Page 160 - tender-is-the-night

‘You go to some hotel and go to bed. After you’re all
straight Mr. Peterson will come and see you.’
‘But don’t you appreciate the mess that Peterson’s in?’ Abe
protested.
‘I shall wait in the hall,’ said Mr. Peterson with delicacy.
‘It is perhaps hard to discuss my problems in front of me.’
He withdrew after a short travesty of a French bow; Abe
pulled himself to his feet with the deliberation of a locomo-
tive.
‘I don’t seem highly popular to-day.’
‘Popular but not probable,’ Dick advised him. ‘My advice
is to leave this hotel—by way of the bar, if you want. Go to
the Chambord, or if you’ll need a lot of service, go over to
the Majestic.’
‘Could I annoy you for a drink?’
‘There’s not a thing up here,’ Dick lied.
Resignedly Abe shook hands with Rosemary; he com-
posed his face slowly, holding her hand a long time and
forming sentences that did not emerge.
‘You are the most—one of the most—‘
She was sorry, and rather revolted at his dirty hands, but
she laughed in a well-bred way, as though it were nothing
unusual to her to watch a man walking in a slow dream. Of-
ten people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather
like the respect of simple races for the insane. Respect rath-
er than fear. There is something awe-inspiring in one who
has lost all inhibitions, who will do anything. Of course we
make him pay afterward for his moment of superiority, his
moment of impressiveness. Abe turned to Dick with a last

160 Tender is the Night