Chapter Nine - Ten Summary and Analysis

Lessing and her mother begin to wear on each other's nerves. She believes her parents are insane, and wonders what they would have been like if not for the War. She feels lost in daydreams, either hers or of her parents. While living with another family in another town, she receives letters from her mother, ten or twenty pages, saying she will end up in the brothels. Lessing refers to one of her novels, Martha Quest, and says it is not autobiographical. Lessing is diagnosed with something called Low Fever, and is sent to the mountains for healing. She begins to see that her parents use illnesses to make their lives bearable, and she decides to never be sick again. While at the mountains, she becomes aware of the power women have over men in...