What We Can Know

Thomas becomes sensitive to his environment. He starts learning about the butterflies and flowers that he can observe on the island, comparing them to their counterparts in the Blundys’ time. This fills him with melancholy for the things that were lost in the intervening years. He takes a virtual tour of an Oxford bookshop in 2018, which worsens his mood as he marvels at the wealth of the shop’s history shelves.

Rose feels wonder, not sadness, looking at the same elements in nature. Thomas argues that standards of beauty generally degrade to adapt to the world of the beholder. Rose worries that Thomas is making himself unhappy for no reason, seeing as he cannot do anything about the natural world as a literary scholar. When it becomes clear that Thomas is once again lamenting the loss of Francis’s poem, Rose urges him to give up his quest to find it.

Thomas continues to examine the records of everyday exchanges between Vivien and Francis from the 1990s to the 2010s. He starts to imagine Vivien as someone he is also falling in love with. Rose is offended and accuses Thomas of wanting to be with Vivien instead. Once they reconcile, Thomas resolves not to bring up Vivien in Rose’s presence again.