"Was it very terrible"? she asked.
"No", he smiled at her. "In a way it was wonderful".
"But the suffering and the killing", she said.
"I saw more than that", he said.
"Did you tell him all of it"? she asked.
"All of it". He picked up his knife and whittled away at the wood.
"And"? she insisted.
"He's angry, and sad. And at the same time he's pleased", he said, and that was all he would tell her. But she felt comforted and she knew it was going to be all right.
He shaved the last of the bark of the wood and looked at the grain and set to work. This time it would be a child, with fat round cheeks and the dimples of laughter in them.
THE END