Most of the important info here comes in the margins, as there is a lot of notes.  However, one interesting sentence in the story is the statement, “two more beasts joining the hunt” (161).  This is plugged into the story in an awkward position and as a full sentence, while being only a fragment.  Straka is attempting to draw attention to this section, or F.X.C. stuck it in later.  If Straka did this, perhaps he alluded to new people hunting him in real life, or maybe these beasts will reappear later.  We should take notice of the amount of pursuers if they catch the group.

A large majority of the margin comments are spent discussing Ekstrom and his death.  Ekstrom committed suicide in 1931, very publicly.  Thus, we know he actually killed himself and did not fake his death.  However, his suicide note certainly raises a lot of questions about what exactly happened.  According to Jen “he was by all accounts in good spirits” and his suicide note used “at least seven different languages” (161).  For Ekstrom to kill himself, while in a good mood seems to have to have been a decision he did not want to make, perhaps some greater good was involved.  If Straka actually wrote his suicide note, then he must have asked Ekstrom to kill himself.  Why, however, would he want this to happen remains unanswered at this point.

The last thing to take note of is that Uppsala University has come up again after being referenced on page VI.A.  Before, Straka sent a note from Upssala and now we see that Ekstrom spent a lot of time in this area because he was a member of their swim club.  It is quite possible then that Straka had been visiting Ekstrom when he wrote this letter on the Uppsala paper in 1928.  Accoding to Jen, this also means Ekstrom “could’ve swam out to rescue Vaclav” (161). On the other hand, this could actually mean that Ekstrom was Straka, and that wrote the note himself, and the letter as well.  However, since, according to Jen, he only knew three languages, this idea should be discounted.

This page has a lot of connections to other portions of the novel and makes a couple of substantial claims about Straka’s identity, but nothing seems concrete at all yet.