Chap­ter XXVII begins with an absurd yet mag­net­ic per­for­mance as Mr. Sco­gan takes on his the­atri­cal alter ego, “Sesostris, the Sor­cer­ess of Ecbatana.” Draped in flam­boy­ant robes and heavy with mock mys­ti­cism, he draws a crowd eager for enter­tain­ment, not enlight­en­ment. One by one, the guests offer their palms and receive cryp­tic fates—some grave, oth­ers com­i­cal­ly vague. The sor­cer­ess per­forms with dra­mat­ic grav­i­ty, her voice thick with prophet­ic flair, turn­ing every word into a spec­ta­cle. Denis, observ­ing from a dis­creet dis­tance, watch­es both Scogan’s act and the reac­tions it pro­vokes. Some vis­i­tors leave laugh­ing, oth­ers uncer­tain, clutch­ing vague por­tents about future loves or minor tragedies. To Denis, the whole affair serves as both com­ic relief and a strange com­men­tary on people’s hunger for guidance—however fic­tion­al. What fas­ci­nates him isn’t the pre­dic­tions but how seri­ous­ly peo­ple lis­ten when dressed-up non­sense pre­tends to be truth.

As the fair expands around the spec­ta­cle, its sights and sounds become more chaot­ic and alive. Stalls bus­tle with motion, music com­petes with laugh­ter, and rib­bons flut­ter against the warm after­noon breeze. Denis, half-dis­tract­ed, stum­bles into con­ver­sa­tion with Mrs. Budge, who proud­ly dis­cuss­es her con­tri­bu­tion to the war effort by col­lect­ing peach stones—believing, with con­vic­tion, that her efforts helped puri­fy gas masks. Her words tum­ble out in cheer­ful absur­di­ty, min­gling patri­ot­ic pride with gar­den triv­ia. Denis lis­tens, amused by the con­trast between her self-impor­tance and the fair’s inno­cent chaos. The inter­ac­tion is light but reveal­ing. It reminds him how peo­ple build mean­ing from the small­est ges­tures, often unaware of how lit­tle impact those ges­tures may car­ry. Around them, the fair­grounds con­tin­ue to pulse with ener­gy, offer­ing an odd bal­ance between enter­tain­ment and a silent cri­tique of human pre­tense.

Lat­er, as twi­light soft­ens the edges of the cel­e­bra­tion, Denis with­draws inward, reflect­ing on a poem he had recent­ly writ­ten. It cap­tured, he believes, the clash between fleet­ing joy and the con­stric­tion of social norms. The fair, so full of bright dis­trac­tion, hides with­in it a qui­et sad­ness. Denis sees in the danc­ing, the games, and even in Scogan’s fake sor­cery, a metaphor for life’s des­per­ate attempt to dis­tract from deep­er uncer­tain­ties. Peo­ple laugh, flirt, play, but rarely speak plain­ly. His mind drifts to the Bod­i­hams, who appear again just as the sun begins to dip. Their grim dis­ap­proval of the swimmers—bare shoul­ders and laugh­ter offend­ing their sense of propriety—jolts Denis into a reminder of the ever-present walls built around joy. Even leisure, it seems, is not exempt from moral scruti­ny.

This sud­den con­trast shifts Denis’s mood. What was once play­ful now car­ries weight. He begins to feel as though the entire day has been a staged release, one tight­ly bound by unspo­ken codes. Free­dom, he mus­es, isn’t just about the absence of restraint—it’s about the right to feel with­out shame, to exist with­out being judged. And yet, judg­ment hov­ers at every stall and cor­ner, hid­den beneath smiles and social man­ners. The fair ends not in chaos, but in a kind of sub­dued equilibrium—its joy tem­pered by the qui­et reminder of the world out­side Crome’s care­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed walls. Denis, caught between insight and detach­ment, walks away more obser­vant, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly more hope­ful.

In this lay­ered chap­ter, the mer­ri­ment of the fair exists not only for its spec­ta­cle but as a reflec­tion of per­son­al and soci­etal con­tra­dic­tions. Char­ac­ters present them­selves as per­form­ers and crit­ics all at once, reveal­ing the masks they wear to blend joy with pro­pri­ety. Denis, as both spec­ta­tor and reluc­tant par­tic­i­pant, cap­tures this ten­sion in his thoughts and fleet­ing inter­ac­tions. His encounter with Scogan’s sor­cer­ess and his qui­et judg­ment of the Bod­i­hams leave him perched between skep­ti­cism and sad­ness. The fair becomes more than an event—it becomes a sym­bol. It reveals how much peo­ple want to escape them­selves, even briefly, and how much they remain teth­ered to sys­tems that qui­et­ly for­bid such free­dom. Denis’s reflec­tions offer no con­clu­sion, only sharp­er aware­ness. And in that aware­ness lies the unspo­ken ten­sion of the chap­ter: joy is rarely unbur­dened, and mean­ing is always a lit­tle masked.