1It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night—and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over. 2Only gradually did I become aware that the automobiles which turned expectantly into his drive stayed for just a minute and then drove sulkily away. 3Wondering if he were sick I went over to find out—an unfamiliar butler with a villainous face squinted at me suspiciously from the door.
4“Is Mr. Gatsby sick?”
5“Nope.” 6After a pause he added “sir” in a dilatory, grudging way.
7“I hadn’t seen him around, and I was rather worried. 8Tell him Mr. Carraway came over.”
9“Who?” he demanded rudely.
10“Carraway.”
11“Carraway. 12All right, I’ll tell him.”
13Abruptly he slammed the door.
14My Finn informed me that Gatsby had dismissed every servant in his house a week ago and replaced them with half a dozen others, who never went into West Egg village to be bribed by the tradesmen, but ordered moderate supplies over the telephone. 15The grocery boy reported that the kitchen looked like a pigsty, and the general opinion in the village was that the new people weren’t servants at all.
16Next day Gatsby called me on the phone.
17“Going away?” 18I inquired.
19“No, old sport.”
20“I hear you fired all your servants.”
21“I wanted somebody who wouldn’t gossip. 22Daisy comes over quite often—in the afternoons.”
23So the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes.
24“They’re some people Wolfshiem wanted to do something for. 25They’re all brothers and sisters. 26They used to run a small hotel.”
27“I see.”
28He was calling up at Daisy’s request—would I come to lunch at her house tomorrow? 29Miss Baker would be there. 30Half an hour later Daisy herself telephoned and seemed relieved to find that I was coming. 31Something was up. 32And yet I couldn’t believe that they would choose this occasion for a scene—especially for the rather harrowing scene that Gatsby had outlined in the garden.
33The next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer. 34As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon. 35The straw seats of the car hovered on the edge of combustion; the woman next to me perspired delicately for a while into her white shirtwaist, and then, as her newspaper dampened under her fingers, lapsed despairingly into deep heat with a desolate cry. 36Her pocketbook slapped to the floor.
37“Oh, my!” 38she gasped.
39I 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 everyone near by, including the woman, suspected me just the same.
40“Hot!” said the conductor to familiar faces. 41“Some weather!… 42Hot!… 43Hot!… 44Hot!… 45Is it hot enough for you? 46Is it hot? 47Is it… ?”
48My commutation ticket came back to me with a dark stain from his hand. 49That anyone should care in this heat whose flushed lips he kissed, whose head made damp the pyjama pocket over his heart!
50… Through the hall of the Buchanans’ house blew a faint wind, carrying the sound of the telephone bell out to Gatsby and me as we waited at the door.
51“The master’s body?” roared the butler into the mouthpiece. 52“I’m sorry, madame, but we can’t furnish it—it’s far too hot to touch this noon!”
53What he really said was: “Yes… Yes… I’ll see.”
54He set down the receiver and came toward us, glistening slightly, to take our stiff straw hats.
55“Madame expects you in the salon!” he cried, needlessly indicating the direction. 56In this heat every extra gesture was an affront to the common store of life.
57The room, shadowed well with awnings, was dark and cool. 58Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans.
59“We can’t move,” they said together.
60Jordan’s fingers, powdered white over their tan, rested for a moment in mine.
61“And Mr. Thomas Buchanan, the athlete?” 62I inquired.
63Simultaneously I heard his voice, gruff, muffled, husky, at the hall telephone.
64Gatsby stood in the centre of the crimson carpet and gazed around with fascinated eyes. 65Daisy watched him and laughed, her sweet, exciting laugh; a tiny gust of powder rose from her bosom into the air.
66“The rumour is,” whispered Jordan, “that that’s Tom’s girl on the telephone.”
67We were silent. 68The voice in the hall rose high with annoyance: “Very well, then, I won’t sell you the car at all… I’m under no obligations to you at all… and as for your bothering me about it at lunch time, I won’t stand that at all!”
69“Holding down the receiver,” said Daisy cynically.
70“No, he’s not,” I assured her. 71“It’s a bona-fide deal. 72I happen to know about it.”
73Tom flung open the door, blocked out its space for a moment with his thick body, and hurried into the room.
74“Mr. Gatsby!” 75He put out his broad, flat hand with well-concealed dislike. 76“I’m glad to see you, sir… Nick…”
77“Make us a cold drink,” cried Daisy.
78As he left the room again she got up and went over to Gatsby and pulled his face down, kissing him on the mouth.
79“You know I love you,” she murmured.
80“You forget there’s a lady present,” said Jordan.
81Daisy looked around doubtfully.
82“You kiss Nick too.”
83“What a low, vulgar girl!”
84“I don’t care!” cried Daisy, and began to clog on the brick fireplace. 85Then she remembered the heat and sat down guiltily on the couch just as a freshly laundered nurse leading a little girl came into the room.
86“Bles-sed pre-cious,” she crooned, holding out her arms. 87“Come to your own mother that loves you.”
88The child, relinquished by the nurse, rushed across the room and rooted shyly into her mother’s dress.
89“The bles-sed pre-cious! 90Did mother get powder on your old yellowy hair? 91Stand up now, and say—How-de-do.”
