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

’

�Why isn’t he in jail?’

�They can’t get him, old sport. He’s a smart man.’

I insisted on paying the check. As the waiter brought my change I caught sight of Tom Buchanan across the crowded room.

�Come along with me for a minute,’ I said; �I’ve got to say hello to someone.’

When he saw us Tom jumped up and took half a dozen steps in our direction.

�Where’ve you been?’ he demanded eagerly. �Daisy’s furious because you haven’t called up.’

�This is Mr.

Gatsby, Mr. Buchanan.’

They shook hands briefly, and a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over Gatsby’s face.

�How’ve you been, anyhow?’ demanded Tom of me.

�How’d you happen to come up this far to eat?’

�I’ve been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby.’

I turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there.

* * *

One October day in nineteen-seventeen —

(said Jordan Baker that afternoon, sitting up very straight on a straight chair in the tea-garden at the Plaza Hotel)

– I was walking along from one place to another, half on the sidewalks and half on the lawns.

I was happier on the lawns because I had on shoes from England with rubber nobs on the soles that bit into the soft ground. I had on a new plaid skirt also that blew a little in the wind, and whenever this happened the red, white, and blue banners in front of all the houses stretched out stiff and said tut-tut-tut-tut, in a disapproving way.

The largest of the banners and the largest of the lawns belonged to Daisy Fay’s house. She was just eighteen, two years older than me, and by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville. She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster, and all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that night. �Anyways, for an hour!’

When I came opposite her house that morning her white roadster was beside the curb, and she was sitting in it with a lieutenant I had never seen before.

They were so engrossed in each other that she didn’t see me until I was five feet away.

�Hello, Jordan,’ she called unexpectedly. �Please come here.’

I was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I was going to the Red Cross and make bandages. I was.