了不起的盖茨比:有声导读·插图版:英汉对照
There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city, between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants including an extra gardener toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.
Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York—every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb.
At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.
整个夏天，我邻居家里从早到晚传来音乐声。在他蔚蓝色的花园四处， 男男女女在窃窃私语里、香槟杯影中和漫天繁星之下穿来复去，犹如飞蛾。午后涨潮时，我看见他的客人们有的从他的木筏高台上跳水，有的在他滚烫的沙滩上晒太阳。他的两艘摩托艇在海湾里劈波斩浪，拖着滑水板驶过汹涌翻腾的浪花。逢上周末，他那辆劳斯莱斯豪车就成了一辆小型公共汽车，从早上九点到深更半夜不停地接送城里来的客人。他那辆旅行车就像只黄虫穿梭不息地奔走在各个车站之间。到了星期一，八名仆人，包括一名额外的园艺工，拿着拖把、板刷、榔头和修枝剪刀忙活一天，清理头天晚上留下的一片狼藉。
每逢星期五，纽约的一位水果商会送来五筐橘子和柠檬——星期一，这些橘子和柠檬就成了一堆金字塔式的半圆皮壳，从他后门运出。厨房里有一台机器，只要管家在一个小开关上用拇指按上两百次，半小时之内两百个橘子就都能榨成果汁。
至少每隔两周，就有一大群包办筵席的人员，带来数百尺帆布和五颜六色的彩灯，这些灯足以把盖茨比宽广的花园装饰得像颗圣诞树。自助餐桌上摆放着琳琅满目的小吃，一只只五香火腿紧挨着五花八门的色拉和形同乌金色小猪和火鸡的面食。大厅里有个装着真铜栏杆的酒吧，备着各种杜松子酒、烈酒和甜酒，其中好多种酒早已罕见，多数女客因为太年轻而根本搞不清各种酒之间的区别。
By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived—no thin fivepiece affair but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.
The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath—already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the seachange of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.
七点钟之前，乐队准到。它可不是什么仅配五件乐器的小型乐队，相反却是配备了一乐池双簧管、长号、萨克斯管、提琴、圆号、短笛和高低音鼓的正规乐队。落在最后的游泳客人已从海滩上回来，在楼上更换衣服；纽约来的轿车一排五辆停满车道；大堂内、客厅里和阳台上花枝招展；女士们的发型时髦新奇，所披戴的纱巾也是卡斯蒂尔[1]人梦想不到的款式。酒吧里热火朝天，而外面的花园里一轮轮鸡尾酒满园穿梭不息。现场的气氛充斥着欢声笑语、漫不经心的挑逗、即时就忘的相互介绍和数不相识的女士之间热情洋溢的寒暄。
地球与太阳渐行渐远，灯光愈来愈亮。此刻，乐队奏起黄色鸡尾酒音乐[2]，众人的歌声上调了一拍。欢笑声一刻比一刻频繁，此起彼伏地传出，往往一句笑话就能引来哄堂大笑。人群的更换越来越快，你来我往，离散和重聚似乎都在顷刻之间。一些东游西荡但自信满满的女士在更壮实、更稳重的人群中钻进钻出，先是成为群里一时片刻欢声骤起的中心，接着又扬扬自得地在闪烁不停的灯光下出没于焕然一新的面孔、嗓音和色彩之中。
Suddenly one of these gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and moving her hands like Frisco dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray’s understudy from the “Follies.” The party has begun.
I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited—they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow they ended up at Gatsby’s door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.
I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robin’s egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer—the honor would be entirely Gatsby’s, it said, if I would attend his ‘little party’ that night. He had seen me several times and had intended to call on me long before but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it—signed Jay Gatsby in a majestic hand.
Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven and wandered around rather ill-at-ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn’t know—though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed,all looking a little hungry and all talking in low earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were, at least, agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.
忽然，一位身着吉卜赛装束的女子，一身珠光宝气，随手不知从哪儿端了杯鸡尾酒，像是为了壮胆一饮而尽，学着弗里斯科[3]的样子双手挥动，在帆布台上独自跳起舞来。一时鸦雀无声，乐队指挥特意调整了节奏为她伴奏。紧接着，爆出一阵窃窃私语，一个没根据的谣言四散开来，说她是吉尔达 ·格雷[4]在百老汇音乐剧《富丽秀》中的替补演员。盛会已经开始。
我确信，在我初访盖茨比家的那天晚上，我是少数几个真正应邀出席的客人之一。好多人没被邀请，但他们不请自到。他们搭上汽车，来到长岛，不知怎么就来到盖茨比的门前。一到就由认识盖茨比的人介绍一下，然后他们就按游乐园里的规则为所欲为了。有时候，他们来去根本没与盖茨比照面，只凭简简单单的心态来权当入场券，参加这里的盛会。
我可是应邀而去的。那个周六早上，一个身穿浅蓝色制服的司机穿过我家的草地，送来一张他雇主签发的格外正式的请柬，上面写着如果我能光临他那晚上的“小小聚会”，盖茨比将会感到无比荣幸。他已见过我几回了，并且早就打算来拜访我，但总是由于种种原因而未能成行——最后落款是杰伊 ·盖茨比，签字颇带非凡的气派。
刚过七点，我身穿白色法兰绒服装踏上他的草坪，不自在地在东一圈西一撮的陌生人中间穿行——尽管偶尔也撞上一两个我在上下班列车上注意过的熟悉面孔。没过多时，我就觉察到人群中有为数不少的英国年轻人，个个穿戴整齐，面露饥色，压低嗓门正儿八经地与壮实而且富有的美国人交谈。我可以断定， 他们都在推销着什么东西：债券、保险或汽车。他们至少心里痛苦不迭地知道眼前有大把的钱好赚，坚信只要话说得投机、得体，就能将钱全部攫入囊中。
As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table—the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.
I was on my way to get roaring drunk from sheer embarrassment when Jordan Baker came out of the house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little backward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden.
Welcome or not, I found it necessary to attach myself to someone before I should begin to address cordial remarks to the passers-by.
“Hello!” I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across the garden.
“I thought you might be here,” she responded absently as I came up. “I remembered you lived next door to—”
She held my hand impersonally, as a promise that she’d take care of me in a minute, and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses who stopped at the foot of the steps.
