A lens into Fitzgerald's treatment of Dick Diver, Tender is the Night
He went back into his house and Nicole saw that one of his most characteristic moods was upon him, the excitement that swept everyone up into it and was inevitably followed by his own form of melancholy, which he never displayed but at which she guessed. This excitement about things reached an intensity out of proportion to their importance, generating a really extraordinary virtuosity with people. Save among a few of the tough-minded and perennially suspicious, he had the power of arousing a fascinated and uncritical love. The reaction came when he realized the waste and extravagance involved. He sometimes looked back with awe at the carnivals of affection he had given, as a general might gaze upon a massacre he had ordered to satisfy an impersonal blood lust. But to be included in Dick Diver’s world for a while was a remarkable experience: people believed he made special reservations about them, recognizing the proud uniqueness of their destinies, buried under the compromises of how many years. He won everyone quickly with an exquisite consideration and a politeness that moved so fast and intuitively that it could be examined only in its effect. Then, without caution, lest the first bloom of the relation wither, he opened the gate to his amusing world. So long as they subscribed to it completely, their happiness was his preoccupation, but at the first flicker of doubt as to its all- inclusiveness he evaporated before their eyes, leaving little communicable memory of what he had said or done.
The change came a long way back - but at first it didn't show. The manner remains intact for some time after the moral cracks. He used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in. Often he felt lonely with her and frequently she tired him with the short floods of personal revelations that she reserved exclusively for him. ...it was as if for the remainder of his life he was condemned to carry with him the egos of certain people, early met and early loved, and to be only as complete as they were complete themselves. There was an element of loneliness involved--so easy to be loved--so hard to love.
"You were like you used to be the night you helped us," she was saying, "except at the end, when you were horrid. Why aren't you nice like that always. You can be...Your friends still like you. But you say awful things to people when you've been drinking. I've spent most of my time defending you this summer..."
"You like to help everybody don’t you?”
“I only pretend to.”
"You're all so dull," he said. "I guess I'm the Black Death. I don't seem to bring people happiness any more."
He had lost himself – he could not tell the hour when or the day or the week, the month or the year. “I must go,” he said. As he stood up he swayed a little; he did not feel well any more—his blood raced slow. He raised his right hand and with a papal cross he blessed the beach from the high terrace. Faces turned upward from several umbrellas.
"I'm going to him." She got to her knees.
"No, you're not. Let well enough alone."
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