The Great Gatsby

He didnt say any more, but weve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I...

My family have been prominent, well to do people in this Middle Western city for three generations....

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a...

It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in...

Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and...

Why they came East I dont know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then...

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw haired man of thirty, with a...

Now, dont think my opinion on these matters is final, he seemed to say, just because Im stronger...

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy coloured space, fragilely bound into the house...

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan,...

At any rate, Miss Bakers lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly...

At this point Miss Baker said. Absolutely. with such suddenness that I started it was the first...

Why candles. objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. In two weeks itll be...

Well, these books are all scientific, insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. This fellow has...

There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old,...

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice...

This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring...

She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued. I looked outdoors...

The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of...

Itll show you how Ive gotten to feel about things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was...

The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic...

I knew now why her face was familiar its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from...

Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nicks going to look after her, arent...

Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasnt even vaguely engaged. The fact that...

Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrol...

About halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs...

The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to...

I followed him over a low whitewashed railroad fence, and we walked back a hundred yards along the...

His voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a...

So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York or not quite together, for Mrs....

No, its not exactly a police dog, said the man with disappointment in his voice. Its more of an...

The apartment was on the top floor a small living room, a small dining room, a small bedroom, and a...

The sister, Catherine, was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red...

Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon...

We all looked in silence at Mrs. Wilson, who removed a strand of hair from over her eyes and looked...

No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We went by way of Marseilles. We had over twelve hundred...

The only crazy I was was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed...

It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I...

It was nine oclock almost immediately afterward I looked at my watch and found it was ten. Mr....

Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and womens voices scolding, and high over...

Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York every Monday...

By seven oclock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes...

Suddenly one of these gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down...

I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robins egg blue crossed my lawn early that...

As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked...

Youve dyed your hair since then, remarked Jordan, and I started, but the girls had moved casually...

Oh, no, said the first girl, it couldnt be that, because he was in the American army during the...

The first supper there would be another one after midnight was now being served, and Jordan invited...

A stout, middle aged man, with enormous owl eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge...

I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt, he continued. Mrs. Claud Roosevelt. Do you know her. I...

I was still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table with a man of about my age and a rowdy...

Much better. I turned again to my new acquaintance. This is an unusual party for me. I havent even...

Something in her tone reminded me of the other girls I think he killed a man, and had the effect of...

The nature of Mr. Tostoffs composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyes fell on Gatsby,...

I was alone and it was almost two. For some time confused and intriguing sounds had issued from a...

I looked around. Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their...

It was simply amazing, she repeated abstractedly. But I swore I wouldnt tell it and here I am...

Dont mention it, he enjoined me eagerly. Dont give it another thought, old sport. The familiar...

The shock that followed this declaration found voice in a sustained Ah h h. as the door of the coup...

Reading over what I have written so far, I see I have given the impression that the events of three...

I took dinner usually at the Yale Club for some reason it was the gloomiest event of my day and...

Again at eight oclock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were lined five deep with throbbing...

Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt...

Her grey, sun strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations,...

Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a timetable the names of those who came to Gatsbys house...

Clarence Endive was from East Egg, as I remember. He came only once, in white knickerbockers, and...

A man named Klipspringer was there so often that he became known as the boarder I doubt if he had...

In addition to all these I can remember that Faustina OBrien came there at least once and the...

Id seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream colour, bright with nickel, swollen here and...

Ill tell you Gods truth. His right hand suddenly ordered divine retribution to stand by. I am the...

After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe Paris, Venice, Rome collecting...

Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to...

It was a photograph of half a dozen young men in blazers loafing in an archway through which were...

Im going to make a big request of you today, he said, pocketing his souvenirs with satisfaction, so...

He wouldnt say another word. His correctness grew on him as we neared the city. We passed Port...

A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds,...

Sure he went. Mr. Wolfshiems nose flashed at me indignantly. He turned around in the door and says....

Several years, he answered in a gratified way. I made the pleasure of his acquaintance just after...

The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the Worlds Series had been fixed in 1919, but...

The largest of the banners and the largest of the lawns belonged to Daisy Fays house. She was just...

I was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all the older girls I admired her most....

By the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. She had a dbut after the armistice, and in...

Here, dearies. She groped around in a wastebasket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the...

