Generally he was one of these worn-out men: when he wasn't working he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. In the early morning the sun threw my shadow westward as I hurried down the white chasms of lower New York to the Probity Trust. "Well, he certainly must have strained himself to get this menagerie together.". ", "Certainly. Mr. McKee was asleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Her glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps where "Three o'Clock in the Morning," a neat, sad little waltz of that year, was drifting out the open door. The rain cooled about half-past three to a damp mist through which occasional thin drops swam like dew. "She'll see.". There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden. "One goin' each way. "Suppose I don't go to Southampton, and come into town this afternoon? He smiled with jovial condescension and added "Some sensation!" Again at eight o'clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were five deep with throbbing taxi cabs, bound for the theatre district, I felt a sinking in my heart. It amazed him--he had never been in such a beautiful house before. ", "All right, in a minute. I've made a little investigation into your affairs--and I'll carry it further tomorrow.". Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back. . She didn't see why he couldn't come. and finally by a burst of jazz as the dancing began. . He was now decently clothed in a "sport shirt" open at the neck, sneakers and duck trousers of a nebulous hue. "No, it's not exactly a police dog," said the man with disappointment in his voice. My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western city for three generations. That's why I can't really call myself an Oxford man.". I never saw this great-uncle but I'm supposed to look like him--with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in Father's office. yes . It was Mr. Klipspringer, the "boarder." ", "Hot and small--yes," said Mr. Wolfshiem, "but full of memories.". "I'll get some whiskey," answered Tom. While the rain continued it had seemed like the murmur of their voices, rising and swelling a little, now and then, with gusts of emotion. ", "You're crazy, Nick," he said quickly. "Fine fellow, isn't he? "Nobody forced you to. He considered for a moment. West Egg especially still figures in my more fantastic dreams. Old Grocery Horse . He took off his glasses and wiped them again outside and in. I suppose you've got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends--in the modern world.". Once more it was pouring and my irregular lawn, well-shaved by Gatsby's gardener, abounded in small muddy swamps and prehistoric marshes. I picked it up with a weary bend and handed it back to her, holding it at arm's length and by the extreme tip of the corners to indicate that I had no designs upon it--but every one near by, including the woman, suspected me just the same. "Get on the next train. I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. ", "Don't you call me 'old sport'!" Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away. It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. "I don't think there's much gas," he objected. Some dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspiciously at Tom. "You can suit yourself about that, old sport." Nothing at all, thanks. Even when the East excited me most, even when I was most keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very old--even then it had always for me a quality of distortion. I decided to call to him. . "It was an opportunity they gave to some of the officers after the Armistice," he continued. But when I asked her she laughed immoderately, repeated my question aloud and told me she lived with a girl friend at a hotel. I'm going to take better care of you from now on. "By the way, Mr. Gatsby, I understand you're an Oxford man. My own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her. I was sure he'd start when he saw the newspapers, just as I was sure there'd be a wire from Daisy before noon--but neither a wire nor Mr. Wolfshiem arrived, no one arrived except more police and photographers and newspaper men. "Please say that Mr. Carraway wants to see him. "Time for this good girl to go to bed. GEORGE B. WILSON. "One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. A bad driver and not even trying! She turned to her companion: "Wasn't it for you, Lucille? "About that. I got up. "Don't give it another thought, old sport." The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come east. "I'm a friend of his." in a miserable way. Then, very gradually, part by part, a pale dangling individual stepped out of the wreck, pawing tentatively at the ground with a large uncertain dancing shoe. . "I thought so; I told Daisy I thought so. There was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere and the rooms were musty as though they hadn't been aired for many days. Just mention my name. As a matter of fact he had no such facilities--he had no comfortable family standing behind him and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to be blown anywhere about the world. We'll ride around and meet you after." demanded Gatsby in immediate alarm. . The rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted in the west, and there was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea. At first I thought it was another party, a wild rout that had resolved itself into "hide-and-go-seek" or "sardines-in-the-box" with all the house thrown open to the game. . Several old copies of "Town Tattle" lay on the table together with a copy of "Simon Called Peter" and some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms. "Of course I'm not likely to see anybody, but if I do. said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. Besides, you can also input your words or phrases to search on demand. "Where are you going?" ", "She's a nice girl," said Tom after a moment. Hot! Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. At first I couldn't find the source of the high, groaning words that echoed clamorously through the bare garage--then I saw Wilson standing on the raised threshold of his office, swaying back and forth and holding to the doorposts with both hands. See you anon. Come on, George, sit still--I asked you a question. I was going to ask to see the rubies when the phone rang and Gatsby took up the receiver. "Good night, old sport. ", "Well, they say he's a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm's. Just as I slowed up to avoid overtaking him he stopped and began frowning into the windows of a jewelry store. I inspected them. The thing approached the proportions of a scandal--then died away. And when the Tuolomee left for the West Indies and the Barbary Coast Gatsby left too. "We're getting sickantired of it. I inquired casually. "I'm just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon. "I'll send it over tomorrow afternoon.". Then he drifted back to Lake Superior, and he was still searching for something to do on the day that Dan Cody's yacht dropped anchor in the shallows along shore. I thought you might want to take the body west. I imagined it. The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties and the clear voices of girls, already gathered like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight: "Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.". I remember the portrait of him up in Gatsby's bedroom, a grey, florid man with a hard empty face--the pioneer debauchee who during one phase of American life brought back to the eastern seaboard the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. I had on a new plaid skirt also that blew a little in the wind and whenever this happened the red, white and blue banners in front of all the houses stretched out stiff and said tut-tut-tut-tut in a disapproving way. Watch The Great Gatsby: Who Is This Gatsby? "He's a bootlegger," said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. "When they do get married," continued Catherine, "they're going west to live for a while until it blows over. . The rain poured down his thick glasses and he took them off and wiped them to see the protecting canvas unrolled from Gatsby's grave. he asked immediately. On the last fly-leaf was printed the word SCHEDULE, and the date September 12th, 1906. "I'm stiff," she complained, "I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember. He told her those things in a way that frightened her--that made it look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper. "Does it?" Jordan's fingers, powdered white over their tan, rested for a moment in mine. But it wasn't any use. We both jumped up and, a little harrowed myself, I went out into the yard. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep-school for me and finally said, "Why--ye-es" with very grave, hesitant faces. Then he kissed her. Then I wandered down to the beach and sprawled out on the sand. Just tell him the truth--that you never loved him--and it's all wiped out forever. . But evidently he was not addressing me for he dropped my hand and covered Gatsby with his expressive nose. "There's some bad trouble here," said Tom excitedly. Most of the time I worked. ", "Don't be silly; it's just two minutes to four.". "Yes," he said after a moment, "but of course I'll say I was. "They're some people Wolfshiem wanted to do something for. The shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves. "How'd you happen to come up this far to eat? "I ought to have dropped you in West Egg, Nick. "And what's more, I love Daisy too. ", "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Wolfshiem, "I had a wrong man.". Matter of fact, they're absolutely real. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. . Watching Tom I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. Tell him Mr. Carraway came over.". It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms--but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether. "Going on for five years--and you didn't know. Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven--a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. "Never had a drink before but oh, how I do enjoy it.". "Look there.". "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead," he suggested. "Maybe you got some friend that I could telephone for, George?". Turning a corner I saw that it was Gatsby's house, lit from tower to cellar. At the grey tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor. As he shook hands and turned away his tragic nose was trembling. "Come on, Daisy," said Tom, pressing her with his hand toward Gatsby's car. He looked out the window at it, but judging from his expression I don't believe he saw a thing. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart. "O, my Ga-od! Probably it was some final guest who had been away at the ends of the earth and didn't know that the party was over. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control. And on Mondays eight servants including an extra gardener toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. Then I walked slowly down the drive away from the house intending to wait by the gate. I was happier on the lawns because I had on shoes from England with rubber nobs on the soles that bit into the soft ground. Look at the mint! There is always a halt there of at least a minute and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress. ", "Well, I married him," said Myrtle, ambiguously. He must have been tired and walking slowly for he didn't reach Gad's Hill until noon. He paused. I was still with Jordan Baker. And underneath: Rise from bed . As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. ", "Jimmy always liked it better down East. I had a woman up here last week to look at my feet and when she gave me the bill you'd of thought she had my appendicitus out.". There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. Centennial Park, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. And we all took the less explicable step of engaging the parlor of a suite in the Plaza Hotel. ", "Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming pool? It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. . "Don't talk. ", "Well, he said he knew you. One afternoon late in October I saw Tom Buchanan. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. He sat down, miserably, as if I had pushed him, and simultaneously there was the sound of a motor turning into my lane. THE GREAT GATSBY . This included me. "It took me just three years to earn the money that bought it. I wanted to get up and slap him on the back. In the Argonne Forest I took two machine-gun detachments so far forward that there was a half mile gap on either side of us where the infantry couldn't advance. Do you know her? and when I described him--I was half asleep--she said in the strangest voice that it must be the man she used to know. I was enjoying myself now. Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness--it stands out in my memory from Gatsby's other parties that summer. "Nope." As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon. . His movements--he was on foot all the time--were afterward traced to Port Roosevelt and then to Gad's Hill where he bought a sandwich that he didn't eat and a cup of coffee. . "I like her," said Daisy, "I think she's lovely.". "I'm p-paralyzed with happiness.". "What you want, fella? "She's not leaving me!" I wouldn't let you operate on me!". No telephone message arrived but the butler went without his sleep and waited for it until four o'clock--until long after there was any one to give it to if it came. Then as Doctor T. J. Eckleburg's faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby's caution about gasoline. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch. he explained. ", "Just last year. . Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor. Purchasing ", "A little bit, I think. A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.". A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends. Eluding Jordan's undergraduate who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation with two chorus girls, and who implored me to join him, I went inside. I took her to the window--" With an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it, "--and I said 'God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. "It's just a crazy old thing," she said. Oh, Ga-od! No, I haven't. ", "Well, shall I help myself?" inquired Jordan of the girl beside her. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor. "This is Klipspringer.". "I do leave it alone," affirmed the accused hollowly. Tom drove slowly until we were beyond the bend--then his foot came down hard and the coup raced along through the night. "Well, I tried to swing the wheel----" He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth. "I've made a small investigation of this fellow," he continued. ", "That dog?" I called Gatsby's house a few minutes later, but the line was busy. "I'm at Hempstead, and I'm going down to Southampton . At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. demanded Tom suddenly. This page offers a flexible search on the whole book of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. We drove over to Fifth Avenue, so warm and soft, almost pastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon that I wouldn't have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner. I'm all out of prac----", "Don't talk so much, old sport," commanded Gatsby. "You can't repeat the past. "Daisy's furious because you haven't called up.". To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing--my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police. "Hot!" demanded Tom harshly. ", "Anything I hate is to get my head stuck in a pool," mumbled Miss Baedeker. The airedale--undoubtedly there was an airedale concerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly white--changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture. ", "Well, the fact is--the truth of the matter is that I'm staying with some people up here in Greenwich and they rather expect me to be with them tomorrow. "She didn't like it," he said immediately. I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. ", "Very romantic," he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the stables.". He walked around the room quickly, ringing bells. "How did he happen to do that?" Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.
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