Norton begins romantic relationships with Jean-Claude Pelletier and Manuel Espinoza through separate encounters that gradually become a shared, unsettled arrangement. The shift follows the men’s recognition that their pursuit of Benno von Archimboldi cannot by itself give their lives the intimacy they want; it also tests whether their intellectual and personal friendship can survive their love for the same woman.

From the search to intimacy

While walking around Sankt Pauli and later visiting Mrs. Bubis, Pelletier and Espinoza conclude that studying Archimboldi cannot fill their lives. The author remains distant, and the deeper the critics go into his work, the more it seems to consume them. They realize they want to make love, not war. At the airport, as they wait for separate flights, they speak about love and the need for it. Espinoza imagines a life with Norton in Madrid, sharing an apartment and work in the German department; the imagined domestic future gives concrete shape to an attraction that had been partly a private possibility.

Pelletier acts first. Three days after meeting Archimboldi’s publisher, he arrives in London without warning, tells Norton the latest news, and invites her to dinner in Hammersmith. The elaborate meal includes goulash, chickpea purée with beets, fish with lemon and yogurt, vodka, and Bordeaux. Its expense and theatrical excess help make the evening an occasion rather than a routine meeting. Norton invites Pelletier to her home ostensibly to discuss Archimboldi and what Mrs. Bubis had disclosed, including critic Schleiermacher’s contemptuous judgment of Archimboldi’s first book. Their conversation turns to laughter and then to a kiss initiated by Pelletier. Norton responds with greater ardor, and they spend the night together.

Espinoza’s relationship with Norton

Pelletier’s first night with Norton becomes a memory Espinoza must reckon with when Norton accepts his invitation to Madrid. One Saturday he invites her as his guest, praising the city and mentioning a Francis Bacon retrospective. Norton surprises him by saying she will arrive the next day. Espinoza becomes excited and insecure, but the Sunday goes well: they spend the day together and go to bed that night.

Espinoza has so many questions that he asks none. Norton tells him that she and Pelletier are lovers, though she uses an ambiguous term, perhaps describing them as friends or saying they have been seeing each other. She says she has always had many friends, without making clear whether she means friends or lovers, and describes her view of relationships through her own history. She also reveals that she was once married and is now divorced. Her disclosures do not settle what she wants with Espinoza; instead, they make clear that he cannot assume he understands her simply because they are close.

After feeling unsettled by what he has learned, Espinoza tries to reassure himself that he will not take the relationship further. Four days later, he calls Norton and asks to see her. She chooses Madrid. During her next visit, they drive to El Escorial, attend a flamenco show, and spend the night together. Norton appears happy to Espinoza, who is glad to see her so. On the return journey, he asks whether she has seen Pelletier. She says that Pelletier has been in London and that she has told him about her relationship with Espinoza. Espinoza becomes nervous and concentrates on driving before asking what Pelletier thought.

The friendship pact

The relationships develop alongside a near-crisis in Pelletier and Espinoza’s friendship. After an encounter involving Alex Pritchard, the three dine together at Jane & Chloe. The meal and wine ease their initial reserve, and they return home laughing. Pelletier and Espinoza do not press Norton to explain who Pritchard is, and she offers no account that would clarify the young man’s identity. Instead, they talk about how close they came to destroying their friendship.

Pelletier and Espinoza agree that sex should not be allowed to damage a bond grounded in both emotional and intellectual affinity. They tell Norton that, ideally, she may eventually choose either one of them or neither. They place the decision in her hands and say she may make it whenever she wishes—or defer it indefinitely. Their declarations of patience do not remove the competition between them, but they attempt to prevent that competition from becoming a demand imposed on Norton or a permanent rupture between the men.

Norton tests the logic of their pact by asking what would happen if one of them fell in love with someone else while she was still deciding. Pelletier and Espinoza call that possibility extremely remote, but maintain that Norton remains free to choose as she likes, even to choose neither of them. The arrangement therefore has no promised resolution: the two men accept uncertainty rather than set a deadline or claim an automatic right to Norton’s affection. Their friendship pact transforms the triangle from a concealed rivalry into an openly acknowledged, though still unstable, relation among all three.

Significance and unresolved choice

The beginning of the relationships changes the critics’ search for Archimboldi without bringing that search to an end. Their earlier realization in Sankt Pauli—that literary study cannot substitute for shared life—now takes shape in private encounters, travel, meals, and conversations about love. Yet Archimboldi remains a subject they discuss even as intimacy develops: Pelletier’s visit to London is prompted by news from the publisher, and his stated reason for going home with Norton is to discuss the novelist and Mrs. Bubis’s revelations.

The episode’s central consequence is not a settled pairing but an agreement to live with an open choice. Norton is candid about her involvement with both men, while the men try to preserve their friendship and acknowledge that she may choose neither. The arrangement offers a way to continue, not certainty about its outcome; its emotional stakes lie in the attempt to hold together desire, respect for Norton’s freedom, and a friendship each man fears losing.