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Tender Is the Night - Book Two
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter 20
When Dick got out of the elevator he followed a tortuous1 corridor and turned at length toward a distant voice outside a lighted door. Rosemary was in black pajamas2; a luncheon3 table was still in the room; she was having coffee.
"You're still beautiful," he said. "A little more beautiful than ever."
"Do you want coffee, youngster?"
"I'm sorry I was so unpresentable this morning."
"You didn't look well—you all right now? Want coffee?"
"No, thanks."
"You're fine again, I was scared this morning. Mother's coming over next month, if the company stays. She always asks me if I've seen you over here, as if she thought we were living next door. Mother always liked you—she always felt you were some one I ought to know."
"Well, I'm glad she still thinks of me."
"I've seen you here and there in pictures," said Dick. "Once I had Daddy's Girl run off just for myself!"
"I have a good part in this one if it isn't cut."
She crossed behind him, touching5 his shoulder as she passed. She phoned for the table to be taken away and settled in a big chair.
"I was just a little girl when I met you, Dick. Now I'm a woman."
"I want to hear everything about you."
"How is Nicole—and Lanier and Topsy?"
"They're fine. They often speak of you—"
The phone rang. While she answered it Dick examined two novels—one by Edna Ferber, one by Albert McKisco. The waiter came for the table; bereft6 of its presence Rosemary seemed more alone in her black pajamas.
"… I have a caller… . No, not very well. I've got to go to the costumer's for a long fitting… . No, not now … "
As though with the disappearance7 of the table she felt released, Rosemary smiled at Dick—that smile as if they two together had managed to get rid of all the trouble in the world and were now at peace in their own heaven …
"That's done," she said. "Do you realize I've spent the last hour getting ready for you?"
But again the phone called her. Dick got up to change his hat from the bed to the luggage stand, and in alarm Rosemary put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. "You're not going!"
"No."
When the communication was over he tried to drag the afternoon together saying: "I expect some nourishment8 from people now."
"Me too," Rosemary agreed. "The man that just phoned me once knew a second cousin of mine. Imagine calling anybody up for a reason like that!"
Now she lowered the lights for love. Why else should she want to shut off his view of her? He sent his words to her like letters, as though they left him some time before they reached her.
"Hard to sit here and be close to you, and not kiss you." Then they kissed passionately9 in the centre of the floor. She pressed against him, and went back to her chair.
It could not go on being merely pleasant in the room. Forward or backward; when the phone rang once more he strolled into the bedchamber and lay down on her bed, opening Albert McKisco's novel. Presently Rosemary came in and sat beside him.
"You have the longest eyelashes," she remarked.
"We are now back at the Junior Prom. Among those present are Miss Rosemary Hoyt, the eyelash fancier—"
She kissed him and he pulled her down so that they lay side by side, and then they kissed till they were both breathless. Her breathing was young and eager and exciting. Her lips were faintly chapped but soft in the corners.
When they were still limbs and feet and clothes, struggles of his arms and back, and her throat and breasts, she whispered, "No, not now—those things are rhythmic10."
Disciplined he crushed his passion into a corner of his mind, but bearing up her fragility on his arms until she was poised11 half a foot above him, he said lightly:
"Darling—that doesn't matter."
Her face had changed with his looking up at it; there was the eternal moonlight in it.
"That would be poetic12 justice if it should be you," she said. She twisted away from him, walked to the mirror, and boxed her disarranged hair with her hands. Presently she drew a chair close to the bed and stroked his cheek.
"Tell me the truth about you," he demanded.
"I always have."
"In a way—but nothing hangs together."
They both laughed but he pursued.
"No-o-o!" she sang. "I've slept with six hundred and forty men—if that's the answer you want."
"It's none of my business."
"Do you want me for a case in psychology14?"
"Looking at you as a perfectly15 normal girl of twenty-two, living in the year nineteen twenty-eight, I guess you've taken a few shots at love."
"It's all been—abortive," she said.
Dick couldn't believe her. He could not decide whether she was deliberately16 building a barrier between them or whether this was intended to make an eventual17 surrender more significant.
"Let's go walk in the Pincio," he suggested.
He shook himself straight in his clothes and smoothed his hair. A moment had come and somehow passed. For three years Dick had been the ideal by which Rosemary measured other men and inevitably18 his stature19 had increased to heroic size. She did not want him to be like other men, yet here were the same exigent demands, as if he wanted to take some of herself away, carry it off in his pocket.
Walking on the greensward between cherubs20 and philosophers, fauns and falling water, she took his arm snugly21, settling into it with a series of little readjustments, as if she wanted it to be right because it was going to be there forever. She plucked a twig22 and broke it, but she found no spring in it. Suddenly seeing what she wanted in Dick's face she took his gloved hand and kissed it. Then she cavorted23 childishly for him until he smiled and she laughed and they began having a good time.
"I can't go out with you to-night, darling, because I promised some people a long time ago. But if you'll get up early I'll take you out to the set to-morrow."
He dined alone at the hotel, went to bed early, and met Rosemary in the lobby at half-past six. Beside him in the car she glowed away fresh and new in the morning sunshine. They went out through the Porta San Sebastiano and along the Appian Way until they came to the huge set of the forum24, larger than the forum itself. Rosemary turned him over to a man who led him about the great props25; the arches and tiers of seats and the sanded arena26. She was working on a stage which represented a guard-room for Christian27 prisoners, and presently they went there and watched Nicotera, one of many hopeful Valentinos, strut29 and pose before a dozen female "captives," their eyes melancholy30 and startling with mascara.
"Watch this," she whispered to Dick. "I want your opinion. Everybody that's seen the rushes says—"
"What are the rushes?"
"When they run off what they took the day before. They say it's the first thing I've had sex appeal in."
"I don't notice it."
"You wouldn't! But I have."
Nicotera in his leopard32 skin talked attentively33 to Rosemary while the electrician discussed something with the director, meanwhile leaning on him. Finally the director pushed his hand off roughly and wiped a sweating forehead, and Dick's guide remarked: "He's on the hop28 again, and how!"
"Who?" asked Dick, but before the man could answer the director walked swiftly over to them.
"Who's on the hop—you're on the hop yourself." He spoke34 vehemently35 to Dick, as if to a jury. "When he's on the hop he always thinks everybody else is, and how!" He glared at the guide a moment longer, then he clapped his hands: "All right—everybody on the set."
It was like visiting a great turbulent family. An actress approached Dick and talked to him for five minutes under the impression that he was an actor recently arrived from London. Discovering her mistake she scuttled36 away in panic. The majority of the company felt either sharply superior or sharply inferior to the world outside, but the former feeling prevailed. They were people of bravery and industry; they were risen to a position of prominence37 in a nation that for a decade had wanted only to be entertained.
The session ended as the light grew misty—a fine light for painters, but, for the camera, not to be compared with the clear California air. Nicotera followed Rosemary to the car and whispered something to her—she looked at him without smiling as she said good-by.
Dick and Rosemary had luncheon at the Castelli dei Cæsari, a splendid restaurant in a high-terraced villa38 overlooking the ruined forum of an undetermined period of the decadence39. Rosemary took a cocktail40 and a little wine, and Dick took enough so that his feeling of dissatisfaction left him. Afterward41 they drove back to the hotel, all flushed and happy, in a sort of exalted42 quiet. She wanted to be taken and she was, and what had begun with a childish infatuation on a beach was accomplished43 at last.
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1
tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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pajamas
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| n.睡衣裤 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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8
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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17
eventual
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| adj.最后的，结局的，最终的 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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20
cherubs
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| 小天使，胖娃娃( cherub的名词复数 ) | |
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snugly
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| adv.紧贴地；贴身地；暖和舒适地；安适地 | |
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twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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cavorted
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| v.跳跃( cavort的过去式 ) | |
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forum
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| n.论坛，讨论会 | |
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props
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| 小道具； 支柱( prop的名词复数 )； 支持者； 道具； （橄榄球中的）支柱前锋 | |
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26
arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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29
strut
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| v.肿胀，鼓起；大摇大摆地走；炫耀；支撑；撑开；n.高视阔步；支柱，撑杆 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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tunic
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| n.束腰外衣 | |
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leopard
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| n.豹 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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34
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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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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37
prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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38
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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39
decadence
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| n.衰落，颓废 | |
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40
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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41
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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42
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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43
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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