The Great Gatsby / Великий Гэтсби. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Just at that point it disappeared – and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd[71 - elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd – расфранченный хулиган, чуть более тридцати лет на вид, чья тщательно выработанная привычка к изысканным оборотам в речи казалась почти абсурдной].

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 to each of us.

“If you want anything just ask for it, old sport,” he told me.

When he was gone I turned immediately to Jordan to assure her of my surprise. I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years[72 - florid and corpulent person in his middle years – румяный дородный мужчина средних лет].

“Who is he?” I asked. “Do you know?”

“He’s just a man named Gatsby.”

“Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do?” “Well, he told me once he was an Oxford man.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she insisted, “I just don’t think he went there.”

Something in her tone reminded me of the other girl’s “I think he killed a man,” and had the effect of stimulating my curiosity. Young men didn’t – at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn’t – appear coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island.

“Anyhow, he gives large parties,” said Jordan, changing the subject. “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”

The voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the garden.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried. “At the request of Mr. Gatsby we are going to play for you Mr.