WEBVTT

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Chapter six of The Great Gatsby by
F. Scott Fitzgerald. About this time,

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an ambitious young reporter from New York
arrived one morning at Gatsby's door and

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asked him if he had anything to
say, anything to say about what?

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Inquired Gatsby politely, why any statement
to give out? It transpired after a

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confused five minutes that the man had
heard Gatsby's name around his office in a

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connection which he either wouldn't reveal or
didn't fully understand. This was his day

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off, and with laudable initiative,
he had hurried out to see. It

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was a random shot, and yet
the reporter's instinct was right. Gatsby's notoriety,

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spread about by the hundreds who had
accepted his hospitality and become authorities upon

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his past, had increased all summer
until he fell just short of being news.

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Contemporary legends such as the underground Pipeline
to Canada attached themselves to him,

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and there was one persistent story that
he didn't live in a house at all,

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but in a boat that looked like
a house and was moved secretly up

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and down the Long Island shore.
Just why these inventions were a source of

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satisfaction to James gats of North Dakota. Isn't easy to say. James gats

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that was really, or at least
legally, his name. He had changed

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it at the age of seventeen,
and at the specific moment that witnessed the

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beginning of his career, when he
saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor over the

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most insidious flat on Lake Superior.
It was James gats who had been loafing

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along the beach that afternoon in a
torn green jersey and a pair of canvas

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pants. But it was already Jay
Gatsby, who borrowed a rowboat, pulled

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out to the Tuolumnie and informed Cody
that a wind might catch him and break

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him up in half an hour.
I suppose he'd had the name ready for

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a long time. Even then.
His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people,

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his imagination had never really accepted them
as his parents at all. The

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truth was that Jay Gatsby of West
Eglong Island sprang from his platonic conception of

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himself. He was a son of
God, a phrase which, if it

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means anything, means just that.
And he must be about his father's business,

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the service of a vast, vulgar
and meretricious beauty. So he invented

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just the sort of Jay Gatsby that
a seventeen year old boy would be likely

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to invent, And to this conception
he was faithful to the end. For

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over a year he had been beating
his way along the south shore of Lake

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Superior, as a clam digger,
in a salmon fisher, or in any

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other capacity that brought him food.
In bed, his brown, hardening body

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lived naturally through the half fierce,
half lazy world of the bracing days.

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He knew women early, and since
they spoiled him, he became contemptuous of

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them, of young virgins because they
were ignorant of the others, because they

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were hysterical about things which, in
his overwhelming self absorption he took for granted.

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But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque

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and fantastic conceits haunted him in his
bed at night. A universe of ineffable

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gaudiness spun itself out in his brain, while the clock ticked on the washstand

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and the moon soaked with wet light. His tangled clothes upon the floor.

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Each night he added to the pattern
of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon

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some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while, these reveries provided

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an outlet for his imagination. They
were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of

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reality, a promise that the rock
of the world was founded securely on a

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fairy's wing. An instinct toward his
future glory had led him some months before

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to the small Lutheran college of Saint
Olaf's in southern Minnesota. He stayed there

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two weeks, dismayed at as ferocious
indifference to the drums of his destiny to

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destiny itself, and despising the janitor's
work with which he was to pay his

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way through. Then he drifted back
to Lake Superior, and he was still

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searching for something to do on the
day that Dan Cody's yacht dropped anchor in

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the shallows along shore. Cody was
fifty years old then, a product of

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the Nevada silver fields of the Yukon, of every rush for metal since seventy

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five. The transactions in Montana copper
that made him many times a millionaire found

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him physically robust, but on the
verge of soft mindedness and Suspecting this,

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an infinite number of women tried to
separate him from his money. The none

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too savory ramifications by which Ella Kay, the newspaper woman, played Madame de

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Montenon to whose weakness and sent him
to sea in a yacht, were common

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property of the turgid journalism. In
nineteen o two. He had been coasting

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a law all two hospitable shores for
five years when he turned up as James

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Gatz's destiny in Little Girl Bay.
To young gats resting on his oars and

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looking up at the railed deck that
yacht represented all the beauty and glamor in

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the world. I suppose he smiled
at Cody. He had probably discovered that

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people liked him when he smiled at
any rate. Cody asked him a few

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questions, one of them elicited the
brand new name, and found that he

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was quick and extravagantly ambitious. A
few days later he took him to Duluth

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and bought him a blue coat,
six pairs of white duck trousers, and

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a yachting cap. And when the
Tuolumne left for the West Indies and the

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Barbary Coast, Gatsby left too,
he was employed in a vague personal capacity.

