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The Great Gatsby .. I think antibucci Summary: Literally just the great Gatsby. Nothing else here. Absolutely no changes. Definitely use this for class, or reference. The Great Gatsby is public domain now after all. Anyways here's the totally unaltered and complete book of the Great Gatsby. I swear nothing was changed, most definitely. Of course credit to F Scott Fitzgerald for writing this commentary on both his life and the world he was in. A lot of this can still relate today, so keep an open mind when reading. Notes: I'd like to preface this by saying... This is really I mean REALLY just the Great Gatsby. I swear. There is nothing going here that is out of the ordinary! Nothing at all! Chapter 1 Chapter Text Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!” - Thomas Parke D'Invilliers. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought — frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth. And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. 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. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament.”— it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No — Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men. My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the

wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day. I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him — with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe — so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why — ye — es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two. The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog — at least I had him for a few days until he ran away — and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove. It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road. “How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly. I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood. And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in fast movies—I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the "Yale News"—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man." This isn't just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all. It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size. I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented

rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby's mansion. Or rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it was a small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month. Across the courtesy 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 Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago. Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he'd left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that. 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 unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it—I had no sight into Daisy's heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game. And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch. He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body. His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts. "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, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own. We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch. "I've got a nice place here," he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly. Turning me around by one arm

he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped the tide off shore. "It belonged to Demaine the oil man." He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. "We'll go inside." We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea. The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor. The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in. The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room. "I'm p-paralyzed with happiness." She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.) At any rate Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me. I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered "Listen," a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour. I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way east and how a dozen people had sent their love through me. "Do they miss me?" she cried ecstatically. "The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there's a persistent wail all night along the North Shore." "How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow!" Then she added irrelevantly, "You ought to see the baby." "I'd like to." "She's asleep. She's two years old. Haven't you ever seen her?" "Never." "Well, you ought to see her. She's—" Tom Buchanan who had been hovering restlessly about the room stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder. "What you doing, Nick

?" "I'm a bond man." "Who with?" I told him. "Never heard of them," he remarked decisively. This annoyed me. "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, as if he were alert for something more. "I'd be a God Damned fool to live anywhere else." At this point Miss Baker said "Absolutely!" with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room. "I'm stiff," she complained, "I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember." "Don't look at me," Daisy retorted. "I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon." "No, thanks," said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, "I'm absolutely in training." Her host looked at her incredulously. "You are!" He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. "How you ever get anything done is beyond me." I looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she "got done." I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. 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 neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square. Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind. "Why candles?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it." "We ought to plan something," yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed. "All right," said Daisy. "What'll we plan?" She turned to me helplessly. "What do people plan?" Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger. "Look!" she complained. "I hurt it." We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue. "You did it, Tom," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a—" "I hate that word hulking," objected Tom crossly, "even in kidding." "Hulking," insisted Daisy. Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here—and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself. "You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy," I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. "Can't you talk about crops or something?" I meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was taken up in an unexpected way. "Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The

Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?" "Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone. "Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved." "Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—" "Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things." "We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun. "You ought to live in California—" began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair. "This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are and—" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again. "—and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?" There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me. "I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered enthusiastically. "It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?" "That's why I came over tonight." "Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night until finally it began to affect his nose—" "Things went from bad to worse," suggested Miss Baker. "Yes. Things went from bad to worse until finally he had to give up his position." For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk. The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing. "I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn't he?" She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation. "An absolute rose?" This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing but a stirring warmth flowed from her as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house. Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said "Sh!" in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond and Miss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether. "This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor—" I said. "Don't talk. I want to hear what happens." "Is something happening?" I inquired innocently. "You mean to say you don't know?" said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. "I thought everybody knew." "I don't." "Why—" she said hesitantly, "Tom's got some woman in New York." "Got some woman?" I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded. "She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner-time. Don't you think?" Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots and Tom and Daisy were back at the table. "It couldn't be helped!" cried Daisy with tense gayety. She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me and continued: "I looked

outdoors for a minute and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away—" her voice sang "—It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?" "Very romantic," he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the stables." The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking but I doubt if even Miss Baker who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism was able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police. The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee. Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl. "We don't know each other very well, Nick," she said suddenly. "Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding." "I wasn't back from the war." "That's true." She hesitated. "Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything." Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter. "I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything." "Oh, yes." She looked at me absently. "Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?" "Very much." "It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." "You see I think everything's terrible anyhow," she went on in a convinced way. "Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything." Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. "Sophisticated—God, I'm sophisticated!" The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged. Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the "Saturday Evening Post"—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms. When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand. "To be continued," she said, tossing the magazine on the table,

"in our very next issue." Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up. "Ten o'clock," she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. "Time for this good girl to go to bed." "Jordan's going to play in the tournament tomorrow," explained Daisy, "over at Westchester." "Oh,—you're Jordan Baker." I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago. "Good night," she said softly. "Wake me at eight, won't you." "If you'll get up." "I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon." "Of course you will," confirmed Daisy. "In fact I think I'll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—" "Good night," called Miss Baker from the stairs. "I haven't heard a word." "She's a nice girl," said Tom after a moment. "They oughtn't to let her run around the country this way." "Who oughtn't to?" inquired Daisy coldly. "Her family." "Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's going to look after her, aren't you, Nick? She's going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her." Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence. "Is she from New York?" I asked quickly. "From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—" "Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?" demanded Tom suddenly. "Did I?" She looked at me. "I can't seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I'm sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—" "Don't believe everything you hear, Nick," he advised me. I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called "Wait! "I forgot to ask you something, and it's important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West." "That's right," corroborated Tom kindly. "We heard that you were engaged." "It's libel. I'm too poor." "But we heard it," insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. "We heard it from three people so it must be true." Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn't even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come east. You can't stop going with an old friend on account of rumors and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage. Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely 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, child in 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, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, 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 and 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, 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. Chapter 2 Summary: Just chapter 2 of the Great Gatsby Notes: (See the end of the chapter for notes.) Chapter Text About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight. But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground. The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress. The fact that he had one was insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew. Though I was curious to see her I had no desire to meet her—but I did. I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon and when we stopped by the ashheaps he jumped to his feet and taking hold of my elbow literally forced me from the car. "We're getting off!" he insisted. "I want you to meet my girl." I think he'd tanked up a good deal at luncheon and his determination to have my company bordered on violence. The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do. I followed him over a low white-washed railroad fence and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor Eckleburg's persistent stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it and contiguous to absolutely nothing. One of the three shops it contained was for rent and another was an all-night restaurant approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a garage—Repairs. GEORGE B. WILSON. Cars Bought and Sold—and I followed Tom inside. The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred

to me that this shadow of a garage must be a blind and that sumptuous and romantic apartments were concealed overhead when the proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. He was a blonde, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome. When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes. "Hello, Wilson, old man," said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. "How's business?" "I can't complain," answered Wilson unconvincingly. "When are you going to sell me that car?" "Next week; I've got my man working on it now." "Works pretty slow, don't he?" "No, he doesn't," said Tom coldly. "And if you feel that way about it, maybe I'd better sell it somewhere else after all." "I don't mean that," explained Wilson quickly. "I just meant—" His voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice: "Get some chairs, why don't you, so somebody can sit down." "Oh, sure," agreed Wilson hurriedly and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity—except his wife, who moved close to Tom. "I want to see you," said Tom intently. "Get on the next train." "All right." "I'll meet you by the news-stand on the lower level." She nodded and moved away from him just as George Wilson emerged with two chairs from his office door. We waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a grey, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track. "Terrible place, isn't it," said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg. "Awful." "It does her good to get away." "Doesn't her husband object?" "Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive." So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York—or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train. She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York. At the news-stand she bought a copy of "Town Tattle" and a moving-picture magazine and, in the station drug store, some cold cream and a small flask of perfume. Upstairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxi cabs drive away before she selected a new one, lavender-colored with grey upholstery, and in this we slid out from the mass of the station into the glowing sunshine. But immediately she turned sharply from the window and leaning forward tapped on the front glass. "I want to get one of those dogs," she said earnestly. "I want to get one for the apartment. They're nice to have—a dog." We backed up to a grey old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller. In a basket, swung from his neck, cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed. "What kind are they?" asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly as he came to the taxi-window. "All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?" "I'd like to get one of those police dogs; I don't suppose you got that kind?" The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up, wriggling, by the back of the neck. "That's no police dog," said Tom. "No, it's not exactly a police dog,"

" said the man with disappointment in his voice. "It's more of an airedale." He passed his hand over the brown wash-rag of a back. "Look at that coat. Some coat. That's a dog that'll never bother you with catching cold." "I think it's cute," said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. "How much is it?" "That dog?" He looked at it admiringly. "That dog will cost you ten dollars." The airedale—undoubtedly there was an airedale concerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly white—changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture. "Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked delicately. "That dog? That dog's a boy." "It's a bitch," said Tom decisively. "Here's your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it." We drove over to Fifth Avenue, so warm and soft, almost pastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon that I wouldn't have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner. "Hold on," I said, "I have to leave you here." "No, you don't," interposed Tom quickly. "Myrtle'll be hurt if you don't come up to the apartment. Won't you, Myrtle?" "Come on," she urged. "I'll telephone my sister Catherine. She's said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know." "Well, I'd like to, but—" We went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the West Hundreds. At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment houses. Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighborhood, Mrs. Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases and went haughtily in. "I'm going to have the McKees come up," she announced as we rose in the elevator. "And of course I got to call up my sister, too." The apartment was on the top floor—a small living room, a small dining room, a small bedroom and a bath. The living room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was an over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock. Looked at from a distance however the hen resolved itself into a bonnet and the countenance of a stout old lady beamed down into the room. Several old copies of "Town Tattle" lay on the table together with a copy of "Simon Called Peter" and some of the small scandal magazines of Broadway. Mrs. Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator boy went for a box full of straw and some milk to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large hard dog biscuits—one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon. Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door. I have been drunk just twice in my life and the second time was that afternoon so everything that happened has a dim hazy cast over it although until after eight o'clock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Tom's lap Mrs. Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then there were no cigarettes and I went out to buy some at the drug store on the corner. When I came back they had disappeared so I sat down discreetly in the living room and read a chapter of "Simon Called Peter"—either it was terrible stuff or the whiskey distorted things because it didn't make any sense to me. Just as Tom and Myrtle—after the first drink Mrs. Wilson and I called each other by our first names—reappeared, company commenced to arrive at the apartment door. The sister, Catherine, was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty with a solid sticky bob of red hair and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face. When she moved about there was an incessant clicking as innumerable pottery bracelets jingled up and down upon her arms. She came in with such a proprietary haste and looked around so possessively at the furniture that I wondered if she lived here. But when I asked her she laughed i

Feel free to delete the first one. I would do anything for you if post this. The Great Gatsby in all it’s glory

im aware i was probably supposed to read the whole thing to find out if you changed anything and tnhen find out you hadnt and id wasted an hour of my life but i am way too lazy to do that

#ask #im not gonna post the other one merely because of how bad i feel for my followers #long post

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galaxierowls · 4 years ago

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The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;

If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,

Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,

I must have you!"

—THOMAS PARKE D'INVILLIERS

Chapter 1

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. 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. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.

I never saw this great-uncle but I'm supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in Father's office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep-school for me and finally said, "Why—ye-es" with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was a warm season and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

"How do you get to West Egg village?" he asked helplessly.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in fast movies—I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the "Yale News"—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man." This isn't just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby's mansion. Or rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it was a small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.

Across the courtesy 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 Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he'd left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.

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 unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it—I had no sight into Daisy's heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

"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, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

"I've got a nice place here," he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped the tide off shore.

"It belonged to Demaine the oil man." He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. "We'll go inside."

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

"I'm p-paralyzed with happiness."

She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

At any rate Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered "Listen," a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way east and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.

"Do they miss me?" she cried ecstatically.

"The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there's a persistent wail all night along the North Shore."

"How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow!" Then she added irrelevantly, "You ought to see the baby."

"I'd like to."

"She's asleep. She's two years old. Haven't you ever seen her?"

"Never."

"Well, you ought to see her. She's—"

Tom Buchanan who had been hovering restlessly about the room stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.

"What you doing, Nick?"

"I'm a bond man."

"Who with?"

I told him.

"Never heard of them," he remarked decisively.

This annoyed me.

"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, as if he were alert for something more. "I'd be a God Damned fool to live anywhere else."

At this point Miss Baker said "Absolutely!" with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.

"I'm stiff," she complained, "I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember."

"Don't look at me," Daisy retorted. "I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon."

"No, thanks," said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, "I'm absolutely in training."

Her host looked at her incredulously.

"You are!" He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. "How you ever get anything done is beyond me."

I looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she "got done." I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. 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 neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.

Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

"Why candles?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

"We ought to plan something," yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.

"All right," said Daisy. "What'll we plan?" She turned to me helplessly. "What do people plan?"

Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.

"Look!" she complained. "I hurt it."

We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.

"You did it, Tom," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a—"

"I hate that word hulking," objected Tom crossly, "even in kidding."

"Hulking," insisted Daisy.

Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here—and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.

"You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy," I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. "Can't you talk about crops or something?"

I meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was taken up in an unexpected way.

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

"Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

"Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—"

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

"You ought to live in California—" began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are and—" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again. "—and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?"

There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.

"I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered enthusiastically. "It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?"

"That's why I came over tonight."

"Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night until finally it began to affect his nose—"

"Things went from bad to worse," suggested Miss Baker.

"Yes. Things went from bad to worse until finally he had to give up his position."

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.

"I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn't he?" She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation. "An absolute rose?"

This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing but a stirring warmth flowed from her as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.

Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said "Sh!" in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond and Miss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.

"This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor—" I said.

"Don't talk. I want to hear what happens."

"Is something happening?" I inquired innocently.

"You mean to say you don't know?" said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. "I thought everybody knew."

"I don't."

