Страница:
circle of his arm. "You take Nick and Jordan. We'll follow you in the
coupe." She walked close to Gatsby, touching his coat with her hand. Jordan
and Tom and 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. "Did you see that?" demanded Tom. "See
what?" He looked at me keenly, realizing that Jordan and I must have known
all along. "You think I'm pretty dumb, don't you?" he suggested. "Perhaps I
am, but I have a--almost a second sight, sometimes, that tells me what to
do. Maybe you don't believe that, but science----" He paused. The immediate
contingency overtook him, pulled him back from the edge of the theoretical
abyss. "I've made a small investigation of this fellow," he continued. "I
could have gone deeper if I'd known----" "Do you mean you've been to a
medium?" inquired Jordan humorously. "What?" Confused, he stared at us as we
laughed. "A medium?" "About Gatsby." "About Gatsby! No, I haven't. I said
I'd been making a small investigation of his past." "And you found he was an
Oxford man," said Jordan helpfully. "An Oxford man!" He was incredulous.
"Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit." "Nevertheless he's an Oxford man."
"Oxford, New Mexico," snorted Tom contemptuously, "or something like that."
"Listen, Tom. If you're such a snob, why did you invite him to lunch?"
demanded Jordan crossly. "Daisy invited him; she knew him before we were
married--God knows where!" We were all irritable now with the fading ale,
and aware of it we drove for a while in silence. Then as Doctor T. J.
Eckleburg's faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby's
caution about gasoline. "We've got enough to get us to town," said Tom. "But
there's a garage right here," objected Jordan. "I don't want to get stalled
in this baking heat." Tom threw on both brakes impatiently, and we slid to
an abrupt dusty stop under Wilson's sign. After a moment the proprietor
emerged from the interior of his establishment and gazed hollow-eyed at the
car. "Let's have some gas!" cried Tom roughly. "What do you think we stopped
for--to admire the view?" "I'm sick," said Wilson without moving. "Been sick
all day." "What's the matter?" "I'm all run down." "Well, shall I help
myself?" Tom demanded. "You sounded well enough on the phone." With an
effort Wilson left the shade and support of the doorway and, breathing hard,
unscrewed the cap of the tank. In the sunlight his face was green. "I didn't
mean to interrupt your lunch," he said. "But I need money pretty bad, and I
was wondering what you were going to do with your old car." "How do you like
this one?" inquired Tom. "I bought it last week." "It's a nice yellow one,"
said Wilson, as he strained at the handle. "Like to buy it?" "Big chance,"
Wilson smiled faintly. "No, but I could make some money on the other." "What
do you want money for, all of a sudden?" "I've been here too long. I want to
get away. My wife and I want to go West." "Your wife does," exclaimed Tom,
startled. "She's been talking about it for ten years." He rested for a
moment against the pump, shading his eyes. "And now she's going whether she
wants to or not. I'm going to get her away." The coupe flashed by us with a
flurry of dust and the flash of a waving hand. "What do I owe you?" demanded
Tom harshly. "I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,"
remarked Wilson. "That's why I want to get away. That's why I been bothering
you about the car." "What do I owe you?" "Dollar twenty." The 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. He had
discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another
world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I 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. Wilson
was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty--as if he had just
got some poor girl with child. "I'll let you have that car," said Tom. "I'll
send it over to-morrow afternoon." That 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. Over the ashheaps 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. In one of the windows over the garage the curtains
had been moved aside a little, and Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the
car. So 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. Her 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. There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple
mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife
and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping
precipitately from his control. Instinct 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 easy-going blue
coupe. "Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool," suggested Jordan.
"I love New York on summer afternoons when every one's away. There's
something very sensuous about it--overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits
were going to fall into your hands." The word "sensuous" had the effect of
further disquieting Tom, but before he could invent a protest the coupe came
to a stop, and Daisy signaled us to draw up alongside. "Where are we going?"
she cried. "How about the movies?" "It's so hot," she complained. "You go.
We'll ride around and meet you after." With an effort her wit rose faintly,
"We'll meet you on some corner. I'll be the man smoking two cigarettes." "We
can't argue about it here," Tom said impatiently, as a truck gave out a
cursing whistle behind us. "You follow me to the south side of Central Park,
in front of the Plaza." Several 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. I think he was afraid they would dart down a side street and out of
his life forever. But they didn't. And we all took the less explicable step
of engaging the parlor of a suite in the Plaza Hotel. The 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. The notion originated with Daisy's
suggestion that we hire five bath-rooms and take cold baths, and then
assumed more tangible form as "a place to have a mint julep." Each 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. . . . The 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. Daisy went to the mirror and stood with her back to us, fixing her
hair. "It's a swell suite," whispered Jordan respectfully, and every one
laughed. "Open another window," commanded Daisy, without turning around.
"There aren't any more." "Well, we'd better telephone for an axe----" "The
thing to do is to forget about the heat," said Tom impatiently. "You make it
ten times worse by crabbing about it." He unrolled the bottle of whiskey
from the towel and put it on the table. "Why not let her alone, old sport?"
remarked Gatsby. "You're the one that wanted to come to town." There was a
moment of silence. The telephone book slipped from its nail and splashed to
the floor, whereupon Jordan whispered, "Excuse me."--but this time no one
laughed. "I'll pick it up," I offered. "I've got it." Gatsby examined the
parted string, muttered "Hum!" in an interested way, and tossed the book on
a chair. "That's a great expression of yours, isn't it?" said Tom sharply.
"What is?" "All this 'old sport' business. Where'd you pick that up?" "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. Call up and order some
ice for the mint julep." As 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. "Imagine marrying
anybody in this heat!" cried Jordan dismally. "Still--I was married in the
middle of June," Daisy remembered, "Louisville in June! Somebody fainted.
Who was it fainted, Tom?" "Biloxi," he answered shortly. "A man named
Biloxi. 'blocks' Biloxi, and he made boxes--that's a fact--and he was from
Biloxi, Tennessee." "They carried him into my house," appended Jordan,
"because we lived just two doors from the church. And he stayed three weeks,
until Daddy told him he had to get out. The day after he left Daddy died."
After a moment she added as if she might have sounded irreverent, "There
wasn't any connection." "I used to know a Bill Biloxi from Memphis," I
remarked. "That was his cousin. I knew his whole family history before he
left. He gave me an aluminum putter that I use to-day." The 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!" and finally by a burst of
jazz as the dancing began. "We're getting old," said Daisy. "If we were
young we'd rise and dance." "Remember Biloxi," Jordan warned her. "Where'd
you know him, Tom?" "Biloxi?" He concentrated with an effort. "I didn't know
him. He was a friend of Daisy's." "He was not," she denied. "I'd never seen
him before. He came down in the private car." "Well, he said he knew you. He
said he was raised in Louisville. Asa Bird brought him around at the last
minute and asked if we had room for him." Jordan smiled. "He was probably
bumming his way home. He told me he was president of your class at Yale."
