Chapter 5 Summary

"Et in Arcadia Ego" The chapter begins with a quote from a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in which a child cries out to heaven to be freed from her "dreadful" mother.

Narration describes Clare's experience in London - her small, one room apartment, how she spent her days visiting museums and art galleries, how she communicated with her father and sister back in America less and less, and how her solitude eventually became oppressive. A taxi pulling up outside her apartment building leads her to a fantasy of being visited by a woman she encountered on the subway, which in turn leads her to realize that it's time to make herself less alone. Narration describes her study of classics and literature, commenting at the same time that "people admired her mind and implied her good fortune in escaping the brain damage common...