了不起的盖茨比:有声导读·插图版:英汉对照
I couldn’t sleep all night; a fog-horn was groaning incessantly on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams. Toward dawn I heard a taxi go up Gatsby’s drive and immediately I jumped out of bed and began to dress—I felt that I had something to tell him, something to warn him about and morning would be too late.
Crossing his lawn I saw that his front door was still open and he was leaning against a table in the hall, heavy with dejection or sleep.
“Nothing happened,” he said wanly. “I waited, and about four o’clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light.”
His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes. We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions and felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for electric light switches—once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano. There was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere and the rooms were musty as though they hadn’t been aired for many days. I found the humidor on an unfamiliar table with two stale dry cigarettes inside. Throwing open the French windows of the drawing-room we sat smoking out into the darkness.
我彻夜难眠。雾笛在海湾里接连不断地呜呜鸣响，我如同患病一样在光怪陆离的现实与残忍、可怕的噩梦之间翻来覆去。拂晓时分，我听见一辆出租车驶上盖茨比家的车道。于是，我立即跳下床，穿起衣服——我意识到我有话跟他说，有事得预先告诫他，到了早晨恐怕就为时过晚了。
穿过他的草坪，我看见他的正门还开着，他倚靠在门厅内的一张桌子上，因为沮丧或欠觉显得十分忧心忡忡。
“什么事也没发生，”他有气无力地说，“我等了，约四点钟时她到窗前站了一会，然后关了灯。”
那天晚上，我们一起在各个大房间里搜寻香烟时，我才初次意识到他的豪宅是多么巨大。我们推开帆布似的窗帘，在无边无际的墙面上摸索电灯开关——有一次我还脚下一绊轰隆一声倒在幽灵似的钢琴键盘上。不知哪来的那么多灰尘，到处都是，屋子里充斥着一股霉味，犹如多天没透风通气。在一张不眼熟的桌上，我找到一个雪茄盒子，里面还有两支变味、干瘪的烟。推开客厅的落地窗，我们坐下，在夜色中吞云吐雾。
“You ought to go away,” I said. “It’s pretty certain they’ll trace your car.”
“Go away NOW, old sport?”
“Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal.”
He wouldn’t consider it. He couldn’t possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn’t bear to shake him free.
It was this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan Cody—told it to me because “Jay Gatsby” had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice and the long secret extravaganza was played out. I think that he would have acknowledged anything, now, without reserve, but he wanted to talk about Daisy.
She was the first “nice” girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone. It amazed him—he had never been in such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there—it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions.
“你该离开一段时间，”我说，“他们肯定会追查你的车。”
“现在离开，老兄？”
“到大西洋城[1]待上一个星期，或者去蒙特利尔[2]。”
他不肯考虑。在确定黛西会怎么处理此事之前，他不可能离开。他仍抓着最后一丝希望不放，我真不忍心让他松手放下。
就在这天晚上，他告诉了我他青少年时代跟丹 ·寇迪在一起的离奇故事——他之所以告诉我，是因为“杰伊 ·盖茨比”已在汤姆无情的中伤之下像玻璃一样支离破碎，那出漫长的、秘密的幻想剧已经拉下了帷幕。我想他现在会毫无保留地默认一切，但是他急于要谈谈黛西。
她是他生平结识的第一个“优秀”姑娘。通过各种蓄意掩饰的身份，他曾与这样的姑娘有过接触，但总有一层无形的铁丝圈夹在中间。他觉得她是个令他欣喜若狂、钟爱至深的姑娘。起先，他和其他泰勒基地的军官们一起去她家，后来独自去。她家让他惊诧不已——他从未见过如此美丽的住房。可是正因为黛西住在里面，房子里平添了一股强烈得令人窒息的情调——可对她来说，这房子就像基地的帐篷对他一样习以为常。房子里充满了神秘，暗示比比皆是，比如楼上的卧室要比其他的卧室更漂亮、更凉快，走廊里有兴高采烈和喜气洋洋的活动，还有众多既没陈腐发霉、也没裹在薰衣草内弃于一旁的风流韵事，相反活灵活现，使人连想起今年的闪亮新车和鲜花不败的舞会。另外使他感到激动的是许多男士爱过黛西，这更增加了她在他眼里的价值。他感觉到屋子里有他们的存在，空气中弥漫着震颤情感的阴影和回声。
But he knew that he was in Daisy’s house by a colossal accident. However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders. So he made the most of his time. He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously—eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand.
He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her under false pretenses. I don’t mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself—that he was fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact he had no such facilities—he had no comfortable family standing behind him and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to be blown anywhere about the world.
But he didn’t despise himself and it didn’t turn out as he had imagined. He had intended, probably, to take what he could and go—but now he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail. He knew that Daisy was extraordinary but he didn’t realize just how extraordinary a “nice” girl could be. She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby—nothing. He felt married to her, that was all.
When they met again two days later it was Gatsby who was breathless, who was somehow betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of star-shine; the wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a cold and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.
然而，他心知肚明，他能出现在黛西家里纯属意外。无论他作为杰伊 ·盖茨比的未来会多么荣耀，在目前他只是一个身无分文、没有过去的年轻人，而且他那件如同无形外衣的军装随时会从他的肩上滑落。因此，他充分利用了他的时间，饥不择食、不择手段地撷取他所能得到的一切——终于，在一个寂静的十月夜晚，他占有了黛西；之所以占有她是因为他没有真正的权利去触摸她的手。
他或许鄙视了自己，因为他的确利用虚假的托词占有了她。我不是说他用了他那虚幻的万贯家财来做交易，但他毕竟故意给了黛西一种安全感；让她以为他是个与她门当户对的人——他将完全能够照料她。事实上，他根本没有这样的本钱——他身后没有养尊处优的家庭背景，一旦毫无人情味的政府突发奇想，他就会被发配到世界上任何地方。
可是他并没有鄙视自己，事情的结果不是他所想象的。起初，他大概想逢场作戏，事后一走了之，但现在他发觉，他已经专心致志于一个至高无上的追求[3]。他深知黛西出类拔萃，可是他不懂一个“优秀”姑娘到底该多么出类拔萃。她消失在她那优越的房子里，消失在她那富有、美满的生活里，给盖茨比留下的——什么都没有。他觉得自己已娶了她，那就足矣。
两天后他们再次相会时，反倒是盖茨比显得心慌意乱，觉得受到了背叛。她家的阳台沐浴在似乎有金钱就能买来的奢华月光里。当她转身面对他，让他亲吻奇妙、美丽的嘴唇时，藤椅的枝条发出时髦的吱吱声响。因为着凉，她的嗓音比起以往更加沙哑和动人。这使盖茨比深切地感悟到财富可以禁锢和保存的青春和神秘，感悟到使人保持清新的套套盛装，感悟到黛西如同白银般明净闪亮，安然和自豪地高踞于穷人水深火热的挣扎之上。
“I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she’d throw me over, but she didn’t, because she was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her... Well, there I was, way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?”
On the last afternoon before he went abroad he sat with Daisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall day with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and then she moved and he changed his arm a little and once he kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon had made them tranquil for a while as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised. They had never been closer in their month of love nor communicated more profoundly one with another than when she brushed silent lips against his coat’s shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.
He did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the front and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command of the divisional machine guns. After the Armistice he tried frantically to get home but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead. He was worried now—there was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy’s letters. She didn’t see why he couldn’t come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.
“老兄，我无法向你表述当我发觉我爱她时我是多么惊讶。有一段时间，我甚至希望她会把我甩了，但是她没有，因为她也爱上了我。她认为我阅历丰富，知道她所不知道的事情……就这样，我是远远偏离了我的雄心壮志，分分秒秒地在爱情里越坠越深，而且突然间我不在乎一切。假如仅仅告诉她我准备干什么就能使我更快乐，那又何必真去干那些轰轰烈烈的大事呢？
在他出国的前一天下午，他把黛西搂在怀里坐了好久，默默无声。那是一个寒意逼人的秋日，屋里生了火，她的双颊烘得绯红。她不时地动一动，他也换一换胳膊，还亲吻了一次她那乌黑发亮的头发。一下午的厮守让他们安静了好一阵，仿佛是为了在第二天就将开始的长久分离之前给他们留下一个深远的记忆。当她用默默无声的嘴唇触摸着他的上衣肩头，或者当他轻柔地、仿佛她在睡梦之中似的、抚摸着她的指尖时，他俩在这一月之久的热恋中从未像这样亲密无间，或者心心相印。
他在战争中表现不错。上前线之前，他就当了上尉。阿拉贡战役以后，他升任少校和师属机枪连的连长。停战后，他心急火燎地想回国，可是某种混乱和误会却把他送到牛津。此时他心急如焚——黛西的信中流露出紧张绝望的情绪。她不懂他为何不能回来。她感受到来自周围世界的压力；她想见到他，需要有他陪伴在她身边的感觉；需要他确认，她所做的是一件完全正确的事情。
For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes. All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the “Beale Street Blues” while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the grey tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor.
Through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately—and the decision must be made by some force—of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality—that was close at hand.
That force took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan. There was a wholesome bulkiness about his person and his position and Daisy was flattered. Doubtless there was a certain struggle and a certain relief. The letter reached Gatsby while he was still at Oxford.
It was dawn now on Long Island and we went about opening the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house with grey turning, gold turning light. The shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves. There was a slow pleasant movement in the air, scarcely a wind, promising a cool lovely day.
黛西毕竟年轻，她那人为的世界里充斥着兰花香味和舒适、快乐的势利风气，以及一些试图确立当年节奏、并用新乐曲概括人生哀愁与警示的乐队。整个晚上，萨克斯管哀号着《比尔街蓝调》绝望的呻吟，同时成百双金银色的拖鞋踢踏着扬起发光的灰尘。到了晚茶时分，总有些房间和着低沉、甜蜜的癫狂乐曲在不休止地颤抖，面带稚气的脸庞就像玫瑰花瓣飘来飘去，被凄凉的喇叭声吹得在舞池里打转。
在这昏暗不明的宇宙里，黛西再次开始随波逐流；转眼间她又保持每天和半打男士有半打约会，直到黎明才疲劳不堪地入睡，晚礼服上的珠子和薄纱同凋零的兰花缠在一块，丢弃在她床边的地板上。这期间，她的内心深处不停地呼唤、祈盼着一个决定。她渴望现在就定下她的终身大事，马上就定——这决定非得由某种近在咫尺的魔力来做， 爱情也好，金钱也罢，绝对实在的东西就行。
春天刚过一半，随着汤姆 ·布坎南的到来，这种魔力就显现了。他的体魄和他的地位之间有一种相匹配的厚实，黛西自然觉得十分光彩。毫无疑问，她有过左右为难的苦思，也有过如释重负的快感。她的信到达盖茨比手中时，他还在牛津。
此时此刻，长岛已是黎明。我们把楼下其他窗户一一打开，让屋里充满逐渐发白、进而变成金色的阳光。一棵树影忽然倒落在露珠上，幽灵般的鸟儿开始在蓝莹莹的树叶中歌唱。气流缓缓地、欢快地流动，虽不能说已经成风，但足以保证将是一个清凉而美好的一天。
“I don’t think she ever loved him.” Gatsby turned around from a window and looked at me challengingly. “You must remember, old sport, she was very excited this afternoon. He told her those things in a way that frightened her—that made it look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper. And the result was she hardly knew what she was saying.”
He sat down gloomily.
“Of course she might have loved him, just for a minute, when they were first married—and loved me more even then, do you see?”
Suddenly he came out with a curious remark:
“In any case,” he said, “it was just personal.”
What could you make of that, except to suspect some intensity in his conception of the affair that couldn’t be measured?
He came back from France when Tom and Daisy were still on their wedding trip, and made a miserable but irresistible journey to Louisville on the last of his army pay. He stayed there a week, walking the streets where their footsteps had clicked together through the November night and revisiting the out-of-the-way places to which they had driven in her white car. Just as Daisy’s house had always seemed to him more mysterious and gay than other houses so his idea of the city itself, even though she was gone from it, was pervaded with a melancholy beauty.
He left feeling that if he had searched harder he might have found her-that he was leaving her behind. The daycoach-he was penniless now-was hot. He went out to the open vestibule and sat down on a folding-chair, and the station slid away and the backs of unfamiliar buildings moved by. Then out into the spring fields, where a yellow trolley raced them for a minute with people in it who might once have seen the pale magic of her face along the casual street.
“我不相信她爱过他，”盖茨比从一扇窗前转回身来，用挑战的神情看着我。“你一定记得，老兄，她今天下午异常激动。他把那些事情告诉她的腔调吓坏了她，弄得我看上去简直就是一个分文不值的骗子。结果是她根本不知道她在说什么。”
他垂头丧气地坐了下来。
“当然也有可能她爱过他一时片刻，他们刚结婚的时候——即使那个时候她依旧更爱我，你理解吗？”
突然，他又说了句不寻常的话。
“不管怎样，”他说，“这仅仅是我个人的事。”
你该怎么来理解这句话呢，恐怕只能理解为他对此事耿耿于怀，倾注的感情无法估量。
他从法国回来时，汤姆和黛西还在他们的蜜月旅行途中。他用军饷中剩余的最后一点钱，做了一次伤心但无法抗拒的路易维尔之行。他在那儿逗留了一个星期，走遍当年十一月的夜晚他俩并肩散步的街道，重访他俩驾驶着她的白色轿车逛过的僻静地方。正如黛西家的房子在他眼里一直比其他房子更为神秘和欢乐，他印象中的路易维尔市，尽管黛西已远离此地，依然充满一种令人感伤的美。
他离开时深信，如果他找得再认真点，他或许会找到她——现在，他却留下她而去。普通客车里很热--现在他已身无分文。他走出来，来到车厢敞篷过道，在一把折椅上坐下。火车站一闪而过，一幢幢陌生的建筑物纷纷闪到后面。然后，列车驶进春天的田野，一辆黄颜色的电车与他们的火车并排奔驶了片刻，车上的人也许曾在某个街头见过她那张苍白迷人的脸庞。
The track curved and now it was going away from the sun which, as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in benediction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath. He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.
It was nine o’clock when we finished breakfast and went out on the porch. The night had made a sharp difference in the weather and there was an autumn flavor in the air. The gardener, the last one of Gatsby’s former servants, came to the foot of the steps.
