laces at the back of her dress, plaiting her hair into a single long
braid that she will twist and fix beneath her cap. Then she will sit and wait for him to recover. She knows how to wait as
a wife in port will always wait for a sailor.
'I think that it was the bear meat. Yes it must have been the bear meat, the liver I ate to make me strong. There is some
left, over there in the pan. Do not touch it. I will throw it out when I am well.'
How can it be that she is not cold? She has put on a cherry-red jacket but it is only of a thin wool and its sleeves are folded
back to the elbow with the white linen cuffs of her blouse folded over them, and her neck rises bare from the loose collar,
her skin smooth, soft, glowing with youth. She has left off her shoes and one thinly stockinged foot shows from beneath her
skirt. She gives him a demure half-smile and then takes up from her lap the sewing that has somehow come to be lying there,
a piece of embroidery with the needle threaded and waiting, turns sidelong to him and begins to stitch, holding the embroidery
a little forward of her so that it catches the best of the lamplight.
'When I am well again will you let me show you this place where I live? It is a cold stark place but it is also very beautiful.
I have never had the chance before to show you any one of the places where I have been though I have spoken of them to you
many times. Virginia where there is tall forest green and unbroken for days'journeying along the coast. The Azores whose islands
rise out of the sea like eggshells with villages on white and yellow sands, where the people are brown and swim like fishes
and string necklaces of shells that are beautiful as precious stones. London with its river full of masts, Hull, Aldborow
where I first set sail and which would not seem unfamiliar to you, though it is a meagre place compared with Copenhagen with
but a few fine houses and a wide flat shore, and at its back a long riverrnouth with a lip of land to shield it. And of all
those places nowhere is more strange than here, and do you know why? It is because here there are no people. None. No one
here but our two selves. Yes, when I am well enough again to walk, if the moon be bright - for I do not know what day it is,
in my illness I have lost touch with the phase of the moon - if the moon be bright and the weather clear and not too cold
I shall take you on a little tour of my beach, my mountains, my hinterland, this little part of the island that I know.
'When I have the strength to move we shall go out, shall we not, look in the sky for the stars which now that it is winter
seem sometimes bright as if they are alive, look for God's shimmering in the sky? I shall be strong enough to go out very
soon, I think. Though I am feeble the gripes and the shivers have passed, and I shall drink some spirits and a little of this
broth here, and will soon be back to my old self though a little raw in the skin perhaps, but that symptom too is receding.'
She puts down her sewing and comes and sits on the deerskins beside him, and her arms are soft and rounded, and her belly
bulges slightly where the jacket is unbuttoned, her waist big against the fabric of her dress. She does not touch him on account
of the tenderness of his skin but sits quiet beside him until he sleeps.
The lights break serene, billowing bands of green and yellow and carmine red that glow and contract and fade across the great
arc of sky above the figure of the man, who is so wasted, purified after his illness that he feels he could be drawn up into
them, insubstantial himself as a veil. They glow and transform and quiver, and sudden rays shoot through them, and then as
suddenly they vanish and in the moment's pause which, shot as it is with stars, is more silent and more without colour than
any moment he has ever known, he sees her upturned face beside him, so rapt in the sky that she has forgotten his presence,
her eyes wide, her
braid that she will twist and fix beneath her cap. Then she will sit and wait for him to recover. She knows how to wait as
a wife in port will always wait for a sailor.
'I think that it was the bear meat. Yes it must have been the bear meat, the liver I ate to make me strong. There is some
left, over there in the pan. Do not touch it. I will throw it out when I am well.'
How can it be that she is not cold? She has put on a cherry-red jacket but it is only of a thin wool and its sleeves are folded
back to the elbow with the white linen cuffs of her blouse folded over them, and her neck rises bare from the loose collar,
her skin smooth, soft, glowing with youth. She has left off her shoes and one thinly stockinged foot shows from beneath her
skirt. She gives him a demure half-smile and then takes up from her lap the sewing that has somehow come to be lying there,
a piece of embroidery with the needle threaded and waiting, turns sidelong to him and begins to stitch, holding the embroidery
a little forward of her so that it catches the best of the lamplight.
'When I am well again will you let me show you this place where I live? It is a cold stark place but it is also very beautiful.
I have never had the chance before to show you any one of the places where I have been though I have spoken of them to you
many times. Virginia where there is tall forest green and unbroken for days'journeying along the coast. The Azores whose islands
rise out of the sea like eggshells with villages on white and yellow sands, where the people are brown and swim like fishes
and string necklaces of shells that are beautiful as precious stones. London with its river full of masts, Hull, Aldborow
where I first set sail and which would not seem unfamiliar to you, though it is a meagre place compared with Copenhagen with
but a few fine houses and a wide flat shore, and at its back a long riverrnouth with a lip of land to shield it. And of all
those places nowhere is more strange than here, and do you know why? It is because here there are no people. None. No one
here but our two selves. Yes, when I am well enough again to walk, if the moon be bright - for I do not know what day it is,
in my illness I have lost touch with the phase of the moon - if the moon be bright and the weather clear and not too cold
I shall take you on a little tour of my beach, my mountains, my hinterland, this little part of the island that I know.
'When I have the strength to move we shall go out, shall we not, look in the sky for the stars which now that it is winter
seem sometimes bright as if they are alive, look for God's shimmering in the sky? I shall be strong enough to go out very
soon, I think. Though I am feeble the gripes and the shivers have passed, and I shall drink some spirits and a little of this
broth here, and will soon be back to my old self though a little raw in the skin perhaps, but that symptom too is receding.'
She puts down her sewing and comes and sits on the deerskins beside him, and her arms are soft and rounded, and her belly
bulges slightly where the jacket is unbuttoned, her waist big against the fabric of her dress. She does not touch him on account
of the tenderness of his skin but sits quiet beside him until he sleeps.
The lights break serene, billowing bands of green and yellow and carmine red that glow and contract and fade across the great
arc of sky above the figure of the man, who is so wasted, purified after his illness that he feels he could be drawn up into
them, insubstantial himself as a veil. They glow and transform and quiver, and sudden rays shoot through them, and then as
suddenly they vanish and in the moment's pause which, shot as it is with stars, is more silent and more without colour than
any moment he has ever known, he sees her upturned face beside him, so rapt in the sky that she has forgotten his presence,
her eyes wide, her
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