Chapter 7 Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes

⚠️ 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

Chapter Seven is told entirely from the first-person perspective of Remedio, a being whose work is to collect human souls. The chapter opens with Remedio reflecting on the many places he has lived, none of which he knows by name. Instead, he remembers each location by its sky.

The first place he recalls is a cool, rocky coast with red-barked trees, where fog rolls in through a gap between two green hills. The air there is heavy with moisture that splits light in many directions, giving the world a soft, peach-colored glow. Remedio finds the place so beautiful that he must leave after a short time, because the splendor becomes so familiar it stops stirring him—he feels the tragedy of letting beauty slide into abstraction.

The second place is a flat land where the sky and earth seem to merge, separated only by a thin strip of ground on the horizon. The sunless sky is a deep blue, like the color of a submerged whale, and it mirrors the waterlogged soil. Remedio is thrilled by the boundlessness and uniformity of this sky, watching daily for a cloud or any flaw, but the sky is unrolled like a single piece of fabric. In this place, he observes that the people dream of things they have never seen—strawberries, snakeskin, craggy mountains at sunset—rich in sensuous color and texture. One day a withered woman selling oranges passes by, and the bright peel of the fruit awakens Remedio as if from a spell, reminding him of the days when he used to see the sun. He leaves that afternoon.

The third place is where the river splits itself—a jagged land of burrs and thorns, yet home to the most pungent white roses and tiger lilies that seem to pull embers from the sun. The sky changes through many colors in a single day, like a peacock fanning its tail. Remedio tastes the colors one by one like fruit. But the people in this place keep their eyes on the hard ground, digging and scratching it, and Remedio cannot understand why they put their faith in brown dirt when the sky offers such richer bounty. He lies where the river reconverges, listening to dragonflies and envying the birds and trees.

Remedio reflects that he has lived a long time among men and finds their endless dispositions fascinating. Unlike himself, who is the only one of his kind, men are countless and yet no two are the same. He has tried to form hypotheses about whether men are inherently good or bad, or whether they can change, but he always encounters proof to the contrary. He gives up this preoccupation and instead plays a game of comparisons: Remedio is like a woodcutter, clearing clutter to make way for new growth; like a surgeon, taking away only what is rotten; like a mother, inflicting discipline on those who need it. He deliberately avoids comparisons with dogcatchers, judges, fishermen, and anyone in law enforcement, because he knows how often earthly punishments are tied to luck and unluck, and he does not want to entertain the possibility that such a flawed system could extend beyond the hands of men.

Remedio travels for his work, visiting cities, villages, and lonely homesteads. He likes cities, wandering avenues, lurking in bookstores, listening to a beggar play the accordion, and watching little girls in starched pinafores. One day he sees a postman in a green uniform struggling under a heavy mailbag. Remedio remembers a time long ago when messages were glyphed onto papyrus and he sat under a cypress tree watching for a carrier bird. He follows the postman as he delivers letters, checking the man's work afterward and finding no mistakes—the doctor's catalogs are not confused with the lawyer's letters, and the love notes for the handsome bachelor do not reach the lonely amputee in the basement.

Remedio follows the postman back to the central post office, a grand building with a gilded ceiling like a church. He is startled by the volume of letters carried on hand-cranked conveyor belts. He reflects that the letters contain every permutation of human need—please send money, please come visit, please stay away, please say yes—almost all asking for love in some form. He feels that humankind has devised something ordered and miraculous out of the chaos of their hungry souls. Remedio feels a kinship with the postman, comforted that men strive for such precision. He thinks that if men believe a letter will reach its destination because the postage is paid and the address is written, then it should not be difficult for them to comprehend their destinies. He concludes: Remedio is like a postman because, like a letter, every person has a terminus.

Remedio explains that he never knows who he is to collect until he is close enough to see their face. There is a markedness to them—a pallor, like an absence of light—and on their faces are written the nature of their crimes: murder, incest, theft, cruelty. He notes that men are most inventive when devising ways to be wicked.

Remedio reveals that he has only once refused to collect a soul. It was the baby from the place where the river split. On the baby's face was written only the words