了不起的盖茨比:有声导读·插图版:英汉对照
About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.
But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.
在西卵和纽约的大约中间地段，汽车公路匆匆会合铁路，在铁路旁并行四分之一英里，为的是避开一段荒芜地带。这是一个灰之谷——如同一个光怪陆离的农庄，灰尘就像麦子拔高似的堆积成连绵一片的低岭小丘和奇形怪状的院落。谷里的尘埃漫天纷扬，行同一幢幢房子、一个个烟囱和一卷卷升起的烟雾，最终还以超凡脱世的魔力构成各种人形，隐隐约约地移动，再从粉状的空气中崩碎掉落。偶尔有列灰色火车沿着看不见的轨道爬行而来，一声鬼叫后戛然而止。一群灰头土脸的人立即一窝蜂似的带着大铲子围上来，搅起无法穿透的灰雾，密密遮掩着他们隐秘的行动。
然而，在这灰蒙蒙的土地以及永远遍地飞扬的灰尘之上，你每隔一会就能看到特 ·杰 ·艾克尔布格医生[1]的眼睛。艾克尔布格医生的眼睛是蓝色的，巨大无比——光瞳孔就高达一码。可是不见脸，也不见鼻，眼睛却是从一副超大的黄色眼镜看出去的。这显然是某位眼科医生为拓展他在皇后区的生意而把它们立在那儿，过后自己却倒下，永远闭上了双眼。要不就是把它们忘得一干二净，搬往他乡了。不过，他立起的眼睛虽因日晒雨淋、常年未漆而淡然无光，但依然若有所思地俯视着下面颇为壮观的垃圾堆积场。
The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan’s mistress.
The fact that he had one was insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew. Though I was curious to see her I had no desire to meet her—but I did. I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon and when we stopped by the ashheaps he jumped to his feet and taking hold of my elbow literally forced me from the car.
“We’re getting off!” he insisted. “I want you to meet my girl.”
I think he’d tanked up a good deal at luncheon and his determination to have my company bordered on violence. The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do.
I followed him over a low white-washed railroad fence and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor Eckleburg’s persistent stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it and contiguous to absolutely nothing. One of the three shops it contained was for rent and another was an all-night restaurant approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a garage—Repairs. GEORGE B. WILSON. Cars Bought and Sold—and I followed Tom inside.
The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to me that this shadow of a garage must be a blind and that sumptuous and romantic apartments were concealed overhead when the proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. He was a blonde, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome. When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.
灰之谷一边挨着一条恶气熏天的小河。吊桥拉启让驳船通过时，在等候的火车上乘客们可以注视这片满目凄凉的景象，长达半小时之久。通常情况下，火车在此也得至少停上一分钟。正是这一缘故，我初次见到了汤姆•布坎南的情妇。
他圈内的人都知道他有外遇。熟识的人对他相当反感，因为他常带着情人出入时尚的餐馆，把她独自留在餐桌上，自己却荡来荡去跟熟人闲聊。我尽管对她有点好奇，但我并不想见她——不过还是见到了。有天下午，我和汤姆坐火车去纽约。我们在灰场停下时，他一骨碌跳起来，拽住我的胳膊肘，硬把我拉下车。
“我们在这下车，”他强制地说，“我让你见见我的女友。”
我想他午餐时一定喝高了，他执意要我陪他的举动近似于暴力行为。他自以为是地推断我星期天下午一定是无事可做。
我跟着他越过一排白色的铁路栅栏，在艾克尔布格医生的盯视下，沿着公路往回走了一百码。唯一可见的是一排小小的黄砖房，坐落在垃圾场的边缘，像是专门服务此地的一条主街，四周什么也没用。砖房内开有三家店铺:一家在招租, 另一家是个通宵营业的饭馆，有条灰渣小道进出，第三家是个汽车修理行, 挂着一幅招牌：“修理”——乔治•B•威尔逊——“买卖汽车”。我跟在汤姆后面走了进去。
车行里不景气，空荡得很，唯一可见的是一辆积满灰尘、破破烂烂的福特车，搁在阴暗的角落里。我当时正思忖着，这个黑沉沉的车行或许就是个幌子，楼上藏的才是华丽浪漫的房间，车行老板从一间办公室冒了出来，拿着一块抹布擦着双手。他头发金黄，无精打采，脸色苍白，但模样还过得去。见了我们，他浅蓝色的眼睛里露出一线淡淡的希望。
“Hello, Wilson, old man,” said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. “How’s business?”
“I can’t complain,” answered Wilson unconvincingly. “When are you going to sell me that car?”
“Next week; I’ve got my man working on it now.”
“Works pretty slow, don’t he?”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Tom coldly. “And if you feel that way about it, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all.”
