In this chapter, we learn that the narrator is trying to "chop off" his head. We learn that this is not the first time the narrator has tried to chop off his head, but it is the most recent attempt. We also learn that he has been trying to cut off his heart, but he knows that it is futile. He realizes that what people love the most in life is to take "pimply things" as their last hopes, and to hold them tight without letting them go. The narrator tells us that there are two kinds of treatment of poor things, the first being to "participate" in the suffering of the poor and the second being to be "participatory" in their suffering. He says that he can make them not become "poor existences" by making them "no value of existence" . He tells the narrator that he just needs to "get rid" of the "root cause" of being poor.