Quote 34
My brief animosity, lasting only a second, a part of a second, something which came before I could recognize it and was gone before I knew it had possessed me, what was that in the midst of this holocaust? (12.34).
As change comes to Devon, even the rules are affected, or so Gene would like to think. Crimes become relative, guilt is redefined.
Quote 35
"What'd you come around here for last night?"
"I don't know. […] I had to. […] I thought I belonged here" (12.41-2).
At Devon, there are rules to govern friendship, too, though they shift as Gene's relationship with Finny evolves.
Quote 36
I didn't entirely like this glossy new surface, because it made the school look like a museum, and that's exactly what it was to me, and what I did not want it to be. In the deep, tacit way in which feeling becomes stronger than thought, I had always felt that the Devon School came into existence the day I entered it, was vibrantly real while I was a student there, and then blinked out like a candle the day I left (1.2).
Gene has not learned from Finny's death; he's still manipulating reality to serve his purposes.