The narrator continues spending long hours in Le Moulin's library, listening to debates Pascal always wins, and assisting with translations that involve hours of haggling over single French words like "puissance" and "événementielle." In parallel, she keeps studying the Moulinards to detect any covert plans. She visits the Tayssac megabasin and sees heavy gendarmerie presence, plus the eccentric "Lemon Incest" chatting with police, leading her to conclude that any sabotage there has already happened and the group's next target lies elsewhere.

At the Dubois house, she lets the place fall into squalor, reusing dirty cups and piling empty beer bottles in a corner, since she will soon abandon it. She moves into the corner bedroom, the "Salon des Babies," for its better sightlines, and grows fond of its cartoon baby stickers depicting infants pantomiming adult life. She texts a photo to Lucien, who blames his sister Agathe for renting the house out; the narrator deflects his repeated requests for video by blaming spotty cell service, hiding the worse mess she herself has made.

She continues monitoring Bruno's emails daily, both as work and personal interest, while barricading doors with heavy furniture against intruders—gouging the floors as if cave bears had clawed them. This image bridges into Bruno's latest discovery: a possibly Neanderthal cave-bear face on a wall in a cave near the lake, beneath property whose owner is unaware of it. Bruno reads the image as a three-way collaboration between wall (natural bulges/dips), man (charcoal line), and bear (overlying claw scratches functioning like craquelure, revealing the passage of time).

The narrator's mind drifts from bear claws to literal bear claw pastries, prompting a wave of homesickness. She admits she misses California, donut-shop coffee, and above all speaking English with native speakers, praising English's expressive range while conceding French superiority in novels and cheeses.