Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

"And even though I testify about the terrible human state, and its rescue by the sanctity of Jesus, what, what, what in this annus dominus are we brought to, we the laborers, the artisans, the cooks of linseed stew?" The Master throws his brush across the room. "They want flowers, flowers for commerce, beauty to sell as if it had its own sake! Why don't the dreamless Calvinists just go off to Constantinople? Why don't they join the pagan Mohammedans who rebuke the notion of portraying divinity in anything but Euclidean tiles of blue and gold? Or why don't I just take myself to the Spanish Netherlands and set myself up there? Where I can paint what I want, and keep food on the table as well?"

....

"Another maiden in the house" says the Prince, and then looking back at Iris, remembering, "your stepsister, the one who minds the hearth"
Iris nods.
"Let her try the slipper" say Margarethe wildly, perhaps to shift the attention of the Prince from the sniffles of Ruth.
"There is no need; the slipper was merely a ruse to get you to open the door to me" says the Prince. "A ruse, I see, that I did not even need to enact." But Clara has come forward and taken the slipper from where it was fallen.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, 1999
Gregory Maguire (1954 - )