The chap­ter opens with a tense domes­tic scene where the police arrive at G’s house, inves­ti­gat­ing pho­tographs of her daugh­ter that were flagged by a print­er. G’s hus­band dif­fus­es the sit­u­a­tion with charm, con­vinc­ing the offi­cers it was a misunderstanding—he had mere­ly com­plained about print qual­i­ty. His per­for­mance shifts the offi­cers from sus­pi­cion to acqui­es­cence. How­ev­er, once they leave, his facade col­laps­es into vio­lent rage. He shouts at G and their daugh­ter, throws objects, and phys­i­cal­ly man­han­dles the child. G con­tem­plates flee­ing but is trapped by her husband’s threats: he asserts legal con­trol over their home and child, leav­ing her finan­cial­ly and emo­tion­al­ly cor­nered. The scene under­scores the dual­i­ty of his character—publicly author­i­ta­tive, pri­vate­ly abusive—and G’s pow­er­less posi­tion as both wit­ness and vic­tim.

The nar­ra­tive shifts to a din­ner gath­er­ing at a hard-to-find restau­rant, where Mau­ro, Julia, and oth­ers dis­cuss the day’s events, includ­ing a sui­cide at a muse­um. The direc­tor, who wit­nessed the sui­cide, arrives late and recounts the trau­mat­ic inci­dent. She describes how the man, dressed in black, leaped from a gallery rail­ing while she was on a call with her ex-hus­band. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of her ex’s ven­omous words and the man’s silent fall blurs the lines between exter­nal vio­lence and per­son­al tor­ment. The direc­tor reflects on her detach­ment dur­ing the event, real­iz­ing a new­found sep­a­ra­tion from her ex’s influ­ence. Her sto­ic accep­tance of death—rooted in her rur­al upbringing—contrasts with the group’s shock, fram­ing the sui­cide as both a pub­lic tragedy and a pri­vate rev­e­la­tion.

Con­ver­sa­tion at din­ner turns to art, par­ent­hood, and soci­etal expec­ta­tions. Mau­ro the­o­rizes that female artists like G grap­ple with moth­er­hood as both a cre­ative and destruc­tive force, cit­ing his own mother’s failed artis­tic ambi­tions. Julia coun­ters that parental ide­al­iza­tion often stems from ego, recount­ing a moth­er at a school play who filmed only her child, dis­tort­ing real­i­ty. Bet­sy inter­jects with cyn­i­cal humor, crit­i­ciz­ing sanc­ti­mo­nious par­ent­hood and prais­ing G’s unvar­nished por­tray­al of mater­nal con­flict. David, G’s asso­ciate, offers frag­ment­ed insights into her children’s lives, sug­gest­ing G emo­tion­al­ly dis­tanced her­self from them. The debate high­lights ten­sions between artis­tic integri­ty and famil­ial duty, with G’s work serv­ing as a focal point for these con­tra­dic­tions.

The chap­ter clos­es with the director’s deci­sion to resign and move to an island, reject­ing the arti­fice of the art world. She com­pares muse­ums to church­es, where art is either sanc­ti­fied or voyeuris­ti­cal­ly con­sumed, and laments how pho­tog­ra­phy dimin­ish­es orig­i­nal works. Her dis­il­lu­sion­ment mir­rors G’s rad­i­cal hon­esty in lat­er life, which stripped away pre­tens­es. As the group orders food, the director’s calm res­ig­na­tion con­trasts with Betsy’s the­atrics and Mauro’s intel­lec­tu­al­iz­ing. The scene dis­solves into a cacoph­o­ny of cos­tumes and clat­ter­ing dish­es, mir­ror­ing the chaos of the parade out­side. The chap­ter weaves togeth­er themes of vio­lence, artis­tic truth, and the fragili­ty of human con­nec­tions, leav­ing characters—and readers—to grap­ple with the unre­solved ten­sions between real­i­ty and per­cep­tion.