About This Book
A narrator recounts an epidemic through the eyes of a young married woman who becomes gravely ill and is abandoned by her husband and family; weakened and desperate for water, she scavenges, eats quince to stave off thirst, and reaches a church where an elderly nun offers her a little water. Inside the church she recognizes her husband and relatives baptizing an infant and preparing to depart with a carriage; she presses the few coins she has to the coachman to secure passage and be taken with them. The story contrasts personal abandonment and fear with small acts of compassion, exploring how social obligation, survival instincts, ritual, and poverty intersect during communal crisis.
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