Tender is the Night Book 1, Chapter 6

The wine she had at lunch made Nicole feel good, and she took a walk in the grassless garden. She was somewhat surprised when she turned to walk the other way and found an area "so green and cool that the leaves and petals were curled with tender damp." Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 25 Her face was very stern, but her eyes were soft, and her once-fair hair had darkened over time. Nevertheless, she looked more beautiful now at twenty-four than she had ever looked. After walking for a while, she stood looking down at the Mediterranean. Dick saw her from afar and picked up his megaphone to inform her that he had invited Mrs. Abrams to dinner. Nicole said that she suspected it and that it was an outrage. Dick then continued to say that he was going to invite more people - the two young men - and that he wanted to give a really bad party, with a brawl, seductions, women passed out, and people going home with their feelings hurt. He then went back into the house.

Nicole realized that one of his mood swings was coming on, where his excitement swept everybody around into it, and reached an intensity out of proportion with the things he was excited about. Dick had the ability to make everybody around him feel special and loved by him. He won everyone quickly with his exquisite consideration and politeness.

Topic Tracking: Love 3

Then, without caution, "he opened the gate to his amusing world. So long as they subscribed to it completely, their happiness was his preoccupation, bit at the fist flicker of doubt as to its all-inclusiveness he evaporated before their eyes, leaving little communicable memory of what he had said or done." Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 28

Rosemary and her mother arrived at eight thirty, and Dick greeted them as they exclaimed about the beauty of the garden. Next, Earl Brady arrived, and was surprised to see Rosemary there. She quickly compared him to Dick Diver and found Earl to be gross and ill bred. Earl then asked the Diver children to sing him a song, which they did. Meanwhile, the McKiscos, Mrs. Abrams, Mr. Dumphry and Mr. Campion arrived. This disappointed Rosemary, but Dick's expression was not unusual, and since she believed in him so much, she immediately accepted the rightness of their presence, as if she had expected them to be there all along.

Rosemary stood next to Tommy Barban, and since he was leaving in the morning, she asked him if he was going home. He scornfully replied that he had no home and that he was going to war. He didn't care what war, any war would do, and that when he was in a rut, he would come see the Divers and that would make him want to go to war again. Rosemary left Tommy and found Dick. Her mother had never permitted romances, so when she had approved of Dick, Rosemary knew that it meant that he was the 'real thing'. Before she knew it, she was sitting at the dinner table between Luis Campion and Brady. Her mother was sitting next to Dick.