Chapter 2 Chapter two

About halfway between West Egg and New York, the motorway hastily joins the railroad, which runs a quarter of a mile beside it to escape the desert.It is a valley of ashes--a strange farm where ashes grow like wheat, into hills and hills and grotesque gardens.Here the ashes take the form of houses, chimneys, and cooking smoke, and finally, with a transcendent effort, of gray figures who move dimly and have already crumbled in the dusty air.Sometimes a line of gray trucks crawls slowly along an invisible track, stops with a ghostly creak, and immediately those gray people swarm up with shovels, kicking up a cloud of dust, which you can't see. to their secret activities.

But above this gray land and the dull puffs of dust that perpetually hang over it, you catch the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg in a moment.Dr. Eckleburg's eyes were blue and gigantic--the pupils were a yard high.The eyes looked out not from a face, but from a pair of monstrous yellow spectacles perched on a nose that didn't exist.Apparently a whimsical ophthalmologist stuck them there in order to recruit business, expand his practice in Queens, and presumably closed his eyes for good himself, or left them and moved on.But his remaining eyes, dimmed by age, sun, rain, and peeling paint, still looked pensively down upon the somber heap of ashes.

There was a dirty little river running on one side of the valley of ashes, and every time the suspension bridge over the river was pulled up to let the barges pass, the passengers on the train waiting to cross the bridge had to stare at this bleak scene for as long as half an hour.Usually the train stops here for at least a minute, and it was on this account that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress. He had a mistress, a fact that was accepted by all who knew him.His acquaintances were indignant because he used to take her to trendy restaurants and, after sitting her down at a table, walk up and down talking to people he knew.Curious as I was to see her, I didn't want to meet her--but I saw her, and Tom and I took the train up to New York one afternoon.When we stopped at the pile of ashes, he jumped up, grabbed my elbow, and practically forced me out of the car.

"Let's get off here," he said firmly, "I want you to meet my girlfriend." He probably had enough at lunch that day that his insistence on my company bordered on violence.His hubris was that I didn't seem to have anything more interesting to do on Sunday afternoons. I followed him over a low row of whitewashed railroad fences, and walked back along the road a hundred yards, under the watchful eye of Doctor Eckleburg.The only buildings in sight were a small row of yellow brick houses at the edge of the wasteland, presumably a small "main street" for the necessities of life of the local population, with nothing on either side.There were three shops in the row, one for rent, another an all-night restaurant with a slag walk in front of it, and a third an auto repair shop--"George B. Wilson. Repairs cars. Buys and sells cars." I followed Tom in. ①Small towns in the United States often have only one main street, and the shops are concentrated on this street, commonly known as "Main Street".

There was no prosperity in the garage, it was empty.There was only one car in sight, a dusty, dilapidated Ford, squatting in a dark corner.It occurred to me that this titular dealership might be a front, with luxurious and cozy rooms hidden upstairs, when the boss appeared at the door of an office, wiping his hands on a rag.He was a blond, listless man, with a pale face, and not ugly.As soon as he saw us, there was a dim glimmer of hope in those pale blue eyes. "Hello, Wilson, you fellow," said Tom, patting him on the shoulder jokingly, "how's business?" "Fine," Wilson replied weakly. "When are you going to sell me that car?"

"Next week. I've got my driver working on it now." "He works slowly, doesn't he?" "No, he's not slow," said Tom coldly. "If you think so, perhaps I'd better sell it elsewhere." "That's not what I meant," Wilson explained hastily, "I'm just saying..." His voice faded away while Tom looked around the garage impatiently.Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and after a while the thick figure of a woman blocked the light from the office door.She is thirty-five or sixteen years old and has a fat body, but like some women, she is fat and beautiful.She wore a dark blue crepe de chine dress with oil stains, her face was devoid of beauty, but she had a palpable vitality, as if all the nerves in her body were constantly burning.She smiled slowly, and swaggered past her husband as if he were only a ghost, and shook hands with Tom, looking straight at him.Then she moistened her lips with her tongue, and without looking back said to her husband in a low, rough voice:

"Why don't you bring two chairs and let people sit down." "Yes, yes." Wilson quickly agreed, and then walked towards the small office, his figure immediately merged with the cement color of the wall.A layer of gray-white dust covered his dark clothes and light hair, covering everything in front of him, around him—except for her wife.She walked over to Tom. "I want to see you," said Tom eagerly, "and take the next train." "Ok." "I'll wait for you next to the newsstand on the lower level of the station." She nodded and walked away from him just as Wilson moved two chairs out of the office.

