“Here, dearies.” She groped around in a wastebasket she had with her
on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. “Take ’em downstairs
and give ’em back to whoever they belong to. Tell ’em all Daisy’s
change’ her mine. Say: ‘Daisy’s change’ her mine!’ ”
She began to cry—she cried and cried. I rushed out and found her
mother’s maid, and we locked the door and got her into a cold bath.
She wouldn’t let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her
and squeezed it up in a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the
soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow.
But she didn’t say another word. We gave her spirits of ammonia and
put ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress, and half
an hour later, when we walked out of the room, the pearls were around
her neck and the incident was over. Next day at five o’clock she
married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver, and started off on a
three months’ trip to the South Seas.
I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back, and I thought I’d
never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a
minute she’d look around uneasily, and say: “Where’s Tom gone?” and
wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the
door. She used to sit on the sand with his head in her lap by the
hour, rubbing her fingers over his eyes and looking at him with
unfathomable delight. It was touching to see them together—it made you
laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was in August. A week after I
left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night,
and ripped a front wheel off his car. The girl who was with him got
into the papers, too, because her arm was broken—she was one of the
chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel.
The next April Daisy had her little girl, and they went to France for
a year. I saw them one spring in Cannes, and later in Deauville, and
then they came back to Chicago to settle down. Daisy was popular in
Chicago, as you know. They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young
and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect
reputation. Perhaps because she doesn’t drink. It’s a great advantage
not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue and,
moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that
everybody else is so blind that they don’t see or care. Perhaps Daisy
never went in for amour at all—and yet there’s something in that voice
of hers …
Well, about six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for the first
time in years. It was when I asked you—do you remember?—if you knew
Gatsby in West Egg. After you had gone home she came into my room and
woke me up, and said: “What Gatsby?” and when I described him—I was
half asleep—she said in the strangest voice that it must be the man
she used to know. It wasn’t until then that I connected this Gatsby
with the officer in her white car.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had left the Plaza
for half an hour and were driving in a victoria through Central Park.
The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in
the West Fifties, and the clear voices of children, already gathered
like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight:
“I’m the Sheik of Araby. Your love belongs to me. At night when
you’re asleep Into your tent I’ll creep—”
“It was a strange coincidence,” I said.
“But it wasn’t a coincidence at all.”
“Why not?”
“Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.”
Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that
June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of
his purposeless splendour.
“He wants to know,” continued Jordan, “if you’ll invite Daisy to your
house some afternoon and then let him come over.”
The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and
bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths—so that
he could “come over” some afternoon to a stranger’s garden.
“Did I have to know all this before he could ask such a little thing?”
“He’s afraid, he’s waited so long. He thought you might be
offended. You see, he’s regular tough underneath it all.”
Something worried me.
“Why didn’t he ask you to arrange a meeting?”
“He wants her to see his house,” she explained. “And your house is
right next door.”
“Oh!”
“I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some
night,” went on Jordan, “but she never did. Then he began asking
people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found. It
was that night he sent for me at his dance, and you should have heard
the elaborate way he worked up to it. Of course, I immediately
suggested a luncheon in New York—and I thought he’d go mad:
“ ‘I don’t want to do anything out of the way!’ he kept saying. ‘I
want to see her right next door.’
“When I said you were a particular friend of Tom’s, he started to
abandon the whole idea. He doesn’t know very much about Tom, though he
says he’s read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of
catching a glimpse of Daisy’s name.”
It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm
around Jordan’s golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her
to dinner. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more,
but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal
scepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my
arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady
excitement: “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and
the tired.”
“And Daisy ought to have something in her life,” murmured Jordan to
me.
“Does she want to see Gatsby?”
“She’s not to know about it. Gatsby doesn’t want her to know. You’re
just supposed to invite her to tea.”
We passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the façade of Fifty-Ninth
Street, a block of delicate pale light, beamed down into the park.
Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face
floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up
the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Her wan, scornful mouth
smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face.
V
When I came home to West Egg that night I was afraid for a moment that
my house was on fire. Two o’clock and the whole corner of the
peninsula was blazing with light, which fell unreal on the shrubbery
and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires. Turning a
corner, I saw that it was Gatsby’s house, lit from tower to cellar.
At first I thought it was another party, a wild rout that had resolved
itself into “hide-and-go-seek” or “sardines-in-the-box” with all the
house thrown open to the game. But there wasn’t a sound. Only wind in
the trees, which blew the wires and made the lights go off and on
again as if the house had winked into the darkness. As my taxi groaned
away I saw Gatsby walking toward me across his lawn.
“Your place looks like the World’s Fair,” I said.
“Does it?” He turned his eyes toward it absently. “I have been
glancing into some of the rooms. Let’s go to Coney Island, old
sport. In my car.”
“It’s too late.”
“Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming pool? I haven’t made
use of it all summer.”
“I’ve got to go to bed.”
“All right.”
He waited, looking at me with suppressed eagerness.
