By 2015, Breitwieser is finally off probation, middle-aged and broke. His assets are seized; he cannot secure a lease without his mother, Mireille Stengel, who funds his small apartment and brings groceries. He drifts—hiking, sneaking extra films, and hanging a life-size Sibylle reproduction that reminds him of what was lost. He avoids museums and pores over auction catalogs, hoping in vain to spot any of the roughly eighty still-missing items. He believes Stengel will never reveal their fate. He finds Anne‑Catherine on Facebook but chooses not to contact her and deletes his account.

After more than a year of stagnation, he accepts that theft is his only workable skill. In 2016 he targets smaller Alsatian and nearby German museums for easy pickings—Roman coins, a gold earring, paperweights, marquetry—stealing for money rather than love. He fences the items online using aliases and inmate-taught methods to convert proceeds swiftly to cash.

A cautious buyer alerts authorities. French art-police inspectors monitor his phone, banking, and internet use, and in February 2019 raid his apartment and arrest him. He spends time jailed, then under home confinement as Covid spreads. With stricter cultural-heritage laws, he faces the prospect of years more under custody or supervision, and he foresees a diminished future.

A few months before the arrest, a brochure lures him back to the Rubens House. Disguised, he buys a ticket and studies the recovered Adam and Eve, noting tighter security. Overwhelmed, he retreats to the courtyard and grieves—not his years stealing, but the emptiness since. He judges his old triumph with Anne‑Catherine as his life’s pinnacle and laments the collection his mother destroyed.

Leaving through the gift shop, broke and jobless, he cases the room, notices the lack of cameras, and slips out with a booklet featuring Adam and Eve. The small theft underscores his unresolved compulsion and the gulf between his past “master of the universe” self and his present.