Section 5 (page 116 to end) Summary

Twenty years have past the day the narrator spent with Utz. Dr. Orlik sent him a card in 1974 to inform him of Utz's death. The narrator happens to pass through Prague on his way back from the Soviet Union, where he finds the mood buoyant. This is a consequence of Soviet education working too well, he thinks, producing a generation of highly intelligent and literate young people who are more or less immune to the totalitarian message. Prague seems mournful to him in comparison. Then he thinks himself unfair. He sees signs everywhere that the Czechs are uncrushable.

The author goes to No. 5 Siroka Street and rings the bell of the soprano who lived below Utz. The profusion of faded pink satin reminds him of Utz's bedroom. He asks her what happened to the porcelains. She knows...