A Koan (the Burnt Hermitage)

One old lady heartily supplied food to a hermit for 20 years. Oneday, she wanted to test him and said to her beautiful daughter, "Please go embrace him and ask him how his feeling is." When her daughter did as her mother said, he said, "Now that a dead tree leans against a cold rock, there is no warmth in cold winter." Her daughter relayed his words to her mother, then she said, "I threw away so much food to that terrible layman." Futhermore, she drove away him and burned down the hermitage he had lived in.

What would you say to the question her daughter asked. There was a controversy among monks in Korea a few dacades ago and there were many answers like these : "I will marry her." or "I will use a club." or "I will use my feeling directly."

However, those answers are said to be not acceptable. What would you say ?