pages.json

[{"chapter": 0, "page": "By F. Scott Fitzgerald\n\nThen wear the gold hat, if that will move her;\nIf you can bounce high, bounce for her too,\nTill she cry \u2018Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,\nI must have you!\u2019\n\n\u2014THOMAS PARKE D\u2019INVILLIERS\n\n", "page_number": 1}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "\n\nI  n my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave\nme some advice that I\u2019ve been turning over in my mind\never since.\n\u2018Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,\u2019 he told me,\n\u2018just remember that all the people in this world haven\u2019t had\nthe advantages that you\u2019ve had.\u2019\nHe didn\u2019t say any more but we\u2019ve always been unusually\ncommunicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he\nmeant a great deal more than that. In consequence I\u2019m in-\nclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up\nmany curious natures to me and also made me the victim\nof not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to\ndetect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a\nnormal person, and so it came about that in college I was\nunjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy\nto the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the con-\nfidences were unsought\u2014frequently I have feigned sleep,\npreoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some\nunmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quiver-\ning on the horizon\u2014for the intimate revelations of young\nmen or at least the terms in which they express them are\nusually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.\nReserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still\na little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my fa-\n\n", "page_number": 2}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "ther snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat a sense\nof the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at\nbirth.\nAnd, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to\nthe admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded\non the hard rock or the wet marshes but after a certain point\nI don\u2019t care what it\u2019s founded on. When I came back from\nthe East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in\nuniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I want-\ned no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses\ninto the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his\nname to this book, was exempt from my reaction\u2014Gatsby\nwho represented everything for which I have an unaffect-\ned scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful\ngestures, then there was something gorgeous about him,\nsome heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he\nwere related to one of those intricate machines that register\nearthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness\nhad nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which\nis dignified under the name of the \u2018creative temperament\u2019\u2014\nit was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness\nsuch as I have never found in any other person and which\nit is not likely I shall ever find again. No\u2014Gatsby turned\nout all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what\nfoul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily\nclosed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-\nwinded elations of men.\nMy family have been prominent, well-to-do people in\nthis middle-western city for three generations. The Car-\n\n", "page_number": 3}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "raways are something of a clan and we have a tradition that\nwe\u2019re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the ac-\ntual founder of my line was my grandfather\u2019s brother who\ncame here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and\nstarted the wholesale hardware business that my father car-\nries on today.\nI never saw this great-uncle but I\u2019m supposed to look\nlike him\u2014with special reference to the rather hard-boiled\npainting that hangs in Father\u2019s office. I graduated from New\nHaven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father,\nand a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic mi-\ngration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid\nso thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the\nwarm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like\nthe ragged edge of the universe\u2014so I decided to go east and\nlearn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond\nbusiness so I supposed it could support one more single\nman. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were\nchoosing a prep-school for me and finally said, \u2018Why\u2014ye-\nes\u2019 with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance\nme for a year and after various delays I came east, perma-\nnently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.\nThe practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was\na warm season and I had just left a country of wide lawns\nand friendly trees, so when a young man at the office sug-\ngested that we take a house together in a commuting town\nit sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather\nbeaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the\nlast minute the firm ordered him to Washington and I went\n\n", "page_number": 4}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "out to the country alone. I had a dog, at least I had him for a\nfew days until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish\nwoman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and mut-\ntered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.\nIt was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man,\nmore recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.\n\u2018How do you get to West Egg village?\u2019 he asked helpless-\nly.\nI told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I\nwas a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casu-\nally conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.\nAnd so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves\ngrowing on the trees\u2014just as things grow in fast movies\u2014I\nhad that familiar conviction that life was beginning over\nagain with the summer.\nThere was so much to read for one thing and so much\nfine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giv-\ning air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and\ninvestment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and\ngold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold\nthe shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Mae-\ncenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many\nother books besides. I was rather literary in college\u2014one\nyear I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials\nfor the \u2018Yale News\u2019\u2014and now I was going to bring back all\nsuch things into my life and become again that most limited\nof all specialists, the \u2018well-rounded man.\u2019 This isn\u2019t just an\nepigram\u2014life is much more successfully looked at from a\nsingle window, after all.\n\n", "page_number": 5}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a\nhouse in one of the strangest communities in North Ameri-\nca. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself\ndue east of New York and where there are, among other\nnatural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty\nmiles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in\ncontour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into\nthe most domesticated body of salt water in the Western\nHemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound.\nThey are not perfect ovals\u2014like the egg in the Columbus\nstory they are both crushed flat at the contact end\u2014but\ntheir physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual\nconfusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a\nmore arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every\nparticular except shape and size.\nI lived at West Egg, the\u2014well, the less fashionable of the\ntwo, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bi-\nzarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My\nhouse was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the\nSound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented\nfor twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right\nwas a colossal affair by any standard\u2014it was a factual imi-\ntation of some H\u00f4tel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on\none side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a\nmarble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn\nand garden. It was Gatsby\u2019s mansion. Or rather, as I didn\u2019t\nknow Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentle-\nman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it\nwas a small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a\n\n", "page_number": 6}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor\u2019s lawn, and\nthe consoling proximity of millionaires\u2014all for eighty dol-\nlars a month.\nAcross the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable\nEast Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the\nsummer really begins on the evening I drove over there to\nhave dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second\ncousin once removed and I\u2019d known Tom in college. And\njust after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.\nHer husband, among various physical accomplishments,\nhad been one of the most powerful ends that ever played\nfootball at New Haven\u2014a national figure in a way, one of\nthose men who reach such an acute limited excellence at\ntwenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-cli-\nmax. His family were enormously wealthy\u2014even in college\nhis freedom with money was a matter for reproach\u2014but\nnow he\u2019d left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather\ntook your breath away: for instance he\u2019d brought down a\nstring of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to real-\nize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough\nto do that.\nWhy they came east I don\u2019t know. They had spent a year\nin France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here\nand there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were\nrich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over\nthe telephone, but I didn\u2019t believe it\u2014I had no sight into\nDaisy\u2019s heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seek-\ning a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some\nirrecoverable football game.\n\n", "page_number": 7}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I\ndrove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarce-\nly knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I\nexpected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial man-\nsion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and\nran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping\nover sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens\u2014final-\nly when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright\nvines as though from the momentum of its run. The front\nwas broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with\nreflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon,\nand Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his\nlegs apart on the front porch.\nHe had changed since his New Haven years. Now he\nwas a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard\nmouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant\neyes had established dominance over his face and gave him\nthe appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not\neven the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide\nthe enormous power of that body\u2014he seemed to fill those\nglistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you\ncould see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder\nmoved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enor-\nmous leverage\u2014a cruel body.\nHis speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the im-\npression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of\npaternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked\u2014and\nthere were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.\n\u2018Now, don\u2019t think my opinion on these matters is final,\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 8}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "he seemed to say, \u2018just because I\u2019m stronger and more of a\nman than you are.\u2019 We were in the same Senior Society, and\nwhile we were never intimate I always had the impression\nthat he approved of me and wanted me to like him with\nsome harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.\nWe talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.\n\u2018I\u2019ve got a nice place here,\u2019 he said, his eyes flashing about\nrestlessly.\nTurning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat\nhand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken\nItalian garden, a half acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-\nnosed motor boat that bumped the tide off shore.\n\u2018It belonged to Demaine the oil man.\u2019 He turned me\naround again, politely and abruptly. \u2018We\u2019ll go inside.\u2019\nWe walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-\ncolored space, fragilely bound into the house by French\nwindows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming\nwhite against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a\nlittle way into the house. A breeze blew through the room,\nblew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags,\ntwisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the\nceiling\u2014and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, mak-\ning a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.\nThe only completely stationary object in the room was an\nenormous couch on which two young women were buoyed\nup as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both\nin white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if\nthey had just been blown back in after a short flight around\nthe house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to\n\n", "page_number": 9}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a pic-\nture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan\nshut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about\nthe room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young\nwomen ballooned slowly to the floor.\nThe younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was\nextended full length at her end of the divan, completely\nmotionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were\nbalancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If\nshe saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of\nit\u2014indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apol-\nogy for having disturbed her by coming in.\nThe other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise\u2014she\nleaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression\u2014\nthen she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I\nlaughed too and came forward into the room.\n\u2018I\u2019m p-paralyzed with happiness.\u2019\nShe laughed again, as if she said something very witty,\nand held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face,\npromising that there was no one in the world she so much\nwanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a mur-\nmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I\u2019ve\nheard it said that Daisy\u2019s murmur was only to make people\nlean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less\ncharming.)\nAt any rate Miss Baker\u2019s lips fluttered, she nodded at me\nalmost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back\nagain\u2014the object she was balancing had obviously tottered\na little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of\n\n", "page_number": 10}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete\nself sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.\nI looked back at my cousin who began to ask me ques-\ntions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that\nthe ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrange-\nment of notes that will never be played again. Her face was\nsad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a\nbright passionate mouth\u2014but there was an excitement in\nher voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to\nforget: a singing compulsion, a whispered \u2018Listen,\u2019 a prom-\nise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since\nand that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next\nhour.\nI told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on\nmy way east and how a dozen people had sent their love\nthrough me.\n\u2018Do they miss me?\u2019 she cried ecstatically.\n\u2018The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear\nwheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there\u2019s a per-\nsistent wail all night along the North Shore.\u2019\n\u2018How gorgeous! Let\u2019s go back, Tom. Tomorrow!\u2019 Then\nshe added irrelevantly, \u2018You ought to see the baby.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019d like to.\u2019\n\u2018She\u2019s asleep. She\u2019s two years old. Haven\u2019t you ever seen\nher?\u2019\n\u2018Never.\u2019\n\u2018Well, you ought to see her. She\u2019s\u2014\u2014\u2018\nTom Buchanan who had been hovering restlessly about\nthe room stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.\n\n", "page_number": 11}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "\u2018What you doing, Nick?\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019m a bond man.\u2019\n\u2018Who with?\u2019\nI told him.\n\u2018Never heard of them,\u2019 he remarked decisively.\nThis annoyed me.\n\u2018You will,\u2019 I answered shortly. \u2018You will if you stay in the\nEast.\u2019\n\u2018Oh, I\u2019ll stay in the East, don\u2019t you worry,\u2019 he said, glanc-\ning at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for\nsomething more. \u2018I\u2019d be a God Damned fool to live any-\nwhere else.\u2019\nAt this point Miss Baker said \u2018Absolutely!\u2019 with such\nsuddenness that I started\u2014it was the first word she uttered\nsince I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as\nmuch as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid,\ndeft movements stood up into the room.\n\u2018I\u2019m stiff,\u2019 she complained, \u2018I\u2019ve been lying on that sofa\nfor as long as I can remember.\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t look at me,\u2019 Daisy retorted. \u2018I\u2019ve been trying to get\nyou to New York all afternoon.\u2019\n\u2018No, thanks,\u2019 said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in\nfrom the pantry, \u2018I\u2019m absolutely in training.\u2019\nHer host looked at her incredulously.\n\u2018You are!\u2019 He took down his drink as if it were a drop in\nthe bottom of a glass. \u2018How you ever get anything done is\nbeyond me.\u2019\nI looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she \u2018got\ndone.\u2019 I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-\n\n", "page_number": 12}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated\nby throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young\ncadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with\npolite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discon-\ntented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a\npicture of her, somewhere before.\n\u2018You live in West Egg,\u2019 she remarked contemptuously. \u2018I\nknow somebody there.\u2019\n\u2018I don\u2019t know a single\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018You must know Gatsby.\u2019\n\u2018Gatsby?\u2019 demanded Daisy. \u2018What Gatsby?\u2019\nBefore I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner\nwas announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively un-\nder mine Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as\nthough he were moving a checker to another square.\nSlenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips\nthe two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored\nporch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered\non the table in the diminished wind.\n\u2018Why CANDLES?\u2019 objected Daisy, frowning. She\nsnapped them out with her fingers. \u2018In two weeks it\u2019ll be the\nlongest day in the year.\u2019 She looked at us all radiantly. \u2018Do\nyou always watch for the longest day of the year and then\nmiss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and\nthen miss it.\u2019\n\u2018We ought to plan something,\u2019 yawned Miss Baker, sit-\nting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.\n\u2018All right,\u2019 said Daisy. \u2018What\u2019ll we plan?\u2019 She turned to\nme helplessly. \u2018What do people plan?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 13}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed ex-\npression on her little finger.\n\u2018Look!\u2019 she complained. \u2018I hurt it.\u2019\nWe all looked\u2014the knuckle was black and blue.\n\u2018You did it, Tom,\u2019 she said accusingly. \u2018I know you didn\u2019t\nmean to but you DID do it. That\u2019s what I get for marrying\na brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of\na\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018I hate that word hulking,\u2019 objected Tom crossly, \u2018even in\nkidding.\u2019\n\u2018Hulking,\u2019 insisted Daisy.\nSometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtru-\nsively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never\nquite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and\ntheir impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were\nhere\u2014and they accepted Tom and me, making only a po-\nlite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They\nknew that presently dinner would be over and a little later\nthe evening too would be over and casually put away. It was\nsharply different from the West where an evening was hur-\nried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually\ndisappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of\nthe moment itself.\n\u2018You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,\u2019 I confessed on my\nsecond glass of corky but rather impressive claret. \u2018Can\u2019t\nyou talk about crops or something?\u2019\nI meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was\ntaken up in an unexpected way.\n\u2018Civilization\u2019s going to pieces,\u2019 broke out Tom violently.\n\n", "page_number": 14}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "\u2018I\u2019ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you\nread \u2018The Rise of the Coloured Empires\u2019 by this man God-\ndard?\u2019\n\u2018Why, no,\u2019 I answered, rather surprised by his tone.\n\u2018Well, it\u2019s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The\nidea is if we don\u2019t look out the white race will be\u2014will be ut-\nterly submerged. It\u2019s all scientific stuff; it\u2019s been proved.\u2019\n\u2018Tom\u2019s getting very profound,\u2019 said Daisy with an expres-\nsion of unthoughtful sadness. \u2018He reads deep books with\nlong words in them. What was that word we\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Well, these books are all scientific,\u2019 insisted Tom, glanc-\ning at her impatiently. \u2018This fellow has worked out the whole\nthing. It\u2019s up to us who are the dominant race to watch out\nor these other races will have control of things.\u2019\n\u2018We\u2019ve got to beat them down,\u2019 whispered Daisy, wink-\ning ferociously toward the fervent sun.\n\u2018You ought to live in California\u2014\u2019 began Miss Baker but\nTom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.\n\u2018This idea is that we\u2019re Nordics. I am, and you are and\nyou are and\u2014\u2014\u2019 After an infinitesimal hesitation he in-\ncluded Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again.\n\u2018\u2014and we\u2019ve produced all the things that go to make civili-\nzation\u2014oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?\u2019\nThere was something pathetic in his concentration as if\nhis complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to\nhim any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone\nrang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon\nthe momentary interruption and leaned toward me.\n\u2018I\u2019ll tell you a family secret,\u2019 she whispered enthusiasti-\n\n", "page_number": 15}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "cally. \u2018It\u2019s about the butler\u2019s nose. Do you want to hear about\nthe butler\u2019s nose?\u2019\n\u2018That\u2019s why I came over tonight.\u2019\n\u2018Well, he wasn\u2019t always a butler; he used to be the sil-\nver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver\nservice for two hundred people. He had to polish it from\nmorning till night until finally it began to affect his nose\u2014\n\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Things went from bad to worse,\u2019 suggested Miss Baker.\n\u2018Yes. Things went from bad to worse until finally he had\nto give up his position.\u2019\nFor a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affec-\ntion upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward\nbreathlessly as I listened\u2014then the glow faded, each light\ndeserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a\npleasant street at dusk.\nThe butler came back and murmured something close to\nTom\u2019s ear whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair\nand without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened\nsomething within her Daisy leaned forward again, her voice\nglowing and singing.\n\u2018I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a\u2014\nof a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn\u2019t he?\u2019 She turned to Miss\nBaker for confirmation. \u2018An absolute rose?\u2019\nThis was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She\nwas only extemporizing but a stirring warmth flowed from\nher as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed\nin one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly\nshe threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and\n\n", "page_number": 16}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "went into the house.\nMiss Baker and I exchanged a short glance conscious-\nly devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat\nup alertly and said \u2018Sh!\u2019 in a warning voice. A subdued im-\npassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond and\nMiss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The\nmurmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down,\nmounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.\n\u2018This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor\u2014\u2014\u2019 I\nsaid.\n\u2018Don\u2019t talk. I want to hear what happens.\u2019\n\u2018Is something happening?\u2019 I inquired innocently.\n\u2018You mean to say you don\u2019t know?\u2019 said Miss Baker, hon-\nestly surprised. \u2018I thought everybody knew.\u2019\n\u2018I don\u2019t.\u2019\n\u2018Why\u2014\u2014\u2019 she said hesitantly, \u2018Tom\u2019s got some woman\nin New York.\u2019\n\u2018Got some woman?\u2019 I repeated blankly.\nMiss Baker nodded.\n\u2018She might have the decency not to telephone him at din-\nner-time. Don\u2019t you think?\u2019\nAlmost before I had grasped her meaning there was the\nflutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots and Tom\nand Daisy were back at the table.\n\u2018It couldn\u2019t be helped!\u2019 cried Daisy with tense gayety.\nShe sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and\nthen at me and continued: \u2018I looked outdoors for a minute\nand it\u2019s very romantic outdoors. There\u2019s a bird on the lawn\nthat I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard\n\n", "page_number": 17}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "or White Star Line. He\u2019s singing away\u2014\u2014\u2019 her voice sang\n\u2018\u2014\u2014It\u2019s romantic, isn\u2019t it, Tom?\u2019\n\u2018Very romantic,\u2019 he said, and then miserably to me: \u2018If\nit\u2019s light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the\nstables.\u2019\nThe telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook\nher head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact\nall subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments\nof the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being\nlit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look\nsquarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn\u2019t\nguess what Daisy and Tom were thinking but I doubt if even\nMiss Baker who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy\nskepticism was able utterly to put this fifth guest\u2019s shrill me-\ntallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the\nsituation might have seemed intriguing\u2014my own instinct\nwas to telephone immediately for the police.\nThe horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again.\nTom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between\nthem strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a\nperfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly in-\nterested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain\nof connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep\ngloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.\nDaisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its love-\nly shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet\ndusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked\nwhat I thought would be some sedative questions about her\nlittle girl.\n\n", "page_number": 18}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "\u2018We don\u2019t know each other very well, Nick,\u2019 she said\nsuddenly. \u2018Even if we are cousins. You didn\u2019t come to my\nwedding.\u2019\n\u2018I wasn\u2019t back from the war.\u2019\n\u2018That\u2019s true.\u2019 She hesitated. \u2018Well, I\u2019ve had a very bad\ntime, Nick, and I\u2019m pretty cynical about everything.\u2019\nEvidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn\u2019t say\nany more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the\nsubject of her daughter.\n\u2018I suppose she talks, and\u2014eats, and everything.\u2019\n\u2018Oh, yes.\u2019 She looked at me absently. \u2018Listen, Nick; let me\ntell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to\nhear?\u2019\n\u2018Very much.\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019ll show you how I\u2019ve gotten to feel about\u2014things.\nWell, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows\nwhere. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned\nfeeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a\ngirl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away\nand wept. \u2018All right,\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019m glad it\u2019s a girl. And I hope\nshe\u2019ll be a fool\u2014that\u2019s the best thing a girl can be in this\nworld, a beautiful little fool.\u2019\n\u2018You see I think everything\u2019s terrible anyhow,\u2019 she went\non in a convinced way. \u2018Everybody thinks so\u2014the most ad-\nvanced people. And I KNOW. I\u2019ve been everywhere and seen\neverything and done everything.\u2019 Her eyes flashed around\nher in a defiant way, rather like Tom\u2019s, and she laughed with\nthrilling scorn. \u2018Sophisticated\u2014God, I\u2019m sophisticated!\u2019\nThe instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my\n\n", "page_number": 19}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she\nhad said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening\nhad been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emo-\ntion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she\nlooked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if\nshe had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished\nsecret society to which she and Tom belonged.\nInside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and\nMiss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read\naloud to him from the \u2018Saturday Evening Post\u2019\u2014the words,\nmurmurous and uninflected, running together in a sooth-\ning tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on\nthe autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper\nas she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her\narms.\nWhen we came in she held us silent for a moment with\na lifted hand.\n\u2018To be continued,\u2019 she said, tossing the magazine on the\ntable, \u2018in our very next issue.\u2019\nHer body asserted itself with a restless movement of her\nknee, and she stood up.\n\u2018Ten o\u2019clock,\u2019 she remarked, apparently finding the time\non the ceiling. \u2018Time for this good girl to go to bed.\u2019\n\u2018Jordan\u2019s going to play in the tournament tomorrow,\u2019 ex-\nplained Daisy, \u2018over at Westchester.\u2019\n\u2018Oh,\u2014you\u2019re JORdan Baker.\u2019\nI knew now why her face was familiar\u2014its pleasing con-\ntemptuous expression had looked out at me from many\nrotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and\n\n", "page_number": 20}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her\ntoo, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgot-\nten long ago.\n\u2018Good night,\u2019 she said softly. \u2018Wake me at eight, won\u2019t\nyou.\u2019\n\u2018If you\u2019ll get up.\u2019\n\u2018I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.\u2019\n\u2018Of course you will,\u2019 confirmed Daisy. \u2018In fact I think\nI\u2019ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I\u2019ll sort\nof\u2014oh\u2014fling you together. You know\u2014lock you up acci-\ndentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat,\nand all that sort of thing\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Good night,\u2019 called Miss Baker from the stairs. \u2018I haven\u2019t\nheard a word.\u2019\n\u2018She\u2019s a nice girl,\u2019 said Tom after a moment. \u2018They oughtn\u2019t\nto let her run around the country this way.\u2019\n\u2018Who oughtn\u2019t to?\u2019 inquired Daisy coldly.\n\u2018Her family.\u2019\n\u2018Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Be-\nsides, Nick\u2019s going to look after her, aren\u2019t you, Nick? She\u2019s\ngoing to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I\nthink the home influence will be very good for her.\u2019\nDaisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in si-\nlence.\n\u2018Is she from New York?\u2019 I asked quickly.\n\u2018From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed togeth-\ner there. Our beautiful white\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the ve-\nranda?\u2019 demanded Tom suddenly.\n\n", "page_number": 21}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "\u2018Did I?\u2019 She looked at me. \u2018I can\u2019t seem to remember, but I\nthink we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I\u2019m sure we did.\nIt sort of crept up on us and first thing you know\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Don\u2019t believe everything you hear, Nick,\u2019 he advised\nme.\nI said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few\nminutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door\nwith me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light.\nAs I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called \u2018Wait!\n\u2018I forgot to ask you something, and it\u2019s important. We\nheard you were engaged to a girl out West.\u2019\n\u2018That\u2019s right,\u2019 corroborated Tom kindly. \u2018We heard that\nyou were engaged.\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019s libel. I\u2019m too poor.\u2019\n\u2018But we heard it,\u2019 insisted Daisy, surprising me by open-\ning up again in a flower-like way. \u2018We heard it from three\npeople so it must be true.\u2019\nOf course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn\u2019t\neven vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published\nthe banns was one of the reasons I had come east. You can\u2019t\nstop going with an old friend on account of rumors and on\nthe other hand I had no intention of being rumored into\nmarriage.\nTheir interest rather touched me and made them less\nremotely rich\u2014nevertheless, I was confused and a little dis-\ngusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for\nDaisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms\u2014but\napparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for\nTom, the fact that he \u2018had some woman in New York\u2019 was\n\n", "page_number": 22}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a\nbook. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale\nideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished\nhis peremptory heart.\nAlready it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and\nin front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps sat\nout in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West\nEgg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an\nabandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off,\nleaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees\nand a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth\nblew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wa-\nvered across the moonlight and turning my head to watch\nit I saw that I was not alone\u2014fifty feet away a figure had\nemerged from the shadow of my neighbor\u2019s mansion and\nwas standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the\nsilver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely move-\nments and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn\nsuggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to deter-\nmine what share was his of our local heavens.\nI decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him\nat dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I\ndidn\u2019t call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he\nwas content to be alone\u2014he stretched out his arms toward\nthe dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I\ncould have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced\nseaward\u2014and distinguished nothing except a single green\nlight, minute and far away, that might have been the end of\na dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had van-\n\n", "page_number": 23}, {"chapter": 1, "page": "ished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.\n\n\n\n\n", "page_number": 24}, {"chapter": 2, "page": "\n\nA     bout half way between West Egg and New York the\nmotor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside\nit for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain\ndesolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes\u2014a fantastic\nfarm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and\ngrotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and\nchimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcen-\ndent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling\nthrough the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars\ncrawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and\ncomes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up\nwith leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which\nscreens their obscure operations from your sight.