“Hello!” they cried together. “Sorry you didn’t win.”
That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before.
我一到就设法找到我的主人，向几个人打听他的下落，谁知他们都用诧异的眼神瞪着我，坚决只字不提他的行踪。见状我也只好悄然移步到鸡尾酒桌前——花园里只有此地才能让单身男人逗留，但又不显得是无所事事、孑然一身。
正当我倍感尴尬、行将酩酊大醉时，乔丹 ·贝克走出了屋子，站在大理石台阶的上头，身体微微后仰，轻蔑地俯视着花园。
无论欢迎与否，我意识到必须和某个人撮合在一块了，要不然我就非得跟擦肩而过的陌生人寒暄了。
“你好！”我高喊一声，箭步上前，朝她走去。我的嗓音在花园里响得极不自然。
“我估摸着你或许会来。”等我到她跟前，她心不在焉地答道，“我记得你就住在……隔壁。”
她毫无表情地拉拉我的手，好像是保证过一会就来招呼我，可同时又去听着站在台阶下面两个身穿同样黄色连衣裙的姑娘说话。
“你好！”她们同声叫道，“可惜，你没赢。”
她们说的是高尔夫比赛，她在上一星期的决赛中输了。
“You don’t know who we are,” said one of the girls in yellow,“but we met you here about a month ago.”
“You’ve dyed your hair since then,” remarked Jordan, and I started but the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer’s basket. With Jordan’s slender golden arm resting in mine we descended the steps and sauntered about the garden. A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble.
“Do you come to these parties often?” inquired Jordan of the girl beside her.
“The last one was the one I met you at,” answered the girl, in an alert, confident voice. She turned to her companion:“Wasn’t it for you, Lucille?”
It was for Lucille, too.
“I like to come,” Lucille said. “I never care what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address—inside of a week I got a package from Croirier’s with a new evening gown in it.”
“Did you keep it?” asked Jordan.
“Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too big in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.”
“There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that,” said the other girl eagerly. “He doesn’t want any trouble with ANYbody.”
“Who doesn’t?” I inquired.
“你不知道我们是谁，”其中一名穿黄衣服的姑娘说，“可是约一个月之前我们在这见过你。”
“你们染过头发了。”乔丹说。我略微一惊，然而两位姑娘已经毫不在乎地走开了，她的话等于说给早出的月亮听了，这月亮无疑就像晚餐的酒菜，全从宴席承包商的篮子里变出来一样。手挽着乔丹纤细的金黄色胳膊，我和她一起走下台阶，信步在花园里闲逛了一圈。一盘鸡尾酒杯在茫茫暮色中飘飘然来到我们跟前，我们随即在一张桌前坐下。同桌就座的还有那两位穿黄衣服的姑娘和三位男士，他们每一位都向我们自报了一个含糊其词的名号。
“你常来参加这些聚会吗？”乔丹问她旁边的一位姑娘。
“我上次来就是我初次见到你的那次，”那姑娘答道，口气机警而自信，“你不也一样吗，露丝尔？”
露丝尔也是一样。
“我喜欢来，”露丝尔说，“我从不在乎在这干啥，因此来了就挺高兴。我上次来在椅子上撕破了衣裳，他就问了我姓名和地址——一周之内我就收到克罗利尔公司[5]送来的一个包裹，里面有一件新的晚礼服。”
“你收下了？”乔丹问。
“我当然收了。我还打算今晚穿呢，谁知衣服胸口太大，得改一下。衣服是淡蓝色的，上面镶着淡紫色的珠子。二百六十五美元一件呐。”
“一个人能来这一手颇耐人寻味，”另一位姑娘迫不及待地说，“他不想与任何人过意不去。”
“谁不想？”我问。
“Gatsby. Somebody told me—”
The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.
“Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.”
A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly.
“I don’t think it’s so much THAT,” argued Lucille skeptically;“it’s more that he was a German spy during the war.”
One of the men nodded in confirmation.
“I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us positively.
“Oh, no,” said the first girl, “it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.” As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. “You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man.”
She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.
The first supper—there would be another one after midnight—was now being served, and Jordan invited me to join her own party who were spread around a table on the other side of the garden. There were three married couples and Jordan’s escort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo and obviously under the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree. Instead of rambling this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside-East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety.
“盖茨比。有人告诉我……”
两位姑娘和乔丹凑在一起，交头接耳地说着什么。
“有人告诉我，大家都猜想他杀过一个人。”
一听此言，大伙都打起了寒战。三位含糊其词报名号的男士也凑过身来，侧耳倾听。
“我不认为真有其事，”露丝尔半信半疑地分辩道，“还有人说他在战时做过德国间谍。”
有位男士点头赞同。
“我从另外一个人那儿听说过此事，此人对盖茨比知根知底，自小和他在德国一同长大。”他郑重其事地告诉我们。
“呃，不可能，”第一位姑娘说，“这不可能，因为战时他在美国部队里服役。”见我们转过来听信了她的话，这姑娘兴致勃勃地靠上前来。“你得在他以为没人在注视着他的时候看看他。我敢打赌，他肯定杀过人。”
她眯起眼睛，哆嗦起来。露丝尔也在哆嗦。我们都转过身来，四处搜寻盖茨比。这足以证明他自己激发了一个浪漫传说，有关他的流言蜚语满天飞，而这些津津乐道的人都觉得世上已没什么更值得热议的事了。
第一顿晚餐——午夜后还会加一餐——开始了，乔丹邀我加入她在花园另一边桌上围坐的一伙朋友。其中有三对夫妇，外加乔丹自己的陪客，一名煞有介事的大学生。他说起话来总是装腔作势，显然以为乔丹早晚将会或多或少地委身于他。这伙人并不喋喋不休地嚷嚷，倒是保持了整齐划一的庄重表情，俨然担当起代表乡村正统贵族气质的职责——东卵屈尊造访西卵，但同时对其吸人眼球的喧闹无动于衷。
“Let’s get out,” whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate half hour. “This is much too polite for me.”
We got up, and she explained that we were going to find the host—I had never met him, she said, and it was making me uneasy. The undergraduate nodded in a cynical, melancholy way.
