Page 237 - tender-is-the-night

and complains about the stern.
... We travelled a lot that year—from Woolloomooloo Bay
to Biskra. On the edge of the Sahara we ran into a plague of
locusts and the chauffeur explained kindly that they were
bumble-bees. The sky was low at night, full of the presence
of a strange and watchful God. Oh, the poor little naked
Ouled Naïl; the night was noisy with drums from Senegal
and flutes and whining camels, and the natives pattering
about in shoes made of old automobile tires.
But I was gone again by that time—trains and beaches
they were all one. That was why he took me travelling but
after my second child, my little girl, Topsy, was born every-
thing got dark again.
... If I could get word to my husband who has seen fit to
desert me here, to leave me in the hands of incompetents.
You tell me my baby is black—that’s farcical, that’s very
cheap. We went to Africa merely to see Timgad, since my
principal interest in life is archeology. I am tired of knowing
nothing and being reminded of it all the time.
... When I get well I want to be a fine person like you,
Dick—I would study medicine except it’s too late. We must
spend my money and have a house—I’m tired of apartments
and waiting for you. You’re bored with Zurich and you can’t
find time for writing here and you say that it’s a confession
of weakness for a scientist not to write. And I’ll look over
the whole field of knowledge and pick out something and
really know about it, so I’ll have it to hang on to if I go to
pieces again. You’ll help me, Dick, so I won’t feel so guilty.
We’ll live near a warm beach where we can be brown and

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