She looked like the thick-waisted but winsome model who would appear in a magazine next to the words fabulous at any age.

It was a C-shape, roughly, variegated gray along the shoreline, grass-green above that, then the moss and dung and black peak.

I was certain I would go sliding to my death, but I managed to curl my fingers into a declivity, and my feet found purchase on a small outcropping

Small, sculptural pedestals suggest that what’s for sale aspires to the condition of art, a sense reinforced by the floors’ expanses of travertine.

The other inescapable new presence is Barneys, a sleek store that displays, across two rather sparsely stocked floors, clothing, accessories and jewelry priced at such an empyrean level that I am challenged to appreciate the allure of, say, a $1,000 pair of sneakers, a $5,000 purse.

If I’d meant my little courier run as another crumb of expiation, I’d failed. If I’d meant my service here on the island as a larger penance, that, too, had fallen short.