WEBVTT

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Chapter eight of The Great Gatsby by
F. Scott Fitzgerald. I couldn't sleep

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all night. A fog horn was
groaning incessantly on the sound, and I

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tossed, half sick between grotesque reality
and savage, frightening dreams. Towards dawn,

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I heard a taxi go up Gatsby's
drive, and immediately I jumped out

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of bed and began to dress.
I felt that I had something to tell

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him, something to warn him about, and morning would be too late.

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Crossing his lawn, I saw that
his front door was still open, and

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he was leaning against a table in
the hall, heavy with dejection or sleep.

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Nothing happened, he said wanly,
and I waited, and about four

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o'clock she came to the window and
stood there for a minute, and then

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turned out the light. His house
had never seemed so enormous to me as

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it did that night. When we
hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes,

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we pushed aside curtains that were like
pavilions, and felt over innumerable feet of

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dark wall for electric light switches.
Once I tumbled with a sort of splash

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upon the keys of a ghostly piano, there was an inexplicable amount of dust

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everywhere, and the rooms were musty, as though they hadn't been aired for

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many days. I found the humidor
on an unfamiliar table with two stale dry

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cigarettes inside. Throwing open the French
windows of the drawing room, we sat

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smoking out into the darkness. You
want to go away, I said,

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it's pretty certain they'll trace your car. Go away now old Sport, go

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to Atlantic City for a week,
or up to Montreal. He wouldn't consider

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it. He couldn't possibly leave Daisy
until he knew what she was going to

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do. He was clutching at some
last hope, and I couldn't bear to

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shake him free. It was this
night that he told me the strange story

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of his youth with Dan Cody told
it to me because Jay Gatsby had broken

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up like glass against Tom's hard malice, and the long secret extravaganza was played

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out. I think he would have
acknowledged anything now without reserve. But he

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wanted to talk about Daisy. She
was the first nice girl he had ever

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known. In various unrevealed capacities,
he had come in contact with such people,

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but always with indiscernible barbed wire between
He found her excitingly desirable. He

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went to her house, at first
with other officers from Camp Taylor, then

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alone. It amazed him he had
never been in such a beautiful house before.

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But what gave it an air of
breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there.

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It was as casual a thing to
her as his tent out at camp

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was to him. There was a
ripe mystery about it, a hint of

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bedrooms upstairs, more beautiful and cool
than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant

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activities taking place through its corridors,
and of romances that were not musty and

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laid away already and lavender, but
fresh and breathing and redolent, of this

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year's shy ding motor cars, and
of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered.

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It excited him too that many men
had already loved Daisy. It increased her

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value in his eyes. He felt
their presence all about the house, pervading

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the air with the shades and echoes
of still vibrant emotions. But he knew

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that he was in Daisy's house by
a colossal accident. However glorious might be

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his future as Jay Gatsby, he
was at present a penniless young man without

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a past, and at any moment
the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip

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from his shoulders. So he made
the most of his time. He took

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what he could get ravenously and unscrupulously. Eventually he took Daisy one still October

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night. Took her because he had
no real right to touch her hand.

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He might have despised himself, for
he had certainly taken her under false pretenses.

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I don't mean that he had traded
on his phantom millions, but he

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had deliberately given Daisy a sense of
security. He let her believe that he

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was a person from such the same
strata as herself, that he was fully

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able to take care of her.
As a matter of fact, he had

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no such facilities. He had no
comfortable families standing behind him, and he

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was liable, at the whim of
an impersonal government, to be blown anywhere

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about the world. But he didn't
despise himself, and it didn't turn out

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as he imagined. He had intended, probably to take what he could and

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go, But now he found that
he had committed himself to the following of

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a grail. He knew that Daisy
was extraordinary, but he didn't realize just

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how extraordinary a nice girl could be. She vanished into her rich house,

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into her rich, fool life,
leaving Gatsby nothing. He felt married to

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her, that was all. When
they met again two days later, it

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was Gatsby who was breathless, who
was somehow betrayed. Her porch was bright

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with the bought luxury of starshine.
The wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as

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it turned toward him, and he
kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She

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had caught a cold and made her
voice huskier and more charming than ever,

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And Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the
youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves,

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of the freshness of many clothes,
and of Daisy gleaming like silver,

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safe and proud above the hot struggles
of the poor. I can't describe to

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you how surprised I was to find
out I loved her old sport. I

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even hoped for a while that she'd
throw me over, but she didn't because

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she was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because

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I knew different things from her.
Well, there, I was way off

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my ambitions, getting deeper in love
every minute, and all of a sudden

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I didn't care. What was the
use of doing great things if I could

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have a better time telling her what
I was going to do. On the

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last afternoon before he went abroad,
he sat with Daisy in his arms for

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a long, silent time. It
was a cold fall day, the fire

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in the room, and her cheeks
flushed now and then she moved, and

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she changed his arm a little,
and once he kissed her dark shining hair.

