Chapter 9 Summary

The couple is uneventfully happy for a month, living in three rooms at the end of a rose Provencal house in la Napoule where they stayed before. They can see the sea from their windows. There are no other guests because it is the off season, and the proprietor and his wife are happy to have them. David has written for four days. Each morning David works in the third room and then joins Catherine in their rooms. They go to the cove and swim. Sometimes Catherine goes away in her car, and he sits on the terrace, drinking and waiting for her. He drinks absinthe first, followed by whiskey and Perrier. Catherine buys delicacies for them to eat, good wines, books and magazines.

One evening Catherine begs to turn back into a boy and asks David to go to Cannes, to the...