The Three Blood Spots

”The headman held the violin upright and peered into the black interior of the body, like an officious customs officer searching for drugs. I noticed three blood spots in his left eye, one large and two small, all the same shade of bright red.” (3)

“The headman’s breath smelt of decay. His small eyes, one of them marked as always by three blood spots, fixed me in a savage stare.” (129)

Throughout Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the narrator pays particular attention to the three blood spots in the village headman’s eye. In particular, these spots come up whenever the headman is being threatening or aggressive towards the boys. This is because the spots represent the peasants’ lack of education or proper access to medical facilities. When they’re first seen in the story, the headman is deciding whether the narrator can keep his violin, his only prized possession. The narrator notices the three spots, “all the same shade of bright red.” Later in the story, when the headman is trying to arrest the narrator, he gets fixed “in a savage stare” and the spots are mentioned again. These spots could be a representation of the fact that the less wealthy and educated peasants who don’t even have access to doctors are now put in a position of power over the boys and, while in the city the spots may have been ridiculed, in the village they strike fear into the narrator’s heart.