Summary

Hanny read a passage from the Bible while the group watched in amazement and Mummer sobbed with Farther’s arms around her.

The narrator says, “I’ve let this part until last, but it must be set down as well as everything else” (275). He states that Doctor Baxter has encourages him to look at the big picture of life rather than the minutiae, but that he now has no choice and must consider the details. He does not care what Doctor Baxter thinks, particularly after seeing the note "classic fantasist" written about himself in Baxter’s files. The narrator has thought about the cellar steps over and over for the past 30 years, remembering dragging an unconscious Hanny to a stained mattress on the floor. He saw medical instruments in a bowl on the floor and realized that Else had given birth there.

Leonard and...