The Setting Sun and the Rolling World

Mr. and Mrs. Pfende own a grocery store where they make most of their money by selling bread. One day, their bread delivery man Moses is very late. As the couple argues over why Moses is late and whether he deserves to be fired, details about Mr. and Mrs. Pfende’s lives are revealed. Mrs. Pfende was married once before to a man with whom she had two sons. The husband died, however, and his family took her children, claiming she was a witch. She remarried Mr. Pfende, who is sterile and thus unable to give her children.

As resentment grows between them, Mrs. Pfende entertains the idea of an affair with Moses. The 15 minutes they spend together when he delivers the bread is the highlight of her day. Meanwhile, Mr. Pfende is largely oblivious to this; for example, he inaccurately assumes that the jersey his wife is knitting is for him, not Moses.

Finally, the bread van arrives, but the driver is not Moses. The driver reveals that Moses was killed when a timber truck crashed into his van. Mr. Pfende laughs, exclaiming, “To think I was thinking of having him fired! Firing a dead man, hahahaha!” (177).