《了不起的盖茨比·Chapter III》第12节
“I’m Gatsby,” he said suddenly. “What!” I exclaimed. “Oh, I beg your pardon.” “I thought you knew, old sport. I’m afraid I’m not a very good host.” He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care. Almost at the moment when Mr. Gatsby identified himself a butler hurried toward him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire. He excused himself with a small bow that included each of us in turn.
注释摘要
这一节最要紧的，是盖茨比终于现身了——而他的登场方式本身就是一幕精心设计的小型戏剧。尼克和他聊了半天战争、聊了水上飞机、聊了明天试飞，完全没认出对方，直到盖茨比忽然抛出一句“I'm Gatsby”。尼克的反应是惊呼：“What!” 然后立刻道歉。这个道歉很尼克：他为自己没认出主人而窘迫，而盖茨比却反过来道歉——“I'm afraid I'm not a v…