Strangers On A Train

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1950

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Chapters 22-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 22 Summary

Guy worries sleeplessly that he has already implicated himself too much in Miriam's murder to tell Anne. Bruno's plans run through his mind. Contemplating going to the police, Guy anticipates Bruno framing him for Miriam's murder. He shifts his thoughts to his new project, the Shaw Building, but is interrupted by a call from Bruno. Guy loses a commission after Bruno sends a letter to the firm suggesting that Guy had a hand in Miriam's murder. Guy goes for a drink at a bar after Anne cancels lunch plans with him. He reflects on the distance between them. Guy feels that "nothing in the world made sense" (139), and contemplates performing the murder for Bruno in order to free himself. Guy accepts a gift from Bruno and stays drunk rather than working. Myers, Guy's work colleague, notices Guy is out of sorts, but Guy rejects his invitation for a drink.

Chapter 23 Summary

Guy thinks he has seen Bruno, and does not want to see Anne, or attend the Verdi opera to which they have tickets, because he is exhausted by his double life. Guy hopes Anne is busy and she cancels. Guy feels unsettled about his relationship with Anne, who asks for the third time whether there have been more letters. Guy searches for a note with a telephone number on it and, since it is missing, believes Bruno has taken it. Haunted, Guy drinks alone. He awakens to Bruno sitting in the dark, and says he is ready to commit the murder.

Bruno gives Guy ladies' gloves to use for the murder and leaves. Guy decides the next morning to perform the murder that night, a decision that feels "natural and inevitable" (147). Guy returns to his apartment to retrieve the gloves and gun. He arrives at the Captain's house and leaps the wall, following Bruno's detailed instructions until he confronts the sleeping Captain. Guy shoots him and escapes, tailed by the butler, who he punches in the face before leaping the wall again. As the sound of police sirens wail around him, he escapes into the woods, then southward towards the rail station.

Chapter 24 Summary

As Guy examines his scratched face in the mirror, he mentally retraces his steps from the previous night then reads the account of the murder in the newspaper. He is surprised by some inaccuracies but reminds himself that he is not safe. Anne calls to invite him to a party, but he declines, so she goes with another man. Guy dreams that he fights the Captain's house. The doorbell rings, and it is not the police, but Anne. Guy tells her that he was in a bar fight, but she doesn't believe him. The couple reconcile, and Guy resolves to bury the events of Friday night.

Chapters 22-24 Analysis

When Guy loses his commission for the Shaw Building, his resistance to Bruno begins to crumble like an edifice. As Bruno assails Guy's consciousness, Guy's life with Anne begins to recede: "It seemed to him that he was forgetting for long intervals that he loved her […] He felt Bruno destroying his courage to love" (138). As Guy's resolve to commit the murder gathers momentum, his resistance to Bruno abates entirely: "He really felt no enmity towards Bruno now, and that was the odd thing […] Hadn't he known Bruno was like himself? Or why had he liked Bruno? He loved Bruno" (147). Like the demon in Dr. Faustus, or Banquo's ghost in Macbeth, Bruno haunts Guy, entering his house apparently uninhibited. Bruno's desire takes up residence in Guy, so that even after Bruno departs, it still seems that "there were just the two of them in the room still" (146).

Even prior to the murder, the weight of Guy’s guilt causes him to feel animosity toward himself and behave self-destructively. He comes to associate performing Bruno's desired murder with annihilating his own guilty conscience, represented by his bond with Bruno. Paradoxically, this causes Guy to fall in with Bruno's desire, as indicated when he accepts a gift from Bruno and closes the book of architectural sketches made in his youth "because it was good" (144). Guy escapes Bruno’s father’s house, but he is not out of the metaphorical woods yet; in fact, his disorientation and guilt continue to dog him. "She is the sun in my dark forest," Guy later thinks of Anne (188).