He found Nicole in the garden with her arms folded high on her shoulders. She looked at him with straight gray eyes, with a child’s searching wonder.

“I went to Cannes,” he said. “I ran into Mrs. Speers. She’s leaving to-morrow. She wanted to come up and say good-by to you, but I slew the idea.”

“I’m sorry. I’d like to have seen her. I like her.”

“Who else do you think I saw—Bartholomew Tailor.”

“You didn’t.”

“I couldn’t have missed that face of his, the old experienced weasel. He was looking over the ground for Ciro’s menagerie—they’ll all be down next year. I suspected Mrs. Abrams was a sort of outpost.”

“And Baby was outraged the first summer we came here.”

“They don’t really give a damn where they are, so I don’t see why they don’t stay and freeze in Deauville.”

“Can’t we start rumors about cholera or something?”

“I told Bartholomew that some categories died off like flies here—I told him the life of a suck was as short as the life of a machine-gunner in the war.”

“You didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t,” he admitted. “He was very pleasant. It was a beautiful sight, he and I shaking hands there on the boulevard. The meeting of Sigmund Freud and Ward Mc Allister.”

Dick didn’t want to talk—he wanted to be alone so that his thoughts about work and the future would overpower his thoughts of love and to-day. Nicole knew about it but only darkly and tragically, hating him a little in an animal way, yet wanting to rub against his shoulder.

“The darling,” Dick said lightly.

He went into the house, forgetting something he wanted to do there, and then remembering it was the piano. He sat down whistling and played by ear:

Just picture you upon my knee

With tea for two and two for tea

And me for you and you for me—

Through the melody flowed a sudden realization that Nicole, hearing it, would guess quickly at a nostalgia for the past fortnight. He broke off with a casual chord and left the piano.

It was hard to know where to go. He glanced about the house that Nicole had made, that Nicole’s grandfather had paid for. He owned only his work house and the ground on which it stood. Out of three thousand a year and what dribbled in from his publications he paid for his clothes and personal expenses, for cellar charges, and for Lanier’s education, so far confined to a nurse’s wage. Never had a move been contemplated without Dick’s figuring his share. Living rather ascetically, travelling third-class when he was alone, with the cheapest wine, and good care of his clothes, and penalizing himself for any extravagances, he maintained a qualified financial independence. After a certain point, though, it was difficult—again and again it was necessary to decide together as to the uses to which Nicole’s money should be put. Naturally Nicole, wanting to own him, wanting him to stand still forever, encouraged any slackness on his part, and in multiplying ways he was constantly inundated by a trickling of goods and money. The inception of the idea of the cliff villa which they had elaborated as a fantasy one day was a typical example of the forces divorcing them from the first simple arrangements in Zurich.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if—” it had been; and then, “Won’t it be fun when—”

It was not so much fun. His work became confused with Nicole’s problems; in addition, her income had increased so fast of late that it seemed to belittle his work. Also, for the purpose of her cure, he had for many years pretended to a rigid domesticity from which he was drifting away, and this pretense became more arduous in this effortless immobility, in which he was inevitably subjected to microscopic examination. When Dick could no longer play what he wanted to play on the piano, it was an indication that life was being refined down to a point. He stayed in the big room a long time listening to the buzz of the electric clock, listening to time.

In November the waves grew black and dashed over the sea wall onto the shore road—such summer life as had survived disappeared and the beaches were melancholy and desolate under the mistral and rain. Gausse’s H?tel was closed for repairs and enlargement and the scaffolding of the summer Casino at Juan-les-Pins grew larger and more formidable. Going into Cannes or Nice, Dick and Nicole met new people—members of orchestras, restaurateurs, horticultural enthusiasts, ship-builders—for Dick had bought an old dinghy—and members of the Syndicat d’Initiative. They knew their servants well and gave thought to the children’s education. In December, Nicole seemed well-knit again; when a month had passed without tension, without the tight mouth, the unmotivated smile, the unfathomable remark, they went to the Swiss Alps for the Christmas holidays.

