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The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter 2 - Part 3
This absorbing information about my neighbor was interrupted by Mrs. McKee’s pointing suddenly at Catherine:
“Chester, I think you could do something with HER,” she broke out, but Mr. McKee only nodded in a bored way, and turned his attention to Tom.
“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.”
“Ask Myrtle,” said Tom, breaking into a short shout of laughter as Mrs. Wilson entered with a tray. “She’ll give you a letter of introduction, won’t you Myrtle?”
“Do what?” she asked, startled.
“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 B. WILSON AT THE GASOLINE PUMP, or something like that.”
Catherine leaned close to me and whispered in my ear: “Neither of them can stand the person they’re married to.”
“Can’t they?”
“Can’t STAND them.” She looked at Myrtle and then at Tom. “What I say is, why go on living with them if they can’t stand them? If I was them I’d get a divorce and get married to each other right away.”
“Doesn’t she like Wilson either?”
The answer to this was unexpected. It came from Myrtle, who had overheard the question, and it was violent and obscene.
“You see,” cried Catherine triumphantly1. She lowered her voice again. “It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic, and they don’t believe in divorce.”
Daisy was not a Catholic, and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie.
“When they do get married,” continued Catherine, “they’re going West to live for a while until it blows over.”
“Oh, do you like Europe?” she exclaimed surprisingly. “I just got back from Monte Carlo.”
“Really.”
“Just last year. I went over there with another girl.” “Stay long?”
“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 gypped 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!”
The late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean—then the shrill3 voice of Mrs. McKee called me back into the room.
“I almost made a mistake, too,” she declared vigorously. “I almost married a little kyke 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.”
“Yes, but listen,” said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down, “at least you didn’t marry him.”
“I know I didn’t.”
“Well, I married him,” said Myrtle, ambiguously. “And that’s the difference between your case and mine.”
“Why did you, Myrtle?” demanded Catherine. “Nobody forced you to.”
Myrtle considered.
“I married him because I thought he was a gentleman,” she said finally. “I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe.”
“You were crazy about him for a while,” said Catherine.
“Crazy about him!” cried Myrtle incredulously. “Who said I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there.”
She pointed4 suddenly at me, and every one looked at me accusingly. I tried to show by my expression that I had played no part in her past.
“The only CRAZY I was was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in, and never even told me about it, and the man came after it one day when he was out. ‘oh, is that your suit?’ I said. ‘this is the first I ever heard about it.’ But I gave it to him and then I lay down and cried to beat the band all afternoon.”
“She really ought to get away from him,” resumed Catherine to me. “They’ve been living over that garage for eleven years. And tom’s the first sweetie she ever had.”
The bottle of whiskey—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 janitor5 and sent him for some celebrated6 sandwiches, which were a complete supper in themselves. I wanted to get out and walk southward toward the park through the soft twilight7, but each time I tried to go I became entangled8 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 secrecy9 to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously10 enchanted11 and repelled12 by the inexhaustible variety of life.
Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom.
“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 shirt-front 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.’”
She turned to Mrs. McKee and the room rang full of her artificial laughter.
“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 to-morrow. I’m going to make a list of all the things I’ve got to get. A massage13 and a wave, and a collar for the dog, and one of those cute little ash-trays 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.”
It was nine o’clock—almost immediately afterward14 I looked at my watch and found it was ten. Mr. McKee was asleep on a chair with his fists clenched15 in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the remains16 of the spot of dried lather17 that had worried me all the afternoon.
The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke, and from time to time groaning18 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 Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, 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——”
Then there were bloody20 towels upon the bath-room floor, and women’s voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail21 of pain. Mr. McKee awoke from his doze22 and started in a daze23 toward the door. When he had gone half way 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 TOWN TATTLE. over the tapestry24 scenes of Versailles. Then Mr. McKee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier, I followed.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Keep your hands off the lever,” snapped the elevator boy.
“All right,” I agreed, “I’ll be glad to.”
. . . I was standing27 beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio28 in his hands.
“Beauty and the Beast . . . Loneliness . . . Old Grocery Horse . . . Brook’n Bridge . . . .”
Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning TRIBUNE, and waiting for the four o’clock train.
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1
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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2
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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3
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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janitor
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| n.看门人，管门人 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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12
repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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13
massage
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| n.按摩，揉；vt.按摩，揉，美化，奉承，篡改数据 | |
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14
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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lather
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| n.(肥皂水的)泡沫，激动 | |
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18
groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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21
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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22
doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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23
daze
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| v.(使)茫然，(使)发昏 | |
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24
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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27
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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28
portfolio
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| n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位 | |
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