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TheGreatGatsby
Chapter 3

THERE was music from my neighbors 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. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from
the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two
motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On
week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city
between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon
scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants,
including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and
hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.
Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York
every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of
pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two
hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a
butlers thumb.

GENERAL: What mood or atmosphere does Nick create by describing the parties at
Gatsbys mansion?
LITERARY TECHNIQUE: What is the possible symbolism of the pyramid of fruit rinds?

At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of
canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsbys enormous
garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-doeuvre, spiced baked hams
crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a
dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins
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and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too
young to know one from another.

CONTEXT: Click on the above link and read about Prohibition. What inspired changes
in drinking laws? What were some of the hypocrisies of Prohibition?

By seven oclock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole
pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and
low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are
dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already
the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in
strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and
floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with
chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and
enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each others names.
The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the
orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher.
Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful
word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the
same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there
among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a
group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and
voices and color under the constantly changing light.

COMPREHENSION: What kinds of relationships are formed at Gatsbys parties?

LITERARY TECHNIQUE: Explain the meaning and connotation of the phrase yellow
cocktail music.
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Suddenly one of the gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air,
dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the
canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly
for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is
Gilda Grays understudy from the Follies. The party has begun.

CONTEXT: Click on one of the above links concerning dance in the 1920s. Explain how
the dance crazes of the 1920s would have led to cultural conflicts.

I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsbys 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 bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at
Gatsbys door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and
after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with
amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all,
came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.
I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robins-egg blue crossed my
lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer: the
honor would be entirely Gatsbys, it said, if I would attend his little party that night.
He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar
combination of circumstances had prevented it signed Jay Gatsby, in a majestic hand.

COMPREHENSION: What is the connotation of the word majestic? Choose a word to

insert in place of majestic in the previous sentence that matches the meaning of the
sentence.

Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven, and
wandered around rather ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people I didnt know
though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was
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immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed,
all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous
Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or
automobiles. They were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and
convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.
As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people
of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so
vehemently any knowledge of his movements, that I slunk off in the direction of the
cocktail table the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without
looking purposeless and alone.
I was on my way to get roaring drunk from sheer embarrassment when Jordan
Baker came out of the house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little
backward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden.
Welcome or not, I found it necessary to attach myself to someone before I should
begin to address cordial remarks to the passers-by.
Hello! I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across
the garden.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS: What motivates Nick to approach Jordan Baker?

I thought you might be here, she responded absently as I came up. I remembered
you lived next door to She held my hand impersonally, as a promise that shed take
care of me in a minute, and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses, who stopped at
the foot of the steps.
Hello! they cried together. Sorry you didnt win.
That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before.
You dont know who we are, said one of the girls in yellow, but we met you here
about a month ago.
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Youve dyed your hair since then, remarked Jordan, and I started, but the girls had
moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like
the supper, no doubt, out of a caterers basket. With Jordans slender golden arm resting
in mine, we descended the steps and sauntered about the garden. A tray of cocktails
floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow
and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS: What can we infer about Jordans character in this scene?
LITERARY TECHNIQUE: In the previous paragraph, what technique does Nick use to
describe the moon? What is the tone of the phrase Mr. Mumble?

Do you come to these parties often? inquired Jordan of the girl beside her.
The last one was the one I met you at, answered the girl, in an alert confident
voice. She turned to her companion: Wasnt it for you, Lucille?
It was for Lucille, too.
I like to come, Lucille said. I never care what I do, so I always have a good time.
When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address
inside of a week I got a package from Croiriers with a new evening gown in it.

COMPREHENSION: In the sentence above, who is the he to which Lucille is

referring?

Did you keep it? asked Jordan.

Sure I did. I was going to wear it to-night, but it was too big in the bust and had to
be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.
Theres something funny about a fellow thatll do a thing like that, said the other
girl eagerly. He doesnt want any trouble with anybody.
Who doesnt? I inquired.
Gatsby. Somebody told me
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The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.

Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.
A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened
eagerly.
I dont think its so much that, argued Lucille skeptically; its more that he was a
German spy during the war.
One of the men nodded in confirmation.
I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,
he assured us positively.

CONTEXT: Click on the above link on German espionage during World War I.

