In my younger years my father gave me some advice. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one[1],” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
A habit to reserve all judgments has opened up many curious natures to me. In college I was privy to the secret griefs[2] of wild, unknown men.
When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform. I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart[3]. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction – Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn[4].
There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life[5], as if he were related to[6] one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person.
My family have been prominent, well-to-do people for three generations. The Carraways[7] are something of a clan. I graduated from New Haven[8] in 1915, then I decided to go east and learn the bond business[9]. Father agreed to finance me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two[10].
I had an old Dodge[11] and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast.
I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold.
I lived at West Egg[12]. My house was between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was Gatsby’s mansion.
Across the bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Buchanans[13]. Daisy[14] was my second cousin[15]. Her husband’s family was enormously wealthy – even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach[16]. Why they came east I don’t know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there.
Their house was even more elaborate than I expected. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile. Tom had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth[17] and a supercilious manner.
It was a body capable of enormous leverage[18] – a cruel body.
“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same Senior Society[19], and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he wanted me to like him.
“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said. He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space. The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were lying. The younger of the two was a stranger to me. The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise. She murmured that the surname of the other girl was Baker.
My cousin began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth.
“You ought to see the baby,” she said.
“I’d like to.”
“She’s asleep. She’s three years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”
“Never.”
Tom Buchanan stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“What you doing, Nick?”
“I’m a bond man[20].”
“Who with?”
I told him.
“Never heard of them,” he remarked.
This annoyed me[21].
“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.
At this point Miss Baker said “Absolutely!” It was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. It surprised her as much as it did me.
I looked at Miss Baker, I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender girl, with an erect carriage[22]. 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 neighbour dinner was announced. We went out.
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” said Tom. “We don’t look out the white race will be submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
The telephone rang and Tom left. Daisy suddenly threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house, too.
“Tom’s got some woman in New York[23],” said Miss Baker. “She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner-time. Don’t you think?”
Tom and Daisy were back at the table.
“We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” said Daisy. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, and I’m pretty cynical about everything. I think everything’s terrible anyhow. I KNOW. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.”