Chapter eight I couldn't sleep all night a foghorn was groaning incessantly on the sound and I tossed half sick between grotesque reality and savage frightening dreams toward dawn I heard a taxi go up Gatsby's Drive and immediately I jumped out of bed and began to dress I felt that I had something to tell him something to warn him about and mourning would be too late crossing his lawn I saw that his front door was still open and he was leaning against a table in the hall heavy with dejection or sleep nothing happened he said wanly I waited in about four o'clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light his house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes we pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions and felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for electric light switches once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano there was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere and the rooms were musty as that they hadn't been aired for many days I found the humidor on an unfamiliar table but too stale dry cigarettes inside throwing open the French windows of the drawing-room we sat smoking out to the darkness you ought to go away I said it's pretty certain they'll trace her car go away now old sport go to Atlantic City for a week or up to Montreal he wouldn't consider it he couldn't possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do he was clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free it was this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan Cody told it to me because Jay Gatsby had broken up like glass against Tom's hard malice and the long secret extravaganza was played out I think that he would have acknowledged anything new without reserve but he wanted to talk about Daisy she was the first nice girl he had ever known in various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always within discernible barbed wire between he found her exciting desirable he went to her house at first with other officers from Camp Taylor then alone it amazed him he had never been in such a beautiful house before but what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him there was a ripe mystery about it a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but a fresh and breathing redolent of this year's shining motorcars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered it excited him to that many men had already loved Daisy it increased her value in his eyes he felt their presence all about the house pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions but he knew that he was in Daisy's house by a colossal accident however glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby he was at present a penniless young man without a past and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders so he made the most of his time he took what he could get ravenously and unscrupulously eventually he took Daisy one still October night took her because he had no real right to touch her head he might have despised himself for he'd certainly taken her under false pretenses I don't mean that he had traded on his phantom Millions but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself that he was fully able to take care of her as a matter of fact he had no such facilities he had no comfortable family standing behind him and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to be blown anywhere about the world but he didn't despise himself and it didn't turn out as he had imagined he had intended probably to take what he could and go but now he found that he had committed himself to the following of a Grail he knew that Daisy was extraordinary but he didn't realize just how extraordinary a nice girl could be she vanished into her rich house into her rich full life leaving Gatsby nothing he felt married to her that was all when they met again two days later it was Gatsby who was breathless who was somehow betrayed her porch was bright with the bought luxury of star shine The Wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth she had caught a cold and a made her voice huskier and more charming than ever and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves of the freshness of many clothes and of Daisy gleaming like silver safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor I can't describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her old sport I even hoped for a while that she throw me over she didn't because she was in love with me too she thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her well there I was way off my ambitions getting deeper in love every minute and all of a sudden I didn't care what was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do on the last afternoon before he went abroad he sat with Daisy in his arms for a long silent time it was a cold fall day with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed now and then she moved and he changed his arm a little and once he kissed her dark shining hair the afternoon had made them tranquil for a while as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised they had never been closer in their month of love nor communicated more profoundly one with another then when she brushed silent lips against his coats shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers gently as though she were asleep he did extraordinarily well in the war he was a captain before he went to the front and following the Argonne battle he got his majority and the command of the divisional machineguns after the Armistice he tried frantically to get home but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead he was worried now there was a quality of nervous despair and Daisy's letters she didn't see why he couldn't come home she was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all for Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant cheerful snobbery in orchestras which set the rhythm of the year summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life at new tunes all night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the Beale Street Blues while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled The Shining dust at the gray hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low sweet fever while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed and all the time something within her was crying for a decision she wanted her life shaped now immediately and the decision must be made by some force of love of money of unquestionable practicality that was close at hand that force took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan there was a wholesome bulkiness about his person in his position and Daisy was flattered doubtless there was a certain struggle and a certain relief the letter reached Gatsby while he was still at Oxford it was dawn now on Long Island and we went about opening the rest of the windows downstairs filling the house with great earning gold turning light the shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves there was a slow Pleasant movement in the air scarcely wind promising a cool lovely day I don't think she ever loved him Gatsby turned around from a window and looked at me challengingly he must remember old sport she was very excited this afternoon he told her those things in a way that frightened her that made it look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper and the result was she hardly knew what she was saying