So we entered, for we were ravenous, and told the host above all things not to keep us waiting.
While we were sitting in front of the door, waiting for our dinner, a little girl in rags came along with a basket of strawberries on her head.

She entered the inn and came out again after a short while, holding a big loaf of bread in both hands.

Uttering shrill cries, she scampered off with the alertness of a kitten.

Her dusty hair fluttered in the wind and stood out straight from her wizened face, and her bare legs, which she lifted high in the air when running, disappeared under the rags that covered her form.
After our meal, which comprised, besides the unavoidable omelet and the fatal veal, the strawberries the little girl had brought, we went up to our rooms.
The winding staircase with its worm-eaten steps groaned beneath our weight, like a sensitive woman under a new disillusion.

At the top was a room with a door that closed on the outside with a hook.