了不起的盖茨比:有声导读·插图版:英汉对照
On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages along shore the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn.
“He’s a bootlegger,” said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. “One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass.”
Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a time-table the names of those who came to Gatsby’s house that summer. It is an old time-table now, disintegrating at its folds and headed “This schedule in effect July 5th, 1922.” But I can still read the grey names and they will give you a better impression than my generalities of those who accepted Gatsby’s hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him.
From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches and a man named Bunsen whom I knew at Yale and Doctor Webster Civet who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires and a whole clan named Blackbuck who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near. And the Ismays and the Chrysties (or rather Hubert Auerbach and Mr. Chrystie’s wife) and Edgar Beaver, whose hair they say turned cotton-white one winter afternoon for no good reason at all.
星期天上午，当海湾沿岸村镇里的教堂钟声响起，这世界的各路绅士和情人又重返盖茨比的别墅，在他的草坪上打情骂俏，寻欢作乐。
“他是个私酒贩子，”几位年轻女士一边说着，一边游离在他的鸡尾酒和鲜花之间，“有一次，他杀了个人，因为那人打探出他是 冯 ·兴登堡[1]的侄子和“魔鬼”[2]的远房表弟。宝贝儿，给我摘朵玫瑰花，再往那只水晶杯里给我倒上最后一滴酒。”
有一次，我在火车时刻表上的空白处记下了那年夏天来过盖茨比家的客人名单。如今，这张时刻表已经老旧不堪，顺着折痕散开了，上端印着：“本时刻表一九二二年七月五日起生效。”可是我还能认出那些褪成灰色的名字，它们给你的印象远胜于我提供的有关这些客人的笼统信息。这些人接受了盖茨比的盛情款待，然而微妙地回敬他的却是对他一无所知。
那么，从东卵来的有切斯特 ·贝克夫妇、利契夫妇，一位名叫邦森的耶鲁故交，还有去年夏天在缅因州溺水而亡的韦布斯特 ·斯威特医生。另外还有霍恩必姆夫妇、威利 ·伏尔泰夫妇，一帮名叫布莱克巴克的人。他们总是聚在角落里，一见有人走近就像山羊一样翘起他们的鼻子。再有就是伊斯梅夫妇、克里斯蒂夫妇（或者说是胡伯特 ·奥巴赫和克里斯蒂先生的太太）及埃德加 ·比弗，听人说他的头发在一个冬天的下午不知为何就变成棉花似的一片斑白了。
Clarence Endive was from East Egg, as I remember. He came only once, in white knickerbockers, and had a fight with a bum named Etty in the garden. From farther out on the Island came the Cheadles and the O. R. P. Schraeders and the Stonewall Jackson Abrams of Georgia and the Fishguards and the Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days before he went to the penitentiary, so drunk out on the gravel drive that Mrs. Ulysses Swett’s automobile ran over his right hand. The Dancies came too and S. B. Whitebait, who was well over sixty, and Maurice A. Flink and the Hammerheads and Beluga the tobacco importer and Beluga’s girls.
From West Egg came the Poles and the Mulreadys and Cecil Roebuck and Cecil Schoen and Gulick the state senator and Newton Orchid who controlled Films Par Excellence and Eckhaust and Clyde Cohen and Don S. Schwartze (the son) and Arthur Mc Carty, all connected with the movies in one way or another. And the Catlips and the Bembergs and G. Earl Muldoon, brother to that Muldoon who afterward strangled his wife. Da Fontano the promoter came there, and Ed Legros and James B. (“Rot-Gut”) Ferret and the De Jongs and Ernest Lilly—they came to gamble and when Ferret wandered into the garden it meant he was cleaned out and Associated Traction would have to fluctuate profitably next day.
A man named Klipspringer was there so often and so long that he became known as “the boarder”—I doubt if he had any other home. Of theatrical people there were Gus Waize and Horace O’Donavan and Lester Meyer and George Duckweed and Francis Bull. Also from New York were the Chromes and the Backhyssons and the Dennickers and Russel Betty and the Corrigans and the Kellehers and the Dewars and the Scullys and S. W. Belcher and the Smirkes and the young Quinns, divorced now, and Henry L. Palmetto who killed himself by jumping in front of a subway train in Times Square.
我记得克莱伦斯 ·恩迪武也来自东卵。他只来过一次，穿了条白色的灯笼裤，在花园里跟一个名叫艾缇的混蛋打了一架。从长岛更远的地方而来的有奇德尔夫妇、欧 ·阿 ·普 ·西雷德夫妇、乔治亚州人斯通沃尔 ·杰克森 ·艾布拉姆夫妇、菲希伽德夫妇和利普 雷 ·斯内尔夫妇。斯内尔进监狱的前三天还来过，他那天喝得酩酊大醉，倒在石子车道上，结果右手被尤利西斯 ·斯威特太太的汽车碾压过去。另外还有丹西斯夫妇、早已年过六旬的斯 ·布 ·怀特贝特、莫里斯 ·艾 ·菲林克、汉姆海德夫妇、烟草进口商贝鲁格和贝鲁格的姑娘们。
从西卵来的有珀尔夫妇、穆尔雷迪夫妇、瑟西尔 ·鲁巴克和瑟西尔 ·项恩、州参议员古力克、掌控卓越影片公司的牛顿 ·奥切德；艾克豪斯特、克莱尔德 ·寇恩、堂 ·斯 ·希沃兹（儿子）和阿瑟 ·莫卡提，这几位都跟电影界多少有点关系；还有凯特利普夫妇、贝姆布格夫妇、格 ·厄尔 ·穆尔东，就是后来勒死老婆的名叫穆尔东的兄弟。大赛推手达 ·方塔诺来过，艾德 ·雷格罗斯、詹姆斯 ·布 ·菲雷特（绰号“臭酒”）、德 ·雍夫妇、恩斯特 ·李利过来赌钱，只要菲雷特晃晃悠悠地进入花园，那一定是他又输了个精光，第二天联合引力公司[3]的股票就会有利可图地涨落一番。
一位名叫克利普斯布林格的人因为来的次数又多、待的时间又长，变成大家熟知的“房客”了——我怀疑他也许真是别无居所。来自戏剧圈的人当中有伽斯 ·梅兹、贺拉斯 ·欧荡纳温、雷斯特 ·马艾、乔治 ·达科维德和法郎西斯 ·波尔。从纽约来的还有克罗姆夫妇、巴克海松夫妇、丹尼克夫妇、拉塞尔 ·贝缇、考利根夫妇、凯勒赫夫妇、杜威夫妇、斯伽利夫妇、斯 ·温 ·贝尓谢、斯姆克夫妇、年轻但现已离婚的奎因夫妇，以及已在时代广场迎头跳向一列地铁机车自杀的亨利 ·利 ·帕尔梅陀。
Benny Mc Clenahan arrived always with four girls. They were never quite the same ones in physical person but they were so identical one with another that it inevitably seemed they had been there before. I have forgotten their names—Jaqueline, I think, or else Consuela or Gloria or Judy or June, and their last names were either the melodious names of flowers and months or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists whose cousins, if pressed, they would confess themselves to be.