“I don’t mean that,” explained Wilson quickly. “I just meant—”
His voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:
“你好，威尔逊，老伙计，”汤姆说，兴冲冲地拍拍他的肩膀，“生意好吗？”
“还行，”威尔逊没说服力地答道，“你什么时候把那辆车卖给我？”
“下星期吧，我正让司机把车弄一下。”
“他弄得挺慢，是吗？”
“不，不慢，”汤姆冷冷地答道，“你如果觉得太慢，那我干脆把车卖给其他车行吧。”
“我不是那个意思，”威尔逊急忙解释，“我是说……”
他的话音逐渐消失，汤姆不耐烦地在车行里四处张望。接着我听到楼梯上有脚步声，一会儿一个粗粗的女人身影挡住了从办公室里透出的光线。她三十五六岁，体型微胖，不过像有些女人一样，她那微胖使她显得十分性感。一件痕迹斑斑的深蓝双绉衣裙上驾着一张既不匀称也不美的脸，但是她周身焕发出显而易见的活力，仿佛她浑身的神经都在不断地燃烧。她慢吞吞地笑了笑，然后从她幽灵似的丈夫身边走过，上前跟汤姆握手，直愣愣地望着他。她润了润嘴唇之后，头也不回就压低嗓门、粗声粗气地对她丈夫说：
“Get some chairs, why don’t you, so somebody can sit down.”
“Oh, sure,” agreed Wilson hurriedly and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity—except his wife, who moved close to Tom.
“I want to see you,” said Tom intently. “Get on the next train.”
“All right.”
“I’ll meet you by the news-stand on the lower level.”
She nodded and moved away from him just as George Wilson emerged with two chairs from his office door.
We waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a grey, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track.
“Terrible place, isn’t it,” said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg.
“Awful.”
“It does her good to get away.”
“Doesn’t her husband object?”
“Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive.”
So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York—or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train.
She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York. At the news-stand she bought a copy of“Town Tattle” and a moving-picture magazine and, in the station drug store, some cold cream and a small flask of perfume. Upstairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxi cabs drive away before she selected a new one, lavender-colored with grey upholstery, and in this we slid out from the mass of the station into the glowing sunshine. But immediately she turned sharply from the window and leaning forward tapped on the front glass.
“拿几把椅子来，你这人怎么啦，让人家坐坐。”
“哦，该拿。”威尔逊慌忙赞同，走进那间小办公室，顿时消失在墙的水泥颜色里。一层白色的灰尘薄纱似的覆盖着他深色的外套和白花花的头发，也覆盖着四周的一切——他的妻子除外，她正向汤姆凑过身去。
“我要见你，”汤姆急切地说，“赶乘下一班车。”
“好的。”
“我在车站底层的报摊旁边等你。”
她点点头，从他身边挪开，正好乔治•威尔逊搬着两把椅子从办公室门后面出来。
我们在路上没人看见的地方等她。再过几天就是七月四日独立日，有位一身灰土、瘦骨嶙峋的意大利小孩沿着铁轨一路点放着“鱼雷”鞭炮。
“这地方真糟糕，是吗？”汤姆说，皱着眉头与艾克尔布格医生相视了一下。
“糟极了。”
“出来走走对她有好处。”
“她丈夫乐意吗？”
“威尔逊？他以为她是去纽约看她妹妹。他蠢透了，连自己还活着都不知道。”
就这样，汤姆•布坎南、他的情人和我一起去了纽约——也不是真的相伴而行，因为威尔逊夫人识相地坐在另一节车厢里。汤姆出此一招纯粹是为了应付可能同车的敏感东卵熟人。
她已换穿了一条棕色束身连衣裙。在纽约站台汤姆扶她下车时，她的裙子紧紧地绷在宽宽的臀部上。她在报摊买了份小报《纽约闲话》和电影杂志，在车站杂货店买了罐雪花膏和一小瓶香水。上了楼，在回音重重的车道边，她连续放过四辆出租车，最后选叫了一辆新车，车身是淡紫色，车内坐垫是灰色。我们坐着这辆车离开了乱哄哄的车站，进入明媚璀璨的阳光下。忽然，她急速从车窗转过来，倾身向前，敲打着前面的玻璃。
“I want to get one of those dogs,” she said earnestly. “I want to get one for the apartment. They’re nice to have—a dog.”
We backed up to a grey old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller. In a basket, swung from his neck, cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed.
“What kind are they?” asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly as he came to the taxi-window.
“All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?”
“I’d like to get one of those police dogs; I don’t suppose you got that kind?”
The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up, wriggling, by the back of the neck.
“That’s no police dog,” said Tom.
