Summary

It is winter again and Dillard is reviewing the year. She recollects all that she has observed and wonders if she too has become part of the wild. She likens the feeling to an Eskimo story she had read: a mother was jealous of the affections given to her daughter by a handsome young man. The suitor and daughter had plans to meet later that evening. The mother helps the daughter prepare by braiding her hair and then strangles her with it. The mother then skins the daughter’s face and wears the skin as a mask when the young man comes back later that evening. During the lovemaking the skin mask gets wet since the young man is damp from hunting out in the rain. The skin mask shrinks and slides from her face revealing a disfigured, ghostly old lady...