"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought--frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon--for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on.

When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction--Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"--it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No--Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.

I never saw this great-uncle but I'm supposed to look like him--with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in Father's office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe--so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep-school for me and finally said, "Why--yees" with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was a warm season and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

"How do you get to West Egg village?" he asked helplessly.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

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.

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.

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 confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

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 H?tel 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 Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it was a small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires--all for eighty dollars a month.

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.

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 savors of anti-climax. 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.

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.

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens--finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.

Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body--he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage--a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked--and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

"Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final," he seemed to say, "just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are." We were in the same Senior Society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

"I've got a nice place here," he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped the tide off shore.

"It belonged to Demaine the oil man." He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. "We'll go inside."

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end.

The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling--and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall.

Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it--indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise--she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression--then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

"I'm p-paralyzed with happiness."

She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had.

She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker.

(I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

At any rate Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back again--the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth--but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered "Listen," a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way east and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.

"Do they miss me?" she cried ecstatically.

"The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there's a persistent wail all night along the North Shore."

"How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow!" Then she added irrelevantly, "You ought to see the baby."

"I'd like to."

"She's asleep. She's two years old. Haven't you ever seen her?"

"Never."

"Well, you ought to see her. She's----"

Tom Buchanan who had been hovering restlessly about the room stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.

"What you doing, Nick?"

"I'm a bond man."

"Who with?"

I told him.

"Never heard of them," he remarked decisively.

This annoyed me.

"You will," I answered shortly. "You will if you stay in the East."

"Oh, I'll stay in the East, don't you worry," he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more.

"I'd be a God Damned fool to live anywhere else."

At this point Miss Baker said "Absolutely!" with such suddenness that I started--it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room.

Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.

"I'm stiff," she complained, "I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember."

"Don't look at me," Daisy retorted. "I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon."

"No, thanks," said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, "I'm absolutely in training."

Her host looked at her incredulously.

"You are!" He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. "How you ever get anything done is beyond me."

I looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she "got done." I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.

"You live in West Egg," she remarked contemptuously. "I know somebody there."

"I don't know a single----"

"You must know Gatsby."

"Gatsby?" demanded Daisy. "What Gatsby?"

Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.

Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

"Why CANDLES?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year."

She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

"We ought to plan something," yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.

"All right," said Daisy. "What'll we plan?" She turned to me helplessly.

"What do people plan?"

Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.

"Look!" she complained. "I hurt it."

We all looked--the knuckle was black and blue.

"You did it, Tom," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to but you DID do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a----"

"I hate that word hulking," objected Tom crossly, "even in kidding."

"Hulking," insisted Daisy.

Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here--and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.

"You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy," I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. "Can't you talk about crops or something?"

I meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was taken up in an unexpected way.

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently.

"I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

"Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be--will be utterly submerged.

It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

"Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them.

What was that word we----"

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

"You ought to live in California--" began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are and----" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again. "--and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization--oh, science and art and all that.

Do you see?"

There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.

"I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered enthusiastically. "It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?"

"That's why I came over tonight."

"Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people.

He had to polish it from morning till night until finally it began to affect his nose----"

"Things went from bad to worse," suggested Miss Baker.

"Yes. Things went from bad to worse until finally he had to give up his position."

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened--then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.

"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?"

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.

Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said "Sh!" 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.

"This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor----" I said.

"Don't talk. I want to hear what happens."

"Is something happening?" I inquired innocently.

"You mean to say you don't know?" said Miss Baker, honestly surprised.

"I thought everybody knew."

"I don't."

"Why----" she said hesitantly, "Tom's got some woman in New York."

"Got some woman?" I repeated blankly.

Miss Baker nodded.

"She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner-time. Don't you think?"

Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.

"It couldn't be helped!" cried Daisy with tense gayety.

She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me and continued: "I looked outdoors for a minute and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away----" her voice sang "----It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?"

"Very romantic," he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the stables."

The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking but I doubt if even Miss Baker who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism was able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing--my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.

The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.

"We don't know each other very well, Nick," she said suddenly.

"Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding."

"I wasn't back from the war."

"That's true." She hesitated. "Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything."

Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.

"I suppose she talks, and--eats, and everything."

"Oh, yes." She looked at me absently. "Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?"

"Very much."

"It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about--things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

"You see I think everything's terrible anyhow," she went on in a convinced way. "Everybody thinks so--the most advanced people. And I KNOW.

