Великий Гэтсби / The Great Gatsby

�What I say is, why go on living with them if they can’t stand them? If I was them I’d get a divorce and get married to each other right away.’

�Doesn’t she like Wilson either?’

The answer to this was unexpected. It came from Myrtle, who had overheard the question, and it was violent and obscene.

�You see,’ cried Catherine triumphantly. She lowered her voice again. �It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic, and they don’t believe in divorce.’

Daisy was not a Catholic, and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie.

�When they do get married,’ continued Catherine, �they’re going West to live for a while until it blows over.’

�It’d be more discreet to go to Europe.’

�Oh, do you like Europe?’ she exclaimed surprisingly. �I just got back from Monte Carlo[40 - Monte Carlo – курорт на Французской Ривьере в Монако, знаменит своим казино, открытым в 1861 г.

�Really.’

�Just last year. I went over there with another girl.’

�Stay long?’

�No, we just went to Monte Carlo and back. We went by way of Marseilles[41 - Marseilles – город в южной Франции, один из крупнейших портов на Средиземном море]. We had over twelve hundred dollars when we started, but we got gypped out of it all in two days in the private rooms. We had an awful time getting back, I can tell you.

The late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean – then the shrill voice of Mrs. McKee called me back into the room.

�I almost made a mistake, too,’ she declared vigorously. �I almost married a little kyke who’d been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me: “Lucille, that man’s ’way below you!” But if I hadn’t met Chester, he’d of got me sure.

�Yes, but listen,’ said Myrtle Wilson, nodding her head up and down, �at least you didn’t marry him.’

�I know I didn’t.’

�Well, I married him,’ said Myrtle, ambiguously. �And that’s the difference between your case and mine.’

�Why did you, Myrtle?’ demanded Catherine. �Nobody forced you to.’

Myrtle considered.

�I married him because I thought he was a gentleman,’ she said finally.