The “death car” as the newspapers called it, didn’t stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment and then disappeared around the next bend. Michaelis wasn’t even sure of its color– he told the first policeman that it was light green. The other car, the one going toward New York, came to rest a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick, dark blood with the dust.
- death car : A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends.
- Michaelis : 초판과 Trimalchio에는 Mavromichaelis로 되어 있었는데 저자가 Michaelis로 수정.
Michaelis and this man reached her first but when they had torn open her shirtwaist still damp with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long.
- her left breast was swinging loose like a flap : Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees–he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder. (134:5-10) 이 문장에서 pap(젖꼭지)은 breast와 연관되고 이는 생명을 주는 원천이라는 뜻을 가지고 있다.
이 소설의 마지막에 a fresh, green breast of the new world(217:22)와 관련되는 구절. 새로운 세계인 미국은 새로운 세계의 신선하고 푸른 유방이었지만 현재는 머틀의 한쪽 가슴이 훼손되고 여자도 죽은 상태로 생명력이 없어졌음을 상징적으로 보여준다.
- vitality : 머틀을 묘사하면서 사용한 단어: Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-dechine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. (30:11-15)
We saw the three or four automobiles and the crowd when we were still some distance away.
“Wreck!” said Tom. “That’s good. Wilson’ll have a little business at last.”
- 윌슨의 카센터를 묘사하면서 wreck이란 단어 사용: The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. (29:11-13)
business 단어의 다양한 사용
“All this ‘old sport’ business. Where’d you pick that up?” (152:20-21)
“That drug store business was just small change,” continued Tom slowly (161:23)
Michaelis advised him to go to bed but Wilson refused, saying that he’d miss a lot of business if he did. (164:3-5)
A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting; before he could move from his door the business was over. (165:6-8)
Wilson’ll have a little business at last. (166:1-2)
He slowed down, but still without any intention of stopping until, as we came nearer, the hushed intent faces of the people at the garage door made him automatically put on the brakes.
“We’ll take a look,” he said doubtfully, “just a look.”
I became aware now of a hollow, wailing sound which issued incessantly from the garage, a sound which as we got out of the coupé and walked toward the door resolved itself into the words “Oh, my God!” uttered over and over in a gasping moan.
“There’s some bad trouble here,” said Tom excitedly.
He reached up on tiptoes and peered over a circle of heads into the garage which was lit only by a yellow light in a swinging wire basket overhead. Then he made a harsh sound in his throat and with a violent thrusting movement of his powerful arms pushed his way through.
swinging : 너덜더덜해진 머틀의 왼쪽 가슴을 묘사할 때도 swinging 이라는 말을 사용했다: her left breast was swinging loose like a flap (165:22-23)
The circle closed up again with a running murmur of expostulation; it was a minute before I could see anything at all. Then new arrivals disarranged the line and Jordan and I were pushed suddenly inside.
Myrtle Wilson’s body wrapped in a blanket and then in another blanket as though she suffered from a chill in the hot night lay on a work table by the wall and Tom, with his back to us, was bending over it, motionless. Next to him stood a motorcycle policeman taking down names with much sweat and correction in a little book. At first I couldn’t find the source of the high, groaning words that echoed clamorously through the bare garage–then I saw Wilson standing on the raised threshold of his office, swaying back and forth and holding to the doorposts with both hands. Some man was talking to him in a low voice and attempting from time to time to lay a hand on his shoulder, but Wilson neither heard nor saw. His eyes would drop slowly from the swinging light to the laden table by the wall and then jerk back to the light again and he gave out incessantly his high horrible call.
- bare garage : 2장에 윌슨의 정비소 묘사 부분에도 bare가 사용됨: The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. (29:11-13)
- Wilson standing on the raised threshold of his office, swaying back and forth and holding to the doorposts with both hands. : 구약성경 사사기에 나오는 삼손의 최후의 모습과 흡사하다.
“O, my Ga-od! O, my Ga-od! Oh, Ga-od! Oh, my Ga-od!”
