The woodsman can’t express how this woman’s words shine like jewels that have been extracted from a mine with the sweat and toil of mankind, because he’s never laid eyes on such jewels; he doesn’t even know what a mine is or where to find one—if he had, he’d never forget the jewels’ glitter; he’s a woodsman. If he knew where to find a mine or knew that precious stones could be polished, he would have gone and asked for a job; digging and polishing would be preferable to dying of hunger, and blackening his lungs would be better than being stewed without salt by his own wife.

“Give her our girl. She’s the Virgin, she knows all. Give her our daughter, but don’t tell her her name. If she’s not the Virgin, she won’t be able to call her Anna, and our daughter will come back and find us, because no one can live without hearing their own name.”

“But … but …” It’s impossible for the woodsman to explain what he wants to say.

“All right?” she says, seeing him babble like a poor fool. “Take Anna before we get hungry again, because I won’t give her any more of that meat you brought us. I’ll throw it away in the hollow, where the wolves can eat it.”

Before dawn, the woodsman leaves the cottage, Anna asleep in his arms. He heads in the same direction as the previous day, but before his feet become stiff with cold, the bright light appears, the Illuminata behind it. The radiance awakens the girl; she laughs (as she always does) at the sight of the Illuminata and reaches out to her; the Illuminata embraces her, and they disappear. The light fades.

The grayness of the day falls on the woodsman, a heavy burden.

He walks home. He’s so overcome, he doesn’t hear the wolves howling, the ones who ate the stew his wife threw away in the hollow during the night. They don’t howl like normal wolves; they seem to speak, and the sound of what they say is terrifying.

The woodsman cannot sleep. He can’t even think about his daughter. His only thought is that his wife is going to eat him, that his body will end up on a plate at his own table, that his wife will sing, Finally we have some food on the fire as she stews him.

He thinks his wife will serve three portions on three plates—one for her husband, the second for her daughter, and the third for herself—and she’ll devour them all because hunger will have warped her soul.