Tender is the night / Ночь нежна. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Rosemary watched Nicole pressing upon her mother a yellow evening bag she had admired, saying, “I think things ought to belong to the people that like them” – and then sweeping into it all the yellow articles she could find, a pencil, a lipstick, a little note book, “because they all go together.”

Nicole disappeared and presently Rosemary noticed that Dick was no longer there; the guests distributed themselves in the garden or drifted in toward the terrace.

“Do you want,” Violet McKisco asked Rosemary, “to go to the bathroom?”

Not at that precise moment.

“I want,” insisted Mrs. McKisco, “to go to the bathroom.” As a frank outspoken woman she walked toward the house, dragging her secret after her, while Rosemary looked after with reprobation. Earl Brady proposed that they walk down to the sea wall but she felt that this was her time to have a share of Dick Diver when he reappeared, so she stalled, listening to McKisco quarrel with Barban.

“Why do you want to fight the Soviets?” McKisco said. “The greatest experiment ever made by humanity? And the Riff?[70 - the Riff – имеется в виду Рифская республика – военно-политическое объединение племен горной области Риф в Северном Марокко, – которая до 27 мая 1926 г. оставалась независимой, отражая объединенный натиск французских и испанских войск] It seems to me it would be more heroic to fight on the just side.

“How do you find out which it is?” asked Bar-ban dryly.

“Why – usually everybody intelligent knows.”

“Are you a Communist?”

“I’m a Socialist,” said McKisco, “I sympathize with Russia.”

“Well, I’m a soldier,” Barban answered pleasantly. “My business is to kill people.

“Of all the narrow-minded excuses,” McKisco looked around to establish a derisive liaison with someone else, but without success. He had no idea what he was up against in Barban, neither of the simplicity of the other man’s bag of ideas nor of the complexity of his training.