Chapter 8 chapter eight

I can't sleep all night.A foghorn blares incessantly over the bay, and I toss and turn as if sick, between grim reality and horrific nightmare.I heard a taxi come up Gatsby's driveway just before dawn and I jumped out of bed and started dressing--I thought I had something to tell him, something to warn him before it was too late in the morning up. I crossed his lawn and saw that his gate was still open, and he was standing in the hall against a table, dejected from depression or drowsiness. "Nothing happened," he said dolefully. "I waited, and about four o'clock she went to the window, stood there for a moment, and then turned out the light."

His villa seemed enormous to me that night as we both walked through the great rooms looking for cigarettes.We pushed aside thick tent-cloth curtains and fumbled along endless dark walls looking for light switches—once I fell with a thump on the keys of a ghostly piano.There was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere, and all the rooms were musty, as if they hadn't been ventilated for many days.On an unfamiliar table, I found a cigarette case with two stale, shriveled cigarettes inside.We juiced the French windows in the living room and sat and smoked against the night outside. "You should go away," I said, "they'll come after your car, that's for sure."

"Go away now, man?" "Go to Atlantic City for a week, or go north to Montreal." ① Atlantic City (AtlantiC City), the capital of southern Georgia. ② Montreal (Montreal), the capital of Canada. He refused to think about it.There was no way he would leave Daisy unless he knew what she was going to do.He is clinging to the last ray of hope, and I can't bear to tell him to let go. That was the night he told me the queer story of his youth with Dan Cody, for "Jay Gatsby" had shattered like glass on Tom's iron malice, And the long drama of secret fantasies was over.I think he could admit anything at this point without reservation, but he only wanted to talk about Daisy.

She was the first "every lady" he knew.He had come into contact with this type of people with various undisclosed identities before, but each time there was always an invisible barbed wire separating them.He was fascinated by her.He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone.Her home surprised him--he had never been in such a beautiful house, but it had a gripping intensity because she lived there--it was to her like his tent in the army camp. It's just as unremarkable to him.The house had an atmosphere of enticing mystery, as if to suggest that there were many bedrooms upstairs that were more beautiful and cooler than the others, that the corridors were full of delights, and that there were many affairs--not moldy and preserved in incense. It is real, but vivid, reminiscent of this year's shiny cars-reminiscent of the ball with the flowers not yet withered-many men have loved Daisy.It thrilled him too—it heightened her value in his eyes, and he felt their presence everywhere in her house.The air was filled with shadows and echoes of still throbbing emotions.

However, he knew that his access to Daisy's house was purely accidental, and that whatever his future as Jay Gatsby might have been, he was just an unknown, penniless young man, and his uniform— - the invisible coat could slip off his shoulders at any moment.So he made the best of his time, he took what he could get, gobbled it up, reckless--at last on a still October night he had Daisy, had her, because he hadn't No right to touch her hand. He should probably despise himself, because he did possess her by deceit, and I don't mean that he took advantage of his illusory millions.But he deliberately created a sense of security in Daisy, making her believe that his parentage was equal to hers-that he was fully capable of taking care of her.In fact, he didn't have that ability - he didn't have a well-to-do family backing him, and he could be transferred anywhere in the world at any time if the ruthless government ordered it to.

But he didn't despise himself, and the result of the matter was beyond his expectation.He may well have planned at first to have a good time and then walk away--but now he finds that he has devoted himself to the pursuit of an ideal.He knew that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn't realize how extraordinary a "lady of a family" was.She went back to her luxurious house, back to her rich and happy life, and suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing for Gatsby.He felt he was married to her, that was all. Two days later, when the two of them met again, they seemed distraught, as if it was Gatsby who had been deceived.Her balcony was bathed in brilliant starlight.The wicker of the fashionable settee creaked as she turned to let him kiss her wondrous, lovely mouth, and she watched her voice hoarse and more moving than usual.Gatsby deeply understands how wealth restrains and preserves youth and mystery, how a suit keeps a person clean, and how Daisy shines like silver, sitting safely above the fierce struggle for existence of the poor. superior.