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While he remained with Cody, he
was in turn steward, mate,

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skipper, secretary, and even jailer
for Dan Cody. Sober knew what lavish

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doings Dan code Drunk might soon be
about, and he provided for such contingencies

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by reposing more and more trust in
Gatsby. The arrangement lasted five years,

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during which the boat went three times
around the continent. It might have lasted

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indefinitely except for the fact that Ella
Kay came on board one night in Boston,

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and a week later Dan Cody inhospitably
died. I remember the portrait of

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him up in Gadsby's bedroom, a
gray Florid man with a hard, empty

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face, the pioneer debauchi, who, during one phase of American life,

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brought back to the Eastern Seaboard the
savage violence of the Frontier brothel and saloon.

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It was indirectly due to Cody that
Gatsby drank so little. Sometimes in

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the course of gay parties, women
used to rub champagne into his hair.

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For himself, he formed the habit
of letting liquor alone, and it was

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from Cody that he inherited money a
legacy of twenty five thousand dollars. He

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didn't get it. He never understood
the legal device that was used against him.

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But what remained of the millions went
in tact to Ella Kay. He

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was left with his singularly appropriate education. The vague contour of Jay Gatsby had

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filled out to the substantiality of a
man. He told me all this very

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much later, but I've put it
down here with the idea of exploding those

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first wild rumors about his antecedents,
which weren't even faintly true. Moreover,

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he told it to me at a
time of confusion, when I had reached

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the point of believing everything and nothing
about him. So I take advantage of

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this short halt while Gatsby, so
to speak, caught his breath to clear

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this set of misconceptions away. It
was a halt too in my association with

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his affairs. For several weeks,
I didn't see him or hear his voice

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on the phone. Mostly I was
in New York, trotting around with Jordan

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and trying to ingratiate myself with her
senile aunt. But finally I went over

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to his house one Sunday afternoon.
I hadn't been there two minutes when somebody

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brought Tom Buchanan in for a drink. I was startled, naturally, But

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the really surprising thing was that it
hadn't happened before. There were a party

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of three on horseback, Tom and
a man named Sloane, and a pretty

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woman in brown riding habit who had
been there previously. I'm delighted to see

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you, said Gatsby, standing on
his porch. I'm delighted you dropped in

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as though they cared. Sit right
down, have a cigarette or a cigar.

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He walked around the room, quickly
ringing bells. I'll have something to

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drink for you in just a minute. He was profoundly affected by the fact

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that Tom was there, but he
would be uneasy anyhow until he had given

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them something, realizing in a vague
way that that was all they came for.

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Mister Sloane wanted nothing lemon, no
thanks, a little champagne, nothing

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at all. Thanks. I'm sorry. Did you have a nice ride,

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very good roads around here, I
suppose the automobiles. Yeah. Moved by

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an irresistible impulse, Gatsby turned to
Tom, who had accepted the introduction as

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a stranger I believe we've met somewhere
before, mister Buchanan. Oh yes,

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said Tom, gruffly, polite,
but obviously not remembering. So we did.

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I remember very well about two weeks
ago. That's right, you were

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with Nick here. I know your
wife, continued Gatsby, almost aggressively.

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That's so, Tom turned to me. You live near here, Nick,

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next door, that's so. Mister
Sloan didn't enter into the conversation, but

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lounged back haughtily in his chair.
The woman said nothing either, until unexpectedly,

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after two highballs, she became cordial. We'll all come over to your

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party next, mister Gadsby, she
suggested, What do you say? Certainly

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I'd be delighted to have you.
Be very nice, said mister Sloane,

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without gratitude. Well, think ought
to be starting home. Please don't hurry,

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Gatsby urged them. He had control
of himself now and he wanted to

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see more of Tom. Why don't
you Why don't you stay for supper?

