The Secret History: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Francis walks in the door and is immediately concerned when he realizes that Henry has told Richard what happened. Henry tells Francis that Richard already knew anyway, and Richard reassures him by saying, “It doesn’t matter.” Richard then asks why they didn’t try going to the police. Henry explains that it is unlikely that four rich college students from out of state would be looked kindly upon by a Vermont jury. In addition, Henry reveals that the crime was committed on the murdered man’s land. Also, if they had turned themselves in right away, they would’ve shown up at the police station drunk, covered in blood, and wearing nothing but bedsheets. Henry is still surprised that they managed to get home without being seen. They were still partially out of their minds, and he says that Camilla couldn’t even speak for a few days. 

Although they weren’t caught by the authorities, Bunny remains an issue because “he just can’t keep his mouth shut.” Henry explains to Richard that, although Bunny wasn’t part of the crime, he has knowledge of it. He hasn’t gone to the authorities, which would likely result in jail time for Bunny himself, but even so, Bunny cannot keep quiet. Though Francis and Henry don’t think that he will go to the authorities, they worry that he will let something slip to Marion or his father.

Francis tells Richard that he and Bunny were at a movie together the night of the murder. Richard remembers the night well and tells Henry and Francis that after the movie they had a drink and then, as far as he knew, Bunny went to his room. Henry reveals that this is not the case; instead, Bunny went to Henry’s apartment with the intention of scaring Henry when he arrived home. However, instead, he fell asleep on the couch. When Henry and the others arrived dressed in bedsheets and covered in blood, Bunny woke up and started screaming. Eventually, they calmed him down by telling him they hit a deer with their car.

Henry continues his story. As the Greek students are cleaning up the mess, Bunny starts to notice peculiar details. For instance, Charles has a large bite on his arm. Although Bunny is suspicious, the others have no reason to believe that he knows the truth of the matter. Furthermore, at this point, Henry doesn’t think he will tell Marion and, apparently, Julian is already aware that his students have been attempting a bacchanal. Ultimately, they all manage to clean themselves up and hide the evidence of their crime without attracting unnecessary attention.

The next day, Bunny acts as though nothing is out of the ordinary. He calls and invites the other Greek students to dinner, including Richard. After dinner, he sees that Henry’s car looks fine, despite having supposedly hit a deer. Still, Bunny isn’t too suspicious. However, a few weeks later, Bunny spots an article in the newspaper about the man that was killed. Although he still doesn’t outwardly accuse his friends of the crime, Bunny begins joking that they are responsible. At this point, Henry starts to worry that Bunny’s comments will be heard by the wrong person and cause trouble.

Wanting to keep Bunny on their good side, the other Greek students go out of their way to lend him extra money and pay for expensive things. In particular, Henry pays for the expensive trip to Rome, where he and Bunny live luxuriously. Unfortunately, the trip to Rome only makes matters worse. Bunny regularly complains about their accommodations—despite their opulence—and this makes Henry angry. In addition, Henry starts to experience intense migraines, which he is prone to having from time to time. This incapacitates him for a few days.

When Henry begins to feel better, he wanders out of his bedroom to find Bunny reading his diary. Because Henry writes his diary in Latin, he thought it would be safe from prying eyes. However, he underestimates Bunny’s Latin abilities because it turns out that Bunny is able to translate the contents of the diary. The diary contains a number of passages that are not flattering to Bunny; among other things, Henry refers to him as cuniculus molestes, which roughly translates to “annoying rabbit.” More importantly, Henry has written about the murder in his diary, and it seems that Bunny has definitively learned the truth.

Once again, Bunny causes a scene, and this time it attracts the attention of those within earshot. The “chambermaid” starts banging on the door. Henry opens it and manages to convince the concerned woman that all is well, but he knows the situation has now grown more complicated.