We waited for her on the road where no one could see.It was the Fourth of July in a few days, and so there was a gray, scrawny Italian kid firing a row of "torpedo guns" along the railroad tracks. ① American Independence Day. "What a dreadful place, isn't it!" said Tom, frowning at Dr. Eckleburg. "It sucks." "A change of scenery will do her good." "Is her husband all right?" "Wilson? He thought she was visiting her sister in New York. He was so stupid he didn't even know he was alive." So Tom Buchanan, his sweetheart, and I, went up to New York together—perhaps not together, for Mrs. Wilson was very sensible, and she sat in the other car.Tom made this concession so as not to offend any East Egg folk who might be on this train.

She had changed into a brown calico dress which stretched tightly over her broad hips when Tom helped her out of the car in New York.She bought a copy of "New York Gossip" and a movie magazine at the newsstand, and a bottle of cold cream and a small bottle of perfume at the station drugstore.Upstairs, in the gloomy, echoing driveway, she let go of four taxis before selecting a new one, lavender with gray upholstery.In this car we drove out of the huge station and out into bright sunshine.But immediately she turned her head from the car window suddenly, leaned forward, and knocked on the front glass. ① American pharmacies also sell candy, cigarettes, drinks and other miscellaneous goods.

"I'm going to buy a puppy like that," she said eagerly. "I'm going to buy one to keep in an apartment. It's going to be fun--to have a dog." We backed up to an old man with white hair who looked like John D. Rockefeller, which was kind of funny.Around his neck was a basket in which squatted a dozen newborn puppies of an indeterminate breed. ① American oil magnate, billionaire. "What kind are they?" asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly, as the old man reached the taxi window. "There are all kinds. Which would you like, ma'am?" "I want a police dog. I don't think you have one, do you?"

