This book covers over a decade in the characters’ lives. During that arc, much about the Divers and their world changes, not the least of which is Gausse’s Hotel and its adjacent beach on the French Riviera. The hotel symbolizes the idea of escapism. The Riviera marks a vacation spot for Dick and Nicole as well as a hiding place from the more uncomfortable aspects of their existence. In the Villa Diana, Nicole rests a safe distance from the Swiss clinic and doctors who scrutinize her condition, while Dick has an office tucked away in which to focus on his dream of writing a groundbreaking book on psychology. The relaxation of the beach and the comparative seclusion of the place offers the Divers a sanctuary from the world, yet it is a sanctuary that gets broken into very early in the novel.

As the group of Americans arrives in the book’s early chapters, Dick and Nicole each feel irritation at certain members of the ex-pat community. This intrusion of American tourism reflects a larger change represented by the passage of time in the novel. Gausse’s Hotel, relatively unknown at the beginning of the story, becomes a “discovered” haven for noisy travelers and loses its original tranquility.