August 24, 2024 • 28 mins
Nick learns about Gatsby’s past: he was born James Gatz, a poor farmer’s son, and reinvented himself for wealth and status. At a party, Tom grows suspicious of Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy. Gatsby remains convinced Daisy will leave Tom, but Nick senses this dream is unrealistic. The chapter highlights Gatsby’s relentless pursuit of an unattainable dream. Summary by Dream AudioBooks
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
About this time, an ambitious young reporter from New York
arrived one morning at Gatsby's door and asked him if
he had anything to say, anything to say about what?
Inquired Gatsby politely, why any statement to give out? It
(00:24):
transpired after a confused five minutes that the man had
heard Gatsby's name around his office in a connection which
he either wouldn't reveal or didn't fully understand. This was
his day off, and with laudable initiative, he had hurried
out to see It was a random shot, and yet
the reporter's instinct was right. Gatsby's notoriety, spread about by
(00:49):
the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so become
authorities on his past, had increased all summer until he
fell just short of being news. Contemporary legends, such as
the underground Pipeline to Canada attached themselves to him, and
there was one persistent story that he didn't live in
(01:10):
a house at all, but in a boat that looked
like a house and was moved secretly up and down
Long Island shore. Just why these inventions were a source
of satisfaction to James Gatts of North Dakota. Isn't easy
to say James Gatts. That was really, or at least legally,
(01:30):
his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen,
and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of
his career, when he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor
over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. It was
James Gatts who had been loafing along the beach that
afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of
(01:51):
canvas pants. But it was already Jay Gatsby, who borrowed
a row boat, pulled out to the Tuolemy and informed
Cody's that a wind might catch him and break him
up in half an hour. I suppose he'd had the
name ready for a long time. Even then. His parents
were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people, his imagination had never
(02:14):
really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth
was that j Gatsby of West egg Long Island sprang
from his platonic conception of himself. He was a son
of God, a phrase which, if it means anything, means
just that. And he must be about his father's business,
the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty. So
(02:39):
he invented just the sort of j Gatsby that a
seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, And
to this conception he was faithful to the end. For
over a year he had been beating his way along
the south shore of Lake Superior, as a clam digger
and a salmon fisher, or in any other capacity that
brought him food and bed. His brown hardening body lived
(03:04):
naturally through the half fierce, half lazy work of the
bracing days. He knew women early, and since they spoiled him,
he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they
were ignorant of the others, because they were hysterical about
things which, in his overwhelming self absorption he took for granted.
(03:26):
But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The
most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed
at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out
in his brain, while the clock ticked on the washstand
and the moon soaked with wet light. His tangled clothes
upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern
(03:50):
of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid
scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while, these reveries
provided an outlet for his imagination. They were a satisfactory
hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the
rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.
(04:13):
An instinct toward his future glory had led him some
months before to the small Lutheran College of Saint Olaf
in southern Minnesota. He stayed there two weeks, dismayed at
its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny to
destiny itself, and despising the janitor's work with which he
was to pay his way through. Then he drifted back
(04:37):
to Lake Superior, and he was still searching for something
to do on the day that Dan Cody's yacht dropped
anchor in the shallows along shore. Cody was fifty years
old then, a product of the Nevada silver fields of
the Yukon, of every rush for metal since seventy five.
(04:58):
The transactions in Montana copper that made him many times
a millionaire found him physically robust, but on the verge
of soft mindedness and Suspecting this, an infinite number of
women tried to separate him from his money. The none
too savory ramifications by which Eli Ky, the newspaper woman,
(05:19):
played Madame de Mantiennan to his weakness and sent him
to sea in a yacht, were common knowledge to the
turgid sub journalism of nineteen o two. He had been
coasting along all two hospitable shores for five years when
he turned up as James Gats's destiny at Little Girl's Point.
(05:39):
To the young Gats, resting on his oars and looking
up at the railed deck, the yacht represented all the
beauty and glamor in the world. I suppose he smiled
at Cody. He had probably discovered that people liked him
when he smiled at any rate. Cody asked him a
few questions, one of them elicited the brand new name,
(06:02):
and found that he was quick and extravagantly ambitious. A
few days later he took him to Duluth and bought
him a blue coat, six pair of white duck trousers
and a yachting cap. And when the Tuolemny left for
the West Indies and the Barbary Coast, Gatsby left too.
