The young woman put on her finest clothes. She wanted everyone in her “dumpy village” to envy her, wanted to humiliate them with her elegance. When the count’s carriage left her at the entrance to her village, which was so small and poor that its streets were too narrow for the carriage, she saw some children playing beside the well, and her mother, who was carrying a bundle of firewood on her back and some root vegetables for dinner in her hands. The girl felt so ashamed to have such a “dirty” “nothing” of a mother that she turned around and walked off with all her gifts, getting back into the carriage.

“Miss?” the driver asked, so taken aback he was unable to speak further.

“You keep these gifts, sir, and don’t tell anyone, just take me back to the palace … but let’s take our time so no one becomes suspicious….”

They stopped at a roadside inn and had a few drinks, speaking of unladylike things. Such a precocious girl! The driver began to sing, and the girl teased him.

A few months later, the countess, still worried, decided to send the girl to visit her parents again. She said, “Poor thing! So far from your family, don’t you miss them? I’ve got a magnificent Italian-style loaf of bread for you to take them. And a basket of cheeses, too—but I didn’t include oysters, I thought they wouldn’t survive the trip, and we don’t want to poison your parents, we want to honor them, don’t we?”

The girl just wanted to poison them. But to stay in the good graces of the countess, whom she was eager to please, she dressed in her finest clothes, took the gifts, and got into the carriage.

On the way there, the skies opened up, but the driver kept going, then the rain stopped, and the sun came out. The sky was shining brightly when he left the girl at the entrance to her village.

Cursing her luck, she got out of the carriage with her gifts. She lifted her skirts to keep them out of the mud. The narrow streets were empty; everyone had gone inside for shelter from the rain. The muddy stream in front of her parents’ house had swollen with the rains, the stones for crossing it submerged deep underwater. To keep her shoes clean, she put the bread on the ground and stepped on it. The bread sank into the mud under her weight, and an eddy pulled her into the stream. She was caught in a whirlpool and was soon submerged and pulled to the bottom.

On the muddy riverbed, a witch was brewing beer. The smell coming from the kegs was revolting. Clouds of flies danced next to spiders. The young woman hugged her loaf of bread, wondering, Did I do something wrong, trying to keep my shoes clean?