Summary

In Chapter 1, the narrator recalls a story read by her mother to her and her two sisters when they were young. The story was about a wicked little girl who was beautiful, but cruel and poor. The girl was sent to work for rich people who gave the girl a loaf of bread for her mother, but the girl dropped the bread in mud on her way home. The girl sank with the bread into a world of demons where she was made into a statue. The girl was hungry but could not eat the bread which was welded to her feet. The narrator recalls crying about the story. Her mother had soothed her, saying the girl would be saved by the tears of an innocent girl. The narrator had forgotten about that story for a very long time.

In Chapter 2, the narrator...