了不起的盖茨比:有声导读·插图版:英汉对照
About this time an ambitious young reporter from New York arrived one morning at Gatsby’s door and asked him if he had anything to say.
“Anything to say about what?” inquired Gatsby politely.
“Why,—any statement to give out.”
It transpired after a confused five minutes that the man had heard Gatsby’s name around his office in a connection which he either wouldn’t reveal or didn’t fully understand. This was his day off and with laudable initiative he had hurried out “to see”.
It was a random shot, and yet the reporter’s instinct was right. Gatsby’s notoriety, spread about by the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so become authorities on his past, had increased all summer until he fell just short of being news. Contemporary legends such as the “underground pipe-line to Canada” attached themselves to him, and there was one persistent story that he didn’t live in a house at all, but in a boat that looked like a house and was moved secretly up and down the Long Island shore. Just why these inventions were a source of satisfaction to James Gatz of North Dakota, isn’t easy to say.
James Gatz—that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career—when he saw Dan Cody’s yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a row-boat, pulled out to the TUOLOMEE and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour.
约莫这个时候，有一天上午，纽约一位野心勃勃的年轻记者出现在盖茨比的门前，让他发表谈话。
“谈什么话？”盖茨比礼貌地问道。
“呃……任何声明都可以发布。”
过了莫名其妙的五分钟才搞清楚，原来此人在办公室里听说了盖茨比的名字，究竟是件什么关联的事，他要么不肯透露，要么自己也没搞明白。利用休息日，他就发挥了值得赞扬的主动性，匆匆出来“打听一下”。
虽说是一次盲目出击，但这记者的直觉还是对的。鉴于成百上千的人已受过他的款待，继而成了熟知他以往经历的权威，盖茨比的名声在整个夏天越传越大，他差一点成了新闻人物。当时的各种传奇故事，例如“通往加拿大的地下管道”，都扯上了他。还有一个经久不衰的谣言，说他根本没住在一座房子里，而是住在一艘看上去像间房子似的船上，沿着长岛海岸秘密地来回移动。为何这些胡编乱造的谣言会使北达科他州的詹姆斯 ·盖芝感到满足，真是不得而知。
詹姆斯 ·盖芝——这可是他的真实或法定的姓名。十七岁那年，他改名换姓，也就是他的生涯即将开始的那个时刻——当时，他看见丹 ·寇迪的游艇在苏必利尔湖最险恶的湖面抛了锚。那天下午，詹姆斯 ·盖芝穿着一件破旧的绿色运动衫和一条帆布裤子，在湖边沙滩上东游西荡，但是等他借了一条小船划向“托洛梅”号游船、通知寇迪半小时之内就会刮起大风并沉没他的船之后，他已经改名叫杰伊 ·盖茨比。
I suppose he’d had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people—his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty.So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.
For over a year he had been beating his way along the south shore of Lake Superior as a clam digger and a salmon fisher or in any other capacity that brought him food and bed. His brown, hardening body lived naturally through the half fierce, half lazy work of the bracing days. He knew women early and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorption he took for granted.
But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the wash-stand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing.
我猜想，在那之前他早已备好了这个新的名字。他的父母是庸庸碌碌、一事无成的庄稼人——在他的想象中，他从未真正认定他们是自己的父母。正确地说，居住在长岛西卵的杰伊 ·盖茨比是从他柏拉图式的自我感念中蹦出来的。他是天之骄子——这一称号，假如真有什么意义的话，就是顾名思义——他必须效命于他天父的伟业，致力于一种无限的、粗糙的、华而不实的美。因此，他只是塑造了一个十七岁男孩所能塑造的那种杰伊 ·盖茨比，而且他自始至终对这一设想忠贞不渝。
一年多来，他沿着苏必利尔湖南岸辛劳奔波，挖蛤蜊、钓三文鱼或干任何能帮他解决食宿的杂事。他那肤色黝黑、越来越结实的身体干着时紧时松的活计，日子充满刺激，过得自由自在。他早就了解了女人，可是由于女人们过于宠他，他反而瞧不起她们。他瞧不起年轻的处女，因为她们愚昧无知；他瞧不起其他女人 ，因为她们总为一些琐事变得歇斯底里，而他只顾耽溺于自我陶醉，认为这些事都是习以为常的。
然而, 他的内心总处于经常和剧烈的动荡之中。夜晚就寝时，怪诞至极和想入非非的幻念就来骚扰他。一个难以描述的繁华世界展现在他的脑海里，一台时钟在洗脸架上发出滴答的响声，如水的月光浸泡着地板上他那些乱七八糟的衣服。每天晚上，他都会给自己的幻想图案增饰几笔，直到睡眼惺忪，来个忘乎所以的拥抱结束一个栩栩如生的幻景。一段时间内，这样的冥思苦想成了他释放想象力的渠道，在现实的非现实性方面给予他一个满意的提示，证明世界的基石牢固地建立在仙女的翅膀上。
An instinct toward his future glory had led him, some months before, to the small Lutheran college of St. Olaf in southern Minnesota. He stayed there two weeks, dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny, to destiny itself, and despising the janitor’s work with which he was to pay his way through. Then he drifted back to Lake Superior, and he was still searching for something to do on the day that Dan Cody’s yacht dropped anchor in the shallows along shore.
