69 pages • 2 hours read
F. Scott FitzgeraldTender Is the Night
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1934A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaBook 3, Chapters 7-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 3, Chapter 7 Summary
Nicole reflects on the growing distance between her and Dick. His alcoholism, she perceives, is a way for him to close himself off from her, not necessarily a vice in itself; she senses that Dick finds security in his children and in simpler things that distract him from the immensity of life.
They are back on the beach near Gausse’s Hotel, like at the beginning of the story. Five years have passed. Nicole and Dick spot Rosemary on a raft out in the water. They swim out to her and talk as though nothing melodramatic ever happened. Nicole begins to feel that Dick and Rosemary are complimenting each other a little flirtatiously and she swims away.
Rosemary suggests a little water skiing, and Dick agrees, though Nicole passes. Two years before, Dick was capable of performing a trick in which he could hold another man up while keeping his balance on the water, and this time he tries that same trick again. Nicole, annoyed, presumes he is doing it to show off to Rosemary.
However, Dick is unable to perform the trick. Twice he falls, and the third time, visibly angry with himself, he is almost seriously injured in the attempt. As the boat comes around to pick him up, Nicole is panicked for Dick, but once he is brought out of the water safely she becomes irritated with him. Rosemary expresses her concern and then a short conversation takes place on how Dick has aged.
Also on the beach are Mrs. Abrams and Mary North, who come by to say hello to Rosemary and the Divers. Dick’s coldness toward Mary somewhat shocks Rosemary and reminds her of something she heard about him being unsuited to continue practicing psychology. Nevertheless, she persists in her idealism and continues complimenting Dick.
The two of them begin to discuss Rosemary’s newest movies. Nicole is so annoyed by Dick’s posturing in front of Rosemary that she leaves for the villa. Once alone, Nicole begins to feel a surge of joy and energy at her own independence from Dick and writes a hasty and flirtatious letter to Tommy Barban.
Later that evening, Nicole reflects upon her suspicions that Dick is planning something, that his behavior lately and his growing distance from her is all part of a bigger scheme. She tries to think how to counteract whatever it is he is planning and, in doing so, realizes just how dependent on Dick she has become. She makes an effort to be more independent, playing music that Dick disapproves of.
The next day, Dick announces he is going into town to spend a few days there and Tommy phones Nicole. Nicole eagerly receives Tommy’s call.
Book 3, Chapter 8 Summary
Nicole, feeling alienated from Dick and craving some therapeutic form of independent self-expression, welcomes Tommy with blatant, unabashed romance when he arrives at the villa. She feels a strong desire to have an affair.
Tommy subtly insults her physical appearance by making an idle comment about her eyes being those of a “crook’s,” which Nicole takes personally. Dick is mentioned and Nicole begins to falter, remembering all that Dick has done for her. She feels unsure of herself and begins clinging to everything Tommy says, hoping for guidance.
They put the children in the care of one of the servants and drive to Nice together. Impatient, Nicole suggests they stop somewhere before Nice. In a small hotel, they have sex.
As they are about to leave to continue driving to Monte Carlo, a fight breaks out between two American sailors downstairs, which they overhear. Then, as the battleship signals it’s time for departure, some young women implore the couple to let them stand on their balcony and wave at the sailors as they leave. The women wave passionately at the Americans, and Nicole and Tommy leave the hotel.
They spend the night together in Monte Carlo, but Nicole asks to be driven back home before dawn. They drive back, kiss one more time, and then Nicole walks back into the Villa Diana, glad to be back home.
Book 3, Chapter 9 Summary
Dick arrives at the house unexpectedly the next day and tells Nicole that he put Rosemary on a train back home after finding she had nothing to offer him. When he asks how her time was, Nicole begins to talk about Tommy Barban, but Dick cuts her off, saying he does not want to know anything.
Tommy phones Nicole, asking her to come see him in Cannes. She hesitates and tells him that Dick is back. Tommy begins suggesting to her that her relationship with Dick is over, but Nicole again hesitates. After the call ends, she reflects on her affair with Tommy and her relationship with Dick.
Feeling somewhat sorry for Dick, Nicole goes to him in his study and finds him deep in contemplation. When she tries to comfort him, he lashes out at her regarding Tommy. Dick tells Nicole he no longer wants to help her; he is trying to save himself now. Nicole, hurt and crying, runs out and back to her own part of the house.
Dick relaxes and regards Nicole’s case to be over and himself to be free at last.
Book 3, Chapter 10 Summary
Dick receives a phone call in the middle of the night. Lady Caroline Sibley-Biers and Mary (North) Minghetti have been arrested for indecency after (jokingly) impersonating soldiers and picking up two girls. Dick and Gausse, the hotel owner, go to the jail. Caroline is indignant, Mary is desperate. Dick promises to see what he can do.
Dick speaks with the chief of police and, lying to him about the two women’s identities, pays their bail and buys off the police to keep them silent. Caroline remains unwilling to pay her part of the arrangement. Gausse complains to Dick that he has never seen women like this before.
