Chapter 4 begins on August 18 and relates events up to a year after the bombing. Once physicists determine that the radiation level is safe for people to return to Hiroshima, the six survivors come back but each is suffering from radiation sickness. Father Kleinsorge connects with two of the other survivors as a result of the effects of the bombing. He suffers from feeling faint and tired and his wounds won't heal. He is sent to the Catholic International Hospital in Tokyo where he becomes somewhat of a celebrity. Leaving the hospital on December 19 for Hiroshima, Father Kleinsorge meets Dr. Fujii on the train. When Father Kleinsorge explains that he must rest each day, Dr. Fujii predicts that rest will be difficult with so much rebuilding going on. Kleinsorge visits Miss Sasaki in the hospital at the request of her doctor; she is depressed over her crippled leg and she is not getting better. His faith and religious discussions slowly result in her eventual healing and converting to Catholicism. A year after the bombing, Kleinsorge is ill enough to be back in the hospital. Dr. Sasaki gets married in March, but he never again regains the kind of energy he had before the bombing. He observes and theorizes about the radiation sickness and works on ways to treat it. Along with fellow doctors, Dr. Sasaki analyzes the three stages of radiation illness and how to treat each. Meanwhile, his fellow doctor, Dr. Fujii, is living in a home that eventually washes into the sea after being hit by a typhoon. He buys a vacant clinic in Kaitaichi, east of Hiroshima, where he practices medicine again and socializes with the occupation officers. His thriving practice from the old days is gone.
Mr. Tanimoto suffers from a general malaise, a fever, and weakness. He can ill afford to rebuild his church. Even if he had the financial resources, his health is too poor to do any physical work. He continues to preach in his home. Mrs. Nakamura has regained the hair she lost, but she is living desperately, trying to feed her family and keep a roof over their heads. She has no money to pay a doctor to treat her own illness, let alone the illnesses of her children. Father Kleinsorge advises her to find work as a seamstress or domestic; she settles on the former.
