Chapter two of the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. About halfway between
West Egg and New York, the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs
beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from
a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes, a
fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills, and grotesque gardens,
where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys in rising smoke, and
finally, with a transcendent effort of ash, gray men who move dimly and
already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally, a line of gray cars crawls
along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creek, and comes to rest.
And immediately the ash gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up
an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight. But above
the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it,
you perceive, after a moment the eyes of doctor t. J Eckelberg.
The eyes of doctor T. J Eckelberg are blue and gigantic. Their retinas
are one yard high. They look out of no face, but instead from
a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non existent nose. Evidently
some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the
Borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot
them and moved away. But his eyes dimmed a little by many pointless days
under sun and rain, brooded on over the solemn dumping ground. The valley
of Ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and when
the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on the waiting train
can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There
is always a halt there of at least a minute. And it was because
of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress. The fact that he had
one was insisted a pond wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact
that he turned up in popular cafes with her, and, leaving her at
a table, sauntered about chatting with whomsoever he knew. Though I was curious
to see her, I had no desire to meet her, but I did.
I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon,
and when we stopped by the ash heaps, he jumped to his feet and,
taking hold of my elbow, literally forced me from the car. We're
getting off. He insisted, I want you to meet my girl. I
think he'd tanked up a good deal at Luncheon, and his determination to have
my company bordered on violence. The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon,
I had nothing better to do. I followed him over a low, whitewashed
railroad fence, and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor
Eckelbird's persistent stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow
brick sitting on the large edge the waste land, a sort of compact main
street ministering to it and contiguous to absolutely nothing. One of the three shops
it contained was for rent, and another was an all night restaurant, approached
by a trail of ashes. The third was a garage repairs George B.
Wilson, cars bought and sold. I followed Tom inside. The interior was
unprosperous and bare. The only car visible was the dust covered wreck of a
ford, which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to me that
this shadow of a garage must be a blind and that sumptuous and romantic apartments
were concealed overhead. When the proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office,
wiping his hands on a piece of waist. He was a blonde,
spiritless man, anemic and faintly handsome. When he saw us, a damp
gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes. Hello, Wilson, old
man, said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. Howe's business,
I can't complain, answered Wilson, unconvincingly. When ain't you going to sell
me that car next week? I've got my man working on it now.
Work's pretty slow, don't he. No, he doesn't, said Tom coldly.
And if you feel that way about it, maybe I'd better sell it
somewhere else. After all, I don't mean that, explained Wilson quickly.
I just meant. His voice faded off, and Tom glanced impatiently around the
garage. Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and in a moment,
the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door.
She was in the middle thirties and faintly stout, but she carried her flesh
sensuously as some women can. Her face above a spotted dress of dark blue
crept The sheen contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an
immediately perceptible vitality about her, as if the nerves of her body were continually
smoldering. She smiled slowly, and, walking through her husband as if he
were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye.
Then she wet her lips, and without turning around, spoke to her
husband in a soft, coarse voice. Get some chairs, Why don't you
so somebody can sit down. Oh sure, agreed Wilson hurriedly, and went
toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls.
A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair, as it
veiled everything in the vicinity, except his wife, who moved close to Tom.
I want to see you, said Tom intently. Get on the next
train, all right, I'll meet you by the news stand on the lower
level. She nodded and moved away from him, just as George Wilson emerged
with two chairs from his office door. We waited for her down the road
and out of sight. It was a few days before the fourth of July,
and a gray, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along
the railroad track. Terrible place, isn't it, said Tom, changing a
frown with doctor Eckelberg. Awful mit does her good to get away? Doesn't
her husband object? Wilson, he thinks she goes to see her sister in
New York. He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive. So Tom Buchanan
and his girl and I went up together to New York, or not quite
together for missus. Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much
to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train. She
had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her
rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform In New York. At
the newsstand, she bought a copy of Town Tattle and a moving picture magazine,
and in the station drug soar some cold cream and a small flask of
perfume. Upstairs in the solemn, echoing drive. She let four taxi cabs
drive away before she selected a new one, lavender colored with gray upholstery,
And in this we slid out from the mass of the station into the glowing
sunshine. But immediately she turned sharply from the window and, leaning forward,
tapped on the front glass. I want to get one of those dogs,
she said earnestly. I want to get one for the apartment. They're nice
to have a dog. So we backed up to a gray old man who
bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller. In a basket swung from
his neck cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed. What kind
are they, asked missus Wilson eagerly, as he came to the taxi window.
All kinds? What kind do you want, lady? I'd like to
get one of those police dogs. I don't suppose you got that kind.
The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand, and drew
one up, wriggling by the back of the neck. That's no police dog,
said Tom. No, it's not exactly a police dog, said the
man, with disappointment in his voice. It's more of an Airdale. He
passed his hand over the brown wash rag of a back. Look at that
coat, some coat. That's a dog that'll never bother you with catching cold.
I think it's cute, said Missus Wilson enthusiastically. How much is it
that dog? He looked at it, admiring. That dog will cost you
ten dollars the airdale. Undoubtedly there was an airdale concerned in it somewhere,
though its feet were startlingly. White changed hands and settled down into Missus Wilson's
lap, where she fondled the weatherproof coat with rapture. Is it a boy
or a girl? She asked delicately. That dog, that dog's a boy.
It's a bitch, said Tom derisively. Here's your money, go and
buy ten more dogs with it. We drove over to Fifth Avenue, warm
and soft, almost pastoral on the summer Sunday afternoon. I wouldn't have been
surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turned the corner. Hold on,
I said, I have to leave you here. No, you don't,
interposed Tom quickly. Myrtle will be hurt if you don't come up to
the apartment. Won't you myrtle, Come on, she urged, I'll telephone
my sister Catherine. She's said to be very beautiful by people who ought to
know. Well, I'd like to. But we went on, cutting back
again over the park toward the West hundreds. At one hundred and fifty eighth
Street, the cab stopped at one slice and a long white cake of apartment
houses, throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighborhood. Missus Wilson gathered up
her dog and her other purchases and went haughtily in. I'm going to have
the mc keys come up, she announced, as we rose in the elevator.
And of course I've got to call up my sister too. The apartment
was on the top floor, a small living room, a small dining room,
a small bedroom, and a bath. The living room was crowded to
the door with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it, so
that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the
gardens of Versailles. The only picture was an over enlarged photograph, apparently a
hen sitting on a blurred rock, looked at from a distance. However,
the hen resolved itself into a bonnet, and the countenance of a stout old
lady beamed down into the room. Several old copies of Town Tattle lay on
the table, together with a copy of Simon called Peter, and some of
the small scandal magazines of Broadway. Missus Wilson was first concerned with the dog.
A reluctant elevator boy went for a boxfull of straw and some milk,
to which he added, on his own initiative, a tin of large hard
dog biscuits, one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon.
Meanwhile, Tom brought out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door.
I have been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time
was that afternoon. So everything that happened has a dim, hazy cast over
it, Although until after eight o'clock the apartment was full of cheerful Son sitting
on Tom's lap. Missus Wilson called up several people on the telephone. Then
there were no cigarettes, and I went out to buy some at the drug
store on the corner. When I came back, they had both disappeared,
so I sat down discreetly in the living room and read a chapter of Simon
called Peter. Either it was terrible stuff or the whiskey distorted things because it
didn't make any sense to me, Just as Tom and Myrtle after the first
drink, Missus Wilson and I called each other by our first names reappeared,
company commenced to arrive at the apartment door. The sister Katherine was a slender,
worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red
hair and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then
drawn on again at a more rakish angle, but the efforts of nature toward
the restoration of the old the linement gave a blurred air to her face.
When she moved about, there was an incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jingled
up and down upon her arms. She came in with such a proprietary haste
and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here.
