VIII: Nan explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Love, Marriage, and Freedom

  Nan contemplates accepting Barry's proposal, but struggles with her own feelings and his attention to Gerda.

• The Passage of Time

  Nan reflects on aging, finding youth touching but noting that it is more touching not to be young, and considers the tragedy of growing older.

• The Search for Purpose

  Nan finishes her book and considers a desire for goodness and straight living, influenced by Barry.

Characters to notice

• Nan Hilary

  Stays alone in Marazion to finish her book and await Barry; reflects on her feelings for Barry and her jealousy of Gerda.

• Barry Briscoe

  Arrives in Cornwall with Gerda and Kay; shows attention to Gerda, causing Nan's jealousy.

• Gerda

  Travels with Barry and Kay; appears pale and underweight; shares a bed with Nan, who finds her presence disruptive.

• Stephen Lumley

  An artist in Newlyn who is in love with Nan; they sail together and share a cynical understanding.

• Kay

  Travels with Barry and Gerda; walks bare-legged to the Mount with Gerda.

Key passages

• “She would count the days before Barry would be with her. 'Three weeks now. Twenty days; nineteen, eighteen⁠ ⁠…' desiring neither to hurry nor to retard them, but watching them slip behind her in a deep content.”

  Nan counts down the days until Barry's arrival, feeling content and neither rushing nor delaying the passage of time.

  Nan's anticipation of Barry's visit is marked by a calm, patient happiness.

• “Barry's a good deal taken up with her just now,' said Nan to herself, putting it into plain, deliberate words, as was her habit with life's situations. 'He does get taken up with pretty girls, I suppose, when he's thrown with them. All men do, if you come to that. For the moment he's thinking about her, not about me. That's a bore. It will bore me to death if it goes on.⁠ ⁠… I wonder how long it will go on? I wonder how soon he'll want to make love to me again?'”

  Nan acknowledges to herself that Barry is currently focused on Gerda, and she wonders how long this will last and when he might return his attention to her.

  Nan's internal monologue reveals her jealousy and pragmatic assessment of Barry's behavior.

• “Touching to be thirty; more touching to be forty; tragic to be fifty and heartbreaking to be sixty. As to seventy, as to eighty, one would feel as one did during the last dance of a ball, tired but fey in the paling dawn, desperately making the most of each bar of music before one went home to bed. That was touching; Mrs. Hilary and Grandmama were touching. Not Gerda and Kay, with their dance just beginning.”

  Nan reflects on the poignancy of aging, comparing older people to dancers at the end of a ball, while youth like Gerda and Kay are just starting their dance.

  Nan's meditation on age contrasts the tragedy of growing older with the innocence of youth.