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Summary
Chapters 35-39
Chapter 35
As the Germans suffer further defeats in battle, Von Richter becomes increasingly violent with Vianne. She endures his attacks for the sake of the children, but after vomiting one day, she realizes to her horror that she is pregnant. One day, La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, can be heard playing from the town square. As Vianne exits the house, she sees a line of Nazi cars driving out of Carriveau. Von Richter drives by and taunts Vianne, telling her that they are abandoning the “sorry, sickly little town.” Before collecting his belongings from Le Jardin, he warns her that the war is not yet over. She and the children celebrate his exit.
The following month is marked by a number of allied victories against the Germans. One day, Antoine returns to Le Jardin after escaping from the German prison. She is overjoyed to see her husband but is shocked by the extent to which his experiences have changed him. Though she debates telling him that she is one month pregnant as a result of rape, she decides that it will be best to leave the past behind, reasoning to herself that nobody will notice if she gives birth eight months after Antoine’s return rather than nine. Two months pass and there has been no word from Isabelle. After a sleepless night, Vianne tells Antoine that she is pregnant, and though he responds with joy, she wonders if he suspects that the baby is not his.
Chapter 36
At the Ravensbrück concentration camp, Isabelle struggles to survive amidst endless death and suffering. She and Madame Babineau believe that they have not yet been killed because the Nazis anticipate an Allied victory in the war. Suffering from pneumonia and possibly typhus, she conceals her symptoms for her own safety. After a grueling day work on the road crew while being whipped by Nazi guards, she is rounded up for transfer to another camp, where she briefly reunites with Anouk, who tells her that Henri has been hanged and the whereabouts of the other members of the Resistance, including Gaëtan, are unknown.
Chapter 37
Vianne, Antoine, and Sophie visit Julien’s apartment in Paris, which has been abandoned since his death. Seeing no sign of Isabelle, they walk through the city, which the Nazis have vacated as the Allies push through France. Survivors from the camps pour into the city, while others search desperately for their loved ones, hoping that they are among the survivors. Isabelle contacts workers with the Red Cross, informing them that she has the names of 19 Jewish children whom she has hidden in the orphanage in Carriveau. The Red Cross worker promises to help reunite them with their families but warns her that many of the children have likely been orphaned, as so many in the camps have been killed. Vianne also learns that Rachel and Marc have been killed, leaving Ari an orphan, but there is no record of Isabelle Rossignol, leaving her fate uncertain.
In a concentration camp, Isabelle continues to hide her worsening symptoms of illness as rumors spread that they will again be marched to another camp. Suddenly, she and the other prisoners realize that the guards have retreated, and they witness American trucks arrive to liberate the camp.
By the spring, the Allies have pushed the Nazis out of France and other occupied nations, crossing into Germany while Hitler retreats into his bunker. An anxious Vianne still has not heard from Isabelle after weeks of searching. Antoine tells Vianne that he has a surprise for her, and leads her to the garden, where Sophie and Ari sing for her on a makeshift stage. Just as she begins to feel as though normalcy has returned, a car pulls up to Le Jardin and two men representing the OSE, a humanitarian organization, tell Isabelle that Ari must be returned to his family. Though his parents died, one of Rachel’s cousins has claimed the boy. Tearfully, Vianne packs some of Ari’s belongings and comforts him as he gets into the car to begin his new life in America.
Chapter 38
Isabelle wakes up in a hospital in Paris and, for a moment, believes that she is still in the camps. Madame Babineau informs her that she will be moved to Carriveau, to be with Vianne. In Carriveau, Vianne finds her at the train station and takes her to Le Jardin to nurse her. After several days, her symptoms have not gone away, and she struggles to regain a sense of normalcy. She and Vianne read the letter from their father, in which he apologizes to them for missing the opportunity to be there for them. Later, Gaëtan arrives, and Isabelle feels content despite her injuries and illness.
Chapter 39
In 1995, the older woman and her son Julien fly to Paris and spend an afternoon ambling about the city, enjoying wine and snacks. Then, they head towards the reception, where Julien is surprised to see his mother treated with great deference. As the woman looks around the room, she sees a number of people whom she recognizes, including Anouk. Asked to give a speech, the woman, who is now revealed to be Vianne, praises Isabelle, noting that she died shortly after her return from the camps, but also stating that she was at peace with her choices. Many of those who have gathered for the event are the families of those who were saved by Isabelle during the war. Vianne also meets a much older Gaëtan, who introduces her to his daughter, who he named for Isabelle. A younger man walks up to Vianne, and she realizes that it is Ari, who tells her that he never forgot her or Sophie and has spent many years looking for them. She informs him that Sophie died years ago of cancer, while Julien listens with confusion. After the event, he asks Vianne to tell him the truth of her life during the war, and she agrees.
Analysis
The final chapters of the novel underscore just how much Vianne and Isabelle have changed since the beginning of the war. Both sisters face challenges that they could never have imagined, and both discover the deep wells of inner strength. Imprisoned in a series of concentration camps, Isabelle marvels that she had once taken the risks associated with her Resistance work so lightly. When she reflects on her early days in the Resistance, she sees, in her memories, a young and irresponsible girl who thought of war as a game and believed that she could sweet-talk her way out of any predicament. The novel presents the unremitting misery of the concentration camps with harsh and unsparing detail. In the camps, to stop moving means death, and it takes all of Isabelle’s willpower to keep going despite brutal and dehumanizing treatment by the camp guards. Though she lives to see the liberation of the camps and the end of the war, she feels that she has been irreparably broken by her experiences and can barely remember the girl she once was.
Read about Memory and Forgetting as a theme in The Nightingale.
Though she is far from the camps, Vianne also faces her own struggle to survive. As the Germans cede ground to the Allies across Europe, Von Richter becomes increasingly violent in his treatment of Vianne, taking out his frustrations on her in an attempt to hold onto a small measure of power. Despite her feelings of pain and humiliation, Vianne perseveres in order to protect Sophie, Ari, and the other children under her care at the orphanage. They become a source of strength for her, forcing her to keep going. Though Vianne attempts to hide her suffering, shielding her children from Von Richter’s abuse, Sophie reveals that she knows her mother is pregnant, forcing Vianne to acknowledge that her daughter has matured quickly under the harsh conditions of war. Sophie, too, has changed. No longer a carefree and innocent young girl, she has hardened under her family’s difficult circumstances and shows signs of her aunt’s rebellious spirit.
Read an explanation of a key quote (#1) about Vianne’s decision to protect Ari.
The extent to which Vianne accepts Ari as her own son is reflected in the pain she feels when he is taken from her. She contemplates fighting the attempt by the OSE to claim him on behalf of distant relatives in the United States, reasoning that she has raised him as her own and arguing that he now recognizes her as his mother. However, when the representatives of the OSE argue that they must return Jewish children to Jewish families to ensure the survival of their community, Vianne recognizes that she must give up Ari to Rachel’s relatives even though it breaks her heart.
The final chapter connects the two narratives of the novel, revealing that Vianne is the older woman living in Oregon in 1995. Hoping to escape the pain of her past, she moves to the United States and begins anew, keeping the truth of Julien’s paternity from him. Julien realizes just how little he truly knows his mother when she is honored at the passeurs reunion, where a now-adult Ari tells him that his mother saved nineteen children during the war, at great personal risk. No longer running from her past, Vianne finally decides to face it directly,
