Читать книгу Великий Гэтсби / The Great Gatsby онлайн

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“Well, if you're a poor driver why did you drive at night?”

“But I wasn't driving,” he explained, “I wasn't even trying.”

“Do you want to commit suicide?”

“You don't understand,” explained he. “I wasn't driving. There's another man in the automobile.”

The door of the automobile slowly opened. The crowd – it was now a crowd – stepped back and when the door had opened wide there was a pause. Then, very gradually, part by part, a man appeared.

“What's the matter?” he inquired calmly.

“Look!”

Half a dozen fingers pointed at the wheel.

“It came off,” someone explained.

He nodded.

“At first I didn't notice we had stopped.”

A pause. Then he remarked in a determined voice:

“Could you tell me where is a gas station?”

At least a dozen men explained to him that wheel and automobile were no longer joined.

“We will drive slowly,” he said.

“But the WHEEL'S off!”

He hesitated.

“We will try,” he said.

I turned away and went toward home. I glanced back once. A moon was shining over Gatsby's house.

I began to like New York. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and watch romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives. For a while I lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in midsummer I found her again. I liked to walk with her because she was a golf champion and every one knew her name. Then it was something more. I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of curiosity.