Part Five: Return to Zurich Summary and Analysis

Tired and impatient, Joyce watches the war coming with dread. Nora still has not read any of his books. Joyce's biography is in its final stages; Léon helps to "clarify" a few things, allowing Joyce to work in his own version of events and settle some scores with old enemies. Lucia is supposed to be moved from Paris to the countryside for the war, but this does not happen when the institution tells Joyce it will. She is finally settled outside Paris at the same time that Helen, George's wife, begins to have more breakdowns.

Many people are leaving Paris at this time and the Joyces go to Saint-Gérand. Joyce is having bad stomach pains, at times crippling, which are diagnosed as "nerves" but which are actually a duodenal ulcer. He...