“I’m going to drain the pool today, Mr. Gatsby. Leaves’ll start falling pretty soon and then there’s always trouble with the pipes.”
“Don’t do it today,” Gatsby answered. He turned to me apologetically. “You know, old sport, I’ve never used that pool all summer?”
I looked at my watch and stood up.
“Twelve minutes to my train.”
I didn’t want to go to the city. I wasn’t worth a decent stroke of work but it was more than that—I didn’t want to leave Gatsby. I missed that train, and then another, before I could get myself away.
铁轨转了弯，这一来火车就与太阳背道而驰。缓缓西下的太阳仿佛在以它的光芒为渐渐消失在视线里的、她曾经生活过的城市祝福。他绝望地伸出他的手，好像要抓获一束气流，要保存一块因为黛西而被他认为是可爱之地的碎片。可是一切在他模糊的眼前飞速地一闪而过，他深知他已失去了其中的一部分，永远地失去了最新鲜、最美好的那部分。
我们用完早餐，走到阳台上时已是九点钟了。天气在一夜之间有了极大的变化，空气中已经洋溢着秋意。那位园丁，也就是盖茨比原先的仆人中唯一留用的人，来到台阶的跟前。
“我今天要把游泳池里的水放掉，盖茨比先生。树叶就快开始掉落了，到时总会有树叶堵塞水管的麻烦。”
“今天别放水。”盖茨比答道。他抱歉地转身对我说：“老兄，你知道我这一夏天还没用过那游泳池吗？”
我看了看手表，站了起来。
“离我那班火车还有十二分钟。”
我不愿进城去。我没精力认认真真地工作，但是不仅仅如此——我不想离开盖茨比。我误了那班车，又误了下一班，然后才悻悻然离开。
“I’ll call you up,” I said finally.
“Do, old sport.”
“I’ll call you about noon.”
We walked slowly down the steps.
“I suppose Daisy’ll call too.” He looked at me anxiously as if he hoped I’d corroborate this.
“I suppose so.”
“Well—goodbye.”
We shook hands and I started away. Just before I reached the hedge I remembered something and turned around.
“They’re a rotten crowd,” I shouted across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we’d been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time. His gorgeous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of color against the white steps and I thought of the night when I first came to his ancestral home three months before. The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption—and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them goodbye.
I thanked him for his hospitality. We were always thanking him for that—I and the others.
“Goodbye,” I called. “I enjoyed breakfast, Gatsby.”
Up in the city I tried for a while to list the quotations on an interminable amount of stock, then I fell asleep in my swivel-chair. Just before noon the phone woke me and I started up with sweat breaking out on my forehead. It was Jordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find in any other way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool as if a divot from a green golf links had come sailing in at the office window but this morning it seemed harsh and dry.
“我会打电话给你。”我最后说。
“一定啊，老兄。”
“我大约中午来电话。”
我们慢慢走下台阶。
“我猜想黛西也会来电话。”他急切地望着我，好像要我也证实一下。
“我想会的。”
“好了，再见。”
我们握了握手之后，我走开了。快走到树篱之前，我想起了一件事，又转回身。
“他们是一帮混蛋，”我隔着草坪喊道，“他们那一帮子全堆在一起都不如你。”
后来，我一直为说出这句话而感到高兴。那是我送给他的唯一一句恭维话，因为我自始至终没赞同过他。他先是礼貌地点点头，接着他脸上露出那乐滋滋和会意的微笑，仿佛我们在这件事上始终是狼狈为奸、蓄谋良久。他那身华丽的粉红色西装在白色的台阶上光彩夺目，使我蓦然想起三个月前的那个夜晚，初次造访他那古色古香的豪宅。草坪和车道上挤满了一张张面孔，都是些热衷于臆测他的腐败旧事的人——而他站在台阶上，掩饰着他那纯洁无瑕的美梦，向他们挥手道别。
我对他的殷勤招待表示感谢。我们总是为这向他致谢——我和其他人。
“再见，”我叫道，“很喜欢你的早点，盖茨比。”
在城里，我努力抄了会不计其数的股票行情检索，接着就在我的转椅上睡着了。将近中午，电话铃声吵醒了我，我一惊站起身来，额头上冒出汗珠。是乔丹 ·贝克来电。她常在这个时段来电，因为她出入酒店、俱乐部和私人住宅的行踪难定，除此方法就颇难找到她。通常，她的嗓音在电话里相当鲜明和淡定，好像是一块草根土从碧绿的高尔夫球场飘进办公室的窗户，但是今天上午她的声音显得格外严厉和乏味。
“I’ve left Daisy’s house,” she said. “I’m at Hempstead and I’m going down to Southampton this afternoon.”
Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisy’s house, but the act annoyed me and her next remark made me rigid.
“You weren’t so nice to me last night.”
“How could it have mattered then?”
Silence for a moment. Then—
“However—I want to see you.”
“I want to see you too.”
