The snow man

by George Sand

“And yet,” said Christian, “here are two skins of polar bears which seem to me as precious as any articles in the danneman’s collection. Has he been as far as the Polar Sea on his hunting expeditions?”

“It is quite possible,” replied the major; “at any rate, he has business relations, as I told you, with parties in the extreme north. It is quite a customary thing for him to travel two hundred leagues in his sleigh, in the middle of winter, to trade and exchange commodities with hunters, who, upon their side, have come just as far on their skates, or with their reindeers, to meet him at the appointed place. He claims now that he is going to show us the mongrel of a white and black bear, because the creature’s fur seemed to him mixed; but as he only saw him at night, by the light of the aurora borealis, which is very deceptive, we can’t be sure about it. The bear is so shy and distrustful that very little is known about him, even in our country, where he was found in great numbers a hundred years ago, and where he is still quite common. It is not really known whether the parti-colored bear is a mongrel or a distinct species. Some believe that the white fur is produced by the cold of winter, and that the spotted coat, therefore, is either the beginning or the termination of an annual transformation, while others assert that the white bear retains his color at all seasons; but you, Christian, are probably more familiar than myself with all these matters. You have read so many works that I only know by name—”

“It is for that very reason that I am utterly unable to solve your doubts. Buffon contradicts Wormsius flatly about the bear; and all our learned historians contradict each other in all their statements, which does not prevent them from contradicting themselves. It is not really their fault, for most of the laws of nature are still unsolved enigmas. When we know so little about animals living upon the surface of the globe, only think what secrets must be enclosed in the bowels of the earth itself! That is what made me say, a little while ago, that it is in the power of any man, no matter how insignificant, to make immense discoveries. But let us return to our bear, or rather let us make haste with breakfast, so that we can go and find him. I have only one fault to find with the Swedes, dear friend, and that is that they have too many meals, and spend too much time over them. I could understand it better if your days were twenty hours long; but when I see how small an arc of the circle the sun has to pass even now, before again sinking beneath the horizon, I cannot help wondering at what hour you propose to hunt.”

“Patience, dear Christian,” replied the major, laughing; “a bear-hunt does not last long. It is a single blow, whether it succeeds or fails; either you lodge two balls in your enemy’s head, or, with a stroke of his paw, he disarms and overpowers you. But here is the danneman coming to announce breakfast. Let us go in.”

The repast brought by the officers was capital; but Christian saw plainly that the young girls, and the danneman himself, were sadly mortified at the sight of all this good food, and that after looking forward with delight to offering them their rustic viands, they scarcely ventured to place them on the table. Accordingly he made it a point to eat of these, and to praise them; and, indeed, his politeness cost him little, for the danneman’s smoked salmon and fresh game were excellent, the butter made of reindeer’s milk was delicious, the turnips were tender and sweet, and the sweetmeats—some northern berry preserved—aromatic and refreshing. Christian did not like so well the beverage of sour milk, which was handed round in pewter pitchers; he preferred the light wine made from a different sort of berry, which grows in the greatest abundance throughout the country, and which the people cook and preserve in a thousand ways. But most of all, he admired the Christmas cake that was brought on with the dessert, and which had been made expressly for the danneman’s guests, so that they might be able to cut it; for custom required that the cake reserved for the family should remain untouched until Twelfth Night. The danneman thrust his knife resolutely into this luxurious edifice, made of wheaten flour, and tumbled down without mercy the little towers and clocks which his daughters had so skilfully constructed. These young persons, tall, large, and with dark complexions, were not at all pretty, but their figures were good, and they were very coquettishly dressed, making a great display of ribbons, jewels, and, above all, of white linen and black braids. It was only after the cake was cut that they partook of anything. They were invited then to take a piece of the cake, and to moisten their lips from their father’s goblet, after he had filled it with strong beer. They remained standing, and, before drinking, made a deep courtesy to the guests, and wished them the compliments of the season.