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The afternoon had made them tranquil for
a while, as if to give

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them a deep memory of the long
parting. The next day promised they had

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never been closer in their month of
love, nor communicated more profoundly one with

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another, than when she brushed silent
lips against his coat's shoulder, or when

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he touched the end of her fingers
gently, as though they were asleep.

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He did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went

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to the front, and following the
Argon battles he got his majority in the

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command of the divisional machine guns.
After the armistice, he tried frantically to

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get home, but some complication or
misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead. He

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was worried. Now there was a
quality of nervous despair in Daisy's letters.

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She didn't see why he couldn't come. She was feeling the pressure of the

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world outside, and she wanted to
see him and feel his presence beside her,

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and be reassured that she was doing
the right thing after all. For

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Daisy was young, and her artificial
world was redolent of orchids and pleasant,

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cheerful snobbery and orchestras, which set
the rhythm of the year, summing up

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the sadness and suggestiveness of life in
new tunes. All night, the saxophones

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wailed the hopeless comment of the Beale
Street Blues, while a hundred pairs of

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golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining
dust at the gray tea hour. There

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were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with
this low, sweet fever, while fresh

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faces drifted here and there like rose
petals blown by the sad horns around the

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floor. Through this twilight universe,
Daisy began to move again with the season.

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Suddenly she was again keeping half a
dozen dates a day with half a

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dozen men, and drowsing asleep at
dawn, with the beads and chiffon of

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an evening dress tangled among dying orchids
on the floor beside her bed, and

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all the time something within her was
crying for a decision. She wanted her

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life shaped now, immediately, and
the decision must be made by some force

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of love, of money, of
unquestionable practicality that was close at hand.

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That force took shape in the middle
of spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan.

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There was a wholesome bulkiness about his
person and his position, and Daisy

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was flattered. Doubtless there was a
certain struggle and a certain relief. The

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letter reached Gatsby while he was at
Oxford. It was dawned now on Long

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Island, and we went about opening
the rest of the windows downstairs, filling

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the house with gray turning gold turning
light. The shadow of a tree fell

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abruptly across the dew, and ghostly
birds began to sing among the blue leaves.

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There was a slow, pleasant movement
in the air, scarcely a wind,

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promising a cool, lovely day.
I don't think she ever loved him.

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Gatsby turned around from a window and
looked at me challengingly. You must

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remember old sport. She was very
excited this afternoon. He told her those

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things in a way that frightened her, that made it look as if I

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was some kind of cheap, sharper
man. The result was she hardly knew

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what she was saying. He sat
down gloomily. And of course she might

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have loved him just for a minute
when they were first married, and loved

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me even more than do you see. Suddenly he came out with curious remark.

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In any case, he said,
it was just personal. What could

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you make of that except to suspect
some intensity in his conception of the affair

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that couldn't be measured. He came
back from France when Tom and Daisy were

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still on their wedding trip, and
made a miserable but irresistible journey to Louisville

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on the last of his army pay. He stayed there a week, walking

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the streets where their footsteps had clicked
together through the November night, and revisiting

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the out of the way places to
which they had driven in their white car.

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Just as Daisy's house had always seemed
to him more mysterious and gay than

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other houses, so his idea of
the city itself, even though she was

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gone from it, was pervaded with
this melancholy beauty. He left, feeling

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that if he had searched harder,
he might have found her. That he

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was leaving her behind the day coach. He was penniless, now was hot.

