“Eat,” he tells Petra, gesturing at the plate.

Petra has never before seen so many different foods in one meal, not even on Easter Sunday. She is afraid to touch the meal, does not even know how to eat it. She senses a trap. Siegfried crosses himself and murmurs a swift blessing.

“Start with the apples,” he tells her, taking some for himself. “Then cabbage, chicken, and cheese in that order. Bread whenever, though preferably with the apples. This way is better for digestion, or so the barber-surgeon says. I think it is silly, but on the other hand, I remain in good health.”
Petra does not thank him but Siegfried knows she is thankful. He speaks as though she did.

“This is an extraordinary circumstance, Petra. Do not get used to it. I myself am simply too tired and lazy to have prepared for you a separate, worse meal. From tomorrow on you will make your own food here in the house while I am away at the castle.”
A pause. “Besides, the day has been, I think you would agree, rather miserable.”
Even though she refuses to acknowledge him, he pours them some wine from a carafe, carves the chicken. Eats a little bit. Waits.

At first she is reluctant, glancing through the veil of her eyelashes towards Siegfried as she, too, says a requisite blessing. But when she starts eating, she cannot stop. She eats as though she will be imminently torn away from the food at knifepoint. Watching, chewing far slower, Siegfried smiles inwardly. The sight touches the part of him that believes in the afterlife, the part that pities. When Petra finishes eating, she pants as though she has been running for miles.