《了不起的盖茨比·Chapter III》第2节
At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough coloured lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another. By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colours, and hair bobbed in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.
注释摘要
尼克在这里开始正面描写盖茨比家一场典型派对的准备与开场，字面上是一次巨型宴饮的流水线：每两周至少一次，承办宴席的团队从城里运来几百英尺帆布和彩灯，把花园装扮得像圣诞树；自助餐台上摆满亮晶晶的冷盘、香料烤火腿、彩色沙拉、糕点做成的小猪和被施了魔法般呈现暗金色的火鸡。大厅里架起一座带真铜扶手的吧台，摆满杜松子酒、烈酒，以及那些被遗忘已久的甜酒——被遗忘到什么程…