The Great Gatsby Page #4

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. The novel was inspired by a youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922

• Fiction
• Novel

								

and—” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a
slight nod, and she winked at me again. “—And we’ve produced all the
things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art, and all
that. Do you see?”

There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his
complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more.
When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler
left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned
towards me.

“I’ll tell you a family secret,” she whispered enthusiastically.
“It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s
nose?”

“That’s why I came over tonight.”

“Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher
for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred
people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it
began to affect his nose—”

“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker.

“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up
his position.”

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her
glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I
listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering
regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear,
whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went
inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned
forward again, her voice glowing and singing.

“I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an
absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation:
“An absolute rose?”

This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only
extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart
was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless,
thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and
excused herself and went into the house.

Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of
meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!”
in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the
room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to
hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down,
mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.

“This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began.

“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”

“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.

“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised.
“I thought everybody knew.”

“I don’t.”

“Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”

“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly.

Miss Baker nodded.

“She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time.
Don’t you think?”

Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a
dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at
the table.

“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety.

She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and
continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic
outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a
nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing
away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?”

“Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light
enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.”

The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head
decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects,
vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes
at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I
was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to
avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but
I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain
hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill
metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation
might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone
immediately for the police.

The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss
Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into
the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while,
trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed
Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In
its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and
her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that
turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be
some sedative questions about her little girl.

“We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even
if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.”

“I wasn’t back from the war.”

“That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick,
and I’m pretty cynical about everything.”

Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn’t say any more,
and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her
daughter.

“I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.”

“Oh, yes.” She looked at me absently. “Listen, Nick; let me tell you
what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?”

“Very much.”

“It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was
less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of
the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right
away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I
turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a
girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be
in this world, a beautiful little fool.’

“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a
convinced way. “Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I
know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.”
Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and
she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated—God, I’m
sophisticated!”

The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my
belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me
uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to
exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a
moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as
if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret
society to which she and Tom belonged.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at
either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the
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