he sat down gloomily of course she might have loved him for a minute when they were first married and loved me more even then do you see suddenly he came out with a curious remark in any case he said it was just personal what could you make of that except to suspect some intensity in his conception of the affair that couldn't be measured he came back from France when Tom and Daisy were still on their wedding trip and made a miserable but irresistible journey to Louisville on the last day of his army pay he stayed there a week walking the streets where their footsteps had clicked together through the November night and revisiting the out of way places to which they had driven in her white car just as Daisy's house had always seemed to him more mysterious and gay than other houses so his idea of the city itself even though she was gone from it was pervaded with a melancholy beauty he left feeling that if he had searched harder he might have found her that he was leaving her behind the day coach he was penniless now was hot he went out to the open vestibule and sat down on a folding chair and the station slid away and the backs of unfamiliar buildings moved by then out into the spring fields wear a yellow trolley raced them for a minute with the people in it who might once have seen the pale magic of her face along the casual Street the track curved and now it was going away from the Sun which as it sank lower seemed to spread itself in benediction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath he stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him but it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it the freshest and the best forever it was nine o'clock when we finished breakfast and went out on the porch the night had made a sharp difference in the weather and there was an autumn flavor in the air the gardener the last one of Gatsby's former servants came to the foot of the steps I'm going to drain the pool today mr. Gatsby leaves will start falling pretty soon and then there's always trouble with the pipes don't do it today yet to be answered he turned to me apologetically you know old sport I've never used that pool all summer I looked at my watch and stood up twelve minutes to my train I didn't want to go to the city I wasn't worth a decent stroke of work but it was more than that I didn't want to leave Gatsby I missed that train and then another before I could get myself away I'll call you up I said finally do old sport I'll call you about noon we walked slowly down the steps I suppose Daisy will call too he looked at me anxiously as if he hoped I'd corroborate this I suppose so well goodbye we shook hands and I started away just before I reached the hedge I remembered something and turned around they're rotten crowd I shouted across the lawn you're worth the whole damn bunch put together I've always been glad I said that it was the only compliment I ever gave him because I disapproved of him from beginning to end first he nodded politely and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile as if we'd been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time his gorgeous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of colour against the white steps and I thought of the night when I first came to his ancestral home three months before the loan and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption and he had stood on those steps concealing his incorruptible dream as he waved them goodbye I think for his hospitality we were always thanking him for that I and the others goodbye I called I enjoyed breakfast catsby up in the city I tried for a while to list the quotations on an indeterminable amount of stock then I fell asleep in my swivel chair just before noon the phone woke me and I started up with sweat breaking out on my forehead it was Jordan Baker she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find in any other way usually her voice came over the wire is something fresh and cool as if a divot from a green Golf Links had come sailing in at the office window but this morning it seemed harsh and dry I've left Daisy's house she said I'm at Hampstead and I'm going down to Southampton this afternoon probably had been tactful to leave Daisy's house but the act annoyed me and her next remark made me rigid he weren't so nice to me last night how could it have mattered then silence for a moment then however I want to see you I want to see you too suppose I don't go to Southampton and come into town this afternoon no I don't think this afternoon very well it's impossible this afternoon various we talked like that for a while and then abruptly we weren't talking any longer I don't know which of us hung up with a sharp click but I know I didn't care I couldn't have talked her across a tea table that day if I never talked to her again in this world I called Gatsby's house a few minutes later but the line was busy I tried four times finally an exasperated central told me the wire was being kept open for long distance from Detroit taking out my timetable I drew a small circle around the 350 train then I leaned back in my chair and tried to think it was just noon when I passed the ash heaps on the train that morning I'd crossed deliberately to the other side of the car I suppose there'd be a curious crowd around there all day with little boys searching for dark spots in the dust and some garrulous man telling over and over what had happened until it became less and less real even to him and he could tell it no longer and Myrtle Wilson's tragic achievement was forgotten now I want to go back a little and tell what happened at the garage after we left there at the night before they had difficulty in locating the sister Katherine she must have broken her rule against drinking that night for when she arrives she was stupid with liquor and unable to understand that the ambulance had already gone to Flushing when they convinced her of this she immediately fainted as if that was the Intolerable part of the affair someone kind or curious took her in his car and drove her in the wake of her sister's body until long after midnight a changing crowd lapped up against the front of the garage while George Wilson rocked himself back and forth on the couch inside for a while the door of the office was open and everyone who came into the garage glanced he resisted we threw it finally someone said it was a shame and closed the door michaelis and several other men were with him first four or five men later two or three men still later Michaelis had to ask the last stranger to wait there 15 minutes longer while he went back to his own place and made a pot of coffee after that he stayed there alone with Wilson until dawn about three o'clock the quality of Wilson's incoherent muttering change he grew quieter and began to talk about the yellow car he announced that he had a way of finding out whom the yellow car belonged to and then he blurted out that a couple of months ago his wife had come from the city with her face bruised and her nose wound but when he heard himself say this he flinched and began to cry oh my god again and his groaning voice Michaelis made a clumsy attempt to distract him how long have you been married George come on there try and sit still I mean didn't answer my question how long have you been married 12 years ever had any children come on George sit still I asked you a question did you ever have any children the hard Brown Beatles kept thought against