(06:23):
He was employed in a vague personal capacity. While he
remained with Cody. He was in turn steward, mate, skipper, secretary,
and even jailer for Dan Cody. Sober knew what lavish
doings Dan Cody drunk might soon be about, and he
provided for such contingencies by reposing more and more trust
in Gatsby. The arrangement lasted five years, during which the
(06:48):
boat went three times around the continent. It might have
lasted indefinitely except for the fact that Ella Ky came
on board one night in Boston, and a week later
Dan Cody inhospitably dyed. I remember the portrait of him
up in Gatsby's bedroom, a gray Florid man with a hard,
(07:09):
empty face, the pioneer debauche who, during one phase of
American life, brought back to the Eastern Seaboard the savage
violence of the Frontier brothel and saloon. It was indirectly
due to Cody that Gatsby drank so little. Sometimes in
the course of gay parties, women used to rub champagne
(07:32):
into his hair. For himself, he formed the habit of
letting liquor alone, and it was from Cody that he
inherited money, a legacy of twenty five thousand dollars. He
didn't get it. He never understood the legal device that
was used against him, But what remained of the millions
went intact to Ella Kay. He was left with his
(07:55):
singularly appropriate education. The vague contour of j Gatsby had
filled out to the substantiality of a man. He told
me all this very much later, but I've put it
down here with the idea of exploding those first wild
rumors about his antecedents, which weren't even faintly true. Moreover,
(08:17):
he told it to me at a time of confusion,
when I had reached the point of believing everything and
nothing about him. So I take advantage of this short
halt while Gatsby, so to speak, caught his breath to
clear this set of misconceptions away. It was a halt
too in my association with his affairs. For several weeks,
(08:41):
I didn't see him or hear his voice on the phone.
Mostly I was in New York, trotting around with Jordan
and trying to ingratiate myself with her senile aunt. But
finally I went over to his house one Sunday, afternoon.
I hadn't been there two minutes when somebody brought Tom
Buchanan in for a drink. I was startled, naturally, But
(09:02):
the really surprising thing was that it hadn't happened before.
They were a party of three on horseback, Tom and
a man named Sloane, and a pretty woman in a
brown riding habit who had been there previously. I'm delighted
to see you, said Gatsby, standing on his porch. I'm
delighted that you dropped in as though they cared. Sit
(09:27):
right down, have a cigarette or a cigar. He walked
around the room, quickly ringing bells. I'll have something to
drink for you in just a minute. He was profoundly
affected by the fact that Tom was there, but he
would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something,
realizing in a vague way that that was all they
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came for. Mister Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade, no thanks,
a little champagne, nothing at all. Thanks. I'm sorry. Did
you have a nice ride, very good roads around here,
I suppose the automobiles. Yeah. Moved by an irresistible impulse,
(10:16):
Gatsby turned to Tom, who had accepted the introduction as
a stranger. I believe we've met somewhere before, mister Buchanan.
Oh yes, said Tom, gruffly, polite but obviously not remembering.
So we did. I remember very well about two weeks ago.
(10:39):
That's right, you were with Nick here. I know your wife,
continued Gatsby, almost aggressively. That's so, Tom turned to me.
You live near here, Nick, next door? That's so. Mister
Sloane didn't enter into the can, but lounged back haughtily
(11:02):
in his chair. The woman said nothing either, until unexpectedly,
after two high balls, she became cordial. We'll all come
over to your next party, mister Gatsby, She suggested, What
do you say? Certainly I'd be delighted to have you.
Be very nice, said mister Sloane, without gratitude. Well, think
(11:24):
ought to be starting home. Please don't hurry, Gatsby urged them.
He had control of himself now and he wanted to
see more of Tom. Why don't you Why don't you
stay for supper? I wouldn't be surprised if some other
people dropped in from New York. You come to supper
with me, said the lady, enthusiastically. Both of you. This
(11:49):
included me. Mister Sloane got to his feet. Come along,
he said, But to her only I mean it, she insisted,
I'd love to have you lots of room. Gatsby looked
at me questioningly. He wanted to go, and he didn't
see that mister Sloane had determined he shouldn't. I'm afraid
(12:11):
I won't be able to, I said, well, you come,
she urged, concentrating on Gatsby. Mister Sloane murmured something close
to her ear. We won't be late if we start now.
She insisted aloud. I haven't got a horse, said Gatsby.
I used to ride in the army, but I've never
(12:32):
bought a horse. I'll have to follow you in my car.
Excuse me for just a minute. The rest of us
walked out on the porch, where Sloane and the lady
began an impassioned conversation. Aside, my god, I believe the
man's coming, said Tom. Doesn't he know she doesn't want him?
(12:52):
She says she does want him. She has a big
dinner party, and he won't know a soul there. He frowned.
I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy by God.
I may be old fashioned in my ideas, but women
run around too much these days to suit me. They
meet all kinds of crazy fish. Suddenly, mister Sloane and
(13:14):
the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses.
Come on, said mister Sloane to Tom, we're late. We've
got to go, And then to me tell him we
couldn't wait, will you. Tom and I shook hands. The
rest of us exchanged a cool nod, and they trotted
quickly down the drive, disappearing under the august foliage, just
(13:37):
as Gatsby, with hat and light overcoat in hand, came
out the front door. Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy's
running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he
came with her to Gatsby's party. Perhaps his presence gave
the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness. It stands out
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in my memory from Gatsby's other parties that summer. There
were the same people, or at least the same sort
of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many colored,
many keyed commotion. But I felt an unpleasantness in the air,
a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before, or perhaps
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I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept
West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its
own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing,
because it had no consciousness of being so. And now
I was looking at it again through Daisy's eyes. It
is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things
(14:40):
upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.
They arrived at twilight, and as we strolled out among
the sparkling hundreds, Daisy's voice was playing murmurous tricks in
her throat. These things excite me, so, she whispered. If
(15:00):
you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick,
just let me know, and I'll be glad to arrange
it for you. Just mention my name or present a
green card. I'm giving out green. Look around, suggested Gatsby.
I'm looking around. I'm having a marvelous You must see
the faces of many people you've heard about. Tom's arrogant
(15:24):
eyes roamed the crowd. We don't go around very much,
he said. In fact, I was just thinking, I don't
know a soul here. Perhaps you know that, Lady Gatsby indicated,
a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat
in state under a white plum tree. Tom and Daisy
(15:46):
stared with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition
of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. She's lovely,
said Daisy. The man bending over her is her director.
He took them ceremoniously from group to group, Missus Buchanan
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and mister Buchanan. After an instant's hesitation, he added the
polo player. Oh no, objected Tom quickly, not me, but
evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby, for Tom remained
the polo player for the rest of the evening. I've
(16:28):
never met so many celebrities, Daisy exclaimed. I liked that man.
What was his name? With the sort of blue nose.
Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer. Well,
I liked him anyhow. I'd a little rather not be
the polo player, said Tom pleasantly. I'd rather look at
(16:52):
all these famous people in in oblivion. Daisy and Gatsby danced.
I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative foxtrot. I
had never seen him dance before then, they sauntered over
to my house and sat on the steps for half
an hour, while at her request, I remained watchfully in
(17:14):
the garden in case there's a fire or a flood,
she explained, or any act of God. Tom appeared from
his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together.
Do you mind if I eat with some people over here?
He said? A fellow is getting off some funny stuff.
(17:34):
Go ahead, answered Daisy genially, and if you want to
take down any addresses, here's my little gold pencil. She
looked around after a moment and told me the girl
was common but pretty, and I knew that except for
the half hour she'd been alone with Gatsby, she wasn't
having a good time. We were at a particularly tipsy
(17:58):
table that was my foot. Gatsby had been called to
the phone, and I had enjoyed these same people only
two weeks before. But what had amused me then turned
septic on the air. Now, how do you feel, miss Badacar?
The girl addressed was trying unsuccessfully to slump against my shoulder.
(18:22):
At this inquiry, she sat up and opened her eyes.
WHA A massive and lethargic woman who had been urging
Daisy to play golf with her at the local club tomorrow.
Spoke in Miss Baedeker's defense. Oh she's all right now.
When she has had five or six cocktails, she always
starts screaming like that. I tell her she ought to
(18:44):
leave it alone. I do leave it alone, affirmed the
accused hollowly. We heard you yelling, so I said to
Doc's Civet here there's somebody that needs your help. Doc.
She's much obliged, I'm sure, said another friend, without gratitude.
But you got her dress all wet when you stuck
(19:05):
her head in the pool. Anything I hate is to
get my head stuck in a pool, mumbled Miss Beadeker.
They almost drowned me once over in New Jersey. Then
you ought to leave it alone, countered doctor Sivett. Speak
for yourself, cried Miss Bedeker. Violently, your hand shakes. I
(19:27):
wouldn't let you operate on me. It was like that.
Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy
and watching the moving picture director and his star. They
were still under the white plum tree, and their faces
were touching except for a pale, thin ray of moonlight between.
(19:48):
It occurred to me that he had been very slowly
bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity. And
even while I watched, I saw him stoop one ultimate
degree and kiss at her cheek. I like her, said Daisy,
I think she is lovely. But the rest offended her,
(20:10):
and inarguably because it wasn't a gesture but an emotion.
She was appalled by west Egg, this unprecedented place that
Broadway had begotten upon, a long island fishing village. Appalled
by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms,
and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants
(20:32):
along a short cut from nothing to nothing. She saw
something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.
