16 The Great Gatsby: Their interest rather touched me

Their interest rather touched me and made them seem less distantly rich. Nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away.

It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house with her child in her arms—but apparently, there were no such intentions in her head.

As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas, as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.

Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red gas pumps sat out in pools of light. When I reached my estate at West Egg, I drove the car into its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard.

The wind had died down, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life.

The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight. Turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone. Fifty feet away, a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor's mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets, regarding the silver pepper of the stars.

Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself who had come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.

I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction.

But I didn't call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone. He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling.

Involuntarily, I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby, he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.