Part 3 Section 9 Summary

The date is March 8th. The narrator notes that Olivia's letters to Marcia really began at this time. She had written Marcia before but infrequently and without great detail: After the Nawab's picnic, she wrote as though relieved to have someone in which to confide (she had meant to tell Douglas about the picnic but had not). The narrator wonders at how strange and far off her letters must have seemed to Marcia, who was, at the time, living in France and getting involved with increasingly "difficult" people. The narrator's mornings in Satipur have developed a routine: she wakes up and listens to the temple bells, waits until the fires have been lit, purchases food at the bazaar, cooks herself a meal and works on her papers—her journal and Olivia's letters to Marcia. Some days she visits the post...