Oh, no, said the first girl, it couldnt be that, because he was in the American
army during the war. As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with
enthusiasm. You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobodys looking at him. Ill
bet he killed a man.
She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked
around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there
were whispers about him from those who found little that it was necessary to whisper
about in this world.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS: How do these rumors of Gatsbys background affect our

perception of him before we even meet him?

The first supper there would be another one after midnight was now being
served, and Jordan invited me to join her own party, who were spread around a table on
the other side of the garden. There were three married couples and Jordans escort, a
persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo, and obviously under the impression
that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a greater or lesser
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degree. Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and
assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the country-side
East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic
gayety.

GENERAL: What does Nick imply about Jordans escort (her date)?
COMPREHENSION: Identify the roots in the word spectroscopic.

Lets get out, whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate
half-hour. This is much too polite for me.
We got up, and she explained that we were going to find the host: I had never met
him, she said, and it was making me uneasy. The undergraduate nodded in a cynical,
melancholy way.
The bar, where we glanced first, was crowded, but Gatsby was not there. She
couldnt find him from the top of the steps, and he wasnt on the veranda. On a chance
we tried an important-looking door, and walked into a high Gothic library, panelled with
carved English oak, and probably transported complete from some ruin overseas.
A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting
somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the
shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from
head to foot.
What do you think? he demanded impetuously.
About what? He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.
About that. As a matter of fact you neednt bother to ascertain. I ascertained.
Theyre real.
The books?
He nodded.
Absolutely real have pages and everything. I thought theyd be a nice durable
cardboard. Matter of fact, theyre absolutely real. Pages and Here! Lemme show you.
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Taking our scepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with
Volume One of the Stoddard Lectures.
See! he cried triumphantly. Its a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me.
This fellas a regular Belasco. Its a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew
when to stop, too didnt cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?
He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if
one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS: Owl-Eyes revelation that Gatsby didnt cut the pages is one
of the great details in the novel. Older books one would expect to find in Gatsbys
beautiful library had to have their pages cut before they could be read. What can we
infer about Gatsby from the fact his pages are still uncut?

Who brought you? he demanded. Or did you just come? I was brought. Most
people were brought.
Jordan looked at him alertly, cheerfully, without answering.
I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt, he continued. Mrs. Claud Roosevelt.
Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night. Ive been drunk for about a week
now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.
Has it?
A little bit, I think. I cant tell yet. Ive only been here an hour. Did I tell you about
the books? Theyre real. Theyre
You told us. We shook hands with him gravely and went back outdoors.
There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden; old men pushing young girls
backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously,
fashionably, and keeping in the corners and a great number of single girls dancing
individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or
the traps. By midnight the hilarity had increased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian,
and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz, and between the numbers people were doing
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stunts all over the garden, while happy, vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the
summer sky. A pair of stage twins, who turned out to be the girls in yellow, did a baby
act in costume, and champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger-bowls. The
moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales,
trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drip of the banjoes on the lawn.
I was still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table with a man of about my age
and a rowdy little girl, who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable
laughter. I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two finger-bowls of champagne, and
the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental, and
profound.
At a lull in the entertainment the man looked at me and smiled.
Your face is familiar, he said, politely. Werent you in the Third Division during
the war?
Why, yes. I was in the Ninth Machine-gun Battalion.
I was in the Seventh Infantry until June nineteen-eighteen. I knew Id seen you
somewhere before.

CONTEXT: Click on the above links for the 3rd Division and the 7th Infantry. In which
wet, gray little villages in France did Nick and the other soldier see action?

We talked for a moment about some wet, gray little villages in France. Evidently he
lived in this vicinity, for he told me that he had just bought a hydroplane, and was going
to try it out in the morning.
Want to go with me, old sport? Just near the shore along the Sound.
What time?
Any time that suits you best.
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask his name when Jordan looked around and
smiled.
Having a gay time now? she inquired.
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Much better. I turned again to my new acquaintance. This is an unusual party for
me. I havent even seen the host. I live over there I waved my hand at the invisible
hedge in the distance, and this man Gatsby sent over his chauffeur with an invitation.
For a moment he looked at me as if he failed to understand.
Im Gatsby, he said suddenly.
What! I exclaimed. Oh, I beg your pardon.
I thought you knew, old sport. Im afraid Im not a very good host.
He smiled understandingly much more than understandingly. It was one of those
rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or
five times in life. It faced or seemed to face the whole external world for an instant,
and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood
you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to
believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at
your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished and I was looking
at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of
speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself Id got a
strong impression that he was picking his words with care.