Cody was fifty years old then, a product of the Nevada silver fields, of the Yukon, of every rush for metal since Seventy-five. The transactions in Montana copper that made him many times a millionaire found him physically robust but on the verge of soft-mindedness, and, suspecting this an infinite number of women tried to separate him from his money. The none too savory ramifications by which Ella Kaye, the newspaper woman, played Madame de Maintenon to his weakness and sent him to sea in a yacht, were common knowledge to the turgid journalism of 1902. He had been coasting along all too hospitable shores for five years when he turned up as James Gatz’s destiny at Little Girl Bay.
To the young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, the yacht represented all the beauty and glamor in the world. I suppose he smiled at Cody—he had probably discovered that people liked him when he smiled. At any rate Cody asked him a few questions (one of them elicited the brand new name) and found that he was quick, and extravagantly ambitious. A few days later he took him to Duluth and bought him a blue coat, six pair of white duck trousers and a yachting cap. And when the TUOLOMEE left for the West Indies and the Barbary Coast Gatsby left too.
数月之前，一种追求自己未来荣光的本能驱使他来到明尼苏达州南部一所路德教会学校，圣欧拉夫学院。他在那儿待了两周，学院对他的命运鼓声，甚至命运本身，冷酷地漠不关心使他沮丧不已。为了支付学费而非干不可的勤杂工作也使他感到厌恶。过后，他辗转四处，重回苏必利尔湖。丹 ·寇迪的游艇在湖岸浅水区抛锚的那天，他还正在设法找活干。
寇迪当时年满五十，是内华达州银矿、玉康金矿[1]、及一八七五年以来每次金属热采的产物。他在蒙大拿州做的铜生意让他发了几百万美金的大财，结果身体发达，但脑筋出现软肋。无数的女人对此有所察觉，于是企图把他与他的钱分离开来。一位名叫艾 拉 ·凯的女报纸记者利用他的弱点，充当曼特浓夫人的角色[2]，怂恿他乘着游艇出海。她那些见不得人的手腕由于一九零二年耸人听闻的小报报道而路人皆知。寇迪沿着十分适宜航行的海滨航行了五年之后，这天出现在小姑娘湾，成了詹姆斯 ·盖芝的命运福星。
年轻的盖芝握着船桨歇着，抬头望着栏杆围着的甲板。对他来说，那游艇代表着世上所有的美和荣华。我猜想，他一定朝寇迪笑了笑--他这一笑，或许使寇迪觉得别人还是喜欢他的。不管怎样，寇迪问了他几个问题 （其中一个问题引出了他的新名字），并且发现他思路敏捷、野心勃勃。几天后，寇迪把他带到德露士城，替他买了件蓝色外套，六条白色帆布裤子、一顶游艇帽。“托洛梅”号驶往西印度群岛和巴巴里海岸线后，盖茨比也走了。
He was employed in a vague personal capacity—while he remained with Cody he was in turn steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor, for Dan Cody sober knew what lavish doings Dan Cody drunk might soon be about and he provided for such contingencies by reposing more and more trust in Gatsby. The arrangement lasted five years during which the boat went three times around the continent. It might have lasted indefinitely except for the fact that Ella Kaye came on board one night in Boston and a week later Dan Cody inhospitably died.
I remember the portrait of him up in Gatsby’s bedroom, a grey, florid man with a hard empty face—the pioneer debauchee who during one phase of American life brought back to the eastern seaboard the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon. It was indirectly due to Cody that Gatsby drank so little. Sometimes in the course of gay parties women used to rub champagne into his hair; for himself he formed the habit of letting liquor alone.
And it was from Cody that he inherited money—a legacy of twenty-five thousand dollars. He didn’t get it. He never understood the legal device that was used against him but what remained of the millions went intact to Ella Kaye. He was left with his singularly appropriate education; the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man.
