Summary

In Chapter 3, the narrative shifts focus to another couple: Victor Eisen and his significant other, Anne Moore. They sleep in separate rooms due to Victor’s snoring. Victor is a friend of David and Eleanor. Victor is renowned scholar and philosopher. He is hard-working and polite, but he often admires David’s apparent contempt for work and good manners. Victor is divorced from his first wife, Elaine. Anne is originally American, and she first met Victor while interviewing him for a newspaper. They soon fell in love and formed a romantic relationship. Anne does not understand Victor’s friendship with, and loyalty to, David. She sees him as arrogant and unpleasant. Also, Anne was at first “touched by Eleanor’s vulnerability [but] was now exasperated by her drunkenness” (29). Victor and Anne once went to visit the Melroses and were joined by another friend of...