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I wouldn't be surprised if some other
people dropped in from New York. You

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come to supper with me, said
the lady, enthusiastically. Both of you.

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This included me. Mister Sloane got
to his feet. Come along,

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he said, But to her only
I mean it, she insisted, I'd

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love to have you lots of room. Gatsby looked at me questioningly. He

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wanted to go, and he didn't
see that mister Sloane had determined he shouldn't.

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I'm afraid I won't be able to, I said, well, you

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come, she urged, concentrating on
Gatsby. Mister Sloane murmured something close to

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her ear. We won't be late
if we start now. She insisted aloud.

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I haven't got a horse, said
Gatsby. I used to ride in

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the army, but I never bought
a horse. I'll have to follow you

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in my car. Excuse me for
just a minute. The rest of us

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walked out on the porch, where
Sloane and the lady began an impassioned conversation.

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Aside, my god, I believe
the man's coming, said Tom.

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Doesn't he know she doesn't want him? She says she does want him.

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She has a big dinner party,
and he won't know a soul there.

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He frowned. I wonder where in
the devil, he meant, Daisy,

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By God, I may be old
fashioned in my ideas, But women run

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around too much these days to suit
me. They meet all kinds of crazy

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fish. Suddenly, mister Sloane and
the lady walked down the steps and mounted

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their horses. Come on, said
mister Sloane to Tom, we're late.

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We got to go, And then
to me tell him we couldn't wait,

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will you. Tom and I shook
hands. The rest of us exchanged a

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cool nod, and they trotted quickly
down the drive, disappearing under the august

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foliage, just as Gatsby, with
hat and light overcoat in hand, came

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out the front door. Tom was
evidently perturbed at Daisy's running round alone,

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for on the following Saturday night he
came with her to Gatsby's party. Perhaps

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his presence gave the evening its peculiar
quality of oppressiveness. It stands out in

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my memory from Gatsby's other parties that
summer. There were the same people,

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at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the

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same many colored, many keyed commotion. But I felt an unpleasantness in the

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air, a pervading harshness that hadn't
been there before. Or perhaps I had

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merely grown used to it, grown
to accept West Egg as a world complete

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in itself, with its own standards
and its own great figure, second to

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nothing, because it had no consciousness
of being so. And now I was

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looking at it again through Daisy's eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through

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new eyes at things upon which you
have expended your own powers of adjustment.

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They arrived at twilight, and as
we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds,

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Daisy's voice was playing murmurous tricks in
her throat. These things excite me,

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soul, she whispered. If you
want to kiss me any time during the

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evening, Nick, just let me
know, and I'll be glad to arrange

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it for you. Just mention my
name or present a green card. I'm

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giving out green. Look around,
suggested Gadsby. I'm looking around. I'm

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having a marvelous You must see the
faces of many people you've heard about.

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Tom's arrogant eyes roamed the crowd.
We don't go around very much, he

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said. In fact, I was
just thinking, I don't know a soul

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here. Perhaps know that Lady Gatsby
indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of

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a woman who sat in state under
a white plum tree. Tom and Daisy

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stared with that peculiarly unreal feeling that
accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity

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of the movies. She's lovely,
said Daisy. The man bending over her

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is her director. He took them
ceremoniously from group to group, Missus Buchanan

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and mister Buchanan. After an instant's
hesitation, he added the polo player.

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Oh no, objected Tom quickly,
not me, but evidently the sound of

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it pleased Gatsby, for Tom remained
the polo player for the rest of the

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evening. I've never met so many
celebrities, Daisy exclaimed. I liked that

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man. What was his name?
What the sort of blue nos? Gatsby

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identified him, adding that he was
a small producer. Well, I liked

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him anyhow. I'd a little rather
not be a polo player, said Tom

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pleasantly. I'd rather look at all
these famous people in men oblivion. Daisy

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and Gatsby danced. I remember being
surprised by his graceful conservative foxtrot. I

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had never seen him dance before.
Then they sauntered over to my house and

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sat on the steps for half an
hour, while at her request, I

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remained watchfully in the garden in case
there's a fire or a flood, she

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explained, or any act of God. Tom appeared from his oblivion as we

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were sitting down to supper together.
Do you mind if I eat with some

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people over here? He asked?
A fellow's getting off some funny stuff.