But she didnt say another word. We gave her spirits of ammonia and put ice on her forehead and...

The next April Daisy had her little girl, and they went to France for a year. I saw them one spring...

When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had left the Plaza for half an hour and were...

When I said you were a particular friend of Toms, he started to abandon the whole idea. He doesnt...

We passed a barrier of dark trees, and then the faade of Fifty Ninth Street, a block of delicate...

At first I thought it was another party, a wild rout that had resolved itself into hide and go seek...

I realize now that under different circumstances that conversation might have been one of the...

The evening had made me lightheaded and happy; I think I walked into a deep sleep as I entered my...

The flowers were unnecessary, for at two oclock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsbys, with innumerable...

The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I had to follow the sound of it...

With his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me into the hall, turned sharply as if he...

Weve met before, muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at me, and his lips parted with an...

Amid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical decency established itself. Gatsby...

After half an hour, the sun shone again, and the grocers automobile rounded Gatsbys drive with the...

Has it. When he realized what I was talking about, that there were twinkle bells of sunshine in the...

Instead of taking the shortcut along the Sound we went down to the road and entered by the big...

We went upstairs, through period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new...

His bedroom was the simplest room of all except where the dresser was garnished with a toilet set...

He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen...

Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly...

He went out of the room calling Ewing. and returned in a few minutes accompanied by an embarrassed,...

Outside the wind was loud and there was a faint flow of thunder along the Sound. All the lights...

As I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly. His hand took hold of hers, and as she said...

It transpired after a confused five minutes that the man had heard Gatsbys name around his office...

James Gatz that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of...

For over a year he had been beating his way along the south shore of Lake Superior as a clam digger...

An instinct toward his future glory had led him, some months before, to the small Lutheran College...

To young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, that yacht represented all...

I remember the portrait of him up in Gatsbys bedroom, a grey, florid man with a hard, empty face...

He told me all this very much later, but Ive put it down here with the idea of exploding those...

He was profoundly affected by the fact that Tom was there. But he would be uneasy anyhow until he...

She has a big dinner party and he wont know a soul there. He frowned. I wonder where in the devil...

Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisys running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he...

Perhaps you know that lady. Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat...

Go ahead, answered Daisy genially, and if you want to take down any addresses heres my little gold...

It was like that. Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy and watching the moving...

I sat on the front steps with them while they waited for their car. It was dark here in front; only...

Her glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps, where Three OClock in the Morning, a...

He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say. I never loved you. After...

One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were...

Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something an...

My Finn informed me that Gatsby had dismissed every servant in his house a week ago and replaced...

The next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer. As my train...

We were silent. The voice in the hall rose high with annoyance. Very well, then, I wont sell you...

Our eyes lifted over the rose beds and the hot lawn and the weedy refuse of the dog days...

They went upstairs to get ready while we three men stood there shuffling the hot pebbles with our...

She walked close to Gatsby, touching his coat with her hand. Jordan and Tom and I got into the...

The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I...

In one of the windows over the garage the curtains had been moved aside a little, and Myrtle Wilson...

Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool, suggested Jordan. I love New York on summer...

The prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by herding us into that room eludes me, though I...

They carried him into my house, appended Jordan, because we lived just two doors from the church....

She never loved you, do you hear. he cried. She only married you because I was poor and she was...

Not seeing, said Gatsby. No, we couldnt meet. But both of us loved each other all that time, old...

She does, though. The trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas in her head and doesnt know...

She hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last...

I found out what your drugstores were. He turned to us and spoke rapidly. He and this Wolfshiem...

It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against...

The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the ash heaps was the principal witness...

So naturally Michaelis tried to find out what had happened, but Wilson wouldnt say a word instead...

Michaelis and this man reached her first, but when they had torn open her shirtwaist, still damp...

He reached up on tiptoes and peered over a circle of heads into the garage, which was lit only by a...

One goin each way. Well, she his hand rose toward the blankets but stopped halfway and fell to his...

If somebodyll come here and sit with him, he snapped authoritatively. He watched while the two men...

Id be damned if Id go in; Id had enough of all of them for one day, and suddenly that included...

Somehow, that seemed a despicable occupation. For all I knew he was going to rob the house in a...

Shell be all right tomorrow, he said presently. Im just going to wait here and see if he tries to...