In this chap­ter of “Moth­er Night,” the pro­tag­o­nist, iden­ti­fied as Camp­bell, learns from Wirta­nen about the intri­cate decep­tion sur­round­ing his rela­tion­ship with Hel­ga. Wirta­nen reveals that Hel­ga’s mis­sion was to make Camp­bell love her, which he acknowl­edges with a bit­ter­sweet tone, real­iz­ing the manip­u­la­tion behind their con­nec­tion. This inter­ac­tion opens up ques­tions about Hel­ga’s suit­case, which con­tained his col­lect­ed works, inten­tion­al­ly used as props for her mis­sion.

Wirta­nen informs Camp­bell that these man­u­scripts weren’t in Berlin but were stored in Moscow, hav­ing been dis­cov­ered by Stepan Bodovskov. Bodovskov, a cor­po­ral flu­ent in Ger­man, uncov­ered Campbell’s writ­ings by chance as he scav­enged after the fall of Berlin. Rec­og­niz­ing the poten­tial in Camp­bel­l’s works, he began pub­lish­ing trans­la­tions of Campbell’s poems, which gained imme­di­ate acclaim.

Wirta­nen elab­o­rates about Bodovskov’s suc­cess, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing his adap­ta­tion of Campbell’s play “The Gob­let,” which became a phe­nom­e­non in Russ­ian the­ater, liken­ing it to the clas­sic “Charley’s Aunt.” Camp­bell is aston­ished to hear praise for his work, prompt­ing a rec­ol­lec­tion of the play’s nar­ra­tive, which touch­es on themes of puri­ty, love, and the quest for an unat­tain­able ide­al, encap­su­lat­ed in the fig­u­ra­tive Holy Grail.

As Wirta­nen nar­rates the plot, Camp­bell real­izes that he wrote it, expe­ri­enc­ing a sense of dis­be­lief at its suc­cess, espe­cial­ly among promi­nent fig­ures like Stal­in. The chap­ter reveals that not only did Bodovskov pro­duce plays based on Camp­bel­l’s works, but the writ­ings cul­mi­nat­ed in a book titled “Mem­oirs of a Monog­a­mous Casano­va,” which was pub­lished in Budapest and enjoyed sig­nif­i­cant pop­u­lar­i­ty, despite its con­tro­ver­sial nature.

Wirta­nen explains that while it could­n’t be pub­lished direct­ly in Rus­sia, it clev­er­ly skirt­ed cen­sor­ship, becom­ing a smug­gled item for young cou­ples attract­ing intrigue and curios­i­ty. The chap­ter clos­es with Camp­bell grap­pling with the unin­tend­ed con­se­quences of his artis­tic lega­cy, which has flour­ished under an iden­ti­ty he no longer owns. The mate­r­i­al ends with a touch of dark humor regard­ing the book’s illus­tra­tions, serv­ing as an added lay­er to Campbell’s com­plex feel­ings towards fame and anonymi­ty.