Chapter 14 Summary

Close to Christmas, Fillmore and Henry walk into a Catholic Church service. The mood strikes Henry as if the inside of the church were a tomb and the people were in mourning. Fillmore gets up to find an exit with Henry following, and a priest ejects them out a side door. Fillmore and Henry start laughing at the priest, who with raised fist comes toward them. They run away. This incident reminds Henry of his time in America during the Great Depression. He could not find help from the Catholic Church or a Jewish temple. With nowhere to stay, he tried sleeping in a park. A police officer clubbed him and chased him away.

After New Years Day, Henry becomes an exchange professor of English in Dijon, a position that provides meager room and board but no salary. He teaches two or three...