“I talked with Miss Baker,” I said after a moment. “I’m going to call
up Daisy tomorrow and invite her over here to tea.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said carelessly. “I don’t want to put you
to any trouble.”
“What day would suit you?”
“What day would suit you?” he corrected me quickly. “I don’t want to
put you to any trouble, you see.”
“How about the day after tomorrow?”
He considered for a moment. Then, with reluctance: “I want to get the
grass cut,” he said.
We both looked down at the grass—there was a sharp line where my
ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept expanse of his began. I
suspected that he meant my grass.
“There’s another little thing,” he said uncertainly, and hesitated.
“Would you rather put it off for a few days?” I asked.
“Oh, it isn’t about that. At least—” He fumbled with a series of
beginnings. “Why, I thought—why, look here, old sport, you don’t make
much money, do you?”
“Not very much.”
This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently.
“I thought you didn’t, if you’ll pardon my—you see, I carry on a
little business on the side, a sort of side line, you understand. And
I thought that if you don’t make very much—You’re selling bonds,
aren’t you, old sport?”
“Trying to.”
“Well, this would interest you. It wouldn’t take up much of your time
and you might pick up a nice bit of money. It happens to be a rather
confidential sort of thing.”
I realize now that under different circumstances that conversation
might have been one of the crises of my life. But, because the offer
was obviously and tactlessly for a service to be rendered, I had no
choice except to cut him off there.
“I’ve got my hands full,” I said. “I’m much obliged but I couldn’t
take on any more work.”
“You wouldn’t have to do any business with Wolfshiem.” Evidently he
thought that I was shying away from the “gonnegtion” mentioned at
lunch, but I assured him he was wrong. He waited a moment longer,
hoping I’d begin a conversation, but I was too absorbed to be
responsive, so he went unwillingly home.
The evening had made me lightheaded and happy; I think I walked into a
deep sleep as I entered my front door. So I don’t know whether or not
Gatsby went to Coney Island, or for how many hours he “glanced into
rooms” while his house blazed gaudily on. I called up Daisy from the
office next morning, and invited her to come to tea.
“Don’t bring Tom,” I warned her.
“What?”
“Don’t bring Tom.”
“Who is ‘Tom’?” she asked innocently.
The day agreed upon was pouring rain. At eleven o’clock a man in a
raincoat, dragging a lawn-mower, tapped at my front door and said that
Mr. Gatsby had sent him over to cut my grass. This reminded me that I
had forgotten to tell my Finn to come back, so I drove into West Egg
Village to search for her among soggy whitewashed alleys and to buy
some cups and lemons and flowers.
The flowers were unnecessary, for at two o’clock a greenhouse arrived
from Gatsby’s, with innumerable receptacles to contain it. An hour
later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel
suit, silver shirt, and gold-coloured tie, hurried in. He was pale,
and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.
“Is everything all right?” he asked immediately.
“The grass looks fine, if that’s what you mean.”
“What grass?” he inquired blankly. “Oh, the grass in the yard.” He
looked out the window at it, but, judging from his expression, I don’t
believe he saw a thing.
“Looks very good,” he remarked vaguely. “One of the papers said they
thought the rain would stop about four. I think it was The
Journal. Have you got everything you need in the shape of—of tea?”
I took him into the pantry, where he looked a little reproachfully at
the Finn. Together we scrutinized the twelve lemon cakes from the
delicatessen shop.
“Will they do?” I asked.
“Of course, of course! They’re fine!” and he added hollowly, “… old
sport.”
The rain cooled about half-past three to a damp mist, through which
occasional thin drops swam like dew. Gatsby looked with vacant eyes
through a copy of Clay’s Economics, starting at the Finnish tread that
shook the kitchen floor, and peering towards the bleared windows from
time to time as if a series of invisible but alarming happenings were
taking place outside. Finally he got up and informed me, in an
uncertain voice, that he was going home.
“Why’s that?”
“Nobody’s coming to tea. It’s too late!” He looked at his watch as if
there was some pressing demand on his time elsewhere. “I can’t wait
all day.”
“Don’t be silly; it’s just two minutes to four.”
He sat down miserably, as if I had pushed him, and simultaneously
there was the sound of a motor turning into my lane. We both jumped
up, and, a little harrowed myself, I went out into the yard.
Under the dripping bare lilac-trees a large open car was coming up the
drive. It stopped. Daisy’s face, tipped sideways beneath a
three-cornered lavender hat, looked out at me with a bright ecstatic
smile.
“Is this absolutely where you live, my dearest one?”
The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I
had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear
alone, before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a
dash of blue paint across her cheek, and her hand was wet with
glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car.
“Are you in love with me,” she said low in my ear, “or why did I have
to come alone?”
“That’s the secret of Castle Rackrent. Tell your chauffeur to go far
away and spend an hour.”
“Come back in an hour, Ferdie.” Then in a grave murmur: “His name is
Ferdie.”
“Does the gasoline affect his nose?”
