Tender Is the Night
Page 47
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“—and I can limp a little. And there’s no real bathtub where I’m living, anyhow.”
“You’re entirely joking,” Franz relaxed—or rather assumed the posture of one relaxed. “Now tell me about yourself and your plans?”
“I’ve only got one, Franz, and that’s to be a good psychologist— maybe to be the greatest one that ever lived.”
Franz laughed pleasantly, but he saw that this time Dick wasn’t joking.
“That’s very good—and very American,” he said. “It’s more difficult for us.” He got up and went to the French window. “I stand here and I see Zurich—there is the steeple of the Gross- Mnster. In its vault my grandfather is buried. Across the bridge from it lies my ancestor Lavater, who would not be buried in any church. Nearby is the statue of another ancestor, Heinrich Pestalozzi, and one of Doctor Alfred Escher. And over everything there is always Zwingli—I am continually confronted with a pantheon of heroes.”
“Yes, I see.” Dick got up. “I was only talking big. Everything’s just starting over. Most of the Americans in France are frantic to get home, but not me—I draw military pay all the rest of the year if I only attend lectures at the university. How’s that for a government on the grand scale that knows its future great men? Then I’m going home for a month and see my father. Then I’m coming back—I’ve been offered a job.”
“Where?”
“Your rivals—Gisler’s Clinic on Interlacken.”
“Don’t touch it,” Franz advised him. “They’ve had a dozen young men there in a year. Gisler’s a manic-depressive himself, his wife and her lover run the clinic—of course, you understand that’s confidential.”
“How about your old scheme for America?” asked Dick lightly. “We were going to New York and start an up-to-date establishment for billionaires.”
“That was students’ talk.”
Dick dined with Franz and his bride and a small dog with a smell of burning rubber, in their cottage on the edge of the grounds, He felt vaguely oppressed, not by the atmosphere of modest retrenchment, nor by Frau Gregorovius, who might have been prophesied, but by the sudden contracting of horizons to which Franz seemed so reconciled. For him the boundaries of asceticism were differently marked—he could see it as a means to an end, even as a carrying on with a glory it would itself supply, but it was hard to think of deliberately cutting life down to the scale of an inherited suit. The domestic gestures of Franz and his wife as they turned in a cramped space lacked grace and adventure. The post-war months in France, and the lavish liquidations taking place under the gis of American splendor, had affected Dick’s outlook. Also, men and women had made much of him, and perhaps what had brought him back to the centre of the great Swiss watch, was an intuition that this was not too good for a serious man.
He made Kaethe Gregorovius feel charming, meanwhile becoming increasingly restless at the all-pervading cauliflower— simultaneously hating himself too for this incipience of he knew not what superficiality.
“God, am I like the rest after all?”—So he used to think starting awake at night—“Am I like the rest?”
This was poor material for a socialist but good material for those who do much of the world’s rarest work. The truth was that for some months he had been going through that partitioning of the things of youth wherein it is decided whether or not to die for what one no longer believes. In the dead white hours in Zurich staring into a stranger’s pantry across the upshine of a street- lamp, he used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in.
V
The veranda of the central building was illuminated from open French windows, save where the black shadows of stripling walls and the fantastic shadows of iron chairs slithered down into a gladiola bed. From the figures that shuffled between the rooms Miss Warren emerged first in glimpses and then sharply when she saw him; as she crossed the threshold her face caught the room’s last light and brought it outside with her. She walked to a rhythm—all that week there had been singing in her ears, summer songs of ardent skies and wild shade, and with his arrival the singing had become so loud she could have joined in with it.
“How do you do, Captain,” she said, unfastening her eyes from his with difficulty, as though they had become entangled. “Shall we sit out here?” She stood still, her glance moving about for a moment. “It’s summer practically.”
A woman had followed her out, a dumpy woman in a shawl, and Nicole presented Dick: “Señora—”
Franz excused himself and Dick grouped three chairs together.
“The lovely night,” the Señora said.
“Muy bella,” agreed Nicole; then to Dick, “Are you here for a long time?”
“I’m in Zurich for a long time, if that’s what you mean.”
“This is really the first night of real spring,” the Señora suggested.
“To stay?”
“At least till July.”
“I’m leaving in June.”
“June is a lovely month here,” the Señora commented. “You should stay for June and then leave in July when it gets really too hot.”
