Summary

Section 3 – The narrator recalls taking a trip “not long ago” (31) to another city in Bulgaria, during which he chaperoned a group of his students and then, while they were in a particular activity, sat and graded some papers. Narration reveals that he was / is a teacher of English literature, and how while on that trip, he discovered an affinity for the poetry of Walt Whitman. He writes of initially finding Whitman’s celebration of nature and sensuality a bit indulgent, but also of realizing, while on that trip, that Whitman’s celebrations felt true to him now. He also describes an encounter in a coffee shop, where he saw a playful young girl embraced by her father with an intimacy and a freedom that, the narrator says, would be inappropriate in a few years.

The narrator then reveals that that trip...