Novikov arrives in Kuibyshev to report to Lieutenant-General Ryutin. The meeting is perfunctory. Afterward, Novikov walks toward Yevgenia’s home.

Novikov and Yevgenia reunite in a room belonging to a deported German. Yevgenia is torn between happiness and duty toward Krymov. She tells Novikov that, if Krymov is ever imprisoned or wounded, she will return to him. To prove she is entrusting Krymov’s life to Novikov, she shares the politically sensitive information that Trotsky once praised one of Krymov’s articles. Novikov speaks of his dream to have a house and a garden.

Novikov’s orderly hands him a coded message: The corps is ordered to Stalingrad. Novikov is irritated by Nyeudobnov’s paranoia about saboteurs. Getmanov returns with high-level gossip, confirming a Soviet counter-offensive. Later, Getmanov reports that Nyeudobnov disapproves of Novikov’s relationship with Yevgenia because her family is “dubious.” Her brother was arrested in 1937, he notes, and her ex-husband Krymov was nearly purged. Novikov explodes with anger. He insists that he cares only about fighting ability. Getmanov embraces him.

Yevgenia is overcome by her desire for Novikov, but tormented by guilt over Krymov. She goes to the station, but Novikov’s train has already departed. A neighbor gives her a letter from her mother with the news about Tolya. She cries out.

As a result of “the free play of thought” (348), Viktor Shtrum has made a major breakthrough. He visits Sokolov, but the conversation sours as Viktor senses Sokolov’s envy. Sokolov is afraid of the politically sensitive topics discussed at his gatherings and has quarreled with Madyarov. Outside, Viktor meets Marya Ivanovna, and she calms his anxieties.

Viktor meets his lab staff—Markov, Savostyanov, Anna Naumovna Weisspapier, Nozdrin, and Perepelitsyn—to explain that their experiments were accurate, but the theory was wrong. He outlines their new approach. Later, Anna Naumovna tells him in distress she has been left off the first list for return to Moscow, suspecting antisemitism. Viktor dismisses her fears as “shtetl inferiority complex” (360).

Karimov describes meeting a wounded Tartar lieutenant who escaped German captivity. His horrifying tales include a Jewish family led to execution, the camps in Poland, and newborn Jewish babies killed with poison. Walking Karimov home, Viktor meets Madyarov, who whispers that Karimov is an informer, but Viktor dismisses this.

Alexandra Vladimirovna returns with news of her son Dmitry, who was arrested in 1937. A released prisoner shared a barracks with him before the war, confirming he was alive but ill. A bitter argument erupts. Lyudmila wonders if Stalin knows about this persecution; Nadya retorts that Stalin ordered it. Viktor attacks Nadya. She accuses him of hypocrisy, such as defending Stalin now that his career is going well.

In a German field hospital, Lieutenant Peter Bach recovers from a shoulder wound. Bach clashes with a fellow patient named Gerne, a peasant promoted by the Nazi Party. Another patient named Fresser shares cognac. They believe a final German offensive is imminent. When one of their fellow patients dies in surgery, Bach insists that it is wrong to speak ill of the dead and Gerne mocks him.

Bach reflects on his political transformation. Raised by Social Democrats, he long hated Hitler. The war, however, has convinced him Nazism is correct, though his horror at Jewish extermination has not fully left him. The next morning, a Russian woman with whom he had a brief liaison asks for him. He tells the orderly he cannot see her.

General Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German Sixth Army, has lost inner confidence. He is preoccupied with reports of a Soviet buildup on his northern flank. Schmidt presents the plan for a final assault on the factories. Paulus tells fellow officer Schmidt that the struggle for the ruined city seems “senseless and unnecessary” (382). Schmidt reminds him the Führer never abandons an objective.

Darensky inspects Soviet units in the sandy steppes. He spends a night with Lieutenant-Colonel Bova, who drunkenly laments being stuck. Later, they have a frank conversation. Bova blames bureaucracy; Darensky argues true evil is inhumanity, such as persecution of families or forcing citizens to renounce their parents as enemies due to their social class. Bova counters that the worst injustice is when a worker suffers for criticizing the powerful. Darensky is struck by the joy of this free exchange.

After three weeks in isolation, Mostovskoy is taken to Obersturmbannführer Liss, a Gestapo officer. Liss engages him in disorienting philosophical discussion, arguing National Socialism and Stalinist Communism are two sides of the same coin. “When we look one another in the face,” Liss says, “we’re gazing into a mirror” (395). Liss produces Ikonnikov’s political writings. Liss claims both regimes purge enemies; Hitler’s Roehm purge gave Stalin the idea for 1937. For a terrifying moment, Mostovskoy wonders if defeating Liss requires renouncing his entire revolutionary past. He rejects this. He tells Liss to execute him. Liss, laughing, sends him back, calling him “teacher.” Mostovskoy reads Ikonnikov’s papers.

In his paper on good and evil, Ikonnikov describes how history’s greatest evils have been committed in the name of grand ideological systems of “Good.” True good is found in small private acts of “senseless kindness,” such as an old woman giving bread to a prisoner or a soldier sharing water with a wounded enemy. Life is “a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness” (410). Because that kernel can never be destroyed, evil will never truly conquer. Mostovskoy dismisses Ikonnikov’s writing as “trash” yet is overcome with a sense of heaviness.

Seryozha tells Katya that Grekov ordered him to join an infantry assault. Both suspect Grekov, who desires Katya, is purposefully sending Seryozha into danger. Katya sits alone in the cellar, thinks of Seryozha, and feels overwhelming pity. She hears someone approaching.

Seryozha approaches Katya. The attack is called off, he says. They hold hands and kiss for the first time. Seryozha declares his love for her. At dawn, Grekov summons them and says he is sending Seryozha to Regimental HQ, and Katya, whose radio is broken, will go with him. He hands them a single travel pass and smiles. Seryozha realizes Grekov’s eyes are full of sad, deep humanity.

Commissar Pivovarov cannot reach House 6/1 because Byerozkin has fallen ill. He is summoned to divisional HQ and introduced to Krymov, sent to reach House 6/1, install himself as commissar, and establish “Bolshevik order” (419), with the authority to replace Grekov.