Page 148 - tender-is-the-night

times Abe used to meet her in the hall and moo at her, and it
cost us a whole tea service once—but we didn’t care.’
So much fun—so long ago. Rosemary envied them their
fun, imagining a life of leisure unlike her own. She knew lit-
tle of leisure but she had the respect for it of those who have
never had it. She thought of it as a resting, without realizing
that the Divers were as far from relaxing as she was herself.
‘What did this to him?’ she asked. ‘Why does he have to
drink?’
Nicole shook her head right and left, disclaiming respon-
sibility for the matter: ‘So many smart men go to pieces
nowadays.’
‘And when haven’t they?’ Dick asked. ‘Smart men play
close to the line because they have to—some of them can’t
stand it, so they quit.’
‘It must lie deeper than that.’ Nicole clung to her con-
versation; also she was irritated that Dick should contradict
her before Rosemary. ‘Artists like—well, like Fernand don’t
seem to have to wallow in alcohol. Why is it just Americans
who dissipate?’
There were so many answers to this question that Dick
decided to leave it in the air, to buzz victoriously in Nicole’s
ears. He had become intensely critical of her. Though he
thought she was the most attractive human creature he had
ever seen, though he got from her everything he needed, he
scented battle from afar, and subconsciously he had been
hardening and arming himself, hour by hour. He was not
given to self-indulgence and he felt comparatively graceless
at this moment of indulging himself, blinding his eyes with

148 Tender is the Night