菲茨杰拉德丨了不起的盖茨比丨选段丨这场大屠杀结束了

At two o’clock Gatsby put on his bathing suit and left word with the butler that if any one phoned word was to be brought to him at the pool. He stopped at the garage for a pneumatic mattress that had amused his guests during the summer, and the chauffeur helped him pump it up. Then he gave instructions that the open car wasn’t to be taken out under any circumstances—and this was strange because the front right fender needed repair.

Gatsby shouldered the mattress and started for the pool. Once he stopped and shifted it a little, and the chauffeur asked him if he needed help, but he shook his head and in a moment disappeared among the yellowing trees.

No telephone message arrived but the butler went without his sleep and waited for it until four o’clock—until long after there was any one to give it to if it came. I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about ... like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.

The chauffeur—he was one of Wolfshiem’s protégés — heard the shots — afterward he could only say that he hadn’t thought anything much about them. I drove from the station directly to Gatsby’s house and my rushing anxiously up the front steps was the first thing that alarmed any one. But they knew then, I firmly believe. With scarcely a word said, four of us, the chauffeur, butler, gardener and I, hurried down to the pool.

There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other. With little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool. A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of compass, a thin red circle in the water.

It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete.

下午两点钟盖茨比穿上游泳衣，留了话给男管家，如果有人打电话来，就到游泳池来给他送个信。他先到汽车房去拿了一个夏天供客人们娱乐用的橡皮垫子，司机帮他把垫子打足了气。然后他吩咐司机在任何情况下不得把那辆敞篷车开出来——而这是很奇怪的，因为前面右边的挡泥板需要修理。盖茨比把垫子扛在肩上，向游泳池走去。有一次他停下来挪动了一下，司机问他要不要帮忙，但是他摇了摇头，再过一会就消失在叶子正在变黄的树木中了。始终没有人打电话来，可是男管家午觉也没睡，一直等到四点——等到那时即使有电话来也早已没有人接了。我有一个想法：盖茨比本人并不相信会有电话来的，而且他也许已经无所谓了。如果是这样的话，他一定会觉得他已经失去了那个旧日的温暖的世界，为了抱着一个梦太久而付出了很高的代价。他一定透过可怕的树叶仰视过一片陌生的天空而感到毛骨悚然，同时发觉一朵玫瑰花是多么丑恶的东西，阳光照在刚刚露头的小草上又是多么残酷。这是一个新的世界，物质的然而并不真实，在这里可怜的幽魂，呼吸着空气般的轻梦，东飘西荡……就像那个灰蒙蒙的、古怪的人形穿过杂乱的树木悄悄地朝他走来。汽车司机——他是沃尔夫山姆手下的一个人——听到了枪声，事后他可只能说他当时并没有十分重视。我从火车站把车子直接开到盖茨比家里，等我急急忙忙冲上前门的台阶，才第一次使屋里的人感到是出事了。但是我认为他们当时肯定已经知道了。我们四人，司机、男管家、园丁和我，几乎一言不发地急匆匆奔到游泳池边。池里的水有一点微微的、几乎看不出的流动，从一头放进来的清水又流向另一头的排水管。随着隐隐的涟漪，那只有重负的橡皮垫子在池子里盲目地漂着。连水面也吹不皱的一阵微风就足以扰乱它那载着偶然的重负的偶然的航程。一堆落叶使它慢慢旋转，像经纬仪一样，在水上转出一道细细的红圈子。我们抬起盖茨比朝着屋子里走以后，园丁才在不远的草丛里看见了威尔逊的尸体，于是这场大屠杀就结束了。