Book 3

I

Frau Kaethe Gregorovius saw her husband coming to their villa.

“How was Nicole?” she asked.

Franz looked at her in surprise.

“Nicole’s not sick. What makes you ask, dear?”

“You see her so much—I thought she must be sick.”

“Excuse me, Franz,” said Kaethe before he could speak. “Excuse me, dear, I had no right to say that. But there is a bad feeling between Nicole and me.”

“Birds in their little nests agree,” Franz shouted. “Birds—in—their—nests—AGREE!”

“I realize that. You haven’t seen me be impolite with Nicole.”

“Nicole is half a patient—she will possibly remain something of a patient all her life. In the absence of Dick I am responsible. There was a telegram from Rome this morning. Dick has had grippe and is starting home tomorrow.”

Kaethe felt relief but still said:

“I think Nicole is less sick than any one thinks—her illness is an instrument of power. I don’t like Americans. They’re selfish, SELF-ish!”

“You like Dick?”

“I like him,” she admitted. “He’s different, he thinks of others.”

“Dick married Nicole for her money,” she said. “That was his weakness—you said as much yourself one night.”

“Why are you saying this?”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she admitted. “We must all live together like birds, as you say. But it’s difficult when Nicole steps back a little when speaking to me, as if she were holding her breath—as if I SMELT bad!”

Kaethe had guessed the truth. She did most of her work herself, and she bought few clothes. And there was a hint of yesterday’s sweat about Kaethe’s person. To Franz this was as natural as the thick smell of Kaethe’s hair, and he liked it; but to Nicole, born to hate the smell of a nurse’s fingers dressing her, it was awful.

“And the children,” Kaethe continued. “She doesn’t like them to play with our children—” but Franz had heard enough:

“Hold your tongue—that kind of talk can hurt me professionally, since we owe this clinic to Nicole’s money. Let us have lunch.”

Kaethe realized that she should stop now, but Franz’s words reminded her that other Americans had money, and a week later she put her dislike of Nicole into new words.

They had dinner with the Divers upon Dick’s return. As soon as the Divers left, she said to Franz:

“The liquor I smelt on him tonight, and several other times since he’s been back. Do you think that sort of thing does the clinic any good?” Kaethe demanded.

She paused: “Dick is no longer a serious man.”

Franz went up the stairs, shaking her off. In their bedroom he turned on her.

“He is most certainly a serious man and a brilliant man. Of all the men who have recently taken their degrees in neuropathology in Zurich, Dick is more brilliant than I could ever be. I turn to Dick when cases are difficult. His publications are standard in their line—go into any medical library and ask. I can’t understand why you talk this way, Kaethe—I thought you liked him.”

“It’s a shame!” Kaethe said. “You do the work.”

“Tch! Tch!”

“Very well, then. It’s true.”

The result of this conversation was that Franz never believed that Dick was a serious person. And as time went on he convinced himself that he had never thought so.

Yet it was May before Franz found an opportunity to take his first steps.

One morning, stopping at the desk for his mail, Dick saw something extraordinary happening outside : Patient Von Cohn Morris was going away. His parents, Australians, were putting his baggage into a large limousine. Doctor Diver approached.

“Isn’t this a little sudden, Mr. Morris?”

Mr. Morris turned to Dick as though to strike him.

“High time we left, we and those who have come with us,” he began. “It is high time, Doctor Diver. High time.”

“Will you come in my office?” Dick suggested.

“Not I! I’ll talk to you, but I’m washing my hands of you and your place.”

He shook his finger at Dick. “We’ve wasted our time and our money. It’s you, Doctor Diver, YOU, the very man. I won’t wait. No, sir! I won’t wait a minute after my son told me the truth.”

He came up to Dick. “My son is here for alcoholism, and he told us he smelt liquor on your breath. Yes, sir! Not once, but twice. Von Cohn says he has smelt liquor on your breath. I and my lady have never touched a drop of it in our lives. We’ve brought Von Cohn to you to be cured, and within a month he twice smells liquor on your breath! What kind of cure is that there?”

Dick hesitated: “After all, Mr. Morris, some people are not going to give up what they regard as food because of your son—”

“But you’re a doctor, man!” cried Morris furiously. “When the workmen drink their beer that’s bad to them—but you’re here to cure—”

“This has gone too far. Your son came to us because of kleptomania.”

“What was behind it? Drink—black drink. My son comes to a clinic, and a doctor smells of it!”

“I must ask you to leave.”

