Page 238 - tender-is-the-night

young together.
... This is going to be Dick’s work house. Oh, the idea
came to us both at the same moment. We had passed
Tarmes a dozen times and we rode up here and found the
houses empty, except two stables. When we bought we acted
through a Frenchman but the navy sent spies up here in no
time when they found that Americans had bought part of a
hill village. They looked for cannons all through the build-
ing material, and finally Baby had to twitch wires for us at
the Affaires Etrangères in Paris.
No one comes to the Riviera in summer, so we expect
to have a few guests and to work. There are some French
people here—Mistinguet last week, surprised to find the
hotel open, and Picasso and the man who wrote Pas sur la
Bouche.
... Dick, why did you register Mr. and Mrs. Diver in-
stead of Doctor and Mrs. Diver? I just wondered—it just
floated through my mind.—You’ve taught me that work is
everything and I believe you. You used to say a man knows
things and when he stops knowing things he’s like anybody
else, and the thing is to get power before he stops know-
ing things. If you want to turn things topsy-turvy, all right,
but must your Nicole follow you walking on her hands, dar-
ling?
... Tommy says I am silent. Since I was well the first time
I talked a lot to Dick late at night, both of us sitting up in
bed and lighting cigarettes, then diving down afterward out
of the blue dawn and into the pillows, to keep the light from
our eyes. Sometimes I sing, and play with the animals, and

238 Tender is the Night