Tom and I looked at each other blankly. "Biloxi?" "First place, we didn't
have any president----" Gatsby's foot beat a short, restless tattoo and Tom
eyed him suddenly. "By the way, Mr. Gatsby, I understand you're an Oxford
man." "Not exactly." "Oh, yes, I understand you went to Oxford." "Yes--I
went there." A pause. Then Tom's voice, incredulous and insulting: "You must
have gone there about the time Biloxi went to New Haven." Another pause. A
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. This
tremendous detail was to be cleared up at last. "I told you I went there,"
said Gatsby. "I heard you, but I'd like to know when." "It was in
nineteen-nineteen, I only stayed five months. That's why I can't really call
myself an Oxford man." Tom glanced around to see if we mirrored his
unbelief. But we were all looking at Gatsby. "It was an opportunity they
gave to some of the officers after the Armistice," he continued. "We could
go to any of the universities in England or France." I wanted to get up and
slap him on the back. I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him
that I'd experienced before. Daisy rose, smiling faintly, and went to the
table. "Open the whiskey, Tom," she ordered, "and I'll make you a mint
julep. Then you won't seem so stupid to yourself. . . . Look at the mint!"
"Wait a minute," snapped Tom, "I want to ask Mr. Gatsby one more question."
"Go on," Gatsby said politely. "What kind of a row are you trying to cause
in my house anyhow?" They were out in the open at last and Gatsby was
content. "He isn't causing a row." Daisy looked desperately from one to the
other. "You're causing a row. Please have a little self-control."
"Self-control!" Repeated Tom incredulously. "I suppose the latest thing is
to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, 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."
Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the
last barrier of civilization. "We're all white here," murmured Jordan. "I
know I'm not very popular. I don't give big parties. I suppose you've got to
make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends--in the modern
world." Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he
opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete.
"I've got something to tell YOU, old sport----" began Gatsby. But Daisy
guessed at his intention. "Please don't!" she interrupted helplessly.
"Please let's all go home. Why don't we all go home?" "That's a good idea."
I got up. "Come on, Tom. Nobody wants a drink." "I want to know what Mr.
Gatsby has to tell me." "Your wife doesn't love you," said Gatsby. "She's
never loved you. She loves me." "You must be crazy!" exclaimed Tom
automatically. Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement. "She never
loved you, do you hear?" he cried. "She only married you because I was poor
and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her
heart she never loved any one except me!" At this point Jordan and 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. "Sit down, Daisy," Tom's
voice groped unsuccessfully for the paternal note. "What's been going on? I
want to hear all about it." "I told you what's been going on," said Gatsby.
"Going on for five years--and you didn't know." Tom turned to Daisy sharply.
"You've been seeing this fellow for five years?" "Not seeing," said Gatsby.
"No, we couldn't meet. But both of us loved each other all that time, old
sport, and you didn't know. I used to laugh sometimes."--but there was no
laughter in his eyes----" to think that you didn't know." "Oh--that's all."
Tom tapped his thick fingers together like a clergyman and leaned back in
his chair. "You're crazy!" he exploded. "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. But all the rest of that's a God damned lie. Daisy loved me when
she married me and she loves me now." "No," said Gatsby, shaking his head.
"She does, though. The trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas in
her head and doesn't know what she's doing." He nodded sagely. "And what's
more, I love Daisy too. Once 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."
"You're revolting," said Daisy. She turned to me, and her voice, dropping an
octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn: "Do you know why we left
Chicago? I'm surprised that they didn't treat you to the story of that
little spree." Gatsby walked over and stood beside her. "Daisy, that's all
over now," he said earnestly. "It doesn't matter any more. Just tell him the
truth--that you never loved him--and it's all wiped out forever." She looked
at him blindly. "Why--how could I love him--possibly?" "You never loved
him." She hesitated. Her 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. But it was done now. It
was too late. "I never loved him," she said, with perceptible reluctance.
"Not at Kapiolani?" demanded Tom suddenly. "No." From the ballroom beneath,
muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air. "Not
that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?"
There was a husky tenderness in his tone. . . . "Daisy?" "Please don't." Her
voice was cold, but the rancor was gone from it. She looked at Gatsby.
"There, Jay," she said--but her hand as she tried to light a cigarette was
trembling. Suddenly she threw the cigarette and the burning match on the
carpet. "Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now--isn't
that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did
love him once--but I loved you too." Gatsby's eyes opened and closed. "You
loved me TOO?" he repeated. "Even that's a lie," said Tom savagely. "She
didn't know you were alive. Why--there're things between Daisy and me that
you'll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget." The words
seemed to bite physically into Gatsby. "I want to speak to Daisy alone," he
insisted. "She's all excited now----" "Even alone I can't say I never loved
Tom," she admitted in a pitiful voice. "It wouldn't be true." "Of course it
wouldn't," agreed Tom. She turned to her husband. "As if it mattered to
you," she said. "Of course it matters. I'm going to take better care of you
from now on." "You don't understand," said Gatsby, with a touch of panic.
"You're not going to take care of her any more." "I'm not?" Tom opened his
eyes wide and laughed. He could afford to control himself now. "Why's that?"
"Daisy's leaving you." "Nonsense." "I am, though," she said with a visible
effort. "She's not leaving me!" Tom's words suddenly leaned down over
Gatsby. "Certainly not for a common swindler who'd have to steal the ring he
put on her finger." "I won't stand this!" cried Daisy. "Oh, please let's get
out." "Who are you, anyhow?" broke out Tom. "You're one of that bunch that
hangs around with Meyer Wolfshiem--that much I happen to know. I've made a
little investigation into your affairs--and I'll carry it further
to-morrow." "You can suit yourself about that, old sport." said Gatsby
steadily. "I found out what your 'drug-stores' were." He turned to us and
spoke rapidly. "He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street
drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter.
That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first
time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong." "What about it?" said Gatsby
politely. "I guess your friend Walter Chase wasn't too proud to come in on
it." "And you left him in the lurch, didn't you? You let him go to jail for
a month over in New Jersey. God! You ought to hear Walter on the subject of
YOU." "He came to us dead broke. He was very glad to pick up some money, old
sport." "Don't you call me 'old sport'!" cried Tom. Gatsby said nothing.
"Walter could have you up on the betting laws too, but Wolfshiem scared him
into shutting his mouth." That unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back
again in Gatsby's face. "That drug-store business was just small change,"
continued Tom slowly, "but you've got something on now that Walter's afraid
to tell me about." I 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. Then I turned back to
Gatsby--and was startled at his expression. He looked--and this is said in
all contempt for the babbled slander of his garden--as if he had "killed a
man." For a moment the set of his face could be described in just that
fantastic way. It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying
everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made.
