Page 278 - tender-is-the-night

A discussion with Topsy about the guignol—as to wheth-
er the Punch was the same Punch they had seen last year
in Cannes—having been settled, the family walked along
again between the booths under the open sky. The women’s
bonnets, perching over velvet vests, the bright, spreading
skirts of many cantons, seemed demure against the blue
and orange paint of the wagons and displays. There was the
sound of a whining, tinkling hootchy-kootchy show.
Nicole began to run very suddenly, so suddenly that for
a moment Dick did not miss her. Far ahead he saw her yel-
low dress twisting through the crowd, an ochre stitch along
the edge of reality and unreality, and started after her. Se-
cretly she ran and secretly he followed. As the hot afternoon
went shrill and terrible with her flight he had forgotten the
children; then he wheeled and ran back to them, drawing
them this way and that by their arms, his eyes jumping from
booth to booth.
‘Madame,’ he cried to a young woman behind a white
lottery wheel, ‘Est-ce que je peux laisser ces petits avec
vous deux minutes? C’est très urgent—je vous donnerai dix
francs.’
‘Mais oui.’
He headed the children into the booth. ‘Alors—restez
avec cette gentille dame.’
‘Oui, Dick.’
He darted off again but he had lost her; he circled the
merry-goround keeping up with it till he realized he was
running beside it, staring always at the same horse. He el-
bowed through the crowd in the buvette; then remembering

278 Tender is the Night