CHAPTER ONE

Arriving in West Egg

I still don't know why, but it is hard for people from the Midwest to live in the big cities of the East. Perhaps the Midwest is too much in our blood. I left the East and came back to my hometown last fall, after only six months in New York I was tired of it. I returned to this Midwestern city where I was a child. My family name is Carraway and my name is Nick. The Carraway family has been living in the Midwest for more than seventy years. My grandfather's brother was the first one to come to the Midwest. He came in 1851 and opened the business that my father still does today.

I graduated from university in 1915. I attended New Haven University, the same university that my father attended twenty-five years before. After university I went over to Europe to fight in the Great War. I feel in love with Europe and felt a great energy inside me when I was there. When I came back to the Midwest it felt too small. Instead of feeling that the Midwest was the warm center of the world, the Middle West now seemed like its far edge. So I decided to go to New York City, the most modern city of the East, and study the business of buying and selling bonds. Many of my friends from university were working selling bonds; I decided that I would follow them and do the same. My father said that he would give me money to live in New York for one year and in the spring of 1922 I moved there—I believed that I would stay there forever.

At first I had wanted to find a room inside New York City, but then I felt that I would miss the green trees and open yards, so when a young man at the office suggested that we rent a house together outside of the city, it sounded like a good idea. We found a small house to rent for only eighty dollars a month. However, just after we rented the house our office ordered him to go to work in Washington, and I went rented the house alone. I had an old car; it was a Dodge. I also hired a European woman from my new village to come to make my bed and cook my breakfast. I felt lonely the first few days until one morning some man, who had just arived in the village, stopped me while I was walking down the road.

"How do I get to West Egg village?" he asked, very tired.

I told him. And I was happy to learn that I was not the newest person in town now; I was now a guide. As I walked home the sun was shining and the trees were full of thick, green leaves, I felt that my life was starting again with the summer.

I read a lot during that summer. I bought a lot of books about banking and money affairs. All the books sat on my bookshelf looking very important. They promised to tell me the secrets of becoming rich. I planned to read so many books. When I was in university I was very interested in literature, and now I planned to fill my days with great literature and other happy activities.

The house that I had rented was in one of the strangest places in the United States. It was on Long Island, New York State. The island was more than sixty miles long and just east of New York City. Between Long Island and the city was a narrow part of the Atlantic Ocean called Long Island Sound. On the ocean coast, twenty miles from New York City, there are two strange pieces of land, both of which look a lot like eggs. They are called West Egg and East Egg and a small bay flows between them. But although they are the same in shape and size they are also quite different in many ways.

I lived in West Egg, the cheaper, and certainly less nice, of the two eggs. My little house was near the sea, between two very huge houses. The one on my right side was very large and was a copy of some famous house in France. It had a swimming pool and a huge garden that would take an hour to walk around. I knew that a rich gentleman named Mr Gatsby lived there. My house was small and ugly and looked very silly next to Gatsby's huge palace, but I could see the water from my house and I was happy.

It was nice to live so close to such rich people. I wanted to know their stories and their secrets. I thought that I might be one of them some day. And this feeling grew as I looked across the water at the expensive white houses of East Egg. They looked almost like palaces standing high above the water.

The story of my summer really begins on the day I drove over to East Egg to have dinner with Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Daisy was my cousin, but not a close one. Tom attended the same university that I did. A few years after they got married I had spent two days with them in Chicago. Still, I didn't feel close to them.

In university Tom had been one of the strongest football players. He seemed to love the game and all of the people that watched him play.

Tom's family was extremely rich. After they left Chicago, they lived for a few years in France for no real reason. They then traveled to many places to live. Tom and Daisy both had horses and they would go anywhere that people rode horses and were rich together. I don't know why they came to the East. Daisy told me that they planned to stay in New York for a long time, but I didn't believe her. Tom would always want to move again and again, it was likely he was looking for the excitement of one of his past football games.

It was hard to understand that Tom, a man my same age, was rich enough to move around the world, buying houses and riding horses.

One warm night I went over to East Egg to see Tom and Daisy. I felt that I hardly knew them. Their house was even larger than I could see from West Egg. It was a large house from the nineteenth-century. It was near the water and their garden began at the beach and came all the way up to the front door. The front of the house was full of tall windows; all the windows were open now to let the warm summer winds come in.

Tom Buchanan was standing at the front door wearing his horse-riding clothes. He looked the same as he did during university. He was still a strong man and, like me, was about thirty years old. His mouth was hard-looking and his face looked like he was scolding someone. His horse-riding clothes could not hide the great strength of his body. His body was a body full of power—a cruel body.

The sound of his voice was rough and made him seem even more scolding. When we were in university, many men hated him. We were never close friends, but I always thought that he liked me and hoped that I liked him also.

I walked up to greet him and we talked for a while.

"I've got a nice house here," he said as he grasped my arm and turned my body around. He pointed his wide and fat finger at the garden, the roses and the boat sitting on the beach.

