了不起的盖茨比:有声导读·插图版:英汉对照
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me,“just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
He didn’t say any more but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.
早先我年少气盛却脆弱无助的时候，父亲曾经给了我一句至今萦绕我脑际的忠告。
“每当你想指责别人时，”他对我说，“记住，这世上不是人人都像你一样养尊处优。”
虽然他没再细说，但是我俩之间向来是超常得心照不宣，因而我知道他是点到为止，话里有话。鉴于父亲的忠告，我总是保留对其他人的判断。我的习惯招来不少稀奇古怪的人向我吐露心机，也使我受害于众多喋喋不休的庸人。一旦正常人显示这样的秉性，脑筋非正常的人随即就会觉察，上来纠缠。正是这个缘故，早在大学里我就因为知道些放荡不羁和陌生人士的秘辛而被人妄称为政客。其实，有关他们的大多数隐情都不是我刻意求知的——只要觉察到有人试图泄露隐情的迹象，我通常就假装睡觉，推说诸事缠身，要不就摆出一副嗤之以鼻的姿态。原因是年轻人泄露隐情时，至少他们泄露隐情时用的措辞，时常是剽窃似的如出一辙，明显遮三掩四。保留意见显示的是抱有无限的希望。我父亲先前冠冕堂皇地训示过，我在此也想冠冕堂皇地重复一遍，人们对基本礼仪所得的感悟生来就不均等。我至今依然深怕，如果我忘记这一点，我就会错失了什么真谛。
And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.
当然，炫耀了自己的宽容之道以后，我得坦承，宽容有其限度。举止行为可以基于磐石，或湿地，但是过了一定的节点，我就满不在乎了。去年秋天从东部回来时，我期望的是全世界的人都穿上制服，永远在道德方面保持某种立正的状态。我无意再去肆无忌惮地猎奇，或去堂而皇之地窥探人的心灵深处。唯独盖茨比，也就是将其名字惠赠给此书的人，不在我的这一反应之内；盖茨比，他代表着我内心彻底鄙视的一切。倘如人品是由接二连三的成功壮举所构成，那么此人的确不同凡响，他对生活前景充满高度的敏感，犹如他连接着一台错综复杂的仪器，监测万里之外的震感。这种主动反应与美其名曰“创造性气质”的被动感受无关——它是一种追索希望的特异天赋，一种浪漫的期待。我在其他人身上从未见过，看来今后发现的可能也将是微乎其微。不——盖茨比最终并非罪不可恕，倒是那些吞噬他的东西，那些在他的迷梦破灭之后四处飘散的尘埃，才使我一度对人们稍纵即逝的悲哀和一时兴起的欢欣丧失了兴趣。
在这座中部城市，我家三代地位显赫，家产万贯。凯拉威家族算得上是个世家，据传我们是苏格兰布科鲁奇公爵的后裔，但实际上我们这一族系的先人是我叔祖父。他一八五一年来到此地，南北内战期间他送了个替身代他上战场，自己开始经营五金批发，也就是我父亲今天仍在打理的生意。
I never saw this great-uncle but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in Father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep-school for me and finally said, “Why—yees” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.
The practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was a warm season and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
“How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly.
I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was aguide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.
我从未见过这位叔祖父，但家人都说我长得像他，依据只是一幅挂在我父亲办公室墙上的死板画像。一九一五年，我从纽黑文[1]毕业，比父亲正好晚了四分之一世纪。此后不久，我投身于那场被延迟的条顿族迁移，即所谓的“大战”[2]。我极其享受反攻中的乐趣，以至于回来之后就无法安定下来。如今的中西部不再是世界的温暖中心，更像是宇宙的荒野边缘——于是我决定去东部学做债券生意。由于我认识的人当中个个都在做债券生意，我认为它再容纳一位单身汉应该不成问题。我的叔伯姑婶们商议了一番，如同帮我选择一所预科学校，最后才说，“呃……对了……定了吧。”面容不是严峻，就是迟疑。父亲答应支付我一年的费用，几经周折后，我于一九二二年春季抵达东部，心想不会再回归故里了。
在城里找房寄宿是个实惠的做法。适逢和暖的季节，我又刚刚离别遍布宽广草坪和宜人树木的乡野，一听到办公室里一位年轻人建议我们在能坐车上班的小镇合租一间房，我顿时觉得是个好主意。他找到了房子，一间久经风吹雨淋的木板小屋，月租八十美元。可是在最后一刻，他被公司调往华盛顿，我只好独自搬进郊外的住处。我有条狗（至少可以说在它逃离之前我养了它几天）、一辆旧道奇汽车和一名芬兰女佣。她帮我铺床、备早餐，在电炉上做饭时还自顾自咕哝着芬兰的至理名言。
一开始两天，我略感寂寞，直到一天早晨有个比我还初来乍到的人在路上叫住了我。
“去西卵村怎么走？”他无奈地问我。
我给他指了路。当我继续迈步前行时，我顿时不再感到孤独。我好像成了一名向导、探路人和原住民。问路者在不经意中授予了我在社区内的来去自由权。
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in fast movies—I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the “Yale News”—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the“well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.
