Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary

Roth is dreaming about butterflies in a beautiful meadow when Minetta wakes him for guard duty. Minetta tells him that he thinks he can hear Japs sneaking around. Sitting alone in the jungle, hearing scuffling noises all around, Roth feels a gnawing fear, expecting to be killed by a Jap. He feels there are insects on him, and remembers the roaches in the first apartment he shared with his wife, and her fear that they might have bedbugs too. Thinking about his wife, he forgets her cruel tongue and how she had taunted him about the fact that despite his education he could not make any money, and she becomes a different woman, a composite of many women. He begins to fantasize about taking pornographic photographs, and falls asleep.

He wakes half an hour after he should have woken Brown to...