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He went out to the open vestibule
and sat down on a folding chair,

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and the station slid away, and
the backs of unfamiliar buildings moved by,

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then out into the spring fields,
where a yellow trolley raced them for

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a minute, with people in it
who might once have seen the pale magic

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of her face. Along the casual
street, the track curved, and now

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it was going away from the sun, which, as it sank lower,

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seemed to spread itself in benediction over
the vanishing city where she had drawn her

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breath. He stretched out his hand
desperately, as if to snatch only a

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wisp of air, to save a
fragment of the spot that she had made

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lovely for him. But it was
all going by too fast now for his

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blurred eyes, and he knew that
he had lost that part of it,

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the freshest and the best forever.
It was nine o'clock when We finished breakfast

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and went out on the porch.
The night had made a sharp difference in

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the weather, and there was an
autumn flavor in the air. The gardener,

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the last one of Gatsby's former servants, came to the foot of the

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steps. I'm going to train the
pool today, mister Gadsby leaves us stop

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falling pretty soon, and there's always
trouble with the pipes. Don't do it

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today, Gatsby answered. He turned
to me apologetically. You know, old

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Sport. I've never used that pool
all summer. I looked at my watch

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and stood up. Twelve minutes to
my train. I didn't want to go

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to the city. I wasn't worth
a decent stroke of work. But it

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was more than that. I didn't
want to leave Gatsby. I missed that

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train and then another before I could
get myself away. I'll call you up,

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I said, finally, do old
Sport. I'll call you about noon.

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We walked slowly down the steps.
I suppose Daisy'll call too. He

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looked at me anxiously, as if
he hoped I'd corroborate this. I suppose

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so well. Goodbye. We shook
hands and I started away, just before

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I reached the hedge, I remembered
something and turned around. They're a rotten

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crowd, I shouted across the lawn. You're worth the whole damn bunch put

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together. I've always been glad.
I said that it was the only compliment

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I ever gave him, because I
disapproved of him from beginning to end.

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First he nodded politely, and then
his face broke into a radiant and understanding

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smile, as if we'd been in
ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time.

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His gorgeous pink rag of a suit
made a bright spot of color against

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the white steps. And I thought
of the night when I first came to

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his ancestral home three months before the
lawn, and the drive had been crowded

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with the faces of those who had
guessed at his corruption, and he had

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stood on those steps, concealing his
incorruptible dream as he waved them goodbye.

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I thanked him for his hospitality.
We were always thanking him for that.

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I and the others good bye,
I called. I enjoyed breakfast Gadsby up

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in the city. I tried for
a while to list the quotations on an

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interminable amount of stock. Then I
fell asleep in my swivel chair. Just

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before noon. The phone woke me
and I started up with sweat breaking out

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on my forehead. It was Jordan
Baker. She often called me up at

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this hour because the uncertainty of her
own movements between hotels and clubs and private

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houses made her hard to find in
any other way. Usually her voice came

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over the wire as something fresh and
cool, as if a divot from a

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green golf links had come sailing in
at the office window. But this morning

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it seemed harsh and dry. I've
left Daisy's house, she said. I'm

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at Hempstead and I'm going down to
Southampton this afternoon. Probably it had been

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tactful to leave Daisy's house, but
the act annoyed me, and her next

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remark made me rigid. You weren't
so nice to me last night. How

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could it have mattered? Then silence
for a moment. Then, however,

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I want to see you. I
want to see you too. Suppose I

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don't go to Southampton and come into
town this afternoon. No, I don't

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think this afternoon very well, It's
impossible this afternoon various. We talked like

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that for a while and then abruptly
we weren't talking any longer. I don't

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know which of us hung up with
a sharp click, but I know I

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didn't care. I couldn't have talked
to her across a tea table that day

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if I never talked to her again
in this world. I called Gatsby's house

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a few minutes later, but the
line was busy. I tried four times.

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Finally, an exasperated central told me
the wire was being kept open for

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a long distance from Detroit. Taking
out my timetable, I drew a small

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circle around the three fifty train.
Then I leaned back in my chair and

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tried to think. It was just
noon when I passed the ash heaps on

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the train. That morning, I
had crossed deliberately to the other side of

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the car. I supposed there would
be a curious crowd around there all day,

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with little boys searching for dark spots
in the dust, and some garrulous

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man telling over and over what had
happened, until it became less and less

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real even to him, and he
could tell it no longer, and Myrtle

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Wilson's tragic achievement was forgotten. Now
I want to go back a little and

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tell what happened at the garage after
we left there the night before. They

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had difficulty in locating the sister Catherine. She must have broken her rule against

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drinking that night, for when she
arrived she was stupid with liquor and unable

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to understand that the ambulance had already
gone to Flushing. When they convinced her

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of this, she immediately fainted,
as if that was the intolerable part of

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the affair. Someone kind or curious
took her in his car and drove her

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in the wake of her sister's body
until long after midnight. A changing crowd

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lapped up against the front of the
garage while George Wilson rocked himself back and

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forth on the couch and side.
For a while, the door of the

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office was open, and everyone who
came into the garage glanced irresistibly through it.

