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Words that shows Dialect in the Content Hi, I need 15 examples from…
Words that shows Dialect in the Content
Hi, I need 15 examples from the content provided. I need you to bold them after you find them. Thanks. This is my final term and I have autism. I need your help.
Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald (Page 1-17) Chapter 1
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In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advicethat I’vebeen turningover in mymind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this worldhaven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
He didn’t say any more, butwe’ve always been unusuallycommunicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and alsomade me the victimof not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick todetect and attach itself to this quality when it appearsin a normal person, and so it came aboutthat in college I was unjustly accused ofbeing a politician, becauseI was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Mostof theconfidenceswereunsought frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostilelevity when I realizedby some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on thehorizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or atleast theterms in which they expressthem, are usually plagiaristic and marred byobvioussuppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, asmy father snobbishlysuggested, and Isnobbishly repeat, a senseof thefundamental decencies isparcelled out unequally atbirth.
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And, after boasting this way of mytolerance, I cometo the admission that it has a limit. Conduct maybe founded on the hard rock or thewet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s foundedon. When I came back from the Eastlast autumn I felt that I wanted the world tobe in uniform and at a sortof moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotousexcursions with privileged glimpses into thehuman heart. OnlyGatsby, the man who gives his nameto this book, was exempt from my reaction Gatsby, who representedeverythingfor which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is anunbroken series ofsuccessful gestures, then there was something gorgeous abouthim, someheightened sensitivityto the promises of life, as if he were related toone
of those intricate machines that register earthquakesten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to dowiththat flabby impressionability which is dignified under thenameof the “creative temperament.” it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is notlikely I shall ever find again. No Gatsbyturnedout all rightat the end; it is what preyedon Gatsby, what foul dust floated in thewake ofhis dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
My family have been prominent, well-to-dopeople in thisMiddleWestern city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from theDukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of mylinewas my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to theCivil War, and started the wholesale hardwarebusinessthat my father carries on to-day.
I never saw this great-uncle, but I’msupposed tolook likehim with special reference tothe rather hard-boiledpainting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from NewHaven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after myfather, and a littlelater I participated in thatdelayed Teutonic migration known asthe Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raidso thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being thewarmcentre of the world, theMiddle West now seemed like the raggededge ofthe universe so I decided togo East and learn the bond
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business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more singleman. Allmy aunts and uncles talked it over as if theywerechoosing a prepschoolfor me, andfinally said, “Why ye es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance mefor a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the springof twenty-two.
The practical thing was tofind rooms in the city, but itwas a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a youngman at theofficesuggestedthat wetake a housetogether in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found thehouse, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but atthe last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog at least I hadhimfor afew days until he ran away and an oldDodge and aFinnish woman, who made mybed andcooked breakfast andmuttered Finnish wisdom to herselfover the electricstove.
It waslonelyfor aday or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
“How do you get to WestEgg village?” he asked helplessly.
I told him. Andas I walked on I was lonely nolonger. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an originalsettler. He had casuallyconferred on me the freedomof the neighborhood.
And so with the sunshine andthe great burstsof leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
There was so muchto read, for onething, and so muchfine health to be pulleddown out of theyoungbreath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumeson banking andcredit and investment securities, and they stoodon myshelf in red and gold like new moneyfrom the mint, promising to unfold theshiningsecretsthat only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had thehigh intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college one yearI wrote a series of verysolemn and obvious editorials for the”Yale News.” and now I was going to bringback all such things into mylife andbecome again that most limitedof allspecialists, the “well-rounded man.” This
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isn’t just an epigram life is much moresuccessfullylooked at from a single window, after all.
It wasa matter of chancethat I shouldhave rented a house in oneof thestrangest communities in North America. It was on thatslender riotous island whichextends itself due east ofNew York and where there are, amongother natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twentymilesfrom the city a pair of enormouseggs, identical in contour andseparatedonly by a courtesy bay, jut out into the mostdomesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long IslandSound. Theyare not perfect ovals like the egg in theColumbus story, they are both crushedflat at the contact end but their physical resemblance mustbe a source ofperpetual confusion tothe gulls that fly overhead. To thewingless a more arresting phenomenon istheir dissimilarity in every particular except shape andsize.
