In Chap­ter 43 of Moth­er Night, the nar­ra­tor reflects on the trans­formed state of his attic, which now serves as a makeshift tent. The door to the attic is miss­ing, and a crude sign declar­ing, “Nobody and noth­ing inside,” adds to the eerie, aban­doned feel­ing. Inside, the dim light fil­ter­ing through the bro­ken win­dows casts long shad­ows across the room. Shat­tered panes are filled with scraps of paper and rags, enhanc­ing the des­o­late, oppres­sive atmos­phere of the space. The sense of neglect and iso­la­tion is pal­pa­ble, as the room feels like a for­got­ten cor­ner of the world, untouched by time but marred by its decay.

Look­ing out at a near­by park, the nar­ra­tor is flood­ed with mem­o­ries of child­hood inno­cence, yearn­ing for a moment of care­free joy. He wish­es for some­one to share in his play­ful thoughts, to join him in an inno­cent cry, per­haps in an attempt to con­nect with some­thing pure and untaint­ed. This long­ing for human con­nec­tion is inter­rupt­ed by the sound of rustling, and he is sur­prised to find Bernard B. O’Hare, a fig­ure from his past, stand­ing before him. O’Hare, dressed in a worn Amer­i­can Legion uni­form and smelling of alco­hol, seems to believe him­self a hero, con­fronting the evils of the world. To O’Hare, the nar­ra­tor appears as a drag­on, a sym­bol­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of all that he despis­es. The reunion between them is charged with ten­sion, as O’Hare views this encounter as an inevitable reck­on­ing, a fat­ed con­fronta­tion between the two of them.

O’Hare reflects on his life after the war, express­ing his dis­il­lu­sion­ment with the shat­tered dreams that had once guid­ed him. He talks about his life’s dis­ap­point­ments, recount­ing his mun­dane jobs, from dia­per ser­vices to dri­ving frozen cus­tard trucks. His words reveal his deep con­fu­sion and frus­tra­tion, ques­tion­ing the mean­ing of life and where he fits with­in it. The nar­ra­tor lis­tens with a mix of sym­pa­thy and cau­tion, under­stand­ing the futil­i­ty in O’Hare’s choic­es but wary of his unpre­dictable behav­ior. O’Hare’s anger and bit­ter­ness seem to be fes­ter­ing, and the nar­ra­tor sus­pects that he may be car­ry­ing a weapon, height­en­ing the ten­sion between them. The frag­ile bal­ance of their inter­ac­tion teeters on the edge as both men grap­ple with their respec­tive pasts and what they have become.

As the con­ver­sa­tion shifts, O’Hare’s brava­do crum­bles, and he accus­es the nar­ra­tor of being “pure evil.” This accu­sa­tion marks a crit­i­cal turn­ing point in their encounter, as it trig­gers a phys­i­cal con­fronta­tion. The nar­ra­tor, with fire-tongs in hand, pre­pares to defend him­self against O’Hare’s loom­ing aggres­sion. In a swift move, the nar­ra­tor inca­pac­i­tates O’Hare, leav­ing him crum­pled and humil­i­at­ed on the floor. The expec­ta­tion that O’Hare had of eas­i­ly over­pow­er­ing the nar­ra­tor proves to be mis­guid­ed. This moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, in which O’Hare faces defeat, high­lights the fragili­ty of his self-image as a right­eous cru­sad­er. After throw­ing O’Hare out, the nar­ra­tor is left to reflect on the com­plex nature of hatred and evil, sug­gest­ing that true evil is root­ed in mankind’s relent­less desire to hate. Often, this hatred is fueled by a delu­sion of moral supe­ri­or­i­ty, which dis­torts human judg­ment and actions.

The chap­ter con­cludes with O’Hare, now defeat­ed, throw­ing hol­low threats at the nar­ra­tor, but these threats are eas­i­ly dis­missed. The narrator’s calm dis­missal under­scores the cycli­cal nature of hatred and vio­lence, reveal­ing how futile and self-destruc­tive these emo­tions can be. This encounter between the two men delves into pro­found themes of iden­ti­ty, moral­i­ty, and the harsh real­i­ties of human nature. It reflects the inter­nal con­flicts that each per­son faces, includ­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment, con­fu­sion, and the com­plex­i­ty of good and evil. Through this intense con­fronta­tion, the chap­ter high­lights the destruc­tive pow­er of hate, the human desire for right­eous­ness, and the inevitable con­se­quences of these emo­tions when left unchecked.