“There are three quilts every woman should make with her own hand before marriage; the Tree of Paradise, the Flower Basket and the Pandora’s Box. Sometimes, in my days as a maid, I would hang them up to dry all in a row. They’d look like flags hung out by an army as it goes to war. Well, since that time, I’ve thought, ‘Why is that women have chosen to sew such flags and lay them on the tops of beds?’ And then I thought.. it’s for a warning. There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. It’s where we are born, that’s our first peril in life. It’s where women give birth, which is often their last. And it’s where the act takes place between men and women, sir, that I will not mention to you but I suppose you know what it is. Some call it love, others despair, or merely an indignity they must suffer through. And finally beds are what we sleep in, and where we dream, and often where we die.”