But 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. The voice begged
again to go. "PLEASE, Tom! I can't stand this any more." Her frightened eyes
told that whatever intentions, whatever courage, she had had, were
definitely gone. "You two start on home, Daisy," said Tom. "In Mr. Gatsby's
car." She looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous
scorn. "Go on. He won't annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous
little flirtation is over." They were gone, without a word, snapped out,
made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity. After a moment
Tom got up and began wrapping the unopened bottle of whiskey in the towel.
"Want any of this stuff? Jordan? . . . Nick?" I didn't answer. "Nick?" He
asked again. "What?" "Want any?" "No . . . I just remembered that to-day's
my birthday." I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing
road of a new decade. It was seven o'clock when we got into the coupe with
him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and
laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign
clamor on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human
sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic
arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty--the promise of a decade
of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case
of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike
Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As
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. So we drove on toward death through the cooling
twilight. The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the
ashheaps was the principal witness at the inquest. He 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. Michaelis advised him to go to bed, but Wilson refused,
saying that he'd miss a lot of business if he did. While his neighbor was
trying to persuade him a violent racket broke out overhead. "I've got my
wife locked in up there," explained Wilson calmly. "She's going to stay
there till the day after to-morrow, and then we're going to move away."
Michaelis was astonished; they had been neighbors for four years, and Wilson
had never seemed faintly capable of such a statement. 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.
When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colorless
way. He was his wife's man and not his own. So 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. Just 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.
But he didn't. He supposed he forgot to, that's all. When he came outside
again, a little after seven, he was reminded of the conversation because he
heard Mrs. Wilson's voice, loud and scolding, down-stairs in the garage.
"Beat me!" he heard her cry. "Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little
coward!" A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and
shouting--before he could move from his door the business was over. The
"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. Michaelis wasn't even sure of its color--he told the
first policeman that it was light green. The 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. Michaelis 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. The mouth was
wide open and ripped at the corners, as though she had choked a little in
giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long. We saw the three
or four automobiles and the crowd when we were still some distance away.
"Wreck!" said Tom. "That's good. Wilson'll have a little business at last."
He 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. "We'll take a look," he said
doubtfully, "just a look." I became aware now of a hollow, wailing sound
which issued incessantly from the garage, a sound which as we got out of the
coupe and walked toward the door resolved itself into the words "Oh, my
God!" uttered over and over in a gasping moan. "There's some bad trouble
here," said Tom excitedly. He 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
wire basket overhead. Then he made a harsh sound in his throat, and with a
violent thrusting movement of his powerful arms pushed his way through. The
circle closed up again with a running murmur of expostulation; it was a
minute before I could see anything at all. Then new arrivals deranged the
line, and Jordan and I were pushed suddenly inside. Myrtle 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 work-table by the wall, and Tom,
with his back to us, was bending over it, motionless. Next to him stood a
motorcycle policeman taking down names with much sweat and correction in a
little book. 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. Some 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. His 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: "Oh, my Ga-od! Oh, my Ga-od!
oh, Ga-od! oh, my Ga-od!" Presently Tom lifted his head with a jerk and,
after staring around the garage with glazed eyes, addressed a mumbled
incoherent remark to the policeman. "M-a-y-." the policeman was saying,
"-o----" "No, r-." corrected the man, "M-a-v-r-o----" "Listen to me!"
muttered Tom fiercely. "r" said the policeman, "o----" "g----" "g----" He
looked up as Tom's broad hand fell sharply on his shoulder. "What you want,
fella?" "What happened?--that's what I want to know." "Auto hit her.
Ins'antly killed." "Instantly killed," repeated Tom, staring. "She ran out
ina road. Son-of-a-bitch didn't even stopus car." "There was two cars," said
Michaelis, "one comin', one goin', see?" "Going where?" asked the policeman
keenly. "One goin' each way. Well, she."--his hand rose toward the blankets
but stopped half way 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." "What's the name of this place here?" demanded the officer. "Hasn't
got any name." A pale well-dressed negro stepped near. "It was a yellow
car," he said, "big yellow car. New." "See the accident?" asked the
policeman. "No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster'n forty.
Going fifty, sixty." "Come here and let's have your name. Look out now. I
want to get his name." Some words of this conversation must have reached
Wilson, swaying in the office door, for suddenly a new theme found voice
among his gasping cries: "You don't have to tell me what kind of car it was!
I know what kind of car it was!" Watching Tom, I saw the wad of muscle back
of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson
and, standing in front of him, seized him firmly by the upper arms. "You've
got to pull yourself together," he said with soothing gruffness. Wilson'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. "Listen," said Tom,
shaking him a little. "I just got here a minute ago, from New York. I was
bringing you that coupe we've been talking about. That yellow car I was
driving this afternoon wasn't mine--do you hear? I haven't seen it all
afternoon." Only 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. "What's all that?" he demanded. "I'm a friend of his." Tom turned his
head but kept his hands firm on Wilson's body. "He says he knows the car
that did it . . . it was a yellow car." Some dim impulse moved the policeman
to look suspiciously at Tom. "And what color's your car?" "It's a blue car,
a coupe." "We've come straight from New York," I said. Some one who had been
driving a little behind us confirmed this, and the policeman turned away.
"Now, if you'll let me have that name again correct----" Picking up Wilson
like a doll, Tom carried him into the office, set him down in a chair, and
came back. "If somebody'll come here and sit with him," he snapped
authoritatively. He watched while the two men standing closest glanced at
each other and went unwillingly into the room. Then Tom shut the door on
them and came down the single step, his eyes avoiding the table. As he
passed close to me he whispered: "Let's get out." Self-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. Tom drove slowly until we were beyond the bend--then
his foot came down hard, and the coupe raced along through the night. In a
little while I heard a low husky sob, and saw that the tears were
overflowing down his face. "The God damned coward!" he whimpered. "He didn't
even stop his car." The Buchanans' house floated suddenly toward us through
the dark rustling trees. Tom stopped beside the porch and looked up at the
second floor, where two windows bloomed with light among the vines. "Daisy's
home," he said. As we got out of the car he glanced at me and frowned
slightly. "I ought to have dropped you in West Egg, Nick. There's nothing we
can do to-night." A change had come over him, and he spoke gravely, and with
decision. As we walked across the moonlight gravel to the porch he disposed
of the situation in a few brisk phrases. "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." He opened the door.
"Come in." "No, thanks. But I'd be glad if you'd order me the taxi. I'll
wait outside." Jordan put her hand on my arm. "Won't you come in, Nick?"
