Lessons

Roland approaches and confronts Alissa in the Berlin café. They greet each other, and Roland feels a cascade of conflicting emotions—“anger, sorrow, love, then anger again” (232). Alissa asks how Lawrence is, and Roland responds angrily, asking, “What do you care about Lawrence?” (233).

The man Alissa is with reveals that he is not her boyfriend or lover but her literary agent. Leaving the café, Roland and Alissa talk together, and she attempts to justify leaving Roland by explaining how she wanted to avoid repeating her mother’s life. She also blames what she calls Roland’s “sex-every-day problem” for making her want to leave (238). As they go their separate ways, Alissa gives Roland the English proof of the novel she has written.

In his hotel room later, Roland reads Alissa’s novel, The Journey. The novel begins with a female character, Catherine, working as a secretary for a literary magazine during the Blitz, before traveling to continental Europe after the war’s end. The novel is heavily based on the story of Alissa’s mother, Jane, and, like Jane, Catherine has several affairs during her journey through France and Germany. Catherine is also, in Roland’s view, partially based on Alissa herself. Roland is disappointed that none of the characters seem to bear any resemblance to him.