Читать книгу Великий Гэтсби / The Great Gatsby онлайн

In addition to all these I can remember Faustina O'Brien and the Baedeker girls and young Brewer and Mr. Albrucksburger and Miss Haag, his fiancée, and Ardita Fitz-Peters and Mr. P. Jewett, once head of the American Legion, and Miss Claudia Hip, with her chauffeur, and a prince of something, whose name, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten.

All these people came to Gatsby's house in the summer.

At nine o'clock, one morning late in July Gatsby's gorgeous automobile lurched up the rocky drive to my door. It was the first time he had called on me though I had gone to two of his parties, mounted in his hydroplane, and, at his urgent invitation, made frequent use of his beach.

“Good morning, old sport. You're having lunch with me today and I thought we'd ride up together.”

He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his automobile. He was never quite still. He saw me looking with admiration at his automobile.

“It's pretty, isn't it, old sport?” He jumped off to give me a better view. “Haven't you ever seen it before?”

I'd seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel. We sat down behind many layers of glass and started to town.

I had talked with him some times in the past month and found, to my disappointment, that he had little to say. So he had become simply the proprietor of a wonderful restaurant next door.

And then came that silly ride. Gatsby was leaving his elegant sentences unfinished.

“Look here, old sport,” he said surprisingly. “What's your opinion of me, anyhow?”

“Hm, I don't know much…” I began.

“Well, I'm going to tell you something about my life,” he interrupted. “I don't want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear. I'll tell you the truth. I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle-West – all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition.”

“What part of the Middle-West?” I inquired.

“San Francisco.”