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The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter 6 - Part 3
It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to attain1 this proximity2, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek.
“I like her,” said Daisy, “I think she’s lovely.”
But the rest offended her—and inarguably, because it wasn’t a gesture but an emotion. She was appalled3 by West Egg, this unprecedented4 “place.” that Broadway had begotten5 upon a Long Island fishing village—appalled by its raw vigor6 that chafed7 under the old euphemisms8 and by the too obtrusive9 fate that herded10 its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity11 she failed to understand.
I sat on the front steps with them while they waited for their car. It was dark here in front; only the bright door sent ten square feet of light volleying out into the soft black morning. Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing-room blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, who rouged12 and powdered in an invisible glass.
“Who is this Gatsby anyhow?” demanded Tom suddenly. “Some big bootlegger?”
“Where’d you hear that?” I inquired.
“I didn’t hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.”
“Not Gatsby,” I said shortly.
“Well, he certainly must have strained himself to get this menagerie together.”
“At least they’re more interesting than the people we know,” she said with an effort.
“You didn’t look so interested.”
“Well, I was.”
Tom laughed and turned to me.
“Did you notice Daisy’s face when that girl asked her to put her under a cold shower?”
Daisy began to sing with the music in a husky, rhythmic16 whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that it had never had before and would never have again. When the melody rose, her voice broke up sweetly, following it, in a way contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a little of her warm human magic upon the air.
“Lots of people come who haven’t been invited,” she said suddenly. “That girl hadn’t been invited. They simply force their way in and he’s too polite to object.”
“I’d like to know who he is and what he does,” insisted Tom. “And I think I’ll make a point of finding out.”
“I can tell you right now,” she answered. “He owned some drug-stores, a lot of drug-stores. He built them up himself.”
“Good night, Nick,” said Daisy.
Her glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps, where THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, a neat, sad little waltz of that year, was drifting out the open door. After all, in the very casualness of Gatsby’s party there were romantic possibilities totally absent from her world. What was it up there in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside? What would happen now in the dim, incalculable hours? Perhaps some unbelievable guest would arrive, a person infinitely19 rare and to be marvelled20 at, some authentically21 radiant young girl who with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter, would blot22 out those five years of unwavering devotion.
I stayed late that night, Gatsby asked me to wait until he was free, and I lingered in the garden until the inevitable23 swimming party had run up, chilled and exalted24, from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in the guest-rooms overhead. When he came down the steps at last the tanned skin was drawn25 unusually tight on his face, and his eyes were bright and tired.
“She didn’t like it,” he said immediately.
“Of course she did.”
“She didn’t like it,” he insisted. “She didn’t have a good time.”
He was silent, and I guessed at his unutterable depression.
“I feel far away from her,” he said. “It’s hard to make her understand.”
“You mean about the dance?”
“The dance?” He dismissed all the dances he had given with a snap of his fingers. “Old sport, the dance is unimportant.”
He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: “I never loved you.” After she had obliterated26 four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house—just as if it were five years ago.
“And she doesn’t understand,” he said. “She used to be able to understand. We’d sit for hours——”
He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate27 path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers.
“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.”
“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking28 here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
“I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly29. “She’ll see.”
He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was. . . .
. . . One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle30 among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp31 down the incomparable milk of wonder.
His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed32 his unutterable visions to her perishable33 breath, his mind would never romp34 again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
Through all he said, even through his appalling35 sentimentality, I was reminded of something—an elusive36 rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.
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1
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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3
appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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4
unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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begotten
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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7
chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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8
euphemisms
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| n.委婉语，委婉说法( euphemism的名词复数 ) | |
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9
obtrusive
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| adj.显眼的；冒失的 | |
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10
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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11
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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12
rouged
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| 胭脂，口红( rouge的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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14
crunched
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的过去式和过去分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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15
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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16
rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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17
dilatory
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| adj.迟缓的，不慌不忙的 | |
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18
limousine
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| n.豪华轿车 | |
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19
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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marvelled
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
authentically
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| ad.sincerely真诚地 | |
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22
blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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23
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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24
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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25
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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26
obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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27
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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28
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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29
determinedly
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| adv.决意地；坚决地，坚定地 | |
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30
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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31
gulp
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| vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽 | |
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32
wed
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| v.娶，嫁，与…结婚 | |
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33
perishable
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| adj.（尤指食物）易腐的，易坏的 | |
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34
romp
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| n.欢闹；v.嬉闹玩笑 | |
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35
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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36
elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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