Quicksand

Helga watches Manhattan retreat as the ocean liner leaves the city en route to Copenhagen. She recalls that she never felt that she belonged in New York, and that her effort to escape from her “inherent aloneness” (63) led to an aversion to people around her. She anticipates dinner apprehensively, but is treated with kindness by the ship’s purser, who recalls her from the trip that she had taken with her mother. All of the guests at the dinner table are polite and friendly, and she starts to speak to them in Danish, which she learned as a child.

She experiences a great sense of freedom on the ship, of “belonging to herself alone and not to a race” (64). Her sole source of discontent are her memories of Dr. Anderson at the cabaret. She wonders whether she is in love with him but discounts the possibility.Her sense is that “When one is in love, one strives to please” (64). The ship arrives in Copenhagen in early morning, and Helga wonders whether her aunt will be there to greet her. Katrina, who resembles Helga’s mother quite closely, is waiting at the dock with her husband, Herr Dahl. They welcome Helga graciously and affectionately, and have arranged for English-speaking friends to accompany them, in the event that Helga has forgotten how to speak Danish.