In addition to all these I can remember that Faustina O’Brien came there at least once and the Baedeker girls and young Brewer who had his nose shot off in the war and Mr. Albrucksburger and Miss Haag, his fiancée, and Ardita Fitz-Peters, and Mr. P. Jewett, once head of the American Legion, and Miss Claudia Hip with a man reputed to be her chauffeur, and a prince of something whom we called Duke and whose name, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten.
All these people came to Gatsby’s house in the summer.
At nine o’clock, one morning late in July Gatsby’s gorgeous car lurched up the rocky drive to my door and gave out a burst of melody from its three noted horn. It was the first time he had called on me though I had gone to two of his parties, mounted in his hydroplane, and, at his urgent invitation, made frequent use of his beach.
“Good morning, old sport. You’re having lunch with me today and I thought we’d ride up together.”
本尼 ·穆克莱纳汉总是左拥右抱四个姑娘而来。虽然在身相上她们并非是同样的姑娘，但是她们的模样却十分相像，结果看上去她们好像都来过似的。我已经忘记了她们的名字——我记得是杰克琳，要不就是康苏艾乐、格劳丽雅、朱迪或居恩；她们的姓不是音质悦耳的花名和月份名，就是那些美国大资本家中常有的较为庄严的姓氏。一旦你追问，她们或许就会承认自己是他们的远亲。
除了以上的人，我还记得佛斯迪纳 ·欧布莱恩至少来过一次，还有贝德克姐妹、在战争期间鼻子被打掉的年轻的布鲁尔、阿尔布拉克斯伯格先生和他的未婚妻黑格小姐、阿迪塔 ·菲兹彼特斯和曾任美国退伍军人协会主席的皮 ·朱威特先生、克劳迪雅 ·希普小姐和一位被公认为是她司机的男伴。另有一位某地的王子，我们都叫他“公爵”，而他的大名，即使我曾经知道，我也早已忘得一干二净。
以上所列的人那年夏天都来过盖茨比的别墅。
七月下旬的一天早上九点，盖茨比的豪华汽车顺着高低不平的车道颠到我的门前，鸣响了三个音符的喇叭，发出一阵悦耳的声音。这是他初次光临我的寒舍，而我已经参加过两次他的聚会，乘过他的水上飞机，还在他的敦促之下常常享用他的海滩。
“你早，老兄。你我今天约定共进午餐，我想我们索性就开车同行吧。”
He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American—that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.
He saw me looking with admiration at his car.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it, old sport.” He jumped off to give me a better view. “Haven’t you ever seen it before?”
I’d seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory we started to town.
I had talked with him perhaps half a dozen times in the past month and found, to my disappointment, that he had little to say. So my first impression, that he was a person of some undefined consequence, had gradually faded and he had become simply the proprietor of an elaborate roadhouse next door.
And then came that disconcerting ride. We hadn’t reached West Egg village before Gatsby began leaving his elegant sentences unfinished and slapping himself indecisively on the knee of his caramel-colored suit.
“Look here, old sport,” he broke out surprisingly. “What’s your opinion of me, anyhow?”
他站在汽车的挡泥板上，保持着身体的平衡，动作显示出美国人特有的矫健姿势——我想能有这样的姿势是因为年轻时没做过搬运的重活，或者没老是死板地端坐着；更重要的是这样的姿势来自我们众多剧烈紧张、章法独特的运动中不拘一格的优雅动作。他的这一特点不断地以局促不安的神情突破他通常的彬彬有礼常态。他从来不能完全镇定自若；他总是有只脚在拍打着地面，要不就是有只手急促地一张一合。
他看见我在用羡慕的眼光观赏着他的豪车。
“这车挺漂亮，是吗，老兄？”他跳下车，以便让我看得更清楚，“你以前没见过这辆车吧？”
我见过，大家都见过。汽车漆的是鲜艳的奶油色，车上镍制部件闪闪发光，车身长得令人惊骇，前后左右鼓出各种招摇的盒子，如帽盒、晚餐盒、工具盒，层层叠叠的挡风玻璃折射出十几个太阳的光辉。我们在多层玻璃后面、类似一个观望台的绿皮车座里坐下，开始向市里进发。
在过去的一个月里，我大概与盖茨比交谈过六次，可是我失望地发现他总是沉默寡言。因此，我最初以为他来历令人莫测的印象已经逐渐淡去，现在觉得他只不过是我隔壁一所路边豪华酒店的主人而已。
接着发生的就是我俩那次令人颇感窘迫的进城之行。我们还没开到西卵，说话文绉绉的盖茨比就开始半吞半吐，手迟疑不定地拍打他那焦糖色的西裤膝盖。
“唉，老兄，”他出其不意地开了口，“你究竟对我有何看法？”
A little overwhelmed, I began the generalized evasions which that question deserves.
“Well, I’m going to tell you something about my life,” he interrupted. “I don’t want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear.”
So he was aware of the bizarre accusations that flavored conversation in his halls.
“I’ll tell you God’s truth.” His right hand suddenly ordered divine retribution to stand by. “I am the son of some wealthy people in the middle-west—all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition.”
He looked at me sideways—and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying. He hurried the phrase “educated at Oxford,” or swallowed it or choked on it as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt his whole statement fell to pieces and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him after all.
“What part of the middle-west?” I inquired casually.
“San Francisco.”
“I see.”
“My family all died and I came into a good deal of money.”
His voice was solemn as if the memory of that sudden extinction of a clan still haunted him. For a moment I suspected that he was pulling my leg but a glance at him convinced me otherwise.
“After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe—Paris, Venice, Rome—collecting jewels, chiefly rubies,hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only, and trying to forget something very sad that had happened to me long ago.”
我有点措手不及，开始借助通常搪塞问题的手法支吾过去。
“算了，我来跟你说说我的身世吧，”没等我开口，他就插了话，“我不想让你听了那些传言后对我产生误解。”
原来他对那些给他家厅堂里的谈话添油加醋的流言蜚语了如指掌。
“上帝可以见证，我对你说的都是真话。”他忽然挥起右手，像是命令来自上天的惩罚做好准备，“我是中西部富家之子——家人都已过世。我长在美国，但在牛津受的教育，因为多年来我的祖祖辈辈都在那儿就学，这是家里的传统。”
他斜着眼看着我——我忽然明白为什么乔丹 ·贝克曾认定他撒谎。他把“在牛津受的教育”一词匆匆带过，试图掩饰一下，或卡住喉音支吾过去，好像这以前就为难过他。因为这个疑点，他的整套说辞立即支离破碎了，我反而猜疑他到底有没有什么邪恶之处。
“你来自中西部什么地方？”我随意问道。
“旧金山。”
“哦。”
“我家人都去世了，由我继承了一大笔钱。”
他的嗓音挺沉重，好像突然痛失一个家族的记忆仍在折磨他。一时间我怀疑他是在戏弄我，可是望了他一眼之后我确信并非如此。
“从那以后，我像一个年轻的印度王子在欧洲各国的首都生活，例如巴黎、威尼斯、罗马，收集以红宝石为主的珠宝，狩猎大型动物，学习绘画，做些逍遥自在的事情，竭力忘却好久以前一件伤透我心的事件。”
With an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned “character” leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne.
“Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief and I tried very hard to die but I seemed to bear an enchanted life. I accepted a commission as first lieutenant when it began. In the Argonne Forest I took two machine-gun detachments so far forward that there was a half mile gap on either side of us where the infantry couldn’t advance. We stayed there two days and two nights, a hundred and thirty men with sixteen Lewis guns, and when the infantry came up at last they found the insignia of three German divisions among the piles of dead. I was promoted to be a major and every Allied government gave me a decoration—even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!”
Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at them—with his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro’s troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated fully the chain of national circumstances which had elicited this tribute from Montenegro’s warm little heart. My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines.
He reached in his pocket and a piece of metal, slung on a ribbon, fell into my palm.
“That’s the one from Montenegro.”
To my astonishment, the thing had an authentic look.
我竭尽全力没让自己笑出声来。他的信口开河真是老调重弹，在我的脑海里只能勾勒出一个意象，即一名裹着头巾的“人物”在布隆尼公园[4]里边追赶一只老虎，边从每个毛孔里丢撒着木屑。
“后来大战爆发，老兄。对我来说这是个莫大的解脱，我竭尽全力想一死了之，可是我似乎有个不可思议的命。大战开始，我被委任为中尉。阿贡森林之战期间[5]，我带领两个机枪连突前行动，结果我们两翼都有半英里宽的空地，步兵根本无法向前推进。我们在那坚守了两天两夜，一百三十个人，配备着十六挺刘易斯式机枪。等到步兵终于上来时，他们在尸体堆里找到三个德国师的军徽标记。我被提升为少校，而且各个同盟国政府都给我授勋——甚至包括蒙特内哥罗，亚得里亚海边那个小小的蒙特内哥罗[6]！”
小小的蒙特内哥罗！他提高嗓门说出这个国名，微笑着点头致意。他这一笑显示出，他了解蒙特内哥罗多灾多难的历史，同情该国人民的英勇斗争，同时也充分理解该国一系列的国情促使该国从它热情的小小心灵里向他表示致敬。此时此刻，我的怀疑已被惊奇入迷取而代之，就好像一口气匆匆浏览了十几本杂志。
他把手伸进口袋，接着一块系着缎带的金属片落入我的手掌。
“这就是蒙特内哥罗授予我的那块勋章。”
令我惊讶的是，这东西看上去挺像真的。
Orderi di Danilo, ran the circular legend, Montenegro, Nicolas Rex.
“Turn it.”
Major Jay Gatsby, I read, For Valour Extraordinary.
“Here’s another thing I always carry. A souvenir of Oxford days. It was taken in Trinity Quad—the man on my left is now the Earl of Dorcaster.”
It was a photograph of half a dozen young men in blazers loafing in an archway through which were visible a host of spires. There was Gatsby, looking a little, not much, younger—with a cricket bat in his hand.
Then it was all true. I saw the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on the Grand Canal; I saw him opening a chest of rubies to ease, with their crimson-lighted depths, the gnawings of his broken heart.
“I’m going to make a big request of you today,” he said, pocketing his souvenirs with satisfaction, “so I thought you ought to know something about me. I didn’t want you to think I was just some nobody. You see, I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad thing that happened to me.”He hesitated. “You’ll hear about it this afternoon.”
“At lunch?”
“No, this afternoon. I happened to find out that you’re taking Miss Baker to tea.”
“Do you mean you’re in love with Miss Baker?”
“No, old sport, I’m not. But Miss Baker has kindly consented to speak to you about this matter.”
I hadn’t the faintest idea what “this matter” was, but I was more annoyed than interested. I hadn’t asked Jordan to tea in order to discuss Mr. Jay Gatsby. I was sure the request would be something utterly fantastic and for a moment I was sorry I’d ever set foot upon his overpopulated lawn.
“丹尼娄勋章，”奖章上一圈刻着，“蒙特内哥罗，国王尼古拉斯”[7]。”
“翻过来。”
“杰伊 ·盖茨比少校，”我念道，“英勇无比。”
“这儿还有一样我随身携带的东西，一件在牛津求学的纪念品。一张在“三一学院方院”[8]里拍的照片——我左边这个人现在是唐卡斯特伯爵。”
这是一张六位年轻人的合影，身穿运动外套，悠闲地站在一处拱形门廊下面，门廊后面可看见好多建筑的尖塔。盖茨比也在其中，比现在稍微年轻点，但也差不多，手握一根板球棒。
由此看来，一切似乎都是真的。我仿佛看见，他在大运河畔[9]的宫殿里展示的一张张光彩耀眼的虎皮，他在打开一箱红宝石，借助宝石的珠光宝气来化解他那破碎之心的折磨。
“我今天有要事相求。”他说，同时心满意足地将他的纪念品都装进兜里。“我想你该对我有所了解，我不愿让你觉得我是个无名之辈。你看啊，我通常发现自己身处陌生人中间，因为我东游西荡，试图忘却我那件伤心之事。”他迟疑了一下，“你今天下午就会耳闻其详了。”
“共进午餐的时候？
“不是，今天下午。我偶尔听说你约请了贝克小姐喝茶。”
“你是说你爱上了贝克小姐？”
“不，老兄，我没有。可是贝克小姐好心应允，让我跟你谈谈这事。”
他所指的“这件事”我一无所知，我不但对此毫无兴趣，相反觉得十分恼火。我可没有约请贝克小姐喝茶来谈论杰伊 ·盖茨比先生。我可以肯定，他说的“要事相求”一定是件完全想入非非的事情。一瞬间，我真后悔当初不该踏上他那挤满过多宾客的草坪。
He wouldn’t say another word. His correctness grew on him as we neared the city. We passed Port Roosevelt, where there was a glimpse of red-belted ocean-going ships, and sped along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserted saloons of the faded gilt nineteen-hundreds. Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse of Mrs. Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by.
With fenders spread like wings we scattered light through half Astoria—only half, for as we twisted among the pillars of the elevated I heard the familiar “jug—jug—SPAT!” of a motor cycle, and a frantic policeman rode alongside.
