This places blame in two ways. On the one hand, he feels guilty for loving someone who could commit such horrible crimes, and on the other, he feels that he has failed her in some way and could have given her comfort or helped her deal with her guilt and fear. This story is told as a memory, and so the old man struggles with all the guilt and meaning that his experience has created in him: "Why does it make me so sad when I think back to that time?" (37). He remembers specific moments and agonizes over their meaning. The feeling of having disappointed Hanna is linked to the memory of when he saw her looking at him in the pool: "Sometimes I tried to tell myself that it wasn't her I had seen... But I knew it was her. She was there." and looked... and it was too late"