Chapter 4, The Health Resort, Section 2 Summary

The opera is over and Victor escorts Lisa to her Aunt Magda's house in Vienna before returning to Kiev. In the following months, Lisa finds her sexual hungers reawakened, and even allows a friend of the family to have sex with her several times, despite feeling degraded. Lisa thinks back over her sexual partners. They include her ex-husband; Alexei, the student in Petersburg, a young man on a train (when she was 17), and an orchestra member right after husband left for the army. Lisa feels guilty, and decides it's more peaceful when she ignores her desires.

Lisa receives a letter from Victor and Vera, inviting her to visit them in Kiev. She declines, because she doesn't want to leave her ill aunt. Two weeks later, she receives another letter saying Vera has died in childbirth...