i
- The year passes and we come to Christmas; Philoctete and Seven Seas celebrate with a dinner at Ma Kilman's place.
- The day after Christmas, Achille and Philoctete dress in drag for their annual ritual dance.
- Philoctete dons a traditional dried banana-leaf skirt and calabash mask, while Achille will do himself up in Helen's stolen yellow dress.
- Achille washes in the public standpipe before dressing up.
- We learn that Philoctete is walking perfectly now that Ma Kilman has cured him.
ii
- Helen helps Achille stuff himself into the too-small yellow dress, then she plumps up fake breasts with rags.
- Achille tells Helen that he and Philoctete performed the dance every year because of an old African ritual (something he also saw on his spirit-journey).
- Helen is pretty heavy with child at this point. The narrator refers to her round belly as the golden apple of Venus—the thing that started all the trouble for Trojan Paris.
- As Helen helps him dress, it's clear that the pair has become happy and peaceable.
iii
- Achille and Philoctete dance for the village, and Achille does a fantastic job in his dress.
- But something peculiar happens to Philoctete: He feels the old pain enter him. Uh-oh… He is reliving the received memories of his enslaved ancestors.
- They are a big hit with the crowd and Achille passes around a cap to catch some coins from the onlookers.
- Philoctete, however, weeps from the emotional strain of it all.