The party was winding down into a graceless mess, something that had always irritated me. People are at their worst in transition, moving from one life to another. All of Gatsby’s beautiful people were being revealed for the sloppy, irritable, wayward, and human creatures they really were. There was a fight going on in the drive, not even magic could get everyone into the same coats and shoes they had when they first showed up, and the light suddenly seemed to reveal all manner of blemishes where before it had hid them.
