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The Great Gatsby — Chapter 4 — Page 6

After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of EuropeParis, Venice, Romecollecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only, and trying to forget something very sad that had happened to me long ago. With an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned character leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne. Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to bear an enchanted life. I accepted a commission as first lieutenant when it began. In the Argonne Forest I took the remains of my machine-gun battalion so far forward that there was a half mile gap on either side of us where the infantry couldnt advance. We stayed there two days and two nights, a hundred and thirty men with sixteen Lewis guns, and when the infantry came up at last they found the insignia of three German divisions among the piles of dead. I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decorationeven Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea! Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at themwith his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegros troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people.