A pleasant evening
When the narrator gets downstairs, Lawrence is not around, but the others are “all ready for cocktails,’ so they decide to go ahead. Lawrence is the only one member of the family who “has never enjoyed drinking.” The family takes the cocktails to the terrace, so that they could see “the bluffs and the sea and the islands in the east.” Upon the return of Lawrence and his wife, everything changes. Their shot absence seems to “refresh” the Pommeroys' responses to “the familiar view.” However, as soon as Lawrence and his wife arrive, all happiness and lightness dissolve. This imagery evokes a feeling of tension.
Puritan
Lawrence and Ruth are sitting “at the edge of the terrace, not in the chairs, not in the circle of chairs.” With his mouth “set”, Lawrence looks to his siblings like “a Puritan cleric.” Sometimes, when the protagonist tries to “understand his frame of mind,” he thinks of “the beginnings” of their family in this country, and his “disapproval” of Diana and her lover only keep reminding him of this. The branch of the Pommeroys to which they belong is “founded by a minister” who is eulogized by Cotton Mather for his “untiring abjuration of the Devil.” This imagery evokes an unsettling feeling. Lawrence seems to be an reincarnation of his ancestor.
Going home
Lawrence crosses “over from the main land on four-o’clock boat one afternoon, late in the summer,” and Chaddy and the protagonist go down to meet him. The arrivals and departures of the summer ferry have “all the outward signs” that suggest “a voyage whistles, bells, hand trucks, reunions, and the smell of brine.” When they watch the boat come into “the blue harbor”, the brothers look for Lawrence’s face “behind windshields.” Though it has been a while since they saw each other, the brothers have “no trouble in recognizing him.” This imagery evokes a feeling of anticipation.
