Page 344 - tender-is-the-night

last night. He sent one of them to fetch him a glass of beer.
The beer made him light-headed and the episode was
momentarily illumined by a ray of sardonic humor. Collis
was under the impression that the English girl had some-
thing to do with the catastrophe, but Dick was sure she had
disappeared long before it happened. Collis was still ab-
sorbed by the fact that Miss Warren had found him naked
on his bed.
Dick’s rage had retreated into him a little and he felt a
vast criminal irresponsibility. What had happened to him
was so awful that nothing could make any difference unless
he could choke it to death, and, as this was unlikely, he was
hopeless. He would be a different person henceforward, and
in his raw state he had bizarre feelings of what the new self
would be. The matter had about it the impersonal quality
of an act of God. No mature Aryan is able to profit by a hu-
miliation; when he forgives it has become part of his life, he
has identified himself with the thing which has humiliated
him—an upshot that in this case was impossible.
When Collis spoke of retribution, Dick shook his head
and was silent. A lieutenant of carabinieri, pressed, bur-
nished, vital, came into the room like three men and the
guards jumped to attention. He seized the empty beer bottle
and directed a stream of scolding at his men. The new spirit
was in him, and the first thing was to get the beer bottle out
of the guard-room. Dick looked at Collis and laughed.
The vice-consul, an over-worked young man named
Swanson, arrived, and they started to the court; Collis and
Swanson on either side of Dick and the two carabinieri close

344 Tender is the Night