\nBut above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust\nwhich drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment,\nthe eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J.\nEckleburg are blue and gigantic\u2014their retinas are one yard\nhigh. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of\nenormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent\nnose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there\nto fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then\nsank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them\nand moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many\npaintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the sol-\n\n", "page_number": 25}, {"chapter": 2, "page": "emn dumping ground.\nThe valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul\nriver, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through,\nthe passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal\nscene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there\nof at least a minute and it was because of this that I first met\nTom Buchanan\u2019s mistress.\nThe fact that he had one was insisted upon wherever he\nwas known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he\nturned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her\nat a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he\nknew. Though I was curious to see her I had no desire to\nmeet her\u2014but I did. I went up to New York with Tom on the\ntrain one afternoon and when we stopped by the ashheaps\nhe jumped to his feet and taking hold of my elbow literally\nforced me from the car.\n\u2018We\u2019re getting off!\u2019 he insisted. \u2018I want you to meet my\ngirl.\u2019\nI think he\u2019d tanked up a good deal at luncheon and his\ndetermination to have my company bordered on violence.\nThe supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon\nI had nothing better to do.\nI followed him over a low white-washed railroad fence\nand we walked back a hundred yards along the road un-\nder Doctor Eckleburg\u2019s persistent stare. The only building\nin sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge\nof the waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering\nto it and contiguous to absolutely nothing. One of the three\nshops it contained was for rent and another was an all-night\n\n", "page_number": 26}, {"chapter": 2, "page": "restaurant approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a\ngarage\u2014Repairs. GEORGE B. WILSON. Cars Bought and\nSold\u2014and I followed Tom inside.\nThe interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car vis-\nible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched\nin a dim corner. It had occurred to me that this shadow of\na garage must be a blind and that sumptuous and romantic\napartments were concealed overhead when the proprietor\nhimself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands\non a piece of waste. He was a blonde, spiritless man, anae-\nmic, and faintly handsome. When he saw us a damp gleam\nof hope sprang into his light blue eyes.\n\u2018Hello, Wilson, old man,\u2019 said Tom, slapping him jovially\non the shoulder. \u2018How\u2019s business?\u2019\n\u2018I can\u2019t complain,\u2019 answered Wilson unconvincingly.\n\u2018When are you going to sell me that car?\u2019\n\u2018Next week; I\u2019ve got my man working on it now.\u2019\n\u2018Works pretty slow, don\u2019t he?\u2019\n\u2018No, he doesn\u2019t,\u2019 said Tom coldly. \u2018And if you feel that way\nabout it, maybe I\u2019d better sell it somewhere else after all.\u2019\n\u2018I don\u2019t mean that,\u2019 explained Wilson quickly. \u2018I just\nmeant\u2014\u2014\u2018\nHis voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around\nthe garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs and in a mo-\nment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light\nfrom the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and\nfaintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as\nsome women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark\nblue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty\n\n", "page_number": 27}, {"chapter": 2, "page": "but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her\nas if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.\nShe smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he\nwere a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in\nthe eye. Then she wet her lips and without turning around\nspoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:\n\u2018Get some chairs, why don\u2019t you, so somebody can sit\ndown.\u2019\n\u2018Oh, sure,\u2019 agreed Wilson hurriedly and went toward the\nlittle office, mingling immediately with the cement color of\nthe walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his\npale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity\u2014except his\nwife, who moved close to Tom.\n\u2018I want to see you,\u2019 said Tom intently. \u2018Get on the next\ntrain.\u2019\n\u2018All right.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019ll meet you by the news-stand on the lower level.\u2019\nShe nodded and moved away from him just as George\nWilson emerged with two chairs from his office door.\nWe waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was\na few days before the Fourth of July, and a grey, scrawny\nItalian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the rail-\nroad track.\n\u2018Terrible place, isn\u2019t it,\u2019 said Tom, exchanging a frown\nwith Doctor Eckleburg.\n\u2018Awful.\u2019\n\u2018It does her good to get away.\u2019\n\u2018Doesn\u2019t her husband object?\u2019\n\u2018Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New\n\n", "page_number": 28}, {"chapter": 2, "page": "York. He\u2019s so dumb he doesn\u2019t know he\u2019s alive.\u2019\nSo Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up togeth-\ner to New York\u2014or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson\nsat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much to\nthe sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the\ntrain.\nShe had changed her dress to a brown figured mus-\nlin which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom\nhelped her to the platform in New York. At the news-stand\nshe bought a copy of \u2018Town Tattle\u2019 and a moving-picture\nmagazine and, in the station drug store, some cold cream\nand a small flask of perfume. Upstairs, in the solemn echo-\ning drive she let four taxi cabs drive away before she selected\na new one, lavender-colored with grey upholstery, and in\nthis we slid out from the mass of the station into the glow-\ning sunshine. But immediately she turned sharply from the\nwindow and leaning forward tapped on the front glass.\n\u2018I want to get one of those dogs,\u2019 she said earnestly. \u2018I\nwant to get one for the apartment. They\u2019re nice to have\u2014a\ndog.\u2019\nWe backed up to a grey old man who bore an absurd re-\nsemblance to John D. Rockefeller. In a basket, swung from\nhis neck, cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an inde-\nterminate breed.\n\u2018What kind are they?\u2019 asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly as he\ncame to the taxi-window.\n\u2018All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019d like to get one of those police dogs; I don\u2019t suppose\nyou got that kind?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 29}, {"chapter": 2, "page": "The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in\nhis hand and drew one up, wriggling, by the back of the\nneck.\n\u2018That\u2019s no police dog,\u2019 said Tom.\n\u2018No, it\u2019s not exactly a polICE dog,\u2019 said the man with\ndisappointment in his voice. \u2018It\u2019s more of an airedale.\u2019 He\npassed his hand over the brown wash-rag of a back. \u2018Look\nat that coat. Some coat. That\u2019s a dog that\u2019ll never bother you\nwith catching cold.\u2019\n\u2018I think it\u2019s cute,\u2019 said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. \u2018How\nmuch is it?\u2019\n\u2018That dog?\u2019 He looked at it admiringly. \u2018That dog will cost\nyou ten dollars.\u2019\nThe airedale\u2014undoubtedly there was an airedale con-\ncerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly\nwhite\u2014changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson\u2019s\nlap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture.\n\u2018Is it a boy or a girl?\u2019 she asked delicately.\n\u2018That dog? That dog\u2019s a boy.\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019s a bitch,\u2019 said Tom decisively. \u2018Here\u2019s your money. Go\nand buy ten more dogs with it.\u2019\nWe drove over to Fifth Avenue, so warm and soft, almost\npastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon that I wouldn\u2019t\nhave been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn\nthe corner.\n\u2018Hold on,\u2019 I said, \u2018I have to leave you here.\u2019\n\u2018No, you don\u2019t,\u2019 interposed Tom quickly. \u2018Myrtle\u2019ll be\nhurt if you don\u2019t come up to the apartment. Won\u2019t you,\nMyrtle?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 30}, {"chapter": 2, "page": "\u2018Come on,\u2019 she urged. \u2018I\u2019ll telephone my sister Cathe-\nrine. She\u2019s said to be very beautiful by people who ought\nto know.\u2019\n\u2018Well, I\u2019d like to, but\u2014\u2014\u2018\nWe went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the\nWest Hundreds. At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice\nin a long white cake of apartment houses. Throwing a regal\nhomecoming glance around the neighborhood, Mrs. Wil-\nson gathered up her dog and her other purchases and went\nhaughtily in.\n\u2018I\u2019m going to have the McKees come up,\u2019 she announced\nas we rose in the elevator. \u2018And of course I got to call up my\nsister, too.\u2019\nThe apartment was on the top floor\u2014a small living\nroom, a small dining room, a small bedroom and a bath.\nThe living room was crowded to the doors with a set of tap-\nestried furniture entirely too large for it so that to move\nabout was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies\nswinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was\nan over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on\na blurred rock. Looked at from a distance however the hen\nresolved itself into a bonnet and the countenance of a stout\nold lady beamed down into the room. Several old copies of\n\u2018Town Tattle \u2018lay on the table together with a copy of \u2018Simon\nCalled Peter\u2019 and some of the small scandal magazines of\nBroadway. Mrs. Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A\nreluctant elevator boy went for a box full of straw and some\nmilk to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large\nhard dog biscuits\u2014one of which decomposed apathetically\n\n", "page_number": 31}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "in the saucer of milk all afternoon. Meanwhile Tom brought\nout a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door.\nI have been drunk just twice in my life and the second\ntime was that afternoon so everything that happened has a\ndim hazy cast over it although until after eight o\u2019clock the\napartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Tom\u2019s lap\nMrs. Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then\nthere were no cigarettes and I went out to buy some at the\ndrug store on the corner. When I came back they had disap-\npeared so I sat down discreetly in the living room and read\nor the whiskey distorted things because it didn\u2019t make any\nsense to me.\nJust as Tom and Myrtle\u2014after the first drink Mrs. Wil-\nson and I called each other by our first names\u2014reappeared,\ncompany commenced to arrive at the apartment door.\nThe sister, Catherine, was a slender, worldly girl of about\nthirty with a solid sticky bob of red hair and a complexion\npowdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and\nthen drawn on again at a more rakish angle but the efforts\nof nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave\na blurred air to her face. When she moved about there was\nan incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jin-\ngled up and down upon her arms. She came in with such a\nproprietary haste and looked around so possessively at the\nfurniture that I wondered if she lived here. But when I asked\nher she laughed immoderately, repeated my question aloud\nand told me she lived with a girl friend at a hotel.\nMr. McKee was a pale feminine man from the flat below.\n\n", "page_number": 32}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "He had just shaved for there was a white spot of lather on\nhis cheekbone and he was most respectful in his greeting to\neveryone in the room. He informed me that he was in the\n\u2018artistic game\u2019 and I gathered later that he was a photogra-\npher and had made the dim enlargement of Mrs. Wilson\u2019s\nmother which hovered like an ectoplasm on the wall. His\nwife was shrill, languid, handsome and horrible. She told\nme with pride that her husband had photographed her a\nhundred and twenty-seven times since they had been mar-\nried.\nMrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time be-\nfore and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of\ncream colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as\nshe swept about the room. With the influence of the dress\nher personality had also undergone a change. The intense\nvitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was con-\nverted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures,\nher assertions became more violently affected moment by\nmoment and as she expanded the room grew smaller around\nher until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking\npivot through the smoky air.\n\u2018My dear,\u2019 she told her sister in a high mincing shout,\n\u2018most of these fellas will cheat you every time. All they think\nof is money. I had a woman up here last week to look at my\nfeet and when she gave me the bill you\u2019d of thought she had\nmy appendicitus out.\u2019\n\u2018What was the name of the woman?\u2019 asked Mrs. McKee.\n\u2018Mrs. Eberhardt. She goes around looking at people\u2019s feet\nin their own homes.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 33}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "\u2018I like your dress,\u2019 remarked Mrs. McKee, \u2018I think it\u2019s\nadorable.\u2019\nMrs. Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eye-\nbrow in disdain.\n\u2018It\u2019s just a crazy old thing,\u2019 she said. \u2018I just slip it on some-\ntimes when I don\u2019t care what I look like.\u2019\n\u2018But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what I mean,\u2019\npursued Mrs. McKee. \u2018If Chester could only get you in that\npose I think he could make something of it.\u2019\nWe all looked in silence at Mrs. Wilson who removed a\nstrand of hair from over her eyes and looked back at us with\na brilliant smile. Mr. McKee regarded her intently with his\nhead on one side and then moved his hand back and forth\nslowly in front of his face.\n\u2018I should change the light,\u2019 he said after a moment. \u2018I\u2019d\nlike to bring out the modelling of the features. And I\u2019d try\nto get hold of all the back hair.\u2019\n\u2018I wouldn\u2019t think of changing the light,\u2019 cried Mrs. McK-\nee. \u2018I think it\u2019s\u2014\u2014\u2018\nHer husband said \u2018SH!\u2019 and we all looked at the subject\nagain whereupon Tom Buchanan yawned audibly and got\nto his feet.\n\u2018You McKees have something to drink,\u2019 he said. \u2018Get\nsome more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, before everybody\ngoes to sleep.\u2019\n\u2018I told that boy about the ice.\u2019 Myrtle raised her eyebrows\nin despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. \u2018These\npeople! You have to keep after them all the time.\u2019\nShe looked at me and laughed pointlessly. Then she\n\n", "page_number": 34}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy and swept\ninto the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her\norders there.\n\u2018I\u2019ve done some nice things out on Long Island,\u2019 asserted\nMr. McKee.\nTom looked at him blankly.\n\u2018Two of them we have framed downstairs.\u2019\n\u2018Two what?\u2019 demanded Tom.\n\u2018Two studies. One of them I call \u2018Montauk Point\u2014the\nGulls,\u2019 and the other I call \u2018Montauk Point\u2014the Sea.\u2019 \u2018\nThe sister Catherine sat down beside me on the couch.\n\u2018Do you live down on Long Island, too?\u2019 she inquired.\n\u2018I live at West Egg.\u2019\n\u2018Really? I was down there at a party about a month ago.\nAt a man named Gatsby\u2019s. Do you know him?\u2019\n\u2018I live next door to him.\u2019\n\u2018Well, they say he\u2019s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wil-\nhelm\u2019s. That\u2019s where all his money comes from.\u2019\n\u2018Really?\u2019\nShe nodded.\n\u2018I\u2019m scared of him. I\u2019d hate to have him get anything on\nme.\u2019\nThis absorbing information about my neighbor was in-\nterrupted by Mrs. McKee\u2019s pointing suddenly at Catherine:\n\u2018Chester, I think you could do something with HER,\u2019 she\nbroke out, but Mr. McKee only nodded in a bored way and\nturned his attention to Tom.\n\u2018I\u2019d like to do more work on Long Island if I could get the\nentry. All I ask is that they should give me a start.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 35}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "\u2018Ask Myrtle,\u2019 said Tom, breaking into a short shout of\nlaughter as Mrs. Wilson entered with a tray. \u2018She\u2019ll give you\na letter of introduction, won\u2019t you, Myrtle?\u2019\n\u2018Do what?\u2019 she asked, startled.\n\u2018You\u2019ll give McKee a letter of introduction to your hus-\nband, so he can do some studies of him.\u2019 His lips moved\nsilently for a moment as he invented. \u2018 \u2018George B. Wilson at\nthe Gasoline Pump,\u2019 or something like that.\u2019\nCatherine leaned close to me and whispered in my ear:\n\u2018Neither of them can stand the person they\u2019re married to.\u2019\n\u2018Can\u2019t they?\u2019\n\u2018Can\u2019t STAND them.\u2019 She looked at Myrtle and then at\nTom. \u2018What I say is, why go on living with them if they can\u2019t\nstand them? If I was them I\u2019d get a divorce and get married\nto each other right away.\u2019\n\u2018Doesn\u2019t she like Wilson either?\u2019\nThe answer to this was unexpected. It came from Myrtle\nwho had overheard the question and it was violent and ob-\nscene.\n\u2018You see?\u2019 cried Catherine triumphantly. She lowered her\nvoice again. \u2018It\u2019s really his wife that\u2019s keeping them apart.\nShe\u2019s a Catholic and they don\u2019t believe in divorce.\u2019\nDaisy was not a Catholic and I was a little shocked at the\nelaborateness of the lie.\n\u2018When they do get married,\u2019 continued Catherine,\n\u2018they\u2019re going west to live for a while until it blows over.\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019d be more discreet to go to Europe.\u2019\n\u2018Oh, do you like Europe?\u2019 she exclaimed surprisingly. \u2018I\njust got back from Monte Carlo.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 36}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "\u2018Really.\u2019\n\u2018Just last year. I went over there with another girl.\u2019\n\u2018Stay long?\u2019\n\u2018No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We went\nby way of Marseilles. We had over twelve hundred dollars\nwhen we started but we got gypped out of it all in two days\nin the private rooms. We had an awful time getting back, I\ncan tell you. God, how I hated that town!\u2019\nThe late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a mo-\nment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean\u2014then the\nshrill voice of Mrs. McKee called me back into the room.\n\u2018I almost made a mistake, too,\u2019 she declared vigorously. \u2018I\nalmost married a little kyke who\u2019d been after me for years.\nI knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me: \u2018Lu-\ncille, that man\u2019s way below you!\u2019 But if I hadn\u2019t met Chester,\nhe\u2019d of got me sure.\u2019\n\u2018Yes, but listen,\u2019 said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head\nup and down, \u2018at least you didn\u2019t marry him.\u2019\n\u2018I know I didn\u2019t.\u2019\n\u2018Well, I married him,\u2019 said Myrtle, ambiguously. \u2018And\nthat\u2019s the difference between your case and mine.\u2019\n\u2018Why did you, Myrtle?\u2019 demanded Catherine. \u2018Nobody\nforced you to.\u2019\nMyrtle considered.\n\u2018I married him because I thought he was a gentleman,\u2019\nshe said finally. \u2018I thought he knew something about breed-\ning, but he wasn\u2019t fit to lick my shoe.\u2019\n\u2018You were crazy about him for a while,\u2019 said Catherine.\n\u2018Crazy about him!\u2019 cried Myrtle incredulously. \u2018Who said\n\n", "page_number": 37}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about\nhim than I was about that man there.\u2019\nShe pointed suddenly at me, and every one looked at\nme accusingly. I tried to show by my expression that I had\nplayed no part in her past.\n\u2018The only CRAZY I was was when I married him. I knew\nright away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody\u2019s best\nsuit to get married in and never even told me about it, and\nthe man came after it one day when he was out. She looked\naround to see who was listening: \u2018 \u2018Oh, is that your suit?\u2019 I\nsaid. \u2018This is the first I ever heard about it.\u2019 But I gave it to\nhim and then I lay down and cried to beat the band all af-\nternoon.\u2019\n\u2018She really ought to get away from him,\u2019 resumed Cath-\nerine to me. \u2018They\u2019ve been living over that garage for eleven\nyears. And Tom\u2019s the first sweetie she ever had.\u2019\nThe bottle of whiskey\u2014a second one\u2014was now in con-\nstant demand by all present, excepting Catherine who \u2018felt\njust as good on nothing at all.\u2019 Tom rang for the janitor\nand sent him for some celebrated sandwiches, which were\na complete supper in themselves. I wanted to get out and\nwalk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight but\neach time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild stri-\ndent argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into\nmy chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows\nmust have contributed their share of human secrecy to the\ncasual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too,\nlooking up and wondering. I was within and without, si-\nmultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible\n\n", "page_number": 38}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "variety of life.\nMyrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her\nwarm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting\nwith Tom.\n\u2018It was on the two little seats facing each other that are\nalways the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New\nYork to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress\nsuit and patent leather shoes and I couldn\u2019t keep my eyes off\nhim but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be\nlooking at the advertisement over his head. When we came\ninto the station he was next to me and his white shirt-front\npressed against my arm\u2014and so I told him I\u2019d have to call\na policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when\nI got into a taxi with him I didn\u2019t hardly know I wasn\u2019t get-\nting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and\nover, was \u2018You can\u2019t live forever, you can\u2019t live forever.\u2019 \u2018\nShe turned to Mrs. McKee and the room rang full of her\nartificial laughter.\n\u2018My dear,\u2019 she cried, \u2018I\u2019m going to give you this dress as\nsoon as I\u2019m through with it. I\u2019ve got to get another one to-\nmorrow. I\u2019m going to make a list of all the things I\u2019ve got to\nget. A massage and a wave and a collar for the dog and one\nof those cute little ash-trays where you touch a spring, and\na wreath with a black silk bow for mother\u2019s grave that\u2019ll last\nall summer. I got to write down a list so I won\u2019t forget all the\nthings I got to do.\u2019\nIt was nine o\u2019clock\u2014almost immediately afterward I\nlooked at my watch and found it was ten. Mr. McKee was\nasleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap, like a\n\n", "page_number": 39}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "photograph of a man of action. Taking out my handkerchief\nI wiped from his cheek the remains of the spot of dried lath-\ner that had worried me all the afternoon.\nThe little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind\neyes through the smoke and from time to time groaning\nfaintly. People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go\nsomewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each\nother, found each other a few feet away. Some time toward\nmidnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to\nface discussing in impassioned voices whether Mrs. Wilson\nhad any right to mention Daisy\u2019s name.\n\u2018Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!\u2019 shouted Mrs. Wilson. \u2018I\u2019ll say it\nwhenever I want to! Daisy! Dai\u2014\u2014\u2018\nMaking a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her\nnose with his open hand.\nThen there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor,\nand women\u2019s voices scolding, and high over the confusion\na long broken wail of pain. Mr. McKee awoke from his doze\nand started in a daze toward the door. When he had gone\nhalf way he turned around and stared at the scene\u2014his wife\nand Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled\nhere and there among the crowded furniture with articles\nof aid, and the despairing figure on the couch bleeding flu-\nently and trying to spread a copy of \u2018Town Tattle\u2019 over the\ntapestry scenes of Versailles. Then Mr. McKee turned and\ncontinued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chan-\ndelier I followed.\n\u2018Come to lunch some day,\u2019 he suggested, as we groaned\ndown in the elevator.\n\n", "page_number": 40}, {"chapter": 3, "page": "\u2018Where?\u2019\n\u2018Anywhere.\u2019\n\u2018Keep your hands off the lever,\u2019 snapped the elevator\nboy.\n\u2018I beg your pardon,\u2019 said Mr. McKee with dignity, \u2018I didn\u2019t\nknow I was touching it.\u2019\n\u2018All right,\u2019 I agreed, \u2018I\u2019ll be glad to.\u2019\n\u2026 I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up\nbetween the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great\nportfolio in his hands.\n\u2018Beauty and the Beast \u2026 Loneliness \u2026 Old Grocery\nHorse \u2026 Brook\u2019n Bridge \u2026.\u2019\nThen I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the\nPennsylvania Station, staring at the morning \u2018Tribune\u2019 and\nwaiting for the four o\u2019clock train.\n\n\n\n\n", "page_number": 41}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "\n\nT     here was music from my neighbor\u2019s house through the\nsummer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came\nand went like moths among the whisperings and the cham-\npagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched\nhis guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the\nsun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats\nslit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cat-\naracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an\nomnibus, bearing parties to and from the city, between\nnine in the morning and long past midnight, while his sta-\ntion wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all\ntrains. And on Mondays eight servants including an extra\ngardener toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes\nand hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of\nthe night before.\nEvery Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived\nfrom a fruiterer in New York\u2014every Monday these same\noranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulp-\nless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could\nextract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if\na little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler\u2019s\nthumb.\nAt least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down\nwith several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored\n\n", "page_number": 42}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby\u2019s enormous\ngarden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-\nd\u2019oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of\nharlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to\na dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was\nset up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials\nso long forgotten that most of his female guests were too\nyoung to know one from another.\nBy seven o\u2019clock the orchestra has arrived\u2014no thin five-\npiece affair but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and\nsaxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and\nhigh drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach\nnow and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are\nparked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and sa-\nlons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair\nshorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams\nof Castile. The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of\ncocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive\nwith chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and intro-\nductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings\nbetween women who never knew each other\u2019s names.\nThe lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from\nthe sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail\nmusic and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter\nis easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped\nout at a cheerful word. The groups change more swift-\nly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same\nbreath\u2014already there are wanderers, confident girls who\nweave here and there among the stouter and more stable,\n\n", "page_number": 43}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group\nand then excited with triumph glide on through the sea-\nchange of faces and voices and color under the constantly\nchanging light.\nSuddenly one of these gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a\ncocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and mov-\ning her hands like Frisco dances out alone on the canvas\nplatform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies\nhis rhythm obligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter\nas the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray\u2019s\nunderstudy from the \u2018Follies.\u2019 The party has begun.\nI believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby\u2019s house\nI was one of the few guests who had actually been invit-\ned. People were not invited\u2014they went there. They got into\nautomobiles which bore them out to Long Island and some-\nhow they ended up at Gatsby\u2019s door. Once there they were\nintroduced by somebody who knew Gatsby and after that\nthey conducted themselves according to the rules of be-\nhavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they\ncame and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for\nthe party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket\nof admission.\nI had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of\nrobin\u2019s egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morn-\ning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer\u2014the\nhonor would be entirely Gatsby\u2019s, it said, if I would attend\nhis \u2018little party\u2019 that night. He had seen me several times\nand had intended to call on me long before but a peculiar\ncombination of circumstances had prevented it\u2014signed Jay\n\n", "page_number": 44}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "Gatsby in a majestic hand.\nDressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a\nlittle after seven and wandered around rather ill-at-ease\namong swirls and eddies of people I didn\u2019t know\u2014though\nhere and there was a face I had noticed on the commut-\ning train. I was immediately struck by the number of young\nEnglishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a lit-\ntle hungry and all talking in low earnest voices to solid and\nprosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling\nsomething: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were,\nat least, agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicin-\nity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the\nright key.\nAs soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host\nbut the two or three people of whom I asked his where-\nabouts stared at me in such an amazed way and denied so\nvehemently any knowledge of his movements that I slunk\noff in the direction of the cocktail table\u2014the only place in\nthe garden where a single man could linger without looking\npurposeless and alone.\nI was on my way to get roaring drunk from sheer em-\nbarrassment when Jordan Baker came out of the house and\nstood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little back-\nward and looking with contemptuous interest down into\nthe garden.\nWelcome or not, I found it necessary to attach myself to\nsomeone before I should begin to address cordial remarks\nto the passers-by.\n\u2018Hello!\u2019 I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed\n\n", "page_number": 45}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "unnaturally loud across the garden.\n\u2018I thought you might be here,\u2019 she responded absently as I\ncame up. \u2018I remembered you lived next door to\u2014\u2014\u2018\nShe held my hand impersonally, as a promise that she\u2019d\ntake care of me in a minute, and gave ear to two girls in twin\nyellow dresses who stopped at the foot of the steps.\n\u2018Hello!\u2019 they cried together. \u2018Sorry you didn\u2019t win.\u2019\nThat was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the fi-\nnals the week before.\n\u2018You don\u2019t know who we are,\u2019 said one of the girls in yel-\nlow, \u2018but we met you here about a month ago.\u2019\n\u2018You\u2019ve dyed your hair since then,\u2019 remarked Jordan, and\nI started but the girls had moved casually on and her re-\nmark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like\nthe supper, no doubt, out of a caterer\u2019s basket. With Jordan\u2019s\nslender golden arm resting in mine we descended the steps\nand sauntered about the garden. A tray of cocktails floated\nat us through the twilight and we sat down at a table with\nthe two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced\nto us as Mr. Mumble.\n\u2018Do you come to these parties often?\u2019 inquired Jordan of\nthe girl beside her.\n\u2018The last one was the one I met you at,\u2019 answered the girl,\nin an alert, confident voice. She turned to her companion:\n\u2018Wasn\u2019t it for you, Lucille?\u2019\nIt was for Lucille, too.\n\u2018I like to come,\u2019 Lucille said. \u2018I never care what I do, so\nI always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my\ngown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address\u2014\n\n", "page_number": 46}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "inside of a week I got a package from Croirier\u2019s with a new\nevening gown in it.\u2019\n\u2018Did you keep it?\u2019 asked Jordan.\n\u2018Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too\nbig in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas blue with\nlavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.\u2019\n\u2018There\u2019s something funny about a fellow that\u2019ll do a thing\nlike that,\u2019 said the other girl eagerly. \u2018He doesn\u2019t want any\ntrouble with ANYbody.\u2019\n\u2018Who doesn\u2019t?\u2019 I inquired.\n\u2018Gatsby. Somebody told me\u2014\u2014\u2018\nThe two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.\n\u2018Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.\u2019\nA thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles\nbent forward and listened eagerly.\n\u2018I don\u2019t think it\u2019s so much THAT,\u2019 argued Lucille skepti-\ncally; \u2018it\u2019s more that he was a German spy during the war.\u2019\nOne of the men nodded in confirmation.\n\u2018I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew\nup with him in Germany,\u2019 he assured us positively.\n\u2018Oh, no,\u2019 said the first girl, \u2018it couldn\u2019t be that, because he\nwas in the American army during the war.\u2019 As our credulity\nswitched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm.\n\u2018You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody\u2019s look-\ning at him. I\u2019ll bet he killed a man.\u2019\nShe narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered.\nWe all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimo-\nny to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were\nwhispers about him from those who found little that it was\n\n", "page_number": 47}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "necessary to whisper about in this world.\nThe first supper\u2014there would be another one after mid-\nnight\u2014was now being served, and Jordan invited me to join\nher own party who were spread around a table on the other\nside of the garden. There were three married couples and\nJordan\u2019s escort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent\ninnuendo and obviously under the impression that sooner\nor later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a\ngreater or lesser degree. Instead of rambling this party had\npreserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the\nfunction of representing the staid nobility of the country-\nside\u2014East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully\non guard against its spectroscopic gayety.\n\u2018Let\u2019s get out,\u2019 whispered Jordan, after a somehow waste-\nful and inappropriate half hour. \u2018This is much too polite for\nme.\u2019\nWe got up, and she explained that we were going to find\nthe host\u2014I had never met him, she said, and it was making\nme uneasy. The undergraduate nodded in a cynical, melan-\ncholy way.\nThe bar, where we glanced first, was crowded but Gatsby\nwas not there. She couldn\u2019t find him from the top of the\nsteps, and he wasn\u2019t on the veranda. On a chance we tried\nan important-looking door, and walked into a high Goth-\nic library, panelled with carved English oak, and probably\ntransported complete from some ruin overseas.