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Splendors and Glooms Chapter 10 Summary

The Photograph

  • Parsefall has a nightmare that night, and Lizzie Rose goes to wake him up and hug him. As soon as he's awake, though, he tells her to get away from him; he always rebuffs her kindness and love.
  • When she asks him what he was dreaming about, he says nothing. He often has nightmares but will never tell her what they are about.
  • Lizzie Rose offers to tell him a story—it's one of the few things he'll agree to—and he asks for "Cinderella." She sits down next to him, but before she can start, she feels something in the bed … and pulls out the silver picture frame Parsefall took from the Wintermute house. Tsk tsk.
  • She's immediately dismayed, knowing that he stole it. It's a picture of Charles Augustus, which makes her feel even worse because, you know, he's dead.
  • Lizzie Rose contemplates sending the picture back in the mail but decides it would only upset Dr. and Mrs. Wintermute to have a picture of their dead child show up while Clara is missing.
  • Finally, Lizzie Rose promises that she won't tell on him and brings up what she heard from Mrs. Pinchbeck about the other child who went missing.
  • Parsefall says it also happened in Leeds—a little girl went missing. A rich little girl. The police also questioned Grisini, but eventually the girl came back home safe and sound. And somehow, Grisini had more money, too.
  • Lizzie Rose is shaken by this revelation. Now she knows that Grisini has been questioned in the disappearances of at least three children. What does it all mean?
  • She says they should go talk to the policemen, but Parsefall tells her that she can't. If she does, Grisini will kill them both.