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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald · Audiobooks & Scary Stories

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  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
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  Speaker 1: work in the public domain, The Great Gatsby by F.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Scott Fitzgerald, Chapter one. In my younger and more vulnerable years,
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  Speaker 1: my father gave me some advice that I've been turning
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  Speaker 1: over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like
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  Speaker 1: criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember that all the
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  Speaker 1: people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't say any more, But we've always been unusually
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  Speaker 1: communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he
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  Speaker 1: meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I'm
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  Speaker 1: inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened
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  Speaker 1: up many curious natures to me and also made me
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  Speaker 1: the victim of not a few veteran boars. The abnormal
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  Speaker 1: mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this
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  Speaker 1: quality when it appears in a normal person. And so
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  Speaker 1: it came about that in college I was unjustly accused
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  Speaker 1: of being a politician because I was privy to the
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  Speaker 1: secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences
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  Speaker 1: were uns Frequently I have feigned sleep preoccupation or a
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  Speaker 1: hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that
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  Speaker 1: an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon. For the
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  Speaker 1: intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms
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  Speaker 1: in which they expressed them, are usually plagiaristic and marred
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  Speaker 1: by obvious oppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.
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  Speaker 1: I am still a little afraid of missing something if
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  Speaker 1: I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I
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  Speaker 1: snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled
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  Speaker 1: out unequally at birth. And after boasting this way of
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  Speaker 1: my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has
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  Speaker 1: a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock
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  Speaker 1: or the wet marshes, but after a certain point, I
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  Speaker 1: don't care what it's founded on. When I came back
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  Speaker 1: from the East last autumn, I felt that I wanted
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  Speaker 1: the world to be in uniform and at a sort
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  Speaker 1: of moral attention forever. I wanted no more riotous excursions
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Art. Only Gatsby,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the man who gives his name to this book, was
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  Speaker 1: exempt from my reaction. Gatsby, who represented everything for which
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  Speaker 1: I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken
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  Speaker 1: series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him,
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  Speaker 1: some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if
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  Speaker 1: he were related to one of those intricate machines that
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  Speaker 1: register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing
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  Speaker 1: to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under
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  Speaker 1: the name of the creative temperament. It was an extraordinary
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  Speaker 1: gift for hope or romantic readiness, such as I have
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  Speaker 1: never found in any other person, in which it is
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  Speaker 1: not likely I shall ever find again. No Gatsby turned
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  Speaker 1: out all right at the end. It is what preyed
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  Speaker 1: on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of
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  Speaker 1: his dreams, that temporarily closed out my interest in the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: abortive sorrows and short winded elations of men. My family
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: have been prominent, well to do people in this middle
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  Speaker 1: western city for three js. The Caraways are something of
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  Speaker 1: a clan, and we have a tradition that were descended
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  Speaker 1: from the Dukes of Bukluk. But the actual founder of
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  Speaker 1: my line was my grandfather's brother, who came here in
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  Speaker 1: fifty one sent a substitute to the Civil War and
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  Speaker 1: started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on
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  Speaker 1: to day. I never saw this great uncle, but I'm
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  Speaker 1: supposed to look like him, with special reference to the
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  Speaker 1: rather hard boiled painting that hangs in father's office. I
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  Speaker 1: graduated from New Haven in nineteen fifteen, just a quarter
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of a century after my father, and a little later
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the
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  Speaker 1: Great War. I enjoyed the counteraid so thoroughly that I
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  Speaker 1: came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of
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  Speaker 1: the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged
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  Speaker 1: edge of the universe. So I decided to go east
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  Speaker 1: and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in
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  Speaker 1: the bond business, so I supposed it could support one
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  Speaker 1: more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it
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  Speaker 1: over as if they were choosing a prep school for me,
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  Speaker 1: and finally said why ye, yes, with very grave hesitant faces.
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  Speaker 1: Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after
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  Speaker 1: various delays, I came east permanently. I thought in the
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  Speaker 1: spring of twenty two. The practical thing was to find
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  Speaker 1: rooms in the city but it was a warm season,
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  Speaker 1: and I had just left a country of wide lawns
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  Speaker 1: and friendly trees. So when a young man at the
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  Speaker 1: office suggested that we take a house together in a
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  Speaker 1: commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found
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  Speaker 1: the house, a weather beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month,
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  Speaker 1: but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington,
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  Speaker 1: and I went out to the country alone. I had
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  Speaker 1: a dog, at least I had him for a few
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  Speaker 1: days until he ran away, and an old dodge, and
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  Speaker 1: a finish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast
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  Speaker 1: and muttered finish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: It was lonely for a day or so until one
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  Speaker 1: morning some man more more recently arrived than I stopped
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  Speaker 1: me on the road. How do you get to West
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  Speaker 1: Egg Village, he asked, helplessly. I told him, And as
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  Speaker 1: I walked on, I was lonely no longer. I was
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  Speaker 1: a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually
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  Speaker 1: conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood. And so
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing
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  Speaker 1: on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies.
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  Speaker 1: I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over
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  Speaker 1: again with the summer. There was so much to read,
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  Speaker 1: for one thing, and so much fine health to be
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: pulled down out of the young, breath giving air. I
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities,
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  Speaker 1: and they stood on my shelf in red and gold,
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  Speaker 1: like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the
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  Speaker 1: shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Messinus knew.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And I had the high intention of reading many other books. Besides,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I was rather literary. In college one I wrote a
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  Speaker 1: series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News.
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  Speaker 1: And now I was going to bring back all such
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  Speaker 1: things into my life and become again that most limited
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: of all specialists, the well rounded man. This isn't just
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  Speaker 1: an epigram. Life is much more successfully looked at from
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  Speaker 1: a single window. After all, it was a matter of
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  Speaker 1: chance that I should have rented a house in one
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  Speaker 1: of the strangest communities in North America. It was on
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  Speaker 1: that slender, riotous island which extends itself due east of
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  Speaker 1: New York, and where there are, among other natural curiosities,
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  Speaker 1: two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city,
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  Speaker 1: A pair of enormous eggs, identical in conterur and separated
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  Speaker 1: only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most
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  Speaker 1: domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the
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  Speaker 1: great wet Barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: perfect ovals, like the egg in the Columbus story. They
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: are both crushed flat at the contact end. But their
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual wonder to
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the gulls that fly overhead to the wingless, and more
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: interesting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape
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  Speaker 1: and size. I lived at West Egg, the well the
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  Speaker 1: less fashionable of the two, though this is a most
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  Speaker 1: superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very
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  Speaker 1: tip of the Egg, only fifty yards from the sound,
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  Speaker 1: and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve
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  Speaker 1: or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right
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  Speaker 1: was a colossal affair by any standard. It was a
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  Speaker 1: factual imitation of some hotel de Ville in Normandy, with
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  Speaker 1: a tower on one side spanking new under a thin
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  Speaker 1: beard of raw ivy and a marble swimming pool, and
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  Speaker 1: more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was
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  Speaker 1: Gatsby's mansion, or rather, as I didn't know mister Gatsby,
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  Speaker 1: it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name.
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  Speaker 1: My own house was an iore, but it was a
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  Speaker 1: small iesore, and it had been overlooked. So I had
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  Speaker 1: a view of the water, a partial view of my
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  Speaker 1: neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires, all for
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  Speaker 1: eighty dollars a month. Across the courtesy bade. The white
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  Speaker 1: palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the history of the summer really begins. On the evening
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  Speaker 1: I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans.
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  Speaker 1: Daisy was my second cousin, once removed, and I'd known
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  Speaker 1: Tom in college, and just after the war I spent
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  Speaker 1: two days with them in Chicago. Her husband, among various
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  Speaker 1: physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends
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  Speaker 1: that ever played football at New Haven, a national figure
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  Speaker 1: in a way, one of those men who reached such
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  Speaker 1: an acute limited excellence at twenty one, that everything afterward
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  Speaker 1: savers of anticlimax. His family were enormously wealthy. Even in college,
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  Speaker 1: his freedom with money was a matter for reproach. But
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  Speaker 1: now he'd left Chicago and come East in a fashion
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  Speaker 1: that rather took your breath away. For instance, he brought
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  Speaker 1: down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It
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  Speaker 1: was hard to realize that a man in my own
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  Speaker 1: generation was wealthy enough to do that. Why they came east,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. They had spent a year in France
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  Speaker 1: for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully,
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  Speaker 1: wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was
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  Speaker 1: a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone. But I
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  Speaker 1: didn't believe it. I had no sight into Daisy's heart,
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  Speaker 1: but I felt that Tom would drift on forever, seeking
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable
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  Speaker 1: football game. And so it happened that on a warm,
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  Speaker 1: windy evening, I drove over to East Egg to see
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  Speaker 1: two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: house was even more elaborate than I expected, A cheerful,
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  Speaker 1: red and white Georgian colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The
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  Speaker 1: lawns started at the beach and ran towards the front
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  Speaker 1: door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: and brick walks and burning gardens. Finally, when it reached
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  Speaker 1: the house, drifting ou up the side in bright vines,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: as though from the momentum of its run. The front
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now
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  Speaker 1: with reflected gold and wide open to the warm, windy afternoon.
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  Speaker 1: And Tom Buchanan, in riding clothes, was standing with his
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  Speaker 1: legs apart on the front porch. He had changed since
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  Speaker 1: his new Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: over his face and gave him the appearance of always
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: He seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the top lacing, and you could see a great pack
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: It was a body capable of enormous leverage, a cruel body.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: His speaking voice, a gruff, husky tenor, added to the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: impression of fractiousness. He conveyed. There was a touch of
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  Speaker 1: paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked, and
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts. Now,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: don't think my opinion on these matters is final, he
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: seemed to say, just because I'm stronger, more of a
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  Speaker 1: man than you are. We were in the same senior society,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: and while we were never intimate, I always had the
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  Speaker 1: impression that he approved of me and wanted me to
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  Speaker 1: like him, with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
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  Speaker 1: I've got a nice place here, he said, his eyes
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: flashing about restlessly. Turning me around by one arm, he
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: moved a broad, flat hand along the front vista, including
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  Speaker 1: in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre
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  Speaker 1: of deep pungent roses, and a snubnosed motor boat that
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: bumped the tide off shore. It belonged to Domine, the
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  Speaker 1: oil man. He turned me around again, politely, and abruptly,
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  Speaker 1: we'll go inside. We walked through a high hallway into
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  Speaker 1: a bright, rosy colored space, fragilely bound into the house
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar
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  Speaker 1: and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: to grow a little way into the house, A breeze
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: blew through the room blue curtains in at one end
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling, and then
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: rippled over the wine colored rug, making a shadow on
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: it as wind does on the sea. The only completely
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: which two young women were buoyed up as though upon
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: dresses were rippling and fluttering, as if they had just
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: been blown back in After a short flight around the house,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I must have stood for a few moments, listening to
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: of a picture on the wall. Then there was a
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows, and the
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and the rugs, and the two young women balloon slowly
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  Speaker 1: to the floor. The younger of the two was a
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  Speaker 1: stranger to me. She was extended full length at her
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  Speaker 1: end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin
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  Speaker 1: raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: which was quite likely to fall if she saw me
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: out of the corner of her eyes. She gave no
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: hint of it. Indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: an apology for having disturbed her by coming in. The
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  Speaker 1: other girl, Daisy made an attempt to rise. She leaned
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  Speaker 1: slightly forward with a conscientious expression. Then she laughed, an absurd,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: charming little laugh, and I laughed too, and came forward
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: into the room. I'm p paralyzed with happiness. She laughed again,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: as if she said something very witty, and held my
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: that there was no one in the world she so
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: much wanted to see. That was a way she had.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: balancing girl was Baker. I've heard it said that Daisy's
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: murmur was only to make people lean toward her an
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming at any rate.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Miss Baker's lips fluttered. She nodded at me, almost imperceptibly,
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  Speaker 1: and then quickly tipped her head back again. The object
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: her something of affright again. A sort of apology arose
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: draws a stun tribute from me. I looked back at
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: ear follows up and down, as if each speech is
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Her face was sad and lovely, with bright things in it,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: bright eyes and a bright, passionate mouth. But there was
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: an excitement in her voice that men who had cared
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: for her found difficult to forget, a singing compulsion, a
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: whispered listen, a promise that she had done gay exciting
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: things just a while since, and that the were gay
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: exciting things hovering in the next hour. I told her
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: on my way east, and how a dozen people had
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: sent their love through me. Do they miss me? She
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: cried ecstatically. The whole town is desolate. All the cars
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: have the left rear will painted black as a morning wreath.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: And there's a persistent wail all night along the north shore.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: How gorgeous. Let's go back tom tomorrow. Then she added irrelevantly.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: You ought to see the baby. I'd like to She's asleep,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: she's three years old. Haven't you ever seen her? Never? Well,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you ought to see her. She's Tom Buchanan, who had
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: hand on my shoulder. What you doing, Nick, I'm a
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: bond man who with I told him never heard of them?
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: He remarked decisively. This annoyed me. You will, I answered shortly.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: You will if you stay in the east. Oh, I'll
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: stay in the East. Don't you worry, he said, glancing
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: at Daisy and then back at me, as if he
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: were alert for something more. I'd be a goddamned fool
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: to live anywhere else. At this point, Miss Baker said absolutely,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: with such suddenness that I started. It was the first
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: word she had uttered since I came into the room.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: stood up into the room. I'm stiff, she complained, I've
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: been lying on that sofa for as long as I
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: can remember. Don't look at me, Daisy retorted, I've been
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: trying to get you to New York all afternoon. No thanks,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the pantry. I'm absolutely entrained. Her host looked at her incredulously.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: You are, He took down his drink as if it
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: were a drop in the bottom of a glass. How
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: you ever get anything done is beyond me. I looked
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she got done.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: breasted girl with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Her gray, sunstrained eyes looked back at me with polite,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: reciprocal curiosity out of a wand charming, discontented face. It
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: occurred to me, now that I had seen her, or
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a picture of her, somewhere before. You live in West Egg,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: she remarked contemptuously. I know somebody there. I don't know
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a single You must know Gatsby. Gatsby, demanded Daisy. What Gatsby?
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Before I could reply that he was my neighbor, dinner
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: was announced. His tense arm imperatively under mine. Tom Buchanan
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: compelled me from the room as though he were moving
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a checker to another square slenderly, languidly, their hands set
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: out on to a rosy colored porch opened toward the sunset,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Why candles, objected Daisy, frowning, she snapped them out with
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: her fingers. In two weeks, it'll be the longest day
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: in the year. She looked at us all radiantly. Do
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you always watch for the longest day of the year
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and then miss it? I always watch for the longest
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: day in the year, and then miss it. We ought
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: to plan something, yoned Miss Baker, sitting down at the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: table as if she were getting into bed. All right,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: said Daisy, why do we plan? She turned to me helplessly.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: What do people plan. Before I could answer, her eyes
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: fastened with an odd expression on her little finger. Look.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: She complained, I heard it. We all looked. The knuckle
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: was black and blue. You did it, Tom, she said, accusingly.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I know you didn't mean to, but you did do it.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: That's what I get from marrying a brute of a man,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a I hate
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: that word, Hulking, objected Tom crossly. Even in kidding, Hulking,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: insisted Daisy. Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: unobtrusively and with a bantering in consequence that was never
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: and their impersonal eyes. In the absence of all desire.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: only a polite, pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: They knew that presently dinner would be over, and a
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: little later the evening too would be over and casually
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: put away. It was sharply different from the West, where
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: cloth in a continually disappointed anticipation, or else in sheer
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: nervous dread of the moment itself. You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I confessed, on my second glass of corky but rather impressive, Claret,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: can't you talk about crops or something? I meant nothing
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: in particular by this remark, but it was taken up
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: in an unexpected way. Civilizations going to pieces, broke out
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Tom violently. I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Have you read The Rise of the Colored Empires by
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: this man Goddard? Why no, I answered, rather surprised by
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: his tone. Well, it's a fine book and everybody ought
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: to read it. The idea is, if we don't look out,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the white race will be will be utterly submerged. It's
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: all scientific stuff. It's been proved. Tom's getting very profound,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. He reads
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: deep books with long words in them. What was that word?
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: We Well, these books are all scientific, insisted Tom, glancing
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: at her impatiently. This fellow has worked out the whole thing.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: It's up to us, who are the dominant race, to
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: watch out or these other races we'll have control of things.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: We've got to beat them down. Whispered Daisy, winking ferociously
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: toward the fervent sun. You ought to live in California,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: in his chair. This idea is that we're Nordics. I am,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and you are, and you are. And after an infinitesimal hesitation,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: at me again. And we've produced all the things that
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: go to make civilization. Oh, science and art and all that.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Do you see? There was something pathetic in his concentration,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: not enough to him any more. When almost immediately the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch, Daisy
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned towards me. I'll
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: tell you a family secret, she whispered enthusiastically. It's about
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: butler's nose? That's why I came over tonight. Well, he
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: wasn't always a butler. He used to be the silver
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: polisher for some people in New York that had a
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: it from morning till night, until finally it began to
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: affect his nose. Things went from bad to worse, suggested
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Miss Baker. Yes, things went from bad to worse, until
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: finally he had to give up his position for a moment.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: The last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened. Then
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the glow faded, each light, deserting her with lingering regret,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: like children leaving a pleasant street. At dusk, the butler
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear, whereupon
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing, I
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: love to see you at my table. Nick, you remind
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: me of a of a rose, an absolute rose, doesn't he?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation, an absolute rose.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: as if her heart was trying to come out to you,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and went into the house. Miss Baker and I exchanged
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: a short glance, consciously devoid of meaning. I was about
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to speak, when she sat up alertly and said in
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a warning voice. A subdued, impassioned murmur was audible in
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: to hear the murmur, trembled on the verge of coherence,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether. This, mister Gatsby,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: you spoke of as my neighbor. I began, don't talk.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I want to hear what happens. Is something happening? I inquired, innocently.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: You mean to say you don't know, said Miss Baker,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: honestly surprised. I thought everybody knew. I don't why, she
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: said hesitantly. Tom's got some woman in New York, got
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: some woman, I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded she might
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: don't you think. Almost before I had grasped her meaning,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of leather their boots, and Tom and Daisy were back
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: at the table. It couldn't be helped, cried Daisy, with tense, gayety.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: at me, and continued. I looked out doors for a minute,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: lawn that I think must be a nightingale. Come over
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: on the Cunard or White Star line. He's singing away.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Her voice sang It's romantic, isn't it. Tom, very romantic,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: he said, and then miserably to me, If it's light
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: enough after dinner, I want to take you down to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the stables. The telephone rang inside startlingly, and as Daisy
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: shook her head decisively at Tom, the subject of the stables,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: in fact, all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: fragments of the last five minutes at table. I remember
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the candles being lit again pointlessly, and I was conscious
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of wanting to look squarely at every one, and yet
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: who seemed to have mastered a certain hearty skepticism, was
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill, metallic urgency
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: out of mind. To a certain temperament, the situation might
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: have seemed intriguing. My own instinct was to telephone immediately
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: for the police. The horses, needless to say, were not
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: twilight between them, strolled back into the library as if
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: to a vigil, beside a perfectly tangible body. While trying
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: in front, in its deep gloom. We sat down side
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: by side on a wicker settee. Daisy took her face
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I thought would be some sedative questions about her, little girl.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: We don't know each other very well, Nick, she said, suddenly,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: even if we are cousins, you didn't come to my wedding.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I wasn't back from the war that's true, She hesitated. Well,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: cynical about everything. Evidently she had reason to be. I waited,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: but she didn't say any more, and after a moment
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I suppose she talks and eats and everything. Oh, yes,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: she looked at me absently. Listen, Nick, let me tell
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: you what I said when she was born. Would you
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: like to hear very much? It'll show you how I've
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: gotten to feel about things. Well, she was less than
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: an hour old, and Tom was god knows where. I
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: a boy or a girl. She told me it was
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: All right, I said, I'm glad it's a girl, and
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I hope she'll be a fool. That's the best thing
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: You see, I think everything's terrible. Anyhow, she went on
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: in a convinced way. Everybody thinks, so, the most advanced people.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: And I know I've been everywhere and seen everything and
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: done everything. Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. Sophisticated. God,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I'm sophisticated. The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: compel my attention, my belief. I felt the basic insincerity
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: though the whole evening had been a trick of some
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and sure enough, in a moment, she looked at me
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: society to which she and Tom belonged. Inside the Crimson room,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: bloomed with light, Tom and Miss Baker sat at either
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: end of the long couch, and she read aloud to
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: him from the Saturday Evening Post, the words murmurous and uninflected,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: running together in a soothing tune. The lamplight bright on
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: his boots and dull on the autumn leaf. Yellow of
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: her hair glinted along the paper as she turned a page,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms. When
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: we came in. She held us silent for a moment
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: with a lifted hand. To be continued, she said, tossing
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the magazine on the table, in our very next issue.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and she stood up. Ten o'clock, she remarked, apparently finding
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the time on the ceiling. Time for this good girl
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to go to bed. Jordan's going to play in the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: tournament tomorrow, explain, Daisy over at Westchester. Oh you're Jordan Baker.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I knew now why her face was familiar. Its pleasing,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rooteg
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Revie pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her, too,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: forgotten long ago. Good Night, she said, softly, wake me
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: at eight, won't you? If you'll get up? I will,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: good night, mister Carraway see you Anon. Of course you will,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: confirmed Daisy. In fact, I think I'll arrange a marriage.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of oh fling
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: you together, you know, lock you up accidentally in linen
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: closets and push you out to sea in a boat
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: and all that sort of thing. Good night, called miss
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Baker from the stage. I haven't heard a word. She's
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: a nice girl, said Tom after a moment. They oughtn't
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: to let her run around the country this way? Who
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: oughtn't to, inquired Daisy coldly. Her family? Her family is
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's going
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: to look after her, aren't you, Nick. She's going to
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: spend lots of weekends out here this summer. I think
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the home influence will be very good for her. Daisy
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Is she from New York, i asked quickly. From Louisville?
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Our white girlhood was passed together there, our beautiful white
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: on the veranda? Demanded Tom. Suddenly, did I? She looked
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: at me. I can't seem to remember, but I think
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I'm sure we did.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: It sort of crept up on us. And first thing,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: you know, don't believe everything you hear, Nick, he advised me.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: And a few minutes later I got up to go home.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: They came to the door with me and stood side
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: by side in a cheerful square of light. As I
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: started my motor, Daisy peremptorily called, wait, I forgot to
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: ask you something, and it's important. We heard you were
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: engaged to a girl out west. That's right, corroborated Tom. Kindly,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: we heard that you were engaged. It's a libel. I'm
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: too poor, but we heard it, insisted Daisy, surprising me
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: by opening up again in a flowerlike way. We heard
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: it from three people, so it must be true. Of
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: course I knew what they were referring to, but I
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: wasn't even vaguely engaged. The fact that Gossip had published
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the bands was one of the reasons I had come east.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: He can't stop going with an old friend on account
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of rumors, And on the other hand, I had no
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: intention of being rumored into marriage. Their interest rather touched
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: me and made them less remotely rich. Nevertheless, I was
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: confused and a little disgusted. As I drove away. It
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: was to rush out of the house child in arms.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: But apparently there were no such intentions in her head.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: As for Tom, the fact that he had some woman
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: in New York was really less surprising than that he
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: had been depressed by a book. Something was making him
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: nibble at the edge of stale ideas, as if his
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart. Already,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: it was deep summer on road house roofs and in
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: front of wayside garages, where new red petrol pumps sat
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: out in pools of light. And when I reached my
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: estate at West Egg, I ran the car under its
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and turning
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: my head to watch it, I saw that I was
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: not alone. Fifty feet away, a figure had emerged from
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the shadow of my neighbor's mansion and was standing with
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: the stars. Something in his leisurely movements, and the secure
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: was mister Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: was his of our local heavens. I decided to call
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: that would do for an introduction. But I didn't call
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: was content to be alone. He stretched out his arms
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: toward the dark water in a curious way, and far
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: as I was from him, I could have sworn he
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: was trembling involuntarily. I glanced seaward and distinguished nothing except
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: a single green light, minute and far away that might
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: have been the end of a dock. When I looked
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: once more for Gatsby, he had vanished, and I was
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: alone again in the unquiet darkness two. About halfway between
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: West Egg and New York, the motor road hastily joins
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: of houses and chimneys in rising smoke, and finally, with
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: a transcendent effort of ash gray men who move dimly
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: a ghastly creek, and comes to rest. And immediately the
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: ash gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: your sight. But above the gray land and the spasms
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: after a moment the eyes of doctor t. J Eckelberg.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: The eyes of doctor t. J Eckelberg are blue and gigantic.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Their retinas are one yard high. They look out of
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: no face, but instead from a pair of enormous yellow
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently, some wild
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: practice in the borough of Queen's and then sank down
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: But his eyes dimmed a little by many paintless days,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: under sun and rain brood on over the solemn dumping ground.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: a small foul river, and when the drawbridge is up
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: stare at the dismal scene for as long as half
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: an hour. There is always a halt there of at
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: least a minute. And it was because of this that
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress. The fact that he
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: had one was insisted upon wherever he was known. His
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: cafes with her, and, leaving her at a table, sauntered
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: about chatting with whomsoever he knew. Though I was curious
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: to see her, I had no desire to meet her,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: but I did. I went up to New York with
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Tom on the train one afternoon, and when we stopped
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: by the ash heaps, he jumped to his feet, and,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: taking hold of my elbow, literally forced me from the car.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: We're getting off. He insisted, I want you to meet
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: my girl. I think he'd tanked up a good deal
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: at luncheon, and his determination to have my company bordered
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: on violence. The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I had nothing better to do. I followed him over
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: a low, whitewashed railroad fence, and we walked back a
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: hundred yards along the road under Doctor Eckelberg's persistent stare.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: The only building in sight was a small block of
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waistland, a
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: sort of compact main street, ministering to it and contiguous
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: to absolutely nothing. One of the three shops it contained
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: was for rent, and another was an all night restaurant,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: approached by a trail of ashes. The third was a
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: garage repairs George B. Wilson cars bought and sold Dot
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: and I followed Tom. Inside. The interior was unprosperous and bare.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: The only car visible was the dust covered wreck of
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: a fort, which crouched in a dim corner. It had
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: occurred to me that this shadow of a garage must
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: be a blind and that sumptuous and romantic apartments were
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: concealed overhead. When the proprietor himself appeared in the door
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: he was a blond, spiritless man, anemic and faintly handsome.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: When he saw us, A damp gleam of hope sprang
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: into his light blue eyes. Hello, Wilson, old man, said Tom,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: slapping him jovially on the shoulder. How business, I can't complain,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: answered Wilson, unconvincingly. When are you going to sell me
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: that car next week? I've got my man working on
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: it now. Work's pretty slow, don't he No, he doesn't,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: said Tom coldly. And if you feel that way about it,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: maybe I'd better sell it somewhere else. After all, I
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: don't mean that, explained Wilson quickly. I just meant His
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: voice faded off, and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: from the office door. She was in the middle thirties
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: and faintly stout, but she carried her flesh sensuously as
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: some women can. Her face above a spotted dress of
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: dark blue craped to chimee, contained no facet or gleam
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: as if the nerves of her body were continually smoldering.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: She sm miiled slowly, and, walking through her husband as
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and without turning around, spoke to her husband in a soft,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: coarse voice. Get some chairs, Why don't you so somebody
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: can sit down? Oh? Sure, agreed Wilson hurriedly, and went
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: suit and his pale hair, as it veiled everything in
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the vicinity except his wife, who moved close to Tom.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I want to see you, said Tom intently. Get on
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the next train, all right, I'll meet you by the
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: new stand on the lower level. She nodded and moved
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: away from him, just as George Wilson emerged with two
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: chairs from his office door. We waited for her. Down
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: the road and out of sight. It was a few
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: days before the fourth of July, and a gray, scrawny
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: railroad track. Terrible place, isn't it, said Tom, exchanging a
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: frown with doctor Eckelberg. Awful, it does her good to
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: get away. Doesn't her husband object? Wilson, he thinks she
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: goes to see her sister in New York. He's so
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: dumb he doesn't know he's alive. So Tom Buchanan and
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: his girl and I went up together to New York,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: or not quite together for missus. Wilson sat discreetly in
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: another car. Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: those East Eggers who might be on the train. She
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: her to the platform in New York. At the new stand,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: she bought a copy of Town Tattle and a moving
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: picture magazine, and in the station drug store some cold
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: cream and a small flask of perfume. Upstairs, in the
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: solemn echoing drive, she let four taxi cabs drive away
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: before she selected a new one, lavender colored with gray upholstery.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: And in this we slid out from the mass of
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: the station into the glowing sunshine. But immediately she turned
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: sharply from the window, and leaning forward, tapped on the
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: front glass. I want to get one of those dogs,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: she said, earnestly. I want to get one for the apartment.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: They're nice to have a dog. We backed up to
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: a gray old man who bore an absurd resemblance to
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: John D. Rockefeller. In a basket swung from his neck.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Coward a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: What kind are they, asked missus Wilson eagerly as he
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: came to the taxi window. All kinds? What kind do
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: you want, lady? I'd like to get one of those
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: police dogs. I don't suppose you got that kind. The
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and drew one up, wriggling by the back of the neck.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: That's no police dog, said Tom. No, it's not exactly
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: a police dog, said the man, with disappointment in his voice.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: It's more of an airdale. He passed his hand over
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: the brown washrag of a back. Look at that coat,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: some coat. That's a dog that'll never bother you with
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: catching cold. I think it's cute, said missus Wilson enthusiastically.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: How much is it that dog? He looked at it admiringly.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: That dog will cost you ten dollars. The airdale, undoubtedly,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: there was an Airdale, concerned in it somewhere though its
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: feet were startlingly, White changed hands and settled down into
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: missus Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weatherproof coat with rapture.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Is it a boy or a girl? She asked delicately.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: That dog, that dog's a boy. It's a bitch, said
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Tom decisively. Here's your money, oh, and buy ten more
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: dogs with it. We drove over to Fifth Avenue, warm
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and soft, almost pastoral on the summer Sunday afternoon. I
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been surprised to see a great flock of
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: white sheep turn the corner. Hold on, I said, I
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: have to leave you here. No you don't, interposed Tom quickly.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Myrtle be hurt if you don't come up to the apartment,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: won't you Myrtle, come on, she urged, I'll telephone my
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: sister Catherine, she said, to be very beautiful by people
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: who ought to know. Well, I'd like to. But we
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: went on, cutting back again over the park toward the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: West hundreds. At one hundred and fifty eighth Street, the
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: of apartment houses, throwing the regal home coming glance around
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood. Missus Wilson gathered up her dog in her
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: other purchases, and went haughtily in. I'm going to have
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the mc keys come up, she announced, as we the elevator,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and of course I got to call up my sister too.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: The apartment was on the top floor, a small living room,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: a small dining room, a small bedroom, and a bath.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: The living room was crowded to the doors, with a
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it, so
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: picture was an over enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: on a blurred rock. Looked at from a distance. However,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: the hen resolved itself into a bonnet, and the countenance
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: of a stout old lady beamed down into the room.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Several old copies of Town Tattle lay on the table,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: together with a copy of Simon called Peter, and some
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. Missus Wilson was
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator boy went
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: for a box full of straw and some milk, to
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: which he added, on his own initiative, a tin of
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: large arch hard dog biscuits, one of which decomposed apathetically
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: in the saucer of milk all afternoon. Meanwhile, Tom brought
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I had been drunk just twice in my life, and
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the second time was that afternoon, So everything that happened
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: has a dim, hazy cast over it, although until after
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: eight o'clock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: on Tom's lap, Missus Wilson called up several people on
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: the telephone. Then there were no cigarettes, and I went
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: out to buy some at the drug store on the corner.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: When I came back, they had both disappeared. So I
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: sat down discreetly in the living room and read a
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: chapter of Simon called Peter. Either it was terrible stuff
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: or the whisky distorted things, because it didn't make any
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: sense to me, just as Tom and Myrtle after the
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: first drink, Missus Wilson and I called each other by
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: our first names. Reappeared. Company commenced to arrive at the
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: apartment door. The sister Catherine was a slender, worldly girl
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: hair and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: been plucked and then drawn on again at a more
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: rakish angle, but the efforts of nature toward the restoration
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: When she moved about, there was an incessant clicking as
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: innumerable pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: She came in with such a proprietary haste and looked
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: she lived here, But when I asked her, she laughed immoderately,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: repeated my question aloud, and told me she lived with
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: a girl friend at a hotel. Mister mc kee was
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: a pale, feminine man from the flat below. He had
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: just shaved, for there was a white spot of lather
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: on his cheekbone, and he was most respectful in his
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: greeting to everyone in the room. He informed me that
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: he was in the artistic game, and I gathered later
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: that he was a photographer and had made the dim
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: enlargement of Missus Wilson's mother, which hovered like an ectoplasm
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: on the wall. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: She told me with pride that her husband had photographed
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: her one hundred and twenty seven times since they had
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: been married. Missus Wilson had changed her costume some time before,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: cream colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: My dear, she told her sister in a high mincing shout,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Most of these fellis will cheat you every time. All
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: they think of is money. I had a woman up
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: here last week to look at my feet, and when
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: she gave me the bill, you'd of thought. She had
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: my appendicitis out. What was the name of the woman,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: asked missus mc kee. Missus Eberhart. She goes around looking
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: at people's feet in their own homes. I like your dress,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: remarked missus mc kee. I think it's adorable. Missus Wilson
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain. It's
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: just a crazy old thing, she said. I just slip
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: it on sometimes when I don't care what I look like.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, pursued missus mc kee. If Chester could only
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: get you in that pose, I think he could make
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: something of it. We all looked in silence at missus Wilson,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: who removed a strand of hair from over her eyes
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: and looked back at us with a brilliant smile. Mister
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: mc kee regarded her intently with his head on one side,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: and then moved his hand back and forth slowly in
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: front of his face. I should change the light, he said,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: after a moment. I'd like to bring out the modeling
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: of the features, and I'd try to get hold of
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: all the back hair. I wouldn't think of changing the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: light cried missus mc kee. I think it's her husband,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: said s h. And we all looked at the subject again,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: whereupon Tom Buchanan yawned audibly and got to his feet.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: You mc keyes have something to drink, he said, Get
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: some more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, before everybody goes
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to sleep. I told that boy about the ice. Myrtle
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: lower orders. These people, you have to keep after them
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: all the time. She looked at me and laughed pointlessly.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Then she flounced over to the dog, kissed it with ecstasy,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: awaited her orders there. I've done some nice things out
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: on Long Island, asserted mister mc kee. Tom looked at
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: him blankly. Two of them we have framed downstairs, two,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: what demanded Tom. Two studies. One of them I call
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Montaluque point the gulls, and the other I call Montaluque
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Point the sea. The sister Catherine sat down beside me
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: on the couch. Do you live down on Long Island? Two?
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: She inquired, I live at West Egg really, I was
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: down there at a party about a month ago at
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: a man named Gatsby's. Do you know him? I live
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: next door to him. Well, they say he's a nephew
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelms. That's where all his
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: money comes from. Really, she nodded, I'm scared of him.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I'd hate to have him get anything on me. This
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: absorbing information about my neighbor was interrupted by Missus mc keyes,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: pointing suddenly at Catherine Chester. I think you could do
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: something with her, she broke out, but mister mc kee
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: only nodded in a bored way and turned his attention to Tom.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I'd like to do more work on Long Island if
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: I could get the entry. All I ask is that
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: they should give me a start, ask, Myrtle, said Tom,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: breaking into a short shout of laughter. As Missus Wilson
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: entered with a tray. She'll give you a letter of introduction,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: won't you, Myrtle do what she asked, startled, you'll give
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: mc kee a letter of introduction to your husband so
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: he can do some studies of him. His lips moved
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: silently for a moment as he invented George B. Wilson
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: at the gasoline pump or something like that. Catherine leaned
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: close to me and whispered in my ear. Neither of
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: them can stand the person they're married to, can't They
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: can't stand them. She looked at Myrtle and then at Tom.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: What I say is why go on living with them
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: if they can't stand them? If I was them, i'd
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: get a divorce and get married to each other right away.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Doesn't she like Wilson either. The answer to this was unexpected.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: It came from Myrtle, who had overheard the question, and
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: it was violent and obscene. You see, cried Catherine triumphantly.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: She lowered her voice again. It's really his wife that's
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: keeping them apart. She's a Catholic and they don't believe
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: in divorce. Daisy was not a Catholic, and I was
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie. When
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: they do get married, continued Catherine, they're going west to
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: live for a while until it blows over. It'd be
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: more discreet to go to Europe. Oh do you like Europe?
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: She exclaimed, surprisingly, I just got back from Monte Carlo. Really,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: just last year I went over there with another girl.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Stay long, No, we just went to Monte Carlo and
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: back we went by way of Marseilles. We had over
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: twelve hundred dollars when we started, but we got chipped
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: out of it all in two days in the private rooms.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: We had an awful time getting back. I can tell you, god,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: how I hated that town. The late afternoon sky bloomed
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: in the window for a moment, like the blue honey
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: of the Mediterranean. Then the shrill voice of missus mc
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: kee called me back into the room. I almost made
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: a mistake, too, she declared vigorously. I almost married a
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: little kike who'd been after me for years. I knew
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me, Lucille,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: that man's way below you. But if I hadn't met Chester,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: he'd have got me. Sure. Yes, but listen, said Myrtle Wilson,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: nodding her head up and down. At least you didn't
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: marry him. I know I didn't. Well, I married him,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: said Myrtle ambiguously. And that's the difference between your case
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: and mine. Why did you, Myrtle demanded Catherine, Nobody forced
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: you to. Myrtle considered, I married him because I thought
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: he was a gentleman. She said, Finally, I thought he
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: my shoe. You were crazy about him for a while,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: said Catherine. Crazy about him, cried Myrtle incredulously, who said
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I was crazy about him. I never was any more
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: crazy about him than I was about that man there.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: She pointed suddenly at me, and every one looked at
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: me accusingly. I tried to show by my expression that
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I expected no affection. The only crazy I was when
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: He borrowed somebody's best suit to get married in and
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: never even told me about it. And the man came
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: after it one day when he was out, Oh is
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: that your suit? I said, this is the first I
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: ever heard about it. But I gave it to him,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: and then I lay down and cried to beat the
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: band all afternoon. She really ought to get away from him,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: resumed Catherine. To me, they've been living over that garage
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: for eleven years, and Tom's the first sweetie she ever had.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: The bottle of whiskey, a second one was now in
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine, who felt just
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: as good on nothing at all. Tom rang for the
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: janitor and sent him for some celebrated sandwiches, which were
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: a complete supper in themselves. I wanted to get out
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: but each time I tried to go, I became entangled
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: in some wild, strident argument, which pulled me back, as
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: and I saw him, too, looking up and wondering. I
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: was within and without Simon, multaneously enchanted and repelled by
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: the inexhaustible variety of life. Myrtle pulled her chair close
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: the story of her first meeting with Tom. It was
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: on the two little seats facing each other that are
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: always the last ones left on the train. I was
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: going up to New York to see my sister and
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: spend the night. He had on a dress suit and
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: patent leather shoes, and I couldn't keep my eyes off him.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: But every time he looked at me, I had to
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: When we came into the station, he was next to me,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: and his white shirt front pressed against my arm, and
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: so I told him I'd have to call a policeman,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: but he knew I lied. I was so excited that
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: when I got into a taxi with him, I didn't
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: hardly know I wasn't getting into a subway train. All
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: I kept thinking about, over and over was you can't
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: live forever. You can't live forever. She turned to missus
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: mc kee, and the room rang full of her artificial laughter.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: My dear, she cried, I'm going to give you this
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: dress as soon as I'm through with it. I've got
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: to get another one Tomorrow. I'm going to make a
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: list of all the things. I've got to get. A
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: massage and a wave, and a collar for the dog,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: and one of those cute little ashtrays where you touch
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: for mother's grave that'll last all summer. I got to
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: write down a list so I won't forget all the
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: things I got to do. It was nine o'clock. Almost
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: immediately afterward, I looked at my watch and found it
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: was ten mister mc kee was asleep on a chair,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: with his fists clenched in his lap, like a photograph
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: of a man of action. Taking out my handkerchief, I
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: wiped from his cheek the spot of dried lather that
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: had worried me all the afternoon. The little dog was
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: sitting on the table, looking with blind eyes through the smoke,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: and from time to time, groaning faintly. People disappeared, reappeared,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Search for each other, found each other a few feet away.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: Some time toward midnight, Tom Buchanan and Missus Wilson stood
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: face to face, discussing in impassioned voices whether Missus Wilson
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: had any right to mention Daisy's name. Daisy, Daisy, Daisy,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: shouted Missus Wilson. I'll say it whenever I want to.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Daisy die. Making a short, deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: her nose with his open hand. Then there were bloody
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: towels upon the bathroom floor, and women's voices scolding, and
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: high over the confusion, a long broken wail of pain.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Mister McKee awoke from his doze and started in a
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: daze toward the door. When he had gone halfway, he
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: turned around and stared at the scene, his wife and
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: among the crowded furniture with articles of aid, and the
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: despairing figure on the couch, bleeding fluently and trying to
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: spread a copy of town Taddle over the tapestry scenes
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: of Versailles. Then mister mc keee turned and continued on
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: out the door, taking my hat from the chandelier. I followed.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Come to lunch some day, he suggested, as we groaned
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: down in the elevator, where anywhere, keep your hands off
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: the lever snapped the elevator. Boy, I beg your pardon,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: said mister mc keee with dignity. I didn't know I
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: was touching it, all right, I agreed, I'll be glad
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: to I was standing beside his bed, and he was
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: a great portfolio in his hands, Beauty and the Beast, Loneliness,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Old Grocery, horse Brook and Bridge. Then I was lying
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: staring at the Morning Tribune and waiting for the four
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: o'clock train. Three. There was music from my neighbor's house.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Through the summer nights in his blue gardens, men and
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: while his two motor boats slit the waters of the sound,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On weekends, his rolls
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Royce became an omnibus bearing parties to and from the
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: city between nine in the morning long past midnight, while
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: meet all trains. And on Monday's eight servants, including an
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing brushes
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and hammers and garden shears, repairing the ravages of the
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: night before. Every Friday, five crates of oranges and lemons
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: arrived from a fruiter in New York. Every Monday, these
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: same oranges and lemons left his back door in a
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: pyramid of popeless halves. There was a machine in the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: in half an hour if a little button was pressed
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: two hundred times by a butler's thumb. At least once
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: a fortnight, a corps of caterers came down with several
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden on buffet tables
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: garnished with glistening or dieuvre spiced baked hams, crowded against
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: salads of Harlequin designs, and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: to a dark gold. In the main hall, a bar
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: with a real brass rail was set up and stocked
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: with gins and liquors, and with cordials so long forgotten
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: that most of his female guests were too young to
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: know one from another. By seven o'clock, the orchestra has arrived,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: no thin five piece of fair, but a whole pitful
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: of oboes and trombones and saxophones, and vials, and cornets
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: and piccolos and low and high drums. The last swimmers
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: The cars from New York are parked five deep in
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: are gaudy, with primary colors and hair bobbed in strange
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: new ways and shawls. Beyond the dreams of Castile, the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: chatter and laughter and casual innuendo, and introductions forgotten on
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: each other's names. The lights grow brighter as the earth
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera voices pitches a
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: tipped out at a cheerful word, the groups change more swiftly,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: joyous moment, the center of a group, and then, excited
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: with triumph, glide on through the sea change of faces
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: and voices and color under the constantly changing light. Suddenly,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: one of these gypsies, in trembling ople seizes a cocktail
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: out of the air, dumps it down for courage, and
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: canvas platform a momentary hush. The orchestra leader varies his
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Gilda Gray's understudy from the follies. The party has begun.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: I believe that on the first night I went to
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Gatsby's house, I was one of the few guests who
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: had actually been invited. People were not invited. They went there,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door. Once there,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: associated with an amusement park. Sometimes they came and went
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: of admission. I had been actually invited a chauffeur in
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: a uniform of Robin's egg Blue crossed my lawn early
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: The honor would be entirely Gatsby's, it said, if I
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: would attend his little party that night. He had seen
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: me several times and had intended to call on me
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Signed J. Gatsby in a majestic hand. Dressed up in
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: white flannels, I went over to his lawn a little
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: after seven and wandered around, rather ill at ease, among
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: swirls and eddies of people I didn't know. Though here
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: and there was a face I had noticed on the
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: young Englishmen dotted about, all well dressed, all looking a
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: selling something bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were at
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: least least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: and convinced that it was theirs. For a few words
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: in the right key. As soon as I arrived, I
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: made an attempt to find my host, but the two
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: at me in such an amazed way and denied so
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: vehemently any knowledge of his movements that I slunk off
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: in the direction of the cocktail table, the only place
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: in the garden where a single man could linger without
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: looking purposeless and alone. I was on my way to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: get roaring drunk from sheer embarrassment when Jordan Baker came
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: out of the house and stood at the head of
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: the marble steps, leaning a little backward and looking with
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: contemptuous interest down into the garden. Welcome or not. I
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: found it necessary to attach myself to some one before
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: I should begin to address cordial remarks to the passers. By. Hello,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: across the garden. I thought you might be here, she
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: responded absently. As I came up, I remembered you lived
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: next door to She held my hand impersonally as a
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: promise that she'd take care of me in a minute,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: who stopped at the foot of the steps. Hello, they
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: cried together. Sorry you didn't win. That was for the
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: golf tournament she had lost in the finals the week before.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: You don't know who we are, said one of the
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: girls in yellow. But we met you here about a
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: month ago. You've dyed your hair since then, remarked Jordan,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: and I started, but the girls had moved casually on,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: and her remark was addressed to the premature moon produced
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer's basket.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: With Jordan's slender, golden arm resting in mine, we descended
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: the steps and sauntered about the garden. A tray of
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: down at a table with the two girls in yellow
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: and three men, each one introduced to us as mister
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: mumble her. Do you come to these parties? Often inquired
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: Jordan of the girl beside. The last one was the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: one I met you at, answered the girl in an alert,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: confident voice. She turned to her companion. Wasn't it for you, Lucille?
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: It was for Lucille too. I like to come, Lucille said,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: I never care what I do so, I always have
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: a good time. When I was here last I tore
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: my gown on a chair and he asked me my
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: name and address. Inside of a week I got a
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: package from couriers with a new evening gown in it.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Did you keep it, asked Jordan. Sure I did. I
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: was going to wear it to night, but it was
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: too big in the bust and had to be altered.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: sixty five dollars. There's something funny about a fellow that'll
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: do a thing like that, said the other girl eagerly.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: He doesn't want any trouble with anybody who doesn't, I
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: inquired Gatsby. Somebody told me. The two girls and Jordan
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: leaned together confidentially. Somebody told me they thought he killed
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: a man. Once a thrill passed over all of us.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: The three mister mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly. I
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: don't think it so much, that, argued Lucille skeptically. It's
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: more that he was a German spy during the war.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: One of the men nodded in confirmation. I heard that
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: from a man who knew all about him. Grew up
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: with him in Germany, he assured us positively. Oh no,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: said the first girl. It couldn't be that, because he
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: was in the American Army during the war. As our
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: credulity switched back to her, she leaned forward with enthusiasm.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody's looking
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: at him. I'll bet he killed a man. She narrowed
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: looked around for Gatsby. It was ten testimony to the
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: from those who had found little that it was necessary
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: to whisper about in this world. The first supper there
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: would be another one after midnight was now being served,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: and Jordan invited me to join her own party, who
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: were spread around a table on the other side of
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: the garden. There were three married couples in Jordan's escort,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo, and obviously under
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: and assumed to itself, the function of representing the staid
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: nobility of the countryside East Egg, condescending to West Egg,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gaiety. Let's get out,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate half hour.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: This is much too polite for me. We got up,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: and she explained that we were going to find the host.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: I had never met him, she said, and it was
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: making me uneasy. The undergraduate nodded in a cynical, melancholy way.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: The bar where we glanced first was crowded, but Gatsby
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: was not there. She couldn't find him from the top
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: of the steps, and he wasn't on the verandah. On
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: a chance, we tried an important looking door and walked
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: into a high Gothic library, paneled with carved English oak
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and probably transported complete from some ruin overseas. A stout,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: middle aged man with enormous allied spectacles was sitting somewhat
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: What do you think, he demanded, impetuously about what. He
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: waved his hand toward the book shelves. About that, as
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: a matter of fact, you needn't bother to ascertain. I ascertained.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: They're real, the books, he nodded, Absolutely real, have pages
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: and everything. I thought they'd be a nice, durable cardboard.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: Matter of fact, they're absolutely real pages. And here let
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: me show you taking our skepticism for granted. He rushed
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: to the bookcases and returned with volume one of the
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Stoddard lectures. See, he cried, triumphantly. It's a bona fide
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fellow's a
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: regular Belasco. It's a triumph what thoroughness, what realism? Knew
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: when to stop too? Didn't cut the pages? But what
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: do you want? What do you expect? He snatched the
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: muttering that if one brick was removed, the whole library
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: was liable to collapse. Who brought you, he demanded, or
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: did you just come? I was brought. Most people were brought.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: Jordan looked at him, alertly, cheerfully, without answering. I was
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: brought by a woman named Roosevelt. He continued, Missus Claude Roosevelt.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: I've been drunk for about a week now, and I
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: Has it a little bit? I think? I can't tell yet.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: I've only been here an hour. Did I tell you
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: about the books? They're real? There, you told us. We
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: shook hands with him gravely and went back outdoors. There
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: was dancing now on the canvas in the garden, old
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: men pushing young girls backward in eternal, graceless circles, superior
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably and keeping in the corners,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: and the great number of single girls dancing individually, or
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: the banjo or the traps. By midnight, the hilarity had increased.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian, and a notorious
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: contralto had sung in jazz. And between the numbers people
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: were doing stunts all over the garden, while happy, vacuous
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky. A pair
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: of stage twins who turned out to be the Girls
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: in Yellow, did a baby act in costume, and champagne
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: was served in glasses bigger than finger bowls. The moon
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: had risen higher, and floating in the sound was a
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: triangle of silver scales trembling a little to the stiff
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: tinea trip of the Banjos on the lawn. I was
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: with a man of about my age and a rowdy
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: little girl who gave way upon the slightest provocation to
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: uncontrollable laughter. I was enjoying myself now. I had taken
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: two finger bowls of champagne, and the scene had changed
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: before my eyes into something significant, elemental, and profound. At
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: a lull in the entertainment, the man looked at me
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: and smiled. Your face is familiar, he said, politely. Weren't
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: you in the first Division during the war. Why, yes,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: I was in the twenty eighth Infantry. I was in
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: the sixteenth until June nineteen eighteen. I knew I'd seen
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: you somewhere before. We talked for a moment about some wet,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: gray little villages in France. Evidently he lived in this vicinity,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: for He told me that he had just bought a
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: hydroplane and was going to try it out in the morning.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: Want to go with me Old Sport, just near the
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: shore along the sound? What time? Any time that suits
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: you best. It was on the tip of my tongue
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: to ask his name, when Jordan looked around and smiled.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: Having a gay time now, she inquired much better. I
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: turned again to my new acquaintance. This is an unusual
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: party for me. I haven't even seen the host. I
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: live over there. I waved my hand at the invisible
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: hedge in the distance, and this man Gatsby sent over
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: his chauffeur with an invitation. For a moment, he looked
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: at me as if he failed to understand I'm Gatsby.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: He said suddenly what I exclaimed? Oh, I beg your pardon.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: I thought you knew Old Sport. I'm afraid I'm not
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: a very good host. He smiled, understandingly, much more than understandingly.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: It was one of those rare smiles with a quality
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: of eternal reassurance in it that you may come across
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: four or five times in life. It faced or seemed
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: to face the whole eternal world for an instant, and
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: It understood you just so far as you wanted to
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: be understood, believed in you as you would like to
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: the impression of you that at your best you hoped
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: to convey precisely. At that point it vanished, and I
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: was looking at an elegant, young roughneck, a year or
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself, I had
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: got a strong impression that he was picking his words
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: with care. Almost at the moment when mister Gatsby identified himself,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: a butler hurried toward him with the information that Chicago
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: was calling him on the wire, he excused himself with
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: a small bow that included each of us in turn.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: If you want anything, just ask for it, old sport,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: he urged me. Excuse me, I will rejoin you later.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: When he was gone, I turned immediately to Jordan, constrained
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: to assure her of my surprise. I had expected that
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: mister Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: his middle years. Who is he? I demanded, Do you know?
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: He's just a man named Gatsby. Where is he from?
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: I mean? And what does he do? Now you're started
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: on the subject, she answered with a wan smile. Well,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: he told me once he was an Oxford man. A
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: dim background started to take shape behind him, but at
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: her next remark it faded away. However, I don't believe it.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: Why not, I don't know, she insisted. I just don't
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: think he went there. Something in her tone reminded me
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: of the other girls. I think he killed a man
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: and had the effect of stimulating my curiosity. I would
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: have accepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang from
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: the swamps of Louisiana or from the Lower East Side
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: of New York. That was comprehensible. But young men didn't,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: at least in my provincial inexperience. I believe they didn't
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: drift coolly out of nowhere and by a palace on
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: Long Island Sound. Anyhow, he gives large parties, said Jordan,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: there isn't any privacy. There was the boom of a
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden ladies and gentlemen.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: He cried, at the request of mister Gatsby, we are
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: going to play for you, mister Vladimir Tosstov's latest work,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: which attracted so much attention at Carnegie Hall last May.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: If you read the papers, you know there was a
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: big sensation. He smiled with jovial condescension and added some sensation,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: whereupon everybody laughed. The piece is known, he concluded lustily,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: as Vladimir Tostoff's Jazz History of the World. The nature
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: of mister Tostof's composition eluded me, because just as it began,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: my eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: every day. I could see nothing sinister about him. I
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: to set him off from his guests, for it seemed
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: hilarity increased. When the jazz history of the world was over,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: girls were putting their heads on men's shoulders in a
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: puppyish convivial way. Girls were swooning backward playfully into men's arms,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: even into groups, knowing that someone would arrest their falls.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: But no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: bob touched Gatsby's shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: with Gatsby's head for one link. I beg your pardon.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: Gatsby's butler was suddenly standing beside us, Miss Baker. He inquired,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: I beg your pardon, but mister Gatsby would like to
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: speak to you alone with me, she exclaimed in surprise, Yes, madam.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: She got up, slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: and followed the butler toward the house. I noticed that
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: she wore her evening dress, all her dresses like sports clothes.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: There was a jauntiness about her movements, as if she
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: crisp mornings. I was alone, and it was almost two
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: for some time, confused and intriguing sounds had issued from
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: a long, many windowed room which overhung the terrace, Eluding
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: Jordan's undergraduate, who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: with two chorus girls, and who implored me to join him.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: I went inside. The large room was full of people.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: One of the girls in yellow was playing the piano,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: and beside her stood a tall red haired young lady
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: from a famous chorus, engaged in song. She had drunk
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: a quantity of champagne, and during the course of her
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: song she had decided ineptley that everything was very, very sad.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: She was not only singing, she was weeping too. Whenever
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: there was a pause in the song, she filled it
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: with gasping, broken sobs, and then took up the lyric
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: again in a quavering soprano. The tears coursed down her cheeks.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: Not freely, however, for when they came into contact with
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: her heavily beaded eye lashes, they assumed an inky color
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: on her face, whereupon she threw up her hands sank
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: into a chair and went off into a deep viness sleep.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: She had a fight with a man who says he's
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: her husband, explained the girl at my elbow. I looked around.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: Most of the remaining women were now having fights with
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: men said to be their husbands. Even Jordan's party, the
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: quartet from East Egg were rent asunder by dissension. One
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: of the men was talking with curious intense to a
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: young actress and his wife. After attempting to laugh at
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: the situation in a dignified and indifferent way, broke down
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: entirely and resorted to flank attacks at intervals. She appeared
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: suddenly at his side like an angry diamond, and hissed
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: you promised into his ear. The reluctance to go home
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: was not confined to wayward men. The hall was at
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: present occupied by two deplorably sober men and their highly
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: indignant wives. The wives were sympathizing with each other in
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: slightly raised voices. Whenever he sees I'm having a good time,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: he wants to go home. Never heard anything so selfish
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: in my life. We're always the first ones to leave,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: so are we? Well? We're almost the last tonight, said
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: one of the men sheepishly. The orchestra left half an
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: hour ago, in spite of the wives agreement that such
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: malevolence was beyond credibility. The dispute ended in a short struggle,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: and both wives were lifted kicking into the night. As
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: I waited for my hat in the hall, the door
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: of the library opened and Jordan, Baker and Gatsby came
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: out together. He was saying some last word to her,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: but the eagerness in his manner tightened abruptly into formality
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: as several people approached him to say goodbye. Jordan's party
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: were calling impatiently to her from the porch, but she
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: lingered for a moment to shake hands. I've just heard
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: the most amazing thing, she whispered. How long were we
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: in there? Why? About an hour? It was simply amazing,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: she repeated abstractedly. But I swore I wouldn't tell it,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: And here I am tantalizing you, she yawned, gracefully in
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: my face. Please come and see me phone book under
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: the name of missus Sigourney Howard, my aunt. She was
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: hurrying off. As she talked. Her brown hand waved a
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: jaunty salute as she melted into her party at the door.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: Rather ashamed that on my first appearance I had stayed
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: so late, I joined the last of Gatsby's guests, who
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: were clustered around him. I wanted to explain that I'd
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: hunted for him early in the evening, and to apologize
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: for not having known him in the garden. Don't mention it,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: he enjoined me eagerly. Don't give it another thought, old sport.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: The familiar expression held no more familiarity than the hand
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: which reassuringly brushed my shoulder. And don't forget. We're going
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: up in the hydroplane tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. Then
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: the butler behind his shoulder, Philadelphia wants you on the phone, sir,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: all right, in a minute, tell them I'll be right there.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: Good Night, good night, good night, he smiled, And suddenly
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: there seemed to be a pleasant significance in having been
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: among the last to go, as if he had desired
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: it all the time. Good Night, old Sport, good night.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: But as I walked down the steps, I saw that
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: the evening was not quite over fifty feet from the door,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene in
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: the ditch beside the road, right side up but violently
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: shorn of one wheel, rested a new coop which had
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: left Gatsby's drive not two minutes before. The sharp jut
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: of a wall accounted for the detachment of the wheel,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: which was now getting considerable attention from half a dozen
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: curious chauffeurs. However, as they had left their cars blocking
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: the road, a harsh, discordant din from those in the
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: rear had been audible for some time and added to
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: the already violent confusion of the scene. A man in
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: a long duster had dismounted from the wreck and now
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: stood in the middle of the road, looking from the
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: car to the tire, and from the tire to the
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: observers in a pleasant puzzled way. See, he explained, it
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: went in the ditch. The fact was infinitely astonishing to him,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: and I recognized first the unusual quality of one and
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: then the man. It was, the late patron of Gatsby's library.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: How did it happen? He shrugged his shoulders. I know
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: nothing whatever about mechanics, he said, decisively, But how did
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: it happen? Did you run into the wall? Don't ask me,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: said aurlies, washing his hands of the whole matter. I
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: know very little about driving, next to nothing. It happened,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: and that's all I know. Well, if you're a poor driver,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: you oughtn't to try driving at night. But I wasn't
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: even trying, he explained indignantly. I wasn't even trying. An
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: odd hush fell upon the bystanders. Do you want to
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: commit suicide? You're lucky. It was just a wheel, a
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: bad driver, and not even trying. You don't understand, explained
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: the criminal. I wasn't driving. There's another man in the car.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: The shock that followed this declaration found voice in assistem
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: stained h h h. As the door of the coup
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: swung slowly open, the crowd it was now a crowd,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: stepped back involuntarily, and when the door had opened wide,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: there was a ghostly pause, Then, very gradually, part by part,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: a pale, dangling individual stepped out of the wreck, pawing
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: tentatively at the ground with a large, uncertain dancing shoe.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: Blinded by the glare of the headlights and confused by
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: the incessant groaning of the horns, the apparition stood swaying
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: for a moment before he perceived the man in the duster.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: What matter, he inquired, calmly, did we run out of gas? Look?
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel. He
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: stared at it for a moment, and then looked upward,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: It came off, someone explained. He nodded at first, I
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: didn't notice we'd stopped. A pause. Then, taking a long
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: breath and straightening his shoulders, he remarked, in a determined voice, wonder,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: f F tell me where there's a gas line station.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: At least a dozen men, some of them a little
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: better off than he was, explained to him that Will
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: and Carr were no longer joined by any physical bond.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: Back out, he suggested. After a moment, put her in reverse,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: but the wheels off, He hesitated, no harm in trying,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: he said. The caterwauling horns had reached a crescendo, and
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: I turned away and cut across the lawn toward home.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: I glanced back once a wafer of a moon was
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: shining over Gatsby's house, making the night fine as before,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: the figure of the host, who stood on the porch,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell. Reading
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: over what I have written so far, I see I
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: have given the impression that the events of three nights,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: several weeks apart, were all that absorbed me. On the contrary,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: they were merely casual events in a crowded summer, and
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: until much later, they absorbed me infinitely less than my
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: personal affairs. Most of the time I worked in the
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: early morning, the sun through my shadow westward as I
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: hurried down the white chasms of Lower New York to
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: the Probity Trust. I knew the other clerks and young
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: bond salesmen by their first names, and lunched with them
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: in dark, crowded restaurants on little pig sausages and mashed
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: potatoes and coffee. I even had a short affair with
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: a girl who lived in Jersey City and worked in
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: the accounting department, But her brother began throwing mean looks
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: in my direction, so when she went on her vacation
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: in July, I let it blow quietly away. I took dinner,
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: usually at the Yale Club. For some reason, it was
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: the gloomiest event of my day, and then I went
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: upstairs to the library and studied investments and securities for
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: conscientious hour. There were generally a few riders around, but
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: they never came into the library, so it was a
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: good place to work. After that, if the night was mellow,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: I strolled down Madison Avenue, past the old murray Hill Hotel,
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: and over thirty third Street to the Pennsylvania Station. I
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: few minutes I was going to enter into their lives
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: my mind I followed them to their apartments on the
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: At the enchanted Metropolitan twilight, I felt a haunting loneliness
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: sometimes and felt it in others, poor young clerks who
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: loitered in front of windows, waiting until it was time
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: for a solitary restaurant dinner. Young clerks in the dusk,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: wasting the most poignant moments of night and life. Again,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: at eight o'clock, when the dark lanes of the forties
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: were lined five deep with throbbing taxi cabs bound for
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the theater district, I felt a sinking in my heart.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: voices sang, and there was laughter from unheard jokes, and
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: lighted cigarettes made unintelligible circles inside. Imagining that I too
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: was hurrying towards gayety and sharing their intimate excitement. I
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: wished them well. For a while I lost sight of
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: Jordan Baker, and then in midsummer I found her again.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: At first I was flattered to go places with her
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: because she was a golf champion and everyone knew her name.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: Then it was something more. I wasn't actually in love,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: but I felt a sort of tender curiosity. The bored,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: most affectations conceal. Something eventually, even though they don't in
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: the beginning, And one day I found what it was.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: When we were on a house party together up in Warwick,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: she left a borrowed car out in the rain with
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: the top down and then lied about it. And suddenly
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: I remembered the story about her that had eluded me.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: That night at Daisy's, at her first big golf tournament,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers, a
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: lie in the semi final round. The thing approached the
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: proportions of a scandal, then died away. A caddie retracted
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: his statement, and the only other witness admitted that he
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: might have been mistaken. The incident and the name had
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: remained together in my mind. Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: She wasn't able to endure being at a disadvantage, and
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: subterfuges when she was very young. In order to keep
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: that cool, insolent smile, turned to the world and yet
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: satisfy the demands of her heart jaunty body. It made
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: thing you never blame deeply. I was casually sorry, and
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: then I forgot. It was on that same house party
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: that we had a curious conversation about driving a car.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: It started because she passed so close to some workmen
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: that our fender flicked a button on one man's coat.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: You're a rotten driver, I protested. Either you ought to
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: be more careful or you oughtn't to drive at all.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: I am careful. No, you're not. Well, other people are,
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: she said lightly. What's that got to do with it?
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: They'll keep out of my way, She insisted. It takes
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: two to make an accident. Suppose you met somebody just
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: as careless as yourself. I hope I never will, She answered,
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: I hate careless people. That's why I like you. Her gray,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: sunstrained eyes stared straight ahead. But she had deliberately shifted
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: But I am slow thinking and full of interior rules
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: that act as breaks on my desires, and I knew
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: that first I had to get myself definitely out of
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: that tangle. Back home, I'd been writing letters once a
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: week and signing them Love Nick, and all I could
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: think of was how when that certain girl played tennis,
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: broken off before I was free. Everyone suspects himself of
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: I am one of the few honest people that I
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: have ever known. For on Sunday morning, while church bells
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: rang in the villages alongshore, the world and its mistress
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn.
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: He's a bootlegger, said the young ladies, moving somewhere between
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: his cocktails and his flowers. One time he killed a
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: man who had found out that he was nephew to
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: Vaughan Hindenberg and second cousin to the Devil. Reach me
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: their crystal glass. Once I wrote down on the empty
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: spaces of a time table the names of those who
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: came to Gatsby's house that summer. It is an old timetable,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: now disintegrating at its folds, and headed this schedule in
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: effect July fifth, nineteen twenty two. But I can still
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: read the gray names, and they will give you a
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: better impression than my generalities, of those who accepted Gatsby's
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: whatever about him. From East Egg then came the Chester
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: I knew at Yale, and doctor Webster Sivett, who was
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: drowned last summer up in Maine, and the Hornbeams, and
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: the Willie Voltaires, and a whole clan named black Buck,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: noses like goats at whosoever came near. And the Ismays
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: and the Christies, or rather Hubert Auerbach and mister Christie's wife,
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: and Edgar Beaver, whose hair they say turned cotton white
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: one winter afternoon for no good reason at all. Clarence
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: and dive was from East Egg, as I remember, he
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: came only once in White Knickerbockers, and had a fight
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: with a bum named Eddie in the garden. From farther
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: out on the island came the Cheatles and the O. R. P. Schraders,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: and the Stonewall Jackson Abrams of Georgia, and the fish
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: Guards and the Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: before he went to the penitentiary, so drunk out on
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: the gravel drive that Missus Ulysses sweats automobile ran over
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: his right hand. The Dancies came too, and s B. Whitebait,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: who was well over sixty, and Maurice Flink and the
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: hammer Heads and Beluga the Tobacco and Porter and Belugas
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: girls from West egg came the Polls and the Morides,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: and Cecil Roebuck and Cecil shown Gullick, the State Senator,
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: and Newton Orchid who controlled Films par Excellence, and Ecost
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: and Clyde Cohen and Donnas Schwartz the Son and Arthur
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: mc carty, all connected with the movies in one way
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: or another, and the cat Lips and the bem Birds
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: and g Earl Muldoon, brother to that Muldoon who afterwards
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: strangled his wife De Fontano, the Promoter, came there, and
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: ed La Grow and James b rot Gutt Ferrett and
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: the Dejongs and Ernest Lily. They came to gamble, and
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: when Ferret wandered into the garden, it meant he was
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: cleaned out and associated traction would have to fluctuate profitably
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: next day. A man named Clipspringer was there so often
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: that he became known as the Border. I doubt if
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: he had any other home. Of theatrical people, there were
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: Gus Wayeyes, and Horace Odenavin and Lester Meyer and George
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: Duckweed and Franks Bull. Also from New York were the
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: Cromes and the Bacchissens, and the Denichers, and Russell Betty
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: and the Cordigans and the Kellihers and the Doers and
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: the Scullies and s. W. Belcher and the Smirks and
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: the young Quinns divorced now and Henry L. Palmetto, who
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: killed himself by jumping in front of a subway train
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: in Times Square. Benny mc clenahan arrived always with four girls.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: They were never quite the same ones in physical person,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: but they were so identical one with another that it
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: inevitably seemed they had been there before. I have forgotten
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: their names Jacqueline, I think, or else Consuela or Gloria,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: or Judy or June. And their last names were either
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: the melodious names of flowers and months, or the sterner
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: ones of the great American capitalists, whose cousins, if pressed,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: they would confess themselves to be. In addition to all these,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: I can remember that Faustina O'Brien came there at least once,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: and the Baedeker girls, and young Brewer who had his
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: nose shot off in the war, and mister Albrook's Burger,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: and miss Hogg his fiancee, and Ardida Fitzpeters, and mister
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: p Jewett, once head of the American Legion, and miss
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: Claudia hip with a man reputed to be her chauffeur,
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: and a prince of something, whom we called duke, and
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: whose name, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: All these people came to Gatsby's house in the summer.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: At nine o'clock one morning late in July, Gatsby's gorgeous
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: car lurched up the rocky drive to my door and
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: gave out a burst of melody from its three noted horn.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: It was the first time he had called on me,
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: though I had gone to two of his parties, mounted
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: in his hydroplane, and at his urgent invitation, made frequent
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: use of his beach. Good morning, old Sport. You're having
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: lunch with me to day, and I thought we'd ride
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: up together. He was balancing himself on the dashboard of
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: peculiarly American. That comes, I suppose, with the absence of
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: lifting work in youth, and even more with the formless
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness.
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: He was never quite still. There was always a tapping
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: foot somewhere, or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: He saw me looking with admiration at his car. It's pretty,
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: isn't it, Old Sport. He jumped off to give me
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: a better view. Haven't you ever seen it? Before I'd
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: seen it, everybody had seen it. It was a rich
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: cream color, bright with nickel swollen here and there in
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: its monstrous length, with triumphant hat boxes and supper boxes
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: and tool boxes and terraced with a labyrinth of wind
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: shields that mirrored a dozen suns sitting down behind many
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: We started to town. I had talked with him perhaps
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: half a dozen times in the past month, and found,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: to my disappointment, that he had little to say. So
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: my first impression that he was a person of some
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: undefined consequence had gradually faded, and he had become simply
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: the proprietor of an elaborate road house next door. And
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: then came that disconcerting ride. We hadn't reached West Egg
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: Village before Gatsby began, leaving his elegant sentences unfinished and
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: slapping himself indecisively on the knee of his caramel colored suit.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: Look here, old Sport, he broke out, surprisingly, what's your
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: opinion of me? Anyhow? A little overwhelmed, I began the
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: generalized evasions which that question deserves. Well, I'm going to
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: tell you something about my life, he interrupted. I don't
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: want you to get a wrong idea of me from
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: all these stories you hear. So he was aware of
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: the bizarre accusations that flavored conversation in his halls. I'll
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: tell you God's truth. His right hand suddenly ordered divine
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: retribution to stand by. I am the son of some
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: wealthy people in the Middle West, all dead now. I
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: was brought up in America, but educated at Oxford, because
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: all my ancestors have been educated there for many years.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: It is a family tradition. He looked at me sideways,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: He hurried the phrase educated at Oxford, or swallowed it
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: about him. After all, what part of the Middle West?
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: I inquired casually San Francisco. I see my family all died,
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: and I came into a good deal of money. His
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: voice was solemn, as if the memory of that sudden
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: extinction of a clan still haunted him. For a moment,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: I suspected that he was pulling my leg, but a
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: glance at him convinced me otherwise. After that, I lived
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: like a young in all the capitals of Europe, Paris, Venice, Rome,
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: things for myself only, and trying to forget something very
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: sad that had happened to me long ago. With an effort,
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. The very phrases
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: that of a turbaned character leaking sawdust at every pore
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: Then came the war old Sport. It was a great relief,
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: to bear an enchanted life. I accepted a commission as
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: first lieutenant. When it began in the Argonne forest, I
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: took the remains of my machine gun battalion so far
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: forward that there was a half mile gap on either
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: side of us where the infantry couldn't advance. We stayed
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: there two days and two nights, one hundred and thirty
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: men with sixteen Lewis guns, and when the infantry came
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: up at last, they found the insignia of three German
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: divisions among the piles of dead. I was promoted to
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration,
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: even Montenegro, Little Montenegro, down on the Adriatic Sea, Little Montenegro.
