Tender Is the Night and Save Me the Waltz by F. Scott Fitzgerald & Zelda Fitzgerald

Author:F. Scott Fitzgerald & Zelda Fitzgerald [Fitzgerald, F. Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443416238
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

“There was a young lady from hell,

Who jumped at the sound of a bell,

Because she was bad—bad—bad,

She jumped at the sound of a bell,

From hell (BOOMBOOM)

From hell (TOOTTOOT)

There was a young lady from hell—”

“What is all this?” whispered Tommy to Nicole.

The girl on the other side of him supplied the answer:

“Caroline Sibly-Biers wrote the words. He wrote the music.”

“Quelle enfanterie!” Tommy murmured as the next verse began, hinting at the jumpy lady’s further predilections. “On dirait qu’il récite Racine!”

On the surface at least, Lady Caroline was paying no attention to the performance of her work. Glancing at her again Nicole found herself impressed, neither with the character nor the personality, but with the sheer strength derived from an attitude; Nicole thought that she was formidable, and she was confirmed in this point of view as the party rose from table. Dick remained in his seat wearing an odd expression; then he crashed into words with a harsh ineptness.

“I don’t like innuendo in these deafening English whispers.”

Already halfway out of the room Lady Caroline turned and walked back to him; she spoke in a low clipped voice purposely audible to the whole company.

“You came to me asking for it—disparaging my countrymen, disparaging my friend, Mary Minghetti. I simply said you were observed associating with a questionable crowd in Lausanne. Is that a deafening whisper? Or does it simply deafen you?”

“It’s still not loud enough,” said Dick, a little too late. “So I am actually a notorious—”

Golding crushed out the phrase with his voice saying:

“What! What!” and moved his guests on out, with the threat of his powerful body. Turning the corner of the door Nicole saw that Dick was still sitting at the table. She was furious at the woman for her preposterous statement, equally furious at Dick for having brought them here, for having become fuddled, for having untipped the capped barbs of his irony, for having come off humiliated—she was a little more annoyed because she knew that her taking possession of Tommy Barban on their arrival had first irritated the Englishwoman.

A moment later she saw Dick standing in the gangway, apparently in complete control of himself as he talked with Golding; then for half an hour she did not see him anywhere about the deck and she broke out of an intricate Malay game, played with string and coffee beans, and said to Tommy:

“I’ve got to find Dick.”

Since dinner the yacht had been in motion westward. The fine night streamed away on either side, the Diesel engines pounded softly, there was a spring wind that blew Nicole’s hair abruptly when she reached the bow, and she had a sharp lesion of anxiety at seeing Dick standing in the angle by the flagstaff. His voice was serene as he recognized her.

“It’s a nice night.”

“I was worried.”

“Oh, you were worried?”

“Oh, don’t talk that way. It would give me so much pleasure to think of a little something I could do for you, Dick.”

He turned away from her, toward the veil of starlight over Africa.

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