92Gatsby and I in turn leaned down and took the small reluctant hand. 93Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. 94I don’t think he had ever really believed in its existence before.
95“I got dressed before luncheon,” said the child, turning eagerly to Daisy.
96“That’s because your mother wanted to show you off.” 97Her face bent into the single wrinkle of the small white neck. 98“You dream, you. 99You absolute little dream.”
100“Yes,” admitted the child calmly. 101“Aunt Jordan’s got on a white dress too.”
102“How do you like mother’s friends?” 103Daisy turned her around so that she faced Gatsby. 104“Do you think they’re pretty?”
105“Where’s Daddy?”
106“She doesn’t look like her father,” explained Daisy. 107“She looks like me. 108She’s got my hair and shape of the face.”
109Daisy sat back upon the couch. 110The nurse took a step forward and held out her hand.
111“Come, Pammy.”
112“Goodbye, sweetheart!”
113With a reluctant backward glance the well-disciplined child held to her nurse’s hand and was pulled out the door, just as Tom came back, preceding four gin rickeys that clicked full of ice.
114Gatsby took up his drink.
115“They certainly look cool,” he said, with visible tension.
116We drank in long, greedy swallows.
117“I read somewhere that the sun’s getting hotter every year,” said Tom genially. 118“It seems that pretty soon the earth’s going to fall into the sun—or wait a minute—it’s just the opposite—the sun’s getting colder every year.
119“Come outside,” he suggested to Gatsby, “I’d like you to have a look at the place.”
120I went with them out to the veranda. 121On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled slowly toward the fresher sea. 122Gatsby’s eyes followed it momentarily; he raised his hand and pointed across the bay.
123“I’m right across from you.”
124“So you are.”
125Our eyes lifted over the rose-beds and the hot lawn and the weedy refuse of the dog-days alongshore. 126Slowly the white wings of the boat moved against the blue cool limit of the sky. 127Ahead lay the scalloped ocean and the abounding blessed isles.
128“There’s sport for you,” said Tom, nodding. 129“I’d like to be out there with him for about an hour.”
130We had luncheon in the dining-room, darkened too against the heat, and drank down nervous gaiety with the cold ale.
131“What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?” cried Daisy, “and the day after that, and the next thirty years?”
132“Don’t be morbid,” Jordan said. 133“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
134“But it’s so hot,” insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, “and everything’s so confused. 135Let’s all go to town!”
136Her voice struggled on through the heat, beating against it, moulding its senselessness into forms.
137“I’ve heard of making a garage out of a stable,” Tom was saying to Gatsby, “but I’m the first man who ever made a stable out of a garage.”
138“Who wants to go to town?” demanded Daisy insistently. 139Gatsby’s eyes floated toward her. 140“Ah,” she cried, “you look so cool.”
141Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. 142With an effort she glanced down at the table.
143“You always look so cool,” she repeated.
144She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. 145He was astounded. 146His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as someone he knew a long time ago.
147“You resemble the advertisement of the man,” she went on innocently. 148“You know the advertisement of the man—”
149“All right,” broke in Tom quickly, “I’m perfectly willing to go to town. 150Come on—we’re all going to town.”
151He got up, his eyes still flashing between Gatsby and his wife. 152No one moved.
153“Come on!” 154His temper cracked a little. 155“What’s the matter, anyhow? 156If we’re going to town, let’s start.”
157His hand, trembling with his effort at self-control, bore to his lips the last of his glass of ale. 158Daisy’s voice got us to our feet and out on to the blazing gravel drive.
159“Are we just going to go?” 160she objected. 161“Like this? 162Aren’t we going to let anyone smoke a cigarette first?”
163“Everybody smoked all through lunch.”
164“Oh, let’s have fun,” she begged him. 165“It’s too hot to fuss.”
166He didn’t answer.
167“Have it your own way,” she said. 168“Come on, Jordan.”
169They went upstairs to get ready while we three men stood there shuffling the hot pebbles with our feet. 170A silver curve of the moon hovered already in the western sky. 171Gatsby started to speak, changed his mind, but not before Tom wheeled and faced him expectantly.
172“Have you got your stables here?” asked Gatsby with an effort.
173“About a quarter of a mile down the road.”
174“Oh.”
175A pause.
176“I don’t see the idea of going to town,” broke out Tom savagely. 177“Women get these notions in their heads—”
178“Shall we take anything to drink?” called Daisy from an upper window.
179“I’ll get some whisky,” answered Tom. 180He went inside.
181Gatsby turned to me rigidly:
182“I can’t say anything in his house, old sport.”
183“She’s got an indiscreet voice,” I remarked. 184“It’s full of—” I hesitated.
185“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly.
186That was it. 187I’d never understood before. 188It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it… High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl…
189Tom came out of the house wrapping a quart bottle in a towel, followed by Daisy and Jordan wearing small tight hats of metallic cloth and carrying light capes over their arms.
190“Shall we all go in my car?” suggested Gatsby. 191He felt the hot, green leather of the seat. 192“I ought to have left it in the shade.”
193“Is it standard shift?” demanded Tom.
194“Yes.”