The bar, where we glanced first, was crowded but Gatsby was not there. She couldn’t find him from the top of the steps, and he wasn’t on the veranda. On a chance we tried an important-looking door, and walked into a high Gothic library, panelled with carved English oak, and probably transported complete from some ruin overseas.
A stout, middle-aged man with enormous owl-eyed spectacles was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot.
“What do you think?” he demanded impetuously.
“About what?”
He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.
“About that. As a matter of fact you needn’t bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They’re real.”
“The books?”
He nodded.
“Absolutely real—have pages and everything. I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they’re absolutely real. Pages and—Here! Lemme show you.”
“我们走吧，”约莫过了半个白费且不合时宜的时辰，乔丹轻声说，“我觉得这样太拘谨了。”
我们站起身，她说明，我们得去找找主人。她说她还从来没见过他，这已使她感到有些不自在。那位大学生点点头，表情既不在乎，又挺郁闷。
我们先去酒吧望了望，人很多，可是盖茨比不在那儿。乔丹从台阶上面往下张望，没看到他，阳台上也不见他的人影。无意中我们推开了一扇气势十足的门，走进一间高高的哥特式书房，四壁镶着英国的雕刻橡木，极有可能是从海外某处历史遗址整套拆运来的。
一名粗壮的中年男子，鼻上架着一幅巨大的猫头鹰式的眼镜，醉醺醺地坐在一张大桌子边上，恍恍惚惚地注视着一排排书架。我们一进去，他就兴冲冲地转过身来，从头到脚把乔丹打量了一番。
“你觉得怎么样？”他冲动地问道。
“什么怎么样？”
他挥着手指向书架。
“就是它们。事实上你没必要再去查验了。我查验过，它们都是真的。”
“你说的是书吗？”
他点点头。
“绝对真的……书页，什么都有。我起先以为它们只是一张好看耐用的纸板，可实际上它们绝对是真书。页码和……等着，我让你看看。”
Taking our skepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One of the “Stoddard Lectures.”
“See!” he cried triumphantly. “It’s a bona fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop too—didn’t cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?”
He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.
“Who brought you?” he demanded. “Or did you just come? I was brought. Most people were brought.”
Jordan looked at him alertly, cheerfully without answering.
“I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt,” he continued.“Mrs. Claud Roosevelt. Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night. I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”
“Has it?”
“A little bit, I think. I can’t tell yet. I’ve only been here an hour. Did I tell you about the books? They’re real. They’re—”
“You told us.”
We shook hands with him gravely and went back outdoors.
There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden, old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably and keeping in the corners—and a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the traps. By midnight the hilarity had increased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz and between the numbers people were doing “stunts” all over the garden, while happy vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky. A pair of stage “twins”-who turned out to be the girls in yellow-did a baby act in costume and champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger bowls. The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales, trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drip of the banjoes on the lawn.
他一味以为我们将信将疑，匆匆跑到书橱那儿，拿了本《斯道达德演说集》[6]第一卷回来。
“看，”他得意扬扬地喊道，“一本地道的印刷品，真把我蒙住了。这家伙与贝拉斯科[7]不争上下，可谓有过之而无不及。多么一丝不苟！多么真实！还知道做到恰到好处就行……一页与一页之间都没裁开。你要干吗？你以为是什么？”
他一把夺走我手里的书，急忙把它放回书架，嘴里还叽里咕噜地念叨，一旦有块砖被挪开，整个书房即刻就会倾倒。
“谁带你们来的？”他问道，“你们是否不请自来的？有人带我来的。大多数客人都是有人带来的。”
乔丹机灵而乐呵呵地望着他，没有搭话。
“我是一位名叫罗斯福的太太带我来的，”他继续说，“克劳 德 ·罗斯福太太。你们认识她吗？我昨晚在一个地方遇上了她。至今为止，我都醉了快一个星期了。我想，在书房里坐一会或许能帮我醒醒酒。”
“有效果吗？”
“我觉得有一点，但我还不能断定。我仅仅在这坐了一个小时。我告诉你们书的事了吗？它们都是真的，它们……”
“你说过了。”
我们郑重其事地跟他握握手，走出门外。
此时，花园里的帆布台上不少人在跳舞。老头们推着妙龄女郎往后退，不停地绕着毫不优雅的圈子；派头十足的男女们紧抱在一起，动作扭扭曲曲、新颖时髦；待在角落里的有不少单身姑娘独自在跳，或者去帮乐队弹一会班卓琴或敲一会打击乐鼓。到了午夜，更加热闹非凡。一位著名的男高音用意大利语献唱，一位声名狼藉的女低音表演了爵士乐曲。节目间隙，花园里到处有人亮出自己的“绝活”，欢快而莫名其妙的笑声此起彼伏，直飞夏夜的天空。那两位穿黄色衣服的姑娘扮演一对舞台孪生姐妹，化装表演了一个儿童节目。与此同时，香槟酒斟满比洗手指用的碗还大的酒杯，一杯一杯地传来送去。月亮已经高高在上，海湾的水面上荡漾着一个三角形倒影，银光闪闪，波光粼粼，随着草坪上生硬、尖细的班卓琴琴声而微微颤动。
I was still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table with a man of about my age and a rowdy little girl who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter. I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two finger bowls of champagne and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental and profound.
At a lull in the entertainment the man looked at me and smiled.
“Your face is familiar,” he said, politely. “Weren’t you in the Third Division during the war?”
“Why, yes. I was in the Ninth Machine-Gun Battalion.”
“I was in the Seventh Infantry until June nineteen-eighteen. I knew I’d seen you somewhere before.”
We talked for a moment about some wet, grey little villages in France. Evidently he lived in this vicinity for he told me that he had just bought a hydroplane and was going to try it out in the morning.
“Want to go with me, old sport? Just near the shore along the Sound.”
“What time?”
“Any time that suits you best.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask his name when Jordan looked around and smiled.
