Page 266 - tender-is-the-night

phans. The people she liked, rebels mostly, disturbed her
and were bad for her—she sought in them the vitality that
had made them independent or creative or rugged, sought
in vain—for their secrets were buried deep in childhood
struggles they had forgotten. They were more interested in
Nicole’s exterior harmony and charm, the other face of her
illness. She led a lonely life owning Dick who did not want
to be owned.
Many times he had tried unsuccessfully to let go his
hold on her. They had many fine times together, fine talks
between the loves of the white nights, but always when he
turned away from her into himself he left her holding Noth-
ing in her hands and staring at it, calling it many names,
but knowing it was only the hope that he would come back
soon.
He scrunched his pillow hard, lay down, and put the
back of his neck against it as a Japanese does to slow the cir-
culation, and slept again for a time. Later, while he shaved,
Nicole awoke and marched around, giving abrupt, succinct
orders to children and servants. Lanier came in to watch his
father shave—living beside a psychiatric clinic he had de-
veloped an extraordinary confidence in and admiration for
his father, together with an exaggerated indifference toward
most other adults; the patients appeared to him either in
their odd aspects, or else as devitalized, over-correct crea-
tures without personality. He was a handsome, promising
boy and Dick devoted much time to him, in the relationship
of a sympathetic but exacting officer and respectful enlisted
man.

266 Tender is the Night