Summary

The narrator of “Abroad” is now a woman in her eighties but is telling a story about her trips abroad with her boyfriend Tony while in her twenties. The narrator traveled abroad in the 1950s. Both the narrator and Tony were artists, but they could not find artistic inspiration in England. Instead, they traveled “Abroad” (11), painting the countryside and peasants wherever they found them. According to the narrator, England had only working-class farmers whom the artists had deemed unworthy of sketching, but other countries had peasants, which they considered far more colorful and interesting.

They drove in an old Hillman car which broke down frequently. Tony and the narrator were driving through Spain, fighting about whether to continue exploring the country or move on to another place, when they came across a wedding in a village out in the middle of nowhere. They stopped...