眼见阳光明媚，叶蔓树枝，如同电影里飞速生长的草木，我内心油然冒出那个熟悉的信念，随着夏天的来临，生活即将重新开始。
首先，要读的书真多；其次，在郊外沁人心脾的空气中可做许多健身养息的活动。我买来十几本有关银行业务、信用借贷和投资证券方面的书籍。这些红色和烫金的书籍搁在我书架上，就像刚从造币厂出来的新币，时刻准备向我揭示只有马尔德斯[3]、摩根[4]和迈瑟纳斯[5]能知晓的光耀秘诀。除此之外，我还雄心勃勃地打算博览其他书籍。大学期间，我在文学上可算是才华横溢（有一年我为《耶鲁新闻》撰写了一系列极为庄重而又浅显的社论），如今我将把这一切纳入我的生活，再次成为一名俗称“三脚猫”之类的专家，即所谓的“通才”。这可不是一句玩世不恭的戏语——毕竟，从一扇窗口来洞察人生，使人更能一目了然。
我能在北美最为离奇的社区租到房子纯属偶然。这个社区坐落在纽约市以东那个狭长、嘈杂的岛上——除了其他一些天然景观，岛上还有两处形状异乎寻常的地段。两处半岛离市区二十英里，宛如一对硕大无比的鸡蛋，外形相同，中间仅隔了一条被礼节性称为湾的水道，一直延伸进西半球最最风平浪静的咸水里，即长岛湾里那片潮湿的大场院。它们并非是完整的椭圆形 （却像哥伦布故事里的鸡蛋，两地相接之处都被压平了），可是它们相似的地貌特征一定使翱翔在它们上空的海鸥久久迷惑不解。对于不具备双翼的人类来说，更引人注目的现象是，除了地形大小之外，这两个半岛再无丝毫相似之处。
I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it was a small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.
Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.
Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach-but now he’d left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.
我住在西卵，也就是说，是两地之间不太时髦的那个地方， 但是这只是个肤浅到顶的标签，远远不能展示两地之间稀奇古怪而且险恶环生的差异。我的租屋位于西卵之端，与海湾相隔仅仅五十码的距离，被挤在两幢每季租金高达一万两千和一万五千美元的别墅中间。右边这幢无论按什么标准来看都可算庞大的豪宅——实际上就是诺曼底某市政厅的翻版；一边有座塔楼，在一层稀疏的青藤下面依然显得簇新，一座大理石砌成的游泳池，还有占地四十英亩的草坪和花园。这就是盖茨比的公馆。换句话说，我起先只知道那公馆里住着一位名叫盖茨比的先生，因为那时我还没跟盖茨比先生相识。我自己的租屋惨不忍睹，幸亏很小，不引人注目。好在我能观赏海景，能看到我邻居家草坪的一角，并且能与百万富翁为邻而怡然自得——这一切的花费只是区区八十美元。
小湾那一边，豪华时尚的东卵琼楼玉宇连成一片，沿着水面灯光闪烁。确切说来，那个夏天发生的故事就是从我驱车去和汤 姆 ·布坎南夫妇共进晚餐的那个夜晚开始的。黛西是我的远房表妹，汤姆是我大学里的老相识。一次大战刚结束时，我曾和他们在芝加哥度过两天。
她的丈夫在多项运动中都有显赫的成就，曾经是纽黑文耶鲁橄榄球队史上最强大的边卫之一——从某种角度来说，他也算是全国知名人物，一名年仅二十一岁就已风光无限，但过后的一切就难免每况愈下的人。他家里十分富裕（他在大学里常因任意挥霍无度而遭到非议），但现在他离开了芝加哥，搬来东部，他搬家的排场真让人目瞪口呆。举例来说，他从森林湖带来一大批打马球的马匹。与我同辈的人竟然富到能摆这样的排场，真令人难以置信。
Why they came east I don’t know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.
And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.
He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body-he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage-a cruel body.
