Task: Story Composition
Input (English): Fact1: Wealthy ad man Eddie Anderson makes failed suicide attempt in car, Fact2: long marriage to Florence is devoid of passion, Fact3: psychiatrist listens to stories of Eddie 's nightmares and general discontent with life, Fact4: wife sees compromising photographs of Eddie and Gwen, Fact5: Eddie sets fire to father 's house
Output (English): Wealthy ad man Eddie Anderson makes a failed suicide attempt in his car. He is contemptuous of life and its arrangements. His long marriage to Florence is now devoid of passion, and he has become the lover of Gwen, a research assistant at his Los Angeles advertising agency. He descends into a long depression and silence, often conjuring up memories or hallucinations of Gwen. A psychiatrist, Dr. Leibman, eventually listens to stories of Eddies nightmares and general discontent with life. Eddie returns to work, where he insults a valued client. He pilots a small plane about L.A. and buzzes its skyscrapers recklessly, causing the police to be called. His mental stability is now seriously in doubt. His wife also sees compromising photographs of Eddie and Gwen. Arthur, his lawyer, gives wife Florence power of attorney as Eddie travels to New York to visit Sam Arness, his ill father. The father is so sick that Eddies brother and sisterinlaw want him placed in an institution. Gwen is also in New York now, living with a man named Charles and telling Eddie of many other affairs that she has had. She has a baby that she claims is not Eddies but it is strongly implied shes lying. A delusional Eddie begins to have conversations with his alter ego. Arthur brings papers for him to sign, turning over all of his community property to Florence, but she tells him not to sign them, and it turns out he signed someone elses name. Florence and Eddie have a long intense conversation, in which Eddie says he just wants to donthing for a while—Florence simply cant understand this, and says hes insane. He sets fire to his fathers house and comes to Gwens apartment, where Charles shoots him—after this, Eddie is committed to a psychiatric hospital, but can release himself at any time, simply by proving hes got a job and a home to go to. Eddie seems to feel contentment in his solitude at the asylum, but Gwen brings the baby to see him, and manages to lure him outside to try again, saying shes got a job for him. At his fathers funeral, Florence and Gwen are both there and see each other for the first time, and Florence seems to grudgingly accept the relationship between Eddie and Gwen as the only way Eddie can be saved from himself.