Brand decides that his "task is done, and well done," and he climbs into the furnace to his death. Bartram and his son, after a night of fitful sleep and dreams full of maniacal laughter, awake to find the landscape populated by heavenly atmospheric phenomena. When they realize that Brand is gone, and that "the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it," they look into the lime kiln and find Brand's skeleton, transformed into lime. Inside the rib cage is a chunk of lime in the shape of a human heart. Bartram pokes the fragile artifacts and they crumble to dust.