It’s time for The Ceremony, as indicated by the ceremonial bell ringing. Offred walks down the stairs, past the “eye of glass” in which she briefly sees a “waif”—that is, an abandoned child. We’re reminded again of her infantilization, again invoking the image of Little Red Riding Hood. In fact, there’s another child’s story, or poem really, that Offred conjures up when going into the sitting room. Maybe it is called a drawing room, she considers, as used by rich families long ago. Or “a parlor, the kind with a spider and a fly.” In the children’s poem by Mary Howitt, a spider tricks a fly to come into his “nice parlour.” It’s a cautionary fable about not getting tricked into danger by sweet words. She’s being quite ironic in the third paragraph. It’s a sitting room only for Serena Joy. Offred will be standing. Anyone else in attendance for the ceremony will be standing—except, of course, for Offred. She will be lying in position between Serena Joy's knees. Offred makes the ironic joke that there’s “standing room only” for the...