Chapters 1 and 2 Summary

Peter Augustus Duchene goes to the market with one coin to buy fish and bread for his superior officer, Vilna Lutz. Peter is an orphan. Instead of using the coin for the purchases, Peter buys the answer to a question from a fortune teller. The fortune teller tells Peter that his sister is alive and that he can find her by following the elephant.

The response confuses Peter for two reasons. First, there are no elephants in Baltese. Second, if his sister is alive, then this means that Vilna Lutz lied to him. When Peter returns to the Apartments Polonaise, to the attic apartment where he lives with Vilna Lutz, he confesses that he spent the coin on a fortune teller instead of the fish and bread.

Vilna Lutz punishes Peter by sending him to bed without his dinner. Peter continues...