GENERAL: What first impression does Gatsby make on Nick? How does the
impression change?

Almost at the moment when Mr. Gatsby identified himself, a butler hurried toward
him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire. He excused himself
with a small bow that included each of us in turn.

LITERARY TECHNIQUE: Click on the link above for Chicago, which describes a
literary technique called metonymy. Write your own three examples of metonymy that
you would use.
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If you want anything just ask for it, old sport, he urged me. Excuse me. I will
rejoin you later.
When he was gone I turned immediately to Jordan constrained to assure her of
my surprise. I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in
his middle years.
Who is he? I demanded. Do you know?
Hes just a man named Gatsby.
Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do?
Now youre started on the subject, she answered with a wan smile. Well, he told
me once he was an Oxford man. A dim background started to take shape behind him,
but at her next remark it faded away.
However, I dont believe it.
Why not?
I dont know, she insisted, I just dont think he went there.
Something in her tone reminded me of the other girls I think he killed a man, and
had the effect of stimulating my curiosity. I would have accepted without question the
information that Gatsby sprang from the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East
Side of New York. That was comprehensible. But young men didnt at least in my
provincial inexperience I believed they didnt drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a
palace on Long Island Sound.
Anyhow, he gives large parties, said Jordan, changing the subject with an urbane
distaste for the concrete. And I like large parties. Theyre so intimate. At small parties
there isnt any privacy.

LITERARY TECHNIQUE: What is the technique in Jordans previous line? Explain

how it is an example of this technique.

There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out
suddenly above the echolalia of the garden.
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Ladies and gentlemen, he cried. At the request of Mr. Gatsby we are going to play
for you Mr. Vladimir Tostoffs latest work, which attracted so much attention at
Carnegie Hall last May. If you read the papers, you know there was a big sensation. He
smiled with jovial condescension, and added: Some sensation! Whereupon everybody
laughed.
The piece is known, he concluded lustily, as Vladimir Tostoffs Jazz History of
the World.
The nature of Mr. Tostoffs composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyes
fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to
another with approving eyes. His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face
and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day. I could see nothing
sinister about him. I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off
from his guests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity
increased. When the Jazz History of the World was over, girls were putting their heads
on mens shoulders in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward
playfully into mens arms, even into groups, knowing that someone would arrest their
falls but no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsbys
shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsbys head for one link.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS: According to Nick, how does Gatsby stand out at the party?

I beg your pardon.

Gatsbys butler was suddenly standing beside us.
Miss Baker? he inquired. I beg your pardon, but Mr. Gatsby would like to speak
to you alone.
With me? she exclaimed in surprise.
Yes, madame.
She got up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment, and followed the
butler toward the house. I noticed that she wore her evening-dress, all her dresses, like
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sports clothes there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned
to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings.
I was alone and it was almost two. For some time confused and intriguing sounds
had issued from a long, many-windowed room which overhung the terrace. Eluding
Jordans undergraduate, who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation with two
chorus girls, and who implored me to join him, I went inside.
The large room was full of people. One of the girls in yellow was playing the piano,
and beside her stood a tall, red-haired young lady from a famous chorus, engaged in
song. She had drunk a quantity of champagne, and during the course of her song she
had decided, ineptly, that everything was very, very sad she was not only singing, she
was weeping too. Whenever there was a pause in the song she filled it with gasping,
broken sobs, and then took up the lyric again in a quavering soprano. The tears coursed
down her cheeks not freely, however, for when they came into contact with her
heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of their way
in slow black rivulets. A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her
face, whereupon she threw up her hands, sank into a chair, and went off into a deep
vinous sleep.
She had a fight with a man who says hes her husband, explained a girl at my
elbow.
I looked around. Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men
said to be their husbands. Even Jordans party, the quartet from East Egg, were rent
asunder by dissension. One of the men was talking with curious intensity to a young
actress, and his wife, after attempting to laugh at the situation in a dignified and
indifferent way, broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacks at intervals she
appeared suddenly at his side like an angry diamond, and hissed: You promised! into
his ear.
The reluctance to go home was not confined to wayward men. The hall was at
present occupied by two deplorably sober men and their highly indignant wives. The
wives were sympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices.
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Whenever he sees Im having a good time he wants to go home.