\nA stout, middle-aged man with enormous owl-eyed spec-\ntacles was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great\ntable, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of\n\n", "page_number": 48}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and ex-\namined Jordan from head to foot.\n\u2018What do you think?\u2019 he demanded impetuously.\n\u2018About what?\u2019\nHe waved his hand toward the book-shelves.\n\u2018About that. As a matter of fact you needn\u2019t bother to as-\ncertain. I ascertained. They\u2019re real.\u2019\n\u2018The books?\u2019\nHe nodded.\n\u2018Absolutely real\u2014have pages and everything. I thought\nthey\u2019d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they\u2019re\nabsolutely real. Pages and\u2014Here! Lemme show you.\u2019\nTaking our skepticism for granted, he rushed to the\nbookcases and returned with Volume One of the \u2018Stoddard\nLectures.\u2019\n\u2018See!\u2019 he cried triumphantly. \u2018It\u2019s a bona fide piece of\nprinted matter. It fooled me. This fella\u2019s a regular Belasco.\nIt\u2019s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew\nwhen to stop too\u2014didn\u2019t cut the pages. But what do you\nwant? What do you expect?\u2019\nHe snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on\nits shelf muttering that if one brick was removed the whole\nlibrary was liable to collapse.\n\u2018Who brought you?\u2019 he demanded. \u2018Or did you just come?\nI was brought. Most people were brought.\u2019\nJordan looked at him alertly, cheerfully without answer-\ning.\n\u2018I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt,\u2019 he con-\ntinued. \u2018Mrs. Claud Roosevelt. Do you know her? I met her\n\n", "page_number": 49}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "somewhere last night. I\u2019ve been drunk for about a week now,\nand I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.\u2019\n\u2018Has it?\u2019\n\u2018A little bit, I think. I can\u2019t tell yet. I\u2019ve only been here an\nhour. Did I tell you about the books? They\u2019re real. They\u2019re\u2014\n\u2014\u2018\n\u2018You told us.\u2019\nWe shook hands with him gravely and went back out-\ndoors.\nThere was dancing now on the canvas in the garden,\nold men pushing young girls backward in eternal grace-\nless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously,\nfashionably and keeping in the corners\u2014and a great num-\nber of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving\nthe orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the\ntraps. By midnight the hilarity had increased. A celebrated\ntenor had sung in Italian and a notorious contralto had sung\nin jazz and between the numbers people were doing \u2018stunts\u2019\nall over the garden, while happy vacuous bursts of laughter\nrose toward the summer sky. A pair of stage \u2018twins\u2019\u2014who\nturned out to be the girls in yellow\u2014did a baby act in cos-\ntume and champagne was served in glasses bigger than\nfinger bowls. The moon had risen higher, and floating in the\nSound was a triangle of silver scales, trembling a little to the\nstiff, tinny drip of the banjoes on the lawn.\nI was still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table\nwith a man of about my age and a rowdy little girl who gave\nway upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laugh-\nter. I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two finger bowls\n\n", "page_number": 50}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "of champagne and the scene had changed before my eyes\ninto something significant, elemental and profound.\nAt a lull in the entertainment the man looked at me and\nsmiled.\n\u2018Your face is familiar,\u2019 he said, politely. \u2018Weren\u2019t you in\nthe Third Division during the war?\u2019\n\u2018Why, yes. I was in the Ninth Machine-Gun Battalion.\u2019\n\u2018I was in the Seventh Infantry until June nineteen-eigh-\nteen. I knew I\u2019d seen you somewhere before.\u2019\nWe talked for a moment about some wet, grey little vil-\nlages in France. Evidently he lived in this vicinity for he told\nme that he had just bought a hydroplane and was going to\ntry it out in the morning.\n\u2018Want to go with me, old sport? Just near the shore along\nthe Sound.\u2019\n\u2018What time?\u2019\n\u2018Any time that suits you best.\u2019\nIt was on the tip of my tongue to ask his name when Jor-\ndan looked around and smiled.\n\u2018Having a gay time now?\u2019 she inquired.\n\u2018Much better.\u2019 I turned again to my new acquaintance.\n\u2018This is an unusual party for me. I haven\u2019t even seen the\nhost. I live over there\u2014\u2014\u2019 I waved my hand at the invisible\nhedge in the distance, \u2018and this man Gatsby sent over his\nchauffeur with an invitation.\u2019\nFor a moment he looked at me as if he failed to under-\nstand.\n\u2018I\u2019m Gatsby,\u2019 he said suddenly.\n\u2018What!\u2019 I exclaimed. \u2018Oh, I beg your pardon.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 51}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "\u2018I thought you knew, old sport. I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m not a very\ngood host.\u2019\nHe smiled understandingly\u2014much more than under-\nstandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of\neternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or\nfive times in life. It faced\u2014or seemed to face\u2014the whole ex-\nternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on YOU\nwith an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood\nyou just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed\nin you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured\nyou that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your\nbest, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it van-\nished\u2014and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a\nyear or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech\njust missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced\nhimself I\u2019d got a strong impression that he was picking his\nwords with care.\nAlmost at the moment when Mr. Gatsby identified him-\nself a butler hurried toward him with the information that\nChicago was calling him on the wire. He excused himself\nwith a small bow that included each of us in turn.\n\u2018If you want anything just ask for it, old sport,\u2019 he urged\nme. \u2018Excuse me. I will rejoin you later.\u2019\nWhen he was gone I turned immediately to Jordan\u2014\nconstrained to assure her of my surprise. I had expected\nthat Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in\nhis middle years.\n\u2018Who is he?\u2019 I demanded. \u2018Do you know?\u2019\n\u2018He\u2019s just a man named Gatsby.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 52}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "\u2018Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do?\u2019\n\u2018Now YOU\u2019re started on the subject,\u2019 she answered with\na wan smile. \u2018Well,\u2014he told me once he was an Oxford\nman.\u2019\nA dim background started to take shape behind him but\nat her next remark it faded away.\n\u2018However, I don\u2019t believe it.\u2019\n\u2018Why not?\u2019\n\u2018I don\u2019t know,\u2019 she insisted, \u2018I just don\u2019t think he went\nthere.\u2019\nSomething in her tone reminded me of the other girl\u2019s \u2018I\nthink he killed a man,\u2019 and had the effect of stimulating my\ncuriosity. I would have accepted without question the infor-\nmation that Gatsby sprang from the swamps of Louisiana\nor from the lower East Side of New York. That was compre-\nhensible. But young men didn\u2019t\u2014at least in my provincial\ninexperience I believed they didn\u2019t\u2014drift coolly out of no-\nwhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound.\n\u2018Anyhow he gives large parties,\u2019 said Jordan, changing\nthe subject with an urbane distaste for the concrete. \u2018And I\nlike large parties. They\u2019re so intimate. At small parties there\nisn\u2019t any privacy.\u2019\nThere was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the\norchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of\nthe garden.\n\u2018Ladies and gentlemen,\u2019 he cried. \u2018At the request of Mr.\nGatsby we are going to play for you Mr. Vladimir Tostoff\u2019s\nlatest work which attracted so much attention at Carnegie\nHall last May. If you read the papers you know there was\n\n", "page_number": 53}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "a big sensation.\u2019 He smiled with jovial condescension and\nadded \u2018Some sensation!\u2019 whereupon everybody laughed.\n\u2018The piece is known,\u2019 he concluded lustily, \u2018as \u2018Vladimir\nTostoff\u2019s Jazz History of the World.\u2019 \u2018\nThe nature of Mr. Tostoff\u2019s composition eluded me, be-\ncause just as it began my eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone\non the marble steps and looking from one group to another\nwith approving eyes. His tanned skin was drawn attractive-\nly tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it\nwere trimmed every day. I could see nothing sinister about\nhim. I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped\nto set him off from his guests, for it seemed to me that he\ngrew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased. When\nthe \u2018Jazz History of the World\u2019 was over girls were putting\ntheir heads on men\u2019s shoulders in a puppyish, convivial\nway, girls were swooning backward playfully into men\u2019s\narms, even into groups knowing that some one would ar-\nrest their falls\u2014but no one swooned backward on Gatsby\nand no French bob touched Gatsby\u2019s shoulder and no sing-\ning quartets were formed with Gatsby\u2019s head for one link.\n\u2018I beg your pardon.\u2019\nGatsby\u2019s butler was suddenly standing beside us.\n\u2018Miss Baker?\u2019 he inquired. \u2018I beg your pardon but Mr.\nGatsby would like to speak to you alone.\u2019\n\u2018With me?\u2019 she exclaimed in surprise.\n\u2018Yes, madame.\u2019\nShe got up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in aston-\nishment, and followed the butler toward the house. I noticed\nthat she wore her evening dress, all her dresses, like sports\n\n", "page_number": 54}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "clothes\u2014there was a jauntiness about her movements as if\nshe had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean,\ncrisp mornings.\nI was alone and it was almost two. For some time confused\nand intriguing sounds had issued from a long many-win-\ndowed room which overhung the terrace. Eluding Jordan\u2019s\nundergraduate who was now engaged in an obstetrical con-\nversation with two chorus girls, and who implored me to\njoin him, I went inside.\nThe large room was full of people. One of the girls in\nyellow was playing the piano and beside her stood a tall,\nred haired young lady from a famous chorus, engaged in\nsong. She had drunk a quantity of champagne and during\nthe course of her song she had decided ineptly that every-\nthing was very very sad\u2014she was not only singing, she was\nweeping too. Whenever there was a pause in the song she\nfilled it with gasping broken sobs and then took up the lyr-\nic again in a quavering soprano. The tears coursed down\nher cheeks\u2014not freely, however, for when they came into\ncontact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an\ninky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black\nrivulets. A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the\nnotes on her face whereupon she threw up her hands, sank\ninto a chair and went off into a deep vinous sleep.\n\u2018She had a fight with a man who says he\u2019s her husband,\u2019\nexplained a girl at my elbow.\nI looked around. Most of the remaining women were\nnow having fights with men said to be their husbands. Even\nJordan\u2019s party, the quartet from East Egg, were rent asun-\n\n", "page_number": 55}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "der by dissension. One of the men was talking with curious\nintensity to a young actress, and his wife after attempt-\ning to laugh at the situation in a dignified and indifferent\nway broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacks\u2014at\nintervals she appeared suddenly at his side like an angry\ndiamond, and hissed \u2018You promised!\u2019 into his ear.\nThe reluctance to go home was not confined to wayward\nmen. The hall was at present occupied by two deplorably so-\nber men and their highly indignant wives. The wives were\nsympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices.\n\u2018Whenever he sees I\u2019m having a good time he wants to\ngo home.\u2019\n\u2018Never heard anything so selfish in my life.\u2019\n\u2018We\u2019re always the first ones to leave.\u2019\n\u2018So are we.\u2019\n\u2018Well, we\u2019re almost the last tonight,\u2019 said one of the men\nsheepishly. \u2018The orchestra left half an hour ago.\u2019\nIn spite of the wives\u2019 agreement that such malevolence\nwas beyond credibility, the dispute ended in a short strug-\ngle, and both wives were lifted kicking into the night.\nAs I waited for my hat in the hall the door of the library\nopened and Jordan Baker and Gatsby came out together.\nHe was saying some last word to her but the eagerness in his\nmanner tightened abruptly into formality as several people\napproached him to say goodbye.\nJordan\u2019s party were calling impatiently to her from the\nporch but she lingered for a moment to shake hands.\n\u2018I\u2019ve just heard the most amazing thing,\u2019 she whispered.\n\u2018How long were we in there?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 56}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "\u2018Why,\u2014about an hour.\u2019\n\u2018It was\u2014simply amazing,\u2019 she repeated abstractedly. \u2018But\nI swore I wouldn\u2019t tell it and here I am tantalizing you.\u2019 She\nyawned gracefully in my face. \u2018Please come and see me\u2026.\nPhone book\u2026. Under the name of Mrs. Sigourney How-\nard\u2026. My aunt\u2026.\u2019 She was hurrying off as she talked\u2014her\nbrown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted into her\nparty at the door.\nRather ashamed that on my first appearance I had stayed\nso late, I joined the last of Gatsby\u2019s guests who were clus-\ntered around him. I wanted to explain that I\u2019d hunted for\nhim early in the evening and to apologize for not having\nknown him in the garden.\n\u2018Don\u2019t mention it,\u2019 he enjoined me eagerly. \u2018Don\u2019t give it\nanother thought, old sport.\u2019 The familiar expression held no\nmore familiarity than the hand which reassuringly brushed\nmy shoulder. \u2018And don\u2019t forget we\u2019re going up in the hydro-\nplane tomorrow morning at nine o\u2019clock.\u2019\nThen the butler, behind his shoulder:\n\u2018Philadelphia wants you on the phone, sir.\u2019\n\u2018All right, in a minute. Tell them I\u2019ll be right there\u2026.\ngood night.\u2019\n\u2018Good night.\u2019\n\u2018Good night.\u2019 He smiled\u2014and suddenly there seemed\nto be a pleasant significance in having been among the last\nto go, as if he had desired it all the time. \u2018Good night, old\nsport\u2026. Good night.\u2019\nBut as I walked down the steps I saw that the evening was\nnot quite over. Fifty feet from the door a dozen headlights\n\n", "page_number": 57}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene. In the ditch be-\nside the road, right side up but violently shorn of one wheel,\nrested a new coup\u00e9 which had left Gatsby\u2019s drive not two\nminutes before. The sharp jut of a wall accounted for the de-\ntachment of the wheel which was now getting considerable\nattention from half a dozen curious chauffeurs. However, as\nthey had left their cars blocking the road a harsh discordant\ndin from those in the rear had been audible for some time\nand added to the already violent confusion of the scene.\nA man in a long duster had dismounted from the wreck\nand now stood in the middle of the road, looking from the\ncar to the tire and from the tire to the observers in a pleas-\nant, puzzled way.\n\u2018See!\u2019 he explained. \u2018It went in the ditch.\u2019\nThe fact was infinitely astonishing to him\u2014and I rec-\nognized first the unusual quality of wonder and then the\nman\u2014it was the late patron of Gatsby\u2019s library.\n\u2018How\u2019d it happen?\u2019\nHe shrugged his shoulders.\n\u2018I know nothing whatever about mechanics,\u2019 he said de-\ncisively.\n\u2018But how did it happen? Did you run into the wall?\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t ask me,\u2019 said Owl Eyes, washing his hands of the\nwhole matter. \u2018I know very little about driving\u2014next to\nnothing. It happened, and that\u2019s all I know.\u2019\n\u2018Well, if you\u2019re a poor driver you oughtn\u2019t to try driving\nat night.\u2019\n\u2018But I wasn\u2019t even trying,\u2019 he explained indignantly, \u2018I\nwasn\u2019t even trying.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 58}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "An awed hush fell upon the bystanders.\n\u2018Do you want to commit suicide?\u2019\n\u2018You\u2019re lucky it was just a wheel! A bad driver and not\neven TRYing!\u2019\n\u2018You don\u2019t understand,\u2019 explained the criminal. \u2018I wasn\u2019t\ndriving. There\u2019s another man in the car.\u2019\nThe shock that followed this declaration found voice in\na sustained \u2018Ah-h-h!\u2019 as the door of the coup\u00e9 swung slowly\nopen. The crowd\u2014it was now a crowd\u2014stepped back in-\nvoluntarily and when the door had opened wide there was\na ghostly pause. Then, very gradually, part by part, a pale\ndangling individual stepped out of the wreck, pawing tenta-\ntively at the ground with a large uncertain dancing shoe.\nBlinded by the glare of the headlights and confused by\nthe incessant groaning of the horns the apparition stood\nswaying for a moment before he perceived the man in the\nduster.\n\u2018Wha\u2019s matter?\u2019 he inquired calmly. \u2018Did we run outa\ngas?\u2019\n\u2018Look!\u2019\nHalf a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel\u2014he\nstared at it for a moment and then looked upward as though\nhe suspected that it had dropped from the sky.\n\u2018It came off,\u2019 some one explained.\nHe nodded.\n\u2018At first I din\u2019 notice we\u2019d stopped.\u2019\nA pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening\nhis shoulders he remarked in a determined voice:\n\u2018Wonder\u2019ff tell me where there\u2019s a gas\u2019line station?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 59}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "At least a dozen men, some of them little better off than\nhe was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer\njoined by any physical bond.\n\u2018Back out,\u2019 he suggested after a moment. \u2018Put her in re-\nverse.\u2019\n\u2018But the WHEEL\u2019S off!\u2019\nHe hesitated.\n\u2018No harm in trying,\u2019 he said.\nThe caterwauling horns had reached a crescendo and I\nturned away and cut across the lawn toward home. I glanced\nback once. A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby\u2019s\nhouse, making the night fine as before and surviving the\nlaughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A sud-\nden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and\nthe great doors, endowing with complete isolation the fig-\nure of the host who stood on the porch, his hand up in a\nformal gesture of farewell.\nReading over what I have written so far I see I have given\nthe impression that the events of three nights several weeks\napart were all that absorbed me. On the contrary they were\nmerely casual events in a crowded summer and, until much\nlater, they absorbed me infinitely less than my personal af-\nfairs.\nMost of the time I worked. In the early morning the sun\nthrew my shadow westward as I hurried down the white\nchasms of lower New York to the Probity Trust. I knew the\nother clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names\nand lunched with them in dark crowded restaurants on\nlittle pig sausages and mashed potatoes and coffee. I even\n\n", "page_number": 60}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "had a short affair with a girl who lived in Jersey City and\nworked in the accounting department, but her brother be-\ngan throwing mean looks in my direction so when she went\non her vacation in July I let it blow quietly away.\nI took dinner usually at the Yale Club\u2014for some reason\nit was the gloomiest event of my day\u2014and then I went up-\nstairs to the library and studied investments and securities\nfor a conscientious hour. There were generally a few rioters\naround but they never came into the library so it was a good\nplace to work. After that, if the night was mellow I strolled\ndown Madison Avenue past the old Murray Hill Hotel and\nover Thirty-third Street to the Pennsylvania Station.\nI began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of\nit at night and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of\nmen and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I\nliked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic wom-\nen from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was\ngoing to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know\nor disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to\ntheir apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they\nturned and smiled back at me before they faded through\na door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropoli-\ntan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and\nfelt it in others\u2014poor young clerks who loitered in front of\nwindows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant\ndinner\u2014young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poi-\ngnant moments of night and life.\nAgain at eight o\u2019clock, when the dark lanes of the For-\nties were five deep with throbbing taxi cabs, bound for the\n\n", "page_number": 61}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "theatre district, I felt a sinking in my heart. Forms leaned\ntogether in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and\nthere was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted ciga-\nrettes outlined unintelligible gestures inside. Imagining\nthat I, too, was hurrying toward gayety and sharing their\nintimate excitement, I wished them well.\nFor a while I lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in mid-\nsummer I found her again. At first I was flattered to go\nplaces with her because she was a golf champion and ev-\nery one knew her name. Then it was something more. I\nwasn\u2019t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.\nThe bored haughty face that she turned to the world con-\ncealed something\u2014most affectations conceal something\neventually, even though they don\u2019t in the beginning\u2014and\none day I found what it was. When we were on a house-\nparty together up in Warwick, she left a borrowed car out\nin the rain with the top down, and then lied about it\u2014and\nsuddenly I remembered the story about her that had eluded\nme that night at Daisy\u2019s. At her first big golf tournament\nthere was a row that nearly reached the newspapers\u2014a sug-\ngestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the\nsemi-final round. The thing approached the proportions of\na scandal\u2014then died away. A caddy retracted his statement\nand the only other witness admitted that he might have\nbeen mistaken. The incident and the name had remained\ntogether in my mind.\nJordan Baker instinctively avoided clever shrewd men\nand now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane\nwhere any divergence from a code would be thought impos-\n\n", "page_number": 62}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "sible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasn\u2019t able to endure\nbeing at a disadvantage, and given this unwillingness I sup-\npose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was\nvery young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned\nto the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard jaunty\nbody.\nIt made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is\na thing you never blame deeply\u2014I was casually sorry, and\nthen I forgot. It was on that same house party that we had a\ncurious conversation about driving a car. It started because\nshe passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked\na button on one man\u2019s coat.\n\u2018You\u2019re a rotten driver,\u2019 I protested. \u2018Either you ought to\nbe more careful or you oughtn\u2019t to drive at all.\u2019\n\u2018I am careful.\u2019\n\u2018No, you\u2019re not.\u2019\n\u2018Well, other people are,\u2019 she said lightly.\n\u2018What\u2019s that got to do with it?\u2019\n\u2018They\u2019ll keep out of my way,\u2019 she insisted. \u2018It takes two to\nmake an accident.\u2019\n\u2018Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself.\u2019\n\u2018I hope I never will,\u2019 she answered. \u2018I hate careless people.\nThat\u2019s why I like you.\u2019\nHer grey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but\nshe had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment\nI thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of\ninterior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew\nthat first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle\nback home. I\u2019d been writing letters once a week and signing\n\n", "page_number": 63}, {"chapter": 4, "page": "them: \u2018Love, Nick,\u2019 and all I could think of was how, when\nthat certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspi-\nration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a\nvague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off be-\nfore I was free.\nEvery one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal\nvirtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people\nthat I have ever known.\n\n\n\n\n", "page_number": 64}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "\n\nO     n Sunday morning while church bells rang in the vil-\nlages along shore the world and its mistress returned\nto Gatsby\u2019s house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn.\n\u2018He\u2019s a bootlegger,\u2019 said the young ladies, moving some-\nwhere between his cocktails and his flowers. \u2018One time he\nkilled a man who had found out that he was nephew to von\nHindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a\nrose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crys-\ntal glass.\u2019\nOnce I wrote down on the empty spaces of a time-table\nthe names of those who came to Gatsby\u2019s house that sum-\nmer. It is an old time-table now, disintegrating at its folds\nand headed \u2018This schedule in effect July 5th, 1922.\u2019 But I\ncan still read the grey names and they will give you a bet-\nter impression than my generalities of those who accepted\nGatsby\u2019s hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of\nknowing nothing whatever about him.\nFrom East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the\nLeeches and a man named Bunsen whom I knew at Yale and\nDoctor Webster Civet who was drowned last summer up in\nMaine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires and a\nwhole clan named Blackbuck who always gathered in a cor-\nner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came\nnear. And the Ismays and the Chrysties (or rather Hubert\n\n", "page_number": 65}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "Auerbach and Mr. Chrystie\u2019s wife) and Edgar Beaver, whose\nhair they say turned cotton-white one winter afternoon for\nno good reason at all.\nClarence Endive was from East Egg, as I remember. He\ncame only once, in white knickerbockers, and had a fight\nwith a bum named Etty in the garden. From farther out\non the Island came the Cheadles and the O. R. P. Schraed-\ners and the Stonewall Jackson Abrams of Georgia and the\nFishguards and the Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days\nbefore he went to the penitentiary, so drunk out on the grav-\nel drive that Mrs. Ulysses Swett\u2019s automobile ran over his\nright hand. The Dancies came too and S. B. Whitebait, who\nwas well over sixty, and Maurice A. Flink and the Hammer-\nheads and Beluga the tobacco importer and Beluga\u2019s girls.\nFrom West Egg came the Poles and the Mulreadys and\nCecil Roebuck and Cecil Schoen and Gulick the state sena-\ntor and Newton Orchid who controlled Films Par Excellence\nand Eckhaust and Clyde Cohen and Don S. Schwartze (the\nson) and Arthur McCarty, all connected with the movies in\none way or another. And the Catlips and the Bembergs and\nG. Earl Muldoon, brother to that Muldoon who afterward\nstrangled his wife. Da Fontano the promoter came there,\nand Ed Legros and James B. (\u201cRot-Gut\u2019) Ferret and the De\nJongs and Ernest Lilly\u2014they came to gamble and when Fer-\nret wandered into the garden it meant he was cleaned out\nand Associated Traction would have to fluctuate profitably\nnext day.\nA man named Klipspringer was there so often and so\nlong that he became known as \u2018the boarder\u2019\u2014I doubt if\n\n", "page_number": 66}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "he had any other home. Of theatrical people there were\nGus Waize and Horace O\u2019Donavan and Lester Meyer and\nGeorge Duckweed and Francis Bull. Also from New York\nwere the Chromes and the Backhyssons and the Dennick-\ners and Russel Betty and the Corrigans and the Kellehers\nand the Dewars and the Scullys and S. W. Belcher and the\nSmirkes and the young Quinns, divorced now, and Henry\nL. Palmetto who killed himself by jumping in front of a sub-\nway train in Times Square.\nBenny McClenahan arrived always with four girls. They\nwere never quite the same ones in physical person but\nthey were so identical one with another that it inevitably\nseemed they had been there before. I have forgotten their\nnames\u2014Jaqueline, I think, or else Consuela or Gloria or\nJudy or June, and their last names were either the melodi-\nous names of flowers and months or the sterner ones of the\ngreat American capitalists whose cousins, if pressed, they\nwould confess themselves to be.\nIn addition to all these I can remember that Faustina\nO\u2019Brien came there at least once and the Baedeker girls\nand young Brewer who had his nose shot off in the war and\nMr. Albrucksburger and Miss Haag, his fianc\u00e9e, and Ardita\nFitz-Peters, and Mr. P. Jewett, once head of the American\nLegion, and Miss Claudia Hip with a man reputed to be her\nchauffeur, and a prince of something whom we called Duke\nand whose name, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten.\nAll these people came to Gatsby\u2019s house in the summer.\nAt nine o\u2019clock, one morning late in July Gatsby\u2019s gor-\ngeous car lurched up the rocky drive to my door and gave\n\n", "page_number": 67}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "out a burst of melody from its three noted horn. It was the\nfirst time he had called on me though I had gone to two of\nhis parties, mounted in his hydroplane, and, at his urgent\ninvitation, made frequent use of his beach.\n\u2018Good morning, old sport. You\u2019re having lunch with me\ntoday and I thought we\u2019d ride up together.\u2019\nHe was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car\nwith that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly\nAmerican\u2014that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lift-\ning work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the\nformless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality\nwas continually breaking through his punctilious manner\nin the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there\nwas always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient open-\ning and closing of a hand.\nHe saw me looking with admiration at his car.\n\u2018It\u2019s pretty, isn\u2019t it, old sport.\u2019 He jumped off to give me a\nbetter view. \u2018Haven\u2019t you ever seen it before?\u2019\nI\u2019d seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream\ncolor, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its mon-\nstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes\nand tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields\nthat mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many lay-\ners of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory we started\nto town.\nI had talked with him perhaps half a dozen times in the\npast month and found, to my disappointment, that he had\nlittle to say. So my first impression, that he was a person\nof some undefined consequence, had gradually faded and\n\n", "page_number": 68}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "he had become simply the proprietor of an elaborate road-\nhouse next door.\nAnd then came that disconcerting ride. We hadn\u2019t\nreached West Egg village before Gatsby began leaving his\nelegant sentences unfinished and slapping himself indeci-\nsively on the knee of his caramel-colored suit.\n\u2018Look here, old sport,\u2019 he broke out surprisingly. \u2018What\u2019s\nyour opinion of me, anyhow?\u2019\nA little overwhelmed, I began the generalized evasions\nwhich that question deserves.\n\u2018Well, I\u2019m going to tell you something about my life,\u2019\nhe interrupted. \u2018I don\u2019t want you to get a wrong idea of me\nfrom all these stories you hear.\u2019\nSo he was aware of the bizarre accusations that flavored\nconversation in his halls.\n\u2018I\u2019ll tell you God\u2019s truth.\u2019 His right hand suddenly or-\ndered divine retribution to stand by. \u2018I am the son of some\nwealthy people in the middle-west\u2014all dead now. I was\nbrought up in America but educated at Oxford because all\nmy ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is\na family tradition.\u2019\nHe looked at me sideways\u2014and I knew why Jordan Baker\nhad believed he was lying. He hurried the phrase \u2018educated\nat Oxford,\u2019 or swallowed it or choked on it as though it had\nbothered him before. And with this doubt his whole state-\nment fell to pieces and I wondered if there wasn\u2019t something\na little sinister about him after all.\n\u2018What part of the middle-west?\u2019 I inquired casually.\n\u2018San Francisco.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 69}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "\u2018I see.\u2019\n\u2018My family all died and I came into a good deal of mon-\ney.\u2019\nHis voice was solemn as if the memory of that sud-\nden extinction of a clan still haunted him. For a moment\nI suspected that he was pulling my leg but a glance at him\nconvinced me otherwise.\n\u2018After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals\nof Europe\u2014Paris, Venice, Rome\u2014collecting jewels, chiefly\nrubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself\nonly, and trying to forget something very sad that had hap-\npened to me long ago.\u2019\nWith an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous\nlaughter. The very phrases were worn so threadbare that\nthey evoked no image except that of a turbaned \u2018character\u2019\nleaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through\nthe Bois de Boulogne.\n\u2018Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief and\nI tried very hard to die but I seemed to bear an enchant-\ned life. I accepted a commission as first lieutenant when it\nbegan. In the Argonne Forest I took two machine-gun de-\ntachments so far forward that there was a half mile gap on\neither side of us where the infantry couldn\u2019t advance. We\nstayed there two days and two nights, a hundred and thirty\nmen with sixteen Lewis guns, and when the infantry came\nup at last they found the insignia of three German divisions\namong the piles of dead. I was promoted to be a major and\nevery Allied government gave me a decoration\u2014even Mon-\ntenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 70}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded\nat them\u2014with his smile. The smile comprehended Monte-\nnegro\u2019s troubled history and sympathized with the brave\nstruggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated fully\nthe chain of national circumstances which had elicited this\ntribute from Montenegro\u2019s warm little heart. My increduli-\nty was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming\nhastily through a dozen magazines.\nHe reached in his pocket and a piece of metal, slung on a\nribbon, fell into my palm.\n\u2018That\u2019s the one from Montenegro.\u2019\nTo my astonishment, the thing had an authentic look.\nOrderi di Danilo, ran the circular legend, Montenegro,\nNicolas Rex.\n\u2018Turn it.\u2019\nMajor Jay Gatsby, I read, For Valour Extraordinary.\n\u2018Here\u2019s another thing I always carry. A souvenir of Ox-\nford days. It was taken in Trinity Quad\u2014the man on my left\nis now the Earl of Dorcaster.\u2019\nIt was a photograph of half a dozen young men in blazers\nloafing in an archway through which were visible a host of\nspires. There was Gatsby, looking a little, not much, young-\ner\u2014with a cricket bat in his hand.\nThen it was all true. I saw the skins of tigers flaming in\nhis palace on the Grand Canal; I saw him opening a chest of\nrubies to ease, with their crimson-lighted depths, the gnaw-\nings of his broken heart.\n\u2018I\u2019m going to make a big request of you today,\u2019 he said,\npocketing his souvenirs with satisfaction, \u2018so I thought you\n\n", "page_number": 71}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "ought to know something about me. I didn\u2019t want you to\nthink I was just some nobody. You see, I usually find my-\nself among strangers because I drift here and there trying\nto forget the sad thing that happened to me.\u2019 He hesitated.\n\u2018You\u2019ll hear about it this afternoon.\u2019\n\u2018At lunch?\u2019\n\u2018No, this afternoon. I happened to find out that you\u2019re\ntaking Miss Baker to tea.\u2019\n\u2018Do you mean you\u2019re in love with Miss Baker?\u2019\n\u2018No, old sport, I\u2019m not. But Miss Baker has kindly con-\nsented to speak to you about this matter.\u2019\nI hadn\u2019t the faintest idea what \u2018this matter\u2019 was, but I was\nmore annoyed than interested. I hadn\u2019t asked Jordan to tea\nin order to discuss Mr. Jay Gatsby. I was sure the request\nwould be something utterly fantastic and for a moment I\nwas sorry I\u2019d ever set foot upon his overpopulated lawn.\nHe wouldn\u2019t say another word. His correctness grew on\nhim as we neared the city. We passed Port Roosevelt, where\nthere was a glimpse of red-belted ocean-going ships, and\nsped along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserted\nsaloons of the faded gilt nineteen-hundreds. Then the valley\nof ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse\nof Mrs. Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting\nvitality as we went by.\nWith fenders spread like wings we scattered light through\nhalf Astoria\u2014only half, for as we twisted among the pillars\nof the elevated I heard the familiar \u2018jug\u2014jug\u2014SPAT!\u2019 of a\nmotor cycle, and a frantic policeman rode alongside.\n\u2018All right, old sport,\u2019 called Gatsby. We slowed down.\n\n", "page_number": 72}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "Taking a white card from his wallet he waved it before the\nman\u2019s eyes.