Chapters 1 - 3 Summary

Chapter 1:

The narrator describes traveling out of Paris, a city he loathes for its artificiality and bustle, into the French countryside. His destination is a small rural town named Autun. On the train ride he remarks on the people around him: a French man with a mismatched blue suit and a chubby women with conspicuous, purple birthmarks. He drifts to sleep for awhile and wakes up in time to see Autun's characteristic spire extend into the sky. His stop arrives and he is one of only a few people to exit. He sees the house he will be staying in, a house owned by his friends, the Wheatlands. It is a large stone house with enormous windows showing obvious signs of its old age.

Chapter 2:

He wakes early in the next morning and begins his daily life there. He finds himself...