Though Bunny is angry, Henry still doesn’t think that he will go to the police. Henry believes that Bunny’s response to the crime is not one of “moral outrage,” but rather that he is upset because he was “excluded.” In order to get Bunny back on his side, Henry starts spending inordinate amounts of money on him. Eventually, unable to stand Bunny’s company any longer—and unable to afford him—Henry leaves Italy in the middle of the night while Bunny is asleep. In hopes of mollifying Bunny, he leaves behind $2,000, which he says is a relatively small sum compared to what he spent over the course of the trip.

Finishing his story, Henry explains that Bunny continued blackmailing everyone when he returned from Italy—even the twins, who are relatively poor compared to Henry and Francis. Although Henry and Francis are wealthy, even they have their limits, and soon they will no longer be able to afford Bunny’s silence. They tell Richard that he shouldn’t let Bunny know what he’s just learned, lest Richard be implicated in the crime as well. Although Francis and Richard are concerned about the situation, Henry remains relatively calm. He thinks that he will be able to solve the situation, though he says that it will depend “to a certain extent on how much, in the end, we are willing to do.”

Richard spends the night in Francis’s apartment. The next morning when he wakes up, he wonders how well he actually knows his newfound friends and contemplates what they are capable of. In retrospect, he realizes that his reaction in this moment—or lack thereof—profoundly impacts the trajectory of his life. When he returns to his room, Richard works on his Greek homework, which he’s been neglecting. He thinks about the benefits of studying Greek, which makes “certain common ideas become inexpressible” while “other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation.” He wonders whether his deeply felt connection to the other Greek students comes from the fact that they are the only people he knows who have access to this alternative way of thinking.

After finishing his Greek homework, Richard heads to Bunny’s room. Bunny tells him that he and Henry are planning a lengthy and expensive trip to France for the coming summer and invites Richard to come along. Charles and Camilla are also present and when Charles gets the chance, he takes Richard aside and tells him that he knows that Henry told Richard what happened. When Richard asks Charles what he plans to do about the situation, Charles can only shrug. Richard and Charles head to class to let Henry know that Bunny is planning a trip to France. Henry tells them to spare the details until class is over, so he doesn’t spend the whole session thinking about it.

Before long, Bunny and Camilla also arrive for class, and Bunny makes a misogynistic comment about Camilla that everyone is forced to ignore. After class, Richard returns to his room and takes a sleeping pill. Later in the day, he is awoken by Camilla, who asks him if he wants to go on a ride. He accepts, and together they go to the Commons, where they meet Henry and Francis. Notably, everyone is happy to spend some time away from Bunny. As they drive, Henry sees a particular property that he mentions he would like to own. It is made up of 150 acres, which Henry loves because he could live there without seeing any signs of civilization.

The drive ends at a cheap local restaurant where Bunny would never come looking for them. Their meal is largely uneventful, though Richard does take note of how quickly Henry strikes up a conversation with their server, a kind but relatively uneducated young man who is curious about how such a group ended up at such a restaurant. Richard reflects on the fact that, like Julian, Henry’s personality is popular among “country people,” despite his background and appearance.

As time progresses, Richard is shocked by how little he thinks about the murder his friends committed. Instead, he is concerned with Bunny’s increasingly erratic behavior. One evening, while everyone is at Francis’s country house, Richard overhears a loud argument between Henry and Bunny. Among other things, Richard hears Bunny yell, “You make me sick,” before rattling off homophobic and antisemitic slurs (though he also, confusingly enough, calls Henry a Nazi). Soon after, Henry comes up and knocks on Richard’s door and says that their fight was related to the murder. He also asks Richard to go into his room—where Bunny is now asleep—to grab some aspirin. Richard hesitantly agrees, but when he goes to the room, he finds that it has been trashed. He quickly grabs Henry’s pills and leaves. The next day, Bunny is moody but silent at breakfast.

In the following weeks, Bunny’s behavior continues to worsen. He is exceptionally rude and reactionary, even toward Marion. The Greek students worry about what Bunny might tell Marion and Cloke Rayburn, his friend from high school who now attends Hampden. Furthermore, Bunny begins making it a point to single out and attack individual members of the group. He attacks Charles for how much he drinks, Francis for his homosexuality, Richard for his relative poverty, and Camilla for being female. Additionally, in one particularly nasty moment, he accuses Charles and Camilla of having an incestuous relationship. Although Camilla usually doesn’t bat an eye at Bunny’s attacks, this one bothers her, and she gets up and leaves the room.

