Antwerp Netherlands 1/6/1935
Thanks for the last letter, also thanks for the ”Klejnere” (home made cookies), they actually arrived after having bean 10 days on the way but they taste very good, those that had turned into crumbs we ate with a spoon. Most of them were only broken into half and one single one was even whole, so we could see the shape of the Klejner and remember Danish Christmas and admire your work, the other cookies had kept their shape better. They were fairly whole. Lars is a little jealous of Anna because she can now start to take a part in life’s pleasure. She thinks the cookies taste delicious and then there is so much less for him. I am happy that I can include the word philatelist in my word treasures especially since there is a lot of use for it here in this pirate country (Banditenland), in the meaning free of duty, since there is duty on everything possible here. As an example, we had to pay 10 francs in duty for the cookies. The Danish government has a lot to learn. In regards to put on duty, here you pay duty on every bill, the town Antwerp has built a tunnel under the Scheldt–Rhine Canal for the town’s money and still it costs 50 cents each time you use it and so on. The toll is regularly put up higher every year in the Christmas month and there are lots of other mysterious ways to get money out of people. We are looking forward to what Frederik is speculating about why Marie and I now suddenly should take over the house. I think it is maybe to get rid of the lawyer who is putting pressure on him too much for the rent. If you can believe the lawyer that is the question. I believe every lawyer is greedy when he is administrating a house and I don’t know if Tuesand is better or worse than others. It was Marie who knew Tuesand and engaged him as her lawyer. My mother of course had the same lawyer as Frederic has. In any case Tuesand is specialist in administrating houses and I think if one watches him he probably is not worse than the others. That Frederik does not like him is not so strange, when he threatened Frederik, with distain etc, Since mailing is a big expense on our budget I will permit myself this time this new mailing method with womanly intuition and you must not be mad at me because of it, Peter got a trip “to town” to exchange some money. He ran a couple of hours and asked at different places about the exchange value, for a hundred Krones it varied from 420 to 505 francs, Quite a big difference, true? In addition he went into shops and in a big warehouse they sold coffee for 3 francs 60 øre for a whole pound. That would have been something for you, Marie! The coffee is not bad at all. It is only because here the coffee will be sold unground the expensive beans get sorted and those that got broken by the burning are taken away, the broken ones being sold so cheap. Now Anna is crying, I think she is getting a tooth, at this time she is terrible.
Now many loving greetings from your admiring Anna, Lars, Peter, Else
Lars and I are very proud. He hasn’t had one pair of wet pants the last 7 days.