“All right, old sport,” called Gatsby. We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet he waved it before the man’s eyes.
“Right you are,” agreed the policeman, tipping his cap. “Know you next time, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse ME!”
“What was that?” I inquired. “The picture of Oxford?”
“I was able to do the commissioner a favor once, and he sends me a Christmas card every year.”
Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
他一言不发了。我们离城区越近，他越显得一本正经。我们经过罗斯福码头，在那看见几艘带有一圈红漆的远洋轮船，又沿着一个贫民窟的石子路急驰而过，路的两旁布满多家黑蒙蒙、但熙熙攘攘的酒馆，一定是辉煌不再的二十世纪初遗留下来的。紧接着，灰谷在我们两侧展开。车经过汽车修理站时，我一眼看见威尔逊太太在加油机旁气喘吁吁、干劲十足地替人加油。
汽车的挡泥板像伸展的翅膀，我们沿途把亮光洒遍了半个艾斯托利亚街区——仅仅半个街区，因为就在我们绕行于高架铁路支柱之间时，我听到熟悉的“突—突—啪”的摩托车声响，只见一名丧心病狂的警察与我们并行而驶。
“行了，老兄。”盖茨比叫道。我们慢慢停了车，盖茨比从皮夹里拿出一张白卡，在警察的眼前晃了晃。
“您没事，”警察连声应承，轻提帽檐表示歉意，“下次就认识您了，盖茨比先生。请原谅！”
“那是什么卡片？”我问道，“是那张牛津的照片？”
“我有幸帮过警察局局长一次忙，所以他每年给我寄张圣诞卡。”
大桥上，阳光透过钢架照在来往的车辆上，不断地闪闪发光。河对岸的城市高高耸起一幢幢洁白的高楼大厦和糖块似的房屋，全凭一个心愿启用毫无铜臭味的资金建造而成。从皇后区大桥望见的纽约市，永远就像初次见到的城市一样，先向你不着边际地承诺世上所有的神秘和美丽。
A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby’s splendid car was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed Blackwell’s Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry.
“Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,” I thought;“anything at all...”
Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder.
Roaring noon. In a well-fanned Forty-second Street cellar I met Gatsby for lunch. Blinking away the brightness of the street outside my eyes picked him out obscurely in the anteroom, talking to another man.
“Mr. Carraway this is my friend Mr. Wolfshiem.”
A small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half darkness.
“—so I took one look at him—” said Mr. Wolfshiem, shaking my hand earnestly, “—and what do you think I did?”
“What?” I inquired politely.
But evidently he was not addressing me for he dropped my hand and covered Gatsby with his expressive nose.
“I handed the money to Katspaugh and I sid, ‘All right, Katspaugh, don’t pay him a penny till he shuts his mouth.’ He shut it then and there.”
一个死人在一辆缀满了鲜花的灵柩里从我们一旁经过，车后跟着两辆拉着窗帘的马车，还有几辆显得轻松些的马车载着送殡的朋友。这些朋友在车里用悲伤的眼神望着我们，从他们短短的上唇可以看出他们来自欧洲东南部。令我宽慰的是，在他们肃穆的送殡之旅中能有幸看一眼盖茨比的豪车。我们经过布莱克威尔岛时，一辆加长轿车超越了我们。车由一位白人司机驾驶，车内坐着三位时髦黑人，两男一女。他们朝着我们翻翻白眼，摆出一副高傲好斗的神态，我看了放声大笑。
“我们一过这桥，任何事情都有可能发生，”我思忖着，“任何怪事都会……”
甚至盖茨比似的人物都会出现，不足为奇。
炎热的中午。我与盖茨比在四十二号街一间开足风扇的地下餐厅见面，共进午餐。我眨眨眼避开外面街上的亮光，模糊不清地看见他在休息室里，正跟另一个人说着话。
“凯拉威先生，这是我的朋友沃尔夫谢姆先生。”
一名矮小、塌鼻的犹太人抬起他的大脑瓜注视着我，鼻孔里长满两撮浓密的鼻毛。过了一阵子，我才在半明半暗的光线里捕捉到他的一对小眼睛。
“……对了，我看了他一眼，”沃尔夫谢姆先生边说边热情地握着我的手，“然后，你猜我做了什么？”
“什么？”我礼貌地问道。
然而，他显然不是在跟我说话，因为他放下我的手，把他那极富表现力的鼻子转向盖茨比。
“我把钱交给卡赤坡，并对他说：‘这样吧，卡赤坡，除非他闭嘴，你分文不要给他。’他立马就闭了嘴。”
Gatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant whereupon Mr. Wolfshiem swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction.
“Highballs?” asked the head waiter.
“This is a nice restaurant here,” said Mr. Wolfshiem looking at the Presbyterian nymphs on the ceiling. “But I like across the street better!”
“Yes, highballs,” agreed Gatsby, and then to Mr. Wolfshiem:“It’s too hot over there.”
“Hot and small—yes,” said Mr. Wolfshiem, “but full of memories.”
“What place is that?” I asked.
“The old Metropole.”
“The old Metropole,” brooded Mr. Wolfshiem gloomily. “Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can’t forget so long as I live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him outside.‘All right,’ says Rosy and begins to get up and I pulled him down in his chair.”
“Let the bastards come in here if they want you, Rosy, but don’t you, so help me, move outside this room.”
“It was four o’clock in the morning then, and if we’d of raised the blinds we’d of seen daylight.”
“Did he go?” I asked innocently.
“Sure he went,”—Mr. Wolfshiem’s nose flashed at me indignantly—“He turned around in the door and says, ‘Don’t let that waiter take away my coffee!’ Then he went out on the sidewalk and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove away.”
盖茨比握住我俩的一只胳膊，向前进了餐馆，沃尔夫谢姆先生也就此打住他刚启口说的话，陷入梦游般的虚无状态。
“来几杯苏打威士忌？”一位领班侍者问道。
“这家餐馆挺好，”沃尔夫谢姆先生一边说着，一边仰望着天花板上的长老会仙女画，“可是我还是更喜欢街对面那家！”
“好的，来几杯苏打威士忌，”盖茨比答应道，随后又对沃尔夫谢姆先生说，“那家馆子太热。”
“又热又小——说得对，”沃尔夫谢姆先生说，“但那里充满回忆。”
“哪家餐馆？”我问道。
“老大都会。”
“老大都会，”沃尔夫谢姆先生忧伤地思忖着，“那里聚集过不少消亡和消逝的面孔，不少永远失去的朋友。只要活着，我不会忘记那天晚上他们在那开枪做了罗西 ·罗森梢。我们一桌六人，罗西一晚上吃喝不停。将近天亮时，侍者表情诡异地走到他面前，说屋外有人要跟他说话。‘好的，’罗西说着，想站起身来，可我一下子把他拉回坐椅。
“‘如果他们想见你，罗西，就让那些杂种自己滚进来，但是帮帮忙，你千万别走出这间屋子。’
“那时候已经是清晨四点，如果我们拉起窗帘的话，就该看见天亮了。”
“他出去了吗？”我天真地问。
“当然出去了。”沃尔夫谢姆先生气冲冲地朝我翘了翘他的鼻子，“他走到门口还转过身来说，‘别让那侍者拿走我的咖啡！’说完他走到屋外人行道上，他们朝他酒足饭饱的肚子连开三枪，然后开车溜之大吉。”
“Four of them were electrocuted,” I said, remembering.
