Summary

Narration moves somewhat quickly in the first part of the chapter, describing how Turner and his mother returned to the church (mostly ostracized, except for the company of the Newton family); how Turner and his mother finally moved fully into Mrs. Cobb’s house (Turner keeping both “The Aeneid” and “The Origin of Species” handy); and how Turner refused an offer from an increasingly angry Mr. Stonecrop to buy the house. That refusal, narration reveals, was fueled in part by Turner’s realization that what he saw in his father’s eyes on the cliff and in the whale’s eyes was the same thing: he just doesn’t know what that was.

Narration also reveals how, suddenly, Mr. Stonecrop’s business failed; how the shocked town gossiped about it; how, in the middle of it all, Turner and his mother returned to church...