"Why—" she said hesitantly, "Tom's got some woman in New York."

"Got some woman?" I repeated blankly.

Miss Baker nodded.

"She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner-time. Don't you think?"

Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.

"It couldn't be helped!" cried Daisy with tense gayety.

She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me and continued: "I looked outdoors for a minute and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away—" her voice sang "—It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?"

"Very romantic," he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the stables."

The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking but I doubt if even Miss Baker who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism was able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.

The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.

"We don't know each other very well, Nick," she said suddenly. "Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding."

"I wasn't back from the war."

"That's true." She hesitated. "Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything."

Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.

"I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything."

"Oh, yes." She looked at me absently. "Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?"

"Very much."

Thank you.

#she speaks #ria ur so funny

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and-then-there-were-n0ne · 5 years ago

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The Fairy Tales

Women live in fairy tale as magical figures, as beauty, danger, innocence, malice, and greed. In the personae of the fairy tale — the wicked witch, the beautiful princess, the heroic prince — we find what the culture would have us know about who we are. The point is that we have not formed that ancient world — it has formed us. We ingested it as children whole, had its values and consciousness imprinted on our minds as cultural absolutes long before we were in fact, men and women. We have taken the fairy tales of childhood with us into maturity, chewed but still lying in the stomach, as real identity. Between Snow-white and her heroic prince, our two great fictions, we never did have much of a chance. At some point, the Great Divide took place: they (the boys) dreamed of mounting the Great Steed and buying Snow-white from the dwarfs; we (the girls) aspired to become that object of every necrophiliac ’s lust — the innocent, victimized. Sleeping Beauty, beauteous lump of ultimate, sleeping good. Despite ourselves, sometimes unknowing, sometimes knowing, unwilling, unable to do otherwise, we act out the roles we were taught. Here is the beginning, where we learn who we must be, as well as the moral of the story.

The Mother

Snow-white’s biological mother was a passive, good queen who sat at her window and did embroidery. She pricked her finger one day — no doubt an event in her life — and 3 drops of blood fell from it onto the snow. Somehow that led her to wish for a child “as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the embroidery frame.” Soon after, she had a daughter with “skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony.” Then, she died. A year later, the king married again. His new wife was beautiful, greedy, and proud. She was, in fact, ambitious and recognized that beauty was coin in the male realm, that beauty translated directly into power because it meant male admiration, male alliance, male devotion. The new queen had a magic mirror and she would ask it: “Looking-glass upon the wall, Who is fairest of us all?” And inevitably, the queen was the fairest (had there been anyone fairer we can presume that the king would have married her). One day the queen asked her mirror who the fairest was, and the mirror answered: “Queen, you are full fair, its true, But Snow-white fairer is than you.” Snow-white was 7 years old. The queen became “yellow and green with envy, and from that hour her heart turned against Snow-white, and she hated her. And envy and pride like ill weeds grew in her heart higher every day, until she had no peace…” Now, we all know what nations will do to achieve peace, and the queen was no less resourceful (she would have made an excellent head of state). She ordered a huntsman to take Snow-white to the forest, kill her, and bring back her heart. The huntsman, an uninspired good guy, could not kill the sweet young thing, so he turned her loose in the forest, killed a boar, and took its heart back to the queen. The heart was “salted and cooked, and the wicked woman ate it up, thinking that there was an end of Snow-white.” Snow-white found her way to the home of the 7 dwarfs, who told her that she could stay with them “if you will keep our house for us, and cook, and wash, and make the beds, and sew and knit, and keep everything tidy and clean.” They simply adored her. The queen, who can now be called with conviction the wicked queen, found out from her mirror that Snow-white was still alive and fairer than she. She tried several times to kill Snow-white, who fell into numerous deep sleeps but never quite died. Finally the wicked queen made a poisoned apple and induced the ever vigilant Snow-white to bite into it. Snow-white did die, or became more dead than usual, because the wicked queen’s mirror then verified that she was the fairest in the land. The dwarfs, who loved Snow-white, could not bear to bury her under the ground, so they enclosed her in a glass coffin and put the coffin on a mountaintop. The heroic prince was just passing that way, immediately fell in love with Snow-white-under-glass, and bought her (it?) from the dwarfs who loved her (it? ). As servants carried the coffin along behind the prince’s horse, the piece of poisoned apple that Snow-white had swallowed “flew out of her throat.” She soon revived fully, that is to say, not much. The prince placed her squarely in the “it” category, and marriage in its proper perspective too, when he proposed wedded bliss — “I would rather have you than anything in the world.” The wicked queen was invited to the wedding, which she attended because her mirror told her that the bride was fairer than she. At the wedding “they had ready red-hot iron shoes, in which she had to dance until she fell down dead.” Cinderella’s mother-situation was the same. Her biological mother was good, pious, passive, and soon dead. Her stepmother was greedy, ambitious, and ruthless. Her ambition dictated that her own daughters make good marriages. Cinderella meanwhile was forced to do heavy domestic work, and when her work was done, her stepmother would throw lentils into the ashes of the stove and make Cinderella separate the lentils from the ashes. The stepmother’s malice toward Cinderella was not free-floating and irrational. On the contrary, her own social validation was contingent on the marriages she made for her own daughters. Cinderella was a real threat to her. Like Snow-white’s stepmother, for whom beauty was power and to be the most beautiful was to be the most powerful, Cinderella’s stepmother knew how the social structure operated, and she was determined to succeed on its terms. Cinderella’s stepmother was presumably motivated by maternal love for her own biological offspring. Maternal love is known to be transcendent, holy, noble, and unselfish. It is coincidentally also a fundament of human (male-dominated) civilization and it is the real basis of human (male-dominated) sexuality:

[When the prince began to search for the woman whose foot would fit the golden slipper] the two sisters were very glad, because they had pretty feet. The eldest went to her room to try on the shoe, and her mother stood by. But she could not get her great toe into it, for the shoe was too small; then her mother handed her a knife, and said, “Cut the toe off, for when you are queen you will never have to go on foot.” So the girl cut her toe off, and squeezed her foot into the shoe, concealed the pain, and went down to the prince. Then he took her with him on his horse as his bride… Then the prince looked at her shoe, and saw the blood flowing. And he turned his horse round and took the false bride home again, saying that she was not the right one, and that the other sister must try on the shoe. So she went into her room to do so, and got her toes comfortably in, but her heel was too large. Then her mother handed her the knife, saying, “Cut a piece off your heel; when you are queen you will never have to go on foot.” So the girl cut a piece off her heel, and thrust her foot into the shoe, concealed the pain, and went down to the prince, who took his bride… Then the prince looked at her foot, and saw how the blood was flowing…

Cinderella’s stepmother understood correctly that her only real work in life was to marry off her daughters. Her goal was upward mobility, and her ruthlessness was consonant with the values of the marketplace. She loved her daughters the way Nixon loves the freedom of the Indochinese, and with much the same result. Love in a male-dominated society certainly is a many-splendored thing. Rapunzel ’s mother wasn’t exactly a winner either. She had a maternal instinct all right— she had “long wished for a child, but in vain.” Sometime during her wishing, she developed a craving for rampion, a vegetable which grew in the garden of her neighbor and peer, the witch. She persuaded her husband to steal rampion from the witch ’s garden, and each day she craved more. When the witch discovered the theft, she made this offer:

… you may have as much rampion as you like, on one condition — the child that will come into the world must be given to me. It shall go well with the child, and I will care for it like a mother.

