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Babbitt keeps busy to avoid thinking about Paul, but he feels lonely and at loose ends. His wife and daughter Tinka leave on vacation. That night, Babbitt restlessly goes into Verona\'s room looking for something to read. Verona likes to think of herself as an intellectual, and the books she\'s collected are to Babbitt\'s mind difficult, disturbing, improper. Here Lewis is having some fun, for among the books Babbitt skims through disapprovingly are works by writers who were Lewis\'s friends: Vachel Lindsay, the poet; H. L. Mencken, the essayist who satirized American life even more bitterly than did Lewis; Joseph Hergesheimer, a then-popular novelist. Babbitt reads for escape; these books offer only \"discontent with the good common ways.\" The truth is that the books bother him because he, too, has become discontent with the ways of Zenith.
The night grows foggy. Babbitt thinks of calling Paul, then realizes that Paul is in prison. He steps out into the dark, and now you will see that it isn\'t only Paul Riesling and Babbitt who feel trapped by their lives in Zenith. Through the fog Babbitt spies Chum Frink, poet and advertising \"genius,\" staggering drunkenly down the street. \"There\'s another fool,\" Frink shouts. \"George Babbitt.\" But Frink reserves his greatest scorn for himself. He could have been a great poet, he announces, a James Whitcomb Riley or a Robert Louis Stevenson. (Today these nineteenth-century poets are generally considered good but not great; still, their works are masterpieces compared to Frink\'s.)
NOTE: FAILED DREAMS Like Paul Riesling, like the convention delegate who had wanted to be a chemist, like Babbitt himself, Chum Frink has abandoned his dreams, sold his talents to the highest bidder. Now he is paying the price.
Babbitt is astonished, but too wrapped up in his own problems to worry about Frink\'s for long. His work, his family, his life seem meaningless. All the things he\'s struggled for--wealth, social position, material possessions--seem worthless. What, he asks himself, is a person supposed to live for? All he knows is that he misses Paul Riesling\'s friendship and that he desires to love his fairy girl in the flesh. Babbitt\'s rebellion has begun, and so far it seems to be taking the same adulterous shape as Paul\'s did.
That even the smallest rebellion won\'t go unnoticed is made clear the next day when Babbitt sneaks out of his office to attend the movies. Over lunch at the Athletic Club he\'s kidded about being so rich and lazy he can afford to leave work early. On a normal day Babbitt would have laughed along, but today he feels only rage. He longs to escape to his dream woman.
Babbitt first selects Miss McGoun to fill that role, but she is too businesslike to respond. Then he attends a party given by Eddie and Louetta Swanson, hopeful that his past flirtations with Louetta will lead to something more serious. But when he tries to kiss her she turns her head away.
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