So, a celebrity evangelist is in the town. But outside of town, in the exposed and devastated countryside, horrors continue to mount, and the Baroness rejoins the epic human struggle for survival there. The summer of 1817, it turns out, is more dire even than 1816. A faithful remnant of seven hundred refugees follows the Baroness on her wandering route east. Every day, she provides each of them with a bowl for their subsistence ration. It’s a wrenching spectacle to see the voracity with which they consume their meager portion of soup. Hunger is their only thought, their sole preoccupation. Every natural sentiment has been extinguished. Even familial bonds are broken. One day a woman, having received her ration, snatches her child’s portion from his mouth and eats it herself. The same day, while the Baroness and her companions are at table eating their own frugal meal, a hideous apparition appears at the door. It is a young girl, reduced to a skeleton. Famine has caused her hair to fall out, and her belly is prodigiously swollen. She throws herself under the table to lick up crumbs, as if unaware of the people around her. The Baroness seizes hold of the child, and questions her. But the starving girl is not capable of speech, only a raucous, guttural sound. Hunger is her only language.