Chapter 3 Summary

Herzog composes more letters as he continues his trip to his friend's house. He starts a letter to Ramona, his current lover. He would love to marry her, but his two failed marriages hold him back. He also starts a letter to a woman named Zinka, another one of Herzog's lovers.

Herzog remembers reviewing a paper by a man named Shapiro. Herzog thought his paper to be simple and repetitive. Herzog wonders in his letter to Shapiro if the intellectual world has come to a stopping point, if "they" are not ready for the next great "development" in thought and teaching.

Shapiro had visited Madeleine and Herzog in the country while the Gersbachs were there as well. Shapiro and Madeleine hit it off as they talked of Madeleine's studies. This made Herzog uncomfortable, for he often dismissed his wife's intellectual life. He saw...