第9天 ! 尼克的遐思

Thereluctance to go home was not confined to wayward men. The hall was at presentoccupied by two deplorably sober men and their highly indignant wives. Thewives were sympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices.

"Wheneverhe sees I'm having a good time he wants to go home."

"Neverheard anything so selfish in my life."

"We'realways the first ones to leave."

"Soare we."

"Well,we're almost the last tonight," said one of the men sheepishly.

"Theorchestra left half an hour ago."

Inspite of the wives' agreement that such malevolence was beyond credibility, thedispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted kicking into thenight.

As Iwaited for my hat in the hall the door of the library opened and Jordan Bakerand Gatsby came out together. He was saying some last word to her but theeagerness in his manner tightened abruptly into formality as several peopleapproached him to say goodbye.

Jordan'sparty were calling impatiently to her from the porch but she lingered for amoment to shake hands.

"I'vejust heard the most amazing thing," she whispered. "How long were wein there?"

"Why,--aboutan hour."

"Itwas--simply amazing," she repeated abstractedly. "But I swore Iwouldn't tell it and here I am tantalizing you." She yawned gracefully inmy face. "Please come and see me.... Phone book.

...Under the name of Mrs. Sigourney Howard.... My aunt...."

Shewas hurrying off as she talked--her brown hand waved a jaunty salute as shemelted into her party at the door.

Ratherashamed that on my first appearance I had stayed so late, I joined the last ofGatsby's guests who were clustered around him. I wanted to explain that I'dhunted for him early in the evening and to apologize for not having known himin the garden.

"Don'tmention it," he enjoined me eagerly. "Don't give it another thought,old sport." The familiar expression held no more familiarity than the handwhich reassuringly brushed my shoulder. "And don't forget we're going upin the hydroplane tomorrow morning at nine o'clock."

Thenthe butler, behind his shoulder:

"Philadelphiawants you on the phone, sir."

"Allright, in a minute. Tell them I'll be right there.... good night."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight." He smiled--and suddenly there seemed to be a pleasant significancein having been among the last to go, as if he had desired it all the time."Good night, old sport.... Good night."

Butas I walked down the steps I saw that the evening was not quite over.

Fiftyfeet from the door a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuousscene. In the ditch beside the road, right side up but violently shorn of onewheel, rested a new coupé which had left Gatsby's drive not two minutes before.The sharp jut of a wall accounted for the detachment of the wheel which was nowgetting considerable attention from half a dozen curious chauffeurs. However,as they had left their cars blocking the road a harsh discordant din from thosein the rear had been audible for some time and added to the already violentconfusion of the scene.

A manin a long duster had dismounted from the wreck and now stood in the middle ofthe road, looking from the car to the tire and from the tire to the observersin a pleasant, puzzled way.

"See!"he explained. "It went in the ditch."

Thefact was infinitely astonishing to him--and I recognized first the unusualquality of wonder and then the man--it was the late patron of Gatsby's library.

"How'dit happen?"

Heshrugged his shoulders.

"Iknow nothing whatever about mechanics," he said decisively.

"Buthow did it happen? Did you run into the wall?"

"Don'task me," said Owl Eyes, washing his hands of the whole matter.

"Iknow very little about driving--next to nothing. It happened, and that's all Iknow."

"Well,if you're a poor driver you oughtn't to try driving at night."

"ButI wasn't even trying," he explained indignantly, "I wasn't eventrying."

Anawed hush fell upon the bystanders.

"Doyou want to commit suicide?"

"You'relucky it was just a wheel! A bad driver and not even TRYing!"

"Youdon't understand," explained the criminal. "I wasn't driving. There'sanother man in the car."

Theshock that followed this declaration found voice in a sustained"Ah-h-h!" as the door of the coupé swung slowly open. The crowd--itwas now a crowd--stepped back involuntarily and when the door had opened widethere was a ghostly pause. Then, very gradually, part by part, a pale danglingindividual stepped out of the wreck, pawing tentatively at the ground with alarge uncertain dancing shoe.

Blindedby the glare of the headlights and confused by the incessant groaning of thehorns the apparition stood swaying for a moment before he perceived the man inthe duster.

"Wha'smatter?" he inquired calmly. "Did we run outa gas?"