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Go ahead, answered Daisy genially,
and if you want to take down any

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addresses, here's my little gold pencil. She looked around after a moment and

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told me the girl was common but
pretty, and I knew that except for

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the half hour she'd been alone with
Gaf, she wasn't having a good time.

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We were at a particularly tipsy table. That was my fault. Gatsby

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had been called to the phone,
and I'd enjoyed these same people only two

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weeks before. But what had amused
me then turned septic on the air.

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Now, how do you feel,
miss Piedecker? The girl addressed was trying

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unsuccessfully to slump against my shoulder.
At this inquiry, she sat up and

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opened her eyes. WHA A massive
and lethargic woman who had been urging Daisy

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to play golf with her at a
local club tomorrow, spoke in Miss Piedecker's

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defense. Oh she's all right now. When she had five or six cocktails,

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she always starts screaming like that.
I tell her she ought to leave

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it alone. I do leave it
alone, affirmed the accused, hollily.

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We heard you yelling, so I
said to Doc civit here. There's somebody

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that needs your help. Doc.
She's much obliged, I'm sure, said

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another friend, without gratitude. But
you got her dress all wet when you

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stuck her head in the pool.
Anything I hate is to get my head

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stuck in a pool, mumbled Miss
Piedecker. They almost drowned me once over

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in New Jersey. Then you ought
to leave it alone, countered Doc Civic.

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Speak for yourself, cried Miss Pidecker. Violently, your handshakes. I

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wouldn't let you operate on me.
It was like that. Almost The last

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thing I remember was standing with Daisy
and watching the moving picture director and his

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star. They were still under the
white plum tree, and their faces were

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touching except for a pale, thin
ray of moonlight between. It occurred to

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me that he had been very slowly
bending toward her. All evening to attain

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his proximity, and even while I
watched, I saw him stoop one ultimate

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degree and kiss at her cheek.
I like her, said Daisy, I

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think she's lovely. But the rest
offended her, and inarguably because it wasn't

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a gesture but an emotion. She
was appalled by west Egg, this unprecedented

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place that Broadway had begotten upon,
a long island fishing village. Appalled by

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its raw vigor that chafed under the
old euphemisms, and by the too obtrusive

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fate that hurted its inhabitants along a
short cut from nothing to nothing. She

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saw something awful in the very simplicity
she failed to understand. I sat on

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the front steps with them while they
waited for their car. It was dark

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here in front. Only the bright
door sent ten square feet of light falling

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out into the soft black morning.
Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing room

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blind above gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows who rouged

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and powdered in an invisible glass.
Who is this Gatsby anyhow? Demanded Tom.

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Suddenly, some big bootlegger, where'd
you hear that? I inquired.

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I didn't hear it. I imagined
it. A lot of these newly rich

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people are just big bootleggers, you
know, not Gadsby, I said shortly.

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He was silent for a moment.
The pebbles of the drive crunched under

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his feet. Well, he certainly
must have strained himself to get this menagerie

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together. A breeze stirred the gray
haze of Daisy's fur collar. At least

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they are more interesting than the people
we know, she said, with an

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effort. You didn't look so interested, Well I was, Tom laughed and

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turned to me. Did you notice
Daisy's face? When that girl asked her

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to put her under a cold shower? Daisy began to sing with the music

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in a husky, rhythmic whisper,
bringing out a meaning in each word that

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it had never had before and would
never have again. When the melody rose,

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her voice broke up, sweetly,
following it in a way contralto voices

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have, and each change tipped out
a little of her warm hu and magic

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upon the air. Lots of people
come who haven't been invited, she said

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suddenly. That girl hadn't been invited. They simply forced their way in,

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and he's too polite to object.
I'd like to know who he is and

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what he does, insisted Tom.
And I think I'll make a point of

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finding out. I can tell you
right now, she answered. He owned

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some drug stores, a lot of
drug stores. He built them up himself.