195“Well, you take my coupé and let me drive your car to town.”
196The suggestion was distasteful to Gatsby.
197“I don’t think there’s much gas,” he objected.
198“Plenty of gas,” said Tom boisterously. 199He looked at the gauge. 200“And if it runs out I can stop at a drugstore. 201You can buy anything at a drugstore nowadays.”
202A pause followed this apparently pointless remark. 203Daisy looked at Tom frowning, and an indefinable expression, at once definitely unfamiliar and vaguely recognizable, as if I had only heard it described in words, passed over Gatsby’s face.
204“Come on, Daisy,” said Tom, pressing her with his hand toward Gatsby’s car. 205“I’ll take you in this circus wagon.”
206He opened the door, but she moved out from the circle of his arm.
207“You take Nick and Jordan. 208We’ll follow you in the coupé.”
209She walked close to Gatsby, touching his coat with her hand. 210Jordan and Tom 211and I got into the front seat of Gatsby’s car, Tom pushed the unfamiliar gears tentatively, and we shot off into the oppressive heat, leaving them out of sight behind.
212“Did you see that?” demanded Tom.
213“See what?”
214He looked at me keenly, realizing that Jordan and I must have known all along.
215“You think I’m pretty dumb, don’t you?” 216he suggested. 217“Perhaps I am, but I have a—almost a second sight, sometimes, that tells me what to do. 218Maybe you don’t believe that, but science—”
219He paused. 220The immediate contingency overtook him, pulled him back from the edge of theoretical abyss.
221“I’ve made a small investigation of this fellow,” he continued. 222“I could have gone deeper if I’d known—”
223“Do you mean you’ve been to a medium?” inquired Jordan humorously.
224“What?” Confused, he stared at us as we laughed. 225“A medium?”
226“About Gatsby.”
227“About Gatsby! 228No, I haven’t. 229I said I’d been making a small investigation of his past.”
230“And you found he was an Oxford man,” said Jordan helpfully.
231“An Oxford man!” 232He was incredulous. 233“Like hell he is! 234He wears a pink suit.”
235“Nevertheless he’s an Oxford man.”
236“Oxford, New Mexico,” snorted Tom contemptuously, “or something like that.”
237“Listen, Tom. 238If you’re such a snob, why did you invite him to lunch?” demanded Jordan crossly.
239“Daisy invited him; she knew him before we were married—God knows where!”
240We were all irritable now with the fading ale, and aware of it we drove for a while in silence. 241Then as Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby’s caution about gasoline.
242“We’ve got enough to get us to town,” said Tom.
243“But there’s a garage right here,” objected Jordan. 244“I don’t want to get stalled in this baking heat.”
245Tom threw on both brakes impatiently, and we slid to an abrupt dusty stop under Wilson’s sign. 246After a moment the proprietor emerged from the interior of his establishment and gazed hollow-eyed at the car.
247“Let’s have some gas!” 248cried Tom roughly. 249“What do you think we stopped for—to admire the view?”
250“I’m sick,” said Wilson without moving. 251“Been sick all day.”
252“What’s the matter?”
253“I’m all run down.”
254“Well, shall I help myself?” 255Tom demanded. 256“You sounded well enough on the phone.”
257With an effort Wilson left the shade and support of the doorway and, breathing hard, unscrewed the cap of the tank. 258In the sunlight his face was green.
259“I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch,” he said. 260“But I need money pretty bad, and I was wondering what you were going to do with your old car.”
261“How do you like this one?” inquired Tom. 262“I bought it last week.”
263“It’s a nice yellow one,” said Wilson, as he strained at the handle.
264“Like to buy it?”
265“Big chance,” Wilson smiled faintly. 266“No, but I could make some money on the other.”
267“What do you want money for, all of a sudden?”
268“I’ve been here too long. 269I want to get away. 270My wife and I want to go West.”
271“Your wife does,” exclaimed Tom, startled.
272“She’s been talking about it for ten years.” 273He rested for a moment against the pump, shading his eyes. 274“And now she’s going whether she wants to or not. 275I’m going to get her away.”
276The coupé flashed by us with a flurry of dust and the flash of a waving hand.
277“What do I owe you?” demanded Tom harshly.
278“I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,” remarked Wilson. 279“That’s why I want to get away. 280That’s why I been bothering you about the car.”
281“What do I owe you?”
282“Dollar twenty.”
283The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn’t alighted on Tom. 284He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick. 285I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before—and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. 286Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty—as if he had just got some poor girl with child.
287“I’ll let you have that car,” said Tom. 288“I’ll send it over tomorrow afternoon.”
289That locality was always vaguely disquieting, even in the broad glare of afternoon, and now I turned my head as though I had been warned of something behind. 290Over the ash-heaps the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil, but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away.
291In one of the windows over the garage the curtains had been moved aside a little, and Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the car. 292So engrossed was she that she had no consciousness of being observed, and one emotion after another crept into her face like objects into a slowly developing picture. 293Her expression was curiously familiar—it was an expression I had often seen on women’s faces, but on Myrtle Wilson’s face it seemed purposeless and inexplicable until I realized that her eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed not on Tom, but on Jordan Baker, whom she took to be his wife.