我仍和乔丹 ·贝克在一起。我们所在的桌上有位年龄与我相仿的男士和一位吵闹的小姑娘，她动不动就会歇斯底里地放声大笑。我自己这时也放开玩了，喝完两大杯香槟之后，顿时觉得眼前的景象带有某种耐人寻味、至关重要和博大精深的含义。
在一次娱乐节目的间隙，那位男士望着我，笑了笑。
“你很面熟，”他客气地说，“你战时是不是在第三师服役？”
“呃，是的。我在第九机枪营。”
“我在第七步兵师，一直服役到1918年6月。我觉得我以前在哪儿见过你。”
我们叙了会旧，谈起潮湿阴暗的法国小村庄。他显然就住在附近，因为他告诉我他刚买了架水上飞艇，早上去试飞。
“想跟我一起去吗，老兄？就沿着海湾岸边遛遛。”
“什么时间？”
“就选最适合你的时间。”
我刚要张嘴问问他的尊姓大名，乔丹回过头来朝我笑了笑。
“Having a gay time now?” she inquired.
“Much better.” I turned again to my new acquaintance. “This is an unusual party for me. I haven’t even seen the host. I live over there—” I waved my hand at the invisible hedge in the distance, “and this man Gatsby sent over his chauffeur with an invitation.”
For a moment he looked at me as if he failed to understand.
“I’m Gatsby,” he said suddenly.
“What!” I exclaimed. “Oh, I beg your pardon.”
“I thought you knew, old sport. I’m afraid I’m not a very good host.”
He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on YOU with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.
Almost at the moment when Mr. Gatsby identified himself a butler hurried toward him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire. He excused himself with a small bow that included each of us in turn.
“现在高兴了吧？”她问。
“好多了。”我再次转向我新交的朋友，“对我来说，这是一个不同寻常的聚会。我到现在还没见过主人呢。我就住在那儿……”我挥手指向远方一处模糊不清的绿化隔离带。“这位盖茨比先生让他的司机给我送了请帖。”
他愣着看了我一会，好像没听懂我说了什么。
“我就是盖茨比，”他忽然说。
“什么？”我叫了一声，“哎呀，真抱歉。”
“我还以为你知道我是谁呢，老兄。我恐怕不是个很称职的主人。”
他会意地笑了，应该说这笑的含义远超“会意”一词通常的定义。这是一种难能可贵的笑容，其中包含着始终善解人意、待人以诚的特质，像这种笑容人的一生中至多只能遇见四到五次。它面对（或似乎在面对）整个外在世界仅仅一时片刻，接下来就带着不可抵御的偏爱来关注你。它对你的了解达到你想让人了解的程度，它对你的信任达到你想信任你自己的深度，而且它让你确信，它对你的印象正是你最得意之际你想留给别人的印象。就在那一刻，那笑容消失了——我看到的是一位风度翩翩的年轻男子，三十一二岁，说起话来咬文嚼字，几乎有点荒诞不经。他还没开始自我介绍，我就觉得他对谈吐措辞真可谓谨小慎微。
正在盖茨比先生自报身份时，管家匆匆跑到他跟前报告，芝加哥来了长途电话。他向在场的各位微微欠身致歉后离去。
“If you want anything just ask for it, old sport,” he urged me.“Excuse me. I will rejoin you later.”
When he was gone I turned immediately to Jordan—constrained to assure her of my surprise. I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years.
“Who is he?” I demanded. “Do you know?”
“He’s just a man named Gatsby.”
“Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do?”
“Now YOU’re started on the subject,” she answered with a wan smile. “Well,—he told me once he was an Oxford man.”
A dim background started to take shape behind him but at her next remark it faded away.
“However, I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she insisted, “I just don’t think he went there.”
Something in her tone reminded me of the other girl’s “I think he killed a man,” and had the effect of stimulating my curiosity. I would have accepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang from the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East Side of New York. That was comprehensible. But young men didn’t—at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn’t—drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound.
“Anyhow he gives large parties,” said Jordan, changing the subject with an urbane distaste for the concrete. “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”
There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried. “At the request of Mr.Gatsby we are going to play for you Mr. Vladimir Tostoff’s latest work which attracted so much attention at Carnegie Hall last May. If you read the papers you know there was a big sensation.” He smiled with jovial condescension and added “Some sensation!” whereupon everybody laughed.
“你需要什么尽管开口，老兄，”他叮嘱我，“对不起，我过一会再来奉陪。”
他一走，我随即转向乔丹——竭力想向她表示我的惊讶。我本以为盖茨比先生肯定是个红光满面、大腹便便的中年人。
“他是谁？”我急迫地问，“你知道吗？”
“他就是名叫盖茨比的人。”
“我是问他从哪儿来？做什么的？”
“现在你也来琢磨这个话题了，”她不以为然地笑着答道，“唔，有次他告诉我，他上过牛津大学。”
我对他以往的经历刚琢磨得有点眉目，就被乔丹的下一句话驱散得烟消云散了。
“可是，我认为他的话不可信。”
“为什么不可信？”
“我不清楚，”她依然坚持己见“，我就是不相信他会在牛津读过书。”
她的语气里有些因素使我想起早先那位姑娘所说的，“我想他杀过一个人，”激起了我的好奇心。如果说盖茨比是从路易斯安那州的沼泽地里或者纽约东城南区[8]冒出来，我会毫无疑问地接受。那是可以理解的。然而，年纪轻轻的人不可能（至少根据我自己来自偏僻乡野的孤陋寡闻，我认为他们不可能）凭空悄然出现，在长岛海湾买下一幢宫殿。
“不管怎样，他常举办大型聚会，”乔丹说，带着一种城里人不拘泥于细节的口吻改变了话题，“我是挺喜欢大型聚会的，气氛十分热烈融洽，而在小型聚会上，毫无隐私可言。”
这时，传来一阵轰隆隆的低音鼓声，接着乐队指挥的嗓音突然间冒出来，盖过了花园里的嘈杂声。
“女士们、先生们，”他大声说，“应盖茨比先生的要求，我们将为各位演奏弗拉基米尔 ·托斯托夫先生的最新作品。该作品五月份曾在卡内基音乐厅引起人们极大的关注。如果各位看了报，就知道那可是轰动一时啊。”他面露笑容，又以带着善意的轻蔑语气补充了一句，“的确轰动啊！”话音刚落，大家放声大笑。
“The piece is known,” he concluded lustily, “as ‘Vladimir Tostoff’s Jazz History of the World.’”
