The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight and turning my head to watch it I saw that I was not alone-fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor's mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars.
Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
I decided to call to him.
Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction.
But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone-he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling.
Involuntarily I glanced seaward-and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.
When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.
Chapter 2
About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land.
This is a valley of ashes-a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.