“Suppose I don’t go to Southampton, and come into town this afternoon?”
“No—I don’t think this afternoon.”
“Very well.”
“It’s impossible this afternoon. Various—”
We talked like that for a while and then abruptly we weren’t talking any longer. I don’t know which of us hung up with a sharp click but I know I didn’t care. I couldn’t have talked to her across a tea-table that day if I never talked to her again in this world.
I called Gatsby’s house a few minutes later, but the line was busy. I tried four times; finally an exasperated central told me the wire was being kept open for long distance from Detroit. Taking out my time-table I drew a small circle around the three-fifty train. Then I leaned back in my chair and tried to think. It was just noon.
“我已离开黛西家，”她说，“我在汉普斯特德，今天下午就去索斯汉普藤。”
她离开黛西家大概还算明智之举，可是她这样做使我不高兴，她的下一句话更让我生气。
“你昨天晚上对我不太友善。”
“在当时的情况下有何关系？”
沉默片刻。她接着又说：
“不过，我想见你。”
“我也想见你。”
“要不，我不去索斯汉普藤，下午到城里来？”
“不，我想今天下午不行。”
“听你的。”
“今天下午不可能。各种……”
我们就这样聊了一会，后来又突然间不再说话了。我不知道我俩当中是谁啪地挂了电话，可是我知道我不在乎了。我那天是无法跟她隔着茶桌对话的，即使我在这世界上永远不再跟她说话，那也不行。
几分钟后，我给盖茨比家里打了电话，可是电话占线。我连试了四次，最后，一名不耐烦的接线员告诉我线路在等从底特律来的长途电话。我拿出火车时刻表，在三点五十分的班次一栏画上一个小圈。然后，我靠在椅子上，想理一理思绪。时间刚到正午。
When I passed the ashheaps on the train that morning I had crossed deliberately to the other side of the car. I suppose there’d be a curious crowd around there all day with little boys searching for dark spots in the dust and some garrulous man telling over and over what had happened until it became less and less real even to him and he could tell it no longer and Myrtle Wilson’s tragic achievement was forgotten. Now I want to go back a little and tell what happened at the garage after we left there the night before.
They had difficulty in locating the sister, Catherine. She must have broken her rule against drinking that night for when she arrived she was stupid with liquor and unable to understand that the ambulance had already gone to Flushing. When they convinced her of this she immediately fainted as if that was the intolerable part of the affair. Someone kind or curious took her in his car and drove her in the wake of her sister’s body.
Until long after midnight a changing crowd lapped up against the front of the garage while George Wilson rocked himself back and forth on the couch inside. For a while the door of the office was open and everyone who came into the garage glanced irresistibly through it. Finally someone said it was a shame and closed the door. Michaelis and several other men were with him—first four or five men, later two or three men. Still later Michaelis had to ask the last stranger to wait there fifteen minutes longer while he went back to his own place and made a pot of coffee. After that he stayed there alone with Wilson until dawn.
About three o’clock the quality of Wilson’s incoherent muttering changed—he grew quieter and began to talk about the yellow car. He announced that he had a way of finding out whom the yellow car belonged to, and then he blurted out that a couple of months ago his wife had come from the city with her face bruised and her nose swollen.
那天早上我在火车上经过灰堆时，我特意走到车厢的另一边。我估计那儿从早到晚会聚集着一伙好奇者，小男孩们在尘土中搜寻黑色血迹，一个啰嗦的人喋喋不休地重复着事故的经过，直到他自己都觉得越来越不真实，无法再讲下去，茉特尔 ·威尔逊悲惨的毕生努力[4]也就被忘却了。现在我想倒叙一下前一夜我们离开后，车行里所发生的一切。
他们费尽周折才找到她的妹妹，凯瑟琳。那一晚，她肯定破了自己不沾酒的规矩，因为她到场时已喝得晕头转向，都无法听懂救护车已经开到法拉盛去了。等他们总算使她明白了，她立即就昏了过去，好像这才是整个事件中难以忍受的细节。有个人出于好心或好奇，让她上车，紧随她姐姐的遗体之后而去。
午夜过后很久，不断交替的围观人群依然拥堵在车行前面，乔治 ·威尔逊还在屋里的沙发上摇来摇去。办公室的门开了好久，每个来车行的人都忍不住要往里看看。后来，有人说这太不像话，就把门关了。穆凯利斯和另外几个人陪着他，开始有四五个人，后来有两三个人。最后，穆凯利斯请最后一名陌生人在那多等十五分钟，他回去煮了一壶咖啡。接着，他一个人陪着威尔逊直到天亮。
三点钟左右，威尔逊语无伦次的哼声起了质的变化——他神情镇定多了，开始说起黄颜色的汽车。他宣称他有办法查到车主，并且脱口提到几个月前他老婆从城里回来时鼻青脸肿。
But when he heard himself say this, he flinched and began to cry “Oh, my God!” again in his groaning voice. Michaelis made a clumsy attempt to distract him.
