Chapter - 12 | Gone with the Wind

THE WAR WENT ON, successfully for the most part, but people had stopped
saying “One more victory and the war is over,” just as they had stopped
saying the Yankees were cowards. It was obvious to all now that the
Yankees were far from cowardly and that it would take more than one
victory to conquer them. However, there were the Confederate victories in
Tennessee scored by General Morgan and General Forrest and the triumph
at the Second Battle of Bull Run hung up like visible Yankee scalps to gloat
over. But there was a heavy price on these scalps. The hospitals and homes
of Atlanta were overﬂowing with sick and wounded, and more and more
women were appearing in black. The monotonous rows of soldiers’ graves
at Oakland Cemetery stretched longer every day.
Confederate money had dropped alarmingly and the price of food and
clothing had risen accordingly. The commissary was laying such heavy
levies on foodstuffs that the tables of Atlanta were beginning to suffer.
White ﬂour was scarce and so expensive that corn bread was universal
instead of biscuits, rolls and wafﬂes. The butcher shops carried almost no
beef and very little mutton, and that mutton cost so much only the rich
could afford it. However there was still plenty of hog meat, as well as
chickens and vegetables.
The Yankee blockade about the Confederate ports had tightened, and
luxuries such as tea, coffee, silks, whalebone stays, colognes, fashion
magazines and books were scarce and dear. Even the cheapest cotton goods
had skyrocketed in price and ladies were regretfully making their old
dresses do another season. Looms that had gathered dust for years had been
brought down from attics, and there were webs of homespun to be found in
nearly every parlor. Everyone, soldiers, civilians, women, children and
negroes, began to wear homespun. Gray, as the color of the Confederate

uniform, practically disappeared and homespun of a butternut shade took
its place.
Already the hospitals were worrying about the scarcity of quinine,
calomel, opium, chloroform and iodine. Linen and cotton bandages were
too precious now to be thrown away when used, and every lady who nursed
at the hospitals brought home baskets of bloody strips to be washed and
ironed and returned for use on other sufferers.
But to Scarlett, newly emerged from the chrysalis of widowhood, all the
war meant was a time of gaiety and excitement. Even the small privations
of clothing and food did not annoy her, so happy was she to be in the world
again.
When she thought of the dull times of the past year, with the days going
by one very much like another, life seemed to have quickened to an
incredible speed. Every day dawned as an exciting adventure, a day in
which she would meet new men who would ask to call on her, tell her how
pretty she was, and how it was a privilege to ﬁght and, perhaps, to die for
her. She could and did love Ashley with the last breath in her body, but
that did not prevent her from inveigling other men into asking to marry
her.
The ever-present war in the background lent a pleasant informality to
social relations, an informality which older people viewed with alarm.
Mothers found strange men calling on their daughters, men who came
without letters of introduction and whose antecedents were unknown. To
their horror, mothers found their daughters holding hands with these men.
Mrs. Merriwether, who had never kissed her husband until after the
wedding ceremony, could scarcely believe her eyes when she caught
Maybelle kissing the little Zouave, René Picard, and her consternation was
even greater when Maybelle refused to be ashamed. Even the fact that
René immediately asked for her hand did not improve matters. Mrs.
Merriwether felt that the South was heading for a complete moral collapse
and frequently said so. Other mothers concurred heartily with her and
blamed it on the war.
But men who expected to die within a week or a month could not wait a
year before they begged to call a girl by her ﬁrst name, with “Miss,” of
course, preceding it. Nor would they go through the formal and protracted
courtships which good manners had prescribed before the war. They were

likely to propose in three or four months. And girls who knew very well
that a lady always refused a gentleman the ﬁrst three times he proposed
rushed headlong to accept the ﬁrst time.
This informality made the war a lot of fun for Scarlett. Except for the
messy business of nursing and the bore of bandage rolling, she did not care
if the war lasted forever. In fact, she could endure the hospital with
equanimity now because it was a perfect happy hunting ground. The
helpless wounded succumbed to her charms without a struggle. Renew their
bandages, wash their faces, pat up their pillows and fan them, and they fell
in love. Oh, it was Heaven after the last dreary year!
Scarlett was back again where she had been before she married Charles
and it was as if she had never married him, never felt the shock of his
death, never borne Wade. War and marriage and childbirth had passed
over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was
unchanged. She had a child but he was cared for so well by the others in
the red-brick house she could almost forget him. In her mind and heart, she
was Scarlett O’Hara again, the belle of the County. Her thoughts and
activities were the same as they had been in the old days, but the ﬁeld of
her activities had widened immensely. Careless of the disapproval of Aunt
Pitty’s friends, she behaved as she had behaved before her marriage, went
to parties, danced, went riding with soldiers, ﬂirted, did everything she had
done as a girl, except stop wearing mourning. This she knew would be a
straw that would break the backs of Pittypat and Melanie. She was as
charming a widow as she had been a girl, pleasant when she had her own
way, obliging as long as it did not discommode her, vain of her looks and
her popularity.
She was happy now where a few weeks before she had been miserable,
happy with her beaux and their reassurances of her charm, as happy as she
could be with Ashley married to Melanie and in danger. But somehow it
was easier to bear the thought of Ashley belonging to some one else when
he was far away. With the hundreds of miles stretching between Atlanta
and Virginia, he sometimes seemed as much hers as Melanie’s.
So the autumn months of 1862 went swiftly by with nursing, dancing,
driving and bandage rolling taking up all the time she did not spend on
brief visits to Tara. These visits were disappointing, for she had little
opportunity for the long quiet talks with her mother to which she looked

