beardaintweird/The-Great-Gatsby · Datasets at Hugging Face

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then at me and continued: ‘I looked outdoors for a minute
and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn
that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard

18 The Great Gatsby
or White Star Line. He’s singing away——’ her voice sang
‘——It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?’
‘Very romantic,’ he said, and then miserably to me: ‘If
it’s light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the
stables.’
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook
her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact
all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments
of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being
lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look
squarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t
guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking but I doubt if even
Miss Baker who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy
skepticism was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill me-
tallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the
situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct
was to telephone immediately for the police.
The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again.
Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between
them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a
perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly in-
terested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain
of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep
gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.
Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its love-
ly shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet
dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked
what I thought would be some sedative questions about her
little girl.

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 19
‘We don’t know each other very well, Nick,’ she said
suddenly. ‘Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my
wedding.’
‘I wasn’t back from the war.’
‘That’s true.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, I’ve had a very bad
time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.’
Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn’t say
any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the
subject of her daughter.
‘I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.’
‘Oh, yes.’ She looked at me absently. ‘Listen, Nick; let me
tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to
hear?’
‘Very much.’
‘It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things.
Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows
where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned
feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a
girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away
and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope
she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this
world, a beautiful little fool.’
‘You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,’ she went
on in a convinced way. ‘Everybody thinks so—the most ad-
vanced people. And I KNOW. I’ve been everywhere and seen
everything and done everything.’ Her eyes flashed around
her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with
thrilling scorn. ‘Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!’
The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my

20 The Great Gatsby
attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she
had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening
had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emo-
tion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she
looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if
she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished
secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and
Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read
aloud to him from the ‘Saturday Evening Post’—the words,
murmurous and uninflected, running together in a sooth-
ing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on
the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper
as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her
arms.
When we came in she held us silent for a moment with
a lifted hand.
‘To be continued,’ she said, tossing the magazine on the
table, ‘in our very next issue.’
Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her
knee, and she stood up.
‘Ten o’clock,’ she remarked, apparently finding the time
on the ceiling. ‘Time for this good girl to go to bed.’
‘Jordan’s going to play in the tournament tomorrow,’ ex-
plained Daisy, ‘over at Westchester.’
‘Oh,—you’re JORdan Baker.’
I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing con-
temptuous expression had looked out at me from many
rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 21
Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her
too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgot-

then at me and continued: ‘I looked outdoors for a minute

and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn

that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard

18 The Great Gatsby

or White Star Line. He’s singing away——’ her voice sang

‘——It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?’

‘Very romantic,’ he said, and then miserably to me: ‘If

it’s light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the

stables.’

The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook

her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact

all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments

of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being

lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look

squarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t

guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking but I doubt if even

Miss Baker who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy

skepticism was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill me-

tallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the

situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct

was to telephone immediately for the police.

The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again.

Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between

them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a

perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly in-

terested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain

of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep

gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its love-

ly shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet

dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked

what I thought would be some sedative questions about her

little girl.

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 19

‘We don’t know each other very well, Nick,’ she said

suddenly. ‘Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my

wedding.’

‘I wasn’t back from the war.’

‘That’s true.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, I’ve had a very bad

time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.’

Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn’t say

any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the

subject of her daughter.

‘I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.’

‘Oh, yes.’ She looked at me absently. ‘Listen, Nick; let me

tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to

hear?’

‘Very much.’

‘It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things.

Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows

where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned

feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a

girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away

and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope

she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this

world, a beautiful little fool.’

‘You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,’ she went

on in a convinced way. ‘Everybody thinks so—the most ad-

vanced people. And I KNOW. I’ve been everywhere and seen

everything and done everything.’ Her eyes flashed around

her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with

thrilling scorn. ‘Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!’

The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my

20 The Great Gatsby

attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she

had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening

had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emo-

tion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she

looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if

she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished

secret society to which she and Tom belonged.

Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and

Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read

aloud to him from the ‘Saturday Evening Post’—the words,

murmurous and uninflected, running together in a sooth-

ing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on

the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper

as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her

arms.

When we came in she held us silent for a moment with

a lifted hand.

‘To be continued,’ she said, tossing the magazine on the

table, ‘in our very next issue.’

Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her

knee, and she stood up.

‘Ten o’clock,’ she remarked, apparently finding the time

on the ceiling. ‘Time for this good girl to go to bed.’

‘Jordan’s going to play in the tournament tomorrow,’ ex-

plained Daisy, ‘over at Westchester.’

‘Oh,—you’re JORdan Baker.’

I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing con-

temptuous expression had looked out at me from many

rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and

Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 21

Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her

too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgot-