In the chill­ing silence of a Decem­ber morn­ing in 1937, deep with­in the for­est beneath Arnott’s Ridge, Margery O’Hare braves the harsh win­ter ele­ments. Sur­round­ed by a dense, snow-cov­ered land­scape where wildlife takes refuge and the envi­ron­ment sti­fles all sounds, she nav­i­gates through the snow with her trusty mule, Charley, con­tem­plat­ing the dis­com­fort of her frozen toes and the long jour­ney ahead. Their des­ti­na­tion lies beyond the Indi­an escarp­ment, through pine tracks and hol­lows, to where old Nan­cy eager­ly awaits her next install­ment of stories—a jour­ney made every fort­night to deliv­er tales that stir the hearts of iso­lat­ed res­i­dents like Nan­cy and her bed­bound sis­ter, Jean.

Margery, a woman accus­tomed to the soli­tude and rig­ors of her path, finds solace in her duty, pro­vid­ing not just com­pa­ny but an escape to those like Nan­cy, who lives for the tales of romance and adven­ture she brings. The bond they share goes beyond sim­ple deliv­ery; it’s a life­line to a world beyond the rugged moun­tains of Red Lick, filled with hopes, dreams, and the occa­sion­al whim­sy of a hand­some cow­boy named Mack McGuire.

Yet, as Margery makes her way, a sud­den encounter dis­rupts the still­ness. Clem McCul­lough, a man with a cocked rifle and a drunk­en stance, blocks her path, chal­leng­ing her pres­ence with a men­ac­ing demeanor. Despite Margery’s attempts to dif­fuse the sit­u­a­tion, McCullough’s aggres­sion esca­lates, reveal­ing his dis­dain for what Margery rep­re­sents to him and the community—a bea­con of change and a chal­lenge to their iso­lat­ed exis­tence.

Margery, no stranger to the dan­gers of the moun­tain or the men who inhab­it it, real­izes the grav­i­ty of her sit­u­a­tion. She stands alone, miles away from help, fac­ing a man too ine­bri­at­ed to rea­son with but sober enough to pose a dead­ly threat. The stand­off, with McCul­lough demand­ing her sub­mis­sion and threat­en­ing vio­lence, encap­su­lates the ten­sion between the old ways of the moun­tain folk and the new ideas Margery and her ilk rep­re­sent.

As the scene reach­es its cli­max, the soli­tude of the for­est under­scores the iso­la­tion and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty Margery faces, a poignant reminder of the strug­gles endured by those who dare to tra­verse the unyield­ing land­scapes, both phys­i­cal and cul­tur­al, of ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

PROLOGUE
If I leave this house, it will be in hand­cuffs.
I should have run for it while I had the chance. Now my shot is gone.
Now that the police offi­cers are in the house and they’ve dis­cov­ered what’s
upstairs, there’s no turn­ing back.
They are about five sec­onds away from read­ing me my rights. I’m not
sure why they haven’t done it yet. Maybe they’re hop­ing to trick me into
telling them some­thing I shouldn’t.
Good luck with that.
The cop with the black hair thread­ed with gray is sit­ting on the sofa next
to me. He shifts his stocky frame on the burnt-caramel Ital­ian leather. I
won­der what sort of sofa he has at home. It sure doesn’t cost five fig­ures
like this one did. It’s prob­a­bly some tacky col­or like orange, cov­ered in pet
fur, and with more than one rip in the seams. I won­der if he’s think­ing about
his sofa at home and wish­ing he had one like this.
Or more like­ly, he’s think­ing about the dead body in the attic upstairs.
“So let’s go through this one more time,” the cop says in his New York
drawl. He told me his name ear­li­er, but it flew out of my head. Police
offi­cers should wear bright red nametags. How else are you pos­si­bly
sup­posed to remem­ber their names in a high-stress sit­u­a­tion? He’s a
detec­tive, I think. “When did you find the body?”
I pause, won­der­ing if this would be the right time to demand a lawyer.
Aren’t they sup­posed to offer me one? I am rusty on this pro­to­col.
“About an hour ago,” I answer.
“Why did you go up there in the first place?”
I press my lips togeth­er. “I told you. I heard a sound.”

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

PROLOGUE
This sto­ry ends in blood.
Every sto­ry begins in blood: a squalling baby yanked from the
womb, bathed in mucus and half a quart of their mother’s blood. But
not many sto­ries end in blood these days. Usu­al­ly it’s a return to the
hos­pi­tal and a dry, qui­et death sur­round­ed by machines after a heart
attack in the dri­ve­way, a stroke on the back porch, or a slow fade
from lung can­cer.
This sto­ry begins with five lit­tle girls, each born in a splash of her
mother’s blood, cleaned up, pat­ted dry, then turned into prop­er
young ladies, instruct­ed in the wife­ly arts to become per­fect part­ners
and respon­si­ble par­ents, moth­ers who help with home­work and do
the laun­dry, who belong to church flower soci­eties and bun­co clubs,
who send their chil­dren to cotil­lion and pri­vate schools.
You’ve seen these women. They meet for lunch and laugh loud­ly
enough for every­one in the restau­rant to hear. They get sil­ly after a
sin­gle glass of wine. Their idea of liv­ing on the edge is to buy a pair of
Christ­mas ear­rings that light up. They ago­nize far too long over
whether or not to order dessert.
As respectable indi­vid­u­als, their names will appear in the paper
only three times: when they’re born, when they get mar­ried, and
when they die. They are gra­cious host­esses. They are gen­er­ous to
those less for­tu­nate. They hon­or their hus­bands and nur­ture their
chil­dren. They under­stand the impor­tance of every­day chi­na, the
respon­si­bil­i­ty of inher­it­ing Great-Grandmother’s sil­ver, the val­ue of
good linen.
And by the time this sto­ry is over, they will be cov­ered in blood.
Some of it will be theirs. Some of it will belong to oth­ers. But they
will drip with it. They will swim in it. They will drown in it.

In David Gar­rick­’s pro­logue to “She Stoops to Con­quer,” we are intro­duced to a scene filled with melan­choly and a sense of impend­ing loss with­in the the­atri­cal world, artic­u­lat­ed through the char­ac­ter of Mr. Wood­ward. Dressed in somber black, Mr. Wood­ward embod­ies the mourn­ing and despair preva­lent among actors at the time, sig­ni­fy­ing not just a per­son­al state of sor­row but a com­mu­nal cri­sis with­in the realm of com­e­dy. Mr. Wood­ward’s lamen­ta­tion begins with a poignant rev­e­la­tion that his tears are not for mere show nor sole­ly because of his mourn­ing attire; they stem from a deep­er, irre­me­di­a­ble grief: the decline of the Com­ic Muse. This per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of com­e­dy, on the brink of death, encap­su­lates the exis­ten­tial threat faced by actors spe­cial­ized in the comedic arts, includ­ing Wood­ward him­self and his con­tem­po­raries.

The pro­logue clev­er­ly address­es the audi­ence direct­ly, blur­ring the lines between per­for­mance and real­i­ty, and high­light­ing the per­form­ers’ depen­den­cy on com­e­dy for their liveli­hoods and iden­ti­ty. Wood­ward’s fear is not just of finan­cial ruin but of a loss of pur­pose, under­scor­ing the vital role of the Com­ic Muse in their lives. The intro­duc­tion of sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty and mor­al­iz­ing in the­atri­cal per­for­mances is crit­i­cized as a poor sub­sti­tute for gen­uine com­e­dy, indi­cat­ing a shift in pub­lic taste that threat­ens the tra­di­tion­al craft.

Wood­ward’s attempt to adapt by adopt­ing a mor­al­iz­ing tone is both humor­ous and trag­ic, illus­trat­ing his dis­com­fort and inep­ti­tude with this emerg­ing form of dra­ma. This jux­ta­po­si­tion of com­e­dy and tragedy with­in the pro­logue serves as a meta-com­men­tary on the state of the­atri­cal arts and its audi­ence’s expec­ta­tions.

The clos­ing of the pro­logue intro­duces a glim­mer of hope in the form of a Doc­tor, a metaphor for the play­wright or per­haps the the­atre itself, who offers a rem­e­dy to revive the ail­ing Com­ic Muse. This med­i­cine, a blend of humor and per­for­mance con­tained in “Five Draughts,” rep­re­sents the play “She Stoops to Con­quer” itself. The audi­ence is entreat­ed to open them­selves to this comedic elixir, there­by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the poten­tial revival of the Com­ic Muse. The pro­logue con­cludes on a note of cau­tious opti­mism, sug­gest­ing that the suc­cess of this the­atri­cal endeav­or depends not on the per­form­ers alone but on the audi­ence’s will­ing­ness to embrace the comedic cure being offered, empha­siz­ing the rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tion­ship between actor and spec­ta­tor in the sur­vival of com­e­dy.