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: He lifted up the words and nodded at them with
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro's troubled history and sympathized
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: with the brave struggles of the Montenegron people. It appreciated
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: fully the chain of national circumstances which had elicited this
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: tribute from Montenegro's warm little heart. My incredulity was submerged
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: in fascination. Now it was like skimming hastily through a
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: dozen magazines. He reached in his pocket and a piece
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: of metal slung on a ribbon, fell into my palm.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: That's the one for Montenegro. To my astonishment, the thing
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: had an authentic look. Ordery D de Nilo ran the
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: circular legend Montenegro. Nicholas Rex turn it Major J. Gatsby,
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: I read for valor extraordinary. Here's another thing. I always
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: carry a souvenir of Oxford days. It was taken in
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: Trinity Quad. The man on my left is now the
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: Earl of Doncaster. It was a photograph of half a
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: dozen young men in blazers, loafing in an archway, through
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: which were visible a host of spires. There was Gatsby,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: looking a little not much younger, with a cricket bat
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: in his hand. Then it was all true. I saw
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on the
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: Grand Canal. I saw him opening a chest of rubies
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: to ease with their crimson lighted depths, the gnawings of
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: his broken heart. I'm going to make a big request
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: of you to day, he said, pocketing his souvenirs with satisfaction.
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: So I thought you ought to know something about me.
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: You see, I usually find myself among strangers because I
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: drift here and there, trying to forget the sad things
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: that happened to me. He hesitated. You'll hear about it this
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: afternoon at lunch. No, this afternoon, I happen to find
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: out that you're taking miss Baker to tea. Do you
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: mean you're in love with miss Baker? No, old Sport,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not, but Miss Baker has kindly consented to speak
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: to you about this matter. I hadn't the faintest idea
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: what this matter was. But I was more annoyed than interested.
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: I hadn't asked Jordan to tea in order to discuss
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: mister j. Gatsby. I was sure the request would be
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: something utterly fantastic, and for a moment I was sorry
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: I'd ever set foot upon his overpopulated lawn. He wouldn't
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: say another word. His correctness grew on him. As we
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: neared the city. We passed Port Roosevelt, where there was
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: a glimpse of red belted ocean going ships, and sped
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserted saloons
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: of the Faded Guilt nineteen hundreds. Then the valley of
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: had a glimpse of Missus Wilson straining at the garage
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: pump with panting vitality. As we went by, With fenders
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: spread like wings, we scattered light through half Astoria, only
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: half for As we twisted among the pillars of the
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: elevated I heard the familiar jug jug spat of a motorcycle,
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: and a frantic policeman rode alongside all right old Sport
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: called Gatsby. We slowed down Taking a white card from
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: his wallet, he waved it before the man's eyes. Right,
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: you are agreed, the policeman tipping his cap Know you
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: next time, mister Gatsby. Excuse me, what was that I
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: inquired the picture of Oxford. I was able to do
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: the commissioner a favor once, and he sends me a
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: Christmas card every year. Over the Great Bridge, with the
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: sunlight through the girder's making a constant flicker upon the
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: moving cars, with the city rising up across the river
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: in white heaps and sugar lumps, all built with a
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: wish out of non ofactory money. The city scene from
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: the Queensboro Bridge is always the city scene. For the
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: first time in its first wild promise of all the
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: mystery and the beauty in the world, A dead man
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: two carriages with drawn blinds, and by more cheerful carriages
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: for friends. The friends looked out at us with the
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: tragic eyes and short upper lips of southeastern Europe, and
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: I was glad that the sight of Gatsby's splendid car
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed Blackwell's Island.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: A limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and the girl.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: I laughed aloud as the yokes of their eyeballs rolled
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: toward us in haughty rivalry. Anything can happen now that
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: we've slid over this bridge. I thought, anything at all,
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: even Gatsby, could happen without any particular wonder. Roaring noon,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: in a well fanned forty second street cellar, I met
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: Gatsby for lunch. Blinking away the brightness of the street outside.
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: My eyes picked him out obscurely in the ante room,
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: talking to another man, mister Carraway, this is my friend,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: mister Wolfsheem, a small, flat nosed jew, raised his large
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: head and regarded me with two fine growths of hair
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: which luxuriated in either nostril. After a moment, I discovered
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: his tiny eyes in the half darkness, so I took
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: one look at him, said mister Wolfsheum, shaking my hand earnestly,
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: and what do you think I did? What? I inquired politely,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: But evidently he was not addressing me, for he dropped
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: my hand and covered Gatsby with his expressive nose. I
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: handed the money to kat'spaw, and I said, all right, kat'spaw,
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: don't pay him a penny till he shuts his mouth.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: He shut it then and there Gatsby took an arm
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant,
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: whereupon mister Wolfshiem swallowed a new sentence he was starting,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: and lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction. High Balls, asked the
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: head waiter. This is a nice restaurant here, said mister Wolfsheam,
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: looking at the Presbyterian nymphs on the ceiling. But I
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: like a cross the street better, Yes, high Balls, agreed Gatsby,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: and then to mister Wolfsheam, it's too hot over there.
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: Hot and small, yes, said mister Wolfsheem. But full of memories.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: What place is that, I asked, the old Metropole. The
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: old Metropole brooded, mister Wolfshium, gloomily, filled with faces dead
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: and gone, filled with friends gone now forever. I can't forget,
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: so long as I lived. The night they shot Rosy Rosenthal.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: There it was six of us at the table, and
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: Rosy had eaten and drunk a lot all evening when
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: it was almost morning. The waiter came up to him
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: with a funny look and says, somebody wants to speak
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: to him outside. All right, says Rosy, and begins to
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: get up, and I pulled him down in his chair.
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: Let the bastards come in here if they want you, Rosy,
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: But don't you so help me move outside this room.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: It was four o'clock in the morning then, and if
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: we'd have raised the blinds, we'd have seen daylight. Did
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: he go? I asked, innocently, Sure he went, Mister Wolfsheem's
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: nose flashed at me indignantly. He turned around in the
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: door and says, don't let that waiter take away my coffee.
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: Then he went out on the sidewalk, and they shot
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: him three times in his full belly and drove away.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: Four of them were electrocuted, I said, remembering five with Becker.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: His nostrils turned to me in an interested way. I
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: understand you're looking for a business connection. The juxtaposition of
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: these two remarks was startling. Gatsby answered for me. Oh no,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: he exclaimed, this isn't the man. No, mister Wolfshem seemed disappointed.
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: This is just a friend. I told you we'd talk
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: about that some other time. I beg your pardon, said
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: mister Wolfsheum. I had a wrong man. A succulent hash arrived,
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: and mister Wolfsheem, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: old metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy. His eyes
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: meanwhile roved very slowly all around the room. He completed
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: the ark by turning to inspect the people directly behind.
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: I think that except for my presence, he would have
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: taken one short glance beneath our own table. Look here,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: old Sport, said Gatsby, leaning toward me. I'm afraid I
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: made you a little angry this morning in the car.
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: There was the smile again, but this time I held
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: out against it. I don't like mysteries, I answered, And
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why you won't come out frankly and
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: tell me what you want. Why has it all got
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: to come through miss Baker. Oh it's nothing under hand,
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: he assured me. Miss Baker's a great sportswoman, you know,
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: and she'd never do anything that wasn't all right. Suddenly
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: he looked at his watch, jumped up and hurried from
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: the room, leaving me with mister Wolfsheam at the table.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: He has to telephone, said mister Wolfsheam, following him with
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: his eyes. Fine fellow, isn't he handsome to look at
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: and a perfect gentleman? Yes, he's an Oxford man. Oh,
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: he went to Oxford College in England. You know Oxford College.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: I've heard of it. It's one of the most famous
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: colleges in the world. Have you known Gatsby for a
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: long time? I inquired, several years, he answered, in a
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: gratified way. I made the pleasure of his acquaintance just
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: after the war. But I knew I had discovered a
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: man of fine breeding. After I talked with him an hour,
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: I said to myself, there's the kind of man you'd
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: like to take home and introduce to your mother and sister.
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: He paused, I see you're looking at my cuff buttons.
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: I hadn't been looking at them, but I did now.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: They were composed of oddly familiar pieces of ivory, finest
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: specimens of human molars. He informed me. Well, I inspected them.
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: That's a very interesting idea. Yeah, he flipped his sleeves
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: up under his coat. Yeah. Gatsby's very careful about women.
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: He would never so much as look at a friend's wife.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: When the subject of this instinctive trust returned to the
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: table and sat down, mister Wolfsheim drank his coffee with
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: a jerk and got to his feet. I have enjoyed
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: my lunch, he said, and I'm going to run off
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: from you two young men before I outstay my welcome.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: Don't hurry, Meyer, said Gatsby, without enthusiasm. Mister Wolfsheam raised
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: his hand in a sort of benediction. You're very polite,
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: but I belonged to another generation, he announced, solemnly. You
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: sit here and discuss your sports and your young ladies,
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: or he supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: his hand, As for me, I am fifty years old,
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: and I won't impose myself on you any longer. As
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: he shook hands and turned away, his tragic nose was trembling.
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: I wondered if I had said anything to offend him.
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: He becomes very sentimental, sometimes, explained Gatsby. This is one
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: of his sentimental days. He's quite a character around New York,
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: a denizen of Broadway. Who is he anyhow? An actor? No?
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: A dentist, meer Wolfsheem, No, he's a gambler. Gatsby hesitated,
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: then added coolly, he's the man who fixed the World
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: Series back in nineteen nineteen. Fix the World Series, I repeated.
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: World Series had been fixed in nineteen nineteen. But if
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: I had thought of it at all, I would have
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: that one man could start to play with the faith
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: of fifty million people with the single mindedness of a
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: burglar blowing a safe. How did he happen to do that,
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: I asked, after a minute. He just saw the opportunity.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: Why isn't he in jail. They can't get him old sport.
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: He's a smart man. I insisted on paying the check.
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: As the waiter brought my change, I caught sight of
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: Tom Buchanan across the crowded room. Come along with me
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: for a minute, I said, I've got to say hello
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: to some one. When he saw as, Tom jumped up
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: and took half a dozen steps in our direction, where
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: have you been, he demanded eagerly. Daisy's furious because you
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: haven't called up. This is mister Gatsby, mister Buchanan. They
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: shook hands briefly, and a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: came over Gatsby's face. How have you been anyhow, demanded
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: Tom of me. How'd you happen to come up this
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: far to eat? I've been having lunch with mister Gatsby.
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: I turned toward mister Gatsby, but he was no longer there.
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: One October day in nineteen seventeen, said Jordan Baker. That afternoon,
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: sitting up very straight on a straight chair in the
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: tea garden at the Plaza Hotel, I was walking along
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: from one place to another, half on the sidewalks and
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: half on the lawns. I was happier on the lawns
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: because I had on shoes from England with rubber knobs
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: on the saws that bit into the soft ground. I
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: had on a new plaid skirt also, that blew a
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: little in the wind. And whenever this happened, the red,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: white and blue banners in front of all the houses
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: stretched out stiff and said tut tut, tut tut in
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: a disapproving way. The largest of the banners, and the
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: largest of the lawns belonged to Daisy Fay's house. She
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: was just eighteen, two years older than me, and by
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville.
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: She dressed in white and had a little white roadster,
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: and all day long the telephone rang in her house
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: of monopolizing her that night, anyways, for an hour. When
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: I came opposite her house that morning, her white roadster
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: was beside the curb and she was sitting in it
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: with a lieutenant I had never seen before. They were
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: so engrossed in each other that she didn't see me
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: until I was five feet away. Hello, Jordan, she called, unexpectedly,
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: Please come here. I was flattered that she wanted to
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: speak to me, because of all the older girls, I
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: admired her most. She asked me if I was going
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: to the Red Cross to make bandages. I was well,
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: then would I tell them that she couldn't come that day?
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking in
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: a way that every young girl wants to be looked
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: at some time, and because it seemed romantic to me.
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: I have remembered the incident ever since. His name was
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: Jay Gatsby, and I didn't lay eyes on him again
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: for over four years. Even after I'd met him on
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: Long Island, I didn't realize it was the same man.
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: That was nineteen seventeen. By the next year, I had
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: a few bows myself, and I began to play in tournaments,
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: so I didn't see Daisy very often. She went with
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: a slightly older crowd when she went with any one
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: at all. Wild rumors were circulating about her. How her
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: mother had found her packing her bag one winter night
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: to go to New York and say goodbye to a
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: soldier who was going overseas. She was effectually prevented, but
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: she wasn't on speaking terms with her family for several weeks.
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: After that, she didn't play around with the soldiers any more,
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: but only with a few flat footed, short sighted young
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: men in town who couldn't get into the army at all.
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: By the next autumn, she was gay again, gay as ever.
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: She had a debut after the Armistice, and in February
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: In June, she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before. He came
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: down with a hundred people in four private cars and
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: hired a whole floor of the Mulbach Hotel, and the
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: day before the wedding, he gave her a string of
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: was a bridesmaid. I came into her room half an
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: hour before the bridal dinner and found her lying on
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: her bed, as lovely as the June night, in her
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: flower dress, and as drunk as a monkey. She had
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: a bottle of so turn in one hand and a
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: letter in the other. Gratulate me, she muttered, never had
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: a drink before, but oh how I do enjoy it.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: What's the matter, Daisy? I was scared. I can tell
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: you I'd never seen a girl like that before. Here, dearies.
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: She groped around in a waste basket she had with
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls.
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: Take em downstairs and give em back to whoever they
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: belonged to Tell em all. Daisy's change her mind? Say
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: Daisy's change her mind? She began to cry. She cried
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: and cried. I rushed out and found her mother's maid,
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: and we locked the door and got her into a
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: cold bath. She wouldn't let go of the letter. She
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: took it into the tub with her and squeezed it
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: up in a wet ball, and only let me leave
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: it in a soap dish when she saw that it
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: was coming to pieces like snow, but she didn't say
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: another word. We gave her spirits of ammonia and put
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress.
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: And half an hour later, when we walked out of
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: the room, the pearls were around her neck and the
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: incident was over. Next day, at five o'clock, she married
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver, and started
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: off on a three months trip to the South seas.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back,
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: and I thought I'd never seen a girl so mad
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: about her husband. If he left the room for a minute,
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: she'd look around uneasily and say, where's Tom gone? And
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: we're the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: in the door. She used to sit on the sand
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: with his head in her lap by the hour, rubbing
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: unfathomable delight. It was touching to see them together. It
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: in August, a week after I left Santa Barbara, Tom
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: ran into a wagon on the Ventura Road one night
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: and ripped a front wid off his car. The girl
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: who was with him got into the papers too, because
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: her arm was broken. She was one of the chambermaids
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: in the Santa Barbara hotel. The next April, Daisy had
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: her little girl and they went to France for a year.
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: I saw them one spring in cann and later in Douville,
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: and then they came back to Chicago to settle down.
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know. They moved
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: and wild. But she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation,
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: perhaps because she doesn't drink. It's a great advantage not
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: to drink among hard drinking people. You can hold your tongue,
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: and moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own,
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: so that everybody else is so blind that they don't
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: see or care perhaps Daisy never went in for a
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: more at all, and yet there's something in that voice
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: of hers. Well. About six weeks ago she heard the
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: name Gatsby for the first time in years. It was
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: when I asked you, do you remember if you knew
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: Gatsby in West Egg after you had gone home. She
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: came into my room and woke me up and said,
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: what Gatsby? And when I described him, I was half asleep.
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: She said in the strangest voice that it must be
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: the man she used to know. It wasn't until then
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: that I connected this Gatsby with the officer in her
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: white car. When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this,
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: we had left the plaza for half an hour and
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: were driving in a Victoria through Central Park. The sun
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: stars in the West fifties, and the clear voices of
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: children already gathered like crickets on the grass rose through
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: the hot twilight. I'm the shekh of Araby. Your love
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: belongs to me at night when you're asleep into your
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: tentile creep. It was a strange coincidence, I said, But
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: it wasn't a coincidence at all. Why not Gatsby bought
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: Then it had not been merely the stars to which
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: he had aspired on that June night. He came alive
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor.
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: He wants to know, continued Jordan, if you'll invite Daisy
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: to your house some afternoon and then let him come over.
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: five years and bought a mansion where he dispends starlight
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: to casual moths, so that he could come over some
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: afternoon to a stranger's garden. Did I have to know
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: all this before he could ask such a little thing.
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: He's afraid he's waited so long. He thought you might
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: be offended. You see, he's regular tough underneath it all.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: Something worried me. Why didn't he ask you to arrange
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: a meeting. He wants her to see his house, she explained,
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: And your house is right next door. Oh, I think
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: he half expected her to wander into one of his
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: parties some night when on Jordan, but she never did.
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: Then he began asking people casually if they knew her,
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: and I was the first one he found. It was
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: that night he sent for me at his dance, and
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: you should have heard the elaborate way he worked up
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: to it. Of course, I immediately suggested a luncheon in
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: New York, and I thought he'd go mad. I don't
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: want to do anything out of the way. He kept saying,
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: I want to see her write next door. When I
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: said you were a particular friend of Tom's, he started
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: to abandon the whole idea. He doesn't know very much
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: about Tom, though he says he's read a Chicago paper
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: of Daisy's name. It was dark now, and as we
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: dipped under a little bridge, I put my arm around
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy in
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: who dealt in universal skepticism, and who leaned back jauntily
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: to beat in my ears with a sort of heavy excitement.
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: the tired, and Daisy ought to have something in her life,
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: murmured Jordan to me, does she want to see Gatsby.
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: She's not to know about it. Gatsby doesn't want her
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: to know. You're just supposed to invite her to tea.
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: We passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: facade of fifty ninth Street, a block of delicate, pale
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: light beamed down into the park. Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan,
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: dark cornices and blinding signs, And so I drew up
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Her wand scornful
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again, closer
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: this time to my face. V When I came home
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: to West Egg that night, I was afraid for a
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: moment that my house was on fire. Two o'clock and
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: the whole corner of the pan Ninsula was blazing with
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: light which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin,
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: elongating glimpse upon the roadside wires. Turning a corner, I
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: saw that it was Gatsby's house, lit from tower to cellar.
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: At first I thought it was another party, a wild
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: route that had resolved itself into hide and go seek
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: or Sardines in the box, with all the house thrown
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: open to the game. But there wasn't a sound, only
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: wind in the trees, which blew the wires and made
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: the lights go off and on again, as if the
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: house had winked into the darkness. As my taxi grown away,
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: I saw Gatsby walking toward me across his lawn. Your
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: place looks like the World's fair, I said, does it?
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: He turned his eyes toward it absently. I have been
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: glancing into some of the rooms. Let's go to Coney Island,
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: old Sport in my car. It's too late. Well, suppose
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: we take a plunge in the swimming pool. I haven't
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: made use of it all summer. I've got to go
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: to bed, all right, he waited, looking at me with
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: suppressed eagerness. I talked with miss Baker, I said, after
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: a moment, I'm going to call up Daisy tomorrow and
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: invite her over here to tea. Oh that's all right,
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: he said carelessly. I don't want to put you to
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: any trouble. What day would suit you? What day would
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: suit you? He corrected me quickly. I don't want to
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: put you to any trouble. You see, how about the
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: day after tomorrow? He considered for a moment, then with reluctance,
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: I want to get the grass cut, he said. We
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: both looked down at the grass. There was a sharp
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: kept expanse of his began. I suspected that he meant
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: my grass. There's another little thing, he said, uncertainly and hesitated.
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: Would you rather put it off for a few days?
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: I asked, Oh, it isn't about that, at least. He
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: fumbled with a series of beginnings. Why, I thought, why,
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: look here, old Sport, you don't make much money? Do you? Not?
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: Very much? This seemed to reassure him, and he continued
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: more confidently. I thought, you didn't, if you'll pardon my
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: You see, I carry on a little business on the side,
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: a sort of sideline, you understand, And I thought that
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: if you don't make very much, you're selling bonds, aren't you,
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: Old Sport trying to well? This would interest you. It
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: wouldn't take up much of your time, and you might
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: pick up a nice bit of money. It happens to
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: be a rather confidential sort of thing. I realize now
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: that under different circumstances, that conversation might have been one
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: of the crises of my life. But because the offer
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: was obviously and tactlessly for a service to be rendered,
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: I had no choice except to cut him off. There.
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: I've got my hands full, I said, I'm much obliged,
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't take on any more work. You wouldn't
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: have to do any business with Wolf, shehim. Evidently he
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: thought that I was shying away from the gennection mentioned
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: at lunch, but I assured him he was wrong. He
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: waited a moment longer, hoping I'd begin a conversation, but
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: I was too absorbed to be responsive, so he went
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: unwillingly home. The evening had made me light headed and happy.
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: I think I walked into a deep sleep as I
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: entered my front door. So I don't know whether or
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: not Gatsby went to Coney Island or for how many
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: hours he glanced into rooms while his house blazed gaudily on.
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: I called up Daisy from the office next morning and
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: invited her to come to tea. Don't bring tom, I
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: warned her, what don't bring Tom. Who is Tom? She
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: asked innocently. The day agreed upon was pouring rain. At
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: eleven o'clock, a man in a raincoat dragging a lawnmower
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: tapped at my front door and said that mister Gatsby
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: had sent him over to cut my grass. This reminded
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: me that I had forgotten to tell my Fin to
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: come back, so I drove into West Egg Village to
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: search for her among soggy, white washed alleys, and to
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: buy some cups and lemons and flowers. The flowers were
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: unnecessary for At two o'clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby's
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: with innumerable receptacles to contain it. An hour later, the
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: front door opened nervously, and Gatsby, in a white flannel suit,
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: silver shirt, and gold colored tie, hurried in. He was pale,
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: Is everything all right, he asked immediately. The grass looks fine,
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: if that's what you mean. What grass? He inquired, blankly, Oh,
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: the grass in the yard. He looked out the window
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: at it, but judging from his expression, I don't believe
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: he a thing looks very good. He remarked vaguely. One
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: of the papers said they thought the rain would stop
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: about four. I think it was the Journal. Have you
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: got everything you need in the shape of tea? I
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: took him into the pantry, where he looked a little
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: reproachfully at the fin Together we scrutinized the twelve lemon
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: cakes from the delicatessen shop. Will they do? I asked?
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: Of course, of course they're fine, and he added hollowly,
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: old sport. The rain cooled about half past three, to
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: a damp mist, through which occasional thin drops swam like dew.
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: Gatsby looked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clazy Economics,
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: starting at the finished tread that shook the kitchen floor,
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: and peering towards the bleared windows from time to time,
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: as if a series of invisible but alarming happenings were
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 1: taking place outside. Finally, he got up and informed me
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: in an uncertain voice that he was going home. Why
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: is that nobody's coming to tea? It's too late. He
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: looked at his watch, as if there was some pressing
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: demand on his time elsewhere. I can't wait all day.
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: Don't be silly, it's just two minutes to four. He
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: sat down miserably, as if I had pushed him, And
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: simultaneously there was the sound of a motor turning into
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: my lane. We both jumped up, and a little hair
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: of myself. I went out into the yard under the
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: dripping bare Lila trees. A large open car was coming
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: up the drive. It stopped. Daisy's face, tipped sideways beneath
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: a three cornered lavender hat, looked out at me with
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: a bright, ecstatic smile. Is this absolutely where you live,
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: my dearest one? The exhilarating ripple of her voice was
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: a wild tonic in the rain. I had to follow
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: the sound of it for a moment, up and down
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: with my ear alone, Before any words came through. A
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: paint across her cheek, and her hand was wet with
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: glistening drops as I took it to help her from
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: the car. Are you in love with me? She said,
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: low in my ear? Or why did I have to
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: come alone? That's the secret of Castle Rackrant. Tell your
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: chauffeur to go far away and spend an hour. Come
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: back in an hour, Ferdy, Then in a grave murmur.
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: His name is Ferdy. Does the gasoline affect his nose?
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think so, she said, innocently. Why we went in?
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: To my overwhelming surprise, the living room was deserted. Well
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: that's funny, I exclaimed, what's funny? She turned her head.
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: As there was a light, dignified knocking at the front door.
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: I went out and opened it. Gatsby, pale as death,
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets,
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: was standing in a puddle of water, glaring tragically into
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: my eyes. With his hand still in his coat pockets.
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: He stalked by me into the hall, turned sharply as
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: if he were on a wire, and disappeared into the
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: living room. It wasn't a bit funny. Aware of the
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: loud beating of my own heart, I pulled the door
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: to against the increasing rain. For half a minute there
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: wasn't a sound. Then from the living room I heard
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh,
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: followed by Daisy's voice on a clear artificial note. I
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: certainly am awfully glad to see you again. A pause.
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: It endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall,
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: so I went into the room. Gatsby, his hand still
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: leaned back so far that it rested against the face
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position, his
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting frightened
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: but graceful on the edge of a stiff chair. We've
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: met before, muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at me,
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily,
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 1: the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: with trembling fingers and set it back in place. Then
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: he sat down rigidly, his elbow on the arm of
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: the sofa and his chin in his hand. I'm sorry
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: about the clock, he said, My own face had now
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: assumed a deep tropical burn. I couldn't muster up a
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: single commonplace out of the thousand in my head. It's
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: an old clock, I told them, idiotically. I think we
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: all believed for a moment that it had smashed him
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: pieces on the floor. We haven't met for many years,
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: said Daisy, her voice as matter of fact as it
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: could ever be. Five years next November. The automatic quality
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: of Gatsby's answer set us all back at least another minute.
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: I had them both on their feet with the desperate
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: suggestion that they helped me make tea in the kitchen
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: when the demoniac fin brought it in on a tray.
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: Amid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes, a certain
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: physical decency established itself. Gatsby got himself into a shadow,
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: and while Daisy and I talked, looked conscientiously from one
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: to the other, of us with tense, unhappy eyes. However,
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: as calmness wasn't an end in itself, I made an
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: excuse at the first possible moment and got to my feet.
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: Where are you going, demanded Gatsby in immediate alarm. I'll
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: be back. I've got to speak to you about something
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: before you go. He followed me wildly into the kitchen,
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: closed the door, and whispered, Oh God, in a miserable way.
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: What's the matter. This is a terrible mistake, he said,
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: shaking his head from side to side. A terrible terrible mistake.
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: You're just embarrassed, that's all. And luckily, I added, Daisy's
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 1: embarrassed too. She's embarrassed, he repeated, incredulously, just as much
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: as you are. Don't talk so loud. You're acting like
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: a little boy, I broke out impatiently. Not only that,
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: but you're rude. Daisy's sitting in there all alone. He
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: raised his hand to stop my words, looked at me
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: with unforgettable reproach, and, opening the door, cautiously went back
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: into the other room. I walked out the back way,
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: just as Gatsby had when he had made his nervous
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: circuit of the house half an hour before, and ran
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: for a huge black knotted tree, whose massed leaves made
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: a fabric against the rain. Once more, it was pouring,
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: and my irregular lawn, well shaved by Gatsby's gardener, abounded
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: in small muddy swamps and prehistoric marshes. There was nothing
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: to look at from under the tree except Gatsby's enormous house.
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: So I stared at it like comte at his church steeple,
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: for half an hour. A brewer had built it early
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: in this period Craze a decade before, and There was
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: a story that he'd agreed to pay five years taxes
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: on all the neighboring cottages if the owners would have
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: their roofs thatched with straw. Perhaps their refusal took the
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: heart out of his plan to found a family. He
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 1: went into an immediate decline. His children sold his house
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: with the black wreath still on the door. Americans, while willing,
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: even eager to be serfs, have always been obstinate about
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: being peasantry. After half an hour, the sun shone again,
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: and the grocer's automobile rounded Gatsby's drive with the raw
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: material for his servant's dinner. I felt sure he wouldn't
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: eat a spoonful. A maid began opening the upper windows
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: of his house, appeared momentarily in each, and leaning from
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: the large central bay, spat meditatively into the garden. It
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: was time I went back. While the rain continued. It
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: had seemed like the murmur of their voices, rising and
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: swelling a little now and then with gusts of emotion.
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: But in the new silence, I felt that silence had
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: fallen within the house too. I went in, after making
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: every possible noise in the kitchen short of pushing over
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: the stove, but I don't believe they heard a sound.
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: They were sitting at either end of the couch, looking
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: at each other as if some question had been asked
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: was gone. Daisy's face was smeared with tears, and when
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: I came in, she jumped up and began wiping at
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed,
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: without a word or a gesture of exultation. A new
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: well being radiated from him and filled the little room.
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: Oh hello, old Sport, he said, as if he hadn't
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: seen me for years. I thought for a moment he
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: was going to shake hands. It stopped raining, has it?
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 1: When he realized what I was talking about, that there
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: were twinkled of sunshine in the room, he smiled like
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: a weather man, like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light,
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: and repeated the news to Daisy. What do you think
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: of that it stopped raining. I'm glad, Jaye, her throat
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her unexpected joy.
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: I want you and Daisy to come over to my house,
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: he said, I'd like to show her around. You're sure
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: you want me to come? Absolutely old Sport. Daisy went
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: upstairs to wash her face. Too late, I thought, with
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: humiliation of my towels. While Gatsby and I waited on
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: the lawn. My house looks well, doesn't it? He demanded.
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: See how the whole front of it catches the light.
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: I agreed that it was splendid. Yes, his eyes went
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: over it, every arched door and square tower. It took
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: me just three years to earn the money that bought it.
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: I thought you inherited your money. I did, old Sport,
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: he said, automatically, but I lost most of it in
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: the big panic, the panic of the war. I think
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: he hardly knew what he was saying for. When I
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: asked him what business he was in, he answered, that's
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: my affair, before he realized that it wasn't an appropriate reply. Oh,
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: I've been in several things, he corrected himself. I was
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 1: in the drug business, and then I was in the
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: oil business. But I'm not in either one now. He
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: looked at me with more attention. Do you mean you've
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: been thinking over what I proposed the other night? Before?
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: I could answer. Daisy came out of the house and
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: two rows of brass buttons on her dress gleamed in
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: the sunlight. That huge place there, she cried, pointing, do
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: you like it? I love it, but I don't see
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: how you live there all alone. I keep it always
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: full of interesting people night and day, people who do
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: interesting things, celebrated people. Instead of taking the short cut
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 1: along the sound, we went down to the road and
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: entered by the big postern with enchanting murmurs. Daisy admired
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: this aspect or that of the feudal silhouette against the sky.
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: Admired the gardens, the sparkling odor of jonquills, and the
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: frothy odor of hawthorn and plum blossoms, and the pale
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: gold odor of kissed me at the gate. It was
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: strange to reach the marble steps and find no stir
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: of bright dresses in and out the door, and hear
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: no sound but bird voices in the trees and inside.
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: As we wandered through Marie Antoinette music rooms and restoration salons,
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: I felt that there were guests concealed behind every couch
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: and table, under orders to be breathlessly silent until we
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: had passed through. As Gatsby closed the door of the
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: Merton College Library, I could have sworn I heard the
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: outlied man break into ghostly laughter. We went upstairs, through
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: period bedrooms swathed in rows and lavender silk and vivid
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: with new flowers, through dressing rooms and pool rooms, and
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: bathrooms with sunken baths, intruding into one chamber where a
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: disheveled man in pajamas was doing liver exercises on the floor.
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: It was mister Clipspringer the border. I had seen him
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 1: wandering hungrily about the beach that morning. Finally we came
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: to Gatsby's own apartment, a bedroom and a bath and
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: an atom's study, where we sat down and drank a
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 1: glass of some chatreuse he took from a cupboard in
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: the wall. He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: I think he revalued everything in his house according to
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: the measure of response it drew from her well loved eyes. Sometimes, too,
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way,
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: as though in her actual and astounding presence none of
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: a flight of stairs. His bedroom was the simplest room
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: of all, except where the dresser was garnished with a
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: toilet set of pure dull gold. Daisy took the brush
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: with delight and smoothed her hair, whereupon Gatsby he sat
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: down and shaded his eyes and began to laugh. It's
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 1: the funniest thing old sport, he said, hilariously. I can't
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: when I try to. He had passed visibly through two states,
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 1: and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 1: his unreasoning joy, he was consumed with wonder at her presence.
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: He had been full of the idea, so long dreamed
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 1: it right through to the end, waited with his teeth
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: set so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity.
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: Now in the reaction he was running down like an
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: overwound clock, recovering himself in a minute. He opened for
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: us two hulking patent cabinets which held his masted suits
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 1: and dressing gowns and ties, and his shirts piled like
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: bricks in stacks a dozen high. I've got a man
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: and fall. He took out a pile of shirts and
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: began throwing them one by one before us, shirts of
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: their folds as they fell, and covered the table in
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: many colored disarray. While we admired, he brought more, and
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: the soft rich heap mounted higher shirts with stripes and
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: scrolls and plaids in coral and apple green and lavender
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 1: a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: and began to cry stormily. There's such beautiful shirts, she sobbed,
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 1: her voice muffled in the thick folds. It makes me
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: sad because I've never seen such such beautiful shirts before.
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: After the house, we were to see the grounds in
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: the swimming pool, and the hydroplane, and the midsummer flowers.
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: But outside Gatsby's window it began to rain again, So
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: we stood in a row looking at the corrugated surface
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: of the sound. If it wasn't for the mist, we
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: could see your home across the bay, said Gatsby. You
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: always have a green light that burns all night at
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: the end of your dock. Daisy put her arm through
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy,
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her.
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: It had seemed as close as a star to the moon.
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 1: Now it was again a green light on a dock.
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one. I
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: began to walk about the room, examining various indefinite objects.
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: In the half darkness. A large photograph of an elderly
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: man in yachting costume attracted me. Hung on the wall
• 2:29:40
  Speaker 1: over his desk. Who's this That that's mister Dan Cody,
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: old Sport. The name sounded faintly familiar. He's dead now.
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: He used to be my best friend years ago. There
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: was a small picture of Gatsby, also in yachting costume,
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: on the bureau. Gatsby with his head thrown back, defiantly,
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: taken apparently when he was about eighteen. I adore it,
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: exclaimed Daisy, the pompadour. You never told me you had
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: a pompadour or a yacht. Look at this, said Gatsby quickly.
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: Here's a lot of clippings about you. They stood side
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: by side, examining it. I was going to ask to
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: see the rubies when the phone rang and Gatsby took
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: up the receiver. Yes, well, I can't talk now. I
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: can't talk now, old Sport, I said, A small town.
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 1: He must know what a small town is. Well, he's
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: no use to us if Detroit is his idea of
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: a small town. He rang off. Come here, quick, cried
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 1: Daisy at the window. The rain was still falling, but
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: the darkness had parted in the west, and there was
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 1: a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea.
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: Look at that, she whispered. And then after a moment,
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 1: I'd like to just get one of those pink clouds
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: and put you in it and push you around. I
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: tried to go then, but they wouldn't hear of it.
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: Perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactorily alone. I
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: know what we'll do, said Gatsby. We'll have Clipspringer play
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: the piano. He went out of the room, calling dewing,
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: and returned in a few minutes, accompanied by an embarrassed,
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: slightly worn young man with shell rimmed glasses and scanty
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: blonde hair. He was now decently clothed in a sport
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: shirt open at the neck, sneakers, and duck trousers of
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 1: a nebulous hue. Did we interrupt your exercise, inquired Daisy politely.
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: I was asleep, cried mister Clipspringer, in a spasm of embarrassment.
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: That is, I'd been asleep. Then I got up. Clipspringer
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 1: plays the piano, said Gatsby, cutting him off. Don't you
• 2:31:58
  Speaker 1: ewing old sport. I don't play well. I don't hardly
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: play at all. I'm all out of prack. We'll go downstairs,
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: interrupted Gatsby. He flipped a switch. The gray windows disappeared
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 1: as the house glowed full of light. In the music room,
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: Gatsby turned on a solitary lamp beside the piano. He
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: lit Daisy cigarette from a trembling match, and sat down
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 1: with her on a couch far across the room, where
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: there was no light save what the gleaming floor bounced
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: in from the hall. When Clipspringer had played the Love Nest,
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: he turned around on the bench and searched unhappily for
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 1: Gatsby in the gloom. I'm all out of practice, you see,
• 2:32:41
  Speaker 1: I told you I couldn't play. I'm all out of prack.
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 1: Don't talk so much, Old Sport commanded Gatsby. Play in
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 1: the morning. In the evening, ain't we got fun? Outside?
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: The wind was loud, and there was a faint flow
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 1: of thunder along the sound. All the lights were going
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: on in West egg Now the electric trains, men carrying
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: were plunging home through the rain from New York. It
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: was the hour of a profound human change, and excitement
• 2:33:10
  Speaker 1: was generating on the air. One thing sure, in nothing surer.
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 1: The rich get richer, and the poor get children. In
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: the meantime in between time, as I went over to
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: say good bye, I saw that the expression of bewilderment
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: had come back into Gatsby's face, as though a faint
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 1: doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 1: his present happiness. Almost five years there must have been
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: moments even that afternoon, when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams,
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: not through her own fault, but because of the colossal
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: everything he had thrown himself into it with a creative passion,
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: adding to it all the time, decking it out with
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 1: up in his ghostly heart. As I watched him, he
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: adjusted himself a little visibly. His hand took hold of hers,
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 1: and as she said something low in his ear, he
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: that voice held him most with its fluctuating, feverish warmth,
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 1: because it couldn't be over dreamed. That voice was a
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 1: deathless song. They had forgotten me, but Daisy glanced up
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: and held out her hand. Gatsby didn't know me now
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: at all. I looked once more at them, and they
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: looked back at me, remotely possessed by intense life. Then
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: I went out of the room and down the marble
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: steps into the rain, leaving them there together six About
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 1: this time, an ambitious young reporter from New York arrived
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: one morning at Gatsby's door and asked him if he
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: had anything to say, anything to say about what? Inquired
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: Gatsby politely, why any statement to give out? It transpired
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: after a confused five minutes that the man had heard
• 2:34:58
  Speaker 1: Gatsby's name around his office in a can connection which
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: he either wouldn't reveal or didn't fully understand. This was
• 2:35:04
  Speaker 1: his day off, and with laudable initiative, he had hurried
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: out to see It was a random shot, and yet
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: the reporter's instinct was right. Gatsby's notoriety, spread about by
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 1: the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so become
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 1: authorities upon his past, had increased all summer until he
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: fell just short of being news. Contemporary legends, such as
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: the underground Pipeline to Canada, attached themselves to him, and
• 2:35:30
  Speaker 1: there was one persistent story that he didn't live in
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 1: a house at all, but in a boat that looked
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: like a house and was moved secretly up and down
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: the Long Island shore. Just why these inventions were a
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: source of satisfaction to James Gatts of North Dakota isn't
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: easy to say. James Gatts that was really, or at
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 1: least legally, his name. He had changed it at the
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: age of seventeen, and at the specific moment that witnessed
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 1: the beginning of his career, when he saw Dan Cody's
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior.
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: It was James gatts who had been loafing along the
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 1: pair of canvas pants. But it was already Jay Gatsby,
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: who borrowed a rowboat, pulled out to the Ptolemy and
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 1: informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 1: him up in half an hour. I suppose he'd had
• 2:36:20
  Speaker 1: the name ready for a long time. Even then. His
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 1: parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people, his imagination had
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 1: never really accepted them as his parents at all. The
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: truth was that Jay Gatsby of West egg Long Island
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 1: sprang from his platonic conception of himself. He was a
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: son of God, a phrase which, if it means anything,
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: means just that, And he must be about his father's business,
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty. So
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, And
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: to this conception he was faithful to the end. For
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: over a year he had been beating his way along
• 2:37:01
  Speaker 1: the south shore of Lake superior as a clam digger
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: and a salmon fisher, or in any other capacity that
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: brought him food and bed. His brown, hardening body lived
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 1: naturally through the half fierce, half lazy work of the
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 1: bracing days. He knew women early, and since they spoiled him,
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 1: he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they
• 2:37:22
  Speaker 1: were ignorant, of the others, because they were hysterical about
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: things which, in his overwhelming self absorption he took for granted.
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 1: But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 1: most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: in his brain, while the clock ticked on the washstand
• 2:37:43
  Speaker 1: and the moon soaked with wet light, his tangled clothes
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern
• 2:37:50
  Speaker 1: of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while, these reveries
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: provided an outlet for his imagination. They were a satisfactory
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 1: hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 1: An instinct toward his future glory had led him some
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 1: months before to the small Lutheran College of Saint Olaf's
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: in southern Minnesota. He stayed there two weeks, dismayed at
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny to
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 1: destiny itself, and despising the janitor's work with which he
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: was to pay his way through. Then he drifted back
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: to Lake Superior, and he was still searching for something
• 2:38:31
  Speaker 1: to do on the day that Dan Cody's yacht dropped
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 1: anchor in the shallows alongshore. Cody was fifty years old then,
• 2:38:38
  Speaker 1: a product of the Nevada silver fields of the Yukon,
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: of every rush for metal since seventy five. The transactions
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 1: in Montana copper had made him many times a millionaire,
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 1: found him physically robust, but on the verge of soft mindedness,
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: and suspecting this, an infinite number of women tried to
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 1: separate him from his money. The none too savory ramification
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: by which La Kay, the newspaper woman played Madame de
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: Maintenon to his weakness and sent him to sea in
• 2:39:05
  Speaker 1: a yacht, were common property of the turgid journalism. In
• 2:39:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen o two, he had been coasting along all two
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: hospitable shores for five years when he turned up as
• 2:39:15
  Speaker 1: James Gats's destiny in Little Girl Bay. To young gats
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 1: resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck,
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: that yacht represented all the beauty and glamor in the world.
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 1: I suppose he smiled at Cody. He had probably discovered
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 1: that people liked him when he smiled at any rate.
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 1: Cody asked him a few questions, one of them elicited
• 2:39:36
  Speaker 1: the brand new name, and found that he was quick
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: and extravagantly ambitious. A few days later he took him
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: to Duluth and bought him a blue coat, six pairs
• 2:39:45
  Speaker 1: of white duck trousers, and a yachting cap. And when
• 2:39:49
  Speaker 1: the Tuolmi left for the West Indies and the Barbary Coast,
• 2:39:53
  Speaker 1: Gatsby left two he was employed in a vague personal
• 2:39:56
  Speaker 1: capacity while he remained with Cody. He was in turn
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 1: stood mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailer for Dan Cody.
• 2:40:04
  Speaker 1: Sober knew what lavish doings Dan Cody Drunk might soon
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 1: be about, and he provided for such contingencies by reposing
• 2:40:11
  Speaker 1: more and more trust in Gatsby. The arrangement lasted five years,
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 1: during which the boat went three times around the continent.
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: It might have lasted indefinitely except for the fact that
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: Ella Kay came on board one night in Boston, and
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 1: a week later Dan Cody inhospitably died. I remember the
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: portrait of him up in Gatsby's bedroom, a gray florid
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: man with a hard, empty face, the pioneer debauchy, who,
• 2:40:37
  Speaker 1: during one phase of American life, brought back to the
• 2:40:39
  Speaker 1: Eastern Seaboard the savage violence of the Frontier brothel and saloon.
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: It was indirectly due to Cody that Gatsby drank so little.
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: Sometimes in the course of gay parties, women used to
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: rub champagne into his hair. For himself, he formed the
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: habit of letting liquor alone. And it was from Cody
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: that he inherited money, a legacy of twenty five thousand dollars.
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: He didn't get it. He never understood the legal device
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 1: that was used against him, But what remained of the
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: millions went intact to Ella Kay. He was left with
• 2:41:12
  Speaker 1: his singularly appropriate education. The vague contour of j. Gatsby
• 2:41:16
  Speaker 1: had filled out to the substantiality of a man. He
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: told me all this very much later, but I've put
• 2:41:22
  Speaker 1: it down here with the idea of exploding those first
• 2:41:25
  Speaker 1: wild rumors about his antecedents, which weren't even faintly true. Moreover,
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 1: he told it to me at a time of confusion,
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: when I had reached the point of believing everything and
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 1: nothing about him. So I take advantage of this short
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 1: halt while Gatsby, so to speak, caught his breath to
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: clear this set of misconceptions away. It was a halt
• 2:41:46
  Speaker 1: too in my association with his affairs. For several weeks,
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: I didn't see him or hear his voice on the phone.
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 1: Mostly I was in New York, trotting around with Jordan
• 2:41:56
  Speaker 1: and trying to ingratiate myself with her senile aunt. But
• 2:41:59
  Speaker 1: finally I went over to his house one Sunday afternoon.
• 2:42:03
  Speaker 1: I hadn't been there two minutes when somebody brought Tom
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 1: Buchanan in for a drink. I was startled, naturally, But
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: the really surprising thing was that it hadn't happened before.
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: They were a party of three on horseback, Tom and
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: a man named Sloane, and a pretty woman in a
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: brown riding habit who had been there previously. I'm delighted
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 1: to see you, said Gatsby, standing on his porch. I'm
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: delighted that you dropped in as though they cared. Sit
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 1: right down, have a cigarette or a cigar. He walked
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: around the room, quickly ringing bells. I'll have something to
• 2:42:41
  Speaker 1: drink for you in just a minute. He was profoundly
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 1: affected by the fact that Tom was there, but he
• 2:42:48
  Speaker 1: would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something,
• 2:42:51
  Speaker 1: realizing in a vague way that that was all they
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: came for. Mister Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade, no thanks,
• 2:43:01
  Speaker 1: a little champagne, nothing at all. Thanks. I'm sorry. Did
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: you have a nice ride, very good roads around here,
• 2:43:11
  Speaker 1: I suppose the automobiles. Yeah. Moved by an irresistible impulse,
• 2:43:16
  Speaker 1: Gatsby turned to Tom, who had accepted the introduction as
• 2:43:20
  Speaker 1: a stranger. I believe we've met somewhere before, mister Buchanan.
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, said Tom, gruffly, polite but obviously not remembering.
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 1: So we did. I remember very well about two weeks ago.
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: That's right, you were with Nick here. I know your wife,
• 2:43:42
  Speaker 1: continued Gatsby, almost aggressively. That's so, Tom turned to me.
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: You live near here, Nick next door. That's so. Mister
• 2:43:54
  Speaker 1: Sloane didn't enter into the conversation, but lounged back haughtily
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: in his chair. The woman's ad nothing either, until unexpectedly,
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: after two high balls, she became cordial. We'll all come
• 2:44:06
  Speaker 1: over to your next party, mister Gatsby, She suggested, what
• 2:44:10
  Speaker 1: do you say? Certainly I'd be delighted to have you
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: beaver nice, said mister Sloane, without gratitude. Well, think ought
• 2:44:20
  Speaker 1: to be starting home. Please don't hurry, Gatsby urged them.
• 2:44:25
  Speaker 1: He had control of himself now and he wanted to
• 2:44:28
  Speaker 1: see more of Tom. Why don't you, Why don't you
• 2:44:31
  Speaker 1: stay for supper? I wouldn't be surprised if some other
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: people dropped in from New York. You come to supper
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 1: with me, said the lady, enthusiastically, Both of you, this
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: included me. Mister Sloane got to his feet, Come along,
• 2:44:48
  Speaker 1: he said, But to her, only I mean it, she insisted,
• 2:44:54
  Speaker 1: I'd love to have you lots of room. Gatsby looked
• 2:44:58
  Speaker 1: at me questioningly. He wanted to go, and he didn't
• 2:45:01
  Speaker 1: see that mister Sloane had determined he shouldn't. I'm afraid
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 1: I won't be able to, I said, well, you come,
• 2:45:09
  Speaker 1: she urged, concentrating on Gatsby. Mister Sloane murmured something close
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: to her ear. We won't be late if we start now,
• 2:45:18
  Speaker 1: she insisted aloud. I haven't got a horse, said Gatsby.
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 1: I used to ride in the army, but I've never
• 2:45:25
  Speaker 1: bought a horse. I'll have to follow you in my car.
• 2:45:30
  Speaker 1: Excuse me for just a minute. The rest of us
• 2:45:33
  Speaker 1: walked out on the porch, where Sloane and the lady
• 2:45:36
  Speaker 1: began an impassioned conversation. Aside, my god, I believe the
• 2:45:40
  Speaker 1: man's coming, said Tom. Doesn't he know she doesn't want him?
• 2:45:45
  Speaker 1: She says she does want him. She has a big
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 1: dinner party, and he won't know a soul there. He frowned.
• 2:45:53
  Speaker 1: I wonder wherein the devil he met Daisy. By god,
• 2:45:57
  Speaker 1: I may be old fashioned in my ideas, but women
• 2:46:00
  Speaker 1: run around too much these days to suit me. They
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 1: meet all kinds of crazy fish. Suddenly, mister Sloane and
• 2:46:08
  Speaker 1: the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses.
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: Come on, said mister Sloane to Tom, we're late. We've
• 2:46:16
  Speaker 1: got to go. And then to me tell him we
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: couldn't wait, will you. Tom and I shook hands. The
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 1: rest of us exchanged a cool nod, and they trotted
• 2:46:25
  Speaker 1: quickly down the drive, disappearing under the August foliage, just
• 2:46:29
  Speaker 1: as Gatsby, with hat and light overcoat in hand, came
• 2:46:33
  Speaker 1: out the front door. Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisies
• 2:46:36
  Speaker 1: running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he
• 2:46:40
  Speaker 1: came with her to Gatsby's party. Perhaps his presence gave
• 2:46:44
  Speaker 1: the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness. It stands out
• 2:46:47
  Speaker 1: in my memory from Gatsby's other parties that summer. There
• 2:46:51
  Speaker 1: were the same people, or at least the same sort
• 2:46:53
  Speaker 1: of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many colored,
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 1: many keyed commotion. But I felt an unpleasantness in the air,
• 2:47:01
  Speaker 1: a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before, Or perhaps
• 2:47:05
  Speaker 1: I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its
• 2:47:11
  Speaker 1: own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing,
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: because it had no consciousness of being so. And now
• 2:47:17
  Speaker 1: I was looking at it again through Daisy's eyes. It
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: is invariably saddening to look through new eyes. At things
• 2:47:24
  Speaker 1: upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.
• 2:47:28
  Speaker 1: They arrived at twilight, and as we strolled out among
• 2:47:31
  Speaker 1: the sparkling hundreds, Daisy's voice was playing murmurous tricks in
• 2:47:34
  Speaker 1: her throat. These things excite me, so, she whispered. If
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick,
• 2:47:43
  Speaker 1: just let me know, and I'll be glad to arrange
• 2:47:45
  Speaker 1: it for you. Just mention my name or present a
• 2:47:49
  Speaker 1: green card. I'm giving out green. Look around, suggested Gatsby.
• 2:47:55
  Speaker 1: I'm looking around. I'm having a marvelous You must see
• 2:47:59
  Speaker 1: the faces of many people you've heard about. Tom's arrogant
• 2:48:03
  Speaker 1: eyes roamed the crowd. We don't go around very much,
• 2:48:07
  Speaker 1: he said. In fact, I was just thinking, I don't
• 2:48:10
  Speaker 1: know a soul here. Perhaps you know that, Lady Gatsby
• 2:48:14
  Speaker 1: indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who
• 2:48:18
  Speaker 1: sat in state under a white plum tree. Tom and
• 2:48:21
  Speaker 1: Daisy stared with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the
• 2:48:25
  Speaker 1: recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. She's lovely,
• 2:48:30
  Speaker 1: said Daisy. The man bending over her is her director.
• 2:48:35
  Speaker 1: He took them ceremoniously from group to group, Missus Buchanan
• 2:48:39
  Speaker 1: and mister Buchanan. After an instant's hesitation, he added the
• 2:48:43
  Speaker 1: polo player. Oh no, objected Tom quickly, not me, but
• 2:48:48
  Speaker 1: evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby, for Tom remained
• 2:48:52
  Speaker 1: the polo player for the rest of the evening. I've
• 2:48:55
  Speaker 1: never met so many celebrities, Daisy exclaimed. I like that man.
• 2:49:00
  Speaker 1: What was his name? With the sort of blue nose.
• 2:49:04
  Speaker 1: Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer. Well,
• 2:49:09
  Speaker 1: I liked him anyhow, I'd a little rather not be
• 2:49:12
  Speaker 1: the polo player, said Tom pleasantly. I'd rather look at
• 2:49:15
  Speaker 1: all these famous people in in oblivion. Daisy and Gatsby danced.
• 2:49:21
  Speaker 1: I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative foxtrot. I
• 2:49:25
  Speaker 1: had never seen him dance before. Then they sauntered over
• 2:49:29
  Speaker 1: to my house and sat on the steps for half
• 2:49:31
  Speaker 1: an hour, while at her request, I remained watchfully in
• 2:49:34
  Speaker 1: the garden in case there's a fire or a flood,
• 2:49:38
  Speaker 1: she explained, or any act of God. Tom appeared from
• 2:49:42
  Speaker 1: his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together.
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: Do you mind if I eat with some people over here?
• 2:49:48
  Speaker 1: He said, A fellow's getting off some funny stuff. Go ahead,
• 2:49:54
  Speaker 1: answer Daisy genially, and if you want to take down
• 2:49:56
  Speaker 1: any addresses, here's my little gold pencil. She looked around
• 2:50:00
  Speaker 1: after a moment and told me the girl was common
• 2:50:03
  Speaker 1: but pretty. And I knew that except for the half
• 2:50:05
  Speaker 1: hour she'd been alone with Gatsby, she wasn't having a
• 2:50:08
  Speaker 1: good time. We were at a particularly tipsy table. That
• 2:50:13
  Speaker 1: was my fault. Gatsby had been called to the phone,
• 2:50:16
  Speaker 1: and I'd enjoyed these same people only two weeks before.
• 2:50:20
  Speaker 1: But what had amused me then turned septic on the air. Now,
• 2:50:24
  Speaker 1: how do you feel, miss Badeker? The girl addressed was
• 2:50:27
  Speaker 1: trying unsuccessfully to slump against my shoulder at this inquiry,
• 2:50:33
  Speaker 1: She sat up and opened her eyes. Whah. A massive
• 2:50:37
  Speaker 1: and lethargic woman who had been urging Daisy to play
• 2:50:40
  Speaker 1: golf with her at the local club tomorrow spoke in
• 2:50:43
  Speaker 1: Miss Baedeker's defense. Oh she's all right now. When she
• 2:50:47
  Speaker 1: said five or six cocktails, she always starts screaming like that.
• 2:50:52
  Speaker 1: I tell her she ought to leave it alone. I
• 2:50:55
  Speaker 1: do leave it alone, affirmed the accused hollowly. We heard
• 2:50:59
  Speaker 1: you yelling, so I said to Doc Civet. Here there's
• 2:51:02
  Speaker 1: somebody that needs your help. Document. She's much obliged, I'm sure,
• 2:51:07
  Speaker 1: said another friend, without gratitude. But you got her dress
• 2:51:11
  Speaker 1: all wet when you stuck her head in the pool.
• 2:51:14
  Speaker 1: Anything I hate is to get my head stuck in
• 2:51:16
  Speaker 1: a pool, mumbled Miss Baedeker. They almost drowned me once
• 2:51:20
  Speaker 1: over in New Jersey. Then you ought to leave it alone,
• 2:51:24
  Speaker 1: countered Doctor Sivett. Speak for yourself, cried Miss Badeker. Violently
• 2:51:30
  Speaker 1: your hand shakes. I wouldn't let you operate on me.
• 2:51:34
  Speaker 1: It was like that. Almost The last thing I remember
• 2:51:38
  Speaker 1: was standing with Daisy and watching the moving picture director
• 2:51:41
  Speaker 1: and his star. They were still under the white plum tree,
• 2:51:44
  Speaker 1: and their faces were touching except for a pale, thin
• 2:51:47
  Speaker 1: ray of moonlight between. It occurred to me that he
• 2:51:51
  Speaker 1: had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to
• 2:51:53
  Speaker 1: attain this proximity, and even while I watched, I saw
• 2:51:56
  Speaker 1: him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek.
• 2:52:00
  Speaker 1: I like her, said Daisy, I think she's lovely. But
• 2:52:04
  Speaker 1: the rest offended her, and inarguably because it wasn't a
• 2:52:07
  Speaker 1: gesture but an emotion, she was appalled by West Egg,
• 2:52:11
  Speaker 1: this unprecedented place that Broadway had begotten upon, a long
• 2:52:15
  Speaker 1: island fishing village. Appalled by its raw vigor that chafed
• 2:52:18
  Speaker 1: under the old euphemisms, and by the too obtrusive fate
• 2:52:21
  Speaker 1: that herded its inhabitants along a short cut from nothing
• 2:52:24
  Speaker 1: to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity
• 2:52:28
  Speaker 1: she failed to understand. I sat on the front steps
• 2:52:32
  Speaker 1: with them while they waited for their car. It was
• 2:52:35
  Speaker 1: dark here in front. Only the bright door sent ten
• 2:52:37
  Speaker 1: square feet of light volleying out into the soft black morning.
• 2:52:42
  Speaker 1: Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing room blind above
• 2:52:45
  Speaker 1: gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows,
• 2:52:49
  Speaker 1: who rouged and powdered in an invisible glass. Who is
• 2:52:53
  Speaker 1: this Gatsby anyhow, demanded Tom suddenly, some big bootlegger. Where'd
• 2:52:59
  Speaker 1: you hear that? I inquired. I didn't hear it. I imagined it.
• 2:53:06
  Speaker 1: A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers,
• 2:53:09
  Speaker 1: you know, not Gatsby, I said shortly. He was silent
• 2:53:14
  Speaker 1: for a moment. The pebbles of the drive crunched under
• 2:53:18
  Speaker 1: his feet. Well, he certainly must have strained himself to
• 2:53:21
  Speaker 1: get this menagerie together. A breeze stirred the gray haze
• 2:53:25
  Speaker 1: of Daisy's fur collar. At least they are more interesting
• 2:53:29
  Speaker 1: than the people we know, she said, with an effort.
• 2:53:33
  Speaker 1: You didn't look so interested, well I was, Tom laughed
• 2:53:38
  Speaker 1: and turned to me. Did you notice Daisy's face? When
• 2:53:41
  Speaker 1: that girl asked her to put her under a cold shower?
• 2:53:45
  Speaker 1: Daisy began to sing with the music in a husky,
• 2:53:47
  Speaker 1: rhythmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that
• 2:53:50
  Speaker 1: it had never had before and would never have again.
• 2:53:54
  Speaker 1: When the melody rose, her voice broke up, sweetly, following
• 2:53:57
  Speaker 1: it in a way contralto voices have, and each change
• 2:54:00
  Speaker 1: tipped out a little of her warm human magic upon
• 2:54:03
  Speaker 1: the air. Lots of people come who haven't been invited,
• 2:54:07
  Speaker 1: she said suddenly. That girl hadn't been invited. They simply
• 2:54:12
  Speaker 1: forced their way in, and he's too polite to object.
• 2:54:15
  Speaker 1: I'd like to know who he is and what he does,
• 2:54:18
  Speaker 1: insisted Tom. And I think I'll make a point of
• 2:54:21
  Speaker 1: finding out. I can tell you right now, she answered.
• 2:54:26
  Speaker 1: He owned some drug stores, a lot of drug stores.
• 2:54:30
  Speaker 1: He built them up himself. The dilatory limousine came rolling
• 2:54:34
  Speaker 1: up the drive. Good night, Nick said Daisy. Her glance
• 2:54:39
  Speaker 1: left me and sought the lighted top of the steps,
• 2:54:42
  Speaker 1: where three o'clock in the morning, anat sad little waltz
• 2:54:45
  Speaker 1: of that year was drifting out the open door. After all,
• 2:54:50
  Speaker 1: in the very casualness of Gatsby's party, there were romantic
• 2:54:53
  Speaker 1: possibilities totally absent from her world. What was it up
• 2:54:57
  Speaker 1: there in the song that seemed to be calling her
• 2:54:59
  Speaker 1: back inside? What would happen now in the dim in
• 2:55:02
  Speaker 1: calculable hours, Perhaps some unbelievable guest would arrive, a person
• 2:55:08
  Speaker 1: infinitely rare, and to be marveled at, some authentically radiant
• 2:55:11
  Speaker 1: young girl, who, with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one
• 2:55:14
  Speaker 1: moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years
• 2:55:17
  Speaker 1: of unwavering devotion. I stayed late that night. Gatsby asked
• 2:55:23
  Speaker 1: me to wait until he was free, and I lingered
• 2:55:25
  Speaker 1: in the garden until the inevitable swimming party had run up,
• 2:55:29
  Speaker 1: chilled and exalted from the black beach, until the lights
• 2:55:32
  Speaker 1: were extinguished in the guest room's overhead. When he came
• 2:55:35
  Speaker 1: down the steps at last, the tan's skin was drawn
• 2:55:38
  Speaker 1: unusually tight on his face, and his eyes were bright
• 2:55:41
  Speaker 1: and tired. She didn't like it, he said immediately, of
• 2:55:46
  Speaker 1: course she did. She didn't like it. He insisted, she
• 2:55:51
  Speaker 1: didn't have a good time. He was silent, and I
• 2:55:54
  Speaker 1: guessed at his unutterable depression. I feel far away from her,
• 2:55:59
  Speaker 1: he said, it's hard to make her understand. You mean
• 2:56:03
  Speaker 1: about the dance. The dance. He dismissed all the dances
• 2:56:08
  Speaker 1: he had given with a snap of his fingers, old sport.
• 2:56:12
  Speaker 1: The dance is unimportant. He wanted nothing less of Daisy
• 2:56:16
  Speaker 1: than that she should go to Tom and say I
• 2:56:18
  Speaker 1: never loved you. After she had obliterated four years with
• 2:56:22
  Speaker 1: that sentence, they could decide upon the more practical measures
• 2:56:25
  Speaker 1: to be taken. One of them was that, after she
• 2:56:28
  Speaker 1: was free, they were to go back to Louisville and
• 2:56:31
  Speaker 1: be married from her house, just as if it were
• 2:56:33
  Speaker 1: five years ago. And she doesn't understand, he said, she
• 2:56:38
  Speaker 1: used to be able to understand. We'd sit for hours.
• 2:56:42
  Speaker 1: He broke off and began to walk up and down
• 2:56:44
  Speaker 1: a desolate path of fruit rines and discarded favors and
• 2:56:48
  Speaker 1: crushed flowers. I wouldn't ask too much of her, I ventured,
• 2:56:53
  Speaker 1: you can't repeat the past. Can't repeat the past, he cried, incredulously. Why,
• 2:56:59
  Speaker 1: of course you can. He looked around him wildly, as
• 2:57:03
  Speaker 1: if the past were lurking here in the shadow of
• 2:57:05
  Speaker 1: his house, just out of reach of his hand. I'm
• 2:57:09
  Speaker 1: going to fix everything just the way it was before,
• 2:57:11
  Speaker 1: he said, nodding determinately. She'll see. He talked a lot
• 2:57:17
  Speaker 1: about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to
• 2:57:19
  Speaker 1: recover something, some idea of himself perhaps that had gone
• 2:57:23
  Speaker 1: into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered
• 2:57:27
  Speaker 1: since then. But if he could once return to a
• 2:57:29
  Speaker 1: certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he
• 2:57:32
  Speaker 1: could find out what that thing was. One autumn night,
• 2:57:36
  Speaker 1: five years before, they had been walking down the street
• 2:57:39
  Speaker 1: when the leaves were falling, and they came to a
• 2:57:42
  Speaker 1: place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was
• 2:57:44
  Speaker 1: white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other.
• 2:57:49
  Speaker 1: Now it was a cool night, with that mysterious excitement
• 2:57:52
  Speaker 1: in it which comes at the two changes of the year.
• 2:57:56
  Speaker 1: The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into
• 2:57:58
  Speaker 1: the darkness, and there was a stir and bustle among
• 2:58:01
  Speaker 1: the stars. Out of the corner of his Eyegatsby saw
• 2:58:04
  Speaker 1: that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder
• 2:58:07
  Speaker 1: and mounted to a secret place above the trees. He
• 2:58:10
  Speaker 1: could climb to it if he climbed alone, and once
• 2:58:13
  Speaker 1: there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp
• 2:58:16
  Speaker 1: down the incomparable milk of wonder. His heart beat faster
• 2:58:20
  Speaker 1: as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He
• 2:58:23
  Speaker 1: knew that when he kissed this girl and forever what
• 2:58:26
  Speaker 1: his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would
• 2:58:29
  Speaker 1: never romp again, like the mind of God. So he waited,
• 2:58:33
  Speaker 1: listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that
• 2:58:36
  Speaker 1: had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her.
• 2:58:40
  Speaker 1: At his lips touched, she blossomed for him like a flower,
• 2:58:43
  Speaker 1: and the incarnation was complete. Through all he said, even
• 2:58:47
  Speaker 1: through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something, an
• 2:58:51
  Speaker 1: elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words that I had
• 2:58:54
  Speaker 1: heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment, a
• 2:58:57
  Speaker 1: phrase tried to take shape in my mouth, and my
• 2:58:59
  Speaker 1: lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was
• 2:59:02
  Speaker 1: more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air,
• 2:59:06
  Speaker 1: but they made no sound, and what I had almost
• 2:59:08
  Speaker 1: remembered was uncommunicable forever. Seven. It was when curiosity about
• 2:59:13
  Speaker 1: Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his
• 2:59:15
  Speaker 1: house failed to go on one Saturday night, and as
• 2:59:18
  Speaker 1: obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over.
• 2:59:23
  Speaker 1: Only gradually did I become aware that the automobiles which
• 2:59:26
  Speaker 1: turned expectantly into his drive stayed for just a minute
• 2:59:29
  Speaker 1: and then drove sulkily away. Wondering if he were sick,
• 2:59:33
  Speaker 1: I went over to find out. An unfamiliar butler with
• 2:59:36
  Speaker 1: a villainous face squinted at me suspiciously from the door.
• 2:59:40
  Speaker 1: Is mister Gatsby sick? Nope? After a pause, he added,
• 2:59:45
  Speaker 1: sir in a dilatory, grudging way. I hadn't seen him around,
• 2:59:50
  Speaker 1: and I was rather worried. Tell him. Mister Kearraway came over,
• 2:59:55
  Speaker 1: who he demanded rudely, Carraway Karawa, all right, I'll tell him. Abruptly,
• 3:00:04
  Speaker 1: he slammed the door. My Finn informed me that Gatsby
• 3:00:08
  Speaker 1: had dismissed every servant in his house a week ago
• 3:00:10
  Speaker 1: and replaced them with half a dozen others who never
• 3:00:13
  Speaker 1: went into West Egg Village to be bribed by the tradesman,
• 3:00:16
  Speaker 1: but ordered moderate supplies over the telephone. The grocery boy
• 3:00:20
  Speaker 1: reported that the kitchen looked like a pig sty, and
• 3:00:23
  Speaker 1: the general opinion in the village was that the new
• 3:00:25
  Speaker 1: people weren't servants at all. Next day, Gatsby called me
• 3:00:29
  Speaker 1: on the phone going away. I inquired no old sport.
• 3:00:36
  Speaker 1: I hear you fired all your servants. I wanted somebody
• 3:00:40
  Speaker 1: who wouldn't gossip. Daisy comes over quite often in the afternoons,
• 3:00:46
  Speaker 1: so the whole care of answery had fallen in like
• 3:00:48
  Speaker 1: a card house at the disapproval in her eyes. There's
• 3:00:52
  Speaker 1: some people Wolfshiem wanted to do something for. They're all
• 3:00:56
  Speaker 1: brothers and sisters. They used to run a small hotel.
• 3:01:01
  Speaker 1: I see he was calling up at Daisy's request. Would
• 3:01:05
  Speaker 1: I come to lunch at her house tomorrow? Miss Baker
• 3:01:08
  Speaker 1: would be there. Half an hour later, Daisy herself telephoned
• 3:01:12
  Speaker 1: and seemed relieved to find that I was coming. Something
• 3:01:16
  Speaker 1: was up, And yet I couldn't believe that they would
• 3:01:19
  Speaker 1: choose this occasion for a scene, especially for the rather
• 3:01:22
  Speaker 1: harrowing scene that Gatsby had outlined in the garden. The
• 3:01:26
  Speaker 1: next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest
• 3:01:30
  Speaker 1: of the summer. As my train emerged from the tunnel
• 3:01:33
  Speaker 1: into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit
• 3:01:37
  Speaker 1: Company broke the simmering hush. At noon, the straw seats
• 3:01:41
  Speaker 1: of the car hovered on the edge of combustion. The
• 3:01:43
  Speaker 1: woman next to me perspired delicately for a while into
• 3:01:46
  Speaker 1: her white shirt waist, and then, as her newspaper dampened
• 3:01:50
  Speaker 1: under her fingers, lapsed despairingly into deep heat. With a
• 3:01:53
  Speaker 1: desolate cry. Her pocket book slapped to the floor. Oh my,
• 3:01:59
  Speaker 1: she gasped. I picked it up with a weary bend
• 3:02:02
  Speaker 1: and handed it back to her, holding it at arm's
• 3:02:04
  Speaker 1: length and by the extreme tip of the corners, to
• 3:02:07
  Speaker 1: indicate that I had no designs upon it. But every
• 3:02:10
  Speaker 1: one near by, including the woman, suspected me just the same. Hot,
• 3:02:15
  Speaker 1: said the conductor to familiar faces, some weather, hot, hot, hot.
• 3:02:24
  Speaker 1: Is it hot enough for you? Is it hot? Is
• 3:02:28
  Speaker 1: it my commutation ticket? Came back to me with a
• 3:02:31
  Speaker 1: dark stain from his hand, that any one should care
• 3:02:35
  Speaker 1: in this heat, whose flushed lips he kissed, whose head
• 3:02:38
  Speaker 1: made damp the pajama pocket over his heart. Through the
• 3:02:41
  Speaker 1: hull of the Buchanan's house blew a faint wind, carrying
• 3:02:45
  Speaker 1: the sound of the telephone bell out to gats being me.
• 3:02:47
  Speaker 1: As we waited at the door, the master's body roared
• 3:02:51
  Speaker 1: the butler into the mouthpiece. I'm sorry, madam, but we
• 3:02:56
  Speaker 1: can't furnish it. It's far too hot to touch this noon.
• 3:03:00
  Speaker 1: What he really said was yes, yes, I'll see. He
• 3:03:06
  Speaker 1: set down the receiver and came toward us, glistening slightly.
• 3:03:10
  Speaker 1: To take our stiff straw hats. Madam expects you in
• 3:03:13
  Speaker 1: the salon, he cried, needlessly, indicating the direction. In this heat,
• 3:03:18
  Speaker 1: every extra gesture was an affront to the common store
• 3:03:21
  Speaker 1: of life. The room, shadowed well with awnings, was dark
• 3:03:26
  Speaker 1: and cool. Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch,
• 3:03:30
  Speaker 1: like silver idols, weighing down their own white dresses against
• 3:03:33
  Speaker 1: the singing breeze of the fans. We can't move, they
• 3:03:37
  Speaker 1: said together. Jordan's fingers powdered white over their tan rested
• 3:03:42
  Speaker 1: for a moment in mine and mister Thomas Buchanan, the athlete,
• 3:03:48
  Speaker 1: I inquired simultaneously. I heard his voice gruff muffled husky
• 3:03:54
  Speaker 1: at the hall telephone. Gatsby stood in the center of
• 3:03:57
  Speaker 1: the crimson carpet and gazed around with fact fascinated eyes.
• 3:04:01
  Speaker 1: Daisy watched him and laughed, her sweet, exciting laugh. A
• 3:04:05
  Speaker 1: tiny gust of powder rose from her bosom into the air.
