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<p>And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.</p>
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<p>There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.</p>
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<p>It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual wonder to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more interesting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.</p>
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<p>I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbour’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.</p>
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<p>I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbour’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.</p>
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<p>Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.</p>
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<p>Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anticlimax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.</p>
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<p>Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.</p>
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<p>“I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”</p>
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<p>This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.</p>
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<p>Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “<em>Sh!</em>” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.</p>
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<p>“This <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began.</p>
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<p>“This <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began.</p>
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<p>“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”</p>
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<p>“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.</p>
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<p>“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.”</p>
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<p>I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.</p>
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<p>“Good night,” she said softly. “Wake me at eight, won’t you.”</p>
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<p>“If you’ll get up.”</p>
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<p>“I will. Good night, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Carraway. See you anon.”</p>
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<p>“I will. Good night, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Carraway. See you anon.”</p>
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<p>“Of course you will,” confirmed Daisy. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I’ll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—”</p>
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<p>“Good night,” called Miss Baker from the stairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”</p>
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<p>“She’s a nice girl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”</p>
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<p>“But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”</p>
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<p>Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumours, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumoured into marriage.</p>
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<p>Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.</p>
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<p>Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrol-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.</p>
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<p>Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrol-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.</p>
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<p>I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.</p>
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</section>
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</body>
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<p>“It does her good to get away.”</p>
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<p>“Doesn’t her husband object?”</p>
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<p>“Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive.”</p>
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<p>So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York—or not quite together, for <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train.</p>
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<p>So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York—or not quite together, for <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train.</p>
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<p>She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York. At the newsstand she bought a copy of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Town Tattle</i> and a moving-picture magazine, and in the station drugstore some cold cream and a small flask of perfume. Upstairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxicabs drive away before she selected a new one, lavender-coloured with grey upholstery, and in this we slid out from the mass of the station into the glowing sunshine. But immediately she turned sharply from the window and, leaning forward, tapped on the front glass.</p>
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<p>“I want to get one of those dogs,” she said earnestly. “I want to get one for the apartment. They’re nice to have—a dog.”</p>
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<p>We backed up to a grey old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">D.</abbr> Rockefeller. In a basket swung from his neck cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed.</p>
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<p>“What kind are they?” asked <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson eagerly, as he came to the taxi-window.</p>
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<p>“What kind are they?” asked <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson eagerly, as he came to the taxi-window.</p>
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<p>“All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?”</p>
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<p>“I’d like to get one of those police dogs; I don’t suppose you got that kind?”</p>
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<p>The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up, wriggling, by the back of the neck.</p>
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<p>“That’s no police dog,” said Tom.</p>
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<p>“No, it’s not exactly a police dog,” said the man with disappointment in his voice. “It’s more of an Airedale.” He passed his hand over the brown washrag of a back. “Look at that coat. Some coat. That’s a dog that’ll never bother you with catching cold.”</p>
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<p>“I think it’s cute,” said <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson enthusiastically. “How much is it?”</p>
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<p>“I think it’s cute,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson enthusiastically. “How much is it?”</p>
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<p>“That dog?” He looked at it admiringly. “That dog will cost you ten dollars.”</p>
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<p>The Airedale—undoubtedly there was an Airedale concerned in it somewhere, though its feet were startlingly white—changed hands and settled down into <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson’s lap, where she fondled the weatherproof coat with rapture.</p>
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<p>The Airedale—undoubtedly there was an Airedale concerned in it somewhere, though its feet were startlingly white—changed hands and settled down into <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson’s lap, where she fondled the weatherproof coat with rapture.</p>
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<p>“Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked delicately.</p>
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<p>“That dog? That dog’s a boy.”</p>
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<p>“It’s a bitch,” said Tom decisively. “Here’s your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it.”</p>
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<p>“No you don’t,” interposed Tom quickly. “Myrtle’ll be hurt if you don’t come up to the apartment. Won’t you, Myrtle?”</p>
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<p>“Come on,” she urged. “I’ll telephone my sister Catherine. She’s said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know.”</p>
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<p>“Well, I’d like to, but—”</p>
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<p>We went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the West Hundreds. At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment-houses. Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighbourhood, <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases, and went haughtily in.</p>
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<p>We went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the West Hundreds. At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment-houses. Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighbourhood, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases, and went haughtily in.</p>
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<p>“I’m going to have the McKees come up,” she announced as we rose in the elevator. “And, of course, I got to call up my sister, too.”</p>
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<p>The apartment was on the top floor—a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath. The living-room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it, so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was an over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock. Looked at from a distance, however, the hen resolved itself into a bonnet, and the countenance of a stout old lady beamed down into the room. Several old copies of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Town Tattle</i> lay on the table together with a copy of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Simon Called Peter</i>, and some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator boy went for a box full of straw and some milk, to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large, hard dog biscuits—one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon. Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whisky from a locked bureau door.</p>
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<p>I have been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon; so everything that happened has a dim, hazy cast over it, although until after eight o’clock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Tom’s lap <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then there were no cigarettes, and I went out to buy some at the drugstore on the corner. When I came back they had both disappeared, so I sat down discreetly in the living-room and read a chapter of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Simon Called Peter</i>—either it was terrible stuff or the whisky distorted things, because it didn’t make any sense to me.</p>
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<p>Just as Tom and Myrtle (after the first drink <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson and I called each other by our first names) reappeared, company commenced to arrive at the apartment door.</p>
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<p>The apartment was on the top floor—a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath. The living-room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it, so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was an over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock. Looked at from a distance, however, the hen resolved itself into a bonnet, and the countenance of a stout old lady beamed down into the room. Several old copies of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Town Tattle</i> lay on the table together with a copy of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Simon Called Peter</i>, and some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator boy went for a box full of straw and some milk, to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large, hard dog biscuits—one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon. Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whisky from a locked bureau door.</p>
