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The next morning, Babbitt resolves that rebellion has done him no good. But he can\'t make himself return to his old respectable ways either. Can he find a woman who will make his life better?
That woman isn\'t Mrs. Babbitt, he realizes when she returns from her vacation. In past years he had missed her when she was gone; now he feels nothing, though he does his best to fake pleasure at her return.
The memory of his trip to Maine with Paul haunts Babbitt, and after much thought he decides to make the same trip this year. Knowing that his wife won\'t understand what he\'s about to do, he lies that he must go to New York on business.
All the way to Maine, Babbitt idealizes the woodsmen he met there the year before. To him, guides like Joe Paradise represent a free and brave world that is completely the opposite of conformist Zenith. He half talks himself into abandoning his family to live in the woods. It wouldn\'t take any more nerve to do that, he tells himself, than it did for Paul to go to prison.
Babbitt arrives in Maine hopeful that Joe Paradise and the other guides will see that he\'s not just an ordinary tourist but is well on his way to becoming a woodsman. The guides, though, are more interested in their poker game than they are in Babbitt, and the next morning Babbitt greets Joe \"as a fellow caveman,\" but we soon see that Joe isn\'t nearly as interested in the wilderness life as Babbitt is. Babbitt wants to hike to camp, Joe wants to go by motorboat. After Babbitt insists, the two set out on foot, but it\'s soon obvious that Joe is as out-of-shape as is the city-soft Babbitt, and as ignorant of nature. The next day, when Babbitt--happy to be living the manly life in the woods--asks Joe what he would do if he had a lot of money, Joe answers that he\'d go to a nearby town and open a shoe store. At heart, Joe is no different from any member of the Zenith Boosters\' Club.
Babbitt finds himself thinking about his office, the Athletic Club, his family. \"I won\'t go back,\" he tells himself. But he realizes that in fact he\'s never left Zenith, because he\'s never left himself. Four days later he\'s on the train for home. His attempt at escape has failed, and though he insists that somehow he\'ll make a different life for himself back home, he knows that the hopes for any real change are slim.
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