So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. 于是我们奋力向前划,逆流向上的小舟,不停地倒退,进入过去
A sense of fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. 人们的善恶感一生下来就有差异。
Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people I have ever known. 每个人都认为他自己至少具有一种主要的美德,我的美德是:我是我所结识过的少有的几个诚实人中间的一个。
There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired. 世界上只有被追求者和追求者,忙碌者和疲惫者。
Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. 每当你觉得想要批评什么人的时候,你切要记着,这个世界上的人并非都具备你禀有的条件。
All the bright precious things fade so fast...and they don't come back. 所有的光鲜亮丽都敌不过时间,并且一去不复返。
Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care
人们的品行有的好像建筑在坚硬的岩石上,有的好像建筑在泥沼里,不过超过一定的限度,我就不在乎它建在什么之上了。
. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
这时,天色已经暗了下来,我们这排高高地俯瞰着城市的灯火通明的窗户,一定让街头偶尔抬头眺望的人感到了,人类的秘密也有其一份在这里吧,我也是这样的一个过路人,举头望着诧异着。我既在事内又在事外,几杯永无枯竭的五彩纷呈的生活所吸引,同时又被其排斥着。
他理解体谅地笑了——这笑比理解和体谅有更多的含义。这是那种不多见的使你忐忑不安的情绪能很快地平静下来的笑,这种笑容人的一生中顶多能碰上四五次。它 先是再一刹那间面对——或者说似乎在面对——整个外部世界,然后他就全副心神地倾注到你的身上,对你充满一种不可抵御的偏爱之情。它对你的理解恰是你想被 人理解的那么多,它对你的信任恰像你平时愿意对自己所信任到的那种程度,它叫你确信它对你的印象恰是你所希望造成的那么多。
He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, which you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice 怀着一种创造性的情感将自己全身心地投入到它的中间,不断地为它增添内容,用飘浮到他路上的每一根漂亮羽毛去装扮它。有谁知道在一个人的波诡云谲的心里,能蓄下多少火一样的激情和新鲜的念头。
He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.
9.他是上帝之子,如果这个词还有什么别的含义的话,这里只能用它的本意,他要为天父的事业而献身,服务于这一博大而又粗俗、浮华而又美丽的事业。
He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty
许多种情感鱼贯似地流露到她的脸上,仿佛正被冲洗着的相纸一点一点地显示出物景那样。
So engrossed was she that she had no consciousness of being observed, and one emotion after another crept into her face like objects into a slowly developing picture.
11.我整夜没睡;雾笛声一个劲儿在桑德海湾上凄恻地鸣响,我辗转反侧,像生了病一样,理不清哪些是狰狞的现实,哪些是可怕的梦魇。
I couldn’t sleep all night; a fog-horn was groaning incessantly on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams.
她消逝在了她那奢华的房子里,消逝在了她那富裕充实的生活之中,留给盖茨比的——只是无有。
She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby—nothing.
13.盖茨比比以前任何时候都深切地感受到了财富所能赐予青春的魅力和它所能持有的神秘,感受到了锦衣靓饰的清新怡人,意识到了像银子似的发着熠熠光彩的黛西,安然傲倨于劳苦人为生活所做的拼死斗争之上。
Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the
从这话里,除了能窥测出他对这一无法衡量出的情事之紧张的思考程度,还能推断出什么呢?
What could you make of that, except to suspect some intensity in his conception of the affair that couldn’t be measured?
15. 如果这一情况真实的话,他那时一定感觉到了他已失去了他原来的那个温馨世界,感觉到了他为这么长时间只活在一