Act 1 Part 5 Summary

A brief conversation between Cynthia and Jean about whether Jean will continue her medical career once she's had her baby leads to Cynthia abruptly going back out to the dig, and Jean wondering whether something's wrong with her.

Delia asks whether Jean knows whether the people who built the town being excavated fought with other communities. Jean talks about how everyone working on the dig wants the "townspeople" to fit into a particular pattern of behavior but nobody really knows anything about them. This leads Delia to comment that nobody can ever be sure of anything, and she and Jean both comment on how it's easier to pretend to know the answers than to face what's really behind the questions. This leads Jean into a long reminiscence about being a spelling bee champion, and how that led her to a nervous...