In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since .
我年纪还轻，阅历不深的时候，我父亲教导过我一句话，我至今还念念不忘。
"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 ".
每逢你想要批评任何人的时候，他对我说，你就记住，这个世界上所有的人，并不是个个都有过你拥有的那些优越条件。
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 levit 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 judgment 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 .
他没再说别的，但是，我们父子之间话虽不多，却一向是非常通气的，因此我明白他的话大有弦外之音。久而久之，我就惯于对所有的人都保留判断，这个习惯既使得许多怪僻的人肯跟我讲心里话，也使我成为不少爱唠叨的惹人厌烦的人的受害者。这个特点在正常的人身上出现时候，心理不正常的人很快就会察觉并且抓住不放。由于这个缘故，我上大学的时候就被不公正地指责为小政客，因为我可与一闻一些放荡的、不知名的人的秘密的伤心事。绝大多数的隐私都不是我打听来的--每逢我根据某种明白无误的迹象看出又有一次倾诉衷情在地平线上喷薄欲出的时候，我往往假装睡觉，假装全神贯注，或者装出不怀好意的轻佻态度。因为青年人倾诉的衷情，或者至少他们表达这些衷情所用的语言，往往是剽窃性的，而且多有明显的隐瞒。保留判断是表示怀有无限的希望。我现在仍然惟恐错过什么东西，如要我忘记(如同我父亲带着优越感所暗示过的，我现在又带着优越感重复的）基本的道德观念是在人出世的时候就分配不均的。
And after boasting this way of my tolerance , I come to the admission that it is 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 serise 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.
在这样夸耀我的宽容之后，我得承认宽容了有个限度。人的行为可能建立坚固岩石上面，也可能建立在潮湿的沼泽之中，但是一守某种程度，我就不管它是建立在什么上 面的了。去年秋天我从东部回来的时候，我觉得我希望全世界的人都穿上军装，并且永远在道德上保持一种立正姿势。我不再要参与放浪形骸的游乐，也不再要偶尔窥见人内心深处荣幸了。唯有盖茨比---就是赋予本书名字的那个人---除外，不属于我这种反应的范围---盖茨比，他代表我所真心鄙夷的一切。假如人的品格是一系列连续不断的成功姿态，那么这个人身上就有一种瑰丽的异彩，他对于人生的希望具有一种高度的敏感，类似一台能够记录万里以外地震的错综复杂的仪器。这种敏感和通常美其名曰“创造性气质”的那种软绵绵的感受性毫不相干---它是一种异乎寻常的永葆希望的天赋，一种富于浪漫色彩的敏捷，这是我在别人身上从未发现过的，也是我今后不大可能会再发现的。不--盖茨比本人到头来倒是无可厚非的，使我对人们短暂悲哀和片刻的欢欣暂时丧失兴趣的，却是那些吞噬盖茨比心灵的东西，是在他的幻梦消逝后跟踪而来的恶浊的灰尘。
My famil 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 .
我家三代以来都是这个中西部城市家道殷实的头面人物。卡罗威也要算是个世家，据家里传说我们是布克娄奇公爵的后裔，但是我们家系的实际创始人却是我祖父的哥哥。他在一八五一年来到这里，买了个替身去参加南北战争，开始做起五金批发生意，也就是我父亲今天还在经营的买卖。
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 .
我从未见过这位伯祖父，但是据说我长得很像他，特别有挂在父亲办公室里的那幅板着面孔的画像为证。我在一九一五年从纽黑文毕业，刚好比我父亲晚四分之一个世纪，不久以后我就参加了那个称之为世界大战的延迟的“条顿民族大迁徙”。我在反攻中感到其乐无穷，回来以后就觉得百无聊赖了。中西部不再是世界温暖中心，而倒像是宇宙荒凉的边缘---于是我决定到东部去学债券生意。我所认识的人个个都是做债券生意的，因此我认为它多养活一个单身汉总不成问题。我的叔伯姑姨们商量了一番，他们俨然是在为我挑选一家预备学校，最后才说“呃…那就…这样吧。面容都很严肃而犹疑。父亲答应为提供一年的费用，然后又几经耽搁我才在一九二二年春天到东部去，自以为是一去不返的了。
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 .