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Finally, someone said it was a
shame and closed the door. Michaelis

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and several other men were with him
first, four or five men later,

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two or three men still later.
Michaelis had to ask the last stranger to

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wait there fifteen minutes longer while he
went back to his own place and made

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a pot of coffee. After that
he stayed there alone with Wilson until dawn.

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About three o'clock, the quality of
Wilson's incoherent muttering changed. He grew

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quieter and began to talk about the
yellow car. He announced that he had

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a way of finding out whom the
yellow car belonged to, And then he

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blurted out that a couple of months
ago his wife had come from the city

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with her face bruised and her nose
swollen. But when he heard himself say

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this, he flinched and began to
cry, Oh my God. Again in

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this groaning voice, Michaelis made a
clumsy attempt to distract him. How long

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have you been married, George?
Come on there and try to sit a

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minute and answer my question. How
long have you been married? Twelve years?

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Ever had any children? Come on, George, sit still, I

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ask you a question, did you
ever have any children? The hard browned

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beadles kept thudding against the dull light, and whenever Michaelis heard a car go

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tearing along the road outside, it
sounded to him like the car that hadn't

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stopped a few hours before. He
didn't like to go into the garage because

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the workbench was stained where the body
had been lying, so he moved uncomfortably

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around the office. He knew every
object in it before morning, and from

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time to time sat down beside Wilson, trying to keep him more quiet.

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Have you got a church you go
to sometimes, George? Maybe even if

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you haven't been there for a long
time, maybe I could call up the

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church and get a priest to come
over and he could talk to you.

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See, don't belong to Annie.
You ought to have a church, George,

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for times like this. You must
have gone to church once. Didn't

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you get married in a church?
Listen, George, listen to me.

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Didn't you get married in a church? That was a long time ago.

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The effort of answering broke the rhythm
of his rocking. For a moment he

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was silent. Then the same half
knowing, half bewildered look came back into

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his faded eyes. Look in the
drawer there, he said, pointing at

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the desk. Which drawer, that
drawer, that one. Michaelis opened the

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drawer and nearest his hand. There
was nothing in it but a small,

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expensive dog leash made of leather and
braided silver. It was apparently new,

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this, he inquired, holding it
up Wilson stared and nodded. I found

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it yesterday afternoon. She tried to
tell me about it, but I knew

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it. There was something funny.
You mean your wife bought it. She

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had it wrapped in tissue paper on
her bureau. Michaelis didn't see anything odd

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in that, and he gave Wilson
a dozen reasons why his wife might have

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bought the dog leash. But conceivably
Wilson had heard some of these same explanations

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before from Myrtle. Because he began
saying, oh my God again in a

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whisper. His comforter left several explanations
in the air. Then he killed her,

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said Wilson. His mouth dropped open
suddenly. Who did I have a

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way of finding out? You're morbid? George said his friend. This has

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been a strained to you, and
you don't know what you're saying. You

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better try and sit quiet till morning. He mighted her it was an accident.

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George Wilson shook his head, his
eyes narrowed, and his mouth widened

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slightly with the ghost of a superior
Hm, I know, he said,

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definitely, I'm one of these trusting
fellows, and I don't think any harm

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to nobody. But when I get
to know ah thing, I know it.

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It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to

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him and he wouldn't stop. Michaelis
had seen this too, but it hadn't

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occurred to him that there was any
special significance in it. He believed that

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missus Wilson had been running away from
her husband rather than trying to stop any

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particular car. How could she have
been like that? She's a deep one,

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said Wilson, as if that answered
the question. Ah. He began

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to rock again, and Michaelis stood, twisting the leash in his hand.

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Maybe you got some friend that I
could telephone for George. This was a

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forlorn hope. He was almost sure
that Wilson had no friend. There was

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not enough of him for his wife. He was glad a little later when

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he noticed a change in the room, a blue quickening by the window,

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and eyes that dawn wasn't far off. About five o'clock, it was blue

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enough outside to snap off the light. Wilson's glazed eyes turned out to the

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ash heaps, where small gray clouds
took on fantastic shapes and scurried here and

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there in the faint dawn wind.
I spoke to her, he muttered,

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after a long silence, I told
her she might fool me, but she

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couldn't fool God. I took her
to the window with an effort. He

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got up and walked to the rear
window and leaned with his face pressed against

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it, and I said, God
knows what you've been doing, everything you've

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been doing. You may fool me, but you can't fool God. Standing

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behind him, michael Is saw with
a shock that he was looking at the

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eyes of doctor t. J Eckelberg, which had just emerged, pale and

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enormous from the dissolving night. God
sees everything, repeated Wilson. That's an

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advertised Michaelis assured him. Something made
him turn away from the window and look

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back into the room, But Wilson
stood there a long time, his face

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close to the window pane, nodding
into the twilight. By six o'clock,

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Michaelis was worn out and grateful for
the sound of a car stopping outside.