forward while in Atlanta, no time to sit by Ellen while she sewed, smelling
the faint fragrance of lemon verbena sachet as her skirts rustled, feeling her
soft hands on her cheek in a gentle caress.
Ellen was thin and preoccupied now and on her feet from morning until
long after the plantation was asleep. The demands of the Confederate
commissary were growing heavier by the month, and hers was the task of
making Tara produce. Even Gerald was busy, for the ﬁrst time in many
years, for he could get no overseer to take Jonas Wilkerson’s place and he
was riding his own acres. With Ellen too busy for more than a good-night
kiss and Gerald in the ﬁelds all day, Scarlett found Tara boring. Even her
sisters were taken up with their own concerns. Suellen had now come to an
“understanding” with Frank Kennedy and sang “When This Cruel War Is
Over” with an arch meaning that Scarlett found well-nigh unendurable,
and Careen was too wrapped up in dreams of Brent Tarleton to be
interesting company.
Though Scarlett always went home to Tara with a happy heart, she was
never sorry when the inevitable letters came from Pitty and Melanie,
begging her to return. Ellen always sighed at these times, saddened by the
thought of her oldest daughter and her only grandchild leaving her.
“But I mustn’t be selﬁsh and keep you here when you are needed to
nurse in Atlanta,” she said. “Only—only, my darling, it seems that I never
get the time to talk to you and to feel that you are my own little girl again
before you are gone from me.”
“I’m always your little girl,” Scarlett would say and bury her head upon
Ellen’s breast, her guilt rising up to accuse her. She did not tell her mother
that it was the dancing and the beaux which drew her back to Atlanta and
not the service of the Confederacy. There were many things she kept from
her mother these days. But, most of all, she kept secret the fact that Rhett
Butler called frequently at Aunt Pittypat’s house.
* * *
During the months that followed the bazaar, Rhett called whenever he was
in town, taking Scarlett riding in his carriage, escorting her to danceables
and bazaars and waiting outside the hospital to drive her home. She lost

her fear of his betraying her secret, but there always lurked in the back of
her mind the disquieting memory that he had seen her at her worst and
knew the truth about Ashley. It was this knowledge that checked her
tongue when he annoyed her. And he annoyed her frequently.
He was in his mid-thirties, older than any beau she had ever had, and
she was as helpless as a child to control and handle him as she had handled
beaux nearer her own age. He always looked as if nothing had ever
surprised him and much had amused him and, when he had gotten her into
a speechless temper, she felt that she amused him more than anything in
the world. Frequently she ﬂared into open wrath under his expert baiting,
for she had Gerald’s Irish temper along with the deceptive sweetness of face
she had inherited from Ellen. Heretofore she had never bothered to control
her temper except in Ellen’s presence. Now it was painful to have to choke
back words for fear of his amused grin. If only he would ever lose his temper
too, then she would not feel at such a disadvantage.
After tilts with him from which she seldom emerged the victor, she
vowed he was impossible, ill bred and no gentleman and she would have
nothing more to do with him. But sooner or later, he returned to Atlanta,
called, presumably on Aunt Pitty, and presented Scarlett, with overdone
gallantry, a box of bonbons he had brought her from Nassau. Or preempted
a seat by her at a musicale or claimed her at a dance, and she was usually so
amused by his bland impudence that she laughed and overlooked his past
misdeeds until the next occurred.
For all his exasperating qualities, she grew to look forward to his calls.
There was something exciting about him that she could not analyze,
something different from any man she had ever known. There was
something breath-taking in the grace of his big body which made his very
entrance into a room like an abrupt physical impact, something in the
impertinence and bland mockery of his dark eyes that challenged her spirit
to subdue him.
“It’s almost like I was in love with him!” she thought, bewildered. “But
I’m not and I just can’t understand it.”
But the exciting feeling persisted. When he came to call, his complete
masculinity made Aunt Pitty’s well-bred and ladylike house seem small,
pale and a triﬂe fusty. Scarlett was not the only member of the household