“No, it’s not exactly a police dog,” said the man with disappointment in his voice. “It’s more of an airedale.” He passed his hand over the brown wash-rag of a back. “Look at that coat. Some coat. That’s a dog that’ll never bother you with catching cold.”
“I think it’s cute,” said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. “How much is it?”
“That dog?” He looked at it admiringly. “That dog will cost you ten dollars.”
“我要买条狗，”她郑重其事地说，“我要在公寓里养一条，养狗挺好——就一条狗。”
我们的车倒到一个灰白头发的老头跟前，他的模样活脱就像约翰 ·洛克菲勒，滑稽极了。他脖子上挂着一个竹篮，里面蹲着十来条生下不久，而且品种难辨的狗仔。
“它们是哪种狗？”威尔逊夫人见老头走近出租车窗口，急切地问道。
“各种都有。夫人，你要哪一种？”
“我想要一条警犬；我猜你一定有吧？”
老头朝篮里将信将疑地瞧了瞧，伸手进去，捏住一条小狗的后颈把它拎出来，小狗扭动不停。
“这可不是警犬。”汤姆说。
“对，它不一定是警犬，”老头颇为失望地说，“它多半是条棕毛猎狗。”他手抚着狗背上棕色的皮毛说：“看看这皮毛，很不错的。这狗绝不会隔三岔五地伤风感冒，给您添麻烦。”
“我看它挺可爱，”威尔逊夫人兴高采烈地说，“多少钱？”
“这条狗吗？”他以欣赏的眼神看着小狗，“十美元卖给你。”
The airedale—undoubtedly there was an airedale concerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly white—changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson’s lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked delicately.
“That dog? That dog’s a boy.”
“It’s a bitch,” said Tom decisively. “Here’s your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it.”
We drove over to Fifth Avenue, so warm and soft, almost pastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner.
“Hold on,” I said, “I have to leave you here.”
“No, you don’t,” interposed Tom quickly. “Myrtle’ll be hurt if you don’t come up to the apartment. Won’t you, Myrtle?”
“Come on,” she urged. “I’ll telephone my sister Catherine. She’s said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know.”
“Well, I’d like to, but—”
We went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the West Hundreds. At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment houses. Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighborhood, Mrs. Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases and went haughtily in.
“I’m going to have the Mc Kees come up,” she announced as we rose in the elevator. “And of course I got to call up my sister, too.”
The apartment was on the top floor—a small living room, a small dining room, a small bedroom and a bath. The living room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was an over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock. Looked at from a distance however the hen resolved itself into a bonnet and the countenance of a stout old lady beamed down into the room. Several old copies of “Town Tattle” lay on the table together with a copy of “Simon Called Peter” and some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. Mrs. Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator boy went for a box full of straw and some milk to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large hard dog biscuits-one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon. Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door.
这条棕色猎犬（毫无疑问，它的肌体肯定与某条棕色猎狗有关，尽管它的腿是雪白的）就这样换了主人，在威尔逊夫人的身上坐下。她抚摸着狗的全天候皮毛，格外高兴。
“这条狗是公的还是母的？”她轻声问道。
“这狗？它是公的。”
“是条母狗，”汤姆斩钉截铁地说，“钱拿去，用这钱再去买十条狗。”
我们坐着车到了第五大道，这个夏季星期天的下午真是温暖惬意，简直是一片田园风光，即使这时有一大群白色的绵羊从街角转出来，我都不会感到丝毫惊讶。
“等一下，”我说，“我得在这与你们分手了。”
“不，你别走啊，”汤姆急忙插话，“如果你不上公寓看看，茉特尔会生气的。对不对，茉特尔？”
“来吧，”她催着我，“我会打电话给我妹妹凯瑟琳，眼光好的人都说她漂亮极了。”
“呃，我的确想来，可是……”
我们继续坐车前行，穿过中央公园，朝西城一百多号街那边开去。到了第一百五十八街，看见一排白色蛋糕似的公寓，出租车在其中的一幢房子跟前停下。威尔逊夫人摆出一副皇后回宫的架势，扫视了一下公寓四周，捧着她的宠狗和其他刚买的东西，趾高气扬地走进屋去。
“我要把麦基夫妇请上来，”我们乘电梯上楼时，她宣布，“对了，我还得把我妹妹叫上来。”
她的套房在最高一层：有小客厅、小餐厅、小卧房和小卫生间。客厅内织锦靠垫的家具尺寸实在太大，从里面到门边都塞得毫无空隙。人在屋里一走动，就不断地会绊上女士在凡尔赛宫荡秋千的画页。墙上唯一的镜框是张放得过大的相片，显然是一只母鸡蹲在一块模糊不清的岩石上。可是远距离看上去，这母鸡却化为一顶女帽，犹如一位胖老太太兴冲冲地俯视着屋里。桌上堆着几份过期的《纽约闲话》小报，中间夹着一本《名叫彼得的西蒙》以及一些有关百老汇的八卦杂志。威尔逊夫人首先关心的是她的狗，打发一个不情不愿的青年电梯工找来一只垫满稻草的箱子和牛奶。开电梯的小伙子又自作主张地买了一听又大又硬的狗饼干，有一块在牛奶罐里浸泡了一下午，泡得稀烂。与此同时，汤姆从一扇锁着的壁橱里拿出一瓶威士忌。
I have been drunk just twice in my life and the second time was that afternoon so everything that happened has a dim hazy cast over it although until after eight o’clock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Tom’s lap Mrs. Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then there were no cigarettes and I went out to buy some at the drug store on the corner. When I came back they had disappeared so I sat down discreetly in the living room and read a chapter of “Simon Called Peter”—either it was terrible stuff or the whiskey distorted things because it didn’t make any sense to me.
