51 pages • 1 hour read
Gabriel García MárquezA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Mina, a young woman who lives with her mother and grandmother, fumbles in the dark for her dress's shirtsleeves. She tries not to wake her sleeping grandmother, who is blind, and shares the room with Mina. Mina's grandmother, though, does wake and tells Mina that she washed her shirtsleeves the night before and they're drying in the bathroom. Mina finds them still wet and tells her grandmother not to touch her things again.
Mina's grandmother says she'd forgotten today was "the first Friday" (146) as Mina places the shirtsleeves on the stones in their fireplace to dry. Mina's grandmother cautions her not to get the sleeves dirty on the stones then takes her coffee out to the veranda. She tells Mina that it's "sacrilege to take communion when one is angry" (147) but Mina doesn’t reply. Mina puts on the wet shirtsleeves then leaves in a hurry.
Mina returns just fifteen minutes later. Her grandmother says she'll miss the reading of the gospel but Mina says she can't go to Mass because her sleeves are wet and her dress is wrinkled. Mina's grandmother chides her for missing Mass on First Friday. Mina goes to the toilet then comes back to drink coffee beside her grandmother. Mina, crying, tells her grandmother that she's to blame for washing the shirtsleeves. Her grandmother asks why she's crying and Mina says she's "crying from anger" (147). She tells her grandmother she should go to confession because she made her miss Mass. Mina storms to their bedroom. Mina's grandmother pours Mina's untouched coffee into a pot on the veranda and says out loud that she knows she has a "clear conscience" (148). Mina's mother comes outside and asks Mina's grandmother who she's talking to. The grandmother says she's not talking to anyone, she's "going crazy" (148).
In the bedroom, Mina takes three keys out of her bodice and uses one to open the bottom drawer of her armoire. She takes out a small wooden trunk and uses another key to open it. Mina then pulls out a "packet of letters written on colored paper" (148) and hides them in her bodice. She takes them into the bathroom and flushes the letters down the toilet.
When she joins her mother and grandmother in the living room, Mina's mother asks her why she didn't go to Mass. Mina again blames her grandmother. Mina then says she has to "deliver a hundred and fifty dozen roses for Easter" (148) and sets up her "artificial rose shop" (148) in the living room. Her friend, Trinidad, arrives to help with the production. The two girls use crepe paper, wire, thread, and glue to fashion the artificial roses.
Trinidad asks why Mina wasn't at Mass. Mina says she didn't have any shirtsleeves and Trinidad offers that "anyone" (148) could have lent them to Mina. Mina says she was too late. Trinidad brought a shoebox with her and Mina asks if she bought new shoes but Trinidad says they're dead mice. The two girls work in silence for a while, Trinidad carefully "shirring petals" (149) out of paper and Mina winding wire with green paper to make the rose stems. Mina observes Trinidad and Trinidad ignores Mina's gaze until finally asking her what's wrong. Mina tells Trinidad that he "went away" (149). Trinidad drops her scissors in disbelief. Mina repeats herself. Trinidad asks what happens now but Mina says now "nothing" (149) happens.
The girls finish their work and Trinidad goes to leave. Mina follows her and says she can flush the dead mice down the toilet. Mina passes her grandmother outside, pruning the rosebush, and shakes the box next to the woman's head. Mina asks her grandmother to guess what's inside the box. Her grandmother can't. Mina says they're dead mice caught in the "church traps last night" (150). Mina's grandmother doesn't say anything but follows her inside the house.
Mina puts the finishing touches on the flowers. Mina's grandmother tells her that she wants her to be happy but she shouldn't "confess with strangers" (150). Mina doesn't respond. Mina's grandmother asks her again why she didn't go to Mass. Mina says her grandmother knows "better than anyone" (150). Her grandmother says if it was really because of the shirtsleeves, Mina wouldn't have left the house. Her grandmother says Mina had "someone" (150) waiting for her that caused her "some disappointment" (150). Mina passes her hands in front of her grandmother's eyes then calls her a witch.
Mina's grandmother says Mina went to the bathroom twice in the morning and she never goes more than once. Then she asks Mina what she's hiding in the bottom drawer of the armoire. Mina pulls the keys out of her bodice "unhurriedly" (151) and hands them to her grandmother. Mina tells her to "go see with" (151) her own eyes. Mina's grandmother says she "can't see down the toilet" (151). Mina feels that her grandmother is "looking at her" (151). She tells her grandmother to throw herself down the toilet if it's "so interesting" (151) to her. Mina's grandmother remains calm and says Mina always stays up late writing in bed. Mina asks what's so special about that and Mina's grandmother says nothing, only that it made her miss "first-Friday Communion" (151).
Frustrated, Mina stops working with the roses and asks her grandmother if she'd like her to tell what she did in the bathroom. Her grandmother doesn't respond, so Mina says she went in there "to take a shit" (151). Mina's grandmother tosses Mina's keys in her rose basket and murmurs that "it would be a good excuse" (151). Walking away, Mina's grandmother mutters that Mina would have convinced her if it wasn't the first time in her life she ever swore in front of her grandmother. Mina's mother, walking in the opposite direction of Mina's grandmother, asks what's going on. Mina's grandmother says she's crazy but won't be sent to "the madhouse" (152) as long as she doesn't "start throwing stones" (152).
Though Mina's grandmother lacks eyesight, she possesses a clearer sense of reality than does naïve, young Mina. Mina's grandmother knows about Mina's clandestine suitor and the letters they exchange without ever seeing or being told about them. Fittingly, Mina makes her living selling artificial roses, while her grandmother tends to living roses and "medicinal herbs" (147).
By Gabriel García Márquez