Page 78 - The Great Gatsby

68 The Great Gatsby A hot day in toum 69

business. Suddcnly rhere was violent banging and shouring of che wirncsscs said that the car which hit Myrtle was big,
from upstairs. new, and yellowish. Tom was careful to explain to Wilson and
'I've got my wife locked in up there,' Wilson explained to his the policeman that he himself was driving a coupé, and that
neighbor. 'She's going to sray thcrc till the day aftcr tomorrow. the yellow car he had been driving earlier wasn't his.
Then we're going to move away.' Leaving Wilson in the care of a couple of mcn, we got back
Michaelis was cxtremely surprised, as Wilson had always in Tom's car, and he started driving. In a little while I heard
seemed a very quier little man, incapable of such behavior. He him sob, and saw tears running clown his face.
went back to his restaurant, and didn't come out again until 'The damned coward!' he sobbed. 'He didn't even stop!'
seven o'clock, when he heard Mrs Wilson's voice crying loudly
from the garage, 'Beat me! Throw me clown and beat me, you
dirty little coward!'
A moment later she rushed out into the darkness, waving
her hands and shouting. Before he could move, ir was ali over.
The 'death car', as the newspapers called it, didn't stop.
The orher car, rhe one going toward New York, camc to rest
ncarby, and its driver hurried to where Myrtle Wilson, her
life violently cut short, lay in the road, her thick dark blood
running through the dust. When he and Michaelis tore open
her dress, thcy saw that her left breast was hanging loose, and
there was no need ro listen for che heart underneath. The great
vitality of that warm and living body was no more.

We were still some distance away when we saw the three or
four cars and the crowd. Tom stopped thc car, got out and
pushed his way past everybody imo che garage. When Jordan
and I managed to get inside, we saw Myrtle's body wrapped
in a blanket on a work-table, with Tom bending over ir. A
policeman was writing down names in a little book, and
Wilson was holding on to a doorpost wirh both hands, crying
over and over again, 'Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!' Myrtle Wilson rushed out into the darkness,
In a few mornents Tom was in control of himself again. One waving her hands and shouling.