【有声英语文学名著】了不起的盖茨比 第4章(2)
时间:2019-02-24 作者:英语课 分类:有声英语文学名著
英语课
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter 4 - Part 2
I hadn’t the faintest idea what “this matter.” was, but I was more annoyed than interested. I hadn’t asked Jordan to tea in order to discuss Mr. Jay Gatsby. I was sure the request would be something utterly 1 fantastic, and for a moment I was sorry I’d ever set foot upon his overpopulated lawn.
He wouldn’t say another word. His correctness grew on him as we neared the city. We passed Port Roosevelt, where there was a glimpse of red-belted ocean-going ships, and sped along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserted saloons of the faded-gilt nineteen-hundreds. Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse of Mrs. Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality 2 as we went by.
With fenders spread like wings we scattered 3 light through half Long Island City—only half, for as we twisted among the pillars of the elevated I heard the familiar “jug—jug—SPAT!” of a motorcycle, and a frantic 4 policeman rode alongside.
“All right, old sport,” called Gatsby. We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet, he waved it before the man’s eyes.
“Right you are,” agreed the policeman, tipping his cap. “Know you next time, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse ME!”
“What was that?” I inquired.
“The picture of Oxford 5?”
“I was able to do the commissioner 6 a favor once, and he sends me a Christmas card every year.”
Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker 7 upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn 8 blinds, and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic 9 eyes and short upper lips of southeastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby’s splendid car was included in their sombre holiday. As we crossed Blackwell’s Island a limousine 10 passed us, driven by a white chauffeur 11, in which sat three modish 12 negroes, two bucks 13 and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty 14 rivalry 15.
“Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,” I thought; “anything at all. . . .”
Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder.
Roaring noon. In a well—fanned Forty-second Street cellar I met Gatsby for lunch. Blinking away the brightness of the street outside, my eyes picked him out obscurely in the anteroom, talking to another man.
“Mr. Carraway, this is my friend Mr. Wolfsheim.”
A small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril 16. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half-darkness.
“—So I took one look at him,” said Mr. Wolfsheim, shaking my hand earnestly, “and what do you think I did?”
“What?” I inquired politely.
But evidently he was not addressing me, for he dropped my hand and covered Gatsby with his expressive 17 nose.
“I handed the money to Katspaugh and I sid: ‘all right, Katspaugh, don’t pay him a penny till he shuts his mouth.’ He shut it then and there.”
Gatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant, whereupon Mr. Wolfsheim swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed 18 into a somnambulatory abstraction.
“Highballs?” asked the head waiter.
“This is a nice restaurant here,” said Mr. Wolfsheim, looking at the Presbyterian nymphs on the ceiling. “But I like across the street better!”
“Yes, highballs,” agreed Gatsby, and then to Mr. Wolfsheim: “It’s too hot over there.”
“Hot and small—yes,” said Mr. Wolfsheim, “but full of memories.”
“What place is that?” I asked.
“The old Metropole.
“The old Metropole,” brooded Mr. Wolfsheim gloomily. “Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can’t forget so long as I live the night they shot Rosy 19 Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table, and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him outside. ‘all right,’ says Rosy, and begins to get up, and I pulled him down in his chair.
“‘Let the bastards 20 come in here if they want you, Rosy, but don’t you, so help me, move outside this room.’
“It was four o’clock in the morning then, and if we’d of raised the blinds we’d of seen daylight.”
“Did he go?” I asked innocently.
“Sure he went.” Mr. Wolfsheim’s nose flashed at me indignantly. “He turned around in the door and says: ‘Don’t let that waiter take away my coffee!’ Then he went out on the sidewalk, and they shot him three times in his full belly 21 and drove away.”
“Four of them were electrocuted,” I said, remembering.
“Five, with Becker.” His nostrils 22 turned to me in an interested way. “I understand you’re looking for a business gonnegtion.”
The juxtaposition 23 of these two remarks was startling. Gatsby answered for me:
“Oh, no,” he exclaimed, “this isn’t the man.”
“No?” Mr. Wolfsheim seemed disappointed.
“This is just a friend. I told you we’d talk about that some other time.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Wolfsheim, “I had a wrong man.”
A succulent hash arrived, and Mr. Wolfsheim, forgetting the more sentimental 24 atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious 25 delicacy 26. His eyes, meanwhile, roved very slowly all around the room—he completed the arc by turning to inspect the people directly behind. I think that, except for my presence, he would have taken one short glance beneath our own table.
“Look here, old sport,” said Gatsby, leaning toward me, “I’m afraid I made you a little angry this morning in the car.”
There was the smile again, but this time I held out against it.
“I don’t like mysteries,” I answered. “And I don’t understand why you won’t come out frankly 27 and tell me what you want. Why has it all got to come through Miss Baker 28?”
“Oh, it’s nothing underhand,” he assured me. “Miss Baker’s a great sportswoman, you know, and she’d never do anything that wasn’t all right.”
