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women. No need to tell me about men. Then it crossed my
mind to write you a letter. I guess I’d thought about you, I
must have, but that doesn’t have to mean anything. For
example, I also think about the frost that melts into the
ground and makes everything wet, makes all our feet wet.
Yet not yours, you who had such good shoes, people here
still talk about it, and then there are those American boots
that apparently keep one’s feet eternally dry. Not many
people here believe it. But even if I think about you, it’s
absolutely meaningless. So much has been thought here in
Iceland, ever since the country was settled a thousand years
ago. Yet some people never seem to think anything, simply
never. Have you noticed that? The expressions of such
people remind me of rotten, useless hay. I’m going to stop
now. Sometimes I also think about horse trailers, about
kittens and about Jupiter, which is a very big planet yet is
still just a tiny speck of light in the sky. I also think
sometimes about the rain in China, I’m sure you’re familiar
with it. I think about all sorts of things. So even if I think
about you, it’s nothing remarkable. I’m sitting on a stool,
no, I’d already mentioned that. The snow is melting on the
mountain above me. You see how little happens here. Life
here is just melting snow and frost. Is it any wonder that it
crossed my mind to write a letter? I’m lying, though. Life
here isn’t just melting snow and frost. For example, the
shop manager Sigurður is drunker some days than others.
Yesterday he couldn’t stand on his own two feet. The day
before yesterday he was so spirited that his wife had to lock
him in the house. She seems to have some trick or other for