Quicksand

Helga experiences vague dissatisfaction with life during her second year abroad. She reflects upon whether her inability to find contentment with her “peacock’s life” was due to “some peculiar lack in her” (81). She receives a letter from Anne Gray announcing Anne’s upcoming marriage to Dr. Robert Anderson, and contemplates whether she (Helga) might have married him had she remained in New York. Helga wonders why Anne “who had…more than enough” (82) would want Anderson, as well.

She accompanies her social group to a Copenhagen vaudeville hall one evening, and the audience is captivated by two black American men who perform. Helga responds to the performance negatively, later realizing that the characteristic that her friends admired in the performers was the same that they admired in her: the capacity to be different. She returns frequently to the performance and ponders the conflicts in her life. She considers a return to America.

Axel Olson, the portrait painter, after making a veiled sexual proposition to Helga, ultimately proposes marriage. Helga instantly views him with contempt, and realizes that she dislikes him on many levels: “the shape of his head…the