At the end of the story we see this again when Natalia says: "...my grandfather is not dead as he once told me day, men die – in fear – but in hope, like a child” (335). Perhaps the most significant passage comes from Natalia's grandfather himself: “But children die as they lived: in hope. They don’t know what’s going on, so they don’t expect anything” (154). To die as a child is therefore to meet Death like the tiger's wife and the narrator of "The Tiger's Bride" finally meet their tigers, without pretension, without expectation, without disdain or even without disdain.