"No, thanks." I was feeling a little sick and I wanted to be alone. But
Jordan lingered for a moment more. "It's only half-past nine," she said. I'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. She must have seen something of this in
my expression, for she turned abruptly away and ran up the porch steps into
the house. I 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. Then
I walked slowly down the drive away from the house, intending to wait by the
gate. I hadn't gone twenty yards when I heard my name and Gatsby stepped
from between two bushes into the path. I must have felt pretty weird by that
time, because I could think of nothing except the luminosity of his pink
suit under the moon. "What are you doing?" I inquired. "Just standing here,
old sport." Somehow, that seemed a despicable occupation. For 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. "Did you see any trouble on the road?" he asked after a
minute. "Yes." He hesitated. "Was she killed?" "Yes." "I thought so; I told
Daisy I thought so. It's better that the shock should all come at once. She
stood it pretty well." He spoke as if Daisy's reaction was the only thing
that mattered. "I got to West Egg by a side road," he went on, "and left the
car in my garage. I don't think anybody saw us, but of course I can't be
sure." I disliked him so much by this time that I didn't find it necessary
to tell him he was wrong. "Who was the woman?" he inquired. "Her name was
Wilson. Her husband owns the garage. How the devil did it happen?" "Well, I
tried to swing the wheel----" He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the
truth. "Was Daisy driving?" "Yes," he said after a moment, "but of course
I'll say I was. You 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. It all happened in a minute,
but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody
she knew. Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car,
and then she lost her nerve and turned back. The second my hand reached the
wheel I felt the shock--it must have killed her instantly." "It ripped her
open----" "Don't tell me, old sport." He winced. "Anyhow--Daisy stepped on
it. I tried to make her stop, but she couldn't, so I pulled on the emergency
brake. Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on. "She'll be all right
to-morrow," he said presently. "I'm just going to wait here and see if he
tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon. She's locked
herself into her room, and if he tries any brutality she's going to turn the
light out and on again." "He won't touch her,' I said. "He's not thinking
about her." "I don't trust him, old sport." "How long are you going to
wait?" "All night, if necessary. Anyhow, till they all go to bed." A new
point of view occurred to me. Suppose Tom found out that Daisy had been
driving. He might think he saw a connection in it--he might think anything.
I looked at the house; there were two or three bright windows down-stairs
and the pink glow from Daisy's room on the second floor. "You wait here," I
said. "I'll see if there's any sign of a commotion." I walked back along the
border of the lawn, traversed the gravel softly, and tiptoed up the veranda
steps. The drawing-room curtains were open, and I saw that the room was
empty. Crossing 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. The blind was drawn, but I found a rift at the sill. Daisy 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. He was talking intently
across the table at her, and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and
covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in
agreement. They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken
or the ale--and yet they weren't unhappy either. There was an unmistakable
air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that
they were conspiring together. As I tiptoed from the porch I heard my taxi
feeling its way along the dark road toward the house. Gatsby was waiting
where I had left him in the drive. "Is it all quiet up there?" he asked
anxiously. "Yes, it's all quiet." I hesitated. "You'd better come home and
get some sleep." He shook his head. "I want to wait here till Daisy goes to
bed. Good night, old sport." He 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. So I walked away and left him standing there in the
moonlight--watching over nothing. Chapter 8 I couldn't sleep all night; a
fog-horn was groaning incessantly on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick
between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams. Toward dawn I
heard a taxi go up Gatsby's drive, and immediately I jumped out of bed and
began to dress--I felt that I had something to tell him, something to warn
him about, and morning would be too late. Crossing his lawn, I saw that his
front door was still open and he was leaning against a table in the hall,
heavy with dejection or sleep. "Nothing happened," he said wanly. "I waited,
and about four o'clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute
and then turned out the light." His house had never seemed so enormous to me
as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes.
We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable
feet of dark wall for electric light switches--once I tumbled with a sort of
splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano. There was an inexplicable amount of
dust everywhere, and the rooms were musty, as though they hadn't been aired
for many days. I found the humidor on an unfamiliar table, with two stale,
dry cigarettes inside. Throwing open the French windows of the drawing-room,
we sat smoking out into the darkness. "You ought to go away," I said. "It's
pretty certain they'll trace your car." "Go away NOW, old sport?" "Go to
Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal." He wouldn't consider it. He
couldn't possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was
clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free. It was
this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan
Cody--told it to me because "Jay Gatsby." had broken up like glass against
Tom's hard malice, and the long secret extravaganza was played out. I think
that he would have acknowledged anything now, without reserve, but he wanted
to talk about Daisy. She was the first "nice" girl he had ever known. In
various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people, but
always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly
desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp
Taylor, then alone. It amazed him--he had never been in such a beautiful
house before. but what gave it an air of breathless intensity, was that
Daisy lived there--it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp
was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms up-stairs
more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities
taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were not musty and
laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this
year's shining motor-cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely
withered. It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy--it
increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house,
pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions. But
he knew that he was in Daisy's house by a colossal accident. However
glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless
young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his
uniform might slip from his shoulders. So he made the most of his time. He
took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously-- eventually he took
Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to
touch her hand. He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken
her under false pretenses. I don't mean that he had traded on his phantom
millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let
her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself--that
he was fully able to take care of her. 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. But he didn't despise himself and it didn't turn out as he had
imagined. He had intended, probably, to take what he could and go--but now
he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail. He knew
that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn't realize just how extraordinary a
"nice" girl could be. She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full
life, leaving Gatsby--nothing. He felt married to her, that was all. When
they met again, two days later, it was Gatsby who was breathless, who was,
somehow, betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of
star-shine; the wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned
toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a
cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby
was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and
preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like
silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor. "I can't
describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I
even hoped for a while that she'd throw me over, but she didn't, because she
was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different
things from her. . . . Well, there I was, 'way off my ambitions, getting
deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn't care. What was the
use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I
was going to do?" On the last afternoon before he went abroad, he sat with
Daisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall day, with fire
in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and then she moved and he changed
his arm a little, and once he kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon
had made them tranquil for a while, as if to give them a deep memory for the
long parting the next day promised. They had never been closer in their
month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when
she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the
end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep. He did
extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the
front, and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command
of the divisional machine-guns. After the Armistice he tried frantically to
get home, but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford
instead. He was worried now--there was a quality of nervous despair in
Daisy's letters. She didn't see why he couldn't come. She was feeling the
pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to see him and feel his
presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing
after all. For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of
orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm
of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes.
