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1There was music from my neighbour's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went
2like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests
3diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motorboats slit the
4waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On weekends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing
5parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like
6a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with
7mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. Every Friday five
8crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York--every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his
9back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two
10hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb. At least once a
11fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough coloured lights to make a
12Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams
13crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar
14with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of
15his female guests were too young to know one from another. By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin
16five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low
17and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are
18parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colours, and hair
19bobbed in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of
20cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and
21introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. The
22lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and
23the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a
24cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already
25there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp,
26joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices
27and colour under the constantly changing light. Suddenly one of these gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out
28of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. A
29momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the
30erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the Follies. The party has begun. I believe that on
31the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not
32invited--they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at
33Gatsby's door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves
34according to the rules of behaviour associated with an amusement park. Sometimes they came and went without having met
35Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission. I had been actually
36invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robin's-egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly
37formal note from his employer: the honour would be entirely Gatsby's, it said, if I would attend his "little party" that
38night. He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of
39circumstances had prevented it--signed Jay Gatsby, in a majestic hand. Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his
40lawn a little after seven, and wandered around rather ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn't
41know--though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of
42young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to
43solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They
44were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in
45the right key. As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his
46whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements, that I slunk
47off in the direction of the cocktail table--the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking
48purposeless and alone. I was on my way to get roaring drunk from sheer embarrassment when Jordan Baker came out of the
49house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little backward and looking with contemptuous interest down
50into the garden. Welcome or not, I found it necessary to attach myself to someone before I should begin to address
51cordial remarks to the passersby. "Hello!" I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across the
52garden. "I thought you might be here," she responded absently as I came up. "I remembered you lived next door to--" She
53held my hand impersonally, as a promise that she'd take care of me in a minute, and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow
54dresses, who stopped at the foot of the steps. "Hello!" they cried together. "Sorry you didn't win." That was for the
55golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before. "You don't know who we are," said one of the girls in
56yellow, "but we met you here about a month ago." "You've dyed your hair since then," remarked Jordan, and I started, but
57the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt,
58out of a caterer's basket. With Jordan's slender golden arm resting in mine, we descended the steps and sauntered about
59the garden. A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in
60yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble. "Do you come to these parties often?" inquired Jordan of
61the girl beside her. "The last one was the one I met you at," answered the girl, in an alert confident voice. She turned
62to her companion: "Wasn't it for you, Lucille?" It was for Lucille, too. "I like to come," Lucille said. "I never care
63what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and
64address--inside of a week I got a package from Croirier's with a new evening gown in it." "Did you keep it?" asked
65Jordan. "Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too big in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas
66blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars." "There's something funny about a fellow that'll do a
67thing like that," said the other girl eagerly. "He doesn't want any trouble with anybody." "Who doesn't?" I inquired.
68"Gatsby. Somebody told me--" The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially. "Somebody told me they thought he
69killed a man once." A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly. "I don't
70think it's so much that," argued Lucille sceptically; "It's more that he was a German spy during the war." One of the
71men nodded in confirmation. "I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany," he assured us
72positively.
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