Tropic of Cancer

At the beginning of January, Henry takes a non-paying position as an exchange professor of English in the town of Dijon. At dawn on his last day in Paris, he and Fillmore go to Mass after drinking all night, and he describes the religious event as being “fascinating and stupefying at the same time” (261). When they attempt to leave by the wrong exit, a priest throws them out and they laugh at him. On the way to Dijon, Henry remembers an experience he had while homeless in Florida, in which both a rabbi and a priest refused to help him, and he saw the priest in a limousine later the same day. The inherent cruelty of this contrast, he understands, epitomizes the American attitude towards poverty.

When he arrives in Dijon, Henry immediately realizes that he has made a mistake. He does not like the provincial town and hates the bureaucratic hierarchy of the school. The students look like prisoners on a chain gang and the buildings themselves look clinical and unfriendly. He describes the other professors, but adds that with the exception of one, they were all unremarkable people who have faded from his memory.