Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary

Chapter 14 introduces Uma Sarasvati, "the woman who transformed, exalted and ruined my life." Forty-one days after Ina's death, the Zogoiby family dress up for the Mahalaxmi Weekend Constitutional, an annual opportunity for Bombay's cultural elite to gather at the racecourse to see and to be seen. Aurora and Abie walk arm-in-arm; Sister Floreas, specially dispensed for the occasion, walking beside her brother, announces she has seen Ina in a vision and reassures them that all is well with her. Aurora uncharacteristically suppresses her rage. We learn that Minnie has become so zealous in her new calling that she has had to be admonished about the vanity of excess piety; she obeys and begins seeing visions.

The narrator feels out of place among these thoroughbreds, self-conscious of his shameful deformity. He broods that his education at Dilly's delightful hands will not qualify...