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<p>I have been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon; so everything that happened has a dim, hazy cast over it, although until after eight o’clock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Tom’s lap <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then there were no cigarettes, and I went out to buy some at the drugstore on the corner. When I came back they had both disappeared, so I sat down discreetly in the living-room and read a chapter of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Simon Called Peter</i>—either it was terrible stuff or the whisky distorted things, because it didn’t make any sense to me.</p>
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<p>Just as Tom and Myrtle (after the first drink <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson and I called each other by our first names) reappeared, company commenced to arrive at the apartment door.</p>
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<p>The sister, Catherine, was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red hair, and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle, but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face. When she moved about there was an incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms. She came in with such a proprietary haste, and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here. But when I asked her she laughed immoderately, repeated my question aloud, and told me she lived with a girl friend at a hotel.</p>
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<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> McKee was a pale, feminine man from the flat below. He had just shaved, for there was a white spot of lather on his cheekbone, and he was most respectful in his greeting to everyone in the room. He informed me that he was in the “artistic game,” and I gathered later that he was a photographer and had made the dim enlargement of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson’s mother which hovered like an ectoplasm on the wall. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible. She told me with pride that her husband had photographed her a hundred and twenty-seven times since they had been married.</p>
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<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-coloured chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.</p>
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<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McKee was a pale, feminine man from the flat below. He had just shaved, for there was a white spot of lather on his cheekbone, and he was most respectful in his greeting to everyone in the room. He informed me that he was in the “artistic game,” and I gathered later that he was a photographer and had made the dim enlargement of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson’s mother which hovered like an ectoplasm on the wall. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible. She told me with pride that her husband had photographed her a hundred and twenty-seven times since they had been married.</p>
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<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-coloured chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.</p>
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<p>“My dear,” she told her sister in a high, mincing shout, “most of these fellas will cheat you every time. All they think of is money. I had a woman up here last week to look at my feet, and when she gave me the bill you’d of thought she had my appendicitis out.”</p>
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<p>“What was the name of the woman?” asked <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McKee.</p>
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<p>“<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Eberhardt. She goes around looking at people’s feet in their own homes.”</p>
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<p>“I like your dress,” remarked <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McKee, “I think it’s adorable.”</p>
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<p><abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain.</p>
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<p>“What was the name of the woman?” asked <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McKee.</p>
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<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Eberhardt. She goes around looking at people’s feet in their own homes.”</p>
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<p>“I like your dress,” remarked <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McKee, “I think it’s adorable.”</p>
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<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain.</p>
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<p>“It’s just a crazy old thing,” she said. “I just slip it on sometimes when I don’t care what I look like.”</p>
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<p>“But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what I mean,” pursued <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McKee. “If Chester could only get you in that pose I think he could make something of it.”</p>
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<p>We all looked in silence at <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson, who removed a strand of hair from over her eyes and looked back at us with a brilliant smile. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McKee regarded her intently with his head on one side, and then moved his hand back and forth slowly in front of his face.</p>
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<p>“But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what I mean,” pursued <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McKee. “If Chester could only get you in that pose I think he could make something of it.”</p>
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<p>We all looked in silence at <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson, who removed a strand of hair from over her eyes and looked back at us with a brilliant smile. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McKee regarded her intently with his head on one side, and then moved his hand back and forth slowly in front of his face.</p>
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<p>“I should change the light,” he said after a moment. “I’d like to bring out the modelling of the features. And I’d try to get hold of all the back hair.”</p>
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<p>“I wouldn’t think of changing the light,” cried <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McKee. “I think it’s—”</p>
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<p>“I wouldn’t think of changing the light,” cried <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McKee. “I think it’s—”</p>
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<p>Her husband said “<em>Sh!</em>” and we all looked at the subject again, whereupon Tom Buchanan yawned audibly and got to his feet.</p>
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<p>“You McKees have something to drink,” he said. “Get some more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, before everybody goes to sleep.”</p>
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<p>“I told that boy about the ice.” Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. “These people! You have to keep after them all the time.”</p>
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<p>She looked at me and laughed pointlessly. Then she flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy, and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her orders there.</p>
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<p>“I’ve done some nice things out on Long Island,” asserted <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McKee.</p>
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<p>“I’ve done some nice things out on Long Island,” asserted <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McKee.</p>
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<p>Tom looked at him blankly.</p>
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<p>“Two of them we have framed downstairs.”</p>
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<p>“Two what?” demanded Tom.</p>
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|
|
@ -92,10 +92,10 @@
|
|||
<p>“Really?”</p>
|
||||
<p>She nodded.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m scared of him. I’d hate to have him get anything on me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This absorbing information about my neighbour was interrupted by <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McKee’s pointing suddenly at Catherine:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Chester, I think you could do something with <em>her</em>,” she broke out, but <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McKee only nodded in a bored way, and turned his attention to Tom.</p>
|
||||
<p>This absorbing information about my neighbour was interrupted by <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McKee’s pointing suddenly at Catherine:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Chester, I think you could do something with <em>her</em>,” she broke out, but <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McKee only nodded in a bored way, and turned his attention to Tom.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’d like to do more work on Long Island, if I could get the entry. All I ask is that they should give me a start.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ask Myrtle,” said Tom, breaking into a short shout of laughter as <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson entered with a tray. “She’ll give you a letter of introduction, won’t you, Myrtle?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ask Myrtle,” said Tom, breaking into a short shout of laughter as <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson entered with a tray. “She’ll give you a letter of introduction, won’t you, Myrtle?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do what?” she asked, startled.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’ll give McKee a letter of introduction to your husband, so he can do some studies of him.” His lips moved silently for a moment as he invented, “ ‘George <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">B.</abbr> Wilson at the Gasoline Pump,’ or something like that.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Catherine leaned close to me and whispered in my ear:</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -113,7 +113,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“Just last year. I went over there with another girl.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Stay long?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We went by way of Marseilles. We had over twelve hundred dollars when we started, but we got gyped out of it all in two days in the private rooms. We had an awful time getting back, I can tell you. God, how I hated that town!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean—then the shrill voice of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McKee called me back into the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>The late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean—then the shrill voice of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McKee called me back into the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I almost made a mistake, too,” she declared vigorously. “I almost married a little kike who’d been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me: ‘Lucille, that man’s way below you!’ But if I hadn’t met Chester, he’d of got me sure.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, but listen,” said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down, “at least you didn’t marry him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I know I didn’t.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -129,18 +129,18 @@
|
|||
<p>The bottle of whisky—a second one—was now in constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine, who “felt just as good on nothing at all.” Tom rang for the janitor and sent him for some celebrated sandwiches, which were a complete supper in themselves. I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I saw him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.</p>
|
||||
<p>Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him, but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me, and his white shirtfront pressed against my arm, and so I told him I’d have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn’t hardly know I wasn’t getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was ‘You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>She turned to <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> McKee and the room rang full of her artificial laughter.</p>
|
||||
<p>She turned to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> McKee and the room rang full of her artificial laughter.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My dear,” she cried, “I’m going to give you this dress as soon as I’m through with it. I’ve got to get another one tomorrow. I’m going to make a list of all the things I’ve got to get. A massage and a wave, and a collar for the dog, and one of those cute little ashtrays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother’s grave that’ll last all summer. I got to write down a list so I won’t forget all the things I got to do.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It was nine o’clock—almost immediately afterward I looked at my watch and found it was ten. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McKee was asleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon.</p>