他们为何搬来东部，我一无所知。他们先是漫无目的地在法国待了一年，然后居无定所地东游西荡，游历多个地方，只要有人打马球、人人有钱就行。黛西在电话里说了，这次他们搬来东部定居了，可是我不信——我虽看不透黛西的心思，但我觉得汤姆会永远游荡下去，茫然地追寻某场难以重现的橄榄球赛事中那种戏剧性的骚动。
于是，在一个温暖但刮着风的夜晚，我驱车前往东卵，去见我两位不甚了解的老朋友。他们的房子比我预想的更加富丽堂皇，一座红白相间的豪宅，带有乔治王殖民时期的建筑风格，面临海湾。草坪从海滩开始，直达正门，长约四分之一英里，一路跨越日晷、砖铺小径和鲜花怒放的花园——最终来到墙下，仿佛借助它一路快跑的势头，一跃变成碧绿的青藤沿墙而上。房子正面排列着一溜法国风格的落地窗，在夕阳余晖的反射中金光闪闪，朝着温暖刮着风的午后敞开着。汤姆 ·布坎南身穿骑装，叉开双腿，站在前门的阳台上。
比起在纽黑文就学的年代，汤姆已经变样了。如今他已是三十岁的人了，一头稻草色的头发，身体结实，嘴露凶相，举止高傲。他双眼趾高气扬，占尽他脸上的势头，给他一副永远盛气凌人地前倾的模样。那身女性化的昂贵骑装无法遮掩他躯体的强壮——他似乎把那双锃亮的皮靴塞得满满的，上面的带子也扣得紧紧的。只要他肩膀在单薄的外衣里一动，你就能看见一大块肌肉在蠕动。这是一个极奇强势的躯体--一个粗野的躯体。
His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.
“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same Senior Society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.
We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.
Turning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped the tide off shore.
“It belonged to Demainethe oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling-and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
他说起话来声音像是粗犷沙哑的男高音，加剧了他给人的性情暴躁的印象。嗓音里还带有一点长辈训人的口吻，即便对他喜欢的人说话也是如此——在纽黑文，不少人对他都恨之入骨。
“嗨，千万别以为在这些事情上由我说了算，”他心不在焉地说，“仅仅因为我比你强壮点，比你多点男子气。”我俩同属一个高年级联谊会，虽然我们交情从来不深， 但是我总觉得他还看得起我，并且要我以他那样桀骜不驯、宁折不弯的茫然性情来喜欢他。
我们在充满阳光的阳台上聊了几分钟。
“我这地方相当好。”他说着，双眼不停地四处转悠。
他扳着我的一个胳膊把我转过身来，舞动着他一只宽大的手掌，指点前方的景色。先是一处意大利风格的凹形花园，然后还有半英亩地里深色、芬芳扑鼻的玫瑰花，以及拍打着岸边海涛的翘首汽艇。
“这地方原来归石油大王德梅因所有。”他再次恭敬但骤然地把我转过身来，“我们进屋吧。”
我们走过一条高高的走廊，进入一间明亮的玫瑰色的空旷屋子，两边的法式落地窗巧妙地将其嵌入房子的当中。落地窗都半开着，在外面嫩绿草地的映衬下闪闪发出白光，因为那草地似乎就要长进了房子。一股轻风吹过屋子，把一边的窗帘吹进来，又把另一边的窗帘吹出去，就像把一面面淡色的白旗先席卷到带有婚姻蛋糕似装饰的天花板上，接着轻轻拂过地面绛色的地毯，就像海上的风一般在地毯上留下一片片阴影。
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.
The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.
“I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.”
She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)
屋子里唯一丝毫不动的东西就是一张庞大的沙发，上面坐着两位年轻女士，犹如飘浮在停泊地面的气球上面。她们都身穿白衣，衣服不断地飘洒、拍打着，仿佛她们在房子里短暂飞翔一圈之后又被风吹回了原地。我一定是在那驻足良久，倾听着窗帘被刮的噼啪声和墙上相框发出的嘎吱声。然后，汤姆 ·布坎南砰的一声关上了后面的窗户，截留在屋内的余风缓缓平息下来，窗帘、地毯和两位年轻的女士也慢悠悠地飘落到地面。
两位女士中较年轻的那位有点面生。她笔直地躺在沙发一头，纹丝不动，下巴微微仰起，好像是在上面平放着什么东西，生怕会掉落下来。即使她从眼角看见了我，她也毫无表示——其实，我倒是吃了一惊，差点支支吾吾地为进来打搅了她而表示道歉。
另一位女士，黛西，试图想起身（她身体微微前倾，带着一副认真的神情），接着她扑哧一声笑了，一声既滑稽又可爱的轻笑。我跟着也笑了，上前进了屋子。
“我要乐……乐坏了。”
她又笑了，好像她刚说了句十分精妙的话。她把我的手握了一会，仰望着我的脸，向我起誓，在这大千世界里，她最想见的就是我，别无他人。这显然是她的老一套。她小声向我暗示，那个做着平衡动作的女士姓贝克（我早就耳闻，黛西爱用轻声细语，只不过是想让别人靠近她；这是不着边际的闲言碎语，无损黛西喃喃低语的魅力）。
At any rate Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.
