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06 - Nightmare Tales by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Nightmare Tales

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  Speaker 1: Section five of Nightmare Tales by Helena P. Blovotsky. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings in the public domain, read by Ben Tucker
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  Speaker 1: from the Polar Lands, a Christmas Story. Just a year ago,
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  Speaker 1: during the Christmas holidays, a numerous society had gathered in
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  Speaker 1: the country house, or rather the old hereditary castle of
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  Speaker 1: a wealthy landowner in Finland. Many were the remains in
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  Speaker 1: it of our forefather's hospitable way of living, and many
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  Speaker 1: the medieval customs preserved, founded on traditions and superstitions, semi
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  Speaker 1: Finnish and semi Russian, the latter imported into it by
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  Speaker 1: its female proprietors from the shores of the Nava. Christmas
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  Speaker 1: trees were being prepared and implements for divination were being
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  Speaker 1: made ready for. In that old castle there were grim,
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  Speaker 1: worm eaten portraits of famous ancestors and knights and ladies,
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  Speaker 1: old deserted turrets with bastions and Gothic windows, mysterious somber alleys,
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  Speaker 1: and dark, endless cellars easily transformed into subterranean passages and caves,
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  Speaker 1: ghostly prison cells haunted by the restless phantoms of the
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  Speaker 1: heroes of local legends. In short, the old manner offered
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  Speaker 1: every commodity for romantic horrors. But alas this once, they
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  Speaker 1: served for naught. In the present narrative, these dear old
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  Speaker 1: horrors play no such part as they otherwise might. Its
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  Speaker 1: chief hero is a very commonplace prosaical man. Let us
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  Speaker 1: call him Erkler, yes, doctor Erkler, professor of medicine, half
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  Speaker 1: German through his father, a full blown Russian on his
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  Speaker 1: mother's side and by education, and one who looked a
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  Speaker 1: rather heavily built in ordinary mortal. Nevertheless, very extraordinary things
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  Speaker 1: happened with him. Erkler, as it turned out, was a
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  Speaker 1: great traveler, who, by his own choice, had accompanied one
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  Speaker 1: of the most famous explorers on his journeys round the world.
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  Speaker 1: More than once. They had both seen death face to
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  Speaker 1: face from sun strokes under the tropics, from cold in
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  Speaker 1: the polar regions. All this notwithstanding, the doctor spoke with
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  Speaker 1: a never abating enthusiasm about their wings in Greenland and
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  Speaker 1: Novaya Zembla, and above the desert plains in Australia, where
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  Speaker 1: he lunched off a kangaroo and dined off an emu,
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  Speaker 1: and almost perished of thirst during the passage through a
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  Speaker 1: waterless track which it took them forty hours to cross. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: he used to remark, I have experienced almost everything save
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  Speaker 1: what you would describe as supernatural. This, of course, if
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  Speaker 1: we throw out of account a certain extraordinary event in
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  Speaker 1: my life a man I met, of whom I will
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  Speaker 1: tell you just now, and it's indeed rather strange, I
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  Speaker 1: may add, quite inexplicable results. There was a loud demand
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  Speaker 1: that he should explain himself, and the doctor, forced to yield,
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  Speaker 1: began his narrative. In eighteen seventy eight, we were compelled
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  Speaker 1: to winter on the northwestern coast of Spitzbergen. We had
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  Speaker 1: been attempting to find our way during the short summer
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  Speaker 1: to the pole, but as usual the attempt had proved
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  Speaker 1: a failure owing to the icebergs, and after several such
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  Speaker 1: fruitless endeavors, we have to give it up. No sooner
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  Speaker 1: had we settled than the polar night descended upon us.
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  Speaker 1: Our steamers got wedged in and frozen between the blocks
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  Speaker 1: of ice in the Gulf of Mussel, and we found
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  Speaker 1: ourselves cut off for eight long months from the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the living world. I confess I, for one, felt
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  Speaker 1: it terribly at first. We became especially discouraged when one
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  Speaker 1: stormy night, the snow hurricane scattered a mass of materials
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  Speaker 1: prepared for our winter buildings and deprived us of over
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  Speaker 1: forty deer from our herd. Starvation, in prospect, is no
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  Speaker 1: incentive to good humor, and with the deer, we had
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  Speaker 1: lost the best plot de resistance against polar frosts human
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  Speaker 1: organisms demanding in that climate an increase of heating in
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  Speaker 1: solid food. However, we were finally reconciled to our loss,
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  Speaker 1: and even got accustomed to the local and in reality
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  Speaker 1: more nutritious food seals and seal grease. Our men, from
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  Speaker 1: the remnants of our lumber, built a house neatly divided
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  Speaker 1: into two apartments, one for our three professors and myself
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  Speaker 1: and the other for themselves, and a few wooden sheds
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  Speaker 1: being constructed for meteorological, astronomical and magnetic purposes. We even
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  Speaker 1: added a protecting staple for the few remaining deer, and
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  Speaker 1: then began the monotonous series of dawnless nights and days,
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  Speaker 1: hardly distinguishable one from the other except through dark gray shadows.
