In occu­pied France, Novem­ber 23, 1944, Ade­line, referred to as Addie, finds her­self bru­tal­ly incar­cer­at­ed by Ger­man sol­diers in a cell out­side Orleans. Despite her efforts to remain incon­spic­u­ous, her gen­der attracts unwant­ed atten­tion, lead­ing to her bru­tal treat­ment. Her past deci­sions haunt her in her cell; com­ing back to France from Boston, dri­ven by pride and the mem­o­ries of the pre­vi­ous war, now seems fool­ish. Her attempt to aid through fer­ry­ing secrets around Occu­pied France, lever­ag­ing the anonymi­ty she believed she had, ends with her cap­ture.

Faced with the harsh real­i­ty of her sit­u­a­tion, Addie con­tem­plates her past choic­es and the illu­sion of invis­i­bil­i­ty that she once thought would pro­tect her. The nar­ra­tive reveals a sense of lost home, a con­trast to the wartime hard­ships and the per­son­al bat­tle she fights against the desire to be remem­bered ver­sus the risk of becom­ing per­ma­nent­ly for­got­ten by the world. Her intro­spec­tion extends to ques­tion­ing her actions, espe­cial­ly her return to France, fueled by a desire to con­tribute, albeit non-offi­cial­ly, to the resis­tance against the occu­piers.

Three years of risk­ing every­thing leads her to a moment of des­per­a­tion in which she con­sid­ers using a mys­ti­cal wood­en ring—something she has avoid­ed for twen­ty-nine years. This ring sug­gests a con­nec­tion to Luc, an enti­ty or per­son from her past who appears when she final­ly decides to use it, fac­ing her dark­est fear of era­sure from mem­o­ry and exis­tence.

Luc’s arrival brings a pal­pa­ble shift in the atmos­phere, as time and aware­ness seem to sus­pend around them. Their inter­ac­tion reveals a com­plex rela­tion­ship, marked by a his­to­ry that stretch­es beyond ordi­nary human life­times and deci­sions that weigh heav­i­ly on Addie’s cur­rent predica­ment. Luc’s dis­dain for the wartime set­ting and his asser­tion of moral lim­its con­trast with his ambigu­ous nature. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to Addie’s escape plan, show­cas­ing her resilience and refusal to capit­u­late to him, despite her dire state and the seem­ing advan­tage he holds.

This chap­ter paints a vivid pic­ture of resis­tance, iden­ti­ty, and the super­nat­ur­al against the back­drop of World War II’s harsh­ness. Addie’s strug­gle with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, her fight for auton­o­my, and the mys­te­ri­ous dynam­ics of her super­nat­ur­al teth­er to Luc are cen­tral themes, illus­trat­ing a nar­ra­tive rich in his­tor­i­cal con­text, per­son­al tur­moil, and the intri­cate dance between pow­er and free­dom.

Venice, Italy, July 29, 1806, presents a vivid, heat-drenched morn­ing with Addie wak­ing in silk sheets beside Mat­teo, con­tem­plat­ing the pecu­liar free­dom of being for­got­ten. The city’s swel­ter­ing heat con­trasts sharply with her inter­nal cool­ness towards her own mem­o­ry, a curse that ensures she is con­sis­tent­ly for­got­ten by those she meets. Mat­teo, beau­ti­ful and undis­turbed by her pres­ence in his bed, focus­es on cap­tur­ing her like­ness with char­coal on paper. Unlike the awk­ward morn­ings laden with apolo­gies and con­fu­sion typ­i­cal of Addie’s encoun­ters, this one unfolds with an unusu­al calm.

Mat­teo’s inter­est in sketch­ing Addie stark­ly sym­bol­izes a moment of con­nec­tion despite her curse. His draw­ing rep­re­sents not only the tan­gi­ble aspect of her being but also a deep­er reflec­tion on imper­ma­nence and mem­o­ry. She observes his tal­ent in cap­tur­ing her essence while also acknowl­edg­ing the trans­for­ma­tion through his artis­tic lens. Despite the curse that makes her a per­pet­u­al stranger, his art­work offers a sem­blance of per­ma­nence, a fleet­ing reminder of her pres­ence in the world.

Their inter­ac­tion evolves into a dance of curios­i­ty and melan­choly. Addie plays along with the facade of for­got­ten encoun­ters, while deeply con­tem­plat­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of Mat­teo’s draw­ing. It rep­re­sents more than just a phys­i­cal resemblance—it’s a bea­con of hope that some part of her can be immor­tal­ized beyond the curse’s reach. The notion that Mat­teo might not remem­ber her but will retain the draw­ing sparks a real­iza­tion in Addie about the nature of mem­o­ry and ideas. Ideas, unlike mem­o­ries, pos­sess the abil­i­ty to sur­vive, unteth­ered from their ori­gins, sug­gest­ing a poten­tial loop­hole in her curse.