All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the BEALE STREET
BLUES. while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the
shining dust. At the gray 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. Through this
twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she
was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, and
drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress
tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. And all the time
something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped
now, immediately--and the decision must be made by some force--of love, of
money, of unquestionable practicality--that was close at hand. That force
coupe." She walked close to Gatsby, touching his coat with her hand. Jordan
and Tom and 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. "Did you see that?" demanded Tom. "See
what?" He looked at me keenly, realizing that Jordan and I must have known
all along. "You think I'm pretty dumb, don't you?" he suggested. "Perhaps I
am, but I have a--almost a second sight, sometimes, that tells me what to
do. Maybe you don't believe that, but science----" He paused. The immediate
contingency overtook him, pulled him back from the edge of the theoretical
abyss. "I've made a small investigation of this fellow," he continued. "I
could have gone deeper if I'd known----" "Do you mean you've been to a
medium?" inquired Jordan humorously. "What?" Confused, he stared at us as we
laughed. "A medium?" "About Gatsby." "About Gatsby! No, I haven't. I said
I'd been making a small investigation of his past." "And you found he was an
Oxford man," said Jordan helpfully. "An Oxford man!" He was incredulous.
"Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit." "Nevertheless he's an Oxford man."
"Oxford, New Mexico," snorted Tom contemptuously, "or something like that."
"Listen, Tom. If you're such a snob, why did you invite him to lunch?"
demanded Jordan crossly. "Daisy invited him; she knew him before we were
married--God knows where!" We were all irritable now with the fading ale,
and aware of it we drove for a while in silence. Then as Doctor T. J.
Eckleburg's faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby's
caution about gasoline. "We've got enough to get us to town," said Tom. "But
there's a garage right here," objected Jordan. "I don't want to get stalled
in this baking heat." Tom threw on both brakes impatiently, and we slid to
an abrupt dusty stop under Wilson's sign. After a moment the proprietor
emerged from the interior of his establishment and gazed hollow-eyed at the
car. "Let's have some gas!" cried Tom roughly. "What do you think we stopped
for--to admire the view?" "I'm sick," said Wilson without moving. "Been sick
all day." "What's the matter?" "I'm all run down." "Well, shall I help
myself?" Tom demanded. "You sounded well enough on the phone." With an
effort Wilson left the shade and support of the doorway and, breathing hard,
unscrewed the cap of the tank. In the sunlight his face was green. "I didn't
mean to interrupt your lunch," he said. "But I need money pretty bad, and I
was wondering what you were going to do with your old car." "How do you like
this one?" inquired Tom. "I bought it last week." "It's a nice yellow one,"
said Wilson, as he strained at the handle. "Like to buy it?" "Big chance,"
Wilson smiled faintly. "No, but I could make some money on the other." "What
do you want money for, all of a sudden?" "I've been here too long. I want to
get away. My wife and I want to go West." "Your wife does," exclaimed Tom,
startled. "She's been talking about it for ten years." He rested for a
moment against the pump, shading his eyes. "And now she's going whether she
wants to or not. I'm going to get her away." The coupe flashed by us with a
flurry of dust and the flash of a waving hand. "What do I owe you?" demanded
Tom harshly. "I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,"
remarked Wilson. "That's why I want to get away. That's why I been bothering
you about the car." "What do I owe you?" "Dollar twenty." The 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. He had
discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another
world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I 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. Wilson
was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty--as if he had just
got some poor girl with child. "I'll let you have that car," said Tom. "I'll
send it over to-morrow afternoon." That 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. Over the ashheaps 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. In one of the windows over the garage the curtains
had been moved aside a little, and Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the
car. So 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. Her 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. There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple
mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife
and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping
precipitately from his control. Instinct 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 easy-going blue
coupe. "Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool," suggested Jordan.
"I love New York on summer afternoons when every one's away. There's
something very sensuous about it--overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits
were going to fall into your hands." The word "sensuous" had the effect of
further disquieting Tom, but before he could invent a protest the coupe came
to a stop, and Daisy signaled us to draw up alongside. "Where are we going?"
she cried. "How about the movies?" "It's so hot," she complained. "You go.
We'll ride around and meet you after." With an effort her wit rose faintly,
"We'll meet you on some corner. I'll be the man smoking two cigarettes." "We
can't argue about it here," Tom said impatiently, as a truck gave out a
cursing whistle behind us. "You follow me to the south side of Central Park,
in front of the Plaza." Several 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. I think he was afraid they would dart down a side street and out of
his life forever. But they didn't. And we all took the less explicable step
of engaging the parlor of a suite in the Plaza Hotel. The 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. The notion originated with Daisy's
suggestion that we hire five bath-rooms and take cold baths, and then
assumed more tangible form as "a place to have a mint julep." Each 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. . . . The 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. Daisy went to the mirror and stood with her back to us, fixing her
hair. "It's a swell suite," whispered Jordan respectfully, and every one
laughed. "Open another window," commanded Daisy, without turning around.
"There aren't any more." "Well, we'd better telephone for an axe----" "The
thing to do is to forget about the heat," said Tom impatiently. "You make it
ten times worse by crabbing about it." He unrolled the bottle of whiskey
from the towel and put it on the table. "Why not let her alone, old sport?"
remarked Gatsby. "You're the one that wanted to come to town." There was a
moment of silence. The telephone book slipped from its nail and splashed to
the floor, whereupon Jordan whispered, "Excuse me."--but this time no one
laughed. "I'll pick it up," I offered. "I've got it." Gatsby examined the
parted string, muttered "Hum!" in an interested way, and tossed the book on
a chair. "That's a great expression of yours, isn't it?" said Tom sharply.
"What is?" "All this 'old sport' business. Where'd you pick that up?" "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. Call up and order some
ice for the mint julep." As 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. "Imagine marrying
anybody in this heat!" cried Jordan dismally. "Still--I was married in the
middle of June," Daisy remembered, "Louisville in June! Somebody fainted.
Who was it fainted, Tom?" "Biloxi," he answered shortly. "A man named
Biloxi. 'blocks' Biloxi, and he made boxes--that's a fact--and he was from
Biloxi, Tennessee." "They carried him into my house," appended Jordan,
"because we lived just two doors from the church. And he stayed three weeks,
until Daddy told him he had to get out. The day after he left Daddy died."
After a moment she added as if she might have sounded irreverent, "There
wasn't any connection." "I used to know a Bill Biloxi from Memphis," I
remarked. "That was his cousin. I knew his whole family history before he
left. He gave me an aluminum putter that I use to-day." The 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!" and finally by a burst of
jazz as the dancing began. "We're getting old," said Daisy. "If we were
young we'd rise and dance." "Remember Biloxi," Jordan warned her. "Where'd
you know him, Tom?" "Biloxi?" He concentrated with an effort. "I didn't know
him. He was a friend of Daisy's." "He was not," she denied. "I'd never seen
him before. He came down in the private car." "Well, he said he knew you. He
said he was raised in Louisville. Asa Bird brought him around at the last
minute and asked if we had room for him." Jordan smiled. "He was probably
bumming his way home. He told me he was president of your class at Yale."
