I dislike fancy dress enormously but as the nearest neighbor I cooperated to the extent of a pair of overalls and a grey goatee. The goatee kept getting in my mouth all evening until finally I tore it off ferociously, and much of my chin came with it. I’ve got a sort of deep dimple in my chin that’s always bothered me shaving—it caught in that.
Tom came in a dinner coat, but Daisy, buttoned into a tight Provencal peasant costume, was lovelier than I had ever seen her lovely. Her eyes were bright too and her voice was playing gay murmurous tricks in her throat.
“It’s wonderful,” she whispered. “These things excite me so. If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green—or present a green card. I’m giving out green——”
“I thought you’d like it,” said Gatsby, his eyes glittering with happiness. “Just look around.”
“I know. It’s wonderful——”
“I mean the people,” he interrupted. “You must see many faces of people you’ve heard of.”
Tom’s eyes roved here and there among the guests.
“We don’t go round very much,” he said. “In fact, I was just thinking that I don’t know a soul here.”
Gatsby stared at him, first incredulously and then with tolerance.
“I mean their pictures,” he explained more formally. “For instance there’s——”
In a low voice he began a roster of the more prominent names.
“But it will be a privilege to introduce you,” he said. And as we moved off he added, reassuringly: “They’re all as natural and unaffected as they can be.”
He took us politely from group to group until Tom and Daisy had met everyone of consequence in the garden. Finally we approached the moving picture celebrity whom I had seen there before. She was surrounded by at least a dozen men who from a distance seemed to be making violent love to her. Coming closer, however, we discovered that the men were some less important members of the moving picture profession, and that their attitude was one of marked respect. They swayed toward her, not with passion, but lest they miss one of the jokes to which she was addicted, and which they applauded with hilarious laughter. Through this reverent entourage Gatsby made way.
“Mrs. Buchanan—” he introduced her, “and Mr. Buchanan—” after an instant’s hesitation he added, “the polo player.”
“Oh, no,” said Tom quickly. “Not me.”
However the sound of it evidently pleased Gatsby, and Tom remained “the polo player” throughout the rest of the tour.
“I’ve never met so many grand celebrities before,” said Daisy. “I like that man, what was his name, with the sort of blue nose——”
“Augustus Waize,” said Gatsby. “Oh, he’s just a small producer. He only does one play a year.”
“I liked him anyhow. And it must be fascinating to know them all.”
“They like to come here,” he admitted, “and I enjoy having them.”
“I’d a little rather not be the polo player,” said Tom pleasantly. “I’d rather look at all these famous people in—in oblivion.”
He meant incognito but in any case Gatsby was surprised. He felt that in placing Tom, in attesting him as a spectacular figure among these other spectacular figures, he had done him a service.
Daisy and Gatsby danced; it was the first time I had ever seen him dance. Formally, with neither awkwardness nor grace, he moved at a conservative foxtrot around the platform. They were both very solemn about it, as if it were a sort of rite—perhaps they were thinking of some other summer night when they had danced together back in the old, sad, poignant days of the war. Once she looked up at him in such a way that I glanced sharply around to see if Tom were watching. But he’d found amusement elsewhere—he was bringing some girl a cocktail from the bar.
When the music stopped Daisy and Gatsby strolled over to me.
“Where’s Tom?” she inquired. Then she saw: “Oh—well, don’t let’s disturb him. She’s pretty, isn’t she. Common but——”
She stopped herself suddenly but Gatsby was occupied in looking around the garden.
“There’s several other people I want you to meet,” he said, “but one of them hasn’t arrived yet.”
“We’ll wait till they all get here,” she suggested. “We’ll leave Nick here in case there’s a fire or a flood or anything and wander around. You’ll tell us, Nick, in case there’s a fire or a flood—or any act of God? We insured the house last week and I remember——”
The tumultuous clamor, like a prolongation of the nervous sounds of New York, soothed me, and I felt at home. But I tried to imagine how the party would appear to Daisy, how it had appeared to me on that June night two months before. It seemed less bizarre now—it seemed a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, bounded, to its own satisfaction, by its own wall. It was second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so. But Daisy might well regard it as the preposterous and rather sinister fringe of the universe.