As she pre­pares to leave, Addie and Mat­teo share a poignant exchange, under­scored by an aware­ness of the imper­ma­nence of their con­nec­tion. Despite the tran­sient nature of their encounter, the act of draw­ing and the resul­tant sketch emerge as metaphors for the last­ing impact of fleet­ing inter­ac­tions. The chap­ter clos­es with Addie con­tem­plat­ing the draw­ing, now a sym­bol of hope and a tes­ta­ment to the resilience of ideas over mem­o­ries, hint­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of find­ing loop­holes in her seem­ing­ly invin­ci­ble curse. The sun­set over Venice’s canals mir­rors the warmth of this fleet­ing con­nec­tion and the glim­mer of hope it ignites in her quest for per­ma­nence in a for­get­table exis­tence.

New York City, on a dusk evening in Sep­tem­ber, finds Hen­ry wan­der­ing the streets alone, lost in thoughts of lone­li­ness and the rem­nants of a rela­tion­ship left in the clut­ter of his apart­ment. Amidst the whis­pers of a city that nev­er sleeps, he finds him­self yearn­ing for a com­pan­ion, per­haps a cat, some­thing to return home to oth­er than the silent echoes of an emp­ty space. His apart­ment, still echo­ing the pres­ence of Tabitha, is a bat­tle­field of memories—photos, books, and per­son­al items that scream of the past they shared. In a moment of clar­i­ty, or per­haps des­per­a­tion, Hen­ry decides to purge these rem­nants, attempt­ing to unchain his heart from the shad­ows of what was, only to find him­self sink­ing deep­er into a soli­tude that wraps around him like a cold mist.

Seek­ing refuge, or maybe escape, Hen­ry grav­i­tates towards The Mer­chant, a local haunt where the famil­iar­i­ty of the crowd and the clink of glass­es offer a tem­po­rary salve to his aching soul. Here, amongst the buzz of con­ver­sa­tions and the laugh­ter of strangers, he attempts to drown his sor­rows in tequi­la, the com­pa­ny of the bar­tender, Mark, offer­ing a fleet­ing con­nec­tion in the sea of faces. It’s in this haze of alco­hol and ambi­ent noise that he encoun­ters fleet­ing moments of connection—a girl with a mag­net­ic pull, albeit momen­tar­i­ly before she’s whisked away, and oth­ers who seem drawn to him, offer­ing com­pli­ments, invi­ta­tions, and desires.

Yet, beneath the sur­face of these inter­ac­tions lies a mys­te­ri­ous allure, an unex­plained mag­net­ism that Hen­ry can’t help but notice—a light in peo­ple’s eyes, a warmth in their approach that’s for­eign to him. As the night spi­rals, Hen­ry’s real­i­ty blurs with the intro­duc­tion of a drug, push­ing him fur­ther into an abyss of sen­so­ry over­load, where the line between desire and real­i­ty fades. It’s not just a strug­gle with lone­li­ness or the rem­nants of a bro­ken heart; it’s a quest for some­thing more pro­found, a search for mean­ing in the chaos of New York’s nightlife.

Through encoun­ters that range from the intox­i­cat­ing to the sur­re­al, Hen­ry is led on a jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery and con­fronta­tion with his desires, cul­mi­nat­ing in a mys­te­ri­ous meet­ing with Lucia and Ben­ji, who seem to have been search­ing for him. The chap­ter weaves a tapes­try of urban lone­li­ness, the search for con­nec­tion, and the allure of the unknown, leav­ing Henry—and the reader—on the thresh­old of an intrigu­ing mys­tery, one that promis­es to delve deep into the heart of human long­ing and the enig­ma of attrac­tion.

On a calm morn­ing in New York City, Addie LaRue wakes up to the com­fort­ing sounds and smells of break­fast being pre­pared by Hen­ry, the man whose apart­ment she finds her­self in. Unlike every oth­er morn­ing in her long, cursed exis­tence where she is for­got­ten by every­one she meets, Hen­ry remem­bers her. This sim­ple yet pro­found change fills Addie with a mix of excite­ment and dread. She nav­i­gates the morn­ing with Hen­ry, engag­ing in play­ful ban­ter and savor­ing the nor­mal­cy of shared break­fast moments, all the while grap­pling with the fear that this unex­pect­ed mir­a­cle of being remem­bered might just be anoth­er cru­el trick of her curse.

Through­out the chap­ter, Addie and Hen­ry’s inter­ac­tions reveal lay­ers of their char­ac­ters and hint at deep­er, unspo­ken sor­rows. The chap­ter is rich with sym­bol­ic ges­tures and objects, like the unique selec­tion of mugs that Hen­ry offers Addie to choose from, reflect­ing indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and the sig­nif­i­cance of per­son­al choice. A lost ring found by Hen­ry trig­gers a painful reac­tion from Addie, hint­ing at its impor­tance and its ties to her mys­te­ri­ous past.

