Page 178 - tender-is-the-night

of sunshine. Suddenly his thoughts swung to the patient,
the girl.
He had received about fifty letters from her written over
a period of eight months. The first one was apologetic, ex-
plaining that she had heard from America how girls wrote
to soldiers whom they did not know. She had obtained the
name and address from Doctor Gregory and she hoped he
would not mind if she sometimes sent word to wish him
well, etc., etc.
So far it was easy to recognize the tone—from ‘Dad-
dy-Long-Legs’ and ‘Molly-Make-Believe,’ sprightly and
sentimental epistolary collections enjoying a vogue in the
States. But there the resemblance ended.
The letters were divided into two classes, of which the
first class, up to about the time of the armistice, was of
marked pathological turn, and of which the second class,
running from thence up to the present, was entirely normal,
and displayed a richly maturing nature. For these latter let-
ters Dick had come to wait eagerly in the last dull months at
Bar-sur-Aube—yet even from the first letters he had pieced
together more than Franz would have guessed of the story.
MON CAPITAINE:
I thought when I saw you in your uniform you were so
handsome. Then I thought Je m’en fiche French too and
German. You thought I was pretty too but I’ve had that be-
fore and a long time I’ve stood it. If you come here again
with that attitude base and criminal and not even faintly
what I had been taught to associate with the role of gentle-
man then heaven help you. However you seem quieter than

178 Tender is the Night