Never heard anything so selfish in my life.
Were always the first ones to leave.
So are we.
Well, were almost the last to-night, said one of the men sheepishly. The
orchestra left half an hour ago.
In spite of the wives agreement that such malevolence was beyond credibility, the
dispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted, kicking, into the night.
As I waited for my hat in the hall the door of the library opened and Jordan Baker
and Gatsby came out together. He was saying some last word to her, but the eagerness
in his manner tightened abruptly into formality as several people approached him to say
good-bye.
Jordans party were calling impatiently to her from the porch, but she lingered for a
moment to shake hands.
Ive just heard the most amazing thing, she whispered. How long were we in
there?
Why, about an hour.
It was simply amazing, she repeated abstractedly. But I swore I wouldnt tell it
and here I am tantalizing you. She yawned gracefully in my face: Please come and see
me. . . . Phone book . . . Under the name of Mrs. Sigourney Howard . . . My aunt . . . She
was hurrying off as she talked her brown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted
into her party at the door.
Rather ashamed that on my first appearance I had stayed so late, I joined the last of
Gatsbys guests, who were clustered around him. I wanted to explain that Id hunted for
him early in the evening and to apologize for not having known him in the garden.
Dont mention it, he enjoined me eagerly. Dont give it another thought, old
sport. The familiar expression held no more familiarity than the hand which
reassuringly brushed my shoulder. And dont forget were going up in the hydroplane
to-morrow morning, at nine oclock.
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Then the butler, behind his shoulder: Philadelphia wants you on the phone, sir.
All right, in a minute. Tell them Ill be right there. . . . good night.
Good night.
Good night. He smiled and suddenly there seemed to be a pleasant significance
in having been among the last to go, as if he had desired it all the time. Good night, old
sport. . . . good night.
But as I walked down the steps I saw that the evening was not quite over. Fifty feet
from the door a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene. In the
ditch beside the road, right side up, but violently shorn of one wheel, rested a new coupe
which had left Gatsbys drive not two minutes before. The sharp jut of a wall accounted
for the detachment of the wheel, which was now getting considerable attention from half
a dozen curious chauffeurs. However, as they had left their cars blocking the road, a
harsh, discordant din from those in the rear had been audible for some time, and added
to the already violent confusion of the scene.
A man in a long duster had dismounted from the wreck and now stood in the middle
of the road, looking from the car to the tire and from the tire to the observers in a
pleasant, puzzled way.
See! he explained. It went in the ditch.
The fact was infinitely astonishing to him, and I recognized first the unusual quality
of wonder, and then the man it was the late patron of Gatsbys library.
Howd it happen?
He shrugged his shoulders.
I know nothing whatever about mechanics, he said decisively.
But how did it happen? Did you run into the wall? Dont ask me, said Owl Eyes,
washing his hands of the whole matter. I know very little about driving next to
nothing. It happened, and thats all I know.
Well, if youre a poor driver you oughtnt to try driving at night.
But I wasnt even trying, he explained indignantly, I wasnt even trying.
An awed hush fell upon the bystanders.
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Do you want to commit suicide?

Youre lucky it was just a wheel! A bad driver and not even trying!
You dont understand, explained the criminal. I wasnt driving. Theres another
man in the car.
The shock that followed this declaration found voice in a sustained Ah-h-h! as the
door of the coupe swung slowly open. The crowd it was now a crowd stepped back
involuntarily, and when the door had opened wide there was a ghostly pause. Then, very
gradually, part by part, a pale, dangling individual stepped out of the wreck, pawing
tentatively at the ground with a large uncertain dancing shoe.
Blinded by the glare of the headlights and confused by the incessant groaning of the
horns, the apparition stood swaying for a moment before he perceived the man in the
duster.
Whas matter? he inquired calmly. Did we run outa gas?
Look!
Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel he stared at it for a moment,
and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.
It came off, some one explained.
He nodded.
At first I din notice wed stopped.
A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders, he remarked in
a determined voice:
Wonderff tell me where theres a gasline station?

