Chapter 6 Chapter Six

About this time, an ambitious young reporter from New York came to Gatsby's gate one morning and asked if he had anything to say. "About what?" asked Gatsby politely. "Uh--make a statement." It took five minutes of messing around to figure things out.It turned out that this man had heard Gatsby's name mentioned in his newspaper, but he would not say why he was mentioned, or he did not fully understand.He rested that day, so he took the initiative to run out of the city to "see". It was hit and miss, but the reporter's instincts were right.Gatsby's fame grew through the summer through the publicity of the hundreds of people who had been guests at his home and thus became authorities on his experience, until he was just barely on the verge of being a newsman.Various legends of the time, such as the "underground pipeline to Canada", have been linked to him, and there is a long-standing rumor that he did not live in a house at all, but on a boat , the boat looked like a house, and moved stealthily up and down the coast of Long Island.Exactly why North Dakota's James Getz gets his fill of these rumors isn't easy to answer.

James Getz - that's his real name, at least his legal name.He changed his name at the age of seventeen, at the very moment in his career when he saw Mr. Dan Cody's yacht break down on the most treacherous sandbar on Lake Superior It was James Getz loitering on the beach in a battered green sweatshirt and canvas trousers, but then borrowed a boat and paddled out to the Tolome to warn Cody of a possible gale in half an hour It was already Jay Gatsby who sank his ship. ①Lake Superior (Lake Superior), one of the five great lakes in the United States. I guess, even at that time, he had already thought of this name.His parents were mediocre peasants--his imagination never really recognized them as his parents at all.Actually Jay Gatsby in West Egg, Long Island came from his platonic idea of ​​himself.He was the Son of God—a title, if it meant anything, literally—and so he had to serve his heavenly Father, dedicating himself to a great, vulgar, pompous beauty.So he invents exactly the kind of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old is likely to invent, and he stays true to that ideal.

For more than a year he trotted along the southern shore of Lake Superior, fishing for salmon, or clams, or doing any other chore that earned him room and board.In those windy and sun-drenched days, he has a deep tan from doing jobs that are loose and tight.The body is getting harder and harder, leading a natural life.He had had sex with women a long time ago, and he despised them because they spoiled him too much.He despised young virgins because of their ignorance, and he despised other women because they quarreled about things that he took for granted by his amazing narcissism. But his heart is often in turmoil.When lying in bed at night, all kinds of bizarre fantasies came one after another.An indescribably gorgeous universe unfolded in his mind. At this moment, the small clock was ticking on the washstand, and the moon was soaking the clothes he had thrown on the ground with the light like water.Every night he added to the designs of his fantasies, until a drowsiness of drowsiness settled over a vivid scene and made him forget everything else.For a while these visions provided an outlet for his imagination: they were a satisfying suggestion that reality was unreal, they showed that the rock of the world was firmly founded on fairy wings.

A few months earlier an instinct for his future glory had driven him to the Lutheran Little St. Olaf College in southern Minnesota.He was there only a fortnight, frustrated at the College's insensitivity to the drumbeat of his fate, to fate itself, and at the same time despising the handyman's work he did to pay for his studies.Then he drifted back to Lake Superior, and while he was looking for something to do that day, Dan Cody's yacht dropped money in the shallows by the lake. Cody was fifty years old, a product of Nevada silver, the Yukon, every gold rush since 1875.He had made his millions in the Montana copper business, and the result, though still in good health, was that his brains were bordering on muddled.Countless women, aware of this situation, tried every means to separate him from his money.The female reporter named Ella Kay seized his weakness and played the role of Madame de Maintenon ②, encouraging him to sail on a yacht. News that the sensational press rushed to report.On this day, after five years of sailing along a coast of overly hospitable inhabitants, he sailed into Little Maiden's Bay, the master of James Getz's fate.