Mama didn’t think twice — she traded Rapunzel for a vegetable. Rapunzel’s surrogate mother, the witch, did not do much better by her:

When she was twelve years old the witch shut her up in a tower in the midst of a wood, and it had neither steps nor door, only a small window above. When the witch wished to be let in, she would stand below and cry “Rapunzel, Rapunzel! let down your hair!”

The heroic prince, having finished with Snow-white and Cinderella, now happened upon Rapunzel. When the witch discovered the liaison, she beat up Rapunzel, cut off her hair, and cloistered her “in a waste and desert place, where she lived in great woe and misery.” The witch then confronted the prince, who fell from the tower and blinded himself on thorns. (He recovered when he found Rapunzel, and they then lived happily ever after.)

Hansel and Grethel had a mother too. She simply abandoned them:

I will tell you what, husband… We will take the children early in the morning into the forest, where it is thickest; we will make them a fire, and we will give each of them a piece of bread, then we will go to our work and leave them alone; they will never find the way home again, and we shall be quit of them.

Hungry, lost, frightened, the children find a candy house which belongs to an old lady who is kind to them, feeds them, houses them. She greets them as her children, and proves her maternal commitment by preparing to cannibalize them. These fairy-tale mothers are mythological female figures. They define for us the female character and delineate its existential possibilities. When she is good, she is soon dead. In fact, when she is good, she is so passive in life that death must be only more of the same. Here we discover the cardinal principle of sexist ontology — the only good woman is a dead woman. When she is bad she lives, or when she lives she is bad. She has one real function, motherhood. In that function, because it is active, she is characterized by overwhelming malice, devouring greed, uncontainable avarice. She is ruthless, brutal, ambitious, a danger to children and other living things. Whether called mother, queen, stepmother, or wicked witch, she is the wicked witch, the content of nightmare, the source of terror.

The Beauteous Lump of Ultimate Good

For a woman to be good, she must be dead, or as close to it as possible. Catatonia is the good woman’s most winning quality. Sleeping Beauty slept for 100 years, after pricking her finger on a spindle. The kiss of the heroic prince woke her. He fell in love with her while she was asleep, or was it because she was asleep? Snow-white was already dead when the heroic prince fell in love with her. “I beseech you,” he pleaded with the 7 dwarfs, “to give it to me, for I cannot live without looking upon Snow-white.” It awake was not readily distinguishable from it asleep. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow-white, Rapunzel — all are characterized by passivity, beauty, innocence, and victimization. They are archetypal good women — victims by definition. They never think, act, initiate, confront, resist, challenge, feel, care, or question. Sometimes they are forced to do housework. They have one scenario of passage. They are moved, as if inert, from the house of the mother to the house of the prince. First they are objects of malice, then they are objects of romantic adoration. They do nothing to warrant either. That one other figure of female good, the good fairy, appears from time to time, dispensing clothes or virtue. Her power cannot match, only occasionally moderate, the power of the wicked witch. She does have one physical activity at which she excels — she waves her wand. She is beautiful, good, and unearthly. Mostly, she disappears. These figures of female good are the heroic models available to women. And the end of the story is, it would seem, the goal of any female life. To sleep, perchance to dream?

The Moral of the Story

Pieces. The loneliest of mornings. I remember thinking, our last time: If you killed me, I would die. — Kathleen Norris

I cannot live without my life. — Emily Bronte

The lessons are simple, and we learn them well. Men and women are different, absolute opposites. The heroic prince can never be confused with Cinderella, or Snow-white, or Sleeping Beauty. She could never do what he does at all, let alone better. Men and women are different, absolute opposites. The good father can never be confused with the bad mother. Their qualities are different, polar

[…] There are two definitions of woman. There is the good woman. She is a victim. There is the bad woman. She must be destroyed. The good woman must be possessed. The bad woman must be killed, or punished. Both must be nullified. The bad woman must be punished, and if she is punished enough, she will become good. The moral of the story should, one would think, preclude a happy ending. It does not. The moral of the story is the happy ending. It tells us that happiness for a woman is to be passive, victimized, destroyed, or asleep. It tells us that happiness is for the woman who is good — inert, passive, victimized— and that a good woman is a happy woman. It tells us that the happy ending is when we are ended, when we live without our lives or not at all.

- Andrea Dworkin, Woman Hating

#andrea dworkin #woman hating #feminism #radical feminism #intersectional feminism

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theworldofdumestria · 5 years ago

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Nations of Dumestria: The Dumestrian Empire

Government

The Empire runs on a strict monarchy, currently headed by Emperor Stefan de Dumestria VII. Each territory has its own governor, appointed by the Emperor, who advocates for resources for their territory in petitions to the Emperor. Territories are given free reign over their own laws and rules, set in place by their governor, though they must comply with existing Imperial law, and all laws are subject to audit by the Emperor. The current Emperor is known for overlooking such concerns in recent years, and as such the governing of each territory is wildly different.

Geography

Due to the many disparate territories held by the Empire, the land of Dumestria is as diverse as its peoples. It stretches from gorgeous sandy coasts, to lush green forests, to rocky quarries. The actual country of Dumestria, however, is specifically known to have green, rolling hills, and large forests mostly comprised of Dumestrian maples. Dumestrian maple is known for it’s beautiful, complex marble in its wood, and for the sweet syrup made from its sap. The Dumestrian river starts its journey here, and provides many species of freshwater fish.

Education

Public education is varied in the Dumestrian Empire, both in subject matter and quality. The nearer to the Great Capital, the better the education (and funding) tends to get. Various territories set their own curricula, and besides a healthy diet of Imperial conditioning, can be wildly different even in neighboring territories. One thing that does bind many of these curricula together is a robust magical education. Even the least magically gifted Dumestrian student can recite the fundamental basics of magical theory by age ten. This is encouraged by Dumestria, as they consider mages to be their greatest export.

Secondary education is mostly magical focused for this reason in the Empire. They boast the continent’s only magical healing school, and a dozen other general and specific magical academies. For the sciences, trade crafts, and other non-magical disciplines, the Empire relies majorly on territorial teaching and, on occasion, schools in other nations.

Culture

As with the geography, the culture of Dumestria varies from territory to territory. A Dumestrian citizen from Elmira is as similar to one from Mora Alona as an apple is to an orange. Still, some things remain similar across the board.

Magic is an everyday part of life in Dumestria. Clothing is often inlaid with runes and fabrics designed to keep the wearer comfortable in many weathers, and amongst the more privileged, is often charmed with simple cantrips to create various effects. Magical herbs and spices grace even the simplest of Dumestrian dishes, and they are, more often than not, cooked on crystal powered stoves. Art and music and all the cultural touchstones of a nation are, in some part, saturated in magic. As such, the Great Capital is also called “the Magic Capital of the World.”

