Великий Гэтсби / The Great Gatsby. Френсис Скотт Фицджеральд

my house, I sat for a while in the yard. I turned my head and I saw 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 stars. It was Mr. Gatsby himself.

      I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that could be the beginning of our conversation. But I didn’t call to him: when I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone in the darkness.

      Chapter 2

      One day I met Tom Buchanan’s mistress. Yes, Tom Buchanan had a mistress. He visited popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, wandered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew. 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 he jumped to his feet and forced me from the car.

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

      He definitely decided to have my company. He thought that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do. I followed him over a low white-washed railroad fence. I saw a garage—Repairs. GEORGE B. WILSON. Cars Bought and Sold—and I followed Tom inside.

      The interior was bare; the only automobile visible was the dust-covered Ford which stood in a dim corner. The proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. He was a blonde, spiritless, faintly handsome man.

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

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

      “Next week. My man is working on it now.”

      “He is working pretty slow, right?”

      “No, he isn’t,” said Tom coldly. “And if you think so, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all.”

      “I don’t mean that,” explained Wilson quickly. “I just meant…”

      Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs and saw a woman. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom. Then she 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 and went toward the little office.

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

      “All right.”

      “I’ll meet you by the news-stand.”

      She nodded and moved away from him. George Wilson emerged with two chairs from his office door.

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

      “Terrible place, isn’t it?” said Tom.

      “Awful.”

      “It does her good to get away.”

      “Doesn’t her husband object?”

      “Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. “

      So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York—or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car. At the news-stand she bought a copy of Town Tattle and a magazine, and in the station drug store some cold cream and a small flask of perfume. Then said, pointing at the grey old man with a basket.

      “I want one of those dogs,” she said. “I want to get one for the apartment. They’re so nice.”

      In a basket the grey old man had pretty puppies.

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

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

      “I’d like to get one of those police dogs[9]; do you have that kind?”

      The man peered into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up, by the back of the neck.

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

      “No, it’s not exactly a police dog,” said the man with disappointment in his voice. “But look at that coat. Some coat. That’s a dog that’ll never get cold!”

      “I think it’s cute,” said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. “How much is it?”

      “That dog?” He looked at it admiringly. “That dog will cost you ten dollars.”

      The puppy settled down into Mrs. Wilson’s lap.

      “Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked delicately.

      “That dog? That dog’s a boy.”

      “It’s a bitch,” said Tom decisively. “Here’s your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it.”

      We drove over to Fifth Avenue, very warm and soft on the summer Sunday afternoon.

      “Hold on,” I said, “I have to leave you here.”

      “No, you don’t,” interposed Tom quickly. “Myrtle’ll be hurt if you don’t come up to the apartment. Won’t you, Myrtle?”

      “Come on,” she urged. “I’ll telephone my sister Catherine. They say she is very beautiful.”

      “Well, I’d like to, but…”

      We went on. At 158^th Street the cab stopped. Mrs. Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases and went in.

      The apartment was on the top floor—a small living room, a small dining room, a small bedroom and a bath. Several old copies of Town Tattle lay on the table together with some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. Mrs. Wilson was first concerned with the dog. Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whiskey.

      I have been drunk just twice in my life and the second time was that afternoon. Sitting on Tom’s lap Mrs. Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then there were no cigarettes and I went out to buy some at the drug store on the corner.

      Then some people came— Myrtle’s sister, Catherine, Mr. McKee, a pale feminine man from the flat below, and his wife.

      Catherine was a slender girl of about thirty with red hair. When she moved about there was an incessant clicking of innumerable pottery bracelets upon her arms. She came in and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here. But when I asked her she laughed, repeated my question aloud and told me she lived with a girl friend at a hotel.

      Mr. McKee was most respectful in his greeting to everyone in the room. He informed me that he belonged to the “world of art” and I learned later that he was a photographer. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome and horrible. She told me with pride that her husband had photographed her a hundred and twenty-seven times since they had been married.

      Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume and her personality had also changed. Her intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur[10]. Her laughter and her gestures became different.

      “My dear,” she told her sister, “most of these people will cheat you every time. All they think of is money.”

      “I like your dress,” remarked Mrs. McKee, “I think it’s wonderful.”

      Mrs. Wilson rejected the compliment.

      “It’s just a crazy old thing,” she said. “I put it on sometimes when I don’t care what I look like.”

      “But it looks wonderful on you, if you know what I mean,” pursued Mrs. McKee. “If Chester could only get you in that pose[11]!”

      We

9

police dogs – овчарки

10

impressive hauteur – назойливая спесь

11

get you in that pose – снять вас в этой позе