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Tender Is the Night - Book One
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter 19
Abe left from the Gare Saint Lazare at eleven—he stood alone under the fouled1 glass dome2, relic3 of the seventies, era of the Crystal Palace; his hands, of that vague gray color that only twenty-four hours can produce, were in his coat pockets to conceal4 the trembling fingers. With his hat removed it was plain that only the top layer of his hair was brushed back—the lower levels were pointed5 resolutely6 sidewise. He was scarcely recognizable as the man who had swum upon Gausse's Beach a fortnight ago.
He was early; he looked from left to right with his eyes only; it would have taken nervous forces out of his control to use any other part of his body. New-looking baggage went past him; presently prospective7 passengers, with dark little bodies, were calling: "Jew-uls-Hoo-oo!" in dark piercing voices.
At the minute when he wondered whether or not he had time for a drink at the buffet8, and began clutching at the soggy wad of thousand-franc notes in his pocket, one end of his pendulous9 glance came to rest upon the apparition10 of Nicole at the stairhead. He watched her—she was self-revelatory in her little expressions as people seem to some one waiting for them, who as yet is himself unobserved. She was frowning, thinking of her children, less gloating over them than merely animally counting them—a cat checking her cubs11 with a paw.
When she saw Abe, the mood passed out of her face; the glow of the morning skylight was sad, and Abe made a gloomy figure with dark circles that showed through the crimson12 tan under his eyes. They sat down on a bench.
"I came because you asked me," said Nicole defensively. Abe seemed to have forgotten why he asked her and Nicole was quite content to look at the travellers passing by.
"That's going to be the belle13 of your boat—that one with all the men to say good-by—you see why she bought that dress?" Nicole talked faster and faster. "You see why nobody else would buy it except the belle of the world cruise? See? No? Wake up! That's a story dress—that extra material tells a story and somebody on world cruise would be lonesome enough to want to hear it."
She bit close her last words; she had talked too much for her; and Abe found it difficult to gather from her serious set face that she had spoken at all. With an effort he drew himself up to a posture15 that looked as if he were standing16 up while he was sitting down.
"The afternoon you took me to that funny ball—you know, St. Genevieve's—" he began.
"I remember. It was fun, wasn't it?"
"No fun for me. I haven't had fun seeing you this time. I'm tired of you both, but it doesn't show because you're even more tired of me—you know what I mean. If I had any enthusiasm, I'd go on to new people."
"Seems rather foolish to be unpleasant, Abe. Anyhow you don't mean that. I can't see why you've given up about everything."
Abe considered, trying hard not to cough or blow his nose.
"I suppose I got bored; and then it was such a long way to go back in order to get anywhere."
Often a man can play the helpless child in front of a woman, but he can almost never bring it off when he feels most like a helpless child.
"No excuse for it," Nicole said crisply.
Abe was feeling worse every minute—he could think of nothing but disagreeable and sheerly nervous remarks. Nicole thought that the correct attitude for her was to sit staring straight ahead, hands in her lap. For a while there was no communication between them—each was racing18 away from the other, breathing only insofar as there was blue space ahead, a sky not seen by the other. Unlike lovers they possessed19 no past; unlike man and wife, they possessed no future; yet up to this morning Nicole had liked Abe better than any one except Dick—and he had been heavy, belly-frightened, with love for her for years.
"Then why don't you make a world of your own?"
"Tired of friends. The thing is to have sycophants20."
Nicole tried to force the minute hand around on the station clock, but, "You agree?" he demanded.
"I am a woman and my business is to hold things together."
"My business is to tear them apart."
"When you get drunk you don't tear anything apart except yourself," she said, cold now, and frightened and unconfident. The station was filling but no one she knew came. After a moment her eyes fell gratefully on a tall girl with straw hair like a helmet, who was dropping letters in the mail slot.
"A girl I have to speak to, Abe. Abe, wake up! You fool!"
Patiently Abe followed her with his eyes. The woman turned in a startled way to greet Nicole, and Abe recognized her as some one he had seen around Paris. He took advantage of Nicole's absence to cough hard and retchingly into his handkerchief, and to blow his nose loud. The morning was warmer and his underwear was soaked with sweat. His fingers trembled so violently that it took four matches to light a cigarette; it seemed absolutely necessary to make his way into the buffet for a drink, but immediately Nicole returned.
"That was a mistake," she said with frosty humor. "After begging me to come and see her, she gave me a good snubbing. She looked at me as if I were rotted." Excited, she did a little laugh, as with two fingers high in the scales. "Let people come to you."
Abe recovered from a cigarette cough and remarked:
"Trouble is when you're sober you don't want to see anybody, and when you're tight nobody wants to see you."
"Who, me?" Nicole laughed again; for some reason the late encounter had cheered her.
"No—me."
"Speak for yourself. I like people, a lot of people—I like—"
Rosemary and Mary North came in sight, walking slowly and searching for Abe, and Nicole burst forth21 grossly with "Hey! Hi! Hey!" and laughed and waved the package of handkerchiefs she had bought for Abe.
They stood in an uncomfortable little group weighted down by Abe's gigantic presence: he lay athwart them like the wreck22 of a galleon23, dominating with his presence his own weakness and self-indulgence, his narrowness and bitterness. All of them were conscious of the solemn dignity that flowed from him, of his achievement, fragmentary, suggestive and surpassed. But they were frightened at his survivant will, once a will to live, now become a will to die.
Dick Diver came and brought with him a fine glowing surface on which the three women sprang like monkeys with cries of relief, perching on his shoulders, on the beautiful crown of his hat or the gold head of his cane24. Now, for a moment, they could disregard the spectacle of Abe's gigantic obscenity. Dick saw the situation quickly and grasped it quietly. He pulled them out of themselves into the station, making plain its wonders. Nearby, some Americans were saying good-by in voices that mimicked25 the cadence26 of water running into a large old bathtub. Standing in the station, with Paris in back of them, it seemed as if they were vicariously leaning a little over the ocean, already undergoing a sea-change, a shifting about of atoms to form the essential molecule27 of a new people.
So the well-to-do Americans poured through the station onto the platforms with frank new faces, intelligent, considerate, thoughtless, thought-for. An occasional English face among them seemed sharp and emergent. When there were enough Americans on the platform the first impression of their immaculacy and their money began to fade into a vague racial dusk that hindered and blinded both them and their observers.
Nicole seized Dick's arm crying, "Look!" Dick turned in time to see what took place in half a minute. At a Pullman entrance two cars off, a vivid scene detached itself from the tenor28 of many farewells. The young woman with the helmet-like hair to whom Nicole had spoken made an odd dodging29 little run away from the man to whom she was talking and plunged30 a frantic31 hand into her purse; then the sound of two revolver shots cracked the narrow air of the platform. Simultaneously32 the engine whistled sharply and the train began to move, momentarily dwarfing33 the shots in significance. Abe waved again from his window, oblivious34 to what had happened. But before the crowd closed in, the others had seen the shots take effect, seen the target sit down upon the platform.
Only after a hundred years did the train stop; Nicole, Mary, and Rosemary waited on the outskirts35 while Dick fought his way through. It was five minutes before he found them again—by this time the crowd had split into two sections, following, respectively, the man on a stretcher and the girl walking pale and firm between distraught gendarmes36.
"It was Maria Wallis," Dick said hurriedly. "The man she shot was an Englishman—they had an awful time finding out who, because she shot him through his identification card." They were walking quickly from the train, swayed along with the crowd. "I found out what poste de police they're taking her to so I'll go there—"
"But her sister lives in Paris," Nicole objected. "Why not phone her? Seems very peculiar37 nobody thought of that. She's married to a Frenchman, and he can do more than we can."
Dick hesitated, shook his head and started off.
"Wait!" Nicole cried after him. "That's foolish—how can you do any good—with your French?"
