第14天 ! 五年后重逢黛西

Awareof the loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to against the increasingrain.

Forhalf a minute there wasn't a sound. Then from the living room I heard a sort ofchoking murmur and part of a laugh followed by Daisy's voice on a clearartificial note.

"Icertainly am awfully glad to see you again."

Apause; it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall so I went into theroom.

Gatsby,his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in astrained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom.

Hishead leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunctmantelpiece clock and from this position his distraught eyes stared down atDaisy who was sitting frightened but graceful on the edge of a stiff chair.

"We'vemet before," muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at me and his lipsparted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily the clock took this momentto tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caughtit with trembling fingers and set it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly,his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his chin in his hand.

"I'msorry about the clock," he said.

Myown face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. I couldn't muster up a singlecommonplace out of the thousand in my head.

"It'san old clock," I told them idiotically.

I thinkwe all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor.

"Wehaven't met for many years," said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as itcould ever be.

"Fiveyears next November."

Theautomatic quality of Gatsby's answer set us all back at least another minute. Ihad them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help memake tea in the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray.

Amidthe welcome confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical decency establisheditself. Gatsby got himself into a shadow and while Daisy and I talked lookedconscientiously from one to the other of us with tense unhappy eyes. However,as calmness wasn't an end in itself I made an excuse at the first possiblemoment and got to my feet.

"Whereare you going?" demanded Gatsby in immediate alarm.

"I'llbe back."

"I'vegot to speak to you about something before you go."

Hefollowed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the door and whispered:

"Oh,God!" in a miserable way.

"What'sthe matter?"

"Thisis a terrible mistake," he said, shaking his head from side to side,"a terrible, terrible mistake."

"You'rejust embarrassed, that's all," and luckily I added: "Daisy'sembarrassed too."

"She'sembarrassed?" he repeated incredulously.

"Justas much as you are."

"Don'ttalk so loud."

"You'reacting like a little boy," I broke out impatiently. "Not only thatbut you're rude. Daisy's sitting in there all alone."

Heraised his hand to stop my words, looked at me with unforgettable reproach andopening the door cautiously went back into the other room.

Iwalked out the back way--just as Gatsby had when he had made his nervouscircuit of the house half an hour before--and ran for a huge black knotted treewhose massed leaves made a fabric against the rain.

Oncemore it was pouring and my irregular lawn, well-shaved by Gatsby's gardener,abounded in small muddy swamps and prehistoric marshes. There was nothing tolook at from under the tree except Gatsby's enormous house, so I stared at it,like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour. A brewer had built it earlyin the "period" craze, a decade before, and there was a story thathe'd agreed to pay five years' taxes on all the neighboring cottages if theowners would have their roofs thatched with straw. Perhaps their refusal tookthe heart out of his plan to Found a Family--he went into an immediate decline.His children sold his house with the black wreath still on the door. Americans,while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about beingpeasantry.

Afterhalf an hour the sun shone again and the grocer's automobile rounded Gatsby'sdrive with the raw material for his servants' dinner--I felt sure he wouldn'teat a spoonful. A maid began opening the upper windows of his house, appearedmomentarily in each, and, leaning from a large central bay, spat meditativelyinto the garden. It was time I went back. While the rain continued it hadseemed like the murmur of their voices, rising and swelling a little, now andthe, with gusts of emotion. But in the new silence I felt that silence hadfallen within the house too.

Iwent in--after making every possible noise in the kitchen short of pushing overthe stove--but I don't believe they heard a sound. They were sitting at eitherend of the couch looking at each other as if some question had been asked orwas in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy's face wassmeared with tears and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it withher handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that wassimply confounding.

Heliterally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-beingradiated from him and filled the little room.

"Oh,hello, old sport," he said, as if he hadn't seen me for years. I thoughtfor a moment he was going to shake hands.

"It'sstopped raining."

"Hasit?" When he realized what I was talking about, that there weretwinkle-bells of sunshine in the room, he smiled like a weather man, like anecstatic patron of recurrent light, and repeated the news to Daisy. "Whatdo you think of that? It's stopped raining."

"I'mglad, Jay." Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of herunexpected joy.

"Iwant you and Daisy to come over to my house," he said, "I'd like to showher around."

"You'resure you want me to come?"

"Absolutely,old sport."

Daisywent upstairs to wash her face--too late I thought with humiliation of mytowels--while Gatsby and I waited on the lawn.

"Myhouse looks well, doesn't it?" he demanded. "See how the whole frontof it catches the light."

Iagreed that it was splendid.

"Yes."His eyes went over it, every arched door and square tower. "It took mejust three years to earn the money that bought it."

"Ithought you inherited your money."

"Idid, old sport," he said automatically, "but I lost most of it in thebig panic--the panic of the war."

Ithink he hardly knew what he was saying, for when I asked him what business hewas in he answered "That's my affair," before he realized that itwasn't the appropriate reply.

"Oh,I've been in several things," he corrected himself. "I was in thedrug business and then I was in the oil business. But I'm not in either onenow." He looked at me with more attention. "Do you mean you've beenthinking over what I proposed the other night?"

BeforeI could answer, Daisy came out of the house and two rows of brass buttons onher dress gleamed in the sunlight.

"Thathuge place THERE?" she cried pointing.

"Doyou like it?"

"Ilove it, but I don't see how you live there all alone."

"Ikeep it always full of interesting people, night and day. People who do interestingthings. Celebrated people."

Insteadof taking the short cut along the Sound we went down the road and entered bythe big postern. With enchanting murmurs Daisy admired this aspect or that ofthe feudal silhouette against the sky, admired the gardens, the sparkling odorof jonquils and the frothy odor of hawthorn and plum blossoms and the pale goldodor of kiss-me-at-the-gate.

Itwas strange to reach the marble steps and find no stir of bright dresses in andout the door, and hear no sound but bird voices in the trees.

Andinside as we wandered through Marie Antoinette music rooms and Restorationsalons I felt that there were guests concealed behind every couch and table,under orders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through. As Gatsbyclosed the door of "the Merton College Library" I could have sworn Iheard the owl-eyed man break into ghostly laughter.