"I can't tell you how surprised I was when I found out I was in love with her, man. I even wished she'd dump me for a while, but she didn't because she loved me too. She thought I knew a lot because I don't understand what she understands... well, that's what I am, ambition aside, "in love" every minute, and suddenly I don't care about anything.Why do big things if I can tell her what I'm going to do and get more pleasure out of it? " On the last afternoon before he set off overseas, he sat for a long time in silence with Daisy in his arms.It was a cold autumn day, and there was a fire in the house, and her cheeks were flushed.Now and then she moved, and he moved his arm a little, and once he kissed her black shiny hair.The afternoon had calmed them down for a while, as if to impress upon their memory a preparation for the long separation that would begin the next day.She brushed the shoulder of the ground coat with her wordless lips, or he touched her fingertips tenderly, as if she were in sleep. They had never been so close in this month of love, nor Never before has there been such a deep connection.

He's had a good time in the war.He became a captain before he went to the front, and after the Battle of Argonne he was promoted to major and became the company commander of the divisional machine gun company.After the armistice he frantically asked to return home, but due to confusion or misunderstanding, he was sent to Oxford.He was troubled now—for Daisy's letter had a nervous desperation in it.She didn't understand why he couldn't come back.She was starting to feel the pressure from the outside world, so she needed to see him, to feel he was there for her, to reassure her that she was doing the right thing.

Daisy was young, after all, and her artificial world was full of orchids, cheerful snobbish fashions, and bands--those bands that set the rhythms of the year and summed up life's sorrows and tenderness in new tunes.The saxophones whimpered the desperate wails of "Beale Street Jazz" all night while a hundred pairs of gold and silver slippers raised shiny dust.Every evening at tea-time there were rooms that trembled incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while bright faces floated to and fro like rose-petals blown by plaintive trumpets to a dancing-floor. In this hazy universe, Daisy comes alive again with the social season.Suddenly she was again booking five or six appointments with five or six men a day, and fell asleep sleepily at dawn, the beads and chiffon of her evening dress tangled with withered orchids, thrown on the floor beside her bed, where All this time there was a deep desire in her heart to make a decision.She had now to settle the affairs of her life without delay--and the decision must be made by a force that was at hand--love, money, the real thing.

That power came in the middle of the spring, with the arrival of Tom Buchanan, whose size and worth were well distributed, so that Daisy also felt radiant.No doubt there was an intellectual struggle and a relief afterwards.Gatsby was still in Oxford when he received the letter. It was dawn on Long Island by now, and we went and opened the rest of the downstairs windows, filling the room with whitening, golden light.Suddenly the shadow of a tree fell across the dew, and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves.There was a slow, pleasant movement in the air, not yet wind, that promised a cool and pleasant weather.

"I don't believe she ever loved him," said Gatsby, turning from a window and looking at me defiantly. "You must remember, man, that she was very nervous this afternoon. He and her The way it was said frightened her - he called me a worthless liar, and as a result she hardly knew what she was talking about," He sat down sullenly. "Of course she may have loved him for a while, when they first got married--loved me even more then, you understand?" Suddenly he said something very strange. "Anyway," he said, "it's just a personal thing." How do you understand that, except to guess that there was an immeasurably strong feeling in his opinion of the matter? Tom and Daisy were still on their wedding trip when he came back from France, and he was miserable and involuntary in going to Louisville with the last money he had left in his army pay.He stayed there for a week, revisiting the streets they had walked side by side on November nights, revisiting the remote places they had driven her white car.Just as Daisy's house had always seemed to him more mysterious and joyful than any other, so the city of Louisville itself, now that she was gone, seemed to him a melancholy beauty. He left feeling that if he looked harder he might find her--and now he left her behind.It was hot in the third-class car—he had nothing left now.He went to the covered corridor, sat down in a folding chair, and the station slid past, the backs of unfamiliar buildings moving past.Then across the spring fields, where for a while a yellow tram raced side by side, and someone on the tram might have seen her charming face in the street once by accident. The railway track turned a bend, and now it was walking away from the sun, and the setting sun shone brightly, as if blessing the slowly fading city she had lived in.He reached out his hand desperately, as if he just wanted to grab a wisp of smoke and leave a fragment from the place he thought was the loveliest because of her.But everything was running too fast in front of his blurry teary eyes, and he knew he had lost that part of it, the freshest and best part forever. It was nine o'clock when we went out on the veranda after breakfast.The weather changed suddenly overnight, and there was already autumn in the air.The gardener, the last of Gatsby's old servants, came up to the steps. "I'm going to drain the pool today, Mr. Gatsby. The leaves are going to start falling soon, and the pipes are bound to get clogged." "Not today," replied Gatsby.He turned to me apologetically, "You know what, man, I never used that pool all summer!" I looked at my watch and stood up. "Twelve minutes to my bus." I don't want to go into town.I don't have the energy for a decent job either, but more than that - I don't want to leave Gatsby.I missed that bus, missed the next one, and then reluctantly left. "I'll call you." I finally said. "Sure, man. "I'll call you around noon." We walked slowly down the steps. "I think Daisy will be calling too." He looked at me uneasily, as if he wanted confirmation from me. "I guess she will." "Goodbye, then." We shake hands and I walk away.Just before I got to the hedge, I remembered something and turned around again. "They're a bunch of bastards," I yelled across the lawn. "They're a bunch of them all in one pile and they're no match for you." I have always been very happy to find that sentence.That was the only nice thing I ever said about him, because I disapproved of him through and through.He nodded politely at first, and then he had that beaming, understanding smile on his face, as if we had already entered into a mad complicity on the matter.His gorgeous pink suit made a splash of color against the white steps, and I was reminded of the night I first visited his quaint villa three months ago.When his lawn and driveway were crowded with the faces of people who speculated about his guilt -- and he stood on the steps, hiding his incorruptible dream, and waved them goodbye. I thanked him for his hospitality.We always thank him for that - me and others. "Goodbye," I called, "thank you for your breakfast, Gatsby." In town, I managed to copy the innumerable stock quotes for a while, and then fell asleep in my swivel chair.A phone call woke me up shortly before noon, and I was startled, sweat beading on my brow.It's Jordan Baker.She often called me at this hour, because she was so erratic in big hotels, clubs, and private houses that it was difficult for me to find her by any other means.Usually her voice came from the phone always cool and sweet, like a piece of grass drifting from a green golf course into the office window, but this morning her voice seemed harsh and dry. ① When playing golf, the club is on a small piece that is cut from the field. "I left Daisy's," said she, "I am in Hempstead at the moment, and am going to Southampton this afternoon." It might have been proper for her to leave Daisy's house, but what she did displeased me.Then what she said next made me even more angry. "You were not very nice to me last night." "What does it matter in that case?" A moment of silence.Then: "Anyway... I want to see you." "I want to see you too." "Then I won't go to Southampton, and come into town this afternoon, will I?" "No...I don't think so this afternoon." "As you please." "It's impossible this afternoon. Many..." We talked like that for a while, and then suddenly neither of us spoke anymore.I