Discuss your opinion of Mr. Vercueil seeming to goad Mrs. Curren toward acting on her ideas of suicide. What do you think he hopes to accomplish, and are there specific details in the text to support your belief?

The narrator states: "Because I cannot trust Vercueil I must trust him." What might she mean by this? Is this in any way related to her idea that to be saved she must love the unlovable?

Though the narrator, Mrs. Curren, often speaks of events in her daughter's past and speaks of other relatives, such as a mother and a brother, she almost never mentions her long-dead husband or other significant relationships in her life. What evidence can you find in the text to support the view that even before her cancer diagnosis Mrs. Curren was a solitary person, and how do you think this contributes...