Fidelis collapses at the New York customs gate while returning to the United States with Delphine, bringing his concealed heart failure into the open. The event turns an arrival into a final bodily reckoning: the butcher who has spent a lifetime carrying out death’s work can no longer command his own body.

Background and Causes

Fidelis steps from the USS Bremen into the New York crowd already burdened by exhaustion that has worsened throughout the ocean crossing. He has been sleeping for long stretches and napping in the afternoons, but does not understand the change in his strength. His heart, however, has been failing for years. The narrative connects its decline to accumulated grief: his son’s rejection of him in Minnesota, the telegram about Franz’s injury, the news of Emil’s death, and Franz’s subsequent death at home.

Fidelis cannot accept weakness as part of himself. Having understood his life through physical strength and disciplined work, he ignores his body’s demands and keeps to his old habits. At the customs gate, despite tight, aching lungs, he lights a cigarette bought in Germany and continues slowly behind Delphine toward the officer’s booth. His heavy coat and growing dizziness make the strain of the moment concrete, but he persists in standing.

The Collapse

As Fidelis waits, the present folds into the memory of his earlier arrival in the same line. That recollection brings his father into view at the sausage kettle, lifting links through the steam with calm, practiced discipline. Past and present converge in the customs hall: Fidelis remembers the scene while his own body falters, and the narrative describes the days of his life as if they have been swept together into a single, suffocating deck.

His cigarette slips from his numb fingers and bounces, still lit, off his shoe. He finds himself looking down at the linoleum, its distant polished tiles seeming to hold fragments of a familiar song. In an apparent attempt to rise, he imagines himself moving forward, then realizes he has not moved at all. The mismatch between intention and action makes the collapse a loss of bodily command before it becomes unmistakable to those around him.

Fidelis recognizes the change through the terms of his trade. Every week, he had been present on the day animals were slaughtered; now, he understands, it is his turn to face death. He wonders who will do for him what he had done for them. He falls flat, and someone turns him onto his side and takes his hand.

Delphine and the Ending

Delphine’s face enters Fidelis’s wavering view as she bends over him. He recognizes the familiar movement of her mouth and knows what she is saying, but cannot answer: his mouth will not open, and his hands will not move. The heart failure that had advanced unacknowledged now stops his body from obeying him. His eyes widen in anguish; Delphine’s face blurs, the light dims, and the singing he had heard ceases.

The scene ends at the point of this shutdown, with Delphine beside Fidelis and his ability to respond gone. It does not merely reveal the illness he had refused to recognize. By setting his final loss of control against his lifelong work as a butcher, the collapse reverses his accustomed position: the man who carried out death’s chores is now the one who cannot act for himself.