Sophy smiled knowingly, and said, "Yes," as she retreated. In a moment she came back, carrying a little silver dish, with a little green pyramid upon it. Out from the green peeped little round red globes,—radishes, as I lived!—round red radishes!—ten round red radishes!
"What! radishes in Greenland!" I exclaimed involuntarily.
"Yes, and raised on my own farm, too; you shall see it by and by." The Doctor was enjoying my surprise, and Sophy looked on with undisguised satisfaction. Meanwhile I lost no time in tumbling the pyramid to pieces, and crunching the delicious bulbs. They disappeared in a twinkling. Their rich and luscious juices seemed to pour at once into the very blood, and to tingle at the very finger-tips. I never knew before the full enjoyment of the fresh growth of the soil. After so long a deprivation it was indeed a strange, as it will remain a lasting sensation. Never to my dying day shall I forget the ten radishes of Greenland.
"You see that I was right," exclaimed my host, after the vigorous assault was ended. "And now," continued he, addressing Sophy, "bring the other things."
The "other things" proved to be a plate of fine lettuce, a bit of Stilton cheese, and coffee in transparent little china cups, and sugar in a silver bowl, and then cigars,—everything of the best and purest; and as we passed from one thing to another, I became at length persuaded that the Arctic Circle was a myth, that my cruise among the icebergs was a dream, and that Greenland was set down wrongly on the maps. Long before this I had been convinced that Doctor Molke was a most mysterious character, and wholly unaccountable.
After we had finished this sumptuous lunch and chatted for a while, the Doctor surprised me again by asking if I would like a game of billiards. (Billiards in Greenland, as well as radishes!) "But first," said he, "let us try this sunny Burgundy. Ah! these red wines are the only truly generous wines. They monopolize all the sensuous glories and associations of the fruit. With these red wines one drinks in the very soul and sentiment of the lands which grow the grapes that breed them."
"Even if drank in Greenland?"
"Yes, or at the very Pole. Geographical lines may confine our bodies; but nature is an untamed wild, where the spirit roams at will. If I am here hemmed in by barren hills, and live in a desert waste, yet, as one of your sweetest poets has put it, my
'Fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit and is still at home';
and truly, I believe that I have in this retreat about as much enjoyment of life as they who taste of it more freely; for while I can here feel all the world's warm pulsations, I am freed from its annoyances: if the sweet is less sweet, the bitter is less bitter. But—Well, let's have the billiards."