Arvid Falk to Beda Petterson
Nämdö, August 18—
As I walk along the seashore and see the roadweed growing in sand and pebbles, I think of you blossoming for a whole winter in an inn of old Stockholm.
I know nothing more delightful than to lie full length on a cliff and feel the fragments of gneiss tickling my ribs while I gaze seaward. It makes me feel proud, and I imagine that I am Prometheus, while the vulture—that is you—has to lie in a feather bed in Sandberg Street and swallow mercury.
Seaweed is of no use while it grows at the bottom of the sea; but when it decays on the shore it smells of iodine which is a cure for love, and bromide, which is a cure for insanity.
There was no hell until Paradise was quite complete, that is to say until woman was created (chestnut!).
Far away, by the open sea, there lives a pair of eider ducks, in an old quarter cask. If one considers that the stretched out wings of the eider measure two feet, it seems a miracle—and love is a miracle. The whole world is too small for me.
Beda Petterson to Mr. Falk
Stockholm, August 18—
Dear Frent,—i have just receeved your letter, but i cannot say that i have understood it, i see you think that i am in Sandberg Street, but that is a grate lie and i can undertand why that blackgard says i am, it is a grate lie and i sware that i love you as much as befor, i often long to see you but it canot be yet.