I sat on the front steps with them while they
waited for their car. It was dark here in front.
Only the bright door sent ten square feet of light
(20:53):
volleying out into the soft black morning. Sometimes a shadow
moved against a dressing room blind gave way to another shadow,
an indefinite procession of shadows who rouged and powdered in
an invisible glass. Who is this Gatsby, anyhow, demanded Tom. Suddenly,
(21:15):
some big bootlegger. Where'd you hear that, I inquired. I
didn't hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly
rich people are just big bootleggers, you know, not Gatsby,
I said shortly. He was silent for a moment. The
pebbles of the drive crunched under his feet. Well, he
(21:38):
certainly must have strained himself to get this menagerie together.
A breeze stirred the gray haze of Daisy's fur collar.
At least they're more interesting than the people we know,
she said, with an effort. You didn't look so interested.
Well I was, Tom laughed and turned to me. Did
(22:03):
you notice Daisy's face? When that girl asked her to
put her under a cold shower? Daisy began to sing
with the music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out
a meaning in each word that it had never had
before and would never have again. When the melody rose,
her voice broke up, sweetly, following it in a way
(22:26):
contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a little
of her warm human magic upon the air. Lots of
people come who haven't been invited, she said suddenly. That
girl hadn't been invited. They simply force their way in,
and he's too polite to object. I'd like to know
(22:48):
who he is and what he does, insisted Tom. And
I think I'll make a point of finding out. I
can tell you right now, she answered. He owned some
drug stores, a lot of drug stores. He built them
up himself. The dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive.
(23:08):
Good night, Nick, said Daisy. Her glance left me and
sought the lighted top of the steps, where three o'clock
in the morning, a neat sad little waltz of that
year was drifting out the open door. After all, in
the very casualness of Gatsby's party, there were romantic possibilities
(23:29):
totally absent from her world. What was it up there
in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside?
What would happen now in the dim incalculable hours, Perhaps
some unbelievable guest would arrive, a person infinitely rare and
to be marveled at, some authentically radiant young girl who,
(23:52):
with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter,
would blot out those five years of unwavering devotion. I
stayed late that night, Gatsby asked me to wait until
he was free, and I lingered in the garden until
the inevitable swimming party had run up, chilled and exalted
(24:14):
from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in
the guest rooms overhead. When he came down the steps
at last, the tanned skin was drawn unusually tight on
his face, and his eyes were bright and tired. She
didn't like it, he said immediately, Of course she did.
(24:35):
She didn't like it, He insisted, she didn't have a
good time. He was silent, and I guessed at his
unutterable depression. I feel far away from her, he said,
it's hard to make her understand. You mean about the dance.
(24:55):
The dance. He dismissed all the dances he had given
with a snap of his old sport. The dance is unimportant.
He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should
go to Tom and say I never loved you. After
she had obliterated four years with that sentence, they could
(25:17):
decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One
of them was that, after she was free, they were
to go back to Louisville and be married from her house,
just as if it were five years ago. And she
doesn't understand, he said, She used to be able to understand.
We'd sit for hours. He broke off and began to
(25:40):
walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds
and discarded favors and crushed flowers. I wouldn't ask too
much of her, I ventured. You can't repeat the past.
Can't repeat the past, he cried, incredulously. Why of course
(26:01):
you can. He looked around him wildly, as if the
past were lurking here in the shadow of his house,
just out of reach of his hand. I'm going to
fix everything just the way it was before, he said,
nodding determinedly. She'll see. He talked a lot about the past,
(26:23):
and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some
idea of himself perhaps that had gone into loving Daisy.
His life had been confused and disordered since then. But
if he could once return to a certain starting place
and go over it all slowly, he could find out
what that thing was. One autumn night, five years before,
(26:48):
they had been walking down the street when the leaves
were falling, and they came to a place where there
were no trees, and the sidewalk was white with moonlight.
They stopped here and turned toward each other. There. Now
it was a cool night, with that mysterious excitement in
it which comes at the two changes of the year.
(27:09):
The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into
the darkness, and there was a stir and bustle among
the stars. Out of the corner of his eye, Gatsby
saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a
ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees.
He could climb to it if he climbed alone, and
(27:29):
once there he could suck on the pap of life,
gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder. His heart beat
faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to
his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl
and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath,
(27:50):
his mind would never romp again, like the mind of God.
So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the
tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then
he kissed her. At his lips touched, she blossomed for
him like a flower, and the incarnation was complete. Through
(28:12):
all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was
reminded of something, an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost
words that I had heard somewhere a long time ago.