the dull light and whenever michaelis heard a car go tearing along the road outside it sounded to him like the car that hadn't stopped a few hours before he didn't like to go into the garage because the workbench was stained where the body had been lying so he moved uncomfortably around the office he knew every object on it before morning and from time to time sat down beside Wilson trying to keep him more quiet have you got a church to go to sometimes George maybe even if you haven't been there for a long time maybe I could call up the church and get a priest to come over and he could talk to you see don't belong to any he ought to have a church George for times like this he must have gone to church once didn't you get married in a church listen George listen to me didn't you get married in a church that was a long time ago the effort of answering broke the rhythm of his rocking for a moment he was silent then the same half knowing half bewildered look came back into his faded eyes look in the drawer there he said pointing at the desk which drawer that's raw that one Michaelis opened the drawer nearest his hand there was nothing in it but a small expensive dog leash made of leather and braided silver it was apparently knew this he inquired holding it up Wilson stared and nodded I found it yesterday afternoon she tried to tell me about it but I knew it was something funny you mean your wife bought it she had it wrapped in tissue paper on her Bureau Michaelis didn't see anything odd in that and he gave Wilson a dozen reasons why his wife might have bought the dog leash but conceivably Wilson had heard some of these same explanations before from Myrtle because he began saying oh my god again in a whisper his comforter left several explanations in the air then he killed her said Wilson his mouth dropped open suddenly who did I have a way of finding out you're more George said his friend this has been a strain to you and you don't know what you're saying you better try and sit quiet till morning he murdered her it was an accident George Wilson shook his head his eyes narrowed in his mouth widened slightly with the ghost of a superior hmm I know he said definitely I'm one of these trusting fellows and I don't think any harm to nobody but when I get to know a thing I know it it was the main in that car she ran out to speak to him and he wouldn't stop Michaela's had seen this too but it hadn't occurred to him that there was any special significance in it he believed that mrs. Wilson had been running away from her husband rather than trying to stop any particular car how could she have been like that she's a deep one said Wilson as if that answered the question aah he began to rock again and mchavez stood twisting the leash in his hand maybe you got some friend that I could telephone for George this was a forlorn hope he was almost sure that Wilson had no friend there was not enough of him for his wife he was glad a little later when he noticed a change in the room a blue quickening by the window and realized that dawn wasn't far off about five o'clock it was blue enough outside to snap off the light Wilson's glazed eyes turned out to the ash heaps where small grey clouds took on fantastic shapes and scurried here and there in the faint downwind I spoke to her he muttered after a long silence I told her she might fool me but she couldn't fool God I took her to the window with an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it and I said God knows what you've been doing everything you've been doing you may fool me but you can't fool God standing behind him Mikayla saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of dr. TJ eckleburg which had Justin urged pale and enormous from the dissolving night God sees everything repeated Wilson that's an advertisement michaelis assured him something made him turn away from the window and look back into the room but Wilson stood there long time his face close to the windowpane nodding into the Twilight by six o'clock Michaelis was worn out and grateful for the sound of a car stopping outside it was one of the Watchers of the night before who had promised to come back so he cooked breakfast for three which he and the other men ate together Wilson was quieter now and Michaelis went home to sleep when he awoke four hours later and hurried back to the garage Wilson was gone his movements he was on foot all the time where afterward traced to Port Roosevelt and then to gadshill where he bought a sandwich that he didn't eat and a cup of coffee he must have been tired and walking slowly for he didn't reach gadshill until noon thus far there was no difficulty in accounting for his time there were boys who had seen a man acting sort of crazy and motorists said whom he stared oddly from the side of the road then for three hours he disappeared from view the police on the strength of what he had said to Michaelis that he had a way of finding out suppose that he spent that time going from garage to garage there about inquiring for a yellow car on the other hand no garage man who had ever seen him ever came forward and perhaps he had an easier surer way of finding out what he wanted to know by half-past two he was in West Egg where he asked someone the way to Gatsby's house so by that time he knew Gatsby's name at two o'clock Gatsby put on his bathing suit and left word with the butler that if anyone phoned word was to be brought to him at the pool he stopped at the garage for a pneumatic mattress that had amused his guests during summer and the chauffeur helped him pump it up then he gave instructions that the open car wasn't to be taken out under any circumstances and this strange because the front right fender needed repair Gatsby shoved the mattress and started for the pool once he stopped and shifted it a little and the chauffeur asked him if he needed help but he shook his head and in a moment disappeared among the yellowing trees no telephone message arrived but the butler went without his sleep and waited for it until four o'clock until long after there was anyone to give it to if it came I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come and perhaps he no longer cared if that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world paid a high price for living too long with a single dream he must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing roses and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass a new world material without being real we're poor ghosts breathing dreams like air drifted fortuitously about like that ashen fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees the chauffeur he was one of wolf chimes protegees heard the shots afterward he could only say that he hadn't thought anything much about them I drove from the station directly to Gatsby's house and my rushing anxiously at the front steps was the first thing that alarmed anyone but they knew then I firmly believe with scarcely a word said four of us the chauffeur butler gardener and i hurried down to the pool there was a faint barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end aged its way toward the drain at the other with little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool a small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden the touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly tracing like the of transit a thin red circle in the water it was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass and the Holocaust was complete