But when I asked her, she laughed immoderately, repeated my question aloud,
and told me she lived with her girlfriend at a hotel. Mister McKee
was a pale, feminine man from the flat below. He had just shaved,
for there was a white spot of lather on his cheekbone, and he
was most respectful of his greeting to everyone in the room. He informed me
that he was in the artistic game, and I gathered later that he was
a photographer and had made the dim enlargement of missus Wilson's mother, which hovered
like an ectoplasm on the wall. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome
and horrible. She told me with pride that her husband had photographed her one
hundred and twenty seven times since they had been married. Missus Wilson had changed
her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress
of cream colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about
the room. With the influence of the dress, her personality had also undergone
a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was
converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more
violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded, the room grew smaller
around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot
through the smoky air. My dear, she told her sister in a high
mincing shout. Most of these fellows will cheat you every time. All they
think of is money. I had a woman up here last week to look
at my feet, and when she gave me the bill, you'd have thought
she had my appendicitis out. What was the name of the woman, asked
missus mc Keeie, Missus Eberhart. She goes around looking at people's feet in
their own homes. I like your dress, remarked missus McKee. I think
it's adorable. Missus Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain.
It's just a crazy old thing, she said. I just slip it on
sometimes when I don't care what I look like. But it looks wonderful on
you, if you know what I mean, pursued missus McKee. If Chester
can only get you in that pose, I think he can make something of
it. We all looked in silence at missus Wilson, who removed a strand
of hair from over her eyes and looked back at us with a brilliant smile.
Mister McKee regarded her intently with his head on one side, and then
moved his hand back and forth slowly in front of his face. I should
change the light, he said. After a moment, I'd like to bring
out the modeling of the features, and I'd try to get hold of all
that back hair. I wouldn't think of changing the light, cried missus McKee.
I think it's her, husband said sh and we all looked at the
subject again, whereupon Tom Buchanan yawned audibly and got to his feet. You
mc keyes have something to drink, he said, get some more ice and
mineral water, Myrtle, before everybody goes to sleep. I told that boy
about the ice. Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the
lower orders. These people. You have to keep after them all the time.
She looked at me and laughed pointlessly. Then she flounced over to the
dog, kissed it with ecstasy, and swept into the kitchen, implying that
a dozen chefs awaited her orders there. I've done some nice things out on
Long Island, asserted mister McKee. Tom looked at him blankly. Two of
them we have framed downstairs, to what, demanded Tom. Two studies.
One of them I call montalk Point the gulls, and the other I call
montalk Point the sea. The sister Catherine sat down beside me on the couch.
Do you live on Long Island too, she inquired? I live at
West Egg Really, I was down there at a party about a month ago
and a man named Gatsby's. Do you know him? I lived next door
to him. Well, they say he's a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser
Wilhelms. That's where all his money comes from. Really, she nodded.
I'm scared of him. I'd hate to have him get anything on me.
This absorbing information about my neighbor was interrupted by missus mc keyes pointing suddenly at
Katherine Chester. I think you could do something with her, she broke out,
But mister mc keee only nodded in a bored way and turned his attention
to Tom. I like to do more work on Long Island if I could
get the entry. All I ask is that they should give me a start,
ask myrtle, said Tom, breaking into a short shout of laughter as
missus Wilson entered with a tray. She'll give you a letter of introduction,
won't you, Myrtle do what she asked, startled, You'll give Mickey a
letter of introduction to your husband so he can do some studies on him.
His lips moved silently for a moment as he invented George B. Wilson at
the gasolene pump or something like that. Catherine leaned close to me and whispered
in my ear. Neither of them can stand the person they're married to,
can't They can't stand them. She looked at Myrtle and then at Tom.
What I say is why go on living with them if they can't stand them?
If I was them, i'd get a divorce and get married to each
other right away. Doesn't she like Wilson either. The answer to this was
unexpected. It came from Myrtle, who had overheard the question, and it
was violent and obscene. You see, cried Catherine triumphantly. She lowered her
voice again. It's really his wife that keeps them apart. She's a Catholic
and they don't believe in divorce. He was not a Catholic. And I
was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie. When they do get
married, continued Catherine, they're going west to live for a while until it
blows over. It'd be more discreet to go to Europe. Oh you like
Europe, she exclaimed surprisingly. I just got back from Monte Carlo. Really,
just last year I went over there with another girl. Stay long,
No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We went by way
of Marseilles. We had over twelve hundred dollars whom he started, but we
got jipped out of it all in two days in the private rooms. We
had an awful time getting back. I can tell you, god, how
I hated that town. The late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a
moment, like the blue honey of the Mediterranean. Then the shrill voice of
missus McKee called me back into the room. I almost made a mistake,
too, she declared vigorously. I almost married a little Kaike who'd been after
me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody up saying to
me, Lucille, that man's way below you. But if I hadn't meant
chester, he'd have got me for sure, yes, but listen, said
Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down. At least you didn't marry
him. I know I didn't. Well, I married him, said Myrtle
ambiguously. And that's a difference between your case and mine. Why did you,
Myrtle demanded Catherine, Nobody forced you to. Myrtle considered, I married
him because I thought he was a gentleman, she said. Finally, I
thought he knew something about breeding. But he wasn't fit to lick my shoe.
