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himself on this lonely coast for my sake. Why? Love is a mystery. The fact that it goes hand in hand with betrayal suggests to me that we never ask the right questions of our lovers.
    In spite of my cynical heart, I cannot hold back a tear of purely feminine sadness at the news that he slept with my father’s dog boy, my chambermaid and even Pip, the ship’s boy on our recent voyage.
    All that time I thought you were tired, I say, from playing tennis. And then I thought you were depressed because the tennis wasn’t going well.
    There are more, he says.
    You’d better shut up, I say, in case you survive.
    Struggling, he gathers his wits, looks into my eyes and says, I couldn’t live without you. But then he spoils this declaration by whispering the name of a slow girl who worked in my father’s cow barn.
    My poor confused Richard, I think. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to forgive you.
    Do you forgive me? he asks coincidentally, mentioning another name I do not recognize.
    His skin turns yellow. Dark blotches, like purple shadows, erupt over his chest and throat. He claims he can’t catch his breath, yet breathes in halting gasps and belches that seem likely to burst his ribs. He shivers while he sweats with fever and claims little brown people have buried him in ice without his clothes. Most of the time he has an erection, which is an improvement.
    A month has passed since the General stranded me on this lonesome shore. We are living in a hut Bastienne and I built of branches, barrel staves, sailcloth and rocks, the crevices stuffed with mud and moss. The inside is large enough to enclose my. bedding, with no room to stand up, and a small annex in the back for the powder and tools. I have unpacked my court gowns, and we pile them on top of us at bedtime for warmth. Twice Richard has contrived to get into one of the gowns. I think how unfair it is that catastrophe has allowed him to become more himself while I have turned into a construction worker.
    We have eaten the books, using the bits we found inedible to kindle the fire in desperate circumstances — the mornings have turned chilly. I keep only the English Bible, much chewed by rodents, for its strangeness and the vulgar force of its language. Its very foreignness in this foreign land somehow soothes my heart. We have also eaten most of the salt fish — dry, stewed, rendered into soup, baked in hot coals, sautéed with fat, wrapped in kelp, soaked in brine and chewed like candy.
    I have become adept at supplementing our stores by walking around the island whacking seabirds’ heads with Richard’stennis racquet. They are, as I have noted, fearless and respond to my approach by standing deferentially, shuffling their little webbed feet like earnest peasants until I whack them. Some-times I go out there and whack a few even when we have no need. It is cruel, I shall be punished for it, but, on the whole, things have not been going well, and someone needs to suffer.
    Bastienne collects the feathers in a bag she has made out of two of my gowns. When she fills the bag, we will be able to crawl inside at night for warmth. This is a shrewd and inventive scheme, and surprising, for I myself do not look ahead, cannot bear to speculate upon the winter climate, which, I am told, is inimical to Europeans, who suffer horribly from frostbite, scurvy, lethargy and melancholy during the snowy months (while the natives walk about in loose blankets made of animal pelts). Of larger animals, aside from the occasional seal or sea cat in the distance, we have seen none, and I despair of making anything furry and useful out of mouse and squirrel skins.
    We do not wash. Our home looks like a pile of sticks and stones, smells like a midden. There are bird bones, broken feathers, rotting animal guts and piles of shit everywhere you look. I have a small hand mirror that was hidden away in my trunk, but I cannot bear to look at myself, covered as