The Great Gatsby 읽기 42 - 127:1 ~ 131:6

[yum]

“She’s got an indiscreet voice,” I remarked. “It’s full of—-”

- indiscreet : 지각[조심성] 없는(특히 남을 곤란하게 하거나 마음의 상처를 줄 수 있는). If you describe someone as indiscreet, you mean that they do or say discreet things in public which they should only do or say secretly or in private. He is notoriously indiscreet about his private life... Had he been indiscreet in what he had said? ...the duchess's indiscreet be-haviour. (Cobuild 사전)

닉은 데이지가 톰 앞에서 개츠비에 대한 애정 표현을 거리낌없이 하는 것을 보고 데이지의 그 언행이 개츠비를 곤란하게 만들 수 있다는 생각을 하고 있다. 그래서 데이지의 목소리가 경솔하다고 말하고 <~으로 가득 차 있다>고 말하려고 했는데 머뭇거리는 사이에 갑자기 개츠비가 ‘돈으로 가득 차 있다’고 말해버린다.

I hesitated.

“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly.

That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money–that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it...High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl...

- It was full of money : 그것[데이지의 목소리]은 돈으로 가득 차 있다. *이 대목은 여러 점에서 통렬한 느낌을 자아낸다. 지금까지 데이지의 목소리는 닉의 표현을 통해 thrilling, singing, fluctuating, murmuring, husky, thythmic, sweet 등 다양하게 묘사되는 가운데 어떤 낭만적이고 아스라한 분위기를 전달하는 효과를 띠었다. 그런데 여기에서는 이런 이미지들과는 거의 직접적으로 상충하다시피 하는 물질적 이미지인 '돈'이 정면에 부각되며 그것도 바로 데이지의 낭만성을 구축하는 데 핵심적인 위치에 있어 보였던 개츠비의 입을 통해 전달되고 있다. 이는 개츠비에게 데이지가 어떤 의미를 지니고 있는지, 개츠비의 꿈이 무엇에 바탕 을 두고 있는지를 단적으로 보여 준다. 그런 한편, 이 대목 바로 뒤에 이어지는 닉의 묘사를 보면, 도드라졌던 돈의 이미지가 다시금 현란한 수사적 표현 속에 거의 묻혀 버리는 듯하다. (신현욱, p.294)

닉은 개츠비의 말을 맞다고 인정한다. 닉은 데이지의 목소리를 낭만적으로만 보고 있었고 실체를 알지 못하고 있었는데 개츠비의 말을 듣고 깨닫게 된다. 여기까지 닉은 데이지와 같은 부류에 속해 있었기 때문에 데이지의 본래 목소리를 듣지 못하고 있었다. 개츠비는 닉과 데이지와 같은 부류가 아니라서 데이지의 목소리를 객관적으로 듣고 있었다.

데이지의 목소리에서 돈을 빼면 아무것도 남지 않는다. 톰 앞에서 남의 사정을 보지 않고 애정 표현을 할 수 있었던 것도 데이지에게 돈이 있었기 때문이고, 개츠비와의 만남을 유지하고 함께 도망할 수 있다고 생각하는 것도 돈 때문에 가능한 일이라는 것이다.

개츠비는 데이지가 돈 외에는 다른 것에 관심이 없다는 것을 알고 있었는데도 데이지에 대해서 진심어린 애정과 사랑을 가지고 있었던 것은 그렇게 돈으로 가득한 데이지라도 사랑한다는, 혹은 그렇게 돈으로 가득한 데이지라야 사랑할 수 있다는 것을 알게 해준다. 후자라면 개츠비는 애초에 데이지라는 여자가 아니라 돈을 사랑한 것이라고 할 수 있다.

- 목소리가 돈으로 가득 차 있다는 것은 시니피앙과 시니피에가 하나가 되었다는 의미.

- 돈은 우상의 다른 이름. 우상은 자기 자신이 아닌 것을 좇는 것을 가리킨다. 데이지에게는 자기 자신이 없어졌다는 뜻이다.

Tom came out of the house wrapping a quart bottle in a towel, followed by Daisy and Jordan wearing small tight hats of metallic cloth and carrying light capes over their arms.

- metallic : metal과 money는 어원적으로는 다르지만, 역사적, 기능적, 문화적으로는 긴밀히 연결되어 있다.

“Shall we all go in my car?” suggested Gatsby. He felt the hot, green leather of the seat. “I ought to have left it in the shade.”

“Is it standard shift?” demanded Tom.

“Yes.”

“Well, you take my coupé and let me drive your car to town.”

The suggestion was distasteful to Gatsby.

“I don’t think there’s much gas,” he objected.

“Plenty of gas,” said Tom boisterously. He looked at the gauge. “And if it runs out I can stop at a drug store. You can buy anything at a drug store nowadays.”