For a moment, a phrase tried to take shape in
my mouth, and my lips parted like a dumb man's,
(28:32):
as though there was more struggling upon them than a
wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and
what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever. End of
Chapter six
Chapter six of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
About this time, an ambitious young reporter from New York
arrived one morning at Gatsby's door and asked him if
he had anything to say, anything to say about what?
Inquired Gatsby politely, why any statement to give out? It
(00:24):
transpired after a confused five minutes that the man had
heard Gatsby's name around his office in a connection which
he either wouldn't reveal or didn't fully understand. This was
his day off, and with laudable initiative, he had hurried
out to see It was a random shot, and yet
the reporter's instinct was right. Gatsby's notoriety, spread about by
(00:49):
the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so become
authorities on his past, had increased all summer until he
fell just short of being news. Contemporary legends, such as
the underground Pipeline to Canada attached themselves to him, and
there was one persistent story that he didn't live in
(01:10):
a house at all, but in a boat that looked
like a house and was moved secretly up and down
Long Island shore. Just why these inventions were a source
of satisfaction to James Gatts of North Dakota. Isn't easy
to say James Gatts. That was really, or at least legally,
(01:30):
his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen,
and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of
his career, when he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor
over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. It was
James Gatts who had been loafing along the beach that
afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of
(01:51):
canvas pants. But it was already Jay Gatsby, who borrowed
a row boat, pulled out to the Tuolemy and informed
Cody's that a wind might catch him and break him
up in half an hour. I suppose he'd had the
name ready for a long time. Even then. His parents
were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people, his imagination had never
(02:14):
really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth
was that j Gatsby of West egg Long Island sprang
from his platonic conception of himself. He was a son
of God, a phrase which, if it means anything, means
just that. And he must be about his father's business,
the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty. So
(02:39):
he invented just the sort of j Gatsby that a
seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, And
to this conception he was faithful to the end. For
over a year he had been beating his way along
the south shore of Lake Superior, as a clam digger
and a salmon fisher, or in any other capacity that
brought him food and bed. His brown hardening body lived
(03:04):
naturally through the half fierce, half lazy work of the
bracing days. He knew women early, and since they spoiled him,
he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they
were ignorant of the others, because they were hysterical about
things which, in his overwhelming self absorption he took for granted.
(03:26):
But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The
most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed
at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out
in his brain, while the clock ticked on the washstand
and the moon soaked with wet light. His tangled clothes
upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern
(03:50):
of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid
scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while, these reveries
provided an outlet for his imagination. They were a satisfactory
hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the
rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.
(04:13):
An instinct toward his future glory had led him some
months before to the small Lutheran College of Saint Olaf
in southern Minnesota. He stayed there two weeks, dismayed at
its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny to
destiny itself, and despising the janitor's work with which he
was to pay his way through. Then he drifted back
(04:37):
to Lake Superior, and he was still searching for something
to do on the day that Dan Cody's yacht dropped
anchor in the shallows along shore. Cody was fifty years
old then, a product of the Nevada silver fields of
the Yukon, of every rush for metal since seventy five.
(04:58):
The transactions in Montana copper that made him many times
a millionaire found him physically robust, but on the verge
of soft mindedness and Suspecting this, an infinite number of
women tried to separate him from his money. The none
too savory ramifications by which Eli Ky, the newspaper woman,
(05:19):
played Madame de Mantiennan to his weakness and sent him
to sea in a yacht, were common knowledge to the
turgid sub journalism of nineteen o two. He had been
coasting along all two hospitable shores for five years when
he turned up as James Gats's destiny at Little Girl's Point.
(05:39):
To the young Gats, resting on his oars and looking
up at the railed deck, the yacht represented all the
beauty and glamor in the world. I suppose he smiled
at Cody. He had probably discovered that people liked him
when he smiled at any rate. Cody asked him a
few questions, one of them elicited the brand new name,
(06:02):
and found that he was quick and extravagantly ambitious. A
few days later he took him to Duluth and bought
him a blue coat, six pair of white duck trousers
and a yachting cap. And when the Tuolemny left for
the West Indies and the Barbary Coast, Gatsby left too.
