“I won’t be back,” Johan writes in his letter. The young woman will have expected it, it will not have been a surprise when she opened it. She reads Johan’s lines with all the explanations over and over again, even now, on the grass between the rocks, which are just there as always, unmoved by everything. “Because I’m staying in Stockholm and joining the Kontor.” The young woman protects herself from a chill with her red and white striped woollen jacket against the breeze, and her umbrella, which she holds against the sun, gives her privacy. She reads the same words over and over again. Maybe they sound different, here, in the open air, different from in the house, at her parents’? He doesn’t come back. She doesn’t see the sailor sailing out against glistening light that could tell her that a future is coming, somewhere else, however different, and the fisherman about to cast his bait is no comfort to her. The green does not distract the girl, she sits amidst the grey of the rocks, only the moment and her thoughts are there now. But perhaps Johan is writing about something else? Maybe the letter is not from him at all? Or maybe she is writing one? To whom? Who knows, it doesn’t matter. Time stands still on this summer afternoon in 1890. Who knows. (Text by Dr. h.c. Hendrik H. Foth LL.M)