I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered Listen, a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.
I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.
Do they miss me? she cried ecstatically.
The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and theres a persistent wail all night along the north shore.
How gorgeous! Lets go back, Tom. To-morrow! Then she added irrelevantly: You ought to see the baby.
Id like to.
Shes asleep. Shes three years old. Havent you ever seen her?
Never.
Well, you ought to see her. Shes
Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.
What you doing, Nick?
Im a bond man[20].
Who with?
I told him.
Never heard of them, he remarked decisively.
This annoyed me[21].
You will, I answered shortly. You will if you stay in the East.
Oh, Ill stay in the East, dont you worry, he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. Id be a God damned fool to live anywhere else.
At this point Miss Baker said: Absolutely! with such suddenness that I started it was the first word she had uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.
Im stiff, she complained, Ive been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.
Dont look at me, Daisy retorted, Ive been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.
No, thanks, said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, Im absolutely in training.
Her host looked at her incredulously. You are! He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. How you ever get anything done is beyond me.
I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she got done. I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage[22], which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite 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 somebody there.
I dont know a single
You must know Gatsby.
Gatsby? demanded Daisy. What Gatsby?
Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
Why candles? objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. In two weeks itll be the longest day in the year. She looked at us all radiantly. Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.
We ought to plan something, yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.
All right, said Daisy. Whatll we plan? She turned to me helplessly: What do people plan?
Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
Look! she complained; I hurt it.
We all looked the knuckle was black and blue.
You did it, Tom, she said accusingly. I know you didnt mean to, but you did do it. Thats what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a
I hate that word hulking, objected Tom crossly, even in kidding.
Hulking, insisted Daisy.
Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening, too, would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy, I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. Cant you talk about crops or something?
I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way.
Civilizations going to pieces, broke out Tom violently. Ive gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Colored Empires by this man Goddard?
Why, no, I answered, rather surprised by his tone.
Well, its a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we dont look out the white race will be will be utterly submerged. Its all scientific stuff; its been proved.
Toms getting very profound, said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we
Well, these books are all scientific, insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. This fellow has worked out the whole thing. Its up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.
Weve got to beat them down, whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.
You ought to live in California began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.
This idea is that were Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. And weve produced all the things that go to make civilization oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?
There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.
Ill tell you a family secret, she whispered enthusiastically. Its about the butlers nose. Do you want to bear about the butlers nose?
Thats why I came over to-night.
Well, he wasnt always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose
Things went from bad to worse, suggested Miss Baker.
Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.
For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.
The butler came back and murmured something close to Toms ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.
I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesnt he? She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: An absolute rose?
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.
Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to 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. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.
This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor I said.
Dont talk. I want to hear what happens.
Is something happening? I inquired innocently.
You mean to say you dont know? said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. I thought everybody knew.
I dont.
Why she said hesitantly, Toms got some woman in New York[23].
Got some woman? I repeated blankly.
Miss Baker nodded.
She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Dont you think?
Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.
It couldnt be helped! cried Daisy with tense gayety.
She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: I looked outdoors for a minute, and its very romantic outdoors. Theres a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. Hes singing away Her voice sang: Its romantic, isnt it, Tom?
Very romantic, he said, and then miserably to me: If its light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldnt guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guests shrill metallic urgency out of mind. 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 twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.
Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.
We dont know each other very well, Nick, she said suddenly. Even if we are cousins. You didnt come to my wedding.
I wasnt back from the war.
Thats true. She hesitated. Well, Ive had a very bad time. Nick, and Im pretty cynical about everything.
Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didnt say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.
I suppose she talks, and eats, and everything.
Oh, yes. She looked at me absently. Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?
Very much.
Itll show you how Ive gotten to feel about things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. All right, I said, Im glad its a girl. And I hope shell be a fool thats the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.
You see I think everythings terrible anyhow, she went on in a convinced way. Everybody thinks so the most advanced people. And I know. Ive been everywhere and seen everything and done everything. Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Toms, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. Sophisticated God, Im sophisticated!
The instant her voice broke off ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from The Saturday Evening Post the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.
To be continued, she said, tossing the magazine on the table, in our very next issue.
Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.
Ten oclock, she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. Time for this good girl to go to bed.
Jordans going to play in the tournament tomorrow, explained Daisy, over at Westchester.
Oh youre Jordan Baker.
I knew now why her face was familiar its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked 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, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.
Good night, she said softly. Wake me at eight, wont you?
If youll get up.
I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.
Of course you will, confirmed Daisy. In fact, I think Ill arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and Ill sort of oh fling you together. You know lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing