Dick Diver finds Rosemary Hoyt asleep on the beach and wakes her to prevent a sunburn.

Rosemary tells Dick she is in love with him while the two walk the terrace at the Divers' dinner party.

Dick, Abe North, and Rosemary visit a World War I battlefield near Amiens, where Dick is visibly moved.

Dick and Rosemary consummate their love affair for the first time in her Paris hotel room.

Dick discovers a dead body in Rosemary's hotel room and secretly moves it to the hallway to protect her reputation.

Rosemary finds Nicole crouched beside the bathtub in an erratic episode and realizes Nicole has a mental illness.

Dick confesses to Dr. Dohmler and Franz that he is in love with Nicole and has contemplated marrying her.

Nicole narrates the early years of her marriage to Dick, from their honeymoon through meeting Rosemary Hoyt.

Franz Gregorovius offers Dick a partnership in a new psychiatric clinic in Zurich and Dick accepts.

Dick receives a telegram in his German hotel room announcing that his father has died.

Dick and Rosemary resume their affair and sleep together in her Rome hotel room.

After a drunken altercation with a taxi driver, Dick brawls with Italian police officers and is badly beaten.

Dick attempts his signature water-skiing feat in front of Rosemary on the Riviera beach but fails and nearly injures himself.

Tommy Barban confronts Dick at a barbershop and demands Nicole be given a divorce; Dick calmly accepts.

Nicole marries Tommy Barban while Dick drifts through obscure medical practice in America, his letters tracked by Nicole.

The main plot of Tender Is the Night follows Dick Diver's rise and catastrophic fall across nearly a decade of expatriate life in Europe. When the charming and respected psychiatrist meets young actress Rosemary Hoyt on the French Riviera, he falls into an affair that strains his already fragile marriage to Nicole, whose mental illness has always complicated their relationship. A flashback reveals that Dick married Nicole despite professional warnings, blurring the line between doctor and husband from the very beginning of their union. Returning to the present, Dick accepts a new clinic partnership in Switzerland that represents his last real hope for professional redemption, but alcoholism and growing disillusionment accelerate his decline. A resumed affair with Rosemary in Rome ends badly, and a drunken brawl with Italian police underscores how far Dick has fallen from the poised, capable man he once was. The novel closes with Nicole divorcing Dick for Tommy Barban while Dick disappears into obscurity in America, his failed ambitions and broken marriage a testament to the futility of idealism.

Rosemary visits film producer Earl Brady in Monte Carlo, who immediately wants to cast her in his next project.

Violet McKisco tries to reveal what she witnessed inside the Divers' villa but is sharply silenced by Tommy Barban.

Rosemary watches the duel between Tommy Barban and Mr. McKisco at a golf course; both shots miss.

Rosemary overhears Nicole declaring her love for Dick during a private moment at a Paris restaurant.

The group celebrates Rosemary's birthday at a Paris restaurant while Dick lets slip he may abandon his book.

A woman named Maria Wallis pulls a gun from her purse and shoots a man at the Paris train station.

The narrative shifts to flashback as Dick exchanges letters with patient Nicole Warren during his studies in Zurich.

Devereux Warren breaks down in Dr. Dohmler's office and confesses he sexually abused his daughter Nicole.

Dick visits Nicole at the psychiatric hospital and they walk the grounds together; she places her hand on his arm.

Baby Warren confronts Dick about Nicole's fortune in a Zurich meeting, questioning his motives before their marriage.

Nicole receives a letter accusing Dick of making sexual advances toward a patient and confronts him about it.

A patient's father storms the clinic and yells at Dick for smelling of alcohol, triggering a confrontation with Franz.

Dick announces his resignation from the clinic after a heated argument with Franz about his drinking.

After watching Dick fail at the water-skiing stunt, Nicole sends Tommy Barban a flirtatious telegram.

Dick bids farewell to his children and leaves Nicole a note on his last morning at the Riviera.

Beyond the central drama of Dick and Nicole's marriage, the novel is populated by a vivid cast of expatriates whose actions drive the story forward. A duel fought at dawn over a secret overheard at the Divers' dinner party introduces the violent undercurrents running beneath the vacation world's polished surface. In Paris, a shooting at a train station and Abe North's chaotic drunkenness drag the group into dangerous situations that reflect the broader instability of the post-war world. A long flashback to Nicole's origins as a patient reveals the devastating abuse that shattered her mental health and first brought her into Dick's professional orbit. Back in the present, patient complaints about Dick's drinking and Franz's growing impatience strip him of his professional standing and force him out of the clinic he had hoped would define his legacy. By the time Dick departs the Riviera for the last time and bids his children a quiet farewell, the social world he once animated has dissolved around him.

Rosemary tells her mother over lunch that she has fallen in love with a man she met on the beach.

Abe North reveals to Rosemary that the scheduled duel between McKisco and Barban is really about silencing Violet's disclosure about the Divers.

Rosemary discerns from Dick's gaze during a Paris outing that he has fallen in love with her.

Dick admits to Rosemary in a taxi that he is in love with her but insists his marriage makes a relationship impossible.

Abe North arrives at the hotel with Jules Peterson and explains his false accusation caused the wrongful arrest of an innocent man.

During the flashback, Franz tells Dick that Nicole has fallen in love with him, prompting an urgent meeting with Dr. Dohmler.

Dick attempts to end his relationship with Nicole in a woodshed but cannot bring himself to fully break things off.

Nicole kisses Dick during a stormy dinner and Dick realizes on a train ride afterward that they are a couple.

Dick says farewell to Rosemary's departing mother and admits to her that he is in love with Rosemary.

Nicole has a mental breakdown at a fairground and laughs as Dick crashes the car into a tree on the way home.

Tommy Barban informs Dick in a Munich café that Abe North has been beaten to death in a speakeasy.

Baby Warren uses threats and social pressure on a vice-consul to force Dick's release from an Italian jail.

Dick admits to Nicole on a yacht that they are both ruined, and Nicole feels a surge of tenderness toward him.

Nicole and Tommy Barban sleep together in a small hotel outside Nice after driving away from the Villa Diana.

Nicole tells Tommy she must return to Dick, but Tommy stops her from doing so.

This pool traces the pivotal moments of self-discovery and concealed truth that quietly determine the novel's outcome. Rosemary's innocent confession of love to her mother and her gradual discovery that Dick returns her feelings set the emotional stakes of the opening act. In the flashback, Franz's revelation that Nicole loves Dick triggers the fateful confession that leads to their ill-fated marriage, while Dick's half-hearted attempt to end things in a woodshed reveals his characteristic inability to commit to difficult choices. As the story returns to the present, a series of shocks — Nicole's breakdown at a fair, news of Abe North's violent death, and Baby Warren's cold intervention to free Dick from an Italian jail — mark the turning points that accelerate his downfall. On the yacht at the Riviera, Dick's admission that they are both ruined signals the true end of the marriage before any formal confrontation occurs. Nicole's affair with Tommy becomes her act of self-determination, but her moment of hesitation — when she tries to return to Dick before Tommy stops her — reveals how deeply entangled she remains with the man who both treated and failed her.