Spring

Spring marks a turning point in Gwynplaine’s feelings for Dea: the season’s renewal brings an unfamiliar physical dimension to his love, unsettling the reverence with which he has regarded her and making his longing newly difficult to contain.

Setting and Seasonal Time

The episode unfolds in April, during Gwynplaine’s solitary nighttime walk near the fairground at Tarrinzeau Field. The five parishes of Southwark have just struck midnight; the fairground is deserted, and the Tadcaster Inn’s lamp remains lit for his return. Against this quiet setting, the arrival of spring becomes more than a marker of the calendar: the narrative presents it as a force that alters how Gwynplaine experiences his attachment to Dea.

Change in Gwynplaine’s Feelings

As he walks, Gwynplaine finds that his thoughts of Dea have changed. He had understood their bond in idealized, almost spiritual terms; now he begins to think of her as a woman and recognizes a desire for a more embodied closeness. The change troubles him. He reproaches himself and tries to resist thoughts he experiences as a departure from his former reverence, but they return, leaving him divided between ideal devotion and newly awakened longing.

Spring’s Narrative Role

Spring intensifies this inner conflict rather than resolving it. The narrator associates the season’s nocturnal awakening with a broad stirring of desire, so that Gwynplaine’s private change seems part of a wider natural rhythm. Yet his longing remains specifically directed toward Dea: he feels that she is the only woman he desires and the only one who could desire him. By the end of the walk, the combined weight of his feelings, the season, and the night leaves him nearly staggering. Spring thus marks a threshold in his understanding of love, without changing the person at its center.