294There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. 295His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control. 296Instinct made him step on the accelerator with the double purpose of overtaking Daisy and leaving Wilson behind, and we sped along toward Astoria at fifty miles an hour, until, among the spidery girders of the elevated, we came in sight of the easygoing blue coupé.
297“Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool,” suggested Jordan. 298“I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone’s away. 299There’s something very sensuous about it—overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.”
300The word “sensuous” had the effect of further disquieting Tom, but before he could invent a protest the coupé came to a stop, and Daisy signalled us to draw up alongside.
301“Where are we going?” 302she cried.
303“How about the movies?”
304“It’s so hot,” she complained. 305“You go. 306We’ll ride around and meet you after.” 307With an effort her wit rose faintly. 308“We’ll meet you on some corner. 309I’ll be the man smoking two cigarettes.”
310“We can’t argue about it here,” Tom said impatiently, as a truck gave out a cursing whistle behind us. 311“You follow me to the south side of Central Park, in front of the Plaza.”
312Several times he turned his head and looked back for their car, and if the traffic delayed them he slowed up until they came into sight. 313I think he was afraid they would dart down a side-street and out of his life forever.
314But they didn’t. 315And we all took the less explicable step of engaging the parlour of a suite in the Plaza Hotel.
316The prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by herding us into that room eludes me, though I have a sharp physical memory that, in the course of it, my underwear kept climbing like a damp snake around my legs and intermittent beads of sweat raced cool across my back. 317The notion originated with Daisy’s suggestion that we hire five bathrooms and take cold baths, and then assumed more tangible form as “a place to have a mint julep.” 318Each of us said over and over that it was a “crazy idea”—we all talked at once to a baffled clerk and thought, or pretended to think, that we were being very funny…
319The room was large and stifling, and, though it was already four o’clock, opening the windows admitted only a gust of hot shrubbery from the Park. 320Daisy went to the mirror and stood with her back to us, fixing her hair.
321“It’s a swell suite,” whispered Jordan respectfully, and everyone laughed.
322“Open another window,” commanded Daisy, without turning around.
323“There aren’t any more.”
324“Well, we’d better telephone for an axe—”
325“The thing to do is to forget about the heat,” said Tom impatiently. 326“You make it ten times worse by crabbing about it.”
327He unrolled the bottle of whisky from the towel and put it on the table.
328“Why not let her alone, old sport?” remarked Gatsby. 329“You’re the one that wanted to come to town.”
330There was a moment of silence. 331The telephone book slipped from its nail and splashed to the floor, whereupon Jordan whispered, “Excuse me”—but this time no one laughed.
332“I’ll pick it up,” I offered.
333“I’ve got it.” 334Gatsby examined the parted string, muttered “Hum!” 335in an interested way, and tossed the book on a chair.
336“That’s a great expression of yours, isn’t it?” said Tom sharply.
337“What is?”
338“All this ‘old sport’ business. 339Where’d you pick that up?”
340“Now see here, Tom,” said Daisy, turning around from the mirror, “if you’re going to make personal remarks I won’t stay here a minute. 341Call up and order some ice for the mint julep.”
342As Tom took up the receiver the compressed heat exploded into sound and we were listening to the portentous chords of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March from the ballroom below.
343“Imagine marrying anybody in this heat!” cried Jordan dismally.
344“Still—I was married in the middle of June,” Daisy remembered. 345“Louisville in June! 346Somebody fainted. 347Who was it fainted, Tom?”
348“Biloxi,” he answered shortly.
349“A man named Biloxi. 350‘Blocks’ Biloxi, and he made boxes—that’s a fact—and he was from Biloxi, Tennessee.”
351“They carried him into my house,” appended Jordan, “because we lived just two doors from the church. 352And he stayed three weeks, until Daddy told him he had to get out. 353The day after he left Daddy died.” 354After a moment she added as if she might have sounded irreverent, “There wasn’t any connection.”
355“I used to know a Bill Biloxi from Memphis,” I remarked.
356“That was his cousin. 357I knew his whole family history before he left. 358He gave me an aluminium putter that I use today.”
359The music had died down as the ceremony began and now a long cheer floated in at the window, followed by intermittent cries of “Yea—ea—ea!” 360and finally by a burst of jazz as the dancing began.
361“We’re getting old,” said Daisy. 362“If we were young we’d rise and dance.”
363“Remember Biloxi,” Jordan warned her. 364“Where’d you know him, Tom?”
365“Biloxi?” 366He concentrated with an effort. 367“I didn’t know him. 368He was a friend of Daisy’s.”
369“He was not,” she denied. 370“I’d never seen him before. 371He came down in the private car.”
372“Well, he said he knew you. 373He said he was raised in Louisville. 374Asa Bird brought him around at the last minute and asked if we had room for him.”
375Jordan smiled.
376“He was probably bumming his way home. 377He told me he was president of your class at Yale.”
378Tom and I looked at each other blankly.
379“Biloxi?”
380“First place, we didn’t have any president—”
381Gatsby’s foot beat a short, restless tattoo and Tom eyed him suddenly.
382“By the way, Mr. Gatsby, I understand you’re an Oxford man.”
383“Not exactly.”
384“Oh, yes, I understand you went to Oxford.”
385“Yes—I went there.”
386A pause. 387Then Tom’s voice, incredulous and insulting:
388“You must have gone there about the time Biloxi went to New Haven.”
389Another pause. 390A waiter knocked and came in with crushed mint and ice but the silence was unbroken by his “thank you” and the soft closing of the door. 391This tremendous detail was to be cleared up at last.
392“I told you I went there,” said Gatsby.
393“I heard you, but I’d like to know when.”
394“It was in nineteen-nineteen, I only stayed five months. 395That’s why I can’t really call myself an Oxford man.”
396Tom glanced around to see if we mirrored his unbelief. 397But we were all looking at Gatsby.
398“It was an opportunity they gave to some of the officers after the armistice,” he continued. 399“We could go to any of the universities in England or France.”
400I wanted to get up and slap him on the back. 401I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him that I’d experienced before.
402Daisy rose, smiling faintly, and went to the table.
403“Open the whisky, Tom,” she ordered, “and I’ll make you a mint julep. 404Then you won’t seem so stupid to yourself… Look at the mint!”
405“Wait a minute,” snapped Tom, “I want to ask Mr. Gatsby one more question.”
406“Go on,” Gatsby said politely.
407“What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?”
408They were out in the open at last and Gatsby was content.
409“He isn’t causing a row,” Daisy looked desperately from one to the other. 410“You’re causing a row. 411Please have a little self-control.”
412“Self-control!” repeated Tom incredulously. 413“I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. 414Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out… Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.”
415Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization.
416“We’re all white here,” murmured Jordan.
417“I know I’m not very popular. 418I don’t give big parties. 419I suppose you’ve got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends—in the modern world.”
420Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth. 421The transition from libertine to prig was so complete.
422“I’ve got something to tell you, old sport—” began Gatsby. 423But Daisy guessed at his intention.
424“Please don’t!” 425she interrupted helplessly. 426“Please let’s all go home. 427Why don’t we all go home?”
428“That’s a good idea,” I got up. 429“Come on, Tom. 430Nobody wants a drink.”
431“I want to know what Mr. Gatsby has to tell me.”
432“Your wife doesn’t love you,” said Gatsby. 433“She’s never loved you. 434She loves me.”
435“You must be crazy!” 436exclaimed Tom automatically.
437Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement.
438“She never loved you, do you hear?” 439he cried. 440“She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. 441It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me!”
442At this point Jordan 443and I tried to go, but Tom and Gatsby insisted with competitive firmness that we remain—as though neither of them had anything to conceal and it would be a privilege to partake vicariously of their emotions.
444“Sit down, Daisy,” Tom’s voice groped unsuccessfully for the paternal note. 445“What’s been going on? 446I want to hear all about it.”
447“I told you what’s been going on,” said Gatsby. 448“Going on for five years—and you didn’t know.”
449Tom turned to Daisy sharply.
450“You’ve been seeing this fellow for five years?”
451“Not seeing,” said Gatsby. 452“No, we couldn’t meet. 453But both of us loved each other all that time, old sport, and you didn’t know. 454I used to laugh sometimes”—but there was no laughter in his eyes—“to think that you didn’t know.”
455“Oh—that’s all.” 456Tom tapped his thick fingers together like a clergyman and leaned back in his chair.
457“You’re crazy!” 458he exploded. 459“I can’t speak about what happened five years ago, because I didn’t know Daisy then—and I’ll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back door. 460But all the rest of that’s a God damned lie. 461Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now.”
462“No,” said Gatsby, shaking his head.
463“She does, though. 464The trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas in her head and doesn’t know what she’s doing.” 465He nodded sagely. 466“And what’s more, I love Daisy too. 467Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time.”
468“You’re revolting,” said Daisy. 469She turned to me, and her voice, dropping an octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn: “Do you know why we left Chicago? 470I’m surprised that they didn’t treat you to the story of that little spree.”
471Gatsby walked over and stood beside her.
472“Daisy, that’s all over now,” he said earnestly. 473“It doesn’t matter any more. 474Just tell him the truth—that you never loved him—and it’s all wiped out forever.”
475She looked at him blindly. 476“Why—how could I love him—possibly?”
477“You never loved him.”
478She hesitated. 479Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doing—and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all. 480But it was done now. 481It was too late.
482“I never loved him,” she said, with perceptible reluctance.
483“Not at Kapiolani?” demanded Tom suddenly.
484“No.”
485From the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air.
486“Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?” 487There was a husky tenderness in his tone… “Daisy?”
488“Please don’t.” 489Her voice was cold, but the rancour was gone from it. 490She looked at Gatsby. 491“There, Jay,” she said—but her hand as she tried to light a cigarette was trembling. 492Suddenly she threw the cigarette and the burning match on the carpet.
493“Oh, you want too much!” 494she cried to Gatsby. 495“I love you now—isn’t that enough? 496I can’t help what’s past.” 497She began to sob helplessly. 498“I did love him once—but I loved you too.”
499Gatsby’s eyes opened and closed.
500“You loved me too?” he repeated.
501“Even that’s a lie,” said Tom savagely. 502“She didn’t know you were alive. 503Why—there’s things between Daisy and me that you’ll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget.”
504The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
505“I want to speak to Daisy alone,” he insisted. 506“She’s all excited now—”
507“Even alone I can’t say I never loved Tom,” she admitted in a pitiful voice. 508“It wouldn’t be true.”
509“Of course it wouldn’t,” agreed Tom.
510She turned to her husband.
511“As if it mattered to you,” she said.
512“Of course it matters. 513I’m going to take better care of you from now on.”
514“You don’t understand,” said Gatsby, with a touch of panic. 515“You’re not going to take care of her any more.”
516“I’m not?” 517Tom opened his eyes wide and laughed. 518He could afford to control himself now. 519“Why’s that?”
520“Daisy’s leaving you.”
521“Nonsense.”
522“I am, though,” she said with a visible effort.
523“She’s not leaving me!” 524Tom’s words suddenly leaned down over Gatsby. 525“Certainly not for a common swindler who’d have to steal the ring he put on her finger.”
526“I won’t stand this!” 527cried Daisy. 528“Oh, please let’s get out.”
529“Who are you, anyhow?” broke out Tom. 530“You’re one of that bunch that hangs around with Meyer Wolfshiem—that much I happen to know. 531I’ve made a little investigation into your affairs—and I’ll carry it further tomorrow.”
532“You can suit yourself about that, old sport,” said Gatsby steadily.
533“I found out what your ‘drugstores’ were.” 534He turned to us and spoke rapidly. 535“He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drugstores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. 536That’s one of his little stunts. 537I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong.”
538“What about it?” said Gatsby politely. 539“I guess your friend Walter Chase wasn’t too proud to come in on it.”
540“And you left him in the lurch, didn’t you? 541You let him go to jail for a month over in New Jersey. 542God! 543You ought to hear Walter on the subject of you.”
544“He came to us dead broke. 545He was very glad to pick up some money, old sport.”
546“Don’t you call me ‘old sport’!” 547cried Tom. 548Gatsby said nothing. 549“Walter could have you up on the betting laws too, but Wolfshiem scared him into shutting his mouth.”
550That unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back again in Gatsby’s face.
551“That drugstore business was just small change,” continued Tom slowly, “but you’ve got something on now that Walter’s afraid to tell me about.”
552I glanced at Daisy, who was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband, and at Jordan, who had begun to balance an invisible but absorbing object on the tip of her chin. 553Then I turned back to Gatsby—and was startled at his expression. 554He looked—and this is said in all contempt for the babbled slander of his garden—as if he had “killed a man.” 555For a moment the set of his face could be described in just that fantastic way.
556It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made. 557But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room.
558The voice begged again to go.
559“Please, Tom! 560I can’t stand this any more.”
561Her frightened eyes told that whatever intentions, whatever courage she had had, were definitely gone.
562“You two start on home, Daisy,” said Tom. 563“In Mr. Gatsby’s car.”
564She looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous scorn.
565“Go on. 566He won’t annoy you. 567I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over.”
568They were gone, without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity.
569After a moment Tom got up and began wrapping the unopened bottle of whisky in the towel.
570“Want any of this stuff? 571Jordan?… Nick?”
572I didn’t answer.
573“Nick?” 574He asked again.
575“What?”
576“Want any?”
577“No… I just remembered that today’s my birthday.”
578I was thirty. 579Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.
580It was seven o’clock when we got into the coupé with him and started for Long Island. 581Tom talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign clamour on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. 582Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. 583Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. 584But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. 585As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat’s shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand.
586So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.
587The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the ash-heaps was the principal witness at the inquest. 588He had slept through the heat until after five, when he strolled over to the garage, and found George Wilson sick in his office—really sick, pale as his own pale hair and shaking all over. 589Michaelis advised him to go to bed, but Wilson refused, saying that he’d miss a lot of business if he did. 590While his neighbour was trying to persuade him a violent racket broke out overhead.
591“I’ve got my wife locked in up there,” explained Wilson calmly. 592“She’s going to stay there till the day after tomorrow, and then we’re going to move away.”
593Michaelis was astonished; they had been neighbours for four years, and Wilson had never seemed faintly capable of such a statement. 594Generally 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. 595When anyone spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colourless way. 596He was his wife’s man and not his own.
597So naturally Michaelis tried to find out what had happened, but Wilson wouldn’t say a word—instead he began to throw curious, suspicious glances at his visitor and ask him what he’d been doing at certain times on certain days. 598Just as the latter was getting uneasy, some workmen came past the door bound for his restaurant, and Michaelis took the opportunity to get away, intending to come back later. 599But he didn’t. 600He supposed he forgot to, that’s all. 601When he came outside again, a little after seven, he was reminded of the conversation because he heard Mrs. Wilson’s voice, loud and scolding, downstairs in the garage.
602“Beat me!” 603he heard her cry. 604“Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!”
605A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting—before he could move from his door the business was over.
606The “death car” as the newspapers called it, didn’t stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the next bend. 607Mavro Michaelis wasn’t even sure of its colour—he told the first policeman that it was light green. 608The other car, the one going toward New York, came to rest a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick dark blood with the dust.
609Michaelis and this man reached her first, but when they had torn open her shirtwaist, still damp with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap, and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. 610The mouth was wide open and ripped a little at the corners, as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long.
611We saw the three or four automobiles and the crowd when we were still some distance away.
612“Wreck!” said Tom. 613“That’s good. 614Wilson’ll have a little business at last.”
615He slowed down, but still without any intention of stopping, until, as we came nearer, the hushed, intent faces of the people at the garage door made him automatically put on the brakes.
616“We’ll take a look,” he said doubtfully, “just a look.”
617I became aware now of a hollow, wailing sound which issued incessantly from the garage, a sound which as we got out of the coupé and walked toward the door resolved itself into the words “Oh, my God!” 618uttered over and over in a gasping moan.
619“There’s some bad trouble here,” said Tom excitedly.
620He reached up on tiptoes and peered over a circle of heads into the garage, which was lit only by a yellow light in a swinging metal basket overhead. 621Then he made a harsh sound in his throat, and with a violent thrusting movement of his powerful arms pushed his way through.
622The circle closed up again with a running murmur of expostulation; it was a minute before I could see anything at all. 623Then new arrivals deranged the line, and Jordan and I were pushed suddenly inside.
624Myrtle Wilson’s body, wrapped in a blanket, and then in another blanket, as though she suffered from a chill in the hot night, lay on a worktable by the wall, and Tom, with his back to us, was bending over it, motionless. 625Next to him stood a motorcycle policeman taking down names with much sweat and correction in a little book. 626At 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. 627Some man was talking to him in a low voice and attempting, from time to time, to lay a hand on his shoulder, but Wilson neither heard nor saw. 628His eyes would drop slowly from the swinging light to the laden table by the wall, and then jerk back to the light again, and he gave out incessantly his high, horrible call:
629“Oh, my Ga-od! 630Oh, my Ga-od! 631Oh, Ga-od! 632Oh, my Ga-od!”
633Presently Tom lifted his head with a jerk and, after staring around the garage with glazed eyes, addressed a mumbled incoherent remark to the policeman.
634“M-a-v—” the policeman was saying, “—o—”
635“No, r—” corrected the man, “M-a-v-r-o—”
636“Listen to me!” 637muttered Tom fiercely.
638“r—” said the policeman, “o—”
639“g—”
640“g—” He looked up as Tom’s broad hand fell sharply on his shoulder. 641“What you want, fella?”
642“What happened?—that’s what I want to know.”
643“Auto hit her. 644Ins’antly killed.”
645“Instantly killed,” repeated Tom, staring.
646“She ran out ina road. 647Son-of-a-bitch didn’t even stopus car.”
648“There was two cars,” said Michaelis, “one comin’, one goin’, see?”
649“Going where?” asked the policeman keenly.
650“One goin’ each way. 651Well, she”—his hand rose toward the blankets but stopped halfway and fell to his side—“she ran out there an’ the one comin’ from N’York knock right into her, goin’ thirty or forty miles an hour.”
652“What’s the name of this place here?” demanded the officer.
653“Hasn’t got any name.”
654A pale well-dressed negro stepped near.
655“It was a yellow car,” he said, “big yellow car. 656New.”
657“See the accident?” 658asked the policeman.
659“No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster’n forty. 660Going fifty, sixty.”
661“Come here and let’s have your name. 662Look out now. 663I want to get his name.”
664Some words of this conversation must have reached Wilson, swaying in the office door, for suddenly a new theme found voice among his grasping cries:
665“You don’t have to tell me what kind of car it was! 666I know what kind of car it was!”
667Watching Tom, I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. 668He walked quickly over to Wilson and, standing in front of him, seized him firmly by the upper arms.
669“You’ve got to pull yourself together,” he said with soothing gruffness.
670Wilson’s eyes fell upon Tom; he started up on his tiptoes and then would have collapsed to his knees had not Tom held him upright.
671“Listen,” said Tom, shaking him a little. 672“I just got here a minute ago, from New York. 673I was bringing you that coupé we’ve been talking about. 674That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn’t mine—do you hear? 675I haven’t seen it all afternoon.”
676Only the negro and I were near enough to hear what he said, but the policeman caught something in the tone and looked over with truculent eyes.
677“What’s all that?” he demanded.
678“I’m a friend of his.” 679Tom turned his head but kept his hands firm on Wilson’s body. 680“He says he knows the car that did it… It was a yellow car.”
681Some dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspiciously at Tom.
682“And what colour’s your car?”
683“It’s a blue car, a coupé.”
684“We’ve come straight from New York,” I said.
685Someone who had been driving a little behind us confirmed this, and the policeman turned away.
686“Now, if you’ll let me have that name again correct—”
687Picking up Wilson like a doll, Tom carried him into the office, set him down in a chair, and came back.
688“If somebody’ll come here and sit with him,” he snapped authoritatively. 689He watched while the two men standing closest glanced at each other and went unwillingly into the room. 690Then Tom shut the door on them and came down the single step, his eyes avoiding the table. 691As he passed close to me he whispered: “Let’s get out.”
