Полная версия
The Great Gatsby. Адаптированная книга для чтения на английском языке. Уровень B1
«I want to get one of those dogs», she demanded. «I want to get one for the apartment. It’s so nice to have a dog there».
We backed up to a gray old man who, ironically, looked much like John D. Rockefeller. In a basket swung from his neck there was a dozen puppies of an indeterminate breed.
«What kind are they?» asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly, as he came to the taxi-window.
«All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?»
«I’d like to get one of those police dogs; I don’t suppose you have that kind?»
The man looked doubtfully into the basket and took out a puppy by the back of the neck.
«That’s not a police dog», said Tom.
«No, it’s not exactly a police dog», said the man with disappointment in his voice. «It’s more of an Airedale[20]. But that’s a dog that’ll never bother you with catching cold».
«I think it’s cute», said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. «How much is it?»
«That dog?» He looked at it admiringly. «That dog will cost you ten dollars».
The Airedale – undoubtedly there was an Airedale concerned in it somewhere – changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson’s lap.
«Is it a boy or a girl?» she asked delicately.
«That dog? That dog’s a boy».
«It’s a bitch», said Tom decisively. «Here’s your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it».
We went on and soon, at 158th Street, the cab stopped at an apartment-house. Mrs. Wilson gathered up her dog and went haughtily in.
«I’m going to invite the McKees», she announced as we rose in the elevator. «And, of course, I have to call up my sister, Catherine, who is very beautiful».
The apartment was on the top floor – a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath. The living-room was full to the doors with a set of furniture. Several copies of the small scandal magazines of Broadway lay on the table. Mrs. Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator-boy went for a box full of straw and some milk. Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door.
I have been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon; so everything that happened has a hazy cover over it, although until after eight o’clock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Tom’s lap Mrs. Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then there were no cigarettes, and I went out to buy some at the drugstore on the corner. When I came back they had disappeared, so I sat down in the living-room and read a magazine.
Just as Tom and Myrtle (after the first drink Mrs. Wilson and I called each other by our first names) reappeared, company began to arrive at the apartment door.
The sister, Catherine, was a slender girl of about thirty, with red hair, and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more stylish angle. When she moved about there was a continual clicking as innumerable ceramic bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms. She came in and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here. But when I asked her she laughed extravagantly, repeated my question aloud, and told me she lived with a girl friend at a hotel.
Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-colored silk, which gave out a rustle as she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive arrogance.
«I like your dress», remarked Mrs. McKee, the neighbor, «I think it’s adorable».
Mrs. Wilson rejected the compliment by raising her eyebrow in contempt.
«It’s just a crazy old thing», she said. «I just put it on sometimes when I don’t care what I look like».
«But it looks wonderful on you», insisted Mrs. McKee.
Myrtle looked at me and laughed pointlessly. Then she kissed the dog with ecstasy, and swept into the kitchen, implying that a dozen chefs awaited her orders there.
The sister Catherine sat down beside me on the sofa.
«Do you live down on Long Island?» she inquired.
«I live at West Egg».
«Really? I was down there at a party about a month ago. At a man named Gatsby’s. Do you know him?»
«I live next door to him».
«Well, they say he’s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s.
That’s where all his money comes from».
«Really?»
She nodded.
This absorbing information about my neighbor was interrupted by Mrs. McKee who pointed suddenly at Catherine:
«Chester, I think you could do something with HER», she said, but Mr. McKee only nodded in a bored way, and turned his attention to Tom.
«I’d like to do more work on Long Island», said Mr. McKee, «if I could get the entry. All I ask is that they should give me a start».
«Ask Myrtle», said Tom, laughing, as Mrs. Wilson entered with a tray. «She’ll give you a letter of introduction[21], won’t you Myrtle?»
«Do what?» she asked, startled.
«You’ll give McKee a letter of introduction to your husband, so he can do some studies of him». His lips moved silently for a moment as he invented. «GEORGE B. WILSON AT THE GASOLINE PUMP, or something like that».
Catherine leaned close to me and whispered in my ear: «Neither of them can stand the person they’re married to».
«Can’t they?»
«Can’t STAND them». She looked at Myrtle and then at Tom. «What I say is, why go on living with them if they can’t stand them? If I were them I’d get a divorce and get married to each other right away».
«Doesn’t she like Wilson either?»
The answer to this was unexpected. It came from Myrtle, who had overheard the question, and it was violent and obscene.
«You see», cried Catherine triumphantly. She lowered her voice again. «It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic, and they don’t believe in divorce».
Daisy was not a Catholic, and I was a little shocked at the lie.
«When they get married at last», continued Catherine, «they’re going West to live for a while until it blows over[22]».
«It’d be more sensible to go to Europe».
«Oh, do you like Europe?» she exclaimed surprisingly. «I just got back from Monte Carlo».
«Really».
«Just last year. I went over there with another girl».
«Did you stay there long?»
«No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We had over twelve hundred dollars when we started, but we lost it all in two days in the private rooms[23]. We had an awful time getting back, I can tell you. God, how I hated that town!»
The late afternoon sky shone in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean – then the sharp voice of Mrs. McKee called me back into the room.
«I almost made a mistake, too», she declared enthusiastically. «I almost married a nonentity who’d been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me: ‘Lucille, that man’s ‘way below you!’ But for Chester[24], I could marry him».
«Yes, but listen», said Myrtle Wilson, «at least you didn’t marry him».
«I know I didn’t».
«Well, I married him», said Myrtle, ambiguously. «And that’s the difference between your case and mine».
«Why did you, Myrtle?» said Catherine. «Nobody forced you to».
