Chapter summaries Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil V. E. Schwab

Chapter III: Love, Time, and War

Spoiler Warning: This page contains detailed plot points from Chapter 62 of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. Proceed only if you have read this chapter.

Summary

Years pass, and for the most part, Charlotte and Sabine are happy. Sabine indulges Charlotte’s creative passions, yet her affection is shadowed by possessive and violent undertones. She sleeps so deeply she seems dead, fondles tokens from past hunts, and once bruises Charlotte during intimacy. After sharing that she was once called María, Sabine reacts with black fury when Charlotte uses the name. In 1914, World War I begins. Charlotte is devastated by the collective suffering, waking with tears, while Sabine remains unmoved. Charlotte wishes to help the war effort, but Sabine mockingly compares her kill count to Germany’s and declares Charlotte’s human guilt tiresome and the human part of her dead. Charlotte recoils, then Sabine softens, insisting that Charlotte’s pain alone touches her and that the only response to darkness is to live.

Key Events

  • Charlotte and Sabine share a long stretch of domestic happiness, but Sabine’s dominating nature surfaces in moments of roughness and control.
  • Sabine reveals a previous name, María, and then reacts with terrifying anger when Charlotte dares to use it.
  • World War I erupts in 1914, flooding Charlotte with overwhelming empathy for the suffering of thousands.
  • Charlotte suggests finding a way to aid the war effort; Sabine ridicules the idea, comparing Charlotte’s predatory past to a military power.
  • Sabine tells Charlotte that her human guilt is tiresome and that the human part of her is dead, causing a painful rupture.
  • After the argument, Sabine draws Charlotte in with softer words, insisting that her love for Charlotte’s heart endures but that they must choose to live rather than drown in sorrow.

Character Development

Charlotte continues to wrestle with a “fragile heart” that opens her to profound empathy. The war pushes her to a breaking point: she weeps blood-stained tears and longs to do tangible good. Her attempt to assert a moral purpose is brutally shut down, revealing how far she has internalized Sabine’s worldview even as she chafes against it.

Sabine displays her cold pragmatism and possessive love without filter. She dismisses human anguish as a nuisance, equates Charlotte’s kills with war casualties, and labels Charlotte’s last shred of humanity as dead. Yet her cruelty stems from a twisted form of care—Charlotte’s pain is the only one that can wound her—and she ultimately “saves” the moment by pivoting to a philosophy of living despite the darkness.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

  • Immortality and the Loss of Humanity: Sabine asserts that Charlotte’s human part is dead, framing eternal life as incompatible with human feeling.
  • Empathy vs. Detachment: Charlotte absorbs the war’s horror; Sabine remains sealed off, seeing emotion as useless weight.
  • Power and Control: Sabine’s roughness in bed, her mockery of Charlotte’s idealism, and her violent reaction to the name María all reinforce her dominance.
  • Names and Identity: The brief gift of the name María becomes a weapon when Sabine’s reaction reveals that even intimacy can be a territory she controls.
  • Blood and Death Motifs: Tear-stains like blood, the tally of dead in the printer’s shop, and Sabine’s death-like sleep recur as reminders of mortality’s shadow.
  • Ink and Print: The Parisian print shop spills headlines of “the dead and damned,” coating Charlotte in the horror just as ink stains skin.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter compresses decades of a volatile partnership into a single arc, exposing fissures that will deepen. The onset of World War I acts as a pressure test: Charlotte cannot escape her empathy, while Sabine treats it as an annoyance. Sabine’s declaration that Charlotte’s humanity is dead marks a turning point in how Charlotte understands herself. The chapter also demonstrates Sabine’s method of control—hurt, then soothe—leaving Charlotte disoriented but physically dependent. It sets the stage for later conflicts about identity, morality, and what it means to live when you are no longer human.

Study Questions and Answers

  1. How does Sabine’s behavior during intimacy reveal the power dynamics in the relationship?
    Sabine sometimes bites hard enough to leave Charlotte weak and once held her down with bruising force. These acts, framed as passion, show that Sabine enjoys physical dominance and that Charlotte’s body is not entirely her own. Sabine’s tenderness afterward only reinforces the cycle of injury and comfort.

  2. Why does the name María provoke such a black reaction from Sabine?
    Offering the name is a rare gift of Sabine’s past, but when Charlotte uses it, Sabine feels exposed. The fury suggests that the old identity is a wound or a secret Sabine refuses to share fully. It teaches Charlotte that certain intimacies are forbidden and that Sabine controls which pieces of herself are safe to touch.

  3. What does the conflict over the war effort reveal about Charlotte’s ongoing search for purpose?
    Charlotte desperately wants to ease suffering, but Sabine’s mockery reminds her that as a killer she is already part of the horror she hates. Sabine frames her empathy as performative and her human side as dead, pushing Charlotte to question whether she can ever be more than a predator. The argument leaves Charlotte with no outlet for her compassion except Sabine’s command to “live.”

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