who reacted strangely and unwillingly to his presence, for he kept Aunt
Pitty in a ﬂutter and a ferment.
While Pitty knew Ellen would disapprove of his calls on her daughter,
and knew also that the edict of Charleston banning him from polite society
was not one to be lightly disregarded, she could no more resist his elaborate
compliments and hand kissing than a ﬂy can resist a honey pot. Moreover,
he usually brought her some little gift from Nassau which he assured her he
had purchased especially for her and blockaded in at risk of his life—papers
of pins and needles, buttons, spools of silk thread and hairpins. It was
almost impossible to obtain these small luxuries now—ladies were wearing
hand-whittled wooden hairpins and covering acorns with cloth for buttons
—and Pitty lacked the moral stamina to refuse them. Besides, she had a
childish love of surprise packages and could not resist opening his gifts.
And, having once opened them, she did not feel that she could refuse
them. Then, having accepted his gifts, she could not summon courage
enough to tell him his reputation made it improper for him to call on three
lone women who had no male protector. Aunt Pitty always felt that she
needed a male protector when Rhett Butler was in the house.
“I don’t know what it is about him,” she would sigh helplessly. “But—
well, I do think he’d be a nice, attractive man if I could just feel that—
well, that deep down in his heart he respected women.”
Since the return of her wedding ring, Melanie had felt that Rhett was a
gentleman of rare reﬁnement and delicacy and she was shocked at this
remark. He was unfailingly courteous to her, but she was a little timid with
him, largely because she was shy with any man she had not known from
childhood. Secretly she was very sorry for him, a feeling which would have
amused him had he been aware of it. She was certain that some romantic
sorrow had blighted his life and made him hard and bitter, and she felt that
what he needed was the love of a good woman. In all her sheltered life she
had never seen evil and could scarcely credit its existence, and when gossip
whispered things about Rhett and the girl in Charleston, she was shocked
and unbelieving. And, instead of turning her against him, it only made her
more timidly gracious toward him because of her indignation at what she
fancied was a gross injustice done him.
Scarlett silently agreed with Aunt Pitty. She, too, felt that he had no
respect for any woman, unless perhaps for Melanie. She still felt unclothed

every time his eyes ran up and down her ﬁgure. It was not that he ever said
anything. Then she could have scorched him with hot words. It was the
bold way his eyes looked out of his swarthy face with a displeasing air of
insolence, as if all women were his property to be enjoyed in his own good
time. Only with Melanie was this look absent. There was never that cool
look of appraisal, never mockery in his eyes, when he looked at Melanie;
and there was an especial note in his voice when he spoke to her,
courteous, respectful, anxious to be of service.
“I don’t see why you’re so much nicer to her than to me,” said Scarlett
petulantly, one afternoon when Melanie and Pitty had retired to take their
naps and she was alone with him.
For an hour she had watched Rhett hold the yarn Melanie was winding
for knitting, had noted the blank inscrutable expression when Melanie
talked at length and with pride of Ashley and his promotion. Scarlett knew
Rhett had no exalted opinion of Ashley and cared nothing at all about the
fact that he had been made a major. Yet he made polite replies and
murmured the correct things about Ashley’s gallantry.
And if I so much as mention Ashley’s name, she had thought irritably,
he cocks his eyebrow up and smiles that nasty, knowing smile!
“I’m much prettier than she is,” she continued, “and I don’t see why
you’re nicer to her.”
“Dare I hope that you are jealous?”
“Oh, don’t presume!”
“Another hope crushed. If I am ‘nicer’ to Mrs. Wilkes, it is because she
deserves it. She is one of the very few kind, sincere and unselﬁsh persons I
have ever known. But perhaps you have failed to note these qualities. And
moreover, for all her youth, she is one of the few great ladies I have ever
been privileged to know.”
“Do you mean to say you don’t think I’m a great lady, too?”
“I think we agreed on the occasion of our ﬁrst meeting that you were no
lady at all.”
“Oh, if you are going to be hateful and rude enough to bring that up
again! How can you hold that bit of childish temper against me? That was
so long ago and I’ve grown up since then and I’d forget all about it if you
weren’t always harping and hinting about it.”