他来到花园里，尼科尔双手抱肩，一双灰色的眼睛直直望着他，目光里有孩子般的好奇。

“我到戛纳去了一趟，”他说，“结果遇到了斯皮尔斯夫人。她明天就要走了，想来这儿跟你道别，但我打消了她的这个念头。”

“很遗憾。我倒想见见她，因为我喜欢她。”

“你猜我还见到谁啦？巴塞洛缪·泰勒！”

“不会吧？”

“那个狡猾的老狐狸！他的那张脸我是不会认错的！他在为西罗的动物展览寻找地方——他们明年会过来的。我怀疑艾布拉姆斯夫人是来打前站的。”

“那年夏天咱们初到这里，芭比见到他都快气疯了……”

“他们好像并不在乎在哪儿办展览，只知道满世界瞎跑。真希望他们待在多维尔，哪里也别去。”

“是不是需要吓唬吓唬他们，就说这儿在闹霍乱什么的？”

“我吓唬过了巴塞洛缪，说这儿的动物跟苍蝇一样成批死亡，说婴儿就如同战场上的机枪手一般短命。”

“你不会这么说的。”

“是的，我没这么说。”他承认道，“他可是一团和气。我们俩站在大街上握手的场面十分壮观，跟西格蒙德·弗洛伊德和沃德·麦卡利斯特相会时的情景有一拼。”

迪克并不想说话，只想一个人待着，考虑考虑工作和未来，忘掉爱情的烦恼以及眼前的尴尬。尼科尔隐约有所察觉，感到有点悲伤，甚至有些恨他，可是又想依偎在他的肩膀上。

“亲爱的，咱们进去吧。”迪克淡淡地说。

他进了屋子，却忘了进屋要干什么，定了定神才想起要弹钢琴，于是便吹着口哨坐下来，不用乐谱，弹奏起来：

想一想你坐在我膝上，

二人把佳茗品尝，

没有别人在身旁，

只有你我把佳茗品尝……

弹着弹着，他突然意识到尼科尔听了会起疑心，立刻会联想到他这两个星期对罗斯玛丽缠绵的情思，于是最后又随手胡乱弹了一个和弦，便离开了钢琴。

他真不知道上哪儿去好。他四周看了看——这幢房子是用尼科尔祖父的钱买的，是尼科尔一手布置的，他只拥有他的工作间和工作间所占的地皮。他有三千块钱的年薪和一些零星的稿酬，用这些钱来置办他的衣服和支付其他个人的消费，支付家里的酒钱以及拉尼尔的教育费（目前，这笔“教育费”仅局限于保姆的工资）。在衣食住行方面，考虑到自己应承担的这部分费用，他精打细算，简直像个苦行僧一样，一个人出门只坐三等车厢，喝最便宜的酒，十分爱惜自己的衣服，对自己任何铺张浪费的行为都要自我惩戒，这样才能保持经济上的独立。超出一定的范围，他就会感到捉襟见肘……不知有多少次，他都想跟尼科尔谈谈，看怎样用尼科尔的钱才合适。当然，尼科尔渴望拥有他，想让他永远保持对她的爱，他稍有懈怠，她就用金钱刺激——一次又一次，源源不断的物质享受和金钱左右了他，改造了他。那天他突发奇想，想在悬崖边建别墅就是一例——金钱的力量使他偏离了最初在苏黎世的那种生活从简的原则。

过去他常说：“那会很有趣的，如果……”现在他这样说：“那会很有趣的，当……”

其实，他的生活并没有多少乐趣——尼科尔麻烦不断，严重干扰了他的工作；其次，尼科尔的收益近来增长很快，相比较之下，他的工作显得微不足道。还有，为了治愈她的病，多年来他虽然也有偏离的时候，但表面上一直保持着顾家好男人的形象，但如今，要想不费劲儿就能够保持这种伪装就比较困难了，因为他势必会受到细腻的审视。如果他想弹自己喜欢的曲子都弹不成，那就证明他的生活已受到了严重限制。他带着这种心思在大房间里逗留了很久，聆听着电钟嘀嗒嘀嗒的声音，聆听着时间的流逝。

十一月，海水的颜色变深了，浪头冲上堤岸，漫到岸边的公路上——残存下来的夏季生活的气息被冲刷得干干净净，凄风苦雨使得海滩显得荒芜凄凉。高斯旅馆因整修和扩建关门歇业，而瑞昂莱潘夏季娱乐场的楼房则越发显得高大，气势逼人。迪克和尼科尔不是流连于戛纳，就是逗留于尼斯，有了新的朋友圈，其中包括管弦乐队队员、饭店老板、园艺爱好者、游艇爱好者（迪克买了一艘旧游艇），以及旅游协会的会员。对于家里的仆人，他们很放心；关于孩子们的教育，他们做了认真的思考。到十二月，尼科尔似乎又恢复了正常，一个月过去了，不见她情绪紧张，不见她嘴角紧绷，不见她莫名其妙地傻笑，也听不到她语无伦次的话语。于是，他们就在圣诞假期跑到瑞士攀登阿尔卑斯山了。