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The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter 8 - Part 1
I couldn’t sleep all night; a fog-horn was groaning1 incessantly2 on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick between grotesque3 reality and savage4, frightening dreams. Toward dawn I heard a taxi go up Gatsby’s drive, and immediately I jumped out of bed and began to dress—I felt that I had something to tell him, something to warn him about, and morning would be too late.
Crossing his lawn, I saw that his front door was still open and he was leaning against a table in the hall, heavy with dejection or sleep.
“Nothing happened,” he said wanly5. “I waited, and about four o’clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light.”
His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes. We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for electric light switches—once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano. There was an inexplicable6 amount of dust everywhere, and the rooms were musty, as though they hadn’t been aired for many days. I found the humidor on an unfamiliar7 table, with two stale, dry cigarettes inside. Throwing open the French windows of the drawing-room, we sat smoking out into the darkness.
“You ought to go away,” I said. “It’s pretty certain they’ll trace your car.”
“Go away NOW, old sport?”
“Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal.”
He wouldn’t consider it. He couldn’t possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn’t bear to shake him free.
It was this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan Cody—told it to me because “Jay Gatsby.” had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice8, and the long secret extravaganza was played out. I think that he would have acknowledged anything now, without reserve, but he wanted to talk about Daisy.
She was the first “nice” girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people, but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone. It amazed him—he had never been in such a beautiful house before. but what gave it an air of breathless intensity9, was that Daisy lived there—it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms up-stairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor-cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered10. It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading11 the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant12 emotions.
But he knew that he was in Daisy’s house by a colossal13 accident. However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders. So he made the most of his time. He took what he could get, ravenously14 and unscrupulously— eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand.
He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her under false pretenses15. I don’t mean that he had traded on his phantom16 millions, but he had deliberately17 given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum18 as herself—that he was fully19 able to take care of her. As a matter of fact, he had no such facilities—he had no comfortable family standing20 behind him, and he was liable at the whim21 of an impersonal22 government to be blown anywhere about the world.
But he didn’t despise himself and it didn’t turn out as he had imagined. He had intended, probably, to take what he could and go—but now he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail. He knew that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn’t realize just how extraordinary a “nice” girl could be. She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby—nothing. He felt married to her, that was all.
When they met again, two days later, it was Gatsby who was breathless, who was, somehow, betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of star-shine; the wicker of the settee squeaked23 fashionably as she turned toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons24 and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.
“I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she’d throw me over, but she didn’t, because she was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her. . . . Well, there I was, ‘way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” On the last afternoon before he went abroad, he sat with Daisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall day, with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and then she moved and he changed his arm a little, and once he kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon had made them tranquil25 for a while, as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised. They had never been closer in their month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat’s shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.
He did extraordinarily26 well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the front, and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command of the divisional machine-guns. After the Armistice27 he tried frantically28 to get home, but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford29 instead. He was worried now—there was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy’s letters. She didn’t see why he couldn’t come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured30 that she was doing the right thing after all.
For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids31 and pleasant, cheerful snobbery32 and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes33. All night the saxophones wailed34 the hopeless comment of the BEALE STREET BLUES35. while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers36 shuffled37 the shining dust. At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed38 incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals39 blown by the sad horns around the floor.
Through this twilight40 universe Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads41 and chiffon of an evening dress tangled42 among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately—and the decision must be made by some force—of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality—that was close at hand.
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1
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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2
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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3
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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4
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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5
wanly
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| adv.虚弱地；苍白地，无血色地 | |
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6
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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7
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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8
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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9
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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10
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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11
pervading
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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12
vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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13
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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14
ravenously
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| adv.大嚼地，饥饿地 | |
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15
pretenses
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| n.借口（pretense的复数形式） | |
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16
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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17
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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18
stratum
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| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
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19
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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20
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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21
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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22
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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23
squeaked
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的过去式和过去分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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24
imprisons
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| v.下狱，监禁( imprison的第三人称单数 ) | |
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25
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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26
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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27
armistice
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| n.休战，停战协定 | |
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28
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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29
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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30
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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31
orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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32
snobbery
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| n. 充绅士气派, 俗不可耐的性格 | |
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33
tunes
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| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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34
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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36
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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37
shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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38
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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39
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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40
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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41
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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42
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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43
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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