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MonkeyNotes-Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Rosemary does not plan to go to the duel, but when she returns to her room and tells her mother about it, she wants her to go and have the experience. Rosemary and Luis Campion go to the duel together and watch from a distance. McKisco is so blubbering drunk there is no chance he will hit Barban. Fortunately, he misses McKisco as well. Although Barban is "unsatisfied" with the outcome of the duel, with no one being hit, Abe convinces him that everyone has had enough.

He pays the French doctor who has been brought to the duel in anticipation of someone being shot. Luis is spread out on the ground in relief; Rosemary kicks at him, laughing hysterically at his posture. Soon everyone heads for home.

The group gathers to travel to Paris. It is an impressive crowd with everyone claiming some tie to “American aristocracy;” the only exception is the middle-class Rosemary. On their way to Paris, the group stops at Voisins to eat and drink. Rosemary sits in the restaurant with the Norths, Dick, and some other friends, waiting for Nicole. The group decides that Dick is the only man in the restaurant with any “repose;” all the other male patrons self-consciously pat their hair or adjust their mustaches. In contrast, Dick is truly at ease and totally sober. Rosemary openly shows that she adores him.

At the table, Rosemary overhears Dick and Nicole arranging a romantic meeting at four o'clock in their hotel room; she feels a pang of jealousy. Then, the two women go shopping and buy everything in sight. Nicole is in one of her unusually talkative moods and tells unimportant stories about her family; she explains how her mother postponed an emergency appendectomy because her sister had an important dance to attend. Rosemary understands such matters, believing that people must be hard on themselves to gain what they want in life; she believes that pain must be handled gracefully.


On the way into Paris, the group stops to tour a battlefield, where Dick talks to a distressed American girl. When she explains that she cannot find her brother's grave, Dick suggests that she put the wreath she brought "anywhere;" he even casually suggests to her that she join them for a good time, which they have planned for Paris. When they reach the city, they check into the Hotel Roi George. They are then off to a museum exhibition and to dinner on a boat on the Seine. Nicole does not go with them, complaining that she is tired and wants to rest. During the outing, Abe North gets increasingly drunk, but refuses to leave the group and go back to the hotel. He insists that Rosemary have a glass of champagne; it is the first alcoholic drink of her life, a fact that shocks and appalls the worldly Dick. She then reminds them that she is only eighteen, having just celebrated her birthday the day before. Dick suggests that they have a proper party for her tomorrow. Abe North continues to drink. Although Dick and his wife Mary love Abe, they know he is a hopeless case that they cannot reform.

With Nicole at the hotel, Rosemary has been enthralled to be "Dick's date" during the evening. On the way home, alone with him in the cab, she tells him she wants him to kiss her and then "take" her. He is appalled. When she tells him she loves him, he compliments her on her acting and her youthful beauty. He then kisses her, smelling her first champagne and tasting her innocence. Surprised at her own boldness, she begs him to have sex, wanting him badly. In her hotel room, just across from Nicole, he tries to tell her all the reasons it would be a bad idea to have sex. Sitting on the bed with Rosemary, he feels confused and trapped; but he insists that things are not "arranged for it." He promises her that she will have other loves and can always remember this first one as pure and uncomplicated. As he leaves, she cries and brushes her hair for a very long time. The next day, Rosemary pulls herself together and goes out with Nicole. When she compares herself to the beauty of Dick’s wife, she understands Dick’s devotion to her. She also listens with interest as Nicole tells her of her opulent early life and her mother, who would “economize.” Rosemary realizes that Nicole’s economizing is quite different than that of her own mother.

Rosemary and Nicole meet the others to go to a private screening of Rosemary's film, "Daddy's Girl." Rosemary has arranged the viewing and invited the guests. Collis Clay, a young man from Yale whom Rosemary met last year, is in attendance; but Rosemary sits next to Dick, feeling the thrill of him. The movie is blatantly moralistic and bad; RosemaryÂ’s role is as a "little girl" who fights corruption and is then finally reunited with her father in a maudlin scene that makes Dick wince. After the lights go up, Rosemary says that she has a surprise; she has arranged a screen test for Dick. Everyone is very embarrassed for her and for Dick, who manages to get himself out of it. He is still unmercifully teased by the others.

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