I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.
I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way east and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.
“Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.
“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there’s a persistent wail all night along the North Shore.”
“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. Tomorrow!” Then she added irrelevantly, “You ought to see the baby.”
“I’d like to.”
不管怎样，贝克小姐的嘴唇微颤了一下，似动非动地向我点头示意，紧接着又把头往后仰——她在下巴上平放着的东西显然倾斜了一下，吓了她一跳。我又一次差点开口道歉，因为每每见到这样纯粹我行我素的举止，我都会惊诧不已，满怀敬意。
我回头看了看表妹，她开始用低声而且微颤的嗓音向我发问。这嗓音非得让人侧耳细听，仿佛每句话均由一组不再重复演奏的音符所汇成。她面露愁容，但也带有明媚的光彩；她的双眼明亮，她的嘴更是亮丽、热诚。可是，她嗓音里夹有一种诱人心动的魔力，让凡是倾心于她的男士们听过就难以忘却：一种放声高歌的冲动，一声轻声细语的“听着”，一个信誓旦旦的宣告，表示她刚做了些快乐无比、充满刺激的事情，稍等片刻还会接二连三地再来。
我告诉她，我来东部途中先在芝加哥停留了一天，十几位友人托我向她致以问候。
“他们想我吗？”她欣喜如狂地叫了起来。
“整个城市都惨淡无光了， 汽车的左后轮个个涂成了黑色的花圈，湖的北岸哀号声彻夜不断。”
“太动人了！汤姆，我们回去吧。明天就去！”紧接着她来了一句语无伦次的话，“你得看看我的宝宝。”
“我想看。”
“She’s asleep. She’s two years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”
“Never.”
“Well, you ought to see her. She’s—”
Tom Buchanan who had been hovering restlessly about the room stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“What you doing, Nick?”
“I’m a bond man.”
“Who with?”
I told him.
“Never heard of them,” he remarked decisively.
This annoyed me.
“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if you stay in the East.”
“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,” he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more.“I’d be a God Damned fool to live anywhere else.”
At this point Miss Baker said “Absolutely!” with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.
“I’m stiff,” she complained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”
“Don’t look at me,” Daisy retorted. “I’ve been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.”
“No, thanks,” said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, “I’m absolutely in training.”
Her host looked at her incredulously.
“她睡了。两岁了，你还没见过她吗？”
“没见过。”
“那你应该见见她。她是……”
汤姆 ·布坎南已在屋里躁动不安地转悠了半天，这会停下来，把手搁在我肩上。
“在干吗呢，尼克？”
“我是个债券生意人。”
“跟谁做？”
我告诉了他。
“从未听说过他们。”他斩钉截铁地说。
我听后很反感。
“你会的，”我立马答道，“你在东部待下来就会听到的。”
“哦，你不用担心，我会留在东部的，”他说，先看看黛西，再望望我，仿佛他仍在提防着什么。“我再住到别处去岂不成了一个大傻瓜。”
这时，贝克小姐开了腔：“绝对正确！”这突如其来的声音让我吃了一惊——这是我进屋之后她初次发话。和我一样，她也有点惊讶，所以她打了个哈欠，以一番迅速敏捷的动作在屋里站立起来。
“我全身麻木了，”她抱怨道，“我都不知道在沙发上躺多久了。”
“别盯着我，”黛西厉声答道，“这一下午我都在催着你去纽约。”
“不喝了，谢谢，”贝克小姐面向刚从食品间送来的四杯鸡尾酒说，“我正在锻炼呢。”
她的男主人满脸迟疑地望着她。
“You are!” He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. “How you ever get anything done is beyond me.”
I looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.
“You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebody there.”
“I don’t know a single—”
“You must know Gatsby.”
“Gatsby?” demanded Daisy. “What Gatsby?”
Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively undermine Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
“Why CANDLES?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”
“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.
