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 as I came up. «I remembered you lived next door to…» She held my hand, and turned to two girls in identical yellow dresses, who stopped at the foot of the steps.
«Hello!» they cried together. «Sorry you didn’t win».
That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before.
«You don’t know who we are», said one of the girls in yellow, «but we met you here about a month ago».
«Do you often come to these parties?» inquired Jordan of the girl beside her.
«The last one was when I met you», answered the girl, in a confident voice. She turned to her companion: «Were you there, too, Lucille?»
Lucille was there, too.
«I like to come», Lucille said. «I never think about what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my dress on a chair, and he asked me my name and address. And soon I got a package with a new evening dress in it».
«Did you keep it?» asked Jordan.
«Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it had to be altered. It was blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty- five dollars».
«There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that», said the other girl eagerly. «He doesn’t want any trouble with ANYbody».
«Who doesn’t?» I inquired.
«Gatsby. Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once».
«I don’t think it’s so much THAT», argued Lucille sceptically; «it’s more that he was a German spy during the war».
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