《了不起的盖茨比·Chapter VII》第28节
“You two start on home, Daisy,” said Tom. “In Mr. Gatsby’s car.” She looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous scorn. “Go on. He won’t annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over.” They were gone, without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity. After a moment Tom got up and began wrapping the unopened bottle of whisky in the towel. “Want any of this stuff? Jordan? … Nick?” I didn’t answer. “Nick?” He asked again. “What?” “Want any?” “No … I just remembered that today’s my birthday.” I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade. It was seven o’clock when we got into the coupé with him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign clamour on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat’s shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand.
注释摘要
汤姆在这一刻的姿态极度刺眼。他让自己站在赢家的位置，用一种居高临下的、刻意宽宏的轻蔑，把黛西推到盖茨比的车里去。原文说他 "insisted with magnanimous scorn"——这两个词的组合本身就是一处精妙的修辞。magnanimous 通常指胜利者的大度，但配上 scorn（轻蔑），立刻把这种大度变成了羞辱；他不是原谅，而是施舍一个机会来…