I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything."

Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. "Sophisticated--God, I'm sophisticated!"

The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said.

It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.

Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the "Saturday Evening Post"--the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.

When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.

"To be continued," she said, tossing the magazine on the table, "in our very next issue."

Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.

"Ten o'clock," she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. "Time for this good girl to go to bed."

"Jordan's going to play in the tournament tomorrow," explained Daisy, "over at Westchester."

"Oh,--you're JORdan Baker."

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.

"Good night," she said softly. "Wake me at eight, won't you."

"If you'll get up."

"I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon."

"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----"

"Good night," called Miss Baker from the stairs. "I haven't heard a word."

"She's a nice girl," said Tom after a moment. "They oughtn't to let her run around the country this way."

"Who oughtn't to?" inquired Daisy coldly.

"Her family."

"Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's going to look after her, aren't you, Nick? She's going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her."

Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.

"Is she from New York?" I asked quickly.

"From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white----"

"Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?" demanded Tom suddenly.

"Did I?" She looked at me. "I can't seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I'm sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know----"

"Don't believe everything you hear, Nick," he advised me.

I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called "Wait!

"I forgot to ask you something, and it's important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West."

"That's right," corroborated Tom kindly. "We heard that you were engaged."

"It's libel. I'm too poor."

"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."

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 rumors and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.

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.

Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-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 neighbor'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 Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.

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.

 

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中文譯文如下：

我年紀還輕，閱歷不深的時候，我父親教導過我一句話，我至今還念念不忘。

“每逢你想要批評任何人的時候，”他對我說，“你就記住，這個世界上所有的人，井不是個個都有過你擁有的那些優(yōu)越條件。”

他沒再說別的。但是，我們父子之間話雖不多，卻一向是非常通氣的，因此我明白他的話大有弦外之音。久而久之，我就慣于對所有的人都保留判斷，這個習慣既使得許多有怪僻的人肯跟我講心里話，也使我成為不少愛嘮叨的惹人厭煩的人的受害者。這個特點在正常的人身上出現(xiàn)的時候，心理不正常的人很快就會察覺并區(qū)抓住不放。由于這個緣故，我上大學的時候就被不公正地指責為小政客，因為我與聞一些放蕩的、不知名的人的秘密的傷心事。絕大多數(shù)的隱私都不是我打聽來的— —每逢我根據(jù)某種明白無誤的跡象看出又有一次傾訴衷情在地平線上噴薄欲出的時候，我往往假裝睡覺，假裝心不在焉，或者裝出不懷好意的輕挑態(tài)度。因為青年人傾訴的衷情，或者至少他們表達這些衷情所用的語言，往往是剽竊性的，而且多有明顯的隱瞞。保留判斷是表示懷有無限的希望。我現(xiàn)在仍然唯恐錯過什么東西，如果我忘記（如同我父親帶著優(yōu)越感所暗示過的，我現(xiàn)在又帶著優(yōu)越感重復的）基本的道德觀念是在人出世的時候就分配不均的。

在這樣夸耀我的寬容之后，我得承認寬容也有個限度。人的行為可能建立在堅固的巖石上面，也可能建立在潮濕的沼澤之中，但是一過某種程度，我就不管它是建立在什么上面的了。去年秋天我從東部回來的時候，我覺得我希望全世界的人都穿上軍裝，并且永遠在道德上保持一種立正姿勢。我不再要參與放浪形骸的游樂，也不再要偶爾窺見人內(nèi)心深處的榮幸了。唯有蓋茨比——就是把名字賦予本書的那個人——除外，不屬于我這種反應的范圍——蓋茨比，他代表我所真心鄙夷的一切。假如人的品格是一系列連續(xù)不斷的成功的姿態(tài)，那么這個人身上就有一種瑰麗的異彩，他對于人生的希望具有一種高度的敏感，類似一臺能夠記錄萬里以外的地震的錯綜復雜的儀器。這種敏感和通常美其名曰“創(chuàng)造性氣質(zhì)”的那種軟綿綿的感受性毫不相干——它是一種異乎尋常的水葆希望的天賦，一種富于浪漫色彩的敏捷，這是我在別人身上從來發(fā)現(xiàn)過的，也是我今后不大可能會再發(fā)現(xiàn)的。不——蓋茨比本人到頭來倒是無可厚非的、使我對人們短暫的悲哀和片刻的歡欣暫時喪失興趣的，卻是那些吞噬蓋茨比心靈的東西，是在他的幻夢消逝后跟蹤而來的惡濁的灰塵。

我家三代以來都是這個中西部城市家道殷實的頭面人物。姓卡羅威的也可算是個世家，據(jù)家平傳說我們是布克婁奇公爵的后裔，但是我們家系的實際創(chuàng)始人卻是我祖父的哥哥。他在一八五一年來到這里，買了個替身去參加南北戰(zhàn)爭，開始做起五金批發(fā)生意，也就是我父東今天還在經(jīng)營的買賣。

我從未見過這位伯祖父，但是據(jù)說我長得像他，特別有掛在父親辦公室里的那幅鐵板面孔的畫像為證。我在一九一五年從紐黑文畢業(yè)，剛好比我父親晚四分之一個世紀，不久以后我就參加了那個稱之為世界大戰(zhàn)的延遲的條頓民族大遷徙、我在反攻中感到其樂無窮，回來以后就覺得百無聊賴了。中西部不再是世界溫暖的中心，而倒像是宇宙的荒涼的邊緣——于是我決定到東部去學債券生意。我所認識的人個個都是做債券生意的，因此我認為它多養(yǎng)活一個單身漢總不成問題。我的叔伯姑姨們商量了一番，他們怦然是在為我挑選一家預備學校，最后才說：“呃…… 那就……這樣吧。”面容都很嚴肅而猶疑。父親答應為我提供一年的費用，然后又幾經(jīng)耽擱我才在一九二二年春天到東部去，自以為是一去不返的了。

切合實際的辦法是在城里找一套房寄宿，但那時已是溫暖的季節(jié)，而我又是剛剛離開了一個有寬闊的草坪和宜人的樹木的地方，因此辦公室里一個年輕人提議我們倆到近郊合租一所房子的時候，我覺得那是個很妙的主意。他找到了房子，那是一座風雨剝蝕的木板平房，月租八十美元，可是在最后一分鐘公司把他調(diào)到華盛頓去了，我也就只好一個人搬到郊外去住。我有一條狗——至少在它跑掉以前我養(yǎng)了它幾天——一輛舊道吉汽車和一個芬蘭女傭人，她替我收拾床鋪，燒早飯，在電爐上一面做飯，一面嘴里咕噥著芬蘭的格言。

頭幾天我感到孤單，直到一天早上有個人，比我更是新來乍到的，在路上攔住了我。

“到西卵村去怎么走??？”他無可奈何地問我。

我告訴了他。我再繼續(xù)往前走的時候，我不再感到孤單了。我成了領(lǐng)路人、開拓者、一個原始的移民。他無意之中授予了我這一帶地方的榮譽市民權(quán)。

眼看陽光明媚，樹木忽然間長滿了葉子，就像電影里的東西長得那么快，我就又產(chǎn)生了那個熟悉的信念，覺得生命隨著夏天的來臨又重新開始了。

有那么多書要讀，這是一點，同時從清新宜人的空氣中也有那么多營養(yǎng)要汲取。我買了十來本有關(guān)銀行業(yè)、信貸和投資證券的書籍，一本本紅色燙金封皮的書立在書架上，好像造幣廠新鑄的錢幣一樣，準備揭示邁達斯、摩根和米賽納斯的秘訣。除此之外，我還有雄心要讀許多別的書。我在大學的時候是喜歡舞文弄墨的——有一年我給《耶魯新聞》寫過一連串一本正經(jīng)而又平淡無奇的社論—— 現(xiàn)在我準備把諸如此類的東西重新納入我的生活，重新成為“通才”，也就是那種最淺薄的專家。這并不只是一個俏皮的警句——光從一個窗口去觀察人生究竟要成功得多。

純粹出于偶然，我租的這所房子在北美最離奇的一個村鎮(zhèn)。這個村鎮(zhèn)位于紐約市正東那個細長的奇形怪狀的小島上——那里除了其他大然奇觀以外，還有兩個地方形狀異乎尋常。離城二十英里路，有一對其大無比的雞蛋般的半島，外形一模一樣，中間隔著一條小灣，一直伸進西半球那片最恬靜的咸水，長島海峽那個巨大的潮濕的場院。它們并不是正橢圓形——而是像哥倫布故事里的雞蛋一樣，在碰過的那頭都是壓碎了的——但是它們外貌的相似一定是使從頭上飛過的海鷗驚異不已的源泉。對于沒有翅膀的人類來說，一個更加饒有趣味的現(xiàn)象，卻是這兩個地方除了形狀大小之外，在每一個方面都截然不同。

