Читать книгу Великий Гэтсби / The Great Gatsby онлайн на КулЛиб

I was alone and it was almost two o'clock. The large room was full of people. One of the girls in yellow was playing the piano and beside her stood a tall, red haired young lady. That lady was singing. She had drunk a quantity of champagne and she was not only singing, she was weeping too. Whenever there was a pause in the song she filled it with broken sobs. The tears coursed down her cheeks. Soon she sank into a chair and went off into a deep sleep.

“She had a fight with a man who says he's her husband,” explained a girl who was standing nearby.

I looked around. The hall was at present occupied by two men and their wives. The wives were talking to each other, “Whenever he sees I'm having a good time he wants to go home. We're always the first ones to leave.”

“So are we.”

“Well, we're almost the last tonight,” said one of the men. “The orchestra left half an hour ago.”

The door of the library opened and Jordan Baker and Gatsby came out together.

“I've just heard the most amazing story,” Jordan whispered to me. “How long were we in there?”

“Why – about an hour.”

“It was simply amazing,” she repeated. “But I swore I wouldn't tell it anybody.”

She yawned gracefully in my face. “Please come and see me… Phone book… Under the name of Mrs. Sigourney Howard… My aunt…”

I joined the last of Gatsby's guests who gathered around him. I wanted to apologize: I had not known him in the garden.

“Don't mention it, old sport,” he said. “And don't forget we're going up in the hydroplane tomorrow morning at nine o'clock.”