“How long have you been married, George? Come on there, try and sit still a minute and answer my question. How long have you been married?”
“Twelve years.”
“Ever had any children? Come on, George, sit still—I asked you a question. Did you ever have any children?”
The hard brown beetles kept thudding against the dull light and whenever Michaelis heard a car go tearing along the road outside it sounded to him like the car that hadn’t stopped a few hours before. He didn’t like to go into the garage because the work bench was stained where the body had been lying so he moved uncomfortably around the office—he knew every object in it before morning—and from time to time sat down beside Wilson trying to keep him more quiet.
“Have you got a church you go to sometimes, George? Maybe even if you haven’t been there for a long time? Maybe I could call up the church and get a priest to come over and he could talk to you, see?”
“Don’t belong to any.”
“You ought to have a church, George, for times like this. You must have gone to church once. Didn’t you get married in a church?Listen, George, listen to me. Didn’t you get married in a church?”
可是一听到自己说出的话，他吓得一颤，又以呻吟一样的声音哭啼起来，“啊，我的上帝啊！”穆凯利斯想出一个笨拙的办法来转移他的注意力。
“你结婚多久了，乔治？好啦，安静地坐一会儿，回答我的问题。结婚多久了？”
“十二年。”
“有过孩子吗？来，乔治，坐好别动——我问了你一个问题。你们有过孩子吗？”
棕色的硬壳甲虫老是往暗暗的灯上瞎碰乱撞。每当他听见外面有车在路上疾驶而过，穆凯利斯觉得听起来就像数小时之前没停下的车。他不愿走进车库，因为尸体躺过的工作台上仍留有血迹，他只好在办公室不自在地走来走去——没到天亮他已熟悉了里面的每样东西——时而他坐在威尔逊一旁，让他保持安静。
“你有个偶尔去去的教堂吗，乔治？或许你有个好久没去的？也许我可以给教堂打电话，让一位牧师过来跟你谈谈，行吗？”
“不属于任何教堂。”
“你该有个教堂，乔治，遇到眼下这事就需要了。你以前肯定去过教堂的。你不是在教堂结的婚吗？听着，乔治，听我说。你不是在教堂结的婚吗？”
“That was a long time ago.”
The effort of answering broke the rhythm of his rocking—for a moment he was silent. Then the same half knowing, half bewildered look came back into his faded eyes.
“Look in the drawer there,” he said, pointing at the desk.
“Which drawer?”
“That drawer—that one.”
Michaelis opened the drawer nearest his hand. There was nothing in it but a small expensive dog leash made of leather and braided silver. It was apparently new.
“This?” he inquired, holding it up.
Wilson stared and nodded. “I found it yesterday afternoon. She tried to tell me about it but I knew it was something funny.”
“You mean your wife bought it?”
“She had it wrapped in tissue paper on her bureau.”
Michaelis didn’t see anything odd in that and he gave Wilson a dozen reasons why his wife might have bought the dog leash. But conceivably Wilson had heard some of these same explanations before, from Myrtle, because he began saying “Oh, my God!” again in a whisper—his comforter left several explanations in the air.
“Then he killed her,” said Wilson. His mouth dropped open suddenly.
“Who did?”
“I have a way of finding out.”
“You’re morbid, George,” said his friend. “This has been a strain to you and you don’t know what you’re saying. You’d better try and sit quiet till morning.”
“那是好久以前了。”
回答问题迫使他打破了前后摇晃的节奏——他安静了片刻。接着，他无神的眼睛里又呈现出先前那种清醒与糊涂参半的神情。
“看看那个抽屉。”他说，手指着办公桌。
“哪一个抽屉？”
“那个抽屉——那一个。”
穆凯利斯打开了离他手最近的一个抽屉。里面没什么东西，只有一根小小的高价拴狗链子，皮制、镶银的，成色显然很新。
“是这个？”他举起狗链子问道。
威尔逊瞪了一眼，点点头。“我是昨天下午发现的。她试图告诉我这东西的来由，可是我知道里面有猫腻。”
“你是说你老婆买的？”
“她用薄纸包着它，搁在她梳妆台上。”
穆凯利斯看不出其中有什么反常的地方，他还向威尔逊列举了十几个他妻子会买这狗链子的理由。可想而知的是威尔逊可能从茉特尔那儿听说过几个类同的说明，因为他又开始低声喊道，“啊，我的上帝！”安慰他的人只好把没说完的那些理由收了回去。
“那么，他杀了她。”威尔逊说，突然张大嘴巴。
“谁杀的？”
“我有办法查出来。”
“你想糊涂了，乔治，”他朋友说，“这事对你刺激很大，你不知道你在说些什么。你最好设法安静地坐到天亮。”
“He murdered her.”
“It was an accident, George.”
Wilson shook his head. His eyes narrowed and his mouth widened slightly with the ghost of a superior “Hm!”
“I know,” he said definitely, “I’m one of these trusting fellas and I don’t think any harm to NObody, but when I get to know a thing I know it. It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn’t stop.”
Michaelis had seen this too but it hadn’t occurred to him that there was any special significance in it. He believed that Mrs. Wilson had been running away from her husband, rather than trying to stop any particular car.
“How could she of been like that?”
“She’s a deep one,” said Wilson, as if that answered the question. “Ah-h-h—”
He began to rock again and Michaelis stood twisting the leash in his hand.
“Maybe you got some friend that I could telephone for, George?”
This was a forlorn hope—he was almost sure that Wilson had no friend: there was not enough of him for his wife. He was glad a little later when he noticed a change in the room, a blue quickening by the window, and realized that dawn wasn’t far off. About five o’clock it was blue enough outside to snap off the light.
Wilson’s glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where small grey clouds took on fantastic shape and scurried here and there in the faint dawn wind.
“I spoke to her,” he muttered, after a long silence. “I told her she might fool me but she couldn’t fool God. I took her to the window-” With an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it, “-and I said ‘God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me but you can’t fool God!’”
“他谋杀了她。”
“那是个意外事故，乔治。”
乔治摇摇头。他眯起眼睛，微微咧开嘴，不太清晰但自鸣得意地“哼”了一声！
“我知道，”他斩钉截铁地说，“我是个信任别人的人，也从来不想加害于谁，可是一旦知道什么事，我胸中有数。就是那个坐车里的男人，她跑出去想跟他说话，他不肯停车。”
穆凯利斯也目睹了这一幕，但是他没想到其中居然有这样特殊的因素。他以为威尔逊太太是想逃脱她的丈夫，不是试图去叫停某辆车。
“她怎么会变成这样呢？”
“她是个极有心机的人，”威尔逊说，仿佛这一句话已回答了问题，“啊，哟，哟……”
他又摇晃起来，穆凯利斯站在那儿搓着手中的狗链子，不知如何是好。
“也许你有个朋友我可以打电话叫来，乔治？”
这个希望很渺茫——他几乎可以肯定威尔逊没有什么朋友：他老婆已经让他应接无暇了。过了一阵，他高兴地注意到屋里起了变化，窗外渐渐发蓝，他知道黎明就在眼前。五点钟左右，屋外满天蔚蓝，屋内可以关灯了。
威尔逊呆滞的眼睛朝外望着灰堆，堆上小朵灰云组成了奇妙的形状，随着拂晓的微风四处翻转。
“我跟她谈过，”他沉默了许久才说，“我告诉她，她也许能骗我，但她骗不了上帝。我把她领到窗口”--他费劲地起身走到后面的窗户，脸倚靠在上面--“我说，上帝知道你在干什么，你在干的一切。你可以耍我，但你耍不了上帝。”
Standing behind him Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg which had just emerged pale and enormous from the dissolving night.
“God sees everything,” repeated Wilson.
“That’s an advertisement,” Michaelis assured him. Something made him turn away from the window and look back into the room. But Wilson stood there a long time, his face close to the window pane, nodding into the twilight.
By six o’clock Michaelis was worn out and grateful for the sound of a car stopping outside. It was one of the watchers of the night before who had promised to come back so he cooked breakfast for three which he and the other man ate together. Wilson was quieter now and Michaelis went home to sleep; when he awoke four hours later and hurried back to the garage Wilson was gone.
His movements—he was on foot all the time—were afterward traced to Port Roosevelt and then to Gad’s Hill where he bought a sandwich that he didn’t eat and a cup of coffee. He must have been tired and walking slowly for he didn’t reach Gad’s Hill until noon. Thus far there was no difficulty in accounting for his time—there were boys who had seen a man “acting sort of crazy” and motorists at whom he stared oddly from the side of the road. Then for three hours he disappeared from view. The police, on the strength of what he said to Michaelis, that he “had a way of finding out”, supposed that he spent that time going from garage to garage thereabouts inquiring for a yellow car. On the other hand no garage man who had seen him ever came forward-and perhaps he had an easier, surer way of finding out what he wanted to know. By half past two he was in West Egg where he asked someone the way to Gatsby’s house. So by that time he knew Gatsby’s name.