“I don’t think it was childish temper and I don’t believe you’ve changed.
You are just as capable now as then of throwing vases if you don’t get your
own way. But you usually get your way now. And so there’s no necessity for
broken bric-a-brac.”
“Oh, you are—I wish I was a man! I’d call you out and—”
“And get killed for your pains. I can drill a dime at ﬁfty yards. Better
stick to your own weapons—dimples, vases and the like.”
“You are just a rascal.”
“Do you expect me to ﬂy into a rage at that? I am sorry to disappoint
you. You can’t make me mad by calling me names that are true. Certainly
I’m a rascal, and why not? It’s a free country and a man may be a rascal if he
chooses. It’s only hypocrites like you, my dear lady, just as black at heart
but trying to hide it, who become enraged when called by their right
names.”
She was helpless before his calm smile and his drawling remarks, for she
had never before met anyone who was so completely impregnable. Her
weapons of scorn, coldness and abuse blunted in her hands, for nothing she
could say would shame him. It had been her experience that the liar was
the hottest to defend his veracity, the coward his courage, the ill-bred his
gentlemanliness, and the cad his honor. But not Rhett. He admitted
everything and laughed and dared her to say more.
He came and went during these months, arriving unheralded and
leaving without saying good-by. Scarlett never discovered just what
business brought him to Atlanta, for few other blockaders found it
necessary to come so far away from the coast. They landed their cargoes at
Wilmington or Charleston, where they were met by swarms of merchants
and speculators from all over the South who assembled to buy blockaded
goods at auction. It would have pleased her to think that he made these
trips to see her, but even her abnormal vanity refused to believe this. If he
had ever once made love to her, seemed jealous of the other men who
crowded about her, even tried to hold her hand or begged for a picture or a
handkerchief to cherish, she would have thought triumphantly he had
been caught by her charms. But he remained annoyingly unloverlike and,
worst of all, seemed to see through all her maneuverings to bring him to his
knees.

Whenever he came to town, there was a feminine ﬂuttering. Not only
did the romantic aura of the dashing blockader hang about him but there
was also the titillating element of the wicked and the forbidden. He had
such a bad reputation! And every time the matrons of Atlanta gathered
together to gossip, his reputation grew worse, which only made him all the
more glamorous to the young girls. As most of them were quite innocent,
they had heard little more than that he was “quite loose with women”—
and exactly how a man went about the business of being “loose” they did
not know. They also heard whispers that no girl was safe with him. With
such a reputation, it was strange that he had never so much as kissed the
hand of an unmarried girl since he ﬁrst appeared in Atlanta. But that only
served to make him more mysterious and more exciting.
Outside of the army heroes, he was the most talked-about man in
Atlanta. Everyone knew in detail how he had been expelled from West
Point for drunkenness and “something about women.” That terriﬁc scandal
concerning the Charleston girl he had compromised and the brother he
had killed was public property. Correspondence with Charleston friends
elicited the further information that his father, a charming old gentleman
with an iron will and a ramrod for a backbone, had cast him out without a
penny when he was twenty and even stricken his name from the family
Bible. After that he had wandered to California in the gold rush of 1849
and thence to South America and Cuba, and the reports of his activities in
these parts were none too savory. Scrapes about women, several shootings,
gun running to the revolutionists in Central America and, worst of all,
professional gambling were included in his career, as Atlanta heard it.
There was hardly a family in Georgia who could not own to their sorrow
at least one male member or relative who gambled, losing money, houses,
land and slaves. But that was different. A man could gamble himself to
poverty and still be a gentleman, but a professional gambler could never be
anything but an outcast.
Had it not been for the upset conditions due to the war and his own
services to the Confederate government, Rhett Butler would never have
been received in Atlanta. But now, even the most strait laced felt that
patriotism called upon them to be more broad minded. The more
sentimental were inclined to the view that the black sheep of the Butler
family had repented of his evil ways and was making an attempt to atone

for his sins. So the ladies felt in duty bound to stretch a point, especially in
the case of so intrepid a blockader. Everyone knew now that the fate of the
Confederacy rested as much upon the skill of the blockade boats in eluding
the Yankee ﬂeet as it did upon the soldiers at the front.
Rumor had it that Captain Butler was one of the best pilots in the South
and that he was reckless and utterly without nerves. Reared in Charleston,
he knew every inlet, creek, shoal and rock of the Carolina coast near that
port, and he was equally at home in the waters around Wilmington. He
had never lost a boat or even been forced to dump a cargo. At the onset of
the war, he had emerged from obscurity with enough money to buy a small
swift boat and now, when blockaded goods realized two thousand per cent
on each cargo, he owned four boats. He had good pilots and paid them
well, and they slid out of Charleston and Wilmington on dark nights,
bearing cotton for Nassau, England and Canada. The cotton mills of
England were standing idle and the workers were starving, and any
blockader who could outwit the Yankee ﬂeet could command his own price
in Liverpool. Rhett’s boats were singularly lucky both in taking out cotton
for the Confederacy and bringing in the war materials for which the South
was desperate. Yes, the ladies felt they could forgive and forget a great many
things for such a brave man.
He was a dashing ﬁgure and one that people turned to look at. He spent
money freely, rode a wild black stallion, and wore clothes which were
always the height of style and tailoring. The latter in itself was enough to
attract attention to him, for the uniforms of the soldiers were dingy and
worn now and the civilians, even when turned out in their best, showed
skillful patching and darning. Scarlett thought she had never seen such
elegant pants as he wore, fawn colored, shepherd’s plaid, and checked. As
for his waistcoats, they were indescribably handsome, especially the white
watered-silk one with tiny rosebuds embroidered on it. And he wore these
garments with a still more elegant air as though unaware of their glory.
There were few ladies who could resist his charms when he chose to
exert them, and ﬁnally even Mrs. Merriwether unbent and invited him to
Sunday dinner.
Maybelle Merriwether was to marry her little Zouave when he got his
next furlough, and she cried every time she thought of it, for she had set
her heart on marrying in a white satin dress and there was no white satin in

