Vianne wakes longing for Antoine’s return and tries to keep the household functioning despite the occupation. While chopping wood, Captain Wolfgang Beck offers to take over, unsettling Vianne with his courtesy and physical closeness. Rachel arrives to walk with Vianne and Sophie to the last day of school before summer break, and Rachel’s comments about Beck’s looks only heighten Vianne’s discomfort and fear that Isabelle’s recklessness will endanger them all.

POV shift: Isabelle. After being caught defacing German posters, Isabelle is dragged to a sealed-up backroom where a small clandestine group interrogates her. The men—led by the young communist Henri Navarre and including Didier and the pork butcher—confirm she is not a German collaborator and press her on her motives. When Isabelle admits she heard de Gaulle’s speech, Henri offers her a more serious task: distributing anti-Vichy, pro–de Gaulle tracts, warning her it is punishable by death; Isabelle accepts immediately.

Isabelle leaves elated, arranging a contact signal (curtains opened in a vacant apartment above Madame La Foy’s hat shop) and a four-knock rule. She hides the tracts under cloth in her market basket alongside ham hocks, but the camouflage is weak. Racing home near curfew, Isabelle is met by Beck, who insists on carrying her basket inside, putting her at risk as the corner of a paper shows.

In the cellar, Isabelle tries to appear harmless while Beck notes the Gestapo presence in town and studies Isabelle’s nervousness. When Vianne sends Isabelle back down for vegetables, Isabelle uses the moment to retrieve the tracts and stuff them into her panty girdle, removing the evidence from the basket. That night Isabelle acts oddly—offering to do dishes and pretending to sleep—while she waits for Beck to settle in.

Before dawn, Isabelle hides the tracts inside the lining of her coat and slips out of the house, committing fully to the danger. She begins distributing the papers discreetly, sliding one into Rachel’s letterbox and delivering others to trusted townspeople such as old man Rivet. By the time she finishes, Isabelle feels triumphant and then queues early for rations, earning a rare reward: her full monthly butter allotment.