“是吗？”他一口干掉杯中的酒，好像喝的是杯底仅剩的一滴酒，“我弄不明白你究竟能干成什么事。”
我望望贝克小姐，琢磨着她“干成”的事是什么。我喜欢这样看着她，她是个体型苗条、双乳小巧的姑娘，可是身板笔直，就像一名军校生特意将身体在肩膀处后仰一样。她那双在阳光照射下的灰眼睛回望着我，苍白、妩媚、不悦的脸上流露出礼貌和回敬我的好奇。此时此刻，我才想起我曾经在什么地方见过她，或她的照片。
“你住在西卵吧，”她轻蔑地说，“我认识那儿一个人。”
“我一个人都不认识……”
“你肯定认识盖茨比。”
“盖茨比？”黛西追问道，“哪位盖茨比？”
我还没来得及说完他是我邻居，晚餐就开席了。汤姆 ·布坎南把他紧绷绷的胳膊强行插在我胳膊下面，将我拽出屋子，如同把一枚棋子在棋盘上从一格挪向另一格。
两位女士双手搭着后腰，轻盈地、漫不经心地从我们前面步出屋外，走上玫瑰色的阳台。阳台正朝着西下的夕阳，餐桌上四支蜡烛在微微减弱的风中闪烁。
“点蜡烛干吗？”黛西不乐意地说，双眉紧锁。她用指头掐灭了蜡烛，“再过两周，一年中最长的一天就要到了。”她神采奕奕地望着我们。“你们是否总盼着一年中最长的一天，可结果还是错过了它？我总盼着一年中最长的一天，但总会错过它。”
“我们得有个计划，”贝克小姐打着哈欠说道，像是上床入睡一样在桌前坐下。
“All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly. “What do people plan?”
Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
“Look!” she complained. “I hurt it.”
We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.
“You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to but you DID do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a—”
“I hate that word hulking,” objected Tom crossly, “even in kidding.”
“Hulking,” insisted Daisy.
Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here—and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,” I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?”
I meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was taken up in an unexpected way.
“好的，”黛西说，“我们有什么打算？”她束手无策地转向我：“通常人们都做什么计划？”
我还没搭话，她的眼睛就已盯着她的小指头，露出一副惊骇的神态。
“瞧！”她抱怨道，“我碰伤它了。”
大家伙都看见了——那小指关节又青又紫。
“是你碰的，汤姆，”她责怪道，“我知道你不是故意的，但就是你弄的。真是报应啊，嫁给这样一个野蛮的家伙，又壮、又大、又笨拙的粗汉……”
“我讨厌笨拙这个词，”汤姆一脸怒气地说，“即便开玩笑时也一样。”
“笨拙。”黛西又顶了一声。
有时她和贝克小姐同时开口说话，悄悄然没人注意，尽是些无关痛痒的插浑打逗，也算不上是唠叨，就像她们身上的白色衣裙和万念俱灰、意兴阑珊的双眼那样冷漠。她们既然在此，就应酬着汤姆和我，只求礼貌地、愉快地款待客人，或自得其乐。她们知道晚餐即刻就会结束，再过一会这一晚也就完了，随意打发掉了。这与西部大相径庭，每晚款待客人都是在不断失望的期待中匆匆从一个阶段进入另一个阶段，直至结束，要不然对结尾时刻本身更是胆战心惊。
“你让我觉得自己不够文明，黛西，”我边喝着第二杯带有木塞味但相当不错的红酒边坦白地说，“你能不能聊聊庄稼或别的？”
我是有口无心地说了这句，没料到被人接了过去，大肆发挥。
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Coloured Empires’ by this man Goddard?”
“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.
“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
“Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy with an expression of un-thoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—”
“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”
“We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.
“You ought to live in California—” began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.
“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are and you are 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 anymore. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.
“文明即将四分五裂了，”汤姆气势汹汹地嚷道，“我已对人间事物极其悲观失望。你读过一个名叫高达德的人所写的《有色帝国的崛起》一书吗？”[6]
“呃，没读过。”我答道，他的语气让我吃了一惊。
“嗨，这是本好书，每个人都得读一读。书的大意是，如果我们掉以轻心，白色人种就将……就将被淹没了。这个论点有相当的科学性，已经得到证实了。”
“汤姆变得极为渊博了，”黛西说道，脸上露出一丝不经意的悲伤，“他看的书深得很，全是长长的单词。我们刚提到的那个字……”
“听着，这些书里都有科学依据的，”汤姆再次强调，还朝她不耐烦地瞄了一眼，“这家伙已经把这问题从头到尾都厘清了。就靠我们自己，一个占主导地位的名族，提高警惕，否则其他种族就会执掌一切的。”
“我们非得把他们打压下去。”黛西低声说着，一个劲地朝着炽热的太阳眨眼。
“你该住到加利福尼亚去……”贝克小姐开口来了一句，可是汤姆借助在椅子里重重地挪动身子，打断了她。
“这观点的主旨是，我们都是北欧民族。我是，你是，你也是，还有……”迟疑片刻，他又微微点头把黛西包括了进去，她再次对我眨了眨眼。“是我们创造了构建文明所需要的一切……呃，例如科学和艺术，还有其他。明白吗？”
他那全神贯注的气势流露出一丁点儿可怜相，好像他自命不凡的架势虽然比以往有过之而无不及，但是依旧显得力不从心。紧接着，当屋里电话响起、管家离开阳台的时候，黛西抓住这一间隙向我凑过身来。
“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.
