《了不起的盖茨比·Chapter I》第3节
------------------------------------------------------------------------ My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today. I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why—ye-es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.
注释摘要
这一节是尼克·卡拉威在交代自己的家世背景，以及他为什么会在1922年春天来到东部。他先讲了自己家族的来路：卡拉威家在中西部这个城市已经显赫富足了三代，算是个小有规模的家族，甚至有个传说，说他们是巴克卢公爵的后裔。但尼克紧接着就用一句话把这种贵族幻想轻轻戳破了——他说，真正开创他这一支的人，是他祖父的兄弟，1851年来到这里，找人顶替自己参加了南北战争，然后…