Page 13 - The Great Gatsby

2 The Great Gatsby Dinner with the Buchanans 3

who represenred everything for which I would normally have like a great idea. He found the house, a small weather-beaten
only che deepest scorn. There was something truly wonderful place at eighty dollars a 111011th, bue at che last minute the
about him, a heighrened sensitivity to the promises of life - he company ordered him to move to Washington, and I wenr
was like one of rhose complicared machines that show the out to the counrry alone. I had a dog - at least I had him for
presence of an earthquake ten thousand miles away. He had a few days until he ran away - and an old car, and a woman
an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness which I from Finland, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and
have ncver found in any orher person and which it is not likcly whispered darkly to herself in Finnish in the kitchen.
T shall ever find again. No - Gatsby turned out ali right at the It was lonely for a day or so, until one morning some man,
end. It was what lay in wait for Gatsby, what foul dust followcd more recently arrived chan I, sropped me on the road.
on rhe heels of his dreams thac, for a while, ended my interese 'How do you get ro West Egg village?' he asked helplessly.
in thc failed sorrows and shon-lived joys of men. I told him. And as I walked on, I was lonely no longer.
was a guide, a pathfinder. I belonged to the place. Without
My family, rhc Carraways, have been successful, fairly wcalrhy knowing ir, he had given me the freedom of the neighborhood.
people in chis Middle Western city for many years. My And so, with the sunshine, and the leaves bursting out on
grandfather's brothcr came here i n 1851 and srarted thc rhe trees, I had rhat recognizable feeling that life was beginning
business that my father carries on today. l finished my studies over again with the summer.
at Yale University in 1915, a nd a lirtle la ter I took pare in che My house was on that slender island which lies east of New
Great War. l enjoyed chis excursion so much that 1 came back York. At one end of che island rhe land is in the shape of rwo
from Europe feeling restless. Tnstead of being the warm center enormous eggs, separated by a bay. They look so similar that
of the world, the Middle West now seemed like che tom cdge they must be confusing for the seabirds chat fly over them. But
of it. So 1 decided to go Easc, to New York, and learn the the wingless on the ground know that they are dissimilar in
bond business. Evcrybody I knew was in che bond business, everything except shape and size.
so I supposed ir could support one more single man. Ali my East Egg was the more fashionable of che two, whcre rhe
aunes and unclcs talkcd ir over and finarty said, 'Why - ye-es,' rich lived in unbelievable luxury. I lived ar West Egg, where
with very serious, hesitant faces. Farher agreed to pay me an most people were managing on comparatively low incomes.
income for a year, and I carne East, for ever, I thought, in the Surprisingly, che house next to mine was an enormous place -
spring of 1922. it was an exact copy of sorne grand Town Hall in France, with
The sensible thing was to find rooms in che city, but it was a tower on one side, a beautiful swimming pool, and extremely
a warm season and I had just Jefe a country of wide lawns and large gardens. It was Gatsby's mansion, although, as I didn't
friendly crees. So when a young man at che office suggested we know him then, to me ir was simply a mansion inhabited by
should rent a house together just outside the city, it sounded someone of that name. My own l10use was small and ugly, but