Великий Гэтсби / The Great Gatsby

“We were sitting on the train, facing each other. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. Tom had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and I couldn't keep my eyes off him. When we came into the station he was next to me – and so I told him I'd call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited when I got into a taxi with him. My only thought was 'You can't live forever, you can't live forever.'“

She turned to Mrs. McKee and gave an artificial laughter.

“My dear,” she cried, “I'm going to give you this dress one day. I'll buy another one tomorrow. I'm going to make a list of all the things I have to do. A massage, and a collar for the dog, and one of those cute little ash-trays, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother's grave.”

It was ten o'clock. Mr. McKee was asleep on a chair. The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke. People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other. At midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name.

“Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted Mrs. Wilson. “I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai…”

Making a short movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.

Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women's voices. Mr. McKee awoke from his sleep and went toward the door. I took my hat and followed him.

“Come to lunch some day,” he suggested.

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

“All right,” I agreed, “I'll be glad to.”

Then I was lying half asleep on the bench at the Pennsylvania Station, and waiting for the four o'clock train.

Chapter 3

There was music from my neighbour's house through the summer nights. In his gardens men and girls came and went like moths. In the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city. And on Mondays eight servants toiled all day with mops and brushes and hammers, repairing the ravages of the night before.

Every Friday five boxes of oranges and lemons arrived from New York. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour.

By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived – oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums. Floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and meetings between women who never knew each other's names.

Now the orchestra is playing cocktail music. Laughter is easier, the groups change more swiftly.

When I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all.

I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform gave me a formal note from his employer – the honor would be entirely Jay Gatsby's, it said, if I would attend his “little party” that night.

Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles.

As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me.

I noticed Jordan Baker with two girls in yellow dresses.

She came out of the house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little backward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden.

“Hello!” I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across the garden.

“I thought I would meet you here,” she responded absently. “I remembered you lived next door to…”

“Hello!” the girls in yellow dresses cried together. “Sorry you didn't win.”

They were talking about the golf competition the week before.

“You don't know who we are,” said one of the girls in yellow, “but we met you here about a month ago.”

“Do you come to these parties often?” inquired Jordan of the girl beside her.

“The last one was the one I met you at,” answered the girl. She turned to her companion: “You too, Lucille?”

Of course, Lucille, too.

“I like to come here,” Lucille said. “I never care what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address – and in some days I got a package with a new evening gown in it.”

“Did you accept it?” asked Jordan.

“Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too big for me. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.”

“He doesn't want any trouble,” said the other girl eagerly, “with anybody.”

“Who doesn't?” I inquired.

“Gatsby. Somebody told me…”

The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.

“Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.”

“I don't think it's so much THAT,” argued Lucille sceptically; “it's more that he was a German spy during the war.”

One of the men nodded in confirmation.

“I heard that from a man who knew all about him, he grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us.

“Oh, no,” said the first girl, “it couldn't be that, because he was in the American army during the war. But just look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody's looking at him. I'll bet he killed a man.”

We all turned and looked around for Gatsby.

The first supper – there would be another one after midnight – was now being served, and Jordan invited me to join her around a table on the other side of the garden.

“Let's get out,” whispered Jordan, after half an hour.

We got up, and she explained that we were going to find the host.

The bar, where we went first, was crowded but Gatsby was not there. She couldn't find him from the top of the steps, and he wasn't on the veranda. We opened a heavy door, and walked into a library.

A stout, middle-aged man with enormous spectacles was sitting on the edge of a great table, staring at the shelves of books. As we entered he turned around and examined Jordan from head to foot.

“What do you think?” he demanded impetuously.