Summary

Chapter 1 – As the novel opens, the narrator (referred to as “Jim Dirkson” at this point) is meeting with Father Barton, a Catholic priest, in a café. The narrator offers Barton his apologies for his earlier outburst in Burton’s office and expresses his desperate need for Barton’s “services.” Father Burton explains that there is nothing he can do to help the narrator and that he has “never been in ... in ... in those sort of activities” (6) and offers his apologies. The narrator notices two police officers in the café, one of whom is black and one of whom is white, and feels apprehensive. The narrator tells Barton that while he is, himself, a “free man,” his wife is still enslaved on a violent plantation and that he wishes to facilitate her escape. Barton, who admits that he does not...