Just as Tom and Myrtle—after the first drink Mrs. Wilson and I called each other by our first names—reappeared, company commenced to arrive at the apartment door.
The sister, Catherine, was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty with a solid sticky bob of red hair and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face. When she moved about there was an incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms. She came in with such a proprietary haste and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here. But when I asked her she laughed immoderately, repeated my question aloud and told me she lived with a girl friend at a hotel.
我一生只醉过两次，第二次就发生在那天下午。虽然那天过了八点，屋里的阳光依然沁人心脾，但是一切好像都发生在朦朦胧胧的云雾之中。威尔逊夫人坐在汤姆的大腿上，给几个人打了一通电话。见烟抽完了，我出去在街角的杂货店里买烟。等我返回时，他俩都不见了。于是，我在客厅里小心翼翼地坐下，读了《名叫彼得的西蒙》小说中的一个章节——我什么也没看懂，不是书写得太烂，就是喝的威士忌搅乱了一切。
汤姆和茉特尔（酒过一巡之后，威尔逊夫人和我就彼此直呼其名了）在屋里再次出现后，客人们就开始上门了。
她妹妹，凯瑟琳，是个苗条而世故的女人，年纪三十左右，一头浓密的红色短发，一脸脂粉搽的像牛奶一样白。她的眉毛拔掉后又重新描过，角度还挺艳丽脱俗，可是自然轮回的努力又使眉毛恢复了原有的弧线，弄得她脸上不清不楚。她一动，胳膊上无数陶器手镯上下抖动，不停地发出叮当叮当的响声。看着她带着一副主人翁的神态急匆匆地进来，并以拥有者的目光扫视屋内的家具，我不禁心想她就住在这里。然而我问她的时候，她却哈哈大笑，把我的问题大声重复了一遍，告诉我她和一位女友同住在一家旅馆里。
Mr. Mc Kee was a pale feminine man from the flat below. He had just shaved for there was a white spot of lather on his cheekbone and he was most respectful in his greeting to everyone in the room. He informed me that he was in the “artistic game” and I gathered later that he was a photographer and had made the dim enlargement of Mrs. Wilson’s mother which hovered like an ectoplasm on the wall. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome and horrible. She told me with pride that her husband had photographed her a hundred and twenty-seven times since they had been married.
Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.
“My dear,” she told her sister in a high mincing shout, “most of these fellas will cheat you every time. All they think of is money. I had a woman up here last week to look at my feet and when she gave me the bill you’d of thought she had my appendicitus out.”
麦基先生住在楼下一层，长着一张小白脸，十足的娘娘腔。他刚刮过胡子，因为他颚骨上还留着一块白的肥皂沫。他毕恭毕敬地跟屋里每个人打招呼。他说他是“玩艺术”的，我后来才弄明白他是个摄影师，那幅威尔逊夫人母亲的放大照片既模糊不清，又像幽灵在墙上飘拂，其实就是他的大作。他夫人的嗓音尖声怪气，人无精打采，相貌有几分姿色，只是令人厌恶。她大言不惭地告诉我，自从结婚以来，她丈夫已给她拍了一百二十七次照片。
威尔逊夫人先前已换过一次打扮，这会儿她又穿了件适合于下午出客的精致奶油色纺绸连衣裙。她在屋里一走动，裙子就会沙沙作响。新衣一换，她的个性也起了变化。她在车行里表现出的强劲活力令人刮目相看，可现在已演变成不可一世的傲气。她的笑声、举止和言谈一刻比一刻矫揉造作，随着她不断地膨胀，屋子在她四周似乎变得愈来愈小。直到最后，她好像坐在嘈杂、吱吱作响的木轴上，在烟雾弥漫中打转。
“亲爱的，”她装腔作势地大声告诉她妹妹，“好多人有机会就骗你，他们想的就是钱。上星期，我让一个女的来看看我的脚。一拿到她的账单，还以为她帮我割了阑尾。”
“What was the name of the woman?” asked Mrs. Mc Kee.
“Mrs. Eberhardt. She goes around looking at people’s feet in their own homes.”
“I like your dress,” remarked Mrs. Mc Kee, “I think it’s adorable.”
Mrs. Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain.
“It’s just a crazy old thing,” she said. “I just slip it on sometimes when I don’t care what I look like.”
“But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what I mean,” pursued Mrs. Mc Kee. “If Chester could only get you in that pose I think he could make something of it.”
We all looked in silence at Mrs. Wilson who removed a strand of hair from over her eyes and looked back at us with a brilliant smile. Mr. Mc Kee regarded her intently with his head on one side and then moved his hand back and forth slowly in front of his face.
“I should change the light,” he said after a moment. “I’d like to bring out the modelling of the features. And I’d try to get hold of all the back hair.”
“I wouldn’t think of changing the light,” cried Mrs. Mc Kee. “I think it’s—”
Her husband said “SH!” and we all looked at the subject again whereupon Tom Buchanan yawned audibly and got to his feet.
“You Mc Kees have something to drink,” he said. “Get some more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, before everybody goes to sleep.”
“那女的叫什么？”麦基夫人问道。
“埃北哈特夫人。她四处上门替人看脚。”
“我喜欢你的衣服，”麦基夫人说，“我认为它真讨人喜爱。”
威尔逊夫人听了这恭维话，不屑一顾地皱了皱眉头。
“这只是件讨厌的旧衣服，”她说，“我有时不在乎自己模样的时候就随便穿穿。”
“可是穿在你身上显得挺漂亮，如果你明白我的意思，”麦基夫人紧接着说。“要是切斯特能把你这个姿势照下来，我深信他能搞出一幅杰作来。”
我们都看着威尔逊夫人，一声不吭。她掠开眼前一束头发，回望着我们，嫣然一笑。麦基先生歪着脑袋仔细端详着她，接着又伸出一只手在自己面前慢慢地前后移动。
“我应该改变一下光线，”他稍停片刻之后说，“我想突出表现面部轮廓，再把后面的头发全拍进去。”
“我觉得不用改变光线，”麦基夫人叫道，“我认为……”
她丈夫“嘘”了一声，大家再次把目光转向摄影话题的对象，而汤姆 ·布坎南正好打了个出声的哈欠，站起身来。
“你们麦基夫妇俩得喝点什么，”他说，“茉特尔，再弄点冰块和矿泉水来，否则大伙都要睡着了。”
“I told that boy about the ice.” Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. “These people! You have to keep after them all the time.”
She looked at me and laughed pointlessly. Then she flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her orders there.
“I’ve done some nice things out on Long Island,” asserted Mr. Mc Kee.
Tom looked at him blankly.
“Two of them we have framed downstairs.”
“Two what?” demanded Tom.
“Two studies. One of them I call ‘Montauk Point—the Gulls,’ and the other I call ‘Montauk Point—the Sea.’”
The sister Catherine sat down beside me on the couch.
“Do you live down on Long Island, too?” she inquired.
“I live at West Egg.”
“Really? I was down there at a party about a month ago. At a man named Gatsby’s. Do you know him?”
“I live next door to him.”
“Well, they say he’s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s. That’s where all his money comes from.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
“I’m scared of him. I’d hate to have him get anything on me.”
This absorbing information about my neighbor was interrupted by Mrs. Mc Kee’s pointing suddenly at Catherine:
“Chester, I think you could do something with HER,” she broke out, but Mr. Mc Kee only nodded in a bored way and turned his attention to Tom.
“我早让那小伙子去弄冰块了。”茉特尔眉毛一扬，对下人执行指令不力露出无可奈何的神情。“这些人，你非得老盯着他们。”
她望望我，莫名其妙地笑了起来。然后，她匆忙蹦到小狗跟前，狂亲它一番，接着又一阵风似的进入厨房，似乎那里有十几位厨师正在等着她发号施令。
“我在长岛那边拍过几张好作品。”麦基先生自信地说。
汤姆面无表情地望着他。
“有两幅我们配了镜框挂在楼下。”
“两幅什么？”汤姆追问道。
“两幅作品。我为一幅题为《蒙涛角——海鸥》，另一幅题为《蒙涛角——海》[2]。”
妹妹凯瑟琳来到沙发前，坐在我旁边。
“你也住在长岛上吗？”她问道。
“我住在西卵。”
“真的吗？大约一个月前，我到那儿参加了一次聚会。在一个名叫盖茨比的男士家里。你认识他吗？”
“我就住在他的隔壁。”
“呃，人家都说他是德国皇帝卡尔瑟•维尔罕姆[3]的侄子或表弟，他的钱就是从那关系来的。”
“真的吗？”
她点点头。
“我怕他。我可不愿有什么事落在他手上。”
有关我邻居这段引人入胜的信息传递被麦基夫人突然手指凯瑟琳而打断：
“切斯特，我觉得你也许能给她拍几张照片。”她大声嚷着，但是麦基先生只是意兴阑珊地点点头，把注意力转向汤姆。
“I’d like to do more work on Long Island if I could get the entry. All I ask is that they should give me a start.”
