‘Go and heat up some water!’ said the Princess. ‘You need a shave. You’re in no state to kiss anyone looking like that. What was your letter about?’ I grinned and hid it behind my back. The Princess wrestled with the pillows. ‘Probably one of your women . . . one of those old Excellencies you adore so much . . . Show it here. Show it to me, I said!’ I didn’t.

‘I won’t show it to you!’ I said. ‘I’ll read you the beginning. I swear I’ll read it as it’s written, word for word. I swear. Then you can see it.’ A pillow fell out of bed, exhausted and battered to death.

‘Who’s it from?’

‘It’s from my Aunt Emmy. We had a quarrel. Now she wants me to do something for her. That’s why she’s writing. It says:

“My dear boy, Just before my cremation, I take up my quill . . .” ’

‘I don’t believe you!’ cried the Princess. ‘That’s . . . give it here! That’s rilly great, as Bengtsson would say. Now go and shave, and stop holding everybody up with your cremated aunts!’

Later we went out into the countryside.

Castle Gripsholm radiated into the sky; it was calm and solid and watchful. The lake rippled slightly and played against the shore. The boat to Stockholm had already gone; you could just make out a faint trace of smoke behind the trees. We headed in the opposite direction from the lake.

‘The lady at the castle,’ said the Princess, ‘speaks a sort of private German. She just asked me if we were warm enough at night – she was sure I was a little ice-cake . . .’

‘That’s lovely,’ I said. ‘You’re never sure with northerners whether they’re translating literally from their own language, or whether they’re unconsciously making up new phrases. In Copenhagen I knew a woman who said, in her furious bass voice, “This Copenhagen isn’t a capital city – it’s a capital hole!” Do you think she made that up?’

‘You know so many people, Poppa,’ said the Princess. ‘It must be nice . . .’

‘No, I don’t know nearly as many people as I used to. What’s the point?’

‘I’ll tell you something, my boy,’ said the Princess, who was really smitten with her Platt German today. ‘When you meet someone that you can’t quite make out, you should just ask yourself: will he give me love or money? If it’s neither, then let him go and don’t waste your time with him! All the same, is that any reason to tread in that cowpat!’

‘Damnation!’

‘You shouldn’t swear like that, Peter!’ the Princess said unctuously. ‘It’s not right. Let’s lie down for a while on that grass over there!’

We lay down . . .

The woods rustled. The wind blew through the tree-tops, and a delicate scent rose from the ground, fresh and sour, of moss and pine resin.