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

), архитектурном памятнике, находящемся возле Нима, города на юге Франции, административного центра департамента Гар; the Ampitheatre at Orange – Амфитеатр в Оранже, древнеримский театр, построенный в годы правления императора Адриана (117–138) на юго-востоке Франции; Chamonix – Шамони, высокогорный курорт на юго-востоке Франции у подножья Монблана] – were fresher than the long motionless sea outside.

Unlike American trains that were absorbed in an intense destiny of their own, and scornful of people on another world less swift and breathless, this train was part of the country through which it passed. Its breath stirred the dust from the palm leaves, the cinders mingled with the dry dung in the gardens. Rosemary was sure she could lean from the window and pull flowers with her hand.

A dozen cabbies slept in their hacks outside the Cannes station. Over on the promenade the Casino, the smart shops, and the great hotels turned blank iron masks to the summer sea. It was unbelievable that there could ever have been a “season”, and Rosemary, half in the grip of fashion, became a little self-conscious, as though she were displaying an unhealthy taste for the moribund; as though people were wondering why she was here in the lull between the gaiety of last winter and next winter, while up north the true world thundered by.

* * *

As she came out of a drug store with a bottle of cocoanut oil, a woman, whom she recognized as Mrs. Diver, crossed her path with arms full of sofa cushions, and went to a car parked down the street. A long, low black dog barked at her, a dozing chauffeur woke with a start. She sat in the car, her lovely face set, controlled, her eyes brave and watchful, looking straight ahead toward nothing.

Her dress was bright red and her brown legs were bare. She had thick, dark, gold hair like a chow’s.

With half an hour to wait for her train Rosemary sat down in the Café des Alliés on the Croisette, where the trees made a green twilight over the tables and an orchestra wooed an imaginary public of cosmopolites with the Nice Carnival Song and last year’s American tune.