Their dia­logue shifts between casu­al and pro­found, touch­ing on themes of mem­o­ry, iden­ti­ty, and the nature of con­nec­tions between peo­ple. Hen­ry’s apart­ment, clut­tered with traces of hob­bies and per­son­al his­to­ry, serves as a mir­ror to their inner worlds—complex, some­what dis­or­dered, but unde­ni­ably human.

As Addie pre­pares to leave, they make plans to meet again, a sim­ple yet mean­ing­ful arrange­ment that under­scores their bud­ding con­nec­tion. How­ev­er, Addie remains haunt­ed by the curse that has defined her life, fear­ing its poten­tial to dis­rupt this new­found sem­blance of nor­mal­cy. She explores Hen­ry’s apart­ment, search­ing for clues to under­stand him bet­ter, while con­fronting the lim­i­ta­tions imposed by her curse on inter­act­ing with mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy.

The chap­ter clos­es with Addie reflect­ing on the arti­facts of Hen­ry’s life, pon­der­ing on the nature of exis­tence and the arti­facts peo­ple leave behind. Her explo­ration reveals med­ica­tions and per­son­al items that hint at Hen­ry’s com­plex­i­ties and strug­gles, deep­en­ing the mys­tery of his char­ac­ter and his poten­tial sig­nif­i­cance in her life.

Addie’s morn­ing with Hen­ry is a del­i­cate bal­ance of hope and cau­tion, a dance around the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a new begin­ning, or per­haps anoth­er heartache in her cen­turies-long saga. Amidst the ordi­nary set­ting of a New York City apart­ment, the chap­ter weaves a nar­ra­tive of long­ing, mem­o­ry, and the quest for con­nec­tion that tran­scends time.

will lose more than you can com­pre­hend.”

Ade­line steps back, out of the shadow’s reach, feel­ing both the chill and chal­lenge in his words. But her resolve is iron­clad, her spir­it unyield­ing. She knows the cost of her immor­tal­i­ty, the soli­tude it demands, the mem­o­ries it steals from those she meets. But she also knows its gifts—the end­less tapes­try of expe­ri­ences, the count­less dawns and dusks, the con­stan­cy of change and the thrill of the unknown.

With a final look, a defi­ance that speaks loud­er than any words, Addie turns to the dilap­i­dat­ed house, her tem­po­rary shel­ter in a world that for­gets her as soon as she steps away. She feels the shad­ow’s gaze linger on her back, an unseen mark that nei­ther time nor dis­tance can erase. Yet she steps for­ward, unde­terred, for she car­ries with­in her the unquench­able desire to live, to see, to expe­ri­ence. To turn the curse of her for­got­ten exis­tence into a jour­ney of end­less dis­cov­ery.

The Paris streets lie behind her, a tableau of shad­ow and light under the moon’s watch­ful eye. Each step car­ries her fur­ther from the dark fig­ure who gave her this eter­nal life, yet every heart­beat draws her clos­er to the count­less won­ders yet to be seen. In the soli­tude of her exis­tence, Addie finds strength, craft­ing a life not defined by the mem­o­ries she leaves behind, but by the moments she seizes with both hands.

The night embraces her, the city’s heart­beat a dis­tant lul­la­by, and Addie, immor­tal and invis­i­ble, steps into the dark­ness, her spir­it as indomitable as ever. She knows the road ahead is fraught with loss and lone­li­ness, but also filled with beau­ty and won­der. And so she walks on, a specter in silk, a shad­ow in the sun, for­ev­er chas­ing the next hori­zon.

of dis­use, the lan­guage will reveal itself to her again. As she flips through the pages, the tales are famil­iar, echoes of her own long and wind­ing jour­ney, the dark woods and deep­er mag­ic that seem to par­al­lel her life so close­ly. Immersed in the sto­ries, Addie is both lost and found with­in the woven tales of enchant­ment, of tri­als and heartache, of resilience and the haunt­ing beau­ty of sur­vival. Each sto­ry a reflec­tion, a frag­ment of the vast and kalei­do­scop­ic expe­ri­ences that have marked her exis­tence. The mar­ket recedes, the city fades, and for a moment, she is adrift in the time­less realm of lore and leg­end.

As the after­noon wanes, the light shifts, gold­en and soft­en­ing, a reminder that despite the chill, spring is inch­ing clos­er, a slow but relent­less pro­gres­sion towards renew­al. Wrapped in the cocoon of her thoughts and the rem­nants of fairy tales, Addie feels a twinge of sor­row for moments lost and the soli­tude that envelopes her, a shad­ow com­pan­ion that whis­pers of end­less days and per­pet­u­al twi­light. Yet, there’s beau­ty in the soli­tude, in the gen­tle embrace of a world that moves around her, through her, a silent watch­er bear­ing wit­ness to the ever-turn­ing wheel of time.