我住在西卵，這是兩個地方中比較不那么時髦的一個，不過這是一個非常膚淺的標簽，不足以表示二者之間那種離奇古怪而又很不吉祥的對比。我的房子緊靠在雞蛋的頂端，離海灣只有五十碼，擠在兩座每季租金要一萬二到一萬五的大別墅中間。我右邊的那一幢，不管按什么標準來說，都是一個龐然大物——它是諾曼底某市政廳的翻版，一邊有一座簇新的塔樓，上面疏疏落落地覆蓋著一層常春藤，還有一座大理石游泳池，以及四十多英畝的草坪和花園。這是蓋茨比的公館?；蛘吒_切地說這是一位姓蓋茨比的闊人所住的公館，因為我還不認識蓋茨比光生。我自己的房子實在難看，幸而很小，沒有被人注意，因此我才有緣欣賞一片海景，欣賞我鄰居草坪的一部分，并且能以與百萬富翁為鄰而引以自慰——所有這一切每月只需出八十美元。

小灣對岸，東卵豪華住宅區(qū)的潔白的宮殿式的大廈沿著水邊光彩奪目，那個夏天的故事是從我開車去那邊到湯姆•布坎農(nóng)夫婦家吃飯的那個晚上才真正開始的。黛西是我遠房表妹，湯姆是我在大學里就認識的。大戰(zhàn)剛結(jié)束之后，我在芝加哥還在他們家住過兩天。

她的丈夫，除了擅長其他各種運動之外，曾經(jīng)是紐黑文有史以來最偉大的橄欖球運動員之———也可說是個全國聞名的人物，這種人二十一歲就在有限范圍內(nèi)取得登峰造極的成就，從此以后一切都不免有走下坡路的味道了。他家里非常有錢— —還在大學時他那樣任意花錢已經(jīng)遭人非議，但現(xiàn)在他離開了芝加哥搬到東部來，搬家的那個排場可真要使人驚訝不已。比方說，他從森林湖運來整整一群打馬球用的馬匹。在我這一輩人中競?cè)贿€有人闊到能夠干這種事，實在令人難以置信。

他們?yōu)槭裁吹綎|部來，我并不知道。他們并沒有什么特殊的理由，在法國待了一年，后來又不安定地東飄西蕩，所去的地方都有人打馬球，而且大家都有錢。這次是定居了，黛西在電話里說?？墒俏也⒉幌嘈?mdash;—我看不透黛西的心思，不過我覺得湯姆會為追尋某場無法重演的球賽的戲劇性的激奮，就這樣略有點悵惘地永遠飄蕩下去。

于是，在一個溫暖有風的晚上，我開車到東卵去看望兩個我?guī)缀跬耆涣私獾睦吓笥选Ｋ麄兊姆孔颖任伊舷氲倪€要豪華，一座鮮明悅目，紅白二色的喬治王殖民時代式的大廈，面臨著海灣。草坪從海灘起步，直奔大門，足足有四分之一英甲，一路跨過日文、磚徑和火紅的花園——最后跑到房子跟前，仿佛借助于奔跑的勢頭，爽性變成綠油油的常春藤，沿著墻往上爬。房子正面有一溜法國式的落地長窗，此刻在夕照中金光閃閃，迎著午后的暖風敞開著。湯姆•布坎農(nóng)身穿騎裝，兩腿叉開，站在前門陽臺上。

從紐黑文時代以來，他樣子已經(jīng)變了?，F(xiàn)在他是三十多歲的人了，時體健壯，頭發(fā)稻草色，嘴邊略帶狠相，舉止高傲。兩只炯炯有神的傲慢的眼睛已經(jīng)在他臉上占了支配地位，給人一種永遠盛氣凌人的印象。即使他那會像女人穿的優(yōu)雅的騎裝也掩藏不住那個身軀的巨大的體力——他仿佛填滿了那雙雪亮的皮靴，把上面的帶子繃得緊緊的。他的肩膀轉(zhuǎn)動時，你可以看到一大塊肌肉在他薄薄的上衣下面移動。這是一個力大無比的身軀，一個殘忍的身軀。

