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

’ He passed his hand over the brown washrag of a back. �Look at that coat. Some coat. That’s a dog that’ll never bother you with catching 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 Airedale – undoubtedly there was an Airedale concerned in it somewhere, though its feet were startlingly white – changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson’s lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture.

�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, warm and soft, almost pastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner.

�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. She’s said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know.’

�Well, I’d like to, but —’

We went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the West Hundreds[35 - the West Hundreds – the hundredth streets in the west of New York City]. At 158

Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment-houses.

Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighbourhood, Mrs. Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases, and went haughtily in.

�I’m going to have the McKees come up,’ she announced as we rose in the elevator. �And, of course, I got to call up my sister, too.’

The apartment was on the top floor – a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath. The living-room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it, so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles[36 - Versailles – Palace of Versailles, the former French royal residence, built in 1631–1634 in the city of Versailles in northern France, 16 km west-southwest of Paris].

The only picture was an over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock.