The Sea

Lying awake at night, Max imagines that Miss Vavasour and Colonel Blunden, the other long-term lodger at the Cedars, are similarly wakeful. He believes that the Colonel is in love with Miss Vavasour and (rather mysteriously) imagines that Miss Vavasour is grieving and feeling guilty for the past.

The narrative shifts back to Max’s childhood, and he recalls his erotic fantasies about Mrs. Grace being intertwined with his passion for Greek mythology. As a child, he tries to imagine the sex lives of adults, “love among the big people” (75), and wonders how they manage to reconcile these nocturnal activities with conventional, everyday life.

Determined to insert himself into Mrs. Grace’s life, Max befriends the twins. He is acutely aware of the social difference between them when he has to admit to Chloe that his family is staying in a chalet. Max is fascinated and frustrated by the intense and mysterious bond between Chloe and her brother, Myles, who is nonverbal. He speculates that the Grace parents are somewhat afraid of Myles. Max takes sadistic pleasure in physically hurting Myles.

He recalls one particularly vivid scene when he stares, enrapt and aroused, at Connie Grace arranging sweet peas in a vase, until they are abruptly interrupted by the arrival of the twins and their father in pursuit of a dog.