hint and snippet for next chapter of bluebeard, in this interim time:
you are smoking, alone, with your back against this low stone wall in a part of the country you do not know, and he does not appear. you are both irritated and glad of this. you begin to wonder when his presence became an indispensable consideration.
some time later, he shows you an open grave. it is marked with a familiar name. he tells you it is symbolic.