Franz Biberkopf’s arson attack on Reinhold’s hideout turns grief into a direct but unsuccessful act of retaliation. Franz prepares and sets a fire in the house where he expects Reinhold to be, hoping to drive him out; the building burns, but Reinhold remains absent. The episode therefore makes its central reversal plain: Franz can damage the place associated with his enemy, yet cannot reach the man or undo the killing that has left him feeling powerless.

Circumstances and Preparation

The scene begins with other voices treating Franz as someone who has lost control and should be sent to Wuhlgarten. Against that background, the narration shifts from talk about his condition to deliberate preparation: one night, he works inside the house and hides a can of paraffin and a bottle. The account does not explain the mechanics further, but the concealed materials establish that the fire is planned rather than an accident.

Franz also tries to make Reinhold answer him. He calls for him to come out, addressing him with hostile accusations, but the house answers as if it could speak: it says Reinhold is not there and invites Franz inside to look around. Franz’s reply—that he cannot search every nook—leaves the essential obstacle unresolved. He is trying to force an encounter with someone who remains out of reach, and the house becomes both the target of his action and the barrier between his demand and any actual confrontation.

The Fire and Its Intended Effect

The next morning, Franz is at the house shortly after the woman delivering the newspapers. The narration marks his return through a brief, striking personification: the lamp-posts seem to see him running and rock at the sight of the fire. Smoke and flames rise from the skylights. By seven, the fire brigade has arrived; the description establishes a substantial blaze without turning the scene into an account of firefighting or physical harm.

Franz is not at the house when the brigade arrives. He is sitting at Herbert’s, clenching his fists, and speaks as if the burning has accomplished a practical purpose: Reinhold will have nowhere to live and will need to find somewhere else. He acknowledges that the place was deliberately set alight. The attempt is thus both an attack on Reinhold’s shelter and a message intended to make him appear. The fire is visible, the intention is explicit, and yet the person Franz wants to confront does not emerge.

A Retaliation That Does Not Find Its Target

Franz expects the destruction of Reinhold’s residence to smoke him out, but that expectation fails. Reinhold does not appear. Berlin continues noisily around the event, while the newspapers carry no report that he has been caught. Franz imagines that Reinhold has escaped abroad and that the authorities will never find him. The narrative gives no confirmation that this fear is true; what it establishes is Franz’s inability to locate Reinhold or obtain any public sign that the pursuit has succeeded.

That absence changes the meaning of the fire. It may burn the place Franz associates with Reinhold, but it gives Franz no meeting, arrest, or assurance of justice. The gap between the result he expects and the one he receives is crucial: a conspicuous act of revenge produces no visible consequence for its intended target. Franz has acted, but the action does not restore his sense of agency. The fire cannot reach backward to alter what Reinhold has done, and it cannot make Reinhold answer for it in this scene.

Grief, Public Space, and the Ending

After the failed attempt, Franz stands before Eva, weeping with his head bowed. He says that Reinhold has killed the girl and that Franz can do nothing to stop him; he describes himself as finished and repeats that the situation is not right. Eva tells him that nothing has changed and asks why he believes himself finished. Their exchange sets her response beside his despair, without suggesting that her reassurance resolves it. His grievance is not only that Reinhold remains free, but that Franz sees himself as unable to protect the person who was killed or answer the harm done.

The ending moves away from the house and into a crowd in Berlin. Sarug and Terah, identified as angels, walk beside Franz and speak with one another; Franz is silent, though the narration makes his violent weeping audible to them. Police officers pass on patrol without recognizing him. This final contrast denies the scene a conventional resolution: the fire has not produced Reinhold, the police do not identify Franz, and Franz does not speak his way out of grief. The attack’s decisive consequence is instead the exposure of its limit. Franz can set the house alight, but he remains alone within a crowd, accompanied only by the angels as he weeps.