Population

Speaking generally, the Empire of Dumestria is mostly human. After the secession of the Kingdom of Sidhe (aided by the Elven nation of Alfheim, before they were driven out to the Northern Reaches), many non-humans were looked at with suspicion, and instantly considered to be enemies. This exacerbated many long-standing non-human hatred, and over time more and more discriminatory laws began to be written in. Even after the Non-Human Reintroduction Act of 1320 (penned by Stefan V, just before his assassination), many non-humans felt (rightfully) wary of returning to the Empire. As such, the total population stands at 90% human, roughly 5% half-human, half other, 2% Elven, and 3% “other non-human”, according to the latest census, with a caveat of “potentially undisclosed non-human ancestry”.

#nations of dumestria #dumestrian guidebook #the empire of dumestria #writing #original fiction #worldbuilding #fantasy

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blueeyesspitfire · 6 years ago

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Rhythms

We’ve hit mid-January and we’re getting into true north country winter now. We finally got more snow and a cold snap that should keep it around for awhile. It took a few months, but I finally mastered the art of heating this place. I’ve been feeding the wood stove all day, instead of just in the evenings, and the majority of the house has reached a steady 65°F. The wood pile is still stacked pretty high. At this point, the propane is a backup resource that I’m hoping I won’t need to refill until the summer, when prices are cheaper. There’s a pile of wood seasoning outside, another pile ready to be split, and an endless forest to harvest for future heat. But that’s work for warmer days.

I’m settling into a comfortable rhythm here. There are challenges, but I feel like I’m succeeding more than failing. It could be that I lowered expectations (both for the team and myself), but I’ll take whatever easy wins I can get. A day’s “To Do” list might just be “clear fallen tree from trail”, but taking a chainsaw out into the woods and moving a large tree—by myself—is something I’ve never done before. (And I did it!)

The dogs had their annual wellness exams last week. Whenever I move, it means developing a relationship with a new vet. While waiting to be seen, I could hear the staff in the back room, clearly dismayed at the upcoming task of evaluating five huskies (and Dexter). I brought them in one at a time to make things easier, of course, but even a solo husky is enough to make vets sweat. They’re known for being vocal and hard to handle. I’m happy to report that my gang destroys that stereotype. Each dog was perfectly well behaved as their blood was drawn for tests and rabies shots were administered. I think we won over the staff, which is good news, since I’m sure we’ll be back. The bill for six exams was very reasonable and, most importantly, all the dogs are healthy.

This past weekend, we started exploring deeper into the trails that cross the back of me and my neighbor’s properties. The dogs were starting to get bored, so adventuring further has got them fired up. I’m just as excited to get familiar with the land around us—especially the back of my own property. We’re far from our goal of an overnight expedition or mushing 30 miles at a time, but I’m seeing fundamental pieces fall into place.

Once I know my own land well enough, I can cut a trail towards the back of it for next season, and that will be our “test” campsite. I’ll have the dogs run the trails they’re most familiar with, camping gear packed in the sled basket, and we’ll do our first overnight right on my property. This seems like the safest, most sensible first try. Once we’re comfortable with that, we’ll take those skills out to another trail.

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samegavi · 4 years ago

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Neem Trees

I was only seven years old and it was about 6pm in the evening. I was in bed sick with Malaria and itching all over my body. This was in the first of the many houses my parents rented in Accra. We lived in the suburb called Labadi, in a semi-planned area sandwiched between the more planned South Labadi Estates and Labone Estates: two of the first modern settlements designed to accommodate government officials and civil servants during the early years of the postcolonial period. Adjacent to Labadi is Osu which is now famous for it's Oxford Street: the most cosmopolitan street in Accra where you'll find the nicest bars, shops and people from all over the world. Osu, however, is also home to more prominent spaces such as the Independence Square, the first Sports Stadium to be built in the country, and several of the early high rise office buildings ( 3 - 6 floors) designed to house the various functionaries of the Government of Ghana. What both Labadi and Osu share in common is the shores of the Atlantic ocean

Mother had already given me Chloroquine for my malaria but she did not know what to do about the itching. Aside the drugs that I knew came from the pharmacy shop there was also other additional treatments formulated by Mother herself. For malaria I was also to sit near the steam of water boiled with leaves cut from the Neem trees in our neighbors' compound. Later I would find that my friends mothers also made the same double treatments for their malaria: neatly packaged capsules bought with cash from the men in white coats in their well lit shops across the streets and treatments prepared in the home from leaves and herbs acquired from whichever neighbor's compound they happen to be growing, for which our mothers paid nothing.

Of the two treatment camps, as a child, I found the pharmacy more fascinating. I'd often ask Mother why she bothered at all with all the labor involved in setting up fire in the charcoal stove to boil leaves she'd have to roam the entire neighborhood for, albeit within walking distance, when I could just swallow a pill alone and still recover. I felt vindicated when the antidote to my itching came from the pharmacy in the form of Piriton tablets. It didn't matter at all to me then when I heard the words 'side effect' in an explanation the Pharmacist was giving Mother as she handed over cash over the counter. Indeed I never bothered with leaves or herbs as soon as I could take care of myself as an adult, until the Corona pandemic hit. With all the uncertainty about a cure and all the fear and frenzy surrounding Covid I missed Mother's unwavering confidence in African traditional medicine, and so I found myself going out in search of Neem trees a few days before lock-down.

I was to discover that Neem trees were now a scarce thing, even in the second biggest city where I now lived. Most of the home garden spaces I grew up with in Accra had given way to more houses as landlords only maximized their capacity for more rent. Neem trees where thus understandably being driven out of the urban environment as Accra was busy earning its reputation as an important port city of the Black Atlantic and a concrete jungle. Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti kingdom before European conquest, therefore much older than Accra, more inland within the forest belt, was still green enough despite the urban expansion, and you'll still find at least an orange and avocado tree in most homes, with lots of rainfall and hence lots of mosquitoes, and yet only a handful of Neem trees. I was even more surprised when locals told me Neem trees were more to be found along the southern coastal belt and was never part of the natural vegetation of the more inland spaces like Kumasi.

I took a trotro to the area where I was told I could find a Neem tree on the compound of a public school. I saw the tree from a distance before I alighted at the bus stop. When I walked onto the school compound however something else got my attention. The school building painted in two shades of brown, as if to echo the brown of the bare earth of the big school compound, brought back lots of nostalgia for my happy basic school days in Accra. I laughed out loud when I saw that the walls of the building was inscribed with the same warning you'll find even today at the basic school I attended close to Osu: DO NOT SPEAK VERNACULAR. Vernacular, which was whatever Ghanaian language we spoke with our parents at home, was mostly Ga in Accra. In Kumasi that was mostly Twi, which over the years has become widely spoken across the country, and even become the lingua franca of Ghanaian popular culture, but doesn't yet compete with English as the official language of the country. Still staring at the warning on the school wall, I could now recall clearly that one other reason I preferred treatments from the pharmacy was that it was a place to impress Mr Johnson, the pharmacist in his white coat, with my English vocabulary and I never missed an opportunity to follow Mother there.