“Ask Myrtle,” said Tom, breaking into a short shout of laughter as Mrs. Wilson entered with a tray. “She’ll give you a letter of introduction, won’t you, Myrtle?”
“Do what?” she asked, startled.
“You’ll give Mc Kee a letter of introduction to your husband, so he can do some studies of him.” His lips moved silently for a moment as he invented. “‘George B. Wilson at the Gasoline Pump,’ or something like that.”
Catherine leaned close to me and whispered in my ear:“Neither of them can stand the person they’re married to.”
“Can’t they?”
“Can’t STAND them.” She looked at Myrtle and then at Tom.“What I say is, why go on living with them if they can’t stand them? If I was them I’d get a divorce and get married to each other right away.”
“Doesn’t she like Wilson either?”
The answer to this was unexpected. It came from Myrtle who had overheard the question and it was violent and obscene.
“You see?” cried Catherine triumphantly. She lowered her voice again. “It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic and they don’t believe in divorce.”
Daisy was not a Catholic and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie.
“When they do get married,” continued Catherine, “they’re going west to live for a while until it blows over.”
“如果有人引荐的话，我想在长岛上多做些作品。我所索求的是有人帮我开个头。”
“你问问茉特尔，”汤姆说着，短促地笑出声来，正好威尔逊夫人端着一个盘子进来，“她会给你写一份介绍信，是不是，茉特尔？”
“让我做什么？”她问道，有点惊讶。
“你替麦基先生写封推荐信给你丈夫，这样他就能给你丈夫拍拍照，研究研究他。”汤姆的嘴唇动了一会，即兴发挥道，“题为《乔治 ·布 ·威尔逊在汽油站》，或类似的也行。”凯瑟琳凑到我面前，在我耳边轻声说：
“他们俩都无法忍受跟他们结了婚的那个人。”
“是吗？”
“都受不了。”她先看了看茉特尔,又望了望汤姆。“我说的是，既然受不了，那为什么还非一起过下去？如果我是他们，我就离婚，然后立马两人结婚。”
“她也不喜欢威尔逊？”
对这个问题的答复出乎意料，因为答复来自茉特尔本人。她正巧听到我的问题，给的答复不仅凶狠，而且粗鲁。
“你看看，”凯瑟琳得意扬扬地叫道。她接着又压低嗓门说，“他俩走不到一起就是因为他妻子。她是个天主教徒，而他们天主教徒不赞同离婚。”
黛西并非是个天主教徒，这个精心编造的谎话让我有点目瞪口呆。
“真要结婚的话，”凯瑟琳继续说，“他们会到西部去住上一阵，等风波平息了再说。”
“It’d be more discreet to go to Europe.”
“Oh, do you like Europe?” she exclaimed surprisingly. “I just got back from Monte Carlo.”
“Really.”
“Just last year. I went over there with another girl.”
“Stay long?”
“No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We went by way of Marseilles. We had over twelve hundred dollars when we started but we got gypped out of it all in two days in the private rooms. We had an awful time getting back, I can tell you. God, how I hated that town!”
The late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean—then the shrill voice of Mrs. Mc Kee called me back into the room.
“I almost made a mistake, too,” she declared vigorously. “I almost married a little kyke who’d been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me:‘Lucille, that man’s way below you!’ But if I hadn’t met Chester, he’d of got me sure.”
“Yes, but listen,” said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down, “at least you didn’t marry him.”
“I know I didn’t.”
“Well, I married him,” said Myrtle, ambiguously. “And that’s the difference between your case and mine.”
“Why did you, Myrtle?” demanded Catherine. “Nobody forced you to.”
Myrtle considered.
“I married him because I thought he was a gentleman,” she said finally. “I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe.”
