Ragtime Chapter 34 Summary

  • In Atlantic City, Mother and Father and the Boy meet each day with Baron Ashkenazy and his daughter, who we now know is actually Tateh and his daughter.
  • Tateh has invented an apparatus that led to him becoming a partner with the Franklin Novelty Company. Then he went into film, invented his new title and colored his hair and beard black to look young again.
  • The boy and girl spend their days together. They play in the dunes and on the beach and in the surf. They bury each other in the sand.
  • In the evening they sometimes go with their parents to the boardwalk. They are inseparable.
  • One day they take shelter beneath a boardwalk and watch a storm. Mother and Tateh come out to look for them, and cry and laugh when they find them. Tateh notices how beautiful Mother is.
  • Father sleeps through the incident. He hasn't been sleeping at night. He is bored at the beach and in the evenings he plays billiards.
  • The morning after the storm, there is a story in the paper. Coalhouse and his gang have broken into J.P. Morgan's Library and are holding the Morgan treasures for ransom. Father takes a call from the District Attorney's office in Manhattan and then takes the train back, alone.