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It was very late December when Mister Y's masquerade party had rolled around. The event was known of by a lot of people, and I had to admit that I was a bit confused on why it seemed to be so special. After all, Mister Y seemed to host rather large parties every weekend. I had noted that almost as soon as I had moved into my home at West Egg a couple weeks prior.
I had yet to have the pleasure of meeting Mister Y before attending any of his parties, but after being encouraged by my dear old friend, Christine, to attend one night, I decided to do just that. I had chosen a simple outfit for the party; a three-piece suit with a white shirt, a black tie, and a black mask to match. To be quite honest, I found the whole idea of a masquerade party to be rather absurd, and I would have much rather spent the evening with a good novel and my favorite dish from my home country, cooked by my servant, Darius. However, Christine had desperately wished me to attend, and I knew it was important to make connections after my recent relocation to New York, so I went.
When I'd arrived at the party, there were already dozens of people spread across Mister Y's lawn and inside his home—a hundred, at the least, though there were surely many more. I wasn't exactly pleased about this, but my spirits lifted a bit when I recognized Christine and her husband, Raoul.
Raoul appeared about as pleased to be there as I was, although I suspected his prejudice was more the result of the fact that the party was hosted by someone from West Egg. After all, if I knew him in the least, he would rather have died than be known to associate with new money. I was certain that Christine had made him agree to come.
At some point during the night, I'd gotten myself a drink or two and had ended up in a rather nice sub-party of people. I actually found myself to be enjoying my time there. I wasn't sure exactly when the conversation began, but for a long time, I had talked to a man in a very elaborate, very red costume. The outfit itself would have been enough to deter me—what with his skull mask and rather large, stupid-looking hat—if the man had not been exceptionally well-versed on the subject of music. It was incredible to hear the depth of his knowledge. He talked of opera scores and arias, sopranos and tenors, instruments and melodies. One can only imagine his surprise when I told him that I had never even listened to an opera before.
"Why, we can't have that, old sport, now can we?" he asked with an amused little smile. "I'll send you over some records at once. And a visit to the Metropolitan Opera House is certainly in order!”
I found myself agreeing to this. Previously, I hadn’t cared very much for music, but now, it was all beginning to sound very interesting.
The night progressed, and at some point very late in the evening,—or, perhaps, very early in the morning, depending on one’s perception,—the topic of the masquerade's host came up. The man I'd been talking to revealed to me that he himself was, in fact, the one and only Mister Y, and my jaw immediately dropped at hearing this. I'm still not quite sure how I didn't realize it before, though, with how extravagant the man seemed.
Not very long after this revelation, Mister Y had disappeared for a rather substantial amount of time. When I finally spotted him again, he was standing on the marble steps of his lavish mansion and was talking to a woman. She was a young girl of medium height and short, blonde hair, and I immediately recognized her to be a friend of Christine’s, Meg Giry. I couldn't make out what the two were discussing, but the topic seemed to be one of great importance. I was curious, but I didn't care to be so rude as to move closer and eavesdrop on them. Instead, I simply decided to turn around and find where Christine had gone off to, as I hadn't seen her a few hours.
* * *
Days later, I had been invited out to lunch by none other that Mister Y himself—whom I now knew to be called Erik Destler. It wasn't until we were about halfway finished with our meal that I had found out the subject of the conversation between him and Miss Giry from the evening of the masquerade. According to Mister Destler, he had been discussing with Meg his affections for my friend Christine. It was then that he had asked a question that surprised me greatly.
"Nadir, old sport," said he, "you see, Christine and I knew each other years ago, and I was hoping that...well, if it isn't of much trouble to you, would you be willing to arrange an afternoon tea? I desperately would like to become reacquainted with Christine, and this would help greatly.”
I had thought for a long while on this. It took a bit of persuading on Erik's part, but I eventually found myself consenting. If I only I had known at the time that my life would never be the same by the time that summer’s events were through.