LITERARY TECHNIQUE: Which technique does the previous line of dialogue use?

At least a dozen men, some of them little better off than he was, explained to him
that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond.
Back out, he suggested after a moment. Put her in reverse.
But the wheels off!
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He hesitated.
No harm in trying, he said.
The caterwauling horns had reached a crescendo and I turned away and cut across
the lawn toward home. I glanced back once. A wafer of a moon was shining over
Gatsbys house, making the night fine as before, and surviving the laughter and the
sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the
windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host,
who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell.

Reading over what I have written so far, I see I have given the impression that the
events of three nights several weeks apart were all that absorbed me. On the contrary,
they were merely casual events in a crowded summer, and, until much later, they
absorbed me infinitely less than my personal affairs.
Most of the time I worked. In the early morning the sun threw my shadow westward
as I hurried down the white chasms of lower New York to the Probity Trust. I knew the
other clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names, and lunched with them in
dark, crowded restaurants on little pig sausages and mashed potatoes and coffee. I even
had a short affair with a girl who lived in Jersey City and worked in the accounting
department, but her brother began throwing mean looks in my direction, so when she
went on her vacation in July I let it blow quietly away.
I took dinner usually at the Yale Club for some reason it was the gloomiest event
of my day and then I went up-stairs to the library and studied investments and
securities for a conscientious hour. There were generally a few rioters around, but they
never came into the library, so it was a good place to work. After that, if the night was
mellow, I strolled down Madison Avenue past the old Murray Hill Hotel, and over 33rd
Street to the Pennsylvania Station.
I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the
satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the
restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the
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crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one
would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their
apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me
before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropolitan
twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others poor young clerks
who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant
dinner young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and
life.
Again at eight oclock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were five deep with
throbbing taxi-cabs, bound for the theatre district, I felt a sinking in my heart. Forms
leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and there was laughter from
unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes outlined unintelligible 70 gestures inside.
Imagining that I, too, was hurrying toward gayety and sharing their intimate
excitement, I wished them well.

GENERAL: What mood does Nick create in the preceding paragraph?

For a while I lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in midsummer I found her again.
At first I was flattered to go places with her, because she was a golf champion, and
everyone knew her name. Then it was something more. I wasnt actually in love, but I
felt a sort of tender curiosity. The bored haughty face that she turned to the world
concealed something most affectations conceal something eventually, even though
they dont in the beginning and one day I found what it was. When we were on a
house-party together up in Warwick, she left a borrowed car out in the rain with the top
down, and then lied about it and suddenly I remembered the story about her that had
eluded me that night at Daisys. At her first big golf tournament there was a row that
nearly reached the newspapers a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad
lie in the semi-final round. The thing approached the proportions of a scandal then
died away. A caddy retracted his statement, and the only other witness admitted that he
 19

might have been mistaken. The incident and the name had remained together in my
mind.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS: In the details that Nick includes above, what can we infer
about Jordan Baker?

Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was
because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought
impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasnt able to endure being at a
disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in
subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to
the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body.

COMPREHENSION: Using context clues, what is the most likely meaning of

subterfuge?

It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame

deeply I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was on that same house party that we
had a curious conversation about driving a car. It started because she passed so close to
some workmen that our fender flicked a button on one mans coat.
Youre a rotten driver, I protested. Either you ought to be more careful, or you
oughtnt to drive at all.
I am careful.
No, youre not.
Well, other people are, she said lightly.
Whats that got to do with it?
Theyll keep out of my way, she insisted. It takes two to make an accident.
Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself.
I hope I never will, she answered. I hate careless people. Thats why I like you.
 20

LITERARY TECHNIQUE: In the previous scene with the fender-bender at Gatsbys and
this exchange between Nick and Jordan, what do cars and car wrecks symbolize?

Her gray, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted
our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of
interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself
definitely out of that tangle back home. Id been writing letters once a week and signing
them: Love, Nick, and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played
tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there
was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free.
Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I
am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.