The Great Gatsby - Chapter 5

Two o'clock and the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires.

But, because the offer was obviously and tactlessly for a service to be rendered, I had no choice except to cut him off there.

The flowers were unnecessary, for at two o'clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby's, with innumerable receptacles to contain it.

The flowers were unnecessary, for at two o'clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby's, with innumerable receptacles to contain it.

Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom.

His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy who was sitting frightened but graceful on the edge of a stiff chair.

His eyes glanced momentarily at me and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh.

I couldn't muster up a single commonplace out of the thousand in my head.

I couldn't muster up a single commonplace out of the thousand in my head.

I walked out the back way--just as Gatsby had when he had made his nervous circuit of the house half an hour before--and ran for a huge black knotted tree whose massed leaves made a fabric against the rain.

Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to Found a Family--he went into an immediate decline.

Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.

Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.

But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding.

He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.

"Do you mean you've been thinking over what I proposed the other night?"

With enchanting murmurs Daisy admired this aspect or that of the feudal silhouette against the sky, admired the gardens, the sparkling odor of jonquils and the frothy odor of hawthorn and plum blossoms and the pale gold odor of kiss-me-at-the-gate.

And inside as we wandered through Marie Antoinette music rooms and Restoration salons I felt that there were guests concealed behind every couch and table, under orders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through.

We went upstairs, through period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through dressing rooms and poolrooms, and bathrooms with sunken baths--intruding into one chamber where a dishevelled man in pajamas was doing liver exercises on the floor.

He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity.

He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray.

While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher--shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue.

While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher--shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue.

There was a small picture of Gatsby, also in yachting costume, on the bureau--Gatsby with his head thrown back defiantly--taken apparently when he was about eighteen.

He went out of the room calling "Ewing!" and returned in a few minutes accompanied by an embarrassed, slightly worn young man with shell-rimmed glasses and scanty blonde hair.

He was now decently clothed in a "sport shirt" open at the neck, sneakers and duck trousers of a nebulous hue.

He was now decently clothed in a "sport shirt" open at the neck, sneakers and duck trousers of a nebulous hue.