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  Speaker 1: At times. The blues we got into were fearful. We
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  Speaker 1: had contemplated sending two of our three steamers home in September.
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  Speaker 1: But the premature and unforeseen formation of ice walls round
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  Speaker 1: them had thwarted our plans, And now with the entire
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  Speaker 1: crews on our hands, we had to economize still more
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  Speaker 1: with our meager provisions. Fuel and light lamps were used
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  Speaker 1: only for scientific purposes. The rest of the time we
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  Speaker 1: had to content ourselves with God's light, the moon and
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  Speaker 1: the Aurora borealis. But how described these glorious incomparable northern lights, rings, arrows,
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  Speaker 1: gigantic conflagrations of accurately divided rays, of the most vivid
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  Speaker 1: and varied colors. The November moonlight nights were as gorgeous.
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  Speaker 1: The play of moonbeams on the snow and the frozen
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  Speaker 1: rocks was most striking. These were fairy nights. Well one
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  Speaker 1: such night. It may have been one such day for
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  Speaker 1: all I know, as from the end of November to
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  Speaker 1: about the middle of March we had no twilights at
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  Speaker 1: all to distinguish the one from the other. We suddenly
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  Speaker 1: espied in the play of colored beams which were then
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  Speaker 1: throwing a golden, rosy hue on the snow plains. A
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  Speaker 1: dark moving spot. It grew and seemed to scatter as
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  Speaker 1: it approached nearer to us. What did this mean? It
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  Speaker 1: looked like a herd of cattle, or a group of
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  Speaker 1: living men trotting over the snowy wilderness. But animals there
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  Speaker 1: were white like everything else. What then, was this human beings?
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  Speaker 1: We could not believe our eyes. Yes, a group of
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  Speaker 1: men was approaching our dwelling. It turned out to be
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  Speaker 1: about fifty seal hungs, guided by Matilis, a well known
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  Speaker 1: veteran mariner from Norway. They had been caught by the icebergs,
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  Speaker 1: just as we had. How did you know that we
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  Speaker 1: were here, we asked, Old Johan. This very same old
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  Speaker 1: party showed us the way, they answered, pointing to a
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  Speaker 1: venerable looking old man with snow white locks. In sober truth,
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  Speaker 1: it would have beseemed their guide far better to have
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  Speaker 1: sat at home over his fire than to have been
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  Speaker 1: seal hunting in polar lands with younger men. And we
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  Speaker 1: told them so, still wondering how he came to learn
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  Speaker 1: of our presence in this kingdom of white bears. At this,
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  Speaker 1: Matilis and his companions smiled, assuring us that Old Johan
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  Speaker 1: knew all. They remarked that we must be novices and
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  Speaker 1: polar border lands, since we were ignorant of Johan's personality
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  Speaker 1: and could still wonder at anything said of him. It
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  Speaker 1: is nigh forty five years, said the chief hunter, that
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  Speaker 1: I have been catching seals in the polar seas, and
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  Speaker 1: as far as my personal remembrance goes, I have always
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  Speaker 1: known him, and just as he is now, an old,
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  Speaker 1: white bearded man, and so far back as in the
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  Speaker 1: days when I used to go to sea as a
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  Speaker 1: small boy with my father, My dad used to tell
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  Speaker 1: me the same of old Johan. And he added that
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  Speaker 1: his own father and grandfather too had known Noohan in
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  Speaker 1: their days of boyhood, none of them having ever seen
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  Speaker 1: him otherwise than white as our snows, and as our
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  Speaker 1: forefathers nick named him the white haired all knower. Thus
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  Speaker 1: do we, the seal hunters, call him to this day?
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  Speaker 1: Would you make us believe he is two hundred years old?
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  Speaker 1: We laughed. Some of our sailors, crowding round the white
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  Speaker 1: haired phenomenon, plied him with questions. Grandfather, answer us, how
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  Speaker 1: old are you? I really do not know it myself, sonnies,
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  Speaker 1: I live as long as God has decreed me to.
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  Speaker 1: As to my years, I never counted them, And how
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  Speaker 1: did you know grandfather that we were wintering in this place.
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  Speaker 1: God guided me. How I learned it, I do not know,
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  Speaker 1: save that I knew it. I knew it. End of
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  Speaker 1: Section five.