The old man looked into the bamboo basket suspiciously, reached in and pinched the neck to pick up one, the puppy twisted. "It's not a police dog," said Tom. "No, it's not necessarily a police dog," the old man said, his voice showing disappointment. "It's probably a wire-haired retriever." He stroked the brown towel-like fur on the dog's back with his hand. "Look at this fur, very nice fur, this dog will never catch a cold and cause trouble for you." "I think it's really fun," said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. "How much?" "This dog?" The old man looked at it appreciatively. "That dog costs ten dollars." The setter turned away--no doubt it had been related to the setter somewhere in its blood, but its paws were remarkably white--and sank into Mrs. Wilson's arms.She happily stroked the fur, which was not afraid of catching a cold. ①This kind of dog is often black on the back and sides, and the rest is brown. "Is this a male or a female?" she asked mildly. "The dog? The dog is male." "It's a bitch," said Tom firmly. "Here's the money. Take it and buy ten more dogs." We came to No. 5 Road by car. On this summer Sunday afternoon, the air was warm and soft, almost pastoral.I should not have been surprised to see a great herd of snow-white sheep suddenly turn the corner of the street. "Stop," I said, "I have to part with you here." "No, you can't go," Tom put in hastily. "Myrtle's going to be mad if you don't go up to the apartment. Won't you, Myrtle?" "Come on," she begged me, "I'll call for my sister Catherine, who's been told by a lot of discerning people that she's pretty." "Well, I'd love to come, but..." We went on, turned around again across Central Park, and walked toward West Side Hundred Street.The taxi pulled up in front of one of the long white cake apartment blocks on 158th Street.Mrs. Wilson glanced around, with the air of a queen returning to the palace, holding the puppy and other purchased things, and walked in proudly. "I'm going to have the McKees come up," she announced as we took the elevator upstairs, and of course I had to call my sister. " Their suite was on the top floor--a small living room, a small dining room, a small bedroom, and a bathroom.The living room was so packed to the brim with a disproportionately large set of tapestry-cushioned furniture that to move about it was to keep stumbling over images of French ladies swinging in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.The only painting on the wall was an oversized photograph of a hen perched on a blurry rock.However, from a distance, the hen turned into a millinery hat, and a fat old lady looked down at the room with a smile.There were old copies of New York Gossip on the table, and a copy of Simon Called Peter, and two or three Broadway erotica.Mrs. Wilson's first concern was the dog.A reluctant elevator worker brought a straw-filled box and some milk, and he offered to buy a tin of big, hard dog biscuits, one of which was soaked in a saucer of milk all afternoon. Inside, it was soaked to pieces.At the same time Tom opened the door of a locked cupboard and brought out a bottle of whiskey, ① a popular novel then in vogue. ② The area where New York theaters are concentrated. I have only been drunk twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon, so everything that happened then seems to be in a fog, blurred now, although the apartment was full of bright sunlight until after eight o'clock.Mrs. Wilson sat on Tom's lap and called several people.Then the cigarettes ran out, so I went out to the pharmacy on the corner to buy cigarettes.When I got back, they were both gone, so I sensibly sat down in the living room and read a chapter in "Simon Named Peter" - either it was badly written, or the whiskey turned things up Unrecognizable, because I can't see any tricks. As soon as Tom and Myrtle (Mrs. Wilson and I called each other Christian names after the first drink) reappeared, guests began knocking on the apartment door. Her sister Catherine was a slender, vulgar woman of about thirty, with a thick crop of red hair, and a face powdered as white as milk.Her eyebrows were plucked and redrawn, and the angle of the drawing is still playful, but the force of human nature wants to restore the old look, making her face a little unclear.There was a constant tinkling sound as she walked, for many fake jade bangles bobbed up and down on her arms.She came in with the pomp of a host, glanced at the furniture as if it belonged to her, and made me wonder if she lived here.But when I asked her, she laughed out loud, repeated my question out loud, and told me she was staying in a hotel with a girlfriend. Mr. McKee was a fair, effeminate man who lived on the ground floor.He had just shaved because there was still a little white suds on his cheekbones.He greeted everyone in the room with respect.He told me he was "artistic," and I realized later that he was the photographer who shot the blurred, blown-up photo of Mrs. Wilson's mother hanging on the wall like a germ leaf.His wife was high-pitched, listless, pretty, and very annoying.She told me triumphantly that her husband had photographed her a hundred and twenty-seven times since they were married. At some point Mrs. Wilson had changed again, and was now wearing a delicate cream chiffon dress, of the sort she would wear in the afternoon when she was walking about the room. Constant rustling.Due to the influence of clothes, her personality also changed.The dynamism that had been so evident earlier in the garage became a defiant hauteur.Her laughter, her gestures, her speech, became more and more