Tender is the Night by Fitzgerald F. Scott (Francis Scott) 1896-1940 & Fitzgerald F. Scott (Francis Scott) 1896-1940

Author:Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940 & Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
Publisher: The University of Adelaide Library

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http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f_scott/tender/chapter34.html

Last updated Wednesday, February 6, 2013 at 23:51

Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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In Zurich in September Doctor Diver had tea with Baby Warren.

“I think it’s ill advised,” she said, “I’m not sure I truly understand your motives.”

“Don’t let’s be unpleasant.”

“After all I’m Nicole’s sister.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to be unpleasant.” It irritated Dick that he knew so much that he could not tell her. “Nicole’s rich, but that doesn’t make me an adventurer.”

“That’s just it,” complained Baby stubbornly. “Nicole’s rich.”

“Just how much money has she got?” he asked.

She started; and with a silent laugh he continued, “You see how silly this is? I’d rather talk to some man in your family —”

“Everything’s been left to me,” she persisted. “It isn’t we think you’re an adventurer. We don’t know who you are.”

“I’m a doctor of medicine,” he said. “My father is a clergyman, now retired. We lived in Buffalo and my past is open to investigation. I went to New Haven; afterward I was a Rhodes scholar. My great-grandfather was Governor of North Carolina and I’m a direct descendant of Mad Anthony Wayne.”

“Who was Mad Anthony Wayne?” Baby asked suspiciously.

“Mad Anthony Wayne?”

“I think there’s enough madness in this affair.”

He shook his head hopelessly, just as Nicole came out on the hotel terrace and looked around for them.

“He was too mad to leave as much money as Marshall Field,” he said.

“That’s all very well —”

Baby was right and she knew it. Face to face, her father would have it on almost any clergyman. They were an American ducal family without a title — the very name written in a hotel register, signed to an introduction, used in a difficult situation, caused a psychological metamorphosis in people, and in return this change had crystallized her own sense of position. She knew these facts from the English, who had known them for over two hundred years. But she did not know that twice Dick had come close to flinging the marriage in her face. All that saved it this time was Nicole finding their table and glowing away, white and fresh and new in the September afternoon.

How do you do, lawyer. We’re going to Como tomorrow for a week and then back to Zurich. That’s why I wanted you and sister to settle this, because it doesn’t matter to us how much I’m allowed. We’re going to live very quietly in Zurich for two years and Dick has enough to take care of us. No, Baby, I’m more practical than you think — It’s only for clothes and things I’ll need it. . . . Why, that’s more than — can the estate really afford to give me all that? I know I’ll never manage to spend it. Do you have that much? Why do you have more — is it because I’m supposed to be incompetent? All right, let my share pile up then. . . . No, Dick refuses to have anything whatever to do with it.

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