Crossing to Safety

The beginning of Part 3 takes place in the present, with the long-awaited meeting of Larry, Sally, Charity, and Sid. Having harbored negative feelings for Charity, her real-life presence complicates Larry’s feelings. On top of this, the prospect of her imminent passing weighs heavy upon their emotions: “I had been prepared to find Charity a transparent husk all but eaten away from within and held together by only pride and will. I should have known better” (275). Charity’s “spirit” comes through, overwhelming their pity for her: “Her spirit gushed and overflowed and swept us up, making us forget pity, caution, concern, everything but the pleasure of her presence” (275). In this situation, Larry remarks on how Sally seems more at home with the gravity of this situation, and reconciling both her and Charity to the coming loss, and their fractured friendship. They speak candidly about dying—about the lack of any meaningful, established preparation: “They say there’s no decent literature on how to die. There ought to be, but there isn’t” (284). Throughout the conversation, they experience much pity for their old friend in this new, weakened condition, yet by the end of their meeting, something changes: Sally and Larry find that Charity, although dying, has not changed but somehow strengthened: “Pitying and shaken as I was, I had to admit she was the same old Charity. She saw objectives, not obstacles, and she did not let her uncomplicated confidence get clouded by other people’s doubts, or other people’s facts, or even other people’s feelings” (285-86). They begin to understand that a great part of the fear they feel is for themselves, rather than for their friend.