Page 29 - The Great Gatsby

18 The Creat Gatsby Meeting Tom's mistress 19

ar ali'. I wanted to get out and walk castward toward the park íace to face, discussing in loud angry vo1ces whether Mrs
in the soft evening half-light, but each time l tried to go, I gor Wilson was allowed to mention Daisy's namc.
involved in sorne wild argument, which pulled me back into the 'Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!' shouted Mrs Wilson. '1'11 say it
room. Anyone watching in the darkening strcets outside must whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai-'
have seen our yellow windows high up against the sky, and I With a short, deliberare movement Tom Buchanan brokc
was that person too, looking up and wondering. I was inside her nose with his open hand.
and outside, at the same time delighted and horrified by the Then rhere were bloody towels on che bachroom floor, and
never-ending variety of life. .1ngry women's voices, and high over the confusion a long
Myrtle brought her chair close to mine, and her warm broken cry of pain. Mr McKee woke from his sleep and scarted
breatl1 poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom. stiffly coward the door. Halfway there he turned around and
'I was going up to New York to see my sisrer and spend che �tared at what was going on. His wife and Catherine were
night. Tom sat opposite me on the train, and I couldn't take falling over the furniture as they moved about the crowded
my eyes off him. When we came into rhe station, he was next room, crying to help the bleeding figure on the sofa. Then Mr
to me, and his shirt-front was touching my arm, so I told him McKee turned and continued on out the door. I rook up my
I'd have to call a policeman, but he knew I was lying. l was hat and followed.
so excited when I got into a taxi with him that I didn't really 'Come to lunch sorne day,' he suggested, as we went down
know where I was. Ali I kept thinking about, over and over, was in the elevator.
"You can't live forever, you can't live fo rever".' 'Whcre?'
She turned to Mrs McKee and the room rang full of her 'Anywhere.'
false laughter. 'Ali right,' I agreed. '1'11 be glad to.'
'My dcar,' she cried, 'l'm giving you this dress as soon as . .. I was standing beside bis bed and he was sitting up
I've finished with it. l've got to buy another one tomorrow. I'm bctween the sheets, wearing his underwear, with a great pile of
going to make a list of ali the things I'm going to buy.' photographs in bis hands.
Ir was nine o'clock- almost immediately afterwards I looked 'Beauty and the Beast ... Loneliness ... Old Grocery Horse
at my watch and found it was ten. Mr McKee was asleep in a ... Brooklyn Bridge ... '
chair. Taking out my handkerchief, I removed from his face Then l was lying half asleep in the cold lower leve! of the
rhe dried shaving soap that had worried me ali the afternoon. Pcnnsylvania Station, staring at the morning newspaper, and
People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go waiting for the four o'clock train.
somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other,
found each other nearby.
Sorne time around midnight, Tom and Mrs Wilson srood