Summary

In Chapter 6, Nicholas and Bridget arrive by plane at an airport in the south of France. Nicholas is frustrated by his lack of good conversations with Bridget. He thinks of his wives who were intelligent but often physically unexciting. In the airport, they happen to encounter Barry, a friend of Bridget’s. Bridget gives him the phone number to the Melroses’ vacation home. Soon Eleanor and Anne arrive at the airport to pick up Nicholas and Bridget.

In Chapter 7, the narrative shifts focus to David at the vacation house. David thinks about how he had been a promising piano player but had contracted rheumatic fever in his teens, which left him with chronically aching fingers. David still wonders of he could have been a great musician, but he often has doubts and fearful frustrations on the matter. In the vacation home, he plays the...