① Yukon (Yukon), western Canada, where new gold deposits were discovered at the end of the 19th century. ②Madame de Maintenon (Madame de Maintenon), mistress of Louis XIV in France in the 17th century, married in secret. Young Gates, leaning on the oars with both hands, looking up at the railed deck, in his eyes, that boat represents all the beauty and charm in the world.I figured he smiled at Coy -- he'd probably figured out that he was pleasing when he smiled.Anyway, Cody asked him a few questions (one of which elicited the brand new name) and found him bright and ambitious.A few days later he took him to De Lune and bought him a blue sailor's suit, six pairs of white canvas trousers, and a yachting cap.When the Tolome sailed for the West Indies and the Babapin Coast, Gatsby was gone too.

①Duluth, a port on Lake Superior. ② Barbary Coast (Barbary Coast), the Islamic region of North Africa west of Egypt. He worked for Cody in a sort of vaguely defined private employee--a footman, a first mate, a captain, a secretary, and even a warden, because Dan Cody knew what he was doing when he was sober. He could do foolish things like spending money, so he relied more and more on Gatsby to prevent such accidents.This arrangement lasted five years, during which time the ship circumnavigated the American continent three times.It might have gone on indefinitely were it not for the one night in Boston when Ella Kay came aboard and Dan Corbian died unceremoniously a week later.

I remember the picture of him hanging in Gatsby's bedroom, an old man with gray hair and fancy clothes, with a cold and empty face--typical pioneers who indulged in alcohol and lust Phase 1 brought back the brutish savagery of frontier whorehouses and taverns to the eastern seaboards.Gatsby drank very little, which he owed indirectly to Cody.Sometimes women would rub champagne into his hair at boisterous parties, but he himself made it a habit not to drink. It was from Kebian that he had inherited money, too—a bequest of twenty-five thousand dollars.He didn't get the money.He never understood the legal tactics used against him, but what was left of the millions went to Ella Kay.He had lost only his unusually appropriate upbringing: the vague outline of Jay Gatsby had gradually fleshed out into a man of flesh and blood.

All this he told me much later, but I write it here in order to refute those wild earlier rumors about his origin, which were of no shadow at all.Again, he told me at a very confused time, when I was half-suspicious of all the rumors about him.So I now take advantage of this short pause, as if Gatsby was taking a breather, to clear up these misunderstandings. It was also a pause in my dealings with him.I didn't see him or hear his voice on the phone for weeks—mostly I was running around New York with Jordan while trying to please her old aunt—but I Finally went to his house one Sunday afternoon.I hadn't been there two minutes before someone brought Tom Buchanan in for a drink.I was naturally taken aback, but the real surprise was that nothing like this had happened before.

There were three of them on horseback—Tom and a man called Sloane, and a pretty woman in a brown riding dress who had been here before. "I'm glad to see you," said Gatsby, standing on the balcony, "I'm glad you're here." As if accepting their love! "Sit down, please. Have a cigarette or a cigar." He ran about the room, busy ringing the bell. "I'll have something to drink for you right away." Tom's arrival shocked him greatly.But he'd be embarrassed anyway, until he'd entertained them something, because he knew vaguely that's why they were there.Mr. Sloane wants nothing.How about a glass of lemonade?no, thanks.How about some champagne?Nothing, thanks...sorry...

"Have you had a good time riding?" "The roads in this area are good." "Probably passing cars..." "Really." When Tom was introduced just now, he only thought that they were meeting each other for the first time. At this moment, Gatsby couldn't help turning his face to him. "I believe we have met somewhere before, Mr. Buchanan." "Oh, yes," said Tom, stiffly and politely, obviously not remembering, "we met, I remember quite well." "About two weeks ago." "That's right. You're with Nick."

