In ‘The Blank Page’, Isak Dinesen tells of a Spanish convent where framed wedding night sheets of aristocratic marriages hang on the walls. The blood on the sheets signals the virginal repute of princesses. But there is one sheet which is a blank page:

Sidonie Smith (1993:2–3) suggests that while these sheets are ‘signatures of cultural expectations’, the stories are not written by the princesses themselves. Rather, women's stories are written from their bodies, ‘their bodies have expelled them’. In writing from their bodies, women comply with the cultural expectations of femininity – like being chaste on marriage – and unswervingly follow a biological destiny, to marry and have children. But even in this past time, not all women followed their destinies; one princess is represented by an unmarked sheet. Because her page is blank, the obvious implication is that she has even less to say than those who have followed their expected paths. However, the blankness of her page conjures up questions for all who see it. As I read this story, I wondered what those questions might be.