n\n\"Atticus?\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothin'.\"\n\n\"I saw that, One-Shot Finch!\"\n\nAtticus wheeled and faced Miss Maudie. They looked at one another without saying anything, and Atticus got into the sheriff's car." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come here,\" he said to Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't you go near that dog, you understand? Don't go near him, he's just as dangerous dead as alive.\"\n\n\"Yes sir,\" said Jem. \"Atticus—\"\n\n\"What, son?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's the matter with you, boy, can't you talk?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said Mr. Tate, grinning at Jem. \"Didn't you know your daddy's—\"\n\n\"Hush, Heck,\" said Atticus, \"let's go back to town.\"\n\nWhen they drove away, Jem and I went to Miss Stephanie's front steps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We sat waiting for Zeebo to arrive in the garbage truck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem sat in numb confusion, and Miss Stephanie said, \"Uh, uh, uh, who'da thought of a mad dog in February? Maybe he wasn't mad, maybe he was just crazy. I'd hate to see Harry Johnson's face when he gets in from the Mobile run and finds Atticus Finch's shot his dog. But he was just full of fleas from somewhere—\"\n\nMiss Maudie said Miss Stephanie'd be singing a different tune if Tim Johnson was still coming up the street, that they'd find out soon enough, they'd send his head to Montgomery.\n\nJem became vaguely articulate: \"'d you see him, Scout? 'd you see him just standin' there?... 'n' all of a sudden he just relaxed all over, an' it looked like that gun was a part of him... an' he did it so quick, like... I hafta aim for ten minutes 'fore I can hit somethin'...\"\n\nMiss Maudie grinned wickedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well now, Miss Jean Louise,\" she said, \"still think your father can't do anything? Still ashamed of him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nome,\" I said meekly.\n\n\"Forgot to tell you the other day that besides playing the Jew's Harp, Atticus Finch was the deadest shot in Maycomb County in his time.\"\n\n\"Dead shot...\" echoed Jem.\n\n\"That what I said, Jem Finch. Guess you'll change your tune now. The very idea, didn't you know his nickname was Ol' One-Shot when he was a boy? Why, down at the Landing when he was coming up, if he shot fifteen times and hit fourteen doves he'd complain about wasting ammunition.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He never said anything about that,\" Jem muttered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never said anything about it, did he?\"\n\n\"No ma'am.\"\n\n\"Wonder why he never goes huntin' now,\" I said.\n\n\"Maybe I can tell you,\" said Miss Maudie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If your father's anything, he's civilized in his heart. Marksmanship's a gift of God, a talent—oh, you have to practice to make it perfect, but shootin's different from playing the piano or the like. I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn't shoot till he had to, and he had to today.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Looks like he'd be proud of it,\" I said.\n\n\"People in their right minds never take pride in their talents,\" said Miss Maudie.\n\nWe saw Zeebo drive up. He took a pitchfork from the back of the garbage truck and gingerly lifted Tim Johnson." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pitched the dog onto the truck, then poured something from a gallon jug on and around the spot where Tim fell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't yawl come over here for a while,\" he called.\n\nWhen we went home I told Jem we'd really have something to talk about at school on Monday. Jem turned on me.\n\n\"Don't say anything about it, Scout,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What? I certainly am. Ain't everybody's daddy the deadest shot in Maycomb County.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem said, \"I reckon if he'd wanted us to know it, he'da told us. If he was proud of it, he'da told us.\"\n\n\"Maybe it just slipped his mind,\" I said.\n\n\"Naw, Scout, it's something you wouldn't understand. Atticus is real old, but I wouldn't care if he couldn't do anything—I wouldn't care if he couldn't do a blessed thing.\"\n\nJem picked up a rock and threw it jubilantly at the carhouse. Running after it, he called back: \"Atticus is a gentleman, just like me!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of Harper Lee spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we were small, Jem and I confined our activities to the southern neighborhood, but when I was well into the second grade at school and tormenting Boo Radley became passé, the business section of Maycomb drew us frequently up the street past the real property of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. It was impossible to go to town without passing her house unless we wished to walk a mile out of the way. Previous minor encounters with her left me with no desire for more, but Jem said I had to grow up some time.\n\nMrs. Dubose lived alone except for a Negro girl in constant attendance, two doors up the street from us in a house with steep front steps and a dog-trot hall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was very old; she spent most of each day in bed and the rest of it in a wheelchair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was rumored that she kept a CSA pistol concealed among her numerous shawls and wraps.\n\nJem and I hated her. If she was on the porch when we passed, we would be raked by her wrathful gaze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behavior, and given a melancholy prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was always nothing. We had long ago given up the idea of walking past her house on the opposite side of the street; that only made her raise her voice and let the whole neighborhood in on it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We could do nothing to please her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If I said as sunnily as I could, \"Hey, Mrs. Dubose,\" I would receive for an answer, \"Don't you say hey to me, you ugly girl! You say good afternoon, Mrs. Dubose!\"\n\nShe was vicious. Once she heard Jem refer to our father as \"Atticus\" and her reaction was apoplectic. Besides being the sassiest, most disrespectful mutts who ever passed her way, we were told that it was quite a pity our father had not remarried after our mother's death. A lovelier lady than our mother never lived, she said, and it was heartbreaking the way Atticus Finch let her children run wild." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I did not remember our mother, but Jem did—he would tell me about her sometimes—and he went livid when Mrs. Dubose shot us this message." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem, having survived Boo Radley, a mad dog and other terrors, and concluded that it was cowardly to stop at Miss Rachel's front steps and wait, and had decreed that we must run as far as the post office corner each evening to meet Atticus coming from work. Countless evenings Atticus would find Jem furious at something Mrs. Dubose had said when we went by.\n\n\"Easy does it, son,\" Atticus would say. \"She's an old lady and she's ill. You just hold your head high and be a gentleman. Whatever she says to you, it's your job not to let her make you mad.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem would say she must not be very sick, she hollered so." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the three of us came to her house, Atticus would sweep off his hat, wave gallantly to her and say, \"Good evening, Mrs. Dubose! You look like a picture this evening.\"\n\nI never heard Atticus say like a picture of what. He would tell her the courthouse news, and would say he hoped with all his heart she'd have a good day tomorrow. He would return his hat to his head, swing me to his shoulders in her very presence, and we would go home in the twilight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The day after Jem's twelfth birthday his money was burning up his pockets, so we headed for town in the early afternoon. Jem thought he had enough to buy a miniature steam engine for himself and a twirling baton for me.\n\nI had long had my eye on that baton; it was at V. J. Elmore's, it was bedecked with sequins and tinsel, it cost seventeen cents. It was then my burning ambition to grow up and twirl with the Maycomb County High School band." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Having developed my talent to where I could throw up a stick and almost catch it coming down, I had caused Calpurnia to deny me entrance to the house every time she saw me with a stick in my hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I felt that I could overcome this defect with a real baton, and I thought it generous of Jem to buy one for me.\n\nMrs. Dubose was stationed on her porch when we went by.\n\n\"Where are you two going at this time of day?\" she shouted. \"Playing hooky, I suppose. I'll just call up the principal and tell him!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She put her hands on the wheels of her chair and executed a perfect right face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aw, it's Saturday, Mrs. Dubose,\" said Jem.\n\n\"Makes no difference if it's Saturday,\" she said obscurely. \"I wonder if your father knows where you are?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Dubose, we've been goin' to town by ourselves since we were this high.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem placed his hand palm down about two feet above the sidewalk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't you lie to me!\" she yelled. \"Jeremy Finch, Maudie Atkinson told me you broke down her scuppernong arbor this morning. She's going to tell your father and then you'll wish you never saw the light of day! If you aren't sent to the reform school before next week, my name's not Dubose!\"\n\nJem, who hadn't been near Miss Maudie's scuppernong arbor since last summer, and who knew Miss Maudie wouldn't tell Atticus if he had, issued a general denial.\n\n\"Don't you contradict me!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Dubose bawled. \"And you—\" she pointed an arthritic finger at me—\"what are you doing in those overalls? You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady! You'll grow up waiting on tables if somebody doesn't change your ways—a Finch waiting on tables at the O.K. Café—hah!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was terrified. The O.K. Café was a dim organization on the north side of the square. I grabbed Jem's hand but he shook me loose.\n\n\"Come on, Scout,\" he whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't pay any attention to her, just hold your head high and be a gentleman.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Mrs. Dubose held us: \"Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one in the courthouse lawing for niggers!\"\n\nJem stiffened. Mrs. Dubose's shot had gone home and she knew it:\n\n\"Yes indeed, what has this world come to when a Finch goes against his raising? I'll tell you!\" She put her hand to her mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she drew it away, it trailed a long silver thread of saliva." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for!\"\n\nJem was scarlet. I pulled at his sleeve, and we were followed up the sidewalk by a philippic on our family's moral degeneration, the major premise of which was that half the Finches were in the asylum anyway, but if our mother were living we would not have come to such a state.\n\nI wasn't sure what Jem resented most, but I took umbrage at Mrs. Dubose's assessment of the family's mental hygiene. I had become almost accustomed to hearing insults aimed at Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But this was the first one coming from an adult." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except for her remarks about Atticus, Mrs. Dubose's attack was only routine. There was a hint of summer in the air—in the shadows it was cool, but the sun was warm, which meant good times coming: no school and Dill.\n\nJem bought his steam engine and we went by Elmore's for my baton. Jem took no pleasure in his acquisition; he jammed it in his pocket and walked silently beside me toward home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the way home I nearly hit Mr. Link Deas, who said, \"Look out now, Scout!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "when I missed a toss, and when we approached Mrs. Dubose's house my baton was grimy from having picked it up out of the dirt so many times.\n\nShe was not on the porch.\n\nIn later years, I sometimes wondered exactly what made Jem do it, what made him break the bonds of \"You just be a gentleman, son,\" and the phase of self-conscious rectitude he had recently entered. Jem had probably stood as much guff about Atticus lawing for niggers as had I, and I took it for granted that he kept his temper—he had a naturally tranquil disposition and a slow fuse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the time, however, I thought the only explanation for what he did was that for a few minutes he simply went mad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What Jem did was something I'd do as a matter of course had I not been under Atticus's interdict, which I assumed included not fighting horrible old ladies. We had just come to her gate when Jem snatched my baton and ran flailing wildly up the steps into Mrs. Dubose's front yard, forgetting everything Atticus had said, forgetting that she packed a pistol under her shawls, forgetting that if Mrs. Dubose missed, her girl Jessie probably wouldn't.\n\nHe did not begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was littered with green buds and leaves. He bent my baton against his knee, snapped it in two and threw it down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By that time I was shrieking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem yanked my hair, said he didn't care, he'd do it again if he got a chance, and if I didn't shut up he'd pull every hair out of my head. I didn't shut up and he kicked me. I lost my balance and fell on my face. Jem picked me up roughly but looked like he was sorry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was nothing to say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We did not choose to meet Atticus coming home that evening. We skulked around the kitchen until Calpurnia threw us out. By some voo-doo system Calpurnia seemed to know all about it. She was a less than satisfactory source of palliation, but she did give Jem a hot biscuit-and-butter which he tore in half and shared with me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It tasted like cotton." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We went to the livingroom. I picked up a football magazine, found a picture of Dixie Howell, showed it to Jem and said, \"This looks like you.\" That was the nicest thing I could think to say to him, but it was no help. He sat by the windows, hunched down in a rocking chair, scowling, waiting. Daylight faded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two geological ages later, we heard the soles of Atticus's shoes scrape the front steps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The screen door slammed, there was a pause—Atticus was at the hat rack in the hall—and we heard him call, \"Jem!\" His voice was like the winter wind.\n\nAtticus switched on the ceiling light in the livingroom and found us there, frozen still. He carried my baton in one hand; its filthy yellow tassel trailed on the rug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He held out his other hand; it contained fat camellia buds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jem,\" he said, \"are you responsible for this?\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\n\"Why'd you do it?\"\n\nJem said softly, \"She said you lawed for niggers and trash.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You did this because she said that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem's lips moved, but his \"Yes sir\" was inaudible.\n\n\"Son, I have no doubt that you've been annoyed by your contemporaries about me lawing for niggers, as you say, but to do something like this to a sick old lady is inexcusable. I strongly advise you to go down and have a talk with Mrs. Dubose,\" said Atticus. \"Come straight home afterward.\"\n\nJem did not move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go on, I said.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I followed Jem out of the livingroom. \"Come back here,\" Atticus said to me. I came back.\n\nAtticus picked up The Mobile Press and sat down in the rocking chair Jem had vacated. For the life of me, I did not understand how he could sit there in cold blood and read a newspaper when his only son stood an excellent chance of being murdered with a Confederate Army relic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course Jem antagonized me sometimes until I could kill him, but when it came down to it he was all I had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus did not seem to realize this, or if he did he didn't care.\n\nI hated him for that, but when you are in trouble you become easily tired: soon I was hiding in his lap and his arms were around me.\n\n\"You're mighty big to be rocked,\" he said.\n\n\"You don't care what happens to him,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You just send him on to get shot at when all he was doin' was standin' up for you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus pushed my head under his chin. \"It's not time to worry yet,\" he said. \"I never thought Jem'd be the one to lose his head over this—thought I'd have more trouble with you.\"\n\nI said I didn't see why we had to keep our heads anyway, that nobody I knew at school had to keep his head about anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Scout,\" said Atticus, \"when summer comes you'll have to keep your head about far worse things... it's not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down—well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you'll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn't let you down. This case, Tom Robinson's case, is something that goes to the essence of a man's conscience—Scout, I couldn't go to church and worship God if I didn't try to help that man.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Atticus, you must be wrong...\"\n\n\"How's that?\"\n\n\"Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong...\"\n\n\"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions,\" said Atticus, \"but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Jem returned, he found me still in Atticus's lap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, son?\" said Atticus. He set me on my feet, and I made a secret reconnaissance of Jem. He seemed to be all in one piece, but he had a queer look on his face. Perhaps she had given him a dose of calomel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I cleaned it up for her and said I was sorry, but I ain't, and that I'd work on 'em ever Saturday and try to make 'em grow back out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There was no point in saying you were sorry if you aren't,\" said Atticus. \"Jem, she's old and ill. You can't hold her responsible for what she says and does. Of course, I'd rather she'd have said it to me than to either of you, but we can't always have our 'druthers.\"\n\nJem seemed fascinated by a rose in the carpet. \"Atticus,\" he said, \"she wants me to read to her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Read to her?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes sir. She wants me to come every afternoon after school and Saturdays and read to her out loud for two hours. Atticus, do I have to?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"But she wants me to do it for a month.\"\n\n\"Then you'll do it for a month.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem planted his big toe delicately in the center of the rose and pressed it in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally he said, \"Atticus, it's all right on the sidewalk but inside it's—it's all dark and creepy. There's shadows and things on the ceiling...\"\n\nAtticus smiled grimly. \"That should appeal to your imagination. Just pretend you're inside the Radley house.\"\n\nThe following Monday afternoon Jem and I climbed the steep front steps to Mrs. Dubose's house and padded down the open hallway. Jem, armed with Ivanhoe and full of superior knowledge, knocked at the second door on the left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mrs. Dubose?\" he called." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jessie opened the wood door and unlatched the screen door.\n\n\"Is that you, Jem Finch?\" she said. \"You got your sister with you. I don't know—\"\n\n\"Let 'em both in, Jessie,\" said Mrs. Dubose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jessie admitted us and went off to the kitchen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An oppressive odor met us when we crossed the threshold, an odor I had met many times in rain-rotted gray houses where there are coal-oil lamps, water dippers, and unbleached domestic sheets. It always made me afraid, expectant, watchful.\n\nIn the corner of the room was a brass bed, and in the bed was Mrs. Dubose. I wondered if Jem's activities had put her there, and for a moment I felt sorry for her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was lying under a pile of quilts and looked almost friendly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a marble-topped washstand by her bed; on it were a glass with a teaspoon in it, a red ear syringe, a box of absorbent cotton, and a steel alarm clock standing on three tiny legs.\n\n\"So you brought that dirty little sister of yours, did you?\" was her greeting.\n\nJem said quietly, \"My sister ain't dirty and I ain't scared of you,\" although I noticed his knees shaking.\n\nI was expecting a tirade, but all she said was, \"You may commence reading, Jeremy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem sat down in a cane-bottom chair and opened Ivanhoe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I pulled up another one and sat beside him.\n\n\"Come closer,\" said Mrs. Dubose. \"Come to the side of the bed.\"\n\nWe moved our chairs forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was the nearest I had ever been to her, and the thing I wanted most to do was move my chair back again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was horrible. Her face was the color of a dirty pillowcase, and the corners of her mouth glistened with wet, which inched like a glacier down the deep grooves enclosing her chin. Old-age liver spots dotted her cheeks, and her pale eyes had black pinpoint pupils. Her hands were knobby, and the cuticles were grown up over her fingernails. Her bottom plate was not in, and her upper lip protruded; from time to time she would draw her nether lip to her upper plate and carry her chin with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This made the wet move faster." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't look any more than I had to. Jem reopened Ivanhoe and began reading. I tried to keep up with him, but he read too fast. When Jem came to a word he didn't know, he skipped it, but Mrs. Dubose would catch him and make him spell it out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem read for perhaps twenty minutes, during which time I looked at the soot-stained mantelpiece, out the window, anywhere to keep from looking at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he read along, I noticed that Mrs. Dubose's corrections grew fewer and farther between, that Jem had even left one sentence dangling in mid-air. She was not listening.\n\nI looked toward the bed.\n\nSomething had happened to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She lay on her back, with the quilts up to her chin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only her head and shoulders were visible. Her head moved slowly from side to side. From time to time she would open her mouth wide, and I could see her tongue undulate faintly. Cords of saliva would collect on her lips; she would draw them in, then open her mouth again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mouth seemed to have a private existence of its own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It worked separate and apart from the rest of her, out and in, like a clam hole at low tide. Occasionally it would say, \"Pt,\" like some vicious substance coming to a boil.\n\nI pulled Jem's sleeve.\n\nHe looked at me, then at the bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her head made its regular sweep toward us, and Jem said, \"Mrs. Dubose, are you all right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She did not hear him.\n\nThe alarm clock went off and scared us stiff. A minute later, nerves still tingling, Jem and I were on the sidewalk headed for home. We did not run away, Jessie sent us: before the clock wound down she was in the room pushing Jim and me out of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shoo,\" she said, \"you all go home.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem hesitated at the door.\n\n\"It's time for her medicine,\" Jessie said. As the door swung shut behind us I saw Jessie walking quickly toward Mrs. Dubose's bed.\n\nIt was only three forty-five when we got home, so Jem and I drop-kicked in the back yard until it was time to meet Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus had two yellow pencils for me and a football magazine for Jem, which I suppose was a silent reward for our first day's session with Mrs. Dubose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem told him what happened.\n\n\"Did she frighten you?\" asked Atticus.\n\n\"No sir,\" said Jem, \"but she's so nasty. She has fits or somethin'. She spits a lot.\"\n\n\"She can't help that. When people are sick they don't look nice sometimes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She scared me,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus looked at me over his glasses. \"You don't have to go with Jem, you know.\"\n\nThe next afternoon at Mrs. Dubose's was the same as the first, and so was the next, until gradually a pattern emerged: everything would begin normally—that is, Mrs. Dubose would hound Jem for a while on her favorite subjects, her camellias and our father's nigger-loving propensities; she would grow increasingly silent, then go away from us. The alarm clock would ring, Jessie would shoo us out, and the rest of the day was ours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Atticus,\" I said one evening, \"what exactly is a nigger-lover?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus's face was grave. \"Has somebody been calling you that?\"\n\n\"No sir, Mrs. Dubose calls you that. She warms up every afternoon calling you that. Francis called me that last Christmas, that's where I first heard it.\"\n\n\"Is that the reason you jumped on him?\" asked Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes sir...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why are you asking me what it means?\"\n\nI tried to explain to Atticus that it wasn't so much what Francis said that had infuriated me as the way he had said it. \"It was like he'd said snot-nose or somethin'.\"\n\n\"Scout,\" said Atticus, \"nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything—like snot-nose. It's hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You aren't really a nigger-lover, then, are you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody... I'm hard put, sometimes—baby, it's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you. So don't let Mrs. Dubose get you down. She has enough troubles of her own.\"\n\nOne afternoon a month later Jem was ploughing his way through Sir Walter Scout, as Jem called him, and Mrs. Dubose was correcting him at every turn, when there was a knock on the door. \"Come in!\" she screamed.\n\nAtticus came in. He went to the bed and took Mrs. Dubose's hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was coming from the office and didn't see the children,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought they might still be here.\"\n\nMrs. Dubose smiled at him. For the life of me I could not figure out how she could bring herself to speak to him when she seemed to hate him so. \"Do you know what time it is, Atticus?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she said. \"Exactly fourteen minutes past five. The alarm clock's set for five-thirty. I want you to know that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It suddenly came to me that each day we had been staying a little longer at Mrs. Dubose's, that the alarm clock went off a few minutes later every day, and that she was well into one of her fits by the time it sounded. Today she had antagonized Jem for nearly two hours with no intention of having a fit, and I felt hopelessly trapped. The alarm clock was the signal for our release; if one day it did not ring, what would we do?\n\n\"I have a feeling that Jem's reading days are numbered,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only a week longer, I think,\" she said, \"just to make sure...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem rose. \"But—\"\n\nAtticus put out his hand and Jem was silent. On the way home, Jem said he had to do it just for a month and the month was up and it wasn't fair.\n\n\"Just one more week, son,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" said Atticus.\n\nThe following week found us back at Mrs. Dubose's. The alarm clock had ceased sounding, but Mrs. Dubose would release us with, \"That'll do,\" so late in the afternoon Atticus would be home reading the paper when we returned. Although her fits had passed off, she was in every other way her old self: when Sir Walter Scott became involved in lengthy descriptions of moats and castles, Mrs. Dubose would become bored and pick on us:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jeremy Finch, I told you you'd live to regret tearing up my camellias. You regret it now, don't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem would say he certainly did.\n\n\"Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well, Jessie says the top's growing back out. Next time you'll know how to do it right, won't you? You'll pull it up by the roots, won't you?\"\n\nJem would say he certainly would.\n\n\"Don't you mutter at me, boy! You hold up your head and say yes ma'am. Don't guess you feel like holding it up, though, with your father what he is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem's chin would come up, and he would gaze at Mrs. Dubose with a face devoid of resentment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through the weeks he had cultivated an expression of polite and detached interest, which he would present to her in answer to her most blood-curdling inventions.\n\nAt last the day came. When Mrs. Dubose said, \"That'll do,\" one afternoon, she added, \"And that's all. Good-day to you.\"\n\nIt was over. We bounded down the sidewalk on a spree of sheer relief, leaping and howling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That spring was a good one: the days grew longer and gave us more playing time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem's mind was occupied mostly with the vital statistics of every college football player in the nation. Every night Atticus would read us the sports pages of the newspapers. Alabama might go to the Rose Bowl again this year, judging from its prospects, not one of whose names we could pronounce. Atticus was in the middle of Windy Seaton's column one evening when the telephone rang." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He answered it, then went to the hat rack in the hall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm going down to Mrs. Dubose's for a while,\" he said. \"I won't be long.\"\n\nBut Atticus stayed away until long past my bedtime. When he returned he was carrying a candy box." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus sat down in the living-room and put the box on the floor beside his chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What'd she want?\" asked Jem.\n\nWe had not seen Mrs. Dubose for over a month. She was never on the porch any more when we passed.\n\n\"She's dead, son,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She died a few minutes ago.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh,\" said Jem. \"Well.\"\n\n\"Well is right,\" said Atticus. \"She's not suffering any more. She was sick for a long time. Son, didn't you know what her fits were?\"\n\nJem shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She took it as a pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. She'd have spent the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony, but she was too contrary—\"\n\n\"Sir?\" said Jem.\n\nAtticus said, \"Just before your escapade she called me to make her will. Dr. Reynolds told her she had only a few months left. Her business affairs were in perfect order but she said, 'There's still one thing out of order.'\"\n\n\"What was that?\" Jem was perplexed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She said she was going to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody. Jem, when you're sick as she was, it's all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn't all right for her. She said she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that's what she did.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem said, \"You mean that's what her fits were?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's what they were. Most of the time you were reading to her I doubt if she heard a word you said. Her whole mind and body were concentrated on that alarm clock. If you hadn't fallen into her hands, I'd have made you go read to her anyway. It may have been some distraction. There was another reason—\"\n\n\"Did she die free?\" asked Jem.\n\n\"As the mountain air,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She was conscious to the last, almost. Conscious,\" he smiled, \"and cantankerous. She still disapproved heartily of my doings, and said I'd probably spend the rest of my life bailing you out of jail. She had Jessie fix you this box—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus reached down and picked up the candy box. He handed it to Jem.\n\nJem opened the box. Inside, surrounded by wads of damp cotton, was a white, waxy, perfect camellia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a Snow-on-the-Mountain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem's eyes nearly popped out of his head. \"Old hell-devil, old hell-devil!\" he screamed, flinging it down. \"Why can't she leave me alone?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a flash Atticus was up and standing over him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem buried his face in Atticus's shirt front. \"Sh-h,\" he said. \"I think that was her way of telling you—everything's all right now, Jem, everything's all right. You know, she was a great lady.\"\n\n\"A lady?\" Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: Harper Lee" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: \"Reckon he's got a tapeworm?\" Atticus said no, Jem was growing. I must be patient with him and disturb him as little as possible.\n\nThis change in Jem had come about in a matter of weeks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Dubose was not cold in her grave—Jem had seemed grateful enough for my company when he went to read to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Overnight, it seemed, Jem had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on me: several times he went so far as to tell me what to do. After one altercation when Jem hollered, \"It's time you started bein' a girl and acting right!\" I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia.\n\n\"Don't you fret too much over Mister Jem—\" she began." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mis-ter Jem?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, he's just about Mister Jem now.\"\n\n\"He ain't that old,\" I said. \"All he needs is somebody to beat him up, and I ain't big enough.\"\n\n\"Baby,\" said Calpurnia, \"I just can't help it if Mister Jem's growin' up. He's gonna want to be off to himself a lot now, doin' whatever boys do, so you just come right on in the kitchen when you feel lonesome. We'll find lots of things to do in here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The beginning of that summer boded well: Jem could do as he pleased; Calpurnia would do until Dill came." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.\n\nBut summer came and Dill was not there. I received a letter and a snapshot from him. The letter said he had a new father whose picture was enclosed, and he would have to stay in Meridian because they planned to build a fishing boat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His father was a lawyer like Atticus, only much younger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill's new father had a pleasant face, which made me glad Dill had captured him, but I was crushed. Dill concluded by saying he would love me forever and not to worry, he would come get me and marry me as soon as he got enough money together, so please write.\n\nThe fact that I had a permanent fiancé was little compensation for his absence: I had never thought about it, but summer was Dill by the fishpool smoking string, Dill's eyes alive with complicated plans to make Boo Radley emerge; summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longings we sometimes felt each other feel. With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I stayed miserable for two days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if that were not enough, the state legislature was called into emergency session and Atticus left us for two weeks. The Governor was eager to scrape a few barnacles off the ship of state; there were sit-down strikes in Birmingham; bread lines in the cities grew longer, people in the country grew poorer. But these were events remote from the world of Jem and me.\n\nWe were surprised one morning to see a cartoon in the Montgomery Advertiser above the caption, \"Maycomb's Finch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It showed Atticus barefooted and in short pants, chained to a desk: he was diligently writing on a slate while some frivolous-looking girls yelled, \"Yoo-hoo!\" at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a compliment,\" explained Jem. \"He spends his time doin' things that wouldn't get done if nobody did 'em.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\nIn addition to Jem's newly developed characteristics, he had acquired a maddening air of wisdom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, Scout, it's like reorganizing the tax systems of the counties and things. That kind of thing's pretty dry to most men.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Oh, go on and leave me alone. I'm readin' the paper.\"\n\nJem got his wish. I departed for the kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While she was shelling peas, Calpurnia suddenly said, \"What am I gonna do about you all's church this Sunday?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing, I reckon. Atticus left us collection.\"\n\nCalpurnia's eyes narrowed and I could tell what was going through her mind. \"Cal,\" I said, \"you know we'll behave. We haven't done anything in church in years.\"\n\nCalpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both fatherless and teacherless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Left to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Ann saying she didn't way to play Shadrach any more—Jem Finch said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there.\n\n\"Besides, Cal, this isn't the first time Atticus has left us,\" I protested.\n\n\"Yeah, but he makes certain your teacher's gonna be there. I didn't hear him say this time—reckon he forgot it.\" Calpurnia scratched her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suddenly she smiled. \"How'd you and Mister Jem like to come to church with me tomorrow?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Really?\"\n\n\"How 'bout it?\" grinned Calpurnia.\n\nIf Calpurnia had ever bathed me roughly before, it was nothing compared to her supervision of that Saturday night's routine. She made me soap all over twice, drew fresh water in the tub for each rinse; she stuck my head in the basin and washed it with Octagon soap and castile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had trusted Jem for years, but that night she invaded his privacy and provoked an outburst: \"Can't anybody take a bath in this house without the whole family lookin'?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next morning she began earlier than usual, to \"go over our clothes.\" When Calpurnia stayed overnight with us she slept on a folding cot in the kitchen; that morning it was covered with our Sunday habiliments. She had put so much starch in my dress it came up like a tent when I sat down. She made me wear a petticoat and she wrapped a pink sash tightly around my waist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She went over my patent-leather shoes with a cold biscuit until she saw her face in them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's like we were goin' to Mardi Gras,\" said Jem. \"What's all this for, Cal?\"\n\n\"I don't want anybody sayin' I don't look after my children,\" she muttered. \"Mister Jem, you absolutely can't wear that tie with that suit. It's green.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'smatter with that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Suit's blue. Can't you tell?\"\n\n\"Hee hee,\" I howled, \"Jem's color blind.\"\n\nHis face flushed angrily, but Calpurnia said, \"Now you all quit that. You're gonna go to First Purchase with smiles on your faces.\"\n\nFirst Purchase African M.E." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Church was in the Quarters outside the southern town limits, across the old sawmill tracks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an ancient paint-peeled frame building, the only church in Maycomb with a steeple and bell, called First Purchase because it was paid for from the first earnings of freed slaves. Negroes worshiped in it on Sundays and white men gambled in it on weekdays.\n\nThe churchyard was brick-hard clay, as was the cemetery beside it. If someone died during a dry spell, the body was covered with chunks of ice until rain softened the earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A few graves in the cemetery were marked with crumbling tombstones; newer ones were outlined with brightly colored glass and broken Coca-Cola bottles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lightning rods guarding some graves denoted dead who rested uneasily; stumps of burned-out candles stood at the heads of infant graves. It was a happy cemetery.