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It was one of the watchers of
the ninety four who had promised to come

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back, so he cooked breakfast for
three, which he and the other man

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ate together. Wilson was quieter now, and Michaelis went home to sleep.

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When he awoke four hours later and
hurried back to the garage, Wilson was

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gone. His movements, he was
on foot all the time, were afterward

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traced to Port Roosevelt and then to
Gad's Hill, where he bought a sandwich

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that he didn't eat and a cup
of coffee. He must have been tired

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and walking slowly, for he didn't
reach Gad's Hill until noon. Thus far

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00:23:55.839 --> 00:24:00.279
there was no difficulty in accounting for
his time. There were boys who had

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seen a man acting sort of crazy, and motorists at whom he stared oddly

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from the side of the road.
Then for three hours he disappeared from view.

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The police, on the strength of
what he said to Michaelis that he

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had a way of finding out,
supposed that he spent that time going from

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garage to garage thereabout inquiring for a
yellow car. On the other hand,

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no garage man who had seen him
ever came forward, and perhaps he had

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an easier sure way of finding out
what he wanted to know. By half

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past two he was in West Egg
where he asked someone the way to Gatsby's

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house. So by that time he
knew Gatsby's name. At two o'clock,

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Gatsby put on his bathing suit and
left word with the butler that if anyone

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phoned, word was to be brought
to him at the pool. He stopped

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at the garage for a pneumatic mattress
that had amused his guests during the summer,

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and the chauffeur helped him to pump
it up. Then he gave instructions

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that the and car wasn't to be
taken out under any circumstances, and this

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00:25:03.400 --> 00:25:10.680
was strange because the front right fender
needed repair. Gatsby shouldered the mattress and

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00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:14.680
started for the pool. Once he
stopped and shifted it a little, and

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00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:18.480
the chauffeur asked him if he needed
help, but he shook his head and

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00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:23.039
in a moment disappeared among the yellowing
trees. No telephone message arrived, but

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00:25:23.160 --> 00:25:27.799
the butler went without his sleep and
waited for it until four o'clock, until

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long after there was anyone to give
it to if it came. I have

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00:25:33.079 --> 00:25:37.279
an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe
it would come, and perhaps he no

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00:25:37.359 --> 00:25:41.119
longer cared. If that was true, he must have felt that he had

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lost the old world charm and paid
a high price for living too long with

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00:25:45.160 --> 00:25:51.119
a single dream. He must have
looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening

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00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:56.200
leaves and shivered as he found what
a grotesque thing arose is and how raw

329
00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:02.960
the sunlight was upon this scarcely created
grass, a new world, material without

330
00:26:03.039 --> 00:26:07.799
being real, where poor ghosts,
breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about

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00:26:08.599 --> 00:26:15.240
like that ashen fantastic figure gliding toward
him through the amorphous trees. The chauffeur,

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00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:21.440
he was one of Wolfsheim's protegees,
heard the shots. Afterwards, he

333
00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:26.240
could only say that he hadn't thought
anything much about them. I drove from

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00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:30.160
the station directly to Gadsby's house,
and my rushing anxiously up the front steps

335
00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:36.160
was the first thing that alarmed anyone, But they knew then, I firmly

336
00:26:36.200 --> 00:26:40.599
believe, With scarcely a word,
said four of us, the chauffeur,

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00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:44.839
butler, gardener, and I hurried
down to the pool. There was a

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00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:48.759
faint, barely perceptible movement of the
water as the fresh flow from one end

339
00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:53.480
urged its way toward the drain at
the other, with little ripples that were

340
00:26:53.519 --> 00:26:59.680
hardly the shadows of waves. The
laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool.

341
00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:04.200
A small gust of wind that scarcely
corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its

342
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:11.240
accidental course. With its accidental burden, the touch of a cluster of leaves

343
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:15.920
revolved it, slowly, tracing like
the leg of transit, a thin red

344
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.359
circle in the water. It was
after we started with gats be toward the

345
00:27:19.400 --> 00:27:23.400
house that the gardener saw Wilson's body
a little way off in the grass,

346
00:27:25.039 --> 00:27:30.079
and the holocaust was complete. End
of Chapter eight