Summary

In Chapter VI, “We Were the Drama,” taking the train overwhelmed the narrator. To escape the noise, she would sneak onto first class cars. She one sat in a “silent compartment,” wearing a hat, drinking “gin and tonic,” and reading (164). However, she could be conflating this memory with a scene from something she wrote.

When the train “stopped between stations,” the narrator studied the “trees and hedgerows” outside the window (166). Unable to move, she “burst into tears” (166). On another occasion, she got lost in Cambridge. Although upset, she told herself she was being silly “and went into a pub” to calm down (167). Visiting pubs and smoking cigarettes were her favorite pastimes during this era. She even had a phase of smoking in the bath (168).

The narrator drank a beer in the Cambridge pub. She asked if the establishment had rooms, and...