The Great Gatsby

On a warm windy evening Nick drove over to East Egg to see two Daisy and Tom Buchanan whom he scarcely knew at all. Their house was a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

Tom was a brutal, hulking man, sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. He was a former Yale football player who, like Nick and Daisy, comes from an elite mid-western family. Despite his physical stature and his high status, Tom is an insecure and paranoid man, perpetually concerned with what he sees as the downfall of society and the loss of his own high status. He has two shinning, arrogant eyes gad established dominance over his face and gave him the aggressively forward. He has a cruel body.

Tom: Speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it. "Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final, just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are."

They talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

Tom: "I've got a nice place here, his eyes flashing about restlessly. Turning Nick around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half-acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motorboat that bumped the tide off shore. It belonged to Demaine the oilman. He turned Nick around again, politely and abruptly. We'll go inside."

They walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. Nick stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. The Tom shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

Daisy was born in Daisy Fay. She was Nick's cousin, and the wife of Tom Buchanan. She was insubstantial and vapid, a careless woman who uses her frail demeanor as an excuse for immaturity.

Daisy made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and Nick laughed too and came forward into the room.

Daisy: "I'm p-paralyzed with happiness." Laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held Nick hand for a moment, looking up into his face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see.

Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at Nick almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back again. There's a sort of apology arose to Nick's lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from Nick.

He looked back at my cousin who began to ask him question in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright thing in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in her voice that man who had cared for her found difficult to forget.

Daisy: A singing compulsion, a whispered " Listen" a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

Daisy: "Do they miss me?" cried ecstatically.

Nick: "The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there's a persistent wail all night along the North Shore."

Daisy: "How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow!" added irrelevantly, You ought to see the baby."

Nick: "I'd like to."

Daisy: "She's asleep. She's two years old. Haven't you ever seen her?"

Nick: "Never."

Daisy: "Well, you ought to see her. She's—"

Tom: who had been hovering restlessly about the room stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder. "What you doing, Nick?"

Nick: "I'm a bind man."

Tom: "With who?"

Nick told him.

Tom: "Never heard of them," remarked decisively.

Nick: "You will, answered shortly. You will if you stay in the East."

Tom: "Oh, I'll stay in the East, don't you worry, glancing at Daisy and then at me as if he were alert for something more. I'd be a God Damn fool to live anywhere else."

Miss Baker: With suddenness "Absolutely"

Miss Baker a longtime friend of Daisy, Jordan Baker is a professional golfer whose reputation has been tarnished by accusations of cheating. Her cynical, icy demeanor draws the attention of Nick She was a slender, small-breasted girl with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulder like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face.

Miss Baker: "I'm stiff, complained. I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember."

Daisy: "Don't look at me, Daisy retorted. I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon."

Miss Baker: "No, thanks, to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, I'm absolutely in training."

Her host looked at her incredulously.

Tom: "You are! he took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. How you ever get anything done is beyond me."

Nick: looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she "got done."

Miss Baker: "You live in West Egg, remarked contemptuously, I know somebody there."

Nick: "I don't know a single—"

Miss Baker: "You must know Gatsby."

Daisy: "Gatsby? Demanded What Gatsby?"

Before Nick could reply that he was his neighbor dinner was announced: wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine Tom Buchanan compelled Nick from the room as through he was moving a checker to another square.

Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two young women preceded Nick and Tom out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

Daisy: "Why candles? objected frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year. She looked at her husband and Nick all radiantly. Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

Miss Baker: yawned, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed. "We ought to plan something"

Daisy: "All right, what'll we plan? she turned to Nick helplessly. What do people plan?"

Before Nick could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.

Daisy: "Look! complained. I hurt it."

They all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.

Daisy: "You did it, Tom, she said accusingly. I know you didn't mean to but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a—"

Tom: "I hate that word hulking, objected crossly, even in kidding."

Daisy: insisted "Hulking,"

Nick: "You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy, confessed on his second glass of corky but rather impressive claret can't you talk about crops or something?"

Tom: "Civilization's going to pieces, broke out violently. I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about thing. Have you read 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

Nick: "Why, no," answered, rather surprised by his tone.

Tom: "Well, its' a fine book and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

Daisy: "Tom's getting very profound, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—"

Tom: "Well, these books are all scientific, insisted glancing at her impatiently this fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

Daisy: "We've got to beat them down," whispered, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

Miss Baker: Began "You ought to live in California—" Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

Tom: "This idea is that we're Nordics. I am and you are and you are and— after an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at Nick again, —and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?"

There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward Nick.

