F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night [108]
“Who was it?”
“Oh, a man.”
He closed in on her evasion.
“I’ll bet I can tell you about it: the first affair was unsatisfactory and after that there was a long gap. The second was better, but you hadn’t been in love with the man in the first place. The third was all right—”
Torturing himself he ran on. “Then you had one real affair that fell of its own weight, and by that time you were getting afraid that you wouldn’t have anything to give to the man you finally loved.” He felt increasingly Victorian. “Afterwards there were half a dozen just episodic affairs, right up to the present. Is that close?”
She laughed between amusement and tears.
“It’s about as wrong as it could be,” she said, to Dick’s relief. “But some day I’m going to find somebody and love him and love him and never let him go.”
Now his phone rang and Dick recognized Nicotera’s voice, asking for Rosemary. He put his palm over the transmitter.
“Do you want to talk to him?”
She went to the phone and jabbered in a rapid Italian Dick could not understand.
“This telephoning takes time,” he said. “It’s after four and I have an engagement at five. You better go play with Signor Nicotera.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Then I think that while I’m here you ought to count him out.”
“It’s difficult.” She was suddenly crying. “Dick, I do love you, never anybody like you. But what have you got for me?”
“What has Nicotera got for anybody?”
“That’s different.”
—Because youth called to youth.
“He’s a spic!” he said. He was frantic with jealousy, he didn’t want to be hurt again.
“He’s only a baby,” she said, sniffling. “You know I’m yours first.”
In reaction he put his arms about her but she relaxed wearily backward; he held her like that for a moment as in the end of an adagio, her eyes closed, her hair falling straight back like that of a girl drowned.
“Dick, let me go. I never felt so mixed up in my life.”
He was a gruff red bird and instinctively she drew away from him as his unjustified jealousy began to snow over the qualities of consideration and understanding with which she felt at home.
“I want to know the truth,” he said.
“Yes, then. We’re a lot together, he wants to marry me, but I don’t want to. What of it? What do you expect me to do? You never asked me to marry you. Do you want me to play around forever with half-wits like Collis Clay?”
“You were with Nicotera last night?”
“That’s none of your business,” she sobbed. “Excuse me, Dick, it is your business. You and Mother are the only two people in the world I care about.”
“How about Nicotera?”
“How do I know?”
She had achieved the elusiveness that gives hidden significance to the least significant remarks.
“Is it like you felt toward me in Paris?”
“I feel comfortable and happy when I’m with you. In Paris it was different. But you never know how you once felt. Do you?”
He got up and began collecting his evening clothes—if he had to bring all the bitterness and hatred of the world into his heart, he was not going to be in love with her again.
“I don’t care about Nicotera!” she declared. “But I’ve got to go to Livorno with the company to-morrow. Oh, why did this have to happen?” There was a new flood of tears. “It’s such a shame. Why did you come here? Why couldn’t we just have the memory anyhow? I feel as if I’d quarrelled with Mother.”
As he began to dress, she got up and went to the door.
“I won’t go to the party to-night.” It was her last effort. “I’ll stay with you. I don’t want to go anyhow.”
The tide began to flow again, but he retreated from it.
“I’ll be in my room,” she said. “Good-by, Dick.”
“Good-by.”
“Oh, such a shame, such a shame. Oh, such a shame. What’s it all about anyhow?”
“I’ve wondered for a long time.”
“But why bring it to me?”
“I guess I’m the Black Death,” he said slowly. “I don’t seem to bring people happiness any more.”
XXII
There