The image of the poet Gustaf Fröding is the main theme of this essay. It opens with an analysis of the chamber opera Flickan i ögat. This opera has never been translated but a direct translation would be The Girl in the Eye. It refers to a story that when a man looks into the mirror and sees a picture of a girl in his eye, she will be his future love.  Fröding has written a poem "Flickan i ögat" where the person in the poem only observes himself.