I lived at West Egg, the well, the less fashionableof the two, though this is a most superficial tagto express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrastbetween them. My housewasatthe very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from theSound, andsqueezed between two huge places that rented for twelveor fifteen thousand a season. Theone on my right was acolossal affair byanystandard it was a factual imitation of some Hotelde Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of rawivy, and a marble swimmingpool, and more than forty acresof lawn and garden. Itwas Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. Myown house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a viewof thewater, a partial view ofmy neighbor’s lawn, andthe consoling proximity ofmillionaires all for eightydollars a month.
Across the courtesybay the white palaces offashionable East Egg glittered along thewater, and the history of the summerreally begins on theevening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisywasmy secondcousinonce removed, and I’d known Tomin college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.
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Her husband, among variousphysical accomplishments, had been one of themost powerful ends that ever played football at NewHaven a national figure in a way, one of thosemen whoreach such an acutelimited excellence at twenty-onethat everything afterward savors of anti-climax. Hisfamily were enormouslywealthy even in college his freedomwithmoney was a matter for reproach but now he’d leftChicago andcome East in a fashion that rather tookyour breath away: for instance, he’dbroughtdown astring of poloponiesfrom LakeForest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthyenough to do that.
Why they came East I don’t know. Theyhad spent a year in France for noparticular reason, and then driftedhere and thereunrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I feltthat Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.
And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Eggto see twoold friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaboratethan I expected, a cheerful red-and-whiteGeorgian Colonial mansion, overlooking thebay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials andbrick walks and burning gardens finallywhen it reached the house driftingup the side in bright vines asthough from themomentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing nowwith reflectedgold and wideopen tothe warmwindy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clotheswasstanding with his legs apart on the front porch.
He had changedsincehis NewHaven years. Now hewas a sturdystraw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a superciliousmanner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face andgave him the appearanceof alwaysleaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank ofhis ridingclothescould hide theenormous power of that body he seemed to fill those glisteningbootsuntil he strained the toplacing,
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and you couldsee a great pack ofmuscle shifting when his shoulder moved under histhin coat. It was a bodycapable ofenormousleverage acruel body.
His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added tothe impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch ofpaternalcontemptin it, even towardpeoplehe liked and there were men at New Haven whohadhatedhisguts.
“Now, don’t think my opinion on thesematters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in thesamesenior society, and while we were never intimate I alwayshadthe impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.
We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
“I’ve gota nice place here,” he said, his eyesflashing about restlessly,
Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand alongthe front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosedmotor-boat that bumped the tide offshore.
“It belonged toDemaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound intothe houseby French windowsat either end. Thewindowswere ajar and gleaming white againstthe fresh grassoutsidethatseemedto grow a little way into the house. A breeze blewthrough the room, blew curtains in at oneend and outthe other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippledover thewine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
The only completely stationary object in the roomwas an enormouscouch on which twoyoungwomen werebuoyedup asthough upon an anchored balloon. Theywerebothin white, and their dresseswere rippling and fluttering as if they had justbeen blown back in after a short flight around thehouse. I musthave stood for a few moments listening to the whip andsnapof the curtainsandthe groan of a pictureon the wall. Then therewas a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows andthe caught wind died out about
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the room, and thecurtains andthe rugsand thetwo youngwomen ballooned slowly to thefloor.
The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended fulllength ather endof thedivan, completelymotionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likelyto fall. Ifshe saw me out of the corner ofher eyes shegave no hint of it indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.
The other girl, Daisy, made an attemptto rise sheleanedslightlyforward with a conscientious expression then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.
“I’mp-paralyzedwithhappiness.”