他被雇为职能不明不白的私人助手——与寇迪相处期间，他先后当过听差、大副、船长、秘书，甚至监守，因为头脑清醒的丹 ·寇迪知道酩酊大醉的丹 ·寇迪什么挥金如土的蠢事都会干出来。为避免这样的情况发生，寇迪在盖茨比身上寄托了愈来愈多的信任。如此安排持续了五年，在这期间游艇三次绕行美洲大陆。这本来可以无限地延续下去，谁知有天晚上艾拉 ·凯在波士顿上了船，一周后丹 ·寇迪就毫不客气地一命呜呼了。
我记得他那幅挂在盖茨比卧室里的相片，一个头发灰白、面色红润的人，脸色严酷、空虚——纯粹一个沉湎酒色的拓荒者。像他这些人曾在美国生活的一个特定阶段，把边疆妓院和酒吧里的野蛮暴力带回东部滨海地区。盖茨比沾酒不多，养成了滴酒不沾的习惯。
他从寇迪手里继承了一份钱款——一笔两万五千美元的遗产。他分文未得，他也从未搞懂人家用来对付他的法律手段。寇迪的数百万家产悉数划到了艾拉 ·凯的名下。他所得到的是他恰如其分的人生教育：杰伊 ·盖茨比模糊不清的轮廓已茁壮成长为一名货真价实的男人。
He told me all this very much later, but I’ve put it down here with the idea of exploding those first wild rumors about his antecedents, which weren’t even faintly true. Moreover he told it to me at a time of confusion, when I had reached the point of believing everything and nothing about him. So I take advantage of this short halt, while Gatsby, so to speak, caught his breath, to clear this set of misconceptions away.
It was a halt, too, in my association with his affairs. For several weeks I didn’t see him or hear his voice on the phone—mostly I was in New York, trotting around with Jordan and trying to ingratiate myself with her senile aunt—but finally I went over to his house one Sunday afternoon. I hadn’t been there two minutes when somebody brought Tom Buchanan in for a drink. I was startled, naturally, but the really surprising thing was that it hadn’t happened before.
They were a party of three on horseback—Tom and a man named Sloane and a pretty woman in a brown riding habit who had been there previously.
“I’m delighted to see you,” said Gatsby standing on his porch.“I’m delighted that you dropped in.”
As though they cared!
“Sit right down. Have a cigarette or a cigar.” He walked around the room quickly, ringing bells. “I’ll have something to drink for you in just a minute.”
He was profoundly affected by the fact that Tom was there. But he would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something, realizing in a vague way that that was all they came for. Mr. Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade? No, thanks. A little champagne? Nothing at all, thanks... I’m sorry—
这一切都是他好久以后才告诉我的，但我在这里写下来就是为了戳穿最初那些有关他来历的流言蜚语，它们全是捕风捉影，毫无可信之处。另外，他是在一个惶惑的时刻把一切告诉了我，也就是我处于可以全信或者不信他的地步。因此，我借用这短暂的停顿，也就是说趁着盖茨比喘口气的间隙，来消除这一系列误解。
这也是我参与他的事务中的一个停顿。有几个星期，我既没见他，也没在电话里听见他的声音——我大部分时间在纽约跟着乔丹四处走动，还试图取悦于她那年老痴呆的姑妈——最后，我星期天下午去了他家。我到那儿不到两分钟，就有人把汤姆 ·布坎南带进来喝杯酒。我自然吃惊不小，但真正令人惊奇的是在此之前还没有过先例。
他们一行三人骑马而来——汤姆加上一个名叫斯隆的男人和一名穿着棕色骑装的漂亮女人，以前来过。
“我很高兴见到你们，”盖茨比站在阳台上说，“我很高兴你们能光临。”
他们可不在乎他高兴与否！
“请坐。抽支烟或雪茄。”他快步在屋里走来走去，按铃唤人，“我马上让人给你们送杯喝的来。”
汤姆的出现对他震动挺大。不管怎样，在他有东西招待他们之前，他会显得局促不安，他也隐约地意会到他们来也就是为了弄杯喝的。斯隆先生什么都不要。来杯柠檬水？不，谢谢。来点香槟？什么都不要，谢谢……对不起——
“Did you have a nice ride?”
“Very good roads around here.”
“I suppose the automobiles—”
“Yeah.”
Moved by an irresistible impulse, Gatsby turned to Tom who had accepted the introduction as a stranger.
“I believe we’ve met somewhere before, Mr. Buchanan.”
“Oh, yes,” said Tom, gruffly polite but obviously not remembering. “So we did. I remember very well.”
“About two weeks ago.”
“That’s right. You were with Nick here.”
“I know your wife,” continued Gatsby, almost aggressively.
“That so?”
Tom turned to me.
“You live near here, Nick?”
“Next door.”
“That so?”
Mr. Sloane didn’t enter into the conversation but lounged back haughtily in his chair; the woman said nothing either—until unexpectedly, after two highballs, she became cordial.