While everyone endures Bunny’s attacks, Henry is plotting, though Richard doesn’t yet know what he has in mind. One day, while driving around high on cocaine with Judy Poovey, Richard spots Henry in a head shop talking to a hippie. Henry seems to be purchasing something from the store, though Richard cannot tell what it is. Judy asks Richard if they should get Henry’s attention, but Richard thinks it would be better to lay low. In the following days, Richard tries to make sense of Henry’s actions, but he has no luck.

A few days after the head shop incident, Henry shows up at Richard’s door. Richard invites him in, and Henry begins asking questions about “a formula for dosage.” He thinks Richard might be helpful because of his pre-med background. Although Richard’s knowledge of medicine is cursory at best, he tries to answer Henry’s questions while also attempting to figure out what is going on. Eventually, Richard gets Henry to tell him that he is experimenting with deadly mushrooms. Henry wants to prepare a dish with the mushrooms that both he and Bunny will consume. However, he wants Richard’s help to figure out the proper dosage to kill Bunny, while only making himself sick. Henry believes that by also poisoning himself, he will avoid suspicion.

Richard is impressed by the plan because, “if anything could be relied upon with almost mathematical certainty, it was that Bunny, at any given meal, would somehow manage to eat almost twice as much as anyone else.” However, he also notices that Henry already knows a bit too much about the mushrooms he plans to work with. When Richard asks how he came by such knowledge, Henry reveals that he’s been experimenting on some dogs that live nearby, one of which ended up dead.

Ultimately, Richard agrees to help Henry. His rationale is as follows: “emotional appeals, I knew, were useless, but if I pretended that I knew what I was doing I might be able to talk him out of it.” Richard spends the following 30 minutes attempting to concoct the proper formula for Henry. However, as he expected, he fails. He informs Henry that the plan is unlikely to work and that even a seasoned mathematician would have a difficult time solving the problem due to the number of variables and unknowns involved.

Henry isn’t satisfied with Richard’s answer. He continues his line of questioning and asks if it would help if he possessed an antidote for himself. He tells Richard that atropine—also known as deadly nightshade—can counteract poison when given in small doses. Richard finds this unlikely and asks Henry for his source, which Henry reveals to be an Arabic text from the 15th century. This is concerning to Richard, though Henry insists that, “People have used these books for centuries. Their accuracy is beyond dispute.” Richard continues to try to get Henry to reconsider his plan, but Henry remains resolute, saying, “The more I hear about luxury barges, the less terrible death begins to seem.” After this pronouncement, he thanks Richard for his help and leaves.

The next day, Richard meets up with Charles and asks him if he knows about Henry’s plan. Charles reveals that he does in fact know, and that Henry has been working on the plan for a while. Surprised, Richard asks Charles if they are contemplating killing Bunny, to which Charles responds, “I’d rather go to jail than know that Bunny was going to be hanging around my neck for the rest of my life.” Soon after this conversation, Richard has a brief conversation with Camilla, who wonders aloud whether it would have been better if they had all just gone to South America. Richard tells her that he is glad that she didn’t go, but she doesn’t respond to his comment.

As the weeks continue to pass, the Bunny situation gets more and more precarious. Even Francis and Henry are running out of money. One day, Julian invites Richard to a one-on-one lunch. Richard is concerned and asks Henry what Julian knows. Henry tells him that Julian is aware of the success of the bacchanal, but not the murder. Richard ends up enjoying his lunch with Julian, although he is slightly alarmed by a mushroom dish, the ingredients of which were sourced by Henry. However, Richard quickly realizes that the mushrooms are Henry’s way of covering his tracks and are not dangerous.