“Five with Becker.” His nostrils turned to me in an interested way.“I understand you’re looking for a business gonnegtion.”
The juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling. Gatsby answered for me:
“Oh, no,” he exclaimed, “this isn’t the man!”
“No?” Mr. Wolfshiem seemed disappointed.
“This is just a friend. I told you we’d talk about that some other time.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Wolfshiem, “I had a wrong man.”
A succulent hash arrived, and Mr. Wolfshiem, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy. His eyes, meanwhile, roved very slowly all around the room—he completed the arc by turning to inspect the people directly behind. I think that, except for my presence, he would have taken one short glance beneath our own table.
“Look here, old sport,” said Gatsby, leaning toward me, “I’m afraid I made you a little angry this morning in the car.”
There was the smile again, but this time I held out against it.
“I don’t like mysteries,” I answered. “And I don’t understand why you won’t come out frankly and tell me what you want. Why has it all got to come through Miss Baker?”
“Oh, it’s nothing underhand,” he assured me. “Miss Baker’s a great sportswoman, you know, and she’d never do anything that wasn’t all right.”
Suddenly he looked at his watch, jumped up and hurried from the room leaving me with Mr. Wolfshiem at the table.
“其中有四人被处以电刑。”我记起当年这条新闻，补充了一句。
“算上贝克，总共是五个人。”他的鼻孔转向我，显出一副对我有兴趣的样子，“我听说你在寻求做生意的关系”[10]。
这两句话连在一块听起来有点惊人。盖茨比替我搭了话：
“哦，不对，”他叫道，“这不是那个人。”
“不是？”沃尔夫谢姆先生似乎有点失望。
“这位只是个朋友。我跟你说过，我们另找时间再谈那件事。”
“请原谅，”沃尔夫谢姆先生说，“我搞错人了。”
一盘香喷喷的肉烩蔬菜上了桌，顿时沃尔夫谢姆先生忘掉了老大都会那伤感的气氛，开始大口、但不失斯文地吃了起来。与此同时，他的眼睛慢条斯理地扫视了一下屋内——等他察看了我们身后的客人以后算是环视了一个弧圈。我想，如果我不在座，他恐怕连我们自己的桌底下也会看上一眼。
“听我说，老兄，”盖茨比凑过身来说，“今天早上在车里我恐怕惹你生气了吧？”
他脸上又露出那个笑容，不过这次我不领情面。
“我不喜欢神神秘秘的一套，”我答道，“我不明白你为什么不愿开诚布公地告诉我你究竟要什么。为什么一切非得经过贝克小姐？”
“哦，没什么见不得人的事，”他向我担保，“你知道，贝克小姐是个出色的女运动健将，她绝不会做任何不正当的事。”
突然间，他看了看手表，一跃而起，匆匆离开了餐厅，把我和沃尔夫谢姆先生留在餐桌上。
“He has to telephone,” said Mr. Wolfshiem, following him with his eyes. “Fine fellow, isn’t he? Handsome to look at and a perfect gentleman.”
“Yes.”
“He’s an Oggsford man.”
“Oh!”
“He went to Oggsford College in England. You know Oggsford College?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s one of the most famous colleges in the world.”
“Have you known Gatsby for a long time?” I inquired.
“Several years,” he answered in a gratified way. “I made the pleasure of his acquaintance just after the war. But I knew I had discovered a man of fine breeding after I talked with him an hour. I said to myself:‘There’s the kind of man you’d like to take home and introduce to your mother and sister.’” He paused. “I see you’re looking at my cuff buttons.”
I hadn’t been looking at them, but I did now. They were composed of oddly familiar pieces of ivory.
“Finest specimens of human molars,” he informed me.
“Well!” I inspected them. “That’s a very interesting idea.”
“Yeah.” He flipped his sleeves up under his coat. “Yeah, Gatsby’s very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend’s wife.”
When the subject of this instinctive trust returned to the table and sat down Mr. Wolfshiem drank his coffee with a jerk and got to his feet.
“他得打个电话，”沃尔夫谢姆先生说着，目送盖茨比出了门，“好人，是不是？仪表堂堂，正人君子。”
“是的。”
“他是牛‘劲’毕业的”[11]。
“哦！”
“他在英国牛‘劲’大学念的书。你知道牛‘劲’大学吗？”
“我听说过。”
“那是世界上最著名的大学之一。”
“你认识盖茨比好久了吗？”我问道。
“好几年了，”他怡然自得地答道，“大战一结束，我就有幸与他相识了。我与他交谈了才一小时，我就知道我找到了一个富有教养的人。我对自己说：‘这就是你想带回家、并介绍给你母亲和妹妹的那种男人。’”说完，他稍停片刻。“我知道你在看我的袖扣。”
我原来没在看，可现在我反而看了。这副袖扣是由几块象牙片制成的，看上去有点怪异，也挺眼熟。
“是用上好的真人臼齿做的。”他告诉我。
“是嘛！”我细看了一下袖扣，“这的确是个有意思的点子。”
“是啊。”他在外套里翻起他的袖子，“是啊，盖茨比与女士们交往时相当小心谨慎，从来不多看一眼朋友的老婆。”
受到友人本能性信赖的这位仁兄重回餐桌坐下时，沃尔夫谢姆先生一口喝完他的咖啡，站起身来。
“I have enjoyed my lunch,” he said, “and I’m going to run off from you two young men before I outstay my welcome.”
“Don’t hurry, Meyer,” said Gatsby, without enthusiasm. Mr. Wolfshiem raised his hand in a sort of benediction.
“You’re very polite but I belong to another generation,” he announced solemnly. “You sit here and discuss your sports and your young ladies and your—” He supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of his hand—“As for me, I am fifty years old, and I won’t impose myself on you any longer.”
As he shook hands and turned away his tragic nose was trembling. I wondered if I had said anything to offend him.
“He becomes very sentimental sometimes,” explained Gatsby.“This is one of his sentimental days. He’s quite a character around New York—a denizen of Broadway.”
“Who is he anyhow—an actor?”
“No.”
“A dentist?”
“Meyer Wolfshiem? No, he’s a gambler.” Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly:“He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.”
“Fixed the World’s Series?” I repeated.
