Book 3: Chapter 1 Summary

Jim is now at the University and he stays in Lincoln through his first summer. He is fortunate to befriend the young scholar Gaston Cleric, who has been sent West to improve his health. Apparently, Cleric suffered from a long-term illness in Italy that still affects him. Cleric and Jim are both in Lincoln over the summer, and Jim is working off a year's worth of Greek. Jim describes this phase of his life as a mental awakening in which he is introduced to the world of ideas, and his guide is Gaston Cleric. Despite everything new, bits of Jim's old life resurface still.

Jim describes his college life as free, and he has taken rooms with an elderly couple. Jim has two rooms; one was originally a linen closet and is now his unheated bedroom, and the other is his...