In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, crowds come to Gatsby’s parties. The narrator, Nick, describes them: “People were not invited—they went there.” He adds: “Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all.”
After Gatsby dies, Nick waits for people to come to the funeral. “But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came.” One former party guest, the man Nick calls Owl-eyes, is amazed: “Why, my God! they used to go there by the hundreds.”
Gatsby’s associate Meyer Wolfshiem also stays away. “I can’t do it—I can’t get mixed up in it,” he tells Nick. Then he offers advice: “Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”