«Did you stay there long?»
«No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We had over twelve hundred dollars when we started, but we lost it all in two days in the private rooms[23]. We had an awful time getting back, I can tell you. God, how I hated that town!»
The late afternoon sky shone in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean – then the sharp voice of Mrs. McKee called me back into the room.
«I almost made a mistake, too», she declared enthusiastically. «I almost married a nonentity who’d been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me: ‘Lucille, that man’s ‘way below you!’ But for Chester[24], I could marry him».
«Yes, but listen», said Myrtle Wilson, «at least you didn’t marry him».
«I know I didn’t».
«Well, I married him», said Myrtle, ambiguously. «And that’s the difference between your case and mine».
«Why did you, Myrtle?» said Catherine. «Nobody forced you to».
«I married him because I thought he was a gentleman», Myrtle said finally. «I thought he knew something about manners, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe».
«You were crazy about him for a while», said Catherine.
«Crazy about him!» cried Myrtle in disbelief. «Who said I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there».
She pointed suddenly at me, and every one looked at me accusingly. I tried to show by my expression that I had played no part in her past.
«I was crazy when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in, and never even told me about it, and the man came after it one day when he was out. ‘Oh, is that your suit?’ I said, ‘this is the first time I ever heard about it.’ But I gave it to him and then I lay down and cried all afternoon».
«She really ought to get away from him», resumed Catherine to me. «They’ve been living over that garage for eleven years. And Tom’s the first love she ever had».
The bottle of whiskey – a second one – was now in constant demand by all, excepting Catherine, who «felt just as good without drinking at all». I wanted to get out and walk southward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became involved in some wild argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair.
Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom.
«It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a suit and leather shoes, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him, but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me, and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm, and so I told him I’d have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was ‘You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever’».
She turned to Mrs. McKee and the room rang full of her artificial laughter.
«My dear», she cried, «I’m going to give you this dress. I’ve got to get another one tomorrow. I’m going to make a list of all the things I’ve got to get. A massage, and a collar for the dog, and one of those cute little ash-trays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother’s grave that’ll last all summer. I have to write down a list so I won’t forget all the things I have to do».
It was nine o’clock – almost immediately afterward I looked at my watch and found it was ten. Mr. McKee was asleep on a chair.
Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in passionate voices, whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy’s name.
«Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!» shouted Mrs. Wilson. «I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dal…»
Making a short movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.
Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women’s voices scolding, and a long wail of pain. Mr. McKee awoke from his sleep and started in surprise toward the door. When he had gone half way he turned around and stared at the scene – his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture trying to help Myrtle, and her miserable figure on the sofa. Then Mr. McKee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier, I followed.
«Come to lunch some day», he suggested, as we were going down in the elevator.
«Where?»
«Anywhere».
«All right», I agreed, «I’ll be glad to».
Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, waiting for the four o’clock train.
Chapter 3
There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. In the afternoon I watched his guests lying in the sun on his beach while his two motor-boats cut the waters, followed by aquaplanes. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became a bus, bearing people to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight. And on Mondays eight servants worked all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers, repairing the damage of the night before.
Every Friday five large boxes of oranges and lemons arrived from New York. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour.
At least once a fortnight caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, spiced baked hams crowded against salads and pigs and turkeys. In the main hall a bar was stocked with gins and liquors and other exquisite drinks.
By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked in the drive; the bar is in full swing[25].
I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there. They got into automobiles which took them to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby’s door. There they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby. Sometimes they came and went and didn’t meet Gatsby at all.
I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal invitation from his employer. It read[26], he had seen me several times, and had intended to visit me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it. The paper was signed Jay Gatsby.
Dressed up in white suit I went over to his lawn a little after seven, and wandered around feeling rather uncomfortable among people I didn’t know.
As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked about him stared at me in such an amazed way, that I moved in the direction of the cocktail table – the only place in the garden where a single man could remain without looking purposeless and alone.
I was going to get drunk because of embarrassment when Jordan Baker came out of the house and stood at the top of the marble steps, looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden.
«Hello!» I roared, moving toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across the garden.
«I thought you might be here», she responded