了不起的盖茨比【尼克、黛西、贝克、汤姆】

I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.

    “Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.【欣喜若狂地】

 

　　“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”【 wail：哀声。the north shore：芝加哥富人聚居的地区。】

     “How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. To-morrow!” Then she added irrelevantly: “You ought to see the baby.”

　　“I’d like to.”

　　“She’s asleep. She’s three years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”

　　“Never.”

　　“Well, you ought to see her. She’s——”

　　Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.

　　“What you doing, Nick?”

　　“I’m a bond man.”

   【  "我在做债券生意。"】

　　“Who with?”

　　I told him.

　　“Never heard of them,” he remarked decisively.

　　This annoyed me.

　　“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if you stay in the East.”

　　“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,” he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. “I’d be a God damned fool to live anywhere else.”

　　At this point Miss Baker said: “Absolutely!” with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.

　　“I’m stiff,” she complained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”【 我在那张沙发上躺了不知多久了】

　　“Don’t look at me,” Daisy retorted, “I’ve been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.”

　　“No, thanks,” said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, “I’m absolutely in training.”

　　Her host looked at her incredulously.

　　“You are!” He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. “How you ever get anything done is beyond me.”

　　I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. 【她是个身材苗条、乳房小小的姑娘，由于她像个年轻的军校学员那样挺起胸膛更显得英俊挺拔。她那双被太阳照得眯缝着的灰眼睛也看着我，一张苍白、可爱、不满的脸上流露出有礼貌的、回敬的好奇心。】It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.

　　“You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebody there.”

　　“I don’t know a single——”

　　“You must know Gatsby.”

　　“Gatsby?” demanded Daisy. “What Gatsby?”

　　Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.[wedge:挤进。Checker:棋子。Square:正方形，此处指棋格。]

　　Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.【两位女郎袅袅婷婷地、懒洋洋地，手轻轻搭在腰上，在我们前面往外走上玫瑰色的阳台。阳台迎着落日，餐桌上有四支蜡烛在减弱了的风中闪烁不定。】

　　“Why CANDLES?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”【 radiantly：容光焕发地】

　　“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.

　　“All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?”

　　Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.【awed：畏怯的】

　　“Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.”

　　We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.【指关节有点青紫】

　　“You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you DID do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a——”【specimen：样品；标品】【这是我的报应，嫁给这么个粗野的男人，一个又粗又大又笨拙的汉子……"】

　　“I hate that word hulking,” objected Tom crossly, “even in kidding.”【 crossly：发怒地。】

　　“Hulking,” insisted Daisy.

　　Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. 【unobtrusively：不显眼地。bantering：嘲弄的。inconsequence：不合理；不切题。Impersonal：客观的】【有时她和贝克小姐同时讲话，可是并不惹人注意，不过开点无关紧要的玩笑，也算不上唠叨，跟她们的白色衣裙以及没有任何欲念的超然的眼睛一样冷漠。】They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.【这和西部截然不同，在那里每逢晚上应酬待客总是迫不及待地从一个阶段到另一个阶段推向结尾，总是有所期待而又不断地感到失望，要不然就对结尾时刻的到来感到十分紧张和恐惧。】