He had heard from her several times during his long absence. Three letters managed to arrive at Troy, one at Calypso’s island, and one at the cave of Polyphemus (it was delivered by a sheep). All of them written on the same light-blue 5×8” stationery, in her girlish, touchingly fluid handwriting, with looped thetas, and nus as round as upsilons. “Things are difficult but all is well…. How ripe I have become for you…. Much love…” The longer he was away, the more intensely he felt the gravitation of that love. Even on Aeaea or Ogygia, caught up in the embrace of one of the importunate, multi-orgasmic nymphs whom it was his fate to satisfy, he could sense her presence, could see her in bed or walking on the beach or sitting at her loom, as faithful to him, body and heart, as he was to her in his heart alone, alas.
Now, for the first time in twenty years, he stands before her. The suitors have gone home, disappointed but polite. The whole household—servants, maids, swine, cattle, chickens, and the astonished dogs—have retired. There are just the two of them. She looks, at fifty-three, even more beautiful, more transparent, than when he last saw her: her radiance like a flame that has outgrown its need for fuel. He is so proud of who she has become.
The silence deepens.
He stands there for a long time before letting himself plunge to the bottom of her eyes.