“我要告诉你一个家庭秘密，”她格外兴奋地贴着我耳旁说，“是关于管家鼻子的秘密。你想听听管家的鼻子故事吗？”
“这正是我今晚来访的目的啊。”
“是这样，他不是一直做管家的；他曾经在纽约一家银器抛光铺专门抛光银器的，要为200人服务。他不得不从早到晚接着干，最终他的鼻子受不了……”
“情况越来越糟。”贝克小姐提示了一下。
“可不是嘛。情况越来越糟，最终他只好放弃了他的差使。”
一时间，夕阳的最后一抹余晖含情脉脉地照在她容光焕发的脸上；她轻微的嗓音驱使着我边听着边屏息凑上前去……然后她脸上的光彩消逝了，每一束光都依依不舍地离开了她，犹如孩子们黄昏时恋恋不舍地离开快乐的街道一样。
管家又来了，在汤姆耳边嘀咕了几句。汤姆顿时皱起眉头，往后推了推他的座椅，一声不吭地走了进去。汤姆的离场仿佛激活了黛西体内某种元素，她再一次探身向前，她的嗓音激情洋溢、悦耳动听。
“我真喜欢在我的餐桌上见到你，尼克。你让我想起一朵……玫瑰花，一朵货真价实的玫瑰花。对不对？”她掉头转向贝克小姐，要她来确定：“一朵货真价实的玫瑰花？”
此话与事实不符。我和玫瑰花风马牛不相及，她只不过是信口开河，乱说一气。不过，她言辞间激情横流，仿佛她的心就隐藏在那些气喘吁吁、微微颤抖的话语里，正试图出来向你倾诉。突然间，她把餐巾甩在桌上，说了声“对不起”，起身进了屋。
贝克小姐和我彼此交换了一个眼色，刻意不露出任何表情。我刚要开口，她就警觉地坐直身子，以警告的口吻给了我一个“嘘！”从远处的屋子里传来故意压低、但依然激奋的细语声。贝克小姐无所顾忌地探身向前，想听个究竟。里面的低声细语一会儿几乎可听个明白，一会儿又低沉下去；一会儿激扬上升，一会儿又彻底终止。
“This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor—” I said.
“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 gayety.
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.”
“你刚才提到的盖茨比先生是我邻居……”我说。
“别说话。我想听听出什么事了。”
“出事了吗？”我天真地问道。
“你难道说真不知道？”贝克小姐说，她的确有点意外。“我以为大家都知道了。”
“我不知道。”
“嗯……”她迟疑了一下说，“汤姆在纽约勾搭了一个女人。”
“勾搭女人？”我漫不经心地说。
贝克小姐点了点头。
“她真该知趣点别在晚餐时间来电话找他。你说对不对？”
我还没明白她的意思，就传来衣裙的飘拂声和皮靴的咯噔声，只见汤姆和黛西返回了餐桌。
“真没办法！”黛西强颜欢笑地大声说。
她一坐下，先探视性地望望贝克小姐，然后看看我，又接着说：“我朝屋外看了一下，好浪漫。草坪上有只鸟，我看像是一只夜莺，想必是跟着库纳德或者白星航运公司[7]的船过来的。它在那唱个不停……”她自己的声音也像在唱歌：“浪漫极了，是不是，汤姆？”
“相当浪漫。”他说。接着他又一脸丧气地对我说：“晚餐后要是天还够亮，我就带你去马房看一看。”
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 every one 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 skepticism 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.
