Nina Stabs the Narrator with the Hatpin

Nina Stabs the Narrator with the Hatpin is the abrupt physical climax of a confrontation over the doll and the narrator’s offer of access to her empty house. Nina attacks the narrator, refuses the keys, and leaves with the doll; the narrator’s injury proves slight, but the encounter fixes the conflict in a lasting image of rupture and departure.

Causes and Background

The narrator offers Nina the keys, explaining that she is leaving that night and the house will remain empty until the end of the month. Turning toward the window, she cannot bear to watch Nina’s fury and murmurs an apology. The offer makes a practical escape route available, but Nina does not accept it.

The Attack and Departure

The narrator does not hear the door close and briefly thinks Nina may have taken the keys. Instead, Nina is still behind her, hissing insults in dialect. The narrator feels a sudden pain in her side and sees the point of the Hatpin emerge briefly beneath her ribs before it disappears. Nina throws the Hatpin to the floor, leaves her hat and the keys behind, and runs off with the doll, closing the door behind her. The sequence makes the doll the object Nina carries away while rejecting the narrator’s offer.

Immediate Aftermath and Significance

The narrator looks at her side and sees a small drop of blood; the mark darkens and clots, and the pain fades. She considers the possibility that the pin has passed through her without causing harm, then sits cautiously on the sofa. Once it is dark, she turns on the light and begins packing, moving as if gravely injured despite the limited physical consequence. The measured aftermath contrasts the attack’s suddenness with its slight bodily effect, while the abandoned keys and Hatpin remain as traces of a confrontation whose emotional force exceeds the wound.