“I don’t think so,” she said innocently. “Why?”
We went in. To my overwhelming surprise the living-room was deserted.
“Well, that’s funny,” I exclaimed.
“What’s funny?”
She turned her head as there was a light dignified knocking at the
front door. I went out and opened it. Gatsby, pale as death, with his
hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a
puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes.
With his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me into the
hall, turned sharply as if he were on a wire, and disappeared into the
living-room. It wasn’t a bit funny. Aware of the loud beating of my
own heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain.
For half a minute there wasn’t a sound. Then from the living-room I
heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by
Daisy’s voice on a clear artificial note:
“I certainly am awfully glad to see you again.”
A pause; it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall, so I
went into the room.
Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the
mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of
boredom. His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face
of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught
eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful,
on the edge of a stiff chair.
“We’ve met before,” muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at
me, and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily
the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his
head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers, and
set it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm
of the sofa and his chin in his hand.
“I’m sorry about the clock,” he said.
My own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. I couldn’t muster up
a single commonplace out of the thousand in my head.
“It’s an old clock,” I told them idiotically.
I think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on
the floor.
“We haven’t met for many years,” said Daisy, her voice as
matter-of-fact as it could ever be.
“Five years next November.”
The automatic quality of Gatsby’s answer set us all back at least
another minute. I had them both on their feet with the desperate
suggestion that they help me make tea in the kitchen when the demoniac
Finn brought it in on a tray.
Amid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical
decency established itself. Gatsby got himself into a shadow and,
while Daisy and I talked, looked conscientiously from one to the other
of us with tense, unhappy eyes. However, as calmness wasn’t an end in
itself, I made an excuse at the first possible moment, and got to my
feet.
“Where are you going?” demanded Gatsby in immediate alarm.
“I’ll be back.”
“I’ve got to speak to you about something before you go.”
He followed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the door, and
whispered: “Oh, God!” in a miserable way.
“What’s the matter?”
“This is a terrible mistake,” he said, shaking his head from side to
side, “a terrible, terrible mistake.”
“You’re just embarrassed, that’s all,” and luckily I added: “Daisy’s
embarrassed too.”
“She’s embarrassed?” he repeated incredulously.
“Just as much as you are.”
“Don’t talk so loud.”
“You’re acting like a little boy,” I broke out impatiently. “Not only
that, but you’re rude. Daisy’s sitting in there all alone.”
He raised his hand to stop my words, looked at me with unforgettable
reproach, and, opening the door cautiously, went back into the other
room.
I walked out the back way—just as Gatsby had when he had made his
nervous circuit of the house half an hour before—and ran for a huge
black knotted tree, whose massed leaves made a fabric against the
rain. Once more it was pouring, and my irregular lawn, well-shaved by
Gatsby’s gardener, abounded in small muddy swamps and prehistoric
marshes. There was nothing to look at from under the tree except
Gatsby’s enormous house, so I stared at it, like Kant at his church
steeple, for half an hour. A brewer had built it early in the “period”
craze, a decade before, and there was a story that he’d agreed to pay
five years’ taxes on all the neighbouring cottages if the owners would
have their roofs thatched with straw. Perhaps their refusal took the
heart out of his plan to Found a Family—he went into an immediate
decline. His children sold his house with the black wreath still on
the door. Americans, while willing, even eager, to be serfs, have
always been obstinate about being peasantry.
After half an hour, the sun shone again, and the grocer’s automobile
rounded Gatsby’s drive with the raw material for his servants’
dinner—I felt sure he wouldn’t eat a spoonful. A maid began opening
the upper windows of his house, appeared momentarily in each, and,
leaning from the large central bay, spat meditatively into the
garden. It was time I went back. While the rain continued it had
seemed like the murmur of their voices, rising and swelling a little
now and then with gusts of emotion. But in the new silence I felt that
silence had fallen within the house too.
I went in—after making every possible noise in the kitchen, short of
pushing over the stove—but I don’t believe they heard a sound. They
were sitting at either end of the couch, looking at each other as if
some question had been asked, or was in the air, and every vestige of
embarrassment was gone. Daisy’s face was smeared with tears, and when
I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief
before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply
confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of
exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little
room.
“Oh, hello, old sport,” he said, as if he hadn’t seen me for years. I
thought for a moment he was going to shake hands.
“It’s stopped raining.”
“Has it?” When he realized what I was talking about, that there were
twinkle-bells of sunshine in the room, he smiled like a weather man,
like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light, and repeated the news to
Daisy. “What do you think of that? It’s stopped raining.”
“I’m glad, Jay.” Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told
only of her unexpected joy.
“I want you and Daisy to come over to my house,” he said, “I’d like to
show her around.”
“You’re sure you want me to come?”
“Absolutely, old sport.”
Daisy went upstairs to wash her face—too late I thought with
humiliation of my towels—while Gatsby and I waited on the lawn.
“My house looks well, doesn’t it?” he demanded. “See how the whole
front of it catches the light.”