Chapters 1-4 Summary

Chapter 1:

The chapter opens with Florens, a 16 year old slave girl confessing to an unknown person.

"Don't be afraid. My telling can't hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark—weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more—but I will never again unfold my limbs to rise up and bare teeth." Chapter 1, p. 3

The girl says that so many things have happened to her that she is unsure what a great deal of it meant at the time. There are still things Florens does not understand.

"Other signs need more time to understand. Often there are too many signs, or a bright omen clouds up too fast. I sort them and try to recall, yet I know I am missing much, like not reading the garden snake...