|
||||
<p>The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly. People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away. Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, whether <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson had any right to mention Daisy’s name.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson. “I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai—”</p>
|
||||
<p>It was nine o’clock—almost immediately afterward I looked at my watch and found it was ten. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McKee was asleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon.</p>
|
||||
<p>The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly. People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away. Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, whether <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson had any right to mention Daisy’s name.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson. “I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women’s voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McKee awoke from his doze and started in a daze toward the door. When he had gone halfway he turned around and stared at the scene—his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture with articles of aid, and the despairing figure on the couch, bleeding fluently, and trying to spread a copy of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Town Tattle</i> over the tapestry scenes of Versailles. Then <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McKee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier, I followed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women’s voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McKee awoke from his doze and started in a daze toward the door. When he had gone halfway he turned around and stared at the scene—his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture with articles of aid, and the despairing figure on the couch, bleeding fluently, and trying to spread a copy of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Town Tattle</i> over the tapestry scenes of Versailles. Then <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McKee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier, I followed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come to lunch some day,” he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Where?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Anywhere.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Keep your hands off the lever,” snapped the elevator boy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I beg your pardon,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> McKee with dignity, “I didn’t know I was touching it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I beg your pardon,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> McKee with dignity, “I didn’t know I was touching it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right,” I agreed, “I’ll be glad to.”</p>
|
||||
<p>… I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Beauty and the Beast … Loneliness … Old Grocery Horse … Brook’n Bridge …”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“Hello!” they cried together. “Sorry you didn’t win.”</p>
|
||||
<p>That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You don’t know who we are,” said one of the girls in yellow, “but we met you here about a month ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’ve dyed your hair since then,” remarked Jordan, and I started, but the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer’s basket. With Jordan’s slender golden arm resting in mine, we descended the steps and sauntered about the garden. A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mumble.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’ve dyed your hair since then,” remarked Jordan, and I started, but the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer’s basket. With Jordan’s slender golden arm resting in mine, we descended the steps and sauntered about the garden. A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mumble.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you come to these parties often?” inquired Jordan of the girl beside her.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The last one was the one I met you at,” answered the girl, in an alert confident voice. She turned to her companion: “Wasn’t it for you, Lucille?”</p>
|
||||
<p>It was for Lucille, too.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“Gatsby. Somebody told me—”</p>
|
||||
<p>The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A thrill passed over all of us. The three <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly.</p>
|
||||
<p>A thrill passed over all of us. The three <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t think it’s so much <em>that</em>,” argued Lucille sceptically; “It’s more that he was a German spy during the war.”</p>
|
||||
<p>One of the men nodded in confirmation.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us positively.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
|
|||
<p>He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Who brought you?” he demanded. “Or did you just come? I was brought. Most people were brought.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Jordan looked at him alertly, cheerfully, without answering.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt,” he continued. “<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Claud Roosevelt. Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night. I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt,” he continued. “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Claud Roosevelt. Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night. I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Has it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“A little bit, I think. I can’t tell yet. I’ve only been here an hour. Did I tell you about the books? They’re real. They’re—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You told us.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -84,9 +84,9 @@
|
|||
<p>“What!” I exclaimed. “Oh, I beg your pardon.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I thought you knew, old sport. I’m afraid I’m not a very good host.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on <em>you</em> with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.</p>
|
||||
<p>Almost at the moment when <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby identified himself a butler hurried toward him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire. He excused himself with a small bow that included each of us in turn.</p>
|
||||
<p>Almost at the moment when <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby identified himself a butler hurried toward him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire. He excused himself with a small bow that included each of us in turn.</p>
|
||||
<p>“If you want anything just ask for it, old sport,” he urged me. “Excuse me. I will rejoin you later.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When he was gone I turned immediately to Jordan—constrained to assure her of my surprise. I had expected that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years.</p>
|
||||
<p>When he was gone I turned immediately to Jordan—constrained to assure her of my surprise. I had expected that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Who is he?” I demanded. “Do you know?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s just a man named Gatsby.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do?”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -98,12 +98,12 @@
|
|||
<p>Something in her tone reminded me of the other girl’s “I think he killed a man,” and had the effect of stimulating my curiosity. I would have accepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang from the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East Side of New York. That was comprehensible. But young men didn’t—at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn’t—drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Anyhow, he gives large parties,” said Jordan, changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete. “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”</p>
|
||||
<p>There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried. “At the request of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby we are going to play for you <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Vladmir Tostoff’s latest work, which attracted so much attention at Carnegie Hall last May. If you read the papers you know there was a big sensation.” He smiled with jovial condescension, and added: “Some sensation!” Whereupon everybody laughed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried. “At the request of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby we are going to play for you <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Vladmir Tostoff’s latest work, which attracted so much attention at Carnegie Hall last May. If you read the papers you know there was a big sensation.” He smiled with jovial condescension, and added: “Some sensation!” Whereupon everybody laughed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The piece is known,” he concluded lustily, “as ‘Vladmir Tostoff’s Jazz History of the World!’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>The nature of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Tostoff’s composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes. His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day. I could see nothing sinister about him. I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased. When the “Jazz History of the World” was over, girls were putting their heads on men’s shoulders in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men’s arms, even into groups, knowing that someone would arrest their falls—but no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby’s head for one link.</p>
|
||||
<p>The nature of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Tostoff’s composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes. His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day. I could see nothing sinister about him. I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased. When the “Jazz History of the World” was over, girls were putting their heads on men’s shoulders in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men’s arms, even into groups, knowing that someone would arrest their falls—but no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby’s head for one link.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I beg your pardon.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gatsby’s butler was suddenly standing beside us.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Miss Baker?” he inquired. “I beg your pardon, but <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby would like to speak to you alone.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Miss Baker?” he inquired. “I beg your pardon, but <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby would like to speak to you alone.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“With me?” she exclaimed in surprise.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, madame.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She got up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment, and followed the butler toward the house. I noticed that she wore her evening-dress, all her dresses, like sports clothes—there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -122,7 +122,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Jordan’s party were calling impatiently to her from the porch, but she lingered for a moment to shake hands.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve just heard the most amazing thing,” she whispered. “How long were we in there?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, about an hour.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It was … simply amazing,” she repeated abstractedly. “But I swore I wouldn’t tell it and here I am tantalizing you.” She yawned gracefully in my face. “Please come and see me … Phone book … Under the name of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Sigourney Howard … My aunt …” She was hurrying off as she talked—her brown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted into her party at the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It was … simply amazing,” she repeated abstractedly. “But I swore I wouldn’t tell it and here I am tantalizing you.” She yawned gracefully in my face. “Please come and see me … Phone book … Under the name of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Sigourney Howard … My aunt …” She was hurrying off as she talked—her brown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted into her party at the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>Rather ashamed that on my first appearance I had stayed so late, I joined the last of Gatsby’s guests, who were clustered around him. I wanted to explain that I’d hunted for him early in the evening and to apologize for not having known him in the garden.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t mention it,” he enjoined me eagerly. “Don’t give it another thought, old sport.” The familiar expression held no more familiarity than the hand which reassuringly brushed my shoulder. “And don’t forget we’re going up in the hydroplane tomorrow morning, at nine o’clock.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Then the butler, behind his shoulder:</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -11,12 +11,12 @@
|
|||
<p>On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore, the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s a bootlegger,” said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. “One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a timetable the names of those who came to Gatsby’s house that summer. It is an old timetable now, disintegrating at its folds, and headed “This schedule in effect July 5th, 1922.” But I can still read the grey names, and they will give you a better impression than my generalities of those who accepted Gatsby’s hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him.</p>
|
||||
<p>From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew at Yale, and Doctor Webster Civet, who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires, and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near. And the Ismays and the Chrysties (or rather Hubert Auerbach and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Chrystie’s wife), and Edgar Beaver, whose hair, they say, turned cotton-white one winter afternoon for no good reason at all.</p>
|
||||
<p>Clarence Endive was from East Egg, as I remember. He came only once, in white knickerbockers, and had a fight with a bum named Etty in the garden. From farther out on the Island came the Cheadles and the <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">O. R. P.</abbr> Schraeders, and the Stonewall Jackson Abrams of Georgia, and the Fishguards and the Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days before he went to the penitentiary, so drunk out on the gravel drive that <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Ulysses Swett’s automobile ran over his right hand. The Dancies came, too, and <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">S. B.</abbr> Whitebait, who was well over sixty, and Maurice <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">A.</abbr> Flink, and the Hammerheads, and Beluga the tobacco importer, and Beluga’s girls.</p>
|
||||
<p>From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew at Yale, and Doctor Webster Civet, who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires, and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near. And the Ismays and the Chrysties (or rather Hubert Auerbach and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Chrystie’s wife), and Edgar Beaver, whose hair, they say, turned cotton-white one winter afternoon for no good reason at all.</p>
|
||||
<p>Clarence Endive was from East Egg, as I remember. He came only once, in white knickerbockers, and had a fight with a bum named Etty in the garden. From farther out on the Island came the Cheadles and the <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">O. R. P.</abbr> Schraeders, and the Stonewall Jackson Abrams of Georgia, and the Fishguards and the Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days before he went to the penitentiary, so drunk out on the gravel drive that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Ulysses Swett’s automobile ran over his right hand. The Dancies came, too, and <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">S. B.</abbr> Whitebait, who was well over sixty, and Maurice <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">A.</abbr> Flink, and the Hammerheads, and Beluga the tobacco importer, and Beluga’s girls.</p>
|
||||
<p>From West Egg came the Poles and the Mulreadys and Cecil Roebuck and Cecil Schoen and Gulick the State senator and Newton Orchid, who controlled Films Par Excellence, and Eckhaust and Clyde Cohen and Don <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">S.</abbr> Schwartz (the son) and Arthur McCarty, all connected with the movies in one way or another. And the Catlips and the Bembergs and <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">G.</abbr> Earl Muldoon, brother to that Muldoon who afterward strangled his wife. Da Fontano the promoter came there, and Ed Legros and James <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">B.</abbr> (“Rot-Gut”) Ferret and the De Jongs and Ernest Lilly—they came to gamble, and when Ferret wandered into the garden it meant he was cleaned out and Associated Traction would have to fluctuate profitably next day.</p>
|
||||
<p>A man named Klipspringer was there so often that he became known as “the boarder”—I doubt if he had any other home. Of theatrical people there were Gus Waize and Horace O’Donavan and Lester Myer and George Duckweed and Francis Bull. Also from New York were the Chromes and the Backhyssons and the Dennickers and Russel Betty and the Corrigans and the Kellehers and the Dewars and the Scullys and <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">S. W.</abbr> Belcher and the Smirkes and the young Quinns, divorced now, and Henry <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">L.</abbr> Palmetto, who killed himself by jumping in front of a subway train in Times Square.</p>
|
||||
<p>Benny McClenahan arrived always with four girls. They were never quite the same ones in physical person, but they were so identical one with another that it inevitably seemed they had been there before. I have forgotten their names—Jaqueline, I think, or else Consuela, or Gloria or Judy or June, and their last names were either the melodious names of flowers and months or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists whose cousins, if pressed, they would confess themselves to be.</p>
|
||||
<p>In addition to all these I can remember that Faustina O’Brien came there at least once and the Baedeker girls and young Brewer, who had his nose shot off in the war, and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Albrucksburger and Miss Haag, his fiancée, and Ardita Fitz-Peters and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">P.</abbr> Jewett, once head of the American Legion, and Miss Claudia Hip, with a man reputed to be her chauffeur, and a prince of something, whom we called Duke, and whose name, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten.</p>
|
||||
<p>In addition to all these I can remember that Faustina O’Brien came there at least once and the Baedeker girls and young Brewer, who had his nose shot off in the war, and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Albrucksburger and Miss Haag, his fiancée, and Ardita Fitz-Peters and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">P.</abbr> Jewett, once head of the American Legion, and Miss Claudia Hip, with a man reputed to be her chauffeur, and a prince of something, whom we called Duke, and whose name, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten.</p>
|
||||
<p>All these people came to Gatsby’s house in the summer.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>At nine o’clock, one morning late in July, Gatsby’s gorgeous car lurched up the rocky drive to my door and gave out a burst of melody from its three-noted horn.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -56,11 +56,11 @@
|
|||
<p>“No, this afternoon. I happened to find out that you’re taking Miss Baker to tea.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do you mean you’re in love with Miss Baker?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, old sport, I’m not. But Miss Baker has kindly consented to speak to you about this matter.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I hadn’t the faintest idea what “this matter” was, but I was more annoyed than interested. I hadn’t asked Jordan to tea in order to discuss <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Jay Gatsby. I was sure the request would be something utterly fantastic, and for a moment I was sorry I’d ever set foot upon his overpopulated lawn.</p>
|
||||
<p>He wouldn’t say another word. His correctness grew on him as we neared the city. We passed Port Roosevelt, where there was a glimpse of red-belted oceangoing ships, and sped along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserted saloons of the faded-gilt nineteen-hundreds. Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by.</p>
|
||||
<p>I hadn’t the faintest idea what “this matter” was, but I was more annoyed than interested. I hadn’t asked Jordan to tea in order to discuss <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Jay Gatsby. I was sure the request would be something utterly fantastic, and for a moment I was sorry I’d ever set foot upon his overpopulated lawn.</p>
|
||||
<p>He wouldn’t say another word. His correctness grew on him as we neared the city. We passed Port Roosevelt, where there was a glimpse of red-belted oceangoing ships, and sped along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserted saloons of the faded-gilt nineteen-hundreds. Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse of <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by.</p>
|
||||
<p>With fenders spread like wings we scattered light through half Astoria—only half, for as we twisted among the pillars of the elevated I heard the familiar “jug-jug-<i>spat</i>!” of a motorcycle, and a frantic policeman rode alongside.</p>
|
||||
<p>“All right, old sport,” called Gatsby. We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet, he waved it before the man’s eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Right you are,” agreed the policeman, tipping his cap. “Know you next time, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby. Excuse <em>me</em>!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Right you are,” agreed the policeman, tipping his cap. “Know you next time, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby. Excuse <em>me</em>!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What was that?” I inquired. “The picture of Oxford?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was able to do the commissioner a favour once, and he sends me a Christmas card every year.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of nonolfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -69,38 +69,38 @@
|
|||
<p>Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>Roaring noon. In a well-fanned Forty-second Street cellar I met Gatsby for lunch. Blinking away the brightness of the street outside, my eyes picked him out obscurely in the anteroom, talking to another man.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Carraway, this is my friend <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Carraway, this is my friend <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half-darkness.</p>
|
||||
<p>“—So I took one look at him,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, shaking my hand earnestly, “and what do you think I did?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“—So I took one look at him,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, shaking my hand earnestly, “and what do you think I did?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What?” I inquired politely.</p>
|
||||
<p>But evidently he was not addressing me, for he dropped my hand and covered Gatsby with his expressive nose.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I handed the money to Katspaugh and I said: ‘All right, Katspaugh, don’t pay him a penny till he shuts his mouth.’ He shut it then and there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant, whereupon <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant, whereupon <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Highballs?” asked the head waiter.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This is a nice restaurant here,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, looking at the presbyterian nymphs on the ceiling. “But I like across the street better!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, highballs,” agreed Gatsby, and then to <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem: “It’s too hot over there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hot and small—yes,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, “but full of memories.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“This is a nice restaurant here,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, looking at the presbyterian nymphs on the ceiling. “But I like across the street better!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, highballs,” agreed Gatsby, and then to <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem: “It’s too hot over there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hot and small—yes,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, “but full of memories.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“What place is that?” I asked.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The old Metropole.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The old Metropole,” brooded <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem gloomily. “Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can’t forget so long as I live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table, and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him outside. ‘All right,’ says Rosy, and begins to get up, and I pulled him down in his chair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The old Metropole,” brooded <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem gloomily. “Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can’t forget so long as I live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table, and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him outside. ‘All right,’ says Rosy, and begins to get up, and I pulled him down in his chair.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘Let the bastards come in here if they want you, Rosy, but don’t you, so help me, move outside this room.’</p>
