Summary

At the outset of Part III, Vera wended her way to the train station and purchased a ticket into the city. She waited on the platform for hours before the train arrived. When an elderly man sat in the protagonist’s train car, she was reticent to share the details of her life with him and told the stranger that she was on holiday. Vera was disquieted by the bustling dirty train station when she arrived in the city. Eventually, the narrator saw a mother with her child and asked the stranger for directions. The woman eyed Vera suspiciously but informed her that she could find pawn shops near the canal. Vera found a map a plotted the route down to the water. At the shops, the men scoffed at the jewelry and candlestick she set on the counters and Vera eventually accepted...