The nature of Mr. Tostoff’s composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes. His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day. I could see nothing sinister about him. I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased. When the “Jazz History of the World” was over girls were putting their heads on men’s shoulders in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men’s arms, even into groups knowing that some one would arrest their falls—but no one swooned backward on Gatsby and no French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby’s head for one link.
“I beg your pardon.”
Gatsby’s butler was suddenly standing beside us.
“Miss Baker?” he inquired. “I beg your pardon but Mr. Gatsby would like to speak to you alone.”
“With me?” she exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes, madame.”
She got up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment,and followed the butler toward the house. I noticed that she wore her evening dress, all her dresses, like sports clothes-there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings.
他用洪亮的嗓音结束了他的介绍，“这支曲子的题名是《弗拉基米尔 ·托斯托夫的世界爵士史》。”
托斯托夫先生这部乐曲的真谛我没能摸透，因为乐曲一开始，我的眼光就落在盖茨比身上。只见他独自站在大理石台阶上面，怡然自得地从一群人望到另一群人。他那晒得黑黝黝的皮肤紧绷在脸上，显得很英俊，一头短发就像天天修剪过一样的光滑。我在他身上看不到一丝一毫的邪恶之处。我思忖是否由于他滴酒不沾，从而使他与客人们不相为谋，因为看上去每当大学兄弟会似的纵情狂欢愈演愈烈，盖茨比就显得愈来愈矜持庄重。等到《弗拉基米 尔 ·托斯托夫的世界爵士史》一曲奏完，有些姑娘像小巴儿狗一样，美滋滋地把头依偎在男人的肩膀上，有些姑娘故意往后晕倒在男人的怀抱里，甚至还有人三五成群地往后一仰，因为知道后面会有人托住他们。然而，没有一人后仰晕倒在盖茨比的怀里，没有一位梳着法国式短发的姑娘碰到盖茨比的肩膀，也没有四重唱的组合来找盖茨比入伙。
“抱歉。”
盖茨比的管家突然出现在我们身边。
“贝克小姐？”他问道，“抱歉，盖茨比先生想单独跟你谈谈。”
“跟我？”她惊讶地脱口问道。
“是的，小姐。”
她慢慢起身，神情惊愕地朝我皱皱眉头，跟着管家向屋子走去。我发觉她穿晚礼服，还有其他衣服，都像穿运动服一样--她的一举一动都挺轻盈矫健，仿佛她幼时专选清新、凉爽的早晨在高尔夫球场上学会走路的。
I was alone and it was almost two. For some time confused and intriguing sounds had issued from a long many-windowed room which overhung the terrace. Eluding Jordan’s undergraduate who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation with two chorus girls, and who implored me to join him, I went inside.
The large room was full of people. One of the girls in yellow was playing the piano and beside her stood a tall, red haired young lady from a famous chorus, engaged in song. She had drunk a quantity of champagne and during the course of her song she had decided ineptly that everything was very very sad—she was not only singing, she was weeping too. Whenever there was a pause in the song she filled it with gasping broken sobs and then took up the lyric again in a quavering soprano. The tears coursed down her cheeks—not freely, however, for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets. A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her face whereupon she threw up her hands, sank into a chair and went off into a deep vinous sleep.
“She had a fight with a man who says he’s her husband,” explained a girl at my elbow.
I looked around. Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands. Even Jordan’s party, the quartet from East Egg, were rent asunder by dissension. One of the men was talking with curious intensity to a young actress,and his wife after attempting to laugh at the situation in a dignified and indifferent way broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacks-at intervals she appeared suddenly at his side like an angry diamond, and hissed “You promised!” into his ear.
我独自一人待着，都快凌晨两点了。有一阵子，阳台上方一间长长的、布满窗户的房间里传出杂乱无章而又令人费解的声响。乔丹那位大学生陪客被两名女音乐剧歌舞演员缠住，在热议分娩之道。他央求我也加入，为他解围，可是我设法回避了他，走进屋内。
大房间里挤得水泄不通。身穿黄衣服的两位女郎之一在弹钢琴，她身旁站着一位身材修长的红发女郎正在唱歌，她来自一个享有盛誉的歌舞队。由于多喝了几杯香槟，她边唱边拙劣地判定一切的一切都非常非常凄惨——结果她不光是在唱歌，反倒更像是在哭泣。每逢歌中有个停顿，她就用抽泣和断断续续的哀号来补空，接着再用颤抖的女高音继续唱完歌词。眼泪顺着她的脸颊流下来——但不是畅流不止，因为泪水一碰到涂得浓浓的睫毛就成了黑墨水，犹如两条缓缓的黑色小溪，继续顺着脸颊流着。有人幽默地建议她唱唱自己满脸的音符，听到此话，她甩起双手，倒入一把椅子里，醉醺醺地沉睡起来。
“她刚跟一位自称是她丈夫的男人吵了一架。”我身旁一位姑娘解释说。
我环顾四周，只见留下的女客中多半都在跟像是她们丈夫的男人吵架。就连乔丹那伙人，即来自东卵的四位,也因为意见分歧而四分五裂了。其中一位男士正饶有趣味地与一位女艺人聊天，他夫人先是试图以不失尊严和满不在乎的姿态一笑了之，但最终还是完全承受不了，发起侧面攻击--不时突然一窜，像一条怒气冲冲的响尾蛇出现在她的丈夫身旁，在他的耳旁咝咝叫道，“你发过誓的！”
The reluctance to go home was not confined to wayward men. The hall was at present occupied by two deplorably sober men and their highly indignant wives. The wives were sympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices.
“Whenever he sees I’m having a good time he wants to go home.”
“Never heard anything so selfish in my life.”
“We’re always the first ones to leave.”
“So are we.”
“Well, we’re almost the last tonight,” said one of the men sheepishly. “The orchestra left half an hour ago.”
In spite of the wives’ agreement that such malevolence was beyond credibility, the dispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted kicking into the night.
As I waited for my hat in the hall the door of the library opened and Jordan Baker and Gatsby came out together. He was saying some last word to her but the eagerness in his manner tightened abruptly into formality as several people approached him to say goodbye.
Jordan’s party were calling impatiently to her from the porch but she lingered for a moment to shake hands.
“I’ve just heard the most amazing thing,” she whispered. “How long were we in there?”