The idea staggered me. I remembered of course that the World’s Series had been fixed in 1919 but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely HAPPENED, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people—with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.
“How did he happen to do that?” I asked after a minute.
“午餐吃得很高兴，”他说，“我该向你们两位年轻人告辞了，不然待久了显得我很不知趣喽。”
“别急，迈尔。”盖茨比不露殷勤地说。沃尔夫谢姆先生像祝福似的举起他的手。
“你们很客气，可我属于另一辈的人，”他庄严地宣告，“你们坐在这儿聊聊你们的体育活动、你们的年轻女郎，还有你们的——”他用再一次挥手替代了一个想象中的名词。“我呢，已经五十岁了，我不想再多打搅你们了。”
他与我们握完手、转身离开时，他那悲哀的鼻子又在颤动着。我猜想着，是不是我言语不当冒犯了他。
“他有时候会十分伤感，”盖茨比解释道，“今天算是他的一个伤感日子。他在纽约也算是个人物——百老汇一带的地头蛇。”
“他究竟是谁，一个演员？”
“不是。”
“牙医？”
“迈尔 ·沃尔夫谢姆？不，他是一个赌徒。”盖茨比犹豫了一下，接着镇定自若地补充道，“他就是非法操纵一九一九年棒球世界决赛的那个人”[12]。
“操纵世界决赛？”我重复了一遍。
这事让我大吃一惊。我当然记得一九一九年的世界决赛被人非法操纵，可是即使我想过这事，我也顶多以为一件事发生了而已，是一连串必然事件的结果。我从未想到一个人居然能愚弄五千万球迷的信任——就像一个窃贼撬开一个保险柜时那样专心致志。
“他怎么会去干那件事？”一分钟过后我问道。
“He just saw the opportunity.”
“Why isn’t he in jail?”
“They can’t get him, old sport. He’s a smart man.”
I insisted on paying the check. As the waiter brought my change I caught sight of Tom Buchanan across the crowded room.
“Come along with me for a minute,” I said. “I’ve got to say hello to someone.”
When he saw us Tom jumped up and took half a dozen steps in our direction.
“Where’ve you been?” he demanded eagerly. “Daisy’s furious because you haven’t called up.”
“This is Mr. Gatsby, Mr. Buchanan.”
They shook hands briefly and a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over Gatsby’s face.
“How’ve you been, anyhow?” demanded Tom of me. “How’d you happen to come up this far to eat?”
“I’ve been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby.”
I turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there.
One October day in nineteen-seventeen—(said Jordan Baker that afternoon, sitting up very straight on a straight chair in the tea-garden at the Plaza Hotel)—I was walking along from one place to another half on the sidewalks and half on the lawns. I was happier on the lawns because I had on shoes from England with rubber nobs on the soles that bit into the soft ground. I had on a new plaid skirt also that blew a little in the wind and whenever this happened the red, white and blue banners in front of all the houses stretched out stiff and said TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT in a disapproving way.
The largest of the banners and the largest of the lawns belonged to Daisy Fay’s house. She was just eighteen, two years older than me, and by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville. She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster and all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night,“anyways, for an hour!”
“他正巧看中了机会。”
“他为什么没坐牢？”
“他们没真凭实据逮住他，老兄。他是个聪明绝顶的人。”
我抢先把账单付了。侍者把找零给我送来时，我看见汤姆 ·布坎南在拥挤不堪的屋子那边。
“随我来一下，”我说，“我得跟一个人打声招呼。”
汤姆看见我们时，就跳了起来，朝我们这边走了五六步。
“你去哪了？”他迫不及待地问道，“黛西气坏了，因为你没打电话来。”
“这是盖茨比先生，布坎南先生。”
他俩随意地握了握手，盖茨比脸上露出一副拘泥不安、难得一见的窘迫神情。
“你近来究竟怎么样？”汤姆追问我，“你怎么大老远跑这儿来吃饭？”
“我是来和盖茨比先生共进午餐的。”
我转向盖茨比先生，可是他已不在那儿。
一九一七年十月的一天——（那天下午，乔丹 ·贝克直挺挺地坐在广场饭店饮茶花园里一张笔直的椅子上，作了如下的陈述）——我漫步从一处走向另一处，一半走在人行道上，一半走在草坪上。走在草坪上我感觉更高兴一些，因为我脚穿一双英国鞋，鞋底的橡皮疙瘩可以踩进软绵绵的地面。我穿了条新的格子呢裙子，裙摆被风微微吹起。每当我的裙摆随风一动，家家户户门前的红、白、蓝三色旗都直唰唰地伸展着，发出“啧、啧、啧”的响声，显出对我不屑一顾的气势。
最大的旗帜和最大的草坪都属于黛西 ·菲家。她那时才十八岁，比我大两岁，绝对是路易维尔市的年轻姑娘中最受青睐的一位。她身穿白衣，开着一辆白色的双座跑车，家里的电话从早到晚响个不停，那些泰勒基地里亢奋的青年军官们争先恐后地祈求能独占她一晚上时间的特权。“无论如何，得赏一个小时！”
When I came opposite her house that morning her white roadster was beside the curb, and she was sitting in it with a lieutenant I had never seen before. They were so engrossed in each other that she didn’t see me until I was five feet away.
“Hello Jordan,” she called unexpectedly. “Please come here.”
I was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I was going to the Red Cross and make bandages. I was. Well, then, would I tell them that she couldn’t come that day? The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby and I didn’t lay eyes on him again for over four years—even after I’d met him on Long Island I didn’t realize it was the same man.
That was nineteen-seventeen. By the next year I had a few beaux myself, and I began to play in tournaments, so I didn’t see Daisy very often. She went with a slightly older crowd—when she went with anyone at all. Wild rumors were circulating about her—how her mother had found her packing her bag one winter night to go to New York and say goodbye to a soldier who was going overseas. She was effectually prevented, but she wasn’t on speaking terms with her family for several weeks. After that she didn’t play around with the soldiers any more but only with a few flat-footed, short-sighted young men in town who couldn’t get into the army at all.
