Page 263 - tender-is-the-night

stand—he was one of the kind who were always jumping
around cornices and balconies, as if they thought they were
in the rigging of a ship—and filled the ride to the hotel with
a preposterous story about a boxing match with his best
friend in which they loved and bruised each other for an
hour, always with great reserve. Dick became facetious.
‘So every time he hit you you considered him an even
better friend?’
‘I respected him more.’
‘It’s the premise I don’t understand. You and your best
friend scrap about a trivial matter—‘
‘If you don’t understand, I can’t explain it to you,’ said
the young Englishman coldly.
—This is what I’ll get if I begin saying what I think, Dick
said to himself.
He was ashamed at baiting the man, realizing that the ab-
surdity of the story rested in the immaturity of the attitude
combined with the sophisticated method of its narration.
The carnival spirit was strong and they went with the
crowd into the grill, where a Tunisian barman manipulat-
ed the illumination in a counterpoint, whose other melody
was the moon off the ice rink staring in the big windows. In
that light, Dick found the girl devitalized, and uninterest-
ing—he turned from her to enjoy the darkness, the cigarette
points going green and silver when the lights shone red, the
band of white that fell across the dancers as the door to the
bar was opened and closed.
‘Now tell me, Franz,’ he demanded, ‘do you think after
sitting up all night drinking beer, you can go back and con-

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