the Confederacy. Nor could she borrow a dress, for the satin wedding
dresses of years past had all gone into the making of battle ﬂags. Useless for
the patriotic Mrs. Merriwether to upbraid her daughter and point out that
homespun was the proper bridal attire for a Confederate bride. Maybelle
wanted satin. She was willing, even proud, to go without hairpins and
buttons and nice shoes and candy and tea for the sake of the Cause, but she
wanted a satin wedding dress.
Rhett, hearing of this from Melanie, brought in from England yards and
yards of gleaming white satin and a lace veil and presented them to her as a
wedding gift. He did it in such a way that it was unthinkable to even
mention paying him for them, and Maybelle was so delighted she almost
kissed him. Mrs. Merriwether knew that so expensive a gift—and a gift of
clothing at that—was highly improper, but she could think of no way of
refusing when Rhett told her in the most ﬂorid language that nothing was
too good to deck the bride of one of our brave heroes. So Mrs. Merriwether
invited him to dinner, feeling that this concession more than paid for the
gift.
He not only brought Maybelle the satin but he was able to give
excellent hints on the making of the wedding dress. Hoops in Paris were
wider this season and skirts were shorter. They were no longer rufﬂed but
were gathered up in scalloped festoons, showing braided petticoats beneath.
He said, too, that he had seen no pantalets on the streets, so he imagined
they were “out.” Afterwards, Mrs. Merriwether told Mrs. Elsing she feared
that if she had given him any encouragement at all, he would have told her
exactly what kind of drawers were being worn by Parisiennes.
Had he been less obviously masculine, his ability to recall details of
dresses, bonnets and coiffures would have been put down as the rankest
effeminacy. The ladies always felt a little odd when they besieged him with
questions about styles, but they did it nevertheless. They were as isolated
from the world of fashion as shipwrecked mariners, for few books of fashion
came through the blockade. For all they knew the ladies of France might be
shaving their heads and wearing coonskin caps, so Rhett’s memory for
furbelows was an excellent substitute for Godey’s Lady’s Book. He could and
did notice details so dear to feminine hearts, and after each trip abroad he
could be found in the center of a group of ladies, telling that bonnets were
smaller this year and perched higher, covering most of the top of the head,

that plumes and not ﬂowers were being used to trim them, that the Empress
of France had abandoned the chignon for evening wear and had her hair
piled almost on the top of her head, showing all of her ears, and that
evening frocks were shockingly low again.
* * *
For some months, he was the most popular and romantic ﬁgure the town
knew, despite his previous reputation, despite the faint rumors that he was
engaged not only in blockading but in speculating on foodstuffs, too.
People who did not like him said that after every trip he made to Atlanta,
prices jumped ﬁve dollars. But even with this under-cover gossip seeping
about, he could have retained his popularity had he considered it worth
retaining. Instead, it seemed as though, after trying the company of the
staid and patriotic citizens and winning their respect and grudging liking,
something perverse in him made him go out of his way to affront them and
show them that his conduct had been only a masquerade and one which no
longer amused him.
It was as though he bore an impersonal contempt for everyone and
everything in the South, the Confederacy in particular, and took no pains
to conceal it. It was his remarks about the Confederacy that made Atlanta
look at him ﬁrst in bewilderment, then coolly and then with hot rage. Even
before 1862 passed into 1863, men were bowing to him with studied
frigidity and women were beginning to draw their daughters to their sides
when he appeared at a gathering.
He seemed to take pleasure not only in affronting the sincere and red-
hot loyalties of Atlanta but in presenting himself in the worst possible
light. When well-meaning people complimented him on his bravery in
running the blockade, he blandly replied that he was always frightened
when in danger, as frightened as were the brave boys at the front. Everyone
knew there had never been a cowardly Confederate soldier and they found
this statement peculiarly irritating. He always referred to the soldiers as
“our brave boys” or “our heroes in gray” and did it in such a way as to
convey the utmost in insult. When daring young ladies, hoping for a
ﬂirtation, thanked him for being one of the heroes who fought for them, he