\n\u2018Right you are,\u2019 agreed the policeman, tipping his cap.\n\u2018Know you next time, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse ME!\u2019\n\u2018What was that?\u2019 I inquired. \u2018The picture of Oxford?\u2019\n\u2018I was able to do the commissioner a favor once, and he\nsends me a Christmas card every year.\u2019\nOver the great bridge, with the sunlight through the\ngirders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars,\nwith the city rising up across the river in white heaps and\nsugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory mon-\ney. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the\ncity seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the\nmystery and the beauty in the world.\nA dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms,\nfollowed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more\ncheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us\nwith the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern\nEurope, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby\u2019s splendid\ncar was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed\nBlackwell\u2019s Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white\nchauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks\nand a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs\nrolled toward us in haughty rivalry.\n\u2018Anything can happen now that we\u2019ve slid over this\nbridge,\u2019 I thought; \u2018anything at all\u2026.\u2019\nEven Gatsby could happen, without any particular won-\nder.\nRoaring noon. In a well-fanned Forty-second Street cel-\n\n", "page_number": 73}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "lar I met Gatsby for lunch. Blinking away the brightness of\nthe street outside my eyes picked him out obscurely in the\nanteroom, talking to another man.\n\u2018Mr. Carraway this is my friend Mr. Wolfshiem.\u2019\nA small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regard-\ned me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in\neither nostril. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in\nthe half darkness.\n\u2018\u2014so I took one look at him\u2014\u2019 said Mr. Wolfshiem, shak-\ning my hand earnestly, \u2018\u2014and what do you think I did?\u2019\n\u2018What?\u2019 I inquired politely.\nBut evidently he was not addressing me for he dropped\nmy hand and covered Gatsby with his expressive nose.\n\u2018I handed the money to Katspaugh and I sid, \u2018All right,\nKatspaugh, don\u2019t pay him a penny till he shuts his mouth.\u2019\nHe shut it then and there.\u2019\nGatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward\ninto the restaurant whereupon Mr. Wolfshiem swallowed a\nnew sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambu-\nlatory abstraction.\n\u2018Highballs?\u2019 asked the head waiter.\n\u2018This is a nice restaurant here,\u2019 said Mr. Wolfshiem look-\ning at the Presbyterian nymphs on the ceiling. \u2018But I like\nacross the street better!\u2019\n\u2018Yes, highballs,\u2019 agreed Gatsby, and then to Mr. Wolf-\nshiem: \u2018It\u2019s too hot over there.\u2019\n\u2018Hot and small\u2014yes,\u2019 said Mr. Wolfshiem, \u2018but full of\nmemories.\u2019\n\u2018What place is that?\u2019 I asked.\n\n", "page_number": 74}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "\u2018The old Metropole.\n\u2018The old Metropole,\u2019 brooded Mr. Wolfshiem gloomily.\n\u2018Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone\nnow forever. I can\u2019t forget so long as I live the night they\nshot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table and\nRosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was al-\nmost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny\nlook and says somebody wants to speak to him outside. \u2018All\nright,\u2019 says Rosy and begins to get up and I pulled him down\nin his chair.\n\u2019 \u2018Let the bastards come in here if they want you, Rosy,\nbut don\u2019t you, so help me, move outside this room.\u2019\n\u2018It was four o\u2019clock in the morning then, and if we\u2019d of\nraised the blinds we\u2019d of seen daylight.\u2019\n\u2018Did he go?\u2019 I asked innocently.\n\u2018Sure he went,\u2019\u2014Mr. Wolfshiem\u2019s nose flashed at me in-\ndignantly\u2014\u2018He turned around in the door and says, \u2018Don\u2019t\nlet that waiter take away my coffee!\u2019 Then he went out on\nthe sidewalk and they shot him three times in his full belly\nand drove away.\u2019\n\u2018Four of them were electrocuted,\u2019 I said, remembering.\n\u2018Five with Becker.\u2019 His nostrils turned to me in an in-\nterested way. \u2018I understand you\u2019re looking for a business\ngonnegtion.\u2019\nThe juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling.\nGatsby answered for me:\n\u2018Oh, no,\u2019 he exclaimed, \u2018this isn\u2019t the man!\u2019\n\u2018No?\u2019 Mr. Wolfshiem seemed disappointed.\n\u2018This is just a friend. I told you we\u2019d talk about that some\n\n", "page_number": 75}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "other time.\u2019\n\u2018I beg your pardon,\u2019 said Mr. Wolfshiem, \u2018I had a wrong\nman.\u2019\nA succulent hash arrived, and Mr. Wolfshiem, forget-\nting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole,\nbegan to eat with ferocious delicacy. His eyes, meanwhile,\nroved very slowly all around the room\u2014he completed the\narc by turning to inspect the people directly behind. I think\nthat, except for my presence, he would have taken one short\nglance beneath our own table.\n\u2018Look here, old sport,\u2019 said Gatsby, leaning toward me,\n\u2018I\u2019m afraid I made you a little angry this morning in the\ncar.\u2019\nThere was the smile again, but this time I held out against\nit.\n\u2018I don\u2019t like mysteries,\u2019 I answered. \u2018And I don\u2019t under-\nstand why you won\u2019t come out frankly and tell me what you\nwant. Why has it all got to come through Miss Baker?\u2019\n\u2018Oh, it\u2019s nothing underhand,\u2019 he assured me. \u2018Miss Bak-\ner\u2019s a great sportswoman, you know, and she\u2019d never do\nanything that wasn\u2019t all right.\u2019\nSuddenly he looked at his watch, jumped up and hurried\nfrom the room leaving me with Mr. Wolfshiem at the table.\n\u2018He has to telephone,\u2019 said Mr. Wolfshiem, following him\nwith his eyes. \u2018Fine fellow, isn\u2019t he? Handsome to look at and\na perfect gentleman.\u2019\n\u2018Yes.\u2019\n\u2018He\u2019s an Oggsford man.\u2019\n\u2018Oh!\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 76}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "\u2018He went to Oggsford College in England. You know\nOggsford College?\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019ve heard of it.\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019s one of the most famous colleges in the world.\u2019\n\u2018Have you known Gatsby for a long time?\u2019 I inquired.\n\u2018Several years,\u2019 he answered in a gratified way. \u2018I made\nthe pleasure of his acquaintance just after the war. But I\nknew I had discovered a man of fine breeding after I talked\nwith him an hour. I said to myself: \u2018There\u2019s the kind of man\nyou\u2019d like to take home and introduce to your mother and\nsister.\u2019 \u2018 He paused. \u2018I see you\u2019re looking at my cuff buttons.\u2019\nI hadn\u2019t been looking at them, but I did now. They were\ncomposed of oddly familiar pieces of ivory.\n\u2018Finest specimens of human molars,\u2019 he informed me.\n\u2018Well!\u2019 I inspected them. \u2018That\u2019s a very interesting idea.\u2019\n\u2018Yeah.\u2019 He flipped his sleeves up under his coat. \u2018Yeah,\nGatsby\u2019s very careful about women. He would never so\nmuch as look at a friend\u2019s wife.\u2019\nWhen the subject of this instinctive trust returned to the\ntable and sat down Mr. Wolfshiem drank his coffee with a\njerk and got to his feet.\n\u2018I have enjoyed my lunch,\u2019 he said, \u2018and I\u2019m going to run\noff from you two young men before I outstay my welcome.\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t hurry, Meyer,\u2019 said Gatsby, without enthusiasm.\nMr. Wolfshiem raised his hand in a sort of benediction.\n\u2018You\u2019re very polite but I belong to another generation,\u2019 he\nannounced solemnly. \u2018You sit here and discuss your sports\nand your young ladies and your\u2014\u2014\u2019 He supplied an imagi-\nnary noun with another wave of his hand\u2014\u2018As for me, I am\n\n", "page_number": 77}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "fifty years old, and I won\u2019t impose myself on you any lon-\nger.\u2019\nAs he shook hands and turned away his tragic nose was\ntrembling. I wondered if I had said anything to offend him.\n\u2018He becomes very sentimental sometimes,\u2019 explained\nGatsby. \u2018This is one of his sentimental days. He\u2019s quite a\ncharacter around New York\u2014a denizen of Broadway.\u2019\n\u2018Who is he anyhow\u2014an actor?\u2019\n\u2018No.\u2019\n\u2018A dentist?\u2019\n\u2018Meyer Wolfshiem? No, he\u2019s a gambler.\u2019 Gatsby hesitated,\nthen added coolly: \u2018He\u2019s the man who fixed the World\u2019s Se-\nries back in 1919.\u2019\n\u2018Fixed the World\u2019s Series?\u2019 I repeated.\nThe idea staggered me. I remembered of course that the\nWorld\u2019s Series had been fixed in 1919 but if I had thought\nof it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that mere-\nly HAPPENED, the end of some inevitable chain. It never\noccurred to me that one man could start to play with the\nfaith of fifty million people\u2014with the single-mindedness of\na burglar blowing a safe.\n\u2018How did he happen to do that?\u2019 I asked after a minute.\n\u2018He just saw the opportunity.\u2019\n\u2018Why isn\u2019t he in jail?\u2019\n\u2018They can\u2019t get him, old sport. He\u2019s a smart man.\u2019\nI insisted on paying the check. As the waiter brought my\nchange I caught sight of Tom Buchanan across the crowded\nroom.\n\u2018Come along with me for a minute,\u2019 I said. \u2018I\u2019ve got to say\n\n", "page_number": 78}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "hello to someone.\u2019\nWhen he saw us Tom jumped up and took half a dozen\nsteps in our direction.\n\u2018Where\u2019ve you been?\u2019 he demanded eagerly. \u2018Daisy\u2019s furi-\nous because you haven\u2019t called up.\u2019\n\u2018This is Mr. Gatsby, Mr. Buchanan.\u2019\nThey shook hands briefly and a strained, unfamiliar look\nof embarrassment came over Gatsby\u2019s face.\n\u2018How\u2019ve you been, anyhow?\u2019 demanded Tom of me.\n\u2018How\u2019d you happen to come up this far to eat?\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019ve been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby.\u2019\nI turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there.\nOne October day in nineteen-seventeen\u2014\u2014 (said Jordan\nBaker that afternoon, sitting up very straight on a straight\nchair in the tea-garden at the Plaza Hotel) \u2014I was walk-\ning along from one place to another half on the sidewalks\nand half on the lawns. I was happier on the lawns because I\nhad on shoes from England with rubber nobs on the soles\nthat bit into the soft ground. I had on a new plaid skirt also\nthat blew a little in the wind and whenever this happened\nthe red, white and blue banners in front of all the houses\nstretched out stiff and said TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT in a disap-\nproving way.\nThe largest of the banners and the largest of the lawns\nbelonged to Daisy Fay\u2019s house. She was just eighteen, two\nyears older than me, and by far the most popular of all the\nyoung girls in Louisville. She dressed in white, and had a\nlittle white roadster and all day long the telephone rang\nin her house and excited young officers from Camp Tay-\n\n", "page_number": 79}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "lor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night,\n\u2018anyways, for an hour!\u2019\nWhen I came opposite her house that morning her white\nroadster was beside the curb, and she was sitting in it with a\nlieutenant I had never seen before. They were so engrossed\nin each other that she didn\u2019t see me until I was five feet\naway.\n\u2018Hello Jordan,\u2019 she called unexpectedly. \u2018Please come\nhere.\u2019\nI was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because\nof all the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I\nwas going to the Red Cross and make bandages. I was. Well,\nthen, would I tell them that she couldn\u2019t come that day? The\nofficer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way\nthat every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and\nbecause it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the\nincident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby and I didn\u2019t\nlay eyes on him again for over four years\u2014even after I\u2019d met\nhim on Long Island I didn\u2019t realize it was the same man.\nThat was nineteen-seventeen. By the next year I had a\nfew beaux myself, and I began to play in tournaments, so\nI didn\u2019t see Daisy very often. She went with a slightly old-\ner crowd\u2014when she went with anyone at all. Wild rumors\nwere circulating about her\u2014how her mother had found her\npacking her bag one winter night to go to New York and say\ngoodbye to a soldier who was going overseas. She was effec-\ntually prevented, but she wasn\u2019t on speaking terms with her\nfamily for several weeks. After that she didn\u2019t play around\nwith the soldiers any more but only with a few flat-footed,\n\n", "page_number": 80}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "short-sighted young men in town who couldn\u2019t get into the\narmy at all.\nBy the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. She\nhad a debut after the Armistice, and in February she was\npresumably engaged to a man from New Orleans. In June\nshe married Tom Buchanan of Chicago with more pomp\nand circumstance than Louisville ever knew before. He\ncame down with a hundred people in four private cars and\nhired a whole floor of the Seelbach Hotel, and the day before\nthe wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three\nhundred and fifty thousand dollars.\nI was bridesmaid. I came into her room half an hour be-\nfore the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as\nlovely as the June night in her flowered dress\u2014and as drunk\nas a monkey. She had a bottle of sauterne in one hand and a\nletter in the other.\n\u2019 \u2018Gratulate me,\u2019 she muttered. \u2018Never had a drink before\nbut oh, how I do enjoy it.\u2019\n\u2018What\u2019s the matter, Daisy?\u2019\nI was scared, I can tell you; I\u2019d never seen a girl like that\nbefore.\n\u2018Here, dearis.\u2019 She groped around in a waste-basket she\nhad with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls.\n\u2018Take \u2018em downstairs and give \u2018em back to whoever they\nbelong to. Tell \u2018em all Daisy\u2019s change\u2019 her mine. Say \u2018Daisy\u2019s\nchange\u2019 her mine!\u2019.\u2019\nShe began to cry\u2014she cried and cried. I rushed out and\nfound her mother\u2019s maid and we locked the door and got\nher into a cold bath. She wouldn\u2019t let go of the letter. She\n\n", "page_number": 81}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet\nball, and only let me leave it in the soap dish when she saw\nthat it was coming to pieces like snow.\nBut she didn\u2019t say another word. We gave her spirits of\nammonia and put ice on her forehead and hooked her back\ninto her dress and half an hour later when we walked out of\nthe room the pearls were around her neck and the incident\nwas over. Next day at five o\u2019clock she married Tom Buchan-\nan without so much as a shiver and started off on a three\nmonths\u2019 trip to the South Seas.\nI saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back and\nI thought I\u2019d never seen a girl so mad about her husband.\nIf he left the room for a minute she\u2019d look around uneasily\nand say \u2018Where\u2019s Tom gone?\u2019 and wear the most abstract-\ned expression until she saw him coming in the door. She\nused to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the hour\nrubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with\nunfathomable delight. It was touching to see them togeth-\ner\u2014it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was\nin August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into\na wagon on the Ventura road one night and ripped a front\nwheel off his car. The girl who was with him got into the pa-\npers too because her arm was broken\u2014she was one of the\nchambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel.\nThe next April Daisy had her little girl and they went to\nFrance for a year. I saw them one spring in Cannes and later\nin Deauville and then they came back to Chicago to settle\ndown. Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know. They\nmoved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and\n\n", "page_number": 82}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation.\nPerhaps because she doesn\u2019t drink. It\u2019s a great advantage not\nto drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your\ntongue and, moreover, you can time any little irregulari-\nty of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they\ndon\u2019t see or care. Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at\nall\u2014and yet there\u2019s something in that voice of hers\u2026.\nWell, about six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for\nthe first time in years. It was when I asked you\u2014do you re-\nmember?\u2014if you knew Gatsby in West Egg. After you had\ngone home she came into my room and woke me up, and\nsaid \u2018What Gatsby?\u2019 and when I described him\u2014I was half\nasleep\u2014she said in the strangest voice that it must be the\nman she used to know. It wasn\u2019t until then that I connected\nthis Gatsby with the officer in her white car.\nWhen Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had\nleft the Plaza for half an hour and were driving in a Victoria\nthrough Central Park. The sun had gone down behind the\ntall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties and\nthe clear voices of girls, already gathered like crickets on the\ngrass, rose through the hot twilight:\n\n\u2018I\u2019m the Sheik of Araby,\nYour love belongs to me.\nAt night when you\u2019re are asleep,\nInto your tent I\u2019ll creep\u2014\u2014\u2019\n\n\u2018It was a strange coincidence,\u2019 I said.\n\u2018But it wasn\u2019t a coincidence at all.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 83}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "\u2018Why not?\u2019\n\u2018Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just\nacross the bay.\u2019\nThen it had not been merely the stars to which he had\naspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered\nsuddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor.\n\u2018He wants to know\u2014\u2019 continued Jordan \u2018\u2014if you\u2019ll in-\nvite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him\ncome over.\u2019\nThe modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited\nfive years and bought a mansion where he dispensed star-\nlight to casual moths so that he could \u2018come over\u2019 some\nafternoon to a stranger\u2019s garden.\n\u2018Did I have to know all this before he could ask such a\nlittle thing?\u2019\n\u2018He\u2019s afraid. He\u2019s waited so long. He thought you might\nbe offended. You see he\u2019s a regular tough underneath it all.\u2019\nSomething worried me.\n\u2018Why didn\u2019t he ask you to arrange a meeting?\u2019\n\u2018He wants her to see his house,\u2019 she explained. \u2018And your\nhouse is right next door.\u2019\n\u2018Oh!\u2019\n\u2018I think he half expected her to wander into one of his\nparties, some night,\u2019 went on Jordan, \u2018but she never did.\nThen he began asking people casually if they knew her, and\nI was the first one he found. It was that night he sent for me\nat his dance, and you should have heard the elaborate way\nhe worked up to it. Of course, I immediately suggested a\nluncheon in New York\u2014and I thought he\u2019d go mad:\n\n", "page_number": 84}, {"chapter": 5, "page": "\u2019 \u2018I don\u2019t want to do anything out of the way!\u2019 he kept say-\ning. \u2018I want to see her right next door.\u2019\n\u2018When I said you were a particular friend of Tom\u2019s he\nstarted to abandon the whole idea. He doesn\u2019t know very\nmuch about Tom, though he says he\u2019s read a Chicago paper\nfor years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy\u2019s\nname.\u2019\nIt was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge\nI put my arm around Jordan\u2019s golden shoulder and drew\nher toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn\u2019t\nthinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more but of this clean,\nhard, limited person who dealt in universal skepticism and\nwho leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A\nphrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excite-\nment: \u2018There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy\nand the tired.\u2019\n\u2018And Daisy ought to have something in her life,\u2019 mur-\nmured Jordan to me.\n\u2018Does she want to see Gatsby?\u2019\n\u2018She\u2019s not to know about it. Gatsby doesn\u2019t want her to\nknow. You\u2019re just supposed to invite her to tea.\u2019\nWe passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the facade\nof Fifty-ninth Street, a block of delicate pale light, beamed\ndown into the park. Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan I\nhad no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark\ncornices and blinding signs and so I drew up the girl beside\nme, tightening my arms. Her wan, scornful mouth smiled\nand so I drew her up again, closer, this time to my face.\n\n\n", "page_number": 85}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "\n\nW        hen I came home to West Egg that night I was afraid\nfor a moment that my house was on fire. Two o\u2019clock\nand the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light\nwhich fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongat-\ning glints upon the roadside wires. Turning a corner I saw\nthat it was Gatsby\u2019s house, lit from tower to cellar.\nAt first I thought it was another party, a wild rout that\nhad resolved itself into \u2018hide-and-go-seek\u2019 or \u2018sardines-in-\nthe-box\u2019 with all the house thrown open to the game. But\nthere wasn\u2019t a sound. Only wind in the trees which blew the\nwires and made the lights go off and on again as if the house\nhad winked into the darkness. As my taxi groaned away I\nsaw Gatsby walking toward me across his lawn.\n\u2018Your place looks like the world\u2019s fair,\u2019 I said.\n\u2018Does it?\u2019 He turned his eyes toward it absently. \u2018I have\nbeen glancing into some of the rooms. Let\u2019s go to Coney Is-\nland, old sport. In my car.\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019s too late.\u2019\n\u2018Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming pool? I\nhaven\u2019t made use of it all summer.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019ve got to go to bed.\u2019\n\u2018All right.\u2019\nHe waited, looking at me with suppressed eagerness.\n\u2018I talked with Miss Baker,\u2019 I said after a moment. \u2018I\u2019m go-\n\n", "page_number": 86}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "ing to call up Daisy tomorrow and invite her over here to\ntea.\u2019\n\u2018Oh, that\u2019s all right,\u2019 he said carelessly. \u2018I don\u2019t want to put\nyou to any trouble.\u2019\n\u2018What day would suit you?\u2019\n\u2018What day would suit YOU?\u2019 he corrected me quickly. \u2018I\ndon\u2019t want to put you to any trouble, you see.\u2019\n\u2018How about the day after tomorrow?\u2019 He considered for a\nmoment. Then, with reluctance:\n\u2018I want to get the grass cut,\u2019 he said.\nWe both looked at the grass\u2014there was a sharp line\nwhere my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept ex-\npanse of his began. I suspected that he meant my grass.\n\u2018There\u2019s another little thing,\u2019 he said uncertainly, and\nhesitated.\n\u2018Would you rather put it off for a few days?\u2019 I asked.\n\u2018Oh, it isn\u2019t about that. At least\u2014\u2014\u2019 He fumbled with a\nseries of beginnings. \u2018Why, I thought\u2014why, look here, old\nsport, you don\u2019t make much money, do you?\u2019\n\u2018Not very much.\u2019\nThis seemed to reassure him and he continued more\nconfidently.\n\u2018I thought you didn\u2019t, if you\u2019ll pardon my\u2014you see,\nI carry on a little business on the side, a sort of sideline,\nyou understand. And I thought that if you don\u2019t make very\nmuch\u2014You\u2019re selling bonds, aren\u2019t you, old sport?\u2019\n\u2018Trying to.\u2019\n\u2018Well, this would interest you. It wouldn\u2019t take up much\nof your time and you might pick up a nice bit of money. It\n\n", "page_number": 87}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing.\u2019\nI realize now that under different circumstances that\nconversation might have been one of the crises of my life.\nBut, because the offer was obviously and tactlessly for a ser-\nvice to be rendered, I had no choice except to cut him off\nthere.\n\u2018I\u2019ve got my hands full,\u2019 I said. \u2018I\u2019m much obliged but I\ncouldn\u2019t take on any more work.\u2019\n\u2018You wouldn\u2019t have to do any business with Wolfshiem.\u2019\nEvidently he thought that I was shying away from the \u2018gon-\nnegtion\u2019 mentioned at lunch, but I assured him he was\nwrong. He waited a moment longer, hoping I\u2019d begin a con-\nversation, but I was too absorbed to be responsive, so he\nwent unwillingly home.\nThe evening had made me light-headed and happy; I\nthink I walked into a deep sleep as I entered my front door.\nSo I didn\u2019t know whether or not Gatsby went to Coney Is-\nland or for how many hours he \u2018glanced into rooms\u2019 while\nhis house blazed gaudily on. I called up Daisy from the of-\nfice next morning and invited her to come to tea.\n\u2018Don\u2019t bring Tom,\u2019 I warned her.\n\u2018What?\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t bring Tom.\u2019\n\u2018Who is \u2018Tom\u2019?\u2019 she asked innocently.\nThe day agreed upon was pouring rain. At eleven o\u2019clock\na man in a raincoat dragging a lawn-mower tapped at my\nfront door and said that Mr. Gatsby had sent him over to\ncut my grass. This reminded me that I had forgotten to tell\nmy Finn to come back so I drove into West Egg Village to\n\n", "page_number": 88}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "search for her among soggy white-washed alleys and to buy\nsome cups and lemons and flowers.\nThe flowers were unnecessary, for at two o\u2019clock a green-\nhouse arrived from Gatsby\u2019s, with innumerable receptacles\nto contain it. An hour later the front door opened nervously,\nand Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-col-\nored tie hurried in. He was pale and there were dark signs of\nsleeplessness beneath his eyes.\n\u2018Is everything all right?\u2019 he asked immediately.\n\u2018The grass looks fine, if that\u2019s what you mean.\u2019\n\u2018What grass?\u2019 he inquired blankly. \u2018Oh, the grass in the\nyard.\u2019 He looked out the window at it, but judging from his\nexpression I don\u2019t believe he saw a thing.\n\u2018Looks very good,\u2019 he remarked vaguely. \u2018One of the\npapers said they thought the rain would stop about four.\nI think it was \u2018The Journal.\u2019 Have you got everything you\nneed in the shape of\u2014of tea?\u2019\nI took him into the pantry where he looked a little re-\nproachfully at the Finn. Together we scrutinized the twelve\nlemon cakes from the delicatessen shop.\n\u2018Will they do?\u2019 I asked.\n\u2018Of course, of course! They\u2019re fine!\u2019 and he added hol-\nlowly, \u2018\u2026old sport.\u2019\nThe rain cooled about half-past three to a damp mist\nthrough which occasional thin drops swam like dew. Gatsby\nlooked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clay\u2019s \u2018Econom-\nics,\u2019 starting at the Finnish tread that shook the kitchen\nfloor and peering toward the bleared windows from time to\ntime as if a series of invisible but alarming happenings were\n\n", "page_number": 89}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "taking place outside. Finally he got up and informed me in\nan uncertain voice that he was going home.\n\u2018Why\u2019s that?\u2019\n\u2018Nobody\u2019s coming to tea. It\u2019s too late!\u2019 He looked at his\nwatch as if there was some pressing demand on his time\nelsewhere. \u2018I can\u2019t wait all day.\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t be silly; it\u2019s just two minutes to four.\u2019\nHe sat down, miserably, as if I had pushed him, and si-\nmultaneously there was the sound of a motor turning into\nmy lane. We both jumped up and, a little harrowed myself,\nI went out into the yard.\nUnder the dripping bare lilac trees a large open car was\ncoming up the drive. It stopped. Daisy\u2019s face, tipped side-\nways beneath a three-cornered lavender hat, looked out at\nme with a bright ecstatic smile.\n\u2018Is this absolutely where you live, my dearest one?\u2019\nThe exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in\nthe rain. I had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and\ndown, with my ear alone before any words came through. A\ndamp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her\ncheek and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took\nit to help her from the car.\n\u2018Are you in love with me,\u2019 she said low in my ear. \u2018Or why\ndid I have to come alone?\u2019\n\u2018That\u2019s the secret of Castle Rackrent. Tell your chauffeur\nto go far away and spend an hour.\u2019\n\u2018Come back in an hour, Ferdie.\u2019 Then in a grave murmur,\n\u2018His name is Ferdie.\u2019\n\u2018Does the gasoline affect his nose?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 90}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "\u2018I don\u2019t think so,\u2019 she said innocently. \u2018Why?\u2019\nWe went in. To my overwhelming surprise the living\nroom was deserted.\n\u2018Well, that\u2019s funny!\u2019 I exclaimed.\n\u2018What\u2019s funny?\u2019\nShe turned her head as there was a light, dignified knock-\ning at the front door. I went out and opened it. Gatsby, pale\nas death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat\npockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragi-\ncally into my eyes.\nWith his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me\ninto the hall, turned sharply as if he were on a wire and dis-\nappeared into the living room. It wasn\u2019t a bit funny. Aware\nof the loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to\nagainst the increasing rain.\nFor half a minute there wasn\u2019t a sound. Then from the\nliving room I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a\nlaugh followed by Daisy\u2019s voice on a clear artificial note.\n\u2018I certainly am awfully glad to see you again.\u2019\nA pause; it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the\nhall so I went into the room.\nGatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining\nagainst the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect\nease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that it\nrested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock and\nfrom this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy\nwho was sitting frightened but graceful on the edge of a stiff\nchair.\n\u2018We\u2019ve met before,\u2019 muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced\n\n", "page_number": 91}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "momentarily at me and his lips parted with an abortive\nattempt at a laugh. Luckily the clock took this moment to\ntilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he\nturned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back\nin place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm of\nthe sofa and his chin in his hand.\n\u2018I\u2019m sorry about the clock,\u2019 he said.\nMy own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. I\ncouldn\u2019t muster up a single commonplace out of the thou-\nsand in my head.\n\u2018It\u2019s an old clock,\u2019 I told them idiotically.\nI think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed\nin pieces on the floor.\n\u2018We haven\u2019t met for many years,\u2019 said Daisy, her voice as\nmatter-of-fact as it could ever be.\n\u2018Five years next November.\u2019\nThe automatic quality of Gatsby\u2019s answer set us all back\nat least another minute. I had them both on their feet with\nthe desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in the\nkitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray.\nAmid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes a cer-\ntain physical decency established itself. Gatsby got himself\ninto a shadow and while Daisy and I talked looked consci-\nentiously from one to the other of us with tense unhappy\neyes. However, as calmness wasn\u2019t an end in itself I made an\nexcuse at the first possible moment and got to my feet.\n\u2018Where are you going?\u2019 demanded Gatsby in immediate\nalarm.\n\u2018I\u2019ll be back.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 92}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "\u2018I\u2019ve got to speak to you about something before you go.\u2019\nHe followed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the door\nand whispered: \u2018Oh, God!\u2019 in a miserable way.\n\u2018What\u2019s the matter?\u2019\n\u2018This is a terrible mistake,\u2019 he said, shaking his head from\nside to side, \u2018a terrible, terrible mistake.\u2019\n\u2018You\u2019re just embarrassed, that\u2019s all,\u2019 and luckily I added:\n\u2018Daisy\u2019s embarrassed too.\u2019\n\u2018She\u2019s embarrassed?\u2019 he repeated incredulously.\n\u2018Just as much as you are.\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t talk so loud.\u2019\n\u2018You\u2019re acting like a little boy,\u2019 I broke out impatiently.\n\u2018Not only that but you\u2019re rude. Daisy\u2019s sitting in there all\nalone.\u2019\nHe raised his hand to stop my words, looked at me with\nunforgettable reproach and opening the door cautiously\nwent back into the other room.\nI walked out the back way\u2014just as Gatsby had when he\nhad made his nervous circuit of the house half an hour be-\nfore\u2014and ran for a huge black knotted tree whose massed\nleaves made a fabric against the rain. Once more it was\npouring and my irregular lawn, well-shaved by Gatsby\u2019s\ngardener, abounded in small muddy swamps and prehis-\ntoric marshes. There was nothing to look at from under\nthe tree except Gatsby\u2019s enormous house, so I stared at it,\nlike Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour. A brewer\nhad built it early in the \u2018period\u2019 craze, a decade before, and\nthere was a story that he\u2019d agreed to pay five years\u2019 taxes\non all the neighboring cottages if the owners would have\n\n", "page_number": 93}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "their roofs thatched with straw. Perhaps their refusal took\nthe heart out of his plan to Found a Family\u2014he went into\nan immediate decline. His children sold his house with the\nblack wreath still on the door. Americans, while occasion-\nally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about\nbeing peasantry.\nAfter half an hour the sun shone again and the grocer\u2019s\nautomobile rounded Gatsby\u2019s drive with the raw material\nfor his servants\u2019 dinner\u2014I felt sure he wouldn\u2019t eat a spoon-\nful. A maid began opening the upper windows of his house,\nappeared momentarily in each, and, leaning from a large\ncentral bay, spat meditatively into the garden. It was time I\nwent back. While the rain continued it had seemed like the\nmurmur of their voices, rising and swelling a little, now and\nthe, with gusts of emotion. But in the new silence I felt that\nsilence had fallen within the house too.\nI went in\u2014after making every possible noise in the kitch-\nen short of pushing over the stove\u2014but I don\u2019t believe they\nheard a sound. They were sitting at either end of the couch\nlooking at each other as if some question had been asked\nor was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was\ngone. Daisy\u2019s face was smeared with tears and when I came\nin she jumped up and began wiping at it with her hand-\nkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby\nthat was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without\na word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated\nfrom him and filled the little room.\n\u2018Oh, hello, old sport,\u2019 he said, as if he hadn\u2019t seen me\nfor years. I thought for a moment he was going to shake\n\n", "page_number": 94}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "hands.\n\u2018It\u2019s stopped raining.\u2019\n\u2018Has it?\u2019 When he realized what I was talking about, that\nthere were twinkle-bells of sunshine in the room, he smiled\nlike a weather man, like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light,\nand repeated the news to Daisy. \u2018What do you think of that?\nIt\u2019s stopped raining.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019m glad, Jay.\u2019 Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty,\ntold only of her unexpected joy.\n\u2018I want you and Daisy to come over to my house,\u2019 he said,\n\u2018I\u2019d like to show her around.\u2019\n\u2018You\u2019re sure you want me to come?\u2019\n\u2018Absolutely, old sport.\u2019\nDaisy went upstairs to wash her face\u2014too late I thought\nwith humiliation of my towels\u2014while Gatsby and I waited\non the lawn.\n\u2018My house looks well, doesn\u2019t it?\u2019 he demanded. \u2018See how\nthe whole front of it catches the light.\u2019\nI agreed that it was splendid.\n\u2018Yes.\u2019 His eyes went over it, every arched door and square\ntower. \u2018It took me just three years to earn the money that\nbought it.\u2019\n\u2018I thought you inherited your money.\u2019\n\u2018I did, old sport,\u2019 he said automatically, \u2018but I lost most of\nit in the big panic\u2014the panic of the war.\u2019\nI think he hardly knew what he was saying, for when I\nasked him what business he was in he answered \u2018That\u2019s my\naffair,\u2019 before he realized that it wasn\u2019t the appropriate re-\nply.\n\n", "page_number": 95}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "\u2018Oh, I\u2019ve been in several things,\u2019 he corrected himself. \u2018I\nwas in the drug business and then I was in the oil business.\nBut I\u2019m not in either one now.\u2019 He looked at me with more\nattention. \u2018Do you mean you\u2019ve been thinking over what I\nproposed the other night?\u2019\nBefore I could answer, Daisy came out of the house and\ntwo rows of brass buttons on her dress gleamed in the sun-\nlight.\n\u2018That huge place THERE?\u2019 she cried pointing.\n\u2018Do you like it?\u2019\n\u2018I love it, but I don\u2019t see how you live there all alone.\u2019\n\u2018I keep it always full of interesting people, night and day.