Chap­ter 14 opens with Camp­bell reflect­ing on an unset­tling chain of events that fol­lows the arrival of dis­turb­ing let­ters, draw­ing unwant­ed atten­tion to his past. It’s a week after he first received the cor­re­spon­dence, and Camp­bell, uneasy and agi­tat­ed, attempts to vis­it Jones, the pub­lish­er of a con­tro­ver­sial news­pa­per, in hopes of per­suad­ing him to retract a sto­ry about him that had been caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dis­tress. How­ev­er, upon arriv­ing at Jones’ loca­tion, Camp­bell finds that Jones is not present, leav­ing him uncer­tain of his next move and increas­ing­ly anx­ious about the grow­ing pub­lic scruti­ny of his life and past actions.

When Camp­bell returns home, he is con­front­ed with an over­whelm­ing num­ber of let­ters crammed into his mail­box, all stem­ming from the con­tro­ver­sial arti­cle in the news­pa­per. Some of the let­ters praise him, call­ing him a hero, while oth­ers sug­gest he should flee New York and find sanc­tu­ary in a remote area, referred to by the writ­ers as “God’s coun­try.” Unknown to Camp­bell, Kraft, a mutu­al acquain­tance, had tipped off Jones about Campbell’s sur­vival, divulging details about his where­abouts and his­to­ry that led Jones to pur­sue him. The rev­e­la­tion adds anoth­er lay­er of dis­com­fort for Camp­bell, as he begins to real­ize the lev­el of inva­sive inter­est in his life and how his past is being manip­u­lat­ed for the ben­e­fit of oth­ers.

The nar­ra­tive takes a strange turn when Camp­bell, engaged in a por­trait ses­sion with Kraft, hears an odd chant echo­ing up the stairwell—a count of twen­ty, punc­tu­at­ed by strained breaths. This chant comes from Jones and his entourage, a bizarre spec­ta­cle led by Jones’s body­guard, August Krapp­tauer, a for­mer Vice-Bun­des­fuehrer of the Ger­man-Amer­i­can Bund, and Patrick Kee­ley, an unfrocked Paulist Father who car­ries a dis­turb­ing his­to­ry marked by anti-Semit­ic sen­ti­ments. The sound of the chant, com­ing from men in such vis­i­bly poor health, espe­cial­ly Krapp­tauer, whose labored breath­ing is evi­dent, only height­ens the unease in the room. Their phys­i­cal decline is appar­ent, and it adds to the fore­bod­ing atmos­phere sur­round­ing them, sug­gest­ing that their per­son­al and polit­i­cal ide­olo­gies are on the verge of col­lapse, mir­ror­ing their dete­ri­o­rat­ing health.

When Jones, adorned with lav­ish jew­el­ry, final­ly ascends the stairs to meet Camp­bell, the sit­u­a­tion takes an unex­pect­ed turn. Jones presents Camp­bell with a rev­e­la­tion that he was not pre­pared for, a sur­pris­ing twist in the ongo­ing ten­sion. As Krapp­tauer and Kee­ley arrive at the scene, Jones unveils the true sur­prise: the arrival of Hel­ga, Campbell’s estranged wife. Hel­ga, hav­ing asked Jones not to inform Camp­bell of her arrival, asserts that she want­ed to qui­et­ly observe whether there was still a place for her in his life. If not, she intends to leave once again, with­out dis­rupt­ing his cur­rent life, forc­ing Camp­bell to face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a life with­out her. This moment is fraught with emo­tion­al ten­sion, as it forces Camp­bell to con­front the painful real­i­ty of the frac­tured rela­tion­ship and unre­solved feel­ings between him and Hel­ga.

This chap­ter delves into the com­plex inter­play of iden­ti­ty, mem­o­ry, and the strug­gle to rec­on­cile one’s past with the present. The ten­sion between Campbell’s pub­lic per­sona and his pri­vate life becomes even more pro­nounced, espe­cial­ly with the sud­den reap­pear­ance of Hel­ga, who presents him with an emo­tion­al dilem­ma he is unpre­pared for. Helga’s return to his life sym­bol­izes a con­fronta­tion with the past—a past that Camp­bell has been attempt­ing to escape but is now forced to face head-on. It is a reminder of how the past, no mat­ter how deeply buried, con­tin­ues to influ­ence the present in ways that can­not be ignored. The chap­ter fur­ther explores themes of loy­al­ty, regret, and the ever-present specter of his­to­ry, show­ing how Campbell’s inner tur­moil is mag­ni­fied by the exter­nal forces of the media and his per­son­al rela­tion­ships. This moment sets the stage for deep­er emo­tion­al explo­ration and lays the ground­work for Camp­bell to ques­tion the per­son he has become and whether he can ever tru­ly escape the shad­ow of his past.