• 3:04:09
  Speaker 1: The rumor is whispered Jordan, that that's Tom's girl on
• 3:04:13
  Speaker 1: the telephone. We were silent. The voice in the hall
• 3:04:17
  Speaker 1: rose high with annoyance. Very well, then, I won't sell
• 3:04:21
  Speaker 1: you the car at all. I'm under no obligations to
• 3:04:24
  Speaker 1: you at all. And as for your bothering me about
• 3:04:27
  Speaker 1: it at lunch time, I won't stand that at all.
• 3:04:30
  Speaker 1: Holding down the receiver, said Daisy cynically. No, he's not,
• 3:04:35
  Speaker 1: I assured her. It's a bonafide deal. I happen to
• 3:04:40
  Speaker 1: know about it. Tom flung open the door, blocked out
• 3:04:44
  Speaker 1: its space for a moment with his thick body, and
• 3:04:46
  Speaker 1: hurried into the room. Mister Gatsby. He put out his
• 3:04:51
  Speaker 1: broad flat hand with well concealed dislike. I'm glad to
• 3:04:56
  Speaker 1: see you, sir, Nick. Make us a cold drink, cried Daisy.
• 3:05:01
  Speaker 1: As he left the room again. She got up and
• 3:05:04
  Speaker 1: went over to Gatsby and pulled his face down, kissing
• 3:05:07
  Speaker 1: him on the mouth. You know I love you, she murmured.
• 3:05:11
  Speaker 1: You forget, there's a lady present, said Jordan. Daisy looked around. Doubtfully,
• 3:05:17
  Speaker 1: you kiss Nick too? What a low vulgar girl. I
• 3:05:22
  Speaker 1: don't care, cried Daisy, and began to clog on the
• 3:05:25
  Speaker 1: brick fireplace. Then she remembered the heat and sat down
• 3:05:30
  Speaker 1: guiltily on the couch. Just as a freshly laundered nurse
• 3:05:33
  Speaker 1: leading a little girl came into the room. Bless, said Prisias.
• 3:05:37
  Speaker 1: She crooned, holding out her arms, Come to your own
• 3:05:41
  Speaker 1: mother that loves you. The child, relinquished by the nurse,
• 3:05:45
  Speaker 1: rushed across the room and rooted shyly into her mother's dress.
• 3:05:50
  Speaker 1: The bless said Pricius, Did mother get powder on your
• 3:05:54
  Speaker 1: old yellowy hair? Stand up now and say how to
• 3:05:58
  Speaker 1: do Gatsby and I and turn leaned down and took
• 3:06:02
  Speaker 1: the small, reluctant hand. Afterward, he kept looking at the
• 3:06:05
  Speaker 1: child with surprise. I don't think he had ever really
• 3:06:09
  Speaker 1: believed in its existence before I got dressed before luncheon,
• 3:06:14
  Speaker 1: said the child, turning eagerly to Daisy. That's because your
• 3:06:18
  Speaker 1: mother wanted to show you off, Her face bent into
• 3:06:21
  Speaker 1: the single wrinkle of the small white neck. You dream, you,
• 3:06:26
  Speaker 1: you absolute little dream, yes, admitted the child, calmly. Aunt
• 3:06:32
  Speaker 1: Jordan's got on a white dress too. How do you
• 3:06:35
  Speaker 1: like mother's friends? Daisy turned her around so that she
• 3:06:39
  Speaker 1: faced Gatsby. Do you think they're pretty? Where's daddy? She
• 3:06:45
  Speaker 1: doesn't look like her father, explained Daisy. She looks like me.
• 3:06:50
  Speaker 1: She's got my hair in shape of the face. Daisy
• 3:06:54
  Speaker 1: sat back upon the couch. The nurse took a step
• 3:06:57
  Speaker 1: forward and held out her hand. Come Pammy, good bye, sweetheart.
• 3:07:04
  Speaker 1: With a reluctant backward glance, the well disciplined child held
• 3:07:07
  Speaker 1: to her nurse's hand and was pulled out the door
• 3:07:10
  Speaker 1: just as Tom came back, preceding four gin Rickey's that
• 3:07:13
  Speaker 1: clicked full of ice. Gatsby took up his drink. They
• 3:07:18
  Speaker 1: certainly look cool, he said, with visible tension. We drank
• 3:07:22
  Speaker 1: in long, greedy swallows. I read somewhere that the sun's
• 3:07:26
  Speaker 1: getting hotter every year, said Tom genially. It seems that
• 3:07:30
  Speaker 1: pretty soon the Earth's going to fall into the sun.
• 3:07:33
  Speaker 1: Or wait a minute, it's just the opposite. The Sun's
• 3:07:36
  Speaker 1: getting colder every year. Come outside, he suggested to Gatsby,
• 3:07:41
  Speaker 1: I'd like you to have a look at the place.
• 3:07:44
  Speaker 1: I went with them out to the Verandah on the
• 3:07:47
  Speaker 1: green Sound, stagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled
• 3:07:51
  Speaker 1: slowly toward the fresher sea. Gatsby's eyes followed it. Momentarily,
• 3:07:56
  Speaker 1: he raised his hand and pointed across the bay. I'm
• 3:07:59
  Speaker 1: right to cross from you, so you are. Our eyes
• 3:08:04
  Speaker 1: lifted over the rose beds and the hot lawn and
• 3:08:06
  Speaker 1: the weedy refuse of the dog days alongshore. Slowly, the
• 3:08:10
  Speaker 1: white wings of the boat moved against the blue cool
• 3:08:13
  Speaker 1: limit of the sky. A head lay the scalloped ocean
• 3:08:16
  Speaker 1: and the abounding blessed isles. There's sport for you, said Tom, nodding.
• 3:08:21
  Speaker 1: I'd like to be out there with him. For about
• 3:08:23
  Speaker 1: an hour. We had luncheon in the dining room, darkened
• 3:08:27
  Speaker 1: too against the heat, and drank down nervous gaiety with
• 3:08:30
  Speaker 1: the cold ale. Wadd'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?
• 3:08:34
  Speaker 1: Cried Daisy, And the day after that and the next
• 3:08:37
  Speaker 1: thirty years. Don't be morbid, Jordan said. Life starts all
• 3:08:42
  Speaker 1: over again when it gets crisp in the fall. But
• 3:08:46
  Speaker 1: it's so hot, insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears
• 3:08:49
  Speaker 1: and everything so confused, Let's all go to town. Her
• 3:08:55
  Speaker 1: voice struggled on through the heat, beating against it, molding
• 3:08:58
  Speaker 1: its senselessness into form. I've heard of making a garage
• 3:09:02
  Speaker 1: out of a stable, Tom was saying to Gatsby. But
• 3:09:05
  Speaker 1: I'm the first man who ever made a stable out
• 3:09:07
  Speaker 1: of a garage. Who wants to go to town, demanded
• 3:09:11
  Speaker 1: Daisy insistently. Gatsby's eyes floated toward her. Ah, she cried,
• 3:09:17
  Speaker 1: you look so cool. Their eyes met, and they stared
• 3:09:21
  Speaker 1: together at each other, alone in space. With an effort,
• 3:09:25
  Speaker 1: she glanced down at the table. You always look so cool,
• 3:09:29
  Speaker 1: she repeated. She had told him that she loved him,
• 3:09:33
  Speaker 1: and Tom Buchanan saw he was astounded. His mouth opened
• 3:09:38
  Speaker 1: a little, and he looked at Gatsby and then back
• 3:09:41
  Speaker 1: at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as
• 3:09:43
  Speaker 1: someone he knew a long time ago. You resemble the
• 3:09:47
  Speaker 1: advertisement of the man, she went on, innocently, You know
• 3:09:51
  Speaker 1: the advertisement of the man. All right, broke in Tom quickly.
• 3:09:55
  Speaker 1: I'm perfectly willing to go to town. Come on, we're
• 3:09:58
  Speaker 1: all going to town. He got up, his eyes still
• 3:10:02
  Speaker 1: flashing between Gatsby and his wife. No one moved. Come on,
• 3:10:08
  Speaker 1: his temper cracked a little. What's the matter anyhow? If
• 3:10:13
  Speaker 1: we're going to town, let's start. His hand trembling with
• 3:10:17
  Speaker 1: his effort at self control, bore to his lips the
• 3:10:20
  Speaker 1: last of his glass of ale. Daisy's voice got us
• 3:10:24
  Speaker 1: to our feet and out on to the blazing gravel drive.
• 3:10:27
  Speaker 1: Are we just going to go? She objected, like this.
• 3:10:32
  Speaker 1: Aren't we going to let anyone smoke a cigarette? First?
• 3:10:36
  Speaker 1: Everybody smoked all through lunch. Oh, let's have fun, she
• 3:10:40
  Speaker 1: begged him. It's too hot to fuss. He didn't answer.
• 3:10:46
  Speaker 1: Have it your own way, she said, Come on, Jordan.
• 3:10:51
  Speaker 1: They went upstairs to get ready. While we three men
• 3:10:53
  Speaker 1: stood there shuffling the hot pebbles with our feet, a
• 3:10:57
  Speaker 1: silver curve of the moon hovered already in the western sky.
• 3:11:01
  Speaker 1: Gatsby started to speak, changed his mind, but not before
• 3:11:04
  Speaker 1: Tom wheeled and faced him expectantly. Have you got your
• 3:11:08
  Speaker 1: stables here? Asked Gatsby, with an effort, about a quarter
• 3:11:12
  Speaker 1: of a mile down the road. Oh a pause, I
• 3:11:17
  Speaker 1: don't see the idea of going to town, broke out
• 3:11:20
  Speaker 1: Tom savagely. Women get these notions in their heads. Shall
• 3:11:24
  Speaker 1: we take anything to drink? Called Daisy from an upper window.
• 3:11:29
  Speaker 1: I'll get some whiskey, answered Tom. He went inside. Gatsby
• 3:11:34
  Speaker 1: turned to me rigidly. I can't say anything in his house,
• 3:11:37
  Speaker 1: old sport. She's got an indiscreet voice. I remarked, it's
• 3:11:43
  Speaker 1: full of I hesitated. Her voice is full of money,
• 3:11:47
  Speaker 1: he said suddenly. That was it I'd never understood before.
• 3:11:53
  Speaker 1: It was full of money. That was the inexhaustible charm
• 3:11:56
  Speaker 1: that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it,
• 3:11:59
  Speaker 1: the cymbals saw of it high in a white palace,
• 3:12:02
  Speaker 1: the king's daughter, the Golden Girl. Tom came out of
• 3:12:06
  Speaker 1: the house, wrapping a quart bottle in a towel, followed
• 3:12:10
  Speaker 1: by Daisy and Jordan, wearing small, tight hats of metallic
• 3:12:13
  Speaker 1: cloth and carrying light capes over their arms. Shall we
• 3:12:17
  Speaker 1: all go in my car, suggested Gatsby. He felt the
• 3:12:21
  Speaker 1: hot green leather of the seat. I ought to have
• 3:12:24
  Speaker 1: left it in the shade. Is its standard? Shift? Demanded Tom? Yes, well,
• 3:12:31
  Speaker 1: you take my coup and let me drive your car
• 3:12:33
  Speaker 1: to town. The suggestion was distasteful to Gatsby. I don't
• 3:12:38
  Speaker 1: think there's much gas, he objected. Plenty of gas, said
• 3:12:43
  Speaker 1: Tom boisterously. He looked at the gage, and if it
• 3:12:47
  Speaker 1: runs out, I can stop at a drug store. You
• 3:12:50
  Speaker 1: can buy anything at a drug store nowadays. A pause
• 3:12:54
  Speaker 1: followed this apparently pointless remark. Daisy looked at Tom, frowning
• 3:12:59
  Speaker 1: and an indifiable expression at once definitely unfamiliar and vaguely recognizable,
• 3:13:04
  Speaker 1: as if I had only heard it described in words
• 3:13:06
  Speaker 1: passed over Gatsby's face. Come on, Daisy, said Tom, pressing
• 3:13:11
  Speaker 1: her with his hand toward Gatsby's car. I'll take you
• 3:13:15
  Speaker 1: in this circus wagon. He opened the door, but she
• 3:13:18
  Speaker 1: moved out from the circle of his arm. You take
• 3:13:22
  Speaker 1: Nick and Jordan, we'll follow you in the coup. She
• 3:13:26
  Speaker 1: walked close to Gatsby, touching his coat with her hand.
• 3:13:30
  Speaker 1: Jordan and Tom and I got into the front seat
• 3:13:32
  Speaker 1: of Gatsby's car. Tom pushed the unfamiliar gears tentatively, and
• 3:13:36
  Speaker 1: we shot off into the oppressive heat, leaving them out
• 3:13:39
  Speaker 1: of sight behind. Did you see that, demanded Tom? See what?
• 3:13:45
  Speaker 1: He looked at me, keenly realizing that Jordan and I
• 3:13:48
  Speaker 1: must have known all along. You think I'm pretty dumb,
• 3:13:52
  Speaker 1: don't you, he suggested? Perhaps I am, but I have
• 3:13:57
  Speaker 1: a almost a second sight sometimes that tells me what
• 3:14:00
  Speaker 1: to do. Maybe you don't believe that, But science, he paused,
• 3:14:06
  Speaker 1: The immediate contingency overtook him, pulled him back from the
• 3:14:09
  Speaker 1: edge of theoretical abyss. I've made a small investigation of
• 3:14:14
  Speaker 1: this fellow, he continued, I could have gone deeper if
• 3:14:18
  Speaker 1: i'd known. Do you mean you've been to a medium,
• 3:14:20
  Speaker 1: inquired Jordan humorously. What confused? He stared at us as
• 3:14:26
  Speaker 1: we laughed. A medium about Gatsby, About Gatsby, No, I haven't,
• 3:14:35
  Speaker 1: I said, I've been making a small investigation of his past,
• 3:14:39
  Speaker 1: and you've found he was an Oxford man, said Jordan helpfully.
• 3:14:43
  Speaker 1: An Oxford man. He was incredulous, Like hell he is.
• 3:14:50
  Speaker 1: He wears a pink suit. Nevertheless, he's an Oxford man, Oxford,
• 3:14:55
  Speaker 1: New Mexico, snorted Tom contemptuously, or something like that. Listen, Tom,
• 3:15:02
  Speaker 1: if you're such a snob, why did you invite him
• 3:15:05
  Speaker 1: to lunch, demanded Jordan. Crossly. Daisy invited him. She knew
• 3:15:10
  Speaker 1: him before we were married. God knows where. We were
• 3:15:13
  Speaker 1: all irritable now with the fading ale and aware of it,
• 3:15:16
  Speaker 1: we drove for a while in silence. Then, as doctor
• 3:15:20
  Speaker 1: t j Eckelberg's faded eyes came into sight down the road,
• 3:15:24
  Speaker 1: I remembered Gatsby's caution about gasolene. We've got enough to
• 3:15:28
  Speaker 1: get us to town, said Tom. But there's a garage
• 3:15:32
  Speaker 1: right here, objected Jordan. I don't want to get stalled
• 3:15:36
  Speaker 1: in this baking heat. Tom threw on both brakes impatiently,
• 3:15:40
  Speaker 1: and we slid to an abrupt, dusty stop under Wilson's sign.
• 3:15:44
  Speaker 1: After a moment, the proprietor emerged from the interior of
• 3:15:47
  Speaker 1: his establishment and gazed hollow eyed at the car. Let's
• 3:15:51
  Speaker 1: have some gas, cried Tom roughly. What do you think
• 3:15:56
  Speaker 1: we stopped for to admire the view? I'm sick, said Wilson,
• 3:16:00
  Speaker 1: without moving, been sick all day. What's the matter? I'm
• 3:16:06
  Speaker 1: all run down? Well, shall I help myself? Tom demanded,
• 3:16:12
  Speaker 1: You sounded well enough on the phone. With an effort,
• 3:16:16
  Speaker 1: Wilson left the shade and support of the doorway, and,
• 3:16:19
  Speaker 1: breathing hard, unscrewed the cap of the tank. In the sunlight,
• 3:16:23
  Speaker 1: his face was green. I didn't mean to interrupt your lunch,
• 3:16:27
  Speaker 1: he said, but I need money pretty bad, and I
• 3:16:31
  Speaker 1: was wondering what you were going to do with your
• 3:16:33
  Speaker 1: old car? How do you like this one? Inquired Tom.
• 3:16:38
  Speaker 1: I bought it last week. It's a nice yellow one,
• 3:16:41
  Speaker 1: said Wilson as he strained at the handle. Like to
• 3:16:45
  Speaker 1: buy it? Big chance? Wilson smiled faintly. No, but I
• 3:16:50
  Speaker 1: could make some money on the other What do you
• 3:16:53
  Speaker 1: want money for? All of a sudden, I've been here
• 3:16:57
  Speaker 1: too long. I want to get away my wife and
• 3:17:01
  Speaker 1: I want to go west. Your wife does, exclaimed Tom, startled.
• 3:17:07
  Speaker 1: She's been talking about it for ten years. He rested
• 3:17:11
  Speaker 1: for a moment against a pump shading his eyes, and
• 3:17:14
  Speaker 1: now she's going whether she wants to or not, I'm
• 3:17:18
  Speaker 1: going to get her away. The coop flashed by us
• 3:17:21
  Speaker 1: with a flurry of dust and the flash of a
• 3:17:23
  Speaker 1: waving hand. What do I owe you? Demanded Tom harshly.
• 3:17:28
  Speaker 1: I just got wised up to something funny the last
• 3:17:31
  Speaker 1: two days, remarked Wilson. That's why I want to get away.
• 3:17:36
  Speaker 1: That's why I've been bothering you about the car. What
• 3:17:39
  Speaker 1: do I owe you? Dollar twenty? The relentless beating heat
• 3:17:44
  Speaker 1: was beginning to confuse me, and I had a bad
• 3:17:46
  Speaker 1: moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions
• 3:17:50
  Speaker 1: hadn't alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had
• 3:17:53
  Speaker 1: some sort of life apart from him, in another world,
• 3:17:56
  Speaker 1: and the shock had made him physically sick. I stayed
• 3:18:00
  Speaker 1: at him, and then that Tom, who had made a
• 3:18:02
  Speaker 1: parallel discovery less than an hour before. And it occurred
• 3:18:05
  Speaker 1: to me that there was no difference between men in
• 3:18:08
  Speaker 1: intelligence or race so profound as the difference between the
• 3:18:11
  Speaker 1: sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he
• 3:18:15
  Speaker 1: looked guilty, unforgivably guilty, as if he had just got
• 3:18:18
  Speaker 1: some poor girl with child. I'll let you have that car,
• 3:18:22
  Speaker 1: said Tom. I'll send it over tomorrow afternoon. That locality
• 3:18:27
  Speaker 1: was always vaguely disquieting, even in the broad glare of afternoon.
• 3:18:31
  Speaker 1: And now I turned my head as though I had
• 3:18:33
  Speaker 1: been warned of something behind Over the ash heaps, the
• 3:18:37
  Speaker 1: giant eyes of doctor t. J Eckelberg kept their vigil,
• 3:18:40
  Speaker 1: but I perceived after a moment that other eyes were
• 3:18:43
  Speaker 1: regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away.
• 3:18:48
  Speaker 1: In one of the windows over the garage, the curtains
• 3:18:50
  Speaker 1: had been moved aside a little and Myrtle Wilson was
• 3:18:53
  Speaker 1: peering down at the car. So engrossed was she that
• 3:18:56
  Speaker 1: she had no consciousness of being observed, and after another
• 3:19:00
  Speaker 1: crept into her face, like objects into a slowly developing picture.
• 3:19:05
  Speaker 1: Her expression was curiously familiar. It was an expression I
• 3:19:08
  Speaker 1: had often seen on women's faces, but on Myrtle Wilson's
• 3:19:12
  Speaker 1: face it seemed purposeless and inexplicable, until I realized that
• 3:19:15
  Speaker 1: her eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed not on Tom,
• 3:19:19
  Speaker 1: but on Jordan Baker, whom she took to be his wife.
• 3:19:23
  Speaker 1: There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind.
• 3:19:27
  Speaker 1: And as we drove away, Tom was feeling the hot
• 3:19:29
  Speaker 1: whips of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an
• 3:19:33
  Speaker 1: hour ago, secure and in Violet, were slipping precipitately from
• 3:19:36
  Speaker 1: his control. Instinct made him step on the accelerator with
• 3:19:41
  Speaker 1: the double purpose of overtaking Daisy in leaving Wilson behind,
• 3:19:44
  Speaker 1: and we sped along toward Astoria at fifty miles an hour,
• 3:19:48
  Speaker 1: until among the spidery girders of the elevated we came
• 3:19:51
  Speaker 1: in sight of the easy going Blue Coop. Those big
• 3:19:54
  Speaker 1: movies around fiftieth Street are cool, suggested Jordan. I love
• 3:19:59
  Speaker 1: New York York on summer afternoons, when everyone's away. There's
• 3:20:03
  Speaker 1: something very sensuous about it. Overripe, as if all sorts
• 3:20:07
  Speaker 1: of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.
• 3:20:10
  Speaker 1: The word sensuous had the effect of further disquieting Tom,
• 3:20:14
  Speaker 1: But before he could invent a protest, the coup came
• 3:20:16
  Speaker 1: to a stop and Daisy signaled us to draw up alongside.
• 3:20:21
  Speaker 1: Where are we going, she cried, How about the movies?
• 3:20:25
  Speaker 1: It's so hot, she complained, You go, We'll ride around
• 3:20:31
  Speaker 1: and meet you after. With an effort, her wit rose faintly.
• 3:20:35
  Speaker 1: We'll meet you on some corner. I'll be the man
• 3:20:39
  Speaker 1: smoking two cigarettes. We can't argue about it here, Tom
• 3:20:43
  Speaker 1: said impatiently, as a truck gave out a cursing whistle
• 3:20:46
  Speaker 1: behind us. You follow me to the south side of
• 3:20:50
  Speaker 1: Central Park, in front of the plaza. Several times he
• 3:20:53
  Speaker 1: turned his head and looked back for their car, and
• 3:20:56
  Speaker 1: if the traffic delayed them, he slowed up until they
• 3:20:58
  Speaker 1: came into sight. I think he was afraid they would
• 3:21:01
  Speaker 1: dart down a side street and out of his life forever.
• 3:21:05
  Speaker 1: But they didn't, and we all took the less explicable
• 3:21:09
  Speaker 1: step of engaging the parlor of a suite in the
• 3:21:11
  Speaker 1: Plaza hotel. The prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by
• 3:21:15
  Speaker 1: hurting us into that room eludes me, though I have
• 3:21:18
  Speaker 1: a sharp physical memory that in the course of it,
• 3:21:21
  Speaker 1: my underwear kept climbing like a damp snake around my legs,
• 3:21:24
  Speaker 1: and intermittent beads of sweat raiced cool across my back.
• 3:21:28
  Speaker 1: The notion originated with daisy suggestion that we hire five
• 3:21:31
  Speaker 1: bathrooms and take cold baths, and then assumed more tangible
• 3:21:35
  Speaker 1: form as a place to have a mint Julip. Each
• 3:21:38
  Speaker 1: of us said over and over that it was a
• 3:21:40
  Speaker 1: crazy idea. We all talked at once to a baffled
• 3:21:43
  Speaker 1: clerk and thought, or pretended to think that we were
• 3:21:46
  Speaker 1: being very funny. The room was large and stifling, and
• 3:21:50
  Speaker 1: though it was already four o'clock, opening the windows admitted
• 3:21:54
  Speaker 1: only a gust of hot shrubbery from the park. Daisy
• 3:21:57
  Speaker 1: went to the mirror and stood with her back to us,
• 3:22:00
  Speaker 1: fixing her hair. It's a swell suite, whispered Jordan respectfully,
• 3:22:05
  Speaker 1: and everyone laughed. Open another window, commanded Daisy, without turning around.
• 3:22:11
  Speaker 1: There aren't any more well, we'd better telephone for an axe.
• 3:22:16
  Speaker 1: The thing to do is to forget about the heat,
• 3:22:18
  Speaker 1: said Tom impatiently. You make it ten times worse by
• 3:22:22
  Speaker 1: crabbing about it. He unrolled the bottle of whiskey from
• 3:22:26
  Speaker 1: the towel and put it on the table. Why not
• 3:22:29
  Speaker 1: let her alone, Old Sport, remarked Gatsby. You're the one
• 3:22:33
  Speaker 1: that wanted to come to town. There was a moment
• 3:22:36
  Speaker 1: of silence. The telephone book slipped from its nail and
• 3:22:40
  Speaker 1: splashed to the floor, whereupon Jordan whispered, excuse me, But
• 3:22:45
  Speaker 1: this time no one laughed. I'll pick it up, I offered,
• 3:22:49
  Speaker 1: I've got it. Gatsby examined a parted string, muttered hum
• 3:22:54
  Speaker 1: in an interested way, and tossed the book on a chair.
• 3:22:58
  Speaker 1: That's a great expression of yours, isn't it, said Tom, sharply.
• 3:23:04
  Speaker 1: What is all this old Sport business? Where'd you pick
• 3:23:09
  Speaker 1: that up? Now? See here, Tom, said Daisy, turning around
• 3:23:13
  Speaker 1: from the mirror. If you're going to make personal remarks,
• 3:23:16
  Speaker 1: I won't stay here a minute. Call up and order
• 3:23:19
  Speaker 1: some ice for the mint julip. As Tom took up
• 3:23:22
  Speaker 1: the receiver of the compressed heat exploded into sound and
• 3:23:25
  Speaker 1: we were listening to the portentous chords of Mendelssohn's wedding
• 3:23:28
  Speaker 1: March from the ballroom below. Imagine marrying anybody in this heat,
• 3:23:33
  Speaker 1: cried Jordan, dismally. Still, I was married in the middle
• 3:23:37
  Speaker 1: of June. Daisy remembered, Louisville in June, somebody fainted. Who
• 3:23:44
  Speaker 1: was it? Fainted? Tom Biloxi, he answered shortly, a man
• 3:23:50
  Speaker 1: named Biloxie blocks Biloxie, and he made boxes, that's a fact.
• 3:23:55
  Speaker 1: And he was from Biloxie, Tennessee. They carried him into
• 3:23:59
  Speaker 1: my house, appended Jordan, because we lived just two doors
• 3:24:03
  Speaker 1: from the church, and he stayed three weeks until Daddy
• 3:24:07
  Speaker 1: told him he had to get out. The day after
• 3:24:10
  Speaker 1: he left, Daddy died. After a moment, she added, as
• 3:24:14
  Speaker 1: if she might have sounded irreverent, there wasn't any connection.
• 3:24:18
  Speaker 1: I used to know of Bill Biloxi from Memphis. I remarked,
• 3:24:22
  Speaker 1: that was his cousin. I knew his whole family history.
• 3:24:26
  Speaker 1: Before he left, he gave me an aluminium putter that
• 3:24:29
  Speaker 1: I used to day. The music had died down as
• 3:24:33
  Speaker 1: the ceremony began, and now a long cheer floated in
• 3:24:36
  Speaker 1: at the window, followed by intermittent cries of yeah, e
• 3:24:39
  Speaker 1: A e A, and finally by a burst of jazz
• 3:24:43
  Speaker 1: as the dancing began. We're getting old, said Daisy. If
• 3:24:48
  Speaker 1: we were young, we'd rise and dance. Remember Biloxi, Jordan
• 3:24:52
  Speaker 1: warned her. Where'd you know him, Tom Biloxi, He concentrated
• 3:24:59
  Speaker 1: with an effort. I didn't know him. He was a
• 3:25:03
  Speaker 1: friend of Daisy's. He was not, She denied, I'd never
• 3:25:08
  Speaker 1: seen him before. He came down in a private car. Well,
• 3:25:13
  Speaker 1: he said he knew you. He said he was raised
• 3:25:16
  Speaker 1: in Louisville. Aesa bird brought him around at the last
• 3:25:20
  Speaker 1: minute and asked if we had room for him. Jordan smiled,
• 3:25:24
  Speaker 1: he was probably bumming his way home. He told me
• 3:25:28
  Speaker 1: he was president of your class at Yale. Tom and
• 3:25:31
  Speaker 1: I looked at each other blankly. Biloxy first place, we
• 3:25:36
  Speaker 1: didn't have any president. Gatsby's foot beat a short, restless tattoo,
• 3:25:41
  Speaker 1: and Tom eyed him. Suddenly, by the way, mister Gatsby,
• 3:25:45
  Speaker 1: I understand you're an Oxford man. Not exactly. Oh, yes,
• 3:25:51
  Speaker 1: I understand you went to Oxford. Yes, I went there.
• 3:25:56
  Speaker 1: A pause, then Tom's voice, incredulous and insulting. He must
• 3:26:01
  Speaker 1: have gone there about the time Biloxi went to New Haven.
• 3:26:04
  Speaker 1: Another pause. A waiter knocked and came in with crushed
• 3:26:08
  Speaker 1: menton ice. But the silence was unbroken by his thank
• 3:26:11
  Speaker 1: you and the soft closing of the door. This tremendous
• 3:26:15
  Speaker 1: detail was to be cleared up at last. I told
• 3:26:19
  Speaker 1: you I went there, said Gatsby. I heard you, but
• 3:26:23
  Speaker 1: I'd like to know when it was in nineteen nineteen.
• 3:26:26
  Speaker 1: I only stayed five months. That's why I can't really
• 3:26:30
  Speaker 1: call myself an Oxford man. Tom glanced around to see
• 3:26:34
  Speaker 1: if we mirrored his unbelief, but we were all looking
• 3:26:37
  Speaker 1: at Gatsby. It was an opportunity they gave to some
• 3:26:41
  Speaker 1: of the officers after the armistice, He continued, We could
• 3:26:45
  Speaker 1: go to any of the universities in England or France.
• 3:26:49
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get up and slap him on the back.
• 3:26:52
  Speaker 1: I had one of those renewals of complete faith in
• 3:26:54
  Speaker 1: him that i'd experienced before. Daisy rose, smiling faintly, and
• 3:26:59
  Speaker 1: when to the table. Open the whiskey, Tom, she ordered,
• 3:27:04
  Speaker 1: and I'll make you a mint, julip. Then you won't
• 3:27:07
  Speaker 1: seem so stupid to yourself. Look at the mint. Wait
• 3:27:11
  Speaker 1: a minute, snapped Tom, I want to ask mister Gatsby
• 3:27:14
  Speaker 1: one more question. Go on, Gatsby said, politely, what kind
• 3:27:20
  Speaker 1: of a row are you trying to cause in my house? Anyhow,
• 3:27:23
  Speaker 1: they were out in the open at last, and Gatsby
• 3:27:26
  Speaker 1: was content he isn't causing a row. Daisy looked desperately
• 3:27:30
  Speaker 1: from one to the other. You're causing a row. Please
• 3:27:34
  Speaker 1: have a little self control. Self control, repeated Tom incredulously.
• 3:27:41
  Speaker 1: I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and
• 3:27:43
  Speaker 1: let mister nobody from nowhere make love to your wife. Well,
• 3:27:47
  Speaker 1: if that's the idea, you can count me out. Nowadays
• 3:27:51
  Speaker 1: people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions,
• 3:27:55
  Speaker 1: and next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between
• 3:27:58
  Speaker 1: black and white. Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw
• 3:28:03
  Speaker 1: himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization. We're
• 3:28:07
  Speaker 1: all white here, murmured Jordan. I know I'm not very popular.
• 3:28:12
  Speaker 1: I don't give big parties. I suppose you've got to
• 3:28:16
  Speaker 1: make your house into a pig stye in order to
• 3:28:18
  Speaker 1: have any friends in the modern world. Angry as I was,
• 3:28:22
  Speaker 1: as we all were, I was tempted to laugh. Whenever
• 3:28:25
  Speaker 1: he opened his mouth. The transition from Libertine to Prigg
• 3:28:29
  Speaker 1: was so complete. I've got something to tell you, old Sport,
• 3:28:33
  Speaker 1: began Gatsby, but Daisy guessed at his intention. Please don't,
• 3:28:39
  Speaker 1: she interrupted helplessly. Please let's all go home. Why don't
• 3:28:44
  Speaker 1: we all go home? That's a good idea I got up.
• 3:28:48
  Speaker 1: Come on, Tom, nobody wants a drink. I want to
• 3:28:53
  Speaker 1: know what mister Gatsby has to tell me. Your wife
• 3:28:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't love you, said Gatsby. She's I never loved you,
• 3:29:01
  Speaker 1: she loves me. You must be crazy, exclaimed Tom. Automatically.
• 3:29:07
  Speaker 1: Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement. She never
• 3:29:11
  Speaker 1: loved you, do you hear? He cried. She only married
• 3:29:16
  Speaker 1: you because I was poor and she was tired of
• 3:29:18
  Speaker 1: waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in
• 3:29:21
  Speaker 1: her heart she never loved anyone except me. At this point,
• 3:29:25
  Speaker 1: Jordan I tried to go, but Tom and Gatsby insisted
• 3:29:29
  Speaker 1: with competitive firmness, that we remain, as though neither of
• 3:29:32
  Speaker 1: them had anything to conceal, and it would be a
• 3:29:34
  Speaker 1: privilege to partake vicariously of their emotions. Sit down, Daisy.
• 3:29:39
  Speaker 1: Tom's voice groped unsuccessfully for the paternal note. What's been
• 3:29:44
  Speaker 1: going on? I want to hear all about it. I
• 3:29:48
  Speaker 1: told you what's been going on, said Gatsby, going on
• 3:29:52
  Speaker 1: for five years, and you didn't know. Tom turned to
• 3:29:55
  Speaker 1: Daisy sharply. You've been seeing this fellow for five years,
• 3:30:00
  Speaker 1: not seeing, said Gatsby. No, we couldn't meet, but both
• 3:30:06
  Speaker 1: of us loved each other all that time, old sport,
• 3:30:09
  Speaker 1: and you didn't know. I used to laugh sometimes, but
• 3:30:12
  Speaker 1: there was no laughter in his eyes. To think that
• 3:30:15
  Speaker 1: you didn't know. Oh that's all. Tom tapped his thick
• 3:30:20
  Speaker 1: fingers together like a clergyman and leaned back in his chair.
• 3:30:24
  Speaker 1: You're crazy, he exploded. I can't speak about what happened
• 3:30:28
  Speaker 1: five years ago because I didn't know Daisy then. And
• 3:30:31
  Speaker 1: I'll be damned if I see how you got within
• 3:30:33
  Speaker 1: a mile of her, unless you brought the groceries to
• 3:30:36
  Speaker 1: the back door. But all the rest of that's a
• 3:30:38
  Speaker 1: god damned lie. Daisy loved me when she married me,
• 3:30:42
  Speaker 1: and she loves me now, No, said Gatsby, shaking his head.
• 3:30:48
  Speaker 1: She does, though. The trouble is that sometimes she gets
• 3:30:52
  Speaker 1: foolish ideas in her head and doesn't know what she's doing.
• 3:30:56
  Speaker 1: He nodded sagely. And what's more, I loved too. Once
• 3:31:01
  Speaker 1: in a while I go off on a spree and
• 3:31:03
  Speaker 1: make a fool of myself, but I always come back,
• 3:31:06
  Speaker 1: and in my heart I love her all the time.
• 3:31:09
  Speaker 1: You're revolting, said Daisy. She turned to me, and her voice,
• 3:31:14
  Speaker 1: dropping an octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn.
• 3:31:17
  Speaker 1: Do you know why we left Chicago? I'm surprised that
• 3:31:21
  Speaker 1: they didn't treat you to the story of that little spree.
• 3:31:24
  Speaker 1: Gatsby walked over and stood beside her. Daisy, that's all
• 3:31:29
  Speaker 1: over now, he said earnestly. It doesn't matter any more.
• 3:31:34
  Speaker 1: Just tell him the truth that you never loved him,
• 3:31:36
  Speaker 1: and it's all wiped out forever. She looked at him blindly.
