Offred returns to her room and determines to abandon her reveries of the past and live in the present. Obeying Aunt Lydia’s injunction to manipulate men to her advantage, Offred ponders how to bargain for something she needs. Her thoughts turn to women killed in Nazi Germany. As she begins to undress, hysteria grips her emotions. To halt the noise and escape questions and potential extermination by pill or injection, she hides in the cupboard and fingers the scratched message left by her predecessor. Gradually, her breathing returns to normal.
