Chapter 28 Summary, Key Moments, and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with the narrator and Agnes lying together on the threadbare carpet in Agnes's room during a welcome rainstorm, with windows open to the cool air. Their contentment is interrupted briefly when Peter enters, bejewelled with raindrops, and greets them both—kissing Agnes's hand and patting the narrator's head—before settling at the window to wait for the sun.

The two women doze, wake, and make love again. Afterwards, the narrator fetches food from the kitchen—spekkoek, kroepoek, and pickles—and they eat together between the sheets. The narrator's happiness is so complete that she laughs in the hallway for no reason, even reflecting that Agnes has killed her husband and she has desecrated his grave, and still she feels her heart too big for her chest. Ruth whispers a teasing remark about Agnes wanting a bedfellow as well as a companion.

A bell rings from Willemijn's room. Agnes groans to get up, but the narrator gently pulls her back and goes in her place, kissing Agnes before leaving and promising to return quickly.

In Willemijn's room, the narrator finds her seated near the window, looking wan and sickly. Willemijn expects the narrator to be leaving after the police visit, but the narrator explains that Agnes is not angry with her—Agnes knows the narrator reburied Thomas with the best of intentions. The narrator confronts Willemijn, accusing her of arranging the reburial to shock and upset Agnes so she would send the narrator away.

Willemijn's response is cutting. She tells the narrator to stop making everything about herself, insisting that none of it was ever about her—she was merely a tool. Willemijn admits she wanted to hurt Agnes, whom she blames for stealing Thomas. She recounts how she and Thomas were everything to each other before Agnes arrived, how Thomas married Agnes in what he called a moment of madness, and how Willemijn has suffered ever since. She describes Thomas as perfect, a protector who cared for her when their parents were absent, who shielded her from their father's madness, and who ultimately killed their father to liberate them both. She acknowledges that his love made monsters of them both, but he is a god to her.

The narrator presses her: if the reburial wasn't about hurting Agnes, what was it about? Willemijn explains that she wants Thomas to find his way back to her—she must take every chance, no matter how small or insane, to restore him. When the narrator objects that Willemijn cannot even see spirits, Willemijn insists she might learn, citing her family history: her father thought saints spoke to him, her grandfather saw angels and demons. Lunacy, she says, lies in her very marrow.

The narrator kneels before Willemijn and tells her that suffering is no reason to inflict pain on others, that what she did to Agnes was wicked and cruel. Willemijn refuses remorse, whispering that madness might bring her brother back, and so madness is what she chooses. She then begins to laugh horribly, a choking, rattling laugh that frightens the narrator.

Willemijn asks if the narrator sees him. The narrator looks out the window and sees no one. Willemijn insists Thomas is at the edge of the pond. The narrator reasons to herself that Ruth and Peter took centuries to manifest and had the right conditions and someone to wake them—who would wake Thomas? Willemijn, enraged, grabs the narrator's neck and slams her face against the window, forcing her to follow her finger. This time, the narrator does see Thomas standing on the lawn.

The chapter closes with a transcript of a psychiatric interview conducted on 4 November 1954. A doctor questions the patient, R—, about schizophrenia, revealing that Mrs. K— (Agnes) had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and spent time in a mental institution after a breakdown. The doctor explains that the police think R— may have triggered a psychotic episode in Mrs. K— or encouraged her paranoid delusions. R— protests that she loved Agnes, that she would never harm her. The doctor introduces the concept of folie à trois—a psychiatric syndrome in which three people come to share the same delusion—and suggests that Agnes's schizophrenia, Willemijn's family history of mental instability and morphine use, and R—'s own susceptibility might explain what happened. R— insists that just because the doctor cannot explain how something could be real does not mean it is not real. The doctor then asks how Mrs. K— ended up dead.

Key Events

The narrator and Agnes share an intimate, happy afternoon during a rainstorm, with Peter joining them briefly
The narrator answers Willemijn's bell in Agnes's place
Willemijn reveals she orchestrated Thomas's reburial to hurt Agnes and to try to summon Thomas back
Willemijn confesses her obsession with her brother and her family history of mental illness
Willemijn forces the narrator to look out the window, where the narrator sees Thomas on the lawn
A 1954 psychiatric interview reveals Agnes's schizophrenia diagnosis and introduces the concept of folie à trois
The doctor asks how Mrs. K— died, leaving the question unanswered

Character Development

The narrator (R—): This chapter shows the narrator at her most content and most vulnerable. Her happiness with Agnes is so complete that she laughs for no reason, yet her confrontation with Willemijn reveals her capacity for both pity and anger. In the interview transcript, we see her older self still insisting on the reality of what she experienced, even as the doctor offers a psychological explanation.

Willemijn: Her confession transforms her from a sickly, manipulative figure into something more tragic and more frightening. Her devotion to Thomas is absolute—she calls him a god, admits his love made monsters of them both, and chooses madness as the only path that might restore him. Her cruelty toward Agnes is rooted in a lifetime of suffering and jealousy.

Agnes: Though largely absent from the chapter's action, Agnes's diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, revealed in the interview, reframes everything the reader has seen. Her breakdown, her time in an institution, and her secrets (like the narrator's secret about Mr. Mesman) suggest depths the narrator never fully knew.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Folie à trois and the supernatural-versus-psychological question: The chapter's central tension. The doctor's explanation—that three people shared a delusion—directly challenges the narrator's account of spirits, Ruth, Peter, and Thomas. The narrator's rebuttal—that the doctor's inability to explain something doesn't make it unreal—leaves the question deliberately unresolved.

Madness as choice: Willemijn's declaration that madness is what she chooses reframes mental illness as an act of will, a deliberate embrace of the irrational as the only remaining path to what she loves.

The tool versus the person: Willemijn's dismissal of the narrator as a tool echoes the novel's broader concern with how people use each other—Agnes's use of the narrator, the narrator's use of the reburial, Willemijn's use of the narrator.

The window as boundary: The window between the narrator and Thomas is both a literal pane of glass and a symbolic threshold between the rational and the supernatural, between what can be explained and what cannot.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is a turning point in the novel's structure. It delivers the confrontation between the narrator and Willemijn that has been building since the reburial, and it introduces the novel's most explicit supernatural manifestation—the narrator seeing Thomas. But it also introduces the psychiatric framing that will define the novel's final act: the 1954 interview transcript that reinterprets everything through the lens of mental illness. The chapter leaves the reader with two competing explanations for the same events—supernatural or psychological—and refuses to resolve them. The final question—how did Mrs. K— die?—hangs over the remainder of the novel.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Willemijn arrange Thomas's reburial, and what does she hope to achieve?

Willemijn has two motives. The first is to hurt Agnes, whom she blames for stealing Thomas and for his death. The second, more important motive is to help Thomas find his way back to her. She believes the reburial might restore him, and she is willing to embrace madness—which she calls her choice—if that is what it takes to see him again.

2. How does the 1954 psychiatric interview reframe the events of the chapter?

The interview introduces the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia for Agnes and the concept of folie à trois, suggesting that the narrator, Agnes, and Willemijn shared a delusion. The doctor implies the narrator may have triggered or encouraged Agnes's psychotic episode. This reframes the supernatural events—Ruth, Peter, Thomas—as shared hallucinations rather than spirits, while the narrator's protest leaves the question open.

3. What does Willemijn's family history reveal about her character and her actions?

Willemijn's father believed saints spoke to him, and her grandfather saw angels and demons. She sees madness as hereditary—lunacy lies in her very marrow—and therefore as something she can claim and use. Her brother Thomas killed their father to protect her, and she describes his love as the only love she has ever known. This history explains both her obsession with Thomas and her willingness to choose madness as a means of restoring him.