\nPeople who do interesting things. Celebrated people.\u2019\nInstead of taking the short cut along the Sound we went\ndown the road and entered by the big postern. With en-\nchanting murmurs Daisy admired this aspect or that of the\nfeudal silhouette against the sky, admired the gardens, the\nsparkling odor of jonquils and the frothy odor of hawthorn\nand plum blossoms and the pale gold odor of kiss-me-at-\nthe-gate. It was strange to reach the marble steps and find\nno stir of bright dresses in and out the door, and hear no\nsound but bird voices in the trees.\nAnd inside as we wandered through Marie Antoinette\nmusic rooms and Restoration salons I felt that there were\nguests concealed behind every couch and table, under or-\nders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through.\nAs Gatsby closed the door of \u2018the Merton College Library\u2019\nI could have sworn I heard the owl-eyed man break into\nghostly laughter.\n\n", "page_number": 96}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "We went upstairs, through period bedrooms swathed in\nrose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through\ndressing rooms and poolrooms, and bathrooms with sunk-\nen baths\u2014intruding into one chamber where a dishevelled\nman in pajamas was doing liver exercises on the floor. It\nwas Mr. Klipspringer, the \u2018boarder.\u2019 I had seen him wander-\ning hungrily about the beach that morning. Finally we came\nto Gatsby\u2019s own apartment, a bedroom and a bath and an\nAdam study, where we sat down and drank a glass of some\nChartreuse he took from a cupboard in the wall.\nHe hadn\u2019t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he\nrevalued everything in his house according to the measure\nof response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes,\ntoo, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way as\nthough in her actual and astounding presence none of it\nwas any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight\nof stairs.\nHis bedroom was the simplest room of all\u2014except where\nthe dresser was garnished with a toilet set of pure dull gold.\nDaisy took the brush with delight and smoothed her hair,\nwhereupon Gatsby sat down and shaded his eyes and began\nto laugh.\n\u2018It\u2019s the funniest thing, old sport,\u2019 he said hilariously. \u2018I\ncan\u2019t\u2014when I try to\u2014\u2014\u2018\nHe had passed visibly through two states and was en-\ntering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his\nunreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her pres-\nence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right\nthrough to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at\n\n", "page_number": 97}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he\nwas running down like an overwound clock.\nRecovering himself in a minute he opened for us two\nhulking patent cabinets which held his massed suits and\ndressing-gowns and ties, and his shirts, piled like bricks in\nstacks a dozen high.\n\u2018I\u2019ve got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends\nover a selection of things at the beginning of each season,\nspring and fall.\u2019\nHe took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one\nby one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine\nflannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the ta-\nble in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought\nmore and the soft rich heap mounted higher\u2014shirts with\nstripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and\nlavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue.\nSuddenly with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into\nthe shirts and began to cry stormily.\n\u2018They\u2019re such beautiful shirts,\u2019 she sobbed, her voice muf-\nfled in the thick folds. \u2018It makes me sad because I\u2019ve never\nseen such\u2014such beautiful shirts before.\u2019\nAfter the house, we were to see the grounds and the\nswimming pool, and the hydroplane and the midsummer\nflowers\u2014but outside Gatsby\u2019s window it began to rain again\nso we stood in a row looking at the corrugated surface of\nthe Sound.\n\u2018If it wasn\u2019t for the mist we could see your home across\nthe bay,\u2019 said Gatsby. \u2018You always have a green light that\nburns all night at the end of your dock.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 98}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "Daisy put her arm through his abruptly but he seemed\nabsorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred\nto him that the colossal significance of that light had now\nvanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had\nseparated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her,\nalmost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the\nmoon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count\nof enchanted objects had diminished by one.\nI began to walk about the room, examining various in-\ndefinite objects in the half darkness. A large photograph of\nan elderly man in yachting costume attracted me, hung on\nthe wall over his desk.\n\u2018Who\u2019s this?\u2019\n\u2018That? That\u2019s Mr. Dan Cody, old sport.\u2019\nThe name sounded faintly familiar.\n\u2018He\u2019s dead now. He used to be my best friend years ago.\u2019\nThere was a small picture of Gatsby, also in yachting cos-\ntume, on the bureau\u2014Gatsby with his head thrown back\ndefiantly\u2014taken apparently when he was about eighteen.\n\u2018I adore it!\u2019 exclaimed Daisy. \u2018The pompadour! You never\ntold me you had a pompadour\u2014or a yacht.\u2019\n\u2018Look at this,\u2019 said Gatsby quickly. \u2018Here\u2019s a lot of clip-\npings\u2014about you.\u2019\nThey stood side by side examining it. I was going to ask\nto see the rubies when the phone rang and Gatsby took up\nthe receiver.\n\u2018Yes\u2026. Well, I can\u2019t talk now\u2026. I can\u2019t talk now, old\nsport\u2026. I said a SMALL town\u2026. He must know what a\nsmall town is\u2026. Well, he\u2019s no use to us if Detroit is his idea\n\n", "page_number": 99}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "of a small town\u2026.\u2019\nHe rang off.\n\u2018Come here QUICK!\u2019 cried Daisy at the window.\nThe rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted in\nthe west, and there was a pink and golden billow of foamy\nclouds above the sea.\n\u2018Look at that,\u2019 she whispered, and then after a moment:\n\u2018I\u2019d like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it\nand push you around.\u2019\nI tried to go then, but they wouldn\u2019t hear of it; perhaps\nmy presence made them feel more satisfactorily alone.\n\u2018I know what we\u2019ll do,\u2019 said Gatsby, \u2018we\u2019ll have Klip-\nspringer play the piano.\u2019\nHe went out of the room calling \u2018Ewing!\u2019 and returned\nin a few minutes accompanied by an embarrassed, slight-\nly worn young man with shell-rimmed glasses and scanty\nblonde hair. He was now decently clothed in a \u2018sport shirt\u2019\nopen at the neck, sneakers and duck trousers of a nebulous\nhue.\n\u2018Did we interrupt your exercises?\u2019 inquired Daisy polite-\nly.\n\u2018I was asleep,\u2019 cried Mr. Klipspringer, in a spasm of em-\nbarrassment. \u2018That is, I\u2019d BEEN asleep. Then I got up\u2026.\u2019\n\u2018Klipspringer plays the piano,\u2019 said Gatsby, cutting him\noff. \u2018Don\u2019t you, Ewing, old sport?\u2019\n\u2018I don\u2019t play well. I don\u2019t\u2014I hardly play at all. I\u2019m all out\nof prac\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018We\u2019ll go downstairs,\u2019 interrupted Gatsby. He flipped a\nswitch. The grey windows disappeared as the house glowed\n\n", "page_number": 100}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "full of light.\nIn the music room Gatsby turned on a solitary lamp\nbeside the piano. He lit Daisy\u2019s cigarette from a trembling\nmatch, and sat down with her on a couch far across the\nroom where there was no light save what the gleaming floor\nbounced in from the hall.\nWhen Klipspringer had played \u2018The Love Nest\u2019 he turned\naround on the bench and searched unhappily for Gatsby in\nthe gloom.\n\u2018I\u2019m all out of practice, you see. I told you I couldn\u2019t play.\nI\u2019m all out of prac\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Don\u2019t talk so much, old sport,\u2019 commanded Gatsby.\n\u2018Play!\u2019\n\nIN THE MORNING,\nIN THE EVENING,\nAIN\u2019T WE GOT FUN\u2014\u2014\n\nOutside the wind was loud and there was a faint flow\nof thunder along the Sound. All the lights were going on\nin West Egg now; the electric trains, men-carrying, were\nplunging home through the rain from New York. It was the\nhour of a profound human change, and excitement was gen-\nerating on the air.\n\nONE THING\u2019S SURE AND NOTHING\u2019S SURER\nTHE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET\u2014\nCHILDREN.\nIN THE MEANTIME,\n\n", "page_number": 101}, {"chapter": 6, "page": "IN BETWEEN TIME\u2014\u2014\n\nAs I went over to say goodbye I saw that the expression of\nbewilderment had come back into Gatsby\u2019s face, as though\na faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his\npresent happiness. Almost five years! There must have been\nmoments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short\nof his dreams\u2014not through her own fault but because of\nthe colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her,\nbeyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a\ncreative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out\nwith every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount\nof fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up\nin his ghostly heart.\nAs I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly.\nHis hand took hold of hers and as she said something low\nin his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I\nthink that voice held him most with its fluctuating, feverish\nwarmth because it couldn\u2019t be over-dreamed\u2014that voice\nwas a deathless song.\nThey had forgotten me, but Daisy glanced up and held\nout her hand; Gatsby didn\u2019t know me now at all. I looked\nonce more at them and they looked back at me, remotely,\npossessed by intense life. Then I went out of the room and\ndown the marble steps into the rain, leaving them there to-\ngether.\n\n\n\n\n", "page_number": 102}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "\n\nA     bout this time an ambitious young reporter from New\nYork arrived one morning at Gatsby\u2019s door and asked\nhim if he had anything to say.\n\u2018Anything to say about what?\u2019 inquired Gatsby politely.\n\u2018Why,\u2014any statement to give out.\u2019\nIt transpired after a confused five minutes that the man\nhad heard Gatsby\u2019s name around his office in a connection\nwhich he either wouldn\u2019t reveal or didn\u2019t fully understand.\nThis was his day off and with laudable initiative he had hur-\nried out \u2018to see.\u2019\nIt was a random shot, and yet the reporter\u2019s instinct was\nright. Gatsby\u2019s notoriety, spread about by the hundreds who\nhad accepted his hospitality and so become authorities on\nhis past, had increased all summer until he fell just short\nof being news. Contemporary legends such as the \u2018under-\nground pipe-line to Canada\u2019 attached themselves to him,\nand there was one persistent story that he didn\u2019t live in a\nhouse at all, but in a boat that looked like a house and was\nmoved secretly up and down the Long Island shore. Just\nwhy these inventions were a source of satisfaction to James\nGatz of North Dakota, isn\u2019t easy to say.\nJames Gatz\u2014that was really, or at least legally, his name.\nHe had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific\nmoment that witnessed the beginning of his career\u2014when\n\n", "page_number": 103}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "he saw Dan Cody\u2019s yacht drop anchor over the most insidi-\nous flat on Lake Superior. It was James Gatz who had been\nloafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jer-\nsey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby\nwho borrowed a row-boat, pulled out to the TUOLOMEE\nand informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break\nhim up in half an hour.\nI suppose he\u2019d had the name ready for a long time, even\nthen. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm peo-\nple\u2014his imagination had never really accepted them as\nhis parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West\nEgg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of\nhimself. He was a son of God\u2014a phrase which, if it means\nanything, means just that\u2014and he must be about His\nFather\u2019s Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretri-\ncious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that\na seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to\nthis conception he was faithful to the end.\nFor over a year he had been beating his way along the\nsouth shore of Lake Superior as a clam digger and a salmon\nfisher or in any other capacity that brought him food and\nbed. His brown, hardening body lived naturally through\nthe half fierce, half lazy work of the bracing days. He knew\nwomen early and since they spoiled him he became con-\ntemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were\nignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about\nthings which in his overwhelming self-absorption he took\nfor granted.\nBut his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most\n\n", "page_number": 104}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at\nnight. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in\nhis brain while the clock ticked on the wash-stand and the\nmoon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the\nfloor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies un-\ntil drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an\noblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an\noutlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of\nthe unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world\nwas founded securely on a fairy\u2019s wing.\nAn instinct toward his future glory had led him, some\nmonths before, to the small Lutheran college of St. Olaf in\nsouthern Minnesota. He stayed there two weeks, dismayed\nat its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny, to\ndestiny itself, and despising the janitor\u2019s work with which\nhe was to pay his way through. Then he drifted back to Lake\nSuperior, and he was still searching for something to do on\nthe day that Dan Cody\u2019s yacht dropped anchor in the shal-\nlows along shore.\nCody was fifty years old then, a product of the Nevada\nsilver fields, of the Yukon, of every rush for metal since Sev-\nenty-five. The transactions in Montana copper that made\nhim many times a millionaire found him physically robust\nbut on the verge of soft-mindedness, and, suspecting this\nan infinite number of women tried to separate him from\nhis money. The none too savory ramifications by which Ella\nKaye, the newspaper woman, played Madame de Main-\ntenon to his weakness and sent him to sea in a yacht, were\ncommon knowledge to the turgid journalism of 1902. He\n\n", "page_number": 105}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "had been coasting along all too hospitable shores for five\nyears when he turned up as James Gatz\u2019s destiny at Little\nGirl Bay.\nTo the young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up\nat the railed deck, the yacht represented all the beauty and\nglamor in the world. I suppose he smiled at Cody\u2014he had\nprobably discovered that people liked him when he smiled.\nAt any rate Cody asked him a few questions (one of them\nelicited the brand new name) and found that he was quick,\nand extravagantly ambitious. A few days later he took him\nto Duluth and bought him a blue coat, six pair of white duck\ntrousers and a yachting cap. And when the TUOLOMEE\nleft for the West Indies and the Barbary Coast Gatsby left\ntoo.\nHe was employed in a vague personal capacity\u2014while\nhe remained with Cody he was in turn steward, mate, skip-\nper, secretary, and even jailor, for Dan Cody sober knew\nwhat lavish doings Dan Cody drunk might soon be about\nand he provided for such contingencies by reposing more\nand more trust in Gatsby. The arrangement lasted five years\nduring which the boat went three times around the con-\ntinent. It might have lasted indefinitely except for the fact\nthat Ella Kaye came on board one night in Boston and a\nweek later Dan Cody inhospitably died.\nI remember the portrait of him up in Gatsby\u2019s bedroom,\na grey, florid man with a hard empty face\u2014the pioneer de-\nbauchee who during one phase of American life brought\nback to the eastern seaboard the savage violence of the fron-\ntier brothel and saloon. It was indirectly due to Cody that\n\n", "page_number": 106}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "Gatsby drank so little. Sometimes in the course of gay par-\nties women used to rub champagne into his hair; for himself\nhe formed the habit of letting liquor alone.\nAnd it was from Cody that he inherited money\u2014a legacy\nof twenty-five thousand dollars. He didn\u2019t get it. He nev-\ner understood the legal device that was used against him\nbut what remained of the millions went intact to Ella Kaye.\nHe was left with his singularly appropriate education; the\nvague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substanti-\nality of a man.\nHe told me all this very much later, but I\u2019ve put it down\nhere with the idea of exploding those first wild rumors about\nhis antecedents, which weren\u2019t even faintly true. Moreover\nhe told it to me at a time of confusion, when I had reached\nthe point of believing everything and nothing about him.\nSo I take advantage of this short halt, while Gatsby, so to\nspeak, caught his breath, to clear this set of misconceptions\naway.\nIt was a halt, too, in my association with his affairs.\nFor several weeks I didn\u2019t see him or hear his voice on the\nphone\u2014mostly I was in New York, trotting around with\nJordan and trying to ingratiate myself with her senile aunt\u2014\nbut finally I went over to his house one Sunday afternoon.\nI hadn\u2019t been there two minutes when somebody brought\nTom Buchanan in for a drink. I was startled, naturally, but\nthe really surprising thing was that it hadn\u2019t happened be-\nfore.\nThey were a party of three on horseback\u2014Tom and a\nman named Sloane and a pretty woman in a brown riding\n\n", "page_number": 107}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "habit who had been there previously.\n\u2018I\u2019m delighted to see you,\u2019 said Gatsby standing on his\nporch. \u2018I\u2019m delighted that you dropped in.\u2019\nAs though they cared!\n\u2018Sit right down. Have a cigarette or a cigar.\u2019 He walked\naround the room quickly, ringing bells. \u2018I\u2019ll have something\nto drink for you in just a minute.\u2019\nHe was profoundly affected by the fact that Tom was\nthere. But he would be uneasy anyhow until he had given\nthem something, realizing in a vague way that that was all\nthey came for. Mr. Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade?\nNo, thanks. A little champagne? Nothing at all, thanks\u2026.\nI\u2019m sorry\u2014\u2014\n\u2018Did you have a nice ride?\u2019\n\u2018Very good roads around here.\u2019\n\u2018I suppose the automobiles\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Yeah.\u2019\nMoved by an irresistible impulse, Gatsby turned to Tom\nwho had accepted the introduction as a stranger.\n\u2018I believe we\u2019ve met somewhere before, Mr. Buchanan.\u2019\n\u2018Oh, yes,\u2019 said Tom, gruffly polite but obviously not re-\nmembering. \u2018So we did. I remember very well.\u2019\n\u2018About two weeks ago.\u2019\n\u2018That\u2019s right. You were with Nick here.\u2019\n\u2018I know your wife,\u2019 continued Gatsby, almost aggressive-\nly.\n\u2018That so?\u2019\nTom turned to me.\n\u2018You live near here, Nick?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 108}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "\u2018Next door.\u2019\n\u2018That so?\u2019\nMr. Sloane didn\u2019t enter into the conversation but lounged\nback haughtily in his chair; the woman said nothing ei-\nther\u2014until unexpectedly, after two highballs, she became\ncordial.\n\u2018We\u2019ll all come over to your next party, Mr. Gatsby,\u2019 she\nsuggested. \u2018What do you say?\u2019\n\u2018Certainly. I\u2019d be delighted to have you.\u2019\n\u2018Be ver\u2019 nice,\u2019 said Mr. Sloane, without gratitude. \u2018Well\u2014\nthink ought to be starting home.\u2019\n\u2018Please don\u2019t hurry,\u2019 Gatsby urged them. He had control\nof himself now and he wanted to see more of Tom. \u2018Why\ndon\u2019t you\u2014why don\u2019t you stay for supper? I wouldn\u2019t be sur-\nprised if some other people dropped in from New York.\u2019\n\u2018You come to supper with ME,\u2019 said the lady enthusiasti-\ncally. \u2018Both of you.\u2019\nThis included me. Mr. Sloane got to his feet.\n\u2018Come along,\u2019 he said\u2014but to her only.\n\u2018I mean it,\u2019 she insisted. \u2018I\u2019d love to have you. Lots of\nroom.\u2019\nGatsby looked at me questioningly. He wanted to go and\nhe didn\u2019t see that Mr. Sloane had determined he shouldn\u2019t.\n\u2018I\u2019m afraid I won\u2019t be able to,\u2019 I said.\n\u2018Well, you come,\u2019 she urged, concentrating on Gatsby.\nMr. Sloane murmured something close to her ear.\n\u2018We won\u2019t be late if we start now,\u2019 she insisted aloud.\n\u2018I haven\u2019t got a horse,\u2019 said Gatsby. \u2018I used to ride in the\narmy but I\u2019ve never bought a horse. I\u2019ll have to follow you in\n\n", "page_number": 109}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "my car. Excuse me for just a minute.\u2019\nThe rest of us walked out on the porch, where Sloane and\nthe lady began an impassioned conversation aside.\n\u2018My God, I believe the man\u2019s coming,\u2019 said Tom. \u2018Doesn\u2019t\nhe know she doesn\u2019t want him?\u2019\n\u2018She says she does want him.\u2019\n\u2018She has a big dinner party and he won\u2019t know a soul\nthere.\u2019 He frowned. \u2018I wonder where in the devil he met Dai-\nsy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women\nrun around too much these days to suit me. They meet all\nkinds of crazy fish.\u2019\nSuddenly Mr. Sloane and the lady walked down the steps\nand mounted their horses.\n\u2018Come on,\u2019 said Mr. Sloane to Tom, \u2018we\u2019re late. We\u2019ve\ngot to go.\u2019 And then to me: \u2018Tell him we couldn\u2019t wait, will\nyou?\u2019\nTom and I shook hands, the rest of us exchanged a cool\nnod and they trotted quickly down the drive, disappearing\nunder the August foliage just as Gatsby with hat and light\novercoat in hand came out the front door.\nTom was evidently perturbed at Daisy\u2019s running around\nalone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her\nto Gatsby\u2019s party. Perhaps his presence gave the evening\nits peculiar quality of oppressiveness\u2014it stands out in my\nmemory from Gatsby\u2019s other parties that summer. There\nwere the same people, or at least the same sort of people,\nthe same profusion of champagne, the same many-colored,\nmany-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the\nair, a pervading harshness that hadn\u2019t been there before.\n\n", "page_number": 110}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept\nWest Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own stan-\ndards and its own great figures, second to nothing because\nit had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking\nat it again, through Daisy\u2019s eyes. It is invariably saddening\nto look through new eyes at things upon which you have ex-\npended your own powers of adjustment.\nThey arrived at twilight and as we strolled out among the\nsparkling hundreds Daisy\u2019s voice was playing murmurous\ntricks in her throat.\n\u2018These things excite me SO,\u2019 she whispered. \u2018If you want\nto kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me\nknow and I\u2019ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my\nname. Or present a green card. I\u2019m giving out green\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Look around,\u2019 suggested Gatsby.\n\u2018I\u2019m looking around. I\u2019m having a marvelous\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018You must see the faces of many people you\u2019ve heard\nabout.\u2019\nTom\u2019s arrogant eyes roamed the crowd.\n\u2018We don\u2019t go around very much,\u2019 he said. \u2018In fact I was\njust thinking I don\u2019t know a soul here.\u2019\n\u2018Perhaps you know that lady.\u2019 Gatsby indicated a gor-\ngeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state\nunder a white plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that\npeculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition\nof a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies.\n\u2018She\u2019s lovely,\u2019 said Daisy.\n\u2018The man bending over her is her director.\u2019\nHe took them ceremoniously from group to group:\n\n", "page_number": 111}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "\u2018Mrs. Buchanan \u2026 and Mr. Buchanan\u2014\u2014\u2019 After an in-\nstant\u2019s hesitation he added: \u2018the polo player.\u2019\n\u2018Oh no,\u2019 objected Tom quickly, \u2018Not me.\u2019\nBut evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby for Tom re-\nmained \u2018the polo player\u2019 for the rest of the evening.\n\u2018I\u2019ve never met so many celebrities!\u2019 Daisy exclaimed. \u2018I\nliked that man\u2014what was his name?\u2014with the sort of blue\nnose.\u2019\nGatsby identified him, adding that he was a small pro-\nducer.\n\u2018Well, I liked him anyhow.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019d a little rather not be the polo player,\u2019 said Tom pleas-\nantly, \u2018I\u2019d rather look at all these famous people in\u2014in\noblivion.\u2019\nDaisy and Gatsby danced. I remember being surprised\nby his graceful, conservative fox-trot\u2014I had never seen him\ndance before. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat\non the steps for half an hour while at her request I remained\nwatchfully in the garden: \u2018In case there\u2019s a fire or a flood,\u2019\nshe explained, \u2018or any act of God.\u2019\nTom appeared from his oblivion as we were sitting down\nto supper together. \u2018Do you mind if I eat with some people\nover here?\u2019 he said. \u2018A fellow\u2019s getting off some funny stuff.\u2019\n\u2018Go ahead,\u2019 answered Daisy genially, \u2018And if you want\nto take down any addresses here\u2019s my little gold pencil\u2026.\u2019\nShe looked around after a moment and told me the girl was\n\u2018common but pretty,\u2019 and I knew that except for the half\nhour she\u2019d been alone with Gatsby she wasn\u2019t having a good\ntime.\n\n", "page_number": 112}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "We were at a particularly tipsy table. That was my fault\u2014\nGatsby had been called to the phone and I\u2019d enjoyed these\nsame people only two weeks before. But what had amused\nme then turned septic on the air now.\n\u2018How do you feel, Miss Baedeker?\u2019\nThe girl addressed was trying, unsuccessfully, to slump\nagainst my shoulder. At this inquiry she sat up and opened\nher eyes.\n\u2018Wha?\u2019\nA massive and lethargic woman, who had been urging\nDaisy to play golf with her at the local club tomorrow, spoke\nin Miss Baedeker\u2019s defence:\n\u2018Oh, she\u2019s all right now. When she\u2019s had five or six cock-\ntails she always starts screaming like that. I tell her she\nought to leave it alone.\u2019\n\u2018I do leave it alone,\u2019 affirmed the accused hollowly.\n\u2018We heard you yelling, so I said to Doc Civet here: \u2018There\u2019s\nsomebody that needs your help, Doc.\u2019 \u2018\n\u2018She\u2019s much obliged, I\u2019m sure,\u2019 said another friend, with-\nout gratitude. \u2018But you got her dress all wet when you stuck\nher head in the pool.\u2019\n\u2018Anything I hate is to get my head stuck in a pool,\u2019 mum-\nbled Miss Baedeker. \u2018They almost drowned me once over in\nNew Jersey.\u2019\n\u2018Then you ought to leave it alone,\u2019 countered Doctor Civ-\net.\n\u2018Speak for yourself!\u2019 cried Miss Baedeker violently. \u2018Your\nhand shakes. I wouldn\u2019t let you operate on me!\u2019\nIt was like that. Almost the last thing I remember was\n\n", "page_number": 113}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "standing with Daisy and watching the moving picture di-\nrector and his Star. They were still under the white plum\ntree and their faces were touching except for a pale thin ray\nof moonlight between. It occurred to me that he had been\nvery slowly bending toward her all evening to attain this\nproximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one\nultimate degree and kiss at her cheek.\n\u2018I like her,\u2019 said Daisy, \u2018I think she\u2019s lovely.\u2019\nBut the rest offended her\u2014and inarguably, because it\nwasn\u2019t a gesture but an emotion. She was appalled by West\nEgg, this unprecedented \u2018place\u2019 that Broadway had begot-\nten upon a Long Island fishing village\u2014appalled by its raw\nvigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too\nobtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short cut\nfrom nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the\nvery simplicity she failed to understand.\nI sat on the front steps with them while they waited for\ntheir car. It was dark here in front: only the bright door\nsent ten square feet of light volleying out into the soft black\nmorning. Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing-\nroom blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite\nprocession of shadows, who rouged and powdered in an in-\nvisible glass.\n\u2018Who is this Gatsby anyhow?\u2019 demanded Tom suddenly.\n\u2018Some big bootlegger?\u2019\n\u2018Where\u2019d you hear that?\u2019 I inquired.\n\u2018I didn\u2019t hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich\npeople are just big bootleggers, you know.\u2019\n\u2018Not Gatsby,\u2019 I said shortly.\n\n", "page_number": 114}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "He was silent for a moment. The pebbles of the drive\ncrunched under his feet.\n\u2018Well, he certainly must have strained himself to get this\nmenagerie together.\u2019\nA breeze stirred the grey haze of Daisy\u2019s fur collar.\n\u2018At least they\u2019re more interesting than the people we\nknow,\u2019 she said with an effort.\n\u2018You didn\u2019t look so interested.\u2019\n\u2018Well, I was.\u2019\nTom laughed and turned to me.\n\u2018Did you notice Daisy\u2019s face when that girl asked her to\nput her under a cold shower?\u2019\nDaisy began to sing with the music in a husky, rhyth-\nmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that it\nhad never had before and would never have again. When\nthe melody rose, her voice broke up sweetly, following it, in\na way contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a\nlittle of her warm human magic upon the air.\n\u2018Lots of people come who haven\u2019t been invited,\u2019 she said\nsuddenly. \u2018That girl hadn\u2019t been invited. They simply force\ntheir way in and he\u2019s too polite to object.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019d like to know who he is and what he does,\u2019 insisted\nTom. \u2018And I think I\u2019ll make a point of finding out.\u2019\n\u2018I can tell you right now,\u2019 she answered. \u2018He owned some\ndrug stores, a lot of drug stores. He built them up himself.\u2019\nThe dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive.\n\u2018Good night, Nick,\u2019 said Daisy.\nHer glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps\nwhere \u2018Three o\u2019Clock in the Morning,\u2019 a neat, sad little waltz\n\n", "page_number": 115}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "of that year, was drifting out the open door. After all, in the\nvery casualness of Gatsby\u2019s party there were romantic pos-\nsibilities totally absent from her world. What was it up there\nin the song that seemed to be calling her back inside? What\nwould happen now in the dim incalculable hours? Perhaps\nsome unbelievable guest would arrive, a person infinite-\nly rare and to be marvelled at, some authentically radiant\nyoung girl who with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one mo-\nment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years\nof unwavering devotion.\nI stayed late that night. Gatsby asked me to wait until he\nwas free and I lingered in the garden until the inevitable\nswimming party had run up, chilled and exalted, from the\nblack beach, until the lights were extinguished in the guest\nrooms overhead. When he came down the steps at last the\ntanned skin was drawn unusually tight on his face, and his\neyes were bright and tired.\n\u2018She didn\u2019t like it,\u2019 he said immediately.\n\u2018Of course she did.\u2019\n\u2018She didn\u2019t like it,\u2019 he insisted. \u2018She didn\u2019t have a good\ntime.\u2019\nHe was silent and I guessed at his unutterable depres-\nsion.\n\u2018I feel far away from her,\u2019 he said. \u2018It\u2019s hard to make her\nunderstand.\u2019\n\u2018You mean about the dance?\u2019\n\u2018The dance?\u2019 He dismissed all the dances he had given\nwith a snap of his fingers. \u2018Old sport, the dance is unim-\nportant.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 116}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go\nto Tom and say: \u2018I never loved you.\u2019 After she had obliter-\nated three years with that sentence they could decide upon\nthe more practical measures to be taken. One of them was\nthat, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville\nand be married from her house\u2014just as if it were five years\nago.\n\u2018And she doesn\u2019t understand,\u2019 he said. \u2018She used to be\nable to understand. We\u2019d sit for hours\u2014\u2014\u2018\nHe broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate\npath of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flow-\ners.\n\u2018I wouldn\u2019t ask too much of her,\u2019 I ventured. \u2018You can\u2019t\nrepeat the past.\u2019\n\u2018Can\u2019t repeat the past?\u2019 he cried incredulously. \u2018Why of\ncourse you can!\u2019\nHe looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurk-\ning here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his\nhand.\n\u2018I\u2019m going to fix everything just the way it was before,\u2019 he\nsaid, nodding determinedly. \u2018She\u2019ll see.\u2019\nHe talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he\nwanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps,\nthat had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused\nand disordered since then, but if he could once return to a\ncertain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find\nout what that thing was\u2026.\n\u2026 One autumn night, five years before, they had been\nwalking down the street when the leaves were falling, and\n\n", "page_number": 117}, {"chapter": 7, "page": "they came to a place where there were no trees and the side-\nwalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and\nturned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that\nmysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes\nof the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming\nout into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among\nthe stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the\nblocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted\nto a secret place above the trees\u2014he could climb to it, if he\nclimbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of\nlife, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.\nHis heart beat faster and faster as Daisy\u2019s white face came\nup to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and\nforever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath,\nhis mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So\nhe waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork\nthat had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his\nlips\u2019 touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the in-\ncarnation was complete.\nThrough all he said, even through his appalling sen-\ntimentality, I was reminded of something\u2014an elusive\nrhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard some-\nwhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take\nshape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man\u2019s, as\nthough there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of\nstartled air. But they made no sound and what I had almost\nremembered was uncommunicable forever.\n\n\n\n", "page_number": 118}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\n\nI  t was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest\nthat the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday\nnight\u2014and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Tri-\nmalchio was over.\nOnly gradually did I become aware that the automobiles\nwhich turned expectantly into his drive stayed for just a\nminute and then drove sulkily away. Wondering if he were\nsick I went over to find out\u2014an unfamiliar butler with a vil-\nlainous face squinted at me suspiciously from the door.\n\u2018Is Mr. Gatsby sick?\u2019\n\u2018Nope.\u2019 After a pause he added \u2018sir\u2019 in a dilatory, grudg-\ning way.\n\u2018I hadn\u2019t seen him around, and I was rather worried. Tell\nhim Mr. Carraway came over.\u2019\n\u2018Who?\u2019 he demanded rudely.\n\u2018Carraway.\u2019\n\u2018Carraway. All right, I\u2019ll tell him.\u2019 Abruptly he slammed\nthe door.\nMy Finn informed me that Gatsby had dismissed every\nservant in his house a week ago and replaced them with\nhalf a dozen others, who never went into West Egg Village\nto be bribed by the tradesmen, but ordered moderate sup-\nplies over the telephone. The grocery boy reported that the\nkitchen looked like a pigsty, and the general opinion in the\n\n", "page_number": 119}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "village was that the new people weren\u2019t servants at all.\nNext day Gatsby called me on the phone.\n\u2018Going away?\u2019 I inquired.\n\u2018No, old sport.\u2019\n\u2018I hear you fired all your servants.\u2019\n\u2018I wanted somebody who wouldn\u2019t gossip. Daisy comes\nover quite often\u2014in the afternoons.\u2019\nSo the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house\nat the disapproval in her eyes.\n\u2018They\u2019re some people Wolfshiem wanted to do some-\nthing for. They\u2019re all brothers and sisters. They used to run\na small hotel.\u2019\n\u2018I see.\u2019\nHe was calling up at Daisy\u2019s request\u2014would I come to\nlunch at her house tomorrow? Miss Baker would be there.\nHalf an hour later Daisy herself telephoned and seemed re-\nlieved to find that I was coming. Something was up. And\nyet I couldn\u2019t believe that they would choose this occasion\nfor a scene\u2014especially for the rather harrowing scene that\nGatsby had outlined in the garden.