Page 136 - tender-is-the-night

and driven as an animal. Dignity could come only with an
overthrowing of his past, of the effort of the last six years.
He went briskly around the block with the fatuousness of
one of Tarkington’s adolescents, hurrying at the blind plac-
es lest he miss Rosemary’s coming out of the studio. It was
a melancholy neighborhood. Next door to the place he saw
a sign: ‘1000 chemises.’ The shirts filled the window, piled,
cravated, stuffed, or draped with shoddy grace on the show-
case floor: ‘1000 chemises’—count them! On either side he
read: ‘Papeterie,’ ‘Pâtisserie,’ ‘Solde,’ ‘Réclame’—and Con-
stance Talmadge in ‘Déjeuner de Soleil,’ and farther away
there were more sombre announcements: ‘Vêtements Ecclé-
siastiques,’ ‘Déclaration de Décès’ and ‘Pompes Funèbres.’
Life and death.
He knew that what he was now doing marked a turning
point in his life—it was out of line with everything that had
preceded it—even out of line with what effect he might hope
to produce upon Rosemary. Rosemary saw him always as
a model of correctness—his presence walking around this
block was an intrusion. But Dick’s necessity of behaving as
he did was a projection of some submerged reality: he was
compelled to walk there, or stand there, his shirtsleeve fit-
ting his wrist and his coat sleeve encasing his shirtsleeve
like a sleeve valve, his collar molded plastically to his neck,
his red hair cut exactly, his hand holding his small briefcase
like a dandy—just as another man once found it necessary
to stand in front of a church in Ferrara, in sackcloth and
ashes. Dick was paying some tribute to things unforgotten,
unshriven, unexpurgated.

136 Tender is the Night