切合实际的办法是在城里找一套房寄宿，但那时已是温暖的季节，而我又是刚刚离开了一个有宽阔的草坪和宜人的树木的地方，因此办公室里一个年轻人提议我们俩到近效合租一所房子的时候， 我觉得那是个很妙的主意。他找到了房子，那是一座风雨剥蚀的木板平房，月租八十美元，可是在最后一分钟，公司把他调到华盛顿去了，我也就只好一个人搬到郊外去住。我有一条狗---至少在它跑掉以前我养了它几天----一辆旧道吉汽车和一个芬兰女佣，她替我收拾床铺，烧早饭，在电炉上一面做饭，一面嘴里咕哝着芬兰的格言。
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man , more recently arrived than I , stopped me on the road .
头几天我感到孤单，直到一天早有个人，比我更是新来乍到的，在路上拦住了我。
"How do you get to West Egg village ?"he asked helpessly.
到西卵村去怎么走啊？他无可奈何地问我。
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.
我告诉了他，我再继续往前的时候，我不再感到孤单了。我成了领路人、开拓者、一个原始的移民，他无意之中授予了我这一带地方的荣誉市民权。
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 .
眼看阳光明媚，树木忽然间长满了叶子，就像电影里的东西长得那么快，我就又产生了那个熟悉的信念，觉得生命随着夏天的来临又重新开始了。
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 .
有那么书要读，这是一点，同时从清新宜人的空气中也有那么多营养要汲取。我买了十来本有关银行业、信贷和投资证券的书籍，一本本红色烫金封皮的书立在书架上，好像造币厂新铸的钱币一样，准备揭示迈达斯、摩根和米赛纳斯的秘诀。除此之外，我有雄心要读很多别的书。我在读大学的时候是喜欢舞文弄墨的---有一年我给《耶鲁新闻》写过一连串一本正经而又平淡无奇的社论--现在我准备把诸如此类的东西重新纳入我的生活，重新成为“通才”，也就是那种最浅薄的专家。这并不只是一个俏皮的警句--光从一个窗口去观察人生究竟要成功得多。
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 inland which extends itself due east of New York -- and where there are ,among other natural curiosties , two unusual formations of land . Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs , indentical 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 .
纯粹出于偶然，我租的这所房子在北美最离奇的一个村镇。这个村镇位于纽约市正东那个细长的奇形怪状的小岛上---那里除了其他天然奇观以外，还有两个地方形状异乎寻常。离城二十英里路，有一对奇大无比的鸡蛋般的半岛，外形一模一样，中间隔着一条小湾，一直伸进西半球那片最恬静的咸水，长岛海峡那个巨大的潮湿的“场院”。它们并不是正椭圆形--而是像哥伦布故事里的鸡蛋一样，在碰过的那头都是压碎了的---但是它们外貌的相似一定会使从头上飞过的海鸥惊异不已。对于没有翅膀的人类来，一个更加饶有趣味的现象却是这两个地方除了形状大小之外，在每一个方面都截然不同。
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 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 Hotel de Ville in Normandy ,with a tower on one side ,speaking 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 eyesore , but it was a small eyesore , 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 .
我住在西卵，这是两个地方中比较不那么时髦的一个，不过这是一个非常肤浅的标签，不足以表示二者之间那种离奇古怪而又很不吉祥的对比。我的房子紧靠在鸡蛋的顶端，离海湾只有五十码，挤在两座每季租金要一万二到一万五的大别墅中间。我右边的那一幢，不管按什么标准来说，都是庞然大物--它是诺曼底某市政厅的翻版，一边有一座簇新的塔楼，上面疏疏落落地覆盖着一层常春藤，还有一座大理石游泳池，以及四十多英亩的草坪和花园。这是盖茨比的公园，不过当时我还不认识他。或者更确切地说这是一位姓盖茨比的阔人所住的公馆。我自已的房子实在难看，幸而很小，没有被人注意，因此我才有缘欣赏一片海景，欣赏我邻居草坪的一部分，并且以能与百万富翁为邻居引以自慰--所有这一切每月只需出八十美元。
Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water , and the history of summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Bushanans . 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.
小湾对岸，东卵豪华住宅区的洁白的宫殿式的大厦沿着光彩夺目，那个夏天的故事是从我开车去那边到汤姆.布坎农夫妇家吃饭的那个晚上才真正开始的。黛西是我远房表妹，汤姆是我在大学里就认识的。大战刚刚结束之后，我在芝加哥还在他们家住过两天。
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.
她的丈夫，除了擅长其他各种运动之外，曾经是纽黑文有史以来最大的橄榄球运动员之一-----也可说是个全国闻名的人物。这种人二十一岁就在有限范围内取得登峰造极的成就，从此以后一切都不免有走下坡路的味道了。他家里非常有钱--还在大学时他那样任意花钱已经遭人非议，但现在他离开了芝加哥搬到东部来，搬家的那个排场可真要使人惊讶不已。比方说，他从森林湖运来整整一群打马球用的马匹。在我这一辈人中竟然还有人阔到能够干这种事，实在令人难以置信。
Why they came East I don't know .They had spent a year in France for no particular reason , and then drifted here and three 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.
他们为什么到东部来，我并不知道。他们并没有特殊的理由，在法国待了一年，后来又不安定地东飘西荡，所去的地方都有人打马球，而且大家都有钱。这次是定居了，黛西在电话里说。可是我并不相信---我看不透黛西的心思，不过我觉得汤姆会为追寻某场无法重演的球赛的戏剧性的激奋，就这样略有怅惘地永远飘荡下去。
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 reflectted 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 .
于是，在一个温暖有风的晚上，我开车到东卵去看望两个我几乎完全不了解的老朋友。他们的房子比我料想的还要豪华，一座鲜明悦目，红白二色的乔治王殖民时代的大厦，面临着海湾。草坪从海滩起步，直奔大门，足足有四分之一英里，一路跨过日晷、砖径和火红的花园--最后跑到房跟前，仿佛借助于奔跑的势头，爽性变成绿油油的常春藤，沿着墙往上爬。房子正面有一溜法国式的落地长窗，此刻在夕照中金光闪闪，迎着午后的暖风敞开着。汤姆.布坎农身穿骑装，两腿叉开，站在前门阳台上。
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 awank 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.
他从纽黑文时代以来，他样子已经变了。现在他是三十多岁的人了，身体健壮，头发稻草色，嘴角略带狠相，举止高傲。两只炯炯有神的傲慢的眼睛已经在他脸上占了支配地位，给人一种永远盛气凌人的印象。即使他那套像女人穿的优雅的骑装也掩藏不住那个身躯的巨大体力---他仿佛填满了那双雪亮的皮靴，把上面的带子绷得紧紧的，他的肩膀转动时，你可以看到一大块肌肉在他薄薄的上衣下面移动。这是一具力大无比的身躯，一具残忍的身躯。
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 .
他说话的声音，又粗又大的男高音，增添了他给人的性情暴戾的印象。他说起话来还带着一种长辈教训人的口吻，即使对他喜欢的人了一样。因此在纽黑文的时候对他恨之入骨的大有人在。
"Now ,don't think my opinion on these matters it 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 .
我说，你可别认为我在这些问题上的意见是说了算的，他仿佛在说，仅仅因为我力气比你大，比你更有男子汉气概。我们俩属于同一个高年级学生联谊会，然而我们的关系并不密切，我总觉得他很看重我，而且带着他那特有的粗野、蛮横的怅惘神气，希望我也喜欢他。
We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
我们在阳光和煦的阳台上谈了几分钟。
"I've got a nice place here ,"he said ,his eyes flashing about restlessly.
我这地方很不错。他说，他的眼睛不停地四处张望。
Turning me around by one arm ,he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista ,including in ite sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep ,pungent roses ,and a snub-nosed motor-boat that bumped the tide offshore .
他抓住我的一只胳臂把我转过身来，伸出一只巨大的手掌指点眼前的景色，在他一挥手之中呈现在我们面前的有一座意大利式的凹型花园，半英亩地深色的、浓郁的玫瑰花，以及一艘在岸边随着浪潮起伏的狮子鼻的汽艇。
"It belonged to Demaine ,the oil man ".He turned me around again ,politely and abruptly ."We'll go inside ."
这地方原来属于石油大王德梅因。他又把我推转过身来，客客气气但是不容分说，我们到里面去吧。
We walked through a high hallway into a bright cosy-colored space ,fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end .The window 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 .
我们穿过一条高高的走廊，走进一间宽敞明亮的玫瑰色的屋子。两头都是落地长窗，把这间屋子轻巧地嵌在这座房子当中。这些长窗都半开着，在外面嫩绿的草地的映衬下，显得晶莹耀眼，那片草仿佛要长到室内来似的。一阵轻风吹过屋里，把窗帘从一头吹进来，又从另一头吹出去，好像一面面白旗，吹向开花板上糖花结婚蛋糕似的装饰；然后轻轻拂过绛色地毯，留下一阵阴影，有如风吹海面。
