TROY. Dearest Clytaemnestra, Your letters are a great comfort to me when I get them, which is very seldom. Everything is going on just the same. It is now the tenth year of the siege, and I see no reason why it should ever end. I am dreadfully afraid the Greeks will never take Troy. I can give you no idea of how dull everything is here. We do the same thing and see the same people every day. We know exactly what is going on in the Greek camp, and most of the time is spent in discussing the gossip, which bores me to death. You are quite right in what you say about Paris. I made a fatal mistake. It is all Aphrodite’s fault. He has become too dreadful now. He is still very good-looking, but even compared with Menelaus he is pitiable in every way and every bit as cross. Hector is very nice, but painfully dull. The King and the Queen are both very kind, but as for Cassandra, she is intolerable. She is always prophesying dreadful calamities which never come off. She said, for instance, that I would lose my looks and make a long journey in Egypt. As if I would go to Egypt from here! As to my looks, you know, darling, I never was vain, was I? But I can honestly tell you that, if anything, I have rather _improved_ than otherwise, and among the Trojans’ women, who are absolute frights and have no more idea of dressing than sheep, I look magnificent. Andromache has got quite a nice face, and I really like her; but you should see her figure--it’s like an elephant’s, and her feet are enormous, and her hands red and sore from needlework. She won’t even use a thimble! Cassandra always dresses in deep mourning. Why, we cannot conceive, because none of her relatives have been killed. There is really only one person in the palace I can talk to--and that is Aeneas, who is one of the commanders. He is quite nice. What I specially like about him is the nice way in which he talks about his parents. The Greeks are quarrelling more than ever. Achilles won’t fight at all because Agamemnon insisted on taking away Briseis (who is lovely) from him. Wasn’t that exactly like Agamemnon? I hope this won’t make you jealous, darling, but I don’t expect it will, because you have never forgiven Agamemnon, have you? Everybody tries to be kind to me, and I have nothing to complain of. They all mean well, and in a way this makes it worse. For instance, every morning, when we meet for the midday meal, Priam comes into the room saying to me: “Well, how’s the little runaway to-day?” He has made this joke every day for the last ten years. And then they always talk about the cowardice and incompetence of the Greeks, taking for granted that as I have married into a Trojan family I must have become a Trojan myself. It is most tactless of them not to understand what I must be feeling.