Dear Magna Wellmann,
“From earth thou comest, to earth thou shalt return....” These words of Scripture occurred to me when I read your letter. That is the eternal circle ... in this case the circle of your family. Your grandfather was a renegade from the calling of his forefathers when he became a townsman. Your father degenerated, and now you have gone back to the land.
Magna, Magna, I admire you. Of course, I am heart and soul for the enterprise. In this manner my money will become a breathing, living entity, doing its own work, and reaping its own reward. Don’t talk about being cautious. I am running no risks. I know what I am about. Your lawyer’s letter informs me in business language that the undertaking is “sound,” besides I am not giving the whole or even half the capital.
I need no assurances that you will carry the thing through. But read before you begin a little book by Flaubert. I don’t mind betting you have never heard of it. It is called, “Bouvard et Pécuchet.” A prospective agriculturist can learn a good deal from it. It’s splendid that Jarl is so keen on farming. But you won’t surely let him put his hand to the plough, and work in the fields from the start, will you? The boy is only seventeen, and I hope, too, that his mother isn’t going to begin at once digging turnips and milking cows. I should not care to set foot in a cow-shed—it’s a thing I have never done. But all the same I shall enjoy having letters yards long about all your first experiments and blunders.
You mustn’t take it too much to heart that Agnete is cool towards you. The poor child has a dash of prudishness in her, inherited from her mother! When she has children of her own she will be different.
Your account of the scandal was rich! Especially do I like that remark of a friend, “She might at least have had the tact to say that it was an adopted child.” I read between the lines that you have not passed through this humiliation without it’s having left scars behind. But, Magna, nothing is in vain. You can afford to pay the cost of your happiness. I am reminded of a little story about you which used to be told in our “set.” It related to the way in which you conquered Professor Wellmann’s heart. You were at a party, and had been so bored you had spoken to no one. There was something to drink in big, tall glasses. Suddenly in an ebullition of superfluous strength you bit the glass with your teeth and bit a piece out of it. Professor Wellmann sat with distended eyes and open mouth, and watched you.
And on his way out of the house he remarked to a not very discreet friend, “She, the girl who bit the glass, shall be my wife!”