"I know your wife," went on Gatsby, almost defiantly. "yes?" Tom turned his face to me. "Do you live around here, Nick?" "It's next door." "yes?" Sloan did not join in the conversation, but leaned back in his chair with great pomp.The woman didn't say anything - until after two glasses of ginger juice, she suddenly became chattering and laughing. "We'll all come to your next party, Mr. Gatsby," she suggested, "do you like it?" "Of course. I'm so glad you're here." "Very well then," said Mr. Sloan mercilessly, "err—I reckon it's time to go home." "Please don't hurry away," Gatsby advised them.He was in control now, and he wanted to see Tom more. "Why don't you--why don't you just have dinner here? There might be some other people from New York coming." "You come to my house for supper," said the lady enthusiastically, "you both come." And that includes me too.Mr. Sloane rose to his feet. "I mean it," she insisted. "I wish you would come. There's room for all of you." Gatsby looked at me suspiciously.He wanted to go, and he couldn't see that Mr. Sloan was determined not to let him go. "I'm afraid I can't go," I said. "Come on, then." She urged Gatsby to be alone. Mr. Sloane mumbled something in her ear. "We'll never be too late if we leave now," she said stubbornly. "I don't have a horse," said Gatsby. "I have ridden in the army, but I've never bought a horse myself. I'll have to drive with you. I'm sorry, but I'll be right back." The rest of us went out on the balcony, and Sloan stood with the lady.Start talking angrily. "My God, I believe the fellow is coming," said Tom. "Don't he know she doesn't want him?" "She said she wanted him to come." "She's giving a big party, and he won't know anyone there." He frowned. "I wonder where on earth he met Daisy. God knows, maybe I'm too old-fashioned, but these days I don't like women running around. They meet all kinds of monsters." Suddenly Mr. Sloane and the lady came down the steps and mounted their horses. "Come on," said Mr. Sloane to Tom, "we're getting late. We must go." Then he said to me, "Would you please tell him we can't wait?" Tom shook hands with me, and the rest of us nodded grimly to each other, and they trotted up the drive, and soon disappeared into the August shade, Gatsby holding his hat and A thin coat is coming out of the door. Tom was evidently concerned about Daisy running about alone, for he and she were coming to Gatsby's party next Saturday night.Perhaps it was his presence that gave the evening a peculiar sombre air--it remains vividly in my memory, quite different from Gatsby's other evenings that summer.It was the same people, or at least the same kind of people, the same endless supply of champagne, the same colorful, gossiping noise, but I felt that there was an unpleasant feeling in the invisible, pervading a sense of the past. Never had a bad feeling.Or maybe I've grown used to it, come to think of West Egg as a whole world in its own right, with its own standards and big names, second to none because it doesn't feel dwarfed, and now I'm passing Daisy's eyes saw all this again.It's always uncomfortable to see things through new eyes that you've struggled to get used to. They arrived at dusk, and Daisy's voice played murmurs in her throat as the few of us strolled among the hundreds of bejeweled guests. "These things turn me on," she whispered. "If you want to kiss me anytime tonight, Nick, just let me know and I'll be happy to arrange it for you. Just mention my name, or Show me a green invitation. I'm giving out green..." "Look around," Gatsby urged her. "I'm looking around. I'm so happy..." "You must have seen the faces of many characters you have heard of." Tom's haughty eyes swept across the crowd. "We don't go out much," he said. "In fact, I was thinking just now that I don't know anyone here." "Perhaps you know that lady." Gatsby pointed out a beautiful woman sitting dignifiedly under a white plum tree.Tom and Daisy watched intently, recognized this is a big star who had only seen it on the screen, and could hardly believe it was real. "She is so beautiful," said Daisy. "Standing bent over her is her director." Gatsby politely and thoughtfully led them to introduce to group after group of guests. "Mrs. Buchanan . . . order Mr. Cannon," he added, after a moment's hesitation, "the polo player." "No," Tom denied quickly, "I'm not." But Gatsby evidently liked the implication of the name, for Tom remained "the polo player" all evening afterwards. "I've never seen so many famous people," said Daisy excitedly. "I like that guy...what's his name? The one with the blue nose." Gatsby gave the man's name and said he was a small producer. "Oh, I like him anyway." "I'd rather not be a polo player," said Tom cheerfully, "I'd rather see so many famous people as... an unknown man." Daisy and Gatsby danced.I remember being amazed to see him dancing an elegant old fashioned foxtrot - I had never seen him dance before.Then they sneaked up to my house and sat on my steps for half an hour while she told me to stay in the garden and keep watch. "In case of fire or flood," she explained, "or some natural disaster." We were sitting down to dinner together when Tom reappeared from obscurity. "I'll have dinner with a few guys over there, okay?" he said. "There's a guy telling a joke." "Go ahead," replied Daisy genially, "if you want to leave some addresses down, here's my little gold pencil." ... After a while she looked around and said to me that the girl was "tacky but pretty ', and I realized that, except for the half hour she was alone with Gatsby, she wasn't having a good time. Our table was extremely drunk.It was my fault - Gatsby was called to the telephone, and it so happened that I had thought these people interesting a fortnight ago, but the evening which I thought was amusing at the time had become dull. "How are you feeling, Miss Bedak?" The girl I was talking to was trying to slump over my shoulders, but couldn't.Hearing this question, she sat up and opened her eyes. "what?" A large, languid woman who had been urging Daisy to play golf with her at the local club to-morrow came to defend Miss Baydock: "Oh, she's all right now. She's always yelling like that every time she's down five or six cocktails. I told her she shouldn't be drinking." "I don't drink," said the person being blamed casually. "We heard you yelling, so I said to this Doctor Schwitter: Someone needs your help over there, Doctor." "She's very grateful, I'm sure," said another friend, in nonappreciative air, "but you got her clothes all wet by putting her head in the pool." "I hate putting my head in a swimming pool," grumbled Miss Baydock. "They nearly drowned me one time in New Jersey." "Then you shouldn't be drinking," Dr. Hivert gagged her. "Talk about yourself!" cried Miss Baydock vehemently. "Your hands are shaking. I won't let you operate on me!" This is the case.Pretty much the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy looking at the movie director and his "big star".They were still under the white plum tree, their faces almost touching, separated only by a faint ray of moonlight.It occurred to me that he had probably been bending over very, very slowly all night to finally get this close to her, and then as I watched, I saw him bend the last distance and kiss her on the cheek. "I like her," said Daisy, "I think she is very beautiful." But everything else she hated--and indisputably, because it was not a gesture, but a feeling.She loathed West Egg, the unprecedented "resort" imposed by Broadway on a Long Island fishing village--had its brutish vigor restless with well-worn euphemisms, loathed the way it drove its inhabitants along a shortcut from zero The overly abrupt fate of running to zero.It was in this simplicity, unknown to her, that she saw something terrible. I sat with them on the front steps while they waited for the car to come.It was dark here, save for ten square feet of light from the open door into the dim dawn.Now and then a figure flitted across the blinds of the dressing-room upstairs, and then another, and the stream of ladies painted and powdered before an invisible mirror. "Who the hell is this Gatsby?" demanded Tom suddenly. "A big bootlegger?" "Where did you hear that?" I asked him. "I didn't hear it. I guessed. A lot of these upstarts are bootleggers, you know." "Not Gatsby," I said curtly. He was silent for a while.Pebbles in the driveway crunched under his feet. "I said, he must have spent a lot of effort to collect such a large group of bull heads and horse noodles." A breeze stirred Daisy's shaggy gray fur collar. "At least they're funnier than anyone we know," she said reluctantly. "You don't look very interested." "Oh, I'm interested." Tom laughed and turned his face to me. "Did you notice Daisy's face when that girl asked her to give her a cold shower?" Daisy began to croon hoarsely and rhythmically to the music, taking on each word a meaning that had never before been and never will be again.As the tune rose, so did her voice, melodious and melodious, exactly what a contralto was, and each change radiated a little of her warm, human magic in the air. "Many of the people who came were not invited," she said suddenly. "That girl didn't receive an invitation. They came to the door in Yu Jian, and he was too polite to refuse." "I should like to know who he is, and what he is