In this section Marie-Laure, still in the cellar, is able to locate two cans of food. Werner, has given up on life, but Volkheimer is able to convince him to at least try and fix their radio. Saint-Malo has been relentlessly bombed, and is smokey and covered in rubble. Von Rumpel waits at a German base, on the outside of Saint-Malo. He readies himself to enter the town once the smoke clears.
Chapter 62 The Fort of La Cité
Chapter 63 Atelier de Réparation
Chapter 65 Number 4 rue Vauborel
Chapter 67 Trip Wire
- Sergeant Major von Rumpel watches Saint-Malo burn at a distance, he is a a German military base
- He sees the house he is looking for, Ettines house, is still up and has not caught on fire yet
- Sergeant Major von Rumpel has decided to wait until the smoke clears until he will enter Etienne's house
Chapter 63 Atelier de Réparation
- Werner looks at Bernd and is horrified
- Volkheimer is trying to get everyone out of the destroyed hotel
- Werner imagines a lot of weight pushing down on them
- He then wonders if it would have been better if they all just died
- Perhaps “[t]hese three have reparations to make” (Doerr 205).
- Perhaps “[t]hese three have reparations to make” (Doerr 205).
- Marie-Laure awakes in the crawl space, the model house is pinned beneath her chest
- She hears nothing on the other side of the trapdoor
- She decides to wait awhile to see if Ettiene comes for her
- She decides to wait awhile to see if Ettiene comes for her
- She quickly finishes the bread she has brought down with her, but she happens to find two full cans in the crawlspace, though she does not know what these cans contain
- As she waits she remembers a time, when she was a child, that her father explained a “Foucault’s pendulum” to her
- The sound of the pendulum fills her mind
- The sound of the pendulum fills her mind
Chapter 65 Number 4 rue Vauborel
- It is the day after the bombing and von Rumpel is walking towards Etienne’s house
- The surrounding houses have been destroyed, but only some of the windows in Etienne’s house have shattered
- Von Rumpel notices that only Etienne and Marie-Laure live in the house (he reads the mandatory posting of the inhabitants that is on their door)
- Von Rumpel thinks about the danger that he has gone through, then enters the house
- Werner, Bernd, and Volkheimer are still trapped in the cellar of the Hotel of Bees
- They take stock of what they have left which is; three rations of food, two half-empty canteens of water, two stick grenades, and Volkheimer rifle
- Bernd is dying, and Werner has given up but Volkheimer "wants to make an argument that life is worth living."
Chapter 67 Trip Wire
- Marie-Laure tries to ignore her need to urinate, but can not and goes outside
- She is surprised that there are no gunshots or explosions outside
- She goes to the bathroom in Etienne’s house and drinks water out of the bathtub (she and Etienne filled it with water earlier just in case)
- She gets a knife and a brick to open on of her cans
- Just before she opens it, she hears a bell (attached to a tripwire) go off and footsteps
- Just before she opens it, she hears a bell (attached to a tripwire) go off and footsteps