The Great Gatsby

1、描写尼克初见盖茨比的第一印象

He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced —or seemed to face — the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour.It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished — and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.

翻译：他心领神会地一笑——还不止心领神会。这是极为罕见的笑容，其中含有永久的善意的表情，你一辈子也不过能遇见四五次。它面对——或者似乎面对——整个永恒的世界一刹那，然后就凝注在你身上，对你表现出不可抗拒的偏爱。他了解你恰恰到你本人希望被了解的程度，相信你如同你乐于相信你自己那样，并且教你放心他对你的印象正是你最得意时希望给予别人的印象。恰好在这一刻他的笑容消失了——于是我看着的不过是一个风度翩翩的年轻汉子，三十一二岁的年纪，说起话来文质彬彬，几乎有点可笑。在他做自我介绍之前不久，我有一个强烈的印象，觉得他说话字斟句酌。

2、描写盖茨比孤独地凝视月亮的语句

I glanced back once. A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby's house, making the night fine as before, and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell.

翻译：我回头望了一眼。一轮明月正照在盖茨比别墅的上面，夜色跟先前一样美好。明月依旧，而欢声笑语已经从仍然光辉灿烂的花园里消失了。一股突然的空虚此刻好像从那些窗户和巨大的门里流出来，使主人的形象处于完全的孤独之中，他这时站在阳台上，举起一只手做出正式的告别姿势。

3、尼克写纽约的繁华，落寞和孤独

I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others — poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner — young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.

Again at eight o'clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were lined five deep with throbbing taxicabs, bound for the theatre district, I felt a sinking in my heart. Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and there was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes made unintelligible circles inside. Imagining that I, too, was hurrying towards gaiety and sharing their intimate excitement, I wished them well.

翻译：我开始喜欢纽约了，喜欢夜晚那种奔放冒险的情调，喜欢那川流不息的男男女女和往来车辆给应接不暇的眼睛带来的满足。我喜欢在五号路上溜达，从人群中挑出风流的女人，幻想几分钟之内我就要进入她们的生活，而永远也不会有人知道或者非难这件事。有时，在我脑海里，我跟着她们走到神秘的街道拐角上她们所住的公寓，到了门口她们回眸一笑，然后走进一扇门，消失在温暖的黑暗之中。在大都市迷人的黄昏时刻，我有时感到一种难以排遣的寂寞，同时也觉得别人有同感——那些在橱窗面前踯躅的穷困的青年小职员，等到了时候独个儿上小饭馆去吃一顿晚饭——黄昏中的青年小职员，虚度着夜晚和生活中最令人陶醉的时光。

有时晚上八点钟，四十几号街那一带阴暗的街巷挤满了出租汽车，五辆一排，热闹非凡，都是前往戏院区的，这时我心中就感到一种无名的怅惘。出租汽车在路口暂停的时候，车里的人身子偎在一起，说话的声音传了出来，听不见的笑话引起了欢笑，点燃的香烟在车里升起一个个模糊的烟圈。我幻想着自己也在匆匆赶去寻欢作乐，分享他们内心的激动，于是我暗自为他们祝福。

4、描写盖茨坐在汽车上的语句

He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American — that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.

翻译：他站在他车子的挡泥板上，保持着身体的平衡，那种灵活的动作是美国人所特有的——我想这是由于年轻时候不干重活的缘故，更重要的是由于我们各种紧张剧烈的运动造成姿势自然而优美。这个特点令他坐立不安，不断地打破他那拘谨的举止。他一刻也不安静，总是有一只脚在什么地方轻轻拍着，要不然就是有一只手在不耐烦地一开一合。

5、描写尼克听了盖茨比的装逼后的心理反应

To my astonishment, the thing had an authentic look. ‘Orderi di Danilo,' ran the circular legend, ‘Montenegro, Nicolas Rex.'

‘Turn it.'

‘Major Jay Gatsby,' I read, ‘For Valour Extraordinary.'

‘Here's another thing I always carry, A souvenir of Oxford days. It was taken in Trinity Quad — the man on my left is now the Earl of Doncaster.'

It was a photograph of half a dozen young men in blazers loafing in an archway through which were visible a host of spires. There was Gatsby, looking a little, not much, younger — with a cricket bat in his hand.

Then it was all true. I saw the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on the Grand Canal; I saw him opening a chest of rubies to ease, with their crimson-lighted depths, the gnawings of his broken heart.

翻译：使我吃惊的是，这玩意看上去是真的。“丹尼罗勋章”，上面的一圈铭文写道：“蒙特内哥罗国王尼古拉斯”。

“翻过来。”

“杰伊·盖茨比少校，”我念道，“英勇过人。”

“这儿还有一件我随身带的东西，牛津时期的纪念品，是在三一学院校园里照的——我左边那个人现在是唐卡斯特伯爵。”

这是一张五六个年轻人的相片，身上穿着运动上衣，在一条拱廊下闲站着，背后可以看见许许多多塔尖[4]，其中有盖茨比，比现在显得年轻点，但也年轻不了多少——手里拿着一根板球棒。

这样看来他说的都是真的啦。我仿佛看见一张张五色斑斓的老虎皮挂在他在大运河[5]上的宫殿里，我仿佛看见他打开一箱红宝石，借它们浓艳的红光来减轻他那颗破碎的心的痛苦。

6、描写盖茨比坐在尼克房子里等待黛西的句子

Gatsby looked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clay's Economics,starting at the Finnish tread that shook the kitchen floor and peering towards the bleared windows from time to time as if a series of invisible but alarming happenings were taking place outside.

盖茨比心不在焉地翻阅着一本克莱的《经济学》，每当芬兰女佣的脚步震动厨房的地板，他就一惊，并且不时朝着模糊的窗户张望，仿佛一系列看不见然而触目惊心的事件正在外面发生。

7、描写黛西的脸和声音

Daisy's face, tipped sideways beneath a three-cornered lavender hat, looked at me with a bright ecstatic smile.

‘Is this absolutely where you live, my dearest one?'

The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear alone, before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her cheek, and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car.

黛西的脸在一顶三角形的浅紫色帽子下面侧向一边，满面春风、心花怒放地朝我看着。

“你千真万确是住在这儿吗，我最亲爱的人儿？”

她那悠扬的嗓音在雨中听了使人陶醉。我得先倾听那高低起伏的声音，过了一会儿才听出她所说的话语。一缕潮湿的头发贴在她面颊上，像抹了一笔蓝色的颜料一样。我搀她下车的时候，看到她的手也被晶莹的水珠打湿了。