了不起的盖茨比（威尔逊夫人）

   导读：与压抑的，失去活力的威尔逊先生相反，威尔逊夫人似乎总是充满着旺盛的活力和强烈的欲望。虽然她不用像她丈夫那样辛苦地工作，但是，出身低微的她同样也是时代的受害者和牺牲品。她妄想通过婚外情改变自己的身份和阶层，最终却只沦为上流社会的玩物。

         “Hello, Wilson, old man,” said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder.     

   “How’s business?”

　 “I can’t complain,” answered Wilson unconvincingly. “When are you going to sell me that car?”

   “Next week; I’ve got my man working on it now.”

   “Works pretty slow, don’t he?”

   “No, he doesn’t,” said Tom coldly. “And if you feel that way about it, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all.”

   “I don’t mean that,” explained Wilson quickly. “I just meant——”

    His voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips, and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:

smoulder:此处形容威尔逊夫人由内而外的性吸引。

    她年纪三十五六，身子胖胖的，可是如同有些女人一样，胖得很美。她穿了一件有油渍的深蓝双绉连衣裙，她的脸庞没有一丝一毫的美，但是她有一种显而易见的活力，仿佛她浑身的神经都在不停地燃烧。她慢慢地一笑，然后大摇大摆地从她丈夫身边穿过，仿佛他只是个幽灵，走过来跟汤姆握手，两眼直盯着他。接着她用舌头润了润嘴唇，头也不回就低低地、粗声粗气地对她丈夫说：

　　“Get some chairs, why don’t you, so somebody can sit down.”

　　“Oh, sure,” agreed Wilson hurriedly, and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity—except his wife, who moved close to Tom.

　　“I want to see you,” said Tom intently. “Get on the next train.”

　　“All right.”

　　“I’ll meet you by the news-stand on the lower level.” She nodded and moved away from him just as George Wilson emerged with two chairs from his office door.

　　We waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a gray, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track.

    我们在公路上没人看见的地方等她。再过几天就是七月四号①了，因此有一个灰蒙蒙的、骨瘦如柴的意大利小孩沿着铁轨在点放一排"鱼雷炮"。 　　

①美国独立纪念日。