了不起的盖茨比（黛丝与汤姆的虚情假意）

    “She’s a nice girl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”

    “Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Daisy coldly.

    “Her family.”

    “Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Nick? She’s going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.”

Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.

“Is she from New York?” I asked quickly.

   “From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white——”

     "路易斯维尔①人。我们纯洁的少女时期是一道在那里度过的。我们那美丽纯洁的……" 

①路易斯维尔（Louisville），美国南部肯塔基州的城市。

    “Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?” demanded Tom suddenly.

    “Did I?” She looked at me.“I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know——”

crept up on：不知不觉地来临。

    “Don’t believe everything you hear, Nick,” he advised me.

I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called: “Wait!”

peremptorily ：（行为、说话等）盛气凌人的、专横的、霸道的。

  “I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.”

  “That’s right,” corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”

be engaged to:已订婚。corroborated：（提供资料）证实。

  “It’s libel. I’m too poor.”

libel:诽谤（书面语）。口语常用slander。

   “But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”

    Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumors, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.

        Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York.” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.

    他们对我的关心倒很使我感动，也使他们不显得那么有钱与高不可攀了。虽然如此，在我开车回家的路上，我感到迷惑不解，还有点厌恶。我觉得，黛西应该做的事是抱着孩子跑出这座房子--可是显然她头脑里丝毫没有这种打算。至于汤姆，他"在纽约有个女人"这种事倒不足为怪，奇怪的是他会因为读了一本书而感到沮丧。不知什么东西在使他从陈腐的学说里摄取精神食粮，仿佛他那壮硕的体格的唯我主义已经不再能滋养他那颗唯我独尊的心了。