One afternoon late in October I saw Tom Buchanan. He was walking ahead of me along FifthAvenue in his alert， aggressive way， his hands out little from his body as if to fight off interference， hishead moving sharply here and there， adapting itselfto his restless eyes. Just as I slowed up to avoidovertaking him he stopped and began frowning intothe windows of a jewelry store. Suddenly he saw meand walked back holding out his hand.
“What’s the matter， Nick？ Do you object to
shaking hands with me？”
“Yes. You know what I think of you.”
“You’re crazy， Nick，” he said quickly. “Crazy ashell. I don’t know what’s the matter with you.”
“Tom，” I inquired， “what did you say to Wilsonthat afternoon？”
He stared at me without a word and I knew had guessed right about those missing hours. started to turn away but he took a step after me andgrabbed my arm.
“I told him the truth，” he said. “He came to thedoor while we were getting ready to leave and whenI sent down word that we weren’t in he tried toforce his way upstairs. He was crazy enough to killme if I hadn’t told him who owned the car. Hishand was on a revolver in his pocket every minutehe was in the house—” He broke off defiantly.
“What if I did tell him？ That fellow had it comingto him. He threw dust into your eyes just like hedid in Daisy’s but he was a tough one. He ran overMyrtle like you’d run over a dog and never evenstopped his car.”
There was nothing I could say， except the oneunutterable fact that it wasn’t true.
“And if you think I didn’t have my share ofsuffering—look here， when I went to give up thatflat and saw that damn box of dog biscuits sittingthere on the sideboard I sat down and cried like ababy. By God it was awful—”
I couldn’t forgive him or like him but I saw thatwhat he had done was， to him， entirely justified.
It was all very careless and confused. They werecareless people， Tom and Daisy—they smashed upthings and creatures and then retreated back intotheir money or their vast carelessness or whateverit was that kept them together， and let other peopleclean up the mess they had made….
I shook hands with him； it seemed silly not to， forI felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child.
Then he went into the jewelry store to buy a pearlnecklace—or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons—rid of my provincial squea-mishness forever.
Gatsby’s house was still empty when I left—thegrass on his lawn had grown as long as mine. One ofthe taxi drivers in the village never took a fare pastthe entrance gate without stopping for a minuteand pointing inside； perhaps it was he who droveDaisy and Gatsby over to East Egg the night of theaccident and perhaps he had made a story about itall his own. I didn’t want to hear it and I avoidedhim when I got off the train.
I spent my Saturday nights in New York becausethose gleaming， dazzling parties of his were with meso vividly that I could still hear the music and thelaughter faint and incessant from his garden and thecars going up and down his drive. One night I didhear a material car there and saw its lights stop at hisfront steps. But I didn’t investigate. Probably it wassome final guest who had been away at the ends ofthe earth and didn’t know that the party was over.
On the last night， with my trunk packed and mycar sold to the grocer， I went over and looked atthat huge incoherent failure of a house once more.
On the white steps an obscene word， scrawled bysome boy with a piece of brick， stood out clearlyin the moonlight and I erased it， drawing my shoeraspingly along the stone. Then I wandered down tothe beach and sprawled out on the sand.
Most of the big shore places were closed now andthere were hardly any lights except the shadowy，moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. Andas the moon rose higher the inessential housesbegan to melt away until gradually I became awareof the old island here that flowered once for Dutchsailors’ eyes—a fresh， green breast of the new world.
Its vanished trees， the trees that had made way forGatsby’s house， had once pandered in whispersto the last and greatest of all human dreams； fora transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent，compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired， face to face for thelast time in history with something commensurateto his capacity for wonder.
And as I sat there brooding on the old， unknownworld， I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he firstpicked out the green light at the end of Daisy’sdock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn andhis dream must have seemed so close that he couldhardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it wasalready behind him， somewhere back in that vastobscurity beyond the city， where the dark fields ofthe republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light， the orgasticfuture that year by year recedes before us. It eludedus then， but that’s no matter—tomorrow we willrun faster， stretch out our arms farther…. And onefine morning— So we beat on， boats against the current， borneback ceaselessly into the past.