Tom and I looked at each other blankly. "Biloxi?" "First place, we didn't
have any president----" Gatsby's foot beat a short, restless tattoo and Tom
eyed him suddenly. "By the way, Mr. Gatsby, I understand you're an Oxford
man." "Not exactly." "Oh, yes, I understand you went to Oxford." "Yes--I
went there." A pause. Then Tom's voice, incredulous and insulting: "You must
have gone there about the time Biloxi went to New Haven." Another pause. A
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. This
tremendous detail was to be cleared up at last. "I told you I went there,"
said Gatsby. "I heard you, but I'd like to know when." "It was in
nineteen-nineteen, I only stayed five months. That's why I can't really call
myself an Oxford man." Tom glanced around to see if we mirrored his
unbelief. But we were all looking at Gatsby. "It was an opportunity they
gave to some of the officers after the Armistice," he continued. "We could
go to any of the universities in England or France." I wanted to get up and
slap him on the back. I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him
that I'd experienced before. Daisy rose, smiling faintly, and went to the
table. "Open the whiskey, Tom," she ordered, "and I'll make you a mint
julep. Then you won't seem so stupid to yourself. . . . Look at the mint!"
"Wait a minute," snapped Tom, "I want to ask Mr. Gatsby one more question."
"Go on," Gatsby said politely. "What kind of a row are you trying to cause
in my house anyhow?" They were out in the open at last and Gatsby was
content. "He isn't causing a row." Daisy looked desperately from one to the
other. "You're causing a row. Please have a little self-control."
"Self-control!" Repeated Tom incredulously. "I suppose the latest thing is
to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, 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."
Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the
last barrier of civilization. "We're all white here," murmured Jordan. "I
know I'm not very popular. I don't give big parties. I suppose you've got to
make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends--in the modern
world." Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he
opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete.
"I've got something to tell YOU, old sport----" began Gatsby. But Daisy
guessed at his intention. "Please don't!" she interrupted helplessly.
"Please let's all go home. Why don't we all go home?" "That's a good idea."
I got up. "Come on, Tom. Nobody wants a drink." "I want to know what Mr.
Gatsby has to tell me." "Your wife doesn't love you," said Gatsby. "She's
never loved you. She loves me." "You must be crazy!" exclaimed Tom
automatically. Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement. "She never
loved you, do you hear?" he cried. "She only married you because I was poor
and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her
heart she never loved any one except me!" At this point Jordan and 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. "Sit down, Daisy," Tom's
voice groped unsuccessfully for the paternal note. "What's been going on? I
want to hear all about it." "I told you what's been going on," said Gatsby.
"Going on for five years--and you didn't know." Tom turned to Daisy sharply.
"You've been seeing this fellow for five years?" "Not seeing," said Gatsby.
"No, we couldn't meet. But both of us loved each other all that time, old
sport, and you didn't know. I used to laugh sometimes."--but there was no
laughter in his eyes----" to think that you didn't know." "Oh--that's all."
Tom tapped his thick fingers together like a clergyman and leaned back in
his chair. "You're crazy!" he exploded. "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. But all the rest of that's a God damned lie. Daisy loved me when
she married me and she loves me now." "No," said Gatsby, shaking his head.
"She does, though. The trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas in
her head and doesn't know what she's doing." He nodded sagely. "And what's
more, I love Daisy too. Once 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."
"You're revolting," said Daisy. She turned to me, and her voice, dropping an
octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn: "Do you know why we left
Chicago? I'm surprised that they didn't treat you to the story of that
little spree." Gatsby walked over and stood beside her. "Daisy, that's all
over now," he said earnestly. "It doesn't matter any more. Just tell him the
truth--that you never loved him--and it's all wiped out forever." She looked
at him blindly. "Why--how could I love him--possibly?" "You never loved
him." She hesitated. Her 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. But it was done now. It
was too late. "I never loved him," she said, with perceptible reluctance.
"Not at Kapiolani?" demanded Tom suddenly. "No." From the ballroom beneath,
muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air. "Not
that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?"
There was a husky tenderness in his tone. . . . "Daisy?" "Please don't." Her
voice was cold, but the rancor was gone from it. She looked at Gatsby.
"There, Jay," she said--but her hand as she tried to light a cigarette was
trembling. Suddenly she threw the cigarette and the burning match on the
carpet. "Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now--isn't
that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did
love him once--but I loved you too." Gatsby's eyes opened and closed. "You
loved me TOO?" he repeated. "Even that's a lie," said Tom savagely. "She
didn't know you were alive. Why--there're things between Daisy and me that
you'll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget." The words
seemed to bite physically into Gatsby. "I want to speak to Daisy alone," he
insisted. "She's all excited now----" "Even alone I can't say I never loved
Tom," she admitted in a pitiful voice. "It wouldn't be true." "Of course it
wouldn't," agreed Tom. She turned to her husband. "As if it mattered to
you," she said. "Of course it matters. I'm going to take better care of you
from now on." "You don't understand," said Gatsby, with a touch of panic.
"You're not going to take care of her any more." "I'm not?" Tom opened his
eyes wide and laughed. He could afford to control himself now. "Why's that?"
"Daisy's leaving you." "Nonsense." "I am, though," she said with a visible
effort. "She's not leaving me!" Tom's words suddenly leaned down over
Gatsby. "Certainly not for a common swindler who'd have to steal the ring he
put on her finger." "I won't stand this!" cried Daisy. "Oh, please let's get
out." "Who are you, anyhow?" broke out Tom. "You're one of that bunch that
hangs around with Meyer Wolfshiem--that much I happen to know. I've made a
little investigation into your affairs--and I'll carry it further
to-morrow." "You can suit yourself about that, old sport." said Gatsby
steadily. "I found out what your 'drug-stores' were." He turned to us and
spoke rapidly. "He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street
drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter.
That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first
time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong." "What about it?" said Gatsby
politely. "I guess your friend Walter Chase wasn't too proud to come in on
it." "And you left him in the lurch, didn't you? You let him go to jail for
a month over in New Jersey. God! You ought to hear Walter on the subject of
YOU." "He came to us dead broke. He was very glad to pick up some money, old
sport." "Don't you call me 'old sport'!" cried Tom. Gatsby said nothing.
"Walter could have you up on the betting laws too, but Wolfshiem scared him
into shutting his mouth." That unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back
again in Gatsby's face. "That drug-store business was just small change,"
continued Tom slowly, "but you've got something on now that Walter's afraid
to tell me about." I 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. Then I turned back to
Gatsby--and was startled at his expression. He looked--and this is said in
all contempt for the babbled slander of his garden--as if he had "killed a
man." For a moment the set of his face could be described in just that
fantastic way. It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying
everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made.
