- The chapter opens with Margaret wondering about her days as a little girl living in a trailer in Maine. She feels that compared to her current life, she'd happily go back to being poor.
- She is absolutely furious about the fact that Valerian asked the black intruder from the night before to sit down for dinner. Margaret wanted her husband to shoot the man on sight, but she's convinced that Valerian will do anything to upset her. She also knows that the only reason Valerian would do it is because he knows that Michael's visit will keep her (Margaret) from leaving.
- We realize soon enough that this is the day after Margaret found the black man hiding in her closet.
- Meanwhile, Jade is hanging out at the window of her own room. Butterflies collect on her windowsill, but the cook Ondine keeps shooing them away. Jade says the butterflies aren't hurting anybody.
- Jade has received a coat in the mail from her boyfriend Ryk, who is waiting in Paris for Jade to come back and marry him. The coat is super soft and comfortable because it's made from the skin from a few dozen baby seals. Um, this kind of makes us hate Ryk. Baby seals are cute.
- They briefly discuss the intruder from the night before and wonder how long he'll be around before Valerian sends for the police. There's no telling with Valerian's little schemes.
- For Christmas, Jade has bought Ondine a fancy new dress and Sydney a bunch of nice new shirts.
- On the previous evening, Jade noticed how angry and frustrated Sydney was at having to serve the black intruder at Valerian's dinner table. That's totally understandable, since Sydney has been Valerian's servant since the guy was a baby, and not once has he ever been invited to sit down with Valerian.
- The narrator then focuses on the conversation that Valerian had with the intruder at the dinner table. The man explained how he'd been taking food from Valerian's house for up to five days. Before that, he spent his days living in a nearby swamp. He also explains how he came to the island after jumping off a ship in the port.
- The guy was hiding in Margaret's closet because he'd gotten curious and decided to explore the house. When he heard Margaret's footsteps on the stairs, he rushed into her closet, where she found him shortly after.
- Valerian asked for the guy's name, but the guy wouldn't give it until he knew Valerian's. Meanwhile, Ondine and Sydney look on with anger at what is happening.
- In the next scene, we find Ondine working at the kitchen counter. The local lackey named Yardman shows up at her kitchen door with a bloody shirt and tells her he has killed a chicken for cooking. She tells him to just leave it for her to deal with.
- It's not until he's gone that she realizes that he hasn't plucked any of the chicken's feathers. She knows it'll take her a long time. This is extra annoying because plucking chickens is technically Yardman's job. She lifts her head to call him back, but suddenly feels too tired to deal with him.
- Sydney comes in and asks why she's plucking the chicken. She says that Yardman either forgot or neglected to do it. She says it's fine, but Sydney is angry and wants to call Yardman back to do it. Ondine tells him to sit down and complains for a moment about she's gotten too old to chase the chicken around the yard herself.
- Ondine realizes that Sydney is really on edge about the intruder who's still hanging around their house. It sounds like Margaret Street won't even leave her room until the guy is gone.
- Sydney keeps complaining about Valerian's selfish sense of humor. The guy doesn't seem to realize that there are no police on the island. Ondine tells him it's best if he just forgets his beef and plays along with what's going on. But Sydney is too frustrated with Valerian and with the intruder.
- Sydney has been patrolling the house at night with his gun.
- Finally, he reveals his true feelings to Ondine and says how hurt he is by the fact that he and she have always slept in their servants' room. Now, this ship-jumping stranger has showed up in Mrs. Streets' closet, and Valerian gives him the guest suite. Where's the justice in that?
- Ondine reminds Sydney of all the things Mr. Street has done for them, and how he put Jadine through school on his dime. He's pretty much always been kind to them.
- Sydney entertains the possibility of leaving Valerian's service, but Ondine says she has no interest in finding work on the local pier and shucking crayfish (like many of the local black people) for the rest of her life. Ondine and Sydney's position may not be great, but it's a lot better than anything else they'd get at their age.
- After Sydney leaves with some food for Valerian, the narrator pans out to a local woman who is washing Valerian's socks. She is old and going blind, and the laundry load Valerian sends her keeps getting smaller, but she does what she can. She is also waiting for someone named Gideon, which seems to Yardman's first name.
- This woman knew about the wardrobe-dwelling intruder before he ever showed up at Valerian's house. She saw the chocolate wrappers that he left lying around the nearby forest. She also knew the intruder by the beastly smell that he leaves behind himself wherever he goes.
- When she first recognized the intruder's presence in the swamps, the woman thought he was a "rider," or one of the hundreds of ghostly men on horseback who are reported to ride around the island at night. Ghostly men on horseback sound like a tall tale to us, but this woman seems to half-believe it.