\n\nThe warm bittersweet smell of clean Negro welcomed us as we entered the churchyard—Hearts of Love hairdressing mingled with asafoetida, snuff, Hoyt's Cologne, Brown's Mule, peppermint, and lilac talcum.\n\nWhen they saw Jem and me with Calpurnia, the men stepped back and took off their hats; the women crossed their arms at their waists, weekday gestures of respectful attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They parted and made a small pathway to the church door for us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia walked between Jem and me, responding to the greetings of her brightly clad neighbors.\n\n\"What you up to, Miss Cal?\" said a voice behind us.\n\nCalpurnia's hands went to our shoulders and we stopped and looked around: standing in the path behind us was a tall Negro woman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her weight was on one leg; she rested her left elbow in the curve of her hip, pointing at us with upturned palm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was bullet-headed with strange almond-shaped eyes, straight nose, and an Indian-bow mouth. She seemed seven feet high.\n\nI felt Calpurnia's hand dig into my shoulder. \"What you want, Lula?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she asked, in tones I had never heard her use." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She spoke quietly, contemptuously.\n\n\"I wants to know why you bringin' white chillun to nigger church.\"\n\n\"They's my comp'ny,\" said Calpurnia. Again I thought her voice strange: she was talking like the rest of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, an' I reckon you's comp'ny at the Finch house durin' the week.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A murmur ran through the crowd. \"Don't you fret,\" Calpurnia whispered to me, but the roses on her hat trembled indignantly.\n\nWhen Lula came up the pathway toward us Calpurnia said, \"Stop right there, nigger.\"\n\nLula stopped, but she said, \"You ain't got no business bringin' white chillun here—they got their church, we got our'n. It is our church, ain't it, Miss Cal?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia said, \"It's the same God, ain't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem said, \"Let's go home, Cal, they don't want us here—\"\n\nI agreed: they did not want us here. I sensed, rather than saw, that we were being advanced upon. They seemed to be drawing closer to us, but when I looked up at Calpurnia there was amusement in her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I looked down the pathway again, Lula was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In her place was a solid mass of colored people.\n\nOne of them stepped from the crowd. It was Zeebo, the garbage collector. \"Mister Jem,\" he said, \"we're mighty glad to have you all here. Don't pay no 'tention to Lula, she's contentious because Reverend Sykes threatened to church her. She's a troublemaker from way back, got fancy ideas an' haughty ways—we're mighty glad to have you all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With that, Calpurnia led us to the church door where we were greeted by Reverend Sykes, who led us to the front pew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "First Purchase was unceiled and unpainted within. Along its walls unlighted kerosense lamps hung on brass brackets; pine benches served as pews. Behind the rough oak pulpit a faded pink silk banner proclaimed God Is Love, the church's only decoration except a roto-gravure print of Hunt's The Light of the World. There was no sign of piano, organ, hymn-books, church programs—the familiar ecclesiastical impedimenta we saw every Sunday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was dim inside, with a damp coolness slowly dispelled by the gathering congregation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At each seat was a cheap cardboard fan bearing a garish Garden of Gethsemane, courtesy Tyndal's Hardware Co. (You-Name-It-We-Sell-It).\n\nCalpurnia motioned Jem and me to the end of the row and placed herself between us. She fished in her purse, drew out her handkerchief, and untied the hard wad of change in its corner. She gave a dime to me and a dime to Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've got ours,\" he whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You keep it,\" Calpurnia said, \"you're my company.\" Jem's face showed brief indecision on the ethics of withholding his own dime, but his innate courtesy won and he shifted his dime to his pocket. I did likewise with no qualms.\n\n\"Cal,\" I whispered, \"where are the hymn-books?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We don't have any,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well how—?\"\n\n\"Sh-h,\" she said. Reverend Sykes was standing behind the pulpit staring the congregation to silence. He was a short, stocky man in a black suit, black tie, white shirt, and a gold watch-chain that glinted in the light from the frosted windows.\n\nHe said, \"Brethren and sisters, we are particularly glad to have company with us this morning. Mister and Miss Finch. You all know their father. Before I begin I will read some announcements.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reverend Sykes shuffled some papers, chose one and held it at arm's length." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Missionary Society meets in the home of Sister Annette Reeves next Tuesday. Bring your sewing.\"\n\nHe read from another paper. \"You all know of Brother Tom Robinson's trouble. He has been a faithful member of First Purchase since he was a boy. The collection taken up today and for the next three Sundays will go to Helen—his wife, to help her out at home.\"\n\nI punched Jem. \"That's the Tom Atticus's de—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sh-h!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I turned to Calpurnia but was hushed before I opened my mouth. Subdued, I fixed my attention upon Reverend Sykes, who seemed to be waiting for me to settle down. \"Will the music superintendent lead us in the first hymn,\" he said.\n\nZeebo rose from his pew and walked down the center aisle, stopping in front of us and facing the congregation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was carrying a battered hymn-book." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened it and said, \"We'll sing number two seventy-three.\"\n\nThis was too much for me. \"How're we gonna sing it if there ain't any hymn-books?\"\n\nCalpurnia smiled. \"Hush baby,\" she whispered, \"you'll see in a minute.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Zeebo cleared his throat and read in a voice like the rumble of distant artillery:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's a land beyond the river.\"\n\nMiraculously on pitch, a hundred voices sang out Zeebo's words. The last syllable, held to a husky hum, was followed by Zeebo saying,\n\n\"That we call the sweet forever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Music again swelled around us; the last note lingered and Zeebo met it with the next line: \"And we only reach that shore by faith's decree.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The congregation hesitated, Zeebo repeated the line carefully, and it was sung. At the chorus Zeebo closed the book, a signal for the congregation to proceed without his help.\n\nOn the dying notes of \"Jubilee,\" Zeebo said, \"In that far-off sweet forever, just beyond the shining river.\"\n\nLine for line, voices followed in simple harmony until the hymn ended in a melancholy murmur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I looked at Jem, who was looking at Zeebo from the corners of his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I didn't believe it either, but we had both heard it.\n\nReverend Sykes then called on the Lord to bless the sick and the suffering, a procedure no different from our church practice, except Reverend Sykes directed the Deity's attention to several specific cases.\n\nHis sermon was a forthright denunciation of sin, an austere declaration of the motto on the wall behind him: he warned his flock against the evils of heady brews, gambling, and strange women. Bootleggers caused enough trouble in the Quarters, but women were worse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all clergymen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem and I had heard the same sermon Sunday after Sunday, with only one exception. Reverend Sykes used his pulpit more freely to express his views on individual lapses from grace: Jim Hardy had been absent from church for five Sundays and he wasn't sick; Constance Jackson had better watch her ways—she was in grave danger for quarreling with her neighbors; she had erected the only spite fence in the history of the Quarters.\n\nReverend Sykes closed his sermon. He stood beside a table in front of the pulpit and requested the morning offering, a proceeding that was strange to Jem and me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One by one, the congregation came forward and dropped nickels and dimes into a black enameled coffee can." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem and I followed suit, and received a soft, \"Thank you, thank you,\" as our dimes clinked.\n\nTo our amazement, Reverend Sykes emptied the can onto the table and raked the coins into his hand. He straightened up and said, \"This is not enough, we must have ten dollars.\"\n\nThe congregation stirred. \"You all know what it's for—Helen can't leave those children to work while Tom's in jail. If everybody gives one more dime, we'll have it—\" Reverend Sykes waved his hand and called to someone in the back of the church." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alec, shut the doors. Nobody leaves here till we have ten dollars.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia scratched in her handbag, and brought forth a battered leather coin purse. \"Now Cal,\" Jem whispered, when she handed him a shiny quarter, \"we can put ours in. Gimme your dime, Scout.\"\n\nThe church was becoming stuffy, and it occurred to me that Reverend Sykes intended to sweat the amount due out of his flock. Fans crackled, feet shuffled, tobacco-chewers were in agony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reverend Sykes startled me by saying sternly, \"Carlow Richardson, I haven't seen you up this aisle yet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A thin man in khaki pants came up the aisle and deposited a coin. The congregation murmured approval.\n\nReverend Sykes then said, \"I want all of you with no children to make a sacrifice and give one more dime apiece. Then we'll have it.\"\n\nSlowly, painfully, the ten dollars was collected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door was opened, and the gust of warm air revived us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Zeebo lined On Jordan's Stormy Banks, and church was over.\n\nI wanted to stay and explore, but Calpurnia propelled me up the aisle ahead of her. At the church door, while she paused to talk with Zeebo and his family, Jem and I chatted with Reverend Sykes. I was bursting with questions, but decided I would wait and let Calpurnia answer them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We were 'specially glad to have you all here,\" said Reverend Sykes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This church has no better friend than your daddy.\"\n\nMy curiosity burst: \"Why were you all takin' up collection for Tom Robinson's wife?\"\n\n\"Didn't you hear why?\" asked Reverend Sykes. \"Helen's got three little'uns and she can't go out to work—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why can't she take 'em with her, Reverend?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I asked. It was customary for field Negroes with tiny children to deposit them in whatever shade there was while their parents worked—usually the babies sat in the shade between two rows of cotton. Those unable to sit were strapped papoose-style on their mothers' backs, or resided in extra cotton bags.\n\nReverend Sykes hesitated. \"To tell you the truth, Miss Jean Louise, Helen's finding it hard to get work these days... when it's picking time, I think Mr. Link Deas'll take her.\"\n\n\"Why not, Reverend?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before he could answer, I felt Calpurnia's hand on my shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At its pressure I said, \"We thank you for lettin' us come.\" Jem echoed me, and we made our way homeward.\n\n\"Cal, I know Tom Robinson's in jail an' he's done somethin' awful, but why won't folks hire Helen?\" I asked.\n\nCalpurnia, in her navy voile dress and tub of a hat, walked between Jem and me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's because of what folks say Tom's done,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Folks aren't anxious to—to have anything to do with any of his family.\"\n\n\"Just what did he do, Cal?\"\n\nCalpurnia sighed. \"Old Mr. Bob Ewell accused him of rapin' his girl an' had him arrested an' put in jail—\"\n\n\"Mr. Ewell?\" My memory stirred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does he have anything to do with those Ewells that come every first day of school an' then go home? Why, Atticus said they were absolute trash—I never heard Atticus talk about folks the way he talked about the Ewells. He said—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, those are the ones.\"\n\n\"Well, if everybody in Maycomb knows what kind of folks the Ewells are they'd be glad to hire Helen... what's rape, Cal?\"\n\n\"It's somethin' you'll have to ask Mr. Finch about,\" she said. \"He can explain it better than I can. You all hungry? The Reverend took a long time unwindin' this morning, he's not usually so tedious.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's just like our preacher,\" said Jem, \"but why do you all sing hymns that way?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Linin'?\" she asked.\n\n\"Is that what it is?\"\n\n\"Yeah, it's called linin'. They've done it that way as long as I can remember.\"\n\nJem said it looked like they could save the collection money for a year and get some hymn-books." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia laughed. \"Wouldn't do any good,\" she said. \"They can't read.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't read?\" I asked. \"All those folks?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Calpurnia nodded. \"Can't but about four folks in First Purchase read... I'm one of 'em.\"\n\n\"Where'd you go to school, Cal?\" asked Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nowhere. Let's see now, who taught me my letters? It was Miss Maudie Atkinson's aunt, old Miss Buford—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you that old?\"\n\n\"I'm older than Mr. Finch, even.\" Calpurnia grinned. \"Not sure how much, though. We started rememberin' one time, trying to figure out how old I was—I can remember back just a few years more'n he can, so I'm not much older, when you take off the fact that men can't remember as well as women.\"\n\n\"What's your birthday, Cal?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I just have it on Christmas, it's easier to remember that way—I don't have a real birthday.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But Cal,\" Jem protested, \"you don't look even near as old as Atticus.\"\n\n\"Colored folks don't show their ages so fast,\" she said.\n\n\"Maybe because they can't read. Cal, did you teach Zeebo?\"\n\n\"Yeah, Mister Jem. There wasn't a school even when he was a boy. I made him learn, though.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Zeebo was Calpurnia's eldest son." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If I had ever thought about it, I would have known that Calpurnia was of mature years—Zeebo had half-grown children—but then I had never thought about it.\n\n\"Did you teach him out of a primer, like us?\" I asked.\n\n\"No, I made him get a page of the Bible every day, and there was a book Miss Buford taught me out of—bet you don't know where I got it,\" she said.\n\nWe didn't know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia said, \"Your Grandaddy Finch gave it to me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Were you from the Landing?\" Jem asked. \"You never told us that.\"\n\n\"I certainly am, Mister Jem. Grew up down there between the Buford Place and the Landin'. I've spent all my days workin' for the Finches or the Bufords, an' I moved to Maycomb when your daddy and your mamma married.\"\n\n\"What was the book, Cal?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Blackstone's Commentaries.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem was thunderstruck. \"You mean you taught Zeebo outa that?\"\n\n\"Why yes sir, Mister Jem.\" Calpurnia timidly put her fingers to her mouth. \"They were the only books I had. Your grandaddy said Mr. Blackstone wrote fine English—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's why you don't talk like the rest of 'em,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The rest of who?\"\n\n\"Rest of the colored folks. Cal, but you talked like they did in church...\"\n\nThat Calpurnia led a modest double life never dawned on me. The idea that she had a separate existence outside our household was a novel one, to say nothing of her having command of two languages." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cal,\" I asked, \"why do you talk nigger-talk to the—to your folks when you know it's not right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, in the first place I'm black—\"\n\n\"That doesn't mean you hafta talk that way when you know better,\" said Jem.\n\nCalpurnia tilted her hat and scratched her head, then pressed her hat down carefully over her ears. \"It's right hard to say,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Suppose you and Scout talked colored-folks' talk at home—it'd be out of place, wouldn't it? Now what if I talked white-folks' talk at church, and with my neighbors? They'd think I was puttin' on airs to beat Moses.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But Cal, you know better,\" I said.\n\n\"It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike—in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.\"\n\n\"Cal, can I come to see you sometimes?\"\n\nShe looked down at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"See me, honey? You see me every day.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Out to your house,\" I said. \"Sometimes after work? Atticus can get me.\"\n\n\"Any time you want to,\" she said. \"We'd be glad to have you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We were on the sidewalk by the Radley Place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look on the porch yonder,\" Jem said.\n\nI looked over to the Radley Place, expecting to see its phantom occupant sunning himself in the swing. The swing was empty.\n\n\"I mean our porch,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I looked down the street." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Enarmored, upright, uncompromising, Aunt Alexandra was sitting in a rocking chair exactly as if she had sat there every day of her life." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with four sentences in the style of Harper Lee." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Put my bag in the front bedroom, Calpurnia,\" was the first thing Aunt Alexandra said. \"Jean Louise, stop scratching your head,\" was the second thing she said.\n\nCalpurnia picked up Aunty's heavy suitcase and opened the door. \"I'll take it,\" said Jem, and took it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I heard the suitcase hit the bedroom floor with a thump." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sound had a dull permanence about it.\n\n\"Have you come for a visit, Aunty?\" I asked. Aunt Alexandra's visits from the Landing were rare, and she traveled in state. She owned a bright green square Buick and a black chauffeur, both kept in an unhealthy state of tidiness, but today they were nowhere to be seen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Didn't your father tell you?\" she asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem and I shook our heads.\n\n\"Probably he forgot. He's not in yet, is he?\"\n\n\"Nome, he doesn't usually get back till late afternoon,\" said Jem.\n\n\"Well, your father and I decided it was time I came to stay with you for a while.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For a while\" in Maycomb meant anything from three days to thirty years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem and I exchanged glances.\n\n\"Jem's growing up now and you are too,\" she said to me. \"We decided that it would be best for you to have some feminine influence. It won't be many years, Jean Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys—\"\n\nI could have made several answers to this: Cal's a girl, it would be many years before I would be interested in boys, I would never be interested in clothes... but I kept quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about Uncle Jimmy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked Jem. \"Is he comin', too?\"\n\n\"Oh no, he's staying at the Landing. He'll keep the place going.\"\n\nThe moment I said, \"Won't you miss him?\" I realized that this was not a tactful question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Uncle Jimmy present or Uncle Jimmy absent made not much difference, he never said anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aunt Alexandra ignored my question.\n\nI could think of nothing else to say to her. In fact I could never think of anything to say to her, and I sat thinking of past painful conversations between us: How are you, Jean Louise? Fine, thank you ma'am, how are you?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Very well, thank you; what have you been doing with yourself?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothin'. Don't you do anything? Nome. Certainly you have friends? Yessum. Well what do you all do? Nothin'.\n\nIt was plain that Aunty thought me dull in the extreme, because I once heard her tell Atticus that I was sluggish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a story behind all this, but I had no desire to extract it from her then: today was Sunday, and Aunt Alexandra was positively irritable on the Lord's Day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I guess it was her Sunday corset. She was not fat, but solid, and she chose protective garments that drew up her bosom to giddy heights, pinched in her waist, flared out her rear, and managed to suggest that Aunt Alexandra's was once an hour-glass figure. From any angle, it was formidable.\n\nThe remainder of the afternoon went by in the gentle gloom that descends when relatives appear, but was dispelled when we heard a car turn in the driveway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Atticus, home from Montgomery." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem, forgetting his dignity, ran with me to meet him. Jem seized his briefcase and bag, I jumped into his arms, felt his vague dry kiss and said, \"'dyou bring me a book? 'dyou know Aunty's here?\"\n\nAtticus answered both questions in the affirmative. \"How'd you like for her to come live with us?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I said I would like it very much, which was a lie, but one must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We felt it was time you children needed—well, it's like this, Scout,\" Atticus said. \"Your aunt's doing me a favor as well as you all. I can't stay here all day with you, and the summer's going to be a hot one.\"\n\n\"Yes sir,\" I said, not understanding a word he said. I had an idea, however, that Aunt Alexandra's appearance on the scene was not so much Atticus's doing as hers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aunty had a way of declaring What Is Best For The Family, and I suppose her coming to live with us was in that category." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maycomb welcomed her. Miss Maudie Atkinson baked a Lane cake so loaded with shinny it made me tight; Miss Stephanie Crawford had long visits with Aunt Alexandra, consisting mostly of Miss Stephanie shaking her head and saying, \"Uh, uh, uh.\" Miss Rachel next door had Aunty over for coffee in the afternoons, and Mr. Nathan Radley went so far as to come up in the front yard and say he was glad to see her.\n\nWhen she settled in with us and life resumed its daily pace, Aunt Alexandra seemed as if she had always lived with us. Her Missionary Society refreshments added to her reputation as a hostess (she did not permit Calpurnia to make the delicacies required to sustain the Society through long reports on Rice Christians); she joined and became Secretary of the Maycomb Amanuensis Club." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To all parties present and participating in the life of the country, Aunt Alexandra was one of the last of her kind: she had river-boat, boarding-school manners; let any moral come along and she would uphold it; she was born in the objective case; she was an incurable gossip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Aunt Alexandra went to school, self-doubt could not be found in any textbook, so she knew not its meaning. She was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn.\n\nShe never let a chance escape her to point out the shortcomings of other tribal groups to the greater glory of our own, a habit that amused Jem rather than annoyed him: \"Aunty better watch how she talks—scratch most folks in Maycomb and they're kin to us.\"\n\nAunt Alexandra, in underlining the moral of young Sam Merriweather's suicide, said it was caused by a morbid streak in the family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Let a sixteen-year-old girl giggle in the choir and Aunty would say, \"It just goes to show you, all the Penfield women are flighty.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everybody in Maycomb, it seemed, had a Streak: a Drinking Streak, a Gambling Streak, a Mean Streak, a Funny Streak.\n\nOnce, when Aunty assured us that Miss Stephanie Crawford's tendency to mind other people's business was hereditary, Atticus said: \"Sister, when you stop to think about it, our generation's practically the first in the Finch family not to marry its cousins. Would you say the Finches have an Incestuous Streak?\"\n\nAunty said no, that's where we got our small hands and feet.\n\nI never understood her preoccupation with heredity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That makes the Ewells fine folks, then,\" said Jem. The tribe of which Burris Ewell and his brethren consisted had lived on the same plot of earth behind the Maycomb dump, and had thrived on county welfare money for three generations.\n\nAunt Alexandra's theory had something behind it, though. Maycomb was an ancient town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was twenty miles east of Finch's Landing, awkwardly inland for such an old town." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Maycomb would have been closer to the river had it not been for the nimble-wittedness of one Sinkfield, who in the dawn of history operated an inn where two pig-trails met, the only tavern in the territory. Sinkfield, no patriot, served and supplied ammunition to Indians and settlers alike, neither knowing or caring whether he was a part of the Alabama Territory or the Creek Nation so long as business was good. Business was excellent when Governor William Wyatt Bibb, with a view to promoting the newly created county's domestic tranquility, dispatched a team of surveyors to locate its exact center and there establish its seat of government. The surveyors, Sinkfield's guests, told their host that he was in the territorial confines of Maycomb County, and showed him the probable spot where the county seat would be built." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had not Sinkfield made a bold stroke to preserve his holdings, Maycomb would have sat in the middle of Winston Swamp, a place totally devoid of interest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, Maycomb grew and sprawled out from its hub, Sinkfield's Tavern, because Sinkfield reduced his guests to myopic drunkenness one evening, induced them to bring forward their maps and charts, lop off a little here, add a bit there, and adjust the center of the county to meet his requirements. He sent them packing next day armed with their charts and five quarts of shinny in their saddlebags—two apiece and one for the Governor.\n\nBecause its primary reason for existence was government, Maycomb was spared the grubbiness that distinguished most Alabama towns its size. In the beginning its buildings were solid, its courthouse proud, its streets graciously wide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maycomb's proportion of professional people ran high: one went there to have his teeth pulled, his wagon fixed, his heart listened to, his money deposited, his soul saved, his mules vetted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the ultimate wisdom of Sinkfield's maneuver is open to question. He placed the young town too far away from the only kind of public transportation in those days—river-boat—and it took a man from the north end of the county two days to travel to Maycomb for store-bought goods. As a result the town remained the same size for a hundred years, an island in a patchwork sea of cottonfields and timberland.\n\nAlthough Maycomb was ignored during the War Between the States, Reconstruction rule and economic ruin forced the town to grow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It grew inward. New people so rarely settled there, the same families married the same families until the members of the community looked faintly alike." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Occasionally someone would return from Montgomery or Mobile with an outsider, but the result caused only a ripple in the quiet stream of family resemblance. Things were more or less the same during my early years.\n\nThere was indeed a caste system in Maycomb, but to my mind it worked this way: the old citizens, the present generation of people who had lived side by side for years and years, were utterly predictable to one another: they took for granted attitudes, character shadings, even gestures, as having been repeated in each generation and refined by time. Thus the dicta No Crawford Minds His Own Business, Every Third Merriweather Is Morbid, The Truth Is Not in the Delafields, All the Bufords Walk Like That, were simply guides to daily living: never take a check from a Delafield without a discreet call to the bank; Miss Maudie Atkinson's shoulder stoops because she was a Buford; if Mrs. Grace Merriweather sips gin out of Lydia E. Pinkham bottles it's nothing unusual—her mother did the same." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aunt Alexandra fitted into the world of Maycomb like a hand into a glove, but never into the world of Jem and me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I so often wondered how she could be Atticus's and Uncle Jack's sister that I revived half-remembered tales of changelings and mandrake roots that Jem had spun long ago.\n\nThese were abstract speculations for the first month of her stay, as she had little to say to Jem or me, and we saw her only at mealtimes and at night before we went to bed. It was summer and we were outdoors. Of course some afternoons when I would run inside for a drink of water, I would find the livingroom overrun with Maycomb ladies, sipping, whispering, fanning, and I would be called: \"Jean Louise, come speak to these ladies.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I appeared in the doorway, Aunty would look as if she regretted her request; I was usually mud-splashed or covered with sand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Speak to your Cousin Lily,\" she said one afternoon, when she had trapped me in the hall.\n\n\"Who?\" I said.\n\n\"Your Cousin Lily Brooke,\" said Aunt Alexandra.\n\n\"She our cousin? I didn't know that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aunt Alexandra managed to smile in a way that conveyed a gentle apology to Cousin Lily and firm disapproval of me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Cousin Lily Brooke left I knew I was in for it.\n\nIt was a sad thing that my father had neglected to tell me about the Finch Family, or to install any pride into his children. She summoned Jem, who sat warily on the sofa beside me. She left the room and returned with a purple-covered book on which Meditations of Joshua S. St. Clair was stamped in gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your cousin wrote this,\" said Aunt Alexandra." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was a beautiful character.\"\n\nJem examined the small volume. \"Is this the Cousin Joshua who was locked up for so long?\"\n\nAunt Alexandra said, \"How did you know that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why, Atticus said he went round the bend at the University. Said he tried to shoot the president. Said Cousin Joshua said he wasn't anything but a sewer-inspector and tried to shoot him with an old flintlock pistol, only it just blew up in his hand. Atticus said it cost the family five hundred dollars to get him out of that one—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aunt Alexandra was standing stiff as a stork. \"That's all,\" she said. \"We'll see about this.\"\n\nBefore bedtime I was in Jem's room trying to borrow a book, when Atticus knocked and entered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat on the side of Jem's bed, looked at us soberly, then he grinned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Er—h'rm,\" he said. He was beginning to preface some things he said with a throaty noise, and I thought he must at last be getting old, but he looked the same. \"I don't exactly know how to say this,\" he began.\n\n\"Well, just say it,\" said Jem. \"Have we done something?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Our father was actually fidgeting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I just want to explain to you that—your Aunt Alexandra asked me... son, you know you're a Finch, don't you?\"\n\n\"That's what I've been told.\" Jem looked out of the corners of his eyes. His voice rose uncontrollably." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Atticus, what's the matter?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus crossed his knees and folded his arms. \"I'm trying to tell you the facts of life.\"\n\nJem's disgust deepened. \"I know all that stuff,\" he said.\n\nAtticus suddenly grew serious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In his lawyer's voice, without a shade of inflection, he said: \"Your aunt has asked me to try and impress upon you and Jean Louise that you are not from run-of-the-mill people, that you are the product of several generations' gentle breeding—\" Atticus paused, watching me locate an elusive redbug on my leg." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gentle breeding,\" he continued, when I had found and scratched it, \"and that you should try to live up to your name—\" Atticus persevered in spite of us: \"She asked me to tell you you must try to behave like the little lady and gentleman that you are. She wants to talk to you about the family and what it's meant to Maycomb County through the years, so you'll have some idea of who you are, so you might be moved to behave accordingly,\" he concluded at a gallop.\n\nStunned, Jem and I looked at each other, then at Atticus, whose collar seemed to worry him. We did not speak to him.\n\nPresently I picked up a comb from Jem's dresser and ran its teeth along the edge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stop that noise,\" Atticus said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His curtness stung me. The comb was midway in its journey, and I banged it down. For no reason I felt myself beginning to cry, but I could not stop. This was not my father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My father never thought these thoughts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My father never spoke so. Aunt Alexandra had put him up to this, somehow. Through my tears I saw Jem standing in a similar pool of isolation, his head cocked to one side.\n\nThere was nowhere to go, but I turned to go and met Atticus's vest front." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I buried my head in it and listened to the small internal noises that went on behind the light blue cloth: his watch ticking, the faint crackle of his starched shirt, the soft sound of his breathing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your stomach's growling,\" I said.\n\n\"I know it,\" he said.\n\n\"You better take some soda.\"\n\n\"I will,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Atticus, is all this behavin' an' stuff gonna make things different? I mean are you—?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I felt his hand on the back of my head. \"Don't you worry about anything,\" he said. \"It's not time to worry.\"\n\nWhen I heard that, I knew he had come back to us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The blood in my legs began to flow again, and I raised my head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You really want us to do all that? I can't remember everything Finches are supposed to do...\"\n\n\"I don't want you to remember it. Forget it.\"\n\nHe went to the door and out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He nearly slammed it, but caught himself at the last minute and closed it softly." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although we heard no more about the Finch family from Aunt Alexandra, we heard plenty from the town. On Saturdays, armed with our nickels, when Jem permitted me to accompany him (he was now positively allergic to my presence when in public), we would squirm our way through sweating sidewalk crowds and sometimes hear, \"There's his chillun,\" or, \"Yonder's some Finches.\" Turning to face our accusers, we would see only a couple of farmers studying the enema bags in the Mayco Drugstore window. Or two dumpy countrywomen in straw hats sitting in a Hoover cart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They c'n go loose and rape up the countryside for all 'em who run this county care,\" was one obscure observation we met head on from a skinny gentleman when he passed us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which reminded me that I had a question to ask Atticus.\n\n\"What's rape?\" I asked him that night.\n\nAtticus looked around from behind his paper. He was in his chair by the window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As we grew older, Jem and I thought it generous to allow Atticus thirty minutes to himself after supper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sighed, and said rape was carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent.\n\n\"Well if that's all it is why did Calpurnia dry me up when I asked her what it was?\"\n\nAtticus looked pensive. \"What's that again?\"\n\n\"Well, I asked Calpurnia comin' from church that day what it was and she said ask you but I forgot to and now I'm askin' you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His paper was now in his lap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Again, please,\" he said.\n\nI told him in detail about our trip to church with Calpurnia. Atticus seemed to enjoy it, but Aunt Alexandra, who was sitting in a corner quietly sewing, put down her embroidery and stared at us.\n\n\"You all were coming back from Calpurnia's church that Sunday?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem said, \"Yessum, she took us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I remembered something. \"Yessum, and she promised me I could come out to her house some afternoon. Atticus, I'll go next Sunday if it's all right, can I? Cal said she'd come get me if you were off in the car.\"\n\n\"You may not.\"\n\nAunt Alexandria said it. I wheeled around, startled, then turned back to Atticus in time to catch his swift glance at her, but it was too late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I said, \"I didn't ask you!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a big man, Atticus could get up and down from a chair faster than anyone I ever knew. He was on his feet. \"Apologize to your aunt,\" he said.\n\n\"I didn't ask her, I asked you—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus turned his head and pinned me to the wall with his good eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His voice was deadly: \"First, apologize to your aunt.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Aunty,\" I muttered.\n\n\"Now then,\" he said. \"Let's get this clear: you do as Calpurnia tells you, you do as I tell you, and as long as your aunt's in this house, you will do as she tells you. Understand?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I understood, pondered a while, and concluded that the only way I could retire with a shred of dignity was to go to the bathroom, where I stayed long enough to make them think I had to go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Returning, I lingered in the hall to hear a fierce discussion going on in the livingroom. Through the door I could see Jem on the sofa with a football magazine in front of his face, his head turning as if its pages contained a live tennis match.\n\n\"...you've got to do something about her,\" Aunty was saying. \"You've let things go on too long, Atticus, too long.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't see any harm in letting her go out there. Cal'd look after her there as well as she does here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who was the \"her\" they were talking about? My heart sank: me. I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life I thought of running away. Immediately.\n\n\"Atticus, it's all right to be soft-hearted, you're an easy man, but you have a daughter to think of. A daughter who's growing up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's what I am thinking of.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And don't try to get around it. You've got to face it sooner or later and it might as well be tonight. We don't need her now.\"\n\nAtticus's voice was even: \"Alexandra, Calpurnia's not leaving this house until she wants to. You may think otherwise, but I couldn't have got along without her all these years. She's a faithful member of this family and you'll simply have to accept things the way they are. Besides, sister, I don't want you working your head off for us—you've no reason to do that. We still need Cal as much as we ever did.