The Great Gatsby / Великий Гэтсби. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Фрэнсис Скотт Фицджеральд

      Chapter II

      About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile. This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke.

      But above the gray land and the spasms of cheerless dust which move endlessly over it, you notice, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. These eyes are blue and gigantic. There is no face, but, instead, the eyes look from a pair of enormous yellow glasses which pass over a non-existent nose. Evidently some wild joker of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness35, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, that became a little paler because of many paintless days under sun and rain, overhang over the solemn ground.

      The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges go through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the sad scene for half an hour. It was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan’s mistress.

      Everyone who knew him insisted upon the fact that Tom had an affair. His acquaintances were shocked by the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her. Though I was curious to see her, I had no desire to meet her – but I did. I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon and when we stopped by the ash heaps he jumped to his feet and, taking me by the elbow, literally forced me from the car36.

      “We’re getting off,” he insisted. “I want you to meet my girl.”

      I think he’d eaten a lot for lunch, and violently wanted to take me with him. I followed him and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor Eckleburg’s persistent stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick. It contained three shops; one of them was for rent and another was an all night restaurant; the third was a garage – Repairs. George B. Wilson, Cars bought and sold – and I followed Tom inside.

      The interior was poor and bare; the only car visible was a dust-covered Ford. The owner himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste37. He was a blond, spiritless man, weak, and faintly handsome. When he saw us a shade of hope appeared in his light blue eyes.

      “Hello, Wilson, old man,” said Tom, slapping him cheerfully on the shoulder. “How’s business?”

      “I can’t complain,” answered Wilson unconvincingly. “When are you going to sell me that car?”

      “Next week; I’ve got my man working on it now.”

      “Works pretty slow, don’t he?38”

      “No, he doesn’t,” said Tom coldly. “And if you feel that way about it, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all.”

      “I don’t mean that,” answered Wilson quickly. “I just meant —”

      His voice faded off and Tom looked impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door39. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly fat, but she carried her overweight body sensuously as some women can. Her face contained no shade of beauty, but there was an immediate vitality about her that you couldn’t miss. She smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him right in the eye. Then she wet her lips, and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:

      “Get some chairs, why don’t you, so somebody can sit down.”

      “Oh, sure,” agreed Wilson hurriedly. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity40 – except his wife, who moved close to Tom.

      “I want to see you,” said Tom imperatively. “Get on the next train.”

      “All right.”

      We waited for her down the road and out of sight.

      “Terrible place, isn’t it,” said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg.

      “Awful.”

      “It does her good to get away. Wilson thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so stupid he doesn’t know he’s alive.”

      So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York. She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York41. At the news-stand she bought a copy of Town Tattle42, and in the station drugstore some cold cream and a small flask of perfume. Upstairs, she let four taxicabs drive away before she chose a new one, lavender-colored, and in this we climbed into. But immediately she turned sharply from the window and tapped on the front glass.43

      “I want to get one of those dogs for the apartment,” she said imperatively.

      We backed up to a gray old man who was selling very recent puppies of a doubtful breed.

      “What kind are they?” asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly.

      “All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?”

      “I’d like to get one of those police dogs; I don’t think you got that kind?”

      The man looked doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up44.

      “That’s no police dog,” said Tom.

      “No, it’s not exactly a police dog,” said the man with disappointment in his voice. “It’s more of an Airedale45. Look at that coat. That’s a dog that’ll never catch cold, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

      “I

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