Nick Carraway describes the extravagance of the parties at the West Egg mansion of Jay Gatsby. Cars came and went on weekend nights busing dozens of people; two motor boats also were used to ferry people across the bay; Gatsby's station wagon picked people up from the train station. Every Monday morning servants would clean the house and yard after the weekend's festivities and prepare for the weekend to come. The scale of these parties is large. Caterers and supply restockers would come and there would be an orchestra to provide live music. Hundreds would drift in and out throughout the night. However, despite all of these people, when Nick finally goes to one of Gatsby's parties he mentions, "I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited - they went there." Chapter 3, pg. 41. Jay expends all of this money for people whom he may not even know as they merely invite themselves and are welcomed simply for coming. After an initial period of discomfort (Nick doesn't know anyone there), he sees Jordan Baker emerge from the house. Eager for company, Nick calls out to her and they begin to chat for a bit; she continues to carry herself in a casual, disinterested sort of way. This behavior is the same as when the two first met in East Egg at Tom Buchanan's house.
The two wander and socialize among the hoards of people. Two girls praise Baker, recognizing her as the great female golfing celebrity she is. They sit and talk more about the "mystery" of Gatsby and how he obtained so much wealth. One claims he had once killed a man. Another suggests he had been a German spy during The Great War. After hearing enough of this gossip, Jordan and Nick wander around to find Gatsby, who has fallen into obscurity at his own party; McKee, Baker, and even Daisy had made reference to this man previously and Nick has yet to meet him. They enter a great library where an odd drunken man bearing "enormous owl-eyed spectacles" sits staring at all of the books, declaring over and over that "[t]hey're real." Later the man is called Owl Eyes. This emphasis upon the largeness of his spectacles recalls the presence of the billboard figure of Doctor Eckleberg gazing out across the ash heap. The man, an academic judging by his language, rambles drunkenly about a book by Stoddard, "'This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too - didn't cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?'" Chapter 3, pg. 46. Attention is called again to literature as it was earlier in referring to newspaper names and Tom's Rise of the Colored Empires.
Leaving the library, Nick and Jordan sit down near a gentleman who recognizes Nick from when he had served in Europe during the war and they reminisce about France. Next, the man declares that he would like to take Nick flying in his hydroplane. Taken aback by the man's friendliness, Carraway learns that this man is Jay Gatsby. The man's smile had "a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life....It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself," Chapter 3, pg. 48. Nick sees Gatsby as a very rare sort of man, judging just from the way he has smiled at him. After leaving, Carraway's curiosity has become uncontrollable and he asks Jordan for information about Gatsby, but she responds with the same indifference as usual. Her reply is simply that he gives large parties and that's really all she cares about. She mentions that some say he had gone to Oxford University, but she is doubtful. As the orchestra begins to play Tostoff's Jazz History of the World, Nick observes how much Gatsby sticks out from the rest of the crowd, bearing his aristocratic features and looking onwards. Still left alone by the ladies, he is one of the few who is not drinking, much in contrast to Nick's experiences among West Eggers. Jordan is abruptly pulled away by the butler, declaring that she is wanted in private to speak with Gatsby. Casting aside his desire to further understand Gatsby, Nick sits and watches the party's end. All attendees are quite drunk at this point. Many couples begin to argue; a soloist singer weeps since "'[s]he had a fight with a man who says he's her husband.'...Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands." Chapter 3, pg. 52. The title of "husband" is mocked here--they are not true husbands but merely "men said to be husbands."
Jordan emerges at last from her private meeting with Gatsby, mildly explaining that her conversation with him was amazing, but she is unable to talk about it at all. Jordan then rushes off after telling Nick to call her sometime. Jay reminds him that they are going to ride in his hydroplane with the words, "'Good night, old sport.'" Outside there is a halt in the line of departing cars, due to an accident down the driveway. Someone had driven off into a ditch and lost a wheel. Owl Eyes is a passenger in this car, rambling on that he knows very little about driving and is heckled by the crowd, accused of bad driving. Owl Eyes explains that another man was driving, not he. The driver staggers out, asking in his drunken state about the whereabouts of the nearest gas station; he stumbles around and suggests they should try to back the car out, not understanding that the car no longer has a wheel and isn't going anywhere.
Nick looks around and sees the odd figure of Gatsby high up at the top of the marble stairs near the door waving good-bye. The chaos of these events is very similar to that which occurred at the end of Tom's little party in his New York penthouse, when Myrtle was slapped. Here too wives and husbands argue and fight.
Nick reflects on these three nights--the first at Buchanan's mansion in East Egg, the second in Tom's New York City apartment, and the third here at Jay Gatsby's West Egg party--as those which had influenced him the most. More details are related concerning Nick's summer routine, as to where he ate his meals, and how he began to enjoy the feel of New York and its exotic women, whom he would fantasize about. However in the evenings, he "felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others...poor young clerks...waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner - young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life." Chapter 3, pg. 57. Despite an appearance of happiness, Nick's happiness fades into loneliness and isolation at night. He talks about Jordan Baker appearing on and off throughout the summer, revealing a "tender curiosity" towards her. This persists even after recalling a story of how she had moved a ball during one of her golf tournaments and then lied about it. He states simply that women must be forgiven for being dishonest, for it is something they cannot really be blamed for. One conversation the two have concern Jordan's reckless way of living, as he says she's a bad driver; she responds that "[i]t takes two to make an accident." Chapter 3, pg. 59. She believes she can act carelessly and indifferently as long as everyone else is careful to keep out of her way. Nick holds back from pursuing her fully due to his love interest back home, even though he has moved to the East permanently. Due to his morals and sensitivity to those around him, Nick waits to end his supposed love affair in the West before moving on to a new love.