don't know which of us slammed the phone down, but I know I don't care anymore.I couldn't have talked to her face to face at the tea table that day, even if she never spoke to me again A few minutes later I called Gatsby's, but the line was blocked, and I called four times before finally being told by an impatient operator that the line was waiting for long distance calls from Detroit.I took out the train timetable and drew a small circle on the train at 3:50.Then I leaned back in my chair and wanted to think about it.It was noon now. When I passed the ashes on the train that morning, I made a point of going to the other side of the car.I expected there to be a crowd of curious people watching all day long, little boys looking for black spots of blood in the dust, and a chatterer telling the story of what happened until he felt it was getting worse and worse. It was untrue, and he couldn't go on, and the tragic end of Myrtle Wilson was forgotten.Now I'm going to go back and tell what happened there after we left the garage the night before. They finally found her sister Catherine.She must have broken her own no-drinking rule that night, because she arrived too drunk to comprehend that the ambulance had gone to Flushing, and as soon as they made it clear to her, she Just passed out, as if this was the most unbearable part of the whole affair.Someone, either kind or curious, let her get into his car and drove past her sister's body. There was still a steady stream of people thronging the front of the garage until long after midnight, while George Wilson rocked to and fro on the couch inside.At first the office door was open, and everyone who came to Che Xingwei couldn't help but look around.Later, someone said it was too unreal, so they closed the door.Michaelis and several other men took turns staying with him.At first there were four or five people, then two or three remained.Then Michaelis had to ask the last stranger to wait another fifteen minutes before he went back to his shop to make a pot of coffee.After that, he stayed there alone with Wilson until dawn. Around three o'clock Wilson's whimpering and ramblings took a turn for the worse - he gradually quieted down and began to talk about the yellow car.He announced that he had a way of finding out who owned the yellow car.Then he went on to say that two months ago his wife came back from the city with a bruised nose and a bruised face. But when he heard himself say it, he flinched, and started crying again, "My God!" Michaelis tried to distract him, clumsily. "How long have you been married, George? Come on, sit still for a moment and answer my question. How long have you been married?" "Twelve years." "Ever had a baby? Come on, George, sit still—I've got a question for you. Have you ever had a baby?" Hard-shelled brown beetles kept bumping against the dim electric lights.Whenever Michaelis heard a car speeding by on the road outside, it always sounded like the car that hadn't stopped a few hours ago.He didn't want to go into the garage because there was blood on the workbench where the body had been.He had to walk around the office uncomfortably - he was familiar with everything before dawn - and sat next to Wilson from time to time to try to make him quiet. "Is there a church you go to sometimes, George? Maybe you haven't been in a while? Maybe I can call the church and have a pastor come and he can talk to you, okay?" "Doesn't belong to any church." "You ought to have a church, George, for times like this. You must have been in church once. Didn't you get married in a church? Look, George, listen to me. Don't you Were you married in a church?" "That was a long time ago." The effort to answer the question interrupted the rhythm of his rocking back and forth--he was quiet for a moment, and then the same half-awake, half-drowned look returned to his glassy eyes. "Open that drawer and have a look." He pointed to the desk. "Which drawer?" "That drawer—that one." Michaelis opened the drawer closest to his hand.There was nothing in it except a small and expensive dog leash, made of cowhide and silver.It still looks new. "This?" he asked, holding up the leash. Wilson stared and nodded. "I found it yesterday afternoon. She tried to explain it to me, but I knew there was something wrong with it." "You mean your wife bought it?" "She wrapped it in tissue paper and put it on her dresser." Michaelis saw no oddity in that, so he gave Wilson a dozen reasons why his wife might buy the leash, but it's not hard to imagine some of those same reasons Wilson had gotten from Myrtle. Yes, for he hummed softly again: "My God!" His comforter had several reasons left unsaid and drew back. "Then he killed her," Wilson said, his mouth falling open suddenly. "Who killed her?" "I have a way of finding out." "You're thinking too much, George," said his friend, "and you're so irritated that you don't even know what you're saying. You'd better sit as quietly as you can till morning." "He murdered her." "It was a traffic accident, George." Wilson shook his head.His eyes were narrowed into a slit, his mouth was slightly opened, and he gave a soft "hum" disapprovingly. "I know," he said affirmatively, "I'm a trusting person, and I never suspect anybody's ghosts, but once I figure something out, I know it. It was the man in the car." ...she ran over to talk to him, but he wouldn't stop." Michaelis