Page 175 - tender-is-the-night
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the clinic, a Vaudois by birth, a few years older than Dick,
         met him at the tram stop. He had a dark and magnificent as-
         pect of Cagliostro about him, contrasted with holy eyes; he
         was the third of the Gregoroviuses—his grandfather had in-
         structed Krapaelin when psychiatry was just emerging from
         the darkness of all time. In personality he was proud, fi-
         ery, and sheeplike—he fancied himself as a hypnotist. If the
         original genius of the family had grown a little tired, Franz
         would without doubt become a fine clinician.
            On the way to the clinic he said: ‘Tell me of your experi-
         ences in the war. Are you changed like the rest? You have
         the same stupid and unaging American face, except I know
         you’re not stupid, Dick.’
            ‘I didn’t see any of the war—you must have gathered that
         from my letters, Franz.’
            ‘That  doesn’t  matter—we  have  some  shell-shocks  who
         merely heard an air raid from a distance. We have a few
         who merely read newspapers.’
            ‘It sounds like nonsense to me.’
            ‘Maybe it is, Dick. But, we’re a rich person’s clinic—we
         don’t use the word nonsense. Frankly, did you come down
         to see me or to see that girl?’
            They looked sideways at each other; Franz smiled enig-
         matically.
            ‘Naturally I saw all the first letters,’ he said in his offi-
         cial basso. ‘When the change began, delicacy prevented me
         from opening any more. Really it had become your case.’
            ‘Then she’s well?’ Dick demanded.
            ‘Perfectly well, I have charge of her, in fact I have charge

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