《了不起的盖茨比·Chapter VIII》第2节
“You ought to go away,” I said. “It’s pretty certain they’ll trace your car.” “Go away now, old sport?” “Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal.” He wouldn’t consider it. He couldn’t possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn’t bear to shake him free. It was this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan Cody—told it to me because “Jay Gatsby” had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice, and the long secret extravaganza was played out. I think that he would have acknowledged anything now, without reserve, but he wanted to talk about Daisy. She was the first “nice” girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people, but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone. It amazed him—he had never been in such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity, was that Daisy lived there—it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motorcars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions.
注释摘要
尼克劝盖茨比离开长岛避避风头，用的是一种压低声音的、几乎可以听见紧迫感的句子：他们迟早会查到你的车。这是一起肇事逃命案，刚发生在几个小时之前，而盖茨比的黄色劳斯莱斯就是那辆致命的车。尼克给出了一个务实到近乎卑微的建议——去大西洋城待一周，或者北上蒙特利尔。大西洋城是新泽西州的海滨赌城，在禁酒令时代是私酒贩子和黑帮金钱汇集的地方；蒙特利尔在加拿大，酒是合法的…