• 3:31:41
  Speaker 1: Why how could I love him? Possibly you never loved him,
• 3:31:47
  Speaker 1: she hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and Me with
• 3:31:51
  Speaker 1: a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last
• 3:31:53
  Speaker 1: what she was doing, and as though she had never
• 3:31:56
  Speaker 1: all along intended doing anything at all. But it was
• 3:32:00
  Speaker 1: done now. It was too late. I never loved him,
• 3:32:04
  Speaker 1: she said, with perceptible reluctance, NodD at, Capiolani demanded Tom Suddenly,
• 3:32:11
  Speaker 1: no from the ballroom. Beneath muffled and suffocating cords were
• 3:32:16
  Speaker 1: drifting up on hot waves of air. Not that day
• 3:32:19
  Speaker 1: I carried you down from the punch bowl to keep
• 3:32:21
  Speaker 1: your shoes dry. There was a husky tenderness in his tone. Daisy,
• 3:32:28
  Speaker 1: please don't. Her voice was cold, but the rancor was
• 3:32:32
  Speaker 1: gone from it. She looked at Gatsby. There, jaye, she said,
• 3:32:37
  Speaker 1: But her hand, as she tried to light a cigarette
• 3:32:40
  Speaker 1: was trembling. Suddenly she threw the cigarette and the burning
• 3:32:44
  Speaker 1: match on the carpet. Oh you want too much, she
• 3:32:48
  Speaker 1: cried to Gatsby. I love you now, isn't that enough.
• 3:32:52
  Speaker 1: I can't help what's past. She began to sob helplessly.
• 3:32:57
  Speaker 1: I did love him once, but I loved you too.
• 3:33:01
  Speaker 1: Gatsby's eyes opened and closed. You loved me too, he repeated.
• 3:33:07
  Speaker 1: Even that's a lie, said Tom savagely. She didn't know
• 3:33:11
  Speaker 1: you were alive. Why there's things between Daisy and me
• 3:33:15
  Speaker 1: that you'll never know, things that neither of us can
• 3:33:18
  Speaker 1: ever forget. The words seem to bite physically into Gatsby.
• 3:33:23
  Speaker 1: I want to speak to Daisy alone, he insisted. She's
• 3:33:27
  Speaker 1: all excited now, even alone, I can't say I never
• 3:33:30
  Speaker 1: loved Tom, she admitted, in a pitiful voice. It wouldn't
• 3:33:34
  Speaker 1: be true. Of course it wouldn't, agreed Tom. She turned
• 3:33:39
  Speaker 1: to her husband, as if it mattered to you, she said,
• 3:33:44
  Speaker 1: of course it matters. I'm going to take better care
• 3:33:47
  Speaker 1: of you from now on. You don't understand, said Gatsby,
• 3:33:51
  Speaker 1: with a touch of panic. You're not going to take
• 3:33:54
  Speaker 1: care of her any more. I'm not. Tom opened his
• 3:33:59
  Speaker 1: eyes wide and laughed. He could afford to control himself. Now,
• 3:34:04
  Speaker 1: why is that Daisy's leaving you? Nonsense I am, though,
• 3:34:11
  Speaker 1: she said, with a visible effort, She's not leaving me.
• 3:34:15
  Speaker 1: Tom's words suddenly leaned down over Gatsby. Certainly not for
• 3:34:20
  Speaker 1: a common swindler who'd have to steal the ring he
• 3:34:22
  Speaker 1: put on her finger. I won't stand this, cried Daisy.
• 3:34:27
  Speaker 1: Oh please, let's get out. Who are you anyhow? Broke
• 3:34:32
  Speaker 1: out Tom. You're one of that bunch that hangs around
• 3:34:35
  Speaker 1: with Meyer wolfheam that much. I happened to know. I've
• 3:34:39
  Speaker 1: made a little investigation into your affairs, and i'll carry
• 3:34:43
  Speaker 1: it further tomorrow. You can suit yourself about that old sport,
• 3:34:47
  Speaker 1: said Gatsby steadily. I found out what your drug stores were.
• 3:34:52
  Speaker 1: He turned to us and spoke rapidly. He and this
• 3:34:56
  Speaker 1: Wolfshium bought up a lot of side street drug stores
• 3:34:59
  Speaker 1: here and in Chicot and sold grain alcohol over the counter.
• 3:35:03
  Speaker 1: That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for
• 3:35:06
  Speaker 1: a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I
• 3:35:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't far wrong. What about it, said Gatsby politely. I
• 3:35:14
  Speaker 1: guess your friend Walter Chase wasn't too proud to come
• 3:35:17
  Speaker 1: in on it. And you left him in the lurch,
• 3:35:20
  Speaker 1: didn't you. You let him go to jail for a
• 3:35:23
  Speaker 1: month over in New Jersey. God, you ought to hear
• 3:35:27
  Speaker 1: Walter on the subject of you. He came to us
• 3:35:31
  Speaker 1: dead broke. He was very glad to pick up some money,
• 3:35:34
  Speaker 1: old sport. Don't you call me bold sport, cried Tom.
• 3:35:39
  Speaker 1: Gatsby said nothing. Walter could have you up on the
• 3:35:43
  Speaker 1: betting laws too. But Wolfsheem scared him into shutting his mouth.
• 3:35:47
  Speaker 1: That unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back again in Gatsby's face.
• 3:35:53
  Speaker 1: That drug store business was just small change, continued Tom slowly.
• 3:35:57
  Speaker 1: But you've got something on now that Walter's afraid to
• 3:35:59
  Speaker 1: tell me about. I glanced at Daisy, who was staring
• 3:36:03
  Speaker 1: terrified between Gatsby and her husband, and at Jordan, who
• 3:36:07
  Speaker 1: had begun to balance an invisible but absorbing object on
• 3:36:10
  Speaker 1: the tip of her chin. Then I turned back to
• 3:36:13
  Speaker 1: Gatsby and was startled at his expression. He looked, and
• 3:36:17
  Speaker 1: this is said in all contempt for the babbled slander
• 3:36:20
  Speaker 1: of his garden, as if he had killed a man.
• 3:36:23
  Speaker 1: For a moment, the set of his face could be
• 3:36:25
  Speaker 1: described in just that fantastic way. It passed, and he
• 3:36:29
  Speaker 1: began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his
• 3:36:33
  Speaker 1: name against accusations that had not been made. But with
• 3:36:37
  Speaker 1: every word she was drawing further and further into herself.
• 3:36:40
  Speaker 1: So he gave that up, and only the dead dream
• 3:36:43
  Speaker 1: fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch
• 3:36:46
  Speaker 1: what was no longer tangible, Struggling unhappily, undespairingly toward that
• 3:36:50
  Speaker 1: lost voice across the room. The voice begged again to
• 3:36:54
  Speaker 1: go please, Tom, I can't stand this any more. Her
• 3:37:00
  Speaker 1: frightened eyes told that whatever intentions, whatever courage she had had,
• 3:37:04
  Speaker 1: were definitely gone. You two start on home, Daisy, said Tom.
• 3:37:10
  Speaker 1: In mister Gatsby's car, She looked at Tom alarmed now,
• 3:37:15
  Speaker 1: but he insisted, with magnanimous scorn, go on, he won't
• 3:37:20
  Speaker 1: annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little
• 3:37:24
  Speaker 1: flirtation is over. They were gone without a word, snapped out,
• 3:37:29
  Speaker 1: made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity. After
• 3:37:34
  Speaker 1: a moment, Tom got up and began wrapping the unopened
• 3:37:37
  Speaker 1: bottle of whiskey in the towel. Want any of this stuff, Jordan? Nick?
• 3:37:44
  Speaker 1: I didn't answer Nick. He asked again, what want any No?
• 3:37:54
  Speaker 1: I just remembered that to day's my birthday. I was
• 3:37:57
  Speaker 1: thirty before me stretched the portentis menacing road of a
• 3:38:02
  Speaker 1: new decade. It was seven o'clock when we got into
• 3:38:05
  Speaker 1: the coupe with him and started for Long Island. Tom
• 3:38:09
  Speaker 1: talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as
• 3:38:13
  Speaker 1: remote from Jordan and me as the foreign clamor on
• 3:38:15
  Speaker 1: the sidewalk, or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human
• 3:38:19
  Speaker 1: sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let
• 3:38:22
  Speaker 1: all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind thirty,
• 3:38:27
  Speaker 1: the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list
• 3:38:30
  Speaker 1: of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm
• 3:38:33
  Speaker 1: thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy,
• 3:38:39
  Speaker 1: was too wise ever to carry well forgotten dreams from
• 3:38:41
  Speaker 1: age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge,
• 3:38:45
  Speaker 1: her wan face fell lazily against my coat's shoulder, and
• 3:38:48
  Speaker 1: the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring
• 3:38:51
  Speaker 1: pressure of her hand. So we drove on toward death
• 3:38:55
  Speaker 1: through the cooling twilight. The young Greek Michaelis, who ran
• 3:38:59
  Speaker 1: the coffee joint beside the ash heaps, was the principal
• 3:39:02
  Speaker 1: witness at the inquest. He had slept through the heat
• 3:39:06
  Speaker 1: until after five, when he strolled over to the garage
• 3:39:09
  Speaker 1: and found George Wilson sick in his office, really sick,
• 3:39:13
  Speaker 1: pale as his own pale hair, and shaking all over.
• 3:39:16
  Speaker 1: Michaelis advised him to go to bed, but Wilson refused,
• 3:39:20
  Speaker 1: saying that he'd miss a lot of business if he did.
• 3:39:24
  Speaker 1: While his neighbor was trying to persuade him, a violent
• 3:39:26
  Speaker 1: racket broke out overhead. I've got my wife locked in
• 3:39:30
  Speaker 1: up there, explained Wilson, calmly. She's going to stay there
• 3:39:34
  Speaker 1: till the day after tomorrow, and then we're going to
• 3:39:36
  Speaker 1: move away. Michaelis was astonished. They had been neighbors for
• 3:39:41
  Speaker 1: four years, and Wilson had never seemed faintly capable of
• 3:39:44
  Speaker 1: such a statement. Generally, he was one of these worn
• 3:39:48
  Speaker 1: out men. When he wasn't working, he sat on a
• 3:39:51
  Speaker 1: chair in the doorway and stared at the people and
• 3:39:53
  Speaker 1: the cars that passed along the road. When anyone spoke
• 3:39:57
  Speaker 1: to him, he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colorless way.
• 3:40:01
  Speaker 1: He was his wife's man, and not his own, so
• 3:40:05
  Speaker 1: naturally Michaelis tried to find out what had happened, but
• 3:40:08
  Speaker 1: Wilson wouldn't say a word. Instead, he began to throw curious,
• 3:40:12
  Speaker 1: suspicious glances at his visitor and ask him what he'd
• 3:40:14
  Speaker 1: been doing at certain times on certain days. Just as
• 3:40:18
  Speaker 1: the latter was getting uneasy, some workmen came past the door,
• 3:40:22
  Speaker 1: bound for his restaurant, and Michaelis took the opportunity to
• 3:40:25
  Speaker 1: get away, intending to come back later. But he didn't.
• 3:40:30
  Speaker 1: He supposed he forgot to, that's all. When he came
• 3:40:34
  Speaker 1: outside again a little after seven, he was reminded of
• 3:40:37
  Speaker 1: the conversation because he heard missus Wilson's voice loud and
• 3:40:41
  Speaker 1: scolding downstairs in the garage. Beat me, he heard her cry,
• 3:40:47
  Speaker 1: Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward.
• 3:40:51
  Speaker 1: A moment later, she rushed out into the dusk, waving
• 3:40:54
  Speaker 1: her hands and shouting. Before he could move from his door.
• 3:40:57
  Speaker 1: The business was over. The death, as the newspapers called,
• 3:41:01
  Speaker 1: it didn't stop. It came out of the gathering darkness,
• 3:41:05
  Speaker 1: wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the
• 3:41:08
  Speaker 1: next bend. Mavro. Michaelis wasn't even sure of its color.
• 3:41:12
  Speaker 1: He told the first policeman that it was light green.
• 3:41:16
  Speaker 1: The other car, the one going toward New York, came
• 3:41:19
  Speaker 1: to rest a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried
• 3:41:22
  Speaker 1: back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt
• 3:41:26
  Speaker 1: in the road and mingled her thick, dark blood with
• 3:41:28
  Speaker 1: the dust. Michaelis and this man reached her first, but
• 3:41:32
  Speaker 1: when they had torn open her shirt waist, still damp
• 3:41:35
  Speaker 1: with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging
• 3:41:39
  Speaker 1: loose like a flap, and there was no need to
• 3:41:41
  Speaker 1: listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open
• 3:41:45
  Speaker 1: and ripped a little at the corners, as though she
• 3:41:47
  Speaker 1: had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality
• 3:41:50
  Speaker 1: she had stored so long. We saw the three or
• 3:41:53
  Speaker 1: four automobiles and the crowd. When we were still some
• 3:41:56
  Speaker 1: distance away, reck said Tom. That's good, Wilson will have
• 3:42:02
  Speaker 1: a little business. At last. He slowed down, but still
• 3:42:06
  Speaker 1: without any intention of stopping, until as we came nearer
• 3:42:10
  Speaker 1: the hushed intent faces of the people at the garage
• 3:42:13
  Speaker 1: door made him automatically put on the brakes. We'll take
• 3:42:16
  Speaker 1: a look, he said, doubtfully, just a look. I became
• 3:42:20
  Speaker 1: aware now of a hollow, wailing sound which issued incessantly
• 3:42:24
  Speaker 1: from the garage, a sound which, as we got out
• 3:42:26
  Speaker 1: of the coop and walked toward the door, resolved itself
• 3:42:29
  Speaker 1: into the words, oh my God, uttered over and over
• 3:42:32
  Speaker 1: in a gasping moan. There's some bad trouble here, said
• 3:42:36
  Speaker 1: Tom excitedly. He reached up on tiptoes and peered over
• 3:42:40
  Speaker 1: a circle of heads into the garage, which was lit
• 3:42:43
  Speaker 1: only by a yellow light in a swinging metal basket overhead.
• 3:42:47
  Speaker 1: Then he made a harsh sound in his throat, and
• 3:42:50
  Speaker 1: with a violent thrusting movement of his powerful arms, pushed
• 3:42:53
  Speaker 1: his way through the circle closed up again with a
• 3:42:56
  Speaker 1: running murmur of expostulation. It was a minute before I
• 3:42:59
  Speaker 1: could see anything at all. Then new arrivals deranged the line,
• 3:43:04
  Speaker 1: and Jordan and I were pushed suddenly inside myrtle. Wilson's body,
• 3:43:09
  Speaker 1: wrapped in a blanket, and then in another blanket, as
• 3:43:12
  Speaker 1: though she suffered from a chill in the hot night,
• 3:43:15
  Speaker 1: lay on a work table by the wall, and Tom,
• 3:43:17
  Speaker 1: with his back to us, was bending over it motionless.
• 3:43:22
  Speaker 1: Next to him stood a motorcycle policeman taking down names
• 3:43:25
  Speaker 1: with much sweat and correction in a little book. At
• 3:43:28
  Speaker 1: first I couldn't find the source of the high, groaning
• 3:43:31
  Speaker 1: words that echoed clamorously through the bare garage. Then I
• 3:43:34
  Speaker 1: saw Wilson standing on the raised threshold of his office,
• 3:43:38
  Speaker 1: swaying back and forth and holding to the door posts
• 3:43:40
  Speaker 1: with both hands. Some man was talking to him in
• 3:43:44
  Speaker 1: a low voice, and attempting from time to time to
• 3:43:47
  Speaker 1: lay a hand on his shoulder, but Wilson neither heard
• 3:43:50
  Speaker 1: nor saw. His eyes would drop slowly from the swinging
• 3:43:53
  Speaker 1: light to the laden table by the wall, and then
• 3:43:56
  Speaker 1: jerk back to the light again, and he gave out
• 3:43:58
  Speaker 1: incessantly his high, horrible call, Oh, my g a O
• 3:44:02
  Speaker 1: d oh my g O d oh g O d
• 3:44:07
  Speaker 1: oh my g o d Presently, Tom lifted his head
• 3:44:11
  Speaker 1: with a jerk, and, after staring around the garage with
• 3:44:14
  Speaker 1: glazed eyes, addressed a mumbled incoherent remark to the policeman.
• 3:44:19
  Speaker 1: M A v The policeman was saying, Oh no, R
• 3:44:24
  Speaker 1: corrected the man, ameviri. Listen to me, muttered Tom fiercely.
• 3:44:29
  Speaker 1: R said the policeman. Oh g g. He looked up
• 3:44:33
  Speaker 1: as Tom's broad hand fell sharply on his shoulder. What
• 3:44:37
  Speaker 1: you want, fella, what happened? That's what I want to know.
• 3:44:42
  Speaker 1: Otto hit her inzantly killed, instantly, killed, repeated Tom, staring.
• 3:44:49
  Speaker 1: She ran out aina roade, son of a bitch. Didn't
• 3:44:53
  Speaker 1: even stop his car. There was two cars, said michaelis
• 3:44:57
  Speaker 1: one comin, one goin' see going where? Asked the policeman, keenly,
• 3:45:03
  Speaker 1: one goin beach way? Well? She his hand rose toward
• 3:45:08
  Speaker 1: the blankets, but stopped half way and fell to his side.
• 3:45:11
  Speaker 1: She ran out there and the one comin from New
• 3:45:13
  Speaker 1: York knock right into her. Goin thirty or forty miles
• 3:45:17
  Speaker 1: an hour. What's the name of this place here? Demanded
• 3:45:21
  Speaker 1: the officer hasn't got any name. A pale, well dressed
• 3:45:25
  Speaker 1: negro stepped near. It was a yellow car, he said,
• 3:45:29
  Speaker 1: big yellow car. New see the accident, asked the policeman. No,
• 3:45:37
  Speaker 1: but the car passed me down the road going faster
• 3:45:39
  Speaker 1: and forty going fifty sixty. Come here and let's have
• 3:45:44
  Speaker 1: your name. Look out now, I want to get his name.
• 3:45:50
  Speaker 1: Some words of this conversation must have reached Wilson, swaying
• 3:45:53
  Speaker 1: in the office door, for suddenly a new theme found
• 3:45:56
  Speaker 1: voice among his grasping cries. You don't have to tell
• 3:45:59
  Speaker 1: me what kind of car it was. I know what
• 3:46:02
  Speaker 1: kind of car it was. Watching Tom, I saw the
• 3:46:06
  Speaker 1: wad of muscle back of his shoulder, titan under his coat.
• 3:46:10
  Speaker 1: He walked quickly over to Wilson, and, standing in front
• 3:46:13
  Speaker 1: of him, seized him firmly by the upper arms. You've
• 3:46:17
  Speaker 1: got to pull yourself together, he said, with soothing gruffness.
• 3:46:21
  Speaker 1: Wilson's eyes fell upon Tom. He started up on his
• 3:46:24
  Speaker 1: tiptoes and then would have collapsed to his knees had
• 3:46:27
  Speaker 1: not Tom held him upright. Listen, said Tom, shaking him
• 3:46:31
  Speaker 1: a little. I just got here a minute ago from
• 3:46:34
  Speaker 1: New York. I was bringing you that coop we've been
• 3:46:38
  Speaker 1: talking about. That yellow car I was driving this afternoon
• 3:46:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't mine? Do you hear? I haven't seen it all afternoon.
• 3:46:47
  Speaker 1: Only the Negro and I were near enough to hear
• 3:46:49
  Speaker 1: what he said. But the policeman caught something in the
• 3:46:52
  Speaker 1: tone and looked over with truculent eyes. What's all that?
• 3:46:55
  Speaker 1: He demanded, I'm a friend of his. Tom turned his
• 3:47:00
  Speaker 1: head but kept his hands firm on Wilson's body. He
• 3:47:04
  Speaker 1: says he knows the car that did it. It was
• 3:47:07
  Speaker 1: a yellow car. Some dim impulse moved the policeman to
• 3:47:11
  Speaker 1: look suspiciously at Tom. And what colors your car? It's
• 3:47:16
  Speaker 1: a blue car, a coop. We've come straight from New York,
• 3:47:20
  Speaker 1: I said. Some one who had been driving a little
• 3:47:23
  Speaker 1: behind us confirmed this, and the policeman turned away. Now,
• 3:47:27
  Speaker 1: if you'll let me have that name again? Correct. Picking
• 3:47:30
  Speaker 1: up Wilson like a doll, Tom carried him into the office,
• 3:47:34
  Speaker 1: set him down in a chair, and came back. If
• 3:47:37
  Speaker 1: somebody'll come here and sit with him, he snapped authoritatively.
• 3:47:41
  Speaker 1: He watched while the two men standing closest glanced at
• 3:47:44
  Speaker 1: each other and went unwillingly into the room. Then Tom
• 3:47:48
  Speaker 1: shut the door on them, and came down a single step,
• 3:47:51
  Speaker 1: his eyes avoiding the table. As he passed close to me,
• 3:47:55
  Speaker 1: he whispered, let's get out, self consciously, with his authoritative
• 3:47:59
  Speaker 1: arms breaking the way, we pushed through the still gathering crowd,
• 3:48:03
  Speaker 1: passing a hurried doctor case in hand, who had been
• 3:48:06
  Speaker 1: sent for in wild Hope half an hour ago. Tom
• 3:48:10
  Speaker 1: drove slowly until we were beyond the bend. Then his
• 3:48:13
  Speaker 1: foot came down hard, and the coop raced along through
• 3:48:16
  Speaker 1: the night. In a little while, I heard a low,
• 3:48:19
  Speaker 1: husky sob and saw that the tears were overflowing down
• 3:48:22
  Speaker 1: his face. The god damned coward, he whimpered. He didn't
• 3:48:27
  Speaker 1: even stop his car. The Buchanan's house floated suddenly toward
• 3:48:31
  Speaker 1: us through the dark, rustling trees. Tom stopped beside the
• 3:48:35
  Speaker 1: porch and looked up at the second floor, where two
• 3:48:38
  Speaker 1: windows bloomed with light among the vines. Daisy's home, he said.
• 3:48:44
  Speaker 1: As we got out of the cart, he glanced at
• 3:48:46
  Speaker 1: me and frowned slightly. I ought to have dropped you
• 3:48:49
  Speaker 1: in West egg Nick. There's nothing we can do tonight.
• 3:48:54
  Speaker 1: A change had come over him, and he spoke gravely
• 3:48:56
  Speaker 1: and with decision, as we walked across the moonlight gravel
• 3:49:00
  Speaker 1: to the porch, he disposed of the situation in a
• 3:49:03
  Speaker 1: few brisk phrases. I'll telephone for a taxi to take
• 3:49:07
  Speaker 1: you home, and while you're waiting, you and Jordan better
• 3:49:10
  Speaker 1: go in the kitchen and have them get you some
• 3:49:11
  Speaker 1: supper if you want any. He opened the door. Come in,
• 3:49:17
  Speaker 1: No thanks, but I'd be glad if you'd order me
• 3:49:21
  Speaker 1: the taxi. I'll wait outside. Jordan put her hand on
• 3:49:26
  Speaker 1: my arm. Won't you come in? Nick? No thanks. I
• 3:49:32
  Speaker 1: was feeling a little sick and I wanted to be alone,
• 3:49:35
  Speaker 1: but Jordan lingered for a moment. More. It's only half
• 3:49:39
  Speaker 1: past nine, she said, I'd be damned if I'd go in.
• 3:49:43
  Speaker 1: I'd had enough of all of them for one day,
• 3:49:45
  Speaker 1: and suddenly that included Jordan too. She must have seen
• 3:49:49
  Speaker 1: something of this in my expression, for she turned abruptly
• 3:49:52
  Speaker 1: away and ran up the porch steps into the house.
• 3:49:56
  Speaker 1: I sat down for a few minutes with my head
• 3:49:58
  Speaker 1: in my hands, until I heard the phone taken up
• 3:50:01
  Speaker 1: inside and the butler's voice calling a taxi. Then I
• 3:50:05
  Speaker 1: walked slowly down the drive away from the house, intending
• 3:50:08
  Speaker 1: to wait by the gate. I hadn't gone twenty yards
• 3:50:12
  Speaker 1: when I heard my name and Gatsby step from between
• 3:50:14
  Speaker 1: two bushes into the path. I must have felt pretty
• 3:50:18
  Speaker 1: weird by that time, because I could think of nothing
• 3:50:21
  Speaker 1: except the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon.
• 3:50:24
  Speaker 1: What are you doing, I inquired, just standing here old Sport.
• 3:50:31
  Speaker 1: Somehow that seemed a despicable occupation. For all I knew
• 3:50:35
  Speaker 1: he was going to rob the house in a moment.
• 3:50:37
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been surprised to see sinister faces, the
• 3:50:40
  Speaker 1: faces of Wolfshim's people behind him in the dark shrubbery.
• 3:50:45
  Speaker 1: Did you see any trouble on the road, he asked
• 3:50:47
  Speaker 1: after a minute, Yes, he hesitated. Was she killed? Yes?
• 3:50:56
  Speaker 1: I thought so, I told Daisy. I thought so. It's
• 3:51:00
  Speaker 1: better that the shock should all come at once. She
• 3:51:03
  Speaker 1: stood it pretty well, He spoke, as if Daisy's reaction
• 3:51:07
  Speaker 1: was the only thing that mattered. I got to West
• 3:51:10
  Speaker 1: Egg by a side road. He went on and left
• 3:51:13
  Speaker 1: the car in my garage. I don't think anybody saw us,
• 3:51:17
  Speaker 1: but of course I can't be sure. I disliked him
• 3:51:20
  Speaker 1: so much by this time that I didn't find it
• 3:51:23
  Speaker 1: necessary to tell him he was wrong. Who was the woman.
• 3:51:26
  Speaker 1: He inquired. Her name was Wilson. Her husband owns the garage.
• 3:51:33
  Speaker 1: How the devil did it happen? Well, I tried to
• 3:51:36
  Speaker 1: swing the wheel, he broke off, and suddenly I guessed
• 3:51:39
  Speaker 1: at the truth. Was Daisy driving? Yes, he said, after
• 3:51:44
  Speaker 1: a moment, But of course I'll say I was. You see,
• 3:51:48
  Speaker 1: when we left New York, she was very nervous, and
• 3:51:51
  Speaker 1: she thought it would steady her to drive. And this
• 3:51:53
  Speaker 1: woman rushed out at us just as we were passing
• 3:51:55
  Speaker 1: a car coming the other way. It all happened in
• 3:51:59
  Speaker 1: a minute, but it seemed to me that she wanted
• 3:52:01
  Speaker 1: to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew. Well.
• 3:52:05
  Speaker 1: First Daisy turned away from the woman toward the other car,
• 3:52:08
  Speaker 1: and then she lost her nerve and turned back. The
• 3:52:11
  Speaker 1: second my hand reached the wheel, I felt the shock.
• 3:52:14
  Speaker 1: It must have killed her instantly. It ripped her open.
• 3:52:18
  Speaker 1: Don't tell me old sport, he winced. Anyhow, Daisy stepped
• 3:52:24
  Speaker 1: on it. I tried to make her stop, but she couldn't,
• 3:52:28
  Speaker 1: so I pulled on the emergency brake. Then she fell
• 3:52:31
  Speaker 1: over into my lap and I drove on. She'll be
• 3:52:34
  Speaker 1: all right tomorrow, he said, Presently, I'm just going to
• 3:52:38
  Speaker 1: wait here and see if he tries to bother her
• 3:52:40
  Speaker 1: about that unpleasantness this afternoon. She's locked herself into her room,
• 3:52:45
  Speaker 1: and if he tries any brutality, she's going to turn
• 3:52:48
  Speaker 1: the light out and on again. He won't touch her,
• 3:52:51
  Speaker 1: I said, he's not thinking about her. I don't trust him,
• 3:52:56
  Speaker 1: old Sport. How long are you going to wait all night?
• 3:53:01
  Speaker 1: If necessary? Anyhow till they all go to bed. A
• 3:53:06
  Speaker 1: new point of view occurred to me. Suppose Tom found
• 3:53:09
  Speaker 1: out that Daisy had been driving. He might think he
• 3:53:13
  Speaker 1: saw a connection in it. He might think anything. I
• 3:53:16
  Speaker 1: looked at the house. There were two or three bright
• 3:53:19
  Speaker 1: windows downstairs, and the pink glow from Daisy's room on
• 3:53:22
  Speaker 1: the ground floor. You wait here, I said, I'll see
• 3:53:27
  Speaker 1: if there's any sign of a commotion. I walked back
• 3:53:30
  Speaker 1: along the border of the lawn, traversed the gravel softly,
• 3:53:33
  Speaker 1: and tiptoed up the veranda steps. The drawing room curtains
• 3:53:37
  Speaker 1: were open, and I saw that the room was empty.
• 3:53:41
  Speaker 1: Crossing the porch where we had dined that June night,
• 3:53:43
  Speaker 1: three months before, I came to a small rectangle of light,
• 3:53:47
  Speaker 1: which I guessed was the pantry window. The blind was drawn,
• 3:53:51
  Speaker 1: but I found a rift at the sill. Daisy and
• 3:53:54
  Speaker 1: Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table,
• 3:53:57
  Speaker 1: with a plate of cold fried chicken between them and
• 3:54:00
  Speaker 1: two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the
• 3:54:04
  Speaker 1: table at her, and in his earnestness, his hand had
• 3:54:06
  Speaker 1: fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while.
• 3:54:10
  Speaker 1: She looked up at him and nodded in agreement. They
• 3:54:13
  Speaker 1: weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken
• 3:54:16
  Speaker 1: or the ale, And yet they weren't unhappy either. There
• 3:54:20
  Speaker 1: was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture,
• 3:54:24
  Speaker 1: and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.
• 3:54:27
  Speaker 1: As I tiptoed from the porch, I heard my taxi
• 3:54:30
  Speaker 1: feeling its way along the dark road toward the house.
• 3:54:34
  Speaker 1: Gatsby was waiting where I had left him in the drive.
• 3:54:37
  Speaker 1: Is it all quiet up there, he asked anxiously, Yes,
• 3:54:41
  Speaker 1: it's all quiet, I hesitated. You'd better come home and
• 3:54:46
  Speaker 1: get some sleep. He shook his head. I want to
• 3:54:50
  Speaker 1: wait here till Daisy goes to bed. Good night, Old Sport.
• 3:54:55
  Speaker 1: He put his hands in his coat pockets and turned
• 3:54:58
  Speaker 1: back eagerly to his scrutiny of the house, as though
• 3:55:01
  Speaker 1: my presence marked the sacredness of the vigil. So I
• 3:55:04
  Speaker 1: walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight,
• 3:55:07
  Speaker 1: watching over nothing. Eight. I couldn't sleep all night. A
• 3:55:11
  Speaker 1: foghorn was groaning incessantly on the sound, and I tossed,
• 3:55:15
  Speaker 1: half sick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams. Toward dawn,
• 3:55:20
  Speaker 1: I heard a taxi go up Gatsby's drive, and immediately
• 3:55:24
  Speaker 1: I jumped out of bed and began to dress. I
• 3:55:26
  Speaker 1: felt that I had something to tell him, something to
• 3:55:29
  Speaker 1: warn him about, and morning would be too late. Crossing
• 3:55:32
  Speaker 1: his lawn, I saw that his front door was still open,
• 3:55:35
  Speaker 1: and he was leaning against a table in the hall,
• 3:55:38
  Speaker 1: heavy with dejection or sleep. Nothing happened, he said, wanly.
• 3:55:43
  Speaker 1: I waited, and about four o'clock she came to the
• 3:55:46
  Speaker 1: window and stood there for a minute, and then turned
• 3:55:48
  Speaker 1: out the light. His house had never seemed so enormous
• 3:55:52
  Speaker 1: to me as it did that night. When we hunted
• 3:55:54
  Speaker 1: through the great rooms for cigarettes, we pushed aside curtains
• 3:55:58
  Speaker 1: that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable feet of
• 3:56:02
  Speaker 1: dark wall for electric light switches. Once I tumbled with
• 3:56:05
  Speaker 1: a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano.
• 3:56:09
  Speaker 1: There was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere, and the
• 3:56:12
  Speaker 1: rooms were musty, as though they hadn't been aired for
• 3:56:15
  Speaker 1: many days. I found the humidor on an unfamiliar table
• 3:56:19
  Speaker 1: with two stale dry cigarettes inside. Throwing open the French
• 3:56:24
  Speaker 1: windows of the drawing room, we sat smoking out into
• 3:56:28
  Speaker 1: the darkness. You ought to go away, I said, it's
• 3:56:32
  Speaker 1: pretty certain they'll trace your car. Go away now old Sport,
• 3:56:37
  Speaker 1: Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal.
• 3:56:42
  Speaker 1: He wouldn't consider it. He couldn't possibly leave Daisy until
• 3:56:46
  Speaker 1: he knew what she was going to do. He was
• 3:56:48
  Speaker 1: clutching at some last hope, and I couldn't bear to
• 3:56:51
  Speaker 1: shake him free. It was this night that he told
• 3:56:54
  Speaker 1: me the strange story of his youth with Dan Cody
• 3:56:57
  Speaker 1: told it to me because Jay Gatsby had brought oken
• 3:57:00
  Speaker 1: up like glass against Tom's hard malice, and the long
• 3:57:03
  Speaker 1: secret extravaganza was played out. I think that he would
• 3:57:07
  Speaker 1: have acknowledged anything now without reserve. But he wanted to
• 3:57:11
  Speaker 1: talk about Daisy. She was the first nice girl he
• 3:57:15
  Speaker 1: had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities. He had come
• 3:57:19
  Speaker 1: in contact with such people, but always with indiscernible barbed
• 3:57:22
  Speaker 1: wire between. He found her excitingly desirable. He went to
• 3:57:28
  Speaker 1: her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor,
• 3:57:31
  Speaker 1: then alone. It amazed him he had never been in
• 3:57:35
  Speaker 1: such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an
• 3:57:39
  Speaker 1: air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there. It
• 3:57:42
  Speaker 1: was as casual a thing to her as his tent
• 3:57:44
  Speaker 1: out at camp was to him. There was a ripe
• 3:57:47
  Speaker 1: mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs, more beautiful
• 3:57:51
  Speaker 1: and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities
• 3:57:54
  Speaker 1: taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were
• 3:57:58
  Speaker 1: not musty and laid way already in lavender, but fresh
• 3:58:02
  Speaker 1: and breathing and redolent, of this year's shining motor cars,
• 3:58:04
  Speaker 1: and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited
• 3:58:09
  Speaker 1: him too that many men had already loved Daisy. It
• 3:58:12
  Speaker 1: increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence
• 3:58:17
  Speaker 1: all about the house, pervading the air with the shades
• 3:58:19
  Speaker 1: and echoes of still vibrant emotions. But he knew that
• 3:58:23
  Speaker 1: he was in Daisy's house by a colossal accident. However
• 3:58:27
  Speaker 1: glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was
• 3:58:31
  Speaker 1: at present a penniless young man without a past, and
• 3:58:34
  Speaker 1: at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might
• 3:58:36
  Speaker 1: slip from his shoulders. So he made the most of
• 3:58:40
  Speaker 1: his time. He took what he could get ravenously and
• 3:58:43
  Speaker 1: and scrupulously. Eventually he took Daisy one still October Night.
• 3:58:48
  Speaker 1: Took her because he had no real right to touch
• 3:58:50
  Speaker 1: her hand. He might have despised himself, for he had
• 3:58:54
  Speaker 1: certainly taken her under false pretenses. I don't mean that
• 3:58:58
  Speaker 1: he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had
• 3:59:00
  Speaker 1: deliberately given Daisy a sense of security. He let her
• 3:59:03
  Speaker 1: believe that he was a person from much the same
• 3:59:05
  Speaker 1: straita as herself, that he was fully able to take
• 3:59:08
  Speaker 1: care of her. As a matter of fact, he had
• 3:59:12
  Speaker 1: no such facilities. He had no comfortable family standing behind him,
• 3:59:16
  Speaker 1: and he was liable, at the whim of an impersonal government,
• 3:59:18
  Speaker 1: to be blown anywhere about the world. But he didn't
• 3:59:22
  Speaker 1: despise himself, and it didn't turn out as he had imagined.