also saw this situation at the time, but he didn't expect any special significance in it.He thought Mrs. Wilson was running away from her husband, not trying to stop a car. "How could she have done that?" "She's very deep," Wilson said, as if that answered the question. "Ah-yo-yo-" He rocked again, and Michaelis stood by rubbing the leash in his hands. "Perhaps you have some friends I can call and ask to help, George?" It was a slim hope—he was almost certain that Wilson had no friends, he couldn't even take care of a wife.After a while he was glad to see the change in the house, and the blueness outside the window, and he knew it was almost dawn.Around five o'clock, the sky outside is bluer, and the lights in the house can be turned off. Wilson's glazed eyes turned outside to the heap of ash, where little gray clouds took on grotesque shapes and flew here and there in the dawn breeze. "I talked to her," he murmured after a long silence, "I told her she might lie to me, but she would never fool God. I led her to the window," and he rose with difficulty. , walked up to the rear window and pressed my face against it, "And I said: God knows what you've done, everything you've done. You can lie to me, but you can't fool God!" Standing behind him, Michaelis was startled to see him staring into Dr. T. J. Eckleburg's eyes, dim and enormous, just emerging from the fading night. "God sees everything," Wilson repeated. "That's an ad," Michaelis told him.I don't know what made him turn away from the window and look back into the room, but Wilson stood there for a long time, his face pressed against the glass window, and he kept nodding toward the dawn. By six o'clock Michaelis was exhausted and grateful to hear a car pull up outside.It was also the one who helped watch the night yesterday, and he promised to come back, so he made breakfast for three people, and he ate with that person.Wilson was quieter now, and Michaelis went home to sleep.When he woke up four hours later and hurried back to the garage, Wilson was gone. His whereabouts—he had been on foot—turned out to be Port Roosevelt and thence to Mount Gad, where he bought a sandwich, which he didn't eat, and a cup of coffee.He must be very tired and walking slowly, because he didn't reach Ged's Hill until noon.It's not hard to make an account of his time all the way here - a few boys have seen a "crazy" man, and a few motorists remember him staring oddly from the side of the road them.For the next three hours he was gone.The police, based on what he told Michaelis, said he "had a way of finding out," and spent that time going around the area looking for a yellow car speculatively, but no one ever saw it. The guy from his dealership spoke up, so he might have an easier and more reliable way of asking what he needed to know.By two-thirty in the afternoon he was at West Egg, where he asked for directions to Gatsby's house.So by then he already knew Gatsby's name. At two o'clock in the afternoon Gatsby put on his bathing suit and left a message for the butler to come down to the swimming pool and drop him a message if anyone called.He went to the garage to get a rubber mat that entertained guests in the summer, and the driver pumped it up, and then he told the driver not to take the convertible out under any circumstances--and this was Weird because the front left fender needs repair. Gatsby put the mat on his shoulders and walked to the pool.At one point he stopped and moved, and the driver asked him if he wanted to help, but he shook his head and disappeared in a moment among the trees whose leaves were turning yellow. No one ever called, but the butler didn't take a nap, and waited until four o'clock--by then, if there was a call, no one answered it.I have a thought: Gatsby himself doesn't believe in the call, and maybe he doesn't care anymore.If so, he must have felt that he had lost that old warm world, paid a high price for holding on to a dream for too long.He must have felt horrified looking up at a strange sky through the hideous foliage, and finding what an ugly thing a rose was, and how cruel the sun was on the new grass.It's a new world, material yet unreal, where poor ghosts.Breathing the light dream like air, drifting away... like that gray, strange figure walking towards him quietly through the cluttered trees. The driver of the car - he was one of Wolfshiem's ​​men - heard the gunfire.After the book, he can only say that he didn't pay much attention to it at the time.I drove straight up to Gatsby's house from the station, and it was not until I hurried up the front steps that I first gave the people in the house the feeling that something was wrong, but I think they must have known by then.The four of us, the driver, the butler, the gardener and I, hurried to the pool almost without saying a word. There was a slight, almost imperceptible flow of water in the pool, and the clear water that came in from one end flowed into the drainpipe at the other end.With faint ripples, the heavy rubber mat floated blindly in the pool.A breeze that does not wrinkle the water is enough to disturb its accidental voyage with its accidental load.A pile of fallen leaves made it spin slowly, like a theodolite, turning a thin red circle over the water. After we lifted Gatsby and walked towards the house, the gardener saw Wilson's body in the grass not far away, and the massacre ended.