"The i wicked image / te id forgive father, forgive me" , the narrator tells us. He tells us that his parents sent him away to the woods, telling him to hide there and come back when the white flag flew. They're not from the village, he tells us, but "penitent believers" . He says he's going to go back and wait for the plague to strike. He's not going to be in hell, he says, because the earth is so close to paradise that it's closer to heaven than he deserves. The narrator says that he smells death upon him, but that he'll return to his father for a while. He doesn't care if all the gods die, he just cares about the next life. His mother, she says, was right about him. He was different in all his years of life, she tells him, and she's right about it. She says she'd come closer to see what he truly is, and that he needs not bother. She tells him that the gods devour them, and they all die, so he can live. Man is a tribe, and he should burn to destroy a layer of his sin .