As soon as he arrives back at the Devon School's campus after visiting Leper, Gene desires to just be with Finny. His old envy has disappeared, and when he finds Phineas outside throwing snowballs with a large group of students he had coerced into playing, Gene allows himself to be pulled into this playful scuffle. It ends with no sides and no teams, just everyone gently attacking Phineas. Later Gene is genuinely worried about Finny's leg and urges him to be more careful although Finny insists he's fine. Gene has changed a great deal; not only does he feel guilty for his actions, but he has a genuine concern for his friend. Forrester reflects on how much progress he has made during the course of the school year since the summer. "[B]y now I no longer needed this vivid false identity; now I was acquiring, I felt, a sense of my own real authority and worth, I had had many new experiences and I was growing up." Chapter 11, pg. 148 During the summer Gene was in an insecure state of mind due to his paranoia about Finny and everyone else on the campus. Now he is much more collected and composed than he had been before. Sports no longer scare him and neither does Finny.
Brinker comes to their room and begins asking Gene about Leper. Gene hesitates to say much until it comes out that Leper has gone crazy because he couldn't handle the pressure of the army. Finny murmurs again only half-heartedly that there really isn't any war. Like Gene, Finny is starting to grow up in different ways as well, becoming more aware of the world. The boys are all graduating in a few months, and most of them are going on to help the war effort, except for Gene and Brinker who had both avoided enlisting yet, and Phineas, due to his handicapped leg. Gene's nemesis from the crew team, Quackenbush, has an enlistment career already planned out.
In the chapel, recruiting officers regularly give speeches advocating for the war, and their Christian faiths become intertwined with the needs of the government. On one such day, Brinker takes Gene aside and demands to know why he won't enlist. Brinker was going to join the army since Gene was, but is now afraid to do it alone, for it was Finny's return that had changed Gene's mind. Brinker is very jealous of Finny and insists that he is preventing Gene from enlisting. He implies that he will clear up the mystery of Finny's fall out of the tree and Gene's involvement in it. This, he hopes, will sever the two boys' friendship and Gene will be his close friend again, as he had been before Finny's return.
That evening Gene tutors Finny on his Latin homework while Finny is particularly disinterested and unhappy. Gene asks him if he believes in Caesar or the Gallic War, questions to which he has always answered "no." Now, however, Finny is thoughtful and says that he had seen Leper behaving oddly near the chapel, which makes him believe that the war is real since quiet Leper has transformed so greatly from what he had once been. The two are hit by a certain equality of their friendship--Gene says he had liked Finny's vision of the war as a fabrication of fat old men and Finny jokes about Gene's participation in the 1944 Olympics. The two have generated a real understanding of one another by opening themselves up rather than remaining suspicious, as Gene had been during the Summer Session. This earlier jealousy and paranoia are what had caused him to jounce the tree branch. Now they are truly the best of friends. Their friendship is a partnership of sharing; Finny gives his athletic advice and Gene gives his academic training. In this way, neither person dominates and their friendship is an equal enterprise. They have helped each other to grow. Finny finally does accept the fact that there is a war.
While the two are still studying, Brinker barges into their room with three others who forcefully carry Gene and Finny outside into the First Academy Building where the Latin inscription above the entrance reads: "Here Boys Come to Be Made Men." Brinker, who had been such a servant of the campus community before the war, had stolen money for the Devon Winter Carnival but also has kept all keys for campus buildings even after resigning his student government positions. His corruption and decline are widespread. They climb the same marble staircase Gene visits when he returns fifteen years later. They enter the darkened Assembly Room. The other boys there are all seniors wearing their black graduation robes. It appears that something of a mock trial will take place. Around the room, out of the frames of paintings, forgotten faces hover like ghosts. One painting included
"a beloved athletic coach none of us had ever heard of, a lady we could not identify -- her fortune had largely rebuilt the school; a nameless poet who was thought when under the school's protection to be destined primarily for future generations; a young hero now anonymous who looked theatrical in the First World War uniform in which he had died."Chapter 11, pg. 158
As the boys are soon to graduate, they too will become nameless, for as the building's inscription reads, they will be boys made into men. New boys will come to the school to replace them. Gene is reminded of the limitations that the passing of time places upon them. Very soon, the security of their lives at Devon will end, to be followed by an uncertain future.
Brinker begins praying to God and everyone joins him. Brinker declares that he is investigating Finny's accident, proclaiming him to be a "casualty" of the war and that blame must be placed on someone. Finny and Gene are hesitant to say much in response to Brinker's probing questions. Finny thinks that the tree shook him out and innocently asks Gene if he had seen anything odd. Finny tells Brinker that Leper, a witness to the accident, is at Devon. A couple of boys leave to find him and everyone chatters in the Assembly Room about all the rules they are breaking and then others talking about how many more they could break. Things become chaotic.
Leper is brought into the room and recalls seeing two people both high up on the branch of the tree. There,
"'the sun was blazing all around them...and the rays of the sun were shooting past them, millions of rays shooting past them like -- like golden machine-gun fire....The two of them looked as black as -- as black as death standing up there with this fire burning all around them....[then] they moved like an engine.'"Chapter 11, pp. 166-67
Leper says nothing more after this, insisting "I'm important" and says that he won't be used by Brinker for information any longer. He describes Gene and Finny as moving mechanically, like a machine, an engine, as Gene sunk down like a piston to shake the branch and Finny responded by rising and then falling. It is as if they were a war machine, in the midst of some battle with the "golden machine gun fire" blazing around them. Leper says Gene's envy consumed him, and he was waging a psychological war with Finny for a long while before actually attacking him. Brinker continues to ask Leper questions until Finny, hearing all of this, screams out violently that he doesn't care about any of it, tears streaming down his face. When he truly realizes that Gene had betrayed him and caused the accident, Finny is shocked and unable to handle the situation. Gene calls for him as Finny begins running out of the room. Then they hear the sound of his body falling down the marble staircase.
