Still Lives Summary

On the island lived a woman named Dona Charito who is not a native but had married an island man. Dona Charito is from Germany and speaks Spanish with a heavy German accent. Dona Charito and her husband built a house on the island which looked like it belonged in an Alpine village, not this Caribbean island. The girls thought it looked like the witch's house in Hansel and Gretel.

Dona Charito had studied art in Europe and the girls' mother thought it would be a good idea for the girls and their cousins to take art lessons. On one Saturday, fourteen children were deposited at the Hansel and Gretel house to begin their art lessons. The woman first gives them a tour of her house, which seemed like the inside of a museum with all its paintings, mostly of still-life...