"At least I'll see they don't do anything outrageous38 to her."
"They're certainly going to hold on to her," Nicole assured him briskly. "She did shoot the man. The best thing is to phone right away to Laura—she can do more than we can."
Dick was unconvinced—also he was showing off for Rosemary.
"You wait," said Nicole firmly, and hurried off to a telephone booth.
"When Nicole takes things into her hands," he said with affectionate irony39, "there is nothing more to be done."
He saw Rosemary for the first time that morning. They exchanged glances, trying to recognize the emotions of the day before. For a moment each seemed unreal to the other—then the slow warm hum of love began again.
"You like to help everybody, don't you?" Rosemary said.
"I only pretend to."
"Mother likes to help everybody—of course she can't help as many people as you do." She sighed. "Sometimes I think I'm the most selfish person in the world."
For the first time the mention of her mother annoyed rather than amused Dick. He wanted to sweep away her mother, remove the whole affair from the nursery footing upon which Rosemary persistently40 established it. But he realized that this impulse was a loss of control—what would become of Rosemary's urge toward him if, for even a moment, he relaxed. He saw, not without panic, that the affair was sliding to rest; it could not stand still, it must go on or go back; for the first time it occurred to him that Rosemary had her hand on the lever more authoritatively41 than he.
Before he had thought out a course of procedure, Nicole returned.
"I found Laura. It was the first news she had and her voice kept fading away and then getting loud again—as if she was fainting and then pulling herself together. She said she knew something was going to happen this morning."
"Maria ought to be with Diaghileff," said Dick in a gentle tone, in order to bring them back to quietude. "She has a nice sense of decor—not to say rhythm. Will any of us ever see a train pulling out without hearing a few shots?"
They bumped down the wide steel steps. "I'm sorry for the poor man," Nicole said. "Course that's why she talked so strange to me—she was getting ready to open fire."
She laughed, Rosemary laughed too, but they were both horrified42, and both of them deeply wanted Dick to make a moral comment on the matter and not leave it to them. This wish was not entirely43 conscious, especially on the part of Rosemary, who was accustomed to having shell fragments of such events shriek44 past her head. But a totality of shock had piled up in her too. For the moment, Dick was too shaken by the impetus45 of his newly recognized emotion to resolve things into the pattern of the holiday, so the women, missing something, lapsed46 into a vague unhappiness.
Then, as if nothing had happened, the lives of the Divers47 and their friends flowed out into the street.
However, everything had happened—Abe's departure and Mary's impending48 departure for Salzburg this afternoon had ended the time in Paris. Or perhaps the shots, the concussions49 that had finished God knew what dark matter, had terminated it. The shots had entered into all their lives: echoes of violence followed them out onto the pavement where two porters held a post-mortem beside them as they waited for a taxi.
"Tu as vu le revolver? Il était très petit, vraie perle—un jouet."
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1
fouled
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| v.使污秽( foul的过去式和过去分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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buffet
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| n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台 | |
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pendulous
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| adj.下垂的；摆动的 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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cubs
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| n.幼小的兽，不懂规矩的年轻人( cub的名词复数 ) | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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sycophants
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| n.谄媚者，拍马屁者( sycophant的名词复数 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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galleon
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| n.大帆船 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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mimicked
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| v.（尤指为了逗乐而）模仿( mimic的过去式和过去分词 )；酷似 | |
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cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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molecule
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| n.分子，克分子 | |
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28
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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dwarfing
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| n.矮化病 | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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35
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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36
gendarmes
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| n.宪兵，警官( gendarme的名词复数 ) | |
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37
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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40
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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41
authoritatively
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| 命令式地，有权威地，可信地 | |
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42
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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44
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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45
impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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46
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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47
divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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48
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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49
concussions
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| n.震荡( concussion的名词复数 )；脑震荡；冲击；震动 | |
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puissant
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| adj.强有力的 | |
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sagely
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| adv. 贤能地，贤明地 | |
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