Medardus, in his own form, now enters into relations with Viktorin's mistress, the Baroness, who has no idea that he is not Viktorin. He is possessed by carnal desires; women fall in love with him; he gives himself up to sensual pleasures, and in order to attain the fulfilment of his wishes, commits crimes of every kind, including murder. Horrible visions haunt him and drive him from place to place. In the end he is denounced and imprisoned. In prison the confusion of individualities reaches a climax. "I could not sleep; in the strange reflections cast by the dull, wavering light of the lamp upon the walls and ceiling, I saw all kinds of distorted faces grinning at me. I put out the lamp and buried my head in my pillow of straw, only to be still more horribly tormented by the hollow groans of the prisoners and the rattling of their chains." It seems to him that he is listening to the death-rattle of his victims. And now he plainly hears a gentle, measured knocking beneath him. "I listened, the knocking continued, and sounds of strange laughter came up through the floor. I sprang up and flung myself upon the straw mattress, but the knocking went on, accompanied by laughter and groans. Presently, an ugly, hoarse, stammering voice began calling gently but persistently: 'Me-dar-dus, Me-dar-dus!' An icy shiver ran through my veins, but I took courage and shouted: 'Who is there? Who is there?'" Then the knocking and stammering begins directly beneath his feet: "He, he, he! He, he, he! Lit-tle brother, lit-tle brother Me-dar-dus ... I am here, am here ... le-let me in ... we will g-g-go into the woo-woo-woods, to the woo-woo-woods." To his horror he seems to recognise his own voice. Some of the flagstones of the floor are pushed up, and his own face, in a monk's cowl, appears. This other Medardus is, like him, imprisoned, has confessed, and is condemned to death. Now everything happens as if in a dream. He no longer knows whether he is really the hero of the events which he believes to have happened, or whether the whole is a vivid dream. "I feel as if I had been listening in a dream to the story of an unfortunate wretch, the plaything of evil powers, who have driven him hither and thither, and urged him on from crime to crime."