Nick wakes as Chapter 8 opens, hearing Gatsby return home from his all-night vigil at the Buchannans. He goes to Gatsby’s, feeling he should tell him something (even he doesn’t know what, exactly). Gatsby reveals that nothing happened while he kept his watch. Nick suggests Gatsby leave town for a while, certain Gatsby’s car would be identified as the “death car.” Nick’s comments make Gatsby reveal the story of his past, “because ‘Jay Gatsby’ had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice.” Daisy, Gatsby reveals, was his social superior, yet they fell deeply in love. The reader also learns that, when courting, Daisy and Gatsby had been intimate with each other and it was this act of intimacy that bonded him to her inexorably, feeling “married to her.” Gatsby left Daisy, heading off to war. He excelled in battle and when the war was over, he tried to get home, but ended up at Oxford instead. Daisy didn’t understand why he didn’t return directly and, over time, her interest began to wain until she eventually broke off their relationship.
Moving back to the present, Gatsby and Nick continue their discussion of Daisy and how Gatsby had gone to Louisville to find her upon his return to the United States. She was on her honeymoon and Gatsby was left with a “melancholy beauty,” as well as the idea that if he had only searched harder he would have found her. The men are finishing breakfast as Gatsby’s gardener arrives. He says he plans on draining the pool because the season is over, but Gatsby asks him to wait because he hasn’t used the pool at all. Nick, purposely moving slowly, heads to his train. He doesn’t want to leave Gatsby, impulsively declaring “They’re a rotten crowd . . . You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
