Offred exits from the kitchen out the backdoor as any servant would be expected to do in affluent households from former times (in American, from slave times through at least the 1950s). She walks into the Commander’s Wife’s garden (where she always wears a blue veil), filled with flowers and metaphor. The tulips are red, like the Handmaids. She comments that they are more crimson (the color of blood) near the stem because the flowers had been cut at some point. If we take the tulips to stand in for the Handmaids, we might wonder if the Handmaids ever get cut at the stem. (Plucked sexually? Replaced by another red Handmaid later?) This idea of cutting a stem and amputation of human limbs is repeated often in the novel.

We learn that Guardians can be assigned to Commander’s Wives, being made to do menial tasks like digging holes. Also, Offred gives us another echo—she remembers in concrete details what it was like to garden. She remembers seeds and bulbs in her hands, all metaphors of procreating. We snap back to the image of an old, arthritic woman who can often only sit within her garden, among youthful flowers and seeds of procreation being fertilized around her. Strange contrast from Offred, usually looking down from behind shatter-proof glass—once able to have the freedom of having a garden and the freedom of her own experiences of procreation. This idea becomes even more evident when Offred says she knows the Commander's Wife is envious of her. She can only pretend at doing the things that the younger Handmaids are still capable of: physical activity of gardening, which is a metaphor for the physical act of procreation. All the Commander’s Wife can do is old lady activities, like knitting (though she’s quite good at that). What she knits are children, even though these scarves are meant for the Guardians. (We’ll also find out she’s capable of chopping the tulips off of the stems, which was hinted at in this chapter, and is a metaphor—of course.)

The reader learns that Offred came to this household five weeks before and she was allowed to enter the front door. We can tell they are early in making the laws of this society, Gilead, because they don’t know yet whether the Handmaids will be forced to only go in and out the backdoor or if they will always use the front door. Something that hasn’t been decided yet. Aunt Lydia, being someone who groomed the Handmaids, thinks they have a place of honor and should be allowed the front door every time.

The first person she met was the Commander’s Wife, dressed in blue. She wanted to greet Offred because she wanted her to know who the boss would be early on. The descriptions of the Commander’s Wife are all of former elegance and decay. Her fingernails even mock the Commander’s Wife’s aging appearance. (Decay and the Commander’s wife is a subject that will reappear often.)

When Offred and Serena Joy (that’s the Commander’s Wife’s name, you’ll find later), sit in the sitting room, Serena Joy pulls out a cigarette. This does a few things. One, it tells Offred that there’s a black market (or secret, underground market) for cigarettes since they apparently aren’t allowed in Gilead. But pulling this cigarette out also says that Serena Joy wants to show Offred that she is powerful enough to have one and that she doesn’t mind tempting the new Handmaid with one (which is exactly what she’ll do later in the book). This does give Offred much hope for now.

The reader also learns that this isn’t Offred’s first assignment. It’s her third which, as you’ll find, is important because the Handmaids are on a “three strikes and you’re out” system. If she doesn’t have a baby with this Commander, she’ll be sent out to the Colonies. But we also learn that Serena Joy finds it a little humorous that the former Commander, whose name we don’t learn, wasn’t able to have a baby with Offred. So Serena Joy believes it was likely the fault of the Commander for being sterile.