How It All Goes Down
- Now it's time for a memoir within a memoir as Prosperine tells her story. Here we go.
- She used to be friends with a girl named Violetta in a tiny little village.
- All the girls made fun of Ciccolina, a woman with a giant tumor on her forehead who might be a witch.
- One day, an artist named Gallante Selvi sweeps into town. He's infatuated with Violetta, and he asks Prosperine's Papa if he can spare a daughter to be a servant girl for his godmother.
- Since Prosperine is the most homely and responsible, he puts her up for it.
- The godmother turns out to be Ciccolina, the witch, so while Violetta is being painted (and other things) by an artist, Prosperine is cleaning house.
- Violetta starts acting all snooty and treating Prosperine like dirt.
- One night, the artist sneaks out of town… with Violetta. Scandal.
- Later, a miser named Pomaricci comes to Ciccolina to buy a rabbit. He always complains that she's cheating him out of money, and she's fed up with it.
- She does some magic, splitting the rabbit in two. Not in a butcher way, but in a now-there-are-two-rabbits way. We heard rabbits multiply… but not like that.
- He runs away screaming. That night, he dies of a stroke, while Prosperine and Ciccolina eat the rabbits.
- Prosperine tries to get Ciccolina to teach her magic, but the old woman never does.
- She soon dies, but the artist allows Prosperine to stay and run her butcher business and keep her house.
- One day, the artist returns with Violetta in tow.
- They stay in Ciccolina's house. During the day, they pretend to be in love, and then they fight all night.
- Violetta and Prosperine fight, too, but when Prosperine realizes how victimized Violetta has been, they make up and decide to kill the artist.
- Prosperine and Violetta grind up glass and put it in the artist's cornmeal. (Note: That is not how you make grits, kids.)
- He dies of bloody diarrhea, and no one knows.
- Until the doctor, hungry, helps himself to some of the grits.
- He dies, too, and the jig is up. They cut open the victims' stomachs and find the glass inside, so Violetta and Prosperine pull a Thelma and Louise and make a run for it.
- Eventually, Prosperine changes her name (she never reveals what it originally was) and moves to America, with the Iaccoi family. She swears Violetta married a lawyer and stayed behind, but Domenico doesn't believe her.
- He thinks that Violetta is Ignazia.