Chapter 3
THERE was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor−boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week−ends his Rolls−Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing−brushes and hammers and garden−shears,repairing the ravages of the night before.
Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruitier in New York every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulp less halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb.
At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with gl
istening hors−d'oeuvre,spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.
总是有悠扬的音乐在夏夜的晚上从我隔壁传出。在他蔚蓝的花园中，如飞蛾般蜂拥来往的男孩女孩在觥筹交错间穿梭。在下午人流涌动的高峰期，我甚至目睹过他的宾客从他的木筏塔上跳入水中潜水，或是躺在他的沙滩的热沙上晒太阳，马达船在水上隆隆作响，拖着滑水板激起阵阵浪花。当一周要结束时，他的劳斯莱斯就变成了一辆公共汽车，从早上九点到深更半夜，承载接送着城市中四面八方而来欢庆的人，同时他的旅行车也像一只轻捷的黄硬壳虫那样去火车站接所有的班车。每个星期一，八个仆人，包括一个临时园丁，用许多拖把、板刷、榔头、修技剪辛苦劳作一整天来收拾前一晚的残局。
每逢周五，就会有五箱新鲜的橙子和柠檬从纽约的水果商那运往他的城堡，然后周一就会有堆成小山般的果皮从后门运出。在他家的后厨，有一台榨汁机，只要男管家不停用大拇指按两百多下，可以在半小时内榨好两百多个橙子。
每两周至会有一个晚上，成批负责举办酒席的人带着几百英尺帆布和足够多的彩灯将盖茨比巨大的花园装扮得像一颗华丽的圣诞树。餐会的桌子上，摆满了各式各样迷人的小菜，可口的火腿周围环绕着五颜
六的沙拉，烹制金黄酥脆的火鸡和乳猪。在主会厅中，摆设有一个装置着黄铜横杆的酒吧，里面储藏着杜松子和烈性酒，还有各种年代久远的甘露酒，很多年轻的女宾客都无法将它们分辨清楚。
sort of house翻译By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five−piece affair, but a whole pitiful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up−stairs;the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile.
The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names.
The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment th
e centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea−change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing lights.
七点钟的时候管乐队到达，并不是五人组的小乐队，而是齐备双簧管，长号，萨克斯管，低音提琴，短号，短笛和高低鼓的正规乐队。最后一波游泳的人走出沙滩正在楼上换衣服，远从纽约来的汽车五辆车一排停靠在道路上。大厅，会客厅和门廊阳台华丽缤纷，女客们展示着新潮的发型，身上的披肩式卡斯蒂利亚人做梦也想不到的美丽。
酒吧里生意兴隆，鸡尾酒的味道漫遍花园的角落，空气中布满欢声笑语，人们互相随意寒暄，相互介绍但转身就忘，完全不相识的女人们热情地聊着天。
当太阳颠簸蹒跚着离开地球时，灯光便更加耀眼夺目。而此刻的乐队正在演奏金黄鸡尾酒音乐，合唱的声音也似乎更高了。欢声笑语充满整个会堂，毫无节制地宣泄挥霍着，甚至一两个简单的字眼都能引起大家的哄堂大笑。人变化越来越快，随着新客人的到来，人分开又在转瞬间组合。已经有一些人开始四处闲逛，自信的姑娘在一固定的人中逛来逛去，一会儿在片刻的欢腾中成为一人注意的中心，一会儿又得意洋洋在不断变化的灯光下穿过变幻不定的面孔、声音和彩扬长而去。
Suddenly one of the gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hu
sh; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the "Follies." The party has begun.
I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.
I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robin's−egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer: the honor would be entirely Gatsby's, it said, if I would attend his "little party." that night. He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented itsigned Jay Gatsby, in a majestic hand.
忽然间，这些吉卜赛人式的姑娘中有一个，满身珠光宝气，一伸手就抓来一杯鸡尾酒，猛然喝下去似乎
要壮壮胆，然后手舞足蹈，一个人跳到篷布舞池中间去表演。在寂静了一刻后，乐队指挥殷勤地为她改变了拍子，随后突然响起了一阵叽叽喳喳的说话声，因为有谣言传开，说她是速演剧团的Gilda Gray的替角。晚会正式开始了。
我相信我那晚第一次去盖茨比的家中时，我是为数不多的真正接到邀请的嘉宾。大部分人都是不请自来的。他们坐上汽车被送到长岛，然后车子因为各种原因停留在了盖茨比的门口。他们经人介绍知道盖茨比的存在，然后接下来就根据规矩很得心应手地参与进宴会，如出入娱乐场所一样。很多时候他们压根没有见到过盖茨比本人，怀着一颗赤诚之心来宴会就已经称得上是一张合格的入场券了。
我是真正得到邀请的。周六早上一个身着罗宾鸟蓝制服的司机路过我的草坪，带着一封他主人所写的非常正式客气令人惊讶的请柬，上面写道：如蒙我光临当晚他的“小小聚会”，盖茨比当感到不胜荣幸。他已经看到我几次，并且早就打算造访，但由于种种特殊原因未能如愿——杰伊·盖茨比签名，笔迹很神气。
Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven, and wandered around rather ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn't know though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and pros
perous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.