|
||||
<p>“It was four o’clock in the morning then, and if we’d of raised the blinds we’d of seen daylight.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did he go?” I asked innocently.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure he went.” <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem’s nose flashed at me indignantly. “He turned around in the door and says: ‘Don’t let that waiter take away my coffee!’ Then he went out on the sidewalk, and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove away.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sure he went.” <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem’s nose flashed at me indignantly. “He turned around in the door and says: ‘Don’t let that waiter take away my coffee!’ Then he went out on the sidewalk, and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove away.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Four of them were electrocuted,” I said, remembering.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Five, with Becker.” His nostrils turned to me in an interested way. “I understand you’re looking for a business gonnegtion.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling. Gatsby answered for me:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, no,” he exclaimed, “this isn’t the man.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No?” <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem seemed disappointed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“No?” <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem seemed disappointed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This is just a friend. I told you we’d talk about that some other time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I beg your pardon,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, “I had a wrong man.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A succulent hash arrived, and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy. His eyes, meanwhile, roved very slowly all around the room—he completed the arc by turning to inspect the people directly behind. I think that, except for my presence, he would have taken one short glance beneath our own table.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I beg your pardon,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, “I had a wrong man.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A succulent hash arrived, and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy. His eyes, meanwhile, roved very slowly all around the room—he completed the arc by turning to inspect the people directly behind. I think that, except for my presence, he would have taken one short glance beneath our own table.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Look here, old sport,” said Gatsby, leaning toward me, “I’m afraid I made you a little angry this morning in the car.”</p>
|
||||
<p>There was the smile again, but this time I held out against it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t like mysteries,” I answered, “and I don’t understand why you won’t come out frankly and tell me what you want. Why has it all got to come through Miss Baker?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, it’s nothing underhand,” he assured me. “Miss Baker’s a great sportswoman, you know, and she’d never do anything that wasn’t all right.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly he looked at his watch, jumped up, and hurried from the room, leaving me with <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem at the table.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He has to telephone,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, following him with his eyes. “Fine fellow, isn’t he? Handsome to look at and a perfect gentleman.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly he looked at his watch, jumped up, and hurried from the room, leaving me with <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem at the table.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He has to telephone,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem, following him with his eyes. “Fine fellow, isn’t he? Handsome to look at and a perfect gentleman.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s an Oggsford man.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh!”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -113,9 +113,9 @@
|
|||
<p>“Finest specimens of human molars,” he informed me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well!” I inspected them. “That’s a very interesting idea.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yeah.” He flipped his sleeves up under his coat. “Yeah, Gatsby’s very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend’s wife.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When the subject of this instinctive trust returned to the table and sat down <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem drank his coffee with a jerk and got to his feet.</p>
|
||||
<p>When the subject of this instinctive trust returned to the table and sat down <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem drank his coffee with a jerk and got to his feet.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I have enjoyed my lunch,” he said, “and I’m going to run off from you two young men before I outstay my welcome.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t hurry Meyer,” said Gatsby, without enthusiasm. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem raised his hand in a sort of benediction.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t hurry Meyer,” said Gatsby, without enthusiasm. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem raised his hand in a sort of benediction.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You’re very polite, but I belong to another generation,” he announced solemnly. “You sit here and discuss your sports and your young ladies and your—” He supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of his hand. “As for me, I am fifty years old, and I won’t impose myself on you any longer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>As he shook hands and turned away his tragic nose was trembling. I wondered if I had said anything to offend him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He becomes very sentimental sometimes,” explained Gatsby. “This is one of his sentimental days. He’s quite a character around New York—a denizen of Broadway.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -133,11 +133,11 @@
|
|||
<p>“Come along with me for a minute,” I said; “I’ve got to say hello to someone.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When he saw us Tom jumped up and took half a dozen steps in our direction.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Where’ve you been?” he demanded eagerly. “Daisy’s furious because you haven’t called up.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“This is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Buchanan.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“This is <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Buchanan.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They shook hands briefly, and a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over Gatsby’s face.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How’ve you been, anyhow?” demanded Tom of me. “How’d you happen to come up this far to eat?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve been having lunch with <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I turned toward <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby, but he was no longer there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve been having lunch with <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I turned toward <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby, but he was no longer there.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>One October day in nineteen-seventeen—</p>
|
||||
<p>(said Jordan Baker that afternoon, sitting up very straight on a straight chair in the tea-garden at the Plaza Hotel)</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“What?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t bring Tom.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Who is ‘Tom’?” she asked innocently.</p>
|
||||
<p>The day agreed upon was pouring rain. At eleven o’clock a man in a raincoat, dragging a lawn-mower, tapped at my front door and said that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby had sent him over to cut my grass. This reminded me that I had forgotten to tell my Finn to come back, so I drove into West Egg Village to search for her among soggy whitewashed alleys and to buy some cups and lemons and flowers.</p>
|
||||
<p>The day agreed upon was pouring rain. At eleven o’clock a man in a raincoat, dragging a lawn-mower, tapped at my front door and said that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby had sent him over to cut my grass. This reminded me that I had forgotten to tell my Finn to come back, so I drove into West Egg Village to search for her among soggy whitewashed alleys and to buy some cups and lemons and flowers.</p>
|
||||
<p>The flowers were unnecessary, for at two o’clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby’s, with innumerable receptacles to contain it. An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-coloured tie, hurried in. He was pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is everything all right?” he asked immediately.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The grass looks fine, if that’s what you mean.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -117,7 +117,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“I keep it always full of interesting people, night and day. People who do interesting things. Celebrated people.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Instead of taking the shortcut along the Sound we went down to the road and entered by the big postern. With enchanting murmurs Daisy admired this aspect or that of the feudal silhouette against the sky, admired the gardens, the sparkling odour of jonquils and the frothy odour of hawthorn and plum blossoms and the pale gold odour of kiss-me-at-the-gate. It was strange to reach the marble steps and find no stir of bright dresses in and out the door, and hear no sound but bird voices in the trees.</p>
|
||||
<p>And inside, as we wandered through Marie Antoinette music-rooms and Restoration Salons, I felt that there were guests concealed behind every couch and table, under orders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through. As Gatsby closed the door of “the Merton College Library” I could have sworn I heard the owl-eyed man break into ghostly laughter.</p>
|
||||
<p>We went upstairs, through period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through dressing-rooms and poolrooms, and bathrooms with sunken baths—intruding into one chamber where a dishevelled man in pyjamas was doing liver exercises on the floor. It was <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Klipspringer, the “boarder.” I had seen him wandering hungrily about the beach that morning. Finally we came to Gatsby’s own apartment, a bedroom and a bath, and an Adam’s study, where we sat down and drank a glass of some Chartreuse he took from a cupboard in the wall.</p>
|
||||
<p>We went upstairs, through period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through dressing-rooms and poolrooms, and bathrooms with sunken baths—intruding into one chamber where a dishevelled man in pyjamas was doing liver exercises on the floor. It was <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Klipspringer, the “boarder.” I had seen him wandering hungrily about the beach that morning. Finally we came to Gatsby’s own apartment, a bedroom and a bath, and an Adam’s study, where we sat down and drank a glass of some Chartreuse he took from a cupboard in the wall.</p>
|
||||
<p>He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.</p>
|
||||
<p>His bedroom was the simplest room of all—except where the dresser was garnished with a toilet set of pure dull gold. Daisy took the brush with delight, and smoothed her hair, whereupon Gatsby sat down and shaded his eyes and began to laugh.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s the funniest thing, old sport,” he said hilariously. “I can’t—When I try to—”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -132,7 +132,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.</p>
|
||||
