Summary

In Chapter XII, Teresa met up with Petros. He asked why she had returned to the town, joking self-deprecatingly that she had come back to hear some more of his theories about trees having feelings. Teresa began what she described as “the confessional” (129). She told him that she had wondered whether it would have been possible for her to take a different path in life. She told him the story of the two criminals and the two different outcomes. Petros reacted differently to Teresa, insisting that the older man was guiltier than the younger man, and that it was appropriate for him to receive a harsher punishment. Teresa countered that society should condemn the offence rather than the offender. This suggestion caused Petros to wince. Petros told Teresa the story of his older brother Paul, who had a drinking problem and...