Summary

The action is continuous, as Bella and Christopher continue their conversation.

On what seems to be his next visit to Bella's office, Christopher again looks at the painting on the wall of Bella’s office, wondering if the woman has gotten smaller. He also suggests that he keeps imagining that in the painting it is going to snow – and that there would be no footprints. “The woman’s just there. As if the field imagined her” (32).

Christopher then continues telling Bella the outline of his novel, in which ‘it soon becomes clear to the student that Shane never had any intention of meeting a girl, or anyone else for that matter” (33). As the visit to New York continues, the two end up sharing a bed. Bella asks whether the student in the novel is “a homosexual” (33), and Christopher says the student is...