How does Gene react throughout the trial?

The inquiry itself is rather odd, since neither Gene nor Finny consent to it or want to take place in the proceedings. Brinker resides as the chief of the proceedings, hell-bent on getting the "facts" into the open for everyone's own good; how ironic, since it is the disclosure of the facts which causes Finny's second accident, and puts a great traumatic strain on him and Gene. As Gene says in his apt metaphor, Brinker is "imagining himself Justice incarnate"; but even Gene knows that Brinker is going at this from the wrong angle, since "Justice incarnate isŠalso blindfolded," while Brinker is trying to get his desired outcome out of the whole affair (161).

Just as Gene tries to deny responsibility for the accident, Finny tries his best to cover up his friend's guilt. They work together to try and thwart the charges that Brinker puts before them, and fully illustrate their very different natures.