Summary

The community discusses whether to form a new society altogether or to “rush to fill the seats of government [here]” (157). The war continually interrupts the lives of feminists and lesbians. Eileen Gray “did not wait for the war to come upon her” (160) and instead becomes an ambulance driver, as do Romaine and Ida. The violence forces Eleonora to close the Library of Actresses. Lina, appalled at the widespread rape of women during the war, writes political poetry. She compels her friends to “rise and resist, let us strive for justice!” (163). The narrator notes that Lina “could see into a future after ours” (164). The community of lesbians continues to debate the paradoxes of war; although they support a group of women striking in a factory for higher wages, they realize that the women’s work in turn enables the violence.

After the war, Virginia...