“We’ll all come over to your next party, Mr. Gatsby,” she suggested. “What do you say?”
“Certainly. I’d be delighted to have you.”
“Be ver’ nice,” said Mr. Sloane, without gratitude. “Well—think ought to be starting home.”
“Please don’t hurry,” Gatsby urged them. He had control of himself now and he wanted to see more of Tom. “Why don’t you—why don’t you stay for supper? I wouldn’t be surprised if some other people dropped in from New York.”
“你们骑得痛快吗？”
“这一带的路挺不错。”
“我想汽车——”
“是嘛。”
出于一种难以抑制的冲动，盖茨比转向汤姆，他片刻之前已接受了彼此陌生的介绍。
“我相信我们此前在哪儿见过，布坎南先生。”
“哦，对，”汤姆说，礼貌得有点生硬，而且明显不记得详情，“我们确实见过，我记得非常清楚。”
“约在两周前。”
“对，你跟尼克在一起。”
“我认识你太太。”盖茨比继续说，几乎有点挑衅的气势。
“是吗？”
汤姆转身看着我。
“你住在附近，尼克？”
“隔壁。”
“是吗？”
斯隆先生没加入谈话，傲慢地仰坐在椅子里；那位女士也一声不吭——直到两杯“高球”威士忌酒下肚，才意外地变得热情友好起来。
“我们都来参加你的下次聚会，盖茨比先生，”她建议道，“你看好吗？”
“当然好啦；你们能来，我会很高兴的。”
“那挺好。”斯隆先生说，话里没半点谢意，“呃……，我想该回家了。”
“请别急着走。”盖茨比劝他们。此刻，他的自控意识很好，他还想多看看汤姆。“你们不如——不如留下吃晚饭？我看说不定还会有其他人从纽约来。”
“You come to supper with ME,” said the lady enthusiastically.“Both of you.”
This included me. Mr. Sloane got to his feet.
“Come along,” he said—but to her only.
“I mean it,” she insisted. “I’d love to have you. Lots of room.”
Gatsby looked at me questioningly. He wanted to go and he didn’t see that Mr. Sloane had determined he shouldn’t.
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to,” I said.
“Well, you come,” she urged, concentrating on Gatsby.
Mr. Sloane murmured something close to her ear.
“We won’t be late if we start now,” she insisted aloud.
“I haven’t got a horse,” said Gatsby. “I used to ride in the army but I’ve never bought a horse. I’ll have to follow you in my car. Excuse me for just a minute.”
The rest of us walked out on the porch, where Sloane and the lady began an impassioned conversation aside.
“My God, I believe the man’s coming,” said Tom. “Doesn’t he know she doesn’t want him?”
“She says she does want him.”
“She has a big dinner party and he won’t know a soul there.” He frowned. “I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish.”
Suddenly Mr. Sloane and the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses.
“Come on,” said Mr. Sloane to Tom, “we’re late. We’ve got to go.” And then to me:“Tell him we couldn’t wait, will you?”
“你们来和我一起吃晚饭，”那位女士热情地说，“你们俩一起来。”
我也被包括在内。斯隆先生站起身来。
“走吧，”他说——不过只对着她。
“我是当真的，”她坚持道，“我真想请你们来，空位多的是。”
盖茨比用询问的眼神望着我。他想去，而且没看出来斯隆先生已示意他不该去。
“我恐怕没法去。”我说。
“要不，你来。”她催着，把注意力集中在盖茨比身上。
斯隆先生在她耳旁咕哝了几句。
“如果立即就走，我们不会太迟。”她提高嗓门说。
“我没有马，”盖茨比说，“我在部队里骑过马，但是从未买过马。我只好开车跟着你们。对不起，等我一下。”
我们其余的人走到阳台上，斯隆和那位女士开始在一旁气冲冲地对话。
“天哪，我看这家伙真的要来，”汤姆说，“他难道真不知道她并不诚心请他吗？”
“她说她真的要请他。”
“她要举行一个大规模的晚餐会，而他在那儿不会认识一个人，”他皱着眉头说，“我真纳闷他究竟在哪个鬼地方认识黛西的。天知道，我的观念也许老旧，但是如今女人们东颠西跑得太过分，我可受不了。她们会撞上各种各样疯狂的鸟人。”
忽然间，斯隆先生和那女士走下台阶，跨上了马。
“走啦，”斯隆先生对汤姆说，“我们已晚了。我们得马上走。”接着，他又对我说，“告诉他，我们不能等了，好吗？”
Tom and I shook hands, the rest of us exchanged a cool nod and they trotted quickly down the drive, disappearing under the August foliage just as Gatsby with hat and light overcoat in hand came out the front door.
Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby’s party. Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness—it stands out in my memory from Gatsby’s other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-colored, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn’t been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy’s eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.
They arrived at twilight and as we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds Daisy’s voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat .
“These things excite me SO,” she whispered. “If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I’m giving out green—”
“Look around,” suggested Gatsby.
“I’m looking around. I’m having a marvelous—”
“You must see the faces of many people you’ve heard about.”
汤姆和我握握手，其余的人冷冷地点头示意，他们骑着马，在车道上跑了起来，消失在八月的树荫里。正巧这时盖茨比手拿帽子和薄大衣走出正门。
显而易见，黛西独自四处乱跑使汤姆焦躁不安，因为下一个星期六的晚上他就陪着黛西出席了盖茨比的聚会。也许，他的到场给晚会带来不寻常的压抑气氛——在我有关盖茨比整个夏天的晚会记忆当中，对这一晚的印象尤其鲜明。来的人都是同样的常客，至少是同类的人。同样是源源不断的香槟，同样有五颜六色、七腔八调的喧闹，但是我觉得无形之中有种不快之感，弥漫着一种以往没有过的凶狠气氛。或许我只是先前已经渐渐习惯了这一切，渐渐接受西卵本身就是一个完整的世界，拥有自己的标准和自己的知名人物，可谓首屈一指，因为它并未刻意为之。可是此刻，通过黛西的眼睛，我再次审视着这一切。用新的眼光去看你竭尽全力才适应的东西难免令人深感难受。
他们是黄昏时分到的。当我们信步走进数百名珠光宝气的客人堆里时，黛西的嗓子在她的喉咙里玩起了喃喃细语的把戏。
“这些东西让人兴奋，”她轻轻地说，“如果你今晚任何时候想吻我，尼克，尽管告诉我，我会乐意使你如愿以偿。提我的名就行，或者出示一张绿卡。我正在散发绿……”
“四周看看。”盖茨比提议。
“我在看呢。我好开心……”
“你得见见你耳闻已久的许多人的面孔。”
Tom’s arrogant eyes roamed the crowd.
“We don’t go around very much,” he said. “In fact I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.”
“Perhaps you know that lady.” Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies.
“She’s lovely,” said Daisy.
“The man bending over her is her director.”
He took them ceremoniously from group to group:
“Mrs. Buchanan... and Mr. Buchanan—” After an instant’s hesitation he added:“the polo player.”
“Oh no,” objected Tom quickly, “Not me.”
But evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby for Tom remained‘the polo player’ for the rest of the evening.
“I’ve never met so many celebrities!” Daisy exclaimed. “I liked that man—what was his name?—with the sort of blue nose.”
Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer.
“Well, I liked him anyhow.”
“I’d a little rather not be the polo player,” said Tom pleasantly,“I’d rather look at all these famous people in—in oblivion.”
Daisy and Gatsby danced. I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative fox-trot—I had never seen him dance before. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour while at her request I remained watchfully in the garden:“In case there’s a fire or a flood,” she explained, “or any act of God.”
Tom appeared from his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together. “Do you mind if I eat with some people over here?” he said. “A fellow’s getting off some funny stuff.”
汤姆用傲慢的眼神在人群中东看西瞅。
“我们出来走动得不多，”他说，“我正在想，我这里一个人都不认识。”
“也许，你认识那位女士。”盖茨比指着一位光彩夺目、艳丽如仙的美女，端坐在一棵白梅树下。汤姆和黛西盯着看她，认出是一位通常是幽灵似的银幕明星，但又不敢信以为真。
“她好可爱。”黛西说。
“在她跟前俯身站着的是她的导演。”
他将他俩正式地从一组客人介绍到另一组：
“这是布坎南太太……和布坎南先生……”犹豫片刻，他又补充道，“马球健将。”
“哦，不对，”布坎南急忙否认，“我可不是。”
可是这名称的声音显然让盖茨比高兴，因为汤姆整个晚上一直被大家称为“马球健将”。
“我从来没见过这么多的名人，”黛西兴奋地喊着，“我喜欢那个人——他叫什么名字？——就是鼻子好像发青的那个。”
盖茨比报出那人的来历，补充说他是一个小制片商。
“呃，反正我喜欢他。”
“我并不乐意做什么马球健将，”汤姆高兴地说，“我反倒乐意看看所有这些名人——不引人注意地看。”
黛西和盖茨比翩翩起舞。我记得他的优雅、保守的狐步舞让我惊诧不已——之前我从未见过他跳舞。后来，他俩溜到我家，在台阶上坐了半小时，而我则应她的要求留在院子里把风。“万一发生火灾或者水灾，”她解释道，“或者上帝来个什么举动。”
正当我们回去坐下，准备一起吃晚餐时，汤姆从他的隐身法中现了身。“你们会介意我跟那边几个人一起进餐吗？”他说，“有个家伙正在讲笑话呢。”
“Go ahead,” answered Daisy genially, “And if you want to take down any addresses here’s my little gold pencil...” She looked around after a moment and told me the girl was “common but pretty,” and I knew that except for the half hour she’d been alone with Gatsby she wasn’t having a good time.