- 데이지가 톰에게 개츠비를 옹호하기 위해서 한 말을 염두에 두고 말하고 있다: “He owned some drug stores, a lot of drug stores. He built them up himself.”(131:1-19)

A pause followed this apparently pointless remark.

Daisy looked at Tom frowning and an indefinable expression‎, at once definitely unfamiliar and vaguely recognizable, as if I had only heard it described in words, passed over Gatsby’s face.

“Come on, Daisy,” said Tom, pressing her with his hand toward Gatsby’s car. “I’ll take you in this circus wagon.”

He opened the door but she moved out from the circle of his arm.

“You take Nick and Jordan. We’ll follow you in the coupé.”

She walked close to Gatsby, touching his coat with her hand. Jordan and Tom and I got into the front seat of Gatsby’s car, Tom pushed the unfamiliar gears tentatively and we shot off into the oppressive heat leaving them out of sight behind.

“Did you see that?” demanded Tom.

“See what?”

He looked at me keenly, realizing that Jordan and I must have known all along.

“You think I’m pretty dumb, don’t you?” he suggested. “Perhaps I am, but I have a–almost a second sight, sometimes, that tells me what to do. Maybe you don’t believe that, but science—-”

He paused. The immediate contingency overtook him, pulled him back from the edge of the theoretical abyss.

abyss : 이 대목은 톰이 앞서 ‘투시력’을 언급하고 나서 그것이 어떤 과학적인 근거가 있는지 ‘썰’을 풀려고 하다가 ‘지금 당장 닥친 뜻밖의 사태’로 인해 그만두었음을 묘사하고 있다. (신현욱, p.297)

“I’ve made a small investigation of this fellow,” he continued. “I could have gone deeper if I’d known— -”

“Do you mean you’ve been to a medium?” inquired Jordan humorously.

“What?” Confused, he stared at us as we laughed.

“A medium?”

“About Gatsby.”

“About Gatsby! No, I haven’t. I said I’d been making a small investigation of his past.”

“And you found he was an Oxford man,” said Jordan helpfully.

“An Oxford man!” He was incredulous. “Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit.”

“Nevertheless he’s an Oxford man.”

“Oxford, New Mexico,” snorted Tom contemptuously, “or something like that.”

“Listen, Tom. If you’re such a snob, why did you invite him to lunch?” demanded Jordan crossly.

“Daisy invited him; she knew him before we were married–God knows where!”

We were all irritable now with the fading ale and, aware of it, we drove for a while in silence. Then as Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby’s caution about gasoline.

“We’ve got enough to get us to town,” said Tom.

“But there’s a garage right here,” objected Jordan. “I don’t want to get stalled in this baking heat.”

Tom threw on both brakes impatiently and we slid to an abrupt dusty stop under Wilson’s sign. After a moment the proprietor emerged from the interior of his establishment and gazed hollow-eyed at the car.

“Let’s have some gas!” cried Tom roughly. “What do you think we stopped for–to admire the view?”

“I’m sick,” said Wilson without moving. “I been sick all day.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m all run down.”

“Well, shall I help myself?” Tom demanded. “You sounded well enough on the phone.”

138:27에서 데이지는 톰이 정부와 통화하면서 잠깐 수화기 걸이(hook)를 눌러 연결이 안 되게 하고서는 마치 윌슨(Wilson)과 통화하는 것처럼 말한다고 빈정거렸는데 사실이 아니라는 것을 알 수 있다.

With an effort Wilson left the shade and support of the doorway and, breathing hard, unscrewed the cap of the tank. In the sunlight his face was green.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch,” he said.

“But I need money pretty bad and I was wondering what you were going to do with your old car.”

“How do you like this one?” inquired Tom. “I bought it last week.”

“It’s a nice yellow one,” said Wilson, as he strained at the handle.

“Like to buy it?”

“Big chance,” Wilson smiled faintly. “No, but I could make some money on the other.”

“What do you want money for, all of a sudden?”

“I’ve been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and I want to go west.”

“Your wife does!” exclaimed Tom, startled.

“She’s been talking about it for ten years.” He rested for a moment against the pump, shading his eyes.

“And now she’s going whether she wants to or not.

I’m going to get her away.”

The coupé flashed by us with a flurry of dust and the flash of a waving hand.

“What do I owe you?” demanded Tom harshly.

“I just got wised up to something funny the last two days,” remarked Wilson. “That’s why I want to get away. That’s why I been bothering you about the car.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Dollar twenty.”

The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn’t alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before–and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.

- parallel discovery : 윌슨이 자기 아내인 머틀의 외도를 발견한 것과 톰이 데이지와 개츠비의 관계를 어렴풋이 눈치챈 것 사이의 관계.

Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty–as if he had just got some poor girl with child.