Dear sister, some days have gone by since I last had the opportunity to write. As I no longer dare show myself at Widow Beck’s, I have spent my nights out wherever has seemed most suitable and have thereby been able to enjoy the resplendent weather of the early summer. Often one can also steal a few hours of sleep at the pub, but if the owner is too watchful there are many other places that are not as demanding. A bracing walk away there are barns and haystacks, fields and beds of herbs. Who can ask for more than to lay one’s head in nature’s lap with leaves for a pillow and a canopy of stars? In the morning, the church bells wake the city with their clear peals and I return across the bridges to get something to eat and help myself to drink at the well. It is from one of our many coffeehouses that I write to you, strengthened by a morning cup and a piece of bread while I dip my pen in the grounds.
My friend Rickard Sylvan and I have joined a group of young men whose fathers are all engaged in trade along the Quayside. These gentlemen have money in excess, and since they seem to find the exploits of Sylvan and myself tremendously amusing, they are often tempted into generosity. Sylvan and I compete in who can stand the most of what is offered. The one who manages to stand on one leg for a whole minute is crowned the winner and given the title of the majesty of the night, with a soup terrine placed on his head. The gentlemen laugh until they weep. These are golden nights, my sister! The joy seems never to end and neither does the drink. Punch and aquavit flow freely, but it is the wine that I love most, dear sister, wet and red, like sunlight itself tempted into glass and bottle. The pubs are impossible to count. They are lined up side by side, and the light of their candles spills out into the alleys, transforming night into day. We go from one to the other, our arms around each other’s shoulders, happily chatting until one by one we all peel away and wander home. Rickard Sylvan, born in the city as he is, does not share my fondness for the open air and he sleeps curled up by the stove at his cousin’s somewhere past New Bridge.
When we were busy quenching our thirst in a cellar by the docks, a great commotion suddenly broke out. Someone threw a glass mug that missed me by a hair’s breadth and smashed to pieces on the wall behind us. A group of foreign sailors were screaming at each other in some alien tongue and before we knew what was happening, a fight had broken out. I took cover under the table. When one of the men crashed to the floor, the rest decided to flee, and from my hiding place I could see that the fallen one had been wounded. Blood was spurting out of his wrist like water from a firehose, from putting his hand directly on a broken wine bottle. When the immediate danger seemed to have passed, I crept over to the man and took a look at his injuries.
The wrist seemed to me to be the biggest problem and of a type that I was fairly accustomed to from my years in Karlskrona. I did what I had been taught and applied pressure across the wound, over which I then placed a bandage of linen cloth that I had torn from the sailor’s sleeve. Over that I wrapped the rest of his sleeve and bound it with a knot, after which the bleeding ceased. During this whole time, the sailor paid no attention to me. He sat hunched over on the floor, rocking from side to side. He muttered, downcast, in his own language.
“His friends called his wife a whore and did not appear groundless in their reasoning,” said a gentleman with a red nose who was observing the events with interest. “And she’ll be no less tempted to continue her whoring when her husband returns with a broken face.” He laughed at his own wit.
“Let’s have a drink for this poor man and give a cheer for the physician. Hail to the doctor!”
And then I received the approbation of the patrons. They drank and then each and every one seemed to want to buy me a drink and make a toast. The injured man himself stayed until a carpenter’s apprentice helped him up on his legs, after which he staggered out into the night, his gaze vacant and not saying a word. The episode reminded me of my original purpose in coming to Stockholm, but I have to admit that as everyone toasted me, I was quickly led to other thoughts.
Bolstered by my popularity, I decided to try to put Sylvan’s formula into practice. I shared a pipe with one of the gentlemen in whose company we had arrived and I asked him for a loan of twenty shillings in order to help me arrange better lodgings. His reaction was not the one I had expected. He turned pale and seemed somewhat embarrassed. He excused himself from the table without reply. I was bewildered, since it was hardly a large sum to ask in view of the nonchalance with which this company normally handled their currency. My head was spinning with all of the drinks and I thought no more of it. The crowds around the tables started to thin out as the evening wore on, and when I no longer saw any of my friends, I decided that it was time to find a place for the night.
Out on the street, Rickard Sylvan was waiting for me. I had hardly put my arm around his shoulder when he grabbed me by the collar and pushed me up against the wall so that I hit my head against the bricks.
“Blix, you fool! Is it true that you went to Wallin and asked for a loan of twenty shillings so that you didn’t have to sleep under the open sky tonight?” I could hardly deny this. Sylvan let go of me with a loud moan. He sank down with his back to the wall and covered his face with his hands. I stood frozen without knowing what to say until he turned to me again and saw my confused expression. With resignation, he signed for me to sit down and he laid his arm around me.
“Kristofer,” he said. “When you ask for such a small sum, Wallin realizes that you are destitute. I have led him to believe that we are both kept on a very tight leash by our families, whose property we will one day inherit. You, on the other hand, have left no doubts at all that we are in fact two insignificant charlatans who barely have a penny to our name.”
“But what should I have done? We are completely broke!”
Sylvan sighed and rolled his eyes.
“What you should have done, Kristofer, is invent a reason why you needed a bigger loan—say a new wig or a pearl necklace for your mother—as your pocket money has already been used for other trinkets, and present your request as if it were the most natural thing in the world. From these gentlemen, it is easier to borrow three or even five dalers than to try to avail oneself of a couple of shillings.”
“But our clothes? We are dressed in rags! How could anyone take us for burghers’ sons?”
“You need only to make the gentlemen want to believe your lies. It takes two in order to tell a good lie; one to speak untruth and one to listen willingly!” I had no answer to this and stood there with my mouth agape until Sylvan couldn’t help but laugh.
“You may be a damned imbecile, Kristofer Blix, but you are at least an honest one. And that is something we shall soon be able to remedy. In the future, you will speak with me before you try to borrow anything from our friends.” Sylvan, who now seemed to have regained his cheerful disposition, reached inside his waistcoat and pulled out a bulging purse. “While you were exposing us to Wallin, I at least managed to relieve Montell of a tidy sum, which I said I needed in order to buy a walking stick with a silver top, a transaction that I was in a rush to conclude as I had seen a lieutenant colonel cast desiring glances at the same, and that my own father whose good graces such a purchase would normally depend on is visiting with de Geer in Finspång.”
“But I thought your father was . . . ,” I said, stopping when I perceived Sylvan’s slow head shake through the haze of alcohol. “Kristofer Blix, sometimes I fear for your future.” He gave me a disapproving look before he took my arm. “The hour is early rather than late. Let us go to the well to wash and then to the coffeehouse for some breakfast.”