You were crazy about him for a while, said Catherine. Crazy about
him, cried Myrtle incredulously, who said I was crazy about him. I
never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there,
She pointed suddenly at me, and everyone looked at me accusingly. I tried
to show by my expression that I expected no affection. The only crazy I
was was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake.
He borrowed somebody's best suit to get married in and never told me about
it. And the man came after it one day when he was out,
Oh is that your suit? I said, this is the first I ever
heard about it. But I gave it to him, and then I lay
down and cried to beat the band all afternoon. She really ought to get
away from him, resumed Catherine to me. They've been living over that garage
for eleven years, and Tom's the first sweetie she ever had. The bottle
of whiskey. A second one was now in constant demand by all present,
excepting Catherine, who felt just as good on nothing at all. Tom rang
for the janitor and sent him for some celebrated sandwiches, which were a complete
supper in themselves. I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park
through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go, I became
entangled in some wild, strident argument, which pulled me back, as if
with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city, our line
of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher
in the darkening streets, and I saw him, too, looking up and
wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible
variety of life. Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her
warm breath poured over me. The story of her first meeting with Tom.
It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last
ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see
my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit in patent
leather shoes, and I couldn't keep my eyes off him, But every time
he looked in me, I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement
over his head. When we came into the station, he was next to
me and his white shirt front pressed against my arm, and so I told
him I'd have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I
was so excited that when I got into the taxi with him, I didn't
hardly know I wasn't getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about,
over and over was you can't live forever. You can't live forever.
She turned to missus mc keeye, and the room rang full of her artificial
laughter. My dear, she cried, I'm going to give you this dress
as soon as I'm through with it. I've got to get another one.
Tomorrow. I'm going to make a list of all the things I've got to
get. A'm massage, and a wave, and a collar for the dog,
and one of those cute little ash trays where you touch a spring,
and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother's grave. That all last
all summer. I've got a write down a list, so i won't forget
all the things I got to do. It was nine o'clock. Almost immediately
afterward. I looked at my watch and found it was ten. Mister mc
keee was asleep on the chair, with his fists clenched in his lap,
like a photograph of a man in action. Taking out my handkerchief. Aped
from his cheek the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon.
The little dog was sitting on the table, looking with blind eyes through
the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly. People disappeared, reappeared,
made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for
each other, found each other a few feet away. Sometime toward midnight,
Tom Buchanan and Missus Wilson stood face to face, discussing in impassioned voices whether
Missus Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name. Daisy Daisy, Daisy,
shouted missus Wilson. I'll say it whenever I want to. Daisy Day.
Making a short, deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open
hand. Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women's voices
scolding and high over the confusion, a long broken wail of pain. Mister
McKee awoke from his doze and started in a daze toward the door. When
he had gone halfway, he had turned around and stared at the scene,
his wife and Katherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the
crowded furniture with articles of aid, and the despairing figure on the couch,
bleeding fluently and trying to spread a copy of Town Tattle over the tapestry scenes
of Versailles. Then mister McKee turned and continued on out the door, taking
my hat from the chandelier. I followed. Come to lunch some day,
he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator where anywhere, keep your
hands off the lever snapped the elevator. Boy, I beg your pardon,
said mister mc keee, with dignity. I didn't know I was touching it,
all right, I agreed, I'll be glad to I was standing beside
his bed, and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his
underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands, Beauty and the Beast,
Loneliness, Old Grocery Horse, Brooken Bridge. Then I was lying half asleep
in the hold lower level of the Pennsylvania station, staring at the morning Tribune
and waiting for the four o'clock train. End of chapter two.