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

After a moment balanced between pity and repugnance she agreed, and full of morning energy, bounced upstairs beside Abe.

McKisco was sitting on his bed with his alcoholic combativeness vanished, in spite of the glass of champagne in his hand. He seemed very puny and cross and white. Evidently he had been writing and drinking all night. He stared confusedly at Abe and Rosemary and asked:

“Is it time?”

“No, not for half an hour[83 - not for half an hour – у нас еще есть полчаса].

”

The table was covered with papers which he assembled with some difficulty into a long letter; the writing on the last pages was very large and illegible. In the delicate light of electric lamps fading, he scrawled his name at the bottom, crammed it into an envelope and handed it to Abe. “For my wife.”

“You better souse your head in cold water,” Abe suggested.

“You think I’d better?” inquired McKisco doubtfully. “I don’t want to get too sober.”

“Well, you look terrible now.

”

Obediently McKisco went into the bathroom.

“I’m leaving everything in an awful mess,” he called. “I don’t know how Violet will get back to America. I don’t carry any insurance. I never got around to it.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, you’ll be right here eating breakfast in an hour.”

“Sure, I know.” He came back with his hair wet and looked at Rosemary as if he saw her for the first time. Suddenly tears stood in his eyes. “I never have finished my novel.

That’s what makes me so sore. You don’t like me,” he said to Rosemary, “but that can’t be helped. I’m primarily a literary man.” He made a vague discouraged sound and shook his head helplessly. “I’ve made lots of mistakes in my life – many of them. But I’ve been one of the most prominent – in some ways —”

He gave this up and puffed at a dead cigarette.

“I do like you,” said Rosemary, “but I don’t think you ought to fight a duel.

”

“Yeah, I should have tried to beat him up, but it’s done now. I’ve let myself be drawn into something that I had no right to be. I have a very violent temper —” He looked closely at Abe as if he expected the statement to be challenged. Then with an aghast laugh he raised the cold cigarette butt toward his mouth. His breathing quickened.

“The trouble was I suggested the duel – if Violet had only kept her mouth shut I could have fixed it.