All the Light We Cannot See

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014

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Part 4, Chapters 62-67Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: “8 August 1944”

Chapter 62 Summary: “Fort of la Cité”

Von Rumpel climbs a ladder to view the city of Saint-Malo burning in the distance. The lymph nodes in his neck are swollen and painful, and they threaten to choke him. He sees that Number 4 rue Vauborel still stands; he will wait until the smoke clears before he goes into the city.

Chapter 63 Summary: “Atelier de Réparation”

Werner and the other two men are still alive and trapped in the basement of the Hotel of Bees. Werner imagines that the three of them are only alive because they all have some reparations to make before they die.

Chapter 64 Summary: “Two Cans”

Marie-Laure imagines her great-uncle trying to make his way toward her. She finds two cans—the only food left in the house apart from her half-loaf of bread.

Chapter 65 Summary: “Number 4 rue Vauborel”

Sergeant Major von Rumpel walks through the smoking ruins of Saint-Malo to arrive at the LeBlanc house’s front door, looking for the blue diamond.

Chapter 66 Summary: “What They Have”

Sitting in the darkness, Werner, Volkheimer, and the severely injured engineer Bernd catalogue their survival gear: three rations, two half-full canteens of water, several hand-grenades, and five bullets in Volkheimer’s gun. The radio is destroyed. Werner waits in the darkness for death.

Chapter 67 Summary: “Trip Wire”

Marie-Laure ascends from the cellar to go to the bathroom and get a drink of water. As she prepares to open one of the cans of food, she hears someone enter the house.

Part 4, Chapters 62-67 Analysis

This section continues to develop the theme of survival against all odds. All the significant characters face almost certain death: Werner, Volkheimer, and Bernd are trapped in a basement without adequate food, water, or any means of escape; Marie-Laure has nearly run out of food inside a burning city; and von Rumpel appears to be dying of cancer. Saint-Malo symbolically appears to be the gates to hell.

Trapped in the cellar with Volkheimer and Bernd, Werner wonders how it can be possible that they haven’t asphyxiated yet. He thinks of Lost and Redeemed Humanity in terms of crime and punishment, wondering if they have been spared this relatively easy death in preparation for some greater penalty:

Maybe Werner for his ten thousand small betrayals and Bernd for his innumerable crimes and Volkheimer for being the instrument, the executor of orders, the blade of the Reich—maybe the three of them have some greater price to pay, some final sentence to be handed down (205).

No longer just a trap, in his mind the cellar is now an “atelier de reparation”—“a chamber in which to make reparations” (205). In keeping with the theme of Entrapment and Escape, however, Werner will have to escape the trap of the cellar—where he believes he is isolated with his fellow condemned men—and reenter the chaotic world above before he can make any meaningful reparations. He cannot make up for the harm he has done or redeem his lost humanity merely by suffering and dying; he can only do so by helping others.