Study Questions
1. Why doesn’t Marie think that Sister Leopolda, despite her self-deprivations and holy attitude, could be a saint?

2. Why does Marie decide to visit Sister Leopolda?

3. Why does Marie put on her good royal plum dress? Why is it a mistake?

4. Why does Marie initially feel pity for Sister Leopolda?

5. Why does Marie ask Sister Leopolda to bless her and Zelda?

6. What does Sister Leopolda do when she is supposed to be blessing Marie?

7. Why does Marie replace the note on the kitchen table under the salt canister instead of the sugar canister?

8. What reason does Marie give for Nector not being able to enter the house right away? Does he listen?

9. Where has Nector been?

10. After Nector burned down Lulu’s house, a vision that looked like Marie spoke to him and beckoned him home. If the vision was, in fact, real, who might it have been? Which character could Nector have seen at the fire?

Answers
1. Marie knows that Satan has a hold on Sister Leopolda and that her soul is black and Satan loves her. She also knows that Sister Leopolda has to fight harder than others to be good and that she is not intrinsically good at heart.

2. The nun is old and probably dying, and it may be Marie’s last chance to see her.

3. Marie is trying to impress Sister Leopolda, but the nun laughs at the purple dress and asks if she had to cut up Easter decorations to make it, so it was clearly a fashion mistake.

4. Marie feels pity for Sister Leopolda because the sister is so old and shrunken and lives in a dark, closet-like room.

5. Marie is trying to catch the nun off guard so that she can steal the spoon.

6. Sister Leopolda tries to hit Marie on the head with the spoon.

7. Moving and leaving the note in this manner means that Nector does not know if Marie has forgiven him or if she even knows about the note. This gives Marie a claim over him. It also gives her power because she knows about Nector’s infidelity and wish to desert her, but he does not know what, if anything, she knows about his affair. Moving the note leaves Nector riddled with guilt and anxiety because he has no true understanding of what Marie knows or feels about his affair with Lulu, but Marie is empowered because she possesses the truth about her husband.

8. Marie has just waxed the floors. He does not listen and steps on the fresh wax.

9. Nector went to propose to Lulu but accidentally burned her house down.

10. Zelda knew where Nector was and what he was doing. Also, being Marie’s daughter, it is likely that she would have looked like a younger version of Marie. Zelda is the only person who could have beckoned Nector home, if it wasn’t a real hallucination.