The sea was calm, your heart would have responded gaily, beating obedient to controlling hands, you on the shore…
T. S. Eliot: The waste land. Original draft. 1922
In the first part of the summer of 1948 I stood at the sea with my parents looking at the island of Nekseloe.
Although I was ordinarily dressed with belts and trousers, I ran into the water to impress my mother and father, and threw me with all the clothes on into the clear sea. A small girl who became my friend, not my spouse, for her whole life, was standing nearby and maybe I just wanted to show off to her too.
The grown ups didn’t scold me, they just laughed very friendly and took me to the summerhouse for dry clothes. In my eyes the water was just as mysterious blue as on the painting. And the day so beautiful having both a father and a mother.