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

I said to myself: “There’s the kind of man you’d like to take home and introduce to your mother and sister.”’ He paused. �I see you’re looking at my cuff buttons.’

I hadn’t been looking at them, but I did now. They were composed of oddly familiar pieces of ivory.

�Finest specimens of human molars,’ he informed me.

�Well!’ I inspected them. �That’s a very interesting idea.’

�Yeah.’ He flipped his sleeves up under his coat. �Yeah, Gatsby’s very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend’s wife.

’

When the subject of this instinctive trust returned to the table and sat down Mr. Wolfshiem drank his coffee with a jerk and got to his feet.

�I have enjoyed my lunch,’ he said, �and I’m going to run off from you two young men before I outstay my welcome.’

�Don’t hurry, Meyer,’ said Gatsby, without enthusiasm. Mr. Wolfshiem raised his hand in a sort of benediction.

�You’re very polite, but I belong to another generation,’ he announced solemnly.

�You sit here and discuss your sports and your young ladies and your – ’ He supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of his hand. �As for me, I am fifty years old, and I won’t impose myself on you any longer.’

As he shook hands and turned away his tragic nose was trembling. I wondered if I had said anything to offend him.

�He becomes very sentimental sometimes,’ explained Gatsby. �This is one of his sentimental days. He’s quite a character around New York – a denizen of Broadway.

’

�Who is he, anyhow, an actor?’

�No.’

�A dentist?’

�Meyer Wolfshiem? No, he’s a gambler.’ Gatsby hesitated, then added cooly: �He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series[64 - the World’s Series – baseball championship of the two professional leagues: the American League and the National League; first held in 1903.] back in 1919.’

�Fixed the World’s Series?’ I repeated.

The idea staggered me.

I remembered, of course, that the World’s Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people – with the single – mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.

�How did he happen to do that?’ I asked after a minute.

�He just saw the opportunity.