Chapters 36-41 Summary

For the next two days, Dirk visits the hospital multiple times per day, but Blanche will never see him. He learns, eventually, from the doctors, that the poison has done internal damage, and she is going to die very soon. When she has slipped into unconsciousness, Dirk is finally allowed to go in and sit with her. He is saddened by the burns on her face and neck from the poison. Blanche quietly dies, leaving Dirk crushed. Crabbe goes with him to her funeral, and then Dirk says that he wants to go by his apartment. Later, Dirk comes to see Crabbe and tells him that he found a picture in the apartment that Strickland left behind. It is a nude portrait of Blanche, and when Dirk first sees it he is enraged and almost destroys it. Then he is overcome...