“到欧洲去就更谨慎了。”
“哦，你喜欢欧洲吗？”她出乎意料地喊出声来。“我刚从蒙特卡罗回来。”
“真的？”
“就是去年，我和另一位姑娘一起去的。”
“待了多久？”
“没多久，我们去了蒙特卡罗就回来了。我们是从马赛去的。动身时，我们身上带着一千两百美元，可是两天之内就在一个小包间里被人骗光了。我告诉你，我们在回来的路上吃尽了苦头。天哪，我恨透了那个城市！”
从窗口朝外看，只见接近黄昏的天空一时显得绚丽多彩,犹如地中海那样蔚蓝甜蜜——顷刻间，麦基夫人尖声尖气的嗓音又把我拽回了屋里。
“我差点也犯了个错误，”她神奇十足地向我们宣告，“我差点嫁了个追我多年的犹太小子。我知道他配不上我，而且每个人都再三叮嘱我，‘露丝尔，那男人档次比你低多了！’不过，要不是遇上切斯特，那家伙说不定就把我娶了。”
“对呀，不过你听着，”茉特尔 ·威尔逊点着头说，“至少你没嫁给他。”
“我知道我没有。”
“嗨，我嫁了，”茉特尔含糊不清地说，“那就是你我境遇的区别。”
“你当初为何嫁给他，茉特尔？”凯瑟琳追问道。“没人强迫你。”
茉特尔思忖片刻。
“我之所以嫁给他，是因为我以为他是个绅士，”她总算开了口，“我以为他有点教养，谁知他连舔我鞋的资格都没有。”
“You were crazy about him for a while,” said Catherine.
“Crazy about him!” cried Myrtle incredulously. “Who said I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there.”
She pointed suddenly at me, and every one looked at me accusingly. I tried to show by my expression that I had played no part in her past.
“The only CRAZY I was was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in and never even told me about it, and the man came after it one day when he was out.” She looked around to see who was listening:“‘Oh, is that your suit?’ I said. ‘This is the first I ever heard about it.’ But I gave it to him and then I lay down and cried to beat the band all afternoon.”
“She really ought to get away from him,” resumed Catherine to me. “They’ve been living over that garage for eleven years. And Tom’s the first sweetie she ever had.”
The bottle of whiskey—a second one—was now in constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine who “felt just as good on nothing at all.” Tom rang for the janitor and sent him for some celebrated sandwiches, which were a complete supper in themselves. I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
“有一阵你可真痴迷于他。”凯瑟琳说。
“痴迷于他！”茉特尔难以置信地喊道。“谁说我痴迷于他？我对他的痴迷程度从未超过那个男人。”
她突如其来地用手指着我，引来大家都以指责的神情看着我。我竭力用表情来表白我跟她的过去毫无瓜葛。
“我唯一一次‘痴迷’就是当初嫁给了他。我立刻意识到自己犯了个错误。他穿了别人最好的外套跟我结婚，还从来没告诉我。有天他出门后，人家来讨还衣服。”她环顾四周，想看看谁在听。“‘哦，那是你的外套？’我说。‘我还是初次听说这事。’不过，我把衣服还给了他，随即躺在床上，号啕大哭了一个下午。”
“她的确该离开他，”凯瑟琳又对我说，“他们在那车行楼上住了十一年了，汤姆还是她的第一个贴心相好呢。”
一瓶威士忌酒——第二瓶了——被各位不断地传着，要求添酒，唯有凯瑟琳除外，“她不喝东西感觉也挺好。”汤姆按铃叫来清洁工，让他去买些颇受欢迎的三明治，足以当作晚餐。我想出去透透气，在柔和的暮色中朝东走向中央公园。可是每次一想离开，我就被卷入一阵乱七八糟、喧嚣刺耳的争论，仿佛被绳索困住拉回我的坐椅。毋庸置疑，我们这排灯火通明的窗户高踞这座城市的上空，想必也给在黑乎乎的街道上驻足张望的过客提供了一点人生秘密。而我就像这位过客一样，抬头张望，低头思量。我既身在其中，又逍遥其外，对人生无穷无尽的千姿百态既好奇入迷，又嗤之以鼻。
Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom.
“It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm—and so I told him I’d have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn’t hardly know I wasn’t getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was ‘You can’t live forever, you can’t live forever.’”
She turned to Mrs. Mc Kee and the room rang full of her artificial laughter.
“My dear,” she cried, “I’m going to give you this dress as soon as I’m through with it. I’ve got to get another one tomorrow. I’m going to make a list of all the things I’ve got to get. A massage and a wave and a collar for the dog and one of those cute little ash-trays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother’s grave that’ll last all summer. I got to write down a list so I won’t forget all the things I got to do.”
It was nine o’clock—almost immediately afterward I looked at my watch and found it was ten. Mr. Mc Kee was asleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the remains of the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon.