"I bought this house from the rich oil man, Mr Demaine." He turned me around again suddenly and declared, "We'll go inside now."

We walked through a high hall and went into a bright room. There were long windows on both sides. The windows were open and white sunlight was coming in as well as the smell of fresh grass. A wind blew through the room.

A huge sofa was in the room and two young women were sitting on it. They were both wearing white and their dresses were moving in the wind. It looked like they had just been blown into the room by the wind after flying around the house. I stood there for a minute listening to the wind. Then Tom closed the windows, and the two young women's dresses stopped moving.

One of the women was my cousin, Daisy; the other woman was younger and was a stranger to me. She was lying on the sofa and she didn't move at all when I came in. She didn't even move her head to look up and see who had come in the room.

Daisy tried to stand up, but was sitting too deeply in the sofa. She laughed a little laugh and I laughed too and walked towards her into the room.

"I'm so happy to see you," she said. She then laughed again, as if she had said something very funny, and held my hand in her hands. She looked into my eyes, as if there was no other person in the world she wanted to see as much as me. That was the special character that Daisy had. She made everybody feel very special and important. She whispered in my ear that the name of the other girl was Miss Baker.

Now Miss Baker's mouth opened a little and she turned her head a little toward me. Her eyes didn't show any feelings, good or bad.

My cousin began to ask me questions about my recent life and work. She spoke in a low and exciting voice. Her face was beautiful, but also sad. Her eyes were bright and her voices made you feel safe. Most men could not forget her after they saw her even once.

I told her that I had visited Chicago when coming to New York, and that many people there asked me to wish her happy days.

"Do they miss me?" she cried happily.

"All of Chicago is sad that you have left. The whole city wears black clothing to show their sadness."

"How wonderful! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow!" Then she said to me, "You should see our baby."

"Can I see her now?" I asked.

"She's asleep right now. She's three years old. Haven't you ever seen her?"

"Never."

"Well. You should see her. She's—"

Tom Buchanan, who had been nervously walking in a circle around the room, stopped and put his hand on my shoulder.

"What are you doing for work now, Nick?"

"I sell bonds."

"Whom do you work for?"

I told him.

"I've never heard of them," he said very seriously.

This annoyed me. "You will hear of them soon," I answered.

Suddenly Miss Baker stood up. "I'm tired," she cried. "I've been lying on that sofa all day."

"Don't blame me," Daisy said. "I've been trying to go to New York with you all afternoon."

A helper brought in four glasses of wine, and offered them to us.

"No, thanks," said Miss Baker. "I'm training for a big golf match."

Tom looked at her shocked. "You're training?" He drank his wine as if it were only a drop in the bottom of the glass.

I looked at Miss Baker and saw that she was quite pretty. Her gray eyes looked back at me now with interest and politeness. Her face was pale and lovely. I realized now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, before.

"You live in West Egg," she said. "I have a friend there."

"I don't know any people in—" I began to say.

"—you must know Mr Gatsby."

Before I could tell Miss Baker that Gatsby was my neighbor, the helper came into the room and told us that dinner was ready. Tom again grasped my arm and moved me into the garden. The two young women were in front of us and they sat down at a table that had been put out there. The wind had stopped and there were four candles burning on the table.

"Why use candles?" said Daisy as she blew them out. "In two weeks it will be the longest day of the year." She looked around at each of us brightly. "I always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it. Do you always wait for it and then miss it?"

Nobody answered her question.

"We should plan something to do," said Miss Baker in a tired voice. She was sitting at the table as if she were getting into bed. She turned toward Daisy, and then she and Daisy talked together. Their conversation was just chat and had no meaning. They sat there chatting, and they didn't pay much attention to Tom and me. They were polite, but they knew that soon our dinner would end, and then everyone would go home and go to sleep and that nobody would care or remember any of it. It was very different from my home in the Midwest, where an evening was full of activities and talking.

The telephone then rang inside the house and the helper went to answer it. He came back and whispered something into Tom's ear. Tom's face looked very annoyed, and he went inside without saying a word to any of us.

Daisy moved her head towards me and said, "I'm so happy that you could come here tonight. I love to see you in my home, Nick. You are like—like a rose."

This was not true. I am not like a rose, not even a little bit like a rose. She was only saying the first thing that she could think of—but still a warm feeling came from her exciting voice. The words that she said did not seem important, only her voice was important. Then suddenly Daisy stood up and went into the house.

Miss Baker and I looked at each other for a moment. I opened my mouth and was going to speak, but Miss Baker put her finger next to her mouth and said "Shhhhhhh!" Sitting at the table we could hear Tom's voice talking on the telephone inside. I tried to hear what he was saying, but I couldn't hear clearly. Miss Baker moved her ear closer, trying to hear him, but his voice stopped.

I began to talk again, "You said that you know Mr Gatsby. He is my neighbor—"

Again, Miss Baker put her finger up to her mouth. "Shhhhhhhh! Don't talk. I want to hear what happens."

