Summary

Chapter 2 is set “fifteen years or so” before Judith’s illness and begins with the perspective of an unnamed character called the Latin tutor (29). The Latin tutor daydreams while coaching two young boys through their language lessons. The tutor resents his obligation to teach at the Hewlands estate in recompense for a debt “his father, the glover” owes the family (29). The tutor recalls his father’s violent abuse throughout his childhood, which persisted until the day the Latin tutor gained the physical strength to resist his father’s attacks.

A young woman emerging from the nearby woods with a falcon distracts the tutor, who follows her into the apple store. The tutor exchanges a kiss for her name: Agnes. Agnes kisses the tutor only after pinching his hand where his “entire essence can be gleaned” (50). The tutor first mistakes her name for...