Cat's Cradle

John goes to Frank’s elegant house, designed and previously owned by Nestor Aamons. Finding that Frank is not home, John visits Newt on a terrace overlooking a waterfall. Newt shows John his black, scratchy painting in progress, which is of a cat’s cradle string figure and paradoxically contains neither a cat nor a cradle.

Angela appears with a man who introduces himself as Julian Castle. John asks whether Julian is a follower of Albert Schweitzer, a noted German theologian. Julian says that Schweitzer is not his role model but admits that Schweitzer influenced his view of Jesus.

John explains Newt’s painting to Julian, who agrees with its implication that life is meaningless and admits that he only mentioned Jesus as something to talk about. To prove his point that “man is vile, and man makes nothing worth making, knows nothing worth knowing” (169), he tosses the painting over the waterfall.