We are thrown back in time to 1917 where we meet the younger Dr Diver - the "very acme of bachelorhood" (129) who hasn't been sent to war because as a doctor he is too much of a capitol investment, we learn he is influenced by Freud. We see him in Zurich researching and his connections with Dr Dohmler's clinic on the Zurichsee, "a rich person's clinic" (133). The war has affected him little he reports to Franz Gregorovious but he does had feedback on the case of Nicole Warren. He has been corresponding with her throughout the war and through the letters a "transference of the most fortuitous kind" occurred (134) and Nicole's condition improved. We are shown this for our own judgement and observation in the series of letters that follow as they show pathological and then normal nature.
We are given Nicole's background as the meeting of Dr Dohmler and her father Devereux Warren is staged, we are given the symptoms of her madness as she talks crazily of men and their advances towards her. Dr Dohmler classifies her as a schizophrenic "Divided personality... the fear of men is a symptom of the illness"(TN 143). Warren's confession comes in a second meeting with Dr Dohmler; behind his good looking façade lies the tragedy and sickness of the incest that lies at the heart of his relations with Nicole, his daughter. The doctors forbid Warren contact with his daughter for a minimum of five years and they watch her gradual restoration. Franz warns Dick to be careful with Nicole and not to get involved romantically. We are given insights into the doctor's worlds and aspirations in psychology.
Nicole and Dick meet; she is irresistible in her youth and beauty and plays him records and sings to him. She grows in confidence and excitement. Dick ironically works on his A Psychology for Psychiatrists and Franz warns him that the patient Nicole is in love with him and Dr Dohmler suggests that despite the attachment on Dick's side he should never see her again. They settle on indifference and Nicole is hurt by Dick's treatment and both are left feeling discontent and dissatisfied.
Dick continuing his work and solitary life visits the mountains and bumps into Nicole with Marmora and her sister. Baby Warren discusses Nicole with Dick and her plan to get Nicole married off to a doctor. Dick is sent to find Nicole and they kiss for the first time, a storm breaks on their return to the hotel. They decide to marry, Dick is tried by Baby Warren as to his motives, suspicious that he is a gold digger. We are given a short insight into Nicole's feelings as there follows a stream of consciousness- like narrative about her first years of marriage, he pregnancies, life with Dick, how things got dark, the move to the quiet Riviera and the people there.
We are then taken up to the point at the end of Book One as Dick Diver and Mrs Speers (Rosemary's mother) meet and say their goodbyes with mutual respect. Dick and Nicole leave Paris and he is dedicated to soothing her, trying to do some more work on his psychology pamphlet and working against the signs of Nicole's new phase of sickness. He spends his days torn between wanting and missing Rosemary and hiding these feelings from Nicole. The strains of his lifestyle become apparent as Nicole's problems and her money and riches confuse his work swamp his income and attempts at independence.
The family goes skiing with Baby Warren and meet up with Franz who suggests a business venture between Dr Diver and himself. He approaches him for the financial aid - he wants to set up a clinic for rich Americans. The next chapter opens at the Eglantine clinic at Zurgesee. The venture has been successful; Nicole has designed the buildings whilst Dr Diver and Dr Gregory (Franz) treat the patients. We are given details of the American woman who psychology is reflected in her skin, she is covered in sores. It is a foreboding sign of disintegration. Dick struggles between his role of psychiatrist and husband as an ex-patient sends a letter to Nicole detailing an affair Dick has had. She loses control of herself again in Dick's eyes and he feels guilty despite his innocence of that particular crime. He cannot watch her disintegration and pleas for help without agony and feeling it himself because "she was Dick too" (209). In her hysteria she attacks him whilst he is driving their family and the car swerves off the road. As a result Dick is filled with a sense of danger and disgust.
He decides to go away on his own to Munich where he meets Tommy Barban and finds out that Abe North is dead, beaten to death in a speakeasy, throwing Dick into sorrow for his friend and his own youth.
We see a gradual interest in other women; the girl at the ski lodge, the pretty woman at Innsbruck (221) - he falls in love all over the place and begins to realise his deterioration,
"He had lost himself - he could not tell the hour when, or the day or the week... . Between the time he found Nicole... and the moment of his meeting Rosemary the spear had been blunted" (220)
The news of his father's death leaves him floundering as we learn all his judgements and decisions were referred to what his father might of done. The Reverend appears as a master of taste rather than theology as he is praised for his kind manners rather than his religious beliefs, "very much the gentleman" (223). It Dick's last remaining solid tie and blood relation. With the death of his father comes the end of a phase in Dick's life; his history, moral code and behaviour that he builds his identity on is buried in the ground: "Good- by, my father - good-by, all my fathers" (TN 224).
On the steamboat he meets the more successful and consequently pleasanter McKiscos and adopts a lost family hoping to help and be admired - his degradation becomes more apparent as his alcohol intake increases. In Naples he bumps into the person who he has been searching for: Rosemary. He worries about how attractive he will appear to the older and less naïve Rosemary, realises his "lesion of enthusiasm" and stops more often for gin and tonics. At their second meeting and inquiring into each other's lives they fall into kissing. Haunted by the reappearance of Collis Clay and his story about the curtain, Dick asks Rosemary about her lovers and "shots at love" (231) but cannot figure out her teasing answers, he cannot understand what is behind the act, but what had "begun with a childish infatuation on a beach was accomplished at last" (233). He tortures himself with thoughts of her with other men, leaving her he drinks with Collis Clay and dances with a stranger. He starts a drunken brawl with a taxi driver, acts violently in the police station and ends up in a cell. It is up to Baby Warren to bail him out after pulling various strings and flashing her wealth and powerful position. On his exit from jail, Dick is mistaken for the man who raped and killed a five-year-old girl. In his dissolute, guilt ridden state, he admits to the crime he has not committed, inferring a sexual violation that he believes he has against Nicole: "I want to explain to theses people how I raped a five-year-old girl. Maybe I did" (256).