The Great Gatsby — Page 126

我们会坐上好几个小时——"

We'd sit for hours—"

他戛然而止，开始在一条满是果皮、废弃彩带和残花败叶的荒凉小径上踱来踱去。

He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favours and crushed flowers.

"我不会对她要求太多，"我试探着说道。"你没办法重复过去的。"

"I wouldn't ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can't repeat the past."

"没办法重复过去？"他难以置信地喊道。"当然可以！"

"Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!"

他疯狂地环顾四周，仿佛过去就潜伏在他屋子的阴影里，就在他伸手够不到的地方。

He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

"我要把一切都恢复成原来的样子，"他坚定地点着头说。"她会明白的。"

"I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before," he said, nodding determinedly. "She'll see."

他大谈过去，我渐渐明白，他想找回某样东西——也许是他爱上黛西时失去的某种自我意识。

He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy.

从那以后，他的生活一直混乱而无序，但如果他能回到某个起点，慢慢重新走一遍，也许就能找回那样东西……

His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was …

……五年前的一个秋夜，树叶纷纷飘落，他们沿街漫步，走到一处没有树木的地方，月光将人行道映照得一片雪白。

… One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight.

他们在这里停下脚步，转身面对彼此。

They stopped here and turned toward each other.

那是一个凉爽的夜晚，弥漫着一种神秘的悸动——那是每年两度季节更替时才有的气息。

Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year.

屋中柔和的灯光向黑暗中低低地嗡鸣着，繁星之间也似乎涌动着一阵喧嚣与骚动。

The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars.