The Adventures of Augie March

Augie wakes up with a cracked skull and a missing tooth. Thea shot the injured horse and helped Augie to a doctor. She gives Caligula away to a zoo and nurses Augie back to health. Augie insists that he does not need round-the-clock care, so they argue. She only leaves the house to hunt.

When Augie is alone, he reads or receives visitors. Moulton and Iggy visit him, announcing their plans to throw a big party for Stella in their new villa. Augie is bored, so he spends more time playing cards with Moulton at his hotel and soon puts “all [his] time into gambling” (369). Much to the other players’ annoyance, Augie is a skilled poker player.

He feels his relationship with Thea is faltering. When she leaves on a two-day hunting trip, she returns to find Augie away from the house, and she is upset that he is spending all his time with “that gang.” When her divorce is eventually finalized, she turns down Augie’s proposal. She admits that she must rely on her family if her plans to become independently wealthy do not work out.

One day, while watching cars pass through the streets, Augie notices a string of cars approaching the cathedral. They are escorting an important person: “[T]he great Russian exile” (374), Leon Trotsky. Augie discovers that one of Trotsky’s bodyguards is his friend, Sylvester. Meanwhile, Frazer is now a secretary to Trotsky.

Stella begins to plan her party while a treasury agent ominously arrives in the city. Stella suggests that she wants to talk privately with Augie, but she cannot slip away from Oliver. When Oliver erupts with anger at a poker game, he assaults someone. The police arrive, and Augie protects Stella from being arrested. Later, Thea asks him what happened. Augie insists that Stella is in love with Oliver, but Thea is not convinced. She invites Augie to accompany her to Chilpanzingo to “get away from these people” (378), and he agrees.

On the night of Stella’s party, Thea reluctantly agrees to attend with Augie. The party is a “goons’ rodeo,” and though she wants to leave, Augie abandons Thea with Moulton when Stella signals to him. Stella asks him for help, and in the privacy of the woods, she explains that Oliver is wanted by the government because he edits a magazine whose owner has been arrested. Oliver plans to escape to South America, Stella says, though Augie suggests that he give himself up to the government official who is searching for him. Stella confesses that she has no intention of following Oliver. The entire party, she admits, is an elaborate ruse to cover for their escape, but she wants Augie to take her back to Mexico City. Augie suggests that he can help, and he is impressed by Stella’s assessment that they are both “the kind of people other people are always trying to fit into their schemes” (384).

He returns to Thea, only to find that she has gone. When he drives away from the house with Stella, he runs into a crowd of people. Thea is there, and she demands to know why Augie is with Stella. She suggests that she help Stella rather than Augie, but he invites her into the car instead. They do not reach an agreement, so Augie drives away with Stella. He quickly becomes lost, however, and then the car breaks down. The country roads are too dangerous to walk along, so Augie and Stella spend the night beside the car. Eventually, they have sex, and Augie thinks about how Thea was right to assume that he was interested in Stella.

In the morning, Augie restarts the car and takes Stella to a nearby town, offering her money to make her escape. She tells him her agent’s name, allowing him to track her down in the future. They part ways, and Augie returns home to Thea, who is regretful and jealous. Augie confesses that he and Stella had sex but tries to defend his infidelity by pointing out that Thea cheated on her ex-husband. Thea tells Augie that he is too desperate to please people. They argue about their relationship and whether Thea’s plans for the future are too “fantastic.” When they realize that their relationship is doomed, Thea leaves, and Augie smashes items in the house. He then packs his bags and leaves. In the street, he passes Moulton and then sees Iggy and his daughter. When they ask about his luggage, Augie breaks down in tears.

Iggy helps Augie back to the villa, where he despondently asks whether he can repair his relationship with Thea. Iggy suggests that Augie does not truly love her, but Augie rejects this. He decides to follow Thea and locates a bus headed to Chilpanzingo. Just as he is about to board, Moulton stops him and reveals that Thea is actually with Talavera—revealed to be her former boyfriend—in the mountains.

Augie boards the bus anyway, determined to find Thea. He finds her hotel and confronts her, searching around for signs of Talavera. She refuses his offer to rekindle their relationship and points out that he would always use her affair with Talavera against her. She wishes harm upon him and, one final time, denies his advances as she has “no use” for him. Their relationship is over.

In Acatla, Augie despondently lingers around the town. He meets a Russian person and spends time with them but can find nothing to keep him in the area without Thea. He “[gives] up on waiting for Thea to forgive [him]” (413), sells his possessions, and returns to Mexico City, where he reaches out to Sylvester for financial help. Sylvester’s colleague, Frazer, introduces Augie to “a friendly Yugoslavian” journalist named Paslavitch (414), who covers events in Mexico for his national newspaper. Fazer has a plan in which Augie will pose as Trotsky’s “nephew from the States” (416), but the plan quickly falls apart. Instead, Augie borrows money from Paslavitch and travels back to Chicago.