A Woman in the Polar Night

No, the Arctic does not yield its secret for the price of a ship's ticket. You must live through the long night, the storms, and the destruction of human pride. You must have gazed on the deadness of all things to grasps their livingness. In the return of light, in the magic of the ice, in the life-rhythm of the animals observed in the wilderness, in the natural laws of all being, revealed here in their completeness, lies the secret of the Arctic and the overpowering beauty of its lands.

Our hearts are light, our minds are in a permanent state of elevation. Nature seems to contain everything that man needs for his equilibrium

Many Fujiyamas lie in a row along our coast to the south. As the distance increases, their sombre blackness seems to be lit up by a deep red light. They take on every shade from red to lilac, and all the colours have a glowing depth that is neved found in the landscape at home, or at most only in some exquisite flowers. In the holy stillness, everything is lit by a supernatural brightness. Two gulls fly low and silent close by the hut toward the fiord. They are lit up by the red rays of the bright sun. Their magnificent broad wings are a deep pink in the turquoise sky.

Young people today...it ought not to be allowed... You can't get rich there," he cries at last, quite desperate. "No, we can't get rich there," I agree. "Yes, you will get rich," says the young Norwegian, but there is no suggestions of material gain in his gentle smile.

And suddenly I realise that civilisation is suffering from a severe vitamin deficiency, because it cannot draw its strength directly from nature, eternally young and eternally true.

I could stay by the warm stove in the hut, knit socks, paint from the window, read thick books in the remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content.

The nights do not darken. Bare and craggy mountaintops jut out of the livid light of the water. A strange cool wind blows to me out of this primeval landscape. It might be the world in the last days of the Flood.

He prefers being alone on his island. (in refer to the Spitsberger hunter who acts as a watchman during the winter and sleeps through the arrival of the author.)

He spoke a broken Norwegian German, slowly and with great emphasis. "You must take a walk every day, even in the winter night and storms. That is as important as eating and drinking. Always good temper. Never take things seriously. Never worry. Then it will be fine. I've known Spitsbergen for twenty-five years." I am grateful for the advice. I know that I will remember his words.

My eyes are smarting from the unending daylight.

One day melts into the next, and you cannot say this is the end of today and now it is tomorrow and that was yesterday. It is always light, the sea is always murmuring, and the mist stands immovable as a wall around the hut. We eat when we are hungry; we sleep when we are tired.

Is it just levity, or does their serenity spring perhaps from a deeper wisdom that we Europeans have lost?

Wherever we go, he suddenly turns up but acts as if he were not accompanying us, but going his own extremely individual way.