屋里的电话又响了，把大家都吓了一跳。黛西朝着汤姆毅然决然地摇了摇头，这一来有关马房的话题，实际上所有的话题，都顿时烟消云散了。餐桌前最后五分钟里那些破碎的细节中，我只记得蜡烛被重新点上，似乎毫无目的，我有意想正眼看看每个人，但又竭力躲避大家的眼光。我无法猜测汤姆和黛西在想什么，但我怀疑，就连贝克小姐如此玩世不恭、满腹猜疑的人也未必就能对这第五位客人的尖锐刺耳的急迫呼声无动于衷。对某种性情的人讲，这场面也许显得迷离费解——我自己的本能反应就是立刻报警。
不用说，这马的事就没人再提了。隔着几尺间距的黄昏弱光，汤姆和贝克小姐一前一后地走进书房，就像是过去给一具触手可及的尸体守灵。与此同时，我竭力摆出一副兴致勃勃、装聋作哑的神态，随着黛西绕过一连串的屋外走廊，步入正面的阳台。在茫茫暮色中，我俩在一张长长的藤椅上并排坐下。
黛西双手捂着脸，像是抚摸着自己可爱的脸庞，双眼慢慢地朝外眺望着丝绒般的暮色。我看得出她已深陷心紊意乱的状态而难以自拔，因此我故意问了些有关她女儿的问题，试图让她安定下来。
“我们互相并不知根知底，尼克，”她突然说，“尽管我们是表兄妹。你都没来参加我的婚礼。”
“我还在打仗呢。”
“不错，”她犹豫了一下，“哎，尼克，我这阵事事不顺，把一切全都看穿了。”
显而易见，她如此说来也确实情有可原。我等她说下去，她却不吭声了。稍等片刻之后，我忐忑不安地重新提起有关她女儿的话题。
“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 “Saturday Evening Post”-the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
“我想她会说，会吃……什么都会了。”
“嗯，对啊。”她心不在焉地望着我，“听着，尼克，让我告诉你她出生时我都说了些什么。想听吗？”
“非常想。”
“你听过之后就能明白我怎么会看穿了……一切。女儿出生不到一个时辰，汤姆就不见了踪影。我从麻醉中一醒来，就有孤苦伶仃的感觉，急着问护士孩子是男还是女。护士告诉我是女孩，我就扭转头哭了起来。‘没事，’我说，‘我挺高兴生个女孩。但愿她会成为一名傻瓜——在这个世界里一个女孩最好做一名傻瓜，一个漂亮的小傻瓜。’”
“你看，我觉得一切都如此糟糕，”她胸有成竹地继续说，“人人都这么认为——都是些聪明绝顶的人。我当然一目了然。什么地方我都去过，什么世面我都见过，什么事情我都干过。”她的两眼就像汤姆的一样，炯炯有神，不可一世地环顾四周，她的笑声充满毛骨悚然的嘲讽。“精明……上帝啊，我真精明！”
当她的话音一落，不再强制我去注意她、相信她时，我就意识到她所说的并非是她肺腑之言。这使我局促不安，觉得整个晚上好像成了某种圈套，全为了从我这儿诱发出一股赞助性的情绪。我等着，果然不出所料，仅一会儿工夫，她就望着我，可爱的脸上露出一丝得意忘形的笑容，仿佛她已从她和汤姆从属的高级秘密社团中稳获了会员资格。
屋内，那间深红色的房间里灯火通明。汤姆和贝克小姐分坐在长沙发的两头，她在给他读着《周六晚邮报》——耳语般的声音，一成不变，然而一连串的字句倒传出一个赏心悦目的音调。灯光把他的皮靴照得锃亮，但落在她秋叶似的黄发上显得黯然无光。每当她翻过一页，她胳膊上的细薄肌肉就略颤一下，灯光在纸上也晃一晃。
When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.
“To be continued,” she said, tossing the magazine on the table,“in our very next issue.”
Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.
“Ten o’clock,” she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. “Time for this good girl to go to bed.”
“Jordan’s going to play in the tournament tomorrow,” explained Daisy, “over at Westchester.”
“Oh,—you’re JORdan Baker.”
I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.
“Good night,” she said softly. “Wake me at eight, won’t you.”
“If you’ll get up.”
“I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.”
“Of course you will,” confirmed Daisy. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I’ll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—”
我们进门时，她举起手示意我们安静一下。
“待续，”她说，随手将杂志扔到桌上，“且看下一期分解。”
她的膝盖不停地晃动，身子竖直，接着蹭一下站立起来。
“十点钟了，”她说，仿佛在天花板上找到了时间，“我这良家姑娘该去睡觉喽。”
“乔丹将参加明天的锦标赛呢，”黛西解释道，“在威斯切斯特那边。”
“哦……你就是乔丹 ·贝克。”
我这下才恍然大悟为什么她的脸有点眼熟——我早在发自埃西威尔、温泉和棕路海滩的体育运动期刊上的照片里关注过她那招人喜欢的傲慢表情。我还听说过她的一些趣闻，有负面的、不光彩的，可是究竟是怎么回事，我早就忘得一干二净了。
“晚安，”她轻声说，“八点叫醒我，行吗？”
“就看你是否起得来。”
“我行。晚安，凯拉威先生。明天见。”
“你们当然会再见面的，”黛西强调说，“说实话，我想我该做个媒。要常来，尼克，我会设法……哦……把你们俩撮合在一起。要不，有意无意地把你俩关进衣橱里，或者把你俩放进小船里，推到海上去，办法多的是……”
“Good night,” called Miss Baker from the stairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”
“She’s a nice girl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”
“Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Daisy coldly.
“Her family.”
“Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Nick? She’s going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.”
Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.
“Is she from New York?” I asked quickly.
“From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—”
“Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?” demanded Tom suddenly.
“Did I?” She looked at me. “I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Nick,” he advised me.