Daisy: "I'll tell you a family secret, whispered enthusiastically. It's about the butler's nose. Do you wan to hear about the butler's nose?"

Nick: "That's why I can over tonight."

Daisy: "Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver publisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it form morning till night until finally it began to affect his nose—"

Miss Baker: "Things went from bad to worse," suggested.

Daisy: "Yes. Things went from bad to worse until finally he had to give up his position."

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon Daisy's glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as Nick listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.

Daisy: "I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a —of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn't he? Turned to Miss Baker for confirmation an absolute rose?"

She was only extemporizing but stirring warmth flowed from her as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house. Miss Baker and Nick exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning.

Miss Baker: sat up alertly and said "Sh!" in a warning voice.

A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond and Miss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly and the ceased althoughter.

Nick: "This Mr.Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor—"

Miss Baker: "Don't talk. I want to hear what happens."

Nick: "Is something happening?" inquired innocently.

Miss Baker: "You mean to say you don’t know? honestly surprised. I thought everybody knew."

Nick: "I don't."

Miss Baker: "Why— hesitantly, Tom's got some woman in New York."

Nick: "Got some woman" repeated blankly.

Miss Baker nodded.

Miss Baker: "She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner-time. Don't you think?"

Almost before Nick had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch if leather boots, Tom, and Daisy were back at the table.

Daisy: "It couldn't be helped!" cried with tense gayety.

Daisy: Sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me and continued, "I looked outdoors for a minute and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away— voice sang —It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?"

Tom: "Very romantic, miserably at me if it's light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the stables."

The telephone ranges inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom at the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last minutes at table.

Tom and Miss Baker with several feet of twilight between them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf Nick followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee. Daisy too her face in her hands, as if feelings its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. Nick saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so he asked what he thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.

Daisy: Suddenly "We don't know each other very well, Nick, even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding."

Nick: "I wasn't back from the war."

Daisy: hesitated "That's true. Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything."

Evidently she had reason to be. Nick waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment he returned rather feebly to the subjects of her daughter.

Nick: "I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything."

Daisy: "Oh, yes. Looked at Nick absently. Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to heard?"

Nick: "Very much."

Daisy: "It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, ' I'm glad it's a girl. An I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.' You see I think everything's terrible anyhow, went on in a convinced way everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything. Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn Sophisticated—God, I'm sophisticated!"

Daisy looked at Nick with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the "Saturday Evening Post"—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms. When Nick and Daisy came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.

Miss Baker: "To be continued, tossing the magazine on the table, in our very next issue. Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up. Ten o'clock, remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling time for this good girl to go to bed."

Daisy: "Jordan's going to play in the tournament tomorrow, explained over at Westchester."

Miss Baker: "Good night, said softly. Wake me at eight, won't you."

Nick: "If you'll get up."

Miss Baker: "I will. Good night, Mr.Carraway. See you anon."

Daisy: Confirmed "Of course you will, in fact I think I'll arrange you a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in lined closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—"

Miss Baker: Called from the stairs "Good night, I haven't heard a word."

Tom: After a moment " She's a nice girl, they oughtn't to let her run around the country this way."

Daisy: "Who oughtn't to?" inquired coldly.

Tom: "Her family."

Daisy: "Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's going to look after her, aren't you, Nick? She's going to spend lost if week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her."

Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.

Nick: Quickly "Is she from New York?"

Daisy: "From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—"

Tom: "Did you give Nick a little heart-to-heart talk in the veranda?" demanded suddenly.

Daisy: "Did I? Look at Nick, I can't seemed to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I'm sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—"

Tom: "Don't believe everything you hear, Nick," advised Nick.

Nick said lightly that he had heart nothing at all, and a few minutes later he got up to go home. They came to the door with him and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light.

Daisy: Peremptorily called "waited! As Nick started his motor I forgot to ask you something, and it's important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West."

Tom: Corroborated kindly "That's right, we heard that you were engaged."

Nick: "It's a libel. I'm too poor."

Daisy: Insisted, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. " But we heard it, we heard it form three people so it must be true."

Their interests rather touched Nick and make them less remotely rich—nevertheless, Nick confused and a little disgusted as he drove away. When Nick reached his estate at West Egg he ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight and Nick turning his head to watch it he saw a figure had emerged from the shadow of his neighbor's mansion fifty feet away and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. It was Mr.Gatsby. Nick decided to call to him, but he didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and Mr.Gatsby was trembling. Involuntarily Nick glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been end of a dock. When he looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and Nick was alone in the unquiet darkness.