We were at a particularly tipsy table. That was my fault—Gatsby had been called to the phone and I’d enjoyed these same people only two weeks before. But what had amused me then turned septic on the air now.
“How do you feel, Miss Baedeker?”
The girl addressed was trying, unsuccessfully, to slump against my shoulder. At this inquiry she sat up and opened her eyes.
“Wha’?”
A massive and lethargic woman, who had been urging Daisy to play golf with her at the local club tomorrow, spoke in Miss Baedeker’s defence:“Oh, she’s all right now. When she’s had five or six cocktails she always starts screaming like that. I tell her she ought to leave it alone.”
“I do leave it alone,” affirmed the accused hollowly.
“We heard you yelling, so I said to Doc Civet here:‘There’s somebody that needs your help, Doc.’”
“She’s much obliged, I’m sure,” said another friend, without gratitude. “But you got her dress all wet when you stuck her head in the pool.”
“Anything I hate is to get my head stuck in a pool,” mumbled Miss Baedeker. “They almost drowned me once over in New Jersey.”
“去吧，”黛西温和地回答，“你如果想记记什么地址，我这儿有小的金色铅笔……”她环顾四周后对我说，那姑娘“有点俗气，但长得漂亮”。我随即明白，除了跟盖茨比单独相处的半个小时，她这一晚上其实玩得不是很愉快。
我们所在的一桌醉意特别浓。那是我的过错——盖茨比被叫去接电话，而我呢两周前与这伙人玩得挺好。可是，那时饶有趣味的相处现在变成了污染气氛的糟粕。
“你感觉如何，贝德克小姐？”
我问的这位姑娘正想歪倒在我肩膀上，但没成功。听到我的问话，她坐起身，睁开了眼。
“什……么？”
一位身宽体胖、有气无力的女人，一直盯着要约黛西明天和她去当地俱乐部打高尔夫球，这时开口为贝德克小姐辩解：“哦，她现在没事了。每当她喝了五六杯鸡尾酒之后，她总会这样大喊大叫。我跟她说了，她不该去碰酒。”
“我没碰。”被指责的人无力地申明。
“我们听到了你的喊叫，于是我跟这位西维特医生说，‘有人需要你帮忙，医生。’”
“我肯定，她十分感激，”另一位朋友说，语气中没什么谢意，“可是你把她的头揿到游泳池里的时候，也把她的衣服都弄湿了。”
“我最恨的就是有人把我的头揿在池里，”贝德克小姐叽里咕噜地说，“有一次在新泽西州，他们几乎把我淹死在池里。”
“Then you ought to leave it alone,” countered Doctor Civet.
“Speak for yourself!” cried Miss Baedeker violently. “Your hand shakes. I wouldn’t let you operate on me!”
It was like that. Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy and watching the moving picture director and his Star. They were still under the white plum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale thin ray of moonlight between. It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek.
“I like her,” said Daisy, “I think she’s lovely.”
But the rest offended her—and inarguably, because it wasn’t a gesture but an emotion. She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented “place” that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village—appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.
I sat on the front steps with them while they waited for their car. It was dark here in front: only the bright door sent ten square feet of light volleying out into the soft black morning. Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressingroom blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, who rouged and powdered in an invisible glass.
“Who is this Gatsby anyhow?” demanded Tom suddenly. “Some big bootlegger?”
“Where’d you hear that?” I inquired.
