Lulled to sleep in our sweat-house cell by the gentle rocking of the ship. I woke with no idea of the time, having no windows and no watch nearby. Had a pleasant continental breakfast and spent the morning reading in the sunshine of the deck. Lunch was overwhelming: tender beef in wine sauce with noodles and fries; a cold platter of potatoes, tomatoes and fish with fresh mayonnaise; wine; cheese; pastry; and mandarins. Accustomed to "food avarice" for the past ten weeks, I'd had thoughts of coming to lunch twice, but for the first time on this trip, I actually left a little on my plate when I rolled out of the cafeteria.
Life has been reduced to trying to stretch activities as long as possible-- to make my book last all the way to Casablanca, I force myself to put it down and stare out at what little of the ocean I can see between the lifeboats. It occurs to me that I'd enjoy scully work on board ship for a couple of weeks, like my cabin-mate is doing. Although there's less to do here than in Dakar, for some reason-- maybe just because I've accepted the situation, maybe because the open sea is so unconfining-- it's enough to just sit on deck for hours at a time and the day actually passed very quickly, when I watched the sun set into the water, as I'd done a hundred times in Oswego.I'd hoped for some sort of evening entertainment for us, but there was only checkers, so we all hit the sack at 9pm.
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