Chapter 5

Previous Story: Daisy向Nick讲述男管家鼻子的旧事，而Tom进去接电话后，Daisy也随后进了房间，两人似乎有所争吵。Baker小姐则告诉Nick，Tom在外面有了别的女人。两人回到餐桌后，电话又打来了，破坏了整个晚餐的气氛，最后Nick和Daisy，Tom和Baker两两分开活动。Daisy向Tom吐露自己的烦恼忧愁，对Tom的不满和对生活的失望，但Nick却觉得Daisy似乎并没有对自己讲任何真心话。

Inside, the crimson room bloomed with (充满了) light.

Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the "Saturday Evening Post"—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune.

The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.

When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.

"To be continued," she said, tossing the magazine on the table, "in our very next issue."

Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.

"Ten o'clock," she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. "Time for this good girl to go to bed."

"Jordan's going to play in the tournament tomorrow," explained Daisy, "over at Westchester (威斯彻斯特)."

"Oh,—you're Jordan Baker."

I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure (凹版印刷的) pictures of the sporting life at Asheville (阿什维尔) and Hot Springs (温泉) and Palm Beach (棕榈海滩).

I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.

"Good night," she said softly. "Wake me at eight, won't you."

"If you'll get up."

"I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon."

"Of course you will," confirmed Daisy. "In fact I think I'll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of—oh—fling you together (把你们凑成一对).

You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing——"

"Good night," called Miss Baker from the stairs. "I haven't heard a word."

"She's a nice girl," said Tom after a moment. "They oughtn't to let her run around the country this way."

"Who oughtn't to?" inquired Daisy coldly.

"Her family."

"Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's going to look after her, aren't you, Nick?

She's going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her."

Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.

"Is she from New York?" I asked quickly.

"From Louisville (路易斯维尔). Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white——"

"Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?" demanded Tom suddenly.

"Did I?" She looked at me. "I can't seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I'm sure we did. It sort of crept up on us (不知不觉中被我们提及)and first thing you know——"

"Don't believe everything you hear, Nick," he advised me.

I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home.

They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called "Wait!

"I forgot to ask you something, and it's important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West."

"That's right," corroborated Tom kindly. "We heard that you were engaged."

"It's a libel. I'm too poor."

"But we heard it," insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. "We heard it from three people so it must be true."

Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn't even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns (预告婚事)was one of the reasons I had come east.

You can't stop going with an old friend on account of (因为)rumors and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.

Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away.

It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head.

As for Tom, the fact that he "had some woman in New York" was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book.

Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.

Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps (汽油泵) sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller (割草机)in the yard.

The wind had blown off (风停了), leaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as (听起来像) the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life.

The silhouette (侧影) of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight and turning my head to watch it I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor's mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars.

Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.

I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction.

But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out (伸展) his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling.

Involuntarily I glanced seaward (朝海的)—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.

When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.

（941 words）

今日词组

1. bloom with充满了...

2. fling you together把你们凑成一对

3. creep up on不知不觉地来临/进入

4. be engaged to与...订婚

5. publish the banns (在教堂中结婚前)预告婚事以防异议，订婚

6. on account of因为

7. be rumored into迫于谣言的压力就去...

8. child in arms怀里抱着孩子

9. blow off吹停，停息

10. sound as听起来像

11. full of life生机勃勃，充满活力

12. emerge from从...中出现/露出

13. be content to do满足于做某事

14. stretch out伸展

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