Gene leaves to visit Leper at his home in Vermont, remembering how similar this journey is to the journeys he would make a year later after graduating from the Devon School and enlisting in the Navy. There he would make many long trips from one base to another while being continuously retrained for new weapons although he would never see the war itself. He would remain stationed in the United States. He mentions the atomic bomb detonation in Japan, which seems later to have saved their lives by ending the war at last. While walking towards Leper's home after a long bus ride through Vermont, there is something encouraging about the weather. The deadness of the previous day at Devon has gone partly away due to the approach and brightness of the sun.
"The sun was the blessing of the morning, the one celebrating element, an aesthete with no purpose except to shed radiance. Everything else was sharp and hard, but this Grecian sun evoked joy from every angularity and blurred with brightness the stiff face of the countryside. As I walked...the wind knifed at my face, but this sun caressed the back of my neck."Chapter 10, pg. 132
The brightness of the sun suggests that the long, cold winter and its "occupation" of the landscape is going to end soon, with the approach of spring.
Leper is standing at the window in his home and beckons Gene to come inside. At first everything appears to be normal until Leper begins to speak with an uncontrollable twitch on the left side of his lip. As the two sit down in the kitchen, Leper calls it the most "useful" room in the house. Then he becomes very emotional, screaming out about the army and how he had escaped from it. Gene doesn't understand since one escapes from an enemy, and the army isn't an enemy. Leper becomes very erratic and paranoid, accusing Gene of thinking he's not normal just like the army had done before giving him a Section Eight discharge because of his poor emotional state. Leper's language becomes more and more erratic and strange and he openly swears at Gene, who becomes increasingly agitated.
Leper next criticizes Gene for being selfish and competitive, declaring,
"'You always were a savage underneath. I always knew that only I never admitted it. But in the last few weeks...I admitted a hell of a lot to myself...It's you we happen to be talking about now. Like a savage underneath...like that time you knocked Finny out of the tree...Like that time you crippled him for life.'"Chapter 10, pg. 137
Leper becomes accusatory, and Gene, already inflamed, rushes forth and attacks Leper, kicking his chair out from beneath him. Leper lies there, crying and laughing on the floor. Just as something had consumed Gene and driven him to a point of violence to cause Finny's fall, so does his rage cause him to attack Leper. Mrs. Lepellier enters the room and Gene says simply that he "forgot himself" because Leper had upset him and prepares to leave. Leper, giggling, asks that he stay for lunch which he grudgingly agrees to do. Gene eats a great deal at lunch during which he wins back Mrs. Lepellier's favor by showing good manners. Afterwards, Gene and Leper take a walk together outside.
Gene is confident that the outdoor weather will keep Leper calm and at peace, since it always had before. At the mention of Brinker Hadley Leper imagines how funny it would be to see his face on a woman's body and begins crying maniacally, declaring that he must be a psycho as the army had said. Gene begins to get upset again, since Leper talks endlessly about body parts being on furniture and how he had seen his corporal's face on a woman's body and about a man who had slept near him in the army who coughed terribly. Although he has never even seen the fighting lines in Europe, the war has already broken and defeated him just as the winter had defeated the landscape around Devon. It is not even the war itself but the mere thought of its destruction that has injured Leper. Gene begins to think that their footsteps breaking through the frozen snow are like rifle shots. He orders Leper to stop talking and when he continues, Gene screams out violently for Leper to "Shut up" since he "doesn't care."
Gene leaves Leper standing out in the snow, talking to himself, while he runs back towards the town, eager to catch a return bus to Devon. He is particularly upset by Leper's criticism of him as not being a good person since he's "a savage underneath" and had caused Finny's fall out of the tree. Brinker had accused him of this before, but Gene had been able to remain calm. Leper was much more direct, and Gene responded with violence.