Somehow relieved off my childhood nostalgia, I plucked a few leaves from the Neem tree and returned home in another trotro. Before I began to make the treatment I decided to put my digital literacy to work on resolving the mystery surrounding the near-absence of the Neem tree in the more vegetative parts of the country. If the World Wide Web is to be believed, it appears that Azadirachta Indica, commonly known as Neem tree, was introduced into Africa during the 19th century by East Indian immigrants fundamentally for its medicinal properties. I threw my iPhone on the couch and went into the kitchen to prepare what I'd hitherto considered a wholly African treatment. After enjoying a bath with hot water and Neem tree leaves I reached out to a few contacts to find out what common herbal treatment Kumasi natives use to treat Malaria. The name of another plant was mentioned and I received directions to a home, within walking distance, whose compound I could find the plant to pluck it's leaves, for which I'd pay nothing. This time the World Wide Web was of no help as no one I knew in Kumasi could say the name of the plant in English.

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blastron01 · 8 years ago

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Ascendance of a Bookworm – 058

Reporting to Lutz

The day after the family council, everyone was a little bit awkward around each other. My father's smile looked a little bit lonely, my mother hugged me over and over throughout the day, and Tuuli kept suddenly bursting into tears. However, as the days pass, everything starts gradually returning to the same old day-to-day life that we'd been living before.

"You don't have to do that, Maïne. I've got it," says Tuuli. "Huh? I've got to do it! Aren't you the one who told me that I'll never learn how to do something unless I do it myself?"

Tuuli, who had previously been encouraging me to help out more so that I could work on building my own independence, thoughtlessly takes over my work. It's unmistakeable that she's taking even more special care of me than she already was before.

I'm woken up by Tuuli's excited shout. "Whoa, it cleared up! We have to go pick paru today!"

The sky is still dim and gloomy, but it seems like there isn't much snow falling at all. Tuuli had seen a little bit of light coming in through the window and thrown it open wide to check the weather, letting the freezing air outside come rushing in.

"Tuuli, I'm cold!" "Ah! Sorry, sorry."

She closes the window, then immediately gets started in on her breakfast. I, too, eat my breakfast, while my family noisily hustles around the house. The instant they finished their food, my mother and father started gathering up baskets and firewood. My father, starting to organize things by the entryway, looks up at me as I, still unkempt, chew on my bread.

"What will you do today, Maïne? Are you going to the gates?" "Nuh-uh, I was thinking that I'd go and try help picking paru, maybe?"

From what Tuuli had told me, a paru tree is a beautiful and miraculous kind of plant. I'm not entirely sure what she meant when she said how it sparkles brilliantly with light as it spins around, though, so I kind of want to see it for myself. But, when my curiosity prompts me to say those words, every single member of the family turns to stare at me.

"Absolutely not! You'll either stay here and watch the house or you'll go help out at the gates." "Picking paru is very hard, too hard for you! You'll definitely get sick!" "That's right! You're bad at climbing trees, and you can't walk through snow so it's impossible for you to help."

All three of them immediately reject the idea of me accompanying them to the winter forest to pick paru. Certainly, there's no way someone such as me, who can't even walk through the snow to get to the gates, would be capable of foraging in a snowy forest.

"...Okay. You'll be picking paru until noon, right? So, I'll go to the gate and help out there while I wait for you."

I prepare my tote bag and get myself ready to head out to the gates. I'd thought that since my father had the day off Otto might as well, but it seems that around this time of year he shows up nearly every single day.

My family loads up their baggage, including me, onto a sled, and we head off. I'd heard that everyone in the town goes to pick paru whenever they can, and based on the huge number of people dragging their sleds towards the southern gates, I'd heard correctly. The air is so cold that it bites into my skin, but everyone is filled with such excitement over being able to go and pick paru that the mood is very much like a festival. Even I am getting a little excited too.

"Sorry," says my father to a soldier at the gate, "but take care of Maïne for me. She'll be helping Otto out until noon." "Yes sir!" "Everyone, good luck picking paru!" I say.

When we arrive at the gate, I get off the sled and wave goodbye to my family as they head towards the forest. I say hello to the gatekeeper, who I'm acquainted with, and head to the night duty room.

"Mister Otto, good morning." "Oh? Maïne? I thought the squad leader had the day off, didn't he?"

Otto's eyes twinkle in wonder, and I nod, smiling slightly.

"Yes, since the weather is clear today, he went to the forest to pick paru. I'll be helping out until noon today." "Ahh, I see, I see. Hm, until noon, huh..."

Otto smiles broadly, seeming to immediately understand the circumstances, then starts laying out documents that he needs the calculations checked on. While he works on clearing a space for me to work, I thank him for the advice he gave me the other day.

"Mister Otto, thanks for the other day." "Hm?" "Umm, when you consulted with me about my job prospects. I told my family about the devouring, and about finding a job that I can do from home. When spring comes, I'm thinking I'll consult with Mister Benno, too..." "Ah! Well, taking care of yourself is very important, so if Benno has no idea what you could do, then my door is always open if you'd like to ask about things you can do here." "Alright!"

I definitely notice a hint of something dark in his smile, but now that I've properly expressed my gratitude, I get to work on my calculations, feeling refreshed.

After noon, my family returns from the forest, so I get back on the sled and head home. Since there were three of them out picking today, it looks like they've brought six paru back with them. Unlike last year, now we know that even the dried-up lees is useful, so my mother is in very high spirits.

While my mother works on preparing lunch, Tuuli and I work on juicing the paru. Tuuli grabs the skinniest stick she can find from the pile of firewood, lights it in the fire from the stove, then jabs it into the fruit. In the next instant, just that little bit of the rind cracks open.

"Maïne, here it comes!" "Got it~!"

I stick a bowl under it, so as not to waste any of the creamy white fluid that starts spilling out. Entranced by the sweet smell, we finish draining the juice, then Tuuli passes off the drained paru to our father. He crushes the pit of the fruit, pressing the oil out of it. Since he's able to lift the heavy weight we use for pressing oil, leaving that part of the task to him means that the oil is finished in the blink of an eye. Since the lees left over after the fruit has been thoroughly squeezed has actual use in cooking, we set aside four parus' worth of it for ourselves, leaving the remaining two to give to Lutz's house in exchange for eggs.

After lunch, I head out, bringing both the paru lees and some fresh ideas for recipes. If I could only just use an oven, I could make a gratin or a pizza, but since all I have access too are a griddle and a pot, the kinds of things that I can make are sharply limited.

"Hi, Lutz. Could you trade me for some eggs, please? By the way, I came up with a new recipe, do you want to try it?" "Yo, Maïne! I'm happy about the new recipe, but there's nobody around to help out right now so we can't start on it yet. Come on and wait in here."

Even though I finally brought them a new recipe, Lutz's older brothers aren't here, it seems.

"Where're your brothers? Did they go sledding or something, since it's clear out?" "Those kids went out to earn a little change shoveling snow," says Lutz's mother.