\"\n\n\"But Atticus—\"\n\n\"Besides, I don't think the children've suffered one bit from her having brought them up. If anything, she's been harder on them in some ways than a mother would have been... she's never let them get away with anything, she's never indulged them the way most colored nurses do. She tried to bring them up according to her lights, and Cal's lights are pretty good—and another thing, the children love her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I breathed again. It wasn't me, it was only Calpurnia they were talking about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Revived, I entered the livingroom. Atticus had retreated behind his newspaper and Aunt Alexandra was worrying her embroidery. Punk, punk, punk, her needle broke the taut circle. She stopped, and pulled the cloth tighter: punk-punk-punk. She was furious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem got up and padded across the rug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He motioned me to follow. He led me to his room and closed the door. His face was grave.\n\n\"They've been fussing, Scout.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem and I fussed a great deal these days, but I had never heard of or seen anyone quarrel with Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was not a comfortable sight.\n\n\"Scout, try not to antagonize Aunty, hear?\"\n\nAtticus's remarks were still rankling, which made me miss the request in Jem's question. My feathers rose again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You tryin' to tell me what to do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naw, it's—he's got a lot on his mind now, without us worrying him.\"\n\n\"Like what?\" Atticus didn't appear to have anything especially on his mind.\n\n\"It's this Tom Robinson case that's worryin' him to death—\"\n\nI said Atticus didn't worry about anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Besides, the case never bothered us except about once a week and then it didn't last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's because you can't hold something in your mind but a little while,\" said Jem. \"It's different with grown folks, we—\"\n\nHis maddening superiority was unbearable these days. He didn't want to do anything but read and go off by himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still, everything he read he passed along to me, but with this difference: formerly because he thought I'd like it; now, for my edification and instruction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jee crawling hova, Jem! Who do you think you are?\"\n\n\"Now I mean it, Scout, you antagonize Aunty and I'll—I'll spank you.\"\n\nWith that, I was gone. \"You damn morphodite, I'll kill you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was sitting on the bed, and it was easy to grab his front hair and land one on his mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slapped me and I tried another left, but a punch in the stomach sent me sprawling on the floor. It nearly knocked the breath out of me, but it didn't matter because I knew he was fighting, he was fighting me back. We were still equals.\n\n\"Ain't so high and mighty now, are you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I screamed, sailing in again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was still on the bed and I couldn't get a firm stance, so I threw myself at him as hard as I could, hitting, pulling, pinching, gouging. What had begun as a fist-fight became a brawl. We were still struggling when Atticus separated us.\n\n\"That's all,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Both of you go to bed right now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Taah!\" I said at Jem. He was being sent to bed at my bedtime.\n\n\"Who started it?\" asked Atticus, in resignation.\n\n\"Jem did. He was tryin' to tell me what to do. I don't have to mind him now, do I?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus smiled. \"Let's leave it at this: you mind Jem whenever he can make you. Fair enough?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aunt Alexandra was present but silent, and when she went down the hall with Atticus we heard her say, \"...just one of the things I've been telling you about,\" a phrase that united us again.\n\nOurs were adjoining rooms; as I shut the door between them Jem said, \"Night, Scout.\"\n\n\"Night,\" I murmured, picking my way across the room to turn on the light. As I passed the bed I stepped on something warm, resilient, and rather smooth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not quite like hard rubber, and I had the sensation that it was alive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I also heard it move.\n\nI switched on the light and looked at the floor by the bed. Whatever I had stepped on was gone. I tapped on Jem's door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How does a snake feel?\"\n\n\"Sort of rough. Cold. Dusty. Why?\"\n\n\"I think there's one under my bed. Can you come look?\"\n\n\"Are you bein' funny?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem opened the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was in his pajama bottoms. I noticed not without satisfaction that the mark of my knuckles was still on his mouth. When he saw I meant what I said, he said, \"If you think I'm gonna put my face down to a snake you've got another think comin'. Hold on a minute.\"\n\nHe went to the kitchen and fetched the broom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You better get up on the bed,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You reckon it's really one?\" I asked. This was an occasion. Our houses had no cellars; they were built on stone blocks a few feet above the ground, and the entry of reptiles was not unknown but was not commonplace. Miss Rachel Haverford's excuse for a glass of neat whiskey every morning was that she never got over the fright of finding a rattler coiled in her bedroom closet, on her washing, when she went to hang up her negligee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem made a tentative swipe under the bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I looked over the foot to see if a snake would come out. None did. Jem made a deeper swipe.\n\n\"Do snakes grunt?\"\n\n\"It ain't a snake,\" Jem said. \"It's somebody.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suddenly a filthy brown package shot from under the bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem raised the broom and missed Dill's head by an inch when it appeared.\n\n\"God Almighty.\" Jem's voice was reverent.\n\nWe watched Dill emerge by degrees. He was a tight fit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stood up and eased his shoulders, turned his feet in their ankle sockets, rubbed the back of his neck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His circulation restored, he said, \"Hey.\"\n\nJem petitioned God again. I was speechless.\n\n\"I'm 'bout to perish,\" said Dill. \"Got anything to eat?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a dream, I went to the kitchen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I brought him back some milk and half a pan of corn bread left over from supper. Dill devoured it, chewing with his front teeth, as was his custom.\n\nI finally found my voice. \"How'd you get here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "By an involved route." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Refreshed by food, Dill recited this narrative: having been bound in chains and left to die in the basement (there were basements in Meridian) by his new father, who disliked him, and secretly kept alive on raw field peas by a passing farmer who heard his cries for help (the good man poked a bushel pod by pod through the ventilator), Dill worked himself free by pulling the chains from the wall. Still in wrist manacles, he wandered two miles out of Meridian where he discovered a small animal show and was immediately engaged to wash the camel. He traveled with the show all over Mississippi until his infallible sense of direction told him he was in Abbott County, Alabama, just across the river from Maycomb. He walked the rest of the way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How'd you get here?\" asked Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had taken thirteen dollars from his mother's purse, caught the nine o'clock from Meridian and got off at Maycomb Junction. He had walked ten or eleven of the fourteen miles to Maycomb, off the highway in the scrub bushes lest the authorities be seeking him, and had ridden the remainder of the way clinging to the backboard of a cotton wagon. He had been under the bed for two hours, he thought; he had heard us in the diningroom, and the clink of forks on plates nearly drove him crazy. He thought Jem and I would never go to bed; he had considered emerging and helping me beat Jem, as Jem had grown far taller, but he knew Mr. Finch would break it up soon, so he thought it best to stay where he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was worn out, dirty beyond belief, and home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They must now know you're here,\" said Jem. \"We'd know if they were lookin' for you...\"\n\n\"Think they're still searchin' all the picture shows in Meridian.\" Dill grinned.\n\n\"You oughta let your mother know where you are,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You oughta let her know you're here...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill's eyes flickered at Jem, and Jem looked at the floor. Then he rose and broke the remaining code of our childhood. He went out of the room and down the hall. \"Atticus,\" his voice was distant, \"can you come here a minute, sir?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beneath its sweat-streaked dirt Dill's face went white." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I felt sick. Atticus was in the doorway.\n\nHe came to the middle of the room and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at Dill.\n\nI finally found my voice: \"It's okay, Dill. When he wants you to know somethin', he tells you.\"\n\nDill looked at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I mean it's all right,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know he wouldn't bother you, you know you ain't scared of Atticus.\"\n\n\"I'm not scared...\" Dill muttered.\n\n\"Just hungry, I'll bet.\" Atticus's voice had its usual pleasant dryness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Scout, we can do better than a pan of cold corn bread, can't we? You fill this fellow up and when I get back we'll see what we can see.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Finch, don't tell Aunt Rachel, don't make me go back, please sir! I'll run off again—!\"\n\n\"Whoa, son,\" said Atticus. \"Nobody's about to make you go anywhere but to bed pretty soon. I'm just over to tell Miss Rachel you're here and ask her if you could spend the night with us—you'd like that, wouldn't you? And for goodness' sake put some of the county back where it belongs, the soil erosion's bad enough as it is.\"\n\nDill stared at my father's retreating figure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's tryin' to be funny,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He means take a bath. See there, I told you he wouldn't bother you.\"\n\nJem was standing in a corner of the room, looking like the traitor he was. \"Dill, I had to tell him,\" he said. \"You can't run three hundred miles off without your mother knowin'.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We left him without a word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill ate, and ate, and ate. He hadn't eaten since last night. He used all his money for a ticket, boarded the train as he had done many times, coolly chatted with the conductor, to whom Dill was a familiar sight, but he had not the nerve to invoke the rule on small children traveling a distance alone: if you've lost your money the conductor will lend you enough for dinner and your father will pay him back at the end of the line.\n\nDill made his way through the leftovers and was reaching for a can of pork and beans in the pantry when Miss Rachel's Do-oo Je-sus went off in the hall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shivered like a rabbit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He bore with fortitude her Wait Till I Get You Home, Your Folks Are Out of Their Minds Worryin', was quite calm during That's All the Harris in You Coming Out, smiled at her Reckon You Can Stay One Night, and returned the hug at long last bestowed upon him.\n\nAtticus pushed up his glasses and rubbed his face.\n\n\"Your father's tired,\" said Aunt Alexandra, her first words in hours, it seemed. She had been there, but I suppose struck dumb most of the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You children get to bed now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We left them in the diningroom, Atticus still mopping his face. \"From rape to riot to runaways,\" we heard him chuckle. \"I wonder what the next two hours will bring.\"\n\nSince things appeared to have worked out pretty well, Dill and I decided to be civil to Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Besides, Dill had to sleep with him so we might as well speak to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I put on my pajamas, read for a while and found myself suddenly unable to keep my eyes open. Dill and Jem were quiet; when I turned off my reading lamp there was no strip of light under the door to Jem's room.\n\nI must have slept a long time, for when I was punched awake the room was dim with the light of the setting moon.\n\n\"Move over, Scout.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He thought he had to,\" I mumbled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't stay mad with him.\"\n\nDill got in bed beside me. \"I ain't,\" he said. \"I just wanted to sleep with you. Are you waked up?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "By this time I was, but lazily so." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why'd you do it?\"\n\nNo answer. \"I said why'd you run off? Was he really hateful like you said?\"\n\n\"Naw...\"\n\n\"Didn't you all build that boat like you wrote you were gonna?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He just said we would. We never did.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I raised up on my elbow, facing Dill's outline. \"It's no reason to run off. They don't get around to doin' what they say they're gonna do half the time...\"\n\n\"That wasn't it, he—they just wasn't interested in me.\"\n\nThis was the weirdest reason for flight I had ever heard. \"How come?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, they stayed gone all the time, and when they were home, even, they'd get off in a room by themselves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What'd they do in there?\"\n\n\"Nothin', just sittin' and readin'—but they didn't want me with 'em.\"\n\nI pushed the pillow to the headboard and sat up. \"You know something? I was fixin' to run off tonight because there they all were. You don't want 'em around you all the time, Dill—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill breathed his patient breath, a half-sigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"—good night, Atticus's gone all day and sometimes half the night and off in the legislature and I don't know what—you don't want 'em around all the time, Dill, you couldn't do anything if they were.\"\n\n\"That's not it.\"\n\nAs Dill explained, I found myself wondering what life would be if Jem were different, even from what he was now; what I would do if Atticus did not feel the necessity of my presence, help and advice. Why, he couldn't get along a day without me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even Calpurnia couldn't get along unless I was there. They needed me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dill, you ain't telling me right—your folks couldn't do without you. They must be just mean to you. Tell you what to do about that—\"\n\nDill's voice went on steadily in the darkness: \"The thing is, what I'm tryin' to say is—they do get on a lot better without me, I can't help them any. They ain't mean. They buy me everything I want, but it's now-you've-got-it-go-play-with-it. You've got a roomful of things. I-got-you-that-book-so-go-read-it.\" Dill tried to deepen his voice. \"You're not a boy. Boys get out and play baseball with other boys, they don't hang around the house worryin' their folks.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill's voice was his own again: \"Oh, they ain't mean. They kiss you and hug you good night and good mornin' and goodbye and tell you they love you—Scout, let's get us a baby.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where?\"\n\nThere was a man Dill had heard of who had a boat that he rowed across to a foggy island where all these babies were; you could order one—\n\n\"That's a lie. Aunty said God drops 'em down the chimney. At least that's what I think she said.\" For once, Aunty's diction had not been too clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well that ain't so. You get babies from each other. But there's this man, too—he has all these babies just waitin' to wake up, he breathes life into 'em...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was slowly talking himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in the quietness of his foggy island there rose the faded image of a gray house with sad brown doors." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dill?\"\n\n\"Mm?\"\n\n\"Why do you reckon Boo Radley's never run off?\"\n\nDill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me.\n\n\"Maybe he doesn't have anywhere to run off to...\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write four sentences sentences in the style of Harper Lee spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After many telephone calls, much pleading on behalf of the defendant, and a long forgiving letter from his mother, it was decided that Dill could stay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We had a week of peace together. After that, little, it seemed. A nightmare was upon us.\n\nIt began one evening after supper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill was over; Aunt Alexandra was in her chair in the corner, Atticus was in his; Jem and I were on the floor reading." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had been a placid week: I had minded Aunty; Jem had outgrown the treehouse, but helped Dill and me construct a new rope ladder for it; Dill had hit upon a foolproof plan to make Boo Radley come out at no cost to ourselves (place a trail of lemon drops from the back door to the front yard and he'd follow it, like an ant). There was a knock on the front door, Jem answered it and said it was Mr. Heck Tate.\n\n\"Well, ask him to come in,\" said Atticus.\n\n\"I already did. There's some men outside in the yard, they want you to come out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In Maycomb, grown men stood outside in the front yard for only two reasons: death and politics." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wondered who had died. Jem and I went to the front door, but Atticus called, \"Go back in the house.\"\n\nJem turned out the livingroom lights and pressed his nose to a window screen. Aunt Alexandra protested. \"Just for a second, Aunty, let's see who it is,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill and I took another window." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A crowd of men was standing around Atticus. They all seemed to be talking at once.\n\n\"...movin' him to the county jail tomorrow,\" Mr. Tate was saying, \"I don't look for any trouble, but I can't guarantee there won't be any...\"\n\n\"Don't be foolish, Heck,\" Atticus said. \"This is Maycomb.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"...said I was just uneasy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Heck, we've gotten one postponement of this case just to make sure there's nothing to be uneasy about. This is Saturday,\" Atticus said. \"Trial'll probably be Monday. You can keep him one night, can't you? I don't think anybody in Maycomb'll begrudge me a client, with times this hard.\"\n\nThere was a murmur of glee that died suddenly when Mr. Link Deas said, \"Nobody around here's up to anything, it's that Old Sarum bunch I'm worried about... can't you get a—what is it, Heck?\"\n\n\"Change of venue,\" said Mr. Tate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not much point in that, now is it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus said something inaudible. I turned to Jem, who waved me to silence.\n\n\"—besides,\" Atticus was saying, \"you're not scared of that crowd, are you?\"\n\n\"...know how they do when they get shinnied up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They don't usually drink on Sunday, they go to church most of the day...\" Atticus said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is a special occasion, though...\" someone said.\n\nThey murmured and buzzed until Aunty said if Jem didn't turn on the livingroom lights he would disgrace the family. Jem didn't hear her.\n\n\"—don't see why you touched it in the first place,\" Mr. Link Deas was saying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've got everything to lose from this, Atticus. I mean everything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you really think so?\"\n\nThis was Atticus's dangerous question. \"Do you really think you want to move there, Scout?\" Bam, bam, bam, and the checkerboard was swept clean of my men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you really think that, son? Then read this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem would struggle the rest of an evening through the speeches of Henry W. Grady.\n\n\"Link, that boy might go to the chair, but he's not going till the truth's told.\" Atticus's voice was even. \"And you know what the truth is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a murmur among the group of men, made more ominous when Atticus moved back to the bottom front step and the men drew nearer to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly Jem screamed, \"Atticus, the telephone's ringing!\"\n\nThe men jumped a little and scattered; they were people we saw every day: merchants, in-town farmers; Dr. Reynolds was there; so was Mr. Avery.\n\n\"Well, answer it, son,\" called Atticus.\n\nLaughter broke them up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Atticus switched on the overhead light in the livingroom he found Jem at the window, pale except for the vivid mark of the screen on his nose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why on earth are you all sitting in the dark?\" he asked.\n\nJem watched him go to his chair and pick up the evening paper. I sometimes think Atticus subjected every crisis of his life to tranquil evaluation behind The Mobile Register, The Birmingham News and The Montgomery Advertiser.\n\n\"They were after you, weren't they?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem went to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They wanted to get you, didn't they?\"\n\nAtticus lowered the paper and gazed at Jem. \"What have you been reading?\" he asked. Then he said gently, \"No son, those were our friends.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It wasn't a—a gang?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem was looking from the corners of his eyes.\n\nAtticus tried to stifle a smile but didn't make it. \"No, we don't have mobs and that nonsense in Maycomb. I've never heard of a gang in Maycomb.\"\n\n\"Ku Klux got after some Catholics one time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Never heard of any Catholics in Maycomb either,\" said Atticus, \"you're confusing that with something else. Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a Klan, but it was a political organization more than anything. Besides, they couldn't find anybody to scare. They paraded by Mr. Sam Levy's house one night, but Sam just stood on his porch and told 'em things had come to a pretty pass, he'd sold 'em the very sheets on their backs. Sam made 'em so ashamed of themselves they went away.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Levy family met all criteria for being Fine Folks: they did the best they could with the sense they had, and they had been living on the same plot of ground in Maycomb for five generations.\n\n\"The Ku Klux's gone,\" said Atticus. \"It'll never come back.\"\n\nI walked home with Dill and returned in time to overhear Atticus saying to Aunty, \"...in favor of Southern womanhood as much as anybody, but not for preserving polite fiction at the expense of human life,\" a pronouncement that made me suspect they had been fussing again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I sought Jem and found him in his room, on the bed deep in thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have they been at it?\" I asked.\n\n\"Sort of. She won't let him alone about Tom Robinson. She almost said Atticus was disgracin' the family. Scout... I'm scared.\"\n\n\"Scared'a what?\"\n\n\"Scared about Atticus. Somebody might hurt him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem preferred to remain mysterious; all he would say to my questions was go on and leave him alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next day was Sunday. In the interval between Sunday School and Church when the congregation stretched its legs, I saw Atticus standing in the yard with another knot of men. Mr. Heck Tate was present, and I wondered if he had seen the light. He never went to church." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even Mr. Underwood was there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Underwood had no use for any organization but The Maycomb Tribune, of which he was the sole owner, editor, and printer. His days were spent at his linotype, where he refreshed himself occasionally from an ever-present gallon jug of cherry wine. He rarely gathered news; people brought it to him. It was said that he made up every edition of The Maycomb Tribune out of his own head and wrote it down on the linotype." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was believable. Something must have been up to haul Mr. Underwood out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I caught Atticus coming in the door, and he said that they'd moved Tom Robinson to the Maycomb jail. He also said, more to himself than to me, that if they'd kept him there in the first place there wouldn't have been any fuss. I watched him take his seat on the third row from the front, and I heard him rumble, \"Nearer my God to thee,\" some notes behind the rest of us. He never sat with Aunty, Jem and me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He liked to be by himself in church." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fake peace that prevailed on Sundays was made more irritating by Aunt Alexandra's presence. Atticus would flee to his office directly after dinner, where if we sometimes looked in on him, we would find him sitting back in his swivel chair reading. Aunt Alexandra composed herself for a two-hour nap and dared us to make any noise in the yard, the neighborhood was resting. Jem in his old age had taken to his room with a stack of football magazines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So Dill and I spent our Sundays creeping around in Deer's Pasture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shooting on Sundays was prohibited, so Dill and I kicked Jem's football around the pasture for a while, which was no fun. Dill asked if I'd like to have a poke at Boo Radley. I said I didn't think it'd be nice to bother him, and spent the rest of the afternoon filling Dill in on last winter's events. He was considerably impressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We parted at suppertime, and after our meal Jem and I were settling down to a routine evening, when Atticus did something that interested us: he came into the livingroom carrying a long electrical extension cord." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a light bulb on the end.\n\n\"I'm going out for a while,\" he said. \"You folks'll be in bed when I come back, so I'll say good night now.\"\n\nWith that, he put his hat on and went out the back door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's takin' the car,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our father had a few peculiarities: one was, he never ate desserts; another was that he liked to walk. As far back as I could remember, there was always a Chevrolet in excellent condition in the carhouse, and Atticus put many miles on it in business trips, but in Maycomb he walked to and from his office four times a day, covering about two miles. He said his only exercise was walking. In Maycomb, if one went for a walk with no definite purpose in mind, it was correct to believe one's mind incapable of definite purpose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Later on, I bade my aunt and brother good night and was well into a book when I heard Jem rattling around in his room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His go-to-bed noises were so familiar to me that I knocked on his door: \"Why ain't you going to bed?\"\n\n\"I'm goin' downtown for a while.\" He was changing his pants.\n\n\"Why? It's almost ten o'clock, Jem.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew it, but he was going anyway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then I'm goin' with you. If you say no you're not, I'm goin' anyway, hear?\"\n\nJem saw that he would have to fight me to keep me home, and I suppose he thought a fight would antagonize Aunty, so he gave in with little grace.\n\nI dressed quickly. We waited until Aunty's light went out, and we walked quietly down the back steps. There was no moon tonight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Dill'll wanta come,\" I whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So he will,\" said Jem gloomily.\n\nWe leaped over the driveway wall, cut through Miss Rachel's side yard and went to Dill's window. Jem whistled bob-white. Dill's face appeared at the screen, disappeared, and five minutes later he unhooked the screen and crawled out. An old campaigner, he did not speak until we were on the sidewalk. \"What's up?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jem's got the look-arounds,\" an affliction Calpurnia said all boys caught at his age." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've just got this feeling,\" Jem said, \"just this feeling.\"\n\nWe went by Mrs. Dubose's house, standing empty and shuttered, her camellias grown up in weeds and johnson grass. There were eight more houses to the post office corner.\n\nThe south side of the square was deserted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Giant monkey-puzzle bushes bristled each corner, and between them an iron hitching rail glistened under the street lights." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A light shone in the county toilet, otherwise that side of the courthouse was dark. A larger square of stores surrounded the courthouse square; dim lights burned from deep within them.\n\nAtticus's office was in the courthouse when he began his law practice, but after several years of it he moved to quieter quarters in the Maycomb Bank building. When we rounded the corner of the square, we saw the car parked in front of the bank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's in there,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he wasn't. His office was reached by a long hallway. Looking down the hall, we should have seen Atticus Finch, Attorney-at-Law in small sober letters against the light from behind his door. It was dark.\n\nJem peered in the bank door to make sure. He turned the knob." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door was locked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's go up the street. Maybe he's visitin' Mr. Underwood.\"\n\nMr. Underwood not only ran The Maycomb Tribune office, he lived in it. That is, above it. He covered the courthouse and jailhouse news simply by looking out his upstairs window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The office building was on the northwest corner of the square, and to reach it we had to pass the jail." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Maycomb jail was the most venerable and hideous of the county's buildings. Atticus said it was like something Cousin Joshua St. Clair might have designed. It was certainly someone's dream. Starkly out of place in a town of square-faced stores and steep-roofed houses, the Maycomb jail was a miniature Gothic joke one cell wide and two cells high, complete with tiny battlements and flying buttresses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its fantasy was heightened by its red brick facade and the thick steel bars at its ecclesiastical windows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It stood on no lonely hill, but was wedged between Tyndal's Hardware Store and The Maycomb Tribune office. The jail was Maycomb's only conversation piece: its detractors said it looked like a Victorian privy; its supporters said it gave the town a good solid respectable look, and no stranger would ever suspect that it was full of niggers.\n\nAs we walked up the sidewalk, we saw a solitary light burning in the distance. \"That's funny,\" said Jem, \"jail doesn't have an outside light.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Looks like it's over the door,\" said Dill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A long extension cord ran between the bars of a second-floor window and down the side of the building. In the light from its bare bulb, Atticus was sitting propped against the front door. He was sitting in one of his office chairs, and he was reading, oblivious of the nightbugs dancing over his head.\n\nI made to run, but Jem caught me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't go to him,\" he said, \"he might not like it. He's all right, let's go home. I just wanted to see where he was.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We were taking a short cut across the square when four dusty cars came in from the Meridian highway, moving slowly in a line. They went around the square, passed the bank building, and stopped in front of the jail.\n\nNobody got out. We saw Atticus look up from his newspaper. He closed it, folded it deliberately, dropped it in his lap, and pushed his hat to the back of his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He seemed to be expecting them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come on,\" whispered Jem. We streaked across the square, across the street, until we were in the shelter of the Jitney Jungle door. Jem peeked up the sidewalk. \"We can get closer,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We ran to Tyndal's Hardware door—near enough, at the same time discreet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In ones and twos, men got out of the cars. Shadows became substance as light revealed solid shapes moving toward the jail door. Atticus remained where he was. The men hid him from view." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He in there, Mr. Finch?\" a man said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He is,\" we heard Atticus answer, \"and he's asleep. Don't wake him up.\"\n\nIn obedience to my father, there followed what I later realized was a sickeningly comic aspect of an unfunny situation: the men talked in near-whispers.\n\n\"You know what we want,\" another man said. \"Get aside from the door, Mr. Finch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can turn around and go home again, Walter,\" Atticus said pleasantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Heck Tate's around somewhere.\"\n\n\"The hell he is,\" said another man. \"Heck's bunch's so deep in the woods they won't get out till mornin'.\"\n\n\"Indeed? Why so?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Called 'em off on a snipe hunt,\" was the succinct answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't you think a'that, Mr. Finch?\"\n\n\"Thought about it, but didn't believe it. Well then,\" my father's voice was still the same, \"that changes things, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"It do,\" another deep voice said. Its owner was a shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you really think so?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was the second time I heard Atticus ask that question in two days, and it meant somebody's man would get jumped. This was too good to miss. I broke away from Jem and ran as fast as I could to Atticus.\n\nJem shrieked and tried to catch me, but I had a lead on him and Dill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I pushed my way through dark smelly bodies and burst into the circle of light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"H-ey, Atticus!\"\n\nI thought he would have a fine surprise, but his face killed my joy. A flash of plain fear was going out of his eyes, but returned when Dill and Jem wriggled into the light.\n\nThere was a smell of stale whiskey and pigpen about, and when I glanced around I discovered that these men were strangers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were not the people I saw last night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hot embarrassment shot through me: I had leaped triumphantly into a ring of people I had never seen before.\n\nAtticus got up from his chair, but he was moving slowly, like an old man. He put the newspaper down very carefully, adjusting its creases with lingering fingers. They were trembling a little." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go home, Jem,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Take Scout and Dill home.\"\n\nWe were accustomed to prompt, if not always cheerful acquiescence to Atticus's instructions, but from the way he stood Jem was not thinking of budging.\n\n\"Go home, I said.\"\n\nJem shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Atticus's fists went to his hips, so did Jem's, and as they faced each other I could see little resemblance between them: Jem's soft brown hair and eyes, his oval face and snugfitting ears were our mother's contrasting oddly with Atticus's graying black hair and square-cut features, but they were somehow alike." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mutual defiance made them alike.\n\n\"Son, I said go home.\"\n\nJem shook his head.\n\n\"I'll send him home,\" a burly man said, and grabbed Jem roughly by the collar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He yanked Jem nearly off his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't you touch him!\" I kicked the man swiftly. Barefooted, I was surprised to see him fall back in real pain. I intended to kick his shin, but aimed too high." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That'll do, Scout.\" Atticus put his hand on my shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't kick folks. No—\" he said, as I was pleading justification.\n\n\"Ain't nobody gonna do Jem that way,\" I said.\n\n\"All right, Mr. Finch, get 'em outa here,\" someone growled. \"You got fifteen seconds to get 'em outa here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the midst of this strange assembly, Atticus stood trying to make Jem mind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I ain't going,\" was his steady answer to Atticus's threats, requests, and finally, \"Please Jem, take them home.\"\n\nI was getting a bit tired of that, but felt Jem had his own reasons for doing as he did, in view of his prospects once Atticus did get him home. I looked around the crowd. It was a summer's night, but the men were dressed, most of them, in overalls and denim shirts buttoned up to the collars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I thought they must be cold-natured, as their sleeves were unrolled and buttoned at the cuffs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some wore hats pulled firmly down over their ears. They were sullen-looking, sleepy-eyed men who seemed unused to late hours. I sought once more for a familiar face, and at the center of the semi-circle I found one.\n\n\"Hey, Mr. Cunningham.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man did not hear me, it seemed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, Mr. Cunningham. How's your entailment gettin' along?\"\n\nMr. Walter Cunningham's legal affaris were well known to me; Atticus had once described them at length. The big man blinked and hooked his thumbs in his overall straps. He seemed uncomfortable; he cleared his throat and looked away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My friendly overture had fallen flat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Cunningham wore no hat, and the top half of his forehead was white in contrast to his sunscorched face, which led me to believe that he wore one most days. He shifted his feet, clad in heavy work shoes.\n\n\"Don't you remember me, Mr. Cunningham? I'm Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some hickory nuts one time, remember?\" I began to sense the futility one feels when unacknowledged by a chance acquaintance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I go to school with Walter,\" I began again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's your boy, ain't he? Ain't he, sir?\"\n\nMr. Cunningham was moved to a faint nod. He did know me, after all.\n\n\"He's in my grade,\" I said, \"and he does right well. He's a good boy,\" I added, \"a real nice boy. We brought him home for dinner one time. Maybe he told you about me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Cunningham displayed no interest in his son, so I tackled his entailment once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home.\n\n\"Entailments are bad,\" I was advising him, when I slowly awoke to the fact that I was addressing the entire aggregation. The men were all looking at me, some had their mouths half-open. Atticus had stopped poking at Jem: they were standing together beside Dill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their attention amounted to fascination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus's mouth, even, was half-open, an attitude he had once described as uncouth. Our eyes met and he shut it.\n\n\"Well, Atticus, I was just sayin' to Mr. Cunningham that entailments are bad an' all that, but you said not to worry, it take a long time sometimes... that you all'd ride it out together...\" I was slowly drying up, wondering what idiocy I had committed. Entailments seemed all right enough for livingroom talk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I began to feel sweat gathering at the edges of my hair; I could stand anything but a bunch of people looking at me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were quite still.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" I asked.\n\nAtticus said nothing. I looked around and up at Mr. Cunningham, whose face was equally impassive. Then he did a peculiar thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He squatted down and took me by both shoulders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll tell him you said hey, little lady,\" he said.