bowed and declared that such was not the case, for he would do the same
thing for Yankee women if the same amount of money were involved.
Since Scarlett’s ﬁrst meeting with him in Atlanta on the night of the
bazaar, he had talked with her in this manner, but now there was a thinly
veiled note of mockery in his conversations with everyone. When praised
for his services to the Confederacy, he unfailingly replied that blockading
was a business with him. If he could make as much money out of
government contracts, he would say, picking out with his eyes those who
had government contracts, then he would certainly abandon the hazards of
blockading and take to selling shoddy cloth, sanded sugar, spoiled ﬂour and
rotten leather to the Confederacy.
Most of his remarks were unanswerable, which made them all the worse.
There had already been minor scandals about those holding government
contracts. Letters from men at the front complained constantly of shoes
that wore out in a week, gunpowder that would not ignite, harness that
snapped at any strain, meat that was rotten and ﬂour that was full of
weevils. Atlanta people tried to think that the men who sold such stuff to
the government must be contract holders from Alabama or Virginia or
Tennessee, and not Georgians. For did not the Georgia contract holders
include men from the very best families? Were they not the ﬁrst to
contribute to hospital funds and to the aid of soldiers’ orphans? Were they
not the ﬁrst to cheer at “Dixie” and the most rampant seekers, in oratory at
least, for Yankee blood? The full tide of fury against those proﬁteering on
government contracts had not yet risen, and Rhett’s words were taken
merely as evidence of his own bad breeding.
He not only affronted the town with insinuations of venality on the part
of men in high places and slurs on the courage of the men in the ﬁeld, but
he took pleasure in tricking the digniﬁed citizenry into embarrassing
situations. He could no more resist pricking the conceits, the hypocrisies
and the ﬂamboyant patriotism of those about him than a small boy can
resist putting a pin into a balloon. He neatly deﬂated the pompous and
exposed the ignorant and the bigoted, and he did it in such subtle ways,
drawing his victims out by his seemingly courteous interest, that they never
were quite certain what had happened until they stood exposed as windy,
high ﬂown and slightly ridiculous.

During the months when the town accepted him, Scarlett had been
under no illusions about him. She knew that his elaborate gallantries and
his ﬂorid speeches were all done with his tongue in his cheek. She knew
that he was acting the part of the dashing and patriotic blockade runner
simply because it amused him. Sometimes he seemed to her like the
County boys with whom she had grown up, the wild Tarleton twins with
their obsession for practical jokes; the devil-inspired Fontaines, teasing,
mischievous; the Calverts who would sit up all night planning hoaxes. But
there was a difference, for beneath Rhett’s seeming lightness there was
something malicious, almost sinister in its suave brutality.
Though she was thoroughly aware of his insincerity, she much preferred
him in the role of the romantic blockader. For one thing, it made her own
situation in associating with him so much easier than it had been at ﬁrst.
So, she was intensely annoyed when he dropped his masquerade and set out
apparently upon a deliberate campaign to alienate Atlanta’s good will. It
annoyed her because it seemed foolish and also because some of the harsh
criticism directed at him fell on her.
It was at Mrs. Elsing’s silver musicale for the beneﬁt of the convalescents
that Rhett signed his ﬁnal warrant of ostracism. That afternoon the Elsing
home was crowded with soldiers on leave and men from the hospitals,
members of the Home Guard and the militia unit, and matrons, widows
and young girls. Every chair in the house was occupied, and even the long
winding stair was packed with guests. The large cut-glass bowl held at the
door by the Elsings’ butler had been emptied twice of its burden of silver
coins. That in itself was enough to make the affair a success, for now a
dollar in silver was worth sixty dollars in Confederate paper money.
Every girl with any pretense to accomplishments had sung or played the
piano, and the tableaux vivants had been greeted with ﬂattering applause.
Scarlett was much pleased with herself, for not only had she and Melanie
rendered a touching duet, “When the Dew Is on the Blossom,” followed as
an encore by the more sprightly “Oh, Lawd, Ladies, Don’t Mind Stephen!”
but she had also been chosen to represent the Spirit of the Confederacy in
the last tableau.
She had looked most fetching, wearing a modestly draped Greek robe of
white cheesecloth girdled with red and blue and holding the Stars and Bars
in one hand, while with the other she stretched out to the kneeling