I had no idea this was a thing, since there's no way I could participate, but it seems like some of the heavy labor of shoveling snow is something that kids can do in order to earn some decent pocket money.

"Why're you still here, Lutz?" "Someone's got to juice the paru. If you wait too long, they'll melt, right?"

It's true that you can't just leave paru alone for a while, but I can't help but notice that it looks like Lutz has been stuck with the housework, unable to earn any pocket money, and I'm realizing that he's actually looking a little gloomy. But, since neither Lutz or Auntie Karla are saying anything, I figure that I, as an outsider, should probably keep my mouth shut.

I'd at least like to help them with pressing the fruit, but since that's something that fundamentally requires actual physical labor, it's beyond my capabilities. All I can really do is watch as Lutz smashes the core with a hammer and Auntie Karla presses the oil out.

As I absent-mindedly look on, I suddenly remember that I haven't actually told Lutz about the family council. Letting him know that I won't be working at Benno's shop is something that I absolutely have to do.

"Um, so, Lutz. I've, uh, decided that I'm not going to work at Benno's shop." "What?! Why?!"

Lutz, his hammer raised high, turns to stare at me with wide eyes. Auntie Karla looks over at me as well, her eyes open a little wider too.

"Umm... my mother mentioned something like this, right? I'd just be a burden on you. Plus, no matter how I think about it, I don't have enough stamina for a job like that. I talked with Mister Otto about it, and he pointed out a few different things." "A few things like what?"

Lutz gradually starts moving his hammer again, urging me on with a stare.

"Right, um. So, if a brand new apprentice keeps getting fevers and has to rest all the time, what do you think everyone else that has to work with her is going to think?" "...Ahh. That's..."

Murmuring quietly to himself like he might be starting to understand, he hits his paru. Auntie Karla, firmly pressing hers, squints.

"You'd be a bother to everyone when you're absent," she muses, "and you being absent during your training would hurt you in the long run, too..." "That's right. ...Plus, I've still got lots of things I'm planning on making, and if they wind up being really profitable, I'm going to earn a lot of money, you know? So if there's an apprentice that's always absent, but she still makes a ton of money, wouldn't that ruin human relations at the shop?" "You're right..."

Lutz scowls, nodding in understanding, but Karla looks a little astonished.

"Well," I say, "the bit about the money applies to you too, I think, but if you work as hard as you can, I think people's reactions will be different. I think we should discuss this with Mister Benno in detail, though." "Yeah, let's make sure we talk to him in the spring."

I think it might be possible to keep Lutz's profits separate from his wages. Then, he could be given the extra money secretly. After all, even now, all it takes to give someone money is to tap your guild cards together.

"If you're not going to work at the shop, then what are you going to do after your baptism, Maïne?" "In my case, I don't know what I'm going to do about the devouring, so I'd work out of my home transcribing letters or official documents while coming up with new products, or helping out at the gates... I told my family that I don't really want my lifestyle to change all that much." "Ah, okay. Yeah, that's probably better for your body."

Now that I have Lutz's support, I let out a little sigh of relief. As I do, Auntie Karla's expression suddenly brightens.

"Well, now! If Maïne's not going to work at the shop, then there's no need for you to work there either, Lutz, is there? Now you can be a craftsman!"

I tilt my head to the side, confused. What does me deciding not to work at Benno's shop have to do with Lutz not working there? Lutz, however, raises his eyebrows high as soon as he hears his mother's sigh of relief.

"Huh?! What are you saying, mom?!" "What do you mean?" she asks, a complete lack of comprehension on her face. Lutz clucks his tongue. "I want to be a merchant!" he yells. "Maïne has nothing to do with it! I'm the one who dragged her into it!"

She stares at him, looking as if she can't believe a word he's saying.

"What did you just say?! So, you still are planning on becoming a merchant?" "Of course I am! I really wanted to be a trader, but after I talked with one I learned about how citizenship works, so I decided I wanted to be a merchant instead." "Lutz, why didn't you say anything about this before?!" "I did! Were you not listening, or did you just forget?!"

It looks like she really hadn't acknowledged what he'd been saying. She looks at him as if this is the first time she's ever heard this.

I, not wanting to intrude into a conversation between mother and son, watch quietly from my chair, not saying a single unnecessary word.

"...You did say that you wanted to be a trader," she says.

She shakes her head weakly, a troubled expression on her face. It's clear to see that she's bewildered by how her expectations aren't matching up with reality.

"But, that was just a childish fantasy, wasn't it? That was just something you were dreaming about, not something that had any basis in reality, wasn't it? I didn't actually think that's something you really had your sights set on. I've been thinking that you'd eventually come to your senses."

I think that what Auntie Karla is saying isn't unreasonable at all. It's rare for someone who lives in the city to go any farther than the forest or the surrounding farmland. A trader is a foreigner that unexpectedly drops in from time to time, not someone that anyone typically aspires to be. It's a childish fantasy, and he needs to wake up from it soon. Karla's line of thought is probably pretty typical of people living around here.

"...I really did want to be a trader. I want to leave this city, and go to other cities that I've never been to before. I wanted to see all sorts of things that I haven't even heard of... and I still do! I'm still holding onto that dream." "Lutz, you..."

Auntie Karla rises halfway from her seat, looking like she's about to say something. From her expression, it's probably some sort of objection to his train of thought. However, before she can say anything, Lutz continues talking.

"But, I talked to someone who used to be a trader himself. He told me that only an idiot would give up his citizenship. And traders don't have apprentices, so it would be impossible for me, anyway." "Well, he was right," she says, looking a little bit relieved. She sits down with a thump.

It seems that being a trader is an occupation that is very much something to avoid. I'd thought, naively, that being able to travel the world and see the sights sounded really fun, but I still really haven't internalized enough of this world's common sense.

"So then, once I found out that I couldn't be a trader's apprentice, I started thinking that maybe I could just go out and be a trader on my own. Then Maïne told me that maybe instead of being a trader, I could be a merchant in this city. If I was a merchant, then I could still go to other towns to buy and sell things, she said. It's more pragmatic, and more realistic to try to do." She shrugs. "Well, compared to being a trader..." she says, tiredly. It seems like she had no idea that her son was serious about his plans to become a trader, so this might be a bit of a shock for her. "So, I told a merchant that I wanted to be his apprentice. He was only a second-hand acquaintance of Maïne's, though, so he basically refused me right away." "...Sounds about right."

With how the apprenticeship system works in this town, Lutz's odds of actually becoming a merchant's apprentice were really slim. So, probably, even though Lutz kept telling her that he wanted to be a merchant, she didn't consider it to be any more than some half-hearted ideal. Then, working from that assumption, she might not have ever really fully listened to Lutz when he explained that he actually would be able to do it.

"But, we got him to set out some conditions, and agree to let us apprentice under him if we met them. Maïne and I already met those conditions, so we've got his approval to be his apprentices. So, whether Maïne's there or not, I'm going to be a merchant."

Karla finally looks directly at Lutz, a serious look in her eyes, noticing at long last that Lutz has started forging his own path forward.

"...Lutz, even if you got this man's permission to be his apprentice, did you really think you could do so if your parents disapproved?" "I already decided that I'd do it. In the worst case, I'd be a live-in apprentice. I got him to hear me out, I got him to set some conditions, and I finally started on a path towards becoming his apprentice. I'm not gonna give that up." "A... live-in apprentice...?"

Being a live-in apprentice is probably among the worst lifestyles you could have. First of all, as an apprentice, you can only actually work half of the week, so your wages are low. Plus, you have no family to rely on. A child suddenly forced to live on their own would find it both really physically taxing as well as time-consuming.

His living quarters would be the attic on the topmost floor of the building. Summers would be hot, and winters would be cold. It wouldn't be at all rare for the roof to constantly leak. Carrying things upstairs, especially water, would be an enormous undertaking. It's not unusual for birds to nest in attics, like they do in Lutz's home, so the smell would be horrific, too. Plus, unlike the rooms rented out for families to live in, there wouldn't be any place for Lutz to cook, so he'd need to either get someone else at the shop to let him use theirs or eat out a lot.

Naturally, that kind of lifestyle isn't something that leaves you with any money left over. Rather, he'd need to constantly be taking advances on his pay, putting him in debt. The shop would provide the bare minimum to keep him alive, but until he grew up he would basically be living solely to work his apprenticeship.

"Lutz, think about what you're saying! Do you really think you could live that kind of life?!"

I don't think any normal parent would want their son to have to live such an austere life. She raises her voice so high it's practically a shriek. Lutz, however, just shrugs.

"I can, yeah. I've started preparing for that already."

In Lutz's case, he'll be able to save up the money we're going to make from paper-making during the spring. If we use the bark that we've already got in the storehouse, we'll be able to put quite a lot of money in the bank. By my calculations, even after buying the clothing necessary to be a merchant's apprentice, he'll still have a sizable amount left over.

Plus, during his apprenticeship he'll have half of his days off, which he'll be able to spend with me, developing new products to potentially make money off of. If we can do that, then there's no doubt that he'll be making much more than an ordinary apprentice's wages. He won't have a lot of room in his budget to spare, but I think it'll definitely be much better than destitution. I don't think he'd have enough extra money to rent a place for himself, though, so he wouldn't really be able to do anything about his awful living conditions.

"...You're serious about already preparing, aren't you?" "Very serious."

After a long silence, Auntie Karla lets out a deep sigh, slumping her shoulders. She wears a complicated expression, like she's given up on challenging Lutz's seriousness but still can't give up altogether.

"I still think it would be better if you found a nice, steady job as a craftsman instead of something as unstable as being a merchant." Lutz purses his lips in dissatisfaction. "...If I do what you say and become a craftsman, nothing's going to change, is it?"

Auntie Karla squints at him. Since he just effectively said he's dissatisfied with his current life, her mood quickly grows sharp.

"What do you mean by that?" "My brothers do whatever they want with me, and when I have something they want the just take it, and I never have anything left for myself." "That's... you're siblings, so of course they take things from you, but they give things too you as well, don't they?"

She frowns, troubled. Lutz, however, immediately rejects her opinion.

"It's not like they can give my food back after they eat it, and when I get stuff from them it's all just broken hand-me-downs, you know? And if the hand-me-downs are too awful to actually use and I get something new for once, then they immediately take it away!"

The fact that the youngest child always gets hand-me-downs is something that's true for me as well. However, while Tuuli is always helping me out, Lutz is constantly being ordered around by his brothers. I don't know if that's just what brothers do to each other, but the difference between the two of our experiences is enormous.

"I set my sights on becoming a merchant, worked really hard doing a lot of different things with Maïne, and learned what it's like to actually hold onto something I've earned. I want to see how far I can take myself without anyone getting in the way. I've never even considered being a craftsman."

Lutz, who has always been kept down by his family, has made it his goal to find an environment where he can be free of their control, and he was finally able to find a place where he might be able to accomplish his dreams.

Auntie Karla hangs her head. "I didn't think you were so serious," she says softly. "I thought this was just Maïne dragging you along..." "I wouldn't make this kind of life-changing decision if it was like that..." "I really thought it was, so that's why I was objecting."

She lets out a long, deep sigh, looking down at the floor. She thinks to herself for a while, then slowly raises her head, a smile on her face as if she'd come to accept things as they are.

"If you've thought it through that far, and this is something you really want to do, to the point where you even started preparing to leave home, then why not go for it as much as you can? Your father will probably object, but you'll have at least one supporter in this family." "Really?! Thanks, Mom!!"

Lutz's face is practically sparkling. He had long since giving up on earning his family's understanding, so hearing something so unbelievable makes him so happy he could jump for joy. Until just a moment ago, he'd been forcing himself to look focused, but now his expression is something that a child his age should actually be wearing, and I can't help but smile, too. Having even just one family member on his side must make a whole world of difference.

When his brothers come home, Lutz is still in a good mood. The four of them work harmoniously together as they start making my new recipy.

"Zasha," I say, "could you and Zeke please heat the griddle? Lutz, please grate plenty of cheese and mix it with the paru lees. Then, Ralph, could you chop those lege leaves finely, please?"

While I divide up the work amongst the brothers, I add some paru oil and salt to the bowl that Lutz is grating cheese into. Once Ralph is done chopping the basil-like herb, I add it to the bowl, and all that's left is to mix it and grill it.

"The griddle's hot!" "Alright, then grill this please, like how you do the parucakes."

We grill it thoroughly, until the cheese gets crispy, then eat it. It looks kind of like _okonomiyaki_1, but thanks to the melted cheese that's holding everything together, it has a very western flavor. This recipe is a variation on something I'd come up with in my Urano days, making use of leftover cooked somen or spaghetti noodles by chopping them up really finely.

"It's so simple, but it's so filling!" "It would be really good if you added minced ham or veggies, too," I add. "Yeah, now that I think of it, these would actually make a good meal on their own, unlike the parucakes."

Everyone eats their food, smiling happily about how delicious it is. In the middle of that, Ralph tries to help himself to seconds off of Lutz's plate, but Auntie Karla smacks him in the back of his head.

"Don't take other people's food. That's greedy! How about you grill another for yourself?"

Ralph, who had just gotten smacked on the head, looks at her with mild shock. Lutz does, too. After a moment, Ralph gets up to start grilling up his seconds, and Lutz goes back to eating, relieved. Karla watches the two of them, then smiles. Now that Lutz has convinced someone as influential as her of his problems with the rest of the family, it looks like things have calmed down around here, at least for now.

After that, I return to being a shut-in. My life becomes an endless cycle of handiwork, tutoring Lutz, helping at the gate, and lying in bed with a cold, while Lutz keeps stopping buy to deliver hairpin parts, be tutored, and occasionally bringing completed product over to Benno's shop.

Eventually, the snow starts gradually getting weaker, and my wintry shut-in lifestyle comes to an end.

Translator's notes for this chapter:

1. Okonomiyaki are a savory grilled food, kind of like a pancake with a variety of other ingredients inside.

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