I’m also sending along some pictures of the trip. On the back of each I’ve given a short indication of what it is and where it was taken. You might want to contact Kurt Korff at Ullstein’s; if he wants to publish any in Illustrierte Zeitung or Querschnitt, I expect you to drive a hard bargain! All pictures must carry the note “Murnau-Flaherty Production,” marked on the back of the print. One, you will notice, features the painter Matisse.… If you sell any, please have the money wired to the address supplied.

I wish I could provide even the slightest sense of the beauty of this world. The photographs won’t. It’s been the wonder-drug for all my ailments. My kidneys have been on their best behavior. I’m even sleeping!

There’ve been many challenges but they’ve all been swept away by the joy. I have many new friends. Everywhere the light and air invigorates. Everywhere the smell of the flowers—especially the tiare, a tiny white gardenia that the girls and boys wear in the hair and touch to their lips, and then their pelvis, before handing to you—intoxicates. And the trade winds, the trade winds, all night and all morning, never cease to blow in Tahiti. In this life, one feels there’s no work, and no worries; the shining days go by in games and dancing, bathing and fishing, and the night innocently brings all lovers together.

Are you surprised at such a fulsome letter? See how I’ve changed!

When I think I’ll have to leave all of this, I already suffer the agony of departure. I’ve been here less than a month and I don’t want to be anywhere else. The thought of Los Angeles or Berlin is repulsive to me. I want to be alone, or with a few rare people. When I sit outside my bungalow in the evening and watch the waves break one by one and thunder on the reef, I feel terribly small, and wish I were home. But I’m never “at home,” anywhere. I feel this more and more, the older I get—not in any country, nor in any house, nor with anyone.

I hope you’re well. My best to Bernhard and Robert. As for Father—every day I think of him with sadness. The remorse I carry around since childhood is that of the landholder’s son who in disobedience to his father’s wishes left the estate in alien hands.

But all of this is just to let you know that I’m well, and to prod you into sending as much news as possible. Warmest wishes to you, from your most loving

Willi