“那么，你就该离酒远点。”西维特医生反驳道。
“说你自己吧！”贝德克小姐狂叫道，“你的手哆嗦个不停。我才不会让你在我身上做手术！”
那晚的情况就是这样。我记得最后一件事是我和黛西站在一起，望着那位电影导演和他的“大明星”。他俩还在那棵白梅树下，他们的脸几乎贴在了一起，中间仅仅隔着一线淡薄的月光。我突然记起，他这一晚一直在缓缓地朝她俯身下去，最终才跟她离得这么近。当我正在观察的时候，只见导演弯下最后一丁点距离，在她的脸颊上亲吻了一下。
“我喜欢她，”黛西说，“我觉得她很可爱。”
然而，其他的一切令她讨厌——毋庸置疑，因为这不是什么姿态，而是情感。西卵让她惊骇不已，这个由百老汇在长岛渔村催生出来的史无前例的“宝地”——让她惊骇的是其与陈腐俗套摩擦不断的原生活力，是其急功近利的人生观，驱使这些人顺着捷径从零走到零。她无法理解这一浅薄的法理，但从中她看到了某种令人不齿的东西。
我跟他们一起坐在正门台阶上，等着他们的车过来。大门前黑黑的，只有十平方尺的光线从明亮的大门里射向淡黑色的黎明。有时候一个人影闪过楼上化妆室的遮帘，接着又有人影闪过，接连不断的女客身影对着一面看不见的镜子在涂脂抹粉。
“这位叫盖茨比的家伙是谁？”汤姆突然发问，“一名私酒大贩子？”
“你从哪儿打听来的？”我问道。
“I didn’t hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.”
“Not Gatsby,” I said shortly.
He was silent for a moment. The pebbles of the drive crunched under his feet.
“Well, he certainly must have strained himself to get this menagerie together.”
A breeze stirred the grey haze of Daisy’s fur collar.
“At least they’re more interesting than the people we know,” she said with an effort.
“You didn’t look so interested.”
“Well, I was.”
Tom laughed and turned to me.
“Did you notice Daisy’s face when that girl asked her to put her under a cold shower?”
Daisy began to sing with the music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that it had never had before and would never have again. When the melody rose, her voice broke up sweetly, following it, in a way contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a little of her warm human magic upon the air.
“Lots of people come who haven’t been invited,” she said suddenly. “That girl hadn’t been invited. They simply force their way in and he’s too polite to object.”
“I’d like to know who he is and what he does,” insisted Tom.“And I think I’ll make a point of finding out.”
“I can tell you right now,” she answered. “He owned some drug stores, a lot of drug stores. He built them up himself.”
“我没打听，我想象的。你知道，好多这样的新暴发户都是私酒大贩子。”
“盖茨比不是。”我斩钉截铁地说。
他半晌没吭声。车道上的石子在他脚下发出咔嚓的声响。
“我看，他一定大费周折才把这群飞禽走兽凑在一起。”
一阵微风吹拂起黛西皮领上的毛茸。
“至少他们比我们认识的那些人有趣。”她颇为勉强地说。
“你看上去有点意兴阑珊。”
“嗯，我兴致不错。”
汤姆笑了笑，转身对着我。
“那个女孩让黛西帮她去洗冷水浴时，你注意到黛西的脸色吗？”
黛西开始随着音乐唱起歌来，嗓音沙哑，带有节奏的轻声细语，字字唱出从未有过、今后不会再有的含意。曲调升高时，她的嗓音如同女低音甜美地起落，随曲而转，而每次变化都在空气中焕发出她那热情的人情魔力。
“好多来客都是不请自到的，”她突然说，“那个女孩就是。他们简直就是夺门而入，他呢，又太客气，不想把人拒之门外。”
“我倒想知道他是什么人，干什么的，”汤姆紧追不舍地问道，“我会想方设法去找到答案。”
“我现在就可以给你答案，”她答道，“他开了些药房，好多药房，自己一手起家的。”
The dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive.
“Good night, Nick,” said Daisy.
Her glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps where‘Three o’Clock in the Morning,’ a neat, sad little waltz of that year, was drifting out the open door. After all, in the very casualness of Gatsby’s party there were romantic possibilities totally absent from her world. What was it up there in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside? What would happen now in the dim incalculable hours? Perhaps some unbelievable guest would arrive, a person infinitely rare and to be marvelled at, some authentically radiant young girl who with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years of unwavering devotion.
I stayed late that night. Gatsby asked me to wait until he was free and I lingered in the garden until the inevitable swimming party had run up, chilled and exalted, from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in the guest rooms overhead. When he came down the steps at last the tanned skin was drawn unusually tight on his face, and his eyes were bright and tired.
“She didn’t like it,” he said immediately.
“Of course she did.”
“She didn’t like it,” he insisted. “She didn’t have a good time.”
He was silent and I guessed at his unutterable depression.
“I feel far away from her,” he said. “It’s hard to make her understand.”
“You mean about the dance?”
“The dance?” He dismissed all the dances he had given with a snap of his fingers. “Old sport, the dance is unimportant.”
