This chapter opens with a soliloquy by Antoine. He tells his father that he will begin the second phase of the drug experiment. He says that the first phase was much worse than the second, and that he only lost an arm in the first. He also says that he is not sure who is more blessed than him or who has died before him, but he is sure that when he reaches the end of his "thorny path," he will find it. He promises his father, who is a lawman, that if he does not repent, he will be forgiven.