The Maidens

Mariana sets out nine chairs for the session, including two for the missing murder victims. Edward is late, and Mariana begins the session without him. The women are openly hostile, blocking Mariana’s attempts to compare Edward to a father-figure they are trying to please and accusing her of trying to trick them into incriminating him. Mariana privately notes that only Zoe has shown any emotion in response to Veronica and Tara’s deaths. Edward arrives.

To gauge his reaction, Mariana asks Edward if he teaches Iphigenia at Aulis. When he replies affirmatively, Mariana remarks on Iphigenia’s passivity and submission. One of the Maidens replies that Iphigenia’s “heroic death” is how “she achieves her tragic stature” (281). Mariana counters that she believes Iphigenia was in an abusive relationship with her father, allowing him to bully and sacrifice her to please him. Edward realizes that Mariana is casting him as the abusive father in this scenario and turns the tables on her, revealing that they are missing a seat for one Maiden: Zoe.

The revelation stuns Mariana. She wants to speak to Zoe about why she did not confide in her but decides to calm down first. As she deliberates near Zoe’s room, Fred appears and invites her for a drink in his room. Mariana accepts. 

Fred’s room is untidy, with piles of papers covered in mathematical formulae and scribbles. He explains that it is a book he is writing about his mother. She died when he was a boy, and his thesis on theoretical math and parallel universes is an attempt to find her: If parallel universes exist, then there must be one where his mother is still alive. He tries to tell Mariana how he feels about her, but she cuts him off. He kisses her, provoking her to feel “both alarmed and disarmed” (291). When she tells him that she does not want to hurt him, he quotes Tennyson, troubling her. She decides it is time to leave.

As Fred walks her out, Mariana senses that he is hurt. He tries to give her a letter explaining his feelings, but she refuses it and walks away, wondering whether she is making a mistake. On her way back to her room, she passes the portrait of Tennyson in his youth and recognizes his faraway look: He has given up on life. Mariana wonders if she has too. Suddenly, she hears footsteps. Henry emerges from the shadows with a knife, accusing her of sacrificing him and threatening to kill himself in front of her. Morris bursts into the room and overpowers Henry, who is taken to a psychiatric hospital. Mariana blames herself and is more determined than ever to find answers.

That night, Mariana has a troubled sleep. She dreams that Sebastian does not recognize her and that Zoe tells her “love only brings sorrow” (299). She wakes up suddenly to the sound of someone banging on her door.

The knocking is Elsie, who has come to clean. Mariana feels Elsie’s gaze is sinister. She informs Mariana that Serena has been found dead and hands her a postcard that someone slipped under Mariana’s door overnight: a photo of an ancient Greek vase depicting the sacrifice of Iphigenia with Greek text written on the back. Mariana feels herself falling into an abyss.

In a daze, Mariana leaves her room intending to find Sangha and sees Edward across the courtyard, smiling. Assuming he sent the postcard and is tormenting her, she confronts him. He translates the passage for her: lines from Euripides’s Electra about a death by throat slashing that the gods have willed. Mariana slaps Edward and then punches him repeatedly, bloodying his nose. Sangha arrives and pulls her off him, demanding to know what is happening.

The dean brings Mariana, Sangha, Edward, and Julian back to his office. Mariana lays out her accusations against Edward: that the Maidens have an unhealthy attachment to him, that he was sleeping with Tara, and that he mailed the postcards as a sick inside joke. No one believes her, and Edward denies it all; instead, Sangha becomes convinced that Morris is the murderer. Ashcroft tells Mariana that she does not seem well and offers to help her, prompting her to curse at him. Finally, Sangha orders her to leave Cambridge or be arrested for obstructing justice.