<p>I began to walk about the room, examining various indefinite objects in the half darkness. A large photograph of an elderly man in yachting costume attracted me, hung on the wall over his desk.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Who’s this?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That? That’s <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Dan Cody, old sport.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That? That’s <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Dan Cody, old sport.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The name sounded faintly familiar.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He’s dead now. He used to be my best friend years ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>There was a small picture of Gatsby, also in yachting costume, on the bureau—Gatsby with his head thrown back defiantly—taken apparently when he was about eighteen.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -148,7 +148,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“I know what we’ll do,” said Gatsby, “we’ll have Klipspringer play the piano.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He went out of the room calling “Ewing!” and returned in a few minutes accompanied by an embarrassed, slightly worn young man, with shell-rimmed glasses and scanty blond hair. He was now decently clothed in a “sport shirt,” open at the neck, sneakers, and duck trousers of a nebulous hue.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did we interrupt your exercise?” inquired Daisy politely.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was asleep,” cried <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Klipspringer, in a spasm of embarrassment. “That is, I’d <em>been</em> asleep. Then I got up …”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I was asleep,” cried <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Klipspringer, in a spasm of embarrassment. “That is, I’d <em>been</em> asleep. Then I got up …”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Klipspringer plays the piano,” said Gatsby, cutting him off. “Don’t you, Ewing, old sport?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t play well. I don’t—hardly play at all. I’m all out of prac—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“We’ll go downstairs,” interrupted Gatsby. He flipped a switch. The grey windows disappeared as the house glowed full of light.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -30,13 +30,13 @@
|
|||
<p>“I’m delighted to see you,” said Gatsby, standing on his porch. “I’m delighted that you dropped in.”</p>
|
||||
<p>As though they cared!</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sit right down. Have a cigarette or a cigar.” He walked around the room quickly, ringing bells. “I’ll have something to drink for you in just a minute.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He was profoundly affected by the fact that Tom was there. But he would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something, realizing in a vague way that that was all they came for. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade? No, thanks. A little champagne? Nothing at all, thanks … I’m sorry—</p>
|
||||
<p>He was profoundly affected by the fact that Tom was there. But he would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something, realizing in a vague way that that was all they came for. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade? No, thanks. A little champagne? Nothing at all, thanks … I’m sorry—</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did you have a nice ride?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Very good roads around here.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose the automobiles—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Moved by an irresistible impulse, Gatsby turned to Tom, who had accepted the introduction as a stranger.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I believe we’ve met somewhere before, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Buchanan.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I believe we’ve met somewhere before, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Buchanan.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, yes,” said Tom, gruffly polite, but obviously not remembering. “So we did. I remember very well.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“About two weeks ago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s right. You were with Nick here.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -46,27 +46,27 @@
|
|||
<p>“You live near here, Nick?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Next door.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That so?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sloane didn’t enter into the conversation, but lounged back haughtily in his chair; the woman said nothing either—until unexpectedly, after two highballs, she became cordial.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We’ll all come over to your next party, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby,” she suggested. “What do you say?”</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sloane didn’t enter into the conversation, but lounged back haughtily in his chair; the woman said nothing either—until unexpectedly, after two highballs, she became cordial.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We’ll all come over to your next party, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby,” she suggested. “What do you say?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Certainly; I’d be delighted to have you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Be ver’ nice,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sloane, without gratitude. “Well—think ought to be starting home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Be ver’ nice,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sloane, without gratitude. “Well—think ought to be starting home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Please don’t hurry,” Gatsby urged them. He had control of himself now, and he wanted to see more of Tom. “Why don’t you—why don’t you stay for supper? I wouldn’t be surprised if some other people dropped in from New York.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You come to supper with <em>me</em>,” said the lady enthusiastically. “Both of you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This included me. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sloane got to his feet.</p>
|
||||
<p>This included me. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sloane got to his feet.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come along,” he said—but to her only.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I mean it,” she insisted. “I’d love to have you. Lots of room.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gatsby looked at me questioningly. He wanted to go and he didn’t see that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sloane had determined he shouldn’t.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gatsby looked at me questioningly. He wanted to go and he didn’t see that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sloane had determined he shouldn’t.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m afraid I won’t be able to,” I said.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, you come,” she urged, concentrating on Gatsby.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sloane murmured something close to her ear.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sloane murmured something close to her ear.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We won’t be late if we start now,” she insisted aloud.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I haven’t got a horse,” said Gatsby. “I used to ride in the army, but I’ve never bought a horse. I’ll have to follow you in my car. Excuse me for just a minute.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The rest of us walked out on the porch, where Sloane and the lady began an impassioned conversation aside.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My God, I believe the man’s coming,” said Tom. “Doesn’t he know she doesn’t want him?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“She says she does want him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“She has a big dinner party and he won’t know a soul there.” He frowned. “I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sloane and the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come on,” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Sloane to Tom, “we’re late. We’ve got to go.” And then to me: “Tell him we couldn’t wait, will you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sloane and the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come on,” said <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Sloane to Tom, “we’re late. We’ve got to go.” And then to me: “Tell him we couldn’t wait, will you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Tom and I shook hands, the rest of us exchanged a cool nod, and they trotted quickly down the drive, disappearing under the August foliage just as Gatsby, with hat and light overcoat in hand, came out the front door.</p>
|
||||
<p>Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby’s party. Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness—it stands out in my memory from Gatsby’s other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-coloured, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn’t been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy’s eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.</p>
|
||||
<p>They arrived at twilight, and, as we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds, Daisy’s voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -80,7 +80,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“She’s lovely,” said Daisy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The man bending over her is her director.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He took them ceremoniously from group to group:</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Buchanan … and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Buchanan—” After an instant’s hesitation he added: “the polo player.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Buchanan … and <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Buchanan—” After an instant’s hesitation he added: “the polo player.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh no,” objected Tom quickly, “not me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>But evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby for Tom remained “the polo player” for the rest of the evening.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve never met so many celebrities,” Daisy exclaimed. “I liked that man—what was his name?—with the sort of blue nose.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -9,9 +9,9 @@
|
|||
<section id="chapter-7" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VII</h2>
|
||||
<p>It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night—and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over. Only gradually did I become aware that the automobiles which turned expectantly into his drive stayed for just a minute and then drove sulkily away. Wondering if he were sick I went over to find out—an unfamiliar butler with a villainous face squinted at me suspiciously from the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby sick?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby sick?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nope.” After a pause he added “sir” in a dilatory, grudging way.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I hadn’t seen him around, and I was rather worried. Tell him <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Carraway came over.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I hadn’t seen him around, and I was rather worried. Tell him <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Carraway came over.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Who?” he demanded rudely.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Carraway.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Carraway. All right, I’ll tell him.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
|
|||
<p>The room, shadowed well with awnings, was dark and cool. Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We can’t move,” they said together.</p>
|
||||
<p>Jordan’s fingers, powdered white over their tan, rested for a moment in mine.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Thomas Buchanan, the athlete?” I inquired.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Thomas Buchanan, the athlete?” I inquired.</p>
|
||||
<p>Simultaneously I heard his voice, gruff, muffled, husky, at the hall telephone.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gatsby stood in the centre of the crimson carpet and gazed around with fascinated eyes. Daisy watched him and laughed, her sweet, exciting laugh; a tiny gust of powder rose from her bosom into the air.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The rumour is,” whispered Jordan, “that that’s Tom’s girl on the telephone.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -47,7 +47,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“Holding down the receiver,” said Daisy cynically.</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, he’s not,” I assured her. “It’s a bona-fide deal. I happen to know about it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Tom flung open the door, blocked out its space for a moment with his thick body, and hurried into the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby!” He put out his broad, flat hand with well-concealed dislike. “I’m glad to see you, sir … Nick …”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby!” He put out his broad, flat hand with well-concealed dislike. “I’m glad to see you, sir … Nick …”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Make us a cold drink,” cried Daisy.</p>