“Listen, Nick——” She was back beside me. “Would you mind if we went over and sat on the steps of your bungalow or whatever it is?”
“You and Tom?”
“No, Jay and me.”
She never saw any humor except her own—not always that.
“It’s so noisy here,” she explained, “and I have this ear drum, you see. I thought if we sat on your steps I’d get all——What’s that girl yelling about?”
“She’s tight and she has hysterics.”
“Oh!… Well, we want to sit on your steps.” She hesitated. “If Tom starts paging me around the garden you’ll come and tell us won’t you. I wouldn’t want him to think I was bad.”
She winked solemnly and I began to laugh as she went back toward the house.
An hour later Tom asked me casually if I’d seen Daisy; I sent him inside. Crossing the two lawns I found them sitting on the steps in the bright moonlight.
“Nick,” she called.
“Yes.”
“We’re having a row.”
“What about?”
“Oh, about things,” she replied vaguely. “About the future—the future of the black race. My theory is we’ve got to beat them down.”
“You don’t know what you want,” said Gatsby suddenly.
She didn’t answer. Without haste we strolled back over the dark lawn to the area of hilarity, and Daisy and I danced. Gatsby made a complete circuit of the garden, speaking to people here and there, and then stood alone for a while in his habitual place on the steps.
“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” asked Daisy, leaning back and looking up into my face.
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, I’m going to leave Tom.”
I was illogically startled.
“Do you mean immediately?”
“No. When I’m ready. When it can be arranged.” Her eyes were sincere, her voice was full and sad.
“Have you told Tom?”
“No, not yet. I’m not going to do anything for a month or two. Then I’ll decide.”
“I thought you’d decided.”
“Yes, but—then I’ll decide the details and all that.” She laughed. “You know if you’ve never gone through a thing like this it’s not so easy. In fact—I want to just go, and not tell Tom anything.
“Do you think I’m making a mistake?”
“I don’t know Gatsby well,” I said cautiously. “I like him, but I’m not competent to give advice.”
“He’s wonderful,” she said confidently.
As we sat down at a table I found that I was illogically depressed at what she had told me. These break-ups, however justified, however wise, always have a tragic irony of their own.
Supper was being served. Gatsby joined us at the table and, discovering us, Tom came across the garden.
“Mind if I sit with some people over here?” he inquired. “It’s that man with the blue nose. He’s been getting off some funny stuff.”
“Go right ahead,” said Daisy genially. “If you want to take down any more addresses here’s my gold pencil.”
Tom laughed and hurried away.
Gatsby, who had been talking to the moving picture celebrity, remarked suddenly that she had been very complimentary about Daisy. His voice was proud and pleased.
“And, here’s a chance to become famous—she wants to know where you got your hair cut.”
“You tell her I think she’s lovely too,” said Daisy pleasantly.
Gatsby took out a pencil and a notebook.
“Where do you get your hair cut? I promised her I’d ask you.”
“It’s a secret,” whispered Daisy. “It’s a man I discovered myself and I wouldn’t tell anybody for the world.”
“You don’t understand,” he said impressively. “She’ll probably have hers done the same way and you’ll be the originator of a new vogue all over the country.”
“No thanks,” said Daisy lightly. The disappointment in his face bothered her, and she added: “Do you think I want that person to go around with her hair cut exactly like mine? It’d spoil it for me.”
Without a word Gatsby replaced the notebook in his pocket.
“We’re together here in your garden, Jay—your beautiful garden,” broke out Daisy suddenly. “It doesn’t seem possible, does it? I can’t believe it’s possible. Will you have somebody look up in the encyclopedia and see if it’s really true. Look it up under G.”
For a moment I thought this was casual chatter—then I realized that she was trying to drown out from us, from herself, a particularly obscene conversation that four women were carrying on at a table just behind.
“I thought if we ever met it’d be when we were old—and decrepit——” She broke off and glanced