穆凯利斯站在他的身后，吃惊地发现他看到的是特 ·杰 ·艾克尔布格医生苍白巨大的眼睛，刚从逐渐散去的夜色中显现出来。
“上帝看着一切。”威尔逊重复了一句。
“那是一幅广告牌。”穆凯利斯解释道。不知什么驱使他离开了窗户，回头看着屋内。可是威尔逊在那站了好久，脸还是紧贴着窗玻璃，朝着晨曦不住地点头。
到了六点钟，穆凯利斯已筋疲力尽，对屋外的停车声充满感激。来的人是昨晚帮着照应的人之一，说定要回来的。他做了三个人的早点，他俩一起吃了。威尔逊安定多了，于是穆凯利斯回家睡觉；等他四小时以后醒来，匆匆赶回车行，威尔逊已经不见踪影。
他的行踪——他一直在步行——事后查明到过罗斯福码头，然后到了盖德山，在那买了一个三明治，但没吃，还去买了杯咖啡。他一定疲劳不堪，走得缓慢，因为他中午才走到盖德山。至此，跟踪他的时间段不难——几个男孩看见一个男人“举止有点不正常”，开车的人也记得有个人从路边奇怪地盯着他们看。接着，他销声匿迹了三个小时。警察根据他在穆凯利斯面前说的话，他“有办法查出来”，猜想他一定用那段时间从车行到车行，打听黄色汽车的消息。另一方面，始终没有一位见过他的车行人员出面提供信息，可能他真有更简单、确定的方法查出他想知道的信息。午后两点半，他到了西卵，在那里打听了去盖茨比家的路。显然，那时候他已知道了盖茨比的名字。
At two o’clock Gatsby put on his bathing suit and left word with the butler that if any one phoned word was to be brought to him at the pool. He stopped at the garage for a pneumatic mattress that had amused his guests during the summer, and the chauffeur helped him pump it up. Then he gave instructions that the open car wasn’t to be taken out under any circumstances—and this was strange because the front right fender needed repair.
Gatsby shouldered the mattress and started for the pool. Once he stopped and shifted it a little, and the chauffeur asked him if he needed help, but he shook his head and in a moment disappeared among the yellowing trees.
No telephone message arrived but the butler went without his sleep and waited for it until four o’clock—until long after there was any one to give it to if it came. I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about... like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.
午后两点，盖茨比穿上泳衣，给管家留了话，有人来电话，就到游泳池来叫他。他在车库稍停了一会儿，取出一只夏天让客人玩耍的橡皮垫子，司机帮他给垫子打足了气。接着，他吩咐道，无论在任何情况下，都不允许把敞篷车开出来——这有点奇怪，因为右前方的挡泥板需要修理。
盖茨比肩扛着垫子走向游泳池。他中途停下把垫子调整了一下位置，司机问他是否要帮忙，但是他摇摇头，不一会儿就消失在渐渐发黄的树丛中。
没有人打来电话，可是管家放弃了午休，一直等到四点钟——到那时即使有电话信息传过来，也早已无人可接了。我能想象到，盖茨比自己也不相信电话会来，而且也许他已经满不在乎了。果真如此的话，他一定觉得他已失去了从前那个温暖的世界，为了久久耽溺于一个单一的梦想而付出了昂贵的代价。他一定透过可怕的树叶仰望着陌生的天际，浑身颤抖，因为他发现玫瑰花是多么令人憎恶，阳光照在刚刚滋生出土的嫩草上是多么残暴。一个新世界，物质性的但不真实，在这里可怜的幽灵们把美梦当作空气来吞吸，东飘西荡……犹如那个灰蒙蒙、怪兮兮的人影，穿过杂乱无章的树木，朝他悄然走来。
The chauffeur—he was one of Wolfshiem’s protégés—heard the shots—afterward he could only say that he hadn’t thought anything much about them. I drove from the station directly to Gatsby’s house and my rushing anxiously up the front steps was the first thing that alarmed any one. But they knew then, I firmly believe. With scarcely a word said, four of us, the chauffeur, butler, gardener and I, hurried down to the pool.
There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other. With little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool. A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of compass, a thin red circle in the water.
It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete.
司机——他是沃尔夫谢姆手下的人——听见了枪声。过后，他只说他那时没把枪声当回事。我从车站开车直接去了盖茨比家，我心急火燎地冲上正门台阶的样子才第一次让他家里的人感到出事了。不过，我坚决认为，他们当时已经知道了。我们四人，司机、管家、园丁和我，一字没说就匆匆奔向游泳池。
池水微微地、几乎看不见地流动着，新鲜的水从一头进来又涓涓流向另一头的出水口。由于水上的涟漪微小得都称不上是波纹，沉重的垫子在池里胡乱飘着。一阵微风吹来虽然没能弄皱水面，但足以扰乱它载着意外重负的意外航程。一堆落叶一碰上就围着它慢慢打转，像经纬仪一样在水中转出一道细细的红色圈子。
我们抬起盖茨比往屋里走的时候，园丁在不远的草丛里看见了威尔逊的尸体。于是，这场大杀戮[5]就此结束。
[1] 新泽西州的一个小城，素有赌城之称。
[2] 加拿大东部城市。
[3] 此处原文“grail”意指出自《圣经》的圣杯“Holy Grail”，在西方喻指最重要、难以达到的目标。
[4] 作者的用词“achievement”含有讽刺意味，暗指该人物一生为追求名利与享受所做的一切。
[5] 作者使用“holocaust”远在第二次世界大战期间德国纳粹迫害犹太人之前，此处喻指小说中的悲剧对尼克产生的震动。