The Slum ends with the death of Bertoleza, who kills herself with a kitchen knife when her former master arrives with two policemen to take her back, and with the arrival, at that very moment, of a committee of abolitionists bringing João Romão the diploma of honorary member. The book closes with him ordering them shown into the parlor.
The ending comes from the marriage. On the night Miranda confirms that Zulmira accepts him, João Romão does not know what to do with Bertoleza, who sleeps in a recess under the stairs. At midnight he goes down with a candle, thinking of strangling her, but she lifts her head with her eyes open and he backs off. In the morning, the parasite Botelho asks whether she was a slave when he took charge of her, and João Romão finds the way out: "to hand her back to her master, to legally return her to slavery." He arranges a fee with Botelho to see to the matter.
One afternoon, João Romão waits in a confectioner's on Rua do Ouvidor for Miranda's family, while Botelho warns him that Bertoleza's owner will come with the police. At home, a man enters with two soldiers and goes to the kitchen, where she is scaling fish for her lover's supper. Bertoleza recognizes the eldest son of her first master and understands everything: "she guessed she had been deceived; that her letter of manumission was a lie." Before the soldiers can reach her, she slashes her belly with the knife. João Romão, who fled to the darkest corner of the store, is found there by the abolitionists, and he orders them shown into the parlor.
In earlier chapters the narrator had already closed other destinies. The tenement "was becoming aristocratic," with a guarantee letter required at the door and higher prices. Pombinha, separated from her husband, goes to live with the cocotte Léonie, and Piedade, drunk and without work, is evicted and takes refuge with her daughter in the Cabeça-de-Gato. The book does not show João Romão's marriage to Zulmira: it leaves it settled, with the viscount's title still to come.