“You ASK me! We ARE leaving!”

Dick went into his office. He watched until they drove away: it was easy to see the family go around Europe, making the clinic bad publicity. Dick asked himself the question if he had really provoked this. He drank claret with each meal, took hot rum at night, and sometimes he had gin in the afternoon—too much for his system.

Doctors, chauffeurs, and Protestant clergymen could never smell of liquor, as could painters or brokers; Dick blamed himself, but the matter was not easier half an hour later when Franz entered the office.

Dick said: “The Morris boy was taken away—there was a row.”

“What about? He was a devil, that boy.”

Dick said:

“One of the things the boy said to his father was that I am a drunkard. You can imagine how hard it was to defend yourself in a situation like that!”

“Dick, I know well that you are a well-balanced man, even though we do not agree about alcohol. But time has come—Dick, I must say that I have known several times that you have had a drink when it was not the moment to have one. Sometimes you don’t use your common sense.”

He was absolutely disgusted by the situation. To explain? NO.

“This won’t go,” he said suddenly.

“Well, that’s occurred to me,” Franz admitted. “Your heart isn’t in this project any more, Dick.”

“I know. I want to leave—we could make some arrangement about taking Nicole’s money.”

“I have thought about that too, Dick—I have seen this coming. It will be possible to take all your money out by the end of the year.”

Dick had not intended to come to a decision so quickly, nor was he prepared for Franz’s agreement to the break, yet he felt relief.

II

The Divers returned to the Riviera, which was home. Dick wrote a little with no particular method; it was one of those parts of life that is an awaiting; not upon Nicole’s health, which seemed to be very good, nor upon work, but simply an awaiting. What gave a purpose to the period was the children.

Dick’s interest in them increased with their ages, now eleven and nine. He came to know them much better than Nicole did, and he talked and played with them for a long time. They had that charm of children, who have learned early not to cry or laugh freely and loudly; they were taught not to show any strong emotion, but were happy with the simple pleasures allowed them. They lived as was thought advisable in old families of the Western world.

In the recent years, Lanier had developed an extraordinary confidence in and admiration for his father. He was a handsome, promising boy and Dick devoted much time to him. Lanier was an unpredictable boy with an inhuman curiosity. An avalanche of his questions often puzzled Dick. Topsy was easier. She was nine and very fair and graceful like Nicole, and in the past Dick had worried about that. Lately she had become as healthy-looking as any American child. He was satisfied with them both, but did not show it to them. “Either one learns politeness at home,” Dick said, “or the world teaches it to you and you may get hurt in the process. What do I care whether Topsy ‘loves’ me or not? I’m not bringing her up to be my wife.”

Another important element of this summer and autumn for the Divers was plenty of money. After the sale of their share in the clinic, and some developments in America, there was now so much that the spending of it needed time and effort.

Nicole went to the window and took a look at the terrace; the April sun shone on the face of Augustine, the cook, and the butcher’s knife she waved in her drunken hand. She had been with them since their return to Villa Diana in February.

She could see only Dick’s head and his hand holding one of his heavy sticks. The knife and the stick reminded her of gladiatorial fights. Dick’s words reached her first:

“I don’t care how much kitchen wine you drink but when I find you drinking from a bottle of Chablis Moutonne—”

“You talk about drinking!” Augustine cried. “You drink—all the time!”

Nicole called over to him: “What’s the matter, Dick?” and he answered:

“The old girl has been drinking the vintage wines. I’m firing her—at least I’m trying to.”

“Heavens! Well, don’t let her reach you with that knife.”

Augustine shook her knife up at Nicole.

“I would like to say, Madame, if you knew that your husband drinks like a day-laborer—”

“Shut up and get out!” interrupted Nicole.

“You—a disgusting American!”

Dick called up to Nicole:

“Get the children away from the house till I finish this.”

“—disgusting Americans who come here and drink up our finest wines,” screamed Augustine.

“You must leave now! I’ll pay you what we owe you,” Dick said.

“Very sure you’ll pay me! And let me tell you—” she came close and waved the knife so furiously that Dick raised his stick.

The situation was serious—Augustine was a strong woman and could be disarmed only at the risk of serious results to herself—and legal complications for those who attacked a French citizen.

Finally, Augustine gave in: she would leave only when her nephew could come for her baggage. There was no further trouble —when the nephew arrived, all apologetic, Augustine said good-by to Dick and Nicole.

In the afternoon, the Divers went to Nice and dined at a restaurant. There was little they dared talk about in these days; seldom did they find the right word in time, it arrived always a moment too late when one could not reach the other any more.

“We can’t go on like this,” Nicole said. “Or can we?—what do you think?” Dick sat silent, and she continued, “Some of the time I think it’s my fault—I’ve ruined you.”

“So I’m ruined, am I?” he asked in a pleasant voice.

“I didn’t mean that. But you used to want to create things—now you seem to want to break them.”

She trembled at criticizing him—but his long silence frightened her even more. She guessed that something was developing behind the silence, behind the hard, blue eyes, the almost unnatural interest in the children. His bursts of temper surprised her—he suddenly spilled harsh contempt for some person, race, class, way of life, way of thinking. It was as though something was going on inside him, about which she could only guess in the moments when it broke through.

“After all, what do you get out of this?” she demanded.

“Aren’t you’re stronger every day? That’s what I’ve done!”

“Dick!” and she stretched her hand forward to his across the table. Dick pulled his hand back and he added: “We have to think of the whole situation, not just you.” He put his hand on hers and said:

“See that boat out there?”

It was the motor yacht of T. F. Golding. “We’ll go out there now and ask the people on board what’s the matter with them. We’ll find out if they’re happy.”

“We hardly know him,” Nicole objected.

“He invited us. Besides, Baby knows him—she practically married him, didn’t she?”

When they were approaching the yacht in a hired boat, Nicole had doubts.

“He’s having a party—”

They were greeted by a huge white-haired man in a white suit looking down at them and calling:

“Do I recognize the Divers?”

Golding gave Nicole a hand and they got on board.

“Just in time for dinner.”

A small orchestra was playing. Nicole was sorry they had come, and annoyed by Dick. As they passed through the principal salon they saw a lot of people dancing. The guests sat on a wide divan, of whom one brought from Nicole a cry of delight.

“Tommy!”

Nicole pressed her face against his. They sat, or rather lay down together on the divan. His handsome face had got very dark under unknown suns.

“You look just like all the adventurers in the movies—but why did you stay away so long?”

Tommy Barban looked at her, his eyes flashed.

“Five years,” she continued. “MUCH too long. Couldn’t you only kill a certain number of men and then come back?”

“After all, I am a hero,” Tommy said calmly, only half joking. “I have courage like a lion.”

Golding approached, and said that they were starting for Cannes immediately after dinner; that Dick was now on the phone, telling their chauffeur in Nice to drive their car to Cannes.

They moved into the dining salon and Nicole heard Dick talk in a dogmatic voice:

“… It’s all right for you English, you’re doing a dance of death… You have no future.”

A woman answered sharply:

“After all a cheap fellow is a cheap fellow.”

Again he had offended some one—couldn’t he hold his tongue?

Dick remained in his seat wearing a strange expression; then he said harshly:

“I don’t like your nasty English whispers.”

The same woman spoke in a voice heard by the whole company.

“You asked for it—speaking so of my countrymen. You were seen with a questionable crowd in Lausanne. You’re questionable yourself. Is that a nasty whisper?”

Golding crushed out the phrase with his voice saying:

“What! What!” and moved his guests on out. Nicole saw that Dick was still sitting at the table. She was furious at the woman for her words, and equally furious at Dick for having brought them here.

A moment later she saw Dick in complete control of himself as he talked with Golding.

“I was worried,” she said to him.

“Oh, you were worried?”

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

“I believe that’s true, Nicole. And I believe that the littler it was, the more pleasure it would give you.”

His face was pale.

“You ruined me, did you?” he asked harshly. “Then we’re both ruined. So—”

She was cold with terror. Tears streamed down Nicole’s face—in a moment she heard some one approaching; it was Tommy.

“Are you rich, Tommy?” Dick asked him.

“Not as things go now. I got tired of the brokerage business and went away. But I have good stocks. All goes well.”

A few couples were dancing. Nicole and Tommy joined them and Tommy remarked: “Dick seems to be drinking.”

“Only a little,” she said loyally.

“There are those who can drink and those who can’t. Dick can’t. You ought to tell him not to.”

When they reached Cannes, Dick said good-by to the company, and for a moment he seemed about to say something nasty, but Tommy’s arm pulled him to the waiting car.

“I’ll see you home,” Tommy suggested.

“Don’t bother.”

“I’d like to, if you can put me up.”

On the back seat of the car Dick remained quiet, then he went into sleep.