《了不起的盖茨比·Chapter III》第13节
“If you want anything just ask for it, old sport,” he urged me. “Excuse me. I will rejoin you later.” When he was gone I turned immediately to Jordan—constrained to assure her of my surprise. I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years. “Who is he?” I demanded. “Do you know?” “He’s just a man named Gatsby.” “Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do?” “Now you’re started on the subject,” she answered with a wan smile. “Well, he told me once he was an Oxford man.” A dim background started to take shape behind him, but at her next remark it faded away. “However, I don’t believe it.” “Why not?” “I don’t know,” she insisted, “I just don’t think he went there.” Something in her tone reminded me of the other girl’s “I think he killed a man,” and had the effect of stimulating my curiosity. I would have accepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang from the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East Side of New York. That was comprehensible. But young men didn’t—at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn’t—drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound.
注释摘要
刚才那段文字里，尼克刚刚经历了整场派对、甚至整个小说里最重要的一次冲击：他在完全不知情的情况下跟盖茨比聊了半天，对方却突然说出“我就是盖茨比”。随后盖茨比被管家叫走，去接芝加哥打来的电话。临走前扔下这句话——“老兄，想要什么尽管开口”——语气干脆、亲热，却又有种奇异的距离感。尼克还没从错愕中回过神来，他立刻转向乔丹，急于解释自己为什么如此惊讶。 我们来仔细…