Hans decides to talk to Ingrid about getting a divorce. Katharina spends the evening waiting for Hans to return to their apartment, though she is not meant to know about his plan to divorce Ingrid. She also does not know that Hans is at a bar getting drunk because Ingrid has refused to meet him. Hans reflects on the purity of Katharina’s spirit, which she maintains despite the sadomasochistic games that have become an increasingly central part of their sexual repertoire. He relates this to the novel he wants to write, which is about the richness of the human spirit and the treachery of the Soviet system. The previous week, he accidentally threw his plan for the novel in the garbage chute, then followed it down to retrieve it. He feels that a similar fate awaits his soul. Hans wants the sex games to instill in Katharina a strength that resonates with the violent experiences of his childhood.

Katharina believes that she has committed all the particulars of Hans’s apartment to memory as a way of asserting her devotion to him. Whenever she is alone in the apartment, she is not supposed to answer the telephone in case it is Ingrid.