Moji’s boyfriend, a wealthy banker named John Musson, invites Julius to a party he’s having at his apartment. Although Julius is not looking forward to the party and has been thinking of backing out, on the day of the event, he decides to go. He leaves work early and takes a long walk north to John’s apartment. He passes though the hospital grounds, noting how the original names of the buildings have been altered to make room for the sponsoring donors who want their names on the front of things they have funded. He passes by a huge old theater, the Loews 175th Street Theatre, which is now used as a church by a minister popularly known as Reverend Ike.

He passes by the Cloisters Museum, built as a model of medieval abbeys, and remembers a visit there once with a friend. They marveled at the monks’ garden and discussed the Signs system of philosophy, whereby the outward appearances of objects and people are said to contain clues to their inner qualities. Julius ties the Signs system to his view of psychiatry, and describes every patient as a darkened room. As a psychiatrist, Julius is entering that darkened room and searching for clues about the patient’s particular affliction.

Julius arrives at John’s building and is let into the apartment. The apartment is large and well decorated, with a magnificent view of the Hudson River. Moji comes up to Julius and embraces him in greeting, and once again, Julius finds himself inexplicably attracted to her. Around 2 a.m., the party is dying down. He steps out on the balcony with Moji to admire the view, where they talk flirtatiously until John joins them. John shows off his collection of Japanese bonsai trees, one of which is 145 years old.

The next morning, Julius leaves John’s place and goes to a diner and drinks coffee for a while. Then he walks back toward the river so he can see the sun coming up. He sees a car on a bridge that has just crashed into a guardrail. There is a lot of blood on the pavement, and two people sit outside looking dazed, presumably the passengers the of the car. Police cars and an ambulance arrive, and Julius moves on.

Arriving at his apartment, Julius sees Seth, the neighbor whose wife is died. Seth is taking two large mattresses out to the front of the building. Seth explains that he has bedbugs in his apartment.

Julius thinks back to the last conversation he had with Moji before he left John’s that morning: It is six, and not everyone is awake yet. Moji confronts Julius and accuses him of raping her back when they were teenagers. Moji says that they were at a party, drinking, and Julius took her into a back room and took advantage of her, and after that, he has always ignored her and acted as if the assault never happened. Moji says that she knows Julius will deny this and call her a liar, but she says that he hasn’t changed at all. Julius doesn’t respond. He simply walks out of the apartment.