\n\nThey he straightened up and waved a big paw. \"Let's clear out,\" he called. \"Let's get going, boys.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As they had come, in ones and twos the men shuffled back to their ramshackle cars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doors slammed, engines coughed, and they were gone.\n\nI turned to Atticus, but Atticus had gone to the jail and was leaning against it with his face to the wall. I went to him and pulled his sleeve. \"Can we go home now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He nodded, produced his handkerchief, gave his face a going over and blew his nose violently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Finch?\"\n\nA soft husky voice came from the darkness above: \"They gone?\"\n\nAtticus stepped back and looked up. \"They've gone,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get some sleep, Tom. They won't bother you any more.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From a different direction, another voice cut crisply through the night: \"You're damn tootin' they won't. Had you covered all the time, Atticus.\"\n\nMr. Underwood and a double-barreled shotgun were leaning out his window above The Maycomb Tribune office.\n\nIt was long past my bedtime and I was growing quite tired; it seemed that Atticus and Mr. Underwood would talk for the rest of the night, Mr. Underwood out the window and Atticus up at him. Finally Atticus returned, switched off the light above the jail door, and picked up his chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can I carry it for you, Mr. Finch?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked Dill. He had not said a word the whole time.\n\n\"Why, thank you, son.\"\n\nWalking toward the office, Dill and I fell into step behind Atticus and Jem. Dill was encumbered by the chair, and his pace was slower." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus and Jem were well ahead of us, and I assumed that Atticus was giving him hell for not going home, but I was wrong." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they passed under a streetlight, Atticus reached out and massaged Jem's hair, his one gesture of affection." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of Harper Lee.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of Harper Lee every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem heard me. He thrust his head around the connecting door. As he came to my bed Atticus's light flashed on. We stayed where we were until it went off; we heard him turn over, and we waited until he was still again.\n\nJem took me to his room and put me in bed beside him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Try to go to sleep,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It'll be all over after tomorrow, maybe.\"\n\nWe had come in quietly, so as not to wake Aunty. Atticus killed the engine in the driveway and coasted to the carhouse; we went in the back door and to our rooms without a word. I was very tired, and was drifting into sleep when the memory of Atticus calmly folding his newspaper and pushing back his hat became Atticus standing in the middle of an empty waiting street, pushing up his glasses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The full meaning of the night's events hit me and I began crying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem was awfully nice about it: for once he didn't remind me that people nearly nine years old didn't do things like that.\n\nEverybody's appetite was delicate this morning, except Jem's; he ate his way through three eggs. Atticus watched in frank admiration; Aunt Alexandra sipped coffee and radiated waves of disapproval. Children who slipped out at night were a disgrace to the family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said he was right glad his disgraces had come along, but Aunty said, \"Nonsense, Mr. Underwood was there all the time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know, it's a funny thing about Braxton,\" said Atticus. \"He despises Negroes, won't have one near him.\"\n\nLocal opinion held Mr. Underwood to be an intense, profane little man, whose father in a fey fit of humor christened Braxton Bragg, a name Mr. Underwood had done his best to live down. Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steady drinkers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia was serving Aunt Alexandra more coffee, and she shook her head at what I thought was a pleading winning look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're still too little,\" she said. \"I'll tell you when you ain't.\" I said it might help my stomach. \"All right,\" she said, and got a cup from the sideboard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She poured one tablespoon of coffee into it and filled the cup to the brim with milk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thanked her by sticking out my tongue at it, and looked up to catch Aunty's warning frown. But she was frowning at Atticus.\n\nShe waited until Calpurnia was in the kitchen, then she said, \"Don't talk like that in front of them.\"\n\n\"Talk like what in front of whom?\" he asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Like that in front of Calpurnia. You said Braxton Underwood despises Negroes right in front of her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I'm sure Cal knows it. Everybody in Maycomb knows it.\"\n\nI was beginning to notice a subtle change in my father these days, that came out when he talked with Aunt Alexandra. It was a quiet digging in, never outright irritation. There was a faint starchiness in his voice when he said, \"Anything fit to say at the table's fit to say in front of Calpurnia. She knows what she means to this family.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't think it's a good habit, Atticus. It encourages them. You know how they talk among themselves. Everything that happens in this town's out to the Quarters before sundown.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My father put down his knife. \"I don't know of any law that says they can't talk. Maybe if we didn't give them so much to talk about they'd be quiet. Why don't you drink your coffee, Scout?\"\n\nI was playing in it with the spoon. \"I thought Mr. Cunningham was a friend of ours. You told me a long time ago he was.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He still is.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But last night he wanted to hurt you.\"\n\nAtticus placed his fork beside his knife and pushed his plate aside. \"Mr. Cunningham's basically a good man,\" he said, \"he just has his blind spots along with the rest of us.\"\n\nJem spoke. \"Don't call that a blind spot. He'da killed you last night when he first went there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He might have hurt me a little,\" Atticus conceded, \"but son, you'll understand folks a little better when you're older. A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know—doesn't say much for them, does it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll say not,\" said Jem.\n\n\"So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses, didn't it?\" said Atticus. \"That proves something—that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children... you children last night made Walter Cunningham stand in my shoes for a minute. That was enough.\"\n\nWell, I hoped Jem would understand folks a little better when he was older; I wouldn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"First day Walter comes back to school'll be his last,\" I affirmed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You will not touch him,\" Atticus said flatly. \"I don't want either of you bearing a grudge about this thing, no matter what happens.\"\n\n\"You see, don't you,\" said Aunt Alexandra, \"what comes of things like this. Don't say I haven't told you.\"\n\nAtticus said he'd never say that, pushed out his chair and got up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a day ahead, so excuse me. Jem, I don't want you and Scout downtown today, please.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Atticus departed, Dill came bounding down the hall into the diningroom. \"It's all over town this morning,\" he announced, \"all about how we held off a hundred folks with our bare hands...\"\n\nAunt Alexandra stared him to silence. \"It was not a hundred folks,\" she said, \"and nobody held anybody off. It was just a nest of those Cunninghams, drunk and disorderly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aw, Aunty, that's just Dill's way,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He signaled us to follow him.\n\n\"You all stay in the yard today,\" she said, as we made our way to the front porch.\n\nIt was like Saturday. People from the south end of the county passed our house in a leisurely but steady stream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Dolphus Raymond lurched by on his thoroughbred." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't see how he stays in the saddle,\" murmured Jem. \"How c'n you stand to get drunk 'fore eight in the morning?\"\n\nA wagonload of ladies rattled past us. They wore cotton sunbonnets and dresses with long sleeves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A bearded man in a wool hat drove them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yonder's some Mennonites,\" Jem said to Dill. \"They don't have buttons.\" They lived deep in the woods, did most of their trading across the river, and rarely came to Maycomb. Dill was interested. \"They've all got blue eyes,\" Jem explained, \"and the men can't shave after they marry. Their wives like for 'em to tickle 'em with their beards.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. X Billups rode by on a mule and waved to us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's a funny man,\" said Jem. \"X's his name, not his initial. He was in court one time and they asked him his name. He said X Billups. Clerk asked him to spell it and he said X. Asked him again and he said X. They kept at it till he wrote X on a sheet of paper and held it up for everybody to see. They asked him where he got his name and he said that's the way his folks signed him up when he was born.\"\n\nAs the county went by us, Jem gave Dill the histories and general attitudes of the more prominent figures: Mr. Tensaw Jones voted the straight Prohibition ticket; Miss Emily Davis dipped snuff in private; Mr. Byron Waller could play the violin; Mr. Jake Slade was cutting his third set of teeth.\n\nA wagonload of unusually stern-faced citizens appeared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they pointed to Miss Maudie Atkinson's yard, ablaze with summer flowers, Miss Maudie herself came out on the porch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was an odd thing about Miss Maudie—on her porch she was too far away for us to see her features clearly, but we could always catch her mood by the way she stood. She was now standing arms akimbo, her shoulders dropping a little, her head cocked to one side, her glasses winking in the sunlight. We knew she wore a grin of the uttermost wickedness.\n\nThe driver of the wagon slowed down his mules, and a shrill-voiced woman called out: \"He that cometh in vanity departeth in darkness!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Maudie answered: \"A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I guessed that the foot-washers thought that the Devil was quoting Scripture for his own purposes, as the driver speeded his mules. Why they objected to Miss Maudie's yard was a mystery, heightened in my mind because for someone who spent all the daylight hours outdoors, Miss Maudie's command of Scripture was formidable.\n\n\"You goin' to court this morning?\" asked Jem. We had strolled over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am not,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have no business with the court this morning.\"\n\n\"Aren't you goin' down to watch?\" asked Dill.\n\n\"I am not. 't's morbid, watching a poor devil on trial for his life. Look at all those folks, it's like a Roman carnival.\"\n\n\"They hafta try him in public, Miss Maudie,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wouldn't be right if they didn't.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm quite aware of that,\" she said. \"Just because it's public, I don't have to go, do I?\"\n\nMiss Stephanie Crawford came by. She wore a hat and gloves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Um, um, um,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at all those folks—you'd think William Jennings Bryan was speakin'.\"\n\n\"And where are you going, Stephanie?\" inquired Miss Maudie.\n\n\"To the Jitney Jungle.\"\n\nMiss Maudie said she'd never seen Miss Stephanie go to the Jitney Jungle in a hat in her life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" said Miss Stephanie, \"I thought I might just look in at the courthouse, to see what Atticus's up to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Better be careful he doesn't hand you a subpoena.\"\n\nWe asked Miss Maudie to elucidate: she said Miss Stephanie seemed to know so much about the case she might as well be called on to testify.\n\nWe held off until noon, when Atticus came home to dinner and said they'd spent the morning picking the jury. After dinner, we stopped by for Dill and went to town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a gala occasion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no room at the public hitching rail for another animal, mules and wagons were parked under every available tree. The courthouse square was covered with picnic parties sitting on newspapers, washing down biscuit and syrup with warm milk from fruit jars. Some people were gnawing on cold chicken and cold fried pork chops. The more affluent chased their food with drugstore Coca-Cola in bulb-shaped soda glasses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Greasy-faced children popped-the-whip through the crowd, and babies lunched at their mothers' breasts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a far corner of the square, the Negroes sat quietly in the sun, dining on sardines, crackers, and the more vivid flavors of Nehi Cola. Mr. Dolphus Raymond sat with them.\n\n\"Jem,\" said Dill, \"he's drinkin' out of a sack.\"\n\nMr. Dolphus Raymond seemed to be so doing: two yellow drugstore straws ran from his mouth to the depths of a brown paper bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ain't ever seen anybody do that,\" murmured Dill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How does he keep what's in it in it?\"\n\nJem giggled. \"He's got a Co-Cola bottle full of whiskey in there. That's so's not to upset the ladies. You'll see him sip it all afternoon, he'll step out for a while and fill it back up.\"\n\n\"Why's he sittin' with the colored folks?\"\n\n\"Always does. He likes 'em better'n he likes us, I reckon. Lives by himself way down near the county line. He's got a colored woman and all sorts of mixed chillun. Show you some of 'em if we see 'em.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He doesn't look like trash,\" said Dill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's not, he owns all one side of the riverbank down there, and he's from a real old family to boot.\"\n\n\"Then why does he do like that?\"\n\n\"That's just his way,\" said Jem. \"They say he never got over his weddin'. He was supposed to marry one of the—the Spender ladies, I think. They were gonna have a huge weddin', but they didn't—after the rehearsal the bride went upstairs and blew her head off. Shotgun. She pulled the trigger with her toes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did they ever know why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" said Jem, \"nobody ever knew quite why but Mr. Dolphus. They said it was because she found out about his colored woman, he reckoned he could keep her and get married too. He's been sorta drunk ever since. You know, though, he's real good to those chillun—\"\n\n\"Jem,\" I asked, \"what's a mixed child?\"\n\n\"Half white, half colored. You've seen 'em, Scout. You know that red-kinky-headed one that delivers for the drugstore. He's half white. They're real sad.\"\n\n\"Sad, how come?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They don't belong anywhere. Colored folks won't have 'em because they're half white; white folks won't have 'em 'cause they're colored, so they're just in-betweens, don't belong anywhere. But Mr. Dolphus, now, they say he's shipped two of his up north. They don't mind 'em up north. Yonder's one of 'em.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A small boy clutching a Negro woman's hand walked toward us. He looked all Negro to me; he was rich chocolate with flaring nostrils and beautiful teeth. Sometimes he would skip happily, and the Negro woman tugged his hand to make him stop.\n\nJem waited until they passed us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's one of the little ones,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How can you tell?\" asked Dill. \"He looked black to me.\"\n\n\"You can't sometimes, not unless you know who they are. But he's half Raymond, all right.\"\n\n\"But how can you tell?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I told you, Scout, you just hafta know who they are.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well how do you know we ain't Negroes?\"\n\n\"Uncle Jack Finch says we really don't know. He says as far as he can trace back the Finches we ain't, but for all he knows we mighta come straight out of Ethiopia durin' the Old Testament.\"\n\n\"Well if we came out durin' the Old Testament it's too long ago to matter.\"\n\n\"That's what I thought,\" said Jem, \"but around here once you have a drop of Negro blood, that makes you all black. Hey, look—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some invisible signal had made the lunchers on the square rise and scatter bits of newspaper, cellophane, and wrapping paper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Children came to mothers, babies were cradled on hips as men in sweat-stained hats collected their families and herded them through the courthouse doors. In the far corner of the square the Negroes and Mr. Dolphus Raymond stood up and dusted their breeches. There were few women and children among them, which seemed to dispel the holiday mood. They waited patiently at the doors behind the white families." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's go in,\" said Dill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naw, we better wait till they get in, Atticus might not like it if he sees us,\" said Jem.\n\nThe Maycomb County courthouse was faintly reminiscent of Arlington in one respect: the concrete pillars supporting its south roof were too heavy for their light burden. The pillars were all that remained standing when the original courthouse burned in 1856. Another courthouse was built around them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is better to say, built in spite of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But for the south porch, the Maycomb County courthouse was early Victorian, presenting an unoffensive vista when seen from the north. From the other side, however, Greek revival columns clashed with a big nineteenth-century clock tower housing a rusty unreliable instrument, a view indicating a people determined to preserve every physical scrap of the past.\n\nTo reach the courtroom, on the second floor, one passed sundry sunless county cubbyholes: the tax assessor, the tax collector, the county clerk, the county solicitor, the circuit clerk, the judge of probate lived in cool dim hutches that smelled of decaying record books mingled with old damp cement and stale urine. It was necessary to turn on the lights in the daytime; there was always a film of dust on the rough floorboards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The inhabitants of these offices were creatures of their environment: little gray-faced men, they seemed untouched by wind or sun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We knew there was a crowd, but we had not bargained for the multitudes in the first-floor hallway. I got separated from Jem and Dill, but made my way toward the wall by the stairwell, knowing Jem would come for me eventually. I found myself in the middle of the Idlers' Club and made myself as unobtrusive as possible. This was a group of white-shirted, khaki-trousered, suspendered old men who had spent their lives doing nothing and passed their twilight days doing same on pine benches under the live oaks on the square." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Attentive critics of courthouse business, Atticus said they knew as much law as the Chief Justice, from long years of observation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Normally, they were the court's only spectators, and today they seemed resentful of the interruption of their comfortable routine. When they spoke, their voices sounded casually important. The conversation was about my father.\n\n\"...thinks he knows what he's doing,\" one said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh-h now, I wouldn't say that,\" said another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Atticus Finch's a deep reader, a mighty deep reader.\"\n\n\"He reads all right, that's all he does.\" The club snickered.\n\n\"Lemme tell you somethin' now, Billy,\" a third said, \"you know the court appointed him to defend this nigger.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but Atticus aims to defend him. That's what I don't like about it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was news, news that put a different light on things: Atticus had to, whether he wanted to or not." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought it odd that he hadn't said anything to us about it—we could have used it many times in defending him and ourselves. He had to, that's why he was doing it, equaled fewer fights and less fussing. But did that explain the town's attitude? The court appointed Atticus to defend him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus aimed to defend him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That's what they didn't like about it. It was confusing.\n\nThe Negroes, having waited for the white people to go upstairs, began to come in. \"Whoa now, just a minute,\" said a club member, holding up his walking stick. \"Just don't start up them there stairs yet awhile.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The club began its stiff-jointed climb and ran into Dill and Jem on their way down looking for me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They squeezed past and Jem called, \"Scout, come on, there ain't a seat left. We'll hafta stand up.\"\n\n\"Looka there, now,\" he said irritably, as the black people surged upstairs. The old men ahead of them would take most of the standing room. We were out of luck and it was all my fault, Jem informed me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We stood miserably by the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't you all get in?\"\n\nReverend Sykes was looking down at us, black hat in hand.\n\n\"Hey, Reverend,\" said Jem. \"Naw, Scout here messed us up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, let's see what we can do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reverend Sykes edged his way upstairs. In a few moments he was back. \"There's not a seat downstairs. Do you all reckon it'll be all right if you all came to the balcony with me?\"\n\n\"Gosh yes,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Happily, we sped ahead of Reverend Sykes to the courtroom floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There, we went up a covered staircase and waited at the door. Reverend Sykes came puffing behind us, and steered us gently through the black people in the balcony. Four Negroes rose and gave us their front-row seats.\n\nThe Colored balcony ran along three walls of the courtroom like a second-story veranda, and from it we could see everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The jury sat to the left, under long windows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sunburned, lanky, they seemed to be all farmers, but this was natural: townsfolk rarely sat on juries, they were either struck or excused. One or two of the jury looked vaguely like dressed-up Cunninghams. At this stage they sat straight and alert.\n\nThe circuit solicitor and another man, Atticus and Tom Robinson sat at tables with their backs to us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a brown book and some yellow tablets on the solicitor's table; Atticus's was bare." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just inside the railing that divided the spectators from the court, the witnesses sat on cowhide-bottomed chairs. Their backs were to us.\n\nJudge Taylor was on the bench, looking like a sleepy old shark, his pilot fish writing rapidly below in front of him. Judge Taylor looked like most judges I had ever seen: amiable, white-haired, slightly ruddy-faced, he was a man who ran his court with an alarming informality—he sometimes propped his feet up, he often cleaned his fingernails with his pocket knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In long equity hearings, especially after dinner, he gave the impression of dozing, an impression dispelled forever when a lawyer once deliberately pushed a pile of books to the floor in a desperate effort to wake him up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without opening his eyes, Judge Taylor murmured, \"Mr. Whitley, do that again and it'll cost you one hundred dollars.\"\n\nHe was a man learned in the law, and although he seemed to take his job casually, in reality he kept a firm grip on any proceedings that came before him. Only once was Judge Taylor ever seen at a dead standstill in open court, and the Cunninghams stopped him. Old Sarum, their stamping grounds, was populated by two families separate and apart in the beginning, but unfortunately bearing the same name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Cunninghams married the Coninghams until the spelling of the names was academic—academic until a Cunningham disputed a Coningham over land titles and took to the law." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During a controversy of this character, Jeems Cunningham testified that his mother spelled it Cunningham on deeds and things, but she was really a Coningham, she was an uncertain speller, a seldom reader, and was given to looking far away sometimes when she sat on the front gallery in the evening. After nine hours of listening to the eccentricities of Old Sarum's inhabitants, Judge Taylor threw the case out of court. When asked upon what grounds, Judge Taylor said, \"Champertous connivance,\" and declared he hoped to God the litigants were satisfied by each having had their public say. They were. That was all they had wanted in the first place." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding four sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jem,\" I said, \"are those the Ewells sittin' down yonder?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hush,\" said Jem, \"Mr. Heck Tate's testifyin'.\"\n\nMr. Tate had dressed for the occasion. He wore an ordinary business suit, which made him look somehow like every other man: gone were his high boots, lumber jacket, and bullet-studded belt. From that moment he ceased to terrify me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was sitting forward in the witness chair, his hands clasped between his knees, listening attentively to the circuit solicitor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The solicitor, a Mr. Gilmer, was not well known to us. He was from Abbottsville; we saw him only when court convened, and that rarely, for court was of no special interest to Jem and me. A balding, smooth-faced man, he could have been anywhere between forty and sixty. Although his back was to us, we knew he had a slight cast in one of his eyes which he used to his advantage: he seemed to be looking at a person when he was actually doing nothing of the kind, thus he was hell on juries and witnesses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The jury, thinking themselves under close scrutiny, paid attention; so did the witnesses, thinking likewise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"...in your own words, Mr. Tate,\" Mr. Gilmer was saying.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Tate, touching his glasses and speaking to his knees, \"I was called—\"\n\n\"Could you say it to the jury, Mr. Tate? Thank you. Who called you?\"\n\nMr. Tate said, \"I was fetched by Bob—by Mr. Bob Ewell yonder, one night—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What night, sir?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Tate said, \"It was the night of November twenty-first. I was just leaving my office to go home when B—Mr. Ewell came in, very excited he was, and said get out to his house quick, some nigger'd raped his girl.\"\n\n\"Did you go?\"\n\n\"Certainly. Got in the car and went out as fast as I could.\"\n\n\"And what did you find?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Found her lying on the floor in the middle of the front room, one on the right as you go in. She was pretty well beat up, but I heaved her to her feet and she washed her face in a bucket in the corner and said she was all right. I asked her who hurt her and she said it was Tom Robinson—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Judge Taylor, who had been concentrating on his fingernails, looked up as if he were expecting an objection, but Atticus was quiet.\n\n\"—asked her if he beat her like that, she said yes he had. Asked her if he took advantage of her and she said yes he did. So I went down to Robinson's house and brought him back. She identified him as the one, so I took him in. That's all there was to it.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Mr. Gilmer.\n\nJudge Taylor said, \"Any questions, Atticus?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" said my father." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was sitting behind his table; his chair was skewed to one side, his legs were crossed and one arm was resting on the back of his chair.\n\n\"Did you call a doctor, Sheriff? Did anybody call a doctor?\" asked Atticus.\n\n\"No sir,\" said Mr. Tate.\n\n\"Didn't call a doctor?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No sir,\" repeated Mr. Tate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why not?\" There was an edge to Atticus's voice.\n\n\"Well I can tell you why I didn't. It wasn't necessary, Mr. Finch. She was mighty banged up. Something sho' happened, it was obvious.\"\n\n\"But you didn't call a doctor? While you were there did anyone send for one, fetch one, carry her to one?\"\n\n\"No sir—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Judge Taylor broke in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's answered the question three times, Atticus. He didn't call a doctor.\"\n\nAtticus said, \"I just wanted to make sure, Judge,\" and the judge smiled.\n\nJem's hand, which was resting on the balcony rail, tightened around it. He drew in his breath suddenly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Glancing below, I saw no corresponding reaction, and wondered if Jem was trying to be dramatic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill was watching peacefully, and so was Reverend Sykes beside him. \"What is it?\" I whispered, and got a terse, \"Sh-h!\"\n\n\"Sheriff,\" Atticus was saying, \"you say she was mighty banged up. In what way?\"\n\n\"Well—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just describe her injuries, Heck.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, she was beaten around the head. There was already bruises comin' on her arms, and it happened about thirty minutes before—\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\nMr. Tate grinned. \"Sorry, that's what they said. Anyway, she was pretty bruised up when I got there, and she had a black eye comin'.\"\n\n\"Which eye?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Tate blinked and ran his hands through his hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's see,\" he said softly, then he looked at Atticus as if he considered the question childish. \"Can't you remember?\" Atticus asked.\n\nMr. Tate pointed to an invisible person five inches in front of him and said, \"Her left.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute, Sheriff,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Was it her left facing you or her left looking the same way you were?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Tate said, \"Oh yes, that'd make it her right. It was her right eye, Mr. Finch. I remember now, she was bunged up on that side of her face...\"\n\nMr. Tate blinked again, as if something had suddenly been made plain to him. Then he turned his head and looked around at Tom Robinson. As if by instinct, Tom Robinson raised his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something had been made plain to Atticus also, and it brought him to his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sheriff, please repeat what you said.\"\n\n\"It was her right eye, I said.\"\n\n\"No...\" Atticus walked to the court reporter's desk and bent down to the furiously scribbling hand. It stopped, flipped back the shorthand pad, and the court reporter said, \"'Mr. Finch. I remember now she was bunged up on that side of the face.'\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus looked up at Mr. Tate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which side again, Heck?\"\n\n\"The right side, Mr. Finch, but she had more bruises—you wanta hear about 'em?\"\n\nAtticus seemed to be bordering on another question, but he thought better of it and said, \"Yes, what were her other injuries?\" As Mr. Tate answered, Atticus turned and looked at Tom Robinson as if to say this was something they hadn't bargained for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"...her arms were bruised, and she showed me her neck. There were definite finger marks on her gullet—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All around her throat? At the back of her neck?\"\n\n\"I'd say they were all around, Mr. Finch.\"\n\n\"You would?\"\n\n\"Yes sir, she had a small throat, anybody could'a reached around it with—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just answer the question yes or no, please, Sheriff,\" said Atticus dryly, and Mr. Tate fell silent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus sat down and nodded to the circuit solicitor, who shook his head at the judge, who nodded to Mr. Tate, who rose stiffly and stepped down from the witness stand.\n\nBelow us, heads turned, feet scraped the floor, babies were shifted to shoulders, and a few children scampered out of the courtroom. The Negroes behind us whispered softly among themselves; Dill was asking Reverend Sykes what it was all about, but Reverend Sykes said he didn't know. So far, things were utterly dull: nobody had thundered, there were no arguments between opposing counsel, there was no drama; a grave disappointment to all present, it seemed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus was proceeding amiably, as if he were involved in a title dispute." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With his infinite capacity for calming turbulent seas, he could make a rape case as dry as a sermon. Gone was the terror in my mind of stale whiskey and barnyard smells, of sleepy-eyed sullen men, of a husky voice calling in the night, \"Mr. Finch? They gone?\" Our nightmare had gone with daylight, everything would come out all right.\n\nAll the spectators were as relaxed as Judge Taylor, except Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His mouth was twisted into a purposeful half-grin, and his eyes happy about, and he said something about corroborating evidence, which made me sure he was showing off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"...Robert E. Lee Ewell!\"\n\nIn answer to the clerk's booming voice, a little bantam cock of a man rose and strutted to the stand, the back of his neck reddening at the sound of his name. When he turned around to take the oath, we saw that his face was as red as his neck. We also saw no resemblance to his namesake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A shock of wispy new-washed hair stood up from his forehead; his nose was thin, pointed, and shiny; he had no chin to speak of—it seemed to be a part of his crepey neck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"—so help me God,\" he crowed.\n\nEvery town the size of Maycomb had families like the Ewells. No economic fluctuations changed their status—people like the Ewells lived as guests of the county in prosperity as well as in the depths of a depression. No truant officers could keep their numerous offspring in school; no public health officer could free them from congenital defects, various worms, and the diseases indigenous to filthy surroundings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maycomb's Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cabin's plank walls were supplemented with sheets of corrugated iron, its roof shingled with tin cans hammered flat, so only its general shape suggested its original design: square, with four tiny rooms opening onto a shotgun hall, the cabin rested uneasily upon four irregular lumps of limestone. Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls, which in the summertime were covered with greasy strips of cheesecloth to keep out the varmints that feasted on Maycomb's refuse.\n\nThe varmints had a lean time of it, for the Ewells gave the dump a thorough gleaning every day, and the fruits of their industry (those that were not eaten) made the plot of ground around the cabin look like the playhouse of an insane child: what passed for a fence was bits of tree-limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts, all tipped with rusty hammerheads, snaggle-toothed rake heads, shovels, axes and grubbing hoes, held on with pieces of barbed wire. Enclosed by this barricade was a dirty yard containing the remains of a Model-T Ford (on blocks), a discarded dentist's chair, an ancient icebox, plus lesser items: old shoes, worn-out table radios, picture frames, and fruit jars, under which scrawny orange chickens pecked hopefully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One corner of the yard, though, bewildered Maycomb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss Maudie Atkinson, had Miss Maudie deigned to permit a geranium on her premises. People said they were Mayella Ewell's.\n\nNobody was quite sure how many children were on the place. Some people said six, others said nine; there were always several dirty-faced ones at the windows when anyone passed by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nobody had occasion to pass by except at Christmas, when the churches delivered baskets, and when the mayor of Maycomb asked us to please help the garbage collector by dumping our own trees and trash." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus took us with him last Christmas when he complied with the mayor's request. A dirt road ran from the highway past the dump, down to a small Negro settlement some five hundred yards beyond the Ewells'. It was necessary either to back out to the highway or go the full length of the road and turn around; most people turned around in the Negroes' front yards. In the frosty December dusk, their cabins looked neat and snug with pale blue smoke rising from the chimneys and doorways glowing amber from the fires inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were delicious smells about: chicken, bacon frying crisp as the twilight air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem and I detected squirrel cooking, but it took an old countryman like Atticus to identify possum and rabbit, aromas that vanished when we rode back past the Ewell residence.\n\nAll the little man on the witness stand had that made him any better than his nearest neighbors was, that if scrubbed with lye soap in very hot water, his skin was white.\n\n\"Mr. Robert Ewell?\" asked Mr. Gilmer.\n\n\"That's m'name, cap'n,\" said the witness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Gilmer's back stiffened a little, and I felt sorry for him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps I'd better explain something now. I've heard that lawyers' children, on seeing their parents in court in the heat of argument, get the wrong idea: they think opposing counsel to be the personal enemies of their parents, they suffer agonies, and are surprised to see them often go out arm-in-arm with their tormenters during the first recess. This was not true of Jem and me. We acquired no traumas from watching our father win or lose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm sorry that I can't provide any drama in this respect; if I did, it would not be true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We could tell, however, when debate became more acrimonious than professional, but this was from watching lawyers other than our father. I never heard Atticus raise his voice in my life, except to a deaf witness. Mr. Gilmer was doing his job, as Atticus was doing his. Besides, Mr. Ewell was Mr. Gilmer's witness, and he had no business being rude to him of all people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you the father of Mayella Ewell?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "was the next question.\n\n\"Well, if I ain't I can't do nothing about it now, her ma's dead,\" was the answer.\n\nJudge Taylor stirred. He turned slowly in his swivel chair and looked benignly at the witness. \"Are you the father of Mayella Ewell?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked, in a way that made the laughter below us stop suddenly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir,\" Mr. Ewell said meekly.\n\nJudge Taylor went on in tones of good will: \"This the first time you've ever been in court? I don't recall ever seeing you here.\" At the witness's affirmative nod he continued, \"Well, let's get something straight. There will be no more audibly obscene speculations on any subject from anybody in this courtroom as long as I'm sitting here. Do you understand?\"\n\nMr. Ewell nodded, but I don't think he did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Judge Taylor sighed and said, \"All right, Mr. Gilmer?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, sir. Mr. Ewell, would you tell us in your own words what happened on the evening of November twenty-first, please?\"\n\nJem grinned and pushed his hair back. Just-in-your-own words was Mr. Gilmer's trademark. We often wondered who else's words Mr. Gilmer was afraid his witness might employ." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, the night of November twenty-one I was comin' in from the woods with a load o'kindlin' and just as I got to the fence I heard Mayella screamin' like a stuck hog inside the house—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here Judge Taylor glanced sharply at the witness and must have decided his speculations devoid of evil intent, for he subsided sleepily.\n\n\"What time was it, Mr. Ewell?\"\n\n\"Just 'fore sundown. Well, I was sayin' Mayella was screamin' fit to beat Jesus—\" another glance from the bench silenced Mr. Ewell.\n\n\"Yes? She was screaming?\" said Mr. Gilmer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Ewell looked confusedly at the judge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, Mayella was raisin' this holy racket so I dropped m'load and run as fast as I could but I run into th' fence, but when I got distangled I run up to th' window and I seen—\" Mr. Ewell's face grew scarlet. He stood up and pointed his finger at Tom Robinson. \"—I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin' on my Mayella!\"\n\nSo serene was Judge Taylor's court, that he had few occasions to use his gavel, but he hammered fully five minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus was on his feet at the bench saying something to him, Mr. Heck Tate as first officer of the county stood in the middle aisle quelling the packed courtroom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind us, there was an angry muffled groan from the colored people.\n\nReverend Sykes leaned across Dill and me, pulling at Jem's elbow. \"Mr. Jem,\" he said, \"you better take Miss Jean Louise home. Mr. Jem, you hear me?\"\n\nJem turned his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Scout, go home. Dill, you'n'Scout go home.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You gotta make me first,\" I said, remembering Atticus's blessed dictum.\n\nJem scowled furiously at me, then said to Reverend Sykes, \"I think it's okay, Reverend, she doesn't understand it.\"\n\nI was mortally offended. \"I most certainly do, I c'n understand anything you can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aw hush. She doesn't understand it, Reverend, she ain't nine yet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reverend Sykes's black eyes were anxious. \"Mr. Finch know you all are here? This ain't fit for Miss Jean Louise or you boys either.\"\n\nJem shook his head. \"He can't see us this far away. It's all right, Reverend.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I knew Jem would win, because I knew nothing could make him leave now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill and I were safe, for a while: Atticus could see us from where he was, if he looked.\n\nAs Judge Taylor banged his gavel, Mr. Ewell was sitting smugly in the witness chair, surveying his handiwork. With one phrase he had turned happy picknickers into a sulky, tense, murmuring crowd, being slowly hypnotized by gavel taps lessening in intensity until the only sound in the courtroom was a dim pink-pink-pink: the judge might have been rapping the bench with a pencil.\n\nIn possession of his court once more, Judge Taylor leaned back in his chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked suddenly weary; his age was showing, and I thought about what Atticus had said—he and Mrs. Taylor didn't kiss much—he must have been nearly seventy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There has been a request,\" Judge Taylor said, \"that this courtroom be cleared of spectators, or at least of women and children, a request that will be denied for the time being. People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for, and they have the right to subject their children to it, but I can assure you of one thing: you will receive what you see and hear in silence or you will leave this courtroom, but you won't leave it until the whole boiling of you come before me on contempt charges. Mr. Ewell, you will keep your testimony within the confines of Christian English usage, if that is possible. Proceed, Mr. Gilmer.\"\n\nMr. Ewell reminded me of a deaf-mute. I was sure he had never heard the words Judge Taylor directed at him—his mouth struggled silently with them—but their import registered on his face. Smugness faded from it, replaced by a dogged earnestness that fooled Judge Taylor not at all: as long as Mr. Ewell was on the stand, the judge kept his eyes on him, as if daring him to make a false move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Gilmer and Atticus exchanged glances." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus was sitting down again, his fist rested on his cheek and we could not see his face. Mr. Gilmer looked rather desperate. A question from Judge Taylor made him relax: \"Mr. Ewell, did you see the defendant having sexual intercourse with your daughter?\"\n\n\"Yes, I did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The spectators were quiet, but the defendant said something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus whispered to him, and Tom Robinson was silent.\n\n\"You say you were at the window?\" asked Mr. Gilmer.\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\n\"How far is it from the ground?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'bout three foot.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you have a clear view of the room?\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\n\"How did the room look?\"\n\n\"Well, it was all slung about, like there was a fight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What did you do when you saw the defendant?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I run around the house to get in, but he run out the front door just ahead of me. I sawed who he was, all right. I was too distracted about Mayella to run after'im. I run in the house and she was lyin' on the floor squallin'—\"\n\n\"Then what did you do?\"\n\n\"Why, I run for Tate quick as I could. I knowed who it was, all right, lived down yonder in that nigger-nest, passed the house every day. Jedge, I've asked this county for fifteen years to clean out that nest down yonder, they're dangerous to live around 'sides devaluin' my property—\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Ewell,\" said Mr. Gilmer hurriedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The witness made a hasty descent from the stand and ran smack into Atticus, who had risen to question him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Judge Taylor permitted the court to laugh.\n\n\"Just a minute, sir,\" said Atticus genially. \"Could I ask you a question or two?\"\n\nMr. Ewell backed up into the witness chair, settled himself, and regarded Atticus with haughty suspicion, an expression common to Maycomb County witnesses when confronted by opposing counsel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Ewell,\" Atticus began, \"folks were doing a lot of running that night. Let's see, you say you ran into the house, you ran to the window, you ran inside, you ran to Mayella, you ran for Mr. Tate. Did you, during all this running, run for a doctor?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wadn't no need to. I seen what happened.\"\n\n\"But there's one thing I don't understand,\" said Atticus. \"Weren't you concerned with Mayella's condition?\"\n\n\"I most positively was,\" said Mr. Ewell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I seen who done it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I mean her physical condition. Did you not think the nature of her injuries warranted immediate medical attention?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Didn't you think she should have had a doctor, immediately?\"\n\nThe witness said he never thought of it, he had never called a doctor to any of his'n in his life, and if he had it would have cost him five dollars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That all?\" he asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not quite,\" said Atticus casually. \"Mr. Ewell, you heard the sheriff's testimony, didn't you?\"\n\n\"How's that?\"\n\n\"You were in the courtroom when Mr. Heck Tate was on the stand, weren't you? You heard everything he said, didn't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Ewell considered the matter carefully, and seemed to decide that the question was safe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" he said.\n\n\"Do you agree with his description of Mayella's injuries?\"\n\n\"How's that?\"\n\nAtticus looked around at Mr. Gilmer and smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Ewell seemed determined not to give the defense the time of day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Tate testified that her right eye was blackened, that she was beaten around the—\"\n\n\"Oh yeah,\" said the witness. \"I hold with everything Tate said.\"\n\n\"You do?\" asked Atticus mildly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I just want to make sure.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He went to the court reporter, said something, and the reporter entertained us for some minutes by reading Mr. Tate's testimony as if it were stock-market quotations: \"...which eye her left oh yes that'd make it her right it was her right eye Mr. Finch I remember now she was bunged.\" He flipped the page. \"Up on that side of the face Sheriff please repeat what you said it was her right eye I said—\"\n\n\"Thank you, Bert,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You heard it again, Mr. Ewell. Do you have anything to add to it? Do you agree with the sheriff?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I holds with Tate. Her eye was blacked and she was mighty beat up.\"\n\nThe little man seemed to have forgotten his previous humiliation from the bench. It was becoming evident that he thought Atticus an easy match. He seemed to grow ruddy again; his chest swelled, and once more he was a red little rooster." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I thought he'd burst his shirt at Atticus's next question:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Ewell, can you read and write?\"\n\nMr. Gilmer interrupted. \"Objection,\" he said. \"Can't see what witness's literacy has to do with the case, irrelevant'n'immaterial.\"\n\nJudge Taylor was about to speak but Atticus said, \"Judge, if you'll allow the question plus another one you'll soon see.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right, let's see,\" said Judge Taylor, \"but make sure we see, Atticus. Overruled.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Gilmer seemed as curious as the rest of us as to what bearing the state of Mr. Ewell's education had on the case.\n\n\"I'll repeat the question,\" said Atticus. \"Can you read and write?\"\n\n\"I most positively can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will you write your name and show us?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I most positively will. How do you think I sign my relief checks?\"\n\nMr. Ewell was endearing himself to his fellow citizens. The whispers and chuckles below us probably had to do with what a card he was.\n\nI was becoming nervous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus seemed to know what he was doing—but it seemed to me that he'd gone frog-sticking without a light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my baby-food. Do it, and you'll often get an answer you don't want, an answer that might wreck your case.\n\nAtticus was reaching into the inside pocket of his coat. He drew out an envelope, then reached into his vest pocket and unclipped his fountain pen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He moved leisurely, and had turned so that he was in full view of the jury." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He unscrewed the fountain-pen cap and placed it gently on his table. He shook the pen a little, then handed it with the envelope to the witness. \"Would you write your name for us?\" he asked. \"Clearly now, so the jury can see you do it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Ewell wrote on the back of the envelope and looked up complacently to see Judge Taylor staring at him as if he were some fragrant gardenia in full bloom on the witness stand, to see Mr. Gilmer half-sitting, half-standing at his table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The jury was watching him, one man was leaning forward with his hands over the railing.\n\n\"What's so interestin'?\" he asked.\n\n\"You're left-handed, Mr. Ewell,\" said Judge Taylor.\n\nMr. Ewell turned angrily to the judge and said he didn't see what his being left-handed had to do with it, that he was a Christ-fearing man and Atticus Finch was taking advantage of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tricking lawyers like Atticus Finch took advantage of him all the time with their tricking ways." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had told them what happened, he'd say it again and again—which he did. Nothing Atticus asked him after that shook his story, that he'd looked through the window, then ran the nigger off, then ran for the sheriff. Atticus finally dismissed him.\n\nMr. Gilmer asked him one more question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"About your writing with your left hand, are you ambidextrous, Mr. Ewell?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I most positively am not, I can use one hand good as the other. One hand good as the other,\" he added, glaring at the defense table.\n\nJem seemed to be having a quiet fit. He was pounding the balcony rail softly, and once he whispered, \"We've got him.\"\n\nI didn't think so: Atticus was trying to show, it seemed to me, that Mr. Ewell could have beaten up Mayella." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That much I could follow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If her right eye was blacked and she was beaten mostly on the right side of the face, it would tend to show that a left-handed person did it. Sherlock Holmes and Jem Finch would agree. But Tom Robinson could easily be left-handed, too. Like Mr. Heck Tate, I imagined a person facing me, went through a swift mental pantomime, and concluded that he might have held her with his right hand and pounded her with his left." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as Harper Lee" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But someone was booming again.\n\n\"Mayella Violet Ewell—!\"\n\nA young girl walked to the witness stand. As she raised her hand and swore that the evidence she gave would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help her God, she seemed somehow fragile-looking, but when she sat facing us in the witness chair she became what she was, a thick-bodied girl accustomed to strenuous labor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In Maycomb County, it was easy to tell when someone bathed regularly, as opposed to yearly lavations: Mr. Ewell had a scalded look; as if an overnight soaking had deprived him of protective layers of dirt, his skin appeared to be sensitive to the elements." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mayella looked as if she tried to keep clean, and I was reminded of the row of red geraniums in the Ewell yard.\n\nMr. Gilmer asked Mayella to tell the jury in her own words what happened on the evening of November twenty-first of last year, just in her own words, please.\n\nMayella sat silently.\n\n\"Where were you at dusk on that evening?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "began Mr. Gilmer patiently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"On the porch.\"\n\n\"Which porch?\"\n\n\"Ain't but one, the front porch.\"\n\n\"What were you doing on the porch?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothin'.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Judge Taylor said, \"Just tell us what happened. You can do that, can't you?\"\n\nMayella stared at him and burst into tears. She covered her mouth with her hands and sobbed. Judge Taylor let her cry for a while, then he said, \"That's enough now. Don't be 'fraid of anybody here, as long as you tell the truth. All this is strange to you, I know, but you've nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear. What are you scared of?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mayella said something behind her hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What was that?\" asked the judge.\n\n\"Him,\" she sobbed, pointing at Atticus.\n\n\"Mr. Finch?\"\n\nShe nodded vigorously, saying, \"Don't want him doin' me like he done Papa, tryin' to make him out left-handed...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Judge Taylor scratched his thick white hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was plain that he had never been confronted with a problem of this kind. \"How old are you?\" he asked.\n\n\"Nineteen-and-a-half,\" Mayella said.\n\nJudge Taylor cleared his throat and tried unsuccessfully to speak in soothing tones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Finch has no idea of scaring you,\" he growled, \"and if he did, I'm here to stop him. That's one thing I'm sitting up here for. Now you're a big girl, so you just sit up straight and tell the—tell us what happened to you. You can do that, can't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I whispered to Jem, \"Has she got good sense?\"\n\nJem was squinting down at the witness stand. \"Can't tell yet,\" he said. \"She's got enough sense to get the judge sorry for her, but she might be just—oh, I don't know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mollified, Mayella gave Atticus a final terrified glance and said to Mr. Gilmer, \"Well sir, I was on the porch and—and he came along and, you see, there was this old chiffarobe in the yard Papa'd brought in to chop up for kindlin'—Papa told me to do it while he was off in the woods but I wadn't feelin' strong enough then, so he came by—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who is 'he'?\"\n\nMayella pointed to Tom Robinson. \"I'll have to ask you to be more specific, please,\" said Mr. Gilmer. \"The reporter can't put down gestures very well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That'n yonder,\" she said. \"Robinson.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then what happened?\"\n\n\"I said come here, nigger, and bust up this chiffarobe for me, I gotta nickel for you. He coulda done it easy enough, he could. So he come in the yard an' I went in the house to get him the nickel and I turned around an 'fore I knew it he was on me. Just run up behind me, he did. He got me round the neck, cussin' me an' sayin' dirt—I fought'n'hollered, but he had me round the neck. He hit me agin an' agin—\"\n\nMr. Gilmer waited for Mayella to collect herself: she had twisted her handkerchief into a sweaty rope; when she opened it to wipe her face it was a mass of creases from her hot hands. She waited for Mr. Gilmer to ask another question, but when he didn't she said, \"—he chunked me on the floor an' choked me'n took advantage of me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you scream?\" asked Mr. Gilmer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you scream and fight back?\"\n\n\"Reckon I did, hollered for all I was worth, kicked and hollered loud as I could.\"\n\n\"Then what happened?\"\n\n\"I don't remember too good, but next thing I knew Papa was in the room a'standin' over me hollerin' who done it, who done it? Then I sorta fainted an' the next thing I knew Mr. Tate was pullin' me up offa the floor and leadin' me to the water bucket.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Apparently Mayella's recital had given her confidence, but it was not her father's brash kind: there was something stealthy about hers, like a steady-eyed cat with a twitchy tail." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You say you fought him off as hard as you could? Fought him tooth and nail?\" asked Mr. Gilmer.\n\n\"I positively did,\" Mayella echoed her father.\n\n\"You are positive that he took full advantage of you?\"\n\nMayella's face contorted, and I was afraid that she would cry again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead, she said, \"He done what he was after.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Gilmer called attention to the hot day by wiping his head with his hand. \"That's all for the time being,\" he said pleasantly, \"but you stay there. I expect big bad Mr. Finch has some questions to ask you.\"\n\n\"State will not prejudice the witness against counsel for the defense,\" murmured Judge Taylor primly, \"at least not at this time.\"\n\nAtticus got up grinning, but instead of walking to the witness stand, he opened his coat and hooked his thumbs in his vest, then he walked slowly across the room to the windows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked out, but didn't seem especially interested in what he saw, then he turned and strolled back to the witness stand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From long years of experience, I could tell he was trying to come to a decision about something.\n\n\"Miss Mayella,\" he said, smiling, \"I won't try to scare you for a while, not yet. Let's just get acquainted. How old are you?\"\n\n\"Said I was nineteen, said it to the judge yonder.\" Mayella jerked her head resentfully at the bench." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So you did, so you did, ma'am. You'll have to bear with me, Miss Mayella, I'm getting along and can't remember as well as I used to. I might ask you things you've already said before, but you'll give me an answer, won't you? Good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could see nothing in Mayella's expression to justify Atticus's assumption that he had secured her wholehearted cooperation. She was looking at him furiously.\n\n\"Won't answer a word you say long as you keep on mockin' me,\" she said.\n\n\"Ma'am?\" asked Atticus, startled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Long's you keep on makin' fun o'me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Judge Taylor said, \"Mr. Finch is not making fun of you. What's the matter with you?\"\n\nMayella looked from under lowered eyelids at Atticus, but she said to the judge: \"Long's he keeps on callin' me ma'am and sayin' Miss Mayella. I don't hafta take his sass, I ain't called upon to take it.\"\n\nAtticus resumed his stroll to the windows and let Judge Taylor handle this one. Judge Taylor was not the kind of figure that ever evoked pity, but I did feel a pang for him as he tried to explain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's just Mr. Finch's way,\" he told Mayella." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've done business in this court for years and years, and Mr. Finch is always courteous to everybody. He's not trying to mock you, he's trying to be polite. That's just his way.\"\n\nThe judge leaned back. \"Atticus, let's get on with these proceedings, and let the record show that the witness has not been sassed, her views to the contrary.\"\n\nI wondered if anybody had ever called her \"ma'am\" or \"Miss Mayella\" in her life; probably not, as she took offense to routine courtesy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What on earth was her life like?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I soon found out.\n\n\"You say you're nineteen,\" Atticus resumed. \"How many sisters and brothers have you?\" He walked from the windows back to the stand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Seb'm,\" she said, and I wondered if they were all like the specimen I had seen the first day I started to school." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You the eldest? The oldest?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How long has your mother been dead?\"\n\n\"Don't know—long time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you ever go to school?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Read'n'write good as Papa yonder.\"\n\nMayella sounded like a Mr. Jingle in a book I had been reading.\n\n\"How long did you go to school?\"\n\n\"Two year—three year—dunno.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Slowly but surely I began to see the pattern of Atticus's questions: from questions that Mr. Gilmer did not deem sufficiently irrelevant or immaterial to object to, Atticus was quietly building up before the jury a picture of the Ewells' home life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The jury learned the following things: their relief check was far from enough to feed the family, and there was strong suspicion that Papa drank it up anyway—he sometimes went off in the swamp for days and came home sick; the weather was seldom cold enough to require shoes, but when it was, you could make dandy ones from strips of old tires; the family hauled its water in buckets from a spring that ran out at one end of the dump—they kept the surrounding area clear of trash—and it was everybody for himself as far as keeping clean went: if you wanted to wash you hauled your own water; the younger children had perpetual colds and suffered from chronic ground-itch; there was a lady who came around sometimes and asked Mayella why she didn't stay in school—she wrote down the answer; with two members of the family reading and writing, there was no need for the rest of them to learn—Papa needed them at home.\n\n\"Miss Mayella,\" said Atticus, in spite of himself, \"a nineteen-year-old girl like you must have friends. Who are your friends?\"\n\nThe witness frowned as if puzzled. \"Friends?\"\n\n\"Yes, don't you know anyone near your age, or older, or younger? Boys and girls? Just ordinary friends?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mayella's hostility, which had subsided to grudging neutrality, flared again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You makin' fun o'me again, Mr. Finch?\"\n\nAtticus let her question answer his.\n\n\"Do you love your father, Miss Mayella?\" was his next.\n\n\"Love him, whatcha mean?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I mean, is he good to you, is he easy to get along with?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He does tollable, 'cept when—\"\n\n\"Except when?\"\n\nMayella looked at her father, who was sitting with his chair tipped against the railing. He sat up straight and waited for her to answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Except when nothin',\" said Mayella." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I said he does tollable.\"\n\nMr. Ewell leaned back again.\n\n\"Except when he's drinking?\" asked Atticus so gently that Mayella nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does he ever go after you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How you mean?\"\n\n\"When he's—riled, has he ever beaten you?\"\n\nMayella looked around, down at the court reporter, up at the judge. \"Answer the question, Miss Mayella,\" said Judge Taylor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My paw's never touched a hair o' my head in my life,\" she declared firmly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He never touched me.\"\n\nAtticus's glasses had slipped a little, and he pushed them up on his nose. \"We've had a good visit, Miss Mayella, and now I guess we'd better get to the case. You say you asked Tom Robinson to come chop up a—what was it?\"\n\n\"A chiffarobe, a old dresser full of drawers on one side.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Was Tom Robinson well known to you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whaddya mean?\"\n\n\"I mean did you know who he was, where he lived?\"\n\nMayella nodded. \"I knowed who he was, he passed the house every day.\"\n\n\"Was this the first time you asked him to come inside the fence?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mayella jumped slightly at the question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus was making his slow pilgrimage to the windows, as he had been doing: he would ask a question, then look out, waiting for an answer. He did not see her involuntary jump, but it seemed to me that he knew she had moved. He turned around and raised his eyebrows. \"Was—\" he began again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes it was.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't you ever ask him to come inside the fence before?\"\n\nShe was prepared now. \"I did not, I certainly did not.\"\n\n\"One did not's enough,\" said Atticus serenely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You never asked him to do odd jobs for you before?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mighta,\" conceded Mayella. \"There was several niggers around.\"\n\n\"Can you remember any other occasions?\"\n\n\"No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right, now to what happened. You said Tom Robinson was behind you in the room when you turned around, that right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You said he 'got you around the neck cussing and saying dirt'—is that right?\"\n\n\"'t's right.\"\n\nAtticus's memory had suddenly become accurate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You say 'he caught me and choked me and took advantage of me'—is that right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's what I said.\"\n\n\"Do you remember him beating you about the face?\"\n\nThe witness hesitated.\n\n\"You seem sure enough that he choked you. All this time you were fighting back, remember? You 'kicked and hollered as loud as you could.' Do you remember him beating you about the face?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mayella was silent. She seemed to be trying to get something clear to herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought for a moment she was doing Mr. Heck Tate's and my trick of pretending there was a person in front of us. She glanced at Mr. Gilmer.\n\n\"It's an easy question, Miss Mayella, so I'll try again. Do you remember him beating you about the face?\" Atticus's voice had lost its comfortableness; he was speaking in his arid, detached professional voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you remember him beating you about the face?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I don't recollect if he hit me. I mean yes I do, he hit me.\"\n\n\"Was your last sentence your answer?\"\n\n\"Huh? Yes, he hit—I just don't remember, I just don't remember... it all happened so quick.\"\n\nJudge Taylor looked sternly at Mayella." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you cry, young woman—\" he began, but Atticus said, \"Let her cry if she wants to, Judge. We've got all the time in the world.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mayella sniffed wrathfully and looked at Atticus. \"I'll answer any question you got—get me up here an' mock me, will you? I'll answer any question you got—\"\n\n\"That's fine,\" said Atticus. \"There're only a few more. Miss Mayella, not to be tedious, you've testified that the defendant hit you, grabbed you around the neck, choked you, and took advantage of you. I want you to be sure you have the right man. Will you identify the man who raped you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will, that's him right yonder.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus turned to the defendant. \"Tom, stand up. Let Miss Mayella have a good long look at you. Is this the man, Miss Mayella?\"\n\nTom Robinson's powerful shoulders rippled under his thin shirt. He rose to his feet and stood with his right hand on the back of his chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked oddly off balance, but it was not from the way he was standing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand, and from as far away as the balcony I could see that it was no use to him.\n\n\"Scout,\" breathed Jem. \"Scout, look! Reverend, he's crippled!\"\n\nReverend Sykes leaned across me and whispered to Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He got it caught in a cotton gin, caught it in Mr. Dolphus Raymond's cotton gin when he was a boy... like to bled to death... tore all the muscles loose from his bones—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus said, \"Is this the man who raped you?\"\n\n\"It most certainly is.\"\n\nAtticus's next question was one word long. \"How?\"\n\nMayella was raging. \"I don't know how he done it, but he done it—I said it all happened so fast I—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now let's consider this calmly—\" began Atticus, but Mr. Gilmer interrupted with an objection: he was not irrelevant or immaterial, but Atticus was browbeating the witness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Judge Taylor laughed outright. \"Oh sit down, Horace, he's doing nothing of the sort. If anything, the witness's browbeating Atticus.\"\n\nJudge Taylor was the only person in the courtroom who laughed. Even the babies were still, and I suddenly wondered if they had been smothered at their mothers' breasts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now,\" said Atticus, \"Miss Mayella, you've testified that the defendant choked and beat you—you didn't say that he sneaked up behind you and knocked you cold, but you turned around and there he was—\" Atticus was back behind his table, and he emphasized his words by tapping his knuckles on it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"—do you wish to reconsider any of your testimony?\"\n\n\"You want me to say something that didn't happen?\"\n\n\"No ma'am, I want you to say something that did happen. Tell us once more, please, what happened?\"\n\n\"I told'ja what happened.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You testified that you turned around and there he was. He choked you then?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then he released your throat and hit you?\"\n\n\"I said he did.\"\n\n\"He blacked your left eye with his right fist?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I ducked and it—it glanced, that's what it did. I ducked and it glanced off.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mayella had finally seen the light.\n\n\"You're becoming suddenly clear on this point. A while ago you couldn't remember too well, could you?\"\n\n\"I said he hit me.\"\n\n\"All right. He choked you, he hit you, then he raped you, that right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It most certainly is.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're a strong girl, what were you doing all the time, just standing there?\"\n\n\"I told'ja I hollered'n'kicked'n'fought—\"\n\nAtticus reached up and took off his glasses, turned his good right eye to the witness, and rained questions on her. Judge Taylor said, \"One question at a time, Atticus. Give the witness a chance to answer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right, why didn't you run?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I tried to...\"\n\n\"Tried to? What kept you from it?\"\n\n\"I—he slung me down. That's what he did, he slung me down'n got on top of me.\"\n\n\"You were screaming all this time?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I certainly was.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why didn't the other children hear you? Where were they? At the dump?\"\n\nNo answer.\n\n\"Where were they?\"\n\n\"Why didn't your screams make them come running? The dump's closer than the woods, isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or didn't you scream until you saw your father in the window? You didn't think to scream until then, did you?\"\n\nNo answer.\n\n\"Did you scream first at your father instead of at Tom Robinson? Was that it?\"\n\nNo answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who beat you up? Tom Robinson or your father?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No answer.\n\n\"What did your father see in the window, the crime of rape or the best defense to it? Why don't you tell the truth, child, didn't Bob Ewell beat you up?\"\n\nWhen Atticus turned away from Mayella he looked like his stomach hurt, but Mayella's face was a mixture of terror and fury. Atticus sat down wearily and polished his glasses with his handkerchief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suddenly Mayella became articulate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I got somethin' to say,\" she said.\n\nAtticus raised his head. \"Do you want to tell us what happened?\"\n\nBut she did not hear the compassion in his invitation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I got somethin' to say an' then I ain't gonna say no more. That nigger yonder took advantage of me an' if you fine fancy gentlemen don't wanta do nothin' about it then you're all yellow stinkin' cowards, stinkin' cowards, the lot of you. Your fancy airs don't come to nothin'— your ma'amin' and Miss Mayellerin' don't come to nothin', Mr. Finch—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she burst into real tears. Her shoulders shook with angry sobs. She was as good as her word. She answered no more questions, even when Mr. Gilmer tried to get her back on the track." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I guess if she hadn't been so poor and ignorant, Judge Taylor would have put her under the jail for the contempt she had shown everybody in the courtroom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somehow, Atticus had hit her hard in a way that was not clear to me, but it gave him no pleasure to do so. He sat with his head down, and I never saw anybody glare at anyone with the hatred Mayella showed when she left the stand and walked by Atticus's table.\n\nWhen Mr. Gilmer told Judge Taylor that the state rested, Judge Taylor said, \"It's time we all did. We'll take ten minutes.\"\n\nAtticus and Mr. Gilmer met in front of the bench and whispered, then they left the courtroom by a door behind the witness stand, which was a signal for us all to stretch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I discovered that I had been sitting on the edge of the long bench, and I was somewhat numb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem got up and yawned, Dill did likewise, and Reverend Sykes wiped his face on his hat. The temperature was an easy ninety, he said.\n\nMr. Braxton Underwood, who had been sitting quietly in a chair reserved for the Press, soaking up testimony with his sponge of a brain, allowed his bitter eyes to rove over the Colored balcony, and they met mine. He gave a snort and looked away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jem,\" I said, \"Mr. Underwood's seen us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's okay. He won't tell Atticus, he'll just put it on the social side of the Tribune.\" Jem turned back to Dill, explaining, I suppose, the finer points of the trial to him, but I wondered what they were. There had been no lengthy debates between Atticus and Mr. Gilmer on any points; Mr. Gilmer seemed to be prosecuting almost reluctantly; witnesses had been led by the nose as asses are, with few objections. But Atticus had once told us that in Judge Taylor's court any lawyer who was a strict constructionist on evidence usually wound up receiving strict instructions from the bench." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He distilled this for me to mean that Judge Taylor might look lazy and operate in his sleep, but he was seldom reversed, and that was the proof of the pudding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus said he was a good judge.\n\nPresently Judge Taylor returned and climbed into his swivel chair. He took a cigar from his vest pocket and examined it thoughtfully. I punched Dill. Having passed the judge's inspection, the cigar suffered a vicious bite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We come down sometimes to watch him,\" I explained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's gonna take him the rest of the afternoon, now. You watch.\" Unaware of public scrutiny from above, Judge Taylor disposed of the severed end by propelling it expertly to his lips and saying, \"Fhluck!\" He hit a spittoon so squarely we could hear it slosh. \"Bet he was hell with a spitball,\" murmured Dill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As a rule, a recess meant a general exodus, but today people weren't moving." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the Idlers who had failed to shame younger men from their seats had remained standing along the walls. I guess Mr. Heck Tate had reserved the county toilet for court officials.\n\nAtticus and Mr. Gilmer returned, and Judge Taylor looked at his watch. \"It's gettin' on to four,\" he said, which was intriguing, as the courthouse clock must have struck the hour at least twice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had not heard it or felt its vibrations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shall we try to wind up this afternoon?\" asked Judge Taylor. \"How 'bout it, Atticus?\"\n\n\"I think we can,\" said Atticus.\n\n\"How many witnesses you got?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, call him.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\nfour sentences\n\nStyle:\nHarper Lee" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thomas Robinson reached around, ran his fingers under his left arm and lifted it. He guided his arm to the Bible and his rubber-like left hand sought contact with the black binding. As he raised his right hand, the useless one slipped off the Bible and hit the clerk's table. He was trying again when Judge Taylor growled, \"That'll do, Tom.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom took the oath and stepped into the witness chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus very quickly induced him to tell us: Tom was twenty-five years of age; he was married with three children; he had been in trouble with the law before: he once received thirty days for disorderly conduct.\n\n\"It must have been disorderly,\" said Atticus. \"What did it consist of?\"\n\n\"Got in a fight with another man, he tried to cut me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did he succeed?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes suh, a little, not enough to hurt. You see, I—\" Tom moved his left shoulder.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Atticus. \"You were both convicted?\"\n\n\"Yes suh, I had to serve 'cause I couldn't pay the fine. Other fellow paid his'n.\"\n\nDill learned across me and asked Jem what Atticus was doing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem said Atticus was showing the jury that Tom had nothing to hide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Were you acquainted with Mayella Violet Ewell?\" asked Atticus.\n\n\"Yes suh, I had to pass her place goin' to and from the field every day.\"\n\n\"Whose field?\"\n\n\"I picks for Mr. Link Deas.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Were you picking cotton in November?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No suh, I works in his yard fall an' wintertime. I works pretty steady for him all year round, he's got a lot of pecan trees'n things.\"\n\n\"You say you had to pass the Ewell place to get to and from work. Is there any other way to go?\"\n\n\"No suh, none's I know of.\"\n\n\"Tom, did she ever speak to you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why, yes suh, I'd tip m'hat when I'd go by, and one day she asked me to come inside the fence and bust up a chiffarobe for her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When did she ask you to chop up the—the chiffarobe?