“You’re going where?” Dick asked Nicole.
“You’re entirely joking,” Franz relaxed—or rather assumed the posture of one relaxed. “Now tell me about yourself and your plans?”
“I’ve only got one, Franz, and that’s to be a good psychologist— maybe to be the greatest one that ever lived.”
Franz laughed pleasantly, but he saw that this time Dick wasn’t joking.
“That’s very good—and very American,” he said. “It’s more difficult for us.” He got up and went to the French window. “I stand here and I see Zurich—there is the steeple of the Gross- Mnster. In its vault my grandfather is buried. Across the bridge from it lies my ancestor Lavater, who would not be buried in any church. Nearby is the statue of another ancestor, Heinrich Pestalozzi, and one of Doctor Alfred Escher. And over everything there is always Zwingli—I am continually confronted with a pantheon of heroes.”
“Yes, I see.” Dick got up. “I was only talking big. Everything’s just starting over. Most of the Americans in France are frantic to get home, but not me—I draw military pay all the rest of the year if I only attend lectures at the university. How’s that for a government on the grand scale that knows its future great men? Then I’m going home for a month and see my father. Then I’m coming back—I’ve been offered a job.”
“Where?”
“Your rivals—Gisler’s Clinic on Interlacken.”
“Don’t touch it,” Franz advised him. “They’ve had a dozen young men there in a year. Gisler’s a manic-depressive himself, his wife and her lover run the clinic—of course, you understand that’s confidential.”
“How about your old scheme for America?” asked Dick lightly. “We were going to New York and start an up-to-date establishment for billionaires.”
“That was students’ talk.”
Dick dined with Franz and his bride and a small dog with a smell of burning rubber, in their cottage on the edge of the grounds, He felt vaguely oppressed, not by the atmosphere of modest retrenchment, nor by Frau Gregorovius, who might have been prophesied, but by the sudden contracting of horizons to which Franz seemed so reconciled. For him the boundaries of asceticism were differently marked—he could see it as a means to an end, even as a carrying on with a glory it would itself supply, but it was hard to think of deliberately cutting life down to the scale of an inherited suit. The domestic gestures of Franz and his wife as they turned in a cramped space lacked grace and adventure. The post-war months in France, and the lavish liquidations taking place under the gis of American splendor, had affected Dick’s outlook. Also, men and women had made much of him, and perhaps what had brought him back to the centre of the great Swiss watch, was an intuition that this was not too good for a serious man.
He made Kaethe Gregorovius feel charming, meanwhile becoming increasingly restless at the all-pervading cauliflower— simultaneously hating himself too for this incipience of he knew not what superficiality.
“God, am I like the rest after all?”—So he used to think starting awake at night—“Am I like the rest?”
This was poor material for a socialist but good material for those who do much of the world’s rarest work. The truth was that for some months he had been going through that partitioning of the things of youth wherein it is decided whether or not to die for what one no longer believes. In the dead white hours in Zurich staring into a stranger’s pantry across the upshine of a street- lamp, he used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in.
V
The veranda of the central building was illuminated from open French windows, save where the black shadows of stripling walls and the fantastic shadows of iron chairs slithered down into a gladiola bed. From the figures that shuffled between the rooms Miss Warren emerged first in glimpses and then sharply when she saw him; as she crossed the threshold her face caught the room’s last light and brought it outside with her. She walked to a rhythm—all that week there had been singing in her ears, summer songs of ardent skies and wild shade, and with his arrival the singing had become so loud she could have joined in with it.
“How do you do, Captain,” she said, unfastening her eyes from his with difficulty, as though they had become entangled. “Shall we sit out here?” She stood still, her glance moving about for a moment. “It’s summer practically.”
A woman had followed her out, a dumpy woman in a shawl, and Nicole presented Dick: “Señora—”
Franz excused himself and Dick grouped three chairs together.
“The lovely night,” the Señora said.
“Muy bella,” agreed Nicole; then to Dick, “Are you here for a long time?”
“I’m in Zurich for a long time, if that’s what you mean.”
“This is really the first night of real spring,” the Señora suggested.
“To stay?”
“At least till July.”
“I’m leaving in June.”
“June is a lovely month here,” the Señora commented. “You should stay for June and then leave in July when it gets really too hot.”
“You’re going where?” Dick asked Nicole.
