In Chap­ter 37 of The Art Thief, we dive deep into the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ties faced by Anne-Cather­ine and Stéphane Bre­itwieser, whose rela­tion­ship is marred by betray­al, dis­ap­point­ment, and per­son­al tur­moil. Anne-Cather­ine, speak­ing to Swiss art detec­tive Von der Müh­ll, opens up about her lin­ger­ing sense of betray­al. She reflects on her rela­tion­ship with Bre­itwieser, admit­ting that she feels he treat­ed her as noth­ing more than an object, a part of his jour­ney that he dis­card­ed when no longer nec­es­sary. This painful real­iza­tion marks the emo­tion­al end of their time togeth­er in late 2005, but the sto­ry doesn’t end there. Bre­itwieser, seem­ing­ly unaf­fect­ed by the breakup, quick­ly moves on, find­ing a new part­ner in Stéphanie Man­gin, a nurse’s assis­tant who, coin­ci­den­tal­ly, shares strik­ing sim­i­lar­i­ties to Anne-Cather­ine. The two bond almost imme­di­ate­ly, and short­ly after, Bre­itwieser makes the deci­sion to move in with Stéphanie in Stras­bourg, cre­at­ing a sense of sta­bil­i­ty that he hasn’t expe­ri­enced in years.

With a renewed sense of opti­mism and pur­pose, Bre­itwieser starts to rebuild his life. His for­tunes appear to turn when he lands a sig­nif­i­cant deal with a pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny, which pays him over $100,000 for a ten-day inter­view. This inter­view leads to the pub­li­ca­tion of his mem­oir, Con­fes­sions of an Art Thief, where he open­ly shares the intri­ca­cies of his life as an art thief. As part of this rein­ven­tion, he announces his new career goals, aim­ing to piv­ot to becom­ing an art-secu­ri­ty con­sul­tant. Bre­itwieser dreams of offer­ing muse­ums and pri­vate col­lec­tors afford­able and effi­cient secu­ri­ty solu­tions, such as enhanced dis­play cas­es and advanced motion sen­sors, hop­ing to erase his crim­i­nal past and find accep­tance in legit­i­mate work. This new vision for his future brings him a sense of hope, lead­ing him to believe that he could leave behind the shad­ows of his past and make a mean­ing­ful impact in the art world as a trust­ed con­sul­tant.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, despite his best efforts, Breitwieser’s return to a more nor­mal life proves to be short-lived. The com­pla­cen­cy that comes with new­found con­fi­dence leads him to make a crit­i­cal mis­take. Embold­ened by the suc­cess of his book and the atten­tion it brings, Bre­itwieser decides to com­mit anoth­er crime. While at the air­port in Paris, he steals items from a bou­tique, an impul­sive act dri­ven by the thrill of defy­ing the law. How­ev­er, things quick­ly spi­ral out of con­trol when he mis­counts the num­ber of under­cov­er secu­ri­ty guards present, lead­ing to his swift arrest. The legal con­se­quences are minor—an overnight stay in jail and a sen­tence of com­mu­ni­ty service—but the dam­age to his pub­lic image is severe. Crit­ics begin to mock him, and his dreams of becom­ing a respect­ed con­sul­tant fall apart. His rep­u­ta­tion is tar­nished, and he is forced to retreat to Stéphanie’s apart­ment, where feel­ings of iso­la­tion and worth­less­ness con­sume him. Unable to secure legit­i­mate work, Bre­itwieser sinks into a state of despair, unable to escape his past actions.

In an act of des­per­a­tion to regain a sense of con­nec­tion with art, Bre­itwieser steals a paint­ing by Pieter Brueghel the Younger at an antiques fair in Bel­gium. He places the valu­able land­scape paint­ing in Stéphanie’s apart­ment, hop­ing that it will bring him a sense of ful­fill­ment, if only momen­tar­i­ly. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Stéphanie soon dis­cov­ers the ori­gins of the paint­ing and is hor­ri­fied by the extent of Breitwieser’s actions. Feel­ing betrayed and com­pro­mised by his crim­i­nal behav­ior, she ends their rela­tion­ship, unable to over­look his trans­gres­sions any longer. In a final act of betray­al, Stéphanie con­tacts the author­i­ties and pro­vides them with the evi­dence need­ed to bring Bre­itwieser to jus­tice once again. This marks the trag­ic con­clu­sion to his jour­ney, where his repeat­ed fail­ures to break free from his crim­i­nal past lead to yet anoth­er arrest and the com­plete col­lapse of the life he had tried to rebuild. This chap­ter serves as a poignant reminder of the con­se­quences of one’s actions and the inabil­i­ty to escape the reper­cus­sions of a life built on decep­tion and crime.