Book 3, Chapter 11 Summary
While getting haircuts the next day, the Divers are visited by Tommy Barban, who deliberately starts a scene, demanding Dick speak with him immediately and with Nicole present. When they all step outside, Tommy tells Dick that Nicole no longer loves him.
Dick asks Nicole if this is true. Nicole says she has become fond of Tommy and that things have never been the same since Rosemary. A newspaper man interrupts them, saying the Tour de France will be coming by any minute, but Tommy shouts at him to leave. Dick recognizes him as the same stranger who accosted him in Paris (See: Book 1, Chapter 21).
A crowd forms. The bicyclists of the Tour de France speed by just as Tommy insists to Dick that Nicole wants a divorce. Though Tommy is trying to provoke him, Dick accepts the idea of a divorce and says he will discuss it privately with Nicole later. He walks back to the hotel; Nicole watches him until he slowly fades out of sight.
Book 3, Chapter 12 Summary
On Dick’s last day in the Riviera, he says goodbye to his children and servants. Since Nicole sleeps over at Tommy’s, Dick leaves her a note.
Dick goes out on the beach and stays there, sitting on the sand. When Nicole and Baby arrive, they spot him. He remains there, sitting next to Mary (North) Minghetti, who scolds him for his drinking and harsh speech. Dick claims boredom with them all, and Mary argues the point with him until Dick starts to turn kinder and even begins flirting with Mary. She confesses to loving Dick. Dick goes along with the flirtation until he cannot endure the ridiculousness of it anymore and turns to leave.
Nicole tells Tommy she has to go back to Dick, but Tommy stops her.
Book 3, Chapter 13 Summary
Nicole marries Tommy Barban and keeps casually in touch with Dick through letters about business and the children. Dick inauspiciously practices medicine in New York. After a brief, failed romance with a girl, Dick’s letters change addresses. Nicole follows each and every move Dick’s letters indicate.
Book 3, Chapters 7-13 Analysis
Dick embarrasses himself (and Nicole) while trying to relive the glory days of his youth and energy, performing in front of Rosemary. Nicole despises this attempt at “acting” on Dick’s part, and even Dick comes to see his efforts as entirely futile and even a bit silly. He sends Rosemary away, giving up on his happiness with her and accepting his fate.
It is interesting that the particular stunt that Dick attempts is carrying another human on his shoulders while gliding upon the water. There is metaphorical significance in this: it reflects how, even in his old age, Dick is making pathetic attempts to psychologically prop up Nicole as though he could elevate her above the waters of uncertainty in her life, carrying her burdens and her well-being. Of course, Dick fails, and the recognition of his failure leads to the decline of Dick’s marriage and his own disillusionment.
Nicole rises as Dick falls. She has an affair of her own with Tommy Barban in an attempt to free herself from her dependence upon Dick. However, this burst of free-spirited and rebellious behavior does not grant Nicole the independence she imagined. Instead, she becomes tied to Tommy, riddled with nervous hesitation at the remembrance of Dick, and finally is glad to be back home when she returns to the Villa Diana, demonstrating the futility of the affair. Even while enjoying their small hotel suite together, a fight breaks out downstairs, emblematic of the future conflict this infidelity will bring into her marriage with Dick or the even more personal conflict it will produce in her own heart after the divorce is finalized. Even though Nicole is (arguably) “free” now, the liberty she acquires will not satisfy her but will instead leave her in inner turmoil and still tied to a man for her stability and well-being. Once again, a parallel is drawn between the scenes happening around Nicole during her affair with Tommy (the departure of the battleship, the women waving farewell to their lovers) and the imminent dissolution of her marriage with Dick.
As Dick covers for another scandalous situation just like in Book 1, his spirit is gone, and his help amounts to him going through the motions. Dick moves about like an empty shell of his former self, back in Tarmes and doing the same or similar things as before, but this time without heart and without hope. Nicole, too, is discovering new depths of unfulfillment as she at last gets Tommy but still does not feel the grandeur she had anticipated. Later, she even expresses to Tommy that she needs to return to Dick, but Tommy, controlling her, tells her not to. As the Divers quarrel together, Dick finally arrives at a point where he is able to tell Nicole that he no longer desires to be her therapist or helper. To him, this is tantamount to an admission of professional failure; to Nicole, this is received as abandonment. The final climax of the book is Dick and Nicole’s divorce, though that proves uneventful and is even eclipsed by the Tour de France. The couple’s marriage has deteriorated so drastically over time that the final dissolution is presented as filled with nihilistic unimportance, more pathetic than tragic.
Dick’s last conversation with Mary Minghetti adds a strange, inscrutable note to the story’s ending with the revelation that Mary has feelings for Dick. It is too late for love, however, as the gloom of modernity and the changing dynamic of Western life, which has been developing throughout the novel, takes over. All of the book’s major characters fade away into obscurity.
Nicole keeps following Dick’s change of address after he moves to America, perhaps representing a muted desire to return to him or else implying unhappiness with Tommy, but the novel ends before any hint of a future reconciliation is mentioned. Dick’s own movements in and around America symbolize his loss of direction and identity, with the novel closing with ambiguity and unfulfillment.
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