Christian usually became very impatient at table when he had satisfied his hunger, but he now sank into a profound revery. His companions were quite noisy, although they had abstained from wine and brandy, in the fear of being overcome by intoxication when the time came for starting on the hunt. The danneman, who was at first reserved and rather haughty, became more demonstrative, and seemed to have conceived a peculiar sympathy for the stranger; but this man, who understood all the Northland dialects, and even Finnish and the Russian of Archangel, could speak Swedish, his native language, only with extreme difficulty. Christian, with his curiosity and habitual facility, was already trying to understand Dalecarlian; but even with the help of the narrator’s pantomime, he could only follow vaguely the interesting accounts of hunts and travels called for, and eagerly listened to, by the other guests.

Fatigued by the efforts he was obliged to make in listening, and by the excessive heat of the room, Christian left the table and moved away from the stove. He went to the window and gazed at the sublime scenery surrounding the chalet, which stood on the edge of a deep granitic gorge, whose black precipitous sides, glittering with frozen waterfalls, plunged steeply down to the bed of a torrent. The uncultivated meadows above the abyss had such a rapid slope in many places, that their shroud of snow had been blown off by sudden gusts of wind, which had thus left exposed to the sun the green turf beneath, lightly powdered with frost, and brilliant as a carpet of pale emeralds. This remnant of tender verdure, victorious over the frost, was the more striking because of its contrast with the gloomy green, almost like black, of the gigantic pines, which stood crowded together, erect as monuments of the abyss, and hung with fringes of ice-diamonds. Those growing in the crevices where the snow had accumulated, were buried in it half way up their trunks, and these trunks were sometimes a hundred and sixty feet high. Their branches, too heavily laden with ice, hung down; and, stiff as the flying buttresses of Gothic cathedrals, were welded into the snow beneath. Upon the horizon arose the sharp peaks of Sevenberg, their rosy crests, the abode of eternal snows, resting upon a sky of amethyst. It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, and the sun was already searching with his rays the blue depths, which, when the party reached their destination, had still been enveloped in the cold and gloomy shadow of the night. Every instant Christian saw them gleaming with changing hues, like those of an opal.

Every artist who has been a traveller, has always remarked the beauty of snow-landscapes in those regions which are, as it were, their favorite haunts. In the south, the snow is never seen in all its glory; it is only in exceptional localities, and on rare days, when it resists the sunshine, that we can form any idea of the splendor of its hues in other regions, and of the peculiar transparency of the shadows that float over its white masses. Christian was seized with enthusiasm. While comparing the relative comfort of the cottage (a comfort altogether excessive as regards heat) with the solemn severity of the spectacle without, he began to dream about the life of the danneman, and to form a picture of it in his imagination, until it actually seemed to him his own life; until he began to imagine that he was in his own house, his own country, his own family.

There is no one of us who, at one time or another, when vividly impressed by some combination of outward scenery or circumstance, has not fallen into one of those strange reveries, in which our life seems double; when we behold the scene before us not only for what it is, but also—like an object reflected in a mirror—as the reflection of some picture already imprinted upon the mind. We imagine that we have already trod the road we are passing; that we have already known, in a previous phase of our existence, the persons we are meeting; that we have fallen back into some scene of the past in which we have already lived. This sort of hallucination of the memory was so complete in Christian’s case, that it seemed to him that he must clearly have understood, at some former period, this Dalecarlian language, which he had just found so unintelligible. While listening mechanically to the sweet and grave speech of the danneman, he began unconsciously to finish his sentences before he had uttered them, and to give them a meaning. Suddenly he started up, as if waking from a trance, and laid his hand heavily upon the major’s shoulder.

“I understand!” he cried, extremely agitated; “it is very strange, but I understand. Did not the danneman say just now that he had a dozen cows, and that three of them had become so wild last summer that he could not bring them back to his house in the autumn? that they were lost, and that he had been obliged to shoot one of the remaining ones, to keep it from running away like the others?”