- At this point, Gideon (Yardman) shows up with his bloody shirt. When he says hello, we find out that the local woman's name is Thérèse. Gideon tells her that he saw the intruder out in the open and hanging out in Valerian's house. Thérèse is happy to hear the juicy gossip.
- He also says that he saw the intruder naked down to his waist and staring out the window of Jade's bedroom. Basically, he's suggesting that the two of them got it on. Yowza. Thérèse wishes she could have seen it, but there's little point because she's almost blind anyway.
- It sounds like Gideon and Thérèse don't think much of Jade, or of her aunt Ondine and uncle Sydney, for that matter. Even though there are clearly racial tensions between the white people and black people on the island, it seems like the tensions between the local black people and foreign black people are even stronger.
- Gideon has spent some time in America. He even had citizenship there for a while because he married an American woman. But eventually, he got lonely for his own people and returned to Dominique to live with Thérèse, who is actually his aunt, though they behave like an old married couple.
- Thérèse won't even acknowledge the presence of Ondine and Sydney when she's around them. Gideon, on the other hand, is willing to be a bit more polite. In terms of the white people, Thérèse feels almost nothing, since she assumes that white people don't have emotions. They just eat, have babies, and die like animals.
- She assumes that the white people will eventually kill their black intruder.
- Meanwhile, Jade is still hanging out in her bedroom and rolling around in the skins of dead baby seals.
- She eventually showers and gets dressed. But while she's staring in the mirror, she smells something terrible, and checks the mirror to see the intruder standing in the doorway of her bedroom. That's pretty creepy, if you ask us.
- The man says good morning to her, but she doesn't answer, so he says it again in a more aggressive way. This is not looking good.
- The two of them talk briefly about Gideon and Thérèse, whom Jade knows only as Yardman and Mary because she doesn't know their true names. She also tells the intruder that she has worked as a model in Europe. She even gets out an old magazine with her in it and hands it to him. All he can do is stare at the pictures saying "God Damn" to himself.
- They talk briefly about the jewelry Jade wears in the magazine and how expensive it is. Further, the intruder would like to know if it's in Valerian's house. He's not being all that subtle, but he also assures Jade that he isn't a thief. Besides, if he'd wanted to steal jewelry he could have done it by now… he stole chocolate, right?
- Jade uses the word "we" when she talks about the people in Valerian's house. The intruder, though, corrects her and suggests that there will never be a "we" between her and the white folks.
- Jade also notices that the man has been refusing to look at her while she's talking to him. She asks him to, but he refuses. Eventually, though, he looks up at her.
- We suddenly find out from the narrator about the dreams that the intruder tends to have. He likes to dream about black people chilling on their front porches back in the States and mothers calling their children inside for supper. It's a really pleasant, everyday sort of dream.
- We also find out that during his time in the house, the intruder has watched Jade while she's been asleep. He has also tried to blow into her mouth while she's been sleeping. Somehow, he thinks that he might be able to fill her brain with his dreams. Uhhh. We're still creeped out over here.
- Out of nowhere, the intruder asks Jade how many sexual favors she had to give out in order to become a successful model. She gets mad and attacks him, but he gets ahold of her from behind and presses his face into her hair. He tells her to shush or he'll throw her out the window. Creepy.
- She threatens him, but he doesn't care. He calls her a "white girl" and says he has no interest in raping her. When he says this, Jade starts throwing all kind of racial slurs at him, calling him a barefoot baboon.
- The intruder takes a long whiff of her hair and tells her that she can't fool him. He can smell the primitive animal that's inside her, no matter how hard she tries to deny her blackness by posing for white magazines and going to white schools.
- At this, Jade commands him to let her go and he does. She tells him that she's going to tell Valerian about everything that's happened. He agrees and only asks her not to repeat the part about him smelling her.
- After leaving him, Jade silently decides that, yes, it's best not to tell Valerian about the intruder smelling her. It's clear that the whole smell thing has made her very uneasy, though she's not sure exactly why. (We know why. Because it was freaking creepy, that's why.) She feels like she's been treated like a female dog in heat: completely robbed of her status as a human being.
- Then, Jade becomes angry with Valerian for not knowing the difference between different kinds of black people. She thinks he should realize that there is such as thing as cultured and civilized black people and such a thing as brutal, worthless black people.
- Eventually, Jade gets fed up with thinking so much about the intruder and goes for a walk. When she gets back, she hears laughter coming from Valerian's greenhouse, and peeks through a window to find Valerian and the intruder laughing like old friends. Insult to injury, y'all.