In this chap­ter of “Moth­er Night,” the pro­tag­o­nist, iden­ti­fied as Camp­bell, reflects on an unset­tling turn of events fol­low­ing the emer­gence of trou­bling mail and a mount­ing pub­lic inter­est in his past. A week after receiv­ing dis­tress­ing cor­re­spon­dence, he attempts to vis­it Jones, the pub­lish­er of a con­tro­ver­sial news­pa­per, seek­ing a retrac­tion of a sto­ry about him. How­ev­er, Jones is absent when he arrives.

Upon return­ing home, Camp­bell finds his mail­box over­flow­ing with let­ters from sup­port­ers of the news­pa­per, some prais­ing him as a hero while oth­ers sug­gest he flee New York to live in “God’s coun­try.” Unbe­knownst to him, Kraft, a mutu­al acquain­tance, had tipped off Jones about Camp­bel­l’s sur­vival, shar­ing details that led Jones to seek out Camp­bell.

As Camp­bell is engaged in a por­trait ses­sion with Kraft, an unusu­al chant emerges from the stairwell—the pant­ed count of twen­ty by Jones and his entourage. This group includes Jones’s body­guard, August Krapp­tauer, a for­mer Vice-Bun­des­fuehrer of the Ger­man-Amer­i­can Bund, and Patrick Kee­ley, an unfrocked Paulist Father with a trou­bling past involv­ing anti-Semit­ic sen­ti­ments. The chant is a reflec­tion of their poor health, espe­cial­ly as Krapp­tauer strug­gles to catch his breath.

Jones, adorned with extrav­a­gant jew­el­ry, even­tu­al­ly ascends the stairs to face Camp­bell, pre­sent­ing him with an unex­pect­ed rev­e­la­tion. As Krapp­tauer and Kee­ley arrive, Jones pre­pares to unveil a sur­prise. This sur­prise turns out to be the unex­pect­ed pres­ence of Hel­ga, Camp­bel­l’s wife, who had request­ed that Jones not inform Camp­bell of her arrival. She asserts that she wish­es to silent­ly see if there is still a place for her in his life; if not, she intends to depart once more with­out caus­ing him any trou­ble.

This chap­ter delves into themes of iden­ti­ty, the com­plex­i­ty of past rela­tion­ships, and the con­flicts between per­son­al his­to­ry and pub­lic per­sona, set­ting the stage for deep­er explo­rations into Camp­bel­l’s char­ac­ter as the nar­ra­tive unfolds.