\"\n\n\"Mr. Finch, it was way last spring. I remember it because it was choppin' time and I had my hoe with me. I said I didn't have nothin' but this hoe, but she said she had a hatchet. She give me the hatchet and I broke up the chiffarobe. She said, 'I reckon I'll hafta give you a nickel, won't I?' I said, 'No ma'am, there ain't no charge.' Then I went home. Mr. Finch, that was way last spring, way over a year ago.\"\n\n\"Did you ever go on the place again?\"\n\n\"Yes suh.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I went lots of times.\"\n\nJudge Taylor instinctively reached for his gavel, but let his hand fall. The murmur below us died without his help.\n\n\"Under what circumstances?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please, suh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why did you go inside the fence lots of times?\"\n\nTom Robinson's forehead relaxed. \"She'd call me in, suh. Seemed like every time I passed by yonder she'd have some little somethin' for me to do—choppin' kindlin', totin' water for her. She watered them red flowers every day—\"\n\n\"Were you paid for your services?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No suh, not after she offered me a nickel the first time. I was glad to do it, Mr. Ewell didn't seem to help her none, and neither did the chillun, and I knowed she didn't have no nickels to spare.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where were the other children?\"\n\n\"They was always around, all over the place. They'd watch me work, some of 'em, some of 'em'd set in the window.\"\n\n\"Would Miss Mayella talk to you?\"\n\n\"Yes suh, she talked to me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Tom Robinson gave his testimony, it came to me that Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years. When Atticus asked had she any friends, she seemed not to know what he meant, then she thought he was making fun of her. She was as sad, I thought, as what Jem called a mixed child: white people wouldn't have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn't have anything to do with her because she was white. She couldn't live like Mr. Dolphus Raymond, who preferred the company of Negroes, because she didn't own a riverbank and she wasn't from a fine old family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nobody said, \"That's just their way,\" about the Ewells." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maycomb gave them Christmas baskets, welfare money, and the back of its hand. Tom Robinson was probably the only person who was ever decent to her. But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her feet.\n\n\"Did you ever,\" Atticus interrupted my meditations, \"at any time, go on the Ewell property—did you ever set foot on the Ewell property without an express invitation from one of them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No suh, Mr. Finch, I never did. I wouldn't do that, suh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus sometimes said that one way to tell whether a witness was lying or telling the truth was to listen rather than watch: I applied his test—Tom denied it three times in one breath, but quietly, with no hint of whining in his voice, and I found myself believing him in spite of his protesting too much. He seemed to be a respectable Negro, and a respectable Negro would never go up into somebody's yard of his own volition.\n\n\"Tom, what happened to you on the evening of November twenty-first of last year?\"\n\nBelow us, the spectators drew a collective breath and leaned forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind us, the Negroes did the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom was a black-velvet Negro, not shiny, but soft black velvet. The whites of his eyes shone in his face, and when he spoke we saw flashes of his teeth. If he had been whole, he would have been a fine specimen of a man.\n\n\"Mr. Finch,\" he said, \"I was goin' home as usual that evenin', an' when I passed the Ewell place Miss Mayella were on the porch, like she said she were. It seemed real quiet like, an' I didn't quite know why. I was studyin' why, just passin' by, when she says for me to come there and help her a minute. Well, I went inside the fence an' looked around for some kindlin' to work on, but I didn't see none, and she says, 'Naw, I got somethin' for you to do in the house. Th' old door's off its hinges an' fall's comin' on pretty fast.' I said you got a screwdriver, Miss Mayella? She said she sho' had. Well, I went up the steps an' she motioned me to come inside, and I went in the front room an' looked at the door. I said Miss Mayella, this door look all right. I pulled it back'n forth and those hinges was all right. Then she shet the door in my face. Mr. Finch, I was wonderin' why it was so quiet like, an' it come to me that there weren't a chile on the place, not a one of 'em, and I said Miss Mayella, where the chillun?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom's black velvet skin had begun to shine, and he ran his hand over his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I say where the chillun?\" he continued, \"an' she says—she was laughin', sort of—she says they all gone to town to get ice creams. She says, 'Took me a slap year to save seb'm nickels, but I done it. They all gone to town.'\"\n\nTom's discomfort was not from the humidity. \"What did you say then, Tom?\" asked Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I said somethin' like, why Miss Mayella, that's right smart o'you to treat 'em. An' she said, 'You think so?' I don't think she understood what I was thinkin'—I meant it was smart of her to save like that, an' nice of her to treat 'em.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I understand you, Tom. Go on,\" said Atticus.\n\n\"Well, I said I best be goin', I couldn't do nothin' for her, an' she says oh yes I could, an' I ask her what, and she says to just step on that chair yonder an' git that box down from on top of the chiffarobe.\"\n\n\"Not the same chiffarobe you busted up?\" asked Atticus.\n\nThe witness smiled. \"Naw suh, another one. Most as tall as the room. So I done what she told me, an' I was just reachin' when the next thing I knows she—she'd grabbed me round the legs, grabbed me round th' legs, Mr. Finch. She scared me so bad I hopped down an' turned the chair over—that was the only thing, only furniture, 'sturbed in that room, Mr. Finch, when I left it. I swear 'fore God.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What happened after you turned the chair over?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom Robinson had come to a dead stop. He glanced at Atticus, then at the jury, then at Mr. Underwood sitting across the room.\n\n\"Tom, you're sworn to tell the whole truth. Will you tell it?\"\n\nTom ran his hand nervously over his mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What happened after that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Answer the question,\" said Judge Taylor. One-third of his cigar had vanished.\n\n\"Mr. Finch, I got down offa that chair an' turned around an' she sorta jumped on me.\"\n\n\"Jumped on you? Violently?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No suh, she—she hugged me. She hugged me round the waist.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This time Judge Taylor's gavel came down with a bang, and as it did the overhead lights went on in the courtroom. Darkness had not come, but the afternoon sun had left the windows. Judge Taylor quickly restored order.\n\n\"Then what did she do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The witness swallowed hard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She reached up an' kissed me 'side of th' face. She says she never kissed a grown man before an' she might as well kiss a nigger. She says what her papa do to her don't count. She says, 'Kiss me back, nigger.' I say Miss Mayella lemme outa here an' tried to run but she got her back to the door an' I'da had to push her. I didn't wanta harm her, Mr. Finch, an' I say lemme pass, but just when I say it Mr. Ewell yonder hollered through th' window.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\"\n\nTom Robinson swallowed again, and his eyes widened. \"Somethin' not fittin' to say—not fittin' for these folks'n chillun to hear—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What did he say, Tom? You must tell the jury what he said.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tom Robinson shut his eyes tight. \"He says you goddamn whore, I'll kill ya.\"\n\n\"Then what happened?\"\n\n\"Mr. Finch, I was runnin' so fast I didn't know what happened.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tom, did you rape Mayella Ewell?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I did not, suh.\"\n\n\"Did you harm her in any way?\"\n\n\"I did not, suh.\"\n\n\"Did you resist her advances?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Finch, I tried. I tried to 'thout bein' ugly to her. I didn't wanta be ugly, I didn't wanta push her or nothin'.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It occurred to me that in their own way, Tom Robinson's manners were as good as Atticus's. Until my father explained it to me later, I did not understand the subtlety of Tom's predicament: he would not have dared strike a white woman under any circumstances and expect to live long, so he took the first opportunity to run—a sure sign of guilt.\n\n\"Tom, go back once more to Mr. Ewell,\" said Atticus. \"Did he say anything to you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not anything, suh. He mighta said somethin', but I weren't there—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That'll do,\" Atticus cut in sharply. \"What you did hear, who was he talking to?\"\n\n\"Mr. Finch, he were talkin' and lookin' at Miss Mayella.\"\n\n\"Then you ran?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I sho' did, suh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why did you run?\"\n\n\"I was scared, suh.\"\n\n\"Why were you scared?\"\n\n\"Mr. Finch, if you was a nigger like me, you'd be scared, too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus sat down. Mr. Gilmer was making his way to the witness stand, but before he got there Mr. Link Deas rose from the audience and announced: \"I just want the whole lot of you to know one thing right now. That boy's worked for me eight years an' I ain't had a speck o'trouble outa him. Not a speck.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shut your mouth, sir!\" Judge Taylor was wide awake and roaring. He was also pink in the face. His speech was miraculously unimpaired by his cigar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Link Deas,\" he yelled, \"if you have anything you want to say you can say it under oath and at the proper time, but until then you get out of this room, you hear me? Get out of this room, sir, you hear me? I'll be damned if I'll listen to this case again!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Judge Taylor looked daggers at Atticus, as if daring him to speak, but Atticus had ducked his head and was laughing into his lap. I remembered something he had said about Judge Taylor's ex cathedra remarks sometimes exceeding his duty, but that few lawyers ever did anything about them. I looked at Jem, but Jem shook his head. \"It ain't like one of the jurymen got up and started talking,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think it'd be different then. Mr. Link was just disturbin' the peace or something.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Judge Taylor told the reporter to expunge anything he happened to have written down after Mr. Finch if you were a nigger like me you'd be scared too, and told the jury to disregard the interruption. He looked suspiciously down the middle aisle and waited, I suppose, for Mr. Link Deas to effect total departure. Then he said, \"Go ahead, Mr. Gilmer.\"\n\n\"You were given thirty days once for disorderly conduct, Robinson?\" asked Mr. Gilmer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes suh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What'd the nigger look like when you got through with him?\"\n\n\"He beat me, Mr. Gilmer.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you were convicted, weren't you?\"\n\nAtticus raised his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was a misdemeanor and it's in the record, Judge.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought he sounded tired.\n\n\"Witness'll answer, though,\" said Judge Taylor, just as wearily.\n\n\"Yes suh, I got thirty days.\"\n\nI knew that Mr. Gilmer would sincerely tell the jury that anyone who was convicted of disorderly conduct could easily have had it in his heart to take advantage of Mayella Ewell, that was the only reason he cared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reasons like that helped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Robinson, you're pretty good at busting up chiffarobes and kindling with one hand, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes suh, I reckon so.\"\n\n\"Strong enough to choke the breath out of a woman and sling her to the floor?\"\n\n\"I never done that, suh.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you are strong enough to?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I reckon so, suh.\"\n\n\"Had your eye on her a long time, hadn't you, boy?\"\n\n\"No suh, I never looked at her.\"\n\n\"Then you were mighty polite to do all that chopping and hauling for her, weren't you, boy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was just tryin' to help her out, suh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was mighty generous of you, you had chores at home after your regular work, didn't you?\"\n\n\"Yes suh.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you do them instead of Miss Ewell's?\"\n\n\"I done 'em both, suh.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You must have been pretty busy. Why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why what, suh?\"\n\n\"Why were you so anxious to do that woman's chores?\"\n\nTom Robinson hesitated, searching for an answer. \"Looked like she didn't have anybody to help her, like I says—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"With Mr. Ewell and seven children on the place, boy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I says it looked like they never help her none—\"\n\n\"You did all this chopping and work from sheer goodness, boy?\"\n\n\"Tried to help her, I says.\"\n\nMr. Gilmer smiled grimly at the jury." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're a mighty good fellow, it seems—did all this for not one penny?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more'n the rest of 'em—\"\n\n\"You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for her?\" Mr. Gilmer seemed ready to rise to the ceiling.\n\nThe witness realized his mistake and shifted uncomfortably in the chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the damage was done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Below us, nobody liked Tom Robinson's answer. Mr. Gilmer paused a long time to let it sink in.\n\n\"Now you went by the house as usual, last November twenty-first,\" he said, \"and she asked you to come in and bust up a chiffarobe?\"\n\n\"No suh.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you deny that you went by the house?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No suh—she said she had somethin' for me to do inside the house—\"\n\n\"She says she asked you to bust up a chiffarobe, is that right?\"\n\n\"No suh, it ain't.\"\n\n\"Then you say she's lying, boy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus was on his feet, but Tom Robinson didn't need him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't say she's lyin', Mr. Gilmer, I say she's mistaken in her mind.\"\n\nTo the next ten questions, as Mr. Gilmer reviewed Mayella's version of events, the witness's steady answer was that she was mistaken in her mind.\n\n\"Didn't Mr. Ewell run you off the place, boy?\"\n\n\"No suh, I don't think he did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't think, what do you mean?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean I didn't stay long enough for him to run me off.\"\n\n\"You're very candid about this, why did you run so fast?\"\n\n\"I says I was scared, suh.\"\n\n\"If you had a clear conscience, why were you scared?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Like I says before, it weren't safe for any nigger to be in a—fix like that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you weren't in a fix—you testified that you were resisting Miss Ewell. Were you so scared that she'd hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?\"\n\n\"No suh, I's scared I'd be in court, just like I am now.\"\n\n\"Scared of arrest, scared you'd have to face up to what you did?\"\n\n\"No suh, scared I'd hafta face up to what I didn't do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you being impudent to me, boy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No suh, I didn't go to be.\"\n\nThis was as much as I heard of Mr. Gilmer's cross-examination, because Jem made me take Dill out. For some reason Dill had started crying and couldn't stop; quietly at first, then his sobs were heard by several people in the balcony. Jem said if I didn't go with him he'd make me, and Reverend Sykes said I'd better go, so I went." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill had seemed to be all right that day, nothing wrong with him, but I guessed he hadn't fully recovered from running away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ain't you feeling good?\" I asked, when we reached the bottom of the stairs.\n\nDill tried to pull himself together as we ran down the south steps. Mr. Link Deas was a lonely figure on the top step." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anything happenin', Scout?\" he asked as we went by." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No sir,\" I answered over my shoulder. \"Dill here, he's sick.\"\n\n\"Come on out under the trees,\" I said. \"Heat got you, I expect.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We chose the fattest live oak and we sat under it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was just him I couldn't stand,\" Dill said.\n\n\"Who, Tom?\"\n\n\"That old Mr. Gilmer doin' him thataway, talking so hateful to him—\"\n\n\"Dill, that's his job. Why, if we didn't have prosecutors—well, we couldn't have defense attorneys, I reckon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill exhaled patiently. \"I know all that, Scout. It was the way he said it made me sick, plain sick.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's supposed to act that way, Dill, he was cross—\"\n\n\"He didn't act that way when—\"\n\n\"Dill, those were his own witnesses.\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. Finch didn't act that way to Mayella and old man Ewell when he cross-examined them. The way that man called him 'boy' all the time and sneered at him, an' looked around at the jury every time he answered—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, Dill, after all he's just a Negro.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't care one speck. It ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that—it just makes me sick.\"\n\n\"That's just Mr. Gilmer's way, Dill, he does 'em all that way. You've never seen him get good'n down on one yet. Why, when—well, today Mr. Gilmer seemed to me like he wasn't half trying. They do 'em all that way, most lawyers, I mean.\"\n\n\"Mr. Finch doesn't.\"\n\n\"He's not an example, Dill, he's—\" I was trying to grope in my memory for a sharp phrase of Miss Maudie Atkinson's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had it: \"He's the same in the courtroom as he is on the public streets.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's not what I mean,\" said Dill.\n\n\"I know what you mean, boy,\" said a voice behind us. We thought it came from the tree-trunk, but it belonged to Mr. Dolphus Raymond. He peered around the trunk at us. \"You aren't thin-hided, it just makes you sick, doesn't it?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with 4 sentences, emulating the writing style of Harper Lee." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come on round here, son, I got something that'll settle your stomach.\"\n\nAs Mr. Dolphus Raymond was an evil man I accepted his invitation reluctantly, but I followed Dill. Somehow, I didn't think Atticus would like it if we became friendly with Mr. Raymond, and I knew Aunt Alexandra wouldn't.\n\n\"Here,\" he said, offering Dill his paper sack with straws in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Take a good sip, it'll quieten you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dill sucked on the straws, smiled, and pulled at length.\n\n\"Hee hee,\" said Mr. Raymond, evidently taking delight in corrupting a child.\n\n\"Dill, you watch out, now,\" I warned.\n\nDill released the straws and grinned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Scout, it's nothing but Coca-Cola.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Raymond sat up against the tree-trunk. He had been lying on the grass. \"You little folks won't tell on me now, will you? It'd ruin my reputation if you did.\"\n\n\"You mean all you drink in that sack's Coca-Cola? Just plain Coca-Cola?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes ma'am,\" Mr. Raymond nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I liked his smell: it was of leather, horses, cottonseed. He wore the only English riding boots I had ever seen. \"That's all I drink, most of the time.\"\n\n\"Then you just pretend you're half—? I beg your pardon, sir,\" I caught myself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't mean to be—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Raymond chuckled, not at all offended, and I tried to frame a discreet question: \"Why do you do like you do?\"\n\n\"Wh—oh yes, you mean why do I pretend? Well, it's very simple,\" he said. \"Some folks don't—like the way I live. Now I could say the hell with 'em, I don't care if they don't like it. I do say I don't care if they don't like it, right enough—but I don't say the hell with 'em, see?\"\n\nDill and I said, \"No sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I try to give 'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason. When I come to town, which is seldom, if I weave a little and drink out of this sack, folks can say Dolphus Raymond's in the clutches of whiskey—that's why he won't change his ways. He can't help himself, that's why he lives the way he does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That ain't honest, Mr. Raymond, making yourself out badder'n you are already—\"\n\n\"It ain't honest but it's mighty helpful to folks. Secretly, Miss Finch, I'm not much of a drinker, but you see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live.\"\n\nI had a feeling that I shouldn't be here listening to this sinful man who had mixed children and didn't care who knew it, but he was fascinating. I had never encountered a being who deliberately perpetrated fraud against himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But why had he entrusted us with his deepest secret?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I asked him why.\n\n\"Because you're children and you can understand it,\" he said, \"and because I heard that one—\"\n\nHe jerked his head at Dill: \"Things haven't caught up with that one's instinct yet. Let him get a little older and he won't get sick and cry. Maybe things'll strike him as being—not quite right, say, but he won't cry, not when he gets a few years on him.\"\n\n\"Cry about what, Mr. Raymond?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill's maleness was beginning to assert itself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cry about the simple hell people give other people—without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they're people, too.\"\n\n\"Atticus says cheatin' a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin' a white man,\" I muttered. \"Says it's the worst thing you can do.\"\n\nMr. Raymond said, \"I don't reckon it's—Miss Jean Louise, you don't know your pa's not a run-of-the-mill man, it'll take a few years for that to sink in—you haven't seen enough of the world yet. You haven't even seen this town, but all you gotta do is step back inside the courthouse.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Which reminded me that we were missing nearly all of Mr. Gilmer's cross-examination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I looked at the sun, and it was dropping fast behind the store-tops on the west side of the square. Between two fires, I could not decide which I wanted to jump into: Mr. Raymond or the 5th Judicial Circuit Court. \"C'mon, Dill,\" I said. \"You all right, now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah. Glad to've metcha, Mr. Raymond, and thanks for the drink, it was mighty settlin'.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We raced back to the courthouse, up the steps, up two flights of stairs, and edged our way along the balcony rail. Reverend Sykes had saved our seats.\n\nThe courtroom was still, and again I wondered where the babies were. Judge Taylor's cigar was a brown speck in the center of his mouth; Mr. Gilmer was writing on one of the yellow pads on his table, trying to outdo the court reporter, whose hand was jerking rapidly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shoot,\" I muttered, \"we missed it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus was halfway through his speech to the jury. He had evidently pulled some papers from his briefcase that rested beside his chair, because they were on his table. Tom Robinson was toying with them.\n\n\"...absence of any corroborative evidence, this man was indicted on a capital charge and is now on trial for his life...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I punched Jem. \"How long's he been at it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's just gone over the evidence,\" Jem whispered, \"and we're gonna win, Scout. I don't see how we can't. He's been at it 'bout five minutes. He made it as plain and easy as—well, as I'da explained it to you. You could've understood it, even.\"\n\n\"Did Mr. Gilmer—?\"\n\n\"Sh-h. Nothing new, just the usual. Hush now.\"\n\nWe looked down again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus was speaking easily, with the kind of detachment he used when he dictated a letter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked slowly up and down in front of the jury, and the jury seemed to be attentive: their heads were up, and they followed Atticus's route with what seemed to be appreciation. I guess it was because Atticus wasn't a thunderer.\n\nAtticus paused, then he did something he didn't ordinarily do. He unhitched his watch and chain and placed them on the table, saying, \"With the court's permission—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Judge Taylor nodded, and then Atticus did something I never saw him do before or since, in public or in private: he unbuttoned his vest, unbuttoned his collar, loosened his tie, and took off his coat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He never loosened a scrap of his clothing until he undressed at bedtime, and to Jem and me, this was the equivalent of him standing before us stark naked. We exchanged horrified glances.\n\nAtticus put his hands in his pockets, and as he returned to the jury, I saw his gold collar button and the tips of his pen and pencil winking in the light.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" he said. Jem and I again looked at each other: Atticus might have said, \"Scout.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His voice had lost its aridity, its detachment, and he was talking to the jury as if they were folks on the post office corner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gentlemen,\" he was saying, \"I shall be brief, but I would like to use my remaining time with you to remind you that this case is not a difficult one, it requires no minute sifting of complicated facts, but it does require you to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant. To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. This case is as simple as black and white.\n\n\"The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The defendant is not guilty, but somebody in this courtroom is.\n\n\"I have nothing but pity in my heart for the chief witness for the state, but my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man's life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt.\n\n\"I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. She persisted, as her subsequent reaction is something that all of us have known at one time or another. She did something every child has done—she tried to put the evidence of her offense away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim—of necessity she must put him away from her—he must be removed from her presence, from this world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She must destroy the evidence of her offense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was her daily reminder of what she did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What did she do?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tempted a Negro.\n\n\"She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Her father saw it, and the defendant has testified as to his remarks. What did her father do? We don't know, but there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led almost exclusively with his left. We do know in part what Mr. Ewell did: he did what any God-fearing, persevering, respectable white man would do under the circumstances—he swore out a warrant, no doubt signing it with his left hand, and Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses—his right hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to 'feel sorry' for a white woman has had to put his word against two white people's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I need not remind you of their appearance and conduct on the stand—you saw them for yourselves. The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption—the evil assumption—that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.\n\n\"Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.\"\n\nAtticus paused and took out his handkerchief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he took off his glasses and wiped them, and we saw another \"first\": we had never seen him sweat—he was one of those men whose faces never perspired, but now it was shining tan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One more thing, gentlemen, before I quit. Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the Yankees and the distaff side of the Executive branch in Washington are fond of hurling at us. There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious—because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system—that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus's voice had dropped, and as he turned away from the jury he said something I did not catch. He said it more to himself than to the court. I punched Jem. \"What'd he say?\"\n\n\"'In the name of God, believe him,' I think that's what he said.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill suddenly reached over me and tugged at Jem. \"Looka yonder!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We followed his finger with sinking hearts. Calpurnia was making her way up the middle aisle, walking straight toward Atticus." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next 4 sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stopped shyly at the railing and waited to get Judge Taylor's attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was in a fresh apron and she carried an envelope in her hand.\n\nJudge Taylor saw her and said, \"It's Calpurnia, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes sir,\" she said. \"Could I just pass this note to Mr. Finch, please sir? It hasn't got anything to do with—with the trial.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Judge Taylor nodded and Atticus took the envelope from Calpurnia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened it, read its contents and said, \"Judge, I—this note is from my sister. She says my children are missing, haven't turned up since noon... I... could you—\"\n\n\"I know where they are, Atticus.\" Mr. Underwood spoke up. \"They're right up yonder in the Colored balcony—been there since precisely one-eighteen P.M.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Our father turned around and looked up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jem, come down from there,\" he called. Then he said something to the Judge we didn't hear. We climbed across Reverend Sykes and made our way to the staircase.\n\nAtticus and Calpurnia met us downstairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia looked peeved, but Atticus looked exhausted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem was jumping in excitement. \"We've won, haven't we?\"\n\n\"I've no idea,\" said Atticus shortly. \"You've been here all afternoon? Go home with Calpurnia and get your supper—and stay home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aw, Atticus, let us come back,\" pleaded Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Please let us hear the verdict, please sir.\"\n\n\"The jury might be out and back in a minute, we don't know—\" but we could tell Atticus was relenting. \"Well, you've heard it all, so you might as well hear the rest. Tell you what, you all can come back when you've eaten your supper—eat slowly, now, you won't miss anything important—and if the jury's still out, you can wait with us. But I expect it'll be over before you get back.\"\n\n\"You think they'll acquit him that fast?\" asked Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus opened his mouth to answer, but shut it and left us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I prayed that Reverend Sykes would save our seats for us, but stopped praying when I remembered that people got up and left in droves when the jury was out—tonight, they'd overrun the drugstore, the O.K. Café and the hotel, that is, unless they had brought their suppers too.\n\nCalpurnia marched us home: \"—skin every one of you alive, the very idea, you children listenin' to all that! Mister Jem, don't you know better'n to take your little sister to that trial? Miss Alexandra'll absolutely have a stroke of paralysis when she finds out! Ain't fittin' for children to hear...\"\n\nThe streetlights were on, and we glimpsed Calpurnia's indignant profile as we passed beneath them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mister Jem, I thought you was gettin' some kinda head on your shoulders—the very idea, she's your little sister! The very idea, sir! You oughta be perfectly ashamed of yourself—ain't you got any sense at all?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was exhilarated. So many things had happened so fast I felt it would take years to sort them out, and now here was Calpurnia giving her precious Jem down the country—what new marvels would the evening bring?\n\nJem was chuckling. \"Don't you want to hear about it, Cal?\"\n\n\"Hush your mouth, sir! When you oughta be hangin' your head in shame you go along laughin'—\" Calpurnia revived a series of rusty threats that moved Jem to little remorse, and she sailed up the front steps with her classic, \"If Mr. Finch don't wear you out, I will—get in that house, sir!\"\n\nJem went in grinning, and Calpurnia nodded tacit consent to having Dill in to supper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You all call Miss Rachel right now and tell her where you are,\" she told him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's run distracted lookin' for you—you watch out she don't ship you back to Meridian first thing in the mornin'.\"\n\nAunt Alexandra met us and nearly fainted when Calpurnia told her where we were. I guess it hurt her when we told her Atticus said we could go back, because she didn't say a word during supper. She just rearranged food on her plate, looking at it sadly while Calpurnia served Jem, Dill and me with a vengeance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia poured milk, dished out potato salad and ham, muttering, \"'shamed of yourselves,\" in varying degrees of intensity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now you all eat slow,\" was her final command.\n\nReverend Sykes had saved our places. We were surprised to find that we had been gone nearly an hour, and were equally surprised to find the courtroom exactly as we had left it, with minor changes: the jury box was empty, the defendant was gone; Judge Taylor had been gone, but he reappeared as we were seating ourselves.\n\n\"Nobody's moved, hardly,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They moved around some when the jury went out,\" said Reverend Sykes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The menfolk down there got the womenfolk their suppers, and they fed their babies.\"\n\n\"How long have they been out?\" asked Jem.\n\n\"'bout thirty minutes. Mr. Finch and Mr. Gilmer did some more talkin', and Judge Taylor charged the jury.\"\n\n\"How was he?\" asked Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What say? Oh, he did right well. I ain't complainin' one bit—he was mighty fair-minded. He sorta said if you believe this, then you'll have to return one verdict, but if you believe this, you'll have to return another one. I thought he was leanin' a little to our side—\" Reverend Sykes scratched his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem smiled. \"He's not supposed to lean, Reverend, but don't fret, we've won it,\" he said wisely. \"Don't see how any jury could convict on what we heard—\"\n\n\"Now don't you be so confident, Mr. Jem, I ain't ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man...\" But Jem took exception to Reverend Sykes, and we were subjected to a lengthy review of the evidence with Jem's ideas on the law regarding rape: it wasn't rape if she let you, but she had to be eighteen—in Alabama, that is—and Mayella was nineteen. Apparently you had to kick and holler, you had to be overpowered and stomped on, preferably knocked stone cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If you were under eighteen, you didn't have to go through all this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Jem,\" Reverend Sykes demurred, \"this ain't a polite thing for little ladies to hear...\"\n\n\"Aw, she doesn't know what we're talkin' about,\" said Jem. \"Scout, this is too old for you, ain't it?\"\n\n\"It most certainly is not, I know every word you're saying.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps I was too convincing, because Jem hushed and never discussed the subject again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What time is it, Reverend?\" he asked.\n\n\"Gettin' on toward eight.\"\n\nI looked down and saw Atticus strolling around with his hands in his pockets: he made a tour of the windows, then walked by the railing over to the jury box. He looked in it, inspected Judge Taylor on his throne, then went back to where he started." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I caught his eye and waved to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He acknowledged my salute with a nod, and resumed his tour.\n\nMr. Gilmer was standing at the windows talking to Mr. Underwood. Bert, the court reporter, was chain-smoking: he sat back with his feet on the table.\n\nBut the officers of the court, the ones present—Atticus, Mr. Gilmer, Judge Taylor sound asleep, and Bert, were the only ones whose behavior seemed normal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had never seen a packed courtroom so still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes a baby would cry out fretfully, and a child would scurry out, but the grown people sat as if they were in church. In the balcony, the Negroes sat and stood around us with biblical patience.\n\nThe old courthouse clock suffered its preliminary strain and struck the hour, eight deafening bongs that shook our bones.\n\nWhen it bonged eleven times I was past feeling: tired from fighting sleep, I allowed myself a short nap against Reverend Sykes's comfortable arm and shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I jerked awake and made an honest effort to remain so, by looking down and concentrating on the heads below: there were sixteen bald ones, fourteen men that could pass for red-heads, forty heads varying between brown and black, and—I remembered something Jem had once explained to me when he went through a brief period of physical research: he said if enough people—a stadium full, maybe—were to concentrate on one thing, such as setting a tree afire in the woods, that the tree would ignite of its own accord." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I toyed with the idea of asking everyone below to concentrate on setting Tom Robinson free, but thought if they were as tired as I, it wouldn't work.\n\nDill was sound asleep, his head on Jem's shoulder, and Jem was quiet.\n\n\"Ain't it a long time?\" I asked him.\n\n\"Sure is, Scout,\" he said happily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, from the way you put it, it'd just take five minutes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem raised his eyebrows. \"There are things you don't understand,\" he said, and I was too weary to argue.\n\nBut I must have been reasonably awake, or I would not have received the impression that was creeping into me. It was not unlike one I had last winter, and I shivered, though the night was hot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The feeling grew until the atmosphere in the courtroom was exactly the same as a cold February morning, when the mockingbirds were still, and the carpenters had stopped hammering on Miss Maudie's new house, and every wood door in the neighborhood was shut as tight as the doors of the Radley Place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A deserted, waiting, empty street, and the courtroom was packed with people. A steaming summer night was no different from a winter morning. Mr. Heck Tate, who had entered the courtroom and was talking to Atticus, might have been wearing his high boots and lumber jacket. Atticus had stopped his tranquil journey and had put his foot onto the bottom rung of a chair; as he listened to what Mr. Tate was saying, he ran his hand slowly up and down his thigh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I expected Mr. Tate to say any minute, \"Take him, Mr. Finch...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Mr. Tate said, \"This court will come to order,\" in a voice that rang with authority, and the heads below us jerked up. Mr. Tate left the room and returned with Tom Robinson. He steered Tom to his place beside Atticus, and stood there. Judge Taylor had roused himself to sudden alertness and was sitting up straight, looking at the empty jury box." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What happened after that had a dreamlike quality: in a dream I saw the jury return, moving like underwater swimmers, and Judge Taylor's voice came from far away, and was tiny." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I saw something only a lawyer's child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty.\n\nA jury never looks at a defendant it has convicted, and when this jury came in, not one of them looked at Tom Robinson. The foreman handed a piece of paper to Mr. Tate who handed it to the clerk who handed it to the judge...\n\nI shut my eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Judge Taylor was polling the jury: \"Guilty... guilty... guilty... guilty...\" I peeked at Jem: his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail, and his shoulders jerked as if each \"guilty\" was a separate stab between them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Judge Taylor was saying something. His gavel was in his fist, but he wasn't using it. Dimly, I saw Atticus pushing papers from the table into his briefcase. He snapped it shut, went to the court reporter and said something, nodded to Mr. Gilmer, and then went to Tom Robinson and whispered something to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus put his hand on Tom's shoulder as he whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus took his coat off the back of his chair and pulled it over his shoulder. Then he left the courtroom, but not by his usual exit. He must have wanted to go home the short way, because he walked quickly down the middle aisle toward the south exit. I followed the top of his head as he made his way to the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not look up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone was punching me, but I was reluctant to take my eyes from the people below us, and from the image of Atticus's lonely walk down the aisle.\n\n\"Miss Jean Louise?\"\n\nI looked around. They were standing. All around us and in the balcony on the opposite wall, the Negroes were getting to their feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Reverend Sykes's voice was as distant as Judge Taylor's:" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write four sentences sentences in the style of Harper Lee spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Jem's turn to cry. His face was streaked with angry tears as we made our way through the cheerful crowd. \"It ain't right,\" he muttered, all the way to the corner of the square where we found Atticus waiting. Atticus was standing under the street light looking as though nothing had happened: his vest was buttoned, his collar and tie were neatly in place, his watch-chain glistened, he was his impassive self again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It ain't right, Atticus,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No son, it's not right.\"\n\nWe walked home.\n\nAunt Alexandra was waiting up. She was in her dressing gown, and I could have sworn she had on her corset underneath it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry, brother,\" she murmured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Having never heard her call Atticus \"brother\" before, I stole a glance at Jem, but he was not listening. He would look up at Atticus, then down at the floor, and I wondered if he thought Atticus somehow responsible for Tom Robinson's conviction.\n\n\"Is he all right?\" Aunty asked, indicating Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He'll be so presently,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was a little too strong for him.\" Our father sighed. \"I'm going to bed,\" he said. \"If I don't wake up in the morning, don't call me.\"\n\n\"I didn't think it wise in the first place to let them—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is their home, sister,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've made it this way for them, they might as well learn to cope with it.\"\n\n\"But they don't have to go to the courthouse and wallow in it—\"\n\n\"It's just as much Maycomb County as missionary teas.\"\n\n\"Atticus—\" Aunt Alexandra's eyes were anxious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are the last person I thought would turn bitter over this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not bitter, just tired. I'm going to bed.\"\n\n\"Atticus—\" said Jem bleakly.\n\nHe turned in the doorway. \"What, son?\"\n\n\"How could they do it, how could they?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it—seems that only children weep. Good night.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But things are always better in the morning. Atticus rose at his usual ungodly hour and was in the livingroom behind The Mobile Register when we stumbled in. Jem's morning face posed the question his sleepy lips struggled to ask.\n\n\"It's not time to worry yet,\" Atticus reassured him, as we went to the diningroom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're not through yet. There'll be an appeal, you can count on that. Gracious alive, Cal, what's all this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was staring at his breakfast plate.\n\nCalpurnia said, \"Tom Robinson's daddy sent you along this chicken this morning. I fixed it.\"\n\n\"You tell him I'm proud to get it—bet they don't have chicken for breakfast at the White House. What are these?\"\n\n\"Rolls,\" said Calpurnia. \"Estelle down at the hotel sent 'em.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus looked up at her, puzzled, and she said, \"You better step out here and see what's in the kitchen, Mr. Finch.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We followed him. The kitchen table was loaded with enough food to bury the family: hunks of salt pork, tomatoes, beans, even scuppernongs. Atticus grinned when he found a jar of pickled pigs' knuckles. \"Reckon Aunty'll let me eat these in the diningroom?\"\n\nCalpurnia said, \"This was all 'round the back steps when I got here this morning. They—they 'preciate what you did, Mr. Finch. They—they aren't oversteppin' themselves, are they?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus's eyes filled with tears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not speak for a moment. \"Tell them I'm very grateful,\" he said. \"Tell them—tell them they must never do this again. Times are too hard...\"\n\nHe left the kitchen, went in the diningroom and excused himself to Aunt Alexandra, put on his hat and went to town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We heard Dill's step in the hall, so Calpurnia left Atticus's uneaten breakfast on the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Between rabbit-bites Dill told us of Miss Rachel's reaction to last night, which was: if a man like Atticus Finch wants to butt his head against a stone wall it's his head.\n\n\"I'da got her told,\" growled Dill, gnawing a chicken leg, \"but she didn't look much like tellin' this morning. Said she was up half the night wonderin' where I was, said she'da had the sheriff after me but he was at the hearing.\"\n\n\"Dill, you've got to stop goin' off without tellin' her,\" said Jem. \"It just aggravates her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dill sighed patiently. \"I told her till I was blue in the face where I was goin'—she's just seein' too many snakes in the closet. But that woman drinks a pint for breakfast every morning—know she drinks two glasses full. Seen her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't talk like that, Dill,\" said Aunt Alexandra. \"It's not becoming to a child. It's—cynical.\"\n\n\"I ain't cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin' the truth's not cynical, is it?\"\n\n\"The way you tell it, it is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem's eyes flashed at her, but he said to Dill, \"Let's go. You can take that runner with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When we went to the front porch, Miss Stephanie Crawford was busy telling it to Miss Maudie Atkinson and Mr. Avery. They looked around at us and went on talking. Jem made a feral noise in his throat. I wished for a weapon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hate grown folks lookin' at you,\" said Dill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Makes you feel like you've done something.\"\n\nMiss Maudie yelled for Jem Finch to come there.\n\nJem groaned and heaved himself up from the swing. \"We'll go with you,\" Dill said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Stephanie's nose quivered with curiosity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wanted to know who all gave us permission to go to court—she didn't see us but it was all over town this morning that we were in the Colored balcony. Did Atticus put us up there as a sort of—? Wasn't it right close up there with all those—? Did Scout understand all the—?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Didn't it make us mad to see our daddy beat?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hush, Stephanie.\" Miss Maudie's diction was deadly. \"I've not got all the morning to pass on the porch—Jem Finch, I called to find out if you and your colleagues can eat some cake. Got up at five to make it, so you better say yes. Excuse us, Stephanie. Good morning, Mr. Avery.\"\n\nThere was a big cake and two little ones on Miss Maudie's kitchen table. There should have been three little ones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not like Miss Maudie to forget Dill, and we must have shown it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But we understood when she cut from the big cake and gave the slice to Jem.\n\nAs we ate, we sensed that this was Miss Maudie's way of saying that as far as she was concerned, nothing had changed. She sat quietly in a kitchen chair, watching us.\n\nSuddenly she spoke: \"Don't fret, Jem. Things are never as bad as they seem.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Indoors, when Miss Maudie wanted to say something lengthy she spread her fingers on her knees and settled her bridgework." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This she did, and we waited.\n\n\"I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Jem. \"Well.\"\n\n\"Don't you oh well me, sir,\" Miss Maudie replied, recognizing Jem's fatalistic noises, \"you are not old enough to appreciate what I said.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem was staring at his half-eaten cake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's like bein' a caterpillar in a cocoon, that's what it is,\" he said. \"Like somethin' asleep wrapped up in a warm place. I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world, least that's what they seemed like.\"\n\n\"We're the safest folks in the world,\" said Miss Maudie. \"We're so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we've got men like Atticus to go for us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem grinned ruefully. \"Wish the rest of the county thought that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'd be surprised how many of us do.\"\n\n\"Who?\" Jem's voice rose. \"Who in this town did one thing to help Tom Robinson, just who?\"\n\n\"His colored friends for one thing, and people like us. People like Judge Taylor. People like Mr. Heck Tate. Stop eating and start thinking, Jem. Did it ever strike you that Judge Taylor naming Atticus to defend that boy was no accident? That Judge Taylor might have had his reasons for naming him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was a thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Court-appointed defenses were usually given to Maxwell Green, Maycomb's latest addition to the bar, who needed the experience. Maxwell Green should have had Tom Robinson's case.\n\n\"You think about that,\" Miss Maudie was saying. \"It was no accident. I was sittin' there on the porch last night, waiting. I waited and waited to see you all come down the sidewalk, and as I waited I thought, Atticus Finch won't win, he can't win, but he's the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. And I thought to myself, well, we're making a step—it's just a baby-step, but it's a step.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'t's all right to talk like that—can't any Christian judges an' lawyers make up for heathen juries,\" Jem muttered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Soon's I get grown—\"\n\n\"That's something you'll have to take up with your father,\" Miss Maudie said.\n\nWe went down Miss Maudie's cool new steps into the sunshine and found Mr. Avery and Miss Stephanie Crawford still at it. They had moved down the sidewalk and were standing in front of Miss Stephanie's house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Rachel was walking toward them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think I'll be a clown when I get grown,\" said Dill.\n\nJem and I stopped in our tracks.\n\n\"Yes sir, a clown,\" he said. \"There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You got it backwards, Dill,\" said Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them.\"\n\n\"Well I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks. Just looka yonder,\" he pointed. \"Every one of 'em oughta be ridin' broomsticks. Aunt Rachel already does.\"\n\nMiss Stephanie and Miss Rachel were waving wildly at us, in a way that did not give the lie to Dill's observation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh gosh,\" breathed Jem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I reckon it'd be ugly not to see 'em.\"\n\nSomething was wrong. Mr. Avery was red in the face from a sneezing spell and nearly blew us off the sidewalk when we came up. Miss Stephanie was trembling with excitement, and Miss Rachel caught Dill's shoulder. \"You get on in the back yard and stay there,\" she said. \"There's danger a'comin'.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Harper Lee.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of Harper Lee.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a Harper Lee sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wish Bob Ewell wouldn't chew tobacco,\" was all Atticus said about it. According to Miss Stephanie Crawford, however, Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him. Miss Stephanie (who, by the time she had told it twice was there and had seen it all—passing by from the Jitney Jungle, she was)—Miss Stephanie said Atticus didn't bat an eye, just took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and stood there and let Mr. Ewell call him names wild horses could not bring her to repeat. Mr. Ewell was a veteran of an obscure war; that plus Atticus's peaceful reaction probably prompted him to inquire, \"Too proud to fight, you nigger-lovin' bastard?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Stephanie said Atticus said, \"No, too old,\" put his hands in his pockets and strolled on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Stephanie said you had to hand it to Atticus Finch, he could be right dry sometimes.\n\nJem and I didn't think it entertaining.\n\n\"After all, though,\" I said, \"he was the deadest shot in the country one time. He could—\"\n\n\"You know he wouldn't carry a gun, Scout. He ain't even got one—\" said Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know he didn't even have one down at the jail that night. He told me havin' a gun around's an invitation to somebody to shoot you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is different,\" I said. \"We can ask him to borrow one.\"\n\nWe did, and he said, \"Nonsense.\"\n\nDill was of the opinion that an appeal to Atticus's better nature might work: after all, we would starve if Mr. Ewell killed him, besides be raised exclusively by Aunt Alexandra, and we all knew the first thing she'd do before Atticus was under the ground good would be to fire Calpurnia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem said it might work if I cried and flung a fit, being young and a girl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That didn't work either.\n\nBut when he noticed us dragging around the neighborhood, not eating, taking little interest in our normal pursuits, Atticus discovered how deeply frightened we were. He tempted Jem with a new football magazine one night; when he saw Jem flip the pages and toss it aside, he said, \"What's bothering you, son?\"\n\nJem came to the point: \"Mr. Ewell.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What has happened?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing's happened. We're scared for you, and we think you oughta do something about him.\"\n\nAtticus smiled wryly. \"Do what? Put him under a peace bond?\"\n\n\"When a man says he's gonna get you, looks like he means it.\"\n\n\"He meant it when he said it,\" said Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jem, see if you can stand in Bob Ewell's shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that's something I'll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I'd rather it be me than that houseful of children out there. You understand?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem nodded.\n\nAunt Alexandra entered the room as Atticus was saying, \"We don't have anything to fear from Bob Ewell, he got it all out of his system that morning.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't be so sure of that, Atticus,\" she said. \"His kind'd do anything to pay off a grudge. You know how those people are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What on earth could Ewell do to me, sister?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something furtive,\" Aunt Alexandra said. \"You may count on that.\"\n\n\"Nobody has much chance to be furtive in Maycomb,\" Atticus answered.\n\nAfter that, we were not afraid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Summer was melting away, and we made the most of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus assured us that nothing would happen to Tom Robinson until the higher court reviewed his case, and that Tom had a good chance of going free, or at least of having a new trial. He was at Enfield Prison Farm, seventy miles away in Chester County. I asked Atticus if Tom's wife and children were allowed to visit him, but Atticus said no.\n\n\"If he loses his appeal,\" I asked one evening, \"what'll happen to him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He'll go to the chair,\" said Atticus, \"unless the Governor commutes his sentence. Not time to worry yet, Scout. We've got a good chance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem was sprawled on the sofa reading Popular Mechanics. He looked up. \"It ain't right. He didn't kill anybody even if he was guilty. He didn't take anybody's life.\"\n\n\"You know rape's a capital offense in Alabama,\" said Atticus.\n\n\"Yessir, but the jury didn't have to give him death—if they wanted to they could've gave him twenty years.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Given,\" said Atticus. \"Tom Robinson's a colored man, Jem. No jury in this part of the world's going to say, 'We think you're guilty, but not very,' on a charge like that. It was either a straight acquittal or nothing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem was shaking his head. \"I know it's not right, but I can't figure out what's wrong—maybe rape shouldn't be a capital offense...\"\n\nAtticus dropped his newspaper beside his chair. He said he didn't have any quarrel with the rape statute, none whatever, but he did have deep misgivings when the state asked for and the jury gave a death penalty on purely circumstantial evidence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He glanced at me, saw I was listening, and made it easier." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean, before a man is sentenced to death for murder, say, there should be one or two eyewitnesses. Someone should be able to say, 'Yes, I was there and saw him pull the trigger.'\"\n\n\"But lots of folks have been hung—hanged—on circumstantial evidence,\" said Jem.\n\n\"I know, and lots of 'em probably deserved it, too—but in the absence of eyewitnesses there's always a doubt, sometimes only the shadow of a doubt. The law says 'reasonable doubt,' but I think a defendant's entitled to the shadow of a doubt. There's always the possibility, no matter how improbable, that he's innocent.\"\n\n\"Then it all goes back to the jury, then. We oughta do away with juries.\" Jem was adamant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus tried hard not to smile but couldn't help it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're rather hard on us, son. I think maybe there might be a better way. Change the law. Change it so that only judges have the power of fixing the penalty in capital cases.\"\n\n\"Then go up to Montgomery and change the law.\"\n\n\"You'd be surprised how hard that'd be. I won't live to see the law changed, and if you live to see it you'll be an old man.\"\n\nThis was not good enough for Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No sir, they oughta do away with juries. He wasn't guilty in the first place and they said he was.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you had been on that jury, son, and eleven other boys like you, Tom would be a free man,\" said Atticus. \"So far nothing in your life has interfered with your reasoning process. Those are twelve reasonable men in everyday life, Tom's jury, but you saw something come between them and reason. You saw the same thing that night in front of the jail. When that crew went away, they didn't go as reasonable men, they went because we were there. There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.\"\n\n\"Doesn't make it right,\" said Jem stolidly. He beat his fist softly on his knee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You just can't convict a man on evidence like that—you can't.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You couldn't, but they could and did. The older you grow the more of it you'll see. The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.\"\n\nAtticus was speaking so quietly his last word crashed on our ears. I looked up, and his face was vehement. \"There's nothing more sickening to me than a low-grade white man who'll take advantage of a Negro's ignorance. Don't fool yourselves—it's all adding up and one of these days we're going to pay the bill for it. I hope it's not in you children's time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem was scratching his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly his eyes widened. \"Atticus,\" he said, \"why don't people like us and Miss Maudie ever sit on juries? You never see anybody from Maycomb on a jury—they all come from out in the woods.\"\n\nAtticus leaned back in his rocking-chair. For some reason he looked pleased with Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was wondering when that'd occur to you,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There are lots of reasons. For one thing, Miss Maudie can't serve on a jury because she's a woman—\"\n\n\"You mean women in Alabama can't—?\" I was indignant.\n\n\"I do. I guess it's to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom's. Besides,\" Atticus grinned, \"I doubt if we'd ever get a complete case tried—the ladies'd be interrupting to ask questions.\"\n\nJem and I laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Maudie on a jury would be impressive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought of old Mrs. Dubose in her wheelchair—\"Stop that rapping, John Taylor, I want to ask this man something.\" Perhaps our forefathers were wise.\n\nAtticus was saying, \"With people like us—that's our share of the bill. We generally get the juries we deserve. Our stout Maycomb citizens aren't interested, in the first place. In the second place, they're afraid. Then, they're—\"\n\n\"Afraid, why?\" asked Jem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, what if—say, Mr. Link Deas had to decide the amount of damages to award, say, Miss Maudie, when Miss Rachel ran over her with a car. Link wouldn't like the thought of losing either lady's business at his store, would he? So he tells Judge Taylor that he can't serve on the jury because he doesn't have anybody to keep store for him while he's gone. So Judge Taylor excuses him. Sometimes he excuses him wrathfully.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What'd make him think either one of 'em'd stop trading with him?\" I asked.\n\nJem said, \"Miss Rachel would, Miss Maudie wouldn't. But a jury's vote's secret, Atticus.\"\n\nOur father chuckled. \"You've many more miles to go, son. A jury's vote's supposed to be secret. Serving on a jury forces a man to make up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to do that. Sometimes it's unpleasant.\"\n\n\"Tom's jury sho' made up its mind in a hurry,\" Jem muttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus's fingers went to his watchpocket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No it didn't,\" he said, more to himself than to us. \"That was the one thing that made me think, well, this may be the shadow of a beginning. That jury took a few hours. An inevitable verdict, maybe, but usually it takes 'em just a few minutes. This time—\" he broke off and looked at us. \"You might like to know that there was one fellow who took considerable wearing down—in the beginning he was rarin' for an outright acquittal.\"\n\n\"Who?\" Jem was astonished." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus's eyes twinkled. \"It's not for me to say, but I'll tell you this much. He was one of your Old Sarum friends...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One of the Cunninghams?\" Jem yelped. \"One of—I didn't recognize any of 'em... you're jokin'.\" He looked at Atticus from the corners of his eyes.\n\n\"One of their connections. On a hunch, I didn't strike him. Just on a hunch. Could've, but I didn't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Golly Moses,\" Jem said reverently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One minute they're tryin' to kill him and the next they're tryin' to turn him loose... I'll never understand those folks as long as I live.\"\n\nAtticus said you just had to know 'em. He said the Cunninghams hadn't taken anything from or off of anybody since they migrated to the New World. He said the other thing about them was, once you earned their respect they were for you tooth and nail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said he had a feeling, nothing more than a suspicion, that they left the jail that night with considerable respect for the Finches." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then too, he said, it took a thunderbolt plus another Cunningham to make one of them change his mind. \"If we'd had two of that crowd, we'd've had a hung jury.\"\n\nJem said slowly, \"You mean you actually put on the jury a man who wanted to kill you the night before? How could you take such a risk, Atticus, how could you?\"\n\n\"When you analyze it, there was little risk. There's no difference between one man who's going to convict and another man who's going to convict, is there? There's a faint difference between a man who's going to convict and a man who's a little disturbed in his mind, isn't there? He was the only uncertainty on the whole list.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What kin was that man to Mr. Walter Cunningham?\" I asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Atticus rose, stretched and yawned. It was not even our bedtime, but we knew he wanted a chance to read his newspaper. He picked it up, folded it, and tapped my head. \"Let's see now,\" he droned to himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've got it. Double first cousin.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How can that be?\"\n\n\"Two sisters married two brothers. That's all I'll tell you—you figure it out.\"\n\nI tortured myself and decided that if I married Jem and Dill had a sister whom he married our children would be double first cousins. \"Gee minetti, Jem,\" I said, when Atticus had gone, \"they're funny folks. 'd you hear that, Aunty?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aunt Alexandra was hooking a rug and not watching us, but she was listening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat in her chair with her workbasket beside it, her rug spread across her lap. Why ladies hooked woolen rugs on boiling nights never became clear to me.\n\n\"I heard it,\" she said.\n\nI remembered the distant disastrous occasion when I rushed to young Walter Cunningham's defense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now, I was glad I'd done it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Soon's school starts I'm gonna ask Walter home to dinner,\" I planned, having forgotten my private resolve to beat him up the next time I saw him. \"He can stay over sometimes after school, too. Atticus could drive him back to Old Sarum. Maybe he could spend the night with us sometime, okay, Jem?\"\n\n\"We'll see about that,\" Aunt Alexandra said, a declaration that with her was always a threat, never a promise. Surprised, I turned to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why not, Aunty? They're good folks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at me over her sewing glasses. \"Jean Louise, there is no doubt in my mind that they're good folks. But they're not our kind of folks.\"\n\nJem says, \"She means they're yappy, Scout.\"\n\n\"What's a yap?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aw, tacky. They like fiddlin' and things like that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well I do too—\"\n\n\"Don't be silly, Jean Louise,\" said Aunt Alexandra. \"The thing is, you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit, but he'll never be like Jem. Besides, there's a drinking streak in that family a mile wide. Finch women aren't interested in that sort of people.\"\n\n\"Aun-ty,\" said Jem, \"she ain't nine yet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She may as well learn it now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aunt Alexandra had spoken. I was reminded vividly of the last time she had put her foot down. I never knew why. It was when I was absorbed with plans to visit Calpurnia's house—I was curious, interested; I wanted to be her \"company,\" to see how she lived, who her friends were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I might as well have wanted to see the other side of the moon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This time the tactics were different, but Aunt Alexandra's aim was the same. Perhaps this was why she had come to live with us—to help us choose our friends. I would hold her off as long as I could: \"If they're good folks, then why can't I be nice to Walter?\"\n\n\"I didn't say not to be nice to him. You should be friendly and polite to him, you should be gracious to everybody, dear. But you don't have to invite him home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What if he was kin to us, Aunty?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The fact is that he is not kin to us, but if he were, my answer would be the same.\"\n\n\"Aunty,\" Jem spoke up, \"Atticus says you can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.\"\n\n\"That's your father all over again,\" said Aunt Alexandra, \"and I still say that Jean Louise will not invite Walter Cunningham to this house. If he were her double first cousin once removed he would still not be received in this house unless he comes to see Atticus on business. Now that is that.\"\n\nShe had said Indeed Not, but this time she would give her reasons: \"But I want to play with Walter, Aunty, why can't I?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She took off her glasses and stared at me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll tell you why,\" she said. \"Because—he—is—trash, that's why you can't play with him. I'll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning Lord-knows-what. You're enough of a problem to your father as it is.\"\n\nI don't know what I would have done, but Jem stopped me. He caught me by the shoulders, put his arm around me, and led me sobbing in fury to his bedroom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus heard us and poked his head around the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'s all right, sir,\" Jem said gruffly, \"'s not anything.\" Atticus went away.\n\n\"Have a chew, Scout.\" Jem dug into his pocket and extracted a Tootsie Roll. It took a few minutes to work the candy into a comfortable wad inside my jaw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem was rearranging the objects on his dresser." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hair stuck up behind and down in front, and I wondered if it would ever look like a man's—maybe if he shaved it off and started over, his hair would grow back neatly in place. His eyebrows were becoming heavier, and I noticed a new slimness about his body. He was growing taller.\n\nWhen he looked around, he must have thought I would start crying again, for he said, \"Show you something if you won't tell anybody.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I said what. He unbuttoned his shirt, grinning shyly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well what?\"\n\n\"Well can't you see it?\"\n\n\"Well no.\"\n\n\"Well it's hair.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There. Right there.\"\n\nHe had been a comfort to me, so I said it looked lovely, but I didn't see anything. \"It's real nice, Jem.\"\n\n\"Under my arms, too,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Goin' out for football next year. Scout, don't let Aunty aggravate you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed only yesterday that he was telling me not to aggravate Aunty.\n\n\"You know she's not used to girls,\" said Jem, \"leastways, not girls like you. She's trying to make you a lady. Can't you take up sewin' or somethin'?\"\n\n\"Hell no. She doesn't like me, that's all there is to it, and I don't care. It was her callin' Walter Cunningham trash that got me goin', Jem, not what she said about me being a problem to Atticus. We got that all straight one time, I asked him if I was a problem and he said not much of one, at most one that he could always figure out, and not to worry my head a second about botherin' him. Naw, it was Walter—that boy's not trash, Jem. He ain't like the Ewells.\"\n\nJem kicked off his shoes and swung his feet to the bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He propped himself against a pillow and switched on the reading light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know something, Scout? I've got it all figured out, now. I've thought about it a lot lately and I've got it figured out. There's four kinds of folks in the world. There's the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there's the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes.\"\n\n\"What about the Chinese, and the Cajuns down yonder in Baldwin County?\"\n\n\"I mean in Maycomb County. The thing about it is, our kind of folks don't like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don't like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the colored folks.\"\n\nI told Jem if that was so, then why didn't Tom's jury, made up of folks like the Cunninghams, acquit Tom to spite the Ewells?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem waved my question away as being infantile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know,\" he said, \"I've seen Atticus pat his foot when there's fiddlin' on the radio, and he loves pot liquor better'n any man I ever saw—\"\n\n\"Then that makes us like the Cunninghams,\" I said. \"I can't see why Aunty—\"\n\n\"No, lemme finish—it does, but we're still different somehow. Atticus said one time the reason Aunty's so hipped on the family is because all we've got's background and not a dime to our names.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well Jem, I don't know—Atticus told me one time that most of this Old Family stuff's foolishness because everybody's family's just as old as everybody else's. I said did that include the colored folks and Englishmen and he said yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Background doesn't mean Old Family,\" said Jem. \"I think it's how long your family's been readin' and writin'. Scout, I've studied this real hard and that's the only reason I can think of. Somewhere along when the Finches were in Egypt one of 'em must have learned a hieroglyphic or two and he taught his boy.\" Jem laughed. \"Imagine Aunty being proud her great-grandaddy could read an' write—ladies pick funny things to be proud of.\"\n\n\"Well I'm glad he could, or who'da taught Atticus and them, and if Atticus couldn't read, you and me'd be in a fix. I don't think that's what background is, Jem.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well then, how do you explain why the Cunninghams are different? Mr. Walter can hardly sign his name, I've seen him. We've just been readin' and writin' longer'n they have.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, everybody's gotta learn, nobody's born knowin'. That Walter's as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin's wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.\"\n\nJem turned around and punched his pillow. When he settled back his face was cloudy. He was going into one of his declines, and I grew wary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was silent for a while.\n\n\"That's what I thought, too,\" he said at last, \"when I was your age. If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time... it's because he wants to stay inside.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with four sentences, emulating the writing style of Harper Lee." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia wore her stiffest starched apron. She carried a tray of charlotte. She backed up to the swinging door and pressed gently. I admired the ease and grace with which she handled heavy loads of dainty things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So did Aunt Alexandra, I guess, because she had let Calpurnia serve today." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "August was on the brink of September. Dill would be leaving for Meridian tomorrow; today he was off with Jem at Barker's Eddy. Jem had discovered with angry amazement that nobody had ever bothered to teach Dill how to swim, a skill Jem considered necessary as walking. They had spent two afternoons at the creek, they said they were going in naked and I couldn't come, so I divided the lonely hours between Calpurnia and Miss Maudie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Today Aunt Alexandra and her missionary circle were fighting the good fight all over the house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the kitchen, I heard Mrs. Grace Merriweather giving a report in the livingroom on the squalid lives of the Mrunas, it sounded like to me. They put the women out in huts when their time came, whatever that was; they had no sense of family—I knew that'd distress Aunty—they subjected children to terrible ordeals when they were thirteen; they were crawling with yaws and earworms, they chewed up and spat out the bark of a tree into a communal pot and then got drunk on it.\n\nImmediately thereafter, the ladies adjourned for refreshments.\n\nI didn't know whether to go into the diningroom or stay out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aunt Alexandra told me to join them for refreshments; it was not necessary that I attend the business part of the meeting, she said it'd bore me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was wearing my pink Sunday dress, shoes, and a petticoat, and reflected that if I spilled anything Calpurnia would have to wash my dress again for tomorrow. This had been a busy day for her. I decided to stay out.\n\n\"Can I help you, Cal?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I asked, wishing to be of some service." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia paused in the doorway. \"You be still as a mouse in that corner,\" she said, \"an' you can help me load up the trays when I come back.\"\n\nThe gentle hum of ladies' voices grew louder as she opened the door: \"Why, Alexandra, I never saw such charlotte... just lovely... I never can get my crust like this, never can... who'd've thought of little dewberry tarts... Calpurnia?... who'da thought it... anybody tell you that the preacher's wife's... no-oo, well she is, and that other one not walkin' yet...\"\n\nThey became quiet, and I knew they had all been served." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia returned and put my mother's heavy silver pitcher on a tray." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This coffee pitcher's a curiosity,\" she murmured, \"they don't make 'em these days.\"\n\n\"Can I carry it in?\"\n\n\"If you be careful and don't drop it. Set it down at the end of the table by Miss Alexandra. Down there by the cups'n things. She's gonna pour.\"\n\nI tried pressing my behind against the door as Calpurnia had done, but the door didn't budge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Grinning, she held it open for me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Careful now, it's heavy. Don't look at it and you won't spill it.\"\n\nMy journey was successful: Aunt Alexandra smiled brilliantly. \"Stay with us, Jean Louise,\" she said. This was a part of her campaign to teach me to be a lady." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was customary for every circle hostess to invite her neighbors in for refreshments, be they Baptists or Presbyterians, which accounted for the presence of Miss Rachel (sober as a judge), Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie Crawford." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rather nervous, I took a seat beside Miss Maudie and wondered why ladies put on their hats to go across the street. Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere, but this feeling was what Aunt Alexandra called being \"spoiled.\"\n\nThe ladies were cool in fragile pastel prints: most of them were heavily powdered but unrouged; the only lipstick in the room was Tangee Natural. Cutex Natural sparkled on their fingernails, but some of the younger ladies wore Rose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They smelled heavenly. I sat quietly, having conquered my hands by tightly gripping the arms of the chair, and waited for someone to speak to me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie's gold bridgework twinkled. \"You're mighty dressed up, Miss Jean Louise,\" she said. \"Where are your britches today?\"\n\n\"Under my dress.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I hadn't meant to be funny, but the ladies laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My cheeks grew hot as I realized my mistake, but Miss Maudie looked gravely down at me. She never laughed at me unless I meant to be funny.\n\nIn the sudden silence that followed, Miss Stephanie Crawford called from across the room, \"Whatcha going to be when you grow up, Jean Louise? A lawyer?