第8天 ! 初见盖茨比

"Thebooks?"

Henodded.

"Absolutelyreal--have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard.Matter of fact, they're absolutely real. Pages and--Here! Lemme show you."

Takingour skepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with VolumeOne of the "Stoddard Lectures."

"See!"he cried triumphantly. "It's a bona fide piece of printed matter.

Itfooled me. This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness!What realism! Knew when to stop too--didn't cut the pages.

Butwhat do you want? What do you expect?"

Hesnatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf muttering thatif one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.

"Whobrought you?" he demanded. "Or did you just come? I was brought.

Mostpeople were brought."

Jordanlooked at him alertly, cheerfully without answering.

"Iwas brought by a woman named Roosevelt," he continued. "Mrs. ClaudRoosevelt. Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night. I've been drunk forabout a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library."

"Hasit?"

"Alittle bit, I think. I can't tell yet. I've only been here an hour. Did I tellyou about the books? They're real. They're----"

"Youtold us."

Weshook hands with him gravely and went back outdoors.

Therewas dancing now on the canvas in the garden, old men pushing young girlsbackward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each othertortuously, fashionably and keeping in the corners--and a great number ofsingle girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for amoment of the burden of the banjo or the traps. By midnight the hilarity hadincreased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian and a notorious contralto hadsung in jazz and between the numbers people were doing "stunts" allover the garden, while happy vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summersky. A pair of stage "twins"--who turned out to be the girls inyellow--did a baby act in costume and champagne was served in glasses biggerthan finger bowls.

Themoon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silverscales, trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drip of the banjoes on the lawn.

I wasstill with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table with a man of about my ageand a rowdy little girl who gave way upon the slightest provocation touncontrollable laughter. I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two fingerbowls of champagne and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant,elemental and profound.

At alull in the entertainment the man looked at me and smiled.

"Yourface is familiar," he said, politely. "Weren't you in the ThirdDivision during the war?"

"Why,yes. I was in the Ninth Machine-Gun Battalion."

"Iwas in the Seventh Infantry until June nineteen-eighteen. I knew I'd seen yousomewhere before."

Wetalked for a moment about some wet, grey little villages in France.

Evidentlyhe lived in this vicinity for he told me that he had just bought a hydroplaneand was going to try it out in the morning.

"Wantto go with me, old sport? Just near the shore along the Sound."

"Whattime?"

"Anytime that suits you best."

Itwas on the tip of my tongue to ask his name when Jordan looked around andsmiled.

"Havinga gay time now?" she inquired.

"Muchbetter." I turned again to my new acquaintance. "This is an unusualparty for me. I haven't even seen the host. I live over there----" I wavedmy hand at the invisible hedge in the distance, "and this man Gatsby sentover his chauffeur with an invitation."

For amoment he looked at me as if he failed to understand.

"I'mGatsby," he said suddenly.

"What!"I exclaimed. "Oh, I beg your pardon."

"Ithought you knew, old sport. I'm afraid I'm not a very good host."

Hesmiled understandingly--much more than understandingly. It was one of thoserare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may comeacross four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the wholeexternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on YOU with anirresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as youwanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe inyourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, atyour best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished--and I waslooking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whoseelaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before heintroduced himself I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his wordswith care.

Almostat the moment when Mr. Gatsby identified himself a butler hurried toward himwith the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire. He excusedhimself with a small bow that included each of us in turn.

"Ifyou want anything just ask for it, old sport," he urged me.

"Excuseme. I will rejoin you later."

Whenhe was gone I turned immediately to Jordan--constrained to assure her of mysurprise. I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent personin his middle years.

"Whois he?" I demanded. "Do you know?"

"He'sjust a man named Gatsby."

"Whereis he from, I mean? And what does he do?"

"NowYOU're started on the subject," she answered with a wan smile.

"Well,--hetold me once he was an Oxford man."

A dimbackground started to take shape behind him but at her next remark it fadedaway.

"However,I don't believe it."

"Whynot?"

"Idon't know," she insisted, "I just don't think he went there."

Somethingin her tone reminded me of the other girl's "I think he killed aman," and had the effect of stimulating my curiosity. I would haveaccepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang from the swamps ofLouisiana or from the lower East Side of New York.

Thatwas comprehensible. But young men didn't--at least in my provincialinexperience I believed they didn't--drift coolly out of nowhere and buy apalace on Long Island Sound.

"Anyhowhe gives large parties," said Jordan, changing the subject with an urbanedistaste for the concrete. "And I like large parties.

They'reso intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy."

Therewas the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang outsuddenly above the echolalia of the garden.

"Ladiesand gentlemen," he cried. "At the request of Mr. Gatsby we are goingto play for you Mr. Vladimir Tostoff's latest work which attracted so muchattention at Carnegie Hall last May. If you read the papers you know there wasa big sensation." He smiled with jovial condescension and added "Somesensation!" whereupon everybody laughed.

"Thepiece is known," he concluded lustily, "as 'Vladimir Tostoff's JazzHistory of the World.' "

Thenature of Mr. Tostoff's composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyesfell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one groupto another with approving eyes.

Histanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair lookedas though it were trimmed every day. I could see nothing sinister about him. Iwondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from hisguests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarityincreased.

Whenthe "Jazz History of the World" was over girls were putting theirheads on men's shoulders in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooningbackward playfully into men's arms, even into groups knowing that some onewould arrest their falls--but no one swooned backward on Gatsby and no Frenchbob touched Gatsby's shoulder and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby'shead for one link.

"Ibeg your pardon."

Gatsby'sbutler was suddenly standing beside us.

"MissBaker?" he inquired. "I beg your pardon but Mr. Gatsby would like tospeak to you alone."

"Withme?" she exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes,madame."

Shegot up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment, and followed thebutler toward the house. I noticed that she wore her evening dress, all her dresses,like sports clothes--there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she hadfirst learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings.

I wasalone and it was almost two. For some time confused and intriguing sounds hadissued from a long many-windowed room which overhung the terrace. EludingJordan's undergraduate who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation withtwo chorus girls, and who implored me to join him, I went inside.

Thelarge room was full of people. One of the girls in yellow was playing the pianoand beside her stood a tall, red haired young lady from a famous chorus,engaged in song. She had drunk a quantity of champagne and during the course ofher song she had decided ineptly that everything was very very sad--she was notonly singing, she was weeping too. Whenever there was a pause in the song shefilled it with gasping broken sobs and then took up the lyric again in aquavering soprano. The tears coursed down her cheeks--not freely, however, forwhen they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed aninky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets. Ahumorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her face whereupon shethrew up her hands, sank into a chair and went off into a deep vinous sleep.

"Shehad a fight with a man who says he's her husband," explained a girl at myelbow.

Ilooked around. Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men saidto be their husbands. Even Jordan's party, the quartet from East Egg, were rentasunder by dissension. One of the men was talking with curious intensity to ayoung actress, and his wife after attempting to laugh at the situation in adignified and indifferent way broke down entirely and resorted to flankattacks--at intervals she appeared suddenly at his side like an angry diamond,and hissed "You promised!" into his ear.