Fitzgerald, Gatsby (Chapter 9), & Eleanor

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter-- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning-- ."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (from Chapter 9)

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Eleanor is sitting in a lounge chair, cradling a cup of moondust tea with her tiny fingers. She's placed a decorative toothpick umbrella inside the cup of tea, imagining this a boat drink, and that we're on a sandy beach. The decorative umbrella is bobbing in the tea, buoyed perhaps by the moondust. This is all happening under the green light in The Little Room. "I'm getting a tan," she says, "isn't this wonderful?" The green light is like a second sun, and this in the middle of the night, with a nearly full moon shining through the open window.
-- Eleanor's Biographer