artificial every moment, while the room around her seemed smaller and smaller as she swelled, until she seemed to be floating in the smoky air. The center sits on a creaking wooden axis and keeps turning. ①French: arrogant. "Honey," she said to her sister in a loud voice, "everyone is trying to cheat you these days. All they think about is money. Last week I got a woman to look at my feet, and when she put them on Give me the bill, and you think she cut my appendix." "What's the woman's last name?" asked Mrs. McKee. "Mrs. Eberhart. She used to go into people's houses and look at people's feet." "I like your dress," said Mrs. McKee, "I think it's really pretty." Mrs. Wilson dismissed the compliment with a disdainful raise of her eyebrows. "It's just a piece of junk," she said. "I just put it on when I didn't care what I looked like." "But it looks very pretty on you, if you know what I mean," followed Mrs. McKee, "if Chester can get you in that pose, I think it's going to be a masterpiece. " We all looked in silence at Mrs. Wilson, who brushed a lock of her hair from her eyes and looked at us all with a big smile.McKee tilted his head, looked at her intently, and then stretched out a hand to move slowly back and forth in front of him. "I'm going to have to change the light," he said after a moment. "I really want to bring out the dimension of the face. I'm also going to get all the hair in the back." "I don't think the light should be changed at all," exclaimed Mrs. McKee, "I don't think..." Her husband gave a "hush" and we all turned our eyes back to the subject of the photograph when Tom Buchanan yawned loudly and stood up. "You McKees have something to drink," he said, "get some more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, or we'll all be asleep." "I've sent that boy to bring the ice." Myrtle raised his eyebrows in despair at the incompetence of the inferiors. "These people! You've got to keep an eye on them." She looked at me and suddenly smiled inexplicably.Then she hopped up to the puppy, kissed it joyously, and swaggered into the kitchen as if there were only a dozen great chefs at her command. "I took a few good ones over there on Long Island," McKee asserted. Tom looked at him blankly. "There are two pictures that we have framed and hang downstairs." "Two pictures of what?" Tom asked. "Two studies. One of them is called "Montao Point--Seagull" and the other is "Montao Point--Sea"." The sister, Catherine, sat down next to me on the sofa. "Do you live on Long Island too?" she asked me. "I live in West Egg." "Really? I was there at a party, about a month ago. At a Gatsby's. Did you know him?" "I live next door to him" "Oh, people say he's the nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, or some other relative, and that's how he got his money." "Really?" She nodded. "I'm afraid of him. I don't want to fall into his hands." This fascinating account of my neighbor is interrupted when Mrs. McKee suddenly points her finger at Catherine. "Chester, I think you could take a good picture of her," she yelled, but Mr. McKee just nodded lazily and turned his attention back to Tom. "I'd love to do more business on Long Island if someone introduces me. All I ask is that they get me started." "Ask Myrtle," said Tom, laughing, just as Mrs. Wilson came in with a tray. "She could write you a letter of introduction, wouldn't she, Myrtle?" "What?" she asked in surprise. "You write McKee a letter of introduction to meet your husband, and he can take some close-ups of him." He moved his lips silently for a moment, and then babbled, "George B. Wilson at the Oil Pump" , or something like that. " Catherine came close to my ear and whispered to me: "Both of them got what they did." "yes?" "Can't take it." She looked first at Myrtle and then at Tom. "According to me, since you can't bear it, why are you still living together? If it were me, I would divorce and remarry immediately." "She doesn't like Wilson either?" The answer to this question was unexpected.It came from Myrtle, because she happened to overhear the question, and what she said was rough and dirty. "You see," exclaimed Catherine triumphantly, lowering her voice again, "it was his wife who kept them from getting married. She's Catholic, and those people don't approve of divorce." Daisy is not Catholic, so this elaborate lie shocked me a bit. "They're married some day," Catherine went on, "and they're going to go out West and live for a while, and come back when the storm is over." "The safer way is to go to Europe." "Oh, do you like Europe?" she exclaimed unexpectedly, "I just came back from Monte Carlo." ①The world-famous casino city. "Really?" "Just last year, I went with another girl." "Have you been there long?" "No, we just went to Monte Carlo and came back. We went via Marseilles. We started out with over twelve hundred dollars and got scammed out of it in a casino booth in two days." Yes. We suffered a lot on the way back, I'll tell you. God, I hate that city." Outside the window, the sky looks very soft in the sunset, like the blue Mediterranean Sea.Then Mrs. McKee's sharp voice called me back into the house. "I almost made a mistake too," she said briskly, "I almost married a Jewish boy who had been chasing me for years. I knew he wasn't good enough for me. Everyone said to me: Lucille, That man is far worse than you. But if I hadn't met Chester, he'd have me." "Yes, but listen to me," Myrtle Wilson said, shaking her head all the time, "fortunately you're going to marry him." "I know I'm not married to him." "But I'm married to him," said Myrtle vaguely, "and that's what makes