Thats right, corroborated Tom kindly. We heard that you were engaged.
Its a libel. Im too poor.
But we heard it, insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. We heard it from three people, so it must be true.
Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasnt even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You cant stop going with an old friend on account of rumours, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumoured into marriage.
Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house,
child in arms but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he had some woman in New York was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrol-pumps sat out in pools of light and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbours mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didnt call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.
Chapter II
But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg . The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg 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 paintless days, under sun and rain, brood 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 waiting trains 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 Buchanans mistress.
The fact that he had one was insisted upon 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.
Were getting off, he insisted. I want you to meet my girl.
I think hed 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 Eckleburgs persistent stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of 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