She receives a package of writing by Laila which tells the story of Laila’s quest in India and how she came to run the ashram in a gushing stream of narratives and poems that take up most of chapter Four. When Sophie returns to the city where the ashram is Matteo is no longer in the hospital. She goes to the ashram to find out the Mother has died and after intense mourning Matteo has decide to travel up north to a place to find enlightenment. In her conversation with Diya, her only friend at the ashram, Sophie admits that she will probably follow him to go look for him. Back to the Garden in Italy, Giacomo returns to the house to tell Nonno and Nonna that he saw his father, Matteo out there. They quickly dismiss him, wanting him to move on with his life, the less said about his parents the better. Only his sister Isabel believes him and share his secret inner world. The spiritual quest so famously described in Kavafy’s poem, quoted here in the beginning of the book, applies to all three of the main characters but, even if the quest is about the journey rather than about reaching the goal of the journey, they all have a miserable time of it. One of the key scenes is when Sophie sees the Mother in her garden sitting by herself and observes how the peacocks come to pay tribute to her, a scene that is echoed later when we find out that Laila was famous for her peacock dance during her time as a dancer. But Sophie is not open to seeing the charismatic power of the older woman and only sees her, sitting alone and vulnerable without her turban, as an inexplicable source of power over Matteo. Matteo is so blinded by his thirst for knowledge, for enlightenment, to get to the goal that he will do anything and sacrifice anything to get there. Sophie’s quest is for love, choosing her love for her husband over the care of her children. Her quest is also in her attempt to understand the woman who had the power to take him away from her, but at the end she tells Diya, she found “nothing much”. Laila’s quest is maybe the most passionate of all but it is not clear if her enlightenment brings her true samadhi or just the satisfaction of running a perfectly managed, beautifully kept resort for the spiritually curious. Is it the power that enlightens her or the enlightenment that empowers her? Is her drawing Matteo closer to her a display of that power or an act of grace?