your situation different from mine." "Why did you marry him, Myrtle?" demanded Catherine, "and no one forced you." Myrtle considered for a moment. "I married him because I thought he was a gentleman," she said at last. "I thought he was well-bred, but he's not fit to lick my shoes." "You were madly in love with him for a while," said Catherine. "Crazy in love with him!" cried Myrtle in disbelief. "Who said I was crazy in love with him? I never loved him any more than I never loved the man." She pointed at me suddenly, and everyone looked at me reproachfully.I tried to look like I didn't expect anyone to love me. "The only crazy thing I ever did was marrying him. I knew right away that I had made a mistake. He borrowed a guest suit to wear to the wedding and never told me, and then one day he wasn't home, and then Someone came to ask for the clothes. Oh, is this suit yours? I said, this is the first time I heard of it. But I gave him the clothes, and then I lay on the bed, how to cry, cried the whole time one afternoon." "She should really leave him," Catherine went on, "and they've lived on that garage roof for eleven years. Tom was her first date." The bottle of whiskey--the second--everyone was drinking now except Catherine, who "felt high on nothing."Tom rang for the porter, and told him to buy a famous sandwich, which was worth a supper.I wanted to go outside, walking east toward the park in the soft twilight, but every time I got up to say goodbye, I was caught in a rowdy and shrieking argument that ended up pulling me back, as if on a rope, to my chair.Yet our row of yellow windows, perched high above the city, must have added a little of the mystery of life to a passer-by on the dusky street watching, and at the same time I could see him, looking up and thinking.I was both in it and out of it, both intoxicated and disgusted by the protean changes of life. Myrtle pulled her own chair next to mine, and all of a sudden her hot breath came to me as she babbled on about how she and Tom had first met. "It happened in two small seats facing each other, the last two seats that are always left on the train. I went to New York to visit my sister and spend the night with her. He was wearing a dress and a pair of patent leather shoes, and I couldn't bear it." I couldn't stop looking at him, but every time he looked at me, I had to pretend I was looking at the ad above his head. When we walked into the station, he was next to me, his white shirt front brushing against mine. arm, so I told him I was going to call the police, but he knew I was lying. I was so overwhelmed that I got into a taxi with him, thinking I was on the subway. All I could think about was One sentence: "You can't live forever.You can't live forever. " She turned to talk to Mrs. McKee, and the room filled with her unnatural laughter. "Honey," she cried, "I'll give you this dress when I wear it. Tomorrow I have to go and buy another one. I'm going to make a list of everything I have to do. Massages, perms, dog grooming." Buy a collar, buy one of those little ashtrays with springs, and buy a fake wreath with black silk knots on my mother's grave, the kind that can be placed all summer. I must make a list, lest I forget what to do." It was nine o'clock--a second later I looked at my watch and found that it was ten o'clock.Mr. McKee fell asleep in a chair, his hands clenched in his lap like a photograph of an activist.I got out my handkerchief and wiped off that little bit of dry lather on his face that I'd been sick of all afternoon. The little dog sat on the table, looked around blindly in the smoke, and hummed softly from time to time.The people in the room disappeared for a while, and then reappeared for a while, discussing where to go, and then they couldn't find each other. After looking around, they found that they were within a few feet of each other.Towards midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face, arguing, in passionate voices, over whether each of the Wilsons had the right to mention Daisy's name. "Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" cried Mrs. Wilson. "I can scream whenever I feel like it! Daisy! Daisy..." Quickly, Tom Buchanan slapped Mrs. Wilson's nose with his outstretched hand. Then, there were bloody towels all over the bathroom, and the only sound was the woman's cursing, and at the same time, amidst the chaos, intermittent painful wailing.Mr. McKee woke up from a doze, and walked towards the door in a daze.He had gone halfway, then turned back and stared dazedly at the scene inside the house--his wife and Catherine swearing and coaxing, while stumbling to and fro among the crowded furniture with first-aid kits in hand, and The miserable figure lying on the sofa, bleeding profusely, was trying to spread a copy of the "New York Gossip" over the view of Versailles on the brocade chair cover.Then McKee turned around again and continued to walk out the door.I took my hat from the lampstand, and followed. "Come over and have lunch," he suggested as we hummed down the elevator. "Where?" "Anywhere." "Don't touch the elevator switch." The worker who drove the elevator said rudely. "I'm sorry," said Mr. McKee pompously, "I didn't know I touched it." "Okay," I agreed, "I'll be there." ... I was standing by McKee's bed, and he was sitting between two sheets, wearing only his underwear, holding a large photo album . "Beauty and the Beast.....The Little Shopkeeper....Brooklyn Bridge..." Later I lay half asleep in the cold waiting room below Penn Station, staring at the latest issue of the Tribune while I waited for the early four o'clock train.