“Why,—about an hour.”
不想回家的并不限于放荡不羁的男士。此刻大厅里还留着两位故作正经而毫无醉意的男士和他们义愤填膺的太太。两位太太微微提高嗓门，互诉彼此的苦衷。
“他每次一看到我玩得高兴就要回家。”
“我这辈子从未听说过如此自私的事情。”
“我们总是第一个打道回府。”
“我们也是。”
“唔，今晚我们几乎是最后一个了，”一位男士胆怯地说，“乐队半小时之前就走了。”
尽管两位太太一致认为这言语中的恶意令人难以置信，可是这场争论仅仅持续了一个简短的回合。两位太太都被抱了起来，双腿乱踢着消失在黑夜里。
我正在厅里等候领取我的帽子，书房的门开了，乔丹 ·贝克和盖茨比一起走了出来。他还未能对乔丹说完最后一句话，就有几位客人过来跟他话别，因此他热忱的姿态立即转化为通常的举止规范。
乔丹那伙客人在门外台阶上不耐烦地叫着她，可是她留步跟我握了手。
“我刚听了件极为惊奇的事情。”她低声说，“我们在屋里待了多久？”
“怎么啦，约一个小时。”
“It was—simply amazing,” she repeated abstractedly. “But I swore I wouldn’t tell it and here I am tantalizing you.” She yawned gracefully in my face. “Please come and see me... Phone book... Under the name of Mrs. Sigourney Howard... My aunt...” She was hurrying off as she talked—her brown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted into her party at the door.
Rather ashamed that on my first appearance I had stayed so late, I joined the last of Gatsby’s guests who were clustered around him. I wanted to explain that I’d hunted for him early in the evening and to apologize for not having known him in the garden.
“Don’t mention it,” he enjoined me eagerly. “Don’t give it another thought, old sport.” The familiar expression held no more familiarity than the hand which reassuringly brushed my shoulder.“And don’t forget we’re going up in the hydroplane tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”
Then the butler, behind his shoulder:
“Philadelphia wants you on the phone, sir.”
“All right, in a minute. Tell them I’ll be right there... good night.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.” He smiled—and suddenly there seemed to be a pleasant significance in having been among the last to go, as if he had desired it all the time. “Good night, old sport... Good night.”
But as I walked down the steps I saw that the evening was not quite over. Fifty feet from the door a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene. In the ditch beside the road, right side up but violently shorn of one wheel, rested a new coupé which had left Gatsby’s drive not two minutes before. The sharp jut of a wall accounted for the detachment of the wheel which was now getting considerable attention from half a dozen curious chauffeurs. However, as they had left their cars blocking the road a harsh discordant din from those in the rear had been audible for some time and added to the already violent confusion of the scene.
“这事……太惊奇了，”她心不在焉地说，“可是我发过誓，绝不泄露此事，我这会已经在逗你了。”她冲着我优雅地打了个哈欠，“得空请过来看我……电话簿里……西皋内 ·霍华德太太名下……我的姑妈……”她着急忙慌地边走边说，挥起她黑黝黝的手来了个诙谐的敬礼，随即在门口汇入她的那帮朋友之中。
对自己初次光临聚会就待到这么晚，我已感到十分难堪。我只好跟着盖茨比的最后一拨客人围在他身边。我想向他说明，我晚上一来就四处找过他，并且就在花园里没认出他来向他表示歉意。
“没关系，”他热忱地关照我，“不必多虑，老兄。”他的话听来很随意，但他的手安抚地拍着我的肩膀，显得更加亲和。“别忘了，明天早上九点，我们还要登上水上飞艇去兜风呢。”
管家又出现在他的背后。
“先生，费城来电话找你。”
“好的，一会儿就来。告诉他们我马上就来……晚安。”
“晚安。”
“晚安。”他笑了笑——一瞬间随最后一拨人辞别似乎有了令人愉快的含义，好像这正是他一直所期望的。“晚安，老兄……晚安。”
可是，我走下台阶时发现这晚会还远远没结束。离大门五十英尺，有六七辆车的前灯照亮了一幕稀奇古怪和吵吵嚷嚷的场面。只见路边渠道的右上方躺着一辆新轿车，被撞掉了一个车轮，这车两分钟前刚驶离盖茨比家的车道。看来是一堵墙的突出部分导致车轮脱落，六七位好奇的司机津津有味地围观着。可是，他们的车在那堵塞了通道，后面车里的喇叭响个不停，这使场面越发乱上加乱。
A man in a long duster had dismounted from the wreck and now stood in the middle of the road, looking from the car to the tire and from the tire to the observers in a pleasant, puzzled way.
“See!” he explained. “It went in the ditch.”
The fact was infinitely astonishing to him—and I recognized first the unusual quality of wonder and then the man—it was the late patron of Gatsby’s library.
“How’d it happen?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I know nothing whatever about mechanics,” he said decisively.
“But how did it happen? Did you run into the wall?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Owl Eyes, washing his hands of the whole matter. “I know very little about driving—next to nothing. It happened, and that’s all I know.”
“Well, if you’re a poor driver you oughtn’t to try driving at night.”
“But I wasn’t even trying,” he explained indignantly, “I wasn’t even trying.”
An awed hush fell upon the bystanders.
“Do you want to commit suicide?”
“You’re lucky it was just a wheel! A bad driver and not even TRYing!”
“You don’t understand,” explained the criminal. “I wasn’t driving. There’s another man in the car.”
一个身穿长外套的人已经从撞坏的车里出来，站在路中央，从车身看到车轮，又从车轮看到旁观者，神态颇为怡然自得和迷惑不解。
“看呀，”他解释道，“车进沟了。”
这情景使他惊诧不已，我先是听出了这不同寻常的惊诧口气，接着认出了是谁——就是先前在盖茨比书房里遇上的那位。
“怎么回事？”
他双肩耸了一耸。
“我对机械一无所知。”他斩钉截铁地说。
“可是，怎么会搞成这样？你撞墙了？”
“别问我，”“鹰眼”说，试图把整个事情的责任推得一干二净，“我对开车也不太精通——几乎一点不懂。出事了，这就是我知道的一切。”
“唔，既然你车技欠佳，那就不该非在晚上试着驾车。”
“可我并没试啊，”他强词夺理地解释道，“我可没试着开车。”
旁观的人顿时被惊得鸦雀无声。
“你想自杀吗？”
“算你走运，只毁了个轮子！车技这么差，还说没‘试’！”
“你不明白，”肇事者解释说，“不是我开的车，车里还有个人呢。”
The shock that followed this declaration found voice in a sustained “Ah-h-h!” as the door of the coupé swung slowly open. The crowd—it was now a crowd—stepped back involuntarily and when the door had opened wide there was a ghostly pause. Then, very gradually, part by part, a pale dangling individual stepped out of the wreck, pawing tentatively at the ground with a large uncertain dancing shoe.