\nThe next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the\nwarmest, of the summer. As my train emerged from the\ntunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National\nBiscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon. The\nstraw seats of the car hovered on the edge of combustion;\nthe woman next to me perspired delicately for a while into\nher white shirtwaist, and then, as her newspaper dampened\nunder her fingers, lapsed despairingly into deep heat with a\ndesolate cry. Her pocket-book slapped to the floor.\n\n", "page_number": 120}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018Oh, my!\u2019 she gasped.\nI picked it up with a weary bend and handed it back to\nher, holding it at arm\u2019s length and by the extreme tip of the\ncorners to indicate that I had no designs upon it\u2014but ev-\nery one near by, including the woman, suspected me just\nthe same.\n\u2018Hot!\u2019 said the conductor to familiar faces. \u2018Some weath-\ner! Hot! Hot! Hot! Is it hot enough for you? Is it hot? Is it\n\u2026 ?\u2019\nMy commutation ticket came back to me with a dark\nstain from his hand. That any one should care in this heat\nwhose flushed lips he kissed, whose head made damp the\npajama pocket over his heart!\n\u2026 Through the hall of the Buchanans\u2019 house blew a faint\nwind, carrying the sound of the telephone bell out to Gatsby\nand me as we waited at the door.\n\u2018The master\u2019s body!\u2019 roared the butler into the mouth-\npiece. \u2018I\u2019m sorry, madame, but we can\u2019t furnish it\u2014it\u2019s far\ntoo hot to touch this noon!\u2019\nWhat he really said was: \u2018Yes \u2026 yes \u2026 I\u2019ll see.\u2019\nHe set down the receiver and came toward us, glistening\nslightly, to take our stiff straw hats.\n\u2018Madame expects you in the salon!\u2019 he cried, needless-\nly indicating the direction. In this heat every extra gesture\nwas an affront to the common store of life.\nThe room, shadowed well with awnings, was dark and\ncool. Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like\nsilver idols, weighing down their own white dresses against\nthe singing breeze of the fans.\n\n", "page_number": 121}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018We can\u2019t move,\u2019 they said together.\nJordan\u2019s fingers, powdered white over their tan, rested\nfor a moment in mine.\n\u2018And Mr. Thomas Buchanan, the athlete?\u2019 I inquired.\nSimultaneously I heard his voice, gruff, muffled, husky,\nat the hall telephone.\nGatsby stood in the center of the crimson carpet and\ngazed around with fascinated eyes. Daisy watched him and\nlaughed, her sweet, exciting laugh; a tiny gust of powder\nrose from her bosom into the air.\n\u2018The rumor is,\u2019 whispered Jordan, \u2018that that\u2019s Tom\u2019s girl\non the telephone.\u2019\nWe were silent. The voice in the hall rose high with an-\nnoyance. \u2018Very well, then, I won\u2019t sell you the car at all\u2026.\nI\u2019m under no obligations to you at all\u2026. And as for your\nbothering me about it at lunch time I won\u2019t stand that at\nall!\u2019\n\u2018Holding down the receiver,\u2019 said Daisy cynically.\n\u2018No, he\u2019s not,\u2019 I assured her. \u2018It\u2019s a bona fide deal. I happen\nto know about it.\u2019\nTom flung open the door, blocked out its space for a mo-\nment with his thick body, and hurried into the room.\n\u2018Mr. Gatsby!\u2019 He put out his broad, flat hand with well-\nconcealed dislike. \u2018I\u2019m glad to see you, sir\u2026. Nick\u2026.\u2019\n\u2018Make us a cold drink,\u2019 cried Daisy.\nAs he left the room again she got up and went over\nto Gatsby and pulled his face down kissing him on the\nmouth.\n\u2018You know I love you,\u2019 she murmured.\n\n", "page_number": 122}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018You forget there\u2019s a lady present,\u2019 said Jordan.\nDaisy looked around doubtfully.\n\u2018You kiss Nick too.\u2019\n\u2018What a low, vulgar girl!\u2019\n\u2018I don\u2019t care!\u2019 cried Daisy and began to clog on the brick\nfireplace. Then she remembered the heat and sat down guilt-\nily on the couch just as a freshly laundered nurse leading a\nlittle girl came into the room.\n\u2018Bles-sed pre-cious,\u2019 she crooned, holding out her arms.\n\u2018Come to your own mother that loves you.\u2019\nThe child, relinquished by the nurse, rushed across the\nroom and rooted shyly into her mother\u2019s dress.\n\u2018The Bles-sed pre-cious! Did mother get powder on your\nold yellowy hair? Stand up now, and say How-de-do.\u2019\nGatsby and I in turn leaned down and took the small re-\nluctant hand. Afterward he kept looking at the child with\nsurprise. I don\u2019t think he had ever really believed in its ex-\nistence before.\n\u2018I got dressed before luncheon,\u2019 said the child, turning\neagerly to Daisy.\n\u2018That\u2019s because your mother wanted to show you off.\u2019 Her\nface bent into the single wrinkle of the small white neck.\n\u2018You dream, you. You absolute little dream.\u2019\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 admitted the child calmly. \u2018Aunt Jordan\u2019s got on a\nwhite dress too.\u2019\n\u2018How do you like mother\u2019s friends?\u2019 Daisy turned her\naround so that she faced Gatsby. \u2018Do you think they\u2019re pret-\nty?\u2019\n\u2018Where\u2019s Daddy?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 123}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018She doesn\u2019t look like her father,\u2019 explained Daisy. \u2018She\nlooks like me. She\u2019s got my hair and shape of the face.\u2019\nDaisy sat back upon the couch. The nurse took a step for-\nward and held out her hand.\n\u2018Come, Pammy.\u2019\n\u2018Goodbye, sweetheart!\u2019\nWith a reluctant backward glance the well-disciplined\nchild held to her nurse\u2019s hand and was pulled out the door,\njust as Tom came back, preceding four gin rickeys that\nclicked full of ice.\nGatsby took up his drink.\n\u2018They certainly look cool,\u2019 he said, with visible tension.\nWe drank in long greedy swallows.\n\u2018I read somewhere that the sun\u2019s getting hotter ev-\nery year,\u2019 said Tom genially. \u2018It seems that pretty soon the\nearth\u2019s going to fall into the sun\u2014or wait a minute\u2014it\u2019s just\nthe opposite\u2014the sun\u2019s getting colder every year.\n\u2018Come outside,\u2019 he suggested to Gatsby, \u2018I\u2019d like you to\nhave a look at the place.\u2019\nI went with them out to the veranda. On the green Sound,\nstagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled slowly toward\nthe fresher sea. Gatsby\u2019s eyes followed it momentarily; he\nraised his hand and pointed across the bay.\n\u2018I\u2019m right across from you.\u2019\n\u2018So you are.\u2019\nOur eyes lifted over the rosebeds and the hot lawn and\nthe weedy refuse of the dog days along shore. Slowly the\nwhite wings of the boat moved against the blue cool limit of\nthe sky. Ahead lay the scalloped ocean and the abounding\n\n", "page_number": 124}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "blessed isles.\n\u2018There\u2019s sport for you,\u2019 said Tom, nodding. \u2018I\u2019d like to be\nout there with him for about an hour.\u2019\nWe had luncheon in the dining-room, darkened, too,\nagainst the heat, and drank down nervous gayety with the\ncold ale.\n\u2018What\u2019ll we do with ourselves this afternoon,\u2019 cried Dai-\nsy, \u2018and the day after that, and the next thirty years?\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t be morbid,\u2019 Jordan said. \u2018Life starts all over again\nwhen it gets crisp in the fall.\u2019\n\u2018But it\u2019s so hot,\u2019 insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, \u2018And\neverything\u2019s so confused. Let\u2019s all go to town!\u2019\nHer voice struggled on through the heat, beating against\nit, moulding its senselessness into forms.\n\u2018I\u2019ve heard of making a garage out of a stable,\u2019 Tom was\nsaying to Gatsby, \u2018but I\u2019m the first man who ever made a\nstable out of a garage.\u2019\n\u2018Who wants to go to town?\u2019 demanded Daisy insistently.\nGatsby\u2019s eyes floated toward her. \u2018Ah,\u2019 she cried, \u2018you look\nso cool.\u2019\nTheir eyes met, and they stared together at each other,\nalone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the ta-\nble.\n\u2018You always look so cool,\u2019 she repeated.\nShe had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan\nsaw. He was astounded. His mouth opened a little and he\nlooked at Gatsby and then back at Daisy as if he had just rec-\nognized her as some one he knew a long time ago.\n\u2018You resemble the advertisement of the man,\u2019 she went on\n\n", "page_number": 125}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "innocently. \u2018You know the advertisement of the man\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018All right,\u2019 broke in Tom quickly, \u2018I\u2019m perfectly willing to\ngo to town. Come on\u2014we\u2019re all going to town.\u2019\nHe got up, his eyes still flashing between Gatsby and his\nwife. No one moved.\n\u2018Come on!\u2019 His temper cracked a little. \u2018What\u2019s the mat-\nter, anyhow? If we\u2019re going to town let\u2019s start.\u2019\nHis hand, trembling with his effort at self control, bore\nto his lips the last of his glass of ale. Daisy\u2019s voice got us to\nour feet and out on to the blazing gravel drive.\n\u2018Are we just going to go?\u2019 she objected. \u2018Like this? Aren\u2019t\nwe going to let any one smoke a cigarette first?\u2019\n\u2018Everybody smoked all through lunch.\u2019\n\u2018Oh, let\u2019s have fun,\u2019 she begged him. \u2018It\u2019s too hot to fuss.\u2019\nHe didn\u2019t answer.\n\u2018Have it your own way,\u2019 she said. \u2018Come on, Jordan.\u2019\nThey went upstairs to get ready while we three men stood\nthere shuffling the hot pebbles with our feet. A silver curve\nof the moon hovered already in the western sky. Gatsby\nstarted to speak, changed his mind, but not before Tom\nwheeled and faced him expectantly.\n\u2018Have you got your stables here?\u2019 asked Gatsby with an\neffort.\n\u2018About a quarter of a mile down the road.\u2019\n\u2018Oh.\u2019\nA pause.\n\u2018I don\u2019t see the idea of going to town,\u2019 broke out Tom sav-\nagely. \u2018Women get these notions in their heads\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Shall we take anything to drink?\u2019 called Daisy from an\n\n", "page_number": 126}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "upper window.\n\u2018I\u2019ll get some whiskey,\u2019 answered Tom. He went inside.\nGatsby turned to me rigidly:\n\u2018I can\u2019t say anything in his house, old sport.\u2019\n\u2018She\u2019s got an indiscreet voice,\u2019 I remarked. \u2018It\u2019s full of\u2014\n\u2014\u2018\nI hesitated.\n\u2018Her voice is full of money,\u2019 he said suddenly.\nThat was it. I\u2019d never understood before. It was full of\nmoney\u2014that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell\nin it, the jingle of it, the cymbals\u2019 song of it\u2026. High in a\nwhite palace the king\u2019s daughter, the golden girl\u2026.\nTom came out of the house wrapping a quart bottle in\na towel, followed by Daisy and Jordan wearing small tight\nhats of metallic cloth and carrying light capes over their\narms.\n\u2018Shall we all go in my car?\u2019 suggested Gatsby. He felt the\nhot, green leather of the seat. \u2018I ought to have left it in the\nshade.\u2019\n\u2018Is it standard shift?\u2019 demanded Tom.\n\u2018Yes.\u2019\n\u2018Well, you take my coup\u00e9 and let me drive your car to\ntown.\u2019\nThe suggestion was distasteful to Gatsby.\n\u2018I don\u2019t think there\u2019s much gas,\u2019 he objected.\n\u2018Plenty of gas,\u2019 said Tom boisterously. He looked at the\ngauge. \u2018And if it runs out I can stop at a drug store. You can\nbuy anything at a drug store nowadays.\u2019\nA pause followed this apparently pointless remark. Dai-\n\n", "page_number": 127}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "sy looked at Tom frowning and an indefinable expression,\nat once definitely unfamiliar and vaguely recognizable, as if\nI had only heard it described in words, passed over Gatsby\u2019s\nface.\n\u2018Come on, Daisy,\u2019 said Tom, pressing her with his hand\ntoward Gatsby\u2019s car. \u2018I\u2019ll take you in this circus wagon.\u2019\nHe opened the door but she moved out from the circle\nof his arm.\n\u2018You take Nick and Jordan. We\u2019ll follow you in the cou-\np\u00e9.\u2019\nShe walked close to Gatsby, touching his coat with her\nhand. Jordan and Tom and I got into the front seat of Gats-\nby\u2019s car, Tom pushed the unfamiliar gears tentatively and\nwe shot off into the oppressive heat leaving them out of sight\nbehind.\n\u2018Did you see that?\u2019 demanded Tom.\n\u2018See what?\u2019\nHe looked at me keenly, realizing that Jordan and I must\nhave known all along.\n\u2018You think I\u2019m pretty dumb, don\u2019t you?\u2019 he suggested.\n\u2018Perhaps I am, but I have a\u2014almost a second sight, some-\ntimes, that tells me what to do. Maybe you don\u2019t believe\nthat, but science\u2014\u2014\u2018\nHe paused. The immediate contingency overtook him,\npulled him back from the edge of the theoretical abyss.\n\u2018I\u2019ve made a small investigation of this fellow,\u2019 he contin-\nued. \u2018I could have gone deeper if I\u2019d known\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Do you mean you\u2019ve been to a medium?\u2019 inquired Jor-\ndan humorously.\n\n", "page_number": 128}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018What?\u2019 Confused, he stared at us as we laughed. \u2018A me-\ndium?\u2019\n\u2018About Gatsby.\u2019\n\u2018About Gatsby! No, I haven\u2019t. I said I\u2019d been making a\nsmall investigation of his past.\u2019\n\u2018And you found he was an Oxford man,\u2019 said Jordan\nhelpfully.\n\u2018An Oxford man!\u2019 He was incredulous. \u2018Like hell he is!\nHe wears a pink suit.\u2019\n\u2018Nevertheless he\u2019s an Oxford man.\u2019\n\u2018Oxford, New Mexico,\u2019 snorted Tom contemptuously, \u2018or\nsomething like that.\u2019\n\u2018Listen, Tom. If you\u2019re such a snob, why did you invite\nhim to lunch?\u2019 demanded Jordan crossly.\n\u2018Daisy invited him; she knew him before we were mar-\nried\u2014God knows where!\u2019\nWe were all irritable now with the fading ale and, aware\nof it, we drove for a while in silence. Then as Doctor T. J.\nEckleburg\u2019s faded eyes came into sight down the road, I re-\nmembered Gatsby\u2019s caution about gasoline.\n\u2018We\u2019ve got enough to get us to town,\u2019 said Tom.\n\u2018But there\u2019s a garage right here,\u2019 objected Jordan. \u2018I don\u2019t\nwant to get stalled in this baking heat.\u2019\nTom threw on both brakes impatiently and we slid to an\nabrupt dusty stop under Wilson\u2019s sign. After a moment the\nproprietor emerged from the interior of his establishment\nand gazed hollow-eyed at the car.\n\u2018Let\u2019s have some gas!\u2019 cried Tom roughly. \u2018What do you\nthink we stopped for\u2014to admire the view?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 129}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018I\u2019m sick,\u2019 said Wilson without moving. \u2018I been sick all\nday.\u2019\n\u2018What\u2019s the matter?\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019m all run down.\u2019\n\u2018Well, shall I help myself?\u2019 Tom demanded. \u2018You sound-\ned well enough on the phone.\u2019\nWith an effort Wilson left the shade and support of the\ndoorway and, breathing hard, unscrewed the cap of the\ntank. In the sunlight his face was green.\n\u2018I didn\u2019t mean to interrupt your lunch,\u2019 he said. \u2018But I\nneed money pretty bad and I was wondering what you were\ngoing to do with your old car.\u2019\n\u2018How do you like this one?\u2019 inquired Tom. \u2018I bought it\nlast week.\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019s a nice yellow one,\u2019 said Wilson, as he strained at the\nhandle.\n\u2018Like to buy it?\u2019\n\u2018Big chance,\u2019 Wilson smiled faintly. \u2018No, but I could make\nsome money on the other.\u2019\n\u2018What do you want money for, all of a sudden?\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019ve been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and\nI want to go west.\u2019\n\u2018Your wife does!\u2019 exclaimed Tom, startled.\n\u2018She\u2019s been talking about it for ten years.\u2019 He rested for\na moment against the pump, shading his eyes. \u2018And now\nshe\u2019s going whether she wants to or not. I\u2019m going to get\nher away.\u2019\nThe coup\u00e9 flashed by us with a flurry of dust and the\nflash of a waving hand.\n\n", "page_number": 130}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018What do I owe you?\u2019 demanded Tom harshly.\n\u2018I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,\u2019\nremarked Wilson. \u2018That\u2019s why I want to get away. That\u2019s why\nI been bothering you about the car.\u2019\n\u2018What do I owe you?\u2019\n\u2018Dollar twenty.\u2019\nThe relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse\nme and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so\nfar his suspicions hadn\u2019t alighted on Tom. He had discov-\nered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in\nanother world and the shock had made him physically sick.\nI stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel\ndiscovery less than an hour before\u2014and it occurred to me\nthat there was no difference between men, in intelligence or\nrace, so profound as the difference between the sick and the\nwell. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably\nguilty\u2014as if he had just got some poor girl with child.\n\u2018I\u2019ll let you have that car,\u2019 said Tom. \u2018I\u2019ll send it over to-\nmorrow afternoon.\u2019\nThat locality was always vaguely disquieting, even in\nthe broad glare of afternoon, and now I turned my head as\nthough I had been warned of something behind. Over the\nashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their\nvigil but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were\nregarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty\nfeet away.\nIn one of the windows over the garage the curtains had\nbeen moved aside a little and Myrtle Wilson was peering\ndown at the car. So engrossed was she that she had no con-\n\n", "page_number": 131}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "sciousness of being observed and one emotion after another\ncrept into her face like objects into a slowly developing pic-\nture. Her expression was curiously familiar\u2014it was an\nexpression I had often seen on women\u2019s faces but on Myrtle\nWilson\u2019s face it seemed purposeless and inexplicable until\nI realized that her eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed\nnot on Tom, but on Jordan Baker, whom she took to be his\nwife.\nThere is no confusion like the confusion of a simple\nmind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips\nof panic. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure\nand inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control.\nInstinct made him step on the accelerator with the double\npurpose of overtaking Daisy and leaving Wilson behind,\nand we sped along toward Astoria at fifty miles an hour,\nuntil, among the spidery girders of the elevated, we came in\nsight of the easygoing blue coup\u00e9.\n\u2018Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool,\u2019 sug-\ngested Jordan. \u2018I love New York on summer afternoons\nwhen every one\u2019s away. There\u2019s something very sensuous\nabout it\u2014overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going\nto fall into your hands.\u2019\nThe word \u2018sensuous\u2019 had the effect of further disquieting\nTom but before he could invent a protest the coup\u00e9 came to\na stop and Daisy signalled us to draw up alongside.\n\u2018Where are we going?\u2019 she cried.\n\u2018How about the movies?\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019s so hot,\u2019 she complained. \u2018You go. We\u2019ll ride around\nand meet you after.\u2019 With an effort her wit rose faintly,\n\n", "page_number": 132}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018We\u2019ll meet you on some corner. I\u2019ll be the man smoking\ntwo cigarettes.\u2019\n\u2018We can\u2019t argue about it here,\u2019 Tom said impatiently as a\ntruck gave out a cursing whistle behind us. \u2018You follow me\nto the south side of Central Park, in front of the Plaza.\u2019\nSeveral times he turned his head and looked back for\ntheir car, and if the traffic delayed them he slowed up until\nthey came into sight. I think he was afraid they would dart\ndown a side street and out of his life forever.\nBut they didn\u2019t. And we all took the less explicable step\nof engaging the parlor of a suite in the Plaza Hotel.\nThe prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by\nherding us into that room eludes me, though I have a sharp\nphysical memory that, in the course of it, my underwear\nkept climbing like a damp snake around my legs and in-\ntermittent beads of sweat raced cool across my back. The\nnotion originated with Daisy\u2019s suggestion that we hire five\nbathrooms and take cold baths, and then assumed more\ntangible form as \u2018a place to have a mint julep.\u2019 Each of us\nsaid over and over that it was a \u2018crazy idea\u2019\u2014we all talked at\nonce to a baffled clerk and thought, or pretended to think,\nthat we were being very funny\u2026.\nThe room was large and stifling, and, though it was al-\nready four o\u2019clock, opening the windows admitted only a\ngust of hot shrubbery from the Park. Daisy went to the mir-\nror and stood with her back to us, fixing her hair.\n\u2018It\u2019s a swell suite,\u2019 whispered Jordan respectfully and ev-\nery one laughed.\n\u2018Open another window,\u2019 commanded Daisy, without\n\n", "page_number": 133}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "turning around.\n\u2018There aren\u2019t any more.\u2019\n\u2018Well, we\u2019d better telephone for an axe\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018The thing to do is to forget about the heat,\u2019 said Tom im-\npatiently. \u2018You make it ten times worse by crabbing about\nit.\u2019\nHe unrolled the bottle of whiskey from the towel and put\nit on the table.\n\u2018Why not let her alone, old sport?\u2019 remarked Gatsby.\n\u2018You\u2019re the one that wanted to come to town.\u2019\nThere was a moment of silence. The telephone book\nslipped from its nail and splashed to the floor, whereup-\non Jordan whispered \u2018Excuse me\u2019\u2014but this time no one\nlaughed.\n\u2018I\u2019ll pick it up,\u2019 I offered.\n\u2018I\u2019ve got it.\u2019 Gatsby examined the parted string, mut-\ntered \u2018Hum!\u2019 in an interested way, and tossed the book on\na chair.\n\u2018That\u2019s a great expression of yours, isn\u2019t it?\u2019 said Tom\nsharply.\n\u2018What is?\u2019\n\u2018All this \u2018old sport\u2019 business. Where\u2019d you pick that up?\u2019\n\u2018Now see here, Tom,\u2019 said Daisy, turning around from\nthe mirror, \u2018if you\u2019re going to make personal remarks I\nwon\u2019t stay here a minute. Call up and order some ice for the\nmint julep.\u2019\nAs Tom took up the receiver the compressed heat ex-\nploded into sound and we were listening to the portentous\nchords of Mendelssohn\u2019s Wedding March from the ball-\n\n", "page_number": 134}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "room below.\n\u2018Imagine marrying anybody in this heat!\u2019 cried Jordan\ndismally.\n\u2018Still\u2014I was married in the middle of June,\u2019 Daisy re-\nmembered, \u2018Louisville in June! Somebody fainted. Who\nwas it fainted, Tom?\u2019\n\u2018Biloxi,\u2019 he answered shortly.\n\u2018A man named Biloxi. \u2018Blocks\u2019 Biloxi, and he made box-\nes\u2014that\u2019s a fact\u2014and he was from Biloxi, Tennessee.\u2019\n\u2018They carried him into my house,\u2019 appended Jordan,\n\u2018because we lived just two doors from the church. And he\nstayed three weeks, until Daddy told him he had to get out.\nThe day after he left Daddy died.\u2019 After a moment she added\nas if she might have sounded irreverent, \u2018There wasn\u2019t any\nconnection.\u2019\n\u2018I used to know a Bill Biloxi from Memphis,\u2019 I re-\nmarked.\n\u2018That was his cousin. I knew his whole family history\nbefore he left. He gave me an aluminum putter that I use\ntoday.\u2019\nThe music had died down as the ceremony began and\nnow a long cheer floated in at the window, followed by in-\ntermittent cries of \u2018Yea\u2014ea\u2014ea!\u2019 and finally by a burst of\njazz as the dancing began.\n\u2018We\u2019re getting old,\u2019 said Daisy. \u2018If we were young we\u2019d\nrise and dance.\u2019\n\u2018Remember Biloxi,\u2019 Jordan warned her. \u2018Where\u2019d you\nknow him, Tom?\u2019\n\u2018Biloxi?\u2019 He concentrated with an effort. \u2018I didn\u2019t know\n\n", "page_number": 135}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "him. He was a friend of Daisy\u2019s.\u2019\n\u2018He was not,\u2019 she denied. \u2018I\u2019d never seen him before. He\ncame down in the private car.\u2019\n\u2018Well, he said he knew you. He said he was raised in Lou-\nisville. Asa Bird brought him around at the last minute and\nasked if we had room for him.\u2019\nJordan smiled.\n\u2018He was probably bumming his way home. He told me he\nwas president of your class at Yale.\u2019\nTom and I looked at each other blankly.\n\u2018BilOxi?\u2019\n\u2018First place, we didn\u2019t have any president\u2014\u2014\u2018\nGatsby\u2019s foot beat a short, restless tattoo and Tom eyed\nhim suddenly.\n\u2018By the way, Mr. Gatsby, I understand you\u2019re an Oxford\nman.\u2019\n\u2018Not exactly.\u2019\n\u2018Oh, yes, I understand you went to Oxford.\u2019\n\u2018Yes\u2014I went there.\u2019\nA pause. Then Tom\u2019s voice, incredulous and insulting:\n\u2018You must have gone there about the time Biloxi went to\nNew Haven.\u2019\nAnother pause. A waiter knocked and came in with\ncrushed mint and ice but the silence was unbroken by his\n\u2018Thank you\u2019 and the soft closing of the door. This tremen-\ndous detail was to be cleared up at last.\n\u2018I told you I went there,\u2019 said Gatsby.\n\u2018I heard you, but I\u2019d like to know when.\u2019\n\u2018It was in nineteen-nineteen, I only stayed five months.\n\n", "page_number": 136}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "That\u2019s why I can\u2019t really call myself an Oxford man.\u2019\nTom glanced around to see if we mirrored his unbelief.\nBut we were all looking at Gatsby.\n\u2018It was an opportunity they gave to some of the officers\nafter the Armistice,\u2019 he continued. \u2018We could go to any of\nthe universities in England or France.\u2019\nI wanted to get up and slap him on the back. I had one\nof those renewals of complete faith in him that I\u2019d experi-\nenced before.\nDaisy rose, smiling faintly, and went to the table.\n\u2018Open the whiskey, Tom,\u2019 she ordered. \u2018And I\u2019ll make you\na mint julep. Then you won\u2019t seem so stupid to yourself\u2026.\nLook at the mint!\u2019\n\u2018Wait a minute,\u2019 snapped Tom, \u2018I want to ask Mr. Gatsby\none more question.\u2019\n\u2018Go on,\u2019 Gatsby said politely.\n\u2018What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house\nanyhow?\u2019\nThey were out in the open at last and Gatsby was con-\ntent.\n\u2018He isn\u2019t causing a row.\u2019 Daisy looked desperately from\none to the other. \u2018You\u2019re causing a row. Please have a little\nself control.\u2019\n\u2018Self control!\u2019 repeated Tom incredulously. \u2018I suppose the\nlatest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere\nmake love to your wife. Well, if that\u2019s the idea you can count\nme out\u2026. Nowadays people begin by sneering at family\nlife and family institutions and next they\u2019ll throw every-\nthing overboard and have intermarriage between black and\n\n", "page_number": 137}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "white.\u2019\nFlushed with his impassioned gibberish he saw himself\nstanding alone on the last barrier of civilization.\n\u2018We\u2019re all white here,\u2019 murmured Jordan.\n\u2018I know I\u2019m not very popular. I don\u2019t give big parties. I\nsuppose you\u2019ve got to make your house into a pigsty in or-\nder to have any friends\u2014in the modern world.\u2019\nAngry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh\nwhenever he opened his mouth. The transition from liber-\ntine to prig was so complete.\n\u2018I\u2019ve got something to tell YOU, old sport,\u2014\u2014\u2019 began\nGatsby. But Daisy guessed at his intention.\n\u2018Please don\u2019t!\u2019 she interrupted helplessly. \u2018Please let\u2019s all\ngo home. Why don\u2019t we all go home?\u2019\n\u2018That\u2019s a good idea.\u2019 I got up. \u2018Come on, Tom. Nobody\nwants a drink.\u2019\n\u2018I want to know what Mr. Gatsby has to tell me.\u2019\n\u2018Your wife doesn\u2019t love you,\u2019 said Gatsby. \u2018She\u2019s never\nloved you. She loves me.\u2019\n\u2018You must be crazy!\u2019 exclaimed Tom automatically.\nGatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement.\n\u2018She never loved you, do you hear?\u2019 he cried. \u2018She only\nmarried you because I was poor and she was tired of wait-\ning for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she\nnever loved any one except me!\u2019\nAt this point Jordan and I tried to go but Tom and Gats-\nby insisted with competitive firmness that we remain\u2014as\nthough neither of them had anything to conceal and it\nwould be a privilege to partake vicariously of their emo-\n\n", "page_number": 138}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "tions.\n\u2018Sit down Daisy.\u2019 Tom\u2019s voice groped unsuccessfully for\nthe paternal note. \u2018What\u2019s been going on? I want to hear all\nabout it.\u2019\n\u2018I told you what\u2019s been going on,\u2019 said Gatsby. \u2018Going on\nfor five years\u2014and you didn\u2019t know.\u2019\nTom turned to Daisy sharply.\n\u2018You\u2019ve been seeing this fellow for five years?\u2019\n\u2018Not seeing,\u2019 said Gatsby. \u2018No, we couldn\u2019t meet. But both\nof us loved each other all that time, old sport, and you didn\u2019t\nknow. I used to laugh sometimes\u2014\u2018but there was no laugh-\nter in his eyes, \u2018to think that you didn\u2019t know.\u2019\n\u2018Oh\u2014that\u2019s all.\u2019 Tom tapped his thick fingers together\nlike a clergyman and leaned back in his chair.\n\u2018You\u2019re crazy!\u2019 he exploded. \u2018I can\u2019t speak about what\nhappened five years ago, because I didn\u2019t know Daisy then\u2014\nand I\u2019ll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her\nunless you brought the groceries to the back door. But all\nthe rest of that\u2019s a God Damned lie. Daisy loved me when\nshe married me and she loves me now.\u2019\n\u2018No,\u2019 said Gatsby, shaking his head.\n\u2018She does, though. The trouble is that sometimes she gets\nfoolish ideas in her head and doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s do-\ning.\u2019 He nodded sagely. \u2018And what\u2019s more, I love Daisy too.\nOnce in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of my-\nself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all\nthe time.\u2019\n\u2018You\u2019re revolting,\u2019 said Daisy. She turned to me, and her\nvoice, dropping an octave lower, filled the room with thrill-\n\n", "page_number": 139}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "ing scorn: \u2018Do you know why we left Chicago? I\u2019m surprised\nthat they didn\u2019t treat you to the story of that little spree.\u2019\nGatsby walked over and stood beside her.\n\u2018Daisy, that\u2019s all over now,\u2019 he said earnestly. \u2018It doesn\u2019t\nmatter any more. Just tell him the truth\u2014that you never\nloved him\u2014and it\u2019s all wiped out forever.\u2019\nShe looked at him blindly. \u2018Why,\u2014how could I love\nhim\u2014possibly?\u2019\n\u2018You never loved him.\u2019\nShe hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort\nof appeal, as though she realized at last what she was do-\ning\u2014and as though she had never, all along, intended doing\nanything at all. But it was done now. It was too late.\n\u2018I never loved him,\u2019 she said, with perceptible reluc-\ntance.\n\u2018Not at Kapiolani?\u2019 demanded Tom suddenly.\n\u2018No.\u2019\nFrom the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating\nchords were drifting up on hot waves of air.\n\u2018Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to\nkeep your shoes dry?\u2019 There was a husky tenderness in his\ntone. \u2018\u2026 Daisy?\u2019\n\u2018Please don\u2019t.\u2019 Her voice was cold, but the rancour was\ngone from it. She looked at Gatsby. \u2018There, Jay,\u2019 she said\u2014\nbut her hand as she tried to light a cigarette was trembling.\nSuddenly she threw the cigarette and the burning match on\nthe carpet.\n\u2018Oh, you want too much!\u2019 she cried to Gatsby. \u2018I love you\nnow\u2014isn\u2019t that enough? I can\u2019t help what\u2019s past.\u2019 She began\n\n", "page_number": 140}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "to sob helplessly. \u2018I did love him once\u2014but I loved you too.\u2019\nGatsby\u2019s eyes opened and closed.\n\u2018You loved me TOO?\u2019 he repeated.\n\u2018Even that\u2019s a lie,\u2019 said Tom savagely. \u2018She didn\u2019t know\nyou were alive. Why,\u2014there\u2019re things between Daisy and\nme that you\u2019ll never know, things that neither of us can ever\nforget.\u2019\nThe words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.\n\u2018I want to speak to Daisy alone,\u2019 he insisted. \u2018She\u2019s all ex-\ncited now\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Even alone I can\u2019t say I never loved Tom,\u2019 she admitted\nin a pitiful voice. \u2018It wouldn\u2019t be true.\u2019\n\u2018Of course it wouldn\u2019t,\u2019 agreed Tom.\nShe turned to her husband.\n\u2018As if it mattered to you,\u2019 she said.\n\u2018Of course it matters. I\u2019m going to take better care of you\nfrom now on.\u2019\n\u2018You don\u2019t understand,\u2019 said Gatsby, with a touch of pan-\nic. \u2018You\u2019re not going to take care of her any more.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019m not?\u2019 Tom opened his eyes wide and laughed. He\ncould afford to control himself now. \u2018Why\u2019s that?\u2019\n\u2018Daisy\u2019s leaving you.\u2019\n\u2018Nonsense.\u2019\n\u2018I am, though,\u2019 she said with a visible effort.\n\u2018She\u2019s not leaving me!\u2019 Tom\u2019s words suddenly leaned\ndown over Gatsby. \u2018Certainly not for a common swindler\nwho\u2019d have to steal the ring he put on her finger.\u2019\n\u2018I won\u2019t stand this!\u2019 cried Daisy. \u2018Oh, please let\u2019s get out.\u2019\n\u2018Who are you, anyhow?\u2019 broke out Tom. \u2018You\u2019re one of\n\n", "page_number": 141}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "that bunch that hangs around with Meyer Wolfshiem\u2014that\nmuch I happen to know. I\u2019ve made a little investigation into\nyour affairs\u2014and I\u2019ll carry it further tomorrow.\u2019\n\u2018You can suit yourself about that, old sport.\u2019 said Gatsby\nsteadily.\n\u2018I found out what your \u2018drug stores\u2019 were.\u2019 He turned to\nus and spoke rapidly. \u2018He and this Wolfshiem bought up a\nlot of side-street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold\ngrain alcohol over the counter. That\u2019s one of his little stunts.\nI picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him and I\nwasn\u2019t far wrong.\u2019\n\u2018What about it?\u2019 said Gatsby politely. \u2018I guess your friend\nWalter Chase wasn\u2019t too proud to come in on it.\u2019\n\u2018And you left him in the lurch, didn\u2019t you? You let him go\nto jail for a month over in New Jersey. God! You ought to\nhear Walter on the subject of YOU.\u2019\n\u2018He came to us dead broke. He was very glad to pick up\nsome money, old sport.\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t you call me \u2018old sport\u2019!\u2019 cried Tom. Gatsby said\nnothing. \u2018Walter could have you up on the betting laws too,\nbut Wolfshiem scared him into shutting his mouth.\u2019\nThat unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back again in\nGatsby\u2019s face.\n\u2018That drug store business was just small change,\u2019 con-\ntinued Tom slowly, \u2018but you\u2019ve got something on now that\nWalter\u2019s afraid to tell me about.\u2019\nI glanced at Daisy who was staring terrified between\nGatsby and her husband and at Jordan who had begun to\nbalance an invisible but absorbing object on the tip of her\n\n", "page_number": 142}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "chin. Then I turned back to Gatsby\u2014and was startled at\nhis expression. He looked\u2014and this is said in all contempt\nfor the babbled slander of his garden\u2014as if he had \u2018killed a\nman.\u2019 For a moment the set of his face could be described in\njust that fantastic way.\nIt passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, deny-\ning everything, defending his name against accusations that\nhad not been made. But with every word she was drawing\nfurther and further into herself, so he gave that up and only\nthe dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away,\ntrying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling un-\nhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the\nroom.\nThe voice begged again to go.\n\u2018PLEASE, Tom! I can\u2019t stand this any more.\u2019\nHer frightened eyes told that whatever intentions, what-\never courage she had had, were definitely gone.\n\u2018You two start on home, Daisy,\u2019 said Tom. \u2018In Mr. Gats-\nby\u2019s car.\u2019\nShe looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with\nmagnanimous scorn.\n\u2018Go on. He won\u2019t annoy you. I think he realizes that his\npresumptuous little flirtation is over.\u2019\nThey were gone, without a word, snapped out, made ac-\ncidental, isolated, like ghosts even from our pity.\nAfter a moment Tom got up and began wrapping the un-\nopened bottle of whiskey in the towel.\n\u2018Want any of this stuff? Jordan? \u2026 Nick?\u2019\nI didn\u2019t answer.\n\n", "page_number": 143}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018Nick?\u2019 He asked again.\n\u2018What?\u2019\n\u2018Want any?\u2019\n\u2018No \u2026 I just remembered that today\u2019s my birthday.\u2019\nI was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous menac-\ning road of a new decade.\nIt was seven o\u2019clock when we got into the coup\u00e9 with him\nand started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exult-\ning and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan\nand me as the foreign clamor on the sidewalk or the tumult\nof the elevated overhead. Human sympathy has its limits\nand we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade\nwith the city lights behind. Thirty\u2014the promise of a decade\nof loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thin-\nning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was\nJordan beside me who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to\ncarry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed\nover the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat\u2019s\nshoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with\nthe reassuring pressure of her hand.