Winter, 1939: Return to New York

After arriving in Paris in December, 1924 from New York, Anais and Hugh return to New in December, 1939 from Paris.  The media says the war will be over soon. She longs for Paris where life is rich, creative, and human, full of love and friendship. She would rather be eating meager breakfasts in a Paris bistro with small tables and tottering chairs and sleeping in unheated rooms than living in the lap of luxury in New York, far away from fear and anxiety surrounding the war. In Paris, people are eager to enter into conversation and get to know you; in New York, conversations lack substance and are shallow. She feels empty, lifeless.

Nonetheless, Anais meets new people; the phone is ringing; her social life is beginning in New York.