Sethe and Paul D, left to themselves, discuss his vexation with Beloved. Paul D boasts that he "never mistreated a woman." Sethe indicates that Halle mistreated her by leaving his children. Paul D shocks Sethe by revealing that on the night the schoolteacher's nephews assaulted her and stole her breast milk, Halle was hidden in the barn loft and saw the attack take place. Traumatized by his wife's suffering, Halle lost his mind, and the last time Paul D saw him, he was sitting mutely with butter smeared all over his face. Paul D could not cry out at the horror of this image because his own mouth was stifled by an iron bit as he waited for transportation to a labor camp in Alfred, Georgia.
Sethe, her image of the loving Halle shattered by this revelation, boils over with rage at the menacing "boys with mossy teeth," schoolteacher taking notes during the assault, and Halle watching from the loft but taking no action to defend her. She calms herself by examining Paul D's face, which is somehow free of the wildness that afflicts most men who have suffered the iron bit. Paul D tells Sethe that the worst of his humiliation after being captured by schoolteacher was the glare of Mister, the deformed rooster that he helped hatch from its shell. Sethe, having heard this confession of pain and degradation, massages his knee in sympathy.
