Page 57 - The Great Gatsby

46 The truth about Gatsby 47

CHAPTC.R 6 dreams kept him awake at night, while the moonlight shone in
on the untidy heap of his clothes 011 the floor. I Ie was sure that
THE TR1!,TH ABOUT GATSBY a great future lay ahead of him. He was still searching for it,
on the <lay that Dan Cody's yacht dropped anchor in the lake.
hat summer there were many wild stories about Gatsby, as Cody was fifty years old then, and extremely wealthy, as
Tthe hundreds of people who attended his parties told their he had made severa! fortunes in the Nevada silver fields and
friends about him, using their imagination to fil] in details of thc Yukon gold rush. A largc numbcr of womcn had tried
his present and past. Exactly why these wild stories were so to separare him from his money, and sorne had succeeded,
pleasing to James Gatz of North Dakota isn't easy to say. cspecially the latest, Ella Kaye. At the moment, however, he
James Gatz - that was his real name. He had changed it was sailing alone.
at the age of seventeen and at the exact moment that saw the To young Gatz, looking up from his rowing boat, that yacht
start of his new life - when he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop rcpresented ali the beauty and power in the world. I suppose he
anchor in one of the most dangerous parts of Lake Superior. smiled at Cody - he had probably discovcrcd that pcople liked
He was James Gatz as he walkcd aimlessly along the beach him when he smiled. Anyway, Cody asked him a few questions
that afternoon in a torn green jacket and a pair of old trousers, and found that he was quick a11d extremely ambitious. A few
but when he borrowed a boat, rowed out to thc yacht, and days later, Cody bought him sorne yachting clothes, and when
informed Cody that a wind rnight catch it and break it up in the yacht left for the West Indies, Gatsby left too.
half an hour, he had already become Jay Gatsby. He was paid to cook thc meals, serve the drinks, sail the
I suppose he'd had the name rcady for a long time, even yacht, and write Cody's letters. Sometimes he was even told
then. His parents were lazy, unsuccessfol farm people, and in to lock up his employer; Cody was a hard drinker, who knew
bis head he ncvcr rhought of them as his parents at ali. He he was likely to do stupid things when he was drunk. The
invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old ,1rrangement !asted for five years. lt would probably have !asted
would be likcly to invent, and he went 011 bclieving in this for longer, except for the fact that Ella Kaye arrived 011 thc
invention to the end. yacht one night in Boston, and a week la ter Dan Cody died.
For ovcr a year he had been making his way along the south It was from Cody that Gatsby inherited money - Cody left
shore of Lake Superior, fishing or doing any othcr work that him twenty-five thousand dollars at his death. But Gatsby
paid for his food and bed. His brown, hardening body lived didn't get it. The law was used against him in sorne way, and he
naturally through the half-ficrce, half-lazy work of che cold ncver understood how ir was done. What remained of Cody's
windy days. He knew women early, and because they offered millions went untouched to Ella Kaye. Gatsby was left with
themselves willingly to him, he became scornful of thern. ,111 unusually valuable education; the shadowy figure of Jay
But his heart was never at peace. The wildest, most fantastic Catsby had filled out to become a solid, real person.