My stepsisters have taken my room and now I live in a drafty garret, and I sleep on a straw bed. My stepmother calls me Cinderwench and so do her daughters, although the youngest, who is not quite as mean, calls me Cinderella. I haven’t eaten much for days. I’m not sure I even remember my proper name.

All day long I do the meanest work of the house. I scour the dishes and floors. I scrub the chamber pots. I don’t dare tell my father because he is completely governed by his new wife, and she would only make it worse for me.

At the end of the day, I go to the chimney-corner and sit down among the ashes. I don’t know how it came to this. The birds know better than me.

Cinderwench in The Little Glass Slipper, Charles Perrault, Blue Fairy Book. Vintage book illustration.