Page 134 - tender-is-the-night

was often easier to give a show than to watch one.
He went to the mail desk first—as the woman who served
him pushed up with her bosom a piece of paper that had
nearly escaped the desk, he thought how differently women
use their bodies from men. He took his letters aside to open:
There was a bill for seventeen psychiatric books from a Ger-
man concern, a bill from Brentano’s, a letter from Buffalo
from his father, in a handwriting that year by year became
more indecipherable; there was a card from Tommy Barban
postmarked Fez and bearing a facetious communication;
there were letters from doctors in Zurich, both in Ger-
man; a disputed bill from a plasterer in Cannes; a bill from
a furniture maker; a letter from the publisher of a medical
journal in Baltimore, miscellaneous announcements and
an invitation to a showing of pictures by an incipient artist;
also there were three letters for Nicole, and a letter for Rose-
mary sent in his care.
—Do you mind if I pull down the curtain?
He went toward Pierce but he was engaged with a woman,
and Dick saw with his heels that he would have to present
his check to Casasus at the next desk, who was free.
‘How are you, Diver?’ Casasus was genial. He stood up,
his mustache spreading with his smile. ‘We were talking
about Featherstone the other day and I thought of you—he’s
out in California now.’
Dick widened his eyes and bent forward a little.
‘In Cali-FOR-nia?’
‘That’s what I heard.’
Dick held the check poised; to focus the attention of

134 Tender is the Night