The Secret History

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses incest, attempted murder, suicide, and attempted suicide.

When he returns to Hampden, Richard’s horrible nightmares about Bunny’s death resume, haunting him with their morbid details. Initially, the students process Bunny’s death in different ways. Richard spends less time with the classics students, often going for walks, seeing movies, and attending parties by himself. He notes that he feels “strangely free” (424). Henry also chooses to avoid the group, preferring to tend to his garden. Substantial tension also develops between the twins, who are now rarely seen together. Charles’s drinking gets worse, and Francis begins to experience heart troubles that are likely psychosomatic. In spite of this charged atmosphere, the twins continue to host their weekly dinners. At one of these dinners, the group notices a shattered mirror, and Charles tells a funny story about the accident that caused it to shatter, but Henry doesn’t appear to believe his story.

One night, Henry comes to Richard’s room and instructs Richard to go to the county jail, where Charles has been arrested for drunk driving in Henry’s car. When Richard goes to the jail, the police tell him that the car will have to be impounded, and Charles’s bail can’t be set until his arraignment at 9 a.