"Look!"

Halfa dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel--he stared at it for a momentand then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.

"Itcame off," some one explained.

Henodded.

"Atfirst I din' notice we'd stopped."

Apause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders he remarkedin a determined voice:

"Wonder'fftell me where there's a gas'line station?"

Atleast a dozen men, some of them little better off than he was, explained to himthat wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond.

"Backout," he suggested after a moment. "Put her in reverse."

"Butthe WHEEL'S off!"

Hehesitated.

"Noharm in trying," he said.

Thecaterwauling horns had reached a crescendo and I turned away and cut across thelawn toward home. I glanced back once. A wafer of a moon was shining overGatsby's house, making the night fine as before and surviving the laughter andthe sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow nowfrom the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation thefigure of the host who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture offarewell.

Readingover what I have written so far I see I have given the impression that theevents of three nights several weeks apart were all that absorbed me. On thecontrary they were merely casual events in a crowded summer and, until muchlater, they absorbed me infinitely less than my personal affairs.

Most ofthe time I worked. In the early morning the sun threw my shadow westward as Ihurried down the white chasms of lower New York to the Probity Trust. I knewthe other clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names and lunched withthem in dark crowded restaurants on little pig sausages and mashed potatoes andcoffee. I even had a short affair with a girl who lived in Jersey City andworked in the accounting department, but her brother began throwing mean looksin my direction so when she went on her vacation in July I let it blow quietlyaway.

Itook dinner usually at the Yale Club--for some reason it was the gloomiestevent of my day--and then I went upstairs to the library and studiedinvestments and securities for a conscientious hour.

Therewere generally a few rioters around but they never came into the library so itwas a good place to work. After that, if the night was mellow I strolled downMadison Avenue past the old Murray Hill Hotel and over Thirty-third Street tothe Pennsylvania Station.

Ibegan to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night and thesatisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives tothe restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic womenfrom the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter intotheir lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, Ifollowed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and theyturned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warmdarkness. At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting lonelinesssometimes, and felt it in others--poor young clerks who loitered in front ofwindows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner--young clerksin the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.

Againat eight o'clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were five deep withthrobbing taxi cabs, bound for the theatre district, I felt a sinking in myheart. Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, andthere was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes outlinedunintelligible gestures inside. Imagining that I, too, was hurrying towardgayety and sharing their intimate excitement, I wished them well.

For awhile I lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in midsummer I found her again. Atfirst I was flattered to go places with her because she was a golf champion andevery one knew her name. Then it was something more. I wasn't actually in love,but I felt a sort of tender curiosity. The bored haughty face that she turnedto the world concealed something--most affectations conceal somethingeventually, even though they don't in the beginning--and one day I found whatit was. When we were on a house-party together up in Warwick, she left aborrowed car out in the rain with the top down, and then lied about it--andsuddenly I remembered the story about her that had eluded me that night atDaisy's. At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reachedthe newspapers--a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in thesemi-final round. The thing approached the proportions of a scandal--then diedaway. A caddy retracted his statement and the only other witness admitted thathe might have been mistaken. The incident and the name had remained together inmy mind.

JordanBaker instinctively avoided clever shrewd men and now I saw that this wasbecause she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would bethought impossible. She was incurably dishonest.

Shewasn't able to endure being at a disadvantage, and given this unwillingness Isuppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in orderto keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy thedemands of her hard jaunty body.

Itmade no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blamedeeply--I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was on that same houseparty that we had a curious conversation about driving a car. It startedbecause she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button onone man's coat.

"You'rea rotten driver," I protested. "Either you ought to be more carefulor you oughtn't to drive at all."

"Iam careful."

"No,you're not."

"Well,other people are," she said lightly.

"What'sthat got to do with it?"

"They'llkeep out of my way," she insisted. "It takes two to make anaccident."

"Supposeyou met somebody just as careless as yourself."

"Ihope I never will," she answered. "I hate careless people. That's whyI like you."

Hergrey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shiftedour relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinkingand full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew thatfirst I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. I'd beenwriting letters once a week and signing them: "Love, Nick," and all Icould think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustacheof perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vagueunderstanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free.

Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine:I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.