Blinded by the glare of the headlights and confused by the incessant groaning of the horns the apparition stood swaying for a moment before he perceived the man in the duster.
“Wha’s matter?” he inquired calmly. “Did we run outa gas?”
“Look!”
Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel—he stared at it for a moment and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.
“It came off,” some one explained.
He nodded.
“At first I din’ notice we’d stopped.”
A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders he remarked in a determined voice:
“Wonder’ff tell me where there’s a gas’line station?”
At least a dozen men, some of them little better off than he was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond.
“Back out,” he suggested after a moment. “Put her in reverse.”
“But the WHEEL’S off!”
He hesitated.
他这一申辩使在场的人为之一震，发出一连串的“啊……啊……”声，与此同时，车门也慢慢打开。人群（这会已有一大群人围在一起）不禁自动后退，车门敞开时，都像见鬼似的屏住了气息。接着，一个脸色苍白、摇摇晃晃的人一点一点地逐渐从撞烂的车里跨出身来，用他一只穿着大舞鞋但不知所措的脚在地上战战兢兢地触碰了几下。
这位幽灵似的人被汽车前灯照得眼花缭乱，又被连响不断的汽车喇叭声吵得稀里糊涂，在一边站了一会才看见身穿长外套的人。
“怎么回事？”他镇定自如地问道，“我们车里没汽油了吗？”
“你看看！”
约有半打的手指都指向那只残缺不全的轮胎，他却注视轮胎片刻，然后抬头仰视，似乎在怀疑那车轮是否是从天而降。
“车轮掉了。”有人向他解释。
他点点头。
“一开始我都没意识到车已停了。”
他停顿了一会。接着，他深吸一口气，挺直肩膀，毅然决然地说：“不知谁……谁能告诉我哪里有加油站？”
至少有十几个人，其中有些人状态比他稍微好点，向他解释，车轮跟汽车已经毫不沾边了。
“倒出来，”过了片刻他又提议。“把车挂入倒车挡。”
“可是车轮已经掉了！”
他迟疑了一番。
“No harm in trying,” he said.
The caterwauling horns had reached a crescendo and I turned away and cut across the lawn toward home. I glanced back once. A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby’s house, making the night fine as before and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell.
Reading over what I have written so far I see I have given the impression that the events of three nights several weeks apart were all that absorbed me. On the contrary they were merely casual events in a crowded summer and, until much later, they absorbed me infinitely less than my personal affairs.
Most of the time I worked. In the early morning the sun threw my shadow westward as I hurried down the white chasms of lower New York to the Probity Trust. I knew the other clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names and lunched with them in dark crowded restaurants on little pig sausages and mashed potatoes and coffee. I even had a short affair with a girl who lived in Jersey City and worked in the accounting department, but her brother began throwing mean looks in my direction so when she went on her vacation in July I let it blow quietly away.
I took dinner usually at the Yale Club—for some reason it was the gloomiest event of my day—and then I went upstairs to the library and studied investments and securities for a conscientious hour. There were generally a few rioters around but they never came into the library so it was a good place to work. After that, if the night was mellow I strolled down Madison Avenue past the old Murray Hill Hotel and over Thirty-third Street to the Pennsylvania Station.
“试试无妨。”他说。
宛如猫嚎的汽车喇叭声已经达到制高点，我转身穿过草地，朝家里走去。途中我回首看了一眼，只见明月当空，月光闪烁在盖茨比的别墅上，使这夜晚显得依旧如此完美，而且并没因为盖茨比色彩斑斓的花园里发出的欢笑和嘈杂之声而黯然失色。一股慕然而起的空虚似乎从窗户和大门里倾泻而出，将主人的身影笼罩在彻底的孤立之中，只见他站在门廊上，挥手向客人郑重告别。
搁笔通读已经写就的章节，我意识到自己或许给人留下个印象，在这间隔几周的三个夜晚里所发生的事情已使我走火入魔。事实恰恰相反，这些仅仅是一个繁杂夏天里的区区琐事，而且直到很久以后，它们远不如我个人的事让我费心伤神。
我大部分时间都在工作。清早，太阳把我的影子投向西边，我匆匆顺着纽约市南区[9]白色的楼缝走向诚正信托公司。我跟其他职员和年轻的债券推销员都直呼其名，与他们在黑暗、拥挤不堪的餐馆里共进午餐，吃点猪肉小香肠和土豆泥，喝杯咖啡。我甚至还与一位来自泽西市、在会计科任职的姑娘有过一段关系，可是她哥哥开始向我投来尖刻的眼光。因此，她七月份出外度假后，我就让这段关系默默地吹了。
我通常在耶鲁俱乐部[10]吃晚饭（不知为何这是我一天中最为凄惨的事情），然后到楼上图书室正儿八经花上一个小时，钻研投资和证券。会所里时常有一些人闲来逛去，但他们从不涉足图书室，因此这是个钻研的好地方。自习完了，如果夜色宜人，我就信步沿着麦迪森大道，经过古老的穆雷山酒店，穿过第三十三街，走到宾夕法尼亚车站。
I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others—poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner—young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.
Again at eight o’clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were five deep with throbbing taxi cabs, bound for the theatre district, I felt a sinking in my heart. Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and there was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes outlined unintelligible gestures inside. Imagining that I, too, was hurrying toward gayety and sharing their intimate excitement, I wished them well.
