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Updated July 14, 1997
Created July 14, 1997
Action takes place on the island of Santa Marina.
Chapter XII: The Dance
The dance begins with the dancers described as "a swirling pool" in which the "eddies seemed to circle faster and faster, until the music wrought itself into a crash, ceased, and the circles were smashed into little separate bits"(169). Rachel and St John talk. St John angers her by asking her if she has a mind or if she is like the rest of her sex (172). Later Rachel laughs with Terence about St John, and Rachel and Terence become closer (174). Helen is described as being very attractive as she dances. Her beauty was "flushed and animated" so that both Mrs Elliot and Mrs Thornbury "felt the same desire to touch her." "She was halfway round the room before they took their eyes off her, for they could not help admiring her, although they thought it a little odd that a woman of her age (40 years) should enjoy dancing" (178).
Chapter XIII: In the Villa and the Voyage Out
Mr. Ambrose is shut up in his room with his books as he has "worked his way further and further into the heart of the poet." His chair has become "more and more deeply encircled by books" (191). Rachel takes a walk alone with a book she has borrowed from her uncle and a book she has borrowed from St John. Among other interesting scenery, she sees a bank on which grows trees which Helen has said are "worth the voyage out" (194). While on this voyage she has an unusual experience: "So she might have walked until she had lost all knowledge of her way, had it not been for the interruption of a tree, which, although it did not grow across her path, stopped her as effectively as if the branches had struck her in the face. It was an ordinary tree, but to her it appeared so strange that it might have been the only tree in the world. Dark was the trunk in the middle, and the branches sprang here and there, leaving jagged intervals of light between them as distinctly as if it had but that second risen from the ground. Having seen a sight that would last her for a lifetime, and for a lifetime would preserve that second, the tree once more sank into the ordinary ranks of trees, and she was able to seat herself in its shade and to pick the red flowers with the thin green leaves which were growing beneath it" (195).
Chapter XIV: At the Hotel and Terence Eavesdropping on Rachel and Helen
Various people at the hotel are described as they read their letters, including Miss Allan, whose sister writes that she has "seldom seen the trees so forward at this time of year" (200). Mr. Elliot describes some acquaintances such as Lady Maud who has a horror of cats, clergymen and people with "big front teeth." He says, "I’ve heard her shout across a table, ‘keep your mouth shut, Miss Smith; they’re as yellow as carrots!" (204). Mr. Elliot also describes the grandmothers of the "fashionable young men." He says that the grandmothers "preserve all that we admire in the eighteenth century, with the advantage, in the majority of cases, that they are personally clean." He then discusses Lady Barborough who apparently does not bathe regularly and wears velvet even in the hottest weather (204). Terence goes to the Ambroses’ villa and listens to Helen and Rachel talk about Rachel’s mother. Rachel wants Helen to come out into the terrace, but Helen resists and the two of them playfully scuffle until "a man’s form" appears. When the women had gone in, Terence could hear "bolts grating" and then "dead silence" as the lights go out (210). Terence returns to the hotel where he is accosted by Evelyn.
Chapter XV: Tea and Conversation
Mr. Ridley tells Helen to "‘keep an eye on Rachel’" as "‘Young gentlemen don’t interest themselves in young women’s education without a motive.’" He says that Hirst and Hewet are the same -- "‘all covered with spots’" (220). Terence, St John and others join Helen and Rachel for tea. St John and Helen talk while Terence and Rachel go for a walk. Helen tells St John that he will be a "great man." Then "as if to make him look at the scene" sweeps her hand "round the immense circumference of the view." She sweeps from "the sea, over the roofs of the town, across the crests of the mountains, over the river and the plain, and again across the crests of the mountains" until her hand reaches "the villa, the garden, the magnolia tree, and the figures of Hirst and herself standing together" and then "drops" (236).
Chapter XVI: Terence and Rachel on the Cliff
Rachel and Terence talk on a cliff above some calm waters of the sea where Rachel obeys an impulse to "mar the eternity of peace" and throws the largest pebble she can find into the water below causing ripples to "spread out and out" (238). Terence tells Rachel about St John’s sister who has been told to "‘run out and feed the rabbits because St John must have the school-room to himself.’" To this story Rachel replies that she has ‘"fed the rabbits for twenty-four years" (241). Terence gets Rachel to talk about herself and then they discuss his novel plans before leaving to go back at almost dark. (252).
Chapter XVII: Church and Tea at the Hotel
Rachel feels moody and stressed, but when the stress lifts, she feels that the moods have "a significance like that she had seen in the tree: the nights were black bars separating her from the days" (258). Rachel attends church at the hotel. Many of the other characters also attend. As the congregation enters the chapel, the sound of the harmonium "spreads through the chapel as the rings of water spread from a fallen stone" (262). Rachel becomes disillusioned with church as she realizes that the people around her are "pretending to feel" what they do not feel, while "somewhere above her" floats the idea which they can "none of them grasp," which they pretend "to grasp, always escaping out of reach, a beautiful idea, an idea like a butterfly" (264). Mr. Bax’s message concerns "’a drop of water, detached, alone, separate from others, falling from the cloud and entering the great ocean,’" and altering "not only the immediate spot in the ocean where it falls, but all the myriad drops which together compose the great universe of waters" (268). Following the service, Rachel goes to Mrs Flushing’s room (270) where Mrs Flushing proposes an expedition to a native village (273). Rachel and Mrs Flushing luncheon together (274). Terence decides that what he loves about Rachel is her "extraordinary freedom" (283). He wants to keep her free so that they could "be free together" (284).
Chapter XVIII: Terence Thinks about Rachel
Terence thinks of several marriage scenes (280).
Chapter XIX: More Talk about Men and Women
Rachel is accosted by Evelyn who talks about doing something besides "play" (288). Rachel sees the "wrong side of hotel life" where she watches an old woman run down a chicken and chop its head off (293). Miss Allan takes Rachel to her room where Miss Allan is kind to Rachel. Rachel senses a "reticence" about Miss Allan "which had snowed her under for years." Rachel was silent "on the one hand, she wished to whirl high and strike a spark out of the cool pink flesh; on the other she perceived there was nothing to be done but to drift past each other in silence" (297). Rachel abruptly leaves Miss Allan because she cannot seem to bear Mrs. Paley’s "misunderstanding" with Miss Allan that causes a "complete block in the passage" (300). As Rachel goes out she finds herself with acquaintances about to have tea. The scene she comes upon has "the look of a vision printed on the dark at night" (301). For Rachel, "for a moment nothing seemed to happen; it all stood still (302). Rachel feels her safety is "shaken, as if beneath twigs and dead leaves she had seen the movement of a snake (306). Helen decides they will accept Mrs Flushing’s invitation (307).