(no subject)
Gatsby,
This book is for you.
Your friend,
Nick
The note felt unusually delicate in his hand. Lady Bar had given it to him the moment he'd come downstairs for a bite to eat, or maybe a drink. He didn't remember. The word 'good-bye' wasn't written anywhere in the note, but he knew what it meant.
To say that he hadn't felt shock when he scanned the cover of the book would be telling a lie.
The Great Gatsby.
The words this book is for you took on a whole new meaning. So, dressed as dapperly as ever, James Gatz carefully peeled the note from the novel in his hands, folding the tape over and tucking the paper into the breast pocket of his jacket.
Nick Carraway was gone.
Were anyone watching, they would have noticed that the man was trembling, staring somewhere a few inches above the book, just barely biting down upon his lower lip.
It took him some time to recover, but he managed. He turned away from Lady Bar, leaving his errand for food unfinished. He didn't need it, truth be told, and he felt very much as though it would become irrelevant in light of what he had received.
He wound his way slowly across the floor, avoiding eye contact with the patrons and waitrats before choosing an unoccupied table by the Observation Window. He set the book carefully on the table, staring up into the glass for some time before finally sitting down.
“They’re a rotten crowd.
You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
With as much care as a surgeon might put into an operation, he turned the pages of the book until he reached the page he'd been looking for.
Chapter One
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave
me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me,
“just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the
advantages that you’ve had.”
And, as he had tried so hard not to do when he had first met Nick here, at the end of all things, he began to cry.
tiny tag: james gatsby