She laughed again, as if shesaidsomething very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into myface, promising that therewas no one in the worldshe so much wanted to see. Thatwas a way shehad. She hinted in a murmur that thesurname ofthe balancing girlwas Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only tomakepeoplelean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)
At any rate, Miss Baker’slipsfluttered, she nodded atme almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again the object shewasbalancing had obviously tottered a little and given her somethingof a fright. Again a sort of apology arose tomy lips. Almost any exhibition of completeself-sufficiency draws a stunned tributefromme.
I looked back atmy cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrillingvoice. It was the kind of voice that theear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangementof notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad andlovely with bright things in it, brighteyes and a bright passionate mouth, but therewas an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficultto forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that shehaddone gay, exciting things just a whilesince andthatthere weregay, exciting thingshovering in the nexthour.
I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen peoplehadsenttheir love through me.
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“Do they miss me?”she cried ecstatically.
“The wholetown is desolate. Allthe cars have theleft rear wheelpaintedblack as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”
“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. To-morrow!” Then she added irrelevantly: “You ought to seethe baby.”
“I’d like to.”
“She’s asleep. She’sthreeyears old. Haven’tyouever seen her?”
“Never.”
“Well, you ought tosee her. She’s ”
Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and restedhis hand on my shoulder.
“What you doing, Nick?”
“I’m a bond man.”
“Who with?”
I told him.
“Never heard of them,” he remarkeddecisively.
This annoyed me.
“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if youstay in theEast.”
“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t youworry,” he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. “I’d be a Goddamned fool to live anywhereelse.”
At this point Miss Baker said: “Absolutely!” with suchsuddenness that I started itwas the first word sheuttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her asmuch asitdidme, for she yawned andwith a series of rapid, deftmovementsstood up intothe room.
“I’m stiff,” shecomplained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”
“Don’t look at me,” Daisy retorted, “I’ve been trying to get you toNew York all afternoon.”
“No, thanks,” said Miss Baker to thefour cocktails just in from the pantry, “I’m absolutely in training.”
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Her host looked at her incredulously.
“You are!” Hetook down hisdrink as if it were a drop in the bottomof a glass. “How youever get anythingdone is beyond me.”
I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “gotdone.” I enjoyed looking at her. Shewas a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, whichshe accentuated bythrowing her bodybackward at theshoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at mewithpolite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.
“You live in West Egg,”she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebodythere.”
“I don’t know a single”
“You must know Gatsby.”
“Gatsby?” demanded Daisy. “What Gatsby?”
Before I could replythathe was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperativelyunder mine, Tom Buchanan compelledme from the room asthoughhe were moving a checker to another square.
Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the twoyoung women preceded usoutonto a rosy-colored porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on thetable in the diminished wind.
“Why candles?”objectedDaisy, frowning. She snapped themout with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Doyoualways watchfor the longest day of the year and then miss it? I alwayswatch for the longest day in theyear and then miss it.”
“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down atthe table as if she were getting into bed.
“All right,”saidDaisy. “What’ll we plan?” Sheturnedto mehelplessly: “What do peopleplan?”
Before I could answer her eyes fastenedwith an awedexpression on her little finger.
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“Look!” shecomplained; “I hurt it.”
We all looked the knuckle was black and blue.
“You did it, Tom,”shesaidaccusingly. “I knowyoudidn’t mean to, but youdid do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a ”
“I hate that wordhulking,” objected Tomcrossly, “even in kidding.”
“Hulking,” insisted Daisy.
Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quitechatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of alldesire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to beentertained. They knew that presently dinner wouldbe over and a littlelater theevening too wouldbe over and casuallyput away. Itwassharply different from theWest,where an evening was hurried from phaseto phasetoward its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,” I confessedon my secondglass ofcorkybut rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?”
I meantnothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpectedway.
“Civilization’s going to pieces,”broke out Tom violently. “I’vegotten to be a terrible pessimist aboutthings. Have you read ‘The Rise ofthe ColoredEmpires’ by this man Goddard?”
“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprisedby his tone.