|
||||
<p>As he left the room again she got up and went over to Gatsby and pulled his face down, kissing him on the mouth.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You know I love you,” she murmured.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -216,7 +216,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“Bil<em>oxi</em>?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“First place, we didn’t have any president—”</p>
|
||||
<p>Gatsby’s foot beat a short, restless tattoo and Tom eyed him suddenly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“By the way, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby, I understand you’re an Oxford man.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“By the way, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby, I understand you’re an Oxford man.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not exactly.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, yes, I understand you went to Oxford.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes—I went there.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -231,12 +231,12 @@
|
|||
<p>I wanted to get up and slap him on the back. I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him that I’d experienced before.</p>
|
||||
<p>Daisy rose, smiling faintly, and went to the table.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Open the whisky, Tom,” she ordered, “and I’ll make you a mint julep. Then you won’t seem so stupid to yourself … Look at the mint!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Wait a minute,” snapped Tom, “I want to ask <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby one more question.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Wait a minute,” snapped Tom, “I want to ask <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby one more question.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Go on,” Gatsby said politely.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?”</p>
|
||||
<p>They were out in the open at last and Gatsby was content.</p>
|
||||
<p>“He isn’t causing a row,” Daisy looked desperately from one to the other. “You’re causing a row. Please have a little self-control.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Self-control!” repeated Tom incredulously. “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out … Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Self-control!” repeated Tom incredulously. “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out … Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization.</p>
|
||||
<p>“We’re all white here,” murmured Jordan.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I know I’m not very popular. I don’t give big parties. I suppose you’ve got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends—in the modern world.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -244,7 +244,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“I’ve got something to tell <em>you</em>, old sport—” began Gatsby. But Daisy guessed at his intention.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Please don’t!” she interrupted helplessly. “Please let’s all go home. Why don’t we all go home?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s a good idea,” I got up. “Come on, Tom. Nobody wants a drink.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I want to know what <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby has to tell me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I want to know what <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby has to tell me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Your wife doesn’t love you,” said Gatsby. “She’s never loved you. She loves me.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You must be crazy!” exclaimed Tom automatically.</p>
|
||||
<p>Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -303,7 +303,7 @@
|
|||
<p>The voice begged again to go.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<em>Please</em>, Tom! I can’t stand this any more.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Her frightened eyes told that whatever intentions, whatever courage she had had, were definitely gone.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You two start on home, Daisy,” said Tom. “In <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby’s car.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You two start on home, Daisy,” said Tom. “In <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby’s car.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous scorn.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Go on. He won’t annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They were gone, without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -321,7 +321,7 @@
|
|||
<p>The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the ash-heaps was the principal witness at the inquest. He had slept through the heat until after five, when he strolled over to the garage, and found George Wilson sick in his office—really sick, pale as his own pale hair and shaking all over. Michaelis advised him to go to bed, but Wilson refused, saying that he’d miss a lot of business if he did. While his neighbour was trying to persuade him a violent racket broke out overhead.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’ve got my wife locked in up there,” explained Wilson calmly. “She’s going to stay there till the day after tomorrow, and then we’re going to move away.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Michaelis was astonished; they had been neighbours for four years, and Wilson had never seemed faintly capable of such a statement. Generally he was one of these worn-out men: when he wasn’t working, he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. When anyone spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colourless way. He was his wife’s man and not his own.</p>
|
||||
<p>So naturally Michaelis tried to find out what had happened, but Wilson wouldn’t say a word—instead he began to throw curious, suspicious glances at his visitor and ask him what he’d been doing at certain times on certain days. Just as the latter was getting uneasy, some workmen came past the door bound for his restaurant, and Michaelis took the opportunity to get away, intending to come back later. But he didn’t. He supposed he forgot to, that’s all. When he came outside again, a little after seven, he was reminded of the conversation because he heard <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson’s voice, loud and scolding, downstairs in the garage.</p>
|
||||
<p>So naturally Michaelis tried to find out what had happened, but Wilson wouldn’t say a word—instead he began to throw curious, suspicious glances at his visitor and ask him what he’d been doing at certain times on certain days. Just as the latter was getting uneasy, some workmen came past the door bound for his restaurant, and Michaelis took the opportunity to get away, intending to come back later. But he didn’t. He supposed he forgot to, that’s all. When he came outside again, a little after seven, he was reminded of the conversation because he heard <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson’s voice, loud and scolding, downstairs in the garage.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Beat me!” he heard her cry. “Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!”</p>
|
||||
<p>A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting—before he could move from his door the business was over.</p>
|
||||
<p>The “death car” as the newspapers called it, didn’t stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the next bend. Mavro Michaelis wasn’t even sure of its colour—he told the first policeman that it was light green. The other car, the one going toward New York, came to rest a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick dark blood with the dust.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
|
|||
<p>He left feeling that if he had searched harder, he might have found her—that he was leaving her behind. The day-coach—he was penniless now—was hot. He went out to the open vestibule and sat down on a folding-chair, and the station slid away and the backs of unfamiliar buildings moved by. Then out into the spring fields, where a yellow trolley raced them for a minute with people in it who might once have seen the pale magic of her face along the casual street.</p>
|
||||
<p>The track curved and now it was going away from the sun, which, as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in benediction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath. He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was nine o’clock when we finished breakfast and went out on the porch. The night had made a sharp difference in the weather and there was an autumn flavour in the air. The gardener, the last one of Gatsby’s former servants, came to the foot of the steps.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m going to drain the pool today, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby. Leaves’ll start falling pretty soon, and then there’s always trouble with the pipes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’m going to drain the pool today, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby. Leaves’ll start falling pretty soon, and then there’s always trouble with the pipes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Don’t do it today,” Gatsby answered. He turned to me apologetically. “You know, old sport, I’ve never used that pool all summer?”</p>
|
||||
<p>I looked at my watch and stood up.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Twelve minutes to my train.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -107,7 +107,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“It was an accident, George.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Wilson shook his head. His eyes narrowed and his mouth widened slightly with the ghost of a superior “Hm!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I know,” he said definitely. “I’m one of these trusting fellas and I don’t think any harm to <em>no</em>body, but when I get to know a thing I know it. It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn’t stop.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Michaelis had seen this too, but it hadn’t occurred to him that there was any special significance in it. He believed that <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Wilson had been running away from her husband, rather than trying to stop any particular car.</p>
|
||||
<p>Michaelis had seen this too, but it hadn’t occurred to him that there was any special significance in it. He believed that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Wilson had been running away from her husband, rather than trying to stop any particular car.</p>
|
||||
<p>“How could she of been like that?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“She’s a deep one,” said Wilson, as if that answered the question. “Ah-h-h—”</p>
|
||||
<p>He began to rock again, and Michaelis stood twisting the leash in his hand.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -27,9 +27,9 @@
|
|||
<p>I went back to the drawing-room and thought for an instant that they were chance visitors, all these official people who suddenly filled it. But, though they drew back the sheet and looked at Gatsby with shocked eyes, his protest continued in my brain:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Look here, old sport, you’ve got to get somebody for me. You’ve got to try hard. I can’t go through this alone.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Someone started to ask me questions, but I broke away and going upstairs looked hastily through the unlocked parts of his desk—he’d never told me definitely that his parents were dead. But there was nothing—only the picture of Dan Cody, a token of forgotten violence, staring down from the wall.</p>
|
||||
<p>Next morning I sent the butler to New York with a letter to Wolfshiem, which asked for information and urged him to come out on the next train. That request seemed superfluous when I wrote it. I was sure he’d start when he saw the newspapers, just as I was sure there’d be a wire from Daisy before noon—but neither a wire nor <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem arrived; no one arrived except more police and photographers and newspaper men. When the butler brought back Wolfshiem’s answer I began to have a feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gatsby and me against them all.</p>
|
||||
<p>Next morning I sent the butler to New York with a letter to Wolfshiem, which asked for information and urged him to come out on the next train. That request seemed superfluous when I wrote it. I was sure he’d start when he saw the newspapers, just as I was sure there’d be a wire from Daisy before noon—but neither a wire nor <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem arrived; no one arrived except more police and photographers and newspaper men. When the butler brought back Wolfshiem’s answer I began to have a feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gatsby and me against them all.</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Carraway.</span> This has been one of the most terrible shocks of my life to me I hardly can believe it that it is true at all. Such a mad act as that man did should make us all think. I cannot come down now as I am tied up in some very important business and cannot get mixed up in this thing now. If there is anything I can do a little later let me know in a letter by Edgar. I hardly know where I am when I hear about a thing like this and am completely knocked down and out.</p>