Presently Tom lifted his head with a jerk and after staring around the garage with glazed eyes addressed a mumbled incoherent remark to the policeman.
“M-a-v–” the policeman was saying, “–o—-”
“No,–r–” corrected the man, “M-a-v-r-o—-”
- mavro : 그리스어 μαύρος (mávros)에서 유래하여 "검은색" 또는 "어두운"을 의미. 피츠제럴드는 Michaelis를 Mavromichaelis로 했었는데 이 사람이 그리스인이면서 흑인이라는 뜻을 담으려고 했던 것이 아닌가 추측된다.
“Listen to me!” muttered Tom fiercely.
“r–” said the policeman, “o—-”
“g—-”
“g–” He looked up as Tom’s broad hand fell sharply on his shoulder. “What you want, fella?”
- Wilson의 이름은 George B. Wilson. 윌슨도 자기의 이름을 말하려고 했던 것일까?
“What happened–that’s what I want to know!”
“Auto hit her. Ins’antly killed.”
“Instantly killed,” repeated Tom, staring.
“She ran out ina road. Son-of-a-bitch didn’t even stopus car.”
ina : = in a
stopus : = stop his
“There was two cars,” said Michaelis, “one comin’, one goin’, see?”
“Going where?” asked the policeman keenly.
“One goin’ each way. Well, she–” His hand rose toward the blankets but stopped half way and fell to his side, “–she ran out there an’ the one comin’ from N’York knock right into her goin’ thirty or forty miles an hour.”
“What’s the name of this place here?” demanded the officer.
“Hasn’t got any name.”
A pale, well-dressed Negro stepped near.
“It was a yellow car,” he said, “big yellow car. New.”
“See the accident?” asked the policeman.
“No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster’n forty. Going fifty, sixty.”
“Come here and let’s have your name. Look out now. I want to get his name.”
Some words of this conversation must have reached Wilson swaying in the office door, for suddenly a new theme found voice among his gasping cries.
“You don’t have to tell me what kind of car it was! I know what kind of car it was!”
Watching Tom I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson and standing in front of him seized him firmly by the upper arms.
“You’ve got to pull yourself together,” he said with soothing gruffness.
Wilson’s eyes fell upon Tom; he started up on his tiptoes and then would have collapsed to his knees had not Tom held him upright.
“Listen,” said Tom, shaking him a little. “I just got here a minute ago, from New York. I was bringing you that coupé we’ve been talking about. That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn’t mine, do you hear? I haven’t seen it all afternoon.”
Only the Negro and I were near enough to hear what he said but the policeman caught something in the tone and looked over with truculent eyes.
“What’s all that?” he demanded.
“I’m a friend of his.” Tom turned his head but kept his hands firm on Wilson’s body. “He says he knows the car that did it...It was a yellow car.”
Some dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspiciously at Tom.
“And what color’s your car?”
“It’s a blue car, a coupé.”
“We’ve come straight from New York,” I said.
Some one who had been driving a little behind us confirmed this and the policeman turned away.
“Now, if you’ll let me have that name again correct—-”
Picking up Wilson like a doll Tom carried him into the office, set him down in a chair and came back.
“If somebody’ll come here and sit with him!” he snapped authoritatively. He watched while the two men standing closest glanced at each other and went unwillingly into the room. Then Tom shut the door on them and came down the single step, his eyes avoiding the table. As he passed close to me he whispered “Let’s get out.”
Self consciously, with his authoritative arms breaking the way, we pushed through the still gathering
crowd, passing a hurried doctor, case in hand, who had been sent for in wild hope half an hour ago.
Tom drove slowly until we were beyond the bend– then his foot came down hard and the coupé raced along through the night. In a little while I heard a low husky sob and saw that the tears were overflowing down his face.
이 장면에서 톰은 전혀 대범하지 못하고 비겁하며 거짓말을 아무렇지도 않게 하는 사람으로 보인다. 그러면서도 다른 사람이 알아주든 알아주지 않든 자신의 권위를 내세우는 인물이라는 것을 알게 해준다.
“The God Damn coward!” he whimpered. “He didn’t even stop his car.”