茉特尔把她的椅子挪到我跟前，忽然间她暖暖的呼吸气味朝我袭来，和盘托出了她与汤姆初次相逢的故事。
“故事开始于火车上两个面对面的小座位，就是车上总是最后剩下的那两个座位。我去纽约看我妹妹，想在她那过一夜。他穿了套礼服和一双漆皮鞋，我忍不住盯着他看。每次他一看我，我只好装着在看他头上的广告。车进站时，他紧挨着我，他白色的衬衫正面紧贴着我的胳膊。因此，我告诫他我要报警了，可他知道我只是说说而已。我兴奋过了头，以至于跟他上了一辆出租车时，我都不知道自己坐的不是地铁。我脑子里颠来复去所想的就是，‘你不会永远活着；你不会永远活着。’”
她回头转向麦基夫人，满屋回响着那她强颜欢笑的声音。
“亲爱的，”她喊道，“我这件衣服穿过之后就送给你。我明天去另外买一件，为该买的东西和该办的事情开一份清单，写上按摩，烫发，给狗买条项圈，买只小巧可爱、装有弹簧的烟灰缸，以及给妈的坟买只带有黑丝结的花圈，摆上一个夏天没问题。我非得拟个单子，这样才不会把要办的事给忘了。”
九点钟了——转眼再看表时，我发现已是十点钟了。麦基先生在椅子上睡熟了，手握成拳头搁在膝上，活像照片里一个动手不动脑的家伙。我拿出手绢，擦去他脸颊上那块让我整个下午都不自在的肥皂沫迹。
The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke and from time to time groaning faintly. People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away. Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing in impassioned voices whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy’s name.
“Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted Mrs. Wilson. “I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai—”
Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.
Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women’s voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain. Mr. Mc Kee awoke from his doze and started in a daze toward the door. When he had gone half way he turned around and stared at the scene—his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture with articles of aid, and the despairing figure on the couch bleeding fluently and trying to spread a copy of “Town Tattle” over the tapestry scenes of Versailles. Then Mr. Mc Kee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier I followed.
“Come to lunch some day,” he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Keep your hands off the lever,” snapped the elevator boy.
那只小狗在桌上蹲着，两眼茫然地在烟雾中张望，不时轻轻地哼着。屋内的人一会儿消失，一会儿重现；一会儿商量去哪儿，一会儿找不到对方；一会儿找人，一会儿发现人就在几步之外。夜半时分，汤姆 ·布坎南和威尔逊夫人面对面站着，怒气冲冲地争论着威尔逊夫人是否有资格提及黛西的名字。
“黛西！黛西！黛西！”威尔逊夫人大声喊着。“我想叫她的名字就叫！黛西！黛……”
汤姆 ·布坎南一个敏捷动作，一巴掌打断了她的鼻梁。
接着就见浴室地板上撒落着血迹斑斑的毛巾，就听见女人的相互指责声，以及一片混乱中夹着的断断续续的哀号。麦基先生从瞌睡中醒来，目光呆滞地走向屋门。他走到一半又转身注视屋里的景象——他夫人和凯瑟琳拿着急救用品在拥挤不堪的家具中挤来撞去，嘴里还骂着、哄着，躺在沙发上的那位垂头丧气，鼻子流血不止，试图用一份《纽约闲话》小报盖住织锦椅套上的凡尔赛宫图片。接着，麦基先生掉头走出屋门。我从吊灯上取下我的帽子，跟了出来。
“改天过来吃个午饭。”我们乘着电梯叽叽嘎嘎下楼时，他提议说。
“在哪儿？”
“任何地方都行。”
“手別碰电梯开关。”开电梯的小伙厉声叫道。
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Mc Kee with dignity, “I didn’t know I was touching it.”
“All right,” I agreed, “I’ll be glad to.”
... I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.
“Beauty and the Beast, ... Loneliness, ... Old Grocery Horse, ... Brook ’n Bridge, ...”
Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning “Tribune” and waiting for the four o’clock train.
“对不住，”麦基先生略带尊严地说，“我都不知道我碰着了。”
“好吧，”我说，“改天我一定会奉陪。”
……我站在他床边，他坐在被窝里，只穿着内衣，手捧着一本大相册。
“《美女与野兽》……《孤独》……《购货老马》……《布鲁克林大桥》……”[4]
再后来，我似醒非醒地躺在宾夕法尼亚车站冰冷的下层候车厅，眼瞪着早上刚发行的《先驱论坛报》，等候着四点钟的班车。
[1] 一幅竖在路边的眼科医生广告。
[2] 位于纽约长岛最东端的公园。
[3] 德国最后一位皇帝。
[4] 都是当年百老汇颇受欢迎的剧目。