Summary

Pages 85 – 105 First person narrator Tomas receives word that his daughter Daniela is about to have a play produced – a play, Daniela excitedly says, about her family. After a tense conversation with his estranged wife (and Daniela’s mother) Katka, Tomas telephones Daniela, and convinces her (in spite of being busy with rewriting her play) to leave New York and come to Maine to visit him, imagining what her play might include.

Tomas then narrates his history with Katka: how they were both intellectuals in Prague (she more educated than him); how they both worked passionately on an underground socialist newspaper, published with the idea of promoting socialism; how he was caught and interrogated, but never gave out the names of his colleagues (which earned him the nickname “The Quietest Man”); and how, a story written about him by an American journalist...