I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called “Wait! I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.”
“That’s right,” corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”
“It’s libel. I’m too poor.”
“晚安，”贝克小姐从楼梯上又喊了一下，“我一个字都没听见。”
“她是个好姑娘，”隔了一会儿，汤姆说，“他们真不该让她这样四处乱跑。”
“谁不应该？”黛西冷冷地问道。
“她家里人。”
“她家里只有个七老八十的姑妈。再说，尼克从今后会照应她，对吗，尼克？今年夏天，她会来这里过好多个周末。我想家庭的影响将对她极有帮助。”
黛西和汤姆默默相视了一会。
“她是纽约州人？”我急忙问。
“来自路易维尔市。我们一起在那里度过了纯洁如白的少女时代。我们美丽洁白的……”
“你在阳台上跟尼克说心里话了？”汤姆突然质问道。
“我说了吗？”她看着我。“我可不记得了，但是我想我们谈到了北欧民族。对了，我确定我们谈的就是这个。也不知道我们怎么就绕上了这个话题，刚一察觉就……”
“别听到什么就信以为真，尼克。”他告诫我说。
我若无其事地说我啥也没听到，几分钟后我就起身告辞。他们夫妇俩送我到门口，并排站在一块方方的、亮堂堂的灯光下。我刚启动我的车，黛西就喝令道：“等等！我忘了问你件事，挺重要的事。我们听说你跟西部一位姑娘订婚了。”
“对呀，”汤姆也和蔼地进来帮腔，“我们听说你订婚了。”
“纯粹是谣言。我太穷了。”
“But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people so it must be true.”
Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come east. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumors and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.
Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight and turning my head to watch it I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
“可是我们的确听人说了，”黛西坚持地说，令我惊讶的是她现在又像鲜花一样眉开眼笑了。“我们是从三个人那里分别听来的，所以应该是真的。”
我当然知道他们所指的是什么，但是我订婚的事完全是捕风捉影。事实上，有关流言蜚语的传播是我来东部的原因之一。人不能因为谣言就断绝与老朋友的交往，再说我也无意迫于谣言就去仓促成婚。
他们对此事的关注颇使我感动，也觉得他们并非富得远不可及、高不可攀——可是，开车离开后，我感到有点迷惑和厌恶。在我看来，黛西应该做的事是怀抱孩子冲出这幢房子——但是她脑子里显然没这打算。至于汤姆，他“在纽约有个女人”这个事根本不足为奇，说他看了一本书之后感到沮丧反而更会让人更为震惊。一定有什么东西在驱使他从陈腐观念的边缘找到慰藉，仿佛他那粗壮躯体里的唯我主义已经不能继续滋养他那唯我独尊的心灵。
路边客栈的屋顶上和路边汽车修理站的门前已是一片盛夏的景象，鲜红的新加油机排列在电灯光圈下。回到我在西卵的住处后，我把车开进车棚，在院里一个废弃的滚草轮上坐了一会。风停了，只留下喧嚣但明朗的夜晚。小鸟的翅膀拍打着树枝，青蛙使劲嘶叫着，就像一只大地的全配风箱，源源不断地发出风琴似的声音。一只猫移动着，它的侧影在月光下摇摆。我转头看它的时候，发现我不是独自一人在外——离我五十尺之处，一个人影已从我邻居豪宅的暗影里走了出来，双手插在口袋里站在那儿，目视着满天银白的繁星。从其悠闲的动作和两脚稳踩草坪的姿态可以断定，他就是盖茨比先生本人，他或许是出来判定一下我们当地的星空中哪一片该是属于他的。
I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.
我决定跟他打个招呼。晚餐时，贝克小姐提到过他，这就足以作为引荐了。然而，我没招呼他，因为他忽然给了个提示：他希望独自待着——他令人诧异地把双臂伸向黑乎乎的海水。尽管我与他相距甚远，我仍然可以发誓，他在颤抖。我的视线也在不知不觉中转向海面——什么都没看见，唯独一盏绿灯，既小又远，可能就是哪一家码头的末端。当我再想看一眼盖茨比时，他已经消失了，我又一次孑然一身地站在这不平静的夜色之中。
[1] 耶鲁大学所在地——译者注（全书如无特殊说明，均为译者注，下文不再逐一标注）
[2] 条顿族指的是日耳曼人，此处尼克诙谐地将第一次世界大战比喻成条顿人未能如愿以偿的迁移计划，低调地提及自己在大战中的经历。
[3] 希腊神话中的国王，力求获得点金术。
[4] 美国富翁。
[5] 古罗马财主。
[6] 作者实际上指的是由Lothrop Stoddard于1920年发表的一书，The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy。
[7] 两家经营横渡大西洋的英国轮船公司。