Berlin Zoological Garden

Berlin Zoological Garden is the setting for the novel’s closing encounter between Patrick Sumner and a captive bear. A month after the preceding events, Sumner visits the Berlin zoo under a new name and in altered circumstances; among its animals, the bear’s steady gaze interrupts his detachment and ends the scene on an unexpected feeling of loneliness and need.

Setting and Visit

On a bright morning, Sumner strolls along the zoo’s gravel paths, smoking his pipe. He is clean-shaven and wears new clothes, while the new name he has adopted is left unspecified. The cloudless sky and warming autumn sun make the visit seem calm and ordinary. He watches lions, camels, and monkeys, and notices a small boy in a sailor suit feeding buns to a solitary zebra. By nearly noon, Sumner is beginning to lose interest.

The Bear’s Enclosure

The bear stands in a narrow cage no wider than a ship’s deck. A lead-lined pit filled with water occupies one end; at the back, a low brick archway leads to a straw-bedded den. The animal’s coat is shabby, lank, and yellowish, and its snout is mottled and threadbare. At first it gazes indifferently from the rear of the enclosure. A family gathers at the rail, where two children briefly mistake or dispute whether the animal is a lion or a tiger before their mother quiets them.

After the family leaves, the bear slowly approaches the bars, its head twitching and its heavy feet scuffing the cement. It pushes its nose as far as it can through the bars, bringing its face within three feet of Sumner. It sniffs the air and fixes its eyes on him; its breath reaches his face and lips. The dimensions and barriers of the enclosure make the bear’s confinement unmistakable, but the encounter is not presented only as a spectacle for zoo visitors: the bear approaches, watches, and holds Sumner’s attention.

The Encounter’s Significance

Sumner would like to look away but cannot. The bear’s gaze first produces fear; as that fear fades, it gives way to an unexpected stab of loneliness and need. The scene turns the familiar arrangement of human observer and caged animal into a moment of reciprocal scrutiny, while preserving the bear as a physical presence in its own right: its approach, stare, and breath shape the encounter. At this final setting, the outward signs of Sumner’s changed circumstances—his clean shave, new suit, and new name—do not resolve his inward isolation. The meeting closes instead on the force of an animal’s gaze and the human vulnerability it draws out.