Life After Life Chapter 4 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Four Seasons Fill the Measure of the Year

11 February 1910

  • Sylvie wakes up later, and the doctor is gone. A farmer was trampled by a bull, and he had to go check on him.
  • Sylvie remembers moving to her home with her husband, Hugh, and how she decided to name it Fox Corner, even though Hugh doesn't like the name very much.
  • Back in the present, two children, Maurice and Pamela, come into the room to check out their new sister.
  • Sylvie has decided to name her Ursula, which means "little she-bear" (4.49). Aw…

May 1910

  • Hugh gets a telegram informing him that his sixteen-year-old sister, Izzie, has had her baby.
  • She got knocked up by a married man, so the baby was adopted by a German couple and Izzie was to be sent to a boarding school in Switzerland.
  • The baby, Ursula, lies in her carriage and watches a silver hare ornament tied to the hood twirl around in the breeze.

June 1914

  • The Todd family heads off to vacation in Cornwall, home of Camelot, although they don't go there; they spend their time on the beach instead.
  • Young Ursula and Pamela are playing in the ocean, and it drags them out further…
  • And further…
  • And little Ursula finds herself unable to stay afloat: "Darkness fell" (4.94).