(06:23):
He was employed in a vague personal capacity. While he
remained with Cody. He was in turn steward, mate, skipper, secretary,
and even jailer for Dan Cody. Sober knew what lavish
doings Dan Cody drunk might soon be about, and he
provided for such contingencies by reposing more and more trust
in Gatsby. The arrangement lasted five years, during which the
(06:48):
boat went three times around the continent. It might have
lasted indefinitely except for the fact that Ella Ky came
on board one night in Boston, and a week later
Dan Cody inhospitably dyed. I remember the portrait of him
up in Gatsby's bedroom, a gray Florid man with a hard,
(07:09):
empty face, the pioneer debauche who, during one phase of
American life, brought back to the Eastern Seaboard the savage
violence of the Frontier brothel and saloon. It was indirectly
due to Cody that Gatsby drank so little. Sometimes in
the course of gay parties, women used to rub champagne
(07:32):
into his hair. For himself, he formed the habit of
letting liquor alone, and it was from Cody that he
inherited money, a legacy of twenty five thousand dollars. He
didn't get it. He never understood the legal device that
was used against him, But what remained of the millions
went intact to Ella Kay. He was left with his
(07:55):
singularly appropriate education. The vague contour of j Gatsby had
filled out to the substantiality of a man. He told
me all this very much later, but I've put it
down here with the idea of exploding those first wild
rumors about his antecedents, which weren't even faintly true. Moreover,
(08:17):
he told it to me at a time of confusion,
when I had reached the point of believing everything and
nothing about him. So I take advantage of this short
halt while Gatsby, so to speak, caught his breath to
clear this set of misconceptions away. It was a halt
too in my association with his affairs. For several weeks,
(08:41):
I didn't see him or hear his voice on the phone.
Mostly I was in New York, trotting around with Jordan
and trying to ingratiate myself with her senile aunt. But
finally I went over to his house one Sunday, afternoon.
I hadn't been there two minutes when somebody brought Tom
Buchanan in for a drink. I was startled, naturally, But
(09:02):
the really surprising thing was that it hadn't happened before.
They were a party of three on horseback, Tom and
a man named Sloane, and a pretty woman in a
brown riding habit who had been there previously. I'm delighted
to see you, said Gatsby, standing on his porch. I'm
delighted that you dropped in as though they cared. Sit
(09:27):
right down, have a cigarette or a cigar. He walked
around the room, quickly ringing bells. I'll have something to
drink for you in just a minute. He was profoundly
affected by the fact that Tom was there, but he
would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something,
realizing in a vague way that that was all they
(09:49):
came for. Mister Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade, no thanks,
a little champagne, nothing at all. Thanks. I'm sorry. Did
you have a nice ride, very good roads around here,
I suppose the automobiles. Yeah. Moved by an irresistible impulse,
(10:16):
Gatsby turned to Tom, who had accepted the introduction as
a stranger. I believe we've met somewhere before, mister Buchanan.
Oh yes, said Tom, gruffly, polite but obviously not remembering.
So we did. I remember very well about two weeks ago.
(10:39):
That's right, you were with Nick here. I know your wife,
continued Gatsby, almost aggressively. That's so, Tom turned to me.
You live near here, Nick, next door? That's so. Mister
Sloane didn't enter into the can, but lounged back haughtily
(11:02):
in his chair. The woman said nothing either, until unexpectedly,
after two high balls, she became cordial. We'll all come
over to your next party, mister Gatsby, She suggested, What
do you say? Certainly I'd be delighted to have you.
Be very nice, said mister Sloane, without gratitude. Well, think
(11:24):
ought to be starting home. Please don't hurry, Gatsby urged them.
He had control of himself now and he wanted to
see more of Tom. Why don't you Why don't you
stay for supper? I wouldn't be surprised if some other
people dropped in from New York. You come to supper
with me, said the lady, enthusiastically. Both of you. This
(11:49):
included me. Mister Sloane got to his feet. Come along,
he said, But to her only I mean it, she insisted,
I'd love to have you lots of room. Gatsby looked
at me questioningly. He wanted to go, and he didn't
see that mister Sloane had determined he shouldn't. I'm afraid
(12:11):
I won't be able to, I said, well, you come,
she urged, concentrating on Gatsby. Mister Sloane murmured something close
to her ear. We won't be late if we start now.
She insisted aloud. I haven't got a horse, said Gatsby.
I used to ride in the army, but I've never
(12:32):
bought a horse. I'll have to follow you in my car.
Excuse me for just a minute. The rest of us
walked out on the porch, where Sloane and the lady
began an impassioned conversation. Aside, my god, I believe the
man's coming, said Tom. Doesn't he know she doesn't want him?
(12:52):
She says she does want him. She has a big
dinner party, and he won't know a soul there. He frowned.
I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy by God.
I may be old fashioned in my ideas, but women
run around too much these days to suit me. They
meet all kinds of crazy fish. Suddenly, mister Sloane and
(13:14):
the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses.
