Scott Fitzgerald: "The Great Gatsby (*2)"







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 favor. 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. 


In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. 

There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.” 



Comments

  1. “It was a strange coincidence,” I said.
    “But it wasn’t a coincidence at all.”
    “Why not?”
    “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.”
    Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor.
    “He wants to know,” continued Jordan, “if you’ll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over.”
    The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths-so that he could “come over” some afternoon to a stranger’s garden.
    “Did I have to know all this before he could ask such a little thing?”
    “He’s afraid, he’s waited so long. He thought you might be offended. You see, he’s a regular tough underneath it all.”

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  2. Muy buena, Avellaneda! (y gracias, porque eres el único que pone comentarios). Tengo que dedidicar tiempo a tu blog (si recuerdo bien tenías uno)!

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