Suddenly he looked at his watch, jumped up, and hurried from the room, leaving me with Mr. Wolfsheim at the table.
“He has to telephone,” said Mr. Wolfsheim, following him with his eyes. “Fine fellow, isn’t he? Handsome to look at and a perfect gentleman.”
“Yes.”
“He’s an Oggsford man.”
“Oh!”
“He went to Oggsford College in England. You know Oggsford College?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s one of the most famous colleges in the world.”
“Have you known Gatsby for a long time?” I inquired.
“Several years,” he answered in a gratified way. “I made the pleasure of his acquaintance just after the war. But I knew I had discovered a man of fine breeding after I talked with him an hour. I said to myself: ‘There’s the kind of man you’d like to take home and introduce to your mother and sister.’.” He paused. “I see you’re looking at my cuff 29 buttons.” I hadn’t been looking at them, but I did now.
They were composed of oddly familiar pieces of ivory.
“Finest specimens 30 of human molars,” he informed me.
“Well!” I inspected them. “That’s a very interesting idea.”
“Yeah.” He flipped 31 his sleeves up under his coat. “Yeah, Gatsby’s very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend’s wife.”
When the subject of this instinctive 32 trust returned to the table and sat down Mr. Wolfsheim drank his coffee with a jerk and got to his feet.
“I have enjoyed my lunch,” he said, “and I’m going to run off from you two young men before I outstay my welcome.”
“Don’t hurry, Meyer,” said Gatsby, without enthusiasm. Mr. Wolfsheim raised his hand in a sort of benediction 33.
“You’re very polite, but I belong to another generation,” he announced solemnly. “You sit here and discuss your sports and your young ladies and your——” He supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of his hand. “As for me, I am fifty years old, and I won’t impose myself on you any longer.”
As he shook hands and turned away his tragic nose was trembling. I wondered if I had said anything to offend him.
“He becomes very sentimental sometimes,” explained Gatsby. “This is one of his sentimental days. He’s quite a character around New York—a denizen 34 of Broadway.”
“Who is he, anyhow, an actor?”
“No.”
“A dentist?”
“Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he’s a gambler.” Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: “He’s the man who fixed 35 the World’s Series back in 1919.”
“Fixed the World’s Series?” I repeated.
The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World’s Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely HAPPENED, the end of some inevitable 36 chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people—with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.
“How did he happen to do that?” I asked after a minute.
“He just saw the opportunity.”
“Why isn’t he in jail?”
“They can’t get him, old sport. He’s a smart man.”
I insisted on paying the check. As the waiter brought my change I caught sight of Tom Buchanan across the crowded room.
“Come along with me for a minute,” I said; “I’ve got to say hello to some one.” When he saw us Tom jumped up and took half a dozen steps in our direction.
“Where’ve you been?” he demamded eagerly. “Daisy’s furious because you haven’t called up.”
“This is Mr. Gatsby, Mr. Buchanan.”
They shook hands briefly 37, and a strained, unfamiliar 38 look of embarrassment 39 came over Gatsby’s face.
“How’ve you been, anyhow?” demanded Tom of me. “How’d you happen to come up this far to eat?”
“I’ve been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby.”
I turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there.
adv.完全地,绝对地
- Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民,把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
- I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。
n.活力,生命力,效力
- He came back from his holiday bursting with vitality and good health.他度假归来之后,身强体壮,充满活力。
- He is an ambitious young man full of enthusiasm and vitality.他是个充满热情与活力的有远大抱负的青年。
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的
- Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来,塞进文件夹里。
adj.狂乱的,错乱的,激昂的
- I've had a frantic rush to get my work done.我急急忙忙地赶完工作。
- He made frantic dash for the departing train.他发疯似地冲向正开出的火车。
n.牛津(英国城市)
- At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
- This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。
n.(政府厅、局、处等部门)专员,长官,委员
- The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
- He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。
vi./n.闪烁,摇曳,闪现
- There was a flicker of lights coming from the abandoned house.这所废弃的房屋中有灯光闪烁。
- At first,the flame may be a small flicker,barely shining.开始时,光辉可能是微弱地忽隐忽现,几乎并不灿烂。
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的
- All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
- Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的
- The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
- Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。
n.豪华轿车
- A chauffeur opened the door of the limousine for the grand lady.司机为这个高贵的女士打开了豪华轿车的车门。
- We arrived in fine style in a hired limousine.我们很气派地乘坐出租的豪华汽车到达那里。
n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机;v.为…开车
- The chauffeur handed the old lady from the car.这个司机搀扶这个老太太下汽车。
- She went out herself and spoke to the chauffeur.她亲自走出去跟汽车司机说话。
adj.流行的,时髦的
- She is always crazy at modish things.她疯狂热爱流行物品。
- Rhoda's willowy figure,modish straw hat,and fuchsia gloves and shoes surprised Janice.罗达的苗条身材,时髦的草帽,紫红色的手套和鞋使杰妮丝有些惊讶。
n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 );钱;(英国十九世纪初的)花花公子;(用于某些表达方式)责任v.(马等)猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 );抵制;猛然震荡;马等尥起后蹄跳跃
- They cost ten bucks. 这些值十元钱。
- They are hunting for bucks. 他们正在猎雄兔。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.傲慢的,高傲的
- He gave me a haughty look and walked away.他向我摆出傲慢的表情后走开。
- They were displeased with her haughty airs.他们讨厌她高傲的派头。
n.竞争,竞赛,对抗
- The quarrel originated in rivalry between the two families.这次争吵是两家不和引起的。
- He had a lot of rivalry with his brothers and sisters.他和兄弟姐妹间经常较劲。
n.鼻孔
- The Indian princess wore a diamond in her right nostril.印弟安公主在右鼻孔中戴了一颗钻石。
- All South American monkeys have flat noses with widely spaced nostril.所有南美洲的猴子都有平鼻子和宽大的鼻孔。
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的
- Black English can be more expressive than standard English.黑人所使用的英语可能比正式英语更有表现力。
- He had a mobile,expressive,animated face.他有一张多变的,富于表情的,生动活泼的脸。
adj.流失的,堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 );陷入;倒退;丧失
- He had lapsed into unconsciousness. 他陷入了昏迷状态。
- He soon lapsed into his previous bad habits. 他很快陷入以前的恶习中去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.美好的,乐观的,玫瑰色的
- She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作,生活看上去很美好。
- She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。
私生子( bastard的名词复数 ); 坏蛋; 讨厌的事物; 麻烦事 (认为别人走运或不幸时说)家伙
- Those bastards don't care a damn about the welfare of the factory! 这批狗养的,不顾大局! 来自子夜部分
- Let the first bastards to find out be the goddam Germans. 就让那些混账的德国佬去做最先发现的倒霉鬼吧。 来自演讲部分
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛
- The boss has a large belly.老板大腹便便。
- His eyes are bigger than his belly.他眼馋肚饱。
鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 )
- Her nostrils flared with anger. 她气得两个鼻孔都鼓了起来。
- The horse dilated its nostrils. 马张大鼻孔。
n.毗邻,并置,并列
- The juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling.这两句话连在一起使人听了震惊。
- It is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors.这是并列对比色的结果。
adj.多愁善感的,感伤的
- She's a sentimental woman who believes marriage comes by destiny.她是多愁善感的人,她相信姻缘命中注定。
- We were deeply touched by the sentimental movie.我们深深被那感伤的电影所感动。
adj.凶猛的,残暴的,极度的,十分强烈的
- The ferocious winds seemed about to tear the ship to pieces.狂风仿佛要把船撕成碎片似的。
- The ferocious panther is chasing a rabbit.那只凶猛的豹子正追赶一只兔子。
n.精致,细微,微妙,精良;美味,佳肴
- We admired the delicacy of the craftsmanship.我们佩服工艺师精巧的手艺。
- He sensed the delicacy of the situation.他感觉到了形势的微妙。
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说
- To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说,我一点也不赞成这个主意。
- Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说,我不反对改革。
n.面包师
- The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
- The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。
n.袖口;手铐;护腕;vt.用手铐铐;上袖口
- She hoped they wouldn't cuff her hands behind her back.她希望他们不要把她反铐起来。
- Would you please draw together the snag in my cuff?请你把我袖口上的裂口缝上好吗?
n.样品( specimen的名词复数 );范例;(化验的)抽样;某种类型的人
- Astronauts have brought back specimens of rock from the moon. 宇航员从月球带回了岩石标本。
- The traveler brought back some specimens of the rocks from the mountains. 那位旅行者从山上带回了一些岩石标本。 来自《简明英汉词典》
轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 ); 按(开关); 快速翻转; 急挥
- The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转,撞毁了。
- The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。
adj.(出于)本能的;直觉的;(出于)天性的
- He tried to conceal his instinctive revulsion at the idea.他试图饰盖自己对这一想法本能的厌恶。
- Animals have an instinctive fear of fire.动物本能地怕火。
n.祝福;恩赐
- The priest pronounced a benediction over the couple at the end of the marriage ceremony.牧师在婚礼结束时为新婚夫妇祈求上帝赐福。
- He went abroad with his parents' benediction.他带着父母的祝福出国去了。
n.居民,外籍居民
- In this country children of denizen go to school free.在这个国家外籍居民的孩子免费上学。
- His greatest danger now lie in the unknown denizen of the water.现在他最大的危险是未知的水中居住者。
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的
- Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗?
- Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定,我们就不应该随意改变。
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的
- Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
- The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。
adv.简单地,简短地
- I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
- He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。
adj.陌生的,不熟悉的
- I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
- The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。
n.尴尬;使人为难的人(事物);障碍;窘迫
- She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
- Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。