My host now led the way into the billiard-room, which was tastefully ornamented with everything needful to harmonize with a handsome table standing in its centre, upon which we were soon knocking the balls about in an ill-matched game, for he beat me sadly. I was much surprised at the skilfulness of his play, and remarked that I thought it something singular that he "should there find any one to keep him so well in hand."
"Ah! my dear sir," said he, "you have yet much to learn. This country is not so bad as you think for. Sophy—native-born Sophy—is my antagonist, and she beats me three times out of five." Wonderful Sophy!
The game finished, my host next led the way into his study. A charming retreat as ever human wit and ingenuity devised. It was indeed rather a parlor than a study. The room was quite large, and was literally filled with odd bits of furniture, elegant and well kept. Heavy crimson curtains were draped about the windows, a rich crimson carpet covered the floor, and there were lounges and chairs of various patterns, adapted for every temper of mind or mood of body,—all of the same pleasing color. Odd étagères, hanging and standing, and a large solid walnut case, were all well filled with books, and other books were carefully arranged on a table in the centre of the room. Among them my eye quickly detected the works of various English authors, conspicuous among which were Shakespeare, Byron, Scott, Dickens, Cooper, and Washington Irving. Sam Slick had a place there, and close beside him was the renowned Lemuel Gulliver; and in science there were, beside many others, Brewster, Murchison, and Lyell. The books all showed that they were well used, and they embraced the principal classical stores of the French and German tongues, beside the English and his own native Danish. In short, the collection was precisely such as one would expect to find in any civilized place, where means were not wanting, the disposition to read a habit and a pleasure, and the books themselves boon companions.
A charming feature of the room was the air of refreshing négligé with which sundry robes of bear and fox skins were tossed about upon the chairs and lounges and floor; while the blank spaces of the walls were broken by numerous pictures, some of them apparently family relics, and on little brackets were various souvenirs of art and travel.
"I call this my study," said the Doctor; "but in truth there is the real shop";—and he led me into a little room adjoining, in which there was but one window, one table, one chair, no shelves, a great number of books, lying about in every direction, and great quantities of paper. On the wall hung about two dozen pipes of various shapes and sizes, and a fine assortment of guns and rifles and all the paraphernalia of a practised sportsman. It was easy to see that there was one place where the native-born Sophy did not come.
The chamber of this singular Greenland recluse was in keeping with his study. The walls were painted light blue, a blue carpet adorned the floor, blue curtains softened the light which stole through the windows, and blue hangings cast a pleasant hue over a snowy pillow. Although small, there was indeed nothing wanting, not even a well-arranged bath-room,—nothing that the most fastidious taste could covet or desire.
"And now," said my entertainer, when we had got seated in the study, "does this present attractions sufficient to tempt you from your narrow bunk on shipboard? You are most heartily welcome to that blue den which you admire so much, and which I am heartily sick of, while I can make for myself a capital 'shake-down' here, or vice versa. If neither of these will suit you, then cast your eyes out of the window, and you will observe snow enough to build a more truly Arctic lodging."
I stepped to the window, and there, sure enough, piled up beneath it and against the house, was a great bank of snow, which the summer's sun had not yet dissolved; and as I saw this, and then looked beyond it over the wretched little village, and the desolate waste of rocks on which it stood, and then on up the craggy steeps to the great white-topped mountains, I could but wonder what strange occurrence had sent this luxury-loving man, with books only for companions, into such a howling wilderness. Was it his own fancy? or was it some cruel necessity? In truth, the surprise was so great that I found myself suddenly turning from the scene outside to that within, not indeed without an impulse that the whole thing might have vanished in the interval, as the palace of Aladdin in the Arabian tale.
My host was watching me attentively, no doubt reading my thoughts, for as I turned round he asked if I "liked the contrast." To be quite candid, I was forced to own myself greatly wondering "that a den so well fitted for the latitude of Paris should be stumbled upon away up here so near the Pole."
"Hardly in keeping with 'the eternal fitness of things,' eh?"