• 3:59:26
  Speaker 1: He had intended, probably to take what he could and
• 3:59:29
  Speaker 1: go but now he found that he had committed himself
• 3:59:32
  Speaker 1: to the following of a grail. He knew that Daisy
• 3:59:35
  Speaker 1: was extraordinary, but he didn't realize just how extraordinary a
• 3:59:39
  Speaker 1: nice girl could be. She vanished into her rich house,
• 3:59:43
  Speaker 1: into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby nothing. He felt
• 3:59:48
  Speaker 1: married to her, that was all. When they met again
• 3:59:52
  Speaker 1: two days later, it was Gatsby who was breathless, who
• 3:59:55
  Speaker 1: was somehow betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought
• 3:59:59
  Speaker 1: luck xury of starshine. The wicker of the settee squeaked
• 4:00:03
  Speaker 1: fashionably as she turned toward him, and he kissed her
• 4:00:05
  Speaker 1: curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a cold, and
• 4:00:09
  Speaker 1: it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever.
• 4:00:12
  Speaker 1: And Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery
• 4:00:15
  Speaker 1: that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes,
• 4:00:19
  Speaker 1: and of Daisy gleaming like silver, safe and proud above
• 4:00:22
  Speaker 1: the hot struggles of the poor. I can't describe to
• 4:00:26
  Speaker 1: you how surprised I was to find out I loved
• 4:00:28
  Speaker 1: her old sport. I even hoped for a while that
• 4:00:32
  Speaker 1: she'd throw me over. But she didn't, because she was
• 4:00:35
  Speaker 1: in love with me too. She thought I knew a
• 4:00:38
  Speaker 1: lot because I knew different things from her. Well, there,
• 4:00:42
  Speaker 1: I was way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love
• 4:00:45
  Speaker 1: every minute, and all of a sudden I didn't care.
• 4:00:49
  Speaker 1: What was the use of doing great things if I
• 4:00:51
  Speaker 1: could have a better time telling her what I was
• 4:00:53
  Speaker 1: going to do. On the last afternoon before he went abroad,
• 4:00:57
  Speaker 1: he sat with Daisy in his arms for a long,
• 4:01:00
  Speaker 1: silent time. It was a cold fall day with fire
• 4:01:03
  Speaker 1: in the room, and her cheeks flushed. Now and then
• 4:01:07
  Speaker 1: she moved, and he changed his arm a little, and
• 4:01:09
  Speaker 1: once he kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon had
• 4:01:13
  Speaker 1: made them tranquil for a while, as if to give
• 4:01:15
  Speaker 1: them a deep memory for the long parting the next
• 4:01:18
  Speaker 1: day promised. They had never been closer in their month
• 4:01:22
  Speaker 1: of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than
• 4:01:25
  Speaker 1: when she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder, or
• 4:01:28
  Speaker 1: when he touched the end of her fingers gently, as
• 4:01:31
  Speaker 1: though she were asleep. He did extraordinarily well in the war.
• 4:01:36
  Speaker 1: He was a captain before he went to the front,
• 4:01:39
  Speaker 1: and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and
• 4:01:42
  Speaker 1: the command of the divisional machine guns. After the armistice,
• 4:01:46
  Speaker 1: he tried frantically to get home, but some complication or
• 4:01:49
  Speaker 1: misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead. He was worried. Now.
• 4:01:54
  Speaker 1: There was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy's letters.
• 4:01:58
  Speaker 1: She didn't see why he couldn't come. She was feeling
• 4:02:01
  Speaker 1: the pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to
• 4:02:04
  Speaker 1: see him and feel his presence beside her, and be
• 4:02:06
  Speaker 1: reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.
• 4:02:10
  Speaker 1: For Daisy was young, her artificial world was redolent of
• 4:02:13
  Speaker 1: orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras, which set the
• 4:02:17
  Speaker 1: rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness
• 4:02:20
  Speaker 1: of life in new tunes. All night, the saxophones wailed
• 4:02:25
  Speaker 1: the hopeless comment of the Beale Street Blues, while a
• 4:02:28
  Speaker 1: hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining
• 4:02:31
  Speaker 1: dust At the gray tea hour. There were always rooms
• 4:02:35
  Speaker 1: that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh
• 4:02:38
  Speaker 1: faces drifted here and there, like rose petals blown by
• 4:02:41
  Speaker 1: the sad horns around the floor. Through this twilight universe,
• 4:02:46
  Speaker 1: Daisy began to move again with the season. Suddenly she
• 4:02:49
  Speaker 1: was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with
• 4:02:51
  Speaker 1: half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn, with
• 4:02:54
  Speaker 1: the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among
• 4:02:57
  Speaker 1: dying orchids on the floor beside her bed, And all
• 4:03:00
  Speaker 1: the time something within her was crying for a decision.
• 4:03:04
  Speaker 1: She wanted her life shaped now, immediately, and the decision
• 4:03:08
  Speaker 1: must be made by some force of love, of money,
• 4:03:11
  Speaker 1: of unquestionable practicality that was close at hand. That force
• 4:03:16
  Speaker 1: took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival
• 4:03:18
  Speaker 1: of Tom Buchanan. There was a wholesome bulkiness about his
• 4:03:22
  Speaker 1: person and his position, and Daisy was flattered. Doubtless there
• 4:03:27
  Speaker 1: was a certain struggle and a certain relief. The letter
• 4:03:30
  Speaker 1: reached Gatsby while he was still at Oxford. It was
• 4:03:34
  Speaker 1: dawned now on Long Island, and we went about opening
• 4:03:36
  Speaker 1: the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house with
• 4:03:39
  Speaker 1: gray turning gold turning light. The shadow of a tree
• 4:03:43
  Speaker 1: fell abruptly across the dew, and ghostly birds began to
• 4:03:46
  Speaker 1: sing among the blue leaves. There was a slow, pleasant
• 4:03:50
  Speaker 1: movement in the air, scarcely a wind promising a cool,
• 4:03:54
  Speaker 1: lovely day. I don't think she ever loved him. Gatsby
• 4:03:59
  Speaker 1: turned around from a window and looked at me challengingly.
• 4:04:02
  Speaker 1: You must remember old Sport. She was very excited this afternoon.
• 4:04:07
  Speaker 1: He told her those things in a way that frightened her,
• 4:04:10
  Speaker 1: that made it look as if I was some kind
• 4:04:12
  Speaker 1: of cheap sharper. And the result was she hardly knew
• 4:04:15
  Speaker 1: what she was saying. He sat down gloomily. Of course,
• 4:04:20
  Speaker 1: she might have loved him just for a minute when
• 4:04:22
  Speaker 1: they were first married, and loved me more even then,
• 4:04:25
  Speaker 1: do you see? Suddenly he came out with a curious remark.
• 4:04:30
  Speaker 1: In any case, he said, it was just personal. What
• 4:04:34
  Speaker 1: could you make of that except to suspect some intensity
• 4:04:37
  Speaker 1: in his conception of the affair that couldn't be measured.
• 4:04:40
  Speaker 1: He came back from France when Tom and Daisy were
• 4:04:43
  Speaker 1: still on their wedding trip, and made a miserable but
• 4:04:46
  Speaker 1: irresistible journey to Louisville on the last of his army pay.
• 4:04:50
  Speaker 1: He stayed there a week, walking the streets where their
• 4:04:53
  Speaker 1: footsteps had clicked together through the November night, and revisiting
• 4:04:56
  Speaker 1: the out of the way places to which they had
• 4:04:58
  Speaker 1: driven in her white car. Just as Daisy's house had
• 4:05:02
  Speaker 1: always seemed to him more mysterious and gay than other houses,
• 4:05:05
  Speaker 1: so his idea of the city itself, even though she
• 4:05:08
  Speaker 1: was gone from it, was pervaded with a melancholy beauty.
• 4:05:12
  Speaker 1: He left, feeling that if he had searched harder he
• 4:05:14
  Speaker 1: might have found her. That he was leaving her behind
• 4:05:18
  Speaker 1: the day coach. He was penniless, now was hot. He
• 4:05:22
  Speaker 1: went out to the open vestibule and sat down on
• 4:05:25
  Speaker 1: a folding chair, and the station slid away, and the
• 4:05:28
  Speaker 1: backs of unfamiliar buildings moved by, then out into the
• 4:05:31
  Speaker 1: spring fields, where a yellow trolley raced them for a minute,
• 4:05:35
  Speaker 1: with people in it who might once have seen the
• 4:05:37
  Speaker 1: pale magic of her face. Along the casual street, the
• 4:05:41
  Speaker 1: track curved, and now it was going away from the sun, which,
• 4:05:44
  Speaker 1: as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in benediction
• 4:05:47
  Speaker 1: over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath.
• 4:05:50
  Speaker 1: He stretched out his hand desperately, as if to snatch
• 4:05:53
  Speaker 1: only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of
• 4:05:56
  Speaker 1: the spot that she had made lovely for him. But
• 4:05:59
  Speaker 1: it was all gone, owing by too fast now for
• 4:06:01
  Speaker 1: his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost
• 4:06:04
  Speaker 1: that part of it, the freshest and the best forever.
• 4:06:08
  Speaker 1: It was nine o'clock when we finished breakfast and went
• 4:06:10
  Speaker 1: out on the porch. The night had made a sharp
• 4:06:13
  Speaker 1: difference in the weather, and there was an autumn flavor
• 4:06:16
  Speaker 1: in the air. The gardener, the last one of Gatsby's
• 4:06:19
  Speaker 1: former servants, came to the foot of the steps. I'm
• 4:06:23
  Speaker 1: going to drain the pool to day, mister Gatsby. Leaves'll
• 4:06:27
  Speaker 1: start falling pretty soon, and then there's always trouble with
• 4:06:30
  Speaker 1: the pipes. Don't do it to day, Gatsby answered. He
• 4:06:35
  Speaker 1: turned to me apologetically. You know, old Sport, I've never
• 4:06:40
  Speaker 1: used that pool all summer. I looked at my watch
• 4:06:43
  Speaker 1: and stood up. Twelve minutes to my train. I didn't
• 4:06:47
  Speaker 1: want to go to the city. I wasn't worth a
• 4:06:50
  Speaker 1: decent stroke of work. But it was more than that.
• 4:06:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to leave Gatsby. I missed that train
• 4:06:57
  Speaker 1: and then another before I could get myself away. I'll
• 4:07:01
  Speaker 1: call you up, I said, finally, do old Sport, I'll
• 4:07:06
  Speaker 1: call you about noon. We walked slowly down the steps.
• 4:07:11
  Speaker 1: I suppose daisy'll call too. He looked at me, anxiously,
• 4:07:15
  Speaker 1: as if he hoped I'd corroborate this. I suppose so well.
• 4:07:20
  Speaker 1: Good bye. We shook hands and I started away. Just
• 4:07:25
  Speaker 1: before I reached the hedge, I remembered something and turned around.
• 4:07:29
  Speaker 1: They're a rotten crowd, I shouted across the lawn. You're
• 4:07:33
  Speaker 1: worth the whole damn bunch put together. I've always been glad.
• 4:07:37
  Speaker 1: I said that it was the only compliment I ever
• 4:07:41
  Speaker 1: gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First,
• 4:07:45
  Speaker 1: he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that
• 4:07:48
  Speaker 1: radiant and understanding smile, as if we'd been in ecstatic
• 4:07:51
  Speaker 1: cahoots on that fact all the time. His gorgeous pink
• 4:07:55
  Speaker 1: rag of a suit made a bright spot of color
• 4:07:58
  Speaker 1: against the white steps, and I thought out of the
• 4:08:00
  Speaker 1: night when I first came to his ancestral home three
• 4:08:03
  Speaker 1: months before, the lawn and drive had been crowded with
• 4:08:06
  Speaker 1: the faces of those who guessed at his corruption, and
• 4:08:09
  Speaker 1: he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream
• 4:08:13
  Speaker 1: as he waved them goodbye. I thanked him for his hospitality.
• 4:08:18
  Speaker 1: We were always thanking him for that. I and the
• 4:08:20
  Speaker 1: others goodbye, I called I enjoyed breakfast Gatsby up in
• 4:08:27
  Speaker 1: the city. I tried for a while to list the
• 4:08:29
  Speaker 1: quotations on an interminable amount of stock. Then I fell
• 4:08:33
  Speaker 1: asleep in my swivel chair just before noon. The foam
• 4:08:37
  Speaker 1: woke me and I started up with sweat breaking out
• 4:08:39
  Speaker 1: on my forehead. It was Jordan Baker. She often called
• 4:08:44
  Speaker 1: me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her
• 4:08:46
  Speaker 1: own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made
• 4:08:49
  Speaker 1: her hard to find in any other way. Usually her
• 4:08:53
  Speaker 1: voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool,
• 4:08:56
  Speaker 1: as if a divot from a green Gulf Links had
• 4:08:58
  Speaker 1: come sailing in at the office wind. But this morning
• 4:09:01
  Speaker 1: it seemed harsh and dry. I've left Daisy's house, she said.
• 4:09:06
  Speaker 1: I'm at Hempstead and I'm going down to Southampton this afternoon.
• 4:09:11
  Speaker 1: Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisy's house, but
• 4:09:14
  Speaker 1: the act annoyed me, and her next remark made me rigid.
• 4:09:18
  Speaker 1: You weren't so nice to me last night. How could
• 4:09:21
  Speaker 1: it have mattered? Then silence for a moment. Then, however,
• 4:09:26
  Speaker 1: I want to see you. I want to see you too.
• 4:09:30
  Speaker 1: Suppose I don't go to Southampton and come into town
• 4:09:33
  Speaker 1: this afternoon. No, I don't think this afternoon very well.
• 4:09:39
  Speaker 1: It's impossible this afternoon various. We talked like that for
• 4:09:44
  Speaker 1: a while, and then abruptly we weren't talking any longer.
• 4:09:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know which of us hung up with a
• 4:09:50
  Speaker 1: sharp click, but I know I didn't care. I couldn't
• 4:09:54
  Speaker 1: have talked to her across a tea table that day
• 4:09:56
  Speaker 1: if I never talked to her again in this world.
• 4:09:59
  Speaker 1: I called Gatsby's house a few minutes later, but the
• 4:10:02
  Speaker 1: line was busy. I tried four times. Finally, an exasperated
• 4:10:07
  Speaker 1: central told me the wire was being kept open for
• 4:10:09
  Speaker 1: long distance from Detroit. Taking out my timetable, I drew
• 4:10:13
  Speaker 1: a small circle around the three fifty train. Then I
• 4:10:17
  Speaker 1: leaned back in my chair and tried to think it
• 4:10:20
  Speaker 1: was just noon. When I passed the ash heaps on
• 4:10:23
  Speaker 1: the train that morning, I had crossed deliberately to the
• 4:10:26
  Speaker 1: other side of the car. I supposed there'd be a
• 4:10:29
  Speaker 1: curious crowd around there all day, with little boys searching
• 4:10:32
  Speaker 1: for dark spots in the dust, and some garrulous man
• 4:10:35
  Speaker 1: telling over and over what had happened, until it became
• 4:10:38
  Speaker 1: less and less real even to him, and he could
• 4:10:40
  Speaker 1: tell it no longer, and Myrtle Wilson's tragic achievement was forgotten.
• 4:10:45
  Speaker 1: Now I want to go back a little and tell
• 4:10:47
  Speaker 1: what happened at the garage after we left there. The
• 4:10:49
  Speaker 1: night before, they had difficulty in locating the sister Catherine.
• 4:10:55
  Speaker 1: She must have broken her rule against drinking that night,
• 4:10:57
  Speaker 1: for when she arrived she was stupid with liquor and
• 4:11:00
  Speaker 1: unable to understand that the ambulance had already gone to Flushing.
• 4:11:04
  Speaker 1: When they convinced her of this, she immediately fainted, as
• 4:11:07
  Speaker 1: if that was the intolerable part of the affair. Someone
• 4:11:11
  Speaker 1: kind or curious took her in his car and drove
• 4:11:14
  Speaker 1: her in the wake of her sister's body until long
• 4:11:18
  Speaker 1: after midnight. A changing crowd lapped up against the front
• 4:11:20
  Speaker 1: of the garage while George Wilson rocked himself back and
• 4:11:24
  Speaker 1: forth on the couch inside. For a while, the door
• 4:11:27
  Speaker 1: of the office was open, and everyone who came into
• 4:11:30
  Speaker 1: the garage glanced irresistibly through it. Finally, someone said it
• 4:11:34
  Speaker 1: was a shame and closed the door. Michaelis and several
• 4:11:38
  Speaker 1: other men were with him first, four or five men later,
• 4:11:42
  Speaker 1: two or three men still later. Michaelis had to ask
• 4:11:46
  Speaker 1: the last stranger to wait there fifteen minutes longer while
• 4:11:49
  Speaker 1: he went back to his own place and made a
• 4:11:51
  Speaker 1: pot of coffee. After that, he stayed there alone with
• 4:11:55
  Speaker 1: Wilson until dawn. About three o'clock, the quality of Wilson's
• 4:12:00
  Speaker 1: incoherent muttering changed. He grew quieter and began to talk
• 4:12:03
  Speaker 1: about the yellow car. He announced that he had a
• 4:12:06
  Speaker 1: way of finding out whom the yellow car belonged to,
• 4:12:09
  Speaker 1: And then he blurted out that a couple of months
• 4:12:11
  Speaker 1: ago his wife had come from the city with her
• 4:12:14
  Speaker 1: face bruised and her nose swollen. But when he heard
• 4:12:17
  Speaker 1: himself say this, he flinched and began to cry, Oh
• 4:12:21
  Speaker 1: my God again in his groaning voice. Michaelis made a
• 4:12:25
  Speaker 1: clumsy attempt to distract him. How long have you been married, George?
• 4:12:31
  Speaker 1: Come on there, try and sit still a minute and
• 4:12:33
  Speaker 1: answer my question. How long have you been married? Twelve years?
• 4:12:39
  Speaker 1: Ever had any children? Come on, George, sit still. I
• 4:12:44
  Speaker 1: asked you a question, did you ever have any children?
• 4:12:48
  Speaker 1: The hard brown beetles kept thudding against a dull light,
• 4:12:51
  Speaker 1: and whenever Michaelis heard a car go tearing along the
• 4:12:54
  Speaker 1: road outside, it sounded to him like the car that
• 4:12:56
  Speaker 1: hadn't stopped a few hours before. He didn't like to
• 4:13:00
  Speaker 1: go into the garage because the work bench was stained
• 4:13:03
  Speaker 1: where the body had been lying, so he moved uncomfortably
• 4:13:06
  Speaker 1: around the office. He knew every object in it before morning,
• 4:13:09
  Speaker 1: and from time to time sat down beside Wilson, trying
• 4:13:12
  Speaker 1: to keep him more quiet. Have you got a church
• 4:13:15
  Speaker 1: you go to sometimes? George? Maybe even if you haven't
• 4:13:19
  Speaker 1: been there for a long time, maybe I could call
• 4:13:22
  Speaker 1: up the church and get a priest to come over
• 4:13:24
  Speaker 1: and he could talk to you. See, don't belong to
• 4:13:28
  Speaker 1: any You ought to have a church, George. Four times
• 4:13:32
  Speaker 1: like this. You must have gone to church once. Didn't
• 4:13:36
  Speaker 1: you get married in a church? Listen, George, listen to me.
• 4:13:41
  Speaker 1: Didn't you get married in a church? That was a
• 4:13:45
  Speaker 1: long time ago? The effort of answering broke the rhythm
• 4:13:48
  Speaker 1: of his rocking. For a moment he was silent. Then
• 4:13:52
  Speaker 1: the same half knowing, half bewildered look came back into
• 4:13:55
  Speaker 1: his faded eyes. Look in the drawer there, he said,
• 4:13:59
  Speaker 1: pointing out the desk. Which drawer, that drawer, that one.
• 4:14:05
  Speaker 1: Michaelis opened the drawer nearest his hand. There was nothing
• 4:14:09
  Speaker 1: in it. But a small, expensive dog leash made of
• 4:14:12
  Speaker 1: leather and braided silver. It was apparently new this, he inquired,
• 4:14:18
  Speaker 1: Holding it up. Wilson stared and nodded. I found it
• 4:14:23
  Speaker 1: yesterday afternoon. She tried to tell me about it, but
• 4:14:27
  Speaker 1: I knew it was something funny. You mean your wife
• 4:14:30
  Speaker 1: bought it. She had it wrapped in tissue paper on
• 4:14:33
  Speaker 1: her bureau. Michaelis didn't see anything odd in that, and
• 4:14:37
  Speaker 1: he gave Wilson a dozen reasons why his wife might
• 4:14:40
  Speaker 1: have bought the dog leash. But conceivably Wilson had heard
• 4:14:44
  Speaker 1: some of these same explanations before from Myrtle. Because he
• 4:14:48
  Speaker 1: began saying, oh my God again in a whisper. His
• 4:14:52
  Speaker 1: comforter left several explanations in the air. Then he killed her,
• 4:14:57
  Speaker 1: said Wilson. His mouth dropped opened suddenly. Who did I
• 4:15:03
  Speaker 1: have a way of finding out? You're morbid? George said
• 4:15:07
  Speaker 1: his friend. This has been a strain to you, and
• 4:15:10
  Speaker 1: you don't know what you're saying. You'd better try and
• 4:15:13
  Speaker 1: sit quiet till morning. He murdered her. It was an accident,
• 4:15:19
  Speaker 1: George Wilson shook his head, his eyes narrowed and his
• 4:15:24
  Speaker 1: mouth widened slightly with the ghost of a superior hum
• 4:15:28
  Speaker 1: I know, he said, definitely. I'm one of these trusting
• 4:15:32
  Speaker 1: fellis and I don't think any harm to nobody. But
• 4:15:34
  Speaker 1: when I get to know a thing, I know it.
• 4:15:37
  Speaker 1: It was the man in that car. She ran out
• 4:15:40
  Speaker 1: to speak to him, and he wouldn't stop. Michaelis had
• 4:15:44
  Speaker 1: seen this too, but it hadn't occurred to him that
• 4:15:46
  Speaker 1: there was any special significance in it. He believed that
• 4:15:50
  Speaker 1: missus Wilson had been running away from her husband rather
• 4:15:53
  Speaker 1: than trying to stop any particular car. How could she
• 4:15:56
  Speaker 1: have been like that. She's a deep one, said Wilson,
• 4:16:00
  Speaker 1: as if that answered the question. I h h. He
• 4:16:04
  Speaker 1: began to rock again, and Michaelis stood, twisting the leash
• 4:16:07
  Speaker 1: in his hand. Maybe you got some friend that I
• 4:16:10
  Speaker 1: could telephone for George. This was a forlorn hope. He
• 4:16:15
  Speaker 1: was almost sure that Wilson had no friend. There was
• 4:16:18
  Speaker 1: not enough of him for his wife. He was glad
• 4:16:21
  Speaker 1: a little later when he noticed a change in the room,
• 4:16:24
  Speaker 1: a blue quickening by the window, and realized that dawn
• 4:16:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't far off. About five o'clock, it was blue enough
• 4:16:31
  Speaker 1: outside to snap off the light. Wilson's glazed eyes turned
• 4:16:35
  Speaker 1: out to the ash heaps, where small gray clouds took
• 4:16:38
  Speaker 1: on fantastic shapes and scurried here and there in the
• 4:16:41
  Speaker 1: faint dawn wind. I spoke to her, he muttered, after
• 4:16:45
  Speaker 1: a long silence. I told her she might fool me,
• 4:16:49
  Speaker 1: but she couldn't fool God. I took her to the window.
• 4:16:53
  Speaker 1: With an effort. He got up and walked to the
• 4:16:54
  Speaker 1: rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it,
• 4:16:57
  Speaker 1: and I said, God knows what you've been doing, everything
• 4:17:00
  Speaker 1: you've been doing. You may fool me, but you can't
• 4:17:04
  Speaker 1: fool God. Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock
• 4:17:08
  Speaker 1: that he was looking at the eyes of doctor T. J. Echolberg,
• 4:17:12
  Speaker 1: which had just emerged, pale and enormous from the dissolving night.
• 4:17:17
  Speaker 1: God sees everything, repeated Wilson. That's an advertisement, Michaelis assured him.
• 4:17:24
  Speaker 1: Something made him turn away from the window and look
• 4:17:27
  Speaker 1: back into the room, But Wilson stood there a long time,
• 4:17:31
  Speaker 1: his face close to the window pane, nodding into the twilight.
• 4:17:35
  Speaker 1: By six o'clock, Michaelis was worn out and grateful for
• 4:17:38
  Speaker 1: the sound of a car stopping outside. It was one
• 4:17:42
  Speaker 1: of the watchers of the night before who had promised
• 4:17:44
  Speaker 1: to come back. So he cooked breakfast for three, which
• 4:17:47
  Speaker 1: he and the other man ate together. Wilson was quieter now,
• 4:17:51
  Speaker 1: and Michaelis went home to sleep. When he awoke four
• 4:17:54
  Speaker 1: hours later and hurried back to the garage, Wilson was gone.
• 4:17:59
  Speaker 1: His movements he was on foot all the time, were
• 4:18:02
  Speaker 1: afterward traced to Port Roosevelt and then to Gad's Hill,
• 4:18:05
  Speaker 1: where he bought a sandwich that he didn't eat and
• 4:18:08
  Speaker 1: a cup of coffee. He must have been tired in
• 4:18:11
  Speaker 1: walking slowly, for he didn't reach Gad's Hill until noon.
• 4:18:15
  Speaker 1: Thus far there was no difficulty in accounting for his time.
• 4:18:18
  Speaker 1: There were boys who had seen a man acting sort
• 4:18:21
  Speaker 1: of crazy, and motorists at whom he stared oddly from
• 4:18:24
  Speaker 1: the side of the road. Then for three hours he
• 4:18:27
  Speaker 1: disappeared from view. The police on the strength of what
• 4:18:31
  Speaker 1: he said to Michaelis that he had a way of
• 4:18:33
  Speaker 1: finding out, supposed that he spent that time going from
• 4:18:36
  Speaker 1: garage to garage thereabout inquiring for a yellow car. On
• 4:18:41
  Speaker 1: the other hand, no garage man who had seen him
• 4:18:44
  Speaker 1: ever came forward, and perhaps he had an easier, surer
• 4:18:47
  Speaker 1: way of finding out what he wanted to know. By
• 4:18:50
  Speaker 1: half past two he was in West Egg, where he
• 4:18:53
  Speaker 1: asked some on the way to Gatsby's house, so by
• 4:18:56
  Speaker 1: that time he knew Gatsby's name. At two o'clock, Gatsby
• 4:19:00
  Speaker 1: put on his bathing suit and left word with the
• 4:19:02
  Speaker 1: butler that if anyone phoned, word was to be brought
• 4:19:05
  Speaker 1: to him at the pool. He stopped at the garage
• 4:19:08
  Speaker 1: for a pneumatic mattress that had amused his guests during
• 4:19:11
  Speaker 1: the summer, and the chauffeur helped him to pump it up.
• 4:19:14
  Speaker 1: Then he gave instructions that the open car wasn't to
• 4:19:17
  Speaker 1: be taken out under any circumstances, and this was strange
• 4:19:21
  Speaker 1: because the front right fender needed repair. Gatsby shouldered the
• 4:19:25
  Speaker 1: mattress and started for the pool. Once he stopped and
• 4:19:29
  Speaker 1: shifted it a little, and the chauffeur asked him if
• 4:19:31
  Speaker 1: he needed help, but he shook his head and in
• 4:19:34
  Speaker 1: a moment disappeared among the yellowing trees. No telephone message arrived,
• 4:19:39
  Speaker 1: but the butler went without his sleep and waited for
• 4:19:42
  Speaker 1: it until four o'clock, until long after there was any
• 4:19:45
  Speaker 1: one to give it to if it came. I have
• 4:19:47
  Speaker 1: an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come,
• 4:19:50
  Speaker 1: and perhaps he no longer cared if that was true.
• 4:19:54
  Speaker 1: He must have felt that he had lost the old,
• 4:19:56
  Speaker 1: warm world, paid a high price for living too long
• 4:19:58
  Speaker 1: with a single dream. He must have looked up at
• 4:20:01
  Speaker 1: an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he
• 4:20:05
  Speaker 1: found what a grotesque thing arose is, and how raw
• 4:20:07
  Speaker 1: the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass, a new world,
• 4:20:12
  Speaker 1: material without being real, where poor ghosts breathing dreams like air,
• 4:20:17
  Speaker 1: drifted fortuitously about like that ashen fantastic figure gliding toward
• 4:20:22
  Speaker 1: him through the amorphous trees. The chauffeur, he was one
• 4:20:26
  Speaker 1: of Wolfsheum's proteges, heard the shots. Afterwards, he could only
• 4:20:30
  Speaker 1: say that he hadn't thought anything much about them. I
• 4:20:33
  Speaker 1: drove from the station directly to Gatsby's house, and my
• 4:20:36
  Speaker 1: rushing anxiously up the front steps was the first thing
• 4:20:39
  Speaker 1: that alarmed any one. But they knew then, I firmly believe.
• 4:20:44
  Speaker 1: With scarcely a word, said four of us, the chauffeur, butler, gardener,
• 4:20:49
  Speaker 1: and I hurried down to the pool. There was a faint,
• 4:20:52
  Speaker 1: barely perceptible movement of the water, as the fresh flow
• 4:20:56
  Speaker 1: from one end urged its way toward the drain at
• 4:20:58
  Speaker 1: the other. With little ripples that were hardly the shadows
• 4:21:02
  Speaker 1: of waves. The leaden mattress moved irregularly down the pool.
• 4:21:06
  Speaker 1: A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface
• 4:21:09
  Speaker 1: was enough to disturb its accidental course. With its accidental burden,
• 4:21:14
  Speaker 1: the touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly,
• 4:21:17
  Speaker 1: tracing like the leg of transit, a thin red circle
• 4:21:20
  Speaker 1: in the water. It was after we started with Gatsby
• 4:21:24
  Speaker 1: toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a
• 4:21:27
  Speaker 1: little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete,
• 4:21:31
  Speaker 1: nine after two years. I remember the rest of that day,
• 4:21:34
  Speaker 1: and that night and the next day only as an
• 4:21:36
  Speaker 1: endless drill of police and photographers and newspaper men in
• 4:21:40
  Speaker 1: and out of Gatsby's front door. A rope stretched across
• 4:21:43
  Speaker 1: the main gate, and a policeman by it kept out
• 4:21:46
  Speaker 1: the curious, but little boys soon discovered that they could
• 4:21:49
  Speaker 1: enter through my yard, and there were always a few
• 4:21:51
  Speaker 1: of them clustered, open mouthed about the pool. Someone with
• 4:21:55
  Speaker 1: a positive manner, perhaps a detective used the expression madman
• 4:22:00
  Speaker 1: as he bent over Wilson's body that afternoon, and the
• 4:22:03
  Speaker 1: adventitious authority of his voice set the key for the
• 4:22:05
  Speaker 1: newspaper reports next morning. Most of those reports were a nightmare, grotesque, circumstantial, eager,
• 4:22:13
  Speaker 1: and untrue. When Michaelis's testimony at the inquest brought to
• 4:22:17
  Speaker 1: light Wilson's suspicions of his wife, I thought the whole
• 4:22:20
  Speaker 1: tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade. But Catherine,
• 4:22:24
  Speaker 1: who might have said anything, didn't say a word. She
• 4:22:28
  Speaker 1: showed a surprising amount of character about it, too, looked
• 4:22:31
  Speaker 1: at the coroner with determined eyes under that corrected brow
• 4:22:34
  Speaker 1: of hers, and swore that her sister had never seen Gatsby,
• 4:22:37
  Speaker 1: that her sister was completely happy with her husband, that
• 4:22:40
  Speaker 1: her sister had been into no mischief whatever. She convinced
• 4:22:44
  Speaker 1: herself of it, and cried into her handkerchief, as if
• 4:22:47
  Speaker 1: the very suggestion was more than she could endure. So
• 4:22:51
  Speaker 1: Wilson was reduced to a man deranged by grief. In
• 4:22:54
  Speaker 1: order that the case might remain in its simplest form,
• 4:22:58
  Speaker 1: and it rested there. But all this part of it
• 4:23:01
  Speaker 1: seemed remote and unessential. I found myself on Gatsby's side
• 4:23:06
  Speaker 1: and alone. From the moment I telephoned news of the
• 4:23:09
  Speaker 1: catastrophe to West Egg Village. Every surmise about him, and
• 4:23:13
  Speaker 1: every practical question was referred to me. At first, I
• 4:23:17
  Speaker 1: was surprised and confused. Then, as he lay in his
• 4:23:20
  Speaker 1: house and didn't move or breathe or speak hour upon hour,
• 4:23:24
  Speaker 1: it grew upon me that I was responsible because no
• 4:23:26
  Speaker 1: one else was interested. Interested, I mean, with that intense
• 4:23:30
  Speaker 1: personal interest to which every one has some vague right.
• 4:23:33
  Speaker 1: At the end, I called up Daisy half an hour
• 4:23:36
  Speaker 1: after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation.
• 4:23:41
  Speaker 1: But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon
• 4:23:44
  Speaker 1: and taken baggage with them. Left no address, no say
• 4:23:49
  Speaker 1: when they'd be back, Know any idea where they are.
• 4:23:54
  Speaker 1: How I could reach them, I don't know, can't say.
• 4:23:59
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to
• 4:24:02
  Speaker 1: go into the room where he lay and reassure him
• 4:24:04
  Speaker 1: I'll get somebody for you. Gatsby, don't worry, just trust me,
• 4:24:10
  Speaker 1: and I'll get somebody for you. Meyer Wolfhiem's name wasn't
• 4:24:13
  Speaker 1: in the phone book. The butler gave me his office
• 4:24:16
  Speaker 1: address on Broadway and I called Information, but by the
• 4:24:19
  Speaker 1: time I had the number, it was long after five,
• 4:24:22
  Speaker 1: and no one answered the phone. Will you ring again,
• 4:24:26
  Speaker 1: I've rung three times. It's very important. Sorry, I'm afraid
• 4:24:33
  Speaker 1: no one's there. I went back to the drawing room
• 4:24:36
  Speaker 1: and thought for an instant that they were chance visitors,
• 4:24:39
  Speaker 1: all these official people who suddenly filled it. But though
• 4:24:42
  Speaker 1: they drew back the sheet and looked at Gatsby with
• 4:24:45
  Speaker 1: shocked eyes, his protest continued in my brain. Look here,
• 4:24:49
  Speaker 1: old Sport. You've got to get somebody for me. You've
• 4:24:52
  Speaker 1: got to try hard. I can't go through this alone.
• 4:24:57
  Speaker 1: Someone started to ask me questions, but I broke and,
• 4:25:00
  Speaker 1: going upstairs, looked hastily through the unlocked parts of his desk.
• 4:25:04
  Speaker 1: He'd never told me, definitely that his parents were dead.
• 4:25:07
  Speaker 1: But there was nothing, only the picture of Dan Cody,
• 4:25:10
  Speaker 1: a token of forgotten violence, staring down from the wall.
• 4:25:15
  Speaker 1: Next morning, I sent the butler to New York with
• 4:25:17
  Speaker 1: a letter to Wolfsham, which asked for information and urged
• 4:25:20
  Speaker 1: him to come out on the next train. That request
• 4:25:23
  Speaker 1: seemed superfluous when I wrote it, I was sure he'd
• 4:25:27
  Speaker 1: start when he saw the newspapers just as I was
• 4:25:29
  Speaker 1: sure there'd be a wire from Daisy before noon. But
• 4:25:33
  Speaker 1: neither a wire nor mister Wolfsheum arrived. No one arrived
• 4:25:36
  Speaker 1: except more police and photographers and newspaper men. When the
• 4:25:40
  Speaker 1: butler brought back Wolfshem's answer, I began to have a
• 4:25:43
  Speaker 1: feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gatsby and me
• 4:25:47
  Speaker 1: against them all. Dear mister Carraway, this has been one
• 4:25:52
  Speaker 1: of the most terrible shocks of my life. To me,
• 4:25:54
  Speaker 1: I hardly can believe it that it is true at all.