“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybodyought to read it. The idea isifwe don’t look outthe white racewillbe will beutterlysubmerged. It’sallscientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
“Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtfulsadness. “He reads deep bookswithlong words in them. What was that word we ”
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“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has workedout thewhole thing. It’s up to us, who arethe dominant race, to watch out or theseother raceswill have control of things.”
“We’ve got to beat them down,”whispered Daisy, winking ferociouslytowardthe fervent sun.
“You oughtto live in California ” began Miss Baker, but Tom interruptedher by shiftingheavily in his chair.
“This idea is that we’reNordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and ” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, andshe winked at me again. “ Andwe’veproduced all the thingsthatgo tomake civilization oh, science andart, andallthat. Do you see?”
There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acutethan of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside andthe butler left theporchDaisyseized upon themomentary interruption and leanedtowardme.
“I’ll tellyoua family secret,” shewhispered enthusiastically. “It’s aboutthe butler’s nose. Do youwant tohear aboutthebutler’s nose?”
“That’s why I came over to-night.”
“Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used tobe thesilver polisher for somepeople in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish itfrommorning till night, until finally itbegan to affect his nose ”
“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker.
“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finallyhe had to give up his position.”
For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelledme forward breathlessly as I listened then the glow faded, eachlight deserting her with lingering regret, likechildren leaving a pleasant street at dusk.
The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, andwithout a word went inside. As if his absence quickened somethingwithin her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voiceglowing and singing.
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“I loveto seeyou atmy table, Nick. You remind meof a of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned toMiss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmthflowedfromher,as if her heart was trying to comeout toyou concealed in one of those breathless, thrillingwords. Then suddenly shethrewher napkin on the table and excused herself and went intothe house.
Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was aboutto speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. Themurmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mountedexcitedly, and then ceased altogether.
“This Mr. Gatsby you spokeof ismy neighbor ” I said.
“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”
“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.
“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thoughteverybody knew.”
“I don’t.”
“Why ” she said hesitantly, “Tom’s gotsome woman in NewYork.”
“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly.
Miss Baker nodded.
“She might have the decency notto telephone him at dinner time. Don’tyou think?”
Almost before I had grasped her meaning therewas the flutter of adress andthe crunch ofleather boots, and Tom andDaisy were back at the table.
“It couldn’t be helped!”cried Daisywith tense gaiety.
She sat down, glancedsearchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, andcontinued: “I lookedoutdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors.
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There’s a birdon thelawn that I think mustbe a nightingale comeover on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away ” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?”
“Very romantic,” he said, andthen miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I wantto take you down to the stables.”
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her headdecisively at Tom the subjectof the stables, in fact allsubjects, vanished into air. Among thebroken fragments of the last five minutes attable I remember the candlesbeinglit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely atevery one, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guesswhatDaisy and Tom werethinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to putthisfifthguest’s shrill metallic urgency out ofmind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.
The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilightbetween them, strolledback into thelibrary, as if to a vigil beside aperfectly tangible body, while, trying tolook pleasantly interested and a littledeaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom wesat down side bysideon a wicker settee.
Daisy took her face in her hands as iffeeling its lovelyshape, andher eyes moved gradually out intothe velvet dusk. I saw that turbulentemotions possessedher, so I askedwhat I thought would besome sedative questions about her littlegirl.
“We don’t knoweach other very well, Nick,” shesaidsuddenly. “Even if we are cousins. Youdidn’t come to my wedding.”
“I wasn’t back from the war.”
“That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.”
Evidentlyshe had reason to be. I waitedbut shedidn’t say anymore, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.
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“I suppose she talks, and eats, and everything.”
“Oh, yes.” Shelooked at me absently. “Listen, Nick; let metell youwhat I saidwhen she was born. Would you like to hear?”
“Very much.”
“It’ll showyou how I’ve gotten to feel about things. Well, she wasless than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out ofthe ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She toldme it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘all right,’ I said, ‘I’mglad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool that’s thebest thing a girlcan be in this world, a beautiful littlefool.”
“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convincedway. “Everybody thinksso themost advancedpeople. And I know. I’ve been everywhere andseen everything anddoneeverything.” Her eyes flashed around her in a defiantway, rather like Tom’s, and shelaughedwith thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated God, I’m sophisticated!”
The instant her voicebroke off, ceasing to compel my attention, mybelief, I felt the basic insincerity ofwhat shehad said. Itmade me uneasy, as thoughthe whole evening had been a trick of somesortto exact a contributoryemotion from me. I waited, and sureenough, in a moment shelooked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovelyface, as if shehad asserted her membership in a rather distinguishedsecretsociety towhichshe and Tom belonged.
Inside, the crimson room bloomedwithlight.
Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloudto him from the Saturday Evening Post. thewords, murmurous and uninflected, runningtogether ina soothing tune. Thelamp-light, bright on his boots anddull on the autumn-leaf yellow ofher hair, glinted alongthe paper asshe turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
When we came in sheheld ussilent for a moment with a lifted hand.
“To be continued,” shesaid, tossing the magazine on the table, “in our very next issue.”
Her body asserted itself with a restlessmovement of her knee, and shestood up.
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“Ten o’clock,”she remarked, apparentlyfinding the time on the ceiling. “Timefor this goodgirl togo tobed.”
“Jordan’sgoingto play in thetournament to-morrow,” explainedDaisy, “over atWestchester.”
“Oh you’re Jordan Baker.”
I knew nowwhy her facewas familiar itspleasing contemptuous expression hadlooked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, butwhat it was I had forgotten long ago.
“Good night,” shesaidsoftly. “Wakeme at eight, won’tyou.”
“If you’ll get up.”
“I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.”
“Of course youwill,” confirmed Daisy. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I’llsortof oh flingyou together. You know lock you up accidentally in linen closetsand pushyou outto sea in a boat, and all that sortof thing ”
“Good night,” called Miss Baker from thestairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”
“She’s a nicegirl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around thecountrythis way.”
“Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Daisy coldly.
“Her family.”
“Her family isoneaunt about a thousand yearsold. Besides, Nick’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Nick? She’s going to spendlots ofweek-ends out here this summer. I think thehome influence will be very good for her.”
Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.
“Is she from NewYork?” I asked quickly.
“From Louisville. Our whitegirlhood was passedtogether there. Our beautiful white”
“DidyougiveNick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?”demanded Tomsuddenly
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“Did I?” She looked atme.
“I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked aboutthe Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. Itsortof crept upon us and first thingyou know ”
“Don’t believe everythingyou hear, Nick,” he advised me.
I said lightlythat I had heard nothing at all,and a few minutes later I got upto go home. They came tothe door with me and stoodsideby side in a cheerfulsquare of light. As I startedmy motor Daisy peremptorily called: “Wait!”
“I forgotto ask you something, and it’s important. Weheard youwere engaged to a girl out West.”
“That’s right,”corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that youwereengaged.”
“It’s libel. I’m too poor.”
“But weheard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me byopening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from threepeople, so itmustbe true.”
Of course I knew what theywere referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguelyengaged. The fact that gossip had published the bannswas one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an oldfriend on account of rumors, andon the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.
Their interest rather touched me and made themless remotely rich nevertheless, I was confused and a littledisgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy todo was to rushout ofthe house, child in arms but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. Asfor Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in NewYork.”was reallylesssurprising than that he had been depressedby abook. Something was making him nibble atthe edge of stale ideasas if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of waysidegarages, where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached myestate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grassroller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in thetrees and a persistentorgan sound as the full bellowsof theearthblew the frogs fullof life. The silhouette of a movingcat wavered across themoonlight, and turning my head to watch it, I saw
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that I was not alone fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of thestars. Something in his leisurely movements andthe secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come outto determine what share washisof our local heavens.
I decided tocallto him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, andthatwoulddo for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him, for hegave a sudden intimation that he was c
