Beloved Summary of Part 5 (Chapters 10 - 12)
by Toni Morrison

Chapter 10 begins the tale of how Paul D came to 124. We learn that schoolteacher sold him to another master, and that Paul D attempted to murder that master. We learn that he and roughly fifty other Negroes were imprisoned in cages in the ground, tied to each other by "a thousand feet of chain." After years of mining, there is a flood and all the Negroes escape. They come across a Cherokee concentration camp, and the Cherokee free them from the chains. Paul D heads North.

In the present day, Paul D is on his feet again; he is being moved out of the house. First he can no longer fall asleep in the bed with Sethe, then in the rocker, then Baby Suggs's bed, then the storeroom, and finally he must go outside to the cold house to rest. He believes it's Beloved's doing, and one night she visits him in the cold house and seduces him with the cryptic "I want you to touch me on the inside part and call me my name." She goes to him nightly.