For a while I lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in midsummer I found her again. At first I was flattered to go places with her because she was a golf champion and every one knew her name. Then it was something more. I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity. The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something—most affectations conceal something eventually, even though they don’t in the beginning-and one day I found what it was. When we were on a house party together up in Warwick, she left a borrowed car out in the rain with the top down, and then lied about it-and suddenly I remembered the story about her that had eluded me that night at Daisy’s. At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers-a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round. The thing approached the proportions of a scandal-then died away. A caddy retracted his statement and the only other witness admitted that he might have been mistaken. The incident and the name had remained together in my mind.
我开始喜欢上纽约了，喜欢它晚间拨人心扉、勇于冒险的情调，喜欢它街上熙熙攘攘的男男女女和川流不息的过往车辆给目不暇接的注视者带来的快感。我喜欢在第五大道漫步，从人群中选出一些浪漫的姑娘，幻想着我几分钟之内便能进入她们的生活，没人能够察觉或发表异议。有时候，在我脑海里我会尾随她们回到位于偏僻街道拐角上的公寓，她们会朝我回眸一笑，然后再进门，消失在温馨的黑色之中。在这神秘魅人的都市黄昏，我时常感到一种挥之不去的寂寞，而且我觉得别人也有同感（那些可怜的青年职员，在橱窗前徘徊不停，时候到了就在餐馆独自吃顿晚餐），他们虚度了夜晚和人生中最动人心弦的时光。
晚上八点，四十几街那一带阴暗小巷里挤满了五辆一排、轰轰作响的出租车，它们朝着剧院区进发，一时间我内心深处的失落感油然而生。出租车停候时，车里人影依偎在一起，传出歌声和听不见的笑话引发的笑声，点燃的香烟映衬出车里模糊不清的姿势。幻想中，仿佛我也直奔他们的欢乐而去，分享他们亲密无间的快活，我由衷地祝福他们。
我好久没见乔丹 ·贝克，谁知仲夏时节的一天，我又找到了她。起先，和她一起出没四处我觉得挺荣耀，因为她是一名高尔夫球冠军，人人都知道她的大名。后来，我发现还有额外的因素。我并没坠入爱河，但我意识到我对她抱有一种温柔的好奇心。她面对世界的那副厌烦、高傲的脸庞后面好像隐藏着什么（大多数的故作姿态即使一开始没有此意，但最终都隐藏着什么）。有一天，我发现了真相。有一次我俩一同去沃维克参加一个别墅聚会，她借了辆车，车篷没拉上就停在雨里，然后就此撒了谎--这使我瞬间记起那天晚上在黛西家里我没能想起来的有关她的一件传闻。在她第一次参加重大高尔夫球锦标赛上，曾发生了一场风波，差点见报，有人暗示她在半决赛中曾经把她的球从不好的落地挪动过。此事几乎激化到丑闻的地步，但后来又平息下来。一个球童矢口推翻了先前的声明，而仅有的另一位目击证人也承认自己或许搞错了。这次事件与她的名字从此就一起印在我脑海里。
Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever shrewd men and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage, and given this unwillingness I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard jaunty body.
It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply—I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was on that same house party that we had a curious conversation about driving a car. It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button on one man’s coat.
“You’re a rotten driver,” I protested. “Either you ought to be more careful or you oughtn’t to drive at all.”
“I am careful.”
“No, you’re not.”
出于本能，乔丹 ·贝克刻意回避精明能干的男人。我现在才明白，这是因为她认为混迹于一个坚信任何越轨行为都不可能发生的小圈子较为保险。她为人不诚实，已到了无可救药的地步。她不能忍受自己身处劣势，而且正是出于这样的不甘心，我想她从小就开始玩弄手段，维持一副冷峻傲慢的笑容来面对世界，同时满足她那硬朗、矫健躯体的需求。
我对此满不在乎。女人的不诚实是件不必深究的事——我只是漫不经心地觉得遗憾，可是事后就忘得一干二净。就在那次别墅聚会期间，我俩饶有趣味地聊过开车一事，起因是她紧挨着一些工人开车前行，结果汽车挡泥板刮落了一个工人上衣的纽扣。
“你是个车技糟透的司机，”我抗议道，“你得加倍小心，要不索性别开车。”
“我挺小心。”
“不，你不小心。”
“Well, other people are,” she said lightly.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“They’ll keep out of my way,” she insisted. “It takes two to make an accident.”
“Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself.”
“I hope I never will,” she answered. “I hate careless people. That’s why I like you.”
Her grey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. I’d been writing letters once a week and signing them:“Love, Nick,” and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free.
Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.
“那么，其他人会小心的。”她若无其事地说。
“那跟你小心开车有何关系？”
“他们会避开我呀，”她强词夺理地说，“两方相遇才可能发生车祸呢。”
“要是你碰上一位和你一样粗心大意的人怎么办？”
“我希望永远不会碰到，”她答道，“我讨厌粗心大意的人。这就是我喜欢你的原因。”
在太阳的照耀下，她眯缝着灰色双眼，注视着前方，但她已经蓄意改变了我俩之间的关系，可是一瞬间我觉得自己似乎真的爱上了她。然而，我生来思维迟钝，内心充满清规戒律，对我的七情六欲具有刹车的作用。我知道我得先让自己确确实实地摆脱家乡的那段纠葛。我已坚持每周写封信，信末签上“爱你，尼克”，可是我能记起的只是那位姑娘一打网球，上唇就会出现一溜胡楂似的汗珠。不管怎样，我俩之间曾经有过一种含糊不清的默契，需要委婉地将其中断，我才能自由。
每个人都认为自己至少拥有一大美德，而我的美德就是：我是我所知的少数诚实人之一。
[1] 西班牙一城市，所产头巾享有盛誉。
[2] 当时流行的一种爵士音乐。
[3] Joe Frisco是当时名噪一时的爵士舞蹈家。
[4] 纽约舞蹈明星。
[5] 一家虚拟的公司，作者或许受到当时闻名的珠宝店Cartier’s 一名的启发。
[6] 美国旅行家、作家和演说家
[7] 美国著名舞台监督、导演和剧作家，最先把短篇小说“蝴蝶夫人”搬上舞台。
[8] 纽约曼哈顿的穷人与移民居住区。
[9] 通常指曼哈顿南端，或曼哈顿金融中心。下文出现的信托公司系作者杜撰。
[10] 耶鲁校友的会所。