In this short story, a businessman takes his customary holiday in his cabin on a small, unmapped island off the coast of New England. His peace is disturbed by memories from the night before of a conversation with a man and his daughter on the boat ride over, and by the sight of the morning star (Venus), but his peace then seems restored when he glimpses the daughter taking a chilly, early morning swim. I have no idea why his mood kept changing; it seemed to have little relation to the things he was seeing and to which he was reacting.

Then the story just ends. The prose was good, but otherwise it was a little unsatisfying. ( )