那天早上我从她家对面经过时，她的白色跑车停在路边，她和一位我从未见过的中尉坐在车里。他俩在车里全神贯注，一直等我到了五步之内她才看见我。
“你好，乔丹，”她出其不意地喊道，“请过来一下。”
知道她要跟我说话，我受宠若惊，因为在比我年长的姑娘当中，我最崇拜她。她问我是否去红十字会做绷带。我说是的。好，那么她问我能否告诉他们这天她就不能来了？黛西说话的时候，那位军官望着她，他看着她的样子正是每位少女都渴望別人有时会看着自己的那种神情。我觉得那十分浪漫，所以对这件事我一直记忆犹新。他的名字叫杰伊 ·盖茨比，此后四年我再也没见过他——我在长岛遇见他之后，都没意识到他们是同一个人。
那是一九一七年。到了第二年，我自己也已交过几个男朋友，开始参加比赛，因而我跟黛西不常见面。她跟年龄稍大一点的人来往——如果她还跟任何人来往的话。有关她的荒诞不经的谣言四处流传——说什么在一个冬天的晚上，她母亲发现她在整理行装，要去纽约与一位将去海外服役的军人告别。她被家人有效地阻止了，但是事后好几周她不跟家里人说话。从那以后，她再也不跟军人们来往，只是和城里几个根本参不了军的平板脚的近视眼青年混混。
By the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. She had a debut after the Armistice, and in February she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans. In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before. He came down with a hundred people in four private cars and hired a whole floor of the Seelbach Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
I was bridesmaid. I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress—and as drunk as a monkey. She had a bottle of sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other.
“Gratulate me,” she muttered. “Never had a drink before but oh, how I do enjoy it.”
“What’s the matter, Daisy?”
I was scared, I can tell you; I’d never seen a girl like that before.
“Here, dearis.” She groped around in a waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. “Take ’em downstairs and give ’em back to whoever they belong to. Tell ’em all Daisy’s change’ her mine. Say ‘Daisy’s change’ her mine!”
She began to cry—she cried and cried. I rushed out and found her mother’s maid and we locked the door and got her into a cold bath. She wouldn’t let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow.
到了第二年秋天，她重新活跃起来，如同以前。停战以后，她家为她开过一个步入社会的聚会，据说她在二月份与一位新奥尔良人订了婚。六月份，她与来自芝加哥的汤姆 ·布坎南完婚，婚礼的阔绰和场面的讲究远超路易斯维尔市以前所见识过的。他和一百位客人搭乘四节包车而来，租下希尔巴赫饭店[13]的整个一层楼。婚礼前一天，他送给黛西一串珍珠项链，估计价值三十五万美金。
我是伴娘。在婚礼之前的新娘送别宴会开席前半个小时，我走进她的房间，发现她躺在床上，身穿绣花的衣裳，就像那个六月的夜晚一样美丽——喝得烂醉如泥。她一手拿着一瓶萨特内白葡萄酒[14]，另一只手捏着一封信。
“恭……恭喜我，”她咕哝着说，“从来没喝过酒，可是，啊，我喝得真过瘾。”
“怎么回事，黛西？”
我吓蒙了。我跟你说，我从未见过一位姑娘喝成那副样子。
“听着，亲爱的。”她在带到床上的一只纸篓里翻来倒去，拿出那串珍珠项链，“把它们拿下楼去，是谁的就还给谁。告诉大家，黛西改……改变主意了。就说：‘黛西已改变主……利……了！’”[15]。
她开始痛哭流涕——哭了又哭。我奔出去找到她母亲的佣人，接着我们锁上房门，让她洗个冷水澡。她还是不肯松手放下那封信，反而把它带进浴缸，拧成一只湿淋淋的纸球。直到她看见纸球碎得像雪花了，才肯让我把它放进肥皂碟里。
But she didn’t say another word. We gave her spirits of ammonia and put ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress and half an hour later when we walked out of the room the pearls were around her neck and the incident was over. Next day at five o’clock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver and started off on a three months’ trip to the South Seas.
I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back and I thought I’d never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute she’d look around uneasily and say “Where’s Tom gone?” and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door. She used to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the hour rubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with unfathomable delight. It was touching to see them together—it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was in August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night and ripped a front wheel off his car. The girl who was with him got into the papers too because her arm was broken—she was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel.
The next April Daisy had her little girl and they went to France for a year. I saw them one spring in Cannes and later in Deauville and then they came back to Chicago to settle down. Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know. They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she doesn’t drink. It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don’t see or care. Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at all—and yet there’s something in that voice of hers...
不过，她就此哑口无言了。我们让她闻氨水来醒酒，把冰放在她额头上，帮她重新穿好衣裳。半小时以后我们走出房间时，珍珠项链已戴在她的脖子上，风波彻底平息。第二天下午五点，她若无其事地与汤姆 ·布坎南结了婚，然后踏上为期三个月的南太平洋之旅。
他们旅行回来之后，我在圣塔巴巴拉见过他们。我想，我从来没见过一位姑娘会那么如痴如醉地迷恋她的丈夫。他只要离开房间一分钟，她就会忐忑不安地四处张望，询问汤姆去哪儿了，同时，满脸挂着恍恍惚惚的神情，直到看见汤姆入门而进。她曾经个把小时地坐在沙滩上，让他把头搁在她的大腿上，一边用手指抚摸他的眼睛，一边望着他，内心洋溢着难以名状的欣喜。看着他俩在一起的情景令人激动——驱使你轻轻地、着迷似的笑出声来。那都是八月份的事。我离开圣塔巴巴拉一周之后，汤姆有天晚上在温图拉公路上与一辆旅行汽车相撞，撞掉了自己车上的一个前轮。与他同车的姑娘也上了报纸因为她的一只胳膊被撞断了——她是圣塔巴巴拉旅馆的一名房间清洁女佣。
第二年四月，黛西生了个小女孩，随后他们去法国待了一年。有年春季，我在戛纳见过他们，接着在多维尔又见过，再后来他们回芝加哥定居了。你知道，黛西在芝加哥很风光。他们和一帮放荡不羁的人交往，个个年轻、富有、桀骜不驯，但是黛西得以保持自己绝对完美的名声。也许是因为她不沾酒，混迹在一伙嗜酒如命的家伙当中能不喝酒，那就能占尽优势。你可以守口如瓶，其次你可以选择时机来实施自己的小动作，这样一来其他人毫不察觉，不是看不见，就是无心理会。也许，黛西跻身于这个圈子并非为了风流韵事——可是在她那嗓音里总是好像有点什么奇异的东西……
Well, about six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for the first time in years. It was when I asked you—do you remember?—if you knew Gatsby in West Egg. After you had gone home she came into my room and woke me up, and said “What Gatsby?” and when I described him—I was half asleep—she said in the strangest voice that it must be the man she used to know. It wasn’t until then that I connected this Gatsby with the officer in her white car.
* * *
When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had left the Plaza for half an hour and were driving in a Victoria through Central Park. The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties and the clear voices of girls, already gathered like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight:
“I’m the Sheik of Araby,
Your love belongs to me.
At night when you’re are asleep,
Into your tent I’ll creep—”
“It was a strange coincidence,” I said.
“But it wasn’t a coincidence at all.”
“Why not?”
“Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.”
Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor.
