SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW
He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favours and crushed flowers.
'I wouldn't aks too much of her,' I ventured.'You can't repeat the past.'
'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously.'Why of course you can!'
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.
'I'm gonging to fix everything just the way it was before,' he said, nodding determinedly.'She'll see.'
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. His lif 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 things was...
...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 were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the walks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees - he could climed to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.
His heart beat faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
----<THE GRATE GATSBY>
'I wouldn't aks too much of her,' I ventured.'You can't repeat the past.'
'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously.'Why of course you can!'
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.
'I'm gonging to fix everything just the way it was before,' he said, nodding determinedly.'She'll see.'
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. His lif 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 things was...
...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 were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the walks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees - he could climed to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.
His heart beat faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
----<THE GRATE GATSBY>
