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1I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn't
2call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone--he stretched out his arms toward the dark
3water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced
4seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a
5dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness. II About
6halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a
7mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes
8grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and
9rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the
10powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to
11rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens
12their obscure operations from your sight. But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly
13over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue
14and gigantic--their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow
15spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his
16practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But
17his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground. The
18valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the
19passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of
20at least a minute, and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan's mistress. The fact that he had one was
21insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular cafés with her
22and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew. Though I was curious to see her, I had
23no 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
24ash-heaps he jumped to his feet and, taking hold of my elbow, literally forced me from the car. "We're getting off," he
25insisted. "I want you to meet my girl." I think he'd tanked up a good deal at luncheon, and his determination to have my
26company bordered on violence. The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do. I
27followed him over a low whitewashed railroad fence, and we walked back a hundred yards along the road under Doctor
28Eckleburg's persistent stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the
29waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it, and contiguous to absolutely nothing. One of the three
30shops it contained was for rent and another was an all-night restaurant, approached by a trail of ashes; the third was a
31garage--Repairs. George B. Wilson. Cars bought and sold.--and I followed Tom inside. The interior was unprosperous and
32bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to me
33that this shadow of a garage must be a blind, and that sumptuous and romantic apartments were concealed overhead, when
34the proprietor himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. He was a blond,
35spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome. When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.
36"Hello, Wilson, old man," said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. "How's business?" "I can't complain,"
37answered Wilson unconvincingly. "When are you going to sell me that car?" "Next week; I've got my man working on it
38now." "Works pretty slow, don't he?" "No, he doesn't," said Tom coldly. "And if you feel that way about it, maybe I'd
39better sell it somewhere else after all." "I don't mean that," explained Wilson quickly. "I just meant--" His voice
40faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment the
41thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly
42stout, but she carried her flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue
43crêpe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if
44the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a
45ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips, and without turning around spoke to
46her husband in a soft, coarse voice: "Get some chairs, why don't you, so somebody can sit down." "Oh, sure," agreed
47Wilson hurriedly, and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement colour of the walls. A white
48ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity--except his wife, who moved
49close to Tom. "I want to see you," said Tom intently. "Get on the next train." "All right." "I'll meet you by the
50newsstand on the lower level." She nodded and moved away from him just as George Wilson emerged with two chairs from his
51office 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,
52scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track. "Terrible place, isn't it," said Tom,
53exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg. "Awful." "It does her good to get away." "Doesn't her husband object?"
54"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
55his girl and I went up together to New York--or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom
56deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train. She had changed her dress to a
57brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York. At
58the newsstand she bought a copy of Town Tattle and a moving-picture magazine, and in the station drugstore some cold
59cream and a small flask of perfume. Upstairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxicabs drive away before she
60selected a new one, lavender-coloured with grey upholstery, and in this we slid out from the mass of the station into
61the glowing sunshine. But immediately she turned sharply from the window and, leaning forward, tapped on the front
62glass. "I want to get one of those dogs," she said earnestly. "I want to get one for the apartment. They're nice to
63have--a dog." We backed up to a grey old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller. In a basket swung
64from his neck cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed. "What kind are they?" asked Mrs. Wilson
65eagerly, as he came to the taxi-window. "All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?" "I'd like to get one of those police
66dogs; I don't suppose you got that kind?" The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one
67up, wriggling, by the back of the neck. "That's no police dog," said Tom. "No, it's not exactly a police dog," said the
68man with disappointment in his voice. "It's more of an Airedale." He passed his hand over the brown washrag of a back.
69"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.
70Wilson enthusiastically. "How much is it?" "That dog?" He looked at it admiringly. "That dog will cost you ten dollars."
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