嗯，大约六个星期之前，她多年来初次听到了盖茨比这个名字，也就是那次我问你——你还记得吗？——你是否认识西卵的盖茨比。你回家之后，她到我屋里叫醒我，问道，“盖茨比是怎么回事？”当我把他描述一番之后——我那时睡眼惺忪——她用最奇怪的声音说，这位盖茨比一定是她曾经认识的人。这时候，我恍然大悟，马上就把这位盖茨比与当年坐在她白色跑车里的那位军官联系起来。
乔丹 ·贝克讲完这段故事时，我们已经离开广场饭店半个小时，乘着一辆敞篷马车穿过中央公园。太阳已经西下，落在五十几街西面那些电影明星的公寓大楼后面。一群小女孩犹如蟋蟀般聚在草地上，她们清脆明亮的歌声在闷热的暮色中升起：
“我是阿拉伯首领，
你的爱在我心灵。
今晚你入梦乡时，
我会悄然把帐进……”[16]
“实在是个奇怪的巧合。”我说。
“这绝不是什么巧合。”
“为什么不是？”
“盖茨比买下那栋房子，还不是因为黛西就在海湾那边。”
这样看来，在那个六月的夜晚，盖茨比向往的就不仅仅是漫天的星斗。此时此刻，盖茨比活灵活现地出现在我面前，仿佛突然间从那只全由貌似无所事事的奢华所构成的胎盘里分娩而出[17]。
“He wants to know—” continued Jordan “—if you’ll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over.”
The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths so that he could “come over” some afternoon to a stranger’s garden.
“Did I have to know all this before he could ask such a little thing?”
“He’s afraid. He’s waited so long. He thought you might be offended. You see he’s a regular tough underneath it all.”
Something worried me.
“Why didn’t he ask you to arrange a meeting?”
“He wants her to see his house,” she explained. “And your house is right next door.”
“Oh!”
“I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,” went on Jordan, “but she never did.” Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found. It was that night he sent for me at his dance, and you should have heard the elaborate way he worked up to it. Of course, I immediately suggested a luncheon in New York—and I thought he’d go mad:
“I don’t want to do anything out of the way!” he kept saying. “I want to see her right next door.”
“When I said you were a particular friend of Tom’s he started to abandon the whole idea. He doesn’t know very much about Tom, though he says he’s read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy’s name.”
“他想知道，”乔丹接着说，“你能否哪天下午邀请黛西来你的住处，到时让他过来一下。”
他这要求如此简单，使我震惊不已。他苦等五年之久，买下一处豪宅，将闪闪星光赏给那些素昧平生的飞蛾——只为了哪天下午能到一个陌生人的院里“过来一下”。
“非得等我知道了所有细节他才会求我这件小事吗？”
“他害怕，因为他已等得好久了。他想这也许会冒犯你。你看，他骨子里只是个通常的粗人。”
我还有点捉摸不定。
“他为何不让你来安排一次见面？”
“他想让她见识一下他的房子，”她解释说，“你的房子刚好就在隔壁。”
“哦！”
“我想他有点指望，某天晚上她会不经意地光临他的一次聚会，”乔丹继续说，“可是她从没来过。”于是他就开始随意地向人们打听有谁认识她，而我就是他找到的第一个，其实就是他在舞会上派人找我去见面的那个晚上。只可惜你不知道，他转弯抹角地绕了老半天才言归正传。我马上当仁不让地提议替他俩约一下，在纽约共进午餐——谁知他听了就发急：
‘我可不想做什么不规不矩的事！’他连声说着，‘我只想在隔壁与她见个面。’
“他一听我说你是汤姆的好朋友，他随即就想放弃这个主意。他对汤姆的来历知道的不多，但是他声称多年来总留心读着一份芝加哥报纸，为的是凑巧看上一眼黛西的名字。”
It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan’s golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more but of this clean, hard, limited person who dealt in universal skepticism and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement:“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”
“And Daisy ought to have something in her life,” murmured Jordan to me.
“Does she want to see Gatsby?”
“She’s not to know about it. Gatsby doesn’t want her to know. You’re just supposed to invite her to tea.”
We passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the facade of Fifty-ninth Street, a block of delicate pale light, beamed down into the park. Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Her wan, scornful mouth smiled and so I drew her up again, closer, this time to my face.
天色转黑了，我们的马车正行驶到一座小桥下面，我伸出胳膊搂住乔丹的金黄色肩膀，让她挨近我身旁，邀请她共进晚餐。突然间，我脑子里想的不再是黛西和盖茨比，而是身边这位一尘不染、结实刚毅、但能力有限的人。她对一切都抱着玩世不恭的态度，此刻正怡然自得地仰靠在我的胳膊弯里。一句名言开始在我耳际引人振奋地回响：“世上只有两种人，被追求的和追求的，忙忙碌碌的和疲惫不堪的。”
“无论如何，黛西的生活里也该有点安慰。”乔丹低声对我说。
“她想见盖茨比吗？”
“她事先不该知道此事。盖茨比不愿让她知道。你请她来喝茶就行。”
我们经过了一排黑黑的树，然后是第五十九街的街面，一片微弱苍白的亮光从那射进下面的公园。我跟盖茨比和汤姆 ·布坎南不同，我没有什么心仪姑娘的无形面影沿着黑暗的屋檐和耀眼的告示时隐时现。于是，我就把旁边这位姑娘拉近身边，搂紧胳膊。她噘着那苍白、轻藐的嘴哑然一笑，我乘势再把她拉得更近一点，这次一直拉到我的脸前。
[1] 一次大战期间德军元帅，1925—1934任德国总统。
[2] 指的是德皇威廉二世，1888—1918在位，因其妄想称霸世界的狂热野心而获得“魔鬼”的称号。
[3] 作者虚构的一家经营股票和证券的公司。
[4] 坐落在巴黎郊外，有大片森林。
[5] 位于法国东北部，邻近比利时边境，一九一八年美国军队在此参战。
[6] 即现在的黑山共和国，位于巴尔干半岛西南部。
[7] 丹尼娄国王一世于1696—1735统治蒙特内哥罗；尼古拉斯国王一世于1878—1918统治该国。
[8] 牛津大学的学院之一，学院的传统建筑沿四周围着中间一块草坪。
[9] 指的是意大利威尼斯的大运河。
[10] 作者特意用了英语中“关系”一词的错误拼法来突出该人物的背景。
[11] 作者再次用英语“牛津大学”（Oxford）的错误拼法来突出此人物的特殊来历。
[12] 美国一年一度的职业棒球决赛俗称为“世界决赛”。
[13] 坐落在肯塔基州路易斯维尔市的知名百年老店，至今还在营业，作者曾是常客。
[14] 产于法国萨特内地区的著名甜葡萄酒。
[15] 她已醉得语无伦次，原文中的change her mind说成了change her mine。
[16] 作者引自当时轰动一时的同名电影里的一首流行歌曲，喻指他想与黛西重续恋情的计划。
[17] 作者特用womb一字来象征他通过大摆豪华排场来吸引黛西的全盘计划和心血。