But 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. The voice begged
again to go. "PLEASE, Tom! I can't stand this any more." Her frightened eyes
told that whatever intentions, whatever courage, she had had, were
definitely gone. "You two start on home, Daisy," said Tom. "In Mr. Gatsby's
car." She looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous
scorn. "Go on. He won't annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous
little flirtation is over." They were gone, without a word, snapped out,
made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity. After a moment
Tom got up and began wrapping the unopened bottle of whiskey in the towel.
"Want any of this stuff? Jordan? . . . Nick?" I didn't answer. "Nick?" He
asked again. "What?" "Want any?" "No . . . I just remembered that to-day's
my birthday." I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing
road of a new decade. It was seven o'clock when we got into the coupe with
him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and
laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign
clamor on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human
sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic
arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty--the promise of a decade
of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case
of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike
Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As
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. So we drove on toward death through the cooling
twilight. The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the
ashheaps was the principal witness at the inquest. He 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. Michaelis advised him to go to bed, but Wilson refused,
saying that he'd miss a lot of business if he did. While his neighbor was
trying to persuade him a violent racket broke out overhead. "I've got my
wife locked in up there," explained Wilson calmly. "She's going to stay
there till the day after to-morrow, and then we're going to move away."
Michaelis was astonished; they had been neighbors for four years, and Wilson
had never seemed faintly capable of such a statement. 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.
When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colorless
way. He was his wife's man and not his own. So 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. Just 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.
But he didn't. He supposed he forgot to, that's all. When he came outside
again, a little after seven, he was reminded of the conversation because he
heard Mrs. Wilson's voice, loud and scolding, down-stairs in the garage.
"Beat me!" he heard her cry. "Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little
coward!" A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and
shouting--before he could move from his door the business was over. The
"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. Michaelis wasn't even sure of its color--he told the
first policeman that it was light green. The 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. Michaelis 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. The mouth was
wide open and ripped at the corners, as though she had choked a little in
giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long. We saw the three
or four automobiles and the crowd when we were still some distance away.
"Wreck!" said Tom. "That's good. Wilson'll have a little business at last."
He 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. "We'll take a look," he said
doubtfully, "just a look." I became aware now of a hollow, wailing sound
which issued incessantly from the garage, a sound which as we got out of the
coupe and walked toward the door resolved itself into the words "Oh, my
God!" uttered over and over in a gasping moan. "There's some bad trouble
here," said Tom excitedly. He 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
wire basket overhead. Then he made a harsh sound in his throat, and with a
violent thrusting movement of his powerful arms pushed his way through. The
circle closed up again with a running murmur of expostulation; it was a
minute before I could see anything at all. Then new arrivals deranged the
line, and Jordan and I were pushed suddenly inside. Myrtle 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 work-table by the wall, and Tom,
with his back to us, was bending over it, motionless. Next to him stood a
motorcycle policeman taking down names with much sweat and correction in a
little book. 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. Some 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. His 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: "Oh, my Ga-od! Oh, my Ga-od!
oh, Ga-od! oh, my Ga-od!" Presently Tom lifted his head with a jerk and,
after staring around the garage with glazed eyes, addressed a mumbled
incoherent remark to the policeman. "M-a-y-." the policeman was saying,
"-o----" "No, r-." corrected the man, "M-a-v-r-o----" "Listen to me!"
muttered Tom fiercely. "r" said the policeman, "o----" "g----" "g----" He
looked up as Tom's broad hand fell sharply on his shoulder. "What you want,
fella?" "What happened?--that's what I want to know." "Auto hit her.
Ins'antly killed." "Instantly killed," repeated Tom, staring. "She ran out
ina road. Son-of-a-bitch didn't even stopus car." "There was two cars," said
Michaelis, "one comin', one goin', see?" "Going where?" asked the policeman
keenly. "One goin' each way. Well, she."--his hand rose toward the blankets
but stopped half way 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." "What's the name of this place here?" demanded the officer. "Hasn't
got any name." A pale well-dressed negro stepped near. "It was a yellow
car," he said, "big yellow car. New." "See the accident?" asked the
policeman. "No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster'n forty.
Going fifty, sixty." "Come here and let's have your name. Look out now. I
want to get his name." Some words of this conversation must have reached
Wilson, swaying in the office door, for suddenly a new theme found voice
among his gasping cries: "You don't have to tell me what kind of car it was!
I know what kind of car it was!" Watching Tom, I saw the wad of muscle back
of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson
and, standing in front of him, seized him firmly by the upper arms. "You've
got to pull yourself together," he said with soothing gruffness. Wilson'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. "Listen," said Tom,
shaking him a little. "I just got here a minute ago, from New York. I was
bringing you that coupe we've been talking about. That yellow car I was
driving this afternoon wasn't mine--do you hear? I haven't seen it all
afternoon." Only 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. "What's all that?" he demanded. "I'm a friend of his." Tom turned his
head but kept his hands firm on Wilson's body. "He says he knows the car
that did it . . . it was a yellow car." Some dim impulse moved the policeman
to look suspiciously at Tom. "And what color's your car?" "It's a blue car,
a coupe." "We've come straight from New York," I said. Some one who had been
driving a little behind us confirmed this, and the policeman turned away.
"Now, if you'll let me have that name again correct----" Picking up Wilson
like a doll, Tom carried him into the office, set him down in a chair, and
came back. "If somebody'll come here and sit with him," he snapped
authoritatively. He watched while the two men standing closest glanced at
each other and went unwillingly into the room. Then Tom shut the door on
them and came down the single step, his eyes avoiding the table. As he
passed close to me he whispered: "Let's get out." Self-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. Tom drove slowly until we were beyond the bend--then
his foot came down hard, and the coupe raced along through the night. In a
little while I heard a low husky sob, and saw that the tears were
overflowing down his face. "The God damned coward!" he whimpered. "He didn't
even stop his car." The Buchanans' house floated suddenly toward us through
the dark rustling trees. Tom stopped beside the porch and looked up at the
second floor, where two windows bloomed with light among the vines. "Daisy's
home," he said. As we got out of the car he glanced at me and frowned
slightly. "I ought to have dropped you in West Egg, Nick. There's nothing we
can do to-night." A change had come over him, and he spoke gravely, and with
decision. As we walked across the moonlight gravel to the porch he disposed
of the situation in a few brisk phrases. "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." He opened the door.
"Come in." "No, thanks. But I'd be glad if you'd order me the taxi. I'll
wait outside." Jordan put her hand on my arm. "Won't you come in, Nick?"
