In Chap­ter 38 of *The Art Thief*, we fol­low the life of Bre­itwieser after his last prison term, cul­mi­nat­ing in 2015 at age 44. With a crim­i­nal record and min­i­mal resources—his bank account con­tain­ing mere­ly five euros—he strug­gles finan­cial­ly. His moth­er sup­ports him, tak­ing care of his rent and occa­sion­al­ly sup­ply­ing him with gro­ceries, while house­hold respon­si­bil­i­ties fall to Sten­gel, who also mourns her own mother’s pass­ing.

Bre­itwieser yearns for soli­tude, often express­ing a desire to escape to nature, engage in sim­ple plea­sures like hik­ing, and avoid his old life of crime. He lives in a mod­est apart­ment where he has hung a repro­duc­tion of *Sibylle of Cleves*, his favorite piece, serv­ing as a painful reminder of the orig­i­nal that per­ished in a fire. His con­nec­tion to the art world is now lim­it­ed to perus­ing auc­tion cat­a­logs in hopes of dis­cov­er­ing his lost stolen pieces, num­ber­ing around eighty, which remain unac­count­ed for since a cat­a­stroph­ic event that destroyed many of them.

He reflects on the unyield­ing secret his moth­er holds about their loca­tions, and despite con­tem­plat­ing reach­ing out to Anne-Cather­ine, the woman who shared his theft expe­ri­ences, he choos­es not to. Fol­low­ing a year of stag­na­tion where he feels trapped in his sit­u­a­tion, Bre­itwieser turns back to his old ways and begins steal­ing again, tar­get­ing local muse­ums in Alsace. Stolen items are quick­ly resold online, using alias­es to avoid detec­tion.

How­ev­er, law enforce­ment is alert­ed to his activ­i­ties, lead­ing to a police raid in Feb­ru­ary 2019. With new laws in place that increase penal­ties for art theft, his prospects of a free life dim, like­ly land­ing him in cus­tody until near­ly six­ty. Encoun­ter­ing a Cata­lan exhi­bi­tion with a recre­at­ed *Adam and Eve* reignites old mem­o­ries of his thefts. He takes a pil­grim­age to Antwerp, dis­guis­es him­self, and revis­its the Rubens House, feel­ings of nos­tal­gia over­whelm­ing him as he sees the piece he once stole.

In a moment of clar­i­ty, as he con­tem­plates the beau­ty he pur­sued and lost, tears roll down his cheeks. He real­izes that despite once dream­ing of a life filled with art and beau­ty, he has descend­ed to noth­ing­ness. In a final act of des­per­a­tion, he steals a book­let depict­ing *Adam and Eve*, a ges­ture filled with the ghost of his past tri­umphs and fail­ures. The chap­ter encap­su­lates his inter­nal con­flict between his for­mer iden­ti­ty as a thief and the real­i­ty of his dimin­ished exis­tence .