The mendicant surveyor returns in the guise of the Old Widow of Lombardy. Crucial images here include snowshoes, a monkey pod, and the celebrated circular candelabra, whose precise implications continue to excite controversy. The cipher in ll. 64-102 comprises a letter from the author's cousin and insurance agent, who may also be the "Larry" of the opening farrago. Manuscript evidence suggests this canto was composed in the late spring of 1952, either before or after the abortive borax strike. The final terza rima stanza offers a handy correlative for the poet's anguish in a technologically debased society.