《了不起的盖茨比·Chapter I》第14节
“Why candles?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.” “We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed. “All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?” Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger. “Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.” We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue. “You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you did do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a—” “I hate that word ‘hulking,’ ” objected Tom crossly, “even in kidding.” “Hulking,” insisted Daisy. Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
注释摘要
这一段从餐桌上方那几根蜡烛的微光开始，黛西用一个看似任性的问题将它吹灭，而尼克在其中看见了一种他从西部带来的理解力无法消化的东西。 字面上，这只是一顿晚餐的闲谈。天色还没全暗，蜡烛却已经点上，黛西皱眉反对，说再过两周就是一年中白昼最长的一天，接着她把蜡烛一一掐灭。她忽然容光焕发地问大家，是不是总在等待一年中最长的白天，然后又把它错过。这个跳跃本可以滑入某种…