After lunch, Julian asks Richard if he’s noticed anything unusual about Bunny. Julian thinks that something is wrong with Bunny, in part because of Bunny’s recent interest in ethics. This confuses Julian, who refers to Bunny as “one of the least morally concerned boys I’ve ever known.” Richard lets him think that perhaps this change in Bunny is a result of his relationship with Marion, who is Presbyterian. Julian has an “implacable contempt” for all Judeo-Christian traditions, and this explanation seems to satisfy him for the time being.

April arrives and the weather around Hampden starts to improve. On one particularly nice night, Bunny shows up at Richard’s door, drunk and ready to spill all of the secrets that he doesn’t think Richard knows. Realizing he cannot tell Bunny that he already knows the truth, Richard listens while Bunny tells him about the murder. Shortly after finishing his account of what happened, Bunny leaves and Richard worries that he might be on his way to tell Marion and Cloke as well. Richard calls Charles and tells him what happened. Charles tells Richard to come over right away while he goes and fetches Henry.

When Richard arrives at the twins’ place, Charles hasn’t managed to get ahold of Henry. However, Camilla contacts him by using a code: “ring twice, hang up, ring again.” Charles is annoyed that Camilla and Henry have “a secret code” that he doesn’t know about, although Camilla assures him that it is not secret. Charles continues to question his sister, but she tells him not to be “such a baby.”

Henry arrives and Richard recaps the situation for him. After, he asks Henry if he plans to poison Bunny. Henry tells him that he’s given up on that idea because—among other reasons—the poison would be too slow. Everyone is at loss for what to do next, except Henry, who leaves to run some errands, although he does not elaborate on what this means. Before he leaves, he thanks Richard for his help and tells him to buy a newspaper on his way home in case anyone questions why he is out and about. Richard spends the day sleeping, “a comfortable dead-man’s float only remotely disturbed by a chill undertow of reality.”

In the evening, Richard goes to Henry’s place, where he finds Henry, Charles, and Francis. They tell him that Camilla is at a party with Cloke, Bunny, and Marion. Although Camilla goes to the party as Cloke’s date, she only does so to keep an eye on Bunny. In the meantime, Henry lays out his plan to the others. He wants to make Bunny’s death look like a hiking accident. The following day, he expects Bunny to take his usual hike, assuming the weather allows for it. Part of Bunny’s normal route passes by a ravine. Henry’s idea is to come from the opposite direction and wait for Bunny. When Bunny arrives at the ravine, the plan is to push him off the cliff and flee. Although the plan relies on some luck, Henry believes it to be the best course of action.

Francis is much less sure of Henry’s plan. He thinks there are too many variables and that they are likely to get caught. However, Henry convinces him that some luck will be necessary no matter what and that they need to act soon if they hope to avoid prison. During this conversation, Charles wonders aloud whether they have all gone insane. Once everyone is convinced that they have no other option but to kill Bunny, Henry tells Richard that he should leave; the less Richard knows, the better for everyone involved. Richard wishes everyone good luck and then quickly takes his leave. On his way home, Richard runs into Camilla, who is drunk and seemingly in a good mood. Richard tells her to come home with him as a romantic gesture, but Camilla denies his advances. Instead, she gives him a quick kiss and then continues on her way.

Richard doesn’t wake up until the following afternoon. Before long, he runs into Judy, who informs him that today there is a campus-wide party called “Swing into Spring.” Richard is immediately concerned about what this means for Henry’s plot. He politely listens as Judy tells him about her previous experiences at Swing into Spring, but the whole time he worries about Bunny. Judy ends by telling Richard that he should bring Bunny to the party because at the moment he’s in the library. Richard goes to the library in search of Bunny but instead he only finds a brief note from Bunny addressed to Marion, which reads, “Bored stiff. Walked down to the party to get a brewski. See ya later.”

Richard tries to get ahold of Henry but is unsuccessful. Not knowing what else to do, he puts on his jacket and goes looking for his friends out in the woods. Eventually, he finds them and tells them that Bunny will not be taking his normal walk because he is attending a party. However, just when everyone is about to depart, they hear heavy footsteps, which turn out to belong to Bunny. When Bunny sees his former friends, he is confused. Bunny makes a few sarcastic remarks, as Henry moves toward him with a smile on his face.