"No, thanks." I was feeling a little sick and I wanted to be alone. But
Jordan lingered for a moment more. "It's only half-past nine," she said. I'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. She must have seen something of this in
my expression, for she turned abruptly away and ran up the porch steps into
the house. I 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. Then
I walked slowly down the drive away from the house, intending to wait by the
gate. I hadn't gone twenty yards when I heard my name and Gatsby stepped
from between two bushes into the path. I must have felt pretty weird by that
time, because I could think of nothing except the luminosity of his pink
suit under the moon. "What are you doing?" I inquired. "Just standing here,
old sport." Somehow, that seemed a despicable occupation. For 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. "Did you see any trouble on the road?" he asked after a
minute. "Yes." He hesitated. "Was she killed?" "Yes." "I thought so; I told
Daisy I thought so. It's better that the shock should all come at once. She
stood it pretty well." He spoke as if Daisy's reaction was the only thing
that mattered. "I got to West Egg by a side road," he went on, "and left the
car in my garage. I don't think anybody saw us, but of course I can't be
sure." I disliked him so much by this time that I didn't find it necessary
to tell him he was wrong. "Who was the woman?" he inquired. "Her name was
Wilson. Her husband owns the garage. How the devil did it happen?" "Well, I
tried to swing the wheel----" He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the
truth. "Was Daisy driving?" "Yes," he said after a moment, "but of course
I'll say I was. You 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. It all happened in a minute,
but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody
she knew. Well, first Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car,
and then she lost her nerve and turned back. The second my hand reached the
wheel I felt the shock--it must have killed her instantly." "It ripped her
open----" "Don't tell me, old sport." He winced. "Anyhow--Daisy stepped on
it. I tried to make her stop, but she couldn't, so I pulled on the emergency
brake. Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on. "She'll be all right
to-morrow," he said presently. "I'm just going to wait here and see if he
tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon. She's locked
herself into her room, and if he tries any brutality she's going to turn the
light out and on again." "He won't touch her,' I said. "He's not thinking
about her." "I don't trust him, old sport." "How long are you going to
wait?" "All night, if necessary. Anyhow, till they all go to bed." A new
point of view occurred to me. Suppose Tom found out that Daisy had been
driving. He might think he saw a connection in it--he might think anything.
I looked at the house; there were two or three bright windows down-stairs
and the pink glow from Daisy's room on the second floor. "You wait here," I
said. "I'll see if there's any sign of a commotion." I walked back along the
border of the lawn, traversed the gravel softly, and tiptoed up the veranda
steps. The drawing-room curtains were open, and I saw that the room was
empty. Crossing 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. The blind was drawn, but I found a rift at the sill. Daisy 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. He was talking intently
across the table at her, and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and
covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in
agreement. They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken
or the ale--and yet they weren't unhappy either. There was an unmistakable
air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that
they were conspiring together. As I tiptoed from the porch I heard my taxi
feeling its way along the dark road toward the house. Gatsby was waiting
where I had left him in the drive. "Is it all quiet up there?" he asked
anxiously. "Yes, it's all quiet." I hesitated. "You'd better come home and
get some sleep." He shook his head. "I want to wait here till Daisy goes to
bed. Good night, old sport." He 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. So I walked away and left him standing there in the
moonlight--watching over nothing. Chapter 8 I couldn't sleep all night; a
fog-horn was groaning incessantly on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick
between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams. Toward dawn I
heard a taxi go up Gatsby's drive, and immediately I jumped out of bed and
began to dress--I felt that I had something to tell him, something to warn
him about, and morning would be too late. Crossing his lawn, I saw that his
front door was still open and he was leaning against a table in the hall,
heavy with dejection or sleep. "Nothing happened," he said wanly. "I waited,
and about four o'clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute
and then turned out the light." His house had never seemed so enormous to me
as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes.
We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable
feet of dark wall for electric light switches--once I tumbled with a sort of
splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano. There was an inexplicable amount of
dust everywhere, and the rooms were musty, as though they hadn't been aired
for many days. I found the humidor on an unfamiliar table, with two stale,
dry cigarettes inside. Throwing open the French windows of the drawing-room,
we sat smoking out into the darkness. "You ought to go away," I said. "It's
pretty certain they'll trace your car." "Go away NOW, old sport?" "Go to
Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal." He wouldn't consider it. He
couldn't possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was
clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free. It was
this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan
Cody--told it to me because "Jay Gatsby." had broken up like glass against
Tom's hard malice, and the long secret extravaganza was played out. I think
that he would have acknowledged anything now, without reserve, but he wanted
to talk about Daisy. She was the first "nice" girl he had ever known. In
various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people, but
always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly
desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp
Taylor, then alone. It amazed him--he had never been in such a beautiful
house before. but what gave it an air of breathless intensity, was that
Daisy lived there--it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp
was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms up-stairs
more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities
taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were not musty and
laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this
year's shining motor-cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely
withered. It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy--it
increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house,
pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions. But
he knew that he was in Daisy's house by a colossal accident. However
glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless
young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his
uniform might slip from his shoulders. So he made the most of his time. He
took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously-- eventually he took
Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to
touch her hand. He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken
her under false pretenses. I don't mean that he had traded on his phantom
millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let
her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself--that
he was fully able to take care of her. 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. But he didn't despise himself and it didn't turn out as he had
imagined. He had intended, probably, to take what he could and go--but now
he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail. He knew
that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn't realize just how extraordinary a
"nice" girl could be. She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full
life, leaving Gatsby--nothing. He felt married to her, that was all. When
they met again, two days later, it was Gatsby who was breathless, who was,
somehow, betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of
star-shine; the wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned
toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a
cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby
was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and
preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like
silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor. "I can't
describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I
even hoped for a while that she'd throw me over, but she didn't, because she
was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different
things from her. . . . Well, there I was, 'way off my ambitions, getting
deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn't care. What was the
use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I
was going to do?" On the last afternoon before he went abroad, he sat with
Daisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall day, with fire
in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and then she moved and he changed
his arm a little, and once he kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon
had made them tranquil for a while, as if to give them a deep memory for the
long parting the next day promised. They had never been closer in their
month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when
she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the
end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep. He did
extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the
front, and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command
of the divisional machine-guns. After the Armistice he tried frantically to
get home, but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford
instead. He was worried now--there was a quality of nervous despair in
Daisy's letters. She didn't see why he couldn't come. She was feeling the
pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to see him and feel his
presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing
after all. For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of
orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm
of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes.
All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the BEALE STREET
BLUES. while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the
shining dust. At the gray 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. Through this
twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she
was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, and
drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress
tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. And all the time
something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped
now, immediately--and the decision must be made by some force--of love, of
money, of unquestionable practicality--that was close at hand. That force