Tender Is the Night

So the well-to-do Americans poured through the station onto the platforms with frank new faces, intelligent, considerate, thoughtless, thought-for. An occasional English face among them seemed sharp and emergent. When there were enough Americans on the platform the first impression of their immaculacy and their money began to fade into a vague racial dusk that hindered and blinded both them and their observers.

Nicole seized Dick’s arm crying, “Look!” Dick turned in time to see what took place in half a minute. At a Pullman entrance two cars off, a vivid scene detached itself from the tenor of many farewells. The young woman with the helmet-like hair to whom Nicole had spoken made an odd dodging little run away from the man to whom she was talking and plunged a frantic hand into her purse; then the sound of two revolver shots cracked the narrow air of the platform. Simultaneously the engine whistled sharply and the train began to move, momentarily dwarfing the shots in significance. Abe waved again from his window, oblivious to what had happened. But before the crowd closed in, the others had seen the shots take effect, seen the target sit down upon the platform.

Only after a hundred years did the train stop; Nicole, Mary, and Rosemary waited on the outskirts while Dick fought his way through. It was five minutes before he found them again—by this time the crowd had split into two sections, following, respectively, the man on a stretcher and the girl walking pale and firm between distraught gendarmes.

“It was Maria Wallis,” Dick said hurriedly. “The man she shot was an Englishman—they had an awful time finding out who, because she shot him through his identification card.” They were walking quickly from the train, swayed along with the crowd. “I found out what poste de police they’re taking her to so I’ll go there—”

“But her sister lives in Paris,” Nicole objected. “Why not phone her? Seems very peculiar nobody thought of that. She’s married to a Frenchman, and he can do more than we can.”

Dick hesitated, shook his head and started off.

“Wait!” Nicole cried after him. “That’s foolish—how can you do any good—with your French?”

“At least I’ll see they don’t do anything outrageous to her.”

“They’re certainly going to hold on to her,” Nicole assured him briskly. “She DID shoot the man. The best thing is to phone right away to Laura—she can do more than we can.”

Dick was unconvinced—also he was showing off for Rosemary.

“You wait,” said Nicole firmly, and hurried off to a telephone booth.

“When Nicole takes things into her hands,” he said with affectionate irony, “there is nothing more to be done.”

He saw Rosemary for the first time that morning. They exchanged glances, trying to recognize the emotions of the day before. For a moment each seemed unreal to the other—then the slow warm hum of love began again.

“You like to help everybody, don’t you?” Rosemary said.

“I only pretend to.”

“Mother likes to help everybody—of course she can’t help as many people as you do.” She sighed. “Sometimes I think I’m the most selfish person in the world.”

For the first time the mention of her mother annoyed rather than amused Dick. He wanted to sweep away her mother, remove the whole affair from the nursery footing upon which Rosemary persistently established it. But he realized that this impulse was a loss of control—what would become of Rosemary’s urge toward him if, for even a moment, he relaxed. He saw, not without panic, that the affair was sliding to rest; it could not stand still, it must go on or go back; for the first time it occurred to him that Rosemary had her hand on the lever more authoritatively than he.

Before he had thought out a course of procedure, Nicole returned.

“I found Laura. It was the first news she had and her voice kept fading away and then getting loud again—as if she was fainting and then pulling herself together. She said she knew something was going to happen this morning.”

“Maria ought to be with Diaghileff,” said Dick in a gentle tone, in order to bring them back to quietude. “She has a nice sense of decor—not to say rhythm. Will any of us ever see a train pulling out without hearing a few shots?”

They bumped down the wide steel steps. “I’m sorry for the poor man,” Nicole said. “Course that’s why she talked so strange to me— she was getting ready to open fire.”

She laughed, Rosemary laughed too, but they were both horrified, and both of them deeply wanted Dick to make a moral comment on the matter and not leave it to them. This wish was not entirely conscious, especially on the part of Rosemary, who was accustomed to having shell fragments of such events shriek past her head. But a totality of shock had piled up in her too. For the moment, Dick was too shaken by the impetus of his newly recognized emotion to resolve things into the pattern of the holiday, so the women, missing something, lapsed into a vague unhappiness.

Then, as if nothing had happened, the lives of the Divers and their friends flowed out into the street.

However, everything had happened—Abe’s departure and Mary’s impending departure for Salzburg this afternoon had ended the time in Paris. Or perhaps the shots, the concussions that had finished God knew what dark matter, had terminated it. The shots had entered into all their lives: echoes of violence followed them out onto the pavement where two porters held a post-mortem beside them as they waited for a taxi.