第7天 ! 受邀参加聚会

Therewas music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his bluegardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and thechampagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guestsdiving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of hisbeach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawingaquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became anomnibus, bearing parties to and from the city, between nine in the morning andlong past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bugto meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants including an extra gardenertoiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears,repairing the ravages of the night before.

EveryFriday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in NewYork--every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in apyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which couldextract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if a little buttonwas pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb.

Atleast once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feetof canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby'senormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre,spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigsand turkeys bewitched to a dark gold.

Inthe main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with ginsand liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guestswere too young to know one from another.

Byseven o'clock the orchestra has arrived--no thin five-piece affair but a wholepitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolosand low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now andare dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in thedrive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primarycolors and hair shorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams ofCastile. The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate thegarden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casualinnuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetingsbetween women who never knew each other's names.

Thelights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now theorchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches akey higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality,tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with newarrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath--already there are wanderers,confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable,become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumphglide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under theconstantly changing light.

Suddenlyone of these gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumpsit down for courage and moving her hands like Frisco dances out alone on thecanvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythmobligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goesaround that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the "Follies." Theparty has begun.

I believethat on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guestswho had actually been invited. People were not invited--they went there. Theygot into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow they endedup at Gatsby's door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knewGatsby and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules ofbehavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went withouthaving met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart thatwas its own ticket of admission.

I hadbeen actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robin's egg blue crossed mylawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from hisemployer--the honor would be entirely Gatsby's, it said, if I would attend his"little party" that night. He had seen me several times and hadintended to call on me long before but a peculiar combination of circumstanceshad prevented it--signed Jay Gatsby in a majestic hand.

Dressedup in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven and wanderedaround rather ill-at-ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn'tknow--though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. Iwas immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all welldressed, all looking a little hungry and all talking in low earnest voices tosolid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something:bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were, at least, agonizingly aware ofthe easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few wordsin the right key.

Assoon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three peopleof whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way and deniedso vehemently any knowledge of his movements that I slunk off in the directionof the cocktail table--the only place in the garden where a single man couldlinger without looking purposeless and alone.

I wason my way to get roaring drunk from sheer embarrassment when Jordan Baker cameout of the house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a littlebackward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden.

Welcomeor not, I found it necessary to attach myself to someone before I should beginto address cordial remarks to the passers-by.

"Hello!"I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across thegarden.

"Ithought you might be here," she responded absently as I came up.

"Iremembered you lived next door to----"

Sheheld my hand impersonally, as a promise that she'd take care of me in a minute,and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses who stopped at the foot of thesteps.

"Hello!"they cried together. "Sorry you didn't win."

Thatwas for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before.

"Youdon't know who we are," said one of the girls in yellow, "but we metyou here about a month ago."

"You'vedyed your hair since then," remarked Jordan, and I started but the girlshad moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon,produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer's basket. With Jordan'sslender golden arm resting in mine we descended the steps and sauntered aboutthe garden. A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight and we satdown at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introducedto us as Mr. Mumble.

"Doyou come to these parties often?" inquired Jordan of the girl beside her.

"Thelast one was the one I met you at," answered the girl, in an alert,confident voice. She turned to her companion: "Wasn't it for you,Lucille?"

Itwas for Lucille, too.

"Ilike to come," Lucille said. "I never care what I do, so I alwayshave a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he askedme my name and address--inside of a week I got a package from Croirier's with anew evening gown in it."

"Didyou keep it?" asked Jordan.

"SureI did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too big in the bust and hadto be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-fivedollars."

"There'ssomething funny about a fellow that'll do a thing like that," said theother girl eagerly. "He doesn't want any trouble with ANYbody."

"Whodoesn't?" I inquired.

"Gatsby.Somebody told me----"

Thetwo girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.

"Somebodytold me they thought he killed a man once."

Athrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listenedeagerly.

"Idon't think it's so much THAT," argued Lucille skeptically; "it'smore that he was a German spy during the war."

Oneof the men nodded in confirmation.

"Iheard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him inGermany," he assured us positively.

"Oh,no," said the first girl, "it couldn't be that, because he was in theAmerican army during the war." As our credulity switched back to her sheleaned forward with enthusiasm. "You look at him sometimes when he thinksnobody's looking at him. I'll bet he killed a man."

Shenarrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and lookedaround for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspiredthat there were whispers about him from those who found little that it wasnecessary to whisper about in this world.

Thefirst supper--there would be another one after midnight--was now being served,and Jordan invited me to join her own party who were spread around a table onthe other side of the garden. There were three married couples and Jordan'sescort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo and obviouslyunder the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up herperson to a greater or lesser degree. Instead of rambling this party hadpreserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function ofrepresenting the staid nobility of the countryside--East Egg condescending toWest Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety.

"Let'sget out," whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriatehalf hour. "This is much too polite for me."

Wegot up, and she explained that we were going to find the host--I had never methim, she said, and it was making me uneasy. The undergraduate nodded in acynical, melancholy way.

Thebar, where we glanced first, was crowded but Gatsby was not there.

Shecouldn't find him from the top of the steps, and he wasn't on the veranda. On achance we tried an important-looking door, and walked into a high Gothiclibrary, panelled with carved English oak, and probably transported completefrom some ruin overseas.

Astout, middle-aged man with enormous owl-eyed spectacles was sitting somewhatdrunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at theshelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordanfrom head to foot.

"Whatdo you think?" he demanded impetuously.

"Aboutwhat?"

Hewaved his hand toward the book-shelves.

"Aboutthat. As a matter of fact you needn't bother to ascertain. I ascertained.They're real."