for," said Tom stubbornly, "and I must find out." "I'll tell you right away," she replied, "that he owns a dispensary, a lot of dispensaries. He started them all." The belated limousine rolled up the driveway. "Good night, Nick," said Daisy. She looked away from me, toward the lighted uppermost step, where a pathetic little waltz, "Three O'Clock in the Morning," popular in those days, was playing from the open door.Then again, it was in the casual atmosphere of Gatsby's party that there were romantic possibilities that were totally absent from her own world.Was there something in that song that seemed to be calling her to go back inside?What will happen now in this dark, unpredictable hour?There might be an incredible guest, one of the rarest and most astonishing beauties in the world, a girl of true beauty, and all it takes is one look at Gatsby, one magical moment of encounter, and she You can write off the unshakable love of the past five years. I stayed late that night, and Gatsby wanted me to stay until he could get away, so I lingered in the garden until the last group of swimmers, cold and excited, came running up from the dark beach and Wait until the lights in the guest rooms upstairs are out.By the time he finally came down the steps, the tanned skin was stretched tighter than usual on his face, and his eyes were bright and tired. "She doesn't like the party," he said right away. "Of course she does." "She doesn't like it," he said stubbornly. "She's not having fun." He stopped talking, but I guess he was full of unspeakable depression. "I felt so far away from her," he said, "that it was hard to make her understand." "You mean about the ball?" "Proms?" He wrote off all the proms he'd ever had with a snap of his fingers. "Proms don't matter, man." All he could ask of Daisy was for her to run to Tom and say, "I never loved you." After she had written off four years with that sentence, they could study and decide what more practical steps needed to be taken. .One of them was that, when she was free, they would go back to Louisville and start from her house to the church for the wedding--as if it had been five years ago. "But she doesn't understand," he said. "She used to understand. We used to sit together for hours..." He stopped talking suddenly, and walked up and down a path full of fruit peels, discarded gifts, and trampled flowers. "I don't think you can ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can't relive old dreams." "Can't relive old dreams?" he exclaimed disapprovingly, "if not, of course I can!" He looked frantically here and there, as if his old dreams were hidden here, in the shadow of his house, almost within reach. "I'm going to make everything exactly as it used to be," he said, nodding resolutely. "She'll see." He talked so much about the past that I surmised that he was trying to regain something, perhaps some idea of ​​himself that had gone into his love for Daisy.His life since then has been messy, but if he could just go back to a certain starting point and walk slowly over again, he could discover what that thing was...   One autumn night, five Years ago, when the leaves were falling, they were walking down the street and came to a place where there were no trees, and the sidewalk was white by the moonlight.They stopped and stood facing each other.It was a cool night, that time of the twice-yearly change of seasons, and there was that mysterious excitement in the air.The quiet lights of the houses seemed to sing to the darkness outside, and there seemed to be busy activity among the stars in the sky.Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of sidewalk really formed a ladder leading to a secret place high above the treetops--he could climb to it, and once there he could suck The sap of life, gulping down the incomparable miraculous milk. His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came close to his own.He knew that once he had kissed this girl, and united forever his inexpressible longings to her fleeting breath, his mind would never again run free like the mind of God.So he waited, listening a little longer to the tuning fork that had struck a star.Then he kissed her.At the touch of his lips, she opened to him like a flower, and this ideal incarnation was completed. His words, even his embarrassing sentimentality, reminded me of something... a vague rhythm, a few scattered lines I heard somewhere long ago.A moment later, a sentence was on the verge of my mouth, and my lips parted like a mute, as if there was something else struggling to get out of them but a frightened air.But the lips are incapable of making sound, so that what I almost remember can never be expressed.