692Self-consciously, with his authoritative arms breaking the way, we pushed through the still gathering crowd, passing a hurried doctor, case in hand, who had been sent for in wild hope half an hour ago.
693Tom drove slowly until we were beyond the bend—then his foot came down hard, and the coupé raced along through the night. 694In a little while I heard a low husky sob, and saw that the tears were overflowing down his face.
695“The God damned coward!” 696he whimpered. 697“He didn’t even stop his car.”
698The Buchanans’ house floated suddenly toward us through the dark rustling trees. 699Tom stopped beside the porch and looked up at the second floor, where two windows bloomed with light among the vines.
700“Daisy’s home,” he said. 701As we got out of the car he glanced at me and frowned slightly.
702“I ought to have dropped you in West Egg, Nick. 703There’s nothing we can do tonight.”
704A change had come over him, and he spoke gravely, and with decision. 705As we walked across the moonlight gravel to the porch he disposed of the situation in a few brisk phrases.
706“I’ll telephone for a taxi to take you home, and while you’re waiting you and Jordan better go in the kitchen and have them get you some supper—if you want any.” 707He opened the door. 708“Come in.”
709“No, thanks. 710But I’d be glad if you’d order me the taxi. 711I’ll wait outside.”
712Jordan put her hand on my arm.
713“Won’t you come in, Nick?”
714“No, thanks.”
715I was feeling a little sick and I wanted to be alone. 716But Jordan lingered for a moment more.
717“It’s only half-past nine,” she said.
718I’d be damned if I’d go in; I’d had enough of all of them for one day, and suddenly that included Jordan too. 719She must have seen something of this in my expression, for she turned abruptly away and ran up the porch steps into the house. 720I sat down for a few minutes with my head in my hands, until I heard the phone taken up inside and the butler’s voice calling a taxi. 721Then I walked slowly down the drive away from the house, intending to wait by the gate.
722I hadn’t gone twenty yards when I heard my name and Gatsby stepped from between two bushes into the path. 723I must have felt pretty weird by that time, because I could think of nothing except the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon.
724“What are you doing?” 725I inquired.
726“Just standing here, old sport.”
727Somehow, that seemed a despicable occupation. 728For all I knew he was going to rob the house in a moment; I wouldn’t have been surprised to see sinister faces, the faces of “Wolfshiem’s people,” behind him in the dark shrubbery.
729“Did you see any trouble on the road?” 730he asked after a minute.
731“Yes.”
732He hesitated.
733“Was she killed?”
734“Yes.”
735“I thought so; I told Daisy I thought so. 736It’s better that the shock should all come at once. 737She stood it pretty well.”
738He spoke as if Daisy’s reaction was the only thing that mattered.
739“I got to West Egg by a side road,” he went on, “and left the car in my garage. 740I don’t think anybody saw us, but of course I can’t be sure.”
741I disliked him so much by this time that I didn’t find it necessary to tell him he was wrong.
742“Who was the woman?” he inquired.
743“Her name was Wilson. 744Her husband owns the garage. 745How the devil did it happen?”
746“Well, I tried to swing the wheel—” He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth.
747“Was Daisy driving?”
748“Yes,” he said after a moment, “but of course I’ll say I was. 749You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way. 750It all happened in a minute, but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew. 751Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back. 752The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.”
753“It ripped her open—”
754“Don’t tell me, old sport.” 755He winced. 756“Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it. 757I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t, so I pulled on the emergency brake. 758Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on.
759“She’ll be all right tomorrow,” he said presently. 760“I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon. 761She’s locked herself into her room, and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.”
762“He won’t touch her,” I said. 763“He’s not thinking about her.”
764“I don’t trust him, old sport.”
765“How long are you going to wait?”
766“All night, if necessary. 767Anyhow, till they all go to bed.”
768A new point of view occurred to me. 769Suppose Tom found out that Daisy had been driving. 770He might think he saw a connection in it—he might think anything. 771I looked at the house; there were two or three bright windows downstairs and the pink glow from Daisy’s room on the ground floor.
772“You wait here,” I said. 773“I’ll see if there’s any sign of a commotion.”
774I walked back along the border of the lawn, traversed the gravel softly, and tiptoed up the veranda steps. 775The drawing-room curtains were open, and I saw that the room was empty. 776Crossing the porch where we had dined that June night three months before, I came to a small rectangle of light which I guessed was the pantry window. 777The blind was drawn, but I found a rift at the sill.
778Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, with a plate of cold fried chicken between them, and two bottles of ale. 779He was talking intently across the table at her, and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. 780Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement.
781They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale—and yet they weren’t unhappy either. 782There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.
783As I tiptoed from the porch I heard my taxi feeling its way along the dark road toward the house. 784Gatsby was waiting where I had left him in the drive.
785“Is it all quiet up there?” 786he asked anxiously.
787“Yes, it’s all quiet.” 788I hesitated. 789“You’d better come home and get some sleep.”
790He shook his head.
791“I want to wait here till Daisy goes to bed. 792Good night, old sport.”
793He put his hands in his coat pockets and turned back eagerly to his scrutiny of the house, as though my presence marred the sacredness of the vigil. 794So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight—watching over nothing.