姗姗来迟的大型轿车总算在车道上隆隆开过来了。
“晚安，尼克。”黛西说。
她的目光离开了我，朝着灯光闪亮的台阶高处望去，一支风靡那一年的清新、委婉、间短的华尔兹舞曲，“凌晨三点钟，”从那儿传出敞开的大门。毕竟，在盖茨比家聚会的随意气氛中，就含有她的世界里从未有过的浪漫机遇。那支歌里有什么东西仿佛在唤她回去？在这幽暗、不可预测的时辰将会发生什么？也许，一位难以置信的客人会到来，一位绝无仅有、令人爱慕的人，一位真正光彩夺目的少女，只要一眼瞧见盖茨比、一刻魔幻般的相遇，她就能一笔抹去五年来忠贞不渝的爱情。
那一晚，我滞留好久，因为盖茨比让我等到他脱身。我就在花园里来回晃荡，直到总少不了的一伙泳客冷得哆嗦但兴奋至极地从黑乎乎的沙滩上跑上来，直到楼上各个客房里的灯都灭了。当他终于走下台阶时，晒得黝黑的皮肤非比寻常地绷紧在他的脸上，他的眼睛炯炯发亮，但带着一丝倦意。
“她不喜欢今天的晚会。”他匆忙地说。
“她肯定喜欢。”
“她不喜欢，”他顽固地说，“她玩得不开心。”
他不再吭声，可我猜想他有满腔难以诉说的郁闷。
“我觉得离她相距甚远，”他说，“要使她理解真难。”
“你指的是舞会一事？”
“舞会？”他弹指之间就一下否定了他开过的所有舞会，“老兄，舞会不足挂齿。”
He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say:“I never loved you.” After she had obliterated three years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house—just as if it were five years ago.
“And she doesn’t understand,” he said. “She used to be able to understand. We’d sit for hours—”
He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers.
“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.”
“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
“I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.”
He talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was...
... One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees-he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.
他期望黛西所做的别无他事，唯一的就是走到汤姆面前说一句：“我从没爱过你。”一旦她用那句话把四年光景一笔勾销，他们就能商定该采取什么更加实际的步骤。其中之一就是等她恢复自由之身以后，他俩就重回路易维尔市，从她家出发去举行婚礼——就像五年之前计划的那样。
“可是她不理解，”他说，“她以前能理解。我们时常一坐几小时……”
他中断了自己的话，沿着一条撒满果皮、丢弃的小玩意和踩烂的花束的小径踱来踱去。
“我看不宜对她要求太高，”我颇为冒昧地说，“你不能重复过去。”
“不能重复过去？”他将信将疑地叫道，“为什么？你当然可以！”
他发疯似的东张西望，仿佛他的过去就在他房子的阴影里东躲西藏着，几乎伸手可及。
“我会把一切处置得跟以前一模一样，”他边说，边信誓旦旦地点点头，“她会看到的。”
提起过去，他侃侃而谈。我估摸他想重新找回什么东西，也许是关于他自己的某种理念，可它早已成为他钟爱黛西的一部分。从那以后，他的生活就变得迷惑不清和杂乱无章，但是假如他能重返某个出发点，不急不忙地重新经历一遍，他就能发现那个东西究竟是什么……
……一个秋天的晚上，时针退回到五年之前，他们俩顺着落叶纷飞的街道漫步，来到一处没树，人行道被月光照得发白的地方。他们站在那儿，相视而立。夜晚凉爽，弥漫着年中两度季节交替时分才会有的神秘兴奋。家家户户平和的灯光仿佛朝着屋外的黑暗轻声吟唱，就连漫天繁星中也出现了一阵骚动和忙碌。盖茨比从眼角看到，一级一级的人行道构成了一架梯子，伸展到树梢上空一个秘密地方--如果他独自攀登，他能上去，一到上面他就可以吸吮生命的流液，喝下无与伦比的神奇奶汁。
His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God.So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.
当黛西白净的脸凑近他的脸颊时，他的心越跳越快。他知道，亲吻这位姑娘、并把他难以诉说的憧憬与她一出即逝的呼吸结合在一起之后，他的心灵就再也不能像上帝的一样任性了。为此，他等了片刻，再聆听一会音叉敲打一颗星星的声响。然后，他吻了她。经他的双唇一碰，她立即就像一朵鲜花为他绽放，他的重生由此圆满完成。
他的这番话，甚至他那惊讶的伤感，使我回忆起什么……很久以前我在某地听过的一个难以捉摸的韵律，几句残留的词句。一时间，有个词快到了我嘴边，而我的嘴唇就像哑巴的嘴唇一样张开，仿佛嘴唇上除了一股受惊的空气，还有更多的东西挣扎着想出来。可是，依然没有任何声音脱口而出，而这一来，我差一点就能记起来的东西永远无法表诉了。
[1] 位于加拿大西部，十九世纪末发现、开采。
[2] 十七世纪法国国王路易十四的平民情妇，后秘密结婚，成为他的第二任妻子。