他說話的聲音，又粗又大的男高音，增添了他給人的性情暴戾的印象。他說起話來還帶著一種長輩教訓人的口吻，即使對他喜歡的人也樣、因此在紐黑文的時候時他恨之入骨的大有人在。

“我說，你可別認為我在這些問題上的意見是說了算的，”他仿佛在說，“僅僅因為我力氣比你大，比你更有男子漢氣概。”我們倆屬于同一個高年級學生聯(lián)誼會，然而我們的關(guān)系并不密切，我總覺得他很看重我，而且?guī)е翘赜械拇忠啊⑿U橫的悵惘神氣，希望我也喜歡他。

我們在陽光和煦的陽臺上談了幾分鐘。

“我這地方很不錯。”他說，他的眼睛不停地轉(zhuǎn)來轉(zhuǎn)去。

他抓住我的一只胳臂把我轉(zhuǎn)過身來，伸出一只巨大的手掌指點眼前的景色，在一揮手之中包括了一座意大利式的凹型花園，半英畝地深色的、濃郁的玫瑰花，以及一艘在岸邊隨著浪潮起伏的獅子鼻的汽艇

“這地方原來屬于石油大王德梅因。”他又把我推轉(zhuǎn)過身來，客客氣氣但是不容分說，“我們到里面去吧。”

我們穿過一條高高的走廊，走進一間寬敞明亮的玫瑰色的屋子。兩頭都是落地長窗，把這間屋子輕巧地嵌在這座房子當中。這些長窗都半開著。在外面嫩綠的草地的映襯下，顯得晶瑩耀眼，那片草仿佛要長到室內(nèi)來似的。一陣輕風吹過屋里，把窗簾從一頭吹進來，又從另一頭吹出去，好像一面面白旗，吹向天花板上糖花結(jié)婚蛋糕似的裝飾；然后輕輕拂過絳色地毯，留下一陣陰影有如風吹海面。

屋子里唯一完全靜止的東西是一張龐大的長沙發(fā)椅，上面有兩個年輕的女人，活像浮在一個停泊在地面的大氣球上。她們倆都身穿白衣，衣裙在風中飄蕩，好像她們乘氣球繞著房子飛了一圈剛被風吹回來似的。我準是站了好一會，傾聽窗簾刮動的劈啪聲和墻上一幅掛像嘎吱嘎吱的響聲。忽然砰然一聲，湯姆•布坎農(nóng)關(guān)上了后面的落地窗，室內(nèi)的余風才漸漸平息，窗簾、地毯和兩位少婦也都慢慢地降落地面。

兩個之中比較年輕的那個，我不認識。她平躺在長沙發(fā)的一頭，身子一動也不動，下巴稍微向上仰起，仿佛她在上面平衡著一件什么東西，生怕它掉下來似的。如果她從眼角中看到了我，她可毫無表示——其實我倒吃了一驚，差一點要張口向她道歉，因為我的進來驚動1她。

另外那個少婦，黛西，想要站起身來——她身子微微向前傾，一臉誠心誠意的表情——接著她噗嗤一笑，又滑稽又可愛地輕輕一笑，我也跟著笑了，接著就走上前去進了屋子。

“我高興得癱……癱掉了。”

她又笑了一次，好像她說了一句非常俏皮的話，接著就拉住我的手，仰起臉看著我，表示世界上沒有第二個人是她更高興見到的了。那是她特有的一種表情。她低聲告訴我那個在搞平衡動作的姑娘姓貝克（我聽人說過，黛西的喃喃低語只是為了讓人家把身子向她靠近，這是不相干的閑話，絲毫無損于這種表情的魅力）。

不管怎樣，貝克小姐的嘴唇微微一動，她幾乎看不出來地向我點了點頭，接著趕忙把頭又仰回去——她在保持平衡的那件東西顯然歪了一下，讓她吃了一驚。道歉的話又一次冒到了我的嘴邊。這種幾乎是完全我行我素的神情總是使我感到目瞪口呆，滿心贊佩。

我掉過頭去看我的表妹，她開始用她那低低的、令人激動的聲音向我提問題。這是那種叫人側(cè)耳傾聽的聲音，仿佛每句話都是永遠不會重新演奏的一組音符。她的臉龐憂郁而美麗，臉上有明媚的神采，有兩只明媚的眼睛，有一張明媚而熱情的嘴，但是她聲音甲有一種激動人心的特質(zhì)，那是為她傾倒過的男人都覺得難以忘懷的：一種抑揚動聽的魅力，一聲喃喃的“聽著”，一種暗示，說她片刻以前剛剛干完一些賞心樂事，而且下一個小時里還有賞心樂事。