Captain Carey Ashburn, of Alabama, the gold-hilted saber which had
belonged to Charles and his father.
When her tableau was over, she could not help seeking Rhett’s eyes to
see if he had appreciated the pretty picture she made. With a feeling of
exasperation, she saw that he was in an argument and probably had not
even noticed her. Scarlett could see by the faces of the group surrounding
him that they were infuriated by what he was saying.
She made her way toward them and, in one of those odd silences which
sometimes fall on a gathering, she heard Willie Guinan, of the militia
outﬁt, say plainly: “Do I understand, sir, that you mean the Cause for which
our heroes have died is not sacred?”
“If you were run over by a railroad train, your death wouldn’t sanctify
the railroad company, would it?” asked Rhett, and his voice sounded as if
he were humbly seeking information.
“Sir,” said Willie, his voice shaking, “if we were not under this roof—”
“I tremble to think what would happen,” said Rhett. “For, of course,
your bravery is too well known.”
Willie went scarlet and all conversation ceased. Everyone was
embarrassed. Willie was strong and healthy and of military age and yet he
wasn’t at the front. Of course, he was the only boy his mother had and,
after all, somebody had to be in the militia to protect the state. But there
were a few irreverent snickers from convalescent ofﬁcers when Rhett spoke
of bravery.
“Oh, why doesn’t he keep his mouth shut!” thought Scarlett
indignantly. “He’s simply spoiling the whole party!”
Dr. Meade’s brows were thunderous.
“Nothing may be sacred to you, young man,” he said, in the voice he
always used when making speeches. “But there are many things sacred to
the patriotic men and ladies of the South. And the freedom of our land
from the usurper is one and States’ Rights is another and—”
Rhett looked lazy and his voice had a silky, almost bored, note.
“All wars are sacred,” he said. “To those who have to ﬁght them. If the
people who started wars didn’t make them sacred, who would be foolish
enough to ﬁght? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the
idiots who ﬁght, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is
never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality

money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of
bugles and drums and ﬁne words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the
rallying cry is ‘Save the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!’ Sometimes it’s
‘Down with Popery!’ and sometimes ‘Liberty!’ and sometimes ‘Cotton,
Slavery and States’ Rights!’”
“What on earth has the Pope to do with it?” thought Scarlett. “Or
Christ’s tomb, either?”
But as she hurried toward the incensed group, she saw Rhett bow
jauntily and start toward the doorway through the crowd. She started after
him but Mrs. Elsing caught her skirt and held her.
“Let him go,” she said in a clear voice that carried throughout the
tensely quiet room. “Let him go. He is a traitor, a speculator! He is a viper
that we have nursed to our bosoms!”
Rhett, standing in the hall, his hat in his hand, heard as he was
intended to hear and, turning, surveyed the room for a moment. He looked
pointedly at Mrs. Elsing’s ﬂat bosom, grinned suddenly and, bowing, made
his exit.
* * *
Mrs. Merriwether rode home in Aunt Pitty’s carriage, and scarcely had the
four ladies seated themselves when she exploded.
“There now, Pittypat Hamilton! I hope you are satisﬁed!”
“With what?” cried Pitty, apprehensively.
“With the conduct of that wretched Butler man you’ve been harboring.”
Pittypat ﬂuttered, too upset by the accusation to recall that Mrs.
Merriwether had also been Rhett Butler’s hostess on several occasions.
Scarlett and Melanie thought of this, but bred to politeness to their elders,
refrained from remarking on the matter. Instead they studiously looked
down at their mittened hands.
“He insulted us all and the Confederacy too,” said Mrs. Merriwether,
and her stout bust heaved violently beneath its glittering passementerie
trimmings. “Saying that we were ﬁghting for money! Saying that our
leaders had lied to us! He should be put in jail. Yes, he should. I shall speak
to Dr. Meade about it. If Mr. Merriwether were only alive, he’d tend to

him! Now, Pitty Hamilton, you listen to me. You mustn’t ever let that
scamp come into your house again!”
“Oh,” mumbled Pitty, helplessly, looking as if she wished she were dead.
She looked appealingly at the two girls who kept their eyes cast down and
then hopefully toward Uncle Peter’s erect back. She knew he was listening
attentively to every word and she hoped he would turn and take a hand in
the conversation, as he frequently did. She hoped he would say: “Now, Miss
Dolly, you let Miss Pitty be,” but Peter made no move. He disapproved
heartily of Rhett Butler and poor Pitty knew it. She sighed and said: “Well,
Dolly, if you think—”
“I do think,” returned Mrs. Merriwether ﬁrmly. “I can’t imagine what
possessed you to receive him in the ﬁrst place. After this afternoon, there
won’t be a decent home in town that he’ll be welcome in. Do get up some
gumption and forbid him your house.”
She turned a sharp eye on the girls. “I hope you two are marking my
words,” she continued, “for it’s partly your fault, being so pleasant to him.
Just tell him politely but ﬁrmly that his presence and his disloyal talk are
distinctly unwelcome at your house.”
By this time Scarlett was boiling, ready to rear like a horse at the touch
of a strange rough hand on its bridle. But she was afraid to speak. She could
not risk Mrs. Merriwether writing another letter to her mother.
“You old buffalo!” she thought, her face crimson with suppressed fury.
“How heavenly it would be to tell you just what I think of you and your
bossy ways!”
“I never thought to live long enough to hear such disloyal words spoken
of our Cause,” went on Mrs. Merriwether, by this time in a ferment of
righteous anger. “Any man who does not think our Cause is just and holy
should be hanged! I don’t want to hear of you two girls ever even speaking
to him again—For Heaven’s sake, Melly, what ails you?”
Melanie was white and her eyes were enormous.
“I will speak to him again,” she said in a low voice. “I will not be rude to
him. I will not forbid him the house.”
Mrs. Merriwether’s breath went out of her lungs as explosively as though
she had been punched. Aunt Pitty’s fat mouth popped open and Uncle
Peter turned to stare.

