Summary

Chapter 27

Alma leaves Tahiti and travels to Holland. On the long journey, which is made longer by her insistence on taking Roger, she writes a paper over her new theory on the ‘struggle for existence’. Alma has come to believe that only the strongest of organisms survive and that these often adapt to their surroundings in order to increase their chances of survival. It is a unique theory that has never been suggested before and Alma knows it will be controversial, but she is excited by it just the same. When Alma arrives in Amsterdam, she goes to the Hortus Botanicus where her mother’s family have been the directors for generations.

Chapter 28

Alma asks to see the current director, Dees van Devender, her uncle. Alma presents her thesis to him and asks him to review it. If...