\nSo we drove on toward death through the cooling twi-\nlight.\nThe young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint be-\nside the ashheaps was the principal witness at the inquest.\nHe had slept through the heat until after five, when he\nstrolled over to the garage and found George Wilson sick in\nhis office\u2014really sick, pale as his own pale hair and shaking\nall over. Michaelis advised him to go to bed but Wilson re-\nfused, saying that he\u2019d miss a lot of business if he did. While\n\n", "page_number": 144}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "his neighbor was trying to persuade him a violent racket\nbroke out overhead.\n\u2018I\u2019ve got my wife locked in up there,\u2019 explained Wilson\ncalmly. \u2018She\u2019s going to stay there till the day after tomorrow\nand then we\u2019re going to move away.\u2019\nMichaelis was astonished; they had been neighbors for\nfour years and Wilson had never seemed faintly capable of\nsuch a statement. Generally he was one of these worn-out\nmen: when he wasn\u2019t working he sat on a chair in the door-\nway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along\nthe road. When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed\nin an agreeable, colorless way. He was his wife\u2019s man and\nnot his own.\nSo naturally Michaelis tried to find out what had hap-\npened, but Wilson wouldn\u2019t say a word\u2014instead he began\nto throw curious, suspicious glances at his visitor and ask\nhim what he\u2019d been doing at certain times on certain days.\nJust as the latter was getting uneasy some workmen came\npast the door bound for his restaurant and Michaelis took\nthe opportunity to get away, intending to come back later.\nBut he didn\u2019t. He supposed he forgot to, that\u2019s all. When he\ncame outside again a little after seven he was reminded of\nthe conversation because he heard Mrs. Wilson\u2019s voice, loud\nand scolding, downstairs in the garage.\n\u2018Beat me!\u2019 he heard her cry. \u2018Throw me down and beat\nme, you dirty little coward!\u2019\nA moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her\nhands and shouting; before he could move from his door\nthe business was over.\n\n", "page_number": 145}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "The \u2018death car\u2019 as the newspapers called it, didn\u2019t stop;\nit came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically\nfor a moment and then disappeared around the next bend.\nMichaelis wasn\u2019t even sure of its color\u2014he told the first po-\nliceman that it was light green. The other car, the one going\ntoward New York, came to rest a hundred yards beyond,\nand its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life\nviolently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her\nthick, dark blood with the dust.\nMichaelis and this man reached her first but when they\nhad torn open her shirtwaist still damp with perspiration,\nthey saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap\nand there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The\nmouth was wide open and ripped at the corners as though\nshe had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality\nshe had stored so long.\nWe saw the three or four automobiles and the crowd\nwhen we were still some distance away.\n\u2018Wreck!\u2019 said Tom. \u2018That\u2019s good. Wilson\u2019ll have a little\nbusiness at last.\u2019\nHe slowed down, but still without any intention of stop-\nping until, as we came nearer, the hushed intent faces of the\npeople at the garage door made him automatically put on\nthe brakes.\n\u2018We\u2019ll take a look,\u2019 he said doubtfully, \u2018just a look.\u2019\nI became aware now of a hollow, wailing sound which is-\nsued incessantly from the garage, a sound which as we got\nout of the coup\u00e9 and walked toward the door resolved it-\nself into the words \u2018Oh, my God!\u2019 uttered over and over in\n\n", "page_number": 146}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "a gasping moan.\n\u2018There\u2019s some bad trouble here,\u2019 said Tom excitedly.\nHe reached up on tiptoes and peered over a circle of\nheads into the garage which was lit only by a yellow light\nin a swinging wire basket overhead. Then he made a harsh\nsound in his throat and with a violent thrusting movement\nof his powerful arms pushed his way through.\nThe circle closed up again with a running murmur of ex-\npostulation; it was a minute before I could see anything at\nall. Then new arrivals disarranged the line and Jordan and I\nwere pushed suddenly inside.\nMyrtle Wilson\u2019s body wrapped in a blanket and then\nin another blanket as though she suffered from a chill in\nthe hot night lay on a work table by the wall and Tom,\nwith his back to us, was bending over it, motionless. Next\nto him stood a motorcycle policeman taking down names\nwith much sweat and correction in a little book. At first I\ncouldn\u2019t find the source of the high, groaning words that\nechoed clamorously through the bare garage\u2014then I saw\nWilson standing on the raised threshold of his office, sway-\ning back and forth and holding to the doorposts with both\nhands. Some man was talking to him in a low voice and\nattempting from time to time to lay a hand on his shoul-\nder, but Wilson neither heard nor saw. His eyes would drop\nslowly from the swinging light to the laden table by the wall\nand then jerk back to the light again and he gave out inces-\nsantly his high horrible call.\n\u2018O, my Ga-od! O, my Ga-od! Oh, Ga-od! Oh, my Ga-\nod!\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 147}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "Presently Tom lifted his head with a jerk and after staring\naround the garage with glazed eyes addressed a mumbled\nincoherent remark to the policeman.\n\u2018M-a-v\u2014\u2019 the policeman was saying, \u2018\u2014o\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018No,\u2014r\u2014\u2019 corrected the man, \u2018M-a-v-r-o\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Listen to me!\u2019 muttered Tom fiercely.\n\u2018r\u2014\u2019 said the policeman, \u2018o\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018g\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018g\u2014\u2019 He looked up as Tom\u2019s broad hand fell sharply on\nhis shoulder. \u2018What you want, fella?\u2019\n\u2018What happened\u2014that\u2019s what I want to know!\u2019\n\u2018Auto hit her. Ins\u2019antly killed.\u2019\n\u2018Instantly killed,\u2019 repeated Tom, staring.\n\u2018She ran out ina road. Son-of-a-bitch didn\u2019t even stopus\ncar.\u2019\n\u2018There was two cars,\u2019 said Michaelis, \u2018one comin\u2019, one\ngoin\u2019, see?\u2019\n\u2018Going where?\u2019 asked the policeman keenly.\n\u2018One goin\u2019 each way. Well, she\u2014\u2019 His hand rose toward\nthe blankets but stopped half way and fell to his side, \u2018\u2014she\nran out there an\u2019 the one comin\u2019 from N\u2019York knock right\ninto her goin\u2019 thirty or forty miles an hour.\u2019\n\u2018What\u2019s the name of this place here?\u2019 demanded the of-\nficer.\n\u2018Hasn\u2019t got any name.\u2019\nA pale, well-dressed Negro stepped near.\n\u2018It was a yellow car,\u2019 he said, \u2018big yellow car. New.\u2019\n\u2018See the accident?\u2019 asked the policeman.\n\u2018No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster\u2019n\n\n", "page_number": 148}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "forty. Going fifty, sixty.\u2019\n\u2018Come here and let\u2019s have your name. Look out now. I\nwant to get his name.\u2019\nSome words of this conversation must have reached Wil-\nson swaying in the office door, for suddenly a new theme\nfound voice among his gasping cries.\n\u2018You don\u2019t have to tell me what kind of car it was! I know\nwhat kind of car it was!\u2019\nWatching Tom I saw the wad of muscle back of his\nshoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to\nWilson and standing in front of him seized him firmly by\nthe upper arms.\n\u2018You\u2019ve got to pull yourself together,\u2019 he said with sooth-\ning gruffness.\nWilson\u2019s eyes fell upon Tom; he started up on his tiptoes\nand then would have collapsed to his knees had not Tom\nheld him upright.\n\u2018Listen,\u2019 said Tom, shaking him a little. \u2018I just got here a\nminute ago, from New York. I was bringing you that coup\u00e9\nwe\u2019ve been talking about. That yellow car I was driving this\nafternoon wasn\u2019t mine, do you hear? I haven\u2019t seen it all af-\nternoon.\u2019\nOnly the Negro and I were near enough to hear what he\nsaid but the policeman caught something in the tone and\nlooked over with truculent eyes.\n\u2018What\u2019s all that?\u2019 he demanded.\n\u2018I\u2019m a friend of his.\u2019 Tom turned his head but kept his\nhands firm on Wilson\u2019s body. \u2018He says he knows the car that\ndid it\u2026. It was a yellow car.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 149}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "Some dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspi-\nciously at Tom.\n\u2018And what color\u2019s your car?\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019s a blue car, a coup\u00e9.\u2019\n\u2018We\u2019ve come straight from New York,\u2019 I said.\nSome one who had been driving a little behind us con-\nfirmed this and the policeman turned away.\n\u2018Now, if you\u2019ll let me have that name again correct\u2014\u2014\u2018\nPicking up Wilson like a doll Tom carried him into the\noffice, set him down in a chair and came back.\n\u2018If somebody\u2019ll come here and sit with him!\u2019 he snapped\nauthoritatively. He watched while the two men standing\nclosest glanced at each other and went unwillingly into the\nroom. Then Tom shut the door on them and came down the\nsingle step, his eyes avoiding the table. As he passed close to\nme he whispered \u2018Let\u2019s get out.\u2019\nSelf consciously, with his authoritative arms breaking\nthe way, we pushed through the still gathering crowd, pass-\ning a hurried doctor, case in hand, who had been sent for in\nwild hope half an hour ago.\nTom drove slowly until we were beyond the bend\u2014then\nhis foot came down hard and the coup\u00e9 raced along through\nthe night. In a little while I heard a low husky sob and saw\nthat the tears were overflowing down his face.\n\u2018The God Damn coward!\u2019 he whimpered. \u2018He didn\u2019t even\nstop his car.\u2019\nThe Buchanans\u2019 house floated suddenly toward us\nthrough the dark rustling trees. Tom stopped beside the\nporch and looked up at the second floor where two win-\n\n", "page_number": 150}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "dows bloomed with light among the vines.\n\u2018Daisy\u2019s home,\u2019 he said. As we got out of the car he glanced\nat me and frowned slightly.\n\u2018I ought to have dropped you in West Egg, Nick. There\u2019s\nnothing we can do tonight.\u2019\nA change had come over him and he spoke gravely, and\nwith decision. As we walked across the moonlight gravel to\nthe porch he disposed of the situation in a few brisk phras-\nes.\n\u2018I\u2019ll telephone for a taxi to take you home, and while\nyou\u2019re waiting you and Jordan better go in the kitchen\nand have them get you some supper\u2014if you want any.\u2019 He\nopened the door. \u2018Come in.\u2019\n\u2018No thanks. But I\u2019d be glad if you\u2019d order me the taxi. I\u2019ll\nwait outside.\u2019\nJordan put her hand on my arm.\n\u2018Won\u2019t you come in, Nick?\u2019\n\u2018No thanks.\u2019\nI was feeling a little sick and I wanted to be alone. But\nJordan lingered for a moment more.\n\u2018It\u2019s only half past nine,\u2019 she said.\nI\u2019d be damned if I\u2019d go in; I\u2019d had enough of all of them\nfor one day and suddenly that included Jordan too. She must\nhave seen something of this in my expression for she turned\nabruptly away and ran up the porch steps into the house. I\nsat down for a few minutes with my head in my hands, until\nI heard the phone taken up inside and the butler\u2019s voice call-\ning a taxi. Then I walked slowly down the drive away from\nthe house intending to wait by the gate.\n\n", "page_number": 151}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "I hadn\u2019t gone twenty yards when I heard my name and\nGatsby stepped from between two bushes into the path. I\nmust have felt pretty weird by that time because I could\nthink of nothing except the luminosity of his pink suit un-\nder the moon.\n\u2018What are you doing?\u2019 I inquired.\n\u2018Just standing here, old sport.\u2019\nSomehow, that seemed a despicable occupation. For all I\nknew he was going to rob the house in a moment; I wouldn\u2019t\nhave been surprised to see sinister faces, the faces of \u2018Wolf-\nshiem\u2019s people,\u2019 behind him in the dark shrubbery.\n\u2018Did you see any trouble on the road?\u2019 he asked after a\nminute.\n\u2018Yes.\u2019\nHe hesitated.\n\u2018Was she killed?\u2019\n\u2018Yes.\u2019\n\u2018I thought so; I told Daisy I thought so. It\u2019s better that the\nshock should all come at once. She stood it pretty well.\u2019\nHe spoke as if Daisy\u2019s reaction was the only thing that\nmattered.\n\u2018I got to West Egg by a side road,\u2019 he went on, \u2018and left the\ncar in my garage. I don\u2019t think anybody saw us but of course\nI can\u2019t be sure.\u2019\nI disliked him so much by this time that I didn\u2019t find it\nnecessary to tell him he was wrong.\n\u2018Who was the woman?\u2019 he inquired.\n\u2018Her name was Wilson. Her husband owns the garage.\nHow the devil did it happen?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 152}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "\u2018Well, I tried to swing the wheel\u2014\u2014\u2019 He broke off, and\nsuddenly I guessed at the truth.\n\u2018Was Daisy driving?\u2019\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 he said after a moment, \u2018but of course I\u2019ll say I was.\nYou see, when we left New York she was very nervous and\nshe thought it would steady her to drive\u2014and this woman\nrushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the\nother way. It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me\nthat she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody\nshe knew. Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom-\nan toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and\nturned back. The second my hand reached the wheel I felt\nthe shock\u2014it must have killed her instantly.\u2019\n\u2018It ripped her open\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Don\u2019t tell me, old sport.\u2019 He winced. \u2018Anyhow\u2014Daisy\nstepped on it. I tried to make her stop, but she couldn\u2019t so I\npulled on the emergency brake. Then she fell over into my\nlap and I drove on.\n\u2018She\u2019ll be all right tomorrow,\u2019 he said presently. \u2018I\u2019m just\ngoing to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that\nunpleasantness this afternoon. She\u2019s locked herself into her\nroom and if he tries any brutality she\u2019s going to turn the\nlight out and on again.\u2019\n\u2018He won\u2019t touch her,\u2019 I said. \u2018He\u2019s not thinking about\nher.\u2019\n\u2018I don\u2019t trust him, old sport.\u2019\n\u2018How long are you going to wait?\u2019\n\u2018All night if necessary. Anyhow till they all go to bed.\u2019\nA new point of view occurred to me. Suppose Tom found\n\n", "page_number": 153}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "out that Daisy had been driving. He might think he saw a\nconnection in it\u2014he might think anything. I looked at the\nhouse: there were two or three bright windows downstairs\nand the pink glow from Daisy\u2019s room on the second floor.\n\u2018You wait here,\u2019 I said. \u2018I\u2019ll see if there\u2019s any sign of a com-\nmotion.\u2019\nI walked back along the border of the lawn, traversed the\ngravel softly and tiptoed up the veranda steps. The draw-\ning-room curtains were open, and I saw that the room was\nempty. Crossing the porch where we had dined that June\nnight three months before I came to a small rectangle of\nlight which I guessed was the pantry window. The blind was\ndrawn but I found a rift at the sill.\nDaisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the\nkitchen table with a plate of cold fried chicken between\nthem and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across\nthe table at her and in his earnestness his hand had fallen\nupon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up\nat him and nodded in agreement.\nThey weren\u2019t happy, and neither of them had touched the\nchicken or the ale\u2014and yet they weren\u2019t unhappy either.\nThere was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about\nthe picture and anybody would have said that they were\nconspiring together.\nAs I tiptoed from the porch I heard my taxi feeling its\nway along the dark road toward the house. Gatsby was wait-\ning where I had left him in the drive.\n\u2018Is it all quiet up there?\u2019 he asked anxiously.\n\u2018Yes, it\u2019s all quiet.\u2019 I hesitated. \u2018You\u2019d better come home\n\n", "page_number": 154}, {"chapter": 8, "page": "and get some sleep.\u2019\nHe shook his head.\n\u2018I want to wait here till Daisy goes to bed. Good night,\nold sport.\u2019\nHe put his hands in his coat pockets and turned back\neagerly to his scrutiny of the house, as though my presence\nmarred the sacredness of the vigil. So I walked away and left\nhim standing there in the moonlight\u2014watching over noth-\ning.\n\n\n\n\n", "page_number": 155}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "\n\nI  couldn\u2019t sleep all night; a fog-horn was groaning in-\ncessantly on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick between\ngrotesque reality and savage frightening dreams. Toward\ndawn I heard a taxi go up Gatsby\u2019s drive and immediately\nI jumped out of bed and began to dress\u2014I felt that I had\nsomething to tell him, something to warn him about and\nmorning would be too late.\nCrossing his lawn I saw that his front door was still open\nand he was leaning against a table in the hall, heavy with\ndejection or sleep.\n\u2018Nothing happened,\u2019 he said wanly. \u2018I waited, and about\nfour o\u2019clock she came to the window and stood there for a\nminute and then turned out the light.\u2019\nHis house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did\nthat night when we hunted through the great rooms for cig-\narettes. We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions\nand felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for electric light\nswitches\u2014once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the\nkeys of a ghostly piano. There was an inexplicable amount\nof dust everywhere and the rooms were musty as though\nthey hadn\u2019t been aired for many days. I found the humidor\non an unfamiliar table with two stale dry cigarettes inside.\nThrowing open the French windows of the drawing-room\nwe sat smoking out into the darkness.\n\n", "page_number": 156}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "\u2018You ought to go away,\u2019 I said. \u2018It\u2019s pretty certain they\u2019ll\ntrace your car.\u2019\n\u2018Go away NOW, old sport?\u2019\n\u2018Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal.\u2019\nHe wouldn\u2019t consider it. He couldn\u2019t possibly leave Daisy\nuntil he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at\nsome last hope and I couldn\u2019t bear to shake him free.\nIt was this night that he told me the strange story of his\nyouth with Dan Cody\u2014told it to me because \u2018Jay Gatsby\u2019\nhad broken up like glass against Tom\u2019s hard malice and the\nlong secret extravaganza was played out. I think that he\nwould have acknowledged anything, now, without reserve,\nbut he wanted to talk about Daisy.\nShe was the first \u2018nice\u2019 girl he had ever known. In vari-\nous unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such\npeople but always with indiscernible barbed wire between.\nHe found her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, at\nfirst with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone. It\namazed him\u2014he had never been in such a beautiful house\nbefore. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was\nthat Daisy lived there\u2014it was as casual a thing to her as his\ntent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about\nit, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than\nother bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place\nthrough its corridors and of romances that were not musty\nand laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing\nand redolent of this year\u2019s shining motor cars and of danc-\nes whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited him too\nthat many men had already loved Daisy\u2014it increased her\n\n", "page_number": 157}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house,\npervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant\nemotions.\nBut he knew that he was in Daisy\u2019s house by a colossal\naccident. However glorious might be his future as Jay Gats-\nby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past,\nand at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might\nslip from his shoulders. So he made the most of his time. He\ntook what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously\u2014\neventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her\nbecause he had no real right to touch her hand.\nHe might have despised himself, for he had certainly\ntaken her under false pretenses. I don\u2019t mean that he had\ntraded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately\ngiven Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was\na person from much the same stratum as herself\u2014that he\nwas fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact he had\nno such facilities\u2014he had no comfortable family standing\nbehind him and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal\ngovernment to be blown anywhere about the world.\nBut he didn\u2019t despise himself and it didn\u2019t turn out as he\nhad imagined. He had intended, probably, to take what he\ncould and go\u2014but now he found that he had committed\nhimself to the following of a grail. He knew that Daisy was\nextraordinary but he didn\u2019t realize just how extraordinary\na \u2018nice\u2019 girl could be. She vanished into her rich house, into\nher rich, full life, leaving Gatsby\u2014nothing. He felt married\nto her, that was all.\nWhen they met again two days later it was Gatsby who\n\n", "page_number": 158}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "was breathless, who was somehow betrayed. Her porch was\nbright with the bought luxury of star-shine; the wicker of\nthe settee squeaked fashionably as she turned toward him\nand he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught\na cold and it made her voice huskier and more charming\nthan ever and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the\nyouth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of\nthe freshness of many clothes and of Daisy, gleaming like\nsilver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.\n\u2018I can\u2019t describe to you how surprised I was to find out\nI loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she\u2019d\nthrow me over, but she didn\u2019t, because she was in love with\nme too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different\nthings from her\u2026. Well, there I was, way off my ambitions,\ngetting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I\ndidn\u2019t care. What was the use of doing great things if I could\nhave a better time telling her what I was going to do?\u2019\nOn the last afternoon before he went abroad he sat with\nDaisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall\nday with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and\nthen she moved and he changed his arm a little and once\nhe kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon had made\nthem tranquil for a while as if to give them a deep memory\nfor the long parting the next day promised. They had never\nbeen closer in their month of love nor communicated more\nprofoundly one with another than when she brushed silent\nlips against his coat\u2019s shoulder or when he touched the end\nof her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.\nHe did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain\n\n", "page_number": 159}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "before he went to the front and following the Argonne bat-\ntles he got his majority and the command of the divisional\nmachine guns. After the Armistice he tried frantically to\nget home but some complication or misunderstanding sent\nhim to Oxford instead. He was worried now\u2014there was a\nquality of nervous despair in Daisy\u2019s letters. She didn\u2019t see\nwhy he couldn\u2019t come. She was feeling the pressure of the\nworld outside and she wanted to see him and feel his pres-\nence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the\nright thing after all.\nFor Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent\nof orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras\nwhich set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness\nand suggestiveness of life in new tunes. All night the sax-\nophones wailed the hopeless comment of the \u2018Beale Street\nBlues\u2019 while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers\nshuffled the shining dust. At the grey tea hour there were\nalways rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low sweet\nfever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose pet-\nals blown by the sad horns around the floor.\nThrough this twilight universe Daisy began to move\nagain with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half\na dozen dates a day with half a dozen men and drowsing\nasleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening\ndress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her\nbed. And all the time something within her was crying for\na decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately\u2014\nand the decision must be made by some force\u2014of love, of\nmoney, of unquestionable practicality\u2014that was close at\n\n", "page_number": 160}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "hand.\nThat force took shape in the middle of spring with the ar-\nrival of Tom Buchanan. There was a wholesome bulkiness\nabout his person and his position and Daisy was flattered.\nDoubtless there was a certain struggle and a certain relief.\nThe letter reached Gatsby while he was still at Oxford.\nIt was dawn now on Long Island and we went about open-\ning the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house\nwith grey turning, gold turning light. The shadow of a tree\nfell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing\namong the blue leaves. There was a slow pleasant movement\nin the air, scarcely a wind, promising a cool lovely day.\n\u2018I don\u2019t think she ever loved him.\u2019 Gatsby turned around\nfrom a window and looked at me challengingly. \u2018You must\nremember, old sport, she was very excited this afternoon.\nHe told her those things in a way that frightened her\u2014that\nmade it look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper. And the\nresult was she hardly knew what she was saying.\u2019\nHe sat down gloomily.\n\u2018Of course she might have loved him, just for a minute,\nwhen they were first married\u2014and loved me more even\nthen, do you see?\u2019\nSuddenly he came out with a curious remark:\n\u2018In any case,\u2019 he said, \u2018it was just personal.\u2019\nWhat could you make of that, except to suspect some\nintensity in his conception of the affair that couldn\u2019t be\nmeasured?\nHe came back from France when Tom and Daisy were\nstill on their wedding trip, and made a miserable but irre-\n\n", "page_number": 161}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "sistible journey to Louisville on the last of his army pay. He\nstayed there a week, walking the streets where their foot-\nsteps had clicked together through the November night and\nrevisiting the out-of-the-way places to which they had driv-\nen in her white car. Just as Daisy\u2019s house had always seemed\nto him more mysterious and gay than other houses so his\nidea of the city itself, even though she was gone from it, was\npervaded with a melancholy beauty.\nHe left feeling that if he had searched harder he might\nhave found her\u2014that he was leaving her behind. The day-\ncoach\u2014he was penniless now\u2014was hot. He went out to the\nopen vestibule and sat down on a folding-chair, and the sta-\ntion slid away and the backs of unfamiliar buildings moved\nby. Then out into the spring fields, where a yellow trolley\nraced them for a minute with people in it who might once\nhave seen the pale magic of her face along the casual street.\nThe track curved and now it was going away from the\nsun which, as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in bene-\ndiction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her\nbreath. He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch\nonly a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had\nmade lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for\nhis blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it,\nthe freshest and the best, forever.\nIt was nine o\u2019clock when we finished breakfast and went\nout on the porch. The night had made a sharp difference in\nthe weather and there was an autumn flavor in the air. The\ngardener, the last one of Gatsby\u2019s former servants, came to\nthe foot of the steps.\n\n", "page_number": 162}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "\u2018I\u2019m going to drain the pool today, Mr. Gatsby. Leaves\u2019ll\nstart falling pretty soon and then there\u2019s always trouble\nwith the pipes.\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t do it today,\u2019 Gatsby answered. He turned to me\napologetically. \u2018You know, old sport, I\u2019ve never used that\npool all summer?\u2019\nI looked at my watch and stood up.\n\u2018Twelve minutes to my train.\u2019\nI didn\u2019t want to go to the city. I wasn\u2019t worth a decent\nstroke of work but it was more than that\u2014I didn\u2019t want to\nleave Gatsby. I missed that train, and then another, before I\ncould get myself away.\n\u2018I\u2019ll call you up,\u2019 I said finally.\n\u2018Do, old sport.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019ll call you about noon.\u2019\nWe walked slowly down the steps.\n\u2018I suppose Daisy\u2019ll call too.\u2019 He looked at me anxiously as\nif he hoped I\u2019d corroborate this.\n\u2018I suppose so.\u2019\n\u2018Well\u2014goodbye.\u2019\nWe shook hands and I started away. Just before I reached\nthe hedge I remembered something and turned around.\n\u2018They\u2019re a rotten crowd,\u2019 I shouted across the lawn. \u2018You\u2019re\nworth the whole damn bunch put together.\u2019\nI\u2019ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compli-\nment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from\nbeginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face\nbroke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we\u2019d\nbeen in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time. His gor-\n\n", "page_number": 163}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "geous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of color against\nthe white steps and I thought of the night when I first came\nto his ancestral home three months before. The lawn and\ndrive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed\nat his corruption\u2014and he had stood on those steps, conceal-\ning his incorruptible dream, as he waved them goodbye.\nI thanked him for his hospitality. We were always thank-\ning him for that\u2014I and the others.\n\u2018Goodbye,\u2019 I called. \u2018I enjoyed breakfast, Gatsby.\u2019\nUp in the city I tried for a while to list the quotations\non an interminable amount of stock, then I fell asleep in\nmy swivel-chair. Just before noon the phone woke me and I\nstarted up with sweat breaking out on my forehead. It was\nJordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because\nthe uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and\nclubs and private houses made her hard to find in any oth-\ner way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something\nfresh and cool as if a divot from a green golf links had come\nsailing in at the office window but this morning it seemed\nharsh and dry.\n\u2018I\u2019ve left Daisy\u2019s house,\u2019 she said. \u2018I\u2019m at Hempstead and\nI\u2019m going down to Southampton this afternoon.\u2019\nProbably it had been tactful to leave Daisy\u2019s house, but\nthe act annoyed me and her next remark made me rigid.\n\u2018You weren\u2019t so nice to me last night.\u2019\n\u2018How could it have mattered then?\u2019\nSilence for a moment. Then\u2014\n\u2018However\u2014I want to see you.\u2019\n\u2018I want to see you too.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 164}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "\u2018Suppose I don\u2019t go to Southampton, and come into town\nthis afternoon?\u2019\n\u2018No\u2014I don\u2019t think this afternoon.\u2019\n\u2018Very well.\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019s impossible this afternoon. Various\u2014\u2014\u2018\nWe talked like that for a while and then abruptly we\nweren\u2019t talking any longer. I don\u2019t know which of us hung\nup with a sharp click but I know I didn\u2019t care. I couldn\u2019t\nhave talked to her across a tea-table that day if I never talked\nto her again in this world.\nI called Gatsby\u2019s house a few minutes later, but the line\nwas busy. I tried four times; finally an exasperated cen-\ntral told me the wire was being kept open for long distance\nfrom Detroit. Taking out my time-table I drew a small circle\naround the three-fifty train. Then I leaned back in my chair\nand tried to think. It was just noon.\nWhen I passed the ashheaps on the train that morning\nI had crossed deliberately to the other side of the car. I sup-\npose there\u2019d be a curious crowd around there all day with\nlittle boys searching for dark spots in the dust and some\ngarrulous man telling over and over what had happened\nuntil it became less and less real even to him and he could\ntell it no longer and Myrtle Wilson\u2019s tragic achievement was\nforgotten. Now I want to go back a little and tell what hap-\npened at the garage after we left there the night before.\nThey had difficulty in locating the sister, Catherine. She\nmust have broken her rule against drinking that night for\nwhen she arrived she was stupid with liquor and unable to\nunderstand that the ambulance had already gone to Flush-\n\n", "page_number": 165}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "ing. When they convinced her of this she immediately\nfainted as if that was the intolerable part of the affair. Some-\none kind or curious took her in his car and drove her in the\nwake of her sister\u2019s body.\nUntil long after midnight a changing crowd lapped up\nagainst the front of the garage while George Wilson rocked\nhimself back and forth on the couch inside. For a while the\ndoor of the office was open and everyone who came into the\ngarage glanced irresistibly through it. Finally someone said\nit was a shame and closed the door. Michaelis and several\nother men were with him\u2014first four or five men, later two\nor three men. Still later Michaelis had to ask the last strang-\ner to wait there fifteen minutes longer while he went back to\nhis own place and made a pot of coffee. After that he stayed\nthere alone with Wilson until dawn.\nAbout three o\u2019clock the quality of Wilson\u2019s incoherent\nmuttering changed\u2014he grew quieter and began to talk\nabout the yellow car. He announced that he had a way of\nfinding out whom the yellow car belonged to, and then he\nblurted out that a couple of months ago his wife had come\nfrom the city with her face bruised and her nose swollen.\nBut when he heard himself say this, he flinched and\nbegan to cry \u2018Oh, my God!\u2019 again in his groaning voice. Mi-\nchaelis made a clumsy attempt to distract him.\n\u2018How long have you been married, George? Come on\nthere, try and sit still a minute and answer my question.\nHow long have you been married?\u2019\n\u2018Twelve years.\u2019\n\u2018Ever had any children? Come on, George, sit still\u2014I\n\n", "page_number": 166}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "asked you a question. Did you ever have any children?\u2019\nThe hard brown beetles kept thudding against the dull\nlight and whenever Michaelis heard a car go tearing along\nthe road outside it sounded to him like the car that hadn\u2019t\nstopped a few hours before. He didn\u2019t like to go into the ga-\nrage because the work bench was stained where the body\nhad been lying so he moved uncomfortably around the of-\nfice\u2014he knew every object in it before morning\u2014and from\ntime to time sat down beside Wilson trying to keep him\nmore quiet.\n\u2018Have you got a church you go to sometimes, George?\nMaybe even if you haven\u2019t been there for a long time? May-\nbe I could call up the church and get a priest to come over\nand he could talk to you, see?\u2019\n\u2018Don\u2019t belong to any.\u2019\n\u2018You ought to have a church, George, for times like this.\nYou must have gone to church once. Didn\u2019t you get mar-\nried in a church? Listen, George, listen to me. Didn\u2019t you get\nmarried in a church?\u2019\n\u2018That was a long time ago.\u2019\nThe effort of answering broke the rhythm of his rocking\u2014\nfor a moment he was silent. Then the same half knowing,\nhalf bewildered look came back into his faded eyes.\n\u2018Look in the drawer there,\u2019 he said, pointing at the desk.\n\u2018Which drawer?\u2019\n\u2018That drawer\u2014that one.\u2019\nMichaelis opened the drawer nearest his hand. There\nwas nothing in it but a small expensive dog leash made of\nleather and braided silver. It was apparently new.\n\n", "page_number": 167}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "\u2018This?\u2019 he inquired, holding it up.\nWilson stared and nodded.\n\u2018I found it yesterday afternoon. She tried to tell me about\nit but I knew it was something funny.\u2019\n\u2018You mean your wife bought it?\u2019\n\u2018She had it wrapped in tissue paper on her bureau.\u2019\nMichaelis didn\u2019t see anything odd in that and he gave\nWilson a dozen reasons why his wife might have bought the\ndog leash. But conceivably Wilson had heard some of these\nsame explanations before, from Myrtle, because he began\nsaying \u2018Oh, my God!\u2019 again in a whisper\u2014his comforter left\nseveral explanations in the air.\n\u2018Then he killed her,\u2019 said Wilson. His mouth dropped\nopen suddenly.\n\u2018Who did?\u2019\n\u2018I have a way of finding out.\u2019\n\u2018You\u2019re morbid, George,\u2019 said his friend. \u2018This has been a\nstrain to you and you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re saying. You\u2019d\nbetter try and sit quiet till morning.\u2019\n\u2018He murdered her.\u2019\n\u2018It was an accident, George.\u2019\nWilson shook his head. His eyes narrowed and his mouth\nwidened slightly with the ghost of a superior \u2018Hm!