Her cof­fee fin­ished, the muf­fin a crum­ble of crumbs, Addie ris­es, stretch­ing limbs that hold cen­turies, mus­cles that remem­ber the dance of time immemo­r­i­al. The park beck­ons with the promise of fleet­ing warmth, the tease of spring on the hori­zon, min­gled with the cold bite of win­ter’s tail. She moves through the park like a ghost, a whis­per of the breeze, unseen but deeply felt, her path a soli­tary one that inter­twines with the count­less souls that wan­der the same ground, each car­ry­ing their own tales, their own ghosts.

New York City, with its vibrant chaos and con­stant flux, mir­rors the tur­moil and tumult of Addie’s eter­nal wan­der­ing. The city, in its insa­tiable appetite for life, reflects her own relent­less quest for mean­ing, for moments of con­nec­tion in the sea of time. As the day ebbs into evening, and the city’s lights begin to pierce the creep­ing dusk, Addie is a fig­ure of con­tra­dic­tions, of time­less youth and ancient eyes, walk­ing the thin line between the vis­i­ble and invis­i­ble, between the past she car­ries and the future she seeks.

In this chap­ter of Addie’s jour­ney, New York City in March is a metaphor­ic land­scape, a scene of tran­si­tion from the harsh­ness of win­ter to the hope­ful begin­nings of spring. It’s a back­drop that echoes Addie’s own tran­si­tions, her own sea­sons of change and sta­sis. The vis­it to the mar­ket, the inter­ac­tion with Mel and Mag­gie, the taste of cof­fee that bridges worlds and mem­o­ries, all serve to under­score the poignan­cy of her exis­tence, a life lived in the mar­gins, illu­mi­nat­ed by brief sparks of con­nec­tion, of warmth, in a world that moves relent­less­ly for­ward, indif­fer­ent to the con­stants like Addie. Through the mun­dane actions of dai­ly life, the chap­ter weaves a tapes­try of the eter­nal and the ephemer­al, the ground­ed real­i­ty of the city and the ethe­re­al realm of Addie’s end­less jour­ney.

In Chap­ter VII of “The Com­ing Race”, the nar­ra­tor is pro­vid­ed with a pri­vate room for­mer­ly belong­ing to Zee, in a grand edi­fice. Unlike the more pub­licly opu­lent spaces, this room is mod­est­ly adorned, fea­tur­ing walls hung with var­ie­gat­ed mat­ting and a bed of sim­ple design. The room also hous­es an aviary of melo­di­ous, unfa­mil­iar birds capa­ble of com­plex musi­cal arrange­ments, hint­ing at a lev­el of domes­tic and artis­tic sophis­ti­ca­tion.

The nar­ra­tor’s reflec­tions are soon inter­rupt­ed by the vis­it of his host and Zee. The host is curi­ous about the nar­ra­tor’s ori­gins, giv­en the vast dif­fer­ences between their peo­ples. Despite the nar­ra­tor’s attempts to tout the advance­ments and civil­i­sa­tion of his own world, notably empha­siz­ing the achieve­ments and ideals of the Unit­ed States and New York City, the host and Zee respond with polite skep­ti­cism, espe­cial­ly towards the con­cept of democ­ra­cy and its effects on soci­etal hap­pi­ness and progress.

The con­ver­sa­tion shifts toward the nar­ra­tor’s acci­den­tal jour­ney to their world and his descrip­tions of the upper world’s tech­no­log­i­cal and soci­etal norms. The host, while intrigued, remains uncon­vinced of the supe­ri­or­i­ty or even equiv­a­lence of the nar­ra­tor’s world com­pared to their own advanced civ­i­liza­tion, which lever­ages the mys­te­ri­ous force known as “vril” for var­i­ous appli­ca­tions, from weath­er con­trol to men­tal influ­ence, sug­gest­ing a uni­ty of nat­ur­al forces far beyond the sci­en­tif­ic under­stand­ing of the nar­ra­tor’s world.

The chap­ter clos­es with an agree­ment of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty between the nar­ra­tor, the host, and Zee con­cern­ing the details of the upper world, a deci­sion under­pinned by the sug­ges­tion that knowl­edge of such a place could pose a risk to their soci­ety. Zee hints at the pow­er of vril to erase mem­o­ries, empha­siz­ing the poten­tial for con­trol over not only phys­i­cal but also men­tal realms. The chap­ter jux­ta­pos­es the tech­no­log­i­cal advances and soci­etal struc­tures of two vast­ly dif­fer­ent civ­i­liza­tions, empha­siz­ing themes of dis­cov­ery, cul­tur­al rel­a­tivism, and the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of pow­er.