• 4:25:57
  Speaker 1: Such a mad act as that man did should make
• 4:26:00
  Speaker 1: us all think. I cannot come down now, as I
• 4:26:03
  Speaker 1: am tied up in some very important business and cannot
• 4:26:06
  Speaker 1: get mixed up in this thing now. If there is
• 4:26:09
  Speaker 1: anything I can do a little later, let me know.
• 4:26:11
  Speaker 1: In a letter by Edgar, I hardly know where I
• 4:26:14
  Speaker 1: am when I hear about a thing like this, and
• 4:26:16
  Speaker 1: am completely knocked down and out yours truly meer Wolfshiam,
• 4:26:21
  Speaker 1: and then hasty addenda beneath let me know about the funeral,
• 4:26:24
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Do not know his family at all. When
• 4:26:27
  Speaker 1: the phone rang that afternoon and long Distance said Chicago
• 4:26:31
  Speaker 1: was calling, I thought this would be Daisy at last.
• 4:26:34
  Speaker 1: But the connection came through as a man's voice, very
• 4:26:37
  Speaker 1: thin and far away. This is Slagel speaking. Yes. The
• 4:26:42
  Speaker 1: name was unfamiliar. Hell of a note, isn't it get
• 4:26:47
  Speaker 1: my wire? There haven't been any wires. Young Park's in trouble,
• 4:26:52
  Speaker 1: he said rapidly. They picked him up when he handed
• 4:26:56
  Speaker 1: the bonds over the counter. They got a circular from
• 4:26:59
  Speaker 1: New York giving m the numbers just five minutes before.
• 4:27:03
  Speaker 1: What do you know about that? Hey, you never can
• 4:27:07
  Speaker 1: tell in these hick towns. Hello, I interrupted breathlessly. Look here,
• 4:27:13
  Speaker 1: this isn't mister Gatsby. Mister Gatsby's dead. There was a
• 4:27:18
  Speaker 1: long silence on the other end of the wire, followed
• 4:27:21
  Speaker 1: by an exclamation, then a quick squawk as the connection
• 4:27:24
  Speaker 1: was broken. I think it was on the third day
• 4:27:27
  Speaker 1: that a telegram signed Henry C. Gats arrived from a
• 4:27:31
  Speaker 1: town in Minnesota. It said only that the sender was
• 4:27:34
  Speaker 1: leaving immediately and to postpone the funeral until he came.
• 4:27:39
  Speaker 1: It was Gatsby's father, a solemn old man, very helpless
• 4:27:42
  Speaker 1: and dismayed, bundled up in a long cheap ulster against
• 4:27:45
  Speaker 1: the warm September day his eyes leaked continuously with excitement,
• 4:27:50
  Speaker 1: and when I took the bag and umbrella from his hands,
• 4:27:53
  Speaker 1: he began to pull so incessantly at his sparse gray
• 4:27:55
  Speaker 1: beard that I had difficulty in getting off his coat.
• 4:27:59
  Speaker 1: He was on the point of collapse. So I took
• 4:28:01
  Speaker 1: him into the music room and made him sit down
• 4:28:03
  Speaker 1: while I sent for something to eat. But he wouldn't eat,
• 4:28:07
  Speaker 1: and the glass of milk spilled from his trembling hand.
• 4:28:10
  Speaker 1: I saw it in the Chicago newspaper, he said, it
• 4:28:14
  Speaker 1: was all in the Chicago newspaper. I started right away.
• 4:28:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't know how to reach you. His eyes, seeing nothing,
• 4:28:23
  Speaker 1: moved ceaselessly about the room. It was a madman, he said.
• 4:28:28
  Speaker 1: He must have been mad. Wouldn't you like some coffee?
• 4:28:33
  Speaker 1: I urged him. I don't want anything. I'm all right now,
• 4:28:37
  Speaker 1: mister Carraway, Well, I'm all right now. Where have they
• 4:28:42
  Speaker 1: got Jimmy? I took him into the drawing room, where
• 4:28:46
  Speaker 1: his son lay, and left him there. Some little boys
• 4:28:50
  Speaker 1: had come up on the steps and were looking into
• 4:28:52
  Speaker 1: the hall. When I told them who had arrived, they
• 4:28:54
  Speaker 1: went reluctantly away. After a little while, mister Gatz opened
• 4:28:58
  Speaker 1: the door and came out his mouth, Ajar. His face
• 4:29:01
  Speaker 1: flushed slightly, his eyes leaking isolated and unpunctual tears. He
• 4:29:06
  Speaker 1: had reached an age where death no longer has the
• 4:29:09
  Speaker 1: quality of ghastly surprise. And when he looked around him
• 4:29:12
  Speaker 1: now for the first time, and saw the height and
• 4:29:14
  Speaker 1: splendor of the hall and the great rooms opening out
• 4:29:17
  Speaker 1: from it into other rooms, his grief began to be
• 4:29:19
  Speaker 1: mixed with an odd pride. I helped him to a
• 4:29:22
  Speaker 1: bedroom upstairs while he took off his coat, and vest
• 4:29:25
  Speaker 1: I told him that all arrangements had been deferred until
• 4:29:28
  Speaker 1: he came. I didn't know what you'd want, mister Gatsby.
• 4:29:32
  Speaker 1: Gats is my name, mister gatts I thought you might
• 4:29:37
  Speaker 1: want to take the body west. He shook his head.
• 4:29:41
  Speaker 1: Jimmy always liked it better down east. He rose up
• 4:29:45
  Speaker 1: to his position in the east. Were you a friend
• 4:29:48
  Speaker 1: of my boys, mister? We were close friends. He had
• 4:29:52
  Speaker 1: a big future before him. You know, he was only
• 4:29:56
  Speaker 1: a young man, but he had a lot of brain power.
• 4:29:58
  Speaker 1: Here he touched his head impressively, and I nodded. If
• 4:30:03
  Speaker 1: he'd have lived, he'd have been a great man, a
• 4:30:07
  Speaker 1: man like James J. Hill. He'd have helped build up
• 4:30:10
  Speaker 1: the country. That's true, I said, uncomfortably. He fumbled at
• 4:30:16
  Speaker 1: the embroidered coverlet, trying to take it from the bed,
• 4:30:19
  Speaker 1: and lay down stiffly. Was instantly asleep. That night, an
• 4:30:23
  Speaker 1: obviously frightened person called up and demanded to know who
• 4:30:27
  Speaker 1: I was, before he would give his name. This is
• 4:30:30
  Speaker 1: mister Carraway, I said, Oh. He sounded relieved. This is Clipspringer.
• 4:30:38
  Speaker 1: I was relieved too, for that seemed to promise another
• 4:30:41
  Speaker 1: friend at Gatsby's grave. I didn't want it to be
• 4:30:44
  Speaker 1: in the papers and draw a sight seeing crowd, so
• 4:30:47
  Speaker 1: I've been calling up a few people myself. They were
• 4:30:50
  Speaker 1: hard to find. The funerals tomorrow, I said, three o'clock
• 4:30:56
  Speaker 1: here at the house. I wish you'd tell anybody who'd
• 4:30:59
  Speaker 1: be interested. Oh I will, he broke out hastily. Of
• 4:31:04
  Speaker 1: course I'm not likely to see anybody, but if I do,
• 4:31:08
  Speaker 1: his tone made me suspicious. Of course, you'll be there yourself. Well,
• 4:31:14
  Speaker 1: I'll certainly try. What I called up about is wait
• 4:31:18
  Speaker 1: a minute, I interrupted, How about saying you'll come? Well,
• 4:31:23
  Speaker 1: the fact is the truth of the matter is that
• 4:31:26
  Speaker 1: I'm staying with some people up here in Greenwich, and
• 4:31:28
  Speaker 1: they rather expect me to be with them tomorrow. In fact,
• 4:31:32
  Speaker 1: there's a sort of picnic or something. Of course, I'll
• 4:31:36
  Speaker 1: do my best to get away. I ejaculated an unrestrained huh,
• 4:31:41
  Speaker 1: and he must have heard me, for he went on nervously.
• 4:31:44
  Speaker 1: What I called up about was a pair of shoes
• 4:31:46
  Speaker 1: I left there. I wonder if it'd be too much
• 4:31:49
  Speaker 1: trouble to have the butler send them on. You see,
• 4:31:53
  Speaker 1: they're tennis shoes, and I'm sort of helpless without them.
• 4:31:57
  Speaker 1: My address is care of B. F. Dot. I didn't
• 4:31:59
  Speaker 1: hear the rest of the name because I hung up
• 4:32:02
  Speaker 1: the receiver. After that, I felt a certain shame for Gatsby.
• 4:32:06
  Speaker 1: One gentleman to whom I telephoned implied that he had
• 4:32:09
  Speaker 1: got what he deserved. However, that was my fault, for
• 4:32:13
  Speaker 1: he was one of those who used to sneer most
• 4:32:15
  Speaker 1: bitterly at Gatsby on the courage of Gatsby's liquor, and
• 4:32:18
  Speaker 1: I should have known better than to call him. The
• 4:32:21
  Speaker 1: morning of the funeral, I went up to New York
• 4:32:23
  Speaker 1: to see Meyer Wolfshiam. I couldn't seem to reach him
• 4:32:26
  Speaker 1: any other way. The door that I pushed open on
• 4:32:29
  Speaker 1: the advice of an elevator boy was marked the Swastika
• 4:32:32
  Speaker 1: Holding Company, and at first there didn't seem to be
• 4:32:35
  Speaker 1: any one inside. But when I'd shouted hello several times
• 4:32:39
  Speaker 1: in vain, an argument broke out behind a partition, and
• 4:32:42
  Speaker 1: presently a lovely jewess appeared at an interior door and
• 4:32:46
  Speaker 1: scrutinized me with black, hostile eyes. Nobody's in, she said,
• 4:32:51
  Speaker 1: mister Wolfsheam's gone to Chicago. The first part of this
• 4:32:56
  Speaker 1: was obviously untrue, for some one had begun to whistle
• 4:32:59
  Speaker 1: the rosary tunelessly inside. Please say that mister Carraway wants
• 4:33:04
  Speaker 1: to see him. I can't get him back from Chicago,
• 4:33:07
  Speaker 1: can I? At this moment, a voice unmistakably Wolfsheum's called
• 4:33:12
  Speaker 1: Stella from the other side of the door. Leave your
• 4:33:16
  Speaker 1: name on the desk, she said quickly. I'll give it
• 4:33:19
  Speaker 1: to him when he gets back. But I know he's there.
• 4:33:24
  Speaker 1: She took a step toward me and began to slide
• 4:33:26
  Speaker 1: her hands indignantly up and down her hips. You young
• 4:33:30
  Speaker 1: men think you can force your way in here any time,
• 4:33:32
  Speaker 1: she scolded. We're getting sick and tired of it. When
• 4:33:37
  Speaker 1: I say he's in Chicago. He's in Chicago, I mention Gatsby.
• 4:33:42
  Speaker 1: O h. She looked at me over again. Will you
• 4:33:47
  Speaker 1: just what was your name? She vanished in a moment,
• 4:33:51
  Speaker 1: myer wolfsheum stood solemnly in the doorway, holding out both hands.
• 4:33:56
  Speaker 1: He drew me into his office, remarking in a reverent
• 4:33:59
  Speaker 1: voice that it was a sad time for all of us,
• 4:34:02
  Speaker 1: and offered me a cigar. My memory goes back to
• 4:34:05
  Speaker 1: when first I met him. He said, a young major,
• 4:34:09
  Speaker 1: just out of the army and covered over with medals
• 4:34:11
  Speaker 1: he got in the war. He was so hard up
• 4:34:14
  Speaker 1: he had to keep on wearing his uniform because he
• 4:34:17
  Speaker 1: couldn't buy some regular clothes. First time I saw him
• 4:34:20
  Speaker 1: was when he came into Winebrenner's pool room at forty
• 4:34:23
  Speaker 1: third Street and asked for a job. He hadn't eat
• 4:34:26
  Speaker 1: anything for a couple of days. Come on have some
• 4:34:30
  Speaker 1: lunch with me, I said. He ate more than four
• 4:34:33
  Speaker 1: dollars worth of food in half an hour. Did you
• 4:34:36
  Speaker 1: start him in business? I inquired, Start him? I made him? Oh,
• 4:34:45
  Speaker 1: I raised him up out of nothing, right out of
• 4:34:47
  Speaker 1: the gutter. I saw right away he was a fine appearing,
• 4:34:51
  Speaker 1: gentlemanly young man. And when he told me he was
• 4:34:53
  Speaker 1: at Oxford, I knew I could use him good. I
• 4:34:57
  Speaker 1: got him to join the American Legion, and he used
• 4:34:59
  Speaker 1: to stand high there. Right off, he did some work
• 4:35:02
  Speaker 1: for a client of mine up to Albany. We were
• 4:35:05
  Speaker 1: so thick like that in everything, he held up two
• 4:35:08
  Speaker 1: bulbous fingers, always together. I wondered if this partnership had
• 4:35:13
  Speaker 1: included the World Series transaction in nineteen nineteen. Now he's dead,
• 4:35:18
  Speaker 1: I said, after a moment. You were his closest friend,
• 4:35:22
  Speaker 1: so I know you'll want to come to his funeral
• 4:35:24
  Speaker 1: this afternoon. I'd like to come, well. Come. Then the
• 4:35:29
  Speaker 1: hair in his nostrils quivered slightly, and as he shook
• 4:35:32
  Speaker 1: his head, his eyes filled with tears. I can't do it.
• 4:35:36
  Speaker 1: I can't get mixed up in it, he said. There's
• 4:35:39
  Speaker 1: nothing to get mixed up in. It's all over now.
• 4:35:44
  Speaker 1: When a man gets killed. I never like to get
• 4:35:46
  Speaker 1: mixed up in it. In any way I keep out.
• 4:35:50
  Speaker 1: When I was a young man, it was different if
• 4:35:52
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine died, no matter how I stuck
• 4:35:55
  Speaker 1: with them to the end. You may think that's sentimental,
• 4:35:59
  Speaker 1: but I mean it to the bitter end. I saw
• 4:36:02
  Speaker 1: that for some reason of his own, he was determined
• 4:36:04
  Speaker 1: not to come. So I stood up. Are you a
• 4:36:07
  Speaker 1: college man, he inquired suddenly. For a moment I thought
• 4:36:11
  Speaker 1: he was going to suggest a connection, but he only
• 4:36:14
  Speaker 1: nodded and shook my hand. Let us learn to show
• 4:36:18
  Speaker 1: our friendship for a man when he is alive, and
• 4:36:20
  Speaker 1: not after he is dead, he suggested. After that, My
• 4:36:24
  Speaker 1: own rule is to let everything alone. When I left
• 4:36:27
  Speaker 1: his office, the sky had turned dark, and I got
• 4:36:30
  Speaker 1: back to West Egg in a drizzle. After changing my clothes,
• 4:36:34
  Speaker 1: I went next door and found mister Gatts walking up
• 4:36:36
  Speaker 1: and down excitedly in the hall. His pride in his
• 4:36:40
  Speaker 1: son and in his son's possessions was continually increasing, and
• 4:36:43
  Speaker 1: now he had something to show me. Jimmy sent me
• 4:36:47
  Speaker 1: this picture. He took out his wallet with trembling fingers.
• 4:36:52
  Speaker 1: Look there. It was a photograph of the house, cracked
• 4:36:56
  Speaker 1: in the corners and dirty. With many hands, he pointed
• 4:36:59
  Speaker 1: out every detailed to me eagerly. Look there, and then
• 4:37:03
  Speaker 1: sought admiration from my eyes. He had shown it so
• 4:37:07
  Speaker 1: often that I think it was more real to him
• 4:37:09
  Speaker 1: now than the house itself. Jimmy send it to me.
• 4:37:13
  Speaker 1: I think it's a very pretty picture. It shows up well,
• 4:37:18
  Speaker 1: very well. Had you seen him lately. He come out
• 4:37:22
  Speaker 1: to see me two years ago and bought me the
• 4:37:24
  Speaker 1: house I live in now. Of course we was broke
• 4:37:28
  Speaker 1: up when he run off from home, but I see
• 4:37:30
  Speaker 1: now there was a reason for it. He knew he
• 4:37:33
  Speaker 1: had a big future in front of him, and ever
• 4:37:36
  Speaker 1: since he made a success, he was very generous with me.
• 4:37:40
  Speaker 1: He seemed reluctant to put away the picture, held it
• 4:37:42
  Speaker 1: for another minute, lingeringly before my eyes. Then he returned
• 4:37:47
  Speaker 1: the wallet and pulled from his pocket a ragged old
• 4:37:50
  Speaker 1: copy of a book called Hopolong Cassidy. Look here, this
• 4:37:54
  Speaker 1: is a book he had when he was a boy.
• 4:37:57
  Speaker 1: It just shows you. He opened it at the back
• 4:38:00
  Speaker 1: cover and turned it around for me to see. On
• 4:38:03
  Speaker 1: the last fly leaf was printed the word schedule and
• 4:38:06
  Speaker 1: the date September twelfth, nineteen o six, and underneath rise
• 4:38:11
  Speaker 1: from bed six a m dumbbell exercise in wall scaling
• 4:38:14
  Speaker 1: six fifteen, six thirty study Electricity, et cetera. Seven fifteen,
• 4:38:19
  Speaker 1: eight fifteen Work eight thirty four thirty p m. Baseball
• 4:38:24
  Speaker 1: and Sports four thirty five o'clock practice, elocution poise and
• 4:38:28
  Speaker 1: how to attain at five o'clock six o'clock study needed inventions,
• 4:38:33
  Speaker 1: seven o'clock nine o'clock general resolves. No wasting time at
• 4:38:37
  Speaker 1: shafters or a name indecipherable. No more smoking or chewing
• 4:38:42
  Speaker 1: bath every other day. Read one improving book or magazine
• 4:38:45
  Speaker 1: per week, save five dollars crossed out three dollars per week.
• 4:38:50
  Speaker 1: Be better to parents. I came across this book by accident,
• 4:38:53
  Speaker 1: said the old man. It just shows you, don't it.
• 4:38:57
  Speaker 1: It just shows you. He was bound to get ahead.
• 4:39:02
  Speaker 1: He always had some resolves like this or something. Do
• 4:39:06
  Speaker 1: you notice what he's got about improving his mind? He
• 4:39:09
  Speaker 1: was always great for that. He told me I eat
• 4:39:12
  Speaker 1: like a hog once, and I beat him for it.
• 4:39:16
  Speaker 1: He was reluctant to close the book, reading each item aloud,
• 4:39:19
  Speaker 1: and then looking eagerly at me. I think he rather
• 4:39:22
  Speaker 1: expected me to copy down the list for my own use.
• 4:39:26
  Speaker 1: A little before three, the Lutheran minister arrived from Flushing,
• 4:39:30
  Speaker 1: and I began to look involuntarily out the windows for
• 4:39:32
  Speaker 1: other cars. So did Gatsby's father. And as the time
• 4:39:37
  Speaker 1: passed and the servants came in and stood waiting in
• 4:39:40
  Speaker 1: the hall, his eyes began to blink anxiously, and he
• 4:39:43
  Speaker 1: spoke of the rain in a worried, uncertain way. The
• 4:39:47
  Speaker 1: Minister glanced several times at his watch, so I took
• 4:39:50
  Speaker 1: him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour.
• 4:39:53
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't any use. Nobody came. About five o'clock,
• 4:39:58
  Speaker 1: our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped
• 4:40:02
  Speaker 1: in a thick drizzle beside the gate. First a motor hearse,
• 4:40:05
  Speaker 1: horribly black and wet. Then mister Gatts and the Minister
• 4:40:08
  Speaker 1: and me in the limousine, and a little later four
• 4:40:11
  Speaker 1: or five servants and the postman from West Egg in
• 4:40:14
  Speaker 1: Gatsby's station wagon, all wet to the skin. As we
• 4:40:18
  Speaker 1: started through the gate into the cemetery, I heard a
• 4:40:20
  Speaker 1: car stop, and then the sound of someone splashing after
• 4:40:23
  Speaker 1: us over the soggy ground. I looked around. It was
• 4:40:28
  Speaker 1: the man with outlied glasses, whom I had found marveling
• 4:40:31
  Speaker 1: over Gatsby's books in the library one night three months before.
• 4:40:35
  Speaker 1: I'd never seen him since then. I don't know how
• 4:40:38
  Speaker 1: he knew about the funeral, or even his name. The
• 4:40:42
  Speaker 1: rain poured down his thick glasses and he took them
• 4:40:45
  Speaker 1: off and wiped them to see the protecting canvass unrolled
• 4:40:48
  Speaker 1: from Gatsby's grave. I tried to think about Gatsby then
• 4:40:52
  Speaker 1: for a moment, but he was already too far away,
• 4:40:55
  Speaker 1: and I could only remember without resentment that Daisy hadn't
• 4:40:58
  Speaker 1: sent a message or a flower. Dimly, I heard someone murmur,
• 4:41:03
  Speaker 1: blessed are the dead that the rain falls on, And
• 4:41:05
  Speaker 1: then the allied man said, amen to that in a
• 4:41:08
  Speaker 1: brave voice. We straggled down quickly through the rain to
• 4:41:12
  Speaker 1: the cars. Awlies spoke to me by the gate. I
• 4:41:17
  Speaker 1: couldn't get to the house, he remarked, neither could anybody else.
• 4:41:22
  Speaker 1: Go on, he started, Why my god, they used to
• 4:41:28
  Speaker 1: go there by the hundreds. He took off his glasses
• 4:41:32
  Speaker 1: and wiped them again outside an inn. The poor son
• 4:41:36
  Speaker 1: of a bitch, he said. One of my most vivid
• 4:41:39
  Speaker 1: memories is of coming back west from prep school and
• 4:41:42
  Speaker 1: later from college. At Christmas time. Those who went farther
• 4:41:46
  Speaker 1: than Chicago would gather in the old dim Union station
• 4:41:49
  Speaker 1: at six o'clock of a December evening with a few
• 4:41:51
  Speaker 1: Chicago friends already caught up into their own holiday gaieties,
• 4:41:55
  Speaker 1: to bid them a hasty goodbye. I remember the fur
• 4:41:59
  Speaker 1: coats of the girls returning from mistic orvettees, and the
• 4:42:02
  Speaker 1: chatter of frozen breath, and the hands waving overhead as
• 4:42:05
  Speaker 1: we caught sight of old acquaintances, and the matchings of
• 4:42:07
  Speaker 1: invitations are you going to? The ordways? The Hereses, the Shulsas,
• 4:42:13
  Speaker 1: and the long green tickets clasped tight in our gloved hands.
• 4:42:18
  Speaker 1: And last the murky yellow cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee
• 4:42:21
  Speaker 1: and Saint Paul Railroad, looking cheerful as Christmas itself on
• 4:42:25
  Speaker 1: the tracks beside the gate. When we pulled out into
• 4:42:28
  Speaker 1: the winter night and the real snow. Our snow began
• 4:42:31
  Speaker 1: to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows
• 4:42:35
  Speaker 1: and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations. Moved by
• 4:42:38
  Speaker 1: a sharp, wild brace, came suddenly into the air. We
• 4:42:42
  Speaker 1: drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back
• 4:42:44
  Speaker 1: from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our
• 4:42:48
  Speaker 1: identity with this country for one strange hour before we
• 4:42:51
  Speaker 1: melted indistinguishably into it again. That's my Middle West. Not
• 4:42:56
  Speaker 1: the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns,
• 4:42:59
  Speaker 1: but the thrilling, turning trains of my youth, and the
• 4:43:02
  Speaker 1: street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark, and
• 4:43:04
  Speaker 1: the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on
• 4:43:07
  Speaker 1: the snow. I am part of that, a little solemn,
• 4:43:11
  Speaker 1: with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent
• 4:43:14
  Speaker 1: from growing up in the Carraway house, in a city
• 4:43:16
  Speaker 1: where dwellings are still called through decades by a family's name.
• 4:43:20
  Speaker 1: I see now that this has been a story of
• 4:43:22
  Speaker 1: the West. After all, Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan
• 4:43:26
  Speaker 1: and I were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some
• 4:43:30
  Speaker 1: deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life,
• 4:43:35
  Speaker 1: even when the East excited me most, even when I
• 4:43:37
  Speaker 1: was most keenly aware of its superiority to the board sprawling,
• 4:43:41
  Speaker 1: swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which
• 4:43:46
  Speaker 1: spared only the children and the very old. Even then,
• 4:43:48
  Speaker 1: it had always for me a quality of distortion. West
• 4:43:52
  Speaker 1: Egg especially still figures in my more fantastic dreams. I
• 4:43:57
  Speaker 1: see it as a night scene by el Greco. A
• 4:44:00
  Speaker 1: hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen,
• 4:44:05
  Speaker 1: overhanging sky, and a lustreless moon. In the four ground,
• 4:44:09
  Speaker 1: four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the
• 4:44:12
  Speaker 1: sidewalk with a stretcher, on which lies a drunken woman
• 4:44:14
  Speaker 1: in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles over
• 4:44:18
  Speaker 1: the side, sparkles cold with jewels. Gravely, the men turn
• 4:44:23
  Speaker 1: in at a house, the wrong house, but no one
• 4:44:26
  Speaker 1: knows the woman's name, and no one cares. After Gatsby's death,
• 4:44:31
  Speaker 1: the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond
• 4:44:34
  Speaker 1: my eye's power of correction. So when the blue smoke
• 4:44:37
  Speaker 1: of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind
• 4:44:40
  Speaker 1: blew the wet laundry stiff on the line, I decided
• 4:44:42
  Speaker 1: to come back home. There was one thing to be
• 4:44:45
  Speaker 1: done before I left, an awkward, unpleasant thing that perhaps
• 4:44:49
  Speaker 1: had better have been let alone. But I wanted to
• 4:44:52
  Speaker 1: leave things in order, and not just trust that obliging
• 4:44:55
  Speaker 1: and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away. I saw
• 4:44:59
  Speaker 1: Jordan Baker talked over and around what had happened to
• 4:45:01
  Speaker 1: us together and what had happened afterward to me, and
• 4:45:04
  Speaker 1: she lay perfectly still listening in a big chair. She
• 4:45:09
  Speaker 1: was dressed to play golf, and I remember thinking she
• 4:45:11
  Speaker 1: looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little jauntily,
• 4:45:15
  Speaker 1: her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face
• 4:45:18
  Speaker 1: the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee.
• 4:45:22
  Speaker 1: When I had finished, she told me, without comment that
• 4:45:24
  Speaker 1: she was engaged to another man. I doubted that, though
• 4:45:28
  Speaker 1: there were several she could have married at a nod
• 4:45:30
  Speaker 1: of her head. But I pretended to be surprised. For
• 4:45:34
  Speaker 1: just a minute. I wondered if I wasn't making a mistake.
• 4:45:37
  Speaker 1: Then I thought it all over again quickly, and got
• 4:45:39
  Speaker 1: up to say goodbye. Nevertheless, you did throw me over,
• 4:45:43
  Speaker 1: said Jordan. Suddenly, you threw me over on the telephone.
• 4:45:48
  Speaker 1: I don't give a damn about you now, but it
• 4:45:50
  Speaker 1: was a new experience for me, and I felt a
• 4:45:53
  Speaker 1: little dizzy for a while. We shook hands. Oh, and
• 4:45:57
  Speaker 1: do you remember, she added a conversation we had once
• 4:46:01
  Speaker 1: about driving a car. Why not exactly? You said a
• 4:46:06
  Speaker 1: bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver. Well,
• 4:46:10
  Speaker 1: I met another bad driver, didn't I. I mean, it
• 4:46:14
  Speaker 1: was careless of me to make such a wrong guess.
• 4:46:17
  Speaker 1: I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I
• 4:46:21
  Speaker 1: thought it was your secret pride I'm thirty, I said,
• 4:46:26
  Speaker 1: I'm five years too old to lie to myself and
• 4:46:28
  Speaker 1: call it honor. She didn't answer. Angry and half in
• 4:46:33
  Speaker 1: love with her and tremendously sorry, I turned away. One
• 4:46:38
  Speaker 1: afternoon late in October, I saw Tom Buchanan. He was
• 4:46:42
  Speaker 1: walking ahead of me along Fifth Avenue in his alert,
• 4:46:45
  Speaker 1: aggressive way, his hands out a little from his body
• 4:46:47
  Speaker 1: as if to fight off interference, his head moving sharply
• 4:46:51
  Speaker 1: here and there, adapting itself to his restless eyes. Just
• 4:46:55
  Speaker 1: as I slowed up to avoid overtaking him, he stopped
• 4:46:58
  Speaker 1: and began frowning into the windows of a jewelry's door.
• 4:47:01
  Speaker 1: Suddenly he saw me and walked back, holding out his hand.
• 4:47:06
  Speaker 1: What's the matter, Nick, Do you object to shaking hands
• 4:47:10
  Speaker 1: with me? Yes, you know what I think of you.
• 4:47:14
  Speaker 1: You're crazy, Nick, he said, quickly, crazy as hell. I
• 4:47:20
  Speaker 1: don't know what's the matter with you, Tom, I inquired,
• 4:47:24
  Speaker 1: what did you say to Wilson that afternoon? He stared
• 4:47:27
  Speaker 1: at me without a word, and I knew I had
• 4:47:30
  Speaker 1: guessed right about those missing hours. I started to turn away,
• 4:47:34
  Speaker 1: but he took a step after me and grabbed my arm.
• 4:47:38
  Speaker 1: I told him the truth, he said, he came to
• 4:47:41
  Speaker 1: the door while we were getting ready to leave, and
• 4:47:43
  Speaker 1: when I sent down word that we weren't, and he
• 4:47:45
  Speaker 1: tried to force his way upstairs. He was crazy enough
• 4:47:49
  Speaker 1: to kill me if I hadn't told him who owned
• 4:47:51
  Speaker 1: the car. His hand was on a revolver in his
• 4:47:54
  Speaker 1: pocket every minute he was in the house. He broke
• 4:47:57
  Speaker 1: off defiantly. What if I did tell him that Fellow
• 4:48:02
  Speaker 1: had it coming to him? He threw dust into your eyes,
• 4:48:05
  Speaker 1: just like he did in Daisies. But he was a
• 4:48:07
  Speaker 1: tough one. He ran over myrtle like you'd run over
• 4:48:11
  Speaker 1: a dog, and never even stopped his car. There was
• 4:48:14
  Speaker 1: nothing I could say except the one unutterable fact that
• 4:48:17
  Speaker 1: it wasn't true. And if you think I didn't have
• 4:48:20
  Speaker 1: my share of suffering, look here. When I went to
• 4:48:23
  Speaker 1: give up that flat and saw that damn box of
• 4:48:25
  Speaker 1: dog biscuits sitting there on the sideboard, I sat down
• 4:48:29
  Speaker 1: and cried like a baby. By God, it was awful.
• 4:48:32
  Speaker 1: I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw
• 4:48:35
  Speaker 1: that what he had done was to him entirely justified.
• 4:48:39
  Speaker 1: It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people,
• 4:48:44
  Speaker 1: Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and creatures, and
• 4:48:47
  Speaker 1: then retreated back into their money, or their vast carelessness,
• 4:48:51
  Speaker 1: or whatever it was that kept them together, and let
• 4:48:53
  Speaker 1: other people clean up the mess they had made. I
• 4:48:57
  Speaker 1: shook hands with him. It seemed silly not to, for
• 4:49:00
  Speaker 1: I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child.
• 4:49:04
  Speaker 1: Then he went into the jeweler's store to buy a
• 4:49:06
  Speaker 1: pearl necklace, or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons.
• 4:49:10
  Speaker 1: Rid of my provincial squeamishness. Forever, Gatsby's house was still
• 4:49:14
  Speaker 1: empty when I left. The grass on his lawn had
• 4:49:17
  Speaker 1: grown as long as mine. One of the taxi drivers
• 4:49:21
  Speaker 1: in the village never took a fare past the entrance
• 4:49:23
  Speaker 1: gate without stopping for a minute and pointing inside. Perhaps
• 4:49:27
  Speaker 1: it was he who drove Daisy and Gatsby over to
• 4:49:29
  Speaker 1: East Egg the night of the accident, and perhaps he
• 4:49:32
  Speaker 1: had made a story about it all his own. I
• 4:49:35
  Speaker 1: didn't want to hear it, and I avoided him when
• 4:49:37
  Speaker 1: I got off the train. I spent my Saturday nights
• 4:49:40
  Speaker 1: in New York because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his
• 4:49:43
  Speaker 1: were with me so vividly that I could still hear
• 4:49:46
  Speaker 1: the music in the laughter faint and incessant from his garden,
• 4:49:49
  Speaker 1: and the cars going up and down his drive. One
• 4:49:53
  Speaker 1: night I did hear a material car there and saw
• 4:49:55
  Speaker 1: its light stop at his front steps, but I didn't investigate.
• 4:50:00
  Speaker 1: Probably it was some final guest who had been away
• 4:50:03
  Speaker 1: at the ends of the earth and didn't know that
• 4:50:05
  Speaker 1: the party was over. On the last night, with my
• 4:50:08
  Speaker 1: trunk packed and my car sold to the grocer, I
• 4:50:11
  Speaker 1: went over and looked at that huge, incoherent failure of
• 4:50:13
  Speaker 1: a house once more. On the white steps. An obscene
• 4:50:17
  Speaker 1: word scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick
• 4:50:20
  Speaker 1: stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it,
• 4:50:23
  Speaker 1: drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone. Then I wandered
• 4:50:27
  Speaker 1: down to the beach and sprawled out on the sand.
• 4:50:31
  Speaker 1: Most of the big shore places were closed now, and
• 4:50:33
  Speaker 1: there were hardly any lights except the shadowy moving glow
• 4:50:37
  Speaker 1: of a ferryboat across the sound. And as the moon
• 4:50:40
  Speaker 1: rose higher, the innosential houses began to melt away, until
• 4:50:43
  Speaker 1: gradually I became aware of the old island here that
• 4:50:46
  Speaker 1: flowered once for Dutch sailor's eyes, a fresh green breast
• 4:50:50
  Speaker 1: of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that
• 4:50:54
  Speaker 1: had made way for Gatsby's house had once pandered in
• 4:50:57
  Speaker 1: whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams.
• 4:51:00
  Speaker 1: For a transitory, enchanted moment. Man must have held his
• 4:51:03
  Speaker 1: breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an
• 4:51:06
  Speaker 1: esthetic contemplation. He neither understood nor desired, face to face
• 4:51:11
  Speaker 1: for the last time in history with something commensurate to
• 4:51:13
  Speaker 1: his capacity for wonder. And as I sat there, brooding
• 4:51:17
  Speaker 1: on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder.
• 4:51:20
  Speaker 1: When he first picked out the green light at the
• 4:51:22
  Speaker 1: end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way
• 4:51:26
  Speaker 1: to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed
• 4:51:28
  Speaker 1: so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.
• 4:51:32
  Speaker 1: He did not know that it was already behind him,
• 4:51:34
  Speaker 1: somewhere back in that vast obscurity, beyond the city, where
• 4:51:38
  Speaker 1: the dark fields of the Republic rolled on under the night.
• 4:51:41
  Speaker 1: Gatsby believed in the green light the orgiastic future that
• 4:51:45
  Speaker 1: year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then,
• 4:51:49
  Speaker 1: but that's no matter. Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch
• 4:51:53
  Speaker 1: out our arms further. And one fine morning so we
• 4:51:56
  Speaker 1: beat on boats against the current borne back ceasily into
• 4:52:00
  Speaker 1: the past. Thanks for the listening. The Gatsby Book