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The dilatory limousine came rolling up the
drive. Good night, Nick,

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said Daisy. Her glance left me
and sought the lighted top of the steps,

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where three o'clock in the morning,
an eat sad little waltz of that

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year was drifting out the open door. After all, in the very casualness

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of Gatsby's party, there were romantic
possibilities totally absent from her world. What

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was it up there in the song
that seemed to be calling her back inside?

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What would happen now in the dim
incalculable hours, Perhaps some unbelievable guest

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would arrive, a person infinitely rare
and to be marveled at, some authentically

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radiant young girl, who, with
one fresh glance at Gatsby, one moment

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of magical encounter, would blot out
those five years of unwavering devotion. I

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stayed late that night. Gatsby asked
me to wait until he was free,

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and I lingered in the garden until
the inevitable swimming party had run up,

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chilled and exalted from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in the

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guest rooms overhead. When he came
down the steps at last, the tanned

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skin was drawn unusually tight on his
face, and his eyes were bright and

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tired. She didn't like it,
he said, immediately, Of course she

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did. She didn't like it,
He insisted. She didn't have a good

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time. He was silent, and
I guessed at his unutterable depression. I

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feel far away from her, he
said. It's hard to make her understand.

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You mean about the dance. The
dance. He dismissed all the dances

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he had given with a snap of
his fingers, old sport. The dance

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is unimportant. He wanted nothing less
of Daisy than that she should go to

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Tom and say I never loved you. After she had obliterated four years with

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that sentence, they could decide upon
the more practical measures to be taken.

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One of them was that, after
she was free, they were to go

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back to Louisville and be married from
her house, just as if it were

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five years ago, and she doesn't
understand, he said. She used to

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be able to understand. We'd sit
for hours. He broke off and began

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to walk up and down the desolate
path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and

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crushed flowers. I wouldn't ask too
much of her, I ventured. You

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can't repeat the past. Can't repeat
the past, he cried, incredulously.

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Why of course you can. He
looked around him wildly, as if the

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past were lurking here in the shadow
of his house, just out of reach

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of his hand. Well, I'm
going to fix everything just the way it

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was before, he said, nodding
determinedly. She'll see. He talked a

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lot about the past, and I
gathered that he wanted to recover something,

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some idea of himself perhaps that had
gone into loving Daisy. His life had

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been confused and disoriented since then.
But if he could once return to a

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certain starting place and go over it
all slowly, he could find out what

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that thing was. One autumn night, five years before, they had been

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walking down the street when the leaves
were falling, and they came to a

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place where there were no trees and
the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They

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stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night,

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with that mysterious excitement in it which
comes at the two changes of the year.

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The quiet lights in the houses were
humming out out into the darkness,

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and there was a stir and bustle
among the stars. Out of the corner

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of his eye, Gadsby saw that
the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a

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ladder and mounted to a secret place
above the trees. He could climb to

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it if he climbed alone, and
once there he could suck on the path

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of life, gulp down the incomparable
milk of wonder. His heart beat faster

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as Daisy's white face came up to
his own. He knew that when he

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kissed this girl and forever wed his
unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his

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mind would never romp again, like
the mind of God. So he waited,

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listening for a moment longer to the
tuning fork that had been struck upon

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00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:51.279
a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips touch she blossomed for

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him like a flower, and the
incarnation was complete. Through all he said,

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even through his appalling sentimentality, I
was reminded of something, an elusive

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00:25:02.839 --> 00:25:07.359
rhythm, a fragment of lost words
that I had heard somewhere a long time

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00:25:07.400 --> 00:25:11.759
ago. For a moment, a
phrase tried to take shape in my mouth,

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and my lips parted like a dumb
man's, as though there was more

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00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:21.319
struggling upon them than a wisp of
startled air. But they made no sound,

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and what I had almost remembered was
uncommunicable forever. End of Chapter six