As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements, that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.
I was on my way to get roaring drunk from sheer embarrassment when Jordan Baker came out of the house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little backward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden. Welcome or not, I found it necessary to attach myself to someone before I should begin to address cordial remarks to the passers−by.
晚上七点一过，我身穿白法兰绒衣服走到他的草坪处，我在一我不认识的人中闲逛，感觉有些不适，虽然有时候能碰到一两个在区间火车上有一面之缘的人。我突然注意到有一些年轻的英国人走动在人中，他们穿着得体，但是看上去都面露饥，都在低声下气地跟一些殷实有资本的美国人谈话。我敢肯定他们都在推销什么——或是债券。或是保险，或是汽车。他们最起码都揪心地意识到，近在眼前就有唾手可得的钱，并且相信，只要几句话说得投机，钱就到手了。
我一到之后就设法去主人，可是问了两三个人他在哪里，他们都大为惊异地瞪着我，同时矢口否认知道他的行踪，我只好悄悄地向供应鸡尾酒的桌子溜过去——整个花园里只有这个地方，一个单身汉可以留连一下而不显得无聊和孤独。
我一个人百无聊赖，正准备多饮几杯酒来掩饰尴尬时，乔丹贝克从屋子里走了出来，她站在台阶最上方，身子微微向后倾，饶有兴趣又有点轻蔑地俯瞰着整个花园。不管她是否欢迎，我觉得实在有必要依附一个人了，不然我也要开始跟过路人寒暄了。
"Hello!" I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across the garden.
"I thought you might be here," she responded absently as I came up." I remembered you lived next door to_−."
She held my hand impersonally, as a promise that she'd take care of me in a minute, and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses, who stopped at the foot of the steps.
"Hello!" they cried together.
"Sorry you didn't win." That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before.
"You don't know who we are," said one of the girls in yellow, "but we met you here about a month ago."
"You've dyed your hair since then," remarked Jordan, and I started, but the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer's basket. With Jordan's slender golden arm resting in mine, we descended the steps and sauntered about the garden. A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble.
"Do you come to these parties often?" inquired Jordan of the girl beside her. "The last one was the one I met you at," answered the girl, in an alert confident voice. She turned to her companion: "Wasn't it for you, Lucille?" It was for Lucille, too.
"I like to come," Lucille said "I never care what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address inside of a week I got a package from Croirier's with a new evening gown in it."
“你好！”我大声喊道，向她走去。我的声音在花园中似乎有些不自然。
“我有猜到你可能在这。”她漫不经心地回答道，“我记得你好像住在隔壁。”
她心不在焉地拉起我的手，似乎是承诺会照顾我，同时又在听台阶下穿黄裙子的双胞胎妹讲话。
“你好！”她们同时高声打招呼。
“为你的失利感到抱歉。”这是在说高尔夫比赛，她在上周的决赛中输掉了比赛。
“你可能不知道我们是谁。”其中一个黄裙子姑娘说，“但上个月我们在这里见过你。”
“后来你们烫了头发了。”乔丹说道。我很惊讶但是两个姑娘已经漫不经心地走开了，好像她这句话是对永恒的月亮说的似的。月亮和晚餐的酒菜一样，
无疑也是从包办酒席的人的篮子里拿出来的。乔丹用她那纤细的、金黄的手臂挽着我的手臂，我们走下了台阶，在花园里闲逛。一盘鸡尾酒在暮苍茫中飘到我们面前，我们就在一张桌子旁坐下，同座的还有那两个穿黄衣的姑娘和三个男的，介绍给我们的时候名字全含含糊糊一带而过。
“你经常来这个派对么？”乔丹问身边的女孩。“我上次来就是见你的那次。”姑娘自信机灵地回答道。她又转向她的同伴问：“你不是这样么？露西儿。”
“我喜欢来这里。”露西儿说道，“我不在乎我在做什么，只要享受这时光觉得开心就好了。上次我来这里，我的衣服在椅子上撕破了，他就问了我的姓名住址——不出一个星期我收到克罗里公司送来一个包裹，里面是一件新的晚礼服。”

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