Come on, said mister Sloane to Tom, we're late. We've
got to go, And then to me tell him we
couldn't wait, will you. Tom and I shook hands. The
rest of us exchanged a cool nod, and they trotted
quickly down the drive, disappearing under the august foliage, just
(13:37):
as Gatsby, with hat and light overcoat in hand, came
out the front door. Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy's
running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he
came with her to Gatsby's party. Perhaps his presence gave
the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness. It stands out
(13:58):
in my memory from Gatsby's other parties that summer. There
were the same people, or at least the same sort
of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many colored,
many keyed commotion. But I felt an unpleasantness in the air,
a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before, or perhaps
(14:19):
I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept
West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its
own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing,
because it had no consciousness of being so. And now
I was looking at it again through Daisy's eyes. It
is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things
(14:40):
upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.
They arrived at twilight, and as we strolled out among
the sparkling hundreds, Daisy's voice was playing murmurous tricks in
her throat. These things excite me, so, she whispered. If
(15:00):
you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick,
just let me know, and I'll be glad to arrange
it for you. Just mention my name or present a
green card. I'm giving out green. Look around, suggested Gatsby.
I'm looking around. I'm having a marvelous You must see
the faces of many people you've heard about. Tom's arrogant
(15:24):
eyes roamed the crowd. We don't go around very much,
he said. In fact, I was just thinking, I don't
know a soul here. Perhaps you know that, Lady Gatsby indicated,
a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat
in state under a white plum tree. Tom and Daisy
(15:46):
stared with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition
of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. She's lovely,
said Daisy. The man bending over her is her director.
He took them ceremoniously from group to group, Missus Buchanan
(16:08):
and mister Buchanan. After an instant's hesitation, he added the
polo player. Oh no, objected Tom quickly, not me, but
evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby, for Tom remained
the polo player for the rest of the evening. I've
(16:28):
never met so many celebrities, Daisy exclaimed. I liked that man.
What was his name? With the sort of blue nose.
Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer. Well,
I liked him anyhow. I'd a little rather not be
the polo player, said Tom pleasantly. I'd rather look at
(16:52):
all these famous people in in oblivion. Daisy and Gatsby danced.
I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative foxtrot. I
had never seen him dance before then, they sauntered over
to my house and sat on the steps for half
an hour, while at her request, I remained watchfully in
(17:14):
the garden in case there's a fire or a flood,
she explained, or any act of God. Tom appeared from
his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together.
Do you mind if I eat with some people over here?
He said? A fellow is getting off some funny stuff.
(17:34):
Go ahead, answered Daisy genially, and if you want to
take down any addresses, here's my little gold pencil. She
looked around after a moment and told me the girl
was common but pretty, and I knew that except for
the half hour she'd been alone with Gatsby, she wasn't
having a good time. We were at a particularly tipsy
(17:58):
table that was my foot. Gatsby had been called to
the phone, and I had enjoyed these same people only
two weeks before. But what had amused me then turned
septic on the air. Now, how do you feel, miss Badacar?
The girl addressed was trying unsuccessfully to slump against my shoulder.
(18:22):
At this inquiry, she sat up and opened her eyes.
WHA A massive and lethargic woman who had been urging
Daisy to play golf with her at the local club tomorrow.
Spoke in Miss Baedeker's defense. Oh she's all right now.
When she has had five or six cocktails, she always
starts screaming like that. I tell her she ought to
(18:44):
leave it alone. I do leave it alone, affirmed the
accused hollowly. We heard you yelling, so I said to
Doc's Civet here there's somebody that needs your help. Doc.
She's much obliged, I'm sure, said another friend, without gratitude.
But you got her dress all wet when you stuck
(19:05):
her head in the pool. Anything I hate is to
get my head stuck in a pool, mumbled Miss Beadeker.
They almost drowned me once over in New Jersey. Then
you ought to leave it alone, countered doctor Sivett. Speak
for yourself, cried Miss Bedeker. Violently, your hand shakes. I
(19:27):
wouldn't let you operate on me. It was like that.
Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy
and watching the moving picture director and his star. They
were still under the white plum tree, and their faces
were touching except for a pale, thin ray of moonlight between.
(19:48):
It occurred to me that he had been very slowly
bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity. And
even while I watched, I saw him stoop one ultimate
degree and kiss at her cheek. I like her, said Daisy,
I think she is lovely. But the rest offended her,
(20:10):
and inarguably because it wasn't a gesture but an emotion.
She was appalled by west Egg, this unprecedented place that
Broadway had begotten upon, a long island fishing village. Appalled
by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms,
and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants
(20:32):
along a short cut from nothing to nothing. She saw
something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.
I sat on the front steps with them while they
waited for their car. It was dark here in front.