我告訴了她我到東部來的途中曾在芝加哥停留一天，有十來個朋友都托我向她問好。

“他們想念我嗎？”她欣喜若狂地喊道。

“全城都凄凄慘慘。所有的汽車都把左后輪漆上了黑漆當花圈，進入城北的湖邊整夜哀聲不絕于耳。”

“太美了！湯姆，咱們回去吧。明天，”隨即她又毫不相干地說：“你應當看看寶寶。”

“我很想看。”

“她睡著了。她三歲。你從沒見過她嗎？”

“從來沒有。”

“那么你應當看看她。她是……”

湯姆•布坎農(nóng)本來坐立不安地在屋子平來回走動，現(xiàn)在停了下來把一只手放在我肩上。

“你在干什么買賣，尼克？”

“我在做債券生意。”

“在哪家公司？”

我告訴了他。

“從來沒聽說過。”他斷然地說。

這使我感到不痛快。

“你會聽到的，”我簡慢地答道，“你在東部待久了就會聽到的。”

“噢，我一定會在東部待下來的，你放心吧。”他先望望黛西又望望我，仿佛他在提防還有別的什么名堂。“我要是個天大的傻瓜才會到任何別的地方去住。”

這時貝克小姐說：“絕對如此！”來得那么突然，使我吃了一驚——這是我進了屋子之后她說的第一句話。顯然她的話也使她自己同樣吃驚、因為她打了個呵欠，隨即做了一連串迅速而靈巧的動作就站了起來。

“我都木了，”她抱怨道，“我在那張沙發(fā)上躺了不知多久了。”

“別盯著我看，”黛西回嘴說，“我整個下午都在動員你上紐約去。”

“不要，謝謝，”貝克小姐對著剛從食品間端來的四杯雞尾酒說，“我正一板一眼地在進行鍛煉哩。”

她的男主人難以置信地看著她。

“是嘛！”他把自己的酒喝了下去，仿佛那是杯底的一滴。“我真不明白你怎么可能做得成什么事情。”

我看看貝克小姐，感到納悶，她“做得成”的是什么事。我喜歡看她。她是個身材苗條、乳房小小的姑娘，由于她像個年輕的軍校學員那樣挺起胸膛更顯得英俊挺拔。她那雙被太陽照得瞇縫著的灰眼睛也看著我，一張蒼白、可愛、不滿的臉上流露出有禮貌的、回敬的好奇心。我這才想起我以前在什么地方見過她，或者她的照片。

“你住在西卵吧！”她用鄙夷的口氣說，“我認識那邊的一個人。”

“我一個人也不認……”

“你總該認識蓋茨比吧。”

“蓋茨比？”黛西追問道，“哪個蓋茨比？”

我還沒來得及回答說他是我的鄰居，傭人就宣布開飯了。湯姆•布坎農(nóng)不由分說就把一只緊張的胳臂插在我的胳臂下面，把我從屋子里推出去，仿佛他是在把一個棋子推到棋盤上另一格去似的。

兩位女郎裊裊婷婷地、懶洋洋地，手輕輕搭在腰上，在我們前面往外走上玫瑰色的陽臺。陽臺迎著落日，餐桌上有四支蠟燭在減弱了的風中閃爍不定。

“點蠟燭干什么？”黛西皺著眉頭表示不悅。她用手指把它們掐滅了。“再過兩個星期就是一年中最長的一天了。”她滿面春風地看著我們大家。“你們是否老在等一年中最長的一天，到頭來偏偏還是會錯過？我老在等一年中最長的一天，到頭來偏偏還是錯過了。”

“我們應當計劃干點什么。”貝克小姐打著阿欠說道，仿佛上床睡覺似的在桌子旁邊坐了下來。

“好吧，”黛西說，“咱們計劃什么呢？”她把臉轉(zhuǎn)向我，無可奈何地問道， “人們究竟計劃些什么？”

我還沒來得及回答，她便兩眼帶著畏懼的表情盯著她的小手指。

“瞧！”她抱怨道，“我把它碰傷了。”

我們大家都瞧了——指關(guān)節(jié)有點青紫。

“是你搞的，湯姆，”她責怪他說，“我知道你不是故意的，但確實是你搞的。這是我的報應，嫁給這么個粗野的男人，一個又粗又大又笨拙的漢子……”

“我恨笨拙這個詞，”湯姆氣呼呼地抗議道，“即使開玩笑也不行。”

“笨拙。”黛西強嘴說。

有時她和貝克小姐同時講話，可是并不惹人注意，不過開點無關(guān)緊要的玩笑，也算不上嘮叨，跟她們的白色衣裙以及沒有任何欲念的超然的眼睛一樣冷漠。她們坐在這里，應酬湯姆和我，只不過是客客氣氣地盡力款待客人或者接受款待。她們知道一會兒晚飯就吃完了，再過一會兒這一晚也就過去，隨隨便便就打發(fā)掉了。這和西部截然不同，在那里每逢晚上二待客總是迫不及待地從一個階段到另一個階段推向結(jié)尾，總是有所期待而又不斷地感到失望，要不然就對結(jié)尾時刻的到來感到十分緊張和恐懼。

“你讓我覺得自己不文明，黛西，”我喝第二杯雖然有點軟木塞氣味卻相當精彩的紅葡萄酒時坦白地說，“你不能談談莊稼或者談點兒別的什么嗎？”

我說這句話并沒有什么特殊的用意，但它卻出乎意外地被人接過去了。

“文明正在崩潰，”湯姆氣勢洶洶地大聲說，“我近來成了個對世界非常悲觀的人。你看過戈達德這個人寫的《有色帝國的興起》嗎？”

“呃，沒有。”我答道，對他的語氣感到很吃驚。

“我說，這是一本很好的書，人人都應當讀一讀。書的大意是說，如果我們不當心，白色人種就會……就會完全被淹沒了。講的全是科學道理，已經(jīng)證明了的。”

“湯姆變得很淵博了。”黛西說，臉上露出一種并不深切的憂傷的表情。“他看一些深奧的書，書里有許多深奧的字眼。那是個什么字來著，我們……”

“我說，這些書都是有科學根據(jù)的，”湯姆一個勁地說下去，對她不耐煩地瞅了一眼，“這家伙把整個道理講得一清二楚。我們是占統(tǒng)治地位的人種，我們有責任提高警惕，不然的話，其他人種就會掌握一切且

“我們非打倒他們不可。”黛西低聲地講，一面拼命地對熾熱的太陽眨眼。

“你們應當?shù)郊永Ｄ醽啺布?hellip;…”貝克小姐開口說，可是湯姆在椅子沉重地挪動了一下身子，打斷了她的話。

“主要的論點是說我們是北歐日耳曼民族。我是，你是，你也是，還有………” 稍稍猶疑了一下之后，他點了點頭把黛西也包括了進去，這時她又沖我睡了眨眼。 “而我們創(chuàng)造了所有那些加在一起構(gòu)成文明的東西——科學藝術(shù)啦，以及其他等等。你們明白嗎？”

他那副專心致志的勁頭看上去有點可憐，似乎他那種自負的態(tài)度，雖然比往日還突出，但對他來說已經(jīng)很不夠了。這時屋子里電話鈴響了。男管家離開陽臺去接，黛西幾乎立刻就抓住這個打岔的機會把臉湊到我面前來。

“我要告訴你一樁家庭秘密，”她興奮地咬耳朵說，“是關(guān)于男管家的鼻子的。你想聽聽男管家鼻子的故事嗎？”

“這正是我今晚來拜訪的目的嘛。”

“你要知道，他并不是一向當男管家的。他從前專門替紐約一個人家擦銀器，那家有一套供二百人用的銀餐具。他從早擦到晚，后來他的鼻子就受不了啦……”

“后來情況越來越壞。”貝克小姐提了一句。

“是的。情況越來越壞，最后他只得辭掉不干。”

有一會兒工夫夕陽的余輝溫情脈脈地照在她那紅艷發(fā)光的臉上她的聲音使我身不由主地湊上前去屏息傾聽——然后光彩逐漸消逝，每一道光都依依不舍地離開了她，就像孩子們在黃昏時刻離汗一條愉快的街道那樣。

男管家回來湊著湯姆的耳朵咕噥了點什么，湯姆聽了眉頭一皺，把他的椅子朝后一推，一言不發(fā)就走進室內(nèi)去。仿佛他的離去使她活躍了起來，黛西又探身向前，她的聲音像唱歌似的抑揚動聽。