«I married him because I thought he was a gentleman», Myrtle said finally. «I thought he knew something about manners, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe».
«You were crazy about him for a while», said Catherine.
«Crazy about him!» cried Myrtle in disbelief. «Who said I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there».
She pointed suddenly at me, and every one looked at me accusingly. I tried to show by my expression that I had played no part in her past.
«I was crazy when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in, and never even told me about it, and the man came after it one day when he was out. ‘Oh, is that your suit?’ I said, ‘this is the first time I ever heard about it.’ But I gave it to him and then I lay down and cried all afternoon».
«She really ought to get away from him», resumed Catherine to me. «They’ve been living over that garage for eleven years. And Tom’s the first love she ever had».
The bottle of whiskey – a second one – was now in constant demand by all, excepting Catherine, who «felt just as good without drinking at all». I wanted to get out and walk southward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became involved in some wild argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair.
Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom.
«It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a suit and leather shoes, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him, but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me, and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm, and so I told him I’d have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was ‘You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever’».
She turned to Mrs. McKee and the room rang full of her artificial laughter.
«My dear», she cried, «I’m going to give you this dress. I’ve got to get another one tomorrow. I’m going to make a list of all the things I’ve got to get. A massage, and a collar for the dog, and one of those cute little ash-trays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother’s grave that’ll last all summer. I have to write down a list so I won’t forget all the things I have to do».
It was nine o’clock – almost immediately afterward I looked at my watch and found it was ten. Mr. McKee was asleep on a chair.
Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in passionate voices, whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy’s name.
«Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!» shouted Mrs. Wilson. «I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dal…»
Making a short movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.
Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women’s voices scolding, and a long wail of pain. Mr. McKee awoke from his sleep and started in surprise toward the door. When he had gone half way he turned around and stared at the scene – his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture trying to help Myrtle, and her miserable figure on the sofa. Then Mr. McKee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier, I followed.
«Come to lunch some day», he suggested, as we were going down in the elevator.
«Where?»
«Anywhere».
«All right», I agreed, «I’ll be glad to».
Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, waiting for the four o’clock train.
Chapter 3
There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. In the afternoon I watched his guests lying in the sun on his beach while his two motor-boats cut the waters, followed by aquaplanes. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became a bus, bearing people to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight. And on Mondays eight servants worked all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers, repairing the damage of the night before.
Every Friday five large boxes of oranges and lemons arrived from New York. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour.
At least once a fortnight caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, spiced baked hams crowded against salads and pigs and turkeys. In the main hall a bar was stocked with gins and liquors and other exquisite drinks.
By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked in the drive; the bar is in full swing[25].
I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there. They got into automobiles which took them to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby’s door. There they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby. Sometimes they came and went and didn’t meet Gatsby at all.
I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal invitation from his employer. It read[26], he had seen me several times, and had intended to visit me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it. The paper was signed Jay Gatsby.
Dressed up in white suit I went over to his lawn a little after seven, and wandered around feeling rather uncomfortable among people I didn’t know.
As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked about him stared at me in such an amazed way, that I moved in the direction of the cocktail table – the only place in the garden where a single man could remain without looking purposeless and alone.
I was going to get drunk because of embarrassment when Jordan Baker came out of the house and stood at the top of the marble steps, looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden.
«Hello!» I roared, moving toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across the garden.
«I thought you might be here», she responded as I came up. «I remembered you lived next door to…» She held my hand, and turned to two girls in identical yellow dresses, who stopped at the foot of the steps.
«Hello!» they cried together. «Sorry you didn’t win».
That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before.
«You don’t know who we are», said one of the girls in yellow, «but we met you here about a month ago».
«Do you often come to these parties?» inquired Jordan of the girl beside her.
«The last one was when I met you», answered the girl, in a confident voice. She turned to her companion: «Were you there, too, Lucille?»
Lucille was there, too.
«I like to come», Lucille said. «I never think about what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my dress on a chair, and he asked me my name and address. And soon I got a package with a new evening dress in it».
«Did you keep it?» asked Jordan.
«Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it had to be altered. It was blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty- five dollars».
«There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that», said the other girl eagerly. «He doesn’t want any trouble with ANYbody».
«Who doesn’t?» I inquired.
«Gatsby. Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once».
«I don’t think it’s so much THAT», argued Lucille sceptically; «it’s more that he was a German spy during the war».
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Примечания
1
В 1851 году.
2
Йельский университет, один из самых престижных частных американских университетов; находится в Нью-Хейвене, одном из старейших городов Новой Англии, в штате Коннектикут.
3
Первая мировая война (устар.).
4
Кредитное дело.
5
1922.
6
Автомобиль «Додж».
7
Инвестиционные ценные бумаги.
8
Троюродная сестра.
9
Это уже последний переезд.
10
Особняк в георгианско-колониальном стиле (дома в георгианско-колониальном стиле были преимущественно сдержанными по дизайну. всё в доме отличалось утончённостью – от роскошной резьбы до изгибов и отделки. ткани были подчёркнуто изысканными, с вышивкой шерстью и шёлком. осветительные приборы были шикарными, с обилием хрусталя.).
11
Двустворчатые окна, доходящие до пола.
12
Специалист по кредитным операциям.
13
Услышишь.
14
Даже в шутку.
15
Невозможно было устоять!
16
Продолжение следует.
17
Разговор по душам.
18
Крепдешин.
19
Узорчатое платье из муслина.
20
Эрдельтерьер.
21
Рекомендательное письмо.
22
Пока всё не уладится.
23
В частных игорных залах.
24
Если бы не Честер.
25
Бар работает вовсю.
26
В приглашении говорилось.