Only the bright door sent ten square feet of light
(20:53):
volleying out into the soft black morning. Sometimes a shadow
moved against a dressing room blind gave way to another shadow,
an indefinite procession of shadows who rouged and powdered in
an invisible glass. Who is this Gatsby, anyhow, demanded Tom. Suddenly,
(21:15):
some big bootlegger. Where'd you hear that, I inquired. I
didn't hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly
rich people are just big bootleggers, you know, not Gatsby,
I said shortly. He was silent for a moment. The
pebbles of the drive crunched under his feet. Well, he
(21:38):
certainly must have strained himself to get this menagerie together.
A breeze stirred the gray haze of Daisy's fur collar.
At least they're more interesting than the people we know,
she said, with an effort. You didn't look so interested.
Well I was, Tom laughed and turned to me. Did
(22:03):
you notice Daisy's face? When that girl asked her to
put her under a cold shower? Daisy began to sing
with the music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out
a meaning in each word that it had never had
before and would never have again. When the melody rose,
her voice broke up, sweetly, following it in a way
(22:26):
contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a little
of her warm human magic upon the air. Lots of
people come who haven't been invited, she said suddenly. That
girl hadn't been invited. They simply force their way in,
and he's too polite to object. I'd like to know
(22:48):
who he is and what he does, insisted Tom. And
I think I'll make a point of finding out. I
can tell you right now, she answered. He owned some
drug stores, a lot of drug stores. He built them
up himself. The dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive.
(23:08):
Good night, Nick, said Daisy. Her glance left me and
sought the lighted top of the steps, where three o'clock
in the morning, a neat sad little waltz of that
year was drifting out the open door. After all, in
the very casualness of Gatsby's party, there were romantic possibilities
(23:29):
totally absent from her world. What was it up there
in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside?
What would happen now in the dim incalculable hours, Perhaps
some unbelievable guest would arrive, a person infinitely rare and
to be marveled at, some authentically radiant young girl who,
(23:52):
with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter,
would blot out those five years of unwavering devotion. I
stayed late that night, Gatsby asked me to wait until
he was free, and I lingered in the garden until
the inevitable swimming party had run up, chilled and exalted
(24:14):
from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in
the guest rooms overhead. When he came down the steps
at last, the tanned skin was drawn unusually tight on
his face, and his eyes were bright and tired. She
didn't like it, he said immediately, Of course she did.
(24:35):
She didn't like it, He insisted, she didn't have a
good time. He was silent, and I guessed at his
unutterable depression. I feel far away from her, he said,
it's hard to make her understand. You mean about the dance.
(24:55):
The dance. He dismissed all the dances he had given
with a snap of his old sport. The dance is unimportant.
He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should
go to Tom and say I never loved you. After
she had obliterated four years with that sentence, they could
(25:17):
decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One
of them was that, after she was free, they were
to go back to Louisville and be married from her house,
just as if it were five years ago. And she
doesn't understand, he said, She used to be able to understand.
We'd sit for hours. He broke off and began to
(25:40):
walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds
and discarded favors and crushed flowers. I wouldn't ask too
much of her, I ventured. You can't repeat the past.
Can't repeat the past, he cried, incredulously. Why of course
(26:01):
you can. He looked around him wildly, as if the
past were lurking here in the shadow of his house,
just out of reach of his hand. I'm going to
fix everything just the way it was before, he said,
nodding determinedly. She'll see. He talked a lot about the past,
(26:23):
and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some
idea of himself perhaps that had gone into loving Daisy.
His life had been confused and disordered since then. But
if he could once return to a certain starting place
and go over it all slowly, he could find out
what that thing was. One autumn night, five years before,
(26:48):
they had been walking down the street when the leaves
were falling, and they came to a place where there
were no trees, and the sidewalk was white with moonlight.
They stopped here and turned toward each other. There. Now
it was a cool night, with that mysterious excitement in
it which comes at the two changes of the year.
(27:09):
The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into
the darkness, and there was a stir and bustle among
the stars. Out of the corner of his eye, Gatsby
saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a
ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees.
He could climb to it if he climbed alone, and
(27:29):
once there he could suck on the pap of life,
gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder. His heart beat
faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to
his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl
and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath,
(27:50):
his mind would never romp again, like the mind of God.
So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the
tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then
he kissed her. At his lips touched, she blossomed for
him like a flower, and the incarnation was complete. Through
(28:12):
all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was
reminded of something, an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost
words that I had heard somewhere a long time ago.
For a moment, a phrase tried to take shape in
my mouth, and my lips parted like a dumb man's,
(28:32):
as though there was more struggling upon them than a
wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and
what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever. End of
Chapter six
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