"Is something important happening inside?" I asked.

"You really.don't know?" said Miss Baker. "I thought that everybody in East and West Egg knew."

"I don't."

"Why—Tom's another woman—some secret woman in New York."

"Another woman?" I repeated stupidly.

"Yes. It was very stupid for her to telephone him during dinner, though. Daisy is around."

Before I could ask her more questions, Tom and Daisy returned to the table. I tried not to look at their eyes.

A few minutes later we all stood up from the table. The helpers quickly came and cleaned up the glasses and plates. Tom and Miss Baker went inside and I walked with Daisy into the garden.

Daisy looked out at the sea and the sun slowly moved down.

"We don't know each other very well, Nick," she said. "We are cousins, but you didn't even come to my wedding."

"I was still in Europe fighting in the war." I told her.

"Oh, yes. That's true." She paused and thought for a while. "Well, my life has not been good, Nick. Now I'm feeling that there is no hope in this world for me."

Obviously she had a good reason to be. I knew about Tom's other woman and she did too. I listened silently, but Daisy stopped speaking. I began to ask her questions about her baby daughter.

"Is she talking yet, and—eating, and—walking?"

"Oh, yes." She looked at me. "Listen, Nick, let me tell you what I said the day when she was born. Would you like to know?"

"Yes. Very much."

"It'll show you how I feel about—life. Well, I asked the nurse if the baby was a boy or a girl. When she told me that it was a girl, I turned my head away and cried. Then I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a stupid fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'"

"I think that everything's just terrible," she went on. "Everybody thinks so—the smartest people think so. And I know that it is true. I've been all over the world and seen everything and done everything."

When she stopped talking, I felt nervous. I knew what she had said was not true. I waited silently and a moment later she looked at me with a proud smile on her lovely face. She proudly believed that she and Tom had traveled all around the world and that they were a part of this small group of people who knew a lot about the world.

We went back inside. Tom and Miss Baker were sitting on the long sofa, and she was reading the newspaper to him. When we came in she stopped reading and stood up.

"Ten o'clock," she said. "It's time for this good girl to go to bed."

"Jordan's going to play in the golf game tomorrow," explained Daisy, "over at Westchester Club."

"Oh Miss Baker—you must be Jordan Baker."

I knew now why her face was so familiar—I had seen pictures of her in many photographs in many golf clubs, she was quite a famous golf player. I had even heard some people talking about her before. They were telling bad stories about her, but I could not remember what it was.

"Good night," she said. "Daisy, please wake me at eight." She then looked at me for a moment, "Good night, Mr Carraway. See you soon." She went upstairs.

"Of course you will see each other," said Daisy. "I think I'll even arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll help bring you two together."

"She's a nice girl," said Tom after Miss Baker went upstairs. "They shouldn't let her travel around the country all alone."

"Who shouldn't let her?" asked Daisy in a cold voice.

"Her family."

"Her family only has one aunt, and she must be about a thousand years old. Anyway, Now Nick can take care of her. You will go out with her, won't you, Nick? She's going to spend lots of weekends at our house this summer."

"Is she from New York?" I asked.

"She's from my home town. We went to the same school and were young girls together."

I decided to go home and stood up. Daisy and Tom walked to the door with me and stood together watching me walk to my car. Before I drove away Daisy yelled, "Wait! I forgot to ask you something. We heard you were going to get married."

"That's right," Tom agreed. "We heard that you were preparing to marry a girl from West."

"It's not true." I yelled back, "I'm too poor."

"But we heard it," Daisy repeated. "We heard it from three people, so it must be true."

I knew that they were talking about my old girlfriend in the Midwest. One of the reasons I had left the Midwest and came to the East was because so many people were saying I was going to marry my girlfriend. I didn't want to stop seeing my old girlfriend just because people were saying that we were getting married, but I also wasn't going to get married just because my family and friends were putting pressure on me.

Tom and Daisy's interest in my life made me feel special. But as I drove away I felt full of doubt about Daisy and Tom, and a little angry. It seemed to me that the only thing that Daisy could do in her situation was to run out of her house with her daughter in her arms.

When I arrived back at my house in West Egg I put the car in the garage and then sat for a while in the yard. The wind had stopped blowing, and the moon was bright. I watched a cat moving slowly across the moonlight, and, as I turned my head to watch it, I saw that a man had come out of my neighbor's house. He was standing with his hands in his pockets and looking up at the stars. I thought that maybe he was Mr Gatsby, but I could not see him clearly in the darkness.

I decided to yell to the man. Miss Baker had talked about Gatsby at dinner, and I could use that as an introduction. But I decided not to yell to him, because I suddenly felt that he wanted to be alone. He moved his arms towards the sea. I looked towards the water also, and could not see anything except a small green light. The light was very small and very far away; it was on the coast of East Egg. I looked at the light for a moment and when I again looked for Gatsby he had left. Again I was alone in the night.

(end of section)