Tender is the Night / Ночь нежна. Фрэнсис Скотт Фицджеральд

there was a dance, and Rosemary listened to the music, realizing that there was gaiety somewhere about, and she thought of the nice people on the beach. She thought she might meet them in the morning, but they obviously formed a self-sufcif ient little group, and once their umbrellas, bamboo rugs, dogs, and children were set out in place, the part of the beach was literally closed up. She decided in any case not to spend her last two mornings with the other ones.

      Chapter 4

      The matter was solved for her. The McKiscos were not yet there and she had scarcely spread her peignoir when two men left the group and came down toward her.

      “Good morning,” said Dick Diver. “Look – sunburn or no sunburn, why did you stay away yesterday? We worried about you.”

      She sat up and her happy little laugh welcomed him.

      “We wondered,” Dick Diver said, “if you wouldn’t come over this morning. We take food and drink, so it’s an invitation.”

      He seemed kind and charming – his voice promised that he would take care of her, and that a little later he would open up whole new worlds for her full of magnificent possibilities. He managed the introduction so that her name wasn’t mentioned and then let her know that everyone knew who she was but were respecting her private life.

      Nicole Diver was looking through a recipe book for chicken Maryland. She was about twenty-four, Rosemary guessed – her face could have been described in terms of conventional prettiness.

      “Are you here for a long time?” Nicole asked. Her voice was low.

      Suddenly Rosemary let the possibility enter her mind that they might stay another week.

      “Not very long,” she answered vaguely. “We’ve been abroad a long time – we landed in Sicily[20] in March and we’ve been slowly working our way north. I got pneumonia making a picture last January and I’ve been recovering.”

      “Mercy! How did that happen?”

      “Well, it was from swimming,” Rosemary was rather reluctant at answering personal questions. “One day I happened to have the grippe and didn’t know it, and they were taking a scene where I dove into a canal in Venice. It was a very expensive set, so I had to dive and dive and dive all morning. Mother had a doctor right there, but it was no use – I got pneumonia.” She changed the subject before they could speak. “Do you like it here – this place?”

      “They have to like it,” said Abe North slowly. “They invented it.” He turned his noble head slowly so that his eyes rested with tenderness and affection on the two Divers.

      “Oh, did you?”

      “This is only the second season that the hotel’s been open in summer,” Nicole explained. “We persuaded Gausse to keep on a cook and a garçon – it paid its way[21] and this year it’s doing even better.”

      “But you’re not in the hotel.”

      “We built a house, up at Tarmes[22].”

      “The theory is,” said Dick, arranging an umbrella to protect Rosemary’s shoulder, “that all the northern places were picked out by Russians and English who don’t mind the cold, while half of us Americans come from tropical climates – that’s why we’re beginning to come here.”

      The young man of Latin aspect had been turning the pages of The New York Herald[23].

      “Well, what nationality are these people?” he asked, suddenly, and read with a slight French intonation, “ ‘Registered at the Hotel Palace at Vevey[24] are Mr. Pandely Vlasco, Mme. Bonneasse’– I don’t exaggerate —‘Corinna Medonca, Yolanda Yosfuglu and Geneveva de Momus!’ She attracts me most – Geneveva de Momus. Almost worth running up to Vevey to take a look at Geneveva de Momus[25].”

      He stood up suddenly, stretching himself. He was a few years younger than Diver or North. He was tall and his body was hard but too thin save for the force gathered in his shoulders and upper arms. At first glance he seemed handsome – but there was a faint disgust always in his face which ruined the shine of his brown eyes.

      “We found some fine ones in the news of Americans last week,” said Nicole. “Mrs. Evelyn Oyster and – what were the others?”

      “There was Mr. S. Flesh,” said Diver, getting up also.

      “Oh, yes – S. Flesh – doesn’t he give you the creeps[26]?”

      It was quiet alone with Nicole – Rosemary found it even quieter than with her mother. Abe North and Barban, the Latin-looking young man who happened to be French, were talking about Morocco. Having copied her recipe, Nicole picked up a piece of sewing. Rosemary examined their possessions – four large parasols that made a canopy of shade, a portable bath house for dressing, a rubber horse, new things that Rosemary had never seen. She had thought that they were rich people.

      She looked in turn at the men. All three were personable in different ways; all were of a special gentleness that she felt was part of their lives, not at all like the company manners of actors, and she noticed also a far-reaching delicacy that was different from the rough and ready[27] good fellowship of directors, who represented the intellectuals in her life. Actors and directors – those were the only men she had ever known, those and the mass of college boys, interested only in love at first sight, whom she had met at the Yale prom[28] last fall.

      These three were different. Barban was less civilized, more skeptical and sarcastic, his manners were formal. Abe North had, under his shyness, a desperate humor that amused but puzzled her.

      But Dick Diver – he was all complete there. Silently she admired him. His complexion was reddish, so was his short hair. His eyes were of a bright, hard blue. His nose was somewhat pointed and there was never any doubt at whom he was looking or talking. His voice, with some faint Irish melody[29], was soft, yet she felt the layer of hardness in him, of self-control and of self-discipline, her own virtues. Oh, she chose him, and Nicole, lifting her head saw her choose him, heard the little sigh at the fact that he was already possessed.

      Toward noon the McKiscos, Mrs. Abrams, Mr. Dumphry, and Signor Campion came on the beach. They had brought a new umbrella that they set up with side glances toward the Divers, and crept under with satisfied expressions.

      Mary North, the very tanned young woman whom Rosemary had encountered the first day on the raft, came in from swimming and said with a smile:

      “So they have arrived.”

      “They’re this man’s friends,” Nicole reminded her, indicating Abe. “Why doesn’t he go and speak to them? Don’t you think they’re attractive?”

      “I think they’re very attractive,” Abe agreed. “I just don’t think they’re attractive, that’s all.”

      “Well, I HAVE felt there were too many people on the beach this summer,” Nicole admitted. “OUR beach that Dick made out of a pebble pile.” She considered, and then lowering her voice, “Still, they’re preferable to those British last summer who kept shouting about: ‘Isn’t the sea blue? Isn’t the sky white? Isn’t little Nellie’s nose red?’”

      Rosemary thought she would not like to have Nicole for an enemy.

      “But

20

Сицилия – остров в Средиземном море.

21

это оправдало себя

22

Тарм – горная деревушка на побережье.

23

Американская газета.

24

Вевё – один из центров Швейцарской Ривьеры.

25

Так и хочется поехать в Вевё, чтобы взглянуть на Женевьеву де Момус.

26

Вам не противно?

27

бесцеремонный

28

выпускной вечер Йельского университета

29

с лёгкой ирландской напевностью