The Phoenix Crown: A Novel

In London, Alice Eastwood visits the Kew Gardens. The director there asks if she’ll be returning to her position as the “curator of botany” (1) at the California Academy of the Sciences. Alice thinks back on the 1906 earthquake and isn’t sure she has the heart to return. They talk about the Queen of the Night, a flower that only blooms for one night. After she walks outside, she sits on a bench and sees a newspaper with an article reporting that the phoenix crown has been found. She sends three telegraphs about this news.

Opera singer Gemma Garland tells a fellow train passenger that she is headed to San Francisco. The woman, a Flying Roller (a fundamentalist Christian group), rants about the sinful city and tries to convert Gemma. When Gemma admits to being an opera singer, the woman leaves Gemma alone and moves to another car. Gemma thinks about losing her parents and living in an orphanage. She also thinks about her artist friend Nellie, who was her roommate in New York before moving to San Francisco.

When Gemma arrives in San Francisco, she can’t afford a horse-drawn cab and is left on a huge hill with her luggage.