グレート・ギャッツビー 第四章-16

グレート・ギャッツビー　第四章-16

「その朝、彼女の家に通りかかったら、彼女の白いロードスターが縁石の横にあって、見たこともない中尉と一緒に座ってたの。二人はお互いに夢中になってて、5フィート離れたところに近づくまでわたしには気づかなかった。

『こんにちは、ジョーダン』

　 彼女が不意に呼んだの。

 『こっちに来て』

　彼女がわたしと話したがっていることが嬉しかった。 だって、年上の女の子の中で一番尊敬してたんだもの。包帯を作りに赤十字に行くのって聞かれて、そうだと答えたわ。じゃあ、今日はわたしが行けないって伝えてくれるって頼まれたの。彼女がしゃべっている間、女の子なら誰だってこう見られたいって思う目つきで、将校が彼女を見つめてた。それがロマンチックで、それからずっと忘れられなかった。彼の名前はジェイ・ギャッツビー。それから４年以上も彼を見ることはなかったわ。ロングアイランドで会った時も 同じ人だとは気づかなかったし。

　それが１９１７年のことだったのよ。次の年には、わたしもボーイフレンドが数人できて、トーナメントにも出るようになったんで、デイジーにはあまり会わなくなったの。誰かと出かけるときは、彼女は少し年上の人たちとつるんでたわね。それから、悪い噂が流れた。ある冬の晩、海外に出征する兵士を見送りにニューヨークに行こうと荷造りしているのが、お母さんに見つかったんだって。それが事実上止められて、彼女は数週間も家族とは口をきかなかったそうよ。それから、彼女は兵士たちと遊ぶことはやめて、軍隊には絶対入れない、街にいる扁平足で近眼の男の子たちとだけ付き合ってたわ」

When I came opposite her house that morning her white roadster was beside the curb, and she was sitting in it with a lieutenant I had never seen before. They were so engrossed in each other that she didn't see me until I was five feet away.

"Hello Jordan," she called unexpectedly. "Please come here."

I was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I was going to the Red Cross and make bandages. I was. Well, then, would I tell them that she couldn't come that day? The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby and I didn't lay eyes on him again for over four years--even after I'd met him on Long Island I didn't realize it was the same man.

That was nineteen-seventeen. By the next year I had a few beaux myself, and I began to play in tournaments, so I didn't see Daisy very often. She went with a slightly older crowd--when she went with anyone at all. Wild rumors were circulating about her--how her mother had found her packing her bag one winter night to go to New York and say goodbye to a soldier who was going overseas. She was effectually prevented, but she wasn't on speaking terms with her family for several weeks. After that she didn't play around with the soldiers any more but only with a few flat-footed, short-sighted young men in town who couldn't get into the army at all.