Summary

In another house, a “bride-to-be” (173) saw the picture of Little Flower and felt “ecstasy of compassion” (173), but the woman’s mother felt that Little Flower had a subhuman sadness about her. A small boy in a different house saw the picture of Little Flower and told his mother that he planned to put Little Flower on his brother’s bed to scare him. He also thought about using Little Flower as a toy. The mother thought about an event from her childhood in which girls at an orphanage pretended one of their dead colleagues was alive so they could continue “consoling her” (173) and playing with her. The mother felt concerned for her child and decided that she would buy him a new suit to mask his dark thoughts.

A family in another house had a ruler, and they were measuring the life-size picture...