The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald (red white royal blue txt) đ
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- Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Book online «The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald (red white royal blue txt) đ». Author F. Scott Fitzgerald
âHow did he happen to do that?â I asked after a minute.
âHe just saw the opportunity.â
âWhy isnât he in jail?â
âThey canât get him, old sport. Heâs a smart man.â
I insisted on paying the check. As the waiter brought my change I caught sight of Tom Buchanan across the crowded room.
âCome along with me for a minute,â I said; âIâve got to say hello to someone.â
When he saw us Tom jumped up and took half a dozen steps in our direction.
âWhereâve you been?â he demanded eagerly. âDaisyâs furious because you havenât called up.â
âThis is Mr. Gatsby, Mr. Buchanan.â
They shook hands briefly, and a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over Gatsbyâs face.
âHowâve you been, anyhow?â demanded Tom of me. âHowâd you happen to come up this far to eat?â
âIâve been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby.â
I turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there.
One October day in nineteen-seventeenâ â
(said Jordan Baker that afternoon, sitting up very straight on a straight chair in the tea-garden at the Plaza Hotel)
âI was walking along from one place to another, half on the sidewalks and half on the lawns. I was happier on the lawns because I had on shoes from England with rubber knobs on the soles that bit into the soft ground. I had on a new plaid skirt also that blew a little in the wind, and whenever this happened the red, white, and blue banners in front of all the houses stretched out stiff and said tut-tut-tut-tut, in a disapproving way.
The largest of the banners and the largest of the lawns belonged to Daisy Fayâs house. She was just eighteen, two years older than me, and by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville. She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster, and all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night. âAnyways, for an hour!â
When I came opposite her house that morning her white roadster was beside the kerb, and she was sitting in it with a lieutenant I had never seen before. They were so engrossed in each other that she didnât see me until I was five feet away.
âHello, Jordan,â she called unexpectedly. âPlease come here.â
I was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I was going to the Red Cross to make bandages. I was. Well, then, would I tell them that she couldnât come that day? The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby, and I didnât lay eyes on him again for over four yearsâ âeven after Iâd met him on Long Island I didnât realize it was the same man.
That was nineteen-seventeen. By the next year I had a few beaux myself, and I began to play in tournaments, so I didnât see Daisy very often. She went with a slightly older crowdâ âwhen she went with anyone at all. Wild rumours were circulating about herâ âhow her mother had found her packing her bag one winter night to go to New York and say goodbye to a soldier who was going overseas. She was effectually prevented, but she wasnât on speaking terms with her family for several weeks. After that she didnât play around with the soldiers any more, but only with a few flat-footed, shortsighted young men in town, who couldnât get into the army at all.
By the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. She had a début after the armistice, and in February she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans. In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before. He came down with a hundred people in four private cars, and hired a whole floor of the Muhlbach Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
I was a bridesmaid. I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dressâ âand as drunk as a monkey. She had a bottle of Sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other.
âââGratulate me,â she muttered. âNever had a drink before, but oh how I do enjoy it.â
âWhatâs the matter, Daisy?â
I was scared, I can tell you; Iâd never seen a girl like that before.
âHere, dearies.â She groped around in a wastebasket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. âTake âem downstairs and give âem back to whoever they belong to. Tell âem all Daisyâs changeâ her mine. Say: âDaisyâs changeâ her mine!âââ
She began to cryâ âshe cried and cried. I rushed out and found her motherâs maid, and we locked the door and got her into a cold bath. She wouldnât let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up in a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow.
But she didnât say another word. We gave her spirits of ammonia and put ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress, and half an hour later, when we walked out of the room, the pearls were around her neck and the incident was over. Next day at five oâclock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver, and started off on a three monthsâ trip to the South Seas.
I saw them in Santa Barbara when they came back, and I thought Iâd never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a minute sheâd look
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