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45 The Sin-Eater one hired to take upon himself the sins of a deceased person by means of food eaten above the dead body That first girl’s name has long been forgotten by everyone save me. She was young, fourteen or so, and the daughter of a laborer. Then a carriage accident. How shall I describe it? Her sins smacked of turnips and leeks. How would innocence taste, I wonder. Pride is like molded bread, abandoned cake, crumbs in a wood that all the animals—even the birds—have fled. Save one. Idolatry mushrooms in the mouth, adultery is a raw onion, and hatred cooked cabbage—it is what I eat most often. How do the living not gag on the smell? Will there be another after me? I am old and full of ghosts. No one speaks to me without there’s been a death. But who needs words? Most are lies anyway, tasting of pottage. People die, you can count on them for it, God bless them. Then over their bodies it’s bread and porridge I eat with clean fingers. I used to follow him, the old sin-eater, asking him questions: Was it always the same meal? Did it ever spill? How much did he eat? Then one day he didn’t answer my knock; inside I found a fresh loaf of bread—three slices cut off— and a bowl of gruel and him more silent than ever, under a meal that was venial, mortal, and rotten. ...

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