“Now, why didn’t I have the gumption to say that?” thought Scarlett,
jealousy mixing with admiration. “How did that little rabbit ever get up
spunk enough to stand up to old lady Merriwether?”
Melanie’s hands were shaking but she went on hurriedly, as though
fearing her courage would fail her if she delayed.
“I won’t be rude to him because of what he said, because—It was rude of
him to say it out loud—most ill advised—but it’s—it’s what Ashley thinks.
And I can’t forbid the house to a man who thinks what my husband thinks.
It would be unjust.”
Mrs. Merriwether’s breath had come back and she charged.
“Melly Hamilton, I never heard such a lie in all my life! There was
never a Wilkes who was a coward—”
“I never said Ashley was a coward,” said Melanie, her eyes beginning to
ﬂash. “I said he thinks what Captain Butler thinks, only he expresses it in
different words. And he doesn’t go around saying it at musicales, I hope.
But he has written it to me.”
Scarlett’s guilty conscience stirred as she tried to recall what Ashley
might have written that would lead Melanie to make such a statement, but
most of the letters she had read had gone out of her head as soon as she
ﬁnished reading them. She believed Melanie had simply taken leave of her
senses.
“Ashley wrote me that we should not be ﬁghting the Yankees. And that
we have been betrayed into it by statesmen and orators mouthing
catchwords and prejudices,” said Melly rapidly. “He said nothing in the
world was worth what this war was going to do to us. He said there wasn’t
anything at all to glory—it was just misery and dirt.”
“Oh! That letter,” thought Scarlett. “Was that what he meant?”
“I don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Merriwether ﬁrmly. “You misunderstood
his meaning.”
“I never misunderstand Ashley,” Melanie replied quietly, though her lips
were trembling. “I understand him perfectly. He meant exactly what
Captain Butler meant, only he didn’t say it in a rude way.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself, comparing a ﬁne man like Ashley
Wilkes to a scoundrel like Captain Butler! I suppose you, too, think the
Cause is nothing!”

“I—I don’t know what I think,” Melanie began uncertainly, her ﬁre
deserting her and panic at her outspokenness taking hold of her. “I—I’d die
for the Cause, like Ashley would. But—I mean—I mean, I’ll let the men
folks do the thinking, because they are so much smarter.”
“I never heard the like,” snorted Mrs. Merriwether. “Stop, Uncle Peter,
you’re driving past my house!”
Uncle Peter, preoccupied with the conversation behind him, had driven
past the Merriwether carriage block and he backed up the horse. Mrs.
Merriwether alighted, her bonnet ribbons shaking like sails in a storm.
“You’ll be sorry,” she said.
Uncle Peter whipped up the horse.
“You young misses ought ter tek shame, gittin’ Miss Pitty in a state,” he
scolded.
“I’m not in a state,” replied Pitty, surprisingly, for less strain than this
had frequently brought on fainting ﬁts. “Melly, honey, I knew you were
doing it just to take up for me and, really, I was glad to see somebody take
Dolly down a peg. She’s so bossy. How did you have the courage? But do
you think you should have said that about Ashley?”
“But it’s true,” answered Melanie and she began to cry softly. “And I’m
not ashamed that he thinks that way. He thinks the war is all wrong but
he’s willing to ﬁght and die anyway, and that takes lots more courage than
ﬁghting for something you think is right.”
“Lawd, Miss Melly, doan cry hyah on Peachtree Street,” groaned Uncle
Peter, hastening his horse’s pace. “Folks’ll talk sumpin’ scan’lous. Wait till
us gits home.”
Scarlett said nothing. She did not even squeeze the hand that Melanie
had inserted into her palm for comfort. She had read Ashley’s letters for
only one purpose—to assure herself that he still loved her. Now Melanie
had given a new meaning to passages in the letters which Scarlett’s eyes
had barely seen. It shocked her to realize that anyone as absolutely perfect
as Ashley could have any thought in common with such a reprobate as
Rhett Butler. She thought: “They both see the truth of this war, but Ashley
is willing to die about it and Rhett isn’t. I think that shows Rhett’s good
sense.” She paused a moment, horror struck that she could have such a
thought about Ashley. “They both see the same unpleasant truth, but