«Великий Гэтсби» и другие лучшие произведения Ф.С. Фицджеральда

Yours truly

MEYER WOLFSHIEM

and then hasty addenda beneath:

Let me know about the funeral etc do not know his family at all.

When the phone rang that afternoon and Long Distance said Chicago was calling I thought this would be Daisy at last. But the connection came through as a man’s voice, very thin and far away.

�This is Slagle speaking…’

�Yes?’ The name was unfamiliar.

�Hell of a note, isn’t it? Get my wire?’

�There haven’t been any wires.

’

�Young Parke’s in trouble,’ he said rapidly. �They picked him up when he handed the bonds over the counter. They got a circular from New York giving ’em the numbers just five minutes before. What d’you know about that, hey? You never can tell in these hick towns – ’

�Hello!’ I interrupted breathlessly. �Look here – this isn’t Mr. Gatsby. Mr. Gatsby’s dead.’

There was a long silence on the other end of the wire, followed by an exclamation… then a quick squawk as the connection was broken.

* * *

I think it was on the third day that a telegram signed Henry C. Gatz arrived from a town in Minnesota. It said only that the sender was leaving immediately and to postpone the funeral until he came.

It was Gatsby’s father, a solemn old man, very helpless and dismayed, bundled up in a long cheap ulster against the warm September day. His eyes leaked continuously with excitement, and when I took the bag and umbrella from his hands he began to pull so incessantly at his sparse grey beard that I had difficulty in getting off his coat.

He was on the point of collapse, so I took him into the music room and made him sit down while I sent for something to eat. But he wouldn’t eat, and the glass of milk spilled from his trembling hand.

�I saw it in the Chicago newspaper,’ he said. �It was all in the Chicago newspaper. I started right away.

’

�I didn’t know how to reach you.’

His eyes, seeing nothing, moved ceaselessly about the room.

�It was a madman,’ he said. �He must have been mad.’

�Wouldn’t you like some coffee?’ I urged him.

�I don’t want anything. I’m all right now, Mr. —’

�Carraway.’

�Well, I’m all right now. Where have they got Jimmy?’

I took him into the drawing-room, where his son lay, and left him there.