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Carraway.</span> This has been one of the most terrible shocks of my life to me I hardly can believe it that it is true at all. Such a mad act as that man did should make us all think. I cannot come down now as I am tied up in some very important business and cannot get mixed up in this thing now. If there is anything I can do a little later let me know in a letter by Edgar. I hardly know where I am when I hear about a thing like this and am completely knocked down and out.</p>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:valediction">Yours truly</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:signature">Meyer Wolfshiem</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“Hell of a note, isn’t it? Get my wire?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There haven’t been any wires.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Young Parke’s in trouble,” he said rapidly. “They picked him up when he handed the bonds over the counter. They got a circular from New York giving ’em the numbers just five minutes before. What d’you know about that, hey? You never can tell in these hick towns—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello!” I interrupted breathlessly. “Look here—this isn’t <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby’s dead.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Hello!” I interrupted breathlessly. “Look here—this isn’t <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby’s dead.”</p>
|
||||
<p>There was a long silence on the other end of the wire, followed by an exclamation … then a quick squawk as the connection was broken.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>I think it was on the third day that a telegram signed Henry <abbr epub:type="z3998:given-name">C.</abbr> Gatz arrived from a town in Minnesota. It said only that the sender was leaving immediately and to postpone the funeral until he came.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -55,16 +55,16 @@
|
|||
<p>His eyes, seeing nothing, moved ceaselessly about the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It was a madman,” he said. “He must have been mad.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Wouldn’t you like some coffee?” I urged him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t want anything. I’m all right now, <abbr>Mr.</abbr>—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t want anything. I’m all right now, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr>—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Carraway.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well, I’m all right now. Where have they got Jimmy?”</p>
|
||||
<p>I took him into the drawing-room, where his son lay, and left him there. Some little boys had come up on the steps and were looking into the hall; when I told them who had arrived, they went reluctantly away.</p>
|
||||
<p>After a little while <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatz opened the door and came out, his mouth ajar, his face flushed slightly, his eyes leaking isolated and unpunctual tears. He had reached an age where death no longer has the quality of ghastly surprise, and when he looked around him now for the first time and saw the height and splendour of the hall and the great rooms opening out from it into other rooms, his grief began to be mixed with an awed pride. I helped him to a bedroom upstairs; while he took off his coat and vest I told him that all arrangements had been deferred until he came.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I didn’t know what you’d want, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatsby—”</p>
|
||||
<p>After a little while <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatz opened the door and came out, his mouth ajar, his face flushed slightly, his eyes leaking isolated and unpunctual tears. He had reached an age where death no longer has the quality of ghastly surprise, and when he looked around him now for the first time and saw the height and splendour of the hall and the great rooms opening out from it into other rooms, his grief began to be mixed with an awed pride. I helped him to a bedroom upstairs; while he took off his coat and vest I told him that all arrangements had been deferred until he came.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I didn’t know what you’d want, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatsby—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Gatz is my name.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatz. I thought you might want to take the body West.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“—<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatz. I thought you might want to take the body West.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He shook his head.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jimmy always liked it better down East. He rose up to his position in the East. Were you a friend of my boy’s, <abbr>Mr.</abbr>—?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jimmy always liked it better down East. He rose up to his position in the East. Were you a friend of my boy’s, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr>—?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“We were close friends.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“He had a big future before him, you know. He was only a young man, but he had a lot of brain power here.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He touched his head impressively, and I nodded.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -72,7 +72,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“That’s true,” I said, uncomfortably.</p>
|
||||
<p>He fumbled at the embroidered coverlet, trying to take it from the bed, and lay down stiffly—was instantly asleep.</p>
|
||||
<p>That night an obviously frightened person called up, and demanded to know who I was before he would give his name.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Carraway,” I said.</p>
|
||||
<p>“This is <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Carraway,” I said.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh!” He sounded relieved. “This is Klipspringer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>I was relieved too, for that seemed to promise another friend at Gatsby’s grave. I didn’t want it to be in the papers and draw a sightseeing crowd, so I’d been calling up a few people myself. They were hard to find.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The funeral’s tomorrow,” I said. “Three o’clock, here at the house. I wish you’d tell anybody who’d be interested.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -87,9 +87,9 @@
|
|||
<p>I didn’t hear the rest of the name, because I hung up the receiver.</p>
|
||||
<p>After that I felt a certain shame for Gatsby—one gentleman to whom I telephoned implied that he had got what he deserved. However, that was my fault, for he was one of those who used to sneer most bitterly at Gatsby on the courage of Gatsby’s liquor, and I should have known better than to call him.</p>
|
||||
<p>The morning of the funeral I went up to New York to see Meyer Wolfshiem; I couldn’t seem to reach him any other way. The door that I pushed open, on the advice of an elevator boy, was marked “The Swastika Holding Company,” and at first there didn’t seem to be anyone inside. But when I’d shouted “hello” several times in vain, an argument broke out behind a partition, and presently a lovely Jewess appeared at an interior door and scrutinized me with black hostile eyes.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nobody’s in,” she said. “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem’s gone to Chicago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Nobody’s in,” she said. “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Wolfshiem’s gone to Chicago.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The first part of this was obviously untrue, for someone had begun to whistle “The Rosary,” tunelessly, inside.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Please say that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Carraway wants to see him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Please say that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Carraway wants to see him.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I can’t get him back from Chicago, can I?”</p>
|
||||
<p>At this moment a voice, unmistakably Wolfshiem’s, called “Stella!” from the other side of the door.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Leave your name on the desk,” she said quickly. “I’ll give it to him when he gets back.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -116,7 +116,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“Are you a college man?” he inquired suddenly.</p>
|
||||
<p>For a moment I thought he was going to suggest a “gonnegtion,” but he only nodded and shook my hand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,” he suggested. “After that my own rule is to let everything alone.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When I left his office the sky had turned dark and I got back to West Egg in a drizzle. After changing my clothes I went next door and found <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatz walking up and down excitedly in the hall. His pride in his son and in his son’s possessions was continually increasing and now he had something to show me.</p>
|
||||
<p>When I left his office the sky had turned dark and I got back to West Egg in a drizzle. After changing my clothes I went next door and found <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatz walking up and down excitedly in the hall. His pride in his son and in his son’s possessions was continually increasing and now he had something to show me.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jimmy sent me this picture.” He took out his wallet with trembling fingers. “Look there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It was a photograph of the house, cracked in the corners and dirty with many hands. He pointed out every detail to me eagerly. “Look there!” and then sought admiration from my eyes. He had shown it so often that I think it was more real to him now than the house itself.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Jimmy sent it to me. I think it’s a very pretty picture. It shows up well.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -199,7 +199,7 @@
|
|||
<p>He was reluctant to close the book, reading each item aloud and then looking eagerly at me. I think he rather expected me to copy down the list for my own use.</p>
|
||||
<p>A little before three the Lutheran minister arrived from Flushing, and I began to look involuntarily out the windows for other cars. So did Gatsby’s father. And as the time passed and the servants came in and stood waiting in the hall, his eyes began to blink anxiously, and he spoke of the rain in a worried, uncertain way. The minister glanced several times at his watch, so I took him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came.</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>About five o’clock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gate—first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Gatz and the minister and me in the limousine, and a little later four or five servants and the postman from West Egg, in Gatsby’s station wagon, all wet to the skin. As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and then the sound of someone splashing after us over the soggy ground. I looked around. It was the man with owl-eyed glasses whom I had found marvelling over Gatsby’s books in the library one night three months before.</p>
|
||||
<p>About five o’clock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gate—first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Gatz and the minister and me in the limousine, and a little later four or five servants and the postman from West Egg, in Gatsby’s station wagon, all wet to the skin. As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and then the sound of someone splashing after us over the soggy ground. I looked around. It was the man with owl-eyed glasses whom I had found marvelling over Gatsby’s books in the library one night three months before.</p>
|
||||
<p>I’d never seen him since then. I don’t know how he knew about the funeral, or even his name. The rain poured down his thick glasses, and he took them off and wiped them to see the protecting canvas unrolled from Gatsby’s grave.</p>
|
||||
<p>I tried to think about Gatsby then for a moment, but he was already too far away, and I could only remember, without resentment, that Daisy hadn’t sent a message or a flower. Dimly I heard someone murmur “Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on,” and then the owl-eyed man said “Amen to that,” in a brave voice.</p>
|
||||
<p>We straggled down quickly through the rain to the cars. Owl-eyes spoke to me by the gate.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
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