“我真高興在我的餐桌上見到你，尼克。你使我想到一朵——一朵玫瑰花，一朵地地道道的玫瑰花。是不是？”她把臉轉(zhuǎn)向貝克小姐，要求她附和這句話，“一朵地地道道的玫瑰花？”

這是瞎說。我跟玫瑰花毫無相似之處。她不過是隨嘴亂說一氣，但是卻洋溢著一種動人的激情，仿佛她的心就藏在那些氣喘吁吁的、激動人心的話語里，想向你傾訴一番。然后她突然把餐巾往桌上一扔，說了聲“對不起”就走進房子里面去了。

貝克小姐和我互相使了一下眼色，故意表示沒有任何意思。我剛想開口的時候，她警覺地坐直起來，用警告的聲音說了一聲“噓”?？梢月牭靡娔沁呂葑永镉幸魂嚨偷偷?、激動的交談聲，貝克小姐就毫無顧忌地探身豎起耳朵去聽。喃喃的話語聲幾次接近聽得真的程度，降低卜去，又激動地高上去，然后完全終止。

“你剛才提到的那位蓋茨比先生是我的鄰居……”我開始說。

“別說話，我要聽聽出了什么事。”

“是出了事嗎？”我天真地問。

“難道說你不知道嗎？”貝克小姐說，她真的感到奇怪，“我以為人人都知道了。”

“我可不知道。”

“哎呀……”她猶疑了一下說，“湯姆在紐約有個女人。”

“有個女人人？”我茫然地跟著說。

貝克小姐點點頭。

“她起碼該顧點大體，不在吃飯的時候給他打電話嘛。你說呢？”

我?guī)缀踹€沒明白她的意思，就聽見一陣裙衣悉碎和皮靴格格的聲響，湯姆和黛西回到餐桌上來了。

“真沒辦法！”黛西強作歡愉地大聲說。

她坐了下來，先朝貝克小姐然后朝我察看了一眼，又接著說：“我到外面看一下，看到外面浪漫極了。草坪上有一只鳥，我想一定是搭康拉德或者白星輪船公司的船過來的一只夜鶯。它在不停地歌唱……”她的聲音也像唱歌一般，“很浪漫，是不是，湯姆？”

“非常浪漫。”他說，然后哭喪著臉對我說，“吃過飯要是天還夠亮的話，我要領(lǐng)你到馬房去看看。”

里面電話又響了，大家都吃了一驚。黛西斷然地對湯姆搖搖頭，于是馬房的話題，事實上所有的話題，都化為烏有了。在餐桌上最后五分鐘殘存的印象中，我記得蠟燭又無緣無故地點著了，同時我意識到自己很想正眼看看大家，然而卻又想避開大家的目光。我猜不出黛西和湯姆想什么，但是我也懷疑，就連貝克小姐那樣似乎玩世不恭的人，是否能把這第五位客人尖銳刺耳的迫切呼聲完全置之度外。對某種性情的人來說，這個局面可能倒怪有意思的——我自己本能的反應是立刻去打電話叫警察。

馬，不用說，就沒有再提了。湯姆和貝克小姐，兩人中間隔著幾英尺的暮色，慢慢溜達著回書房去，仿佛走到一個確實存在的尸體旁邊去守夜。同時，我一面裝出感興趣的樣子，一面裝出有點聾，跟著黛西穿過一連串的走廊，走到前面的陽臺上去。在蒼茫的暮色中我們并排在一張柳條的長靠椅上坐下。

黛西把臉捧在手里，好像在撫摩她那可愛的面龐，同時她漸漸放眼人看那人鵝絨般的暮色。我看出她心潮澎湃，于是我問了幾個我認為有鎮(zhèn)靜作用的關(guān)于她小女兒的問題。

“我們彼此并不熟識，尼克，”她忽然說，“盡管我們是表親。你沒參加我的婚禮。”

“我打仗還沒回來。”

“確實。”她猶疑了一下，“哎，我可真夠受的，尼克，所以我把一切都差不多看透了。”

顯然她抱這種看法是有緣故的。我等著聽，可是她沒再往下說，過了一會兒我又吞吞吐吐地回到了她女兒這個話題。

“我想她一定會說，又……會吃，什么都會吧。”

“呃，是啊。”她心不在焉地看著我，“聽我說，尼克，讓我告訴你她出世的時候我說了什么話。你想聽嗎？”“非常想聽”。