\"\n\n\"Nome, I hadn't thought about it...\" I answered, grateful that Miss Stephanie was kind enough to change the subject." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hurriedly I began choosing my vocation. Nurse? Aviator?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well...\"\n\n\"Why shoot, I thought you wanted to be a lawyer, you've already commenced going to court.\"\n\nThe ladies laughed again. \"That Stephanie's a card,\" somebody said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Stephanie was encouraged to pursue the subject: \"Don't you want to grow up to be a lawyer?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie's hand touched mine and I answered mildly enough, \"Nome, just a lady.\"\n\nMiss Stephanie eyed me suspiciously, decided that I meant no impertinence, and contented herself with, \"Well, you won't get very far until you start wearing dresses more often.\"\n\nMiss Maudie's hand closed tightly on mine, and I said nothing. Its warmth was enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Grace Merriweather sat on my left, and I felt it would be polite to talk to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Merriweather, a faithful Methodist under duress, apparently saw nothing personal in singing, \"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me...\" It was the general opinion of Maycomb, however, that Mrs. Merriweather had sobered him up and made a reasonably useful citizen of him. For certainly Mrs. Merriweather was the most devout lady in Maycomb. I searched for a topic of interest to her. \"What did you all study this afternoon?\" I asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh child, those poor Mrunas,\" she said, and was off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Few other questions would be necessary.\n\nMrs. Merriweather's large brown eyes always filled with tears when she considered the oppressed. \"Living in that jungle with nobody but J. Grimes Everett,\" she said. \"Not a white person'll go near 'em but that saintly J. Grimes Everett.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Merriweather played her voice like an organ; every word she said received its full measure: \"The poverty... the darkness... the immorality—nobody but J. Grimes Everett knows. You know, when the church gave me that trip to the camp grounds J. Grimes Everett said to me—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Was he there, ma'am? I thought—\"\n\n\"Home on leave. J. Grimes Everett said to me, he said, 'Mrs. Merriweather, you have no conception, no conception of what we are fighting over there.' That's what he said to me.\"\n\n\"Yes ma'am.\"\n\n\"I said to him, 'Mr. Everett,' I said, 'the ladies of the Maycomb Alabama Methodist Episcopal Church South are behind you one hundred per cent.' That's what I said to him. And you know, right then and there I made a pledge in my heart. I said to myself, when I go home I'm going to give a course on the Mrunas and bring J. Grimes Everett's message to Maycomb and that's just what I'm doing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes ma'am.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Mrs. Merriweather shook her head, her black curls jiggled. \"Jean Louise,\" she said, \"you are a fortunate girl. You live in a Christian home with Christian folks in a Christian town. Out there in J. Grimes Everett's land there's nothing but sin and squalor.\"\n\n\"Yes ma'am.\"\n\n\"Sin and squalor—what was that, Gertrude?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Merriweather turned on her chimes for the lady sitting beside her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh that. Well, I always say forgive and forget, forgive and forget. Thing that church ought to do is help her lead a Christian life for those children from here on out. Some of the men ought to go out there and tell that preacher to encourage her.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, Mrs. Merriweather,\" I interrupted, \"are you all talking about Mayella Ewell?\"\n\n\"May—? No, child. That darky's wife. Tom's wife, Tom—\"\n\n\"Robinson, ma'am.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Merriweather turned back to her neighbor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's one thing I truly believe, Gertrude,\" she continued, \"but some people just don't see it my way. If we just let them know we forgive 'em, that we've forgotten it, then this whole thing'll blow over.\"\n\n\"Ah—Mrs. Merriweather,\" I interrupted once more, \"what'll blow over?\"\n\nAgain, she turned to me. Mrs. Merriweather was one of those childless adults who find it necessary to assume a different tone of voice when speaking to children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing, Jean Louise,\" she said, in stately largo, \"the cooks and field hands are just dissatisfied, but they're settling down now—they grumbled all next day after that trial.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Merriweather faced Mrs. Farrow: \"Gertrude, I tell you there's nothing more distracting than a sulky darky. Their mouths go down to here. Just ruins your day to have one of 'em in the kitchen. You know what I said to my Sophy, Gertrude? I said, 'Sophy,' I said, 'you simply are not being a Christian today. Jesus Christ never went around grumbling and complaining,' and you know, it did her good. She took her eyes off that floor and said, 'Nome, Miz Merriweather, Jesus never went around grumbling'.' I tell you, Gertrude, you never ought to let an opportunity go by to witness for the Lord.\"\n\nI was reminded of the ancient little organ in the chapel at Finch's Landing. When I was very small, and if I had been very good during the day, Atticus would let me pump its bellows while he picked out a tune with one finger. The last note would linger as long as there was air to sustain it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Merriweather had run out of air, I judged, and was replenishing her supply while Mrs. Farrow composed herself to speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Farrow was a splendidly built woman with pale eyes and narrow feet. She had a fresh permanent wave, and her hair was a mass of tight gray ringlets. She was the second most devout lady in Maycomb. She had a curious habit of prefacing everything she said with a soft sibilant sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"S-s-s Grace,\" she said, \"it's just like I was telling Brother Hutson the other day. 'S-s-s Brother Hutson,' I said, 'looks like we're fighting a losing battle, a losing battle.' I said, 'S-s-s it doesn't matter to 'em one bit. We can educate 'em till we're blue in the face, we can try till we drop to make Christians out of 'em, but there's no lady safe in her bed these nights.' He said to me, 'Mrs. Farrow, I don't know what we're coming to down here.' S-s-s I told him that was certainly a fact.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Merriweather nodded wisely. Her voice soared over the clink of coffee cups and the soft bovine sounds of the ladies munching their dainties. \"Gertrude,\" she said, \"I tell you there are some good but misguided people in this town. Good, but misguided. Folks in this town who think they're doing right, I mean. Now far be it from me to say who, but some of 'em in this town thought they were doing the right thing a while back, but all they did was stir 'em up. That's all they did. Might've looked like the right thing to do at the time, I'm sure I don't know, I'm not read in that field, but sulky... dissatisfied... I tell you if my Sophy'd kept it up another day I'd have let her go. It's never entered that wool of hers that the only reason I keep her is because this depression's on and she needs her dollar and a quarter every week she can get it.\"\n\n\"His food doesn't stick going down, does it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Maudie said it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two tight lines had appeared at the corners of her mouth. She had been sitting silently beside me, her coffee cup balanced on one knee. I had lost the thread of conversation long ago, when they quit talking about Tom Robinson's wife, and had contented myself with thinking of Finch's Landing and the river. Aunt Alexandra had got it backwards: the business part of the meeting was blood-curdling, the social hour was dreary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maudie, I'm sure I don't know what you mean,\" said Mrs. Merriweather." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sure you do,\" Miss Maudie said shortly.\n\nShe said no more. When Miss Maudie was angry her brevity was icy. Something had made her deeply angry, and her gray eyes were as cold as her voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Merriweather reddened, glanced at me, and looked away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could not see Mrs. Farrow.\n\nAunt Alexandra got up from the table and swiftly passed more refreshments, neatly engaging Mrs. Merriweather and Mrs. Gates in brisk conversation. When she had them well on the road with Mrs. Perkins, Aunt Alexandra stepped back. She gave Miss Maudie a look of pure gratitude, and I wondered at the world of women." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Maudie and Aunt Alexandra had never been especially close, and here was Aunty silently thanking her for something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For what, I knew not. I was content to learn that Aunt Alexandra could be pierced sufficiently to feel gratitude for help given. There was no doubt about it, I must soon enter this world, where on its surface fragrant ladies rocked slowly, fanned gently, and drank cool water.\n\nBut I was more at home in my father's world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People like Mr. Heck Tate did not trap you with innocent questions to make fun of you; even Jem was not highly critical unless you said something stupid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ladies seemed to live in faint horror of men, seemed unwilling to approve wholeheartedly of them. But I liked them. There was something about them, no matter how much they cussed and drank and gambled and chewed; no matter how undelectable they were, there was something about them that I instinctively liked... they weren't—\n\n\"Hypocrites, Mrs. Perkins, born hypocrites,\" Mrs. Merriweather was saying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At least we don't have that sin on our shoulders down here. People up there set 'em free, but you don't see 'em settin' at the table with 'em. At least we don't have the deceit to say to 'em yes you're as good as we are but stay away from us. Down here we just say you live your way and we'll live ours. I think that woman, that Mrs. Roosevelt's lost her mind—just plain lost her mind coming down to Birmingham and tryin' to sit with 'em. If I was the Mayor of Birmingham I'd—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, neither of us was the Mayor of Birmingham, but I wished I was the Governor of Alabama for one day: I'd let Tom Robinson go so quick the Missionary Society wouldn't have time to catch its breath. Calpurnia was telling Miss Rachel's cook the other day how bad Tom was taking things and she didn't stop talking when I came into the kitchen. She said there wasn't a thing Atticus could do to make being shut up easier for him, that the last thing he said to Atticus before they took him down to the prison camp was, \"Good-bye, Mr. Finch, there ain't nothin' you can do now, so there ain't no use tryin'.\" Calpurnia said Atticus told her that the day they took Tom to prison he just gave up hope." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She said Atticus tried to explain things to him, and that he must do his best not to lose hope because Atticus was doing his best to get him free." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Rachel's cook asked Calpurnia why didn't Atticus just say yes, you'll go free, and leave it at that—seemed like that'd be a big comfort to Tom. Calpurnia said, \"Because you ain't familiar with the law. First thing you learn when you're in a lawin' family is that there ain't any definite answers to anything. Mr. Finch couldn't say somethin's so when he doesn't know for sure it's so.\"\n\nThe front door slammed and I heard Atticus's footsteps in the hall. Automatically I wondered what time it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not nearly time for him to be home, and on Missionary Society days he usually stayed downtown until black dark." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped in the doorway. His hat was in his hand, and his face was white.\n\n\"Excuse me, ladies,\" he said. \"Go right ahead with your meeting, don't let me disturb you. Alexandra, could you come to the kitchen a minute? I want to borrow Calpurnia for a while.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't go through the diningroom, but went down the back hallway and entered the kitchen from the rear door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aunt Alexandra and I met him. The diningroom door opened again and Miss Maudie joined us. Calpurnia had half risen from her chair.\n\n\"Cal,\" Atticus said, \"I want you to go with me out to Helen Robinson's house—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's the matter?\" Aunt Alexandra asked, alarmed by the look on my father's face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tom's dead.\"\n\nAunt Alexandra put her hands to her mouth.\n\n\"They shot him,\" said Atticus. \"He was running. It was during their exercise period. They said he just broke into a blind raving charge at the fence and started climbing over. Right in front of them—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Didn't they try to stop him? Didn't they give him any warning?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aunt Alexandra's voice shook.\n\n\"Oh yes, the guards called to him to stop. They fired a few shots in the air, then to kill. They got him just as he went over the fence. They said if he'd had two good arms he'd have made it, he was moving that fast. Seventeen bullet holes in him. They didn't have to shoot him that much. Cal, I want you to come out with me and help me tell Helen.\"\n\n\"Yes sir,\" she murmured, fumbling at her apron. Miss Maudie went to Calpurnia and untied it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is the last straw, Atticus,\" Aunt Alexandra said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Depends on how you look at it,\" he said. \"What was one Negro, more or less, among two hundred of 'em? He wasn't Tom to them, he was an escaping prisoner.\"\n\nAtticus leaned against the refrigerator, pushed up his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. \"We had such a good chance,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I told him what I thought, but I couldn't in truth say that we had more than a good chance. I guess Tom was tired of white men's chances and preferred to take his own. Ready, Cal?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yessir, Mr. Finch.\"\n\n\"Then let's go.\"\n\nAunt Alexandra sat down in Calpurnia's chair and put her hands to her face. She sat quite still; she was so quiet I wondered if she would faint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I heard Miss Maudie breathing as if she had just climbed the steps, and in the diningroom the ladies chattered happily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought Aunt Alexandra was crying, but when she took her hands away from her face, she was not. She looked weary. She spoke, and her voice was flat.\n\n\"I can't say I approve of everything he does, Maudie, but he's my brother, and I just want to know when this will ever end.\" Her voice rose: \"It tears him to pieces. He doesn't show it much, but it tears him to pieces. I've seen him when—what else do they want from him, Maudie, what else?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What does who want, Alexandra?\" Miss Maudie asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean this town. They're perfectly willing to let him do what they're too afraid to do themselves—it might lose 'em a nickel. They're perfectly willing to let him wreck his health doing what they're afraid to do, they're—\"\n\n\"Be quiet, they'll hear you,\" said Miss Maudie. \"Have you ever thought of it this way, Alexandra? Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we're paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.\"\n\n\"Who?\" Aunt Alexandra never knew she was echoing her twelve-year-old nephew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The handful of people in this town who say that fair play is not marked White Only; the handful of people who say a fair trial is for everybody, not just us; the handful of people with enough humility to think, when they look at a Negro, there but for the Lord's kindness am I.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Maudie's old crispness was returning: \"The handful of people in this town with background, that's who they are.\"\n\nHad I been attentive, I would have had another scrap to add to Jem's definition of background, but I found myself shaking and couldn't stop. I had seen Enfield Prison Farm, and Atticus had pointed out the exercise yard to me. It was the size of a football field." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stop that shaking,\" commanded Miss Maudie, and I stopped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get up, Alexandra, we've left 'em long enough.\"\n\nAunt Alexandra rose and smoothed the various whalebone ridges along her hips. She took her handkerchief from her belt and wiped her nose. She patted her hair and said, \"Do I show it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not a sign,\" said Miss Maudie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you together again, Jean Louise?\"\n\n\"Yes ma'am.\"\n\n\"Then let's join the ladies,\" she said grimly.\n\nTheir voices swelled when Miss Maudie opened the door to the diningroom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aunt Alexandra was ahead of me, and I saw her head go up as she went through the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, Mrs. Perkins,\" she said, \"you need some more coffee. Let me get it.\"\n\n\"Calpurnia's on an errand for a few minutes, Grace,\" said Miss Maudie. \"Let me pass you some more of these dewberry tarts. 'dyou hear what that cousin of mine did the other day, the one who likes to go fishing?...\"\n\nAnd so they went, down the row of laughing women, around the diningroom, refilling coffee cups, dishing out goodies as though their only regret was the temporary domestic disaster of losing Calpurnia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The gentle hum began again: \"Yes sir, Mrs. Perkins, that J. Grimes Everett is a martyred saint, he... needed to get married so they ran... to the beauty parlor every Saturday afternoon... soon as the sun goes down. He goes to bed with the... chickens, a crate full of sick chickens, Fred says that's what started it all. Fred says...\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aunt Alexandra looked across the room at me and smiled. She looked at a tray of cookies on the table and nodded at them. I carefully picked up the tray and watched myself walk to Mrs. Merriweather. With my very best company manners, I asked her if she would have some. After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Harper Lee.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of Harper Lee.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a Harper Lee sorta thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't do that, Scout. Set him out on the back steps.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jem, are you crazy?...\"\n\n\"I said set him out on the back steps.\"\n\nSighing, I scooped up the small creature, placed him on the bottom step and went back to my cot. September had come, but not a trace of cool weather with it, and we were still sleeping on the back screen porch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lightning bugs were still about, the night crawlers and flying insects that beat against the screen the summer long had not gone wherever they go when autumn comes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A roly-poly had found his way inside the house; I reasoned that the tiny varmint had crawled up the steps and under the door. I was putting my book on the floor beside my cot when I saw him. The creatures are no more than an inch long, and when you touch them they roll themselves into a tight gray ball.\n\nI lay on my stomach, reached down and poked him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rolled up. Then, feeling safe, I suppose, he slowly unrolled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He traveled a few inches on his hundred legs and I touched him again. He rolled up. Feeling sleepy, I decided to end things. My hand was going down on him when Jem spoke.\n\nJem was scowling. It was probably a part of the stage he was going through, and I wished he would hurry up and get through it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was certainly never cruel to animals, but I had never known his charity to embrace the insect world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why couldn't I mash him?\" I asked.\n\n\"Because they don't bother you,\" Jem answered in the darkness. He had turned out his reading light.\n\n\"Reckon you're at the stage now where you don't kill flies and mosquitoes now, I reckon,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lemme know when you change your mind. Tell you one thing, though, I ain't gonna sit around and not scratch a redbug.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aw dry up,\" he answered drowsily.\n\nJem was the one who was getting more like a girl every day, not I. Comfortable, I lay on my back and waited for sleep, and while waiting I thought of Dill. He had left us the first of the month with firm assurances that he would return the minute school was out—he guessed his folks had got the general idea that he liked to spend his summers in Maycomb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Rachel took us with them in the taxi to Maycomb Junction, and Dill waved to us from the train window until he was out of sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was not out of mind: I missed him. The last two days of his time with us, Jem had taught him to swim—\n\nTaught him to swim. I was wide awake, remembering what Dill had told me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Barker's Eddy is at the end of a dirt road off the Meridian highway about a mile from town." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is easy to catch a ride down the highway on a cotton wagon or from a passing motorist, and the short walk to the creek is easy, but the prospect of walking all the way back home at dusk, when the traffic is light, is tiresome, and swimmers are careful not to stay too late.\n\nAccording to Dill, he and Jem had just come to the highway when they saw Atticus driving toward them. He looked like he had not seen them, so they both waved. Atticus finally slowed down; when they caught up with him he said, \"You'd better catch a ride back. I won't be going home for a while.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calpurnia was in the back seat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jem protested, then pleaded, and Atticus said, \"All right, you can come with us if you stay in the car.\"\n\nOn the way to Tom Robinson's, Atticus told them what had happened.\n\nThey turned off the highway, rode slowly by the dump and past the Ewell residence, down the narrow lane to the Negro cabins. Dill said a crowd of black children were playing marbles in Tom's front yard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus parked the car and got out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calpurnia followed him through the front gate.\n\nDill heard him ask one of the children, \"Where's your mother, Sam?\" and heard Sam say, \"She down at Sis Stevens's, Mr. Finch. Want me run fetch her?\"\n\nDill said Atticus looked uncertain, then he said yes, and Sam scampered off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go on with your game, boys,\" Atticus said to the children." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A little girl came to the cabin door and stood looking at Atticus. Dill said her hair was a wad of tiny stiff pigtails, each ending in a bright bow. She grinned from ear to ear and walked toward our father, but she was too small to navigate the steps. Dill said Atticus went to her, took off his hat, and offered her his finger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She grabbed it and he eased her down the steps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he gave her to Calpurnia.\n\nSam was trotting behind his mother when they came up. Dill said Helen said, \"'evenin', Mr. Finch, won't you have a seat?\" But she didn't say any more. Neither did Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Scout,\" said Dill, \"she just fell down in the dirt. Just fell down in the dirt, like a giant with a big foot just came along and stepped on her. Just ump—\" Dill's fat foot hit the ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like you'd step on an ant.\"\n\nDill said Calpurnia and Atticus lifted Helen to her feet and half carried, half walked her to the cabin. They stayed inside a long time, and Atticus came out alone. When they drove back by the dump, some of the Ewells hollered at them, but Dill didn't catch what they said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maycomb was interested by the news of Tom's death for perhaps two days; two days was enough for the information to spread through the county." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you hear about?... No? Well, they say he was runnin' fit to beat lightnin'...\" To Maycomb, Tom's death was Typical. Typical of a nigger to cut and run. Typical of a nigger's mentality to have no plan, no thought for the future, just run blind first chance he saw. Funny thing, Atticus Finch might've got him off scot free, but wait—?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hell no. You know how they are." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Easy come, easy go. Just shows you, that Robinson boy was legally married, they say he kept himself clean, went to church and all that, but when it comes down to the line the veneer's mighty thin. Nigger always comes out in 'em.\n\nA few more details, enabling the listener to repeat his version in turn, then nothing to talk about until The Maycomb Tribune appeared the following Thursday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a brief obituary in the Colored News, but there was also an editorial." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. B. B. Underwood was at his most bitter, and he couldn't have cared less who canceled advertising and subscriptions. (But Maycomb didn't play that way: Mr. Underwood could holler till he sweated and write whatever he wanted to, he'd still get his advertising and subscriptions. If he wanted to make a fool of himself in his paper that was his business.) Mr. Underwood didn't talk about miscarriages of justice, he was writing so children could understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Underwood simply figured it was a sin to kill cripples, be they standing, sitting, or escaping." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He likened Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children, and Maycomb thought he was trying to write an editorial poetical enough to be reprinted in The Montgomery Advertiser.\n\nHow could this be so, I wondered, as I read Mr. Underwood's editorial. Senseless killing—Tom had been given due process of law to the day of his death; he had been tried openly and convicted by twelve good men and true; my father had fought for him all the way. Then Mr. Underwood's meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The name Ewell gave me a queasy feeling. Maycomb had lost no time in getting Mr. Ewell's views on Tom's demise and passing them along through that English Channel of gossip, Miss Stephanie Crawford. Miss Stephanie told Aunt Alexandra in Jem's presence (\"Oh foot, he's old enough to listen\") that Mr. Ewell said it made one down and about two more to go. Jem told me not to be afraid, Mr. Ewell was more hot gas than anything. Jem also told me that if I breathed a word to Atticus, if in any way I let Atticus know I knew, Jem would personally never speak to me again." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Harper Lee.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of Harper Lee.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a Harper Lee sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "School started, and so did our daily trips past the Radley Place. Jem was in the seventh grade and went to high school, beyond the grammar-school building; I was now in the third grade, and our routines were so different I only walked to school with Jem in the mornings and saw him at mealtimes. He went out for football, but was too slender and too young yet to do anything but carry the team water buckets. This he did with enthusiasm; most afternoons he was seldom home before dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Radley Place had ceased to terrify me, but it was no less gloomy, no less chilly under its great oaks, and no less uninviting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Nathan Radley could still be seen on a clear day, walking to and from town; we knew Boo was there, for the same old reason—nobody'd seen him carried out yet. I sometimes felt a twinge of remorse, when passing by the old place, at ever having taken part in what must have been sheer torment to Arthur Radley—what reasonable recluse wants children peeping through his shutters, delivering greetings on the end of a fishing-pole, wandering in his collards at night?\n\nAnd yet I remembered. Two Indian-head pennies, chewing gum, soap dolls, a rusty medal, a broken watch and chain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem must have put them away somewhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I stopped and looked at the tree one afternoon: the trunk was swelling around its cement patch. The patch itself was turning yellow.\n\nWe had almost seen him a couple of times, a good enough score for anybody.\n\nBut I still looked for him each time I went by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe someday we would see him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I imagined how it would be: when it happened, he'd just be sitting in the swing when I came along. \"Hidy do, Mr. Arthur,\" I would say, as if I had said it every afternoon of my life. \"Evening, Jean Louise,\" he would say, as if he had said it every afternoon of my life, \"right pretty spell we're having, isn't it?\" \"Yes sir, right pretty,\" I would say, and go on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was only a fantasy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We would never see him. He probably did go out when the moon was down and gaze upon Miss Stephanie Crawford. I'd have picked somebody else to look at, but that was his business. He would never gaze at us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You aren't starting that again, are you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said Atticus one night, when I expressed a stray desire just to have one good look at Boo Radley before I died. \"If you are, I'll tell you right now: stop it. I'm too old to go chasing you off the Radley property. Besides, it's dangerous. You might get shot. You know Mr. Nathan shoots at every shadow he sees, even shadows that leave size-four bare footprints. You were lucky not to be killed.\"\n\nI hushed then and there. At the same time I marveled at Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was the first he had let us know he knew a lot more about something than we thought he knew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And it had happened years ago. No, only last summer—no, summer before last, when... time was playing tricks on me. I must remember to ask Jem.\n\nSo many things had happened to us, Boo Radley was the least of our fears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said he didn't see how anything else could happen, that things had a way of settling down, and after enough time passed people would forget that Tom Robinson's existence was ever brought to their attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps Atticus was right, but the events of the summer hung over us like smoke in a closed room. The adults in Maycomb never discussed the case with Jem and me; it seemed that they discussed it with their children, and their attitude must have been that neither of us could help having Atticus for a parent, so their children must be nice to us in spite of him. The children would never have thought that up for themselves: had our classmates been left to their own devices, Jem and I would have had several swift, satisfying fistfights apiece and ended the matter for good. As it was, we were compelled to hold our heads high and be, respectively, a gentleman and a lady." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a way, it was like the era of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, without all her yelling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was one odd thing, though, that I never understood: in spite of Atticus's shortcomings as a parent, people were content to re-elect him to the state legislature that year, as usual, without opposition. I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar, I withdrew from them, and never thought about them until I was forced to.\n\nI was forced to one day in school. Once a week, we had a Current Events period." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each child was supposed to clip an item from a newspaper, absorb its contents, and reveal them to the class." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This practice allegedly overcame a variety of evils: standing in front of his fellows encouraged good posture and gave a child poise; delivering a short talk made him word-conscious; learning his current event strengthened his memory; being singled out made him more than ever anxious to return to the Group.\n\nThe idea was profound, but as usual, in Maycomb it didn't work very well. In the first place, few rural children had access to newspapers, so the burden of Current Events was borne by the town children, convincing the bus children more deeply that the town children got all the attention anyway. The rural children who could, usually brought clippings from what they called The Grit Paper, a publication spurious in the eyes of Miss Gates, our teacher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why she frowned when a child recited from The Grit Paper I never knew, but in some way it was associated with liking fiddling, eating syrupy biscuits for lunch, being a holy-roller, singing Sweetly Sings the Donkey and pronouncing it dunkey, all of which the state paid teachers to discourage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even so, not many of the children knew what a Current Event was. Little Chuck Little, a hundred years old in his knowledge of cows and their habits, was halfway through an Uncle Natchell story when Miss Gates stopped him: \"Charles, that is not a current event. That is an advertisement.\"\n\nCecil Jacobs knew what one was, though. When his turn came, he went to the front of the room and began, \"Old Hitler—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Adolf Hitler, Cecil,\" said Miss Gates." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One never begins with Old anybody.\"\n\n\"Yes ma'am,\" he said. \"Old Adolf Hitler has been prosecutin' the—\"\n\n\"Persecuting, Cecil...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nome, Miss Gates, it says here—well anyway, old Adolf Hitler has been after the Jews and he's puttin' 'em in prisons and he's taking away all their property and he won't let any of 'em out of the country and he's washin' all the feeble-minded and—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Washing the feeble-minded?\"\n\n\"Yes ma'am, Miss Gates, I reckon they don't have sense enough to wash themselves, I don't reckon an idiot could keep hisself clean. Well anyway, Hitler's started a program to round up all the half-Jews too and he wants to register 'em in case they might wanta cause him any trouble and I think this is a bad thing and that's my current event.\"\n\n\"Very good, Cecil,\" said Miss Gates. Puffing, Cecil returned to his seat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A hand went up in the back of the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How can he do that?\"\n\n\"Who do what?\" asked Miss Gates patiently.\n\n\"I mean how can Hitler just put a lot of folks in a pen like that, looks like the govamint'd stop him,\" said the owner of the hand.\n\n\"Hitler is the government,\" said Miss Gates, and seizing an opportunity to make education dynamic, she went to the blackboard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She printed DEMOCRACY in large letters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Democracy,\" she said. \"Does anybody have a definition?\"\n\n\"Us,\" somebody said.\n\nI raised my hand, remembering an old campaign slogan Atticus had once told me about.\n\n\"What do you think it means, Jean Louise?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Equal rights for all, special privileges for none,'\" I quoted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very good, Jean Louise, very good,\" Miss Gates smiled. In front of DEMOCRACY, she printed WE ARE A. \"Now class, say it all together, 'We are a democracy.'\"\n\nWe said it. Then Miss Gates said, \"That's the difference between America and Germany. We are a democracy and Germany is a dictatorship. Dictator-ship,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Over here we don't believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced. Pre-ju-dice,\" she enunciated carefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There are no better people in the world than the Jews, and why Hitler doesn't think so is a mystery to me.\"\n\nAn inquiring soul in the middle of the room said, \"Why don't they like the Jews, you reckon, Miss Gates?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Henry. They contribute to every society they live in, and most of all, they are a deeply religious people. Hitler's trying to do away with religion, so maybe he doesn't like them for that reason.\"\n\nCecil spoke up. \"Well I don't know for certain,\" he said, \"they're supposed to change money or somethin', but that ain't no cause to persecute 'em. They're white, ain't they?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Gates said, \"When you get to high school, Cecil, you'll learn that the Jews have been persecuted since the beginning of history, even driven out of their own country. It's one of the most terrible stories in history. Time for arithmetic, children.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As I had never liked arithmetic, I spent the period looking out the window. The only time I ever saw Atticus scowl was when Elmer Davis would give us the latest on Hitler. Atticus would snap off the radio and say, \"Hmp!\" I asked him once why he was impatient with Hitler and Atticus said, \"Because he's a maniac.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This would not do, I mused, as the class proceeded with its sums." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One maniac and millions of German folks. Looked to me like they'd shut Hitler in a pen instead of letting him shut them up. There was something else wrong—I would ask my father about it.\n\nI did, and he said he could not possibly answer my question because he didn't know the answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But it's okay to hate Hitler?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is not,\" he said. \"It's not okay to hate anybody.\"\n\n\"Atticus,\" I said, \"there's somethin' I don't understand. Miss Gates said it was awful, Hitler doin' like he does, she got real red in the face about it—\"\n\n\"I should think she would.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Nothing, sir.\" I went away, not sure that I could explain to Atticus what was on my mind, not sure that I could clarify what was only a feeling. Perhaps Jem could provide the answer. Jem understood school things better than Atticus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem was worn out from a day's water-carrying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were at least twelve banana peels on the floor by his bed, surrounding an empty milk bottle. \"Whatcha stuffin' for?\" I asked.\n\n\"Coach says if I can gain twenty-five pounds by year after next I can play,\" he said. \"This is the quickest way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you don't throw it all up. Jem,\" I said, \"I wanta ask you somethin'.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shoot.\" He put down his book and stretched his legs.\n\n\"Miss Gates is a nice lady, ain't she?\"\n\n\"Why sure,\" said Jem. \"I liked her when I was in her room.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She hates Hitler a lot...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's wrong with that?\"\n\n\"Well, she went on today about how bad it was him treatin' the Jews like that. Jem, it's not right to persecute anybody, is it? I mean have mean thoughts about anybody, even, is it?\"\n\n\"Gracious no, Scout. What's eatin' you?\"\n\n\"Well, coming out of the courthouse that night Miss Gates was—she was goin' down the steps in front of us, you musta not seen her—she was talking with Miss Stephanie Crawford. I heard her say it's time somebody taught 'em a lesson, they were gettin' way above themselves, an' the next thing they think they can do is marry us. Jem, how can you hate Hitler so bad an' then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jem was suddenly furious." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He leaped off the bed, grabbed me by the collar and shook me. \"I never wanta hear about that courthouse again, ever, ever, you hear me? You hear me? Don't you ever say one word to me about it again, you hear? Now go on!\"\n\nI was too surprised to cry. I crept from Jem's room and shut the door softly, lest undue noise set him off again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suddenly tired, I wanted Atticus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was in the livingroom, and I went to him and tried to get in his lap.\n\nAtticus smiled. \"You're getting so big now, I'll just have to hold a part of you.\" He held me close. \"Scout,\" he said softly, \"don't let Jem get you down. He's having a rough time these days. I heard you back there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time passed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he would be able to think about it and sort things out. When he was able to think about it, Jem would be himself again." } ]