\u2019\n\u2018I know,\u2019 he said definitely, \u2018I\u2019m one of these trusting fel-\nlas and I don\u2019t think any harm to NObody, but when I get to\nknow a thing I know it. It was the man in that car. She ran\nout to speak to him and he wouldn\u2019t stop.\u2019\nMichaelis had seen this too but it hadn\u2019t occurred to him\nthat there was any special significance in it. He believed that\n\n", "page_number": 168}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "Mrs. Wilson had been running away from her husband,\nrather than trying to stop any particular car.\n\u2018How could she of been like that?\u2019\n\u2018She\u2019s a deep one,\u2019 said Wilson, as if that answered the\nquestion. \u2018Ah-h-h\u2014\u2014\u2018\nHe began to rock again and Michaelis stood twisting the\nleash in his hand.\n\u2018Maybe you got some friend that I could telephone for,\nGeorge?\u2019\nThis was a forlorn hope\u2014he was almost sure that Wilson\nhad no friend: there was not enough of him for his wife. He\nwas glad a little later when he noticed a change in the room,\na blue quickening by the window, and realized that dawn\nwasn\u2019t far off. About five o\u2019clock it was blue enough outside\nto snap off the light.\nWilson\u2019s glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where\nsmall grey clouds took on fantastic shape and scurried here\nand there in the faint dawn wind.\n\u2018I spoke to her,\u2019 he muttered, after a long silence. \u2018I told\nher she might fool me but she couldn\u2019t fool God. I took her\nto the window\u2014\u2019 With an effort he got up and walked to\nthe rear window and leaned with his face pressed against\nit, \u2018\u2014and I said \u2018God knows what you\u2019ve been doing, ev-\nerything you\u2019ve been doing. You may fool me but you can\u2019t\nfool God!\u2019 \u2018\nStanding behind him Michaelis saw with a shock that he\nwas looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg which had\njust emerged pale and enormous from the dissolving night.\n\u2018God sees everything,\u2019 repeated Wilson.\n\n", "page_number": 169}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "\u2018That\u2019s an advertisement,\u2019 Michaelis assured him. Some-\nthing made him turn away from the window and look back\ninto the room. But Wilson stood there a long time, his face\nclose to the window pane, nodding into the twilight.\nBy six o\u2019clock Michaelis was worn out and grateful for\nthe sound of a car stopping outside. It was one of the watch-\ners of the night before who had promised to come back so\nhe cooked breakfast for three which he and the other man\nate together. Wilson was quieter now and Michaelis went\nhome to sleep; when he awoke four hours later and hurried\nback to the garage Wilson was gone.\nHis movements\u2014he was on foot all the time\u2014were af-\nterward traced to Port Roosevelt and then to Gad\u2019s Hill\nwhere he bought a sandwich that he didn\u2019t eat and a cup\nof coffee. He must have been tired and walking slowly for\nhe didn\u2019t reach Gad\u2019s Hill until noon. Thus far there was\nno difficulty in accounting for his time\u2014there were boys\nwho had seen a man \u2018acting sort of crazy\u2019 and motorists at\nwhom he stared oddly from the side of the road. Then for\nthree hours he disappeared from view. The police, on the\nstrength of what he said to Michaelis, that he \u2018had a way of\nfinding out,\u2019 supposed that he spent that time going from\ngarage to garage thereabouts inquiring for a yellow car. On\nthe other hand no garage man who had seen him ever came\nforward\u2014and perhaps he had an easier, surer way of find-\ning out what he wanted to know. By half past two he was\nin West Egg where he asked someone the way to Gatsby\u2019s\nhouse. So by that time he knew Gatsby\u2019s name.\nAt two o\u2019clock Gatsby put on his bathing suit and left\n\n", "page_number": 170}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "word with the butler that if any one phoned word was to be\nbrought to him at the pool. He stopped at the garage for a\npneumatic mattress that had amused his guests during the\nsummer, and the chauffeur helped him pump it up. Then he\ngave instructions that the open car wasn\u2019t to be taken out\nunder any circumstances\u2014and this was strange because\nthe front right fender needed repair.\nGatsby shouldered the mattress and started for the pool.\nOnce he stopped and shifted it a little, and the chauffeur\nasked him if he needed help, but he shook his head and in a\nmoment disappeared among the yellowing trees.\nNo telephone message arrived but the butler went with-\nout his sleep and waited for it until four o\u2019clock\u2014until long\nafter there was any one to give it to if it came. I have an idea\nthat Gatsby himself didn\u2019t believe it would come and per-\nhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt\nthat he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for\nliving too long with a single dream. He must have looked\nup at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and\nshivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and\nhow raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A\nnew world, material without being real, where poor ghosts,\nbreathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about \u2026 like\nthat ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the\namorphous trees.\nThe chauffeur\u2014he was one of Wolfshiem\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9s\u2014\nheard the shots\u2014afterward he could only say that he hadn\u2019t\nthought anything much about them. I drove from the sta-\ntion directly to Gatsby\u2019s house and my rushing anxiously\n\n", "page_number": 171}, {"chapter": 9, "page": "up the front steps was the first thing that alarmed any one.\nBut they knew then, I firmly believe. With scarcely a word\nsaid, four of us, the chauffeur, butler, gardener and I, hur-\nried down to the pool.\nThere was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the\nwater as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward\nthe drain at the other. With little ripples that were hardly\nthe shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly\ndown the pool. A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugat-\ned the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course\nwith its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves\nrevolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of compass, a thin red\ncircle in the water.\nIt was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that\nthe gardener saw Wilson\u2019s body a little way off in the grass,\nand the holocaust was complete.\n\n\n\n\n", "page_number": 172}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "\n\nA     fter two years I remember the rest of that day, and that\nnight and the next day, only as an endless drill of po-\nlice and photographers and newspaper men in and out of\nGatsby\u2019s front door. A rope stretched across the main gate\nand a policeman by it kept out the curious, but little boys\nsoon discovered that they could enter through my yard and\nthere were always a few of them clustered open-mouthed\nabout the pool. Someone with a positive manner, perhaps\na detective, used the expression \u2018mad man\u2019 as he bent over\nWilson\u2019s body that afternoon, and the adventitious author-\nity of his voice set the key for the newspaper reports next\nmorning.\nMost of those reports were a nightmare\u2014grotesque, cir-\ncumstantial, eager and untrue. When Michaelis\u2019s testimony\nat the inquest brought to light Wilson\u2019s suspicions of his wife\nI thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy\npasquinade\u2014but Catherine, who might have said anything,\ndidn\u2019t say a word. She showed a surprising amount of char-\nacter about it too\u2014looked at the coroner with determined\neyes under that corrected brow of hers and swore that her\nsister had never seen Gatsby, that her sister was completely\nhappy with her husband, that her sister had been into no\nmischief whatever. She convinced herself of it and cried\ninto her handkerchief as if the very suggestion was more\n\n", "page_number": 173}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "than she could endure. So Wilson was reduced to a man\n\u2018deranged by grief\u2019 in order that the case might remain in\nits simplest form. And it rested there.\nBut all this part of it seemed remote and unessential. I\nfound myself on Gatsby\u2019s side, and alone. From the moment\nI telephoned news of the catastrophe to West Egg village,\nevery surmise about him, and every practical question, was\nreferred to me. At first I was surprised and confused; then,\nas he lay in his house and didn\u2019t move or breathe or speak\nhour upon hour it grew upon me that I was responsible, be-\ncause no one else was interested\u2014interested, I mean, with\nthat intense personal interest to which every one has some\nvague right at the end.\nI called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called\nher instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom\nhad gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with\nthem.\n\u2018Left no address?\u2019\n\u2018No.\u2019\n\u2018Say when they\u2019d be back?\u2019\n\u2018No.\u2019\n\u2018Any idea where they are? How I could reach them?\u2019\n\u2018I don\u2019t know. Can\u2019t say.\u2019\nI wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into\nthe room where he lay and reassure him: \u2018I\u2019ll get somebody\nfor you, Gatsby. Don\u2019t worry. Just trust me and I\u2019ll get some-\nbody for you\u2014\u2014\u2018\nMeyer Wolfshiem\u2019s name wasn\u2019t in the phone book. The\nbutler gave me his office address on Broadway and I called\n\n", "page_number": 174}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "Information, but by the time I had the number it was long\nafter five and no one answered the phone.\n\u2018Will you ring again?\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019ve rung them three times.\u2019\n\u2018It\u2019s very important.\u2019\n\u2018Sorry. I\u2019m afraid no one\u2019s there.\u2019\nI went back to the drawing room and thought for an in-\nstant that they were chance visitors, all these official people\nwho suddenly filled it. But as they drew back the sheet and\nlooked at Gatsby with unmoved eyes, his protest continued\nin my brain.\n\u2018Look here, old sport, you\u2019ve got to get somebody for me.\nYou\u2019ve got to try hard. I can\u2019t go through this alone.\u2019\nSome one started to ask me questions but I broke away\nand going upstairs looked hastily through the unlocked\nparts of his desk\u2014he\u2019d never told me definitely that his par-\nents were dead. But there was nothing\u2014only the picture of\nDan Cody, a token of forgotten violence staring down from\nthe wall.\nNext morning I sent the butler to New York with a letter\nto Wolfshiem which asked for information and urged him\nto come out on the next train. That request seemed super-\nfluous when I wrote it. I was sure he\u2019d start when he saw the\nnewspapers, just as I was sure there\u2019d be a wire from Daisy\nbefore noon\u2014but neither a wire nor Mr. Wolfshiem arrived,\nno one arrived except more police and photographers and\nnewspaper men. When the butler brought back Wolfshiem\u2019s\nanswer I began to have a feeling of defiance, of scornful soli-\ndarity between Gatsby and me against them all.\n\n", "page_number": 175}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "Dear Mr. Carraway. This has been one of the most terrible\nshocks of my life to me I hardly can believe it that it is true\nat all. Such a mad act as that man did should make us all\nthink. I cannot come down now as I am tied up in some very\nimportant business and cannot get mixed up in this thing\nnow. If there is anything I can do a little later let me know in a\nletter by Edgar. I hardly know where I am when I hear about\na thing like this and am completely knocked down and out.\n\nYours                                                         truly\nMEYER WOLFSHIEM\nand then hasty addenda beneath:\n\nLet me know about the funeral etc do not know his family at\nall.\n\nWhen the phone rang that afternoon and Long Distance\nsaid Chicago was calling I thought this would be Daisy at\nlast. But the connection came through as a man\u2019s voice, very\nthin and far away.\n\u2018This is Slagle speaking....\u2019\n\u2018Yes?\u2019 The name was unfamiliar.\n\u2018Hell of a note, isn\u2019t it? Get my wire?\u2019\n\u2018There haven\u2019t been any wires.\u2019\n\u2018Young Parke\u2019s in trouble,\u2019 he said rapidly. \u2018They picked\nhim up when he handed the bonds over the counter. They\ngot a circular from New York giving \u2018em the numbers just\nfive minutes before. What d\u2019you know about that, hey? You\nnever can tell in these hick towns\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\n", "page_number": 176}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "\u2018Hello!\u2019 I interrupted breathlessly. \u2018Look here\u2014this isn\u2019t\nMr. Gatsby. Mr. Gatsby\u2019s dead.\u2019\nThere was a long silence on the other end of the wire,\nfollowed by an exclamation \u2026 then a quick squawk as the\nconnection was broken.\nI think it was on the third day that a telegram signed\nHenry C. Gatz arrived from a town in Minnesota. It said\nonly that the sender was leaving immediately and to post-\npone the funeral until he came.\nIt was Gatsby\u2019s father, a solemn old man very helpless\nand dismayed, bundled up in a long cheap ulster against\nthe warm September day. His eyes leaked continuously with\nexcitement and when I took the bag and umbrella from his\nhands he began to pull so incessantly at his sparse grey\nbeard that I had difficulty in getting off his coat. He was\non the point of collapse so I took him into the music room\nand made him sit down while I sent for something to eat.\nBut he wouldn\u2019t eat and the glass of milk spilled from his\ntrembling hand.\n\u2018I saw it in the Chicago newspaper,\u2019 he said. \u2018It was all in\nthe Chicago newspaper. I started right away.\u2019\n\u2018I didn\u2019t know how to reach you.\u2019\nHis eyes, seeing nothing, moved ceaselessly about the\nroom.\n\u2018It was a mad man,\u2019 he said. \u2018He must have been mad.\u2019\n\u2018Wouldn\u2019t you like some coffee?\u2019 I urged him.\n\u2018I don\u2019t want anything. I\u2019m all right now, Mr.\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Carraway.\u2019\n\u2018Well, I\u2019m all right now. Where have they got Jimmy?\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 177}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "I took him into the drawing-room, where his son lay, and\nleft him there. Some little boys had come up on the steps\nand were looking into the hall; when I told them who had\narrived they went reluctantly away.\nAfter a little while Mr. Gatz opened the door and came\nout, his mouth ajar, his face flushed slightly, his eyes leak-\ning isolated and unpunctual tears. He had reached an age\nwhere death no longer has the quality of ghastly surprise,\nand when he looked around him now for the first time and\nsaw the height and splendor of the hall and the great rooms\nopening out from it into other rooms his grief began to be\nmixed with an awed pride. I helped him to a bedroom up-\nstairs; while he took off his coat and vest I told him that all\narrangements had been deferred until he came.\n\u2018I didn\u2019t know what you\u2019d want, Mr. Gatsby\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Gatz is my name.\u2019\n\u2018\u2014Mr. Gatz. I thought you might want to take the body\nwest.\u2019\nHe shook his head.\n\u2018Jimmy always liked it better down East. He rose up to his\nposition in the East. Were you a friend of my boy\u2019s, Mr.\u2014?\u2019\n\u2018We were close friends.\u2019\n\u2018He had a big future before him, you know. He was only a\nyoung man but he had a lot of brain power here.\u2019\nHe touched his head impressively and I nodded.\n\u2018If he\u2019d of lived he\u2019d of been a great man. A man like\nJames J. Hill. He\u2019d of helped build up the country.\u2019\n\u2018That\u2019s true,\u2019 I said, uncomfortably.\nHe fumbled at the embroidered coverlet, trying to take it\n\n", "page_number": 178}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "from the bed, and lay down stiffly\u2014was instantly asleep.\nThat night an obviously frightened person called up\nand demanded to know who I was before he would give his\nname.\n\u2018This is Mr. Carraway,\u2019 I said.\n\u2018Oh\u2014\u2019 He sounded relieved. \u2018This is Klipspringer.\u2019\nI was relieved too for that seemed to promise another\nfriend at Gatsby\u2019s grave. I didn\u2019t want it to be in the papers\nand draw a sightseeing crowd so I\u2019d been calling up a few\npeople myself. They were hard to find.\n\u2018The funeral\u2019s tomorrow,\u2019 I said. \u2018Three o\u2019clock, here at\nthe house. I wish you\u2019d tell anybody who\u2019d be interested.\u2019\n\u2018Oh, I will,\u2019 he broke out hastily. \u2018Of course I\u2019m not likely\nto see anybody, but if I do.\u2019\nHis tone made me suspicious.\n\u2018Of course you\u2019ll be there yourself.\u2019\n\u2018Well, I\u2019ll certainly try. What I called up about is\u2014\u2014\u2018\n\u2018Wait a minute,\u2019 I interrupted. \u2018How about saying you\u2019ll\ncome?\u2019\n\u2018Well, the fact is\u2014the truth of the matter is that I\u2019m stay-\ning with some people up here in Greenwich and they rather\nexpect me to be with them tomorrow. In fact there\u2019s a sort\nof picnic or something. Of course I\u2019ll do my very best to get\naway.\u2019\nI ejaculated an unrestrained \u2018Huh!\u2019 and he must have\nheard me for he went on nervously:\n\u2018What I called up about was a pair of shoes I left there. I\nwonder if it\u2019d be too much trouble to have the butler send\nthem on. You see they\u2019re tennis shoes and I\u2019m sort of help-\n\n", "page_number": 179}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "less without them. My address is care of B. F.\u2014\u2014\u2018\nI didn\u2019t hear the rest of the name because I hung up the\nreceiver.\nAfter that I felt a certain shame for Gatsby\u2014one gentle-\nman to whom I telephoned implied that he had got what\nhe deserved. However, that was my fault, for he was one of\nthose who used to sneer most bitterly at Gatsby on the cour-\nage of Gatsby\u2019s liquor and I should have known better than\nto call him.\nThe morning of the funeral I went up to New York to see\nMeyer Wolfshiem; I couldn\u2019t seem to reach him any other\nway. The door that I pushed open on the advice of an eleva-\ntor boy was marked \u2018The Swastika Holding Company\u2019 and\nat first there didn\u2019t seem to be any one inside. But when I\u2019d\nshouted \u2018Hello\u2019 several times in vain an argument broke out\nbehind a partition and presently a lovely Jewess appeared\nat an interior door and scrutinized me with black hostile\neyes.\n\u2018Nobody\u2019s in,\u2019 she said. \u2018Mr. Wolfshiem\u2019s gone to Chica-\ngo.\u2019\nThe first part of this was obviously untrue for someone\nhad begun to whistle \u2018The Rosary,\u2019 tunelessly, inside.\n\u2018Please say that Mr. Carraway wants to see him.\u2019\n\u2018I can\u2019t get him back from Chicago, can I?\u2019\nAt this moment a voice, unmistakably Wolfshiem\u2019s called\n\u2018Stella!\u2019 from the other side of the door.\n\u2018Leave your name on the desk,\u2019 she said quickly. \u2018I\u2019ll give\nit to him when he gets back.\u2019\n\u2018But I know he\u2019s there.\u2019\n\n", "page_number": 180}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "She took a step toward me and began to slide her hands\nindignantly up and down her hips.\n\u2018You young men think you can force your way in here any\ntime,\u2019 she scolded. \u2018We\u2019re getting sickantired of it. When I\nsay he\u2019s in Chicago, he\u2019s in ChiCAgo.\u2019\nI mentioned Gatsby.\n\u2018Oh\u2014h!\u2019 She looked at me over again. \u2018Will you just\u2014\nwhat was your name?\u2019\nShe vanished. In a moment Meyer Wolfshiem stood sol-\nemnly in the doorway, holding out both hands. He drew me\ninto his office, remarking in a reverent voice that it was a sad\ntime for all of us, and offered me a cigar.\n\u2018My memory goes back to when I first met him,\u2019 he said.\n\u2018A young major just out of the army and covered over with\nmedals he got in the war. He was so hard up he had to keep\non wearing his uniform because he couldn\u2019t buy some reg-\nular clothes. First time I saw him was when he come into\nWinebrenner\u2019s poolroom at Forty-third Street and asked\nfor a job. He hadn\u2019t eat anything for a couple of days. \u2018Come\non have some lunch with me,\u2019 I sid. He ate more than four\ndollars\u2019 worth of food in half an hour.\u2019\n\u2018Did you start him in business?\u2019 I inquired.\n\u2018Start him! I made him.\u2019\n\u2018Oh.\u2019\n\u2018I raised him up out of nothing, right out of the gutter. I\nsaw right away he was a fine appearing, gentlemanly young\nman, and when he told me he was an Oggsford I knew I\ncould use him good. I got him to join up in the American\nLegion and he used to stand high there. Right off he did\n\n", "page_number": 181}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "some work for a client of mine up to Albany. We were so\nthick like that in everything\u2014\u2019 He held up two bulbous fin-\ngers \u2018\u2014always together.\u2019\nI wondered if this partnership had included the World\u2019s\nSeries transaction in 1919.\n\u2018Now he\u2019s dead,\u2019 I said after a moment. \u2018You were his\nclosest friend, so I know you\u2019ll want to come to his funeral\nthis afternoon.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019d like to come.\u2019\n\u2018Well, come then.\u2019\nThe hair in his nostrils quivered slightly and as he shook\nhis head his eyes filled with tears.\n\u2018I can\u2019t do it\u2014I can\u2019t get mixed up in it,\u2019 he said.\n\u2018There\u2019s nothing to get mixed up in. It\u2019s all over now.\u2019\n\u2018When a man gets killed I never like to get mixed up in\nit in any way. I keep out. When I was a young man it was\ndifferent\u2014if a friend of mine died, no matter how, I stuck\nwith them to the end. You may think that\u2019s sentimental but\nI mean it\u2014to the bitter end.\u2019\nI saw that for some reason of his own he was determined\nnot to come, so I stood up.\n\u2018Are you a college man?\u2019 he inquired suddenly.\nFor a moment I thought he was going to suggest a \u2018gon-\nnegtion\u2019 but he only nodded and shook my hand.\n\u2018Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is\nalive and not after he is dead,\u2019 he suggested. \u2018After that my\nown rule is to let everything alone.\u2019\nWhen I left his office the sky had turned dark and I got\nback to West Egg in a drizzle. After changing my clothes I\n\n", "page_number": 182}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "went next door and found Mr. Gatz walking up and down\nexcitedly in the hall. His pride in his son and in his son\u2019s\npossessions was continually increasing and now he had\nsomething to show me.\n\u2018Jimmy sent me this picture.\u2019 He took out his wallet with\ntrembling fingers. \u2018Look there.\u2019\nIt was a photograph of the house, cracked in the corners\nand dirty with many hands. He pointed out every detail to\nme eagerly. \u2018Look there!\u2019 and then sought admiration from\nmy eyes. He had shown it so often that I think it was more\nreal to him now than the house itself.\n\u2018Jimmy sent it to me. I think it\u2019s a very pretty picture. It\nshows up well.\u2019\n\u2018Very well. Had you seen him lately?\u2019\n\u2018He come out to see me two years ago and bought me the\nhouse I live in now. Of course we was broke up when he run\noff from home but I see now there was a reason for it. He\nknew he had a big future in front of him. And ever since he\nmade a success he was very generous with me.\u2019\nHe seemed reluctant to put away the picture, held it for\nanother minute, lingeringly, before my eyes. Then he re-\nturned the wallet and pulled from his pocket a ragged old\ncopy of a book called \u2018Hopalong Cassidy.\u2019\n\u2018Look here, this is a book he had when he was a boy. It\njust shows you.\u2019\nHe opened it at the back cover and turned it around for\nme to see. On the last fly-leaf was printed the word SCHED-\nULE, and the date September 12th, 1906. And underneath:\n\n\n", "page_number": 183}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "Rise from bed \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 \u2026. 6.00 A.M.\nDumbbell exercise and wall-scaling \u2026 \u2026 6.15-6.30 A.M.\nStudy electricity, etc \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 7.15-8.15 A.M.\nWork \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 8.30-4.30 P.M.\nBaseball and sports \u2026 \u2026 \u2026 \u2026. 4.30-5.00 P.M.\nPractice elocution, poise and how to attain it 5.00-6.00 P.M.\nStudy needed inventions \u2026 \u2026 \u2026. . 7.00-9.00 P.M.\n\nGENERAL RESOLVES\n\nNo wasting time at Shafters or [a name, indecipherable]\nNo           more          smokeing         or        chewing\nBath                 every              other              day\nRead one improving book or magazine per week\nSave      $5.00     [crossed    out]     $3.00    per    week\nBe better to parents\n\u2018I come across this book by accident,\u2019 said the old man. \u2018It\njust shows you, don\u2019t it?\u2019\n\u2018It just shows you.\u2019\n\u2018Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some re-\nsolves like this or something. Do you notice what he\u2019s got\nabout improving his mind? He was always great for that. He\ntold me I et like a hog once and I beat him for it.\u2019\nHe was reluctant to close the book, reading each item\naloud and then looking eagerly at me. I think he rather ex-\npected me to copy down the list for my own use.\nA little before three the Lutheran minister arrived from\nFlushing and I began to look involuntarily out the windows\nfor other cars. So did Gatsby\u2019s father. And as the time passed\n\n", "page_number": 184}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "and the servants came in and stood waiting in the hall, his\neyes began to blink anxiously and he spoke of the rain in a\nworried uncertain way. The minister glanced several times\nat his watch so I took him aside and asked him to wait for\nhalf an hour. But it wasn\u2019t any use. Nobody came.\nAbout five o\u2019clock our procession of three cars reached\nthe cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the\ngate\u2014first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then Mr.\nGatz and the minister and I in the limousine, and, a little\nlater, four or five servants and the postman from West Egg\nin Gatsby\u2019s station wagon, all wet to the skin. As we started\nthrough the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and\nthen the sound of someone splashing after us over the sog-\ngy ground. I looked around. It was the man with owl-eyed\nglasses whom I had found marvelling over Gatsby\u2019s books\nin the library one night three months before.\nI\u2019d never seen him since then. I don\u2019t know how he knew\nabout the funeral or even his name. The rain poured down\nhis thick glasses and he took them off and wiped them to see\nthe protecting canvas unrolled from Gatsby\u2019s grave.\nI tried to think about Gatsby then for a moment but he\nwas already too far away and I could only remember, with-\nout resentment, that Daisy hadn\u2019t sent a message or a flower.\nDimly I heard someone murmur \u2018Blessed are the dead that\nthe rain falls on,\u2019 and then the owl-eyed man said \u2018Amen to\nthat,\u2019 in a brave voice.\nWe straggled down quickly through the rain to the cars.\nOwl-Eyes spoke to me by the gate.\n\u2018I couldn\u2019t get to the house,\u2019 he remarked.\n\n", "page_number": 185}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "\u2018Neither could anybody else.\u2019\n\u2018Go on!\u2019 He started. \u2018Why, my God! they used to go there\nby the hundreds.\u2019\nHe took off his glasses and wiped them again outside and\nin.\n\u2018The poor son-of-a-bitch,\u2019 he said.\nOne of my most vivid memories is of coming back west\nfrom prep school and later from college at Christmas time.\nThose who went farther than Chicago would gather in the\nold dim Union Station at six o\u2019clock of a December evening\nwith a few Chicago friends already caught up into their own\nholiday gayeties to bid them a hasty goodbye. I remember the\nfur coats of the girls returning from Miss This or That\u2019s and\nthe chatter of frozen breath and the hands waving overhead\nas we caught sight of old acquaintances and the matchings\nof invitations: \u2018Are you going to the Ordways\u2019? the Herseys\u2019?\nthe Schultzes\u2019?\u2019 and the long green tickets clasped tight in\nour gloved hands. And last the murky yellow cars of the\nChicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad looking cheerful\nas Christmas itself on the tracks beside the gate.\nWhen we pulled out into the winter night and the real\nsnow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle\nagainst the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin\nstations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into\nthe air. We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back\nfrom dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware\nof our identity with this country for one strange hour before\nwe melted indistinguishably into it again.\nThat\u2019s my middle west\u2014not the wheat or the prairies or\n\n", "page_number": 186}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "the lost Swede towns but the thrilling, returning trains of\nmy youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty\ndark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted\nwindows on the snow. I am part of that, a little solemn with\nthe feel of those long winters, a little complacent from grow-\ning up in the Carraway house in a city where dwellings are\nstill called through decades by a family\u2019s name. I see now\nthat this has been a story of the West, after all\u2014Tom and\nGatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and\nperhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which\nmade us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.\nEven when the East excited me most, even when I was\nmost keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling,\nswollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable\ninquisitions which spared only the children and the very\nold\u2014even then it had always for me a quality of distor-\ntion. West Egg especially still figures in my more fantastic\ndreams. I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred\nhouses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching\nunder a sullen, overhanging sky and a lustreless moon. In\nthe foreground four solemn men in dress suits are walking\nalong the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken\nwoman in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles\nover the side, sparkles cold with jewels. Gravely the men\nturn in at a house\u2014the wrong house. But no one knows the\nwoman\u2019s name, and no one cares.\nAfter Gatsby\u2019s death the East was haunted for me like\nthat, distorted beyond my eyes\u2019 power of correction. So\nwhen the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and\n\n", "page_number": 187}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to\ncome back home.\nThere was one thing to be done before I left, an awk-\nward, unpleasant thing that perhaps had better have been\nlet alone. But I wanted to leave things in order and not just\ntrust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse\naway. I saw Jordan Baker and talked over and around what\nhad happened to us together and what had happened af-\nterward to me, and she lay perfectly still listening in a big\nchair.\nShe was dressed to play golf and I remember thinking\nshe looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little,\njauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face the\nsame brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee. When\nI had finished she told me without comment that she was\nengaged to another man. I doubted that though there were\nseveral she could have married at a nod of her head but I\npretended to be surprised. For just a minute I wondered if\nI wasn\u2019t making a mistake, then I thought it all over again\nquickly and got up to say goodbye.\n\u2018Nevertheless you did throw me over,\u2019 said Jordan sud-\ndenly. \u2018You threw me over on the telephone. I don\u2019t give a\ndamn about you now but it was a new experience for me\nand I felt a little dizzy for a while.\u2019\nWe shook hands.\n\u2018Oh, and do you remember\u2014\u2019 she added, \u2018\u2014\u2014a conver-\nsation we had once about driving a car?\u2019\n\u2018Why\u2014not exactly.\u2019\n\u2018You said a bad driver was only safe until she met an-\n\n", "page_number": 188}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "other bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn\u2019t I?\nI mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I\nthought you were rather an honest, straightforward person.\nI thought it was your secret pride.\u2019\n\u2018I\u2019m thirty,\u2019 I said. \u2018I\u2019m five years too old to lie to myself\nand call it honor.\u2019\nShe didn\u2019t answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and\ntremendously sorry, I turned away.\nOne afternoon late in October I saw Tom Buchanan. He\nwas walking ahead of me along Fifth Avenue in his alert,\naggressive way, his hands out a little from his body as if to\nfight off interference, his head moving sharply here and\nthere, adapting itself to his restless eyes. Just as I slowed up\nto avoid overtaking him he stopped and began frowning\ninto the windows of a jewelry store. Suddenly he saw me\nand walked back holding out his hand.\n\u2018What\u2019s the matter, Nick? Do you object to shaking hands\nwith me?\u2019\n\u2018Yes. You know what I think of you.\u2019\n\u2018You\u2019re crazy, Nick,\u2019 he said quickly. \u2018Crazy as hell. I don\u2019t\nknow what\u2019s the matter with you.\u2019\n\u2018Tom,\u2019 I inquired, \u2018what did you say to Wilson that af-\nternoon?\u2019\nHe stared at me without a word and I knew I had guessed\nright about those missing hours. I started to turn away but\nhe took a step after me and grabbed my arm.\n\u2018I told him the truth,\u2019 he said. \u2018He came to the door while\nwe were getting ready to leave and when I sent down word\nthat we weren\u2019t in he tried to force his way upstairs. He was\n\n", "page_number": 189}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "crazy enough to kill me if I hadn\u2019t told him who owned the\ncar. His hand was on a revolver in his pocket every minute\nhe was in the house\u2014\u2014\u2019 He broke off defiantly. \u2018What if I\ndid tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw\ndust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy\u2019s but he was a\ntough one. He ran over Myrtle like you\u2019d run over a dog and\nnever even stopped his car.\u2019\nThere was nothing I could say, except the one unutter-\nable fact that it wasn\u2019t true.\n\u2018And if you think I didn\u2019t have my share of suffering\u2014\nlook here, when I went to give up that flat and saw that\ndamn box of dog biscuits sitting there on the sideboard I sat\ndown and cried like a baby. By God it was awful\u2014\u2014\u2018\nI couldn\u2019t forgive him or like him but I saw that what\nhe had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very\ncareless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and\nDaisy\u2014they smashed up things and creatures and then re-\ntreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or\nwhatever it was that kept them together, and let other peo-\nple clean up the mess they had made\u2026.\nI shook hands with him; it seemed silly not to, for I felt\nsuddenly as though I were talking to a child. Then he went\ninto the jewelry store to buy a pearl necklace\u2014or perhaps\nonly a pair of cuff buttons\u2014rid of my provincial squea-\nmishness forever.\nGatsby\u2019s house was still empty when I left\u2014the grass on\nhis lawn had grown as long as mine. One of the taxi driv-\ners in the village never took a fare past the entrance gate\nwithout stopping for a minute and pointing inside; perhaps\n\n", "page_number": 190}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "it was he who drove Daisy and Gatsby over to East Egg the\nnight of the accident and perhaps he had made a story about\nit all his own. I didn\u2019t want to hear it and I avoided him\nwhen I got off the train.\nI spent my Saturday nights in New York because those\ngleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly\nthat I could still hear the music and the laughter faint and\nincessant from his garden and the cars going up and down\nhis drive. One night I did hear a material car there and saw\nits lights stop at his front steps. But I didn\u2019t investigate.\nProbably it was some final guest who had been away at the\nends of the earth and didn\u2019t know that the party was over.\nOn the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold\nto the grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent\nfailure of a house once more. On the white steps an obscene\nword, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out\nclearly in the moonlight and I erased it, drawing my shoe\nraspingly along the stone. Then I wandered down to the\nbeach and sprawled out on the sand.\nMost of the big shore places were closed now and there\nwere hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of\na ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher\nthe inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I\nbecame aware of the old island here that flowered once for\nDutch sailors\u2019 eyes\u2014a fresh, green breast of the new world.\nIts vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gats-\nby\u2019s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and\ngreatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted\nmoment man must have held his breath in the presence of\n\n", "page_number": 191}, {"chapter": 10, "page": "this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation\nhe neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last\ntime in history with something commensurate to his capac-\nity for wonder.\nAnd as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world,\nI thought of Gatsby\u2019s wonder when he first picked out the\ngreen light at the end of Daisy\u2019s dock. He had come a long\nway to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so\nclose that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know\nthat it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast\nobscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the re-\npublic rolled on under the night.\nGatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future\nthat year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but\nthat\u2019s no matter\u2014tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out\nour arms farther\u2026. And one fine morning\u2014\u2014\nSo we beat on, boats against the current, borne back\nceaselessly into the past.\nTHE END\n\n", "page_number": 192}]