了不起的盖茨比（理想化的爱情，幻梦里的黛西）

导读： 

    盖茨比想要黛西和汤姆离婚，这样他们就可以“回家”，回到五年前的样子，但这个梦想并没有实现。因此，盖茨比想恢复自己的形象，希望能够重现军官盖茨比和少女黛西热恋时的情景；他希望重新找回他当时的态度和信念。因为，他相信如果他能从这一点重新开始，他真的可以赢得梦想中的黛西

   当盖茨比谈起过去，他希望能找回“which had gone into loving Daisy”的感觉、气氛、态度和浪漫。如果他能再次找回这些东西，盖茨比相信，到时候，他会到达他梦想中的“secret place”“gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder”，也就是说，实现他所追寻的美国梦。 

    通过他所说的一切，甚至通过他骇人听闻的多愁善感，我想起了很久以前在某个地方听到的一个难以捉摸的韵律，一段早已遗忘的歌词。

    事实上，这是一个最理想化的杰伊盖茨比，他在寻找多年前使他们陷入爱河的东西，而这些东西早已迷失在时光里。

   I stayed late that night, Gatsby asked me to wait until he was free, and I lingered in the garden until the inevitable swimming party had run up, chilled and exalted, from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in the guest-rooms overhead. When he came down the steps at last the tanned skin was drawn unusually tight on his face, and his eyes were bright and tired.

Inevitable：照例必有的;惯常的。

    那夜我待到很晚，盖茨比让我等到他脱身出来，于是我就在花园里徘徊，期间惯常的泳池派对欢闹起来，还有又冷又兴奋的客人从黑漆漆的海滩上跑来，直等到楼上各间客房里的灯都灭了。最后，他从台阶上走了下来，那脸上晒得黝黑的皮肤比往常更加紧绷，他的眼睛明亮而有倦意。

　　“She didn’t like it,” he said immediately.

     "她不喜欢这宴会。"他立刻说道。

　　“Of course she did.”

     "她当然喜欢。"

　　“She didn’t like it,” he insisted. “She didn’t have a good time.”

     "她不喜欢，"他固执地说，"她玩得不开心。"

He was silent, and I guessed at his unutterable depression.

Unutterable：[ʌnˈʌtərəbl] 难以言表的;说不出的。

    他沉默下来，但我猜他有满腔说不出的郁闷。

　　“I feel far away from her,” he said. “It’s hard to make her understand.”

     "我觉得离她很远，"他说，"很难使她理解。"

　　“You mean about the dance?”

     "你是说舞会的事吗？"

    “The dance?” He dismissed all the dances he had given with a snap of his fingers. “Old sport, the dance is unimportant.”

Snap：[snæp] 弹指头（捻拇指作响）。

     "舞会？"他捻了下指，好像把他所有开过的舞会都勾销了，"老兄，舞会根本不重要。"

     He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: “I never loved you.” After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house—just as if it were five years ago.

Obliterated：[əˈblɪtəreɪtɪd] 毁掉;覆盖;清除。

    他并无其他的奢望，只想让黛西跑去跟汤姆说："我从未爱过你。"等她用那句话把四年的夫妻情分一笔勾销之后，他俩就可以决定接下来需要采取的具体措施。其中之一就是，等她恢复了自由，他俩就回路易斯维尔去，从她家开始，再次举行婚礼--就仿佛是五年前一样。

　　“And she doesn’t understand,” he said. “She used to be able to understand. We’d sit for hours——”

     "可她不理解，"他说，"她过去是能够理解的。那时我们往往一坐就是几个钟头……"

     He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers.

Rind：[raɪnd] (某些水果的)厚皮，外壳。Discard：[dɪˈskɑːd , ˈdɪskɑːd] 丢弃;抛弃;垫(牌);打出(无用的牌)。

    他突然住了口，沿着一条荒凉小道上走来走去，路上布满了果皮、被丢弃的小礼物和残花枯叶。

　　“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.”

     "我不会对她要求太多，"我冒昧地说，"过去是无法重来的。"

　　“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”

     "不能回到过去？"他不以为然地叫道，"怎么不行，当然可以！"

　　He looked around wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

    他发狂地东张西望，仿佛过去就隐藏在他房子的阴影里，几乎一伸手就可以抓到的。

　　“I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.”

     "我要把一切都安排得跟过去一样，"他坚决地点点头，"她会看到的。"

　　 He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was. . . .

    他聊了很多往事，我渐渐理解他的想法。他想找回一些东西，也许是有关自己的构想，能够恢复往日热恋的构想。从那时以来，他的生活一直是混乱失控的，可一旦能回到某个出发点，慢慢地重温一遍，他就可以找出遗失的东西……

   . . . One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.

Humming：[ˈhʌmɪŋ] 哼(曲子);发嗡嗡声;活跃;繁忙。Bustle：[ˈbʌsl] 忙乱嘈杂;喧闹。Pap：[pæp] （儿童或病人吃的）软食，流食。

    ……一五年前的秋夜，落叶纷纷的时候，他俩走在街上，走到一处没有树的地方，那里的人行道铺满了皎白的月光。他们停了下来，面向彼此。正是一年两度换季的时节，那是一个凉爽的夜晚，蕴着一股神秘的兴奋。家家户户静谧的灯火，仿佛在向夜色吟唱，天上的繁星之间似也有躁动喧嚷。盖茨比从他的眼角余光看到，一段段的人行道其实构成一架梯子，通向树梢之上一个隐秘所在--他可以攀登上去，如果他独自攀登的话，一到那里，他就可以吮吸生命之液，大口吞下那无与伦比的神奇的乳汁。

     His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.

romp：[rɒmp]  (小孩、动物等)嬉戏，欢闹。Incarnation：[ˌɪnkɑːˈneɪʃn] (某种品质的)典型体现，化身。

    当黛西洁白的脸贴近他时，他的心越跳越快。他知道他一旦亲吻这个女孩，并把他那些不可言说的幻想和她短暂的呼吸永远结合在一起时，他的心灵就再也不会像上帝的心灵一样自由驰骋了。因此他等着，再多听一会儿命运的音叉在一颗星星上敲击出的美妙声响。然后他吻了她，触到了对方的双唇，而她就像一朵花儿一样为他盛放，于是他那理想的化身就诞生了。

     Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

Elusive：[iˈluːsɪv] 难找的;难以解释的;难以达到的。Dumb：[dʌm] 哑的;不能说话的。Sentimentality：[ˌsentɪmenˈtæləti]感伤情调;多愁善感。

    他的这番话，甚至他那令人震惊的多愁善感，使我回想起一点什么……一段难以捉摸的韵律，几句早已遗忘的歌词，那是很久之前，我曾在哪里听到过的东西。有那么一会儿，有一句话几乎在嘴里成形，我的双唇却像哑巴一样张开，唇上除了一丝受惊的空气，仿佛还有更多的挣扎。可叹说不出口，因此我几乎想起的东西就永远无法表达了。